Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said that the UKs Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be giving out surplus vaccines until the British population is vaccinated first.

Speaking to RTE today, the Taoiseach addressed the possibility of Ireland receiving some of the UKs extra vaccines.

In relation to the United Kingdom, the British Prime Minister has made it clear to me that obviously his first priority is to vaccinate his people, he said.

He obviously will be very helpful to Ireland if the situation arose. But right now he has to concentrate on vaccinating his own people.

Read More

And until then he wont be in a position to give vaccines to anybody and hes made that point to me which I think was fairly obvious from the outset in any event.

Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness spoke about this further, saying that the government should reach out to countries aside from the UK as well.

Why not ask the American sources? Why not ask other sources in Europe? This is not just down to Boris Johnson, he told RTE Radio One.

We dont get the vaccine. Ive heard the Taoiseach and the minister say it various times that we dont have the vaccine.

If Im to protect five million people, I wont mind going outside of the rules of that club [the EU], and others have gone outside it, and there is vaccine available, and we do need to reach out to our friends.

There have been previous calls for the UK to share any extra vaccines with Ireland, with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald saying in February that any excess should be used to help both Ireland and the global community.

I would like to see not just between Ireland and Britain, but globally, a real sense of generosity and solidarity when it comes to vaccination because we need to ensure there is not a reservoir of this virus anywhere, she told Sky News.

This is a race against this virus and death. So yes, I think a spirit of fairness and generosity needs to prevail.

The virus doesnt care about politics, or borders, or any of these things. We all share the same human biology.

The British government has ordered over 400m vaccines for a nation of 66.5m people. At the G7 meeting late last month, Mr Johnson pledged to support poorer nations by supplying any extra vaccines they may have.

There is no point in us vaccinating our individual populations - we've got to make sure the whole world is vaccinated because this is a global pandemic and it's no use one country being far ahead of another, we've got to move together, he said.
New Delhi/Dehradun, March 10 : After Uttarakhand Chief Ministet Trivendra Singh Rawat resigned from his post on Tuesday, the opposition Congress demanded President's rule in the state.

Congress in-charge for the state, Devendra Yadav, told the media in New Delhi, "The entire government is involved in corruption. We would request President Ram Nath Kovind to dismiss the Uttarakhand government and hold fresh elections in the state." Former Uttarakhand minister and Congress leader Nav Prabhat said, "The BJP has accepted that the Chief Minister did not perform in the last four years. That is why he has been removed." Sources close to former Uttarakhand CM and Congress leader Harish Rawat said that the problems which have come to haunt the BJP now were sown by them, as most of the MLAs who have opened the front against Trivendra Singh Rawat are leaders who had crossed to the BJP from the Congress.

Talking to reporters in Haridwar, Harish Rawat said, "Regardless of whom they (BJP) bring in as the CM now, they will not come back to power in 2022. A change in power is happening. Even the BJP's central leadership has admitted that its present government in Uttarakhand could not do much in the state." The BJP legislative party in Uttarakhand will meet on Wednesday morning to select the new Chief Minister, a senior party leader said.
"Garnier is a global brand familiar to us all. To work with them to help end animal testing for cosmetics and declare them officially approved under the Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny Program is a real milestone. It has taken many months, but Garnier have diligently reviewed every supplier and source and we are completely confident with the results," says Michelle Thew, Cruelty Free International CEO.

Leaping Bunny requires brands to forensically investigate their entire supply chain, including all raw material and individual ingredients, for any cases of animal testing. Approval must be given to all of a brand's finished products - individual products or items cannot be approved in isolation.

For Garnier this was a case of securing a declaration from more than 500 suppliers, who source more than 3,000 different ingredients, from across the world. For many months Garnier and Cruelty Free International have worked together to secure this evidence and ensure every product within Garnier's global portfolio can officially display the Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny logo - the universally recognized cruelty free mark. This stringent process ensures that consumers can buy Garnier products with complete confidence, knowing that they meet Leaping Bunny's strict criteria.

"Garnier has been committed to a world without animal testing. To be officially approved by Cruelty Free International under the Leaping Bunny program is a real milestone and is an important part of our Greener Beauty mission to be a more sustainable, more transparent brand. Today Garnier takes another Green step in its journey toward Greener Beauty for all of us," says Adrien Koskas, Garnier Global Brand President.

This announcement from Garnier comes off the back of a landmark year for the brand. In 2020, Garnier announced their commitment to Greener Beauty, steps in their end to end journey towards more sustainability. Garnier aspires to create a positive impact by paving the way towards more and more sustainable beauty that's accessible to all of us. Find out more about Greener Beauty here.

This announcement also comes amidst a wave of sustainable innovations. Each innovation underpins the Greener Beauty commitments of the brand, and are now all officially approved by Cruelty Free International under the Leaping Bunny program:

Garnier Green Labs Serum Creams: Vegan formulas, no animal-derived ingredients, free of parabens, mineral oils, and dyes, and made in facilities powered by 59%% renewable energy. Packaged in 100% PCR bottles, excluding the pump.

Garnier SkinActive reusable Eco-Pads: Zero cotton-pad waste pads for makeup removal

Garnier Whole Blends Sulfate-Free Remedy: Blended with sustainably sourced ingredients and formulated without sulfates, phthalates, parabens, mineral oil, petrolatum, dyes, and gluten, and is packaged in 100% PCR bottles, excluding the pump.

Garnier Fructis Treats: Formulas are 94% biodegradable with 96-98% naturally-derived ingredients and packaged in 100% PCR bottles, excluding caps

Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine: Packaged in 100% PCR bottles, excluding caps & pumps

About Garnier USA:

Garnier, a L'Oreal USA brand, was developed in 1904 in France by hair care expert Alfred Amour Garnier and is now present in more than 65 countries worldwide. Following the launch of Garnier in the United States in 1999 with Nutrisse hair color, the brand has continued to develop beauty products with a keen awareness of its responsibility to you and the planet. The entire collection of Garnier brands available in the U.S. includes Nutrisse, Fructis hair care and Fructis Style, Olia hair color, Color Sensation hair color, SkinActive and Whole Blends hair care.

For more information visit www.garnierusa.com or follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Snapchat @GarnierUSA.

About Cruelty Free International:

Cruelty Free International is the leading organization working to create a world where nobody wants or believes we need to experiment on animals. Our dedicated team are experts in their fields, combining award-winning campaigning, political lobbying, scientific and legal expertise and corporate responsibility. Educating, challenging and inspiring others across the globe to respect and protect animals, we investigate and expose the reality of life for animals in laboratories, challenge decision-makers to make a positive difference for animals, and champion better science and cruelty free living.

Contact:

Alison Brod Marketing Communications

[email protected]

Garnier

Danielle Macaluso

[email protected]

SOURCE Garnier

Related Links

http://www.garnierusa.com


Myanmar protesters held a 'rehearsal' for looming street battles with the military today which saw activists posing as riot police being pelted with bottles.

The dummy clashes in Yangon saw a line of 'police' being forced back by the barrage of projectiles while others kicked at their shields after a ringleader with a megaphone had given the signal to attack.

Within seconds, the line had been broken and the hard-hat wearing protesters erupted in cheers and applause.

The preparations come in response to an increasingly brutal crackdown which has seen dozens of people killed since the military coup on February 1.

The 'rehearsal' on a public street came hours after police sealed off a Yangon neighbourhood and went room-to-room searching for anti-coup protesters.

The raids continued deep into the night and targeted apartments flying the flag of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party, residents said - with dozens feared arrested in the overnight round-up.

Friendly fire: Myanmar protesters hurl bottles at a line of activists holding makeshift shields and posing as riot police to help their colleagues prepare for street battles

Attack: The dummy clashes in Yangon saw a line of 'police' being forced back by the barrage of projectiles while others kicked at their shields

Practise: The hard-hat wearing demonstrators held a run-through in Yangon as they prepare for likely further showdowns with Myanmar's military junta

Three cheers: The line of 'police' was quickly broken and demonstrators erupted in applause

Yangon's Sanchuang district has seen daily protests since the coup and crowds once again flocked there on Monday to call for Suu Kyi's release.

By nightfall, security forces had sealed off a block of streets with around 200 protesters still inside, sparking alarm from the UN and Western powers.

Sharp bangs were heard coming from the area, although it was not clear if the sounds were caused by gunfire or stun grenades.

'They searched every building on Kyun Taw road - they destroyed the locks of apartment buildings if they were locked downstairs,' said one resident.

By dawn, security forces appeared to have retreated, allowing some protesters to escape from the area, but residents said they had heard of dozens of arrests.

On Tuesday a community leader linked to the ousted democratic government, Zaw Myat Linn, died during an interrogation following his arrest, a watchdog said.

He was the second NLD member to have died in custody in recent days.

And the military crackdown was continuing elsewhere with three protesters killed in demonstrations in northern Myanmar and the Irrawaddy Delta on Monday.

Myanmar security forces wearing helmets and carrying riot shields occupy a Yangon district where 200 people were barricaded in their neighbourhood as night fell on Monday

Police officers in the Sanchaung district where raids were targeting apartments flying the flag of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party

A police vehicle drives past a building after authorities seized Sanchaung district last night

Police are seen on the streets of Yangon as the search for anti-coup demonstrators takes place on Monday night after protesters once again defied a military curfew

Protesters wearing hard hats, holding signs and standing behind shields take to the streets in Yangon on Tuesday

The Monday night raids came after a day when many shops, factories and banks closed as part of a general strike to protest against the coup.

Makeshift barricades of bamboo, sandbags, tables and barbed wire have been set up by protesters in an effort to slow security forces in the area.

UN chief Antonio Guterres had earlier called for the safe release of all protesters, a call echoed by the UK and US diplomatic missions in Myanmar.

It also came as Myanmar's ambassador to the UK was recalled, according to state media, after he urged the junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.

'Diplomacy is the only response and answer to the current impasse,' Kyaw Zwar Minn said on Monday in a statement endorsed by the UK government.

State television MRTV earlier said: 'The government's patience has run out and while trying to minimise casualties in stopping riots, most people seek complete stability (and) are calling for more effective measures against riots.'

MRTV also announced a major curb on media coverage on Monday, saying that the licences of five local media outlets had been cancelled.

'These media companies are no longer allowed to broadcast or write or give information by using any kind of media platform or using any media technology,' the military said.

Protesters with makeshift shields and masks take their positions in Mandalay on Tuesday

Demonstrators flee away from tear gas during an anti-coup protest in Loikaw on Tuesday

Chaos on the streets of Loikaw today as anti-coup demonstrations continued despite the military crackdown

The offices of Myanmar Now, one of the outlets affected, were raided by the authorities Monday before the measure was announced.

DVB, another of the banned outlets, said it was not surprised by the cancellation and would continue broadcasting on satellite TV and online.

'We worry for the safety of our reporters and our staff, but in the current uprising, the whole country has become the citizens' journalists and there is no way for military authorities to shut the information flow,' executive director Aye Chan Naing said.

The army takeover and arrest of elected leader Suu Kyi has led to protests in which more than 60 have died and 1,800 have been arrested, an advocacy group says.

The police have responded with an increasingly brutal crackdown and parts of Yangon have emerged as flashpoints as protesters continue to defy authorities.

The Monday night raids came after three protesters were shot dead at rallies on a day when many shops, factories and banks closed as part of a general strike.

The military has denied responsibility for loss of life in the protests and defended seizing power by alleging widespread electoral fraud in November's elections.
The Medical Foundation of Chattanooga gifted $135,000 to the UT College of Medicine Chattanooga Family Medicine Department to support resident training. This gift will allow two current residents to complete the program while the system addresses a larger funding issue caused by a change in federal rules regarding funding of residencies.



With this gift, our hope is to maintain our competitive edge in recruiting highly qualified

medical students who will continue the tradition of service to our community and surrounding

areas, said Dr. James Haynes, professor and chair, Department of Family Medicine, UTCOM-C.



The UTCOM-C Family Medicine residency has kept the majority of its graduates within the state of Tennessee and most within the Chattanooga region, improving access to high quality primary care in the area, officials said.



It is estimated that over 127,000 deaths per year could be averted through increasing the number

of primary care physicians in our nation. Chattanooga is likely no different, just on a smaller

scale, said Dr. Haynes.



Medical Foundation President Dr. Colleen Schmitt said, Our organization is an advocate for the

continual improvement of community health and for physicians. Helping support a need within the

Family Medicine residency accomplishes both of those things. By supporting medical residents, the

physicians of the future, we support our community as well.



R. Bruce Shack, MD, professor and dean of the Chattanooga campus, said, The University of

Tennessee Chattanooga is incredibly thankful and indebted to the Hamilton County Medical Society and its Foundation for their support of our Family Medicine training program here on our campus. This represents an investment in the future of primary care in Chattanooga and in the entire Southeastern region.



William Jackson, MD, president and CEO of the Erlanger Health System, said, Thank you to the

Medical Foundation of Chattanooga for your generous gift supporting the continuation of resident

training in family medicine. At Erlanger, we understand the need and are dedicated to educating the next generation of medical providers that will have a positive impact on their communities.
[March 09, 2021] A Look Back: US Mortgage Delinquency Rates Experience Record Highs and Lows in 2020, CoreLogic Reports

CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released its monthly Loan Performance Insights Report for December 2020. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005265/en/ CoreLogic National Overview of Mortgage Loan Performance, featuring December 2020 Data (Graphic: Business Wire) On a national level, 5.8% of mortgages were in some stage of delinquency (30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure), which represents a 2.1-percentage point increase in the overall delinquency rate compared to December 2019, when it was 3.7%. However, national overall delinquency has been declining month to month since June 2020. To gain an accurate view of the mortgage market and loan performance health, CoreLogic examines all stages of delinquency, including the share that transitions from current to 30 days past due. In December 2020, the U.S. delinquency and transition rates, and their year-over-year changes, were as follows: Early-Stage Delinquencies (30 to 59 days past due): 1.4%, down from 1.8% in December 2019.

(30 to 59 days past due): 1.4%, down from 1.8% in December 2019. Adverse Delinquency (60 to 89 days past due): 0.5%, down from 0.6% in December 2019.

(60 to 89 days past due): 0.5%, down from 0.6% in December 2019. Serious Delinquency (90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure): 3.9%, up from 1.2% in December 2019.

(90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure): 3.9%, up from 1.2% in December 2019. Foreclosure Inventory Rate (the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process): 0.3%, down from 0.4% in December 2019.

(the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process): 0.3%, down from 0.4% in December 2019. Transition Rate (the share of mortgages that transitioned from current to 30 days past due): 0.8%, unchanged from December 2019. 2020 began with the lowest share of overall delinquencies (30+ days past due) since data recording started in 1999, butas the pandemic and shelter-in-place directives spread, the rate doubled from 3.6% in March to 7.3% in May. As those initially affected by the pandemic and ensuing recession transitioned through stages of delinquency, serious delinquencies (90+ days past due) increased four-fold compared to pre-pandemic rates, peaking in August.



"The ongoing forbearance provisions and economic aid implemented at the start of the pandemic has proved helpful for families faced with financial insecurity," said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Places with large job losses during the last year also experienced big jumps in mortgage delinquencies," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. "By state, Hawaii and Nevada had the largest 12-month spike in delinquency rates, both up 4.1 percentage points. They also had large increases in unemployment rates, up 6.6 percentage points in Hawaii and 5.5 percentage points in Nevada compared with 3.1 percentage points for the U.S. In Odessa, Texas, unemployment rose by 8.6 percentage points and delinquencies posted a 9.8 percentage-point jump."

State and Metro Takeaways: All U.S. states and nearly all metro areas logged increases in annual overall delinquency rates in December.

Hawaii and Nevada (both up 4.1 percentage points) logged the largest annual increase in overall delinquency rates.

Among metros, Odessa, Texas, experienced the largest annual increase with 9.8 percentage points, largely due to significant job loss in the oil industry.

Other metro areas with significant overall delinquency increases included Lake Charles, Louisiana (up 7.6 percentage points); Midland, Texas (up 7.5 percentage points) and Kahului, Hawaii (up 6.8 percentage points). The next CoreLogic Loan Performance Insights Report will be released on April 13, 2021, featuring data for January 2021. For ongoing housing trends and data, visit the CoreLogic Insights Blog: www.corelogic.com/insights. Methodology The data in The CoreLogic LPI (News - Alert) report represents foreclosure and delinquency activity reported through December 2020. The data in this report accounts for only first liens against a property and does not include secondary liens. The delinquency, transition and foreclosure rates are measured only against homes that have an outstanding mortgage. Homes without mortgage liens are not subject to foreclosure and are, therefore, excluded from the analysis. CoreLogic has approximately 75% coverage of U.S. foreclosure data. Source (News - Alert) : CoreLogic The data provided is for use only by the primary recipient or the primary recipient's publication or broadcast. This data may not be re-sold, republished or licensed to any other source, including publications and sources owned by the primary recipient's parent company without prior written permission from CoreLogic. Any CoreLogic data used for publication or broadcast, in whole or in part, must be sourced as coming from CoreLogic, a data and analytics company. For use with broadcast or web content, the citation must directly accompany first reference of the data. If the data is illustrated with maps, charts, graphs or other visual elements, the CoreLogic logo must be included on screen or website. For questions, analysis or interpretation of the data, contact Valerie Sheets at newsmedia@corelogic.com. Data provided may not be modified without the prior written permission of CoreLogic. Do not use the data in any unlawful manner. This data is compiled from public records, contributory databases and proprietary analytics, and its accuracy is dependent upon these sources. About CoreLogic CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), the leading provider of property insights and solutions, promotes a healthy housing market and thriving communities. Through its enhanced property data solutions, services and technologies, CoreLogic enables real estate professionals, financial institutions, insurance carriers, government agencies and other housing market participants to help millions of people find, buy and protect their homes. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com. CORELOGIC and the CoreLogic logo are trademarks of CoreLogic, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005265/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has urged former President John Dramani to congratulate President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on winning the 2020 presidential election.



It is not too late for Mr John Mahama to call President Akufo-Addo, whose emphatic 2020 election victory has been affirmed by the Supreme Court, to congratulate him.



It is on account of this that the NPP is calling on the former President to do the needful in the collective interest of our nation, it stated in a statement signed by its General Secretary, Mr John Boadu.



It urged Mr Mahama, who was the National Democratic Congress (NDC) 2020 presidential candidate, to accept the verdict of the Supreme Court on the 2020 Election Petition as a mark of statesmanship and fidelity to the rule of law, even if he disagreed with the judgment.



It said following the judgment of the Supreme Court on March 4, 2021, many had expected the petitioner, Mr Mahama, to emulate the good example of the petitioner in the 2012 Election Petition, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who disagreed with the judgment of the Supreme Court at the time but accepted the decision and congratulated the then President, Mr Mahama in the interest of the nation.



It quoted President Akufo-Addo as saying after the 2012 election petition that I have called President John Dramani Mahama and congratulated him on being elected the fourth President of our country. The Supreme Court of our nation has spoken, and the results of the December 2012 presidential election have been confirmed as having been won by the candidate of the NDC, President Mahama. As I said earlier, while I disagree with the courts decision, I accept it. I accept that what the court said brings finality to the election dispute.



International accolades



The statement said that singular act of Nana Akufo-Addo did not only reaffirm his longstanding fidelity to the rule of law as a consummate democrat, and to his country and citizens, but also earned him and the country international accolades and plaudits.



It said instead of congratulating President Akufo-Addo, Mr Mahama rather held a press conference to unleash invectives and unprovoked attacks on the judiciary and the election management body.





It said the NPP agreed with Mr Mahama when he stated in 2013 that The Courts cannot give you what the people have not given you.



The statement said Mr Mahama might have lost an opportunity to repeat the enviable feat achieved by President Akufo-Addo in 2013 and get his name written in the history books of consummate and patriotic democrats.



It, however, said it was not too late for Mr Mahama to right the wrong.



It is not too late for John Mahama to come to terms with his fate and accept the verdict of the nations Apex Court even if he disagrees with the judgment, it stated.





Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
GHENT, Belgium, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- ExeVir, which is developing single domain antibody therapies providing broad protection against viral infections, announces the preprint communication on BioRxiv of research by VIB scientists on the XVR011 antibody, demonstrating highly potent viral neutralizing activity, protection against infection by SARS-COV-2 and therapeutic efficacy in in vivo mouse and hamster models and minimized development of alveolar [lung] damage. See link to paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.08.433449v1

As global vaccination progresses with SARS-CoV-2 likely staying endemic in the human population for the foreseeable future, antibody immunity escape variants are likely to become the causative agent for a large proportion of Covid-19 disease, and antibody therapeutics that work against those variants remain an urgent need.

Torsten Mummenbrauer, CEO of ExeVir Bio, said: "Covid-19 vaccines will unquestionably be a cornerstone of controlling the pandemic, yet a significant population segment will also need treatments. Immunity may be short-lived and vaccine efficacy may be lower in the elderly and immunosuppressed who are most at risk of developing severe Covid-19, as well as potentially in patients with Covid-19 infection caused by new variants. Limited vaccine availability in many countries, vaccine hesitancy and viral evolution to escape human immunity, of which we are now acutely aware as we are seeing rapidly spreading new variants, are other factors of uncertain impact. Hence, passive antibody immunotherapy with potent and broadly neutralizing molecules like our XVR011, to prevent or suppress viral replication in the lower airways, should find an important place in rescuing Covid-19 patients."

Professor Xavier Saelens, Molecular Virology Group Leader, VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology, said: "The study demonstrates that the mutations in the viral spike protein of the recently observed SARS-CoV-2 'Variants of Concern' (VoCs) do not hamper neutralisation by XVR011. This includes the variants first observed in South Africa (B.1.351) and the UK (B.1.17), which are neutralized by XVR011 with equal potency as earlier SARS-CoV-2 pandemic strains. This contrasts with reported loss of activity due to these mutations for several of the neutralizing antibodies that have received an emergency use approval in the USA for non-hospitalized patients, and for several more that are still in clinical trials."

As the world is gearing up to be better prepared against future outbreaks of other Sarbecoviruses, the family to which SARS and SARS-CoV-2 belong, the scientists have determined that XVR011's VHH72 epitope is uniquely highly conserved across Sarbecoviruses and hence XVR011 binds to a broad variety of spike proteins of these viruses. XVR011 is therefore expected to be effective against most circulating SARS-CoV-2 and-1 viral variants as well as a broad range of other related coronaviruses (sarbecoviruses) known to be circulating in animal (bat) populations.

Professor Nico Callewaert, Scientific Director, VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology, commented: "The cross-disciplinary work at the VIB, ExeVir, UCB and our many collaborators have enabled rapid progress and firmly established the ground for clinical development of XVR011 for potential treatment and prevention of Covid-19. With manufacturing and formulation support from UCB, a highly regarded leading pharmaceutical development organization, we are excited to be ready to start clinical testing of XVR011 imminently. XVR011 is the first European broadly neutralizing antibody based Covid-19 therapeutic approach with best-in-class potential to meet the current and future challenges posed by the spillover of coronaviruses into humans".

About XVR011 (VHH72-Fc)

Exevir's lead asset XVR011 is a single domain-based anti- Covid-19 antibody (VHH-Fc) optimized for stability, safety, broad neutralizing capability and excellent manufacturability. It demonstrates best-in-class potential offering breadth and potency against a range of Coronaviruses and is significantly differentiated from other antibody treatments

The single domain antibody (VHH) anti-coronavirus platform was developed by VIB-UGent scientists, Professors Xavier Saelens and Nico Callewaert

The lama-derived single-domain antibodies are smaller than human antibodies and can attach to parts of a virus that are difficult to access for the human immune system

XVR011 inactivates spike proteins and sterically blocks spike binding to ACE2, preventing virus from entering a human cell, stopping viral replication ; this supplements the patient's own immune response in a critical time window during which many patient's immune system reacts too slowly, giving it more time to do its job and eliminate the virus.

inactivates spike proteins and sterically blocks spike binding to ACE2, preventing virus from entering a human cell, stopping viral replication Epitope is much less susceptible to human antibody immunity pressure that can lead to "viral escape", resulting in retained potency against such escape variants  No impact of any variants of concern on potency as of today

XVR011: Targets unique epitope in conserved region, leading to broad spectrum of binding to spike RBDs across numerous sarbecoviruses

XVR011 fits across the coronavirus treatment paradigm from hospitalised to recently diagnosed patients as both a therapeutic and prophylactic

Number of Covid-19 cases remains high, with the virus expected to become endemic for the foreseeable future, and with the virus mutating incl. under human antibody immune pressure. Chronic implications in those who survive COVID-19disease, such as lung damage, impact on heart, neurological signs and symptoms; to date unclear durability of protection from vaccines.

Therapeutic use could help slow viral replication in the lungs, reduce inflammation, and give patients valuable time to raise their own productive immune response.

could help slow viral replication in the lungs, reduce inflammation, and give patients valuable time to raise their own productive immune response. XVR011 Covid-19 IV (intra venous)  for hospitalized patients with mild to moderate symptoms. IV formulation allows systemic exposure to penetrate lung tissue.

 for hospitalized patients with mild to moderate symptoms. IV formulation allows systemic exposure to penetrate lung tissue. XVR011 Covid-19 SC (sub cutaneous)  earlier, prevention of progression for patients who have tested positive and are at medical or professional high risk, asymptomatic or with mild symptoms but not hospitalised. SC formulation facilitates accessibility for earlier stage patients.

 earlier, prevention of progression for patients who have tested positive and are at medical or professional high risk, asymptomatic or with mild symptoms but not hospitalised. SC formulation facilitates accessibility for earlier stage patients. Prophylactic use could protect particularly susceptible individuals in which vaccination is contra-indicated or less effective, and deployment from a stockpile could support the ringfencing of a SARS-like virus outbreak in the future.

About ExeVir Bio

ExeVir Bio is harnessing its VHH technology platform to generate robust antiviral therapies providing broad protection against viral infections, including coronaviruses. It is a spin out from VIB, the world class Belgium-based life sciences research institute, based on the work of Professor Drs Xavier Saelens and Nico Callewaert from VIB in collaboration. ExeVir Bio is led by a team of experts that combines international biotech and pharma experience with a successful track record of developing and bringing products to market. It has raised over 23M from blue chip investors led by Fund+, VIB, UCB Ventures, FPIM, V-Bio and several Belgian Family Offices.

About bioRxiv

BioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.

SOURCE ExeVir
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ever since the brilliant Prime Time Investigates programme about Irelands illegal adoptions, Ive been thinking about the brave people who took part in it, and about the mothers they searched for. And Ive been thinking about Eamon de Valera Jr.

He must have had a difficult childhood. When he was three, his father took part in the Easter Rising and was lucky not to be executed after it. For the next couple of years, his father was in prison or on the run.

However, by the time young Eamon was 10, his father was a leading figure in Irish politics. After a tough start, Eamon Jr had a sheltered and privileged upbringing. Dad became president of the Republic when young Eamon was eight and, although he led the losing side in the Civil War, the senior de Valera was soon to occupy the most powerful position in Irish politics. Young Eamon was raised by a man who, despite the vicissitudes of politics, was to be the most powerful man in Ireland for the rest of his long life  and perhaps one of the most conservative (he asked to be buried in the habit of a monk, but well come back to that).

Extraordinary success

Despite the tough and frightening early years, Eamon Jr was able to turn a life of privilege and comfort into extraordinary success. He was a highly-paid medical practitioner, with a substantial private practice. He was a constant presence at the State occasions hosted by his parents and, throughout his life, he mixed with the great and the good. He was, indeed, part of the great and the good.

He also stole babies from their young unmarried mothers and gave those babies to his own patients.

There is no evidence that he charged for the babies per se, but all of his patients paid substantial fees for his services. Among those services, in respect of women who couldnt become pregnant, he guaranteed them a baby anyway.

All the women had to do was to wear a pillow under their clothes for a number of months, so they would look pregnant. Then they would check into a private nursing home and emerge with a baby. And, not just that, Eamon ensured that the happy new parents left the private facility with a birth certificate to prove the baby was theirs  Mum and Dads names were on the certificate as the natural parents of the child.

Except, of course, they werent.

Theft and cruelty

In doing what he did, Eamon de Valera robbed young mothers of their children. And then he robbed the children of their identities  forever.

Everything about it was false. He had a reputation as a bit of a miracle-worker when it came to infertility, but there was no miracle. Only theft and cruelty. And of course, these 'services' of his werent advertised. He didnt take referrals from hospitals and GP clinics  it was word-of-mouth, priests, nuns, the proprietors of some of the more salubrious nursing homes.

His services werent backstreet services of course. It was too professional for that. He wasnt like Mamie Cadden.

In the late 1950s, Mamie Cadden  or Nurse Cadden as she was called  was put on trial in Dublin for being a backstreet abortionist. A young unmarried mother had died, and Mamie Cadden was sentenced to death in respect of the botched operation. (She wasnt hanged in the end, but was imprisoned for the rest of her life in Dundrum.)

Professor de Valera, as he then was, would have been at the height of his powers when the Nurse Cadden trial caused a sensation in Dublin. You can just imagine the tut-tutting that went on around the family dining table when it was discussed.

Shame and censorship

So was he a monster and a hypocrite? I dont like to use words such as monster, but the term hypocrite surely applies. Or else why was there so much secrecy about the babies? Why werent his practices out in the open? Why were mothers never told where their babies had gone or where they came from? Why did none of the babies ever get an honest birth certificate?

But in some ways, he, and more of his generation, were the product of a country his father did much to create. A country ruled by the Church and by shame. A country where women and children didnt really matter. A country of which, in many ways, his father was the architect.

Shame, as promulgated by the Catholic Church, was the core means of power in de Valeras Ireland. And, in Eamon de Valera, it found a perfect expression. I dont believe he ever once in his life shook a bishops hand. His knee-jerk reaction, whenever he met a bishop, was to kiss his hand, sometimes dropping to his knees to do so.

De Valera Snr didnt introduce censorship to Ireland, but he thoroughly approved of it, and introduced several pieces of legislation to systematise it.

Divorce and contraception

Until 1935, there was nothing illegal about contraception in Ireland, which generally took the form of condoms. De Valeras government made them illegal, and they effectively remained illegal for 40 years.

His constitution forbade divorce  the only written constitution in the world to do so  and that remained the law of the land until well after his death. His constitution included a special position for the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church, a provision that remained until it was removed by the people in 1972.

Above all, his constitution devised a subordinate place for women  as the married appendage of a man  which, unbelievably, is still there to this day.

The Proclamation of Independence had promised equal rights to all Irelands citizens, the Free State constitution had affirmed that notion of equality.

Subjugation of women

In his speech to the Dail introducing his constitution, de Valera acknowledged stripping the principle of equality away because, he said, women needed to be protected. His speech made seven references to the inadequate strength of women. Not all women, just mothers.

There is no use in bringing into this context young girls and people who are not married, he said. This has reference to mothers whose duties are in the home.

The constitution we adopted then set out to protect women. As long as they were married. As long as they were obedient. As long as they knew their place. It was not a constitution with any room in it for the girl who got pregnant, or for the child she brought into the world. For them, there was only shame and secrecy.

It is perhaps no wonder that men such as Eamon de Valera Jr felt entitled  perhaps even morally obliged  to steal babies away from their mothers and to steal those babies identities from them. They were illegitimate after all, and their mothers had no rights at all.

Revelation after revelation

Its also perhaps no wonder that our recent history has been so marred by revelation after revelation about the abuse of women and the abuse of children. It happened because they didnt really matter. It happened in the Ireland built by men and churchmen around a concept of power and shame. And you wonder sometimes will it ever end.
H-E-B has further clarified its mask policy after swift backlash.

After Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that he was ending the statewide mask mandate, H-E-B spokesperson Lisa Helfman said the stores would continue to require employees and vendors to wear masks while at work and "urge all customers" to do the same, Chron's Jay R. Jordan reported.

MIXED MESSAGING?: Gov. Greg Abbott recommends masks days after deeming actual mask mandate unnecessary

In a statement released Friday, the company reiterated its mask policy for after the mandate ends on March 10.

"While statewide policy has changed, our store protocol has not," the company said in a statement. "Mask use at our stores will remain. Our signs requiring mask use will remain posted at entrances and we will continue to make announcements in store."

We will continue to expect shoppers to wear masks while in our stores. Additionally, we will still require all our Partners and vendors to wear masks while at work."

H-E-B also said it will give masks to customers without one.

Chron's Jay R. Jordan recently spoke with H-E-B president Scott McClelland after H-E-B said it would not require customers to wear masks once the mandate ends. McClelland said that while stores have the power to require mask-wearing, antagonistic customers have caused nearly 2,000 in-store incidents surrounding masks at Houston stores alone.

McClelland said then that customers not wearing a mask would be asked to put one on. If they don't have one, a Partner would offer them a mask. But McClelland said associates would not escalate the situation if the customer continued to refuse.

"What's important to me is, I've got to ensure for the physical safety of both my employees and customers in the store," McClelland told Jordan. "That's what we have been doing, and frankly it's the same thing we'll continue to do."

WEAR EVERYWHERE: Here's where you still have to wear a mask in Houston

In its statement, the company continued to encourage customers to wear masks and asked for "kindness and understanding" from shoppers as retailers try to "enforce an emotional topic for many."

"As Texans helping Texans, lets continue to protect each other while in our stores," H-E-B wrote. "Lets keep wearing masks, to protect yourself, our fellow Texans, and our dedicated Partners who are committed to helping our communities throughout this pandemic and every other crisis this state may face."
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
International

Yemen immigrant holding facility fire kills 60

Sanaa, Mar 9 (IANS) | Publish Date: 3/9/2021 1:24:50 PM IST

At least 60 people were killed due to a fire at an immigrant holding facility in Yemens capital Sanaa, a Houthi official said on Tuesday. The fire, which broke out on Sunday, has also injured more than 100 people, Xinhua news agency quoted the official as saying to the media. Overcrowding and chaos at the facility, in addition to the fire, caused heavy casualties, said the official, adding that victims included both African migrants and facility staff.

The Houthi group has formed a commission to investigate the incident, he said. According to the official, the facility is for holding migrants who entered the country illegally before the procedure of deportation starts. In a statement issued on Monday evening, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed that the fire and called for urgent humanitarian access to migrants injured. We are facing challenges accessing the injured due to an increased security presence in the hospitals. Humanitarians and health workers must be given access to support the treatment of those affected by the fire, it added.

According to the IOM, Yemen remains a transit country for tens of thousands of migrants travelling between the Horn of Africa and Saudi Arabia despite years of war.

The Organization estimated that the number of migrants arriving in Yemen fell from more than 138,000 in 2019 to just more than 37,500 in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014 when Houthi rebels seized control of several northern provinces and forced the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 to support Hadis government.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 04:00:03|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

MOGADISHU, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The UN top envoy in Somalia on Tuesday condemned a mortar attack on an international airport in Mogadishu which injured an unknown number of people.

The mortar attack targeted the offices of United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Tuesday. The offices are located inside the heavily-protected Adan Adde International Airport.

James Swan, UN secretary-general's special representative for Somalia said six mortar rounds landed within the perimeter of the Aden Adde International Airport which houses African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) headquarters.

"I condemn this al-Shabab mortar attack on the airport facility in Mogadishu," Swan said in a statement issued in Mogadishu after the attack at the heavily fortified facility which came ahead of planned consultative talks between the government and leaders of the federal member states.

Al-Shabab which has been fighting to topple the Western-backed government claimed responsibility for the latest attack.

Swan said no United Nations facilities were affected and no United Nations personnel were casualties of the mortars.

"We wish a speedy recovery to those injured elsewhere at the airport. Despite such acts of violence, Somalia's international partners remain committed to stand by the people of Somalia, and continue supporting the advancement of the country," he assured.

Al-Shabab often launches gun and bomb attacks on officials, Somali security forces and AMISOM facilities in an effort to topple the government and impose its own brand of government on Somalia. Enditem
As Syria enters its 10th year of war, Australian woman Mariam Dabboussy has reached out to her father with a simple request.

The Bankstown-born 30-year-old, who has been detained in refugee camps in northern Syria for almost six years after her husband took the family there to fight with Islamic State, last week told Kamalle Dabboussy she needed English teaching material for her three children.

Kamalle Dabboussy visited his daughter Mariam and her daughters Aisha (left) and Fatema in al-Hawl camp in north-eastern Syria in 2019.

Theyre apparently being discouraged from teaching them English in the camp  its only Arabic and Kurdish, Mr Dabboussy said. She just wanted me to organise for some English teaching materials to be sent to the camp.

Next week marks 10 years since nationwide protests in Syria descended into a deadly conflict that has killed at least 400,000 people and displaced millions. ISs caliphate in Iraq and Syria sucked in tens of thousands of foreign fighters globally, including hundreds from Australia.
Paris, March 10 : France on Tuesday reported 23,302 Covid infections over the past 24 hours, while the number of hospitalized patients continued to rise, piling pressure on hospitals.

Since the outbreak, 3,932,862 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in France, the world's sixth-highest tally after the US, India, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to figures posted on the government's epidemic information website, Xinhua news agency reported.

Six more persons were hospitalized for the virus infection in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 25,201, while 3,918 patients were in intensive care, up by 69 from Monday, marking its highest level since November 26.

In one day, the respiratory illness had claimed 368 lives, pushing the death toll to 89,301, the daily data showed.

So far, 3,996,329 people in France have received at least the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. The rollout focused first on elderly, highly vulnerable people and frontline medical staff and care workers.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.

Meanwhile, 261 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 79 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the US, according to information released by the World Health Organization on March 5.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Kathmandu, March 9

Nepal has around 1,800 fuel tanks in operation. Of them, around 1,300 are involved in theft, according to the government-run fuel distribution monopoly, Nepal Oil Corporation. It is around 72 per cent of the total.

The corporations Executive Director Surendra Kumar Paudel says the tanker operators were found making false chambers, using pipes in the service tank, and adulterating to steal fuel.

Paudel claims the corporation took action against all of them.

The corporations Thankot depot chief Pradeep Kumar Yadav says a mechanical locking system introduced some years ago, by investing millions of rupees, has completely failed in controlling thefts.

In the first two months, the theft was completely stopped, but then it seems they learned to steal anyway, he surmises.

Meanwhile, the tanker operators have refuted the charge. Bishwa Prakash Aryal, the president of the Nepal Petroleum Dealers National Association, says the corporation wanted to come into the limelight by accusing the tankers of theft.

He claims most of the tankers are not involved in the theft, and even if they are, they are doing it in cahoots with the corporation staff.
Under the new formula, sole proprietors can get loans based instead on their income before expenses. That opens the program to unprofitable businesses and allows those that did report a profit to claim a bigger loan, up to a maximum of $20,833.

The letter gave Mr. Hastings two choices: Take the offered loan  for an amount thousands of dollars less than he would get under the new rules  or cancel his application and start over. But if he did that, the letter warned, he risked not getting any loan at all before the deadline.

Mr. Hastings ultimately didnt have to choose: After this article published on Tuesday, SmartBiz contacted him and said it would help him secure a higher loan amount if he qualifies, according to Judy Balint, a company spokeswoman. SmartBiz, she said, had also begun accepting applications based on the new Small Business Administration guidance.

Business owners who havent had the benefit of such hand-holding have flocked to forums like Reddit to hash out their options and to swap tips on which lenders are using the new formula. Desperate for Guidance! one typical post reads. Reaching out to see if anyone can help me figure out this absolutely monstrous failure.

The disarray is compounded by the other major change Mr. Biden announced last month: a 14-day window, which ended Tuesday, during which the Small Business Administration would accept applications only from companies with fewer than 20 employees. The intent was to get aid to needy businesses, especially those run by women and minorities. The vast majority of those businesses are sole proprietorships that would benefit from the new formula, and many rushed to take advantage of the priority period.

But the nearly two-week delay for the more generous rules put lenders in a tough spot: They could pause applications from sole proprietors, creating a backlog they would later have to unravel, or they could approve applications under the previous formula, which would result in much smaller loans for their customers.

Biz2Credit, which has made more loans this year than any other lender, temporarily stopped accepting applications while it worked to adjust to the new rules. It plans to resume this week, said Rohit Arora, its chief executive.
Cybersecurity

Hafnium hack poses new long-term threat for already overtaxed cyber workers

Federal agencies still reeling from the effects of a massive hack involving SolarWinds may face a new challenge of evicting any adversaries that breached their networks through recently discovered vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Exchange software.

"Patching and mitigation is not remediation if the servers have already been compromised," the National Security Council said in a tweet on Friday. "It is essential that any organization with a vulnerable server take immediate measures to determine if they were already targeted."

President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also took to Twitter to urge U.S. think tanks and defense industrial base contractors "to patch ASAP."

The rare, public warning from the White House urging public and private entities to update their systems followed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issuing an emergency directive last week, citing an "unacceptable risk" posed by zero-day exploits discovered in Exchange. Microsoft in a recent blog post said it has observed a China-based group, dubbed "Hafnium," using those vulnerabilities to target U.S. organizations.

CISA's directive instructed all civilian federal agencies to immediately disconnect or update Exchange products running on-premise. It also ordered agency CIOs to conduct digital forensics to find indicators of compromise and report back to CISA by noon on March 5.

A spokesman told FCW today that CISA has received reports from a "majority" of civilian agencies. "Currently, agencies continue to patch affected servers and investigate for indications of compromise," he continued.

A spokesman for the Pentagon told FCW, the Defense Department "is aware of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center's report and is currently assessing our networks for any evidence of impact. We are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation."

Independent security researcher and journalist Brian Krebs reported in his blog on Friday that up to 30,000 organizations may have been affected by the vulnerabilities.

Chris Krebs, the former CISA director, predicted on Twitter that the hack will "disproportionately impact those that can least afford it," and noted that the vulnerability is "trivial to exploit," meaning that anyone aware of the flaw with a bare minimum of technical ability can implant malware on unpatched systems.
The alleged director of a large-scale cannabis cultivation and supply syndicate has been arrested at a unit in Sydneys inner west, while thousands of cannabis plants with an estimated potential street value of more than $5.8 million have been seized from a semi-rural property.

Drug squad detectives began investigating outdoor cannabis cultivation across Sydney in April 2020 as part of Strike Force Hyperion.

A total of 2379 cannabis plants, estimated to be worth more than $7.1 million, were seized at a property near Campbelltown in February and five men, aged between 29 and 49, were charged.

Riot squad officers joined detectives and local police about 6am on Tuesday to raid a unit at Rhodes.
9 March 2021

Conroy Gold and Natural Resources plc

("Conroy Gold" or "the Company")

DRILLING TARGETS CONFIRMED ON FINLAND GOLD CLAIMS

High resolution ground magnetic survey completed

Potentially gold bearing structures identified

Survey delineates multiple prospective magnetic targets for drilling

Applications to be made over other gold and copper targets identified in Northern Finland

Conroy Gold and Natural Resources plc (AIM: CGNR), the gold exploration and development company focused on Ireland and Finland, is pleased to announce the completion of a detailed high resolution ground magnetic survey which has identified a series of drilling targets on its gold exploration acreage in the Sodankyla area of Northern Finland. The Company holds a total of eight gold exploration licences in Finland.

The high resolution ground magnetic survey data, in combination with multiple datasets, including geochemistry, aerial photography, digital elevation data and airborne geophysical data, has delineated a series of prospective drilling targets.

Previous geochemistry in the Company's permit area in Sodankyla has been encouraging with gold-in-soil values, of up to 4,470 Au ppb, and copper-in-soil values. Gold grains have also been observed in the till. The presence of the Nattanen granite suite and extensive haematitic alteration together with regional and local structural controls indicate Iron Oxide Copper Gold ("IOCG") prospectivity.

The targets shown by the ground magnetic survey include two highly magnetic bodies, which are considered to be IOCG targets, together with a series of targets which are interpreted as being Shear Zone Hosted Gold targets.

The detailed high resolution ground magnetic survey consisted of 33 lines at 100m separation, ranging from 1km to 3km in length, for a total of 49 line kilometres covering an area c.4.5 km2.

Finland is a mining friendly country with established mining traditions and highly prospective geology for gold. Europe's largest gold mine - the 4 million Oz Au Kittila gold mine - is situated in Northern Finland where the Company's permit area is located. Finland has a favourable business climate, security of tenure and fiscal framework as well as excellent infrastructure and technical services readily available.

The Company is reviewing the results of its extensive exploration programme for gold in Finland which has included the collection and analysis of more than 2,300 regional samples, with a view to applying for further gold exploration acreage in Finland.

This release has been approved by Kevin McNulty PGeo, who is a member of the Company's technical staff and holds a BSc/MSc in Geology and Remote Sensing, in accordance with the guidance note for Mining, Oil & Gas Companies issued by the London Stock Exchange in respect of AIM Companies, which outlines standards of disclosure for mineral projects.

Professor Richard Conroy, Chairman, commented:

"The Company's gold exploration programme in Finland is an extension of the Company's highly successful gold exploration programme in Ireland which has led to the discovery of a new district scale gold trend on which the Company is currently finalising a joint venture agreement with the Koc family owned Demir Export A.S..

The results to date on the Company's Sodankyla target are highly encouraging with a series of IOCG and Shear Zone hosted gold targets highlighted for drilling and the Company is commencing preparations for a drilling programme over these targets."

For further information please contact :

Conroy Gold and Natural Resources plc Tel: +353-1-479-6180 Professor Richard Conroy, Chairman

Allenby Capital Limited(Nomad) Tel: +44-20-3328-5656 Nick Athanas/Nick Harriss Brandon Hill Capital Limited (Joint Broker)

Tel: +44-20-3463-5000 Jonathan Evans

First Equity Limited (Joint Broker)

Jason Robertson



Lothbury Financial Services

Tel: +44-20-7330-1883





Tel: +44-20-3290-0707 Michael Padley Hall Communications Tel: +353-1-660-9377 Don Hall

Visit the website at:www.conroygold.com
The elimination of cash bail is a very risky proposition that will keep defendants on our streets, not off our streets. On a daily basis, criminal courts throughout Illinois issue bench warrants for defendants who choose to avoid prosecution and flee. The sponsors of the bill are asking us to buy into the honor system with criminal suspects.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
San Francisco has suffered from a shortage of drug treatment beds for years, but the pandemic has made the problem more acute.

Just as overdose deaths skyrocketed in the city during the pandemic, fueled by the powerful drug fentanyl, COVID-19 constrained capacity in treatment programs. One temporarily halted new patient intakes to quell an outbreak. Under shelter-in-place, fewer people exited programs, lengthening wait times for some beds.

As of Monday afternoon on a dashboard updated daily, there were 30 drug treatment beds available out of a total of 481 funded by the city. An estimated 165 more are privately funded. Before the pandemic, there were about 24,500 injection drug users in the city, with an estimated 4,000 homeless, addicted and mentally ill.

Amid the escalating crisis, elected officials are trying to hold city health officials to a 2008 mandate to provide drug treatment on demand. With little recent data and challenges persisting, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is calling for a future hearing to check the citys progress at Tuesday's board meeting.

We dont make it easy to get treatment in the way that the folks who brought us the treatment-on-demand legislation were hoping that legislation would lead to, Mandelman said. We should be using every point of contact to encourage people to seek treatment.

Proposition T, passed by voters in 2008, required that San Francisco provide and fund adequate free or low-cost drug treatment to meet demand, calculated by the total number of filled slots plus the number of individuals seeking those spots. It also mandated annual reporting, but the last city report was in 2019.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle 2020

Officials, providers and advocates said adding beds is just a partial solution to a complicated problem that also includes the challenge of access. Some advocates also push for alternative treatment and harm reduction.

The current treatment thats available doesnt work for everybody, said Jason Norelli, a case manager with nonprofit Glide who has been in recovery for two decades. We need to fund new ideas and different ways.

Others agree more options are needed but criticize the city for policies they view as enabling drug use.

Its easier to get drugs on the corner than it is to get into a program, said Richard Beal, who has been in recovery for three decades and is director of transitional housing at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. I believe in meeting clients where they are, but we do a disservice when we just leave them there.

The Department of Public Health said its Prop. T report from last year will be ready before Mandelmans hearing. Dr. Judith Martin, medical director of substance use services, said she thought the city met the mandate during the pandemic by bending over backwards in pretzels.

COVID-19 had a huge impact on services, Martin said. Its a challenge for everybody.

Mallory Moench / The Chronicle

The pandemic made some potential participants reluctant to move into group settings and forced programs to set aside rooms for isolation or quarantine. Even with precautions, more than 1 in 3 participants tested positive for COVID-19 in January at the Salvation Armys Harbor Light residential program, Executive Director David Pierce said. The health department halted new intakes at Harbor Light until March 15.

The pandemic also slowed exits and slightly lengthened wait times for some beds. In the end, Martin said, there were only a few days when certain kinds of beds were not available and providers adjusted.

Kayla Crenshaw, lead navigator with Epiphany Center, which provides treatment to women, said there was a point over the winter for a few weeks she couldnt find her clients treatment beds.

The longer we wait, we might lose them. ... Sometimes for people it can be life or death, said Crenshaw, a program graduate who spends her days on the streets and in the hospital trying to help pregnant women and mothers. She praised her city partners but said more beds and easier access are needed.

No matter how hard I work, the need is just growing, she said Friday as she stood outside the citys shelter-in-place hotel for families in the Tenderloin, her arms laden with bags full of donated baby clothes for residents.

One upside to the pandemic was that it increased access to telemedicine, Martin said. Other innovations have also helped. In 2019, the city created a dashboard of how many treatment beds are available and during the pandemic launched a crisis emergency response team.

Supervisor Matt Haney has been frustrated at the slow pace.

The city is doing a terrible job, Haney said. Any resident can walk down the street and see people who are visibly in need of help and not getting it.

Supervisors have also been skeptical of past Prop. T progress, evidenced at a 2019 hearing. The 1-page report that year said there was no wait for narcotic replacement treatment, intensive residential treatment and residential step-down treatment. Usually available within a day was residential and outpatient detox and medication assisted treatment. The wait was a week for outpatient and case management.

Currently the access to substance abuse treatment in San Francisco is better than at any time in the past, the report said, noting that there were openings every day.

Sara Shortt, coordinator of the Treatment on Demand Coalition, called the report disconnected from reality.

Providers said drug users dont always want treatment and some are jaded by past failed efforts to get help. When theyre ready, they can face an intake process that involves signing up for state medical insurance, screenings with long waits or multiple appointments, documentation that homeless individuals might not have, and authorization by the health department. The reality is that getting people in beds can take days or even weeks. By then, potential patients may be back on the streets.

Martin agreed the intake process presents hurdles. To streamline it, she said the city sometimes admits patients while their insurance is pending and foots the bill for months. The city is also running pilot programs that pre-authorize patients for treatment, including a direct line from San Francisco General to Epiphany Center that fills beds the same day. The organization is pitching a similar pilot to reach women just before or after theyve given birth. Nonprofit provider HealthRight360 plans to place intake staff in the hospital and jail, said CEO Vitka Eisen.

More Information Broken care San Francisco spends nearly $400 million a year on mental health and addiction treatment, but thousands of people in crisis are still without sufficient care. It's a tragedy that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. In this ongoing series, Chronicle journalists investigate the failures of this complicated, costly system and explore solutions to the crisis. See More Collapse

Mallory Moench is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mallorymoench
Gladys Berejiklian has branded sudden state border closures a 'complete over-reaction' and demanded a more measured response to Covid outbreaks.

The New South Wales leader was furious with other premiers when they closed their borders in December over a handful of cases on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

Speaking at the AFR business summit on Tuesday, she said their reactions were unnecessary and damaging.

Drivers approach the Queensland-New South Wales border checkpoint in December

Gladys Berejiklian (pictured) has branded sudden state border closures a 'complete over-reaction' and demanded a more measured response to Covid outbreaks

'It's a complete overreaction... I think it is an embarrassment,' she said.

Ms Berejikian urged premiers to scrap their aim of keeping Covid case numbers at zero because the country needs to open up once vaccines are rolled out and the public health risk is reduced.

'There will be a time where we are left behind if we don't adjust our thinking,' she said.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce agreed and noted that students and tourists 'will go elsewhere' if the nation's border remains closed for too long.

'We have to get the Australian population to move away from zero cases. We need to be part of the world economy again,' he said.

'What are we waiting for?'

Australia's borers are shut until at least June and the government does not expect widespread travel until the end of the year.

Mr Joyce made three demands of state premiers regarding domestic border closures.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce warned that students and tourists 'will go elsewhere' if the nation's border remains closed for too long

He said he wants them to agree on a nationwide system to identify when borders should close, to give 48 hours' notice before closing them and work on establishing a date when they will be no longer be needed as a tool to manage the pandemic.

Mr Joyce previously hoped there may be enough people vaccinated by April that borders closures are not required.

Earlier on Tuesday Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the vaccine rollout means that premiers will find it harder to justify closing their borders.

'The 2020 response to Covid-19 must be different in 2021. Why? Because the risk has changed.

'I expect the decisions made this year should be different to last year,' he said.
Paytm on Tuesday said it is applying for NUE (New Umbrella Entity) in a consortium with players including ride-hailing platform Ola, as part of its efforts to develop more innovative and inclusive digital payments solutions for the Indian population.

Speaking to PTI, Paytm founder and Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the company sees the NUE system to play out as a great opportunity for payments in the country.

"We've been saying that payments have become mainstream, and it is important for us to create more payment options and opportunities for consumers and businesses alike. RBI took a note of it and has given me an opportunity to apply for NUE. We are going to apply for sure...The process is on," he said.

Asked if Ola was a part of the consortium, Sharma said it will include Ola as one of the key partners.

"It (consortium) will include a bank, small finance bank, payments bank, fintech company, tech company, NBFC - one of the most diverse NUE consortiums that we will see," Sharma said but declined to provide additional details.

Ola did not respond to e-mailed queries.

In August last year, RBI had released a framework for authorisation of an umbrella entity for retail payments in the country and had invited applications from desirous entities by February 26, 2021.

After requests from various stakeholders including Indian Banks' Association for extending the deadline in view of the pandemic, the Reserve Bank of India had extended the deadline to apply for NUE to March 31.

NUEs will be set up as a company as a for-profit under the Companies Act, 2013 and will get authorisation under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (PSS Act). Such entities will undertake tasks such as setting up, managing and operating new payment systems in retail space.

These activities include but are not limited to ATMs, White Label PoS; Aadhaar based payments and remittance services; newer payment methods, standards and technologies; monitor related issues in the country and internationally; taking care of developmental objectives like enhancement of awareness about the payment systems.

They are also expected to operate clearing and settlement systems for participating banks and non-banks and carry on any other business suitable to further strengthen the retail payments ecosystem in the country.

According to reports, several companies have partnered with banks and major tech players to apply for NUEs. Reports suggest that Reliance Industries, along with Facebook and Google ? which have invested in Jio Platforms are planning to apply, while Tata Group has joined hands with HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, MasterCard and Bharti Airtel.

Amazon is also said to have tied up with Visa, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and fin-tech startups BillDesk and PineLabs for the NUE licence. However, these could not be independently confirmed.

Sharma said NUE will provide an opportunity to create more payment systems that can be scaled.

"We see it as an opportunity to serve a large Indian population with more innovative, more inclusive payment options... We believe that we can play a role in that. So, we see this as an opportunity to be a catalyst in scaling of payments in this country," he added.
Khartoum, March 9 : A UN mission has said that it would work to mobilise international support and resources to support the transitional period in Sudan.

Head of the UN Integrated Transitional Assistance Mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, made the remarks after meeting Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan at the presidential palace here on Monday, reports Xinhua news agency.

He further said the mission would work with the Sudanese government to support issues of census, elections and the second phase of the peace process.

Perthes said the mission is looking forward to be of assistance to Sudan on the basis of the country's priorities for the transitional period.

On June 4, 2020, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2524 to establish a political mission in Khartoum to support the transitional period in Sudan.

Sudan entered a political transition process after the Army ousted former President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 following a popular uprising that lasted for months.

On August 21, 2019, Sudan started a 39-month transitional period under a transitional government comprising military and civilian officials.
No-confidence motion: BJP, JJP, Congress issue whip to MLAs

India

pti-Deepika S

Chandigarh, Mar 09: With the Congress'' no-confidence motion against the BJP-JJP government set to be taken up in the Haryana Assembly on Wednesday, the ruling BJP-JJP as well as main the opposition party have issued whips to their respective members for their compulsory presence in the House.

Haryana minister and BJP''s chief whip Kanwar Pal said, "All the members of the Bharatiya Janata Legislature Party are requested to remain present in the House throughout the 10th day of March during the current budget session of Haryana Vidhan Sabha."

"They should not leave the chamber without prior permission of the leader. Many important legislative matters are likely to come up for discussion. The members are requested to be present at the time of division/voting," Pal, who is the Education and the Parliamentary Affairs minister, said while issuing the whip.

Cong to move no-confidence against Haryana govt on March 10

BJP''s alliance partner the JJP also issued a whip to its legislators.

Jannayak Janta Party''s chief whip Amarjeet Dhanda while issuing the whip to his party legislators said, "All JJP members of the Haryana legislative assembly are hereby informed that no-confidence against the Council of Ministers proposed by opposition will be brought in the Haryana legislative assembly on March 10."

"All members of JJP in the Haryana assembly are therefore requested to be present positively in the House throughout the day on March 10 and support the stand of the government against the no-confidence motion," Dhanda said.

Congress'' senior leader and chief whip B B Batra said, "The members of CLP, Haryana are informed that no confidence motion against the government shall be listed on March 10 in the business of the House".

"I issue whip, that you must ensure your presence in the House on March 10 at 10 am positively and support the vote of no confidence. Members are advised not to leave the House without prior permission of the CLP leader," Batra said.

In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, currently having an effective strength of 88 members, the ruling BJP has 40 members, the JJP 10 and the Congress 30. Seven are Independents, five of whom are supporting the government, while one member is of the Haryana Lokhit Party, who has also extended support to the government.

The Congress will move a no-confidence motion against the BJP-JJP government in the Haryana Assembly on Wednesday with Speaker Gian Chand Gupta on Friday last fixing the date for it to be taken up in the House.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Talking to reporters after the day''s proceedings in the state assembly ended on Friday, former chief minister and Congress leader B S Hooda had said, "The no-confidence motion will let people know which MLA stands with the government and which MLA stands with farmers."

He said the party needed to move a no-confidence motion because the BJP-JJP government has lost public confidence and the coalition government, betraying public opinion, is taking anti-people decisions one after the other.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
CABINET yesterday approved the start of the second phase of Covid-19 vaccination exercise and urged companies intending to buy vaccines for their employees to procure only those that are registered in Zimbabwe.

The Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe has approved the use of Sinopharm and Sinovac from China, Covaxin from India and Russias Sputnik-V for use in the country.

Two weeks ago, Government launched a nationwide Covid-19 vaccination programme targeting frontline workers after receiving a donation of 200 000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine from China.

Frontline workers are covered in the first phase while vulnerable groups among them people with chronic illnesses such as cancer, TB and diabetes patients are covered in the second phase.

During a post-Cabinet briefing last night, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa yesterday said 34 400 people were vaccinated countrywide in the first two weeks of the rollout programme.

She said progress made in the initial stages of the vaccination programme has prompted Cabinet to approve the second stage of the vaccination programme.The minister said only registered medicines will be used.

All those intending to procure vaccines for their employees must procure only registered vaccines in Zimbabwe. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development will be purchasing the vaccines on behalf of the Government of Zimbabwe. Cabinet would also like to unveil the guidelines for the procurement and administration of Covid-19 vaccines by the Private Sector in Zimbabwe, she said.

Following wide ranging consultations with the private sector, the following guidelines will be followed: All Covid-19 approved vaccines will be procured through the National Vaccine Procurement Fund managed by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Organisations, individuals and any partners wishing to donate towards vaccine procurement will do so to the President through the Fund. Donations received and pledges made to date will be announced.

Minister Mutsvangwa said those interested in buying vaccines for their workforce will deposit their funds into the National Vaccine Procurement Fund after approval by the Ministry of Health and Child Care.

The National Vaccine Procurement Fund will procure on behalf of the organisations guided by the national procurement guidelines. To ensure safety and efficacy, vaccines shall be kept at the Central Vaccines Stores under the Ministry of Health and Child Care and the National Cold Chain guidelines shall apply.

Only trained and registered health professionals shall be authorised to administer vaccines, and only the Ministry of Health and Child Care shall be responsible for issuing all Covid-19 vaccination certificates. All vaccines administered at private institutions will be transported by Ministry of Health and Child Care medical staff under guard by the Zimbabwe Republic Police, she added. Chronicle
Eric Yuan, chief executive officer of Zoom Video Communications Inc., donated more than a third of his stake in the company, filings show.

Yuan gifted almost 18 million shares of the conferencing-technology firm last week. The filings didnt specify the recipient of the stock, which was owned by a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust, or GRAT, for which Yuan is a trustee.

The shares were valued at about $6 billion, based on Fridays closing price.

The distributions are consistent with the Yuans typical estate planning practices," a Zoom spokesman said in a statement.

Yuan, 51, joins other members of the worlds mega-rich whove been transferring stock recently -- including Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, who last month gave some of his Zoom holding to his businessman son Richard. Jeff Bezos, the worlds richest person, has been donating shares of Amazon.com Inc. in support of a $10 billion pledge made last year to combat climate change.

Pandemic Surge

Yuan became one of the worlds wealthiest people as demand for Zooms main product skyrocketed during the pandemic. The stock surged almost 400% last year, but has dipped 7.8% in 2021.

Hes the worlds 130th-richest person with a pre-transfer net worth of $15.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a $9.2 billion increase since last March. The company has also brought huge gains to other shareholders, including Tiger Global Managements Chase Coleman and Taiwanese investor Samuel Chen. Lis Zoom stake now represents almost one-fifth of his net worth.

Born in China, Yuan was refused a U.S. visa eight times before finally prevailing and moving to Silicon Valley. An early employee of rival video-conferencing group WebEx Communications, he founded Zoom in 2011, inspired in part by the challenges of maintaining a long-distance relationship when he was in college.

The Wall Street Journal reported the share transfer earlier Monday.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Myanmar security forces have raided the offices of three independent media outlets in the commercial city Yangon, arresting at least two editors, while a second official from the former ruling National League for Democracy has died in military custody, his wife said Tuesday.

Offices of three media outlets in Yangon were raided and at least two editors were arrested in a stepped-up crackdown on independent media following an announcement by the military government Monday banning five domestic outlets  Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), Myanmar Now, Khit Thit Media, and 7Day News from publishing and broadcasting, and transmitting messages via social media.

The State Administrative Council, the official name of the military government, revoked the operating licenses of the outlets.

Security forces raided the offices of Kamayut Media Tuesday afternoon, arresting founders Nathan Maung and Han Thar during the search, though the junta had not officially banned the news outlet, said a relative of Nathan Maung.

Soldiers and police raided Mizzimas office in Yangon regions Thanlyin township Tuesday evening, even though the office had been closed since the Feb. 1 coup, an employee told RFA.

On Monday, police and soldiers broke into the office of Myanmar Now, known for its investigative reporting on corruption and rights abuses by Myanmars military elite, even though it had been closed since three days before the coup after running an article that a military takeover was about to occur. Authorities confiscated computers and office equipment.

Despite the ban, four of the news outlets pledged to continue to deliver reports online, while 7Day News, which runs a newspaper, web TV news, and social media pages, suspended its operations following the announcement and after receiving a threatening letter from the new junta-appointed Myanmar Press Council over its usage of the phrase military coup.

This military council is not legitimate, so we dont have to follow its orders, said Thalun Zaung Htet, founder and publisher of Khit Thit Media. However, we will not be able to continue our work like a real news operation with a real office and editorial staff.

Most of Khit Thit Medias staff had already quit, he said.

Actually, Im the only one left at Khit Thit, but Im still trying to deliver the latest news to the public, Thalun Zaung Htet said, adding that he now will publish reports on social media.

Mizzima TV and DVB TV have resorted to running stories on their online platforms.

In a statement on Tuesday, DVB condemned the juntas actions and said that the ban on its operations is aimed at prohibiting both the publics right to get information and freedom of expression. DVB also said it would continue operating as an independent news agency and fully support the Myanmar peoples fight for human rights and democracy.

Myanmar anti-junta protesters display signs supporting the the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a national legislative body elected in the country's 2020 elections, during a sit-in Magway, capital of central Myanmar's Magway region, March 9, 2021. Credit: RFA





A shocking act of intimidation

Former Myanmar Press Council members denounced the bans and raids on the media outlets, while rights groups condemned the military regimes attack on press freedom.

Myint Kyaw, who recently resigned from the council when the military government seized power, said that the huge audience reach of DVB, Mizzima, 7Day News, and Myanmar posed a threat to the military regime.

I think the military couldnt stand the effect any longer, he said. Khit Thit, on the other hand, must have been seen as an outlet targeting the military rather than in terms of its public reach.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the bans are part of a much larger assault on freedom of the press and the ability of journalists to do their jobs without harassment, intimidation, or arrest.

Its not surprising the military junta is trying to shut down these five outlets because they have been at the front line of providing extensive coverage of opposition to the coup and the abusive response of the security forces to ongoing peaceful protests, he said in a statement.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also condemned the shutdowns of the five media outlets that have been providing independent coverage of the protests since the coup began.

We call on Myanmars military authorities to immediately restore the licenses of the five banned media outlets, said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSFs Asia-Pacific desk, in a statement. The raid on Myanmar Nows premises is a shocking act of intimidation and an intolerable violation of the confidentiality of sources.

A Myanmar pastor tries to stop security forces from advancing on anti-junta protesters in Loikaw, eastern Myanmar's Kayah state, March 9, 2021. Credit: RFA





Another NLD official dies

The intensified pressure on independent media came after days of raids on residences of politicians in Yangon, where police shot up and vandalized buildings and dragged away politicians.

Officers arrested Zaw Myat Lin, 46, head of the Suu Vocational Institute in Yangons Shwepyitha township, Monday night during a raid on the institute named after deposed country leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Township police informed his wife, Phyu Phyu Win, of the arrest on Tuesday when they asked her to identify his body at Mingaladon military hospital, she said.

Zaw Myat Lin had what appeared to be a bullet hole in his abdomen, though the military told Phyu Phyu Win that he had been injured while trying to escape arrest, she said, adding that authorities would not let her take the body.

The NLD figure was the second fatality in custody of a deposed ruling party official following the death of Khin Maung Latt, 58, who was arrested at home March 6 and died overnight in custody.

The next morning, his family recovered his body, which had severe wounds to the hands and back and was covered in a bloody shroud, from a hospital after notification by authorities, according to HRW.

The Myanmar juntas increasingly bloody crackdown needs to be met with a serious and united international response, including targeted sanctions against military leaders and their companies, to demonstrate global outrage for the killing of Khin Maung Latt and other atrocities, Brad Adams, HRWs Asia director, said in a statement Tuesday.

Impunity for killings and disappearances needs to end once and for all, he said

As of Tuesday, 58 protesters and others had been killed since the start of the coup on Feb. 1, and 35 journalists had been arrested, some of whom were still being held without charge, according to an RFA tally.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a watchdog group, said that as of Tuesday, 1,939 people had been arrested, charged, or sentenced in relation to the military coup, with 1,620 still being held.

Myanmar security forces spray tear gas at anti-junta protesters in Loikaw, eastern Myanmar's Kayah state, March 9, 2021. Credit: RFA





Protests across Myanmar continue

Nationwide protests against the military regime continued in cities across the country on Tuesday, and many were met with violent crackdowns on demonstrators by security forces.

Only a few protesters were seen on the streets of Sanchaung township in Yangon region on Tuesday, a day after police and soldiers blocked the main roads, trapping people inside the area.

Most of the protesters trapped in by the blockade returned home this morning, though about 40 were arrested during the night, witnesses said. Despite a dusk-to dawn curfew, many people were out on the streets in several townships the previous night, demanding safe passage for the trapped protesters.

In Yangons Ahlone township, security forces broke up a protest column and searched for protesters supposedly hiding in alleyways, witnesses said. A a policeman was seen climbing over the wall of a local mosque to open the gate from the inside to let other policemen in, they said.

In Kyaukpadaung, Mandalay region, three people were injured and another three were arrested when soldiers dispersed protesters with gunfire, locals said.

Three men got hit by police gunfire. There were rubber bullets as well as live ones. They fired randomly to disperse the crowds, said a town resident who saw the shootings while he was shopping at a market.

One of the wounded was hit near the groin, and hes in a serious condition, he said.

Police and soldiers occupied all the main roads and venues in Myanmars second-largest city to prevent the gathering of large numbers of protesters, though people managed to stage small demonstrations.

In Myeik, in the southern Tanintharyi region, security forces arrested about 50 protesters, including 20 young women and underage teens, following a violent crackdown in Kwet Thit ward, witnesses said.

One protester said that after cat-and-mouse-style maneuvers between protesters and police, authorities blocked the area from both sides so people could not escape."

Finally, about 50 people were arrested, he said. We heard they were taken to a nearby air force base camp.

At the request of a university rector and parents, the young protesters were later released, demonstrators said.

Myeik police have been making arrests every day, and some student leaders have gone into hiding to avoid being picked up, they said.

Young anti-junta protesters display a banner as they march down a street in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, March 9, 2021. Credit: RFA





Raids and smoke bombs

In Loikaw, capital of Kayah state, protesters in front of a state high school were wounded when police and soldiers fired rubber bullets and sprayed tear gas as demonstrators withdrew at the behest of a Catholic priest to avoid confrontation with security forces, witnesses said.

Protesters in Pathein, the largest city and capital of central Ayeyarwady region, staged demonstrations in two wards until police arrived at the scene. No arrests were made, protesters said.

Soldiers raided the Chin Center for Peace and Reconciliation in Hakha, western Myanmars Chin state, and arrested security guards on duty, residents said. Soldiers also raided the private Maykala Clinic and arrested a doctor who had been providing medical treatment to injured protesters, they said.

In Magway, capital of central Magway region, police and soldiers fired smoke bombs into alleyways in Thaingargiri ward and arrested four people who had asked them not to fire at random because the smoke was choking children, witnesses said.

Hundreds of people in Hpa-an and Kawkareik townships of Kayin state took their anti-junta protests to nearby villages after police and soldiers blocked all intersections and main roads in the towns.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
The Axcend Focus LC, Axcend's hand-portable, lightweight and compact capillary high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system We have already seen significant benefits from our coordination and collaboration with the Enabling Technologies Consortium, and we look forward to our joint progress on this journey together.

Axcend and Enabling Technologies Consortium (ETC) today announced that ETC has awarded a one-year contract to Axcend to collaborate on the development, production and commercialization of a next-generation compact and portable high-performance liquid chromatography system designed to meet the evolving process development requirements within leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Under terms of the Development Contract, ETC member company scientists will collaborate with Axcend to help it design and commercialize an HPLC that can



be mounted inside a fume hood;

easily be moved within a lab environment;

be operated on-demand;

produce minimal dead volumes;

utilize small volume components; and

quickly equilibrate before analysis.

The ETC is comprised of representatives from the top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the world. They work together in a collaborative environment seeking to reduce and eliminate duplicated efforts in developing new and improved technologies in partnership with third parties such as vendors and universities. By taking this approach, ETC member companies endeavor to collaborate on information, ideas, expertise, resources, and costs to produce the desired results.

Axcend was one of approximately one dozen companies that initially responded to a November 2019 ETC Request for Proposal titled Compact HPLC. This RFP expressed interest in

 an integrated system (sample preparation and analysis) in a compact form factor that would enable mounting inside a lab hood. Depending on configuration, a compact system might enable on demand operation, due to minimal dead volume and small volume components that could quickly equilibrate prior to performing measurement.

Since its public unveiling at Pittcon 2018, Axcend has been recognized for its innovative shoebox-sized and hand-portable, capillary-based, UV-Absorption-HPLC known as the Axcend Focus LC.

We are honored to have been selected by the ETC for this Compact HPLC Development Contract, said Glen D. Mella, Axcend CEO and Co-Founder. We have already seen significant benefits from our coordination and collaboration with the Enabling Technologies Consortium, and we look forward to our joint progress on this journey together.

Initial deliverables from this Compact HPLC Development Contract are expected throughout the first three quarters of 2021, with completion expected before 2022.

About Enabling Technologies Consortium

Launched in 2016, the Enabling Technologies Consortium (ETC) is currently comprised of 12 of the top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the world. The purpose of ETC is to help accelerate the advancement of new scientific tools and services by collaborating with vendors and academic partners about information, ideas, expertise, resources, and costs to produce the desired outcomes.

About Axcend

Axcend is a provider of innovative, hand-portable and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) systems. These solutions allow scientists to deliver HPLC Anywhere and provide dramatic improvements in portability, ease-of-operation, rapid and convenient deployment, as well as coupling to other analytical systems.

Axcend, the Axcend logo, Axcend Focus LC, and HPLC Anywhere are trademarks of Axcend, LLC. ETC and the ETC logo are trademarks of Enabling Technologies Consortium. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

# # #

CONTACTS:

Axcend: David Politis, +1-801-405-9545, David.Politis@AxcendCorp.com

ETC: James Vergis, +1-202-230-5439, James.Vergis@faegredrinker.com
George Osborne today criticised Rishi Sunak over his decision to hike corporation tax as the former chancellor warned the move will have 'consequences'.

Mr Osborne, who steadily cut the business tax rate when he was in Number 11 Downing Street, said increasing the levy risks sending a message that the UK is not 'pro-business'.

He questioned the wisdom of hiking corporation tax in the wake of the coronavirus crisis 'at the very moment when you want to be encouraging' business investment.

Former chancellor George Osborne has warned Rishi Sunak the decision to hike corporation tax will have 'consequences'

Mr Sunak announced at the Budget last week that the rate of corporation tax will increase from 19 per cent to 25 per cent in 2023

Mr Sunak announced at the Budget last week that the corporation tax rate will increase from 19 per cent to 25 per cent in 2023.

The Chancellor argued it is 'fair and necessary' to ask businesses to pay more to help the UK recover from the pandemic.

Corporation tax receipts in 2018-19 were 55.1 billion and 63.2 billion in 2019-20.

According to the Budget Red Book, the tax increase will generate an extra 11.9 billion in 2023/24, 16.25 billion in 2024/25 and 17.2 billion in 2025/26.

The hike to 25 per cent will mean corporation tax returning to levels not seen in the UK since 2011, reversing the cuts introduced by Mr Osborne.

Speaking at an Institute for Government event, Mr Osborne said the move could prove to be counterproductive and appeared to question whether it will actually go ahead.

'I don't want to criticise Rishi Sunak  he is doing a pretty good job in difficult circumstances,' he said.

'But I would say the idea you can increase Britain's business tax by 25 per cent and there will be no consequence  I don't think even he would claim that either  is a mistake.

'Tax increases have consequences and we will wait to see  if this tax increase does indeed go ahead  what impact it will have.

'I think you have got to be careful as a country what signals you are sending around the world to a world that certainly doesn't have much time to look into the UK tax code.'

Mr Osborne said that was particularly the case if the 'basic message' to come from the Budget was that the UK was moving to a 'very high rate of corporation tax'.

'You're just sending a message around the world that Britain is not a particularly enterprising or pro-business place at the very moment when you want to be encouraging that in a recovery,' he said.

Mr Osborne said that when he was faced with the need to raise tax revenues following the global financial crash he had chosen to put up VAT instead.

He added that he believed Mr Sunak would have preferred to take the same option if his hands had not been tied by the Tory election manifesto commitment not to put up income tax, national insurance or VAT.

He said: 'Ultimately, when I was faced with a similar choice on how to raise money I preferred the VAT lever to the corporate tax lever. I wanted to send a signal that Britain is a pro-business place.

'I suspect the Chancellor, if he had not been constrained by the Tory manifesto, he would have preferred to have raised VAT.'
Former Central Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Bernard Allotey Jacobs, has reacted to comments made by the partys Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi.



Using a song to illustrate his point, Mr Jacobs said some elements in the party have the audacity to behave the way they do because theres no leader to take charge of affairs. He said the absence of such a leader has contributed to what he described as a mess in the party, akin to Mr Gyamfis comments against the partys leadership in parliament.



When there is no leader at home, children will have their way to destroy things, he said



The former party stalwart also said he was no longer in the NDC hence whatever happens in the party isnt his business.



Mr Gyamfi recently took to his Facebook page to accuse the Speaker of Parliament and the NDC leadership in parliament of betraying the party.



His accusation followed the Houses voting and subsequent approval of all of the presidents nominees vetted for ministerial positions.



Comrades, the betrayal we have suffered in the hands of the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin, the leadership of our Parliamentary group, particularly Hon. Haruna Iddrissu and Hon. Muntaka Mubarak, and dozens of our own MPs, is what strengthens me to work hard for the great NDC to regain power, portions of his post read.



But, Mr Jacobs on Adom FMs morning show Dwaso Nsem Tuesday said, it was important that the ruling government is respected and given the necessary support to build the nation.



You want the country to stand still when there is a government? We are building a nation; we are not worshipping personalities, he said.

He said certain policies by the Akufo-Addo government have been beneficial to Ghanaians including him hence those cant be truncated because of some peoples selfish interests.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1002451564&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-387384220" title="JoyNews/AdomNews" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">JoyNews/AdomNews</a>  <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-387384220/allotey-jacobs-interesting-reaction-to-sammy-gyamfis-outburst" title="Allotey Jacobs interesting reaction to Sammy Gyamfis outburst" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Allotey Jacobs interesting reaction to Sammy Gyamfis outburst</a></div>

Source: adomonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Burma Myanmars Anti-Regime Protests Go On Despite Crackdowns and Detentions

Anti-regime protesters in Mandalay marched on Tuesday. / The Irrawaddy

Myanmars anti-regime protests in many cities have continued on Tuesday despite intensified crackdowns, detentions and raids over the previous days.

On Monday night, after the 8pm curfew, thousands of protesters took to the streets in many Yangon townships. People left their homes after news spread that hundreds of young protesters had to hide in strangers homes in Sanchaung after the security forces began rounding people up after Mondays protests.

The news of potential raids and hundreds of detentions in Sanchaung spread quickly on social media.

Thousands of people took to the streets in many townships to show solidarity with protesters in Sanchaung. The US, UK, Canada and United Nations diplomatic missions immediately issued statements condemning the security forces for blocking streets to prevent demonstrators returning home.

Earlier, the security forces announced that they would search every home to hunt down protesters and told residents to hand over anyone they were sheltering.

After the nighttime protests started elsewhere in Yangon and the diplomatic community condemned the regimes response, the security forces only searched a few homes. Most protesters managed to escape on Tuesday morning with residents help.

Around 50 protesters who had been hiding were reportedly detained during the night.

A protester, who hid overnight in Sanchaung, told The Irrawaddy this morning that she and her friends were trapped after soldiers and police blocked exit routes from the township after a crackdown on their protest near the corner of Kyuntaw and Bargayar streets at midnight.

In Lanmadaw, central Yangon, residents reported that soldiers arrested at least 25 male residents in the township at around 1am. Lanmadaw vigilantes stopped a carload of strangers in the neighborhood wearing civilian clothes during the curfew and found weapons in the car. The men, who were soon released by the residents, said they were military personnel. Residents claimed the captured soldiers returned later, raided homes and seized residents.

More arrests and raids

In Nyaungdon Township, Ayeyarwady Region, two women and five men were detained in a crackdown on Tuesday, a resident told The Irrawaddy. The security forces used rubber bullets to disperse protesters. On Monday, at least 15 protesters were detained in Ayeyarwady Region.

Two civilians were injured and several others detained when police and military personnel clamped down on anti-regime protests in Mohnyin, Kachin State, at around 10am on Tuesday. A man was hit in his arm by a live bullet and a woman was injured by at least three rubber bullets.

A Tanintharyi Region news outlet reported that at least 50 student protesters and some residents who hid them in Myeik Township were detained.

In Hakha Township, Chin State, a charity clinic opened by doctors who had joined the civil disobedience movement was raided at around 11:30am and a doctor was detained, according to the Hakha Post.

In Ye Township, Mon State, an ethnic Kayin protest was broken up with three young Karen protesters detained and others injured, Myanmar Now reported.

At least 2,000 people have been detained by the regime since the Feb. 1 coup, including elected leaders, lawmakers, election officials, protesters and civil servants who joined the civil disobedience movement.

Coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said on Monday that protests had been staged in more than 200 townships and 29 men and five women had died due to security forces response to rioters while operating legally.

The military regime said riot police had not been ordered to use live ammunition to control crowds.

The media has counted at least 60 deaths since mid-February with many victims shot in the head.

You may also like these stories:

Another NLD Member Dies While Detained by Myanmar Junta Forces

Myanmar Media Groups Vow to Defy Juntas Publishing Bans

Italian Ammunition Used in Myanmar Police Assault on Ambulance Raises Questions
They have to take the elevator, theyre not used to that, and they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them, the First Lady said in an appearance on the The Kelly Clarkson Show in February.
- Largest financing arrangement in the company's history led by the US fund Yorkville Advisors

- Record of 1 million transactions and EUR 20 billion trading volume in February

- Record number of 37,000 new registrations

The NAGA Group AG (XETRA: N4G, ISIN: DE000A161NR7), provider of the social network for financial market trading NAGA.com, reports on the largest financing arrangement in the company's history to date and further record growth in February 2021.

NAGA has signed an agreement with the US Fund Yorkville Advisors securing a growth financing framework of up to USD 30 million.

"We are excited about the deal with Yorkville and are setting the course for NAGA to scale even faster. The financing gives us the power and the flexibility to allow the company to be taken to the next level. NAGA is a growth case in a very large and rapidly growing market. This decade will be definitely the breakthrough period for FinTechs", comments NAGA CEO Benjamin Bilski on the closed deal.

In addition, the company reports on preliminary results for February which have once again significantly exceeded the record figures from January 2021.

In February, NAGA achieved a record user growth with 37,000 new accounts and for the first time broke the milestone of 1 million real money transactions and a trading volume of over EUR 20 billion within one month. NAGA's flagship feature "Copy Trading" is growing particularly strong and further proves NAGA's unique selling point. In February more than 560,000 copied trades were executed which marks a steep increase of 75% to the 316,000 trades copied in January. New registrations grew by 45% and the number of real money transactions increased by over 38% compared to the previous month. The comparison to the previous year underlines once more the strong growth metrics: User registration saw an increase of 700% over prior years' month (February 2020: 4,606), whilst 600% more trades were copied (February 2020: 80,000), transactions and trading volume increased by 230% (February 2020: 318,000) and 197% (February 2020: EUR 6.8 billion) respectively compared to February 2020.

"The user growth, and particularly the activity and engagement ratios make us feel very confident. Evidently the concept of social media combined with trading at NAGA works very well. There is a clear shift in user behavior towards platforms like NAGA which combines stocks, cryptocurrencies and community, and it will be our core advantage over competition, especially in the area of customer-acquisition. As communicated before, we have developed a unique growth formula and can precisely control our growth which we have been proving consistently over the past 18 months. We will further increase our investment into marketing sales especially in the light of the new financing and the fact that our growth yields return. Given our momentum, we will steer more into our social investing experience and maintain our advantages over competition. Growing our user base and increasing transactional activity will become increasingly relevant strategic metrics in 2021," concludes Bilski.

About NAGA

NAGA is an innovative fintech company that seamlessly connects personal finance transactions and investments through its social trading platform. The company's proprietary platform offers a range of products from stock trading, investments and cryptocurrencies to a physical Mastercard. Additionally, the platform allows for exchanges with other traders, provides relevant information in the feed, and autocopy features for successful members' trades. NAGA is a synergistic total solution that is easily accessible and inclusive. It provides an improved foundation to trade, invest, network, earn and pay. This applies to both fiat and crypto products.

Language: English Company: The NAGA Group AG Hohe Bleichen 12 20354 Hamburg Germany E-mail: info@naga.com Internet: www.naga.com ISIN: DE000A161NR7 WKN: A161NR Indices: Scale 30 Listed: Regulated Unofficial Market in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt (Scale), Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Tradegate Exchange EQS News ID: 1174069

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005432/en/

Contacts:

Benjamin Bilski

Tel:+49 (0)40 5247 79153

Email:ben@naga.com

ingo.janssen@ubj.de
Intel decided to work with the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Their collaboration is expected to bring stronger Cloud encryption. The chip giant manufacturer already signed an agreement with DARPA to join its Data Protection in Virtual Environments (DPRIVE) program.

Aside from Intel, DARPA also coordinated with Microsoft to make the new project a possibility. According to TechRadar's latest report, the new collaboration of the mentioned companies is expected to develop an accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption or FHE.

Extreme Tech reported that all encryption schemes currently have the same weakness, which is decryption. Security researchers explained that encryption services will only be useful if the users or developers will decrypt them. This method opens various encrypted files, making them vulnerable to different online attacks. Once FHE is developed, this issue will no longer be a problem.

How Intel's Upcoming FHE Works

FHE works by enabling encrypted data to be processed without the need for the decryption process. This new technology is considered a type of cryptographic "Holy Grail." As of the moment, FHE's current implementation methods are completely relying on software execution, which makes it slow and impractical to use.

Read Also: List of Software That Converts mp4 to mp3 Online

Once Intel, Microsoft, and DARPA completed this new technology, it will fully rely on hardware, making it more accurate and quicker than the previous versions. Aside from Intel and Microsoft, DARPA also decided to work with Duality Technologies, SRI International, and Galois to make the new hardware that could compete with the processing speed of unencrypted algorithms.

DARPA also tasked all the companies and agencies involved in the current project to evaluate different word sizes rather than sticking to the 64-bit words common in modern computing.

What Is Intel's Plan?

Intel wants to develop an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) to address it. This innovation is a great addition to its implementation of FHE on Intel FPGAs. On the other hand, DARPA's latest program will span several phases beginning with the development, verification, and design of the upcoming FHE hardware. You can click here for more details.

Related Article: Verizon Internet Gives Big Reason to Turn Off Your 5G Now!
Podcast links

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNzA0NDc1LnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjQo9rVwY7vAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw

Apple

https://podcasts.apple.com/jp/podcast/kanazawa-university-nanolsi-podcast/id1554697815

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/74dI8wCu4ByqOHmCNZfBrr

Podcast Description

The Kanazawa University Podcast offers updates of the latest news and research at the NanoLSI WPI Kanazawa University. The Nano Life Science Institute (NanoLSI) at Kanazawa University was established in 2017 as part of the World Premier International (WPI) Research Center Initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).

Researchers at the NanoLSI are combining their cutting-edge expertise in scanning probe microscopy to establish 'nano-endoscopic techniques' to directly image, analyze, and manipulate biomolecules for insights into mechanisms governing life phenomena such as diseases.

First four episodes feature conversations with overseas principal investigators located in Canada, Finland, United Kingdom, and Germany.

Episode one

Mark MacLachlan: Biocompatible atomic force microscope tips for chemically probing living cells

Professor Mark MacLachlan is an overseas-based principal investigator at the NanoLSI WPI Kanazawa University and faculty at the University of British Columbia. Here, he describes his research on the development of AFM tips functionalized with innovative cellulose nanocrystals for ultra-low invasive insights into the chemical composition of living cells.

Episode two

Adam Foster: Computational physics for modelling complex scanning probe images

Professor Adam Foster is an overseas PI at the WPI Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI) and leader of the Surface and Interfaces at the Nanoscale at Aalto University in Finland. Here, he describes his research on computational physics for modelling complex scanning probe images and the development of sophisticated machine learning software for running semi-autonomous SPM systems.

Episode three

Yuri Korchev: Innovative nanopipette nanoprobe-based scanning ion conductance microscopy for imaging of living cells

Professor Yuri Korchev is an overseas PI of the Nanometrology group of the WPI NanoLSI and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London. Here, he describes his research on cutting-edge scanning ion conductance microscopy for the life sciences in particular the development of innovative non-invasive nanopipette nanoprobes for simultaneous acquisition of 3D topography and biochemical imaging of living cells.

Episode four

Alexander S. Mikhailov: Simple computational models for exploring complex bio-dynamic phenomena

Professor Alexander S. Mikhailov is an overseas Computational Science group of the WPI NanoLSI and a professor at the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin. Here, he describes his research on computational molecular biophysics as a powerful approach for simulating the dynamics of complex biological structures ranging from single molecules to the cell.

Further information

WPI-NanoLSI Kanazawa University

Hiroe Yoneda

Vice Director of Public Affairs

WPI Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI)

Kanazawa University

Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192 Japan

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +81 (76) 234-4550

About Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI)

https://nanolsi.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/en/

Nano Life Science Institute (NanoLSI), Kanazawa University is a research center established in 2017 as part of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The objective of this initiative is to form world-tier research centers. NanoLSI combines the foremost knowledge of bio-scanning probe microscopy to establish 'nano-endoscopic techniques' to directly image, analyze, and manipulate biomolecules for insights into mechanisms governing life phenomena such as diseases.

About Kanazawa University

http://www.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/e/

As the leading comprehensive university on the Sea of Japan coast, Kanazawa University has contributed greatly to higher education and academic research in Japan since it was founded in 1949. The University has three colleges and 17 schools offering courses in subjects that include medicine, computer engineering, and humanities.

The University is located on the coast of the Sea of Japan in Kanazawa  a city rich in history and culture. The city of Kanazawa has a highly respected intellectual profile since the time of the fiefdom (1598-1867). Kanazawa University is divided into two main campuses: Kakuma and Takaramachi for its approximately 10,200 students including 600 from overseas.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1452562/Kanazawa_NanoLSI.jpg

SOURCE Kanazawa University
Anthologys proactive approach to solving higher ed issues through its industry-leading solutions and proven experience aligning with critical guided pathways goals made them the natural choice - Riverside Community College District Chancellor Dr. Wolde-Ab Isaac

Anthology, a leading provider of proven higher education solutions that support the entire learner lifecycle, announced today that Riverside Community College District (RCCD) selected the full suite of Anthologys CampusNexus SaaS solutions to be deployed across the District and its three colleges.

We required a state-of-the-art platform to transform and support our Districts entire operational landscape with the ability to deliver an elevated student and faculty experience across the board, said Dr. Wolde-Ab Isaac, Chancellor of Riverside Community College District. Anthologys proactive approach to solving higher education issues through its industry-leading solutions and proven experience aligning with critical guided pathways goals made them the natural choice to become our trusted technology partner.

Dr. Jeannie Kim, Interim Vice Chancellor of Educational Services & Strategic Planning, RCCD, explained, We are replacing outdated systems with a modern integrated student information system and a state-of-the-art enterprise resource planning system. RCCD will leverage the CampusNexus solutions to enhance communication across the Districts functional teams and automate former manual processes to deliver a best-in-class educational experience to the Districts students and to the communities served by RCCD.

The Districts implementation will include CampusNexus Student, Engage, Finance, Human Resources & Payroll, and Occupation Insight, delivered via the CampusNexus Cloud.

Implementing Anthologys comprehensive cloud-based systems will allow us to regain precious time and focus on strategic priorities that deliver increased value to our students and faculty, said Christopher Blackmore, Associate Vice Chancellor, Information Technology and Learning Systems, RCCD. We look forward to utilizing Anthology to do the heavy lifting on the systems and enable us to reap the benefits of their robust and versatile platform.

Strata Information Group (SIG) provided ERP procurement assistance and worked with stakeholders from all three Colleges and the District to reimagine outdated processes based on a highly-modified legacy ERP. SIG facilitated the development of the technology and business requirements based on the Districts desired future state with Student Guided Pathways at the center to ensure student and learner success across the entire community which the District serves. SIG is excited to partner with RCCD on this transformative journey, said Harold George, General Manager of Professional Services at Strata Information Group.

Serving more than 60,000 students annually and designated as one of the top 25 employers in Riverside County, California, RCCD operates three colleges: Moreno Valley College, Norco College, and Riverside City College. The District offers more than 100 comprehensive educational programs to aid students seeking transfer to a four-year college or university, a two-year degree, a professional certificate or occupational training.

We are thrilled to collaborate with Riverside Community College District on their district-wide digital transformation, said Jim Milton, CEO of Anthology. We recognize and embrace the uniqueness of the California Community Colleges and have made a commitment to serving these institutions. We have ensured that our solution, CampusNexus, is designed to support the standards and regulatory reporting requirements that are set forth by the California Community College Chancellors Office.

Anthologys CampusNexus solutions are built using Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft Power BI, and are designed to harness the collective power of world-class technologies and decades of higher education expertise. Using the cloud-based, mobile-enabled CampusNexus suite, institutions have 24/7 access to their accounts and information. Faculty and staff teams are able to use enterprise-wide data to power reports and analytics for informed decision making from anywhere.

###

About Anthology

Campus Labs, Campus Management and iModules have joined together to form Anthology. We exist to help higher education advance and thrive. Through a connected data experience that offers a holistic view, creates efficiencies, and provides intelligence, Anthology inspires constituents to reach their full potential using technology insights in admission and enrollment management; student success and retention; institutional and learning effectiveness; alumni and advancement; and enterprise applications and infrastructure. Anthology partners with more than 2,100 colleges and institutions in over 30 countries to address the needs of all constituents in higher education. Visit us at http://www.anthology.com.
Riga City, Latvia -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/09/2021 -- Despite the turmoil of elections in the last months, in February, students at MIT released a paper titled: "From Bad to Worse: Internet Voting to Blockchain". The twelve page document concludes blockchains do not solve fundamental issues of electronic voting systems, are more prone to errors and vulnerabilities, and that with new technologies, come new and unforeseen attack vectors. While much of the basis for their research stems from a lack of conclusive data into voter apathy via electronic voting options, one decentralized community has taken it upon themselves to challenge the findings.



Some have labelled Free TON a Phoenix of the crypto-sphere. Revived from the ashes of the $1.2B Telegram ICO, formerly known as GRAM, the platform has been running and quietly gaining traction for over 9 months now. It operates on a "Meritocracy based Governance model", meaning initially, TON Crystals were not available via ICO or presale, only through value added to the network. Partnership and contest proposals are published on the forums for the community to assess their worth, before being taken to a vote. This has led to partnerships with some big names  Cointelegraph, Worldchess.com, Bitcoin.com, Decentraland, and more.



Some of the partnerships of Free TON



So, when Eugene Morozov put forward a proposal to the Free TON community to crowd source a rebuttal to the MIT paper, he was blown over by the volume of responses they received. After enlisting the help of electronic voting specialists, Voatz, to judge the entries, a winner emerged. "Blockchain is still better than no blockchain" describes the flaws with the original MIT assessments, compares the issues seen in current systems, and elaborates with a potential hybrid paper/blockchain based verification system seeking to address these issues.



"Thanks to the FreeTON community for the opportunity to express my point of view publicly, as well as to the authors of the MIT paper, who, albeit unwittingly, also contributed to this. Regarding blockchain technology, the elections illustrate the social significance of this technology. We live in a world that has not fully realized the importance of technology for humanity yet and is gradually coming to understand the possibilities. Blockchain is a promising solution for social procedures that require transparency and trust."  Nickolay Rackoushine, co-author of the winning paper.



This unique crowdsourced solution is now being taken one step further, with election officials in Guatemala also getting involved with the Free TON community as new contests emerge around development of real world solutions. The work has even caught the eye of Utah County State Clerk, Amelia Gardner-Powers, who has been an advocate for distance voting in her role, making strides in this field in 2018. In one meeting with the Global Blockchain Association, she described the work being done by the Free TON community as "very interesting to me" and went on to express her interest in the promise shown.



While Free TON are not the first project to claim they can change how we vote and handle elections,  EOS, Tezos, and Ethereum have all seen modest attempts to date  they represent a fresh approach to familiar problems. If the circus show of the 2020 US Elections are anything to go by, a change is in the works ahead of 2024. Whether blockchain is part of this solution remains to be seen, but there are those who believe it is our best chance.



More scenes from the January Capitol Hill riots



About Cryptoshib

Criptoshib tries to keep crypto enthusiasts updated with the latest happenings and stories from the crypto world. We try to post stories about projects and people of the crypto and blockchain communities from around the world.



Media Contact



https://cryptoshib.com/blockchain-voting-in-the-usa/
In just two months, the United States could be swimming in COVID-19 vaccine. The 500 million 0.5 or 0.3-milliliter doses expected to be shipped by then literally are enough to fill a 55,000-gallon swimming pool.

As hard as it is to imagine now as people frantically call, click and line up to get vaccinated, the nation is close to shifting from a situation of scarcity to one of abundance.

It's not a switch that flips, but it's a sliding scale that happens differently community by community, said Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser for the COVID Response Team. This is not something that will start at some magical day in the future. It has begun today, and it's something that we have to make sure we're addressing."

With a plentiful supply of vaccines, there will be more urgency to convince the reluctant to accept it, experts say. Otherwise, the abundance of vaccines will become a stagnating surplus that threatens to undermine the nation's ability to move beyond the pandemic.

"When we start to have more vaccine available, we're really going to be in bad shape because what we're going to see is a lot of people who don't want to get vaccinated," said Bernadette Boden-Albala, dean of the public health program at the University of California, Irvine.

So far, about 18% of all Americans have been immunized against COVID-19. Boden-Albala thinks there will be vaccine surpluses in some areas as soon as early April.

Then, the challenges will start.

"If we've got whole states in this country that don't want to mask and don't want to socially distance, then I'm very concerned we'll have people there who don't want to be vaccinated either," she said.

Spreading the message: Free vaccine

Messaging will matter, experts say.

The easiest group to reach will be those who've simply put it off because of the hassle to get an appointment.

For them, the message needs to be that immunization's quick, easy and free, said Christopher Morse, an expert on health communication at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

Story continues

"You want to tell them it's free and how easy it is to get an appointment," he said. "Something like, 'In the time it takes you to order a cup of coffee, you could be vaccinated against COVID-19.'"

The message should not be "we've got tons of vaccine" because then people will be convinced they can put it off for longer, he said.

Empty vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are seen at a vaccination center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Jan. 22.

Some people who haven't gotten vaccinated simply haven't had the time or felt rushed to do so. Messages about why it's worth their while will be needed, experts say.

"You might say, 'Get vaccinated, spend Easter with your family,' Or a church might encourage people to be fully vaccinated so they can sing together," said Dr. Kelly Moore, deputy director of the nonprofit Immunization Action Coalition.

Younger people who don't necessarily feel at risk might be convinced to get vaccinated to help others. But they might be more enticed so they can go out to the movies again, eat dinner with friends or hang out in bars.

"They're going to be focusing more on the social impact versus the health impacts," Morse said.

Mobile clinics, pop-up vaccination sites and public service announcements from local leaders will be important to reach those in low-income communities of color where vaccine uptake has lagged because of access and hesitancy.

The value of community health centers: For the most vulnerable Americans, these clinics are trusted, accessible and vital to vaccine rollout

Such efforts have begun in some places, but they must ramp up significantly as a greater percentage of the population is immunized and the extent of vaccine reluctance becomes clear, experts say.

In California, Orange County is sending eight-person vaccination travel teams into homeless camps, jails and other hard-to-reach populations.

"They come in a van, no appointments required," and they vaccinate whoever is available, said Margaret Bredehoft, deputy agency director of public health services.

Dr. Rebecca Weintraub, director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University, says such "last mile" delivery channels need to be prepared now to reach vulnerable communities.

"We're going to see vaccination availability, for example, at food banks," she said.

Setting these smaller vaccination events up requires a lot of precision, said Moore.

"You want to make sure you have enough people together when you pop open one of the vaccine vials," she said. "For the Pfizer vaccine, you've got six hours to give five doses. For Johnson & Johnson, it's five doses and for Moderna, it's 10. You don't want doses to go to waste when only two people show up."

The politics of vaccine hesitancy

Public health officials are buoyed by one apparent shift: Vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans, which started out high, appears to be falling. In December, just 42% said they planned to get vaccinated. That number is now 61%, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Friday.

Vaccine hesitancy overall also is falling. In September, 49% of Americans told the Pew research group they probably or definitely wouldn't take the vaccine. By last month that number had fallen to 30%.

But that still leaves 75 million people who may not be taking the doses already purchased by the U.S. government for use. Experts say at least 65% of people, and likely closer to 85%, must be vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

And there are significant partisan differences in terms of who wants a vaccine. Pew found 83% of Democrats said they'd gotten vaccinated or planned to get vaccinated, compared to only 56% of Republicans.

"Were going to see a point where theres a real polarization where people are getting vaccinated and people are not," said Dr. Corey Casper, CEO of the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle and a professor of global health at the University of Washington.

While areas with high vaccination rates will see few infections, communities with lower rates may continue to see cases. "Theyre going to see a huge use of resources in those areas. Its going to hurt their economies," he said.

He had expected COVID-19 would be the nation's common enemy, but it hasn't played out that way. The extreme distrust of anything from the government from people on the right has surprised him. "I've never seen anything like this," he said.

"Were making progress with other groups, but we havent seen the dial moving very much among white Republicans. Thats a concern, said Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

Will employers require vaccination?

It appears unlikely Americans will be forced to get a shot. Employer mandates for vaccination would be tricky, said Michelle Mello, a law professor and legal health expert at Stanford University.

From a regulatory standpoint, it would be difficult to enforce because so far all three vaccines being used in the United States have emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, not a license, said Mello.

COVID-19 vaccine: Should employers give workers paid time off or other incentives to get vaccinated?

There's also not yet solid data showing vaccination makes it less likely someone can transmit COVID-19.

"Once that exists, it would allow employers to say it's an intervention that prevents harm to others," Mello said. But for now, she thinks most employers will embrace incentives rather than mandates.

"Everyone sees the benefit of making it voluntary," she said, though employers might think of sweetening the pot. "If some percentage of your workers are going to feel like crap after their doses, maybe you give them the day after off."

What would US do with extra vaccine?

If the U.S. does end up with a surplus of vaccines, what will it do with it?

The Council on Foreign Relation's Bollyky said there might be an appetite to help the rest of the world.

Vaccine nationalism: 'Unethical' that young Americans could get vaccinated before other nations' elderly, vulnerable

"You might start to see, sometime this summer, a willingness to donate some, though not necessarily, all vaccine," he said.

Moderna Covid-19 vaccine on Feb. 26, 2021, in Los Angeles.

There are two reasons for it: One based on health, and one on politics.

Diseases don't respect borders. If COVID-19 continues to rage elsewhere, the U.S. will remain at risk. Almost all high-income countries  94%  have begun vaccinating residents. Only four out of the 29 lowest-income countries have, according to the Council.

While the U.S. has held back its vaccine for its residents, Russia and China have stepped into the breach, making doses available to other nations.

"There are reports the Biden administration is looking into starting to donate more vaccine in Asia to counteract the potential influence that China may gain from donating doses," Bollyky said.

Helping other nations won't just score political points, it will also help protect Americans against a wily foe we're still figuring out, said Moore, of the Immunization Action Coalition.

"The virus will exploit its advantages if we let down our guard or allow many around the world to go without the protection of vaccination," she said.

Contact Elizabeth Weise at eweise@usatoday.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID-19 vaccine, scarce now, could be in surplus across US by April
The Nasdaq officially entered correction territory, having declined more than 10 percent from its Feb. 12 peak. Once-highflying stocks were among the worst performers, with Apple falling 4 percent and Tesla nearly 6 percent. (The electric carmaker is now down more than 20 percent for the year to date.)

That has also battered celebrated stock pickers like ARK Investment Managements Cathie Wood, who has drawn a following on internet trading forums for her bets on so-called disruptive companies like  Apple and Tesla. Her flagship exchange-traded fund is down 31 percent since Feb. 16.

An accelerating economic revival is a big factor, market watchers say. As the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill nears approval by Congress, investors are betting on a return to pre-pandemic conditions, including consumer spending levels. That may mean higher inflation, pushing up bond yields and giving investors wider options than just tech stocks.

Then theres the wild card: meme stocks. Shares in GameStop and other companies beloved by internet traders rallied yesterday, though your guess as to why is as good as ours. (Separately, GameStop said its board would form a committee to study strategies to take advantage of the run-up in its stock.)

The Chambers less-than-total ban on political giving

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nations biggest business trade group, has clarified its policy on giving to political action committees in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol  and its not as tough as the organization once suggested.

We do not believe it is appropriate to judge lawmakers solely based on their votes on the electoral certification, the group said last week, though the storming of the Capitol was prompted by congressional votes to certify the 2020 presidential election. The Chamber will instead consider other actions, like whether lawmakers promoted baseless voter fraud conspiracies, in deciding whether to support them.

The group had left the door open to something short of wholly disavowing some lawmakers. Its chief policy director, Neil Bradley, declared days after the insurrection that some lawmakers had forfeited the U.S. Chamber of Commerces support. Period, full stop. But he never called out specific politicians. He also said that the chamber would consider the totality of what elected officials subsequently said and did.

The Chamber is taking a stance that might cause blowback for member companies, which are more vulnerable to backlash than trade groups, with employees and brand reputation to consider. Some of its board members have urged tougher actions: Dow said it would suspend all PAC contributions to any member of Congress who voted to object to the certification of the presidential election, while IBM, which has no PAC, has called for broader policy changes. But the groups position maintains relationships with congressional Republicans as it lobbies on key issues like corporate taxes. (The Chamber noted that it had held discussions with over 100 of its members about its decision.)

UPS, which itself has suspended all giving to PACs, called the Chambers position thoughtful.

Debate over election issues as a business concern isnt going away. Georgia lawmakers have approved voting restrictions that opponents say threaten democracy. Activists have called on the corporate community to speak out against the legislation, though some major players  including Delta, a Chamber board member  have not done so.
The U.S. Supreme Court gave a favorable decision to a former Georgia Gwinnett College student who filed a case against his school about four years ago. Officials from his then college used their authority to clamp down the student's right to preach in open-air even though it was done in a free speech zone.

In July last year, Atlanta News Now reported the silencing attempts of the Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) faculty on a junior who's just maximizing his freedom by sharing his faith in Lawrence, GA. Chike Uzuegbunam told Atlanta the first time he was reprimanded for "proselytizing."

Back in the summer of 2016, he was handing out Christian literature to fellow students when a school authority approached and told him to first secure a permit and to do his evangelism efforts in a "free zone."

Uzuegbunam honored the school's directive but was again forbidden. The college authorities said someone complained against Uzuegbunam's preaching. The then junior student was convinced that the school is just looking for an excuse to stop him from preaching.

"College officials didn't really care about where I was standing, they just didn't like what I was saying. So, they invoked these policies to silence me," he said.

In December 2016, Uzuegbunam filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Atlanta against the Georgia Gwinnett College for violating his right to free speech. He was joined by Joseph Bradford, another student who also wanted to preach in school grounds, Atlanta News reports.

They were represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a non-profit law firm for religious freedom.

ADF Attorney John Bursch argued that the College has crossed the line of violating the students' First Amendment rights.

"Government officials must be held responsible for enacting and enforcing policies that trample students' constitutionally protected freedoms. If they get off scot-free, they or others can simply do it again," Bursch said.

The College amended their policies in 2017 and the lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court judge in 2018. ADF filed an appeal and the case was escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court in January, 2019.

"..It looks like Chike was wrong because his lawsuit was dismissed. The whole world should know his rights were violated," said Bursch.

The Supreme Court's Verdict

ADF General Counsel Kristen Waggoner presented Uzuegbunam's case before the Supreme Court and argued that government officials who ignore or dismiss a citizen's constitutional right will undermine the nation's commitment to champion the causes/plights of their people.

"Government officials shouldn't get a free pass for violating constitutional rights on campus or anywhere else. When officials engage in misconduct but face no consequences, it leaves victims without recourse, undermines the nation's commitment to protecting constitutional rights, and emboldens the government to engage in future violations."

On March 8, 2021, Chike Uzuegbunam won 8-1 against the Georgia Gwinnett College, the ADF announced.

"It is undisputed that Uzuegbunam experienced a complete violation of his constitutional rights when respondents enforced their speech policies against him," says Justice Clarence Thomas.
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has called on the Nigerian government to address the challenges that hold women back and limit their potentials.

The Director of the centre, Idayat Hassan, said gender equality can be achieved by deepening womens participation in politics, economy, education, health and other critical sectors in society.

This was contained in a statement issued by the centre in celebration of the 2021 International Womens Day (IWD).

International Womens Day is commemorated on March 8 every year. The 2021 celebration has the theme: Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.

CDD said it would strengthen its interventions to promote and protect the rights of women and girls.

We must Choose to Challenge barriers in governance, political and economic systems, which prevent women from achieving their true potentials.

Women in Leadership

Ms Hassan said women have remained resilient as they continue to play pivotal roles in societies despite the impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods.

CDD said it also celebrates great women achievers who shattered glass ceilings and made history.

Worthy of note is the beautiful story of Kamala Harris, who defied the odds last November to emerge as the first female Vice President of the United States.

Another instructive story would be found in the emergence of our own Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the statement read.

The centre said it is convinced that these amazing stories point to the possibilities of an inclusive future anchored on gender parity and womens participation in decision-making in the local, national and international arena.

Despite the myriads of challenges ranging from entrenched patriarchal systems, marginalization in decision making, the pandemic of rape and gender violence, women can still defy the odds to shine alongside the other gender.

It added that beyond the inspiring stories of a few women who overcome many challenges to get to the peak, societies would derive more benefits from opening up political and economic spaces for women to play their roles in the quest for a better world.

In various sectors such as education, health, business and technological innovation, women have continued to demonstrate their capacities, CDD said

In terms of leadership, evidence abounds that even in the context of COVID-19, countries led by women were able to put forward strategies to limit the pandemics devastating impacts.

The CDD director said these achievements have motivated the centre to reflect on the theme of this years celebration.

We have, therefore, deemed it important to focus on encouraging women and girls around the globe to collectively organize to bring about the change they want to see.

The CDD would use this years commemoration of the IWD to encourage women and girls in Nigeria and West Africa to #ChooseToChallenge and make a positive impact in every aspect of their lives and that of others.

ADVERTISEMENT
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Many people asked whether illegal immigrants will get the $1,400 stimulus checks after the Senate passed President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan on Saturday. Senators quickly clarified who will get the direct payments.

Cruz proposed to block illegal immigrants from getting a check

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proposed an amendment to the COVID-19 relief bill on Saturday that prevented illegal immigrants from collecting stimulus checks. The $1,400 stimulus checks would go to "every illegal alien," he said.

However, the Senate voted 49 to 50 early Saturday to oppose Cruz's proposal, which he introduced. Illegal immigrants would not get the $1,400 stimulus bonuses contained in Biden's rescue plan, according to Democrats.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill, accused the Texas Republican of using the stimulus checks as tactical ammo, IBT reported. The senator pointed out that the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, including the $900 billion aid bill approved by the Senate in December 2020 and signed by former President Donald Trump, acknowledged undocumented immigrants' households' subsidies.

Read also: Stimulus Bill: Senate Democrats Agree To Cut Unemployment Benefits in Last Minute Deal

Senate blocks Sen. Ted Cruz's effort

The Senate voted along party lines Saturday morning to oppose an amendment proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a possible presidential nominee in 2024, to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving $1,400 stimulus checks. The bill was defeated 49 to 50 in the Senate, with a small majority of senators voting against it, as per The Hill via MSN.

During a discussion on the Senate budget resolution earlier this month, both Democrats voted for a related amendment proposed by Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), another White House hopeful. On Saturday, however, the Democratic caucus remained united in defeating the Republican amendment.

Eight Democrats voted in favor of a related bill introduced by Young and Cotton to establish a contingency fund that would prevent illegal immigrants from collecting economic impact benefits or other forms of direct temporary assistance. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer's replacement provision to the Senate budget plan later repealed the amendment (D-N.Y.).

Read also: Senate Passes COVID-19 Relief Bill, What's Included, When to Receive Your Stimulus Check

Will Illegal Immigrants Receive Stimulus Checks?

According to Newsweek via MSN, under the American Rescue Plan, anyone who pays taxes in the United States as a citizen is eligible for a stimulus check. Non-citizens are included. A Canadian citizen living and employed full-time in the United States, for example, will have a Social Security number and be considered a resident alien. A stimulus payment will be available to that person.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website, unauthorized immigrants are foreign-born non-citizens who remain in the United States illegally. Many that have completed the green card test or who pass the significant presence test are considered legal residents. Taxpayers must be physically present in the United States for 31 days in the current year and 183 days in the previous three years to pass this exam.

A green card holder is called a lawful permanent resident and is liable for the stimulus payment. Since they lack a Social Security card, illegal immigrants will be ineligible to collect a check.

Mixed-status families will be liable for payment under the American Rescue Plan. Meaning that if one family member is a resident alien or a person, all family members will be qualified even if they do not fulfill the resident alien criteria. This is a departure from past COVID-19 relief bills.

Read also: What Does It Take To Get the Stimulus Check of up To $1,400?

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed the belief that return to full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) should not be overloaded with some additional tasks and concerns, also calling for simultaneous steps by Tehran and Washington

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed the belief that return to full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) should not be overloaded with some additional tasks and concerns, also calling for simultaneous steps by Tehran and Washington.

"We welcome the [US President] Joe Biden administration's decision to return to the JCPOA. But it has not yet been implemented, since, as I understand, the United States is figuring out how to do this.

Some people are saying louder and louder that the JCPOA must be revived in an updated, modernized form. We are convinced that we must not overload the task of fully restoring the JCPOA with other considerations and concerns, albeit very important. In order to solve this immediate problem, we think it is quite possible to work out some synchronized steps, some simultaneous steps that Iranians and the US will have to take," Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday after talks with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Find Evidence. Document Facts. Be prepared. Use Small Apartment Inspector Mobile App to create leverage. Leverage your time and resources for inspections and maintenance. Reduce the chances of getting sucker punched by expenses that come out of nowhere, said Cordell Davenport the creator of the app.

The outbreak of Covid-19 has made a huge negative impact on almost all industries including real estate. As the industry looks to get back on track, the role of technology has become paramount for all real estate industry stakeholders. Small Apartment Inspector is a just launched mobile application that is making lives easier for the smaller owners and operators in these troubled times. Available in Google Play as well as the App Store, this app has been created to address the inspection and maintenance needs of small apartment owners and managers.

Real estate has always been a paper-heavy industry. Therefore, when the economy shut down, there was a scramble to set up remote workforces. Paperless transactions became critical and as there was no option to go into the office and pull files or save paper documents. Over the last one year, there has been an increasing trend of taking everything online including meetings, leasing, site visits, etc.

The transition to an online work culture was relatively smoother for the larger players in the industry. However, this journey was a challenging one for the small apartment owners and managers. Unfortunately, the smaller owners and operators with less than 50 units have always been neglected in terms of access to necessary technology tools. This is where the new app Small Apartment Inspector comes in.

Inspections and maintenance have always been two serious problems for small apartment managers and owners because of the following shortcomings.



Unreliable contractors

No technology implemented to leverage time

No preventative maintenance checklist

No systems to follow

The Small Apartment Inspector app was designed with care to provide small apartment owners with evidence to find and document the facts. Some of the critical inspections that can be carried out using the app include



Building exterior checklist

Preventative maintenance checklist

Preventative maintenance questionnaire

Tenant move in/out checklist/report

Make unit ready checklist

Yearly unit inspection checklist

Some of other important capabilities of the app are as summarized below.



Makes prompt repairs and security deposit refunds

Collects more damage charges from tenants

Sends instant reports with time stamped photos of the damages to owner/manager

Standardizes unit and property data to document conditions

Speeds up and saves on unit turn

Emails tenants the move in/out form they agree with by having their electronic signature

Provides security deposit refunds quicker to tenants

Assigns per item repair/replacement costs associated with each item

Reduces debate on any issues by taking pictures with tenant and management signatures of approval

All data is backed up in the cloud and is accessible 24/7

Provides comparison reports with photographic evidence

Provides final account statements to residents after moving out

Reduces the number of disputes by providing comparison reports with side-by-side photo evidence

Small Apartment Inspector is now available for download in App Store and Google Play. The app is priced at $9.99 per month/property. For each added user, there is an additional cost of $4.99.

As an introductory offer, 21 days of free trial is available now for the earliest users.

To register today and enjoy the free trial, please visit

http://www.SmallApartmentInspector.com

About Small Apartment Inspector: Small Apartment Inspector is a mobile application that helps small apartment managers, with easy and efficient inspections and maintenance. The app is currently available in App Store and Google Play.
Elon Musk is allegedly planning to create new antimatter-powered rockets or spacecraft. If this is true, the new spaceships could be more efficient and reach other planets on the solar system faster than SpaceX and the ones used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The popular tech CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is the one who confirmed it after replying to a tweet posted by the World of Engineering.

"Term of the day: Antimatter rocket. Definition: is a proposed class of rockets that use antimatter as their power source," said @engineers_feed via its official Twitter account.

"Ultimately, yes," replied Elon Musk.

Ultimately, yes  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2021

However, Elon Musk's rumored antimatter-powered spaceships could take a very long period before they can fully operate outside Earth. Why? Because antimatter doesn't exist.

What is antimatter?

According to Futurism's latest report, antimatter is composed of antiparticles. Right now, there are no physicists and other scientists that were able to produce the antimatter.

Also Read: Scientists Announces Space Warp Drive is Now Possible: NASA Might Apply it for Space Exploration

It only exists and movies and comics such as "Marvel." CMS.CERN explained that antimatter was proposed back in 1928 by Paul Dirac, a very popular physicist. His idea was to combine quantum mechanics and Einstein's special relativity to produce a complete description of electron interactions.

It is rumored to be better than the most efficient fuel today. If Elon Musk is able to produce the antimatter, he can use it to power his next-gen spaceships and reach different space bodies in no time.

How efficient is an antimatter-powered rocket?

Back in 2006, NASA explained that a spacecraft only needs a few milligrams of antimatter to reach Mars in a shorter period. But, some physicists estimated that it would take ten more years before antimatter is developed.

Antimatter is considered the mirror-image version of normal matter since it has the same appearance and structure. As of the moment, it is still unclear if SpaceX is really working on a rocket that will use antimatter. If you want to know more details, all you need to do is click here.

For more news updates about Elon Musk and his possible new technologies, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

This article is owned by TechTimes

Written by: Giuliano de Leon.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
PARLAMENTUL REPUBLICII MOLDOVA

 2010

The Moldovan Parliaments website design was supported by the Democracy Support Programme in Moldova"  an initiative financed by the European Union and implemented by the Council of Europe
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
President Joe Biden's administration faces logistical and humanitarian struggle at the border with the crush of childhood arrivals tripling in a mere two-week period  but the White House would not term is a 'crisis' Tuesday.

'I dont think we need to put new labels on what we have already conveyed is challenging,' said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki at the daily White House press briefing.

It was a term the administration's top homeland official Alejandro Mayorkas has also declined to apply.

She attributed the problem, which has echoes of what the Trump Administration encountered, to challenges processing unaccompanied children amid the coronavirus pandemic.

NO LABELS: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declined to call the situation at the border a 'crisis' Tuesday. 'I dont think we need to put new labels on what we have already conveyed is challenging,' she said

'One of the issues weve had is that the Covid-19 pandemic initially severely limited the number of children that could be taken into HHS facilities and the pace at which they can happen and the pace at which that can happen,' she said.

'What I also think is important is to talk about what the root causes are here and what we're doing from a policy standpoint to try and address the challenges that we're facing and that these kids are facing as they come across the border,' said Psaki.

Under the law, unaccompanied child migrants must be transferred to Health and Human Services custody within 72 hours of arrival. They are usually at the hands of Custom and Border Protection while being processed.

The influx comes as the administration continues to urge people not to send unaccompanied children across the border, as a wave of immigrants appears to be drawn by Biden's pledge to relax restrictions and provide a path to citizenship for people who are already living here.

More than 3,250 unaccompanied minors are currently being held at the border. Lacking sufficient facilities and amid coronavirus burdens, more than 1,360 have been detained beyond the three days allowed by law, according to New York Times data.

It was a figure Psaki would not confirm, directing questions to HHS.

Intensive care tents sit in a row at a Influx Care Facility (ICF) for unaccompanied children on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021 in Carrizo Springs, TX. More than 3,250 unaccompanied minors are currently being held at the border according to government data

The number tripled over a two-week period.

Nearly 170 of those being detained are younger than 13, NBC News reported. A total of 9,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border in February, according to data reviewed by the network.

Due to issues obtaining facilities, many are held in Customs and Border Protection holding cells known as iceboxes or 'hieleras,' according to the network. They have concrete rooms and metal benches but do not have beds.

Shelters are within two weeks of surpassing their occupancy, according to the latest data.

Amid the crush, Health and Human Services Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has asked his agency for volunteers to assist with the 'overwhelming' number of migrants.

'Today, I activated the Volunteer Force to support Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as they face a surge in migration along the Southwest Border,' Mayorkas said in a staff email, Fox News reported.

More than 3,250 unaccompanied minors are currently being held at the border, as President Joe Biden's administration seeks to establish an 'orderly' and 'humane' immigration system for childhood arrivals

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has cautioned people not to send unaccompanied children on the dangerous journey

A U.S. Border Patrol agent delivers a young asylum seeker and her family to a bus station on February 26, 2021 in Brownsville, Texas. U.S. immigration authorities are now releasing many asylum seeking families after detaining them while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The immigrant families are then free to travel to destinations throughout the U.S. while awaiting asylum hearings

Text books and notebooks line tables inside a classroom at a Influx Care Facility (ICF) for unaccompanied children on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021 in Carrizo Springs, TX. The facility has dorm like rooms with areas for eating, bathing, and even hair cuts and laundry

'You have likely seen the news about the overwhelming numbers of migrants seeking access to this country along the Southwest Border,' he continued. 'President Biden and I are committed to ensuring our Nation has a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system while continuing to balance all of the other critical DHS missions.'

Republicans, who were put on the defensive by treatment of childhood arrivals during the Trump administration, blasted the Biden administration for the policy on its watch Tuesday.

'Policy has consequences,' said House GOP Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). 'When you say that youre not going to enforce our immigration laws, when you say that youre not going to build a border wall, it has consequences. And were seeing the tragic consequences of that right now,' she said.

The influx has caused holding facilities to become overburdened, and follows searing criticism of the Trump administration for its treatment of unaccompanied children and other migrants at the border amid its 'zero tolerance' policy.

Amid the crush, the administration on Friday reopened the Carrizo Springs, Texas tent facility shuttered by the Trump administration in 2019. It is to hold 700 children between 13 and 17 years old.

Customs and Border Patrol data on unaccompanied children through January show a 64 per cent increase compared to this time last year.

In certain sectors, the jump is even more dramatic. At the Big Ben sector in Texas, it is 141 per cent; at Del Rio in Texas it is 122 per cent.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last month the Carrizo Springs facility was the 'most humane' option compared to sending children on a treacherous path home.

'This is a difficult choice but that's one that we felt was the right one, the most humane one,' she said.

The children are being held in Customs and Border Protection facilities but by law must be quickly transferred to HHS care.

HHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a White House early this month: 'We are not saying, "Don't come." We are saying, "Don't come now because we will be able to deliver a safe and orderly process to them as quickly as possible." At the time he called the situation a challenge but declined to call it a 'crisis.'
Some 3.19 million workers in Korea earn less than the minimum wage, the second-highest number on record.

The Korea Employers Federation said Monday that 3.19 million people made less than the minimum wage last year, accounting for 15.6 percent of the total workforce.

The KEF said the number was lower than the all-time record in 2019 of 3.39 million workers, when the government drastically hiked the minimum wage. The KEF added that the trend "demonstrates that the labor market is unable to bear the sharp increase in the minimum wage." The cumulative hike in the minimum wage from 2018 to 2020 was 32.8 percent, and it currently stands at W8,590 per hour (US$1=W1,136).

Most were underpaid by small businesses, which say they cannot afford the minimum wage amid dire economic circumstances.

Out of 3.64 million staff in businesses employing fewer than five people, 36.3 percent earned less than the minimum wage. By sector, 51.3 percent of workers in the agriculture and fisheries industry made less than the minimum wage, and 42.6 percent in the hospitality sector.

Im Young-tae at the KEF said, "The economic slump has made many small businesses unable to pay their workers. We need to apply minimum-wage rules flexibly and moderate the sharp increase in the minimum wage."
Prince Harry has been accused by a Government minister of having 'blown up' his family. Zac Goldsmith is right. The damage is enormous, and one can only salute the Queen for her brief and dignified statement last night.

In their incendiary interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex set out to destroy another institution. I mean the British Press, and in particular the tabloids. The couple arguably employed even more sensationalist methods than in their assault on the Royal Family.

According to Harry, racism from the Press that filtered into the rest of society played a 'large part' in his and Meghan's departure from this country. He described the tabloids as 'bigoted' and accused them of creating a 'toxic environment' of 'control and fear'.

The charge of racism is very grave. There could scarcely be a more damaging accusation. If it were really true that newspapers' racist coverage had driven Meghan and her loyal husband from our shores, journalists should hang their heads in shame.

But it's not true. I have no doubt that Harry passionately believes what he says. He is utterly convinced of his thesis  and completely wrong.

Entranced

His error is to think that any criticism of his wife must be the product of racism. Because Meghan is of mixed race, in her and Harry's minds every journalist who writes negatively about her must be a racist.

This is nonsense. Harry's mother, Princess Diana, was sometimes harried and criticised by newspapers when they sold more copies than they do today, and were more powerful. She attracted much more flak than Meghan.

She was of course white, so no one could claim that the motivations of the media were racist. The same point might be made about the Duchess of Cambridge, who as plain Kate Middleton was pursued by the paparazzi.

If it were really true that newspapers' racist coverage had driven Meghan (right) and her loyal husband Harry (left) from our shores, journalists should hang their heads in shame. But it's not true

As it happens, before the Sussexes' 2018 wedding, and for many months after it, the British Press was entranced by Meghan, welcoming her as a breath of fresh air in the slightly dusty corners of the Royal Family.

Interestingly, a Mail poll today finds that 43 per cent of the public say the media coverage of the couple was either about right or too favourable, as opposed to 36 per cent who thought it too unfavourable.

It's true that after a while the relationship began to sour. I believe this was in large measure the consequence of Harry's deep-seated and long-standing loathing of the Press, which he blamed, not without some justification, for hounding his mother to her death.

The Duke reacted very negatively to newspapers' criticisms, accusing them in October 2019 of 'knowingly [running] false and malicious stories' about Meghan and of having mounted a 'ruthless campaign' in which 'lie after lie' was told. He failed to substantiate these explosive allegations.

Pieces were written about Meghan which were undoubtedly personal. For example, not every paper was ecstatic when in February 2019 she flew to New York for an extraordinarily lavish 'baby shower' with her female friends.

Such barbs, however, had absolutely nothing to do with racism. Nor did media criticism after the couple took four journeys by private jet over 11 days in August 2019, not long after Harry had lectured us about the perils of global warming. Public figures must expect to be scrutinised.

Despite brickbats, there were many favourable articles. When the Sussexes visited South Africa in September 2019  the Duke was photographed walking through an Angolan minefield as his mother had done 22 years previously  media coverage was largely rapturous.

Harry, though, could not accept the rough with the smooth, as wise and balanced members of the Royal Family learn to do. So gripped was he by the misguided conviction that the media were detestable that any praise was ignored  and every criticism eagerly interpreted as proof of racism.

So where is the proof? During the interview, Oprah Winfrey attempted to find some scraps. She is Meghan's friend, and was a guest at her wedding, and embodied the part of an agent rather than a forensic interviewer.

Sympathetic

Oprah echoed the Sussexes' gripe: 'When Meghan joined the Royal Family in 2018, she became the target of unrelenting, pervasive attacks. Racist abuse online aimed at Meghan Markle. . . . There was constant criticism, blatant sexist and racist remarks by British tabloids.'

Really? Behind Queen Oprah, various front pages or websites were prominently displayed. A seemingly damning headline from the online version of an article by the Mail on Sunday read: 'Meghan's seed will taint the Royal Family.'

It sounds bad. In fact, Oprah's helpers had cut out the remainder of the headline, which read: 'UKIP's chief's glamour model lover, 25, is suspended from the party over racist texts about Prince Harry's wife to be.'

During the interview, Oprah Winfrey (pictured) attempted to find some scraps of proof that the press was racist in its coverage of Meghan. She is Meghan's friend, and was a guest at her wedding, and embodied the part of an agent rather than a forensic interviewer

In other words, the vile suggestion that 'Meghan's seed will taint the Royal Family' was that of a racist glamour model, not Mail Online. The article was thoroughly sympathetic to Meghan  the opposite of what Oprah's people suggested.

Similarly wrenched from its context was a Daily Telegraph headline: 'The real problem with Meghan: she doesn't speak our language.' Racist? No. The December 2020 piece was about the Sussexes' latest podcast, judged 'a hippie version of corporate management-speak'.

One allegation, discussed by Meghan and Oprah during the interview, concerns the way the Mail and Express wrote about avocados in relation to Kate and Meghan. With Kate they were seen as a possible cure for morning sickness. With Meghan they were linked to 'human rights abuse' because of the way they are cultivated in places like Mexico.

The point was that the campaigning Meghan  along with several other individuals mentioned in the piece  seemed unaware of the sinister side of the production of avocados which happened to have been exposed in the Left-leaning Guardian a couple of weeks earlier.

Provocative? Maybe. Unfair? Arguably. But where is the racism? George Clooney, who is obviously white, was chided by the Mail last year for having promoted Nespresso, some of whose coffee was allegedly produced by child labour in Guatemala.

The only example of racism that I can think of concerns the broadcaster Danny Baker, summarily fired by the BBC after an appalling tweet about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's new-born son, Archie, that featured a picture of a chimpanzee. Baker's friends insisted he is not a racist, and he apologised.

I realise that as a white person I may be unaware of the natural sensitivity of BAME people to racism. They may infer racism  which I don't see  in insensitively worded articles. As a virtual stranger to this country, Meghan was perhaps particularly vulnerable.

Demonise

All the same, it's not good enough to assert without substantive proof that the tabloids' extreme racism has driven both of them out of the country.

The Sussexes accuse the media of sensationalism but they have sensationalised their story to a breathtaking degree. They have moreover breached the privacy of the Royal Family by claiming one of its members is a racist in a way liable to demonise all of them. Imagine if the Press had done the same!

Newspapers are far from perfect but they're not racist. It's sad that Harry and Meghan  utterly preoccupied with themselves, and loathing any form of criticism  have identified themselves as enemies of a free Press.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Det. Lisa Bergen, an NYPD officer who recently retired with over 25 years of service, was among a group of cops and veterinarians honored by the ASPCA last week for their commitment to improving the lives of animals in New York City.

The ASPCA is honored to recognize law enforcement officers and veterinary professionals in New York City for their continued commitment to improving the lives of animals throughout the five boroughs, said Howard Lawrence, vice president of the ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement.

Bergen was joined by 11 other NYPD officers stationed across the city and two veterinarians from the Veterinary Emergency and Referral Group in receiving an ASPCA Appreciation Award.

Bergen has a lengthy history of making arrests in animal abuse cases on Staten Island and was honored by District Attorney Michael E. McMahons office last year for her efforts.

In 2016, she built the case against a New Brighton man after he allegedly killed a 2-month-old pet Chihuahua. The man, Jerry Moore, was later convicted on numerous charges, including felony aggravated cruelty to animals.

That same year, Bergen played a central role in the arrest of Stapleton man accused of punching, kicking and striking his pit bull terrier. Wilfredo Arroyo, who allegedly pulled out a switchblade and attacked someone trying to intervene, was sentenced to 42 months to seven years in prison.

Bergen also helped bring in Michael Wright, who was charged with viciously beating a 6-month-old pit bull terrier and was sentenced to six months in jail and two years probation in 2019.

Det. Lisa Bergen and District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. (Photo courtesy of the District Attorney's office)

Even after suffering a life-threatening injury in 2017 while on the job, Bergen was able to get back to work and continue providing a voice for animals who cant speak for themselves.

While investigating a stabbing on Staten Island, Bergen was hit by a driver who swerved to avoid hitting Bergens partner.

Bergen was sent to the hospital with several injuries, including severe head trauma.

Detective Lisa Bergens dedication and resolve is the epitome of The Greatest Detectives in the World, said Detectives Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo in 2019. Severely injured in 2017 when she was struck by a vehicle while investigating a stabbing on Staten Island, Lisa fought to recover and get back to work fighting crime.
FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers, the countrys fastest-growing physical therapy franchise with more than 400 open locations offering clients specialized services, such as balance therapy, has already been receiving industry awards in the first quarter of 2021 despite an ongoing pandemic and economic downturn.

Not only did the brand see impressive revenue growth of 3.6% in 2020 over 2019, but it has already ranked No. 66 on Entrepreneurs 2021 Franchise 500 list based on its favorable fees, support, growth, brand strength and financial stability.

Were proud to be recognized both as an impactful innovator in health and wellness and a premier business opportunity for those savvy business investors new to the industry or for physical therapists looking to transition their practice into a FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Center, Brian Belmont, the brands CEO said. Weve seen tremendous growth over the past few years, and we have no plans to slow down anytime soon.

In 2021, FYZICAL also ranked on the Inc. 5000 Regional Florida Series. This follows last years ranking as one of Inc.s 5,000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in the country for the fifth year in a row. These awards join an already extensive reel for the brand which last year was named one of Franchise Times Top 200+, Forbes Best Startup Employers of 2020, Entrepreneurs Top Franchises for Veterans, and Top 100 Brands for Franchise Culture by Franchise Business Review.

The Fyzics Behind the Growth Trajectory

As the pandemic wrought havoc on the countrys economy and health, FYZICAL was proud to be deemed an essential business. As a company that helps people restore their health through proprietary lifestyle products and unique techniques that help improve balance and overall wellness, FYZICALs services became more relevant than ever during the pandemic, and they have the sales and growth numbers to prove it.

In 2020, the brand showed an impressive 3.6% growth in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the existing FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers saw their sales jump, more entrepreneurs looked to cash in on the brands strength and its growing market. Overall, the brand opened 40 locations during 2020. In 2021, the brand looks on track to open 80 new stores.

Were blessed that were in a medical service because almost every single location was able to stay open as an essential medical service, Scott Wendrych, the brands Chief Development Officer said. We kept our locations open by quickly innovating telehealth solutions for clients and rolling out the platform seamlessly for franchisees. Many of the independent physical therapists that converted to FYZICAL franchisees wouldnt have been able to stay open, let alone thrive as we did.

Why Invest in FYZICAL?

FYZICAL has emerged as a dominant force in the fast-growing physical therapy industry. By posting revenue growth during the single largest unemployment event in U.S. history, FYZICAL has earned the right to call itself recession-resistant and robust in the face of adversity.

Simply put, pandemic or not, customers still need FYZICALs traditional orthopedic physical therapy and balance therapy services. Physical therapy concepts broadly provide essential services, but FYZICALs proprietary services put the brand in a different league. No other physical therapy business has the revolutionary tools to treat inner-ear disorders  a notoriously difficult problem to remedy.

Our balance treatments are unique to us and were developed by our team internally, said Wendrych. It works for all types of patients who have balance and inner ear disturbances, like vertigo. Millions of people with those issues go untreated because they dont realize its treatable.

On top of having a totally unique selling point, FYZICAL offers a simple business model that offers franchisees a path to profitability and few managerial headaches. The business rarely deals with cash, has little inventory to stock and relies on professional, salaried employees that take their careers seriously. Combine that with a low cost of entry and a small staff, and understand why FYZICAL has so many successful multi-unit franchisees and former independent physical therapists that converted their practice into a FYZICAL franchise.

Why Now Is The Time To Franchise With FYZICAL

Part of understanding why now is the time to strike on investing in FYZICAL requires an understanding of the physical therapy industry at large. The U.S. has an aging population of wealthy Baby Boomers who are experiencing a decline in health. For anyone with a tricky inner-ear disorder, theres no better service out there for them than FYZICAL, as they prescribe no drugs or surgeries.

In short, FYZICAL has built a better mousetrap for the untapped and very underserved market for balance therapy. Once the news gets out of this groundbreaking treatment, franchise territories could quickly become unavailable.

Thats why now is the time to invest in FYZICAL. Its a proven winning concept with no direct competitors and prime territories available for development.

For Jayne Thomas, a physical therapist who converted her practice into a FYZICAL franchise, she has seen her business so improved by the transformation that shes looking to eventually expand.

"We chose FYZICAL because of its stellar reputation amongst the franchise community, and because it could accelerate our business to a level it would have taken us years to reach on our own. We were fortunate enough to introduce this national brand to Sugar Land, Texas, bringing best practices and cutting edge equipment to our own local community, Thomas said.

Belmont said that the brands 2020 revenue numbers validate what he knew all along: That FYZICAL offers the best business model to dominate the physical therapy space.

For entrepreneurs hoping to help their communities live healthier, better lives, or for physical therapy practices looking to upgrade their operations, FYZICAL strikes the right balance in more ways than one, said Belmont. Were proud to offer franchise opportunities to dedicated professionals looking to make a difference in peoples lives and health, just as were proud to post winning revenue numbers during a challenging year.

FYZICAL is actively looking for franchise partners interested in a lucrative investment opportunity in addition to existing physical therapists wanting to convert their practice and tap into the support of a national brand. Top cities that FYZICAL is eying for expansion include Atlanta, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston and other major cities across the U.S.

Learn more about franchising with FYZICAL at fyzicalfranchise.com.

About FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers

FYZICAL is the fastest-growing physical therapy franchise in the United States and is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. With more than 400 centers in 45 states, FYZICALs revolutionary business model is designed to optimize profitability and growth, and offers comprehensive patient care through unique balance protocols and healthy lifestyle products and services. FYZICAL is a champion of patient choice and direct access, and a leader in the future of health, wellness and preventative care. For more information on joining the FYZICAL family, visit fyzicalfranchise.com.
New Delhi:

After being granted bail in 2008 Malegaon blast case, Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit walked out of Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday. He was released from jail after 9 years.

After his release, Army vehicles were seen escorting the Malegaon blast case accused. As per reports, Lt Col Purohit would be attached to an Army unit even as he will remain suspended.

Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit reached Colaba Military Station after being released from Taloja Jail.

Reports quoting Army sources said that his suspension could be revoked after review.

Under suspension, he will reportedly be treated as "under open arrest", wherein usually a soldier is supposed to wear only his uniform. Under suspension, Purohit can wear civilian clothes as well.

His stay in his Army unit will come along with restrictions, an agency report said, like limited area of movement, not leave the station without permission and reporting daily.

He will also not be allowed to attend any public event or gathering, it said.

#WATCH: Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit released from Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai #MalegaonBlastCase pic.twitter.com/LLjfAuFuwu  ANI (@ANI) August 23, 2017

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Samsung Electronics' chip plant in Austin, Texas / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



By Kim Bo-eun



Talks are still ongoing between Samsung Electronics and the government of Texas over a $17 billion (19 trillion won) investment to expand its semiconductor manufacturing plant in Austin, the company said Tuesday.



Company officials added that the tech giant was also having discussions with local governments over two possible sites in Arizona and one in New York.



Austin appears the most likely site for Samsung's additional facility in the U.S., given recent requests by the company to the local government for a tax break amounting to $800 million over a 20-year period. Samsung is pitching that the plant will create 1,800 jobs there.



The request was confirmed in documents Samsung submitted to the local authority. These said construction of the facility, adding 1 square kilometer to the existing site, would begin in the latter half of the year, with production beginning in 2023.



However, one of the Samsung officials said, "We are reviewing all sites with the same level of possibility. Texas is not the only candidate we are considering, given that infrastructure and other factors are also important."



Another noted: "We are still in talks with Texas to clear up hurdles in key issues, such as tax incentives and some administrative procedures."



Samsung already has a plant in Austin, manufacturing chips on 14 nanometer production lines, which has been operating for decades. This is its only chip producing base in the U.S., and Samsung makes contract-based semiconductors for clients such as Tesla, Qualcomm and Nvidia.



The move to expand production there comes as Samsung is seeking to increase its market share in contract-based (foundry) chip manufacturing.



Samsung is competing with the No. 1 foundry player TSMC which unveiled plans last year to build a $12 billion chip plant in Arizona this year. This is part of the Taiwanese chipmaker's plans to invest $36 billion to build six plants in the U.S.



The developments are taking place at a time the U.S. government is seeking to beef up local semiconductor production to compete with China. More than half of the world's semiconductor manufacturing capacity is based in Taiwan and China.



Meanwhile, production at Samsung's Austin plant remains halted since it was ordered to shut down Feb. 16 due to a power outage and water shortages resulting from a severe snow storm that hit the state of Texas. Power and water are back, but operations have yet to be resumed given the time it takes to bring production fully back on line.



There had been expectations that this could affect Samsung's decision in picking Austin as the site for its facilities, but it appears the possible tax benefit and the existing infrastructure are advantages the company cannot forgo.



The new plant is projected to produce advanced processors at the 3 nanometer level.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that our democracy gives us freedom of our thoughts, freedom of work, equal rights in every sphere of our life.

The PM was speaking after releasing a Manuscript with commentaries by 21 scholars on shlokas of 'Srimad Bhagavadgita'.

"This freedom comes from the democratic institutions that are the guardians of our constitution. Therefore, whenever we talk of our rights, we should also remember our democratic duties," Modi said.

Jammu and Kashmir (J&k) Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha was also present on the occasion along with Dr Karan Singh, the Chairman Trustee of Dharmarth Trust, J&K.

Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister lauded the work done by Singh on Indian philosophy.

"His (Singh) effort has revived the identity of Jammu and Kashmir, which has led the thought tradition of the entire India for centuries," the Prime Minister said.

He further stated that thousands of scholars have dedicated their whole lives for in depth study of the Gita, which can be clearly seen in the analysis of different interpretations on every verse of a single scripture and the expression of so many mystics.A

"It is also a symbol of India's ideological freedom and tolerance, which motivates every person to have his own viewpoint," Modi said.

The Prime Minister said that Adi Shankaracharya, who united India, saw the Gita as a spiritual consciousness.

"Saints like Ramanujacharya had put forth the Gita as an expression of spiritual knowledge. For Swami Vivekananda, Gita has been a source of unwavering diligence and indomitable confidence," he said.

According to Prime Minister, for Sri Aurobindo, the Gita was a true embodiment of knowledge and humanity.

"Gita was a beacon in Mahatma Gandhi's most difficult times. The Gita has been the inspiration of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's patriotism and valor. This is the Gita, which was explained by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and gave new strength to the freedom struggle," he said.

The Prime Minister pointed out that the Gita is a book for the whole world and every creature.

"It has been translated into many Indian and International languages, research is being carried out in many countries by many international scholars," he mentioned.

The Prime Minister said that it is in India's culture to share its knowledge.

"Our knowledge in mathematics, textiles, metallurgy or ayurved are always treated as the humanities wealth," the Prime Minister said.

He said that today when, once again, India is building its potential to contribute to the progress of the whole world and serve humanity.

He noted that India's contribution was seen by the world in recent times. "This contribution will help the world at a much wider scale in the efforts of an Atmanirbhar Bharat," he added.
Board lot size tweaks affecting investment flexibility. Source: freepik.com

The reason for expanding the minimum board size lot, as commonly believed, is because market liquidity has expanded sharply in 2020 and 2021 and thus overloaded the trading system. Therefore, in order to reduce the number of trading orders, the increase in the minimum board size lot has been suggested as a possible solution.

Raising the minimum trading slots is a counter-trend movement against the global trend, as many stock exchanges in other countries are trying to reduce the trading slots. For example, the Singapore Stock Exchange reduced the board lot size from 1,000 to 100 in 2015, and JPXs Tokyo Stock Exchange also reduced it from 1,000 to 100 in 2018.

Nonetheless, assuming the new trading system is not yet ready to be implemented, it is understandable that an increase in the board size lot  as a possible solution  could safeguard the trading system from collapsing and failed trades  which are the negative points when considering whether to promote Vietnam from a frontier market to an emerging one by both the FTSE and MSCI.

However, raising the minimum board size lot may introduce many challenges to market liquidity and investors equity. Firstly, by raising the lot to 1,000, the minimum capital committed per order will be mathematically 10 times higher. For example, investors will have to commit approximately VND100 million ($4,350) just to buy a lot of Vinamilks stocks.

It will be very difficult for individual investors to invest in listed stocks at the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HSX) and they may feel like they are treated unfairly compared to institutional competitors, Phuong said.

Secondly, it has been argued by both the Japan Exchange Group and the Singapore Exchange on their websites that a reduction in the board lot size will enhance the market liquidity as it creates flexibility for both private and institutional investors.

This seems to be a counter-argument against the expectation that market liquidity may improve by 30 to 50 per cent following the imposition of a minimum board size of 1,000 units. Logically, as mentioned before, large board size lots will make it harder for private investors to execute their trade strategies.

As private investors provide the majority of market liquidity in Vietnam, these obstacles may hinder private investors willingness to enter the market which, in turn, could negatively affect market liquidity. Even institutional investors are not immune to the problems caused by large board size lots as these make it harder to reach optimal asset allocation.

As a result, those difficulties will likely dampen market liquidity, not enhance it, and this could lead to wider bid-ask spread which is a sign of market inefficiencies.

Therefore, given the many potential difficulties imposed by the rising minimum board size, it requires careful considerations by relevant authorities before the implementation of this proposal.

Alternatives could be considered to relieve the current system overload.

Another possible solution is to transfer some stocks to the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) to trade. However, even with legal support, some companies are not willing to move their equity from the HSX to the HNX. As both exchanges have different listing requirements, moving to HNX may create a vibe of not so high-quality stocks.

This negative impression is not what company owners want to achieve as it may negatively impact their business operations. Thus, it creates a free-rider problem, as companies who are already on the HSX will benefit at the expense of those moving to the HNX for the greater good.

This problem will surely discourage companies to voluntarily transfer to the HNX. Perhaps, financial authorities should consider special policies that allow companies that voluntarily move their stocks to the HNX for listing to mitigate the negative impact or even introduce some forms of rewards to motivate them to do so.

One of the possible solutions is to quickly create a new index consisting of incumbent HSX-listed stocks that voluntarily move to it, so that those companies can distinguish themselves from those which are already listed on the HNX.

This index should be temporary and when the new trading system is implemented on the HSX, the index will be discontinued and those stocks will be moved back to the VN-Index. Financial rewards or tax-break allowances should also be considered to reward those volunteers. However, those should only be temporary solutions. The best and most sustainable solution is for the HSX authorities to quickly finalise all required procedures and implement the new trading system.
Admiral Philip S. Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, waits to meet Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, not in picture, prior to his courtesy call at the prime minister's office in Tokyo, Japan, on Oct. 22, 2020. (Eugene Hoshiko/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese Regime May Be Accelerating Plans to Supplant America: US Military Commander

A top U.S. military commander fears that the Chinese regime is accelerating its plans to supplant the United States on the world stage.

Adm. Philip Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told a Senate Armed Services hearing on March 9 that the Chinese military has been making vast advances in both its size and capabilities, threatening the United States in the Indo-Pacific, an area he described as the most consequential region for Americas future.

The military balance in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more unfavorable for the United States and our allies, Davidson said.

He said the greatest danger facing the United States in the region is the erosion of conventional deterrence vis-a-vis China, without which Beijing would be emboldened to continue its various aggressions in the area, including against Taiwan, Hong Kong, in the South China Sea, and East China Sea.

Our deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific must demonstrate the capability, the capacity, and the will to convince Beijing unequivocally the costs of achieving their objectives by the use of military force are simply too high, Davidson said.

The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is now larger than the U.S. Navy. By 2025, the PLA is projected to have three aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific to the United States one, 12 amphibious assault ships to the United States four, and 108 modern multi-warfare combatant ships to the United States 12, according to INDOPACOM estimates submitted to Congress.

The PLA has the stated goal of becoming a world class military by the end of 2049.

Davidson said in light of the Chinese regimes military advancements and its growing assertiveness in the region, I worry that theyre accelerating their ambitions supplant the United States and our leadership in the rules-based international order.

Theyve long said they want to be that by 2050. Im worried about them moving that target closer, he added.

The admiral said the threat of Beijing invading self-ruled Taiwan will manifest in the next six years.

Against the backdrop of the PLAs expansion, the Chinese regime is also engaging in a whole-of-Party effort to coerce, corrupt, and co-opt governments, businesses, organizations, and the people in the Indo-Pacific, Davidson said.

To counter China, INDOPACOM is seeking around $27 billion in additional spending from 2022 to 2027, including $4.6 billion in the next fiscal year alone. The proposal includes new weapons and enhanced military collaboration with allies in the region.

Davidson said building a missile defense system in Guam was his number one priority. Such a system would enable 360-degree defense of Guam, from any military attacks from China, whether they come by sea by air or by ballistic missile in the future, he said.

Guam is a target today, the admiral said, citing a propaganda video by the PLA Air Force last year that showed Chinese bombers simulating an attack on U.S. Anderson Air Force Base in Guam. It needs to be defended, and it needs to be prepared for the threats that will come in the future.
Winter upstate is no joke, and with patio dining off the menu and doors closed on the few dining in, the cold months have been a struggle for area restaurants. Downstate, enclosed structures in parking spots brought concerns about ventilation and COVID-19 risks. Upstate, where warm coats and snow boots are critical to outdoor fun, weve seen creative approaches to offer outdoor dining, allowing us to trade the isolation bubbles of homes for those of an igloo, greenhouse and firepit. Even with the arrival of daytime highs well above freezing, winter hasn't officially ended yet, nights still get cold, and at least some of us not wishing to sit indoors would prefer the option of shelter, not a fully open-to-the-elements outdoor table, for another month or so.

Related: Restaurants announce reopening dates after winter breaks

Guide: Capital Region restaurants opened, closed or coming soon

Best value: Greenhouses at The Yard Hatchet House & Bar, Albany. Hatchet cages for ax-throwing and lawn games from cornhole to petanque are all part of the indoor experience at The Yard in downtown Albany, where cocktails and boozy ice cream are served from a beautiful log bar. But dining was not a focus for owner Leyla Kiosse until pandemic rules and a need for outdoor shelter inspired her to add three greenhouses to the deck.

What it is: The three themed, heated patio greenhouses can be reserved for 90 minutes. Your $54 flat fee includes a small curated tapas board. Cocktails and other menu items must be purchased separately. Marrakesh (for up to four people) comes with Moroccan-inspired flatbreads, dips and sweets; Tropicale (for one to six) is decorated with faux flowering vines and includes tapas inspired by Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Cloud Nine (for up to five people) pairs cloud lanterns and sweet treats hoping for daydreamy happiness. Sync your playlist with their Bluetooth speaker to set your own vibe.

What we had: We reserved Tropicale on a sunny Saturday afternoon and loved the elevated views of downtown Albany and surprising warmth of the greenhouse heated by a small space heater. Snacks were a selection of sweets: warm brown sugar-cardamom pineapple, mandazi (a sweet West African fried bread) and dulce de leche cookies, to which we added savory potato chip poutine from The Yards main menu. Drinks veer sweet  not surprising, since many are made with The Yard's signature boozy ice creams. The imPeACHy (peach vodka, elderflower and muddled blackberries) wins for visual drama with a berry smoke bubble, and it tastes like a liquid Jolly Rancher; rosewater scents the Pretty in Pink (quince simple syrup, grapefruit and Salcombe gin), and I liked a classic hot mulled rum cider. For St. Patrick's Day, try the Young Greenhopper made with Boozy Moo bourbon-infused mint chip julep ice cream.

Verdict: Fun for cocktails and good value for money. Loved the option to play our own music. Ninety minutes felt about right, and we were impressed that staff reminded us a few minutes before our time was up so they had a half hour to sanitize before the next guests.

Details: The Yard Hatchet House & Bar, 16 Sheridan Ave., Albany. 518-631-4002 and theyardalbany.com.

Most stylish: Igloo at The Adelphi Hotel, Saratoga Springs. Theres no shortage of clear igloos dotted around the area, but your success in snagging one, and how much youll pay, varies widely. Concerns about airflow and sanitizing caused The Shaker & Vine in Schenectady to rethink offering igloos on Mohawk Harbor this year. But head north to Lake George and there are plenty. Both The Barrel and Bolton Landing Brewing Co. charge no usage fee, but The Barrel takes igloo reservations only for dinner. Otherwise both eateries are first come, first served, and the waits can be long. The Inn at Erlowest has a pretty setup with igloos overlooking Lake George, but reservations require a minimum spend of $250 on drinks and food. So I was pleased to find The Adelphi Hotel has four igloos on its rear patio and takes reservations from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

What you get: A cushioned love seat, plush furnishings and an igloo strung with fairy lights. Reservations are for two hours, $25 per person. Scan the QR code to pick-and-mix items from the Morrisseys Lounge and David Burkes sushi menu or a three-course pop-up dinner menu from sibling restaurant Salt & Char next door.

What we had: Hotel dining offers include oysters with a glass of wine for $15, 4 to 6 p.m. Monday to Thursday, and half off sushi on Wednesday. We mentioned them in advance to staff who seemed unsure. A stream of attentive servers delivered cleanly shucked Wellfleet oysters, sushi maki rolls, crispy smashed potatoes, mushroom crepes and sauteed Brussels sprouts.

Verdict: Charming for lunch, cocktails or a light meal. Comfortable and pretty. We wished they had reminded us we were still eligible for the oyster deal with our second glass of wine. Keep an eye on the happy-hour clock and glance at the dining offers before you go.

Details: The Adelphi Hotel, 365 Broadway, Saratoga Springs. 518-678-6000 and theadelphihotel.com.

Most upstate New York: Campfire at Nine Pin Cider, Albany. Nine Pin Cider Works, an Albany-based cidery that uses only New York state apples, is in the city's warehouse district, an industrial hive of rebirth and innovation where Nine Pin's vibrant green doors and painted murals brighten walls. Upstaters are a hardy lot, happy to hang outside with gloved hands clutching a beer, so the idea of placing large firepits in sectioned areas of the parking lot is a welcome outdoor option. Even so, the fir tree fronds leant against fermentation tanks are a tad too sparse for a woodsy vibe and folding canvas chairs didnt invoke the feel of an Adirondack campfire. But staff piled on logs and we were soon hemmed in place by a toasty wall of heat.

What you get: This one feels pricey whether you are a couple or a group of six. A two-hour reservation is $150 for two, $225 for three to four and $300 for six. For two, the fee includes one personal pizza to share and two 12-ounce draft or canned ciders each. For three or four, the package is a better value, with two pizzas and eight ciders.

Verdict: In the absence of fresh snow for a winter wonderland, the private rooms are really no-frills fires in a parking lot. With minimal set-up, the price feels steep. (Then again, a party of two is tying up one of two firepits where a group might order more drinks.) Check-in is inside, where you place your pizza order (we had honey barbecue) and collect drinks tokens, as theres no firepit table service. Fortunately, my guest brought a mini speaker, so we had tunes with our flame-gazing as we sipped draft ginger and raspberry ciders. Its a relaxing winter option geared toward a younger set happy to hang out. As someone who has a hard time sitting still, it was the most relaxing thing Ive done in a year. Most cost-effective with more friends. Go when it snows.

Details: Nine Pin Cider Works, 929 Broadway, Albany. ninepincider.com. Campfires: Thursday through Sunday. Email lori@ninepincider.com for availability.

Susie Davidson Powell is a British freelance food writer in upstate New York. Follow her on Twitter, @SusieDP
[March 09, 2021] Canon leads the charge to take action for equality and empowerment to celebrate International Women's Day

NEW DELHI, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Acknowledging women and further accelerating women equality, Canon India has announced a slew of initiatives for women in their adopted communities on the occasion of International Women's Day. Leading the charge towards women empowerment, Canon has organized month-long initiatives panned out in March that include Employee Engagement activities & interactive sessions with the community women from its adopted villages in Annadodi near Bengaluru and Maheshwari in Haryana. The initiatives include an interactive session on women's menstrual health and sanitation that will address the importance to break the taboo around menstruation. The virtual session will involve Canon's women employees educating the women from its adopted villages on the discriminatory practices that needs to be ended to ensure that menstrual health of women and girls is protected. Additionally, Canon employees will also conduct a session across Annadodi and Maheshwari villages to impart the importance of gender diversity in these evolving times and how the world is becoming gender agnostic with greater equality. These sessions will be organised with the youth community, with an objective to teach them at an early age, to bring about a societal difference in current and upcoming generations. Further, in line with its focus on 'Empowerment' under its 4Es CSR policy, Canon through its NGO partner will be imparting basic stitching skills to women in Annadodi village. The sessions will train them to create face masks, wit a good thrust on women entrepreneurship.



About Canon's corporate philosophy 'Kyosei' Canon India's CSR endeavors are driven by their corporate philosophy of 'Kyosei', which mean the 'spirit of living and working together for the common good', which is considered foremost in the organization's way of working and day-to-day operations. However, their definition of the word is much broader and encompasses "all people-regardless of their race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together for the common good." Moving forward with this philosophy, they believe in standing in unison when it comes to their commitment to the community and strive to make a positive impact in the society and the environment. The organization is involved in various community welfare programs aligned with their 4Es CSR policy implying Education, Eye Care, Environment and Empowerment, in an effort to build progressive self-reliant communities. Along with 'Adopt a Village' project, the organization is also associated with SOS Children's Village across the country to encourage and support the overall development of children in these villages.

The flagship 'Adopt a Village' initiative was launched in 2012, through which Canon India undertakes the task of overall development of the villages across North, East, West and South India for a certain period of time for the holistic development of the society. At present, Canon India has four adopted villages which includes Maheshwari in Haryana, Parivali in Maharasthra, Anadodi in Karnataka and Sol Gohalia in Kolkata. About Canon India Canon India Pvt. Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of Canon Singapore Pvt. Ltd., is a world leader in imaging technologies. Set up in 1997, Canon markets over 200 comprehensive range of sophisticated contemporary digital imaging products and solutions in India. The company today has offices and warehouses in 14 cities across India and employs over 1000 people and over 850 channel partners. Canon India till date has opened over 250 retailer stores accredited as "Image Square" across 100+ cities in the country. Canon India's service reach extends to over 597 towns covering 18,978 PIN codes across India - which comprises of 200+ Camera collection points, 16 Camera repair centers, 276 Printer repair centers, 191 Copier, Scanner and Large Format Printer Sales & Service dealers. (Data as of January 13, 2021). In sync with its corporate tagline- 'Delighting You Always', reinforced by World class technology, Canon offers an extended product portfolio, including copier MFDs, Managed Document Services, Printers, Document and Cheque Scanners, Digital Cameras, DSLRs, Cinematic Imaging Products catering to the multiple market segments of consumer, SME, B2B, Commercial, Government & PSUs.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Yesterday Davy Group lost its privileged status as a primary dealer in Irish government bonds, cutting off a key source of revenue and prestige for the countrys largest stockbroker. No longer will the firm be able to sell State debt issuance  a major blow in a year when the Department of Finance has to fund a deficit of about 20bn.

The decision by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) to withdraw Davys authority capped a bad week for the stockbroker. After being fined 4.13m and reprimanded by the Central Bank for its role in a deal to sell Anglo Irish Bank bonds on behalf of a client in 2014, things began to fall apart at Davy. Facing criticism from clients, politicians and regulators, three senior figures at Davy  CEO Brian McKiernan, deputy chairman Kyran McLaughlin, and head of bonds Barry Nangle resigned on Saturday, hoping to stanch the wounds. But Davy looks like its bleeding out, with bad news growing daily.

How did Davy get here?

In 2014 businessman Patrick Kearney, a property investor based in Belfast, approached Davy to sell Anglo Irish Bank bonds he held. Mr Kearney was liquidating the bonds to raise money to discharge a debt he owed to a third party.

Mr Kearney had bought the bonds, which had a face value of 27m, in 2009 with a loan from Anglo. Mr Kearney had earlier been a part of the Maple 10 consortium assembled to help the bank unwind Sean Quinns de facto stake in the bank, which he had acquired via transactions in contracts-for-difference.

At the time Mr Kearney approached Davy, the Anglo bonds had a deeply discounted value as the bank was in liquidation and it wasnt clear whether bondholders would get paid or not. However, because the bonds were not widely traded, finding a transparent price wasnt easy.

Davy offered Mr Kearney 20.25c in the euro, grossing 5.58m for the trade, which the client accepted. What Davy didnt tell Mr Kearney was who was on the other side of the deal  a group of 16 Davy employees who had clubbed together, who later went on to sell the securities at a profit.

When Mr Kearney discovered this  along with the fact that Cantor Fitzgerald was pricing the same bonds as high as 32c  he sued Davy in the High Court. The case was settled in 2016 and the terms were not disclosed. The Central Bank began its investigation shortly thereafter.





Who was involved?

The names of the Davy staff who were on the trade have not been released. However, the resignations of Mr McKiernan, Mr McLaughlin and Mr Nangle indicate at least who the board holds responsible.

Attention has now shifted to chairman John Corrigan, the former NTMA CEO who joined Davy in 2015, and Bernard Byrne, the current interim CEO of Davy, who now must steer the formerly firm out of crisis. Mr Corrigan got the position because of his connections into government and the world of institutional investors, not because he is a corporate firefighter. Market sources are already questioning whether he will last much longer in the role.

Mr Byrne came into the firm as deputy CEO after leaving the top job at AIB in 2019. The understanding among Dublin stockbrokers at the time was that Mr Byrne was being brought in not just to attract corporate broking business, but to present a more clean-cut image at a time when Davy executives were being hauled before regulators to answer for their conduct on the Kearney bond deal.

Now both men have to see what comes out of an internal review by the independent board members at Davy to discover whether the rot goes any deeper than the 16 employees who were involved.





What happens next?

Events are moving quickly. Not only does Davy have to complete its review, but the individuals in the case could face further investigation by the Central Bank, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement or the Garda.

As for the firm, a significant shareholding of at least 20pc of the company walked out the door with the resignations. It is understood that the board will deal with this issue after it completes its review.

Potential buyers include private equity firms who could bankroll the current management to take out the approximately 100m in shares owned by Mr McKiernan, Mr McLaughlin and Mr Nangle. Trade buyers potentially in the mix include Bank of Ireland, which owned Davy until a management buyout in 2006 and which had a close look at Goodbody last year, and Irish Life owner Great West, which also considered buying Goodbody.
Doctors should consider how financial toxicity may be impacting their patients and do everything we can to improve our patients quality of life, and we want to encourage patients to take advantage of financial counseling and every other resource that can lessen their burden.

Financial toxicity linked to lower survival, Roswell Park study in patients with head/neck cancers shows



Researchers asked patients about their concerns and quality of life

Study is first to show that financial stress predicts overall survival

Team exploring approaches to lessen the effects of stress on cancer patients

Cancer treatment is likely to affect every aspect of a patients life  their activities, relationships, eating habits, mental health, physical health and comfort, financial wellbeing. And when financial concerns weigh heavily on an individual who is in treatment for cancer, they can affect the outcome of that treatment. New research from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center provides the first evidence that a cancer patients level of financial worry as they begin treatment predicts how likely it is that their treatment will be successful.

Does financial worry impact survival? The answer is, resoundingly, yes, says study senior author Anurag Singh, MD, Professor of Oncology and Director of Radiation Research at Roswell Park. The association we found was very strong, and very concerning. If you are worried about your finances, your risk of dying is roughly double.

The researchers, who include first author Austin Iovoli, MD, a resident physician at Roswell Park, outline their findings in a new study in the journal Oral Oncology. They surveyed 284 patients treated for cancers of the head and neck about their quality of life both before and after undergoing treatment, then retrospectively reviewed their survey responses and their clinical outcomes. Head/neck cancer patients are among those most likely to face a greater level of financial concern because their cancers often require extensive, multimodal treatment, Dr. Singh notes.

We know head and neck cancer patients have the highest level of financial burden among any cancer patients because these are cancers where you can need surgery as well as extended courses of chemotherapy and radiation, along with substantial supportive care and rehabilitation, he says. Many patients are unwell enough they cannot go to work, which creates additional stress and uncertainty. And we now know that this financial toxicity affects not just their mental and emotional well-being but their physical health, how they respond to cancer treatment.

The same 14.4% of patients who reported the most significant financial worry at the onset of treatment were those most likely to experience worse overall survival and worse cancer-specific survival. The researchers performed both multivariable and matched-pair analyses to adjust for potential confounding factors, but still found that patients with high financial toxicity at baseline were about twice as likely to experience a poor outcome.

The findings were inspired by earlier work led by Roswell Park Interim Chair of Immunology Elizabeth Repasky, PhD, a co-author on the new study, demonstrating that chronic stress can limit the effectiveness of cancer treatment.

These studies reveal the importance of stressful factors that are often hidden and beyond the control of the patient or caregiver in treatment outcome, says Dr. Repasky, who is also the Dr. William Huebsch Professor in Immunology at Roswell Park.

Financial toxicity could be a major unknown factor that could be affecting the results of even major clinical trials, adds Dr. Singh. We want everyone to be aware of these impacts. Doctors should consider how financial toxicity may be impacting their patients and do everything we can to improve our patients quality of life, and we want to encourage patients to take advantage of financial counseling and every other resource that can lessen their burden.

Additional information about the free financial counseling and cost estimation services that Roswell Park offers to every patient is available here.

###

VIDEO featuring comments from Dr. Singh about this study available here: https://youtu.be/KqKc92YTU-s

An online version of this release is available on our website.

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is a community united by the drive to eliminate cancers grip on humanity by unlocking its secrets through personalized approaches and unleashing the healing power of hope. Founded by Dr. Roswell Park in 1898, it is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. Learn more at http://www.roswellpark.org, or contact us at 1-800-ROSWELL (1-800-767-9355) or ASKRoswell@RoswellPark.org.
One of three witnesses testifying before the Finnish Court in the ongoing trial of Gibril Massaquoi (alias Angel Gabriel) for alleged war crimes stumbled in identifying the former Revolutionary United Front commander on Monday.

The witness, under cross-examination by the defence lawyer, admitted that he told Finnish police during their investigation in Monrovia that he only knew the name Angel as the leader of the soldiers who carried out mayhem at Waterside. In his testimony to the court he referred to Mr Massaquoi as Angel Gabriel.

Angel Gabriel is in the Bible so if you tell anybody youre Angel Gabriel they will not take you seriously, that is why I only mentioned Angel, he said.

The defence seized on the inconsistencies in the testimony in an apparent effort to undermine the credibility of the witnesses so far who have all claimed that a man who called himself Angel Gabriel oversaw murder, rape and torture at Waterside Bridge.

In court on Monday, the witness acknowledged that he had never heard the leader of the rebel group in the Waterside area at the time referring to himself as Angel Gabriel.

He said, Anyone could use the name Angel but Angel Gabriel is the name of a particular angel working with God.

Civilian 69 said that he could not hear any other name besides Angel because there was not quiet for me to listen to hear any other name except for Angel.

Mr Massaquoi, 51, is currently on trial in Finland for committing and inciting the murders of civilians and enemy fighters, rape and other human rights violations during the second Liberian civil war in the northern part of Liberia bordering Sierra Leone.

He denies all the allegations saying he was not in Liberia at the time the events occurred.

Mr Massaquoi, a Sierra Leonean national, has lived in Finland since 2008 where he was relocated in exchange for devastating testimony that he gave to the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Experts say Mr Massaquois testimony was instrumental in the conviction of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and other leaders of the Sierra Leone civil war.

Mr Massquoi was arrested in Finland in March last year after Swiss victims advocates Civitas Maxima working with Global Justice Research Project, alerted prosecutors to Mr Massaquois alleged crimes in Liberia.

The Finnish Court moved to Liberia to hear the testimonies of witnesses  more than 45 for Liberia. The court will also hear testimonies in Sierra Leone.

Civilian 69 had also informed investigators that during the Waterside incident during which he was held captive by soldiers under the command of Angel Gabriel his friend by the name of James was killed.

However, during cross-examination by the defence lawyer on Monday the man said James was the man who helped him escape through the backdoor of the building where they were being held captive.

Civilian 69 said he remembers that the incident occurred in 2001 but does not remember how old he was at the time.

I do not know my age at the time, but I was matured enough to remember. I was matured because I was doing things for myself, he said.

He said he assumes that he was between 10-12 years old at the time.

ADVERTISEMENT

Civilian 69 had gone to the Waterside market sometime in 2001 to buy goods to sell. He said, at the time, Waterside was upside down and only soldiers could be seen in the area.

He said, the soldiers were looting and the civilians were buying from the soldiers. There was sudden sporadic shooting in the area and the soldiers began capturing people including him.

The witness told the court that after he was captured, he was taken to a building near the Waterside Bridge and placed in a building along with other captives.

The head of the soldiers was Angel Gabriel. He was the one that was responsible to give command. His English was not Liberian English. Hell send his soldiers to take people outside. After they go out the only thing youll hear is gun sound. Youll not see them again, he said.

He said, the after the gun sound, he heard Angel Gabriel saying, Go and tell the Papay [God] that I sent you.

The witness told the Finish Judges that he and others were saved by one of the soldiers who knew his grandmother. He said, the soldier gave them access to the backdoor.

Intestines as Checkpoint

Meanwhile, the defence called its first witness from among those identified by prosecutors.

Mr Massaquois defense will call his own witnesses to dispute the prosecution allegations at a later date, but at this stage the defense is permitted to choose from among witnesses identified by investigators.

The witness, a woman codenamed Civilian 79, told the court that Mr Massaquoi took out the intestines of a person and used them as a barrier at a checkpoint at the Waterside Bridge.

She told the court it was impossible to cross the checkpoint without Mr Massaquois permission. She said the events occurred in 2001.

Civilian 79 insisted Mr Massaquoi and his soldiers erected their checkpoint at the Waterside end of the bridge. The witness said she was captured by a soldier whom she remembered as John Towah and taken to Angel Gabriel who was the commander of the soldiers at the Waterside checkpoint.

There was a small house under the bridge. That is where they were based. Thats where they were beating on people. There were corpses all around. When they dragged me there, there was dirty water, they started to tell me, Drink! Drink!.

She said while she was crying the commander who was referring to himself as Angel Gabriel ordered his soldier Yall send that women to heaven. She was beaten with the gun barrel, she said.

I started crying in my dialect, Gio. There was a man standing in front of him. I shouted in my dialect, God here I am. The man turned around and asked me, What you just said? I told him I was speaking my dialect. He asked what dialect? I said Gio.

She said the soldier introduced himself to her as Devil Working-God Working and he told Angel Gabriel that the woman had spoken his dialect so, they should let go of her, but he insisted that let the woman go to heaven.

She said the soldiers came back kicking her and asked her to leave and she started running.

The trial continues on Tuesday.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the West Africa Justice Reporting Project.
Equity mutual funds witnessed an outflow of Rs 10,468 crore in February, making it the eighthconsecutive monthly withdrawal, with flexi cap category accounting for most of the outflow.

However, investors put in Rs 1,735 crore from debt mutual funds last month after pulling out Rs 33,409 crore in January, data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India showed on Tuesday.

Overall, the mutual fund industry witnessed a net outflow of Rs 1,843 crore across all segments during the period under review, compared to Rs 35,586 crore in January.

Despite the outflow,asset under management (AUM) of the mutual fund industry rose to Rs 31.64lakh crore in February-end from Rs 30.5 lakh crore in January-end.

As per the data, outflow from equity and equity-linked open ended schemes was at Rs 10,468 crore in February compared to Rs 9,253 crore in January.

Barring multi cap, large & mid-cap and focussed fund categories, all the equity schemes have seen outflow last month. The newly created flexi cap category saw maximum outflow of Rs 10,431 crore.

Overall, equity schemes had witnessed an outflow of Rs 10,147 crore in December,Rs 12,917 crore in November, Rs 2,725 crore in October, Rs 734 crore in September, Rs 4,000 crore in August and Rs 2,480 crore in July, which was their first withdrawal in over four years. Prior to this, such schemes had attracted Rs 240.55 crore in June.

Apart from debt funds, Gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) witnessed an inflow of Rs 491 crore last month, compared to Rs 625 crore in January.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
On Monday, the Drake Avenue Bridge at Huntsville Spring Branch was renamed to honor a Huntsville native killed in action in the Vietnam War.

The bridge was renamed the Lance Corporal Larry G. Clark Memorial Bridge by the City of Huntsville.

Lance Corporal Larry G. Clark Memorial Bridge Lance Corporal Larry G. Clark Memorial Bridge

The Huntsville City Council wished to honor the memory of LCpl Clark 53 years after he was killed in Vietnam.

Mayor Tommy Battle, along with members of LCpl Clark's family, were at the bridge naming and dedication.

Family members said they did not expect LCpl Clark to be honored in this way.

"This is a great, great honor. I'm tickled to have this for him because these were his stomping grounds, you know, when he grew up. And, you know 21 years old is very young to be taken out, especially in a war," said Terry Rust, LCpl Larry G. Clark's nephew.

Rust said that it makes him emotional knowing that his uncle's name will be on the bridge.
Batla House: No need for tears, yeh encounter farzi nahi tha

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Mar 09: A big debate was put to rest when a Delhi court convicted Indian Mujahideen terrorist, Ariz Khan in connection with the 2008 Batla House encounter.

In 2008, there were doubts raised by a section of people about the encounter. There were reports that suggested that Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had cried after she heard about the encounter by the Delhi Police.

The argument by the Defence was that the police resorted to firing first. It was alleged that the police had fired first at Indian Mujahideen operative, Atif Ameen and Mohammad Sajid.

The argument was countered by the prosecution, which said had the police fired first, then both persons would have fallen down immediately after being injured and would have been in no position to fire at the police.

Investigations had found that the two terrorists inside the house had fired first and it was the cops who returned fire.

The prosecution further went on to argue that the police only returned fire after Sharma and another police personnel, Balwant Singh were first hit by bullets. The police even went to ask why would they stage a fake encounter to kill their own officer.

An inquiry too had been conducted by the National Human Rights Commission and a clean chit was given to the Delhi police. The same was even accepted by the Supreme Court of India.

Batla House encounter: Court holds IM terrorists Ariz Khan guilty of killing inspector Sharma

In this context one would need to visit the interrogation report of Ariz Khan, a top operative of the Indian Mujahideen. He told the police that he had taken shelter at the Batla House along with his accomplices. He said that they were taking shelter and their plan was to move out of there and carry out attacks elsewhere. However the police landed at the spot, Khan also said.

It was after the Delhi blasts that all of us took shelter there and were waiting for the heat to come down. Further he said that it was his accomplice Atif Ameen, who started firing, when the cops reached the spot. The cops returned the fire and this broke out into an encounter.

We did not know who the officer who was killed at that time, Khan said while adding that the encounter hurt them badly. Their top leadership was missing as most of the founding members had fled the country. Khan however managed to escape from the spot and was arrested only in February 2018.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

The case had created a lot of ripples and a controversy had broken out when former union minister, Salman Khurshid had said that Sonia Gandhi had cried bitterly after seeing images of the Batla House encounter.

On September 19 2008, based on very credible evidence, the Delhi police learnt that terrorists of the IM were holed up at the Batla House locality. A special team reached the spot to capture them, but then they were fired at first, following which the encounter broke out.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 8:37 [IST]
US aims to withdraw all forces 'within 14 months': US-Afghan sign agreement for bringing peace

Afghan peace process: US special envoy meets Pak army chief

International

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Washington, Mar 09: US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and Commander Resolute Support Mission General Austin Scott Miller on Monday met Pakistan's powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa here and discussed the Afghan peace process.

Khalilzad's visit to Pakistan, first under the Biden administration, comes amidst rising violence in Afghanistan and lack of clarity of policy by the new US government towards Afghanistan.

Ambassador Khalilzad and Gen Miller called on Gen Bajwa at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi wherein they discussed 'matters of mutual interest, regional security and the ongoing Afghanistan reconciliation process,' according to a brief statement by the army.

'The visiting dignitary greatly appreciated Pakistan's role in the ongoing peace process," the statement added.

The Biden administration, which is currently reviewing its Afghan policy, has asked Khalilzad to continue with his position and lead the Afghan peace process.

PM Modi- Afghan President Ghani to meet virtually today

Khalilzad and his team last week concluded three days of productive consultations in Kabul with government officials, civil society and women leaders, and other Afghan political figures.

'The Islamic Republic and the Taliban must find a path to a political settlement and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. In Kabul, I discussed various options/alternatives to propel the process forward,' Khalilzad said in a tweet after concluding his talks in Afghanistan.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

The Biden administration has decided to review the Doha deal the Trump administration had signed with the Taliban in February 2020. The deal provided for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, effectively drawing curtains to Washington's 18-year war in the country. The US has lost over 2,400 soldiers in Afghanistan since late 2001.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 8:18 [IST]
[March 09, 2021] Sensei Biotherapeutics to Present at Oppenheimer 31st Annual Virtual Healthcare Conference

BOSTON and ROCKVILLE, Md., March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sensei Biotherapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on the discovery and development of next generation therapeutics for cancer, today announced that John Celebi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sensei Biotherapeutics, will present at the Oppenheimer 31st Annual Virtual Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, March 16th, 2021 at 9:20 a.m. ET.

A live webcast of the presentation may be accessed by visiting the Events & Presentations section of Senseis website at https://investors.senseibio.com/. An archived replay of the webcast will be available on the website for 90 days following the presentation. About Sensei Biotherapeutics Sensei Biotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and delivery of next generation immunotherapis for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. The company has developed a proprietary bacteriophage-based platform, ImmunoPhage, that enables the rapid generation of immune activating therapeutic agents that fully engage the immune system. Using the ImmunoPhage platform, Sensei is developing a library of ImmunoPhage, called Phortress, to target multiple tumor-associated antigens to create a personalized yet off-the-shelf cocktail approach for treating cancer patients. The platform enables efficient, scalable and cost-effective manufacturing to support all of Senseis clinical programs. The companys most advanced immunotherapy, SNS-301, a first-in-class ImmunoPhage targeting the tumor antigen Aspartyl beta Hydroxylase (ASPH), is currently in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in patients with advanced Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck. Earlier stage programs include SNS-401, a ImmunoPhage cocktail for the treatment of Merkel Cell Carcinoma, and SNS-VISTA, an antibody-based therapeutic targeting an immune checkpoint gene that inhibits anti-tumor immune responses called V-domain Ig suppressor of T cell activation (VISTA).



Investor Contact:

Julie Seidel

Stern Investor Relations, Inc.

212-362-1200

Julie.seidel@sternir.com





[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Investigators from the Gyeonggi Nambu Police Agency leave the Korea Land and Housing Corp's headquarters in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, Tuesday, after raiding the office over allegations of land speculation by its employees. Yonhap



Police on Tuesday launched a raid on the headquarters of the state housing corporation over allegations of land speculation by more than a dozen of its employees.



The Gyeonggi Nambu Police Agency sent investigators to the Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH) headquarters in Jinju, 434 kilometers southeast of Seoul, to seize material on the transactions based allegedly on insider information.



The police agency also dispatched investigators to LH offices in Gwacheon and Incheon, both located near Seoul in Gyeonggi Province, and the homes of the 13 LH officials suspected of involvement in the case.



The officials allegedly used classified information to buy about 10 billion won (US$8.88 million) worth of farmland in Gwangmyeong and Siheung in Gyeonggi between April 2018 and June 2020, before the government announced plans for a major development project there.



The issue has sparked public outrage at a time when housing prices continue to climb nationwide despite the government's efforts to tamp them down.






Venus Aerospace wants to fly you from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just one hour.

The Houston startup is designing a spaceplane that will travel 12 times faster than the speed of sound and at an altitude of 150,000 feet, which is high enough to see the blackness of space.

It sounds like a new-and-improved Concorde  the commercial airliner that traveled more than twice the speed of sound; flying from London to New York in roughly 3  hours  but Venus Aerospace says its aircraft would be more like the space shuttle. The shuttle re-entered Earths atmosphere and then glided to the runway, and Venus Aerospace plans to use rocket engines to approach the threshold of space and then glide.

Another company to watch in Texas: Starship SN10 sticks its landing in South Texas - for a bit anyway

We are recreating the shuttles path, if you will, without having to go all the way to orbit, said Andrew Duggleby, Venus Aerospace co-founder and chief technology officer.

Earlier this year, Venus Aerospace raised $3 million in venture capital. It has also received a $50,000 Small Business Technology Transfer grant and raised $170,000 from friends and family. This money will be used to demonstrate the companys technology, with the aim of attracting a larger sum of venture capital to begin building the spaceplane.

Venus Aerospace will need more funding and many years of development before flying passengers. But Andrew Duggleby and Sarah Sassie Duggleby, Venus Aerospaces co-founder and CEO, believe the technology has advanced to a point where its both plausible and affordable. They left jobs in California to grow their company in Houston.

Im a seventh-generation Texan, said Sassie Duggleby, who gave herself that nickname as a child in Plano. Texas is always the first place I look.

Sassie and Andrew met at Texas A&M University and got married in June 2002, continuing to earn degrees, pursue their careers and start a family.

But their jobs at Virgin Orbit, a California company developing a rocket to launch small satellites, stressed their family. Sassie worked in Long Beach, Calif., and Andrew worked two hours away at the companys testing facility in Mojave, Calif.

They wanted to locate Venus Aerospace in a place where employees could both live and work.

We actually started off looking at Austin because thats what most good tech companies do, Sassie said.

Then they learned about the Houston Spaceport, which is seeking to develop a cluster of aerospace companies that can invent, develop and manufacture space technologies.

Its location near a major city means the spaceport will not have vertical rocket launches. But Houston Spaceport leaders have envisioned a future where high-speed travel connects Houston to other international cities.

Venus Aerospace is leasing an office at Ellington Airport. Its in talks with the Houston Spaceport to build its headquarters/testing facility at the spaceport, which is also located at Ellington but in a different part of the airport.

We would be excited to have any company that would add to the innovative ecosystem at Houston Spaceport, Houston Airports, which manages and operates the spaceport, said in a statement. Houston Airports congratulates Venus Aerospace on their successful round of funding.

Companies in this hypersonic market had received about $328 million in venture capital investment since 2015, according to a March 2020 report from Deloitte.

Hypersonic is defined as moving at least five times the speed of sound. For now, the U.S. hypersonic market is largely concentrated on national defense, the Deloitte report said.

Yet Bill Bastedo, a senior manager at Deloitte Consulting in Houston, is finishing a separate study for NASA on the market for supersonic and hypersonic commercial travel. He said there is a viable market for such high-speed travel, though the faster planes within this market will be more expensive to design and will require more fuel; thus, their ticket prices will be higher.

His comments were focused on using jet engine variants for high-speed travel. Because Venus Aerospace plans to use rocket engines, the company said fuel costs are only relevant during the ascent (about 10 to 20 minutes) because after that the vehicle will be gliding. The companys rocket engine, longer gliding distance and ability to have multiple flights a day will make the spaceplane cost competitive.

In addition, Andrew Duggleby said 3D printing now enables the company to create intricate parts required for advanced cooling of the engine and the aircrafts wings that were not previously manufacturable using standard manufacturing techniques.

He also noted that computers are now fast enough to truly analyze the inside of a rocket engine, providing data that can be used to make engines capable of traveling 12 times the speed of sound.

Actual rocket science: Inside the hundreds of hours of testing for this engine's 15 minutes of flame

But traveling at these speeds irks regulators because it creates a sonic boom. Most high-speed flights will be over water until technology can reduce this noise or regulators permit high-speed flights over land, potentially in designated corridors like a highway in the sky, Bastedo said.

NASAs X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology experimental aircraft is attempting to reduce this sound by placing the cockpit farther back and lower in the body of the plane. It also has no forward-facing windows, and pilots must rely on the eXternal Vision System that provides a forward-facing view via a display system.

Venus Aerospace is planning initial flights to be over the ocean, which Sassie said eliminates the concern of creating a sonic boom near cities. The company is also monitoring developing legislation for over-land sonic booms.

And while COVID-19 has hurt long-haul travel  We actually joke that Zoom is probably our biggest competitor, Sassie said  Venus Aerospace believes this will recover.

There will always be a reason for meeting face-to-face. With Venus Aerospace, she said these travelers could fly halfway around the world and back within a workday.

Our tagline is home for dinner, Sassie said.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/a_leinfelder
LATEST March 10, 1:15 p.m. A GoFundMe was launched to raise funds for Uber driver Subhakar Khadka, who was allegedly assaulted and harassed on Sunday by three riders who refused to wear masks in his car. It has raised $41,221 as of Wednesday at 1 p.m.

The GoFundMe was organized by Cyan Banister, an early investor in Uber, who was appalled by the amount of money Uber gave to the driver after the incident.

"Uber then failed to step up to take care of this Uber driver to help him with lost wages and cleaning from having pepper spray chemicals sprayed into the fabric of his car," a statement read on the fundraising page. "They instead began with only offering $20 in compensation for having pepper spray covering his interior fabric. They then upped it to $120 in compensation but this does not come close to the expenses needed to have a professional car detailing to try and remove the strong chemicals of pepper spray and also the lost wages from not being able to work."

March 10, 10:45 a.m. Lyft announced Wednesday that the company has permanently removed a rider from its platform who allegedly appeared in a video harassing an Uber driver in San Francisco on Sunday.

"Although this incident did not involve the Lyft platform, the unacceptable treatment of the driver in this video compelled us to permanently remove the rider from the Lyft community," Lyft wrote on Twitter. "Driving in a pandemic is not easy. Please wear a mask, respect one another, and be a good person."

Uber also banned the rider who requested the ride.

"When we learn of the identities of the other riders we can action their accounts too," Uber said in a statement.

March 9, 7:24 a.m. A San Francisco Uber driver shared a video of three women erupting into a rage Sunday after he refused them a ride for not wearing masks. The footage shows one of the women intentionally coughing on the driver, ripping off his mask and grabbing his cellphone from the dashboard.

The driver, 32-year-old Subhakar Khadka, told KPIX-TV, that he was attacked because he is a South Asian immigrant.

I never said anything bad to them, I never cursed, I was not raised that way. I dont hit people, I am not raised that way, so they were not getting out of my car, said Khadka.

The San Francisco Police Department said in a statement that the driver picked up the passengers at San Bruno Avenue and Felton Street in the Portola neighborhood at 12:45 p.m. on March 7.

One of the passengers was not wearing a mask, and the driver stopped and ended the ride a few minutes later at San Bruno and Silver avenues, police said.

As the three women exited the car, one of them reached into an open window and sprayed what is believed to be pepper spray into the car and toward the driver, according to police.

The suspects fled and the department's Bayview Station is investigating.

Uber called the women's behavior appalling. "The rider no longer has access to Uber," an Uber spokesperson said in a statement.

Uber has a "no mask, no ride" policy and zero tolerance for physical violence, according to its community guidelines.

Drivers can cancel trips for "no mask" and if they don't feel safe without any penalty, according to the company's driver safety tips.
New Delhi/Lucknow, March 9 : In a big development in the Uttar Pradesh sugar mill scam, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday attached properties to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore in the northern state, including the properties of former MLC Mohammad Iqbal.

An ED source related to the probe told IANS, "The agency has attached properties to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore, including seven properties of former Saharanpur MLC Mohammad Iqbal." The properties have been attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The ED had registered the case under relevant sections of the PMLA on the basis of an FIR which was lodged by the CBI in connection with the scam. Even retired IAS officer Netram, who was a close confidant of then Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, and other senior officials will come under the ED scanner.

In April 2018, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had recommended a CBI probe into the disinvestment of 21 sugar mills in 2010-2011. As per the allegations, all the 21 sugar mills were sold off at throwaway prices and Rs 1,100 crore was siphoned off in the deal. The CBI had registered a case in the alleged scam on April 25, 2019.

According to ED officials, 11 sugar mills were sold during 2010-11, when the BSP-led government was in power in the state.
WCG CenterWatch

Data Integrity for GCP Professionals:

Core Requirements, Expectations and Challenges

A Virtual Workshop Presented by CenterWatch and Cerulean Associates LLC

Tuesday, March 23 and Thursday, March 25, 2021, 10:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. EDT

https://www.centerwatch.com/dataintegrityforgcppros

Is the FDAs increasing scrutiny on clinical trials data integrity producing a data migraine? One must establish internal competency and assessment programs; otherwise, one can expect 483s and warning letters to come rolling in.

With FDA data integrity requirements among the most stringent within regulated industries, compliance is highly challenging. This interactive virtual workshop makes it infinitely easier.

Data Integrity for GCP Professionals: Core Requirements, Expectations and Challenges will give attendees the tools needed to ensure a clinical trials electronic records are trustworthy and reliable across their entire data lifecycle, from initial data creation through long-term archives.

It will be led by award-winning FDA compliance expert, author and Cerulean Associates founder, John Avellanet. He can explain complex FDA data integrity regulations in simple what to do, how to do it language using real-world examples and offering practical advice attendees can follow. A former FDA and Department of Justice prosecutor calls Mr. Avellanet, The best in the business. Period. Confirm this for yourself when he shares:



How to apply the elements of data integrity characteristics  attributable, legible, contemporaneous, original and accurate (ALCOA+)  to real-world clinical development, trial conduct and post-trial analysis

An exploration of overlooked guidance documents that can help define expectations (including what the FDA and the European Medicines Agency inspect for and why)

How to deal with suppliers, including data integrity chain-of-custody in the clinical space, typical clinical supplier red flags that FDA and other regulatory health agencies look for and dealing with critical suppliers that collect, handle and store clinical digital data but are not regulated

What, where, how and why to document data integrity controls and institute a risk-based approach, including monitoring data integrity controls with contract research organizations (CROs) and investigator sites

Considerations regarding emerging issues: long-term archival storage, cloud-based technologies, wearables data and patient-submitted digital data; plus, the impact of inspectional changes in the clinical arena

What one must know about GCP data integrity enforcement, using real-world examples and statistics from regulatory agencies and providing recent updates to FDAs pre-approval inspection (PAI) methods

Takeaways regarding both on-site and remote clinical digital data inspections, with questions and tactics one must be prepared to handle

The risks of true and certified copies with digital records, from the basics of true/certified copy and legal admissibility, to true-copy requirements from submission guidances and putting together a true-copy scanning process for clinical trial usage

How to prepare for and handle GCP data integrity: address challenges with remote inspection handling, perform sponsor-specific and CRO-specific activities, points to remember when responding to allegations of untrustworthy data and more

No more data migraines. Avoid the data integrity Form 483s or warning letters while compliantly managing a clinical trials essential data.

Multi-attendee discounts available!

Significant tuition discounts are available for teams of two or more from the same company.

Virtual Conference Details:

Data Integrity for GCP Professionals:

Core Requirements, Expectations and Challenges

A Virtual Workshop Presented by CenterWatch and Cerulean Associates LLC

Tuesday, March 23 and Thursday, March 25, 2021, 10:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. EDT

https://www.centerwatch.com/dataintegrityforgcppros

Tuition:

$597

Easy Ways to Register:

Online: https://www.centerwatch.com/dataintegrityforgcppros

By phone: 888.838.5578 or 703.538.7600

About CenterWatch:

Founded in 1994, CenterWatch is a trusted source and global destination for clinical trials information for both professionals and patients. CenterWatch provides proprietary data and information analysis on clinical trials through a variety of newsletters, books, databases, and information services used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, CROs, SMOs, and investigative sites involved in the management and conduct of clinical trials. As a pioneer in publishing clinical trials information, CenterWatch was the first Internet site to publish detailed information about active clinical trials that could be accessed by patients and their advocates.
(Alliance News) - Vodafone Group PLC on Tuesday said its Vantage Towers spin-off may be worth nearly EUR15 billion on stock market admission.

The telecommunications firm outlined the price range for the unit's upcoming initial public offering.

Vantage Towers shares will fetch between EUR22.50 and EUR29.00 in its float. Vodafone explained this will imply a market capitalisation between EUR11.4 billion and EUR14.7 billion.

The base offer size will be EUR2.0 billion, though Vodafone said there is flexibility to up this to EUR2.8 billion.

"Digital Colony Management LLC, a leading digital infrastructure investor and operator, has agreed to be a cornerstone investor in the IPO, alongside RRJ Capital, a global equity fund based in Singapore, with commitments of EUR500 million and EUR450 million, respectively, subject to certain customary conditions," Vodafone added.

The offer period begins today and will end on or around next week Wednesday.

Vantage Towers Chief Executive Vivek Badrinath said: "The Vantage Towers IPO is moving ahead at pace. Todayas price range announcement is accompanied by the news that two leading global investors have committed to cornerstone our IPO with the purchase of EUR950 million of shares at the offer price."

Vodafone in February said the IPO will be in Frankfurt and is penned to occur before the end of March.

Dusseldorf, Germany-headquartered Vantage Towers, which Vodafone separated out from its business in 2020, is "Europe's leading tower infrastructure platform", with more than 68,000 towers across nine markets. Back in July, Vodafone said it planned to list Vantage Towers in Frankfurt.

By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Newark Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte held back tears as she unvield a lot filled with seven converted shipping containers to house 24 residents without addresses for a 90-day pilot program.

We have been able to do what felt like the impossible in establishing a beautiful, dignified, safe sleeping village rooted in love for our most vulnerable residents, said Hoyte on Monday as she and other officials announced the opening of the site.

The city-owned lot on Newark Street has sat vacant for years, but on Monday it was dubbed Newark Hope Village. City officials hope it will serve as a springboard for some of the most at-risk people identified by the city to go from being the most likely to die from homelessness to securing permanent housing.

Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte talks about the new village that will house people who are homeless in converted shipping containers. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

[This is] part of a larger plan to rid the City of Newark of folks who have to live in the streets because theres no place for them to go, said Mayor Ras Baraka, because the shelters may not be safe or adequate or because they really feel like they dont want to be in these places. This is why this becomes very important today.

The facility consists of seven shipping containers with 20 dorm-style rooms that feature a bunk bed, a heater and a small dresser. Two structures on site have shower rooms.

The site has the capability to house up to 40 people since there are bunk beds in each room. The shelter will also be used for those displaced by fires or flooding. Some space will also be allocated for those in need of shelter during cold weather Code Blue Alerts.

There will be separate containers with a full bathroom at Newark Hope Village. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

Residents at the village will receive vouchers from the Newark Housing Authority once their stay is complete so they can secure permanent housing, city officials said. The site will also remain after the pilot program ends, but more funding will be needed to keep it running.

The project cost $900,000 and was paid with federal CARES Act funds, Cold Blue grants and city dollars, Newark officials said. The pandemic has made shelters with individual rooms more necessary, and the city has used federal grant dollars to place hundreds in hotels to stop the spread of the virus.

Beds have also decreased at traditional shelters during the pandemic, which is due in part to extreme cold weather this winter and economic hardships brought on by the coronavirus.

Mayor Ras J. Baraka talks about how the village will help the homeless community. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

Newark Hope Village was designed by a California-based nonprofit called Homes 4 the Homeless and built to code with Custom Containers 915, a company out of Texas. Homes 4 the Homeless Vice President Mike Loganbill said he and his team spent a month in Newark to build the project, which saw numerous slow-downs due to snowy weather and the coronavirus.

Our mission is really to provide as low-cost housing as possible so that money can go to where its really needed: in supportive services  wrapped around services  to really help the people who need it, said Loganbill.

United Community Corporation will provide supportive services for those living at the site. Many who will stay at the village are people who frequent the Penn Station corridor, city officials said.

People should not be sleeping on the street, said United Community Corporation Executive Director Craig Mainor. People should not be sleeping on benches and trying to find where the next meal is coming.

The converted containers at Newark Hope Village can house up to two people. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

Newark Working Kitchens, which pays restaurants to make meals for those most in need, will serve lunch to the residents each day of the program. Other partners also helped launch the site included Project for Empty Space, Rorschach Collective, Project My Brothers Keeper, and UCC YouthBuild.

Forme Newark Chief Operations Officer Natasha Rogers also helped secure funding for the project during her tenure.

Im a little teary-eyed, said Rogers. This was such a huge collaboration.

The project also received some praise from at least one activist, Munirah Bomani, who has long been critical of the citys response to homelessness. But she says she still wants elected officials to do more.

Finally, the millions of dollars allocated towards homeless prevention is being put to good use under the leadership of (Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte), said Bomani.

Newark Hope Village is just one of several initiatives the city has launched in the past year to address homelessness. The city plans to open a homeless shelter at the site of a former school and pledged $2 million to developers to build 100 units of permanent housing for people who are homeless.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
Authorities in Maharashtra's Jalgaon have implemented a 'Janta Curfew' in the city after a surge in coronavirus cases. The curfew will remain in effect from 8 pm on March 11 to 8 am on March 15.

Municipal Corporation and local police will be responsible for implementing Janta Curfew, said Jalgaon District Collector Abhijit Raut. Violaters will be penalised under Epidemic Act and relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), he added.

Emergency services as well as examinations of MPSC and other departments in the municipal corporation limits of Jalgaon have been exempted from the Janta Curfew.

Meanwhile, Thane, Palghar and Kalyan Dombivali authorities have imposed stricter restrictions to contain the surge of COVID-19 cases.

In Thane, 16 hotspots have been placed under lockdown till March 31, an order issued by civic chief Vipin Sharma said.

In Navi Mumbai, the owners of a marriage hall were fined Rs 50,000 for social distancing and mask violations during a function held there, an official said.

The district administration in Palghar, meanwhile, banned fairs, temple festivals and other such gatherings till further notice.

Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) chief Vijay Suryavanshi said on Tuesday announced that containment zones would be marked in municipal region and buildings where cases are detected will be sealed. He urged the people to help the authorities fight the pandemic by following protocols.

ALSO READ: Sanjay Leela Bhansali tests COVID-19 positive; Gangubai Kathiawadi cast, crew in quarantine
Developers of Russias Sputnik V vaccine against the novel coronavirus have demanded an apology from Chair of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Management Board Christa Wirthumer-Hoche for comparing the possibility of approving the emergency use of the vaccine with a Russian roulette.

"We demand a public apology from EMAs Christa Wirthumer-Hoche for her negative comments on EU states directly approving Sputnik V. Her comments raise serious questions about possible political interference in the ongoing EMA review. Sputnik V is approved by 46 nations," reads a post on the vaccines official Twitter account.

"EMA did not allow such statements about any other vaccine. Such comments are inappropriate and undermine credibility of EMA and its review process. Vaccines and EMA should be above and beyond politics," it says.

In a broadcast by Austrias ORF TV channel, Wirthumer-Hoche, who is also head of the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency, said the idea of approving Sputnik V for emergency use in the country, as was done in Hungary, was a "Russian roulette."
The pandemic has clearly changed how we consider transmission and spread of illness and forced us to make changes that companies like VirExit Technologies are fully focused on.

Poverty Dignified, Inc. dba VirExit Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS PINK: PVDG) has selected Cornerstone Communications, LTD as its public relations and marketing strategy agency of record. Cornerstone was awarded the VirExit Technologies, Inc. account due to its significant expertise in the healthcare, lifestyle, technology, and COVID-19 verticals.

Headquartered in Richland, Washington, VirExit Technologies, Inc. is a fast-growing public company focused on providing solutions for safer living in uncertain times. With a mission to make the world a safer place with innovative and effective technologies, VirExit Technologies, Inc. looks to screen, vet, and sell stellar technologies that provide both the business-to-business and the business-to-consumer markets with products that enhance our health and physical safety.

VirExit Technologies, Inc. is changing the way we look at preventing the spread of infection, bacteria, and ultimately, disease," said Brooke Greenwald, President, Cornerstone Communications, LTD. There is significant concern about keeping bacteria and viruses out of our lives, long before the onset of COVID-19. The pandemic has clearly changed how we consider transmission and spread of illness and forced us to make changes that companies like VirExit Technologies are fully focused on. Cornerstone is excited to represent an organization with an unparalleled understanding of how we can all make the world a safer place.

We are thrilled to be working with Cornerstone Communications, LTD, said James C. Katzaroff, President and CEO, Poverty Dignified, Inc. Our goal is to equip as many organizations, and as many consumers, with tools theyve never had before in the fight against transmissible illness. Our mission is not only to help us return to our normal lives, but to help prevent the future spread of any illness, disease or bacteria which may present a risk to anyone. Our health and technology team vets every product offered in our marketplace to ensure they meet our stringent safety requirements. We selected Cornerstone Communications, LTD because of their experience as their consistently in line with ours.

Cornerstone Communications has over two decades of experience working with companies such as Poverty Dignified, Inc. across North America and globally. The team of former journalists and social media experts at Cornerstone Communications, LTD understand the complexities of working with a public company that is highly focused on reaching a variety of B2B and B2C verticals.

NOTICE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements that include the words believes, expects, anticipate or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition, description of anyones past success is no guarantee of future success. This news release speaks as of the date first set forth above and the company assumes no responsibility to update the information included herein for events occurring after the date hereof.

About Poverty Dignified, Inc.

Poverty Dignified, Inc. (PVDG) is a diversified company with ownership of Sun Ovens, Inc., a company that decades ago, pioneered solar oven technology and produces, markets, and sells solar ovens and accessories. In 2020, PVDG acquired the registered brand, VirExit Technologies, Inc., along with other related intellectual property owned and developed by Patrick Netter. The VirExit brand pioneers innovative, effective, ethical, and safe products within the antiviral space. Also, during 2020, PVDG purchased Safer Place Technologies, LLC, whose purpose is to create a primary sales and marketing platform as a vertical online marketplace. This new acquisition seeks to provide a single source for buyers and sellers of protective products and services which resonate with the VirExit mission statement: Making the world a safer place with innovative, ethical and effective technologies. PVDG is anticipating a name change to VirExit Technologies, Inc. in the near future.

About Cornerstone Communications, LTD

Cornerstone Communications, LTD is a public relations, marketing strategy, and integrated communications agency focusing on the technology, consumer, telecommunications, and business-to-business vertical markets. Cornerstone has extensive experience working with organizations of all sizes, from startup to Fortune 1000. For more information on Cornerstone, please visit http://www.cornerstonepr.net.


The Chief Executive Officer of Isaac Bookshop and stationary, Mr Isaac Owusu has been honoured by Rectitude International Mission as outstanding publisher in the country for producing quality books for enhancing education values in Ghana.



The International Eminence honorary award follows an intensive assessment conducted by the institution by consulting respected and intelligent educationist to consider publishers whose publications have positively benefited the development of Ghana's Education which Mr Isaac Owusu ermerged as the best.



Presenting the award, Director in charge of legal research of the institution, Nana Dei Bronii lauded the publisher for his significant input in the education sector, especially in the basic education where he(Mr.Owusu) came out with a book entitled"Cockcrow" which was full of integrated stories to help children in the deprived areas get access to books and cultivate the culture of reading before their senior high education.



He said that ,the award forms part of the institution's mission to outdoor performing entrepreneurs and Philanthropists in the nation building.



On his side, Director of Communication and cooperate affairs, Mr Isaac Rockson recommended the CEO to the World Diplomatic Federation to be an ambassador for Basic and Senior High School Education.



Mr Rockson was of the view that, seeing the extreme output of the publisher, he can fish out talented students with creative minds and innovative ideas to build Ghana economy in the future as part of his ambassadorial task.



The Communication director, futher suggested to the government to train more technical students than the bookish ones to enable the country to produce self employment students after completing school.



Mr Isaac Owusu after receiving the award commended Rectitude International Mission of their brilliant mission to promote Philanthropists and entrepreneurs who are contributing significantly to the nation building.



He indicated that the honorary will challenge him to render his continuous support to Ghana education.

















Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
It's the interview that's got the whole world talking.

Meghan and Harry's bombshell interview with Oprah was dividing opinion this morning after it aired on ITV for British viewers last night.

Explosive accusations of racism within the monarchy and familial rifts have been probed in enormous detail.

Fleet Street has devoted reams of column inches to analysing the sit-down, with the media's most seasoned royal watchers weighing in.

Below is a selection of some of the myriad reaction to the jaw-dropping interview.

Meghan and Harry's bombshell interview with Oprah was dividing opinion this morning after it aired on ITV for British viewers last night

Camilla Tominey - Daily Telegraph

Camilla Tominey said it was the most astonishing royal interview she had seen

'It was probably the most astonishing royal interview I've ever watched in my life.

'And I say that on the back of Panorama, and indeed, Prince Charles speaking to Jonathan Dimbleby. Even the Duchess of York's Oprah outing had nothing on this...

'...I think most people acknowledge that the Royal Family is quite dysfunctional. It's not nuclear, it's thermo-nuclear. And I think we've seen that over the course of the last few decades.

'But they'll be wondering: well you've got Megxit and by your own admission the fairytale has ended happily. You are now thriving as opposed to just surviving.

'Why then did you feel you needed to unleash on people with whom you are struggling to maintain a relationship?

Celia Walden - Daily Telegraph

Celia Walden said 'Meghan is the only celebrity interviewee I've ever seen to give such leading answers'

'Meghan was so guileless, she assures Oprah, that she knew nothing about either the royal family or what she was getting herself into.

'She has never looked up Prince Harry online. She 'never researched what it would mean' to be his girlfriend or become his wife.

'She 'honestly' thought The Firm was looking out for her best interests  it was left to Meghan's friends to inform her, again, how naive she was.

'She 'didn't have a plan', and 'genuinely hadn't thought of' profiting from her royal title with whopping Netflix and Spotify deals.

'Journalists famously ask leading questions. Meghan is the only celebrity interviewee I've ever seen to give such leading answers she might as well have been pulling poor Oprah along by a leash.'

Carole Malone said Harry and Meghan have gone 'as low as possible'

Carole Malone - Daily Express

'Meghan and Harry have chosen to go as low as possible  trashing his father, his brother William, and Catherine who he used to call his 'big sister'.

'Instead of going high, they've chosen the scorched earth route.

'They've chosen division, destruction and to hurt people  in Harry's case the people he loved most in the world after his wife and child.

'He told Oprah he feared that what happened to his mother would happen to his wife, that 'history would repeat'.

'What tosh! Meghan did the royal role for 20 months. Diana was at it for 17 years, the last four without security or protection. So yes, she was besieged. Meghan was not.'

Allison Pearson said it looks 'vengeful, self-absorbed and attention-seeking'

Allison Pearson - Daily Telegraph

'The most shocking moment came when the Duchess confessed to having had suicidal thoughts and not wanting to go on in the face of relentless media scrutiny.

'She and Harry gave a convincing account of the crazy, constricted cage that is being Royal, and their decision to bend the bars and fly away seems totally understandable  admirable, even.

'But why give this deeply destructive interview now when Prince Philip, within three months of his century, is in hospital and the Queen waits at Windsor for her 'liege man of life and limb' who has been by her side for 73 years?

'It looks vengeful, self-absorbed and attention-seeking...

'...Above all, many of us will have felt the insult to the Queen. However loudly Harry and Meghan may have proclaimed their affection for the monarch there is no question that their interview was a devastating act of lese-majeste.

'The couple unleashed demons which could destabilise her beloved Commonwealth and threaten the future of the monarchy itself.'

Penny Junor (Royal biographer) - Daily Mirror

Penny Junor said of the interview was 'a tragedy' from every perspective

'From every perspective this is a tragedy. Damaging to the monarchy, to individuals within the Royal Family and to the UK. What's more, it is history repeating itself.

'Harry and Meghan's wedding was not even three years ago. William was best man, a seemingly delighted Prince Charles walked his daughter-in-law down the aisle in the absence of her own father. Everyone was smiling, everyone apparently happy. Harry had found love at last.

'Meghan's welcome into the Royal Family seemed beyond doubt. That she was of mixed race was a bonus.

'At last the monarchy would be of relevance to everyone. A bright future beckoned.

'Today, with clips and quotes from the Oprah interview everywhere you look, those scenes feel like ancient history. The joy of that day, which so many millions of people shared, has turned to dust.

'Between them Meghan and Harry said shocking things and made damning accusations. And whether true or false or somewhere in between, those accusations have gone global. It was much the same when Diana's account on Panorama of her marriage and life within the Royal Family went global 25 years ago.'

Andrew Morton said Diana's ghost 'hovered over' the interview

Andrew Morton (Diana's biographer) - The Sun

'Like the time-travelling whirlpool in the hit comedy movie [Hot Tub Time machine], I was spun back through the decades to the 1990s when Princess Diana talked to me about her torrid time inside the Royal Family.

'It was as though her ghost hovered over the two-hour Oprah Winfrey special.

'Time after time, Meghan spoke in the same language and with the same sentiments as the late Princess. It was uncanny.

'Loneliness, suicidal tendencies, exhaustion, a prisoner of the Palace  but respect for the Queen.'

Melanie McDonagh - The Spectator

Melanie McDonagh said Harry came across badly in the televised Oprah interview

'The person who comes out really badly from all this is Prince Harry, not his wife.

'He is absent from the first part of the interview and poisonous in the second.

'It was he who should have tried to explain to his intended about the nature of the royal role, though it's hard to think of anything he could have said that would have deterred Meghan.

'His assertion that they would have remained with their role had they been given greater support is malign to the people who did try to help them.

'His declaration that Prince Charles and his brother are trapped inside the institution is ostensibly sympathetic and actually spiteful.'

Veteran Royal photographer Arthur Edwards said Oprah Winfrey was the only winner

Arthur Edwards - The Sun

'Oprah Winfrey was the only winner in this incredibly sad spectacle.

'Even after 44 years covering royal life ? in which I thought I'd seen and heard everything ? this confessional on American prime-time was shocking to behold.

'Bombshell after bombshell was dropped in what was a devastating take down of Harry's family.

'Make no mistake, this is a knife-edge moment in recent royal history that knocks Diana's Panorama revelations into a cocked hat.

'Harry and Meghan have the best PRs Hollywood can buy.

'I believe nothing in that interview was said by chance.

'I feel desperate sorrow that it's come to this.'

Quentin Letts - The Times

Quentin Letts described the interview as polically ruinous and semtex

'This was Semtex in swaddling bands. Cyanide en gelee. The biggest act of strategic self-harm since the scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow.

'Although presented as schmaltz, this two-hour gloopathon was politically ruinous.

'Life is about telling stories, right?' said la Markle, all high-resolution lip gloss. 'Telling stories through a truthful lens.' Her eyes sparkled behind lashes long as ravens' wings.

'Stories were duly delivered, a steaming dump of indiscretions: whinges about money and titles and bodyguards and the rotten tabloid press (presumably quite different from tabloid television).

'That Kate Cambridge? A B*I*T*C*H! 'But I have forgiven her,' purred Meghan with her truthful lens.'

Bel Mooney said the couple were 'two surprisingly naive, youngish souls who know astonishingly little about real life'

Bel Mooney - Daily Mail

'Watching Oprah's interview, I tried to feel furious with those hugely rich, pampered people, living in a gated paradise while whinging about how badly they have been treated.

'But I'm afraid I couldn't help but pity the couple as two surprisingly naive, youngish souls who know astonishingly little about real life  and have instead revealed just how damaged they both are.

'Was the decision to spill the beans to Oprah part of a strategy to promote their lucrative brand  or yet another yelp in one long cry for help?

'This isn't so much a case of 'their own truth' (as Winfrey would put it, in that wince-inducing phrase) as a painful revelation of how little they understand of what they are really saying.

'They present themselves as truth-tellers, more sinned against than sinning. Yet they seem ignorant of the fact that 'truth' is a double-edged sword, and that by stating one thing you can reveal something quite different.'

Richard Kay said 'the picture they painted of life inside the House of Windsor is scarcely believable'

Richard Kay - Daily Mail

'What concerns those who have the goodwill of the monarchy at heart is how Meghan and Harry have wrought such damage on its image and reputation oversea with their wilful and groundlessly vindictive remarks.

'A reputation, remember, cultivated over almost 70 years of tireless service by Harry's grandmother, the Queen.

'How tragic that at almost 95, she should see her life's work jeopardised by such thoughtlessness. In Britain many with far fewer material advantages than this pampered, privileged pair will not have been bedazzled by their attempt to secure sympathy while at the same time attempting to destroy an institution that has, by and large, served us well for centuries.

'For the picture they painted of life inside the House of Windsor is scarcely believable...

'... The barbs and insults aimed with precision at William, Kate, Charles and the Queen are one thing, but their implication that our island nation is a country where racist attitudes flourish is a travesty. All this has been grist to the mill for those republican sympathisers to jump in gleefully and attack the monarchy.'
Job ads have returned to their pre-pandemic level in a fresh sign the recovery from the recession is consolidating but there are warnings people in low wage occupations are being left behind and could face extended periods out of work.

Data from SEEK shows ads on the online platform through February were 12.4 per cent up on the same month last year, when Australia started shutting its international border to protect the country from COVID-19.

Job ads in every state and territory have climbed back above their pre-virus levels for the first time. Credit:Louise Kennerley

Ads were 4.1 per cent up on January, with ads in every state and territory now showing annual job growth for the first time since the virus outbreak.

In NSW, ads lifted 7.4 per cent through February to be 3.6 per cent up over the past 12 months, while in Victoria the annual growth rate is now 7.8 per cent after a 7.1 per cent improvement last month.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The Anzac Day march in Sydneys CBD will be capped at 5000 after RSL NSW reached an agreement with the NSW government and police to increase the number of attendees, and an exemption was granted by Health Minister Brad Hazzard.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on Twitter on Tuesday, said: This is a welcome step in the right direction so that more people can pay their respects.

Last year, the state government approved a 500-person veterans march for 2021, whereby participants were required to register interest online due to coronavirus restrictions.

RSL NSW said on Tuesday it had received only 200 registrations to walk in the march so far.
Skilled trades workers at Stellantis Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) outside of Detroit are circulating a fact sheet citing multiple violations by the United Auto Workers of local and national agreements as part of the unions collusion with management to impose a mandatory rotating 12-hour, 7-day work schedule.

Workers at SHAP shift change

Hundreds of tradesmen at the plant will be forced onto the killing work regimen starting April 5 under terms of a deal cobbled together between UAW officials and management. The schedule involves four shifts alternating over a two-week rotation.

Imposed under terms of a side agreement buried in the 2019 contact relating to alternative work schedules (AWS), the 12/7 schedule eliminates time and one-half overtime pay after 8 hours on Saturday, saving management millions in wages. Meanwhile, workers will see their health undermined and family life disrupted by an irregular and stressful schedule.

The imposition of a 12-hour schedule, in flagrant violation of standards fought for by workers over the past 150 years or more, is the latest egregious betrayal by the UAW. Over the past year the UAW has collaborated with management to enforce a return to a full production schedule in the midst of a deadly pandemic that has sickened hundreds and killed an unknown number of autoworkers, including SHAP worker Mark Bianchi last fall.

The fact sheet being circulated by workers in opposition to the 12/7 schedule begins by citing Article 2, section 1 (Objects) of the UAW Constitution which states the unions purpose is, To improve working conditions, create a uniform system of shorter hours, higher wages, health care and pensions; to maintain and protect the interests of workers under the jurisdiction of this International Union.

Fact sheet explaining the violations contained in the 12-hour 7-day work schedule

It goes on to demonstrate that in multiple cases the AWS at SHAP violates the stated purpose of the UAW by destroying existing rights and conditions, noting, for example that AWS violates terms of the 2019 contact by imposing a 12-hour, 7-day schedule, establishing a standard work week of more than 40 hours, eliminating time and one-half on Saturday, and an overall reduction in take home pay. It also points out that paid absence and vacation days are subtracted at 12 hours, rather then the usual eight hours, robbing workers of time off.

The fact sheet further notes that in violation of the UAW Constitution, the AWS violates provisions of the local contract, which under Article 19 of the UAW Constitution can only be waived through a vote by the membership. The Constitution also explicitly stipulates that the International Union will protect all local unions that have in place higher wages and more favorable conditions than mandated by the national agreement.

In a separate flyer, workers are being urged to speak out by contacting Wilma Liebman, the international ethics officer appointed by the UAW. Liebman served as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under the Obama administration and served as a NLRB board member under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Flyer urges workers to contact UAW ethics officer

A SHAP skilled trades worker, speaking to the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter under condition of anonymity, explained that A group of workers printed this (fact sheet) and gave it to everyone advising workers to call the UAW ethics office and tell them the AWS is a clear violation of our local contract section 1 section 3 and section 6.

People have already started calling her, (Liebman) but where is it going to go? I dont think it will change the situation. All they do is take your name and the complaint and say they will forward it to the UAW. They dont tell you anything.

All the local UAW says is that without the support of the International they cannot do anything about it (12/7 schedule), management is going to go ahead with this.

I am not sure why [management] is doing this. They are short already. If they add a fourth shift they are going to make it worse. There will be a lot of problems.

I think they will find they are short of people, and they will say, well you guys manage with fewer people. They are not going to hire additional people, they will just depend on the workers they have. It is hard to get tradesmen, and it will be especially hard with the AWS.

He added, Some people like to work overtime, but dont force them by saying you have to work 12 hours no matter what, even when we are not getting paid overtime on Saturday.

Liebman was installed by Acting UAW President Rory Gamble in March 2020 as the federal investigation continued to nab top UAW officials, including two former presidents, who were revealed to have been pocketing millions in kickbacks and auto company bribe money.

A former union attorney, Liebman has deep ties to the corrupt trade union bureaucracy and big business Democratic Party. Over the years the NLRB, as well as federal courts, have consistently ruled that workers who are victimized by their own union have no legal standing to sue, invariably remanding complaints over union abuses back for resolution by the same union that betrayed the workers.

The degree to which the UAW has been converted into little more than a subsidiary of auto company management was demonstrated by the agreement by Fiat Chrysler/Stellantis to plead guilty to funneling $3.5 million in bribes to UAW officials to obtain contact concessions. The federal government ordered FCA/Stellantis to pay a mere $30 million fine, a profitable investment given that contract concessions handed over by the UAW have saved wealthy stockholders and hedge funds hundreds of millions of dollars since 2009. The real victims in this heist, the workers, have not been awarded a penny in compensation during the entire course of the corruption investigation.

The appointment of an ethics officer over the UAW, by the very corrupt Solidarity House officers who oversaw the massive bribe-taking and other sordid activities in the first place, of course will not change anything. The fact that the UAW ethics officer is paid by the same staff says it all.

Further, the imposition of a 12-hour work schedule in violation of the principle of the 8-hour day is not due primarily to individual corruption, but far deeper processes that have seen the unions in the US and globally transformed over the last 40 or more years into tools of management to discipline the workers. Based on their pro-capitalist and nationalist program the unions have abandoned any defense of workers interests in favor of unlimited collaboration with management to lower wages and destroy working conditions in the name of global competitiveness.

The growing opposition to the 12/7 schedule is part of a simmering rebellion by workers to the homicidal policies of the government and corporations, which have insisted on keeping factories open during an uncontained pandemic to fuel profits for Wall Street. At every step the unions have sided with the corporations to keep production running in the face of infection and death.

It is one year since workers at SHAP and other Detroit area auto plants stopped production and forced a temporary shutdown of auto production as the pandemic exploded across the US, Canada and Mexico. What is needed is for workers to draw the conscious lessons of that experience. We call on SHAP workers to join the rank-and-file safety committee at the plant, organized independently of the corrupt UAW, to carry forward the struggle against the 12/7 schedule and the spread of the pandemic. This struggle requires that workers at SHAP reach out to their brother and sister autoworkers at other Detroit area plants as well as other sections of workers battling deadly conditions such as educators and Amazon workers.

Contact the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter today for more information about how to become involved.
Supplier News

9 March 2021

San Francisco  Duetto added 250 hotels and 40,000 hotel rooms to its EMEA portfolio last year, taking the number of hotel rooms on Duetto in the region to more than 225,000.

Hotel brands joining Duetto in 2020 included First Hotels, Generator & Freehand Hotels, Gorgeous Smiling Hotels, Hoteis Real, and Prizeotel/Radisson Hotels.

Generator & Freehand Hotels operate a portfolio of 19 properties, offering stylish accommodation in popular destinations such as Amsterdam, Paris, New York, and Miami. The company moved its entire portfolio of boutique hotels and hostels onto Duetto, following a rapid integration that went from contract to go-live in only six weeks.

Optimized pricing, efficient forecasting, and reporting were the main requisites Generator & Freehand Hotels were looking for in a revenue strategy platform.

"We had been with an existing pricing tool, and we were looking to move to a revenue strategy platform. There was a clear difference between what we had and what Duetto provides. The analytics and reporting in Duetto are impressive and will add a new dimension to our revenue management capabilities in the future," said Edward Pinchard, Chief Commercial Officer, Generator & Freehand Hotels.

Generator & Freehand Hotels is now optimizing every booking with Duetto's GameChanger pricing application and benefiting from increased efficiencies using ScoreBoard for reporting and forecasting.

In the Nordics, leadership at FIRST Hotels used the first lockdown to appraise its tech stack and is now undergoing a phased Duetto integration across its portfolio of properties in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

"The reason we are investing in hotel technology right now is that we need the data. We have been through a horrible year like most other companies in our industry. When making difficult decisions, such as closing hotels and laying people off, we really need accurate data," said Johan Appelgren, Director of Operations at FIRST Hotels. "It was quite an easy task to convince our CEO that we needed to think about how we can be more efficient and accurate in the future."

In 2020, Duetto was recognized as the number one revenue management system in Germany in terms of market penetration (32%), number of brands (27%), and independent hotels (40%) in the German Hotel Technology Landscape report compiled by Hotelhero.

"2020 was a very challenging year for the hospitality industry. But the industry is a resilient one, and it has been great to see so many forward-looking hotel companies embracing this as a time for change," said Michael Schaffner, VP of Sales, EMEA for Duetto. "With the vaccination program making steady progress, and as we head into a week of networking with a virtual ITB, there are strong signs recovery is on the horizon."

Michael Schaffner will be representing Duetto at this year's virtual ITB. To arrange a meeting visit https://www.duettocloud.com/meet-with-duetto-during-itb-now-berlin.
Energy Fuels Inc (NYSEAMERICAN:UUUU) ( ) (FRA:VO51) CEO Mark Chalmers tells Proactive the first shipments of natural monazite ore arrived at the company's White Mesa Mill in Blanding, Utah this past weekend.

Chalmers explains how the material had already been separated by The Chemours Company at its Offerman Mineral Sand Plant in Georgia, and then transported by truck to Energy Fuels' White Mesa Mill. Upon successful ramp-up, the company plans to commercially produce an REE product at a stage more advanced than any other US company.
The big buzz this week is the spring-like warmup thats coming to New Jersey starting Tuesday and lasting the next few days. But statistics from our snowy winter continue to be analyzed  and at least one longtime snowfall record has officially been broken, according to data from the state climatologists office.

The stats show last month was the snowiest February ever recorded in northern New Jersey and the second snowiest February on record in central New Jersey, said State Climatologist David Robinson, whose office at Rutgers University oversees weather data going back to 1893.

During a typical February, slightly more than 10 inches of snow falls in the states northern region, which includes Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, Passaic, Sussex and Warren counties. But this year, Robinson said, an average of 36.9 inches of snow piled up throughout the month.

Thats over 2 feet more than usual, Robinson noted.

February 2021 was the snowiest February on record in northern New Jersey, according to data from the office of New Jersey State Climatologist David Robinson at Rutgers University. The data goes back to 1893.Len Melisurgo | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The snow mounds also rose high in the central New Jersey region, which includes Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Somerset and Union counties. This region averaged 32 inches of snow in February, just 2 inches away from its all-time snowiest February, recorded in 2010, Robinsons data shows.

Central Jersey normally averages 9.1 inches of snow in February.

The South Jersey region picked up more snow than usual last month, averaging 12 inches, making it the 22nd snowiest February in that area of the state, Robinson said. That pushed the overall statewide ranking down.

Crunching the numbers from all of the states 21 counties, February turned out to be the states seventh snowiest, with an average of 23.5 inches of snow measured statewide. Thats still impressive, given the rankings cover 127 years.

February 2021 was the second snowiest February on record in central New Jersey, according to data from the office of New Jersey State Climatologist David Robinson at Rutgers University. The data goes back to 1893.Len Melisurgo | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Other snow records under review

Robinson said a weather reporting station in the Morris County town of Mine Hill may have set an all-time monthly snowfall record, with a whopping 56 inches of snow measured throughout the month of February.

If it is verified, Robinson said that would be the most snow ever to fall in any New Jersey town during any month of the year since records started in the late 1800s. The states current record is 50.1 inches of snow, measured in Mount Holly in Burlington County in February 2010.

Also under review is the states record for the most snow accumulating during a multi-day storm. New Jerseys longtime record is 34 inches, but a trained weather observer in Mount Arlington, Morris County measured 35.1 inches of snow during this winters epic storm that stretched from Jan. 31 through Feb. 3.

A person tries to dig out a car that was buried under nearly 3 feet of snow at Our Lady of the Lake Church in Mount Arlington in early February 2021. The National Weather Service is still reviewing a report that 35.1 inches of snow fell in the Morris County borough during the epic storm.Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for

That measurement has not yet been verified by Robinsons office and the National Weather Service, but the state climatologist said there are some questions about whether proper snow measurement procedures were followed.

If its determined the proper procedures were not followed, then the states old record of 34 inches would stand.

The 34-inch record was set during a big multi-day snowstorm in Cape May in February 1899. Robinson said his office recently became aware of another snowstorm in which 34 inches of snow was reported, in December 1947 at the Oak Ridge Reservoir in Morris County.

Robinson said the 1947 snowfall total was spotted in digital data files at the National Centers for Environmental Information, a federal agency affiliated with the National Weather Service. The climatologist plans to discuss that, along with other New Jersey snow records, with weather service staffers, to determine if it is a legitimate record.

If it is, then New Jersey would have a tie for the biggest multi-day snowstorm  unless last months 35.1-inch report in Mount Arlington is confirmed.

New Jerseys biggest one-day snowfall record is believed to be 30 inches, reported in Sussex County on Jan. 26, 1905.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the local weather news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com.
NEW HARTFORD  Voters have approved the sale of the towns drinking water and sewer systems to Aquarion Water Company for $8 million.

New Hartford will use an estimated $3.5 million of the proceeds to clear debts and another estimated $3.6 million to extend sewer lines to Pine Meadow, according to officials. The remaining money will be used to temporarily subsidize rates for water and sewer users, and provide money for improved connection costs for new sewer users, according to the New Hartford Water Pollution Control Authority.

Denton Butler, chairman, said the WPCA will continue the process of selling the towns water assets, now that voters have given their consent.

The referendum was the biggest next step in a long and difficult process to create a winning situation for both water and sewer users (who are also taxpayers) and general taxpayers, who arent served by these systems, Butler said.

Butler said that it is his hope that even those who voted no will come to appreciate the wisdom of the decision to sell these assets which was supported by all Boards and Commissions involved.

We collectively said, this is the right thing to do, he said. Our work continues as we prepare to go to the regulators and gain their approval and implement the necessary steps required for a successful completion of the program as laid out by the Asset Evaluation Team.

Butler pointed to the words water rights as the wrong way to describe the eventual sale.

Many may not realize that were not dealing with rights, he said. The state of Connecticut is the steward of all public owned land, air and water, and we are the licensee.

The state issues a diversion permit, which will now, at the time of the sale, have the name Aquarion, Butler said. Aquarion will follow the same stringent requirements that the WPCA had to follow ... The pipes, the well houses, the pumps  everything that goes with water and sewer operations.

Aquarion has been under a contract with the WPCA for the last four years, while New Hartford negotiated the plan to sell the water and sewer systems. The Torrington Water Co. has also provided operational support to the water system, Butler said.

So the process is this  an application will be filed with the regulator agencies, the (state) Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Public Health, and a third agency, PURA, or the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, Butler said.

He said there would be hearings on a docket, and PURA people will go through their deliberations and ask questions about the application, and make a ruling. In the application, there may be a recommendation on rates.

PURA may say Yes, we accept the rates as submitted or modify them for this reason or that. We march to their drum, Butler said.
More than 2,200 teachers, principals, counselors, custodians, bus drivers and other staff in the Baldwin County School System loaded into buses and were taken to the Robertsdale Coliseum on Friday to receive their second shot of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

Superintendent Eddie Tyler, among those vaccinated, believes around 3,000 of the districts approximately 4,000 employees have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus since educators became eligible for shots on February 8.

I know we did well over 2,000 in our program, and I would be willing to step out on a limb to say that we had 3,000 total employees who got (vaccinated), Tyler said on Monday. When the governor pushed out that she was including educators  we jumped all over and really established a great partnership with USA Health.

This is a mess

But its unclear how many other teachers around Alabama have been vaccinated.

The ballpark statistics provided by Tyler might represent the most concrete data a school system in Alabama is providing on the number of employees who have been vaccinated in the past 30 days. Since educators became eligible for vaccines, very little  if any  hard data is available to provide a picture on how many teachers have been vaccinated, and there is no indication when, of if, those statistics will be available.

The Alabama Department of Public Health is not tracking data by disciplines nor is it gathering data from individual districts. And at some districts, there are concerns and  sometimes confusion, based on local interpretations of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) -- over what kind of data can be collected and disseminated for public release.

It isnt just an Alabama issue. An Associated Press story, citing an analysis published Thursday by John Hopkins University, noted that no state is publicly reporting the percentage of teachers and school staff that have been vaccinated. The lack of data, the story notes, is causing concerns in cities and states where in-person school reopening plans are contingent on vaccinating teachers.

In Alabama, schools continue to provide a mixture of in-person and virtual education. In Baldwin County, for instance, enrollment into virtual K-12 education skyrocketed to over 7,000 students in August. It has since been whittled down to under 3,000. Less than 10% of students enrolled at Baldwin County Schools is participating in virtual education, according to state statistics.

But some districts, such as those in the rural Black Belt region of Alabama, continue to keep students and teachers at home while offering only virtual classrooms.

This is a mess  so disjointed and uncoordinated between states with lack of data to make sense of how safe schools and universities  are for re-opening, said Edwin Michael, an epidemiology professor at the University of South Florida. The CDC provides overall U.S. figures for age/ethnicity groups, but we have to resort to searches or connections with individual counties and state officials to get vaccination data broken down by these (professional) groups. But what is missing is whether these sources are authentic.

He added, These data (sets) will also be important for understanding gaps and targeting at-risk groups apart for modeling the pandemic.

Path to normalcy

A notice on an Alabama school closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

That said, school officials are saying they are pleased with the response from educators so far.

Approximately 60% of the Gulf Shores city school employees have been vaccinated, according to Superintendent Matt Akin. USA Health administered the shots at the schools, with second doses given out last week.

At Jefferson County Schools, an estimated 2,000 employees within the states second-largest school district  or slightly less than half of the districts 4,500 employees  will get shots offered through an employee vaccination program that kicked off Monday in partnership with UAB Health. The program is available to any school district employee.

A school district spokesman said the district also believes a good number of employees have already gotten their vaccine or will get one through their personal health care provider.

The last of the second doses for educators participating in the program will be held on April 5, or four days ahead of the expiration of the current Safer at Home state health order and the statewide mask mandate.

We hope this starts us down the path to normalcy in our classrooms, said Walter Gonsoulin, superintendent of Jefferson County schools, which serves over 36,000 students in 57 schools. While the vaccine is not mandatory for our employees, we are hopeful most will take it.

At Mobile County Public Schools  the states largest school district with more than 57,000 students  two partnerships with Mobile-based hospitals were formed to provide first and second doses to district employees. The school is allowing employees to schedule appointments through Mobile Infirmary during the workday and are allowing employees to leave school  to come in late  to get their shots. Mobile Infirmary has been setting aside first and second doses for Mobile County employees since February 8, and second doses have been administered since March 1.

School employees who opted to get vaccinated on a Saturday had the option to do so through USA Health, which has set up a clinic at the Mobile Civic Center. The first Saturday drive-through clinic was held on February 13, and those employees came back for their second shot on March 6.

Rena Philips, spokeswoman with the school system, said at both locations where employees were vaccinated, employees were done within 45 minutes. Employees who received a vaccine were given a #TeamMCPSS cloth face mask to promote the vaccine and to show school spirit, Philips said.

She said the school district, while not requiring the vaccine, is highly encouraging it.

Our focus has been on spreading the vaccinations out over several days so that we would not have to close schools for a day, Philips said.

She said that thousands of employees have been vaccinated, and that school officials are working on getting an official count.

Right of the individual

Some school districts are uncertain if they will be able to get data on the number of educators vaccinated. In Tuscaloosa, an educators week was held at DCH Regional Medical Center last month and drew approximately 1,500 educators, according to Lesley Bruinton, spokeswoman with Tuscaloosa City Schools. Whats not known is whether those educators were employees with Tuscaloosa City or Tuscaloosa County schools, which are two separate school districts. Also included in the mix could have been employees with private schools, she said.

Bruinton said an employee survey in January showed that 60% of employees were interested in getting a vaccine, but its unclear how many have since gotten a shot, she said. The city school system has more than 1,400 employees, and about 800 teachers.

Short of a census, we just dont know, she said. I dont know if we will ever have it, necessarily. Its health data that belongs to the hospital and to the individual.

Other school systems are citing medical privacy as a reason why do not have a percentage of school employees who have been vaccinated.

Shelby County Schools has not surveyed staff to see how many have gotten a vaccine because that is private medical information that they may or may not have felt comfortable sharing with us, said spokeswoman Cindy Warner. She said the school system is working with UAB Health to schedule staff who want to receive the vaccine, and that first dose clinics will be provided on March 14 and 19, followed by second doses on April 9. She said that the school system is scheduling e-learning days for teachers to be able to get their vaccines.

Hoover City Schools, Montgomery Public Schools, and Madison County Schools are not tracking the number of employees who have been vaccinated. Montgomery partnered with Alabama State University for an exclusive opportunity for district employees to receive a vaccine during an on-campus drive-thru clinic, according to public school spokeswoman Jade Jones.

In Madison County, school officials are not asking employees whether they have been vaccinated. According to district spokesman Tim Hall, there is a number of people who have received a shot, but that its private information. He said the school cannot ask employees if they have been vaccinated, saying its a violation of HIPAA.

Hall said that an estimate on those who are vaccinated would not be a fair number to report. He said the issue goes back to the right of the individual on whether to vaccinate or to disclose that publicly.

Dr. Karen Landers, assistant health officer with the Alabama Department of Public Health, said the agency is not tracking the statistics for several reasons, privacy being one.

Avoid transparency

But some law professors who analyze medical privacy say that HIPAA has been utilized during the coronavirus pandemic as a crutch to not disclose or gather data for public use.

HIPAA does not cover the release of deidentified information such as summary statistics, said Sharona Hoffman, professor of law and bioethics at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. HIPAA is not a barrier to public health data collection or to information the public of general statistics and trends. Entities should not use it to avoid transparency.

William Brewbaker III, a professor of law at the University of Alabama School of Law, said one of the issues involves on who is covered under HIPAA, which was became law in 1996. The law, he said, covers health insurers, health care providers, hospitals and entities submitting their insurance claims electronically. He said that school systems usually are not covered by the law.

HIPAA only really prevents the disclosure of an individuals identifiable information, Brewbaker said. The point is to make sure that peoples interests in having their own health information private is vindicated. If youre in a school district and the school system says 80% of the teachers have had a vaccine, there is no way for someone to find out whether you are in the 80% or in the 20% from a disclosure like that.

He added, It seems to me that there is no harm in asking teachers to provide that information and for the system to release that information only an aggregate basis.

Brewbaker said the HIPAA law can become a convenient excuse, sometimes for a lack of transparency. He said he wasnt attributing motives to any one institution but added that some school districts simply might not want to hassle employees with questioning over who did or did not receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

He said where there could be a concern is if a school disclosed the number of teachers within a certain grade  for instance, if you have five first-grade teachers, and four of them got the vaccination, he said. It could be easy for someone to figure it out.

Brewbaker added, In principle, to say that 68% of teachers are immunized, I dont see how that would really disclose whether any individual teacher made a decision one way or the other.

Alabama health officials to public: Please continue to wear masks after April 9

Alabama mask order ending April 9, changes for hospitals, restaurants: What you need to know

Nearly a year into the pandemic, Alabama is still reaching milestones: Week in review
China plans to build more facilities to deal with waste from nuclear power plants in the next five years, as it speeds up development of the industry in a bid to meet ambitious climate targets.

In its draft 14th five-year plan released on Friday, Beijing also calls for home-grown third-generation nuclear technologies like Hualong One and Guohe One to be promoted.

The first Hualong One reactor was connected to the power grid in November, while the Guohe One design was completed in September. Two high-temperature gas-cooled reactors in Shandong  the first in the world  also finished testing in November and are expected to be connected to the grid this year.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

To push forward the industry, the five-year plan to 2025 also calls for demonstration projects to be built for small modular reactors and floating nuclear plants.

Chinas first nuclear power plant using its Hualong One technology, in Fuqing, Fujian province, was connected to the grid in November. Photo: Xinhua

China last year pledged to hit peak carbon emissions by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060. Nuclear power is a big factor in achieving those goals, but it has already missed a target of having 58 gigawatts of capacity in service and 30GW under construction by 2020.

In its next five-year plan, Beijing has set a new target of having 70GW of nuclear capacity by the end of 2025, a 27 per cent increase from the 51GW at the end of last year.

It had about 21GW of capacity under construction at the end of 2020, which did not meet its target but was the largest nuclear plant programme in the world, according to the China Nuclear Energy Association.

Wang Yingsu, secretary general of the nuclear power branch of the China Electric Power Promotion Council, said he was optimistic about the development of nuclear power in the country.

Chinas third-generation nuclear technology is world-leading and the peak emissions and carbon neutrality targets create a good opportunity for nuclear power development, he said.

Story continues

But expansion of the industry will mean more radioactive waste to dispose of, which experts say is a problem that China has to address.

If we want to develop nuclear power, the [issue of] radioactive waste will come to the fore, Wang said. If we cant solve this problem, it will restrict the development of the industry.

Beijings draft plan for the next five years includes building more low- and medium-level radioactive waste disposal sites and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants. Low-level waste refers to contaminated gear from a plant like protective clothing, while medium-level waste includes filters and used components. Together they account for about 99 per cent of radioactive waste.

High-level waste mainly refers to spent nuclear fuel, and the safest way to dispose of it is to bury it hundreds of metres below the surface for up to a million years.

China has three low- and medium-level disposal sites  in Gansu, Guangdong and Sichuan provinces  but they cannot deal with all the radioactive waste already generated in the country every year.

A 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor generates about 50 cubic metres of radioactive waste every year, Jiang Guang, head of radioactive source management at the National Nuclear Safety Administration, said in April. He said a total of 16,000 cubic metres of low- and medium-level radioactive waste had been generated in China as of the end of 2019.

In a paper last year, Zhao Chengkun, vice-chairman of the China Nuclear Energy Association, said the Gansu disposal site had only completed 10 per cent of its planned capacity and was mainly taking military nuclear waste and some from a power plant in Zhejiang. The Guangdong site meanwhile was supposed to take waste from the Daya Bay plant in the province but had not yet begun operating, while the Sichuan site only accepted nuclear waste generated locally.

We still have not built a real low-level waste regional disposal site, Zhao said.

He added that China would generate about 150,000 cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste by 2060, based on the current pace of installing capacity.

But if China aims to have 150GW of nuclear capacity by 2035, as some experts have estimated, it would have some 250,000 cubic metres of low-level waste to deal with by 2060.

Tian Li, vice-president of the nuclear power branch of the China Electric Power Promotion Council, said it would be up to Beijing to find a solution.

China has planned to do this for years, but there are obstacles  because of the not in my backyard phenomenon, Tian said. No province wants to build a disposal site  they want to transport the waste to other provinces. So it needs the central government to make the decision.

A site has been selected for disposal of high-level waste, with construction work expected to finish on the Beishan underground research laboratory in Gansu by 2026. Tests are expected to be conducted from 2021 to 2040, and a geological repository is to be completed by 2050, according to a government research and development plan.

A reprocessing plant is also in operation in Gansu on a trial basis, with capacity for 200 tonnes of uranium per year, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

More from South China Morning Post:

This article China puts nuclear power, waste disposal on the front burner in bid to meet climate targets first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2021.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 09:58:05|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

People are seen outside the Old Building of LSE (The London School of Economics and Political Science) in London, Britain, on March 8, 2021. Amid a mixed sense of nervousness and excitement, millions of children returned to schools across England on Monday under phase one of the British government's "roadmap" to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. (Xinhua/Han Yan)
Southeast Texas appears back on schedule with COVID-19 vaccinations after last months winter storm slowed down the states effort to inoculate residents.

Through the weekend, the region had used 44,577 of the 55,000 first-doses that have been delivered. That largely puts the region back on track to continue the originally projected 11,000 doses per week.

Yet some jurisdictions are still lagging behind while others are surging ahead.

Jasper County and Riceland Healthcare have administered all their allocated doses. But Orange and Hardin counties through the weekend had given out about 65% of theirs.

At a glance To sign up for a vaccine waiting list in Southeast Texas*: Visit vaccine.beaumonttexas.gov; or Call (409) 550-2536. The phones will be manned from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick asked residents to be patient if they experience a busy signal or other capacity-related issue. Hardin County residents 65 years of age or older who wish to be vaccinated by haven't received their first dose can call Hardin County Judge Wayne McDaniel at 409-246-5120; email at wayne.mcdaniel@co.hardin.tx.us; or private message his official Facebook page at www.facebook.com/judgewaynemcdaniel *The city of Beaumont's 311 service is no longer taking signups for the vaccine waiting list. See More Collapse

However, vaccine clinics put on by the Hardin County Public Health Department, which also covers Orange County, are booked through the week. That happened after those counties lifted all restrictions on who could get the vaccine, Hardin County Judge Wayne McDaniel said.

McDaniel asks individuals who are 65 years of age or older that havent had their first dose or scheduled that appointment to call his office, email him or send a private message to his official Facebook page.

Related: Orange Co., Port Arthur lift vaccine restrictions

Its unclear at this time how the region will respond to any lopsidedness in the vaccine rollout.

After the winter storm, which knocked out water service to much of Port Arthur for several days, the number of doses allocated to each jurisdiction was shifted to allow some regions to catch up.

Jefferson County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Allison Getz, who also is the public information officer for the local vaccine coalition, said shes not sure if a similar procedure would be implemented again should jurisdictions fall behind.

While the vaccination effort continues, the average number of new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Jefferson County each day has continued to decline, although relatively slowly.

The Port Arthur Public Health Department has not reported new cases since Thursday, but the county cumulatively has seen new cases average in the 30s consistently since Feb. 23.

Top hits: Get Beaumont Enterprise stories sent directly to your inbox

As of Thursday, the county was averaging 31 new cases each day.

In Monday, the city of Beaumont reported 51 new cases  the largest single-day total since Feb. 2, when 61 cases were reported.

The report of 51 new cases came with an additional 10 over the weekend. Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames noted that those cases, averaged over the three days, comes out to about 20 a day.

The city also recorded two additional virus-related deaths on Monday.

Jefferson County has logged at least 16,918 positive cases of COVID-19 and 280 virus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/KaitlinBain
LANSING  Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud today commented on a pattern of behavior by former Governor Rick Snyders legal team to discredit Michigans grand jury process following a hearing in Genesee Countys 67th District Court. The hearing comes one day after the legal team for Jarrod Agen  who is among the nine individuals indicted on criminal charges in the Flint Water Crisis investigation  received an unfavorable ruling in another court.

Todays hearing was one more attempt, in a series of miscalculations by the Snyder defense team, to disqualify and discredit the grand jury process. The grand jury is a secure and unbiased investigative tool used to determine if enough evidence exists to issue criminal indictments, said Hammoud. Today, Mr. Snyders lawyer tried to degrade the grand jury process, even going so far as to question the work of the grand juror, Judge David Newblatt. This shows just how far defense counsel is willing to go to deny justice to the people of Flint.

Todays hearing to dismiss charges against former Governor Rick Snyder was brought before Judge William Crawford II of the 67th District Court. This hearing comes one day after a ruling by Judge Elizabeth Kelly in the 7th Circuit Court to deny a motion by Snyders former chief of staff, Jarrod Agen. Agen sought to dismiss the perjury charge against him, claiming that the indictment failed to allege sufficient facts, the venue in Genesee County was improper and, the one-person grand jury did not have jurisdiction to issue the indictment.

At the conclusion of yesterdays hearing, Judge Kelly addressed defense counsels failure to follow Michigan Court Rules regarding pleadings and asked defense counsel to strictly comply with the court rules in future pleadings.

While this may be a high profile case, there are no velvet ropes in our criminal justice system. The defense may not like the process, but it is our responsibility to apply the law without prejudice and ensure we utilize all investigative tools in the pursuit of justice for the people of Flint, said Hammoud.

A ruling from Judge Crawford of the 67th District Court is expected within a week.

The grand jury process, commonly used in prosecutions across the country, provides the ability to conduct an investigation expeditiously and to use public resources in the most efficient way possible. In accordance with state law, discussions on the grand jury evidence are not allowed at this stage in the cases. Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Duncan Beagle is in the process of reviewing the evidence and has stated he will provide what he deems relevant to both parties for discovery purposes.
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  The state House approved legislation Monday that would raise a state health insurance tax and dedicate about $115 million in new annual revenue to programs aimed at making health care more affordable.

The increased tax would essentially replace a federal fee that was repealed. The House amended the proposal Monday to call for the increased state tax to be phased out if the federal fee is ever reimposed.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

Rep. Deborah Armstrong, an Albuquerque Democrat and sponsor of the bill, said the new tax could help fund subsidies that make insurance more affordable for uninsured New Mexicans and pay for new programs to help small businesses offer insurance.

I do think it will lower the cost for everyone.  If you have more people insured, Armstrong said, it spreads the risk.

Opponents of the bill said New Mexico should allow insurance companies to benefit from the reduced federal fee without immediately stepping in with a replacement tax. The lower tax will be passed on to consumers, they said.

Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, said small businesses could use the relief after such a tough year of public health restrictions.

They have suffered enough, Dow said. They need to know that we hear them and care about them.

The proposal, she said, leaves too much undecided, with no guarantee that the money collected will ever actually reduce health care costs for New Mexicans.

The proposal, House Bill 122, would establish a health care affordability fund dedicated to reducing the cost of health care coverage for residents and businesses.

The proposal is expected to raise about $153 million a year, with $115 million dedicated to the affordability fund and $38 million for the state general fund.

Armstrong said the federal government would pick up much of the cost because so many New Mexicans are enrolled in Medicaid, a program jointly funded by the state and federal governments.

The House passed the bill on a 43-25 vote, largely along party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. It now heads to the Senate with just 12 days left in the session.
Two years ago, three baraats (wedding parties) from Jaisalmer and Barmer went to Pakistan. However, they returned to India without the brides since visas were not granted to them.

However, this International Women's Day, two of these cross-border brides were finally reunited with their grooms in India.

Chagan Kanwar, wife of Mahendra Singh and Kailash Bai, wife of Nepal Singh, came to India on Monday through the Wagah-Attari border along with a few family members and were accorded a warm welcome by their husbands.

The two Pakistani brides had finally arrived at the residence of their in-laws in Rajasthan two years after their wedding.

The brides, along with their family members, passed through a security check and took the Covid-19 test after crossing the border.

While Nepal's wife Kailash came to India accompanied with her mother and brother, Mahendra's wife Chagan Kanwar came with her father.

However, Nepal's brother's wife could not get visa that has left him a little upset.

Nepal Singh, a Sodha Rajput, belongs to Jaisalmer district. He married a Pakistani woman from Sindh province on January 26, 2019. Similarly, Mahendra from Barmer went to Pakistan and married a Pakistani Rajput woman on April 16, 2019.

However Vikram Singh, who was married to another Rajput woman and was also blessed with a child named Rajveer Singh, is still awaiting his bride as she couldn't get a visa.

Their child, however, got the visa and has come to India.

As relations between the two countries soured following the Pulwama attack, they could not bring their wives and returned to India without the brides after staying in Pakistan for four months.

Nepal Singh told journalists that even as he is happy to meet his wife he was also upset since his younger brother's wife could not get a visa.

He also thanked union minister Kailash Choudhary for extending all due help to the family in getting the visas.

"I would like to extend gratitude to Union minister Kailash Choudhary who helped us in getting a visa. Initially, my wife was allowed entry only via air route but since we could not afford air travel, the Union minister helped us get permission to cross through the Wagah-Attari road route," he added.

Meanwhile officials said that his brother Vikram Singh's wife, Pakistani girl Nirmala Bai, was denied a visa by the consulate on the grounds that her passport was blacklisted.

However, their one and a half years old child has got the visa and has come to India. Now, efforts are being made to get a visa for the mother.

Chaudhary has intensified efforts to get a visa for the woman and has contacted the home ministry in this regard.
Philippines officials, on Tuesday, March 9, said that the police killed Catbalogan City Mayor Ronaldo Aquino and two of his aides. According to Brig. Gen. Ronaldo de Jesus, the police were on a routine patrol when they were fired upon by security aides of Aquino. He was being driven in a van in the eastern Samar province. As an act of retaliation, the police returned fire and ended up killing the mayor and his aides.

Maybe a 'misencounter'

According to the reports by AP, De Jesus said, I can only assume that this was a mistaken encounter. He added, They had suspicions and opened fire on our policemen and our forces retaliated. Rep. Edgar Sarmiento, who was a friend of Aquino said that the mayor was on his way to the birthday celebration of his child. "He must have been targeted."

Reports by the Philippines news agency suggest that the police are digging deeper into the reported gunfight in the Eastern Visayas. On the same night of this incident, the PNP created a Special Investigation Task Group (SITG). This team is headed by Region 8 deputy regional director for operations Col. Edwin Wagan. However, the official is yet to come to a conclusion if this was a misencounter.

The shooting took place at 5pm and was reported after half an hour at the citys Laboyao Bridge in Lonoy village. It was immediately termed as an ambush. A revised version of the report was released at 8am and it disclosed that while Aquino and his aides were heading north on board a white van, one of his aides fired at the vans as they thought there was something suspicious about it. Mayor Aquino, who was 59, was serving his third term and last term as the city's chief executive. He served as mayor since 2011 after then-mayor Reynaldo Uy was killed in a fiesta celebration in Hinabangan, Samar.
The Indian Medical Association -Patanjali Tussle

On 23 February 2021, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) came down heavily on Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union minister of health for endorsing or perhaps for releasing the research work on Patanjali's Coronil for treatment of COVID-19 infection. The attack was particularly sharp but, at the same time, IMAs press release raised some tough questions.

As a general observation and uninfluenced by general politics and technicalities of clinical research, to an ordinary person like this author, who has great regard for both systems of medicine, an attack on Ayurveda is quite baffling.

IMA HQs Press Release on Health Minister - February 22, 2021 pic.twitter.com/72DWWs90KG  Indian Medical Association (@IMAIndiaOrg) February 22, 2021 We want to clarify to avoid confusion that our WHO GMP compliant COPP certificate to Coronil is issued by DCGI, Government of India.

It is clear that WHO do not approve or disapprove any drugs.

WHO works for building a better, healthier future for people all over the world. pic.twitter.com/ZEDPdWy0tg  Acharya Balkrishna (@Ach_Balkrishna) February 19, 2021

This brings us to more critical questions: what has shaped the thinking of the public on 'modern medicine' in India and why is there such contempt or scepticism for the indigenous system, which, in conjunction with yoga, is an important part of Indias soft power projection.

Allopathic system in India has colonial origins and its present position of dominance is a product of medical discourse which occupied an extremely important place in the entire process of colonisation of India. This discourse took shape over a hundred years, between 1800s to 1920a period which not just marked the ascendency of the British in the sub-continent, but also witnessed the ravaging impact of epidemics and pandemic on Indian population.

The history of India largely acknowledges the pollical developments but is less appreciative that in the atmosphere of repeated disease outbreaks, making money out of the diseases was a profitable enterprise, which made the stamping European supremacy over indigenous medicine system a top priority.

The British strategy of managing and eventually controlling the discourse of medical system may be described as twin strategy consisting of trying to change the narrative using good cop and bad cop strategy and co-opting the urban elite population to gain acceptance for the western medicine and eventually marginalising and finishing the indigenous system consisting of Ayurveda and Unani systems. (See Being Different by Rajiv Malhotra for more general and detailed discussion).

The initial British encounter with the Indian system of medicine produced works of J Johnson (1813), B Heyne (1814), H Wilson (1825), W Ainslie (1826), W Twining (1832), G Playfair (1833), JR Martin (1837, 1856), JF Royle (1837), TW Wise (1845), and many others who praised the Indian systems vast body of medical knowledge.

At the same time, the political process ensured through its mass inoculation experiments (although inoculation is well documented in Ayurveda) involving both coercion and persuasion to force the general public to adopt the western system of medicine. The British would formally institutionalise Western medicine in laws from 1840.

The early efforts did see some success. Urban, propertied and educated classes were quick to change and adopt Western medicine. One SC Chuckerbutty would become the first Indian to graduate in Western medicine and was sent to England for higher studies in 1845. Upon his arrival back his work would consistently take adversarial position against the indigenous practitioners. However, the rural population continued to be firmly rooted in the traditional system.

Probably because of demand outpacing supply or pure greed, the commissioner of Punjab in 1867 tried to onboard native doctors by training them in Western medicine. The move was strongly opposed by the allopathic doctors.

Then in 1882 the British government examined the proposal to register all (Western + indigenous) medical practitioners and give equal right to both in terms of signing government certificates. This created a furore and the British Indian government virtually excluded indigenous practitioner from government medical services.

Another Act passed in 1912 would finally exclude indigenous system from any state patronage thus making the indigenous system a voluntary and private affair.

It was around this time that in 1883 that the Bombay Medical Union was formed, the very first society of medical professionals. Association would later become the western branch of the IMA which came into existence in 1928. Through regular conferences and other efforts, the IMA would cement its position in the period 1883 -1920.

Some of its members who were active in the freedom struggle would succeed in Indian National Congress (INC) to take up the cause of parity between Indian and European doctors between 1893 and 1907. The health system would gradually come into Indian hands by 1919 but did no good to the marginalised indigenous system.

But for the dedicated efforts of people like Raja Serfoji, the last Maratha, Hakim Ajmal Khan, KC Sen, Pandit Gopalchari of Madras, Vaidya PS Varier of Kottakal and others, the indigenous system would have been extinct by now. That it survived and continues to face similar tirades shows the deep scars colonialism has inflicted. This may well be the most important motivation to narrate this well documented history again and set the discourse right.

What can we conclude from this history? First, perception of tension between the allopathic and ayurvedic systems created by the event is not a healthy sign, given the vast needs for health services. Even in 1876, the Indian Medical Gazette reported one assistant surgeon of Peshawar Chetan Shah acknowledging that hakims are not so ignorant as doctors believe them to be.

In todays time, stalwarts like Dr BM Hegde have been more objective and supportive of indigenous system. For affordable health services the country needs the best of both systems as both have something unique to offer.

Second, at the deeper level the co-opting process that British started among urban elites is slowly withering. With urban middle class now more educated and open to trying the indigenous system, commercial concerns are the driving thing at the time of the pandemic. The global herbal medicinal market is estimated at $120 billion and the domestic market is assumed to grow at over 35%.

India being the inventor of Ayurveda must seize the opportunity to position this system not just domestically, but also abroad, just as Chinese medicine thrives in West. Thus, while disagreeing to aggressive exchange of language, the author agrees that solid home-grown standards are needed to help in the expansion of the indigenous system.

Last, the idea of making profit from human suffering that the British implanted has today made the dominant system unethical and way beyond the means of common man. This cost paradox is true even when Indian medicines are one of the cheapest in the world.

Thus, it is imperative that government corrects the colonial excesses on indigenous system, creates a level playing field, as it can offer treatment of many common aliments at one fiftieth the price of allopathic medicine.

Indeed, the battle of Atamanirbhar Bharat will also be fought on medical discourse in the 21st century.

History has strange ways of repeating itself!

(The author is an economist and works the banking industry. Views are personal.)
The University of North Alabama is holding multiple coronavirus vaccine clinics.

The university received doses of the Moderna vaccine to administer to people in Phase 1B of Alabamas vaccine allocation plan. They will be available to UNA employees and community members who meet the states eligibility requirements.

You can sign up here.

The clinics will take place in the Guillot University Center on March 15, 16 and 18 and April 17 and 18, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Clinics for second doses will be at the same location during the same timeframe on April 12, 13 and 15 and May 15 and 16.

Youll need to complete the forms here and bring them to your appointment. Also, make sure to have a driver's license or picture ID.

If you have questions, email covidvaccine@una.edu.
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P) has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021. The publication ranked GS&P number one on its list of the most innovative companies in the advertising sector.

The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive; they thrivedmaking an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's MIC list features 463 businesses from 29 countries.

"2020 was about penetrating culture on the biggest stages while unapologetically taking on the most controversial issues facing the world today," said Margaret Johnson, CCO and partner at GS&P. "Innovation is at the heart of what we do as an agency, and we are incredibly proud to be recognized among Fast Company's list of innovative companies."

In naming GS&P, Fast Company highlighted the company's ability to creatively balance high-profile work. GS&P had four Super Bowl ads in 2020, for Doritos, Cheetos, Pepsi, and SodaStream, and an epic Xfinity holiday ad featuring Steve Carell, as well as culturally penetrating moments such as "Not a Gun" and "Vote for Them" for the Courageous Conversation Global Foundation. "Not a Gun" brought awareness to the fact that Black people are three times more likely than white people to be killed by police by swapping out harmless candy with guns in the hands of a Black person. And "Vote for Them" created election signs that replaced presidential candidates' names with the names of victims of police brutality to remind people that beyond voting for a presidential candidate, citizens' votes could change policies that save people's lives.

GS&P's diversity of leadership, of which half of its partners and 73 percent of its department heads are women, as well as its business resilience and internal innovation were also key ingredients to its number-one spot on the list. In 2020, GS&P won 14 new pieces of business and maintained 100 percent of its clients, benefitting from its investment in increasingly sophisticated in-house offerings such as Brand Camp (a month-long strategic sprint), Elevel (in-house production) and GS&P Labs (the agency's innovation and engineering offering). GS&P Labs created such hits as a partnership with the Sway dance app that was timed with the release of its Doritos Super Bowl ad, in which artificial intelligence empowered consumers to dance like Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott from the spot, and the "Respond2Racism" First-Responder Twitter bot, which responds to hateful tweets against the Asian community with videos that educate perpetrators and uplift Asian frontline workers.

Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multiday summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021.

Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here , as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.

ABOUT GOODBY SILVERSTEIN & PARTNERS

Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P) is an internationally awarded creative company whose mission, "Mass Intimacy," is to create experiences that reach millions and even billions but seem to speak to all of us individually. Named Campaign's 2020 Agency of the Year, GS&P has created commercials and digital experiences for BMW, HP, Pepsi, Sam Adams, Truly, Frito-Lay, Comcast, E*TRADE, the New Yorker magazine, Adobe, and "got milk?" They are also well-known for artistic installations, such as the Dali Museum's Dali Lives, which brought artist Salvador Dali back to life via deepfake technology; the Cheetos Vision app, which debuted at SXSW and used augmented reality to turn your world into Cheetos; and Lessons in Herstory, an app that harnesses artificial intelligence to add women to school history books.

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company, along with our sister publication Inc., is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

SOURCE Goodby Silverstein & Partners
All Services to customers across Companys North American operations continue without interruption; no impact on customers bills or daily operations expected



Filings and associated US$125 million Debtor in Possession (DIP) financing ensures Just Energy continues to meet its regulatory obligations in North America, including payments required by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)

Filings provide stability for the Company as it facilitates the restructuring of its financial obligations due to the impact of unprecedented winter storm on the business

Companys largest commodity suppliers continue to support the Company

TORONTO, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just Energy Group Inc. (Just Energy or the Company) (TSX:JE; NYSE:JE), a retail energy provider specializing in electricity and natural gas commodities and bringing energy efficient solutions and renewable energy options to customers, today announced that it has sought and received creditor protection via an Initial Order under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) and is seeking similar protection under Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code in the United States. Just Energy has also reached an agreement with one of its Term Loan lenders for a US$125 million DIP financing. The Companys largest commodity suppliers have also agreed to continue to support the Company with commodity supply and ISO services.

The filings, and associated US$125 million DIP financing arranged by the Company, enable Just Energy to continue all operations without interruption throughout the U.S. and Canada and to continue making payments required by ERCOT and satisfy other regulatory obligations. Just Energy sought and received a Stay of Proceedings and other protections provided by the CCAA in order to provide the Company with breathing room to pursue alternatives that would allow it to emerge as a strong, stable business. The Stay of Proceedings in favour of Just Energy has an initial term of 10 days, subject to extension as the Court deems appropriate. The filings have no impact on customer bills.

Todays filings are the result of unprecedented cold weather in Texas in February (the Weather Event), and corresponding charges from ERCOT currently totaling over US$250 million that Just Energy must pay in the near term. The total financial impact may change due to ERCOT resettlements, potential orders of the Public Utility Commission (the Commission) with respect to recommendations of the Independent Market Monitor (IMM), the outcome of the dispute resolution process initiated by the Company with ERCOT and potential litigation challenges. Since these disputes are still pending and not resolved, Just Energy is unable to pay the full amounts when due to ERCOT this week without the arrangement of the DIP financing received today.

While Just Energy hedges weather risk based on historical scenarios, the Weather Event in Texas was colder than anything experienced in decades. A combination of customer usage and the Real Time Settlement Point Price being artificially set at the high offer cap of US$9,000 per megawatt hour contributed significantly to the negative financial impact to the Company. The Weather Event caused the ERCOT wholesale market to incur charges of approximately US$55 billion over a seven-day period, an amount equal to what it ordinarily incurs over four years. The total cost to Just Energy and other market participants is still subject to adjustment by ERCOT and may change.

As previously announced, on March 3, 2021, the Company filed a petition with the Commission requesting an order that ERCOT deviate from the deadlines and timing in its Protocols and Market Guides related to settlements, collateral obligations, and invoice payments and suspend the execution or issuance of invoices or settlements for intervals during the dates of February 14, 2021 through February 19, 2021, until issues related to the catastrophic Weather Event raised by executive and legislative branches of the Texas authorities are investigated, addressed, and resolved. Alternatively, Just Energy requested that the Commission grant a waiver of certain ERCOT Protocols to allow Just Energy to delay payment of certain invoices related to the Weather Event while exercising its rights under the ERCOT Protocols to dispute the invoiced payment amounts. To date, Just Energy has not received this relief.

BMO Capital Markets has been engaged as financial advisor, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP are legal advisors in Canada, Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Jackson Walker LLP are legal advisors in the United States and FTI Consulting Canada Inc. has consented to act as the Monitor under the CCAA.

Just Energy will provide further updates as developments warrant. A copy of the CCAA Initial Order and other information regarding the CCAA proceedings will be available at the Monitors website http://cfcanada.fticonsulting.com/justenergy. Information regarding CCAA proceedings can also be obtained by calling the Monitors hotline at 416-649-8127 or 1-844-669-6340 or by email at justenergy@fticonsulting.com.

About Just Energy Group Inc.

Just Energy is a retail energy provider specializing in electricity and natural gas commodities and bringing energy efficient solutions and renewable energy options to customers. Currently operating in the United States and Canada, Just Energy serves residential and commercial customers. Just Energy is the parent company of Amigo Energy, Filter Group Inc., Hudson Energy, Interactive Energy Group, Tara Energy, and terrapass. Visit https://investors.justenergy.com/ to learn more.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including statements with respect to: the Initial Order and the related DIP financing enabling the Company to continue operations without interruption and continuing to make payments required by ERCOT; the Companys ability to pursue alternatives and emerge from CCAA as a strong, stable business; the DIP financing providing sufficient liquidity for the Company to continue to operate the business in the normal course under CCAA; the Company providing uninterrupted service to its customers; the Company continuing to make payments required by ERCOT and other regulatory obligations; and potential changes to the financial impact of the Weather Event, whether due to ERCOT resettlements, potential orders of the Commission with respect to the recommendations of the IMM, the outcome of the dispute resolution process initiated by the Company and potential litigation challenges, or otherwise. These statements are based on current expectations that involve several risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, risks with respect to: the ability of the Company to continue as a going concern; the outcome of proceedings under CCAA and similar bankruptcy legislation in the United States; the outcome of any invoice dispute with ERCOT; obtaining relief to delay payment of certain ERCOT settlement invoices; the outcome of potential litigation in connection with the Weather Event; the quantum of the financial loss to the Company from the Weather Event and its impact on the Companys liquidity; the Companys discussions with key stakeholders regarding the Weather Event and the outcome thereof; the impact of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic on the Companys business, operations and sales; reliance on suppliers; uncertainties relating to the ultimate spread, severity and duration of COVID-19 and related adverse effects on the economies and financial markets of countries in which the Company operates; the ability of the Company to successfully implement its business continuity plans with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic; the Companys ability to access sufficient capital to provide liquidity to manage its cash flow requirements; general economic, business and market conditions; the ability of management to execute its business plan; levels of customer natural gas and electricity consumption; extreme weather conditions; rates of customer additions and renewals; customer credit risk; rates of customer attrition; fluctuations in natural gas and electricity prices; interest and exchange rates; actions taken by governmental authorities including energy marketing regulation; increases in taxes and changes in government regulations and incentive programs; changes in regulatory regimes; results of litigation and decisions by regulatory authorities; competition; and dependence on certain suppliers. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect Just Energys operations or financial results are included in Just Energys annual information form and other reports on file with Canadian securities regulatory authorities which can be accessed through the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com, on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions website at www.sec.gov or through Just Energys website at www.justenergygroup.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Investors

Michael Cummings

Alpha IR

Phone: (617) 982-0475

JE@alpha-ir.com

Monitor

FTI Consulting

416-649-8127 or 1-844-669-6340

justenergy@fticonsulting.com

Media

Boyd Erman

Longview Communications and Public Affairs

Phone: 416-523-5885

berman@longviewcomms.ca
Based on the shorthand descriptions Id read  a novel of the Internet  I anticipated not responding well to No One Is Talking About This. Why would someone want to make a novel out of Twitter? Reading Part 1, I was actually a little irritated by how many of the references to Twitters flotsam and jetsam I could specifically recall. I felt like I shared in Lockwoods indictment of her narrators absorption in the portal. Clearly, Id been more online than I wouldve liked to admit.
Neanderthal remains discovered in a cave in Belgium thought to be 37,000 years old are actually thousands of years older than previous studies suggested, study shows.

University of Oxford archaeologists re-dated a number of Neanderthal specimens from Spy Cave in Belgium, a renowned site for palaeolithic discoveries and found contamination skewed earlier dating efforts.

The team say some bones previously dated at about 37,000 years old from within the cave may be up to 5,000 years older.

Determining that the bones were older than suspected allowed the researchers to confirm that Neanderthals disappeared from northwest Europe between 44,200 and 40,600 years ago - up to 8,000 years later than previous estimates.

Homo Sapiens arrived in Europe about 45,000 years ago, with the authors suggesting there 'must have been opportunities for cultural and genetic exchange.'

Maxilla and mandible assemblage of a late Neanderthal from Spy cave. Neanderthal remains discovered in a cave in Belgium thought to be 37,000 years old are actually thousands of years older than previous studies suggested, study shows

SPY CAVE: A KEY PALAEOLITHIC SITE Spy Cave, or Grotte de Spy in French, is a palaeolithic treasure trove first discovered in 1886. It is located near Spy in the municipality of Jemeppe-sur-Sambre in Belgium above the bank of the Orneau River. It is a premier Heritage site and contains a number of small chambers and corridors. It was first excavated in the 19th century, revealing Neanderthal fossils that contributed to a paradigm shift in the understanding of evolution. As well as Neanderthals, early modern humans have been found at the site, suggesting some cross over, interbreeding and cultural exchange. A recent re-analysis of the fossils found the remains to be much older than previously suspected. It is thought the earlier remains were contaminated by older treatment techniques and lack of presevation. Advertisement

Neanderthal remains from Belgium have long puzzled scientists, according to the Oxford team, as fossil remains from the key site of Spy Cave suggested there were members of the nominin species living in the region 37,000 years ago.

This would place them among the latest surviving Neanderthals in Europe. But sample contamination might have affected these estimates.

Now, a team based in Oxfords Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit has re-dated Neanderthal specimens from Spy Cave.

Most of the dates have been found to be much older than those obtained previously on the same bone samples - up to 5,000 years older in certain cases.

Dating is crucial in archaeology,' said Oxford Professor Tom Higham.

'Without a reliable framework of chronology we cant really be confident in understanding the relationships between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens as we moved into Europe 45,000 years ago and they began to disappear.'

'Thats why these methods are so exciting, because they provide much more accurate and reliable dates,' he explained.

'The results suggest that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals probably overlapped in different parts of Europe and there must have been opportunities for possible cultural and genetic exchange.

Lead author, Oxford-based, Dr Thibaut Deviese said the new chemistry methods for dating applied to the Spy allows for the fossils to be decontaminated.

He said we can 'decontaminate these key Neanderthal bones for dating and check that contaminants have been fully removed. This gives us confidence in the new ages we obtained for these important specimens.

University of Oxford archaeologists re-dated a number of Neanderthal specimens from Spy Cave in Belgium, a renowned site for palaeolithic discoveries and found contamination skewed earlier dating efforts

The team found a Neanderthal scapula from the Spy Cave that had produced very recent dates previously of around 28,000 years ago was heavily contaminated with modern bovine DNA.

These results suggest that the bone had been preserved with a glue prepared from cattle bones and may have resulted in the earlier dates.

The team used an advanced method for radiocarbon dating fossil bones. Using liquid chromatography separation, they were able to extract a single amino acid from the Neanderthal remains for dating.

This so-called compound-specific approach allows scientists to reliably date the bones and exclude carbon from contaminants such as those from the glue that was applied to the fossils.

Determining that the bones were older than suspected allowed the researchers to confirm that Neanderthals disappeared from northwest Europe between 44,200 and 40,600 years ago - up to 8,000 years later than previous estimates

These contaminants have plagued previous attempts to reliably date the Belgian Neanderthals because their presence resulted in dates that were much too young.

The results also highlight the need for robust pre-treatment methods when dating Palaeolithic human remains to minimize biases due to contamination, they said.

The team is now analysing archaeological evidence, such as bone tools, to further refine our understanding of the cultural transition between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in this region.

Neanderthal remains from Belgium have long puzzled scientists, according to the Oxford team, as fossil remains from the key site of Spy Cave suggested there were members of the nominin species living in the region 37,000 years ago

Gregory Abrams, of the Scladina Cave Archaeological Centre in Belgium said they also re-dated specimins from two other sites in Belgium.

They were the Fonds-de-Foret and Engis, and obtained similar ages to Spy.

'Dating all these Belgian specimens was very exciting as they played a major role in the understanding and the definition of Neanderthals,' Abrams said.

'Almost two centuries after the discovery of the Neanderthal child of Engis, we were able to provide a reliable age.'

The findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Savor Limited today announces that it has agreed to acquire the Hipgroup venues; Amano, Ortolana and The Store, as part of its focus on growing its hospitality business.

Hipgroup is a market leader within the New Zealand hospitality industry, comprising well-known, award-winning brands in Amano, Ortolana and The Store. The venues are located in Aucklands premier hospitality precinct, Britomart, strategically expanding Savors footprint in the flagship area and cementing Savor Groups position as a leader in the hospitality industry.

The acquisition will be immediately accretive to Group earnings, with incremental annualized operating earnings (or EBITDA) of circa $3 million. Alongside this, Savor Group expects scale benefits from leveraging its current overhead structure and to achieve both revenue and operational synergies.

The acquisition of these venues, combined with the divestment of Moa Brewing, provides the Group with a solid financial base for future growth. Moa Brewing accounted for approximately $1.5 million of working capital funds and over $1.6 million of overhead costs annually. The divestment has significantly simplified the operations of the Group, removed the loss making division and with it, several material business risks. The Group is now in a strong position to secure greater access to financing and capital opportunities to fund its future growth plans as required.

Highlights

 Acquisition of Amano, Ortolana, and The Store at Britomart businesses from subsidiaries of Hipgroup for a cash payment of $7.15 million on completion, $1 million of ordinary shares in Savor Limited to be issued on completion, and a deferred cash payment of $2.85 million to be paid 12 months from completion

 Acquired venues immediately accretive to Group earnings with expected circa $3 million of operating earnings (or EBITDA) of annual trading

 Transaction is to be funded through additional debt financing, plus new equity capital of $6 million already fully underwritten, to support growth and strengthen balance sheet

 Post transaction, the Group is expected to have approximately $7 million cash on hand to support growth and a total debt to equity to ratio of approximately 2 times operating earnings

Please see the links below for details:

Savor 2021 Strategy presentation

Rights issue Cleansing Notice

Rights Issue Corporate Action Notice

Market announcement: Hipgroup acquisition and rights issue

Source: Savor Limited

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Confirms $10m Placement to Wholesale Investors

2nd June 2021 Morning Report

New Zealand Rural Land Company Limited (NZX: NZL) Rights Issue Documents

Infratil Limited (NZX: IFT) Update on Infratil Infrastructure Bond Offer

1st June 2021 Morning Report

Synlait Milk Limited (NZX: SML) Update Following Canterbury Flooding

Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Full Year Results to 31 March 2021

31st May 2021 Morning Report

The a2 Milk Company Limited (NZX: ATM) Media Reporting Regarding Potential Class Action

Synlait Milk Limited (NZX: SML) Forecast Milk Price Update


Here are todays leading news stories:

Politics

-- The second plenum of Vietnams 13th-tenure Party Central Committee opened in Hanoi on Monday under the chairmanship of Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong, during which delegates listened to the Politburos proposal on the completion of the nomination of candidates for a number of leadership positions.

Society

-- The Ministry of Health recorded no COVID-19 cases on Tuesday morning. The countrys tally stood at 2,523, with 1,920 recoveries and 35 deaths.

-- Vietnam is expected to receive over four million COVID-19 vaccine doses in March and April under the COVAX scheme co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), Kidong Park  WHO representative to Vietnam  said on Monday.

-- Three beer clubs in District 11, Ho Chi Minh City are facing a fine worth VND100-300 million (US$4,330-13,000) each after being booked for making noise in a residential area and public place after 10:00 pm.

-- Police in the northern province of Hai Duong confirmed on Monday they were investigating a case where a six-year-old girl was hospitalized after being brutally hit by her mother.

-- Officers in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho have arrested 20 suspects involved in a street brawl between two groups of people on March 3. Police also confiscated two guns, 12 knives, and other exhibits.

-- The Ministry of Public Security on Monday arrested and initiated legal proceedings against eight members of an illegal ring that trafficked children to China.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport has proposed the commencement of 15 key traffic projects within 2021, with capital investment totaling VND96.1 trillion ($4.1 billion).

Business

-- Vietnamese airlines on-time performance (OTP) reached 95.6 percent in the first two months of this year despite the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in several localities.

-- Vietnams state budge revenue was estimated at VND286.7 trillion ($12.4 billion) in January and February, equivalent to 21.3 percent of the annual estimation and up 0.6 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Finance reported on Monday.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
President Donald Trump arrives on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Sept. 24, 2017. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Trump Endorses Arkansas Sen. John Boozman

Former President Donald Trump on March 8 endorsed Republican Arkansas Sen. John Boozman for reelection in 2022.

Senator John Boozman is a great fighter for the people of Arkansas. He is tough on Crime, strong on the Border, a great supporter of our Military and our Vets, and fights for our farmers every day. He supports our Second Amendment and has my Complete and Total Endorsement! Trump wrote in a statement released through his Save America political action committee.

Boozman has served in the Senate since 2011. In 2016, he defeated U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge with 59.8 percent of the vote.

Im grateful to have Pres. Trumps endorsement for my re-election to the Senate, Boozman wrote on Twitter on Monday. We worked together to lower taxes, roll back regulations, secure our border, defend our Second Amendment rights and Protect Life.

We rebuilt our military, stood up for our veterans, helped our farmers through challenging & unprecedented times, confirmed 3 conservative Justices to the Supreme Court and completely reshaped the judiciary, Boozman added. Ill always put Arkansas first and defend our values & freedoms.

Trump has rolled out a steady stream of endorsements since leaving office. The president endorsed top Ohio Republican Bob Paduchik on Feb. 24 to lead the states GOP. Paduchik was elected for the post four days later.

In the most recent round of endorsements on March 5, Trump announces his support for Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, and the Arkansas attorney general bid by the states Republican Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin. Trump has also endorsed his former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for the governor of Arkansas and the reelection bids of Republican Sens. John Kennedy (La.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jerry Moran (Kansas).

In addition to backing incumbents, Trump has vowed to back primary challengers against the incumbent House Republicans who voted to impeach him. He endorsed former White House official Max Miller on Feb. 26 in the U.S House primary contest against Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzales, who voted in favor of impeachment. The former president also vowed to travel to Alaska to campaign against Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Digital payments major Paytm on Tuesday launched a new version of its 'Soundbox' along with other solutions that ease acceptance of payments as part of its efforts to equip 50 lakh merchants with IoT (Internet of Things) enabled devices.

The company, which already has over nine lakh merchants using its IoT devices, aims to bring 5 crore merchants into the mainstream economy with its solutions.

Paytm had recently announced that it has achieved over 1.2 billion monthly transactions led by the massive growth in offline payments and financial services.

"Our target is 5 million IoT devices, (which is) 10 per cent of the 50 million merchants...We are aiming to reach 50 million merchants in the next two years. Merchants have varied requirements and need different solutions for accepting payments," Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said.

The company has already facilitated payments acceptance via wallets, UPI, cards and net-banking for over 2 crore merchants, thereby helping them grow their business exponentially, he added.

Sharma said 'Soundbox' device has played a pivotal role in establishing digital transactions as a safe and secure mode of payments, enhancing the trust of businesses and consumers to move digitally.

With this IoT-based device, merchants do not need to keep checking their mobile phones for confirmation, increasing efficiency, and reducing queues and customer waiting time on the shop floor.

"Instant voice-based confirmations of payments help merchants keep track of all transactions, protecting them from getting duped by those showing fake screens and false confirmations...The Soundbox 2.0 comes equipped with a digitally enabled screen that gives instant visual confirmation of the paid amount along with the voice-based response," he said.

Merchants can also use the device to fetch the payment summary for the entire day, and also notifies when it is running out of charge.

While the device supports five languages - English, Hindi, Tamil, Telegu and Kannada, the company plans to add more regional languages, including Marathi, over the next few months.

Sharma said the company is exploring getting the devices manufactured in India. The devices are currently imported from Taiwan, China and a few other countries.

Besides, Paytm's Smart POS for Android phones solutions empowers merchants to accept card payments through their smartphones. This application transforms a smartphone into a device that accepts debit and credit card payments just like a regular card machine.

Supported by Paytm, smart POS enables merchants to seamlessly start accepting contactless card payments anytime and anywhere. Paytm has partnered with financial services institutions, including Visa and MasterCard, for facilitating card payments for smart POS. It would soon be live with Rupay as well.

"Paytm is committed to bringing new-age financial technologies and services to small and micro-merchants in India. The launch of Soundbox 2.0 and Smart POS for Android phones expands opportunities for small businesses to experience these latest technologies at the most affordable price," Sharma said.

Paytm's in-store payment offerings, including the pioneering All-in-One QR, are examples of the best 'Made in India' technology, he added.

TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager (India and South Asia) at Visa, said contactless payments or tapping to pay with a contactless card or mobile device have fast emerged as the preferred way to pay globally with nearly 60 per cent of Visa transactions outside of the US occurring with a tap.

"As a pioneer of the Tap to Phone solution with EMVCo, at Visa, we are particularly excited about Paytm Smart PoS's ability to offer a seamless, convenient and interoperable solution for merchants that will help them accept payments securely from millions of contactless cards in the market," he added.

Dilip Asbe, MD and CEO of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), said the vision of enabling a billion transactions a day can only be achieved if everyone comes together to help the ecosystem grow.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
PNNLs Mark Triplett with Karthik Subramanian of Washington River Protection Solutions (third and fourth from left) and Japanese colleagues in front of Fukushima Daiichi Units 2 and 3 in April 2018. Credit: Mark Triplett | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

An earthquake off the coast of Japan. A resulting tsunami. Ten years ago, Mark Triplett watched the news unfold and worried about two things. The safety of his son and daughter-in-law who were living in Japan at the time. He quickly learned his family was unaffected and safe. But the other concern? It's still with him, almost daily.

Tsunami flood waters caused core meltdowns in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station. As a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) scientist with extensive involvement in nuclear cleanup efforts, Triplett understood the ramifications for Fukushima and beyond.

He didn't know he'd soon be tapped by the U.S. State Department to advise the Japanese government on cleanup matters, or how the natural disaster an ocean away would come to link Fukushima with PNNL and the surrounding Tri-Cities, Washington, community.

Sensing Fukushima

Five days after the disaster took place on March 11, 2011, a PNNL team was the first in North America to detect the radioactive isotope xenon-133 from the ruined power plants. The isotope had drifted almost 5,000 miles to Washington State and would go on to repeatedly circle the Northern Hemisphere.

Although the concentration of radioactivity was extremely low and posed no health hazard in North America, the fact that a tiny quantity of the isotope could be detected halfway around the globe was a testament to decades of PNNL's research on detecting trace amounts of radiation in the environment. Even when radioxenon comprises just one-trillionth of one-trillionth of a cubic meter of air, scientists can now detect it thanks to PNNL.

PNNL's unusual detection prowess harkens back to early studies at Hanford, a former plutonium production site near the laboratory. This work gave rise to PNNL's expertise in radiochemistry, nuclear physics, and the ability to sense, measure, and identify radioactivity at increasingly lower levels. The ongoing development of this expertise and technology supports nuclear nonproliferation and verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

Fukushima, Japan, is about 4,820 miles west of PNNL in Richland, WA. Credit: Composite Visual by Jeff London | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The cleanup connection

PNNL's scientific studies during Hanford operations also built expertise in predicting how contaminants would move in the environment and in estimating radiation releases and exposures. During the first weeks and months after the Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdown, PNNL participated with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to supply this expertise.

As the situation in Fukushima began to stabilize, PNNL's more recent environmental research supporting Hanford cleanup activities became part of the discussions with Japanese officials. After 40 years of nuclear weapons productions, DOE's Hanford site has more than a few similarities with Fukushima when it comes to cleaning up radioactive waste. PNNL contributes to the science of Hanford cleanup, including advancing technology to melt radioactive waste into glass. This process, called vitrification, incorporates the radionuclides in glass to protect the environment.

Vitrification is one of several waste immobilization technologies being considered to deal with secondary waste at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. PNNL is formulating and testing specific glass 'recipes' for durability and potential use in various vitrification technologiesincluding two that were developed at PNNL. The first technology, licensed as GeoMelt, melts waste with glass forming materials directly in containers, where it solidifies into an obsidian like glass. The second is a liquid-fed ceramic melter vitrification process, which forms the basis for the design of the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant.

Separating the waste

In the first few weeks after the event, PNNL radiochemical separations experts provided Japanese authorities details about methods to remove the radionuclides from water used to cool the damaged reactor cores. PNNL has been testing one of those methodsion exchangefor radiologically contaminated liquids since the 1990s. Ion exchange columns use specialized media to capture radionuclides like cesium and strontium from the contaminated water. After commercial water treatment facilities were up and running, handling as much as 100,000 gallons a day, PNNL staff made multiple trips to the Fukushima site to review the system performance.

At Hanford, this same technology is part of the Tank-Side Cesium Removal System, slated to begin pre-treating Hanford tank waste before it is vitrified. But since Japan's situation was more critical than at Hanford, they've forged ahead and have used ion exchange to treat cooling water since just months after the accident in 2011. In a reversal of sorts, the experience of the Japanese application of ion exchange will be very beneficial for Hanford's cesium removal and storage plans.

PNNL has delivered additional scientific support including contaminant transport models and molecular modeling to understand how cesium adheres to clay minerals in the Fukushima soil. Research performed previously at PNNL helped to inform decisions that ultimately led to a shelter covering reactor unit one and how to avoid dangerous hydrogen gas buildup in waste storage containers.

Filtration and ion exchange columns remove contaminants from cooling water at Fukushima Daiichi and demonstrate technology important to treating Hanford's tank waste. Credit: Mark Triplett | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Over the past decade, the scientific and technical relationship between PNNL and Fukushima has deepened with more than 30 staff members working on the aftermath of the reactor meltdown. Triplett has made more than 12 trips to Japan and has hosted more than 300 Japanese visitors in the Tri-Cities. Not surprisingly, a kinship quickly developed between the two areaseach one dealing with a nuclear legacy, perceptions, and sometimes misconceptions, from the rest of the world.

Representatives from Fukushima are interested in how the Tri-Cities community has learned to advocate for cleanup funding, involve the public in the plans, and leverage a challenging situation into economic development around that growth.

Triplett continues to connect Fukushima and Japanese stakeholders with colleagues at DOE, Hanford, the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC), and the surrounding cities and counties. He recently organized an online seminar for a group of Tri-Cities community and academic leaders with more than 150 of their counterparts in Fukushima.

Fukushima leaders are also learning how PNNL has diversified from its Hanford origins in 1965 to a broad science and technology mission that today is only about five percent Hanford-related. TRIDEC has emphasized to those advocating for Fukushima the need for speaking with 'one voice," having cleanup contractors living and investing in the area, and encouraging local colleges and universities to develop a skilled work force for the region that will support the multi-decade cleanup mission.

Lessons learnedreducing risk in the U.S.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) required commercial nuclear power plants to reevaluate their seismic and flooding hazards and mitigations.

PNNL experts in hydrological engineering, nuclear materials testing, and reactor design have supported the NRC in nuclear power plant licensing work for more than 45 years. PNNL evaluated many of the post-Fukushima licensee hazard assessments. Ultimately, the NRC issued safety enhancements to maintain safe operations following a large scale natural disaster. PNNL continues to support the NRC's evaluation of flooding and seismic hazards.

Proceeding in partnership

In both the U.S. and in Japan, ramifications of the Fukushima disaster live on. In Japan, the ripple effects continue, figuratively and literallyan earthquake on February 13, 2021, registered 7.3 on the Richter scale and was labeled an aftershock of the 2011 quake. But as Japanese officials grapple with ongoing cleanup and economic development, they'll do so with the continued support of PNNL scientists and engineers.

Explore further PNNL successfully vitrifies three gallons of radioactive tank waste

More information: Safety Enhancements after Fukushima: Safety Enhancements after Fukushima: www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating  ty-enhancements.html
YEREVAN, MARCH 9, ARMENPRESS. President Armen Sarkissians Office is denying media reports alleging that he secretly visited Azerbaijan on November 17th in 2020.

The presidency said that this information is an explicit lie and disinformation.

The president hasnt been in Baku neither on that day, nor on any other day, the presidency said.

It further mentioned that on November 17th, 2020, Sarkissian was hosting in his office the new Canadian ambassador to Armenia for the latters presentation of credentials.

The presidency called on news outlets to refrain from spreading absurd, explicitly fake information and statements of persons of unknown origin.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

An international team of researchers has found evidence of a regional magnetic field anomaly in Southeast Asia, approximately 800 years ago. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of slag and other remnants left over from iron smelters who once worked in a part of Cambodia formerly known as Tonle Bak and what they found.

From approximately the 11th century through the 14th century, smelters were creating iron objects at Tonle Baka time when the area was part of the Khmer Empire. As part of their process, the workers would periodically dump residue from their smelting operations onto a nearby site. Over time, 50 hills of the material built up. Because so much of the material contained metal, the hills served as a record of the magnetic field in the area for the years it was dumped there. In this new effort, the researchers extracted material from several of the hills and then studied them to learn more about the magnetic field in that part of the world during the years 1034 to 1391.

In looking at their data, the researchers found that over a centurybetween 1200 and 1300the magnetic field in Southeast Asia changed direction by almost .05 degrees each year. The inclination dropped from approximately 30 degrees to just five degrees. The researchers also found a change in intensity during the same time periodit decreased from 44 microteslas to just 27.

The findings by the researchers show that approximately 800 years ago there was a regional magnetic anomaly in Southeast Asia. They suggest the weakening they observed was likely part of a wider anomaly that stretched all the way to the equatora phenomenon that has been described as the 'flux expulsion' at low latitudes. They acknowledge that they were unable to find any explanation for the anomaly but suggest it could have been due to interference resulting from turbulence occurring at the Earth's core/mantle boundary. They also note that many such anomalies have been found and studiedone of them is occurring today below southern parts of the Atlantic Ocean.

Explore further Study reveals strange magnetic behaviour 8-11 million years ago

More information: Shuhui Cai et al. Archaeomagnetic results from Cambodia in Southeast Asia: Evidence for possible low-latitude flux expulsion, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Shuhui Cai et al. Archaeomagnetic results from Cambodia in Southeast Asia: Evidence for possible low-latitude flux expulsion,(2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2022490118

 2021 Science X Network
The opening of the trial of Derek Chauvin, one of the four former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers charged in the death of 46-year-old George Floyd, was delayed for at least a day Monday after Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill postponed jury selection as an appellate court reviews the possible reinstatement of a lesser third-degree murder charge dropped last fall.

Currently, Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter for his actions last May. Chauvin kneeled on Floyds neck for more than nine minutes while he was handcuffed and pinned to the pavement by two other officers. Legal experts suggest a third-degree murder charge would be easier for the prosecution to prove.

Minnesota law defines third-degree murder as without intent to effect the death of any person, causing the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.

Defense attorney Eric Nelson left, and defendant, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, right, listen as Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides over a hearing before jury selection, Monday, March 8, 2021. (Court TV/Pool via AP)

The push for the reintroduction of a lesser charge reflects the degree of anxiety surrounding the case. The ruling class is acutely aware that a failure to convict Chauvin, who was filmed pressing his knee into Floyds neck even as Floyd cried out for help, could trigger an eruption of social anger across the US and internationally. Floyds death ignited massive multi-racial and multi-ethnic demonstrations across the globe.

A separate trial for Chauvins accomplices, former officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Keung and Tou Thao, is set to begin at the end of August. The three have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.

Chauvins trial is being conducted with an unprecedented level of security. Government offices were heavily fortified in days leading up to the trial. The government center is barricaded with fences, razor wire and other barriers. The area will be closed to the public for the duration of the trial except for two demonstration zones carefully controlled by police.

In a public statement, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, expressed his desire to show the world Minnesota is having conversations about race and public safety. Referring to the demonstration zones, Walz said people would have the room to express their opinions. Walz also said the security measures were well-coordinated and thought out to deter people who want to cause damage.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, also a Democrat, said he was preparing for potential unrest with painstaking detail. Up to 2,000 National Guard troops have been mobilized, in addition to up to 1,100 law enforcement officers from 12 local jurisdictions.

National Guard member have been deployed throughout downtown to patrol the area and intimidate demonstrators. According to Unicorn Riot, an independent online news publication, an FBI surveillance plane circled over Minneapolis last Thursday. The FBI similarly spied on protesters in Baltimore, Maryland, during the demonstrations against the police murder of Freddie Gray in 2015.

Extraordinary measures are also being taken in the selection of the jury which will determine Chauvins fate. Potential jurors were sent 16-page questionnaires to determine how much they have heard about the case and what their opinions may be. The questionnaire asked if jurors had previous encounters with police, whether they were involved in any protests against police brutality and whether they believe the justice system is fair.

Questions in the survey include:

Did you or someone you know get injured or suffer any property damage during the protests that took place after George Floyds death?

Have you, or someone close to you, ever helped support or advocated in favor of or against police reform? If Yes, please explain.

Do you believe your community has been negatively or positively affected by any of the protests that have taken place in the Twin-Cities area since George Floyds death?

One question asks respondents to answer on a sliding scale between strongly agree and strongly disagree on statements such as Discrimination is not as bad as the media makes it out to be and I support defunding the Minneapolis Police Department.

The jurors for Chauvins trial are being meticulously selected in an unprecedented manner. Unlike typical jury selection proceedings, potential jurors are being questioned individually, rather than as a group. Before they are confirmed, potential jurors will be questioned by the defense attorney and prosecutors. The defense can object to up to fifteen jurors without reason, while the prosecution can reject up to nine.

The extraordinary measures employed for Chauvins trial express a nervousness in the ruling class. The trial will be closely watched with a high degree of anticipation and anxiety. Millions of workers, outraged by police brutality, social inequality and poverty, expect Chauvin and his accomplices to be held accountable for their actions. A minute fraction of officers are charged with murder and very few are found guilty. An acquittal could set off the social powder keg that is American society.
Speaking in the Seanad to mark International Womens Day and Endometriosis Awareness Month, Fianna Fail Senator Erin McGreehan called for action to be taken to clear waiting lists for endometriosis treatment.

Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows around the womb and the vital organs in that area, causing many difficulties for women.

In her statement to the Seanad, Senator McGreehan said: As a sufferer of endometriosis, I know it is a tremendous disease.

"It takes over one's body and mind.

"One deals with pain several times each month. It is incredible.

"I am one of the lucky ones because I know what is wrong with me.

There are thousands of women who do not know what the problem is.

"They are told by their doctors that it is a normal pain. It is not normal.

"As Senator Chambers stated, they are told to buck up and get on with it and that this is part of being a woman.

"Pain is not part of being a woman.

Senator McGreehan noted how we have seen time and again that pain is synonymous with being a woman in this country and how we have seen the bruises and suffering associated with that.

The Louth Senator continued: The current waiting lists for gynaecological outpatients' appointments are incredible.

"More than 30,000 women are awaiting treatment and a doctor's appointment. That is absolutely horrendous.

Given that one in ten women has endometriosis, how many of those women awaiting an outpatient's appointment have endometriosis but are not getting treatment?

We need quick action on getting those ambulatory clinical services open sooner rather than later because this is about quality of life for young women and girls who are suffering but do not know what is wrong with them.

"They are told it is all in their heads.

Asking the Minister of State, Anne Rabbitte, who was present in the Seanad Chamber, Senator McGreehan asked the Minister to please bring that back to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, because action needs to be taken.
Catholic bishops have strongly rebuked the Government over its failure to respond to their concerns over current funeral restrictions, which they said are causing untold grief to many families.

In a statement issued as the Irish hierarchy held its Spring General Meeting, the bishops said that despite assurances from Taoiseach Micheal Martin at a February19 meeting with four archbishops that their concerns would be given serious consideration, they said they had received no response so far.

Earlier today, the bishops made an urgent appeal that the easing of restrictions from Level 5 should include the restoration of public worship in a safe and limited way.

Read More

We strongly believe that peoples freedom to worship publicly should be restored as soon as the current Level 5 restrictions begin to be eased.

They said it was particularly painful for Christians to be deprived, for the second year running, of the public expression of their faith during the most sacred time of Holy Week and Easter, despite it being clearly demonstrated that church buildings are among the safest places for people to gather, they stated.

The ongoing severe restrictions on the number of mourners permitted to attend funeral masses, which is currently limited to ten places immense burdens on grieving families, compounding the pain of their loss, the hierarchy stated.

Calling for the number to be increased with immediate effect, they noted that in Northern Ireland the number permitted at funerals hadnt been reduced below 25.

On the issue of the restoration of public worship, the Catholic hierarchy said that: For people of faith not to be free to worship until regulations return to Level 2, whilst many other restrictions are eased, is seen as particularly distressing and unjust.

They said an easing of restrictions would give a sense of hope and consolation to many in the Church in line with the central message of Easter.

These measures would be a substantial support to the wellbeing of individuals and parish communities, and ultimately serve the common good of all.

They have encouraged Catholics to make their views known to their own TDs and local representatives. The bishops also recommended the postponement of communion and confirmation ceremonies.

Separately, a top Vatican prelate who is a close collaborator of Pope Francis, has said that even if the pandemic has limited peoples ability to publicly exercise their faith, they should recall the inspiring example of Japans hidden Christians, who managed to keep their faith alive despite the ban for two hundred years.

In the midst of restrictions, its the families, the lay people, especially the mothers and the grandmothers who passed on the faith. They were creative, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Vaticans Evangelisation office said.

Speaking to media ahead of delivering his 2021 annual Trocaire/St Patricks College Maynooth Lenten lecture on Caring for the human family and our common home, the Filipino prelate recognised that the pandemic has brought a lot of suffering.

The mission does not stop, he said  the question is how do we do it in a changed situation?
 Curious spitting over COVID prison data as Sixth Circuit panel ultimately affirms rejection of compasionate release motion | Main | Highlighting why those concerned about mass incarceration need to be concerned with murder spike 

The title of this post is the title of this notable new article authored by Russell Gold now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

Criminal procedure is systemically racist and classist. This Article argues that comparing criminal procedure to civil procedure on a broad scale provides new and valuable insight into the systemic racism and classism woven into the fabric of U.S. law. Criminal defendants are disproportionately poor people of color, while civil defendants are often wealthy corporations whose executives are largely White; those wealthy civil defendants play an outsized role in developing civil procedure. One might expect to see greater procedural protections before criminal defendants are deprived of their liberty than for civil defendants before they are deprived of their money. But the reality cuts decidedly the other way. Instead of calibrating protections for defendants to the importance of the interest at stake, disparities between the civil and criminal systems instead track differences in race and class between defendants in the two systems. Criminal defendants, for instance, can be locked in cages for two days on a mere accusation by police before a magistrate considers the validity of that deprivation. Civil defendants, by contrast, cannot be deprived of their property without first having a judge hear their arguments. Criminal defendants sometimes do not learn about the governments evidence until the eve of or during trial  a trial that comes in scant few cases. Civil defendants would never be forced into such a trial by surprise but rather have numerous tools of formal discovery to compel evidence from the opposing party throughout the pretrial period.

The primary focus of this Article is demonstrating that procedure disparities between civil and criminal systems largely track race and class. But it also briefly compares changes in available punishment. In criminal law, pathological politics largely create a one-way upward ratchet whereby criminal law continues to afford prosecutors ever-greater power and discretion to pursue ever greater sentences. In tort law, by contrast, most state legislatures have limited plaintiffs lawyers discretion through reforms such as caps on noneconomic damages or limits on punitive damages. So too is the Supreme Courts role in regulating substantive fairness in these two systems widely disparate. In criminal law, the Supreme Court upheld a life sentence for a defendant convicted of $88 check theft. By contrast, the Supreme Court struck down a $2 million punitive damages award against a multinational corporate defendant as unfair. This Article offers the big-picture analysis of how comparing civil and criminal systems in the U.S. reveals systemic racism and classism.
Saipan Fil-American Lions Club representatives pose for a photo with cancer patient Mary Joy Manalaysay and some of her family members at their home in Cavite province, south of Manila, the Philippines.

Contributed photo
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A first-time mother lost her newborn baby after the midwife failed to record her severe morning sickness and weight loss which restricted her babys growth.

The investigation into the incident by Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Rose Wall, found the Bay of Plenty District Health board in breach of the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers Rights for a number of failures in the care of a woman and her baby.

The woman, who isnt named, was in her 20s and had a difficult pregnancy in 2017.

She lost weight and required multiple hospital admissions for severe morning sickness and her babys growth was restricted, the report says.

However, her midwife did not record the womans weight or fundal height at every antenatal assessment.

It was found that while the midwife continued to review the woman while she was with the obstetrics team, she did not document when she formally handed over care to the team.

When the woman was under the care of the DHB, there was no formal management plan and no clear guidelines for staff on the management of severe morning sickness and malnutrition.

When the baby was born, she was recognised as "at-risk" owing to her low birth weight.

However, the babys blood glucose level was not monitored in a timely manner, and a paediatric review was not requested.

In addition, she was administered a higher-than-recommended dose of phenobarbitone, a barbiturate used to prevent seizures.

The baby girls condition deteriorated, and she was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, where she died.

The womans whanau says in the report the baby was never given an opportunity to grow and mature.

They say that time heals all wounds, but I can say that the whanau will never get over the passing of [their baby].

The whanau at no point wanted to lay blame on individuals and acknowledged there were some amazing health professionals involved.

The whanau would like to reiterate that it was a lack of appropriate resources and procedures that causes this, and, we as a whanau would like assurance that this will not be the case for any future pregnant mothers who find themselves in that position.

Wall is critical that the transfer from the midwife to the obstetrics team was not clear, and a formal management plan was not documented.

Also, the departure from the DHBs policy on paediatric review and blood glucose monitoring.

Wall criticises that the dose of phenobarbitone administered to the baby was not consistent with the guidelines.

And that the opportunity was missed to seek specialist advice about a baby, who was significantly small for gestational age.

"Although it is not possible to determine whether the outcome could have been changed, I am critical that the DHB did not ensure that staff were supported with adequate systems to guide and deliver appropriate care, including a requirement to develop comprehensive management plans in such complex cases, Wall says.

She recommends that the DHB provide an update on implementation of the nausea and vomiting in pregnancy guidelines.

Wall also recommends the DHB consider developing guidelines for when consultation with a multidisciplinary team, and development of a formal plan, is required for a significantly small for gestational age baby, or a woman with severe symptoms.

And for when a woman with a small for gestational age fetus requires referral to a fetal medical specialist or a larger centre.

Wall recommends that the midwife provide an update on the order concerning competence issued to her by the Midwifery Council of New Zealand.

-Stuff
Phuket yacht visitors first to receive smart wristband trackers

PHUKET: Nine foreigners and one Thai who arrived in Phuket on a yacht last Saturday (Mar 6) have become the first people in the country to wear smart wristbands to track their location and their health while observing their mandatory 14-day quarantine while still on the boat.

marinetourismCOVID-19healthtechnology

By The Phuket News

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 05:25PM

All 10 arrivals on the yacht tested negative for COVID-19, but will observe their mandatory 14-day quarantine onboard the yacht. Photo: Thai- MECC 3

All 10 arrivals on the yacht tested negative for COVID-19, but will observe their mandatory 14-day quarantine onboard the yacht. Photo: Thai- MECC 3

All 10 arrivals on the yacht were issued their individual smart wristbands (foreground). Photo: Thai- MECC 3

The yacht, Sapphire, arrived in Phuket with 10 people on board last Saturday (Mar 6). Photo: Thai- MECC 3

The yacht, Sapphire, arrived in Phuket with 10 people on board last Saturday (Mar 6). Photo: Thai- MECC 3

The yacht, Sapphire, arrived in Phuket with 10 people on board last Saturday (Mar 6). Photo: Thai- MECC 3

The yacht, Sapphire, arrived in Phuket with 10 people on board last Saturday (Mar 6). Photo: Thai- MECC 3

The yacht, Sapphire arrived in Phuket from Australia and was boarded by health officials and Royal Thai Navy personnel from the Third Area Command at Cape Panwa to conduct tests to ensure none of the crew were infected with COVID-19, reported the Third Area Command.

The yacht and its crew are now staying in the holding area designated for arriving yachts at Ao Por, off Phukets east coast, where it will remain while the crew complete their mandatory quarantine.

After the crew have completed the 14-day quarantine, the yacht will be moved to moor in Phuket Boat Lagoon Marina, the Navy added.

SMART WRISTS

All 10 on board have been issued smart wristbands created under the Digital Yacht Quarantine project, developed by the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (Depa) and AIS, and two other private companies.

The smart wristbands operate on a 900MHz Narrow band - Internet of Things (NB-IoT) connection that maintains connectivity up to 10km over the sea, AIS Chief Enterprise Business Officer Tanapong Ittisakulchai explained at a press launch for the devices in Bangkok yesterday (Mar 8).

We also have a cloud platform to be a main network for the NB-IoT Wristband Tracking, Mr Tanapong said.

Chatchai Tangchittrong, CEO/Co-Founder of PMH Holding Co Ltd noted, In this project, we have two models, the Activ 10+ and the Smartwatch Activ 30+. The two models can be both location trackers and health devices which tourists can wear as wristbands all the time, in order to prevent them from leaving the yachts.

The wristband has sensors to check tourists pulse, blood pressure and body temperature. They also have an option to send SOS signals if tourists urgently need help. All the information from the wristband will be shown on the website dashboard in real time for medical staff, he explained.

Smart wristband health-monitoring services we use are the same models that are used for the Hotel Bubble Project in the Cayman Islands, Mr Chatchai said.

In explaining his companys role in the project, Tanapat Thuatraiphop, CEO of Flow Corporation, said, We are partnering with Patri Tour Group Co Ltd, which operates Ao Por Pier. We conduct the registration for the NB-IoT Wristband Tourist Tracking and arrange medical staff for monitoring the tourists health information.

This partnering is a new dimension of new normal tourism. We are not only improving tourism, but also helping to boost the marine tourism industry throughout the whole Andaman region, Mr Tanapat said.

SUPPORTING TOURISM

Also present at the press conference in Bangkok yesterday was Depa President Asst Prof Dr Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a big effect on the Thai economy, and the tourism industry, especially in Phuket, which is a destination dependent on foreign tourists. In 2020, Phuket lost more than B320 billion in [tourism] revenues [due to the pandemic], Mr Nuttapon said.

Yacht tourists will receive NB-IoT Wristband Tourist Tracking, which can be a health-monitoring tool during the 14 days of onboard quarantine. It will boost tourists confidence and support the public health safety for tourists coming to Phuket, as well as improve the quality of cooperation among tourists, medical staff, and other relevant officers, he added.

Mr Nuttapon did not elaborate on whether or not the wristband tracking devices will be later used at Alternative Local Quarantine (ALQs) venues throughout the country to prevent any people under quarantine from wandering outside of their quarantine hotels.

Meanwhile, Tanyuta Singhmanee, Managing Director of Asia Pacific Superyachts Co Ltd, representing the Thai Yachting Business Association (TYBA), pointed out to the press in Bangkok, As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, our association members lost about 50-60% of their revenues, which are mostly from foreign yacht tourists.

We have boosted local people and tourists confidence about the disease control measures since we started the yacht quarantine in October last year. We have not found any yacht tourists infected so far, Ms Tanyuta said.

In 2021, we expect that there will be about 100 yachts, bringing 300-500 tourists, coming to Thailand, she added.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Syracuse, N.Y.  New York is expanding eligibility for Covid-19 vaccines to those age 60 and up, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today.

Previously, eligibility was limited to those age 65 and up.

Individuals age 60 and up will be able to make vaccine appointments starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Cuomo said during an appearance at the New York State Fairgrounds, one of the states mass Covid vaccination sites.

Eligibility is also expanding to several new groups of workers, Cuomo said. Starting March 17, public-facing government and public employees and nonprofit workers who provide public-facing services to people in need will be able to get Covid shots.

Essential in-person, public-facing building services workers will also be eligible.

The new categories include public works employees, social service and child service caseworkers, government inspectors, Department of Motor Vehicles workers, sanitation workers, county clerks, building service workers and election workers, according to Cuomos office.

Also starting March 17, all vaccine sites in the state will be able to vaccinate anyone eligible for shots. Previously, certain vaccine sites focused only on certain groups.

Pharmacies will continue to administer shots only to those age 60 and up and teachers, Cuomo said.

Cuomo appeared at the fairgrounds this morning with at least 10 Central New York leaders, including union and nonprofit officials and religious leaders. They included Ann Marie Taliercio, president of the Central New York Area Labor Federation, Fanny Villarreal, executive director of the YWCA of Syracuse and Onondaga County and the Rev. DeCarto Draper, pastor of Tucker Missionary Baptist Church in Syracuse.

Former Syracuse Common Council President Van Robinson was also present.

Several of those present, including Draper, Taliercio and Villarreal, spoke at the event and praised Cuomo for his leadership.

Despite the number of local officials at the event, Cuomos appearance was closed to reporters, so he didnt face any questions on the recent string of sexual harassment allegations against him.

Reporters were not allowed at the event due to Covid restrictions, according to the governors office. His office did say Cuomo will hold a Q&A with the media later today.

Cuomo has appeared at several of New Yorks mass vaccination sites in recent weeks to promote the states vaccine distribution network. He has also used to the events to encourage minority communities to get the vaccine when theyre eligible.

Religious leaders like Draper have appeared with Cuomo at several of his other appearances to encourage communities of color to get vaccinated.

Draper, Taliercio and Villarreal all encouraged members of of their communities in Central New York to take the shot.

The vaccine plays a very important role as we try to curtail and curb Covid-19, Draper said. We need to get this vaccine into the arms of as many people as possible.

Its important to us that we get back to our way of life. And the only way to get back to this way of life is that we must encourage the vaccine.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Covid update: Time to loosen vaccine eligibility, Ryan McMahon says

Fairs, carnivals start in other states: What could the NY State Fair look like?

Watch 1000s of people in Syracuse get vaccinated in a day (video)

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
(Newser)  Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, aka the "QAnon Shaman," will now have plenty of downtime to reflect on what name he'd like to stick with for the long term. Per WSOC, a DC federal judge on Monday ruled the 33-year-old Arizona man must stay behind bars until his trial regarding charges tied to the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, noting Chansley's actions before the riot and since have been threatening, inflammatory, manipulative, and/or devoid of remorse. Specifically, Judge Royce Lamberth notes in his 32-page decision, Chansley posted a tweet in November that suggested hanging lawmakers he deemed traitors. Lamberth also says that during the attack itself, Chansley threatened to "get Congressional leaders." "(The words) show that defendant entered the Capitol building on January 6th not to ponder Statuary Hall, but with an intent to disrupt the functions of our government by means of force," Lamberth writes in his ruling.

story continues below

Lamberth also said he wasn't buying that the spear Chansley carried into the Capitol wasn't a weapon, per CNN. "A 6-foot pole with a metal spearhead fixed to the top is, undoubtably, a dangerous weapon," Lamberth notes. None of this bolsters Chansley's argument that he was an innocent visitor who simply got swept up in the moment on the day of the riot. "Defendant's perception of his actions on January 6 as peaceful, benign, and well-intentioned shows a detachment from reality," Lamberth writes, per the Arizona Republic. As for Chansley's actions after his detentionincluding a demand for organic food in prison and an attempted rehab tour on 60 MinutesLamberth offers a similar assessment, noting that Chansley "believes that henot the American people or members of Congresswas the victim on January 6th." Chansley could see up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the various charges against him. (Read more QAnon stories.)
A dying war veteran has been left devastated after a thief pulled over, snatched his Jack Russell and drove away as they walked home from the supermarket.

The elderly man was on his way back from Woolworths in Redfern, in Sydney's inner-west, at about 4.15 on February 25 with his dog Murry, who followed off the lead.

He was shocked and confused when a Caucasian man in a white car pulled up beside them, grabbed Murry and drove off.

Pictured: Murry the Jack Russel, who was grabbed off the street in front of his elderly owner

When there was no sign of him almost two weeks later, pet detective service Arthur & Co Pet Concierge wrote a post on Facebook pleading with the community come forward with information.

'If you are the person who took Murry and mistakenly thought he was a stray, please come forward and arrange for us to collect him no questions asked,' the pet service wrote.

'If you've acquired Murry without knowing any of this please please come forward and make things right.

Pet detective service Arthur & Co pet Concierge wrote a post on Facebook pleading with the community come forward with information (pictured)

'All we want is Murry returned to his owner as quickly and safely as possible.'

The group also explained that Murry was adopted by the elderly man in 2017 and the pair have been inseparable ever since.

As an elderly war veteran, the trauma and stress of losing his companion is causing his health to rapidly decline.

The detective service pleaded with community members to share the post to help reunite the owner with his best friend.

The elderly man was on his way back from Woolworths in Redfern (pictured), in Sydney's inner-west, at about 4.15 on February 25

Distraught Australians flocked to the comments section to express their shock at how a dog could be snatched in front of its owner.

'What sort of scum does this abhorrent act,' one user wrote.

'Poor little Murray must be so confused. I hope that he is being treated well and will be home soon,' said another.

Someone else suggested the Jack Russell may have been stolen to sell on Gumtree.

'This is really sad, he's probably been stolen to make money on. The dogs are bringing in so much money it's crazy. Check Gumtree. Prayers he is found,' the wrote.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  The National Bureau of Investigation will look into the shooting incident that killed Calbayog City Mayor Ronaldo Aquino and his aides after police officers were implicated in the ambush.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Tuesday said they have received a report that policemen were involved in Monday's shootout that killed the mayor, his driver, his security escort, and one suspect in Barangay Lonoy, Tinambacan District in Calbayog. He said he will direct the NBI to step in to provide an objective and impartial investigation.

"Ire-refer namin sa NBI for the simple reason na ang other party involved ay PNP. Iyon ang na-gather naming information, na ang naka-engkuwentro allegedly ay police officers. So magkakaibang version iyan," he said in a text message to reporters.

[Translation: We will refer it to the NBI for the simple reason that the other party involved is the PNP. They were in an encounter with alleged police officers, that's the information we gathered. Those are different versions.]

The PNP's initial statement hours after the deadly ambush said "some police personnel" were involved in the shooting incident. But according to the police report released later, it said Aquino and his aides were on their way to a resort owned by the family when they were killed in an exchange of gunfire with men on board two vehicles Monday afternoon.

A special task group was created by the PNP Eastern Visayas to investigate the ambush. PNP Chief Gen. Debold Sinas also directed Eastern Visayas Regional Director BGen. Ronaldo de Jesus to conduct a thorough investigation.

In a separate statement, Vice President Leni Robredo said incidents such as the mayor's killing "should not be treated as normal."

"It should not be treated as normal that mayors, community organizers, lawyers, judges, journalists, children, and even victims of the drug trade are outright murdered in our streets or in their homes. We must connect the dots between these gruesome deaths and see the web that enables and emboldens these killings: Impunity, the normalization and incitement of violence, and the kill, kill, kill rhetoric coming from the highest offices," she said.

Robredo added that Aquino's death must be investigated and his killers be brought to justice.

Aquino was serving his last and final term as mayor of Calbayog. He first served as local chief executive in 2011 after then-incumbent mayor Reynaldo Uy was assassinated while attending a fiesta celebration in Hinabangan, Samar.

Uy's death remains unsolved.

CNN Philippines justice correspondent, stringer Wilmark Amazona contributed to this report.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, on Tuesday held a phone conversation, agreeing to work toward a free and open Indo-Pacific region as well as strengthen both bilateral partnership and quadrilateral cooperation with Australia and the United States, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

"On March 9, commencing at around 4:45 p.m. [07:45 GMT] for approximately 40 minutes, Mr. SUGA Yoshihide, Prime Minister of Japan, held a summit telephone talk with H.E. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India ... The two leaders shared the recognition that cooperation towards realizing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific is becoming increasingly important and to this end, shared the view to steadily advance both Japan-India bilateral cooperation and Japan-Australia-India-U.S. quadrilateral cooperation," the ministry said in a statement.

The sides also exchanged views on the relations between the two countries and agreed to continue cooperating in areas such as defense, economy, and people-to-people exchanges.

"The two leaders also exchanged views on the regional situation. In this context, Prime Minister Suga expressed serious concerns regarding unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Sea, China's Coast Guard Law and the situation in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)," the statement continued.

Japan and India have traditionally enjoyed good relations that have only grown stronger amid the rise of China's influence both in the region and worldwide.

The Free and Open Indo-Pacific is a Japanese foreign policy initiative to create a rule-based order in the region, with a focus on economic prosperity and commitment to peace and stability.
Under the offtake agreement, Shenzhen Chengxin Lithium Group Co has agreed to purchase up to 180,000 tonnes per annum of SC6 from the DRC project for an initial three-year term.

More than 50% of the intended annual SC6 saleable product from Manono is now contracted.

( ) has signed a binding offtake agreement with Shenzhen Chengxin Lithium Group Co for the supply of spodumene concentrate (SC6) from the Manono Lithium and Tin Project in the DRC.

As a part of the agreement, Chengxin has agreed to purchase up to 180,000 tonnes of SC6 annually for an initial three-year term following the start of production with mutually agreed options to extend.

Chengxin is a leading global battery materials producer that is continuing to expand its lithium hydroxide production capacity.

The news was cheered by investors sending shares 15% higher to A$0.23, approaching the three-year high of A$0.235 set earlier this year while the company's market cap sits at approximately A$563.6 million.

A massive endorsement

AVZs managing director Nigel Ferguson said: We are very pleased to conclude our discussions with Chengxin and to sign our second lithium offtake agreement.

This agreement takes offtake commitments to more than 50% of the Manono Projects initial saleable SC6 production, which is a massive endorsement for our project.

We are well advanced with our other offtake discussions, not only for our lithium products but also for our tin and tantalum materials.

These will be pursued diligently over the coming weeks and I look forward to updating the market once these agreements are finalised.

Terms of agreement

Key terms of the companys agreement with Chengxin are:

Initial three-year term, with extension options by mutual agreement;

The supply of up to 180,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate per annum;

Pricing USD/CIF, China determined by a formula which references various published market prices of lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide products and underpinned by an agreed floor price;

Shipment payments via a documentary letter of credit; and

Termination rights including for breach of the material terms of the Offtake Agreement including non-payment or failure to supply or take annual quantity commitments.

Large lithium hydroxide producer

Chengxin is set to become one of the largest lithium hydroxide producers in China, with an initial annual production capacity of up to 25,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate and 15,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide.

Future staged expansions are expected to increase production to approximately 70,000 tonnes per annum.

The company will require approximately 560,000 tonnes per annum of SC6 to satisfy its internal demand after commissioning its planned expansions.
Press Release

March 9, 2021 Pangilinan to DA: Declare ASF-caused state of emergency ON THE motion of Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan, the Senate agriculture committee on Tuesday urged the agriculture department to have the President declare a national state of emergency due to the African swine fever (ASF) outbreak that has cost about P50 billion in swine industry losses. "We move that the Department of Agriculture (DA) recommend to the Office of the President the declaration of a state of emergency in Luzon because of the African swine [fever] so that public funds may be realigned to address the state of emergency," Pangilinan said during the hearing on the rise of food prices. The motion was duly seconded by Senator Nancy Binay and supported by the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food, and Agrarian Reform, Senator Cynthia Villar. On the suggestion of the National Federation of Hog Farmers' Chester Warren Tan, the senators also agreed that a state of emergency should be declared not just in Luzon, but in the entire Philippines. Pangilinan said this executive action would provide additional funding and address the concerns of the hog industry. "Ngayon ang computation 50 plus billion [pesos] na ang danyos sa industriya ng pagbababoy. Dapang-dapa na kaya dapat meron talagang ilalabas na funding and support because of the emergency," said Pangilinan. "Precisely yung pandemic, kaya tayo nakapaglaan ng pondo sa pandemya dahil nga may declaration of a state of emergency, he added. Pangilinan recalled that a declaration of a state of emergency was issued by Malacanang during the onslaught of the cocolisap infestation in 2014, enabling government to reallocate funds to address the outbreak that cost P33 billion in damages. "When the cocolisap outbreak happened, mahigit tatlumpu't tatlong bilyong pisong halaga ng danyos ang nangyayari sa coconut industry, Malacanang, on our recommendation declared a state of emergency and we were able to reallocate funding so that we could address the outbreak of cocolisap," said the former chairman of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA). In 2014, President Benigno Aquino III issued Executive Order 169 that established emergency measures to control and manage the spread and damage of the cocolisap infestation in the Philippines. In response to Pangilinan's motion, DA Undersecretary Ariel Cayanan said the department agrees with such a declaration. "Maganda talaga yung public declaration of a state of emergency kasi nakita natin nung huling hearing doon sa 28 billion, eh 27.5 billion ang pautang. Ang danyos is 56 billion pero ang pondong ipinalalabas ay 500 million. So this public emergency declaration will now address yung karampot na pondong napakaliit na ilalaan na hindi pautang. Yun ang dapat," said Pangilinan. The former Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization also said that import tariffs should be utilized to support the funding for the public emergency declaration. Former Congressman Nicanor Briones of the Agricultural Sector Alliance of the Philippines (AGAP) suggested to include in the motion an indemnification fund for infected hogs of ASF. "Napaka importante ng indemnification fund para po kusang mag-declare ng state of emergency ng swine fever at yun pong backyard raisers, sabay-sabay pong mag-aalaga, babalik iyan kasi mayroong guarantee na hindi sila maba-bankrupt in case na tamaan sila ng African swine fever," said Briones. Pangilinan manifested that the indemnification fund be included in the public emergency declaration, to which Senate agriculture committee chairperson Villar agreed.
The Republican National Committee is defending its right to use former President Donald Trump's name in fundraising appeals after he demanded they put an end to the practice.

In a Monday letter to Trump attorney Alex Cannon, RNC chief counsel J. Justin Riemer said the committee 'has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech' and said 'it will continue to do so in pursuit of these common goals.'

But he maintained that Trump had also 'reaffirmed' to the chair of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, over the weekend 'that he approves of the RNCs current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for our upcoming donor retreat event at Palm Beach at which we look forward to him participating.'

Trump responded to the letter with a statement that put that agreement in doubt. 'No more money for RINOS,' or Republican in name only, he stated. 'They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base - they will never lead us to Greatness.'

Donald Trump kisses Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel at the RNC's winter meeting in Washington on Feb. 1, 2018

Trump recently directed the RNC and other entities to stop using his name in their fundraising appeals

McDaniel's RNC last week sent out two emails asking supporters to donate as a way to add their name to a 'thank you' card for Trump

He instead again urged his supporters to send their contributions directly to his own Save America PAC by using his personal website, adding, 'We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!'

The flap reflects the tensions that have divided the GOP in the months since Trump left the White House. The party is eager to tap into his popularity among the Republican base to raise money ahead of next year's midterms. But that runs counter to Trump's instinct to control the use of his name and image as he aims to position himself as the undisputed leader of the GOP.

In his first major speech since leaving office, Trump urged his supporters to give their money to Save America, his political action committee, instead of the GOP's traditional fundraising organizations.

And on Friday, his group sent letters to the RNC and others asking them to 'immediately cease and desist the unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trumps name, image, and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion, and/or issue speech,' according to the RNC letter.

On Friday, the RNC had sent out two emails asking supporters to donate as a way to add their name to a 'thank you' card for Trump. The umbrella group supports GOP candidates across the country.

Trump and McDaniel in happier times in Washington on Feb. 1, 2018

Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 28, in Orlando, Fla. He used his speech to call out Republicans who didn't support him through his impeachment crisis

The House and Senate Republican campaign committees and a Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The RNC and Trump's campaign worked hand-in-hand during the 2020 election, including raising money through a joint fundraising committee. And ties between them remain.

Trump is scheduled to speak at the RNCs spring donor retreat in April in Palm Beach, Florida, and has told McDaniel that he wants to continue raising money for the RNC even as he amasses cash for his own pursuits. That includes exacting revenge by backing challengers to Republican incumbents who crossed him by voting to impeach him for inciting the Capitol riot.

Despite the letters, the RNC and others have continued to fundraise off of Trump's name.

'CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected as one of the FIRST to be invited to claim your Trump Legacy Membership,' the RNC wrote in one appeal on Sunday.

'We NEED 10,000 patriots who still stand with President Trump before midnight tonight,' 'URGENT: TRUMP SUPPORTERS NEEDED,' added the National Republican Senatorial Committee Monday afternoon.

Trump has spurred fears of a GOP civil war after vowing revenge on the 17 Congressional Republicans who voted to impeach or convict him on a charge of inciting insurrection.

Trump called them all out by name during his Sunday appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, telling the audience, 'Get rid of them all!'

Politico Playbook reported Friday that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has specifically asked Trump not to go after the 10 House Republicans who voted in favor of his second impeachment in January.

The ex-president's threat will likely lead to a series of MAGA-versus-moderate GOP primaries, and could cost McCarthy the chance to retake the House, which historically is in his grasp.

On Thursday Trump signaled that he's going to go forward with the so-called GOP civil war, as he issued another statement from Mar-a-Lago blasting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Trump accused McConnell of blowing two elections in Georgia that cost Republicans the Senate majority.

In his statement, Trump slammed McConnell for yielding to his caucus and supporting $600 checks for Americans, rather than the $2,000 Trump backed late in negotiations of the December COVID stimulus bill  and ripped a Senate GOP group for its Georgia effort.

'Even more stupidly, the National Republican Senatorial Committee spent millions of dollars on ineffective TV ads starring Mitch McConnell, the most unpopular politician in the country, who only won in Kentucky because President Trump endorsed him. He would have lost badly without this endorsement,' Trump claimed.

At CPAC, Trump also went after McConnell - and every senator who voted for his conviction.

'The Democrats don't have grandstanders like Mitt Romney, Little Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey. And in the House, Tom Rice, South Carolina, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Newhouse, Anthony Gonzalez, that's another beauty. Fred Upton, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Peter Meijer, John Katko, David Valadao and of course, the warmonger, the person that loves seeing our troops fighting, Liz Cheney. How about that?' Trump said.
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Reporter

Heather Bellow, a member of the investigations team, joined The Eagle in 2017. She is based in the South Berkshire County bureau in Great Barrington. Her work has appeared in newspapers across the U.S.
KYODO NEWS - Mar 9, 2021 - 12:20 | All, World, Japan, 3/11 Fukushima

The U.S. military's disaster relief mission following the massive earthquake-tsunami in Japan 10 years ago proved the value of the bilateral alliance and left a legacy of deep friendship, a then Navy commander involved in the operation said in a recent interview.

"Operation Tomodachi," named with the Japanese word for friend, was about "relearning" the strength of the alliance, former U.S. Navy 7th Fleet Commander Scott Van Buskirk recalled, referring to what became known as the largest-ever joint operation between the U.S. military and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

The retired vice admiral, now 64, was in Malaysia on March 11, 2011 to attend a naval event on the island of Borneo when he heard that a magnitude 9.0-quake had struck off the coast of Japan's northeastern Miyagi Prefecture.

As he watched TV footage of tsunami waters rolling across the land, he started making phone calls and forming a plan to support Japan in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, such as by checking possible access to disaster-affected sites for vertical-lift helicopters.

Within hours, much of the fleet was on the move, repositioning ships and aircraft. But adding to the challenges was the rapidly unfolding crisis at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which eventually suffered triple meltdowns.

"It was a crisis unheard of in terms of how do you deal with all that complexity," Van Buskirk said, also recounting the harsh winter weather conditions at that time.

From his viewpoint, the information flow between the United States and Japan over the quake and tsunami relief efforts was "very good," whereas communication regarding the nuclear crisis was "not smooth" in the beginning due partly to the difficulty of grasping the situation amid a series of hydrogen explosions at reactor buildings.

"Certainly the issue with the reactor plants was the most complex," the former commander said.

U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which served as a refueling base for aircraft involved in rescue and recovery operations, at one point had to be positioned farther offshore to avoid any possible radiation contamination.

Nonetheless, drones and planes with sensors were used to monitor the situation at the Fukushima plant, Van Buskirk said, calling it "a very positive thing."

Another key challenge was to assist the reopening of the debris-covered Sendai airport in Miyagi Prefecture and ports to allow more supplies to flow to the devastated areas, he said. A U.S. salvage ship helped to do the work along with U.S. troops.

At the peak of Operation Tomodachi, joined by all the U.S. military services, the United States had 24,000 personnel, 189 aircraft and 24 Navy ships supporting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts, according to a 2011 report by the Congressional Research Service. Most activities ended in April that year.

The U.S. 7th Fleet is the Navy's largest forward-deployed fleet, with an area of responsibility stretching from the Western Pacific to the Indian Ocean. It is based in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo.

Looking back, Van Buskirk said he was "proud to have been there" to support the Japanese people as well as the Americans living in the country and to have "the best possible outcome for something that was very, very tragic."

The overall success of Operation Tomodachi was facilitated through years of joint exercises and trusted personal relationships, such as Van Buskirk recalled having with then Japanese Self-Defense Fleet Commander-in-Chief Kenichi Kuramoto.

"In time of crisis, you want to be able to pick up the phone and call your good friend...'Ken-san, where do you need help?' 'What can we do for you?' or he could call me," he said, adding that such "valuable" things "cannot be taken for granted."

"So my point is, you need to invest in those things, continue to invest in exercises," including those to prepare for humanitarian assistance and those conducted among the so-called Quad involving the United States, Japan, Australia and India, Van Buskirk said.

He also said "there's never been a better name" than Tomodachi to describe the operation. "This was two friends, working together...and doing something that was beyond the military, beyond anything else, it was to support the people."

"What I've been touched by is the legacy of that still has continued and should continue to be celebrated," he added.
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.
Credit: University of Glasgow

Almost two thirds of people, 63%, reported a decrease in time spent visiting green spaces following movement restrictions in the original lockdown period, which began on 23rd March 2020.

Inequalities in green space use were also sustained, and may even have been exacerbated, as a result of lockdowns and restrictions of movement in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

New research, led by the University of Glasgow MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, and published today in BMJ Open, finds that those from a more socially disadvantaged background were a third less likely to visit green spaces before, and more than two thirds less likely to visit them after restrictions were enforced. Adults over 65 years-old also reported visiting green spaces less often after restrictions were in place than their middle aged counterparts.

Overall, 93% of all respondents had visited green space in the year before movement restrictions were enforced. However, in contrast, only 53% reported visiting green space following pandemic restrictions being put in place.

The research highlighted that spending time in green space benefited mental health. Two thirds of respondents reported that green spaces benefited their mental health more following restrictions on movement compared to before. Female respondents were most likely to agree that visiting green space benefitted their mental health following the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions.

Previous research has shown that contact with green space may disproportionately benefit disadvantaged populations, reducing health inequalities and therefore weakening the effects of poverty.

Ms Hannah Burnett, who led the research, said: "We know that green space can positively influence people's health and well-being, but there were sharp falls in the time people spent there when lockdown was at its most strict. Inequalities in the use of green space mean the more disadvantaged communities are less likely to use green space.

"Our findings show that lockdowns and movement restrictions definitely sustained and may have even exacerbated inequalities in the use of green space, which is cause for concern. Given the benefits that access to these spaces can have, particularly for those in disadvantaged communities, these findings emphasize the importance of green spaces remaining open in any future lockdowns."

Dr. Jonathan Olsen said "Our research showed those who used green spaces felt a benefit on their mental health. At a time when many are facing additional worries and strain due to the pandemic, parks and open spaces have been a crucial asset for mental health. Parks and open spaces are an essential resource for community wellbeing, and they must remain open, protected and prioritized in any future fiscal squeeze"

For this study, researchers gathered data from a nationally representative cross-sectional survey administered through YouGov between 30th April and 1st May 2020. Data from 2,252 adults aged 18 years and over were collected on the time spent visiting green space and any change in their experience of green space, including missing social interaction, increased physical activity, and feeling greater mental health benefits in green space.

The study "Change in time spent visiting and experiences of green space following restrictions on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic: A nationally representative cross-sectional study of U.K. adults" is published in BMJ Open.

More information: Hannah Burnett et al. Change in time spent visiting and experiences of green space following restrictions on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationally representative cross-sectional study of UK adults, BMJ Open (2021). Journal information: BMJ Open Hannah Burnett et al. Change in time spent visiting and experiences of green space following restrictions on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationally representative cross-sectional study of UK adults,(2021). DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-044067
Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.Australias central bank maintained its policy settings as it prepares to decide on extending its yield target and quantitative easing programs, with a Covid-19 lockdown complicating the outlook.The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate and three-year yield target at 0.10% in Sydney on Tuesday, as expected. It will make a decision in July on whether to extend the yield target and undertake further quantitative easing. A weeklong shutdown in the nations second-largest city adds a layer of uncertainty to the outlook.Despite the strong recovery in the economy and jobs, inflation and wage pressures are subdued, Governor Philip Lowe said. The board is committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment in Australia and inflation consistent with the target.The Australian dollar edged lower, trading at 77.41 U.S. cents at 2:53 p.m. in Sydney from 77.62 cents just before the release.The case for Lowe to maintain the April 2024 bond as the target maturity had been strengthening amid strong hiring, sentiment and investment plans. This was reinforced by the government keeping open the fiscal spigot in the May budget as it joins the RBA in seeking to drive down unemployment to revive wages growth and inflation.Progress in reducing unemployment has been faster than expected, Lowe said in his statement. There are reports of labor shortages in some parts of the economy.Risks AheadYet the RBA may be encouraged to err on the side of caution if Melbournes outbreak worsens and extend both of its bond programs to keep maximum support for the economy.An important ongoing source of uncertainty is the possibility of significant outbreaks of the virus, although this should diminish as more of the population is vaccinated, Lowe said. The board continues to place a high priority on a return to full employment.Globally, central banks are beginning to edge away from emergency monetary settings. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets last week in presenting projections of its official cash rate rising in the second half of next year.Back in Australia, economists predicted ahead of data Wednesday that gross domestic product rose 1.5% in the first three months of the year from the prior quarter, and advanced 0.6% from a year earlier.Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, in testimony to a parliamentary panel earlier today, said partial data showed around 56,000 workers had lost their jobs in the four weeks following the end of the governments JobKeeper wage subsidy that expired March 28.He said strong employment data and forward indicators continue to give us confidence that the labor market has the underlying strength to absorb workers transitioning off the JobKeeper payment.End of Australias $68 Billion Job-Saving Stimulus Tests EconomyLowe estimates Australias jobless rate will need to fall to close to 4% before driving economy-wide pay increases. It stood at 5.5% in April.The governor expects wages growth will need to increase at a pace faster than 3% -- more than double the current rate -- for inflation to return sustainably to the central banks 2-3% target.Lowe reiterated that this is unlikely to be until 2024 at the earliest.(Updates with further comments from governor throughout text.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Kangana Ranaut has been gearing up to function amidst a hectic schedule. After wrapping up the shoot for her upcoming film Dhaakad, the actor has immediately started shooting for Tejas. Kangana recently headed off to Delhi to resume the shoot after completing the Mumbai schedule of the same. However, before she can immerse herself to work again, the actor found some joy in binging on some delicious sweets. She also shared a glimpse of the same on her social media.

Taking to her social media account, Kangana Ranaut shared a picture of her snacks. The picture comprised of some tasty looking Gulab Jamun, Kulfi and Kheer. The Tanu Weds Manu Returns actor captioned the same stating, "Delhi Oh Delhi" along with a red heart emoji. Take a look at the same.

Delhi oh Delhi ....  pic.twitter.com/vPUyyRBkiz  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) March 8, 2021

Meanwhile, Kangana Ranaut was recently all praises for her Thalaivi director, AL Vijay. She penned down a heartfelt note for him on her social media account as she completed her dubbing session for the first half of the film. Sharing some BTS pictures of herself along with Vijay with the same, she wrote how as her journey with him is coming to an end, she has a confession to make. The Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi actor revealed how the director says no to tea, coffee and all the other snacks at a party which had made her impossible to get close to him.

Also Read: Kangana Ranaut Tells Taapsee Pannu 'You Will Always Remain Sasti' As The Latter Reacts To IT Raids

However, Kangana Ranaut added how she felt close to the director when his eyes shone brighter when she excelled as an artist during the shoot of the film while going through several ups and downs. The actor further said how she never saw any hint of anger, insecurity or despair in the filmmaker. Kangana mentioned how whenever people speak about him, their eyes tend to light up. She concluded by thanking him and stating that she misses him dearly. Take a look at her tweets.

Dear Vijay sir, as first half dubbing of #Thalaivi is over, only second half is left, this journey together is coming to an end, I never feel a sinking feeling that I feel as I think about it, I have identified this feeling as missing you factor I have a confession to make (cont) pic.twitter.com/lqTgGc3JSp  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) March 9, 2021

Talking about Kangana Ranaut's film Thalaivi, the film is touted to be a multilingual biographical drama based on the life of actor and former Tamil Nadu CM, Jayalalithaa. The movie will also be starring Arvind Swamy, Prakash Raj and Jisshu Sengupta in pivotal roles. It is slated to release on April 23, 2021.

Also Read: Kangana Ranaut Shares A Glimpse Of Her Prep For Tejas; Talks About Hardships Of A Solider
Clockwise from left, Alan Moore, Sander Luo, Wen Juan Shi, Yina Moore, Canyon Moore, 5, and Madison Moore, 6, enter a gallery at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown in July. According to the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is in line for a 10 percent spending cut under Gov. Charlie Baker's budget, the state's nonprofit and municipal cultural organizations reported $588 million in lost revenue since March 2020.
Pontiac Street in Boston was a harrowing scene late Monday as a heavy blaze swept through a multi-story building, displacing a dozen residents and forcing one person to jump from the second floor of the structure to escape the blaze.

The fire at the three-family home at 59 Pontiac St. in Mission Hill broke out around 9:50 p.m., with flames initially appearing on the second and third floors of the building, according to a series of tweets from the Boston Fire Department.

A second alarm was eventually sounded for the blaze at the three-and-a-half-story building, the department noted. By around 10:30 p.m., firefighters were still working to bring the fire under control as it pushed up to the roof. Caution was being taken for live power lines that had fallen in the street from the burning home.

Companies making up from Pontiac St . District Chief Ellis to address media. 12 people & 1 puppy displaced. 1 resident transported after jumping from 2nd floor. No firefighters injured. pic.twitter.com/w28QMv9JDi  Boston Fire Dept. (@BostonFire) March 9, 2021

The blaze was eventually extinguished, but not before causing an estimated $750,000 worth of damages, and leaving 12 people as well as one puppy displaced, according to the department.

The individual who jumped from the second floor of the building was taken to the hospital. The department did not say how severe the persons injuries were. No firefighters were injured while battling the blaze, authorities said.

Firefighters and the American Red Cross of Massachusetts helped the displaced residents. Personnel from the Boston Sparks Association as well as Boston EMS and police also assisted at the scene of the fire, according to officials.

Authorities remained at the scene to watch for hotspots and investigate the cause of the blaze, the department said.
NESS ZIONA, Israel, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Kadimastem Ltd. (TASE: KDST), a clinical stage cell therapy company, announced that it has been granted a patent by The Israel Patent Office for its differentiated human astrocytes from human pluripotent stem cells for use in the treatment and drug screening of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Specifically, the patent allows for the innovative method of non-genetically modifying a cell population of human progenitor astrocytes or astrocytes, for use in the treatment or prevention of the progression of ALS in a human subject in need and screening an agent for preventing or treating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) by using this cell population.

Kadimastem's flagship product, AstroRx, is comprised of a differentiated cell population of human astrocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells and is in clinical development as a therapeutic treatment for ALS. Kadimastem recently announced encouraging results of the Cohort B of its Phase 1/2a Clinical Trial of AstroRx for ALS. See press release here.

The technology was first initiated at the Weizmann Institute of Science while Professor Michel Revel, the co-founder of Kadimastem, was a principal investigator there. It continues to be developed by the experienced and dedicated team in the laboratories of Kadimastem, where Professor Revel serves as the Chief Scientific Officer.

Kadimastem CEO Asaf Shiloni said, "The patent granted by the Israel Patent Office is a significant step forward towards bringing AstroRx to market for the benefit of ALS patients worldwide. We aim to have a pre-IND meeting with the US FDA in the near future, with the goal of setting in motion the next stage of clinical trials as soon as possible. In the meantime, we shall continue our groundbreaking research and development programs for both our ALS and diabetes products."

Kadimastem Chief Scientific Officer Professor Michel Revel added, "Israel is an important market for research and development and for setting international medical standards and precedent. Today's patent is an important milestone that supports producing the cells for AstroRx in Israel for use worldwide."

About Kadimastem

Kadimastem is a clinical stage cell therapy company, developing and manufacturing "off-the-shelf", allogeneic, proprietary cell products based on its technology platform for the expansion and differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESCs) into functional cells. AstroRx, the Company's lead product, is an astrocyte cell therapy in clinical development as a treatment for ALS. IsletRx is the Company's second product in development. IsletRx is comprised of functional pancreatic islet cells intended to treat patients with insulin dependent diabetes. IsletRx demonstrated safety and efficacy in a proof-of-concept preclinical study. Kadimastem was founded by Professor Michel Revel, CSO of the Company and Professor Emeritus of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Professor Revel received the Israel Prize for the invention and development of Rebif, a multiple sclerosis blockbuster drug sold worldwide. Kadimastem is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: KDST).

Forward Looking Statement

This document may include forward-looking information as defined in the Securities Law, 5728  1968. Forward-looking information is uncertain and mostly is not under the Company's control and the realization or non-realization of forward-looking information will be affected, among other things, by the risk factors characterizing the Company's activity, as well as developments in the general environment and external factors affecting the Company's activity. The Company's results and achievements in the future may differ materially from any presented herein and the Company makes no undertaking to update or revise such projection or estimate and does not undertake to update this document. This document does not constitute a proposal to purchase the Company's securities or an invitation to receive such offers. Investment in securities in general and in the Company in particular bears risks. One should consider that past performance does not necessarily indicate performance in the future.

Social Media: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook

Company Contacts:

Yossi Nizhar

CFO

[email protected]

+972-73-797-1604

Marjie Hadad

General Manager

Must Have Communications

917-790-1178

[email protected]

SOURCE Kadimastem
New Delhi, March 10 : Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday said on the question of the country's safety and security, the Congress party, Trinamool Congress and the Opposition sided with the terrorists and an attempt was made to break the morale of the police with respect to the heinous act of terrorism committed in Delhi.

A day after a Delhi court convicted an Indian Mujahideen operative Ariz Khan in Batla House encounter, Prasad pointed that after the encounter, Congress leaders Digvijay Singh and Salman Khursheed, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, Left parties as well as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party had termed the encounter as staged by the police and called it fake.

"Now when the country's court has given its verdict of finding these terrorists guilty and sentenced him based on more than 100 witnesses, scientific evidence, and medical evidence, will all these parties apologise to the nation," he questioned'.

Prasad further stated that according to Khursheed, Congress president Sonia Gandhi had tears in her eyes after hearing about the killing of the terrorists in the Batla House encounter.

"Is Sonia Gandhi still crying after the court found the Indian Mujahideen terrorist, Ariz Khan alias Junaid guilty? Now what will Sonia Gandhi say on the Batla House encounter," Prasad asked.

Quoting a media report dated October 17, 2008, Prasad said, "Media report says that Mamta Banerjee had gone to Jamia Nagar and had said that the Batla House encounter was fake and that if it is proven that the encounter is not fake then she will quit politics.

"The BJP wants to ask Mamata Banerjee, when is she quitting politics," Prasad asked.

Prasad mentioned that besides the Batla House encounter case, Ariz Khan alias Junaid was also a conspirator in the Lucknow court blast case, Faizabad and Varanasi blasts, as well as in the blasts orchestrated in Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad.

"The Congress, Left parties, Mamtaji and the Samajwadi Party (SP) as well as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) made the Batla House encounter a national issue and tried to weaken India's fight against terrorism. Questions were also raised on the bravery and valour of the Delhi Police. Will India's fight against terrorism be weaken like this all the time in the name of vote bank politics," he said.

"A coordinated and planned strategy against this terrorists, after the BJP formed the government at the centre under the leadership of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Terrorist Ariz Khan was arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police from Nepal in 2018," Prasad said.


The NAGA Group AG (XETRA: N4G, ISIN: DE000A161NR7), provider of the social network for financial market trading NAGA.com, reports on the largest financing arrangement in the company's history to date and further record growth in February 2021.

NAGA has signed an agreement with the US Fund Yorkville Advisors securing a growth financing framework of up to USD 30 million.

"We are excited about the deal with Yorkville and are setting the course for NAGA to scale even faster. The financing gives us the power and the flexibility to allow the company to be taken to the next level. NAGA is a growth case in a very large and rapidly growing market. This decade will be definitely the breakthrough period for FinTechs", comments NAGA CEO Benjamin Bilski on the closed deal.

In addition, the company reports on preliminary results for February which have once again significantly exceeded the record figures from January 2021.

In February, NAGA achieved a record user growth with 37,000 new accounts and for the first time broke the milestone of 1 million real money transactions and a trading volume of over EUR 20 billion within one month. NAGA's flagship feature "Copy Trading" is growing particularly strong and further proves NAGA's unique selling point. In February more than 560,000 copied trades were executed which marks a steep increase of 75% to the 316,000 trades copied in January. New registrations grew by 45% and the number of real money transactions increased by over 38% compared to the previous month. The comparison to the previous year underlines once more the strong growth metrics: User registration saw an increase of 700% over prior years' month (February 2020: 4,606), whilst 600% more trades were copied (February 2020: 80,000), transactions and trading volume increased by 230% (February 2020: 318,000) and 197% (February 2020: EUR 6.8 billion) respectively compared to February 2020.

"The user growth, and particularly the activity and engagement ratios make us feel very confident. Evidently the concept of social media combined with trading at NAGA works very well. There is a clear shift in user behavior towards platforms like NAGA which combines stocks, cryptocurrencies and community, and it will be our core advantage over competition, especially in the area of customer-acquisition. As communicated before, we have developed a unique growth formula and can precisely control our growth which we have been proving consistently over the past 18 months. We will further increase our investment into marketing & sales especially in the light of the new financing and the fact that our growth yields return. Given our momentum, we will steer more into our social investing experience and maintain our advantages over competition. Growing our user base and increasing transactional activity will become increasingly relevant strategic metrics in 2021," concludes Bilski.

###

About NAGA

NAGA is an innovative fintech company that seamlessly connects personal finance transactions and investments through its social trading platform. The company's proprietary platform offers a range of products from stock trading, investments and cryptocurrencies to a physical Mastercard. Additionally, the platform allows for exchanges with other traders, provides relevant information in the feed, and autocopy features for successful members' trades. NAGA is a synergistic total solution that is easily accessible and inclusive. It provides an improved foundation to trade, invest, network, earn and pay. This applies to both fiat and crypto products.

Language: English Company: The NAGA Group AG Hohe Bleichen 12 20354 Hamburg Germany E-mail: info@naga.com Internet: www.naga.com ISIN: DE000A161NR7 WKN: A161NR Indices: Scale 30 Listed: Regulated Unofficial Market in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt (Scale), Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Tradegate Exchange EQS News ID: 1174069

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005432/en/
Beryl Gaye (93) a resident at Bethany House in Co Westmeath gets the Covid vaccine from HSE Vaccinator Mary Farrell at the nursing home. Photo by Steve Humphreys, 7th January 2021

Around 12,000 people over the age of 80 face a delay in getting their Covid-19 vaccine in the coming weeks due to a shortage of Moderna jabs, it has emerged.

Former president of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), Dr Ken Egan, a GP, said he had been contacted by other family doctors who are worried about the disappointment and anxiety among the 80-85 year age group who fear they will be among those who will lose out.

Last week the HSE told GPs the Moderna jab shortage would lead to a 15pc drop in supply for this age group, who number around 80,000  resulting in a delay for around 12,000 in the cohort.

In the coming weeks the hope is the target to vaccinate all over 70s by mid-May will be met.

Dr Egan, who is a GP in Mayo, said: There needs to be an appreciation of the disappointment and worry for this age group when it is not clear who will now be getting vaccinated next week.

Read More

Dr Egan suggested until the shortage is sorted out the age profile for the vaccine should be changed from 80 to 85, to 83 to 85.

Meanwhile, the HSE said the estimated 160,000 aged 16 to 69 who have underlying conditions leaving them at high risk if they are infected with Covid-19 are being identified by their consultants and other means.

There is no point in them contacting their hospital doctor, nurse or GP at this point because they are still drawing up lists of people who are eligible for this Group 4 in the vaccination priority list.

Given the complexity of the task we expect it will take some weeks to contact and vaccinate everyone.

Once the identification is complete they will be contacted individually.

The first members of this around  around 10,000 people with neurological and intellectual disability conditions  are being vaccinated in disability centres.

Many people with the same diagnosis as those in Group 4 will have less severe disease and are regarded as high risk rather than very high risk so will be in Groups 5.They are aged 65 to 69 while others will be in group 7.
Sanaa, March 9 : At least 60 people were killed due to a fire at an immigrant holding facility in Yemen's capital Sanaa, a Houthi official said on Tuesday.

The fire, which broke out on Sunday, has also injured more than 100 people, Xinhua news agency quoted the official as saying to the media.

Overcrowding and chaos at the facility, in addition to the fire, caused heavy casualties, said the official, adding that victims included both African migrants and facility staff.

The Houthi group has formed a commission to investigate the incident, he said.

According to the official, the facility is for holding migrants who entered the country "illegally" before the procedure of deportation starts.

In a statement issued on Monday evening, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed that the fire and called for "urgent humanitarian access to migrants injured".

"We are facing challenges accessing the injured due to an increased security presence in the hospitals. Humanitarians and health workers must be given access to support the treatment of those affected by the fire," it added.

According to the IOM, Yemen remains a transit country for tens of thousands of migrants travelling between the Horn of Africa and Saudi Arabia despite years of war.

The Organization estimated that the number of migrants arriving in Yemen fell from more than 138,000 in 2019 to just more than 37,500 in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014 when Houthi rebels seized control of several northern provinces and forced the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 to support Hadi's government.
Carla Wallenda, who spent seven decades with both her head and her feet in the clouds (or close to them) as a member of the Flying Wallendas aerial act, died on Saturday in Sarasota, Fla. The last surviving child of the family troupes founder, she was 85.

Her death was confirmed by her son, Rick Wallenda. No cause was given.

Ms. Wallenda made her high-wire debut when she was just six weeks old  when my father rode the bicycle and my mother sat on his shoulders, holding me and introducing me to the public, she recalled in a Sarasota television interview in 2017.

Fatal accidents took the lives of family members, including her husband, but Ms. Wallenda continued to soar to new acrobatic heights. Her signature was a heart-stopping headstand on a sway pole  a flexible steel shaft  from a perch of 100 feet (later scaled down to 65 feet as she grew older).

Though weakened by diabetes and a chronic inflammatory lung disease (she stopped smoking in 2013), she continued to perform until she was 82.
Chandigarh: Health & Family Welfare Minister Punjab Balbir Singh Sidhu today handed over appointment letters to 354 Staff Nurses and 6 Pharmacy Officers.

Disclosing this here today, the Health Minister said that under the 'Ghar Ghar Rozgar' employment scheme of Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, out of the total 598 posts of staff Nurses published, today appointment letters were given to 354 staff nurses while 164 staff nurses have already been given appointment orders previously. Six pharmacy officers were also given appointment letters today. While the remaining candidates will soon be given appointment letters.

Photo

Balbir Singh Sidhu congratulated the new appointees in the Health Department and encouraged them to discharge their responsibilities honestly and diligently in various health institutions of the state.

Director Health Services (Family Welfare) Punjab Dr. Andesh Kang welcomed the newly appointed staff who got jobs in the health department. She said that corona pandemic has been brought under control to a large extent but the disease has not been eradicated yet. Covid cases are coming to light every day. Therefore, to prevent corona, wear a mask and wash your hands from time to time with soapy water and strictly follow the rules of social distance.

Photo

On this occasion, Health Minister's OSD. Dr. Balwinder Singh, Political secretary to Health Minister Harkesh Chand Sharma Machhli Kalan, the Superintendent Suraj Kumar, Superintendent Sanjay Kumar, Mass Media Officer Gurmeet Singh Rana, Harcharan Singh Brar and other officials were also present.
SALEM, Ore.  Oregon's unemployment rate continued a slow decline in January, according to the latest numbers from the Oregon Employment Department, but local Josephine and Jackson counties lagged behind the state's overall progress.

State unemployment edged down to 6.2 percent in January from 6.3 percent the month prior, the continuation of a trend over the past few months. Oregon kept just ahead of U.S. unemployment, which hit 6.3 percent in January.

At its early-pandemic peak in April of 2020, Oregon's unemployment rate hit 13.2 percent.

"The states unemployment rate dropped by close to four tenths of a percentage point in each of the last three months of 2020, following more rapid declines during the prior five months," OED said in a statement.

The state's biggest gains came in the retail, leisure and hospitality, and private education service sectors.

"Despite the net job gain in January, employment still remains substantially below pre-pandemic levels," OED said. "Total nonfarm payroll employment has dropped 162,800 jobs, or 8.3%, since January 2020. Nearly all industries have cut jobs during that time. Leisure and hospitality is still down 76,800 jobs, or 35.6%, since January 2020."

Despite the slow gains in employment statewide, both Jackson and Josephine counties lost jobs in January  which OED largely ascribed to "seasonally typical losses" after the holidays in a variety of sectors.

Josephine County lost 300 jobs  the majority in retail, construction, wholesale trade, and government employment. Payroll employment in the greater Grants Pass area has dropped by 1,000 jobs over the past year, or 3.7 percent.

Jackson County shed 1,350 jobs in January. Again, retail topped the list for losses, followed by professional and business services, health care and social assistance, and construction. The leisure and hospitality sector added 230 jobs in January, but has lost roughly one in four jobs since January of 2020.

Over the past year, total payroll employment in the greater Medford area fell by 4,970 jobs, or 5.5 percent. Still, the area has seen fewer total losses than the statewide average of 8.3 percent, and particularly over the Portland Metro area, which lost 8.9 percent over the year.

"Most industries continue to show over-the-year losses in Jackson County with the exception being retail trade, which added 380 jobs since January 2020," OED said. "Since January 2020, leisure and hospitality accounts for over half of total job losses, down by 2,640 jobs."
Chinese Regime Attempts to Conceal Its Failed Strategy Over Sino-Indian Border Dispute

Commentary

Chinas Ministry of National Defense announced on Feb. 10 the withdrawal of troops from the Sino-Indian border. The next day, the Indian Defense Minister also confirmed the disengagement. It should be regarded as good news as Chinas decision reduces the risk of military conflicts and maintains regional peace.

However, on Feb. 19, Chinas state-run media suddenly launched a large-scale propaganda with regards to the Sino-Indian border conflict. On the one hand, the responsibility for the conflict was completely shifted to India, and on the other hand, the regime touted the victory and incited so-called patriotism.

CCPs Propaganda: China Is Victorious

On Feb. 19, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)s media was in full swing. The CCTV news program aired a recording of soldiers from both sides fighting in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh in June last year. The Chinese military, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), published an article, titled, The Heroes Stand Tall on Karakoram Mountains, which was reposted by major Chinese media outlets. It was then followed by a commentary in the PLAs official media, titled, Sing the Heroic Song and Strive to Win the War.

At the same time, state-run Xinhua News Agency issued a series of articles to promote nationalism.

These propaganda pieces portray that Indias unilateral aggression brought about the Sino-Indian border conflict, and the heroic PLA won with less men.

Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs also joined this wave of propaganda. At a press conference on Feb. 19, spokesperson Hua Chunying made a high-profile statement, The motherland will not forget them [soldiers], and the people will hold them dear to their hearts, Xinhua reported. This familiar propaganda has always been used in all previous military conflicts with foreign countries. Politically, it is always a victory, a hero is recognized, and above all, it is the great glory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership.

Xinhua published an article on the same day, stating, Xi Jinping replied to the centenarian soldiers of the Shanghai New Fourth Army History Research Association and talked about the Partys story, glorious tradition and fine style; and reminded the majority of Party members not to forget their original intention, to remember their mission, and to fight bravely. It is merely the CCPs propaganda.

Did the CCP Really Win?

In early May 2020, the Chinese and Indian forces clashed at the Sino-Indian border. Since then, the conflict has continued, the negotiations between the two sides failed. On June 15, the two sides broke out in a major conflict in the Galwan Valley. Although no automatic weapons were used, the casualties were serious on both sides. At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Though the Chinese authorities havent made an official statement about the casualties on the Chinese side, the Indian Hindi newspaper Navbharat Times on June 17 reported that 43 Chinese soldiers were killed in the incident. The CCP never revealed relevant information, and only now has it suddenly declared victory.

After the bloody clash, the two sides increased their troops, and the risk of large-scale conflicts increased significantly. After many rounds of negotiations, no consensus was reached, there were repeated conflicts and even shooting incidents.

India is more anxious to cool down and has invited Russia to mediate. Russia clearly stands on Indias side, stepping up its efforts to sell weapons to India, and has also delivered the S-400 missile defense system. The COVID-19 outbreak in India was difficult to control at that time, and India had no motivation to provoke conflict.

India is no longer what it used to beit has strengthened its combat readiness since Mao Zedong initiated the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962. In the cold weapon conflict, the CCP army did not take the lead, and it is very likely that it lost some mountain outposts that it had occupied. If the CCPs army had made some gains, it would have been vigorously propagated long ago, but its current propaganda narrative is to guard the territory. China did not advance in the Line of Actual Control (the disputed border) but was forced to retreat. This is probably also one of the reasons why the CCP has been reluctant to withdraw its troops, and also unable to make progress.

The CCP not only failed to win tactically, but it was also a major failure in strategy. In particular, the strengthening of U.S.-Indian relations has promoted the acceleration of military alliances between the United States, Japan, India, and Australia. The CCPs actions gave birth to the Asian NATO. The CCP seems to be fighting on two fronts, but in reality, its limited capacity has it falling under siege.

Shen Zhou, a former design engineer for military vehicles, is a China observer who has paid close attention to the Chinese regimes military expansion over the years. He started contributing to The Epoch Times in 2020.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
London: Piers Morgan has left his top-rating British morning television show a day after the broadcasters fierce criticism of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, prompted tens of thousands of complaints to the media regulator.

British media regulator Ofcom said on Tuesday it was investigating Good Morning Britain over a fiery episode on Monday, which covered the fallout from Prince Harry and Meghans interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Morgan, whose brief friendship with the former Suits actor turned sour after she met Harry in 2016, cast doubt over her claims that she was on the verge of suicide and accused the couple of displaying contempt for the Queen.

I dont believe a word she says, Meghan Markle. I wouldnt believe her if she read me a weather report, he said.
On Monday, the chief financial officer of Tui, Sebastian Ebel, met President Armengol and tourism minister, Iago Negueruela, in order to analyse the tourism situation caused by the pandemic, the level of vaccination in the Balearics and the opening of establishments in Mallorca from the end of this month.

With the German government due to shortly lift its advice against travel to the Balearics because of the improved health situation, Ebel called for there to be "maximum speed" with the vaccination programme in the Balearics in order to allow there to be a summer season. He also called for a commitment to safe air corridors and the vaccine passport. He added that if the health data continue to improve as they are, then holiday flights to Mallorca from Germany at Easter are probable.

Ebel said that lockdown had meant that German families had saved money and so that when restrictions are lifted, "people are going to be willing to spend it on holidays". He considered the vaccine passport to be essential in supporting the tour operator's business over the coming months.

The main concern for Tui is the vaccination programme in the Balearics, given that it is currently proceeding slowly. Nevertheless, the decision has been taken to open hotels, the first of which will be the Robinson Club Cala Serena on March 20.

Meanwhile, another German tour operator, Alltours, which owns or manages 26 hotels in Mallorca, is planning to open establishments in Alcudia, Cala Millor and Playa de Palma from March 17. Willi Verhuven, CEO of the tour operator's Allsun hotels, says that the company expects the advice against travel to be lifted in the coming days. "We have decided to react rapidly."
Less than three lakh active COVID-19 cases in Karnataka

Govt explains why COVID impact may increase in children if virus changes behaviour

CISCE cancels ISC class 12th board exams due to Covid-19; Assessment criteria to be out soon

Now, you can update vaccination status on Aarogya Setu app

Only 1 sub-lineage of COVID Delta strain found in India is variant of concern: WHO

Coronavirus vaccination: BJP President JP Nadda receives first shot of COVID-19 vaccine

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Mar 09: BJP President Jagat Prakash Nadda on Tuesday received his first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine in Delhi. He was administered the jab by nurse Remya PC at Fortis, Vasant Kunj. Nadda was given a Covaxin dose.

On March 1, the government launched the nationwide drive of getting everyone above 60 years of age (and those aged between 45-59 with co-morbidities) get vaccinated.

According to the health ministry, the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 2.26 crore with 16,96,588 jabs being given till Monday evening.

COVID-19 vaccine: Pilots, cabin crew unfit to fly for 48 hours after getting vaccination, says DGCA

A total 16,96,588 vaccine doses were given till 9 pm on Monday, the fifty-second day of nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive.

On Monday, 14,30,954 beneficiaries were vaccinated for 1st dose and 2,65,634 healthcare workers (HCWs) and frontline workers (FLWs) received 2nd dose of vaccine according to provisional report, the ministry said.

The 14,30,954 beneficiaries who got the first dose include 10,33,480 beneficiaries aged over 60 and 1,78,257 aged between 45-60 with specified comorbidities, according to the data.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Cumulatively 2,26,85,598 vaccine doses have been administered in the country, according to the provisional report till 9 pm.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 18:25 [IST]
Emilia Clarke has revealed she told a facialist to 'get out' after they told her she needed filler aged 28.

The former Game Of Thrones star told Elle magazine she was left fuming after the being told to get the anti-ageing treatment.

When asked about the worst skincare advice she had received, the actress, now 34, said: 'I once had a facialist who told me I needed filler and I showed her the door.'

Natural beauty: Emilia Clarke has revealed she told a facialist to 'get out' after they told her she needed filler aged 28 (pictured 2020)

'I was literally just like, "get out". Her exact words were, "Then, you can have your face back." At that point I was 28.'

The star also opening up about her thoughts on ageing in the film industry, saying:

'At 34, I am wiser, more intelligent, I've had more experiences, I've done all this stuff and I'm proud of that. So, if my face is gonna reflect the time that I've spent on this earth, I'm down for that.'

Opening up: The star revealed at just 28 she was told she needed filler by a facialist

Industry pressures: The star also opening up about her thoughts on ageing in the film industry

The star continued to say she feels pressure to get injections in the film industry but knows she works in an industry where she needs to show expressions.

Emilia also explained that she's also never had botox because she is 'petrified', and while she does not want to get the procedure done at this given time, she has not necessarily ruled it out in the future.

However, she stressed she does not like how it's now considered the norm 'that everybody just gets work done'.

Express yourself : 'I work in an industry where I've got to move my face, and I've got to be expressive, and you can't light filter'

Last year, Emilia told the Australian beauty outlet, Mecca that each evening she will engage in a facial massage before she goes to sleep.

'I kind of want to do all I can in taking care of my skin. It's a form of self-care as well -I'm choosing to put the energy into making sure I'm looking good,' she told the publication.

Founder of Face Gym Inge Theron said there is a simple reason why facial massage is so good for your skin: stimulation.

'Over 40 muscles make up the scaffolding of the face. And just like the muscles in the body, the more you move them, the more lifted, tightened and toned they become,' she told Glamour.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Today is International Women's Day.

A day where women across the nation are celebrated for their accomplishments and success.

We now have a woman vice president, but taking it closer to home. We have two female college presidents who are making a difference right here in Vigo county.

Dottie King the president at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College says it's important for women to help each other reach their goals.

"That when women are given opportunities they seize them and their very likely to take hold of the women next to them that's just a little behind them and take her hand and pull her through too."

ISU held an international women's event.

They gave away roses to the women on campus to uplift them.

One graduate student says women should be recognized more for all they bring to the table.

"I appreciate all the women who are working and raise their family who take care of their family who are working. They are doing what they want," says Duaa Malibani.

Indiana state university's president talked a little about imposter syndrome with women, they don't feel like they have earned their success.

"Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg talks about how many women will look at 5 qualifications for a job and see they meet 4 of them and say I'm not ready, men tend to look at the 5 qualifications and meet 3 and say this is my job. So it's related to that concept of believing in yourself," says ISU president Deborah Curtis.

Mrs. king says we must keep the conversation going beyond today.

"At Saint Mary-of-the-Woods college, every day is Women's day."

ISU is holding programs through March to celebrate women's month.

Just go to their website to see how you can get involved.
(@FahadShabbir)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Central African government troops pushed militants out of an important trade hub near the borders with Chad and Cameroon over the weekend, the Russian embassy said Tuesday.

"On March 7, soldiers of the Central African armed forces liberated with the help of Russian instructors the town of Paoua in the country's northwest," a statement read.

The diplomatic mission said that the town was key to goods transport from the Cameroonian port of Douala to the Chadian capital of N'Djamena.

The government has stepped up attacks on the Coalition of Patriots for Change, an alliance of militant groups, ahead of this Sunday's legislative elections.

Vladimir Titorenko, the Russian ambassador to the country, told Sputnik that fewer than 1,500 militants were still at large following a counter-offensive mounted by the government in response to last December's violence.
Dr. B is just one attempt at coordinating the chaotic patchwork of public and private websites that allow eligible people to find vaccine appointments. Critics have said the current system is confusing, unreliable and often requires access to the internet, as well as the time to prowl websites for the rare appointment. In many places, it also largely ignores people who are not yet eligible for a shot, wasting the opportunity to get them on a formal waiting list.
Huddle House will soon have a location closer to Midland. The restaurant has displayed signage at 4250-B NE Loop 338 by State Highway 191 in Odessa. A Kent Kwik is being constructed at the location. Huddle House has 17 locations throughout Texas including one in Monahans and Kermit. Huddle House has been serving customers for 50 years, according to their website.

The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast menu items include big house breakfasts, stuffed hash browns, waffles, French toast, smothered biscuit platters and sides like cheesy bacon hash browns and cheesy bacon grits. The lunch and dinner menu features various burgers, melts, dinner platters, salads and chili. There are $5 down home combos such as bacon, egg and cheese biscuit combo, BLT combo, farmhouse burger combo and more. The kids menu features grilled cheese, waffle or pancake and chicken fingers. Featured menu items are the stuffed French toast -- caramel apple, apple and strawberry -- and new blueberry muffin bites.
Telecom operator is in advance stages of processing order for network capacity expansion in six circles through Chinese telecom gear makers, according to industry sources aware of the development.

The order will be only for expansion of existing telecom network capacity where the contract was already awarded to the Chinese vendors, according to the sources.

" is planning network expansion in six circles where networks are getting heavy traffic. The company is planning to hand over expansion orders to its existing Chinese vendor in those circles," one of the sources said.

Both Huawei and ZTE supply equipment to

A query sent to Vodafone Idea did not elicit any reply.

"The expansion order to Chinese vendors will be for non-core networks," another source said.

Vodafone Idea Chief Technology Officer Jagbir Singh has reportedly said that the company will not give any new order to Chinese vendors but it will have to opt for Chinese equipment for part of the network currently being served by them.

The government is likely to amend the telecom licence norms this month to incorporate the guidelines of the national security directive on the telecommunication sector that will help in controlling installation of network equipment from China and other non-friendly countries.

Under the provisions of this directive, the government will declare a list of trusted sources and trusted products for installation in the country's telecom network.

The directive, however, does not envisage mandatory replacement of the existing equipment already inducted in the network of telecom operators, and it will also not affect annual maintenance contracts or updates to existing equipment already inducted in the network as on date of effect of the directive.

While the government has not barred procurement of equipment from Chinese companies, it amended the general financial rules (GFR) 2017 to enable the imposition of restrictions on bidders in public procurement from countries that share a land border with India. It was on grounds of defence of India, or matters directly or indirectly related thereto, including national security.

Public need to scrap tenders if a qualified bidder is from a country that shares a land border with India, which includes China.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Close

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new COVID-19 safety recommendations for vaccinated individuals, allowing them to meet with other people indoors even without wearing masks or with another unvaccinated family member as long as they are at low risk of any severe illness.

According to BuzzFeed News, the issuance of these long- and much-awaited guidelines comes as the United States COVID-19 vaccinations have increased across the nation.

Around 59 million people have now gotten vaccinated or at least have one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. Over 90 million doses of the vaccine have been shipped in the entire country.

Explaining the newly-released guidelines, during a White House Briefing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the recommendations that the health agency issued are just initial steps.

Whether vaccinated people can get ill and transfer an infection is remains the big open question that will shape recommendations moving forward, she continued to explain.

For this reason, elaborated Walensky, vaccinated individuals need to still wear masks. The health official also cited an example saying, one can visit his grandparents if he has been vaccinated and they too, have had their shot of the vaccine.

ALSO READ: What Are the Best COVID-19 Face Masks for Classrooms?

CDC Guidelines

According to the latest-released CDC guidelines, as seen on CNBC TV's YouTube video below, fully vaccinated individuals can visit other fully vaccinated people indoors even without wearing masks or practicing physical distancing.

In addition, a fully vaccinated individual can visit an unvaccinated family with members who are at low risk of contracting a severe COVID-19 infection.

There's no need for fully vaccinated people to quarantine after being exposed to an individual infected with the virus if they're not experiencing any symptom of the disease.

Meanwhile, unvaccinated people from different households need to continue wearing masks, avoid having indoor gatherings, and practice physical distancing when with other people who have not yet been vaccinated.

These said recommendations, according to Walensky, did not change guidelines to avoid travel. She added that every time that there is a surge in travel, there comes a dramatic increase in cases in this country.

Efficacy of Vaccines in More Contagious Variants

The more transmissible B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19, which was originally detected in the United Kingdom continues to appear in testing in the US. It is also anticipated to turn into a predominant variant of the virus nationwide this month.

Moreover, vaccines seem just as effective against the said UK variant as the original COVID-19 strain, although health experts, including Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease chief, have emphasized the need to get vaccinated with both shots of the two-shot vaccines to guarantee full protection from the variants.

The vaccines, which include the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine that had been authorized in February, take two weeks to go into complete efficacy.

The CDC also came out with a report confirming that certain conditions like obesity, specifically in people aged 65 years and above, were a significant risk factor for severe COVID-19 cases, raising the chances of necessitating a ventilator or even dying.

RELATED ARTICLE: It May Feel Uncomfortable, But Wearing Mask During Exercise Should Not Damage Oxygen Intake





Check out more news and information on COVID-19 on Science Times.
Santee Cooper pulled an idled coal-fired generator off the sidelines last month as the deep freeze that enveloped much of the nation threatened its power supply.

The state-owned utility restarted the unit at its Winyah Generating Station near Georgetown after a malfunction upended a plan to crank up part of a plant it owns in Berkeley County.

CEO Mark Bonsall reviewed what he called an interesting" chain of events from mid-February at Santee Cooper's most recent board meeting. They included buying power from an out-of-state supplier and putting some business customers on notice that their electricity could be disrupted.

It was an amazing weekend and an amazing week that led up to it, Bonsall said.

Moncks Corner-based Santee Cooper began looking to tap its unused coal-fired generating capacity Feb. 12 in response to the developing winter weather system.

Within a week, the situation began to get a little sticky, even though the extreme cold would steer clear of South Carolina, Bonsall said.

The biggest concern was that the natural gas wellhead in Texas and Oklahoma that feeds Santee Coopers Rainey Generating Station in Anderson County was freezing over. The utility was notified about the possibility of a supply shortage Feb. 18.

And, of course, the unit doesnt run without fuel, and Rainey's kind of a pretty big dog on our system as a gas-fired unit and a terribly important resource, Bonsall said.

Santee Cooper initially planned to restart a standby coal-fired unit at its Cross plant in upper Berkeley County as a backup, but it tripped offline twice.

It then turned to the Winyah generator, which was taken out of service on Dec. 31. It's one of four units that Santee Cooper has announced it will be shutting down at the Georgetown County site under a plan to lower its reliance on coal as fuel to about 19 percent from 52 percent by 2030.

The decision was made about 8 p.m. on Feb. 18., and the unit was producing electricity within 12 hours, according to Marty Watkins, Santee Cooper's director of supply and energy trading.

Sign up for our new business newsletter We're starting a weekly newsletter about the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina. Get ahead with us - it's free. Email

Sign Up!

It was pretty incredible, the turnaround time, Watkins told lawmakers at a March 2 hearing about the winter storms impact on the power grid.

Santee Cooper also canceled a planned sale of electricity to an out-of-state wholesale buyer. On Feb. 19 it warned industrial users with interruption clauses in their contracts that their power could be cut off temporarily.

At the same time, it bought 200 megawatts in the open market. The financial terms of the purchase from The Southern Co. were not disclosed.

In the end, Santee Cooper didn't need to cut or curtail electric service for any of its industrial users.

"We were able, in fact, to sell power off system for part of the time, which actually covered our costs to purchase power and start up additional units," the utility said in a statement March 8. "The story could have been much different, of course, if the severe cold and winter weather descended on South Carolina. If the natural gas supply froze up and the extreme temperatures moved into our territory, then we likely would have needed our 'belt-and-suspenders' approach. If necessary we could have curtailed the select industrial customers in keeping with our agreements with those customers."

Bonsall said the cold-weather crisis was all but over for Santee Cooper after temperatures rose higher than expected the weekend of Feb. 20.

And as it turned out ... we didnt need 'em, which is very, very, very fortunate," he said, referring to the extra megawatts the utility bought. "But we were ready, which is the point of this sequence of preparedness."

The Winyah unit was idled after running for about two days. It's still scheduled to be permanently retired in 2023 under the previously announced coal-reduction plan to close the entire coastal coal-burning site.

Bonsall said "lessons will be learned" from the fallout of last month's storm, especially in Texas, where power outages left millions of residents in the cold. At Santee Cooper, the utility will be working to identify and fix the glitch at Cross, which was attributed this week to a "syncing" issue.

Bonsall also said he hopes Gov. Henry McMaster's recent request for a post-storm assessment of the South Carolina grid will look beyond the border "because so much reliability comes from regional connections" with electric systems in neighboring states.
The European Parliament on Monday held a minute of silence in memory of the Italian ambassador, the policeman and U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) driver murdered in North Kivu, Congo, on Feb. 22.

The Italian ambassador to Congo, an Italian Carabinieri police officer and their Congolese driver were killed when gunmen attacked a U.N. convoy traveling to a school in eastern Congo.

The ambush occurred as the convoy was traveling from Goma, Congo's eastern regional capital, to visit a WFP school project in Rutshuru, the U.N. agency said.

"I want to open today's plenary session by sending our deepest condolences to the families and to the victims. Our thoughts are with them and with all the victims of violence," President of the European Parliament David Sassoli said.

The lawmakers then held a minute of silence.

Sassoli said The European Parliament will dedicate a session next Thursday to what happened in the incident.

The WFP said the attack occurred on a road that had been cleared previously for travel without security escorts, and it was seeking more information from local officials on the attack.

Eastern Congo is home to myriad rebel groups all vying for control of the mineral-rich Central African nation that is the size of Western Europe.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
The Ministry of Environment and Water is searching for a boy who was filmed in a viral video tossing his school books into a river.

The ministry said yesterday the student had appeared in the 10-second clip gleefully throwing several books from a bridge after completing the SPM national examination. The boy, who was dressed in school uniform in the video, was wanted for a river clean up event as part of World Water Day on March 22.

Recently, a video showing a student throwing his books into the river after the SPM examinations have surfaced online, the Ministry said on Facebook yesterday. SPM is taken by all 17-year-old students in Malaysia.

It was not clear where or when the video was filmed. If they manage to find the boy, he will join the Friend of River Malaysia environmental organization for the cleaning event.

If you know this child, the Ministry of Environment and Water would like to invite him to be a part of our Friends of River Malaysia organization so we may clean up rivers in the whole country together on March 22, which is World Water Day, the ministry added. With help and support from the community, this child and many others can learn more about the importance of keeping our rivers clean.

People in the comments section wished well for the boy, including Zuraida ZR, who said: Please study hard, child. Who knows, you may become the Minister of Environment someday.

Congratulations! At least he has something to do after SPM, another Facebook user Sonriente Nina wrote.

https://twitter.com/haziqaiman_/status/1367759753598754817

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Other stories to check out:

Muslim evangelist accused of rape sings about arrest as part of perfume campaign

Those who threw rubbish off the bridge should apologize: Minister (Video)

Perlis holiday resort tells visitors to stop ruining its fake tulips

This article, Boy who threw books into river wanted by environment ministry (Video), originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company.
Pipeline

9 March 2021

Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants announced today it will open the newest and hottest boutique hotel in Fort Lauderdale, marking the brand's entrance in the market and seventh overall in the Sunshine State. Set to open next month, The Kimpton Goodland Hotel - Fort Lauderdale Beach, will place emphasis on discovery of experience and want-for-nothing amenities. Blending in with the mid-century, nostalgic look and feel of its North Beach Village neighborhood, The Kimpton Goodland will span three two-story buildings, inclusive of an eclectic American restaurant and a 500-square-foot private dining room, state-of-the-art fitness center and two private pools, each complete with activated pool bar and cabanas. The hotel is owned by Banyan Investment Group and operated by Hotel Equities. The Goodland is Hotel Equities' first Kimpton-branded property to join its portfolio following Kimpton's recent nod to add the company to its shortlist of approved managers to operate the brand's luxury hotels.

An adaptive reuse of the historic Escape Hotel, which originally opened in 1950 as the first year-round resort in Fort Lauderdale Beach, The Kimpton Goodland will take on a new first as the first true boutique hotel to open in the popular beach destination. Set back from the hustle and bustle on the A1A, The Goodland offers a tucked-away oasis of lush greenery and tropical landscaping paired with a fresh color palette with pops of sun-drenched South Florida colors like turquoise and terra cotta to present an entirely laid-back vibe. With social programming aimed to appeal to hotel guests and locals alike, The Goodland will complement the vibrancy of the neighborhood and welcome all to come as they are.

A captivating visual juxtaposition, the ground-floor restaurant, The Botanic at The Goodland, punches up the volume with layered textures and vibrant colors. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, The Botanic will serve up bold, healthful and eclectic flavors that feature local ingredients and Latin and Caribbean influences. With a menu that centers on locally-sourced ingredients, shareable plates, a creative beverage program and kicked-up energy, The Botanic has its sights on becoming a lively neighborhood favorite. The adjacent, pool-side Good Bar at The Goodland continues the good vibes but with a decidedly more relaxed scene. Set amongst lush landscaping, this secluded outdoor bar and lounge will feature a concise menu of shareable plates and lighter fare with a beverage menu featuring gin and tonics, inventive frozen drinks and patio-perfect white and rose wines.
LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Modulaire Group, Europe and Asia Pacific's leading business services company specialising in modular services and infrastructure, is pleased to announce that it has agreed to acquire Tecnifor S.p.A and the business and operations of Locabox S.r.l. and F.A.E. S.p.A. from the shareholders.

Headquartered in San Gemini, near Rome, Tecnifor and Locabox are together one of the leading providers of modular building leasing solutions in Italy. The company operates a fleet of over 12,000 modular units primarily for clients within construction and public administration. FAE also operates a facility in San Gemini that manufactures units for the rental fleet or sales market.

Tecnifor, Locabox and FAE have approximately 140 employees and annual revenue of c. 35m.

This marks Modulaire Group's second acquisition in 2021 and ninth acquisition worldwide in the last 18 months. A targeted acquisition strategy remains one of Modulaire Group's four strategic objectives, alongside a focus on optimising sales, an efficient cost base and granular management of branch level performance, and effective capital investment.

The transaction, which is subject to review by the Italian competition authority, is expected to close in Q3 2021.



Mark Higson, Modulaire Group's Chief Executive Officer, commented:



"High quality acquisitions remain a core component of our strategy, alongside our focus on organic growth and operational performance. This acquisition will strengthen Modulaire Group's presence in Italy, building on our existing position. I am delighted to welcome Tecnifor, Locabox and FAE into the Group and look forward to working with their highly experienced and expert management team."







About Modulaire Group

Modulaire Group is the leader in European modular services and infrastructure. We create smart spaces for people to live, work and learn. Our business is designed to help customers find the right space solution, no matter what their requirements. Modulaire Group has operations in 25 countries with approximately 259,000 modular space and portable storage units and 3,400 remote accommodations rooms. The company operates as Algeco in Europe and Scandinavia, Elliott, Advante and Carter in the United Kingdom, BUKO Huisvesting, BUKO Bouw & Winkels and BUKO Bouwsystemen in The Netherlands, Ausco in Australia, Portacom in New Zealand, and Algeco Chengdong in China.



For further information

Investor relations: Phil Vellacott

[email protected]

07841 563541

Media enquiries:

Tulchan Communications

[email protected]

0207 353 4200

SOURCE Modulaire Group
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Flowers and tributes at the family home of Nadia Zofia Kalinowska in Newtownabbey

A husband and wife are to stand trial later this year for the alleged murder of their five-year-old daughter in Co Antrim.

The case against Aleksandra and Abdul Wahab has been listed for a preliminary enquiry at Belfast Magistrates Court in May.

Prosecutors will then apply to have the couple returned for trial based on the evidence said to connect them to the death of Nadia Kalinowkska.

The five-year-old died at the familys home on Fernagh Drive in Newtownabbey in December 2019. She had head and abdominal wounds, including multiple fractures said to be at various stages of healing. Mrs Wahab, a 26-year-old Polish national, and her 32-year-old Pakistani husband  Nadias stepfather  were arrested and have remained in custody since. They deny any wrongdoing and claim Nadia was an accident-prone child who sustained the injuries by falling down stairs in the middle of the night. But based on the contents of an autopsy report, a decision was taken to jointly charge them with murder and causing or allowing the death of a child. Police have also sent 1,500 pages of material to the Public Prosecution Service as part of the investigation. District Judge Fiona Bagnall confirmed that a preliminary enquiry into the evidence would be held on May 4. Both Mr and Mrs Wahab will have to appear for the hearing, which involves an initial assessment of the prima facie case against them. Any challenge to the strength of the prosecution can be mounted if and when they are returned for Crown Court trial.
PRINCETON, N.J., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Inc. (Sun Pharma), a wholly owned subsidiary of Mumbai-based Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, today announced that the top 10 Medicare Part D plans, which include 91% of eligible U.S. lives, now cover Drizalma Sprinkle.

Drizalma Sprinkle is one of three sprinkle formulation products in Sun Pharma's long-term care (LTC) portfolio, which are prescribed inside and outside of LTC facilities for the 40% of American adults who cannot or will not swallow solid medication forms.

Drizalma Sprinkle is the first and only U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved sprinkle formulation of delayed-release duloxetine capsules and is indicated to treat major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in adults and pediatric patients aged 7-17, diabetic peripheral neuropathy pain (DPNP), and chronic musculoskeletal pain in adults. Sun Pharma's LTC portfolio also includes the first and only extended-release sprinkle formulations of metoprolol succinate and rosuvastatin.

"We are pleased to have extended access for Drizalma Sprinkle, a unique formulation of duloxetine, for nearly all Medicare Part D recipients especially given the broad need for sprinkle formulations of frequently used medications," said Mark Hagler, Senior Vice President and Head of Ophthalmics, Oncology and LTC at Sun Pharma. "Sun Pharma's sprinkle portfolio changes the experience of taking medication for people who cannot or will not swallow solid medication forms. Often times facilities opt to crush medicines for these patients as a work-around. This practice can lead to medication errors which are federally regulated in LTC facilities. Sprinkle formulations offer the benefit of mitigating this risk while ensuring patients are getting their treatments as prescribed."

Drizalma Sprinkle carries a boxed warning for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. In clinical trials of Drizalma Sprinkle, the most common adverse reactions (in at least 5% of participants and at least twice the incidence of placebo) were nausea, dry mouth, somnolence, constipation, decreased appetite, and hyperhidrosis.

See more information about Drizalma Sprinkle at www.drizalmasprinkle.com, and about the Sun Pharma portfolio of LTC products, at www.sunltc.com.

INDICATIONS AND USAGE

Drizalma Sprinkle (duloxetine delayed-release capsules) for oral use is indicated for the treatment of major depressive disorder in adults; generalized anxiety disorder in adults and pediatric patients aged 7 to 17 years; diabetic peripheral neuropathy in adults, and chronic musculoskeletal pain in adults.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

WARNING: SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS: Antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in pediatric and young adult patients in short-term studies. Closely monitor all antidepressant-treated patients for clinical worsening and for emergence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

Contraindications

Serotonin syndrome and MAOIs: Do not use MAOIs intended to treat psychiatric disorders with Drizalma Sprinkle or within 5 days of stopping treatment with Drizalma Sprinkle. Do not use Drizalma Sprinkle within 14 days of stopping an MAOI intended to treat psychiatric disorders. In addition, do not start Drizalma Sprinkle in a patient who is being treated with linezolid or intravenous methylene blue.

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS

Hepatotoxicity: Hepatic failure, sometimes fatal, has been reported in patients treated with duloxetine delayed-release capsules. Duloxetine delayed-release capsules should be discontinued in patients who develop jaundice or other evidence of clinically significant liver dysfunction and should not be resumed unless another cause can be established. Drizalma Sprinkle should not be prescribed to patients with substantial alcohol use or evidence of chronic liver disease.

Orthostatic Hypotension, Falls, and Syncope: Cases have been reported with duloxetine delayed-release capsules therapy. Syncope and orthostatic hypotension tend to occur within the first week of therapy but can occur at any time during treatment, particularly after dose increases.

Serotonin Syndrome: There is increased risk when coadministered with other serotonergic agents (eg, SSRIs, SNRIs, triptans), but also when taken alone. The concomitant use of Drizalma Sprinkle with MAOIs is contraindicated. Do not initiate Drizalma Sprinkle in a patient who is being treated with MAOIs such as linezolid or intravenous methylene blue. Monitor all patients taking Drizalma Sprinkle for the emergence of serotonin syndrome. If it occurs, discontinue Drizalma Sprinkle and initiate supportive treatment.

Increased Risk of Bleeding: Duloxetine may increase the risk of bleeding events. Concomitant use of NSAIDs, aspirin, other antiplatelet drugs, warfarin, and anticoagulants may increase this risk.

Severe Skin Reactions: Severe skin reactions, including erythema multiforme and Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, can occur with duloxetine. Drizalma Sprinkle should be discontinued at the first appearance of blisters, peeling rash, mucosal erosions, or any other sign of hypersensitivity if no other etiology can be identified.

Discontinuation Syndrome: Adverse reactions after discontinuation of serotonergic antidepressants, particularly after abrupt discontinuation, include nausea, sweating, dysphoric mood, irritability, agitation, dizziness, sensory disturbances (e.g., paresthesias, such as electric shock sensations), tremor, anxiety, confusion, headache, lethargy, emotional lability, insomnia, hypomania, tinnitus, and seizures. A gradual reduction in dosage rather than abrupt cessation is recommended whenever possible.

Activation of Mania or Hypomania: In patients with bipolar disorder, treating a depressive episode with duloxetine delayed-release capsules or another antidepressant may precipitate a mixed/manic episode. Use cautiously in patients with bipolar disorder. Prior to initiating treatment with Drizalma Sprinkle, screen patients for any personal or family history of bipolar disorder, mania, or hypomania.

Angle-Closure Glaucoma: Duloxetine may trigger an angle-closure attack in patients with anatomically narrow angles who do not have a patent iridectomy. Avoid use of antidepressants, including Drizalma Sprinkle, in patients with anatomically narrow angles.

Seizures: Drizalma Sprinkle should be prescribed with care in patients with a history of seizure disorder.

Blood Pressure: Monitor blood pressure prior to initiating treatment and periodically throughout treatment.

Hyponatremia: Can occur in association with SIADH. Cases of hyponatremia have been reported.

Glucose Control in Diabetes: In diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain patients, small increases in fasting blood glucose and HbA1c have been observed.

ADVERSE REACTIONS

The most common adverse reactions (5% and at least twice the incidence of placebo patients) were nausea, dry mouth, somnolence, constipation, decreased appetite, and hyperhidrosis.

DOSING AND ADMINISTRATION

Drizalma Sprinkle may be taken with or without food. Drizalma Sprinkle may be swallowed whole (do not crush or chew capsule); opened and sprinkled over applesauce; or administered via nasogastric tube.

DRUG INTERACTIONS

Avoid concomitant use with potent CYP1A2 inhibitors.

Consider dose reduction with concomitant use with CYP2D6 substrates.

USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS

Hepatic Impairment: Avoid use in patients with mild, moderate, or severe hepatic impairment.

Renal Impairment: Avoid use in patients with severe renal impairment.

Pregnancy: Advise patients to notify their healthcare provider if they become pregnant or intend to become pregnant during treatment with Drizalma Sprinkle. Third trimester use may increase risk of symptoms of poor adaptation (respiratory distress, temperature instability, feeding difficulty, hypotonia, tremor, irritability) in the neonate.

Please see Full Prescribing Information by clicking here.

Disclaimer



Statements in this "Document" describing the Company's objectives, projections, estimates, expectations, plans or predictions or industry conditions or events may be "forward looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws and regulations. Actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed or implied. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward looking statements to reflect developments or circumstances that arise or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated developments/circumstances after the date hereof.

About Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Inc., USA

Sun Phrama is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Limited (SPIL). SPIL is the world's fourth largest specialty generic pharmaceutical company and India's top pharmaceutical company. A vertically integrated business and a skilled team enables it to deliver high-quality products, trusted by customers and patients in over 100 countries across the world, at affordable prices. Its global presence is supported by manufacturing facilities spread across 6 continents and approved by multiple regulatory agencies, coupled with a multi-cultural workforce comprising over 50 nationalities. SPIL fosters excellence through innovation supported by strong R&D capabilities across multiple R&D centers, with investments of approximately 6% of annual revenues in R&D. For further information, please visit www.sunpharma.com & follow us on Twitter @SunPharma_Live

SOURCE Sun Pharma

Related Links

https://www.sunpharma.com/


KUWAIT, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 09th Mar, 2021) Kuwait Health Ministry said that 1,326 people were tested positive for coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 201, 898, reported state news agency (KUNA).

The number of deaths rose by six to 1,133, the ministry said.
Discos, bars, karaoke parlors in HCM City will continue to be closed (Photo: VNA)

HCM City  Ho Chi Minh City will continue the closure of discos, bars, karaoke parlors to ensure safety amid COVID-19 pandemic, while other service business types will be resumed from March 9.

Under a dispatch issued by the Chairman of the city Peoples Committee on March 8, the city leader asked heads of departments, sectors and agencies to localities to continue strictly implementing directions of the Prime Minister, the National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control as well as the Health Ministry and the city in pandemic prevention and control measures, including the 5K message.

Locals are advised to strengthen COVID-19 prevention and control measures, especially in wearing facemask in public places, washing hands, and keeping safe distance.

The city leader asked the Department of Information and Communications to strengthen communications on measures to prevent the spreading of COVID-19, especially the 5K message - khau trang (facemask), khu khuan (disinfection), khoang cach (distance), khong tu tap (no gathering) and khai bao y te (health declaration).

So far, HCM City has seen 210 COVID-19 infections, including 68 domestically-transmitted cases. The city has spent 26 days without any new infections.
A mother was left gobsmacked after she was fined 100 when her baby dropped a cracker in a supermarket car park.

Danielle Botcher says she was left 'angry' and 'speechless' after she was approached at her car by three council officers who demanded to see her ID before issuing her with a fine - claiming her child had 'incorrectly disposed of fast food'.

The 28-year-old from Basildon, Essex, had nipped to her local Tesco store and was heading back to her car when the drama unfolded.

Her 18-month-old daughter, Mia, was eating a pack of Dairylea Lunchables when she innocently dropped a few crackers.

The mother-of-two explains: 'I had pushed my trolley back to my car and when I went to get my daughter out of the seat, I noticed she had dropped a few crackers into the trolley.

'I saw the crackers in the trolley so I picked them up. I never saw the one on the floor, why would I leave one?'

Mother-of-two Danielle Botcher (pictured with daughter Mia and son Ollie) was left shocked after she was fined because her young daughter dropped a cracker on the ground in Essex

The stray mini cracker - no bigger than a 50 pence piece, was the reason Danielle claims she was handed an on the spot 100 fine.

She said: 'I'd put my daughter and shopping bags in the car and was about to shut my door as a woman knocked on my window.

'She told me she was a Basildon Council enforcement officer and that she saw my daughter drop a biscuit on the floor that I didn't pick up.'

Danielle, who works as a part time carer, apologised and said she didn't realise the mistake, however she was told that all three officers were in agreement that she had decided to ignore the cracker and asked for her name and ID.

She said: 'I didn't know what to think. I was in shock, I thought it must be a joke, you would expect hidden cameras for how ridiculous the whole situation was.

'It took me a while to get my head around what was going on and when I got home I was very upset.'

Danielle's family helped her to contact a local councillor who contacted the council on her behalf.

Danielle (left) says she was confronted by three enforcement officers who handed her the fine (right) and told her she had purposefully left the cracker on the ground which she denies

She later had a call from the enforcement agency to say that her fine would be overturned.

She added: 'We were really panicked that we would have to pay it. I was frantically searching on Google and all the information I could find was saying we could end up in court. It was really frightening, 100 is a lot of money to us.'

Danielle, who also has a five-year-old son called Ollie said: 'The whole incident has left me really upset and now I'm paranoid when I am out shopping with the children.

'I have been back to the store since, I have to take my daughter, that's just family life but I feel as though I am being watched.

'The whole episode has been really stressful because the onus was on me to challenge it. Life with two young children is busy enough without this unnecessary upset.'

The mother decided to speak out to encourage other people to challenge their local council if they feel they have been are unfairly fined.

Pictured: the cracker which enforcement officers say Danielle purposefully left on the ground

She said: 'I would tell anyone in my position to definitely fight it. I am happy it has been cancelled but it should never have happened in the first place.

'The people employed to do this job need better training, they should focus their efforts on people who throw litter around and fly tippers who don't care - not a baby who accidently dropped her snack.'

A Basildon Borough Council spokesman said: 'We are really sorry for this mistake and any inconvenience caused.

'As soon as it was brought to our attention the Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) was cancelled.

'National Enforcement Solutions (NES) carry out patrols to prevent fly tipping and littering across the whole borough. Since the trial began last year officers have undertaken 459 investigations of fly tipped waste across the borough.

'There have also been a further 136 hours of out of hours monitoring and investigation undertaken.'
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has designated the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and leader of government business in Parliament, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu to read the 2021 Budget Statement in Parliament on Friday, March 12.



This is because the nominee as Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta is still in the United States of America (USA) for a medical review.



Mr Ofori Atta is even yet to go through parliamentary vetting and approval.



Since the budget statement is from the President and normally read on his behalf by the Minister of Finance as a convention, President Akufo-Addo has this time in the absence of a substantive Minister of Finance designated Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who is the leader of government business in Parliament to read it on his behalf on Friday.



The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah made this known at a press briefing at Peduase Lodge on Monday afternoon, where the Cabinet was on a 3-day retreat.



President Akufo-Addo and the executive branch commence full work this week after a 3-day retreat at the Peduase Lodge.



They moved to Peduase on Saturday morning for the retreat after the swearing in of 28 ministers of state last Friday.



The retreat was to sign off on the key priorities of President Akufo-Addo's second term of administration.



President Akufo-Addo used the retreat to issue new policy directives especially to new ministers who have just joined the administration, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said during the press briefing.



He said the immediate agenda of the second term of President Akufo-Addo include winning the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana, implementing a robust economic recovery programme as a result of the 2020 devastation by COVID-19 and "aggressively implementing" the second part of the government's transformational agenda.













Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Some hospitals continue to face a need to disinfect and reuse N95 face masks during the pandemic and a study from the University of Michigan shows that they can rely on moist heat or vaporized hydrogen peroxide to inactivate virusesbut these treatments may leave behind other pathogens that are important to consider.

The research is the first full-scale study on N95 mask disinfection and reuse that evaluates multiple viruses, bacteria, and fungi along with how well masks filter and fit after treatment. It provides comprehensive information about multiple N95 disinfection methods, including their cost-effectiveness and ability to treat hundreds of masks each day.

As the pandemic begins to subside, fewer hospitals are needing to reuse PPE, but the FDA still lists N95s as in limited supply.

The study identified that the two approaches that can deactivate 99.99% of virus particles on these masks are: moist heat at 50% to 75% relative humidity and 176- to 180 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes; and vaporized hydrogen peroxide obtained with a Bioquell Q10 whole room decontamination system. The moist heat specifications had not been previously identified.

"There are a lot of N95 reprocessing efforts going on at hospitals across the country and the world, but there hasn't been data to support whether the routes being taken were the right routes," said Krista Wigginton, a U-M associate professor of civil and environmental engineering who has been studying coronaviruses for several years.

"The most satisfying part of our results is how simple the solution can be," Wigginton said. "It's nice to know that you don't have to necessarily invest in some super fancy technology. Heating at 80 to 82 degrees Celsius with some added moisture is really effective."

Treatments don't eliminate other pathogens

But the findings raise new reasons for vigilance, says Nancy Love, the Borchardt and Glysson Collegiate Professor and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at U-M.

"This paper shows, importantly, that while we are all focused on reducing risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19, in reusing personal protective equipment, we cannot take our eye off the ball as it pertains to other infectious agents, including bacteria and spores, that have a long history of being problems in hospitals. So, any strategy in a hospital has to consider all these infectious agents. A multi-agent focus will likely require multiple decontamination steps or management practices to achieve infection control goals."

The pathogens the researchers tested are:

Four viruses including a mouse coronavirus related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, influenza A, and mouse hepatitis;

Three bacteria including E. coli, Staphylococcus aureusthe bacteria that can lead to antibiotic-resistant MRSA infections, and Geobacillus stearothermophilus sporescommonly used as indicator organisms to measure whether items are sterile; and

The fungus Aspergillus nigercommonly known as black mold.

Moist heat did not adequately inactivate G. stearothermophilus spores and vaporized hydrogen peroxide didn't inactivate S. aureus. Both raise important infection control implications, the study says. S. aureus is a hospital-borne infection that can colonize the nostrils of healthcare workers. And while G. stearothermophilus is merely an indicator organism, the fact that its levels weren't reduced enough suggests it may have implications for Clostridium difficile, or C. diff. This bacterium is increasingly becoming a problem in hospitals and its symptoms can range from diarrhea to dangerous colon inflammation.

Masks are no longer being reused at Michigan Medicine

While Michigan Medicine currently has enough PPE for healthcare workers, for a large part of 2020, the hospital reprocessed N95 face masks by treating them twiceonce with moist heat and then in a supplementary short cycle of UV light. To achieve the moist heat requirements, the hospital purchased a humidity-controlled oven over the summer. They were able to process between 400 and 500 masks each day. As a back-up plan, they were also equipped to use vaporized hydrogen peroxide. Masks were clearly marked so they went back to their original user.

"N95 masks are critically important to the care of patients with COVID-19," said Keith Kaye, M.D., director of clinical research in the Michigan Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases and a collaborator on the study. "The process of evaluating and determining the most effective and safest way to disinfect masks has been multidisciplinary, collaborative and in my opinion hugely successful."

Before the new oven was available, and during testing, the hospital innovated. They adapted a washer intended to clean medical equipment and utilized only its drying abilities. They increased humidity in the ovens with wet towels.

Michigan Medicine did not reuse masks when caring for patients with C. diff.

Experimental methods and additional findings

The team began testing various methods in April 2020, focusing on three: ultraviolet light, moist heat and vaporized hydrogen peroxide. While moist heat and vaporized hydrogen peroxide were found to be most effective, there are more obstacles to widespread use of hydrogen peroxide. It requires an expensive Bioquell instrument to generate a large and steady stream of the vapor and availability of that could be in question due to pandemic-related supply chain kinks. In addition, each treatment cycle takes about eight hours.

Moist heat requires the least amount of space, takes less than an hour per cycle and has relatively low maintenance costs.

To conduct experiments, the researchers sprayed or placed droplets of test viruses and other pathogens on masks and let them dry. They treated the masks at the hospital, then returned them to the engineering lab to assess how well the treatments worked.

In addition to evaluating whether each method killed pathogens, they also examined whether disinfected masks still filtered particles and maintained a seal on the face. They found that masks retained their original 95% filtration efficiency and fit after five cycles with either approach.

Over the course of their mask research, the team also discovered that different solutions used in the lab to transfer test viruses to masks can impact the results of studies on treatments with heat. They detail those findings in a separate paper titled "Humidity and deposition solution play a Critical Role in Virus Inactivation by Heat Treatment of N95 respirators." The researchers encourage future studies to clearly specify the solutions they use when depositing viruses on masks, and when possible, use the appropriate human material, which, in this case, would be saliva.

More information: Krista R Wigginton et al. Validation of N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirator Decontamination Methods Available at a Large University Hospital, Open Forum Infectious Diseases (2020). Krista R Wigginton et al. Validation of N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirator Decontamination Methods Available at a Large University Hospital,(2020). DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofaa610 Nicole Rockey et al. Humidity and Deposition Solution Play a Critical Role in Virus Inactivation by Heat Treatment of N95 Respirators, mSphere (2020). DOI: 10.1128/mSphere.00588-20

Liberal Democrats MP Tim Quilty wants to gain enough interest for a referendum

A bold campaign for a brand new 'super state' comprising regional areas of New South Wales and Victoria is underway.

The sensational move, dubbed 'Rexit' for 'regional exit', was first floated by Liberal Democrats MP Tim Quilty during his inaugural speech to parliament in 2018.

Under the radical proposal, Victorian hubs including Ballarat, Bendigo, Mildura, Wodonga and Shepparton would join forced with NSW towns such as Wagga Wagga, Albury, Orange, Bathurst and Griffith to create a new jurisdiction.

They would form a new super state called Murray.

Mr Quilty has grand plans to start campaigning this week at a forum in the Victorian border town of Wodonga, with high hopes of generating enough interest for a referendum.

Pictured: The regional areas in New South Wales and Victoria that would potentially become a new state

Mr Quilty believes state governments are ignoring regional areas when making lockdown decisions

Similar events would then be held in Rutherglen in March 24 and Tallangatta on April 8, before explaining his vision for a new state in Shepparton and Bright later this year.

When speaking with NCA Newswire, the MP said the regional hubs had been 'overlooked by city-focused governments' during Covid lockdowns.

'All of these locations are border regions, a long way from Dan Andrews' focus on Melbourne, and they have all been subject to the destruction of border closures, snap lockdowns and unnecessary COVID restrictions,' he said.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews came under fire frequently during the pandemic for including regional Victoria in intensive lockdowns when the only cases recorded were in Melbourne.

Pictured: Liberal Democrats MP Tim Quilty, who wants regional parts of NSW and Victoria to become a new state

Pictured: The proposed new state of Murray, which combines regional centres such as Riverina, Bathurst, Shapparton and Ballarat

Mr Quilty took a jab at Mr Andrews when he claimed locking the whole state down was a 'lazy shortcut' that 'alienated and insulted' 1.6 million regional Victorians.

The Victorian government rejected claims that regional parts of the state were 'forgotten', adding that the tough restrictions were necessary to keep Covid out of rural areas.

A spokeswoman told news.com.au: 'We know this has had a big impact on regional communities and businesses which is why we're delivering an unprecedented amount of support.'

She also said government officials were following the advice of health experts when making decisions about lockdown.

Wagga Wagga (pictured) mayor Greg Conkey said he would like to see the finer details of the proposal, but added that the NSW government has not ignored the region

There are two models for Murray - the first of which would include the northern parts of regional Victoria and the southern parts of country NSW.

The second model would be for Greater Melbourne and Geelong to form one state, the Greater Sydney region would be its own jurisdiction, and the rest of regional Victoria and regional NSW would form 'one big super state'.

The proposal could mean Victoria loses 800,000 people and NSW's population would shrink by 540,000.

Bathurst Regional Council mayor Bobby Bourke slammed the idea and said his council is happy being a part of NSW.

'We've got enough to put up with just the eight states and the last thing Australia wants is another state,' he said.

A second model for the plan would be for Greater Melbourne and Geelong (pictured) to form one state

Wagga Wagga mayor Greg Conkey said he would like to see the finer details of the proposal, but added that the NSW government has not ignored the region.

'I don't think you could argue that we miss out here in Wagga Wagga. We're expecting $150million to pour into this city over the next five years, so to some degree the state government is certainly looking after Wagga,' he said.

The move is reminiscent of Western Australia's polarising 'WAxit' which has haunted social media for several years.

Premier Mark McGowan has dismissed the idea.

In October, the Katter Australia Party submitted a proposal to have a the new state of North Queensland with polling revealing that 57 per cent of people were in support of the move.
Pakistan is likely to receive 45 million Indian manufactured doses of COVID-19 vaccine in March, as per reports. While briefing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), National Health Service (NHS) Secretary Amir Ashraf Khawaja said that the doses would be received under an agreement with Vaccine alliance Gavi, said reports. Out of the total, 16 million would be received by June this year. Pakistan will get free doses of India-made Oxford-AstraZenecas coronavirus vaccine, which would give cover to 20 per cent of the population of the country.

According to Pakistans local media outlet, The Nation, the secretary of health said that it was expected that the coronavirus vaccine would arrive from Gavi in the first week of March, however, the delivery had been a little delayed. The Pakistani official added that now, the vaccine doses are expected to arrive within the next few weeks. It is worth noting that back in September, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) had signed an agreement with Pakistan to provide the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

Pak to tackle pandemic through herd immunity

Gavi is a public-private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunisation in poor countries. Pakistan would get the first batch of AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India by the middle of March. So far, four vaccines, including Sinophram (China), Oxford-AstraZeneca (UK), Sputnik-V (Russia) and Cansino Bio (China), have been registered in the country. During the PAC meeting, NHS Secretary also informed that nearly 27.5 million people had been vaccinated in the country against COVID-19. Meanwhile, according to PTI, Pakistan is not planning to buy vaccines anytime soon as it aims to tackle the pandemic through herd immunity and donated vaccines from countries like China.

Herd immunity occurs when a large number of people, usually 70 to 90 per cent, become immune to a contagious disease after being infected with it. According to the NHS, the Pak ministry had conducted a survey to ascertain the figures of those who have developed antibodies against coronavirus. The survey disclosed that around 15 per cent of the population has developed antibodies and that they did not need to be immunised.
Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News

Popular heavy metal band Metallica is lending a helping hand to Texas food banks by donating $75,000 through their All Within My Hands foundation, according to a Twitter post.

The foundation donated the money to Feeding America, a nationwide hunger-relief charity, after food supply stayed low in Texas still weeks after the massive winter storm left many Texans without power, according to their website.
WASHINGTON  Thousands of migrant children are backed up in United States detention facilities along the border with Mexico, part of a surge of immigration from Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence that could overwhelm President Bidens attempt to create a more humane approach to those seeking entry into the country.

The number of migrant children in custody along the border has tripled in the past two weeks to more than 3,250, according to federal immigration agency documents obtained by The New York Times, and many of them are being held in jail-like facilities for longer than the three days allowed by law.

The problem for the administration is both the number of children crossing the border and what to do with them once they are in custody. Under the law, the children are supposed to be moved to shelters run by the Health and Human Services Department, but because of the pandemic the shelters until last week were limiting how many children they could accommodate.

The growing number of unaccompanied children is just one element of an escalating problem at the border. Border agents encountered a migrant at the border about 78,000 times in January  more than double the rate at the same time a year ago and higher than in any January in a decade.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg criticised newly elected US President Joe Biden on the issue of climate change, saying science shows that his efforts are "not doing enough" on the matter.

In an interview with Mehdi Hasan for MSNBC on Sunday (March 7), the 18-year-old activist slammed Biden for not handling the issue efficiently.

Recently, Biden signed the United States back into the Paris Agreement, revoking the decision taken by former president Donald Trump of departing from the global accord.

The MSNBC host Hasan asked Thunberg: "In your view, how has Joe Biden done on climate issues in his first 50 days in office? What grade would you give him?"

"Well, you shouldn't take this from me, I'm just a teenager, so Im not  I dont have the mandate to sort of give grades like that. My opinions on this doesnt matter, Thunberg said.

You should rather look at the science and whether his policies are in line with the Paris agreements and to stay below 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius, and then you can clearly see that, no, its not nearly enough in line with the science. Thats not me saying, thats just black and white, looking at the facts, she continued.

Greta also accused the president of treating it more like a "political topic" rather than a "crisis".

They are just treating the climate crisis as it was a political topic, among other topics and, yeah, treat it as a crisis, thats the No. 1 step, she added.

On being asked by the host what the Biden administration should do that it hasn't done already, Swedish activist declined to name one thing she would suggest , but getting people involved as top priority.

"So what we need now is to raise awareness and to create public opinion to treat the crisis like a crisis. Because if people are not aware of the crisis that we face, of course they wouldnt put pressure on the elected leaders. So I would just tell him to, to tell the situation as it is, she said.

The mission of this agreement was to keep global warming below 2 degree celsius and ideally below 1.5 degree celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
Commissioners, Vaux discuss shortage in affordable housing

Codington County commissioners and Mark Vaux, new executive director of the Watertown Development Company, discussed issues Tuesday.
She said once her case received publicity much greater attention was paid to my health and my condition. I certainly saw benefits from that [publicity] and Im not convinced that the quiet diplomacy argument stacks up in such a case, although each case is different, she said in the interview, which aired on Tuesday night. Dr Moore-Gilbert said her situation was made public only after two Australian video bloggers, Mark Firkin and Jolie King, were detained nearly a year after her arrest. The line being run by the government was that trying to find a solution diplomatically behind the scenes with Iran was the best approach for getting me out and that the media would complicate things and could make Iran angry and piss them off and make things worse for me, she said. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video

I took a very different view of the situation based on my own experience being inside there. Loading But that was the view of the government and the media played ball for months, at least at the beginning, until I think these two backpackers got arrested and the media already knew my name and knew I was there too. Asked to respond to Dr Moore-Gilberts comments, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was very pleased that Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert returned to Australia in November last year following more than two years of detention in Iran. Every consular case is by its nature complex and is considered individually, with a strategy developed on a case-by-case basis. We will not comment on the circumstances of her release.

Dr Moore-Gilbert also opened up about her treatment inside Evin Prison, where she was forced to endure four weeks of solitary confinement in a small room without a window. I would say I felt physical pain from the psychological trauma I had in that room. It is a two-by-two metre box  there is no toilet, there is no television, she said. I felt if I have to endure another day of this  you know if I could I would just kill myself. But of course I never tried and I never took that step. Its psychological torture. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. Dr Moore-Gilbert said she was interrogated by Irans Revolutionary Guards, but towards the end they wouldnt come every day, meaning she didnt see anyone and had nothing to do.

Id lost it, Id lost the plot. I was completely crazy. Just entertaining your brain for such a long period of time, she said. Loading She was then moved to larger room and spent seven months in solitary confinement in total. Dr Moore-Gilbert revealed the person who flagged her to authorities was a man she had interviewed for her research days prior. She said she would never know why the man referred her to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Its either because he was working for the Revolutionary Guards from the beginning and flagged me as suspicious, or he was arrested by them after I had interviewed him, she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she had been nervous the previous two days before she arrived at Tehran Airport to fly back to Australia because of something a receptionist at the hotel had told her. The receptionist in my hotel had pulled me aside and said Kylie some men have [been] here asking about you, she said. And I said What do you mean, what type of men, who are these people? He said They are very bad men. Iranian authorities detained Dr Moore-Gilbert after discovering she was married to an Israeli citizen, sparking baseless claims she was a spy for Israel. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age was asked numerous times by the Australian government not to report details about the citizenship of Dr Moore-Gilberts husband while she was detained, believing it would jeopardise the chances of freeing her.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she was also accused of being a spy for Australia, Britain and Bahrain. She confirmed she was asked by Iranian authorities to become a spy for Iran. Dr Moore-Gilbert came home to discover her husband Ruslan Hodorov had been having an affair with her colleague and PhD supervisor. She said she hadnt spoken to her husband or the colleague, who was acting as a liaison between the University of Melbourne and her family while she was detained. She revealed she found out about the affair while she was in hotel quarantine in Canberra, saying her husband confirmed it to her family a day prior.
Vaccines to be distributed through the UN Children's Fund. The goal is to create a "cold-chain" distribution network in the nations that will benefit from it. The Japanese government has already committed $ 200 million to the Covax global program. Japan, USA, India and Australia respond to Chinese vaccine diplomacy.

Tokyo (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Japanese government has allocated 4.5 billion yen (41 million dollars) to encourage the distribution of vaccines against Covid-19 to 25 Asian and Pacific countries, the Foreign Ministry has announced.

The aid will be distributed through the United Nations Children's Fund to create a "cold chain" - a distribution system for ensuring that medicines are supplied and stored at certain temperatures.

Philippines, Thailand, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, East Timor and Vietnam are among the Asian countries that will benefit from the funds; the remaining are mostly small states of Oceania: Cook Islands, Micronesia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Japan has already committed 200 million dollars to Covax, the world program created by the UN to vaccinate the populations of developing countries. Its goal is to ensure the distribution of 2 billion doses by the end of this year.

The partners of the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), which includes the US, India, Japan and Australia, seem to be oriented towards developing their own "vaccine diplomacy", to counter Chinas attempts to broaden its global sphere of influence through the offer of vaccines.

The Asian nations that will benefit from the Japanese donation are all partners of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi Jinping's great project to make Beijing the hub of world trade. The Pacific islands that are part of the Tokyo program, on the other hand, have long been attracted by Chinese investment promises.

According to press reports, India has proposed that Quad countries to join forces to contain Beijing's healthcare "soft-power". In Delhi's plans, its three partners are expected to invest in India's vaccine manufacturing chain, which would then be distributed to poorer nations.
NEW DELHI  Thousands of female farmers held sit-ins and a hunger strike in India's capital on Monday in protests on International Women's Day against new agricultural laws.

The demonstrations were held at multiple sites on the fringes of New Delhi where tens of thousands of farmers have camped for more than three months to protest against the laws they say will leave them poorer and at the mercy of big corporations. Prime Minister Narendra Modis government says the laws are necessary to modernize agriculture.

About 100 women wearing yellow and green scarfs sat cross-legged in front of a makeshift stage in Ghazipur, one of the many protest sites. Holding the flags of farm unions, they listened to female farm leaders speak from the stage and chanted slogans against the laws. At least 17 took part in a day-long hunger strike.

Women are sitting here, out in the open, in protest, but Modi doesnt care. He doesnt care about mothers, sisters, and daughters. He doesnt care about women. Thats clear, said Mandeep Kaur, a female farmer who travelled 1,100 kilometres (680 miles) from Chhattisgarh state to participate in the protests.

Multiple rounds of talks between the government and farmers have failed to end the stalemate. The farmers have rejected an offer from the government to put the laws on hold for 18 months, saying they wont settle for anything less than a complete repeal. They fear the laws will make family-owned farms unviable, eventually leaving them landless.

Women have been at the forefront of the protests, which have posed one of the biggest challenges to Modi since he took office in 2014. Many accompanied thousands of male farmers who arrived at the protest sites in late November and have since organized and led protest marches, run medical camps and massive soup kitchens that feed thousands, and raised demands for gender equality.

Today Modi is sending wishes to women across the country on International Womens Day. Who are these women he is sending wishes to? We are also like his daughters, but he clearly doesnt care about us, said Babli Singh, a farm leader.

Story continues

International Womens Day, sponsored by the United Nations since 1975, celebrates womens achievements and aims to further their rights.

Women often embody what agricultural experts call an invisible workforce on Indias vast farmlands that often goes unnoticed.

Nearly 75% of rural women in India who work full-time are farmers, according to the anti-poverty group Oxfam India, and the numbers are expected to rise as more men migrate to cities for jobs. Yet, less than 13% of women own the land they till.

Demonstrations were also held at Jantar Mantar, an area of New Delhi near Parliament where about 100 women held placards denouncing the new laws and calling for their withdrawal.

Today we are finding ourselves under attack at all fronts. As women, as peasants, as workers, as youth and students," said women rights activist Sucharita, who uses one name. We are opposed to the laws that have been passed in favour of corporations."

___

Associated Press video journalist Shonal Ganguly contributed to this report.

Neha Mehrotra And Rishi Lekhi, The Associated Press
President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort where he resides after leaving the White House in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 13, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

RNC Moving Part of Spring Donor Retreat to Mar-a-Lago

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has moved a portion of its spring donor retreat program to former President Donald Trumps exclusive Mar-a-Lago club, according to a Republican attending the events and a letter from the committees chief counsel.

The move is a sign of Trumps enduring and expanding clout within the Republican Party. The president was largely hands-off with the RNC while he was in the White House. That dynamic is changing as Trump gears up to reshape the partys representation in the House and Senate via the 2022 election.

News of the move to Mar-a-Lago surfaced during a tiff between Trump and the RNC over the committees use of his name and likeness to raise funds. The RNCs standard operating procedure is to back Republican incumbents and that includes the 10 GOP House members who Trump has vowed to defeat over their vote to impeach him.

Trump sent cease-and-desist letters to the RNC, the Republican National Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the Republican National Congressional Committee (NRCC) demanding that the groups stop using his name to raise money. The RNC responded with a letter arguing that it has every right to use Trumps name.

In a March 8 letter obtained by The Epoch Times, the RNCs chief counsel, Justin Riemer, wrote that Trump and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel enjoy a close relationship, alleging the former president over the weekend reaffirmed to her that he approves of the RNCs current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for the Mar-a-Lago portion of the spring donor retreat.

Trump is scheduled to speak at the RNCs spring donor retreat in April in Palm Beach, Florida, and has told McDaniel that he wants to continue raising money for the RNC even as he raises cash for his own pursuits, including backing challengers to Republican incumbents who voted for his impeachment.

Despite the letters, the RNC and others have continued to fundraise off of Trumps name.

CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected as one of the FIRST to be invited to claim your Trump Legacy Membership, the RNC wrote in one appeal on Sunday.

We NEED 10,000 patriots who still stand with President Trump before midnight tonight, URGENT: TRUMP SUPPORTERS NEEDED, added the National Republican Senatorial Committee Monday afternoon.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Senior management of lenders and financial institutions must suffer a be cut in their compensation for crony lending and ever-greening of loans, said the governments K V Subramanian on Tuesday.

Financial sectors should ramp up on its corporate governance and each institution and lender should own up the responsibility. Infrastructure projects are of very long durations so incentives of senior management aligned in such a way that board cant be asleep on a wheel especially on zombie lending. he said during a webinar organized by business association FICCI on distressed debt in the infrastructure sector.

Subramanian said ever-greening and zombie loans lead to sub-optimal capital allocation. He also asked auditors to use more data analytics to identify crony lending. Auditor being the first line of defence on it need to really look at loan by loan and identify zombie lending. There is enough research and data analytics which can be used to trace such instances."

Recognising the bad loans problem in the financial system, he said that it stems from large loans which are not necessarily lent to creditworthy borrowers, though it's a generic issue but far more exacerbated for infrastructure lending. So financial institutions especially need to be working on these aspects and should take a leadership role in making India a $ 5 trillion economy, he said.

Instead of focusing on external factors, they should look internally for projects of infrastructure and capital allocation to be made in high quality. Capital allocation to the infrastructure sector has to be of high quality and the financial sector has an important role in this regard. The financial sector should refrain from resorting to crony lending, which would put the brakes on lending and the economy will suffer," he explained.

Subramanian said the operational aspects of different projects are different. "Once a loan goes into distress, it blocks capital for credit-worthy borrowers. In such a scenario, the lenders will have to take complete responsibility." He said that the country is placing emphasis on growth through infrastructure.
Premier Daniel Andrews, who broke several ribs and damaged vertebrae in a nasty fall at a holiday home on the Mornington Peninsula on Tuesday morning, was to be transferred from a private hospital near Frankston to the specialist trauma centre at The Alfred hospital.

Mr Andrews, who landed on his back after slipping on wet stairs, was being treated at the Peninsula Private Hospital in Langwarrin and had a range of scans, but on Tuesday evening, after an MRI was assessed by specialists, it was decided to move him to The Alfred.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been taken to hospital following a "concerning" fall this morning.

This is a precautionary measure to ensure he has the most appropriate care available given the nature of his injuries, a spokesperson for the Premier said.

Mr Andrews is expected to remain in intensive care for the next few days and will not return to work until at least next week, with Deputy Premier James Merlino stepping up as acting Premier.

A source close to the family said Mr Andrews was conscious on Tuesday afternoon and was visited by his wife Catherine but the remainder of his family was unable to visit him in intensive care because of hospital visitor restrictions.

Intensive care specialists said it was common for patients to be admitted to intensive care with broken ribs as a precautionary measure even if they were not considered extremely unwell, because of the risk that they might deteriorate quickly.

Statement from Premier Daniel Andrews Early this morning, I was admitted to hospital after slipping and falling on wet and slippery stairs. A CT scan has revealed several broken ribs and vertebrae damage, and subsequent medical advice has recommended I remain in intensive care for the next few days. Cath, the kids and I are extremely grateful to the Ambulance Victoria paramedics who showed such care and kindness to our family this morning, as we are to the clinicians who have taken care of me today. Our warm and sincere thanks go to the many family members, friends, colleagues and Victorians who have sent messages of love and support throughout the day. Thank you. I hope to be able to provide another update later this week. James Merlino will serve as Acting Premier while I recover over the next few days. For now, wed like to ask that our familys privacy is respected.

If you have broken ribs you can have damage to the lungs underneath it [which can] put peoples breathing at risk, Professor David Pilcher said.

There is fairly well known pattern that people can look OK with broken ribs initially and then deteriorate over the first 24 and 48 hours, so thats one of the reasons why we often bring them in to watch them.

Dr Stephen Warrillow of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society said an intensive care admission would also help make sure a patients pain was controlled.

He said chest and rib injuries could be incredibly painful, even without a punctured lung.

Thats certainly something that an ICU is often well placed to get on top of because we can give just the right amount of pain relief, just the right amount of oxygen, a little bit of additional monitoring to make sure  that particularly in the initial period, that things are moving in the right direction.

A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said he had not been diagnosed with any additional injuries, such as a punctured lung.

Early on Tuesday morning, Mr Andrews was at the holiday home preparing to attend a press conference in Healesville, north-east of Melbourne, when he fell.

The injury brought an abrupt end to three days of leave over the long weekend that the Premier spent with his family on the peninsula.

Then-health minister Daniel Andrews with ICU director Carlos Scheinkestel during a visit to the Alfred Trauma Centre in February 2009. Melanie Faith Dove

He was taken to hospital for what his office initially said were precautionary X-rays.

In a statement Mr Andrews said that a CT scan subsequently revealed a number of broken ribs and vertebrae damage that would keep him in intensive care for the next few days.

Cath, the kids and I are extremely grateful to the Ambulance Victoria paramedics who showed such care and kindness to our family this morning, as we are to the clinicians who have taken care of me today, he wrote. For now, wed like to ask that our familys privacy is respected.

Melbourne orthopaedic surgeon John Cunningham was shocked to hear that Mr Andrews was in intensive care and said in the normal course of events it would be difficult to imagine him returning to full work duties for some time to come.

I would say that given his age, if he has broken some ribs  hes probably taken quite a fair tumble. In other words, hes probably hurt himself more than hes letting on, he said.

Hell need a lot of analgesia [pain relief] and hopefully a lot of rest. Whether or not its managed operatively or non-operatively, I cant really comment on.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison sent a text message to the Premier expressing support, according to his office, while other political and public figures have taken to social media to give their best wishes.

Opposition Leader Michael OBrien said he wished the Premier a speedy recovery.

Victorian Parliament will sit next week and it is unlikely the Premier will return in time to attend. National cabinet will next meet on April 9.

Mr Merlino replaced Mr Andrews at a press conference to reveal the government was launching an inquiry into Indigenous disadvantage on Tuesday morning  a landmark announcement that was to be the Premiers first public appearance since taking three days leave from Friday.

Mr Merlino acknowledged Mr Andrews absence at the start of the press conference and said the Premier had suffered a nasty fall at home.

Mr Merlino said he could not advise exactly when the Premier would return to work but I know hes fine and hes getting some good care as a precaution.

Mr Merlino takes charge with a decision pending over when Victoria will reopen its hotel quarantine program to international travellers after Mr Andrews blocked flights on February 14.

Quarantine workers have been told to prepare for international arrivals as soon as this Saturday and on Friday said he expected developments soon, although Mr Merlino said he had no announcements to make on Tuesday.

With Paul Sakkal
Worldwide herd immunity against COVID-19 should not be expected until 2022, according to billionaire philanthropist Melinda Gates.

Gates, who co-founded The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband, said that she was encouraged by the signs of progress in the fight against the vaccine, but warned there was a long way to go.

'It will probably be sometime out in 2022, quite frankly, that as a globe we have enough vaccine out there,' she told CNBC on Monday.

'Particularly the single dose vaccines, you are seeing some of them be approved now, the ones that don't need the extreme refrigeration - those will begin to go out into the developing world en masse at the end of this year and the beginning of next year.

'So it will be some time in 2022 that we have full herd immunity.'

Melinda Gates appeared on CNBC on Monday evening to discuss progress in vaccinations

Sixty million people in the United States have had at least one of their COVID vaccinations so far, according to CDC data on Monday, representing 18.1 per cent of the population.

Among the over 65s, who are considered the most vulnerable, 65.3 per cent have been vaccinated.

Dr Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said the aim is to vaccinate between 70 per cent and 85 per cent of the U.S. population - 232-281 million people - to achieve herd immunity and suppress the pandemic.

Gates praised the pharmaceutical firms for 'doing an amazing job,' noting how some pharmaceutical companies were even having their own vaccine manufactured by other rival firms.

'Those are new collaborations, we have never seen before,' she said.

Gates is pictured in May 2016 at the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen

She said the U.S. government was 'stepping up even more more,' and described the difference in urgency between the Trump and Biden administrations as being 'night and day'.

'Is it perfect, absolutely not,' she said.

'But in most states, 15 per cent of the population has been covered.

There is more testing, and more hope.'

Meghan Fitzgerald, an investor and healthcare policy professor at Columbia University, told Yahoo Finance that she broadly agreed with Gates' assessment.

She said she expected to see herd immunity in the U.S. 'on the back end of the summer,' adding: 'I'm not as bullish on the front end, just because of the logistics, just because of the distribution.'

She said: 'This virus doesn't go away if we only address parts of the United States or even just the United States. This is a global pandemic. The virus doesn't know borders.

'And it doesn't self select, except for the very most at risk. And that is our seniors.'

Bill and Melinda Gates are pictured visiting a South African township in October 2019

And in California, an expert was warning that a fourth wave may be possible.

Dr George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco, told The Los Angeles Times that he estimates roughly 67 per cent of a population needs immunity to COVID-19 to obtain herd immunity.

He warned that mask mandates were being lifted too soon in some states, and people were at risk of becoming lax with social distancing.

Variants of the virus also gave cause for concern.

Rutherford warned that California was particularly vulnerable to a fourth wave, because only 26-39 per cent of the state had immunity, versus a nationwide average of 40 per cent.

He said last week, according to the paper, that California's figure was lower than the national average 'because we haven't had so much infection and, as a result, have not had as much naturally acquired immunity.'
Scott Stafford has been a reporter, photographer, and editor at a variety of publications, including the Dallas Morning News and The Berkshire Eagle. Scott can be reached at sstafford@berkshireeagle.com, or at 413-496-6301 and on Twitter at @BE_SStafford.
State Blue Print Tier map View Photos

Update at 1:20 p.m.: The Health and Human Services Director for Calaveras County has just relayed the state has given the green light for the county to switch to the red tier regarding business restrictions. The move from the purple tier to the red tier will take effect on Wednesday, March 10th. The county has been in the most restrictive purple tier for three months.

Public health officials advise, The red tier is less restrictive and allows for some business activities to resume, such as indoor dining at 25% capacity, as the chart below details:

Click here to view the states Blueprint for a Safer economy page, which lists specific business information and the countys status. They outlined the reason for the change in a written press release, stating:

The changes come as COVID-19 cases decrease. Changes to the tier system can occur any day of the week and may occur more than once a week when immediate action is needed to slow the spread of COVID-19. Counties are required to put into place any sector changes the day following the tier announcement. The goal is to make sure patients can get the access to care they need and prevent hospitals from being overrun. Calaveras Public Health urges caution and encourages people to take the necessary steps to prevent being exposed to the virus and help the county continue to lower its risk level.

Currently, as the state map in the image box shows, there are 34 out of the 58 counties in the purple (most restrictive) tier, Calaveras joins 19 others in the red (substantial) tier, 3 in the orange (moderate) tier with Mariposa moving into this tier on Wednesday and Alpine is the lone county that will be switching into the yellow (least restrictive) tier tomorrow.

Tuolumne County remains in the purple tier, but public health officials anticipate moving to the red tier hopefully soon.

Original post at 10:27 a.m. written by BJ Hansen: San Andreas, CA  The Health and Human Services Director for Calaveras County stated that he expects the county will receive word today that it will move to the red tier related to business restrictions. If so, the change would take effect tomorrow.

Interim Calaveras HHS Director Samuel Leach stated at this mornings board of supervisors meeting, According to the state data, it does look like we should be moving out (of purple) and into the red tier. That is not an official announcement as of yet, we need the state to make the announcement, but the data does show that we are eligible to move into the red tier.

Barring any unexpected surprises, the state will make the announcement around noon today. Counties must average less than seven new cases per day, per 100,000 residents, to move into the red tier.

It would allow certain business sectors to expand operations. For example, restaurants would be allowed to do limited indoor dining, and gyms would be allowed to start welcoming people back indoors.

Calaveras County has been in the purple tier for the past three months. Leach indicated that a move to red would be a notable milestone, but stated that he does not want to be too celebratory, as many people have suffered from COVID-19, and others still are.

He said the county has been heading in the right direction for the past several months and over 12,000 vaccines have now been distributed.

Well pass along more information when it becomes available.

We also reached out to Tuolumne County officials, who say they are not anticipating a move to the red tier announced today, but hope it will come soon.
One of the biggest acquisitions of last year was Microsoft outright buying up Zenimax media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks. This meant that studios like Arkane and iD would be included in the purchase as well. Microsoft basically bought Zenimax Media for a whopping $7.5 billion, which is essentially the largest acquisition of its kind in the gaming industry. So what does it all really mean? Well, were here to try and sort a few things out for you.

Microsoft's plans for Bethesda Softworks

The latest piece of news to come out of the acquisition is that regulators have essentially cleared the purchase. This means that Microsoft should be able to make a few new announcements regarding future projects concerning Bethesda. In a report on VentureBeat, it seems that Microsoft will announce the availability of a bunch of Bethesda games on Game Pass. The report goes on to state that future games and contracted titles from studios such as iD and Arkane will be available on Game Pass at launch. But, what does it mean for Xbox specifically? Will we finally see exclusives for the Series X? One of the major complaints of the Xbox Series X was that it had no exclusive games on it! Sure, we got Gears 5 (review) and Forza, but apart from that Halo Infinite seems to be stuck in development hell. The impressive Scalebound has been curb stomped by Microsoft. So, right now were not left with much.

Another pertinent question is when can we expect a proper, fully-fledged games showcase? Microsoft have already shot down rumours of a March presentation for games. So, maybe well actually find out when they plan on showing off some games? As of right now, Arkane Studios Deathloop and Tango Gameworks Ghostwire: Tokyo will be PS5 exclusives for a limited time. Who knows what the future will hold, but with the purchase of Zenimax finally going through, lets hope Microsoft has something up its sleeve. But, do take this news with a bit of trepidation as Microsoft have bought a prestigious game developer like RARE back in the day, and literally turned them into a studio for the terrible Kinect. So, do temper your expectations, is all we're saying.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi : A notice has been sent to Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on a privilege motion moved against her by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey. She has been asked to file her response to the notice by March 25. The Lok Sabha MP from Jharkhand had filed a privilege motion notice against Moitra on February 10.

In her speech during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address, Moitra had lashed out at the government, judiciary and media. Moitras remarks were later expunged by the Lok Sabha.

The complaint by Dubey referred to, Article 121 of the constitution of India and rule 226, 227 to 80 of the rules of procedure and conduct of business in Lok Sabha which should be read along with 115 (I & II) direction of the Speaker against Mahua Moitra.

As per Article 121 of the Constitution, no Supreme Court or High Court judge who has discharged their duty or passed a judgement can be discussed in the Parliament. The Rules and Procedures 352(5) of the Parliament also dictate that the conduct of people in constitutional positions cannot be questioned. Despite the direction of the chair, Moitra continued to repeat her statements in violation of Rule 356 of Lok Sabha procedures.

The notice further added, The matter should be referred to the committee of privileges under rule 227 of the rules of procedure and conduct of business in Lok Sabha for examination investigation and report.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art approved a policy last week that allows proceeds from the sale of works from its collection to be used for salaries and overhead costs associated with the collection's care. The move follows similar actions by other museums, including ones in Brooklyn, Baltimore and Chicago, and marks the latest development in a debate that has been roiling the museum field, and has set some of the country's leading museum directors against one another.

Deaccessioning - the routine practice of pruning and shaping a museum's collection by putting works up for sale - has become intensely controversial since the spring of last year, when the field's membership organization relaxed the rules governing the use of proceeds from art sales. As a result, American art museums hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic are wrestling with a vexing problem: To what extent should they use the proceeds from these sales to avoid financial trouble or even to pay for other, program-related goals?

The museum field is on edge after an attempt last fall by the Baltimore Museum of Art to raise $65 million by selling three works provoked a huge backlash, resulting in the works being taken off the market at the last moment. But tensions around deaccessioning predate both the Baltimore controversy and covid-19.

Some supporters of liberalized deaccessioning frame the relaxed rules as a minor accounting detail that could provide temporary financial relief.

"It's not as if crazy things are happening," Met Director Max Hollein said in a phone interview with The Washington Post last week. The Met is not planning to sell works it wouldn't be selling anyway, he said, and there are still strict limits on how the funds can be used. Met officials will release a report on the past year at a media event Tuesday, but they are not expected to offer more details about the deaccessioning plan, including what pieces might be sold or when.

Critics of the new guidelines, including Hollein's predecessor, Thomas Campbell, believe in the sanctity of public collections and want to maintain strict controls to protect them. They view the shift as the first step in a fundamental change in museum operations. If museums use deaccession funds more broadly - even to survive a crisis like the pandemic - there may be no going back. Terms like "Pandora's box" and "slippery slope" are routinely invoked by those who believe a museum's artworks should never be treated as assets to be monetized, unless it is to buy new art.

Critics have taken their argument public, protesting the Met and the practice writ large. An online petition calling on Met leaders "to resist any attempts to sell off the art the Met holds in the public trust" has collected nearly 25,000 signatures. (Organizers delivered the signatures to the Met on Monday.)

In a recent op-ed, Campbell outlined his fear that the well-intentioned move by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) will become permanent and will undermine its authority.

"Donor trust will be damaged," Campbell, director and chief executive of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, wrote. "Boards and civic entities may take advantage of the new guidelines to evade their fiduciary responsibilities . . . [and] the premise that museum art collections are not taxable assets could be overturned."

Campbell also notes that deaccessioning is not a silver bullet. "It is often hard work for relatively slim returns," he said in an interview published in the forthcoming book, "Collections and Deaccessioning in a Post-Pandemic World." "The objects that could legitimately be deaccessioned as second rate or duplicates were often exactly that, second rate and not very valuable. Where the money was to be made was in Impressionist paintings and modern masters."

But Museum of Modern Art Director Glenn Lowry questions the benefits of having so many works "in the basement."

"Over time, if you release hundreds or thousands of objects that might be worth $1,000 or $5,000 or $10,000, you know what? That adds up to a lot of money," he said.

There's widespread disagreement about whether the AAMD change is really temporary. Hollein expects them to revert to the pre-covid guidelines next year, a move he supports. Stefanie Jandl, co-editor of "Collections and Deaccessioning in a Post-Pandemic World," thinks the new guidelines are here to stay.

"I think they're going to be solidified in the present form, which allows for a lot of flexibility," she said.

Lowry supports the AAMD policy as it stands, but says the issue needs to be debated. He frames it as an appropriate historical shift. In the 20th century, he argues, American museums were focused on building up many of the world's best collections. In the 21st century, they "have to make good on the promise of those collections."

"It doesn't mean we stop acquiring. But we have to shift the focus from what we have already acquired to how we're going to use that - how we're going to meet the needs of the public through programs," he said. "And in that context, we should ask ourselves what role can judicious and carefully regulated deaccessioning play in helping us to achieve that."

It's still unclear how museums will respond to the temporary rule change, although some answers will come at the auction houses' spring sales in May, when more art from museum collections is certain to be sold.

"I think it's going to be a tsunami," said Mark Gold, an attorney, author and organizer of "Deaccessioning After 2020," a virtual symposium planned for March 17-19.

The debate over the use of deaccession funds first erupted last April, when the AAMD announced a change to help its members weather the financial fallout from the pandemic. Between then and April 2022, AAMD members who are in financial distress would not be sanctioned if they use proceeds from the sale of art to fund the care of their collections. The field's other service organization, the larger American Alliance of Museums (AAM), had issued a similar update to its guidelines in 2019. That update required museums to adopt policies defining "direct care"; it did not require financial duress.

Museums across the country responded and some, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Palm Springs Museum of Art in California and the Everson Museum in Syracuse, N.Y., announced deaccessioning plans. But the Baltimore Museum of Art grabbed headlines when it said it would sell three major paintings to create a fund for long-term diversity efforts. Community members and former trustees signed letters of protest, board members resigned and donors rescinded their planned gifts. Facing a month of unrelenting pressure, the museum canceled the sales.

The Baltimore plan had many flaws. The AAMD's change was supposed to apply to financially struggling museums, but BMA's director, Christopher Bedford, repeatedly said his organization was fiscally sound. The sale was needed, he said, to address long-standing inequities and to improve diversity and access. The three works - Andy Warhol's "The Last Supper" and paintings by Clyfford Still and Brice Marden - were problematic, too, because they flouted the accepted traditions that museums should never sell masterpieces should never sell masterpieces - which many consider the Warhol to be - or works by living artists such as Marden. Baltimore's plan proposed both. (Baltimore did not give up on its goal, and last month announced gifts of almost $1.5 million for diversity, equity and inclusion, including funds for evening hours and for pay increases for hourly workers.)

The BMA controversy brought wider attention to the difficult issues facing museums in general, leaders say. Beyond the many losses tied to the pandemic, museums are also facing internal and external calls for racial and social justice. In a survey released last summer, one-third of AAM museum directors said they were at risk of closing or unsure if they could survive.

"People are having conversations and understanding that museums are being pulled in a hundred different directions for growth, when our finances are not growing," said Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak. "The cost of direct care has grown exponentially in recent years. Institutions are acquiring, acquiring, acquiring, but without support for its care, you're undermining your collection."

The Brooklyn Museum began discussing its deaccessioning plan in 2019, a year before the AAMD's modification. Last fall, the museum sold just over 40 works, including a group of decorative art objects and pieces by Monet, Miro and Cranach, and placed the $35 million in proceeds in a permanent endowment (with a goal of $40 million). The annual interest from the fund will cover the estimated $2 million required to care for the collection.

"To me, the most responsible thing is not to sell a Monet and use [the proceeds] for general operating support. The most responsible thing is to create a fund to benefit the institution in perpetuity," Pasternak said. The museum has taken a "conservative approach" to its definition of collection care, which covers storage, conservation, documentation and the safe installation, de-installation and transport of art. Salaries of those performing these duties are included, but Pasternak said the endowment will cover only staff time spent with the art.

"It's an interesting lifeline," said Sally Yerkovich, chair of the AAM committee on direct care, who teaches museum ethics at Columbia University. "What it does is it frees up resources. If you can use money for conservation, then you're freeing other money to use for other aspects of your operations. It could be exactly what some art museums really need."

Many smaller museums have avoided deaccessioning because they fear getting entangled in controversy, Yerkovich said. As a result, they spend their limited resources on caring for things that no longer contribute to their mission.

"For years there was a chill, and one of the things that we had hoped with the [AAM's] direct care of collection report was that it would normalize the process," she said.

Lowry welcomes the increased flexibility provided by AAMD's temporary change. Acquiring new work may not be the primary concern of many institutions, he said, especially small ones struggling to survive.

"We as a profession should be doing everything we can to give those institutions in particular the tools they need to survive in this time," Lowry said.
The chairman of the Authority for Romania's Digitization (ADR), Octavian Oprea, and the head of the Code4Romania Board of Directors, Bogdan Ivanel, signed on Monday, March 8, a Partnership Agreement which consolidates the cooperation between the two organizations for the digitization of the public administration of Romania, according to AGERPRES.

According to a press release by ADR, the partnership agreement starts from the principle, according to which each citizen is in the center of the digitization process, as prime beneficiary of projection, implementation and administration efforts of digital solutions necessary to the public sector.

"The accord reiterates the essential role of ADR in the administration's digitization process. As part of the Accord, ADR takes it upon itself, at a government level, the mission of identifying digital solutions which can revolutionize and inter-operate the IT systems from the public sector, so that we can accelerate the process of digital transformation. The associative environment proved to be a reliable partner throughout this entire period. I thank the team and Code4Romania volunteers, their support was invaluable. Through this strategic partnership, our collaboration entered a new stage, the programmatic one," Octavian Oprea, acting chairman of ADR, said.

Based on the accord, Code4Romania will deliver open-source digital products which will be made available, for free, towards ADR. The digital solutions will then be able to be disseminated by public authorities, local or central, based on their needs, the collaboration between Code4Romania and the public institutions being ensured by ADR.

"One year since the beginning of the pandemic, we placed the foundation of a partnership which resulted in a ecosystem of digital solutions of over 11 million Romanians. It was a successful model, the collaboration between the authorities and Code for Romania - we showed that we are a partner during critical times and we will always be here when Romania will need us to. Through the document we signed today we want to use the major opportunity which our tested collaboration offers us during hard times and together to build well designed, implemented and administered digital ecosystems the Romanian society needs," said Bogdan Ivanel, chairman of the board of directors of Code4Romania.
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
Meat factory representatives will be under pressure at todays Beef Taskforce meeting to justify the sharp cuts to beef prices in recent weeks despite export markets remaining strong.

Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue is understood to be unhappy with the way beef price cuts were communicated.

The Minister told the Farming Independent that the relationship between farmers and processors needs to improve, and he wants the Beef Taskforce to ramp up its efforts in the weeks ahead.

I am committed to bringing greater transparency to the food chain as a way building trust between farmers and processors through the establishment of a Food Ombudsman office this year.

Farmers need greater transparency and clarity on market trends and dynamics, said Minister McConalogue.

The Food Ombudsman is expected to build on the work started by the Beef Taskforce to achieve this for farmers.

Meanwhile, IFA Livestock chairman Brendan Golden said beef prices in our key markets have strengthened over the past week, rising 3c/kg in the UK.

He said demand from supermarkets is strong and cattle numbers are tight.

There is no hiding place for factories. Prices must push on to reflect the demand for beef in the UK and EU markets, he said.

The Taskforce meeting comes as a number of high-profile beef farmers have hit out at the current direction of the beef industry.

Dairy expansion

Laois beef farmer Robin Talbot believes suckler farming shouldnt be sacrificed to facilitate dairy expansion.

Flor McCarthy, IFA National Hill Farming Committee chair, described the recent warning from Professor John Fitzgerald that cuts to the national beef herd are inevitable as very unfair and one-sided.

And Mr McCarthy called on Teagasc director, Professor Gerry Boyle, to publicly state his views on the future of the suckler herd.

More specifically I would like to ask what his view/suggestion is for the future usage of land on the western seaboard and marginal land throughout Ireland.
Haiphong would have a second international airport to support its rapid development

Haiphong Peoples Committee has proposed the Ministry of Transport to consider adding Tien Lang to the national airport planning in the 2021-2030 period, with a vision toward 2050.

The project is expected to help Haiphong to realise its target of becoming one of the most developed cities in Asia.

The proposal for Tien Lang Airport was tabled as part of the adjustments to the general planning of Haiphong city to 2035 with a vision to 2050, which is being appraised by the Ministry of Construction.

Regarding Cat Bi International Airport, the city is looking for approval from the Ministry of Transport to increase the capacity of this airport to the level outlined in the city's general planning to 2035 with a vision to 2050.

According to the plan, the city would handle 13 million passengers per year by 2030 and the figure will increase to 27.6 million by 2045. The city also built plans to develop road and urban railway lines to connect with Tien Lang Airport.

Haiphong is currently a manufacturing hub for numerous economic groups and well-known investors, including LG from Korea, VinFast, and Bridgestone.

Haiphong is an international port city and a major industrial centre of the country, as well as an important traffic hub due to heavy investments in a synchronous and modern seaport system and traffic infrastructure.

These traffic systems include Hanoi-Haiphong Expressway, Tan Vu-Lach Huyen Highway, as well as the highway connecting Halong-Hanoi-Haiphong, Lach Huyen international gateway port, and Cat Bi International Airport.
The Trump loyalist from Brockton omitted two items from his long list of Trumps accomplishments. Number one, Trump raised over $250 million from his gullible followers with his election fraud scam. Second, Trump has left a legacy of polarization and divisiveness that will take years to repair.

Pottsville



I am waiting with bated breath to see if President Biden is going to give up his presidential salary like President Trump did, giving it to charity.

Barnesville



Hey, Rich Magnani, you listening to Sean Hannity says it all. Trump told over 30,000 lies and Hannity repeats them. You need to get a better news source instead of a talk show host.

Pottsville



The candlelight ceremony at the White House remembering those who died from the coronavirus was a moving and compassionate gesture. Slowly but surely we are restoring civility and dignity to the White House.

Pottsville



To the caller from Pottsville who said it is time to get over Trumps loss, how about the people who keep at it for four years like the Democrats did when their darling Hillary lost? You apparently havent listened to the news for four years.

Pitman



I was wondering do members of the sheriffs office take home police cruisers at the end of the day? It seems us taxpayers shouldnt be paying for these individuals to get to and from work in county-owned vehicles. Something to look into as far as a waste of our taxpayer dollars.

Frackville



To the caller from Pottsville saying about Joe Bidens Green New Deal, Joe Biden never pushed the Green New Deal and the windmills in Texas provide only a fraction of their power.

Pine Grove
On Guam, there are three hospitals. Two of them, Guam Regional Medical City and Naval Hospital Guam, have the Gold Seal of Approval from The J Read more
THE Government has backed former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger to remain as a member of the commission examining the future of Irish media despite calls from IRA abuse victim Mairia Cahill for his removal.

In a statement, Media Minister Catherine Martin said she, along with the Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, had come to the view that Mr Rusbridger should remain a member of the Future of Media Commission.

We accept that this will come as a disappointment for Mairia Cahill and we have not arrived at this conclusion lightly, Ms Martin said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

Mr Rusbridger was editor of The Guardian when media commentator Roy Greenslade wrote an article in 2014 questioning the credibility of a BBC Spotlight programme about Ms Cahill's case. Mr Greenslade has recently disclosed details of his long-held support for the IRA's armed campaign.

In the wake of this Ms Cahill appealed to both the Taoiseach and Ms Martin to remove Mr Rusbridger from the Future of Media Commission.

But in a statement issued through the Government Press Office on Tuesday afternoon, the Commission said: The Members of the Future of the Media Commission unanimously support the continued membership of Alan Rusbridger on the Commission.

We believe that it was important for Alan and The Guardian to apologise to Mairia Cahill, who has exposed important issues of media standards and transparency. These issues will continue to form part of the Commissions ongoing work.

Green Party deputy leader Ms Martin later said: As I have already stated publicly, I am appalled at the abuse suffered by Mairia Cahill and the subsequent horrendous ordeal that she had to endure. The actions of Roy Greenslade in seeking to undermine Ms Cahill by questioning her motives, while failing to reveal his own allegiances, were abhorrent.

I have reflected on the serious issues raised by Mairia Cahill in her engagement with both myself and An Taoiseach. I have also noted the apology issued by Alan Rusbridger, todays statement by the Future of Media Commission and correspondence which I received this morning from Mr Rusbridger in which he states that he was not aware of Roy Greenslades blog post when it was published nor of subsequent legal correspondence with The Guardian on behalf of Ms Cahill.

In discussions with An Taoiseach, who in turn has discussed the matter with the other coalition party leaders, we have, on balance, come to a view that Alan Rusbridger should remain on the Future of Media Commission.

Responding to the news, Ms Cahill told Independent.ie: "The Minister's office knew from this afternoon that the Commission statement would go out, to presumably give her cover for taking the decision, yet she hadn't the decency to pick up the phone, as the Taoiseach did at the weekend, to speak to me herself.

This is regrettable but it is entirely her decision. I respect her right to make a decision, that doesn't mean I have to agree with it.

I can hold my head high on the issue of how victims are treated. I'm not so sure either the Commission or the Minister can.

Mr Rusbridger said in a statement: "Roy Greenslade's blog about the media has loomed large this week but was a tiny part of the global output of the Guardian, then publishing 24/7 in the US and Australia and, like all newspapers, intensely negotiating the digital future.

"I did not read his 2014 post on Mairia Cahill and was not made aware of a complaint about alleged factual inaccuracies (mainly about the dates of Ms Cahills political allegiances) until last week. None of that should surprise anyone who knows how large international news organisations work.

"A book by Nick Davies in 2008 referred to Greenslade having pseudonymously written for An Phoblacht in the mid-1980s, while working for the Sunday Times.

"Davies, who interviewed Greenslade and knows him, says even he did not know that he actually supported the IRA in its campaign of killing. He describes himself as surprised and shocked at the views which Greenslade now admits he hid.

"When writers keep secrets from their editors it creates a problem. His column on Mairia Cahill was a problem. I have acknowledged that, take responsibility, and have apologised to Ms Cahill.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fail Senator Malcolm Byrne has requested the Oireachtas Media, Tourism and Sport Committee invite Mr Rusbridger to appear before it.

In 2014, Mr Greenslade wrote on The Guardian's website that the BBC Spotlight programme was "overly one-sided" and did not explore Ms Cahill's political stance.

The Guardian later backed Mr Greenslade after Ms Cahill complained about the piece.

In a recent article for the British Journalism Review, Mr Greenslade outlined his support for the IRA's use of violence during the Troubles and how he concealed this from his superiors at various Fleet Street newspapers.

Mr Rusbridger wrote to Ms Cahill over the weekend to personally apologise over the matter. He told the Sunday Independent that he would not have published the piece had Mr Greenslade been open with him about his sympathies to the IRA campaign.

Mr Rusbridger also said that Mr Greenslade had kept his sympathy for the Provisional IRA secret from his colleagues and editors.

"That was wrong, and placed a number of editors, including the Sunday Times and The Sun, in the difficult situation of making decisions in the dark, he added.

"Had Greenslade been open with me back in 2014, I would not have run this piece. It spectacularly fails on transparency grounds, but is troubling in other respects. So, I am sincerely sorry to Mairia Cahill, both for the article and for the upset it must have caused her."

Speaking to the BBC earlier, Ms Cahill said Mr Greenslades piece in 2014 was dangerous, malicious and despicable.

In a statement on Tuesday morning to BBC Radio 4 Womans Hour, Mr Greenslade said: I regard what I wrote about the BBC programme in 2014 as valid but I regret not declaring my political allegiance at that time and I apologise to Ms Cahill for that.
US President Joe Biden ordered the creation of a Gender Policy Council within the Office of the President, the executive order released by the White House said on Monday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th March, 2021) US President Joe Biden ordered the creation of a Gender Policy Council within the Office of the President, the executive order released by the White House said on Monday.

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Sec.2. The White House Gender Policy Council. (a) There is established a White House Gender Policy Council (Council) within the Executive Office of the President," the order said.

Biden explained in the executive order that the new body will coordinate Federal Government efforts to promote gender equity and equality, including by introducing policies and programs to combat systemic biases and discrimination and boost economic security and opportunity among others.

"The Council shall work across executive departments and agencies (agencies) to advance gender equity and equality and provide a coordinated Federal response on issues that have a distinct impact on gender equity and equality," the executive order said.

The Gender Policy Council will provide legislative and policy recommendations to the US president and will have two Co-Chairs as well as a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor on Gender-Based Violence, the executive order added.
Will Gov. Andrew Cuomo be impeached? Its happened to only one governor in New York before.

Republican lawmakers, including New York State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, R-Pulaski, introduced an impeachment resolution Monday. Cuomo is currently facing a federal investigation over Covid-19 deaths in state nursing homes and multiple allegations of sexual harassment, but the GOP cant force the Democrat-controlled Assembly to take up the measure without a majority of the chambers 150 members voting in favor of impeaching Cuomo.

But were going to keep pounding on this issue, Barclay said.

About 30 Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, have called on Cuomo to resign but impeachment is another issue. Democrats currently control 106 of the Assemblys 150 seats.

Cuomo, who has served as New Yorks governor since Jan. 1, 2011, has repeatedly said he wont step down.

There is no way I resign, Cuomo told reporters this weekend. The premise of resigning because of accusations is actually anti-democratic.

NBC notes the only New York governor to be impeached is William Sulzer, who was removed from office in October 1913 after a three-week trial over campaign finance violations. A legislative committee found Sulzer failed to report thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and commingled campaign funds with personal funds.

Sulzer said his impeachment was a political lynching and a conspiracy, blaming the Democratic Party machine of the corrupt political organization Tammany Hall. After being elected in 1912, he sought to remove Tammany Halls influences in state government, according to the National Governors Association website, and the group allegedly retaliated by accusing him of fraud.

A horse thief in frontier days would have received a squarer deal, Sulzer said.

Fun fact: William Sulzer is the only NY Governor to ever be impeached.



This portrait of him hangs directly outside the @CapPressRoom Hut in the LCA.



I think hes still mad about it. pic.twitter.com/j1QFvWzi4h  Tim Williams (@TimW518) March 8, 2021

Sulzer was still elected to the state Assembly a month later. He had previously served in the chamber for eight terms. Sulzer unsuccessfully ran for governor again in 1914, and retired from politics to focus on his legal practice.

Peter Galie, a professor emeritus of political science at Canisius College in Buffalo, told NBC that Sulzers case leaves very little precedent to rely on.

If Cuomo is impeached, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native and Syracuse University alumna, would serve as acting governor until an impeachment trial is concluded. The states impeachment court includes members of the state Senate and the seven judges on New Yorks Court of Appeals, the states highest court; Hochul and the temporary president of the Senate, Stewart-Cousins, would be excluded from the court if the governor is on trial.

A two-thirds majority, or 46 out of 69 votes, would be required to convict Cuomo and remove him from office.

If Cuomo is removed or resigns, Hochul would become the first woman and the first SU alum to serve as governor. Hochul would serve the remainder of Cuomos current term and would have to run in the 2022 gubernatorial election if she wanted a four-year term of her own.

Cuomo could also be censured by a majority vote in either state legislative chamber, but no lawmakers have spoken in support of censuring Cuomo. According to the Associated Press, a censure is viewed as a stern public rebuke, a largely symbolic penalty.

Cuomo could additionally face civil penalties if someone sues him for sexual harassment or files a complaint with a state or federal agency. Criminal charges are also possible pending an independent investigation from a team named by New York State Attorney General Letitia James on Monday.

These are serious allegations that demand a rigorous and impartial investigation. We will act judiciously and follow the facts wherever they lead, said Joon Kim, a former acting U.S attorney for the Southern District of New York. Kim will lead the investigation into Cuomos alleged sexual harassment of former aides with Anne L. Clark, an employment discrimination lawyer.

Why Pam Hunter says now is time for investigation, not resignation, of Cuomo

NY lawmakers claw back Cuomos pandemic powers

Publisher halts promotion of Cuomo book about Covid response amid investigation
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

After a six-month search for the next chief of the Albuquerque Police Department, the city administration decided it needed both an insider and an outsider.

With that in mind, interim Police Chief Harold Medina was selected to serve in the role going forward.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

And Sylvester Stanley, who has served as a police chief four times in New Mexico and most recently was chief of the Isleta Police Department, was appointed to the newly created position of superintendent of police reform.

The Police Departments responsibilities will be divided so Medina can focus on fighting crime, recruitment of officers and building morale and Stanley can oversee the academy and the Internal Affairs division and work with the Department of Justice on the reform effort. He will also handle discipline of officers.

The dual announcements, made Monday, mark the culmination of a nationwide search. Medina had been first deputy chief and took over the department in an interim capacity in September after the mayor asked Michael Geier to step down. His appointment will go to the City Council for approval.

In a meeting with the Journals Editorial Board on Monday, Mayor Tim Keller and Chief Administrative Officer Sarita Nair said they came to the decision of splitting responsibilities between two people after extensive community input about the qualities needed in the next chief of police.

I think we heard and we understand that, you know, it really takes both an insider who knows whats happening and knows what were doing and knows where to go, and an outsider to strike the right balance on changes that are needed, Keller said.  Youve got to fight crime, and youve got to do police reform.

Both Medina and Stanley will report to Nair, and Stanley will also be deputy CAO.

Councilors in favor

Multiple city councilors contacted by the Journal on Monday said they would vote to confirm Medina, including Council President Cynthia Borrego.

Borrego had been part of a three-councilor panel that had informal discussions with all three chief finalists, and she said Medinas Albuquerque know-how set him apart. The two out-of-state candidates  Clinton Nichols, chief of police in Commerce City, Colorado, and Joseph Sullivan, a retired deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department  offered limited insight into the community, she said.

I was a little disappointed, honestly, Borrego said. I think the mayor made the right decision (with Medina), and I will be supportive of that decision.

Pat Davis, meanwhile, said Medina has earned the right to do the job, having capably served as interim chief and demonstrated an understanding of departmental and city challenges.

I think its the right choice, Davis said.

The councilor is also supporting the restructuring effort that will shift APD reform efforts to a separate executive-level employee. Davis, a former police officer, said it makes sense to bundle discipline, training and other reform priorities under someone who can focus on that instead of day-to-day operations.

That makes a police chiefs job a whole lot easier, Davis said.

Borrego said she, too, likes the idea of having someone to shepherd the city through the DOJ reform process.

But Councilor Trudy Jones remains skeptical. She said Monday that the city has in recent years announced many initiatives meant to improve public safety and that she questions the follow-through and the effectiveness. While property crime has fallen in the past few years, violent crime rose in 2020, and the city has had a high number of homicides to start 2021.

Jones said that everything within APD has come to feel like a moving target but that the new superintendent at least sounds good in theory.

Its worth a try at this point in the game, she said. We cant get any worse.

Shaun Willoughby, the president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association, said the union supports Medina as chief and agrees that its important to have someone who understands the community, the department and its history and culture. As for the new position, he said he is cautiously optimistic and willing to work with everybody even though he doesnt think the city can both fulfill the court-mandated reform process and fight crime.

I think Medina may understand this and our new deputy CAO will definitely learn this, the Albuquerque Police Department has some pretty significant issues right now, Willoughby said. Morale is lower than I have ever seen it. I have police officers that are below five years actively looking to get out of New Mexico, we have retirements.  There is significant work to be done internally to assure the rank and file that they can be successful in the profession that theyve chosen as police officers.

Peter Simonson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, said the members of the police reform coalition APD Forward were disappointed in the appointment of Medina.

Its not at all due to anything about him personally, but strictly the fact that he comes right out of the culture that has promoted this systemic inability to hold officers accountable, Simonson said. There seems to be a lethargy or apathy within the department to take investigations, accountability and discipline seriously, and its been our position all along that the culture will only change with a leader from the outside.

However, Simonson said, they do feel more hopeful about the superintendent position even if they dont have an opinion on Stanley himself.

Its our hope that will strengthen the investment of the 11th floor in the reform process and avoid the situation like what took place last (year) escaping their notice  that the disciplinary system was essentially unraveling, Simonson said.

Unique skill set

The administration had been looking to hire a director of public safety who would oversee the reforms at APD, as well as Albuquerque Fire Rescue, and the office of emergency management, but Nair said they realized that position would mainly need to focus on the Police Department.

She cited other cities, including New Orleans and Seattle, that have similar positions to the superintendent role and said Stanley has a unique skill set to bring to the job.

He has a long history of working with the federal government for example and is well known to DOJ people because of his role in Indian Country, Nair said. He has a good track record of holding officers accountable but also of understanding their needs when it comes to training and the lifelong journey of becoming a police officer.

Keller said they expect Stanley to serve in the position in an interim basis for the next six months or through the end of the year and help the city set up the role and conduct a narrow but nationwide search for someone with monitoring experience.

Stanley was born and raised in Tennessee and enlisted in the Army at 17, according to a bio provided by the city. After he was discharged from the Army he worked for a police department in Kansas and then moved to New Mexico to join the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office in 1982. He worked his way up through the ranks to captain when he retired in 2002 and has run unsuccessfully to be sheriff.

Stanley  one of only three African Americans to be police chief in New Mexico  served in the role at the Isleta Police Department, Gallup Police Department and Jicarilla Police Department.

At a news conference Monday afternoon, Stanley said its no secret that the department has struggled to prevent and correct mistakes and hold people accountable for misconduct.

From the outside looking in at the Albuquerque Police Department I like many other New Mexicans have watched for years and felt that the traditional department management models just might not be able to get the job done during these tough times, Stanley said.  This institutional change gives us a path forward to move the needle on both reform and crime fighting.
IF you have absolutely no urgent or emergency need to be outdoors today, then remain at home.

Should you take a chance and decide to tempt fate, then it may most likely result in you being stopped and questioned by police officers and members of the Defence Force, or even find yourself charged and taken before a court.
US and UK versions failed to pick up severe COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia, or sepsis

Digital COVID-19 'symptom checkers' may stop some patients from getting prompt treatment for serious illness, suggests an international case simulation study, published in the online journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics.

Both the US and UK symptom checkers consistently failed to identify the symptoms of severe COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia, and sepsis, frequently advising these cases to stay home, the findings indicate.

The availability and use of symptom checkers is on the rise, and they are currently being used at a national level to pick up COVID-19 infection.

Identifying which patients with COVID-19 require treatment is difficult, because the infection can mimic common conditions that rarely require medical attention and because there are no clinical signs or symptoms that reliably predict who will progress to severe disease, note the researchers.

Digital symptom checkers combine a series of set questions and pre-determined responses to advise a person on the most appropriate course of action.

But as yet, there is hardly any evidence for the effectiveness or safety of symptom checkers for prioritising treatment (triaging) during a pandemic, say the researchers.

They therefore looked at the ability of national government-sponsored digital symptom checkers in use in Singapore, Japan, the US and the UK, to correctly triage people in need of a medical assessment and/or treatment.

The symptom trackers included: the Singapore COVID-19 Symptom Checker; Stop COVID-19 Symptom Checker (Japan); CDC Coronavirus Symptom Checker (US); and 111 COVID-19 Symptom Checker (UK).

COVID-19 death rates in Singapore and Japan are comparatively low; in the US and the UK they are comparatively high.

The researchers wanted to see if the symptom checkers were able to differentiate mild from severe COVID-19, and how well they picked up COVID-19 'mimickers' such as bacterial pneumonia and sepsis in 52 standardised case scenarios.

The cases simulated common COVID-19 related signs/symptoms of varying severity and risk factors. These included: cough and fever; a co-existing condition (high blood pressure) plus cough and fever; suppressed immunity as a result of drug treatment plus cough and fever; and shortness of breath and fever.

These four distinct presentations were then varied in relation to one or more of the following: how long since symptoms had started; the patient's age; and symptom severity.

The symptom checkers in Singapore and Japan triaged twice as many cases for direct clinical assessment as the symptom checkers in the US and UK.

Singapore had the highest overall referral rate at 88%; the US had the lowest at 38%. Among the simulated cases not referred, the USA and UK triaged a significant number that would typically have required early clinical assessment to 'stay home'.

The US symptom checker frequently triaged simulated cases with possible severe COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia, and sepsis to stay home and possible neutropenic (low white cell count after chemotherapy) sepsis to seek medical attention within 24 hours.

The UK's symptom checker frequently triaged possible severe COVID-19 and bacterial pneumonia to stay home with no follow-up and is likely to have delayed treatment for sepsis, severe COVID-19, and severe sepsis, point out the researchers.

While Japan's symptom checker generally performed well, the simulation revealed a potential delay to treatment for very severe sepsis. And none of the symptom checkers triaged simulated neutropenic sepsis to emergency care.

The researchers single out the UK's symptom checker for its complex algorithm, and for attempting to quantify symptoms such as shortness of breath and the overall severity of illness by asking subjective, qualitative questions with multiple choice answers.

The questions used to discriminate between degrees of severity aren't up to the task, they suggest.

Both the US and UK symptom checkers "are likely to delay presentations of serious medical conditions to appropriate care, and as such, are likely to confer an increased risk of morbidity and mortality," they warn.

"Both symptom checkers maintain a high threshold for referring onward to clinical contact, triaging the majority of patients to stay home with no clinical contact."

The researchers acknowledge that by reducing physical contacts, symptom checkers can potentially save valuable resources and reduce viral spread, and they require fewer resources than phone and telemedicine triaging services.

But their findings suggest that "whilst 'symptom checkers' may be of use to the healthcare COVID-19 response, there is the potential for such patient-led assessment tools to worsen outcomes by delaying appropriate clinical assessment," particularly if they are used as the only source of medical advice, they conclude.

"Our results support the recommendation that symptom checkers should be subjected to the same level of evidenced based quality assurance as other diagnostic tests prior to implementation," they add.

###

Externally peer reviewed? Yes

Evidence type: Case simulation study

Subjects: COVID-19 symptom checkers
New Delhi: Ranjim Prabal Das, one of the six toppers of JEE Main 2021 who scored 100 percentile, is inspired by none other than one of the richest men on the planet, Elon Musk.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk is known for his scientific ventures, from self-driving cars to space exploration and a major influencer on social media. For an 18-year-old aiming to follow in his footsteps is only natural.

"I follow Elon Musk," Das was quoted as saying by ANI.

Das, who moved from Assam to Delhi at a young age, is planning to take admission into IIT Delhi for higher studies. If that doesn't work out, he has a back up in form of the prestigious IISc Bengaluru.

"I plan to go to IIT Delhi for higher studies. Otherwise, I will go to IISc Bengaluru for science graduation," said Das.

The road to the top wasn't easy for the young engineering aspirant. He hit a major hurdle in his preparation when he caught the COVID-19 infection. But he clearly came out stronger on the other side.

"When I tested COVID-19 positive I focused on healing. Once the fever was down I got back to studies," said Das.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Monday (March 8) announced the results of the February session of the JEE Main 2021 exams.

Apart from Das, the other toppers are Saket Jha, Pravar Kataria, Guramrit Singh, Siddhant Mukherjee and Ananth Krishna Kadambi.

Live TV
A nation-first inquiry will be held into the historic and ongoing injustices committed against Aboriginal Victorians.

The state government on Tuesday launched the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, which is named after the Wemba Wemba-Wamba Wamba word for 'truth'.

The inquiry, which will be independent of government and have the powers of a royal commission, will examine injustices committed against Aboriginal Victorians across all areas of social, political, cultural and economic life.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gabrielle Williams addresses the media during a press conference announcing the launch of an Indigenous reconciliation inquiry, in Melbourne

It will help guide Victoria's treaty negotiations with its Aboriginal communities.

'This is long overdue. It's an acknowledgement that the pain in our past is present in the lives of people right now,' Acting Premier James Merlino told reporters on Tuesday.

'It's a recognition that without truth, without justice you can't have a treaty.'

He said more than 30 countries, including Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, had undergone a similar truth-telling process.

Left to right: Auntie Geraldine Atkinson and Acting Victorian Premier James Merlino, Aboriginal affairs advocate Marcus Stewart, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gabrielle Williams and Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin AO are seen prior to a press conference announcing the launch of an Indigenous reconciliation inquiry, in Melbourne

The commission's terms of reference were developed in partnership with the state's First Peoples' Assembly.

'It's hard to describe what this will mean for our old people, our ancestors, our elders who have fought decades and decades for this,' assembly co-chair Marcus Stewart said.

'We now have the opportunity to tell the true side of history - not a side that's been dismissed, not a side that's been denied.'

A search is underway for five commissioners to head the inquiry, with public hearings expected to begin by July.

Acting Victorian Premier James Merlino (left) is seen following a press conference announcing the launch of an Indigenous reconciliation inquiry

An interim report must be handed down within 12 months, with the inquiry expected to run for three years.

Premier Daniel Andrews had intended to attend the press conference but was taken to hospital after suffering a fall while getting ready for work.

'I know ... how passionate he is about this day and about this announcement,' Mr Merlino said.

'It would only have been a trip to the hospital that would have kept him away so unfortunately, that's the case, but to be here today as acting premier in Dan's absence is one of the proudest moments of my political life.'
New Delhi, March 9 : The government on Tuesday took a strong stand against the UK Parliament over its unwarranted discussion on India's farm reforms.

In a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs, the government said that Foreign Secretary Harsha Shringla has summoned the British High Commissioner besides conveying strong opposition to the unwarranted and tendentious discussion on the agricultural reforms in India in the British Parliament.

The Foreign Secretary made it clear that this represented a gross interference in the politics of another democratic country. He advised that British MPs should refrain from practicing vote bank politics by misrepresenting events, especially in relation to a fellow democracy.

Over 100 UK parliamentarians in January this year had written a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, expressing their concern over the agitation of farmers in India. Since then they have been demanding a debate on the issue.

A substantial number of anti-India Khalistani Sikhs and Pakistanis live in the UK, making them a significant vote bank in British politics. As a result, they try to wield their influence over India's domestic affairs by building up international pressure through legislative mechanisms.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!


Online Cybersecurity Degree

Pursue lucrative and in-demand roles with Utica College's 100% online cybersecurity degree. You'll choose from four specializations to tailor your degree to your career goals. Study at an institution designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE/CDE). Request Information 

Skeptics of giving computers control over high-risk activities like driving cars were given some ammunition last week when researchers at OpenAI discovered their two-month-old machine vision system could be tricked with a pen and paper into misidentifying objects.

The AI laboratory published a paper March 4 that revealed their new system could be fooled into identifying an apple as an iPod by attaching a note to the apple with the word iPod on it.

In another flub, the system also identified a chainsaw as a piggy bank when dollar signs were sprinkled over a photo of the tool.

Despite those errors, OpenAI remains optimistic about its experimental machine vision system, called CLIP, which is exploring how AI systems might be able to identify objects without close supervision through training with large databases of images and text pairs.

The company's researchers explained in a blog that it had discovered the presence of multimodal neurons in CLIP. In the human brain, those neurons respond to clusters of abstract concepts centered around a common high-level theme, rather than any specific visual feature.

"Our discovery of multimodal neurons in CLIP gives us a clue as to what may be a common mechanism of both synthetic and natural vision systems -- abstraction," the researcher wrote.

New Attack Surface

However, the system's ability to link words and images at an abstract level also created a new vector of attack not previously seen in machine vision systems.

"By exploiting the model's ability to read text robustly, we find that even photographs of hand-written text can often fool the model," the researchers noted.

Such attacks that use "adversarial images" have been used against commercial machine vision systems, but with CLIP, they require no more technology than a pen and paper.

Design flaws in machine vision systems like CLIP aren't unusual.

"It's very common for machine learning systems to have flaws in the way they classify objects," observed Jonathan Spring, an analyst with the CERT Division in the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

"You can't always predict what a computer is going to do even though you know what it has been programmed to do," he told TechNewsWorld.

Trick the Machine Distraction

Humans don't fully understand how they process the world through visual stimuli, yet they're trying to teach a machine how to do it, explained Vilas Dhar, president of the Boston-based Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, which focuses on the impact of artificial intelligence and data science on society.

"This means we take shortcuts," he told TechNewsWorld. "Rather than teaching a system what an apple is as a conceptual object, with inherent meaning, we treat it as a configuration of pixels, a pattern that gets meaning through context."

"This approach works most of the time, but can fail spectacularly when the context is not part of the training set," he continued. "When we train machine vision systems without meaning, we get further from the reality of machines seamlessly navigating our real built environment."

Kjell Carlsson, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, warned about being distracted by tricking-the-machine stories.

"It is absolutely important that people investigate the limitations of these models, but that fact that you can trick a model says nothing useful on its own," he told TechNewsWorld.

"It is, for example, extraordinarily easy to trick people," he continued. "People systematically think that folks wearing glasses are intelligent, and we have some 86 billion biological neurons at our disposal."

Subtle Spoofing

Mike Jude, research director for video surveillance and vision applications at IDC, explained that machine vision systems can be spoofed by playing to the biases that are implicit in the training that went into the network.

"It's possible to do the same thing with a human being," he told TechNewsWorld.

"With a machine vision system, it can be a lot more subtle," he continued. "You can have cues embedded into the picture that the human eye can't perceive but the computer can because it's just looking at pixels."

"Any machine vision system can be hacked," he added. "There are flaws in any system that can be exploited by the right kind of attack."

"This supports some of the concerns that people have about machine vision applications," he said.

Critical for Self-Driving Cars

One application area of particular concern is the use of machine vision in self-driving vehicles.

"Machine vision is absolutely crucial to self-driving cars," asserted Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for e-mobility at Guidehouse Insights, a market intelligence company in Detroit.

"It's critical because the system needs to not only classify where objects are around the vehicle but what those objects are in order to make decisions on what to do, just as we do as human drivers," he told TechNewsWorld.

"If a plastic bag blows across the road, that's not a risk, but if a child is in the road, that's a great risk," he added.

He explained that a vehicle needs to understand the semantics of what the sensors are seeing so accurately classifying things that are being detected is absolutely critical for an automated driving system to be safe and reliable.

Automated driving systems that are over reliant on machine vision are generally not very reliable, he contended.

"Machine vision systems still have a lot of flaws, especially those dependent on AI and neural networks," he said. "The successful perception systems for automated driving all use multiple systems to understand the environment around the vehicle."

"They use a mix of machine vision and deterministic sensors that measure the position and distance of objects," he continued. "You need radar, lidar and thermal imaging in order to get an accurate view of what's out there."

Although OpenAI's CLIP system has been described as "state-of-the-art," Abuelsamid was skeptical of the description. "Any machine vision system that's fooled by a note is not state-of-the-art," he countered.

Adding Security and Reliability

Spring noted that there are ways to make machine vision systems more secure and reliable.

"There are test beds available to people who want to train their machine learning models and make them harder to attack, but it will never get rid of all attacks," he observed.

"We also need a social system on top of the technical system where we can manage what people know about tricking these systems, and if there are flaws with great impact, we need ways to update them to get rid of those flaws," he continued. "That's similar to the way we handle vulnerabilities in software in general."

"Then there's defense in depth so you have systems in place to help the machine learning system deal with the ways it's likely to fail or be tricked," he added. "Sometimes that may be a human monitoring the system. Other times it may be physical constraints on a robot or car that don't let it do certain things."

John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.


"With so many businesses transitioning to remote work in 2020, we knew it was time to share our expertise to help other businesses strengthen their security posture," says Sterling Garde, Athreon's President. Sterling elaborates, "Athreon has assembled an impressive team of educators, software developers, and legal minds with a deep understanding of information technology, security, privacy, and the law." Although Athreon has a solid track record for protecting its distributed global workforce against security threats for many years, a lot of companies don't know where to start or how to improve. Athreon's employee vulnerability assessment changes that.

Features and benefits of Athreon's new cybersecurity solution include:

Comprehensive security risk assessments, including Dark Web scans

Intellectual property development that supports regulatory compliance

Enterprise-grade management portal with real-time employee risk metrics

Engaging, thorough, and relevant web-based cybersecurity training courses

Tools that gamify cybersecurity training and motivate employees to learn

Athreon reports that unintentional human error accounts for growing numbers of data breaches, which is why technology alone is insufficient to safeguard businesses. Because humans present such a significant security risk to businesses, continuing education matters. With security breaches linked to severe fines and penalties, reputational damage, and business closures, not having a cybersecurity strategy is hazardous. Athreon's cybersecurity solution addresses organizational cyberhealth holistically through threat discovery, employee surveying, education, compliance, and breach response.

To celebrate its new cybersecurity solution, Athreon is offering its first 100 new clients a complimentary baseline security analysis. For more information on Athreon's cybersecurity services, visit athreon.com.

About Athreon

Athreon's solutions encompass cybersecurity and speech to text. The company's technologies and services provide a hybrid blend of human expertise that is augmented by innovative artificial intelligence. Athreon's objective is to measurably improve organizational profitability and performance by delivering solutions that reduce costs, mitigate business risk, eliminate inefficiencies and delays, and improve quality and productivity while delivering maximum ROI.

Contact

Gerald Bellows

800.935.0973

[email protected]

Related Links

Athreon Website

SOURCE Athreon Corporation

Related Links

https://www.athreon.com


(Natural News) Although there is no shortage of stories involving school districts taking stances that oppose parents wishes, some school districts have stood up for parental rights on matters like vaccines. Will parental rights fare as well as we make our way through the pandemic?

Before the pandemic hit last year, several Long Island school districts had opposed legislation aimed at adding more mandatory school vaccinations. One of the bills they opposed required children to receive the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine. Although it claims to protect against the sexually transmitted disease, which sometimes causes cancer but is usually harmless, it has been linked to a disturbingly high number of adverse effects.

The vaccine has left countless young people, mostly girls, with serious health problems. More than 100,000 Gardasil-related adverse events have been reported to the World Health Organization and the FDA, and dozens of girls have died from it.

The chances of a person getting an autoimmune disease from the Gardasil HPV vaccine are 1,000 times higher than their chances of being saved from a potential cervical cancer death. It has also been shown to affect fertility and raise the risk of miscarriages.

Southampton schools wrote letters to members of the states health committee asking them to take the measures off the table on the grounds that they were an erosion of parental rights. They were joined by more than a dozen other school districts in Suffolk County, who wrote similar letters. They pointed out that children are not at risk of being infected by HPV while at school because it is sexually transmitted, making it a very inappropriate requirement for attending classes.

Another bill mandated flu shots for students. School districts wrote letters opposing these measures as well and questioned the effectiveness of flu vaccines. In the letter from Southampton, the lack of long-term research on the effects the HPV and flu vaccines have on children was cited. They also drew attention to how many vaccine doses children receive. The CDC says children need to receive a total of 72 doses of various vaccinations; the HPV and flu vaccine doses would bring that number up to 93 total vaccine doses before a child reaches their eighteenth birthday.

Pandemic and distance learning chipping away at parental rights

The pandemic and distance learning have also been chipping away at parental rights. Take the example of the Childrens Online Privacy Act, or COPRA, which generally requires that websites and online services get parental consent before collecting the personal information of kids under the age of 13. Under COPRA, schools can now consent on behalf of parents to allow educational technology services to collect their kids personal information  whether the parents want that information shared or not.

Distance learning is also infringing on parents rights when it comes to media releases. Many parents choose not to sign the media release forms given to them by their schools, which means their child will not be allowed to be photographed or identified individually in any way on any platform. Although there might be group shots at a long distance that contain the childs image, good faith efforts must be made to exclude them.

Parents have many reasons for choosing this route, whether they simply want privacy, have jobs of a sensitive nature, or wish to protect their children from a tense family situation. Unfortunately, there is nothing stopping people in other students households from recording interactions between these students and their teachers or classmates and then distributing it online.

Parental rights are constantly coming under attack, and while its positive to see some school districts taking a stance to protect those rights, especially when it comes to vaccines, countless others are showing little regard for the choices parents make for their children  and the pandemic is only making this situation worse.

Although the COVID-19 vaccines currently available are not being recommended for children yet, it is probably only a matter of time before parents will have yet another fight on their hands  and it will be interesting to see who school districts side with when it comes to requiring coronavirus vaccines for school attendance.

Sources for this article include:

HealthImpactNews.com

Consumer.FTC.gov

ChildrensHealthDefense.org
A court in Russia's northwestern region of Vologda has denied the early release of a man known as 'the last maniac of the U.S.S.R." who has been serving a life term for killing and dismembering three young women in 1989.



The press service of the regional court in Vologda said the Belozyorsk district court ruled on March 9 that Dmitry Gridin could not be released because he violated internal orders in detention centers and penitentiaries 24 times over the course of his prison time.



Gridin was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to death in 1990 after a court found him guilty of killing and dismembering three young women in residential buildings' elevators in the city of Magnitogorsk. He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of four other women. His death sentence was later changed to life in prison.



The case, the last serial killing brought to trial in the Soviet Union before it disintegrated in 1991, sparked a furious public reaction with many in Magnitogorsk demanding that Gridin be publicly executed.



In his request for early release, the 53-year-old Gridin wrote that he had spent 31 years in prison and did not commit any major violations while in custody. He also wrote that he was not guilty and was forced to testify against himself during the investigation.



He said he planned to live with his parents if his request for early release was approved by the court.
Biden Orders Review of Trump-Era Rule on College Sexual Misconduct Claims

President Joe Biden has ordered a review of a Trump-era rule on how colleges and universities handle complaints of sexual misconduct under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at federally-funded education programs.

In an executive order signed on Monday, Biden directed the newly-confirmed Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to review the education departments rules, policies, and regulations, and consider suspending, revising, or rescinding agency actions that are potentially inconsistent with the policy of the new administration.

It is the policy of my administration that all students should be guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex, including in the form of sexual harassment, which encompasses sexual violence, and including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Bidens executive order reads.

Biden specifically ordered the evaluation of Title IX changes implemented last year by Trumps Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who revised the Obama administrations guidelines on Title IX accusations. According to DeVos, the original federal guidance encouraged colleges and universities to set up what she called kangaroo courts, which unfairly favored the accusers and deprived accused individuals of their basic due process protections.

Education Secretary Betsy Devos listens during a COVID-19 pandemic response event about reopening schools hosted by President Donald Trump in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington on Aug. 12, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

The Trump-era rule (pdf), which went into effect in August 2020, limited the cases colleges need to investigate by adopting a narrower definition of sexual harassment. It also ensured that alleged perpetrators and victims had the equal right to submit, cross-examine, and challenge all evidence at a live hearing, where they can choose to be represented by a lawyer or adviser to avoid face-to-face questioning.

In her final day as education secretary, DeVos left a memorandum (pdf) that maintained that sex under Title IX should only be interpreted to mean biological sex, male and femalean apparent conflict with Biden administrations effort to expand Title IX to encompass sexual orientation or gender identity.

Miguel Cardona speaks during an event announcing his nomination at The Queen in Wilmington, Del., on Dec. 23, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

The Biden order came a few days after 115 House Democrats pushed Cardona to prioritize reversing the Title IX rule by his predecessor, arguing that the DeVos rule gut protections for survivors of sexual violence and overburden already-strained schools struggling amid a global pandemic.

Survivors of sexual violence deserve justice, dignity, safety and healing, the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their letter (pdf) to Cardona the day after he was confirmed as education secretary. Yet, Secretary DeVos rule turns back the clock and erodes hard-fought protections and rights for victims with a boys will be boys approach to sexual assault on college campuses.
A former Queensland police officer will wake up on his 34th birthday in jail for his 'abhorrent' behaviour in grooming a 15-year-old he met while interviewing her over nude photos.

Matthew Paul Hockely made sexual and suggestive comments to the girl after adding her on Snapchat days after interviewing her over photographs that had been circulated at school.

The pair exchanged more than 1000 chat messages and 30 images over three weeks from July 30, 2019.

Matthew Paul Hockely (pictured right) made sexual and suggestive comments to the girl after adding her on Snapchat days after interviewing her over photographs that had been circulated at school

In messages photographed by the girl, the father-of-two wrote, 'heading home to get naked and relax' and 'rather be chillin with you'.

In another he said, 'I was so cold last night. Needed you to warm me up'.

The former officer also commented on sexual interactions between older men and girls, invited the teenager on holiday, told her he slept naked and called her 'beautiful' in some messages to her.

In one message he offered to fetch her from the train station, saying it would be their first daddy-daughter experience.

In messages photographed by the girl, the father-of-two wrote, 'heading home to get naked and relax' and 'rather be chillin with you' (texts have been mocked)

Hockley admitted to adding the teenager on social media and sending her messages, saying he was interested in her mother.

Over the weeks he was chatting to the teenager, the officer had a consensual 'sexual encounter' with her mother, telling the court his marriage was 'broken almost beyond repair' at the time.

He also referred to the encounter in a message to the teenager.

A jury found him guilty of using the internet to procure a child and grooming a child with intent to procure a sexual act.

Hockley was a senior constable working at the Inala Child Protection and Investigation Unit in Brisbane at the time he committed the crimes, but was stood down after being charged, before resigning late last year.

'The mere fact that a person who is a sworn officer would engage in this conduct is abhorrent,' Brisbane District Court Judge Bernard Porter said on Tuesday, while sentencing him to at least eight months in jail.

The pair exchanged more than 1000 chat messages and 30 images over three weeks from July 30, 2019. He is pictured leaving Brisbane District Court on Friday March 5

'The less serious nature of (Hockley's) conduct comprised in the offending is offset by the extremely serious misuse of his position as a police officer and his serious abuse of the trust and confidence placed in him by the complainant and her mother at a time when they were both vulnerable.'

Hockley 'betrayed his oath by grooming a young woman who he had come into contact with while investigating offending by and against her,' Judge Porter said.

Outside court, the teenager's mother thanked the prosecutor 'for her tireless efforts' and investigators for restoring her faith in the police service.

'Meeting these detectives has made me realise that there are people in the police service that are there for the right reasons,' she told reporters.

'I'm just happy that this chapter has been closed and we look forward to putting this traumatic event behind us.

'I'm so grateful my daughter came forward when she did.'

Judge Porter handed Hockley a head sentence of two years in jail, with a non-parole period of eight months.
As the overall COVID situation in Colorado has improved and plateaued, Gov. Jared Polis and others have begun to loosen up restrictions, though mask orders and other base-level changes remain in effect.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
OBiS Incorporated, a New York City based healthcare and biotechnology consulting company, has announced the opening of a subsidiary office in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, France.

The purpose of the new French subsidiary will be to expand its healthcare related clinical medicine, marketing and finance analytics capabilities to better serve the European market. OBiS has developed an extensive database of drug mechanism of actions. This will be used as a basis to improve the accuracy of market forecasts and identify new investment opportunities using artificial intelligent deep-learning computer models.

Company founder, Rick Beasley, foresees "tremendous opportunity being located in France, given its pivotal role in the development of medicine throughout history." OBiS plans to promote both the scientific as well as the financial aspects of biotechnology which it considers important to advance a global leadership position.

As part of its mission to explore new opportunities, OBiS launched several exploratory projects last summer in the following areas: personalized medicine (pharmacogenomics), French-Africa clinical development, and development of the French biotechnology industry. OBiS plans to continue these programs next summer as well as introduce a new one offering students the opportunity to gain relevant work experience in conjunction with the preparation of their baccalaureat exam.

The new OBiS entity is registered as a simplified joint-stock company (SAS). Local resident Jeanne Lavit recently joined the company as Research Director. Jeanne holds a degree in Biomedical and Health Sciences from the prestigious Irish University UCD, as well as a Masters in Public Health from ISPED (University of Bordeaux).

About OBiS

OBiS is a privately owned New York City based healthcare analytics company offering a variety of products and services in business development, forecasting, new product planning, key opinion leader identification, market research, clinical trial recruitment analytics and custom data services. OBiS serves primarily biotechnology and large pharmaceutical companies. OBiS was founded in 2002 by Rick Beasley, former director of Oncology Market Research for Bristol-Myers Squibb. OBiS SAS is a wholly owned subsidiary operating in France.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309006008/en/

Contacts:

OBiS Inc. (USA)

12 West 32nd Street 5th Floor

New York, NY 10001

Hello@obis.com

Tel: 1-347-983-1975

OBiS SAS (France)

14 Rue Despourrins

64400 Oloron-Sainte-Marie

Bonjour@obis.com

Tel: 33 05 59 39 48 56

Media Contact: Rick Beasley (rick.beasley@obis.com)
The water coming from city taps over the next three weeks may have off-putting odor and taste issues, the City of Napa is warning customers.

City water will remain safe to drink, but there will likely be aesthetic issues as the city draws water exclusively from its Lake Hennessey reservoir, officials said.

The city had been taking water from the Delta Water State Project through its Barwick Jamieson Treatment Plant, but state water is unavailable to Napa for three weeks due to major system maintenance, said city Deputy Utilities Director Joy Eldredge.

The city is treating water from Lake Hennessey for springtime algae, which releases odor compounds when it dies, the city said.

The treatment removes the algae, but odors can remain.

To improve the aesthetic quality of water drunk from the tap, customers can make sure the water is cold or add a little citrus or cucumber flavor, the city said in a Facebook post.

Napa is in the early planning stages to install an ozone system at the Hennessey treatment plant to minimize seasonal algae issues.

Water from the Delta is treated with such a system.
Amy Nelson

If Amy Nelson, president/CEO of $103 million asset Point West Credit Union, Portland, Ore., could offer her younger self some advice, it would be this: Dont waste time worrying if you are good enough, just dig in and do the work.

Its also the counsel shed offer others, too.
The pace is quickening for House Democrats with last weeks passage of a troika of contrany titled bills now in the Senate hopper. First to switch chambers was House Bill (HB) 1319, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. That was followed by HB1, For the People Act, and HB1280, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

For the privilege of being rescued, middle-class Americans will be rode hard by a $1.9 trillion price tag against their future liquidity and that of their children. HB1319 is dressed up with promises of compensation checks, virus testing and vaccines, food stamp and school programs, homeowner tax breaks, psychological services, and other pandemic head fakes. In sum, actual relief doesnt add up to a whole hell of a lot, nine percent, in fact, of all allocated funds.

Democrats are using pandemic-related as a generous definition for pandemic relief. Much of HB1319 is a watering trough that buys off a voting constituency and finances progressive pet projects, funds Planned Parenthood and abortions, doles out loyalty payments to teachers unions, bails out fiscally-irresponsible blue states, imputes racial equity qualifications for farm grants, and sends billions to overseas COVID efforts after paring down relief checks to Americans.

HB1, in contradiction to its altruistic title, For the People Act, encourages continued election hijinks by Beltway bluebloods and greatly harms the body politic by upending sovereign state protocols. The bill seeks to strip federalism from the states, facilitates statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, imposes voter requirements that will embrace illegal alien registration, ignores the Constitution by allowing convicted felons to vote, sanctions ballot harvesting, prevents the auditing and updating of registration databases that turn once living Republicans into dead Democrat voters, and codifies a corrupt federal influence over future state election campaigns and vote counts. It passed the House with near-unanimity by Democrats, a single-minded feat quite beyond the capacity of the Republican party.

Also enacted along House party lines was HB1280, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a vengeful bill that convenes a grand inquisition on American law enforcement by abolishing qualified immunity and exposes good police officers to personal lawsuits when they must use force to uphold the law. Millions of other local, state, and federal government workers, to include prosecutors and judges who hold sway over criminal investigations, trials, and punishment, will continue to enjoy those protections, as will congressional Democrats and Republicans who have, to date, refused to lift similar Section 230 protections on oppressive social media platforms.

Doing away with qualified immunity will cast a wide net over police behavior. Criminals would be empowered to file frivolous complaints over nonlethal uses of force in routine, lawful arrests. Police officers would find themselves brought before activist judges and capricious juries, absent of any legal representation from their employers, and at risk of losing their personal and family fortunes from politically-influenced court decisions.

If HB1280 becomes law, it will defund the police by discouraging applicants, as becoming a cop would be made even more dangerous and untenable. Depolicing would replace public safety, as police will use their discretion to reduce personal risk by avoiding confrontation. Look to the summer riots of 2020, when city police were hamstrung and sidelined by Democrat mayors who played politics with peoples lives and their livelihoods, obliging miscreants to loot and burn.

HB1280 also extends to the state attorneys general the authority to investigate and impose consistently ineffective, costly, and oppressive consent decrees upon police departments as a means to align the profession with social justice and race equity issues. The bill prohibits chokeholds and some no-knock warrants that are crucial when encountering armed suspects concealed behind locked doors or as a means to prevent the destruction of evidence. Such warrants require scrutiny by deputy attorneys and county judges before they are issued. The legislation also creates a national registry of police use-of-force, even including incidents where the allegation is unfounded, or officers are exonerated. This bill is patently harmful to public safety, a perilous state of affairs that safeguarded Democrat lawmakers are willing to overlook.

Pelosi had originally scheduled up or down votes on HB1 and HB1280 for March 4, but the parody of reprised Capitol assaults on that date by straw soldiers of former President Trumps militia prompted a roll call the previous evening and a melodramatic cancellation of the following days business. For their part, the Democrat Senate stayed open for business, no doubt as fearful of marauding white supremacists, but even more eager to bum rush the progressive wish-lists behind three hyperpartisan bills.

Laws proposed by the House pass by a simple majority, but the going is tougher on the Senate floor. The minority party can engage in talkathons called filibusters in order to force compromise and amend opposed legislation. Democrats now in the majority can thwart those efforts through cloture to end debate, or by eliminating the filibuster outright.

The problem for both parties is that the filibuster is a powerful sword that can easily change hands with a few Senate races gone bad. In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid eliminated the filibuster in order to pass ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and cabinet appointments. Mitch McConnell cast it aside to confirm Trumps Supreme Court nominees in the face of stiff Democrat resistance. Holding the majority reins, Schumer is now circling McConnell in dangerous waters, once again threatening its demise to advance Bidens radical legislative agenda.

Schumer had no reason to eliminate the filibuster for the COVID bill because its impact upon the federal treasury allowed for the process of budget reconciliation. By procedure, Republicans were allowed a limited debate and the opportunity to propose dozens of amendments to the bill. Democrats handily defeated all but three of the proposed revisions in a daylong vote-a-thon and HB1319 passed without a smidgeon of Republican support.

The voting rights and police bills, HB1 and HB1280, are now up for consideration. Unless they are attached to a budget bill, reconciliation is off the table. Senate ratification will require the desertion of ten Republicans to end prolonged debate and a supermajority of sixty votes for passage.

If the filibuster survives in the Senate, these bills are headed for the dustbin. Hardline Democrats and activist groups are now pushing Schumer to invoke the nuclear option. For a party that has tacked hard left, thrown bipartisanship to the wind, and gained power by chicanery, leaving the filibuster in the hands of a Republican minority is a dangerous gambit.

Americans are once again getting hoodwinked by words over intentions. Through a shrewd sleight of appellation we are told that these bills claim to help those struggling with the pandemic, promise much-needed election reform, and will bring racial justice to the epidemic use of force by police. Few have read them entirely, as each are hundreds of pages long and often feature more pork than a Hawaiian luau. The Democrats seek vantage from shallow viewpoints and media bias to shape public opinion and support. Legislative tomes dubbed as compassionate acts usually shroud more diabolical propositions.

It's high times at the Capitol fortress and the drinks are on the House. Republican representation in government has been reduced to a filibuster tactic as the only wedge between unchecked, one-party authoritarianism and a tenuous hold on democracy. The manipulated outcome of the 2020 election was an omen that all Americans will lose in either case, as it is just a matter of downward velocity.

Image: D Begley
Drinksology Kirker Greer appoints John Soden as chief commercial officer

Premium spirits distributor and brand innovator, Drinksology Kirker Greer, has announced the appointment of John Soden as Chief Commercial Officer to support its global growth and distribution strategy.

Soden, who has extensive experience in the beverage industry, will be tasked with developing the global reach and brand awareness of the Kirker Greer portfolio, which includes brands such as Jawbox Gin, Ginato Italian Gin and Bowsaw American Whiskey.

Soden has already managed the growth of many brands in North America, Europe, Asia and Global Travel Retail. Some of his previous roles include Business Unit Director at Pernod Ricard, Managing Director at Castle Brands, Vice President Strategy & Development at Edrington, and Vice President Sales & Marketing at C&C International.

He said: "I am super excited to be joining the team at Drinksology Kirker Greer at such an important inflection point in the business. There are enormous growth opportunities in key global markets for their premium spirit portfolio with some of the brands already seeing success in Australia, South Africa, Germany and France.

I also really look forward to working with such an enthusiastic and dynamic team. Drinksology Kirker Greer is such a unique drinks business, the Drinksology Creative arm of the business really sets them apart from everyone else, having worked with some of the biggest brands and best bars in the world.

Steven Pattison, chief executive of Drinksology Kirker Greer said: Johns global experience is of great value to us. He has successfully created routes to markets for some well-known brands and worked on the development of brands like Jameson and Tullamore Dew. As we set our sights on continued growth and expansion, he will be an invaluable asset to us. We look forward to working with him on elevating our premium brands portfolio in key European markets, North America and Russia.

Drinksology Kirker Greer significantly grew its global presence and sales in 2020, adding a distribution warehouse in the Netherlands, New Jersey and Cape Town to its network, along with offices in Italy to serve its European spirits division, Kirker Greer Spirits EU. Its spirits division also ended 2020 with a year-on-year increase in sales of over 83%, thanks to strong performances across Europe with the online and multiple retail sector, entering into new markets such as South Africa, North America and Australia sees several new brands occupying major shelf space in multiple retail channels.

Related articles:
Local legal news that reveals increasing push back against police arguments in the Johnson County suburbs . . .



SM Post: A Johnson County judge on Monday handed Kansas City, Mo., TV station KSHB a victory in court, ruling that an open records lawsuit against the city of Overland Park regarding the 2018 police shooting of teenager John Albers can move forward.

Moreover . . .



As police often tell the public . . .

Authorities shouldn't have anything to hide if they didn't do anything wrong.

Moreover, as usual, we're a bit disappointed by those who would desecrate the memory of this youngster or attack his family given that MOST TEENS HAVE PROBS growing up and thankfully the consequences for mistakes aren't usually dying in a hail of gunfire.

Also as a public service . . . This story is important because is serves to provide a second guess to assumptions about the use of deadly force by police when it impacts affluent white suburbs.



Developing . . .


Not for distribution to U.S. news wire services or dissemination in the United States.

TORONTO, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Voxtur Analytics Corp. (TSXV:VXTR) (Voxtur or the Company) is pleased to announce that, further to the Company's news releases issued on February 25, 2021 and March 1, 2021, the Company has received conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange of its fully subscribed non-brokered private placement (the Private Placement) of common shares of the Company, for gross proceeds of $35,000,000 and expects to close on Thursday, March 11, 2021.

Under the terms of the Private Placement, a total of 50,000,000 common shares were purchased at $0.70. Net proceeds will be used for future growth opportunities, general working capital and debt repayment as disclosed in the Companys news release dated February 25, 2021.

The common shares issued under the Private Placement shall be subject to a restrictive hold period of four months and one day from the date of the closing. The Company has received the conditional approval of the Private Placement from the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Voxtur

Voxtur is a transformational real estate technology company that is redefining industry standards in a dynamic lending environment. Voxtur leverages its proprietary data hub and workflow platforms to provide transparency in property valuation and tax assessment and automate processes throughout the lending lifecycle from origination to default and liquidation. This allows Voxturs clients to more accurately and efficiently value assets, originate and service loans, securitize portfolios and evaluate tax assessments. Our innovative platform aggregates complementary data sets and layers in business intelligence to generate targeted analytics and assist in the provision of technology-managed services to the property lending and property tax sectors, both public and private, in the United States and Canada. Voxtur is a brand built on innovation, execution and forward-thinking products and services.

Voxturs common shares are traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol VXTR.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act), or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to or for the account or benefit of a U.S. person (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information generally refers to information about an issuers business, capital, technology or operations that is prospective in nature, and includes future-oriented financial information about the issuers prospective financial performance or financial position. The forward-looking information in this news release includes disclosure about the Private Placement, including the terms and timing thereof and the proposed use of proceeds. The Company made certain material assumptions, including but not limited to prevailing market conditions and general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties to develop the forward-looking information in this news release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Actual results may vary from the forward-looking information in this news release due to certain material risk factors described in the Companys public filings under its profile at www.sedar.com and the risk that changing circumstances will result in the proceeds being used in a manner other than as set forth herein. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of material risk factors and assumptions is not exhaustive. The Company assumes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information in this news release, unless it is required to do so under Canadian securities legislation.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this release.
Vaccination efforts have rolled out in many countries worldwide. One of the vaccines authorized is the BNT162b2 or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Researchers at the Pitie Salpetriere Hospital, Department of Virology, Paris, France determined that in BNT162b2-vaccinated participants who received two doses, their sera harbored at least a neutralizing titer against the three SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The study findings, which appeared in the pre-print server bioRxiv*, suggest a particular humoral protection activity on the United Kingdom or South African variants after two-doses of the mRNA-vaccine.

Study background

One of the drawbacks of vaccine development is its capacity to protect against the mutated virus. It took a year to develop effective and safe vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, and if new variants are spreading, it may take longer to create updated vaccines.

Hence, scientists wanted to determine if the currently developed and authorized vaccines can protect against these new variants.

Since October 2020, three new variants have emerged from the gene encoding the Spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2. The new variants include the United Kingdom (U.K.) variant B.1.1.7 with many mutations in the fall of 2020 and the South African variant called B.1.351. Another recent variation has emerged, which is called the Brazil variant or P.1.

The new variants caused skyrocketing cases as they appear to be more transmissible. Recent studies have also shown that the U.K. variant may also cause more severe illness. However, further investigations are ongoing.

These variants harbor a specific pattern of deletion and mutations, including amino-acid replacements at key sites in the S Receptor Binding Domain (RBD).

As vaccination efforts continue, the question remained whether these variants could evade the neutralizing antibodies (NAb) induced by the mRNA vaccine.

Two recent studies have shown that only some mutations from the U.K. and S.A. variants showed weaker neutralization capacity of vaccine-elicited sera. Another study tested SARS-CoV-2-S pseudoviruses containing either the ancestral Wuhan reference strain or the U.K. spike protein with BNT162b2 vaccine-elicited sera revealed slightly reduced primarily reserved neutralizing titers against the U.K. pseudovirus. However, none of these studies were performed on clinical isolates containing the two strains' full genomic mutations.

The study

To answer the question, the researchers conducted a virus neutralization test (VNT) on sera from healthcare workers with either previous mild infection of COVID-19, either the predominant D614G strain, the U.K. strain, and the S.A. strain.

Two sets of healthcare workers were observed  a convalescent group of 15 participants infected with COVID-19 and a vaccinated group of 29 participants without any history of COVID-19.

The team collected convalescent sera six months after the onset of symptoms from healthcare workers with a positive reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. They also collected sera from those who had the vaccine three weeks after the first dose and seven days after the booster shot.

From there, the team used the SARS-CoV-2 anti-nucleocapsid (N) immunoglobulin G (IgG) assay, called the Alinity SARS-CoV-2 IgG assay by Abbott Laboratories. Further, the team also obtained and isolated SARS-CoV-2 clinical isolates D614G, U.K., and S.A. Then, the team determined the neutralizing activity of the various serum specimen.

The team found that most sera obtained contain neutralizing antibody titers, suggesting central humoral protection against either of the two variants. But, after six months post-infection, some HCWs showed no neutralizing activity against the S.A. strain.

The study findings showed that even those with COVID-19 mild infection may still need to get the vaccine for protection.

The team suggests that further studies are needed to determine the SARS-CoV-2 correlates of vaccine-induced protection based on Nab and T cell responses.

They suggested that further studies are required to determine the SARS-CoV-2 correlates 157 of vaccine-induced protection based on NAb and T cell responses.

"The long-term evaluation regarding the lasting of NAb induced by vaccination is needed to assess the durability of protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants," the team added.

*Important Notice

bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Now Playing: Video: Houston Chronicle

Galveston tenants in a HUD-subsidized complex have complained about living conditions to every level of government. They say no one has helped.

A Houston Chronicle investigation of the parent company by reporter Sarah Smith found similar complaints from tenants across the country.
March 09 : Sanjay Leela Bansalis film Gangubai Kathiawadi, starring Alia Bhatt in the lead, has been entangled in legal cases, controversies and protests. Amidst all these, the film gets a protest from a political circle as well. Maharashtra Congress MLA, Amin Patel, today demanded that the title of the upcoming film Gangubai Kathiawadi be changed.

The state Congress MLA, whose party is an ally of the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government, claimed that the title as well as the film is maligning the name of Kathiawadi area in Mumbai. Sanjay Leela Bansalis forthcoming film Gangubai Kathiawadi is a biographical crime film based on the life of a powerful madam of a brothel in Kamathipura named Gangubai Kothewali. Alia plays the most powerful Gangubai, who was loved and respected in the Kamathipura area of Mumbai during the 1960s. Besides Alia Bhatt, the film also stars Shantanu Maheshwari, Vijay Raaz, Indira Tiwari, Seema Pahwa with special cameos by Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi and Huma Qureshi. The film is scheduled for theatrical release on July 30, 2021.

Speaking in the state Assembly, Amin Patel, who represents the Mumbadevi constituency in south Mumbai, said the Kamathipura area has undergone immense changes. It is not the same like it was in 1950s. Women there are excelling in different professions. The film's title also maligns the name of Kathiawad city. The name of the film should be changed, said the MLA. Amin Patel urged the state government to look into the matter.

Meanwhile, residents of Kamathipura recently organised protests against Alia Bhatt and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The residents of Kamathipura have objected to the portrayal of the area in the film as the famous red light area in Mumbai and called it an act of defamatory and shameful. They alleged that it is an attempt to malign the 200 years of history of Kamathipura. The statement further says that it has hurt the sentiments of the residents of Kamathipura as they have worked hard to erase the social stigma attached to the name of Kamathipura, and this movie is extremely damaging to the current and future generations of Kamathipura.
Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Caribbean

H aiti's President Jovenel Moise told the UN Security Council on Monday that "democracy was doing well in Haiti" despite its ongoing political crisis, an assertion challenged by the United States, which called on him to quickly put an end to his era of "rule by decree."



Moise has been ruling by decree for a year because there currently is no parliament, and only a third of its senators are in office. Legislative elections due in 2018 were delayed.



He also maintains that his term lasts until February 2022 -- but the opposition argues it should have ended two weeks ago, in a standoff over disputed elections.



During a rare address by a head of state -- countries are usually represented by the foreign minister -- Moise said that in four years, his country "had had to face down bids to interrupt the constitutional order through violence.



"At the base of all this, there is a rejection of the democratic regime and of elections as the only means of access to the management of the affairs of the state," he said, lauding his own administration's "tireless efforts... to appease the sociopolitical climate."



"We are facing a powerful lobby which has great resources," he said during a speech that lasted 27 minutes, instead of the 15 normally granted, and that was marred by the sound and image cutting out because of a poor internet connection.



He said this lobby was associated with "sore losers" and has violently blocked the senate's regular functioning, preventing the government from being formalised and voting on a budget and an electoral law.



The president promised "limited use" of presidential decrees until the next general election scheduled for September, but Washington asked him to stop using them at all, while France said that several of the more recent ones were "a source of concern."



Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the acting US ambassador to the UN, reiterated "the need to bring the current period of rule by decree to a swift conclusion."



He said such measures should only be taken when absolutely necessary and in issues such as security and election preparations.



"We urge the government of Haiti to hold overdue legislative elections as soon as possible in order to restore the parliament's constitutional role," he said.



"Recent actions unilaterally removing and appointing three supreme court judges, creating a national intelligence agency, and actions constraining the role of Haitis independent audit agency risk damaging Haiti's core democratic institutions," he added.



The dispute in Haiti stems from Moise's original election. He was voted into office in a poll subsequently canceled after allegations of fraud, and then elected again a year later, in 2016.



The issue has led to weeks of violent protests on the streets of the poor Caribbean country.






SEOUL, March 8 (Xinhua) -- South Korea reported 20 more cases of COVID-19 variants in recent days, bringing the total number of such cases to 182, the health authorities said Monday.

Among the newly confirmed cases spotted since Thursday, 11 were imported while the remaining nine were locally transmitted, according to the Central Disease Control Headquarters.

Out of the combined variant cases, 154 came from Britain, 21 from South Africa and seven from Brazil respectively. The three variants are believed to be more transmissible than the original one.

South Korea has banned the passenger flights arriving from Britain since Dec. 23 and extended the ban till March 11 to contain the variant entry.

All entrants from foreign countries are required to take two tests for the COVID-19 before being free from the two-week self-quarantine and to offer papers showing negative test results within 72 hours of departure for South Korea.

In the latest tally, South Korea reported 346 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 92,817. The daily caseload showed signs of moderating after peaking at 1,240 on Dec. 25. Enditem

[ Editor: SRQ ]
Trudeau Says Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Faces Production Challenges

OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada has been warned of manufacturing problems plaguing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The viral vector vaccine developed by J&Js subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, was authorized by Health Canada as safe and effective last week.

Canada pre-ordered 10 million doses of the vaccine, which is the first and only one in Canadas vaccine plan that needs only one dose.

But Trudeau says Canada still doesnt have a date for when it should receive the first deliveries.

We have heard in many conversations with Johnson & Johnson that there are challenges around production of the Janssen vaccine, but we will continue to engage with them and we look forward to receiving doses as soon as possible, he said Tuesday at a news conference in Ottawa.

And as soon as we get confirmation of doses being sent to Canada, we will let everyone know.

Canadas vaccine rollout has stepped up this month, after deliveries slowed to a trickle in February. Nearly a million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were delivered last week, and 910,000 doses of Pfizers and Modernas vaccines are arriving this week.

It took Canada 67 days to vaccinate the first one million people. It should take less than one-third that time to vaccinate the second million.

As of noon Tuesday, more than 1.9 million Canadians had received at least one dose.

Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Canada isnt quite ready to follow the U.S. Centers for Disease Control with guidance for how vaccinated people can relax their public health measures.

The CDC said Monday that two weeks after getting their second doses, Americans can now visit indoors, without masks, with other fully vaccinated people, or those who are not vaccinated but are at low risk of serious illness.

Tam said there are still too many unknowns, including the effect of COVID-19 variants, and how vaccines will affect the spread of the novel coronavirus.

So I think we need to take a thoughtful approach, but it is important that we have to evolve our public health approach as more Canadians are getting vaccinated, she said.

The United States is far ahead of Canada, having now vaccinated more than one in four people. Canada has vaccinated about one in 20.

Tam said there are initial positive signs that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are preventing transmission, as well as reducing the severity of illness, but it is still early.

The emergence of variants that arent all responding as well to vaccines is also of concern, she said. Tam said Ontario now believes almost one-third of its new cases are one of those variants, with the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the United Kingdom the most common.

That variant also appears to be the most receptive to the current vaccines.

Manitoba said Tuesday it had confirmed five new cases of B.1.1.7 and eight of another variant called B.1.351, but also said there did not appear to be any community transmission of the variants.

Tam said the next couple of weeks will be critical as many provinces have just begun easing the tightest lockdowns.

We will know pretty soon, I think, as to whether we are able to keep the variants at manageable proportions while vaccines are escalated, she said. Which is why now is not the time to sort of make too many shifts in the public health measures at this time. But we will be able to do so based on what actually happens next.

The number of new cases in Canada has plateaued at about 2,900 cases per day for about three weeks but since Feb. 23, the average number of deaths per day has fallen from 54 to 37.

Newfoundland and Labrador also seems to be recovering from a major outbreak that swept through St. Johns last month. Public health officials reported one new case Tuesday and said active infections are down to 80, from 203 a week ago.

Canadas vaccine contracts set out expected deliveries by quarter and all 10 million of Canadas J&J doses are to come between April and September. But its not yet known how many are to come in the spring and how many in the summer.

Johnson & Johnson production problems are affecting Europe and the U.S. as well. Several European countries, where the vaccine isnt yet authorized, said they dont expect as many doses of it next month as originally planned.

U.S. President Joe Biden said last week when he took office he was informed Johnson & Johnson was behind on production and efforts began to find more production space. Sanofi was first contracted to help produce the vaccine in Europe and last week Biden announced Merck would help produce it in the United States.

But it will be many months before they have production lines up and running.

By Mia Rabson
U.S. Forces Korea's Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, on Mar. 8 / Yonhap



The new defense cost-sharing agreement between South Korea and the United States will be effective for six years if signed, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department said Monday.



The first detail of the agreement came one day after the countries said they have reached a consensus on the agreement that will set South Korea's share of the burden in maintaining U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula.



"The United States and Republic of Korea negotiators did reach a consensus on a proposed text of a new six-year Special Measures Agreement or SMA, that will strengthen our alliance and our shared defense," department spokesman Ned Price told a daily press briefing.



The countries earlier refused to release any details of the proposed agreement, saying it must first undergo internal reviews by their respective governments.



The new SMA, if signed, will be the 11th of its kind. The allies usually renew the agreement every five years, but the last SMA expired at the end of 2019.









"The United States and the Republic of Korea together, we're now pushing final steps needed to conclude the agreement for signature and for entry into force," Price said, referring to South Korea by its official name.





Jeong Eun-bo, right, Korea's chief negotiator in defense cost-sharing talks with the United States, and his U.S. counterpart Donna Welton in Washington, D.C., on Mar. 7. Courtesy of Ministry of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
US President Joe Bidens two dogs have been sent back home following a biting incident in the White House.

Its understood that one of his dogs, Major, bit a member of the White House security staff.

Both Major and Champ moved with the Biden family to Washington in January following Donald Trump's departure.

The two German shepherds have now been sent back to the family home in Delaware, where they are expected to remain. The condition of the individual is unknown.

Major, who is three-years-old, was adopted by the Biden family in 2018 from a Delaware animal shelter and has been known to display agitated behaviour such as jumping, barking, and charging at White House staff, according to CNN.

Read More

President Biden has previously admitted to catching Major on White House furniture such as the couch. They run all over, CNN reported Mr Biden as saying..

The older of the Biden familys dogs is Champ, a 13-year-old German shepherd that has reportedly slowed down physically due to his old age.

Jill Biden, the US First Lady, told Kelly Clarkson last month on The Kelly Clarkson Show shes obsessed with getting the dogs settled.

"They have to take the elevator, they're not used to that, and they have to go out on the south lawn with lots of people watching them. So that's what I've been obsessed with, getting everybody settled and calm," she said on the show.

The dogs twitter account, The First Dogs of the United States, tweeted as recently as yesterday a picture of Champ at the White House.
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
Georgian Dream describe leaked tapes as falsified, Georgias civil society demands further investigation

By Veronika Malinboym

The ruling Georgian Dream party released an official statement regarding the leaked recordings that allegedly feature Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, as well as Bera Ivanishvili, son of the founder of the ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili.The statement describes the tapes, which TV Pirveli aired on March 6, as fabricated and compiled out of various phrases and words taken out of other recordings. The statement also notes that the leaked tapes seem to have been a product of a long-term strategy, and that those who produced them were just waiting for the right time to release them. Finally, the statement concludes that such action and use of illegal surveillance and fabrication is typical of the United National Movements rule.Fifteen non-governmental organizations of Georgia, including Transparency International Georgia, Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC), and the Georgian Young Lawyer Association, signed a joint letter calling for the immediate investigation of the released audio tapes that allegedly contain evidence of the violation of Law by government officials. The joint statement notes that the tapes indicate that some individuals, including minors, were subjected to threats and prosecution due to their political beliefs. In the statement, the EMC claimed that although the tapes seem to be illegal, they may point to the undemocratic practice of governing of the ruling Georgian Dream party.Many opposition parties have already expressed their concerns over the released tapes and called for the immediate investigation to be launched. They also demand the resignation of the newly appointed PM Garibashvili who is featured in the tapes. However, in response to the outrage of the opposition bloc, MP of the ruling party, Mamuka Mdinaradze said that the calls for the resignation of PM Garibashvili and head of the Head of the Special Service of State Security Anzor Chubinidze is the oppositions attempt to disrupt negotiations, revenge, overthrow the current government and seize the power. Mdinaradze stated that the tapes are fabricated and aimed at angering people. He later told the media that regardless of the negative impact that the released tapes have had, he is confident that talks between the government and the opposition bloc would continue.The controversial tapes aired by TV Pirveli Channel on March 6 allegedly feature a discussion of the possible punishment to be implicated upon the minors who wrote negative comments on Bera Ivanishvilis posts on Facebook. The authenticity of the tapes has not yet been confirmed.
The PCA logo with Germinator's contract number. We look forward to working with PCA Members to provide them the highest quality of service so they can feel comfortable and secure knowing their environment has been thoroughly sanitized and disinfected.  said Jeff Gill, Founder and CEO of Germinator.

Germinator Mobile Sanitizing and Disinfecting, a national leader in a fast-growing industry, is proud to announce that it has been awarded a vendor contract with the Purchasing Cooperative of America (PCA). The companys contract number is PCA OD-399-21.

The PCA is a national purchasing cooperative thats active in all 50 states, the U.S. Territories, Canada and Mexico. Its mission is to provide innovative, best-value contracts, employ the highest ethical standards in public procurement and provide time and money savings for its members and awarded contractors. The contract allows Germinator to perform work for PCA Members across the nation, including educational institutions, government agencies, Indian tribal governments, hospitals, law enforcement and non-profits.

We are excited to have been awarded a vendor contract by the PCA, said Jeff Gill, CEO of Germinator. We look forward to working with PCA Members to provide them the highest quality of service so they can feel comfortable and secure knowing their environment has been thoroughly sanitized and disinfected.

Germinator was founded in 2015 with the vision of providing an effective method of proper sanitizing and disinfecting for businesses and households. The company uses a patent-pending methodology and is the most unique and cost-effective means of providing enhanced antimicrobial protection for businesses and residences.

Germinator first tests surfaces for ATP using a luminometer to detect light that can come from cellular activity. This measurement immediately provides the level of cleanliness on a surface. The next step is the application of Germinators Genesis surface treatment. Genesis is a one-step cleaner and broad-spectrum sanitizer and disinfectant treatment that harnesses the power of hypochlorous acid (HOCl). Derived from naturally occurring minerals, Genesis not only eliminates odors at their source but kills a wide range of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, Salmonella enterica and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and viruses including norovirus, rotavirus and adenovirus on hard, non-porous, environmental surfaces. It meets the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (AOAC) germicidal spray standards for Hospital Grade Disinfection and is on the EPAs N List of products determined to meet the criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. As a result, this treatment will eliminate bacteria and viruses that may reside in an environment without the use of harsh chemicals or fumes.

Following Genesis, Germinator applies its Shield, a water-based quaternary ammonium compound that imparts a durable bacteriostatic finish. It is EPA-registered as effective against the growth of mold, mildew, algae and odor-causing bacteria. This application creates an invisible barrier that combats deterioration and discoloration and promotes freshness for up to three months.

The Genesis and Shield products are applied by using an electrostatic sprayer, which is the most efficient and effective means of delivering the products to the intended application sites. After Germinators surface treatment and protectant services, the company retests ATP levels to ensure the surfaces have achieved the intended results.

Upholding the highest sanitization and disinfection standards, Germinator makes claims that are scientifically supported and within EPA regulations. The companys Scientific Advisory Board validates its research and processes and is responsible for reviewing and advising on product strategy and direction and assisting with navigating legislative and regulatory issues. The board includes industrial hygienists, epidemiologists, medical professionals, including a former United States Assistant Surgeon General for five administrations, as well as many respected members of the scientific community.

Germinator launched national franchising in 2019 and continues to expand across the country rapidly. With Germinator, society can now have greater peace of mind and the freedom to live or work in a sanitized and disinfected environment. For more information, visit http://www.thegerminator.com or call (855) 664-3769.
Michael Sheen, his partner Anna Lundberg and their baby daughter Lyra have been battling coronavirus for the 'last few weeks'.

The actor, 51, took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to reveal he's been 'laying low' ever since he caught the virus, which he described as 'very difficult and quite scary'.

In honour of International Women's Day, the screen star credited his girlfriend, 27, his eldest daughter Lily, 21, his mother Irene and his sister Joanne for 'supporting' him through his recovery.

'It's been very difficult and scary': Michael Sheen revealed he, his partner Anna Lundberg and their baby Lyra have been battling Covid for the 'last few weeks' in a tweet shared on Tuesday

The Good Omens actor appeared to be on the mend in an accompanying image, which he captioned: 'Ive spent the last few weeks laid low by COVID. Its been very difficult & quite scary.

'On #InternationalWomensDay I want to thank all the incredible women-Anna, Mum, Lily, Joanne, my friends & all the women I am lucky enough to have support me whove helped me through this. .' (sic)

Swedish actress Anna also took to social media to share her experience of the disease, insisting while it's been 'very challenging', the family are 'much better now than we were'.

Alongside a photo of the couple's 17-month-old child, the Staged star wrote: 'Yes, we've all been dealing with THE virus the last few weeks. Michael and Lyra caught it first and then, inevitably, so did I.

'Michael and Lyra caught it first and then, inevitably, so did I': Swedish actress Anna, 27, also took to social media to share her experience (their 17-month-old daughter pictured)

'I'm extremely grateful for our recovery': The Staged star explained while it's been 'very challenging', the family are 'much better now than we were'

Debut collaboration: Last year, the pair worked together for the first time in the second series of BBC's comedy series Staged, set at their home in South Wales during the lockdown

'It's been very challenging for all of us but luckily we're all much better now than we were. Thankfully I was lucky to only have relatively mild symptoms, which meant that I could keep focusing on Lyra and Michael.

'I'm extremely grateful for our recovery and the support we've had from friends and family. X' (sic)

The Welsh producer has been in a romance with Anna since May 2019 and they welcomed daughter Lyra four months later - meaning much of her life has been in the pandemic.

Last year, the pair worked together for the first time in the second series of BBC's comedy series Staged, set at their home in South Wales during the lockdown.

Pained: The actor, 51, who shares Lily with her ex Kate Beckinsale, recently discussed his regrets over not spending more time with their child when she was young (pictured in 2016)

Close-knit: The co-parents, who dated from 1995 until 2003, have a great relationship (Kate, Lily and Michael, pictured)

Michael, who shares Lily with her ex Kate Beckinsale, recently discussed his regrets over not spending more time with their child due to his work schedule when she was young.

Speaking on Rob Beckett And Josh Widdicombe's Lockdown Parenting Hell podcast, the activist admitted: 'I remember when Lily was born, I was working and going away and doing stuff and I really missed that time with her.'

Michael and London-born Kate, 47, went their separate ways after seven years together, but the split was made all the more complicated because they'd only recently settled in the US with their daughter Lily.
Chennai, March 9 : The seat sharing arrangement between the Congress and DMK in Puducherry is likely to be finalised here on Tuesday.

DMK president M.K. Stalin and Congress general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu Dinesh Gundurao will be meeting to discuss the issue.

Former Chief Minister and senior leader of the Congress V.Narayanasamy told IANS said, "We have almost reached a conclusion, but will finalise it in Chennai. There are certain minor issues to be ironed out and we may sign the deal today or tomorrow".

Narayanasamy was tightlipped when asked about the Chief Ministerial candidate of the alliance.

In the 2016 Assembly elections, the Congress had contested in 21 seats and the DMK in 9 in the 30-member Assembly of Puducherry.

Several senior Congress leaders, including party's state working president A.K.D. Arumugham left the party to join the BJP. Senior leader and former minister Namasivayam had also raised a banner of revolt and then joined the BJP.

V.Narayanasamy also said that the party would come back to power in the next Assembly election. He said: "Only a few leaders have left the Congress and the cadres are intact and we will give a fitting reply to the BJP in the elections." The seat sharing arrangement between the BJP and AIADMK, PMK combine is also not finalised and is also likely to be completed by Tuesday evening or early morning on Wednesday, sources said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
On March 8, 1971, eight burglars broke into a small FBI office in a suburb of Philadelphia, stealing documents they leaked to three newspapers and two politicians.

The break-in and the stories that followed marked the beginning of the end of J. Edgar Hoovers decades-long reign atop the FBI and helped expose the massive Cointelpro, or counterintelligence, operation that investigated and spied on anti-war activists, students, Black Panthers and Black citizens.
BOSTON and LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 80% of businesses say the future of their company is threatened by late payments, a result of outdated accounts receivable (AR) processes, according to a new report from global payment technology expert BlueSnap.

The new research reveals that current AR practices are impacting cash flow, human resources and customer retention while also being a drain on senior executive time within B2B businesses.

The BlueSnap Progressing Payments Report found that 93% of organizations experience negative consequences due to their current approaches to AR, with more than a third (37%) unable to forecast cash flow accurately.

On average more than a quarter (27%) of customers exceed their payment terms, resulting in 30% of an organization's monthly revenue being tied up in AR. This is such a major issue that 81% of businesses agree that the future of their business is threatened by a lack of cash flow, brought on by overdue invoices.

A major culprit in all of this is the reliance on manual AR processes, with 99% of senior decision makers admitting that at least part of their organization's practices are not automated. These included faxing (32%) and mailing (40%) invoices and accepting payments in cash (13%) and physical cheque (11%).

The use of manual processes not only increases the risk of human error but also demands more time and resource spent managing invoices. On average, senior decision makers estimate that a total of 11 working hours are spent managing a single invoice, with 71% reporting that up to 15 people are involved in this process.

"Cash flow is rightly considered king, yet at a time when revenues are under continual pressure, many businesses rely on outdated, manual processes to manage it all," said Ralph Dangelmaier, CEO at BlueSnap. "The only way for companies to improve forecasting accuracy, track invoices and reconcile payments efficiently is to digitize and automate as much of the process as possible.

"Many of the organizations we spoke to consider themselves to be on their digital transformation journey, but the results show that when it comes to payments, B2B firms still have a long way to go compared with their B2C counterparts."

Respondents recognized the need for change  95% thought they should be investing more in AR automation and payment technologies, with predicted benefits including improved cash flow (32%), better forecasting and planning (30%), and reducing late invoices (27%).

However, they also saw the opportunity for increased growth  28% believe it would give their organization the ability to invest and grow, while 25% linked AR automation to winning more business from existing customers.

"As more and more businesses digitize their entire organization, and the lines blur between markets, those companies that can react quickest will be the ones that succeed," explained Dangelmaier. "That means automating as many processes as possible. This is the only way they can cut the opportunity for error, improve overall accuracy and access the data they need much faster. In doing so, they can understand how much cash they actually have and see where the opportunities for investment and growth lie."

Notes to editor

The BlueSnap Progressing Payments Report was fielded in October/November 2020 and gathered data from a total of 800 senior decision makers (500 respondents from the US and 300 respondents from the UK), working in organizations with global annual revenues of between US$5 million and $1 billion.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Hard Numbers Team for BlueSnap

[email protected]

About BlueSnap

BlueSnap's All-in-One platform helps B2B and B2C businesses increase sales and reduce costs by providing everything they need to automate accounts receivable and take payments globally. Our Platform enables global digital invoicing with embedded payments, subscriptions, customer communications, payments reconciliation and a branded customer portal. Businesses can accept any payment with ease and manage invoicing globally  from proposal to payment. The Platform includes access to 110 payment types, built-in world-class fraud prevention to protect sales and detailed analytics to help businesses grow. Learn more about all the ways BlueSnap can help your business at www.bluesnap.com

SOURCE Bluesnap
Advertisement

The first juror to have been confirmed on day one of jury selection in Derek Chauvins trial claims not to have seen the infamous nine-minute clip during which George Floyd died under the ex-Minneapolis police officers knee.

The juror - the second potential juror to be called on Tuesday morning - told defense attorney Eric Nelson that he had not seen the video but was familiar with still images of the notorious incident that sparked protest across the world.

The anonymous white man, a chemist by profession, described himself as a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But he said that he didnt love the organization which he viewed as too extreme, adding, All lives should matter.

Earlier this morning the first potential juror, a Mexican mother of three, was excused after the defense used one of their 15 peremptory challenges to have her dismissed.

Chauvin's attorney had sought to convince Judge Peter Cahill to strike the juror for cause due to language difficulties but while Cahill described the juror as unsophisticated, he did not agree that her language was a significant barrier to her serving.

Derek Chauvin is seen above looking through papers and jotting down notes on the first day of jury selection in his murder trial in Minneapolis on Tuesday

The defense was forced to use one of its challenges - citing as a reason one of the answers she gave on the prospective jurors lengthy questionnaire in which she stated she would like to serve because she wanted people to know her opinion, of the case.

Shortly after lunch potential juror 9 became the second juror, and first woman of color, selected to the Chauvin case.

The young woman from northern Minnesota described herself as super excited to be called to be part of the jury pool in such a high profile case.

She said that she had seen the video of Floyds death only once and revealed that she has an uncle who is a police officer in the state, but was clear that it would not affect her ability to be fair and impartial in this case.

As with the first juror selected she said that she supported the idea of Black Lives Matter but was not a fan of the organization.

She said, I like the idea of what theyre supposed to stand for but I think its been turned into a propaganda thing by big companies just saying, buy our stuff.

She said that she believed that Blue Lives Matter was no better and had simply piggybacked off the hashtag.

Speaking at the end of the days jury selection Floyds cousin, Shareedhuh McGhee Tate, 50, explained that every aspect of the trial is important to the family and that she felt compelled to witness this part of the process.

She said, Those people are going to be responsible for processing the information thats provided during the testimony.

We [as a family] are committed to be here and active and present and seeking justice at every turn, the jury selection is no different.

Tate who lives in Houston said that she had traveled to Minneapolis on Sunday. She will be representing the family in court until Thursday when, she said, another family member will swap in. We have family rotating in and out, she said.

Tate, who is four years older than Floyd, said that she knew the coming weeks would be difficult as the family were forced to relive the horror of her cousins death.

But, she said, We are a strong body of believer and we have a strong faith and a strong family unit and Im confident well be able to get through it just like we have up to this point.

Hennepin County sheriff's deputies detain an activist gathering outside the Hennepin County Government Center before the second day of jury selection begins at the trial of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin on Tuesday

The man is seen second to right being led away in handcuffs by Hennepin County Sheriff's Deputies in Minneapolis on Tuesday

Chauvin was back in court this morning as jury selection, which was halted before it even got started Monday, began in earnest on Tuesday.

Cahill stalled yesterdays proceedings while he waited word from the States Court of Appeal over whether selection could proceed while the exact charges that Chauvin faces remain pending.

But he made clear his intention to press on today.

Outside the courthouse, Hennepin County Sheriff's deputies were seen taking one protester into custody.

The man who appeared to be in his 40s or 50s was seen holding a portrait of Floyd as he was being handcuffed by sheriff's deputies.

A spokesperson for Hennepin County Sheriff's Department said the protester was given a citation and was not arrested.

Chauvin is currently charged with second degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after Judge Cahill removed a lesser charge of third-degree murder last October.

But three judges from the Minnesota State Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the judge had erred in that ruling and instructed Cahill to consider reinstating the charge that carries a maximum sentence of 25 years and may present the prosecutions best chance of securing a conviction.

Indeed, a potentially damaging leak published by the New York Times in February, revealed that Chauvin, 44, had agreed to plead guilty to this lesser charge in a plea deal that ultimately fell apart when the then Attorney General William Barr rejected it.

Cahill ruled on pretrial motions on Tuesday, setting parameters for trial testimony.

Among them, Cahill said jurors will hear when Chauvin stopped working for the police department, but they will not be told that he was fired or that the city made a 'substantial offer' to settle a lawsuit with Floyds family.

Those details will not be allowed because they could imply guilt, Cahill said.

The city had no immediate comment when asked about the settlement offer. A message left with an attorney for the Floyd family was not immediately returned.

Cahill also ruled that a firefighter who can be heard in the bystander video, urging the officers to check Floyds pulse, will be allowed to testify about what she saw, and whether she thought medical intervention was needed, but she will not be able to speculate that she could have saved Floyd if she had intervened.

The man is seen above wearing glasses and a knitted cap as sheriff's deputies pin him up against a vehicle in Minneapolis on Tuesday

The man is seen with a portrait of George Floyd in his hand as he is being taken into custody on Tuesday by Hennepin County Sheriff's deputies

In addition, testimony about what training Chauvin received will be allowed.

Prospective jurors have been drawn from the predominantly white and left-leaning, Hennepin County.

The defense had sought to see the jury pool taken from a more rural, conservative area.

Each potential juror was sent a lengthy questionnaire ahead of the one-to-one selection process now expected to start this morning.

The 14-page document seen by DailyMail.com was distributed in December and includes question such as whether the prospective jurors have seen the infamous video showing 46-year-old Floyd dying under Chauvins knee, if they have formed views of Floyd or Chauvin and if they believe themselves able to set any opinions aside and apply the law as instructed.

Both the defense and prosecution agreed to strike sixteen of the first 50 potential jurors Monday afternoon in decisions based on their answers and the intense background searches conducted by both the prosecution and the defense ahead of individual selection, or voire dire.

Just outside the courthouse, two men held artwork depicting George Floyd on Monday

Toussaint Morrison speaks to the crowd of Black Lives Matter supporters outside the courthouse in Minneapolis on Monday

A woman wears a face mask that reads 'Black Lives Matter' while holding a portrait of George Floyd outside the courthouse in Minneapolis on Monday

Both sides are expected to have scrutinized prospective jurors social media as well as possible conflicts of interest and criminal records in a bid to establish what views they may truly hold.

The defense has 15 peremptory strikes at jury selection while the prosecution has nine chances to get rid of jurors they deem undesirable.

With jury selection halted Judge Cahill instead heard a host of pretrial motions in the afternoon as the prosecution and defense hammered out many rules of engagement regarding treatment of witnesses, language to be used in court, sequestration of witnesses and basic decorum.

Protesters gather at New York City's Bryant Park and march through streets in memory of George Floyd on the first day of Minneapolis trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin

Protesters held up signs denouncing the police and waved portraits of Floyd as they marched through Manhattan

A demonstrator holds up an image of George Floyd in New York City on Monday

The trials of the four officers involved in Floyd's arrest and subsequent death will be highly anticipated nationwide

A Black Lives Matter protester stands opposite a New York Police Department officer in Manhattan on Monday

One of the many defense motions to which the prosecution agreed was a decision not to call Doctors Michael Baden and Alicia Wilson as witnesses. Baden and Wilson were recruited by the Floyd family to conduct an independent autopsy.

They concluded that Floyd died solely of asphyxiation, unlike the states Medical Examiner who listed several potential comorbidities or underlying health issues including untreated hypertension, COVID-19 and the presence of fentanyl in Floyds system.

In fact, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank said that the state did not intend to call the experts whose opinions some have said could actually aid the defense by introducing potential confusion and dissent among jurors.

One motion at which Judge Cahill expressed bemusement was the defense request that Floyds death should not be compared to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Black Lives Matter demonstrators march through the streets of Chicago on Monday night

The demonstrators in the Windy City took to the streets as the trial of Derek Chauvin got underway about 400 miles away in Minneapolis

A woman holds a Black Lives Matter sign during a demonstration in Chicago on Monday

A Black Lives Matter supporter holds a sign that reads 'Black Women Matter' in Chicago on Monday

A Black Lives Matter supporter holds a sign that reads 'Get your knee off our necks' in Chicago on Monday

A protester in Chicago wears a mask that reads 'Defund the police' on Monday

Judge Cahill asked Frank, How did that question even come up? before stating that under no circumstances would that analogy be used.

Judge Cahill knocked back the defense request to reveal details of a prior arrest in 2019 in which Floyd consumed a large quantity of methamphetamine as officers approached and required hospitalization.

Asked what relevance this had in relation to Chauvins potential crime his attorney Eric Nelson said it showed, A modus operandi of Mr Floyd...Is he actively ingesting narcotics that could cause his death?

Nelson, an attorney from the Halberg Criminal Defense firm based in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, pointed out that traces of narcotics were found in Floyds car and fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in Floyds blood.

But though Judge Cahill left it open for the defense to raise the issue again during trial he said, Ill be honest Im not convinced. I could see how that might be relevant if Mr Chauvin was part of that arrest or knew about that arrest. He could say, I have knowledge that this is how George Floyd reacts to this situation.

But Im not convinced yet. I dont see that it is a modus operandi that is relevantand any probative value is certainly outweighed by its prejudicial nature.

Demonstrators hold a vigil in honor of George Floyd in Atlanta on Monday

Mourners light candles underneath a portrait of Floyd in Atlanta as the Chauvin trial got underway in Minneapolis

Mina Turabi chants with demonstrators while holding a vigil in honor of George Floyd in Atlanta on Monday

Several demonstrators are seen above lighting candles during a vigil for Floyd on Monday

Chauvin is the first of the four officers charged in connection with the death of Floyd to face trial.

Former officers Tou Thao, 35, Thomas Lane, 38 and J Alexander Keung, 27, are all charged aiding and abetting Second Degree Murder and Second Degree Manslaughter and will be tried together in August.

Opening statements in Chauvins trial are slated to begin Monday 29 allowing a remarkable three weeks for jury selection.

Chauvin's legal representation is being provided by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association (MPPOA) which draws from a panel of about a dozen attorneys, which includes both Nelson and the lawyer he replaced in June, Tom Kelly of Kelly & Jacobson.

Kelly told Reuters he gave up the case for medical-related reasons. The case was assigned to him by the association, which provides legal services to Minnesota's police, because he was the on-call attorney at the time of Chauvin's arrest, Kelly said.
New Delhi, March 9: While we celebrate International Womens Day, it is worth pondering over India's historic contribution in pioneering women's empowerment that has its beginnings in the early 19th Century.

India's campaign for gender parity was indeed quite different from the worldwide movement for equal rights among men and women. While women globally aimed for equality in terms of wages, access to health and education, and political rights, Indian women, also had to tackle culture and social specific issues including, inheritance laws, child marriage, status of widows, and the barbaric custom of bride burning called Sati.

In fact, unlike its Western counterpart, India's women's movement was pioneered by men, to be later joined by women.

Taking a lead in this reformation movement for gender parity were greats such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy who established the social and religious reform movement Brahmo Samaj in 1828. To prove that the "superstitious practices which deform the Hindu religion have nothing to do with the pure spirit of its dictates!", he went to channelize his energies and that of Brahmo Samaj, against the practice of Sati, polygamy, child marriage and caste rigidity.

The Hindu custom in which a wife immolated herself at the funeral pyre of her husband was witnessed by Roy, when his brother's wife did it in 1811. Deeply disturbed, he went to become the first Indian to protest against the practice. Historian A.L. Basham points out that Roy advocated that Sati was against the women's right to live.

According to "Sati: Historical and Phenomenological Essays" by Arvind Sharma, ""the dreadful responsibility hanging over his head in this world and the next, if... he was to consent to the continuance of this practice (sati) one moment longer." Convincing people against this cruel act, he tried to enlighten them and finally prevailed upon the British to ban it. The Bengal Sati Regulation was passed in 1829 by Lord William Bentinck.

Roy's efforts were followed by that of several other reformists.

Widow remarriage Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted educator and social reformer was one of the prominent campaigner for widow remarriage. It was his persistent endeavour along with others, that saw the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act being enacted in 1856. It legalized the remarriage of Hindu widows in regions under the East India Company rule. This legislation was the first major social reform legislation after the abolition of Sati by Lord William Bentinck.

Education for women Swami Dayanand Saraswati, who founded Arya Samaj in 1875 strongly advocated education for girls. In his publication Satyarth Prakash, first published in 1875, he stated that to improve the status of women by eradicating social evils, education was a must. What is remarkable is that he recommended that for marital happiness, both husband and wife should be well educated. He felt that girls should have knowledge of five subjects, namely, philosophy, grammar, music, medicine and art.

Schools for girls Thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra, Jyotirao Govindrao Phule, called for educating girls and with his wife Savitribai Phule, pioneered women education in India. On realizing that education was the key to emancipation, he first taught his wife to read and write, and established India's first girls' school in 1848 in Vishrambagh Wada, Pune. By 1852, there were three schools with 273 girl students.

Besides this, the husband-wife team on realizing the condition of widows, worked for their remarriage and providing facilities to the pregnant widows for child birth.

Woman as a leader and lawmaker In the South, Tamil writer, poet and social reformer, Subramania Bharati took up the case for women's emancipation and fought against child marriage. Bharati fought the cause for a new kind of Indian woman whom he saw as a leader, and lawmaker. He wanted them to be free, independent and completely empowered.

Interestingly, Bharati was inspired by Sister Nivedita, Swami Vivekananda's spiritual heir, to realise the need for privileges for women and their uplift. He met her during his return from the All India Congress session in Benaras in 1905.

The list of such reformers is endless. Taking a cue from these trailblazers, much remains to be accomplished before women become free of gender prejudice in all its manifestations at home and in the workplace and everything that falls in-between.

(This content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com)
LANSING, Mich., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to Governor Whitmer's line-item veto of key provisions in the Legislature's supplemental budget, the Michigan Chamber voiced frustration that the Governor rejected support for businesses that were forced by government to shut down and/or operate under strict limitations that have severely limited their ability to operate.

The Governor's line-item vetoes included $300 million in direct financial relief for businesses most adversely impacted by the MI Department of Health and Human Services' Epidemic Orders and $150 million in funding to help stabilize the Unemployment Trust Fund ("Fund") due to massive fraud perpetuated by the gross mismanagement of the Unemployment Insurance Agency.

"House Republicans led the charge on a comprehensive, thoughtful and significant COVID-19 business relief plan that would have helped the businesses that have experienced the greatest hardships during this pandemic," said Dan Papineau, Director of Tax Policy and Regulatory Affairs. "If government forces a business to close or significantly impacts their ability to operate, then government must put forward fair and meaningful financial relief.

"We support the bipartisan COVID-19 relief package sent to the Governor and are disappointed with the line-item vetoes," Papineau continued. "For the third time, Governor Whitmer has vetoed relief to help struggling businesses cover their property tax bills. Businesses forced to close for almost an entire year are obviously going to have a hard time paying property taxes to local governments. This legislation would have alleviated a huge financial burden on struggling businesses while ensuring our local governments receive the resources they need at such a critical time," said Papineau.

Local governments are already facing hardships through dramatic losses in local income tax revenue as well as economic activity by way of foot traffic in their local downtowns. The Michigan Chamber is leading the effort to help head off this problem by creating the Reopen Now, Reopen Safely Coalition.

The Governor also vetoed funding that would help stabilize the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, the fund that pays benefits to claimants.

"During the height of the pandemic the Unemployment Insurance Agency decided fraud detection wasn't a priority and turned off its fraud detection software thereby saddling job providers with a huge tax burden to cover governmental mismanagement," said Wendy Block, Vice President of Business Advocacy and Member Engagement. "As a direct result of Agency willfully ignoring fraud, more than $800 million in fraudulent unemployment claims were paid to criminal claimants."

"Unemployment insurance is 100% employer financed and the financial support Governor Whitmer vetoed would have covered fraudulent claims that struggling Michigan businesses will have to now pay for," continued Block. "Business in an already weak position should not be left paying for questionable decisions and mistakes by government."

The Michigan Chamber is a statewide business organization that represents approximately 5,000 employers, trade associations and local chambers of commerce. The Chamber represents businesses of every size and type in all 83 counties of the state. It was established in 1959 to be an advocate for Michigan job providers in the legislative, political and legal process. www.michamber.com

SOURCE Michigan Chamber of Commerce

Related Links

http://www.michamber.com


Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
MALDEN, Missouri  A Baptist pastor gave a sermon imploring women to lose weight, appear less butch and to ensure their husbands are sexually satisfied, saying they need to strive to become more like former first lady Melania Trump, whom he calls the epic trophy wife.

The sermon late last month at First General Baptist Church resulted in Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark being placed on leave, USA Today reports. Clark is now seeking professional counseling, according to Insider

USA Today reports Clarks sermon was roundly condemned by critics, who said it was not suited for a religious sermon. He is accused of making sexist, racist and homophobic comments.

Now look, Im not saying every woman can be the epic, epic trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump. Im not saying that at all, Clark said during the sermon. Most women cant be trophy wives, but you know, maybe youre a participation trophy.

Pastor Stewart Allen-Clark tells congregation that women need to work harder to look good for men. Im not saying every woman can be the epic trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump. Most women cant be trophy wives, but you know ... maybe youre a participation trophy. pic.twitter.com/5GfyqIeQZw  Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 6, 2021

Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark believes all women should look like Melania Trump and all men should look like Jared from Subway. pic.twitter.com/cUHw5jkLxK  Mr. Newberger (@jeremynewberger) March 7, 2021

I dont know, but all I can say is not everybody looks like (Trump). Amen! Not everybody looks like that. But you dont need to look like a butch either.

Clark said that its in mens nature to look at attractive women, so thats why its important that wives remain fit for their husbands.

Ladies, its the way God made us. Its the way we are. Men are going to look, he said. He made us to look. You want them to be looking at you. Dont let yourself go.

Let me tell you something. I have a friend. He has put a divorce weight on his wife, Clark said, according to the Kansas City Star. Thats how important this is.

General Baptist Ministries issued a statement saying the sermon included comments that are not consistent with the positions and values of General Baptists.

General Baptists believe that every woman was created in the image of God, and they should be valued for that reason, the statement says. Furthermore, we believe that all individuals regardless of any other factors are so loved by God that Christ died for them.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Posted Monday, March 8, 2021 6:15 am

On Tuesday, March 2, a bill that could help people convicted of a crime get back into the workforce after serving time unanimously passed in the state House of Representatives, according to a news release.

House Bill 1399 would create a process for a person with a criminal conviction that would determine whether that criminal history would disqualify them from obtaining a professional license.

The release said state Rep. Brandon Vick, R-Vancouver, has been championing the legislation for years and said he was pleased to see the bill move forward.

"This should make it a little easier for anyone who has paid their debt to society and wants to get back into the workforce," Vick said.

The bill would create a process for individuals convicted of a crime to apply for and receive a professional license and would let them know before they pay fees or fines if they are eligible to receive the license they are seeking.

Another important goal of the legislation is to help reduce the tendency of reoffense. Vick said he wants to make it easier for people to get back into the workforce, instead of creating barriers that keep them from moving forward.

"Too many times, people get frustrated as they try to reintegrate back into society and eventually, they end up reoffending." Vick said. "We need to offer help to anyone in this situation as much as we can, when they desire to start contributing to their communities in positive ways."

The bill does take into consideration the type of crime committed in relation to the type of license being sought.

"Obviously, if someone commits a financial crime, he or she would not be able to get a license in the financial sector," Vick said. "But if someone wanted to become a trade worker, like a plumber for example, a non-related conviction from the past shouldn't prevent him or her from getting licensed in Washington."

The bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration.
A YMCA staff member assists a child as they attend online classes at a learning hub inside the Crenshaw Family YMCA, as schools remain closed to in-person instruction, in Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 17, 2021. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

LA Teachers Warned Not to Share Vacation Photos as Union Resists Return to Classrooms

Los Angeles teachers were told recently not to share pictures if they choose to travel for spring break, as their union resists what it deems a premature return to in-person instruction.

In a message posted in a private United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) Facebook group, teachers were told, If you are planning any trips for Spring Break, please keep that off of Social Media.

It is hard to argue that it is unsafe for in-person instruction, if parents and the public see vacation photos and international travel, the post read.

Two answers were visible in the screenshot shared by a Fox 11 reporter. One said, Amen. Another respondent added, Or better yet, dont travel on spring break and set an example.

The group boasts more than 5,700 members and only accepts teachers who are part of the UTLA.

The union told Fox 11 when asked about the post, We have a diverse membership and they are able to post their views on personal Facebook pages and in this Facebook grouphowever, UTLA does not monitor nor is responsible for the content.

Members of UTLA, one of the largest teachers unions in the nation, overwhelmingly voted last week against returning to classrooms unless a number of steps were taken first, including improved ventilation.

Out of 24,580 ballots cast, 91 percent were for resisting premature and unsafe physical return to school sites, the union said.

A student plays the flute while wearing a mask during a music class at the Sinaloa Middle School in Novato, Calif., on March 2, 2021. (Haven Daily/AP Photo)

UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a video statement on March 1 that reopening must not happen until Los Angeles County is moved out of the purple tier in Californias tiered COVID-19 system.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Purple is the most restrictive tier of the states color-coded system, and indicates that the risk level of transmission of the virus is widespread. Of Californias 58 counties, 40 were classified as purple as of March 2, the last day the labels were updated on the state health agencys website.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner said on March 8 that he hopes to reopen middle and high schools in late April, a few weeks after reopening elementary schools.

The target remains mid-April for preschool and elementary school students, as well as students with learning difficulties and disabilities, and the end of April for secondary schools. Our goal is to do this as soon as possible and in the safest way possible. Not in any way possible, the safest way possible, he said in a broadcast to students and parents.

More schools across the nation have been reopening in recent weeks as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths drop, with 46.9 percent of K-12 students attending in-person schooling every day, according to Burbio, a company that aggregates school district calendars.

But unions in some areas are insisting on a slew of measures before returning to classrooms. Union officials say the measures are needed to ensure the safety of educators and students. Critics allege teachers are holding out for unrealistic demands.

California sits last in Burbios in-person index, meaning it has moved slowly to return to in-person schooling.

While virtually all schools in America closed in spring 2020 during the pandemic, some began reopening several months later.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a $6.6 billion school reopening bill last week. The legislation provides money to schools that reopen campuses to bolster safety measures. Schools arent forced to reopen but those that dont by April 1 will begin losing 1 percent of the funds they would receive every day they remain closed.
Fear and rage is prevalent in America.

For much of the last year, Black Lives Matter activists marched through downtown streets across Michigan and the country to protest police brutality and racial injustice. Though largely peaceful, the protests turned violent at times when demonstrators destroyed property and clashed with police and counter-protesters.

Later in the year, crowds of mostly-white protesters swarmed vote-counting centers and government offices to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election. Fury over election lies culminated in a domestic terror attack as a violent mob broke into the U.S. Capitol to prevent the election from being confirmed on Jan. 6.

Republican leaders were quick to draw comparisons between the insurrection and Black Lives Matter protests. Members of Congress argued Democrats expressed selective outrage when former President Donald Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection. Some lawmakers claimed anti-fascists who were involved in the Black Lives Matter movement agitated the Capitol siege, though FBI officials have said theres no evidence that anarchists or antifa are connected to the attack.

Black activists caution that the two situations have little in common.

BLM events were sparked by the death of a Black man at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The election fraud protests were based on a lie.

What preceded the (BLM) protests was murder, said Angela Austin, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Michigan. The people who were murdered were painted by the White House, by an entire political party, as the perpetrators of their own murders. The politicization was a part of the entire campaign to discredit Black Lives Matter and double down to the furthest extremes of the right.

Branden Snyder, executive director of Detroit Action, a civic engagement organization, said comparisons between BLM demonstrations and the Jan. 6 attack are ridiculous.

These things werent being orchestrated by the sitting president or sitting elected officials, to go out to attack disrupt and dismantle another part of the government, Snyder said. People were rallying and coming together because they were tired of seeing death on their social media, they were tired of seeing Black and brown folks killed the hands of police officers. They werent fed up about a president who loses.

Leaders of a U.S. Senate committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 attack offered conflicting portrayals of threats facing the country. Democrats argued activity among anti-fascist groups and BLM are not equivalent to a violent attempt to overthrow the election, while Republicans pointed to deaths and property damage connected to events in Portland, Oregon and other major cities.

Data collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project found the vast majority of protests associated with Black Lives Matter were peaceful. ACLED analyzed 10,330 demonstrations connected to BLM in 2020. It found 94% of the events involved no violent or destructive activity.

ACLED recorded 339 peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in Michigan from Jan. 1, 2020 through the end of February 2021. Eight events were categorized as violent demonstrations, including four events in Detroit, two in Kalamazoo, one in Grand Rapids and one in Lansing.

By that count, only 2% of the BLM protests in Michigan were violent.

ACLED data shows violent demonstrations largely occurred over a five-day period at the end of May and early June. While much attention has been paid to the destructive events, ACLED data shows 80 peaceful BLM protests occurred across 26 Michigan counties during the same time period.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before a Senate panel Tuesday that white supremacists are the top domestic terror threat facing America. Wray said the FBI observed an increase in lethal attacks performed by anti-government extremists, specifically militia groups and anarchists.

The argument over how to prioritize federal law enforcement resources has significant implications.

Michael German, a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice and former FBI special agent, said efforts to brand antifa as a terrorist threat distracted from investigations into violent white supremacists and far-right militants. German said far-right extremists are more likely to organize violence to achieve their political goals.

Jakana Thomas, an associate professor at Michigan State University who researches political violence, said thats a key difference between the Jan. 6 attack and riots from last summer.

When we talk about a riot what were talking about is politically motivated use of violence, but its disorganized, Thomas said. Theres often no organization around it and the rioting itself is not to serve a political purpose. In the days after the Capitol violence, we saw there were massive amounts of planning. This was organized with a political intent to terrorize.

Wray, the FBI director, testified that many people who were in Washington, D.C. to protest the election result were peaceful. He described another group of people who were caught up in the chaos and broke the law by entering the Capitol. Meanwhile, a third group came to Washington, D.C. with premeditated plans for violence.

Federal charging documents allege leaders of paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys gathered military-style equipment and developed strategies to break past police barriers and enter the Capitol weeks before the Jan. 6 siege.

Five people were killed during the attack, while more than 140 police officers reported injuries. Two pipe bombs were found at the Republican Party and Democratic Party headquarters, and federal authorities found some agitators had prepared caches of weapons.

What we saw was people using violence, and the threat of violence against Congress, in order to alter the political process, Thomas said. People were ready for war.

Agitators fought police with their fists, pepper spray and improvised weapons, causing lawmakers to flee the Capitol as they were certifying the election.

More than 200 people have been arrested for their role in the Jan. 6 attack, but others who were trespassing on federal property have yet to face any charges.

Jeramiah Caplinger, a 25-year-old Taylor resident, told MLive he climbed a wall and entered the Capitol because he felt like police were permitting people into the building. Caplinger said he was not directly told he could enter the Capitol, but assumed it was allowed when he saw police stand by as people moved past barricades.

They have video proof of officers saying that you may come in, Caplinger said in an interview. Theyre standing on the sides as they see all these people come in.

Black activists were shocked to watch a majority of the mob leave freely.

I just remembered all the times where I had been in harms way from the authorities or almost getting run over by white civilians because of peaceful protests, said Dorian Minley, head organizer for the Detroit Queer Activist Coalition. There were weeks where every day there was violence from authorities to protesters. Now Im watching 8 or 9 hours of not only rioting but straight-up terrorism.

Sammie Lewis, an organizer with Detroit Will Breathe, said police brutalized Black protesters. She suffered tear gas and sustained bruises last summer and witnessed demonstrators being beaten by police.

We faced severe consequences and harsh critiques for exercising our right to protest, Lewis said. The way police respond to us, versus the people at the Capitol makes clear that ally-ship between the right-wing and the police. That find leniency towards the right-wing is what encourages violence toward (our) movement.

Detroit Will Breathe sued the city of Detroit, Chief James Craig and several police officers alleging that protesters faced excessive force. The complaint states police used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, disorienting sound cannons and put demonstrators in chokeholds.

These demonstrations have been overwhelmingly peaceful, the lawsuit states. However, Defendants have responded with grossly disproportionate violence.

Protests in Detroit started on May 29, 2020, four days after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers. An estimated crowd of 1,500 demonstrators marched in downtown Detroit.

The demonstration started peacefully but turned violent when rioters threw rocks and bottles at police officers, hospitalizing one officer. Police fired tear gas canisters and tackled protesters while making arrests. A man was shot and killed near a gathering of protesters, but the incident was not connected to the demonstration.

The next day, hundreds of people again demonstrated in Detroit. Police intervened with tear gas and rubber bullets. Rioters responded by throwing back tear gas canisters and lighting fireworks.

On the other side of the state, demonstrations in Grand Rapids that started peacefully also turned violent during the night of May 30. Rioters broke windows of downtown businesses and lit fire to dumpsters and parked police vehicles. A Grand Rapids police officer fired a spede-heat chemical round at a non-violent demonstrator, striking them in the shoulder.

The next day, Lansing buildings were damaged during a protest that started peacefully during the day and continued through the night. A woman drove through a crowd of demonstrators before being stopped by police a few blocks from the state Capitol. Police apprehended the woman and protesters flipped and burned the vehicle.

Later that night, vandals smashed the windows of downtown businesses and the building housing Gov. Gretchen Whitmers office. Police used pepper spray to disperse the crowds.

The Michigan National Guard was activated in Grand Rapids and Lansing after those events on May 30 and 31.

Demonstrators in Kalamazoo became destructive on June 1 after several days of peaceful protests. Vandals smashed windows, destroyed property and spray-painting buildings, while police used tear gas to clear the streets.

The city instituted a 7 p.m. curfew and brought in the National Guard and Michigan State Police the next day. Protesters returned to the streets in Kalamazoo on June 2. Police used tear gas again to remove demonstrators who stayed out after the curfew.

The Proud Boys, a self-described western chauvinist group, marched in Kalamazoo a few months later. Local police were staged off-site to avoid a confrontation, but that left officers nowhere to be found when the group began brawling with counter-protesters in the streets.

Members of the Proud Boys used pepper spray and sticks as weapons. Some carried with firearms. One person carried a sign reading racism does not exist. Another was photographed flashing symbols associated with white power.

When police arrived, they arrested Kalamazoo citizens, including an MLive reporter and a legal observer, while not arresting any Proud Boys. Kalamazoos public safety chief was fired after the incident, though the city told residents she retired.

Ed Genesis, a lead organizer for Michigan United focused on criminal justice reform, said the incident exposed how Black activists are treated differently.

We know that if we get too much out of line, we will be killed, Genesis said. I am warned that all the time by being a Black organizer.

BLM protests remained peaceful, according to ACLED data, until June 28. A Detroit police SUV drove through a crowd of protesters after a crowd surrounded the vehicle and smashed the rear window.

The final violent demonstration occurred on July 10, when several hundred people marched to the police station in Detroit to protest a police shooting of Hakim Littleton. Water bottles and bricks were thrown at police, injuring two officers.

Thomas, the MSU professor, said right-wing groups are trying to compare disorganized violence at racial justice protests to the planned Capitol attack because the Black Lives Matter movement has gained more legitimacy in the mainstream.

Overall, peaceful demonstrations occurred in 50 of Michigans 83 counties. Business organizations and political leaders on both sides of the political aisle supported calls for police reform while disowning the violent elements of demonstrations.

Meanwhile, right-wing groups that were involved in the Jan. 6 attack have been widely denounced by Republicans, including Trump.

Its an attempt to try to legitimize themselves, but at the same time, I also think thats an attempt to disparage the Black Lives Matter movement by rewriting the narrative, Thomas said.

READ MORE ON MLIVE:

More voters want to see women in politics address sexism head-on. Experts say thats a sign of progress.

Michigan completes general election audits, no foul play found

A glimpse inside Michigans evolving marijuana shop experience

When will I get vaccinated? The No. 1 pandemic question thats making Michiganders nervous
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The American states of New York and Florida are preparing to make COVID-19 vaccines available to people aged 60 and over, as the vaccination campaign in the United Statesthe world's worst-hit country in the pandemicaccelerates.

As of March 10, New York state residents aged 60 and older will be able to be vaccinated, Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a press briefing on Tuesday, though appointments continue to be difficult to obtain on government websites.

In New York, as in many other US states, the vaccinesinitially reserved for caregivers and nursing home residentsare already being offered to those over 65 and to people with underlying health conditions, as well as to a growing number of workers deemed essential, such as firefighters and police.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also announced Monday that people over 60 will be eligible from March 15 to apply for the vaccine there.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has given guidance at the federal level on priority populations for the vaccine, states are then free to set their own criteria.

In a decentralized country such as the United States, that means measures vary from state to state, and sometimes even within a single state.

According to the CDC, nearly 30 percent of the US population over age 65 is already fully immunized. For the population as a whole, the complete vaccination rate is 9.5 percent.

The campaign continues to gain momentum. On average, about 2.2 million people were injected daily last week, with a record 2.9 million injections in a single day on Saturday, according to a White House adviser.

President Joe Biden has promised that the United States would have enough vaccine supply for the entire population by the end of May.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 AFP

https://www.aish.com/ci/sam/One-of-Natures-Great-Mysteries.html

Every 17 years trillions of cicadas emerge from the ground as a unified mass. They're on their way.

Even as you read these words, the frightful monsters are drawing nearer.

It wont be long before many of us are facing huge red eyes, formidable wings and a collective roar, which, at 90 decibels, can be louder than an approaching subway train.

Yes, if the past is evidence, the 17-year cicadas will be returning to your neighborhood in late April or early May. At least if you live anywhere on the northern or central East Coast, or even as far west as Illinois or as far south as Georgia.

Readers in those areas who are under 20 years of age probably have no memory of the last appearance of Brood X, but those youngsters are in for a treat.

Literally trillions (and literally is used here, well, literally) of the large insects will emerge pretty much at once from the ground, where they have been biding their time for more than a decade and a half, living as nymphs of the species (Magicicada septendecim, if you really must know), nourishing themselves with the sap of the roots of the trees in which their long-gone mothers deposited them back in 2004.

They are intimidating creatures, both because of their size (a good two inches long with plus-size girths), broad orange stripes and those bright red eyes. But they are harmless to humans, other than those with a bug phobia, who may swoon when confronted by the supersize insects. They (the bugs, that is) tend to be clumsy flyers and often bump into unsuspecting people and other upright things.

Dogs and cats like to play with the defenseless cicadas (much to the latters chagrin), and birds consider them to be gourmet meals (even more disconcerting to the bugs).

For us humans, though, the invasion, which will last only a few weeks (but which may seem like months), should be a source not of amusement or nourishment, but of wonderment.

Of appreciation, that is, of the fact that for all modern sciences amassing of knowledge, even some prosaic things remain beyond its grasp. Because the cicadas mass unified appearance every 17 years remains one of natures great mysteries. No one knows what mechanism they use to trigger their mass emergence, says Michigan State University entomologist Howard Russell.

He explains further that the bugs are so sensitive they will even, in unison, postpone their emergence for a day or two if the temperature is right but the weather is rainy.

When science mavens speak of the unknowns, they tend to focus on things like the nature of time, the boundaries of space, the weirdness of quantum physics, the mystery of dark matter and black holes and other exotic creatures.

But there are countless mysteries all around us to which we may not give sufficient attention.

Like insects that somehow know when 17 years have passed and its time for them to emerge from the ground to lay eggs in twigs. Which will hatch weeks later, with tiny nymphs falling to the ground, burrowing in, and starting a new 17-year wait.

Truth be told, all of what we call nature is really miraculous, and our oblivion to the myriad miracles all around us is due only to our constant exposure to them. We become habituated to wonders and so dont always rightfully wonder at them all. At least not until something we havent seen for a whilesay, 17 years or sosuddenly makes an impression on us.

If the stars should appear, wrote philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, only one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

Admonished we well should be if we dont appreciate the wondrousness of the night sky or of everything else here on earth that we tend to take for granted.

And some red-eyed bugs, perhaps not quite envoys of beauty but striking in their own way, can remind us of all the equally astounding things that surround us always.

This article originally appeared in Ami Magazine.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and the National Youth Organiser of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Henry Nana Boakye, popularly known as Nana B for the contempt charges that were raised against Dr. Dominc Ayine.



According to them, had they not reported the issue to the Supreme Court Judges, the Member of Parliament(MP) for Bolgatanga East Constituency in the Upper East Region would not have been cited for contempt.



Samuel Ayeh-Paye, former Member of Parliament for Ayensuano constituency speaking to this on Neat FM's 'Me Man Nti' programme, queried why the two are being blamed.



According to him, "it was their duty to report to the Judges if a prejudicial statement has been made by the petitioner. It was their duty to draw the Judges' attention to it and support it with evidence and vice versa, so I don't understand why Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and Nana B are being blamed for this . . . "



Listen to him in the video below





Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Open innovation firm InnoCentive is supporting global housing nonprofit Habitat for Humanity in a new challenge to find a solution for retrofitting houses across Africa to reduce the spread of malaria.

Focusing particularly on Kenya, where around 70% of the population is thought to be at risk of malaria, the challenge - Malaria Prevention through Innovations in Home Design or Home Life - runs through 7 June 2021. The challenge aims to find affordable and sustainable home design solutions to significantly reduce the number of mosquitoes inside the home and/or reduce the number of mosquito bites from mosquitoes that get into a home, lowering transmission of malaria and other diseases.

The most recent World malaria report , released on 30 November 2020, stated there were 229 million cases of malaria in 2019 with an estimated 409,000 malaria deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) African Region was home to 94% of all malaria cases and deaths in 2019, while the WHO has also predicted that excess malaria mortality will be larger than direct COVID-19 mortality.

"Common ways of reducing malaria risk include through the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and indoor residual spraying of insecticides," said Patrick Kelley, vice president of Habitat for Humanity's Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter. "But retrofitting low-income houses with smarter home design also can cut malaria transmission. We can't wait to see what the solvers on the InnoCentive platform come up with."

In the regions most affected by mosquitoes, most houses are built with open features, including windows, eaves, and ceilings that do not keep mosquitoes out. Habitat for Humanity is seeking a design compatible with a typical house for a low-income Kenyan family, using locally available materials and borrowing from traditional local housing styles.

InnoCentive, a Wazoku brand , is the world's most comprehensive and powerful innovation platform and global solver community. The company has worked successfully with many NGOs, nonprofits and businesses that seek the expertise of its global network of nearly 500,000 registered expert problem 'solvers', comprised of engineers, Ph.D. students, CEOs, start-ups, material experts, scientists and business leaders.

"For people in the U.S. and Europe, a mosquito bite is a mild inconvenience, but in Kenya and other parts of Africa it is a matter of life or death," said Simon Hill, CEO, Wazoku. "Using the collective expertise and know-how of the InnoCentive crowd is a powerful way of finding solutions to challenges of such magnitude."

InnoCentive's partner SeaFreight Labs, a crowdsourcing consultancy delivering solutions to the global seafreight community, is supporting this challenge as part of SeaFreight Labs' commitment to the Pledge 1% movement.

"Open innovation is especially well-suited to helping with such challenges," said Harry Sangree, Founder and CEO, SeaFreight Labs. "There is enormous value to be found in crowd-solving and this RTP (reduction to practice) challenge will be no different, delivering solutions to help address this critical issue."

Habitat for Humanity has run many open innovation challenges with InnoCentive, details of which can be found in the organization's pavilion.

For further information about Wazoku, visit https://www.wazoku.com

For further information about InnoCentive, visit https://www.innocentive.com

For further information about SeaFreight Labs, visit https://www.seafreightlabs.com

For further information about Habitat for Humanity, visit https://www.habitat.org

PR Contact:

Paul Allen - Rise PR

+ 44 (0) 7515 199 487 / [email protected]

SOURCE InnoCentive
TASHKENT -- A Russian production company that made a documentary glorifying Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2015 has been hired to shoot a film about Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev ahead of an October presidential poll.



An employee of the Uzbekkino Film Company told RFE/RL on March 8 on condition of anonymity that the chief of the presidential administration, Zainilobiddin Nizomiddinov, is coordinating the project with the Masterskaya film production company from Russia.



Masterskaya's founder and producer, Saida Medvedeva, a native of neighboring Kazakhstan, arrived in the Uzbek capital last week.

Before leaving Moscow for Tashkent, she told Russian media that her trip's goal was to shoot a documentary about the leader of Uzbekistan, which she called a country that is going through its third Renaissance.



Medvedeva said her documentary would premiere on September 1, the 30th Independence Day of the Central Asian nation, and less than two months before the presidential elections scheduled for October 24.



Uzbek cinema expert Akmal Rizaev told RFE/RL on March 8 that he had a chance to get acquainted with the documentary's materials, and that he expects the documentary will be very similar to one that promoted Putin in 2015 to mark the 15th year of his rule.



Masterskaya was also behind a series of films that supported Putin's successful bid for a third term as president in 2012. They included Crisis 2008: Saving Russia, which portrayed him as shielding the country from the worst of the global economic slump.



"The documentarys main idea is to sacralize Mirziyoevs ruling, meaning to exclude any doubts among people about his unconditional and limitless leadership," Rizaev said.

"The film will depict Mirzoyev as a charismatic leader who brings innovations to society and takes care of ordinary people. Mirziyoevs monologues will be used by the filmmakers. The documentary will not focus on other Uzbek politicians; its main idea is to show the "people" and their unchangeable leader Mirziyoev."



Mirziyoev took over the most-populous nation of the Central Asian region of 32 million after his authoritarian predecessor Islam Karimov's death was announced on September 1, 2016.



Since then, Mirziyoev has positioned himself as a reformer, releasing political prisoners and opening his country to its neighbors and outer world, though many activists have cautioned that the reforms have not gone far enough.
ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 02nd Mar, 2021) Mohamed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director-General of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), received today at the Fund headquarters Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, Minister of State for Planning and Development of Benin. The meeting was attended by Khalifa Al Qubaisi, Deputy Director General of ADFD.

Discussions centred on relations between the UAE and Benin, as well as the Funds role in supporting Benins developmental goals and priorities.

Al Suwaidi said that the visit presented an opportunity to explore ways to expand cooperation with ADFD. "We are keen to build on our existing relations and support the government of Benin in developing its economy by financing strategic projects," Al Suwaidi said. "Collaboration lies at the heart of our partnership.

Our Primary aim is to help Benin to achieve its sustainable development goals."

Bio Tchane acknowledged the UAE and the Funds contributions to his country, helping it to achieve sustainable economic growth. He mentioned that the Ouidah-Allada and Pahou Tori Road project the Fund financed in 2009 had greatly benefited the economy. The 77- kilometre road, built at a cost of AED 37 million, connected Benin with neighbouring Togo and Nigeria. It passes through Borgou, one of the major agricultural regions of the country.

Benin is primarily and agrarian economy and its export earnings mainly rely on products such as palm oil, cotton, cocoa and coffee. Therefore, development of the agriculture sector is crucial for it to strengthen its economy and food security.
According to a new analysis released by the UNICEF statement, five countries, including India, account for about half of the total child brides in the world on the occasion of International Women's Day.

According to the analysis 'Covid19- A threat to progress against child marriage', 10 million additional child marriages may occur before the end of the decade, threatening years of progress in reducing the practice. Worldwide, an estimated 650 million girls and women alive today were married in childhood, with about half of those occurring in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India and Nigeria, according to the analysis.

To off-set the impacts of Covid-19 and end the practice by 2030  the target set out in the Sustainable Development Goals  progress must be significantly accelerated, it said. One year into the pandemic, immediate action is needed to mitigate the toll on girls and their families.

With 25 million child marriages averted in the last decade, UNICEF warned on International Women's Day that these gains are now under serious threat. Quoting its previous report, UNICEF said one in three of the world's child brides live in India. The UN body said the persistence of child marriage remains a potential challenge to India achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5 by 2030 even as its progress has been one of the strongest among countries in South Asia during the last decade. The analysis said "The decline has been led by urban areas, which only had 18 percent of women in the age group of 20-24 reporting (in 2015-16)  as compared to 32 percent in rural areas  having got married before the age of 18," it said.

To end child marriage in India, we need to continue to focus on the poorest and most vulnerable girls and their families. It is critical that child marriage elimination efforts are integrated into the Covid-19 response and recovery plans, and a prevention approach is strengthened that also addresses the negative impact on health, education, and child protection," said Yasmin Ali Haque, UNICEF India Representative."

United Nations: Seeking leading role for Afghan women in peace

WHO chief Tedros appreciates Russia's investment in science

UK Queen Elizabeth praises 'selfless dedication' of Covid-19 frontline warriors
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Before Elon Musk-led Tesla finally makes its India entry, ride-hailing platform Ola on Monday announced world's largest two-wheeler manufacturing facility called Ola FutureFactory that will have annual production capacity of one crore vehicles and will be operational by 2022.

The factory will generate 10,000 direct employment, along with additional jobs being created by Ola vendors and suppliers.

According to Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman and Group CEO, the Phase 1 will be ready with initial annual capacity of two million around June this year.

Built over 500 acres in Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu, the facility will roll out one scooter every two seconds at full capacity, Aggarwal told mediapersons.

"It will have 10 production lines running at full capacity. It will be the most advanced two-wheeler factory with 3,000 AI-powered robots built on Industry 4.0 principles," he said.

It will be an integrated manufacturing facility, addressing all needs from battery to finished goods.

Ola Electric has also released first teaser visuals of the much-anticipated electric scooter.

The announcement came as Tesla made its official to enter the country and chose Karnataka over Tamil Nadu to firm up its roll-out plans.

Ola Electric last year acquired the Netherlands-based Etergo BV, an innovative electric scooter company known for its award-winning AppScooter for an undisclosed sum, and announced its foray into the premium electric two-wheeler market, both globally and nationally.

"With electric, digitally connected capabilities, two-wheelers will further emerge as the most preferred urban mobility paradigm around the world and empower every consumer. We look forward to building the best global capabilities in engineering, design, and manufacturing for these products to be made here in India," Aggarwal had said.

With European design, strong engineering collaboration and Indian manufacturing and supply chain, Ola Electric said it aims to transform the over 100 million-strong global two-wheeler market, including more than 20-million Indian two-wheeler market, into a clean energy, digital future.

The company has plans to set up extensive charging and swapping networks around the country.

Ola Electric is also working with India's leading power distribution companies towards developing a conducive EV ecosystem through the establishment of battery swapping and charging stations in New Delhi.
On this beautiful Monday, the newspaper is now running satire and rampant speculation in what might be an effort to get done with work early and possibly make it to the park.



Here's the premise of an afternoon joke . . .



To be fair, the quote from Mayor Lucas seems to entertain the consider of the headline . . .



Lucas confirmed in a statement Monday afternoon that he was keeping the door open to the possibility.



I rise each day thinking about how I can best serve the people of Kansas City and Missouri, and I will consider over the next several weeks whether that is in a statewide position  something no African American has ever done, he said. Today, I remain focused on leading our City through the COVID-19 pandemic and our economic recovery.

More deets from KMBC: KC Mayor Quinton Lucas releases statement on possible US Senate run

Accordingly . . .

WITH KANSAS CITY TEETERING ON THE BRINK OF BANKRUPTCY AND KEEPING UP WITH LAST YEAR'S HISTORIC HOMICIDE COUNT, SHAME ON MAYOR Q FOR EVEN CONSIDERING HIGHER OFFICE!!!



You decide . . .
The Winnipeg School Division will no longer pitch-in to cover the price tag of having nine uniformed police officers work in its schools, as part of a series of cost-cutting measures slated to take place in 2021-22.

The Winnipeg School Division will no longer pitch-in to cover the price tag of having nine uniformed police officers work in its schools, as part of a series of cost-cutting measures slated to take place in 2021-22.

On Tuesday, the division published the details of its official $421-million budget, which takes into account a 1.6 per cent decline in provincial operating funding and a directive to freeze property education taxes, for the upcoming school year.

In order to find nearly $4.5 million in savings, trustees approved cuts to the school resource officer and milk subsidy programs, as well as changes to centres that support languages and students with severe emotional and behavioural disorders.

The budget for non-salary expenses in schools is being reduced, year-round clerical positions will be downsized into 10-month contracts, and WSD is expected to review the possibility of increasing 30 km/h zones around schools to reduce its crossing guard roster.

The board also anticipates it will be able to find savings related to utilities, unfilled support position vacancies, cellphone reimbursements, and enrolment reductions next year.

Trustees, however, voted to keep funding occupational therapy and physiotherapy programs, which were originally on the chopping block, after backlash from parents of students who rely on those services.

"When we were looking at the budget, we were just trying to really hone in on what will support the children and the youth to be successful in school," said Betty Edel, board chairwoman.

Edel said school resource officers, often referred to as SROs, didnt make the cut  solely for financial reasons, adding the division still plans to make public the results of its early 2021 community survey of the program in the coming weeks.

The program, which is currently tri-funded by the division, province and Winnipeg Police Service, launched in the Manitoba capital in 2002, with a goal of building trust between marginalized students and police.

WSD is pulling its annual contribution of $537,174, breaking the recently renewed contract between the parties.

"I really believe this is going to negatively affect safety, peace in schools, crime prevention and a lot of relationships that have been built," Insp. Bonnie Emerson, of the WPS community support division, said Tuesday.

Emerson said the officers divert calls that would be made to the non-emergency line or 911 by practicing restorative justice on a regular basis.

Meantime, the Police-Free Schools Winnipeg movement celebrated the announcement as a "powerful victory."

The organizers behind the collective claim the program is an example of police overreach and makes BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) students feel unsafe at school.

While Emerson said the program, as it currently stands in WSD, will disappear, she indicated police will be looking at other ways to support schools in central Winnipeg.

Teaching salaries and student services account for the majority of WSD expenses, approximately 75 per cent of the total budget, followed by operations and maintenance, administration and transportation  at approximately 12 per cent, 2.7 per cent, and just under two per cent, respectively.

Edel said the budget anticipates the province will cover any retroactive salary costs related to a collective agreement settlement. If the province refuses to do so, she said WSD will have to consult its community on further cuts.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie
NGC 1453, a giant elliptical galaxy situated in the constellation Eridanus, was one of 63 galaxies used to calculate the expansion rate of the local universe. Last year, the MASSIVE survey team determined that the galaxy is located 166 million light years from Earth and has a black hole at its center with a mass nearly 3 billion times that of the sun. (Photo courtesy of the Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey)

Determining how rapidly the universe is expanding is key to understanding our cosmic fate, but with more precise data has come a conundrum: Estimates based on measurements within our local universe don't agree with extrapolations from the era shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

A new estimate of the local expansion rate -- the Hubble constant, or H0 (H-naught) -- reinforces that discrepancy.

Using a relatively new and potentially more precise technique for measuring cosmic distances, which employs the average stellar brightness within giant elliptical galaxies as a rung on the distance ladder, astronomers calculate a rate -- 73.3 kilometers per second per megaparsec, give or take 2.5 km/sec/Mpc -- that lies in the middle of three other good estimates, including the gold standard estimate from Type Ia supernovae. This means that for every megaparsec -- 3.3 million light years, or 3 billion trillion kilometers -- from Earth, the universe is expanding an extra 73.3 2.5 kilometers per second. The average from the three other techniques is 73.5 1.4 km/sec/Mpc.

Perplexingly, estimates of the local expansion rate based on measured fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background and, independently, fluctuations in the density of normal matter in the early universe (baryon acoustic oscillations), give a very different answer: 67.4 0.5 km/sec/Mpc.

Astronomers are understandably concerned about this mismatch, because the expansion rate is a critical parameter in understanding the physics and evolution of the universe and is key to understanding dark energy -- which accelerates the rate of expansion of the universe and thus causes the Hubble constant to change more rapidly than expected with increasing distance from Earth. Dark energy comprises about two-thirds of the mass and energy in the universe, but is still a mystery.

For the new estimate, astronomers measured fluctuations in the surface brightness of 63 giant elliptical galaxies to determine the distance and plotted distance against velocity for each to obtain H0. The surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) technique is independent of other techniques and has the potential to provide more precise distance estimates than other methods within about 100 Mpc of Earth, or 330 million light years. The 63 galaxies in the sample are at distances ranging from 15 to 99 Mpc, looking back in time a mere fraction of the age of the universe.

"For measuring distances to galaxies out to 100 megaparsecs, this is a fantastic method," said cosmologist Chung-Pei Ma, the Judy Chandler Webb Professor in the Physical Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and professor of astronomy and physics. "This is the first paper that assembles a large, homogeneous set of data, on 63 galaxies, for the goal of studying H-naught using the SBF method."

Ma leads the MASSIVE survey of local galaxies, which provided data for 43 of the galaxies -- two-thirds of those employed in the new analysis.

The data on these 63 galaxies was assembled and analyzed by John Blakeslee, an astronomer with the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab. He is first author of a paper now accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal that he co-authored with colleague Joseph Jensen of Utah Valley University in Orem. Blakeslee, who heads the science staff that support NSF's optical and infrared observatories, is a pioneer in using SBF to measure distances to galaxies, and Jensen was one of the first to apply the method at infrared wavelengths. The two worked closely with Ma on the analysis.

"The whole story of astronomy is, in a sense, the effort to understand the absolute scale of the universe, which then tells us about the physics," Blakeslee said, harkening back to James Cook's voyage to Tahiti in 1769 to measure a transit of Venus so that scientists could calculate the true size of the solar system. "The SBF method is more broadly applicable to the general population of evolved galaxies in the local universe, and certainly if we get enough galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope, this method has the potential to give the best local measurement of the Hubble constant."

The James Webb Space Telescope, 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, is scheduled for launch in October.

Giant elliptical galaxies

The Hubble constant has been a bone of contention for decades, ever since Edwin Hubble first measured the local expansion rate and came up with an answer seven times too big, implying that the universe was actually younger than its oldest stars. The problem, then and now, lies in pinning down the location of objects in space that give few clues about how far away they are.

Astronomers over the years have laddered up to greater distances, starting with calculating the distance to objects close enough that they seem to move slightly, because of parallax, as the Earth orbits the sun. Variable stars called Cepheids get you farther, because their brightness is linked to their period of variability, and Type Ia supernovae get you even farther, because they are extremely powerful explosions that, at their peak, shine as bright as a whole galaxy. For both Cepheids and Type Ia supernovae, it's possible to figure out the absolute brightness from the way they change over time, and then the distance can be calculated from their apparent brightness as seen from Earth.

The best current estimate of H0 comes from distances determined by Type Ia supernova explosions in distant galaxies, though newer methods -- time delays caused by gravitational lensing of distant quasars and the brightness of water masers orbiting black holes -- all give around the same number.

The technique using surface brightness fluctuations is one of the newest and relies on the fact that giant elliptical galaxies are old and have a consistent population of old stars -- mostly red giant stars -- that can be modeled to give an average infrared brightness across their surface. The researchers obtained high-resolution infrared images of each galaxy with the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope and determined how much each pixel in the image differed from the "average" -- the smoother the fluctuations over the entire image, the farther the galaxy, once corrections are made for blemishes like bright star-forming regions, which the authors exclude from the analysis.

Neither Blakeslee nor Ma was surprised that the expansion rate came out close to that of the other local measurements. But they are equally confounded by the glaring conflict with estimates from the early universe -- a conflict that many astronomers say means that our current cosmological theories are wrong, or at least incomplete.

The extrapolations from the early universe are based on the simplest cosmological theory -- called lambda cold dark matter, or lambda CDM -- which employs just a few parameters to describe the evolution of the universe. Does the new estimate drive a stake into the heart of lambda CDM?

"I think it pushes that stake in a bit more," Blakeslee said. "But it (lambda CDM) is still alive. Some people think, regarding all these local measurements, (that) the observers are wrong. But it is getting harder and harder to make that claim -- it would require there to be systematic errors in the same direction for several different methods: supernovae, SBF, gravitational lensing, water masers. So, as we get more independent measurements, that stake goes a little deeper."

Ma wonders whether the uncertainties astronomers ascribe to their measurements, which reflect both systematic errors and statistical errors, are too optimistic, and that perhaps the two ranges of estimates can still be reconciled.

"The jury is out," she said. "I think it really is in the error bars. But assuming everyone's error bars are not underestimated, the tension is getting uncomfortable."

In fact, one of the giants of the field, astronomer Wendy Freedman, recently published a study pegging the Hubble constant at 69.8 1.9 km/sec/Mpc, roiling the waters even further. The latest result from Adam Riess, an astronomer who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering dark energy, reports 73.2 1.3 km/sec/Mpc. Riess was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley when he performed this research, and he shared the prize with UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab physicist Saul Perlmutter.

MASSIVE galaxies

The new value of H0 is a byproduct of two other surveys of nearby galaxies -- in particular, Ma's MASSIVE survey, which uses space and ground-based telescopes to exhaustively study the 100 most massive galaxies within about 100 Mpc of Earth. A major goal is to weigh the supermassive black holes at the centers of each one.

To do that, precise distances are needed, and the SBF method is the best to date, she said. The MASSIVE survey team used this method last year to determine the distance to a giant elliptical galaxy, NGC 1453, in the southern sky constellation of Eridanus. Combining that distance, 166 million light years, with extensive spectroscopic data from the Gemini and McDonald telescopes -- which allowed Ma's graduate students Chris Liepold and Matthew Quenneville to measure the velocities of the stars near the center of the galaxy -- they concluded that NGC 1453 has a central black hole with a mass nearly 3 billion times that of the sun.

To determine H0, Blakeslee calculated SBF distances to 43 of the galaxies in the MASSIVE survey, based on 45 to 90 minutes of HST observing time for each galaxy. The other 20 came from another survey that employed HST to image large galaxies, specifically ones in which Type Ia supernovae have been detected.

Most of the 63 galaxies are between 8 and 12 billion years old, which means that they contain a large population of old red stars, which are key to the SBF method and can also be used to improve the precision of distance calculations. In the paper, Blakeslee employed both Cepheid variable stars and a technique that uses the brightest red giant stars in a galaxy -- referred to as the tip of the red giant branch, or TRGB technique -- to ladder up to galaxies at large distances. They produced consistent results. The TRGB technique takes account of the fact that the brightest red giants in galaxies have about the same absolute brightness.

"The goal is to make this SBF method completely independent of the Cepheid-calibrated Type Ia supernova method by using the James Webb Space Telescope to get a red giant branch calibration for SBFs," he said.

"The James Webb telescope has the potential to really decrease the error bars for SBF," Ma added. But for now, the two discordant measures of the Hubble constant will have to learn to live with one another.

"I was not setting out to measure H0; it was a great product of our survey," she said. "But I am a cosmologist and am watching this with great interest."

Co-authors of the paper with Blakeslee, Ma and Jensen are Jenny Greene of Princeton University, who is a leader of the MASSIVE team, and Peter Milne of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who leads the team studying Type Ia supernovae. The work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (HST-GO-14219, HST-GO-14654, HST GO-15265) and the National Science Foundation (AST-1815417, AST-1817100).

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
Mosaic, the new Bermuda-based global specialty insurer, announced it has begun underwriting war, terrorism and political violence risks globally out of offices in London and New York.

Mosaic will offer tailored coverage for a full spectrum of commercial, industrial and residential property risks associated with acts of terror and sabotage, malicious damage, strikes, riots, civil commotion, war perils and related liability around the world. The companys experienced team includes the following underwriters in London and North America:

Quentin Prebble, chairman of War, Terrorism & Political Violence, brings a strong track record, with 40-plus years of underwriting experience in the London market. He most recently served as global head of marine, including war and terrorism, at Ironshores Pembroke syndicate. Prior to Ironshore, he led the same business line for Liberty syndicates at Lloyds. He was one of the first professionals to write the stand-alone terrorism risk after 9/11.

Jamie Oliver, SVP, senior underwriter, War, Terrorism & Political Violence, has 15 years of industry experience in the Lloyds and U.S. insurance markets. Most recently, he worked at Marsh in New York as a senior client adviser, heavily involved in the design, marketing and management of insurance programs for Fortune 100 companies. Prior to Marsh, he was a senior underwriter at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions. He spent six years as a marine underwriter at Pembroke and started his career at Liberty syndicates.

Heather Blaser , SVP, senior underwriter, War, Terrorism & Political Violence, has more than 10 years of industry experience. She began her career at Ironshore and underwrote war and terrorism at Pembroke. She later returned to the U.S. to manage a domestic book of business, successfully building a market-leading consortium. She has considerable experience in developing new coverage forms in the US market.

, SVP, senior underwriter, War, Terrorism & Political Violence, has more than 10 years of industry experience. She began her career at Ironshore and underwrote war and terrorism at Pembroke. She later returned to the U.S. to manage a domestic book of business, successfully building a market-leading consortium. She has considerable experience in developing new coverage forms in the US market. Michael Glover, junior underwriter, joins the London team with prior experience in both professional indemnity and political violence.

Investment in this division continues as additional experienced hires join the team over the next few months.

Were excited to be launching our first products and building an unrivalled team of the very best talent in this specialized line of business, said Mosaic CEO Mitch Blaser. The area of political violence has more relevance today than ever, and Mosaics unique position makes us a trusted partner for clients requiring this type of coverage.

Mosaic said it offers a broad range of stand-alone terrorism products in the portfolio that can be written as primary, excess or quota-share coverage to mitigate damage, business disruption costs, or lost sales revenues in the event of attacks or threats.

Products include: terrorism & sabotage, third-party liability, strikes, riots, civil commotion, full war & political violence, aviation and marine war, active shooter physical damage and business interruption, cyber, civil & military, nuclear, chemical, biological & radiological (NCBR).

Policies do not require government certification of a terrorist attack or minimum loss requirements, and, in the U.S., are separate to the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (TRIPRA).

Mosaic will act as a lead market, with maximum capacity of US$50 million for any one risk, and through its U.S. operation, will offer up to $250 million through syndicated capacity.

Global geopolitical risks are creating an increasingly volatile and uncertain landscape for governments, municipalities, utilities, and companies engaged in cross-border trade, noted Prebble. Our expertise in these niche peril products is second to none, allowing Mosaic to deliver peace of mind to clients, so they can continue to operate through turbulent times and recover losses when severe crises happen.

Launched by Blaser in February, Mosaic combines Lloyds Syndicate 1609 with a wholly owned syndicated capital management agency and underwriting hubs in Bermuda, London, the U.S., and Asia.

The company is focused on complex lines of specialty business, which will continued to be launched throughout 2021.

Source: Mosaic

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Underwriting
TRINIDAD and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) executive director, Nigel Edwards, says the changes the 39-year-old financial institution is undergoing at this time are transformational.

The UTC is now in the middle of a three-year cycle of strategic changes that will culminate in 2023 and beyond, he said.
Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind, and so its not a great climate thing.

That was what Bill Gates recently told me.

At a time when companies and investors increasingly say they are focused on climate and sustainability issues, some of them may be about to collide with the reality of another financial trend, one currently worth about $1 trillion: Bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency has become inescapable, with big companies like Tesla and individual investors alike rushing to stock up on the digital token.

But depending on which study you read, the annual carbon emissions from the electricity required to mine Bitcoin and process its transactions are equal to the amount emitted by all of New Zealand. Or Argentina.
Two frustrated federal judges said Monday they will have zero tolerance for further delays from New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell's office on building a jail expansion for inmates with mental and medical health problems.

Cantrells lawyers have fought an ongoing, nine-month legal battle to pause construction on the $51 million, 89-bed facility, which has drawn heated opposition from community groups.

The new stance, discussed at a virtual court hearing Monday, doesnt include specific penalties, but it suggests that more slowdowns could put the city in contempt of court.

The court intends a zero tolerance policy from this day forward, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael North. The court will not tolerate any further delays in this process based on any alleged bureaucratic entanglements.

North and U.S. District Judge Lance Africk oversee Sheriff Marlin Gusmans 2013 reform agreement with inmate advocates, which covers the buildings used to house inmates. The city is required under Louisiana law to provide the Sheriffs Office with adequate facilities.

North specifically raised concerns Monday that the city could blame the City Planning Commission or the City Council for creating obstacles. City Attorney Sunni LeBeouf said "the court," meaning one or both of the judges, has been meeting with City Council members in an attempt to defuse concerns.

In a sign of the emphasis the judges place on the new building, Africk said during the hearing that he has appointed accountant and former mayoral candidate Tommie Vassel as a monitor with the power to speak to the city-contracted architect and project manager on the project to ensure work is being done.

Africk called Vassel, who has long been involved in budget negotiations between the city and Sheriffs Office, a man of character.

Cantrells administration halted work on the new facility slated for Perdido Street in June without warning, a move that angered the judges and sparked a lengthy debate over the citys subsequent request to indefinitely pause construction.

Most of the facilitys cost would come from Federal Emergency Management Agency funds meant to help the city rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, but about $15 million would come from local taxpayers, according to the city.

Africk in January denied the citys request to halt construction. Then on Feb. 19, the city filed a motion for a stay on that order that would give it a temporary reprieve while it appeals to the U.S. 5th Circuit, but Africk has not yet ordered on the latest city request.

Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

With that legal maneuvering in the background, the city claims in court filings that it is continuing apace on the new facility. City officials estimated at a Feb. 3 court hearing that the controversial new building will be finished in 30 months.

North first announced the court's "zero tolerance" policy in a written order the next day.

+4 LaToya Cantrell doubles down on fight to halt New Orleans jail expansion order with appeal With her reelection contest just 8 months away, Mayor LaToya Cantrell is doubling down on her fight to halt work on a court-ordered jail expan

Also on Monday, federal monitors appointed by Africk to oversee the consent decree reiterated their concerns about the jails oversight of suicidal inmates.

There are times when one nursing assistant from the jails private health contractor, Wellpath, is supposed to monitor five inmates on suicide watch at once, said Dr. Raymond Patterson, a mental health expert. Thats well above the suggested ratio of one to three, Patterson said.

Meanwhile, Sheriffs Office deputies are also tapped for suicide watch duty despite a lack of specialized training, he said.

Patterson said Wellpaths staffing issues may stem from recent budget cuts in its contract with the city. The Mayor's Office says its bringing costs in line with the lock-ups declining inmate population. However, as with the slow pace of building the new mental health building, Africk also issued a warning about the cuts.

To the extent that the city has been reducing services that are necessary to comply with the consent decree -- and Im not making that finding at this point -- thats obviously very problematic, and will preclude us from getting in substantial compliance with the consent decree, he said.

Court-appointed monitors said they are also concerned that the jail has mixed inmates with prior animosities, or inmates at risk of being victimized with inmates who have a history of violence, because COVID-19 quarantines have scrambled the traditional of system of classifying and segregating inmates.

They also fretted about the COVID-19 quarantines that have resulted in some inmates leaving their cells for only 30 minutes a day, less than the hour a day that inmates in solitary confinement receive. That is not enough time to shower, call relatives and exercise, the monitors said.

+5 In terse order, New Orleans judge rejects city bid to suspend jail building construction Saying he was tired of waiting for officials to begin building, a federal judge rejected New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrells bid to halt const

As of Oct. 1, more than half of the 866 people in Sheriff's Office custody were under psychiatric care. A supervising attorney for the Orleans Public Defenders said after the hearing that the COVID-19 restrictions have exacerbated her clients' underlying problems.

The issues weve been seeing with mental health in the jail have gotten a lot worse in the last year, said Alexis Chernow. "We dont know when this will be over. Especially people who are trying to go to trial. They dont have an end date.

The monitors said they were also worried about staff turnover, a perennial problem that seemed to ease before the coronavirus pandemic. The Sheriffs Office lost more staffers than it hired in 2020 for a net decline of about 80 employees, according to Margo Frasier, the lead jail monitor.

Alarmingly, but not necessarily surprisingly, many of them said they were leaving because they did not feel safe and they did not feel supported by their supervisors, Frasier said. I think thats a legitimate fear, having been in the jail.
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on International Women's Day at the White House in Washington, yesterday. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Brenner

America has warned the Afghan president that his country could face a Taliban onslaught this spring without US troops unless he considers proposals to jump-start stalled peace talks.

A full withdrawal of American forces is still being considered despite Afghan hopes that President Joe Biden might halt the move, according to a leaked letter from the US secretary of state.

In what appeared to be a blunt attempt to pressure Ashraf Ghani, Antony Blinken wrote that without US troops he was concerned the security situation will worsen and that the Taliban could make rapid territorial gains.

He called on Mr Ghani to show urgent leadership and said he hoped the Afghan president would understand the urgency of my tone.

The veiled threat came amid US frustration that the year-long Doha peace talks have gone nowhere, while a deadline to withdraw US troops is approaching.

Mr Biden is reviewing whether to pull out all troops by May 1, as agreed in Donald Trumps withdrawal pact with the Taliban, or to extend the deployment to give peace talks more time. Washington believes the Taliban have not kept their word by failing to cut violence and remaining close to al-Qaida. But it has also become frustrated at intransigence in Kabul.

Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia director at the US-based Wilson Centre think-tank, said: In a sceptical reading of the letter, the US is reading Ghani the riot act: Help us do these things now, because we may be leaving in just a few weeks. In a more optimistic analysis, it was saying This wont be easy  youll need to make sacrifices - but lets get it done before its too late, he said.

Afghanistan is braced for the start of the annual Taliban spring offensive as morale has plummeted among government forces.

US troop numbers have fallen from 14,000 a year ago to around 2,500, denying the Afghans air strikes and surveillance drones. Troops have struggled to push back Taliban offensives and roads between major cities are increasingly under attack.

According to the letter, the US is pursuing high-level diplomatic efforts to move matters more fundamentally and quickly toward a settlement and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.

A UN-backed conference in Turkey will be held within weeks to endorse an interim government featuring the Taliban. Mr Ghanis vice-president, Amrullah Saleh, said yesterday that Afghanistan would never accept a coerced and imposed peace.

Read More

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Baghdad, March 9 : Iraqi health authorities have extended the partial and full curfew for two weeks due to the continued increase in coronavirus cases.

A statement issued on Monday by the General Secretariat for the Council of Ministers said that the authorities decided to extend the full curfew for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and a partial curfew from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. for the rest of the week, starting from Tuesday until March 22, reports Xinhua news agency.

The decision was based on the recommendations of the Ministry of Health, as the epidemiological situation indicates a continued increase in Covid-19 infections, according to the statement.

Moreover, the Ministry expects a further increase in infections and critical cases, it added.

On Monday, an additional 4,468 people across Iraq tested positive for the virus, increasing the overall caseload to 731,016.

The Ministry also reported 24 new fatalities, raising the death toll to 13,596, while the recoveries reached 664,461.
By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

Bye-bye, Bismarck. So long, Sheboygan.

Those cities in North Dakota and Wisconsin, respectively, are two of 144 that the federal government is proposing to downgrade from the metropolitan statistical area designation, and it could be more than just a matter of semantics. Officials in some of the affected cities worry that the change could have adverse implications for federal funding and economic development.

Nine of these MSAs are in Pennsylvania, including Lebanon, Gettysburg and State College.

Under the new proposal, a metro area would have to have at least 100,000 people in its core city to count as an MSA, double the 50,000-person threshold that has been in place for the past 70 years. Cities formerly designated as metros with core populations between 50,000 and 100,000 people, like Bismarck and Sheboygan, would be changed to micropolitan statistical areas instead.

A committee of representatives from federal statistical agencies recently made the recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget, saying its purely for statistical purposes and not to be used for funding formulas. As a practical matter, however, that is how its often used.

Several housing, transportation and Medicare reimbursement programs are tied to communities being metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, so the designation change concerns some city officials.

On first blush, it does not look like it would be a good change for Gettysburg, but borough manager Charles Gable said it depends on how the statistics will be used, and if that use could mean a reduction in federal funding.

I think its one of those things that well have to wait and see the impact, Gable said. My initial impression is not a positive one, but as with anything, we need to wait and see where the money flows based on the new designation.

In Lebanon, Mayor Sherry Capello said its difficult to tell what the impact will be when there are so few answers available. She is also the chair of the policy board of the Lebanon County Metropolitan Planning Organization, which has not yet received definitive information on what this proposed change would mean.

Certainly, if a threshold would change as a MPO and 100,000 is the new standard, then there may be a possibility that we would be considered as more of a rural planning agency, she said. If a change like that plays into formula-based decisions, then we may not receive as much.

The State College area could also potentially be affected, and Tom Zilla, principal transportation planner for the Centre Regional Planning Agency, has been keeping a close eye on the latest developments.

It doesnt impact us directly, but were trying to raise the concern that there could be a secondary impact, Zilla said.

That secondary impact would come from other federal agencies, like the U.S. Department of Transportation, that currently uses MSA designations to help determine federal funding levels, and if the statistical designation changes for the Office of Management and Budget, those other agencies, like USDOT, could change their funding levels to match, meaning less money flowing into those areas.

For transportation, Zilla said any potential change would have more of an impact on planning rather than the actual projects, but its possible programs like Housing and Urban Development would be more directly impacted. State College is a direct HUD recipient, he noted.

As of right now, Zilla said its a guessing game, and the best affected MSAs can do is raise their concerns.

Were concerned that this could start the ball rolling down the hill for some big changes, he said.

In Corvallis, Oregon, the state designates certain funding sources to metropolitan statistical areas and any change to the citys status could create a ripple effect, particularly when it comes to transportation funding, said Patrick Rollens, a spokesman for the city that is home to Oregon State University.

I wont lie. We would be dismayed to see our MSA designation go away. We arent a suburb of any other, larger city in the area, so this is very much part of our communitys identity, Rollens said in an email. Losing the designation would also have potentially adverse impacts on recruitment for local businesses, as well as Oregon State University.

If the proposal is approved, it could be the first step toward federal programs adjusting their population thresholds when it comes to distributing money to communities, leading to funding losses for the former metro areas, said Ben Ehreth, community development director for Bismarck.

It wont change any formulas ... but we see this as a first step leading down that path, Ehreth said. We anticipate that this might be that first domino to drop.

Rural communities are concerned that more micropolitan areas would increase competition for federal funding targeting rural areas. The change would downgrade more than a third of the current 392 MSAs.

Statisticians say the change in designations has been a long time coming, given that the U.S. population has more than doubled since 1950. Back then, about half of U.S. residents lived in metros; now, 86% do.

Back in the 1950s, the population it took to create a metro area is different than it would be to create a metro area in 2020, said Rob Santos, president of the American Statistical Association.

Nancy Potok, a former chief statistician of the Office of Management and Budget who helped develop the new recommendations, acknowledged that officials in some cities will be upset with the changes because they believe it could hurt efforts to lure jobs or companies to their communities.

There are winners and losers when you change these designations, Potok said. A typical complaint comes from economic development when you are trying to attract investments. You want to say you are part of a dynamic MSA. Theres a perception associated with it. If your area gets dumped out of an MSA, then you feel disadvantaged.

Officials in some cities said they needed to research the impact of the change. Others were surprised to find their metro was on the list in the first place.

Perhaps they made a mistake, Brian Wheeler, director of communications for the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, said in an email.

While the city of Cape Girardeau, which is on the list, has a resident population north of 40,000 people, as a regional hub for southeastern Missouri, it can have a daytime population of more than 100,000 people, said Alex McElroy, executive director of the Southeast Metropolitan Planning Organization.

It kind of seems misleading, McElroy said of the designation change.

In a letter to the federal budget office, the mayor of Opelika, Alabama, urged that the proposal be dropped.

The risk to vital services within our community, our state and the millions of impacted Americans across this country far outweigh any limited statistical value that might be gained from this proposal, Mayor Gary Fuller said.

In a separate proposal, the U.S. Census Bureau is considering a change to the definition of an urban area. The proposal made public last month would use housing instead of people for distinguishing urban from rural. An area will be considered urban if it has 385 housing units per square mile, roughly the equivalent of 1,000 people per square mile, under the new proposal. The current standard is 500 people per square mile.

The Census Bureau says the changes are needed to comply with new privacy requirements that aim to prevent people from being identified through publicly released data and it offers a more direct measure of density.

Some demographers arent sold on the idea of changing the definition of a metro area.

It seems like everything is ad hoc, rather than having been determined by serious research, said Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire. The definitions have been relatively stable since 1950. All of the sudden, they change these, and at least in my mind, there isnt a compelling research-based process that has driven this decision.

In Corvallis, Rollens joked that he was intrigued by the possibility of the city becoming a micropolitan area, suggesting the community could benefit from thinking small.

We enjoy our small-batch craft beers and locally grown produce here in Corvallis, so I have no doubt that we would find a creative way to market our region if we ended up with a micropolitan designation, Rollens said.

Steve Marroni contributed to this report.


As a part of its #LetsTalkCPPuneCity initiative, Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta went live on Twitter and Monday and the internet is blown away with one of his replies. During the live chat, a person approached Amitabh Gupta and asked him to "do something" to convince his female friend to accept his love proposal. What happened next is the netizens' favourite part, "Unfortunately, without her consent, we cant be of any help. Nor should you do anything against her will. If she does agree someday, you have our best wishes and blessings. #ANoMeansNo", answered Amitabh Gupta.




President Joe Biden is making moves to elevate another progressive with antitrust views on big tech with the likely nomination of Lina Khan to join the Federal Trade Commission.

A source with knowledge of the situation said Tuesday that Khan, a professor at Columbia Law School, was being vetted for a nomination to join the Commission.

It is the latest sign that the Biden administration is positioning for a potential crackdown on tech behemoths including Facebook and Amazon.

Antitrust advocate Linda Khan, a professor at Columbia Law School, is on track for a nomination to join the Federal Communications Commission, it was revealed Tuesday

Khan has a special interest in Big Tech. As a staffer on a House Judiciary subcommittee, she helped pen report last year that promoted legislation to crack down on anti-competitive behavior. It dealt with major tech companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet.

She also wrote an article in the Yale Law Journal article titled 'Amazon's Antitrust Paradox.'

'Elements of the firms structure and conduct pose anticompetitive concernsyet it has escaped antitrust scrutiny,' she wrote.

'In addition to being a retailer, it is a marketing platform, a delivery and logistics network, a payment service, a credit lender, an auction house, a major book publisher, a producer of television and films, a fashion designer, a hardware manufacturer, and a leading provider of cloud server space and computing power,' she continued, pointing to its acceptance of short-term losses as potentially anti-competitive behavior.

She called for 'assessing whether a companys structure creates certain anticompetitive conflicts of interest; whether it can cross-leverage market advantages across distinct lines of business; and whether the structure of the market incentivizes and permits predatory conduct.'

She would join the five-member commission and provide Democrats a majority by filling a vacancy if she is confirmed by the Senate.

Her nomination, if it goes forward, would signal a tougher stance toward the tech platforms, especially following the selection of fellow antitrust progressive Tim Wu to join the National Economic Council.

Wu, who taught at Columbia University and previously served on the FTC and worked for the New York Attorney General, wrote the book The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.

Big tech critic Tim Wu is joining the the White House as a special assistant on the National Economic Council

Wu taught at Columbia University and wrote about the dangers of extreme concentration of wealth

His appointment was backed by progressive groups and those who want to break up large tech 'monopolies.'

Wu wrote in his antitrust book: 'Extreme economic concentration yields gross inequality and material suffering, feeding the appetite for nationalistic and extremist leadership.'

'You cannot simply buy your way out of competition,' he wrote in a 2020 New York Times op-ed after the FTC and states filed a lawsuit against Facebook.

'Facebook's strategy was similar to John D. Rockefeller's at Standard Oil during the 1880s. Both companies scanned the horizon of the marketplace, searching for potential competitors, and then bought them or buried them,' he wrote.

The FTC works with the Justice Department to enforce antitrust law and also investigates companies accused of deceptive advertising.

Politico, which first reported the potential nomination, also reported that an FBI agent had made calls to Khan's associates as part of a background check for the position.

The White House declined comment. Khan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There are many parallels between Meghan and Diana.

Like Diana, Meghan married into a family that did not understand her and believed she would conform, without complaint, to royal customs and protocol. As with Diana, when Meghan proved unable or unwilling to toe the family line, she said, the palace did nothing to dispel the emerging public narrative that she was demanding, petulant, entitled. And like Diana, Meghan found herself hounded by the tabloids, which accused her of constantly seeking attention while happily filling their pages with stories about her.

But there are differences, too, beyond the fact that Diana was white and Meghan is biracial, and the fact that Dianas marriage fell apart, while Meghan has a strong marriage and a fierce champion in Harry.

Diana was just 20, and very sheltered and naive, when she and Charles married; Meghan was 36 and worldly, having made her own living for years, when she married Harry. She was also divorced, with a high-profile job as an actress.

And Meghan is American, with an American sensibility.

Diana came from a culture of reticence in which tradition is venerated; Meghan comes from one where it is normal to ask for help, to discuss your feelings and to suggest that there might be better, newer ways of doing things.
A two-minute explainer on what it means when Goldman Sachs and others say Saudi is pursuing a tight oil market strategy

If you want to win a game of Monopoly owning Mayfair and Park Lane really helps, controlling most of the board is even better.

So it is in the market for crude oil, which is among very few markets in where a cartel not only exists but actually has its own flag and holds press conferences.

Saudi Arabia with the highest volumes of crude production and the lowest costs holds the premium spots on the board.

It also leads the OPEC group and along with Russia, for as long as they agree, the Kingdom steers crude price trends.

The United States meanwhile finds itself occupying all the orange and red spaces on the Monopoly board - as it is the high frequency, low return play.

But, lets wrap up this analogy quickly, before we all find ourselves on the hook for licensing.

OPEC+ vs America

The emergence of North American shale resources as a plentiful source of hydrocarbons rebalanced the crude market in recent decades but, typically, such operations have more onerous costs because of higher engineering demands.

At a high enough crude price America can produce enough low margin crude to sustain its own domestic demand and even export some excess.

Soaring crude prices of US$100 or more of course balloon margins for Saudi operations, which as a rule of thumb are below US$3 per barrel.

Strategically, however, there are diminishing returns for the Kingdom as oil wells spring up everywhere to mop up marginal returns. It massively dilutes market share for Saudi and other OPEC members such as Iraq, UAE, Iran, Kuwait, and Nigeria.

Russia finds itself with a similar proposition as crude prices climb which consequently sees them allied over oil policy.

Quotas

Managing production volumes is the main lever that Saudi, OPEC and Russia (a collective commonly referred to as OPEC+) can pull to exert some control of crude prices.

By keeping capacity reduced it can put the brakes on price trends and retain market share.

The OPEC+ strategy proved successful in the wake of 2014s crude market slump and was again the driver in oils recovery from the early doldrums of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has largely seen industrial and transport demand wiped out.

Saudi production cuts

Quotas and cuts in 2020 saw the OPEC+ group not produce nearly 10mln barrels of oil per day in order to keep a floor under oil prices.

In January, the cartel agreed they would release another 500,000 barrels per day to unwind curbs as they eyed rising demand as various countries began phased recoveries from pandemic restrictions.

The continued management of the crude supply is expected to underpin crude prices.

last week upgraded its target for crude after OPEC+ kept quotas unchanged through April.

Moreover, analysts at Goldman, in a note, said that Saudi is guiding for only a gradual ramp-up of volumes as economies re-open.

At the same time, the American bank highlighted that with crude oil prices up 25% since January and excess inventories reduced by an estimated 56% the cut in volumes is working in Saudis favour.

Goldman highlighted that OPECs strategy is in contrast with the pre-2020 strategy in which the bank says OPEC viewed itself as the central bank of the oil market.

We believe it is now clear that OPEC+ is in fact pursuing a tight oil market strategy.

A tight-market strategy leaves crude somewhat vulnerable to higher volatility, triggered by outside forces.

Brent crude starts this week on at around US$70 per barrel, for the first time early 2020, after a drone attack on the Saudi port of Ras Tanura, which is among the largest oil shipping locations in the world.

The attack was claimed by Yemens Houthi fighters, which said they had fired 14 bomb-laden drones and eight missiles in Saudi.

Saudi, meanwhile, said that the attack did not result in any injury or loss of life or property and no oil production had been affected.

Brent crude was up around 3%, trading up to a high of US$71.38, whilst West Texas Intermediary crude gained 1.6% to US$67.17.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria was one of 17 European countries to receive doses from a batch of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine that Austrian authorities have stopped using while investigating a death and an illness following their use, a senior health official said on Tuesday.

A 49-year-old nurse in Zwettl, a town northwest of Vienna, died as a result of severe coagulation disorders after receiving the vaccine. Another nurse from Zwettl who is 35 and received a dose from the same batch, ABV 5300, developed a pulmonary embolism and is recovering.

"We informed all European colleagues in the European network as this batch, which amounted to roughly a million doses in total, was sent to 17 European countries," Christa Wirthumer-Hoche, the head of Austrian public health agency AGES' medicines market supervisory body, told a news conference.

The European Medicines Agency's Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC), which monitors the safety of medicines, discussed the case on Monday, said Wirthumer-Hoche, who also heads EMA's management board.

She did not identify the countries or say what steps, if any, they had taken. AstraZeneca has said it is in contact with Austrian authorities and will fully support the investigation.

The Anglo-Swedish company has said all batches are subject to strict and rigorous quality controls and that there have been "no confirmed serious adverse events associated with the vaccine".

An autopsy of the nurse is being carried out and Wirthumer-Hoche said she expected the results next week.

European Union regulators at the end of January approved the product, saying it was effective and safe to use, while the World Health Organization in mid-February listed it for emergency use.

Adverse reactions seen in trials were short-lived for the most part and blood clotting problems were not reported.

A safety assessment by Germany's vaccine regulator of more than 360,000 people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine last month concluded that adverse reactions were in line with the safety profile described in clinical trials.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Harry and Meghan receive Invictus Games jackets from Malcolm Turnbull, then prime minister of Australia and his wife Lucy Turnbull, as they attend a reception at Australian High Commission in London, celebrating the forthcoming Invictus Games in 2018 (Alastair Grant/PA)

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said the television interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex bolstered his argument for Australia severing its constitutional ties to the British monarchy.

Mr Turnbull met Meghan and Harry in April 2018 four months before he was replaced by the current prime minister Scott Morrison in an internal power struggle.

Its clearly an unhappy family or at least Meghan and Harry are unhappy. It seems very sad, Mr Turnbull told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

After the end of the Queens reign, that is the time for us to say: OK, weve passed that watershed.

Read More

Do we really want to have whoever happens to be the head of state of, the king or queen of the UK, automatically our head of state?, Mr Turnbull added.

The Queen is Australias head of state.

Mr Turnbull was a leading advocate for Australia selecting an Australian citizen as its head of state when he was chairman of the Australian Republican Movement from 1993 to 2000.

A referendum on Australia becoming a republic was defeated in 1999, despite opinion polls showing that most Australians believed that their country should have an Australian head of state.

Many advocates of an Australian republic want a US system where the president is popularly elected rather than serving in a figurehead role as proposed in 1999.

Mr Morrison was not questioned about the royal interview during a press conference on Tuesday.
A French schoolgirl has admitted to telling lies about a teacher who was beheaded after an online hate campaign kickstarted by her comments.

The unidentified girl had claimed that high school teacher Samuel Paty showed an image depicting the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on free speech.

She said that Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the class before he showed the image, which had appeared in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

On Monday, the girl's lawyer revealed that his client, 13, had confirmed that she did not actually attend the class and was off sick at the time.

'She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson,' lawyer Mbeko Tabula said.

After the girl, who reportedly had a history of behavioural problems, made her initial claims about the class, her father filed a legal complaint and posted a video online in early October.

The video, which detailed the allegations against Paty, provoked outrage on social media, including death threats against the teacher.

A French schoolgirl has admitted to telling lies about a teacher who was beheaded after an online hate campaign kickstarted by her comments. The unidentified girl had claimed that high school teacher Samuel Paty showed an image depicting the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on free speech and that Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the class before he showed the image, which had appeared in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Pictured: A memorial to Paty at the city hall in Conflans-Saint-Honorine [File photo]

On Monday, the girl's lawyer revealed that his client, 13, had confirmed that she did not actually attend the class and was off sick at the time. Pictured: People gather in Paris to pay tribute to Paty on October 18 [File photo]

French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, left, was beheaded in the Paris suburbs last October by Chechen terrorist Aboulakh Anzorov, right

Paty was beheaded in the street by an 18-year-old man of Chechen descent on October 16. The man was shot dead by police shortly after the attack.

The girl has been charged with slander, while her father and an Islamist preacher have been charged with complicity in the killing.

The lawyer for Paty's family expressed her anger on Tuesday over the lies spread on social media which led to the murder and the girl's claim she was a spokesperson for others.

'Everything in the investigation showed very early that she lied,' Virginie Le Roy told RTL radio on Tuesday.

'[She was] a spokesperson of what? Of lies, of events that never happened? This explanation does not convince me and makes me rather angry because the facts are serious, they're tragic.'

Paty's killing, which happened in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, sent shockwaves through France and reignited tensions in the country over the strict divide of church and state.

President Emmanuel Macron's response defending the cartoons of Mohammed and Paty's actions sparked mass protests and boycotts of French goods in many Muslim-majority countries.

The Prophet Mohammed is extremely revered in Islam, which prohibits the depiction of animate objects including people and animals.

Visual representations of Mohammed or Allah are considered particularly egregious by some followers of the faith.

The offices of Charlie Hebdo, the magazine which published the cartoons of Mohammed, were the subject of an attack in 2015 in which 12 people were killed.

Following Macron's comments on Paty's killing, three people were killed in a terrorist attack at a Catholic church in Nice on October 29.

France has been hit by several major terror attacks in recent years. Its fiercely secular state was founded on the concept of laicite, which separates state institutions - including schools - from the influence of religion.

French President Emmanuel Macron's response defending the cartoons and Paty's actions sparked mass protests and boycotts of French goods in many Muslim-majority countries. Pictured: An effigy of Macron is burned in Kolkata, India on November 4

Following Macron's comments on Paty's killing, three people were killed in a terrorist attack at a Catholic church in Nice on October 29. Pictured: French police guard the Notre-Dame Basilica in Nice where the killings took place [File photo]

In recent years, this policy has chafed with the reality of France's multicultural population, particularly Muslims, some of whom feel they have been unfairly targeted by secularism policies including a ban on the wearing of some forms of Islamic dress in public spaces.

Teachers are increasingly on the front lines of this contentious and deeply-felt debate.

On Monday, the government warned that a poster campaign by students in Grenoble risked putting two university professors' lives at stake. The posters accuse the academics of Islamophobia.

A proposed law under discussion in the French parliament would make sharing information about a state employee online punishable with prison if it was known posting such information could cause the person harm.

The draft law comes after parliament approved a law aimed at fighting 'Islamist separatism' by banning 'hate preachers' and giving police the power to close religious schools.

On February 16, France's lower house voted in favour of the law billed by the government as a riposte to religious groups attempting to undermine the secular state.

The draft legislation, which has been criticised for stigmatising Muslims and giving the state new powers to limit speech and religious groups, was backed by a clear majority of MPs in the National Assembly.

Macron has been accused of pandering to far-right voters by exaggerating the danger of Islamist groups in the often-marginalised communities found in French suburbs.

The government counters that the threat is real, pointing to repeated terror attacks and what Macron called the development of a 'counter-society' that rejects secularism, equality and other French values and laws.
[March 09, 2021] Greenlight Consulting and UiPath Host Virtual Hackathon to Solve a Canadian Healthcare Issue During COVID-19

Post-secondary students leveraged RPA technology to create innovative solutions for the in-person check-in process  improving social distancing measures at clinics TORONTO, March 9, 2021 /CNW/ - Greenlight Consulting , a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and IT services firm in Toronto concluded its first virtual Canadian hackathon with the support and sponsorship of UiPath , a leading enterprise automation software company. RPA is a technology that enables the rapid design and deployment of software robots, otherwise known as digital workers. The digital workers perfectly emulate and execute repetitive processes, boosting organizational productivity, ensuring compliance, and freeing up valuable time for staff so that they can focus on higher-value activities instead of mundane, time-consuming, repetitive processing tasks. At a time where every minute of staff capacity within our Healthcare system matters, RPA can be a powerful tool that enables medical and support staff to focus on critical tasks and front-line services. "The goal of the hackathon was to bring together Healthcare institutions, industry-leading RPA technology and Cnadian students to solve a real meaningful problem with speed, then to provide that solution at no cost to help ease the burden on the healthcare system. As society looks at how automation technology can fuel efficiency, productivity, and bolster capacity across the workforce, we continue to look for ways we can work together to utilize the technology for the public good," said Shameiz Hemani, CEO of Greenlight Consulting.



In light of the ongoing strain on the Healthcare system, Greenlight partnered with the University Health Network to develop a problem statement that focused on solving the real-world problem of social distancing and flow in clinics. "Designing efficient ways to provide care is more critical than it's ever been. We have so many opportunities in healthcare to automate and eliminate non-value-add steps and get administrative processes out of the way enabling the care providers to focus on what's most important  the patient," said Michael Caesar, Executive Director of Data & Implementation Science at the University Health Network. Notwithstanding the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, innovation and its ability to transform today's challenges will prevail and continue to thrive among our developers. Last year, it was reported by the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report that the landscape of work will continue to morph.

According to a UiPath study of more than 500 C-level executives and senior managers at large organizations, it found  of those surveyed  they are increasingly requiring employees to have, and seeking new candidates who have, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) skills. When choosing between two similarly qualified job candidates, 73% of surveyed executives said they would pick the candidate with more experience with automation and AI tools, even if the role does not require those abilities. Post-secondary institutions like George Brown College have specifically designed an RPA program to assist post-graduate students in honing their RPA skills while leveraging the UiPath RPA platform. "We are excited to introduce Robotic Process Automation to our learners and the wider community," said Tyler Krimmel, Professor in the Computer Science Department at George Brown College. "As an academic institution focused on applied, hands-on learning, George Brown College partnered with UiPath to allow learners to pursue this critically in-demand skill-set that bridges process automation and analysis and RPA development. In a very short period of time, we have seen that these skills have given our graduates a distinctive advantage when competing in the job market. We initially introduced RPA into existing programs, such as our Information System Business Analysis post-graduate certificate. Over the past two years, however, we have seen the industry demand for these skills grow exponentially, and have since launched an RPA Micro-Certificate program available through our college's Continuing Education Department." There is a consensus between education and private organizations that the demand is there for technological skills. "We're hearing loud and clear that executives want all employees to have automation and AI skills, and that employees, in turn, demand training to be successful with these emerging technologies. As we continue to work in automation-led work environments, it's absolutely crucial for all employees to have access to automation and AI education," said Sean Hinton, Vice President and General Manager of UiPath Canada. "We're proud to partner with Greenlight on this initiative and congratulate the winning teams on their innovative submissions." The winning teams are as follows: Top UHN Solution and Top Overall Solution

Team "6ix Health"



Maha Zeb





Morgan Kaneshakumar





Chanpreet Litt





Sharanya Kanakaratnam

Most Innovative Solution

Team "JARS"



Sagar Varia





Amandeep Thakur





Rebecca Crawford





Jesvin Johnson

Honourable Mention to Parth Girishkumar Dave About Greenlight Consulting Greenlight Consulting is a Robotic Process Automation and IT Services company based in Toronto, with a national footprint. Being a boutique IT Consulting and Staffing firm for over 13 years and working with some of North America's largest organizations, we have a proven track record for helping clients solve their Human and Digital resourcing needs. For updates, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn . For more information, please visit greenlightconsulting.com . SOURCE Greenlight Consulting

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
By Song Kyung-jin





Apart from the COVID-19 pandemic, there was another event in 2020 that Korea should not miss taking stock of, registering the results in our collective memory in order to strive for more refined diplomacy. It was Korea's decision to enter into the race for the director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO).



There are four criteria that provide useful guidelines for this reflection: the regional rotation rule, broadly applied; competition between candidates; internal and external coordination and communication; and strategic objectives.



The tacit rule of regional rotation has been broadly applied to most multilateral institutions, including the WTO. It will likely remain in the future, unless there is a dramatic rupture in the organization itself. Korea's nomination and its seriousness about it rather surprised the global community. It was widely believed to be Africa's turn to assume leadership this time.



A glance at the list of the past heads of most international organizations, including the United Nations, reveals how leadership selection processes in multilateral organizations occur. Two possible exceptions are the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank  two very powerful multilateral institutions that have kept their leadership exclusively in Europe and the United States. This question of regional rotation in itself is a critical issue to be addressed continuously, hopefully by middle powers like Korea as well.



Through his ancient classic, "The Art of War," Sun Tzu taught us to know one's competitor. Contrary to many rumors and reports in the local media, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian candidate, who assumed the WTO leadership March 1, was known for her brilliant career and leadership. Solid leadership with political clout is required to prompt stakeholders to listen and act on what has been agreed upon, in order to get the multilateral institution to live up to its purpose.



The above two points lead me to my third point: whether or not there was sufficient internal and external coordination and communication within the Korean government in the lead-up to its decision to nominate a candidate, and stay in the race until its candidate was forced out. The most critical question is whether President Moon Jae-in was briefed sufficiently and impartially about the selection process, competitors and Korea's chances of capturing the leadership position.



I still cannot shake off my reasonable suspicion that there must have been a lack of due consultation among the parties concerned. The biggest farce that irritated many internationalists was when the Korean government expressed its firm belief in the Trump administration's support for the Korean candidate  which amounted to nothing but lip service  and decided to stay in the race after the absolute majority of the WTO's 164 members voted for the Nigerian candidate on Oct. 27, 2020.



Hence, I believe we need to reflect on a couple of points. First, the best option for the defeated party is usually to accept the results of the race, congratulate the winner, and pledge support for the next leadership, along with WTO reform, where needed. The Korean delegation failed to follow this process in Geneva, where it became the talk of the town. In retrospect, the government's message to the public was often misleading and confusing.



Thus, the big task before us is to rebuild both internal and external coordination and communication with confidence. Second, Trump, with his catchphrase, "America First," was identified with nationalism, protectionism and unilateralism, notions that negate the basic principles of the WTO. After taking office, he quickly got the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.



He badmouthed the WTO and blocked the appointment of judges to its Appellate Body. Hence, one would be naive not to doubt his intentions and rather, try to rely to his administration for any meaningful support. In order for the Korean government to have trusted that Trump's intentions were real, as was portrayed in media reports, there must have been a serious misreading of the complexities of the relationship between the Trump administration and the global community.



Lastly, Korea should have arrived at a clear objective for pursuing the WTO leadership, after meticulously calculating the gains and losses of doing so when it was seen to be Africa's turn. Cooperation with Africa has become a critical issue on the table, especially in light of the fierce competition among Korea, China and Japan. Japan, the fourth largest donor country in absolute terms, has recently focused on further strengthening its economic and development cooperation with Africa, in line with its "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" strategy connecting Africa and Asia.



China's cooperation with Africa has grown strong over the past two decades, and further with the Belt and Road Initiative, despite hiccups here and there. According to China's State Council Information Office, between 2013 and 2018, 45 percent of China's foreign aid went to Africa. In the case of Korea, the 15th largest donor country in absolute terms, only 18 percent of its foreign aid went to Africa in 2018. Amidst this background, Korea is in the position of having to double down on its cooperation with Africa.



This brief reflection on Korea's handling of the WTO leadership selection process  from nomination to withdrawal  points clearly at its amateurishness, in terms of lacking clear objectives, coordination and communication. It also misread the ulterior motives of the Trump administration and did not understand the complexities of the international community. Fortunately, we do not have to remain hostage to these weaknesses. Instead, we would be better off saying goodbye to the old days of naivete and saying hello to news days of finesse.





Dr. Song Kyung-jin (kj_song@hotmail.com) led the Institute for Global Economics (IGE), based in Seoul, and served as special adviser to the chairman of the Presidential Committee for the Seoul G20 Summit in the Office of the President. Now, she chairs the international cooperation committee called the Innovative Economy Forum.


Is there a way to square the emissions circle? Farmers want the freedom to grow their businesses while environmentalists insist that output has to be capped, and even reduced in the case of livestock, to have any hope of addressing climate change.

Ive had my fair share of run-ins with environmentalists who castigate farmers for questioning their viewpoints.

Its easy for them to write farmers off as ignorant and deniers  their self-righteous desire to see the national herd reduced wont cost any of them a livelihood.

They point to the opportunities in organic farming, but I havent heard anybody explain how this makes farming more economically sustainable.

Expand Close Pressure: Environmentalists are demanding a reduction in the national herd. Picture: Clare Keogh / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Pressure: Environmentalists are demanding a reduction in the national herd. Picture: Clare Keogh

For example, its estimated that 70pc of Irish organic sheep ends up being sold at conventional prices because of a lack of a premium outlet.

What would happen if this surplus doubled again over the coming years?

The environmental lobby also want farmers to be less reliant on livestock and grow more crops, but Irish agriculture is dependent on beef and dairy because these are the products that we are best able to produce and compete with on commodity markets.

Read More

And farmers will rightly wonder why they are being asked to wind down their cattle numbers so that the carbon footprint of the herd can be exported elsewhere. After all, isnt this what is going to happen with peat from now on?

The Environmental Pillar has chosen to walk out of the agri-strategy committee tasked with drawing up a blueprint for the future of farming.

Unfortunately for farmers, they dont have the option of giving up in protest about their own futures. Theyve got to make this work some way or other.

Environmentalists have laid claim to the higher moral ground on this, but its farmers who are the front-line workers when it comes to protecting the environment.

Farmers have a bigger impact on the environment than any other profession, just by the sheer fact that farmers own the majority of the landscape all around.

Farmers rely on that landscape, on nature and the climate to provide themselves with a living. And they dont need me or any environmentalist to tell them that.

So back to the issue.

Is there a truly sustainable way to keep agriculture going in Ireland without wrecking the planet?

Yes, but that doesnt mean that we dont need some radical ideas.

Why is no one discussing ways of changing the 1.5bn of CAP farm subsidies into something that incentivises lower emissions?

If it was changed to a carbon credit payment, then it would instantly decouple it from its historical links, and channel it to farmers with lower emissions, which will tend to be those with the lowest payments at the moment.

It might also move the goal-posts on the way that unprofitable farmers look at their enterprise.

Currently, they keep doing what they are doing partly out of fear that they will scupper their payments if they change anything.

In converting entitlements into carbon credits, you could link current emissions to the current pot of money. If a farmer chooses to produce more emissions, then their payment drops, and the money is redistributed to everyone else. If their emissions decrease, their payment rises by redistributing the pot.

Read More

This would send a clear signal  you can generate more carbon emissions, but itll cost you.

The flip side is that a farmer who decides to keep less stock gets an immediate increase.

Critics will say that it encourages people to leave land idle. And isnt that what the environmentalists want?

Itll also add a cost onto otherwise profitable enterprises, such as dairying. But I suspect that theres a growing realisation that theres going to be some kind of a carbon tax over time.

At least this tax would make the farm subsidies somewhat legitimate in the taxpayers eyes.

Darragh McCullough runs a mixed farm enterprise in Meath www.elmgrovefarm.ie
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Despite being located in one of the driest regions of the world--the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile--the usually dry Copiapo River has flooded several times during the 19th and 20th centuries. Sedimentary deposits from the 2017 floods are shown here. The 2015 Atacama floods, analyzed in this paper, were among the worst ever recorded in the region, killing 178 people. Credit: Manu Abad via Imaggeo

Around the world each year, extreme precipitation events cause catastrophic flooding that results in tragic loss of life and costly damage to infrastructure and property. However, a variety of different weather systems can cause these extreme events, so a detailed understanding of the atmospheric processes that lead to their formation is crucial.

Now, for the first time, a global analysis reveals that two intertwined atmospheric processes drive the formation of many large-scale extreme precipitation events around the world, particularly in dry subtropical regions where they can inflict catastrophic flooding, as occurred in March 2015 in the Atacama Desert.

Previous research on extreme precipitation events has mostly focused on wet regions, where cyclones are typically responsible for these events, whereas dry subtropical regions have been less studied. However, it is precisely these dry subtropical regions, including deserts, "where these mysterious events are least expected, but can cause devastating impacts," says Andries-Jan de Vries, an atmospheric scientist at ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, who authored the new study.

The results, published in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) journal Weather and Climate Dynamics, improve our understanding of atmospheric processes and weather systems that lead to extreme precipitation events. This, in turn, could help improve forecasts, perhaps leading to the development of early warning systems that could save lives.

The results could also improve our understanding of how these extreme events will respond to climate change. The intensity and frequency of these heavy rainfall events have been increasing in recent decades, and the trend is projected to continue under global warming.

An animation showing the Rossby wave breaking and intense moisture transport that led to severe flooding in the Atacama in 2015. Credit: Andries-Jan de Vries

Breaking Waves and Moisture Transports

This study highlights the role of two atmospheric processes in the formation of extreme precipitation events: the breaking of Rossby waves and intense moisture transport.

Rossby waves, also called planetary waves because they arise due to Earth's rotation, are waves occurring in the ocean and atmosphere that were first discovered in the 1930s by Carl Rossby. In the atmosphere, Rossby waves determine to a large extent the weather in midlatitude regions. Due to nonlinear processes, Rossby waves can amplify and eventually break (similar to ocean waves moving onshore).

Intense moisture transport refers to large masses of water vapor moving horizontally in the atmosphere. The process has been linked to extreme precipitation and flooding, often along the western coasts of continents. When the moisture transport appears in an elongate-shaped structure reaching lengths of several thousand kilometers, it is better known as an "atmospheric river."

A car deposited by floodwaters in Lefthand Creek, north of Boulder, Colorado in September 2013. Credit: Terri Cook via Imaggeo

"When Rossby waves amplify and break, cold-air masses intrude from high latitudes into lower latitudes, and vice versa," De Vries says. "This atmospheric process can drive intense moisture transport, destabilize the troposphere, and force air masses to ascend, which together favor the formation of extreme precipitation."

One key finding of the study is that the severity of the extreme precipitation is strongly influenced by the characteristics of the two atmospheric processes. "The stronger the wave breaking and the more intense the moisture transport, the larger the precipitation volumes," De Vries says.

Extreme Precipitation and Catastrophic Flooding

De Vries analyzed daily extreme precipitation events occurring around the world between 1979 and 2018. The analysis focused on larger-scale events and did not consider very local short-duration heavy rainfall, which are typically caused by single thunderstorms.

Colorado, USA EPE animation 8 to 15 Sept 2013. Credit: Andries-Jan de Vries

He found that Rossby wave breaking can explain more than 90 percent of extreme precipitation events over central North America and the Mediterranean. Over coastal zones, however, more than 95 percent of the extreme precipitation events were driven by intense moisture transport, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies on atmospheric rivers.

One of the most interesting findings was the discovery of locations where the two processes combined drive the extreme events. "Importantly, the combined occurrence of these two atmospheric processes can explain up to 70 percent of extreme precipitation events in regions where one would expect them the leastthe dry subtropics," De Vries says. "Breaking waves that reach from the midlatitudes unusually far towards the equator can draw moisture from the humid tropics into the dry subtropics, which feeds the heavy rainfall.

The study further demonstrated that the combined processes played a key role in 12 historic extreme precipitation events that resulted in catastrophic flooding, thousands of fatalities and injuries, billions of dollars in damage, and sustained socioeconomic impacts lasting well beyond the flooding event. These floods included the Natal, South Africa, floods of September 1987; the Alpine floods in October 2000; the Uttarakhand, India, floods in June 2013; the Colorado floods of September 2013; and the Atacama Desert floods in March 2015.

Explore further Study identifies significance of atmospheric rivers for New Zealand

More information: Andries Jan de Vries. A global climatological perspective on the importance of Rossby wave breaking and intense moisture transport for extreme precipitation events, Weather and Climate Dynamics (2021). Andries Jan de Vries. A global climatological perspective on the importance of Rossby wave breaking and intense moisture transport for extreme precipitation events,(2021). DOI: 10.5194/wcd-2-129-2021
MILFORD  College students should be allowed to report sexual assaults without fear of repercussions, according to state Rep. Kathy Kennedy, R-Milford.

That is a big sticking point with me, Kennedy said. They must be able to report what happens on college campuses.

Kennedy recently testified before the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee in favor of House Bill 6374, a bill that addresses sexual assault on college campuses.

Among other things, the bill would mandate anonymous sexual misconduct climate surveys on a campus every two years in order to help implement effective policies, and would prohibit those who report in good faith campus sexual assaults, stalking or violence, from being subjected to disciplinary action for violating a campus drug or alcohol use policy, as long as the violation of such policy did not place the health or safety of another person at risk.

This bill allows someone who finds themselves in a situation (partying, being under age) to report it without fear of repercussions, possibly being arrested or suspended because they may have been drinking or whatever the case may be, Kennedy said.

Kennedy said in her testimony that it establishes an amnesty program for victims that allow an underage student who has been drinking or using drugs to report an assault without fear of being charged with a violation. The proposal also applies to protecting witnesses who make such reports,

The bill was originally proposed in the Senate two years ago, and the bill got out of committee before COVID-19 halted its progress. The bill died when the session ended.

In October, Kennedy met with Every Voice Coalition, whose stated mission is to bring together students, community organizations and universities to combat campus sexual violence. The experience was eye-opening, she said.

I never heard the term Red Zone before meeting with Every Voice, Kennedy said. Red Zone is from August to early November when (sexual assaults) are at their highest.

The legislation has the support of the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. The group submitted written testimony in favor of H.B. 6374.

Having access to these survey results will inform the work that these advocates do every day in preventing sexual violence and advocating for survivors, the alliance wrote. In addition to students and advocates, this legislation would be beneficial to colleges and universities. In reviewing responses from these surveys, they will have an opportunity to implement prevention and intervention practices based on the individualized needs of their community.

The alliance called the bill a natural extension of 2014 legislation aimed at reinforcing awareness, prevention, and response methods regarding intimate partner violence, sexual assault and stalking on college campuses.

While the 2014 legislation concentrated on how institutions perceived their campus response to misconduct, it lacked significant feedback from enrolled students about their perceptions, experiences and needs, the group wrote.

According to Kennedy, in 2018 there were 436 reported assaults and stalking cases reported at Connecticut colleges. But the actual number may be higher.

The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that only 5 percent of victims of sexual violence on any college campus in America choose to report their assault to university officials, she said.

Hearing the testimony were Co-chairmen Sen. Will Haskell and Rep. Joshua Elliott, Vice Chairmen Sen. Mae Flexer and Rep. Gary Turco, and ranking members Sen. Kevin Witkos and Rep. Irene Haines.

Kennedy said at least 20 senators and representatives had co-signed the bill, and she was hopeful it would get voted out of committee.

This is an important bill and has to pass this time for all college kids, she said. Every Voice worked all winter to get this bill ready.

william.bloxsom@hearstmediact.com Twitter: @blox354
Jury selection in the murder trial of former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin was supposed to begin Monday as artists and activists gathered outside the barricaded Hennepin County courthouse to call for justice in the death of another Black man at the hands of police.

Instead, the day began with a confusing debate over whether it was premature to select jurors without resolving the question of whether Chauvin will face an additional charge of third-degree murder.

The defense said it planned to ask the state Supreme Court by Tuesday afternoon to review whether Chauvin, accused of killing Floyd by pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for more than 9 minutes, could face that charge. Chauvin already faces charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Prosecutors with the Minnesota Attorney General's office scrambled to ask the Minnesota Court of Appeals to halt jury selection while that appeal is underway.

Demonstrators gather outside the Hennepin County Government Center, Monday, March 8, 2021, in Minneapolis where the trial for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is delayed. Chauvin is charged with murder in the death of George Floyd during an arrest last May in Minneapolis.

By lunch, potential jurors had been sent home for the day. After a series of brief hearings Monday afternoon, attorneys struck 16 jurors for cause based on their responses to a questionnaire. The day ended without a single juror stepping foot into the courtroom.

With no word Monday afternoon from the appeals court, Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill said jury selection would begin Tuesday.

Unless the Court of Appeals tells me otherwise, were going to keep going, Cahill said.

Appeals ruling on additional murder charge disrupts plans

The case against Chauvin has become a jigsaw puzzle, its prospects complicated by a separate appeals court ruling made in February.

The ruling by the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the third-degree murder conviction of ex-Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, who fatally shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond in 2017. The appeals court upheld the conviction even though the incident didn't involve anyone other than the victim.

That contradicted a reading of the law Cahill relied on last fall to throw out a third-degree murder charge against Chauvin. After the ruling in the Noor case, prosecutors asked Cahill to reinstate that charge. He refused.

Story continues

In this image taken from video, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides over a hearing before jury selection, Monday, March 8, 2021, at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis. Jury selection in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused in death of George Floyd, was delayed.

Friday, the appeals court said Cahill should not have tossed that charge because the Noor ruling was the precedent.

The Noor case, meanwhile, is set to be heard by the Minnesota Supreme Court in June.

"This is very rare and extremely unfortunate," said Mary Moriarty, the former Hennepin County chief public defender. "It's very rare for the parties and the judge frankly not to know the charges are when you are scheduled to start your trial, (but) everyone is doing the best they can."

Prosecutors 'want a clean trial'

The city of Minneapolis is in limbo after bracing for the stress of a trial that reopens wounds from last summer's protests over police brutality, and the violence that followed. Downtown businesses are boarded up. The courthouse has been surrounded by fencing and concrete barriers.

"They've spent a million dollars on barricades and National Guard troops, called all the jurors in, and they had to go through security for an hour. It's really embarrassing," said Ted Sampsell-Jones, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in neighboring St. Paul.

Despite Cahill's statement that he's going forward Tuesday, legal observers say they are prepared for a delay of days or even weeks, depending on how things shake out in the two cases.

"From the Attorney General's perspective, they dont want to create any errors in the case," Moriarty said. "They want a clean trial so there arent legitimate issues on appeal."

Demonstrators gather outside the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis where the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin was set to begin Monday with jury selection. Chauvin is charged with murder in the death of George Floyd during an arrest last May in Minneapolis. Monday, March 8, 2021

The challenge for prosecutors, Moriarty said, is if they move ahead with the trial and Chauvin is convicted of third-degree murder but nothing else. That would raise the stakes of the Supreme Court's hearing on the Noor case.

If the Supreme Court were to throw out the Noor conviction, Chauvin could appeal his conviction on those grounds.

"I have no crystal ball about what they're going to do. I really do feel for people who have been so anxiety-ridden and traumatized," Moriarty said. Especially when it's so hard to understand the legal back-and-forth, "its just awful for the community."

Delays add to stress for Minneapolis residents

Outside the courthouse, a group of more than 100 protesters demonstrated in front of Hennepin County Government Center for several hours. Artists and activists drenched flowers and mirrors in what appeared to be fake blood. Relatives of Black people killed by police gave speeches full of emotion.

Donna Morris, part of an anti-gun violence organization Mothers Love, said delaying the inevitable  the trial  "only serves to keep the communities under stress."

"Not only are we dealing with the trial, were dealing with the effects of the trial," including worries about property being destroyed, Morris said while taking photos outside the courthouse.

George Floyd's brother, Terrence Floyd, spoke at a news conference in New York Monday and said he hoped to be in Minnesota for hearings later this month.

"Its kind of surreal right now that we have to basically relive this whole situation all over again," Floyd said. "Im going to get through this. Im going to help my family get through this (and) Im hoping and praying for the outcome that we all want.

"But you know in reality," he said, "Im going to say, if it dont go that way, I just know and believe in my heart that theres going to be change, regardless, for us as a nation."

Follow USA TODAY National Correspondent Tami Abdollah, who is covering the Derek Chauvin trial, at https://twitter.com/latams

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Derek Chauvin trial starts with confusion as jury selection delayed
Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription.

Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service.
It has been more than five weeks since Myanmars military took full control of the Southeast Asia nation, removing the democratically elected government, in a move that has sparked nationwide anti-coup protests.

Tens of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets in demonstrations that have included widespread strikes from the professional class aiming to stifle the rule of the junta government, officially the State Administrative Council (SAC).

But despite street rallies that have become a daily occurrence, the military has ramped up efforts to silence demonstrators by aggressively responding with live ammunition to quell protests. Dozens have died, including members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of ousted de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Khin Maung Latt, a politician of the Rakhine constituency, died in police custody after overnight raids in Yangon on Saturday, a party official confirmed to VOAs Burmese service. Khin Maung Latt had actively campaigned for NLD candidates in both the 2015 and 2020 Myanmar general elections.

Local media reported Khin Maung Latts family were informed he died after fainting. But before he was arrested, he was beaten in his home, according to witnesses.

Tun Kyi, spokesperson of the Association Assistance for Political Prisoners Burma (AAPPB), told VOA Burmese he accompanied the bereaved family to claim Khin Maung Latts body and witnessed blood on his head, his fingers blackened, and wounds on his back.

It is widely thought he was beaten and tortured to death by the authorities, though there has been no confirmation of such treatment. His funeral took place on Sunday. He was 58 years old. Police have not commented on the case.

Sithu Maung, one of two Muslim lawmakers elected in Myanmars last elections, told VOA Burmese that Khin Maung Latt was my uncle, a friend and comrade and that he was "very saddened by his death."

He was my campaign manager and also an activist. With his death, there was nothing legal about the whole process. If they want to arrest someone, they must have (a) warrant first, he later told VOA.

The international rights group Human Rights Watch has called for the military junta to investigate the death of the Burmese politician, and to look into those who have disappeared.

Myanmars junta runs the security forces and can quickly find out who killed Khin Maung Latt if they want to. If they want to show they believe in the rule of law, all those responsible should be held account," Brian Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch said.

In response to the coup last month, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) was formed, representing the elected lawmakers of the ousted NLD party. After refusing to recognize the military, they have since notified diplomats and international parliaments they should liaise with the committee on government matters.

Arkar Myo Htet admitted as the brutal crackdown continues in Myanmar, like many other NLD members, he could be next.

I stay hiding already. I have to move every three days. Over 100 NLD MPs are already in jail, he said.

But despite the risk he faces, he believes the people of Myanmar are not afraid to protest the military, unlike previous revolutions.

When they threat in 1988 and 2007, the people did not have, did not feel the freedom. After five years of NLD government, people feel what the meaning is of democracy, why we need democracy, he added.

But the military has stepped up their efforts to detain opposition members, legislator Sithu Maung added, saying that on Sunday evening his father had also been arrested.

"My father Peter (from) Hlaing Township, NLD party member has been arrested by soldiers and police, part of his post on Facebook read.

He now waits anxiously on the fate of his father, just like many families who have had loved ones detained with little update on their condition. The AAPPB reported that 1,857 have been detained with 1,538 still in detention or have faced charges since the coup began.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by armed forces from 1962 until 2011 when democratic reforms led by Aung San Suu Kyi ended the military rule. In 2015, her NLD party won the countrys first open democratic election.

In the general elections in November 2020, the military-backed opposition lost heavily to Suu Kyis democracy party. The opposition contested the results, claiming there was widespread electoral fraud.

On February 1, the Myanmar military, also known as Tatmadaw, removed the NLD government.

NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were detained and additionally charged. The military announced a one-year-long state of emergency with commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing taking power. He later announced a free and fair general election would be held.

Zin Thu Aung contributed to this report.
Two men who followed an 87-year-old woman who had just withdrawn 2,000 from a bank and distracted her while they stole it from her handbag have been jailed

Robert Malole (43) and Gheorghe Cocos (44) were caught on CCTV observing the woman at the bank and following her to a shop, pharmacy and onto her car.

Cocos approached and asked her to point out a location on a map which obstructed her view of her handbag while the money was stolen.

The court heard gardai traced the pair through CCTV and by tracing their rental car which they had obtained using their real passports. The men have repaid the money taken from the victim in full.

Malole and Cocos, both with an address at Cardy Rock Ave, Balbriggan, Dublin and originally from Romania, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to theft at Brackenstown Road, Swords on October 20, 2020.

Malole has nine previous convictions including theft, aggravated theft and fraud. Cocos has three previous convictions and is currently serving a two-year sentence with the final 8 months suspended for theft, which was imposed last month at Bray Circuit Court.

Judge Martin Nolan said this offence was particularly reprehensible. He said the men had spotted an opportunity and taken advantage of the woman.

She tried to help one of them and for her trouble, her money was stolen, he said. He noted the victim impact statement of the woman handed into court and the effect the offence has had on her.

He said the theft had been by trick, not violence, and noted the men had both been under financial pressure and had come to Ireland to try and help their families financially.

Judge Nolan took into account Malole is currently serving a sentence, due to expire next February, and imposed an eight-month sentence consecutive to his current term.

He imposed a 20 month on Cocos, noting his record was more comprehensive.

The court heard the men had pleaded guilty at a very early stage and were remorseful.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis' daughter Lily-Rose bundled up in a hoodie and sweatpants beneath a puffer coat and UGG boots for a solo stroll in Manhattan on Monday.

At one point, the French-American 21-year-old pulled down her mandatory, coronavirus-protective face mask to sneak a sip of her iced-coffee to go.

As of Monday, there have reportedly been 1.69M confirmed COVID-19 cases in New York state (753K in NYC) leading to 47,857 deaths.

Casually clad: Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis' daughter Lily-Rose bundled up in a hoodie and sweatpants beneath a puffer coat and UGG boots for a solo stroll in Manhattan on Monday

Pandemic: At one point, the French-American 21-year-old pulled down her mandatory, coronavirus-protective face mask to sneak a sip of her iced-coffee to go

In a rare throwback post, Lily-Rose Instastoried two snaps from a fashion spread shot by photographer Tina Barney back in 2019.

Depp - who boasts 4.3M Instagram followers - captioned her 'TB' posts with eight pink heart emojis.

'I'm just a normal person,' the Crisis actress claimed in her cover story for The Face.

'I think that the American school system puts a lot of pressure on kids, so if you don't go to college, then you won't be successful or you won't have a good life or you won't realize your dreams.

Nostalgic: In a rare throwback post, Lily-Rose Instastoried two snaps from a fashion spread shot by photographer Tina Barney back in 2019

Memories: Depp - who boasts 4.3M Instagram followers - captioned her 'TB' posts with eight pink heart emojis

'I'm just a normal person': The Crisis actress is hardly 'normal' considering her godfather is disgraced shock rocker Marilyn Manson and she used to lunch with the late Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld

'That's a really dangerous pressure to put on kids. And also a false one; there's no truth to that. Everybody has their own path. And, for some people, it's college. What's been important to me, always, but especially since I've left [high] school, is to never stop learning.'

Lily-Rose is hardly 'normal' considering her godfather is disgraced shock rocker Marilyn Manson and she used to lunch with the late Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld.

Depp will next portray astronaut Sela in Neil Burger's PG-13 sci-fi thriller Voyagers, which hits US theaters April 9.

In the hedonistic flick, 30 young men and women - bred for intelligence and obedience - embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet.

'What does it feel like?' Lily-Rose will next portray astronaut Sela in Neil Burger's PG-13 sci-fi thriller Voyagers, which hits US theaters April 9

'Why have they all gone crazy?' In the hedonistic flick, 30 young men and women - bred for intelligence and obedience - embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet

Secret romance? While on the Bucharest set, Depp seemed to get especially close to her British castmate Archie Madekwe (L, pictured in 2019), who played the role of Kai

However, things get chaotic after the young astronauts decide to stop drinking a drug concoction called 'The Blue' which dulls their senses.

Voyagers also features Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, Fionn Whitehead, and Isaac Hempstead Wright.

While on the Bucharest set, the two-time Cesar Award nominee seemed to get especially close to her British castmate Archie Madekwe, who played the role of Kai.

In April 2020, Lily-Rose reportedly ended a two-year romance with her onscreen leading man in Netflix's The King, Timothee Chalamet.
New Delhi, March 9 : Pandemonium on the price hike of LPG cylinder and petroleum products continued for the second consecutive day on Tuesday with Opposition raising slogans against the government policies, and demanded the rollback of the increased prices. The uproar led to a brief adjournment of the House till 12 noon.

Soon after the House assembled at 11 a.m. and Question Hour started, the joint Opposition led by the Congress along with Trinamool, DMK, NCP, Jammu and Kashmir National Conference as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) former allies Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Shiv Sena started sloganeering against the government.

Congress leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury raised the question that the Opposition is not shown on television during the discussion in the House.

The Opposition members later trooped near Speaker's podium and continued sloganeering even after Speaker Om Birla's multiple requests to the parliamentarians to go back to their respective seats and let the proceedings move on.

Amid the din, two questions were taken during the Question Hour, but the Speaker had to announce adjournment of the House till 12 noon as the Opposition did not heed to his requests.

It was the second consecutive day of the second leg of the Budget Session when the Opposition's protest against the government on the fuel price rise continued. The House faced two adjournments on Monday when it met after the recess of the session.
Shane Idleman, founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Southern California wrote on Monday his take on why he disagrees with John MacArthur's views on whether Christians should fight for religious freedom or not.

Idleman began his discourse by asserting that religious freedom is a gift from God. He briefly shared a moving story of a Christian from a persecuted church in China.

"I kept thinking, 'I wonder if persecuted Christians would like more freedom?'" he rhetorically asked.

Idleman acknowledged that Mac Arthur has valid points in his stance on why he won't support the fight for religious freedom. He, however, pointed out that MacArthur and other pastors still holding in-house gatherings are already exercising the same "religious freedom" that the Grace Community Church pastor tagged as promoting "idolatry."

"I understand where he is coming from, but shouldn't we defend our freedom to worship Jesus when given the opportunity? And isn't that what he and other pastors like myself, Jack Hibbs, and Rob McCoy are doing by staying open during the pandemic . . . exercising and defending religious freedom?" Idleman wrote on his column at Christian Headlines.

"Promoting religious freedom is not idolatry"

Idleman explained that "politics" does not have to be a "bad word." While it's true that it's not the primary force to save America, Christians must not ignore their "God-given civic responsibility."

"In the realm of government, there are two primary areas of responsibility for us to consider. One is God's eternal kingdom; the other is the world's political system. We have a responsibility to both, and God's eternal principles establish the foundation for both," Idleman reasoned.

"The primary role of government is to secure our God-given rights. One of the primary purposes of government is to protect the freedom to express our love for God," he added.

The Southern California pastor went on to emphasize that the present issue on religious freedom has never been more important and that it is worth fighting for.

"Mr. Potato Head is being renamed, but Cardi B can pollute the minds of the innocent. We'll allow a transgender person to be the Assistant Secretary of Health, but say nothing about the sexual exploitation of our children. Pastors are being threatened with large fines and jail time for keeping churches open while pot shops, liquor stores, and abortion clinics get a free pass. If you ask me, and countless others, religious freedom is worth fighting for."

Silence is Not an Option

Idleman clarified that supporting religious freedom advocacy does not have to automatically mean "compromising (Christian) principles." He referred to the "salt" and "light" metaphor, as worded in the Bible, to illustrate his point.

"What good is salt left in the shaker, or a light that is hidden? "Politics" is not a bad word. In simple terms, politics refers to governing or leading a group of people. I think God's Word has a great deal to say about that. Silence is not an option," he said.

Contend for What is Right

To close his commentary, Shane Idleman shared another story he heard from a man who went on a trip to a holocaust museum. His young daughter accompanied him. The museum tour showed the horrible plight of people killed in death camps and gas chambers. After the tour, the father and daughter drove home in silence.

The father was concerned that the horrors she witnessed at the museum might negatively impact her life. After two hours, the daughter broke her silence with a haunting question:

"Daddy, why didn't someone do something?"

Those words, according to Idleman, could be the same words that the believers' children and grandchildren in America might ask in the future if Christians won't stand for what is right.

"If we fail to contend for what is right via religious freedom, we may see a time in our future when our children will ask, 'Why didn't someone do something?'" he wrote.
New Delhi: The Amarinder Singh-led government in Punjab, among the major budget proposals, announced to implement sixth Pay Commission recommendations for the government employees from July, doubling of an old-age pension and raising an amount under the Ashirwad scheme and employment for youth.

For the state government employees who have been seeking payment of their arrears, Badal said that a provision of Rs 9,000 crore has been made in the budget for the sixth Punjab Pay Commission.

Expecting the submission of the report of the Pay Commission soon, Badal said the recommendations of the pay panel will be implemented from July 1 this year.

"I also announce to pay the arrears, if any, in a staggered manner of which the first installment shall be paid in October, 2021 and the second installment in January 2022," Badal said in his speech.

The Amarinder Singh-led government in Punjab on Monday presented its last budget with a total size of Rs 1,68,015 crore for 2021-2022, making bulk of its provisions for agriculture, urban development, water resources, health and other sectors.

The Punjab state government also announced a Rs 3,780 crore scheme --'Kamyaab Kisan Khushaal Punjab' for farmers, another dose of crop loan waiver, Rs 200 crore for crop diversification programme.

Live TV

#mute

With PTI Inputs
New Delhi, March 9 : The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Gurugram Zonal Unit has arrested two members of a fake invoicing syndicate.

The two members namely Vikas and Manish were involved in GST fraud by way of issuance of fake GST invoices in excess of Rs 4,800 crore which defrauded the exchequer of more than Rs 690 crore.

Both the accused, residents of Sirsa in Haryana, had relocated to Nepal in a bid to escape being caught and to perpetuate the fraud.

After a tip off they were nabbed and were found to be in possession of huge incriminating documents and gadgets in the form of multiple laptops, multiple smart phones, debit cards, PAN and Aadhar details of multiple persons, multiple notary stamps among others, the DGGI said in a statement.

Both the accused were arrested and were sent to judicial custody.

Analysis of the huge data is underway and involvement of other people and companies cannot be ruled out.

The investigations revealed that scam was orchestrated by using various high tech apps and messaging services which did not require use of direct calling. They were actively collaborated by other masterminds in different parts of the Country.

This present arrest is in continuance of the case in which DGGI, GZU had earlier arrested Kabir Kumar who was caught at the airport while fleeing the city and had been arrested for ITC fraud of Rs 527 crore.

Based on evidences available and statements recorded, hundreds of fake firms have been created on the basis of PAN and Aadhar cards of unknown persons whose data have been procured by a separate syndicate. The fake firms have been found to have created fake invoices in excess of Rs 4,814 crore.

Therefore, the accused were arrested on 08.03.2021 and produced before the Duty MM and have been remanded for 14 days of judicial custody, DGGI said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 9, ARMENPRESS. The Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and the Head of the General Department of Military Preparedness Lt. General Andranik Makaryan is involved as a defendant in a criminal case which is under investigation by military investigators of the Committee of Investigations.

A spokesperson for the prosecution refused to reveal other details on the criminal case.

It is unclear when the criminal proceedings against the general began.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
India has been at the forefront in fighting the pandemic and "really stands out in terms of its vaccine policy, IMF's has said, as she praised the country for playing a very important role during the crisis by manufacturing and shipping the Covid vaccines to several nations.

I also want to mention that India really stands out in terms of its vaccine policy. If you look at where exactly is one manufacturing hub for vaccines in the world - that will be India, Gopinath said.

jab nullifies Brazilian strain



The Covid-19 vaccine from and BioNTech SE showed a high ability to neutralise coronavirus strains first detected in Brazil, the UK and South Africa, according to a new study.

While the research needs to be validated, it offers another reason for optimism that the vaccines are generally performing well against variants.

to develop Sputnik V in Italy



has signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V in Italy, the first contract in the European Union, the Italian Russian Chamber of Commerce announced.

The deal was signed with Adienne Srl, the Italian subsidiary of a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company, and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
There have been 30 further deaths of Covid-19 and 311 new cases of the virus confirmed by the National Public Health Emergency Team.

This brings the number of people that have died with Covid-19 in the State to 4,452, while the total case count in the Republic of Ireland now stands at 223,957.

Read More

Twelve deaths occurred in March, 13 in February, four in January and one is under investigation.

There have been 135 new cases confirmed in Dublin, 29 in Kildare, 21 in Cork, 18 in Limerick, 14 in Louth and the remaining 94 cases are spread across 16 other counties.

There were no new cases in Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan, Sligo and Leitrim today.

This is the first time in months that five counties have reported no new daily cases.

Of the cases notified today; 159 are men and 149 are women; 64pc are under 45 years of age and the median age is 34 years old.

There were 397 Covid-19 patients hospitalised as of this morning, of which 95 are in ICU. There were 24 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

523,069 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland as of Saturday, March 6. This consists of 373,149 people who have received their first dose and 149,920 people have received both doses.

The national 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 people has fallen further to 161 as of yesterday.

Earlier today, HSE CEO Paul Reid said there was a high level of frustration with supply of Covid-19 vaccines as he confirmed that Ireland will receive 1.1m doses in quarter one of 2021. This is 300,000 less than originally projected.

Much of the issue with supplies has stemmed from shortfall in AstraZeneca projections but Mr Reid also said Moderna supplies are now unstable.

While the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is due to be authorised by the European Medicines Agency this week, Mr Reid admitted initial supplies will be low.

Ireland is scheduled to receive 600,000 doses of the one-shot vaccine before the end of June.

Capacity to vaccinate large numbers is being escalated as supply is expected to increase to 250,000 doses per week, or one million per month, from the beginning of April.

More to follow...
SHANGHAI, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The advanced medical equipment industry chain includes various fields, such as materials, design, components, parts manufacturing, and complete machine manufacturing. Each field may lead to several subdivisions, where high scientific and technological insights are pooled together. In 2021, Medtec China 2021 is rolling out new exhibiting zone of advanced medical equipment design & manufacturing services, making every effort to develop China's high-tech medical devices. The 2021 Medtec China Exhibition will be upgraded and opened in Halls 2&4 of Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Hall on September 1-3. At the same time, more than ten conferences regarding regulations, quality, and technology will be held to analyze the industry's current hot topics.

Over 16 years, Medtec China has introduced hundreds of international resources into China. With a strong local presence, it has also attracted local, high-quality resources, created an open international exhibition on medical equipment design and manufacturing. This exhibition is rolling out a new exhibiting zone of advanced medical equipment design and manufacturing services. Many enterprises, such as Theraview Scientific Suzhou Co., LTD., Suzhou Welgwiyan Precision Technology Co. Ltd., Hangzhou Hikmed Imaging Technology Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou TongJian Technology Co., Ltd., will attend the exhibition. They are going to showcase their advanced technology and products, including medical-grade power cords and plugs, electromagnetic compatibility products and services, light sources, film switches, sensors, cables and cable components, and special applications. Click to learn about the Exhibit categories and join us.

There were 36,508 visitors to Medtec China 2020. Attendees came from more than 7,000 well-known medical device manufacturers, institutions, universities, and research institutes, and the three-day show provides exhibitors with an excellent platform for face-to-face communication with customers and to introduce new technologies and products to target clients. Shanghai BIX Electronics Co. Ltd. is engaged in the design of electrical signal connectors. Shen Yang ZHJH Special Metal Materials Co., Ltd. focuses on structural materials and products used in medical fields and aerospace fields, such as titanium alloy and nickel alloy. Hangzhou Anow Microfiltration Co., Ltd. will launch two air inlet film products in 2021. BMF Material Technology Inc.'s second-generation 10m ultra-high precision 3D printing equipment can be used in medical endoscopes, beauty microneedles, micro-surgical robots, microfluidic chips, and other fields. Click here to get visitor samples.

Medtec China organizes MDiT Forum and Regulation every year, targeting hot topics & pain points regarding current regulation, quality, and technology. This year, Medtec China focuses on "high-end medical equipment" and tailored a conference of the life cycle risk management of advanced medical equipment and the core components and technology of advanced active medical equipment. Other conferences will discuss various fields, such as Chinese regulations, overseas market access, medical dressings, medical design, dental component technology, 3D printing, medical bonding and welding, packaging and sterilization, biomedical materials. Review conference agenda 2020

To date, 90% of Medtec China 2021 booths have been booked, with more than 500 participating brands. The scale of the German pavilion has expanded again. Nearly 20 enterprises, including Wacker, LPKF, Diener, PIA Automation, Meko Laser, Teamtechnik, Gutekunst Formtechnik, and ElringKlinger, have decided to participate in the exhibition. Japan, the United States, Singapore, and Ireland pavilion are in the hot recruitment phase, so there is not much booth area left. Click here to book your stand.

For more information, please visit Medtec China's website: www.medtecchina.com

For exhibition, visits and media cooperation, please contact:

Carina Li

Tel: +86 10 6562 3308

E-mail: carina.li@informa.com

Medtec China Organization Committee

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451269/image_1.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451265/image_2.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451263/image_3.jpg
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading financial services provider Policygenius today announced it was recognized by Forbes as one of the Best Startup Employers of 2021. This is the second year Policygenius has earned this recognition, appearing here for the first time in 2020. Policygenius is ranked among the top 40 best startup employers out of the 500 companies recognized, and in the top 10 finance companies.

More than 10,000 companies from 20+ industries, including finance, advertising, healthcare, technology and retail, were considered for the 2021 honor. A finalist pool of 2,500 startup companies with an impressive record of organic growth and size were evaluated with an in-depth analysis that looked at excellence across three key areas, including reputation as an employer, employee satisfaction and company growth. This year's winners exhibit company growth that supports an innovative drive and ability to attract and attain talent in a competitive startup scene.

"We are thrilled to be recognized with this honor," Jennifer Fitzgerald, CEO and co-founder of Policygenius, said. "Our team's ability to successfully collaborate and quickly adjust to the challenges of the past year, while the company was rapidly scaling, makes this recognition even more meaningful."

"People are the core of everything we do at Policygenius," Megan Pittman, Vice President of People at Policygenius, said. "We invest in strong benefits for our employees and prioritize creating a great, inclusive employee experience with a people-first, values-first philosophy. This distinction from Forbes will enable us to keep attracting the best talent as we hire and scale rapidly in a remote setting."

Policygenius is an insurtech pioneer, and today the company brings digital convenience to essential financial services, from insurance to estate planning. The company's impressive benefits, ranging from generous PTO and company-paid insurance to remote perks like digital wellness programming, have enabled Policygenius to attract and retain top talent. Policygenius recently reached a milestone of 550 employees, increasing employee headcount by more than 200 since the company's Series D funding in January 2020. Based across two headquarters, the first in New York City and the second in Durham, NC, Policygenius has plans for continued growth in 2021, including hiring for roles across the organization.

Forbes and Statista, a leading market research company, partnered to establish this year's winners and together analyzed more than 7 million data points from Q4 2020. Details about America's Best Startup Employers and the full list of companies recognized can be found here .

About Policygenius:

Policygenius is the nation's leading online insurance marketplace, with headquarters in New York City and Durham, North Carolina. We've helped more than 30 million people shop for all types of insurance like they shop for everything else  online  and have placed over $75 billion in coverage. Policygenius launched in 2014 and is one of the early insurtech pioneers. Policygenius launched wills and trusts through a new mobile app in 2020. Policygenius was named to Forbes' list of Best Startup Employers (2020, 2021), Crain's Fast 50 (2019) and Inc. Magazine's Best Workplaces (2018, 2019, 2020).

For more information:

Brooke Niemeyer

Associate Director of Media Relations

[email protected]

SOURCE Policygenius

Related Links

http://www.policygenius.com


(Natural News) Microsoft founder Bill Gates is mulling the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to vaccinate people. The technology bigwig and vaccine advocate brings his jab obsession a notch higher with the flying syringes project. To make this idea a reality, Gates has provided funding to a Japanese scientist who has pushed the idea of genetically modifying mosquitoes.

Japanese professor Hiroyuki Matsuoka was among the awardees of a $100,000 grant, an October 2008 press release by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said. The grant allows scientists from [a] diverse set of disciplines and regions  to explore bold, untested projects. The Jichi Medical University professor put forward the idea that disease-carrying mosquitoes can be turned into flying syringes that vaccinate humans instead.

Using the $100,000 grant from the Gates Foundation, Matsuoka will attempt to design a mosquito that can produce and secrete a malaria vaccine protein. This will be administered into a hosts skin when the mosquitoes bite and suck blood from a person. The project aims to discover the potential of genetically modified mosquitoes to deliver vaccines against other infectious diseases. If Matsuoka proves that his idea has merit, he will be eligible to receive another $1 million to support his research.

Mosquitoes are usually considered disease vectors, responsible for transmitting dengue fever and malaria. The Washington Post referred to Matsuokas concept of flying syringes as a bold idea.

This was not the first instance where Gates used his foundation to fund projects to push his pro-vaccine agenda. He also backed a 2019 study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers allowing vaccination data to be stored under the skin. The plan aims to use patterns using a special dye delivered at the same time as the vaccine to make an invisible quantum tattoo.

MIT researchers showed that the dye, consisting of nano-crystals called quantum dots, can remain for at least five years under the skin. The quantum dots emit near-infrared light that can be detected by a specially-equipped smartphone. (Related: No vaccine, no job: Eugenicist Bill Gates demands digital certificates to prove coronavirus vaccination status.)

Bill Gates has demonstrated that he will do everything  even bribery  just to get his way

The Microsoft founders obsession with vaccines reached new heights during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. It came to a point where Gates had to bribe lawmakers in other countries just to see vaccines being tested. A report by Nigerian paper Premium Times said he allegedly offered a $10 million bribe to the Nigeria House of Representatives to pass a mandatory vaccination bill.

The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) alleged that it intercepted a human intelligence report on the matter. According to the document, top Nigerian lawmakers were set to pass the Control of Infectious Diseases Bill without presenting it to the floor for debate. CUPP spokesman Imo Ugochinyere said Gates offered the bribe to influence the bills speedy passage without a hearing. (Related: Bill Gates reportedly offered a $10 million bribe to use Nigerian children in coronavirus vaccine experiments.)

He added that Nigerian House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila should be impeached if he forces the bill on House members. But the speaker defended the bill and asserted its content and timing were appropriate  given the current pandemic. Gbajabiamila also pledged that there would be a public hearing where Nigerians would have the opportunity to contribute to the draft law.

In a May 2020 memorandum submitted to Nigerian lawmakers, Gates denied offering bribes to facilitate the bills passing. Gates Foundation Health Director for Africa Paulin Basinga also denied the allegations when he appeared before a House hearing. He said there was no interaction whatsoever between himself or the foundation and the Nigeria House of Representatives.

Basinga said: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been recently made aware of an allegation  that [it] was involved in a payment purportedly made to the Nigeria House of Representatives. Any such allegations are entirely false and without merit.

The Gates Foundation health director added that the non-profit has not offered any financial incentives to any member of Nigerias legislative branch for the passage of legislation, nor has it offered any grants to organizations in Nigeria in connection with the same. Basinga reiterated that the foundation adheres to strict ethical and legal guidelines across all areas of its operations.

Visit MedicalTyranny.com to read more about draconian mandatory vaccination laws.

Sources include:

HumansAreFree.com

GatesFoundation.org

GCGH.GrandChallenges.org

News.MIT.edu

PremiumTimesNG.com
Donald Trump Jr has labeled Andrew Cuomo the 'groper in chief' after five women accused him of sexual harassment, accusing Democrats of hypocrisy in their caution with Cuomo, compared to their treatment of Republicans facing similar accusations.

The former president's son appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show on Monday night, and attacked the New York governor - a frequent sparring partner of his father's.

Trump Jr mocked Democrats for seeking to 'cancel' the Looney Tunes cartoon character Pepe Le Pew - New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow accused the cartoon skunk of having 'normalized rape culture' - but ignoring the accused man in their midst.

Space Jam 2 has cut Pepe Le Pew from their film, and Warner Bros has no films lined up starring the cartoon skunk, Deadline reported.

Donald Trump Jr appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show on Monday night

Cuomo on Monday was at the Javits Center in Manhattan, speaking at a vaccination site

'The Left is really busy spending a lot of time trying to cancel cartoon characters - last week, Pepe Le Petit - when they could be trying to cancel people who are actually behaving like Pepe Le Pew times ten,' said Trump Jr.

The Looney Tunes skunk has been dropped from forthcoming films for 'normalizing rape culture'

'And that happens to be the governor of New York.'

He spoke after two more women accused the 63-year-old governor of harassment, taking the total number of accusers to five.

Four of them - Lindsey Boylan, Charlotte Bennett, Karen Hinton and Ana Liss - worked for him: the fifth, Anna Ruch, accused Cuomo of harassing her at a wedding.

On Monday, Letitia James, the New York attorney general, announced that former federal prosecutor Joon Kim and employment lawyer Anne Clark would lead an investigation into the allegations. The investigation is expected to take two months.

Trump Jr mocked the Democrats for being hesitant to call out Cuomo.

'It's sort of amazing because on today, International Women's Day, I was beginning to think that the Left don't actually believe all women,' said Trump Jr.

'I sort of feel like they were going to give a pass to Democrat congress people.'

Lindsey Boylan, 36 (left) and Charlotte Bennett, 25 (right) both worked for Cuomo

Anna Ruch claimed that Cuomo behaved inappropriately at a September 2019 wedding

He pointed out that Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the state Senate majority leader, said last week that, 'if another accuser comes out, then he should resign.'

Trump Jr continued: 'Bear in mind three had already done it. So I guess if you're a Democrat governor you get that kind of leeway.'

On Sunday Stewart-Cousins did call for Cuomo to resign.

The Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, also questioned the 'governor's ability to continue to lead this state'.

Cuomo has resisted calls for his resignation, arguing he was elected by the people, not 'by politicians.'

Karen Hinton accused Cuomo over the weekend of being inappropriate 21 years ago

Ana Liss worked for Cuomo at the time of the alleged incident - like four of the five accusers

Cuomo investigators named A veteran prosecutor and an employment lawyer have been appointed by New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate allegations that Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed female aides, as the 63-year-old defies demands to resign. Joon Kim, who was the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan for parts of 2017 and 2018, will join the employment lawyer Anne Clark in conducting the probe, the attorney general's office said. James said the pair are 'independent, legal experts who have decades of experience conducting investigations and fighting to uphold the rule of law.' The investigation is likely to take two months. The investigation will include claims made by the women against Cuomo, as well as his administration's handling of such matters. The team will have subpoena power in order to examine relevant documents, records and data relating to the case, and will conduct interviews and formal depositions. They will have weekly reports for the state attorney general, and will produce a written final report which will include their findings; that report will be made available to the public. The investigation will be outside of the Democratic attorney general's oversight. Following that review, the attorney would release a public report. Advertisement

'I'm not going to resign because of allegations,' the governor said on Sunday, calling the notion 'anti-democratic,' and a violation of the due process clause of the Constitution.

'There is no way I resign.'

Trump Jr insisted he was being treated leniently.

'This kind of stuff is disgusting. It has gone along too long,' the 43-year-old said.

'The Democrats get a pass. Those pass are a one-way street: they only go towards Democrats.

If this was a Republican in this situation - whether it was one scandal, both scandals, a fraction of those scandals - this thing would have been over a a long time ago.

'But Andrew Cuomo gets to get away with it.'

Cuomo speculated that there were more people who were 'afraid to come out for the reprisals'.

'You think that people in the Cuomo machine won't go after these people?' he asked.

'I can almost guarantee you there are a lot more that are either just afraid to come out for those reprisals, or don't want to do damage to the Democrat party in New York, which is about as corrupted and ridiculous as it gets.'

Trump Jr spoke as it emerged that the publishers of his book, Leadership - written over the summer, detailing his handling of the pandemic - stopped promoting it.

Cuomo released a book about his handling of the pandemic and he also won an Emmy for his daily TV briefings

Crown Publishing Group additionally has no intention of reprinting or reissuing American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic, which was released last October, the company's publisher Gillian Blake told The New York Times in a statement.

The moves by the publisher resulted from 'the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of COVID-related fatalities in nursing homes,' Blake told the newspaper.

The investigation into a possible coverup of nursing home deaths during the pandemic is separate to that into the sexual harassment allegations.

Several of Cuomo's staff have departed his administration in recent weeks, as the scandals mounted for the once-lauded governor.

On Monday his top lawyer, Kumiki Gibson, was confirmed to be leaving a job for a non-profit.

Gibson was named Counsel to the Governor in September 2019; her last day is Friday, the governor's office said.

She said she informed them of her departure a month ago.

The departures of press secretary Caitlin Girouard and press aide Will Burns were made public last week.

Gareth Rhodes, a close ally who appeared with the governor at his televised pandemic briefings, left the Cuomo COVID task force last week to return to his position as deputy superintendent of the state Department of Financial Services.
[March 08, 2021] INVESTOR ALERT: Kirby McInerney LLP Announces the Filing of a Securities Class Action Lawsuit Against Jianpu Technology Inc.

The law firm of Kirby McInerney LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of those who acquired Jianpu Technology Inc. ("Jianpu" or the "Company") (NYSE: JT) securities from May 29, 2018 through February 16, 2021, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Investors have until April 19, 2021 to apply to the Court to be appointed as lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, the Company made false and misleading statements to the market. Jianpu's Credit Card Recommendation Business Unit engaged in transactions involving undisclosed related parties or lacking in business substance. As a result, the Company's revenues, costs, and expenses for fiscal 2018 and 2019 were overstated. The Company suffered from material weaknesses in its internal controls over financial reporting. Based on these facts, the Company's public statements were false and materially misleading throughout the class period. When the market learned the truth about Jianpu, investors suffered damages. On February 16, 2021, Jianpu announced the results of its review into "transactions carried out by the Credit Card Recommendation Business Unit" wit third-party business entities. The Company concluded that previously reported revenue and associated expenses had been inflated due to "certain transactions [that] involved third-party agents (including both upstream agents and downstream suppliers) with undisclosed relationships and some transactions [that] lacked business substance." Jianpu stated that it "anticipates the total amount of overstated revenue for the fiscal years 2018 and 2019 to be approximately, RMB 90 million and RMB 164 million, respectively, representing approximately 4.5% and 10.1% of the total revenue previously reported." On this news, the Company's share price fell $0.60, or 13.2%, to close at $3.94 per share on February 16, 2021, on unusually heavy trading volume.



If you purchased or otherwise acquired Jianpu securities, have information, or would like to learn more about these claims, please contact Thomas W. Elrod of Kirby McInerney LLP at 212-371-6600, by email at investigations@kmllp.com, or by filling out this contact form, to discuss your rights or interests with respect to these matters without any cost to you. Kirby McInerney LLP is a New York-based plaintiffs' law firm concentrating in securities, antitrust, whistleblower, and consumer litigation. The firm's efforts on behalf of shareholders in securities litigation have resulted in recoveries totaling billions of dollars. Additional information about the firm can be found at Kirby McInerney LLP's website: http://www.kmllp.com.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005933/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Authorities in northwest Nigeria's Zamfara state have scaled back a curfew imposed on a town where hundreds of schoolgirls were abducted last month, residents said Tuesday.

The 279 girls were abducted on February 26 from the Government Secondary School in Jangebe by gunmen who are known locally as bandits.

They were released five days later, in the latest mass kidnapping to target schools in Nigeria.

But a round-the-clock curfew was then placed on the remote town, and its market and shops were closed, after violence marred an event to mark the girls' return to their parents.

"The curfew has been relaxed. It is now from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am," resident Bello Gidan-Ruwa told AFP by phone.

"We now go about our daily activities in the daytime undisturbed, but move indoors as soon it is 6:00 pm," he said.

Another resident, Abubakar Zaki, who is the father of two of the girls, confirmed this account.

Violence erupted last Wednesday when the girls were to be returned to their parents at a ceremony in the school's hall.

They had been in the government's custody in Gusau, the state capital, receiving medical care.

Angered by officials' insistence on a formal handover before parents could leave with their children, mobs began throwing stones at officials outside the school.

Security personnel opened fire and at least four people were shot, two of them fatally, according to residents.

"There was panic that the town would be raided to arrest young men who carried out the violence but nothing like that has happened," said resident Zaki.

"The security personnel, military and police, only patrol the town at night, using sirens to warn everyone to stay indoors," he said.

Heavily-armed criminal gangs in northwest and central Nigeria have stepped up attacks in recent years, kidnapping for ransom, raping, pillaging and killing.

Despite heavy military deployment to the regions, the attacks have persisted.

abu/joa/ri
A city report says Winnipeg could use bylaws to control medical cannabis growth in residential areas, but doesnt make specific recommendations to actually do so.

A city report says Winnipeg could use bylaws to control medical cannabis growth in residential areas, but doesnt make specific recommendations to actually do so.

Winnipeg could set limits on pot growth in homes through changes to its zoning and/or neighbourhood liveability bylaws, a new study headed to councils property and development committee notes.

However, the document doesnt call for any immediate action.

For months, some councillors and residents have complained some homes in their neighbourhoods appear solely devoted to growing marijuana, causing disruptive odours. They demanded the city take action, such as by setting a limit on the number of plants that can be grown in one home.

The report notes patrolling pot growth is complicated by the fact Health Canada issues licences for both medical and recreational cannabis production sites. For medical cannabis, licences allow up to four separate prescriptions to be grown at one address.

While federal laws also allow up to four plants to be grown per household for recreational use, Manitoba laws prohibit that type of home activity.

The city would be best to partner with other governments before crafting any potential bylaw changes, according to the report.
By Aidan Lewis

CAIRO, March 9 (Reuters) - A subsea pipeline that would connect Israel's Leviathan gas field to Egyptian liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals could double Israel's gas export capacity to Egypt, the Israeli energy minister said on Tuesday.

Israel started exporting gas to Egypt at the beginning of last year through an existing pipeline that runs offshore before crossing the north of the Sinai Peninsula overland. The gas can be liquefied at Egyptian plants of Idku and Damietta and re-exported to Europe or Asia.

Last month the two countries said they had agreed to plan the second pipeline.

The governments would promote the subsea pipeline "in order to double the amount of gas that we can send to the Egyptian LNG facilities," Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said in an interview.

Leviathan field, located 130 km (80 miles) off Israel's coast, already supplies the Israeli domestic market and exports gas to Jordan and Egypt. Its shareholders include Chevron Corp and Delek Drilling LP.

"At the end of the day, it's up to the companies involved to decide, but since it's very realistic, I believe that it will take a year or two and you should see such a pipeline," Steinitz said.

Asked what capacity the new pipeline would have, he added: "I think to start with, we're speaking about a possible 10 bcm (billion cubic metres annually), but it might increase in the future."

Steinitz, in Cairo for a meeting of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, said he was optimistic that demand for gas in Europe would be sufficient to make additional exports viable for at least the next 15 years, and that more rapidly growing demand in India also provided a promising market.

He also said that exports crossing the Sinai Peninsula by pipeline had not been affected by occasional attacks on gas infrastructure by militants operating in the area.

"You should always be worried, but so far there were no disturbances," he said. "We were already exporting 14 months ... and it's never stopped."

(Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Undocumented Indian immigrants to the US, numbering over half a million, hold a collective spending power of $15.5 billion and contribute $2.8 billion to the federal, state and local tax revenue, says an American think-tank report.

Using the latest available American Community Survey data from 2019 in its latest research, the new American Economy think-tank said undocumented Indian immigrants are the top third contributor to the US economy among other undocumented immigrants.

There are 4.2 million immigrants from Mexico who lack documentation. Together, they make up more than 40.8 percent of the 10.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

In 2019 alone, they earned almost $92 billion in household income and contributed almost $9.8 billion in federal, state and local taxes.

Mexican undocumented immigrants held more than $82.2 billion in spending power, money that often goes back into local economies as they spend on housing, consumer goods and services, the report said.

In terms of the number of undocumented immigrants, Mexico is followed by El Salvador (621,000, or 6.0 percent of all undocumented immigrants), India (587,000, or 5.7 percent), Guatemala (5.4 percent, or 5.4 percent), and Honduras (416,000, or 4.0 percent).

With its $15.5 billion of spending power, India, however, holds the second position, followed by El Salvador ($11.5 billion), Guatemala ($9.1 billion) and Honduras ($6.4 billion).

They also make significant contributions to the federal, state and local tax revenue: India ($2.8 billion), El Salvador ($1.4 billion), Guatemala ($1.1 billion) and Honduras ($778 million), the report said.

Also read: Karnataka Budget provides boost to affordable housing
Almost 500,000 in parking charges was collected at Louth County Hospital in Dundalk and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in 2019, according to new figures obtained by Deputy Ruairi O Murchu.

More than 3 million was collected in car parking charges by the RCSI Hospital Group in 2019.

As much as 401,920 was collected at Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda, while 80,140 was collected from parking at Louth County Hospital.

The biggest income in the group was generated at car parks at the Beaumont Hospital where 1,528,920 was collected and Connolly Hospital where 597,400 was collected.

Cavan General (220,050), the Rotunda, and Monaghan (39,240) made up the rest.

Deputy O Murchu said he had submitted a parliamentary question about the car parking charges at local hospitals following a meeting with a representative of the Irish Cancer Society.

The Dundalk TD said: During the meeting with the Irish Cancer Society, it was stated that car parking charges are hitting cancer patients very hard as they have to travel regularly for treatment which can involve them being at the hospital for hours.

Those who take them to appointments have to wait with them and the cost of car parking is a charge that quickly mounts up as their treatments progress.

In addition, there are many people in the Dundalk and North Louth areas who receive outpatient appointments at the Lourdes and in Beaumont where getting there by public transport is not an option for them so they have to drive.

Many of the appointments are early in the morning so they have no other choice than to get a lift or take their own cars.

I am particularly shocked at the huge revenue being generated by the Beaumont Hospital.

"Patients are the ones whose cash is making up this massive amount of money.

I am backing the campaign by the Irish Cancer Society to have car parking fees waived for those receiving cancer treatment.

"Many of these people are off work because of their illness and money is extraordinarily tight for them.

When I asked the Minister for Health about the situation with car parking charges at hospitals, I was told: "The Programme for Government makes a commitment to introduce a cap on the maximum daily charge for patients and visitors at all public hospitals where possible, and to introduce flexible passes in all public hospitals for patients and their families.

"The Department of Health and the HSE are currently engaging on this issue.

They need to get a move on before another year goes by and more millions are generated in car parking charges at hospitals, extracted from patients, Deputy O'Murchu concluded.
Venues will also be able to erect marquees and awnings for two months without planning permission

The UK government has announced plans to extend pavement licences for an extra 12 months to help pubs and restaurants recover once restrictions are lifted.

They will also be able to erect marquees and awnings for two months without planning permission.

Robert Jenrick MP wrote to councils urging them to do everything possible to gear up for what should be a great British summer. The proposal is subject to parliamentary approval.

These licences were previously granted after sending applications and paying fees.

Trade body UKHospitality said it wholeheartedly welcomes the news, as it will allow more venues to open for outdoor service on April 12 than it would have been possible.

Thousands of hospitality venues opened last summer, safely serving millions of people and supporting millions of jobs, said chief executive Kate Nicholls.

The extension of this outdoor flexibility, along with the support offered by the Chancellor in his budget last week, will enable hospitality businesses to do the same this summer as they look to rebuild following a devastating year of lockdowns and trading restrictions. Although it should be remembered that many hospitality venues dont have outdoor space and therefore wont be able to trade until 17 May at the earliest.

All of these measures however, will be almost entirely in vain if businesses are not able to re-open in full and without restrictions on June 21. For the hospitality industry to be able to fully recover, the government must also address some glaring omissions from its package of support, such as the business rates cap, which will penalise tens of thousands of venues, and an extension of the rent moratoria.

Among the publicans, ( ) rose 2% to 1,290.41p, Youngs ( ) and Fuller, Smith & Turner ( ) were up 1% to 1,499p and 870.2p respectively, while Marston's ( ) remained flat at 98.33p.

Looking at food venues, Fulham Shore ( ) advanced 2% to 15.37p, Restaurant Group ( ) added 1% to 108.7p and Loungers ( ) was unmoved at 241.44p on Tuesday morning.
Medical researchers continue to report on increasing evidence of the association between long term-use of Elmiron (pentosan polysulfate sodium) and damage to the retina.

ST. PAUL, Minn., March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson // Becker, PLLC is a nationwide plaintiff's law firm with experience representing injured men and women in lawsuits against pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Johnson // Becker represents several individuals who allege they have suffered permanent vision loss after use of the drug Elmiron. Recently, a new article was published by Dr. Nieraj Jain from Emory University. The article reports a case of a woman with a potential case of pentosan maculopathy that was diagnosed three years after she stopped using Elmiron. The article is Barnett JM, Jain, N. Potential New Onset Clinically Detectable Pentosan Polysulfate Maculopathy Years After Drug Cessation. Retin Cases Brief Rep. 2020 Nov 17, doi: 10.1097/ICB.0000000000001090.

Johnson // Becker, PLLC Logo (PRNewsfoto/Johnson // Becker, PLLC)

Johnson & Johnson is a New Jersey Corporation. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, part of the Johnson & Johnson umbrella of companies, is a Pennsylvania corporation. These companies have marketed Elmiron since the 2000s. The Plaintiffs allege that the company has never provided any warning of maculopathy or retinopathy associated with use of the drug or warned patients to have regular eye exams to monitor vision while using the drug until the company updated the label in June, 2020.

Johnson // Becker, PLLC filed the first Elmiron lawsuit in the country and has also filed an Elmiron class action lawsuit pertaining to medical monitoring. The Plaintiffs allege that the company has never provided any warning of maculopathy or retinopathy associated with use of the drug or warned patients to have regular eye exams to monitor vision while using the drug until the company updated the label in June, 2020.

Timothy J. Becker and Stacy K Hauer of Johnson // Becker are counsel of record in the Elmiron lawsuits. Mr. Becker and Ms. Hauer have a combined experience of more than 40 years of litigating mass tort cases involving pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Story continues

To learn more about Johnson // Becker's mass tort cases, or to arrange a free, no obligation case review, visit Johnson // Becker at https://www.johnsonbecker.com/drug-injuries/elmiron-lawsuit/ or contact Johnson // Becker at (800) 279-6386.

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/johnson--becker-pllc-reports-on-new-medical-literature-that-demonstrates-latency-between-elmiron-use-and-onset-of-eye-damage-301242797.html

SOURCE Johnson // Becker, PLLC
Americans are allegedly worried about President Joe Biden's apparent mental decline seen in his lapses during speeches given the past weeks.

A report by CBN News said questions mount over Biden's mental state since he has not given any press conferences or state of the union in the fist 100 days of his office unlike prior presidents, raising speculations that he is in hiding or avoiding live speeches.

CBN News cited a virtual feed to Democrats where Biden accepted to take questions but said something as though he was "taking orders from someone else" before the feed was cut off completely.

"And I'm happy to take questions if that's what I'm supposed to do Nance," Biden addressed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "whatever you want me to do."

Then there's the short speech Biden gave Saturday afternoon regarding the passage of the COVID-19 relief bill in the Senate where he described the bill as bipartisan even though no Republican voted for it in Congress, CBN News said. The said passage of the bill is but a preliminary version because it was only the House version that got approved and the Senate version is still in the works.

Author Julie Kelly pointed out this lapse in Biden through a tweet on Sunday, "Just watched his whole 10-minute monologue and this did happen. Also tries to describe bill as bi-partisan even though not a single Republican in either chamber voted for it."

Kelly retweeted the video on Biden's clip regarding the COVID-19 relief bill that was posted by self-described Pro-Trump Patriot Maggie VandenBerghe, which was viewed more than 578.1K times as of writing.
A Turkish court has sentenced five people to life in prison over the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Ankara more than four years ago, state media reported on March 9.



Ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot dead by an off-duty police officer at the opening of a photography exhibition in the Turkish capital in December 2016.

The 22-year-old gunman, Mevlut Mert Altintas, shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) and "Don't forget Aleppo!" as he opened fire, apparently referring to Russia's involvement in Syria's civil war.



He was shot dead by police shortly after the diplomat was slain.



The Ankara court also handed prison terms to eight defendants in the case, while six others were acquitted of all charges.



The court delayed the trial of nine fugitives, including a U.S.-based Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gulen.



The Russian Foreign Ministry welcomed "the Turkish judiciarys resolute condemnation of this terrorist attack," which it said "left a deep scar on the history of modern Russian-Turkish relations."



In 2018, Turkish authorities indicted a total of 28 suspects on charges of attempting to "overthrow the constitutional order," membership of a terrorist organization, and premeditated murder.



They have alleged that the gunman belonged to a network led by Gulen, whose movement is also accused of masterminding a failed coup earlier in 2016 -- which the cleric denies.



Turkey has repeatedly sought Gulen's extradition from the United States, but Washington has resisted the pleas.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and Anadolu
Computational models of air quality have long been used to shed light on pollution control efforts in the United States and Europe, but the tools have not found widespread adoption in Latin America. New work from North Carolina State University and Universidad de La Salle demonstrates how these models can be adapted to offer practical insights into air quality challenges in the Americas outside the U.S. The research focuses on air quality in Bogota, Colombia. Credit: James East

Computational models of air quality have long been used to shed light on pollution control efforts in the United States and Europe, but the tools have not found widespread adoption in Latin America. New work from North Carolina State University and Universidad de La Salle demonstrates how these models can be adapted to offer practical insights into air quality challenges in the Americas outside the U.S.

Computational air quality models can be used in multiple ways. For example, they can be used to determine which sources are responsible for what fraction of air pollution. They can also help authorities predict how air pollution might change if different pollution control methods are adopted.

"Historically, it's been very challenging to apply these modeling tools in Latin America, so it has rarely been done," says Fernando Garcia Menendez, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an assistant professor of environmental engineering at NC State. "This is important because the region has many areas that are dealing with significant air pollution, and these modeling tools can help governments identify the most cost-effective ways of achieving air quality improvements."

One challenge to using computational air quality models in Latin America is that the relevant modeling frameworks were developed largely in the context of the U.S. and Europe. That means that some of the assumptions that modelers took for granted when developing the tools don't always apply in Latin American cities. Furthermore, computational resources and trained environmental modelers are still scarce in the region.

For example, there are often substantially less air emissions data available. In addition, there are some contributors to air pollution that are common across Latin American metro areas, but that differ from what we see in the U.S.more unpaved roads, an older cargo fleet, a large number of motorcycles, informal economies, and so on.

With that in mind, Garcia Menendez developed a research project with collaborators at the Universidad de La Salle, in Bogota, Colombia. Specifically, the research team fine-tuned a modeling framework to reflect the air pollution dynamics in Bogota and investigate the city's air quality problems. The collaborators at Universidad de La Salle also collected air pollution data that allowed the team to assess the accuracy of its modeling results.

"Our paper outlines the techniques we've used to perform computational modeling of air quality issues in a large Latin American city," says James East, first author of the paper and a Ph.D. student at NC State. "This not only demonstrates that it can be done, but provides an approach that others can use to provide insights into air pollution in other parts of the region that are experiencing similar issues."

While the paper focuses on an air quality model for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), the researchers say that the model could be used to look at other air pollutants. Exposure to PM2.5 is associated with a wide variety of health problems, including heart and lung disease.

In their proof-of-concept demonstration, the researchers found that the largest local sources of PM2.5 in Bogota were dust from unpaved roads and emissions from heavy-duty vehicles. However, when the model was used to project future air quality, the study also found that while paving roads would decrease air pollution in some parts of the city, different emission sources would still lead to increased air pollution in other parts of the cityunless other emission control measures were also implemented.

In short, the model offered practical insights into possible solutions for a complex metropolitan area of 10 million people.

"These findings are of interest to environmental authorities, from the local to the national level, who are pursuing ways to effectively address air pollution in Bogota and other Colombian cities," says Jorge Pachon, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor at the Universidad de La Salle.

Explore further Researchers develop roadside barrier design to mitigate air pollution

More information: James East et al, Air quality modeling to inform pollution mitigation strategies in a Latin American megacity, Science of The Total Environment (2021). Journal information: Science of the Total Environment James East et al, Air quality modeling to inform pollution mitigation strategies in a Latin American megacity,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145894
Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk!

You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details.
China warns Biden over policy towards Taiwan

Foreign minister Wang Yi made the comments during a wide-ranging, two-hour news conference. Photo: AFP

Foreign Minister Wang Yi has warned the Biden administration to roll back former US president Donald Trumps dangerous practice of showing support for Taiwan.



Beijing's claim to Taiwan is an insurmountable red line, Wang said at a news conference during the annual meeting of Chinas ceremonial legislature.



Trump irked Beijing by sending Cabinet officials to visit Taiwan in a show of support.



The Chinese government has no room for compromise, Wang said.



We urge the new US administration to fully understand the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue and completely change the previous administrations dangerous practices of crossing the line and playing with fire, he said.



President Joe Biden says he wants a more civil relationship with Beijing but has shown no sign of softening Trumps confrontational measures on trade, technology and human rights. Surveys show American public attitudes turning more negative toward China, which is seen as an economic and strategic competitor.



Wang gave no indication how Beijing might react if Biden doesn't change course, but the Communist Party has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares formal independence or delays talks on uniting with the mainland.



The State Department later reiterated that the Biden administration's support for Taiwan was rock-solid and that the US stood with its regional friends and allies, including deepening our unofficial ties with democratic Taiwan.



We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwans democratically elected representatives," said the statement.



Wangs comments in a wide-ranging, two-hour news conference reflected Beijings increasing assertiveness abroad and rejection of criticism over Hong Kong, Xinjiang and other sensitive topics.



Wang defended proposed changes in Hong Kong that will tighten Beijing's control by reducing the role of its public in government. He dismissed complaints that erodes the autonomy promised to the former British colony when it returned to China in 1997.



Wang also rejected complaints Beijings treatment of predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang amounts to genocide.



Human rights researchers say more than 1 million people, many of them members of the Uyghur minority, have been sent to detention camps. Mainland officials say they are trying to prevent extremism.



The so-called existence of genocide in Xinjiang is absurd. It is a complete lie fabricated with ulterior motives, Wang said. He blamed anti-China forces that he said want to undermine the security and stability of Xinjiang and hinder Chinas development and growth. (AP)
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
Patna, March 9 : In a bid to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation in Bihar, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait, Balbir Singh Rajewal, Darshan Pal Singh and other farmer leaders will participate in a Kisan Mahapanchayat in Rohtas district on March 25, Ramashankar Sarkar, the national president of Kisan Sangh, said here on Tuesday.

"The core agenda of this Mahapanchayat is to protest against the three black farm laws imposed on us by the Narendra Modi government. The farmers of the entire country are against these laws, but still the Central government is not rolling them back. They want to help the corporates," Sarkar said.

"Besides the farm laws, we will also discuss MSP, and rising prices of petrol, diesel and LPG cylinder in the Mahapanchayat. The participation of top farmer leaders will help intensify the agitation in Bihar," Sarkar said.

"We have decided to organise such Mahapanchayats in every district of Bihar to make the farmers aware about the consequences of the three black laws," Sarkar added.

Rohtas and adjoining Kaimur and Bhojpur districts are known as "Dhan Ka Katora" in the state.
SAN FRANCISCO  California is optimistic that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is in the rear-view mirror. But there are a number of things that could still go wrong and prompt a fourth wave, experts warn.

Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated that roughly 67% of a population needs immunity to COVID-19 before herd immunity can be established, meaning the spread of disease between people is unlikely.

Its not a hard-and-fast percentage, Rutherford said; the threshold given by the U.S. governments top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is around 70% to 85%.

Nationally, about 40% of people are believed to have immunity to COVID-19, Rutherford said, either from vaccination or because theyve been previously infected and have survived. About 26% to 39% of Californias population is probably immune  a figure lower than the national average because we havent had so much infection and, as a result, have not had as much naturally acquired immunity, Rutherford said last week at a campus forum.

The goal, Rutherford said, is to accelerate vaccination efforts and reach herd immunity as early as May. But the emergence of new, troublesome variants of the coronavirus could wreck those plans. There is a plausible scenario in which herd immunity cannot be reached this year because of the emergence of new variants.

Thats why were so concerned about these variants, Rutherford said.

Experts provided insights on four things that could go wrong in Californias quest to put an end to the pandemic.

1. Breakdown of mask wearing and social distancing

Throwing away face masks too early  before enough people have been broadly vaccinated  could help spur the resurgence of the pandemic, experts warn.

A number of bipartisan elected officials  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, who has retained a mask order in his state  have criticized the actions of states such as Texas to abandon mask-wearing mandates.

In this situation, we need to be a little more cautious, Justice said Sunday on CBS News Face the Nation. Nobody likes a mask. But for crying out loud, if we could be a little more prudent  for 30 more days, or 45 more days, or whatever it took for us to get on rock-solid ground  thats the approach West Virginia is going to take, and thats the approach that I think it should take.

Of the 10 states with the lowest cumulative COVID-19 deaths, nine have statewide mask mandates  Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Oregon, Utah, Washington, New Hampshire, Colorado and Kentucky. Alaska does not have a statewide mask mandate, but several of the states largest cities do, according to AARPs updated tracker of mask requirements by state.

A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the rate of COVID-19 deaths slowed in counties where states required masks, and sped up in counties where states allowed on-site restaurant dining.

2. Failing to vaccinate underserved populations

Currently, Californians living in the wealthiest parts of the state are receiving twice as many vaccine doses as residents living in the poorest areas.

Continued inequity can sustain epidemic transmission, Rutherford said.

3. Emergence of more variants

A big concern is the emergence of more-contagious variants, as well as variants that can reinfect people or cause hospitalizations or death in those who have been fully vaccinated.

More-transmissible variants have been detected in 48 states, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said recently.

Fauci has said that the U.K. variant, B.1.1.7, is concerning because of its increased transmissibility. That variant, however, is covered relatively well by our current authorized vaccines.

More problematic is the variant first identified in South Africa, B.1.351, which has spurred concerns about moderately to severely reduced vaccine efficacy, Fauci said.

Among the cases of the P.1 variant first identified in Brazil, there are preliminary reports of increased transmissibility, Fauci said, and antibodies elicited by previous infection or vaccine may be less effective.

And finally, the California variant, known as B.1.427/B.1.429, is concerning because of preliminary reports of increased transmissibility and disease activity, Fauci said, while New Yorks B.1.526 variant is also being watched closely.

The New York variant is worrisome because it has this mutation that seems to suggest that people who had prior infection could get reinfected and perhaps the vaccines might not be as effective, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday on Face the Nation. It still represents a small amount of the overall infection. Its probably going to grow. Weve now found it in Georgia.

The New York variant has been found in Southern California, Newsom said last week.

Gottlieb said he expected the U.K. strain to become the most prevalent in the U.S., with that variant making up 40% of infections in Florida and 30% in California. The U.K. variant is expected to crowd out the Brazilian and South African variants, he said.

Gottlieb says hes doubtful there will be another coronavirus surge this spring  there may be a plateau in cases  but he expects that to be followed by subsequent declines.

4. Ignoring international spread of the virus

Europe is starting to see weekly coronavirus cases climb back up without having fully recovered from its winter peak, Rutherford said. Its largely being driven by outbreaks in the Czech Republic and Hungary, and this is largely driven by the U.K. variant.

They dont have lots of vaccine in these countries, Rutherford said, but still, I think this is a cautionary tale of the kinds of things that can happen from variants.

Fauci said at a briefing Friday that, over the previous week, Europe reported a 9% increase in cases, something we desperately want to avoid.

Fauci and other officials have warned that the U.S. is starting to see a plateau in the average number of daily cases, halting what had been a promising decline from the autumn and winter surge.

Right now, the U.S. is reporting an average of 60,000 to 70,000 new coronavirus cases a day  a very high plateau. Those numbers are substantially higher than what preceded the last surge, when cases hovered around 40,000 a day, and those before the summer surge, when cases numbered about 20,000 a day.

The current daily case-count plateau is a problem, Fauci said. When you have that much of viral activity in a plateau, it almost invariably means that you are at risk for another spike.

California has continued to see a downward trend in the number of daily coronavirus cases. For the seven-day period that ended Sunday, the state was averaging about 4,300 new coronavirus cases a day, a 19% drop from the previous week. That is, however, a softer decline than in mid-February, when there was a week-over-week decline of 37%.

Los Angeles County also has seen its week-over-week declines significantly soften. For the seven-day period that ended Sunday, L.A. County was averaging about 1,600 new coronavirus cases a day, less than 2% lower than the previous week. The previous week-over-week drop in cases was 18%; the week before that, it was 30%.

On Friday, Dr. Paul Simon, the chief science officer for L.A. County, said the reopening of L.A. County should proceed cautiously.

We want to make sure that were certainly following the numbers very closely to make sure that we dont see any early indications of a reversal, Simon said.

Though we will be opening up a bit, its really critically important that people remain disciplined and wear their face mask when theyre out in public, physically distance and avoid large gatherings.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 20:55:29|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

People attend a national flag raising ceremony at the Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong, south China, Sept. 8, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Improving the electoral system in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will ensure Hong Kong residents better realize their democratic rights and freedom, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in Beijing on Tuesday.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks at a routine press conference in response to comments by certain U.S. lawmakers on the matter.

The U.S. lawmakers were interfering in Hong Kong affairs, which are China's internal affairs, Zhao said, adding in improving the electoral system of Hong Kong, the NPC is exercising a power as well as fulfilling a duty conferred on it by the Constitution.

The move will advance the cause of "one country, two systems" and help maintain the long-term stability of Hong Kong. "It is completely constitutional, legal, justified and reasonable," said Zhao.

Fixing the flaws of the current electoral system of the HKSAR will provide a guarantee for Hong Kong residents to better realize their democratic rights and freedom, he said.

The spokesperson stressed that Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, and the electoral system of the HKSAR is China's local electoral system.

"Its design, development and improvement fall entirely under China's internal affairs. No country is entitled to make irresponsible remarks," said Zhao. 
The militarys recent assistance at hospitals on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic in Northern Ireland was named after a female nurse, it has emerged.

Some 110 combat medical technicians (CMTs) were deployed to the region in January as hospitals struggled to cope with the post-Christmas surge in Covid-19 cases.

They stepped in at three hospitals for five weeks, finishing at the end of February.

On International Womens Day, the Ministry of Defence in Northern Ireland tweeted further detail about Operation Baird.

The operation was named after Mary Baird MBE, described as a former Belfast chief nursing officer and Second World War veteran who had served in Normandy in 1944.

Of the 110 CMTs, 28 were women while a further ten women were involved in supporting roles such as driving and administrative duties.

Northern Irelands chief nursing officer Professor Charlotte McArdle last month told the health committee the CMTs had been a welcome addition.

They have been a valuable asset to the current nursing workforce at the peak of the pandemic surge, she told MLAs.

First Minister Arlene Foster issued a public thank you for their assistance.

Meanwhile, during 2020 the RAF transported four very ill Covid-19 patients to hospitals in England for specialist life-saving treatment that was then not available in Northern Ireland.

On a flight in June, the RAF A400M pilot and lead medical crew were women, as well the NHS consultant in charge of the specialist transferral team.
[March 09, 2021] Convergint Technologies Leads $3.3+ Million Dollar Donation to Boost Visitor Safety at the National Mall in Washington, DC

Convergint Technologies, a global leader in service-based systems integration, today announced the activation of a $3.3+ million dollar state-of-the-art security system, donated to the National Park Service to boost safety and situational awareness for the National Mall and surrounding monuments and memorials. Convergint Technologies, along with eleven industry partners, have donated and deployed the technology infrastructure necessary to improve safety at the National Mall and surrounding historical monuments, which experiences more than 35 million visits annually. Convergint Technologies has been working with the National Park Service and United States Park Police since early 2019 to provide this technology. "It is an honor to work with the National Park Service and donate innovative technology that will enhance situational awareness for one of our country's busiest and most iconic sites," said Tony Varco, vice president at Convergint Technologies. "We are grateful to support the mission of the Natioal Park Service, which is to preserve our natural and cultural resources for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. We are equally grateful to the technology partners that worked shoulder-to-shoulder with us; without them, the project would not have been successful."



The donation from Convergint and its partners enhances and expands security coverage, upgrades technology from legacy systems, and allows the National Park Service to use real-time information and communication technologies to respond to issues quickly. Phase one of the project included the enhancement of a centralized monitoring center, intercom stations, public address capabilities and upgrading from analog to IP-based cameras. Phase two will further extend situational awareness at various monuments by adding additional IP-based cameras back to their headquarters. "The National Park Service and the United States Park Police greatly appreciate the comprehensive security system for the National Mall donated by Convergint Technologies," said Major Mark Adamcik, Commander of the National Mall's Icon Protection Unit for the United States Park Police.

For more information on the donation for the National Park Service, please visit www.convergint.com/nps-donation. About Convergint Technologies Convergint Technologies is a $1 billion global, industry-leading systems integrator that designs, installs, and services electronic security, fire alarm, and life safety systems. To learn more about Convergint, visit www.convergint.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005724/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
It is important that the Academy recognizes the contributions of women to the nations history and the vital roles they have played in shaping many aspects of American life, especially in medicine (including the three physicians pictured here  Antonia Novello, M.D., M.P.H., Dr.P.H.; Audrey Manley, M.D., M.P.H.; and Joycelyn Elders, M.D.  who all served as U.S. surgeons general). As Womens History Month is celebrated not just in the United States but in several other countries, it is also important to recognize the accomplishments of women from across the world.

The following timeline is a brief point of reference for those interested in learning more about how women have advanced the science and art of healing. Readers are also invited to view the Academys recent timelines in celebration of Black History Month, which recognize additional contributions women have made to the practice of healing and the specialty of family medicine.



1849: Two years after the all-male student body at Geneva Medical College in western New York unanimously votes to admit her as a joke, Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., graduates at the top of her class and becomes the first woman to earn a medical degree from an American medical school. Eight years later, she and several colleagues found the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, a facility known today as New York University Downtown Hospital.

1855: Mary Edwards Walker, M.D., of Oswego, N.Y., graduates from Syracuse Medical College and opens a private practice with her husband, Albert Miller, M.D. Early in the Civil War she volunteers to join the Union effort, working first as a nurse in a temporary hospital in Washington, D.C., and later providing care for wounded soldiers in Virginia. In 1863, she receives an appointment as assistant surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland. During the following spring Walker is captured by the Confederate Army and held as a prisoner of war; she is later returned in a prisoner exchange and in September 1864 receives a contract as acting assistant surgeon with the Ohio 52nd Infantry, making her one of the countrys first known woman surgeons. For her work during the Civil War, she is given the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865, the first woman to receive the award.

1866: Ann Preston, M.D., who graduated from the Female (later Womans) Medical College of Pennsylvania 15 years earlier, becomes the first woman dean of the college and, at the same time, the first woman dean of a U.S. medical school. Before becoming dean, in response to the Philadelphia Medical Societys decision to bar female physicians from training clinics, in 1858 Preston organized an all-female board of managers to plan and operate a womans hospital, allowing female students to gain clinical experience.

1898: Marie Curie, Ph.D., a mathematician and scientist, discovers polonium and radium. Research conducted by Curie and her husband, Pierre, establishes the relationship between radioactivity and certain heavy elements, leading to medical advancements such as the development of the X-ray, which allows physicians to diagnose patients without performing open surgery, and radiation therapies for treating certain types of cancer. Curies groundbreaking research results in her earning a Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 (the same year she receives her doctorate from the Universite de la Sorbonne) and a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911  the first and only woman to be honored twice. The Curie Institute, which she founded in Paris in 1920, is now one of the worlds leading cancer research centers.

1947: Gerty Theresa Cori, Ph.D., who graduated from the German University of Pragues Medical School in 1920, becomes the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Cori shares the award with her husband, Carl, and Argentine physiologist Bernardo Houssay, for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen  a process known as the Cori cycle, or lactic acid cycle, which plays a crucial role in metabolism.

1949: Jane Cooke Wright, M.D., begins working with her father, Louis Wright, M.D., in conducting trials of medications for leukemia and lymphatic cancers at the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation. Two years later, research authored by Wright establishes the efficacy of methotrexate, a folic acid antagonist, in treating breast cancer. Her pioneering work results in the development of several new techniques for administering cancer chemotherapy. Later, in 1964, she becomes a founding member  and the only woman in the founding group  of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, serving as the organizations first secretary-treasurer.

1950: At the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bronx, N.Y., physicist Rosalyn Yalow, Ph.D., begins working with Solomon Berson, M.D., an internist with no research training, looking for new ways to use radioactive isotopes in medicine. Over the next several years they develop a technique that allows for the measurement of extremely small quantities of hormones and other biological substances found in the blood and other body fluids. They name the technique the radioimmunoassay, and despite its huge commercial potential, Yalow and Berson decide not to patent the technique, instead inviting scientists all over the world to visit them and learn about the process. In 1977, Yalow receives the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and thanks Berson in her acceptance speech.

1953: Virginia Apgar, M.D., a graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, introduces a test known as the Apgar score. Familiar to most people, the test that bears Apgars name was initially designed to assess a newborns health in five key areas: appearance, pulse, grimace, activity and respiration. The Apgar test was the first tool to scientifically assess a newborn infants health risks and need for potentially lifesaving care and observation, and is still used by health care professionals today.

1957: Mary Johnston, M.D., of Tazewell, Va., is elected the first woman on the AAFP (then American Academy of General Practice) Board of Directors, and serves on the board until 1960. In 1968 Johnston, along with Rufus Brittain, M.D., helps to found Tazewell Community Hospital; the facility officially opens in November 1973 and has operated continuously ever since.

1990: Antonia Novello, M.D., M.P.H., Dr.P.H., who overcame congenital megacolon as a child to earn her medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico, becomes the first woman and first Hispanic person to serve as surgeon general of the United States. As surgeon general, she focused on the health of young people, women and minorities. After serving as surgeon general, she was a special representative to the United Nations Childrens Fund, where she directed efforts to address the health and nutritional needs of women, children and adolescents.

1998: Family physician and AAFP member Nancy Dickey, M.D., a 1976 graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, is elected the first female president of the AMA. At the time, she was the youngest physician elected as AMA president in the 20th century.

2004: In October, Mary Frank, M.D., of Mill Valley, Calif., officially becomes the first female president of the AAFP. Under her leadership, the AAFP works with other medical associations to create a plan for health system reform, including access to health care, medical liability reform and management of health care costs.

2009: Family physician and AAFP member Regina Benjamin, M.D., is unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as surgeon general.
The Cresta Awards 2021 has opened entries and is now offering personalised promotional support to all winners.

As part of its response to the pressures brought by the pandemic, Cresta will support entrants with bespoke consultation for the winners, developing dedicated coverage of achievements in its online journal, providing the content to share, while promoting the information extensively.Even more than usual, creative businesses need to ensure their reputations are building and that clients know the outstanding contribution they can make, said Cresta CEO, Lewis Blackwell.The long list of awards can be overwhelming, meaning winners and their achievements often get lost. This project offers winners a platform year-round, helping promote their business and build their reputation, he explains.We aim to give a bespoke service, to support creative businesses by feeding the right communications out at the right time. We want people to appreciate that when they enter Cresta and win, they get a long-term engagement with us to help them build their reputation.Alan Page, President of Cresta, said: Much of our communications work will begin when others stop that is, after we announce the winners. Then we develop the stories behind the work, or inside the creative cultures, and to help feed out the information that can further drive up appreciation of creativity and what it takes to achieve the highest standards. We give our entrants something that can really help build their creative profile.Despite the effects of the pandemic, Cresta is investing more heavily in expanding its services, growing its journal and related feeds, with an aim to directly support the industry.Page added: We must do our part to help the industry through the economic challenges brought about by the Covid-19 crisis. Last year we stood out by being one of the very few awards that was prepared to go completely free to enter. We had a terrific response worldwide. This year we need fee income but we have a generous reduction in place for entrants if they commit early and the entrants can still change those entries right up to the closing date.If we work together, we can make this a great year to achieve more, even when budgets are so challenged.Cresta exists to inspire, recognise and reward great creativity in communication. The 2021 Cresta Awards call for entries is now open until 20 July. Winners are announced in September 2021.
Government plans AstraZeneca jab rollout

THAILAND: After much anticipation and delay, Thai authorities have announced they are planning to roll out AstraZeneca jabs on Thursday (Mar 11) with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha the first recipient.

ChineseCoronavirusCOVID-19health

By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 08:55AM

The AstraZeneca vaccine will be administered in Thailand from Thursday onwards. Photo: AFP.

Anutin Charnvirakul, Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister, told the media yesterday that the Department of Medical Sciences will soon complete the mandatory quality check on 117,000 doses sent to Thailand late last month.

[The rollout of] AstraZeneca vaccines in Thailand wikll take place on March 11 at the earliest with the PM to be the first to receive the vaccine, Mr Anutin said.

Initially, the rollout was set for Feb 28, but it was pushed back pending the mandatory quality check on the shipment of vaccines.

Mr Anutin said senior cabinet members, including Khunying Kalaya Sophonpanich, acting education minister, and Don Pramudwinai, foreign affairs minister, wanted to obtain COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca.

Senior citizens aged 60 and over would be prioritised to receive the jabs, while younger people would be given Chinas Sinovac vaccine, according to the authorities.

Mr Anutin said the Beijing-based manufacturer is considering making Thailand a regional vaccination centre for Chinese citizens living in Asean.

He said the country has asked his ministry to help provide vaccines to 200,000 Chinese citizens living in the kingdom. Beijing will provide the vaccines for free, Mr Anutin added.

In another development, officials have met to discuss the World Health Organizations COVID-19 passport proposal.

They focused on the criteria needed to obtain a vaccine passport, according to Dr Apisamai Srirangson, assistant spokeswoman to the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration.

The Public Health Ministry insisted that the use of the vaccine passports must wait for standards to be set by the WHO, she said.

She said the ministry would only issue a certificate to those who have received two jabs. Those certificates, she said, are approved by the WHO.

An immunised person could use the certificate to acquire a vaccine passport, she said.
COLUMBUS, OhioThe state of Ohios unemployment benefits system has signed contracts with outside firms to help it improve call-center wait times and combat fraud, Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday.

The call-center and anti-fraud contracts -- signed with IBM and LexisNexis, respectively  will soon be followed by other contracts with large data firms to help clear a backlog of 1.25 million pending jobless benefits cases, according to Jeff Ficke, whos leading a public-private partnership team set up by the governor to help the states beleaguered unemployment system.

DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney didnt immediately say how much money IBM and LexisNexis will receive from the state for their services, nor whether the contracts were competitively bid.

During the year-long coronavirus crisis, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services has been inundated with a record number of unemployment claims, as struggling businesses temporarily or permanently throw people out of work. Its often resulted in Ohioans encountering frustratingly lengthy delays in getting benefits and being able to talk to someone at ODJFS about their claim.

Ohio, like other states, has also been swamped with hundreds of thousands of fraudulent jobless claims, resulting in more than $330 million in federal benefits alone being paid by the state last year. LexisNexis Risk Solutions CEO Heywood Talcove previously told cleveland.com that the majority of claims come from overseas criminals, many of whom use the money for human trafficking, drugs, and/or terrorism.

LexisNexis will help to set up a secure door to stop unemployment scammers, Ficke said. IBM, meanwhile, will provide a suite of Watson artificial-intelligence products that can help better coordinate call-center activities, he said.

As these new contractors are hired, DeWines public-private partnership and ODJFS will also open a full review of the state unemployment systems relationship with third-party vendors, Ficke said. The review will focus on making sure theyre doing what they need to be doing, (and) making sure that we are getting everything out of this that we need to, he said.

So far, Ficke said, 12 private-sector companies have joined the public-private partnership, which is being organized by the Ohio Business Roundtable, a group made up of CEOs from some of the states largest businesses.

The partnership has also brought in 30 private-sector experts to help combat fraud, improve ODJFS call centers, and speed up claims, Ficke said.
There is set to be an issue with different levels of vaccination across Ireland, Northern Irelands First Minister has said.

Arlene Foster said she believes UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson should have a conversation with Taoiseach Micheal Martin about the possibility of surplus vaccines being given to the Republic.

Mrs Foster said it is her desire that everyone on the island is vaccinated as quickly as possible.

Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster (Liam McBurney/PA)

She blamed the inflexibility of the EU for the differential.

Northern Ireland started its vaccine rollout earlier than the Republic as part of the UK programme.

The UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer jab, with the first vaccinations administered on December 8.

Ireland is part of an EU rollout and had to wait until the EU approved jabs. Its first vaccinations were administered almost a month later on December 29.

Annie Lynch, 79, was the first person in Ireland to receive a coronavirus vaccination on December 29 (Marc OSullivan/PA)

Mrs Foster said 40% of the population in Northern Ireland have had their first dose of the jab and said she is alarmed by the figures in the Republic.

There will have to be conversations about how we move forward in this, she told RTE Radios This Week programme.

Obviously we will be taking advice from our Chief Medical Officer (Dr Michael McBride) as to what are the best ways forward, but it is my desire of course, as a neighbour, to see everyone vaccinated on the island of Ireland and I very hope much that the vaccine programme in the Republic does pick up pace because its important that if people are coming and travelling across the border that they are vaccinated, but also for the population of the Republic as well.

Mrs Foster said Dr McBride has made it clear that if a lot of people are coming to Northern Ireland who are not vaccinated it could have an impact on the efficacy of the vaccine on those who have received it.

She said that so far Stormont has advised people to be sensible rather than issue a ban on crossing the border.

Thats something we havent done unlike the Republic, we have never had that rule, we have tried to say to people to be sensible and not move between different jurisdictions during the different lockdowns, she said.

But I think we want to take advice from our medical experts on all of these issues.

By Saturday, half a million doses of the jab had been administered in Ireland.

Next week, vaccinations are set to start for those with underlying health conditions as well as continuing the rollout for the over-70s and healthcare workers.
Commissioners, Vaux discuss shortage in affordable housing

Codington County commissioners and Mark Vaux, new executive director of the Watertown Development Company, discussed issues Tuesday.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 07:46:19|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Members of a branch of the Chinese medical mission provide first aid to a resident injured in an explosion in Bata, Equatorial Guinea, March 7, 2021. Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea Francisco Pascual Obama Asue on Monday praised the Chinese medical mission's contribution to saving victims in the blasts in the country's largest city of Bata. Explosive warehouses at the Nkoantoma military camp in Bata caught fire following a nearby farm fire, causing explosions on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement from the presidency of Equatorial Guinea published on Sunday evening. (31st Chinese Medical Mission to Equatorial Guinea/Handout via Xinhua)

YAOUNDE, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea Francisco Pascual Obama Asue on Monday praised the Chinese medical mission's contribution to saving victims in the blasts in the country's largest city of Bata.

In a telephone conversation with Chinese medical mission on Monday, the prime minister thanked Chinese doctors who provided care for those injured in the explosions and donated urgently needed medical supplies.

Explosive warehouses at the Nkoantoma military camp in Bata caught fire following a nearby farm fire, causing explosions on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement from the presidency of Equatorial Guinea published on Sunday evening.

The latest casualty count showed 98 people were killed and 615 others injured, of which 299 remain under medical care, Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue said on Monday.

The Chinese medical mission, which has a branch in Bata, has been in Equatorial Guinea for 50 years. Enditem
2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning --

4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS.

We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover.

We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
The Union education ministry released statewise data in response to questions raised by MPs Prataprao Patil Chikhlikar and Anumula Revanth Reddy in the Lok Sabha on Monday, regarding school dropout rates during the last two years.  (Representational Image/PTI)

Hyderabad: The school dropout rates in the state have significantly improved over the past two years, from 2016-17 to 2018-19, as per the data available with the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), and released by the Union education ministry on Monday.

As per the data, the Telangana state dropout rate stood at 13.5 per cent in 2018-19 for secondary school, 2.9 per cent for upper primary and 1.9 per cent for primary school, in comparison to 2017-18 and 2016-17.

The dropout rate in 2017-18 for secondary school stood at 17.1 per cent, upper primary at 2.6 per cent, and primary at 3.5 per cent, whereas in the 2016-17 academic year, secondary school dropouts in the state amounted to 22.5 per cent, upper primary at 5.6 per cent and primary school dropouts at 7.6 per cent.

Earlier, report in Deccan Chronicle on February 24 on enrolment in state high schools for 2020-21 had quoted data from the TS education department which had also indicated a positive trend. However, experts had raised doubts over the same, citing lack of physical data due to pandemic.

More stakeholders, including government teachers, have now argued that this data does not reflect the real picture in current times.

A government teacher in Hyderabad, who did not wish to be identified, said that the data released by the Union government, and available on UDISE portal, is only until the 2018-19 academic year. If the government is so confident about a positive picture in the education sector of the country, they should release the latest numbers in the public domain too, they said.

The Union education ministry released statewise data in response to questions raised by MPs Prataprao Patil Chikhlikar and Anumula Revanth Reddy in the Lok Sabha on Monday, regarding school dropout rates during the last two years, particularly in Maharashtra.
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.
The Huron and Tuscola County Health Departments are urging residents not to let their guard down against the coronavirus pandemic as the Upper Thumb statistics head the wrong direction.

According to a press release from Public Health Officer Ann Hepfer, the Upper Thumb has had some of the highest test positivity rates in the state. Hepfer said Tuscola County saw 55 new coronavirus cases reported last week and averaged a 9.7% positivity rate based off an average of 116 tests daily. Huron County reported 22 new cases, and a 6.4% positivity based off an average of 57 daily tests.

These numbers exceed the state's daily average of approximately 4.5% and the Saginaw Region's weekly average of 4.5% based off 1,600-plus daily test runs.

"According to our data we are heading in the wrong direction again," Hepfer said. "We have some of the highest positively rates in the State of Michigan.

"Please do not let your guard down, wear your masks, wash your hands frequently and avoid groups and gatherings where you cannot socially distance by six feet," she continued.

From the first week of November 2020 through the end of the year, Huron County regularly saw double digit increases in its coronavirus cases, with several increases greater than 25 cases in one day. However, since Jan. 26, the daily increases in Huron County have remained below 10, with an average increase of 2.85 cases per day.

The statistics in Tuscola County have been similar, but the occasional days when new cases exceeded 10 were more common. The average daily case increase in Tuscola County since Jan. 26 was 5.23 cases, nearly double the rate in Huron County.

The Tuscola County Health Department is offering coronavirus testing from 9-11 a.m. on Thursdays at the Mosquito Abatement Building in Caro. Huron County testing continues at Great Lakes Bay Health Care on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon.

Hepfer said the health departments continue to focus on vaccination efforts. Huron County has administered 9,598 vaccines, of which 5,807 were first doses and 3,791 were second doses. According to Hepfer, based on the 2019 census data, an estimated 46% of residents 65- to 74-years-old have received their first dose and nearly 30% have received the second dose. In Tuscola County the numbers were similar with 12,451 being administered with an estimated 47% of ages 65 to 74 receiving the first dose and 23% receiving the second.

Last week Michigan expanded the vaccination age ranges to include anyone age 50 and up. Hepfer said it can take up to three weeks for eligible individuals to be contacted. Regardless of the current phase of eligibility, anyone interested in being vaccinated is asked to pre-register. Huron County residents should pre-register at www.hchd.us and Tuscola County residents should pre-register at www.tchd.us.

Hepfer said because of the increasing supply of vaccines, the health department has been able to offer additional vaccines to the hospitals so they are able to host clinics.

"The hospitals also follow the same guidelines and phases that the health departments are required to follow," Hepfer said. "This week you will begin to see some of our local hospitals conducting clinics using Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the health departments will continue using the two does Moderna vaccine."
Gardai have arrested a second man in relation to an ongoing investigation into the fraudulent claiming of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

Gardai seconded to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) assisted by GNECB personnel arrested the 35-year-old man in the Midleton area of Cork today, having previously arrested a man in his 40s back in December 2020 as part of the investigation.

The man is currently detained at Cobh Garda Station under the provisions of Section 50 Criminal Justice Act 2007 and he can be detained for up to seven days.

In June last year, An Garda Siochana issued a warning to the public in relation to a phishing email purporting to be from Courts Service where individuals were told they had been selected for jury service.

To date, 73 people have been identified as having had their details fraudulently obtained in order to claim the payment. All 73, received an email under the pretence that it was from the Courts Service Ireland looking for them to do Jury duty.

This email sought personal information, which included their PPSN, name, address, date of birth and mothers maiden name.

These details were then used to apply online and claim the Covid payment of 350 per person, weekly, with an estimated 187,000 paid out in relation to the 73 people.
The humanitarian crisis taking place in Yemen is widely considered to be the worst in the world, with twenty million people, including millions of children, desperately in need of help.

The United States is committed to doing our part, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a recent donors conference:

Im pleased to announce nearly $191 million in additional humanitarian assistance from the United States, bringing our Fiscal Year 2021 funding up to more than $350 million. In total, the United States has provided more than $3.4 billion in aid to the Yemeni people since the crisis began six years ago.

This funding supports U.S. partners in delivering needed assistance, including food, protection, education, shelter, health, water, sanitation, and the prevention and treatment of severe malnutrition. It also goes toward the rehabilitation of water systems, repair of critical roads, and support to help families earn incomes.

Ultimately, the only way to end the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is by ending the war there. Thats why the United States is reinvigorating its diplomatic efforts to bring peace, said Secretary Blinken:

We are committed to putting the well-being of the Yemeni people at the forefront of our policy while continuing to put pressure on the leaders of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis. We call on the Houthis to cease their cross-border attacks and military offensives that prolong this war. We support the UN-led process and UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths in their efforts to establish a ceasefire, increase humanitarian access, and resume peace talks.

U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking reports that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen are committed to find a solution to the conflict. Now, the Houthis need to demonstrate the same commitment. The United States calls on the Houthis stop their continued assault against Marib, a city where a million internally displaced people live, and to make constructive moves toward peace.

We are hopeful for the speedy resumption of peace talks aimed at finally bringing an end to this conflict, said Secretary Blinken. The time is now to make this push and bring about a more stable, prosperous Yemen whose citizens will be able to rebuild their lives and  at long last  have hope in a better future.
Schools across Wrexham continuing to prepare to reopen to more pupils

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Mar 9th, 2021

Schools across Wrexham are continuing to plan and prepare, as more children across the county borough start to go back to the classroom.

Since the announcement of a level four lockdown in December, schools have been closed to all but key worker and vulnerable children.

However on February 25 primary schools in Wrexham reopened to all those aged between three and five years old.

Subject to the outcome of the next three week review, from March 15 those in years 3, 4, 5 and 6 are expected to return to school, along with secondary pupils in years 11 and 13 (exam years). This is along with some pupils in years 10 and 12 who are taking exams.





Schools may be able to offer a check-in session for years 7, 8 and 9 prior to Easter, however people are advised to contact their school to check if this is the case beforehand.

It is expected that all secondary pupils will be back in school full-time after the Easter holidays.

Councillor Phil Wynn, Wrexham Councils lead member for education, is urging people to continue following the restrictions to help keep schools open.

Cllr Wynn said: Were very pleased to see children gradually returning to classrooms in Wrexham.

The return of foundation phase pupils has gone really well, and seeing more children return from March 15 will be another encouraging step forward.

Schools will be keeping parents informed about arrangements, and we hope that pupils enjoy getting back in the classroom and seeing their teachers and classmates again.

He added: Please avoid car-sharing with other households, wear a face mask when dropping off and picking up your child, and try not to hang about the school gates talking to other parents.

Please also remember that school bubbles only apply in school, and children shouldnt be mixing in groups outside of school premises. Current restrictions in Wales state that no more than four people from two different households can meet to exercise outdoors.

Id like to thank children, parents and school staff for everything theyre doing to help keep our classrooms safe.

If we all keep following the rules, we can help keep schools open and hopefully things will gradually start to feel more normal over the coming months.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The AAP-led Delhi government on Monday presented its fourth Outcome Budget on the first day of the Delhi Assembly's budget session for 2021-22.

Presenting the budget, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government highlighted its achievements in various departments such as Education, Health, Transport, Revenue, Food and Civil Supply and Labour.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds Finance portfolio, presenting the fourth outcome budget, said: "Delhi government is the only state government that makes suo-moto disclosure of its performance to promote transparency and accountability in public spending. The outcome budget is a report card on how various departments have performed based on the funds allocated under Annual Budget 2020-21."

Sisodia said that during lockdown, the Delhi government launched the series of 'Parenting in the time of Corona' in which, up to 98 per cent students received worksheets while 89-90 per cent of students of 11th and 12th grades attended online classes. The Delhi government carried out educational activities for 229 days whereas a normal session lasts 220 days.

On the revenue front, the Delhi government said it mitigated basic inequalities caused due to the pandemic and the revenue department set up as many as 1,914 hunger relief centers at the government-run schools for the period over three months.

The government claimed that cooked meals were provided twice a day to over 10 lakh people. Apart from these the AAP government also set-up 260 night shelters, booked 252 trains for migrant workers and provided an ex-gratia relief amount of Rs 1 crore to each of the families of 9 frontline workers who died due to Covid-19.

Sisodia said that responding quickly to the Covid -19 crisis, the Delhi government implemented a comprehensive Covid-19 response strategy. He said that Covid-19 tests of 87.8 lakh people was done in the national capital.

To ensure an adequate number of beds for Covid patients, the Minister said that the government arranged 27,873 beds in all government hospitals, which was twice the number available compared to actual occupancy at all times.

To tackle the coronavirus, Delhi also became the first state in the country to experiment with plasma therapy, he said.

Sisodia said that in addition to providing cooked meals during lockdown, the Delhi government distributed free ration to 71 lakh ration card holders. A total of 65 per cent of Delhi's population were provided free food grains to help them at the much needed time during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Highlighting its achievements in the labour department, Manish Sisodia told the house that construction workers who lost their livelihoods during the pandemic were also provided special assistance.

The Delhi government provided financial aid to 44,683 construction workers who registered under the Delhi government's Construction Workers Welfare Board. Sisodia claimed it was the highest financial assistance provided by any state in the country, followed by Punjab and Kerala at Rs 3,000 each.

Sisodia said to curb pollution and make Delhi a clean and green city, Delhi government also launched the electric vehicle policy.
A TEENAGER who recorded his accomplice stabbing a man on Snapchat has been remanded on bail pending sentence for assault.

Jason Finnegan (18) was with Mark Pidgeon (30) when they called to the flat of Kenneth Osbourne, who owed Finnegan 300 or 400.

Detective Garda Graham O'Neill told Elva Duffy BL, prosecuting, that Finnegan recorded the incident and captured the initial conversation between all three before it showed Pidgeon lash in the direction of the victim with a large knife and stab him a number of times.

Finnegan can be heard "shouting words of encouragement" such as "lash him, lash him out of it" and calls Mr Osbourne "a rat", Det-Gda O'Neill told the court.

He said the recording last for about 90 seconds before both leave the scene after Finnegan "alludes to the fact that they are on camera".

The victim was later treated for multiple stab wounds including injuries to his arm which required surgery.

Finnegan, of Kilworth Road, Drimnagh, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal to assault causing harm at Basin Street Flats on March 15, 2020.

Last January, Pidgeon of Bluebell Road, Bluebell, was sentenced to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to the same offence.

He had 45 previous convictions including offences for production of knives.

Judge Karen O'Connor adjourned Finnegan's case to June 4, next, and ordered a report from the Probation Service for that date.

She told Keith Spencer BL, defending, that she could not give any assurances on how she will proceed with the case but said she is impressed with progress Finnegan has been making with various agencies in his local community.

"I have to mark the seriousness of the offending and the impact it had on the victim," Judge O'Connor said.

She said she had to take into account that the victim suffered significantly and the fact that Finnegan was recording the assault and taunting his accomplice to behave in a certain way.

Det-Gda O'Neill said Mr Osbourne did not wish to make a victim impact statement and would not identify his attackers to gardai.

He told gardai he was attacked by two men and that he owed the younger man "a few bob".

He said he was "terrified" and that "these guys tried to kill me and recorded the whole thing before putting it on social media".

Det-Gda O'Neill said the Snapchat recording and CCTV footage allowed them to identify Finnegan and Pidgeon.

He confirmed that Finnegan has no previous convictions and agreed with Mr Spencer that his client's brother died in a tragic way in 2016.

Mr Spencer told the judge his client was "a very troubled young man with emotional issues who has recently been acting out in a manner which is violent and explosive".

Counsel said that Finnegan has recently been engaging with various agencies in his local community who have "carved out paths for him in an attempt to help him".

John Behan, from the Solas Project, told the court that Finnegan has been engaging with them for a number of months.

"The contact has been coming from him. You can see he is trying to get help for himself," Mr Behan said.

Mr Spencer said Finnegan has "gone from being a person with no support to a person being targeted by agencies".

"He seems to be moving in the right direction. The green shoots of rehabilitation and recovery are there."








Paducah Man Charged After Fraudulent Checks

By West Kentucky Star Staff

MCCRACKEN COUNTY - An investigation into stolen banking information led to the arrest of a Paducah man Thursday.Last December 26, a McCracken County resident reported that their vehicle had been entered and items containing banking information may have been taken.On January 4, detectives with the McCracken County Sheriff's Office learned that the victim was experiencing unusual activity with their bank account. Detectives said duplicate checks had been obtained in the victim's name, using the compromised banking information.The duplicated checks were reportedly used at three local businesses before the account was frozen.With cooperation from the local businesses, detectives identified 23-year-old Michael Abbage as a suspect. Abbage was arrested Thursday and charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument second-degree and theft by deception under $500.He was lodged in the McCracken County Jail.
[March 09, 2021] LeoLabs Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021

MENLO PARK, Calf., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LeoLabs has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021. The list honors businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive, they thrivedmaking an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's MIC list features 463 businesses from 29 countries. "LeoLabs is delighted to be recognized by Fast Company for revolutionizing space traffic safety and sustainability," said Dan Ceperley, CEO and Co-Founder of LeoLabs. LeoLabs occupies a unique position in the emerging global new space industry as the leading commercial supplier of LEO space situational awareness (SSA) data, analytics and services based on LeoLabs radar and network cloud-based software platform. The LeoLabs commercial radar network tracks space debris and satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Its innovative analytics software platform and open API enable the development of next generation services and tools to support the increasing regulatory, environmental, entrepreneurial, defense, scientific and commercial interests in LEO, while also preserving the LEO ecosystem for future generations. LeoLabs' innovative and flexible business model provides modern SaaS-based solutions to suit the emerging requirements of space agencies, satellite operators, researchers and entrepreneurs. LeoLabs currently has a network of radars operating in Alaska, Texas, New Zealand, and Costa Rica. Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across theglobe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.



The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy. "In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multi-day summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021. Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative. ABOUT LEOLABS

Founded in 2016 as a venture-funded spinout of Silicon Valley research pioneer, SRI International, LeoLabs provides access to critical mapping and SSA data for low Earth orbit. LeoLabs' services include collision prevention, risk assessment, constellation monitoring, and commercial SSA. LeoLabs today serves space agencies, commercial satellite operators, defense, and scientific/academic organizations that are driving generational change in LEO. LeoLabs' core technology includes a patent-pending global phased-array radar network which tracks debris and satellites in LEO. Observations generated from this network are the foundation of the LeoLabs mapping and SSA software platform, providing timely and accurate orbital and situational data. ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leolabs-named-to-fast-companys-annual-list-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-companies-for-2021-301243859.html SOURCE LeoLabs, Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Bombay Begums

Cast: Pooja Bhatt, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, Plabita Borthakur, Aadhya Anand

Direction: Alankrita Shrivastava

Rating: * * * (three stars)

BY VINAYAK CHAKRAVORTY

A bank CEO's son runs over a lower-class boy. The victim's poor parent spots a get-rich-quick scheme through blackmail. A public scandal could end the CEO's career and so it is best to pay up, and then pay some more.

Sounds like standard soap opera drama? Okay, imagine the picture again: The bank CEO is a woman fighting to hold onto that position, in an otherwise all-male board of directors waiting with bated breath to bring her down. The victim's parent is a sex worker, who has incidentally serviced the CEO's son who will run over her boy, only minutes before the incident takes place.

Alankrita Srivastava's web series uses many familiar vignettes to set up a slice of Mumbai, with its hopes, despairs, dreams and struggles. Only, the story reverses gender equation, which in itself gives the tale a fresh take. Bombay Begums not just lays bare a big bad city and its warts, it tries working as a manifesto of women battling the odds to find their space in a society where gender politics never ceases to be stacked against them.

Srivastava's earlier efforts have shown her preferred style of storytelling is episodic. She sets up parallel narratives of multiple protagonists that find a common thread thematically and plot-wise. Bombay Begums uses its six episodes to tell the story of five women while pushing the storyline forward.

The show opens with the self-made Rani Irani (Pooja Bhatt returning after a hiatus, in solid form), CEO of a bank who will soon be struggling to balance professional stress with tension in personal space. We meet Fatima, (Shahana Goswami), whom Rani appoints in an important position at the bank. Fatima is pregnant and, though she has no problem, her husband is not too supportive about her taking up a top job in her condition.

Rani's path crosses with that of Lily (executed flawlessly by Amruta Subhash) the sex worker. A former bar dancer, Lily struggles to get a better life for herself and her son, and she thinks she might have struck a gold mine when Rani's son runs over her boy.

Plabita Borthakur as Ayesha Agarwal is the fourth angle of the story. She is a smalltown girl out to make her mark in Mumbai, without a top B-school degree but with lots of ambition.

Their stories are seen from the gaze of the teenager Shai (Aadhya Anand), Rani's introvert step daughter. Shai becomes the voiceover of the saga, and its conscience in a way, as the episodes unfold through her eyes.

When it comes to putting across a feminine standpoint, very few in Bollywood do it with the rage and relish of Alankrita Srivastava -- a fact she underlined in the past with her 2017 feature effort, Lipstick Under My Burkha, and season one of the web series Made In Heaven a couple of years later.

The thing about Bombay Begums is, it stops short of being pathbreaking fare. It continues an effort to seriously open up conversation about women and their claim for a space that is rightfully theirs, but the story comes across as something you have seen before.

The show is defined by its brilliant performances, which make it worth a watch. More coherence in storytelling would have made it gripping fare.

-- Syndicated from IANS
Belfast councillors have accused the PSNI of discriminatory policing over the treatment of Rangers fans celebrating their teams title victory and Black Lives Matter protesters.

The police issued around 70 60 Covid fines at two BLM demonstrations in Londonderry and Belfast last June.

After a probe by the Police Ombudsman found the handling of the protests was unfair, discriminatory and had severely damaged ethnic minorities faith in the police, Chief Constable Simon Byrne apologised.

Read More

Hundreds of Rangers fans took to the streets in Belfast on Sunday to celebrate the teams league title in scenes the police said were in clear breach of lockdown regulations. An investigation is under way.

People Before Profit councillor Matt Collins hit out at what he described as a disparity in how the incidents were handled.

Expand Close Anger: the Black Lives Matter protest in Londonderry in June Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Anger: the Black Lives Matter protest in Londonderry in June

Whenever I saw the scenes, I was immediately reminded that BLM protesters are still fined, under caution and (under) threat of prosecution for taking part in safe, socially distanced protests, he told the Belfast Telegraph.

The glaring reality is that the PSNI and Executive have proven themselves capable of highly selective policing of the Covid restrictions over the past year.

The BAME community was targeted in a discriminatory way that breached human rights and contrasted to the policing of many different gatherings.

This hypocrisy needs to end. All fines and threats of police action against BLM protesters must be dropped immediately.

Green Party councillor Anthony Flynn added: BLM protesters, who were protesting against vile systemic racism, were met with a heavy-handed policing operation, culminating in two highly critical reports evidencing discrimination in how they were treated compared to other events at the time, but (Sundays scenes) are fine.

Meanwhile Michelle O'Neill has rejected any suggestion of a link between alleged Covid-19 breaches at Rangers fans' title celebrations and crowds that gathered for republican funerals during the pandemic.

The deputy First Minister also expressed concern about the potential for large gatherings to mark St Patrick's Day next week.

Read More

Speaking in the Assembly on Monday, First Minister Arlene Foster said fans were rightly jubilant over the win, but Covid regulations must be adhered to.

PSNI Superintendent Nigel Henry said an investigation was under way into Sunday's events on the Shankill Road and rule breakers would face action.

Police received reports about large numbers of people celebrating in the Shankill Road area, he added.

This included reports of a street party and flares being set off. Police also became aware of fireworks being let off.

The numbers involved in the scenes were clearly a breach of the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations, which is so disappointing when we know so many other people are adhering to the regulations and playing their part to keep people safe.

The PSNI added in a statement: The investigation continues into large numbers of people celebrating in the Shankill Road area. Appropriate enforcement action will be taken in relation to breaches of the regulations.
Vulnerability to COVID-19 is not shared equally. The past year has shown that those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 are those who live in poverty, in overcrowded housing, or in poorly regulated privately owned and operated personal care homes.

Opinion

Vulnerability to COVID-19 is not shared equally. The past year has shown that those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 are those who live in poverty, in overcrowded housing, or in poorly regulated privately owned and operated personal care homes.

As British writer Damian Barr said about the pandemic last year, "We are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm. Some of us are on super-yachts. Some have just the one oar."

Here in Winnipeg, Point Douglas and downtown are the neighbourhoods with the highest rates of COVID-19 at 3,000-3,800 cases per 100,000 people; they are also the neighbourhoods with the highest rates of poverty  almost 30 per cent in some neighbourhoods  and the highest proportion of Indigenous people.

In other words, the ongoing impacts of colonialism and of social and economic injustice shape vulnerability to COVID-19. Successfully fighting the pandemic and building a just recovery will require action to reduce poverty and to decolonize policies and practices that result in marginalization.

The 2020 State of the Inner City report showed that when the pandemic arrived in Manitoba last March, the ensuing shutdowns and physical distancing requirements had an immediate and life-threatening impact on peoples access to basic needs in Winnipegs inner city. Drop-ins, resources and services, and washrooms were suddenly unavailable as community-based organizations, community centres and public libraries shut their doors.

For those who rely on these spaces for shelter and warmth, for food, for phone and internet access, for hygiene and for community, the abrupt closures resulted in upheaval and crisis.

These unintended consequences of the emergency response to the pandemic highlight the marginalization caused by a decades-long lack of investment in the welfare state. Health guidelines that insisted we stay home laid bare the lack of good quality, low-cost housing, including social housing, for thousands of households in Manitoba.

Rapid changes in health protocols and the isolation caused by physical distancing made it clear that communications and internet access are an essential need, not a luxury. The lack of paid sick days forced many essential workers, especially those in low-paid and precarious jobs, to keep working and risk their health (and the health of others around them).

And the Canadian Emergency Response Benefits (CERB) provision of $2,000 per worker per month, while desperately needed and an essential support for millions of Canadians, made Manitobas Employment and Income Assistance (EIA) rates (currently $795 per month for a single person) seem tragically low.

At the same time, the pandemic has highlighted the innovative and essential role community-based organizations play in mitigating the day-to-day impacts of poverty for communities in Winnipegs inner city. Food banks, Indigenous organizations, womens centres, youth-serving and neighbourhood organizations provide safe spaces for people to gather, as well as essential services and resources for everyday life.

In our interviews with 30 leaders and front-line workers, we heard how they have found new ways to reach out and provide programming, resources and supports to the communities they serve. They told us their relationships of trust with the communities they serve have been instrumental in helping hard-to-reach residents during the pandemic.

As vaccine distribution ramps up and we can begin to hope for an end to the pandemic, we cannot go back to "business as usual," when "business as usual" means poverty, homelessness and precarious employment for thousands of Manitobans.

To address the immediate task of dealing with COVID-19, the province must work with community-based organizations. These organizations can act as a bridge between the province and marginalized and vulnerable communities, sharing information about health guidelines and vaccines. This is especially important for Indigenous communities, which may lack trust in Western medicine, because  as Niigaan Sinclair has noted  "no one has been more experimented on than our communities."

For the long term, we must reduce vulnerability by reducing social and economic marginalization. This means increasing the supply of social housing with rent subsidies and supports to keep people housed. It means providing a livable income for all Manitobans that will cover basic needs, including phone and internet access. It means ensuring that all workers have access to paid sick days, a decent minimum wage and child care. And it means addressing racism and colonialism to ensure Indigenous people are not disproportionately affected by pandemics and poverty.

These actions will reduce vulnerability to COVID-19, and get us all through the storm together.

Sarah Cooper is an assistant professor of city planning at the University of Manitoba and a research associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives  Manitoba. She is a co-author of COVID-19: The Changing State of the Inner City  Strengthening Community at a Time of Isolation.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Women set up sarong barriers, considered unlucky for men to walk under, to protect protesters against a military crackdown in Tamwe in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, March 8, 2021.

As Aung San Suu Kyi marked her fifth week under house arrest on Monday, women across Myanmar mounted a Sarong Revolution on International Womens Day to oppose the military regime that ousted the countrys most famous female.

Women have played a leading role in weeks of mass protests, which erupted after Myanmars military seized power on Feb. 1 and deposed Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected leaders. They now face an increasingly violent crackdown.

Security forces have used live bullets, stun grenades and flash bangs to quash the protest movement, killing scores of people and arresting more than 1,800 across Myanmar.

Braving physical danger and arrest, women rallied in the largest city Yangon, and in towns in the border states of Kachin, Chin, and Shan to raise their sarongs  wraparound skirts widely worn in Southeast Asia  as flags of protest for International Women's Day.

We used to celebrate this day jointly in hand with various government ministries focusing on awareness of women's rights. But this year women are actively taking part in the anti-military protests and we decided to use our sarongs as flags of the column, said May Sabe Phyu, director of the Gender Equality Network in Myanmar.

Women have used sarongs creatively to protest the coup and frustrate security forces. In many neighborhoods, they string the skirts, known as htamein in Burmese, on ropes across roads. Myanmar superstition holds that walking beneath womens sarongs is bad luck or shameful for men.

The motto this year is Choose to Challenge. And we Myanmar women choose to challenge the military dictatorship, May Sabe Phyu told RFA.

She said the women in Myanmar are playing an active role in national protests against the military coup and the anti-authoritarian civil disobedience movement, while others support it from behind the scenes.

The first protester to die in the anti-junta demonstrations was a 20-year-old female grocery story worker, Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing, who was shot in the head in the capital Naypyidaw Feb. 9 and died 10 days later. Also slain in protests was Kyal Sin, a 19-year-old ethnic Chinese woman who was shot in the head on March 3 and became a focus of national anger after troops disturbed her grave to remove her body.

"There are a lot of Myanmar women who had taken leading roles in our history but sadly their brave actions during the revolutions had never been properly recorded. They were heroines behind the curtains, said May Sabe Phyu.

But now in this spring revolution, in this fight for democracy, their actions have not gone unnoticed, she added.

May Sabe Phyu estimated that women make up 60 percent of front-line protest leaders, and roughly 70 to 80 percent of leaders of the broader civil disobedience movement. Women accounted for about 30 percent of those who had been arrested and six of the more than 50 fatalities in five weeks of protest, she said.

I salute the women of all generations across the nation who have chosen to challenge this aggressive military coup and stand up for federal democracy, freedom, justice and peace in Myanmar in the face of bullets and snipers from the killers, said Salai Maung Taing San, a medical doctor, philanthropist and civil society activist popularly known as Dr. Sasa.

For Aung San Suu Kyi, who has not been seen since the coup and is believed to be under house arrest in Naypyidaw, Monday was not the first International Womans Day in custody.

Last months coup was not even the first time Myanmars powerful army cancelled a landslide election victory by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy.

As they did in 2020 and 2015, she and the NLD swept 1990 elections, only to have the military nullify the results and put her under house arrest for 15 years between 1989 and 2010.

Inside Myanmar, the 75-year-old Nobel laureate remains widely admired, even though her international image suffered an immense blow over her defense of the military against genocide-related charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for killings, mass rape, torture, and village burnings that drove 740,000 Muslim Rohingya into Bangladesh in 2017.

Cities in Europe responded by stripping Aung San Suu Kyi of freedom awards, three fellow Nobel peace laureates accused her and the military of committing genocide, and the U.S. Holocaust Museum revoked a prestigious human rights award. There were even calls to rescind her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

A situation analysis of Myanmars womens rights by the Asian Development Bank published in 2016 said the country of 54 million people had a mixed narrative on gender equality and womens rights, with laws that looked good on paper but offered few protections in a country under great change.

The report found that of total staff of 31 government ministries, an average of 52 percent were women in 20092010, with middle-management level posts in 31 ministries filled 37 percent by women.

Women tend to occupy mid-management positionsdirector, deputy director, assistant director levelsin government jobs and below, but they rarely are found in senior or senior-most management positions, the ADB report said, adding that women bear the additional responsibility of unpaid care work at home.

Myanmars 12.9 percent female ratio of women holding directly elected seats in all levels of parliament  in the previous 2016-21 term -- compared to Cambodias 21.1 percent, Laos 25.2 percent and Vietnams 25.8 percent, the ADB said.

May Sabe Phyu of the Gender Equality Network said the protests this season are against not just the military dictatorship  we are going to fight against old ideas on the role of women. We want to root out all these outdated ideas of oppressing women in any way.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
The President of the Republic of Ghana, H. E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia have met with the President's legal team in the 2020 Presidential Elections Petition at the Supreme Court. The Presidents legal Team were led by Akoto Ampaw and Frank Davies.



The Supreme Court on Thursday, 4th March, 2021 unanimously dismissed the Petition brought before it at the instance of the Presidential Candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. John Mahama as having no merit.



Speaking for and on behalf of the legal Team, Mr Frank Davies who doubles as the Chairman of the NPP's Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee thanked the President for the confidence reposed in the team adding that Mr. President, by virtue of your unwavering support, the team has been able to successfully execute the task you assigned to us. The Supreme Court has dismissed the petition challenging the 9th December declaration by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) and has affirmed that you are the truly and validly elected President of the Republic.



On the part of President Akufo-Addo, he commended the legal team for the uphill battle well fought. I am most grateful to each one of you for the diligence, thoroughness, commitment and the sense of responsibility you brought to bear to ensure that the will of the people is upheld by the apex court of the land he added.



Present at the meeting were the Chief of Staff, Hon. Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, Nana Asante Bediatuo Esq. (Secretary to the President), Hon Godfred Yeboah Dame, and the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff, Emmanuel Adumua-Bossman and Fawaz Aliu.



The legal team was accompanied by Mr Peter Mac Manu, the NPP 2020 Elections Campaign Manager who was also the star witness of the 2nd Respondent (President Akufo-Addo).





Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Amazon's Echo and other smart speakers like the Google Home could be used to monitor the rhythm of a person's heart.

Academics created an AI-powered device which monitors regular, and irregular, heartbeats using the same tools found in smart speakers.

The prototype, which was built in a lab but could be incorporated into speakers in the future, was found to be almost as good as medical devices in hospitals.

Scroll down for video

Academics created an AI-powered device which monitors regular, and irregular, heartbeats using the same tools found in smart speakers

The prototype, which was built in a lab but could be incorporated into commercial speakers in the future, was found to be almost as good as approved medical devices found in hospitals

The search for heartbeats begins when a person sits within one to two feet of the smart speaker.

Then the system plays an inaudible continuous sound, which bounces off the person and then returns to the speaker.

Based on how the returned sound has changed, the system can isolate movements on the person - including the rise and fall of their chest as they breathe, scientists said.

Researchers say this is the first time doctors have been able to monitor both regular and irregular heartbeats without physical contact.

The heartbeat-detecting machine learning system is similar to the one used by Amazon Echo speakers to activate Alexa.

One of the hardest challenges, the researchers say, was filtering out the noise made by the person breathing.

Anran Wang, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the University of Washington, said: 'The motion from someone's breathing is orders of magnitude larger on the chest wall than the motion from heartbeats, so that poses a pretty big challenge.

'And the breathing signal is not regular so it's hard to simply filter it out.

'Using the fact that smart speakers have multiple microphones, we designed a new beam-forming algorithm to help the speakers find heartbeats.'

The team designed an algorithm which learns as it is used, and is not based on a predetermined dataset.

This algorithm combines signals from all of the smart speaker's multiple microphones to identify the elusive heartbeat signal, the experts said.

Professor Shyam Gollakota, co-author of the study, said: 'This is similar to how Alexa can always find my voice even if I'm playing a video or if there are multiple people talking in the room.

The contactless system sends inaudible sounds from the speaker out into a room and listens to how they bounce back. Depending on what it detects after the sound waves return, including the rise and fall of their chest, a machine learning algorithm can piece together the person's heartbeat

The heartbeat-detecting machine learning system is similar to that which is used by Amazon Echos to activate Alexa (pictured). One of the hardest challenges, the researchers say, was filtering out the noise made by the person breathing

'When I say, "hey, Alexa", the microphones are working together to find me in the room and listen to what I say next. That's basically what's happening here but with the heartbeat.'

Heart rhythm is of more use to clinicians than simple heart rate, another feature which is commonly used to monitor patients.

Dr Arun Sridhar, co-author of the study, said: 'Heart rhythm disorders are actually more common than some other well-known heart conditions.

'Cardiac arrhythmias can cause major morbidities such as strokes, but can be highly unpredictable in occurrence, and thus difficult to diagnose.

'Availability of a low-cost test that can be performed frequently and at the convenience of home can be a game-changer for certain patients in terms of early diagnosis and management.'

The team compared the smart speaker's inter-beat interval with one from a standard heartbeat monitor. More than 12,000 heartbeats from healthy people and on average they were spotted within 28 milliseconds of the standard monitor, the researchers said

Currently this system is set up for spot checks so if a person is concerned about their heart rhythm they can sit in front of a smart speaker and get a reading. But the research team hopes that future versions could continuously monitor heartbeats while people are asleep, something that could help doctors diagnose conditions such as sleep apnoea

Eating oily fish twice a WEEK could slash your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by more than a FIFTH Eating oily fish like salmon and sardines twice a week could slash the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by more than a fifth, a new study reveals. Canadian researchers at McMaster University pooled together four previous studies to look at data from more than 190,000 people from 58 countries. Sudden deaths and overall mortality rates fell 21 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, among people with cardiovascular disease who ate at least 175g (six ounces) of oily fish weekly  about two servings. They were also 16 per cent less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke over the next decade. Although the benefit was not observed in people with normal health, it's known that the omega-3 fatty acids in fish are good for the human heart generally. Advertisement

The researchers tested a prototype on two groups  26 healthy participants and 24 patients in hospital  with a wide range of cardiac conditions, including atrial fibrillation and heart failure.

The team compared the smart speaker's inter-beat interval with one from a standard heartbeat monitor.

More than 12,000 heartbeats from healthy people were recorded which were, on average, picked up within 28 milliseconds of the standard monitor, the researchers said.

The device was almost as effective when used on hospital patients. More than 5,600 heartbeats were measured and, on average, the prototype spotted them within 30 milliseconds of the approved medical device.

Currently this system is set up for spot checks so if a person is concerned about their heart rhythm they can sit in front of a smart speaker and get a reading.

But the research team hopes that future versions could continuously monitor heartbeats while people are asleep, something that could help doctors diagnose conditions such as sleep apnoea.

Dr Sridhar said: 'If you have a device like this, you can monitor a patient on an extended basis and define patterns that are individualised for the patient.

'For example, we can figure out when arrhythmias are happening for each specific patient and then develop corresponding care plans that are tailored for when the patients actually need them.

'This is the future of cardiology. And the beauty of using these kinds of devices is that they are already in people's homes.'

The findings of the study were published in Communications Biology.
SUV

FWD

AWD

The skirmish also included no fewer than seven different N-branded launches, with the 2022 Tucson N Line headlining the roster. Well, after we recently found out the compact crossoverhas entered production at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama (HMMA), heres the detailed look at how much each of its variants will cost. Hyundai just revealed its pricing strategy for the 2022 model year of the new generation Tucson, and we can safely say that interested buyers will have an ample range of trims and options to choose from. A base 2022 Tucson SE (with the four-cylinder 2.5-liter GDI and) will go for an MSRP of $24,950 (all prices exclude the $1,185 freight charge).From then on, theres a choice between no fewer than fifteen grades (some get doubled because theyre offered with both FWD and, though), and one can go as high as $37,350 when opting for the 2022 Tucson Limited HEV (hybrid). In between, the SE can be had with AWD starting from $26,350, while the N Line kicks off at $30,600 ($32k with AWD).Naturally, the Tucson N Line and Tucson HEV are two of the most interesting offers for the all-new generation. The former can only be had with the 187-hp 2.5-liter GDI and an eight-speed automatic transmission, while the 227-hp hybrid makes use of the smaller and turbocharged 1.6 T-GDI, an electric motor, and only comes with a six-speed Shiftronic automatic.Interestingly, the base Blue HEV (complete with AWD) is cheaper compared to a Tucson N Line FWD, starting at an MSRP of $29,050. The price jumps to $31,650 for the SEL Convenience HEV or $37,350 for the top-of-the-line Limited HEV, though.
Highlighting the growing participation of women in the global economy, the UAEs Foreign Exchange and Remittance Group (FERG) has revealed that there was an increase in remittances by women in the UAE in 2020.

According to data collected by FERG from its member exchange and remittance companies, on average women represented 25% of remitters in the UAE in 2020. The data also revealed that remittances by Asian women in the UAE saw the most significant year-on-year growth, followed by Arab and African women, respectively. The top corridors with the highest remittances done by women in the UAE are the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Egypt, Morocco and Uganda.

According to UN Women, women make up almost half of the 244 million people who live and work outside their country of birth. The past few decades have seen an uptick in the feminization of labour migration, contrary to traditional culture that has portrayed women as passive participants in migrationmoving as dependents of their husbands or for family reunification.

FERGs data also revealed that the effect of the pandemic was marginal and negligible on transactions carried out by women. Al Fardan Exchange, one of the FERG members, reported a 12.6% increase in remittances done by women in 2020, as compared to the previous year. Another FERG member, Lulu Exchange, reported an increase of 2.63% in 2020, compared to 2019, and an increase of 17.77% compared to 2017.

Mohamed Ali Al Ansari, Chairman of FERG, said: Achieving Gender Equality by 2030 is one of the Sustainable Development Goals laid down by the United Nations. Recognising the economic significance of female migrant workers is crucial in reaching this goal. Female migrants make up approximately half of all the global migrant workforce, and therefore, their contribution to the global economy is of paramount importance. We understand the strategic importance of women in our industry and the larger role that women play in society. Catering to our female customers by providing a secure and sensitive environment is our top priority.

The remittance behaviour of women is very different from men. Even though women tend to earn less than men due to the gender wage gap, they send a higher proportion of their salaries back home and remit money more consistently. According to data collected from FERG member exchange and remittance houses, the average ticket size of women remitters was between AED1,5002,000 ($408-$545) per month. They are mostly sent as bank transfers or cash pickups and used for family maintenance, education and healthcare.

Adeeb Ahamed, Vice Chairman of FERG, said: To empower women and encourage their financial independence, a lot more can be done on the global platform. Overcoming prejudice to achieve gender balance is one of the most important factors. Developing more financial products and services customised for women, aid in financial management and access to technology to avail online services is the need of the hour. -- Tradearabia News Service
Sinn Feins Pearse Doherty said the story of Davy was one of personal greed (Niall Carson/PA)

Senior staff at the centre of the Davy probe will not face criminal sanctions after the Central Bank said that no criminal law was broken.

Derville Rowland, the director of financial conduct at the Central Bank of Ireland, said the enforcement team that investigated the stockbroker did not believe there were criminal reports to pass on to other agencies.

Ms Rowland told the Oireachtas Finance Committee that the full details of the investigation were out in the public.

She added that the Central Bank was very satisfied to engage with other agencies.

The outcome has caused Davy a moment of reckoning Derville Rowland

The regulator fined the stockbroker 4.1 million euro for breaches of financial market rules.

The Central Bank found that Davy breached six regulations, all of which were classed as regulatory obligations and not criminal offences.

Ms Rowland said that a number of staff involved in the incident were no longer working for Davy.

We are engaged in very dynamic and significant regulatory engagement with Davy and it is a very evolving situation, Ms Rowland added.

I cant be drawn and commenting on future regulatory actions against individuals.

We hard fought this enforcement outcome with this firm and the outcome has caused Davy a moment of reckoning and it causes them to have questions to answer with respect to their conduct and culture.

Its right that the Central Bank keeps all of its options open.

During the course of this investigation we did not form views that there were criminal reports to be made to other agencies.

Expand Close A man passing Davy stockbrokers in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A man passing Davy stockbrokers in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA)

Now that the full details of the investigation, and the facts upon which they are based, are out in the public domain we are very satisfied to engage with other agencies who may see relevant role in them.

We have already had tentative engagements with some and we will make sure there is a very fulsome engagement in the near term.

She also accused Davy of seeking to minimise the transaction and mischaracterise the seriousness of the event when details of the 2014 incident emerged.

The committee was told that after a forensic investigation, the Central Bank discovered that the initial characterisation of what happened lacked candour.

Fianna Fails Jim OCallaghan asked what information was wilfully withheld but Ms Rowland said that she was confined to the details published last week.

She said she could not go further than what was published by the regulator last week.

It was our view that the information provided mischaracterised the gravity and seriousness of the matter, she added.

These provisions are not designated as criminal offences. They are very serious regulatory obligations and they have been pursued by the Central Bank of Ireland in the course of this investigation.

Expand Close The Central Bank found that Davy breached six regulations (Niall Carson/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Central Bank found that Davy breached six regulations (Niall Carson/PA)

Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty said: The story of Davy is one of personal greed, one in which 16 employees shortchanged their client to the benefit of themselves, including the most senior executives in Davy.

Davy said on Monday it had closed its bond desk following the fallout over its fine for breaching rules in relation to a bond deal in 2014.

It came hours after the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) withdrew Davys authority to act as primary dealer in Irish Government debt.

The NTMA described the firms behaviour as falling substantially short of the standards expected.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Last Prisoner Project has launched 'A Time To Heal,' an advocacy campaign calling on President Biden to leverage his clemency power to commute the sentences of thousands of people unjustifiably incarcerated due to federal marijuana-related violations. The advocacy organization is also encouraging the President to issue grants to the tens of thousands more still struggling because of the collateral consequences of a federal cannabis conviction.

"President Biden himself has acknowledged that 'nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime'. We're encouraging him to turn his words into action and use the most immediate tool at his disposal to provide this desperately-needed relief." - LPP Director of Strategic Initiatives, Natalie Papillion

The campaign  which features the stories of the Last Prisoner Project's still-incarcerated constituents  lays out a detailed framework for implementing these grants. Drawing inspiration from past mass clemency efforts, The Last Prisoner Project's plan urges President Biden to issue an executive order impaneling a "Presidential Clemency Board" to review the cases of the tens of thousands of Americans with federal marijuana-related convictions. This approach mirrors President Ford's successful drive to grant clemency to over 14,000 violators of the Selective Service Act in the 1970s.

"On the campaign trail, President Biden admitted that his past support of unduly punitive drug policies was a mistake that he wants to make amends for. As President, he can begin to right some of those wrongs with the simple stroke of a pen. In the interest of healing the nation, and 'rooting out systemic racism from our laws, our policies, our institutions, and our hearts,' President Biden must grant clemency to those incarcerated on federal cannabis charges," Papillion added.

The Last Prisoner Project's efforts come alongside a groundswell of public support for reimagining the clemency power, which in recent decades has transformed from a quotidian Presidential responsibility to a powerful symbol of inequities in America's justice system.

To learn more, please head to www.cannabisclemency.org.

Follow Last Prisoner Project:

Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

About Last Prisoner Project:

The Last Prisoner Project (LPP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to cannabis-related criminal justice reform. As the United States moves away from the criminalization of cannabis, giving rise to a major new industry, there remains the fundamental injustice inflicted upon those who have suffered under America's unjust policy of cannabis prohibition. Through intervention, advocacy and awareness campaigns, the Last Prisoner Project works to redress the past and continuing harms of these inhumane and ineffective laws and policies. Visit www.lastprisonerproject.org or text FREEDOM to 24365 to donate and learn more.

Media Contacts:

Linda Carbone & Katie Leggett

PRESS HERE

[email protected] // [email protected]

SOURCE Last Prisoner Project

Related Links

https://www.lastprisonerproject.org


Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.Australias central bank maintained its policy settings as it prepares to decide on extending its yield target and quantitative easing programs, with a Covid-19 lockdown complicating the outlook.The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate and three-year yield target at 0.10% in Sydney on Tuesday, as expected. It will make a decision in July on whether to extend the yield target and undertake further quantitative easing. A weeklong shutdown in the nations second-largest city adds a layer of uncertainty to the outlook.Despite the strong recovery in the economy and jobs, inflation and wage pressures are subdued, Governor Philip Lowe said. The board is committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment in Australia and inflation consistent with the target.The Australian dollar edged lower, trading at 77.41 U.S. cents at 2:53 p.m. in Sydney from 77.62 cents just before the release.The case for Lowe to maintain the April 2024 bond as the target maturity had been strengthening amid strong hiring, sentiment and investment plans. This was reinforced by the government keeping open the fiscal spigot in the May budget as it joins the RBA in seeking to drive down unemployment to revive wages growth and inflation.Progress in reducing unemployment has been faster than expected, Lowe said in his statement. There are reports of labor shortages in some parts of the economy.Risks AheadYet the RBA may be encouraged to err on the side of caution if Melbournes outbreak worsens and extend both of its bond programs to keep maximum support for the economy.An important ongoing source of uncertainty is the possibility of significant outbreaks of the virus, although this should diminish as more of the population is vaccinated, Lowe said. The board continues to place a high priority on a return to full employment.Globally, central banks are beginning to edge away from emergency monetary settings. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets last week in presenting projections of its official cash rate rising in the second half of next year.Back in Australia, economists predicted ahead of data Wednesday that gross domestic product rose 1.5% in the first three months of the year from the prior quarter, and advanced 0.6% from a year earlier.Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, in testimony to a parliamentary panel earlier today, said partial data showed around 56,000 workers had lost their jobs in the four weeks following the end of the governments JobKeeper wage subsidy that expired March 28.He said strong employment data and forward indicators continue to give us confidence that the labor market has the underlying strength to absorb workers transitioning off the JobKeeper payment.End of Australias $68 Billion Job-Saving Stimulus Tests EconomyLowe estimates Australias jobless rate will need to fall to close to 4% before driving economy-wide pay increases. It stood at 5.5% in April.The governor expects wages growth will need to increase at a pace faster than 3% -- more than double the current rate -- for inflation to return sustainably to the central banks 2-3% target.Lowe reiterated that this is unlikely to be until 2024 at the earliest.(Updates with further comments from governor throughout text.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, NephCure Kidney International (NephCure) announced the formal launch of its Health Equity Initiative, focused on addressing access to research and care for diverse families living with chronic, protein-spilling kidney diseases, together with the Health Education Advocacy and Learning, Inc. (HEAL Collaborative) not-for-profit organization.

The goal of this initiative is to improve patient outcomes by identifying solutions to strengthen the participation of underrepresented individuals in the kidney disease patient and medical arena. The initial focus will be on kidney disease in Black Americans, given the prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) in this population. This initiative is made possible through grant support from Travere Therapeutics, a founding partner of the Health Equity Initiative. Additional support has been provided by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and other key partners.

NephCure's Health Equity Initiative is focused on access to research and care for diverse families with kidney disease. Tweet this

"We are so eager to finally begin doing this important work," said Joshua Tarnoff, NephCure CEO. "This community of patients has been neglected for too long. With so many new potential options available in trials, some specifically targeting genetic causes of kidney disease within Black communities, as well as the genetic testing now available to detect these variances, we now have a clear path forward to improve health outcomes for all patients."

More than 1 in 7 adult Americans have some form of CKD. One of the most common and aggressive sub-types of CKD is FSGS, characterized by protein in the urine, kidney scarring, and having the potential to cause relatively rapid decline in kidney function. As there are currently no FDA-approved drugs for FSGS, patients may progress to kidney failure, dialysis, and kidney transplant.

CKD and FSGS disproportionately affect Black Americans at rates at least 4 times greater than White Americans. Black Americans comprise 13.2% of the United States population but represent more than 35% of all patients in the US receiving dialysis for kidney failure. In particular, a variation on the APOL1 gene often found in people of West African descent is thought to be associated with one of the most severe forms of kidney disease. Its presence indicates a significant reduction in already limited treatment options. Approximately one third of FSGS cases in the United States are thought to be associated with APOL1 variants.

A key partnership within the Health Equity Initiative will be led by HEAL Collaborative, a community-based organization that focuses on working with under-served minority populations on the availability of healthcare-related services, accessibility to emerging treatment options, and consequential community benefit impact.

"HEAL Collaborative's vision of 'Communities of Color are Healthy' drives our mission: to develop healthy communities of color, we use our collaborative relationships, innovation, community action, and public advocacy," said Howard Mosby, HEAL Collaborative co-founder and Treasurer.

"This partnership with NephCure Kidney International aligns with our organization's goals to build collaborative networks nationally; to establish faith-based partnerships; to hold educational sessions on innovative healthcare solutions around chronic diseases affecting morbidity and mortality in communities of color; all in partnership with policymakers, faith leaders, and community advocates."

During the 12-month pilot period of this initiative, HEAL Collaborative will engage faith-based community networks in Atlanta, GA and Chicago, IL to raise awareness of CKD and APOL1-related FSGS and provide opportunities to connect with patient advocates and disease specialists. NephCure will concurrently launch a marketing campaign to raise awareness of the genetic causes of kidney disease in people of African descent, provide patient-focused educational materials and guidance on seeking specialized care and gaining access to clinical trials, and strengthen outreach to nephrologists to aid in providing accurate and timely FSGS diagnoses.

"What makes this initiative different is our focus on creating action-oriented, meaningful, and measurable change in these communities in the near-term," said Tarnoff. "We will take what we learn from this pilot period and expand our programs in the future to reach more at-risk individuals within communities of color."

"We want to put interventions in place to reach people before they show up in the emergency room with kidney failure," added Mosby. "We have said time and time again: No more dialysis. We must give people every opportunity to save their kidneys and remove dialysis from the conversation as a foregone conclusion."

NephCure and HEAL Collaborative have appointed a steering committee of leaders with expertise in rare kidney disease research and care, government and local advocacy, and community-based engagement to guide the Health Equity Initiative.

Health Equity Steering Committee members include:

Linda Goler Blount , MPH, Black Women's Health Imperative

, MPH, Black Women's Health Imperative Jason Cobb , MD, Emory University Division of Renal Medicine

, MD, Division of Renal Medicine Roslyn Daniels , Black Health Matters

, Black Health Matters Patrick O. Gee Sr. , PhD, iAdvocate Inc.

, PhD, iAdvocate Inc. Keisha Gibson , MD, MPH, University of North Carolina

, MD, MPH, Wanda H. Moore , JD, MEd, New Jersey Urban Peace Building Project

, JD, MEd, New Jersey Urban Peace Building Project Kevin Mott , NephCure Kidney International

, NephCure Kidney International Quin Taylor, Tayloring Gratitude

Melissa West , American Society of Nephrology

Both NephCure Kidney International and HEAL Collaborative are committed to long-term sustainable improvement in care for people of color living with kidney disease. This first step is one in a long series of programs and an iterative learning process, until we collectively see equal care for patients.

For partnership inquiries and to support this growing effort, please contact NephCure at [email protected].

About NephCure Kidney International

NephCure Kidney International's mission is to accelerate research for effective treatments for rare forms of Nephrotic Syndrome, and to provide education and support that will improve the lives of those affected by these protein-spilling kidney diseases. Founded in 2000 by a group of committed patient parents, NephCure has invested more than $40 million in kidney disease research and helped create a landscape where there are now nearly 30 interventional drug trials for primary glomerular kidney diseases. NephCure is a U.S. tax exempt 501(c)(3) public charity. For more information, please visit www.NephCure.org.

About HEAL Collaborative

HEAL is a not-for-profit community-based organization that focuses on Educating, Informing, Advocating and Engaging under-served minority populations on the availability of healthcare-related services, accessibility to emerging treatment options, and consequential community benefit impact. For more information, please visit www.HEALCollaborative.org.

Media Contact

Lauren Eva, Director of Marketing & Communications

610-540-0186 x21

[email protected]

SOURCE NephCure Kidney International

Related Links

http://www.nephcure.org


Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  Vice President Leni Robredo condemned what she called a "massacre" of nine activists and the arrest of six others in Calabarzon during simultaneous police raids over the weekend, but Malacanang maintained she must provide evidence for such claim.

"There is no other way to describe this: It was a massacre," Robredo said in a statement on Monday, noting that the Sunday crackdown only came two days after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered state forces to kill communist rebels and "ignore human rights."

Duterte publicly pronounced in a gathering last Friday that the police and military must "shoot and kill" rebels during encounters if they see them with firearms. Only those who surrender will be given free house and lots and livelihood assistance.

Robredo stressed the need to conduct a clean and independent probe to ensure that those behind the killings "will be held responsible" and that "justice will be served" to the victims and their families.

"The Filipino people deserve better than this murderous regime," Robredo added.

But in his briefing on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson once again threw a tirade against Robredo and said she must present proof behind her "massacre" claim.

"Unang-una, kung personal na nakita ni Vice President yung pangyayari, aba'y magbigay siya ng ebidensiya, kasi ang pananalita niya parang nakita ng dalawa niyang mata kung ano 'yung nangyari doon sa mga patayan na yun," Roque said. "'Pag hindi siya nagbigay ng ebidensiya, baka siya ang makasuhan."

[Translation: First of all, if the Vice President personally saw what happened, then she must provide evidence, because she's speaking as if she saw the killings with her own eyes. If she can't provide evidence, she might be charged.]

Roque earlier assured there will be an investigation, noting those killed "were unarmed," a statement which was contrary to the narrative of the Philippine National Police.

READ: Malacanang vows probe on deaths of activists in Calabarzon

Renato Reyes, Secretary General of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or Bayan said all those arrested and killed in the operations were legal activists and were unarmed.

Laguna Police Spokesperson PltCol. Chitadel Gaoira previously claimed the raids were "legitimate," as they seized explosives and assorted firearms during the operations.

READ: 9 dead as police crackdown vs activists in Southern Tagalog

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra announced on Monday that they will look into the deaths through the agency's panel on extrajudicial killings.

Justice Undersecretary Adrian Sugay, who was present in the Malacanang briefing, added that they will also look into the implementation of the search warrants and whether the fatalities were part of cause-oriented groups "engaged primarily in legitimate dissent."

The Commission on Human Rights will also hold its own probe through its Calabarzon office.

Meanwhile, Roque claimed that the police are already conducting training on how to use body cameras during operations. He reiterated that search warrants must be conducted with representatives of local government units as standard protocol.
When 800 nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester began a strike on Monday at 6 a.m. for increased staffing, the hospital had already paid more than $5 million for replacement nurses.

In preparation for the strike, Saint Vincent Hospital said it initially paid $1.7 million for replacement nurses and another $3.7 million on Friday as a final payment.

When nurses in the Massachusetts Nurses Association provided Tenet Healthcare, parent company of Saint Vincent Hospital, with a 10-day notice on Feb. 23 that they played to strike, the hospital said it would be prepared.

Quality is the cornerstone of everything we do here at Saint Vincent, and our community can be assured that we have taken the appropriate steps to ensure we will be able to remain focused on providing exceptional, safe, quality care to our patients despite the strike action being taken by the MNA, Saint Vincent Hospital CEO Carolyn Jackson said in a statement on Monday. While we still remain hopeful that we can reach an agreement with the MNA for a new contract that is fair and beneficial to both parties, we wont let anything distract us from our primary mission of doing what is best for our patients.

The president of the MNA, Katie Murphy, disagreed, while picketing with nurses in front of the Worcester hospital on Monday.

Its so distressing to leave our patients because we know our patients and were qualified, Murphy said. These are scabs that are taking care of the patients or administrators who havent done patient care in years. We do believe that is a lower quality care.

Complaints from nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital date back to last February when more than 70% signed a petition calling for safer staffing levels.

A month later, more than 200 nurses attended a negotiation session with management to provide information about the staffing levels.

Last May, after furloughs were implemented, nurses filed a vote of no confidence in Jackson and her management team.

In December, more than 400 nurses participated in an information picket to protest the same conditions. In January, nurses picketed outside the hospital as part of an informational demonstration.

Related Content:
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought the central government's response on a petition challenging the new IT Rules to regulate intermediaries, OTT platform and digital news media.

Chief Justice D.N. Patel issued a notice to the Centre on a petition filed by Foundation for Independent Journalism, parent trust of The Wire, challenging the new rules issued by the government to regulate digital news platforms.

In February, the government had announced the tightening of rules governing social media and streaming companies, requiring them to take down contentious content quicker, appoint grievance redressal officers and assist investigations.

The rules, titled the Information Technology (Guidelines For Intermediaries And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, were notified by the Centre on February 25

The petitioner has requested the court to declare the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 as void and inoperative insofar.
John Dramani Mahama, the Presidential Candidate of the NDC in the 2020 election, got his Election Petition dismissed by the Supreme Court of Ghana for lack of merit.



In the two-hour judgement of the seven-member panel delivered by Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah last Thursday, March 4, the Justices identified some loopholes in the answers of Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Principal Witness One, when the latter was cross-examined.



The Chief Justice describing Johnson Asiedu Nketia as the star witness for the Petitioner, John Dramani Mahama stated that the Petitioner was not in Court to challenge the validity of the figures or data presented by the Chairperson of 1st Respondent that is why in his testimony, he did not provide any data to contradict that of the 1st Respondent.



He continued: His assertion was that the figures initially collated by the Chairperson contained errors, which his party, the NDC pointed out in a letter addressed to the Chairperson on the 9th of December, 2020 before the declaration. However, in effecting corrections to the wrong figures or data, the 1st Respondent did not invite them for their participation but unilaterally effected the said corrections, contrary to articles 23 and 296(a) and (b) of the 1992 Constitution.



Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah then went on to read exchanges that accounted for the judges refusal to order a re-run between the petitioner and the second respondent Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.



John Asiedu Nketia, Dr Michael Kpessa-Whyte and Robert Joseph (Rojo) Mettle-Nunoo were presented by the Petitioner as witnesses, but the Supreme Court of Ghana, saw the testimonies of Dr Kpessa-Whyte and Rojo Mettle-Nunoo as fanciful tales.



As for the other two witnesses; i.e. PW 2 and 3, Dr Kpessa-Whyte and Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, the little said about their testimonies relative to the issues at stake, the better, the Chief Justice read as part of the Judgement.



They recounted a fanciful tale of how the Electoral Chairperson refused to heed their complaints and some irregularities they noticed in some of the collation forms that came from some of the regions. We describe this evidence as fanciful because, despite these alleged protests, they went ahead to verify and certify 13 of the 16 election regional collation sheets, Chief Justice Anin-Yeboah read.



Below are excerpts of the cross-examination between Akoto Ampaw (AA), counsel for 2nd Respondent, and Johnson Asiedu Nketia (JAN), 1st Witness of the Petitioner on February 1, 2021.



AA: I am saying that from the declaration in the video clip that we just saw, which really is the basis of all your case - and you should know what is in it - the total number of valid votes that the second respondent obtained is 6,730,413?



JAN: That is correct my lords.



AA: The total number of votes that the petitioner obtained from the declaration announcement of your exhibit A is 6, 214, 889.



JAN: That is so my lords.



AA: And I am also putting it to you that if you do a sum of these valid votes



By court: You asked this question about an hour ago more than or twice and it has been answered.



AA: Can you tell the court what is 6, 730, 413 as a percentage of 13,121,111?



JAN: My lords, its 51,29453 ad infinitum. So, it can be round up to 51.295%



AA: So, 51.295% not so?



JAN: Yes.



AA: What about the petitioner: his total valid votes are 6, 214, 889. What is this sum as a percentage of 13,121,111?



JAN: It is 47.365569 ad infinitum. So, it can be rounded up to 47.366%.



AA: So, you admit that from the Chairperson of first respondents declaration on December 9, the second respondent crossed more than 50% threshold?



JAN: From the declaration as announced.



AA: From the figures that we just calculated, these figures which were announced, if you do them as a percentage of the actual total valid votes, these are the percentages you get for the petitioner and the second respondent. That is what I am putting to you?



By court: Mr Ampaw, when you recapture your question, this is what raises the difficulty. Your previous was, the second respondent crossed the 50% threshold. In recapturing, you changed the second part. So kindly stick to the question.



AA: I am saying that from the calculation of the figures of petitioner and second respondent, the second respondent nearly crossed more than 50% threshold?



JAN: Well, if the figures are correct, yes.



AA: Again, you see that when you calculated the percentage for the second respondent you came to a figure of 51.295%.



JAN: Yes, my lords.



The concluded that per the above exchanges there was no doubt the petitioners team accepted that the total valid votes cast was 13,121,111 and not 13,434,547 as erroneously described by the Chairperson of the first respondent on December 9, 2020.



It was the view of the panel that the evidence in court confirmed that the total valid votes cast was 13, 121,111.



It was at this point of the cross-examination that the CJ stated that there was no legal basis to contend that a different figure of 13, 334 574 was used as total valid votes in measuring the more than 50% threshold.



The Chief Justice continues reading



AA: So, you admit that it is completely wrong for anybody to use the total votes cast as a basis for determining the percentage of votes obtained by different candidates?



JAN: Yes



AA: Anybody who does that cannot be accepted anywhere in Ghana.



JAN: Yes my lord.



AA: I am putting it to you that you used this erroneous figure as a basis for calling for your re-run?



JAN: The question again, I want to get the question again so I can answer.



AA: You cannot use that wrong figure as a basis for your claim that there should be a rerun between the second respondent and the petitioner.



JAN: Yes, my lord.



The panel comprised Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah (presiding); Yaw Apau, JSC, Samuel K. Marful-Sau, JSC; Nene Amegathcher, JSC; Professor Ashie Kotey, JSC; Mariama Owusu (Ms.), JSC; and Gertrude Torkornoo (Mrs), JSC.

Source: ghanaweb.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 10) The United Nations expressed alarm over the killing of nine activists and the arrest of six others in CALABARZON region over the weekend.

"We are appalled by the apparently arbitrary killing of nine activists in simultaneous police-military operations in Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal provinces surrounding Metro Manila," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani in a press briefing on Tuesday.

Shamdasani added the violent crackdown could further promote intimidation and "red-tagging" against activists, citing the Philippine government's record of accusing them of being members of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

"We are deeply worried that these latest killings indicate an escalation in violence, intimidation, harassment and 'red-tagging' of human rights defenders," added Shamdasani, even as she ackowledged the government's move to investigate the incidents.

At least seven of the nine casualties were identified by human rights group Karapatan as members of progressive and indigenous groups. Among those killed were Ugnayan ng Mamamayan Laban sa Pagwawasak ng Kalikasan at Kalupaan staff Chai Lemita-Evangelista and Ariel Evangelista, SIKKAD K3 members Michael Dasigao and Mark Lee Bacasno, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Cavite secretary general Manny Asuncion, and Dumagat tribe leaders Puroy dela Cruz and Randy dela Cruz.

Those arrested included Courage-Rizal member Eugene Eugenio, Olalia KMU executive vice president Esteban Mendoza, BAYAN Laguna spokesperson Elizabeth Camoral, and political prisoners' paralegal aide Nimfa Lanzanas.

Renato Reyes, Secretary General of the BAYAN alliance of progressive groups, said all those killed and arrested in the CALABARZON operations were legal and unarmed activists known in their communities.

RELATED: 9 dead as police crackdown vs activists in Southern Tagalog

In response to this, the Justice Department said any party  including the UN high commissioner should first have sufficient information before making a judgment.

UN urged: Deploy rapid response units to probe attacks

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch urged the UN to consider sending rapid response units to help probe the recent spate of killings of activists in the Philippines.

It noted that its human rights office is mandated to deploy such groups to respond to related humanitarian crises around the world.

Philippine security force raids that killed nine activists highlight the need for United Nations member countries to decisively address the worsening human rights situation in the Philippines, the HRW said in a separate statement.

Probe welcome

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights welcomed the national government's move to investigate the killings as it underscored the need for a "prompt, transparent, and effective" investigation that conforms to international standards.

Shamdasani also appealed to Filipino policemen to prevent the use of excessive force during law enforcement operations, which may result in loss of lives such as those in the crackdown on activists in CALABARZON.

She cited the deaths of nine Tumandok indigenous peoples' rights activists last Dec. 30 and the arrest of some activists and journalists on Dec. 10 during the observance of the International Human Rights Day as instances where human rights defenders were "intimidated" by law enforcers.

"We also call on the Government and members of the security forces to refrain from rhetoric that may lead to violations, and instead make public commitments to uphold human rights and the rule of law," she said.

Malacanang assured the public an investigation is underway on the deaths of activists in CALABARZON, but maintained that President Rodrigo Duterte's order to shoot and kill armed rebels is "legal." Laguna Police Spokesperson PLtCol. Chitadel Gaoira said the suspects carried explosives and assorted weapons with them, which makes their operations "legitimate."

In June 2020, the UN High Commissioner's Human Rights Council report slammed the Philippine government for serious lack of due process in police operations and near-total impunity for the use of lethal force by the police and the military.
The Microsoft logo is illuminated on a wall during a Microsoft launch event in New York City on May 2, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

EU Banking Regulator Hit by Suspected Chinese Hackers

The European Banking Authority (EBA) is the latest victim of a large-scale cyberhacking attack connected to the Chinese regime against Microsofts email and calendar server.

Early last week, Microsoft announced via a blog post that Hafnium, a state-sponsored hacking group operating from China, exploited flaws in its Exchange Server software. Three versions of the software were affected2013, 2016, and 2019and the U.S. software giant released emergency security patches to address the security holes.

Microsoft explained that the Hafnium hackers were using the flaws to access email accounts and install malware to facilitate long-term access to victim environments.

Soon after, U.S.-based cybersecurity firm FireEye reported that the hacking group targeted a number of American targets, including U.S.-based retailers, local governments, a university, and an engineering firm.

On March 7, the EBA, an EU financial regulator, announced that its email systems were compromised by the cyberattack.

As the vulnerability is related to the EBAs email servers, access to personal data through emails held on that servers may have been obtained by the attacker, the EBA said in a statement.

On March 8, the organization released another statement saying that its investigation was ongoing.

At this stage, the EBA email infrastructure has been secured and our analyses suggest that no data extraction has been performed and we have no indication to think that the breach has gone beyond our email servers, it stated.

The EBA wasnt the only known victim. The city government of Lake Worth Beach in Florida said that its email server was down for about three days since March 3 as a result of the cyberattack, according to the local daily Palm Beach Post.

The cyberattack has also drawn the concerns of the Biden administration. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan wrote via Twitter on March 4 calling on network owners to apply the patches quickly while offering recommendations if their systems were compromised.

This is an active threat, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki on March 5. Everyone running these serversgovernment, private sector, academianeeds to act now to patch them.

We are concerned that there are a large number of victims and are working with our partners to understand the scope of this, Psaki added.

The FBI said on March 7 that it was working closely with our interagency and private sector partners to understand the scope of the threat.

On March 8, the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys cybersecurity agency took to Twitter asking all organizations across all sectors to follow its guidelines to address vulnerabilities within their Microsoft Exchange Server software.

At a daily briefing on March 3, Chinas foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin rejected Microsofts claims. He added that media and companies should not make groundless accusations.

There have been previously known Chinese cyberattacks against U.S. entities.

In February 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted four members of the Chinese military for hacking the online systems of U.S. credit-reporting company Equifax in 2017. The hackers stole names, birth dates, and social security numbers for about 145 million Americans.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management was the target of a Chinese cyberattack in 2015, which resulted in the theft of data of about 4.2 million current and former federal employees.
Its been a month since Pakistans Supreme Court acquitted the main suspect in Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case and directed the government to move him in a safe house. The apex court of the Islamic country overturned the death sentence handed to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in the Daniel Pearl beheading case and asked the government to move him out of the prison to a safe house. Daniel Pearl, who was a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in 2001, and the family of the journalist is yet to receive closure.

ISI's effort to frame Sheikh & FBI's botched-up investigation

According to SpyTalk, the delay in delivering justice is a result of Pakistans security agencies deliberately misleading authorities, combined with a botched up investigation by the FBI and the US Justice Department. The report said that Pakistans top-most security agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) never wanted the real culprits behind the beheading to get caught, hence, puting all their efforts to frame Omar Sheikh for the murder of Daniel Pearl. It is believed that Sheikh only orchestrated the kidnapping before Al-Qaeda terrorists, particularly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, popularly known as KSM behind the 9/11 attacks, took over.

According to SpyTalk, the ISI, which allegedly backs these terrorist organisations and uses them as proxies to attack India, forced authorities to blame the murder on Omar Sheikh. As per the report, a series of bad decisions by the FBI and the then US prosecutor Chris Christie made the case even worse, which experts say would not stand a chance in any American court and Sheikh would be acquitted within weeks. The report says that despite the FBIs own investigation showing Sheikh himself was never present during the kidnapping or the murder, Pakistan authorities insisted otherwise. Christie was allegedly adamant about accepting the information provided by Pakistan authorities so that Sheikh could be tried and sentenced as quickly as possible.

However, investigations revealed that on the day of the kidnapping Sheikh was actually with his family in Islamabad, which is hundreds of kilometres away from Karachi. Sheikh even volunteered to the police, accepting his role in the kidnapping, but denied any involvement in the murder, the report added. Sheikh said his original plan was to negotiate with the US authorities on sending the F-16 fighter jets that Pakistan had paid for but never received. However, after Pearl was kidnapped, the Al-Qaeda took over and did what they did, the beheaded Daniel Pearl on camera.

FBI, which watched the beheading video frame by frame, revealed that Sheikh was not present during the murder, but KSM was. They concluded one of the persons in the video was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was arrested a year later in 2002. KSM was taken to CIA black sites for interrogation and four years later he confessed to personally beheading Daniel Pearl for the purpose of propaganda. But, KSM was never charged for Pearls murder, in fact, he is awaiting trial for the 9/11 attacks. Also, note that the CIA and ISI have a long history of cooperation as the Pakistani agency helps its American counterpart in Afghanistan.

(With inputs from ANI)


It expects to gradually ramp-up mill production of an intermediate rare earth element product called "mixed REE carbonate"

Energy Fuels also expects to recover the uranium in the ore, which will be used as fuel for the generation of clean, carbon-free nuclear energy

Energy Fuels Inc (NYSEAMERICAN:UUUU) ( ) (FRA:VO51) said Tuesday that the first shipments of natural monazite ore arrived at the company's White Mesa Mill in Blanding, Utah this past weekend.

The company said the material had been separated by The Chemours Company at its Offerman Mineral Sand Plant in Georgia and transported by truck to White Mesa Mill.

In the coming weeks, Energy Fuels said it expects to gradually ramp-up production of an intermediate rare earth element (REE) product called "mixed REE carbonate." This product will then advance to REE separation, which is the next stage in the REE value chain.

Energy Fuels said it also expects to recover the uranium in the ore, which will be used as fuel for the generation of clean, carbon-free nuclear energy.

Upon successful ramp-up, the company plans to commercially produce an REE product at a stage more advanced than any other US company.

Energy Fuels plans to sell its mixed REE carbonate to Neo Performance Materials Inc (TSE:NEO) (OTCMKTS:NOPMF) (FRA:N14), which will process the material at its facility in Europe and manufacture separated rare earth products available to US and European markets. Energy Fuels is also continuing to evaluate developing additional value-added US rare earth separation and other capabilities in Utah in the future.

"Over the past few months, Energy Fuels, Neo and Chemours have quietly worked to create something very significant: a new, fully-integrated, U.S.-Europe rare earth supply chain, said Energy Fuels CEO Mark Chalmers in a statement.

This weekend's shipments of monazite ore from Chemours to Energy Fuels marks the beginning of operations for what we believe will become a burgeoning supply chain. There is a lot of excitement building for rare earths, because they make many clean energy and advanced technologies possible, including electric vehicles, wind generation, batteries and advanced electronics. Today's announcement is a key milestone as our companies create, refine, and grow a sustainable rare earth supply chain capable of supplying growing demand for clean technologies in the U.S. and Europe.

Chalmers added: "We believe Energy Fuels has done more to restore U.S. rare earth production in one year than others have achieved in many years. Less than one year ago, Energy Fuels announced that we were entering the U.S. rare earth space. Now, we are receiving shipments of rare earth bearing ore and are in the process of ramping up for commercial production of an intermediate rare earth product at a stage more advanced than any other U.S. company. We intend to optimize our production of a mixed rare earth carbonate and then move on to developing our own ability to manufacture separated rare earth products at our plant in Utah. Our ultimate goal is to stand-up a fully-integrated U.S. rare earth supply chain that is globally competitive, quicker than any other U.S. company."

Energy Fuels noted that monazite is one of the highest-value REE-bearing minerals in the world, containing between 50% and 60% REEs, along with significant quantities of recoverable natural uranium. Monazite also contains 22%-24% NdPr (%TREO Basis), which are two of the key REEs and which are needed for many permanent REE magnet technologies used in electric vehicles (EVs) and other advanced technologies.

Monazite also contains excellent distributions of 'heavy' rare earths, which are needed for many advanced technologies. It is currently mined in the US, Australia, Africa, and elsewhere as a by-product of heavy mineral sand operations whose main products are zircon and titanium.

Contact the author: patrick@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @PatrickMGraham
Florida manatees are dying at an alarming rate in the first two months of 2021, more than tripling the normal amount of fatalities seen during the same period over the last five years.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has posted in its preliminary manatee mortality statistics that from Jan. 1-Feb. 26, the state has recorded 403 manatee deaths, the majority of which have not had a necropsy to determine cause of death. Brevard County by far leads the way with 186 of those deaths.

The five-year average for the same time period is 129 manatee deaths.

The FWC said it was investigating the high mortality in the central and south Atlantic coastal regions of Florida. Most of the deaths are occurring in the Indian River Lagoon.

Environmental conditions in portions of the Indian River Lagoon remain a concern, the FWC posted on its manatee program site. Preliminary information indicates that a reduction in food availability is a contributing factor. We will continue with a comprehensive investigation and share information as it becomes available. The FWC has always done a rigorous and thorough job at investigating threats to manatees.

According to the St. Johns River Water Management District, a reduction in seagrass in the lagoon could be the primary cause. The district cites that since 2009, 58% of the seagrass has disappeared, mostly because of an increase in nutrients in the water that come from runoff into the lagoon.

The decline didnt happen overnight. The stunning water views, the fishing and recreational opportunities that drew people to the area have resulted in the water quality conditions we see today, reads a statement from the districts executive director Ann Shortelle. Too many nutrients, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, are entering the lagoon from overfertilized lawns, faulty sewage treatment and leaching from septic tanks.

Floridas manatee population gathers in warm-water regions such as the lagoon during the winter months, so FWC states that as the temperatures climb, and manatees migrate naturally away from Brevard and around the state, that their situation may improve.

This dispersal should lead manatees to better habitats, FWC stated.

The state recorded 637 deaths across all 12 months of 2020, according to preliminary FWC data. Thats a little higher than the five-year average of 578. More than 100 of the 2020 deaths, though, including 40 in Brevard,, came in December as well, feeding into the continued mortality seen in January and February. FWC recorded only 405 manatee deaths for the entire year in 2015.

Despite the deaths, FWC estimates the manatee population in the state to be around 7,000, which is much higher than its low 30 years ago.

In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services estimated population low of 1,267 manatees in 1991 has improved to the point that the manatees status was changed in 2017 from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

FWC is continuing its manatee rescue program, though. If you see an injured or dead manatee, you can call the FWCs Wildlife Alert number at 1-888-404-3922 or #FWC on a cellphone.

___

2021 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
by Vladimir Rozanskij

International Women's Day saw rallies in defence of women's rights and against gender-based violence. Attacks on women in Kyrgyzstan are on the increase. Protesters called for the release of Kazakh women detained for membership in banned organisations. For some, feminism will save Kazakhstan.

Moscow (AsiaNews)  Kyrgyz and Kazakhs took to the streets yesterday, International Women's Day, in defence of women's rights. In Kyrgyzstan, rallies were held in Biskek and Osh; in Kazakhstan, in the former capital Almaty.

In the Kyrgyz capital, protesters gathered at the national parliament building (Jogorku Kenesh or Supreme Council) in front of the monument to Urkuya Salieva, the first legendary Kyrgyz Komsomol activist. Under the Bolsheviks, she became the first woman to head a kolkhoz, a collective farm.

During the rally, women discussed the issue of 'women's happiness', equal rights in all areas of society, and the fight against gender-based violence.

Last year in Bishkek, the women's march was interrupted by a group of outsiders. Instead of arresting the attackers, the police took into custody the organisers of the demonstration.

The head of the city's law enforcement agency stated at the time that the march was not authorised, and the police had to prevent clashes.

Many protesters were fined 3,000 soms (about US$ 36), but they refused to pay and went to court. In November 2020, the Kyrgyz Supreme Court came out in favour of protesters and ruled that the police action was not legal.

In Osh, one of Kyrgyzstans most important Islamic centres, marchers crossed downtown streets converging on the Mothers Tears monument.

Located near the offices of the municipality, the memorial commemorates the tragic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in 2010-2011. Last year too, the women's march was attacked by strangers, with police standing idly by.

According to official statistics, 727 incidents of domestic violence against women were reported in Kyrgyzstan in the first two months of 2021; last year saw an increase of 65 per cent of this kind of violence.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov sent his official wish to all of the countrys women, noting that women in Kyrgyz society have always been revered, and their role in the social and political life of the nation has been very high.

Japarov added that upcoming local council (Kenesh) elections will have quotas. For the first time, 30 per cent [of seats] will be reserved for women, who can therefore have much more influence on politics, at least at the local level.

In Almaty, hundreds of men and women gathered in the city's central park, at the monument dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi, to express their opposition to violence and support for gender equality in Kazakhstan.

People carried placards and banners calling for the release of women detained under Article 405 of the Penal Code, which punishes membership in banned organisations.

Some called for the elimination of SNT, supplementary taxes on alcohol and many imported products, a measure introduced by the government in December 2020.

According to a slogan shouted during the demonstration, feminism will save Kazakhstan. On 27 February, a bill on domestic violence was tabled in the Kazakh Parliament (Majilis), sparking a heated controversy. It was eventually put on hold until it was reviewed.

Yesterday's protest was the first in the post-Soviet period allowed by local authorities to celebrate 8 March.

Under Communism, Women's Day was very solemn and celebrated by everyone as a public holiday, in remembrance of the women who started the Russian Revolution with the bread revolt of 8 March 1917 in Petrograd (St Petersburg).
Burma Italian Ammunition Used in Myanmar Police Assault on Ambulance Raises Questions

Italian ammunition found at the scene of a police attack on an ambulance. / RFA

On March 3, in North Okkalapa, Yangon, a CCTV camera caught the Myanmar police forcing the staff from a civil ambulance, after which they fired a shotgun through the windshield of the ambulance and severely beat the ambulance staff. An alert citizen journalist found the spent shotgun shell ejected from the police rifle after the event and held it up to a camera.

The shotgun shells were made by the Italian firm Cheddite Italy S.r.l. Cheddite provided a very swift response from a query sent the next day to the company, along with photographs of their product at the attack site. Their reply stated that while they do ship their shotgun shells to many places in the world, they have never exported to Myanmar. They added that their exports are governed by EU regulations. The EU has had an embargo on arms, munitions and military equipment in some form since the 1990s. In 2000, this was expanded to include any equipment that might be used for internal repression or terrorism.

An immediate halt in all arms transfers to Myanmar was unambiguously called for in statements at the United Nations General Assembly informal meeting on Myamar on Feb. 26.

One of the main tools in tracking the arms trade is the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA). UNROCA is constrained by being dependent on voluntary participation by governments. Myanmar has never submitted a report on the weapons it has received from other countries. Countries who have provided reports of transfers of arms to Myanmar since 2000 are China, Russia, Serbia and the Ukraine. Although India does provide reports to the UN, it has somehow forgotten to mention the coastal surveillance aircraft it provided to Myanmar, and a kilo class submarine transferred less than a year ago. ROCA also did not have a record of a North Korean transfer of a multiple launch rocket system to Myanmar some years ago.

However, major weapons are not being used against popular protests; it is small arms and riot control munitions. So how then did Italian shotgun shells end up in the hands of the police used only a few days ago in an attack on a civilian ambulance? The difficulty answering this question reveals one of the great problems in controlling the sales of arms in todays world. Tracing military and police weapons and ammunition involves penetrating the private contracts of commercial companies or the sometimes opaque state to state transfers by which arms are purchased, sold, gifted, brokered and bartered around the world. Once the item is out of the hands of the manufacturer, it can, and with some frequently does, end up anywhere.

In tracking this further through United Nations International Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) it can be discovered that in 2019 a transfer to Myanmar, of items with the commodity identifier for shotgun shells, was sent from Thailand. However Comtrade displays no record of Thailand importing shotgun shells from Italy in the past 10 years. It does show that Thailand imported shotgun shells from other places, and it is possible that the ammunition passed through more than one country on the way to Myanmar. Comtrade does record a transfer from Italy to Singapore and between Singapore and Thailand with the same identifier code. However, it is impossible from available information in Comtrade to definitively state if these transfers enabled the attack on the ambulance and to terrorize its crew on March 3.

The Italian government has unambiguously denounced the coup in Myanmar, called at the UN General Assembly for the immediate release of all detained since the coup, a halt to violence against civilian demonstrations and the reinstatement of civilian control. Italys Ambassador in Yangon co-signed a letter to the military with 13 other ambassadors urging a halt in violence against demonstrators and civilians, who are protesting the overthrow of their legitimate government as well as condemning detentions and communications blackouts. Nonetheless, Italy now finds itself in a position where Italian made weapons were used to attack a civilian ambulance, and the manufacturer stated in its reply that it does not have the capacity to trace shotgun ammunition it sold. This dramatically illustrates the inability of the international community to control the spread of arms and the human rights abuses they enable.

Evidence of the arms used by the Tatmadaw and the Myanmar police needs to continue to be documented by citizen journalists and will be used in claims for justice in the future.

Source: Many postings of the March 3 attack online, this one from RFA.

Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan is a researcher of the arms trade and military corruption.

You may also like these stories:

Japan urges Myanmar Regime to Stop Violence and Free Detained Leaders

Thailand Ready to Accommodate Refugees From Myanmar Fleeing the Violent Unrest

Myanmar Regime Claims Australian Adviser Tried to Flee with Financial Information
Recent arrests in Philadelphia have exposed the truth about do-it-yourself gun-building kits, which have become a principal component in do-it-yourself violent crime.

Gun-rights absolutists claim that the kits, basically firearms that are not yet fully assembled, are the province of hobbyists and collectors.

The weapons produced with the kits are known as ghost guns. Because they are not fully assembled at purchase, the weapons do not include serial numbers and are untraceable.

In two raids recently in Philadelphia, police seized 10 ghost guns and arrested four people. According to police, two of the four men have records as violent felons and may not legally own guns.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro said three of the men were arrested at a build house, where they allegedly assembled the weapons for sale to other people, criminals, who many not legally buy firearms.

All of the 10 ghost guns that police seized were purchased by the suspects at the same Berks County gun show. Because the weapons are not considered firearms, by law, vendors at the gun show could sell the kits without conducting background checks on the buyers.

Shapiro, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw all said ghost guns have contributed to rising gun violence in the city.

Shapiro has tried to classify ghost guns as firearms, which would require sellers to conduct background checks on buyers, just as if the weapons were fully assembled. The Commonwealth Court stayed that initiative after gun rights groups sued against it, and it has not been resolved.

The Legislature need not wait for that resolution. Ideally, it should ban ghost guns. But at the least, it should find that they are, indeed, guns. That, in turn, should lead to laws requiring background checks for buyers, and to mandatory serial numbers so police can at least know where to begin looking when a ghost gun is found at a violent crime scene.
The spread of virus aerosols throughout a music classroom, with one student and one faculty member, shown with and without a portable air purifier. Credit: Sai Ranjeet Narayanan and Suo Yang, University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota School of Music was concerned about one-on-one teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and wondered if it should supplement its ventilation system with portable HEPA air purifiers.

So, school officials reached out to Suo Yang, a professor within the College of Science and Engineering, and his team to figure it out. In Physics of Fluids, Yang and the researchers describe their work to predict how virus particles spread within a music classroom.

"The airborne transmission of COVID-19 through droplets or droplet nuclei can be modeled as a typical particle-laden flow, and simulation work needs to accurately capture the movement of particles within the turbulent flow environment," said Yang. "Particle deposition onto the walls and other surfaces also needs to be captured accurately, and we wanted to explore whether particles are trapped in some recirculation zones, ventilated out, or removed by an air purifier."

Their simulations suggest that a HEPA air purifier should be placed directly in front of the person or instrument expelling aerosols and located away from other people who are to be protected within the room.

The researchers' goal was a ventilation rate of 288 cubic meters per hour, per World Health Organization guidelines, for each person within the room. To their knowledge, this is the most comprehensive investigation of using HEPA air purifiers to combat COVID-19.

"The key thing is that while portable purifiers can be very helpful, their placement is critical," said Yang.

The spread of virus aerosols throughout a music classroom, with one student and one faculty member, shown with and without a portable air purifier. Credit: Sai Ranjeet Narayanan and Suo Yang, University of Minnesota

It is absolutely critical to not spread aerosols further by inducing a very dispersive flow, according to Sai Ranjeet Narayanan, a graduate research assistant working with Yang.

One big surprise for the researchers was that portable HEPA air purifiers reduce in-air aerosols so much faster than just ventilationoffering orders of magnitude higher aerosol removal compared to not using a purifier.

If the flow rate of the HVAC system is known, this work can serve as a guideline for the size and number of portable purifiers needed, as well as where to place them.

"Our work also provides a guideline for how long of a break between classes is necessary to ensure the safety of the next class, which is about 25 minutes for this case," said Yang.

"And it provides an analytic function, found to be a linear function, to make predictions for the aerosol removal, deposition, or suspension rate in almost any scenario: breathing, speaking, singing, coughing, sneezing, different wind instruments, with and without masks."

In the future, "we plan to model larger domains with more people, such as bands, orchestras, or any group gathering," Narayanan said. "And we may also compare the performance of different types of purifiers."

More information: "Airborne transmission of virus-laden aerosols inside a music classroom: Effects of portable purifiers and aerosol injection rates" Physics of Fluids, aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0042474 Journal information: Physics of Fluids "Airborne transmission of virus-laden aerosols inside a music classroom: Effects of portable purifiers and aerosol injection rates"
(Natural News) In her 2008 book, End of America, Naomi Wolf outlined the 10 steps those in power use to close down democracies. Sadly, she writes today, as governments use the pandemic to justify the suppression of civil rights, America is now in the throes of Step Ten.

(Article by Naomi Wolf republished from ChildrensHealthDefense.org)

In 2008, I wrote a book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. In it I warned, based on my study of closing democracies in 20th century history, that America needed to beware of an all-too-possible slide into totalitarianism.

I warned that would-be tyrants, whether they are on the left or the right, always use a map to close down democracies, and that they always take the same ten steps.

Whether they Invoke an External and Internal Threat or Develop a Paramilitary Force or Restrict the Press or the final step, Subvert the Rule of Law, these steps are always recognizable  and they always work to crush democracies and establish tyrannies. At the time that I wrote the book, the global threat of terrorism was the specter that powers invoked in order to attack our freedoms.

The book was widely read and discussed, both at the time of its publication and over the last 12 years. Periodically over the last decade, people would ask me when and if we had reached Step Ten.

We  my brave publisher, Chelsea Green, and I  are releasing videos of me reading the first and last chapters (see videos below) of The End of America now, in 2021, for free. And I am calling the sequel to this book, which I am now writing, Step Ten  because as of March of last year, we have indeed, I am so sad to say, arrived at and begun to inhabit Step Ten of the 10 steps to fascism.

Though in 2008, I did not explicitly foresee that a medical pandemic would be the vehicle for moving the entire globe into Step Ten, I have at various points warned of the dangers of medical crises as vehicles that tyranny can exploit to justify suppressions of civil rights.

Today, a much-hyped medical crisis has taken on the role of being used as a pretext to strip us all of core freedoms, that fears of terrorism did not, despite 20 years of effort, ultimately achieve.

In 2015, I was widely mocked in mainstream news outlets for warning about the hysteria that accompanied Ebola reporting, and I cautioned then that infectious diseases could be used as a justification for ushering in the suppression of liberties, always under the guise of emergency measures.

In 2020, I showed in my book, Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalization of Love, how infectious disease epidemics, such as cholera and typhus, had been exploited in the 19th century by the British state in order to crush freedoms and invade peoples privacy. I wrote about how the first anti-vaccination movements arose among British parents in the Victorian period.

That book was initially cancelled, and its message of warning continues to be assailed. But that book, too, was prescient: In early March of 2020, of course, a global pandemic was announced  COVID-19.

In the immediate wake of the announcement and narrativization of that pandemic, most of the elements of a locked-in, 360-degree totalitarianism have been put into place in most of the countries of the West, including in what had been robust democracies. It all happened very quickly and comprehensively.

In the U.S. we now have:

Emergency measures in many states, which suspend due process of law. This is the hallmark of a police state. COVID-19 is invoked as the reason for the introduction of emergency law  but there is no endpoint for lifting these emergency laws. The closures of schools, which break the social contract with the next generation. Bills being passed for vaccine passports, which bypass the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution by allowing the government and Big Tech companies to intrude on medical privacy, and to create a comprehensive digital surveillance state. (Indeed, the fact that tech stocks rose by 27% each quarter of the pandemic shows one driver of this war against the human: Every minute human beings spend in a classroom, at the pub or restaurant or in a church or synagogue, is time that tech companies lose money by being unable to harvest that data. COVID-19 policies driven by COVID-19 Response  actually, by Big Tech companies  ensure that humans are not allowed to connect except via digital platforms. The reason is profit as well as social control). Forced closures of businesses. By intervening directly in the economy and allowing certain businesses to flourish (Amazon, Walmart, Target) at the expense of small businesses, Main Street shops, restaurants and sole proprietor businesses in general, the State has merged government and corporations in a way that is characteristic of Italian fascism and modern Chinese communism. Restrictions on assembly. Some states such as California are fining people for seeing their friends in their homes, and making it unlawful for kids to have playdates with their friends. Massachusetts restricted gatherings of more than 10 people at a time, forcing synagogues and churches to stay closed, in spite of a Supreme Court ruling against states forcing churches to close. Parks and playgrounds and beaches have been closed. In countries such as Britain, people are fined for leaving their homes for more than an hours exercise a day. Forced face coverings. In Massachusetts, people are fined if they are not wearing masks outdoors  even children as young as 5 are forced to do so by law. Again, this mandate has not been undergirded by peer-reviewed studies showing medical necessity. And there is no endpoint proffered for these extraordinary violations of personal freedom. Suppression of free speech. Big Tech companies are censoring critics of COVID-19 policy and vaccine policy, as well as censoring views that are on the right hand of the political spectrum. Incitement, a word that has a long history in the 20th century for closing down free speech, has been weaponized by the left to shut down First Amendment freedoms of expression. In other forms of censorship and management of speech and public debate, tycoons such as Bill Gates have been funding major news outlets, with millions of dollars directed to COVID-19 education. As a result, dissenting voices are marginalized and shamed, or even threatened with legal action or job losses. Science being hijacked in the interests of biofascism. By heavily funding scientific commentators such as Dr. Fauci in the United States, Imperial College and SAGE in the U.K. and Dr. Christian Drosten in Germany, a dominant set of policies and pronouncements about COVID-19 that benefit a small group of bad actors  notably tech and pharmaceutical interests, acting in concert with governments  have built an army of secured, credentialled supporters. But when other scientists or institutions seek debate or transparency, they are threatened with job loss or are reputationally attacked, as in the case of Dr. Simon Goddeke of the Netherlands, who was told to keep quiet by his university when he challenge the flawed COVID-19 PCR test protocols. Data being hijacked to serve the interests of this biofascism. This manipulation of truth, which I foreshadowed in The End of America, is typical of the Soviet censors. COVID-19 platforms such as the COVID Tracking Project and Johns Hopkins University, funded by technocrats such as Michael Bloomberg, serve unverifiable COVID-19 data that directly affect the stock markets. Again, while this un-American merger of corporate interests and public policy is reminiscent of Italian fascism, the twist provided by digital data presentation and its relationship to the stock market is very much of the 21st century. Attacks on religious minorities. The orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn and Christian churches in California have been singled out for punishment if they do not follow COVID-19 rules  a targeting of religion that is characteristic of communist policies on the left, especially in China. Policies that weaken bonds between human beings and weaken the family being introduced and policed. This is the most serious development of all.

The new biofascism, very much driven by Big Tech leaders, is a war against human beings and the qualities that make us human.

Masks break human beings ability to bond face to face and enjoy human contact, smiles and jokes. Masks turn down the effectiveness of human technology, essentially, by making it hard for us to read each other and to pick up social cues.

Forbidding assembly keeps us from forming human alliances against these monstrous interests. Forbidding human assembly also prevents new cultures, new heroes and new business models from arising. We are all stuck with the Rolodex and the ideas we had in March of 2019.

Forcing kids to distance at school and wear masks ensures a generation of Americans who dont know how to form human alliances, and who dont trust their own human instincts. Those are counterrevolutionary training techniques.

Driving all learning onto (already prepared) distance-learning platforms ensures that kids do not know how to behave in human space, space not mediated by technology.

Many COVID-19 policies seem designed to ensure that humans will have no analog space or analog culture left  no way to feel comfortable simply gathering in a room, touching one another as friends or allies, or joining together.

Lastly, driving all human interaction onto Zoom (which is a window for the Communist China Party, as China owns the platform) is not only a way to harvest all of our tech, business secrets and IP, it is a way to ensure that intimacy and connection in the future will be done online and that human face-to-face contact will be killed off.

Why is this? Why develop policies that punish, encumber and restrict human contact in analog (un-surveilled, unmediated) spaces?

Because human contact is the great revolutionary force when it comes to human freedom and resistance to this form of comprehensive biofascism  the biofascism represented by the New Normal  the medico-fascist Step Ten.

Now let me recap from the year 2008, and read you my intro to The End of America, as well as the warning at the close of that book. Its message has never, sadly, been more timely. This time, the threats to freedom that were then justified by terrorism, have re-clothed themselves in the trappings of a medical pandemic.

But this time we do not just face a war on freedom. This time we face a war on human beings, and on all that makes us human.

Watch Naomi Wolf read the introduction to The End of America

Watch Chapter 1

Watch Chapter 11

Read more at: ChildrensHealthDefense.org and Fascism.news
CARLSBAD, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Green Paper outlines significant and key concerns within the medical cannabis community, and what the Veterans Action Council feel are potential remedies, particularly as they relate to our Veterans. As Veterans of the United States Armed Forces, we call on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to fully recognize cannabis as a viable treatment option for US Veterans.

Multiple attempts have been made to resolve the inability of Veterans to incorporate cannabis into their official treatment plans. Every attempt made to address our concerns has been sabotaged at the federal level. The VHA must take action on this issue. The fact is, Veterans are self-medicating with cannabis and other substances. Veteran's report turning to cannabis after pharmaceutical options provided by the VHA - some of which include warnings of suicidal ideation - exacerbate their symptoms.

Veterans farming cannabis should be supported by the Department of Agriculture, with programs sponsored by the VHA. Veterans are being forced, sometimes into criminal behavior, to heal themselves using alternative substances not currently recognized by the VHA. The current situation is untenable and an expansion of existing federal policy is in order. The status quo leaves Veterans with debilitating health concerns that often result in them fending for themselves.

We are picking up the effort from those who have led the way for medical cannabis patients by refusing to comply with these unjust laws.

The Green Paper from the VAC is intended to be a catalyst for positive change for the entire cannabis patient community.

For more information on The Green Paper:

Link to Green Paper: https://www.veteransactioncouncil.com/the-green-paper-1

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.veteransactioncouncil.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeteransActionCouncil/

SOURCE Veterans Action Council

Related Links

https://www.veteransactioncouncil.com/


EDWARDSVILLE  Of its three finalists, the District 7 Board of Education made its choice known Monday as President Jill Bertels announced Dr. Patrick Shelton as the newest superintendent of schools before a unanimous vote.

Shelton will begin a three-year contract with the district on July 1. He is currently the assistant superintendent of elementary education at Lees Summit R-7 Schools in suburban Kansas City, Missouri. He will succeed Dr. Jason Henderson.

The other two contenders were Dave Deets, superintendent at Harmony-Emge SD #175 near Belleville and Brent ODaniell, superintendent of Genoa-Kingston CUSD #424 in suburban Chicago.

This amounts to a homecoming for Shelton, who joined Lees Summit about a year ago after serving as the customized learning coordinator at the Parkway School District in suburban St. Louis.

Were just excited as a family to be back in Edwardsville, he said.

I want to thank the board for the opportunity and Im more excited than you are about the transition, Shelton told the board after brief family introductions.

Shelton has worked in education for 25 years. He previously served as an elementary school principal and a director of vocal music. He earned his bachelors degree in music education from Culver-Stockton College, his masters in education, his specialists degree in educational leadership and his doctorate degree in educational leadership, all from SIUE.

Bertels said in cooperation with the Illinois Association of School Boards, the school board association received about 30 applications, which were winnowed down to eight, highly qualified candidates and presented them to District 7. The board then cut those to the three finalists. Interviews were conducted as a board, along with administration and staff and community interview circles.

Henderson resigned last November after being hired in early 2019. The board then pared a year off of his contract, which expires June 30.

The next District 7 Board of Education meeting is March 22 at 7 p.m. at Woodland Elementary School, 59 S. State Route 157 or virtually via the City of Edwardsvilles Facebook page.

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at 618-659-5735
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
(Natural News) The top-down, controlled and calculated dissemination of information over the past year reveals much about the underlying multinational agendas operating behind the face of a pandemic. People of great influence and power have exploited human sickness, using science as a tool to oppress. Truth in science is no longer allowed in the world of the plandemic. For instance, Swedish professor Jonas Ludvigsson has been relentlessly attacked for studying the effect of covid-19 on children. His studies, published in the British Medical Journal, show that schoolchildren can interact freely and without masks in fully open schools because covid-19 poses a minor risk to children.

Authoritarians have adamantly used hospitalization rates and fraudulent PCR tests to seize control over society, economic activity and human freedom. This control has led to widespread abuse and medical fraud. Contrived data is weaponized to coerce compliance to medical edicts and to enforce false imprisonment. Real data that dispels the fear-and-control narrative is censored from internet channels, distorted by the mainstream media and forbidden from scientific research and publication. The control and possession of science and the weaponization of data has turned entire populations into easily-controlled victims, as mental illiteracy, paranoia, hypochondria and irrational thinking multiply.

Data shows mask-less children can interact freely in open schools, with minimal risk

Swedish professor Jonas Ludvigsson has been relentlessly attacked for studying the effect of covid-19 on children. He is a clinical epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He studied the effect of covid-19 on children ages 1 through 16 in the spring of 2020. His research shows that covid-19 does not pose a threat to schoolchildren. The truth of the science shows that children can live through the infection, unmasked, with no quarantines, in fully opened schools. These findings have been attacked, leading the embattled professor to shut down any future studies. Children rarely suffer from the infection and move forward with newfound immunity, similar to other viruses. This is a key mechanism in the survival of humans.

Only 15 children were admitted to the ICU during the study and that included children suffering from multi-system inflammatory syndrome, which may or may not have been connected to covid-19. Even after including other health issues, the ICU rate for schoolchildren was a mere .77 per 100,000. These children were not wearing masks during the study either and were not forced to practice social distancing.

Teachers need not worry, either. In the Swedish study, about 19 per 100,000 teachers ended up in the ICU during the same period. With the availability of convalescent plasma, viable treatments and underutilized immune boosting antivirals, herbs, minerals and nutrients, teachers and students should feel free to face their environment. Teachers unions dont want to hear the truth, but its time to stop abusing children out of fear and politically-motivated agendas. (Related: Big Tech covid-19 censorship is endangering the population.)

Children being wrongfully blamed, controlled and abused by deceitful scientific agendas

Practically speaking, transmission of an active infection to another person is untraceable and based on assumptions, especially when symptoms are delayed. The transmission blame-game is an impractical and unsustainable way to handle an infectious disease that is endemic and poses little harm to children. It is quite pointless to disrupt peoples livelihoods and put them in a constantly controlled and stressful state for an infection that is only mild and fleeting. Regardless, schoolchildren have been put through an obstacle course of medical edicts, including intermittent school quarantines, mental illness-inducing social isolation rules, and indefinite masking protocols. This Swedish study shows that these measures are a waste of time. Schools should operate normally, and infection in children should be handled like any other coronavirus infection of the past.

The President of the Karolinska Institute, Ole Petter Ottersen, has been an eye-witness to the worldwide attacks on this freedom-friendly research. He told the British Medical Journal that education and research must be protected to enable people to freely discover, research and share knowledge. Sweden is currently trying to preserve academic freedom by passing new laws that protect the scientific process and the freedom to publish scientific studies that are contrary to the current narrative and controlling multinational agendas.

Sources include:

NYPost.com

NaturalNews.com
CLEVELAND, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Content Status, a product page auditing and monitoring tool for retailers, brands, and their partners, today announced the official launch of the industry's first and only self-service, fully-automated auditing solution that validates product content status, completeness, accuracy, and site-search optimization in just minutes. The launch coincides with Content Status' participation in the Groceryshop Spring Meetup, which kicks off March 9-11.

The tool is designed to simplify product content auditing for marketing, content and sales teams by eliminating the need for coding, IT involvement, or long onboarding processes. "With today's launch, our Content Status tool and business model positions us as the go-to solution for product content auditing, insights, and standards for the industry," said Content Status co-founder and CEO George Koenig, a 22-year product content veteran who played a key role in the inception and growth of content syndication. "We don't create, manage, or syndicate content. We're 100% focused on bringing the fastest, easiest, and most powerful auditing solution to the entire industry."

Until now, companies only had three options: Expensive and time intensive enterprise solutions, build and manage their own scrapers to get a pile of raw data, or do the entire process manually.

According to Koenig, their audits show that 55% of product pages fail basic quality standards, while 19% have critical errors that prohibit a conversion, or drive expensive returns that also damage the brand. "Brands invest millions in every new product launch," he said, "yet they fail shoppers and their channel partners by not providing the Perfect SKU experience on the page, which is the epicenter of every online transaction and the heart of their sales forecasts."

Although they are celebrating the official launch now, the team has commenced work with numerous brands, retailers, distributors, PIMs, and syndicators to test and refine the tool. Koenig said: "For version one, it's really powerful. It features customizable content grading for a quick way to find conversion increases, error-flagging that can make a big impact on costly returns, interactive improvement workflows to guide them to the Perfect SKU experience, and KPI reporting that provides clarity and accountability. I've helped create a lot of content programs for retailers over the years, and that experience is on display in many purpose-built features for retailers, which makes rolling out a program really fast and easy." The company also plans to launch their open-API and Share-of-Shelf solution in Q2.

Content Status already has numerous partners and resellers, which is a big part of their strategy. "While there are some good enterprise solutions, our self-service, usage-based SaaS model is the only one that makes sense for companies to offer to their clients," Koenig added. "Our partners are using it to retain and upgrade existing customers, build new logo acquisition and improve lead generation."

One such partner is Distributor Data Solutions, a leading product syndication company in the Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC and Industrial markets. "We work with some of the largest manufacturers and deliver to many of the largest distributors and retailers in the world," said Matt Christensen, DDS President. "We started seeing an increasing need for our manufacturer customers to validate that their product information is being represented in full on their channel's websites. Early on, we created our own proprietary scraping engine but were only able to provide basic reporting."

Christensen adds, "What we liked right away is that George and his team are clearly focused on this one area and are years ahead of where we are. They clearly have industry expertise, and it shows in their UI. By partnering with Content Status and leveraging what they have built, we can offer even greater value to our customers right away while staying focused on what we do best."

The company offers 25 product audits for free that provides valuable insights within minutes. They're also offering special launch promotions on their usage-based plans. Further, Content Status subscribers will receive monthly industry reports providing both thought leadership and exclusive insights.

About Content Status

Content Status was founded in 2019 by George Koenig, who has over two decades of leadership in product data, and Carlin D.T. Jackson. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio it is the first and only self-service, fully automated product content auditing tool for retailers, brands, and their partners. Built for the business teams, the tool requires no coding, IT or onboarding processes and was built to meet the content auditing needs of multiple verticals. For more information, visit www.ContentStatus.com.

Contact: Mark Burns, Media Relations, [email protected]

SOURCE Content Status

Related Links

http://www.contentstatus.com/


Urban Jungle is a photo art app by Elise Swopes and BrainFeverMedia Urban Jungle is unlimited creative inspiration and expression. Anyone can become a mobile artist thanks to our tutorial blog and intuitive app design.

Photo-art app Urban Jungle is officially live in the Apple app store. Urban Jungle is a collaboration between BrainFeverMedia and established brand representative Elise Swopes. Swopes compiled the photo editing tools that made her an Instagram celebrity into the Urban Jungle app for the everyone to use. Urban Jungle combines photo editing tools with nature elements, creating a unique twist on surreal and imaginative photo art.

Ive used BrainFeverMedia apps religiously throughout my career, so when James approached me with the idea to collaborate, I immediately jumped at the opportunity, said Elise Swopes, owner of Urban Jungle. My purpose as an artist is to share the secrets that made me become the successful artist I am today in hopes it can inspire others can do the same. Urban Jungle is a product of just that.

Users can load photos from their Apple device, select Project or Template, and start editing away using a variety of layers and filters to enhance the concept. Nature images such as animals, waterfalls, and plants can be blended in using the editing tools to create beautiful forms of art. Users can save, export, and share projects with friends.

Swopes has hosted Ted Talks, worked with Adidas, Adobe, Apple, and multiple other brands and businesses. Together with the BrainFeverMedia, Swopes created an app that utilizes the same tools that made Swopes an internet celebrity and successful entrepreneur.

Most photo editing apps are limited to standard tools, said Swopes. Urban Jungle is unlimited creative inspiration and expression. Anyone can become a mobile artist thanks to our tutorial blog and intuitive app design.

Urban Jungle is available in the Apple app store with a free version and paid version of $19.99. It is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can download the app here.

About Urban Jungle

Urban Jungle app is a collaboration between internet celebrity/influencer Elise Swopes and BrainFeverMedia. Based in Williamsburg, New York, Swopes became an Instagram sensation for her photo art in 2010 and has since hosted Ted Talks, worked extensively with Apple and Adobe, and regularly engages with her massive audience. Founded by James Grote, BrainFeverMedia is an app development company based in West Chester, Ohio that specializes in visual effects apps for iOS and Mac. For more information visit http://www.urban-jungle.app or http://www.brainfevermedia.com.
A Bergen County man has filed suit against a prank company based in New York, alleging they mailed him a chocolate penis, a glitter bomb and other packages meant to shock, offend and frighten him.

Nicholas Carretta, 47, of Oakland, claims in court papers that R&D Promos, also known as Ruin Days, sent him multiple unsolicited, obscene and harmful packages over the course of 18 months.

Ruin Days, which is based in Queens, New York, allows customers to anonymously send glitter bombs, imitation feces, bags of dirt and other annoying pranks to unsuspecting recipients. We ruin your enemys day ... the literature states.

In May 2019, a chocolate penis was sent to Carretta at his office in Fair Lawn inside a package designed to disguise the true nature of its contents, states the suit, filed last month in Superior Court of Bergen County.

When he opened the package and saw the fake penis, Carretta claims he suffered fear, apprehension, harm and emotional distress.

In November 2020, Carretta received a spring-loaded glitter bomb that arrived in another nondescript package and blew up in his face, the lawsuit states.

Carretta opened the package (and) the glitter bomb exploded in his face, causing glitter to strike him with force in the eyes, nose, and mouth, the suit states. The glitter became lodged in Mr. Carrettas clothing, as well as a nearby desk, files and carpet, the suit states.

On Nov. 27, 2020, Carretta received a packaged addressed to Fat Midget that contained chocolate imitation feces, the lawsuit states.

Carretta was shocked and frightened by the contents and offended that the package of chocolate imitation feces came in contact with his body, the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit alleges assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress, negligence and conspiracy. In addition to R&D Promotions, the lawsuit names an unidentified John Doe who is alleged to have ordered the products.

Ruin Days agreed with and entered into a conspiracy with John Doe(s) to harm Mr. Carretta by accepting the order to send him the packages, the suit states.

Carretta is seeking damages of $75,000, along with court fees and post-judgment interest.

Ruin Days, also known as R&D Promotions, did not immediately respond Monday to a request seeking comment on the suit.

The company has been sued before by people who received its packages, including in 2018 by a Maryland woman who claimed she was hit in the face by a glitter bomb that also damaged her laptop.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
BJP likely to meet on Wednesday to pick Trivendra Singh Rawat's replacement

From Pracharak to CM: A look at Trivendra Rawat's journey

Tirath Singh Rawat sworn in as new CM of Uttarakhand

Rs 198.64 crore given to sugar mills to make payment to farmers: Uttarakhand government

Coronavirus a living organism which has a right to live, says Trivendra Singh Rawat

Uttarakhand Crisis: CM Trivendra Rawat submits resignation to Governor

India

pti-Deepika S

New Delhi Mar 09: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has submitted his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya on Tuesday with the BJP mulling a change of leadership in Uttarakhand. State minister Dhan Singh Rawat has emerged as a frontrunner to replace Trivenrdra Singh Rawat as chief minister.

Uttarakahnd Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat resigns, who will take charge? | Oneindia News

Reportedly, the party may also bring in a deputy chief minister, who will be from the Kumaon region. Pushkar Singh Dhami is likely to be deputy chief minister.

The central BJP leadership recently sent two observers, party vice president Raman Singh and general secretary Dushayant Kumar Gautam, to the state to get feedback from party's core group in the state amid report of discontent against the chief minister.

However, senior party leaders discounted the possibility of any leadership change in the state while acknowledging that a section of Uttarakhand leaders may have issues with the chief minister.

BJP MP Ajay Bhatt, a senior party leader from the state, told PTI that "all is well" in the state and added that the two central leaders had visited Uttarakhand regarding preparations for the three-day state BJP executive meeting from March 12 and the Rawat government''s fourth anniversary on March 18.

Gautam had also spoken on similar lines on Sunday.

The state BJP on Monday said there has been no formal announcement about any meeting of the legislature party in Uttarakhand on Tuesday.

"As far as my knowledge goes, no formal announcement has been made yet about any state legislature party meeting here tomorrow," state BJP Chief Spokesman Munna Singh Chauhan told PTI in Dehradun.

However, when asked whether a major change was in the offing as the sudden turn of events on the political front in Uttarakhand indicated, Chauhan briefly said, "Let us see."

He said the chief minister would return to Dehradun at noon on Tuesday.

A section of state leaders are reportedly miffed with Rawat''s leadership and are of the view that the party''s electoral prospects under him may not be very bright.

The party may also go for a cabinet reshuffle in the state, sources said.

Rawat was named the chief ministerial candidate by the BJP after it stormed to power in 2017, winning 57 of 70 seats in the state assembly.
[March 09, 2021] 22Squared Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021

22Squared, the independent creative and media company that pushes brands to be more, has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021. The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive, they thrived-making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's MIC list features 463 businesses from 29 countries. "We set a challenge for ourselves and all companies to be more," said Erica Hoholick, president of 22squared. "For us that means solving social issues, business problems and helping Brands identify a bigger role to play in the future. As an agency, we always try to put the audience first, understand their varied perspectives and create more human and meaningful solutions. In today's world, it is not enough to just talk, we must act. Being a performative ally during standardized holiday months like Black History Month or LGBTQ Pride Month isn't enough to enact positive change. As communicators who creatively interpret brand messages to large audiences, it became increasingly obvious to the 300+ person 22Squared team that the power to influence should create actionable positive behaviors. In 2020, 22Squared, in partnership with the NAACP Atlanta chapter, released their social justice education platform, Invisible Hate, to push for the removal of Confederate monuments across the country. This digital platform allows users to geo-locate where these hate symbols still stand, cross-reference verified racist/violent historical documentation associated with said person, allow users to digitally and visually document their own expressions about said symbols themselves, and offer easily customized templates to contact your local representative demanding its removal. Most importantly to convert observance into action, Invisible Hate allows people who want to do more to petition for the removal of Confederate Monuments all over the country with a single click. This project has gone national with numerous nonprofit partnershipsand potential change to even public school education in the truth that has whitewashed the country.



As the creative company helping bring to life the humanity in household brands and nonprofits alike. 22Squared has created deeply impactful campaigns for AdventHealth with its Sound of Healing and nonprofit work with organizations like The AdCouncil and other NAACP initiatives. We have also created a platform to give our employees a bigger megaphone to talk about issues that impact them with our Hear Me Now series. Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy. "In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley. To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multiday summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021. Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative. About 22Squared 22Squared is an integrated creative & media company who uses creativity to grow business. We're 319 brand builders, cultural instigators and do gooders whose job is to help brands find their conviction and turn it into action for people. And over the last 98 years, we've done so for some of the most iconic brands including The AdCouncil, AdventHealth, Amazon Studios, Baskin-Robbins, Columbia Care, CDC, McGraw-Hill, NAACP, Netflix, Paramount, Publix Super Markets, SunTrust (now TRUIST) and Southeast Toyota Distributors. For more information about 22Squared, please visit www.22Squared.com. You can also follow the agency's goings-on on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. ABOUT FAST (News - Alert) COMPANY Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005343/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[March 09, 2021] Signify Health Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021

Signify Health, Inc. (NYSE: SGFY) has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021, ranking eighth in the Health category. As a fast-growing, mission-oriented company, Signify was recognized for its role in helping to transform the healthcare delivery system so that more people can enjoy healthy, happy days at home. This list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. According to Fast Company, these companies did more than survive, they thrived -- making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's Most Innovative Companies list features 463 businesses from 29 countries. "This award is an incredible recognition of the people at Signify who are taking on the difficult work of transforming healthcare from a break-fix model to one that is organized around the whole health of a person so that they can live more healthy, happy days at home," said Kyle Armbrester, CEO of Signify Health. "In focusing on this mission, we have built an engine that helps providers, health plans, employers, social care organizations and other partners reach more people with innovative solutions for some of the most complex problems in healthcare. We look forward to many exciting milestones ahead." As the U.S. healthcare system undergoes a shift toward prevention and value-based payment programs, according to a McKesson-commissioned study, more than 60 percent of healthcare spend is expected to be tied to quality and value-based care by 2025. In order to achieve success in value-based models, providers and plans need the tools to manage both care and cost. Signify Health's platform - including advanced analytics, nationwide provider networks and technology - enables alignment of financial incentives to promote better outcomes.



For this year's awards, Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. "In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley. Signify's inclusion as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies comes following a successful public listing on the New York Stock Exchange in February 2021. With 35 million patient records powering the platform's data chassis, Signify Health performed approximately 1.4 million unique in-home and virtual evaluations nationwide in 2020, and is a leading platform powering episodes of care in the Center for Medicare & Medicare Services' BPCI-A program, with some $6.1 billion in program spend under management in 2019.

About Signify Health Signify Health is a leading healthcare platform that leverages advanced analytics, technology, and nationwide healthcare provider networks to create and power value-based payment programs. Our mission is to transform how care is paid for and delivered so that people can enjoy more healthy, happy days at home. Our solutions support value-based payment programs by aligning financial incentives around outcomes, providing tools to health plans and healthcare organizations designed to assess and manage risk and identify actionable opportunities for improved patient outcomes, coordination and cost-savings. Through our platform, we coordinate what we believe is a holistic suite of clinical, social, and behavioral services to address an individual's healthcare needs and prevent adverse events that drive excess cost, all while shifting services towards the home. About Fast Company Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005217/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 04:34:33|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CAIRO, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The energy ministers of the member states of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) announced on Tuesday that the forum's charter has entered into force.

The announcement was made during a Cairo meeting of energy ministers of the Cairo-based EMGF founding countries, namely Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan and Palestine, said a statement by Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.

The ministers emphasized that the forum will serve as a platform for systematic dialogue on policies related to natural gas, noting that the EMGF will contribute to the development of a sustainable regional market for gas.

The forum is also meant to maximize the utilization of gas resources in the eastern Mediterranean region, through full respect for the rights of its members over their natural resources in accordance with international law, the statement said.

During the meeting, the ministers approved France's request to join the forum as a member, and the United States as an observer.

The forum was formed in January 2019 to reinforce cooperation among member states, create a regional gas market, optimize resource development, cut the cost of infrastructure, offer competitive prices and improve trade ties. Enditem
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The global smart pole market size is expected to reach USD 26.55 billion by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is projected toregister a CAGR of 19.7% from 2021 to 2028. Continued urbanization and the subsequent need to manage assets and infrastructure efficiently are driving the demand for smart poles. The rollout of smart city projects in different parts of the world also bodes well for the growth of the market. According to a study conducted by the Consumer Technology Association, smart city spending across the globe reached USD 34.35 billion in 2020.

Key suggestions from the report:

The hardware segment dominated the market in 2020. The infrastructure development projects that are underway worldwide are expected to drive the growth of the segment over the forecast period

The controller segment dominated the market in 2020 and is expected to witness promising growth over the forecast period. The government incentives and rebates being offered on the replacement of conventional lamp poles with smart poles as a part of smart city development projects are expected to drive the growth of the segment over the forecast period

The retrofit installation segment dominated the market in 2020. The provisioning of Wi-Fi connectivity and installation of digital signage on existing poles as part of smart city development is expected to drive the growth of the segment over the forecast period

The public places segment dominated the market in 2020. The growing preference for Public-Private Partnerships for the deployment of Wi-Fi networks at public places is expected to drive the growth of the segment

Increasing adoption of smart poles in emerging economies, such as China and India , is expected to create growth opportunities for the market in the Asia Pacific region over the forecast period

Read 148 page research report with ToC on "Smart Pole Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Component, By Hardware, By Installation Type, By Application, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2021 - 2028" at:https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/smart-pole-market

Several government bodies worldwide are pursuing initiatives to provide Wi-Fi connectivity in public areas and are deploying smart poles for the purpose. For instance, in February 2018, smart poles offering Wi-Fi connectivity were installed in Kalaburagi, India as part of the efforts to provide free Wi-Fi connectivity for citizens at selected places. Similarly, in February 2020, smart poles featuring the latest technology were installed in London, the U.K. in Hampton as part of the government's digital transformation project to provide Wi-Fi connectivity to citizens.

Smart poles are also being installed for monitoring air quality in the wake of the deteriorating ambient air quality in urban areas in different parts of the world. Several people across the world are suffering from various disorders stemming from the deteriorating quality of the ambient air. Smart poles can potentially play a decisive role in addressing the air quality issues in urban areas by monitoring environmental parameters, such as humidity, temperature, and concentration of fine air particles, and help in assessing the quality of ambient air. The data provided by the smart poles can help the citizens in limiting their exposure to air pollution and the authorities in improving the quality of the ambient air quality.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to adversely affect the growth of the market. Construction and infrastructure development projects are confronting a slowdown owing to the lockdowns imposed in different parts of the world as part of the efforts to arrest the spread of the disease. For instance, during the COVID 19 situation, the U.K. government had announced the shutdown of construction sites with more than 50 workers. The shutdown of construction sites thereby leads to a decrease in the demand for smart poles requirements.

Grand View Research has segmented the global smart pole market on the basis of component, hardware, installation type, application, and region:

Smart Pole Component Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Hardware



Software



Service

Smart Pole Hardware Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Lighting Lamp



Pole Bracket & Pole Body



Communication Device



Controller



Others

Smart Pole Installation Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

New Installation



Retrofit Installation

Smart Pole Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Highways & Roadways



Public Places



Railways & Harbors

Smart Pole Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

North America



U.S.





Canada



Europe



U.K.





Germany



Asia Pacific



Japan





China





India



Latin America



Brazil





Mexico



Middle East & Africa

List of Key Players in the Smart Pole Market

Acuity Brands

Cree, Inc.

Eaton

Ericson

General Electric Company

Siemens

Signify

Telensa Limited

Wipro

Zumtobel Group

Find more research reports onNext Generation Technologies Industry, by Grand View Research:

Air Quality Monitoring System Market - Rising levels of pollutants in the atmosphere as well as stringent government norms and regulations for monitoring pollution are likely to drive product demand. Moreover, in recent years, there has been a significant rise in the number of casualties as a result of respiratory diseases resulting from environmental pollution. This will subsequently propel product demand.

Environmental Monitoring Market - The environmental monitoring market is anticipated to witness significant growth over the forecast period owing to rapidly increasing consumer awareness regarding rising pollution levels and stringent government regulations regarding tracking and curbing pollution.

Intelligent Transportation System Market - The necessity for presenting real-time traffic information of different regions to passengers and drivers is one of the significant factors driving the demand for intelligent transportation systems across the world. The growing number of vehicles on road, aging infrastructure, and lack of traffic data management are other factors anticipated to drive the overall growth.

Gain access to Grand View Compass, our BI enabled intuitive market research database of 10,000+ reports

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.

Contact:

Sherry James

Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc.

Phone: 1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com

Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com

Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during his daily press briefing in Albany, N.Y., on May 1, 2020. (Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)

Heres How Cuomo Used Undercounted Nursing Home Deaths to Mislead the Public

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his top lieutenants cited a report altered by his top aides to paint a false narrative of his handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in nursing homes in comparison to other states.

The New York State Department of Health knew that nearly 10,000 nursing home residents had died of COVID-19 by early July, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Despite this, top Cuomo aides convinced the health department to report just 6,432 nursing home deaths in a July 6 report that claimed the Cuomo administrations infamous March 25 order did not lead to more fatalities.

The July 6 report used the reduced figure, which omitted nursing home residents who died of the virus at a hospital, to conclude that only 21 percent of New York COVID-19 deaths were in nursing homes. The figure was repeatedly cited by Cuomo all while he was claiming to be a servant only to the facts.

No other state that reports nursing homes COVID-19 deaths omits residents who died in hospitals from their reporting. But Cuomo and other New York officials still used the 21 percent figure to claim New York was handling the situation better than 45 other states.

You look at the nursing home deaths in this state, Cuomo told reporters in October. Do you know what number we are by percentage before you made that statement? Were No. 46 out of 50 states, and we had the worst problem, and were 46th in terms of percentage of deaths in nursing homes.

New York State Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker also cited the 21 percent figure during a July 6 press conference announcing the findings of the report.

We have had 21, 22 percent of our deaths are in the nursing homes, which is essentially the lowest in the nation, Zucker said.

New York state ranked 46 in the nation, meaning that 45 states had a greater percentage of fatalities, Zucker said of the states nursing home deaths.

Zucker also accused some critics of Cuomos March 25 order, which required nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive patients, of either lacking the ability to think critically or of operating with malice.

Sometimes what happens is that a narrative gets perpetuated when its not based on facts, he said. And that narrative, that story, gets swept away as the truth simply by virtue of repetition whether because of lack of critical thinking or malice. Either way, it does not do us as a society any good.

Sitting beside Zucker at the press conference was Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling, a Cuomo donor and nursing home operator who reportedly lobbied Cuomo to sign legislation in April that shielded nursing home executives from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

New York has done exceptionally well, Dowling said during the press conference. Percentage of deaths in nursing homes  percentage of total  in New York was 21%. Just look at other states.

Rhode Island it was 77%. Minnesota, 77%. Pennsylvania, 68%. Kentucky, 61%, Dowling said. So its interesting when you see all the narrative focusing on, oh, look what happened in New York  but when you look at it percentage-wise, New York was number 46 in the United States. Thats an important fact to keep in mind.

A special counsel to Cuomo, Beth Garvey, issued a statement Friday saying that the decision to omit nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 in hospitals from the July 6 report didnt change the outcome of the report and that Cuomos March 25 order requiring nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive patients did not inflate the death toll.

But the oft-cited 21 percent figure cited by Cuomo and his top lieutenants jumps up to 33 percent when taking into account the over 4,000 previously unreported nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 in hospitals that Cuomo administration revealed in early February, according to the Empire Center.

By this measure, the revised toll pushed New York from 21 percent to 33 percent, and its ranking among states from 48th to 33rd, the Empire center reported.

Another false statistic cited by Cuomo that was derived from the undercounted nursing home death toll was his claim that New Yorks COVID-19 morality rate in nursing homes ranked 35 among all states.

Just on the top line, we are number 35 in the nation in percentage of deaths in nursing homes, Cuomo said during a July 24 press conference. Go talk to 34 other states first, go talk to the Republican states now. Florida, Texas, Arizona. Ask them what is happening in nursing homes. Its all politics.

When using accurate figures that include nursing home residents who died in hospitals, New Yorks mortality rate in nursing homes bumps up from 35th to the 13th highest in the nation, according to the Empire Center.

Senior Cuomo advisor Rich Azzopardi criticized Empire Center in July for highlighting that the Cuomo administration report was based on misrepresented nursing home data.

If they revise their death count and it goes up by as many as I think it will go up, its not going to be a good news story and it wont be a flattering news story, Empire Center Senior Fellow Bill Hammond said prophetically in late July.

Azzopardi responded to Hammonds prediction in a statement to 6 News: Trust shady right-wing think tanks with undisclosed funders at your own peril.

By Andrew Kerr

From The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The world's first international remote training session utilizing advanced 3D sinus models and a telemedicine system has taken place, highlighting a new mode of medical training in the Covid-19 era.

Instructed by world-class surgeons at the University of Adelaide in Australia, three surgeons at Hokkaido University in Japan performed simulated endoscopic sinus surgeries in the training program utilizing a telemedicine system. The two-day training session, held on 11th and 12th February, was simultaneously broadcasted worldwide to more than two hundred registrants from eleven countries and regions.

This real-time online training is extremely valuable, as travel to attend on-site training is restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic." Masanobu Suzuki, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University

The university's team was led by Professor Akihiro Homma and Associate Professor Yuji Nakamaru of the same department. Endoscopic sinus surgery is a standard procedure to remove blockages and open pathways in people's sinuses. But without an accurate understanding of human anatomy or mastery of the relevant procedures, it can cause serious complications in the brain and eyes.

The training program involved simulated operations performed on 3D sinus models with varying difficulties. Using a telemedicine system, Professor Peter-John Wormald and Professor Alkis Psaltis, both world-class surgeons at the University of Adelaide, viewed real-time endoscopic images of the surgeries at a distance of 8,000 kilometers; they provided instructions to the three surgeons, while other specialists around the world watched online.

After 15 hours of highly detailed training in advanced surgical procedures, the three surgeons are now able to perform challenging frontal sinus surgeries with high precision.

The 3D models were made with advanced additive manufacturing technology using patients' CT sinus scan data by the team at the University of Adelaide, in collaboration with Adelaide-based company Fusetec. Professor Alkis Psaltis of the University of Adelaide explained, "The high-class materials used in the production give an almost human tissue feel."

Unlike conventional sinus models made with hard plaster, the 3D models are made with multiple materials to reproduce the exact shape of the sinus and the tissue feel of human bodies as closely as possible.

This enables simulated surgeries to be performed in a way that is very similar to actual operations. "Some online observers had forgotten that they were models while watching the course," according to Assistant Professor Masanobu Suzuki.

The remote training employed the Quintree telemedicine system developed by Quintree Medical, which was founded by otolaryngologists in Michigan, USA; one of the co-founders, Oakland University's Professor Adam Folbe also supported the training program. With the system, many surgeons can simultaneously participate in a single training session, and instructors can guide each surgeon while checking endoscopic images on a single screen.

The online training system requires only 3D models, surgical instruments, PCs, and an Internet connection. "The system could replace, at least in part, conventional on-site training using donated bodies or cadavers. Moreover, it is expected to expand worldwide not only in the field of otolaryngology but also in endoscopic surgery in general," commented Assistant Professor Masanobu Suzuki.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Nasreen Goondall, 31, the victim of a fatal Todt Hill crash last week, was a fun, energetic mother of two young children and a loving daughter, two of her sisters told the Advance/SILive.com.

She died on March 5 in a one-car crash about 150 feet south of the intersection of Todt Hill Road and Four Corners Road. The white sedan she was driving suffered significant front-end damage and its airbags were deployed.

Her cousin, who was also in the car during the crash, remains at Staten Island University Hospital in critical condition, said her older sister, Zareen Goondall, 35.

Everybody is just very sad, very distraught, she said. Every day we wake up and think its a prank, its a joke.

Nasreen Goondalls husband, who is a member of the U.S. Navy, was on deployment when the crash occurred, according to Zareen Goondall. He arrived on Staten Island last night.

Caring for the couples two children, a boy and girl, ages 2 and 4, has been a family effort thus far, said Zareen Goondall, who admitted that the recent days spent watching over her sisters children have been difficult to bear.

Its kind of hard to see them and miss her, she said.

Nasreen Goondall, 31, was the victim of the fatal Todt Hill crash on March 5. (Photo courtesy of Goondall family)

Nasreen Goondall was a Virginia resident who was spending time with her family on Staten Island at the time of the crash, her sister said, and her death came just one day before the 28th anniversary of her fathers sudden death in 1993.

This has been a really, really tragic moment for all of us, said Zareen Goondall.

Tehmina Goodnall, 29, Nasreen Goondalls younger sister, said she has looked up to her late sister since they were children.

Shes a phenomenal woman, Tehmina Goodnall said. She was a woman who just wanted to spread love to the world ... Even if you said mean things to her, she would just give you love and you would change and see theres good people in this world.

The last few days for my family have been like the world is empty, it has been shattered, said Tehmina Goodnall. It hurts so bad.

A flurry of support has flooded memorial posts for Nasreen Goondall on Facebook, and her sister said that foundation has been important for her family in recent days.

We already know how she is, but hearing it from everybody else, its a little uplifting, its a little comforting, said Zareen Goondall. But, it hurts a lot of people, and just to know that theyre hurting just as much as us  we feel we can talk to people.

Right now, were all just in complete darkness without her, she said. She was the light of the family.
Arlene Foster has branded the European Commissions reaction to the UK move to delay full implementation of new Irish trading arrangements as hysterical.

The British Government last week unilaterally extended grace periods limiting bureaucracy linked to the Northern Ireland Protocol until October. They had been due to expire at the end of March.

The UK also temporarily lifted the protocols ban on plants potted in soil in Great Britain from entering Northern Ireland.

The European Commission is preparing to take legal action against the Government, accusing it of breaching the terms of the protocol, which governs trade to Northern Ireland post-Brexit.

Northern Ireland First Minister Mrs Foster expressed confidence the UK Government would defend any legal action brought by the commission.

As I understand it from the Secretary of State (Brandon Lewis) last week, the Attorney General has indicated that the small moves that were made by the United Kingdom Government are legal and therefore any legal action that will be taken Im sure will be fought, she said.

I hope that doesnt end up being the case. I think there has been a bit of a hysterical reaction actually to some very small moves.

You know the position of my party. We believe that we need to see the protocol replaced because its the architecture of the protocol which is causing all of these difficulties.

Mrs Foster said she did not detect a willingness from the Commission to engage with the Government to resolve issues related to the protocol.

I dont see any evidence of any negotiations ongoing at this present moment in time. I see a lot of megaphone diplomacy actually, she said.

It would be really good if there were some listening ears for a change, in relation to the damage that is happening here in Northern Ireland, from the European Union, and there was a real and tangible engagement in relation to the problems that we have.

Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill during a visit to the Ulster Hospital vaccination centre (Liam McBurney/PA)

Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill called for an end to political wrangling over the protocol.

Sinn Fein vice president Ms ONeill said the issues needed to be resolved through the joint UK/EU committee that has responsibility for the implementation of the post-Brexit Irish Sea trading arrangements.

What needs to happen here is that we need to see clarity for the business community, we dont need to see more wrangling. We need the joint committee to meet, we need an agreed way forward, she said.

Thats in the best interest of people here.

The ministers were asked about the ongoing discord over the protocol on a visit to a vaccination centre on the outskirts of Belfast.

The protocol is a post-Brexit arrangement designed to keep the Irish border open by ensuring Northern Ireland continues to follow the EUs trading rules.

It achieves that by keeping Northern Ireland aligned to various EU rules, requiring checks on goods arriving into the region from Great Britain.

The DUP has vowed to overthrow it over fears it damages the integrity of the UK internal market and Northern Irelands place in it.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Thought Leaders Dr. Keiko Ishii Assistant Professor Aoyama Gakuin University

In this interview, News-Medical speaks to Dr. Keiko Ishii about her research efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and how speaking whilst infected can cause the virus to spread, and why wearing masks is so important.

What provoked your research efforts into the COVID-19 pandemic?

Our research started when Professor Onishi of Yamano College of Aesthetics in Japan asked me for an image that would help to prevent the spread of infections at a beauty salon.

It is natural to be careful about sneezing and coughing in people who have symptoms. However, it has been identified that coronavirus can also be asymptomatic and that these people can be infectious, which may cause explosive spread.

A beauty welfare researcher at Yamano College of Aesthetics said that we should be careful about aerosol infection during customer service to prevent the spread of infection. It is important to understand these phenomena and thoroughly take measures against infections. This can allow professionals to provide beauty and long-term care in order to prevent economic stagnation and maintain quality of life, whilst showing peace of mind to avoid social turmoil.

For infection control to be widely recognized and implemented, it is important to show it not only in the words of experts but also in easy-to-understand photographs and videos.

Since I usually specialize in visual measurement of flow and temperature in thermal engineering and fluid engineering research, I was asked for technical cooperation in acquiring the exhalation images. I had thought that it would only be biology and medical personnel who could contribute to solving the coronavirus problem, and so I was happy that despite specializing in engineering I could contribute to coronavirus infection control by participating in this project.

I had not studied breath flow before this. At first, my aim was just to take some pictures that gave the message, "If you do not wear a mask, you are more likely to get infected! Everyone should wear a mask!".

However, while shooting with various posture patterns with or without a mask and with or without a face shield, I noticed that the tendency of flow changes according to physical rules. When I examined past research, this had not been reported, and so I decided to summarize them as a treatise.

SARS-CoV-2 Virus. Image Credit: CROCOTHERY/Shutterstock.com

How is COVID-19 spread?

There are various routes to disease infection and the risk of aerosol infection has been discussed in recent years. Currently, there are no quantitative studies on the levels of aerosol exposure that can cause infection.

In the past, measures against infectious diseases, airborne infections and droplet infections have been mainly discussed. Measles is an example of a highly infectious virus that causes airborne infection, but it is understood that COVID-19 does not have enough infectivity to cause airborne infection. Here, it is important to understand the difference between airborne and aerosol infections.

Currently, there is no clear definition for aerosol infection. Most of the droplets from coughing and sneezing have a size of 5 m or more and are heavy, so they disperse to about 1 to 2 m. These can be suppressed by wearing a mask. It is said that among the droplets emitted by coughing, sneezing, and speech, fine particles of 2 to 3 m or less diffuse widely and float in the air for several hours.

Even in our experiment, particles of 1 m or less floated in the air for a long time. Normally, minute aerosols dry quickly, and it is believed that the virus does not remain infectious for a long time in the dry state.

It has also been reported that the deposition rate in the nasal cavity and upper respiratory tract is relatively low compared to particles of 5 m or larger. However, it has been pointed out that in a densely populated area, damp environment, or in a closed environment, the aerosol containing the virus may continue to float in the air for a long time while retaining moisture and infectivity.

Aerosol infections are beginning to be thought of as a major cause of the spread of the virus, as many infection clusters have been reported in dense and closed environments.

How do air droplets spread viruses and cause infection?

From the information currently available, we believe that inhaling a large amount of fresh aerosol that has just been exhaled by an infected person or exposing it to the mucous membrane will increase the probability of infection.

As mentioned above, close proximity in a closed, humid environment will keep the virus active and more likely to cause infection. It is easy to forget because the particles and the air are invisible, but even with speech and breathing, the airflow changes drastically. If you communicate with each other without a mask in a short distance, you will always inhale the freshly exhaled aerosol.

In this study, even if you just mumbled such as you might in a business situation, the aerosol diffused 50 cm in a few seconds without a mask. I think that the risk is higher if you talk with a friend where you may be talking louder or laughing out loud.

Without a mask, the exhaled breath moves toward the front of the body due to the inertia force and diffuses randomly. If you wear a mask, the aerosol stays on the surface of your body and rises due to the heat of the body, preventing the aerosol from hitting people around you directly.

It is thought that once the aerosol has risen, it will continue to float and then come down; however, since the traveling distance will be longer, theoretically the water will evaporate during this period and the infectivity will decrease.

Masks are useful when facing each other at similar face heights to prevent contact with the fresh breath of another person. Furthermore, when you wear a mask, the aerosol rises from the top of your head. It flows between the scalp and the hair and is released from the top of the head. The scalp of an infected person wearing a mask is a warm and moist environment, and the exhaled breath containing the virus is constantly passing through.

It is better not to touch your mouth or eyes, pick your nose, or grab a sandwich and eat after touching the scalp or hair of another person without washing your hands. This is not just limited to beauticians and caregivers. We often get careless.

Can you describe how you carried out your latest research into COVID-19 and speaking and what you discovered?

I was able to carry out this experiment because of the professors at the Yamano College of Aesthetics and their enthusiasm for social contribution, and the interdisciplinary research organization of the Aoyama Gakuin University which induced me with a sense of responsibility.

Fortunately, the particle size of the exhaled aerosol and the particle size of an electronic cigarette was similar. The viral aerosol particles are problematic for infection, so we decided to use the electronic cigarette for the tracer particles. The liquid of the electronic cigarette was nicotine-free, and we took steps to make sure it was a healthy experiment for participants. A 3W laser sheet was irradiated and we photographed the scattered light of the smoke of the electronic cigarette with a camera.

The experimental system was very simple and is common in fluid experiments. However, in general, airflow experiments commonly use oil mist or dust for the tracer, which is not suitable for human experimentation. To avoid health hazards, we decided to use electronic cigarettes.

We adopted this method with the advice of Mr. Mikami of Kato Koken co. Ltd, a company specializing in optical measurement systems. All of our staff were non-smokers, and so it was hard at first. The exhaled breath behaved differently than originally expected, which was curious. When I summarized it according to the postural conditions, it became clear that the breath was moving according to the thermohydrodynamic mechanism.

Aerosol Transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Image Credit: Ingo Bartussek/Shutterstock.com

What role do masks and face shields play in preventing the spread of COVID-19?

It is well known that large droplets fly forward without a mask. It is important to wear a non-woven mask, as both exhaled aerosols and large droplets will not fly forward if you wear a non-woven mask. In contrast, urethane masks (which are popular in east Asia) and cloth masks can suppress large droplets, but allow exhaled aerosols to pass through.

By wearing a mask, the expiratory aerosol that has stagnated on the surface of the body slowly rises along the surface of the body due to the warmth of the body. This eliminates the exhaled aerosol that has just come out of the mouth directly hitting others.

Shortly after the pandemic began, it was widely recognized in Japan that face shields alone were meaningless. The face shield alone cannot effectively block droplets and aerosols. What was discovered in this study is that when facing down, the exhaled aerosol leaking from the upper and lower ends of the mask, even with the mask, is disturbed and heads downward.

Here, it was found that when the face shield and mask were worn, the exhaled aerosol became more likely to stay on the surface of the body, and the warmed aerosol did not go down. In other words, when a caregiver, a medical professional, a cosmetologist, or a masseuse approaches a person underneath, it is thought that the exposure dose of exhaled aerosol can be effectively reduced by wearing both a mask and a face shield.

What advice would you give to people that are visiting services such as hair salons and medical rooms?

I think it is a good idea to have a doctor or beautician always wear a non-woven mask. As mentioned above, the exhaled breath of a person who faces downwards tends to move downwards while being disturbed, even when wearing a mask.

For this reason, when lying down and undergoing treatment, there is a high possibility that the practitioner's exhaled aerosol, approaching from above, will hit the customers body. If you wear both a mask and a face shield, the exhaled aerosol will move upward along the service operator's body, preventing it from traveling to the customer below.

When facing upwards, the expiratory aerosol tends to diffuse upwards in a turbulent manner, even with a mask or face shield. This makes it difficult for practitioners approaching from above to avoid exhaled exposure. I feel that many jobs with a high risk of COVID-19 infection tend to be the type in which customers lie down and receive services, but I think that this is also related to the flow characteristics of exhaled breath.

When lying down, instead of being completely horizontal, if you wear a mask and lie with an inclined backrest, the exhaled breath tends to rise straight from the forehead. If the customer lies down with the backrest tilted to some extent and the practitioner understands that the updraft of exhaled air is generated from the customers' forehead, the practitioner will not be exposed to the exhaled breath directly.

At a beauty salon, the mask is an obstacle for customers when shampooing or cutting. With the mask on, exhaled breath rises from the crown. Without a mask, the exhaled breath tends to stagnate in front of the customer. In either case, the exhalation is not positively directed toward the practitioner who is behind or to the side, so I think that the presence or absence of the mask of the sitting customer does not affect the infection to the practitioner to that extent.

Do you believe that with further understanding of COVID-19, we can help to reduce its spread?

When the spread of COVID-19 began in 2020, it was said that the rate of spread of infection was slower in East Asian countries such as Japan than in Europe and the United States. I think there are various causes for this.

One of the factors is that East Asia is a culture with little skinship, is accustomed to wearing masks, and shampoo their hair a lot. I think that this cultural human behavior was related to the spread of infection.

From the results of this study, I feel that reducing skinship, wearing a mask, and shampooing are important actions to reduce the risk of infection. I think that it is possible to reduce the spread of infection by understanding when the risk of infection is high and changing our lifestyles.

The video I took was featured on Twitter and so on. There was a surprisingly large response, and I saw many responses fearful of exhalation. It is dangerous to be too scared, but I feel that this is one way to raise awareness of the danger of infection in society, visualizing what is invisible.

People wearing Masks. Image Credit: Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock.com

What are the next steps in your research?

Originally, I was not specialized in exhaled breath flow, but I think it would be interesting to examine the effects of movement of the human body, differences in the surrounding environment, and interference between the exhaled breaths of two people.

Since the quantitative study of aerosol infection has not been conducted, it may be useful to verify how much labeled aerosols settle in the nasal cavity and lungs of mammals. I would like to continue doing a lot of research without being bound by the field.

Where can readers find more information?

The article can be found here: Relationship between human exhalation diffusion and posture in a face-to-face scenario with utterance. Physics of Fluids. https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0038380

About Dr. Keiko Ishii

Keiko Ishii, Ph. D., is an assistant professor working at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan. She conducts a wide range of research in engineering and medical engineering using thermal fluid visualization and measurement technology.

As a Ph.D. student at the University of Tokyo, Keiko generated the non-invasive mixing method that can be used for the Lab-on-a-chip system and received a fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi, March 9 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday junked a PIL, which sought barring a political party from raising Jai Shri Ram slogan during West Bengal elections and also challenged the Election Commission's decision to conduct Assembly elections in the state in eight phases.

A Bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian told petitioner-advocate Manohar Lal Sharma that if he feels any poll norm as per Representation of People Act (RPA) is being violated then he should move the high court.

Sharma argued that he is against religious sentiments being destroyed and cited one political party using the Jai Shri Ram slogan continuously.

Sharma urged the apex court to stop this religious activity and religious sloganeering during election in West Bengal.

The bench reiterated that the top court is not the right forum, and he should move the high court.

The plea also sought a direction to the CBI to register an FIR into the alleged chanting of religious slogans during electioneering in West Bengal. The plea contended that the chanting of "Jai Shri Ram, other religious slogans are creating disharmony".

Sharma insisted that this is an offence under the IPC and the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

After a brief hearing in the matter, the bench said: "We don't agree with you. We have read the whole case, dismissed." The plea had said: "Whether using a provocative religious slogan 'Jai Shri Ram' is for electoral benefits as well as others is not violated S.123(3) & 125 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951," Sharma said holding of election in West Bengal in 8 phases is a violation of right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution. He pointed out elections, around the same time, in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry were being held in a single phase and also the election in Assam is going to be held in 3 phases.

"There is no law that has been framed yet empowering the Election Commission to adopt an unequal treatment of election among the 5 states as per their whim," said the plea.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Amid the ongoing against the three farm laws, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has extended the deployment of 93 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the capital till March 15 for law and order duties.

"The MHA has extended the deployment of 93 companies of CAPFs including Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Force (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) in Delhi till March 15," informed the ministry on Tuesday.

"Rest 20 companies of CRPF, BSF and CISF will be de-inducted after March 10," it added.

On February 24, addressing a Kisan mahapanchayat in Rajasthan's Sikar, Rakesh Tikait had threatened the central government and said that if the three laws are not repealed, the farmers will 'gherao' the Parliament with 40 lakh tractors.

Farmers have been protesting on different borders of the capital since November 26 last year against the three newly enacted farm laws - Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

The implementation of the three laws was, in January, put on hold by the Supreme Court.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The strains spread more easily and quickly than others, posing the threat of reinfections and the possibility of another resurgence of the disease, though studies so far suggest current vaccines offer some protection against the variants as well as prevent severe illness.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Ryan Murphy appears to be back at work on the 10th season of American Horror Story, as Hollywood gets back to business.

The anthology series has always made a point of shrouding each the theme of each season in mystery.

And production appears to be underway in the charming seaside location of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where star Leslie Grossman recently dropped a hint on her Instagram Story.

On location: Production on season 10 of American Horror Story appears to be underway in the charming seaside location of Provincetown, Massachusetts

Dropping hints: It comes as star Leslie Grossman recently dropped a hint on her Instagram Story

The actress shared a photo of the beach to her Instagram Story, after she was announced as part of the returning cast.

Finn Wittrock and Adina Porter have also been spotted around town, as well as AHS newcomers Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Macaulay Culkin.

Production has been using the name 'Pilgrim' as the title, which could be a hint at the new season's theme or a complete misdirect to throw off clever fans.

Since it's long been established that all of the show's seasons are connected, it could involve a throwback to season six, which featured ghosts of the lost colony of Roanoke, an English settlement that mysteriously vanished in the 16th century.

Beach babe: The actress shared a photo of the beach to her Instagram Story, after she was announced as part of the returning cast

Code name: Production has been using the name 'Pilgrim' as the title, which could be a hint at the new season's theme or a complete misdirect to throw off clever fans

It's all connected: Since it's long been established that all of the show's seasons are connected, it could involve a throwback to season six, which featured ghosts of the lost colony of Roanoke, an English settlement that mysteriously vanished in the 16th century

It comes after Murphy, who owns a house in the popular gay destination, posted a photo of the beach last May to Instagram, writing: 'American Horror Story. Clue.'

Fans began to speculate that it was a hint that mermaids would be involved, as Murphy later shared a promo for the new season to Instagram, featuring a woman's open mouth with razor sharp teeth.

Another teaser image showed a pair of hands clawing their way out of the water, which he captioned: 'Things are beginning to wash up on shore...'

Murphy shared a video last month to Instagram of the wave crashing in with the names of returning cast members, including Kathy Bates, Billie Lourd, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe and Angelica Ross.

Get a clue: It comes after Murphy, who owns a house in the popular gay destination, posted a photo of the beach last May to Instagram, writing: 'American Horror Story. Clue'

Fishy image: Fans began to speculate that it was a hint that mermaids would be involved, as Murphy later shared a promo for the new season to Instagram , featuring a woman's open mouth with razor sharp teeth

Washed up: Another teaser image showed a pair of hands clawing their way out of the water, which he captioned: 'Things are beginning to wash up on shore...'

Gang's all here: Murphy shared a video last month to Instagram of the wave crashing in with the names of returning cast members, including Kathy Bates, Billie Lourd, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe and Angelica Ross

Paulson teased her character to The Wrap last month: 'I don't know yet what it's like to play the gal I'm playing over on Horror Story this year, but I can tell you that I'm looking forward to it.

'I think the character may not be something you haven't seen  I don't mean I'm playing a character I've played before, I am not  but she's got a little bit of a few people rolled in there.'

She's portrayed several different roles over the years, appearing in the first eight seasons as a variety of characters.

The Ratched star added: 'But the most exciting thing for me is I get to have a hair color I've never had on the show, nor have I ever had it in life, and it's something I've always dreamt of doing, [but] never done. So I get to live out that fantasy, so that's exciting for me.'

Looking forward: Paulson teased her character to The Wrap last month: 'I don't know yet what it's like to play the gal I'm playing over on Horror Story this year, but I can tell you that I'm looking forward to it'

Crazy sex: Murphy revealed last May that Culkin has a 'very, very great insane part' that includes a 'crazy erotic sex' scene with Bates (pictured in October, 2018)

Murphy revealed last May that Culkin has a 'very, very great insane part' that includes a 'crazy erotic sex' scene with Bates.

He told E! News: 'I said, "OK, here's the pitch." And I told them the character and I told him he has crazy, erotic sex with Kathy Bates and does other things. And he paused and he goes, "This sounds like the role I was born to play." So, he signed up right then and there.'

Season 10 of American Horror Story was supposed to premiere last fall, but production was delayed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Murphy and production partner Brad Falchuk created the series in 2011, featuring a new horror story each season, with recurring cast members in different roles each time.

10 years later: Murphy and production partner Brad Falchuk created the series in 2011, featuring a new horror story each season, with recurring cast members in different roles each time
Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine does successfully neutralize the more contagious P.1 variant of the virus recently discovered in Brazil, new research shows.

Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech conducted the study with scientists from both companies and researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch. Blood samples from vaccinated individuals were tested against an engineered version of the Brazilian variant, the Washington Post reported. The samples came from participants in late-stage trials for the vaccine and were taken between two to four weeks after they received their second dose.

In the lab, the vaccine worked as well against the Brazilian variant as it did against the original virus, the Post reported. Last year, the vaccine showed 95 percent efficacy against the less contagious coronavirus strain. The findings were published March 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Earlier research from British and Brazilian scientists that has not been peer-reviewed suggested that P.1 was more contagious and better able to evade vaccines than previous versions of the virus, the Post reported. The newer variant was first detected in January and has since spread from the Amazonian city of Manaus to multiple countries, including the United States.

In the United States, 15 cases of the Brazilian variant have been reported in nine states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is far less than the 3,037 cases of the British variant that have been reported in 49 states so far.

As for vaccinations, more than 60 million Americans have gotten one shot and nearly 31.5 million people are now fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Another recent study on the P.1 variant, from researchers in Sao Paulo and at Washington University's School of Medicine in St. Louis, discovered that the vaccine developed by Chinese drugmaker Sinovac was ineffective against P.1, raising alarm bells.

The study, a preprint posted online last week, tested the convalescent plasma of eight individuals immunized with Sinovac's CoronaVac injection, which uses inactivated virus to stir an antibody response. The plasma samples failed to effectively neutralize the variant, researchers said.

New CDC guidelines give vaccinated Americans more freedom

New social distancing guidance released by the federal government on Monday gives fully vaccinated Americans more freedom to socialize and move through their communities.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people who are two weeks past their final shot can safely visit indoors with unvaccinated members of a single household at low risk of severe disease without wearing masks or social distancing. That recommendation would free many vaccinated grandparents who live near their unvaccinated children and grandchildren to gather for the first time since the pandemic began a year ago.

The CDC also said fully vaccinated people can gather indoors with those who are also fully vaccinated, and they do not need to be quarantined or tested after exposure to COVID-19.

"We know that people want to get vaccinated so they can get back to doing the things they enjoy with the people they love," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in an agency news release. "There are some activities that fully vaccinated people can begin to resume now in their own homes. Everyoneeven those who are vaccinatedshould continue with all mitigation strategies when in public settings. As the science evolves and more people get vaccinated, we will continue to provide more guidance to help fully vaccinated people safely resume more activities."

Some restrictions were still advised, even for the vaccinated. For example, if a vaccinated person lives in a group setting and is around someone with COVID-19, he or she should still stay away from others for 14 days and get tested, even without symptoms.

Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, welcomed the new guidelines, but added they have been too long in coming.

"The sooner we move to telling people if you're fully vaccinated, you don't have to wear masksthat will be an incentive for people to get vaccinated," Hotez told the Washington Post.

Other experts agreed.

"I'm disappointed this was not done sooner," said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. As a clinician, she said she has been bombarded with questions from patients about what they can and cannot do. Recently, to console a profoundly depressed patient, she told him it was safe for both of them to take off their masks and hug. "I sat with him and looked him in the face," she recalled. "It meant a lot to him."

The level of caution people need to exercise should be determined by the characteristics of those who are unvaccinated in a social setting, the CDC said. For instance, if a fully vaccinated person visits an unvaccinated friend who is 70, and therefore at risk of severe disease, the visit should also take place outdoors, with masks and physical distancing, the guidance says.

Advocates for older people embraced the new guidance, because many older people, especially those who live alone, have spent the past year in virtual isolation, they said.

Bill Walsh, vice president for communications for AARP, said that, "To the extent this allows people, grandkids, families, loved ones in nursing homes or assisted living [to interact], we welcome that," he added. "We've heard over the past year some heart-wrenching stories of family separation."

A global scourge

By Tuesday, the U.S. coronavirus case count passed 29.1 million while the death toll passed 525,000, according to a Times tally. On Tuesday, the top five states for coronavirus infections were: California with over 3.6 million cases; Texas with nearly 2.7 million cases; Florida with over 1.9 million cases; New York with over 1.7 million cases; and Illinois with more than 1.2 million cases.

Curbing the spread of the coronavirus in the rest of the world remains challenging.

In India, the coronavirus case count was over 11.2 million by Tuesday, a Johns Hopkins University tally showed. Brazil had over 11 million cases and more than 266,000 deaths as of Tuesday, the Hopkins tally showed.

Worldwide, the number of reported infections passed 117.2 million on Tuesday, with more than 2.6 million deaths recorded, according to the Hopkins tally.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the new coronavirus.

Copyright  2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Horizon postdoc Istvan Toth-Kiraly says adolescents who spend too much time online might be at risk of depressive symptoms, substance abuse and poor grades

Most teenagers don't remember life before the internet. They have grown up in a connected world, and being online has become one of their main sources of learning, entertaining and socializing.

As many previous studies have pointed out, and as many parents worry, this reality does not come risk-free. Whereas time on the internet can be informative, instructive and even pleasant, there is already significant literature on the potential harm caused by young children's problematic internet use (PIU).

However, a new study led by Istvan Toth-Kiraly, a Horizon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Substantive-Methodological Synergy Research Laboratory in Concordia's Department of Psychology, is one of only a few that examines PIU's effects on older adolescents. The paper was co-written by professor of psychology Alexandre Morin and Lauri Hietajarvi and Katariina Salmela-Aro of the University of Helsinki.

The paper, published in the journal Child Development, looks at data gathered by a longitudinal study of 1,750 high school students in Helsinki over three years.

It begins by asking three big questions: what were some of the predictors or determinants of PIU? How did PIU change over the course of late adolescence, in this case, ages 16-19? And what are the consequences of PIU among the age group?

At-risk signals

The researchers identified three principal determinants of PIU among adolescents. The first was loneliness, defined as a lack of satisfying interpersonal relationships or the perceived inadequacy of social networks. Other studies on PIU also identified loneliness as a predictor.

Parenting practices, as perceived by the teen, also predicted PIU. The researchers looked at both parental caring, such as the expressions of warmth, empathy, interest and closeness towards the child, and parental neglect, defined as the uneven availability or unresponsiveness to the child's needs.

Not surprisingly, better parenting is linked to lower PIU, while neglectful parenting is linked to higher PIU. The researchers noted the differences in how maternal and paternal behaviour affected usage.

Maternal caring especially was associated with lower PIU, suggesting that high-quality mother-child relationships might have led to a decrease in the need to use the internet excessively. Paternal neglect, on the other hand, had a stronger relationship with higher PIU, as a lack of guidance and limits hindered a teen's ability to set personal boundaries.

Finally, the researchers considered gender. They found boys more likely to engage in PIU than girls, as they tend to be prone to more addictive-like behaviour, are more impulsive and, as suggested by other studies, may have more online options such as gaming or watching YouTube videos or pornography. Girls may be more likely to be online for socializing purposes.

Circular and harmful effects

The researchers then looked at outcomes associated with PIU, again identifying three broad categories.

The first is depressive symptoms. If left unchecked, PIU appears to come with higher levels of depression. The two have been linked in previous studies, but Toth-Kiraly says their findings suggest a new interpretation.

"Our study tries to understand this relationship in a bi-directional or reciprocal way," he says. "We think that PIU and depressive symptoms are likely to be co-occurring instead of one determining the other. They likely reinforce one another over time."

The other outcomes linked to PIU are higher levels of substance abuse and lower levels of academic achievement. These were to be expected, and were also believed to be co-occurring.

Toth-Kiraly says some teens go through a phase of heavy internet use, usually around mid-adolescence. Time spent online tends to decrease as the children mature, develop their own goals and boundaries and form their first romantic relationships. He adds that being online for hours is not necessarily damaging, even if it does seem excessive to parents.

"If adolescents spend a lot of time on the internet but it doesn't really impact their mental health or their grades or doesn't seem to have any substantial negative consequences, then we cannot really say this is problematic behaviour," he says.

###
As cases surge worldwide, India continues to support its neighbours by supplying our very own COVID-19 vaccine. The most recent shipment was to the country Belize in Central America.

News Agency ANI reported that the shipment arrived in Belize on Tuesday (March 9) morning. One other such shipment was also sent to Jamaica.

In its latest update, the University`s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 117,130,044 and 2,599,596, respectively.

The US is the worst-hit country with the world`s highest number of cases and deaths at 29,047,214 and 525,750, respectively, according to the CSSE.

India comes in second place in terms of cases reported at 11,229,398.

Brazil currently accounts for the second-highest number of Covid-19 fatalities at 266,398, followed by Mexico (190,923) on the third place and India (157,853) on the fourth.

Meanwhile, the nations with a death toll above 50,000 are the UK (124,801), Italy (100,103), France (89,090), Russia (87,985), Germany (72,048), Spain (71,436), Iran (60,786), Colombia (60,598), Argentina (53,121) and South Africa (50,803).

Live TV
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Over 13,000 students have to date participated in Drinkawares Junior Cycle Alcohol Education Programme (JC AEP) which was the subject of the three-year longitudinal study carried out by Maynooth University.

This significant study, for the first time, tracks 1st to 3rd year students experiences of alcohol education in Ireland in real time.

As the national charity working to reduce and prevent alcohol misuse in Ireland, Drinkaware commissioned Maynooth Universitys Centre for Mental Health and Community Research to investigate the programmes effectiveness in particular its primary prevention goal to delay the age of first drink.

The programme involves 8-10 lessons delivered on a weekly/fortnightly basis by the trained teacher and to date 134 schools have undertaken the programme.

350+ students from 19 schools across the country took part in the evaluation that was conducted over the three-year period (2018  2020).

The report found that as the students progressed through the JC AEP, the proportion who expressed no intention or interest in drinking, rose from 30% in 1st year to 54% in 3rd year. The findings also show that participation led to substantial and sustained improvements in students knowledge and understanding of alcohol when compared with pre-programme delivery data.

Students knowledge of the impact of alcohol on overall health and wellbeing increased substantially and progressively from 22% pre-programme to 50% in 3rd year. A similar increase was found regarding students who reported knowing a lot about alcohols impact on mental health which also doubled from 23% pre-programme to 46% in 3rd year.

Furthermore, nearly half (46%) of participating students identified the negative impact of alcohol on physical and mental health as a reason why teenagers do not drink.

As the study followed participating students through their three formative years of secondary school, there was a marked shift across some of the results when comparing 2nd and 3rd year data. For instance, the 60% (approx.) of students who indicated that they had never drunk alcohol remained fairly stable between 1st and 2nd year, but then decreased sharply by 17% as students went from 2nd to 3rd year.

A disturbing result revealed in the study was that 38% of 3rd year participating students who drink, have already experienced one or more negative effects of alcohol consumption, such as physical fights, arguments, accidents/injury, and/or feeling physically sick/vomiting.

A recurring theme identified within the report was that of parents role in underage drinking. Parental permissiveness  even if this is only perceived by the student  and the ease with which alcohol can be accessed in the home setting, may either inhibit or enable underage drinking.

For instance, 57% of 3rd year students had first consumed alcohol either in their own or someone elses home, most saying they did so with little difficulty whilst only 1 in 4 said they got into trouble with parents for drinking.

In contrast to the 44% in 3rd year who cited tolerant parental views regarding alcohol, 19% indicated that their parents do not like to see them drinking, and 17% of those in 3rd year who had not started drinking cited concerns over their parents reaction as a deterrent to drinking.

The findings on the views of teachers reflected a general consensus that parents/guardians should take primary responsibility for alcohol education (63%) and that they either were not fulfilling this role or needed support to do so.

With regard to the participating students and teachers views of the JC AEP, the study reveals consistently high proportions of students in each year of the evaluation, rated the JC AEP highly, for example, 63% of students in Year 3 rated it as excellent, very good or good. 60% also said that they would recommend the programme to other students/schools.

Commenting on the report findings, Sheena Horgan, Drinkaware CEO said: 15 years of age is the average age of the first drink in Ireland. But average doesnt tell the full story. This study shows how attitudes and behaviours shift markedly across 13 to 15-year-olds (1st to 3rd year), meaning alcohol education before this age is vital. Maynooth Universitys rigorous and independent evaluation shows how programmes like Drinkawares JC AEP can make a significant contribution to the prevention/delay of underage drinking.

Lead author of the study, Professor Sinead McGilloway, Founder Director of the Centre for Mental Health and Community Research at Maynooth Universitys Dept. of Psychology said: To date, public policy on alcohol has primarily focused on older teenagers. However, our research clearly indicates that we need to engage with our children at a much earlier age.

"The collective findings of this study suggest that Drinkawares Alcohol Education Programme is a useful, feasible and high-quality programme that is successfully engaging and empowering young people to develop sustained improvements in knowledge, awareness, understanding, confidence and appropriate decision-making skills around the consumption of alcohol

"The results also highlight the important role that parents play in protecting and educating their children on alcohol, and a need to provide better support to them in this regard.

Commenting on the next steps for Drinkaware and the Junior Cycle Alcohol Education Programme Horgan said: With this research clearly indicating how alcohol education can be effective, the time to act is now. We must progress and scale evidence-informed education programmes, such as the JCAEP, at a national level and also look at potential programmes for 1112-year-olds if the disturbing trajectory of underage drinking and continuance of alcohol harm is to be halted.

"There is no place for alcohol in childhood, and through the collective efforts of Irish society, from educators to parents, to charities such as Drinkaware, we can make a difference to the next generations relationship with alcohol.
Capital expenditure in industrial sectors is expected to rise 45-55 per cent in financial year 2021-22 as the economy gains from a government's scheme to boost productivity, said a report by Crisil Research on Tuesday.

The India Outlook Report expects gross domestic product (GDP) growth to be at 11 per cent in fiscal 2022, after an estimated 8 per cent contraction this fiscal. The next fiscal, like the current, will have a low base optical growth in the first half and a rebound in the second.

The capex rise in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles, cement, auto and ancillary, metals and oil and gas will come on the back of a 35 per cent contraction in capex in the current fiscal. It will be driven by core sectors and the governments productivity linked incentive (PLI) scheme. Led by the oil and gas, that accounted for 30-32 per cent, close to 16000 manufacturing companies spent Rs3-3.5 trillion on capex annually over the past three years.

Without PLI, a meaningful recovery would have come only after two years in non-metal and cement sectors, said the report. PLI is directed at sectors that account for 30-35 percent of non-oil import bills.

For instance, automobiles and components worth Rs 80,000 crore to Rs 90,000 crorethe highest among all the sectors in value terms-- were imported from China and Korea in FY20. This was 20-25 per cent of Indias auto components requirements.

The second largest was the IT hardware (laptop, personal computers, tablets and servers) sector that imported goods worth Rs 25,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore from China and Hong Kong in FY20. This was 80-85 per cent of demand for such hard wares in the domestic market.

Meanwhile Crisil expects the high government spend across various sectors including manufacturing and infrastructure to ensure recovery in corporate revenue but added the recovery will be mainly "optical". The revenue of top 800 companies is expected to go up only 8 per cent in FY22 over FY19. The recovery it added will be led by exports, products and infra spends. However, of the 30-35 sectors spread across 800 only a third are likely to post double-digit growth over fiscal 2019. Most companies in the services sectors including aviation and hospitality may not even breach the FY19 levels and may see nearly a decade of revenue shaved off, it cautioned.
Tropical-adapted cattle, such as this Gyr x Holstein cross at Chessie Creek Farm in South Carolina, U.S.A., could contribute to global food security. Credit: Matt Wheeler, University of Illinois

What if, in the next five to 10 years, we could double or triple milk and meat availability in developing countries without converting more land to cattle production? Millions of hunger-related deaths and nutritional deficiencies could be prevented, giving farmers and families a real shot at prosperity.

It's not a pipe dream. Researchers leading the University of Illinois-Chessie Creek Farm Tropical-Adapted Cattle Project have successfully bred animals that thrive in hot climates and produce 10 times the milk of indigenous breeds.

Getting to this point took some luck, a great deal of effort, and a multi-million dollar investment, but the plan is to simply give elite tropical-adapted embryos away to developing countries. It's all part of a commitment by the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences(ACES) at Illinois to help feed the world by 2050.

"In many parts of the world, owning cattle means progressing out of poverty. The more cattle people have, the greater their wealth. But more cattle can impact wildlife populations, which can be important for the environment and tourism. So we thought, let's provide the milk production of 10 cows in one," says Matthew Wheeler, project leader and professor in the Department of Animal Sciences, part of the College of ACES.

In November 2020, Wheeler's team witnessed the birth of the first U.S.-bred Girolando heifer and purebred Brazilian Gyr bull calves at Chessie Creek Farmsin Walterboro, South Carolina. About 100 more Girolando calves are due in September.

Gyr cattle, with their humps, recurved horns, and drooping ears, are indigenous to tropical locales around the world. Unlike Holsteins, the most common and highest-producing dairy breed in the world, Gyrs don't mind the heat, but they only produce about 15% of what Holsteins deliver in each lactation.

Girolandos bring the best of the two breeds together. Wheeler's team breeds them by repeatedly mating Holstein and Gyr parents (and intermediate hybrids), resulting in animals that are five-eighths Holstein and three-eighths Gyr. Wheeler says his first Girolando heifer will be producing milk in 2022, and he expects yields at least 10 times that of Gyrs in their native range.

Girolandos are common in Brazil, but because of endemic disease issues, they can't be exported to other countries.

"If you're going to distribute them to the rest of the world, somebody had to breed them in a country that's high health status. Why not us?" Wheeler says. "At Illinois, we're good at dairy. Somebody's got to be the national expert in tropical dairy. Why not be audacious?"

Kim Kidwell, dean of the College of ACES, adds, "This project is an incredible example of how ACES research changes lives and captures the essence of what we do and why it matters. Matt and his team have shown great technical expertise, tenacity and heart in making high-yielding, tropical-adapted cattle a reality. I am extremely proud of their commitment to making a difference in the world by enhancing food security for people in need through amazing science."

Realizing the potential of Girolandos for the developing world, Wheeler connected with the owner of Chessie Creek Farm, who shares Wheeler's passion for improving lives through science.

The owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, says, "This has been an exciting and great learning experience for all involved. In the near future, we sincerely hope we will be providing high quality, low maintenance animals for developing countries. We envision that our farm will ultimately be able to produce vast quantities of embryos from these animals to feed hungry people around the world."

In addition to building up the herd in South Carolina, Wheeler is in discussions with governments, universities, and NGOs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia to plan distribution of embryos in the next year or two.

Importantly, the team will continue to support operations on the ground after embryos are delivered, providing the know-how to transfer the embryos into indigenous cattle and follow-on expertise through calving and lactation. They'll also assist with nutrition, animal management, future breeding, and genetic selection to ensure the long-term health and sustainability of the herds.

Wheeler says now that his team has worked out the process to develop Girolandos on U.S. soil, it should be fairly straightforward to improve other traits, such as muscle mass and marbling, for beef production in tropical hybrids. And in the future, with continued support, the project could expand to other animal production systems, including swine, sheep, and goats.

"The data resulting from the project, its analysis, and results will inform future decision-making not only for the project but the direction of food production for "Feed the Future' initiatives to come in those developing countries," Wheeler says. "Ultimately, we're confident this work will result in greater food and income security where it's needed most."

Explore further Increasing temperatures will hit meat and milk production in East Africa
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Nursing home visits and greater freedoms for fully vaccinated people are being considered as part of a vaccine bonus.

It is likely that Nphet will this week agree to allow nursing home visits as the vast majority of nursing home residents and staff will be vaccinated.

Nphet will consider the issue on Thursday, with visits being resumed as soon as a week or 10 days later.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US released advice today, saying that fully vaccinated people can gather indoors together without masks or physical distancing.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said Nphet will also prepare similar advice for people who have been fully vaccinated as a vaccine bonus in its advice to Government ahead of April 5 when the current Level 5 lockdown will be reviewed.

Read More

Im hopeful over the next few weeks that we can start to tell people what the bonus from vaccination is and what it means, what vaccination means that you can or cant do, he told Independent.ie.

But equally again, we have to balance that because not everyone in society will be vaccinated, vaccines arent 100pc protective.

He also said there needs to be further data on how the vaccine affects transmissibility, although it is likely that it has significant impact.

Nursing home visits will be looked at specifically this week, as even without the vaccine roll-out, community transmission has been falling steadily.

Its appropriate even in that context, of looking at the issue of nursing home visitation given the really significant impact this pandemic has had on people living in those settings over the past year, said Dr Glynn.

Of course on top of that, we have vaccines, the vast majority of nursing homes now have been vaccinated so hopefully there will be a vaccine bonus for people over the next while.

He said that while it may not be normality, the vaccine bonuses may prove to make life a little bit easier.

It wont be normality but something a little bit easier versus the really tough time that people have gone through in the past year.

He was speaking as no deaths and 437 new cases were confirmed on Monday night.

Professor Philip Nolan said the reproductive R number has stabilised at 0.7 to 0.8, showing sustained progress in suppressing transmission.

A new Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) report published on Monday showed that the devastating third wave of Covid-19 began as early as November 22 before the country opened up in early December for Christmas.

Prof Nolan warned that we are in an enormously precarious situation in reopening so that the virus does not bite us.

All pre-Christmas tells us is that when we get to March, April and May, we need to be immensely careful that the level that we have succeeded in suppressing the disease to, doesn't bite us in this space of a few very short weeks, he said.
Whilst our libertarian friends decry Senator Hawley's "toxic populism" and newfound love for the working-class . . . Again and again we remind our readers to FOLLOW THE MONEY as the Missouri leader's newfound popularity is confirmed by big bucks now starting to flow by way of small donations.

Read more . . .
To quantify this risk, Infosys and Interbrand identified the brand factors most impacted when a company suffers a data breach - presence, affinity, and trust - and simulated the resulting brand value at risk in the event of a breach, using Interbrand's proprietary brand valuation methodology. Infosys and Interbrand found that industries such as Technology, Financial services and Automotive might suffer a higher overall brand value at risk from data breaches, whereas Luxury brands and Consumer Goods face greater value at risk as a percentage of their net income. Specifically, the report quantified the brand value risk different industries face because of a data breach, including:

Technology  Up to $29b brand value risk (up to 53 percent of 2020 net income)

 Up to brand value risk (up to 53 percent of 2020 net income) Financial Services  Up to $2.6b brand value risk (up to 52 percent of 2020 net income)

 Up to brand value risk (up to 52 percent of 2020 net income) Automotive  Up to $4.2b brand value risk (up to 77 percent of 2020 net income)

 Up to brand value risk (up to 77 percent of 2020 net income) Consumer Goods - Up to $5b brand value risk (up to 114 percent of 2020 net income)

- Up to brand value risk (up to 114 percent of 2020 net income) Luxury  Up to $2.4b brand value risk (up to 115 percent of 2020 net income)

Vishal Salvi, Chief Information Security Officer & Head Cyber Security Practice, Infosys said, "Cybersecurity for long was seen as a cost of doing business. However, in this digital age, where a company's reputation is based on its ability to protect customer data and establish digital trust, cybersecurity is becoming a business differentiator. Through this report, we bring a novel approach to quantifying the impact of a data breach to the brand value to help businesses understand and evaluate if the cybersecurity investments they are making are proportionate to the risk they face. It also reinforces the need for CISOs to engage with the board and build a robust governance ecosystem while employing a 'secure by design' approach to safeguard their brand value and reputation "

Ameya Kapnadak, Chief Growth Officer (India), Interbrand, said, "There's a fundamental shift in how brands engage with their customers. As the lines between the physical and virtual worlds increasingly blur, and brands rely more and more on the digital world to create unique experiences for their customers, data breaches have the potential to dent the very core of the brand's relationship with its customers. These shifts underscore the need to re-evaluate 'hygiene' aspects of customer experience, like cybersecurity."

For the study, Infosys partnered with Interbrand to simulate the value at risk for a brand in the event of a data breach. Interbrand's global team of valuation experts estimated the impact of a breach on a brand strength with scores from Best Global Brand (BGB) 2020 as a benchmark. The simulation used these 'post breach' brand strength scores to estimate the "Value at Risk" due to a breach, on the Best Global Brands. CMOs, CISOs and other decision-makers can leverage the methodology as a template to help them understand similar risks they might face to their brand value and calculate the right level of cybersecurity investment for them.

For a full copy of the report, please click HERE

About Interbrand

At Interbrand, we believe that growth is achieved when an organization has a clear strategy and delivers exceptional customer experiences. We do both, through a combination of strategy, creativity, and technology that helps drive growth for our clients' brands and businesses. With a network of 21 offices in 16 countries, Interbrand is a global brand consultancy, and publisher of the highly influential annual Best Global Brands and Breakthrough Brands reports, and Webby Award-winning brandchannel. Interbrand is part of the Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) network of agencies. For more information, please contact us, or follow Interbrand on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Methodology

Having pioneered brand valuation in 1988, Interbrand have a deep understanding of the impact a strong brand has on key stakeholder groups that influence the growth business. Interbrand was the first company to have its methodology certified as compliant with the requirements of ISO 10668 (requirements for monetary brand valuation) and played a key role in the development of the standard itself.

There are three key components to all of Interbrand's valuations: an analysis of the financial performance of the branded products or services, of the role the brand plays in purchase decisions, and of the brand's competitive strength:

1. Financial Analysis

This measures the overall financial return to an organization's investors, or its economic profit. Economic profit is the after-tax operating profit of the brand, minus a charge for the capital used to generate the brand's revenue and margins.

2. Role of Brand

This measures the portion of the purchase decision attributable to the brand as opposed to other factors (for example, purchase drivers such as price, convenience, or product features). The Role of Brand Index (RBI) quantifies this as a percentage.

3. Brand Strength

Brand Strength measures the ability of the brand to create loyalty and, therefore, sustainable demand and profit into the future. Brand Strength analysis is based on an evaluation across 10 factors that Interbrand believes constitute a strong brand. Performance in these areas is judged relative to other brands in the industry and relative to other world-class brands. The Brand Strength analysis delivers an insightful snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of the brand and is used to generate a road map of activities to grow the brand's strength and value into the future.

4. Value at Risk

For the purposes of this study, we estimated the Value at Risk that the Best Global Brands might have, in the event of a data breach. To do this we first arrived at estimates of a "post breach" brand strength score based on the brand strength factors that the breach might most impact  presence, affinity and trust. Using these post-breach brand strength scores allowed us to calculate the 'post breach' brand value. Finally, comparing the lower 'post-breach' brand value to the original brand value gave us the estimated Value at Risk.

About Infosys Ltd.

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 46 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

Safe harbor:

"Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects and financial expectations are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding Covid-19 and the effects of government and other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law."

SOURCE Infosys
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Kawau Volunteer Coastguard has started urgent fundraising for a $250,000 upgrade to its rescue boat and is inviting the community to cruise for a cause.

The boat is 11 years old and is scheduled for a refit later this year to allow volunteer crew to continue their work.

The Kawau unit is hosting a twilight cruise along the Matakana Coast, around Kawau Island, Moturekareka Island and Motuketekete Island, as well as up the Mahurangi River on Thursday, March 25, from 6pm to 10pm.

Tickets are $150 and include a welcome drink, surf n turf style buffet and prize entry. It will be limited to 100 passengers.

The cruise is sponsored by Kawau Cruises, Sculptureum, Warkworth Butchery, Schnapper Rock seafood, New World Warkworth and Mediaworks radio.

Without the community supporting us, we cannot do our job of saving lives at sea, crewman Paul Steinkamp says.

Kawau Coastguard has been kept busy this summer. It performed 13 rescues between Anniversary Weekend and Waitangi Weekend alone.

In a midweek rescue, crew responded to a father and two small children in distress.

The man could not get his engine started and his boat was drifting onto rocks at the entrance to the Mahurangi River.

Coastguard volunteers got a line to the vessel and transferred the young children to the rescue boat while the mechanical fault was resolved.

The next day, a large steel boat was taking on water and would have soon been lost.

While two crewmen pumped out water, volunteers were able to locate the breach and patch it with copper, wood and wedges.

Kawau Coastguard is entirely operated by volunteers who are provided training by Coastguard New Zealand

Paul says the rescue service is often all that stands between boaties being stranded. Some cases are a matter of life and death.

Buy tickets: https://kawau-coastguard-twilight-cruise.lilregie.com
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
WASHINGTON  President Bidens fellow residents in the nations capital are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 at a slower rate than almost anywhere else in the country.

Out of 59 U.S. states and territories, the District of Columbia currently ranks 55th in terms of the number of residents who have been vaccinated. Only the U.S. Virgin Islands, Georgia, Puerto Rico and Micronesia have managed to give a smaller percentage of their populations at least one vaccine shot, according to data from the New York Times.

President Biden at the White House on Monday. (Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Faced with these figures, local leaders in D.C. and the surrounding suburbs have asked the Biden administration for help with the vaccine rollout due to the large number of federal workers in the area. So far, those requests have gone unanswered.

Rep. Don Beyer is one of six House members representing the D.C. metropolitan area who sent a letter to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 18 asking the federal government to federalize its response to vaccinating its employees with a direct allocation. The letter cited the fact that the national capital region is home to the largest concentration of federal employees, many of whom qualify as essential workers.

A source said the letter, which was signed by members from Virginia and Maryland as well as Washingtons nonvoting House delegate, did not receive a response.

We continue to feel strongly that the federal government should vaccinate its own employees through a separate, federalized allocation, and we remain hopeful that the Biden administration will consider our request, Beyer, a Democrat whose northern Virginia district includes some of the citys major suburbs, told Yahoo News.

Right now local jurisdictions in the national capital region are having to vaccinate the large number of federal workers who qualify as essential under vaccination guidelines. Its a big labor pool that affects our vaccination efforts in a unique way, making the lines and waits longer for the federal workforce and everyone else.

Story continues

Beyer further said hes concerned about the number of essential workers in the region reporting to work in person who still cant get a vaccine.

All of these problems would be made significantly better if the federal government can vaccinate its own workforce, he said.

A nurse administers a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Los Angeles. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

Beyer and the other local members of Congress arent the only ones who have asked the government for help vaccinating federal workers in the region. On Feb. 10, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, along with Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, sent a letter to the heads of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency asking the agencies to vaccinate some of the federal workforce in the area.

Specifically, the local officials asked the Biden administration to establish a federally supported and operated vaccine site with its own dedicated supply for the more than 281,000 federal workers in the region. The letter noted that an unusually high number of these workers are classified as essential, making them a burden on the early stages of the vaccine rollout.

The District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia simply do not have the resources available to support these priority vaccinations, the letter said.

Soon after the letter was sent, multiple local news outlets reported that the request had been denied. However, a source with one of the local jurisdictions who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of ongoing negotiations said that while the federal agencies initially rejected the request, they subsequently agreed to reconsider it.

A spokesperson for FEMA told Yahoo News that the request from D.C., Maryland and Virginia is currently still under review.

We're looking at a host of options for what support FEMA may be able to provide to assist, augment or expedite vaccine delivery. As such, it would be premature to discuss publicly until we have explored all those options, the spokesperson said.

FEMA reviews all requests from states, territories and tribes that are submitted and is working with our partners to provide federal support through deployment of personnel, equipment and supplies, and expedited funding to assist, augment and expedite vaccines to everyone in America.

A source familiar with the situation further said, The administration is laser-focused on expanding vaccine supply for all Americans and in active discussions with Maryland, Virginia and D.C. about how we can continue to help their vaccination efforts.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser. (Bill O'Leary/Pool/Getty Images)

Spokespeople for the governors of Virginia and Maryland did not respond to requests for comment. But D.C. Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio, who also serves as Bowser's chief of staff, credited the new administration with being more transparent about vaccine supplies and doing more to deliver doses.

Falcicchio, however, also said the request for federal support is still pending and argued that it would help officials in the region with their vaccine rollout.

It is a lot smoother for all of us if the federal government employees have a  single access point for the vaccine, and it helps us take care of our residents a little bit better, he said.

Around the country, there is still more demand for vaccines than supply. The Biden administration has dramatically increased the stockpile of vaccines and announced on March 2 that there will be enough on hand for every adult in the country by the end of May.

In the meantime, multiple states and territories have made requests for federal support. The situation in D.C., however, is unique because of the amount of federal workers in the region. Its also notable because of how much the citys vaccine rollout has lagged behind the rest of the country.

Both Maryland and Virginia are near the middle of the pack in terms of the percentage of residents who have been vaccinated. Meanwhile, Washington is near the bottom, and its rollout has been plagued by technical issues. The figures are particularly stark given the fact that the District of Columbia is smaller than almost any other U.S. territory in terms of physical size. And unlike island territories like Puerto Rico, it does not have the challenges of distributing vaccines across a wide and sometimes inhospitable area with remote pockets of people.

Part of the issue has been that a large number of nonresidents have been vaccinated in D.C. According to data from the city, over 37 percent of the vaccines that have been administered there have gone to nonresidents. Falccichio, the mayors chief of staff, explained that this is due to the fact that a large portion of the citys workforce comes from Maryland and Virginia.

What we see in our numbers is that we see a lot of our essential workers that we are vaccinating, and that goes from health care workers all the way to teachers, childcare providers  live outside of the district, Falccichio said.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio. (Marvin Joseph/Washington Post via Getty Images)

Late last year, during the initial weeks of the vaccine rollout, both Maryland and Virginia donated some of their supply to Washington. However, those additional doses were not enough to offset the number of nonresidents in the city who have been vaccinated.

Falcicchio described getting more support to vaccinate the federal workforce as one of the citys top concerns at the moment.

In general, we need more vaccines, but thats not unique to the district, he said. Dealing with the federal workforce helps us manage demand, and thats what's so important right now.

In recent months, debate has heated up about statehood for both D.C. and Puerto Rico. Both territories are near the bottom of the vaccine ranking, and Falcicchio said it is apparent to the citys leaders that not being a state has hampered their vaccine rollout.

There are a lot of things in the District of Columbia that would be easier if we had two senators and a member of Congress who had a vote. So that is definitely the case, he said.

When you talk about sort of the regional delegation, sending letters and really advocating on behalf of their residents, we are handicapped in that sense because we don't have those senators and a member of Congress who can vote.

____

Read more from Yahoo News:
CHICAGO, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Easterseals Ambassador Stephanie Thomas, a disability fashion stylist and creative director in Los Angeles, is leading an initiative to change how the world defines and views women with disabilities during Women's History Month in March. With a group of disabled women and photographer Brad Swonetz, Thomas is recreating magazine covers of iconic women of color like, Naomi Sims, Jennifer Lopez, Selena Quintanilla, Lena Horne and more. The campaign launches on March 8th, recognized as International Women's Day, to celebrate these BIPOC female trailblazers with disabilities as iconic game-changers and history makers.

In 2004, Stephanie Thomas developed her Disability Fashion Styling System  which guides her work as the founder of Cur8able, a social enterprise using fashion styling as a tool to eradicate negative perceptions of people with disabilities (PWD). Thomas has followed clothing and retail trends for PWD since the early 90's with one goal in mind - solving dressing challenges. Although starting a business was not Thomas' desire, in 2006, while working as a morning-drive radio deejay, she became frustrated by the number of in-store clothing options designed for pets and the lack of clothing options designed for wheelchair users. So she launched The PJ Deejay campaign , and it lasted a year, concluding with a fashion show featuring women with and without disabilities, and Thomas' inevitable journey as a social entrepreneur began. In 2010, she launched her first website about dressing with disabilities. In 2015, she changed the name of that website to Cur8able.com, and it wasn't until 2018 that she finally turned her life's work into a business. Today, Cur8able, LLC has six ambassadors, Thomas dubs the "Cur8tors," who post weekly on Cur8able social media platforms. These Cur8tors are the women Thomas styled and Swonetz photographed for the campaign in Los Angeles.

As a model for the shoot herself, Stephanie, a congenital amputee missing digits, recreated the 1969 Life Magazine cover of model and trailblazing wig-and-beauty entrepreneur Naomi Sims. Thomas says this cover meant a lot to her, being born in 1969 and growing up in the 70's where there were not very many women with dark brown skin featured as models. Sims blazed her own trail going on to become one of the most iconic models of her time. After five years in the industry, she decided to move into the wig and beauty industry, filling a niche by creating products for Black women. Although different paths, Thomas also sees herself as an outsider who has fought to create a space for people with disabilities in the fashion industry.

"This Cur8able production is an example of how I use fashion styling to challenge ableist perceptions. I style to honor disabled bodies, not hide them, not apologize for them, and not make people feel sorry for them," Thomas states.

Thomas was named an Easterseals Ambassador earlier this year, one of six women with disabilities who are national influencers and leaders in the disability community. They are partnering with Easterseals, one of the nation's leading nonprofit providers of services and advocacy for the one in four Americans living with disability today, to highlight issues that affect the disability community and affect change in assuring equal representation and inclusion of these 61 million Americans.

About Easterseals

Driven by its purpose to change the way the world defines and views disability, Easterseals makes profound, positive differences in people's lives everyday through its life-changing services and powerful advocacy. For more than 100 years, Easterseals has served as an indispensable resource for individuals living with disabilities, veterans, seniors, and their families. Together, our Affiliates in communities nationwide serve 1.5 million people annually through a variety of services including early intervention; autism services; inclusive childcare; medical rehabilitation including physical, occupational, and speech therapies; behavioral health services; workforce development programs; adult day services; respite; transportation; and more. In schools, workplaces, and communities, we're fostering environment where everyone is included and valued  making a real and positive impact on us all. Join us in ensuring that everyone  regardless of age or ability  is 100% included and 100% empowered. Learn more at www.easterseals.com.

SOURCE Easterseals

Related Links

http://www.easterseals.com


English German



NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH IT WOULD BE UNLAWFUL TO DO SO.

Pratteln, Switzerland, March 9, 2021  Santhera Pharmaceuticals (SIX: SANN) announces that while a large majority of 89 % of bondholders represented at yesterdays bondholders meeting voted in favor of the resolutions proposed by the Company, the required threshold of 2/3 of all bonds outstanding to pass such resolutions was not met. Bondholders may still cast their vote for the resolution that would enable a restructuring of the CHF 60 million 5% Convertible Bonds due 2022.

A total principal amount of CHF 39,130,000 (65%) of the bonds was represented at the meeting and thereof CHF 34,775,000 or 89% voted in favor of the resolution. However, these votes in favor, representing 58% of the total bonds outstanding did not meet the required threshold of 2/3 (or CHF 40 million) for the resolution to be passed. Bondholders who have not yet cast a vote may still do so within a period of a maximum two months, unless the Company would decide on a shorter period to apply.

Santhera has determined that a restructuring of the Bonds is required to enable Santhera to raise additional financing, if the pivotal VISION-DMD readout expected for Q2-2021 is positive, and is therefore also crucial to preserve the Company as a going concern until after such subsequent financing.

We are very thankful to the bondholders who already supported our motions. At the same time, and in order to achieve this crucial resolution for Santhera, I encourage all bondholders who have not voiced their opinion yet to submit their votes in order for the resolution to still be approved, said Dario Eklund, CEO of Santhera. In anticipation of continued bondholder support, we are looking forward to the EGM and hope that our proposals will be approved by our shareholders.

Santhera has called an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to be held on March 18, 2021, where the Board will propose to the shareholders, among other items, the authorization and issuance of the shares required to restructure its outstanding bonds.

Related Documents

Forms to cast bondholder votes are available here .

Invitation to the Bondholders Meeting (March 8, 2021), the EGM (March 18, 2021) and accompanying documents: http://www.santhera.com/investors-and-media/investor-toolbox/share-bondholder-meetings

Press release Santhera Announces Corporate Update and Proposal to Strengthen Capital Structure: Link .

Corporate calendar

March 18, 2021 Extraordinary General Meeting

April 27, 2021 Publication of annual results and Annual Report 2020

June 22, 2021 Annual General Meeting

About Santhera

Santhera Pharmaceuticals (SIX: SANN) is a Swiss specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative medicines for rare neuromuscular and pulmonary diseases with high unmet medical need. Santhera has an exclusive license for all indications worldwide to vamorolone, a first-in-class dissociative steroid with novel mode of action, currently investigated in a pivotal study in patients with DMD as an alternative to standard corticosteroids. The clinical stage pipeline also includes lonodelestat (POL6014) to treat cystic fibrosis (CF) and other neutrophilic pulmonary diseases as well as an exploratory gene therapy approach targeting congenital muscular dystrophies. Santhera out-licensed ex-North American rights to its first approved product, Raxone (idebenone), for the treatment of Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) to Chiesi Group. For further information, please visit www.santhera.com .

Raxone is a trademark of Santhera Pharmaceuticals.

For further information please contact:

public-relations@santhera.com or

Eva Kalias, Head External Communications

Phone: +41 79 875 27 80

eva.kalias@santhera.com

Disclaimer / Forward-looking statements

This publication is not intended to constitute an offer or solicitation to purchase or invest in securities of Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG in any jurisdiction.

The securities referred to in this publication, including in connection with the contemplated transaction described in this publication, may not be publicly offered, directly or indirectly, in Switzerland within the meaning of the Swiss Financial Services Act ("FinSA"). Neither this communication nor any other information material relating to the securities referred to in this publication constitutes advertisement within the meaning of the FinSA or a prospectus pursuant to the FinSA, and no such prospectus has been or will be prepared for or in connection with the transaction described in this publication.

This publication does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase, any securities in the United States. The securities of Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG to which these materials relate have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. There will not be a public offering of securities in the United States.

This publication may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG and its business. Such statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Readers should therefore not place undue reliance on these statements, particularly not in connection with any contract or investment decision. Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

# # #

Attachment
Mar. 8WILLMAR  Tuesday, March 9, is Township Day and county townships across the state will be participating by holding their annual meetings.

The meetings are held every year on the second Tuesday of March.

"If you live in a township, please participate in your township's annual meeting on Tuesday, March 9," said Steve Fenske, general counsel for the Minnesota Association of Townships in a news release.

Minnesota has 1,781 townships across 87 counties, totaling approximately 914,174 residents.

Times and locations for individual township meetings can be found in the published notice in the local newspaper or by contacting the township clerk.
Courtesy of Disneyland Resort

Since the announcement last week that California theme parks can reopen as early as April 1, speculation has been swirling about when Disneyland might reopen. On Tuesday, we got the closest answer weve heard so far: Disney CEO Bob Chapek said today in the Walt Disney Company annual shareholders meeting that the park is eyeing an opening of late April.

We are encouraged that theme parks now have a path toward reopening this spring, getting thousands of people back to work and greatly helping neighboring businesses and our entire community, Disneyland President Ken Potrock said March 5 when the guidance was announced by the state. With responsible Disney safety protocols already implemented around the world, we cant wait to welcome our guests back and look forward to sharing an opening date soon.
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
New Delhi, March 9 : Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India Girish Chandra Murmu has been re-appointed as the chairman of the panel of External Auditors of the United Nations for 2021.

Presently, the panel consists of 13 countries -- India, Germany, Chile, China, United Kingdom, France, Philippines, Switzerland, Italy, Ghana, Indonesia, Canada and Russia. The CAG of India was initially elected as Chairman of the Panel for 2020.

As the chairman, the CAG of India plays a key role in achieving the panel's objective of greater degree of collaboration and coordination, and exchange of information on audit methods and findings, among the Panel members.

CAG leads the panel as a distinctive forum to support the delivery of high quality, standards-based assurance, to ensure that reported financial information provides a transparent and accurate basis for the financial decisions made by the United Nations and its specialised agencies.

Like any other organisation, the accounts and management operations of the United Nations, the Specialized Agencies (WHO, FAO, WFP, WIPO, and others) and the International Atomic Energy Agency are required to be audited and reported on periodically by independent external auditors.

The UN General Assembly in 1959 established the Panel of External Auditors, comprising the individual external auditors of the United Nations system, who are also Heads of Supreme Audit Institutions, that is, Comptroller and Auditors General of their respective countries.

The CAG of India has been the external auditor of various international organisations.

He has earlier also been on the UN Board of Auditors from 1993 to 1999 and from 2014 to 2020. A Presently, he is the external auditor of the World Health Organization, Geneva (2020 - 2023) and Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome (2020 - 2025) and Inter Parliamentary Union (2020-2022).

In recent past, he has been the External Auditor of World Food Programme, World Intellectual Property Organization, International Atomic Energy Agency, UN World Tourism Organization, International Organization for Migration, International Maritime Organization, Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and others.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is one of the largest supreme audit institutions in the world, with a large human resource pool which is professionally qualified in diverse fields and is highly regarded in the international community of Supreme Audit Institutions. A The CAG of India chairs the Knowledge Sharing Committee - one of the four major committees of International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) besides being a member of a number of other standards setting committees and sub-committees.

He is on the governing board of INTOSAI and ASOSAI.A By virtue of his active participation in these international forums, the CAG is closely associated with activities in establishing standards, best practices and guidance in different areas of audit for use by the SAI community at large.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
37th anniversary of Operation Bluestar: What is Operation Bluestar, why was it carried out?

'Truth will triumph': Navjot Singh Sidhu sticks to his guns over rift with Amarinder Singh

ED raids Punjab MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira in money-laundering case

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Mar 09: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of Punjab MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira and a few others on Tuesday in connection with a money-laundering case linked to narcotics trafficking and the creation of an alleged fake passport, officials said.

They said the searches are being carried out in Chandigarh, some other locations in Haryana as well as in Punjab and Delhi.

The action is being carried out under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is aimed at gathering more evidence to take forward the probe, the officials said.

The PMLA probe is related to alleged drugs trafficking and a fake passport case, they said, adding that a few accused in the case are lodged in jail.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Khaira is a legislator of his own party -- Punjab Ekta Party. He was elected to the state Assembly in 2017 on a ticket of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 10:44 [IST]
HOUSTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The felony indictment of Houston Police Department narcotics Officer Felipe Gallegos is politically motivated and part of Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg's anti-police agenda, stated attorneys for the 12-year department veteran officer.

During a news conference one day after the murder indictment was announced, Houston trial lawyer Rusty Hardin said the charges Officer Gallegos faces are the result of Ms. Ogg "jumping on the bandwagon" of a political issue to further her career.

"A Harris County grand jury, at the request of the District Attorney's office, indicted a hero. No question about it. They indicted a hero," said Mr. Hardin. "Everyone that was out there on August 28 of 2019 on Hardy Street knows that this man right here, Felipe Gallegos, was a hero. He saved lives in a situation in which four different police officers were shot."

Officer Gallegos is accused of shooting homeowner Dennis Tuttle during a drug raid after he and four other officers used a no-knock warrant to enter Mr. Tuttle's southeast Houston home. Gunfire ensued, leading to the deaths of Mr. Tuttle and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas.

Police investigators determined that the officer who led the raid had lied about buying drugs at Mr. Tuttle's home, but Mr. Hardin said Officer Gallegos and others in his squad were unaware of that deception and acted appropriately when they came under gunfire. Mr. Hardin added that Officer Gallegos was doing what he thought he needed to do to save his life and the lives of his fellow officers.

According to Mr. Hardin, the grand jury declined Officer Gallegos' request to testify.

"It's been very challenging just because I haven't been awarded the opportunity to tell my side of the story," said Officer Gallegos during the news conference. "To be able to explain that I'm not the bad person that I'm being painted to be, it's been challenging my entire family and my kids. There's not a better way to explain it."

Officer Gallegos is free on bond after Mr. Hardin requested that a Harris County judge reduce his bond from $150,000 to $50,000.

Officer Gallegos is represented by attorneys Rusty Hardin, John MacVane, Naomi Howard, and Rachel Lewis of Houston-based Rusty Hardin & Associates. The firm's of counsel attorneys Letitia Quinones and Doug Murphy also will serve as key members of the trial team.

To view the press conference in its entirety, click here.

Media Contact :

Jennie Bui-McCoy

800-559-4534

[email protected]

SOURCE Rusty Hardin & Associates, LLP
A hairdresser who lost her job in lockdown is set to become a millionaire by modelling lingerie online - and has moved her family to Spain with her new-found income.

Kylie Biss, 32, from Leeds, makes 160,000-a-month selling pictures on OnlyFans under the name Gracey Kay.

The mother is set to become a millionaire in months after launching her page at the start of the pandemic.

She has ditched her 18,000-a-year job as a self-employed hairdresser in Leeds and has moved her family to sunny Alicante, Spain.

Her OnlyFans wealth meant she could buy a villa with a pool and a 44,000 Ford Mustang GT5.

Kylie Biss, 32, from Leeds, makes 160,000-a-month selling images on OnlyFans under the name Gracey Kay

And Ms Biss - who was bullied out of school as a teen - says sharing pictures of herself has given her a newfound confidence.

She said: 'People were giving me compliments and saying nice things which gave me confidence. It makes me feel special.

'There are people who think I should be ashamed of myself, but I'm not - I'm proud of it.'

OnlyFans allows creators to upload content behind a paywall and charge subscribers to see it. They can also interact with their fans by sending them pictures and messages.

The content can be about anything, but the vast majority post X-rated videos and pictures.

Ms Biss had been a hairdresser since she was forced out of school by bullies aged 14.

She worked hard, got married, had children and bought a house - but when the coronavirus pandemic hit she lost all work.

The mother (pictured) is set to become a millionaire in months after launching her page at the start of the pandemic. She has ditched her 18,000-a-year job as a self-employed hairdresser in Leeds and has moved her family to sunny Alicante, Spain

A friend suggested OnlyFans, and nervously she thought she would give it a try.

She said: 'It did set me back, getting bullied at school. But I'm proud I've got through that and now done well for myself.

'It gave me the motivation to do something with my life.

'At first doing OnlyFans I was nervous.

'I wasn't very body confident, and wasn't very confident in myself.'

Ms Biss charges subscribers 2.15 for topless pictures and more for customised videos and interactive one-on-one sessions

Her OnlyFans wealth meant she could buy a villa with a pool and a 44,000 Ford Mustang GT5 (pictured)

She sometimes makes 360 by selling just one video.

'A year ago I wasn't earning anything at all, and now I'm one of the highest paid models on OnlyFans,' she said.

However her life was ripped apart last month when one of her X-rated videos was leaked - and sent to her family and friends in a revenge-porn style attack.

The video spread through her hometown of Otley in Leeds.

It was the first time Ms Biss's extended family had heard about her occupation.

Ms Biss - who was bullied out of school - says sharing pictures of herself has given her a newfound confidence

'It's so embarrassing - I've been crying non-stop,' she added.

'My extended family found out about my career from the leak - and haven't spoken to me since.

'I'm worried my children have lost part of their family.'

She believes the person who leaked it was a school bully getting their revenge.

She was bullied out of school growing up after she took time off to support her mother who was suffering from breast cancer.

'I would get called skiver and council estate scum every day,' she revealed.

'I would go home crying and felt like I couldn't cope with life.'

An OnlyFans user sent a menacing message revealing they knew Ms Biss's real name.

The video was leaked via Whatsapp to her friends and extended family the next day.

The user has since deleted their account meaning OnlyFans cannot trace them.

'They think it's funny - it's not funny, it messes with people's lives,' she blasted.

'It makes people feel so ashamed and embarrassed that they can get depressed and feel suicidal.'

Ms Biss's sisters and father have supported her all the way.

She has vowed to take whoever leaked her video to court if she can track them down, adding: 'You have to teach people a lesson.'

OnlyFans has been contacted for comment.
5 1 of 5 Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 5 of 5









Students fully returned to school in Fairfield this week, making this the first time in a year that all students were able to attend school the full day, every day of the week.

Elementary students fully returned Monday. They had already switched to five days a week but were only in person for part of the day, having lunch and finishing the school day at home.
Seasoned technology executive brings deep leadership experience in helping organizations plan and execute cloud-transformation strategies.

ALPHARETTA, Ga., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Stonebranch, a leading provider of service orchestration and automation solutions, is pleased to announce that Peter Baljet has joined the company as Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Baljet serves on Stonebranch's executive leadership team and leads the management, development and expansion of the company's software products and platforms.

Mr. Baljet has more than 25 years of executive leadership experience in the technology industry, focused in the areas of enterprise software solutions and services. He has held leadership positions in product development, technology strategy, product management, operations and consulting services.

Giuseppe Damiani, Stonebranch CEO, said, "We are thrilled to welcome Peter to the Stonebranch executive leadership team. The breadth and depth of Peter's experience-especially his visionary work in developing cloud-based products-will be especially valuable to our many customers who are transforming their IT environments to include more cloud applications and infrastructure."

Peter Baljet commented, "This is an exciting time to join the Stonebranch team. Growth is strong, we have a great customer base, and our products are differentiated and highly competitive. I'm looking forward to applying my experience in developing cloud-based products to work for Stonebranch customers. As organizations move along the transition to hybrid IT environments that link on-premises and cloud-based applications and infrastructure, Stonebranch is uniquely positioned to help with that journey. Our experience with automating and orchestrating legacy on-prem IT systems, combined with our market-leading cloud capabilities, will increasingly provide our customers with never-before-seen levels of transparency and control across enterprise on-prem, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments."

Prior to Stonebranch, Mr. Baljet served as Vice President of Cloud Architecture, Engineering and Operations for Deloitte Consulting. Mr. Baljet established and grew Deloitte's global cloud innovation organization, where he led the development and operations of products based on cloud technologies, including SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.

Mr. Baljet also served as Vice President, Product Development, for SAP Labs LLC, where he led global product engineering and operations for SAP's flagship enterprise manufacturing products. Prior to SAP, Mr. Baljet served in Technology and Operations leadership positions at Visiprise, where he was responsible for technology and product strategy, growth and management of distributed product development teams, and consulting and customer support operations.

About Stonebranch

Stonebranch builds IT orchestration and automation solutions that transform business IT environments from simple IT task automation into sophisticated, real-time business service automation. No matter the degree of automation, the Stonebranch platform is simple, modern and secure. Using the Stonebranch Universal Automation Platform, enterprises can seamlessly orchestrate workloads and data across technology ecosystems and silos. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with points of contact and support throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, Stonebranch serves some of the world's largest financial, manufacturing, healthcare, travel, transportation, energy and technology institutions.

Media contact:

Scott Davis

scott.davis@stonebranch.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1089016/Stonebranch_Logo.jpg
ST. PAUL, Minn.  The Minnesota Attorney Generals Office says it has settled its lawsuit against a Wabasha County gym for violating Governor Walz COVID safety rules.

AG Keith Ellison announced Monday that Plainview Wellness Center has agree to pay a $5,000 fine and abide by the Governors current and future executive orders. Ellison says if Plainview Wellness Center violates the terms of this settlement, it could be fined $25,000.

Its every Minnesotans responsibility to stop the spread of COVID-19. I thank this business for agreeing to meet its responsibility and rejoin the vast majority of Minnesota businesses that are already doing so, says Ellison. The situation is improving but were not out of the woods yet, so we must all keep following the COVID guidance and restrictions. My top priority has always been educating Minnesotans about their responsibility and winning voluntary compliance. Enforcement has been and will continue to be a last resort.

The Minnesota AGs Office says it filed a lawsuit against Plainview Wellness Center when it refused to close in November 2020 as required by Executive Order 20-99.
10 years ago, the 1st Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue meeting took place in Brussels. We have come a long way, its time to conclude the process.is working with the Parties on a comprehensive normalization agreement that will open the way for both #Serbia & #Kosovos European future
A bitter feud that erupted between two of St. Bernard Parishs best-known citizens over the last decade has further soured recently, with one of them, developer Joe Georgusis, providing information for a televised report that questioned whether his onetime best friend, former Sheriff Jack Stephens, helped cover up the true cause of the 2005 death of Georgusiss son, Joey.

Stephens is firing back with allegations that his old friend offered at least one bribe to help his cause.

Georgusis has long insisted his son -- whose death was initially ruled a drug overdose -- was murdered, though he has yet to persuade any law enforcement agency to charge anyone in his death. Georgusis has increasingly aimed his ire at Stephens, who sent two deputies to the scene at Joey Georgusiss Lakeview home on Aug. 5, 2005, though they had no jurisdiction.

Stephens acknowledges his lack of jurisdiction and says he directed his deputies to go to Lakeview because Georgusis was his closest friend, and Stephens wanted to do everything in his power to help him. Stephens claims that Georgusis has turned that special attention on its head by insinuating the former sheriff was involved in a coverup.

In interviews televised last week, Georgusis implied that either Stephens or his deputies had a hand in concealing how his son died. His theory centers on questions arising from contradictory witness testimony about whether the deputies were sent to the scene before ambulances. On camera, Georgusis only conveys disappointment in his old pal, saying: "He was one of my best friends," and adding that his trust had been breached.

The former sheriff is punching back hard. He now alleges that Georgusis was so determined to have his sons death investigated as a murder that he tried in vain to bribe the late former Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard to change Joey Georgusiss official cause of death to a homicide. According to Stephens, a close friend of Minyards until his death in September, the elder Georgusis offered the coroner $100,000 to make a murder case from what police and pathologists had deemed an overdose.

Capt. Joe Waguespack, a longtime New Orleans police officer who was also close to Minyard, says the late coroner told him the same story of a proffered bribe. Waguespack, who was head of the NOPD's homicide squad at the time and investigated Joey Georgusis death as a potential murder as a favor to the grieving father, says he, too, received what he thought was an indecent proposal from Georgusis.

+4 Federal grand jury probing 2005 death of influential donor's son is 2nd grand jury to explore it The federal grand jury that is investigating the 2005 death of Joey Georgusis, a Lakeview man who pathologists determined died of a drug overd

He said to me, If this was a murder and it was solved, it would be worth $100,000 to me, Waguespack recounted. I cut him off right there and said if it was a murder, wed solve it and someone would go to prison, and he didnt need to pay anyone.

Minyard's widow, Dr. Nancy Morris Minyard, said her husband never mentioned to her that Georgusis had offered a payoff.

A spokesman said Georgusis had no comment on the claims.

The new allegations of chicanery came as WVUE-TV aired a lengthy three-part series last week renewing questions over the untimely death of the 23-year-old -- a report that drew on work by a parade of lawyers and private investigators, including cops, that Joe Georgusis has bankrolled over more than a decade. Georgusis told the station he had spent millions digging into his sons case.

Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Many of the interviews featured in the stations reports were depositions filmed by Georgusis legal team over the course of a civil lawsuit he filed against Minyard in 2011, which seeks to force the coroner to change the cause of death to homicide. Those depositions are not part of the public court record, and Georgusiss legal team has refused to share them with The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate, which published an investigation into the case in 2019.

The harshest allegations against Stephens came in the form of pointed questions from Georgusis's lawyers, such as: "Have you assisted in any way in covering up Joey's murder?" and "Have you conspired with anyone to have Joey killed?" The deposition ended with Stephens ripping off his mic, cussing out the lawyers and calling the line of questioning "really offensive."

Georgusiss lawsuit against the Coroners Office is still going on, though it has been mostly dormant in recent years. Minyard retired in 2014 and was replaced by Jeffrey Rouse, a top Minyard aide who was elected with major financial support from Georgusis.

In 2015, Rouse quietly changed the cause of death for Joey Georgusis to undetermined -- not the designation the elder Georgusis wanted, but an improvement over the earlier ruling of accidental -- likely overdose. The change was so quiet that the office -- now run by Dr. Dwight McKenna -- was not aware of it until informed by this newspaper.

Though Georgusiss case is a civil matter, it has served as a de facto criminal probe, with a parade of witnesses being questioned about their potential culpability in what Joe Georgusis asserts was a murder.

In addition to Walter Becker, Georgusiss legal team in the civil case over the years has included Peter Strasser, who was a colleague of Beckers at the Chaffe McCall law firm before becoming U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana in September 2018. Strasser can be heard asking some of the questions in the WVUVE piece.

Shortly after Strasser became U.S. attorney, the office restarted a long-dormant grand jury probe into Joey Georgusiss death. As a result of his previous representation of Georgusis, Strasser has said he was completely recused from that case, but the prosecutor who was assigned to head it, Michael McMahon, told a different story.

McMahon told a reporter for this newspaper in late 2019 that Strasser had personally tapped him to figure out how Joey Georgusis died, contradicting his boss. Shortly after that dustup, McMahon retired from the office, saying Strasser had made things unpleasant for him at work.

+2 Longtime federal prosecutor retires, has falling out with his boss over a controversial case A veteran federal prosecutor who handled some of the regions most high-profile cases over the last three decades abruptly retired earlier thi

Strasser stepped down as U.S. attorney on Feb. 26 as part of a national purge by President Joe Biden of U.S. attorneys across the country who were appointed by President Donald Trump.

McMahon told this newspaper when he retired that he had believed in the Joey Georgusis probe, saying there could be something there.

He went much further in an interview with WVUE-TVs Lee Zurik that was broadcast this week. He told Zurik he thought Joey Georgusis had been murdered and that "it was covered up in order to protect or insulate these prominent (St. Bernard political) figures from drug activity."

McMahon added that he believed he had been within six months of indicting someone in the case when he retired.

McMahon did not say who he had hoped to indict, or on what charge. The grand jury probe is ongoing.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 23:40:00|Editor: yan

Video Player Close

Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), presides over a Chairperson's Council meeting of the 13th CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, capital of China, March 9, 2021. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The Chairpersons' Council of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee held a meeting on Tuesday.

Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, presided over the meeting.

The meeting reviewed and approved a series of draft documents, including a draft resolution of the fourth session of the 13th CPPCC National Committee on the work of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee and a draft political resolution on the fourth session of 13th CPPCC National Committee, and decided to submit them to the Standing Committee of the 13th CPPCC National Committee for review on Wednesday. Enditem
1. The new battle over coronavirus vaccines access.

Demand is still outstripping the nations vaccine supply, and states have set widely varying rules amid a dearth of definitive evidence about who should have priority access.

At least 37 states allow people with certain health conditions to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, according to a Times survey. At least 15 states have deemed some smokers eligible, and at least 30 have prioritized vaccines for people who are overweight or obese  though some set the bar at a body mass index of 25, and others at 30 or 40.

The inconsistencies, which can even vary from county to county, have set off a free-for-all as people with varying health conditions try to persuade health and political officials to add them to vaccine priority lists. Above, Levis Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., has been used as a mass vaccination site.
Verizon Media has announced the promotion of Simon Wheeler to Senior Director of Content following significant growth of Verizon Medias Australian media brands.

Under his new regional remit Wheeler will lead editorial strategy in English-language regions including Australia, India and South-East Asia. Editorial teams in India and across South East Asia will now report into Wheeler under the new structure.

Over the past four years Wheeler has led the editorial strategy in Australia, managing teams to deliver quality content, diversify audiences and achieve substantial growth. Last year, Australian monthly active users across Verizon Medias editorial brands Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Lifestyle, Yahoo News and Yahoo Sport grew by 8% and logged in users increased by 7%.

Commenting on his promotion, Wheeler said: This is a really exciting time for Verizon Media as we band together with international teams to deliver quality content for our audiences across the wider APAC region.

2020 presented difficult and unexpected challenges for all but we overcame and adapted to interact with our audiences in new ways. Im excited to be taking on this new role and working closer with our regional counterparts.

Marie-Helene Savard, Vice President, Head of International Consumer at Verizon Media, added: Were thrilled to announce Simons promotion to this new role. Having proven success in diversifying and growing audiences over the past few years in Australia, were excited to see his expertise in play across the wider region. This new structure will better align our editorial strategy across wider APAC and enable our editorial teams to continue to deliver fantastic content and results for our audiences.
Chennai, March 9 : Dravidian politics and the world of cinema and culture are inseparable it appears. This has been the case since 1925, when the first seeds of Dravidian politics in the state were sown by the revolutionary thinker Periyar EV Ramaswamy. Periyar's legacy was taken forward by CN Annadurai, the writer who popularised the ideology through his plays and movies.

And then, the world of movies has already given five chief ministers to the state.

CN Annadurai or Anna, the most popular chief minister of the state, was an ideologue and script writer of the movie "Parasakthi"( 1952) which was a big hit and propagated Dravidian ideology among the people of Tamil Nadu. His legacy was taken forward by M. Karunanidhi, script writer and lyricist, who became one of the most popular chief ministers of the state as also the supreme commander of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK).

M.G. Ramachandran, the superstar of the Tamil movie world, was catapulted to the higher echelons of politics by none other than C.N. Annadurai who could gauge the popularity of MGR (As he is popularly known) and that it would be of use to the DMK. Annadurai initiated a reluctant Ramachandran into the world of politics.

MGR and Karunanidhi were close friends and after the latter became Chief minister, MGR felt that he was sidelined, leading to the mega star walking out of the DMK and floating his own outfit, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(AIADMK).

Tamil politics revolved around these two until the death of MGR. His close associate J Jayalalithaa, who was then general secretary of AIADMK, was kicked out of the funeral procession of the veteran actor. MGR's wife Janaki Ramachandran, another movie star, briefly became the chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

Jayalalithaa, MGR's heroine in several movies and one of the top Tamil actors, won the next assembly elections and got control of the AIADMK to became chief minister, the fifth CM from the tinsel world to get the coveted post.

Even today, the story is no different as Udayanidhi Stalin, MK Stalin's son and M Karunanidhi's grandson, is a movie actor in his own right and a general secretary of the DMK.

Popular star-turned-politician Kamal Haasan with his Makkal Needhi Maiam(MNM) party has entered into a political alliance with another actor turned politician , R Sarath Kumar. Kumar, the actor, director, script writer and his party, the All India Samthuva Makkal Katchi have aligned with Haasan and his MNM.

Vijayakanth, another super star of Tamil movie industry has floated his Desiya Murpokku Munnetra Kazhagam(DMMK) and was the main opposition in 2011, winning 29 seats in alliance with AIADMK. The DMDK has now walked out of the AIADMK-BJP alliance and is scouting for partners and allies.

The super mega star of the South Indian movie world, Rajinikanth, was expected to float his own political party, but following the Covid pandemic, dropped the idea. The BJP was expecting to piggy ride on Rajini's popularity but the star backed out.

Haasan had made several trips to meet Rajinikanth to garner his support which would be a major boost to his political fortunes.

Clearly, Tamil politics will never be short of star power.
22 awardees announced in state's community outreach COVID-19 vaccine pilot program

Program aims to remove barriers to safe and effective vaccine for most vulnerable

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 9, 2021

Contact: Lynn Sutfin, 517-241-2112

LANSING, Mich. - The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) and the Protect Michigan Commission have awarded 35,800 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 22 pilot projects in an effort to help enhance the state's vaccine equity strategy.

The goal of the pilot program is to help remove barriers to vaccine access for Michiganders 60 and older who live in communities with high Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and high COVID-19 mortality rates. If providers have additional capacity in their project, they may expand vaccination to include people age 50-59 with disabilities or comorbid conditions.

SVI is a tool that uses census data to identify places where a community may have more difficulty preventing human suffering and financial loss in a disaster. It assesses the extent that 15 known indicators are present within a community based on socioeconomic status, family composition and disability, minority status and language, housing and transportation.

"We want to make sure all Michiganders have access to the safe and effective vaccines as we work toward our goal of vaccinating 70% of Michiganders age 16 and up as quickly as possible," said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive and chief deputy for health with MDHHS. "I want to thank everyone who submitted an application to support these efforts and to help increase vaccinations for those most at risk of negative COVID-19 outcomes. I look forward to more outreach to vulnerable communities as vaccine supplies increase. Your ability to get a vaccine should not be impacted by whether you are in a rural or urban part of the state, are lower income, are living with a disability, are not fluent in English, or don't have access to a car, a computer or the Internet."

Michigan providers were encouraged to apply if they could help remove barriers for those ages 60 and up who are most vulnerable to the effects of the virus. More than 70 applications were received. A volunteer panel from the Protect Michigan Commission, which included community professionals, completed the review of the applications and selected the awardees, which could request up to 2,500 vaccine doses.

"I want to thank the volunteers from the Protect Michigan Commission who took the time to review these applications so quickly and thoroughly," said Kerry Ebersole Singh, Protect Michigan Commission director. "These pilot projects will help improve access to the effective COVID-19 vaccine in Michigan and ultimately get us closer to ending this pandemic. The safe COVID vaccine is the most effective way to protect you, your family and others from COVID. It will help the country get back to normal and help the economy. Over 1 million Michiganders have already been safely vaccinated."

The following organizations are participating in the community outreach pilot project:

Advanced Pharmacy - Kalamazoo County

Alma Family Practice, P.C. - Gratiot County

Allegan County Health Department - Allegan County

Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) - Wayne County

Bay-Arenac Behavioral Health Authority - Bay County

Calhoun County Public Health Department - Calhoun County

Covered Bridge Healthcare - St. Joseph County

Cristo Rey Family Health Center - Ingham County

Dearborn Fire Department - Wayne County

Genoa Healthcare - Oakland County

Henry Ford Health System - Macomb, Wayne, Jackson, Oakland counties

Ingham County Health Department - Ingham County

Kent County Health Department - Kent County

Mid-Michigan Health - Alcona, Alpena, Clair, counties

Northwest Michigan Health Services, Inc. - Oceana, Mason, Manistee, Benzie counties

Saginaw County Health Department - Saginaw County

Region VII Area Agency on Aging - Saginaw County

Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital - Schoolcraft County

St. Clair County Health Department - St. Clair County

Wayne Health - Wayne County

Washtenaw County Health Department - Washtenaw County

Western Wayne Family Health Center - Wayne County

These providers were chosen because:

They are federally enrolled to administer the COVID-19 vaccines.

They can successfully store and manage the vaccine.

They can identify a method for participants to get a second dose.

They can enter doses administered into the Michigan Care Improvement Registry within 24 hours.

They have strong partnerships with organizations that can help reach out to the community's most vulnerable residents 60 and older.

They can help identify barriers and strategies to overcome those barriers for program participants, including, but not limited to:

Transportation. Language. Access related to sensory, cognitive, emotional or physical disabilities. Vaccine hesitancy. Other barriers experienced by underserved and minority populations.

The pilot program providers are expected to receive the vaccine this week. The vaccine doses must be administered within two weeks of receipt, with second doses being provided for administration four weeks later. MDHHS is looking forward to reviewing the status of the pilots as they progress to identify best practices to remove barriers which will inform our strategic implementation.

The state's strategy to get 70% of Michiganders age 16 and older vaccinated as quickly as possible is being guided by the following principles:

All Michiganders have equitable access to vaccines.

Vaccine planning and distribution is inclusive and actively engages state and local government, public and private partners; and draws upon the experience and expertise of leaders from historically marginalized populations.

Communications are transparent, accurate, and frequent public communications to build public trust.

Data is used to promote equity, track progress and guide decision making.

Resource stewardship, efficiency, and continuous quality improvement drive strategic implementation.

The most recent vaccine prioritization guidance can be found on Michigan's COVID-19 website.

Michigan residents seeking more information about the COVID-19 vaccine can visit Michigan.gov/COVIDvaccine. Information around this outbreak is changing rapidly. The latest information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

# # #
(Reuters) - Ireland's AerCap Holdings NV on Tuesday confirmed ongoing discussions with General Electric Co to acquire its aircraft-leasing business.

The U.S. business, known as GE Capital Aviation Services or GECAS, is one of the world's biggest jet-leasing companies. It leases passenger aircraft made by companies including Boeing Co and Airbus SE.

Reuters on Monday reported AerCap and General Electric are discussing a deal to forge an industry titan with more than 2,000 jets, citing people familiar with the matter.

AerCap said the outcome of the talks has yet to be determined and there can be no guarantee that an agreement will be reached.

"No further statements will be made by the issuers or the company regarding this matter until the time of the conclusion of those discussions," the Irish jet leasing company said in a statement.

GE and AerCap, the world's two largest aircraft lessors, are paving the way for the biggest aircraft leasing shake-up in almost a decade.

This comes as the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to shift more of the world's fleet from battered airlines to the leasing industry, which already holds around half of Airbus and Boeing deliveries.

(Reporting by Shreyasee Raj; Editing by Bernard Orr)
A Bucks County man is facing charges after police say he broke into more than 1,000 cars over the course of several months.

Keith Johnson, 32, of Yardley, was arrested Friday and is accused of breaking into vehicles in 13 municipalities in Bucks County and 10 in New Jersey, Action News 6 ABC is reporting.

Just the sheer volume and the sheer geography and the scope of it -- this was a very, very active criminal, Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub told 6 ABC. No place was left safe. He not only crossed county borders, he crossed state borders as well.

The spree started in February 2020 when residents in Buckingham Township began to experience overnight thefts from unlocked vehicles, Fox 29 is reporting.

Over the course of the next few months, multiple towns experienced similar thefts, and the same man was caught on surveillance video multiple times, reports indicate.

We came out in the morning and our cars had been broken into and ransacked for change, things like that, Richard Hausman, of Furlong, told 6 ABC.

Furlong resident Craig Storey told the station he started parking the familys cars in the garage.

We cleared out our garage, so now you can see we pull our cars in every single night -- just to make sure that nothing happens to us and keep the family safe, Storey told the station.

The thefts continued through August, some of which occurred with cars parked in garages, reports indicate. When the Bucks County District Attorneys Office released a photo of the suspect in September, the thefts shifted to New Jersey, reports indicate.

Police found in October that a credit card stolen from New Jersey was used at a convenience store in Pennsylvania, and after several more months of investigating, they identified Johnson as a possible suspect, according to reports.

While conducting a search warrant, police found a handbag, gift cards and dozens of other pieces of property, reports indicate.

Johnson was charged Friday with burglary, theft, receiving stolen property and related charges, according to reports.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, had undergone heart surgery last March 3 at King Edward VII Hospital. On Tuesday, March 9, Bing declares him dead in their search engine results.

It has been up for a few hours now that Bing declares Prince Philip dead by 2021 through their results information box.

Microsoft Bing, formerly known as simply 'Bing,' is a web search engine operated and owned by Microsoft. Previous search engines under Microsoft also include Live Search and MSN Search. The engine is developed using ASP.NET.

Bing is a popular and powerful search engine second only to Google in article research. Launched on June 3, 2009, with over 11 years of runtime, Bing provides real-time services and accurate news information, until now.

The search engine currently claims that Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, has died in King Edward VII hospital.

Bing Show the Following Results

This result displays in the primary info-box on the right section of your screen when you search up "Prince Philip" or "Duke of Edinburgh."

A blog entry from MSPU gives us an image of the search engine's result.

However, Buckingham's Palace gives a public statement that the Duke of Edinburgh is alive and well. As quoted from the news in The Telegraph dated March 5, "... Following the Duke of Edinburgh's successful procedure at St Bartholomew's Hospital on Wednesday, His Royal Highness has been transferred to King Edward VII's Hospital this morning. The Duke is expected to remain in hospital for continuing treatment for a number of days."

There has been a change in results over these last few hours, and currently, if you search "Prince Philip" or "Duke of Edinburgh," Bing's results will provide you with an info-box like this:

The textbox "Died 2021 King Edward VII Hospital," has been removed. However, a new info line has been replaced with "Lived: 10/06/1921 -2021." Textbox format like this often denotes the birth date - death date format.

Read Also: Prince Phillip is dead says Bing

Does this confirm that Prince Philip is dead?

Prince Philip, the nation's longest-serving consort, was known to support his wife as a sovereign of the kingdom. By August 2, 2017, the Duke of Edinburgh had officially retied his royal duties.

Prince Philip has undergone heart surgery after being admitted approximately three weeks ago. The old duke has been suffering from a pre-existing heart condition since back in 2011.

He was treated at Papworth Hospital at Cambridgeshire and diagnosed with a blocked coronary artery.

His later admissions' exact details were not disclosed to the public but confirmed to be unrelated to coronavirus. Both Prince Philip and the Queen were vaccinated against the virus on January 9, 2021

It is said that The Duke of Edinburgh had undergone successful heart surgery at Bartholomew's Hospital last Wednesday, March 3.

By March 5, the statement of Prince Philip's successful operation had been announced. The full statement includes details on the duke remaining in King Edward VII's Hospital to continue his treatment for the next few days.

No further updates have been provided through rumors or official methods on the post-recovery conditions of the Duke.

It is not clear if this is the work of Bing's AI editor, misinformation, or facts that the palace has not confirmed.

Related Article: The Pros and Cons of Telemedicine

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Czarina Grace Del Valle

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The White House has said that the situation on the ground in Myanmar is "troubling". White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the Joe Biden administration has been working closely with its partners in the region. She added that the Biden administration has taken steps to send a clear message that the coup in Myanmar is "unacceptable".

Jen Psaki also said, The detainment of journalists, the targeting of journalists and dissidents is certainly something that is of great concern to the president, to the secretary of state, and every member of our administration. She said that this issue has been raised in every diplomatic conversation they had virtually. State Department spokesperson Ned Price in a separate news conference said that the US is deeply saddened by reports that security forces in Myanmar have opened fire on peaceful protestors.

Read: US Imposes Sanctions On Myanmar Military Chief Over Alleged Rohingya Atrocities

Read: Aung Suu Kyi Faces Rohingya Genocide Trail At Hague, Myanmar Refuses Allegations

Ned Price said, "We strongly condemn the use of violence by Burmese security forces against the Burmese people, including peaceful protesters, journalists and civil society. We continue to urge the Burmese military to exercise maximum restraint." He added that the Myanmar military's escalation in violence against protestors is unacceptable. He said that the United States will continue to respond with our allies. He asked the Burmese military to act peacefully and with respect for human rights. He said that freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are universal rights everywhere including Burma.

The U.S. is taking action against those responsible for the coup in Burma. Today @CommerceGov announced further restrictions to impose costs on the Burmese military regime. We'll continue to take action against the junta and call for democracy in Burma. https://t.co/QBqEZfirC9  Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) March 4, 2021

Read: UN Chief Urges Myanmar To Ensure 'safe' Return Of Rohingyas

Read: US Urging China To Help With Myanmar Violence

Biden administration asked the US Commerce Department to impose trade sanctions on Myanmars Ministry of Defense and Home Affairs, including two corporations linked with Myanmars armed forces. This comes after State Department spokesman Ned Price urged Myanmars armed forces to exercise maximum restraint as he cautioned against repercussions. Further, Price asked China to use its influence and bring the situation in Myanmar under control.
Birthday wishes

Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun.

Happy Birthday Wishes
Some medical systems and pharmacies are also following local cues on expanding eligibility. AMITA Health, the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System and Loyola Medicine are not yet offering the vaccine to those in the expanded group. Marianos has opened eligibility to those with underlying conditions in Illinois, except for Chicago, Cook and DuPage counties. For Chicago, Jewel-Osco does not list those with underlying conditions as part of the groups currently being prioritized. But with some ZIP codes outside the city as part of the scheduling system , those with the conditions are listed as part of the eligible groups.
2 Teens Threw Mud at Police Van on the Move, so Cops Make Them Clean Up Their Act With Toothbrushes

When two teenagers from Peterlee, UK, threw mud at a passing police van, the department helped them clean up their act, enlisting them to clean police vehicles  using toothbrushes.

The consequences of throwing things at moving vehicles can be far more serious than these two realize, which Im sure theyve had time to consider while washing the cars, Inspector Emma Kay, with the Peterlee Neighborhood Police Team, said in a press statement.

The two 16-year-olds, who were spotted wearing balaclavas and slinging mud at the police van, were arrested on Feb. 21.

By enlisting their help in cleaning police vehicles, the department hoped to give the youngsters a chance to rethink their actions.

This is an opportunity not only for the two young offenders to take ownership of their actions, but also for our officers to engage with them and steer them in a more productive direction, Kay said.

She also pointed out that the parents were in full support of the departments imposed discipline.

The parents have been very supportive of this decision and are grateful that their boys are willing to think twice before heading down a criminal route, Kay said. Theyve even supplied toothbrushes to make sure every detail comes out gleaming.

After all, the alternative couldve been much worse; the department couldve taken the two teens through the judicial system.

The community applauded the departments decision, with some people questioning why it isnt a more common approach.

Could more of this approach be done in other areas? one user asked.

Thats great news, said one woman. They might think twice about throwing things at vehicles.

One man even jokingly asked if he could bring his minibus around for a clean.

I think I might have been behind the cop car, the dirt might have ricocheted, he jested.

Hopefully, the hard work has instilled some respect in the two teens; that lesson could help keep their records squeaky clean going forward.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired Newsletter at: TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
(The ban) is in contradiction of binding precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court, but it is the intent of the legislation to set the stage for the Supreme Court overturning current case law, he said in a statement released by his office. I would have preferred the legislation to include the exceptions for rape and incest, which has been my consistent view, and such exceptions would increase the chances for a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The KASTEL-developed blurry box method for protection against industrial espionage was granted the German IT Security Prize in 2014. (Photo: Patrick Langer, KIT)

On the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Competence Center for Applied Security Technology, KASTEL for short, was established at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) on February 28, 2011 as one of three Competence Centers for Cyber Security in Germany. For a decade, it has successfully pushed IT security research. Now, it will continue its work as KITs Institute of Information Security and Dependability, still under the name of KASTEL. KASTEL will continue existing collaborations and additionally be involved in the Helmholtz Associations program-based research. One central topic of the next years will be IT security for Industry 4.0 and 5G network expansion.

Based on its wide interdisciplinary approach that also covers legal and social aspects and pools all IT security competencies at KIT, it is the declared goal of KASTEL to better protect economy and society against the increasing number of cyber attacks.

Increasing complexity, interconnection, and acceleration of IT systems are associated with growing security challenges, says Professor Jorn Muller-Quade, one of the initiators of KASTEL, when thinking of the development of the past decade. However, public, semi-public, and commercial attackers have meanwhile accumulated vast know-how and nearly unlimited resources. At the same time, rapid progress in digitalization of more areas of life and work causes the risks in cyberspace to increase.

Among the challenges faced by the newly established institute will be Industry 4.0 and 5G expansion of the mobile data network, Muller-Quade points out. He considers provable security to be one of the central tasks in future: How do we deal with the fact that we no longer have any digital sovereignty over our devices? In future, software and hardware will have to be designed such that secure use can be proved one way or another, without any weak points and loopholes.

Awareness of the Risks of Digital Surveillance

At the new institute, we will systematically focus on the protection of privacy. We will have to identify mechanisms to collect data and ask the question where and how they damage society, says Thorsten Strufe, Professor of IT Security at KIT and one of the principal investigators of KASTEL. His studies, among others, contributed to uncovering data protection problems in social media. It is a goal of KASTEL to increase the accessibility of knowledge on the threats for privacy of our society and to initiate a corresponding debate. The Global Control exhibition at ZKM  Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in 2015 already presented installations to visualize digital surveillance technologies.

Protection against Industrial Espionage

Since its establishment, KASTEL has been involved in a number of initiatives and innovations in the area of IT security. In 2014, the blurry box method was granted the German IT Security Prize. This software protects against industrial espionage and sabotage even when the attackers know the protection mechanism.

As a member of the scientific working group of the National Cyber Security Council, KASTEL Spokesman Muller-Quade advises the Federal Government in strategic aspects of cybersecurity. In particular, it is focused on growing security risks as a result of the internet of things.

In its latest project Poison Ivy, the team of Junior Professor Christian Wressnegger studies how security attacks on applications of artificial intelligence (AI), such as data-based loopholes, can be detected and countered.

Security Expertise for the Digital World of Tomorrow

In the area of academic education, KASTEL has advocated inclusion of security in KITs degree program in informatics. In 2013, the KASTEL Certificate was developed. Upon completion of a course on the basics of cybersecurity, this certificate is granted to students of informatics, information systems, and information management. The KIT Department of Informatics offers specialization on IT security for masters students. Here, interdisciplinary education close to research in central areas of IT security is provided.

Continuation of Long Interdisciplinary Collaboration

KASTEL will continue to closely cooperate with the FZI Research Center for Information Technology, an innovation partner of KIT, and the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation (IOSB) in the areas of software, networks, cryptography, energy informatics, law, economics, and sociology.

Further Information on the Blurry Box Method:

https://www.kastel.kit.edu/english/712.php

Further Information on the KASTEL Certificate for Students:

https://www.kastel.kit.edu/english/zertifikat.php

Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,600 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 23,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 17:07:55|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt was admitted to hospital due to suspected infection, according to the federal government on Tuesday.

A statement from his office said he is "being kept overnight for observation and is being administered antibiotics and fluid."

Hunt received a jab of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on the weekend.

The statement said his condition "is not considered to be related to the vaccine".

About a fortnight ago, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison took the lead to receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.

Hunt was the third ministerial-level official of the Australian federal government to take a leave recently, following Defense Minister Linda Reynolds and Attorney-General Christian Porter.

Reynolds and Porter had been involved in separate scandals of rape allegation. Enditem
EV6 is also the first of Kia's next-generation BEVs to be developed under a new design philosophy that embodies Kia's shifting focus towards electrification.

"EV6 is the embodiment of both our brand purpose, 'Movement that inspires', and our new design philosophy. It has been designed to inspire every journey by offering an instinctive and natural experience that improves the daily lives of our customers, and provide user ownership that is simple, intuitive and integrated," said Karim Habib, Senior Vice President and Head of Kia Global Design Center. "Our aim is to design the physical experience of our brand and to create bold, original and inventive electric vehicles."

Kia's new naming strategy for upcoming dedicated BEVs

As part of the company's brand transition, Kia's new dedicated battery electric vehicles will be named according to a new naming strategy. The new approach brings simplicity and consistency to Kia's EV nomenclature across all global markets.

All of Kia's new dedicated BEVs will start with the prefix 'EV' which makes it easy for consumers to understand which of Kia's products are fully electric. This is followed by a number which corresponds to the car's position in the line-up.

Designed and engineered to embody Kia's new brand slogan, 'Movement that inspires', EV6 will make its world premiere during the first quarter of 2021.

For more information, visit the Kia Global Media Center at www.kianewscenter.com

SOURCE Kia Corporation
Ann Sherman Lux, who shared whatever good fortune life afforded her through giving, especially to animal conservation efforts, died Feb. 23 of non-COVID related respiratory failure at her home at the Gatesworth in St. Louis. She was 88.

She was born one year before the end of both the Great Depression and Prohibition and each had a profound effect on her life. She inherited the lesson of frugality from the Depression and her family benefitted from the lifting of the embargo on alcohol.

Mrs. Luxs father, David Sherman Sr., is believed to have received the first liquor license issued in the state of Arkansas (rumor has it he was just legalizing the business he was already in). In 1933, Sherman got a legitimate sales job at F. Strauss & Sons, a liquor distributor.

ADVERTISEMENT

In 1958, Mrs. Luxs husband Paul and her father formed their own distributorship, David Sherman Corporation. In those early days, Mrs. Lux sat on the board. The Lux family eventually became sole owners of the company, now named Luxco.

Saving the animals

Mrs. Lux supported more than 100 charities, with a few carving-out a special place in her heart. One was the St. Louis Zoo. She and her husband generously supported two of the Zoos most popular group of residents: gorillas and sea lions.

The couple went on numerous African safaris, learning firsthand about some of the wildlife they chose to protect. Their trip to Rwanda in 1985, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, inspired their support of the Zoos Jungle of the Apes.

The Zoos Lux Family Gorilla Habitat and Ann Lux Family Stage at the Sea Lion Arena were named in their honor.

For many years, Mrs. Lux served as a Zoo docent, introducing visitors from throughout the world to her beloved zoo.

Mrs. Lux also volunteered at the Barnes Jewish Hospitals Gift Gallery, and supported the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Federation and the St. Louis Humane Society, where she served on the board of directors.

Southern belle

Mrs. Lux, who often said life is for the living, did so with aplomb.

When not pursuing her causes, she reveled in entertaining her friends and did it the way a Southern belle would. (She had impeccable grammar and proudly wore the title of Southern belle, but swore she no longer had a Southern accent. She did.)

Shed host back-to-back parties on a Friday and Saturday night, complete with full table settings of fine china and silver. Or fill a local dine-in theater with friends.

Old movies were her favorite, especially those starring The Duke, John Wayne. Her one and only dog was named Duke. Her family thought it humorous  and sweet  that she displayed a painting of Duke throughout her life although he died in 1987.

She was invigorated by classical music and live theater, especially Broadway musicals, and relished a good hand of bridge, which she played daily. She was also a true fan of her home teams, the St. Louis Blues and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Blind Date

Ann Sherman was born in Little Rock, Ark., on Sept. 29, 1932, the second of David Soltz Sherman Sr. and Dorothy Cones two children.

In 1950, she graduated from Frances Shimer Academy in Illinois (now the Shimer School of Great Books). That same year, the Sherman family moved to Kansas City, her husbands hometown.

After high school, Mrs. Lux attended Newcomb College, the womens college within Tulane University in New Orleans. Her future husband was home on break from MIT, when they went on a blind date. Three years later, when Paul returned home after earning his degree and serving in the Air Force, they resumed dating.

She left Newcomb in her senior year after Paul convinced her to marry him. The couple moved to St. Louis where he took a job as a mechanical engineer with Ramsey Corporation before forming his own company.

She and her husband became founding members of Temple Emanuel, the unique sanctuary designed by Frank Lloyd Wrights protege William Bernoudy.

Big mama

Mrs. Lux was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, Paul A. Lux, to whom she was married for 50 years until his death in 2005, and her older brother, David Sherman Jr. (Susan).

Mrs. Lux is survived by four children, Dr. Paul Lux (Leslie), Cathy Lux, Donn Lux (Michele), all of St. Louis, and Caroline Lux Kaplan (Hugh), of Bethesda, Md. She was the sister-in-law of Jean Grossman and big mama to seven grandchildren and a great-grandson.

A private graveside ceremony was held Friday, Feb. 26. Memorial donations may be made to the St. Louis Zoo and the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
China on Wednesday accused a top US commander of attempting to "hype up" the threat of an invasion of Taiwan to inflate Washington's defence spend and justify its own military chicanery in Asia.

The US' top military officer in Asia-Pacific, Admiral Philip Davidson, on Tuesday said China could invade Taiwan within the next six years, as Beijing accelerates its moves to supplant American military power in Asia.

Democratic and self-ruled Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by authoritarian China, whose leaders view the island as part of their territory and which they have vowed to one day take back.

"I worry that they're (China) accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based international order ... by 2050," Davidson said.

"Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before that. And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years," he told a US Senate committee.

Taiwan split from China at the end of a civil war in 1949 and exists under the constant threat of invasion by the mainland.

Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but remains the island's most important unofficial ally and military backer.

Beijing was swift to bat away the admiral's comments.

"Some US people continue to use the Taiwan issue to hype up China's military threat," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing.

"But in essence this is the US searching for a pretext to increase its military spending, expand its forces and interfere in regional affairs."

Donald Trump embraced warmer ties with Taiwan as he feuded with China on issues such as trade and national security.

President Joe Biden's administration has offered Taiwan cause for optimism for continued support aside from the State Department saying in January that US commitment to the island was "rock-solid".

Story continues

Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US was formally invited to Biden's inauguration, an unprecedented move since 1979.

China also has made expansive territorial claims in the resource-rich South China Sea and even threatens the American island of Guam, Davidson stressed.

"Guam is a target today," he warned, recalling that the Chinese military released a video simulating an attack on an island base strongly resembling US facilities in Diego Garcia and Guam.

He called on lawmakers to approve the installation on Guam of an Aegis Ashore anti-missile battery, capable of intercepting the most powerful Chinese missiles.

Guam "needs to be defended and it needs to be prepared for the threats that will come in the future," Davidson said.

In addition to other Aegis missile defence systems destined for Australia and Japan, Davidson called on lawmakers to budget for offensive armaments "to let China know that the costs of what they seek to do are too high."

burs-apj/mtp
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has given the strongest indication that his government will soon re-engage Parliament on the way forward on the Agyapa Mineral Royalties transaction.



Delivering his State of the Nation Address (SONA) Tuesday 9 March, Akufo-Addo said the deal which was suspended last year will be revisited soon.



Let me, at this point, assure the House that, in the course of this session of Parliament, Government will come back to engage the House on the steps it intends to take on the future of the Agyapa transaction, Akufo-Addo served notice.



The announcement is coming barely a month after Databank withdrew from the controversial deal as transactional advisor. The decision, it says was based on attempt by certain persons to tarnish its reputation.



Earlier, some 15 civil society groups had called for the termination of the deal arguing that it lacks transparency.



Background

In 2018, Parliament passed the Minerals Income Investment Fund Act, 2018 which establishes the fund to manage the equity interests of Ghana in mining companies and receive royalties on behalf of the government. The purpose of the fund is to manage and invest these royalties and revenue from equities for higher returns for the benefit of the country.



The government then, through the Minerals Income Investments Fund(MIIF), set up Agyapa Royalties Limited to monetize Ghanas gold royalties. This was after Parliament on August 14, 2020, approved the Agyapa Mineral Royalty Limited agreement with the government of Ghana despite the walkout by the minority.



In exchange, the company plans to raise between $500 million and up to about $1 billion for the government on the Ghana and London Stock Exchanges to invest in developmental projects.



The deal, however, has become a topical issue following concerns first by the opposition National Democratic Congress leading up to the December 2020 general elections.

On August 14, 2020, a few days after approving an amendment to the MIIF Act, the Minority walked out during the approval process of the very transaction agreements, the facilitation of which the amendment to the Funds statute was amended.



Civil society groups quickly added their voices to the opposition, describing the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), being created then, Agyapa Royalties of Jersey, as not being transparent, potentially corrupt, under valued and that it must be suspended for greater stakeholder involvement, according to some of the dissenting voice.



The government has however insisted that the deal is in the best interest of the country. The President, last year, directed the Finance Minister and Attorney General to review the transaction agreements and make necessary adjustment to address some of the concerns raised by stakeholders, where appropriate.

Source: asaaseradio









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Employers will be given at least $1.2 billion to hire 70,000 apprentices in the next year in an uncapped job-creation plan the Morrison government hopes will avoid a youth unemployment crisis from the coronavirus pandemic.

As many as 100,000 apprentices have been employed through the existing wage subsidy scheme, which was announced just five months ago in October. More than 30,000 new apprentices have been hired in NSW, and almost 24,000 in Victoria, under the initial phase of the program that subsidised apprenticeships in a bid to stem an anticipated tide of job-shedding.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Tuesday announce an expansion of the governments apprenticeship wage subsidy program in a bid to create 70,000 jobs. Credit: Luis Ascui

Business groups have called for longer-term incentives to hire young workers, who economists feared would bear the brunt of the COVID-19 recession. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that by mid-February, the number of people in their 20s holding a job was down 2.5 per cent since the start of the pandemic. The next worst-hit age group were teenagers, down by 0.9 per cent.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Tuesday announce an expansion of the scheme, extending its operation for another 12 months and uncapping the number of apprenticeship places. The government expects the wage subsidy will support a further 70,000 apprentices to be hired in the next year.
All of the 16 Davy staff involved in the 2014 profiteering controversy following the closure of its bond desk have left the firm, TDs will be told tomorrow.

The Governments National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), which organises sales of sovereign bonds for the State, struck off Davy from its roster of primary dealers just days before a 1.5bn auction in which the scandal-hit broker was due to play a key part.

In correspondence to the Oireachtas finance committee, seen by the Irish Examiner, Davys interim CEO Bernard Byrne has said that none of the individuals involved remains at the firm.

Mr Byrne has written to say that, following the resignations of Brian McKiernan as CEO, Kyran McLaughlin as deputy chairman, and Barry Nangle as head of bonds, all senior management involved in the transaction in 2014 have left the firm.

We've taken a decision to close the Davy bond desk with immediate effect with associated redundancies. Following the decision, none of the 16 individuals involved in the 2014 transaction, are working in Davy, Mr Byrne wrote to committee chairman John McGuinness.

The Davy scandal highlighted "weak internal controls" when it came to conflicts of interest, the Central Bank will tell the committee.

Derville Rowland, the Central Bank's director general, financial conduct, will say Davy prioritised facilitating an opportunity for a consortium of 16 employees to make personal financial gain over ensuring that it was complying with its regulatory obligations.

Irelands largest broker was fined 4.1m last week by the Central Bank for its failure to supervise a group of 16 of its own employees in their 2014 profiting from personal dealings in the sale of Anglo Irish Bank bonds.
Momentum is building toward a bill addressing the state's unfunded pension liability, with stakeholders set to appear in hearings in the House Government Operations Committee Wednesday and Thursday, and a public hearing scheduled for Friday.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A woman is prevented from holding her elderly mother's hand by a plastic screen, during her visit to a geriatric hospital in Gwangju where her mother is hospitalized, Tuesday. The government regulations prevent visitors to geriatric hospitals and nursing homes from close contract with loved ones except in limited circumstances such as when inpatients are close to dying. Yonhap
The agenda had already been agreed with President Zelensky, the NSDC secretary says.

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov has announced the council's meeting on Friday, March 12.

"The next NSDC meeting will be held on Friday, March 12. On Monday last week, the president and I agreed on a list of issues to be discussed," he said, addressing an all-Ukrainian forum "Ukraine 30. Culture, media, tourism" in Kyiv, an UNIAN correspondent reported.

Earlier, Danilov said the Office of the Prosecutor General, the SBU Security Service, and the Foreign Ministry were expected to report on progress in high-profile cases.

NSDC decisions: Latest

On February 2, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky enacted a National Security and Defense Council decision of February 2, 2021, to impose sanctions on Member of Parliament Taras Kozak and a number of TV channels Kozak owns, such as 112 Ukraine, NewsOne, and ZIK.

The broadcasting of these TV channels in the digital multiplex and cable networks was suspended in the early hours of February 3. At the same time, the said TV channels continue YouTube broadcasts.

On February 4, two unnamed individuals filed lawsuits with the Supreme Court of Ukraine contesting the presidential decree enacting the sanctions against the TV channels.

On February 10, the Supreme Court ruled not to open proceedings on a claim seeking cancellation of sanctions against pro-Russian TV channels.

On February 19, 2021, the NSDC handed down a decision to impose sanctions against 19 legal entities and eight individuals. In particular, sanctions shall be applied to Viktor Medvedchuk and his wife Oksana Marchenko. Sanctions are imposed on all their property and assets.

According to NSDC secretary Oleksiy Danilov, the SBU is investigating a case under the article "financing of terrorism," and the latest sanctions were applied to Medvedchuk, Marchenko, and other persons precisely in connection with the said probe.

The NSDC also made a decision to nationalize part of the Samara - Western Direction fuel pipeline, now owned by Prykarpatzahidtrans.

On February 26, the NSDC decided to impose sanctions on high-ranking officials and senior officers who betrayed Ukraine during the Revolution of Dignity of 2014 and supported Russia's aggression. Ten people were put on the sanction list and stripped of state awards and military ranks.

Reporting by UNIAN
We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Costa Rica hopes to hold political consultations with Russia at the level of deputy foreign ministers soon, Lilliam Rodriguez, the country's ambassador to Russia, told Sputnik.

Rodriguez said that last year, Costa Rican Deputy Foreign Minister Adriana Bolanos and her Russian counterpart Sergey Ryabkov spoke by videoconference.

"The deputy minister of Costa Rica is very interested in political consultations to work out an agenda for joint work for the coming years," she said, stressing the need for such a meeting as soon as possible.

At the same time, Rodriguez said the timing of the event would depend on the schedule of the deputy ministers and on the COVID-19 situation.
Member of European Parliament Carles Puigdemont participates in an interview at the European Parliament in Brussels, on March 9, 2021. (Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

EU Lawmakers Lift the Immunity of 3 Catalan Separatists

BRUSSELSThe European Parliament on Tuesday lifted the immunity of the former president of Spains Catalonia region, Carles Puigdemont, and two of his associates, a move that could pave the way for their extradition and reopen the scars of separatism in Spain.

Member of European Parliament Carles Puigdemont prepares for an interview at the European Parliament in Brussels, on March 9, 2021. (Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

The Spanish government immediately welcome the decision by the European Unions legislature as a victory for the rule of law and against those who sought to break the rich northeastern region away from the rest of Spain.

The decision will likely also extend the 3 1/2-year legal saga on the fate of the three separatists by months, if not years, since many avenues for appeal remain open before any possible extraditions.

In the decision on Puigdemont, 400 legislators voted for the waiver of immunity, 248 were against and 45 abstained. The measures to lift the immunity of his associatesformer Catalan Health Minister Toni Comin and former regional Education Minister Clara Ponsatiwere by largely similar margins.

From right, MEPs Antoni Comin, Carles Puigdemont and Clara Ponsati speak with each other prior to a media conference at the European Parliament in Brussels, on March 9, 2021. (Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

We have lost our immunity, but the European Parliament has lost more than that. And as a result, European democracy, too, Puigdemont said afterward. This is a clear case of political persecution.

He said that the European Parliament has unfortunately fallen into this strategy.

Puigdemont and a number of his separatist colleagues fled to Belgium in October 2017, fearing arrest after holding an independence referendum for Catalonia that the Spanish courts and government said was illegal.

In 2019, Puigdemont and his two associates won seats in the European Parliament and were afforded protection as members of the EU assembly.

Ponsati said the three will appeal the assemblys decision to the EUs higher courts in Luxembourg.

We are very convinced that we have very strong grounds for this appeal, she said, adding that the legislatures handling of the move was clumsy, sloppy and without due procedure.

The conflicts of interest that interfere in the process were outrageous, she said.

Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said the assemblys decision showed that Puigdemont and his two aides cant hide behind their legislative seats to avoid appearing before the justice system. In a video statement, Gonzalez Laya also said the decision meant that the problems of Catalonia are solved in Spain, they are not solved in Europe.

Dolors Montserrat, a European lawmaker with the center-right European Peoples Party and a former Cabinet member of the Spanish administration that ousted Puigdemont, told Spanish broadcaster TVE: Spain wins, Europe wins, democracy wins. She added the decision certified that Puigdemont is a fugitive who has to answer before Spanish courts.

Iratxe Garcia Perez, the leader of the S&D socialist group, said the European Parliament doesnt judge anybody. We just guarantee that justice does its job. A clear majority, absolute majority of the parliament, supported the fact that Spanish justice should be able to do its job.

Despite the wide margin to lift the three lawmakers immunity, Comin said the vote did show two sides of the debate, noting that many European lawmakers are telling the minister that they dont trust the Spanish justice.

The 2017 independence vote in favor of Catalonia breaking away from Spain was a landslide, but those in favor of Spanish unity spurned the vote. The central government in Madrid declared the vote illegal and unconstitutional. Hundreds of people in Catalonia were injured in a police crackdown on the day of the poll.

Spain has attempted to have Puigdemont returned for trial but failed to persuade Belgian justice authorities to extradite him. Spain could well start new efforts now to have him extradited.

Since 2017, official elections have repeatedly shown that Catalan voters are equally split by the secession question. In a regional election last month, Catalonias arm of the Socialist Party that leads the ruling coalition at the national level obtained a narrow victory, although separatist parties broadened their majority in the northeastern regions assembly.

By Raf Casert and Aritz Parra
LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The London International Literary Award is the joint project of the International and Great Britain Unions of Writers. The competition was held from September 1, 2018 to December 1, 2019. The goal was to encourage literary activities, to preserve and enhance cultural traditions.

The organizers  Interregional Public Organization International Union of Writers, Playwrights and Journalists, the International Union of Writers, Interregional Public Organization Union of Fiction Writes and Cinema Workers  set high goals: firstly, to discover new talents and empower existing ones; to improve the professional level of playwrights, translators, writers and poets.

The award gave the young authors the possibility to make themselves known. The finalists had the opportunity to win grants to translate their books and publish them in England. The International London Award invited both debutants and aspiring authors, as well as masters of literature to participate.

The Award brought together recognized writers from all over the world: Isaac Adamson (USA), Melvin Burgess (UK), Richard Glover (Australia), Antjie Krog (South Africa), Laimonas Tapinas (Lithuania)  and many others.

Among them there were writers from Russia  Vladimir Kolykhalov, Aleksei Barkhatov, Galina Shchekina, Sergei Tarmashev, Sergei Lukianenko, Sergei Volkov and others.

The participants were divided into three categories: "megastars", "stars" and "new authors". There were six nominations to choose from in the main spheres: prose, poetry, drama and literary translation.

The competition was held in four stages.

The first one ended with the experts forming and announcing the long list. The selected writers received the title of "Best Author of the Year".

Then, a short list was drawn up by the grand jury based on the long list. The authors received the regalia and the opportunity to get into the catalog in English for producers of the International Union of Writers to work with English-speaking publishers on publishing these authors' works.

The small jury, which consisted of Russian-speaking and English-speaking writers and critics, choose finalists among the authors from in the shortlist. They received medals and prizes, as well as diplomas and certificates for participation in international programs of the International Union of Writers.

In addition to the lists of finalists, the lists of laureates of three classes were also made.

The laureates of the award are: Dan Brown (USA), Wendy Orr (Australia), Carol Ann Duffy (UK), Victoria Levina (Israel), Taufik Karimov (Kazakhstan), Lee Mi-Jung (Canada), Pavel Gubin (USA), Igoni Barrett (Nigeria), Han Kang (South Korea), Luna El (France), Alice Lippart (Norway), Oleg Stelman (Lithuania), Saria Mammadova (Azerbaijan), Lyubov Pivnik (USA) and many others.

Authors from Russia: Svetlana Angarskaia, Sasha Krugosvetov, Anatolii Obiedkov, Olga Chernienko, Iana Varshavskaia, Viacheslav Egiazarov.

The award ceremony was held in online format.

The London International Award is a big step for the literary community. Thanks to the organizers of the event, more than 500 authors had the opportunity to present their work on the world stage and win over a foreign audience.

SOURCE The International Union of Writers
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court will on Tuesday hear the anticipatory bail pleas of activists Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk, who have been accused in a toolkit case along with Bengaluru-based Disha Ravi.

The case involves the creation and sharing of a controversial toolkit - an online document - in support of the ongoing farmers' protest against farm laws. On March 2, Additional session judge Dharmera Rana had given the Delhi Police a week's time to file a detailed response on Jacob's plea and posted the matter for hearing today.

The court directed the police to hand over a copy of its reply to Nikita Jacob's bail plea to her counsel. It may be recalled that on February 17, Bombay High Court gave three-weeks transit anticipatory bail to Jacob, so that the accused could approach the court concerned in Delhi, where the case is lodged.

Muluk was granted transit anticipatory bail from the Aurangabad bench on February 16 for 10 days. On February 25, the court granted protection from arrest to Muluk which ends today.

Delhi Police are investigating a case related to the social media toolkit and Jacob has been accused of helping edit the document. They say that the toolkit was created with an intention to defame India and spread misinformation in the country.

The document was first published by Greta Thunberg, a Swedish climate activist, who tweeted in support of ongoing farmers' agitating against the contentious farm laws at the Delhi border.

The police have also linked the toolkit with the clashes that occurred between the protesters and police during the tractor rally on January 26.

Live TV
Prime Minister and his Japanese counterpart Suga Yoshihide held a telephonic conversation on Tuesday during which they discussed deepening collaboration bilaterally as well as under the Quad framework to enhance cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

The two leaders expressed satisfaction at the positive momentum in India- Special Strategic and Global Partnership in the last few years, guided by mutual trust and shared values, according to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

"Had a fruitful conversation with PM Suga Yoshihide on the progress of India- Special Strategic and Global Partnership," Modi tweeted after the telephonic talks.

"We exchanged views on contemporary global challenges and agreed to further enhance our cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region," he said.

The Japanese government, in a read-out of the telephonic talks, said the two leaders exchanged views on the regional situation and in this context, Suga expressed serious concerns regarding "unilateral attempts" to change the status quo in the East and South China Sea, in a clear reference to China's expansionist behaviour.

The Japanese foreign ministry said the two leaders "confirmed that they have grave concerns over the situation in Myanmar.

"The two leaders also exchanged views on the regional situation. In this context, Prime Minister Suga expressed serious concerns regarding unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Sea, China's Coast Guard Law and the situation in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)," according to the read-out.

The PMO, meanwhile, said Modi and Suga exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest and concurred that the partnership between the two countries could play a pivotal role in addressing common challenges.

In this regard, they emphasized that their engagement with like-minded countries such as Australia and the US in the form of Quad consultations holds value and agreed that these useful discussions must continue, it said. The Quad comprises India, the US, and Australia.

The Japanese government's statement said the two leaders shared the recognition that cooperation towards realising a free and open Indo-Pacific is becoming increasingly important and to this end, shared the view to steadily advance both Japan-India bilateral cooperation and Japan-Australia-India-US quadrilateral cooperation.

The PMO said the two leaders appreciated that bilateral exchanges were maintained over the last year despite the COVID-19 pandemic. They also welcomed the recent signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation on Specified Skilled Workers (SSW) and looked forward to its early implementation.

During the conversation, Prime Minister Modi noted the Mumbai Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project was a shining example of India-Japan bilateral strategic partnership and expressed his commitment to its successful implementation, the PMO said.

The two leaders noted that the 70th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries would fall in 2022 and agreed that this event be celebrated in a befitting manner, it said.

Prime Minister Modi also invited Suga to visit India at the earliest for the Annual Bilateral Summit.

The Japanese statement said that in their nearly 40-minute conversation Modi and Suga concurred that they would continue their effort to materialise the Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership through cooperation in areas such as security and defence, economic relationship including digital fields, and people-to-people exchanges.

Prime Minister Suga also asked for understanding and cooperation toward the early resolution of the abductions issue by North Korea, the Japanese side said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Milestone brings the benefits of cloud delivery to all Fusion Phoenix bank and credit union customers

LAKE MARY, Fla., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Finastra today announced it has successfully migrated its Fusion Phoenix core banking system customers to Microsoft Azure. With 62 community banks and credit unions migrated in the past year, this significant milestone means that all Fusion Phoenix bank and credit union customers that have opted for cloud delivery are running in Azure.

In February 2020, Finastra announced its plan to bring Fusion Phoenix to the cloud with two early adopters, Commerce National Bank & Trust and Commencement Bank, accessing the platform through Azure. Today, 100% of its existing core customers opting for cloud delivery have been migrated to Azure. Banks and credit unions can now consume - rather than own and run - core applications, freeing up IT resources to focus on competitiveness and growth. Other benefits include access to enhanced capabilities to mine data for insight and the ability to scale services to keep pace with need. One client that has moved to the cloud, Horicon Bank, views the cloud as the future of core delivery.

According to Mark Nelson, EVP CIO/COO at Horicon Bank, "The cloud is all about the scalability and the ability to access innovation much faster and much more cost effectively. It enables us to compete with the big banks, in terms of products, service, and customer experience."

"Cloud technology is a big enabler for financial institutions, particularly smaller ones, as it provides a low-cost path for innovation and Open Banking, leveling the playing field for them to compete with the large banks and non-bank fintech," said John Weinkowitz, VP, Retail, Community Markets at Finastra. "This initiative also enables Finastra to run large financial institutions on the Fusion Phoenix platform and will provide many other benefits to our existing customers, such as improved availability, security and system monitoring."

"Migrating to a cloud-based core solves a number of problems inherent to legacy cores, including the issue of interconnectivity between different banking channels and solutions," said David Koscheski, director of Industry, Banking, Microsoft. "Fortunately, cloud-based core migrations are far simpler than previous core transformations, due to the streamlined efficiency of the process."

Migrating customers to Fusion Phoenix run in Azure was a quick and painless process for Finastra's customers, with each migration taking no more than five working days per customer, without the need to rewrite any existing code.

This announcement underlines Finastra's ongoing commitment to offer its customers an option for cloud deployment for all major products. Finastra selected Azure as the platform to provide its cloud-hosted solutions, which already include Finastra's Fusion MortgagebotLOS, Fusion uOpen, Fusion Global PAYplus, Fusion Essence, FusionFabric.cloud, and most recently, Fusion Invest. Together with Microsoft, Finastra can offer the highest standards of security, resiliency, performance and operating excellence.

finastra.com

About Finastra

Finastra is building an open platform that accelerates collaboration and innovation in financial services, creating better experiences for people, businesses and communities. Supported by the broadest and deepest portfolio of financial services software, Finastra delivers this vitally important technology to financial institutions of all sizes across the globe, including 90 of the world's top 100 banks. Our open architecture approach brings together a number of partners and innovators. Together we are leading the way in which applications are written, deployed and consumed in financial services to evolve with the changing needs of customers. Learn more at finastra.com

LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube

Corporate headquarters

4 Kingdom Street

Paddington

London W2 6BD

United Kingdom

T: +44 20 3320 5000

North American headquarters

744 Primera Boulevard

Suite 2000

Lake Mary, FL 32746

United States

T: +1 800 989 9009

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/967510/Finastra_Logo.jpg
TYSONS, Va., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The United States Naval Community College today announced the successful launch of the first online course in a series of online credentials designed to provide targeted continuing education and training opportunities for the Navy's 500,000 enlisted personnel. The new course, Naval Leadership, will form the first of five online offerings for USNCC's Naval Core Certificate, which will focus on naval heritage, history, ethics, and other advanced subjects aligned with naval sciences.

"At a time when U.S. armed forces are facing new and global threats and ascendant challenges, military and civilian leadership have recognized the imperative of developing a more unified approach and making leadership education and training opportunities more accessible across today's Navy," said Randi Cosentino, president of the United States Naval Community College. "This work is an important step in the modern Navy's transformation into a learning organization that constantly strives to develop our people and deploys lifelong learning to support combat operations and our peacetime mission alike."

Launched in 2020 at the direction of the United States Department of the Navy, the primary mission of the U.S. Naval Community College (USNCC) is to provide college-level instruction and credentials applicable to active-duty military jobs and transferable to civilian, degree-granting institutions.

To build the new certificate, USNCC has selected independent instructional design firm iDesign , which has worked with more than 100 institutions to design, build and support award-winning online courses, to support creation of the online courses beginning with Naval Ethics and Leadership, the courses will offer students flexible, self-paced, online options taught at a college-level in critical subjects, available to the entire enlisted workforce and completed in the span of 8-12 weeks.

A team of technology and instructional design experts affiliated with iDesign and USNCC are working to identify student learning outcomes, design curriculum and assessment, and engage Naval military and civilian instructors and subject matter experts. The pedagogy, design process and structure of the courses will create the foundation for the entire Naval Core Certificate and future courses to be offered by the Navy to its workforce.

"In addition to the countless everyday sacrifices of uniformed service, we understood that active-duty personnel must balance complex schedules and family and personal commitments, so we are particularly proud to deliver these offerings in a highly-engaging and interactive format that will be convenient, flexible and responsive to the Navy's enlisted workforce," said Paxton Riter, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of iDesign. "Our entire team is deeply honored to play our part in helping USNCC meet the education and training needs of the Navyand in turn, serve our men and women in uniform. We owe them nothing less and so much more."

In addition to the Naval Core Certificate, the USNCC is already offering accredited courses in a pilot program through a network of public and non-profit accredited universities that will ultimately stack into an Associate of Science degree. Over time, the USNCC plans to create and launch new concentrations and certificates in other skills and competencies aligned with the organizational needs of the Navy and Marine Corps and civilian workforce, such as Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, Logistics, and Organizational Leadership.

About iDesign: iDesign partners with colleges and universities to build, grow and support online and blended programs. We are passionate about helping faculty harness the potential of emerging technologies to design courses and degrees that make an impact, whether they are fully online, flipped, blended, adaptive, or competency-based. Our unbundled, fee-for-service model is rooted in a commitment to flexibility and institutional autonomy, while our analytics platform supports continuous improvement through rigorous measurement of student engagement and course quality. From statewide university systems to private colleges, our custom solutions pair instructional design with technologies to enable great teaching. To learn more, please visit www.idesignedu.org .

SOURCE idesignedu.org

Related Links

http://www.idesignedu.org


LOS ANGELES, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today The Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) online school program - The City of Angels, announced a partnership with the National Education Foundation (NEF) and eDynamic Learning (eDL) to bring access and equity to STEM careers through eDynamic Learning's CTE Career Ready Program. As the largest publisher of online Career Technical Education (CTE) and elective courses in North America, eDL offers the most comprehensive collection of courses focusing on careers highest in demand in the area of Business, Health Science, and Information Technology. These sequenced course pathways prepare students for 69 industry certifications and provide exciting opportunities to go right into the workforce with high-paying careers, whether they go on to college or not.

This is particularly meaningful to students who attend the City of Angels high school and are often faced with individual needs that cannot be accommodated in the traditional school setting. This can include work or family responsibilities, learning challenges or disabilities, or not seeing a connection between school, career and life. The eDL Career Ready Program will give these students opportunities for exciting futures, while also giving them the flexibility and accommodations they need to be successful.

"We're excited to provide a path for students that offers flexible options and gives them opportunities to gain the certifications they need in high school that lead to rewarding and high paying careers!" said Donal Kennedy, Intervention and Support Coordinator, City of Angels High School.

NEF and eDL received Unified Digital Instructional Procurement Plan (UDIPP) approval in December of 2020 with the goal of supporting pandemic challenges that have created learning gaps. The NEF/eDL partnership will use the NEF IMPACT services (Individualized learning, Mentoring, Performance tracking Awards for students and teachers, Certificates from SUNY-Potsdam in CTE, and Teacher training), to prepare City of Angels student options for STEM careers and college.

The City of Angels online school provides a highly flexible, supportive, and individualized program of instruction and counseling to assist students in the completion of their education. eDL courses offer built-in tools which support many of the required materials needed to help students be successful during hours when they don't have access to a teacher. Individualized Education Program (IEP) and 504 accommodations can be uploaded into the course where a variety of adjustments to the curriculum can be modified to fit the needs of students. Students also have access to a built-in support toolbar that gives them a translation tool in 97 languages, a read-aloud feature, a dictionary and highlighter tool, and other supports for students with reading challenges or other disabilities.

Teachers can give individualized feedback within eDL courses and offer students a variety of options to learn the material in numerous ways, including uploading additional external videos, links, or even adding a video they created specifically for their class.

Students and parents interested in LAUSD's City of Angels high school program are encouraged to call 310-739-0581 or visit the City of Angels website to learn more.

About City of Angels

City of Angels School is the independent study school for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and offers K-12 students a full-time educational program through weekly appointments. It is designed for students with special interests and abilities, scheduling problems, or individual needs. The program provides a highly flexible, supportive, and individualized program of instruction and counseling to assist students in the completion of their education and graduation pathways. A positive and respectful climate facilitates critical thinking and risk taking preparing students for college, career and global citizenship. To learn more, visit: www.cityofangelsschool.org

About the National Education Foundation

Founded in 1989, The National Education Foundation's STEM+ Program offers schools a total STEM System Solution (TSSS) through its three modules: Academic, Robotics, and CTE. This TSSS provides a foundation that allows students to be immersed in learning. Exploration through academics begins with an adaptive learning platform including student assessments. Hands-on STEM products offer the full experience in robotics. The Career Technical Education (CTE) module provides students with the academic and technical skills, with specific training necessary to succeed in future careers.The included IMPACT services are designed to guide schools through the program with mentoring, on-site teacher training, funding for student incentives, stipends for educators, and performance monitoring with weekly reporting. To learn more, visit: https://www.stemnef.org/

About eDynamic Learning

With offices in Southlake, Texas and Kelowna, BC, Canada, eDynamic Learning is the largest publisher of online Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Elective courses in North America and the only publisher solely dedicated to developing programs of study in pathways to leading industry-recognized certifications. eDynamic Learning offers nearly 200 courses for students in grades 6-12, with a mission to support schools in helping students find their passion and engage in learning. Courses work continuously in any instructional model, run on all devices, and are compatible with nearly all LMS systems. Courses also meet WCAG 2.0AA guidelines and offer translations and literacy support tools. To learn more, visit www.edynamiclearning.com

Press Contact:

Donal Kennedy

City of Angels, LAUSD

310-739-0581

[email protected]

SOURCE City of Angels, Independent Study School for the Los Angeles Unified School District
According to Community Well-Being surveys in 2017, 2018, and 2020 by Sharecare and Boston University School of Public Health , Klamath Falls saw an increase in the feeling of safety and security by 14 percent and Umpqua Valley's quality-of-life evaluations have improved by 24 percent. The surveys showed The Dalles and Grants Pass have also seen significant improvements in overall wellbeing. These improvements reflect the impact of Cambia Health Foundation's $14.6 million investment through the Oregon Healthiest State. This investment laid the groundwork to build community resilience needed to navigate COVID-19's unprecedented disruption to daily life.

In 2015, Klamath Falls was selected to be the first Blue Zones Project demonstration site in the Pacific Northwest, and local leaders, volunteers, and organizations throughout the community worked diligently to achieve Blue Zones Community certification status. "We can report each community saw significant improvement as a result of this initiative," according to Sarah Foster, executive director of the Oregon Healthiest State Initiative. As a result, Klamath Falls can celebrate more than $1.3 million in grant funding to support community well-being projects, while new ordinances for smoking cessation and tobacco prevention have supported a 24 percent decrease in smoking rates since 2015. Through built environment projects like safe routes to school, which includes separated bike lanes and complete streets, the community has seen an increase in feeling safe and secure by over 14 percent since the start of the project.

In Umpqua Valley, recently recognized as a certified Blue Zones Community, the number of residents who consider themselves to be "thriving" is up more than 17 percent in the wake of Blue Zones project implementation, from 48.1 percent in 2017 to 56.4 percent in 2019. Community leaders and residents across Umpqua Valley have focused on community revitalization and cultivating thriving environments to live, work, learn, and play in. These efforts have resulted in quality-of-life evaluations that have improved by 24 percent.

"We're excited to share the impact reported by the communities and Oregon Healthiest State," said Peggy Maguire, President, Cambia Health Foundation. "We are so inspired by the progress that has been made and hopeful that this model of community-led transformation will continue to buoy the health and well-being of Oregonians in the days ahead."

"We are proud of the community's commitment to make well-being a way of life for all, particularly in the wake of the pandemic," said Lance Colley, Steering Committee Chair for Blue Zones Project Umpqua. "While this Blue Zones Certification achievement has required tremendous effort and resiliency throughout the community, the policies and programs implemented in our area will have a permanent impact on the quality of life enjoyed by all of its residents, and we applaud them for their dedication."

The Dalles and Grants Pass have also improved health and well-being outcomes. The number of The Dalles residents who say they feel proud of their community increased by 20 percent since 2017. More than 1,400 people have made a personal pledge to live healthier, longer lives and over 3,000 residents have engaged in Community Clean-Up events.

In Grants Pass, more than 2,600 individuals and 30 organizations have participated in health and well-being programs offered through Blue Zones Project, while eight local schools have participated in the Walking School Bus program.

"More and more in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, communities are seeking effective approaches to addressing social determinants of health, and we applaud Klamath Falls, Umpqua, The Dalles, and Grants Pass for demonstrating leadership and resiliency through this crisis," said Sarah Foster, executive director of the Oregon Healthiest State Initiative. "The results speak for themselves  and I remain encouraged about Oregon Healthiest State's thesis  that building community-led infrastructure that is designed to be nimble and centers civic engagement and community voice will create vibrant, healthy communities for decades to come." The example set by these communities, she noted, can be incorporated across the state through resident involvement and leadership.

About Cambia Health Foundation

Cambia Health Foundation is the corporate foundation of Cambia Health Solutions, a total health solutions company dedicated to making health care more person-focused and economically sustainable. Founded in 2007, the foundation has funded almost $78 million in grants to advance patient- and family-centered care for all. Cambia Health Foundation strategically invests in philanthropy to change the way people experience health care from birth to natural completion of life. Learn more at www.cambiahealthfoundation.org , and follow us on Twitter: @CambiaHealthFdn .

About Oregon Healthiest State and Oregon Business Council Charitable Institute

The OBC Charitable Institute shares and supports the mission of the Oregon Business Council: to contribute to Oregon's quality of life and economic prosperity. The OBC Charitable Institute supports OBC's work in better health outcomes through an OBC initiative called Oregon Healthiest State (OHS). OHS is engaging and inspiring Oregon leaders in communities, institutions, and businesses across Oregon to work with their communities and one another to create and sustain policies, systems, and environments to support healthy lifestyles. This work is funded primarily by Oregon corporate supporters through the Charitable Institute.

SOURCE Cambia Health Foundation

Related Links

https://www.cambiahealthfoundation.org


Pope Francis has ended his historic whirlwind tour of Iraq, which sought to bring hope to the country's marginalised Christian minority with a message of coexistence, forgiveness and peace.

The pontiff and his travelling delegation were seen off with a farewell ceremony at Baghdad Airport, from where he left for Rome following a four-day papal visit that has covered five provinces across Iraq.

As the Pope's plane took off, Iraqi President Barham Salih was on the tarmac waving goodbye.

Francis urged Iraqis to embrace diversity - from Najaf in the south, where he held a historic meeting with powerful Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to Nineveh in the north, where he met Christian victims of Islamic State's terror.

People gathered in crowds to catch a glimpse of the Pope wherever he went, fuelling coronavirus concerns.

Few wore face masks, especially during Francis' stops in northern Iraq on Sunday.

That day ended with an open-air Mass in a stadium that drew nearly 10,000 people. Security was tight and most events were strictly controlled.

Public health experts had expressed concern ahead of the trip that large gatherings could serve as superspreader events for coronavirus in a country suffering from a worsening outbreak where few have been vaccinated.

The Pope and members of his delegation have been vaccinated.

Iraq is in the midst of another wave of coronavirus. In total 13,500 people have died among 720,000 infections.

During the trip Francis met the father of Alan Kurdi, a three-year old Syrian boy who drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea and whose image drew global attention to the plight of refugees fleeing to Europe.

Following a Mass on Sunday in the Iraqi city of Irbil, Francis met with Abdullah Kurdi and spent a long time with him, the Vatican said.

Through an interpreter, the Pope listened to Mr Kurdi's story and expressed sympathy for the loss of his family.

The Kurdi family, who hail from Kobane in Syria, took the route of many Syrian and other migrants in 2015 by sea in a small boat from Turkey heading for Greece.

When their boat capsized Alan, one of his brothers and his mother died. The image of Alan's body, washed up on Turkish shores, came to symbolise the perilous journey to Europe.
(Reuters) - Major global oil companies, working in Myanmar, are in the spotlight after the UN's human rights investigator called last week for coordinated international sanctions on the countrys state energy firm, MOGE.

Companies such as Frances Total or U.S.-based Chevron have worked for decades with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), which, according to the UN investigator, "is now controlled by the military junta and represents the single largest source of revenue to the state".

Below are facts about Myanmars energy sector and the main players.

TOTAL

Frances energy major has been a key player in Myanmar since 1992, developing the countrys top gas fields, Yadana and Sein, which started producing gas in 1998.

With a stake of 31.24 % Total has the status of operator. Other partners include Chevron with 28.26%, Thai PTTEP with 25.5% and MOGE with 15%.

Located off Myanmar's southwest coast in the Gulf of Martaban, the Yadana fields primarily produce gas for delivery to power plants in Thailand.

The fields also supply the domestic market via an offshore pipeline built and operated by MOGE, according to Total.

In 2019, Total produced 1.3 billion cubic metres of gas in Myanmar, equivalent to 16,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) - a relatively small amount representing 0.5 % of Totals overall output of 3 million boed.

Over the past decade, the share of Total production from the fields fluctuated between 13,000-21,000 boed.

Even though volumes are modest, they are important for Myanmar.

In 2019, Total paid $229.6 million to Myanmar, including $178.6 million to MOGE for produced and sold gas and $51 million in taxes to the ministry of finance.

According to Total reports, between 2015-2019 the company paid a total of $786.5 million over five years, including $619.9 million to MOGE and $166.6 million to the ministry of finance.

A consortium led by Total also won the rights to develop a terminal to import liquefied natural gas into an offshore terminal at Kanbauk, a 1,230 MW power plant and the supply of electricity to Yangon, to start up in 2023.

Story continues

Total, which employed 247 people in Myanmar in 2019, has said it was monitoring events and possible sanctions closely and was currently focusing on the safety of its workers. It said new projects in Myanmar were not a priority.

TOTAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS LAWSUIT

In 2002, four refugees from Myanmar filed a lawsuit against Total in Belgium.

The four refugees also sued Total's chief at the time, Thierry Desmarest, for complicity in the torture and forced labour of workers who were building a pipeline from Yadana.

Total has denied funding the military but has said the military paid soldiers to protect installations and workers. Total has repeatedly said Yadana was exempt from sanctions and it was acting as a positively engaged actor in the country.

The case was closed in 2008 after several years of deliberations over whether the plaintiffs had the standing to bring the lawsuit because they were not Belgian citizens.

CHEVRON

The United States' second-biggest energy company Chevron is a partner of Total in Yadana with a 28.3% stake. Its share of production stood at 15,000 boed in 2019, also just a fraction of its global output of 3 million boed.

Chevron says its deal with Myanmar on Yadana expires in 2028. Chevron also has a 28.3% non-operated interest in the pipeline company that transports gas to Thailand.

The pipeline is known as Moattama Gas Transportation Company (MGTC) and has MOGE and Thai PTT as partners.

Chevron has been disclosing payments to the government of Myanmar via the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). According to EITI data, Chevron paid around $50 million to Myanmar between 2014 and 2018.

According to EITIs reports, payments to MOGE are with oil and gas in kind.

According to Reuters calculations, based on figures disclosed by Total for Yadana payments and Chevrons share in Yadana, Chevrons payments to MOGE could be around $560 million between 2015 and 2019.

PTTEP

Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production, the upstream arm of state firm PTT, is a participant in all three major functioning projects in Myanmar. Thailand imports some 1,400 million cubic feet per day (mcfd) of gas, half of which comes from Myanmar. Since the military coup, PTTEP has said operations remain normal.

In Yadana, PTTEP has been a partner of Total, Chevron and MOGE since 1992. According to Reuters calculations, based on figures disclosed by Total and PTTEP's share in Yadana, PTTEP payments should have amounted to close to $640 million between 2015-2019, including around $500 million to MOGE.

PTTEP also has a 19.3% stake in the Yetagun project (Block M12, M13 and M14) which has been producing gas since 2000. Its partners in the project are Malaysia's Petronas with 40.91 %, Japan's Nippon Oil with 19.32% and MOGE with 20.45%.

PTTEP also has an 80% interest in the Zawtika project (M9), which has been producing gas since 2003. MOGE has the remaining 20%.

PTTEP plans a $2 billion gas-to-power investment including upstream development in Zawtika, a 600-MW power plant and transmission lines to supply 10% of Myanmar's existing installed power plant capacity.

In exploration, PTTEP has 100% of Block 11, 80% of Block M-3 (Japans Mitsui owns 20 %) and 50% of block MD-7 (Total has 50%).

WOODSIDE PETROLEUM

The Australian company said this month it was cutting its presence in Myanmar amid concerns over violence by security forces.

Woodside is active in exploration in Myanmar and started a fresh drilling campaign in January. It is exploring for oil and gas on blocks A-6, A-7, AD-1, AD-7 and AD-8.

Block A-6 is the most advanced and includes the drilling of up to 10 deep-water wells. Woodside says that since 2014 it has invested more than $400 million in Myanmar.

The company plans to export gas by a-265 km pipeline to the Yadana complex and distribute gas via existing infrastructure.

Woodside owns 40% in A-6. Other partners are Total and Myanmars MPRL E&P.

SHELL AND OTHERS

Shell is a partner of Woodside in block A7. Each hold 45% in the project with Woodside being the operator.

Other global firms such as Equinor and ConocoPhillips divested from Myanmar over the past years.

MYANMAR ON THE GLOBAL MAP

The countrys proven natural gas reserves totalled 1.2 trillion cubic metres as of 2019, according to BPs Statistical Review of World Energy, or around 0.5 % of global reserves.

Myanmar produced 17 billion cubic metres of gas in 2019, or 0.4 % of global output.

Energy thinktank Wood Mackenzie estimates that because of the coup new upstream projects worth $2 billion up until 2030, including the A6 project, now risk further delay.

"Key developments such as PTTEPs Zawtika and Woodsides Block A6 account for around 40% of the countrys expected supply until 2030," said WoodMac's Saloni Kapoor, adding that that incremental supply was critical to make up for declining volumes from legacy fields.

"Any tough counter-measures would drive Myanmar ever closer to China," said Kaho Yu, senior analyst at thinktank Maplecroft. China has engaged with both the military and the Aung San Suu Kyi-led governments.

(Reporting by Benjamin Mallet, Chayut Setboonsarng; Dmitry Zhdannikov; Sonali Paul; Gary McWilliams; Jennifer Hiller; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Advertisement

As royal tours go, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's visit to Australia in 2018 was considered a tremendous success.

They wooed the public by breaking protocol to embrace adoring fans, brought the rain with them when they visited drought-stricken communities and even timed their pregnancy announcement to coincide with their arrival.

The newlyweds were clearly smitten, and the Australian press couldn't help but liken Harry's new bride to his late mother, Diana, who also stole hearts when she arrived Down Under in 1983.

But the Duke of Sussex told Oprah Winfrey in a bombshell sit down interview which aired on Tuesday the comparisons did little to help Meghan's social standing in the palace.

As royal tours go, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's visit to Australia in 2018 was considered a tremendous success

The affection and clear joy they took from engaging with the public was reminiscent of Diana and her trip to Australia, in which the people's princess took the time to get to know legions of her adoring fans

Meghan Markle was praised - and even compared to Diana - following her successful royal tour of Australia in 2018

In fact, likening her to the people's princess may well have contributed to the new Duchess feeling ostracised and unwanted among members of the Firm and their staff, Harry concluded.

'They were really welcoming... but it changed after the Australia tour,' he confessed in the two hour sit-down with the A-list talk show host.

'It was also the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories,' he said, referring to Diana.

Prince Harry went on to say that while Meghan could have been 'one of the greatest assets to the Commonwealth the family could have ever wished for,' her popularity was confronting for the palace.

The Duke of Sussex told Oprah Winfrey in a sit down interview which aired on Tuesday the comparisons did little to help Meghan's social standing in the palace

When Oprah asked whether there were 'hints of jealousy', the Duke responded by saying: 'I just wish that we would all learn from the past'.

The Sussexes completed 75 engagements in 16 days across Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga during the whirlwind tour - all while Meghan was in the early stages of her first pregnancy.

Even as rumours surfaced that Meghan had been difficult and demanding to staff, it was the couple's humanity and warmth with the public that stuck after their tour drew to a close.

Bringing good luck to a down-and-out country town

The second stop on the royal tour was to Dubbo, a rural town in Central West New South Wales that had been crippled by drought for years prior to the visit.

But the day the Sussexes arrived, down came the rain, dampening ground that hadn't seen a drop in two years.

'This rain is a gift,' Harry told the crowds as Meghan tried to shield him from the downpour with her umbrella.

The couple visited Buninyong Public School during their stay in Dubbo, and it was there they met five-year-old Luke Vincent, who stole hearts globally when he rushed to give the Duke and Duchess a cuddle.

The second stop on the royal tour was to Dubbo, a rural community town in Central West New South Wales that had been crippled by drought for years prior to the visit. But the day the Sussexes arrived, down came the rain, dampening ground that hadn't seen a drop in two years

Both Meghan and Harry embraced the little boy, who has down syndrome and is non-verbal, and pictures of the sweet moment went viral within hours.

When Harry approached, the boy immediately reached over to rub his beard, before handing over a bouquet of flowers to the Duchess of Sussex.

He then enjoyed a big hug from Meghan before also embracing Prince Harry - taking the opportunity to have another rub of the royal's beard.

The couple visited Buninyong Public School during their stay in Dubbo, and it was there they met five-year-old Luke Vincent, who stole hearts globally when he rushed to give the Duke and Duchess a cuddle

Princess Diana greeted crowds and spent time getting to know her fans while on her official Australian royal tour in 1983

Heartwarming reunions and connecting with the public

Luke Vincent wasn't the only Australian who had a chance to get close to the royal couple during their tour.

Time and time again, the Sussexes were pictured having intimate conversations or embracing fans during their time Down Under.

Royal protocol dictates that members of the public should not touch the royal family - though this etiquette rule seems far less important among modern working royals.

On the first full day of the tour, the Duke was reunited with Daphne Dunne - a 98-year-old war widow who captured the hearts of a nation when she first met Harry in 2015 and then again in 2017.

Ms Dunne previously caught Harry's eye after waiting in the rain wearing her husband's Victoria Cross medal to meet him, and he spotted her in the crowd again during his Australian tour as she waited patiently with a bouquet of flowers to present to he and his wife.

Prince Harry meets 98-year-old Daphne Dunne outside Sydney Opera House. She held her hands to his face before sharing a hug.

Prince Harry introduced Meghan to Daphne Dunne, after calling her over when he spotted the war widow in the crowd. Meghan knelt down and said: 'I'm so happy to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you.'

'How are you? I'm going to get my wife to come over to say hello,' he said to Ms Dunne, before introducing her to Meghan.

'Oh my goodness, is this Daphne? I'm so happy to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you - all good things,' Meghan said as the two women clasped hands.

The joy they took out of engaging with the public was reminiscent of Diana and her trip to Australia, in which the people's princess took the time to get to know legions of her adoring fans.

Both Meghan and Diana were considerate of local traditions and customs, with photos taken from each tour of the women dressed in traditional outfits and performing customary greetings.

Time and time again, the Sussexes were pictured having intimate conversations or embracing fans during their time Down Under

Both Meghan and Diana were considerate of local traditions and customs, with photos taken from each tour of the women dressed in traditional outfits and performing customary greetings

Royal protocol dictates that members of the public should not touch the royal family - though this etiquette rule seems far less important among modern working royals

Pregnancy announcement and accepting gifts for their baby

As Meghan and Harry touched down in Australia for their first official royal tour as husband and wife, Kensington Palace released a perfectly timed statement on behalf of the royal family.

'Their Royal Highnesses are very pleased to announce that the Duchess of Sussex is expecting a baby in spring 2019. Their Royal Highnesses very much appreciate all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share their happy news,' the message read.

'The Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, and Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are delighted for the couple. Ms Doria Ragland is very happy about the lovely news and she looks forward to welcoming her first grandchild.'

Australian officials were then able to give the newlyweds their very first official gifts for little Archie, which included a stuffed toy kangaroo, koala and a pair of tiny Ugg boots.

On December 31st, 2019, the royal couple shared new photos of little Archie wearing the fluffy boots in a nod to their successful Australian tour.

Australian officials were then able to give the newlyweds their very first official gifts for little Archie, which included a stuffed toy kangaroo, koala and a pair of tiny Ugg boots

Prince Charles and Princess Diana brought baby William along for their tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1983

Sharing intimate details of their personal lives

In addition to saving their pregnancy announcement for the royal tour, both Meghan and Harry were candid during public speeches and in conversations with the public.

During her speech at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, the Duchess of Sussex shared an insight into her own upbringing and revealed she struggled to finance her college education.

Addressing students, she explained how earnings from a job she had on campus at Northwestern University went 'directly towards my tuition'.

'I am also fully aware of the challenges of being able to afford this level of schooling for many people around the world  myself included.

In addition to saving their pregnancy announcement for the royal tour, both Meghan and Harry were candid during public speeches and in conversations with the public

Diana spoke openly about motherhood, William's favourite toys to play with as a toddler and her life before becoming a member of the royal family on the tour and afterwards

'It was through scholarships, financial aid programmes and work-study where my earnings from a job on campus went directly towards my tuition - that I was able to attend university. And, without question, it was worth every effort.'

Diana was commended for her lack of pretension in Australia which won over even the most fervent republicans.

Diana spoke openly about motherhood, William's favourite toys to play with as a toddler and her life before becoming a member of the royal family.

Harry also touched on his mental health while discussing the drought with farmers and both he and Meghan were met with cheers when they arrived at the Invictus Games.

Diana was commended for her lack of pretension in Australia which won over even the most fervent republicans

Harry also touched on his mental health while discussing the drought with farmers and both he and Meghan were met with cheers when they arrived at the Invictus Games (pictured)

After the couple returned home, word spread that all was not well within the palace, including rumours of a rift between brothers and a falling out between Meghan and Kate Middleton.

In 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were stepping down as senior working members of the royal family, and last month they were officially stripped of any remaining titles and patronages they had.

The palace released a carefully worded statement which read: 'While all are saddened by their decision, The Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family.'

On Tuesday, the Sussexes' interview with Oprah aired on CBS and featured a raft of bombshell allegations, including that Meghan was suicidal and repeatedly asked for help and that a member of the family had expressed concerns over 'how dark' their future baby's skin might be.

The palace is yet to respond to the claims made during the segment, but the Queen was reportedly in 'crisis talks' with Harry's father Prince Charles and brother Prince William - both future kings.
ARLINGTON, Va., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- March of Dimes , the leader in the fight for the health of all moms and babies, and longtime partner, Amerigroup Foundation , are working together to tackle America's maternal and infant health crisis. As both organizations continue to address health inequity across the country, the partnership in New Jersey aims to address the racial disparities and social determinants of health that have disproportionately impacted Black mothers.

The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) recently reported that racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. have worsened over the past two decades. In order to achieve the Healthy People 2030 goals for Pregnancy and Childbirth, maternity care systems need to address disparities that threaten maternal and infant health. Researchers have identified implicit bias among health care providers as a potential contributor to these disparities. In response to these findings, March of Dimes developed Breaking Through Implicit Bias in Maternal Healthcare training, in collaboration with Quality Interactions, to improve patient-provider communications and treatment decisions, contributing to improved quality of care at a critical intervention point. The course provides an overview of implicit bias, its impact on the maternal infant health crisis, the history of structural racism in the United States, and strategies for providers to both mitigate racial bias in maternity care and commit to a culture of equity. The American Hospital Association recognizes the value of this important training program and the potential benefits of its use by healthcare providers across the country to better identify and remedy implicit bias. Hackensack Meridian Hackensack University Medical Center, Trinitas Regional Medical Center, and The Valley Hospital have been selected as local health equity partners to implement this important work.

"The U.S. is in the midst of a maternal and infant health crisis, which is particularly devastating to women and babies of color. Data shows that the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations in the world for childbirth," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, Chief Medical and Health Officer, Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Scientific Officer at March of Dimes. "Roughly every 12 hours, a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes, and the CDC reports that 60% are preventable. Programs like these, supported by the Anthem Foundation, are invaluable in making a positive impact for moms and babies."

Over the past decade, Amerigroup Foundation's parent company, Anthem Foundation, has contributed close to $8 million to support March of Dimes programs aimed at reducing premature birth that have reached more than 50,000 pregnant women across the country. These programs have had a significant impact with only 7.3% of participants in group prenatal care delivering prematurely, compared to a national average of 10%.

"At Amerigroup, we understand that new and expecting parents may be dealing with a lot of stress or anxiety which can impact not only their own health but also the health of the family or child," said Teresa Hursey, Amerigroup New Jersey Plan President. "To help materially improve the health and well-being of the people and communities we support, we're proud to partner with March of Dimes to ensure new parents have access to critical services and programs designed to encourage healthy pre- and post-natal habits."

About March of Dimes

March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, lead programs and provide education and advocacy so that every baby can have the best possible start. Building on a successful 80-year legacy of impact and innovation, we empower every mom and every family. Visit marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org for more information. Visit shareyourstory.org for comfort and support. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter .

About Amerigroup Foundation

The Amerigroup Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Amerigroup, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anthem, Inc. Together, with local, regional and national organizations, the Amerigroup Foundation commitment to improving lives and communities. Through strategic partnerships and programs, the Foundation addresses the social drivers that will help create a healthier generation of Americans in communities that the company serves. Amerigroup Foundation funding is focused on critical initiatives working to address and provide innovative solutions to health care challenges, as well as promoting the Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative with five areas of focus: Healthy Heart, Cancer Prevention, Healthy Maternal Practices, Type 2 Diabetes Prevention, and Healthy Active Lifestyle. These disease states and medical conditions include: prenatal care in the first trimester, low birth weight babies, cardiac morbidity rates, long term activities that decrease obesity and increase physical activity, diabetes prevalence in adult populations, adult pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations and smoking cessation. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Dollars for Dollars program which provides a 100 percent match of associates' donations, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Amerigroup Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at https://medium.com/anthemfoundation .

SOURCE March of Dimes Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marchofdimes.org


Microsoft Exchange Server attack hits local governments

The global Hafnium attack that is targeting email vulnerabilities in Microsofts Exchange Server is finding plenty of local government victims.

Microsoft announced the attack and released out-of-band security updates on March 2 to protect servers that had not yet been compromised by the zero-day vulnerabilities in its Exchange Servers' Outlook Web Access.

Exploiting the vulnerabilities, the threat actor Microsoft has named Hafnium has gained persistent system access not just to files and mailboxes on the server but also to credentials stored on that system, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a March 3 alert. Even after systems have been patched, however, backdoors may have already been installed on email servers.

The attack is not known to have impacted Exchange Online or Microsoft 365 (formerly O365) cloud email services, CISA said.

Security expert Brian Krebs reported in his KrebsOnSecurity blog that the list of 30,000 victims in the U.S. includes a significant number of local governments.

Its police departments, hospitals, tons of city and state governments and credit unions, one source whos working closely with federal officials told KrebsOnSecurity. Just about everyone whos running self-hosted Outlook Web Access and wasnt patched as of a few days ago got hit with a zero-day attack.

Christopher Krebs, the former CISA director, tweeted March 5 that the attack would disproportionately impact those that can least afford it (SMBs, Edu, States, locals). Plus, he said, the sheer scale & speed of this one is terrifying. It's trivial to exploit. Countdown to Ransomware?

Steven Adair, president of Volexity, a company that spotted the attack in January, told KrebsOnSecurity hes fielded dozens of calls from state and local government agencies that have identified the backdoors in their Exchange servers and are pleading for help.

Even when organizations learn they have been compromised, if they dont remove the backdoor, they are leaving themselves open to more attacks. "A massive, massive number of organizations are getting that initial foothold," Adair told Wired. "It's a ticking time bomb that can be used against them at any point in time."

On a call with stakeholders impacted by Hafnium, another government cybersecurity expert told KrebsOnSecurity hes concerned about remediation efforts.

The cleanup effort required is going to be Herculean, a government cybersecurity expert told KrebsOnSecurity. If the number of victims climbs into the tens of thousands, there are just not enough incident response teams out there to do that quickly.

To make matters worse, it seems that other bad actors started taking advantage of the vulnerability once Microsoft announced it.

Four more groups have joined in, and the original Chinese hackers have dropped the pretense of stealth and increased the number of attacks theyre carrying out, according to a report in MITs Technology Review.

Federal agencies, which often have vastly more depth to their cybersecurity defense, were required by CISA to immediately patch vulnerable systems or unplug them.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has released tools to help organizations identify whether theyve been compromised and clean up their systems. Microsoft has released an updated script that scans Exchange log files for evidence of compromise, and some mitigation recommendations.
Channel samples include 2.0 metres @ 4.9% copper and 62 g/t silver

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Hannan Metals Limited ("Hannan" or the "Company") (TSXV:HAN)(OTC PINK:HANNF) provides assay results from the first outcrop copper-silver discoveries from the Tabalosos project held within the San Martin JOGMEC JV sediment-hosted copper-silver project in Peru (Figures 1 and 2).

Highlights:

First high grade copper-silver outcrop discoveries from the Tabalosos project held within the San Martin JOGMEC JV sediment-hosted copper-silver project in Peru. Outcrops have been delineated in two areas: Zona Este and Zona Sur that strike over a combined 2.5 kilometres. The discoveries were made by following up mineralized float samples in creeks found in 2019 by Hannan (Figure 2).;

Zona Sur consists of twelve channel-sampled outcrops over 500 metres of strike. Additional systematic sampling is required to determine the full width of mineralization. Best channel results include (Figure 3): 2.0 metres @ 4.9% copper and 62 g/t silver (partially sampled); 6.2 metres @ 0.8% copper and 19 g/t silver (full sample); including 1.3 metres @ 3.5% copper and 86 g/t silver; 0.4 metres @ 6.3% copper, 152 g/t silver (partially sampled); 0.4 metres @ 7.2% copper, 163 g/t silver (partially sampled);

consists of twelve channel-sampled outcrops over 500 metres of strike. Additional systematic sampling is required to determine the full width of mineralization. Best channel results include (Figure 3): Zona Este consists of four channel-sampled outcrops within an area of 80 metres by 120 metres. Additional systematic sampling is required to determine the full width of mineralization. Best channel results include (Figure 3): 1.0 metre @ 6.3% copper and 101 g/t silver (partially sampled); 1.8 metres @ 3.7% copper and 42 g/t silver (partially sampled); including 1.2 metres @ 5.4% copper and 62 g/t silver 2.2 metres @ 2.4% copper and 29 g/t silver (full sample); including 0.7 metres @ 5.9% copper and 70 g/t silver

consists of four channel-sampled outcrops within an area of 80 metres by 120 metres. Additional systematic sampling is required to determine the full width of mineralization. Best channel results include (Figure 3): Hannan continues to work with support and permission from all stakeholders at San Martin and interacts closely with local communities.

Michael Hudson, CEO, states: "San Martin continues to deliver high grade copper and silver at scale. These are the first high outcrop discoveries found by our team at Tabalosos, by undertaking good prospecting and geological work. Given the challenges in making surface discoveries with the predominant soil and colluvial cover, teams are now in the field collecting detailed and systematic soil samples to map and infill the mineralized horizon between outcrops over multiple kilometres."

The San Martin Project is located in north-eastern Peru. Project access is excellent via a proximal paved highway, while the altitude ranges from 400 metres to 1,600 metres in a region of high rainfall and predominantly forest cover. Hannan has staked a total of 88 mineral concessions for a total of 65,600 ha (656 sq kms), covering multiple trends within a 120 km of combined strike for sedimentary-hosted copper-silver mineralization. A total of 43 granted mining concessions for 329 sq km have been granted, while the rest remain under application. The Tabalosos project is located 80 kilometres north of Sacanche where earlier work by Hannan at San Martin has identified a 20 kilometre strike trend which includes channel samples such as 2.0 metres @ 5.9% copper and 66 g/t silver, 0.6 metres @ 8.7% copper and 59 g/t silver and 3.0 metres @ 2.5% copper and 22 g/t silver.

The new outcropping mineralized discoveries have been delineated in two areas: Zona Este and Zona Sur that strike over a combined 2.5 kilometres (Figure 2, 3). Most of the outcropping areas are covered by colluvial cover that make it difficult to sample across the full width of mineralization and therefore additional systematic sampling is required, in many cases, to determine the full width of mineralization.

Zona Sur consists of twelve channel-sampled outcrops over 500 metres of strike, with earlier boulder discoveries extending the zone to a minimum of 700 metres strike (Figure 3). Zona Este consists of four channel-sampled outcrops within an area of 80 metres by 120 metres. Additional systematic sampling is required to determine the full width of mineralization in both areas. Better channel results include (Figure 3) are listed in Point 2 and 3 respectively of the highlights above and shown in Figures 2 and 3.

The new outcrop discoveries were made at the top of the Sarayaquillo Formation by following up mineralized float samples in creeks found in 2019 by Hannan that defined a 30 kilometre trend hosting copper-silver mineralization with four key zones defined over a 5 kilometre cross strike width. At Tabalosos two mineralized target styles have been defined by Hannan geologists:

A stratabound position in the upper levels of the Sarayaquillo Formation, defined by the presence of debris organic material that hosts high-grade copper-silver mineralization. This zone is correlated over a 30- kilometre-long trend and over 5 kilometres in width across the Tabalosos project area and is the same mineralized stratigraphic level identified in outcrop at Sacanche, located 80 kilometres to the south. A structurally controlled sandstone hosted copper-silver target has been identified in the southern part of the project. This area is 7 kilometres long and up to 5 kilometres wide in Tabalosos.

Peru currently remains with COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, and Hannan's field work was suspended, as a result, through February 2021. With COVID-safe work practices, including the establishment of a dedicated Hannan field base in Tarapoto, technical and social teams have been remobilized back into the field during the second week of March. Hannan's number one priority is the health, safety and well-being of our employees, stakeholders and communities. We look forward to the opportunity to return to the field, and we will continue to support the San Martin communities while working to derisk and advance our knowledge of the vast mineral system emerging in the region. Hannan continue to work with support and permission from all stakeholders including local communities in San Martin.

About the San Martin JOGMEC JV Project (Copper-Silver, Peru, 88 mining concessions for 660 sq km)

On November 30, 2020 Hannan announced that it had signed a binding letter agreement for a significant Option and Joint Venture Agreement (the "Agreement") with JOGMEC. Under the Agreement, JOGMEC has the option to earn up to a 75% beneficial interest in the San Martin Project by spending up to US $35,000,000 to deliver to the joint venture ("JV") a feasibility study.

The Agreement grants JOGMEC the option to earn an initial 51% ownership interest by funding US $8,000,000 in project expenditures at San Martin over a four-year period, subject to acceleration at JOGMEC's discretion. JOGMEC's minimum commitment is to fund US $1,000,000 from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 and JOGMEC has agreed to reimburse the Company for all project related costs from April 1, 2020. JOGMEC, at its election, can then earn:

an additional 16% interest for a total 67% ownership interest by achieving either a prefeasibility study or funding a further US $12,000,000 in project expenditures in amounts of at least US $1,000,000 per annum (for a US $20,000,000 total expenditure); and,

subject to owning a 67% interest, a further 8% interest for a total 75% ownership interest by achieving either a feasibility study or funding a further US $15,000,000 in project expenditures in amounts of at least US $1,000,000 per annum (for a US $35,000,000 total expenditure).

Should JOGMEC not proceed to a prefeasibility study or spend US $20,000,000 in total, Hannan shall have the right to purchase from JOGMEC for the sum of US $1, a two percent (2%) Participating Interest, whereby Hannan's Participating Interest will be increased to fifty-one percent (51%) and JOGMEC's Participating Interest will be reduced to forty-nine percent (49%). At the completion of a feasibility study, JOGMEC has the right to either:

purchase up to an additional ten percent (10%) Participating Interest from Hannan Metals (for a total 85% maximum capped Participating Interest) at fair value as determined in accordance with internationally recognized professional standards by an agreed upon independent third-party valuator; or

receive up to an additional ten percent (10%) Participating Interest from Hannan (for a total 85% maximum capped Participating Interest) in consideration of JOGMEC's agreement to fund development of the project, by loan carrying Hannan until the San Martin Project generates positive cash flow.

After US $35,000,000 has been spent by JOGMEC and before a feasibility study has been achieved, both parties will fund expenditures pro rata or dilute via a standard industry dilution formula. If the Participating Interest in the Joint Venture of any party is diluted to less than 5% then that party's Participating Interest will be automatically converted to a 2.0% net smelter royalty ("NSR"), and the other party may at any time purchase 1.0% of the 2.0% NSR for a cash payment of US $1,000,000. Hannan will manage exploration at least until JOGMEC earns a 51% interest, after which the majority participant interest holder will be entitled to act as the operator of the joint venture. Initial exploration activities will focus on the collection of the geological, geophysical, and geochemical datasets in the JV project areas. The first phase of exploration is expected to conclude March 2021.

Sediment-hosted stratiform copper-silver deposits are among the two most important copper sources in the world, the other being copper porphyries. They are also a major producer of silver. According to the World Silver Survey 2020 KGHM Polska Miedz's ("KGHM") three copper-silver sediment-hosted mines in Poland are the leading silver producer in the world with 40.2Moz produced in 2019. This is almost twice the production of the second largest producing mine. The Polish mines are also the sixth largest global copper miner and in 2018, KGHM produced 30.3 Mt of ore at a grade of 1.49% copper and 48.6 g/t silver from a mineralized zone that averages 0.4 to 5.5 metres thickness.

Technical Background

All samples were collected by Hannan geologists. Rock and sediment samples were transported to ALS in Lima via third party services using traceable parcels. At the laboratory rock samples were prepared and analyzed by standard methods. The sample preparation involved crushing 70% to less than 2mm, riffle split off 250g, pulverize split to better than 85% passing 75 microns. The crushers and pulverizes were cleaned with barren material after every sample. Samples were analyzed by method ME-MS61, a four acid digest preformed on 0.25g of the sample to quantitatively dissolve most geological materials. Analysis is via ICP-MS. Gold was analyzed using method Au-ICP22 on a 50g sample charge. The method uses fire assay and ICP-AES.

Channel samples are considered representative of the in-situ mineralization samples and sample widths quoted approximate the true width of mineralization, while grab samples are selective by nature and are unlikely to represent average grades on the property.

About Hannan Metals Limited (TSXV:HAN) (OTCPK: HANNF)

Hannan Metals Limited is a natural resources and exploration company developing sustainable resources of metal needed to meet the transition to a low carbon economy. Over the last decade, the team behind Hannan has forged a long and successful record of discovering, financing, and advancing mineral projects in Europe and Peru. Hannan holds 1,864 square kilometers (186,400 hectares) of granted mineral concessions and applications in Peru making it a top ten in-country explorer by area.

Mr. Michael Hudson FAusIMM, Hannan's Chairman and CEO, a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure contained in this news release.

On behalf of the Board,

"Michael Hudson"

Michael Hudson, Chairman & CEO

Further Information

www.hannanmetals.com

1305 - 1090 West Georgia St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V7

Mariana Bermudez, Corporate Secretary,

+1 (604) 685 9316, info@hannanmetals.com

Forward Looking Statements

Certain disclosure contained in this news release, including the Company's expectations regarding the Agreement and the payments and earn-in upon the successful completion of certain milestones, may constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. These statements may relate to this news release and other matters identified in the Company's public filings. In making the forward-looking statements the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to the potential impact of epidemics, pandemics or other public health crises, including the current coronavirus pandemic known as COVID-19 on the Company's business. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news.

SOURCE: Hannan Metals Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634216/Hannan-Discovers-First-High-Grade-Copper-Silver-Outcrops-Over-25-KM-Strike-at-Tabalosos-Peru
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
By Jennifer Hiller, David French and Karen Pierog

(Reuters) - Financial strains on Texas city-owned utilities, rural electric cooperatives and the grid operator has spurred calls for state aid and lured private equity firms into plans to fix multi-billion-dollar charges.

The state's power costs jumped by roughly 10 times the usual, to about $47 billion, during a week-long cold snap that took down nearly half of its power plants. The charges have driven one co-op into bankruptcy and left two dozen others facing bills they will be hard-pressed to cover without outside help.

Several private equity firms have been in talks with the operator of the Texas electric grid to provide it financial support, four people familiar with the talks told Reuters.

The grid acts as a clearing house, collecting from electric marketers including municipals and co-ops and paying generators usually within four days. When defaults occur, it spreads the shortfall to other grid users, adding pressure to those able to pay their own bills.

EMERGENCY FUNDING

It remains unclear what form this funding would take and whether Texas officials would agree to an offer from private equity firms. The buyout firms would likely provide a loan or bond which would cover the near-term cash needs of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the people said.

ERCOT spokeswoman Leslie Sopko declined comment on financing options under consideration.

It was unclear whether the private equity talks would yield any agreement. The dialogue has been hampered by a power vacuum left by top-level departures at ERCOT and the state regulator, some of the people said. There are also disputes over whether the state could use its emergency funds bail out providers.

Rating agencies are warning that, absent a government financial rescue plan, significant borrowing will be needed. Rayburn Electric, a north Texas co-op that serves 225,000 customers, said its weekly power costs soared more than 900 times. Residential customers that normally pay $150 per month face more than $3,200 bills without some reduction, Chief Executive David Naylor said.

Story continues

LIMITED OPTIONS

Taking money from private equity and infrastructure funds would be one alternative to a state-led bailout. Another would be for ERCOT to sell bonds backed by future fees, delaying an immediate cash call.

San Antonio's municipal utility, the largest in the country, owes about $1 billion for gas and electricity purchased during the storm. The company  CPS Energy  has said it plans to seek $500 million in financing and may consider future legal remedies as a way to recover some of those costs.

Credit ratings firms warned of downgrades on dozens of rural electric co-ops and municipal utilities that have outstanding debt, moves that would raise their future debt costs.

"It could be politically challenging and it could be difficult to raise rates to recover these costs," said Dennis Pidherny managing director at Fitch Ratings.

Texas power regulators on Friday vetoed requests by private electric providers and a recommendation by the state's market adviser to rescind rates and fees mistakenly levied.

But officials may have to take a different tack when it comes to municipal providers and rural co-ops, officials said, because of their number and clout. The two groups have more than 3.5 million customers in the state combined, a Reuters tally shows.

"I dont think we want a wave of municipal bankruptcies," said state Senator Nathan Johnson, (D-Dallas). "At a minimum were going to have to find a way to stretch out the time period over which losses can be amortized or recovered. At a minimum."

One of the state's largest utilities, Vistra Corp, on Friday recommended any state bailout for the groups include a provision breaking the municipal providers' lock on supplying their communities.

(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller in Houston, David French in New York and Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Gary McWilliams in Houston and by Diane Craft in New York)
Guinean regulator ARPT (LAutoritie de Regulation des Postes et Telecommunications) will deactivate any SIM cards that remain unregistered from 2nd May this year.

As per Decision D/001/ARPT/CNRPT/2021, which came into effect on 31st December 2020, subscribers must provide proof of identity in the form of a national identity card, passport or voter card to register their SIM cards.

TeleGeography reports that subscribers are entitled to hold a maximum of three SIM cards with each operator, with the operators liable for a fine of up to GNF10 million (US$979,550) if they are found to have activated SIM cards or internet accounts without a valid ID.

While legislation that came into effect in 2015 stipulated that operators of telecommunications networks or services open to the public are obliged systematically to identify their subscribers, ARPT director general Yacouba Cisse noted that the new stricter rules will align Guinea with broader international standards and help reduce fraud and other crime.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Srinagar, March 9 : The plight of Kashmirs houseboats, once called the floating palaces on the pristine waters of The Dal Lake, today hangs in a precarious balance.

It is an archetypal case of the resident coming in direct conflict with his residence! Once known for its crystal clear waters on which the houseboats floated majestically, the Dal Lake in Kashmir's capital city, Srinagar, is today dying a slow death.

Its waters have become murky, polluted and unfit for drinking and even bathing.

Reports of bathers getting a skin rash after swimming in this Lake have raised alarm even when the government is spending millions to retrieve the Lake, both from pollution and human encroachment.

Experts say that from its original area of 22 square miles, Dal Lake has shrunken to less than 10 square miles.

"The reason for the shrinking of this Lake is encroachment as more and more land masses have come up inside the Lake", said Dr. Ashok Pandita, who has done exhaustive research on the ecology of this Lake.

Pandita does not blame the houseboats and the fishermen who live inside the Lake for its present plight.

He says there are multiple factors those have led to the degradation of the Lake.

"The houseboat owners and the fishermen living inside the Dal Lake are an integral part of the Lake's ecosystem. You cannot claim to have preserved the Lake by removing its dwellers.

"Removing houseboat owners and fishermen from the Lake in the name of preserving it would be like removing the tiger from the forest to save its ecosystem," Pandita said.

He, however, asserted that the number of houseboats and the population of fishermen should be kept under check to prevent their explosion inside the fragile ecosystem.

He asserts that the number of houseboats has in fact come down over the years instead of any increase in their numbers.

Abdul Hamid Wangnoo, whose family has been in the houseboat business since the 19th century, is the president of the houseboat owners association.

"A decade back, we had 1500 houseboats and today there are just 950. Since the authorities are not allowing any repairs of these, more are likely to rot and sink till a time comes when there would be hardly any left," Wangnoo said.

He said instead of saving the Lake, the developmental projects undertaken by the authorities have laid emphasis on laying roads around the water body those have choked the inflow of fresh water from perennial springs into the Lake.

"There is complete apathy by the authorities towards the houseboat industry. The government policy is not clear at all. We have approached the central government, but so far there has been no positive development.

"If the present situation continues and we are not allowed to go ahead with annual repairs and renovation, there would be no houseboat left in the Lake after 15 to 20 years," said Wangnoo.

Wangnoo's claim that houseboats are not the real culprits in polluting the Lake is supported by Dr. Pandita.

"There are four major STPs installed by the authorities to protect the Dal Lake. Due to frequent power failures especially in the winter months these STPs do not function optimally.

"Our research has shown that most of the time the STPs block the entry of just 20 per cent pollutants while the rest pour into the Lake.

"Authorities must ensure proper sanitation and drainage of the houseboats instead of allowing this historical legacy of the Lake to die a neglected death", Pandita said.

Is unenviable plight of the houseboat owners is ultimately going to cost Kashmir its famous tourist destination? 90-year old, G.M. Butt, the owner of Clermont houseboats in the Nigeen area of Srinagar city is a confused man.

"I am not keeping well. Have to see a doctor today. My health is as failing as that of the houseboat industry. I can't say much this time," Butt told IANS.

The photo gallery at Butt's chain of houseboats is infact the pride of Kashmir's houseboat industry.

Nelson Rockefeller, 41st vice-president of America, actress Joan Fontaine, The Beatles, Pandit Ravi Shankar, British musician, George Harrison, Bollywood legend, Dilip Kumar, Michael Palin, famous photojournalist, James Natchetway and many other celebrities have been Butt's guests at his houseboats.

Unless the authorities come to the immediate rescue of Kashmir's houseboat industry, Butt's houseboats including hundreds of others would go down to the bottom of the Lake taking along with them the proud history of having played host to some of the most celebrated names in the World.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Tuesday's panel of "Kokrokoo'' on Peace FM have sent words of advice to all Ghanaians in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.



The panel comprising seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., the Dean of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana, Professor Kofi Agyekum, popularly known as Opanyin Agyekum and the Chief Executive Officer of the State Transport Corporation Nana Akomea sought to allay the fears of Ghanaians with regard to taking the COVID-19 vaccine.



With those who have been vaccinated, there are reports of various side effects of the vaccines.



Some have complained of headache, fever, nausea among other side effects.



The side effects seem to have compounded the difficulties in encouraging people to be vaccinated.



The panelists, who have all taken the vaccine jab, have advised Ghanaians not to be afraid of the vaccine and shouldn't also be deceived by the naysayers making ridiculous claims against the vaccines.



Nana Akomea says Ghanaians must "have a common mind and go for the vaccine jab".



"It won't harm you or give you anything that will permanently harm you. Go and get vaccinated," he added.



Opanyin Agyekum also added his voice to the advocacy pleading with "everybody to go and get vaccinated".



Kwesi Pratt also gave similar advice and notable among the submissions by the panelists is that the side effects are scientific and normal reaction.



They also stressed it is a confirmation of the vaccine at work in the recipients.



They further noted that the vaccine is the surest antidote for the Coronavirus disease, hence encouraging all Ghanaians to get inoculated in order to rid the country of the pandemic disease.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday (March 9) recited Chandipath as she launched her poll campaign for the Nandigram seat asserting that no one should dare to play `Hindu card` against her. In Nandigram, she is contesting against her aide-turned- rival Suvendu Adhikari.

Addressing a public meeting in Nandigram, Mamata Banerjee said, "Those who are talking about 70:30 ratio should know that I read `Chandi path` every morning before leaving home. I am the daughter of a Hindu family. Do not dare to play the Hindu card with me. I challenge them to have a competition with me in `Chandipath`."

Mamata chanted shlokas of `Chandipath` on the stage--"Om Jayanti Mangala Kali Bhadrakali Kapalini, Durga Kshama Shiva Dhatri Swaha Swadha Namoastutte....", adding "They are insulting the sacred Nandigram movement and playing the communal card. People of Nandigram will make BJP `April fool` on April 1 during the polling."

On the insider versus outsider debate, she said, "Some people are calling me an outsider in Nandigram. I was born and brought up in the neighbouring Birbhum district. Today I have become an outsider. And, those coming from Gujarat are now insiders?"

She further said, "If you do not want me to file the nomination, I will not. But, if you consider me your daughter, then I will move ahead with filing my nomination."

The West Bengal Chief Minister, who has been representing Bhawanipur constituency, will contest this Assembly election from Nandigram where she will file a nomination on March 10. Banerjee visited Chandi Temple in Nandigram and then visited Shamshabad Mazar in Nandigram.

Taking the fight to Adhikari's backyard, Banerjee said the Nandigram movement wouldn't have got the momentum it did had the Singur anti-land acquisition stir not taken place before that.

Live TV

She further said, "Singur movement took place months before the Nandigram movement. I had already completed 26 days of hunger strike against Singur land acquisition in December 2006. It was then that Nandigram happened in 2007. The Singur movement provided much-needed momentum to the Nandigram movement."

Banerjee said those claiming the legacy of the movement should not forget how she had been with the masses of the area risking her life.

Earlier on Saturday, BJP released its first list of 57 candidates for the polls and fielded Suvendu Adhikari from Nandigram against Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee.

Adhikari, once a close aide of Banerjee, has switched to BJP in December last year. West Bengal is likely to witness a triangular contest this time with TMC, Congress-Left alliance and the BJP in the fray.

Notably, West Bengal Assembly elections will be held in eight phases starting from March 27 with the final round of voting taking place on April 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.

(With Agency Inputs)
has adopted an increasingly assertive military posture to exert pressure and expand its influence across the region and the Chinese expansionary territorial ambitions are also on display along its western border, where its troops have been engaged in a standoff with Indian forces, a top American commander told lawmakers on Tuesday.

During a Congressional hearing, Admiral Philips Davidson, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the greatest danger for the in this competition with is the erosion of conventional deterrence.

He said that a combat-credible, conventional deterrent posture is necessary to prevent conflict, protect US interests, and to assure its allies and partners.

Admiral Davidson told lawmakers that has adopted an increasingly assertive military posture to exert pressure and expand its influence across the region. This is particularly stark concerning Taiwan, he said, adding that Chinese expansionary territorial ambitions are also on display along its western border, where the PLA (People's Liberation Army) has been engaged in a standoff with Indian forces along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) since May 2020.

"The standoff was predicated by clashes over construction activities near the disputed border PLA ground maneuver and support elements subsequently forward-deployed roughly 50,000 soldiers along the LAC, leading to a counter-deployment by the Indian Army, he said.

"The PLA has not yet withdrawn from several forward positions it seized following the initial clash, and the consequent escalation of tensions between the PRC and India has resulted in casualties on both sides. This large-scale PLA mobilisation - which is particularly notable considering the elevation, terrain, and distance involved - has stoked regional concerns that the People's Republic of China (PRC) will increasingly use force to achieve desired outcomes, Davidson said.

China moved over 60,000 well-armed troops who were mobilised for annual exercises, to contentious areas like Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh in May last year, prompting India to match the PLA's mobilisation which led to an over eight-month long standoff.

After lengthy rounds of talks, the two sides simultaneously withdrew troops from Pangong Tso area last month while talks are on for the withdrawal of soldiers from the rest of the areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Davidson said that A combat-credible, conventional deterrent posture is necessary to prevent conflict, protect US interests, and to assure its allies and partners.

"Absent a convincing deterrent, the PRC will be emboldened to take action to undermine the rules-based order and the values represented in our vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. The combination of the PRC's military modernisation program and willingness to intimidate its neighbors through the use, or threatened use of force, undermines peace, security, and prosperity in the region, he said.

"US Indo-Pacific Command's approach for addressing Great Power Competition centers on advancing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific by focusing on four critical areas: increasing Joint Force Lethality, Enhancing Design and Posture, Strengthening Allies and Partners and modernizing our Exercises, Experimentation, and Innovation Programs, he added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Labour has called for ministers to hold regular Army-style 'germ games' to prepare for future pandemics because Britain was far too 'vulnerable' when Covid struck last year.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said No10 should undergo obligatory disease-fighting training, in the same way the military holds war game drills.

In a speech today, he warned the country was 'vulnerable and exposed' when Covid hit because the Government had ignored warnings and weakened its defences. He added being on the 'back foot' against coronavirus 'cost lives'.

'This pandemic has been devastating,' he told a Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) webinar. 'Our NHS staff are exhausted, families are fatigued, over 120,000 have died and were suffering a deep economic hit.

'Our vaccination programme is the light at the end of the tunnel, but with experts warning we are in an "era of pandemics", this is no time for complacency.'

Major weaknesses in the UK's pandemic preparedness plans were revealed five years ago in a drill codenamed Exercise Cygnus.

They included a risk of hospitals and the social care sector being overwhelmed by admissions from a flu-like illness, an insufficient supply of PPE and ventilators, and glaring issues with virus testing capacity.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth is calling for regular military-style `germ games to ensure ministers are properly prepared for any future pandemics (Pictured on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday)

UK pandemic preparedness drill - codenamed Exercise Cygnus - carried out five years ago found the UK was woefully unprepared for an outbreak

WHAT WAS PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS PLAN EXERCISE CYGNUS? Britain carried out a drill to check its pandemic preparedness in 2016, codenamed Exercise Cygnus. The operation modelled a fictitious flu virus - similar to Covid as it triggers respiratory infections - which emerged in Thailand in June. It saw more than 1,000 NHS and Government officials asked how they would respond by week seven of the outbreak. The virus was modelled as one that affected 50 per cent of the population and triggered 400,000 deaths. It saw mock Cobra meetings held with ministers, news articles published on a fictitious site called WNN, and ministers sharing warnings on 'Twister'. The report made 22 findings. These included that by week seven the NHS was 'about to fall over', overwhelmed social care sector, insufficient supplies of PPE and glaring issues with virus testing capacity. But it added the first wave would not have peaked by this point - with further pressures expected in the modelling. It came at a time when the then-Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was cutting beds in NHS hospitals. Advertisement

Mr Ashworth also said the Health Secretary should report annually to Parliament on the country's pandemic preparedness, with its plans subject to independent scrutiny.

And that local public health teams  a key element of Test and Trace  must be properly resourced to contain outbreaks in their areas.

The Government should work with research institutions and the life sciences industry to develop vaccines and therapeutics in the future, he added.

'Viruses more deadly or contagious than Covid, or resistant to antibodies, could emerge,' he said. 'Pandemic threats are real and must be reduced.

'Boris Johnsons Government ignored the warnings and weakened our defences. They left our country vulnerable and exposed when this pandemic hit.

'Given we know the scale of the risks, it would be unforgivable to be on the back foot again.'

He added: 'Being on the back foot has cost lives. Labour would get on the front foot against future threats. Future resilience against pandemics isnt a choice. Its a necessity.'

Exercise Cygnus, carried out in 2016, was a cross-Government operation that saw 1,000 officials predict how they would react to a theoretical pandemic.

It painted a grim picture, with hospitals and mortuaries overflowing, overwhelmed care homes and inadequate protection for NHS doctors and nurses.

But the report wasn't published until last year, after being done years earlier at a time when then-Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was cutting the number of beds in hospitals.

The exercise was based on a flu virus which, like Covid, can trigger deadly lung infections and pneumonia in patients.

It pretended the first cases were initially reported in Thailand in June, before the hypothetical virus reached Britain two months later via a group of travellers.

It saw ministers meet in mock Cobra meetings, fictitious news website WNN publish articles and ministers release warnings on 'Twister'.

By the seven week mark their terrifying predictions suggested the NHS was already 'about to fall over', but that the virus had not reached its peak.

The model also suggested that key messaging from ministers around the pandemic would not cut through to the public.

The existence of Exercise Cygnus, which made 22 recommendations, only became apparent earlier this year after being kept secret for years. Its report was only circulated to those involved in the exercise.

Exercise Cygnus involved more than 1,000 NHS and Government officials who modelled how the country could look in week seven of a potential pandemic

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: 'Covid-19 challenged health systems around the world and, from the outset, protecting the NHS and saving lives has been the governments focus.

'Our response has always been informed by the latest advice from our scientists and, we have taken swift action when new evidence has emerged.

'As we battle to overcome this dreadful virus, we have established the largest diagnostics network in UK history, launched the NHSs biggest ever mass vaccination campaign and shared with the world our genomics capabilities, contributing almost half of the Covid sequencing data shared with the World Health Organization (WHO).

'We are already looking to our future preparedness and through the new National Institute for Health Protection we will supercharge our response to health threats, both now and in the future.'
Amaravati/Delhi, March 9 : Curbs on mining, poaching, hunting, and human encroachment, are among several initiatives that the government of Andhra Pradesh has taken to protect national parks and sanctuaries located in the state.

On Tuesday, Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Babul Supriyo, informed the Rajya Sabha that the Andhra Pradesh government has set up 94 base camps in protected areas and 8 strike forces have been stationed with protected area managers.

Timely payment of ex-gratia is made in case of death, injury, etc due to human-wildlife conflict.

Awareness campaigns are being held in adjoining villages and local communities have been involved in protection.

The information was provided while replying to questions raised by Rajya Sabhs MP from Andhra Pradesh, Parimal Nathwani, who wanted to know the details of National Parks and Sanctuaries in India, and especially in Andhra Pradesh.

The minister's statement noted that the activities inside National Parks and Sanctuaries are carried out as per approved Management Plans to maintain balanced biodiversity.

Of the 16 National Parks in Andhra Pradesh, the larger ones are the Nagarjuna Sagar-Srisailam Sanctuary which is spread over 1,402 square kms, the Sri Penusila Narasimha Sanctuary which spans across 1,031 square km and the Papikonda National Park which stretches across 1013 square km.

The minister also stated that management of National Parks and Sanctuaries is done by State/UT Governments as per the provisions contained in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
March 9, 1956

Farview fugitives found in IllinoisPaul Cooke and Richard Williams, two fugitives from the Farview State Hospital, were apprehended by local law enforcement in East St. Louis, Illinois, on March 7, 1956.

The pair escaped from the Wayne County institution on Oct. 4, 1955.

According to police in East St. Louis, they first arrested Williams when he was attempting to burglarize a drugstore. While in custody he confessed to 14 other burglaries in Illinois. He also told the police where to find Cooke. Cooke was picked up at his job at the National City Stockyards. Williams also said that he and Cooke had been living in public housing in East St. Louis.

The pair both refused to waive extradition to speed up their return to Pennsylvania.

Speaking with The Scranton Times, Farview Superintendent Dr. John P. Shovlin said it was not necessary for the pair to be extradited if they were returning to the hospital as patients, but then they would not have the right to force an extradition proceeding.

At the time, Cooke said he was only temporarily insane in 1939 when he killed his parents and sister. He said he wasnt given the opportunity to prove that to authorities.

This matter was turned over to an official with the deportation office of the Illinois Bureau of Mental Health for review.

Easter clothing sale at the Globe

Boys and young mens all-wool sport coats were priced between $10.95 and $19.95, boys and young mens flannel slacks were $4.95, young mens all-wool suits were $24.95, boys dress shirts were $2.95, young girls and girls floral print dresses were priced between $8.95 and $10.95, and young girls and girls fitted coats were priced between $19.95 and $25.
Okay for elderly to receive Sinovac jab: Patrick Nip

Okay for elderly to receive Sinovac jab: Patrick Nip

Jimmy Choi reports
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Cue the Steven Yeun can murder me thirst tweets. Photo: Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Steven Yeun has the range, but he knows it doesnt show during his time on AMCs The Walking Dead. After seven seasons, his character, Glenn, was brutally killed off in 2015, but by then, Yeun had been nursing a nagging feeling that Glenns time was up. In his new GQ cover story, Minari daddy Yeun recalls how he and Glenn were underestimated with one-dimensional arcs. I felt I had expanded beyond that and I was internally frustrated, he said. I felt like I was servicing a concept of goodness, as opposed to engaging with Glenns humanity. The actor said he wanted his character to be more conflicted, like his zombie-apocalypse comrades. Glenn has evil thoughts, Im sure, Yeun pushed. I remember season three, when Glenn thinks that the governor assaulted Maggie, and I remember I campaigned hard. I was like, Yo! Give me a story line where I go to kill this guy. But Yeun wasnt given an opportunity to express all the facets of his character. To be quite honest, as an Asian person, sometimes accessing your own humanity when youre outside in the world is not that easy, he continued. Because youre usually kind of just shrunken down into your label. To not have that in my real life and to not have that in my show life was frustrating. And so I think it just started this journey of just, like  dude, I cant. Ive got to feel full. Ive got to feel real.

That feeling led him to projects like Lee Isaac Chungs Minari, a critically acclaimed all-American story primarily in Korean. Unfortunately, the industrys prejudice persists. This years Golden Globes deemed Minari ineligible for Best Motion Picture Drama due to a rule that states the film must have over 50 percent of its dialogue in English, the same rule that deemed Lulu Wangs The Farewell ineligible last year. I wasnt surprised, Yeun commented. I have no desire to try to massage both sides in this situation, but it really just comes down to the idea that rules and institutions can never capture real life. And it can never really understand that what builds a place like America and what makes it great is all the people that are contributing to it. If this is the thing that helps to expand these institutions and rules? Cool. Thats why we make this stuff.
Police Find 11-Month-Old Girl Abducted From South Los Angeles

LOS ANGELESAn 11-month-old girl who was taken from her familys home in South Los Angeles was safely returned today and the homeless man suspected of abducting her was taken into custody, police said.

The baby was taken about 6 p.m. March 7 from the 8100 block of South Western Avenue, but the abduction wasnt reported to the Los Angeles Police Department until late this morning.

Appearing to be in good health, the girl, identified only as Heather, was found at about 3:15 this afternoon near Broadway and 52nd Street, according to police.

The suspect, 39-year-old Delaneo Adams, was taken into custody at a local hospital, police said.

Detectives said Adams is believed to be a homeless acquaintance of the girls parents. He was allegedly with the family Sunday night when he disappeared with the girl and was spotted at some point in the Skid Row area of downtown, holding the child while riding an adult tricycle.
English German Chinese (Simplified)

BERLIN, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atotech (NYSE: ATC), a leading specialty chemicals technology company and a market leader in advanced electroplating solutions, announced today that its recently completed production site in Yangzhou, China, is now fully operational. The facility is Atotechs second chemistry plant in China. The addition of the Yangzhou facility will provide additional capacity to serve the large and growing Electronics and General Metal Finishing markets in China, and also creates important redundancy with the companys largest chemistry production site in Guangzhou.



Geoff Wild, Chief Executive Officer at Atotech, said: The Yangzhou chemical plant is a major milestone in expanding our business in Asia. It will be an important supply hub for our customers in East China and will further strengthen our overall competitiveness in our largest geographic market, China, and beyond.

The state-of-the-art facility houses 14 production vessels with a production capacity of 27,000 tons per year and is equipped with modern production features such as a Manufacturing Execution System and Auto-Stop-Filling mechanisms, which ensure the highest quality standards.

John Stephenson, Atotechs Chief Operations Officer, commented, With the new production facility, Atotech will be able to significantly increase operational effectiveness, reduce transportation costs, and further strengthen its footprint in Asia.

The Yangzhou facility recently passed the strict governmental safety requirements for industrial production and received the necessary permits to start production. Further, at the Yangzhou site, Atotech has successfully adopted a new approach for waste-water treatment, which is set up as a combination of precipitation, evaporation, and biological treatment. Discharge amounts in this new process are significantly below industry levels. Atotechs global waste management procedures are designed to protect the environment, the employees, and the local communities.

George Yang, Atotechs Vice President of the Greater China Region said: We have brought a leading-edge facility to life and we are delighted and proud of this achievement. What is more, our Yangzhou plant is strategically located in the Eastern part of China, where a large number of our customers have their production facilities, enabling us to serve them even better.

Atotech operates 17 production sites around the globe  8 in Asia, 5 in Europe, and 4 in the Americas. This unrivalled infrastructure ensures close proximity to customer locations while providing state-of-the-art products that meet the highest quality standards.

About Atotech

Atotech (NYSE: ATC) is a leading specialty chemicals technology company and a market leader in advanced electroplating solutions. Atotech delivers chemistry, equipment, software, and services for innovative technology applications through an integrated systems-and-solutions approach. Atotech solutions are used in a wide variety of end-markets, including smartphones and other consumer electronics, communications infrastructure, and computing, as well as in numerous industrial and consumer applications such as automotive, heavy machinery, and household appliances.
The FDM channel represents the largest sales opportunity for HempFusion products by dollar volume, according to the health and wellness company

HempFusion distributes its family of brands to nearly 4,000 retail locations across all 50 US states and internationally

Wellness Inc ( ) (OTCQX:CBDHF) (FRA:8OO) said Tuesday that its over-the-counter CBD topicals were the best-selling products at a major FDM (food, drug and mass) retailer.

The Denver-based company said that a recent NielsenIQ share report ranked s topical products number one in terms of sales dollars and units sold at the retailer.

CEO Jason Mitchell called the ranking a tremendous honor for the health and wellness CBD company. Consumers are validating our teams mission of providing best-in-class products that adhere to the highest standards of regulatory compliance, Mitchell said in a statement.

Since its inception in 2015, HempFusions goal has been to develop and provide consumers with the highest quality products on the market, without compromise. We are meticulous in sourcing the right raw materials, ingredients, and delivery methods to help consumers live a more balanced lifestyle, and the FDM channel provides us with an unprecedented distribution opportunity to help us reach those consumers.

The FDM channel represents the largest sales opportunity for HempFusion products by dollar volume, according to the company. The channel is a significant part of HempFusions strategic distribution plan, Jon Visser, HempFusions chief revenue officer told investors.

This third-party data demonstrates that our overall strategy of producing premium products with a focus on regulatory compliance, consumer messaging, and the right price point is resonating very well with category shoppers, Visser said.

According to data from Brightfield Group provided by HempFusion, during the third quarter of 2020, 41% of CBD consumers reported they recently started shopping in-store again for products that contain CBD; and CBD specialty retailers and pharmacies saw an uptick in consumer-reported purchasing.

HempFusion distributes its family of brands, including HempFusion, Probulin Probiotics, Biome Research, and HF Labs, to nearly 4,000 retail locations across all 50 US states and internationally.

Contact Angela at angela@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow her on Twitter @AHarmantas
By Kiley Russell

Bay City News Foundation

The master tenant of the Ghost Ship warehouse that caught fire and killed 36 people in 2016 was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison as part of a plea deal over his role in the tragedy.

Derick Almena pleaded guilty in January to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for his involvement in the deadly blaze that tore through the artist collective in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood during a concert and party on Dec. 2, 2016.

Based on time already served and good behavior, however, he will spend roughly a year-and-a-half in confinement at home, where he's been since last May after being released from jail because of COVID-19 protocols.

After he serves that sentence, Almena will then enter a period of three years of supervised release.

During the sentencing hearing Monday in front of Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson, the families of people killed in the fire read deeply emotional statements about how the loss of their loved ones forever damaged their lives and urged the judge to reject the plea deal, which they feel is far too lenient.

"I am repulsed by this plea agreement... I am angry at this court," Keith Slocum, whose stepdaughter Donna Kellogg died in the fire, said before the judge issued her ruling.

Many victims' family members also had harsh words for the Alameda County District Attorney's Office for agreeing to the deal, accusing prosecutors of failing to vigorously pursue the case in order to protect Oakland police and fire personnel, the city's planning department and local political leaders.

"Almena and (co-defendant Max) Harris were simply the lowest hanging fruit, the easiest targets, the ones most palatable for a city desperate to get public relations on track and save face," according to a statement from Sara Hoda's family that was read aloud during the Zoom-based hearing.

Many statements also excoriated Almena for his role in the blaze and for what they see as his lack of remorse and failure to take responsibility for his actions.

Colleen Dolan, whose daughter Chelsea died in the fire, cursed the defendant in the hope that it might ease her heartbreak.

"May you, Derick Almena, take on the vision that I see each day and feel the pain in my nightmares. My hope is that in giving these visions to you, I may be free," Dolan said.

"I curse you with the intense burning hate and flames that scorch all the hair from your body and that peel the skin away from your face," she said.

The hearing was not without disruption, as it appeared to some family members of victims and the judge that Almena was at times nodding off, had spilled a cup of coffee and was making jerking, erratic movements in his seat.

At one point, Judge Thompson asked if Almena was on prescription drugs and halted the proceedings to figure out what was going on.

Soon, however, the hearing resumed with his lawyer, Tony Serra, saying Almena was simply overcome with emotion while listening to the victim impact statements.

During the jury trial, prosecutors said Harris and Almena created a death trap at the warehouse, which was cluttered with furniture and art and which had no fire sprinklers, smoke alarms, lighted exit signs or stairs that were in good condition.

Prosecutors also alleged that Almena violated the terms of the building's lease by allowing up to 25 people to live there even though it was zoned for commercial use.

That trial ended inconclusively when jurors, who found Harris not guilty, were unable to reach a verdict regarding Almena's role in the blaze.

During Monday's hearing, Almena's lawyer, Tony Serra, read a statement from the defendant in which he expressed regret.

"I am sick with shame," he said in the statement. "I am so sorry. My shame cannot stand as any defense... It is my fault."

He said the fire and the deaths of "36 beautiful souls" were "fueled by my stupidity and reckless actions."

Judge Thompson acknowledged the fact that the plea deal was deeply unsatisfactory to those whose loved ones died in the fire but said that a new trial would be complicated by the fact that some key witnesses would be unable to appear due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and the difficulty in seating a jury during the pandemic, among other things.

"I know that no family member will find this in any way acceptable and I accept that responsibility," Thompson said.

"This is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do," she said. "This one haunts me on a regular basis."

A hearing on Almena's restitution to the victims in the case is scheduled for April 30.

Copyright  2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Engineering firm (India) on Tuesday said it has bagged order worth Rs 1,000 crore from Maldives' Fahi Dhiriulhun Corporation.

In a filing to the BSE, (India) Ltd said it has signed an agreement with Fahi Dhiriulhun Corporation Ltd, a state-owned company of the Government of the Republic of the Maldives, for the design, finance and of 2,000 social housing units in Hulhumale Island of

The company said the total value for this project is estimated to be around USD 137 million (Rs 1,000 crore) and is planned to be financed via a loan from a multilateral funding agency.

CEO and Deputy Managing Director S K Tripathi said the company's international business has expanded its presence further with this project in

Shares of JMC Projects (India) were trading 10.52 per cent higher at Rs 86.70 apiece on BSE.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Aquarius Surgical Technologies Inc. (CSE:ASTI) ("ASTI" or the "Company") announces further developments following the announcement on February 22, 2021, that Gordon Willox ("Mr. Willox") had been removed as a director and officer of Surgical Lasers Inc. ("SLI"), the principal operating subsidiary of ASTI.

Effective March 4, 2021, Gordon Willox resigned as a director and officer of ASTI, and is no longer associated in any way with ASTI or SLI.

As indicated in the earlier Press Releases dated February 22 and 25, and March 1, 2021, a review of the financial records and inventory of SLI has been commenced, and is still continuing. Significant discrepancies, irregularities and fraud on the part of Gordon Willox and a (now) former consultant, former operations manager and former employee have already been discovered. Until a full investigation and audit of the full extent of the misappropriation and fraud by Mr. Willox and his associates has been completed, Management cannot be certain that it has yet discovered the full extent of or made sufficient provision for losses caused.

There can be no assurance that any of the funds and property that has been misappropriated by Mr. Willox and/or his associates can be located and recovered, or that any Judgment for recovery of property, losses and damages that may be obtained against Mr. Willox and/or his associates will be recoverable.

In the meantime, and as previously advised in its latest CSE Monthly Report, new and highly competent Management has been retained to manage the operations of SLI, and will continue to service customers and build the business.

About Aquarius Surgical Technologies Inc.

Aquarius Surgical Technologies is an exclusive provider of innovative, minimally invasive medical laser systems and consumables for multiple medical disciplines, principally in the field of urology. Solutions also include clinical education, service, support and maintenance. ASTI is focused on increasing the availability of services for patients, enhancing the quality of patient care, improving operationally efficiencies and reducing total operational costs.

For more information, please contact:

Gary Van Nest, co-CEO gary@sinaltainvestments.com

Lorne MacFarlane, CFO lornemac@eastlink.ca; 902-496-7594

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Aquarius Surgical Technologies Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634486/Aquarius-Surgical-Technologies-Announces-Resignation-of-Gordon-Willox-and-Provides-Further-Update-in-Relation-to-Irregular-Activities-Uncovered-at-Surgical-Lasers-Inc
If events 10 years ago this week had been different Labour could now be filling the seats occupied by Sinn Fein as the largest party in opposition.

Mary Lou McDonald's party, which is now poised for power, could learn some important lessons by looking back on the Fine Gael-Labour coalition before making any promises ahead of the next general election.

Meanwhile, history appears to be repeating itself with the Greens, who through conceding too much of their core identity to Fine Gael, are at risk of losing their voice in this current Government and will lose even more when the country goes to the ballot box next time around.

The 2011 general election came at a tumultuous time in Ireland's history, a downbeat nation had awoken from the 2008 nightmare and was staring into the financial abyss. Effectively insolvent we had surrendered economic independence to the Troika.

In an unusual move the two largest parties in the Dail coalesced, Labour added its 27 seats to Fine Gael's 76, giving the new Government breathing space of 30 seats. But this thumping majority would be needed over the next five years as the conveyor belt of tough decisions faced by the Government became relentless.

At the time and even now, those who followed Eamon Gilmore into power said they were doing so for the good of the country.

But this altruistic move was not appreciated by the electorate and some in the party now feel that they would not act out of a duty to the State if called upon again.

"I have no doubt it was a government that righted the ship and saved the economy," former Labour leader Brendan Howlin says.

But I think a political lesson that has been learned is that if you do put the interest of the country absolutely before the party, there's a very high price to pay, and I'm not sure political parties will pay that price in the future. Any political party.

Labour had set themselves up to go into Government during the 2011 election campaign. Mr Gilmore urged voters to reject the dangers of a single-party Fine Gael government and instead asked the electorate to give his candidates the chance to stand watch over Enda Kenny's party as the country tried to dig itself out of depression.

People didnt want a single-party Government and there was no other combination around," former minister Ruairi Quinn said in 2014.

Looking back, former tanaiste Joan Burton says: "I just don't think the voters would have understood if the Labour party walked away.

"The country basically had ceded economic management to the Troika. We had really lost our independence and sovereignty to the Troika and that certainly weighed very heavily on my mind."

Former Labour party leader Brendan Howlin: "I think a political lesson that has been learned is that if you do put the interest of the country absolutely before the party, there's a very high price to pay." Picture: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

With the new Government effectively working as an agent for an absentee landlord who flew into town once a month to make sure the peasants were behaving themselves, many difficult decisions were foisted upon those who had taken up office in Kildare Street.

"It was an extraordinarily difficult period. Certainly in the first couple of years of that government we literally didn't know economically whether we would survive or not or whether the euro would survive as a currency, and what the implications of that were," Mr Howlin recalls.

Indeed, Mr Gilmore in his memoir details a meeting held in the Sycamore Room of Government Buildings during which a return to the punt was mapped out with then-governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan as the collapse of the euro seemed like a tangible possibility.

Mr Howlin says:

We made mistakes, we made plenty of mistakes but we were in the middle of a war for survival, and we were making real-time decisions every day.

Many of those mistakes came before Labour entered coalition. They should have seen it coming.

Their "Every Little Hurts" election slogan, which famously featured six cuts and charges they claimed Fine Gael would bring in if it was allowed to form a single-party government, would come back to repeatedly haunt them and hurt them.

By the first three austerity budgets many of the issues featured in the election adverts had been implemented including a Vat increase, a levy on wine, a reduction in child benefit rates, and tax on savings.

But Ms Burton argues that her party still managed to block some of Fine Gael's most unpalatable proposals.

"There would have been a different type of economic recovery had we not been in government. But what you stopped happening is never understood," she says.

A decade on and the Labour Party has yet to recover from the punishment beating it received in the 2016 election and for many, the wounds remain raw.

Read More Public confidence in vaccine rollout 'dented', says Sinn Fein leader

It was clear after last year's general election that there was a weariness on the part of many to grasp the reins of power.

Forming governments into the future will become progressively more difficult if parties believe that a stint in power will only lead to political annihilation when the next general election comes around.

"If the most successful strategy is to echo back people's concerns at the doorstep, whatever they are, and promise all things to all men it's ultimately a very destructive type of politics," says Mr Howlin, before warning that Sinn Fein should be careful in what they commit to ahead of the next general election.

The near demise of Labour does pose broader questions for all parties.

If there is no reward for doing right by the country but a guaranteed future bounty for those who step back and put party first, where does that leave us in any future crisis?

While you are here why not sign up to our new 'On The Plinth' political newsletter. Delivered direct to your inbox every Tuesday. Sign up here https://exa.mn/ontheplinth

This week in years gone by...

1965

March 10: Taoiseach Sean Lemass was forced to dissolve the Dail and go to the country after Fianna Fail failed to win a seat in the Mid Cork by-election. Instead, Labour's Eileen Desmond took the seat previously held by her husband Dan Desmond, which led to an unacceptable mathematical situation for Mr Lemass and his Government.

1987

March 11: Garret FitzGerald resigned the leadership of Fine Gael and was succeeded by Alan Dukes. The Examiner described his departure as a "shock decision" which came after almost 10 years at the helm during which he led two coalition Governments.

1991

March 14: After being wrongfully jailed for 16 years, the Birmingham Six were freed.

1998

March 15: Former Fine Gael minister Hugh Coveney died in a fall from a cliff. The front page and four further pages of coverage were dedicated to the politician the following day. In one piece Tony Leen wrote: "When Charlie McCreevey said yesterday that Hugh Covneney was one of the few representatives he knew without an enemy in politics, it reminded one of John Bruton's words on the night of Coveney's 1994 by-election victory: 'Cork has given itself a representative to be proud of'."

2015

March 13: Renua, a new political party led by Lucinda Creighton is launched. At the time, the Examiner reported that everyone was hung up on the name which had been previously used for a boiler service, food shop and a trad band.

2015

March 10: Over 100 illegal drugs were accidently legalised for one day. The Government were forced to bring forward emergency legalisation to close the loophole which made ecstasy, certain amphetamines and an array of former headshop drugs legal to possess.





What to look out for this week

Tuesday

HSE chief Paul Reid will be in for a morning grilling when he appears before the Health Committee to answer questions on Covid-19 and the vaccine rollout.

Tuesday

The Finance Committee will have plenty to discuss when representatives of the Central Bank of Ireland appear with mortgage arrears, business interruption insurance and the recent Davy case all in the spotlight.

The committee has also made it clear that it wants the stockbrokers to come before it, with chair John McGuinness stating: "The organisation clearly has very, very many questions to answer after Davy received a significant fine from the Central Bank of 4.13m for breaching market rules. The more information that Davy provides the better. It is a matter which we will pursue as a committee.

Tuesday

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan recently said cutting Irelands carbon emissions by half over the next decade will be immensely challenging but it is achievable. Meeting this ambitious target will not just require political buy-in but the support of all sectors. Expect some interesting contributions from Dr Brian Caulfield of Trinity College, DCU's Dr Diarmuid Torney and National Transport Authority chief executive Anne Graham, when they appear at the Joint Committee on Climate Action from 12.30pm.

Wednesday

Sinn Fein's Kathleen Funchion is bringing forward a Bill that would enable any adopted person to access a copy of their birth certificate. The Government has said it would bring forward its own legislation in this area, however, it will be under pressure to support the opposition Bill.

Wednesday

Last week, the Dail heard criticisms of the Land Development Agency from both members of the opposition and the Government. The controversial measure, which detractors say will result in the "theft of public land" and will drive up house prices, is up again for debate this week

Thursday

TDs are in for their weekly instalment of the Covid vaccine rollout reality show as Health Minister Stephen Donnelly appears in the Dail on Thursday morning to take questions. The Taoiseach has already indicated the March vaccination targets will be challenging to meet so expect some testy exchanges in the chamber.

Did you know?

We use the terms every day but do you know what they mean?

Uachtaran: The title given to our president when translated directly means person at the top. To get a 'lamh in uachtar' over someone means you have the upper hand. Interestingly, uachtar also is Irish for cream, and as we know the cream always rises to the top of milk.

Taoiseach: This is an old term for leader or chieftain and was chosen as the title for head of Government under the 1937 Constitution of Ireland. The word is understood to date back to the Iron Age. While not commonly used now, one of the interesting old Irish names for the devil is Taoiseach an Bhais, or the chieftain of death.
A house fire at 491 Bicentennial Trail in Rock Spring on Monday morning claimed the lives of two people.

Walker Fire Rescue responded to the structure fire at 9:44 a.m. The first unit to arrive reported heavy smoke and fire coming from the home. When they made entry, firefighters found the bodies of 90-year old Clifford William Cason, Sr. and his 89-year old wife Patricia.

Walker County Fire Marshal Scott Forrest said following a preliminary investigation, the blaze broke out in the attic, but the cause of the fire remains undetermined. Basically, depending on how intricate that investigation gets will depend on the outcome and how long before we can make a determination, said the fire marshal. The Georgia State Fire Marshals office is assisting in the investigation.

This marks the first time in more than two-years someone has died in a fire in Walker County. The last fatal fire claimed the lives of twin brothers on Dec. 26, 2018.

Forrest said there were smoke alarms inside the home on Bicentennial Trail. The fire caused enough damage that the house is considered a total loss.

At the same time firefighters from Walker County, Catoosa County and Walker State Prison worked this incident, another fire occurred at 1322 East Sherry St. just outside of Rossville. Fire Marshal Forrest said the cause of that fire is also undetermined, but there were no injuries.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
GENOA, MAR 9 - Police from Genoa on Tuesday arrested 29 people, 15 Italians and 14 Albanians, on charges of smuggling drugs from the Balkan country to Italy under the aegis of the Puglia mafia, the Sacra Corona Unita (United Holy Crown, SCU). The gang moved some seven tonnes of hashish, marijuana and cocaine, police said. The gang used powerful speed boats, with 500 horsepower engines, driven by expert SCU smugglers, to dodge police sea patrols, police said. Some 32 other people have been placed under investigation in the probe. The drugs, above all marijuana, were stocked in Puglia and Molise and then moved on to northern Italy, France and Germany, police said. Police said the marijuana was souped up with other chemicals to make it comparable in effect to cocaine. As well as supplying pushers in Bologna, Florence, and Genova, the gang also supplied the Rome drugs market, police said. (ANSA).
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
U.S. retailers and others that accept online payments can tap into a huge revenue source if they include UnionPay credit and debit card acceptance among their options for payment methods.

MerchantE, a leading end-to-end digital commerce platform, now offers UnionPay SecurePlus powered by Payscout, opening trillions of dollars in spending by billions of global consumers to U.S. businesses.

UnionPay serves a vast and rapidly growing market in the U.S. and around the world, says Sandra Blair, Chief Product Officer at MerchantE. U.S. retailers and others that accept online payments can tap into a huge revenue source if they include UnionPay credit and debit card acceptance among their options for payment methods. We are delighted to offer UnionPay SecurePlus enabled by Payscouts convenient and secure payment platform to support U.S. businesses as they look to attract new customers and increase their global sales.

The relationship with UnionPay and Payscout  exclusive to MerchantE at launch in the United States  offers businesses access to credit and debit card transactions via UnionPay, Chinas sole bankcard association and the largest provider of payment cards in the world. The company has issued more than 9 billion cards since 2002, more than Visa and Mastercard combined.

UnionPay SecurePlus offers low-friction, two-factor authentication that increases security, reduces online payment fraud and clears obstacles to approvals for larger-than-average transactions. Using UnionPay SecurePlus has been shown to increase approval rates from 30% to 90% as compared to other UnionPay platforms.

As a leader in global payment processing, we are thrilled to partner with MerchantE on UnionPay SecurePlus, an exciting payment solution that will benefit both merchants and consumers, says Manpreet Singh, President and Co-Founder of Payscout. Through the SecurePlus solution, merchants can achieve unprecedented revenue growth, while taking advantage of exclusive features such as instant onboarding, faster settlement and enhanced security, which means more transaction approvals and less fraud.

While UnionPays primary market is mainland China, the company also has issued more than 145 million cards outside the country. UnionPay cards are accepted in 179 countries and regions and by some 87 million businesses worldwide  32 million outside China.

Removes issues with debit card acceptance

For billions of Chinese consumers, UnionPay is the only payment card they use, and more than three-quarters of cards are debit. However, UnionPay debit cards can only be used in the UnionPay network and networks that have signed contracts directly with UnionPay  such as Payscout, a principal member of the UnionPay network.

Debit card limitations result in an increased proportion of UnionPay debit card transactions being declined, and businesses may be shut out of the approximately $14.3 trillion in sales UnionPay cardholders transact each year. Limitations also impact cardholders who are not able to complete large or critical online transactions, such as paying tuition and tutoring fees at educational institutions in the United States or purchasing both mainstream and luxury goods.

Enrollment through MerchantE in UnionPay SecurePlus powered by Payscout removes the issue with debit card transactions. It also offers businesses instant onboarding and faster settlement (two days versus a more typical five).

To learn more and apply, visit MerchantE.com.

About MerchantE

MerchantE provides a financial technology platform that drives digital commerce and supports the money management needs of growing businesses. Its customers gain a competitive advantage with their services to revolutionize the way they bring money in, move money out, and make money decisions. MerchantE helps their partners by offering tools and revenue streams to integrate, self-brand, refer, or resell their products and services. MerchantE has 300+ employees and is located in Alpharetta, Georgia. For more information please visit MerchantE.com.

About Payscout

Payscout is a global payment technology company with proprietary solutions designed to increase conversion, add layers of security, and lower processing costs. Payscouts Paywire platform features an easy-to-integrate API, support for multichannel processing, and international transaction enablement. Payscout is a Principal Member and Global Acquirer for UnionPay International. For more information please visit Payscout.com.
ILION, N.Y. --- The Village of Ilion entered into a shared services agreement with the city of Little Falls. The agreement would mean Little Falls Fire Chief Rob Parese would serve temporarily as Ilion's Fire Chief, 2 times a week. The agreement also means that Ilion's treasurer will help out the Little Falls Treasurer.

Early in the meeting before the vote, the Village Board went into an executive session which was closed to the public to discuss a personnel matter.

Two Ilion firefighters are under investigation by the village after a letter was sent by a former village employee.

It's unclear exactly what the complaint entails but the village said the complaint itself could potentially expose the village to legal action. After an almost 2-hour executive session, the board returned for public comment regarding the Ilion Fire Department. Some residents expressed their concerns about what they said was a lack of transparency in the investigation.

"It's gone on this long, they're supposed to be investigating it. It's been two months and you can find out a lot in two months. It's one man's word against another's," said Sam Derocco.

Others during the public comment section suggested Village Mayor Brian Lamica recuse himself from the investigation. In response, Mayor Lamica told NEWSChannel2 the only knowledge he has of the investigation is if it's continuing or not. The Mayor said he been trying to distance himself from the investigation said "I know my barriers."
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A LIMERICK man who is wanted in Bulgaria to serve a sentence for drink driving, and who has a conviction for serious drugs offences from the early 2000s, is disputing a claim that Bulgarian prisons are not overcrowded.

Jonathan Collopy, 34, who has an address at St Mary's Park, Limerick City, is wanted in Bulgaria to serve an 18-month sentence having been convicted of drink driving in his absence.

At the High Court this Tuesday, Katherine McGillicuddy BL told Mr Justice Paul Burns that she wants two weeks to prepare submissions about prison conditions in Bulgaria.

She said the Bulgarian authorities had responded to a question from the High Court to say that their prisons are not overcrowded, that they have enough space for social distancing and have adequate health facilities.

"I have an expert who is disputing that," Ms McGillicuddy said.

Mr Justice Burns adjourned the matter until March 25.

The court has previously heard that Collopy was arrested on November 5 last year after a European Arrest Warrant was issued by Bulgarian authorities.

Sgt Jim Kirwan, who objected to bail at the initial hearing, said Collopy has 17 previous convictions, mostly for road traffic matters in recent years but, he added, in 2004 he was jailed for serious drugs offences.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
First authors Taras Afonyushkin (left) and Georg Obermayer (right) with Last author Christoph Binder (middle) Credit: Laura Alvarez/CeMM

Thrombotic occlusion of blood vessels, which leads to myocardial infarctions, strokes and venous thromboembolisms, is the major cause of death in the western hemisphere. Therefore, it is of critical importance to understand mechanisms preventing thrombus formation. A new study by the research group of Christoph Binder, Principal Investigator at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Professor at the Medical University of Vienna, now explains the important role of immunoglobulin-M (IgM) antibodies in preventing thrombosis. The study published in the journal Blood shows that these antibodies recognize microvesicles, which are membrane blebs shed by cells and recognized for their critical role in thrombosis, and therefore prevent their pro-thrombotic effects. These results provide a novel approach to reduce the risk of thrombosis by using IgM antibodies.

Antibodies are an important component of the immune system. On the one hand, these proteins serve in the body to defend against microbes, and on the other hand to remove the body's own 'cell waste.' Naturally occurring antibodies which are present from birth and mostly of the immunoglobulin-M (IgM) type, play an essential role in these processes. In the context of thrombosis, earlier studies demonstrated that people with a low number of IgM antibodies have an increased risk of thrombosis. A research group led by Christoph Binder, Professor of Atherosclerosis Research at the Medical University of Vienna and Principal Investigator at CeMM , previously demonstrated in a study published in 2009 that a high percentage of natural IgM antibodies bind oxidation-specific epitopes, molecular structures that are present on dying cells and serve as 'remove-me' signals for the immune system. In this study, Binder's research group identified the mechanisms explaining anti-thrombotic effects of natural IgM antibodies.

IgM antibodies bind procoagulant microvesicles

Microvesicles, blebs shed from the membrane of cells, are critical mediators of blood coagulation and thrombus formation. The study authors Georg Obermayer and Taras Afonyushkin from Binder's research group, both affiliated with CeMM and the Medical University of Vienna, have now demonstrated that natural IgM antibodies that bind oxidation-specific epitopes can prevent coagulation and thrombosis induced by microvesicles. This provides a mechanistic explanation for the previously published observation that low levels of these antibodies are associated with an increased risk of thrombosis. "We assume that natural IgM antibodies recognize microvesicles that are particularly proinflammatory and procoagulant," say the scientists. Both in experiments on the mouse model and directly on human blood samples, the scientists were able to show that the addition of IgM antibodies inhibited blood clotting caused by specific microvesicles and protected mice from lung thrombosis. Conversely, it was also shown that depletion of the IgM antibodies increased blood clotting.

Possible starting point for future therapies

The study authors explain: "The study for the first time provides an explanation why people with a low number of natural IgM antibodies have an increased risk of thrombosis." Project leader Christoph Binder adds: "The results offer high potential for novel treatments to reduce the risk of thrombosis. Influencing IgM antibody levels in high-risk patients could be a viable addition to the previously established blood thinning treatment, as this is also known to be associated with side effects such as an increased tendency to bleed in the case of injuries." In addition, the study makes an important contribution to the basic understanding of factor modulating thrombus formation. "Microvesicles are already recognized as an important component of blood coagulation. However, our study created a novel possibility of targeting them therapeutically for the first time," says Christoph Binder.

Explore further Hitherto unknown risk factor for arteriosclerosis identified

More information: Georg Obermayer et al, Natural IgM antibodies inhibit microvesicle-driven coagulation and thrombosis, Blood (2020). Journal information: Blood Georg Obermayer et al, Natural IgM antibodies inhibit microvesicle-driven coagulation and thrombosis,(2020). DOI: 10.1182/blood.2020007155

Provided by CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Calling the significant spike in shootings in Portland a public safety crisis, the new agent in charge of Oregons FBI said the FBI is offering to provide help.

Do we need x number of additional investigators addressing this? Yes, we need more investigators addressing these, FBI Special Agent in Charge Kieran Ramsey told members of the media on a video conference call Monday. Weve got to start attacking this aggressively.

The FBI is in talks with Mayor Ted Wheeler, the U.S. Attorneys Office, Gresham police and the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office on how the federal agency can provide money, personnel resources or forensic technology to help them address the violence, he said.

All of these things are on the table, he said. Hopefully, well have a solid plan to roll out in the near future.

Ramseys remarks come as the Police Bureau is struggling to respond to a significant increase in shootings and homicides in the last year.

In the first nine weeks of this year, Portland police have responded to 195 shootings, excluding suicides or attempted suicides. Injuries have been reported in 54 of the shootings, said Lt. Greg Pashley, bureau spokesman. Fourteen people died in shootings, out of 19 homicides so far this year.

"It is a public safety crisis, and we've got to start attacking this aggressively," said Kieran Ramsey, Oregon's FBI Special Agent in Charge.

In a recent three-day span, four people were shot dead in two double homicides.

Two men were shot in the parking lot of the Acropolis strip club in Southeast Portland late Feb. 27 and died. Two nights later, a shooting near the 5200 block of Northeast Alberta Street on March 1 killed 20-year-old Charlie Borbon-Lopez and 21-year-old Jennifer Garcia.

No arrests have been made in either of the cases.

Angel Garcia, Jennifer Garcias father, wrote on a fundraising page that his daughters violent death is the absolute worst nightmare.

She has been murdered and took my heart with her, he said. My soul has been shattered without repair.'

The city recorded 55 homicides in 2020, the highest number in 26 years. Forty-one of those resulted from gun violence, according to the Police Bureau. In January, there were 103 shootings, compared to 50 during the same month in 2020 and 32 in January 2019, according to bureau statistics.

Last month, the Police Bureau launched a specialized team of officers and detectives to focus full time on shooting investigations. The Enhanced Community Safety Team is made up of three sergeants, 12 officers and six detectives.

The team staffs a seven member on-call unit of officers to respond to shooting scenes, examine evidence, interview witnesses and do immediate follow-up investigations.

The estimated cost is $153,348 for the rest of this fiscal year through June and $306,695 next fiscal year for a total of $460,043. The money for this year likely would come out of the Police Bureaus existing budget, but additional funding for next year would have to be approved by City Council, police officials said.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
Just over two weeks since the first COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Australian soil, a total of 86,369 people have received their first shot, federal Health Department data shows.

That figure includes 62,374 people, largely essential workers and health staff, who have received the vaccine at state/territory-based vaccination hubs. There are 23,995 aged care residents across the country who have received their first shot of the two-dose vaccine from the federal government.

The state and territory breakdowns for vaccination numbers have now been added to our global vaccine tracker dashboard below.

As it stands, about 0.3 per cent of the population have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov and newly appointed Ambassador of the Italian Republic to Ukraine Pier Francesco Zazo discussed steps to intensify trade, economic and investment cooperation.

"The parties discussed the results of the 9th meeting of the Ukraine-Italy Council for Economic, Industrial and Financial Cooperation, co-chaired by Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Italian Republic Luigi Di Maio. In addition, further steps to intensify trade, economic and investment cooperation were considered," the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine informs.

According to the Italian diplomat, being one of Ukraine's leading trade and economic partners among other EU member states, Italy could play a more active role in the implementation of important investment projects aimed at closer economic integration of Ukraine into the European Union.

The parties also discussed signing an updated intergovernmental agreement on investment promotion and mutual protection in the near future.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the officials also praised the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between Ukrzaliznytsia and JSC Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane S.P.A., Italys state-owned company working in the field of infrastructure and railway network services.

As noted, the cooperation of both companies aims to consider technical and innovative solutions for domestic railway transport, in particular, the project of high-speed lines.

Avakov informed Zazo about Ukraines intention to significantly strengthen cooperation with the Italian side in the fight against crime to be facilitated by signing a draft intergovernmental agreement on police cooperation, which is currently being finalized.

"In addition, Ukraine and Italy underscore the successful implementation of the agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Italian Republic on mutual recognition and exchange of driver's licenses of November 19, 2015 and intend to extend its validity for the next five years," the statement reads.

ol
(Newser)  Burger King UK says its tweet on International Women's Day was misunderstood. "Women belong in the kitchen," said the Monday tweet, which has since been taken down. A followup tweet added context: "If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career." But by then, it was too late, USA Today reports. "Please don't use sexism as clickbait," one response said. Another called it "the most sexist trope ever." Burger King UK tweeted about helping female employees "pursue their culinary dreams" through a new scholarship program, but later in the day gave it up. "We got our initial tweet wrong and we're sorry," a post then said. "Our aim was to draw attention to the fact that only 20% of professional chefs in UK kitchens are women and to help change that by awarding culinary scholarships."

story continues below

The original tweet was deleted because it was drawing abusive comments, the company said. A similar message in the US could not be removed. The Burger King Foundation ran a full-page ad in Monday's New York Times with the same line in large type, per the Washington Post. Below it were the words: "Fine dining kitchens, food truck kitchens, award-winning kitchens, casual dining kitchens, ghost kitchens, Burger King kitchens. If there's a professional kitchen, women belong there." The copy went on to point out that women hold just 24% of chef jobs and fewer than 7% of head chef positions. Two $25,000 scholarships will be awarded to current employees, the foundation said. A North Carolina woman who went to culinary school appreciates the thought but notes that average tuition tops $30,000. She wants companies to hire and promote more women. "I'd especially like them to all commit to paying a living wage to their employees, because thats going to lift people up far more than a couple of scholarships," she said. (Read more Burger King stories.)
Fugitive Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui has become the first Hong Kong politician to be granted a travel exemption by the Australian government, as exiled pro-democracy leaders fan out across the world.

Hui, who fled Hong Kong on bail and is still facing money laundering and national security charges, arrived in Darwin on Monday and will now settle in Australia with his family.

The decision to grant Hui a repatriation flight and a visa is a significant escalation in Australias response to Beijings ongoing suppression of democracy in Hong Kong. The father of two has spent the last three months in Europe and the United Kingdom lobbying for stronger international responses to the national security laws that punish dissent against Beijing with sentences of up to life in prison.

Pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui, pictured during a demonstration last year. Credit:AP

It is time to move on to a different battleground, Hui said in a phone interview from hotel quarantine.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Agartala, Mar 9 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today virtually addressed a gathering on the third anniversary of BJP-IPFT government in Tripura here and lauded the development initiatives of the state government.

Three years ago in 2018 assembly polls, the people of Tripura had created a history by pulling down a corrupt and anti-people left front government and installed a double engine government led by BJP in the state, he told the gathering assembled at the Vivekananda Stadium.

Not only infrastructure and good governance, BJP-IPFT government has created confidence in the peoples minds to become and outperformed the previous regimes in development indicators, the Prime Minister claimed.

Today, we can compare the development of three-year-old BJP-IPFT government with 30 years of the previous governments. The Central government had supported Tripura with only Rs 3500 Cr between 2009 and 2014 but after 2014 this rose to over Rs 12000 Cr and now it has become an example before many big states, Modi pointed out, adding that the state GDP has increased six times in the last three years under BJP-IPFT rule.

Listing the achievements of the Tripura government, he said the benefit of cooking gas has been passed on to 8.5 lakh families in Tripura, almost cent percent villages have become open defecation free, government employees are given salaries on time as per 7th central pay commission, piped potable water has been provided to five lakh families and in last years connectivity infrastructure has developed manifold.

I had promised to give you HIRA (Highway Internet ways, Railways and Airways) before the 2018 elections and today I am happy to see the changes in Tripura and the happiness prevailing among the people of the state. Tripura got this benefit only because of same party rule in Centre and state what many of the neighbouring states are not getting, he said.

In three years farmers, daily wage earners and small entrepreneurs have got benefits due to the BJP-led government in Tripura.

In the next two years the state would become an example of development before the country," he said.

Earlier, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hassina, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma have also addressed the gathering, highlighting the development initiatives of the government.

After opening Maitri Setu, Prime Minister also inaugurated Integrated Command and Control Centre  first of its kind in Northeast set up at Agartala, for effective traffic and security control in the city, National Highway between Agartala and Udaipur, 40,000 houses built under PMAY urban scheme and state PWD roads besides.

The PM also laid foundation stone for setting up integrated checkpost at Sabroom in South Tripura, National Highway 280 to connect Kailashahar of North Tripura with Khowai of West Tripura, Multilevel Car Parking and Commercial Complex at old Motor stand in the city and a project for widening Agartala Airport Road from two lanes to four lanes.

UNI BB AND
German chemist Friedrich Bergius converted high-volatile bituminous coal into substitute oil products in 1913 through hydrogenation. A decade later, fellow scientists Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch demonstrated how carbon monoxide and hydrogen can be converted into liquid hydrocarbons in the presence of metal catalysts at very high temperatures.Bergius, Fischer, and Tropsch have paved the way for man-made alternatives to gasoline and diesel, which are touted as the only solution to saving internal combustion as we know it. As a brief refresher, the Euro 7 regulation is considered a de facto ban on fossil-fuel vehicles by many automakers and organizations. Also worthy of mentioning, the EU is serious about banning the sale of new passenger vehicles with combustion engines.In order to understand the convoluted ways of synthetic fuels as potential replacements to gasoline and diesel, we must first ask ourselves a few questions.Well, electrolysis is a technique that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen, which is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe and the lightest element in the periodic table, is then combined with carbon dioxide to produce a liquid. As you would expect, CO2 can be captured by special filters or recycled from industrial processes.If this procedure sounds too good to be true, youre not mistaken. Also known as eFuel, automotive-grade alternative fuels are not viable in 2021 because synthetics are very expensive compared to gasoline and diesel.According to German engineering and technology juggernaut Bosch , low electricity prices and widescale production could make eFuel significantly cheaper. Synthetic fuel may cost 1.40 ($1.66) per liter in the long run, which is comparable to a single liter of gasoline in Germany at the time of writing.Audi comes to mind as one of the earliest supporters of synthetics. Back in 2015, a research facility in Dresden produced the first batch of e-diesel fuel for the four-ringed automaker. From renewable power to liquid hydrocarbon, the efficiency of the overall process is estimated at 70 percent.Active in CO2-neutral fuels since 2009, the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer of premium vehicles trialed e-gasoline in 2015 in collaboration with French company Global Bioenergies. What Audi calls e-benzin is a sulfur- and benzene-free liquid isooctane made from gaseous isobutene and hydrogen.It isn't dependent on crude oil, said Reiner Mangold , the automaker's head of sustainable product development. It is compatible with the existing infrastructure and it offers the prospect of a closed carbon cycle."Porsche is serious about the importance of synthetic fuels as well. "Electric mobility is an exciting and convincing technology, but on its own, it is taking us towards our sustainability targets at a slower pace than we would like," declared R&D boss Michael Steiner. "That's why we are also committing to eFuels while not ignoring possible applications in motorsports either.To understand how serious Porsche is about synthetic fuels, the German brand pressures Formula 1 into adopting eFuel in 2025 when new engine rules will be introduced to the open-wheeled racing series. The Stuttgart-based automaker ponders a return to Formula 1, which isnt exactly surprising because F1 intends to have a net-zero carbon footprint by 2030.Porsche expects half of its sales to be electric by 2025, but the existing fleet of internal-combustion cars shouldnt be taken out of the equation. eFuels can be used in combustion engines and plug-in hybrids, and can make use of the existing network of filling stations, highlighted chief exec Oliver Blume.Daimler AG research and development boss Markus Schafer says that electric vehicles are better in every respect. He also believes that airlines will get synthetic fuels before the automotive industry. Looking at the bigger picture, Schafer would say that because Mercedes is pouring billions into EVs that include the slow-selling EQC and all-new EQS flagship sedan.Big Oil is covertly against man-made alternatives to gasoline and diesel as well. Its an understandable stance if you put yourself in the shoes of the so-called supermajors, which currently consist of seven companies: BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, and Conoco Phillips.Biofuel companies wouldnt be too excited about the eFuel revolution either if they didnt get a sizeable piece of the pie. On that note, synthetic fuels also spell trouble for corn farmers because their corn is used to make E85.The answer to the final question in this article comes courtesy of Oliver Blume. Speaking at an automotive industry summit in October 2020, Porsche's head honcho said that eFuel will be feasible in roughly a decade.Porsche is collaborating with energy companies Siemens Energy, ENAP, AME, and Enel to create the worlds first integrated, commercial, industrial-scale plant for climate-neutral fuels. Expected to be operational in 2022, the Chile-based facility can produce 130,000 liters of synthetic fuel in the pilot phase. If all goes according to plan, yearly output will be increased to 55 million liters by 2024, then to 550 million liters by 2026.The Magallanes Province in Chile was chosen by all parties involved because its a windy place. Wind energy, as youre all aware, is both cheap and friendly to the environment. As the primary user, Porsche will use carbon-neutral fuels in the motorsport fleet and the brands experience centers.eFuels are an additional element on the road to decarbonization, declared Blume. By using them, we can make a further contribution toward protecting the climate. As a maker of high-performance, efficient engines, we have broad technical expertise. We know exactly what fuel characteristics our engines need in order to operate with minimal impact on the climate.Even the German government understood the importance of the plant. In addition to an initial investment of 20 million ($23.75 million) from Porsche, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is supporting Siemens Energys role in this project with 8 million ($9.5 million) in the form of a grant.New supply chains are going to arise all over the world to carry renewable energy from one region to another, said Christian Bruch, the Dusseldorf-born head of Siemens Energy since May 2020. Hydrogen will come to play an increasingly important role in storing and transporting energy, which is why the German governments support is an important signal.
In light of the United Nations (UN) declaration that 2021-2030 is the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a group of scientists voice concerns about restoration in heavily fragmented landscapes under a hotter and drier future scenario.

Poor recovery of small fragments will end up costing management and wider society later down the line. Millions are invested in setting aside patches, but management is then weak and costly.

Rainforests turn into oil palm plantations

The past 40 years in Southeast Asia have seen about 50% of lowland rainforests converted to oil palm and other plantations, and much of the remaining forest heavily logged.

Little is known about how fragmentation influences recovery and whether climate change will hamper restoration.

"Here, we use repeat airborne LiDAR surveys spanning the hot and dry 2015-16 El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to measure canopy height growth across 3,300 ha of regenerating tropical forests spanning a logging intensity gradient in Malaysian Borneo", says postdoctoral researcher Matheus Nunes from the University of Helsinki, lead author of the paper recently published in Nature Communications.

Repeat high-density airborne LiDAR across the human-modified forests of Borneo provided a unique perspective on the regrowth of forests during the 2015-2016 ENSO and the environmental controls on the canopy. Regeneration of logged forests was still positive during the hot and dry ENSO in Borneo when the highest temperatures and the highest VPD exceeded 2.1 C and 140% the local long-term average during non-El Nino years. The results demonstrate that regenerating logged forests in this landscape - which contain a high abundance of pioneer tree species with acquisitive traits - continued to grow, despite the high temperatures and water demand in these logged forests.

However, the predictions revealed in the paper show that environmental controls were key to modulating regrowth at the landscape level.

Fragmentation effects increased exponentially with proximity to oil palm plantations, which is consistent with the long-term fragmentation effects that lead to tree mortality and lower productivity.

"Additionally, we demonstrate that the position of fragmented forests across the landscape was also a predictor of forest growth, with valleys and riparian forests showing higher canopy growth compared to those on hilltops during the El Nino", says Nunes.

Suggestions to the Roundtable for Sustainable Oil Palm

Oil palm companies that have joined the Roundtable for Sustainable Oil Palm are committed to the protection of high conservation value forests along rivers and on steep slopes within their estates.

"Our results suggest buffers have to be wide (at least 40 m on each side of the river) to ensure the interior of the strip retains a stable canopy height during droughts", says Nunes.

This is twice the width of what is currently required by law in Sabah, Malaysia. If designed and protected appropriately, riparian reserves in oil palm estates support regrowth with potential positive consequences for the global carbon cycle and for ecosystem function.

The results also demonstrate that small, fragmented patches of regenerating logged forests left on hilltops will be slow to recover due to lower water availability, particularly as El Nino events are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change. Fragmentation in these regenerating logged forests leads to consistent canopy loss within 110 m from oil palm plantations. These results suggest that small patches of logged forests on hilltops will not recover, reflecting the intertwined effects of fragmentation and climate.

###

Reference:

Recovery of logged forest fragments in a human-modified tropical landscape during the 2015-16 El

Nino: Matheus Henrique Nunes, Tommaso Jucker, Terhi Riutta, Martin Svatek, Jakub Kvasnica, Martin Rejek, Radim Matula, Noreen Majalap, Robert M. Ewers, Tom Swinfield, Ruben Valbuena, Nicholas R. Vaughn, Gregory P. Asner and David A. Coomes

Link to Nature Communications https:/ / www. nature. com/ articles/ s41467-020-20811-y

https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1038/ s41467-020-20811-y

More details:

Mathes Nunes, matheus.nunes@helsinki.fi, + 358 50 4755399
The Congress on Tuesday said the resignation of Chief Minister was an eyewash to hide the government's "failures", and urged the President to dismiss the BJP dispensation in the state.

Congress party in-charge for Devendra Yadav said at a press conference that the act shows the "admission" by the BJP of its government's "failure" in fulfilling the aspirations of people of the state.

He said the BJP government should resign and go to the people to seek fresh elections.

Yadav said this shows that nothing in the name of development has taken place in under the BJP rule, except "corruption".

"This is a failed attempt of the BJP to cover up the failures of its government in the state and hide the corruption taking place there," he alleged.

"The Congress demands immediate dismissal of the BJP government and the resignation of alone would not suffice. The BJP needs to resign from the government and go to the people again," he said.

"The President of India should take note and dismiss the government as it has failed to fulfil the aspirations of people. The people of Uttarakhand demand that this government be dismissed and President's Rule imposed and fresh elections be held in the state," Yadav said claiming that the Congress is ready for election.

The Congress leader said Rawat's resignation is a result of alleged corruption, lack of development, rising unemployment and mismanagement during the pandemic and earlier during the Kumbh Mela.

He claimed that Uttarakhand has a high unemployment rate of 26 per cent and huge migration is taking place from villages in the state in the absence of employment opportunities.

"The BJP tries to find an escape route and this is one," he said, alleging that people understand everything and will give a befitting reply to the BJP in the next elections.

Asked about the BJP talking of course correction, Yadav said, "It is clear that the BJP admits that this government has not done anything in the name of development and only corruption has taken place in the state."



Rawat resigned as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, ending days of speculations about a leadership change in the BJP-ruled hill state amid reports of discontent against him.

Rawat submitted his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya at the Raj Bhawan here upon his arrival from Delhi where he met the central BJP leadership. He was to complete four years in office later this month.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rotary-led Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia awarded US$6 million to reduce burden of malaria in heavily affected districts
Why so much work for kids?: 6-year-old's adorable appeal to PM Modi

JKBose Class 12 exams: Girls outshine boys

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Mar 08: Girls outshined boys by bagging most of the top ranks in the Class 12 board examinations in Kashmir as results declared on Monday showed that 80 percent students passed the exam, officials said.

Out of 58,397 students who appeared in the examinations held last November, nearly 47,000 have passed.

While the pass percentage of girls was little over 82 percent, it was only 78 percent for the boys, the officials said.

They said most of the top positions in various streams were also bagged by the girl students.

Political parties extended congratulatory messages to the successful students.

Abdullahs petition challenging ED to come up for hearing in JK High court on Monday

"Party president Farooq Abdullah and vice president Omar Abdullah congratulate Class 12 students especially girl students who have bagged nearly 90 percent of top ranks in results declared today. It clearly demonstrates, given a chance, women excel in every field. Happy Women's Day," National Conference spokesman Imran Dar said.

J-K Congress president Ghulam Ahmad Mir and Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari were among a host of politicians who congratulated the students for their successes in the examination
A teacher who attacked his colleague in a bitter love triangle at Karoti Girls High School in Kirinyaga County was Monday charged with attempted murder.

Timothy Musembi Mutie was charged that on March 3, 2021 at Karoti Girls High School, Mwea East Sub-County, he unlawfully attempted to murder his colleague Alphonse Orina Omwenga by cutting him with a panga on the head and both hands.

The court heard that on the said day, Mutie went to the school staff room during tea break while armed with a machete hidden in his jacket.

He reportedly sat in the staff room where Alphonse Orina was marking some examination papers.

The accused waited for other teachers to leave after taking their tea and pounced when the victim and another teacher were left in the room.

Without warning, Mutie attacked Omwenga, who sustained serious head and hands injuries while trying to defend himself.

The accused then fled the scene and jumped over the gate where he dropped the weapon. He stopped a bodaboda rider whom he directed to take him to the nearby Chiefs camp at Kimbimbi market.

Mutie was then arrested and remanded at Wanguru police station until yesterday, March 8, when he was charged with attempted murder.

Mutie, who was unrepresented, denied the charges before Wanguru Senior Resident Magistrate Monica Kivuti.

The magistrate ordered his release on a bond of Sh100,000 with a surety of same amount. She set the date for the mention of the case on March 17.

The accused failed to raise the bond and will remain locked up.

Meanwhile, Orina is still recuperating at a private health care facility in Ngurubani town.

The female trainee teacher from Kenyatta University has since been ordered out of the school.
You are the owner of this article.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Introduction

When Paul exhorts the Philippians, Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. (chapter 4 verse17), he shifts the focus from material giving to eternal things.

Not that there is anything positively wrong with the things of this world as gifts from God, for almost straight away he encourages, my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians chapter 4 verse 19), but rather that the emphasis must fall on our relationship with Jesus.

What this means in practice has been a source of difference amongst believers. An important teaching of Christ is a case in point.

What is Fruit?

Sincere Christians have long disagreed about the content of fruit. Taking John chapter 15 verse 5 as an example, Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Is this a promise of many converts, or growth in virtue.

Having known various effective evangelists who were not special at abiding, encourages me towards the second option. There is in fact a deep connection between the person of Christ and spiritual fruit. Lets take the first three fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians chapter verse 22-23, love, joy and peace.

Jesus said, as I have loved you, you also are to love one another (John chapter 13 verse34), my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John chapter 15 verse 11), my peace I give to you (John chapter 14 verse 27).

The fruit in the life of a follower of Jesus is nothing less than a share in his own life, a communion with the nature of God (2 Peter chapter 1 verse 4). Rich fruitfulness depends on two great spiritual realities.

Faith

At the centre of Pauls great exalting prayer in Ephesians chapter 3 is the longing that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (verse 17). Given that the essence of faith is trust, in what does the believer trust so that the indwelling presence of Christ becomes ever more intense?

We must believe I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Galatians chapter 2 verse 20) is real. In relating to God my old self has been killed off.

Secondly, we are called to affirm with our whole heart that what Jesus prophesied about his own life is already an accomplished reality, if it (a grain of wheat) dies, it bears much fruit (John chapter 12 verse 24). Stop thinking of yourself as a mere thirtyfold Christian (Mark chapter 4 verse 20). The key to maximum fruitfulness is faith accompanied by the power of the Spirit.

Spirit Presence

In his exultant Ephesians prayer Paul asks, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being (chapter 3 verse 16). A power encounter with the Spirit will infallibly impart the life of Christ to your heart.

We can be sure of this because through the eternal Spirit (Jesus) offered himself without blemish to God (Hebrews chapter 9 verse14). If the Spirit empowered Jesus to die to bring forth a great harvest (John chapter 4 verse 35) he will certainly bring forth much fruit in us.

I remember once being so encountered by the peace of the Lord (Philippians chapter 4 verse 7) that I earnestly believed I might die. So lets repent of devaluing the measure and intensity of the Spirits power; he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Romans chapter 8 verse 11).

Conclusion

Lacking persecution and fat with material goods (Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 15) Western Christians live in a time of great spiritual deprivation. We must look evermore to Christ with whom we have been crucified, believe in the ability of the Holy Spirit, and ask that we may bear fruit for God (Romans chapter 7 verse 4).

This is a prayer that will most definitely be answered. Not just for us, but that Jesus himself might have ever more intense joy in his Church: to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians chapter 3 verse 20).
Arizona and Montana Take Legal Action Against Biden Admin ICE Arrest Regulations

Arizona and Montana are taking legal action (pdf) to block new Biden administration immigration regulations, saying that these would cause negative consequences for the states.

The new rules would limit the capability of ICE to detain some illegal immigrants unless they pose a threat to national security, entered through the border after Nov. 1, or committed aggravated felonies.

The Biden administration says that the rules dont impair arresting or deporting people, but the officers in the field would need to request permission from their superiors to arrest people outside of the aforementioned cases.

If asked about the poorest policy choice Ive ever seen in government, this would be a strong contender, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement. Blindly releasing thousands of people, including convicted criminals and those who may be spreading COVID-19 into our state, is both unconscionable and a violation of federal law. This must be stopped now to avoid a dangerous humanitarian crisis for the immigrants and the people of Arizona.

Packets of fentanyl mostly in powder form and methamphetamine, which U.S. Customs and Border Protection say they seized from a truck crossing into Arizona from Mexico, is on display during a news conference at the Port of Nogales, Ariz., on Jan. 31, 2019. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Reuters)

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined Brnovich in the lawsuit. Both filed for a preliminary injunction aiming to block the regulations from going into effect.

Meth trafficked into Montana by Mexican drug cartels has wracked our state. The problem will only be made worse if the Biden administration continues to allow criminals to stay in the country, Knudsen stated. Enforcing our immigration laws and helping to keep Americans safe is one of the federal governments most important functions. The Biden administration is failing its basic responsibility to Americans.

Last month, Chief Deputy Matthew Thomas told Townhall that the crisis at the border had begun to re-emerge at around the end of 2020 because the human and drug trafficking cartels expected President Joe Biden to have a hands-off attitude with regard to the border situation.

When [Trump] took office, we saw that this area out here went completely dead. Nobody was moving, nobody was smuggling because [the cartels] knew that Trump was going to put all hands on deck out down here and that they would be intercepted so it came to a screeching halt, Thomas said.

It was a very slow trickle to get back to some kind of normal but it never got back to where it was, Thomas added.

A map showing the Pinal County boundary, the U.S.Mexico border, and the major highways in central-south Arizona. (The Epoch Times)

Thomas said that since Biden has ordered to halt the construction of the southern border wall, it has created more trouble for Pinal County since it doesnt have physical barriers, promoting the criminals to funnel through, reaching the highway and then transporting drugs or bodies throughout the country.

He added that once the people or drugs are smuggled in, they can go anywhere inside the United States, sometimes as far as Canada.

For us, effectively, I-8  becomes the new border and even the cartels will tell you thats their goal line because once they get there, theyre shooting west or theyre shooting east and then theyre on a main interstate right into downtown Phoenix  we become the kickoff point for that, the Sheriff said.

These people and these drugs are not coming here to Pinal County to stay. This is a transport location. This is a spot they get through to get to their final destination and theyre being sent all over the country.
New Delhi, March 9 : The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) and the CGST Commissionerates have so far arrested 357 persons, including 12 chartered accountants, one company secretary and an advocate, in the ongoing nationwide drive against fake GST invoice frauds since mid-November, 2020.

The arrested persons include fake entities operators and end beneficiaries who connive with these fraudsters running businesses of fake invoices.

Sources in the revenue department informed that in the first week of March, two more CAs were arrested for running fake GST invoice scams through fictitious firms.

The CGST Delhi Zone arrested CA Devender Kumar Goyal along with the mastermind Naresh Dhondhiyal of Vertilink Media Solutions Pvt Ltd, while another CA Vishal Ahuja was arrested by CGST Mumbai Zone for running fake invoice racket.

Sources said that GST intelligence and CGST authorities have booked about 3,500 cases against 10,400 fake GSTIN entities unearthed till now. Out of the 357 persons arrested so far, at least four persons have been booked under COFEPOSA (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act). The authorities have also recovered around Rs 1,125 crore from these fraudsters.

The GST authorities, according to sources, have been using deep data analytics, overall data-sharing and AI and ML along with BIFA and NETRA tools to unearth fake input tax credit (ITC) availment and utilisation frauds via fake invoicing and bogus firms.

The DGGI and CGST authorities are enabled with appropriate tech-tools in the GST ecosystem to identify layer-by-layer activities of these fake entities and their networking to pinpoint the fraudsters with specific inputs to take targeted actions without any overreach and take investigations against them.

According to the sources, out of the 357 arrests made so far, there are 141 masterminds, 122 proprietors, 49 directors/managing directors, 20 partners, five CEOs/CFOs/CMDs, 12 chartered accountants, four accountants and one each of company secretary, advocate, broker and GST practitioner.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
WINDSOR LOCKS  A Windsor Locks teen has been charged after investigators determined he was connected with a shooting in the parking lot of a local hotel, according to police.

Kyle Cianfarani, 19, of Andover Street, was charged with weapons in a motor vehicle, carrying a pistol without a permit, unlawful discharge of a firearm, first-degree criminal mischief, first-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree breach of peace.

He was held on a $50,000 bond.

On Sunday, officers responded to the Holiday Inn Express at 600 Spring St. for a complaint about an unoccupied vehicle in the lot that appeared to have been hit by gunfire, according to police.

Responding officers found a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot that had two bullet holes, police said. Two spent shell casings were recovered in the lot near the damaged vehicle, police said.

Video footage and interviews helped police narrow down when the incident happened  around 10 p.m. Saturday.

Officers found a vehicle on Elm Street that had been involved in the incident, police said.

Officers also learned of a second location in Windsor Locks where the same suspect had discharged a firearm following a disturbance, police said. There was an allegation that the homeowner at this location had been shot in the hand, but officers determined his injury was a result of a struggle over the firearm.

Police said this is when officers developed Cianfarani as a suspect and started to look for the 2003 Dodge Dakota he had last been seen driving. Shortly after, police found the vehicle in Cianfaranis Andover Street driveway. Police said officers seized a 9mm bullet found in the driveway near the vehicle.

Cianfaranis Dodge Dakota and the vehicle from the Holiday Inn parking lot were each towed to police headquarters pending search warrants, police said.

On Monday, detectives secured an arrest warrant for Cianfarani  who was taken into custody without incident at his Andover Street home.

After the arrest, Wolcott police indicated he was also connected with a Cumberland Farms robbery on Sunday night.

Police said an individual with facial tattoos jumped over the counter and took the cash drawer from the convenience store at 723 Wolcott Road. Police said a plate on the vehicle the suspect fled in was traced back to Meriden.

Police in Meriden helped Wolcott police identify their suspect.

Wolcott police said Meriden police alerted them to the suspects arrest at 3 a.m. Monday.

When arrested, Wolcott police said, the suspect was armed with a handgun. Wolcott police said the suspect is also a felon with an extensive arrest history in Texas, where he previously lived.

While he was only taken into custody on charges out of Meriden, Wolcott police said their investigation is continuing and an arrest warrant is expected.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Home warranty experts has published an all inclusive review of the Best Home Warranty Companies of 2021.

Home-warranty-experts.com is a comparison platform that enables customers to choose from the top Home Warranty Companies available. It additionally gives to compare features, reviews, and top-notch lists on a range of best home warranty offerings. Home-warranty-experts.com evaluations are knowledgeable through research. Each enterprise featured at the site has been independently decided on and reviewed by the Home Warranty group experts.

There are thousands of companies that offer home warranty insurance. Some of them offer the best add-ons and some best overall services. Getting some service for an affordable cost is appreciable. Also, several companies offer both basic and premium home warranty services. The best home warranty company is advisable for house owners. The only advantage of the best home warranty company is that the user need not pay a single extra penny for that. The service is enjoyed at an affordable cost. But some pitfalls might force the user to think about choosing a premium plan according to the home or appliance needs.

Best Home Warranty Company For 2021: Click Here To Get A Free Quote

There are different kinds of home warranty setups that are dependent upon reviews, costs, any of these may be of the right type. Choosing a home warranty company is a critical part for any homeowner. The procedure of finding an excellent home warranty company gives the user several confusions because loads of companies are available in the market, which proves them to be exceptional.

After a lot of research, home-warranty-experts.com has created a listing of the best home warranty businesses in 2021. The website takes its responsibility to assess the cost, insurance, reviews, and service of the best home warranty company in the business.

The team of home-warranty-experts.com reviewed each company in the brief. And additionally wrote crucial capabilities and benefits, which will assist the user in making better understanding and the right pick decision for a home warranty.

Best 3 Home Warranty Companies For 2021:

The best home warranty companies include Landmark Home Warranty, American Home Shield, and Choice Home Warranty. Before purchasing any plan, read home-warranty-experts.com home warranty reviews to find the right company. The following guides offer information on what a home warranty covers, how to choose a home warranty, and which top-rated home warranty companies are available in the state.

Choice Home Warranty  Best Overall

According to home warranty experts, Choice Home Warranty is Best pick for older homes. It offers two coverage plans - Basic and Total Plan. Both the plans cover comprehensive coverage for both systems and appliances. They provide guaranteed response time within 48 hours.

Home warranty experts rate Choice as best for best overall. Choice Home Warranty (CWH) is home warranty experts top pick for standard pricing. The Company was founded in 2008 with a contractor community of more than 15,000 service professionals. CWH doesn't deny insurance primarily based totally on the age of the machine or the age of the house.

Choice Home Warranty gives a 90-day repair guarantee. Choice Home Warranty gives the most effective core plans  Basic and Total. The choice basic plan is well worth thinking about for house owners searching out a low-cost plan that gives complete covers for each structure and home equipment. Also, Choice Home Warranty Total plan is extra low-cost than lots of its competitor's plans. Its service price is about average at $85.

Choice Home Warranty plans and their corresponding fees are indexed below:

Basic Plan: $41.69 per month

Total Plan: $50.00 per month

Click Here To Get A Free Quote And Enjoy a full month of Free Service.

Choice Home Warranty offers a flexible home warranty plan at an affordable price. Also, when a user signs up for any single payment plan, the user gets the first month of home warranty coverage for free.

Choice Home Warranty assures a peace of mind when the service is needed. It also covers normal wear and tears due to malfunction.

The customer can choose a custom plan that is suitable for his/her home needs.

Choice Home Warranty offers optional add-ons: Pool and Spa, Central Vacuum, Second Refrigerator, Well Pump, Limited Roof Leak, Stand Alone Freezer, Sump Pump, Septic System and Septic Tank Pumping.

Choice Home Warranty's service fee is set common at $85. Its service fee is at the low end of the house warranty enterprise spectrum.

Choice Home Warranty has add-ons insurance available that permits house owners to customize their coverage by imparting the best add-ons coverage which consists of the septic tank, well pump, pool/spa, roof leak, and second fridge alternatives.

The separations from Choice Home Warranty are fairly normal throughout the home warranty industry. The group however, covers the replacement for necessary repairs caused by normal damage.

Many recommend Choice Home Warranty as an effective option for those who own old homes with old or aging appliances. When buying a protection plan from the CHW, home inspection is not necessary as they do not disqualify coverage based on the age of the home.

It's always recommended to purchase coverage before the user begins to experience issues.

With Choice Home Warranty plan, the customer can avoid paying extra money for repair of home appliances or systems.

Choice Home Warranty serves 48 states together with all excluding California and Washington. Choice gives 24*7 online portals for making requests. So, simply give a call to the customer service and the company will send the right person to the user's home.

Home-warranty-experts.com recommends reviewing Choice Home Warranty costs, plans, coverage and deciding if it's an ideal service provider.

Click Here To Get A Free Quote And Enjoy a full month of Free Service.

Select Home Warranty  Best Service

Provides free roof leak coverage and optionally available septic device coverage.

Offers Customers free months of insurance once they sign up.

Gives discounts on multi-12 months coverage plans

The second pick in home-warranty-experts.com is Select Home Warranty. It is a brilliant alternative for house owners looking for fine home warranty service. Select has developed recognition for exceptional service in the home warranty industry. Select Home Warranty gives 3 plansthe Bronze Care Plan, the Gold Care Plan, and the Platinum Care Plan.

Select Home Warranty Plans:

The Bronze Plan covers home equipment.

The Gold Care Plan covers the most important home systems.

The Platinum Care Plan consists of all coverage  provided through each Bronze and Gold Care Plan in addition to few more items.

Select Home Warranty Bronze Care covers appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines; Gold Care, which covers systems like heating and electrical; and Platinum, which covers all of the above plus certain elements that aren't covered by Bronze or Gold, like ceiling fans and garage door openers.

Select Home Warranty plans and their corresponding fees are indexed below:

Bronze Care: $36 per month

Gold Care: $36 per month

Platinum Care: $42 per month

Click Here To Get A Free Quote  And Enjoy $150 Off + 2 Months Free

The above rates listed are extremely competitive in the home warranty industry. Being in commercial enterprise since 2012, the organization is a popular preference for people seeking out low-cost home warranty services. The Select Home Warranty gives free two months of coverage to clients who sign on for a plan together with free roof leak coverage.

The customer enjoys some of the key benefits owning a Select Home Warranty Plans. They provide the right professional when the service is needed. Select Home Warranty is popular for its unique services along with low premiums.

The Company covers mechanical breakdowns of home appliances covered under the plan which one chooses.

Select Home Warranty makes its plan customizable by supplying an extensive variety of add-on options. The company gives add-on insurance, with fairly preferred options like pool, well pump, and septic machine coverage. It additionally gives free rooftop leakage, which isn't always usually offered by businesses.

Select Home Warranty's limited roof leak coverage is only applicable to leak repairs over occupied living areas of a single-family home. This coverage includes a number of exclusions including: Patios, Metal roofs, Shingles, Cracked and/or missing material, Tiles, Tar and gravel, Flat or built-up roofs, Structural leaks, Gutters and Downspouts.

Select Home Warranty's list of Add-ons includes : Plumbing fixtures, Lighting fixtures, Switches and outlets, Pool and spa equipment, Well pump, Sump pump, Septic system coverage, Refrigerator's ice maker etc.

Select Home Warranty covers plumbing repairs but water damage that might occur due to leak is not covered in the coverage.

Each plan of Select Home Warranty comes with a standard $75 service call price, and there are no limits stated on the variety of repairs that would be made throughout the contract. Select Home Warranty gives 24*7 services. This means that clients can put up claims either over the phone or online at any time, and the service requested will be initiated in a short period.

Select Home Warranty offers home warranty coverage in every state but Alaska.

Home-warranty-experts.com recommends reviewing Select Home Warranty costs, plans, coverage and deciding if it's an ideal service provider.

Click Here To Get A Free Quote  And Enjoy $150 Off + 2 Months Free

First American Home Warranty - Best Add-Ons

24*7 customer service.

Provides no coverage cap on duct work or cooling, heating.

Offers Covers systems if they were improperly installed, maintained, or modified.

First American Home Warranty is home-warranty-experts.com top pick for owners who want the best add-ons for their systems. First American Home Warranty serves as the most comprehensive claim insurance company of 2021. First American Home Warranty gives plans  the Basic Plan and the Premier Plan. The Basic Plan covers home equipment and the Premium Plan covers home equipment and systems. First American Home offers a $25 discount off in its Basic Plan to active or former U.S. military personnel.

First American Home Warranty's Basic plan covers most appliances like attic and exhaust fan, ceiling fan, clothes washer and dryer, dishwasher, garbage disposal, instant hot water dispenser, kitchen refrigerator, built-in microwave, oven, range, cook top, and the trash compactor. The Premier plan includes the same items from the Basic plan along with the following extra items like central vacuum system, ductwork, electrical, garage door opener, heating, plumbing, plumbing stoppages, and the water heater.

The limitation in First American's warranties is that repairs or replacements occurred due to missing parts, fire, flood, smoke, lightning, freeze, earthquake, theft, storms, accidents, mud, war, riots, vandalism, improper installation, acts of God, and damage from pests, lack of capacity or misuse are not covered in the coverage.

Its warranty coverage also won't cover repairs because of manufacturer's defects like appliances covered by a manufacturer's warranty.

Also, every home warranty company including First American won't cover every single piece of systems. First American covers plumbing items, but does not include fixtures, faucets, filters, shower heads or several other components like caulking and hose bibs.

First American does now no longer covers air conditioning insurance in both of its popular plans. Instead, it gives air conditioning insurance as an add-on alternative for a few extra bucks per month. Besides, First American Home Warranty does not offer roof leak and mold damage covers.

First American plans and their corresponding fees are listed below:

Basic Plan: $32.00 per month

Premier Plan: $43.50 per month

First American plan's add-ons include : Sump Pump, Septic System, Hot Water Dispenser, Pool & Spa, Stand Alone Freezer and Tankless Water Heater.

Click Here To Get A Free Quote From First American

First American gives very competitive pricing together with its beneficent coverage. It gives a service fee of $75. This means a customer could make as many service calls throughout the agreement term.

The company does not serve in all states. It provides home warranty service in 35 states including Pennsylvania. The company offers service each day of the year.

Home-warranty-experts.com recommends reviewing First American Home Warranty costs, plans, coverage and deciding if it's an ideal service provider.

As, one can easily notice, not every home warranty provider is available in every state nationwide. Because of this fact, Home Warranty Experts have created a list of best home warranty companies in 2021. This will surely help the customers to get in-depth details on the user's home warranty consideration.

First American  Click Here To Get A Free Quote

For the Home Warranty Expert's team, the above companies listed are the best options.

For home-warranty-experts.com, Choice Home Warranty is the first recommendation followed by First American Home Warranty. The company encourages the readers to get quotes from all the three service providers to help compare plans and choose the best suited plan as per needs. Home-warranty-experts.com helps the readers to secure the best home warranty plans for home.

What Is Home Warranty?

A home warranty service also called home appliance insurance or home repair insuranceis a service agreement that house owners can buy from a home warranty enterprise to assist cover the sudden price of repairing or replacing defective systems and home equipment.

The home warranty plan selected through the owner of a house determines the month-to-month value, service fee, which systems and home equipment are covered, and what kind of the company pays for maintenance and replacements. Most plans last for 12 months. At the end of the agreement term, clients can renew their plan.

Pick the best plan

When purchasing around for a home warranty plan, consider following points:

Consider what coverage the user needs. Think approximately which gadgets in the user's property the user wants coverage for. Choose a month-to-month fee the user is comfortable with. Pay month-to-month fee for a home warranty rather than paying an annual premium.

Home warranties cover systems and appliances in the user's home, which may fail due to normal wear and tear. Home warranties does not cover structural damages like damage caused to home appliances and systems in an event like fire, storm, or other natural disasters. In this case of coverage, one might need homeowners insurance.

About Home Warranty Experts:

Home-warranty-experts.com is a comparison platform that helps users to choose from the top Home Warranty services available. The Company is organized with a team of highly qualified professionals in their respective department. One can trust home-warranty-services.com in providing customers with the right information services and reviews for all of the best home warranty companies.

Home Warranty Experts comparing features, home warranty reviews and ratings on a range of best home warranty offerings are valuable. Home-warranty-experts.com reviews are informed by research. Each company featured on the site has been independently selected and reviewed by the Home Warranty team experts.

Home-warranty-experts.com mission is to be the undisputed leader in the field of Home Warranty Industry. It is all about providing good services in business. And has Home Warranty Experts always aligned themselves with excellence.

Home-warranty-experts.com main aim is to inform users about the home warranties which are worth buying. The website compares the best home warranty companies available to help the owners to find the right choice for their home appliances.

Methodology for choosing the Best Home Warranty Company of 2021

To determine the home warranty company plans for home appliances or systems, home-warranty-experts.com compiled a list of 3 best home warranty companies. According to home-warranty-experts.com, the above listed companies are reviewed independently and thus found in our preliminary research. The company has added the above list on the reputable news and the site to consider their service plans.

The team spent hours researching each provider (and its services) and considered the best home warranty for different plans scenarios. Home-warranty-experts.com also recommends testing the company's customer service and to learn information we couldn't find online.

Home Warranty Experts short list of best pick contenders included Choice Home Warranty, Select Home Warranty, and First American Home Warranty.

Here are the features and criteria we evaluated: Types of Plans offered, Rates and contracts, Service fee, Plans price, Add-ons, Reputation and Storage and bandwidth, Availability, Response Time and Reputation and customer service.

Home-warranty-experts.com takes its responsibility to assess the cost, insurance, reviews, and service of the best home warranty company in the business.

Here is a complete list of the Best Home Warranty Companies home-warranty-experts.com evaluated, along with a summary of what each company claims to offer. The following list includes home-warranty-experts.com's best picks.

Choice Home Warranty: Best pick for old homes. It offers flexible plans at an affordable cost. Its service fee is set common at $85 .Choice Home Warranty is best for best overall. It offers two plans plus optional add-ons. The monthly base cost is $55 and the annual base cost is $50 per month. The response time is within 4 -48 hours. Visit Choice Home Warranty to get a free quote.

Select Home Warranty: Best pick for best service. It offers 3 plans plus add-one. Select Home Warranty is best for best Service. The monthly base cost is $55 and the annual base cost is $54.17 per month. Service fee ranges from $60 - $75 . The response time is on the same day. Visit Select Home Warranty to get a free quote.

First American Home Warranty: Best for Best Add-ons. First American Home Warranty serves as the most comprehensive claim insurance company of 2021. It gives a service fee of $75 . The month base cost is $30 and the annual base cost is $50 per month. It offers two plans plus optional add-ons. The response time is within 48 hours. Visit: First American Home Warranty to get a free quote.

About Home-warranty-experts.com

The dedicated team of home-warranty-experts.com's researchers aims to show the unbiased home warranty reviews available. The team helps the customers to know the common fees, limitations on coverage and claims processing to make an informed decision before purchasing.

Home-warranty-experts.com provides an unbiased evaluation of home warranties available at the time of review. Our mission is to empower every consumer with the information and resources the consumer needs to make right decisions. For more information go through Home Warranty Experts reviews for assessing best home warranty companies of 2021.

SOURCE Home Warranty Experts


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
OMAHA, Neb., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Jet Linx, the leading private jet management and Jet Card membership company in the United States, has recruited Christof Pignet as Vice President of Client Experience and the newest member of the Jet Linx executive leadership team. Mr. Pignet brings to Jet Linx a wealth of knowledge in the ultra-luxury hospitality industry, with extensive background in the Five-Star service sector. He will be tasked to further architect and execute the Company's Five-Star service standards across the entire organization in order to foster a superior client experience. The announcement was made by Jamie Walker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Jet Linx.

"Christof's impressive experience and accomplishments in the luxury hospitality industry are absolutely invaluable to the continued development of our standards of service excellence and enhancement of the Jet Linx experience for our clients," said Mr. Walker. "As the only private aviation company to be trained in Forbes Travel Guide's rigorous Five-Star standards, Christof's experience managing a Five-Star rated property is a welcome and complementary addition to our leadership team. We are excited to have such an esteemed professional at the helm of our client experience efforts and look forward to providing an unparalleled level of service and maximizing client satisfaction."

Said Mr. Pignet, "It is an exceptional honor and privilege to join the esteemed Jet Linx family. The age-old dream of aviation has come to life in an unprecedented way through the company's approach to the industry, its team and clients. I am incredibly excited to further contribute to the already sterling reputation at Jet Linx and assist in elevating the overall experience."

With over 20 years of experience, Mr. Pignet is a veteran in the ultra-luxury service sector with an unrivaled passion for hospitality and a unique talent for organization, attention to detail and genuine care and consideration for those around him. Prior to joining Jet Linx, Mr. Pignet served as the General Manager of the prestigious Acqualina Resort and Residences on the Beach in Sunny Isles, Florida. During his tenure, the Leading Hotels of the World-affiliated resort rose to a dual Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star award winner (eight consecutive years) along with remaining an AAA Five Diamond award winner (nine consecutive years) and capturing U.S. News' award for Best Beachfront Resort U.S. Continental for five years. He also served on the Executive Board of the Greater Miami Beach Hotel Association. Mr. Pignet previously held leadership roles at The Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C., the iconic property located across from the White House and known for hosting presidents, heads of states, foreign dignitaries and celebrities, as well as positions at multiple high-end properties throughout Europe.

Mr. Pignet's appointment follows the Company's recent expansion of its Elevated Lifestyle client benefits program, which welcomed 14 new partners in early 2021, including 11 new luxury hotels and resorts from around the world. Jet Linx remains committed to elevating the private jet travel experience and will continue pursuing its nationwide growth strategy throughout 2021 through new initiatives, acquisitions, partnerships and new markets.

For more information on Jet Linx, please visit www.jetlinx.com .

About Jet Linx Aviation

Jet Linx Aviation is a locally-focused private jet company founded in Omaha, NE in 1999 as a more personalized approach to national private jet companies. Jet Linx offers two different ways to experience private aviation  a guaranteed jet card and private jet management program  providing its clients with an all-encompassing, local solution to all of their private jet travel needs. Jet Linx is an IS-BAO Stage 3, ARGUS Platinum and Wyvern Wingman safety rated operator, an accomplishment earned by less than one percent of all aircraft operators in the world. In 2019, Jet Linx became the only Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star trained and accredited private aviation company in the world. In addition to establishing the independent global rating system's preeminent and unparalleled service standards for the in-flight experience, Jet Linx also collaborated with Forbes Travel Guide to develop their own customized, proprietary Jet Linx standards of service excellence. Jet Linx is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska and has base locations in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Ft. Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York, Omaha, San Antonio, Scottsdale, St Louis, Tulsa and Washington D.C. For additional information, please visit the Jet Linx website (www.jetlinx.com).

SOURCE Jet Linx

Related Links

http://www.jetlinx.com


Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The Dairy Farmers of Canada should be commended for asking members to stop using palmitic acids in feed while launching a national investigation into the matter.

Opinion

The Dairy Farmers of Canada should be commended for asking members to stop using palmitic acids in feed while launching a national investigation into the matter.

For likely the very first time in its history, arguably the most powerful lobby group in the country opted to listen to Canadians. Its not easy to admit publicly that something isnt right, especially in Canadian dairy.

Early on, as questions arose about hard butter, the Dairy Farmers of Canada said nothing was wrong. Then on Feb. 19, the group acknowledged that the issue needed to be addressed and created a committee to look into it. And then, on Feb. 25, the group halted the practice of feeding palmitic acids to dairy cattle and launched a more complete investigation. Thats quite the reversal.

Dairy boards are accustomed to criticism; however, much of the criticism in the past came from groups such as animal welfare activists and vegans, who believe the sector should be outlawed. This time was different: criticism came from consumers who love Canadian dairy products.

Whether the use of the palm oil byproduct in feed is the reason butter is hard isnt the only issue. Canadians were stunned most to learn that palm oil, a product from the other side of the world, was part of our dairy production process. Most Canadians just didnt know. It also raises questions about other things we might want to know about dairy production but dont.

We protect and compensate Canadian dairy farmers, and our love affair for dairy is long-standing. Most Canadians believe sustainability, local production, natural characteristics and pureness are values embedded in the Blue Cow campaign weve seen for years. The image that palm oil portrays just doesnt wed well with what advertising campaigns say the industry is all about. Most Canadians would concur, starting with dairy farmers themselves.

For many Canadians, something didnt feel right  and thats a problem for the industry, whether it agrees with the public outcry or not. Our social contract with the industry was compromised.

Many have said "buttergate" is very much a First World problem. Perhaps, but buttergate wasnt considered scandalous or controversial within the industry; it simply pointed to deep-rooted problems the industry has had for a very long time but hasnt acknowledged. It starts with the lack of transparency. For the most part, dairy regulates itself, which is why processors have little to say about the quality of ingredients they lawfully must buy.

When it comes to dairy product quality, we fly in the dark in Canada. For whatever reason, not many people look at butters ingredients on store shelves. This has changed with buttergate. It has also forced the industry to look hard at its practices.

In more recent statements, the Dairy Farmers of Canada claimed the data suggest the quantity of palmitic acid in milk fat meets the regulated standards. But the industry is launching an investigation to see if our butter actually measures up to its standards.

The industry shouldnt have to investigate  it should already have the evidence.

Replacing palmitic acids in feed wont be easy. Many scientists say there are few alternatives. But Canadian-made alternatives can be designed and marketed properly. Other countries where palmitic acids are allowed are also considering changes to feed protocols. This could be an opportunity for Canadian dairy know-how to shine, offering dairy energy supplements to the world.

Not all Canadian dairy farmers are using palmitic supplements to feed their cows  we believe 35 to 40 per cent are. So why have some dairy farmers chosen not to use palmitic acids in their feed, even though its been legal for at least a decade?

Its important to set best practices for the industry, or at least revisit them while considering our dairy industry as a social system. Whatever happens on the farm requires public acceptance. This is what buttergate is truly all about. The industry will be stronger than ever after the issue is thoroughly investigated.

Canadians want the ethical and moral considerations of farmgate practices to be included in the investigation. And investigators shouldnt just be like-minded stakeholders who are part of the vast and powerful inner circles of the industry. The investigation should be open. And it shouldnt just be about productivity.

The investigation should also look at imported dairy products. Perhaps reciprocity is necessary to protect our farmers, unless our sector considers a palm oil-free position a competitive advantage. Everything should be on the table.

Dairy farmers are good, responsible people. They were doing what they thought was right for them, for their herds and for the Canadian public. Industry leaders, on the other hand, should have known that society has changed and the industry needs to adapt, like any industry.

Canadian supply management allows for changes in farming protocols without financially penalizing farmers. We should use this system wisely, so it serves the Canadian population well.

Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.  Troy Media
[March 09, 2021] Molex Unveils Results of Global 'State of 5G' Survey

LISLE, Ill., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Molex, a leading global connectivity and electronics solutions provider, released results of a global survey of decision makers from telecom carriers exploring the "state of 5G" and the significant transformational opportunities it presents, along with its impact on deployment progress, current delivery challenges and emerging business prospects. Overall, carriers are optimistic: more than half of those surveyed expect to deliver substantial end-user benefits within two to five years while 47% reported that users already are seeing value or will within one year. "The 5G market is nearing an inflection point as carriers report steady progress despite continued challenges," said Aldo Lopez, president, Datacom Solutions, Molex. "Fully realizing 5G's potential will transform multiple industries and markets. It is a long game that requires collaboration across an entire ecosystem of hardware, software and connectivity companies to innovate to these new mobile network standards, which in turn, will accelerate user adoption." Molex commissioned Dimensional Research to conduct The State of 5G Survey in February 2021, polling more than 200 qualified participants in engineering, product and R&D roles at network operators or Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). A variety of 5G questions were asked, with emphasis on timing and use cases. More than half of those surveyed reported 5G deployment delays caused by the impact of COVID-19 while more than a third reported future roadmaps delays. Other key findings include: 92% expct to achieve 5G business goals within five years; larger carriers reported a focus on generating new revenue streams while supporting existing business to reduce operational costs and accommodate increasing demand (65%)

Consumer devices leveraging 5G technology will be first to generate significant new revenue (43%), followed by industrial and IIoT (35%) and fixed wireless access (33%)

100% of respondents report issues with 5G deployment; top-three challenges are spectrum issues (41%), lack of consumer use cases (31%) and regulations (30%)



Split Decision on Need for 'Killer Apps' to Drive Adoption

Only three in five survey participants reported the need for a "killer app" or transformative use case to drive 5G adoption and significant new business revenues. Augmented reality, gaming and smart home applications topped the list of primary consumer devices while robotics, logistics and factories were the leading 5G-enabled use cases for industrial and IIoT.

Rural home access topped the list of primary uses cases for fixed wireless access at 53%, followed by city and suburban home access (45%) and remote industrial infrastructure access (41%). Additionally, autonomous driving, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications and vehicle telematics ranked highest on the list of primary use cases for the automotive industry. Remote patient monitoring, medical wearables and remote surgery were identified as "killer apps" for the medical market. Timeline of User Benefits by Region

Only 25% of those polled believe that 5G is delivering substantial benefits to consumers today, but 99% anticipate substantial benefits within five years. More than half said consumers in Japan and Korea already recognize substantial benefit from 5G. China also continues to gain traction with more than half of survey respondents indicating that consumers benefit currently (24%) or are expected to benefit within one year (27%). According to the survey, expectations for the U.S. are that it will take two-to-five years (75%) for consumers to fully realize significant advantages nationwide. 5G Technologies and Topologies Take Hold

Small cell (48%), mmWave (46%) and private networks (46%) were identified as the top three technologies/topologies to play critical roles in enabling 5G advantages. While no consensus was reached on which technology would be first to impact users, mmWave emerged as the long-term leader, garnering 47% of the votes, followed by sub-6 (27%) and wide-area low power (26%). Molex Data Communications

Molex builds on decades of innovation and expertise in the telecom and datacom industries to help streamline critical network infrastructure upgrades while addressing an array of technology challenges with higher-frequency communications and connectivity. The company has proven expertise in signal-integrity and optical wavelength management, optical transceivers and connectivity, radio frequency (RF) technology and antennas as well as mmWave and micro connectors. Complete product design, testing and manufacturing capabilities extend across the 5G ecosystem of network service providers, equipment OEMs, device manufacturers along with key stakeholders in automotive, consumer, enterprise, industrial and medical markets. About Molex

Molex makes a connected world possible by enabling technologies that transform the future and improve lives. With a presence in more than 40 countries, Molex offers a complete range of connectivity products, services and solutions for the data communications, medical, industrial, automotive and consumer electronics industries. For more information visit www.molex.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/molex-unveils-results-of-global-state-of-5g-survey-301243168.html SOURCE Molex Incorporated

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Most public school districts have set up a hybrid schedule in which parents have the choice of sending their children to school on a part-time basis or keeping them in a full-time remote learning program. Only so many students can be accommodated because of the COVID-19 social distancing measures required by state and local health departments.
LOS ANGELES, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cetera has acquired MAGIS Financial Partners, a Philadelphia-based financial services firm currently supporting over $490 million in assets under management and operating a separate RIA that will transition to Cetera. Through this transaction, MAGIS who is already leveraging the Cetera platform for a portion of its business will now become a Cetera-owned group. This will allow its producers led by President, Steven Zimmerman to also transition their RIA business to Cetera, while retaining their culture and benefiting from the resources and scale Cetera offers.

Cetera has a commitment to supporting multiple affiliation models and purchasing the RIA is another example which demonstrates success in meeting financial professionals where they are in support of their growth objectives. Known for its industry-leading technology, Cetera has experience in making the process of ownership and succession changes as smooth as possible for financial leaders and their practices.

Through its previous affiliation, the MAGIS team has been a leader in delivering holistic financial planning to investors through Cetera's Advice-Centric Experience. "We have long subscribed to Cetera's proven growth methodology and have witnessed its benefits firsthand. This, coupled with Cetera's ability to meet the succession needs of our ownership group, simply aligns the interests of all stakeholders and frees us of the day-to-day burdens of managing an RIA," said President Steven Zimmerman. "We can deepen our focus on helping more clients on their journey to financial wellbeing."

Brett Harrison, head of Cetera's community for independent financial professionals, said, "The home office team at Cetera is thrilled to continue championing the success and growth of MAGIS in a more direct capacity. Our desire and ability to support advisors through every stage of their business life is unique. Whether it's an acquisition, ownership change or new affiliation, Cetera stands ready to support the full business lifecycle and inspire growth for financial practices nationwide."

MAGIS, an RIA previously owned by a Genstar portfolio company, is primarily focused on financial planning and holistic advice to over 350 households. Financial terms of the transaction will not be publicly disclosed.

About Cetera Financial Group

Cetera Financial Group (Cetera) is a leading financial advice firm. It empowers the delivery of an Advice-Centric Experience to individuals, families and businesses across the country through independent financial professionals as well as trusted tax professionals and banks and credit unions. It's headquartered at 200 N. Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 1200 El Segundo, CA 90245-5670.

Comprehensive services include: wealth management solutions, retirement plan solutions, advisory services, practice management support, innovative technology, marketing guidance, regulatory support, and market research.

"Cetera Financial Group" refers to the network of independent retail firms encompassing, among others, Cetera Advisors LLC, Cetera Advisor Networks LLC, Cetera Investment Services LLC (marketed as Cetera Financial Institutions or Cetera Investors), Cetera Financial Specialists LLC, and First Allied Securities, Inc. All firms are members FINRA / SIPC.

Individuals affiliated with Cetera firms are either Registered Representatives who offer only brokerage services and receive transaction-based compensation (commissions), Investment Adviser Representatives who offer only investment advisory services and receive fees based on assets, or both Registered Representatives and Investment Adviser Representatives, who can offer both types of services.

SOURCE Cetera Financial Group
Press Release

March 9, 2021 Bong Go welcomes Senate approval of measure recognizing Davao City as the cacao capital of the Philippines; hopeful for the country to be a key regional player in the global cacao industry Senator Christopher "Bong" Go lauded the Senate approval of a measure formally making Davao City the cacao capital of the Philippines. The bill also seeks to further enhance the productivity of the Philippine cacao industry by recognizing the status of Davao as the country's biggest producer of cacao. "Maraming salamat po sa ating mga fellow senators sa kanilang suportang ipinakita sa panukalang batas na ito na layuning kilalanin ang Davao City bilang Cacao and Chocolate Capital ng bansa," Go said. Senate Bill No. 1741, or "An Act Declaring the City of Davao as the Cacao and Chocolate Capital of the Philippines", hurdled the third and final reading in the Senate on Monday, March 8. This measure was sponsored by Senator Cynthia Villar, Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture. Go also co-authored the measure. "Magsisilbing inspirasyon po ito sa ating mga cacao producers at farmers na patuloy na magsikap upang mapalago ang industriya na ito na hindi lamang nagbibigay ng karangalan sa Davao, maging sa buong bansa," he added. In her sponsorship speech, Senator Villar indicated that roughly 78.76% of annual production of cacao in the Philippines comes from the Davao region composed of Davao del Sur, Davao City, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, Davao de Oro and Davao Occidental. Go, for his part, recognized the cacao farmers of Davao, saying "Dahil po iyan sa ating mga masisipag na cacao farmers. Nagpunta rin po si Secretary William Dar kamakailan lang para i-recognize ang Davao City as the Cacao Capital of the Philippines dahil kami ang top producer ng cacao." He added that as a Davaoeno, he is very proud that Davao City will be declared as the Cacao and Chocolate Capital of the Philippines under the proposed measure. "Marami na rin pong nakamit na awards ang ating mga cacao producers from Davao mula sa iba't ibang award-giving bodies sa buong mundo," Go said in a speech back in October 5 of last year during a public hearing. "Highly sought-after ng chocolate makers from the United States, Japan and Europe ang ating mga cacao beans. I am beaming with pride over these accolades by our very own Filipino farmers, nakaka-proud maging Davaoeno at Pilipino," he added. Aside from SBN 1741, the Senator, during the public hearing in October 2019 also gave his support for SBN 899, a bill introduced by Senator Lito Lapid, which shall create a cacao research and development center. The center, if created, shall serve as the lead agency for managing the cacao industry. It will also educate and train local farmers as well as create or strengthen linkages with international organizations and other cacao development centers in other countries. Meanwhile, Go expressed hope that the proposed measures would help the country's cacao farmers as well as facilitate the development and further growth of the cacao industry. He, then, encouraged government to take advantage of the rising global demand for cacao, a typically underserved commodity, to make the Philippines one of the top producers of quality cacao in the world. He also urged the Department of Agriculture to fulfill its promise to produce 100,000 metric tons of cacao beans by 2022 which will position the Philippines as a key regional player in the global cacao industry.
Press Release

March 9, 2021 De Lima denounces spate of arrests, killing of activists in Southern Tagalog Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has bewailed the rash of arrests and killing of activists in Southern Tagalog which happened two days after President Duterte ordered government forces to "kill" and "finish off" all communist rebels in the country. De Lima, a known human rights defender here and abroad, said that these intensifying attacks and disregard for human rights warrant the attention and condemnation of the Filipino people and the international community. "Whether it's drugs, insurgency, COVID-19 or poverty, he [Duterte], indeed, governs through violence and killings. 2016 pa lang, pumapatay na ang rehimeng ito. Duterte's latest marching order is just a reiteration and a reminder of his long-standing policy of brutally eliminating perceived enemies," she said in her Dispatch from Crame No. 1041. "Nananawagan ako para sa kagyat at totohanang imbestigasyon sa naganap na mass arrests at pagpatay sa mga aktibista sa Timog Katagalugan kahapon ng umaga. Kailangang matigil na ang walang habas na pag-atake sa karapatang pantao. Kailangan ding managot ang mga salarin," she added. Two days after Duterte instructed police and soldiers to "kill" and "finish off" communist rebels in encounters, the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) mounted a deadly crackdown in Calabarzon last March 7. In just one morning, police and soldiers have killed nine and arrested six individuals believed to be with activist groups in Southern Tagalog. It may be recalled on March 5, two days prior to the crackdown, Duterte declared in a speech that "I've told the military and the police, that if they find themselves in an armed encounter with the communist rebels, kill them, make sure you really kill them, and finish them off if they are alive." De Lima, in a Twitter post, slammed Duterte's duplicity saying, "When he spoke before the UN months ago, he tried to deceive the world with a barefaced lie that he and his government respect and uphold human rights. Now, he flaunts his true self: 'Kill them. Finish them off. Don't mind human rights.' The duplicity of the man is staggering!" De Lima also does not find it a coincidence that the massacre happened in the provinces under the jurisdiction of the AFP Southern Luzon Command, whose head is Lt. General Antonio Parlade, Jr., who is known as the poster boy of the Duterte regime's brutal anti-insurgency campaign. "He might be currently banned from red-tagging on Facebook but trust him to turn a day of rest and prayer into a bloody Sunday, Tokhang style. At talagang nangyari pa ang mga ito habang nagaganap ang isang Blue Mass for Police Officers sa Manila Cathedral. Talagang nakakagalit," she said. De Lima, a former justice secretary, reiterated that the people should not stop speaking out against and condemning all the killings in the country until the murderers are held accountable for their crimes. "For this regime, government critics, activists and other truth-seekers can be, and are being branded as enemies of the State, making them targets of Duterte's 'kill, kill, kill' policy. Kailangang magtuloy-tuloy ang pagkondena at paniningil. We will not stop until these murderers are held accountable for their crimes. End EJKs! Stop the attacks now!" she said. Last year, De Lima filed Senate Bill No. 1842 which seeks to define and criminalize extrajudicial killings and related acts and guarantee state obligations to effectively investigate and properly document EJKs. De Lima first filed SB No. 1197, also known as the "Anti-Extrajudicial Killing Act" during the 17th Congress and refiled the said bill this 18th Congress as SB No. 371, but it gathered dust in the Senate Justice and Human Rights Committee under the Chairmanship of Senator Richard Gordon.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrains economic growth will chart an upward trajectory this year, confronting global headwinds, helped by increased investments, a new report predicts. Overall, 2021 will be a year where economies will return to growth, especially as Bahrain resumes normal operations once again, said Property Finder, a leading online real estate platform in the Middle East and North Africa.

With a calmer political situation in the region, and a clearer idea of the pandemic and the direction it is taking, investment in Bahrain is expected to grow, on both the residential and commercial segments, the report citing the latest trends in the sector explains.

Property Finder, in the report, also expects the economy to return to growth as the businesses return to normality.

The report describes 2020 as a year of struggle with prices remaining unstable in all markets and sectors globally. Economies worldwide have been affected, with the real estate industry witnessing the same, the report adds.

The report, however, observes that the Kingdom managed to tide over the repercussions, helped mostly by an $11.4 billion stimulus package.

The stimulus helped Kingdom softened the blow to a certain extent, also supported by a rise in fin-tech, said the report. This is supposed to help the Kingdom stabilise in the coming years, the report added. Property Finder also reported a decline in rental unit prices in all governorates, excluding Capital, citing advertised prices.

Capital governorate witnessed a price increase of 16% in the average price for rental units when comparing 2019 with 2020. The report attributes the increase to a 40% rise in the availability in the Capital Governorates. Newly available stock may have driven up the average price in the area.

Pandemic affected sales in the four governorates of the Kingdom in 2020 when compared to the prior year. Recorded the highest decrease of 16% in Muharraq, the report adds.

The report also points out that Bahrain is on its way to becoming a mature, more transparent buyers market, as opposed to a market that is focused heavily on rentals, citing increased interest in the sales sector. The report also highlights that the pandemic made way for many first time buyers in the Kingdom as prices become more affordable and within reach. With the causeway closed off, and external investment, not an option, purchasers within Bahrain were able to take advantage of this downward price trajectory, with some securing their first real estate investment in the kingdom, the report adds.

Apartment, villa rentals

According to Property Finder, in Dilmunia Island, the advertised monthly prices dropped from BD 500 to BD 450 as high-end projects in the development needed a shift in price strategy to keep demand alive. Juffair reported a drop from BD 550 to BD 500, as owners and landlords tried to lure in new tenants locally.

Interestingly, in Riffa Al Sharqi, the advertised prices rose from BD 260 to BD 280 between 2019 and 2020. The villa rental sector also recorded a downward price trajectory when compared to 2019. Budaiya recorded a price decrease from BD 900 to BD 650 in 2020 from a year ago.

The same was the case with Jannusan, where advertised prices dropped from BD 1,300 to BD 900.

Property, villa sales

Property finder, citing reports, also says that approximately 7,500 freehold apartments will hand over in Bahrain in the next five years.

Interest in freehold apartments is increasing, and as RERA continues to play a role in regulating prices and sales processes, the report adds.

The report also highlights that buyers were eager to take advantage of decreased prices in the market, with first-time buyers jumping on the wagon last year. Prices in locations like Durrat Marina and Reef Island dropped from BD 783 to BD 709 per SQFT and BD 1,010 to 901 per SQFT, respectively, between 2019 and 2020.

Even though the market for freehold-villas gained some traction in Bahrain, buyers are now looking for the most affordable offers, the report adds.

Sales in Riffa decreased from BD 657 per SQFT to BD 544 per SQFT between 2019 and 2020.

In Sadad, prices dropped from BHD494 per SQFT to BHD451 per SQFT between 2019 and 2020
On the way of revolutionary changes in Ukraine's energy system, a "green-coal paradox" arose, where an increase in the share of renewables, contrary to common sense, leads to a rise in thermal energy. The solution to the issue is to direct large-scale investments in the construction of new maneuverable and accumulation capacities.

Domestic energy generation has entered a phase of revolutionary shifts that are now underway throughout the civilized world  "clean" energy derived from renewable sources is replacing "dirty" thermal power plants.

However, on the way of these changes, the so-called "green-coal paradox" arose, where an increase in the share of renewables, contrary to common sense, leads to an increase in thermal energy.

The solution to the issue is the construction of a sufficient number of new flexible and accumulation capacities, which will require multi-billion dollar investments.

The pace of construction of renewable energy facilities in Ukraine is truly amazing. Last year alone, 1.6 GW of new green generation capacities were commissioned in the country, with the total capacity rising by 22% and reaching 8.5 GW. The year 2019 set a record when 4.5 GW of renewable electricity capacities were set up.

Over the past two years, the share of renewables in country's total electricity production has risen from below 2% to 8%, and growing.

However, the expected replacement of "green" generation with obsolete and toxic heat generation is yet to take place.

While in 2018, when the boom of renewable energy in the country was just gaining momentum, the share of TPPs in total electricity generation was 37%, then by the end of 2020 it dropped to only 35%.

At the same time, the overall electricity generation in 2018-2020 decreased by almost 7% due to a drop in consumption.

The fact is that "green" energy is hardly predictable, and the generation of electricity by such power plants is unstable, since it depends on weather conditions and time of day. A sharp increase or, on the contrary, a drop in the renewable generation must be compensated for by flexible capacities in order to maintain stability of the power grid.

Key role of maneuverable capacities

In Ukraine, the role of maneuvering today is played by hydroelectric power plants, pumped storage power plants, as well as thermal power plants operating mainly on coal.

Since hydropower was involved in regulating the national energy system almost at its maximum capacities even before the "green" energy boom, by smoothing evening and morning consumption peaks, it was TPPs that took the main role in balancing the system.

At the same time, the start-up of a coal-fired power unit can take from two to nine hours. Therefore, part of the power units involved in maneuvering must constantly be in the "hot" standby mode, that is, work underloaded, so that, at the command of the power system dispatcher, at the right moment, to drastically increase generation.

Thus, an increase in the share of "green" generation in the Ukrainian energy grid leads to the use of an increasing number of TPPs, an increase in coal consumption and, accordingly, an increase in pollutant emissions into the atmosphere, which contradicts the initial idea of priority development of renewable energy sources.

And this is really a national paradox!

Trapped in the "green" paradox

The growing share of TPPs involved in balancing also leads to the need to limit generation by nuclear power plants which produce the cheapest and more environmentally friendly energy than thermal.

In the summer of 2020, some blocks of Ukrainian NPPs were being shut down so that the national energy grid could embrace the entire volume of "green" energy due to a sharp consumption drop caused by lockdown bans.

In such conditions, further development of renewable energy in Ukraine will inevitably lead to an increase in electricity tariffs, since cheap nuclear power in the general balance will be replaced by more expensive thermal power, as well as to an increase in emissions.

Ukraine is not the only country in the world that has faced such a paradox. This problem is typical for all economies that are actively developing "green" energy.

The solution to the problem is the construction of new highly maneuverable capacities, of which the most effective today are gas piston stations, whose start-up time is within 15 minutes, as well as the development of powerful energy accumulation systems.

According to acting Minister of Energy Yuriy Vitrenko, without stimulating the development of such systems, Ukraine will not be able to replace coal generation.

"We must stimulate the development of storage batteries, green hydrogen, and pumped storage facilities that can technically balance green energy. Only then will we be able to replace coal generation," Vitrenko said.

New energy accumulation technologies

Today, pumped storage power plants remain the most common energy accumulation stations in Ukraine and worldwide.

However, according to expert forecasts, in the next ten to fifteen years, energy accumulation systems based on storage batteries will be able to significantly squeeze hydropower from the pedestal, which will be due to the further technology upgrade and significant cost reductions.

According to Bloomberg, prices for lithium-ion batteries in 2020 fell to $137 per kilowatt-hour, while in 2010 their cost exceeded $1,100 per kilowatt-hour. Prices are expected to keep declining, by 2023 reaching levels below $100/kWh.

It should be noted that Ukraine has one of the largest reserves of lithium in Europe, which, unfortunately, is practically not being mined today. Also, there is not a single plant in Ukraine that would produce lithium-ion batteries, while such plants already operate in neighboring European countries.

It is predicted that by 2040 the installed capacity of energy accumulation systems in the world will reach about 1,000 GW, while in 2018 the total capacity of batteries was a modest 9 GW. Among the leaders in the development of energy accumulaiton systems are the USA, Australia, South Korea, and China.

According to the estimates by the Ukrainian energy grid operator Ukrenergo, in the next two years Ukraine should build 2 GW worth of new highly maneuverable quick start facilities, as well as at least 200 MW worth of energy storage systems, which will require about $2 billion in investment.

The implementation of this large-scale task will ensure the stability of the national energy system, taking into account further growth of the share of renewables, as well as significantly reduce the need to use thermal power plants to balance the system.

Ukrenergo, together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), is working on a project to build a 200 MW energy storage system in Ukraine. No timeframes have been revealed for the project.

In addition, the DTEK holding of oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, which owns about 80% of the country's thermal power plants, as well as the largest renewable energy facilities, plans to launch a 1 MW battery at the Zaporizhia TPP site in the spring of 2021. Investments amounted to about $1 million. If this pilot project sees success, the company will be set to build a larger energy storage system, at 50 MW.

DTEK notes that due to the unresolved issue of developing energy storage systems in Ukraine, the company has no clear understanding yet of the payback of such projects.

"Our market for ancillary services does not work as it should. We don't have normal price signals that these projects will pay off. The system needs these projects, but today there is no normal economic base for this. We decided not to wait until this economic base appears, and to try a 1 megawatt project," DTEK CEO Maksym Tymchenko told reporters.

The plans to build storage batteries were also announced by the Ukrhydroenergo SE, operator of Ukrainian hydroelectric power plants. The project is planned to be implemented jointly with USAID and the World Bank.

Finding reasonable incentives

Large foreign investors, unfortunately, today are not ready to invest in the construction of storage facilities in Ukraine. Firstly, it's due to the fact that the activity of energy storage systems in the country has not been regulated at the legislative level, and secondly, the Ukrainian electricity market is just being formed and it is almost impossible to calculate investment returns.

Even more vague are the prospects for the construction of highly maneuverable gas piston stations. By 2022, according to Ukrenergo estimates, Ukraine will have built such capacities worth about 2 GW.

Today it is practically impossible to find an investor for such a project without targeted subsidies from the government, given the unstable situation on the domestic energy market and unclear investment yield. After all, it is assumed that such stations will operate only part of the time, perhaps several dozens of hours a year, not constantly, which makes the issue of investment recouping quite obvious.

In Ukraine today, such a project could be implemented by Naftogaz of Ukraine NJSC, which produces more than 80% of all gas in the country, that is, it has direct access to fuel for such a power plant. In addition, the Naftogaz management have repeatedly stated that the company is considering the possibility of entering the power generation market.

However, if the government fails to find a solution to the economic side of the project, Naftogaz will also find it extremely difficult to attract funding for it.

Ukraine today is following the global trend of transformations in the energy sector. Now the country is faced with the task of providing the energy system with a sufficient amount of new highly mobile and storage capacities.

In addition, the country in the next two years plans to join the ENTSO-E, so it will have to demonstrate stability of its system during stress tests, which will be difficult to do without new balancing capacities being available.

The next two years will be decisive: either Ukraine is e able to develop its energy system in sync with the entire civilized world, or this process will be significantly delayed, which will be a blow both to the environment and consumers (in terms of energy bills).

Ihor Orel

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
On Monday, March 8, two UGA graduate students students helped put together International Student Lifes second Tea Talk of the semester revolving around the topic of cultural competence and how it coincides with mental health. (Screenshot/Hayley Croke)
The deal is set to further strengthen Songtradr's position as the world's leading music licensing ecosystem

SYDNEY, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Songtradr, the world's largest B2B music licensing marketplace, announced today that they have acquired Song Zu, the most awarded music and sound design company in the Australia and Asia Pacific region, with studios in Sydney and Singapore. This multi-million dollar transaction marks Songtradr's second major acquisition since completion of their Series C funding round in July 2020 where the company raised US$30M.

"Song Zu is the region's leading custom music composition house and has such a rich history," said Paul Wiltshire, CEO of Songtradr. "As we continue to expand into the APAC region, Song Zu is a natural fit and greatly complements our global music ecosystem."

Song Zu works in all areas of sonic branding, including soundtracks for advertisements on TV and radio, online content, VR and installation spaces. With an unparalleled reputation for creative problem solving, in addition to working with Australia's leading broadcasters, Song Zu works with renowned brands and media businesses from around the world including Netflix, HBO, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Google, Amazon, and Guinness, among others. They have repeatedly received international recognition for their work, garnering top awards such as the Gold Clios, Cannes Gold Lions, London International Awards (LIA) for Best Music and Sound Design Company of the Year, and more.

"We are well established in the APAC region and are looking forward to joining the Songtradr family, expanding our product offering and increasing our global footprint," said Ian Lew, Managing Director and Partner of Song Zu. "Enhancing our initiatives with Songtradr's technology is a truly exciting opportunity for us as our clients' needs rapidly evolve."

"Bespoke music will always be at the heart of what we do," said Ramesh Sathiah, Creative Director of Song Zu. "But having the resources of the Songtradr platform as well as the music licencing power of Big Sync, allows us to offer creative solutions with no boundaries."

Song Zu will form part of Songtradr's recently launched platform, 'Vinyl by Songtradr', alongside acquired companies, Big Sync Music and Cuesongs. 'Vinyl by Songtradr' is a tech-enhanced, human curated platform that gives users direct access to creative talent, commercial music licensing, as well as pre-cleared music, sonic branding, custom composition and more.

ABOUT SONG ZU:

Song Zu is the most awarded music and sound design company in Australia and the Asia Pacific region, with post-production studios in Sydney and Singapore. They work in all facets of sonic branding including soundtracks for advertisements on TV and radio, online content, VR and installation spaces. Song Zu's unique position of being one of the longest standing companies of its kind is testament to their creative problem solving ability. Song Zu provides a full audio and post-production service, from music composition and sound design to voice over casting. The company has also sound supervised, scored and mixed a number of award winning TV series, documentaries and feature films. https://www.songzu.com/

ABOUT SONGTRADR:

Songtradr is the largest B2B music licensing marketplace in the world, providing music creators and rights owners with a complete tech-enabled solution for rights management and monetization while providing B2B music users such as brands, advertisers, filmmakers, SVOD and broadcast networks, gaming, streaming and social media platforms with highly-efficient, AI guided access to music. https://www.songtradr.com/

ABOUT VINYL BY SONGTRADR:

Vinyl by Songtradr is a tech-enhanced, human curated platform that gives you direct access to creative talent, commercial music licensing as well as pre-cleared music, sonic branding, custom composition and more. Vinyl helps brands, advertisers, filmmakers, SVOD and broadcast networks, gaming, streaming and social media platforms create eye-catching content and award-winning campaigns. https://www.vinyl.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1085219/Songtradr_Logo.jpg
One-third of the staff at Cottonwoods, a Kelowna long-term care home, have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. Across B.C., more than 90% of employees at long-term care homes have been vaccinated, Health Minister Adrian Dix says.
The Minister of Justice of Armenia, Rustam Badasyan, on Monday met with the Minister of Justice of Japan, Yoko Kamikawa.

Badasyan is attending the 14th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (UNODC), from March 5 to 11, in Kyoto, Japan.

Minister Badasyan noted that Armenia and Japan have many similarities: ancient civilization, rich culture, and innovative spirit. He praised Japan's position in the UN Human Rights Council on the matter of return of Armenian POWs in Azerbaijan, as well as the Japanese government's $3.6mn humanitarian aid to Armenia to counteract the effects of the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war. The minister of justice of Armenia added that during this war war, the Armenian people had witnessed numerous gross violations of international conventions.

Minister Kamikawa, in turn, stressed the importance of effective bilateral cooperation and expressed readiness to continue it. She expressed hope that the Kyoto Declarationadopted at the aforesaid Congresswould be a benchmark for countries to strengthen the rule of law, and assured that Japan, as the country chairing the Congress, will continue contributing to the establishment of the rule of law.

Afterwards, the ministers exchanged views and stressed that high-level mutual contacts are a good basis for the deepening of bilateral cooperation.
It's officially 'intimacy week' on Married At First Sight, and things certainly got hot and heavy on Tuesday's episode.

The show's new sexologist, Alessandra Rampolla, didn't hold back as she continued to push this year's couples to their limits with a series of intimacy building exercises.

In an attempt to help Jason Engler and Alana Lister form a 'deeper connection' with each other, Alessandra, 46, tasked the couple with a series of exercises.

Up close and personal: Married At First Sight's new sexologist Alessandra Rampolla (centre) left newlyweds Jason Enger (right) and Alana Lister (left) red-faced after she instructed them to touch each other's genitals

Jason and Alana, 30, were first instructed to gaze into each other's eyes for several minutes while holding hands.

The Puerto Rican sex expert then asked the couple to take half a step closer, before instructing them to touch each other's genitals.

'It wasn't awkward or nothing. It was just... it's just a bit uncomfortable,' Jason, 35, later laughed to producers.

Purpose: In an attempt to help Jason, 35, and Alana, 30, form a 'deeper connection' with each other, Alessandra tasked the couple with a series of exercises

Awkward: Jason and Alana were first instructed to gaze into each other's eyes for several minutes while holding hands, before they were instructed to touch each other's genitals

Observing the raunchy exercise from just a few metres away, Alessandra continued to call out instructions.

'It's just cupping, there should be no caressing. Just kind of have your hand over each other's genitals,' she instructed.

Speaking about the challenge, Alessandra said: 'This exercise is clearly bringing you physically closer together while you gaze into their eyes.'

Eye spy: Speaking about the challenge, Alessandra said: 'This exercise is clearly bringing you physically closer together while you gaze into their eyes

'It's a different level of intimacy to maintain eye contact this close to one another,' Alessandra insisted

She added: 'It's a different level of intimacy to maintain eye contact this close to one another.'

The intimacy task proved to be a success, with the Brisbane construction estimator left feeling overwhelmed and teary.

'You're being vulnerable emotionally also, and breathe it out,' Alessandra urged Jason.

Getting closer: Speaking to producers following the task, Jason said: 'The connection between me and Alana is something that I know I have to work on'

She then encouraged Jason to not hold back and let his emotions do the talking.

'Don't [stop], if [you're tearing up] it's because there's something that your body wants to let out, and that's beautiful to share,' she said.

Speaking to producers following the task, Jason said: 'The connection between me and Alana is something that I know I have to work on.'

Married At First Sight continues on Wednesday at 7.30pm on Channel Nine.
STAMFORD, Conn., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aircastle Limited ("Aircastle") announced today that Michael Inglese, Chief Executive Officer, will be presenting at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 1:10 p.m. Eastern Time.

A live webcast of the presentation and slides will be available to the public on the Investor Relations section of Aircastle's website at http://www.aircastle.com. Please allow extra time prior to the presentation to visit the site and download the necessary software required to listen to the internet broadcast. A replay of the presentation will also be available on the company's website.

About Aircastle Limited

Aircastle Limited acquires, leases, and sells commercial jet aircraft to airlines throughout the world. As of November 30, 2020, Aircastle owned and managed on behalf of its joint ventures 269 aircraft leased to 80 customers located in 45 countries.

Contacts:

Aircastle Advisor LLC

Frank Constantinople, SVP Investor Relations

Tel: +1-203-504-1063

[email protected]

For more information on Aircastle, please visit www.aircastle.com.

SOURCE Aircastle Limited

Related Links

http://www.aircastle.com


Real Housewives of Orange County star Shannon Beador said Monday that she's 'fixing' her face after receiving fillers prior to the show's 15th reunion special that she had an adverse reaction to.

'I've never done it before and it's non-dissolvable,' the 57-year-old told US on Monday about the current treatments she's undergoing to reverse the process. 'I go in every two weeks, they put stuff in to try and get rid of it. So, you live and learn.'

The Bravo beauty in January took to Instagram after she said fans noticed a difference in her appearance in watching the reunion show.

On the mend: Real Housewives of Orange County star Shannon Beador, 57, said Monday that she's 'fixing' her face after receiving fillers prior to the show's 15th reunion special that she had an adverse reaction to

'New year, new me!' she captioned the shot. 'After last nights reunion episode, there are questions asking "what happened to your face???" I am here to be honest and open about what happened.'

In the clip, she explained how she was having a difficult month after undergoing a natural filler treatment meant to complement her skin 'without thinking it through,' leading to the adverse reaction.

'Last night, part one of the RHOC reunion aired, and there are a lot of people asking, what did Shannon do to her face?' she said. 'I wanted to look good for the reunion, so I went elsewhere to try a couple of natural and non-invasive treatments that have been very effective in tightening people's skin, but it didn't work at all on my skin.'

She continued, 'I'm having a really difficult time looking myself in the mirror, I don't recognize myself.'

The Bravo beauty in January took to Instagram after she said fans noticed a difference in her appearance in watching the reunion show

Out and about: Beador was snapped at an event in Hollywood in January 2020

She was at the Southern California-based plastic surgeon CosmetiCare getting treatments to reverse the condition.

In a subsequent segment on her Instagram Stories, a nurse injected her cheeks with a needle, lauding the reality star for being a 'great sport' amid the painful process.

Beador replied, 'I'm good. Anything, anything to get rid of it.'

Beador visited the Southern California-based plastic surgeon CosmetiCare getting treatments to reverse the condition

Beador has been on RHOC since the show's ninth season in 2014

In the interview, Beador, who has been on the reality show since the show's ninth season in 2014, said she's had a difficult time with weight gain in quarantine, nearly a year after the coronavirus lockdown.

'Ive always been a thin person, so it was very tough for me,' she said. 'It was heavy on my heart to have gained the weight that I have. Im in process of my glow-up right now.

'Im starting to lose that COVID weight and then Im going to stay there, because this roller coaster it doesnt work for me very well.'
A resolution allowing voters to change the way Tennessees Attorney General is selected was approved 25-7 on Monday evening by the Tennessee Senate. Senate Joint Resolution 1, sponsored by Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ken Yager (R-Kingston), calls for a transparent nomination process by the Tennessee Supreme Court in selecting the State Attorney General, followed by a confirmation vote of the nominee by a majority of both houses of the Tennessee General Assembly.

This resolution calls for an amendment to the Tennessee Constitution to require the Supreme Court to nominate an individual in an open meeting with a recorded vote, Senator Yager said. It would further require a confirmation of that nomination by the General Assembly. This retains an important role for the court in the selection process, while providing an oversight role to the General Assembly through the confirmation process. It is consistent with the intentions of the authors of our State Constitution who wanted officials directly elected by the people to have a role in the appointment.

The 1870 constitution required Supreme Court judges be elected by Tennessee voters. Senator Yager said the current system of appointing justices means the selection of the State Attorney General is twice removed from the public. Tennessee is the only state in which the State Supreme Court appoints the attorney general. The votes taken by the court on nominees currently are not disclosed to the public.

This compromise is an improvement over how Tennessee currently selects the State Attorney General, said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Bell (R-Riceville). It leaves the independence of the judiciary to nominate someone, makes it more transparent in the process, and then gives that confirmation to the people through their elected representatives.

Once the nomination is made, the legislature would have 60 days to go through the confirmation process. In the event that the candidate is rejected, then the court would have 60 days to make another nomination.

The resolution now goes to the House of Representatives where it must also receive a two thirds majority. Once approved by the House, it will go to Tennessee voters in 2022 where it must receive a majority of votes cast in the gubernatorial election.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
County library to unveil story walk project in Vanderbilt

The Otsego County Library is hosting a ceremony Saturday to formally open the latest story walk project.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The treasury and benches sparred over the Centre's new farm laws in the Haryana Assembly on Tuesday with the ruling BJP-JJP coalition accusing their rivals of misleading farmers and MLAs describing the government as insensitive.

MLAs attacked the Manohar Lal Khattar-led state government, saying it is portraying as if everything is fine, which is not the case.

Taking part in the debate on the Governor's Address, Deputy Chief Minister and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) leader Dushyant Chautala defended the laws and said contrary to the claims, the mandi system won't end and they will strengthen it.

He said former deputy prime minister Chaudhary Devi Lal, his great grandfather, used to say misleading farmers is easy, but making them understand is difficult.

However, JJP MLA Ram Kumar Gautam suggested a resolution should be passed by MLAs that the laws be put on hold for three years and two months till the current term of the NDA government at the Centre is over.

While the government says these laws are for farmers' benefit, farmers terms term these as black laws. To my mind, there is only one solution in this situationall parties and MLAs should unanimously pass a resolution that these laws should be put on hold for three years and two months, he said.

After that polls will be held and farmers will be free to make a choice (on whom to vote), he said.

JJP's Jogi Ram Sihag, who had earlier backed the protesting farmers, demanded that the Haryana government frame a law on the minimum support price (MSP).

legislator Aseem Goel challenged MLAs to tell names of the three laws while alleging that they are misleading farmers.

Let them debate these farm laws, we are ready, said Goel, claiming that during the previous Congress regime, farmers' land was snatched from them.

legislator Kamal Gupta accused the Congress of exploiting farmers since the independence of the country.

Independent MLA Nayan Pal Rawat, who is supporting the government, suggested members to study the farm laws first.

These laws are in favour of farmers, which will help double farmers' income, Rawat said.

Participating in the debate, senior Congress leader Kiran Choudhary said she rejects the government's narrative that everything is fine. Farmers, small traders and entrepreneurs, all are adversely hit because of lopsided policies of the government, she said.

The government talks about doubling of farmers' income. Reality is that for more than 100 days farmers are protesting against farm laws but their demands are not being met, she said.

Choudhary also demanded a relief of Rs 2 crore to kin of the farmers who died during the course of the agitation and said they should be given the status of a martyr. She said cases lodged against farmers should be withdrawn.

Alleging corruption is rampant in the state, she said, They talk of zero tolerance towards corruption, but these are proving only 'jumlas'.

Unemployment is at its peak, prices of fuel and cooking gas have skyrocketed, she said.

Congress MLA Aftab Ahmed said the treasury benches ask what is black in these farm laws.

If these laws were farmer-friendly, then why the chief minister, deputy CM and BJP-JJP MLAs cannot go in their constituencies among people? Why are they being opposed by villagers, he asked.

Congress MLAs Shamsher Gogi and Amit Sihag accused the government of being insensitive towards farmers' plight.

Another Congress MLA, Mohd Illyas, claimed that more than 250 farmers have died during the course of the stir and the government should agree to their demands.

Independent MLA Balraj Kundu, who had withdrawn his support to the state government, said, More than 200 farmers have died in this agitation, some committed suicides. Is this how government plans to double the farmers' income, he asked.

Ishwar Singh, JJP legislator hailed the law giving 75 per cent reservation in private sector jobs and suggested that a provision should be made for reservation to Scheduled Casted category youth under it.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
[March 09, 2021] IHS Markit to Launch Global Carbon Credit Meta-Registry

IHS (News - Alert) Markit (NYSE: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, today announced its intention to launch the first global meta-registry aimed at providing transparency and efficient tracking, accounting and trade lifecycle management of carbon credits. As part of this launch, the Carbon Meta-Registry Advisory Board has been formed with leading experts from the public and private sectors and NGOs. The Advisory Board is tasked to ensure the IHS Markit Meta-Registry delivers on its objectives and meets the wider industry needs. The Advisory Board at launch includes representatives from: Programs/Standards: Global Carbon Council, Gold Standard, REDD.plus, UK Woodland Carbon Code and Verra

NGOs/Industry associations: Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund and the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)

Private sector: Bank of America, Bluesource, CBL Markets, Chevron, Goldman Sachs, Hartree Partners, Microsoft (News - Alert) and Temasek The World Bank will participate on the Advisory Board as an observer. The Meta-Registry complements the World Bank's Climate Warehouse initiative to create a public infrastructure for tracking and reporting of carbon assets. Leveraging distributed ledger technology, the IHS Markit Meta-Registry is designed to seamlessly connect independent carbon markets and registry systems around the world, reducing the risk that credits are counted or claimed twice in different markets or programs. The IHS Markit Meta-Registry will provide a global online ledger enabling access to information on projects and credits across jurisdictions, programs and standards. "Carbon markets are a vital mechanism that allow companies and countries to meet their net-zero emissions commitments", said Kathy Benini, head of Environmental Solutions, IHS Markit. "A global meta-registry provides critical infrastructure for this rapidly developing marketplace. We believe this Meta-Registry will underpin the global cabon markets; it will provide clarity and accountability for participants, increase liquidity and transparency and strengthen all-important trust in these markets."



"We have seen growing interest in solutions to enable carbon credit markets to scale, as evidenced by the Task Force for Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets and the World Bank's Climate Warehouse initiative", said Dirk Forrister, president and chief executive officer, International Emissions Trading Association and Meta-Registry Advisory Board member. "A new layer of transparency for carbon markets would strengthen confidence and increase participation, ambition and trust in these important markets which are continuing to grow and demonstrate they are an effective tool in the fight against climate change," added David Antonioli, chief executive officer of Verra.

"This Meta-Registry demonstrates a clear governance and implementation model for the global carbon markets envisioned by Article 6 of the Paris Agreement," said Kishor Rajhansa, director- technical & strategy, Global Carbon Council. "As COP 26 rises up the agenda, the Meta-Registry will provide a roadmap of how Article 6 transactions and corresponding adjustments can be authorized, monitored and tracked across programs and countries." The IHS Markit Meta-Registry is expected to launch in early 2021 with initial member programs including Global Carbon Council, Gold Standard, UK Woodland Carbon Code, UK Peatland Code and Verra. Additional participants will be added over the course of the year. IHS Markit's Environmental Registry Credentials IHS Markit has designed and developed greenhouse gas registries and auction infrastructure for governments in the Americas, EMEA and APAC. Its Environmental Registry for carbon, water and biodiversity credits has provided full tracking for the lifecycle of more than 350 million credits across over 30 compliance and voluntary programs. The Registry has been voted "Best Registry Provider" by the readers of Environmental Finance for the eleventh year running. About IHS Markit (www.ihsmarkit.com) IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO) is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide. The company delivers next-generation information, analytics and solutions to customers in business, finance and government, improving their operational efficiency and providing deep insights that lead to well-informed, confident decisions. IHS Markit has more than 50,000 business and government customers, including 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500 and the world's leading financial institutions. Headquartered in London, IHS Markit is committed to sustainable, profitable growth. IHS Markit is a registered trademark of IHS Markit Ltd. and/or its affiliates. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners  2021 IHS Markit Ltd. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005301/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
General Assignment Reporter

Chris Mays is a general assignment reporter for the Brattleboro Reformer. He has been with New England Newspapers Inc. since 2012.
DZ BANK AG (contact: Ralph Ockert; telephone: +49 69 7447 7051) hereby

announces, as Stabilisation Coordinator, that the Stabilising Managers named

below may stabilise the offer of the following securities in accordance with

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 under the Market Abuse

Regulation (EU Regulation 596/2014).

The security to be stabilised: Issuer: European Union Guarantor (if any): None Aggregate nominal amount: 9bn Description: fixed rate, due 04. June 2036 Offer price: Tba Other offer terms: payment 16.03.2021, denoms 1k/1k, soft bullet Stabilisation:

DZ BANK AG Stabilisation Coordinator:

Stabilising Managers:







DZ BANK AG

HSBC

NWM

Toronto Dominion

Unicredit Stabilisation period expected to start on: 09th March 2021 Stabilisation period expected to end on: no later than 30 days after the proposed issue date of the securities Existence, maximum size and conditions of use of over-allotment facility. The Stabilising Managers may over-allot the securities to the extent permitted in accordance with applicable law. Stabilisation trading venue: Luxembourg Stock Exchange (Regulated Market)





In connection with the offer of the above securities, the Stabilisation Manager(s) may over-allot the securities or effect transactions with a view to supporting the market price of the securities at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. However, there is no assurance that the Stabilisation Manager(s) will take any stabilisation action and any stabilisation action, if begun, may be ended at any time. Any stabilisation action or over-allotment shall be conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and rules.

This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction.

In addition, if and to the extent that this announcement is communicated in, or the offer of the securities to which it relates is made in, any EEA Member State that has implemented Directive 2003/71/EC, as amended (together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State, the "Prospectus Directive") before the publication of a prospectus in relation to the securities which has been approved by the competent authority in that Member State in accordance with the Prospectus Directive (or which has been approved by a competent authority in another Member State and notified to the competent authority in that Member State in accordance with the Prospectus Directive), this announcement and the offer are only addressed to and directed at persons in that Member State who are qualified investors within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive (or who are other persons to whom the offer may lawfully be addressed) and must not be acted on or relied on by other persons in that Member State.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Over the past year, Canada's federal government, policy-makers and employers have made significant strides in providing temporary paid sick leave provisions related to COVID-19. But the challenges associated with workplace safety when sick leave is unpaid persist.

This requires permanent and shared solutions to protect workers, the community and the economy.

Although quarantine was mandated for people unable to work due to being exposed to COVID-19 or if they were exhibiting symptoms, working while unwellcalled presenteeismcontinued due to employees' financial concerns. Although every major public health agency recommended staying at home when sick, some employees without paid sick days couldn't afford to do so.

Since March 2020, more than 7,900 workplace COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred. This startling figure doesn't take into account the impact of outbreaks on health-care workers, teachers and those in group homes or shelters.

In the past 20 years, there have been at least five pandemics or serious infectious disease outbreaks: SARS in 2003, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014 and COVID-19 in 2020.

Workplaces are at particular risk of exposure to infectious diseases. Employees who come into work while waiting for test results or who feel unwell risk infecting co-workers. That means illness and outbreak containment measures require workplace solutions.

Failing our workers

Paid sick days can be mandated in government legislation, or as a workplace-specific benefit. Canada is failing its workers on both fronts. At the start of the pandemic, only employees who fell under federal, Quebec or Prince Edward Island jurisdiction had legislated paid sick days, ranging from one to five days of paid leave.

Only 58 percent of workers have access to paid sick days from their employers. Low-wage workers fare even worse70 percent of people earning less than $25,000 a year lack sick day provisions from their employers.

Employers alone cannot be solely responsible for providing paid sick days. Offering 10 additional days of paid sick leave a year can translate into significant increases in labour costs.

Some businesses regard this as unaffordable. During the current pandemic, corporate revenues have largely declined and experts suggest an economic recovery could be years away.

Sharing responsibility

A feasible approach requires raising awareness of the benefits of paid sick days and for governments and employers to share responsibility.

Research shows that employees without paid sick leave are 1.5 times more likely to go to work while they're contagious. In contrast, employees with paid sick leave are more likely to engage in routine medical care, such as receiving flu vaccines and completing annual health checks. This reduces the number of future visits to emergency departments. Providing paid sick leave to employees also significantly lowers the risk of mortality.

Reducing presenteeism is good for the business. Employees who feel unwell but can't afford to stay home or fear they'll lose their jobs are less likely to seek medical attention, and therefore contribute to the spread of COVID-19 or other infectious illnesses to their co-workers.

Employees who work while sick also make more mistakes and have a 28 percent higher chance of getting injured at work. That means even longer absences, potential liability risks, decreased job performance and increased injury levels.

Employees also have a role to play, and must be held accountable if they abuse paid sick days. One in every three employees admits to calling in sick when they are healthy and well. For all employees to benefit from paid sick days, playing hooky must stop, and employers are within their rights to reprimand workers who fake illness to avoid work. This helps build much-needed accountability and fairness around paid sick days.

Supporting businesses

We also need to explore government support for businesses that implement paid sick days. Given the community health benefits associated with paid sick days and the heavy cost of the federal government's Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, which provides those unable to work due to COVID-19 illness or self-isolation with $500 per week for a maximum of four weeks, financial support for businesses to offer paid sick days can offset the health-care costs of outbreaks and incentivize employers.

The government's sick leave benefit expires on Sept. 25, 2021. As of Feb. 14, there had been 392,280 unique applicants for the benefit. Assuming a $1,000 payout for a two-week absence, the paid sick day benefit has cost the federal government more than $300 million dollars in just five months. It will undoubtedly become more expensive since the government recently upped the coverage period from two weeks to four.

Ultimately, employees shouldn't have to choose between working while sick and providing food or shelter for themselves and their families. They should also be able to go to work without fear of catching COVID-19 from co-workers.

Post-pandemic, we must learn from our mistakes and take action in a more permanent manner. While the benefits of paid sick days are clear, an integrated approach involving employers, employees and government is required.

Explore further Paid sick leave mandates hold promise in containing COVID-19

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Protesters who bring chaos and disruption to the streets are to face tougher laws and longer jail terms.

Home Secretary Priti Patel will be handed controversial powers to rule if a protest can be deemed a 'serious disruption' to the nation's economy, political life and tradition of free speech.

Under legislation to be unveiled today, her ruling would trigger extra police powers, allowing officers to break up protests such as the Extinction Rebellion blockades of Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus and Marble Arch in 2019.

The environmental radicals, also known as 'XR', were accused of attacking the free press when they obstructed newspaper printing presses  including those of the Daily Mail  last September.

Home Secretary Priti Patel will be handed controversial powers to rule if a protest can be deemed a 'serious disruption' to the nation's economy, political life and tradition of free speech. It follows widespread protests by the likes formerly Extinction Rebellion, who blockaded parts of London in 2019

The group also tried to disrupt the Stock Exchange, Heathrow Airport, London Fashion Week and public transport.

Writing exclusively for the Mail today, Miss Patel and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland say the measures will allow police to 'safely manage' protests which 'threaten public order or stop people from getting on with their daily lives'.

Static protests that are allowed to go ahead will have to abide by police limits on their duration, location and noise levels.

Jail terms for organisers who fail to abide by the rules will double to six months. Protesters who take part in unlawful demonstrations will face fines of up to 2,500 each.

Writing exclusively for the Mail today, Home Secretary Priti Patel (pictured) and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland say the measures will allow police to 'safely manage' protests which 'threaten public order or stop people from getting on with their daily lives'

A Home Office source said: 'We saw the impact of protests by crusty eco-crusaders on freedom of speech.

'The right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy, and Priti fundamentally supports the principle of freedom of speech to ensure people can express their views peacefully.

'But the disruption caused by some Lefty protests has exposed an emerging threat to our way of life, our economy and the livelihoods of the hard-working majority.'

However, granting the Home Secretary a role in deciding which protests should face tougher rules runs the risk of politicising the policing of demonstrations.

The measures will be outlined in full in the wide-ranging Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

Miss Patel and Mr Buckland today set out how it will 'restore confidence in a justice system' that is often seen as putting offenders' rights before those of the victims.

Describing the Bill as the 'most radical overhaul in decades', the Cabinet ministers will introduce laws which extend 'whole life' prison terms to premeditated child murderers and to the most dangerous offenders aged 18-20.

Static protests that are allowed to go ahead will have to abide by police limits on their duration, location and noise levels. Pictured: An XR demonstration on Waterloo Bridge in 2019

New measures will crack down on knife crime and give police powers to move on unauthorised traveller camps.

The maximum jail term for emergency service workers will double to two years.

Maximum jail sentences for vandalising memorials will increase from three months to ten years.

A change to the rules on search warrants could unlock the final secrets of Moors Murderer Ian Brady by allowing police access to his two locked briefcases.

The profoundly deaf will be able to sit on juries. This will make more than 80,000 deaf adults eligible for jury service.

Sign language interpreters will be the first 'strangers'  those other than jurors  allowed in deliberation rooms for centuries.

In a further measure  announced by the London Mayor Sadiq Khan  domestic abuse offenders and stalkers will be tagged on release to protect victims.

This 230,000 pilot scheme will run for a year.

The law should protect YOU, not criminals

Comment by Priti Patel and Robert Buckland

As Justice and Home Secretaries, we share a common and crucial goal: to make this country safer.

That is what the British people expect us to do, and it is why this Government has made law and order such a key part of our agenda.

But it is undoubtedly the case that many people feel we have a criminal justice system set up to protect the rights of criminals over those of victims.

There has been outrage at violent thugs and killer drivers escaping with bafflingly short jail terms, and a disgraceful rise in assaults on heroic emergency workers.

At the election just over a year ago, we promised to restore confidence in the justice system.

Now we stand true to that commitment by unveiling its most radical overhaul in decades.

Through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill  introduced to Parliament today  we will keep the most dangerous thugs and rapists in prison for longer, serving at least two thirds of their sentence without the possibility of parole.

We will back the police by enshrining in law a Police Covenant to recognise their sacrifices with better protection for them and their families.

Changes to be outlined today will mean more than 80,000 deaf adults will be eligible for jury service. Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said tougher punishments will 'build back a safer country'

New measures will make it easier for officers to stop and search known knife offenders and safely manage protests which threaten public order or stop people from getting on with their daily lives.

We will also widen important laws that prevent adults in 'positions of trust' engaging in sexual activity with 16- and 17-year-olds, further protecting teenagers from abuse.

Similarly, we want to bolster the options open to judges. Many communities were understandably distressed to see memorials callously destroyed or defaced last summer.

Vandalism can never be the right way to address long-standing debates about our history, so we will raise the maximum sentence for criminal damage of a memorial to ten years.

We also want to restore faith in the ability of the criminal justice system to not just punish criminals but to turn their lives around and prevent reoffending.

So, for the first time, this Bill will mean that those who have served their time will no longer need to disclose their criminal records to employers for non-sensitive roles, unless they are violent or sexual in nature.

This will open the door to ex-offenders joining the economy, paying taxes and contributing to society.

Furthermore, in an historic first, this Bill will give profoundly deaf people the opportunity to sit on juries.

It will change centuries-old common law that forbids anyone but 12 jurors from being in the deliberation room, so sign language interpreters can enter, too.

These changes are vast in scale and ambition, but we are determined to rebalance the justice system  so that it works in favour of the law-abiding majority and not the criminal minority.

That's how we will build back a safer country and protect more people from crime.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is set to cooperate with Swiss-based Adienne Pharma & Biotech for Sputnik V vaccine production in Italy, chief executive of RDIF Kirill Dmitriev said.

"We are holding talks with the government of There are many regions enthusiastic in respect of the Sputnik V, which want to produce it domestically. We for the first time cooperate now with the Swiss company Adienne Pharma & Biotech in Sputnik V production in Italy," Dmitriev said in an interview with the Italian TV Channel Rai 3, as reported by Tass.

The manufacturing mechanism will help to create new jobs and provide with the opportunity to control the product.

Tass reported that the production of the Sputnik V in may start as early as in June. RDIF will announce 20 cooperation projects in ten countries, including Italy, by the end of this march, the chief executive said.

In particular, the Fund is discussing cooperation with Germany and France now.

According to The Hill, Sputnik V, which has a reported efficacy rate of 92 percent for preventing COVID-19 infections, is a two-dose vaccine with lower cold storage requirements than those produced by Pfizer and Moderna.

It has been authorized for emergency use in at least 20 countries.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Republicans reportedly want to keep using former President Donald Trump's name to raise funds even after he sent them a cease-and-desist letter last Friday.

The Blaze reported that Trump sent the Grand Old Party the letter against using his name but the Republican's lawyers responded defiantly on Monday.

Trump, through his legal counsel for Save America PAC Alex Cannon, sent the letter to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee demanding them to stop using his name for fundraising. The letter said that Republicans should "immediately cease and desist the unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trump's name, image, and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion, and/or issue speech."

"President Trump remains committed to the Republican Party and electing America First conservatives, but that doesn't give anyone--friend or foe--permission to use his likeness without explicit approval," a Trump adviser told Politico, as per The Hill.

The Hill said the cease-and-desist order was a response to emails in the form of thank-you cards that supporters received asking for donations for Trump.

However, Politico Playbook said that the Republicans didn't take the letter seriously. In particular, NRSC went on with the Facebook fundraising of the "Trump Supporters ONLY!" T-shirt that had the former president's face on it and the additional words "Miss Me Yet?", as well as, with the sending of emails on Saturday and Sunday that referenced to Trump for donations.

In addition to ignoring the letter, The Blaze reported that the Republican National Committee Counsel Justin Riemer responded that they had "every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech, and it will continue to do so in pursuit of these common goals".

"The RNC is grateful for the past and continued support President Trump has given to the committee and it looks forward to working with him to elect Republicans across the country," Riemer added.

Politico also said that Trump launched the PAC after the 2020 elections and was able to easily raise tens of millions of dollars with it. The money can be used to fund political activities and donate to candidates of Trump's choosing.

According to The Hill, Trump has already signified being involved in the 2022 midterm elections where he is willing to back incumbents for reelection bids and withhold support for those he deems "insufficiently loyal". Trump is said to be currently thinking of the possibility of running for the 2024 presidential bid. Thus, "his endorsements is expected to be highly sought after by most Republicans."

"Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First. We want brilliant, strong, thoughtful, and compassionate leadership," Trump remarked last month through a statement, The Hill highlighted.

The Hill pointed out that Trump's cease-and-desist letter was broad and would impact fellow Republicans he is close with. The Hill cited RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel who claims Trump personally approved with her the use of his name for fundraising, donor treatment, and speaking engagements.
Today, the 2nd Heavy Penal Court of Ankara will read out the verdict on Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov murder case.

At the end of November 2018, the prosecutor's office of Ankara sent an indictment to the 2nd Heavy Penal Court of Ankara. The case has 28 suspects, including the leader of the Fethullah Terrorist Group (FETO) Fethullah Gulen, as well as former civil servant Sahin Sogut, who allegedly ordered the murder of the Russian diplomat.

The suspects are accused of violation of constitutional order, being member of an armed terror group, and deliberate killing with objective of spreading terror. In addition, the indictment says the assassination is an act of provocation targeting Turkey-Russia relations, TASS reports.

Andrey Karlov was gunned down on December 19, 2016. An armed man whom the police later identified as a 22-year-old police officer Mevlut Altinas opened indiscriminate fire in an art gallery in Ankara where Karlov was opening a photo exhibition. Turkish officials said the attacker had been killed. Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree to award the Hero of the Russian Federation title to Andrey Karlov (posthumously).
Gujarat: All 36 quarantined Gir lions fit, to be back in jungle

No end to lions death in Gujarat: Two more cubs die; foresters suspect territorial fight

Gujarat: 7 get jail terms for harassing lioness in Gir forest

India

pti-Deepika S

Gir, Mar 09: A court in Gir Somnath district of Gujarat has convicted seven people, including three tourists from Ahmedabad, and awarded them different jail terms for harassing a lioness in Gir forest in 2018.

In an order issued on Monday, Judicial Magistrate First Class at Gir Gadhada, Sunik Kumar Dave, awarded three years'' rigorous imprisonment to six of the accused, while another accused was sentenced to one-year in jail.

The court also directed the district collector to take custody of a land allotted to the family of one of the convicts in Dhumbakarea of Babaria range of the forest where the incident took place.

Eight people were arrested in May 2018 after a video clip surfaced on social media in which they were seen harassing a lioness by luring it with a chicken as bait.

The feline was seen making desperate attempts to grab the chicken and later got it, but not before the accused had their share of fun in teasing it.

The court awarded three years'' sentence to six of the accused - Ilyas Hoth, Abbas Baloch, Altaf Baloch (from Gir Gadhada taluka in the district), and three tourists Ravi Patadiya, Divyang Gajjar and Rathinbhai Patel.

They were pronounced guilty under the Wildlife (Protection) Act Sections 2 (16)(B) (capturing, trapping or baiting any wild animal), 9 (hunting), 27 (restriction on entry in a sanctuary) and other provisions.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Besides, accused Magilal Meena was sentenced to one- year rigorous imprisonment after being convicted under Section 27 of the Act.

The magistrate also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 fine on each of the accused, and directed for Rs 35,000 from the amount collected to be deposited to the lion welfare fund.

The court acquitted another accused, Hasambhai Koreja, for want of evidence against him.
Press Release

9 March 2021

Whitbread, the owner of the Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn hotel brands, is set to double its presence in Oxford this calendar year as the business continues its strategic expansion in the city.



The UK's largest hotel business is gearing up to open its new 123-bedroom Premier Inn hotel at Botley in April with the flagship 90-bedroom hotel opposite the Westgate Shopping Centre due to welcome guests in the summer.



Together, the two new hotels grow Premier Inn's network to four locations across the city and will create approximately 50 new jobs on opening, with recruitment focused in the local area.



Alex Flach, Development Director at Whitbread, said:

"We have a busy few months ahead of us in Oxford as we complete our new hotels at Botley and Westgate and get them ready to welcome our guests. The openings are important milestones for the business as we strategically grow our network in popular and accessible locations across the city where we see strong, long-term demand for our bedrooms.

"While Covid-19 has impacted the hospitality industry in the short-term, there is no question in my mind that Oxford will rebound and will continue to be an important destination for leisure and business visitors for years to come. We're very upbeat about the long-term prospects for our hotels in the city and we're on the lookout for the next generation of locations for our customers, especially in the city centre and to the east of the city."

On opening, the 123-bedroom Botley Premier Inn will be Whitbread's first hotel to the west of the city. The eight-storey hotel, which features Premier Inn's Thyme restaurant format, occupies a prominent position overlooking the A34 and West Way.



The Botley Development Company, a joint venture between Mace Developments and Doric Properties, delivered the new hotel for Whitbread as part of its mixed-use West Way Square development.



David Banks from Botley Development Company, said:

"We are delighted to have worked in partnership with Whitbread on the forthcoming opening of the Premier Inn hotel, which will mark another milestone in the successful redevelopment of Botley Centre."

Whitbread is continuing to grow its hotel brands in popular locations like Oxford and with further identified requirements for Premier Inn in Oxford City Centre and to the east of the city. A full list of target locations is available on the property pages of the Whitbread website.



Recruitment for the hotel is due to commence in the next few weeks, with applications accepted via the Oxford branch of the Job Centre Plus and online at www.whitbreadcareers.com.


Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- VPN Experts has published an all-inclusive SurfShark VPN Review for the year 2021.

Surfing the internet in an insecure manner is an invitation to risks like malware, data piracy, unwanted hacking activities and so on. This is why VPN services have gained popularity due to their data protection promises. Although the VPN services offer security it is difficult to understand which VPN is the most compatible, trustworthy, and pocket-friendly. For this, vpn-experts.org test popular VPN services and review them. They aim to provide accurate, detailed and unbiased VPN related information to the users so that they can be confident and secure while browsing the internet. Vpn-experts.org has listed the best VPN companies for 2021, one of which is SurfShark VPN company. They have tested all the features and reviewed the VPN service.

SurfShark Offer Fast speeds & strong privacy features. Anonymous dedicated IP addresses. Ad-blocker included. Chrome & Firefox extensions. 24/7 live chat support and 7 days free trial.

Works with Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ & more

Try it for free for 7 days

Anonymous & secure P2P downloads

No user logs & no IP address leaks

Connect securely to 90+ countries

Try SurfShark VPN 7-Day Free trial  Right Here On The Official Website

SurfShark is a new and rather popular VPN service company, providing exceptional features, reasonable pricing, maximum security, and great discounts and deals for every user.

SurfShark VPN provides encryption of various personal user information such as browsing history, confidential information, private data and so on. It offers a robust AES 256-bit encryption which encrypts data and protects the IP address of the user. It masks the IP address and prevents the leaking of information. Major search engines and even the internet service provider are unable to get a hold of useful data which prevents misuse or selling of information.

It supports various encrypted proxies like Shadowsocks, Wireguard, OpenVPN and IKEV2 protocols. It has in-built tools for bypassing restricted internet censorship, even in crowded areas like china. China has major policies for blocking out VPN services. With SurfShark VPN the user can easily bypass internet censorship in China. Wireguard protocol is a relatively new protocol that is ultra-smooth and offers fast and secure connections. Not many companies can afford this protocol.

SurfSharks's macOS and IOS apps use the IKEV2 VPN protocols whereas Shadowsock is for windows using devices. SurfShark also uses OpenVPN which is loved by the users due to its features.

Surfshark VPN  7 Days Free Trial  Visit Surfshark Official Website

SurfShark is headquartered in the British Virgin Islands that are outside the jurisdiction of 5/9/14 Eyes Alliance. SurfShark's privacy policy states that the company does not collect any personal information such as IP addresses, Bandwidth used, Session information, Browsing history, Network traffic, Connection time stamps. They only use the required essential information like email address, encrypted password, and Billing information. The users who are reluctant to reveal their billing and financial data have the option to use bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies for payments.

The only drawback here is that SurfShark might collect advertising identifiers for marketing purposes. However, this is fixable by opting out for data collection and resetting the advertising identifiers in the app itself.

Common VPNs tend to slow down internet connectivity and create streaming and surfing problems. When connected to a VPN the performance and connectivity of the internet are degraded because of the extra amount of machines and distance in connection.

However, SurfShark when tested, decreased the speed only by 4-5% which is a considerably less percentage. It provides remarkable results and high connectivity. This allows speedy downloads, browsing and streaming.

SurfSharks uses the latest and fastest Wireguard protocol that facilitates top performance and highest speed. When checked for upload, download and latency speed, SurfShark surely passed the test. Although test results depend on the time of the day and region, the difference is minimal. SurfShark provides the best speed and performance. The speed of the VPN service is dependent on the area in which it is being used and which server it is connected to. SurfShark review records different speeds when connected to different servers.

Looking for a free VPN? Take Surfshark for a Free 7 Days Trial instead: Right Here

SurfShark has its own version of double VPN. It has a multihop mode that adds an extra layer of encryption by routing the traffic through two servers for extra protection. This further disguises the user's information and protects them from being found. However, this mode is only useful for journalists working in VPN prohibited countries. The common users have no use or benefit from this mode.

A good VPN server is expected to have an automated connection and disconnection tools. The SurfShark VPN review reveals that it features an automatic kill switch that automatically disconnects the internet connection if the VPN connection fails, to protect IP and data leaks. It gets reconnected to the internet as soon as the VPN connection recovers without losing any important information.

Visit Surfshark Official Website

The compatibility test taken by vpn-experts.org proves that SurfShark's app is compatible with every android and ios device. It can easily be connected with the major operating systems. It provides outstanding apps and features for Windows, IOS, macOS, firefox, chrome, Linux and so on. The smart DNS app also allows the user to connect with devices like PlayStation and Xbox, which usually restrict VPN service usage.

Sufshark VPN allows windows to choose between distinct VPN protocols however this feature is not allowed in ios and macOS. It is compatible with devices like firestick, AppleTV stick and other tv devices. The server connects with the device after logging in to the existing SurfShark account or registering a new one. This enables streaming content from different servers all over the world.

SurfShark VPN allows multiple simultaneous connections. Many VPN services only allow a limited number of devices to be connected at a time. With SurfShark the user can connect unlimited devices like mobiles, laptops, pc, iPad and many more, to the server and use them all at the same time without needing multiple VPN subscriptions. The user can easily log on to the app and connect the device without setting up and installing the app several times.

The SurfShark review shows that this VPN can be used to access several video streaming platforms like Netflix, amazon prime video, Hulu and many more.

Take Surfshark for a Free 7 Days Trial: Right Here

Netflix has VPN restricting technologies to block VPN users from accessing geo-restricted content. Therefore it is quite hard for a VPN to access such content. But SurfShark VPN enables connection with various location servers by masking the user's original location details and IP. This allows streaming the geo-restricted content on several video streaming apps.

SurfShark VPN comes with the option of choosing which sites are to be protected under VPN. In case the user is surfing on a safe site then the site can be excluded from the VPN protection by listing it on the Whitelister. The Whitelister feature of SurfShark is its split-tunnelling tool. A split-tunnelling tool allows chosen websites to reach the internet directly without being protected by a VPN. It works when the chosen websites are listed on the whitelister list in the app. The feature enables faster speed on safe websites, browsing with multiple IP addresses at the same time, protection of only those websites that require security, accessing network devices like printers and so on.

SurfShark has built-in ad blockers for smooth internet surfing. Unwanted ads on sites like Google and Youtube are blocked when connected to SurfShark. The in-built Cleanweb tool of SurfShark blocks the unnecessary midroll ads on sites that are usually full of advertisements to enable ultra-smooth browsing without interruptions. The Cleanweb feature of SurfShark has the ability to track harmful malware coming in contact with the device. It blocks this malware and protects the device from leaking useful information. It also prevents hackers from getting a hold of the device and extracting data.

SurfShark masks the real IP address of the user and prevents frauds. After testing, the SurfShark review shows satisfying results. SurfShark is tested on sites that enable DNS and IPv6. SurfShark successfully masks the original IP address and provides a fake one.

Surfshark VPN 7 Days Free Trial: Click Here

The users who require a great VPN for fast torrenting, the SurfShark VPN is a reliable option. It features fast torrenting that is reliable. The servers of SurfShark allow p2p sharing that are optimized for fast torrenting. It is compatible with p2p clients like uTorrent and BitTorrent.

The Hacklock mode provided by the SurfShark VPN enables custom monitoring of email addresses and passwords for security infringement. The user can monitor and look out for break-ins or security breaches. Once enrolled, the Hacklock program sends messages and emails notifying the leaked information and a link informing that the device is at a risk. The user then checks the notification and takes corrective actions.

SurfShark's NoBorder mode diagnoses and presents a list of servers that the user can connect to a restricted heavily-censored region like china. China has its servers under heavy surveillance therefore it is near impossible to use VPN in the region. SurfShark makes it possible. It is best for users that are looking to get online in a restricted country.

SurfShark has its own amazing search tool that works as a search engine and enables ad-free secure browsing. Search engines like google, yahoo and bing have numerous search engines and display ads that slow down information search and keeps from accessing the organic results that are useful. These search engines also record the search history and collect data from browsing terms and personal information registered. They keep track of location, server location, IP address, ISP details, device name and so on. This data is further sold to multinational corporations to market their ads to the user. This is how the data reaches multiple platforms and breaches data security.

SurfShark's search tool-blind search- provides search facilities without any hassle. It does not record and collect the browsing history of the user and masks personal information. It is private and ad-free.

The countries that restrict VPN usage like China, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Turkey and more, install a firewall on the servers to keep a track of the internet traffic. This firewall catches VPN users and blocks them legally.

For people living in such countries, SurfShark has camouflage mode. When this mode is turned on, it disguises the encrypted traffic as regular traffic under deep packet inspection (DPI). This hides the VPN usage from legal authorities and helps in bypassing the legal firewalls so that nobody knows that the VPN is being used by the user.

100% Free VPN Services for 7 Days Free Trial  Try SurfShark Here

Unfortunately, this feature of SurfShark is only available on windows, android and ios operating systems.

SurfShark is designed in such a way so as to provide easy navigation and hassle-free usage. The native apps built in the app are designed for a positive user experience.

On the left of the app, there is a clear list of the server locations with a search bar to browse through whatever the user is looking for. This counts for the fast delivery of information and easy navigability.

On the bottom right is a quick connect button that connects the user to the nearest and most compatible servers based on the current location of the user.

SurfShark is compatible and reliable and easy to use for new beginners as well. When installed on a new device the app guides the user through the simple process of login, registration and installation. The app walks through the process of granting permissions to the in-built SurfShark VPN tools such as the Multi-hop tool that is the double VPN tool.

The settings menu is easy to understand for even the users that are new to VPN services. The mobile app of SurfShark VPN is equally user-friendly and has installed advanced features.

SurfShark is a positive VPN service for new as well as experienced users. It performs well with minimal flaws. The user interface is minimal and easy to navigate through. The advanced settings and basic functions of the app include the help centre offering important information to the user like Installation tutorials, frequently asked questions, troubleshooting guides, consistent 24/7 customer support, ticket request system, and a live chat option. The help centre is designed as fast, simple and informative to assist the user in navigating through and understanding the features of SurfShark.

Best Free VPN Services for 7 Days Free Trial  Try SurfShark Here

The customer support service of any VPN is important to solve complex queries. SurfShark's customer service is highly responsive, user-friendly and informative. The live chat support option appoints each query to a representative and the user is connected to that representative for finding solutions.

There is usually a waiting time of a few minutes. The system shows where the user's query stands in the queue. The query is answered as soon as it is accessed.

SurfShark has three different pricing structures based on the length of the subscription. All three plans consist of the same premium features like double VPN, all the VPN protocols, high-end security, camouflage mode and so on. The price varies due to the duration of the subscription.

The first plan is valued at $2.49 per month and allows 24 months of VPN protection. Another plan at $6.49 per month allows a subscription of 6 months, and the third plan is a 1-month plan valued at $12.95 per month. The lengthiest plan is the most profitable plan. The subscription chosen depends on user needs.

Although the pricing of SurfSharks servers is high for some users, it makes up for it with its advanced features.

SurfShark offers a variety of payment modes for the users like Credit cards (MasterCard, visa), Paypal, Google pay, Amazon pay, Alipay, and Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple).

SurfShark VPN provides a 30-day money-back guarantee to its users. Within 30 days of signing in to the app and registering, the user can demand a refund and place a request via email or live chat option on the app. They ask the user a few questions and get a review on the services they did not approve of. After the completion of this process, the full amount is refunded to the user.

The most frequently asked question on the web is - Is SurfShark Free?

SurfShark VPN is not free. No VPN service is. However, SurfShark offers a 7-day free trial period before charging from the user. After signing up the user is given 7 days before monthly payment is charged. Within that period the user can cancel the subscription without being charged any cancellation fee.

The SurfShark free trial feature is popular among users to test the features before paying for them.

Visit Surfshark Official Website

The SurfShark VPN review conducted by vpn-experts.org gives a detailed insight into the basic functions, primary features, services and pricing and payment of SurfShark. For a new user, it is difficult to understand VPN connectivity and usage. However, with all the required knowledge any client can take advantage of the advanced VPN features.

About Vpn-Experts.Org

Vpn-experts.org is a professional website that offers a platform to the users for comparing and selecting the best VPN services. The mission of vpn-experts.com is to assist users in making a wise decision by collecting all the required information about the VPN services. They test and review all the services and list the best of them for the customer or client to choose from according to their requirements. The experts at vpn-expert.org spend time and money reviewing the distinct VPN services to make it easier for the user to make a hard-hitting decision. They give honest reviews regarding the features, pricing and important details. This saves the users time and prevents hours and hours of researching.

https://vpn-experts.org/

SOURCE VPN Experts
GRANGEVILLE - An effort is underway in Idaho County to add the entire county to the growing list of areas to declare itself a "Second Amendment Sanctuary" zone in Idaho.

The Idaho County 2A Coalition is leading the effort and is planning events to gather support and ask residents to sign petitions. Gatherings are planned on the next three Fridays (3/12, 3/19, 3/26) at the Idaho County Veterans Center at 318 E. Main Street in Grangeville.

A Second Amendment Sanctuary is typically a city or county that has adopted laws or resolutions that oppose the enforcement of certain gun control measures.

Once collected, the group plans to present the signatures to Idaho County Commissioners. "With a large number of citizens behind this action, we can raise the bar on our desire for Idaho County Commissioners and Idaho County Sheriff to declare Idaho County a Second Amendment Sanctuary with protections from outside governments that would infringe on these rights as described in the Constitution of the United States," says the group's website.
Beth Moore leaves Southern Baptist denomination: 'This is not who I am'

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Living Proof Ministries head Beth Moore has announced she's leaving the Southern Baptist denomination, saying she does not "identify with some of the things in its heritage which she claims havent remained in the past.

I am still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists, Moore told Religion News Service. I love so many Southern Baptist people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I dont identify with some of the things in our heritage that havent remained in the past.

At the end of the day, there comes a time when you have to say, this is not who I am, she later added.

A New York Times bestselling author, Moore said she has also ended her publishing deal with Lifeway Christian Resources, though it will continue to sell her books.

Having been one of the more prominent female figures within the Southern Baptist denomination, Moore grew increasingly critical of the denomination in recent years, particularly after the election of former President Donald Trump.

In a 2018 interview with The Atlantic, Moore was cited as believing that an evangelical culture that demeans women, promotes sexism, and disregards accusations of sexual abuse enabled Trumps rise.

Recently, she condemned Trumpism as both astonishingly seductive and dangerous to the saints of God, and warned against Christian nationalism.

Moore has also been vocal in her criticism of the Southern Baptist Convention's handling of critical race theory and racial issues in public posts on Twitter.

She sparked controversy in 2019 when she argued that while complementarian theology does not necessarily cause abuse in the Church, having too few women in power has directly contributed to the sexual abuse crisis in churches. She also suggested that the SBC has placed too many restrictions on women's roles in churches, and that obsessing over the subject ultimately impedes the furtherance of the Gospel.

According to RNS, Moore and her husband have begun visiting a new church she described as gospel-driven. She said that while she might join another denomination, she remains Baptist in her heart.

On Twitter, Moore received support from others in the evangelical community.

Ray Ortlund, pastor at Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee, called Moore one of his heroes."

Trillia Newbell, director of Community Outreach for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, tweeted: I have deep love and respect for @BethMooreLPM. She let me know this was coming because she is human, and she loves others fiercely. As I think about our tendency to analyze and tear each other apart, I hope we'd resist it here and instead pray.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, associate professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, tweeted: Wishing @BethMooreLPM all the best. This isnt just a public statement, it entails all sorts of personal and professional costs. I know so many who are facing their own decisions of this sort. As usual, she leads with grace and courage.
The Leshan Giant Buddha on a tributary of theYangtze River is the tallest stone Buddha statue in the world. On Aug. 18, 2020, flood waters reached the toes of the statue for the first time since 1949. Credit: Sheng Kong

A devastating Yangtze River flood in China in 2020 wasn't supposed to happen, according to the norms of climate experienced in Asia.

Summer flooding in the region often follows El Nino events, the climate phenomenon that is associated with warm water in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. The year 2020, though, was preceded only by a weak El Nino and thus the flood during the summer monsoon season in Asia was unexpected. The flood killed 141 people, caused an estimated $11.8 billion in damage, and displaced millions of people at the peak of COVID-19, exacerbating the public health crisis.

In search of an explanation, climate modelers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and colleagues investigating the event identified a new culprit: an especially thick layer of warm water just below the surface of the Indian Ocean that set into motion climate effects that stretched to Africa and Australia.

"The results of our study surprised us," said Shang-Ping Xie, a professor of climate science at Scripps Oceanography whose portion of the research was funded by the National Science Foundation. "They show that the Indian Ocean, which is much smaller than the Pacific, can generate variability largely on its own and help predict devastating climate events over the rim countries that border the Indian Ocean."

The study might provide a new way to predict the weather that affects the billions of people who live on Indian Ocean coastlines and farther inland. The research shows the importance of how all ocean basins interact with each other, meaning forecasters should not rely on data from just one region, said the authors.

The paper appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences March 8.

The events described in the paper took place in 2020 but began in fall 2019 with a particular set of circumstances in the Indian Ocean. The western side of the basin, toward the east African coast, was unusually warm. The topmost layer of warm surface water was 70 meters (250 feet) thicker than normal. The eastern side, generally around Indonesia, was unusually cold. Two extremes like that set up what is called a dipole in ocean temperature. The weather difference between the two poles stokes winds in the way winds kick up anywhere where high- and low-pressure weather systems interact.

The Indian Ocean dipole contributed to disasters in surrounding continents including bushfires that burned 18 million acres in Australia in September 2019 and conditions that gave rise to a December 2019 plague of crop-eating locusts in East Africa. The quirk also set in motion a series of storms and rain bands in East Asia from China to Japan. Collectively the storm winds generated waves below the ocean surface called Rossby waves. Such waves can run across the entirety of ocean basins from west to east. They generally move at such a slow pace that once they are affected by the winds, the odd temperature difference in the Indian Ocean creates an imprint on the ocean basin's deep memory that can last for several seasons.

So it was in the Indian Ocean that the effects of the dipole lingered into 2020. Over the past decade and a half, Xie's research team had identified the existence of a certain recurring regional pattern that includes Indian Ocean warming and distinct atmospheric circulation patterns that intensify monsoon rains over East Asia. Their work established that this regional pattern could be excited by El Nino via Rossby waves in the Indian Ocean.

Mainstream forecasting has traditionally focused on what is happening in the Pacific Ocean when deciding if winter seasons will be El Ninos, La Ninas, or somewhere in between. The most commonly used predictor of El Nino or La Nina years is the location of a pool of warm water along the equatorial Pacific, which tends to move in a pendulum fashion between the western and eastern boundaries of the basin.

Xie and his co-authors chose to look beyond the Pacific to see what happened if they used sea-surface temperature trends in multiple ocean basins for forecasts. They found this technique would have predicted the flooding. The model also managed to pick up on the fact that the regional pattern could be triggered even without a strong El Nino.

"This marks an important occasion in that climate models outperformed the observation-based predictions that operational agencies still rely on," said Xie. "These are the same computer models scientists use to project future climate change in the face of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

Explore further At last, climate science may be able to predict tropical Atlantic weather better

More information: Zhen-Qiang Zhou et al. Historic Yangtze flooding of 2020 tied to extreme Indian Ocean conditions, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Zhen-Qiang Zhou et al. Historic Yangtze flooding of 2020 tied to extreme Indian Ocean conditions,(2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2022255118
State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi: Certain Western countries' depiction of Xinjiang is just a rumor fabricated with ulterior motives, and a lie through and through

2021/03/09

On 7 March 2021, H.E. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi responded to certain countries false claim on China's actions in Xinjiang. Here is what he said:

Wang Yi: Speaking of genocide, many people would have in their minds the native Americans of the 16th century, African slaves of the 19th century, the Jewish people of the 20th century, and the aboriginal Australians who are still struggling even today.

The claim that there is genocide in Xinjiang couldn't be more preposterous. It is just a rumor fabricated with ulterior motives, and a lie through and through. Over the past four decades and more, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang has more than doubled from 5.55 million to over 12 million. In 60-plus years, Xinjiang's economy has grown by more than 200 times, and the average life expectancy has increased from 30 to 72 years. Many foreign friends who have been to Xinjiang have spoken up, stressing that the Xinjiang in their own eyes is totally different from what certain Western media have depicted. A French author Maxime Vivas wrote a book entitled Uyghurs: To Put an End to Fake News. Based on his two trips to the autonomous region, Vivas tells a real Xinjiang that enjoys prosperity and stability. He expressly pointed out in his book that those who have never been to Xinjiang are the ones fabricating fake news and piling up lies about Xinjiang.

Some Western politicians chose to believe in the lies made up by a few, instead of listening to the voice of 25 million Xinjiang residents of various ethnic groups. They chose to dance with the few anti-China elements in their clumsy dramas, instead of acknowledging the progress in Xinjiang. This only shows that they do not care about the truth. They are only interested in political maneuvering, and creating the so-called Xinjiang issue to undermine security and stability in Xinjiang and hold back China's development.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina speaking during the launch of Maitri Setu via video conferencing on Tuesday.

Dhaka [Bangladesh], March 9 (ANI): Welcoming the launch of 'Maitri Setu' bridge, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday said opening of any bridge between India and Bangladesh is a "testimony" of Dhaka's continued commitment to support India in strengthening connectivity in the region.

Speaking through video conference, the Bangladesh Prime Minister said, "Opening of any bridge is testimony to Bangladesh government's continued commitment to support our neighbour India in strengthening connectivity in the region, particularly for Northeast India."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated the 'Maitri Setu' between India and Bangladesh through video conferencing.

According to an earlier statement by the Indian Prime Minster's Office the bridge 'Maitri Setu' has been built over the Feni river, which flows between the Indian boundary in Tripura and Bangladesh.

The construction was taken up by the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd in India at a project cost of Rs 133 crore.

"The 1.9 Km long bridge joins Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh. It is poised to herald a new chapter for trade and people-to-people movement between India and Bangladesh. With this inauguration, Tripura is set to become the 'Gateway of North East' with access to Chittagong Port of Bangladesh, which is just 80 kms from Sabroom," the release read.

PM Modi also laid the foundation stone for setting up an Integrated Check Post at Sabroom.

"It will help ease the movement of goods and passengers between the two countries, provide new market opportunities for products of North-East states and assist seamless movement of passengers to and from India and Bangladesh," the release read. (ANI)
Subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts for the full episode.

The 117th U.S. Congress is the most diverse in historybut what about the people behind those legislators? The press secretaries, legislative directors, and chiefs of staff for these lawmakers are often invisible, but their fingerprints are all over every U.S. law that passes. Researchers at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies surveyed Senate and House top staff positions and found that in the House, just 14 percent of these jobs are held by people of color. In the Senate, where staff sizes are even larger, that number is just 11 percent. This lack of diversity is apparent on both sides of the aisle. If the people staffing a legislators office arent representative, how representative can their policies be? On Tuesdays episode of What Next, I spoke with Maya King, a reporter for Politico who writes the Recast newsletter about race and politics, about Congress other diversity problem and how it stands to affect our national policy. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Maya King: Black, brown, Latino, Asian, and women members of Congress tend to have more diverse staffs because they tend to understand these issues. Part of the reason a lot of these people ran for office is because they didnt see themselves in these spaces. So they take that one step further by also putting people of color in their top staffing positions. And it sends a message of representation, but it also sends a message that these are teams that are just as capable of making really tough decisions. These are teams that are just as capable of writing this legislation. Theyre just as capable of doing the job of lawmaking in this country.

Mary Harris: If I asked you to tally up how many chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill are people of color, could you do it?

Advertisement

Yes, I could, because it would take just two hands.

I wonder if you had a chance to talk to any members about these discrepancies.

Those who did not have any people of color in their top staffing positions would point to the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion or its partner office on the Senate side and say, Look, we work with these offices, we plan to review the resumes of people of color who are qualified to work in our office, and we plan to prioritize those applicants.

Advertisement

It sounds a little like passing the buck at the end.

And thats what makes these conversations so difficult. Thats what puts these offices like in such difficult places, because thats not really their job, to throw people of color who are qualified at these offices because the offices have a problem. I mean, their goal is to change the culture and make sure there is a broad representation across offices. Its not a plug-and-fix place to go.

Advertisement

Since hiring in the Capitol is driven by elected officials, its also driven by their biases.

They are usually the people who have the last say in who gets hired for these top-level positions. A number of Asian American young professionals who are going for these positions found themselves not making it after the very last step. It got back to one of the staffers I talked to that one of the [Congress] members had this internal bias of perceived weakness among Asian Americansthis member believed that they dont assert themselves as much as they would like. It was based entirely on stereotype. That really stuck with me as something people had no control over. You cant put any structures or rules in place to fight that. Its really just coming down to one individual members own bias. This is a cultural issue too.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Subscribe to What Next Get more news from Mary Harris and her team every day. Subscribe

Youve noted that even though Democrats do tend to hire more diverse staffers than Republicans, they have a hard time retaining and promoting staffers of color. Can we talk about why that is?

What we saw in this transition to a Democratic administration was that a number of the top-level staffers, particularly on the House side of staffers of color, ended up leaving their post to take jobs in the White House, and a number of others left to take jobs at a number of federal agencies. Its a great opportunity, of course, for all of these staffers, and a number of them were women of color. But at the same time, it created a policy brain drain on the Hill side, because there werent as many people of color to be able to replace those who had left. Its a reflection, again, of the lack of diversity, because there are a few people who are able to work their way through this pipeline and work their way to the top on the hill. But its only a few. Were still in an era of first Black, first Latino, first Asian, first Native staffer for a lot of these offices, especially in these top staff positions. And thats just unacceptable.

Advertisement

Advertisement

There are also these structural limitations in terms of how much money people can make, which is interesting because Congress sets the budget. But over the past few years, its appropriated less and less money for offices and staff. It means you dont have the flexibility to give someone a little more money when they need it or to maintain someone as your chief of staff when the White House comes calling and has deeper pockets.

Absolutely. Especially in the District of Columbia, which has an extremely high cost of living and is rapidly gentrifying, which is only driving costs of living up higher, making it a lot more difficult for young people of color, particularly those who might support their families financially or have student loan debt or other financial obligations that make it difficult for them to afford rent while also trying to work on the Hill.

Advertisement

So thats one barrier to entry. The other, of course, is the fact that a number of these top-level staffers, the way that you make it into these positions quickly is by an office from the campaign side, which means youre taking a big gamble on a candidate because, of course, they might not win. So the timeline is uncertain. Youre definitely not being paid that much money. Youre traveling a lot. The hours are really long and grueling. Thats a lot for a young person to go through. And its a lot for a young person who has no financial safety net.

Advertisement

Advertisement

I want to get into why staff diversity matters, how it can actually affect the work thats done on Capitol Hill. Do you have a good example of that?

Advertisement

One example that I used was the Paycheck Protection Program and its first rolloutthat really was a disaster for business owners of color, especially Black and Latino business owners. When the funding went out, a number of corporations got first dibs. Locally owned small businesses got a much smaller slice of that. They were the ones that really needed that help the most. Part of the reason why is a number of businesses of color tend to bank with credit unions, community banks, and the first round of PPP loans or grants did not really factor that in. One expert I spoke with at the Brennan Center said that if there were more people of color who worked on these rollout teams and understood what small and minority-owned businesses needed to make sure they got the money they neededthat would have made for a different outcome, because as we also know, Black- and Latino-owned businesses were among the main ones to close as a result of the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus.

Advertisement

Advertisement

A lot of these members have had to grapple with how to craft a policy that addresses these issues and think about these issues for in a very real way for the first time. In the early months of this new Congress, weve seen legislation that addresses hate crimes against Asian Americans, reparations for Black Americans, and sweeping reform of police and the criminal justice system. These are all really big pieces of legislation, and also bills that have required members to really grapple with what kind of country they want to create. And these are staffers who are also helping write these policies, who are able to frame a lot of these issues and advocate for what to include and whom to meet with.

Subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts

Get more news from Mary Harris every weekday.
Another Day of Elevated Fire Risk

By National Weather Service

PADUCAH - For the third straight day, the National Weather Service has issued a warning of an elevated risk for outdoor fires today.Low humidity under 30 percent, wind gusts over 25 miles per hour, and still-brown vegetation and leaves will make it risky for outdoor burning today.It will be even windier on Wednesday, but the humidity will be much higher, eventually bringing in rain chances for Thursday through the weekend.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
Vials of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine sit in the pharmacy of National Jewish Hospital for distribution early Saturday, March 6, 2021, in east Denver. Volunteers worked with nurses and physicians from National Jewish to administer 2,500 vaccinations of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that requires a single shot instead of two like the other vaccines. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
When Snyder ran for office, Bennett said, his big campaign push was to improve trash collection in the city by making it automated, which would help save the city money in medical and workers compensation claims. When Snyder took office, the city was still using trucks that required two workers to lift the cans and dump the garage into the back of a garbage truck, which led to injuries, he said.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A judge has been urged not to convict a professional mixed martial arts fighter who repeatedly punched a taxi driver in a row over a fare as it will stop him in his tracks in terms of his career.

Dylan Tuke (24) called the taxi driver a sap and a fool and told him you're not in your country now before he punched him in the head and face, breaking the man's front teeth.

The assault occurred in the early hours of December 16, 2018 after Tuke hurriedly jumped into the taxi without asking if he was available and told him to go to the city centre, Garda Elaine Duffy told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

The taxi driver was uneasy by Tuke's behaviour and asked him to pay the fare upfront, which led to the argument. After Tuke assaulted the driver and got out of the cab, he briefly returned to the car, causing the driver to run into a nearby fast food restaurant. Tuke then left the scene in another cab.

Another taxi driver who witnessed the assault said it was horrific and that Tuke was like a man possessed, the court heard.

After dash cam images of Tuke were circulated among gardai, he was identified by a garda who recognised him from the media, the court heard.

Tuke, with an address at Edenmore Ave, Raheny, pleaded guilty to one count of assault causing harm to the driver at Main Street, Swords. He has no previous convictions.

At his sentence hearing on Tuesday, Tuke addressed the court directly, telling Judge Pauline Codd there was no excuse for his behaviour that night.

My grandad was a taxi man and I'm so ashamed I did that, he said. ...Violence is never the answer.

In a victim impact statement handed up to court, the victim said he now feels defenceless while driving his taxi and he no longer enjoys his work. He said his two front teeth were broken in the assault and he still suffers from headaches and has a facial scar.

Garda Duffy told defence barrister, Aidan McCarthy BL, that she believed Tuke was acting out of character that night, after he had a few drinks. She said he was extremely remorseful when interviewed by gardai and he cried while watching the dash cam footage of the incident.

Mr McCarthy said Tuke became a professional mixed martial arts fighter at the age of 19 and has travelled abroad to partake in the sport.

He is not currently competing as he is helping to bring up his two younger siblings. The court heard his parents are both drug addicts and Tuke's childhood was marred by violence and addiction. He was mostly raised by his grandmother, who was in court to support him.

Mr McCarthy said it was to Tuke's credit that he has never been in trouble with the gardai before, despite his difficult upbringing. He said that on the night in question, Tuke got drunk at a Christmas night out with his club, which was unlike him given his profession.

Mr McCarthy urged Judge Codd to consider imposing a sentence on Tuke that will avoid giving him a criminal conviction.

A conviction could stop him in his tracks in terms of his chosen career, he said. It could prevent him travelling to competitions abroad, which are the main source of his income.

Tuke had 1000 in court as a token of remorse for his victim.

Judge Codd adjourned the sentence to October 11 to allow Tuke to raise more compensation. I'm not making any guarantees, she said.
A Florida woman accused of shooting two teenagers on Bourbon Street late Saturday apparently opened fire after a group of people hit her during a fight, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

Jasmine Evans, 27, was booked Sunday on two counts of aggravated second-degree battery, police wrote in criminal court records.

Investigators said they arrested Evans after finding surveillance video which showed her getting into a fight about 9:50 p.m. in the 500 block of Bourbon, pulling out a gun and aiming it at her opponents. A 15-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy were both wounded. Evans fled toward Canal Street, tossing the gun away in the 300 block of Bourbon, police said.

The teens' injuries were not thought to be life-threatening. One was hit in his left forearm, and the other was struck in his left bicep. Both arrived at University Medical Center in good condition, officials said.

Florida woman arrested after allegedly shooting two teenagers on Bourbon Street, NOPD says A 27-year-old woman has been arrested after she allegedly shot two teenage boys on Bourbon Street late Saturday, according to New Orleans police.

A passerby pointed Evans out as the shooter to an officer responding to the scene, police said.

The officer detained Evans and an associate of hers, and both were taken in for questioning, police wrote. Officers recovered the discarded pistol, which had one bullet left in it.

Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

During questioning, police said, Evans associate recounted that Evans had been in a fight and was hit by multiple people when she began shooting her gun.

Investigators jailed Evans on Sunday afternoon. Magistrate Court Commissioner Brigid Collins later set Evans' bail at $40,000. Evans had not made bond as of late Monday.

If convicted of aggravated second-degree battery, Evans, of Jacksonville, Florida, would face up to 15 years in prison on each count.

A French Quarter bar manager who spoke with The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate on Sunday said large crowds have been gathering regularly in the 500 block of Bourbon to listen to a band made up of young people playing percussion instruments. He said fistfights regularly break out among the crowds that form to watch the band, which on Saturday had drawn about 200 spectators, despite city rules limiting gathering sizes to restrict the spread of the coronavirus.

The double shooting on Bourbon was part of a wave of gun violence in the city that spilled into Sunday.

In all, six shootings were reported across New Orleans over the weekend, killing one and sending several others  many of them teenagers  to the hospital.

Police didnt release details about possible suspects or motives in the other cases.
ROME, MAR 9 - A 57-year-old nursery school teacher was arrested Tuesday for hitting the three-to-five-year-old children in her charge as a nursery near Cuneo. Police installed secret cameras after complaints from parents and found the woman had caused, by shouting, insulting, threatening and hitting the children, a "condition of fear and awe such as to make their attendance of lessons intolerable". She was allegedly found to be have meted out disproportionate punishment that "harmed the children's dignity", police said. She was arrested for verbal and physical violence against minors. The woman has been placed under house arrest. (ANSA).
CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Sodoma Law , a family law firm headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, today announced the opening of Sodoma Law North , serving North Mecklenburg County. Sodoma Law Attorney Sarah Bennett has been named Managing Attorney and will lead the office, located in Cornelius, NC. In addition to the newest location, Sodoma Law offices include its headquarters in Charlotte, NC; Sodoma Law Union in Monroe, NC; and Sodoma Law York in Rock Hill, SC. The firm continues to maintain its satellite location in the Ballantyne community as well.

"Sodoma Law North is reflective of our commitment to ensuring that our services evolve with our clients' needs. Opening in North Mecklenburg County was a natural extension and has already been a great benefit for clients in that region. When Sarah joined the firm, it just sealed the deal," said Nicole Sodoma, Founder and Managing Principal, Sodoma Law.

While Sodoma Law North is focused on all aspects of family law, clients benefit from Sodoma Law's full-service approach, with access to a range of practice areas including estate planning, mediation, and assisted reproductive technology across each of the firm's locations.

The new office arrives one year after Sodoma Law's headquarters in Charlotte relocated to "The Graham," a 100+ year-old former multi-industry building in the historic Fourth Ward in Queen City's uptown that was revived, revitalized and transformed by the firm.

About Sodoma Law

Sodoma Law is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, with additional locations in Monroe, Union County; and in Rock Hill, York County, South Carolina. The firm's areas of practice include Family Law , Adoption , Surrogacy , Mediation , Estate Planning , and Litigation Consulting . Sodoma Law includes multiple certified Parenting Coordinators , as well as a Divorce Concierge .

Connect with Sodoma Law: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube

Contact: Ariane Wolff, Warner Communications

978-729-3542 or [email protected]

SOURCE Sodoma Law, P.C.
[March 09, 2021] SAS partnership with Microsoft named a top joint venture among Fast Company Most Innovative Companies

CARY, N.C., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SAS' partnership with Microsoft has been named to Fast Company's annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies. The technology leaders were recognized in the Joint Ventures category for the Flood Prediction and Preparedness Solution powered by SAS IoT analytics and Microsoft Azure, which has helped the Town of Cary, North Carolina collect and analyze sensor, weather and other data to improve flood monitoring and preparedness. "This solution is one of many efforts combining the expertise of SAS and Microsoft to turn data into intelligence and solve our customers' toughest challenges  together," said Bryan Harris, SAS Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. "There is nothing more rewarding than using our advanced analytics and cloud capabilities to help our customers reduce devastating impacts of natural disasters and take care of the people in our communities." The Fast Company Most Innovative Companies list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive; they thrived  making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. Transforming emergency preparedness and protecting citizens

Like many other areas, the Town of Cary suffers from flooding after heavy rains, especially during the yearly Atlantic hurricane season. Cary traditionally relied on citizens to share alerts with the town when floods occurred, and town staff would manually process requests and dispatch appropriate personnel to respond to the issues. To modernize its approach and improve flood prediction, Cary turned to SAS and Microsoft.



Cary strategically installed water level sensors along its stream basin and rain gauges at several town facilities. By using SAS Analytics for IoT and Azure IoT services, staff can now visualize flooding events in real time. Cary is also able to generate and deploy predictive models and monitor the life cycle of these models over time. The town can better identify anomalies, such as rising water, through the integration of weather forecasting data and real-time sensor data, measuring water and rain levels to deliver advanced warnings and predictions of flooding events, both in Cary and in surrounding municipalities. "We knew we needed a scalable solution to get us from reactive to proactive and ultimately predictive," said Nicole Raimundo Coughlin, Chief Information Officer for the Town of Cary. "This combined solution from SAS and Microsoft helps us reach that predictability, allowing us to organize and act on high volumes of diverse IoT data to protect not just the Town of Cary, but many municipalities, including local businesses and citizens downstream. This solution allows us to send the right people at the right time to get the right information out to save time, money  and ultimately lives."

Shaping the future of AI and analytics in the cloud

This award-winning IoT solution marks early success of the SAS cloud partnership with Microsoft announced in 2020. The extensive technology and go-to-market strategic partnership enables customers to easily run their SAS workloads in the cloud, expanding their business solutions and unlocking critical value from their digital transformation initiatives. Hear SAS CEO Jim Goodnight and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discuss the partnership and the close integration between Azure and the SAS Viya analytics platform at sas.com/Microsoft. About SAS

SAS is the leader in analytics. Through innovative software and services, SAS empowers and inspires customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW. SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries.  indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright  2021 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. Editorial Contact:

Shannon Heath

Shannon.Heath@sas.com

919-531-2676

sas.com/news View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sas-partnership-with-microsoft-named-a-top-joint-venture-among-fast-company-most-innovative-companies-301242895.html SOURCE SAS

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
I've been hearing from friends across England and America how off-putting they found the interview that former Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had with Oprah. (To be honest, I have no idea what names the Hollywood grifter and her husband are using now, so it's easiest to call them by their old, familiar names.) Everyone I know found them self-centered, tone-deaf, and vicious. However, a few people caught something else peculiar about the couple, which is the Diana fetish.

When it comes to poor Harry, the most prominent and pitiably henpecked love slave in America, he has good reason to have a Diana fetish. For his first 12 years, his mother was arguably the most famous woman in the world. His parents' divorce was played out across the world stage, with his mother using the media as her battle sword.

After those first 12 years, his mother was arguably the most famous dead woman in the world. The shadow she cast across the Royal Family probably puts her up there with Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Victoria as one of the most consequential British royals in history.

And lest I sound unsympathetic to Harry, no matter how narcissistic Diana was, she was also a loving mother. For a 12-year-old boy, not only to lose his mother to a violent car crash, but to lose her in a way that turned her death into a public orgy of grief must have been unimaginably traumatic. It's no wonder that Diana became the filter through which he's viewed his life  and, more importantly, the filter for his romantic relationships and his relationship with The Firm  that is, the Royal Family.

Miranda Devine watched Meghan and Harry sitting in unimaginable luxury while playing the victim card (and stabbing his grandmother, the queen of England, in the back as a racist). She found their act revolting but also caught the way in which Diana haunts Harry's psyche and his relationship with Meghan:

Meghan ensnared Harry by acting out the worst nightmare of his childhood, when his beloved mother was killed with her lover in a car crash in Paris when Harry was 12. He was powerless to save his mother then, but he is determined to save Meghan from what she led him to believe was "history repeating itself." "My biggest concern was history repeating itself," Harry says, holding hands with Meghan as she gazes adoringly at him, clad in a $4,700 black Armani dress and patting her pregnant belly. "I'm just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side because I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like for (Diana) going through this process by herself all those years ago."

It's clear that Devine isn't making things up when she says Meghan is acting out scenes from Harry's childhood. This tweet captures Meghan's deliberate, and extremely creepy, effort to echo Diana:

Someone caught another historic echo, one with which Meghan might not want to be identified:

this is creepy too! pic.twitter.com/POUsa3wcO8  Rosina  Pee Doh Joe has to Go  (@RosinaFrance) March 8, 2021

At least Wallis Simpson, another American divorcee who tore apart the royal family, never badmouthed those who followed their duty and remained behind to continue the ancient institution.

The royals are an anachronism and, arguably, too pointless and expensive to continue into the 21st century. However, with the West literally ripping itself apart with open borders for people who oppose liberty and individuality, bizarre notions about constantly mutating human biological sex, and a pre-modern obsession with race, Queen Elizabeth's stiff upper lip, which Charles finally mastered, and which William and Kate seem willing to embrace, is rather a nice antidote. Perhaps the world needs more of them and a whole lot less of Meghan and Harry.

Image: Harry and Meghan from a YouTube screen grab. Edited by Andrea Widburg.
She said once her case received publicity much greater attention was paid to my health and my condition. I certainly saw benefits from that [publicity] and Im not convinced that the quiet diplomacy argument stacks up in such a case, although each case is different, she said in the interview, which aired on Tuesday night. Dr Moore-Gilbert said her situation was made public only after two Australian video bloggers, Mark Firkin and Jolie King, were detained nearly a year after her arrest. The line being run by the government was that trying to find a solution diplomatically behind the scenes with Iran was the best approach for getting me out and that the media would complicate things and could make Iran angry and piss them off and make things worse for me, she said. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video

I took a very different view of the situation based on my own experience being inside there. Loading But that was the view of the government and the media played ball for months, at least at the beginning, until I think these two backpackers got arrested and the media already knew my name and knew I was there too. Asked to respond to Dr Moore-Gilberts comments, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was very pleased that Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert returned to Australia in November last year following more than two years of detention in Iran. Every consular case is by its nature complex and is considered individually, with a strategy developed on a case-by-case basis. We will not comment on the circumstances of her release.

Dr Moore-Gilbert also opened up about her treatment inside Evin Prison, where she was forced to endure four weeks of solitary confinement in a small room without a window. I would say I felt physical pain from the psychological trauma I had in that room. It is a two-by-two metre box  there is no toilet, there is no television, she said. I felt if I have to endure another day of this  you know if I could I would just kill myself. But of course I never tried and I never took that step. Its psychological torture. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. Dr Moore-Gilbert said she was interrogated by Irans Revolutionary Guards, but towards the end they wouldnt come every day, meaning she didnt see anyone and had nothing to do.

Id lost it, Id lost the plot. I was completely crazy. Just entertaining your brain for such a long period of time, she said. Loading She was then moved to larger room and spent seven months in solitary confinement in total. Dr Moore-Gilbert revealed the person who flagged her to authorities was a man she had interviewed for her research days prior. She said she would never know why the man referred her to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Its either because he was working for the Revolutionary Guards from the beginning and flagged me as suspicious, or he was arrested by them after I had interviewed him, she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she had been nervous the previous two days before she arrived at Tehran Airport to fly back to Australia because of something a receptionist at the hotel had told her. The receptionist in my hotel had pulled me aside and said Kylie some men have [been] here asking about you, she said. And I said What do you mean, what type of men, who are these people? He said They are very bad men. Iranian authorities detained Dr Moore-Gilbert after discovering she was married to an Israeli citizen, sparking baseless claims she was a spy for Israel. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age was asked numerous times by the Australian government not to report details about the citizenship of Dr Moore-Gilberts husband while she was detained, believing it would jeopardise the chances of freeing her.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she was also accused of being a spy for Australia, Britain and Bahrain. She confirmed she was asked by Iranian authorities to become a spy for Iran. Dr Moore-Gilbert came home to discover her husband Ruslan Hodorov had been having an affair with her colleague and PhD supervisor. She said she hadnt spoken to her husband or the colleague, who was acting as a liaison between the University of Melbourne and her family while she was detained. She revealed she found out about the affair while she was in hotel quarantine in Canberra, saying her husband confirmed it to her family a day prior.
Germanys official carrier Lufthansa has partnered with railway operator Deutsche Bahn to eliminate short-haul domestic flights to the airlines Frankfurt hub and replace them with train journeys.

Lufthansa already has a network of cities serviced by the Deutsche Bahn Express Rail system, and now the airline will add five more to this network, including Hamburg, Berlin, and Bremen.

The move, DPA notes in a report on the news, comes in response to mounting pressure on airlines to reduce their carbon footprint.

The aviation industry accounts for just 2 percent of total global carbon dioxide emissions, but and its share in emissions from the transport industry is 12 percent. This doesnt make the industry a top polluter in any way, but because it is a highly visible industry, it has attracted a lot of criticism that a couple of years ago spurred the so-called flight-shaming movement that has gathered quite a pace in Europe.

In fact, last month, a group of European aviation associations released a plan called Destination 2050 with the aim to reduce the industrys emission output to a net-zero by that year. The global aviation industry earlier set itself a target of reducing carbon emissions by half from 2005 levels by 2050.

Replacing short-haul flights with alternative modes of transportation is one way to reduce emissions from the aviation industry, but it is a limited way. As the Air Transport Action Group points out on its website, as much as 80 percent of emissions from air travel come from flights of over 1,500 km. For these flights, there are no practical alternatives, the ATAG says.

One way to reduce emissions from air travel is to use sustainable aviation fuels made from things like algae and waste cooking oil. According to the managing director of Airlines for Europe, Thomas Reynaert, SAFs account for 34 percent of the carbon emission reduction potential of the industry, second only to aircraft technology improvements.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
FWD

AWD

ICE

4WD

Toyotas luxury brand was born in September 1989 to compete against Hondas Acura and Nissans Infinity premium brands, with the latter officially launching only two months after Lexus.The first vehicle launched under the Lexus nameplate was the LS which quickly became extremely popular, especially in the U.S., where it was the best-selling luxury sedan for many years. The LS' success prompted Toyota to expand the Lexus lineup, which now features a variety of vehicles covering most segments.The LS remains the brands flagship sedan and is joined by two smaller siblings, the IS and ES. They both have a starting price of around $40,000, but each has its own personality and is designed for different types of customers.For those of you who are not familiar with the two models, the most obvious difference is the size. The IS is a compact sedan while the ES is a larger, midsize model. The former is 185.4 inches (4,710 mm) long and 72.4 inches (1,840 mm) wide, while the latter is about 10 inches (25.4 cm) longer and 1 inch (2.5 cm) wider.That makes the IS easier to maneuver in busy urban environments but undermines its cabin and trunk space. The ES provides 16.7 cubic feet (472.9 liters) of cargo space as opposed to the 10.8 cubic feet (305.8 liters) offered by the IS, not to mention plenty of legroom for backseat passengers.If these two characteristics are more important than maneuverability, then the midsize sedan deserves more attention. It also offers a better interior design which, to us, feels more up-to-date and ergonomic than that of the IS.Another less obvious difference but one that influences the way these two sedans drive and the interior space they offer is the platform on which they are built. The ES uses Toyota's GA-K transverse engineplatform (shared with the Avalon) while the sportier IS is built on the N platform which was developed for RWD longitudinal engine aplications. Both architectures supportdrivetrains, but are fundamentally different.When it comes to performance, the 2021 ES offers a choice of three powertrains: the ES 250 is powered by a 203-hp 2.5-liter inline-four and comes with all-wheel drive as standard; the ES 350 packs a 302-hp 3.5-liter V6 mated to an eight-speed automatic that sends power to the front wheels; finally, the ES 350h uses the same four-cylinder as the ES 250, but theis assisted by a hybrid architecture for a total system power of 215 hp.The smaller and lighter IS packs more punch, being available with either a 241-hp 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder for the IS 300 trim or a 3.5-liter V6 that delivers 260 hp on IS 300models and 311 hp on the IS 350 F Sport or IS 350 F Sport AWD. Lexus also recently revealed the 2022 IS 500 F Sport , which will be available with a 472-hp V8.Considering these figures, the IS should be the obvious choice if you like sharp acceleration and a sportier driving experience, yet its bigger sibling wont disappoint in terms of performance especially when equipped with the V6. Its also available with a hybrid powertrain for those who put a higher value on efficiency.This brings us to fuel economy, where you would expect the larger, non-hybrid ES models to suffer; surprisingly, this is not the case. They have a combined estimate of 28 MPG (8.4 liters per 100 km) for the ES 250 trims and between 25 and 26 MPG (9.4-9.0 liters per 100 km) for the ES 350 models.On the other hand, the compact sedan offers a combined estimate of 25 MPG (9.4 liters per 100 km) for the inline-four-powered IS 300 model and between 22 and 23 MPG (10.6-10.2 liters per 100 km) for the V6 models.Of course, the undisputed champion of fuel efficiency is the ES 300hs hybrid powertrain that has a combined estimate of 44 MPG (5.3 liters per 100 km).In the end, deciding which Lexus sedan is better for you depends solely on your priorities. Both are awesome-looking, well-built, and benefit from Toyotas renowned reliability The ES is a lot more versatile and practical, being the perfect family-oriented sedan. It provides more room for both passengers and cargo, a decent amount of power on all available trims, and good fuel economy, especially on the hybrid models.If youre a bachelor or already own a family-oriented vehicle and want to buy a nimble, performance-focused sedan, then a higher-end IS model is obviously the better choice.
Doone Stormonth Darling, 26, (pictured) is accused of attacking the outside of Elbit Systems' central London headquarters on 10 October last year

An aristocrat who joined a gang of pro-Palestinian protestors to spray red paint at the door of an Israeli defence contractor's office has appeared in court.

Doone Stormonth Darling, 26, is accused of attacking the outside of Elbit Systems' central London headquarters on October 10 last year.

Stormonth Darling - and four others aged 25 to 56 - used paint-filled fire extinguishers to damage the buildings in protest at the presence of the defence company's office at 77 Kingsway.

Stormonth Darling's family live on a vast estate in Perthshire and she was featured in upper class magazine Tatler when she held her 21st birthday party there.

The estate was once occupied by Robin Stormonth Darling, a stockbroker and City regulator.

Elbit Systems is an Israel-based international defence electronics company.

Stormonth Darling, Flora Thomas, 26, Joley Thomas, 29, Anthony Bardos, 56 and Jocelyn Cooney, 25, all face one count of criminal damage to 'property and clothing' valued under 5,000 and conspiracy to destroy or damage such property.

Damla Ayas, prosecuting, told Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court: 'Protest groups have attended and occupied the roof of the factory building of Elbit.

'There were spray fire extinguishers filled with red paint and they were carrying tubs filled with red paint.

Stormonth Darling - and four others aged 25 to 56 - used paint-filled fire extinguishers to damage the buildings in protest at the presence of the defence company's office at 77 Kingsway. Pictured: Paint outside Elbit Systems' offices in September 2020, just weeks before Stormonth Darling and four others allegedly launched a similar attack

'It has caused criminal damage to the building in question.'

Elbit Systems describes itself as an 'international high technology company engaged in a wide range of defence, homeland security and commercial programs'.

They sell military hardware such as remote control drones, known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), to military forces across the globe.

It has courted controversy in the past, notably for accusations that one of its subsidiaries - Cyberbit - sold and operated spyware that targeted Ethiopian dissidents and journalists in 2017.

Stormonth Darling, Flora Thomas, 26, (left) Joley Thomas, 29, (right) Anthony Bardos, 56 and Jocelyn Cooney, 25, all face one count of criminal damage to 'property and clothing' valued under 5,000 and conspiracy to destroy or damage such property

Stormonth Darling, of Lambeth, Flora Thomas, of Frome, Somerset, Joley Thomas, of Edmonton, north London, Anthony Bardos, of Reading, Berkshire, and Jocelyn Cooney, of Charlton, southeast London, entered no pleas to criminal damage and conspiracy to destroy property.

Stormonth Darling was bailed with the condition she does not enter Kingsway, Holborn, ahead of a Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing at Southwark Crown Court on April 2.

The remaining defendants will be dealt with this afternoon.

US crime drama Queen of the South will wrap with its upcoming fifth season.

The show has followed Braga as Teresa Mendoza, a woman who goes from escaping the Mexican cartel to starting her own drug cartel in America. It is based on the bestselling novel La Reina Del Sur by Arturo Perez-Reverte.

We could not be prouder of our entire cast and crew that joined us on this magnificent journey, said Executive Producers Dailyn Rodriguez, Ben Lobato and David Friendly in a statement as part of the announcement. Queen of the South began shooting in Mexico City, brought us to faraway places like Malta and Colombia and finally landed in New Orleans. We cannot wait to share the explosive final season with our devoted fans. And, of course, we could not have made this show without the talented and tireless Alice Braga, who brought our queen to life.

A new season is due in the US in April. It airs in Australia on FOX Showcase.

Source: EW.com

Related
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Amid the political tension in Burma, security forces on March 8 shot dead two people in Northern Myanmar, according to Associated Press. The victims were shot in the head during anti-coup protests in Myitkyina in Kachin State. Local media outlets reported that the protesters in the street were seen backing away from tear gas, responding with rocks, then fleeing after a fusillade of what seemed to be an automatic gun.

The protesters carried away a number of injured people, including one apparent fatality, a person who has sustained a head wound. A second body was later seen on a stretcher, with head covered with a cloth. Security forces, on the other hand, clamped down on protesters, firing tear gas to break up a cord of about 1,000 people who were demonstrating in the Capital, Naypyitaw.

Despite the arbitrary detentions, ruthless beatings by the soldiers, harassment during the overnight raids in ongoing stringent crackdowns, civilians in more than half a dozen cities congregated in defiance to the militarys unlawful seizure of power. Demanding the restoration of the democracy and release of their civilian leader Suu Kyi, protesters confronted the military on Monday as well. Thus far, the military Junta has killed more than 56, according to a UN report, including young teenagers aged 17 and 19, many of whom were shot in the chest and succumbed to lethal wounds while they were being rushed to the ambulance service.

READ: Myanmar Protesters Avoid Police On Side Streets

READ: Karen Police Deployed To Protect Myanmar Marchers

At least 1,700 anti-coup protesters arrested

Meanwhile, on Sunday, in Mandalay, five fighter jets from the Burmese Air Force flew over as protests flared in an attempt to intimidate and in a demonstration of force to the citizens. UN special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, condemned the threats of the defiant military as she spoke to reporters at UN headquarters. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked Myanmars armed forces to reverse the coup and restore the democratically elected government, issuing warnings against the escalating military crackdown and shootings.

"Everything points to troops adopting shoot to kill tactics to suppress the protests, and with silence from the military administration, there is a growing consensus that this has been authorized by the government," Amnesty International's Deputy Regional Director for Research, Emerlynne Gil, said in a statement. Amnesty berated the command of coup leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, holding him responsible for the harrowing scenes now unfolding across Myanmar and textbook brutality and militarys deployment of lethal weaponry against citizens. At least 1,700 anti-coup protesters have been arrested by the military Junta so far, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group said in a report.

(Image: AP)

READ: Escalating Violence Raises Pressure For Myanmar Sanctions

READ: Myanmar Military Coup: Protesters Return To Streets As Crackdown Continues
Vietnams Ministry of Public Security has arrested and initiated legal proceedings against eight members of an illegal ring that trafficked children to China.

The suspects were charged for trafficking people under 16 years old, an official from the Ministry of Public Security confirmed on Monday.

Officers have also identified four other women involved in the racket.

As they are pregnant and raising young children, the women have been sent to local social protection centers.

According to a preliminary investigation, police in Hanoi and the northern province of Cao Bang inspected multiple locations on the night of February 25 and rescued four newborn babies who were about to be sold to China.

They later arrested Mai Minh Chung, 36, who resides in Thanh Tri District, Hanoi, and two other suspects.

At the police station, Chung claimed he had been to China to earn a living as a factory worker and become acquainted with a 39-year-old man named Tinh.

Chung was aware that Tinh often trafficked people, including children, from Vietnam to China.

In October 2020, Chung asked Tinh whether he could join his ring, and the latter agreed.

Chung was put in charge of looking for women who were willing to sell their newborn babies.

Vietnamese police officers rescue babies who were about to be trafficked to China in this supplied photo.

Once a child was successfully trafficked to China via trails in Cao Bang Province, Chung would be paid VND30 million (US$1,300) while the mother would receive VND80 million ($3,470).

From October 2020 to January 2021, Chung and three unidentified Vietnamese nationals were able to contact seven pregnant women, one of whom later went to China and sold her newborn to Tinhs ring.

Chung returned to Vietnam in late January and rented a house in Hanoi to continue working for Tinhs ring alongside 33-year-old Ninh Thi Hai Yen.

Chung and Yen managed to reach deals with four local women.

The man also colluded with Dang Truong Dao Nguyen Anh  his 25-year-old girlfriend  and found another pregnant woman who wanted to sell her baby.

Chung, Yen, and Anh have helped three pregnant women to enter China.

The women later gave birth to their children in China and sold them to Tinh.

The remaining women were still staying at tenanted houses in Hanoi awaiting their departure.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Postal services provider TTPost yesterday shut its branches in Port of Spain and San Fernando after dozens of people rushed to collect senior citizen pension and public assistance grants and would not adhere to physical distancing rules.

Eventually, police were called to disperse the crowds.

Several elderly people at the St Vincent Street branch in Port of Spain complained about not being able to collect their pension cheques because other unruly ones refused to socially distance and abide by the law amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stella Griffith, 68, of Diego Martin, said she was adhering to rules of social distancing, but there were other people who came for their public assistance and disability grants and were refusing to listen.
Inflammation in the body has been linked to the intensity of tobacco smoking among people with HIV, according to a team of University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers.

Krishna Poudel, associate professor of community health education in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, and colleagues reported positive linear relationships between intensity, duration and pack-years of smoking and inflammation in HIV-positive people. They believe it to be the first, more thorough examination of specific smoking-related variables with the levels of inflammation in this group, while also taking into account highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and other important factors.

The study's findings suggest that people living with HIV would benefit not just from quitting smoking but from smoking less, says Poudel, co-director of the UMass Amherst Institute for Global Health. Poudel is lead author of the paper published in the March issue of the journal AIDS and Behavior.

"While it is important to support and encourage people living with HIV to ultimately quit smoking, it is also important to suggest they reduce the frequency of smoking until they can fully quit. That would also help their health status by reducing inflammation," says Poudel, noting that a high level of inflammation is linked to a greater risk of disease and death in people living with HIV.

Significantly, HIV-positive people who are receiving HAART have a greater risk of death from tobacco than from HIV-related factors.

In 2010, Poudel and co-author Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar, a UMass Amherst assistant professor of nursing, established the study cohort known as Positive Living with HIV (POLH). The public health researchers collaborated with five non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to recruit 322 HIV-positive people living in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. Their goal was to gather behavioral, health and biologic information from participants to learn ways to improve the health and well-being of HIV-positive people, especially those in low- and middle-income countries.

The smoking and inflammation paper, whose UMass Amherst co-authors also include epidemiologist Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson and biostatistician Penelope Pekow, is the 18th publication in a peer-reviewed journal related to the POLH cohort study.

For the latest investigation, the researchers interviewed 284 study participants, gathering details about their smoking and medical history and other relevant information, such as whether they were receiving HAART. They asked about how many cigarettes were smoked per day (intensity) and for how many years (duration). Lifetime smoking exposure was gauged in pack-years, which is determined by multiplying the number of packs smoked daily by the number of years the person has smoked.

The team then measured serum C-reactive protein (CRP), a pro-inflammatory biomarker, and several strong predictors of inflammation in the participants. They adjusted for these variables while examining the relationships between smoking and inflammation, using both linear and logistic regression statistical analyses.

We adjusted for zinc levels and hepatitis C. We adjusted for HAART status and CD4 cell counts. We adjusted for depression and the history of injected drug use. We adjusted a total of 16 HIV-related symptoms, as well." Krishna Poudel, Associate Professor, Community Health Education, School of Public Health and Health Sciences

In each of the dose-response categories, researchers found a positive relationship between smoking and inflammation, although Poudel points out that the study's cross-sectional design cannot determine causality.

"A significantly higher proportion of the participants with high intensity of smoking (number of cigarettes smoked per day) had high levels of CRP concentrations compared to those with low intensity of smoking status," the paper states.

The researchers found similar results for smoking duration and pack-years of smoking; that is, participants who had smoked for longer periods and those who had greater pack-years were more likely to have high levels of CRP than those who had smoked for shorter periods and had fewer pack-years.

The important next step is to develop effective smoking reduction and cessation programs for HIV-positive people, whose tobacco use rate is two to three times higher than that of the general population. This is especially important in low- and middle-income countries, where such education and support are rarely available, Poudel says.

"Many HIV-positive people in low- and middle-income countries are willing to quit smoking and need support," Poudel says. "Our findings highlight an urgent need for providing smoking cessation support to HIV-positive people. While supporting HIV-positive people for quitting smoking is a critical public health priority, HIV care providers should encourage their patients at least to reduce the frequency of smoking, as this would be a positive step toward ultimately quitting smoking."
Prince Harry and Meghans Sunday night interview with Oprah Winfrey, most royal observers would agree, was nothing short of explosive. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, made two especially disastrous allegations against the royal family: that someone in the family had expressed concerns about how dark her childs skin would be, and that she had had suicidal thoughts and was rebuffed by the palace administrators, who cited optics, when she sought help. Asked if she had any regrets, Meghan told Oprah her only one was believing them when they said I would be protected.

Advertisement

While some of the most personal damage was inflicted by members of Harrys own familythe Duke of Sussex spoke of the sense of betrayal he felt from his father, Prince Charles, who he said had stopped taking his phone callsMeghan made it clear that the British tabloid press played a major role in pushing her to the point of contemplating suicide and ultimately forcing the two of them out of their roles in the palace. And on Monday, that same press had the task of responding to an interview that had already sparked a trans-Atlantic firestorm.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Unsurprisingly, the tabloids didnt pivot to empathy. Instead, they voiced indignation on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II, whom they portrayed as the victim of a spoiled womans angry tantrum. (During the interview, Meghan and Harry insisted multiple times that the queen had treated them well and was not to blame.)

Advertisement

No publication better represented the impulse to both protect the royal family by downplaying the claims and mock Meghan by overselling the drama than the Daily Mail, which bungled its coverage by preemptively dismissing the interview as a sideshow before running more than 20 stories about it on its website. On the front page, the Mail tried to stuff every new juicy detail into a single headline:

Daily Mail front page - special 3am edition pic.twitter.com/ALPODYGaXB  Nick Bryant (@NickBryantNY) March 8, 2021

Advertisement

A loud banner on its website led with I WANTED TO KILL MYSELF, while in the print edition it led with MEGHAN ACCUSES PALACE OF RACISM. It called those accusations sensational, cast doubt on the rest of her claims, trumpeted the dignified behavior of the former Kate Middleton during all this, and questioned the cost of Megxit. Another headline online huffed that they were back to basics at their $14.5 million mansion.

Advertisement

The Mail wasnt the only one pulled in two directions. The Daily Star joked about how boring the whole thing was (Zzzz, it yawned) while also screaming, FIGHTS.. CAMERA.. ACTION!

Advertisement

Advertisement

Most of the others, though, didnt pretend this was not a big deal. Allie Hodgkins-Brown, the BBCs home and foreign duty editor, rounded up the front pages of the days tabloids on Twitter, showing some consistent themes. The most common one: Meghan and Harry are selfish jerks. The Daily Mirror led with Charles and Williams immense sadness  and the anguish of the royal family. QUEEN: DUTY AND FAMILY UNITE US, the Daily Express declared, focusing on pre-interview comments the queen made. Thats public service for you, Harry and Meghan NOT a self-serving TV chat with Oprah.

Advertisement

Mondays Daily EXPRESS: All Care Homes Must Open Up To Loved Ones #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/nGCaXY6JnV  Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) March 7, 2021

Advertisement

Advertisement

Some of the tabloids led, reasonably enough, with the racism and suicide claims. But at least one couldnt resist starting with the latest turn in the potentially fictional feud between Kate and Meghan.

Advertisement

Mondays Daily EXPRESS: (2am edition) All Care Homes Must Open Up To Loved Ones #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/9vkEMUAfmT  Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) March 8, 2021

Its easy to criticize the British tabloids regularly egregious headlines, but the Kate-Meghan stories are a reminder that the palace itself appears to be a participant in these attacks. In the interview, Meghan pointed to the cozy relationship between the institution, as the couple calls it, and the press. There is this invisible contract behind closed doors, behind the institution and U.K. tabloids, Harry said. If you, as a family member, are willing to wine, dine, and give full access to these reporters, then you will get better press.  The institution survives based on that perception. Meghan added, Theres a reason these tabloids have holiday parties at the palace.

Advertisement

This relationship also seeps into other papers beyond the tabloids. In the days before the Oprah interview aired, the palace appeared to try to discredit Meghan in a leak to the Times of London, accusing her of bullying staff. (A spokesperson for the duchess called it a smear campaign.) In the Daily Telegraphconsidered not quite a full tabloida columnist complained that Harry and Meghan embody the woke generation and accused them of making unfairly vague accusations of racism. A different writer compared Meghan to Wallis Simpson but said that Meghan and Harry, who took it upon themselves to leave Britain, seem unlikely to display similar loyalty to the Crown on Oprah tonight.

Still, the most deliciously mockable indignation came not from any print publication but from a certain famous television personality. On Good Morning Britain, Piers Morgan got into a heated argument with Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, a lawyer and activist critical of the royal family, over the allegations Meghan made.

Advertisement

Its so disloyal, so disloyal, said Morgan, who once claimed Meghan ditched her friendship with him like a sack of spuds. Whats compassionate about spray-gunning the royal family while Prince Philip lays in hospital? Wheres the compassion for the queen and Prince Philip right now?

Advertisement

Theyve trashed everything the Queen has worked so hard for and were supposed to believe theyre compassionate?



They felt they were trashed and lied about.@piersmorgan and @susannareid100 discuss Harry and Meghans explosive Oprah interview. pic.twitter.com/gI6QfbTfA0  Good Morning Britain (@GMB) March 8, 2021

Advertisement

You want to deny the royal family has any racist undertones or actions simply because youre in love with the queen? Mos-Shogbamimu said in one clip from the heated exchange, which went viral on Monday. You are disgusting.

Can all the Meghan/Harry fans currently abusing me with stuff like 'shut the f*ck up white man' please stop trying to silence my voice with racist bullying. Thanks.  Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) March 8, 2021

Advertisement

Meanwhile, more traditional journalists, including those with years of experience covering the royal family, fixated not on Meghans attitude but on the damage her words and Harrys would likely inflict on the institution. Multiple journalists wrote of the bombs the Sussexes dropped. The BBC royal correspondent called the racism allegation devastating for the royal family and heading into worst-case scenario territory. The policy editor at BBC Newsnight called it the worst schism within the royal family since the abdication and said that it was hard to imagine a worse set of headlines for the royal family.

And though Im not typically a huge royal watcher, this really matters; in recent years, as most of our institutions have become tarnished, the monarchy has remained of the only ones (and NHS) to unite a deeply fractured UK state. This, alongside Prince Andrew, might change that.  Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) March 8, 2021

Peter Hunt, the BBCs former royal correspondent, warned that the racism claims would leave a lasting mark. No palace spin can erase it from the collective memory, he said.
The camphor fire flared up and Ashok tried to douse it but never slapped her, according to police inquiry.  By arrangement

Visakhapatnam: While world celebrated International Womens Day, the scion of Vizianagaram and former Union minister P Ashok Gajapati Raju allegedly manhandled a woman party worker during a campaign in Vizianagaram on Monday.

The incident shocked the entire region and activists condemned the action.

TD workers led by Ashok were campaigning at Nagavamsapu Veedhi 14th division in Vizianagaram along with a large number of women. According to video clips shown by news channels and social media platforms, Ashok was seen telling all to not shower petals on him. "Do you want to send me to hospital," he asked them angrily.

He repeated the question and allegedly manhandled a woman.

Local leaders and cadres who were with Ashok Gajapathi Raju were shocked and sent the woman away.

Ashok later told party workers that the woman did it on him deliberately. She has not been identified. Later, the campaign went ahead, led by Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

Superintendent of police of Vizianagaram B Raja Kumari denied Ashok Gajapathi Raju manhandling the woman. The camphor fire flared up and Ashok tried to douse it. He never slapped her, according to our inquiry, the superintendent said.

The former ministers close relative Sanchaita Gajapati Raju condemned the incident in her tweet. She said What way to observe Women's Day! The patriarchal arrogance was manifest in Ashok. What more can we expect from a man like him, she said.

Former TD MLA from Vizianagaram Meesala Gita said if the incident was true it should be condemned in strongest terms.
Vote Percentage of Parties in Puducherry2021: How did the parties fare

Puducherry Polls: AINRC joins BJP, AIADMK; N Rangasamy to head alliance

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Mar 09: The BJP on Tuesday announced that the AINRC will contest 16 seats in the April 6 assembly polls in Puducherry as a constituent of the NDA.

After the alliance talks, BJP in-charge of the union territory, Nirmal Kumar Surana told reporters here that negotiations were held by leaders of AINRC, AIADMK and BJP andthe Rangasamy led party has been earmarked 16 seats while the saffron party and AIADMK have been allotted remaining 14.

"These two parties (BJP and AIADMK) would decide the number of seats for each of them," he said. Surana further said, "The NDA would face the elections here in the name of most successful and popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the alliance is headed in Puducherry by Rangasamy.

Asked who was the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance, Surana said it would be decided post election by the legislature party at that time. Rangasamy asserted that the NDA headed by AINRC would romp home and form the next government in Puducherry.

"We will capture large number of seats to form the government. The AINRC, AIADMK and BJP are constituents of the NDA here," he said. Puducherry State BJP president V Saminathan and AIADMK secretary of Puducherry A Anbalgan were also present at the press meet.

The BJP plans to unleash a high- voltage campaign in Puducherry with a battery of central leaders as it seeks to wrest power in the union territory in the coming assembly elections.

The BJP would field about ten star campaigners in the UT, where elections to the 30-member assembly would be held on April six.

Puducherry elections 2021: Times Now-C-Voter opinion poll suggests NDA likely to grab 18 seats

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

They include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president J P Nadda, and Union Ministers Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani, he told PTI here. Modi and Shah have already launched the party''s campaign in the tiny union territory.

Puducherry is now under President''s rule after the Congress government headed by V Narayanasamy fell on February 22 on being reduced to a minority following a spate of resignation of Congress MLAs and a DMK legislator.

Top legislative Democrats announced Monday theyd reached a deal on a COVID-19 recovery bill that aims to help workers and employers.

According to an outline of the deal, it includes measures around tax relief for certain unemployed workers, paid leave related to COVID-19 and vaccinations, relief from planned hikes in unemployment insurance rates, and waiving state taxes on Paycheck Protection Program grants.

Senate President Karen Spilka, House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Ways and Means Committee Chairs Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Michael Rodrigues announced the bill in a joint statement, in which they said theyd seek to pass legislation quickly but did not lay out a timeline for action. The four Democrats said theyd agreed on targeted tax relief to unemployed workers whose income falls below 200 percent of the poverty line, a waiver of penalties for missed tax payments on unemployment insurance benefits received in 2020, and access to paid leave for workers who need time off because they contract COVID-19, are ordered to quarantine or need time off to get vaccinated.

Finally, the bill will prevent increases in the UI rate schedule for 2021 and 2022, providing employers with needed stability and relief as the Commonwealth continues to recover, the statement said. The agreement also allows for state borrowing, secured by a temporary employer assessment, to ensure the solvency of the UI trust fund. In addition to UI relief, to help many small businesses and employers who received PPP loans to stay afloat and save jobs, we have agreed to conform to the current federal tax code to exclude forgiven PPP loans from gross income for small businesses organized as pass-through entities.

Earlier in the day, a group of mostly Republican lawmakers joined the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance for a press conference calling for quick action to waive state PPP taxes.

The House is scheduled to meet next in an informal session on Wednesday: the Senate next meets in an informal on Thursday.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[TW/CW: Mentions of assault and rape]

Following an Instagram Live in which former AOA member Kwon Mina revealed that she was sexually assaulted by a male senior when she was a junior high student, Mina has come out to state that the man who did it is not a celebrity. Keep on reading to learn more.

Kwon Mina Clarifies That the Male Student Who Assaulted Her is Not a Celebrity

After revealing that she was sexually assaulted by a popular male senior in junior high school, Kwon Mina has since come out to state that the male in question is not a celebrity nor a public figure.

She stated:

"I was planning to sleep all day, but I started to receive lots of messages in the morning. I saw that articles were written saying that I was sexually assaulted by a male sunbae who is now a celebrity. I will explain this now because everyone is curious as to whether or not they are famous. He is not that kind of person.."

She also revealed the name of the male who had sexually assaulted her numerous times, but media outlets never published the name. According to Kwon Mina, "He was one or two years old than me, born in 1992 or 1991. He was a popular bully back in the day. He is not a famous celebrity or public figure that the whole country knows about. I do not even know what he is doing nowadays."

Kwon Mina then stresses that the only perpetrator of bullying and violence is former AOA member and leader Shin Jimin.

"To, the only perpetrator is Shin Jimin," she states. "I just want to shed light on the person who bullied me for over a decade, not the male sunbae who sexually assaulted me."

Kwon Mina Reveals She Was Sexually Assaulted as a Junior High Student

On Mar. 7, Mina went on an Instagram Live, where she told fans stories about her life that she has never told. Mina took time out of her day to shed light on the pain she endured throughout her life that has not been released to the public.

She revealed that as a student, she was sexually assaulted by a popular male senior at the time. One day, she had received a call from a friend stating that she was going to a certain location. Mina told her not to go and, out of worry, decided to accompany her friend. They arrived at an empty house.

She was then hit in the head by a male student and was beaten repeatedly. Kwon Mina then revealed that she was raped by a popular male student at the time while other male students watched. Mina claims that the male who sexually assaulted her was well-known in their area and that at the time, people would know who he is just by name.

Mina ten revealed that she was beaten and raped so severely that she could not walk and was practically crawling back home. She chose not to report the incident out of fear of making it into a bigger issue and because she did not want her mother to find out. Her body was covered in bruises, and she hid all signs of the assault with her clothes.

Kwon Mina then revealed that she requested an apology from the male senior who sexually assaulted her. He then admitted that what he did was wrong and apologized to her. Mina revealed that she forgave him and did not hold any grudges against him.

For more K-Pop news and updates, always keep your tabs open here on KpopStarz.

KpopStarz owns this article.

Written by Alexa Lewis
TURLOCK, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Solar Energy Partners, also known as SEP, a company that offers a 'white glove' service in researching, comparing, selecting, and installing residential solar panels today announced their merge with The Standard. This merger is set to accelerate SEPs already rapid growth, enabling the company to expand its footprint into several other states and offer its services to millions more throughout the country.

"We're growing - and moving - incredibly fast, with the merger having already combined The Standard's cutting-edge philosophies with SEPs pedigreed 'smart game,'" says Alex Williams, Co-Founder at SEP. This merger is set to accelerate SEPs already rapid growth, enabling the company to expand its footprint into several other states and offer its services to millions more throughout the country.

"We're growing - and moving - incredibly fast, with the merger having already combined The Standard's cutting-edge philosophies with SEPs pedigreed 'smart game,'" says Alex Williams, Co-Founder at SEP. "As such, we now have hundreds of finessed, verifiable solar experts from The Standard working alongside SEP's equally capable representatives to offer customers an even more bespoke experience across a number of states."

Founded four years ago in Bakersfield, CA. by Todd Jensen, Brian Hutchings, and Brad Holm, The Standard solar energy company expanded into Texas last year. Since March of 2020, the organization has grown from 15 representatives to 150 with offices in Fresno, Bakersfield, San Diego, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. As a result of the merger, SEP now has over 500 contractors in five states, which amounts to a 500% growth rate in the past year.

"We are pleased to join forces with Solar Energy Partners as one entity to further the momentum that they've recently seen," says Todd Jensen, Founder at The Standard. "In what was a challenging year for the solar industry, SEP went against the narrative and grew at an astounding rate. This demonstrates their ability to adapt to any business environment, due to the foresight of their entire leadership team. Brian, Brad, and I look forward to the road ahead."

Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic crisis, and the presidential election drew attention away from the topic of climate change and the importance of renewable energy. Buried in the news cycle were figures released by NASA, showing that 2020 came a close second to 2016 for the hottest year in recorded history, pushing 2019 to third place. With three of the hottest days in history taking place in the last five years, the need to switch to renewable energies like solar is more cogent than ever.

SEP aims to drive widespread adoption of solar energy through their 'white glove' offering, which negates the stress and hassle of home improvement projects in the renewable energy field and beyond. Their representatives specialize in helping homeowners understand the process of installation and operation of a solar energy system, determine potential savings identify tax credit, state and federal grant opportunities, and handle the installation from start to finish.

Furthermore, SEP's commitment to supplying the finest materials and latest technologies guarantees longevity and value for their customers. This includes premium solar panels with minimal degradation and comprehensive warranties to ensure the customer knows they're not in for any significant financial surprises in the future, 24/7 system monitoring to mitigate the risk of malfunction, and after-sales care to ensure the system remains optimal in its operations. This is all delivered through both SEPs and The Standard's top-shelf, personalized service model, with a low-key, comfortable sales approach.

"This is what sets SEP apart from other solar energy providers, as many only handle the installation process, providing little-to-no pre-sale or after sale care," says Williams. "The assistance SEP provides from the start of the inquiry to the installation will ideally convince those who think switching to solar is 'too hard' to make the switch, because now we make it incredibly easy."

It's through this simple, customer-focused, no-hassle process and future mergers with other reputable solar companies that SEP aims to remain in-step with the solar industries' growth which, according to projections from Allied Market Research should reach $223.3 billion by 2026, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 20.5 percent from 2019 to 2026.

For more information, representative employment opportunities, or to request a free consultation please visit: www.solarenergy.partners

About Solar Energy Partners

Based in Turlock, California, Solar Energy Partners (SEP) was founded by Alex Williams, Clint Williams, and Dave Madrid in the spring of 2017. With its Founders bringing more than two decades of experience across the solar industry, SEPs mission is to bring clean energy, abundant savings, and peace of mind through a simple, comprehensive process to every homeowner across the United States. As the solar revolution progresses, and as newer, more effective, and efficient solar technologies become available, SEP aims to lead in spreading this renewable resource across the world, reducing the need for fossil fuels and helping homeowners to do their part in curbing climate change, while also reducing their monthly energy costs. For more information, please visit: www.solarenergy.partners

Media Contact:

Trent Edmond

Solar Energy Partners

[email protected]

209-326-2578

SOURCE Solar Energy Partners
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SHURO-OBOD, Tajikistan -- Villagers in a southern part of Tajikistan along the border with war-torn Afghanistan have been told they should be prepared to take up arms if militants try to enter the region.

Local authorities in the Tajik district of Shamsiddin Shohin have held meetings with residents -- including army reservists and hunters -- to discuss the situation, says Governor Pochokhon Zarifzoda.

In coordination with the police and intelligence departments, weve registered all hunters who live in the border areas. They will have to take up arms to defend our country. In fact all of us will have to take up weapons if the situation dictates, Zarifzoda said in an official meeting on March 6.

Similar warnings are being issued in other Tajik districts near the mountainous border, which is marked by the Panj River.

Authorities, however, didnt give any details about their plans to train the men who they say could be given weapons to help defend the border.

It comes as fighting between the Afghan Army and the Taliban and other insurgent groups has intensified in areas close to Tajikistan in recent months. Adding to concerns in Dushanbe, Afghan officials have warned that there are many Tajik nationals fighting with the militants.

With a rocky, mountainous terrain of brush and cliffs, much of the 112-kilometer border between Shamsiddin Shohin and northeastern Afghanistan is considered one of the most difficult parts of the frontier for Tajik border troops to control.

As in many Tajik border villages, people in Shamsiddin Shohin are used to hearing the sound of gunfire coming from Afghanistan and even fear being struck by a stray bullet or artillery shell.

Two weeks ago, several bullets and shells -- fired from Afghanistan -- landed in the backyards of two residential houses and a school in the nearby Ruzvai village, in the Darvoz district.

Tajik villagers narrowly missed being hit by the those munitions, which came from an exchange between Afghan government forces and the Taliban during a night of fighting on February 24 in Afghanistans Nusai (Darwaz) district.

The following day, Nusai Governor Zainalabedin told RFE/RL there had been at least two Tajik citizens among the militants killed in the clashes. He identified them as Muhammad Yunus and Huzaifa.

Its unlikely the names will provide any clues for Tajik authorities as many Central Asian militants who fight abroad usually get new nicknames, which are often Arabic-style.

Zainalabedin called on Dushanbe to cooperate in the fight against the militants and Tajik nationals who the governor described as affiliates of the Taliban and the Islamic State terrorist group.

Afghan officials put the number of Tajik militants fighting in Afghanistan at around 200, but its not possible to verify that number.

Border Reinforcement

Dushanbe has long been concerned about the concentration of militants -- including insurgents from Central Asia -- in Afghan provinces near the 1,360-kilometer border the countries share.

In December, Tajikistan deployed additional troops along the border after reports emerged that a group of Tajik militants helped the Taliban overrun an Afghan district several days earlier.

Some 10 minutes of footage on social media purportedly showed Tajik insurgents fighting against Afghan state forces in Maymay, which borders Tajikistan.

The video showed several fighters killing men in Afghan Army uniforms and civilian clothes while setting a building on fire. Some of the insurgents can be heard speaking a distinct Persian dialect that is spoken in Tajikistan.

RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the video, which Afghan politician Latif Pedram says depicts a militant attack on Maymay in November 2020.

Pedram, a native of the area, also published a list of names he described as insurgents from Afghanistan who took part in the Maymay raid.

Within days, security services in Tajikistan identified at least 15 Tajik citizens who appeared on the video or had their names included in the lists and statements shared by Afghan officials in connection with the Maymay fighting.

Afghan officials say the Tajik insurgents who took part in that raid belong to Jamaat Ansarullah, a militant group founded in Afghanistan by Tajik national Amriddin Tabarov in 2010. Tabarov was killed by Afghan forces in July 2015.

Written by Farangis Najibullah with reporting by RFE/RLs Tajik Service
A teenage boyfriend and girlfriend have been arrested after a 14-year-old girl was beaten and drowned in the Seine river near Paris overnight.

Police say the couple, both aged 15, confessed to one of their parents that they got into a fight with the victim - named locally as Alisha - on Monday night before pushing her into the river and running away.

The girl's lifeless body was discovered several hours later and the pair were arrested. Police have since opened a murder investigation.

A 15-year-old couple has been arrested in Paris overnight after the badly beaten body of a 14-year-old girl was found floating in the Seine at this spot

Investigators say the fight happened around 5.30pm on Monday as the boyfriend and girlfriend were returning home and happened to cross paths with Alisha.

The couple returned home at 7.30pm, where the boy allegedly confessed to his mother that he had hit the girl 'several times' and pushed her into the river, La Gazette Val de'Oise reports.

Police say the mother left the house and went to the river, where she found a glove and a lock of the girl's hair, but no sign of her.

She returned home to find her son and his girlfriend missing, officers say, before calling emergency services around 7.30pm.

Police, who had also received a missing person's report from the girl's mother, set off to the river and around 8.40pm found her lifeless body.

Prosecutors said the body was submerged in 3ft of water, was 15ft from shore and 23ft below a concrete overpass.

A medic examined the girl's body at the scene and said there were signs of trauma to the head, but a full autopsy will be needed to discover the exact cause of death.

Police found the teenage suspects around 2am taking refuge at a friend's house, and they were arrested.

Police said the teen couple got into a fight with the girl around 5.30pm as they returned home from school, hit her several times over the head, and then pushed her into the Seine

The trio all went to the same high school, located in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil - one of the city's poorest - according to local media.

Alisha's mother has accused the pair of bullying her daughter at school in the lead-up to the fight, Le Parisien reports.

Students said they were aware of fighting between the three and alleged that pictures of the victim in her underwear had been circulated.

A disciplinary council had been scheduled for this week, the students alleged, which the teenage suspects were due to attend.

Georges Mothron, mayor of Argenteuil, said students at the school will be offered psychological support to help them process the tragedy.

He expressed sympathy to the families and friends of the victim, and added 'the investigation will shed all the light on the circumstances of this revolting tragedy.'
The Education Minister will ask the Executive to agree to a date of April 12 for all pupils in Northern Ireland to return to school.

Peter Weir will also ask Ministerial colleagues to agree to allow all primary school children to be in school from March 22.

P1-P3 pupils who returned on Monday are due to revert to remote learning on that date, with health advice ahead of the current phased return encouraging no more than three years groups in school at one time.

The initial plan would then see Years 12-14 return to post primary education, but Mr Weir has urged the Executive to speed up the process of getting all pupils back into the classroom,

Education will dominate Thursdays Executive meeting and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill said ministers will work to address the return of children classrooms across Northern Ireland.

I want all pupils back in school in a safe and sustainable way, so the Executive needs to discuss that, she said.

Weve already set out a phased approach to schools. We need to work through that. We need to give a bit of time to analyse the impact of the children who have returned. The Executive needs to do that collectively.

Finance Minister Conor Murphy said there was a will to see all pupils returned to school as quickly as possible, but any decision taken by ministers this week comes with a warning of caution from a leading teachers union.

Mr Murphy said any decision would be guided by health advice.

All ministers want restrictions lifted as soon as they can, for a variety of reasons, he told the Assembly on Tuesday.

Online learning is no substitute for face-to-face learning, as everybody recognises.

Of course we want to do it as quickly as possible as to whats safe at the time over the course of the pandemic and the transmission rates associated with that.

Head teachers have urged the Executive to maintain continuity of education for P1-P3 by reversing the decision to withdraw the youngest pupils from the classroom at the end of next week after just nine days back in class.

But the NASUWT said it would prefer a cautious approach.

It is entirely understandable that parents and many teachers would wish nursery and P1 to P3 children to remain in school after March 22, said the unions northern official, Justin McCamphill, but the plan adopted by the Executive was based on the advice of their scientific advisers and unless that advice has changed there should not be a change to current plans for primary and nursery schools.

While the Covid figures are moving in the right direction it is important that a cautious approach is maintained as work towards a fuller reopening of schools.

Mark McTaggart, Assistant Northern Secretary with the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO), said he would expect any decision taken to be in line with current health advice, and backed up with evidence with regard to community transmission.

But he warned that schools must have enough notice to prepare for any further return of pupils.

When the decision was taken in relation to P1 to P3 returning to online learning from March 22, due regard was given to the fact that it was felt that, to reduce transmission in communities, only three year groups should be in school, regardless of the school setting, he said.

If it can be demonstrated that in the intervening time from the decision being taken and now that it is safe to disregard this advice, and that it is safe for P1 to P3 and years 12 to 14 to be in school at the same time, INTO could have no objection.

The same would be true of full reopening of schools after Easter, he added.

It will be entirely dependant on the scientific advice available at that point. The Executive has made it clear that decisions will be data driven rather than date driven, however, it is important that schools are given proper time to address issues in relation to extending the phased return to school, and therefore INTO would reiterate its demand that decisions are communicated to school at least 10 working days prior to the date of implementation, rather than at 4.30pm on the Friday prior to a Monday change.

Childrens Commissioner Koulla Yiasouma said the Executive must now deliver some clarity for pupils.

I remain concerned about the vagueness of the current pathway plan to return, she said.

While I welcome the return of some primary pupils this week and would welcome all pupils returning to school as quickly as possible, I remain concerned about the vagueness of the current pathway plan to return.

It does not provide sufficient clarity with regards to the specific conditions that need to be in place for all children and young people to return to school on the 12 of April. I would be deeply disappointed if the Education Minister and the Executive do not provide this clarity in the coming weeks so that schools and relevant authorities (health, education and transport) have sufficient time to ensure that all arrangements are in place.

It is vital we learn the lessons from Special Schools and not make announcements without all the measures and planning being in place.

I also remain concerned about the start stop nature of the current plan. There has been too much disruption to our childrens lives and their education, so when children do return to school they need continuity and they should be doing so until the end of the academic year and beyond.

When schools do reopen they need to be given space to assess where every individual child is and put a plan in place to level the playing field in terms of education and well-being - those plans should be in partnership with health, communities and the voluntary and community sectors and must run through the summer in preparation for the new school year.




The Oregon Health Authority announced 234 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday along with two new deaths, raising the states coronavirus death toll to 2,298.

The numbers are reported as the state announced at least 15,000 doses of vaccine would be available for the next three weeks at the Oregon Convention Center, one of the large vaccination sites serving the metro area.

As of late last week, 152,000 seniors age 65 and older in the Portland area had registered to be on the waiting list for a convention center vaccination appointment.

Emergency federal funding also has arrived, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarding $110 million to the state health authority and its partners for operating COVID-19 vaccination centers throughout Oregon.

For those who have already been fully vaccinated  which means two weeks after the second shot for Pfizer and Moderna or two weeks after the Johnson & Johnson single shot  new guidelines from federal health officials said fully-vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing.

Where the new cases are by county: Benton (5), Clackamas (26), Columbia (2), Coos (4), Curry (1), Deschutes (7), Douglas (22), Hood River (1), Jackson (22), Josephine (5), Klamath (2), Lane (15), Lincoln (1), Linn (6), Marion (22), Multnomah (31), Polk (3), Washington (57) and Yamhill (2).

Who died: Oregons 2,297th COVID-19 death is a 73-year-old Lane County woman who tested positive March 5 and died March 5 at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center. She had underlying conditions.

The 2,298th death is a 75-year-old Douglas County man who tested positive Feb. 19 and died March 5 at Mercy Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.

The prevalence of infections: On Monday, the state reported 292 new positive tests out of 7,370 tests performed, equaling a 4% positivity rate.

Who got infected: State officials had not disclosed detailed information since Friday. Since then, new confirmed or presumed infections grew among the following age groups: 0-9 (29); 10-19 (93); 20-29 (133); 30-39 (90); 40-49 (89); 50-59 (77); 60-69 (62); 70-79 (38); 80 and older (20).

Whos in the hospital: The state reported 119 Oregonians with confirmed coronavirus infections were hospitalized Monday, three more than Sunday. Of those, 33 coronavirus patients were in intensive care units, one fewer than Sunday.

Vaccines administered: Oregon has administered 1,163,828 first and second doses out of 1,420,125 received, which is about 82% of its supply. Oregon reported 21,793 newly administered doses, which includes 12,853 on Sunday and the remainder from previous days.

Since it began: Oregon has reported 157,515 confirmed or presumed infections and 2,298 deaths, among the lowest per capita numbers in the nation. To date, the state has reported over 3,877,065 lab reports from tests.

-- Jaimie Ding

jding@oregonian.com; 503-221-4395; @j_dingdingding
An army of hospital porters formed a moving guard of honour for a beloved colleague who died coronavirus days before he was due to get the vaccine.

Krzysztof Gogolewski, 63, had worked as a porter in the maternity unit of Poole Hospital in Dorset for 12 years.

The much-loved frontline worker contracted Covid-19 on the same week he received an email inviting him to get vaccinated.

His condition deteriorated and he was rushed to the same hospital where he worked - but he tragically died on February 16.

Doctors, nurses, paramedics and other hospital staff lined up outside the hospital as Mr Gogolewski's funeral cortege drove past on the way to Poole Crematorium.

An army of hospital porters formed a moving guard of honour in Dorset for a beloved colleague who died coronavirus days before he was due to get the vaccine

Krzysztof Gogolewski, 63, (pictured with his wife Margaret) had worked as a porter in the maternity unit of Poole Hospital in Dorset for 12 years

Doctors, nurses, paramedics and other hospital staff lined up outside the hospital as Mr Gogolewski's funeral cortege drove past on the way to Poole Crematorium

They were joined by a crowd of 500 members of the public who applauded the NHS worker who valiently worked on the Covid-19 frontline throughout the pandemic.

He left behind his wife of 36 years, Margaret, daughter, Marta, sons Dominik and Bartosz, and four grandchildren.

Marta, 35, said: 'We had been expecting maybe ten people outside the hospital so it was amazing and beautiful to see so many people there for him.

'It meant a lot and my mother who was crying when she saw them all. It meant so much to us.

'My brother Bartosz lives in California and couldn't be there but he was watching it all on Zoom and I was holding up m cameraphone to show him.'

Mr Gogolewski's funeral cortege drove past Poole Hospital in Dorset. Staff stood outside to clap for him

Mr Gogolewski, 63, had worked as a porter in the maternity unit of Poole Hospital in Dorset for 12 years. Pictured: Medics clapping as his funeral cortege drove past

The much-loved frontline worker contracted Covid-19 on the same week he received an email inviting him to get vaccinated. Pictured: Medics clapping as Mr Gogolewski's funeral cortege drove past

He left behind his wife of 36 years, Margaret (pictured with Mr Gogolewski), daughter, Marta, sons Dominik and Bartosz, and four grandchildren

Debbie Fleming - chief executive of University Hospitals Dorset - said: 'Krzsyztof was a much-loved and valued member of the Poole Hospital family who left a positive and lasting impression on all who met him.

'The incredible number of staff, and indeed members of the public, who gathered outside the hospital to remember him and pay their respects are a fitting tribute.

'Our thoughts and condolences are with Krzysztof's family and friends at this time.'

Mr Gogolewski received an email inviting him to get vaccinated in the same week he tested positive for coronavirus.

Marta, 35, said: 'We had been expecting maybe ten people outside the hospital so it was amazing and beautiful to see so many people there for him.' Pictured: Medics clapping as his funeral cortege drove past

Mr Gogolewski received an email inviting him to get vaccinated in the same week he tested positive for coronavirus. Pictured: Mr Gogolewski's funeral cortege

Marta, 35, added: 'It meant a lot and my mother who was crying when she saw them all. It meant so much to us.' Pictured: Medics clapping as Mr Gogolewski's funeral cortege drove past

He would have been able to book in for a test within a few days.

Marta said: 'We think he caught it from working on the frontline.

'He was around people who had coronavirus all the time and he had to take positive tests in clear bags to other hospitals.

'My father was an amazing man and I miss him like crazy. Covid is so horrible and is taking a lot of good people from this world.'

The family had moved from Poland to Britain in 2005.

Mr and Mrs Gogolewski were planning to retire in two years time and had bought a home by a beach in Poland.
While winning praise from the legislators at the ceremony, Pritzker has been criticized by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over schools spending in his $41.6 billion proposed budget for the year that begins July 1. For the second year in a row, Pritzker wants to forgo a $350 million year-over-year increase in funding for elementary and secondary education.
ROME, MAR 9 - An Italian man's 30-year sentence for strangling his Moldovan ex was upheld by the supreme Court of Cassation Tuesday after the top court struck down a controversial reduction of the term to 16 years because he had been hit by an "overpowering emotional storm". Michele Castaldo was again, and definitively, found guilty of murdering shop assistant Olga Matei, with whom he had a one-month-long relationship, in Riccione in 2016. The case was closely followed after the controversy unleashed by the "emotional storm" sentence reduction ruling, which was voided by the Cassation Court. The Cassation ordered a new appeals trial, whose verdict has now been confirmed. (ANSA).
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Most extraordinarily, Grattan gives us not only life, but a good life, the rarity of which in fiction (and increasingly, reality) is a shame. Is happiness really so uninteresting? Is contentment? Both seem to have developed that reputation, but in Grattans hands, lifes joys are magnetic. Michael, enjoying his newfound gay freedom, thinks of his new city as a shelter dog ready to roll over and follow you forever if you approached with a soft voice and gentle hand. When he meets another gay boy his age, his afternoon feels like a giant soap bubble. Pop, he thought, but it kept going. Beate, as a teenager, asks her boyfriend to move into her and stay for a while. He is inside of me, shed thought, and it felt like they were breaking an impossible barrier. After a great deal of loss, grief, frustration and loneliness dealt to these characters, their joys arrive as they would in real life: like gifts we can scarcely believe are happening.

Even among the absolute, unequivocal horrors of Eastern Europe in the 1990s  neo-Nazis, xenophobic violence, police officers who sit in their cruisers a block away, waiting for something to happen, displaced refugees, homeless encampments, the fascist who worked at the grocery store and hate crimes, all of them mournfully recognizable in 2021  there is room for life. Room, even, for beauty, which Grattan delivers with graceful economy. Watching Michaels gay vocabulary of gestures is like seeing a heron swoop to a landing, a spider spin a corner into silver. At a seething, teenage party, smoke hovered above the crowd like cartoon thinking. An abandoned bathroom has had toilets pulled from it like rotten teeth. Like all beauties, these are dilations of time. Where our present era of decimated attention demands contraction and diminishment, The Recent East offers expansion; it artfully holds open a needed space  to wander, to contemplate, to notice. Even just to breathe. Like the house in the novel, life is so much larger than we remember.
As it turns out, a one-in-a-million yellow cardinal had decided to make himself at home at the Currys bird feeders in rural Rushville, a quiet farm community 200 miles southwest of Chicago. Yellow cardinals have been spotted in Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio and Florida in recent years. And now, according to Auburn University biological sciences professor Geoffrey Hill, who reviewed photos of the Currys cardinal at the request of the Tribune, Illinois has a yellow cardinal of its own.
In addition, the company has received an initial purchase order of $406,200 with its Australian partner, Cann Global Limited

Cann Global will participate in Australia's Cannabinoid Medicine Observational Study that will collect data from 20,000 patients nationwide over 5 years

Canntab Therapeutics Limited ( ) (OTCQB:CTABF) (FRA:TBF1) announced Tuesday that the Australian Patent Office has granted the company a patent related to its proprietary cannabidiol formulations.

In addition, the company reported it has now received an initial purchase order of $406,200 with its Australian partner, Cann Global Limited of Australia.

The company said the patent expires on January 22, 2038 and has a priority date of January 23, 2017.

"The allowance of Canntab's patent by the Australian Patent Office continues to further provide fundamental intellectual protection for Canntab's innovative tableting technology and even further validates the years of research and development the company has conducted, said Canntab's Legal Counsel on intellectual property, Gavin Bogle of Magyar, Bogle & O'Hara LLP. The company now has patent protection in the USA, Canada and Australia providing an international scope to the company's expanding portfolio of issued patents."

Canntab said it believes its hard pill formulations are superior to all other medical CBD and THC delivery systems since they are true pharmaceutical-grade delivery systems that provide superior ingredient stability, enhanced bioavailability, and provide customizable and precise dosing -- as opposed to the widely available gel capsule products from other suppliers.

Canntab has 11 pending patent applications internationally and three patents that have now been granted. The company has developed both patented and patent-pending technologies to deliver standardized medical cannabis extract in a variety of extended-release/sustained-release pharmaceutical-grade delivery systems.

Purchase order

The initial purchase order with partner Cann Global includes 6 SKUs comprised of 2.5 milligrams (mg) THC, 5mg THC, 12.5mg CBD, 25mg THC, and combined caplets (a hard-coated tablet in the shape of a capsule) with 5mg THC/25mg CBD and 2.5mg THC/12.5mg CBD.

Canntab noted that Cann Global has already received its import license from the Australian Government Department of Health, while Canntab is waiting for an Export License approval from Health Canada to fulfill and ship the order. The products ordered by Cann Global will be distributed throughout Australia to medical distributors, including doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals.

"These are two major milestones that confirm our proprietary formulations are unique and different from other product offerings in the global marketplace, said Canntab CEO Larry Latowsky in a statement.

Intellectual property is at the root of our value proposition and having been granted our first Australian patent and our third patent overall in less than five months further confirms our leading position as the go-to company for precise dosage and pharmaceutical grade tablets and caplets for the medical market containing THC, CBD or many combinations of THC and CBD."

Canntab to participate in medical cannabis study

In other company news. Canntab said that Applied Cannabis Research Observational Study Applied Cannabis Research (ACR), a leading Australian contract research organization focused exclusively on medical cannabis treatments, has launched Australia's largest observational study ever undertaken for medical cannabis.

Canntab, through the products it will supply to Cann Global, which is a direct participant in the study, will be participating in this clinical collaboration with major Australian clinics and hospitals to complete the Cannabinoid Medicine Observational Study (CMOS) that will collect data from 20,000 patients nationwide over five years, with results to be released on an ongoing basis.

CMOS aims to assess the safety and efficacy of medicinal cannabis products for a range of refractory conditions, including fibromyalgia, chronic pain syndromes, PTSD, epilepsy, and other mental health and neurological conditions using cannabis -- including Canntab's Hard Pill Cannabinoid Formulations.

ACR will lead the study in conjunction with Australia's medical community and key industry partners such as Althea Group Holdings, Cronos Australia, Cymra Life Sciences, Medcan Australia, and Cann Global.

Contact the author: patrick@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @PatrickMGraham
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 21:03:26|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A woman wearing a face mask walks along Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, on Feb. 17, 2021. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China urges British communications regulator Ofcom and certain individuals to immediately cease engaging in political manipulation and correct their mistakes, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks at a press briefing in response to reports that Ofcom has fined China Global Television Network (CGTN) 225,000 British pounds for "breaching rules on fairness, privacy and due impartiality" just weeks after it stripped the network of its right to air in Britain.

"We are concerned about the decision made by Ofcom and firmly oppose its repeated efforts to create obstacles for Chinese media to carry out normal news reporting in Britain. We once again urge Ofcom to revoke its wrong decision," Zhao said.

CGTN always follows the principles of objectivity and impartiality in its reporting. China has repeatedly expressed its firm opposition to Ofcom's decision to arbitrarily revoke the broadcasting rights of CGTN's English-language satellite news channel in Britain, the spokesperson said.

By once again making the wrong judgment, Ofcom is revealing its strong ideological bias against China. The ridiculous move is blatant political oppression, Zhao added.

What Ofcom should do is to investigate and deal with some British media outlets' long-standing false reports concerning China, he said, adding that China reserves the right to make further legitimate and necessary responses. 
Jill Biden called caring for military families a 'national security imperative' during a stop on her two-day West Coast tour ahead of her relaunch of Joining Forces.

'We certainly never imagined how a global pandemic might affect circumstances, ranging from access to childcare to having a safe place to live, to keeping food on your table, to building a career. The men and the women of our armed forces can't be at their best when they are worried that their families are struggling,' the first lady said during a stop at Naval Air station Whidbey Island in Washington state.

'That's why this isn't just, you know, a nice thing to do. It's a national security imperative,' she added.

Biden is restarting Joining Forces, the successful initiative for military families that she and Michelle Obama began during the Obama administration. She will formally relaunch it later this year, according to her office.

Jill Biden gets a tour of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island as part of her relaunch of Joining Forces

The first lady got a closeup look at a US Navy EA-18G 'Growler' electronic warfare attack warcraft with its tail painted red with the Scorpions logo

Jill Biden walks with Tanya Durand, right, executive director of the Children's Museum of Tacoma, as part of her tour of military bases ahead of her Joining Forces relaunch

'Michelle and I launched our Joining Forces initiative - a nation wide initiative to support our service members, veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors. And we focused on three areas, employment, education, and wellness,' she noted during her stop at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Biden is on a two day tour of military bases in Washington state and California as part of its kick off campaign, where her office said she will meet with military families to learn about their needs.

The first lady has made military families, children and education her priorities in her first six weeks in her new role. She has hit the ground running, holding virtual events with military children around the world, and making solo trips to promote her issues, including visiting a cancer center in Richmond, Va., and schools that have reopened in Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

During her first stop at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Tuesday, she joked she was still on East Coast time and had been up since 4:30 am.

But, she added, she enjoyed watching the sunrise come up over the mountains - Mount Rainier and the Cascade Range are in the Tacoma area where the first lady spent the night.

Accompanied by Governor Jay Inslee, she visited a children's museum for military families where she saw several exhibits designed to stimulate a child's sense.

She saw the Invention Space which included the spaceship crawl jungle, which is a play structure with slides rimmed with LED lights, and a sensory room with water exhibits.

And then she saw the Calm Room, a quiet space for children with disabilities. A staff member explained they have a large amount of children on the autism spectrum, one of the largest amounts in the country, at the base.

Jill Biden views a water activity table at the new children's museum at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington

Jill Biden called caring for military families a 'national security imperative'

Her next stop was Naval Air Station Whidbey Island - a naval air station in Oak Harbor, on Whidbey Island, in Island County, Washington.

She got a closeup look at a US Navy EA-18G 'Growler' electronic warfare attack warcraft. The jet tail was painted red with the insignia of the 'Scorpions' squadron.

She also watched a Navy helicopter fly by with the mountains visible in the distance.

On Wednesday she will visit Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California.
On Oct. 23, 1984, a BBC report on what correspondent Michael Buerk called a biblical famine taking place in northern Ethiopia became a watershed moment in the history of both journalism and global humanitarianism. The reports graphic imagery of emaciated children starving to death in a squalid refugee camp, and Buerks outraged narration, were rebroadcast around the world, and galvanized a major response, particularly in the United Kingdom, where the Royal Air Force soon began delivering food aid, and where Bob Geldofs Live Aid benefit concert would raise millions of pounds for famine relief the following year.

Advertisement

The BBC report oversimplified a complex situation: The famine was partly the result of drought and poverty, as it suggested, but also of deliberate policies of the Ethiopian government that was then fighting a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, or TPLF, rebels in the region. Much of the aid ended up lining the pockets of the rebels or the government, perpetuating the war at the root of the crisis. Still, it seemed to mark a new kind of international response to humanitarian crises around the globe, one driven by the influence of on-the-ground media coverage (the phrase CNN effect entered the international relations lexicon a few years later) as well as the increasing power of humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. The ever-more-connected world had reached a point where suffering that was once unseen and far-off could now be visible and immediate.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Thirty-seven years later, the Ethiopian government is again at war with the TPLF, and it has again resulted in a refugee crisis and humanitarian disaster. But this time the lasting lesson is likely to be different: In an age not just of 24-hour cable news but ubiquitous social media, its still possible for a region in conflict to be cut off from the outside world, almost completely, for months at a time.

Last week, the U.N. Security Council met to discuss the ongoing crisis in Tigray, where the Ethiopian government launched a military offensive in November. Thousands have reportedly been killed, and many more have fled, many of them to neighboring Sudan. (The session ended without a joint statement thanks to Russias and Chinas objections to interfering in Ethiopias internal affairs.) Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also called Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to express U.S. concerns about the situation, but he has not publicly criticized the Ethiopian government, a major recipient of U.S. aid.

Advertisement

The latest international attention on the crisis comes after reports from Amnesty International, the AP, and CNN detailed the killings of hundreds of civilians by troops from neighboring Eritrea in separate incidents last November. The New York Times also reported in late February on an internal U.S. government report concluding that the Ethiopian government and allied militias are conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Tigray.

Advertisement

But these reports are coming months after the events in question took place. They are based largely on testimony and footage from survivors who have fledor in some cases, phone calls with survivorsrather than on-the-ground investigation. The Amnesty report includes a link to a shaky video purportedly showing bodies being transported after a massacre in the town of Aksum. An information blackout has kept the news, and with it the global sense of crisis, remote. Even as the blackout may be starting to lift, much of whats happening in Tigray still remains a mystery to the outside world.

Advertisement

The current Tigray crisis started this past fall, but its roots stretch back to the 1980s crisis. After years of fighting, the TPLFwhich supports self-determination for Tigraysucceeded in overthrowing dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991 and led Ethiopia as a whole for the next 27 years. The period of TPLF rule featured rapid economic growth but also harsh political repression and a devastating border war with Eritrea. It ended in 2018 when current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took power following a mass uprising.

After that, the TPLF retreated to its home region, where it consolidated power. Abiy earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for making peace with Eritrea and for lifting some authoritarian restrictions at home, but a wave of new ethnic conflicts has broken out since he came into office, as various groups have sought to preserve regional autonomy. In September, after an escalating feud with the national government, authorities in Tigray held regional electionsdefying Abiy, who had postponed the countrys elections for at least nine months due to the coronavirus. On Nov. 4, Abiy ordered troops into Tigray after accusing the TPLF of attacking a military base in order to seize weapons.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Some of the earliest reported atrocities in the conflict were allegedly committed by the TPLF, but government forces have also been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the shelling of civilian areas. Troops from Eritrea, who entered the conflict in an alliance with the Ethiopian government against the Tigrayans, have been accused of many of the worst atrocities. By the end of November, government forces had seized the regions major towns, but TPLF fighters have fled into rural areas and low-level fighting continues, and may soon increase as more young men in Tigray take up arms.

In late November, Abiy claimed that no civilians at all had been killed by federal forces. That is certainly not true, but exactly whats happening on the ground in Tigray is hard to verify, by design. Internet and phone service in Tigray were shut down just hours after the military operation began in November. Phone service has since been restored in some areas but is still sporadic. Journalists have mostly not been allowed in. Reports on events in Tigray over the past few months have often included disclaimers noting that the outlet is unable to verify statements made by either side since phone and internet connections to Tigray are down and access to the area is strictly controlled.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The level of access has gotten slightly better since early this year but not by much. In early December, the U.N. reached an agreement with the Ethiopian government for humanitarian NGOs to have unimpeded, sustained and secure access to the region, but officials say the government continued to block that access. A map published by the U.N. in late February showed that access was still being partially or totally hindered everywhere in the region by insecurity or bureaucratic roadblocks outside the regional capital, Mekelle. While domestic and church-affiliated aid groups have had some access, international NGOs and human rights groups are barely on the ground at all.

Some 80 percent of Tigrays population is unreachable  its a complete blackout, said the EUs top diplomat, Josep Borrell, at the end of February. Meanwhile, journalists have been denied access to Tigray or discouraged from reporting on the conflict through violence and intimidation. In 2019, Abiys Nobel Prize citation praised him for discontinuing media censorship, but the country has also recently become one of the worlds top jailers of journalists. At least six journalists were arrested just in the first week of fighting. On Jan. 19, Dawit Kebede Araya, a reporter with Tigray TV in Mekelle, was shot dead by unidentified attackers. Dawit had recently been detained by security forces, and colleagues have told the international media that they believe those forces were responsible for his death. In February, freelance journalist Lucy Kassa wrote for the L.A. Times about being threatened by unidentified men to stop her reporting on Tigray as they ransacked her house in Addis Ababa. Kassa had just filed a story detailing a gang rape by Eritrean forces in Tigray.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

On Feb. 24, the government announced it was allowing some members of the international press to report on Tigray but also warned it would take action against anyone writing untrue information. Just a week later, four media workerstwo translators working for Agence France-Presse and the Financial Times, a local fixer, and a local journalist working with the BBCs Tigray servicewere arrested in Mekelle. They have since been released.

On March 3, the government issued a statement that it had granted full access for international and local media to travel to and report from the Tigray region, but the message it is sending is pretty clear.

The claim and the promise to open up rings very hollow at this point, says Muthoki Mumo, the Nairobi-based sub-Saharan Africa representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Advertisement

Anyone in Mekelle who gets a request to act as a fixer or translator is going to think twice about it now. She says the arrests of the journalists seem like an attempt to at least frustrate the reporting of those on the ground, or at the most to silence information that might not fit within the narrative the government wants out there.

Advertisement

There have been occasional reports from international journalists inside Tigray itself. Belgian broadcaster VRT visited in late December. Agence France-Presse reporter Robbie Corey-Boulet filed last week from the Tigrayan town of Dengolat, the site of one of the conflicts worst massacres. According to his report, as his reporting team entered the village, dozens of men and women rushed out, some clutching framed photographs of their dead relatives, eager to share the story of what had happened. Its also getting easier to reach people in Tigray by phone.

Advertisement

Still, five months after this conflict began, this region that is larger than Denmark is remarkably cut off from the outside world. While were gradually getting a fuller picture of whats been happening in Tigray, the lack of firsthand documentation makes it difficult to push back against the governments claims that reports of atrocities are exaggerations or Tigrayan propaganda.

Mumo says Tigray is an extreme example of a phenomenon shes been seeing more of in the region she covers. She notes that it was near impossible for outside journalists to get accreditation during last Octobers disputed election in Tanzania and points to the information blackout during Ugandas recent postelection unrest. This question of access is getting more and more relevant, she says. You almost have to ask yourself: Are these governments learning from each other?

Looking farther afield, you could also point to the Chinese governments limits on media access to Xinjiang, where it has been accused of perpetrating a genocide, and the relative dearth of on-the-ground reporting over the past decade of war in Syria as examples of the same phenomenon. Part of this story may be cutbacks in foreign reporting in the Western media: There are simply fewer correspondents on the ground with the backing of major international institutions demanding access to places like Tigray. But governments are also clearly getting smarter.

Nearly four decades ago, the response to a crisis in Tigray seemed to point to an emerging world in which humanitarian crises would take place in full view of the whole world. We would never be able to say, as generations did in response to previous atrocities, that we didnt know what was happening. The ubiquity of smartphones and social media was supposed to make such atrocities harder to hide.

But today, thanks to increasingly sophisticated control of telecommunications networks, brute force, and a fair amount of global indifference, its still very possible for governments to keep these situations under wraps.
Close

NASA and SpaceX said the next Crew Dragon flight to the International Space Station is scheduled to fly on April 22. The four-person team will be the first to pass on a previously-flown Falcon 9 booster and a reused Dragon spacecraft. A NASA official said this week that the rocket and capsule are in perfect shape as refurbishment at Cape Canaveral nears completion.

NASA said the launch date of April 22 is a two-day deviation from the original target launch date of April 20. Officials from NASA and SpaceX said earlier this week that the mission would be delayed by a "couple of days" to allow for a more "optimized" trajectory to the space station after liftoff.

The Crew Dragon "Endeavour" spacecraft, which flew to the International Space Station with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken last year, is set to launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A.

A NASA spokesperson told SpaceFlightNow said the Crew Dragon would dock with the space station at 7:05 a.m. EDT if the mission called Crew-2 launches on April 22.

ALSO READ: NASA Plans Including Woman in New Race to the Moon, Elon Musk's Space X Collabs With Artemis Mission





Who Will Join The Next Crew Dragon Launch?

According to Reuters, the second full-fledged space station crew-rotation experiment was launched on a privately operated spacecraft, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon capsule into orbit.

Two NASA astronauts, mission commander Shane Kimbrough and pilot Megan McArthur, are among the four members of SpaceX Crew-2, which also includes Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency mission specialist Thomas Pesquet.

Straits Times said the incoming cosmonauts would replace the four SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts who arrived in November and cosmonauts who were transported to the orbital outpost on a Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft after docking with the station.

Crew-2 is scheduled to stay in space for six months, while Crew-1 is scheduled to return to Earth in early May.

McArthur will be the next member of her family to go into space on a Crew Dragon. Bob Behnken, her partner, was one of two NASA astronauts on the first manned Crew Dragon launch, a trial flight last August that marked NASA's first human orbital mission from American soil in nine years, following the completion of the space shuttle program in 2011.

What's In Store for The Next Crew Dragon Launch?

NASA's commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said per ClickOrlando that the Crew Dragon for the Crew-2 mission would have upgraded features built to make the spacecraft smoother and able to withstand rougher seas and stronger winds.

In the event of a big problem with the Falcon 9 rocket on the launch site, the Crew Dragon could execute a pad abort. The capsule would use its SuperDraco abort engines to blast itself off the booster and into the Atlantic Ocean, near the Florida seaside launch complex.

A pad abort or in-flight abort would help guarantee the astronauts' safety if the rocket failed catastrophically.

An explosion of a test capsule in 2019 shortly before the ground firing of the SuperDraco engines was one technological problem that postponed the first astronaut flight on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. According to investigators, an accidental interaction of nitrogen tetroxide, one of the propellants used in the SuperDraco engines, with a titanium valve in the high-pressure propulsion system caused the blast. According to Stich, SpaceX has updated the propulsion system for the upcoming flight to make it safer.

RELATED ARTICLE: SpaceX to Reuse Dragon Spacecraft Fleet After Rocket Booster from NASA Crew-1 'Leaned'





Check out more news and information on SpaceX on Science Times.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Mumbai: Actor Anupam Kher on Tuesday informed his fans about getting vaccinated with the first dose of Covid-19. The actor posted the update on Twitter.

Anupam Kher uploaded a video that has him getting vaccinated at a medical facility, and thanked the medical staff and government of India for the vaccination.

"Got my #COVID19 first dose vaccination!! Thank you all the doctors, medical staff, scientist and Govt. Of India for making it possible. India Rocks. Jai Ho!" Kher's caption read.

Got my #COVID19 first dose vaccination!! Thank you all the doctors, medical staff, scientist and Govt. Of India for making it possible. India Rocks. Jai Ho! @PMOIndia @drharshvardhan pic.twitter.com/56dzuTflpO  Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) March 9, 2021

The actor celebrated turning 66 with school children, and he will soon be seen in the short film along with Aahana Kumra, titled 'Happy Birthday'. He has also wrapped up the shoot of his portions in the upcoming film, 'The Kashmir Files'.

Recently, he shocked fans when he uploaded a picture on his social media in a get-up that made him look completely different. He teased his fans with the caption: "Duality is not a story. Duality is just a complexity. Something exciting, something complex coming your way! Watch out for this space! #Actor #ActorsLife #NewBegining #Movie," he captioned the pictures."
-Designed as a lifeline for physical retail during COVID-19 restrictions

-Tried and tested quality big-player quality on a budget

-Full ecosystem support from payments to delivery

-Rich AI-enabled insights for deep customer engagement

DUBAI, UAE, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- DeliverAI, a unique AI-enriched e-commerce solution has launched in Dubai, UAE - promising to get retail and F&B selling online within 72 hours. The innovative solution, brainchild of Italian entrepreneur Raffaele Tiberio, comes in direct response to B2C businesses unable to access clientele during COVID-19 restrictions.

DeliverAI is a rapid, integrated package. It cuts through the hassle of working with multiple partners to offer a single port of call for e-stores, payment gateways and delivery services.

Tiberio and his team have put together an integrated value chain that accelerates the move online in a matter of hours, not months. DeliverAI clients can be up and selling within three days, quickly finding new revenue channels to replace physical walk-ins that have been lost due to the pandemic.

"DeliverAI is a story of entrepreneurial resilience as much as it is one of innovation. Over the past few months, we've been hearing sombre stories of businesses suffering as an unprecedented pandemic cuts them off from physical customers. For us, it's not just about creating something powerfully unique, but also saving industries and jobs. We genuinely want to help those brave entrepreneurs who've built businesses from scratch and have often sunk their lives into them," said Tiberio.

DeliverAI operates as a Software As a Service (SaaS) solution, but crucially does not end there. The DeliverAI team are intent on creating a full ecosystem around the software with a network of partners that includes local banks, telecom providers, delivery fleets and logistics experts. The team also offers access to web and app developers, fulfilment partners and payment gateways.

"DeliverAI is more a service than a software. We're disrupting the old pattern of complex integrations and expensive software requiring extensive configuration. The bottom line is to get goods to customers, and money into business bank accounts, as fast as possible to mitigate the pain SMEs are feeling," Tiberio explained.

The solution is omnichannel - hyper-accelerating a pivot to online selling across multiple social and messaging channels, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

"SMEs have tight budgets these days, but that doesn't mean they can do without quality. We're offering high-quality products that match the biggest e-commerce players in the market, and putting them directly in the hands of SMEs. We also support them throughout their journey, with aftersales support, troubleshooting and anything else they might require - from AI-enriched customer relationship management to streamlined last-mile delivery," said Tiberio.

Importantly, SME clients get collect and keep their own customer data, creating long-lasting relationships with them that increase the lifetime value of their customers. Other points of differentiation include AI-enabled consumer analytics that suggest activations and initiatives, and powerful insights to tailor outreach campaigns. The platform also unlocks deep insights to optimise business decisions by deciphering consumer behaviour.

Even when COVID-19 is no longer a pressing concern, Tiberio sees DeliverAI accelerate much-needed digital transformations for SMEs across the region. "SMEs represent over 70% of the region's GDP, for example, but only 4% of these SMEs in the Mena region have a plan for digital transformation. They need attention, support and easy-to-follow digital roadmaps given their importance as the main driver of economic growth," he concluded.

Raffaele Tiberio, +971553396929

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1452595/DeliverAI_CEO.jpg
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Norton Juster, the celebrated children's author who has died at 91, stumbled into literature much as his most famous hero, Milo, stumbles into the marvelous world of wordplay and adventure in the classic 1961 volume "The Phantom Tollbooth." They were bored and entirely unsuspecting of the wonders that awaited them.

A budding architect with a self-confessed tendency to procrastinate, Juster was living in New York City and working - or not working - on a children's book about cities. A Ford Foundation grant had given the project a degree of urgency. But it was not the book he wanted to write, and soon enough, he recalled years later, he was "waist-deep in stacks of 3-by-5 note cards, exhausted and dispirited."

To pass the time, Juster began scribbling the story of Milo, a boy of about 9 or 10 years with no interest in the tedium of school or "learning to solve useless problems, or subtracting turnips from turnips, or knowing where Ethiopia is or how to spell February," and who was as bewildered by the grown-up world as grown-ups were by him.

"He's more like me than I was, actually," Juster once told CBS News.

To pass a little more time, Juster paced the floors, a habit that drew the attention of his neighbor, Jules Feiffer, a cartoonist then in the early years of his long career at the Village Voice. Juster showed Feiffer his incubating story, and Feiffer, also with no inkling of where their collaboration would lead, began making drawings to accompany it.

The result was "The Phantom Tollbooth," a story-time staple that has sold nearly 4 million copies. Children have grown up and read the book to their children, and then to their grandchildren. Encountering a boy named Milo, one might reasonably ask his parents whether their bookshelves contain "The Phantom Tollbooth."

Juster died March 8 at his home in Northampton, Mass. His death was confirmed by Cindy Lashway, a representative of Douglass Funeral Service in Amherst, Mass. The cause was not immediately available.

The adventures of Milo begin when the boy comes home from school and finds a package containing a tollbooth - some assembly required. Milo passes through the tollbooth in his small pretend car and finds himself in the Lands Beyond.

Milo enters the Kingdom of Wisdom and finds two cities, Dictionopolis and Digitopolis. They are ruled respectively by King Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician, brothers feuding over the primacy of words or numbers. Caught in the middle are the princesses Rhyme and Reason, whom Milo sets out to save.

Wordplay abounds, with a wagon that moves when no one speaks - it goes without saying - and a banquet were everyone must eat their words. Juster threw in the Triple Demons of Compromise - "one tall and thin, one short and fat, and the third exactly like the other two" - just to pester Feiffer in his illustrations.

"This kid had gone into a world where everything was correct but nothing was right," Juster once told the London Independent. "That was a feeling I understood."

Juster and Feiffer submitted a draft to Jason Epstein, the editorial director of Random House and not, fortuitously, a children's editor. Juster often said that if they had contacted a children's editor, "The Phantom Tollbooth" might never have been published because it bucked all the prevailing trends of the time.

"It was kind of unanimous, it was not a children's book," Juster told NPR in 2012. "The vocabulary was too difficult for kids. The situations and the things I talked about were way out of their understanding. The word play and the punning, they would never get. And to top it off, they told me that fantasy was bad for children because it disoriented them."

But a glowing review in the New Yorker by Emily Maxwell, a children's book critic and the wife of the magazine's fiction editor, William Maxwell, sent the book on its way.

Reading "The Phantom Tollbooth," she wrote, was her "first experience of opening a book with no special anticipation and gradually becoming aware that I am holding in my hands a newborn classic." She compared it to "Alice in Wonderland," Lewis Carroll's story of a Victorian girl who passes through a rabbit hole to enter her own fantastical world.

Juster said he had not read "Alice in Wonderland" before writing "The Phantom Tollbooth." His chief influences had been the Marx Brothers, the absurdist screen-comedy team, and his father, an architect who was enamored of wordplay.

"He would be sitting there," Juster told NPR, "and he would look at me and very seriously say: Aha. I see you're coming early since lately. You used to be behind before, but now, you're first at last. I had no idea what he was talking about, of course."

Norton Juster was born in Brooklyn on June 2, 1929. He had an older brother, also a future architect, whom Juster said their parents favored, leaving Norton largely to his own devices. From an early age, his mind wandered in unusual ways; he had a condition known as synesthesia, in which the senses become intertwined, leading him to experience numbers as colors.

He received a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1952, then studied city planning at the University of Liverpool in England before serving in the Navy. He was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he met Feiffer while living off-base.

Feiffer, who went on to be one of the most distinctive and heralded cartoonists of his era, offered the interpretation that Milo represented Juster as he left military service.

"Milo in the book is entering a world that's all new to him," Feiffer told the School Library Journal in 2011. "That is perhaps the perfect metaphor for Norton having gotten out of the Navy, and entering this professional world where his brother is already a successful architect, and he's following him in it. And Norton doesn't really feel that any of this is truly the right fit, but he doesn't know what is the right fit or where to go."

The right fit or not, Juster said he considered himself foremost an architect. He was long associated with the Massachusetts firm of Juster Pope Frazier - whose projects included designing the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst - and taught for more than two decades at Hampshire College in Amherst.

For adult readers, Juster wrote "A Woman's Place: Yesterday's Women in Rural America" (1996), an exploration of the difficulties of rural life inspired by his own experience living for a period on a Massachusetts farm.

His children's books included "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics" (1963); "Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys" (1965), with illustrations by Domenico Gnoli; "As Silly as Knees, as Busy as Bees: An Astounding Assortment of Similes" (1998), with illustrations by David Small; and "The Hello, Goodbye Window" (2005) with Chris Raschka, who received a Caldecott Medal for his illustrations of the magical window at a little girl's grandparents' house. The story was inspired by Juster's own granddaughter.

His wife of 54 years, the former Jeanne Ray, died in 2018. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.

Juster's books inspired numerous adaptations, including Chuck Jones's Oscar-winning short-film version of "The Dot and the Line" (1965). "The Phantom Tollbooth" was adapted for film in 1970 and became a musical with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Arnold Black, with its premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2007.

Juster and Feiffer reunited nearly half a century after "The Phantom Tollbooth" for the children's book "The Odious Ogre," published in 2010. Juster wrote it, he said, because he "loved the idea of doing in a bully."

"The one thing you have to understand, which I think we don't, even to this day, is that we constantly underestimate what kids will understand or what they can deal with," Juster told NPR in 2012.

"They understand a lot more, and the really fortunate ones carry that special understanding into their adulthood. And if you lose that, I think you lose something very important."
NORWALKRev. James Newman said receiving the coronavirus vaccine felt like a little pinch, nothing more.

Newman was one of the first recipients of the COVID-19 Moderna vaccine at a vaccination clinic Tuesday morning held at Grace Baptist Church.

The clinic was the first in a series of vaccination efforts aimed at vaccinating people of color in Norwalk.

There are a lot of people that are afraid and Im here to encourage them not to be, Newman said. People are fearful. They made it without the vaccine for so long, so they feel, Why do I need it now? Why should I put that in my body? 

About 10 percent of eligible Black residents have received the first dose in Connecticut as of March 4, according to state data, and only 5 percent of Black residents are fully vaccinated. This compares to 21.9 percent of white people with the first dose and 11.5 percent of white people being fully vaccinated.

Black people are three times more likely to be hospitalized from COVID and over 1.5 times more likely to die from the virus, according to Dr. Priscilla Agyemang, a physician in internal medicine at Norwalk Hospital who attended a virtual town hall on the subject last week.

Historically, minority communities have a mistrust of institutionalized medicine and vaccination, which Newman said he is working to overcome by publicly receiving his vaccine.

He wanted to set a positive example for his congregates at Mt. Zion Baptist Church on South Main Street.

I encouraged them to come, Newman said. Death is so strongly affecting communities without the vaccine. People are fearful.

While data on the race of vaccine recipients is not compiled on a town-by-town basis, in Norwalk more than 12,800 residents have received the first dose of the vaccine as of Mar. 1, according to DPH . Around 75 percent of Norwalk residents 75 and older have been vaccinated against the virus.

The Norwalk Health Department, one of many vaccine providers in the city, has administered more than 4,800 vaccine doses, according to Norwalk spokesperson Josh Morgan.

About 120 community members, primarily people of color, were vaccinated Tuesday morning at the clinic which ran from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mayor Harry Rilling, Common Councilmember Greg Burnett, Councilor Darlene Young and Grace Baptist Church pastor Rev. Dr. Lindsay E. Curtis were among the community leaders that spoke before the clinic began.

Curtis said the event was organized, from conception to Tuesdays clinic, in two weeks.

This here, its bigger than any one of us and we are better together, Curtis said. One hundred-twenty may not seem like a lot to some, but it is huge to us. We are unapologetically trying to get vaccinates in the hands of Black and Brown people.

Rev. Dr. Richard Clarke, pastor at Bethel AME Church, also received his first dose of the vaccine Tuesday morning. Clarke said he had no hesitancy going into the day.

My goal in coming is to take it (the vaccine) so Black and Brown communities take it likewise, Clarke said. Theres a history of vaccines in the U.S. and distrust in African American communities.

Clarke said if community members are engaged and informed during such processes, it will instill trust of the community in the system.

The next clinic of its kind will be held at Bethel AME Church on Academy Street on Mar. 16, Clarke said.

abigail.brone@hearstmediact.com
Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has said Northern Christians have nothing to worry about concerning Nigeria...

Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has said Northern Christians have nothing to worry about concerning Nigerias disintegration.

Kanu declared that the Northern Christian community would be granted political asylum in Biafra when it cedes from Nigeria.

He stressed that Biafra would not allow Christian communities in the North to be decimated by Sharia.

The IPOB leader stated this in a statement by the groups spokesman, Emma Powerful.

The statement reads: We the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, under the leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, wants to inform Christian communities in Northern Nigeria that they have nothing to worry about in a disintegrated Nigeria.

Our leader made this solemn pledge while assuring them that they will be granted automatic settlement rights in the new Biafra when Nigeria finally implodes as every other failed state before it has done.

Biafra will not allow Northern Christians who are currently at the mercy of marauding Fulani Islamic terrorists to be roasted by the Janjaweed Sharia North that is eager to decimate indigenous communities of Northern Nigeria.

Our leader has assured them under divine oath that any Northern Christian willing to live in Biafra land can come and settle. Northern Christians shall be granted political asylum in Nigeria to pursue their legitimate careers.


Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday took a jibe at his once close friend and former party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, saying "who earlier was counted among 'decision makers' in his former party, now only gets to enjoy from the back seat as a spectator ever since he crossed over to saffron pastures and will never be able to become the Chief Minister there". The former Congress chief's remarks came during the two-day national executive meeting of the Indian Youth Congress here. According to party sources, Rahul Gandhi said that he used to tell Scindia "to work hard, so that he could be a Chief Minister one day. But now he is a backbencher in BJP". "He (Scindia) had decision making powers in our party and he always remained with me. But he left the party and joined the BJP, and look where he is sitting today. He is sitting among the backbenchers," a source quoted Gandhi as saying. The source added that Rahul Gandhi also said that Scindia will never be able to become a Chief Minister while staying in BJP. "Accept the fact that he will never be made the Chief Minister in the BJP. He will have to come back to Congress to become a Chief Minister," Gandhi was quoted by the source. Scindia was one of the Congress leaders who could call on Rahul Gandhi at any point of time. He had a free pass to the former Congress President's home. However, Scindia left the party in March last year, orchestrating the collapse of the Kamal Nath-led government in Madhya Pradesh. Scindia has been made a Rajya Sabha member by the BJP. He had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to K.P. Singh Yadav despite contesting from his traditional seat of Guna, which was considered a family bastion of the Scindias in Madhya Pradesh. In his resignation letter to the party on March 9 last year, Scindia had said that he was unable to work in the party and Sonia Gandhi had the knowledge of the same. To a question by a youth leader about turncoats who have returned to the party fold, the source quoted Gandhi as saying, "The Congress is like a sea. Here everyone following the ideology of the party are welcome. And those who do not follow the ideology of the party can leave anytime." When pressed hard on how turncoats returned to top posts in the party, Rahul Gandhi asserted that they had to work really hard to return to the high posts. After the Youth Congress meet, Rahul Gandhi tweeted: "Met with IYC colleagues and discussed national issues. At every step, we have to wage a non-violent struggle against the RSS mentality - so that India's diversity and culture does not come under fire."




America's top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has again praised Australia's efforts in containing the coronavirus and its emerging variants.

Dr Fauci, who was joined by Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly in an online discussion on Wednesday morning, said Australia has fared well during the pandemic when compared to other countries.

'When Australia shuts down, they shut down and they really do get the cases, (to) almost nothing. We've never had that in the United States,' he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion.

Dr Fauci (pictured), who was joined by Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly in an online discussion on Wednesday morning, said Australia has fared well during the pandemic when compared to other countries

Professor Kelly said while Australia and the US saw their first cases of the virus 'on almost the same day in late January last year', the former has managed to control it.

'A lot of that was due to the way that the leadership at both the political level and the health level, and indeed the economic level, has been so strong in Australia. I think there was an element of luck as well,' Prof Kelly said.

He especially praised Australians for following health advice.

'In my whole career, I would say I've never been in that situation where our epidemiologists and public health officials have become rock stars,' Prof Kelly said.

'They've really listened and they've taken on board all sorts of things I didn't think they would.'

Australia has recorded less than 30,000 COVID-19 cases and 909 deaths, largely due to the second wave in Victoria.

Professor Kelly (pictured) said while Australia and the US saw their first cases of the virus 'on almost the same day in late January last year', the former has managed to control it

America, meanwhile, has recorded more than 525,000 deaths and more than 29million cases, which is more than the entire population of Australia.

'That's just a completely different galaxy than what Australia was experiencing,' Dr Fauci said.

Prof Kelly said Wednesday marks the 40th day this year Australia has recorded zero locally acquired cases, while there have been no deaths.

'In many ways, we can only go one way with this, which is to have more cases eventually and as we start to open up that will be an issue,' he warned.

Prof Kelly said Australia has recorded 140 cases of the UK variant, also known as B117, and 25 cases of the South African variant 'but mostly they've remained in hotel quarantine'.

Meanwhile, Dr Fauci said the UK strain will become the country's dominant strain by the end of March, while the nation also has a low level of community transmission of the South African strain.

New mutations have also been discovered in New York and California.

'We have variants literally in multiple parts of the country,' he said.

Dr Fauci described vaccines as the 'solution to the extraordinary stress that people are under right now'.

'People do not want to tolerate any more the restraints that we have now from a public health standpoint and a vaccine gets them quickly to somewhat of the degree of normality,' he said.

'That is the big carrot.'

Australia is only two weeks into its vaccine rollout, with about 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine administered.

Prof Kelly acknowledged 'this is the first vaccine and not the last vaccine that people will have, and people are understanding the need for a booster at some time'.

Fauci, who is the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, had previously praised Victorians' attitude towards mask-wearing amid the state's second wave.
Theyve got a lot of names: Lunar rainbows. Moonbows. Spraybows. Space rainbows. Lunar Spraybows.

Whatever youd like to call the moonlight reflecting off waterfall droplets, the photographs of these things beneath starry skies are absolutely incredible. And, Yosemite National Park is one of the best places in the world to behold a moonbow.

Even better news: the moonbow viewing season is upon us. Clear spring evenings with a full moon overhead offer the best chance to catch a glimpse or snap a photo, as well as specific conditions that have been allowing humans to observe moonbows for centuries.

John Muir had plenty to say about the phenomenon. Lunar rainbows or spray-bows also abound in the glorious affluence of dashing, rejoicing, hurrahing, enthusiastic spring floods, their colors are distinct as those of the sun and regularly and obviously banded, though less vivid, Muir wrote in The Yosemite in 1912. Fine specimens may be found any night at the foot of the Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing gloriously amid the gloomy shadows and thundering waters, whenever there is plenty of moonlight and spray. Even the secondary bow is at times distinctly visible.

In other words, double moonbow all the way.

Anthony Bonafede

Moonbows are hardly confined to Yosemite, of course. Back in the 1800s, their predictable recurrence was a draw for tourists to Niagara Falls, and two nearby attractions, Luna Island and Luna Falls, received their names that way. Right near Kentuckys raging Cumberland Falls, there was once a hotel called Moonbow Inn, though sadly it burned down in 1949.

These days, at Victoria Falls on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, tour outfitters are offering Lunar Rainbow Tours during the full moon. Meanwhile, the exploding popularity of photography and social media has in recent years has drawn a lot more attention to moonbows, particularly in Yosemite National Park.

Information on where and how to spot moonbows is pretty easy to come by these days, thanks to some pioneering efforts at the University of Texas, where students used forensic astronomy to produce a computer model in 2007 that reliably predicted the date and duration of moonbows in Yosemite.

The students determined that there were six conditions necessary for the human eye to see a moonbow:

The skies must be clear

There must be abundant mist and spray at a waterfalls base

The sky must be dark

The moon must be bright

The moonlight must not be blocked by landforms

Lastly, the rainbow geometry must be correct

Yeah, were not sure what that last one means either.

Anthony Bonafede

With information theyve found online, visitors have descended on Yosemite from all over the world to view and photograph moonbows. SFGATE spoke to several California-based landscape photographers who have photographed them before, and plan to try again this year.

At least 90% of the moonbow photos I've captured over the last few years have been from the Valley floor, in the general region of the Yosemite Chapel and Sentinel Bridge says Luke Tyree, a landscape photographer from San Luis Obispo. But in July of 2019 I shot one of my favorite photos of the event from way up high at Glacier Point.

Tyree first learned of moonbows on social media  probably Instagram, he says. I then decided to do some research to figure out when the potential is highest for them to occur, he says.

Courtesy of Luke Tyree

He stumbled on the Yosemite moonbow website created by Brian Hawkins, and its proven to be pretty accurate over the years, Tyree says. My hat is off to him for creating this resource for folks like me who want to chase, witness and capture this stunning natural phenomenon for themselves.

One thing Tyree and other photographers emphasize is that while moonbows are visible to the naked eye, they are often not as colorful or vibrant-looking as one might hope. Thats because our eyes lose color sensitivity in dim light, which can make moonbows appear gray, white or silver, scientists say. But under ideal conditions, observers do report having seen the colors in lunar rainbows. And certainly the photos capture the full brilliance of the moonbow.

Courtesy of Brandon Yoshizawa

This is one of the aspects of night photography that is so personally intriguing and gratifying to me, Tyree says. Being able to see what we otherwise wouldnt.

Carter Murphy

Anthony Michael Bonafede, a landscape photographer from the Central Valley, has focused his efforts on Yosemite for the last 14 years. He heard about moonbows from another Yosemite photographer, Michael Frye, over a decade ago, and then used the University of Texas computer model to plan several attempts to capture moonbows.

Bonafede and his 12-year-old son, along with some friends, were eventually successful in photographing a moonbow at the base of Lower Yosemite Fall. They captured another one the following year at Upper Yosemite Fall.

One of the biggest challenges, Bonafede says, is the swirling wind and mist coming from the fall.

There is less available light, so a longer exposure is needed, he says. This extended time increases the amount of water that hits your lens as you photograph. We quickly learned the process of shoot, cover, wipe, and shoot again. Wiping our lens constantly was a necessity.

In addition to Lower and Upper Yosemite Falls, many of the parks other cascades are known for displaying moonbows. According to an informational video created by Yosemite Conservancy, moonbows can be observed at Bridal Veil Falls, Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls and Wapama Falls near Hetch Hetchy.

The beauty here doesnt end when the sun goes down, the narrator says. You can have a unique experience 24 hours a day in Yosemite.
Editor's note: How to get mental health support: In the Philippines, call the 24/7 National Center for Mental Health Crisis Hotline at (0917) 899-8727 or (02)7-989-8727 or 1553 (Landline-to-landline only).

(CNN)  Hillary Clinton weighed in Monday on Oprah Winfrey's explosive interview with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and her husband, Prince Harry, offering support for Meghan and decrying the tabloids and bureaucracy that often targeted her.

"I found it so heart-rending to watch," Clinton said during a Washington Post Live event on Monday, noting that she had met the pair as well as Harry's late mother, Princess Diana. Clinton called it "heartbreaking" that Meghan was not "fully embraced" not just by "the permanent bureaucracy that surrounds the royal family, but by the media in the UK."

Clinton, a woman who has been in positions of power as a former first lady, senator, secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate, has at times faced heavy public scrutiny and pushed back on press she found unfair. British tabloid reporting on disgraced former US congressman Anthony Weiner, the husband of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin, became a significant obstacle for Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

She noted that she's experienced the intensity of Britain's notoriously vitriolic tabloids first-hand, calling Meghan "incredibly accomplished" and lauding the Duchess of Sussex efforts to advocate for herself.

"You know I've had my time in the box with the British tabloids, as anybody who is in the public eye has had. And their cruelty in going after Meghan was just outrageous and the fact she did not get more support, that the reaction was, 'Let's just paper it over and pretend that it didn't happen or it will go away, just keep your head down,'" Clinton said. "Well, you know, this young woman was not about to keep her head down. You know, this is 2021 and she wanted to live her life, she wanted to be fully engaged and she had every right to hope for that."

Meghan and Harry pulled back the curtain on life in the British royal family in their interview with Winfrey that aired Sunday, describing a toxic blend of press intrusion, bitterness on social media and isolation from a support structure.

Meghan revealed that she found life as a royal so difficult that she had suicidal thoughts, said there were "concerns" in the family about baby Archie's skin color and shared that the couple's experience was exacerbated by often racist and "outdated, colonial undertones" that repeatedly appeared in coverage of them.

The interview was followed by a deluge of stories on the Daily Mail homepage, despite a dismissive pre-interview banner headline earlier on Sunday, in which the outlet attempted to lambast the CBS special as "a sideshow."

Clinton said that "every institution has got to make more space and acceptance for young people coming up -- particularly young women, who should not be forced into a mold that is no longer relevant, not only for them, but for our society."

"And it was heartbreaking to see the two of them sitting there having to describe how difficult it was to be accepted, to be integrated, not just into the royal family as they described, but more painfully into the larger societies whose narrative is driven by tabloids that are living in the past."

She added, "I just hope that there will be some serious thoughtful consideration in all of the institutions, not just in response to what Meghan and Harry were talking about, but literally across all of our societies."

Clinton also cited diversity as key to bringing such establishments into the future.

"Why do we make it so hard to incorporate diversity, to celebrate it, to be proud of it," Clinton said, adding that the couple was "not only standing up for themselves and for their children, but they're really trying to send a message about what institutions, including the one that they were part of, need to do to be more dynamic and forward looking than they currently are."


Earn your Associate of Applied Business in Business IT (BIT) degree online from the University of Cincinnati. This program can be completed fully online, with curriculum customized to fit your schedule, interests and how quickly you want to complete your degree. Application deadline July 1, 2021. Learn More 

If you are a vendor and sell your wares online -- how could you not be tapping into e-commerce today? It's time to take a fresh look at your search engine optimization strategy. You might need to tweak your SEO process to drive more customer traffic to your website.

Once you broaden your understanding of SEO, you will be able to improve your search engine rankings. Software tools are available to provide data and alerts about the overall health and success of your website.

Using SEO tools can help uncover areas of opportunity and identify weaknesses or issues that prevent you from ranking and gain better visibility in search engine results pages, or SERPs.

These are how Google displays Internet users' search query results when they visit your web site. SERPs generally include organic search results, paid Google Ads results, Knowledge Graphs, featured snippets and video results. In today's continuing dominance of online shopping, some traditional marketing methods are becoming obsolete. But the effectiveness of your SEO ranking remains a vital part of your marketing strategy.

SEO for Marketing

Search engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies you can apply. It becomes a magnet to attract consumers actively looking for your products and services online.

SEO is more important than ever. More consumers are leaning on the Internet for products and services they may have historically shopped for offline pre-pandemic, according to Steve Wiideman, president and CEO of Wiideman Consulting Group.

"Restaurants, in particular, have survived either by partnering with delivery services such as Doordash, Postmates, Uber Eats, Grubhub, or by developing keyword-rich pages on their websites. Keywords address off-premises searches customers use to find delivery, takeout, carside, curbside, or outdoor dining near them," he told the E-Commerce Times.

A case in point is Applebee's, which saw a 37 percent lift in organic visits in 2020 versus 2019 with over 167 percent lift in online orders. Even with traffic from Google Maps decreasing by 23 percent due to fewer customers needing directions, online orders from Maps and "3-Pack" map listings in organic results were up by over 27 percent, he noted.

"Customers have changed their buying habits, some indefinitely. These new online ordering customers have discovered the convenience of ordering online and will likely continue the new routine even after the pandemic comes to an end," said Wiideman.

The E-Commerce Times discussed with Steve Wiideman the essentials of how to build an SEO strategy for 2021. He is an SEO expert and has worked with brands that include Applebee's, Public Storage, IHOP, Skechers, Blake Pizza, Technicolor, Bosley, Belkin, Linksys, Homes.com, FIDM, Essentia Health, and Grand Seiko.

Steve Wiideman, President

Wiideman Consulting Group

Wiideman designed and teaches the Website Optimization and Strategic Search Engine Marketing online course for California State University Fullerton and the SEO Tools and Analytics course at University of California San Diego. He is an adjunct professor at the University of California San Diego, California State University Fullerton, and Fullerton College -- and recently was commissioned to write a textbook for a popular online learning service for colleges.

E-Commerce Times: Is SEO's impact more critical for commerce in general or e-commerce? Why?

Steve Wiideman: E-commerce is likely the most critical marketing tactic for businesses today for several reasons. It is much easier to track ROI on marketing efforts when a transaction can be tied to a specific medium, such as search, social, email, referral, or other marketing.

Secondly, many users save their information or register for an account when making a purchase, allowing advertisers to use remarketing strategies, newsletters, and loyalty programs, all of which reduce more expensive advertising mediums such as bidding on keywords in the Google Search Network.

What does successful SEO look like?

Wiideman: Successful SEO is measured through the use of simple key performance indicators, or KPI. The most important to many advertisers include the following:

a. YoY and MoM growth in revenue sourced from organic

b. YoY and MoM growth in revenue from maps and 3-Pack listings

Other KPI's that the various SEO team members might be monitoring, include:

a. Percentage improvement in technical site issues

b. Percentage improvement in mobile page speeds/load times

c. Average keyword position of keywords tracked and monitored (often segmented by category or business objectives)

d. Number of new inbound links earned through upper funnel/informational content (such as FAQ's)

A successful campaign will have initial KPI goals that are met and exceeded over the course of 12 months. Here is a link to a template we use with several of our restaurant chain clients. This template has evolved into a Google Data Studio dashboard over time but remains as relevant today as it ever did.

How can companies build an effective SEO strategy for 2021?

Wiideman: Companies can build an effective SEO strategy by dedicating one to three months toward research and planning, with the following deliverables from an experienced strategist:

a. Technical SEO Audit

b. Competitive "Baseline" Report

c. Link Audit and Strategy

d. Extensive Keyword Research (existing data and competitive insights)

e. Website Taxonomy and Information Architecture Plan (based on keyword research)

f. Local and/or E-commerce SEO Strategy

Once completed, the action items from the research are organized into a project management system such as Monday.com, Basecamp, Jira, or (our favorite) Smartsheets. Tasks are assigned, prioritized, and due dates are added to ensure accountability.

How has the COVID-19 global pandemic affected what and how people search the Internet?

Wiideman: The biggest shift we have seen in how users behave in search engines includes the use of the phrases "near me" and "online." With fewer shoppers going out to buy, online shopping is more important than ever. Having a mobile shopping experience built to require a visitor's thumb throughout the experience with no keyboard required is how businesses are maximizing visit-to-sale (conversion) rates.

As mentioned earlier, for the restaurant industry, addressing keywords by improving content can keep the kitchen lights on.

How can online merchants avoid SEO scams?

Wiideman: SEO today is starting to become more transparent. Business owners are not falling for the "we can rank you #1 in Google" spam calls as often. Instead, they are up late educating themselves as part of their survival strategy.

This is why we created our free SEO Masterclass to equip business owners with the education and training they need to manage SEO in-house and to prevent being taken advantage of by shrewd cold-callers.

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open-source technologies. He is an esteemed reviewer of Linux distros and other open-source software. In addition, Jack extensively covers business technology and privacy issues, as well as developments in e-commerce and consumer electronics. Email Jack.


Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
The mask is off. The RINO's are showing that NC's US Senate hopeful Mark Walker is one of theirs. A letter has recently been mass mailed to Republicans in North Carolina from one of the key RINO establishment leaders, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, supporting Walker for the GOP US Senate nomination in North Carolina. Ryan was known for constantly caving in to Democrats, working against conservative colleagues whenever he could plant a knife in their backs, pushing amnesty for illegal aliens, and being a spendthrift with our tax dollars while claiming not to be. Now he supports Mark Walker for US Senate. Walker had campaigned in his first House primary as someone who would stand up to Ryan, but as soon as he got to DC, he became Ryan's lap dog.

The only poll that has been taken for the US Senate primary shows NC native Lara Trump with a wide lead with former Governor McCrory th only other candidate in double digits, and Walker in the low single digits.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
JACKSON CENTER, PA / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Halberd Corporation's (OTC PINK:HALB) Chairman, President & CEO, William A. Hartman, was interviewed recently on The Stock Day Podcast, hosted by Everett Jolly. In the interview, Mr. Hartman reviewed the company's progress in developing SARS-CoV-2 spike protein antibodies and how they can be combined with other Halberd technologies in fighting Covid-19 and other diseases.

Hartman commented on Halberd's newly created antibody, which has been shown to have a 20 times greater affinity neutralizing than their initial antibody against the SARS-COV-2 antigen. "Our efforts have been focused on developing effective antibodies against not only the spike-protein, but also against the N-protein," Hartman said. "By publicizing our great progress, we might attract the interests of large company potential partners to assist in accelerating and achieving FDA approval and Emergency Use Authorization. Regardless, we plan to use our superior antibody in our other proprietary technologies, including our radio frequency extracorporeal treatment. Our scientific team agrees that the integration of our radio frequency extracorporeal treatment with the antibody, appears to be a potential break-through technology. If successful in this application, there is no reason why we couldn't be successful in eliminating all diseases."

Mr. Hartman outlined the radio-frequency (RF) experimentation being prepared together with GreenBioAz. Initial experimentation will be conducted on eliminating E. Coli bacteria in distilled water, and then moving to more complex media, such as Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF) and blood, and also address more contagious diseases. Arrangements are currently underway for the more complex media. Part of the planning deals with instituting the appropriate levels of radiofrequency to eradicate the antigen, adjusting for the effects of the medium itself.

Next, Mr. Hartman provided an update on the creation of Halberd's vitamin cocktail to boost the body's immunity and general health. While the name is not yet revealed, we anticipate generating revenue in the second or third quarter.

Mr. Hartman concluded, "We have significant patent opportunities in extracorporeal treatment of disease through radio frequency exposure. Technology will be the driver to our success in the future."

To listen to the Uptick Everett Jolly podcast, click here.

To get the latest news on Halberd's exciting developments, subscribe here and submit the form.

For more information please contact:

William A. Hartman

w.hartman@halberdcorporation.com

support@halberdcorporation.com

www.halberdcorporation.com

Twitter:@HalberdC

About "The Stock Day Podcast"

Founded in 2013, Stock Day is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Stock Day provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. The Stock Day Podcast is the number one radio show of its kind in America. Stock Day recently launched its Video Interview Studio located in Phoenix, Arizona.

About Halberd Corporation.

Halberd Corporation. (OTC PINK:HALB), is a publicly traded company on the OTC Market, and is in full compliance with OTC Market reporting requirements. Halberd's Articles of Incorporation prohibit the company from issuance of convertible debt which would result in dilution. See the company's Articles of Incorporation here.

The company holds the exclusive rights to the COVID-19 extracorporeal treatment technology provisional patent applications: "Method for Treating and Curing Covid-19 Infection;" "Method for Treating COVID-19 Inflammatory Cytokine Storm for the Reduction of Morbidity and Mortality in COVID-19 Patients;" "Method for Treating and Curing COVID-19 Infection by Utilizing a Laser to Eradicate the Virus," "Nasal Spray To Prevent The Transmission Of Covid-19 Between Humans," "Nasal Spray to Prevent the Transmission of Covid-19," "Method For Treating And Curing Covid-19 Infection By Utilizing Radiofrequency Extracorporeally To Eradicate The Virus," and "Medication For The Reduction Of Morbidity And Mortality In Persons Infected By Sars-Cov-2 (Covid-19 Virus)." Halberd also holds the exclusive rights to the underlying granted U.S. Patent 9,216,386 and U.S. Patent 8,758,287.

Safe Harbor Notice

Certain statements contained herein are "forward-looking statements" (as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). The Companies caution that statements, and assumptions made in this news release constitute forward-looking statements and makes no guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management at the time statements are made. These statements may address issues that involve significant risks, uncertainties, estimates made by management. Actual results could differ materially from current projections or implied results. The Companies undertake no obligation to revise these statements following the date of this news release.

Investor caution/added risk for investors in companies claiming involvement in COVID-19 initiatives -

On April 8, 2020, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and William Hinman, the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance, issued a joint public statement on the importance of disclosure during the COVID-19 crisis.

The SEC and Self-Regulatory Organizations are targeting public companies that claim to have products, treatment or other strategies with regard to COVID-19.

The ultimate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company's operations is unknown and will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence, including the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak. Additionally, new information may emerge concerning the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and any additional preventative and protective actions that governments, or the Company, may direct, which may result in an extended period of continued business disruption, reduced customer traffic and reduced operations. Any resulting financial impact cannot be reasonably estimated at this time.

We further caution investors that our primary focus and goal is to battle this pandemic for the good of the world. As such, it is possible that we may find it necessary to make disclosures which are consistent with that goal, but which may be adverse to the pecuniary interests of the Company and of its shareholders.

SOURCE: Halberd Corporation

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634235/Halberd-Corporations-CEO-Interviewed-on-The-Stock-Day-Podcast--Focus-on-Halberds-New-20x-Affinity-Neutralizing-SARS-COV-2-Antibody
Got some scoop for our reporters or editors? Click on the link below to send us your information.

Send your news
A Kildare taxi driver under financial pressure who was storing almost a quarter of a million euro of cocaine for drug dealers has been jailed for four and a half years.

Stephen Boylan (51), a separated father of two, was storing the drugs in a wooden cabin where he lived at the rear of a house.

Boylan of The Meadows, Newtown, Kill, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of the drugs for sale or supply at his home on May 28, 2020. He has no previous convictions.

Judge Martin Nolan noted in mitigation that Boylan had explained his role to gardai and followed that with an early guilty plea. He said Boylan was a good family man who was unlikely to reoffend.

He said Boylan had got in over his head and then felt he had to stay in, which was not unusual.

Judge Nolan said circumstances of the case allowed him to depart from the presumptive minimum mandatory sentence of ten years application to this offence. He imposed a four and a half year sentence.

Garda Michael Martin told Eoin Lawlor BL, prosecuting, that gardai acting on confidential information carried out a surveillance operation and searched a chalet or cabin in which Boylan was living in at the rear of a house.

In the wooden building they found cocaine valued at 245,388 and a small amount of cannabis.

Gardai also recovered bagging materials and a mobile phone with the app Wickr installed where messages are deleted after a period of time. He had been receiving instruction in relation to the drugs on the phone.

Boylan fully accepted his role and told gardai he had got about 1,000 over the time he had been holding the drugs. He said he had fallen into financial trouble and those involved had information on him so that he was unable to extricate himself. He said he did not pack drugs, only hold them.

The court heard he was separated from his wife and had lived in the cabin for 5 years.

Gda Martin agreed with Anne Marie Lawlor SC, defending, that Boylan had been prevailed upon by persons he came into contact with as he was a useful person for the transportation of drugs.

He agreed Boylan was on the very lowest rung and at the point he was apprehended he could not extricate himself as he was under some degree of pressure.

Ms Lawlor said in March 2020 Boylan's taxi business had hit a wall and prior to that he had lived a good life. She said he had made a grave error of judgement as a result of financial difficulties.

She handed in a enormous amount of testimonials illustrating that Boylan had led a blameless life until he had this error of judgement. She submitted it had been accepted by the gardai that at the point he was apprehended he had no choice.

Ms Lawlor said he has undertaken courses and volunteered while in custody, as well as holding a trusted position.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
Barcelona:

Spanish police on Monday shot dead a man who could be Younes Abouyaaqoub, the suspected driver of a van that mowed down pedestrians in Barcelona, amid a massive manhunt for the Moroccan national described as dangerous and likely armed.

"They have shot dead a suspect who could be the perpetrator of the attack", a source close to the probe told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Regional police confirmed a man wearing what appeared to be a suicide belt had been killed in Subirats, a village about 60 kilometres (37 miles) away from Barcelona, without identifying the individual.

Bomb disposal units have been dispatched to the site.

Earlier on Monday, police had launched an appeal for information about the 22-year-old fugitive, believed to be the last remaining member of a 12-man cell suspected of plotting last week's deadly attacks.

The other suspects have been killed by police or detained after the vehicle rampages in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the assaults, believed to be its first in Spain.

Read more: Russia: Knife attacker wounds 8, shot by police

Authorities on Monday raised the death toll to 15, confirming that Pau Perez, a 34-year-old man found stabbed to death in a Ford Focus outside Barcelona on Friday, was killed by Abouyaaqoub.

The police had fired at the car as it forced its way through a checkpoint shortly after the Barcelona carnage, and later found Perez in the vehicle.

Investigators believe the victim was the owner of the car, which was hijacked by Abouyaaqoub to make his getaway.

Describing Abouyaaqoub as around 1.8 metres (five feet, 11 inches) tall, police tweeted four photographs of the man with short black hair, including three pictures in which he was wearing a black and white striped T-shirt.

He is "dangerous and could be armed", police in Catalonia said.

Read more: Finland stabbing spree: Two dead, eight injured in Turku

Spanish authorities were also officially notifying European police of the identity of the suspect to enable the launch of a Europe-wide manhunt.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
On Monday, a fire broke out in a multi-story building housing offices of the Railways at Kolkata's Strand Road. The West Bengal state election is around the corner. Now, politics have started over the Kolkata fire.

On Monday, a fire broke out in a multi-story building housing offices of the Railways at Kolkatas Strand Road. According to ANI, the buildings 13th floor caught fire at 6.10 p.m., prompting the dispatch of eight fire tenders to the scene. The fire is said to have been started by a short-circuit.

The death toll from the fire has risen to nine, with two additional bodies discovered inside the building. The election is around the corner. Now, the politics have started over the Kolkata fire. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, slammed Indian railways, saying that no one came to the site and didnt provide the map of the building. However, Railway officials said that they were present there and efforts were made to provide whatever was required.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal expressed his condolences over the tragedy and announced that a high-level investigation committee of four Principal Heads of Railway Departments has been formed to determine the cause of the fire. He expressed his sincere condolences to the families of the 9 brave people who died fighting the fire at the Eastern Railways Strand road office in Kolkata, including 4 firefighters, 2 railways personnel, and an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police (ASI).

Read More: Spotlight on Indias role in Afghan peace talks: US proposes UN meeting of India, 5 other nations

The state government has declared that the families of those killed in the fire would get Rs 10 lakh in compensation, as well as a government job for a relative of each victim. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed his condolences and announced ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased, and Rs 50,000 to those who were seriously injured.

Houston residents whose water bills skyrocketed after last months winter storm would instead be charged their normal rates if city council on Wednesday approves a public works department plan to lower citywide water charges.

Some Houstonians received unusually steep February water bills after their homes suffered pipe bursts or water leaks due to last months winter freeze. Officials from Houston Public Works have proposed calculating a households water bill from last month based on its average monthly water consumption during the previous 12 months, unless the household used less water than usual in February.

If approved by city council, the bill adjustments automatically would apply to any single-family home in the city that saw its water charges increase last month. Residents of multi-family homes such as apartment complexes, along with commercial and industrial facility owners, would be required to apply for the adjustment and provide evidence of a claim from a private insurance company or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Those without such documentation may apply to pay half their full rate on excess water consumption from last month, under a city ordinance that allows for bill adjustments due to an inexcusable defect in a customers water line, according to the public works department.

Public works officials also are asking council members for authority to suspend late fee penalties for water bills due between Feb. 15 and March 15. And city officials plan to continue the moratorium on water service disconnections ordered by Mayor Sylvester Turner near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For now, residents who received an unexpectedly high water bill should pay the charge from January instead, said Erin Jones, a spokeswoman for Houston Public Works. The city will reimburse those who already paid the higher fee by applying a credit to their April bills  the difference between the higher bill and the amount they should have paid based on their average consumption for the 12 prior months.

Public works officials are still gauging the full scale of the storm damage, though Houston Public Works assistant director Erik Dunn said an estimated 25 percent of customers had a leak on their property during the storm. The city received more than 11,000 water service calls during and immediately after the freeze, Dunn told a city council committee earlier this month, but officials have said the number significantly verely underestimates the damage due to the number of people who did not report damage to City Hall.

Shortly after the storm, Turner said Houstonians would not be saddled with massive water charges stemming from storm damage, and he instructed the public works department to bring a bill adjustment plan before city council within weeks.

The goal is for you to not be encumbered with high water bills, Turner said Feb. 22. In fact, you will not be encumbered with high water bills.

After the storm, exorbitant electric bills across Texas made headlines, including one widely publicized case in a suburb of Dallas where an Army veteran who lives on Social Security received an electric bill for $16,752.

In the Houston area, CenterPoint Energy mistakenly emailed natural gas bills for $202,102.16 to about 27,000 customers. The company swiftly corrected the error and told customers to disregard the charge.

Water rates vary based on a number of factors  the size of a customers water meter, the amount of water they consume and whether they live in a single-family, duplex or multi-family residence  which makes it difficult to estimate the scale of the over-charges. It also is unclear how many Houston water customers would see their bills reduced if city council signs off on the proposal, though Jones said bills with the higher amounts already have been sent out.

The city, which gets most of its water from lakes Livingston, Conroe and Houston, still has to pay its own water bills for the citys overall supply. Jones said city officials may be able to secure federal aid to cover the cost of relieving residents excess water bills.

jasper.scherer@chron.com
If the mud bricks and limestone that make up the Great Ziggurat temple in Ur could talk, they may first tell you about one of the worlds early urban centers that emerged more than 6,000 years ago.They may speak of the birth of Abraham, the patriarch of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths. You may even hear a whisper of Assyria or Babylon, the invention of the wheel or the Code of Hammurabi.

And now they may tell of the March 6 visit by Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church and the sovereign of the Vatican City State, who led prayers alongside leaders of the Muslim, Yazidi and Sanaean faiths. Francis stopped in the ancient city during his historic three-day trip to Iraq March 5-8, the first ever papal visit to the country. His trip sought to uplift Iraqs remaining Christians, encourage those who left to return and promote a message of interfaith tolerance.

Today we  Jews, Christians and Muslims, together with our brothers and sisters of other religions  honor our father Abraham by doing as he did: we look up to heaven and we journey on earth, Francis said.

Located a few hundred miles south of Baghdad, Ur was built by the Sumerians around 3,800 BC. It was initially near the Euphrates, but the river has since shifted. The city grew to feature markets, agricultural villages and important transit routes with other cities.

As the birthplace of the father of the three major monotheistic religions, the site was a fitting backdrop for an interfaith dialogue, Francis said. It brought the leaders of different religions back to our origins, to the sources of Gods work, to the birth of our religions.

Before a socially distanced crowd that spoke to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country, Francis and other leaders urged Iraqis to be hospitable to those of different faiths and to welcome everyone.

The message echoed comments Francis made earlier in the day in a meeting with Iraqs top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in a first-of-its-kind meeting in the holy city of Najaf. The two had a very positive meeting that lasted about 45 minutes and underlined the importance of collaboration, according to a statement from the Vatican.

The religious authority plays a role in protecting Christians and others who have suffered injustice and harm in the past, a release from Sistanis office said after the meeting.

Other religious leaders hope that Francis trip will prompt more interfaith dialogue into the future.

I hope this first visit will be followed by other visits and that institutes will be established here for mutual understanding and interchange where students from the Vatican can come to Iraq to study for one or two years and our students can go to Christian institutes, Mahdi Al-Nasiri, a cleric in Nassriyah, told Al Jazeeras Simona Foltyn.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion, the Christian population of Iraq, consisting largely of Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs, has dwindled from about 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand today.

The 2014 assault by the Islamic State displaced hundreds of thousands more from their historic homelands as well as destroyed historical sites, manuscripts and artifacts. Those items are more than museum pieces, a representative of the Shlama Foundation, a group that serves the country's Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac populations, told Al-Monitor. They show the existence of this community and establish ties between it and the land it has called home for millennia.

Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul and Akra Najeeb Michaeel reminded Iraqis that while the Islamic State killed thousands of Yazidis and Christians, they targeted all of humanity and also killed many Muslims.

Today in Mosul, a majority of the people dont accept what ISIS was doing, Michaeel said. Some of them tell me, Father, we beg your pardon, we are very sorry about what happened to you. Its not us, they imposed on us their own ideology, which is also against Islam.

Following the trip to Ur, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi declared March 6 as a national day of tolerance and coexistence.

This dear visit, with all its welcome and national consensus on the success of its noble purposes, represented a bright spot that embodied the essence of our loving, sincere, civilized people who believe in the values of justice and peace, Kadhimi said.
LANSING, MI - The Michigan House approved a series of election reforms Tuesday, including a package addressing recommended changes by the states auditor general.

A report from the auditor general in 2019 recommended multiple ways to improve the election process, including cleaning up the qualified voter files list of names, ensuring better training of local clerks and improving campaign finance reporting.

House Bills 4127-4131 aim to address these issues, while two additional bills from Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, would formalize the absentee ballot mailing and counting process for local precincts.

House Bills 4127 through 4131 passed by the following margins, in order: 61-48, 66-43, 87-22, 109-0 and 108-1.

Bollins legislation, or House Bills 4134-4135, both passed, the first by a 79-30 margin and the second with a 104-5 vote.

The auditor-recommended reform package had three Republican (Reps. Matt Hall of Marshall, Julie Calley of Portland and Steve Marino of Harrison Twp.) and two Democratic sponsors (Reps. Matt Koleszar of Plymouth and Terry Sabo of Muskegon).

Democrats such as Reps. Tyrone Carter of Detroit, Kara Hope of Holt and Darrin Camilleri of Browntown spoke against the bills, saying they send a message that the November 2020 election was flawed. Carter said lawmakers shouldnt fix what isnt broken, while Hope said the measures make voting harder.

We live and serve in a representative Democracy, Hope said on the House floor. Michigan voters have expressed loudly and passionately that they want to make voting easier... (these bills) address a problem that doesnt exist.

Hall countered by saying he understands concerns from Democrats, but they are focused on a different fight. The bills are about the auditor general report from more than a year before conspiracy theories about last falls presidential election emerged, he said.

I heard concerns from many people across the state whether they could trust the election process, Hall said. Their confidence was shaken I understand the arguments here today, but I think theyre focused on a different fight.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced last month that all 250 of Michigans election audits are completed and none turned up evidence of foul play in the 2020 General Election.

The bills, in order, would:

Require the Michigan Secretary of State to remove voters from the qualified voter file who dont respond to requests to update their birthdates. This addresses the audits recommendation to remove people that appear on the file as older than 122, or the oldest recorded person in the state.

Remove voters who have not voted since the 2000 general election in November and fail to respond to requests to update their information.

Require the Secretary of State to post the names of clerks who have not completed required training, but only in odd-numbered years.

Move back the timeline for lobbyists to submit their reports back a month. This means reports need to be in by Feb. 28 for the preceding reporting period of Aug. 31 to Jan. 31. The second report needs to be made by Sep. 30 for the preceding Jan. 31 to Aug. 31.

Extend by one month the deadline to correct errors and omissions in filed campaign finance statements.

House Bill 4134 from Bollin requires county, city and township clerks to maintain a list of permanent absent voters that only those local clerks can maintain. Voters could apply with their clerks to be placed on that list, and they would automatically be mailed an absentee ballot application before every election.

Republican state lawmakers have questioned Secretary of State Jocelyn Bensons decision to send absentee ballot applications en masse to Michigan voters, so this bill would consolidate those efforts to local precincts. Hall noted that Benson knew of the 2019 report, but decided to mass mail applications anyway.

I think its notable that the Secretary of State knew of these issues and decided to mail out applications anyway, he said.

Read more: 10 ideas Michigan officials have to change the states election process

Another provision in HB 4134 is increasing the maximum number of electors, or voters, allowed in a precinct from 2,999 to 4,000 starting in 2022. Additionally, it allow precincts to be consolidated for any election except the November general election so long as it occurred at least 60 days before an election and didnt change the polling place for an election precinct.

HB 4135 would require cities and townships with two precincts and more than 6,000 electors to have an absent voter counting board for both precincts, and require an absent voting counting board for each precinct for cities and townships with more than three precincts.

Bollins legislation was co-sponsored mostly by Republicans, but also by Hope.

Read more from MLive:

Michigan completes general election audits, no foul play found

COVID-19 aid, confidentiality agreements, guns and LGBT rights: The week in Michigan politics

Lawmakers face reckoning on expanding LGBT protections in civil rights act, supporters say
LOBAMBA  Government is not prepared to honour the House of Assemblys resolution, calling for the review of its decision to extend the partial lockdown by a period of two weeks.

This was evident in a report which was tabled by the Acting Prime Minister, Themba Masuku, in the House yesterday. The motion had been passed last week after it was moved by Lobamba Lomdzala Member of Parliament Marwick Khumalo and supported by Manzini South MP Thandi Nxumalo, that government should review this decision within 48 hours.

In his response, the acting PM stated that the COVID-19 pandemic was still prevalent in the country and the kingdom had not yet reached a stage where they may start relaxing all sectors of the economy. Masuku stated that the country was still reporting on average 25 cases per day, as observed in the past week.

Advice

He said according to health advice, they needed a baseline averaging 10 new cases a day consistently to be able to ease these restrictions. Government has taken the tough decision to extend the partial lockdown restrictions by a further two weeks primarily to protect all the people of Eswatini, said Masuku. He stated that the decision taken by government was, therefore, informed by logic based on scientific facts, adding that there was nothing as precious and important as life. Masuku said there was still a danger of an emergence of new variants which may be more transmissible and deadly. The acting PM said the circulation of more transmissible viruses needed to be stopped further. I can inform the House that as a country, we have now received confirmation that the dangerous variant known as coronavirus 501Y.V2, which was first reported in South Africa last year, is the majority variant (88 per cent) found in the country, following a batch of samples that were tested for the variant, said Masuku.

He reported that this showed that the country was still in real danger and, therefore, a further extension of the restrictions would protect the nation from an early resurgence of new cases caused by the dangerous variant. Masuku said to date, the total number of people who had died in the country was 658, which translated to a significant number of fatalities for a population of just over a million. He said the large majority of the deaths were recorded between December 2020 and February 2021 at the height of the second wave. The pain that the country experienced due to the second wave was unbearable and should not be experienced again, he said.

Imminent

Masuku informed the legislators that health experts had warned that a third wave was imminent in a few weeks as some countries overseas were now edging closer to the third wave projected to be even more deadlier. Masuku said Eswatini had learned from the first and second waves that preparedness was not an option, but a necessity. We need to delay the start of the third wave, he said. He said with the understanding that the coronavirus mutates, it was projected that more virulent variants would come with the third wave. He stated that government needed to buy more time to be fully prepared for the third wave in order to save lives. He said the primary responsibility of any government was to protect its citizens.

We have a responsibility to ensure that all sectors of the economy are only opened when it is safe to do so with minimal threat to the to the lives of emaSwati and residents of the kingdom, said Masuku.

Meanwhile, the acting PM said the Ministry of Health was working closely with the Ministry of Education and Training to continue expanding services in preparation for the reopening of schools, taking into consideration that decentralisation of services for testing, isolation and treatment were critical in order for learners, teachers, parents and guardians to be protected from the effects of the virus. He said the Ministry of Education and Training had developed a comprehensive plan to safely and innovatively reopen schools. He said the plan served the country well when completing classes resumed after the first wave last year.

Masks

He stated that hand-washing facilities were built in most schools, 250 000 masks were bought for scholars and educators and a physical distancing protocol was established in all schools.

Masuku said additional testing kioks had been opened to increase testing points for scholars so as to minimise long queues when they needed to test. He said currently, the Manzini Region had 14 testing points, Hhohho Region with 16, while the Lubombo Region had seven and Shiselweni had five. He stated that another 100 additional testing points would be established in the regions over the next two weeks and the rest would be rolled out by the end of March 2021. Masuku said additional isolation facilities had also been opened in each region to bring them closer to pupils and teachers with 12 being in Manzini, seven in Hhhohho and three and five respectively in the Shiselweni and Lubombo regions.
Biden Expected to Nominate Critic of Big Tech to F.T.C. This briefing has ended. Follow our latest coverage of markets, business and the economy.

Lina Khan, a Big Tech critic, is expected to be nominated to the Federal Trade Commission. Lina Khan, an associate professor at Columbia Law School, wrote an influential 2016 paper accusing Amazon of abusing its power. Credit... Lexey Swall for The New York Times WASHINGTON  President Biden is expected to name Lina Khan, a law professor and leading critic of the tech industrys power, to a seat on the Federal Trade Commission, a person with knowledge of the decision said on Tuesday. An appointment of Ms. Khan, the author of a breakthrough Yale Law Journal paper in 2016 that accused Amazon of abusing its monopoly power, would be the latest sign that the Biden administration planned to take an aggressive posture toward tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Last week, the administration said Tim Wu, another top critic of the industry, would join the National Economic Council as a special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy. Ms. Khan recently served as legal counsel for the House Judiciarys antitrust subcommittee and was among aides who conducted a 19-month investigation into the tech giants monopoly power. The committee produced a report advocating major changes to antitrust laws. Before that, she served as an aide to a member of the Federal Trade Commission, Rohit Chopra, a champion of her ideas on antitrust policy. Ms. Khan, an associate professor at Columbia Law School, would fill one of three Democratic seats on the five-member F.T.C. In December, the commission sued Facebook, accusing it of antitrust violations, and called for breaking up the company. The agency is also investing Amazon for antitrust violations. Rumors of Ms. Khans appointment, which were reported earlier by Politico, immediately sparked strong reactions on Tuesday. Public Citizen, a left-leaning nonprofit public advocacy group, cheered the possibility. The organization and many progressive groups have denounced the F.T.C.s history  particularly during the Obama administration  for lax enforcement of technology companies. They argue that the federal governments permissive attitude toward mergers by the tech giants, including Facebooks acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, helped the Silicon Valley companies grow quickly and dominate their rivals.



The F.T.C. has failed to take on corporate abuses of power including rampant antitrust violations, privacy intrusions, data security breaches and mergers, and Khans appointment as a commissioner at the agency hopefully will herald a new day, Public Citizen said in a statement. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, the ranking Republican on the Senate antitrust subcommittee, said Ms. Khan would be a bad fit for the job, however. Her views on antitrust enforcement are also wildly out of step with a prudent approach to the law, Mr. Lee said in a statement. Nominating Ms. Khan would signal that President Biden intends to put ideology and politics ahead of competent antitrust enforcement, which would be gravely disappointing at a time when it is absolutely critical that we have strong and effective leadership at the enforcement agencies.

The top editor at NewsNation, a new cable news entrant, departs amid staff turmoil. Joe Donlon interviews President Donald J. Trump in September on NewsNation. The show has since grown into a network. The highest ranking editor at NewsNation, a newcomer to cable news that markets itself as delivering straight-ahead, unbiased news reporting, has resigned. She is the third top editor to quit in recent months as some staff have complained of a rightward shift at the network. Jennifer Lyons, NewsNations vice president of news, had decided to depart the channel, effective immediately, the companys staff were told at a meeting on Tuesday. Sandy Pudar, the news director, left on Feb. 2, and Richard Maginn, the managing editor, resigned on March 1. Ms. Lyons did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Texas-based Nexstar Media, which owns NewsNation, said in a statement that it was Ms. Lyonss decision to leave and that the search for her replacement was underway. At Tuesdays staff meeting in Chicago, Perry A. Sook, the chief executive of Nexstar, sought to reassure staff of his commitment to NewsNation after several employees raised concerns about its editorial direction and the involvement of Bill Shine, a former Fox News co-president who was hired to lead communications for the Trump White House. The concerns among employees were detailed in a New York Times article earlier this week. Despite reports to the contrary that you may read, were committed to the vision of unbiased reporting, he said during the meeting, according to a recording of the comments obtained by The New York Times. But obviously along the way there will be growing pains. In order for us to establish our product and to grow our viewership were going to have to try new things to gain some traction. Mr. Sook, asked by a staff member about Mr. Shine, said he had not been in the NewsNation building and did not dictate content. This guy was in the room where it happened 25 years ago and helped to build the channel to where it is, Mr. Sook said of Mr. Shines experience at Fox News. Why would we not avail ourselves of his expertise? NewsNation launched on Sept. 1 as a prime-time national newscast on the cable channel WGN America. It promised an antidote to the more partisan programming of CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. On March 1, WGN America was rebranded as NewsNation and more news shows were introduced.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

Puerto Ricos bankruptcy board offers pensioners a better deal. Pedro R. Pierluisi, the governor of Puerto Rico, has warned he will fight any cuts to pensions. Credit... Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times The board leading Puerto Rico through its sprawling bankruptcy case issued a new proposal for resolving $85 billion in debt and pensions late Monday, saying retirees would collectively get 95 cents on the dollar if they accepted  a better deal than they were offered before the pandemic. This is a major milestone on the road to recovery, Natalie Jaresko, the boards executive director, said in a news conference on Tuesday. She said that if the new deal is approved, Puerto Rico will have settled 90 percent of the $123 billion in debt and other obligations that the territory owed in 2017, when it entered a court-controlled program to rescue it from insolvency. Puerto Ricos case has been set back by a catastrophic hurricane, a series of earthquakes, and now the pandemic. The board decided to revisit a previous offer, made in 2019, with the goal of improving the territorys prospects for economic recovery from the pandemic. No one wants Puerto Rico to be restructuring its debt again in 10 to 12 years, Ms. Jaresko said. The new offer would cut retirees pensions if they exceed $1,500 a month. Excess would be cut by 8.5 percent. More than 70 percent of the retirees are below the cutoff and would not have their pensions reduced, making the overall reduction 5 percent. Creditors must still approve the new settlement. But the governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro R. Pierluisi, would have to sign any laws necessary for the deal to work and has warned that he will fight any pension cuts. The deal must also be approved by the federal judge hearing Puerto Ricos case, Laura Taylor Swain of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Before the pandemic, the board proposed trimming pensions over $1,200 a month. (It did not propose cutting pensions above that amount by 10 percent, as was previously reported here.) The terms were improved, in part, because the board wanted to restore economic growth on the island and saw the retirees continued purchasing power as key. If the retirees reject the new terms, Ms. Jaresko said, they will be given the lesser ones from the previous offer. Two weeks ago, the board announced a preliminary deal with some of the islands bondholders, who are being offered much less than the retirees but would also receive about $7 billion in cash up front and additional money if economic growth exceeds certain benchmarks. Should the pension offer be approved, the biggest hurdle left would be the bonds issued by special-purpose government entities like the Electric Power Authority, which are being restructured in separate court proceedings.

BuzzFeed lays off 47 HuffPost workers weeks after acquisition. Jonah Peretti, the chief executive of BuzzFeed, in 2016. He told staff the layoffs were meant to stem losses at HuffPost. Credit... Cole Wilson for The New York Times When BuzzFeed announced last year that it would buy HuffPost, it was expected that cost-cutting would follow the completion of the deal. On Tuesday, less than a month after the acquisition went through, BuzzFeed laid off 47 workers at HuffPost and closed the publications Canadian edition. At a virtual company meeting, BuzzFeeds chief executive, Jonah Peretti, said the layoffs were meant to stem losses at HuffPost. HuffPost, which was previously owned by Verizon Media, lost more than $20 million last year and was on track to lose the same amount this year, Mr. Peretti told the staff according to an account of the meeting provided by BuzzFeed. Employees were given a password to enter the meeting  spr!ngisH3r3, a variation on the phrase spring is here. The staff members were then informed that if they did not receive an email by 1 p.m., their jobs were safe. The website Defector first reported on the password and other details of the meeting, which were confirmed by two people who attended the meeting and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. A BuzzFeed spokesman told The New York Times that the company regretted the passwords tone. The HuffPost Union, which is affiliated with the Writers Guild of America East, said in a statement that the layoffs had affected 33 of its members, nearly a third of the local union. We are devastated and infuriated, particularly after an exhausting year of covering a pandemic and working from home, the union said in a statement. As part of the cutbacks, BuzzFeed closed HuffPost Canada and announced plans to decrease the size of its operations in Australia and Britain, the BuzzFeed spokesman said. At the end of the austerity measures, HuffPost would still have a larger newsroom than BuzzFeed News, the spokesman added. In the meeting, Mr. Peretti said that HuffPosts executive editor, Hillary Frey, and its international executive editor, Louise Roug, had decided to leave the company. HuffPost has been without an editor in chief since Lydia Polgreen departed a year ago to become the head of content at Gimlet Media, a Spotify-owned podcasting company. Mr. Peretti said he expected to announce Ms. Polgreens successor in the coming weeks. Whoever takes the job will report to Mark Schoofs, BuzzFeed Newss editor in chief. At the meeting, Mr. Peretti reiterated that BuzzFeed and HuffPost would remain distinct from each other, with separate editorial staffs.

Disneyland will reopen in late April, Disneys chief executive says. By the time Disneyland reopens, it will be the last of the companys six theme park resorts to come back online. Credit... Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times Disneyland, which has been closed for a year, will reopen in late April. Bob Chapek, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, announced the time frame on Tuesday at the companys annual shareholder meeting but did not give a specific date. California officials announced on Friday that theme parks in the state could reopen on a limited basis as soon as April 1. Eligibility, however, will depend on coronavirus transmission statistics in individual counties. For instance, theme parks in counties where the virus threat remains the most severe (in the purple tier under the states system) must remain closed. But parks in areas where the threat of infection has eased somewhat (red tier) will be allowed to reopen at 15 percent capacity. Even less threat (orange tier) will allow for 25 percent capacity, ultimately rising to 35 percent for the lowest threat (yellow). California will restrict attendance to in-state visitors. Regulators will also restrict indoor dining. Some indoor rides may be required to remain closed. Disneyland is in Orange County, which is in the purple tier. But if coronavirus cases continue to decline in Southern California at the current pace, the county could fall within the orange tier by late April. The Walt Disney Company said last year that reopening a park at less than 25 percent capacity would not make economic sense. Before the pandemic, roughly 32,000 people worked at the 486-acre Disneyland Resort, which includes two separately ticketed theme parks, three Disney-owned hotels and an outdoor shopping mall. Some furloughed employees have already returned; the Downtown Disney retail district, for instance, reopened over the summer. Mr. Chapek said that roughly 10,000 additional furloughed employees would be called back for the April limited reopening of rides and hotels. By the time Disneyland reopens, it will be the last of the companys six theme park resorts to come back online. (The others are in Orlando, Fla.; Paris; Hong Kong; Tokyo; and Shanghai.) Mr. Chapek said the still-closed Disney Cruise Line may have limited sailings by the fall. In other shareholder meeting news, Disney disclosed that its streaming service, Disney+, now has more than 100 million paying subscribers worldwide. And Robert A. Iger, who passed the chief executive baton to Mr. Chapek last year and transitioned to an executive chairman role, reiterated his intention to leave the company at the end of December.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

The House passed a major expansion of labor rights, but its likely headed for G.O.P. obstacles in the Senate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Capitol on Tuesday. Democrats have embraced the bill as a centerpiece of their agenda. Credit... Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times The House on Tuesday approved the most significant expansion of labor rights since the New Deal, advancing a bill that would neutralize right-to-work laws in 27 states and bolster workers ability to unionize after years of eroding clout. The bill, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, would amend a decades-old labor law to protect workers seeking to form a union from retribution or firing, strengthen the governments power to punish employers who violate workers rights and outlaw mandatory meetings that employers often rely on to try to quash an organizing drive. It would also make it harder for companies like Uber and Lyft to classify workers as independent contractors, paving the way for a potentially dramatic expansion in the pool of workers eligible to unionize. The measure was all but certain to run into a brick wall of opposition in the Senate, where 60 votes would be needed to advance it past a filibuster and Republicans are broadly opposed. It passed the House 225 to 206, with five Republicans joining Democrats in favor. Democrats, led by President Biden, have embraced the bill as a centerpiece of their agenda, seeking to elevate labor rights as an answer to economic and racial inequality and woo back white working-class voters who abandoned the party for former President Donald J. Trump. It comes as Mr. Biden, an outspoken defender of unions, has already taken an unusually active stance to wade into a battle over unionization at Amazon. As America works to recover from the devastating challenges of deadly pandemic, an economic crisis, and reckoning on race that reveals deep disparities, we need to summon a new wave of worker power to create an economy that works for everyone, Mr. Biden said in a statement on Tuesday. Business groups and most Republicans fiercely oppose the measure, arguing that it is a giveaway to union leaders by Democrats looking for campaign donations. They contend that it would hurt workers, trample on states rights and decimate businesses at a time when thousands of small companies have folded because of the economic turmoil surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. The bill is radical, backward-looking legislation, which will diminish the rights of workers and employers while harming the economy and providing a political gift to labor unions and their special interests, Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said during the Houses debate. The vote on the labor bill is one of almost a dozen House Democrats are plotting this month to push forward a flurry of long-sought liberal priorities on gun safety, gay rights, immigration, voting rights and other issues that would reshape the economy and several aspects of American society. Each faces similarly long odds in the Senate, but Democrats are working to ratchet up pressure on Republicans ahead of the 2022 midterm elections while persuading conservative Democrats to agree to eliminate the filibuster to achieve lasting policy changes.

Boeing sold more planes than were canceled last month as it regains its footing. Boeing received 82 new airplane orders in February, it said, about half of them for the 737 Max. Credit... Eduardo Munoz/Reuters Boeing said on Tuesday that it sold 31 airplanes in February after accounting for cancellations, the first month in more than a year that the aerospace giant had positive sales, suggesting that it is starting to regain its footing after the 737 Max crisis. The Max was banned from flying passengers two years ago this week after a total of 346 people died in a pair of crashes aboard the plane, prompting intense scrutiny of the plane and the company. But late last year, the Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on the plane, allowing the Max to begin carrying passengers again after required changes are made. Most of the worlds 190 aviation authorities have now approved the Max to fly again, according to Boeing, and 14 airlines have used the plane for more than 9,000 flights. Sales of the plane have rebounded, too. On Tuesday, Boeing said it had received 82 new airplane orders in February, about half of them for the Max, including a large order from United Airlines. Another 51 aircraft orders were canceled, and the company now has 4,041 orders in its backlog. It was Boeings first month of positive sales since November 2019, but its difficulties are far from over. The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged the travel sector, prompting airlines to cancel orders and rethink plans to expand or update their fleets. And Boeing has also halted deliveries of the 787, a twin-aisle plane, amid quality concerns. And the company is facing lawsuits over the Max from shareholders who say it mismanaged its response to the crisis and the families of those who were killed. The first Max crash occurred in October 2018 in Indonesia. The second happened two years ago this Wednesday in Ethiopia. To mark that grim milestone, the families of people who died in the crashes plan to host a vigil outside the F.A.A. in Washington, and some are scheduled to meet the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, to discuss their concerns about the safety of the Max.

Tech rebound leads Wall Street higher. Stocks around the world rose on Tuesday as bond yields fell back from their recent highs. Tech stocks regained their footing, leading Wall Street higher. The S&P 500 climbed 1.4 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 3.7 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 index climbed about 0.8 percent, led by utilities and tech stocks. The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell to 1.54 percent. Tech stocks have borne the brunt of the stock market volatility in recent weeks amid rising bond yields and inflation fears. There has been some concern that stronger economic growth will lead to inflation, and that central bankers would respond by tightening monetary policy. On Monday, the Nasdaq dropped 2.4 percent, ending the day more than 10 percent off its January peak. A drop that large is known as a correction. The S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent on Monday. These concerns appeared to have been set aside on Tuesday, as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said it expected the American economy to grow 6.5 percent this year because of the Biden administrations $1.9 trillion stimulus package and the widening availability of coronavirus vaccine. Thats more than double the pace of growth the organization predicted in December. In other upbeat economic news, there was an unexpected increase in German exports in January. Analysts at Citigroup said they had expected the pandemic and supply chain disruptions to cause exports to drop alongside imports. Instead, this data is a large upside risk to their G.D.P. forecasts for the first three months of the year, the analysts said. It remains to be seen whether more market participants will buy the message from central bankers that the risks of high and sustained inflation are low. On Monday, Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary and former chair of the Federal Reserve, also said she didnt believe the stimulus package would lead to higher inflation. I really dont think that is going to happen, Ms. Yellen said on MSNBC, adding that she expected the economy to be back to full employment by next year. She added, though, that there were tools available if the spending did prove to be inflationary. On Wednesday, U.S. inflation data for February will be published. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast the annual inflation rate will climb to 1.7 percent from 1.4 percent.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

White House says Bidens name wont appear on future stimulus checks. President Biden visited a hardware store in Washington on Tuesday. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times The next round of stimulus checks that Congress is expected to approve this week will not include President Bidens name, a White House official said on Tuesday, a decision that breaks with the practice of his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump, who sought to take credit for the payments by personally branding them. Millions of Americans are expected to receive direct payments of up to $1,400 in the coming weeks once Congress enacts a $1.9 trillion relief package. Most of those payments will be made electronically, by direct deposit, but some Americans will receive paper checks in the mail. The last two rounds of checks included Mr. Trumps name, along with a signed letter accompanying the funds, prompting criticism from Democrats and watchdog groups that he was politicizing the relief money, which passed on a bipartisan basis. He did not want his name to appear on the checks, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters, and he didnt think that was a priority. The announcement came as Mr. Biden visited a hardware store in Washington to promote the Paycheck Protection Program, a small-business lending program that was started under Mr. Trump but has been criticized for allowing money to go to big companies rather than mom-and-pop shops. A lot of money went to people who shouldnt have gotten help, Mr. Biden said to the employees of , W.S. Jenks & Son, which received a loan from the program along with Little Wild Things Farm, an adjoining business. Mr. Biden, who announced changes to the program that were intended to get more funds to smaller businesses, said that Mr. Trump had not done enough to fairly distribute the loans. In the previous round of P.P.P., in the previous administration, there was documented problems from the inspector general of the Small Business Administration that tens of thousands of companies that were not eligible for P.P.P. ended up receiving it, Bharat Ramamurti, a deputy director of the National Economic Council, told reporters when he was asked to explain what the president meant. Weve changed that. The Paycheck Protection Program has made some $687 billion in loans to more than 7 million borrowers since last spring, according to data from the Small Business Administration. But it has also been plagued with problems. The Trump administration initially put few safeguards on the application process, allowing large, often publicly-traded companies to qualify for loans. Recipients have complained that their applications were delayed by technology glitches. A single typo could tank an application. The Biden administration announced a series of changes to the program late last month, including opening a two-week window to better prioritize businesses that employ fewer than 20 people. as well as those owned by noncitizens who are lawful residents of the United States. Mr. Ramamurti said that the two-week period led to an increase in loans to minority and women borrowers, and the administration logged 200,000 loans to first-time borrowers. Theres still plenty of money available, he said. The White House is under pressure from banks to extend the deadline for loans past March 31, the date the program is set to expire, because of the influx of applications. Several lawmakers have signaled a willingness to extend the deadline, but the White House did not respond to a request for comment on a possible extension on Tuesday. The program has historically been a rare opportunity for bipartisan negotiation  Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, has gone so far as to call it a slam dunk  but economists have said it has saved relatively few jobs at a high cost. On Thursday, Mr. Biden will deliver a prime-time television address from the White House, marking the one-year anniversary of widespread shutdowns caused by the pandemic. Mr. Biden is expected to showcase his economic relief plan and outline the measures his administration is taking to help workers and businesses recover from the pandemic downturn. Katie Rogers and
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbhahrain.com

Bahrain has strongly condemned Iran-backed Houthi militias attacks on oil tanks in Ras Tanura Port and Aramco facilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with explosives-laden drones on Sunday.

During yesterdays weekly online meeting chaired by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, the Cabinet stressed the firm position of the Kingdom in supporting Saudi Arabia against all attempts targeting its sovereignty, security and stability.

The Cabinet said that such reckless actions threaten the lives of innocent civilians as well as the security of global energy-supply chains, calling it a flagrant violation of international law.

It expressed support for all measures taken by Saudi Arabia to protect its national security and the safety of its citizens and residents against the terrorist acts.

The Cabinet recognised the importance of ongoing cooperation between the executive and legislative authorities, noting that effective cooperation between the two branches has ensured citizens needs are met in the states general budget for the fiscal years 2021-2022.

On the occasion of International Womens Day, the Cabinet underlined progress made in the political, economic and social lives of Bahraini women as a direct result of ongoing work and initiatives by the Supreme Council for Women, under the leadership of Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, President of the Supreme Council for Women.

The Cabinet also welcomed public authority monitoring and auditing of expatriate-workers accommodation to ensure compliance with COVID-19 safety measures, and directed a review of related regulation.
Youth climate activists are trying to revive their suit against the federal government by changing tack.

They filed a motion Tuesday in federal court in Eugene to amend their suit, Juliana v. United States, by adjusting the outcome they seek.

A three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year found a federal judge lacked the power to order or design a climate recovery plan in the high-profile climate change lawsuit, noting that such a remedy required complex policy decisions and should be made instead by the nations politicians or voters.

Twenty-one young people sued the government six years ago, asserting a constitutional right to a sustainable climate and asked the federal court to order the United States to prepare an energy plan that transitions the country away from fossil fuels.

Now, their attorneys are asking a U.S. District Court judge to allow them to amend their suit to seek a more limited outcome: a ruling that the nations fossil fuel-based energy system is unconstitutional.

Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for Eugene-based Our Childrens Trust, which represents the plaintiffs, said such a court finding would hold current and future lawmakers accountable for protecting the rights of youth. The plaintiffs are now ages 13 to 24.

Plaintiffs seek declaratory relief that the United States national energy system that creates the harmful conditions described herein has violated and continues to violate the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Plaintiffs constitutional rights to substantive due process and equal protection of the law, the motion to amend the complaint says.

This relief is squarely within the constitutional and statutory power of Article III courts to grant, would wholly and partially redress Plaintiffs ongoing injuries caused by Defendants ongoing policies and practices, and therefore cures the standing deficiencies identified by the Ninth Circuit, the motion says.

The lawyers further argue that courts have the duty to decide the merits of a complaint, separate from the appropriateness of relief sought.

If the fossil fuel energy system is declared unconstitutional, there will be an expectation that government officials would take steps to abide by the law, the lawyers argue.

Critically, here, the real, earnest and vital controversy between Plaintiffs and Defendants over the constitutionality of the United States national energy system is live and pressing and in need of this Courts judgment, according to the motion.

The youth activists lawyers quoted from a U.S. Supreme Court opinion issued Monday that revived a former Georgia college students lawsuit against the school that blocked his evangelizing on campus.

The climate activists motion noted a point made in the lone dissent by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Even in dissent, Chief Justice Roberts confirms the central role of the Judiciary may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment, [b]ut that power of judgment can nonetheless bind the Executive and Legislature. "

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
Firm Aims to Become the Key Strategic Partner for Institutions Seeking Exposure to the Digital Asset Industry

ST. HELIER, Jersey, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Komainu , a regulated digital asset custody services provider built by institutions for institutions, today announced the closing of a $25 million Series A fundraise. This new financing round will expand Komainu's global presence and accelerate growth plans. The $25M Series A was led by Alan Howard of Elwood Asset Management, with additional participation from Galaxy Digital, NOIA Capital and Nomura Research Institute (NRI), each of whom will act as strategic partners to the business.

Komainu was created as a joint venture between global investment bank Nomura, digital asset security firm Ledger, and digital asset investment house CoinShares . All three firms also contributed to this round of financing, reconfirming their commitment to the business. Komainu was established in 2018 to fill a gap in the marketplace and provide institutions with a secure and compliant custody service for investment in digital assets. Launched in June 2020, Komainu currently holds over $3B in assets under custody from asset managers, financial institutions, corporations, and government agencies.

The funds will allow Komainu to expand its custody solution to support additional assets and functionality, grow geographically, and to provide complementary services in the digital asset prime brokerage business. Through these innovations, Komainu will continue to bridge the gap between legacy finance and the growing digital asset class, revolutionizing how a technology-oriented custodian integrates into institutional-grade digital asset prime brokerage services.

Komainu President, Henson Orser, commented on today's news: "Komainu will continue to build the future of digital asset custody, extending beyond simply the storage of assets, to a core strategic pillar of any investment management strategy. We are grateful to the entire Komainu ecosystem - our team, investors, partners, and clients - for sharing our vision and working with us to create a new standard for institutional participation in digital assets."

Alan Howard co-founder of Brevan Howard and Elwood Asset Management added: "With over $3bn in assets under custody, Komainu has become one of the leading digital assets custodians globally. I am pleased to support Komainu in its mission to bridge the gap between legacy finance and the digital assets class."

Steve Ashley, Head of Wholesale, Nomura, said: "Komainu has gone from strength to strength over the past year, capturing growing institutional interest in the digital asset space. These new partners and investors come as Komainu embarks on the next stage of its plan to build a best-in-class digital asset custody platform."

About Komainu

Komainu is the first hybrid custodian for institutional digital asset investors created by the Japanese investment bank, Nomura, digital asset manager, CoinShares and digital asset security company, Ledger. Komainu is solving the problem of decentralized and secure digital asset custody by providing a single application-based solution to institutions allowing multi-asset support benefits, regulatory compliance and insurance. Headquartered in Jersey, Komainu merges best in class financial services with the highest security standards for the next generation of institutional custody. For more information, please visit https://www.komainu.com/ .

Media Contact

Jay Morakis

+1 646 859 5951

komainu@mgroupsc.com
The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.
Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSXV:BAY)(OTCQB:ATBHF) ("Aston Bay" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it entered into an option agreement (the "Option Agreement") with American West Metals Limited ("AWML"), a private Australian company, and Tornado Metals Ltd. ("American West"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of AWML, on March 9, 2021, pursuant to which American West has an option (the "Option") to earn an 80% interest in Aston Bay's 100% owned property located on western Somerset Island, Nunavut which hosts the high-grade Storm Copper Project and the high-grade Seal Zinc Deposit (the "Storm Project").

Summary

American West enters into the Option Agreement to earn an 80% interest in the Storm Project

C$10 million expenditure required over a period of up to nine years, including a minimum C$2 million over first two field seasons

C$500,000 cash payment to Aston Bay on closing

Thomas Ullrich appointed to the Advisory Board of American West

Planning is underway for the summer 2021 field season, expected to include surface geophysics and potential drilling; camp and equipment are already in place

Highlights of the Option Agreement

Under the terms of the Option Agreement, American West can earn an 80% undivided interest in the Storm Project by spending a minimum of C$10 million on qualifying exploration expenditures ("Expenditures") over a period of up to nine years.

American West will make a cash payment of C$500,000 to Aston Bay on closing under the Option Agreement and grant of the Option. In addition, in order to exercise the Option, American West must incur not less than C$2 million in Expenditures during the first two consecutive field seasons (2021 and 2022 if closing occurs on or before July 31, 2021 and 2022 and 2023 if closing occurs after July 31, 2021) (the "First Commitment") and not less than C$8 million in Expenditures during the subsequent earn-in period, which is the seven consecutive field seasons after satisfaction of the First Commitment.

Closing and grant of the Option is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent, including approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, which approval is subject to the receipt of approval by Aston Bay's shareholders. Shareholder approval of an ordinary resolution to approve the transactions contemplated by the Option Agreement will be sought at an upcoming meeting of Aston Bay's shareholders. Subject to the satisfaction or waiver of all conditions, closing is expected to occur at the end of April 2021.

American West shall be the operator of the Storm Project during the term of the Option Agreement, but the parties shall also establish a management committee to be comprised of three members, two appointed by American West and one appointed by Aston Bay.

Upon exercise of the Option, American West and Aston Bay will form an 80 / 20 joint venture and enter into a joint venture agreement, the form of which was settled under the Option Agreement. Under such agreement, Aston Bay shall have a free carried interest until American West has made a decision to mine after which it shall be diluted in the event it does not elect to contribute its proportionate share. Its interest will be converted into a 2% net smelter return if its interest is diluted to below 10%.

Thomas Ullrich, Chief Executive Officer of Aston Bay, stated: "American West is acquiring three base metals projects in North America with the potential to generate significant economic resource inventories and robust mining proposals. We are excited to partner with such an experienced group to advance the high-grade copper and high-grade zinc discoveries at our Storm and Seal projects.

"Planning is already underway for a summer 2021 field season anticipated to comprise high powered surface electromagnetic (EM) geophysical surveys along the Storm-Tornado trends and potential drilling of newly generated targets as well as untested geophysical and geochemical targets from past programs. The camp, drill equipment and significant supplies are already in place on Somerset Island or staged in nearby Resolute Bay."

Mr. Ullrich has also been appointed to the Advisory Board of American West.

About the Storm Project

The Storm Project consists of 117 contiguous mining claims and 6 prospecting permits covering an area of approximately 268,744 hectares on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada. The Company has a 100% ownership interest in the Storm Project, subject to a 0.875% gross overriding royalty held by Commander Resources Ltd. on a portion of the property. For more information on the Storm Project, see the technical report "Initial Mineral Resource Estimate and Technical Report for the Seal Zinc Deposit, Aston Bay Property, Somerset Island Nunavut" by P&E Mining Consultants Inc. dated January 17, 2018 with an effective date of October 6, 2017, which was filed on the Company's SEDAR profile on January 17, 2018.

Michael Dufresne, M.Sc., P.Geol., P.Geo., is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release.

About American West Metals Limited

American West Metals Limited is private Australian company.

About Aston Bay Holdings

Aston Bay is a publicly traded mineral exploration company exploring for gold and base metal deposits in Virginia, USA, and Nunavut, Canada. The Company is led by CEO Thomas Ullrich with exploration in Virginia directed by the Company's advisor, Don Taylor, the 2018 Thayer Lindsley Award winner for his discovery of the Taylor Pb-Zn-Ag Deposit in Arizona.

The Company has acquired the exclusive rights to an integrated dataset over certain prospective private lands and has signed agreements with timber and land companies which grants the company the option to lease the mineral rights to 11,065 acres of land located in central Virginia. These lands are located within a gold-copper-lead-zinc mineralized belt prospective for Carolina slate belt gold deposits and Virginia gold-pyrite belt deposits, as well as sedimentary VMS, exhalative (SEDEX) and Broken Hill (BHT) type base metal deposits. Don Taylor, who led the predecessor company to Blue Ridge and assembled the dataset, has joined the Company's Advisory Board and will be directing the Company's exploration activities for the Blue Ridge Project. The Company is actively exploring the Buckingham Gold Project in Virginia and is in advanced stages of negotiation on other lands in the area.

The Company is also 100% owner of the property Storm Project, which hosts the Storm Copper Project and the Seal Zinc Deposit and has been optioned to American West Mining Limited.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

Thomas Ullrich, Chief Executive Officer

thomas.ullrich@astonbayholdings.com

(416) 456-3516

Sofia Harquail, IR and Corporate Development

sofia.harquail@astonbayholdings.com

(647) 821-1337

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements made in this news release, including those regarding the Option Agreement, grant of the Option and the expected closing date, American West's interest in the Storm Project and its other acquisitions and plans, plans for the upcoming field season, management objectives, forecasts, estimates, expectations, or predictions of the future may constitute "forward-looking statement", which can be identified by the use of conditional or future tenses or by the use of such verbs as "believe", "expect", "may", "will", "should", "estimate", "anticipate", "project", "plan", and words of similar import, including variations thereof and negative forms. This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect, as of the date of this press release, Aston Bay's expectations, estimates and projections about its operations, the mining industry and the economic environment in which it operates. Statements in this press release that are not supported by historical fact are forward-looking statements, meaning they involve risk, uncertainty and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although Aston Bay believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which apply only at the time of writing of this press release. Aston Bay disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by securities legislation.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

SOURCE: Aston Bay Holdings Ltd

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634277/Aston-Bay-Enters-into-Option-Agreement-with-American-West-Metals-Limited-for-the-High-Grade-Storm-Project
Panasonic AI-driven cameras empower an expanding vision of new uses

Imagine a world where video cameras are not just watching and reporting for security, but have an even wider positive impact on our lives. Imagine that cameras control street and building lights, as people come and go, that traffic jams are predicted and vehicles are automatically rerouted, and more tills are opened, just before a queue starts to form. Cameras with AI capabilities Cameras in stores can show us how we might look in the latest outfit as we browse. Thats the vision from Panasonic about current and future uses for their cameras that provide artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities at the edge. Panasonic feels that these types of intelligent camera applications are also the basis for automation and introduction of Industry 4.0, in which processes are automated, monitored and controlled by AI-driven systems. 4K network security cameras The companys i-PRO AI-capable camera line can install and run up to three AI-driven video analytic applications Panasonics 4K network security cameras have built-in AI capabilities suitable for this next generation of intelligent applications in business and society. The companys i-PRO AI-capable camera line can install and run up to three AI-driven video analytic applications. The AI engine is directly embedded into the camera, thus reducing costs and Panasonics image quality ensures the accuracy of the analytics outcome. FacePRO facial recognition technology Panasonic began advancing AI technology on the server side with FacePRO, the in-house facial recognition application, which uses AI deep learning capabilities. Moving ahead, they transitioned their knowledge of AI from the server side to the edge, introducing i-PRO security cameras with built-in AI capabilities last summer, alongside their own in-house analytics. Moreover, in line with the Panasonic approach to focus more on collaboration with specialist AI software developers, a partnership with Italian software company, A.I. Tech followed in September, with a range of intelligent applications, partially based on deep learning. Additional collaborations are already in place with more than 10 other developers, across the European Union, working on more future applications. i-PRO AI-capable security cameras Open systems are an important part of Panasonics current approach. The companys i-PRO AI-capable cameras are an open platform and designed for third-party application development, therefore, applications can be built or tailored to the needs of an individual customer. Panasonic use to be a company that developed everything in-house, including all the analytics and applications. However, now we have turned around our strategy by making our i-PRO security cameras open to integrate applications and analytics from third-party companies, says Gerard Figols, Head of Security Solutions at Panasonic Business Europe. Flexible and adapting to specific customer needs This new approach allows the company to be more flexible and adaptable to customers needs. At the same time, we can be quicker and much more tailored to the market trend, said Gerard Figols. He adds, For example, in the retail space, enabling retailers to enhance the customer experience, in smart cities for traffic monitoring and smart parking, and by event organisers and transport hubs to monitor and ensure safety. Edge-based analytics offer multiple benefits over server-based systems Edge-based analytics Edge-based analytics offer multiple benefits over server-based systems. On one hand, there are monetary benefits - a cost reduction results from the decreased amount of more powerful hardware required on the server side to process the data, on top of reduction in the infrastructure costs, as not all the full video stream needs to be sent for analysis, we can work solely with the metadata. On the other hand, there are also advantages of flexibility, as well as reliability. Each camera can have its own individual analytic setup and in case of any issue on the communication or server side, the camera can keep running the analysis at the edge, thereby making sure the CCTV system is still fully operational. Most importantly, systems can keep the same high level of accuracy. Explosion of AI camera applications We can compare the explosion of AI camera applications to the way we experienced it for smartphone applications" We can compare the explosion of AI camera applications to the way we experienced it for smartphone applications, said Gerard Figols, adding However, it doesnt mean the hardware is not important anymore, as I believe its more important than ever. Working with poor picture quality or if the hardware is not reliable, and works 24/7, software cannot run or deliver the outcome it has been designed for. As hardware specialists, Figols believes that Panasonic seeks to focus on what they do best - Building long-lasting, open network cameras, which are capable of capturing the highest quality images that are required for the latest AI applications, while software developers can concentrate on bringing specialist applications to the market. Same as for smartphones, AI applications will proliferate based on market demand and succeed or fail, based on the value that they deliver. Facial recognition, privacy protection and cross line technologies Panasonic has been in the forefront in developing essential AI applications for CCTV, such as facial recognition, privacy protection and cross line. However, with the market developing so rapidly and the potential applications of AI-driven camera systems being so varied and widespread, Panasonic quickly realised that the future of their network cameras was going to be in open systems, which allow specialist developers and their customers to use their sector expertise to develop their own applications for specific vertical market applications, while using i-PRO hardware. Metadata for detection and recognition Regarding privacy, consider that the use of AI in cameras is about generating metadata for the detection and recognition of patterns, rather than identifying individual identities. However, there are legitimate privacy concerns, but I firmly believe that attitudes will change quickly when people see the incredible benefits that this technology can deliver, said Gerard Figols, adding I hope that we will be able to redefine our view of cameras and AI, not just as insurance, but as life advancing and enhancing. i-PRO AI Privacy Guard One of the AI applications that Panasonic developed was i-PRO AI Privacy Guard Seeking to understand and appreciate privacy concerns, one of the AI applications that Panasonic developed was i-PRO AI Privacy Guard that generates data without capturing individual identities, following European privacy regulations that are among the strictest in the world. Gerard Fogils said, The combination of artificial intelligence and the latest generation open camera technology will change the worlds perceptions from Big Brother to Big Benefits. New applications will emerge as the existing generation of cameras is updated to the new open and intelligent next generation devices, and the existing role of the security camera will also continue. Future scope of AI and cameras He adds, Not just relying on the security cameras for evidence when things have gone wrong, end users will increasingly be able to use AI and the cameras with much higher accuracy to prevent false alarms and in a proactive way to prevent incidents." Gerard Figols concludes, That could be monitoring and alerting when health and safety guidelines are being breached or spotting and flagging patterns of suspicious behaviour before incidents occur.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The charges filed against Kenneth Walker related to last year's fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor were permanently dismissed on Monday.

Taylor, an unarmed Black woman, was killed last March in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment during a police raid. Walker said he believed the police officers were intruders, and fired his gun; when officers fired back, Taylor was shot several times. A bullet from Walker's weapon hit one of the officers in the leg, wounding him, and Walker was charged with assault and attempted murder of a police officer.

In May, the charges were dropped against Walker without prejudice, meaning if new details about the shooting surfaced, they could be refiled. On Monday, Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens dismissed the charges with prejudice, making it permanent.

Last fall, Walker filed a lawsuit asking the court declare him immune from criminal prosecution, due to Kentucky's stand your ground law, WLKY reports. "I was raised by a good family," Walker said. "I am a legal gun owner and I would never knowingly shoot a police officer."

One of the Louisville Metro police officers involved in the shooting, Brett Hankison, was indicted by a grand jury on wanton endangerment charges, after it was found he shot several rounds into a neighboring apartment. Two others have been fired from the department.

More stories from theweek.com

What does Joe Manchin really want?

The Harry and Meghan interview might have taken down more than the royal family

Beth Moore, popular Bible writer and evangelist, is 'no longer a Southern Baptist'


Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
"Leaving Venezuela was only the first leg of a three-day journey that would take me to my new life in London."

What happens when you get a job in London, but the country you reside in is in full and total lockdown?

Valeria, an investment banker for the past eight years in Venezuela, had secured a job with Fiduciam as senior underwriter, but getting to London was going to be an ordeal. Even though she had valid reasons for leaving the country the only way to get out was through humanitarian channels. Heres her story...

I picked up the pace in my walk as if I felt the military officers breath on the back of my neck. I tried glancing discreetly over my shoulder so that my movements would not raise any alarms. No one was there. I felt like a fugitive, as if I had been fleeing with State secrets in my bag rather than the allowed 23 kg of personal items. The process of escaping Venezuela during quarantine felt like a Hollywood action thriller.

The constant interrogations combined with biosecurity measures dragged out the migration process at the airport longer than usual. While queuing, I briefly broke social distancing to eavesdrop on the conversations of fellow travellers. They all shared personal horrible travel experiences as well as those heard through the grapevine. My anxiety level rose as this gossip fed all the different scenarios that could abruptly end my escape plan.

My mind drifted to making a mental inventory of all the documents I needed to have on hand just in case one of the dreadful scenarios popped up. I was asked for my motive for travelling and all the information that supports it. I was even asked for my teddy bears travel documents.

The airport was a mix of anxious travellers, airport officials in hazmat suits, and military officers whose rifles got in the way while viewing all our passports. Nothing too different from the ordeal I had just faced on the ride to get to the airport. The roads in Caracas, and especially those towards the airport, were seized by multiple checkpoints with police and military men safeguarding them, hindering my ride there.

Finding a ticket was an ordeal by itself. Venezuela is, to this day, still under strict lockdown. No incoming or outgoing flights were allowed, with exceptions made for humanitarian travels only, that is for foreign residents trapped in the country or people, like me, with valid and documented reasons to leave. Finding a ticket in the short term was a tough, and a potentially very expensive task. I must admit I contemplated traveling on a speedboat to nearby Curacao or Aruba, driving through the Colombian border, or boarding a small twin-engine flight and flying to the Dominican Republic or even Trinidad and Tobago. Thankfully, because I fit the criteria (in fact I had two valid reasons, a job in London and Im an Italian resident) a skilful travel agent found me a ticket on a humanitarian flight.

Leaving Venezuela was only the first leg of a three-day journey that would take me to my new life in London. The humanitarian flight would take me to Mexico, with sadly no opportunities to visit a local beach as I was arriving late and leaving early the next day towards Miami. No opportunities to visit a local beach there either, as I would only be there for four hours before connecting to London. For Venezuelans, sun tanning is very important.

After a three-hour flight, we arrived at an undisclosed Mexican shantytown. Mexico greeted us with hot humid weather and complimentary beverages in the hotel, which I was advised not to drink due to foreign bacteria in the water. I had already survived the first leg of my journey, so I felt adventurous and drank it anyway.

Eight hours later I found myself again in the hotel lobby with my bag  no tea this time  waiting for the cab that would take me to the airport. The airport felt alive, with people shopping in the duty-free shops and grabbing a bite before boarding their planes. It seemed that life was, indeed, compatible with coronavirus, a scene very different from the one in Caracas.

The actual flight to Miami took about a third of the total amount of time I had to wait at Miami airport. After a Starbucks latte (a must for Venezuelans as soon as they touch foreign lands), I could finally breathe in relief as I saw my plane to London was on time. Well, breathing is a stretch when considering I had been exhaling and inhaling into an N95 facemask for the past 11 hours or so, plus 18 hours the day before.

Finally, at 7.00 pm EST, I was boarding my last and final plane to London. Thankfully, tailwinds cut off about an hour of traveling time, time which I wasted dragging my 23 kg bag (which, most be noted, felt like it weighed half a ton) up and down Abbey Road trying to find my friends flat. A warm welcome, a full meal, and a nap later I could finally say I made it safely to my new home.

Moving to London took me through two different countries for three days, an ordeal fit for an article but with the sweetest of rewards: becoming part of the Fiduciam team.
The number of unenforceable, anti-tenant clauses in residential leases has risen sharply over the last 20 years  with Black tenants more likely to be targeted, according to the largest-ever study of housing leases.

Why it matters: The types of draconian clauses that have crept into leases make it easier for landlords to evict tenants  who often feel intimidated, don't know the law and can't afford a lawyer in housing court.

Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.

As pandemic-era evictions moratoria expire, more landlords may be tempted to use these terms to get rid of tenants without due process.

Driving the news: The study by two professors looked at 170,000 leases in Philadelphia from 2005 through 2019 and found them "highly likely to contain unenforceable terms."

"Their pro-landlord tilt has increased sharply over time," the study said.

A major reason: The growing adoption by landlords of shared lease forms, "originally created by non-profit landlord associations, and more recently available online for a nominal fee."

Black tenants tend to be "more susceptible to eviction based on crime or drug use on the premises, an effect concentrated in whiter neighborhoods," the authors found.

Where it stands: While housing law differs by state, the professors found three terms unacceptable in Pennsylvania that have become more common:

That the tenant must accept the property "as is"  housing law says it must be habitable.

That the tenant can't sue the landlord for negligence  even if the property has unsafe conditions.

That the landlord can seize property and charge extra damages if the tenant stays in the premises after the lease expires  a so-called "holdover clause."

What they're saying: "We observed worse [lease] forms over time without really big changes in Pennsylvania law," said one of the study's authors, David Hoffman of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Story continues

While the study didn't look at how the leases with illegal clauses were adjudicated, landlords tend to use the lease terms as a cudgel to coax or bully tenants out, Hoffman tells Axios.

For example, when there's a "holdover" clause, landlords can try to avoid eviction court "by saying, 'Hey, if you stay here one more month, you're going to owe us a ton of money, so you better leave,'" Hoffman says.

Often, a tenant won't show up at an eviction hearing, so the landlord gets a judgment by default even if the term being violated was illegal.

The big picture: Hoffman and his co-author, Anton Strezhnev of New York University, said that the "nationalization of lease provisions," with landlords downloading shared forms without regard to local laws, is part of the problem.

"Twenty to thirty years ago, most leases were basically highly localized products," Strezhnev tells Axios.

While the authors only looked at Philly, they consider it likely that the same dynamics are true in other big cities.

The bottom line: This is the first large-scale study of residential leases, and the authors hope its findings open new areas of inquiry for researchers and policymakers.

"We dont have federal lease regulations like some countries do, and the result is that youre at the mercy of your landlords," Hoffman says.

Like this article? Get more from Axios and subscribe to Axios Markets for free.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Clemson researchers are a part of the international PrecisionTox consortium which aims to shape regulation and policy on chemical safety without the use of animal testing

Researchers Trudy Mackay and Robert Anholt of the Clemson University Center for Human Genetics have joined forces with an international consortium intended to drive research that will shape regulation and policy on chemical safety without the use of animal testing.

Mackay, an internationally renowned scientist and director of the Center for Human Genetics (CHG), will team with Anholt to explore the genetic underpinnings of susceptibility to environmental toxicants using Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly.

Clemson is one of 15 international institutions - and one of only two in the United States - involved in the consortium led by the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. The European Commission's Horizon 2020 program is funding the five-year, $23.4 million PrecisionTox project. The CHG will receive approximately $1.2 million.

"Being a part of this consortium allows us to collaborate with researchers across Europe to study the genetic implications of environmental pollutants," said Anholt, Provost's Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Biochemistry and also director of faculty excellence initiatives in the College of Science.

Environmental pollutants are a major source of compounds that can adversely affect the quality of life and cause disease and death.

The consortium, led by John Colbourne of the University of Birmingham, will use genetics, genomics, metabolomics and the study of evolution to investigate the toxicity of hundreds of chemicals and explore how they disrupt the biological processes fundamental to health. Combined with law, these approaches will open up a new field of precision toxicology to transform approaches to chemical safety management in the same way precision medicine informs health care.

"Because humans share many genes with these organisms by evolution, we can use them to map the genetic and metabolic pathways that are also important for human health. This shared biology will help us understand how these genetic connections and interactions can be affected by chemicals in the environment - and that will help us better protect the health of all animals, including humans," Colbourne said.

Regulatory toxicology has typically relied on animal testing to determine at what point exposure to a toxin is no longer safe for humans. PrecisionTox aims to identify molecular key event biomarkers in non-mammalian models that are predictive of adverse health outcomes.

That's where Mackay and Anholt and their fruit fly research comes in. "About 75 percent of human disease genes have a counterpart in fruit flies, which are not subject to regulatory restrictions like vertebrate animals," Mackay said.

Fruit flies are excellent experimental genetic organisms because researchers can easily manipulate their genomes and tightly control their environments. They also have very short lifespans, meaning researchers can have a new generation in a couple of weeks rather than years.

Mackay's laboratory developed the Drosophila melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP), which now consists of 1,000 inbred fly lines with fully sequenced genomes derived from a natural population. The DGRP allows researchers to use naturally occurring variation to examine genetic variants that contribute to susceptibility to various stressors.

For the PrecisionTox project, CHG researchers will examine the flies' genetic architecture that provides susceptibility to eight common toxins, including arsenic, a major pollutant of groundwater in some countries in Asia and some areas of the United States. The initial focus on arsenic dovetails well with previous studies conducted by Mackay and Anholt on the genetic underpinnings of susceptibility to heavy metals, including lead, cadmium and methyl mercury.

"After we identify genes and genetic networks, we can superimpose human genes and human genetic networks to essentially use the fly as a gene discovery system for human studies. The information will be integrated with other projects of the consortium that are working on human cell lines," Anholt said.

"We're trying to put all of this information at the level of the environmental responses of the genome to find commonalities across these scales that are likely to apply to humans as well, without actually having to do the work in humans, which is very difficult," Mackay added. "We're hoping to have some biomarkers that are conserved from the fruit fly to human cell lines that could potentially be used to assess exposure in the blood of actual individuals."

Other consortium members are Indiana University, Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg, Karlsruher Institut fur Technology, Helmholtz-Zentrum fur Umweltforschung GMBH- UFZ and Cell Networks GMBH in Germany; Fundacio Centre de Regulacio Genomica and Acondicionamieto Tarrasense Association in Spain; Watchfrog in France; The University of Oxford and Michabo Health Science Ltd. In the U.K.; Altertox in Belgium; Misvik Biology OY in Finland; and Latvia MGI Tech SIA in Latvia.

"It was important to us to be a part of this international collaboration and to be able to do the science," Anholt said. "We are grateful to Clemson's Division of Research and the Clemson University Research Foundation, who made this possible by patiently navigating the administrative complexities of this international consortium under a looming Brexit deadline."

"For us, it's not just a matter of toxicology. It is a wider view for us. We are very much interested in understanding how environmental effects affect the genome, so it's the nurture versus nature notion," Anholt concluded. "We know many of the traits of susceptibility to disease are due to networks of interacting genes. But these networks of genes are affected by environmental influences, and we know very little in general about how environmental influences interact with the genome."

The Center for Human Genetics is part of Clemson University's College of Science and is housed in Self Regional Hall, a state-of-the-art research facility located on the campus of the Greenwood (S.C.) Genetic Center. The CHG's research focuses on genomic, computational and comparative genetic approaches to gain insights in genetic and environmental risk factors for human diseases.

PrecisionTox is a project funded by the European Commission H2020 programme until 2026 under Grant Agreement No. 965406. Its mission is to accelerate discoveries and the implementation of new approach methodologies for chemical safety testing that are useful at protecting the health of populations and the environment by Precision Toxicology.

###
Prime Minister on Tuesday inaugurated the "Maitri Setu" between India and Bangladesh, a bridge built over the Feni river, with Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Hasina asserting that political boundaries should not become physical barriers for trade.

Modi also inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of multiple infrastructure projects in Tripura during the online event.

Speaking on the occasion via video-conference, he said Tripura is experiencing the change that has come with the government of "double engine" in the state from the time of the previous government of 30 years.

"The country is also seeing that wherever a double-engine government is not there, you can look at your neighbourhood, policies empowering the poor, farmers and daughters were either not implemented or were moving forward at a very slow pace," the prime minister said.

The double-engine government in Tripura has empowered the people of the state, he added.



The Prime Minister said that the connectivity is not only strengthening the friendship between India and but also proving to be a strong link of business too. He informed that the entire region is being developed as a trade corridor between Northeast India and Modi emphasised that the rail and water connectivity projects that have been realized in the recent years have been strengthened by this bridge. This will improve connectivity of south Assam, Mizoram and Manipur along with Tripura with and South-East Asia. Modi said that the bridge will give an impetus to the economic opportunity in Bangladesh also.

Tripura, which was pushed back by a "strike culture" for many years, is now working for ease of doing business, Modi said.

In a video message played at the event, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina hailed the inauguration of the "Maitri Setu" as a "historic moment".

"We are creating a new era in South Asia through providing connectivity to India. We are in a region which has remained conservative in opening up and where regional trade is far below potential. I believe political boundaries should not become physical barriers for trade," she said.

The "Maitri Setu" has been built over the Feni river, which flows between the Indian boundary in Tripura and Bangladesh.

The 1.9-km-long bridge joins Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
On the occasion of international women's day, Chief Minister has announced a proposal to provide six-month leave to women employees of the government.

Presenting the 2021-22 budget in the Legislative Assembly, Yediyurappa, who also holds finance portfolio, announced construction of Yathri Nivasa in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh for devotees from visiting the temple town, allocating Rs 10 crore for it in the Budget adding that Uttar Pradesh government will provide 5-acre land.

government also allocated Rs 1,500 crore in its Budget for "upliftment of minorities.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TAMPA, Fla., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite overwhelming public support for medical cannabis, Florida legislators have put forth a bill (HB1455) to drastically restrict access for pediatric patients.

Under current law, qualified pediatric patients may be certified if two doctors concur the child is eligible and the risks outweigh the benefits. Neither of these doctors must be a pediatrician; however, families often seek one of the state's few pediatric medical cannabis specialists because of unique concerns of children ingesting marijuana.

Tampa Pediatrician Dr. David Berger, Founder and Medical Director of of Wholistic Pediatrics & Family Care/Wholistic ReLeaf

Under the proposed law, even if the certifying physician is a board-certified pediatrician, the concurring physician must also be a board-certified pediatrician. This would make it significantly more difficult for parents and caregivers to access their child's medicine.

According to Dr. David Berger, a board-certified Tampa pediatrician specializing in pediatric medical cannabis:

There are very few Florida pediatricians experienced in treating pediatric medical cannabis patients or willing to confirm a child's eligibility. If the certifying doctor is a board-certified pediatrician, there is no reason the second physician needs to also be a board-certified pediatrician. Not all families have access to a board-certified pediatrician, which means children will not get the medication they need.

Dr. Berger is the Founder and Medical Director of Wholistic ReLeaf , one of Florida's only clinics specializing in pediatric medical cannabis.

The proposed law would also drastically reduce the level of THC permitted in concentrated inhaled oils If enacted, children would need to vaporize larger, more frequent quantities of oil to effectively treat their conditions. This could be detrimental to both physical and behavioral health, especially for children who have seizures or are on the neurodevelopmental spectrum.

Legislators will meet Tuesday, March 9, 9:30 am ET . Dr. Berger is working with concerned parents and colleagues to lead the fight against the bill. He encourages all concerned Floridians to contact their state legislators.

Dr. Berger will be available for comment beginning 5:00 pm, March 9th, after the committee meeting.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Whitley Procopio

[email protected]

c: (727) 902-0748

SOURCE Wholistic ReLeaf

Related Links

https://www.wholisticreleaf.com


Key Senate crossbenchers have baulked at a push to pass an overhaul of Australias industrial relations laws through Parliament next week, which the Morrison government is planning even as the minister responsible, Christian Porter, remains on indefinite leave.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed his confidence in acting Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash to manage the technically complex and highly politicised portfolio, noting she had maneuvered industrial legislation through Parliament before.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has faith in his acting industrial relations minister Michaelia Cash (left) as the government tries to reform workplace laws. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Porter, who is also Attorney-General, has been on leave seeking mental health assistance since Wednesday, when he rejected an allegation he raped a debating teammate in 1988. Mr Morrison said on Tuesday there was no set date for his return.

Ive spoken to Christian as have many colleagues in providing their support, Mr Morrison said. And at this stage, he hasnt advised the date hes returning.
Such efforts won't curb the corona spread, the healthcare committee chair believes.

The current pace of vaccination for COVID-19 in Ukraine remains extremely slow, says Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Health, Medical Assistance and Health Insurance Mykhailo Radutsky.

Such efforts won't curb the corona spread, the legislator suggested on Facebook.

In the coming weeks, Ukraine will be facing new challenges over the corona developments, he wrote.

"Unfortunately, the vaccination pace is still very low. We've only reached the level of several thousand people vaccinated per day. On weekends, less than 1,000 people are vaccinated daily. This is clearly not enough to slow down the epidemic," he said.

The lawmaker added that "the scenario the country will have to live by in March and April completely depends on us, on whether we are ready to become more disciplined and observe simple safety rules."

Vaccination in Ukraine

On February 24, 2021, Ukraine launched a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Doctors who treat COVID-19 patients, ambulance teams, laboratory personal involved in COVID-19 testing, residents and staff of nursing homes, as well as military personnel in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) zone in Donbas are to be vaccinated at the first phase.

Read alsoOnly some 19,000 Ukrainians vaccinated for COVID-19 so farUkraine's Health Ministry has made changes to the national vaccination plan so that public figures could be vaccinated against COVID-19 out of turn to promote the vaccination campaign.

Today, the vaccination campaign is underway in Ukraine with CoviShield (AstraZeneca), a recombinant vector vaccine produced under license at the Serum Institute of India.

A complete immunization requires two doses of the vaccine 28 days apart.

Some 1,171 people got vaccinated against COVID-19 in Ukraine on Monday, March 8, alone.

Since the launch of a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign, 19,118 people have received their first shot of the CoviShield vaccine.

Reporting by UNIAN
Charleston Hospitality Group has yanked the Tabbuli name from a licensee, claiming the longtime Upper King Street restaurant owner failed to uphold the brands high level of operating standards.

A news release announcing Tabbulis immediate closure attributed the decision to group owner Sam Mustafas dim view of the locations recent public operational mishaps. The company plans to eventually open another Tabbuli at a different location.

According to Ahmed Hassan, who in 2020 agreed to operate his bar at 541 King St. as Tabbuli, the venue was visited on March 5 by a Charleston Fire Department fire marshal who alleged Hassan and his son had exaggerated the legal capacity of the space.

Hassan maintains the occupancy was set at 98 people before he took over the property that formerly served as Bootleg Tavern; he is now challenging the citys contention that only 49 people are permitted in the space.

Mike Julazadeh, Charleston's chief fire marshal, confirmed a member of his team visited the site that day. But he added the team first visited on Feb. 26, noting at that point the bar had posted a certificate of occupancy which wasn't issued by the city.

While Julazadeh said it's not uncommon for venues to create their own signs displaying the limit in easy-to-read numbers, his team returned the following day to find no signs at all. The department then reviewed the city's records to verify an "occupant load of 49 and hours restriction," even though "CPD reported that the facility was staying open past midnight."

On Friday, Julazadeh's team visited the bar in the afternoon to present a copy of the certificate of occupancy issued on Oct. 24, 2019, instructing Hassan to post a sign reflecting the 49-occupant ceiling. When the team returned that night, Julazadeh said a handmade "98" sign was posted in its place, and there were more than 108 people in the bar.

Julazadeh on March 6 met with Charleston Hospitality Group representatives, who offered a certificate of construction completion showing that 98 people were allowed inside. Julazadeh told them that the document did not double as a certificate of occupancy; he said they "agreed to maintain the load and close at midnight."

The department is now investigating whether there was "a possible overcrowding situation" at Tabbuli on March 7.

Sign up for our food & dining newsletter. We publish our free Food & Dining newsletter every Wednesday at 10 a.m. to keep you informed on everything happening in the Charleston culinary scene. Sign up today! Email

Sign Up!

When Julazadeh contacted Charleston Hospitality Group to discuss it, he was told the company has cut ties with Hassan "due to continued and longstanding issues, and (was) no longer responsible for the business operation."

Tabbuli opened a decade ago on North Market Street. During its stay at that address, the restaurant was found guilty of four charges in Livability Court. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Labors Wage and Hour Division concluded a two-year investigation of the restaurant in 2013, citing Tabbuli with 72 violations.

Hassan decided to convert Classic on King to Tabbuli after meeting Mustafa through their mosque. He said he was not then aware of the legal actions faced by the restaurant group or its owner, who was sued last year over the 2018 assault of a woman behind Halls Chophouse.

He declined to comment on their relationships most recent turn because hes consulting an attorney about the situation.

Like any other immigrant, I come here to work hard, said Hassan, who previously owned Boones Bar and Priya. He also owns College Market, the convenience store on the corner of King and Cannon streets which was ravaged in the May 30 riot.

I got hurt before when they hurt my store, he continued. All Im trying to do is work like everybody else.

Although Charleston Hospitality Group has revoked its brand name, Hassan said he will open the bar as usual on March 9. He hasnt settled on a name yet but vows it wont have anything to do with Tabbuli.
A strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck New Zealand just off its eastern coast, days after a series of tremors prompted a tsunami alert and mass evacuations. A series of earthquakes hit New Zealand on Tuesday morning, four days after two massive tremors forced evacuations along a 100-mile stretch of the coast. The biggest was a magnitude 6.6 earthquake that occurred at 7:35 a.m. local time.

New Zealand rocked by a series of earthquakes

A 4.9 magnitude tremor shook the Kermadec Islands area only moments later, at 7:36 a.m., farther away from the mainland. There have been no tsunami warnings issued yet.

Residents on the North Island have recorded 12 instances of trembling in the last hour, according to GeoNet, New Zealand's official geological hazard intelligence source. However, 11 of the tremors were classified as "weak" because their magnitudes were less than 3.

It comes after a troubling week of significant tremors, which included two massive quakes in a matter of hours, as per The Sun. Residents were forced to evacuate to higher ground as tsunami-like waves slammed into the sea until another quake hit the Kermadec Islands around midday on Friday.

The 6.5-magnitude quake hit at 12:12 p.m. local time, following an 8.1-magnitude quake off the northeastern New Zealand coast on Friday morning. After an earlier quake at about 8:29 a.m., New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency released a tsunami warning.

Read also: Adults With Down Syndrome More Likely To Die From COVID-19

Locals rushed to safety after emergency authorities warned that waves could exceed a height of more than 3 feet, with "unpredictable surges" accompanying them. Residents along a 100-mile stretch of coast recorded a "long, swaying shaking" that triggered "cracking sounds" in their homes.

"Hope everyone is ok out there - particularly on the east coast who must have felt the full force of the earthquake," New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wrote on Instagram.

The second earthquake, which struck at 7:36 a.m. on Tuesday, was less strong, and high waters were only expected in a 40-mile radius north of Auckland. According to a shocking video posted on social media, massive water surges were seen coming ashore at Tokomaru Bay on the country's East Coast.



@Twitter

Smaller tidal waves were likely to be seen as far away as Antarctica, prompting tsunami warnings throughout the Pacific, including in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. According to the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, parts of South America were also on high alert. The tsunami warnings were later lifted, allowing residents who had evacuated to return to their homes.

Read also: US Faces New Cyberattack, Biden Administration Prepares To Strike Back Against Its Major Adversary

New Zealand earthquake Friday prompted evacuation

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck east of the North Island at 2.27 a.m. on Friday, followed by a 7.4-magnitude tremor in the Kermadec Islands four hours later. Since the first quake, residents residing along a 100-mile stretch of coast were advised to evacuate inland or reach high ground, with local emergency authorities expecting waves of more than 3 feet and the constant danger of 'unpredictable surges.'

Residents living within a 40-mile radius of the coast north of Auckland were only expected to be affected by the second earthquake, which occurred farther away from the mainland. Residents on the North Island recorded a 'very long, swaying shake' and houses making 'cracking noises' in a tremor that lasted up to a minute. Still, there were no immediate reports of casualties, Daily Mail reported.

On seismic monitor GeoNet, more than 60,000 people confirmed feeling the quake, with a few hundred describing it as 'severe' and 75 describing it as 'extreme.' While there was no tsunami threat in Wellington or other parts of New Zealand, civil defense officials advised residents to stay away from beaches around the country.

The earthquake struck at 2:30 a.m., less than an hour after a 3.7-magnitude rumble in the same area, and was felt 110 miles from Gisborne. There were already aftershocks being felt in the city. According to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, tsunami waves were possible within 180 miles of the earthquake's epicenter, which the United States runs.

Following the earthquake, 'tsunami waves were detected,' as per the Hawaii-based alert center in a 3 a.m. update. Flooding is anticipated in a 100-mile coastal stretch from Cape Runaway to Tolaga Bay, as per New Zealand's emergency department.

Read also: Iranian Proxies Declare Ceasefire Amid Pope Francis' Historic Visit To Meet With Top Shiite Cleric in Iraq

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Shawn M. Galloway Kicking off a five-part series hosted by the NSC Business & Industry Division, Mr. Galloway will set the stage for buy in at all levels

ProAct Safety, a recognized pioneer of leadership and safety excellence strategies, announced the companys president, Shawn M. Galloway, will lead a National Safety Council hosted event sponsored by VelocityEHS.

In Galloways session, titled Overcoming the Risk-Takers Paradox: A Strategy for a Culture of Safety Excellence, he will review actual examples from work-class organizations and provide takeaway tools for participants. This webinar is scheduled for 10 March at 1:00pm CST. Participants may register here.

Attendees will:



Learn to identify the primary influences on risk-taking and what to do to address them

Review tools to influence behavioral change without authority

Explore how to create cultures of engagement at all levels: buy-in, participation and ownership

Be able to speak with leadership about the need to address safety issues with data

Be competent in the key ingredients for a strategy to pursue safety excellence

Recognize how to move from leading indicators to transformational, value-based indicators

Kicking off a five-part series hosted by the NSC Business & Industry Division, Mr. Galloway will set the stage for buy in at all levels  possible for all organizations, and necessary for safety excellence, said Sarah Van Huis, Manager - Division Programs.

ABOUT SHAWN M. GALLOWAY

Shawn Galloway is the President of the global consultancy, ProAct Safety, and coauthor of several bestselling books including STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence and Forecasting Tomorrow: The Future of Safety Excellence. His latest book, Inside Strategy: Value Creation from within Your Organization, was published earlier this year. He is a columnist for several magazines and one of the most prolific contributors in the safety industry, authoring over 400 podcasts, 200 articles and 100 videos. Shawns consulting clients include most of the best safety-performing organizations within every major industry. He has received awards for his significant contributions from the American Society of Safety Engineers Council on Practices & Standards, listed in National Safety Councils Top 40 Rising Stars, EHS Today Magazines 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS and ISHN Magazines POWER 101  Leaders of the EHS World. Read more about him and his work at http://www.ShawnGalloway.com.

ABOUT PROACT SAFETY

ProAct Safety is a global safety excellence consultancy. The company has completed more than 2,000 successful safety strategy, leadership, culture and behavior-based safety projects in nearly every major industry worldwide. Learn more at http://www.ProActSafety.com.
Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - GOLO Mobile Inc., doing business as Usewalter (TSXV: WLTR) ("Usewalter" or the "Company"), a smart building technology SaaS solution for property managers and residents in urban environments, is pleased to announce the expansion of the commercial services available on its usewalter app, along with the launch of an innovative new pricing model for service providers who are featured on the app, further enhancing the experience for residents and property managers alike.

The rise in direct-to-home services over the past several years has been further accelerated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Many consumers who are subject to continuing lockdowns and unable to physically access goods and services, or who are concerned about exposure to the coronavirus, are increasingly in need of deliveries and in-home services. The Company's usewalter app offers a secure and convenient solution for residents who wish to conveniently procure products or services from the comfort and safety of their homes at an affordable cost. In addition, the app offers businesses a virtual platform on which to promote their particular product or service offering to a desirable demographic.

"In tandem with the growing number of property managers working with Usewalter to enhance the potential value of their buildings for tenants, we're also excited to continue expanding the portfolio of value-add service providers and merchant partners who are leveraging the usewalter app to attract new clients and drive repeat customers to their businesses," said Peter Mazoff, CEO of Usewalter. "We are committed to our goal of usewalter becoming the one app no one can live without, including property managers who benefit from leveraging our unique and premier technology; residents who are afforded control and convenience with a single, centralized tool; and local service providers who are provided a low cost approach to new customer acquisition. Under our new pricing model, we now offer a monthly subscription fee for local service providers to be featured in the app."

Enhanced Service Offerings

Over the past several quarters, Usewalter has been focused on continuing to enhance the high value-add and ultra-convenient solution offered by its usewalter app, which has included securing and rolling-out new, in-demand services for residents. These efforts offer full-cycle benefit for all parties involved, including residents, property managers, merchants and Usewalter.

In buildings where usewalter is available, occupants are able to benefit from quick and convenient access to a growing and centralized portfolio of product and service offerings through the usewalter app, with the number and variety of offerings continuously expanding. By providing the usewalter app to residents, property managers can position their building as a premium property that features an elevated experience, which helps increase building appeal and enhances asset value. Vendors and merchants featured in the usewalter app realize greater profile for their businesses, reducing the costs of customer acquisition and creating a 'sticky' client base. By positioning usewalter as 'the one app no one can live without', the Company can extend its reach into new buildings, secure new partnerships and vendor relationships, ultimately enhancing the overall value of its solution. Through active outreach, marketing and ongoing sales initiatives, Usewalter has responded to demands from residents and merchants to increase the variety and selection of services available within the app. Currently included within the usewalter app, or expected to be added shortly, are the following product and services categories:

Food and beverage delivery

Laundry service

Health & wellness (fitness, massage, personal training, telepharma) Home / window cleaning

Home repairs / construction / plumbing / electrician / painting

Furniture / carpet cleaning

Flowers / gift baskets Dog walking

Shipping services

Vehicle maintenance / car washing



New Pricing Model

In concert with the Company's ongoing expansion of service offerings, Usewalter has also implemented a streamlined monthly subscription pricing model, through which vendors pay a monthly subscription fee to be featured within the app, which supplements the existing option of paying a commission based on transactions. Moving to a monthly subscription model enables the merchants and service providers to lower their costs of customer acquisition while aligning Usewalter with other SaaS-based peers and benefiting from the certainty afforded by a recurring revenue stream.

As usewalter's rate of usage and adoption continues to increase, the Company believes that the combination of increased service offerings coupled with streamlined payment options will support full-cycle benefit for all parties, while exposing the usewalter app to a new segment of residents, property owners and vendors.

About Usewalter

Usewalter, Inc. (TSXV: WLTR) is a smart building technology SaaS solution for property managers and residents in high-density urban environments, delivered through its usewalter app. Designed as 'the one app no one can live without', usewalter enables efficient and cost-effective management of a building across the key areas of communication, commerce and delivery and IoT management within multi-residential and commercial properties. Usewalter is positioned to leverage its first-mover advantage to access new Canadian and U.S. markets, secure additional partners and further build revenue momentum. The Company currently has no debt and significant insider ownership with affiliates of Blackstone Group L.P. and the funds comprising CVC Capital Partners VI. Learn more at www.usewalter.com.

For Further Information:

Peter Mazoff, Chief Executive Officer

(514) 670-1228

ir@usewalter.com

or

Cindy Gray, Investor Relations

(403) 231-4372

info@5qir.com

Forward Looking Information

When used in this news release, the words "will", "project", "belief", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "may" or "should" and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. Although the Company believes, in light of the experience of its officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements and information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. The forward-looking statements and information in this news release include, without limitation: the Company's ability to execute its aggressive growth strategy to rapidly increase doors, expand geographically and enhance revenue; success being recognized as the app that no one can live without to manage their home and workplace; and growth of the multi-residential real estate sector.

With respect to the forward-looking statements contained in this news release, assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: the Company's ability to achieve, sustain or increase profitability, and fund its operations with existing capital and/or raise additional capital to fund operations; expenditures by the Company, merchants and customers in the Company's network; continuing demand for the Company's services and the pricing of such services; the ability of the Company to market its services successfully to existing and new merchants and customers; the economy generally; competition in the mobile delivery, smart building technology and multi-residential real estate industries; stability of the general regulatory environment in which the Company operates; and the absence of significant disruptions to the Company's operations such as may result from harsh weather, natural disaster, accident or other calamitous event.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the Company may require additional financing from time to time in order to continue its operations and financing may not be available when needed or on terms and conditions acceptable to the Company; there is no certainty that the Company will be able to realize the expected benefits or synergies of the Company's rebrand; and the other risk factors that are set forth under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Information Circular dated July 23, 2020, which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

The Company cautions that the foregoing lists of assumptions and risks are not exhaustive. When relying on the Company's forward-looking statements and information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing assumptions and risks and other uncertainties and potential events. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. The Company does not undertake to publicly update or revise the forward-looking information contained in this news release to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required pursuant to applicable laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) is responsible for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76486
The Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has promised that his administration will ensure that there is no miscarriage of justice concerning...





The Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has promised that his administration will ensure that there is no miscarriage of justice concerning the arrest of some members of the Oodua Peoples Congress and Fulani warlord Iskilu Wakili in Kajola Area of Ibarapa North Local Government Area of the state.

Makinde who spoke in Ibadan on Monday urged residents to remain calm and refrain from ethnic profiling, saying the Commissioner of Police, Oyo State Command, CP Ngozi Onadeko, has already given the assurance that a thorough investigation would be launched into the security situation.

He also promised to ensure that only those found wanting or those who have broken the law would be dealt with in accordance with the law of the land.

This is contained in a statement issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr Taiwo Adisa.

Adisa quoted Makinde: Let me also talk about the issue of security, which is also germane. I am aware of what is going on at Kajola in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State.

I will like to use this opportunity to tell our people that the government is doing everything within its power to ensure that there is no miscarriage of justice. Anyone that is found wanting or has broken the law, irrespective of their ethnic background or religion, would be dealt with in accordance with the law of the land.

People should not go into overdrive. I have asked the Commissioner of Police to see me today and I have been given the assurance that they will do a thorough investigation into the security situation in the area.

I also want to appeal to our people to be calm and refrain from ethnic profiling. Let us have trust in the ability and capacity of the people saddled with the responsibility of maintaining law and order within our state. It is the government that we have put in place and it will continue to work in the interest of the people of the state.
1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
The Meghan Markle-Prince Harry interview with Oprah Winfrey has taken the world by storm. The former royals dropped some disturbing bombshells during the interview including the fact that the "institution" did not allow Markle to seek help despite her suicidal thoughts and that there was concern amongst the royals as to what colour her son, Archie's skin would be. Markle has been subjected to intense scrutiny and racist rhetoric by certain sections of the British press.

In a 2019 interview, actress Priyanka Chopra, a close friend of Markle's, had voiced her support for the former Duchess and had labeled the reportage surrounding her as "racist". Of course, it has to do with racism, its an obvious reason. The beauty of Meg is that shes been herself through all of this. A lot of people got to know her after everything, but I knew her before [she started dating Harry] and shes the same chick. Now shes got a real platform, she talks about the same things she always did," Chopra had told a leading daily. The actress had added that if anyone could handle the media criticism, it was Meghan Markle.
The retired WWE star "Stone Cold" Steve Austin wants to pin down a sale of his Marina del Rey home. Built in 1953, the single-story residence is available for $3,595,000, Variety reports.

The WWE legend purchased the property in 2007 for $1.97 million. The midcentury residence in the desirable L.A. community has since undergone a remodel, and is described as designer perfect.

The interior designer Janice Francois and the master craftsman contractor Randy Ward of R.L. Ward Construction artfully transformed the space into its current, pristine state, the listing notes.

1/8

Steve Austin's Marina Del Rey home (realtor.com)

2/8

Entrance (realtor.com)

3/8

Living room (realtor.com)

4/8

Dining space with chandelier (realtor.com)

5/8

Kitchen (realtor.com)

6/8

Master bedroom (realtor.com)

7/8

Bath with soaking tub (realtor.com)

8/8

Pool and patio (realtor.com)

Walled and gated for privacy, the home features four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms and measures 2,724 square feet. Custom touches include wide-plank floors, linen window shades and drapery, and barn doors that open to the fourth bedroom or office off the homes entry. The spacious master bedroom features glass doors that open out to the patio.

The redone bathrooms feature linear shower drains, high-tech lighting, and a soaking tub in the master.

The open floor plan features custom iron and glass doors, and a double-sided fireplace found at the entry. Recessed lighting is found throughout the main space, and the dining area includes a stylish chandelier.

The eye-catching kitchen comes with Viking appliances, Waterstone fixtures, Caesarstone and quartzite counters, and pendant lighting. A large island has plenty of space for seating. The kitchen adjoins a living and dining area, which opens outside, providing easy indoor-outdoor entertaining spaces.

Outside, the 8,000-square-foot lot includes a pool, spa, and patios, as well as a grassy lawn. A two-car garage completes the property. The recent remodel also means that most of the home's infrastructure has been upgraded.

Austins choice of location is impeccablethe home sits close to shopping and dining in Venice, the beach, and quick access to LAX.

Now retired from professional wrestling, Austin, 56, is billed as an actor, producer, television host, and podcast host, and is signed as a legend contract with the WWE. A bad-ass icon, he held the WWE title belt six different times and was known for his signature finishing move: the "Stone Cold Stunner." Hes recently released his own beer, Broken Skull IPA.

Denise Fast with Re/Max Estate Properties holds the listing.

___

Watch: Boxing Champ Lennox Lewis Knocks Out a Sale of His Miami Condo

The post 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin Selling Stunner of a Home in Marina del Rey appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
YamChops to open new location in Montreal and offer popular plant-based & vegan foods

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Plant&Co. Brands Ltd. (CSE: VEGN) (FSE: VGP) (OTC Pink: VGANF) ("Plant&Co" or the "Company"), a modern health and wellness company curating delicious plant-based foods, is pleased to announce it is finalizing plans to open a second Canadian location of the popular YamChopsTM~ Grown Not Raised TM ~ ("YamChops") vegan butcher store in Montreal, Quebec. YamChops, a wholly owned subsidiary of Plant&Co, specializes in the preparation, distribution, and retail sales of over 48 plus proprietary plant-based meats, chicken, pork, fish, and various other delicious vegan food products.





YamChops Logo

To view an enhanced version of this logo, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6625/76524_f11d3b6dc4542b84_001full.jpg

"The new location in Montreal is the first of many as we begin an aggressive expansion into Quebec, the rest of Canada and throughout North America," said Shawn Moniz, CEO of Plant&Co. "Our compact YamChop retail location design affords us the ability to expand into great locations at a fraction of the cost of other food outlets, fully supported by our robust e-commerce platform , which provides an easy and intuitive method of ordering online. We are executing a simple, but effective business model to grow our reach into the plant-based food markets of North America. Not only are we expanding our physical locations, but we are also working to expand our line of high-quality plant-based products to go with our best sellers Montreal Style 'Steak', Szechuan 'Beef', and Chick*n Schnitzel."

Taking a page out of the Starbucks playbook, Plant&Co is taking a systematic approach to the rollout of YamChops locations. The locations will be small and efficient butcher shops allowing for ease of remodelling, efficient operations, lower costs, and importantly rapid expansion. The design will be like YamChops first location in Toronto - fun, chic, and full of delicious plant-based foods. Like Toronto, future YamChops locations will target popular and affluent areas of major centres.







YamChops earlier location in Toronto

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6625/76524_f11d3b6dc4542b84_002full.jpg

With more than 5,000 restaurants in the metro island area, Montreal is known for its great food and offers locals and visitors alike a vibrant culinary scene that is innovative and wildly creative. With the many chic bistros and casual eateries throughout Montreal, it is a prime location for a YamChops vegan butcher and will add to the city's plant-based food experiences. The city is a melting pot of culture and its gastronomy represents this diversity, supporting an incredible variety of plant-based, 100% vegetarian and vegan food locations with something for all tastes and occasions.

YamChops is North America's first Plant-Based Butcher Shop. It has been featured on TV's famous Dragons Den, in NOW Magazine, and recently in the Wall Street Journal. For over 7 successful years, it has specialized in the development, preparation, and distribution of plant-based meats and other vegan food products. And now Plant&Co and YamChops are bringing new retail locations across Canada with dynamic websites, and inclusion on five of the most popular food delivery platforms: Uber Eats, Skip the Dishes, Door Dash, Corner Shop and Ritual One.

About Plant&Co

Plant&Co. Brands Ltd. (CSE: VEGN) (FSE: VGP) (OTC Pink: VGANF) is modern health and wellness company curating delicious plant-based foods. For more information please visit: www.PlantandCo.com.

About YamChops

YamChops is a plant-based butcher shop based in Toronto, Ontario. Vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians and even meat enthusiasts love visiting the beautifully curated shop located in the heart of Toronto's food district. Whether customers sample YamChops' Tunaless "Tuna", Chick*n Schnitzel, Szechuan "Beef", Montreal Style "Steak", or browse their vegan grocery market assisted by its knowledgeable staff, customers will have an unforgettable experience at YamChops vegan butcher shop. YamChops' mission is to provide extraordinary plant-based foods and provide extraordinary service to its customers, with a vision to expand its plant based culinary experience and make YamChops the destination of choice for all consumers. For more product information please visit: www.YamChops.com. Interested entrepreneurs can find more information regarding YamChops franchising opportunities by visiting: https://yamchops.com/pages/franchise.

About Holy Crap Foods Inc.

At Holy Crap Foods Inc. our mission is to create products that create a healthy gut through simple, quality ingredients that ultimately feed the connection between gut and mind. Holy Crap is an organic breakfast cereal for today's consumer that expects their food to work hard for them. Our great tasting cereal helps maintain a healthy gut which creates a happy mind. For more information on the healthy and high-quality breakfast cereals visit: www.HolyCrap.com.

For additional information, please contact:

Shawn Moniz

Chief Executive Officer

Plant&Co. Brands Ltd.

ir@plantandco.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the CSE. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Plant&Co. Brands described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedar.com.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76524
Clinicians perform a tracheostomy on a patient in a COVID-19 intensive care unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 17, 2021. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Updates on CCP Virus: Another CCP Virus Surge Predicted, Says Englands Chief Medical Officer

All the modeling suggests another surge of the CCP virus will happen, Englands chief medical officer told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Talking via video link at a meeting of the UK Parliaments science and technology committee, professor Chris Whitty said that infection rates will rise again as COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed.

Schools in England reopened on Monday to all pupils as the government began easing lockdown measures intended to curb the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

US Issues Advice to Those Fully Vaccinated, but No Shift in Canada Yet

New U.S. guidelines say people fully inoculated against COVID-19 can drop some precautions when gathering with others, but at least two provincial health ministers say existing public health advice holds for now.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that Americans who have waited two weeks since their second required shot can spend time with other immunized people indoors without masks or social distancing.

The same applies to gatherings by those at low-risk of severe disease, such as fully vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy grandchildren.

Alaska Opens Vaccines to All 16 or Older

Gov. Mike Dunleavy says Alaska will become the first state to drop eligibility requirements and allow anyone 16 or older who lives or works in the state to get a COVID-19 vaccination.

Dunleavy, who made the announcement Tuesday following his own bout with COVID-19, hailed the move to open up eligibility as a historic step.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker shows Alaska leading states in the percentage of its population to have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

When to Expect Payments from Relief Package

As the latest federal pandemic relief package makes its way to President Joe Bidens desk, Americans may be wondering when the benefits will reach them.

The House is expected to give its final approval early this week and then it heads to Biden for his signature.

Millions of taxpayers could begin to see direct benefits almost immediately, some later this month and others taking several months to accomplish.

Russia to Make Sputnik V Vaccine in Italy, a First in EU

Russia has signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Italy, the first contract in the European Union, the Italian Russian Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday.

The deal was signed with Adienne Srl, the Italian subsidiary of a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company, and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Production of a planned 10 million doses this year is set to launch in July.

Arizona Reports No New Deaths for Second Day Straight

Arizona reported 563 confirmed CCP virus cases, which causes the disease COVID-19, but no deaths for the second straight day.

Related hospitalizations rose with 928 COVID-19 patients occupying inpatient beds on Monday, up from 919 on Sunday. Its far below the pandemic high of 5,082 on Jan. 11.

French Patients in ICU Highest Since End November

The number of people in intensive care in France who have the CCP virus is at the highest level since the end of November, health officials said on Tuesday as new infections rose slightly to 23,302 from 22,857 a week ago.

The new cases pushed the cumulative total since the start of the pandemic a year ago to 3.93 million, the health ministry reported, and the seven-day moving average of new cases was virtually steady at 21,333.

White House: States Get 900,000 More Vaccine Doses Next Week

The United States is making an additional 900,000 doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines available to states and pharmacy partners this week.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced that states and territories will receive 15.8 million doses of the two-shot vaccines, up from 15.2 million last week. Another 2.7 million doses will be distributed through the federal pharmacy program this week.

Hungary Sets Records for Hospitals, Deaths

Hungary set records Tuesday for the number of CCP virus patients being treated in Hungarian hospitals amid a powerful surge in cases.

Nearly 350 people in Hungary were hospitalized with the virus in the last 24 hours, bringing the number of hospitalizations on Tuesday to 8,270, breaking the previous record of 8,045 set on Dec. 8. The number of patients on ventilators also set a new record with 833. Health care experts say it could soon reach the threshold of 1,000, the maximum number of critical patients the countrys health system can handle.

Aviation Industry Urges Biden to Back Health Credentials

Major U.S. aviation, travel, and aerospace groups on Monday joined airline unions in urging the Biden administration to help establish temporary COVID-19 health credentials to boost travel, which has been hard-hit by the CCP virus pandemic.

In a letter to the White House COVID-19 recovery coordinator Jeff Zients, trade group Airlines for America, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Travel Association, and 24 other groups urged the administration to work with industry to quickly develop uniform, targeted federal guidance for temporary COVID-19 health credentials (CHC) covering both tests and vaccinations.

Canada Set to Mourn Victims, Salute Health Workers on March 11

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would commemorate the countrys more than 22,000 COVID-19 victims on Thursday and pay tribute to those fighting the virus.

The government declared a National Day of Observance on March 11 inviting Canadians to join together in honoring the memory of those we have lost, and the people they left behind, Trudeau said in a statement on Monday.

New Mexico Officials Say Schools Can Fully Reopen April 5

New Mexico is clearing the way for schools to reopen next month as vaccine eligibility is expanding to include shots for all teachers and other educators.

State education officials announced that five-day-a-week in-class programs would be open to those who want them. Districts also will be required to provide virtual learning options for students who opt-out.

Highly Transmissible Variant Present in Hawaii

Hawaii has detected a new CCP virus variant in the islands, one that first emerged in South Africa.

The state Department of Health said the virus, which has technical name B.1.351 was found in an Oahu resident with no travel history. Some tests suggest the variant may be less susceptible to antibody drugs or antibody-rich blood from COVID-19 survivors.

LA Teachers Warned Not To Share Vacation Pictures As Union Resists Premature Return to Classrooms

Los Angeles teachers were told recently not to share pictures if they choose to travel for Spring Break, as their union fights against what it deems a premature return to in-person instruction.

In a message posted in a private United Teachers Los Angeles Facebook group, teachers were told, If you are planning any trips for Spring Break, please keep that off of Social Media.

The Canadian Press, Alexander Zhang, Zachary Stieber, The Canadian Press, Reuters, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Clarksburg School Officials Propose Budget for Prekindergarten

CLARKSBURG, Mass.  The school is asking to up its budget by more than $200,000 for fiscal 2022, half of which would be used to incorporate a long-desired prekindergarten program.

School officials are hoping to work out a solution with the attached public library for space and have budgeted $51,144 for a prekindergarten teacher and teaching assistant. The balance of the $101,000 would cover other essentials such as insurance, supplies and other needs but not necessarily any renovations required.

In total, the $2.7 million school budget reviewed by the Finance Committee on Monday morning is up $202,000 from this year's $2,507,086. The anticipated annual 2.5 increase is $62,677 and the preK program $101,000, leaving about a $39,000 gap.

Assistant Superintendent of Operations & Finance Jennifer Macksey said the budget is largely driven by fixed costs, contractual and minimum wage increases and plans for the preK program.

"Because of COVID this year, we had to hire a couple extra [teacher assistants] to help us," explained Macksey "Our thought is next year that we will reduce a few TAs, as well as a couple of support positions in order to finance the preK program. ...

"Please note that going into this, we did look at our staffing levels and adjusted accordingly. We originally had the Cadillac version of a budget, but this is a little bit of a stripped down budget today."

There are also increases in the transportation line for a special education student who needs to attend out of district and the amount of the Northern Berkshire School Union assessment for which Clarksburg is responsible.

"Your percentage change is from 49 percent to 51 percent," Macksey said. "That includes all the salary and operational expenses, basically our office. That is based on student population."

Another increase of $87,000 is for high school tuition.

"Last year we budgeted for 15 students. And this year, our projection is that we're going to have 22 students going to Drury High School," she said. "That's really something that we can't control and we're anticipating a 3 percent increase from the North Adams Public Schools."

In response to questions, Macksey said there are currently 18 students attending Drury and another four from this year's 24-member eighth-grade class will be going there. The rest of the grade will likely go to McCann Technical School, she said. McCann assesses the town separately for vocational education based on enrollment.

Principal Tara Barnes said a final number won't be known for a bit because McCann is only taking applications at this point.

"Most of our classes in the last few years have trended toward McCann," she said. "I think it was two years ago, everyone went to McCann out of the whole class. Last year, it was everyone except for maybe three or four so it's been trending in that way over the last six years."

The amount in the cafeteria line will decrease to reflect that salaries will once again be paid out of the revolving fund. Last year's salaries were paid out of the budget because the cafeteria had been shut down.

Finance Chairman James Stakenas asked if there was any savings from the building being closed but Macksey said it hadn't really closed this fiscal year. There was ongoing construction and upgrade work during the summer and the building was open and being used with the start of school in the fall.

Macksey said offsets include Chapter 70 education funding, grants and state rural school aid, of which there is no clear figure yet.

"We're still waiting to hear what we're going to get this year, in fiscal year '21," she said. "So it's unknown as to what our allocation will be. Hopefully it will be the same. That's a wildcard in that line."

The school has received $85,000 in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER II) grant funds, some of which will be used toward a school adjustment counselor and $25,000 to offset the budget. Most of the school's TAs are also funded through grants, Macksey said.

The largest offset is a proposal to use $400,000 in school choice. This will leave $190,000 in the account with another $277,000 expected to replenish it next year. The School Committee previously had voted to keep $300,000 in the account for emergencies but Macksey said the committee had approved dipping below that balance.

Committee member Debra Lefave expressed concern over budgeting for a prekindergarten program for which there was no location at the present.

Superintendent John Franzoni said discussions about a preK program go back some years, noting a study done of the Town Hall as a potential space nearly a decade ago ( along with several other ideas ). The need has become more urgent because of the number youngsters in the community and the loss of access to the preschool in Stamford, Vt., because of the pandemic. Clarksburg's NBSU neighbor Gabriel Abbott School in Florida has indicated it could accept more in its preK but Franzoni said parents are not happy with the idea of sending 3- and 4-year-olds on a bus to Florida Mountain and that transportation and monitoring costs might end up close to what's proposed now. During a joint meeting with the Select Board, parents also said they wanted a preK in the same building their other children were attending.

More recently, Select Board and School Committee members have been focusing on how to make a preK happen, believing Clarksburg is the only community in the Berkshires without one.

"We know that we have a rather large population of young children in our community. A recent survey by Principal Barnes did indicate there were more than 20 students potentially for next year," Franzoni said. "We really targeted on the fact that the standards have changed in our state and that not having a preK program really puts our students at a deficit."

Franzoni pointed out that the kindergarten is full with 18-19 children, none of whom were school choice.

"We've told families if you want to go to Clarksburg School this year, you had move into town and a lot of families did," he said.

The school and library have been at odds over parking and space issues but relations have improved to the point that school officials and the trustees have been discussing how the library could share with a preK class. A second walkthrough was planned for Tuesday.

"This is really crunch time. I guess I would say we're looking to see is the funding available, if it is we want to go forward," Franzoni said. "If it's not, we want to let our families know so that they can try to make other arrangements."

Macksey said the school should have more detailed plans by March 22 and suggested creating a separate fund for the program.

The Finance Committee also discussed the 16-hour town clerk position at $19.27 an hour. Lefave and Town Administrator Rebecca Stone continued their disagreement over whether the final year of the town clerk's term had to be elected even though an article that would change the post to appointed is on the ballot. The Select Board is taking up the issue at its Wednesday meeting.

Stakenas set the next meeting for Monday, March 22, when the committee will look at revenue figures.

"We will have on the budget sheet the number proposed by the School Committee, the changes that we just talked about in this meeting, and we'll be able to put it up against the revenue number to see where we stand," he said.
Bring it on, says underdog Americas Cup challenger

SAILING: Luna Rossa skipper Max Sirena insisted the Italian syndicate was full of confidence ahead of its Americas Cup showdown with Team New Zealand in Auckland tomorrow (Mar 10), despite being written off by bookies and pundits.

Sailing

By AFP

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 05:11PM

Peter Burling (left) of Emirates Team New Zealand and Max Sirena of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli attend a 2021 Americas Cup press conference at the Prada media center in Auckland today (Mar 9). Photo: AFP.

Sirena said the Italians had been underestimated at every stage of the Americas Cup build-up, despite posting convincing wins over rival challengers American Magic and Ineos Team UK.

The veteran sailor, in his seventh Americas Cup campaign, was unsurprised Luna Rossa was again being labelled the underdog against a powerful Team NZ outfit.

Its happened a lot... a lot of people say the Italians, theyre going to go back home crying, he told reporters today.

Now were in the final and there are people saying the Italians will need a miracle to beat Team New Zealand.

Kiwi bookmakers rate Team NZ almost three times more likely than Luna Rossa to lift the Auld Mug, with a 7-0 clean sweep in the best-of-13 series regarded as the most probable outcome.

Experts have been similarly dismissive of Luna Rossas chances, with four-time cup winner Murray Jones declaring, I think Team New Zealand will win easily.

As defending champions, Team New Zealand set the design parameters for the yachts being used in Auckland, giving them a technological edge on the 23-metre (75-foot) boats, which fly above the water on carbon fibre foiling arms.

They also have the advantage of sailing in home water and Sirena acknowledged Team NZ had been among the worlds strongest teams over the past 35 years.

But he said Luna Rossa had proved itself in lighter winds - which are expected in Aucklands Waitemata Harbour tomorrow - and had achieved an impressive top speed of 53.4 knots.

We feel confident... weve had a few big ups and downs and received, with merit, a few criticisms from the media and public, he said.

Weve worked hard to get stronger and stronger after each race, regardless if we won or lost... everyones really ready to go out racing tomorrow, weve got nothing to lose.

Sirena was relieved to be on the water after the coronavirus forced delays to the Auckland regatta and cancellation of some lead-up events, as well as intensifying the usual pre-race squabbling over race rules and scheduling among the teams.

Its been a long campaign with COVID, he said.

A lot of talking out of the water - sometimes too much talk out of the water, which isnt good for our sport.

Regardless of the outcome, Sirena said he wanted future editions to retain the space-age AC75 yachts, which reach high speeds on their foils while the hull is balanced precariously in mid-air.

Were still at the beginning with this class (of yacht) and I hope whoever wins keeps going with them because its the most exciting boat Ive ever sailed in my life, he said.
In the hustle to score an elusive vaccine appointment, the leftover dose has become the stuff of pandemic lore.

Extra shots  which must be used within hours once taken out of cold storage  have been doled out to drugstore customers buying midnight snacks, people who are friends with nurses and those who show up at closing time at certain grocery stores and pharmacies. At some larger vaccination sites, the race to use every dose sets off a flurry of end-of-the-day phone calls.

In every case, if the leftover dose does not find an available arm, it must go into the trash.

Now, a New York-based start-up is aiming to add some order to the rush for leftover doses. Dr. B, as the company is known, is matching vaccine providers who find themselves with extra vaccines to people who are willing to get one at a moments notice.

Since the service began last month, more than 500,000 people have submitted a host of personal information to sign up for the service, which is free to join and is also free to providers. Two vaccine sites have begun testing the program, and the company said about 200 other providers had applied to participate.
Senator Tim Scott bashed MSNBC host Joy Reid on Monday for pushing 'woke supremacy', lashing out against her claims that he's a 'Republican prop' as the only black GOP senator.

'When she calls a United States Senator who's a subject matter expert a prop, a token, or a superficial covering, that's personal and that's wrong and she should be held to account,' Fox News host and former South Carolina representative Trey Gowdy said when speaking with Scott.

'Woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy,' Scott told Gowdy on Monday. 'We need to take that seriously.'

Reid claimed that Republicans are just using Scott to show a 'patina of diversity' within the party and has repeatedly pleaded for the South Carolina senator not to succumb to that role. She also has a history of smearing black conservatives.

'You've got to love Tim Scott standing there to provide the patina of diversity over that round of words, that basket full of words,' Reid said during a segment on her show with progressive Representative Pramila Jayapal.

Republican Sen. Tim Scott (right) bashed MSNBC host Joy Reid Monday for calling him a GOP 'prop'. He said: 'Woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy. We need to take that seriously'

Former S.C. representative and now Fox News host Trey Gowdy said the liberal host (pictured left) 'should be held accountable' for her comments against black conservatives

Scott responded to the comments by saying people need to read the Bible verse Matthew 5:44, which urges people to love their enemies.

In 2013, Scott was appointed by then South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to take retiring Senator Jim DeMint's seat when he stepped aside to become president of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.

He retained his seat officially after winning a special election in 2014 and won his first full term election in 2016. He is up for reelection in 2022.

Scott is the first African American to be a U.S. Senator from South Carolina.

Reid often slams black conservatives, suggesting they are a way for Republicans to act like they are a diverse party.

In 2012, Reid wrote an 'open letter' to Scott when Haley appointed him to the Senate. She urged at the time that he not allow himself to become a 'token' for conservatives.

Gowdy slammed the MSNBC host for attacking Scott based on his race.

Scott's Press Secretary Caroline Anderegg tweeted: 'Unsurprising that someone like Joy would stoop that low  I guess that's what you do in the absence of a substantive policy critique.'

During her election coverage in November, Reid used a racist slur against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is black. She called him 'Uncle Clarence,' a reference to the 'Uncle Tom' stereotype.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Canberra, March 9 : A plan to quarantine international students rriving in the Australian state of Tasmania will not go ahead as initially planned, local officials said on Tuesday.

New South Wales (NSW) Treasurer Dominic Perrottet told local parliament on Monday that he had been working with officials in Tasmania to devise a deal whereby international students are quarantined in Hobart city, before being moved to NSW, Xinhua news agency reported citing a Sydney Morning Herald report.

The plan was an attempt to get around strict limits on the number of overseas arrivals each Australian jurisdiction can process.

However, Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein said in a statement on Tuesday morning that due to public health concerns the deal was no longer being considered.

"The Tasmanian government confirms it has received an approach from the NSW government to quarantine international students on their behalf," Gutwein said.

"At this time, however, we have advised this is not under consideration with our priority remaining the safe management of seasonal workers entering the state and our own international students when public health advice is that it is safe to do so." Currently NSW accepts close to half of all Australia's arrivals, or just over 3,000 people per week, many of whom are from other states.

According to local media reports, many Australian citizens remain stranded overseas on long waiting lists, due to the government's measures intended to protect the community from exposure to Covid-19.

NSW attracts Australia's highest number of international students, with the sector seeing losses in billions of dollars since the pandemic struck.

"I've had numerous discussions with the federal Treasurer around the importance of this, the premier is completely supportive and focused on ways in which we can bring this sector back," Perrottet said.
A 'wealthy' sausage firm boss has lost a bitter court battle with her elderly mother over a 500,000 home after building up a successful business empire years after she was released from jail over a drug plot.

Tracy Mackness, boss of The Giggly Pig gourmet sausage making company was branded 'greedy' by her own mother after the property in Romford, Essex, swapped hands five years ago.

The 55-year-old sausage tycoon had built up her thriving business after pulling herself back from a life of crime which landed her a ten-year stretch for conspiracy to import 4 million of cannabis at the age of 37.

She now runs a company which turns over half-a-million pounds a year and is based round an 800-head pedigree Saddleback pig farm and shop near Romford, Essex.

Tracy was sued by her mum, Caroline Mackness, 77, over an agreement that she sign over her house to her daughter.

The pensioner claimed she had no clear idea what she was doing when she gifted her 550,000 house in Harold Wood, Romford, to Tracy back in 2016, and had been left 'a guest in her own home'.

Tracy, 55, said the property transfer went through with her mum's agreement and was designed to protect her from having to sell her home to pay for care costs in future. She would also have the right to stay there for life, Tracy said.

Tracy Mackness, 55, (pictured) boss of The Giggly Pig gourmet sausage making company, has lost a court battle with her mother Caroline Mackness, 77, over an agreement that the pensioner sign over her house to her daughter

The pensioner claimed she had no clear idea what she was doing when she gifted her 550,000 house in Harold Wood, Romford, (pictured) to Tracy back in 2016, and had been left 'a guest in her own home'

After a four-day trial, Judge Mark Raeside QC has now ruled that Caroline lacked sufficient mental awareness to understand what she was doing, and that the property gift was also 'procured by undue influence'.

But Tracy was 'not in fault' and 'was not trying to obtain her mother's property, but acting in what she thought was her mother's best interests' when the house was transferred to her, the judge also found.

Caroline's barrister, Rose Featherstonhaugh, had claimed the deal left her client 'a guest in her own home' of 50 years, and without any security.

The pensioner received no independent legal advice before the deed was done and losing her title could make it hard for her to free up cash if needed for future care costs, she said.

Although Tracy had talked about setting up a trust for her mother, none has yet been established, the court heard.

Tracy's legal team said her only motivation was to safeguard her mother's interests as she had a history of high spending and bipolar disorder, and was therefore vulnerable to exploitation.

But her mum claimed the deal was unfair, not least because it excluded Tracy's brother, Garry, from having any stake in the family home.

Judge Mark Raeside QC ruled that Caroline lacked sufficient mental awareness to understand what she was doing, and that the property gift was 'procured by undue influence', but said that Tracy was 'not in fault' and had been 'acting in her mother's interests'

The 55-year-old sausage tycoon built up her thriving business after pulling herself back from a life of crime which landed her a ten-year stretch for conspiracy to import 4m of cannabis at the age of 37. Tracy qualified in pig husbandry while working with Saddleback pigs on the prison farm and set up Giggly Pig after she was released in 2007

However, Tracy said she had planned that Caroline should have the right to live there for life and that the property would ultimately be split between her and her brother when their mum passes on.

It didn't make sense for Garry to have his name on the title deeds because at the time he was an undischarged bankrupt, she said.

In her evidence, Caroline branded her daughter a 'very greedy person' who 'wanted the house for herself', but the judge said this contradicted her own case and that even her own barrister accepted that Tracy acted in good faith.

Giving his ruling, the judge said: 'I am satisfied that the transfer was procured by undue influence by Tracy, although with no ulterior motives on her part.

'All that was achieved was an absolute gift to Tracy who is already a wealthy woman and doesn't need this property.'

He went on to find that Caroline 'did not have capacity' to sign over her home as she was not in full control of her faculties at the time.

Caroline said the deal was unfair as it excluded Tracy's brother, Garry, (pictured) from having any stake in the family home

'I have no doubt that Tracy wished to protect her mother and didn't wish to deprive her of the house in which she lived,' he added.

'I have not held her to be in fault. She has lost the case before me, but she was doing her very best for her mother.'

Tracy Mackness built up her porker empire after qualifying in pig husbandry while behind bars at East Sutton Park Open Prison, in Maidstone, Kent.

She set up Giggly Pig following her release in 2007, and six years later her compelling life story hit the bookshelves in a full-throttle biography titled 'Jail Bird: The Life and Crimes of An Essex Bad Girl'.

For decades she was close to her mum, Central London County Court heard, and Caroline even worked for her daughter at her farm shop 'earning good money'.

But the court case played out against the backdrop of bad blood within the family - with a major family bust-up taking place in Christmas 2016.

Six months later there was a further row over work rotas at Tracy's farm which ended up with Garry losing the job he had working for his sister, said Tracy's barrister, Philip Williams.

The judge ruled against Tracy on the key issues of undue influence and lack of capacity but declined to wipe out the transfer, preferring to give both sides time to consider whether a trust can now be set up for Caroline.
A state appeals court on Tuesday refused to void the life prison sentence for a former Pennsylvania man who committed a murder in the Keystone State nearly 14 years ago.

The case of Isaiah Goudy, has numerous twists and turns, including a belated arrest. The Superior Court decision denying Goudys appeal likely means Goudys story will end in a prison cell.

While President Judge Emeritus John Bender wrote the state court opinion upholding Goudys first-degree murder conviction and punishment, he let Delaware County Judge Richard M. Cappelli do most of the talking by citing Cappellis 48-page account of the slaying, the investigation and the trial.

This was a brutal killing.

Izena/Isaiah Goudy

On May 7, 2007, police who were alerted by a co-worker found the battered body of 45-year-old Gary Jenkins in Jenkins Sharon Hill home. The corpse was wrapped in a comforter and towels. A blood-covered 30-pound dumbbell was found nearby. Investigators determined Jenkins had been beaten, stabbed and nearly decapitated.

Eight years passed before anyone was charged for the slaying.

During that time, according to Cappelli, Goudy moved to New York, enlisted in the Army National Guard, and underwent surgery and testosterone therapy to transition from female to male.

Goudys path to trial began in 2015 when a DNA hit linked him to the Jenkins murder. Goudys ex-girlfriend called the police after Goudy told her in 2013 that he had beaten a man to death. The ex-girlfriend then did research online and came across the Jenkins homicide.

Investigators said Goudys DNA matched that found on the dumbbell, in blood from the floors in Jenkins kitchen and living room, and from the saliva recovered from a bite mark on Jenkins body.

Goudy, who had been a friend of the daughter of Jenkins girlfriend, testified during his 2019 trial that he hit Jenkins with the dumbbell during a melee that occurred while Jenkins was trying to rape him. Goudy denied stabbing or trying to decapitate Jenkins. Goudy claimed Jenkins was still alive and cursing at him when he left Jenkins house.

Goudy instead tried to implicate his father, who died in 2016, for the slaying. Im responsible for his death, but I did not kill him, Goudy testified.

Goudys grandmother testified that Goudy had told her in 2007 about being raped.

Cappelli urged the Superior Court to uphold Goudys homicide conviction, which he said is supported by overwhelming evidence.
The Vicar Of Dibley actor Trevor Peacock has died at the age of 89.

The TV star was best known for playing Jim Trott in the comedy series.

A statement to the PA news agency from his agent on behalf of his family said: Trevor Peacock, actor, writer and songwriter, died aged 89 on the morning of March 8th from a dementia-related illness.

Peacock first appeared opposite Dawn French in the BBC sitcom in its debut episode in 1994 and continued to appear in every episode until 2015.

Expand Close Trevor Peacock (William Conran/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Trevor Peacock (William Conran/PA)

He was absent from the recent Christmas special.

His character, a member of Dibley Parish Council, was famous for his repetition of the word No and his frequent sexual references.

Peacock was born in Edmonton, north London, in 1931 and started his TV career in the 1960s in the ITV Television Playhouse, Comedy Playhouse and The Wednesday Play.

He later played Rouault in Madame Bovary and Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop.

He also made appearances in EastEnders, Jonathan Creek and sitcom My Family.

Weare saddened to hear of the death of actor Trevor Peacock. pic.twitter.com/YKPYl91k1m  BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) March 9, 2021

In 2007 he appeared in the Hollywood film Fred Claus, opposite Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti, playing the father of Father Christmas.

He also appeared in Dustin Hoffmans directorial debut Quartet, opposite Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Billy Connolly.

Peacock was also an accomplished songwriter and wrote a number of hit songs including the 1960s track Mrs Brown, Youve Got a Lovely Daughter, which was recorded by Hermans Hermits and Mystery Girl, recorded by Jess Conrad, as well as the lyrics for a number of hits by The Vernons Girls.

He had a long relationship with the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester and performed in many productions there, as well as writing a number of musicals, including Leaping Ginger (1977), Cinderella (1979), Class K (1985) and Jack And The Giant (1986).

Andy Capp, which he wrote with Alan Price, starred Sir Tom Courtenay and later transferred to Londons Aldwych Theatre.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Market Definition:

Benzyl Chloroformate Market is expected to exhibit a strong CAGR over the forecast period from 2016 to 2023, according to the latest research report from Market Research Future (MRFR). The global benzyl chloroformate market is studied in extensive detail in the report, which provides a clear overview of the global markets past growth trajectory, present status, and future prospects. The leading drivers and restraints affecting the global benzyl chloroformate market are studied in the report to provide readers with a clear idea of what is driving the market. The key players operating in the global benzyl chloroformate market are also assessed in the report to provide readers with a complete overview of the competitive landscape of the market.

Market Overview and Growth Factors:

Benzyl chloroformate is a clear, oily liquid with the chemical formula ClCO2CH2C6H5. It is slightly yellowish in color, though different variants may present with slightly different coloration. Benzyl chloroformate is also known as benzyloxycarbonyl chloride, carbobenzoxy chloride, and z-chloride, among other names, and is majorly used for the production of protective agricultural chemicals. The global benzyl chloroformate market is mainly driven by the growing agriculture industry in emerging regions such as Asia Pacific as well as the growing demand for technologically advanced solutions for enhancement of agricultural output in developed regions such as North America and Europe. Benzyl chloroformate is a key ingredient in insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, biocides, and other crop protection chemicals and is likely to witness a steady growth in demand over the forecast period due to the growing agriculture industry around the world.

Get a Free Sample of This Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3253

Competitive Analysis:

Leading players in the global benzyl chloroformate market include:

J&K Scientific Ltd.,

Wako Pure Chemical Industries Ltd.,

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.,

MERYER Co. Ltd.,

Chemlin Chemical Industry Co. Ltd.,

Tokyo Chemical Industry Co. Ltd.,

BASF SE, Nacalai Tesque,

Paushak Limited,

Choice Organochem LLP.

In May 2019, the China Crop Protection Industry Association came up with findings showing an increase of 11.5% in the accumulated sales of Chinas top 100 agrochemical companies year on year. This suggests strong growth prospects for the benzyl chloroformate market in the region over the forecast period.

Segmentation:

The global Benzyl Chloroformate Market Growth is majorly segmented on the basis of application, end users, and region.

Based on application of benzyl chloroformate, the global market is segmented into insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, sprout inhibitors, biocides, and others.

Based on end user, the benzyl chloroformate market is segmented into agriculture, pharmaceuticals, plastic, and others.

Regional Analysis:

Asia Pacific is likely to dominate the Global Benzyl Chloroformate Market over the forecast period due to the growing agriculture industry in countries such as India and China. The growing population of these countries has driven the demand for increased agricultural output, thus driving the demand for crop protection chemicals, among other solutions. The increasing production of crop protection chemicals in these countries is also likely to drive the benzyl chloroformate market in Asia Pacific over the forecast period.

The agrochemical industry in countries such as China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan has prospered in the last few years, with the improving local output taking up a major share in the market beside international imports. This is likely to be a major driver for the benzyl chloroformate market in Asia Pacific over the forecast period. The Asia Pacific market accounted for 35% of the global benzyl chloroformate market in 2016 and is likely to remain similarly dominant over the forecast period.

North America holds the second largest share in the global benzyl chloroformate market and is likely to retain a dominant market share over the forecast period due to the growing use of benzyl chloroformate in the agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and plastic industries.

Europe is also a leading regional market for benzyl chloroformate due to the growing demand for technically advanced agricultural solutions in the region.

Emerging regions such as Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are also likely to witness steady growth in the benzyl chloroformate market over the forecast period due to the steady advancement of the agriculture industry in these regions and the growing production of insecticides and herbicides in these regions.

Access Complete Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/benzyl-chloroformate-market-3253
New horizons open in The Kitchen Without Borders, a compilation of recipes from the immigrant and refugee chefs who worked with Eat Offbeat, a New York catering company. It was founded in 2015 by Manal and Wissam Kahi from Lebanon, and it pivoted to meal kit deliveries during the pandemic. The stories of 15 chefs fill the colorful pages of the cookbook, along with recipes from Syria, Afghanistan, Guinea, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Venezuela, Senegal and more. Its home-cooking at its best, with eggplant dishes, salads and stews. There are inspirations, like a silken bell pepper soup from the Central African Republic, baklava richly interpreted as a cake by an Iranian chef, and Afghan chicken karahi, a quick simmer with spices and tomatoes. You may have to expand your pantry with items like berbere spices, barberries and piloncillo to prepare some of the recipes. Two percent of the price is being donated to the International Rescue Committee.

The Kitchen Without Borders: Recipes and Stories From Refugee and Immigrant Chefs by Eat Offbeat Chefs, (Workman, $24.95).

Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.
Twitter has sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, alleging that the Republican used his office to retaliate against it for blocking former President Donald Trump's account after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Twitter filed a lawsuit against Texas AG

Paxton launched an investigation into Twitter and four other big media platforms days after the deadly insurgency over what he termed "the apparently orchestrated de-platforming of the President." The attorney general's office recommended that the companies turn over a series of documents, including internal correspondence and content moderation practices, as per the Independent.

Twitter replied with a federal complaint on Monday, saying Paxton is attempting to prosecute it for deactivating Trump's account. The social media giant claims were made in the name of free speech. It requests that a judge find the decision to be beyond the scope of the First Amendment, effectively halting Paxton's investigation.

"Paxton made clear that he would use the full force of his position, including his broad investigative authority, to discriminate against Twitter for making editorial decisions with which he disagrees," the company's attorneys wrote in a lawsuit filed in Northern California.

Read also: Facebook Investigated for Allegedly Practicing Racial Bias

Lawmakers crackdown on tech giants, including Twitter

A request for comment Monday evening from Paxton's office was not immediately returned. Meanwhile, states and federal lawmakers and governments outside the United States are cracking down on tech giants that they believe have accumulated so much leverage in the last decade. This covers antitrust and anti-monopoly regulations, internet privacy rules, and efforts to control how social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook moderate their pages.

Paxton was one of ten Republican attorney generals who sued Google in December for supposedly operating an unconstitutional digital-advertising monopoly in collusion with Facebook.

Trump was indefinitely barred from Twitter on January 8 due to the possibility of him inciting violence. Trump has previously used his Twitter account to allege systemic voter fraud in 2020. Numerous participants in the January 6 insurgency at the Capitol cited his false charges as motivation, as per Newsweek.

Though there is no proof that tech giants are biased towards conservatives, the narrative has been popular among Republicans long before Trump's election and has only become louder during his presidency. After inciting the Capitol protests on January 6, Trump was barred from Twitter for life and temporarily suspended from Facebook.

Read also: YouTube CEO to Restore Trump Channel Only if Risk of Violence Decreases

Texas AG previously sued Twitter and other tech giants

Paxton referenced the First Amendment in conducting his investigation, claiming that tech giants' exclusion of Trump "chills free speech" and "completely silences" those who disagree with them. However, since Twitter, like the other firms threatened by Paxton, such as Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon, is a private company, the First Amendment does not extend to its decisions on what content to allow on its platforms.

Twitter, unlike the government, has the authority to silence users. Trump and other world leaders have long been excluded from the company's laws regarding personal threats, hate words, and other activities. However, after five people were killed in the Capitol riot, the organization said Trump's tweets contributed to the glorification of crime, as plans for potentially armed demonstrations during President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration circulated online.

According to AP News, Paxton is now facing several legal issues, including an FBI probe into allegations that he used his office to help a rich donor. Besides, he is facing allegations of unrelated securities fraud dating back to 2015. Paxton has pleaded not guilty, and the matter has been held in court for years due to procedural issues.

Read also: Facebook Steps Down from Australia News Ban After Law Compromise

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Rina Tsugawa recalls a charmed childhood amid rice paddies in northeastern Japan, hopping on bicycles with her sister and roaming the streets of their village, where monkeys sometimes descended from the mountains and neighbors offered the girls sweets as they popped into their homes.

The sisters were the only children in their hamlet in Fukushima Prefecture, living with their mother and grandparents in the house where their grandfather was born. On that terrible day a decade ago when Fukushima was struck by a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, setting off a triple meltdown at a nuclear power plant, a 12-year-old Ms. Tsugawa was at school 90 miles inland. As the powerful shaking jolted her sixth-grade classroom, she and her classmates hid under their desks, crying in fear.

In the years since, many of her peers have left for jobs in Tokyo and other cities, an outflow common to rural Japan but accelerated by the disaster in Fukushima. Ms. Tsugawa has different plans. After graduating this month from nursing school, she ultimately wants to return to her hometown to care for the aging residents who helped raise her.

They gave us so much when we were little, said Ms. Tsugawa, now 22. I want to help these elderly people stay healthy longer.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Click the image above to watch the video

New Zealands first large-scale Covid-19 vaccination clinic has opened in south Auckland for the rollouts official start to vaccinate border workers household contacts.

This newly established vaccination centre has been set up in East Tamaki as we ramp up our immunisation programme for this next phase to vaccinate the estimated 50,000 household contacts of our border and managed isolation and quarantine workforce, says Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

Initially, about 150 people a day will get vaccinated at the clinic, but we plan to rapidly increase these numbers over the coming week.

On Tuesday, 10 vaccinators were on site, including some who have been vaccinating border workers in the past few weeks. At this stage, were vaccinating people who have been invited to attend the clinic.

Two other large-scale vaccination centres will open, one in west Auckland and the other in central Auckland in the coming weeks, where well also initially focus on household contacts of our border and MIQ workers.

Also, were partnering with some Maori and Pacific NGOs to set up smaller community-based vaccination clinics in south Auckland to support our rollout to household contacts of border and MIQ workers.

Air New Zealand employee James Fogasavaiis parents and sister headed to the vaccination clinic this morning for their first Covid-19 vaccination.

I think its important for my family itself just to protect them from the Covid thats happening around the world. I think its vital that they do get it and it will be good so that we can be advocates for our community, especially for church, just to spread the word that it is important to get this vaccination done, says James.

Its an extra protection for our family and for our community so its good to get the vaccination done.

James sister, Denise Fogasavaii, agrees that it was vital for family members of border workers to also get vaccinated.

Level Four was hectic for us because (James) had to isolate separately from our family, especially when weve got vulnerable people at home as well. Ive got my parents, my aunty and my uncle, so it was important for me to actually get it as well.

I know a lot of our old people are probably scared of getting the vaccine but getting it today, it doesnt hurt, and it is important for everybody to get it.

Their father, Sa Fogasavaii, was grateful for the opportunity to get vaccinated.

Its good for you, guys, everybody, for your life, your kids  if you love your kids, come and do it.

Another household contact is Aaron Te Moananua, whose partner works at MIQ. He was keen to encourage everyone to get vaccinated.

Living with someone who works in the borders and just putting my family in safe arms, just makes me comfortable getting this injection today.

If youre unsure, just talk with people like myself who have got it done before. You dont know until you get here and like I say, the nurses will make you feel welcomed and feel like theres nothing to worry about. So yeah, whanau, come along and get the jab.

Dr Bloomfield says the next stage in the rollout will be vaccinating our about 55,000 frontline health workers.

Many of them will also get vaccinated at similar dedicated centres that will get set up around New Zealand. From mid-year, the general public will be able to get their vaccinations, including at large-scale vaccination clinics like these.

This is another important step in our journey towards rolling out vaccinations to all New Zealanders."

Additional information

How will it actually work with the families of border workers?

Border and MIQ workers subject to a mandatory testing order are being asked to nominate the people they live with and register their contact details. District Health Boards will invite those contacts to schedule a vaccination at the vaccination centre.

They can make the appointment at a time to suit them. If they need to change the date time or location they can do so at any time, and there is a dedicated call centre for them to ring. When they arrive at the vaccination centre they need to show the invitation letter and identification so staff can confirm they are a household contact.

Will household contacts get invited to come to a vaccination place on a certain day at a certain time?

Yes.

How will they be contacted?

By email, phone or text message.

What if they dont turn up?

The DHB will send follow-up messages to the household contacts.

Do we have a goal (numbers/timeframe) to vaccinate the estimated 50,000 household contacts of border workers?

Not at this stage. Vaccinating household contacts is a priority but there is considerable uncertainty around the numbers in this cohort. 50,000 is an estimate based on four people per frontline worker.

The actual number of household contacts invited to be vaccinated will depend on how many people are nominated by border and MIQ workers.

How do you prove you live with a border worker?

Household contacts will be nominated by border and MIQ workers subject to a mandatory testing order. If someone turns up to a community vaccination centre without an appointment, they will be asked to confirm that they live with a border or MIQ worker and to provide their contact details.




"We are honored to have been selected, especially considering this is our first year officially serving the gaming community," says Jon Campbell, Director of Gaming at Herman Miller. "From the beginning, we knew this was going to be big. The gaming community was already using our regular line of products and asking for morethey deserved better equipment, and we had the ergonomic expertise to make the solutions they needed. Partnering with the team at Logitech G, observing and talking with professional esports athletes, diving deep into ergonomic researchall of those steps were absolutely critical to getting where we are today, and where we want to go in the future."

Herman Miller officially launched the Herman Miller x Logitech G Embody Gaming Chair in July of last year. The chair took one of the company's most iconic and esteemed designs and modified it for gamers using two years of in-depth studies and research with professional esports athletes, making it the gaming industry's first truly ergonomic chair.

The Embody Gaming Chair is designed to provide proper alignment, balance, and comfort to gamers while they play. The chair is equipped with cooling foam and copper-infused particles that support the ideal gaming posture and reduce and heat buildup that can be caused from sitting on thick cushions for a prolonged period of time. The chair also features pixelated support, which distributes weight evenly to reduce pressure and encourage movement, two features crucial to maintaining healthy circulation and focus. In addition to the Embody Gaming Chair, Herman Miller has launched a range of gaming accessories and chairs, including special color editions of the iconic Aeron and Sayl chairs.

Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multiday summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021.

Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021.

About Herman Miller

Herman Miller is a globally recognized leader in design. Since its inception in 1905, the company's innovative, problem-solving designs and furnishings have inspired the best in people wherever they live, work, learn, heal, and play. In 2018, Herman Miller created Herman Miller Group, a purposefully selected, complementary family of brands that includes Colebrook Bosson Saunders, Design Within Reach, Geiger, HAY, Maars Living Walls, Maharam, naughtone, and Nemschoff. Guided by a shared purposedesign for the good of humankindHerman Miller Group shapes places that matter for customers while contributing to a more equitable and sustainable future for all. For more information visit www.hermanmiller.com/about-us .

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

SOURCE Herman Miller, Inc.

Related Links

www.hermanmiller.com


Meghan Markle is fresh from her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, and while the world waits for the royal family to react, fans are diving deep into the specifics of what Markle revealed in the two-hour interview. While Markle talked about a wide variety of topics, including how she and Prince Harry actually celebrated their wedding to the story of how they set about creating a new life in California. One of the top stories has been about how the royal family reportedly treated Markle and Prince Harrys son, Archie Harrison. As Markle detailed, not only did some of the royal familys top members have concerns about her sons race, but there were issues with his royal rank as well.

(L-R) Meghan Markle and Prince Harry | Dominic Lipinski/Getty Images

Meghan Markles explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey

In a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle said she had asked officials at Buckingham Palace for medical help after having suicidal thoughts but was told it would damage the institution. https://t.co/oBHAn9TwDx pic.twitter.com/ANDDMIV0CY  The New York Times (@nytimes) March 8, 2021

RELATED: Has Meghan Markle Ever Won a Golden Globe?

On the evening of March 7th, 2021, a groundbreaking interview aired, with Oprah Winfrey and the ex-senior royals Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. The couple, in their first major televised interview since stepping down as senior working royals, revealed a slew of unflattering details about life within the royal family, including the months leading up to their wedding and the year after they were married. Meghan Markle admitted that the British tabloid press made her life as a royal a nightmare and that at one point, she even considered suicide.

Prince Harry and Markle talked about their breaking point, detailing how, after Markle gave birth to Archie Harrison in May 2019, that they knew they needed to step away from full-time royal life for good. It was Markles pregnancy with Archie that caused even more serious issues to form in the couples relationship with the royals  eventually contributing to their big exodus.

What did Meghan Markle reveal about the royal familys relationship with Archie Harrison?

Meghan Markle told Oprah Winfrey that when she was first pregnant with son Archie, there were "concerns and conversations" within the royal family "about how dark his skin might be." https://t.co/qyHVDkcrkY  AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) March 8, 2021

RELATED: The 5 Major Bombshells Meghan Markle Dropped During Oprah Winfrey Interview

Meghan Markle identifies as a mixed-race woman, and her pregnancy with Archie signaled a major turning point in the history of the royal family. Her child with Prince Harry would be the first mixed-race member of the British monarchy at that level, and while millions of royal fans around the world rejoiced for the bold new direction, according to Markle, the royal family was more reserved.

According to Yahoo, in the interview, Markle told Oprah Winfrey that the royal family had concerns and conversations about what her babys skin color would be, prior to his birth. Additionally, she revealed that the royal family didnt want Archie Harrison to have a title or the security detail that comes with the title. While Markle did not reveal which members of the royal family had those difficult conversations with her and Prince Harry, her revelations are shocking nonetheless.

The royal family missed a major opportunity in regard to Archie

Meghan Markle is opening up about baby Archie and the "concerns" that were raised about his skin color. https://t.co/NzIAQaOchX pic.twitter.com/ffFAicU4ik  People (@people) March 8, 2021

RELATED: What Meghan Markles Relationship With the Queen is Really Like

As the royal family reels in response to Meghan Markles interview, fans are debating the way that the royal family reportedly treated Archie Harrison. Increasingly, fans are seeing the story about Archie as a deeply missed opportunity. As Markle explained in her interview with Winfrey, she was upset at the royal family taking away Archies princely title, saying that she was upset at the idea of the first member of color in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be. Its not their right to take away, according to The Guardian.

Notably, if Markles words are true, it would be a missed opportunity for the British royal family  both in terms of public image and in the advancement of the monarchy. Making Archie Harrison a prince would not only signal that the royal family is ready for a new direction, but it would have served as a way to repair the fractured relationship between Markle and the royals. Unfortunately, all of that is water under the bridge now, as Markle and Prince Harry live out their new lives in California.
Hong Kong confirmed 21 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, the highest daily caseload in nine days, while the minister handling the citys mass vaccination programme admitted the take-up rate for bookings had dropped due to public concerns over people seeking hospital treatment after receiving the Sinovac vaccine.

Health authorities were also dealing with a growing new outbreak stemming from the Coast Seafood and Grill restaurant at Causeway Bays trendy Fashion Walk dining strip, where a fourth infection was reported on Tuesday.

Of the 21 new cases citywide, 13 were imported from countries including Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore  the highest since November 12.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

One of the locally transmitted cases was a one-month-old baby, and three were untraceable.

The latest cases pushed the citys infection tally to 11,120, with 202 related deaths.

Among the three unlinked cases was a 56-year-old man who had lunch at Coast Seafood and Grill on February 22. Three other people who had lunch there on the same day were confirmed infected earlier. All four had sat at three different tables close to each other.

One of the four had also eaten at Mr Mings Chinese Dining restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsuis K11 Musea mall, the site of a major outbreak recently, with 52 employees, customers and their close contacts infected.

Were trying to trace all those patrons [who were at Coast Seafood and Grill] on the same day to see if theres any asymptomatic transmission, said Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Centre for Health Protections communicable disease branch.

All Coast Seafood and Grill staff had tested negative, Chuang said, but they would have to be screened further to identify silent carriers.

Among the fewer than 10 people who tested preliminary-positive citywide was a 26-year-old man working at a Kwun Tong care home for the mentally disabled. More than 50 of the residents had to be quarantined, along with some 20 staff.

Story continues

The Department of Health, meanwhile, said a 51-year-old man was in a critical condition after receiving a Sinovac jab last week. The patient, who has diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia, was vaccinated last Wednesday and experienced shortness of breath three days later. He sought help at Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Monday and was later admitted to the intensive care unit.

An expert committee monitoring the side effects of vaccines will examine the case.

Earlier on Tuesday, civil service chief Patrick Nip Tak-kuen told a radio show the proportion of people turning up for their vaccination appointments had fallen from 90 per cent at the launch of the programme last month to 72 per cent.

He said it was a reflection of public concern over reports of serious health complications and three deaths among people who had received Sinovac jabs.

The third death, revealed on Monday, sparked new concerns about the vaccine because the 71-year-old patient had no public record of chronic illnesses, unlike the two previous fatalities.

The expert committee will assess a detailed autopsy report before deciding if his death was linked to the vaccine. The panel earlier concluded there were no direct links between the vaccines and the deaths of two people with chronic illnesses.

Patrick Nip. Photo: Sam Tsang

Nip reiterated the government took every incident involving jabs very seriously, adding the committee would weigh up each case to ascertain any causation links between the vaccine and the patients condition.

Asked why Hong Kong was vaccinating people aged above 60 when mainland China had not yet recommended the use of the Sinovac jab for that age group, Nip said the citys advisory panel on Covid-19 vaccines had, after careful assessment, determined the benefits of getting the elderly population inoculated outweighed the risks.

In the past, especially during the third wave of case surges [in July], infections and deaths among the elderly age groups were high, Nip said.

On Tuesday, 8,700 people received the mainland-made Sinovac vaccine. A total of 113,500 people have been inoculated with either Sinovac or BioNTech vaccines since the drive launched in late February.

Initially, those aged 60 or above were prioritised in the vaccination campaign. Others such as health care workers, residents and staff of care homes, public service employees and cross-boundary transport workers were also among those allowed to get the vaccines first.

From Tuesday, the programme was expanded to include more people, including catering sector and supermarket workers, with about 3.7 million people in the city now covered.

Separately, the Food and Health Bureau said on Tuesday evening it was very dissatisfied that Kingmed Diagnostics (Hong Kong), which runs a Covid-19 testing centre in Yau Ma Tei, failed to deliver results to 6,000 residents within 48 hours, as was required in the contract.

More from South China Morning Post:

This article Coronavirus: Hong Kong logs 21 new cases, while official admits reports of serious health complications and three deaths after jabs have hit vaccine bookings first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2021.
More recalls reflect the political moment

Though recalls for state office are relatively rare, this particular election procedure has been having a moment in recent years. According to data collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures, of the 42 recall campaigns against state officeholders that qualified for the ballot, 18 of them, or 46%, popped up since 2010.

That trend could be due to the advent of social media, which makes it easier to publicize these efforts, the national wave of anti-incumbent feeling epitomized by the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, or mere political faddism.

But Seth Masket, director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, said the rising tide of recalls is yet another product of our highly polarized political environment.

Almost all of the states are basically one-party governmentThe minority party in those states just sees fewer opportunities to influence the legislature or influence politics, he said. The recall is an outlet in that situation.

For the GOP in California, the recall is probably the only way to the governors mansion, he added.
Sports Mole provides score predictions for all of Sunday's Premier League fixtures, including Manchester City vs. Manchester United.

 Reuters

Two sides battling to avoid relegation from the Premier League face off on Sunday afternoon as West Bromwich Albion welcome Newcastle United to The Hawthorns.

West Brom are eight points behind Newcastle, having also played a game more, and quite simply need to win this contest if they are to have a realistic chance of beating the drop.

We say: West Bromwich Albion 1-1 Newcastle United

West Brom boss Allardyce will see this as possibly one final chance for West Brom to revive their survival hopes by dragging Newcastle further into the relegation mire.

The two sides have been in similar form over the past month and drew the last time they met at The Hawthorns, so we can see this one finishing all square - a result that will suit neither team.

Our tipster partners are predicting under 3.5 goals.

> Click here to read our full preview for this match

> How Newcastle could line up against West Brom

> How West Brom could line up against Newcastle



 Reuters

Liverpool will renew their search for an elusive Anfield victory when they welcome Fulham to Merseyside on Sunday.

The relegation-threatened Cottagers will be the second West London outfit to visit Anfield in the space of three days following Chelsea's victory there on Thursday night - a fifth consecutive home defeat for the champions.

We say: Liverpool 1-1 Fulham

Just a couple of months ago, to have backed Fulham to come away from Anfield with anything would have been a very bold call. Now, though, it is far more realistic and the formbook points to the visitors picking up a point, if not more.

We do expect Liverpool to at least end their losing run on home turf, but their wait for an Anfield victory may go on against a Fulham side that have established themselves as a tough team to beat over recent months.

Our tipster partners are predicting a home win.

> Click here to read our full preview for this match

> How Fulham could line up against Liverpool

> How Liverpool could line up against Fulham

> Liverpool injury, suspension list vs. Fulham



 Reuters

Manchester City will be looking to take another huge step towards winning this season's Premier League title when they welcome bitter rivals Manchester United to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Pep Guardiola's side, who are on an incredible 21-game winning run in all competitions, top the table, 14 points clear of second-placed Man United, who are very much locked in a battle for a top-four finish.

We say: Manchester City 2-1 Manchester United

Man United have won three of their last six meetings with Man City in all competitions, suffering just two defeats, both of which were at Old Trafford. The Red Devils are more than capable of making it a difficult afternoon for Guardiola's side, but we are struggling to back anything other than a home win here.

Our tipster partners are predicting under 3.5 goals.

> Click here to read our full preview for this match

> How Man United could line up against Man City

> How Man City could line up against Man United

> Man United injury, suspension list vs. Man City

> Man City injury, suspension list vs. Man United

> Combined XI: Man City vs. Man United

> A look at five memorable Manchester derbies at the Etihad Stadium



 Reuters

Tottenham Hotspur will be aiming to make it three wins in a row in the Premier League for the first time since November when they host Crystal Palace on Sunday evening.

Spurs finally appear to have found some momentum but are still down in eighth in the table, while Palace are five places worse off following back-to-back stalemates.

We say: Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Crystal Palace

Palace have kept back-to-back clean sheets in the Premier League and won 2-1 at Brighton & Hove Albion in their most recent away outing.

The Eagles have not won successive away league games since June 2020, though, and they face a Spurs side back in form thanks to three wins-to-nil on the spin in all competitions.

We are backing the home team to keep their positive streak going with another victory on Sunday.

Our tipster partners are predicting under 3.5 goals.

> Click here to read our full preview for this match

> How Crystal Palace could line up against Tottenham

> How Tottenham could line up against Crystal Palace

> Tottenham injury, suspension list vs. Palace
Do you have a news tip?

Want to share good news story, or do you have information that should see the light of day? Then we want to hear from you.

More here
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't rule out running for Senate in Georgia.

'Oh my goodness. Let's talk about things like gun bills, talk about the Equality Act,' she answered when asked about a run for the upper chamber by Politico's Huddle.

There will be another Georgia Senate election next year, as Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who was elected in January, won just a two-year term to fill the remainder of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson's term.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't rule out running for Senate in Georgia, as she refused to answer the question head-on when asked by a reporter for Politico's Huddle

New Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock will have to run again next year, as his special election run-off victory in January was to fill retired Sen. Johnny Isakson's seat for a final two years

Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler had been selected by Georgia's GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to fill the seat until the special election, but she was defeated by Warnock in the January run-off.

Democrat Jon Ossoff was also successful in beating Sen. David Perdue in the January run-off, winning a full, six-year term.

Perdue, who served one full term in the Senate, has already said he won't challenge Warnock next year.

Huddle reported that Rep. Jody Hice, another Georgia Republican, wouldn't enter the Senate race.

Greene's attachment to conspiracy theories and her flamethrowing tactics - like putting a sign outside her office saying that there are 'two genders,' after Democratic Rep. Marie Newman put up a trans flag in support of her trans daughter - have made the Georgia freshman a household name.

But the moves have made her few friends in Republican politics.

Once Greene was tossed off committees by the Democratic majority, she's used procedural votes to get attention.

On several occasions, Greene has made a motion to adjourn the House for the day, in the run-up to what she says are controversial votes, including for the pro-LGBTQ Equality Act.

The floor votes have forced colleagues to cut off Zooms with constituents and to pause committee hearings.

Rep. Ann Wagner, a Missouri Republican, told The Hill that she was 'aggravated' by Greene's behavior. 'Ms. Greene doesn't have three hearings today like I do,' Wagner added.

Greene launched into a Twitter tirade about the Hill's report, calling it 'unfortunate' that some of her Republican colleagues 'don't share the outrage that Republican voters feel about the Democrats radical agenda!'

'They'd rather sit on committee zoom meetings where they are mute and their hands are tied doing nothing,' she offered.

She may not have the support from the full Republican caucus to launch a Senate run, but Greene has made clear she's been in contact with one potent force in her party - former President Donald Trump.

Last month she said she would be meeting with Trump soon and visiting the ex-president at Mar-a-Lago, where he's resided since leaving office on January 20.
Mumbai, March 9 : With an eye on generating employment and unshackling tourism in the Covid-19 pandemic ravages, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar has given a booster dose to tourism in the Budget 2021-2022.

Virtually luring people to let their hair down and hit the roads, Pawar's highlights are: Developing a new hill-station, an international class tourist complex, a new boat jetty, a cruise terminal, development of beaches, hill-resorts, museums, safaris, historical and pilgrimage centres.

Pawar has allocated Rs 2,369 crore with a slew of initiatives intended to create more jobs and tempt people out of homes to tourist destinations, after three whole tourism seasons of 2020 were gobbled away by Covid-19 lockdowns.

Barely two hours from Mumbai, Jawhar is a little-known tiny hillstation nestled on a plateau in Palghar, with a salubrious climate, deep valleys, lush-green hills with unexplored waterfalls, thick forests and famed for its Warli tribal art paintings, which is proposed to be developed majorly for tourism.

It is one of the few tribal kingdoms in the state offering an insight into the tribal way of life besides its eye-catching natural beauty and unseen hidden delights dotting the region.

Palghar also has several good beaches like Arnala, Kelva, the 17-km long Dahanu-Bordi, besides at least 8 beach or hill forts, the famed hill-top Jivdani Temple, ancient churches and mosques.

Another pleasant announcement for Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray was plan for an international class tourist complex which will come up on a 14-acre site at the Worli Dairy in Mumbai for which a detailed project report is being prepared.

On the sea-front plans for the state's 720-km long coastline, Pawar said that a tourist jetty will come up at Kashid Beach, Raigad, a cruise terminal at Bhagwati Port, Ratnagiri which would complement the state's beach shack, caravan and agri-tourism policies announced last year, with a new Nature Tourism policy coming up soon.

As part of a Rs 101 crore refurbishment and conservation of ancient temples around the state, the state will take up 8 temples in phases, like the Goddess Ekvira Mata Temple near Karla in Pune, which is also the family deity of the Thackeray clan.

The others will be Khandoba Temple in Aurangabad, Gondeshwar Temple in Nashik, Aanadeshwar Temple in Amravati, Kopeshwar Temple in Kolhapur, Shiv Temple in Gadhiroli's Markanda, Purushottam Temple in Beed, and Dhuppadeshwar Temple in Ratnagiri.

A Rs 162.50 crore project is underway to develop the Gandhi Sevagram Ashram in Wardha, where the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi spent several years of his life.

In October last year, the government decided to set the ball rolling for including Gandhi Sevagram Ashram in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, making it the first such proposal for any Gandhiji-related monument in the world to be accorded the coveted status.

Pawar said the state will develop the Lonar Lake in Buldhana for which the plan was finalized recently by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray visiting the site last month, besides boosting facilities in Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani hill stations in Satara.

The state proposes a path-breaking project to harness the potential of nature tourism, fisheries, micro-industries in the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg districts at a cost of Rs 100 crore per annum over the next three years.

The Hindu HridaySamrat Bal Thackeray Memorial in Mumbai, a proposed tourist attraction has been allocated Rs 400 crore, the Culture Departments will construct a Maharashtra history museum for which Rs 161 crore has been sanctioned, besides a Sugar Museum in Pune at a cost of Rs 40 crore to showcase the history, development and importance of this critical industry.

"Tourism is the worst-hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Given the financial status of the state, it's good that it has got allocation which will help generate revenue and create jobs as the projects come up," said Aditya Thackeray.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)
New Delhi, Mar 9 (UNI) President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday expressed grief over the loss of lives in the fire in Kolkata last evening.

In a tweet, the President said "Pained beyond words by the extremely tragic fire accident at a building in Kolkata. My deep sympathy and condolences for the bereaved families. I wish for speedy recovery of the injured."

At least nine people were killed in a major fire at the 13th floor of the Eastern Railways office at Strand road in the central part of the city on Monday evening.

Railway minister Piyush Goyal has set up a high level inquiry consisting of four Principal heads of Railway departments to ascertain the cause of the fire.

UNI ASN SB 1048
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Nevada Zinc Corporation (TSXV: NZN) ("Nevada Zinc" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the engagement of Hazen Research, Inc., Golden, Colorado ("Hazen") to conduct a multiphase pilot program to develop a flowsheet to recover zinc sulfate monohydrate using a bulk sample from the Company's Lone Mountain zinc project, produce commercial grade zinc sulfate monohydrate product samples, and provide process plant capital and operating cost estimates.

Nevada Zinc will provide a bulk sample from its Lone Mountain project site in Eureka County, Nevada. The scope of work, which will commence this month, will be conducted in four main phases:

Preliminary assessment and review of recovering and purifying zinc from the bulk sample containing zinc carbonate and silicate mineralization. A conceptual flowsheet will be generated based on the review and findings;

The conceptual flowsheet steps will be carried out on a small scale to establish the efficacy of the proposed unit operations and to develop target conditions for each step;

A bulk operation will be conducted to produce approximately 150 lbs. of a commercial grade zinc sulfate monohydrate product (ZnSO4H2O); and

An economic evaluation of the production process will be performed to provide estimates for both process plant capital costs and operating costs.

For more than 55 years, Hazen has provided chemical analyses, bench-scale experiments, continuous pilot plant demonstration, and field and other services. Hazen designs flowsheets and reduces scale-up risks for commercial plants throughout the world.

Mr. Max Vichniakov, President and CEO commented, "We are very excited by our progress with the Lone Mountain zinc project and the engagement of a reputable firm like Hazen. The level of work to be carried out by Hazen amounts to a small-scale pilot plant demonstration and will further de-disk our project on the processing side. This program will allow us to produce zinc sulfate bulk samples to showcase to the industry as well as our strategic partners and also help us to determine process plant operating and capital costs. North American agricultural markets have been experiencing an upbeat momentum with rising crop and crop input prices over the recent months and showing positive demand outlook. In this market environment, we believe Nevada Zinc is uniquely positioned to capitalize on its integrated "mine, process, end-user product" strategy in the zinc sulfate products markets for the US agricultural sector. The pilot program represents a significant milestone for Nevada Zinc and further advances our highly prospective Lone Mountain zinc project."

The program is expected to take approximately six months to complete. The Company looks forward to providing regular updates and announcing results from the pilot program as soon as they become available.

About Nevada Zinc

The Company is focused on its 100% owned Lone Mountain zinc project in central Nevada where it has been working since 2014 on a significant zinc oxide/carbonate zone of mineralization. To-date, the Company has completed an initial resource estimate and a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") of the potential economic viability of the project under a variety of assumptions. The PEA does not incorporate the potentially significant incremental economic benefits that could accrue to the Company from re-configuring the open pit mine and plant design to a simpler process that would focus on a lower cost production process for the concentrated zinc mineralization that could then be leached on-site and formulated into high-value zinc sulfate chemical products for the US agricultural sector. In July of 2020 the Company entered into a Collaboration Agreement with Cameron Chemicals Inc., a leading U.S. producer and distributor of granular micronutrients to the agricultural, turf, and horticultural industries. Cameron has manufacturing facilities in the states of Washington, Virginia and Michigan. Under the terms of the Collaboration Agreement, Nevada Zinc and Cameron will work together to establish a range of zinc-based micronutrient products to be produced by the Company and marketed by Cameron through its distribution networks. The Company successfully completed an oversubscribed private placement in February 2021, and in March commenced a multiphase pilot program to produce zinc sulfate from a bulk sample to further de-risk and advance its highly prospective Lone Mountain zinc project.

Additional information about the Company is available on the Company's website: www.nevadazinc.com

For further information please contact:

Nevada Zinc Corporation

82 Richmond St. East, First Floor

Toronto, Ontario M5C 1P1

Tel: 416-409-8441

Max Vichniakov, President & CEO

info@nevadazinc.com

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the results, timing and content of the work to be performed by Hazen. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results relating to, among other things, the multiphase program to be developed by Hazen, results of exploration, project development, reclamation and capital costs of the Company's mineral properties, and the Company's financial condition and prospects, could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. These and other factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by the Company or on its behalf, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76501
Joseph Conrads The Heart of Darkness ends with its protagonist, Kurtz, declaring, The horror! The horror!, as his verdict on all that he has done and seen, and on the general devastation wrought by imperialism on the African continent.

One wonders what enduring phrase Conrad would have employed to summarise the terrible suffering inflicted upon Meghan Markle by Britains Royal Family? Possibly, The banality! The self-pity!

Markle and her husband, Harry, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, spoke to Oprah Winfrey, net worth $2.7 billion. She began by asking what their $14.5 million home near Santa Barbara, California means to them as part of their new life after withdrawing from Royal duties.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is joined by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, and at rear, from left, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex during a reception at Buckingham Palace, London to mark the 50th anniversary of the investiture of the Prince of Wales. March 5, 2019 file photo (Dominic Lipinski/Pool via AP, File)

Peace, Markle replied. One might add that it is just one of the benefits of having an awful lot of money.

The interview cum promotional video, which has already earned over $9 million for Winfreys production company from CBS and 1 million from ITV, was a much-anticipated takedown of The Firm, a suitably disparaging term for the House of Windsor, and the latest stage in a bitter factional conflict rocking the Royal Family to its foundations.

Harry and Meghans catalogue of complaints was thin gruel. Meghan said that she had been driven to the point that she didnt want to be alive anymore but cited only one example of ostensibly genuine racism by a member of the Royal Family, an allegedly racist motive regarding bestowing the title of prince on her son, and the cold indifference to her suffering at the hands of the venal British media.

Harry played on comparisons between the mistreatment of his wife and the tragic fate of his mother, Princess Diana, made a swipe at his father, Prince Charles, for abandoning him, and at the royals for closing the purse strings after the couple made clear they wanted out.

Markle portrayed herself as a naif, who believed her marriage to Harry would be the stuff of a Disney movie, only to discover the racism in the British media and a belief in the royal household that she and Harry were upstaging the heir to the throne, Prince William, and his wife Kate.

Of the accusations made, the supposedly most explosive were several conversations about how dark Meghan's babys skin might be when he was bornrelayed to Meghan by Harry. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked, he explained. Really? Someone who grew up with Prince Philip as his grandfather, and whose idea of fun as a young man was to dress up as a Nazi? Both refused to say which royal said it, but they asked Winfrey to stress that it was neither the queen nor Philipwhich eliminates at least one notorious racist.

The account was meant to reinforce Markles assertion of a racist motive for not making her son Archie a prince, which would be different from protocol, and that he wasn't going to receive security. Citing royal protocol was not a suitable explanation, she insisted. It was particularly concerning that the first member of colour in this family isn't being titled in the same way as other grandchildren would be.

This is nonsense, as royal protocol does specify that Archie would not get a title at birth as he is only the son of the second son of Charles, the Prince of Wales. Had Meghan been minded to hang around for more than two years, Archie would have been made a prince once Charles ascended to the throne.

The only other accounts of royal skulduggery and abuse related to Winfrey were that a row over her flower girl wedding dresses was reported as having reduced Kate to tears, when in fact it was Meghan who ended up crying; Prince Charles not taking Harrys calls after he stepped down; and the two being cut off financially in the first quarter of 2020. Had he not had the money left him by his mother, the revenues from his fathers estate, and the ability to rely on American billionaire media mogul Tyler Perry, they would have been in a truly dreadful situation.

Whatever event or combination of events convinced the Sussexes that they no longer wanted to play their part in the front ranks of the monarchy, the most important deciding factor was that they could make far more money once they were free operators. Both wanted Harry to retain the title His Royal Highness (HRH) while being freed from mundane royal duties.

In January last year the couple declared on their website, sussexroyal.com, their intention to carve out a progressive new role within this [Royal] institution, including becoming financially independent. This meant not making claims on the Sovereign Grant provided by the state to the top royals, which they complained only covered five percent of costs for The Duke and Duchess anyway. They would, however, still claim 5 million from Charless Duchy of Cornwall, which represented the remaining 95 percent of their income, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor as a UK base, and wanted British taxpayers to pick up their security and travel tab at a cost of over 1 million per year.

Alas this was not to be, as the monarchy instructed the pair to stop using HRH and get on with their money-grubbing without invoking the royal title. This was not much of a hit for the pair to suffer. The money has rolled in as they both knew it would, including a deal with the streaming service Netflix worth 100 million and a podcast deal with Spotify worth around 30 million. More money will flow their way after Sundays interview painting Meghan as a martyr.

It is hard not to experience a twinge of feeling for the queen, faced with such self-serving nonsense that risks undermining the institution she has spent decades buttressing. But we must resist. This is a fight between two factions for which there can be no sympathy, other than to acknowledge that their deeply flawed personalities are the product of an institution and a social milieu that does great damage to all involved.

The British press was largely sympathetic to Elizabeth and hostile towards the Sussexes, though the Guardian was firmly in the Meghan camp. Leading up to the interview, the Times ran allegations citing Royal aides that Markle was abusive and bullying towards palace staff, leading to resignations, while the Sun cited insiders calling Harry the hostage to a fiance and wife always looking for drama. There is an active role that the firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us, Markle told Winfrey.

Yesterday, the Telegraphs Anna Pasternack compared Harry and Meghan unfavourably to the fascist sympathisers Edward VIII and another American divorcee [who] captured the heart of a British prince, Wallis Simpson, who both despite being banished, were dutiful and patriotic to the end.

There were no editorials, however, likely due to widespread concern that further mudslinging risks permanent damage to the monarchy, at a time when Prince Andrew stands accused of sex with underage prostitutes paid for by the deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Philip is at deaths door after heart surgery.

Once again, tensions and crisis risk tearing apart the Royal Family. This cannot be explained at the level of personal motives, even though these stretch as far back as the 1980s, above all to Princess Dianas death in 1997. They are rooted in a general crisis of every major institution of the British state, provoked by the impact of globalisation.

The marriage of Charles and Diana ended in divorce rather than resigned unhappiness because she was adopted as a cause celebre by the newly dominant super-rich layers of the financial oligarchy who supported her challenge to a monarchy embodying the hereditary privilege of layers they viewed as has-beens and virtual paupers. Every effort to resuscitate the monarchys public standing has involved taking a distance from the celebrity and open displays of wealth and excess associated with Diana, while appropriating her pose as a peoples princess supposedly in tune with ordinary working people. William married the commoner Kate Middleton in 2011. Harry went one better in 2017 by marrying a black actress, combining glamour with a progressive anti-racism and modernising message.

But nothing has worked in the long-term. On the day of the Winfrey interview, the queen gave a Commonwealth Day speech praising selfless dedication to duty and the importance of friendship and unity, speaking alongside Charles, his second wife Camilla and William and Kate. Unfortunately for her, the lure of wealth has again determined eventswith Meghan winning Harry to a life of global celebrity over the spirit of duty in the interests of British imperialism that she demanded of him.

The gap between the fabulously wealthy elite and the broad mass of the population grows more acute by the day. Ultimately, the undermining of the monarchy, the prime symbol of national unity in the UK, is the harbinger of social conflicts far more fundamental than the spats within the ruling elite exercising the worlds media while millions face desperate hardship and threats to their health and lives during the pandemic.
Rubina Dilaik recently received flak from the netizens when the actor refused to greet the paparazzi when she was spotted by them in the airport. The Bigg Boss 14 winner was on her way to Chandigarh to shoot for her music video when the paparazzi had approached her for some pictures and comments. However, even though the actor waved at them cordially, she refused to interact with them which did not go down well with some fans. Some even labelled her as arrogant and full of attitude. However, recently Rubina revealed the real reason behind her not greeting the paparazzi.

Rubina Dilaik recently interacted with VJ Andy on his talk show. The host asked her about the entire fiasco regarding her being cold towards the paparazzi. The actor then went on to say that she did not interact with the shutterbugs as she had come to know about her aunt's demise during that time. The Shakti Astitva Ke Ehsaas Ki actor revealed that her aunt had passed away in the month of January when she was still inside the Bigg Boss 14 house. However, when she had come out of the house, her grandmother had instructed her family members to not disclose the same to her as they did not want to ruin her celebratory mood after winning the show. Take a look at the video of her revealing the same.

To all the Trollers and @viralbhayani77

Before you assume, learn the facts

Before you judge, understand why



Think before judging someone.#RubinaDilaikpic.twitter.com/Ao8JvpqJAR    (@The_Dawnnn) March 8, 2021

Rubina Dilaik added that when she was travelling to Chandigarh, her family could not help but break the same as her extended family resides in Chandigarh. The Chotti Bahu actor revealed that this was the actual reason behind her not greeting the paparazzi as she was in a pensive mood during the same. Her fans were immediately furious at the paparazzi after knowing the actual reason behind her action. The actor's fans also demanded the paparazzi to issue an apology to the actor as their video had created quite a stir and had led many to criticize Rubina. Well, this surely proves that people are indeed quick to judge the actions of celebrities sometimes. Meanwhile, on the work front, Rubina will be seen in a romantic music video with actor Paras Chhabra. The track will be crooned by Asees Kaur.

Also Read: Rubina Dilaik Receives Backlash From Netizens For Being Cold Towards Paparazzi, Fans Say 'Itna Attitude'

Also Read: Rakhi Sawant On Rubina Dilaik And Abhinav Shukla: They Are Only Close Because Of Me
A Co Down teenager - whose diagnosis with a rare form of spinal cancer prompted a major fundraising drive to ensure she could participate in a drugs trial overseas - has passed away

Rachel Osborne, from Bangor, was diagnosed with a tumour on her spinal cord last July.

She subsequently underwent intensive surgery and treatment after experiencing a sore back, which started in February 2020.

A funeral notice said Rachel, who was 19, had passed away peacefully after a short illness with cancer on Sunday.

Within days of her diagnosis she underwent emergency spinal surgery after which she was given devastating news.

Rachel was informed that what she had was a diffuse midline glioma, a malignant and fast-growing tumour, for which there is currently no cure.

Rachel had just finished her final year at school and was excited at the prospect of leaving home to study anatomy at the University of Glasgow.

Rachel's shock diagnosis led to her mum Susanne and other family members start a fundraising campaign for other treatment options.

The ultimate aim was to pay for Rachel to travel to the United States as soon as possible to participate in a life-prolonging drugs trial.

Last summer the family explained, in a GoFundMe appeal of being "overwhelmed" at the kindness and generosity from supporters.

They explained that funds were needed to enable Rachel to take part in a clinical trial in America which used a new drug which was not available via the health service.

At the time they said the drug had shown promising signs from previous data and "has given us a glimmer of hope that Rachel could potentially fulfil her dream of going to university".

At the time, they also paid tribute to a "vivacious and fun-loving" young woman, saying: "She always thinks of everyone else - but now is the time where we are asking family and friends to help Rachel."

Rachel was described in the funeral notice as the "much-loved youngest daughter of Paul and Susanne Osborne and loving sister to Rhiannon and Erin".

The notice also said that Rachel would be "desperately missed forever".

No funeral service details were provided but requested that donations could be made in Rachel's memory to Cancer Research UK.
International Gas Union President Joe Kang today called for a sustainable and achievable energy transition.

today called for a sustainable and achievable energy transition. Electricity, natural gas, hydrogen, and the necessary infrastructure will be needed to help individual countries meet the UN Sustainable Development and Paris Goals.

Continued calls for electricity-only pathways to Paris targets is a setup for failure on both Paris and the Sustainable Development Goals.

BARCELONA, Spain, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - In a statement titled A Clean, Secure, and Affordable Energy Future requires Electricity, Gas, and Infrastructure, the IGU President writes that global debate about climate change and the role of energy was at a critical juncture. He is calling for an achievable, sustainable energy future, using "electrons, molecules and necessary infrastructure."

Professor Kang's comments follow last week's CERAWeek 2021 virtual conference where heads of state, ministers and senior government officials, academia, NGO's, energy industry and thought leaders shared their views on the energy and climate future.

A concern that emerged throughout the discussions is that the world is not on a path to meet the Paris Accord ambition of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees C.

There is recognition that different nations face different challenges and have different means to achieve a pathway toward Paris. For billions of people in the developing world - with low CO2 per capita and low access to energy - there is no greater challenge than achieving affordable, secure and clean supply energy. In richer nations - with high CO2 per capita - resources and infrastructure are in place to accelerate decarbonisation.

"No justice will be served if achieving the Paris targets involves actions that stymie economic growth and prosperity, or that deny billions of people access to much-needed affordable energy and clean cooking fuels," Professor Kang said.

"The International Gas Union calls on decision-makers to accept that a clean, secure, and affordable energy future requires electrons, molecules, and infrastructure. Let energy industry innovators compete to see how best this can be achieved.

About the International Gas Union

The International Gas Union (IGU) was founded in 1931 and is a global non-profit organisation aimed at promoting the political, technical and economic progress of the gas industry. The Union has more than 150 members worldwide on all continents, representing approximately 95% of the world gas market. www.igu.org

SOURCE International Gas Union
A decorated NYPD veteran whose wife is accused of seducing and starving a notorious elderly attorney to death to seize his $15m estate claims he gave the fling his blessing, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Ex-cop William Frawley reveals in new court papers that he had already come out as gay and started a relationship with a man before his wife Shamin started sleeping with Burt Pugach, who was four decades her senior.

Pugach became infamous in the 1950s for hiring goons to blind his lover Linda Riss before marrying her when he got out of prison 14 years later.

The 93-year-old's death on Christmas Eve sparked fresh intrigue amid claims he was conned into bequeathing his fortune to Shamin, his caregiver and 'girlfriend' of the past four years.

Shamin 'Sheila' Frawley's husband William revealed in court papers obtained by DailyMail.com that he had already come out as gay and started a relationship with a man, giving his wife his blessing to have an affair with Burt Pugach

Frawley, 52, claims she had been in an 'intimate relationship' with late New York lawyer Burt Pugach (pictured together in 2019) after meeting him in 2016. Frawley had served as his caregiver until his death

A group of his former friends have sued in New York City Supreme Court, arguing that 51-year-old Shamin, also known as Sheila, manipulated Pugach into changing his will and then withdrew food until he starved.

They say the notion that Pugach would leave his money to his caregiver rather than the charitable foundation for the blind that he set up with his beloved wife Linda, who died in 2013, is absurd. The friends are also pointing the finger at William, 55, and the couple's son, Nicholas Frawley, 26, who is still in the NYPD.

Their attorney, Peter S. Thomas, claims that William turned a blind eye to his pretty, brunette wife engaging in sexual activity with the ailing millionaire because he was in on the scam.

He further accuses both William and Nicholas of using their expertise in 'surveillance technology' to record all of Pugach's meetings and phone calls.

In a new affidavit, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, William insists, however, that he had been estranged from mother-of-four Shamin for years by the time she hooked up with Pugach in 2016.

'The last time I was sexually intimate with my estranged wife was 2013. It was after that experience that I realized I could no longer live a lie anymore and that I had to be true to myself,' he reveals.

'In 2014, I became romantically involved with a man. During this time I realized that I was in fact a homosexual.'

The Frawleys' accusers say William was still living with Shamin when Pugach suffered a stroke last year and moved into their Flushing, New York home.

They say he pretended to be his wife's father to maintain the illusion she was single, while she held Pugach a virtual prisoner and coerced him into changing his will.

William, who earlier this week switched his Facebook profile picture from a photo of Shamin and himself arm in arm to a New York Mets logo, claims otherwise in his February 22 reply.

'In 2015 I separated with my estranged wife, Shamin, and moved out of our marital home to my current residence which we own jointly,' he states.

'Shamin and I have an amicable relationship and are raising our younger children together.'

Frawley has similarly denied any wrongdoing, insisting her 31-year marriage was over by the time she started dating Pugach and that they were in a serious, loving relationship.

In a new affidavit, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, William insists, however, that he had been estranged from mother-of-four Shamin for years by the time she hooked up with Pugach in 2016. 'The last time I was sexually intimate with my estranged wife was 2013. It was after that experience that I realized I could no longer live a lie anymore and that I had to be true to myself,' he reveals

The latest filings include an affidavit from Grzegorz Wolski, a doctor of physical therapy who treated Pugach on a weekly basis after his stroke. 'At no time did I ever notice that Mr Pugach was being coerced or controlled by anyone,' he writes

Her attorney, Jonathan Strauss, insists the former pals are making 'baseless, despicable' allegations to 'obtain money that they are not entitled to'.

'Plaintiffs baseless accusation of Shamin's alleged undue influence upon Mr Pugach is built solely upon their mere disparity in age,' he writes in a reply to their filing.

'An age disparity between two people who love each other over a long period of time is not proof [of] undue influence. Instead such an allegation is ageism, plain and simple.'

Pugach became a household name in 1959 when he hired thugs to attack Linda Riss, a 22-year-old secretary with whom the married attorney had been having an affair.

When Linda broke off the relationship and got engaged to another man Pugach warned her: 'If I can't have you, no one else will have you, and when I get through with you no one else will want you.'

True to his word he hired three thugs who splashed her with lye, though he later claimed in interviews that he merely asked them to beat her up. The abrasive chemical, commonly used in alkaline drain cleaners, left Linda blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other. She hid her injuries behind trademark oversized sunglasses for the rest of her life.

Her decision 14 years later to marry Pugach when he finished his sentence - by then divorced from his first wife and disbarred because of his felony conviction - dumbfounded friends and family while gripping the media.

Against all odds, their second act lasted for 39 years and became the subject of numerous articles, a book and the smash hit 2007 documentary, Crazy Love.

Pugach revised his will at least five times after Linda succumbed to heart failure, gifting differing amounts to friends, but always leaving the bulk of the money to the Burton and Linda Pugach Charitable Foundation for the visually impaired. The foundation was left with nothing, however, when the will was updated for the final time in October last year.

Frawley has insisted her marriage to William (pictured together in 2011) was over by the time she became Pugach's girlfriend and that the pair were a 'monogamist' couple

Pugach shot to infamy in the late 1950s when he hired goons to blind his young lover Linda Riss with lye for ending their affair, yet married her 14 years later (pictured together)

By then the elderly socialite was completely 'smitten' with Shamin as well as totally dependent on her for his daily care, according to Thomas.

'While still married, with her husband's participation in the scheme, she used the romantic and sexual leverage she had over Burt Pugach to get him to change the beneficiaries on all of his accounts and in his will.'

Shamin 'isolated him, mistreated him, manipulated him, and once she got what she wanted from him, she starved him to death,' he writes in a February 3 complaint.

Thomas says the day Pugach died $150,000 of his money was transferred to an unknown savings account. His assets were frozen, however, after a judge granted the former friends a temporary restraining order.

Pugach's former attorney, Peter Gordon, Gordon's wife Maris, and friends Joel Jacobowitz, Tal Priel and Cindi Weiss, are alleging undue influence, unjust enrichment and disgorgement. Gordon and his wife say they were due to receive $1m from Pugach's estate before the revisions.

Jacobowitz claims he was similarly written out of $5m. The foundation had been due to receive $10.5m, it's claimed.

Her decision 14 years later to marry Pugach when he finished his sentence  by then divorced and disbarred because of his felony conviction - dumbfounded friends and family while gripping the media. Pictured: The couple in 1974

Strauss says last October's will was drawn up without any undue influence, that Frawley was entitled to withdraw money for funeral costs and that Pugach's death certificate listed natural causes rather than anything nefarious.

He also claims that Pugach freely admitted to setting up the charitable foundation as a 'vehicle to lessen his tax exposure'.

'The plaintiffs herein are not sons, daughters or relatives of Mr Pugach's in any legal manuta that would entitle them to anything from his Estate,' Strauss writes.

'Instead, the plaintiffs are attempting to acquire Mr Pugach's hard earned money by deceit, feigning their devotion to him and stating, to their benefit, what his last wishes would be.'

The latest filings include an affidavit from Grzegorz Wolski, a doctor of physical therapy who treated Pugach on a weekly basis after his stroke.

'At no time did I ever notice that Mr Pugach was being coerced or controlled by anyone,' he writes.

'Mr Pugach was taken care of both physically and mentally in the most compassionate way possible. It was obvious to me that he truly loved Shamin more than anything.'
Canberra, March 9 : The Australian government will fund apprenticeships for young workers in an attempt to stop them from becoming unemployed, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Tuesday.

He said that the government would spend at least A$1.2 billion ($917 million) over the next year subsidizing part of the wages for 70,000 new apprentices, reports Xinhua news agency.

It is an expansion of an apprenticeship wage subsidy scheme for 100,000 apprentices introduced in October 2020 to stem widespread job losses among young Australians during the coronavirus-triggered economic crisis.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the number of employed Australians in their 20s was down 2.5 per cent in February 2021 compared to February 2020.

"Creating jobs, generating economic opportunities and boosting the skills of workers right across Australia are at the heart of our National Economic Recovery Plan, as we build back from the Covid-19 recession," said Morrison.

"Last week's National Accounts showed the comeback of the Australian economy is underway, however many businesses still need support and it's important our apprentices and trainees get opportunities to boost their skills and stay employed." Powerful business groups have previously called on the federal government to increase incentives for employing young Australians.

"Ignoring the temporary programs responding to the pandemic, the financial incentives for employers have changed little for the past 20 years," the Australian Industry Group said in a submission for the upcoming federal budget.
ADDIS ABABA, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The Director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) John Nkengasong has commended China's efforts in helping African countries access COVID-19 vaccines.

Speaking to Xinhua on Sunday, Nkengasong said the continent has set a minimum target of at least 60 percent of COVID-19 vaccine immunization.

"We appreciate what China is doing on the continent, and we call on others to join this effort," Nkengasong said.

According to the latest figures from the Africa CDC, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa has reached 3,955,148 as of Sunday, while the death toll related to the pandemic reached 105,490.

The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the 55-member African Union, said that some 3,533,574 COVID-19 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease so far.

The countries with the highest number of confirmed positive cases are South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Ethiopia, the agency noted.

Meanwhile, the Africa CDC director stressed that amid the ongoing continental fight against the pandemic, African countries face several challenges, with timely access to vaccines and pandemic fatigue the two most pressing at the moment.

"We know that vaccines are the most important weapon to fight disease outbreaks, including the current COVID-19 pandemic," Nkengasong said.

"Our population have begun to face what is called pandemic fatigue. We have been doing this for one year and people are getting tired," he said, emphasizing the need to strictly adhere to public health precautionary messages.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
A judge has ruled that criminal proceedings relating to a former Labour peer accused of child sex abuse should be halted, saying the way evidence was disclosed to his defence team was disgraceful and had sabotaged his trial.

Nazir Ahmed, who was Lord Ahmed of Rotherham before he resigned from the House of Lords last year, went on trial in Sheffield last month accused of sexually abusing a younger boy and girl when he was a teenager in the early 1970s.

The trial was halted by Judge Jeremy Richardson QC two weeks ago.

On Monday, he took the unusual step of ordering a permanent stay on proceedings, bringing the prosecution to a halt, but a restriction prevented this from being reported until a further hearing.

On Tuesday, Tom Little QC, prosecuting, confirmed the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will appeal against this decision and Judge Richardsons order will not take force until the appeal is heard.

But the judge ordered that all reporting restrictions relating to the case will be lifted so details of his ruling could be published.

Judge Richardson said he was shocked and appalled that information was being supplied to the defence even during the trial, despite the allegations dating back nearly 50 years, the trial being postponed for a year due to Covid and the allegations being first made almost five years ago.

He said: This disgraceful situation has sabotaged this trial and caused it to abort. I do not use this adjective lightly.

Ahmed resigned from the upper chamber after a Lords conduct committee report recommending the first expulsion of a peer was approved by the House of Lords.

The report found he had breached the code of conduct by failing to act on his personal honour.

Ahmed, 63, went on trial at Sheffield Crown Court last month after denying two counts of attempting to rape a girl under 16, indecent assault of a boy under 14 and raping a boy under 16, all said to have occurred in the early 1970s.

His brothers Mohammed Farouq, 70 and Mohammed Tariq, 65, also from Rotherham, were accused of indecent assault of a boy under 14, but were deemed unfit to plead and faced a trial of the facts during the same proceedings.

Judge Richardson said he was extremely concerned about apparent failures by the police to follow up reasonable lines of inquiry, saying the case had been handled as if were in a different era.

The judge admitted he had always harboured grave misgiving about the wisdom of the prosecution due to the antiquity of the allegations and vagueness of what was alleged.

But he said this was not the reason he took the decision to stay the proceedings, a ruling he said he had never made before.

Judge Richardson said that despite the prosecutions massive and fundamental failure to stick to disclosure rules, it was normal to let them put it right and have another go.

But he said he had decided to take this unusual course of action in the light of a number of other factors, including what he saw as the weakness of the prosecution case.

He said the calamity had gone from bad to worse and he had come to the conclusion that enough was enough.

Judge Richardson said he understood this outcome was unsatisfactory for everyone.

He made it clear this was not a not guilty verdict for the defendants and he also said the complainants may feel cheated.

But he said the actions of the prosecution had blown this case apart, and he had to put a stop to the the agony of it continuing.

Judge Richardson repeatedly indicated his concerns about the case throughout its progress through the system.

At a hearing last year, he stressed the antiquity of the allegations noting that some of the alleged incidents happened in the late 1960s when Harold Wilson was prime minister, Lyndon Johnson was the US president and the Vietnam War was raging.

Im testing my own recollection to the full, but it was during 1968 that Martin Luther King was assassinated and, indeed, Robert Kennedy too was assassinated, Judge Richardson added.

And he went on: It was in 1971 that the UK adopted decimal currency and the Watergate scandal was yet to happen  again revealing how long ago this was.

A CPS spokesman said: We are appealing this decision and have explained this to the two complainants. If our appeal is successful we will seek another trial of the defendants.

In the meantime we will consider the judgment and ensure that lessons are learned from the issues in this case. We will continue our work to drive lasting improvements in our handling of disclosure to ensure that we provide the service the public rightly expect.

The issues surrounding this case do not change our commitment to prosecuting non-recent allegations of sexual abuse where our legal test is met.
Vijayawada: Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy has announced plans to introduce a Gender Budget that will help in special allocation of funds for women welfare. AP will be the first state to do this, the CM said on Monday.

Taking part in an event marking International Womens Day at his camp office, the CM said the gender budget would help initiate a series of welfare schemes and developmental works for women. He laid stress on ensuring equal rights to women in socio-economic and political fields. He referred to the existing welfare schemes like Amma Vodi, YSR Cheyutha, YSR Asara and Kapu Nestam with a total budget of Rs 80,000 crore that his government had unveiled in the past 21 months.

He said the YSRC government paid special attention to empowerment of women and cited the law to provide 50 per cent reservation to women in all nominated posts and at work.

The CM, in virtual mode, inaugurated Women Help Desks at all police stations in the state along with Cyber Kiosks. He launched the Swechha programme to create awareness among adolescent girls on menstrual hygiene, and flagged off a fleet of 900 Disha patrolling vehicles and 18 Disha crime scene management vehicles.

Reddy said the government would provide biodegradable sanitary napkins free of cost to girl students from Class 7 to 12 in all government schools from July 1. Such napkins would also be made available at low price in Cheyutha grocery stores from July 1. He said the government also enhanced casual leave for women staff from 15 to 20.

Maintaining that it is mandatory to have workplace committees to prevent harassment of women in government and private institutions, the CM advised chief secretary Adityanath Das to set up such a panel in the Secretariat, to start with.

Referring to the 2011 Census, the CM said only 60 per cent of the women were literate in the state while the remaining 40 per cent were unable to pursue education. Keeping this in mind, the state government introduced the Jagananna Amma Vodi scheme and spent Rs 13,022 crore on this in the last two years. He said the YSRC government would earmark Rs 32,500 crore in five years for the education of some 44.5 lakh mothers and 85 lakh students.

The CM said crimes against women have dropped by 7.5 per cent last year, compared with 2019. The time taken for the investigation of such cases came down to 53 days from the previous average of 100 days. This was due to the setting up of the Disha police stations in each district, he said.

The CM said charge sheets for 563 such offences were filed within seven days of the occurrence of those incidents.

Home minister Mekathoti Sucharitha, minister for women and child welfare Thaneti Vanitha, chief secretary Adityanath Das, DGP Goutam Sawang and others were present.
Twitter filed a lawsuit against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a California federal court Monday and asked a judge to halt the states top lawyer from investigating the company.

The social media giants court filings include a request for a temporary restraining order that would keep Paxton and his office from enforcing a demand that seeks documents revealing the companys internal decision making processes for banning users, among other things.

WINTER FREEZE: Texas AG Paxton traveled to Utah during terrible Texas freeze

Paxton, a fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, sent the company a civil investigative demand after it banned Trump from its platform following Januarys deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

Twitter wrote that it seeks to stop Paxton from from unlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law-enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass, and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitters exercise of its First Amendment rights. The company claimed Paxtons retaliatory investigation violated the First Amendment as an inappropriate use of government authority.

A spokesperson for Paxton did not immediately respond for comment.

Before Democratic President Joe Biden's inauguration, Paxton filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the election results in four battleground states. It was considered a long shot, but drew support from the Republican attorneys general of 17 other states before the U.S. Supreme Court briskly rejected it.

The attorney general is among Texas Republican leaders who have launched a campaign against technology and social media companies after officials and followers faced repercussions for sowing the election doubts that fueled the Capitol insurrection.

Twitter is one of five tech and social media firms to which Paxton issued civil investigative demands to learn about the procedures such companies use to regulate postings or user accounts.

Paxton, who attended the rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol, criticized companies moves after the siege, which included Twitter banning Trump from its platform.

REMEMBER THE SEA SHANTY: Texas AG Ken Paxton's legal troubles get the ukulele treatment

The seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the President of the United States and several leading voices not only chills free speech, it wholly silences those whose speech and political beliefs do not align with leaders of Big Tech companies, Paxton said in a Jan. 13 news release.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott touted Texas legislation that seeks to crack down on social media companies' perceived censorship of conservative voices. Senate Bill 12 would prohibit social media companies  including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube  from blocking, banning, demonetizing, or otherwise discriminating against a user based on their viewpoint or their location within Texas.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate, has identified the bill as one of his 31 priorities for this legislative session. State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, is sponsoring the measure. He filed a similar bill in 2019 that won Senate approval, but died in committee in the state House.

In its filings Monday, Twitter detailed their suspension of multiple accounts, including Trumps personal account, which they banned for his false claims about the presidential election and the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Five days after the presidents Twitter account was suspended on Jan. 8, Paxton issued the civil investigative demands to Twitter and four other tech and social media firms.

In the lawsuit, Twitter said while the company strives for transparency, the public disclosure of such documents would compromise Twitters ability to effectively and efficiently moderate content on its platform.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have come under fire for enabling misinformation spread and propagating violence like the Jan. 6 attacks. Last year, Democratic lawmakers presented a Congressional bill that would hold social media companies accountable for amplifying such content, but the proposal gained little traction.

Twitters suit comes as Paxton faces a series of other legal issues, including claims of abuse of office and bribery. Former aides allege the attorney general used his power to assist an Austin real estate developer with legal matters after he helped Paxton remodel his house and employed a woman with whom Paxton allegedly had an affair. The whistleblowers allegations have reportedly sparked an FBI investigation.

Four of the former aides claim they were fired in retaliation for telling authorities they believed Paxton had done illegal favors for a political donor and are suing. During a March 1 whistleblower hearing, which Paxton did not attend, lawyers representing his office argued Paxton is not a public employee and cannot be sued under the Texas Whistleblower Act. The attorney general has previously dismissed the claims against him as false allegations from rogue employees.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/08/twitter-texas-ken-paxton/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Democrats For the People Act Worst Bill for Free Speech in Decades: Free Speech Group President

House Democrats massive voter registration and campaign procedure reform billH.R. 1is the worst bill in decades in terms of free speech protections, according to David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech (IFS).

The controversial bill, also called the For the People Act, spans nearly 800 pages and seeks to impose federal requirements on state voting procedures across the United States. It passed the Democrat-controlled House on March 3 with a largely party-line vote of 220-210.

This is the worst bill Ive seen since the 1970s, in terms of any bill that had a good chance of becoming law. I mean, every bad idea about free speech practically has been put into this bill, Keating told The Epoch Times American Thought Leaders program.

Its literally a kitchen sink of bad ideas put into one bill that will restrict our ability to speak out about government.

The proposed legislation requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. Democrats currently hold the smallest possible majority in the Senate, with 48 Democrats and two independent senators who caucus with them. It is unclear whether there would be enough support, with the bill needing 10 Republicans to overcome the filibuster.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has said he would sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk.

It says For the People Act, but I actually think a better title, a more accurate title would be For the Politicians Act, because what it does is it subsidizes the speech of people who want to run for Congress, at least the House of Representatives, and it makes it harder for everyone else to speak through setting up a maze of regulations, requiring people to fill out a blizzard of forms, Keating said. And that is something that I think is the big problem.

The bill includes a wide range of reforms in how Americans register to vote and cast their ballots in federal elections, as well as who can participate and how in campaigns for president, Senate, and the House of Representatives.

Critics have argued that if the bill becomes law in its present form, it would give the federal government the power to gain control over the election process by imposing mandates on the states. They said it would eliminate basic security protocols that states have in place and interfere with the ability of states to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, not allow citizens to participate and speak freely in the political process, and fail to ensure the accuracy of voter registration lists.

The bill would define any speech thats published about a member of Congress or a candidate at any time of the year, it would suddenly define that as a campaign-related activity, as if it has something to do with their re-election, Keating explained.

So if we were to actually try to put out some information, whether we buy an ad, or publish something on our website, wed find ourselves having to fill out a bunch of new forms with government, he continued. And if you look at the First Amendment, it says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech and many other protections as well, of course.

Keating told The Epoch Times he believes it is a bad idea to regulate this sort of activity.

For free speech  we should be able to exercise it without filling out a bunch of forms that make the tax forms look simple by comparison.

Another cause for concern is that certain provisions of the bill could sink donations, lead to cancel culture, and create enemies lists, Keating said.

Under the Democrats DISCLOSE Act, organizations would be required as part of the bill to report misinformation about their contributors, he said.

Lets say theres an advertisement, you have to report that advertisement  and then you have to decide, which donors are we reporting? Keating explained. The bill would basically say all donors over a certain dollar threshold, whether or not those donors gave for the advertisementin fact, some of the donors may have specifically given for another program that your organization is working onyet, they would be reported as somehow being associated with that advertisement. So thats disinformation.

One, it would be misleading the people reading the report. The second problem is, many of these ads would require you to list the donors on the ads themselves. So again, youd have the same problem of donors being associated with ads that they may not have even seen or may not even agree with, he added.

Democrats say the provision will shed light on dark money, while Republicans counter that the legislations transparency requirements would violate free speech rights.

Keating said that he envisions two bad options will come of the provisionthe self censoring of adverts to remove certain names, the second being that donors may pull out if they decide they do not want their name(s) publicized, or affiliated with causes they may not support.

The IFS president also expressed concern over the lists that Congress members may have of people who either back or disagree with a bill.

Theyve got a whole enemies list right there, and they or their allies can call on people to take action against these people, maybe urge them to get fired, maybe urge them to boycott businesses they work at, things of that nature, or maybe go protest outside their home, he said.

I dont think its a proper role of government to give people basically a list for people to harass or threaten just because they dont agree with you on a particular issue.

Unfortunately, not a single thing in this bill, I can say helps the cause of free speech.

Masooma Haq contributed to this report.
A rendering by Milone & MacBroom of what Site 9 could look like after redevelopment. A state grant will fund remediation and site preparation of the 16-acre property that's mostly covered in concrete.

Pittsfield Gets $880K Grant For Site 9 Redevelopment



Mayor Linda Tyer, state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito speak during the virtual announcement, with Farley-Bouvier on Tyler Street to show how Site 9 is connected to other projects in Morningside. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  A site that General Electric abandoned with its departure decades ago will have a new life thanks to a booster shot from the state.

Pittsfield has received $880,000 in Site Readiness Program funding from the state's Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development for the redevelopment of Site 9 at the William Stanley Business Park.

"This program, which we proposed in our economic development bill back in 2015, ultimately approved and enacted and funded by the Legislature in 2016, is a pretty important part of how we help communities reimagine properties," Gov. Charlie Baker said in making the announcement over the Zoom platform on Tuesday. "And while that's certainly an economic development issue, it's also an environmental issue. The more opportunities we have to put existing property back to work, it's less property that we need to green space into something else."

The city was one of 10 communities in the commonwealth that received the 2021 funding, which totaled $3.2 million statewide. Pittsfield was awarded the largest allocation.

Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito were virtually joined by Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Mike Kennealy, MassDevelopment President & CEO Dan Rivera, Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer, state Sen. Adam Hinds, and state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier among other local leaders to announce the funding awards.

"[The grants] really will make a difference for you to be able to better position these parcels, these assets, of yours into a higher better use," Polito explained. "And what that produces is more tax revenue, when you're thinking about the impact on your payers, your business community, and your residents diversifying and expanding your tax base, clearly helps a lot. And when you have more revenue to work with you can drive better service, which all adds up to a stronger quality of life that you sort of promote and advertise as part of your community's brand."

The Site Readiness Program administered by MassDevelopment aims to increase the commonwealth's inventory of large, well-located, project-ready sites, accelerate private-sector investment in industrial and commercial projects, and support the conversion of abandoned sites and obsolete facilities into clean, actively-used, tax-generating properties.

During fiscal 2020, the agency financed or managed 41 projects generating an investment of more than $2.6 billion in the Massachusetts economy. The projects are estimated to create or support 10,000-plus jobs and preserve about 1,700 units of housing.

"This site readiness grant award is just one more example of the collaborative spirit that exists here in Pittsfield," Tyer said.

She explained that this project really began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic when the city and the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority completed a master plan for Site 9 that laid the groundwork for Tuesday's award.

The 16-acre parcel previously housed a General Electric factory and is the largest and most prominent section of the business park. Tyer said it currently resembles the "surface of the moon" because of deterioration over the past 20 years and will be made a more attractive option for private sector development with the use of this funding.

"Today's award will be used for the engineering and design phase which is required to prepare the engineering the environmental permitting and good ready documents necessary for the next phase," Tyer explained. "Which is construction and construction includes site roadways, utilities, stormwater management, and the estimated work around cracking and crushing the existing concrete."

The mayor reported that the developed Site 9 could be used for industrial manufacturing, warehouse, commercial, retail, and office space. This work will also complement and support several other recent and ongoing revitalization projects that are underway in the Morningside neighborhood including the Tyler Street Streetscape and Roundabout Project the city received $3 million in MassWorks grants for and surrounding private investments made by Mill Town Capital.

Last year's award ceremony was made remote from the onset of the pandemic and the representatives expressed that they wished to be meeting in-person to commemorate the 2021 Site Readiness Program.

Farley-Bouvier utilized the Zoom platform to attend the meeting from the intersection of Tyler Street and Woodlawn Avenue, which will be transformed into a roundabout with MassWorks funding and sits right across from Site 9.

By standing at this location, Farley-Bouvier displayed how the commonwealth has partnered with the city of Pittsfield to make economic development progress. She rotated her camera to display the St. Mary's Church renovation into the Morningstar Apartments, the Woodlawn Avenue bridge that was reopened in 2016 to allow for double-decker trains to pass underneath, Berkshire Innovation Center in the distance, and Site 9 -- all in close vicinity of one another.

"The professional team that we have in our Community Development Office, the leadership of Mayor Tyer, it's really outstanding, and when we work together as a team with local, federal, and private partners, that's when we do our very best work," she concluded.

In a public forum following the award announcement, Pittsfield planners explained the specifics of this grant and how it ties into neighboring projects in the Morningside community.

"The Williams Stanley park represents the future," PEDA Chairman Mick Callahan said in the forum. "I think it's important to not only look at this parcel as the center of the city but it was the hub of our economy for many, many, many decades going back centuries and part of this I think is the evolution of where we're going."

City Planner CJ Hoss gave a presentation on the Tyler Street Streetscape and Roundabout Project that will mitigate traffic flow and make the street more pedestrian-friendly and Mill Town Capital CEO Tim Burke outlined the investment firm's involvement in the Morningstar Apartment development and its 29-housing unit project on Tyler Street.

Tyer believes that one of the most important aspects of this project is how the public investments the city has made have led to private investments.

"I think the city is doing the right thing in terms of taking the first step to help attract private development because I think private development has a lot of interest in the region," Burke said. "It's promising for the neighborhood, it's promising for the city, and I think, simply from a resident standpoint, we're happy to see the progress over there and I think everybody in that neighborhood should be pleased that this is headed in the right direction."

The city's Business Development Manager Michael Coakley said he has presented the parcel to several businesses who were reluctant to invest funds into space because of its current condition and the costs associated with the preparation of the site. This told the city that action needed to be taken, he said.

The redevelopment plan is a phased approach that will begin with the city designing improvements for the parcel and then starting construction. The grant will make an internal roadway possible within the parcel as well as prepping the concrete and pavements for development and utility extensions.

"It's important to know that that $880,000 grant that they just received and everybody is excited about it, it's not just design and engineering it's also implementation money so that things will actually be starting to see be seen on the site as progress, which I think is very important not only for the city but also for private development," Mark Arigoni of SOR Consulting said.

He also noted that the design is flexible, meaning that the parcel could be divided to fit the needs of more than one business and that reserved open green space will be set aside.

When the site is capped, the intent will be to do as much below-ground infrastructure work as possible with regards to the extension of utilities. The first initial phase of construction is to do work that will make the site more attractive and easier to develop as well as accommodating utilities, and then some initial roadways will be constructed.



A second rendering of the shite shows how multiple entities might use it. Several concrete areas that are planned for development and green space will also have to be crushed. It is estimated that about half of the $880,000 grant will go toward cracking and crushing concrete over the 16- acre parcel and the balance toward design.

The city has also received $264,000 from the state Brownfields Program that empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, clean up, and reuse brownfields or a site that may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

"Our hope is to begin this phase, maybe this summer work through the fall with the completion of this phase happening in 2022," Tyer said. "While all that work is underway. We're going to continue seeking opportunities for funding from other sources to move into the next phase of the work that's required in order to install, utilities, and the roadways and do the greening."
MADISON, N.J., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Announced today, Century 21 Real Estate LLC , has been named the #1 Fastest Growing Franchise in the Entrepreneur 2021 list of the Fastest Growing Franchises, published in the magazine's March issue. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the global industry leader currently boasts a network of 145,000 affiliated sales professionals in approximately 13,000 offices across 86 countries and territories worldwide. Achieving this top ranking further cements the CENTURY 21 brand's position as a global powerhouse not just within the real estate industry but among the world's top franchise companies across categories.

Franchises on this list are ranked based on the net total of units (both franchised and company-owned) added globally from July 2019 to July 2020, with ties broken based on percentage growth. (In previous years, only US and Canadian unit growth was considered2021 marks the first year that the ranking is based on systemwide growth, in recognition of the increasingly global nature of franchising.)

In 2020, the CENTURY 21 brand's growth included the addition of 23 new franchises and the renewal of 145 companies to its network. The brand also recently expanded its global footprint welcoming CENTURY 21 Italy and CENTURY 21 Guyana to its international roster of countries.

"Nothing can stop the smartest franchises from growingnot even a pandemic!" says Jason Feifer, Entrepreneur's editor-in-chief. "We've been impressed with how innovative franchises have pivoted and adapted this past year and are happy to celebrate the ones who keep pushing forward and growing."

Included among Entrepreneur magazine's Franchise 500, the world's first, best and most comprehensive franchise ranking, the CENTURY 21 brand serves as an industry leader and innovator, continuously challenging the status quo of real estate. In addition, the brand's drive to elevate the consumer and agent experience has once again earned it the recognition as the #1 leader in brand awareness for 22 consecutive years as well as the most recognized name in real estate and the most respected brand in the industry.*

"At Century 21 Real Estate we're constantly pushing ourselves and our System members to ask, 'what if?' and challenge the expected norms of the real estate industry," said Mike Miedler, president and CEO of Century 21 Real Estate LLC. "It is our commitment to delivering the extraordinary with industry-leading technology, exceptional learning platforms and unique programs focused on driving business growth that is resonating with industry professionals worldwide allowing them to reach their goals and our brand to continue to grow."

To view the CENTURY 21 brand in the full ranking, visit www.entrepreneur.com/franchises/fastestgrowing . Results can also be seen in the March issue of Entrepreneur magazine, available on newsstands and Entrepreneur Media's iOS and Android mobile app on March 9th.

To learn more about the CENTURY 21 value proposition, or to join the ranks of the relentless, please go to www.century21.com/about-us/contact .

* Study Source: 2020 Ad Tracking Study. The survey results are based on 1,200 online interviews with a national random sample of adults (ages 18+) who are equal decision makers in real estate transactions and active in the real estate market (bought or sold a home within the past two years or, plan to purchase or sell a home within the next two years). Brand awareness question based on a sample of 1,200 respondents. Results are significant at a 90% confidence level, with a margin of error of 2.4%. Recognition question based on consumers aware of brand in question. Results are significant at a 90% confidence level, with a margin of error of 2.4%.

The study was conducted by Kantar Group Limited (formerly Millward Brown), a leading global market research organization, from November 9-30, 2020.

About Century 21 Real Estate LLC

The approximately 145,000 independent sales professionals in approximately 13,000 offices spanning 86 countries and territories in the CENTURY 21 System live their mission every day: to defy mediocrity and deliver extraordinary experiences. By consistently chasing excellence, giving 121% and always elevating, the CENTURY 21 brand is helping its affiliated brokers/agents to be the first choice for real estate consumers and industry professionals worldwide. Century 21 Real Estate has numerous websites to help answer specific consumer needs. They are century21.com, century21.com/global, century21.com/commercial,

century21.com/finehomes and century21.com/espanol.

Century 21 Real Estate LLC is a subsidiary of Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY), a global leader in real estate franchising and provider of real estate brokerage, relocation and settlement services.

2021 Century 21 Real Estate LLC. All Rights Reserved. CENTURY 21, the CENTURY 21 Logo and C21 are registered service marks owned by Century 21 Real Estate LLC. Century 21 Real Estate LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each office is independently owned and operated.

Contact:

Erin Siegel

Century 21 Real Estate LLC

Phone: 201.913.1432

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Century 21 Real Estate LLC

Related Links

http://www.century21.com


Shah directed his deputy, union minister of state for home G. Kishan Reddy to submit a report on the incident. (Photo: DC)

HYDERABAD: Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday inquired about the communal clashes and violence in Bhainsa town of Nirmal district on Sunday night. He directed his deputy, union minister of state for home G. Kishan Reddy to submit a report on the incident.

Several people have been injured and few vehicles set ablaze after members of two groups clashed in Bhainsa. While tension has gripped the town, police have taken 50 people into custody. The situation in the town was said to be normal.

According to preliminary reports, 12 people, including a policeman, and three media personnel were injured in the clashes. Stones were pelted from both sides allegedly following an argument between two motorcycle riders, leading to a road rage.

Amit Shah called me over the phone to inquire about the violence that broke out in Bhainsa. He has asked me file a report on the matter, Kishan Reddy said, condemning the clashes. He said that he has spoken to DGP M. Mahendar Reddy and asked him to arrest the culprits behind Bhainsa clashes.

The violence and attack on media personnel is disturbing and unfortunate. I have asked the DGP to deploy additional forces. I have also discussed the issue with Adilabad MP Soyam Bapu Rao," the Union minister of state explained.

IT minister K.T. Rama Rao said the government will not tolerate lawlessness in Bhainsa. In a tweet, he said, "Peace & Harmony is fundamental to the progress of civilised society. Have requested Home Minister @mahmoodalitrs Garu & @TelanganaDGP Garu to take stern action to bring the perpetrators of violence in Bhainsa to justice. (sic)"

"My appeal to people of Bhainsa is not to fall prey to rumours and hate-mongering spearheaded by divisive forces. The government will stand by you to maintain law and order effectively," KTR underlined.

Home minister Mohd. Mahmood Ali said that the injured are being treated. Sufficient forces have been deployed in Bhainsa to ensure peace. "I spoke to DGP, SP and collector yesterday night. Situation in Bhainsa is completely under control," Ali maintained.

Nirmal SP Vishnu Warrier said cases have been registered against those taken into custody following the clashes. A probe has been initiated. Prohibitory orders under section 144 have been imposed in Bhainsa. "CCTV footage of the area is being examined and further probe is on," Warrier stated.
Phillip Schofield, Lorraine Kelly and James Norton became the latest celebrities getting their COVID-19 vaccinations this week.

This Morning host Phillip, 58, said he was 'painlessly jabbed up' as he shared a photo on Tuesday receiving the Covid-19 Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine.

The TV presenter, 58, smiled through his eyes as he wore a face mask and thanked the medical team for doing a wonderful job.

He sported a white t-shirt and jeans as his paramedic, Lisa, planted a needle into his arm with the dose that protects against the novel coronavirus.

Protection: Phillip Schofield shared a photo on Tuesday receiving the Covid-19 Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine while thanking the medical team for administering the 'painless jab'

He captioned the snap: 'All painlessly jabbed up [smiling emoji] that couldn't have been any easier, more efficient or friendlier, thank you to Lisa and the team [smiling heart emoji].'

In another image uploaded to Instagram, Phillip capture his Covid-19 information leaflet and vaccine card.

The recommended dosage for Oxford/ AstraZeneca is two doses to be administered with an interval of 8 to 12 weeks.

Fellow morning TV host Lorraine, 61, received the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday, taking to Twitter to share the milestone moment.

Jabbed: Fellow morning TV host Lorraine Kelly, 61, received the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday, taking to Twitter to share the milestone moment

She wrote: .Vaccinated! So relieved! Easy peasy - didnt feel a thing - thanks so much to all the cheery volunteers and NHS staff who made it SO simple!! Please please get vaccinated!! We are so lucky to have the opportunity Xxx.

McMafia star James Norton, 35, who suffers from Type 1 diabetes, said he was 'happy and relieved' to have received the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday as he posted a snap from the medical centre.

He wrote: 'As someone living with type 1 diabetes Im happy and relieved to have had my Covid-19 vaccination earlier today (my tipple was AstraZeneca and Im feeling great).

'When youre offered it Id encourage you to do the same, not just for your sake, but more importantly for everyone elses.

The makers of the three vaccines, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna, that the MHRA has approved for use so far, have all said they are aiming to modify their jabs to cope with variants of coronavirus this year.

Documentation: In another image uploaded to Instagram, the TV presenter, 58, captured his Covid-19 information leaflet and vaccine card

Vaccinated: McMafia star James Norton, 35, who suffers from Type 1 diabetes, said he was 'happy and relieved' to have received the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine as he posted a snap from the medical centre

AstraZeneca, the maker of the Oxford vaccine, said it hopes its new vaccine will be ready by autumn.

MHRA chief executive Dr June Raine said there is no evidence that current vaccines are lacking effectiveness against known coronavirus variants.

She said: 'Since December last year we have all been concerned about the appearance of variants  Kent, South Africa, more recently Brazil  and therefore we're well-prepared to look at, when it's needed, updates to ensure the vaccines being used in citizens are fully effective.

'Our goal is to ensure the vaccine modifications in future that respond to the new variants can be available in the shortest possible time but without compromising in any way on safety, on quality and on effectiveness.

Staying safe: The recommended dosage for Oxford/ AstraZeneca is two doses to be administered with an interval of 8 to 12 weeks

'What I would emphasise at the outset is that we don't have evidence at the moment that the vaccines in use in the UK are significantly lacking in effectiveness but we are now well-prepared.'

Britain's vaccine drive is gathering pace, with Matt Hancock revealing on Friday that two in five adults have now been vaccinated as deaths fall 'faster and faster'.

Some 21.3million people have received their first dose, and the historic rollout means deaths have plummeted by 41 per cent in a week.

The Health Secretary said: 'You can really see the effects of the vaccine in the number of deaths.

'That link from cases to hospitalisations and then deaths that had been unbreakable before the vaccine is now breaking.

'The vaccine is protecting the NHS and saving lives, right across the country.'

The positive figures on Friday led to fresh speculation about the lifting of the lockdown, and whether the roadmap could be accelerated.

Ministers have repeatedly insisted the timetable will not be sped up, but with each week of positive data the pressure is increasing for a swifter end to the restrictions.

More than one million people have now received both doses of Covid-19 vaccine, meaning 2 per cent of UK adults are fully vaccinated.
The battle between Kern's oil industry and environmental groups from across the state will culminate Monday with a public hearing hosted by th


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Industry Update

Appointment

9 March 2021

Kristin Torgersen

Appointed Sales Manager

At Moxy Bergen, Norway

Hotel operator Core Hospitality has hired a local Sales Manager to represent its upcoming Moxy Bergen property. Marriott International's Moxy Hotels is due to open on the waterfront of Bergen in Norway soon. Now, the lifestyle hotel has hired Kristin Torgersen to take on the new role as Sales Manager. Kristin is from Bergen and has a strong background from the hospitality and tourism industry with more than 14 years of sales experience from companies such as Nordic Choice Hotels and Cruisespesialisten.

Core Hospitality Core Hospitality does one thing and one thing only: operate hotels. As a white label hotel operator, it is independent of brands and flexible to manage hotels within any operating model. Core Hospitality cooperates with various hotel brands, ensuring that it can operate anything from hostels to full-service hotels. more information

Recent Appointments at Core Hospitality Monica Selvik - General Manager 6 October 2020  The hotel operator Core Hospitality has appointed Monica Selvik as General Manager of upcoming hotel Moxy Bergen. The international brand opens in the Norwegian city in six months. Monica Selvik takes on the role as "Captain" (General Manager in Moxy speak) at Moxy Bergen, a 199-room hotel that opens in March 2021 on the Norwegian west coast. read more

Jonas Kentell - Sales Manager 10 September 2020  The Danish hotel operator Core Hospitality is elevating its sales activities by hiring Jonas Kentell to represent the company's international hotel brands.Jonas Kentell is the new sales representative at Core Hospitality. read more
Israeli revellers have celebrated the return to bars and restaurants as the country's economy reopens following its world-leading coronavirus vaccination campaign.

From Sunday, restrictions in Israel that have been in place since the end of 2020 because of the pandemic were eased further, allowing for greater social interaction.

Bars and restaurants, event halls, sporting events, hotels and all primary and secondary schools that had been closed to the public for months were permitted to reopen Sunday.

Israeli revellers have celebrated the return to bars and restaurants as the country's economy reopens following its world-leading coronavirus vaccination campaign

Pictured: People eat at the Azura restaurant in Jerusalem, on March 7, after Israel all-but reopened its economy having fully vaccinated almost 40 percent of its population

Anyone who is fully vaccinated, or has recovered from coronavirus, is eligible for a 'green passport' that were introduced in late February. Pictured: People sitting in a re-opened restaurant in Jerusalem

Some restrictions remained on crowd sizes, and certain places were open to the vaccinated only.

Monday saw Israel's leaders celebrate the country's 5 millionth person being given at least one dose of the vaccine, while 3.8 million people are now fully vaccinated.

That means that almost 40 percent of Israel's over 9 million population are fully inoculated, with almost 9 million doses of the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine having been administered in total since the 19 December.

Anyone who is fully vaccinated, or has recovered from coronavirus, is eligible for a 'green passport' that were introduced in late February.

The passports give people access to indoor dining at bars and restaurants (that are allowed to open at 75 percent capacity, up to 100 people), indoor places of worship (limited to 20 people), as well as tourist attractions.

The passports issued by the health ministry are available either via an app, or can be printed, and grant indoor access to various venues.

Pictures from Jerusalem on Tuesday showed bars and restaurants full of maskless people enjoying food and drinks.

'We're very happy that this day came. We've been preparing for this day for a very long time,' said Assaf Obsfeld, a Jerusalem coffee shop owner who was checking customers to ensure they had been vaccinated.

'It's a stressful situation because we really don't know how to handle everybody,' he said.

The easing comes after months of government-imposed shutdowns and less than three weeks before the country's fourth parliamentary elections in two years.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government approved the easing of limitations Saturday night, including the reopening of the main international airport to a limited number of incoming passengers each day.

Pictured: A graph showing vaccination rates per 100 people. Israel has now given more doses than it has people in the country, indicated by its per-100 people rate being over 100

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drinks coffee with Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon, as they sit at a cafe while Israel further eases coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions in Jerusalem March 7

The easing comes after months of government-imposed shutdowns and less than three weeks before the country's fourth parliamentary elections in two years

Almost 40 percent of Israel's almost 9 million population are filly inoculated, with almost 9 million doses of the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine having been administered

Netanyahu is campaigning for re-election as Israel's coronavirus vaccine champion at the same time that he is on trial for corruption.

'Back to life, first in the world,' the Prime Minister said during a Facebook live event streamed from a crowded cafe, although 'first' is questionable as a number of countries never needed to impose lockdown measures in the first place.

Israel has sped ahead with its immunisation campaign. Over 52 percent of its population of 9.3 million has received one dose and almost 40 percent two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, one of the highest rates per-capita in the world.

Nearly 90 percent of the country's over-50 population has either been vaccinated or recovered from the coronavirus.

With that high-risk population largely inoculated, decision makers have concluded it is safe enough to reopen more parts of the economy.

Netanyahu appears to be banking that some semblance of normalcy will lift his re-election prospects. Opinion polls show him locked in a race against a field of challenges that is too close to call.

After experiencing a deadly third wave of Covid-19, Israel's case and death figures have been brought down and are expected to stay low thanks to its world-leading vaccination campaign

While vaccination rates continue to steadily rise and the number of serious cases of COVID-19 drops, Israel's unemployment rate remains high.

As of January, 18.4 percent of the workforce was out of work because of the pandemic, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics.

Monday also saw the government begin vaccinating Palestinian labourers who work in the country. The time lag has drawn international criticism and highlighted global disparities.

There was no indication the two events were coordinated, but their split-screen quality offered a stark contrast between Israel's world-leading vaccination blitz and the plight of 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Progress in places like Israel, the United States and Britain has heightened concerns among human rights advocates of driving a wider gap between wealthy countries and those that can't afford pricey vaccination programs.

Until Monday, the Palestinian Authority, which administers autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had received enough doses for only 6,000 people.

Israel has inoculated more than half its population of 9.3 million and pushed ahead Monday with the reopening of more of its economy.

Netanyahu promised to vaccinate the entire adult population by the end of April, which he said would mean 'we are out of the corona crisis.'

Pictured: People sit at cafe terraces in Jerusalem on March 9. While vaccination rates continue to steadily rise and the number of serious cases of COVID-19 drops, Israel's unemployment rate remains high

As of January, 18.4 percent of the workforce was out of work because of the pandemic, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. Pictured: People seen at a cafe on Tuesday

Pictured: People eat at a restaurant in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on March 7

Monday saw Israel's leaders celebrate the country's 5 millionth person being given at least one dose of the vaccine, while 3.8 million people are now fully vaccinated

He appeared at a press conference in Tel Aviv with Janet Lavi-Azulay, an Israeli woman who became the 5 millionth person in Israel to be vaccinated.

In all, Israel has vaccinated roughly 80 percent of its adult population, giving decision makers enough confidence to begin reopening stores, restaurants, health clubs and music clubs in recent days.

Many of these amenities are available only to those who can prove they have been vaccinated or have recovered from the virus.

About 60 miles southeast, Anwar Muhammad Awarin got his jab and showed a text on his cell phone certifying the inoculation. For him and other Palestinian workers, it was less about celebrating and more about survival.

'I got the vaccine so I can work,' said Awarin, who received his inoculation at the Meitar checkpoint in the West Bank. 'If you dont get the vaccine, you dont get the permit. So, I got the permit and my health as well.'

According to COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that orchestrated the vaccine campaign, the workers are not required to be vaccinated in order to keep their entry permits at the current time.

Pictured: A Palestinian man who works in Israel receives the first dose of a Moderna Covid-19 vaccine by an Israeli medical worker in Meitar crossing checkpoint between the West bank and Israel on March 9, 2021 in Meitar, Israel

But many laborers said their Israeli employers have pressured them to be vaccinated, and there were widespread concerns they could lose their jobs if they do not get inoculated.

Awarin was one of some 6,000 Palestinian laborers who received their first doses of the Moderna vaccine from paramedics from the Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom.

The vaccination drive was postponed by one day. More vaccination sites for Palestinian workers were expected to open this week.

About 100,000 Palestinian laborers from the West Bank work in Israel and its settlements, which are widely seen internationally as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, the head of COGAT, said in a statement that Israelis and Palestinians 'live in the same epidemiological space' and that it was a shared interest to vaccinate Palestinians.

Israel has won international plaudits for moving quickly to vaccinate its population. But it has come under criticism from U.N. officials, human rights groups and medical experts for not sharing more of its stockpile with the Palestinians.

A Palestinian laborer who works in Israel receives his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a coronavirus vaccination center set up at the Gilboa checkpoint crossing between Israel and the West Bank city of Jenin, Monday, March. 8, 2021

Human rights groups and many Palestinians say that as an occupying power, Israel is responsible for providing vaccines to the Palestinians. Israel says that under interim peace accords reached in the 1990s, it does not have any such obligation.

Israeli officials have said the priority is vaccinating Israels own population first, while the Palestinian Authority has said it will obtain its own vaccines through the World Health Organization and other sources. Israel has vaccinated its own Arab population.

To date, the PA has acquired enough vaccine doses for only 6,000 people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are home to nearly 5 million Palestinians.

It received 2,000 doses from Israel and acquired another 10,000 doses of a Russian-made vaccine. Each person is given in two doses to be fully vaccinated.

Israel has administered over 8.7 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to its population of 9.3 million. Over 3.7 million Israelis - more than 40 percent - have received both of the doses required for maximum immunity.

Netanyahu also announced plans to share surplus vaccines with far-flung allies in Africa, Europe and Latin America, but the decision has been frozen by legal questions.

Last Thursday, Netanyahu met with leaders of Denmark and Austria and said the three nations would join forces in the fight against COVID-19 with an investment in research and roll-out of vaccines.
The Government waived a



total of Rs 1,715 crore in electricity duty of over 16,000 industrial units in the last two years, the Legislative Assembly was informed on Tuesday.

The purpose was to reduce the financial burden of new industrial units making investment in the state, said Energy Minister Saurabh Patel, responding to questions regarding the waiver mechanism.

Exemption in electricity duty is also offered to existing manufacturing units if they are making expansion, he said.

The exemption is offered under the Electricity Duty Act of 1958, said Patel in his written reply.

As of December 2020, 16,297 industrial units had been granted a waiver of Rs 1,715 crore in preceding two years, the minister said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As part of its Vaccine Maitri initiative aimed to assist countries in their fight against the pandemic, the Made-in- vaccines reached Jamaica on Monday (local time).

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in a tweet, "Caring for our Caribbean friends. Made in vaccines have reached Jamaica."

Last week, had dispatched 175,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to other Caribbean countries -- Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines and Suriname.

Hours after receiving 40,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Alfonso Browne thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for demonstrating an "act of benevolence, kindness and empathy" by sending 175,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to the Caribbean countries.

Twenty-five nations across the world have already received Made-in India vaccines and forty-nine more countries will be supplied in the coming days, ranging from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa, South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Research Bridge Partners' program-related investment will help the company fund development of core technologies and intellectual property, while supporting IND-enabling studies required to obtain the permission of regulatory authorities to begin human clinical testing. With this investment, James Graham, Research Bridge Partners Managing Director of Investments, has joined the company's board of directors.

Asalyxa Bio's lead program, ASX-100, delivers an anti-inflammatory agent directly to overreactive neutrophilsa long-ignored white blood cell that may be implicated in the immune system overreaction known as a "cytokine storm."

Dr. Eniola-Adefeso, the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, explains: "Neutrophils are the most common, yet least glamorous white blood cells. Their lack of specialization makes them good 'first responders' in the body when something is wrong, but trouble comes when they don't get the signal to stop responding so other cells can step in and repair the damage. ASX-100 has the potential to manage that response."

The company's first indication is in ARDSa condition that affects 500,000 Americans annually, roughly half of whom die as a result. There are no approved drugs for ARDS, which is a leading cause of death from influenza and SARS-CoV-2 (Covid.)

"Asalyxa's technology has true life-saving potential," said Graham, "and a clear mechanism of action that will help accelerate program development and commercialization."

"We are excited to work with James and the team at RBP to advance this research to clinical studies and, ultimately, into medical practice," said Dr. Eniola-Adefeso

About Research Bridge Partners

Research Bridge Partners, a 501 (c) (3) organization, enhances the societal and economic impacts of America's research universities by bridging preeminent innovators at mid-continent institutions with the commercialization resources of Silicon Valley. Founded by Isaac Barchas and Reid Hoffman, Research Bridge Partners uses proprietary data analytics to identify the nation's leading researchers and translational philanthropy to transform their scientific breakthroughs into investible companies for the benefit of people everywhere. www.researchbridgepartners.org

About Asalyxa Bio

Asalyxa Bio is a drug development and platform technology company focused on novel therapeutics to treat major unmet medical needs caused by the dysregulation of immune signaling. With applications across a wide array of disease areas and conditions, Asalyxa Bio's platform technology enables delivery of existing and novel drugs directly into over-reactive immune cells. https://www.asalyxabio.com

SOURCE Research Bridge Partners

Related Links

www.researchbridgepartners.org


Published each year in the Spring issue of Environments for Aging , the EFA Design Showcase offers a compilation of architecture and interior design projects representing outstanding innovative design solutions in new or renovated senior care environments across the nation. Award winners will be recognized at the 2021 EFA Expo & Conference in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Watercrest Sarasota is a signature Watercrest product partnered by Watercrest Senior Living Group and United Properties. The design team includes Interior Design Associates, HKS Architecture, LifeBUILT Architecture, and Walker and Company construction.

Watercrest Sarasota is a newly-constructed, luxury senior living campus comprised of 72 independent, 94 assisted living and 32 memory care residences with world-class amenities and exceptional care. The architecture and design boast a stunning promenade, fireplace, signature water wall, pool, salon and spa, grand balconies, Florida-style outdoor living spaces, as well as exquisitely designed dining venues in a resort-style environment.

Ideally located at 4100 University Parkway in Sarasota, Florida, Watercrest Sarasota is currently welcoming independent living and assisted living residents and accepting reservations in memory care. For community information, contact Collin Baranick, Executive Director at [email protected] or 941-979-1396.

Watercrest Sarasota is the second senior living development project partnered between Watercrest Senior Living Group and United Properties. Their first project, Watercrest Naples Assisted Living and Memory Care opened in 2020 in Naples, FL. For information on United Properties, visit http://www.uproperties.com.

Watercrest Senior Living Group was founded to honor our mothers and fathers, aspiring to become a beacon for quality in senior living by surpassing standards of care, service and associate training. Watercrest senior living communities are recognized for their luxury aesthetic, exceptional amenities, world-class care, and innovative memory care programming offering unparalleled service to seniors living with Alzheimer's and dementia. A certified Great Place to Work, Watercrest Senior Living Group specializes in the development and operations of assisted living and memory care communities and the growth of servant leaders. Visit www.watercrestseniorliving.com.

SOURCE Watercrest Senior Living Group

Related Links

http://www.watercrestseniorliving.com


MBABANE - With the current daily COVID-19 infection rate at 24, it is slightly higher than the last time the country eased the partial lockdown regulations.

This is according to a close study of the daily COVID-19 statements which revealed that as of March 8, 2021, the country had, on a seven-day period, an average of 24 cases a day.

Whereas in October 12, 2020, when the late Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini lifted the ban which lasted for over three months, the seven-day average of cases a day was 15. When sought for comment regarding the extension of the partial lockdown against the low daily infection rate, Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) President Bheki Mamba said the quicker the country procured vaccines, the quicker the restrictions in the country would be eased, despite the low infections. He said the daily infection rate could make people think government made the worst decision in extending the lockdown when in fact, it took the best decision.

Extension

It is complex for us to take a stance on the extension of the partial lockdown as healthcare workers because we know the dire effects of the fast spread of the virus. All we can say is that things would ease if government would quickly procure the vaccines. People should notice that the countries that have eased their restrictions have started vaccinating. An example is South Africa, which moved form Level 3 to Level 1 after they started rolling out vaccines. Infections may seem low, but they can increase as quickly as they go down, said Mamba. He pleaded with the public to be lenient with government until they procured the COVID-19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, locals are of the view that the COVID-19 daily average cases have drastically gone down, hence all sectors should reopen. They said the extension of the lockdown was not necessary, especially because the infection rate in the country was now lower than 30 a day, on average. They said this during random interviews conducted by this publication. Worth noting is that the country embarked on the current partial lockdown about seven weeks ago, when the second wave of the pandemic was causing massive devastation. The second wave took the lives of the former PM, Minister of Public Service Christian Ntshangase, Minister of Labour and Social Security Makhosi Vilakati, former Minister Winnie Magagula, Senator Jimmy Hlophe, Conference of Churches President Stephen Masilela and many other prominent figures.

Last Thursday, Acting Prime Minister Themba Masuku extended the partial lockdown by another two weeks, meaning the sale of alcohol, and churches remained banned, school remained closed, retail outlets are expected to close by 6pm and the 8pm to 4am curfew remains, among other restrictions. In his speech, Masuku said the country had hoped that they would have procured the vaccine when they extended the lockdown by two weeks, the first time. Locals have come out to cry foul over the decision, saying peoples livelihoods were being destroyed because of the current restrictions.

The extension really is disappointing and shows the plight of the people is not understood at all. There is no scientific evidence to support it at all. These are the things that make it difficult to be a businessperson in a jurisdiction where decisions affecting businesses will be implemented without basis. All the sectors (schools, churches and bars) should be reopened with meaningful restrictions that are science-based, if any. We cannot drive the economy into a point of irreparability, without basis, they said.

Inconsiderate

Mpile Mkhonta of Mbabane said the extension was inconsiderate because it was putting a strain on the countrys economy. It would have made sense if shops closed at 10pm and government still managed to control the people, rather than everyone rushing to buy bread before 6pm, which still spreads the virus. I also think this partial lockdown is killing us mentally because a lot of people are depressed lately. In Mozambique, they close shops at 10pm. Businesses is booming there, said Mkhonta. Bubu Masango also from Mbabane said a lot of people depended on their small-medium enterprises (SMEs) for income, making governments decision inconsiderate.
The UK Healthcare Pavilion  the first virtual platform showcasing the very best of UK healthcare and Life Sciences  has partnered with The Middle East Medical Portal (MEMP) to both raise awareness and export UK innovation into the Middle East.

MEMP is a UK & Dubai based company that serves both UK companies with market entry services and healthcare providers and authorities in the Middle East with world class importing of innovation. MEMP has exceptional market access as it is an international CPD/CME accredited provider of medical education for healthcare professionals.

Recently launched, the UK Healthcare Pavilion provides news, insights, and interviews from a variety of key opinion leaders and policy makers offering their views on topical subjects in the sector and showcasing the strengths the UK has to offer.

Alongside this is a searchable directory of UK companies, providing overseas buyers with a simple and intuitive way to identify and engage with UK industry and healthcare organisations.

Also listed are the UKs most prestigious private healthcare providers, highlighting why millions of people each year choose the UK as the place to access world class treatment.

Speaking about the partnership Nathan Nagel said: We are delighted to partner with the UK Healthcare Pavilion and be able to support UK companies to sell into the Middle East, to stimulate the UK economy, and crucially, provide world class healthcare to patients.

The UK Healthcare Pavilion is supported by Government departments, including the Department for International Trade, Invest Northern Ireland, Scottish Development International and the Welsh Government, as well as UK consulates, embassies, and industry bodies around the world.

Paul Benton, Managing Director, International, at the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI) added: UK healthcare solutions carry a great reputation in the Middle East, and we are so pleased to be partnering with MEMP to utilse their expertise and network, which will in turn bring great innovations and treatments to patients in the region.

A mixture of trade and clinical associations are also supporting the site such as the Royal College of Surgeons, Royal College of Physicians, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the British Dental Industry Association (BDIA), the UK BioIndustry Association (BIA), Medcity, OneNucleus, the AHSN Network and The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.-- Tradearabia News Service
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Thiruvananthapuram, March 9 : With the finalising of the candidates for approximately 92 seats that the Congress party is likely to contest in the April 6 Assembly polls, things have reached a difficult point with faction leaders rooting for their close aides.

Though the scene has shifted from Kerala to Delhi, the first round of meeting for finalising the candidates failed to evoke any positive response, as top leaders like Oommen Chandy, Ramesh Chennithala and state Congress president Mullapally Ramachandran, failed to come to a consensus on the list that has to be submitted to the high command for their approval.

One new entrant into the higher echelons of the Congress party who wields considerable power is K.C.Venugopal and since he has the blessings of the high command, he is also one who will be making the decisions and he too has his own list .

A top Congress leader on condition of anonymity said things are moving but not at the desired pace as according to the present scheme of things, the high command wants to name the list on Wednesday.

"What's happening now is these leaders are leaving nothing to chance to see their aides are in the list.

"Over the years what has made them leaders are how many close aides each one of them has and to reward them appropriately.

"This time things appear to be tough as Rahul Gandhi by virtue of being a Lok Sabha member from Kerala and knowing the ground reality is also playing a key role. He wants to have more representation be given to the youths, women and those from the lower strata of the society," said the source.

Chandy, who is the top-most state leader is wanting to see that his closest aides, eight time legislator K.C.Joseph be given one last chance besides K. Babu, who had to face a lot of attack as the then Excise Minister (2011-16) in the now infamous bar scam case. Babu had lost in the 2016 Assembly polls.

Chennithala is also moving heaven and earth to see his aides like Joseph Vazhakkan be given a chance after he lost in 2016. Jyothikumar Chamakala, who is yet to stand in any election, is also from Chennithala's camp.

He is also rooting for Bindhu Krishna, who so far has failed to win despite contesting for the Lok Sabha and Assembly in past polls.

"It's understandable why these faction leaders are desperate to get their aides because in the Congress party, as a norm, do not name a chief ministerial candidate, instead if it gets power, what happens is the Congress legislative party (all the legislators) meets to elect their leader and it's here they need their aides to raise their hands for them, in case an election becomes essential," said another Congress leader.

Incidentally after the Congress party won the 2011 assembly polls with just 72 seats in the 140 member assembly, only after the high command intervened, did Chennithala back out from contesting for the post of the chief minister, against Chandy.

In return, after being mauled by the Left in the 2016 assembly polls, Chandy decided not to throw his hat for the election of choosing the leader of the Congress legislators and Chennithala was elected unanimously.

Over the years in Kerala, never has a sitting government been able to retain power and hence there is all the more competition between the faction leaders in the Congress party to get in as many aides as possible.

"The final rounds of discussions are going on and in a day or two, the list of candidates of our party will be announced. Isn't it quite natural in the Congress party to have a few rounds before the list is finalised," said senior Congress laeder and Lok Sabha member Kodikunnil Suresh, who recently shifted his allegiance to the Chandy camp.

All in all it's going to be a tough time as Gandhi is rooting for new faces and if the screening committee chairman H.K.Patil's words is any yardstick to go by, then for the first time there could be as many as 45 new faces in the Congress list and if it happens, then the faction managers will have to bite the dust.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Auto-fill of data stored in the management system allows agencies to streamline workflows on websites such as searching policies, creating bindable quotes, retrieving county records, or sending payments.

CANBY, Ore., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- HawkSoft, the Oregon-based management system and insurtech provider, has introduced a new tool to eliminate double-entry on the web: HawkLink for Google Chrome. Insurance professionals often waste valuable hours and risk E&O exposure by manually re-entering client and policy information from their management system into carrier portals or other insurance websites.

The fastest way to get the most accurate, bindable quotes.

As an extension for the most popular web browser in the world, HawkLink for Google Chrome enables agency staff to effortlessly auto-fill agency, client, and policy data from their HawkSoft management system into most websites compatible with the Chrome browser. HawkLink passes data from the HawkSoft management system into websites for quoting, policy servicing, digital payment processing, and premium finance. The intelligent tool adapts as it memorizes where data is flooded to on specific insurance websites. Agents can share their field mappings back to HawkSoft to add to crowd-sourced database of mappings already available to all agencies.

The first iteration of HawkLink was introduced in 2003 as a toolbar on the then-dominant Internet Explorer browser. "There was so much rich data in our management system that we wanted to make available to use on company websites," recalls Paul Hawkins, CEO and co-founder of HawkSoft, remembering the genesis of HawkLink. The original toolbar and later dedicated browser version of HawkLink have saved HawkSoft agencies thousands of hours over the years. With the browser popularity shifting from Internet Explorer to Google Chrome, the original toolbar's efficacy needed a rethinking. "We knew it was time to give HawkLink some love," said Paul Hawkins, "and this was an opportunity to re-invent HawkLink with ideas that have come up over the years but that the old toolbar could no longer support."

Story continues

Sean Hawkins, VP of Development and co-founder of HawkSoft, took on the challenge of redesigning HawkLink as a browser extension to Google Chrome. "Our Product and Development teams have made so much progress towards moving HawkSoft into the cloud," noted Sean, "that we could really innovate on how HawkLink works." This included making HawkLink an extension for Google Chrome, leveraging easier data accessibility through HawkSoft Cloud to increase the amount of available data, and making mapping websites a crowd-sourced and community-driven initiative. Sean explained, "crowd-sourced mappings was our Holy Grail for this version of HawkLink. With it, HawkLink for Google Chrome gets better every time a HawkSoft agency uses it to map a new website." HawkLink for Google Chrome has over 50 common and regional insurance carriers, financial services and government websites pre-mapped for auto-fill thanks to crowd-sourcing efforts by agencies and direct collaboration with the website owners. Dozens of new websites are being added every month.

For HawkSoft agencies, HawkLink for Google Chrome is cutting down the time it takes to navigate and use their company websites. HawkLink can launch multiple company websites at once, a powerful time saver for agents like Kelly Endicott of Ohio. "My staff and I generally know the three or four companies we might place a new client with, which is why we haven't felt the need to invest in a comparative rater," said Kelly. "With HawkLink, I can launch those websites in one go and make it through each quote process in a matter of minutes." For agents that understand where to place a risk, she observed, "HawkLink is the fastest way to get an accurate and bindable quote from a company."

HawkLink for Google Chrome is available with the latest release of HawkSoft, out now for all customers. The feature is available at no additional cost. To learn more, visit hawksoft.com/hawklink.

About HawkSoft

Since 1995, HawkSoft is a leader in management systems for independent insurance agencies that want effective workflows and a delightful experience for staff and policyholders. Created by independent agents, HawkSoft continues to evolve as a cutting-edge system that powers thousands of agencies. HawkSoft offers the following promise to insurance agents: your investment in HawkSoft will pay for itself in the first year. Learn more about HawkSoft's unique father-and-son story at www.hawksoft.com/story.

Media Contact

HawkSoft:

Rushang Shah

VP, Marketing

866-884-4680

304774@email4pr.com

HawkLink for Google Chrome lets you auto-fill data from your management system into carrier and insurance websites.

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hawksoft-releases-hawklink-for-google-chrome-to-auto-fill-policy-data-to-carrier-and-insurance-websites-301243778.html

SOURCE HawkSoft
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Central Bank of Ireland bosses are to face questions about their handling of the Davy controversy (Niall Carson/PA)

Central Bank of Ireland bosses are to face questions about whether they considered reporting the Davy controversy to gardai.

Representatives will appear before the Oireachtas Finance Committee to give evidence on how the bank handled the investigation into the stockbroker.

The regulator will also face questions about the 4.1 million euro fine it issued Davy for breaches of financial market rules.

The Central bank need to be questioned as to why the decision to fine #Davy took so long @geraldnash has said the incident in Davy was motivated by greed pic.twitter.com/Id7ln11L11  The Labour Party (@labour) March 9, 2021

Labour TD Ged Nash said the Davy scandal was motivated by greed.

On Monday, Davy said it had closed its bond desk following the fallout over its fine for breaching rules in relation to a bond deal in 2014.

Mr Nash said the Central Bank needs to answer why the investigation into the incident took a number of years.

It took seven years from this transaction when it first took place, and five years from the conclusion of a High Court case, for the Central Bank to come to the conclusion that wrongdoing took place in relation to the Davy transaction, he said.

There are also many questions for Davy as well.

Its quite extraordinary for people, looking in on the evolution of the scandal, as to why most of those who were involved in this egregious transaction, why they still clung on to their jobs for seven years.

Public are really fed up of non-compliance and breaking of the law in finance, says @CathMurphyTD pic.twitter.com/bZxynIgWlo  Social Democrats (@SocDems) March 9, 2021

I have serious questions to ask of the Central Bank about their conduct of this investigation in the finance committee.

He went on: One key question for me will be, has the organisation taken their responsibility seriously, and have they fulfilled their obligation, where they view the possibility of a fraud or deception has taken place, to actually provide An Garda Siochana and the Office of the Director of Enforcement with information that they would require in order to investigate matters of this nature?

Thats a very significant issue.

The question is how has the Central Bank fulfilled its obligation in that regard?

People want individuals to be held to account for their actions; that is the least that the Irish people are entitled to expect.

On Monday, the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) withdrew Davys authority to act as primary dealer in Irish Government debt.

Expand Close The National Treasury Management Agency has withdrawn Davys ability to act as a primary dealer of Irish Government bonds (Niall Carson/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The National Treasury Management Agency has withdrawn Davys ability to act as a primary dealer of Irish Government bonds (Niall Carson/PA)

The NTMA described the firms behaviour as falling substantially short of the standards expected.

Co-leader of the Social Democrats Catherine Murphy said she asked Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe whether they are considering escalating the issue to the Garda Crime Bureau.

The finance committee will be discussing some of this today, and we have a letter sent to the Central Bank in relation to a range of questions that need to be responded to, Ms Murphy added.

Its not surprising there is a public interest in this because the public are fed up with this kind of type of non-compliance, breaking of the law that is happening in the financial services that emerges from time to time, and its very clear that theres a lack of consequences.
(Reuters) - Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

Fully vaccinated can gather without masks indoors, should still avoid travel, U.S. says

People who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can meet without masks indoors in small groups with others who have been inoculated but should avoid non-essential travel and continue to wear face-coverings in public, the Biden administration said on Monday.

The recommendations come as about 30 million people, or 9.2% of the U.S. population, have been fully inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines, according to CDC data. The United States reported a 12% decline in new COVID-19 cases last week, while vaccinations accelerated to a record 2.2 million shots per day, according to a Reuters analysis of state, county and CDC data.

Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine neutralises Brazil variant

The COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE was able to neutralize a new variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly in Brazil, according to a laboratory study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday.

Pfizer said it believes its current vaccine is highly likely to protect against the variant first identified in South Africa.

However, the drugmaker is planning to test a third booster dose of their vaccine and a version retooled specifically to combat the variant in order to better understand the immune response.

Science says it's safe, but some in France don't trust AstraZeneca vaccine

According to the most recent data made available by the French health ministry, for the end of February, France was using 24% of its AstraZeneca doses, compared with 82% for vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech, and 37% for the Moderna shot.

That is partly due to logistical bottlenecks, but also because some French people don't trust the AstraZeneca shot - despite multiple scientific studies that indicate it is safe and effective - according to interviews Reuters conducted with eight people involved in France's vaccine rollout.

Story continues

Japan's Terumo develops syringe to draw 7 doses from Pfizer vials

Japan's Terumo Corp said on Tuesday it has developed a new syringe that can get seven doses out of each vial of COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer Inc, at least one more than accessible with existing syringes.

The health ministry approved the design on Friday, and Terumo will begin production at the end of March, a Terumo spokesman told Reuters. The Kyodo News agency, which first reported the development, said Terumo is aiming to make 20 million units this year.

(Compiled by Karishma Singh; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
FRANKLIN, Tenn., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- HawsGoodwin Wealth, a Nashville area financial planning and investment management firm, is pleased to welcome two student interns during the spring semester. Abby Bush and Alexis Condon are spending 12 weeks under the guidance of Caroline Galbraith, CPWA, CFP, Partner and Wealth Management Advisor, as part of the Vanderbilt Women in Business Program (WiB).

Wealth management firm finds ongoing value in their partnership with the university's Women in Business mentoring program

"We believe so strongly in the mission of Vanderbilt's Women in Business program and have remained committed to doing our part to provide local women with opportunities for career development. Besides, we benefit as a firm as much as the students do." Caroline Galbraith, CPWA, CFP, Partner HawsGoodwin Wealth

"Unfortunately, the pandemic has impacted the ability for many students to secure internships, but there are just some things you need to learn by being immersed in a professional environment," said Galbraith. "We believe so strongly in the mission of WiB and have remained committed to doing our part to provide local women with opportunities for career development. Besides, we benefit as a firm as much as the students do."

Abby Bush is working on graphic design and social media at HawsGoodwin. A junior majoring in Human and Organizational Development with a double major in Cognitive Studies, Bush maintains a spot on the Vanderbilt dean's list. She currently serves as public relations chair for the university's Habitat for Humanity and is also a member of the WiB community engagement board where she plans events for over 250 attendees that feature high-profile businesswomen, including Marne Levine , the former COO of Instagram. Additionally, Bush works as a community engagement intern at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, planning immersive virtual events to increase collaboration among the local entrepreneurial community during the pandemic.

"My experience as a fashion model with IMG Models Worldwide since I was 15 years old, developed in me a passion for design and visual storytelling," says Bush. "I hope to utilize that passion and the skills I develop while at HawsGoodwin to pursue a creative, team-oriented career."

Alexis Condon is a sophomore English and Political Science major, minoring in Business. Inspired by her passion for problem-solving, she has been a member of WiB since 2019 and also serves on the marketing team for the Social Impact Consulting Club. At HawsGoodwin, Condon will gain exposure to trading, client servicing, portfolio construction, and financial planning. By then end of the semester, she will have completed a case study in both Financial Planning and Portfolio Construction.

"When I found out that WiB had paired me with HawsGoodwin as an accounting and finance intern, I was thrilled," said Condon. "As a Liberal Arts major, I had been looking for a way to further my education beyond the traditional scope of courses. I have always been interested in business and this seems like the perfect opportunity to develop quantitative skills that I will use in the real world."

ABOUT VANDERBILT WOMEN IN BUSINESS EXTERNSHIP PROGRAM

The Vanderbilt WiB Externship Program was introduced in the Fall 2020 semester with a fundamental desire to create a mutually beneficial and long-term relationship between Vanderbilt women and the Nashville business community. Students are able to harness practical skills with the promise of accountability, devotion, and direction and in turn, companies are able to rely on the commitment and skill set of the country's most competitive interns. Women executives who are interested in the Vanderbilt WiB Externship Program are encouraged to contact Alexandra Worthington, WiB Vice President of Project Development, at https://www.vanderbiltwib.org/contact-us.

ABOUT HAWSGOODWIN WEALTH

HawsGoodwin Wealth, LLC is an independently owned and operated, SEC Registered Investment Advisory firm based in Franklin, TN. Founded in 2008 by Art Haws and Cam Goodwin, the firm serves as a fiduciary to individuals, families and businesses, helping them achieve their financial goals, protect and grow their assets, and live their best life. HawsGoodwin was recently named to the 2020 INC 5000 list, as well as the 2020 edition of the Financial Times 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers which recognizes top independent firms from across the United States (this is the seventh annual FT 300 list and HawsGoodwin has earned a spot on the list for two consecutive years). The firm has more than $500 million in client assets under management. For more information, visit www.HawsGoodwin.com.

Media Contact:

Karen Embry

Impact Communications, Inc.

913-649-5009

[email protected]

DISCLOSURE

The Financial Times 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers is an independent listing produced annually by the Financial Times (July 2020). The FT 300 is based on data gathered from RIA firms, regulatory disclosures, and the FT's research. The listing reflected each practice's performance in six primary areas: assets under management, asset growth, compliance record, years in existence, credentials and online accessibility. This award does not evaluate the quality of services provided to clients and is not indicative of the practice's future performance. Neither the RIA firms nor their employees pay a fee to The Financial Times in exchange for inclusion in the FT 300. The CFP certification is a voluntary certification; no federal or state law or regulation requires financial planners to hold CFP certification. It is recognized in the United States and a number of other countries for its (1) high standard of professional education; (2) stringent code of conduct and standards of practice; and (3) ethical requirements that govern professional engagements with clients. The CFP certification is granted by Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board). For more information, please visit https://www.cfp.net/. The CPWA is a voluntary designation that signifies that an individual has met initial and on-going experience, ethical, education, and examination requirements for the professional designation, which is centered on management topics and strategies for high-net-worth clients. The designation is administered through Investments and Wealth Institute (IWI). These titles do not imply any level of skill or training. HawsGoodwin Wealth, LLC (HawsGoodwin) is an independent investment adviser registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about HawsGoodwin, including our investment strategies, fees and objectives, can be found in our Form ADV Part 2, which is available upon request.

Related Images

hawsgoodwin-welcomes-two.png

HawsGoodwin Welcomes Two Vanderbilt Interns for Spring Semester

Wealth management firm finds ongoing value in their partnership with the university's Women in Business mentoring program

SOURCE HawsGoodwin
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines Life, March 8)  This week: A debate on Magellan vs Elcano, transforming institutional spaces post-COVID, a group show with works centering around a black and white theme; and exploring the word cross in the context of the practice of Christianity in the Philippines.

Palit, Lipat, Lapat

On Friday, Mar. 12, six speakers will talk about the best practices of institutional spaces  such as schools and museums  in transforming, adjusting, and adapting to the pandemic and beyond.

This webinar is a continuation of the Saan Ka Lulugar series by the National Committee on Architecture and the Allied Arts of The National Committee on Culture and The Arts (NCCA) and in cooperation with CulturAid, Inc.

Register at bit.ly/saankalulugar. Event starts at 2 p.m.

Magellan vs Elcano

Instituto Cervantes de Manila, the cultural arm of the Embassy of Spain, will also be joining the commemoration of the 500th year of the first circumnavigation of the world with the online debate: Magallanes vs Elcano. The historic event was an accomplishment that is attributed to both Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano: Magellan originally commanded the expedition but, after his death in Mactan, Elcano took over and decided to sail west, eventually arriving to Spain and completing the worlds first circumnavigation.

In the debate, scholars will present their arguments on who deserves the credit of the final success more. Filipino historian Danilo Gerona will represent the side of Magellan while researcher Tomas Mazon of rutaelcano.com will represent the side of Elcano.

The event is on Mar. 10 at 6 p.m. Manila Time. Check the Facebook event page for details.

"Grayscale"

The prompt of Grayscale, curated by Soler Santos, is black and white, an old trope that is presented in various permutations by 11 artists in the exhibit.

As the exhibits notes states, The lack of color highlights a spectrum of other aspects of a work of art, using only shadow and light to make sense of the images. It may require a longer examination, a somewhat forced contemplation for the full picture to swim up to the surface so that we may see what is meant to be revealed.

The exhibit runs until Mar. 20 at West Gallery. The gallery is located at 48 West Avenue., Quezon City. Appointments to visit are made through (02) 3411-0336.

Visit the West Gallery website for more details.

Of Crosses and 'Culture': An anthropological look at 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines

Of Crosses and Culture is an eight-hour forum that will feature panel presentations about the introduction of Christianity in the country and its relation to Philippine culture. The use and various meanings/significance of the word cross will also be discussed as conceptual anchors in discussions.

The event is on Mar. 10 and will start at 8:00 a.m. Register here.
(Reuters) - Two small groups of Rio Tinto shareholders proposed resolutions for the mining giant to disclose emission targets and review its association with lobby groups, Rio said on Tuesday.

Mining companies around the world are under growing shareholder pressure to reduce their carbon footprint and take stringent climate actions to cut down on emissions, as calls for a shift towards cleaner forms of energy accelerate.

One group, representing 0.02% of shares, proposed that Rio disclose short, medium and long-term targets for direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and chalk out its performance against those targets, according to the proposed resolution.

A second group, representing 0.01% of Rio shares, asked the company to undertake an annual review of industry lobbyists to identify inconsistencies with the 2015 Paris Agreement and suspend membership of those out of line with the objectives.

"Where our membership is significant, we will work in partnership with industry associations to ensure that their policy positions and advocacy are consistent with our own public position and the Paris Agreement," Rio said in a statement.

Rio will hold its annual general meeting on May 6 and said it will provide its voting recommendations next week.

(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
WASHINGTON  Cash is about to flow west from Congress to California, as tens of billions of dollars in the coronavirus stimulus bill will go to the state, local governments, schools and households.

Democrats $1.9 trillion stimulus package is expected to win final passage in the House on Wednesday and be signed into law by President Biden soon thereafter. Here is some of what will come to California:

Billions for state and local governments: A total of $42.6 billion will go to governments in California, according to House Democrats calculations. That includes roughly $26 billion for the state plus $550 million for capital projects, $8.3 billion for cities and non-county jurisdictions, and $7.6 billion for counties.

San Francisco will get $630 million, which will go a long way to addressing its near-term budget deficit. Oakland will receive up to $192 million and Alameda County will get $324 million. San Jose will get $223 million, as will Contra Costa County.

Money for education: The state will get an estimated $15 billion for K-12 education, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis. Some of that must be spent on certain purposes, including learning loss, summer enrichment and after-school programs. Roughly $174 million will go to non-public schools. The state will also get an estimated $5 billion for colleges and universities, much of which must go to financial aid.

Child care assistance: California will get an estimated $3.7 billion to help with child care costs, according to the Congressional Research Service. The state will also receive $100 million for Head Start programs.

Housing aid: According to Democrats estimates, $2 billion will go to California for emergency rental assistance. The bill also will send money for homelessness assistance and a new homeowner assistance fund, but full breakdowns werent yet available. The office of Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., estimated California would get $1.2 billion for homeowners and $590 million to address homelessness.

Public transit: The bill includes billions for transit agencies, which have seen cratering ridership and greater expenses. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission estimates that more than $1.6 billion will come to the Bay Area, most of which will go to San Francisco and Oakland. While $140 million for a planned BART extension to San Jose was axed from the bill, other area construction projects will get extra money, including one to expand capacity in the Transbay Tube.

Money to Californians: The bill includes another round of direct stimulus payments to Americans. The nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that 22 million adults and 9 million children in California will benefit from the $1,400 checks. The bill also expands the child tax credit from $2,000 per year to $3,000 for children over the age of 6 and $3,600 for those under 6, subject to income caps. The institute estimates the expansion will benefit nearly 8 million adults and nearly 9 million children in the state. For low-income Californians without children, the bill expands the Earned Income Tax Credit. The institute estimates nearly 2.7 million adults in the state will get more money.

Nutrition assistance: Californians receiving benefits under the food stamp program will also see more under the bill. According to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the 4 million-plus Californians enrolled in the program will receive an average of $27 more per month.

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan
To mark the day COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, HDI, VOMO, and World Vision announce National COVID-19 Day on March 11 Tweet this

"With the United States recently surpassing 500,000 COVID-19 related deaths, our country needs ways to come together virtually and safely to remind us that we are not alone and that we will eventually overcome this pandemic," said Humanitarian Disaster Institute co-director Dr. Jamie Aten, who is also helping organize National COVID-19 Day.

National COVID-19 Day and strategic partners will help meet this need by creating an online platform for people from all walks of life to observe shared grief, come together virtually, or volunteer with proper safety protocols to recognize others in our communities and country making a difference and provide support from caring listeners.

"We are all going through COVID-19 together," said Rob Peabody, co-founder and CEO of VOMO. "We may be processing it differently and have had different experiences throughout the pandemic, but as a whole, it is something that the entire world is grappling with collectively. It has given us the opportunity to process together, empathize together, and now make a difference together."

To remember those who have died from COVID-19 National COVID-19 Day is encouraging others to observe a moment of silence on March 11, as well as to pause weekly in remembrance through partner The Friday Minute. People can also share memories online thanks to a collaboration with FacesOfCOVID.

"We join with Humanitarian Disaster Institute to mark this somber occasion and honor more than 500,000 precious lives lost to COVID-19and countless more families suffering the impact of the pandemic," said Edgar Sandoval, President and CEO of World Vision U.S. "Our hearts are broken by this national tragedy. But we "do not grieve as others do who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13), so we also affirm the ways God worked through His people and their acts of generosity to save many lives. World Vision has been proud to partner with the Church as it lives outside its four walls, working hand-in-hand with their neighbors to distribute life-saving food, PPE, and other essentials. In the midst of pain and uncertainty, Christ followers have courageously continued to work together to reach those who are vulnerable and in need. That's why National COVID-19 Day is a time of remembrance, but also hope."

Through the National COVID-19 Day platform powered by VOMO, people can volunteer by finding and signing up to help organizations responding to COVID-19 in 14 major U.S. cities, as well as online ways to volunteer across the country.

"This global experience has resulted in deep suffering and loss for people around the world, and the common experience of social distancing has created intense feelings of isolation, helplessness and loss," said Humanitarian Disaster Institute co-director Kent Annan, who is also helping organize National COVID-19 Day. "By recognizing our shared experience, we can begin to move together toward deeper healing and hope."

People can also get free help on the online platform from partners like the world's largest free online emotional support network 7 Cups, Inspire's Coronavirus (COVID-19) Support Group and Discussion Community, Long-Haulers Discussion Group, and National Association of Social Work's Help Starts Here.

Through a partnership with VidHug National COVID-19 Day will be sharing large montage videos sharing their COVID-19 experiences. On the website users can also send thank you videos to encourage frontline workers, family, and friends who have made a positive difference in their lives and community.

Free resources for navigating grief, cultivating resilience, and caring for others from National COVID-19 Day partners and collaborators including ebooks, articles, and more. COVID-19 research-based quizzes, insights, and toolkits are available from Harvard University Human Flourishing Program, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Healthcare Ready, RAND, and The Pandemic Grief Project.

National COVID-19 Day was co-founded by Jamie Aten and Kent Annan at Wheaton College's Humanitarian Disaster Institute. On November 24th, 2020 the Humanitarian Disaster Institute received a proclamation from National Day Archives officially designating and certifying that March 11 of each calendar year is officially designated as National COVID-19 Day. Efforts are underway to secure future municipal, state, and national support and recognition of the day.

National COVID-19 Day is made possible by the generous support of World Vision.

About Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College

The Humanitarian Disaster Institute is the first faith-based academic disaster research center in the country. Our mission is to help the church prepare and care for a disaster-filled world. We use our research to create resources and events geared toward students, survivors, helpers, and researchers. Housed at Wheaton College Graduate School, the institute also offers an M.A. in Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership and Trauma Certificate to equip the next generation of humanitarians. Learn more at wheaton.edu/HDI.

SOURCE Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College

Related Links

https://www.wheaton.edu/HDI


New Delhi: The AAP-led Delhi government on Monday (March 8) presented its seventh Outcome Budget on the first day of the Delhi Assemblys budget session for 2021-22.

The Budget Session started from Monday with an address by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal. The Session is scheduled to be held from March 8 to March 16, 2021.

While presenting the budget, the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government highlighted the achievements for the year in Education, Health, Transport, Revenue and Food departments.

Manish Sisodia, Delhis Deputy Chief Minister, who also handles the Finance portfolio, presented the fourth outcome budget and economic survey. He said, "Delhi government is the only state government that makes suo-moto disclosure of its performance to promote transparency and accountability in public spending. The outcome budget is a report card on how various departments have performed based on the funds allocated under Annual Budget 2020-21."

Sisodia highlighted that at the time of lockdown, the Delhi government had launched the series of Parenting in the time of Corona in which over 98 percent students received worksheets and 90 percent of students of classes 11th and 12th attended online classes.

Additionally, the state government said it mitigated basic inequalities which were the result of COVID-19 pandemic and the government set up as many as 1,914 hunger relief centers at the government-run schools for over three months.

While highlighting the amenities provided to the public during this difficult time, the state government stated that cooked meals were distributed at these centres twice a day, benefiting over 10 lakh people.

Adding to this, the Kejriwal-led AAP government also set-up 260 night shelters, booked 252 trains for migrant workers and provided an ex-gratia relief amount of Rs 1 crore to each of the families of 9 frontline workers who died due to Covid-19.

Sisodia also stated that the Delhi government had implemented a comprehensive COVID-19 response strategy to control the sudden upsurge in COVID-19 cases in the national capital. He said that Covid-19 tests of 87.8 lakh people were done in the national capital.

To ensure an adequate number of beds and better health facilities for COVID-19 patients, the state government had also arranged for additional 27,873 beds in all government hospitals.

Not only was the state providing one of the best COVID-19 treatments in the country but was also the first to experiment with plasma therapy, he said.

To put a band-aid on the burn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a total of 65 percent of Delhi's population were provided free food grains to help them at the much needed time.

Manish Sisodia also highlighted the achievements of the labour department, said the house that construction workers who lost their livelihoods during the pandemic were also provided special assistance, also financial aid to 44,683 construction workers who registered under the Delhi government`s Construction Workers Welfare Board was provided.

Deputy CM also proudly highlighted that to curb pollution and make Delhi a clean and green city, Delhi government also launched the electric vehicle policy.

"The outcome budget has become an integral part of the governance system and helps the government to rank all departments on the basis of their performance. The departments are now more proactive and work in a more target oriented approach, which gives better results," concluded Sisodia.

Meanwhile, while addressing a press conference here on Monday, former MLA and Delhi Congress leader Adarsh Shastri urged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Finance Minister Manish Sisodia, to keep the welfare of the people uppermost in mind while presenting the Delhi Budget on Tuesday. The Congress appealed to the Delhi government for free Covid vaccination to all, unemployment allowance to the youth and reduction in the Value Added Tax (VAT) on fuel prices.

Live TV
Amid a mixed sense of nervousness and excitement, millions of children returned to schools across England on Monday under phase one of the British government's "roadmap" to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I've missed face-to-face lessons with our teachers, and hugging my friends," said second-year high school student Elinor Greenwood as she looked forward to returning to her classes.

As a 12-year-old teenager, Greenwood admitted it could be tough for her and friends as she returned to Liverpool College, a secondary school, facing the prospect of schoolwork piling up and extra restrictions.

"I've lost half a year's education as a result of the closures brought about by the pandemic," she told Xinhua.

"Even now I won't be able to give my friends at school a hug and we may have to wear masks, which I guess is OK. But I do worry that there is a lot of classwork to catch up on in the coming months."

"I've had online lessons, but I much prefer face-to-face classes. I don't seem to be able to learn as well unless I am there in the classroom. I also miss learning in a big group with my friends, it's a sort of fun thing that way."

On Feb. 22, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his long-anticipated "roadmap" exiting the lockdown. The reopening of schools in England from Monday is the first part of the four-step plan.

Under the guidance, secondary school students across England are to receive three COVID-19 lateral-flow tests before using at-home kits twice a week.

"So the plan to give us tests twice a week. In fact it's a good thing. I will also have the vaccine when it becomes available for my age group," Greenwood said.

Greenwood said she feels the country could have done more from the start, such as locking down earlier as other countries had done.

"I don't think the right decisions were made in the early days of the pandemic, but I also think we will have learned a lot from this and will hopefully be better prepared for next time," she said.

"When this is all over people will know how we can do things differently, learning from the mistakes we made during this pandemic. People will be studying this pandemic for many years to come."

TWO-EDGED SWORD?

For teacher Katy Thurgood-Parkes, the reopening of schools during an ongoing pandemic could be a two-edged sword.

The art and design teacher traveled from home in Liverpool to her school at Ashton-in-Makerfield, a small satellite town close to Manchester.

"I look at the return in a twofold way," she told Xinhua.

"I fully acknowledge the importance and value of our children being back at school. It's essential for the social and development side of their lives. But I also have some concerns on what around 1,500 students all coming back will have on the pandemic."

"If I am honest, I think I would have preferred the schools to stay closed until after the upcoming Easter holiday period in April."

Thurgood-Parkes praised the way the school had handled the health emergency, and the way all of the restrictions and controls had been put into place.

"But the reality is what happens when so many kids head out of the school gates, head to the local shops to buy snacks and candies. What effect may this have on spreading the virus?"

She said she is happier knowing that the potential spread of COVID-19 through children -- many of them showing no symptoms -- had finally been acknowledged by the British government.

"But I do feel teachers have been seen as sacrificial lambs in the way the pandemic has been handled. Three of the staff in my department have picked up the virus at school," she said.

Thurgood-Parkes also fears plans to test all students several times a week for the virus will be problematic.

"It is going to be disruptive to lessons, and who knows what will happen when children have self-tests in their own homes," she said.

Making children wear masks may also pose issues for some children, especially those who need extra teacher support.

"I can't praise the school enough for the efforts made, but we have been faced with guidelines changing quite quickly."

Looking forward to seeing her students face-to-face for the first time in months was tempered with a sense of fear, the teacher admitted.

"I don't feel safe, if I'm honest," she said. However, Thurgood-Parkes said her passion for teaching remain unchanged even during the worse pandemic in living memory.

"I love my job and I love working with our young students," she said.

MIXED REACTIONS BEYOND SCHOOL

With thousands of new COVID-19 cases still being reported every day, there has been mixed reaction to the reopening of thousands of junior and senior schools, as well as colleges.

Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty has said "everything is strongly in favour of children going to school," with extra safety measures in place. These include testing for students and the wider use of face masks.

"The risk to children is incredibly low from going to school and from catching COVID," he said.

But the re-opening of schools was criticized by Professor John Ashton, a Liverpool-based global public health expert.

"It is pretty reckless for the sake of a few weeks plus the upcoming Easter Holidays. It would have made more sense to wait until mid-April to reopen schools," Ashton told Xinhua.

Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine from the University of Liverpool, said Monday that it is inevitable there will be a rise in cases as schools reopen, but adding it was not so important if the virus reproduction number (the R number) rose slightly considering the importance of education.

Semple said the British government's approach is more about reducing the absolute number of cases going to hospital and needing intensive care.

Saying society needs to learn how to live with the virus, Semple added: "It's going to be difficult and it is going to mean some social distancing and face mask-wearing, good ventilation until really late summer when we've got the vast majority people vaccinated."

More than 22.2 million people in Britain have been given the first jab of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest official figures.

Another 5,177 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,218,520, according to official figures released Sunday.

The country also reported another 82 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain stood at 124,501. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.
Saluda Grade Asset Management (SGAM), a private alternative real estate investment firm, announced the successful closing of a $150 million unrated securitization backed by home equity lines of credit originated and serviced by Figure Lending LLC (Figure). The transaction, GRADE 2021-FIG2, closed on February 26th and is the fifth securitization issued and sponsored by an SGAM-managed fund. The deal also marks the second time the two companies have come to market in six months.

Figure Technologies, Inc., a portfolio investment held in a fund of Saluda Grade Ventures (SGV) 1, the venture arm of Saluda Grade, has worked closely with the Saluda Grade Advisory (SGA) team to access more scalable capital through institutional partners.

This transaction further cements our ability to execute as both an equity partner and capital markets provider within the platform we have created at Saluda Grade, said Ryan Craft, CEO of Saluda Grade. The demand for high quality real estate assets from the securitization market remains strong and our platforms position in the market affords us the opportunity to meet that demand.

SGAM sees home equity as one of the largest opportunities in todays domestic mortgage market, estimating that nearly $7 trillion of American home equity remains trapped because of strict lending regulations and a lack of convenient borrowing options for the American homeowner. Aiming to solve this, Figures HELOC product delivers home equity liquidity through a seamless digital underwriting process, and a very fast turnaround for up to $250,000 of funding.

 SGAM & SGV are both registered with the SEC as an Exempt Reporting Adviser

 The platform refers to the three distinctly different business lines of Saluda Grade: SGAM, SGV, and SGA (a consulting firm, not registered with the SEC).

About Saluda Grade:

Founded in 2019, Saluda Grade is a boutique real estate advisory and asset management firm focused on the alternative non-bank lending sector. Saluda Grade Advisory advises small to mid-sized lenders seeking institutional capital markets expertise and assists in delivering institutional capital to private lenders. Saluda Grade Ventures, the firms equity investment arm, currently manages two private funds. Saluda Grade Asset Management manages debt funds investing in transitional mortgage loans and distressed securitized product assets.

With offices in New York and San Francisco, the company is driven by a core mission to identify alternative lending sectors needing institutional capital to fuel growth. Its management team has more than 85 years of combined experience in the mortgage and securitized credit space. The firm has deep relationships with both private lenders and capital providers that allow Saluda Grade Advisory to bring attractive assets to institutional investors.

Disclaimer:

This press release is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to sell nor the solicitation of an offer to any Fund or any other securities and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation, or sale. Any offers will be made only by means of a private offering memorandum.

Forward-looking Statements:

Statements in this press release have forward-looking statements and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those express in such forward-looking statements.
[March 09, 2021] Employers In Many Markets Report Continued Improvements In Hiring Outlooks For Q2

MILWAUKEE, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Hiring outlooks for the second quarter improve in 24 of 43 markets according to the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey (NYSE-MAN) of over 42,000 employers. Employers report more positive employment outlooks than last quarter in 24 countries, weaker in 16 and unchanged in 3. Employers in India, Hong Kong and U.S. are most optimistic about returning to pre-pandemic hiring by end of 2021, while employers in Germany, France, Netherlands and Poland are least optimistic. KEY FINDINGS Return to pre-pandemic hiring - as vaccine rollouts progress, 77% expect to return to pre-pandemic hiring levels by end of 2021.

- as vaccine rollouts progress, 77% expect to return to pre-pandemic hiring levels by end of 2021. Strongest hiring outlooks reported in Taiwan , U.S., Australia and Singapore ; weakest in Panama , UK and South Africa .

reported in , U.S., and ; weakest in , UK and . Vaccination policy - As more vaccines are approved and rolled out, 43% of employers have no plans to mandate vaccination, 23% will encourage by promoting the benefits, 16% plan to require employees to be vaccinated ,14% are undecided and 4% will require vaccination for workers in specific roles.

- As more vaccines are approved and rolled out, 43% of employers have no plans to mandate vaccination, 23% will encourage by promoting the benefits, 16% plan to require employees to be vaccinated ,14% are undecided and 4% will require vaccination for workers in specific roles. New ways of working  in next 6-12 months, organizations expect: 51% of employees to be back in the workplace most of the time, 36% will offer a hybrid work with more remote work, 5% will offer flexibility shift patterns 4% will shift to full remote work, 4% are undecided. "We continue to see evidence of a two-speed recovery, where people with in-demand skills and those organizations that are digitizing most are thriving, while others are at risk of falling behind," said Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup Chairman and CEO. "As more vaccines are approved and employers have implemented strong safety protocols to avoid full shutdowns in workplaces where people must be on site, we are seeing the beginning of more hiring optimism for the months ahead. We still have a long way to go in this recovery, yet these results point to positive trends in many industries. Now is the time to equip people with the digital and soft skills employers need as demand is likely to rise as organizations continue to accelerate their digitization plans." View the complete Q2 2021 survey results: www.manpowergroup.com/meos





Global Hiring Plans by Region AMERICAS: Hiring intentions strengthen in four countries (U.S., Costa Rica, Canada and Colombia) and weaken in six (Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and Peru) since the previous quarter.

U.S. employers report the strongest hiring intentions in the region for the 14th consecutive quarter (+18%), followed by Brazil (+9%) and Canada (+8%). The weakest and only negative intentions in the region are in Panama (-8%), the weakest globally, and Peru (-2%).

(+9%) and (+8%). The weakest and only negative intentions in the region are in (-8%), the weakest globally, and (-2%). Employers in all U.S. sectors are anticipating positive outlooks for the next three months, the strongest hiring activity is forecast for the Leisure & Hospitality (+27%), Transportation & Utilities (+23%) and Wholesale & Retail Trade (+22%).

In Brazil , the Manufacturing sector Outlook of +11% is stronger than the national outlook of (+8%), remaining, both relatively stable when compared with the previous quarter, but decreasing by 2 percentage points year-over-year. EMEA: Outlooks improve or remain the same in seventeen countries and decline in seven quarter-over-quarter (Bulgaria, Finland, Germany Greece, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands) Croatia (12%), Romania (12%) and Turkey (10%) have the strongest regional hiring plans, while the weakest are expected in UK (-5%) and South Africa (-5%).

(12%), (12%) and (10%) have the strongest regional hiring plans, while the weakest are expected in UK (-5%) and (-5%). In France hiring intentions rise by 6 percentage points quarter-over-quarter, with employers in Construction and Manufacturing reporting the most optimistic hiring plans.

hiring intentions rise by 6 percentage points quarter-over-quarter, with employers in Construction and Manufacturing reporting the most optimistic hiring plans. In Germany , the strongest hiring plans are reported in the Finance & Business Services sector (+15%), while the Restaurants & Hotels sector (-16%) reports its weakest outlook since 2003.

, the strongest hiring plans are reported in the Finance & Business Services sector (+15%), while the Restaurants & Hotels sector (-16%) reports its weakest outlook since 2003. UK employers reports the weakest outlooks in Europe , driven by declines in hospitality and retail, and business services. APAC: Outlooks improve in four APAC countries and territories since last quarter (Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan), remain the same in China and Hong Kong and weaken in Japan. The strongest hiring prospects are reported in Taiwan (+24%) Australia (+17%) and Singapore (+17%) for the second consecutive quarter while the weakest and only negative hiring intentions are expected in Hong Kong (-2%) and Japan (-1%).

(+24%) (+17%) and (+17%) for the second consecutive quarter while the weakest and only negative hiring intentions are expected in (-2%) and (-1%). Hong Kong (-4%) and Japan (-4%) report their weakest outlooks in Retail and Trade since the studies began.

(-4%) and (-4%) report their weakest outlooks in Retail and Trade since the studies began. Employers in Australia report the strongest hiring pace in more than nine years, with positive outlooks reported in all seven industry sectors, particularly optimistic in the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate and Manufacturing. To view complete results for the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey, visit: www.manpowergroup.com/meos. The next survey will be released June 8, 2021 and will report hiring expectations for Q3 2021. *The survey  conducted January / February 2021  is the most comprehensive, forward-looking employment survey of its kind, used globally as a key economic indicator. The Net Employment Outlook is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating an increase in hiring activity and subtracting from this the percentage of employers expecting a decrease in hiring activity. ABOUT MANPOWERGROUP

ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN), the leading global workforce solutions company, helps organizations transform in a fast-changing world of work by sourcing, assessing, developing and managing the talent that enables them to win. We develop innovative solutions for hundreds of thousands of organizations every year, providing them with skilled talent while finding meaningful, sustainable employment for millions of people across a wide range of industries and skills. Our expert family of brands  Manpower, Experis and Talent Solutions  creates substantial value for candidates and clients across more than 75 countries and territories and has done so for over 70 years. We are recognized consistently for our diversity - as a best place to work for Women, Inclusion, Equality and Disability and in 2021 ManpowerGroup was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for the twelfth year - all confirming our position as the brand of choice for in-demand talent. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/employers-in-many-markets-report-continued-improvements-in-hiring-outlooks-for-q2-301242915.html SOURCE ManpowerGroup

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
New Delhi, March 9 : The names of Dhan Singh Rawat, Satpal Maharaj, Ajay Bhatt and Anil Baluni are doing the rounds for the post of next Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.

While Dhan Singh Rawat is seen as a shoo-in as the next CM, Pushkar Singh Dhami is being considered for the Deputy Chief Minister's post.

The development came after Trivendra Singh Rawat on Tuesday submitted his resignation as the CM of Uttarakhand to Governor Baby Rani Maurya. The BJP is also planning to appoint a Deputy Chief Minister for which the name of Pushkar Dhani is doing the rounds.

A meeting of the BJP legislative party in Uttarakhand is scheduled for Wednesday morning to elect a new leader. BJP national Vice President Raman Singh has been sent to the state as a central observer, while the party's national General Secretary and state in-charge Dushyant Gautam will also attend the meeting.

Dhan Singh Rawat, a minister in the Trivendra Singh Rawat government, has emerged as the front-runner for the top post in Uttarakhand. He is also close to the RSS and has worked as the state secretary of ABVP. He also served as an RSS office-bearer.

Dhan Singh Rawat had unsuccessfully contested the elections for the first time in 2012, before winning in 2017. He currently holds the post of Education Minister in the state.

Apart from Dhan Singh Rawat, another prominent name doing the rounds in BJP circles is that of Satpal Maharaj, also a minister in the current government. Maharaj has clearly shown his ambition to become the Chief Minister, besides being one of the MLAs who had express their dissent against Trivendra Singh Rawat.

"Satpal Maharaj's past association with the Congress may dampen his chances to become the Chief Minister," said a BJP leader. Maharaj had joined the BJP in 2014.

Another strong contender is BJP MP and former state unit president Ajay Bhatt. Bhatt was the state president when Union Home Minister Amit Shah was the party's national President.

Sources said that by nominating Bhatt for the post of Chief Minister, the party will have to face two by-polls -- one each for the Lok Sabha and the state Assembly within six months.

"First Bhatt has to resign from the Lok Sabha and then he has to get himself elected to the state Assembly within six months of assuming office as the Chief Minister. With just one year of the tenure of the state Assembly left, the party leadership may not go for a by-poll six months ahead of the scheduled Assembly elections next year," said a party leader.

The name of Rajya Sabha member Anil Baluni is also doing the rounds for the top post, owing to his closeness to the Prime Minister and the party's central leadership.

The names of Union Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' and Uttarakhand BJP General Secretary Suresh Bhatt are under consideration to replace Trivendra Singh Rawat.
New Delhi: As part of this investigative series, we had earlier revealed how the Gupta brothers of South Africa are secretly preparing to purchase India's Jet Airways with the help of Murari Lal Jalan.

We had also revealed the family and business links between Gupta Brothers and Murari Lal Jalan. These are the same Gupta brothers against whom many cases of corruption, bribery are going on in South Africa, and any business deal with them is banned in the United States.

What was the reason that the US government has banned any business deal or agreement with Gupta Brothers?

Murari Lal Jalan, who is trying to buy Jet Airways, is backed by the Gupta brothers (Ajay, Atul, Rajesh Gupta) of South Africa who are accused of serious charges of corruption and subsequently had to flee the country. There is a direct connection between the Murali Lal Jalan family and the Gupta Brothers.

An agreement was done on July 13, 2018, which was registered in Delhi. The two parties to this agreement were LCR Investments, a Gupta family company and the Bengal Orion Financial Hub Ltd of the Jalan family. According to this agreement, LCR Investments signed an agreement to sell a 68.50 per cent stake in its partner company, Heritage Aviation, to the Jalan family company Bengal Orion Financial Hub for 6 crore 85 lakh rupees.

Ankit Jalan signed on behalf of the Jalan family on the agreement. Ankit Jalan is the nephew of Murari Lal Jalan. While Shantanu Awasthi signed the agreement on behalf of LCR Investments. Awasthi is the director of the company.

LCR Investments is a Gupta family company. The company is used to execute transactions with other companies.

Who are the shareholders of this company? Who owns the company?

A 65 per cent stake in the company is owned by Anguri Gupta, mother of the Gupta Brothers. 15 per cent stake is owned by Anil Gupta, a close relative of Gupta Brothers, while the remaining 15 per cent is in the name of Suryakant Singhal.

Suryakant Singhal is the son of Ajay Gupta, one of the three brothers. Until the financial year 2017-18, Singhal was named as one of the directors of LCR Investments. His name was later removed from the list of directors, but he continues to be one of the shareholders.

LCR Investments was registered on October 24, 1989, in Delhi. Its registered address is G2 Swastik Bhavan, Ranjit Nagar Commercial Complex, New Delhi.

The second party to the 2018 agreement is the Bengal Orion Financial Hub, a company of the Jalan family. According to documents, Murari Lal Jalan resigned from this company on March 5, 2018.

However, according to documents filed in the Ministry of Company Affairs on November 26, 2018, the largest stake in the company, around 78 per cent, is owned by Murari Lal Jalan. The second major shareholder was by Orion IT Parks Limited and the third major shareholder was by Ankit Jalan. The remaining shares are held by other people.

But in the latest shareholding records, Murari Lal Jalan's name has been removed. Now the biggest shareholding is that of his brother Vishal Jalan, while the other big stakeholder is Ankit Jalan. The third major stake is with Orion IT Parks. It is a company of the Jalan family. The Bengal Orion Financial Hub was registered on January 12, 2011, in Kolkata. Its address is 41A JC Bose Road Suite, 505, Kolkata.

The Gupta family has transferred the ownership of the company Heritage Aviation to the Jalan family. The transfer was made through the Gupta family company LCR Investment to the Jalan family company Bengal Orion Financial Hub. This is revealed by the documents filed by Heritage Aviation in the Ministry of Company Affairs on December 2, 2020.

Out of a total of 1 crore shares, 68 lakh 50 thousand shares were transferred by LCR Investments to Bengal Orion Financial Hub on December 1, 2019.

This means that now the largest owner of Heritage Aviation is Bengal Orion Financial Hub. The rest is owned by the Mathur family. So, Heritage Aviation, controlled by the Gupta family, has now become a company owned by the Jalan family. This establishes a clear connection between the two families.

Documents accessed by Zee show that Heritage Aviation has received the Letter of Award for the selected airline operator for the Dehradun-Pithoragarh-Hindon route under the Regional Connectivity Scheme of the Airport Authority of India. It included routes like Hindon-Pithoragarh-Dehradun, Gauchar-Sahasradhara-Chinyalisaur, Pithoragarh-Pantnagar, Dharchula-Haldwani-Haridwar and Haridwar-Haldwani. According to documents, a company named Heritage Aviation promotes the air travel scheme of Chardham in Uttarakhand. The company claims that it has 5 aircraft.

So this was all about the link between Gupta and Jalan family. The question is whether the LCR Investments did all these transfers due to the increasing restrictions on the Gupta brothers or if there is a direct agreement between the two families.

We sent e-mails to Bengal Orion Financial, LCR Investments and Murari Lal Jalan, seeking their response on this deal. However, we have not received any reply from them so far.

In an earlier response, Murari Lal Jalan had denied business links with the Gupta Brothers. But the documents showing agreements between the two reveal the real story.

Live TV
Militants are now receiving and sending money in the form of cryptocurrency as law enforcers lack of proper technical support to check virtual transactions. Image Source: IANS News

Militants are now receiving and sending money in the form of cryptocurrency as law enforcers lack of proper technical support to check virtual transactions. Image Source: IANS News

Dhaka, March 9 : Banned Bangladeshi militant outfits, Ansar Al Islam (AI) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), have sent a huge amount of money to another extremist group in Kashmir in the form of cryptocurrency, a senior police official said.

The official confirmed the development while speaking to IANS.

According to the official, a Special Action Group of the Dhaka Metropalitan Police's (DMP)Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC), had arrested two AI militants, Awal Newaz alias Sohel Newaz and Fazle Rabbi Chowdhury, in September 2019.

During interrogation, they said the militant groups had been receiving huge funds through Bitcoin system since 2014.

The two also mentioned that they collected huge sums of money from Pakistan and Gulf countries also in the form of cryptocurrency.

The militants claimed that earlier they used to collect money through 'hundi', but that is now under the surveillance of the law enforcers.

Due to this, they shifted to Bitcoin, which according to the militants, is an easier method to exchange the illegal funds used in organising radical activities.

Ahmedul Islam, Additional Deputy Commissioner of the Special Action Group, told IANS that terror financing is largely being carried out with the help of cryptocurrency.

"It's very tough to monitor the illegal transaction of Bitcoin as we have not advanced technical devices to monitor it.

"It'll be a big challenge for the law enforcers to check the virtual currency in future," he added.

In August 2020, the US government had announced that hundreds of cryptocurrency accounts, four websites and four Facebook accounts were seized, adding that it thwarted attempts by militant groups to raise funds using digital currency.

According to US officials, about $2 million in cryptocurrency had been recovered.

In Bangladesh, the virtual currency is banned.

In December 2017, the Bangladesh Bank issued a notice asking everyone to refrain from such transactions.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), DMP and some other police units are working to check illegal virtual transactions in the country.

A cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange wherein individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger existing in a form of computerised database.
The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is marking International Womens Day 2021 with the release of its Inclusive Recovery Guide for women in tourism, compiled in collaboration with UN Women.



UNWTO data shows that women make up the majority of the tourism workforce (54%). Women in tourism are also often concentrated in low-skilled or informal work. This means that they are feeling the economic shock caused by the crisis more acutely and quicker than their male counterparts. In many cases, they are cut off from the social and healthcare protections that are so vital in a global pandemic.



The Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres said: As the world marks International Womens Day in the midst of a global pandemic, one stark fact is clear: the COVID-19 crisis has a womans face.



UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili added: Tourism is a proven driver of equality and opportunity. This unprecedented crisis has hit our sectors women fast and hard, which is why gender equality and empowerment must be centre stage as we work together to restart tourist and accelerate recovery.



Almost one year on since the pandemic was officially declared, the negative impact it is having on women and girls has become devastatingly clear. This increase in womens economic and social insecurity combined with the observed rise in unpaid care work and domestic violence have meant that women in tourism have been disproportionately affected by the devastating effects of the pandemic on the sector.



The Inclusive Recovery Guide provides recommendations to policymakers, businesses and civil society actors in tourism for designing gender-responsive measures in response to the ongoing pandemic.  TradeArabia News Service
The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has decried the continuous vandalism of its assets across stations by vandals, saying such dastardly act endangers air safety in the country.

The Managing Director, NAMA, Fola Akinkuotu, made the disclosure in a statement issued in Lagos on Monday.

Mr Akinkuotu told the Senate Committee on Aviation during an oversight visit on Sunday that NAMA has invested in navigational aids in recent times, but some of them were regularly vandalised by hoodlums.

The managing director, therefore, called for improved security for its assets at airports and stations.

Mr Akinkuotu also sought the prioritisation of the agency by the National Assembly, stressing that some of its communication gadgets were getting archaic and needed replacement.

He regretted that the country never foresaw the current security challenges in some parts of the country and mentioned Iju area of Lagos as one of the places where its equipment had been vandalised.

Besides, Mr Akinkuotu said that the agency was linking all its stations with the Information Communication Technology (ICT) and appealed to more funding for the agency.

He said: NAMA has made good efforts in recent times to build on what we have in the past few years. We installed two different categories III Instrument Landing System (ILS) equipment which gives different minima.

However, there is the need to protect NAMA assets at all stations, including Iju area of Lagos. I would have loved to take you there, but for lack of time at this moment.

The fact is we never foresaw the current situation in the country. Some of our facilities have been vandalised in some stations.

We need your support to further upgrade our facilities especially our communication gadgets, which are archaic.

Responding, the Chairman of the committee, Smart Adeyemi, said that the senate was aware of some of the challenges facing the agency and promised to help it overcome them.

Mr Adeyemi also explained that the relevance of NAMA in the aviation industry could not be underestimated.

I know that the safety we enjoy in the aviation industry is not unconnected with the contributions of all of you in this agency. I salute you for this. You have done excellently well.

You talked about communication, navigation and surveillance that talks about safety and that is the major issue in the aviation industry. Once people are sure of their safety, they would fly, he said.

Mr Adeyemi also promised that the National Assembly would accelerate the six aviation agencies bills seeking to change their Acts in the next few months.

He noted that some of the challenges facing some of the agencies, especially NAMA would be addressed through the new bills, assuring that whatever would be passed by the assembly would pass the test of time.

(NAN)

ADVERTISEMENT
The number of divorce cases in Andaucia fell by 11.5 per cent in 2020, despite the year coinciding with the coronavirus pandemic and enforced lockdowns for many.

Official data shows a drop in all types of requests for divorce in the region - which have fallen for six consecutive years - but the decrease is "much more pronounced" than in previous years.

In 2020 there were 9,216 uncontested divorce claims, which represents a decrease of 9.4 per cent compared to 2019, while there were 8,417 contentious divorce claims, 12.9 per cent fewer.

In addition, 503 requests for consensual separation were registered, 16.7 per cent less than in 2019, the largest decrease. Likewise, 302 were of contentious separation, 24.7 per cent fewer.

Also, in 2020, 18 nullity (no valid marriage) claims were filed, which were exactly the same as in 2019.

Although it is the sixth consecutive year of decline in divorce demands, the decrease in 2020 was "much more marked" than in previous years, partly due to the administrative stoppage during the first state of alarm during the pandemic.

Regarding the different Andalusian provinces, Seville and Malaga are the ones with the highest number of divorces, with 1,046 and 1,035, respectively. They are followed by Cadiz (766), Granada (541), Cordoba (369), Almeria (337) followed by Jaen (307) and Huelva (239).

Looking at the number of divorce requests per 10,000 inhabitants at a national level, the Canary Islands is top of the table with 23.6, followed by the Valencian Community with 23.5; Balearic Islands and Murcia, with 22.4; Andalucia with 21.4; Catalonia with 20.6; Cantabria with 20.4 and Asturias with 20.2. All of them exceeded the national average of 20.
Cloris Leachman and Thomas Duplesses are shown in a scene from "Jump, Darling" in this undated handout photo. Sitting in her chair off-camera on the Ontario set of the new Canadian film "Jump, Darling," Cloris Leachman could often be found studiously reading her lines and preparing. Phil Connell, writer-director of the LGBTQ family drama, says the then-93-year-old acclaimed actor still took her craft seriously and was willing to perform any scene -- even a vulnerable shower one. Though she was frail and needed physical assistance between takes, she sprung into action in scenes for the film, which marks Leachman's final starring role before her death in January at age 94. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Porch FF, Viktor Cahoj
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
ROME - The Russian Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine is to be made in Italy, the first European Union country to do so, the Italo-Russian Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday.



"An agreement has been signed by the Russian government fund and the Adienne Pharma & Biotech company for the production of the Sputnik V vaccine in Italy," it said.



It said the managing director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, had confirmed an accord had been reached with Adienne Pharma & Biotech, based near Monza south of Milan, "sealing the first European contract for the local production of the vaccine".



Sputnik production in Italy will start in July, it said.



The chamber of commerce said Sputnik's "innovative production process" would help create new jobs and enable Italy to control the whole process of production.



This will enable the production of some 10 million doses in Italy by the end of the year, it said.



The accord had been reached by talks between Italian and Russian firms helped by the Italian embassy in Russia, the chamber said.



Chamber Chairman Vincenzo Trani said "Italian firms are strategic, they have unique capacity and competencies on the European scene and are able to face the market with flexibility and speed".



He said the accord was "historic".



Trani said it showed "the healthy state of relations between our two countries and underscores how Italian companies know how to see beyond political polemics".



The European Commission said Tuesday that Sputnik for the moment "remains outside our strategy" .



Adienne Pharma & Biotech, set up in 2004, is based at Lugano in Switzerland but has a production centre also at Caponago in province of Monza and Brianza.



Banca Intesa Russia President Antonio Fallico, meanwhile, told ANSA that two other companies were in the final stages of negotiations to produce the Sputnik jab in Italy.



Sputnik V is a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.



A recent study published in The Lancet indicated 91.6% efficacy without unusual side effects.



Emergency mass-distribution of the vaccine began in December 2020 in multiple countries including Russia, Argentina, Belarus, Hungary, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates.



As of March 2021, forty-five countries have granted Sputnik V emergency use authorization, while over a billion doses of the vaccine were ordered for immediate distribution globally.


Hyderabad, March 9 : A tribal woman, who was set ablaze by a man in Telangana's Medak district on Monday, succumbed at a hospital in Hyderabad on Tuesday, police said.

Sakri Bai, 42, who had sustained 80 per cent burns, died at government-run Osmana General Hospital.

In a shocking incident on International Women's Day, a man who owed her money allegedly poured petrol on her and set her ablaze. The incident happened in Gadipeddapur village in Alladurg mandal of Medak district.

According to the police, the woman, a widow, had gone to the village to recover her money from him when he allegedly committed the crime.

The woman, a resident of Malkapur in the same district, reportedly ran through Gadipeddapur village asking for help before collapsing. She was found lying in the bushes. Some locals shifted her to government hospital and from there she was brought to Hyderabad.

Police have arrested P. Sadat, a butcher, who allegedly set the woman ablaze after an argument. He was taken into custody by Alladurg police and booked for murder.

According to police, the woman's husband was killed in a fight among family members a few years ago and since then she was staying with her parents along with her two children.
New Delhi, March 9 : Nothing Technologies, the newly-launched venture of OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, on Tuesday revealed an image of its upcoming product which is expected to be wireless earbuds.

The London-based company recently announced the Stockholm-based company Teenage Engineering as its founding partner.

"This is Concept one, a first expression of our design principles, starting with transparency that embodies our commitment towards bringing technology closer to people," Pei said in a statement.

"We peel off everything superficial, like unnecessary branding on the surface, to focus solely on what adds true value to the user experience,'' Pei added.

Teenage Engineering has been developing highly acclaimed products for people who love sound, music and design.

The company's emblematic first product, the portable wonder synthesizer OP-1, was launched in 2010.

Jesper Kouthoofd, co-founder and CEO of Teenage Engineering is the creative lead behind Nothing's design world, while Tom Howard has been appointed as head of design at Nothing.

Nothing recently announced it will open up for its community to invest in the company through a community equity funding round.

Nothing will allow its community to invest a total of $1.5 million at the same valuation as their Series A funding with GV (formerly Google Ventures).

Earlier, the firm acquired smartphone brand Essential that shut shop last year.

London-based Nothing has so far raised over $22 million. In December, the company raised $7 million in seed financing December that included tech leaders and investors such as Tony Fadell, Casey Neistat, Kevin Lin, Steve Huffman and Josh Buckley.
(Natural News) Rotavirus vaccine inventor, Dr. Paul Offit, appeared on a recent CNN broadcast to praise mask mandates and social distancing. Offit wants to see masks on every person, every flu season, until the influenza virus is officially declared eradicated. Health authorities in the UK recently announced that the flu has been eradicated thanks to aggressive public health measures. Not a single case of flu has been detected in the UK throughout the 2020-2021 flu season. Offit believes social distancing and mask mandates are the reason why flu hospitalizations and deaths are at an all-time low in the US as well.

If we mask and social distance every winter, we will see a dramatic reduction in the flu, which usually causes hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths, Offit told CNN viewers.

CNNs international security editor, Nick Paton Walsh, told viewers that the public would need to come to terms with permanent mandatory masks and accept them as just part of life.

Is the flu really eradicated or just being renamed?

People are still getting sick and some are getting severely ill, but its no longer labeled the flu. Almost every respiratory symptom, no matter the causative agent, is being attributed to covid-19. Isnt it ironic that social distancing and mask wearing gets credit for eradicating the flu, but these public health measures somehow have no effect on the number of covid cases, which continue to ebb and flow? Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski said the flu numbers are down because they are being falsely counted as covid-19.

Respiratory symptoms (all labeled covid now), can also be caused by dozens of influenza and parainfluenza viruses from the virus family Orthomyxoviridae and paramyxoviridae, respectively. Respiratory symptoms may also be derived from human metapneumovirus, human respiratory syncytial virus, rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, enteroviruses, picornaviridae, rhinovirus, and various other mutations of human coronaviruses already in existence. Public health authorities lament the fatalities from covid-19, but these deaths are one small piece of the puzzle that encompasses a worldwide epidemic of immune system failure and medical system failure. For example, drug resistant tuberculosis has claimed 4,408,519 lives since year 2000. Drug resistant streptococcus pneumoniae, Clostridium Difficile, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, vancomycin-resistant enterococcus are just a few more hospital-acquired pathogens that have killed millions of people in the 21st century. What role do immune-compromising drugs and malnutrition play in the fatality rate from all infections, covid included?

The reasons for universal, mandatory mask wearing are based on a hysterical lie about virus transmission

Masks are a physical barrier that veritably block a persons aerosols, trapping them in a warm moist environment on their face. This mask science does not, however, prove that any healthy individual is transmitting infectious virus material in their aerosols. Therefore, mandatory mask policies, put in place to protect the public, are based on false assumptions, false accusations and a false basis for deprivation of rights.

Moreover, masks are not a universal cure all and do nothing to improve the health of immune-compromised individuals who are stuck on a life of junk foods and immune-compromising pharmaceuticals. When healthy people are expected to wear masks in public to protect others, they are being forced to live under a lie and submit their entire being to those who seek to deceive and control.

Asymptomatic cases are real, and that is great news, because people are able to move forward with their life and gain immunity, free of fear. However, asymptomatic SPREAD is NOT real. This hysteria has been debunked multiple times. A rigorous study involving 19 scientists and 10 million people confirmed that asymptomatic spread is not real. To start, approximately 40 percent of asymptomatic covid cases were false positives. The remaining 60 percent of the asymptomatic cases did not spread viable virus and caused no infection in close contacts.

According to this study, Virus cultures were negative for all asymptomatic positive and repositive cases, indicating no viable virus in positive cases detected in this study. All asymptomatic positive cases, repositive cases and their close contacts were isolated for at least 2 weeks until the results of nucleic acid testing were negative. None of detected positive cases or their close contacts became symptomatic or newly confirmed with COVID-19 during the isolation period.

The masks and social distancing are largely a false sense of security and impart mass mental illness to ultimately coerce mass compliance with untested vaccines. Because masks and social distancing failed against covid, public health officials like Offit are busy lying to the public that they work against the flu. Mandatory masks and mandatory vaccines must never become the new normal.

Sources include:

NewsPunch.com

NewsPunch.com

NaturalNews.com

Nature.com
The Australian economy is expected to grow at its fastest rate in a decade as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, with the OECD sharply upgrading the nations prospects and those of the rest of the globe.

In its interim economic outlook released on Tuesday evening, the Paris-based think tank predicts the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in much of the developed world will translate into far stronger economic results.

Strong iron ore exports are expected to contribute to Australias strong recovery from the coronavirus pandemic recession.

In December, the OECD forecast Australias economy to grow by 3.2 per cent through 2021. Now it believes the economy will expand by 4.5 per cent before growing another 3.1 per cent through 2022.

The last time Australian GDP grew so quickly was between 2010 and 2011, when the economy emerged from the global financial crisis on the back of low interest rates and a mining construction boom that included iron ore, liquefied natural gas and coal.
Anti-coup protesters discharge fire extinguishers to counter the impact of the tear gas fired by police during a demonstration in Naypyitaw, Burma, on March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)

Burma Security Forces Kill 2 Anti-Coup Protesters

A total of more than 50 protesters killed to date in government crackdown

Security forces shot dead two people in northern Burma, also known as Myanmar, on Monday, local media reported, as the military government continued its attempt to stamp out opposition to its Feb. 1 coup.

To date, the governments violent crackdown has left a total of more than 50 protesters dead. At least 18 people were fatally shot on Sunday last week and 38 on Wednesday, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.

Protesters holds a portrait of deposed President Win Myint and leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during a demonstration in Mandalay, Burma, on March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)

The Irrawaddy newspaper said the victims were shot in the head during anti-coup protests in Myitkyina in Kachin State. Graphic video on social media showed protesters in the street backing away from tear gas, responding with rocks, then fleeing after a fusillade of what seemed to be automatic gunfire.

Demonstrators hurriedly carried away a number of injured people, including one apparent fatality, a person who had sustained a severe head wound. A second body was seen later on a stretcher, his head covered with a cloth.

Riot police stand in formation in front of road barricade, as protesters hang womens clothings overhead to mark the International Womens Day in Yangon, Burma, on March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)

Security forces also clamped down on anti-coup protesters elsewhere Monday, firing tear gas to break up a crowd of about 1,000 people who were demonstrating in the capital, Naypyitaw. The protesters deployed fire extinguishers to create a smoke screen as they fled from authorities.

Thousands of protesters who marched in Mandalay, the countrys second-largest city, dispersed on their own amid fears that soldiers and police were planning to use force to break up their demonstration.

Anti-coup protesters flash a three-fingered sign of resistance during a demonstration in Naypyitaw, Burma, on March 8, 2021.(AP Photo)

Meanwhile, an armed force from one of Burmas ethnic groups deployed to protect anti-coup marchers in the wake of a brutal junta crackdown.

The unit from the Karen National Police Force (KNPF) arrived shortly after dawn to accompany about 2,000 protestors near Myitta in Tanintharyi Region in south-eastern Burma. They carried an assortment of firearms including assault rifles as they marched ahead of the column down dusty rural roads.

The KNPF are under the control of the Karen National Union (KNU), one of many ethnic organizations that have been fighting for greater autonomy from the central government for decades. The KNU employs both political and, through its armed wing, military means to achieve its aims.

Large-scale protests have occurred daily across many cities and towns in Burma since the countrys military seized power, and security forces have responded with ever greater use of lethal force and mass arrests.

Local residents gather as the protesters march on a main road during a demonstration in Mandalay, Burma, on March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)

The coup and its violent aftermath have led foreign governments and international organizations to impose measures against Burmas military leaders.

In the latest case, Australia suspended its defense cooperation with Burma and is redirecting humanitarian aid in the country because of the military takeover and detention of an Australian citizen.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Monday that diplomats and relatives had only been able to contact economic policy adviser Sean Turnell twice by phone since he was detained in early February. She described the access as very limited consular support.

Protesters are dispersed as riot police fire tear gas during a demonstration in Yangon, Burma, on March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)

Australia announced late Sunday that it had suspended a defense training program with Burma worth about 1.5 million Australian dollars ($1.2 million) over five years. The program had been restricted to noncombat areas such as English-language training.

Australian humanitarian aid will be directed away from the Burmese government and government-related entities. Instead it will focus on the immediate humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable and poor in Burma, including the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities, Payne said.

On Sunday, police occupied hospitals and universities and reportedly arrested hundreds of people involved in protesting the military takeover.

In Burmas largest city, Yangon, gun shots from heavy weapons rang out for a second straight night in several neighborhoods after the start of an 8 p.m. curfew. The sounds of what apparently were stun grenades could also be heard on videos posted on social media.

The use of such weapons after protesters had left the streets appeared to be part of a strategy to strike fear in anyone who might think about defying the authorities. In a similar vein, many filmed incidents of police and soldiers show them savagely beating protesters they had taken into custody.

Some of the shooting was heard near hospitals, where reports said neighborhood residents sought to block the entry of police and soldiers.

Security forces have often targeted medical personnel and facilities, including ambulances and their crews. Members of the medical profession launched the Civil Disobedience Movement, which is the nominal coordinator of the protests, frequently hailed on demonstrators signs by its initials CDM. Taking over hospitals would allow the authorities to easily arrest wounded people presumed to be protesters.

Meanwhile, a Canadian-Israeli lobbyist hired by Burmas junta said the ruling generals want to get out of politics and shift the nation away from China.

Ari Ben-Menashe, who previously represented Sudans military leader and Zimbabwes Robert Mugabe, spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday from the United States after returning from his second trip in the past month to Burma.

He said he was confident he can persuade the Biden administration to lift sanctions imposed on military leaders who directed the coup last month that deposed and detained Burmas elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

He said the United States and others in the West have reduced Burmas political conflict to a black and white tale of military repression against pro-democracy activists and ignore the exclusion of millions of minority members from voting in last years election.
An Uber driver has been coughed on, pepper sprayed and assaulted by passengers who ripped off his mask after he says he asked them to wear a face covering.

Subhakar Khadka, 32, says he was racially abused by the three women after picking them up in the Bayview area of San Francisco on Sunday.

Shocking footage filmed on Khadka's car camera shows as one of the women coughs in his direction before leaning forward to grab his phone and then rip off his mask.

Khadka says another of the women then pepper sprayed inside his car.

San Francisco police confirmed they are investigating the incident and are asking for help in identifying the riders.

Uber says it has suspended the account of the woman who ordered the car.

Subhakar Khadka, 32, says he was racially abused and attacked after picking the three women up in the Bayview area of San Francisco on Sunday

Shocking footage filmed on Khadka's car camera shows as one of the women coughs before leaning forward to grab his phone and then rip off his mask

Khadka says another of the women then pepper sprayed inside his car

In the clip three women are seen sitting in the back seat of Khadka's car.

One of the passengers then coughs in the direction of the driver. They can be heard telling him: 'F*** the masks.'

As the women continue to shout at Khadka one then leans forward to grab his cellphone before ripping off his face mask.

Khadka told CBS: 'I never said anything bad to them, I never cursed, I was not raised that way. I don't hit people, I am not raised that way, so they were not getting out of my car.'

He said the altercation began when asked one of the women to put on her face mask. When she refused he said he pulled into a gas station so she could buy one.

But he says the insults and racial slurs then began before one of the women even pepper sprayed him as they left the car.

San Francisco police confirmed they are investigating the incident

Uber says it has suspended the account of the woman who ordered the car. Khadka - who is from Nepal - said he believes the incident was racially motivated

Khadka moved to the US from Nepal eight years ago to support his family, pictured

Khadka - who moved to the US from Nepal eight years ago to support his family - added: 'You guys are animals to treat other human beings like this.

'She pepper sprayed inside my car, from the passenger window that was open little bit, that was the only window open in my car.

'If I was another complexion, I would have not gotten that treatment from them. The moment I opened my mouth to speak, they realized I'm among one of them, so it's easy for them to intimidate me.'

He told the women: 'Since you were born and raised here in the United States, don't think the other person is less human.'

Uber said in a statement: 'The behavior seen in the video is appalling. The rider no longer has access to Uber.'

They have given Khadka $120 in cleaning funds.
New Delhi, March 9 : Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has moved Delhi High Court challenging summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate against her under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The petitioner had received a summons on March 5. According to the petition, she has not been informed if she is being summoned as an accused or as a witness.

The petitioner is not the subject of investigation, nor is she an accused, adding that in any of the scheduled offences to the best of her knowledge, the plea added.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief, 60, apprehended that the summons are a means of bringing undue pressure and harassment upon her.

"Ever since the petitioner was released from preventive detention following the formal abrogation of Article 370, there have been a series of hostile acts by the State, against her acquaintances and old family friends, who have all been summoned by the ED and a roving inquiry about her personal, political and financial affairs was made, in the course of which their personal devices have been seized." Mufti was asked by ED to join the investigation on March 15 at 11:30 am at the ED office in the national capital.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
The true crime genre has exploded in recent years. Television specials, podcasts, and forums dedicated to discussing some of the most horrific and confusing cases in history have cropped up in staggering numbers. Netflixs special, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, is proof of that. Long before the wildly popular special, internet sleuths have been discussing some truly baffling missing persons cases. These are just three that the internet is obsessed with.

True crime fans have spent years discussing College student Muara Murray 2004 disappereance

Maura Murray has been the subject of podcasts, a popular blog, and an Oxygen Network special. Murrays case has grabbed a ton of true crime fans attention because it is surrounded by so much mystery. Murray was a 21-year-old nursing student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in February 2004. Murray made the rash decision to drive a beat-up vehicle into New Hampshire. During the impromptu trip, Murray got into a single-car accident. While neighbors called the police and watched the scene, Murray vanished into thin air.

Reddit users have spent hours pouring over evidence and trying to figure out what prompted Murray to leave her college campus at the start of the spring semester. There have been no answers, and no trace of Murray has ever been found. Podcasters Lance Reenstierna and Tim Pilleri have spent years dissecting the case but appear no closer to finding the missing woman.

Lauren Spierer disappeared after a night of drinking in Bloomington, Indiana in 2011

Lauren Spierer, a 20-year-old college student, had just completed her sophomore year at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana when she disappeared after a night of drinking. She had completed her spring semester weeks earlier and was set to return home to New York to start a summer internship and then she disappeared. Surveillance cameras caught Spierers movements around town until about 2:51 on June 3, 2011.

From there, Spierer is believed to have entered the apartment of an acquaintance, and that was the last sighting of her. The men who last saw Spierer claim she left their apartment at 4:30 am to head back to her residence, which was several blocks away. Her boyfriend reported her as missing several hours later. He was not with her when she disappeared. Spierers case has been heavily discussed on podcasts and was featured on Real life Nightmare.

D.B Cooper was never found after he hijacked a plane and jumped out of it in 1971

Murray and Speriers disappearances confound internet sleuths, but there are dozens of similar tales. D.B. Coopers story is a markedly different true crime tale. In 1971, a man boarded a commercial airliner from Portland, Oregon, bound for Seattle, Washington. He paid cash for his ticket under an assumed pseudonym. Shortly after take-off, Cooper handed a flight attendant a note.

An FBI sketch of D.B. Cooper | Time Life Pictures/Fbi/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

From there, Cooper held the plane hostage, claiming he had a bomb. FBI agents met Coopers demand for $200,000 and parachutes in exchange for the release of other fliers. According to Indy Star, The plane refueled and took off again after dropping off passengers as per Coopers instructions. Suddenly, Cooper made the rash decision to jump from the plane. While the FBI largely believes that Cooper didnt survive the jump, internet sleuths are not convinced. His remains have never been found. True crime fans have thrown several names around over the years, but no one has been positively IDed as the hijacker.
Latin Americas fourth largest economy, Colombia, remains under considerable pressure. Even the latest oil price rally, which saw the international Brent benchmark gain 36%, has done little to kickstart the petroleum dependent economy. Colombias economy shrank 7% (Spanish) during 2020 and despite claims that it has returned to growth January 2021 unemployment soared to 17.3% its highest level since July last year. It is the poor performance of the Andean nations hydrocarbon sector which is weighing heavily on its economy. Despite claims from the national government in Bogota that the energy sector is returning to a pre-pandemic footing, there are signs that Colombias oil industry is struggling to restart operations. Data from Colombias Ministry of Mines and Energy shows January 2021 hydrocarbon output (Spanish) declined. Crude oil production averaged 745,247 barrels daily which was 1.9% less than December 2020 and a whopping 16% lower compared to a year earlier. For the same month, Colombia pumped on average just over one million cubic feet of natural gas per day, a 1% reduction compared to a month earlier and 2% lower year over year. Total hydrocarbon output for the period reached 933,157 barrels of oil equivalent daily, a worrying 13% compared to the same month in 2020 and almost 2% less than a month prior.

Source: Colombia Ministry of Mines and Energy and U.S. EIA.

Those numbers indicate that Colombias petroleum industry is struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels of production, which is impacting the Andean countrys petroleum dependent economy.

A key reason for this disappointing performance is that capital spending by energy companies in Colombia remains muted. Colombias peak industry body the Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP-Spanish initials) anticipates $3.1 billion to $3.45 billion of investment in Colombias industry during 2021. While that represents a 51% to 68% increase year over year it is still significantly lower than the $4 billion spent during 2019. A chronic lack of exploration drilling combined with lower than required development activity is weighing on Colombias proven oil and natural gas reserves as well as production. In April 2020, the energy ministry announced that Colombia had proven reserves of 2 billion barrels of crude oil and trillion feet of natural gas, which will support another six and eight years of production, respectively. Such limited hydrocarbon reserves emphasize the urgency with which Colombia needs to boost exploration drilling if it is to continue relying upon crude oil as a key economic driver.

Related: $70 Oil May Cause Slowdown In Demand Recovery



According to the ACP spending on exploration projects during 2020 plunged to $350 million or less than half of the $780 mill invested a year earlier. High onshore breakeven costs, estimated to be $40 to $45 per barrel after-tax, are weighing on investment, even though Brent is now at $68 per barrel and appears poised to break though psychologically important $70 a barrel mark. There were no notable oil or natural gas discoveries made during 2020, primarily because of the major drillers in Colombia slashing annual capital expenditures, particularly those funds earmarked for exploration drilling. Colombia has not had a giant oil find since 1993 when BP discovered the Llanos Basin Cupiagua oilfield which has reserves of over 500 million barrels. During 2021, the industry body expects investment in exploration activities to average around $500 million to $550 million, which while a big jump from 2020 is still well-below exploration spending. Another concern is that 45% of 2021 exploration spending is expected to be used on the search for natural gas. While it is important for Colombia to boost its meagre natural gas reserves, particularly when domestic demand for the clean fossil fuel is expanding rapidly, that does decrease the likelihood of economically crucial significant crude oil discoveries being made. The ACP anticipates that 2021 exploration spending will fund the drilling of 40 to 45 new wells drilled in Colombia during 2021, or more than the 18 wells completed during 2020 but still less than the 48 drilled in 2019.

Source: National Hydrocarbon Agency (ANH  Spanish initials).

A key metric which is a handy measure of drilling activity is the Baker Hughes Rig Count. By the end of January 2021 there were only 14 operational drill rigs in Colombia, the same as a month earlier and almost half of the 27 rigs drilling at the of that period in 2020.

Related: Is South Koreas Monster Wind Farm Feasible?



Source: Baker Hughes International Rig Count and U.S. EIA.

That further indicates that despite energy companies in Colombia bringing production back online and increasing exploration and development budgets there is still a considerable way to go before the tempo of operations reaches pre-pandemic levels.

A significant deterrent is growing unrest and violence in rural Colombia which is impacting the operations of the onshore petroleum industry. Security, or a lack of it, has become a leading issue for Colombias petroleum industry. The Andean country has experienced a sharp increase in the opposition to the hydrocarbon sector. That had led to community blockades and oilfield invasions forcing onshore oil producers to shutter operations. The severity of those community protests saw the ACP issue a December 2020 memorandum calling for a restoration of order after the seizure of oilfields in the Llanos Basin by indigenous protest groups. Oil pipeline attacks also remain an ongoing problem. The 210,00 barrel per day Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline has been attacked twice this year already, once in January and again earlier this month, it suffered 29 attacks on the pipeline last year. The Transandino pipeline which connects oilfields in the southern Putumayo Basin to the Pacific coast port of Tumaco is also a popular target, especially because like the Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline it travels through remote rugged territory. These security issues were certainly part of the rationale behind Occidental Petroleums decision to divest its onshore Colombian oil assets for $825 million in October 2020.

There is considerable uncertainty surrounding the recovery of Colombias economically vital hydrocarbon sector since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. While investment is increasing, and oil companies have reactivated shuttered oilfields both crude oil and natural gas production continues to drift lower. High breakeven prices compared to other jurisdictions are weighing on investment decisions by foreign energy companies. Heightened security risks including the petroleum industrys deteriorating social license and opposition to the administration of President Duque further increase the uncertainty surrounding operations and the risk of production outages. Those issues are weighing on Bogotas ability to attract the required level of oil industry investment and attempts to restart the economy.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
As Syria enters its 10th year of war, Australian woman Mariam Dabboussy has reached out to her father with a simple request.

The Bankstown-born 30-year-old, who has been detained in refugee camps in northern Syria for almost six years after her husband took the family there to fight with Islamic State, last week told Kamalle Dabboussy she needed English teaching material for her three children.

Kamalle Dabboussy visited his daughter Mariam and her daughters Aisha (left) and Fatema in al-Hawl camp in north-eastern Syria in 2019.

Theyre apparently being discouraged from teaching them English in the camp  its only Arabic and Kurdish, Mr Dabboussy said. She just wanted me to organise for some English teaching materials to be sent to the camp.

Next week marks 10 years since nationwide protests in Syria descended into a deadly conflict that has killed at least 400,000 people and displaced millions. ISs caliphate in Iraq and Syria sucked in tens of thousands of foreign fighters globally, including hundreds from Australia.
Spain, semi-freedom of 7 convicted Catalan leaders revoked Spanish media: 'will have to go back to jail within the day'

(ANSAmed) - MADRID, MARCH 9 - A Spanish court revoked the regime of semi-freedom granted by the Catalan regional government to seven separatist political leaders who were convicted after the attempt to declare Catalonia's independence in 2017, Spanish media reported Tuesday.



The seven, including former Catalan regional vice president Oriol Junqueras, were allowed to leave jail during daytime hours from Monday to Thursday.



They will now have to go back to jail immediately on Tuesday.



(ANSAmed).




Based on Ben Macintyres best-selling book of the same name, SAS: Rogue Heroes is a dramatised account of how the worlds greatest Special Forces unit, the SAS, was formed under extraordinary circumstances in the darkest days of World War Two.Connor Swindells (Sex Education, Vigil) will play David Stirling, with Jack OConnell (Skins, The North Water) as Paddy Mayne, Alfie Allen (Jojo Rabbit, Game Of Thrones) as Jock Lewes, and Sofia Boutella (Modern Love, Atomic Blonde) as Eve. Dominic West (The Wire, Appropriate Adult) will play Lieutenant Colonel Wrangel Clarke.The series will also star Amir El Masry (Industry, The One), Theo Barklem-Biggs (The First Team, Carnival Row), Corin Silva (The Bay, Emmerdale), Jacob Ifan (Bang, The Accident), Donal Finn (Cursed, The Witcher), Jacob McCarthy (The Last Summer, A.P. Bio), Michael Schaeffer (Chernobyl, The Salisbury Poisonings) and Miles Jupp (The Great, The Durrells).Cairo, 1941. David Stirling - an eccentric young officer, hospitalised after a training exercise went wrong - is bored. Convinced that traditional commando units dont work, he creates a radical plan that flies in the face of all accepted rules of modern warfare. He fights for permission to recruit the toughest, boldest and brightest soldiers for a small undercover unit that will create mayhem behind enemy lines. More rebels than soldiers, Stirlings team are every bit as complicated, flawed and reckless as they are astonishingly brave and heroic.Rich with action and set-pieces, SAS: Rogue Heroes is the exhilarating story of renegade men taking monumental risks in extraordinary circumstances.Connor Swindells says: I feel tremendously honoured to be joining this series with such a talented group of people. Portraying such an interesting man is incredibly exciting and I feel very lucky to be able to do so. Its going to be an amazing ride.Jack OConnell says: I'm excited to be working on Steven Knight's bold and ambitious new project with a brilliant director and fellow cast members. Playing the legend Paddy Mayne is an honour. I can't wait to get stuck into the challenge of telling this story.Steven Knight says: Im really excited to be gathering together the very best of a new generation of British and International talent to tell this remarkable story. The people who are depicted and who did such extraordinary things were young, in their 20s, and we have made a conscious decision to cast people of the same age. We enter this project with a spirit of adventure and believe our young and talented actors will do justice to this period of history.Karen Wilson, Martin Haines and Emma Kingsman-Lloyd, executive producers for Kudos say: Stevens remarkable scripts are packed with charismatic, complex characters, and we could not be happier with the dazzling array of talent wholl be bringing them to life on screen. Were delighted that filming is now underway on this truly special series, and cant wait for audiences to meet our Rogue Heroes.Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama, says: Combining a fascinating, little-known story with all the intelligence and swagger that Steven Knights writing is known for, SAS: Rogue Heroes will be like nothing weve seen before. Its no surprise that a cast of such high calibre have signed up to bring these bold, brilliant and thoroughly entertaining characters to the screen.SAS: Rogue Heroes (6x60) is created and written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, Taboo, A Christmas Carol) and will be directed by Tom Shankland (The Serpent, The Missing), with Stephen Smallwood (The Serpent, Patrick Melrose) as producer. The series will be executive produced by Karen Wilson, Martin Haines and Emma Kingsman-Lloyd for Kudos, and Tommy Bulfin for the BBC. It was commissioned for the BBC by Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama, and Charlotte Moore, Chief Content Officer.SAS: Rogue Heroes will be distributed internationally by Banijay Rights. Filming is now underway.
ADVERTISEMENT

Governors of South-South states on Tuesday demanded the upward review from 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent of oil revenue payments to host oil communities.

The chairman of the South-South Forum and Governor of Delta, Ifeanyi Okowa, stated this on Monday at the end of the South-South Governors meeting in Port Harcourt.

Mr Okowa said the 2.5 per cent stipulated in the Petroleum Industry Bill, now before the National Assembly for the host communities, was inadequate.

We are of the view that while we welcome the Host Community Trust Fund, we do believe that 2.5 per cent that is appropriated in that bill for the purpose of host community fund is inadequate.

We have discussed with our people and collectively as leaders of the people in our various states and as leaders standing in on behalf of our people, we urge the National Assembly to increase the provision in the host community fund from 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent.

This is in the best interest of our communities and the nation, Mr Okowa said.

If satisfied with the provision of the trust fund, Mr Okowa maintained that the host communities would be watchdogs of oil facilities on behalf of the Federal, State Governments and oil companies.

A peaceful environment in the various oil communities would enable us have greater and seamless production, without any form of disruption going into the future.

The Governors have also urged President Muhammadu Buhari that in the absence of the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), funds for the commission, beyond the payment of salaries, should be put in an escrow account until he constitutes the board, Mr Okowa said.

We do know that there is a forensic audit taking place and for that reason the board has not been constituted.

Our advice is that monies being sent to the NDDC should be put in an escrow account, until a board is constituted and then proper processes are followed in the expenditure of the money for visible accounting, he said.

He described as worrisome the running of the NDDC in over a year by an Interim Caretaker Committee, and now an Interim Administrator.

According to him, this situation does not augur well for the people of the Niger Delta, as the opportunity for all states to be represented on the board of the NDDC did not exist.

So, it means that the NDDC is being run in such a manner that it is not beneficial to our people, because there is no stakeholder input in the running of the affairs of the NDDC, he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was attended by Gov. Nyesom Wike (Rivers); Godwin Obaseki (Edo), Douye Diri (Bayelsa) and Udom Emmanuel (Akwa-Ibom), who was represented by his deputy, Moses Ekpo.

(NAN)


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Some states require people to prove they have a medical condition, though at least 16 states and Washington, D.C., do not. And at least 12 states allow people to get a recommendation from a health professional to get a shot, even if their medical condition has not been given priority by the state.

In the absence of large, rigorous studies of the coronaviruss effect on people with other medical problems, medical ethicists said, there are few clear principles to apply to determine a priority sequence among many conditions.

Many states are taking their cues from a list of 12 sorts of conditions that the C.D.C. has deemed to have substantial evidence for elevated Covid risks, including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, smoking and Down syndrome. C.D.C. officials have said that they regularly review the scientific literature and will expand the list as warranted.

But some medical ethicists argue that the list itself is misleading because it suggests that the risks for all diagnoses have been considered and ranked. Is a 50-year-old with Type 1 diabetes at greater risk from Covid-19 than a 25-year-old with sickle cell disease, or a 35-year-old with intellectual disabilities?

Certainly, some studies have been conducted about links between serious Covid-19 illness and other health conditions. In one study, researchers found that people with diabetes, obesity, hypertension or chronic kidney disease were three times as likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19, regardless of age. People with two of the conditions were more than four times as likely to be hospitalized as those without them. But scientists have had a relatively short time to understand Covid-19 and its relationships to other medical conditions.
First-time Traveler to Frequent Flyer

By Gabriela Czochara (WCAS 21)

March 9, 2021

Northwestern alumna Stephanie Marin was majoring in Spanish at Northwestern when she decided to study abroad in the summer 2017, after her junior year, in Cochabamba, Bolivia through the GESI program. Despite not having traveled outside of the US before, Stephanie was excited to study abroad, especially since GESI offered such a unique experience that would allow her to live with a host family, gain some professional experience and gain insight into the community through working with an NGO, and have free time to become culturally immersed. In fact, Stephanie thinks that the main reason she was so eager to go on the program was because she was a first-time traveler; she went into the program with an open mind with no expectations of what living in another country would be like, there was no way I could be disappointed.

During her time in Bolivia, Stephanie was placed in an NGO called Tukuy Pacha Discapacidad Bolivia, which promotes legal rights for people with disabilities. Her placement with this organization was very fitting, as she had previously had experience in the legal world when working at the National Immigration Justice Center in the US. In Bolivia, she worked alongside a lawyer in the NGO and helped her with engaging the community and organizing legal workshops. Specifically, they worked on increasing the NGOs visibility through social media to reach to different clientele, and creating education materials about laws that were recently implemented. With a graphic designer, they were able to create and disseminate pictorial education materials for community members in order to accessibly explain these laws and their impact. The experience taught Stephanie a lot about how NGOs work and how on the ground they are; the small team in the NGO is very hands on with their clients to ensure that everything goes smoothly and it was clear to Stephanie that they were very passionate about their work.

One of the most valuable parts of the program, however, was being able to stay with a host family. Stephanie grew close to her family and saw it as a great opportunity to form relationships and hold conversations regarding cultural differences, as well as a way to feel more integrated in the community It just felt like an extension of my own family. Her mother would cook traditional dishes for her and make sure to explain the significance of the foods she prepared. Her favorite memory of her host family is when they planned a weekend outing to Lago Angostura.

Its a little lake and we went on a boat ride, it was really fun and exhilarating. Then we go and eat fish from the lakethey were really excited to take me out and show me some of the beauty of Bolivia, which I was really appreciative of, and I still have the photos that, to this day, I look back at. It just reminds me of good times and listening to music on the car ride there and talking.

Studying abroad in Bolivia also made a huge impact on Stephanies academic career; one day in Bolivia she met an Indigenous artist who showed her a book of poetry for which he had created the cover art, gifting it to her. That book, written by an Indigenous poet who wrote in Spanish and Quechua, became the basis of Stephanies undergraduate honors thesis.

Upon returning to Northwestern for her senior year, Stephanie spoke with her advisor, Professor Nathalie Bouzaglo, and began reconsidering what she wanted to do for her honors thesis. Since studying in Bolivia had such an immense impact on her and allowed her to form impactful relationships, she decided that incorporating Bolivia and her experience would be the ideal way to finish her senior year. With the support and funding of Buffet Institute and the Northwestern Office of Undergraduate Research, Stephanie was able to go back to Bolivia only three months later in December of 2017, where she stayed at the home of the lawyer she worked with during the summer. In 2020, Stephanie went back to Bolivia for a third time on vacation where she was able to re-visit and connect again with many different host families. Her summer study abroad experience and her research really sparked and reinforced my love for Latin American culture and my desire to continuously engage with different international populations.

Stephanies role and impact in studying abroad didnt stop after her return to Northwesternshe found a lot of value in becoming an ambassador and a mentor for other students. She worked to promote initiatives at Buffet and to promote GESI, as well as share her experiences abroad and speak on different panels. She recognizes that, I am able to empower individuals to see this is an opportunity that is open to them and that its feasible and not something they should be scared of or hesitant towardsbut something they should consider and actively seek out. In fact, Stephanie has had ambassadors help her throughout the study abroad process; meeting Buffet and GESI ambassadors in her classes prior to studying abroad allowed her to find a supportive community that answered her questions, shared their own experiences and made her feel more prepared for the program.

However, Stephanie isnt done traveling just yet. She recently applied for and is waiting to hear from the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Award in Colombia, where she would stay for 10 months. She hopes that, around that time, she will be able to go back to Bolivia to visit her friends and family there once again, demonstrating that the relationships shes formed while studying abroad are everlasting.

By studying abroad youre really challenged to grow as a person, you improve your communication because you have to engage with people who communicate differently than you and be mindful of how to start genuine conversations. You're also forced to grow because you're going to encounter challenges that will put you outside of your comfort zone that you will figure out how to navigate.
Nairobi Deputy Governor Anne Kananu sounded a warning to all landgrabbers in the city vowing to reclaim all public land.

Kananu said her administration will soon start reclaiming grabbed land across Nairobi before putting it to good use.

She also vowed to end the land-grabbing menace and ensure any unutilized public land in Nairobi is put to its rightful use.

As Nairobi County government, we want to make sure that all public land in the capital is well utilized. If it is a school land, let it serve its purpose. If there is any land that is grabbed then we are going to repossess it and make sure it reverts to the public, she said.

The former Disaster Management and Coordination chief officer spoke during a fundraiser at the African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa (AIPCA) church in Utawala.

At the same time, Ms Kananu pledged to enhance service delivery to Nairobians.

I will ensure that Nairobi City County offers services to the common man. I am talking of water services which is a common problem to the mwananchi, she said.
The United Kingdom's government has published the country's first national action plan to protect journalists from abuse and harassment. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) welcomed the plan and said it was an important step towards ensuring journalists can carry out their work free from harassment and attack.

Following a survey of members last year, which found that more than half of respondents had experienced online abuse and nearly a quarter had been physically assaulted or attacked, the NUJ called for action to halt the rising instances of harassment and abuse, both on and off-line. The union also highlighted the disproportionate abuse aimed at women and black and minority ethnic journalists.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary and member of the National Committee for the Safety of Journalists, said: Attacks on journalists are designed to silence and intimidate those who work to uphold the publics right to know. NUJ members have shared horrific experiences of being attacked, abused and threatened  on and offline  simply for doing their job. Its clear that reported incidents are the tip of the iceberg and that harassment and abuse has become normalised."

This action plan, with its range of practical measures and protections, is an important step towards changing that and ensuring journalists can get on with their vital work free from harassment or intimidation, she added.

The plan, which was launched with cross-party support, sets out a range of measures designed to ensure freelance and staff journalists are protected and supported. It calls on platforms to do more to stamp out online abuse, and on the criminal justice system to ensure those who attack and threaten journalists are brought to justice.

The Home Office will launch a call for evidence intended to more clearly understand the scale of the problem. The NUJ will be a key partner in rolling out the work within the action plan, including developing an online tool kit for journalists and an annual survey to track progress.

The government said:

The plan sets out how journalists will be protected from threats of violence and intimidation.

It includes new measures to research the problem and training for police forces and journalists.

Broadcasters, publishers, social media companies, law enforcement, industry bodies, unions and the government have all made pledges.

IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: "At a time when attacks and threats against journalists are on the rise, we welcome this national action plan which has the potential to offer greater protection to journalists. Frontline media professionals have a vital role to play in scrutinising the decisions of government, in holding power to account. For too long journalists have had to endure threats and intimidation for doing their job  online and off-line. With political will and commitment this plan can be a turning point, enabling them to better serve citizens. We applaud the NUJ for its strong work and determination in making it happen.
The government of Mauritius has expanded its Covid-19 vaccination programme to include all citizens, residents and long-term international visitors over the age of 18.

Visitors holding the Premium Visa as well as residents of Mauritius holding a Work Permit, Residence Permit or Occupational Permit are eligible to receive their vaccinations free of charge.

Mauritius is the only country in the world which offers long-term visitor visas free of charge and a free Covid vaccine to holders of these visas. The expanded vaccination programme is part of the national campaign to continue keeping Mauritius Covid-secure and to allow the full reopening of international borders once herd immunity is reached.

Mauritius is using the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. MTPA are encouraging all those eligible to accept this offer and is working across the tourism sector to promote take-up. For further information on our national vaccination programme, our national response to COVID-19 and FAQs on the vaccinations please visit:

https://health.govmu.org/Pages/default.aspx

How to book your vaccine

Eligible international visitors should book their appointments by telephone by calling 2124464 between 0900 and 1500 from Monday 8th March 2021. Those with appointments must attend, and must bring their passport as well as documentation showing either their Premium Visa or Residency status. Vaccinations for international visitors will be carried out at the International Vaccination Centre, Mutual Aid Building, Port Louis.

Other national vaccination centres and mobile vaccination centres are open to Mauritian citizens aged 18+. Priority will be given to those aged over 60 and those with underlying health conditions.



Applications for Premium Visa are open

Mauritius Premium Visa allows international visitors to stay in Mauritius for up to 12 months to work remotely, retire or simply enjoy a longer holiday. The visa is renewable.

Applications for the Premium Visa are open to those currently in Mauritius on short-stay visas and those based internationally who wish to relocate to Mauritius for the long term. For further information on eligibility and application process for the Premium Visa please visit:

Partager et informez vous aussi......

0 shares Share

Tweet

LinkedIn
New factual series The Wonder Gang debuts on ABC Kids next week.

Created and developed by the ABC Childrens Department it is underpinned by Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics principles to ignite the imaginations of preschoolers on Australias animals and natural wonders.

The program introduces the powerful art of investigating facts; how to ask a question, where to look for answers, how to filter right and wrong answers and knowing when you have arrived at the solution.

The story development process of The Wonder Gang encompassed comprehensive consultation with a range of scientific and early childhood specialists.

The scriptwriting team were tasked with distilling complex scientific concepts into age appropriate language for pre-schoolers, says Series Producer Natalie Robinson-Hurst.

We explore topics as varied as echolocation, pollination and species evolution.

Willow (Chenelle Carr), Whyla (Mischa Heywood) and Wes (Tristian Ayres) are The Wonder Gang. Theyre a determined team of fact-finding kids who will do whatever it takes to answer any question about Australias amazing animals and nature. With the help of their cute quokka pals Quidget, Quinton and Quest, they research, observe and experiment in their library and laboratory to find facts for kids everywhere. Half Page Synopsis Ever wondered why a kangaroo has a pouch? Or whether baby echidnas are born with spikes? Or why koalas are so sleepy? The Wonder Gang will find the answer! Fact-finding friends Willow, Whyla and Wes run Wonder HQ, a question mark-shaped building brimming with glowing fact files. The trio are assisted on their fact-finding adventures by their inquisitive Quokka pals  Quidget, Quinton and Quest. The Wonder Gang are determined to answer every kids question about Australian animals and nature, to keep curiosity and wonder alive! Luckily, each member of The Wonder Gang brings their own unique talents and perspectives to the process of finding facts. Every episode follows a new mission to answer an incoming question from their wonder friends, using their powers of observation, experimentation and analysis. Though they absolutely Love finding facts, it is never as simple as it seems. But their flexibility and persistence always help them find a way to answer every question. Above all, The Wonder Gang celebrates the joy of asking questions and discovering answers through determination, deduction, and teamwork.

The Wonder Gang inspires pre-school audiences to feel empowered and motivated by child-led investigation. The characters demonstrate  with equal parts humour and enthusiasm  the skills required for inquiry-based, hands-on learning: problem solving, hypothesising and action research. The ABCs commitment to diversity, inclusion and representation saw the producers of The Wonder Gang collaborate closely with a team of disability consultants in the development of the quokka character, Quest.

As the outdoor explorer of the team, Quest is a role model for physical accessibility and a positive representation of children with disability. The voice of Quest is performed child disability advocate Emily Prior.

The Wonder Gang is an ABC Original. Series Producer Natalie Robinson-Hurst. Story Producer Michael Drake. Director Karin Fitzhardinge. Executive Producer Jan Stradling.

Monday 15th March at 7.40am on ABC KIDS.

Related
Dr Melissa Heightman, a member of the NHS England long Covid tasforce, said coronavirus patients who are hospitalised and recover usuallyavoid long Covid symptoms

Long Covid can often be worse for patients who only suffered mild symptoms of the virus, one of the country's top doctors has warned.

Dr Melissa Heightman, part of NHS England's long Covid taskforce, said coronavirus patients who are hospitalised and recover are more likely to avoid long-lasting symptoms.

Long Covid is the term given for fatigue, 'brain fog' and other persistent side effects from the illness, which can linger for months. In some cases the effects can be so devilitating that people claim they cannot return to normal life.

Up to a fifth of all survivors suffer long-term symptoms, according to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus, while other estimates are slightly lower.

Dr Heightman, a respiratory specialist at University College London Hospitals, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme long-lasting symptoms are particularly common in patients who did not experience severe symptoms.

Pictured: A nurse works on a patient in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) in St George's Hospital in Tooting, south-west London

She said: 'We certainly see quite different patterns in patients that were admitted to hospital with severe infection versus those patients that werent hospitalised with the infection.

Nearly 30,000 NHS staff have registered for anxiety and insomnia therapy since the start of the pandemic Nearly 30,000 NHS workers have registered for anxiety or insomnia therapy since the start of the pandemic, data revealed today. NHS staff across the country have been been left seeking treatment due to the toll on their mental health caused by an increased workload due to Covid. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy programmes used to treat anxiety and insomnia, such as Sleepio and Daylight, saw a 300 per cent increase in registrations following the first week of last March's lockdown. They also saw a spike in January, when England went into a third national lockdown. Siobhan, an NHS nurse advisor from Dorset, said the increased stress she been under during the pandemic has caused her to miss more sleep than she ever has before. She said: 'I've been a longstanding sufferer of poor sleep for almost 10 years, nothing I tried had ever worked for me. 'Then with the added stress of a pandemic I found my completely sleepless nights were at an all-time high and it was beginning to affect me far more than it had done previously in my life. 'Each day felt like a struggle and my mood was also low.' She added: 'I needed a tool at my disposal which let me tackle the problem rather than masking it, Sleepio does just that.' Steve Lee, head of Health and Wellbeing at NHS England and NHS Improvement said: 'Throughout the pandemic we have provided our NHS people with a comprehensive support package that best meets their diverse needs, including resources such as access to a range of mental health apps.' Advertisement

'Even in them, the virus has been able to trigger effects that can contribute to them being unwell for months.

'Thats something thats been a surprise to us.

'The symptoms can be more difficult and more long-lasting in patients who were not admitted to hospital.'

She claimed that patients admitted to hospital with severe illness see 'a really lovely improving trend with time' but symptoms remain more stubborn in others.

Scientists believe the reason for the difference in reactions between hospitalised patients and those who have long Covid after mild symptoms is because the virus affects them differently, she said.

Dr Heightman said: 'Even in those patients, many are still improving in time but the improvement can be quite slow.

'And this post-viral syndrome that we see probably has a number of quite difficult mechanisms underlying.

'That is definitely something we need to research quite urgently.'

She added that long Covid is treatable with therapy.

She said the focus must be on supporting patients through the recovery process as a whole.

The NHS is already helping thousands of long Covid patients in England at more than 72 sites across the nation, and has provided more than 10million in funding.

It comes after patients and MPs urged Boris Johnson to declare 'long Covid' an 'occupational disease' last month.

The APPG on Coronavirus said frontline staff who say they cannot return to work because they have sore feet, weak legs and smell 'fake' odours months after being infected with coronavirus should be paid compensation.

The group wants the Government to follow France, Germany, Belgium and Denmark, which have formally recognised coronavirus as an 'occupational disease'.

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, who chairs the APPG, said: 'Long Covid is the hidden health crisis of the pandemic, and it is likely to have an enormous impact on society for many years to come.

'When it comes to frontline NHS, care and key workers, they were specifically asked to go to work and save lives while everyone else was asked to stay at home.

'They were exposed to an increased level of risk of catching the virus, often without adequate levels of PPE.'
We all love a weekend liein, but could a longer snooze on a Sunday morning be pushing you towards the blues?

Thats the suggestion from a new U.S. study that found when you sleep is just as important as how much shut-eye you get.

People who dont stick to regular sleeping and waking times are more likely to become depressed than those who do, the findings, just published in the journal NPJ Digital Medicine, and conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, found.

Those who regularly stayed up late, or got the fewest hours of sleep, also scored higher on depression symptoms and lower on daily mood [File photo]

This is the first time that a study has shown clearly that disturbed sleep, not necessarily less sleep, can lower mood, Srijan Sen, a professor of depression and neurosciences and director of the University of Michigan Depression Center, tells Good Health.

The findings were based on the sleep pattern of 2,100 student doctors, who were tracked for a year using digital devices (a Fitbit or an Apple watch) that detected periods of sleep and wakefulness.

The students also recorded how they felt every day on a smartphone app, rating on a scale of one to ten their mood that day.

Before the start of the study and then every three months, the young doctors also filled in symptom questionnaires that are used clinically to diagnose depression.

The medical students whose sleeping schedule shifted the most  i.e. varied by one to two hours a night, and/or had later waking times on the weekends  were more likely to score higher on the questionnaires and to have lower daily mood ratings.

One theory is that the circadian rhythm (our body clock which regulates sleep and waking cycles) goes out of kilter, disrupting the production of chemical messengers that, in turn, alter brain function and the nervous system

Those who regularly stayed up late, or got the fewest hours of sleep, also scored higher on depression symptoms and lower on daily mood.

Commenting on the findings, Kevin Morgan, a professor of psychology and director of the Clinical Sleep Research Unit at Loughborough University, says that the research adds to whats already known about the association between sleep, daily mood and long-term risk of depression.

If you are depressed, you almost certainly have sleep problems, he says. If you are not depressed but have long-standing insomnia, you can be up to three times more likely to develop depression.

And, for some people, a shift to their sleep patterns is all it takes to push them into depression, adds Dr Natasha Bijlani, a consultant psychiatrist with a special interest in sleep based at the Priory Hospital, Roehampton, south-west London.

I always encourage people to stick to the same sleeping schedule if they can, but life isnt always like that, she says.

If you change your schedule between one to two hours outside normal times for sleeping and waking once or twice a week, it probably wont have much of an effect. But sleeping in until noon on weekends, when you normally get up at 7am, could be enough to knock you off-kilter.

I have lots of clients who have coped with stressful lives, but this level of disruption to their sleep and wake cycles is enough to push them over the edge.

So why should topsy-turvy sleep patterns lead to low mood or depression? One theory is that the circadian rhythm (our body clock which regulates sleep and waking cycles) goes out of kilter, disrupting the production of chemical messengers that, in turn, alter brain function and the nervous system.

You can end up with a jet lag phenomenon where your body doesnt know when it should be asleep and when it should be awake, says Professor Morgan.

This confusion starts to affect levels of an important neuropeptide, a protein produced in the brain known as orexin.

The students in the U.S. study all experienced the long, intense work days and irregular work schedules that are typical of medical training [File photo]

There are only 10,000 to 20,000 orexin-producing cells in the human brain, which regulate sleep but also influence mood.

The jury is still out, but a likely link between depression and disturbed sleep could involve the orexinergic system, says Professor Morgan.

Orexin levels drop when you go to sleep and rise when you wake up. But this important neuropeptide also affects the way you feel, which could explain the link, he adds.

The students in the U.S. study all experienced the long, intense work days and irregular work schedules that are typical of medical training.

Nevertheless, says Professor Morgan, the study does have merit and should be taken seriously.

And Professor Sen says his results have an important message for all.

This study indicates that maintaining a consistent bedtime and sleep time [or duration] are under-recognised as important factors and critical to our wellbeing and mental health.

Its a simple message that everyone can benefit from.
A French schoolgirl has admitted lying and fabricating a story about her teacher, who was beheaded last year after her accusations against him.

The 13-year-old pupil, whose father started a hate campaign against Samuel Paty by filing a legal complaint, says she lied to please her father, and she was not even at the class in which the teacher was alleged to have shown a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.

The girl, who has not been identified, had originally claimed that Mr Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the class before he showed a photograph of the Prophet naked to children during a class on free speech.

Her claims led to a dramatic chain of events, including death threats against the teacher and outrage among Muslims.

Ten days after her comments, the teacher, 47, was beheaded by 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, who was later shot dead by police.

On Monday, the girls lawyer, Mbeko Tabula, said she had confirmed that she was off on the day and did not attend the class at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris, AFP reported.

She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson, Mr Tabula said.

French daily newspaper Le Parisien reported that the girl wanted to prevent her father from knowing that she had been suspended for failing to attend the lessons.

She would not have dared to confess to her father the real reasons for her exclusion shortly before the tragedy, which was in fact linked to her bad behaviour, according to Le Parisien.

The girl had reportedly told her father that she had expressed her anger with the teacher for asking the Muslim children to stand in corridor while he showed the pictures and therefore suspended her from classes for two days.

She had said that when she voiced her objections, she was suspended from school. It now appears that she was suspended the day before the class was given because of repeated absences, according to Le Parisien newspaper.

The outraged father started a hate campaign against the teacher, posting a video online detailing the allegations against Mr Paty. He also lodged a police complaint and took the matter to school chiefs, accusing him of promoting Islamophobia.

As the video went viral on social media, it triggered widespread outrage, including death threats.

The girl was charged with slander and her father was arrested for being complicit in a terrorist killing, along with an Islamist preacher.

The lawyer has said the girl should be protected from the accusations, and he blamed the father for excessive and disproportionate behaviour.

Visual depiction of the Prophet Muhammad is forbidden in Islam, and it is considered blasphemous in some countries to insult the Prophet.
Close

There have been many reports of a weird illness that has been infecting children and young people following the winter holiday season. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) is a rare but serious disease in children linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some cases reported having a high fever and inflammatory syndrome that caused children's lives. Doctors are still unsure of what caused the MIS-C but noted that usually, kids with the illness reported having COVID-19 first, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

But those who develop MIS-C later on experience and inflammation in different parts of their body that could be serious. According to CNN, doctors in children's hospitals have reported rising cases of the illness with an update from the US CDC that cases have already reached 2,617 in the country before March 1, while 33 children have already died.

Link Between COVID-19 and MIS-C

Hospitals said that most recent MIS-C cases have previously tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, indicating that the patient has a previous infection, but some patients also have an active coronavirus infection.

The link between COVID-19 and MIS-C is not well understood but doctors are trying to learn if some children are at risk. As more patients are now very sick than during the first wave of cases, it is alarming both the doctors and the patients.

However, AAP said that most children so far who have been diagnosed with MIS-C have recovered after getting medical care.

In a nationwide study entitled "Long-Term Outcomes after the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome In Children" by Dr. Jane Newburger, associate chief for academic affairs in the cardiology department of Boston's Children's Hospital, researchers found that patients with obesity and older children seem to fare worse.

Moreover, experts believe that socioeconomic and other factors have disproportionately exposed some communities to the virus, wherein around 69% of the reported cases are Latino and Black young people. The New York Times reported that early cases were usually from children of Latino parents working in the meatpacking industry.

ALSO READ: COVID-19 and Children: Important Things You Need to Know





Symptoms of MIS-C

According to healthychildren.org, children with MIS-C reports having a fever and inflammation in their bodies. MIS-C could also have similar symptoms as other rare childhood illnesses like the Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome. Also, children were reportedly having thrombosis (blood clots), poor heart function, and kidney injury.

Those infected by this rare disease are very ill for 24 hours or more and could have problems with their organs, like the heart, brain, lungs, skin, kidneys, and intestines.

Doctors advise that if parents have noticed any of the following symptoms, they should immediately contact their children's pediatrician:

fever spiking at 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit that could last for 24 hours or more

stomach ache, diarrhea, or vomiting

bloodshot eyes

rashes or changes in skin color

neck pain

tiredness

shortness of breath

chest pains that do not go away

confusion

unable to stay awake or failing to wake up

lips and faces turning blue

In reporting, make sure that the child's doctor or emergency care providers know if the child has tested positive for COVID-19 or has encountered someone who has the virus within four weeks.



RELATED ARTICLE: COVID-19: Children Might Carry Up to 100 Times More Viral Genetic Material Than Adults





Check out more news and information on COVID-19 on Science Times.
On the New Dawn newspaper, Prof Ozcan Gungor, of Ankara University, talks about the Theo-strategy of the Pope's visit to Iraq. In a long article illustrated by a cartoon he cites Daesh (Islamic State) as a force that acted through means provided by Western imperialism. For the New Era newspaper, the Vatican is the centre of FETO, a putative organisation accused by Ankara of organising the failed 2016 coup.

Ankara (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis' visit to Iraq is part of a strategy aimed at re-Christianising the region, by widening divisions within the Shia world, this according to some Turkish media

It was to be expected that the Pope's visit would not have pleased all Muslims. The harshest criticism appeared in Yeni Safak (New Dawn), a newspaper openly aligned with Turkish President Recep Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) and with good relations with the government. In the past, the paper has been accused of inciting hatred against minorities and opposition groups.

On New Dawn, Professor Ozcan Gungor, of the Ankara University, assesses the Pope's visit to Iraq under the title Theo-strategy of the Pope's visit to Iraq.

The long article illustrated by the cartoon reproduced here evaluates the strategies from historical, sociological and political points of view in which Daesh (Islamic State group) is seen as operating as a force acting with means provided by Western imperialism.

The first point is the support for the Christian people who are in the minority and are experiencing many difficulties.

The second point concerns the especially selected places visited. It is evident that there are theo-strategic objectives behind the visits to cities such as Ur and Qaraqosh, especially Nineveh, which is mentioned in the Bible.

It is clear that there are plans to revive and remember identity codes and update their place in the common memory in the name of Christianity. The significance of the visit to these regions can be seen more clearly when one considers that the new mission of the Catholic Church in the third millennium requires the Christianisation of these regions.

The third point is the Pope's preference for the Shiism of the Nadjaf school over the Qom school ... In a way, this can be seen as a strategic step reinforcing the separation between Shias, increasing existing competition by upsetting the balance between groups and preparing the ground for conflict.

The reference is to the fact that Al-Sistani, who met Francis, states that religious leaders should not deal with politics, a position evidently different from that of Irans ayatollahs.

Pope Francis stands out as someone who believes that good action is important rather than defending theological issues and dogmatic beliefs. This is why this visit is appropriate from the point of view of global positioning and perception management.

Finally, it is possible to avoid stigmatising all Muslims with a potential terrorist perception through terrorist organisations like DAESH, supported by numerous technical and military equipment from western imperialist countries, with the Pope's messages of fraternity.

Another objective of the Pope's visit to Iraq is to develop activities of dialogue. We can say that since the time of Pope John Paul II this argument has long been expressed under the name of dialogue in life, but no concrete attempt has been made to put an end to the tears, oppression, conflicts and wars that continue throughout the world, so far the 'Vatican dialogues' have not worked very well.

In the same newspaper, Hasan Ozturk writes that Surely the Pope came to the area to do with words what the invasion of America and its partners could not do with weapons. Since they know very well how to tear the Islamic world to pieces, they can impose on us whatever they want.

For his part, Yenicag, (New Era), another nationalist newspaper, states that Pope Francis, spiritual leader of the Catholic world, has become the first pope to visit Iraq. The Pope's four-day trip to Iraq, conducted with a large delegation of guards and journalists, is closely followed by the world.

Dr Lutfu Ozsahin commented on this visit on CNN Turk with surprising views. He drew attention to the fact that the Pope is both a religious and a political figure. He said the Pope's visit had more than religious political significance and that the Vatican's meeting with Al-Sistani, the Shia leader in Iraq, was a message to Iran.

He then focused attention on the interreligious dialogue to argue that One of the centres of FETO is the Vatican. FETO, an acronym for Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation, is the name the Turkish government has given to the putative organisation of Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan, now a refugee in the United States whom Turkish authorities accuse of masterminding the failed 2016 coup.

Lutfullah Goktas, Turkish ambassador to the Vatican, also waded into the issue. Cited by Anadolu, the Turkish state news agency, he said that Pope Francis wants to show his solidarity with the Christians of Iraq. Instability and terror have alienated Christians. The total number of Christians is now between 200,000 and 300,000.

The Iraqi administration is working to return seized property and somehow compensate for the damage. The Vatican is concerned about these efforts. With this visit, the Pope also wants to show that he stands with Christians.

The problems that the Vatican complains about are the product of instability, Goktas added. Turkey is a country that underlines at every opportunity the importance of stability in the region. The lack of authority leads to the emergence of terrorist groups. Sectarianism brings peace to no one. The Pope's visit to Iraq will once again help remind people of this truth. (FP)
leader on Tuesday said the country must prepare for a borderless war as the past practice of a 2.5-front war has become obsolete.

"Indian forces are designed to fight a 2.5 front war. This is now obsolete. We must prepare for a borderless war," he wrote on Twitter.

"It's not about past practices and legacy systems. It's about transforming the way we think and act as a nation," the former chief said.

Gandhi has been accusing the government of ceding territory to China even when Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has clarified in Parliament that not an inch of Indian territory has been lost.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a virtual news conference at 10 Downing Street, (Photo : REUTERS/Hannah Mckay/Pool)

Prime Minister Boris Johnson avoided wading into the clash of British royals on Monday, praising the queen but sidestepping questions about racism and insensitivity at the palace after an interview by Prince Harry and his wife Meghan.



The former Hollywood actress, whose mother is Black and father is white, accused the royal family of pushing her to the brink of suicide. In a tell-all television interview, she said someone in the royal household had raised questions about the colour of her son's skin.



Advertisement

Prime ministers rarely comment on royal matters. But journalists repeatedly asked Johnson about it on Monday.



"I've always had the highest admiration for the queen and the unifying role that she plays in our country and across the Commonwealth," he said.



"As for the rest, all other matters to do with the royal family: I've spent a long time now not commenting on royal family matters and I don't intend to depart from that today."



Harry and Meghan left Britain last year and have given up their royal duties to forge a new life in Los Angeles, earning media production deals. The interview with Oprah Winfrey was aired late on Sunday in the United States and was to be broadcast on Monday evening in Britain.



Meghan, 39, said her son Archie, now aged one, had been denied the title of prince because there were concerns within the royal family "about how dark his skin might be when he's born". She and Harry both declined to say who had raised the subject. Winfrey later told CBS that Harry had said it was not Queen Elizabeth or her husband Philip.



Buckingham Palace has declined to comment.



The two-hour broadcast was the most anticipated royal interview since Harry's late mother Princess Diana shared intimate details of her failed marriage to Prince Charles in 1995, denting the reputation of the heir.



On Monday a YouGov poll, based on snippets of the interview and the media coverage, said 47% of people in Britain thought it was inappropriate that the couple had given the interview. A third had sympathy for them, but a third had none.



Harry also used the interview to attack the press, parts of which he has despised since his mother was killed in a 1997 crash as her car sped away from chasing photographers. Britain's Society of Editors said it was not bigoted and would continue to hold the "rich and powerful" to account.


Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier?

Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop.

Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News

Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time.

Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up!

Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.
SACRAMENTO  California schools are set to receive $15 billion in the latest federal coronavirus stimulus package, a windfall that the Biden administration hopes will help bring students back into classrooms and catch them up on the learning they lost during a year of largely remote instruction amid the pandemic.

But for communities that have yet to come up with a plan to resume in-person instruction this school year, it is unlikely to make a difference. In many places, the major hurdle to reopening schools before fall  or even then  remains disagreement with employee unions over what level of local transmission of the coronavirus is safe for their return.

The education funding in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package mostly will go directly to school districts, giving them additional resources to implement social distancing measures, buy personal protective equipment and install better ventilation to reduce the spread of the virus. The bill is expected to win final congressional approval Wednesday and go to President Biden for his signature.

With this latest infusion of resources by the Biden administration, money is not going to be the problem for school districts looking to reopen, said Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors Group, a lobbying firm that works with many of the states school districts. The challenge will be the degree to which employees are willing to come back full-time this summer and this fall.

Even as the state has prioritized educators for vaccines, the debate is being driven by a fear of the unknown, Gordon added. It will be very perplexing if these resources are not enough to make people feel very safe.

Haven Daily / Associated Press

The federal stimulus could provide around $112 million to the San Francisco Unified School District and $137 million to the Oakland Unified School District, according to estimates prepared in February by the Congressional Research Service. The final amount may be slightly lower after last-minute amendments to the bill in the Senate redirected nearly 5% of proposed funding to private schools and special education.

More than a fifth of the money is set aside to address learning loss. But districts have broad flexibility on how they use the rest to offset the challenges of the pandemic, from buying technology needed for hybrid learning to extending the school year.

Claudia Briggs, a spokesperson for the California Teachers Association, said members of the states largest teachers union would like districts to use the money to hire more nurses, custodians and bus drivers to account for the health risks of the virus. The union believes tutoring, expanded summer school and longer school days should all be considered to deal with learning loss, she said.

If it means working in creative ways with the district to come up with programs that help students and its all agreed upon at the local level, educators are willing to do what it takes, Briggs said.

But even the billions of dollars from the federal government cannot guarantee that all California students will be back in the classroom full-time in the fall. State efforts have focused so far on resuming in-person instruction this spring for elementary grades and the most vulnerable students, such as English language learners and foster youth.

Its all going to depend on the infection rates and what these variants do, Briggs said.

The federal money comes on top of $6.6 billion that state leaders approved last week to accelerate school reopenings. About $4.6 billion of the funding is intended for programs over the next 18 months to make up for learning loss, and $2 billion is available to districts that bring at least some students back for in-person instruction by the end of the month.

Because the state law only encourages reopening rather than mandating it, legislators acknowledged the financial enticement might not be enough for districts where families have been reluctant to send their children back to the classroom or where administrators and employee unions have been unable to resolve their differences over safety measures.

San Francisco is weighing a plan that could bring back elementary students, special education classes and other vulnerable groups by the end of April.

Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, said the availability of vaccines for school staff, along with the receding community spread of the virus, has had a much bigger impact on recent reopenings than any legislation.

After setting aside 10% of first doses for educators, including child care workers and college instructors, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that more than 200,000 were vaccinated last week alone.

Further agreements to bring students back this year will depend more on how hard parents push for it, Flint said, and whether local unions trust that administrators will put effective security precautions into place.

The federal stimulus is critical to the overall health of students and our ability to recover from the past year, he said. I dont think the federal funding will be the decisive factor in getting students into the classroom by April 1 or whatever date people have in mind.

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff
We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  The Senate on Tuesday approved on third and final reading three measures that seek to create new legislative districts in Caloocan City, Bulacan, and Maguindanao province.

With a 20-0-0 vote, senators approved House Bill No. 7700 which divides the First District of Caloocan City into two, creating the Third Legislative District which will take effect in the 2022 national and local elections. The First District will cover Barangays 1, 2, 3, 4, and 77 up to 177. Meanwhile, the Third District will be composed of Barangays 178 until 188.

Senator Francis Tolentino, sponsor of the measure and chairman of the Local Government Committee, said the bill was necessary as Caloocan's First District was the most populous district in the country with 1.19 million residents.

The upper chamber also voted 21-0-0 for House Bill 6867 which divides Bulacan province further into six districts. Bulacan currently has four districts as well as the lone district of San Jose Del Monte City. But the new bill will move the municipalities of Guiguinto, Balagtas, Pandi, and Bocaue to the Fifth District, and the towns of Sta. Maria, Norzagay, and Angat to the Sixth District.

The bill states all incumbent Congress members of the province shall continue to hold office until the expiration of their terms. The Commission on Elections shall issue the rules and regulations for both measures, each of the bills said.

Maguindanao

Legislators also passed House Bill 6413 with a 22-0-0 vote, pushing to split Maguindanao province into Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur. The northern Maguindanao province will get the municipalities of Barira, Buldon, Datu Blah Sinsuat, Datu Odin Sinsuat, Kabuntalan, Matanog, Northern Kabuntalan, Parang, North Upi, Sultan Kudarat, Sultan Mastura, and Talitay. Maguindanao Del Sur will then get the remaining 24 municipalities.

Tolentino said the bill will allow effective delivery of public services in the areas  a sentiment shared by some of his colleagues.

"They have 36 municipalities, with 508 barangays so time has come really for their province also to be geographically set apart to make it a bit more manageable for their leaders," said Senator Miguel Zubiri, who also noted that the measure has been pushed in Congress ever since his first term as Senator in 2008.

However, residents of affected areas will still have to vote in a plebiscite organized by the Comelec to approve the establishment of the new provinces. The plebiscite should be conducted within 90 days from the effectivity of the law, the expenses of which shall be covered by the present province of Maguindanao, the bill said.

Provincial officials will be elected in the May 2022 national and local polls, but if the law is ratified within six months or more prior to the elections, the vice governor and the next ranking elective member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of the present Maguindanao, who are residents of Maguindanao del Norte, will assume as its acting governor and acting vice governor respectively. Meanwhile, the incumbent governor of Maguindanao will take the helm of Maguindanao del Sur.

The ownership of provincial assets and properties of each local government unit shall belong to the province where it is situated, the bill added. Moreover, obligations, debts and assets shall be shared or paid equally by the two new provinces, while transitory projects and activities will be financed by the present Maguindanao province, the measure provided.
Leading mobility platform FREE NOW and micro-mobility provider TIER announce strategic partnership across Europe

TIER e-scooter and e-moped services will be integrated into the FREE NOW app

 Micro-mobility provider TIER will make all its electric scooters and mopeds available in Germany and France in the FREE NOW app. Both companies are eager to increase the scope in the future.

 From April 2021 onwards, the partnership will start with the launch in eight German cities followed by France shortly afterwards. Further cities across Europe will be launched throughout the summer.

Hamburg/Berlin, March 9 2021 / News Aktuell - FREE NOW, Europes leading multi-mobility platform, and TIER, Europes leading provider of micro-mobility with a mission to change mobility for good, announced today that they have signed a strategic partnership. From April onwards, TIER e-scooters and e-mopeds will be available to book via the FREE NOW app. The partnership will launch in eight German cities, shortly followed by France. Further cities across Europe will be launched throughout the summer.

With this deal, thousands of e-scooters and e-mopeds will be bookable via the FREE NOW app. In demonstration of both companies commitment to sustainability, TIER will take over 5,000 FREE NOW e-scooters, rebranding them to TIER and adding them to their fleet. For both companies, greener travel is at the core: not only are both climate-neutral, they focus on the most eco-friendly mobility options in support of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Lawrence Leuschner, co-founder and CEO of TIER, said: Our mission to change mobility for good is largely about creating strong partnerships to expand everyone's access to sustainable, easily accessible and multimodal mobility solutions. Teaming up with one of Europes leading mobility platforms will allow us to expand access to our micro-mobility services in Germany, France and other European countries.

Marc Berg, CEO of FREE NOW, added: Our partnership with TIER is a great demonstration of how committed FREE NOW is to being a multi mobility platform. It is our mission to empower smarter mobility decisions, help people to move freely and cities to thrive  we are looking forward to bringing even more sustainable e-scooter options to cities all across Europe. The availability of TIER e-scooters and e-mopeds in our app shows that consumers need one app to book all their services to move from A to B. We will make this possible together with TIER and will broaden our scope of multi mobility offerings massively in the future.

About FREE NOW

FREE NOW is the multi-mobility joint venture backed by BMW Group and Daimler AG. Next to ride hailing, FREE NOW also offers micro-mobility services such as e-scooters, e-bikes, e-vespas as well as car sharing. It consists of the services FREE NOW (10 European markets) and eat (5 Latin American and 1 European market). Summed up, those services currently attract 50 million users in 16 markets and more than 150 cities. FREE NOW is therefore the biggest multi-service mobility provider in Europe and the fastest-growing ride-hailer in Latin America. FREE NOW works with various third party providers to offer their customers an even wider range of options to get from A to B. In total, around 2,000 employees in around 35 offices work for the services of FREE NOW, which is led by CEO Marc Berg.

About TIER Mobility TIER Mobility is Europe's leading provider of micro-mobility with a mission to change mobility for good.

The company is a driving force behind the change in the transport sector, which aims to significantly reduce car traffic in cities by providing people with a wide range of electric vehicles.

As part of its commitment to sustainability, the company has adopted the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding framework and has set a clear agenda for reducing and offsetting emissions. As a result of these measures, TIER Mobility has been a climate-neutral company since January 2020.

TIER Mobility operates in 90+ cities in 10 countries. The company is headquartered in Berlin and employs about 900 people. Founders of the company are Lawrence Leuschner, Matthias Laug. and Julian Blessin.

The company's investors are SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Mubadala Investment Companys financial investment arm, Mubadala Capital, Northzone, Goodwater Capital, White Star Capital, Novator, RTP Global, Speedinvest and many more.

For more information about TIER Mobility, please visit www.tier.app. You can find more pictures here.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
New Delhi, March 9 : The Delhi High Court will hear on April 23 a petition seeking declaration of Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund as a "State" and disclosure of its audit report periodically.

Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh clubbed this case with an application to bring PM CARES Fund under the Right to Information Act and listed both matters for hearing on April 23.

Both the pleas were filed by petitioner Samyak Gangwal, who sought declaration of the fund as 'the State' under Article 12 of the Constitution of India.

The second prayer seeks the court to direct PM CARES Fund to disclose its audit report on its website periodically along with the details of the donations received and their utilisation every quarter.

"PM CARES Fund performs a public function, which is similar to government functions. It utilises the privileges, benefits and exemptions which are reserved for the state," the petitioner contended.

The petition also raised an issue over a paragraph in the trust deed issued on the PM CARES website, where it is stated that the trust is not controlled by the government.

"It is unimaginable that a fund, which has been set up by the Prime Minister of India, has been declared to be a fund over which there is no government control," the petitioner said.
About halfway through our Thursday night Zoom happy hour, our Director of Content Marketing tried to take a sip directly from an elaborate wine decanter, on camera. He missed his mouth entirely, sending his Bordeaux streaming out of frame and, presumably, all over the floor, and I got pictures. You might say the night went well.

The Bordeaux and all our other wine came from Firstleaf, a customizable wine subscription that delivers a box of wine to your door every month, with a selection curated for your personal tastes by a quiz you take when you first sign up. Firstleaf is offering your first box at an introductory $40, with each subsequent box priced at $90, but this is offset by the fact that you get to rate each wine you receive. The longer you keep your Firstleaf subscription, the more the wine will be tailored to your specific likes and dislikes.

Choosing wine with Firstleaf

Despite putting no more planning into this evening than we would a normal virtual happy hour, our team ended up enjoying a diverse collection of alcohol, though we all had a slightly different experience with how the wines lined up with our preferences.

The process begins with a simple quiz: You select wines you like, followed by wines you dont, and then answer about a dozen related questions on food and how gastronomically adventurous you are. Naturally, being stalwart journalists, most of us chose adventurous.

I chose a mix of red and white, leaning toward not sweet, Director of Content Marketing Ryan Craggs said. So far, his selection seemed satisfying: Ive only dipped into the Bordeaux and the Chardonnay. The Bordeaux was fine, but I surprisingly enjoyed the ChardonnayI take this recommendation as a win, because otherwise I might not have ever thought to try this wine.

Others were a bit more confused about how the algorithm made its choices.

I leaned towards red, but got a mix, says Director of Business Development Nyasha Bass. I actually went through the quiz a few times because I didnt like my options the first time.

I chose sweeter wines, like Riesling (my favorite) during the initial taste analysis quiz, said Senior Commerce Editor Ana Suarez. You get the option to thumbs down wines you do not like, and I did that for every Chardonnay they tried to send my way.

Im not a wine snob by any means, she continued. I drink wine 90% of the time when I do drink, but I have a habit of sticking to the same thing.

Despite her preferences, the algorithm did try to send a Chardonnay, though she was able to remove it before hitting submit.

My selection of wines was probably the most in line with my preferences for wine, since I selected a bunch of red wines that seemed familiar and received a box of red wines that, so far, has been completely delicious. But as you can tell by that last sentence, my palate is probably the least sophisticated of the group, and I might not even notice if they sent me a wine that I had precluded from my list.

Still, I know what bad wine tastes like, and I havent located a drop of it in my Firstleaf box and I tasted quite the sample size during the Zoom happy hour.

This is in stark contrast to Craggs, who said some would call me a snob; Ive lived in Spain and Italy and used to be a travel editor, so I fancy myself as knowing a few things about viniculture. But I also recognize Im an idiot and most people who think this about themselves are putting on airsme included.  I enjoy the discovery aspect of wine.

Joshua Sargent / SFGate

If youre a wine newbie like me, youre going to be happy to try a bunch of stuff youve never heard of, and maybe develop some more precise interests. If you already have a preference, you might nitpick the quiz resultsbut luckily, youre able to revise the order before it goes through.



Firstleaf delivery

Its rare for any review to give unmitigated praise, but in this case, its absolutely warranted. Firstleafs delivery was quicker than any of us anticipated, especially considering the brutal snowstorm we endured: We all placed our orders on a Friday, and received a fresh box of wine by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.



What comes with your Firstleaf delivery

Each wine comes with a note card featuring a photograph of the vineyard, an explanation of the region of the wine's origin, and the flavor profile you can expect. My card for La Belle France Bordeaux Rouge, for example, explains that the Gironde River flows directly from the Atlantic Ocean into the region, separating the area into Left Bank and Right Bank. The separation via the river creates uniqueness and individuality.

Beneath that, it offers ratings for Body, Acidity, Sweetness, Fruit and Tannin, as well as suggesting pairings (in this case, filet, roasted chicken, and comte cheese) as well as the perfunctory stats like the wine's ABV (13.5%) and non-member price ($24).

The note cards are real fun (Bass also selected them as a stand out part of the experience), adding an air of sophistication to the wine-drinking experience, providing valuable context for connoisseurs while being accessible enough for wine-newbies like myself to really feel like were learning something.



Who will enjoy Firstleaf?

At $90 for six bottles of wine, a Firstleaf subscription shakes out to $15 per bottle. Thats the price range of low- to mid-shelf wine in my neighborhood, and the stuff we got in our Firstleaf box would never be confused with bottom-shelf wine.

In other words, Firstleaf seems tailored toward people who have a limited understanding of viniculture and want to expand their knowledge by jumping, mouth open, into the deep end. After a few months if youre not an expert, at least youll have gleaned enough buzzwords off these note cards to be able to convincingly fake it.
Protesters march from Gyeongbok Palace Station in Seoul's Jongno District toward Cheong Wa Dae on Mar. 8 demanding the South Korean government restitute tuition fees for university students or propose alternative measures for those who couldn't normally attend their post-secondary schools and pay rents for their homes due to COVID-19 risks. Yonhap



South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases bounced back to above 400 on Tuesday as continued cluster infections and increased outdoor activity are feared to ignite another surge in virus infections.



The country reported 446 more COVID-19 cases, including 427 local infections, raising the total caseload to 93,263, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.



Daily infections stayed below 400 on Monday apparently due to less testing over the weekend after hovering above the threshold for two days, with 418 cases Saturday and 416 on Sunday.



The country added 3 more deaths from COVID-19, raising the total to 1,645. The fatality rate was 1.76 percent, the KDCA said.



After peaking late last year, the country's daily infections have since gradually fallen on the back of tougher virus curbs.



The greater Seoul area is currently under the Level 2 social distancing scheme, the third highest in the country's five-tier system, while other regions are placed under Level 1.5.



Private gatherings of five or more people are banned nationwide.



The daily tally, however, has recently hovered in the 300s and 400s amid continued cluster infections, most notably at a livestock meat facility in Anseong, 77 kilometers south of Seoul, with more than 50 cases.




Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
I am told Meghan and Harry gave an explosive interview. I am told the British Royal Family are rocked and in crisis. So why is it I for one really couldnt give a monkeys toss?

Anyone would think from my indifference there was more important issues like a global pandemic forcing everyone to stay at home or something oh hang on!

Mark Boyle

Renfrewshire, Scotland

Why not show respect to animals when theyre alive?

Have we become a country of ostriches? All week theres been a big fuss and sanctimonious outrage in the media about a man sitting on a dead horse (disrespectful and regrettable as admitted by the man). But must an animal be dead to be respected?

It seems to be acceptable to saddle, mount and even whip the horse while alive so long as you respect him when dead. Lets be honest: it doesnt really matter to the poor horse at that stage. How is it OK to exploit, torment and slaughter living animals for their produce, their flesh, their fur, or for sport, if it is so awful to disrespect them when they are dead? The time to show real respect is surely while the animal is alive. If we genuinely want to do so, might it not be a good place to start, for example, if we were to stop eating them?

JE Norton

Dublin

Political violence isnt confined to ancient history

I read with interest and a degree of humour, Billy Ryles letter (Beware of back-stabbing this Ides of March, Taoiseach, Irish Independent, March 8). March can, indeed, be a dangerous month for those in power. This month sees the 40th anniversary of the near-assassination of US President Ronald Reagan who was shot and gravely injured on 30 March 1981. I clearly recall the events of that fateful Monday.

Dominic Shelmerdine

London, UK

A lesson in consequences for students who breach rules

I am completely appalled by the sanctions given by NUI Galway to students in breach of Covid-19 regulations. What an insult to those who have lost loved ones in this pandemic and indeed to those who suffer long-term health issues as a result of the illness.

It is understood that those involved are required to watch last months TV documentary, RTE Investigates: Covid 19  The Third Wave before writing an essay. What happened to good old expulsion?

Its not as if these people were not aware of the consequences of their actions. They are after all adults, not schoolchildren, so why were they not treated as such?

P O Connor

Address with editor

Key questions about Capitol Hill riot that need answers

May I ask a question regarding the Capitol Hill Riot on January 6? Why has no mention been made of President Trumps request for 10,000 extra security officers because of the numbers likely to attend? This was refused. Another question: why was there no comment on the FBI raising awareness of likely trouble the night before and why was there no reaction to two fire bombs discovered there on the same night?

These are very important question and the reason for ignoring them should be investigated.

Mary Stewart

Donegal Town

Let us remember the victims of this devastating pandemic

Thanks to Lorraine Courtney for her call for a fitting memorial to the 4,000 Irish who died in Covid-19 (Lets plan for memorial parks and woods to help us heal from all the losses of Covid, Irish Independent, March 1).

Four years ago I wrote imploring Government, An Post and the Church to commemorate the centenary of the worldwide 50,000,000 Spanish flu deaths.

Little happened and as we all now know a major opportunity to learn the lessons of history was lost. Today as I reflect upon the fact that three of my fathers siblings died of Spanish Flu I have a clearer appreciation of how my grandparents must have felt especially as my own son was hospitalised this time round. Back then, like many bereaved families, they did not have the luxury of recording how quickly it happened and how they felt. Among the few reminders we have of the impact on our family are the memorial cards for the children. Despite exhaustive enquiries we have not found where the children were buried.

Please God, as Church and State this time round as a nation, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM!

Alan Whelan

Killarney, Co Kerry
Much of the discussion about the COVID-19 vaccines has centered around high and low speeds.

For example, the U.S. government was able to accelerate the development and production of COVID-19 vaccines by guaranteeing funding to companies such as Moderna and AstraZeneca to shield them from financial risk so that they would produce doses of their vaccines before they knew whether the Food and Drug Administration would approve them.

Now people are frustrated by hiccups in the vaccine distribution process that keep them from getting inoculated as quickly as they would like.

But what if all the parties involved with the vaccine process had a 25-year head start?

ADVERTISEMENT

That might have been the case had pharmaceutical companies taken advantage of the promising of results of the research of Dr. David Curiel, a cancer biologist who is Jewish and now lives in St. Louis and works at Washington University.

In 1995, Curiel was working in a laboratory at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and discovered that you could use messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to express the genes that serve as markers for cancer and could then act as a vaccine.

He was the first person to prove that mRNA could work in such a capacity, and his findings were published in the prestigious medical journal Cancer Research and attracted significant interest.

Then nothing happened.

The practical benefits of his research were stymied by technological challenges that are now also serving as an obstacle to the distribution of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer.

But had pharmaceutical companies utilized his findings then, Curiel said, We might have gotten to the COVID vaccine faster, and some of the problems that still exist with the mRNA vaccine  that it is unstable and requires extreme storage conditions  those might have been solved by now.

It would have been nice if there wasnt a 25-year quiet period in the development of the technology.

Still, Curiel does not sound bitter about the past and was willing to endure a sore arm after receiving the Pfizer vaccine.

Curiel is working on overcoming the challenges that have been inherent in the storage and distribution of vaccines  for the next pandemic.

In the meantime, he implores the public: Take the vaccine, any [COVID-19] vaccine, that you are offered as quickly possible. The ones that are out there work.

The primary factor that hindered the adoption of Curiels research in 1995 was temperature. The mRNA molecule is not stable, meaning that it can easily be broken down by other molecules, and a vaccine using it can then become ineffective. But the degradation process can be slowed by storing it at extremely cold temperatures. For example, the Pfizer vaccine must be stored at minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit.

After Curiel completed his research, he approached Ambion, a company that produced kits to manufacture mRNA in a laboratory, and told them that there was a grant from National Institutes of Health that would allow the company to develop Curiels data into a vaccine.

He asked: Would you like to endeavor this together?

I will never forget their response, he said. They said they didnt see any commercial potential of mRNA for medicinal applications, so it was hard to traverse that level of resistance and get help with these technical tasks.

Dr. Matthew Powell, a gynecologic oncologist at Washington University, attributes the earlier lack of adoption of Curiels research to the fact that when you are disrupting the status quo and peoples previous conceptions of how things should be done, they will immediately come back with a negative response.

The infrastructure needed for mRNA vaccines, known as a cold chain, continues to pose a challenge, particularly in developing countries that may not have the necessary refrigeration technology.

Curiels father immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republican, and the scientist still has about 20 relatives who live in the Caribbean country. Curiel has served as an advisor to its government.

The Dominican Republic is looking to vaccines produced by Russia and China because they dont need to be stored at such a cold temperature.

The American rivals are using their vaccines as an agent of diplomacy, Curiel said.

Meanwhile, Curiel is now also working on a COVID-19 vaccine that could prove particularly useful in the developing world.

At a laboratory at WU, Curiel and Dr. Michael Diamond, a viral immunologist, produced a nasal vaccine that Curiels company, Precision Virologics, has licensed the rights to for distribution in the United States, Japan and Europe. Bharat Biotech in India has acquired the rights to distribute it in that country.

Unlike the potential cancer vaccine all those years ago, the nasal COVID-19 vaccine is based on an adenovirus, not mRNA, a source that had a longer history in vaccines, meaning there has been more research done on its long-term implications  and it does not need to be stored at a super-cold temperature. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson also produced vaccines based on adenoviruses.

India, which does not have the cold chain technology needed for mRNA vaccines, began administering Curiels vaccine in February as part of a Phase 1 trial. Curiel hopes to have results by May.

Curiel wrote in an email that he is pleased!!! that others are now also seeing the potential of mRNA.

Many of us do this for the possibility of human impact, he said. This impacted beyond my wildest expectation.

And that human impact may extend beyond COVID-19 or even another pandemic. Powell, the oncologist, is testing Curiels adenovirus technology to more precisely treat ovarian and pancreatic cancer and avoid killing noncancerous cells during chemotherapy.

The guy is brilliant and an amazing mentor to his mentees and has so many unique solutions for problems, Powell said. I feel the [adenovirus technology] has so much potential to solve some of the problems we have.
Melissa McCarthy thinks we are living through a weird time of hate.

The 50-year-old movie star told InStyle magazine that with all the fighting - she especially loathes people who will not wear a mask - she wonders what the future of the US will be.

'I think the scariest thing about all of this more so than even COVID is that I truly didn't think people hated each other that much or hated the idea of people who they don't even know. I always wonder, "Do racists know anyone of a different color?"' the Oscar-nominated comedienne said.

Stop the hate: Melissa McCarthy thinks we are living through a weird time of hate. The 50-year-old movie star told InStyle magazine that with all the fighting - she especially loathes people who will not wear a mask - she wonders what the future of the US will be

The Heat actress added: 'People who are homophobic: "Do you know anyone gay or bi or trans? Do you know these people, or is it the great unknown?"'

And she thinks the next 10 years everyone will be figuring out why people are so angry; there will also more questions about mental illness. 'I mean, because the whole QAnon thing, that pizzas are eating babies and then they're going to Mars and coming back. It might as well be that.'

The haters should see doctors.

'I want to get mad, and I do get incredulous about how insane it is. But who's going to help people? If you've lost any sense of reality, we can't get mad. People aren't just wrong. They need help.'

The star added she hopes her comedy helps.

She has a point: 'I think the scariest thing about all of this more so than even COVID is that I truly didn't think people hated each other that much or hated the idea of people who they don't even know. I always wonder, "Do racists know anyone of a different color?"' she said

'I'm not smart enough to know how to purify the water, but I can throw myself down a flight of stairs and hope that it lets someone forget their troubles.'

Luckily, she has been having the time of her life while in Byron Bay, Australia to shoot the Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers alongside Nicole Kidman and Bobby Cannavale.

She told InStyle magazine that she could stay in the country forever because she loves the 'chatty' people.

'I am connected to Australia in a way that I didn't anticipate. I could very easily live here for the rest of my life. I'm in love with it,' the Bridesmaid star said. 'Everyone is so chatty. I'm a Midwestern gal who lives in L.A., where no one wants to talk to you. And here I'll be in the grocery store, and I can't go down a single aisle without talking to somebody. It's wonderful. I come home, and I will have had 15 conversations.'

The puzzle: And she thinks the next 10 years everyone will be figuring out why people are so angry; there will also more questions about mental illness. 'I mean, because the whole QAnon thing, that pizzas are eating babies and then they're going to Mars and coming back. It might as well be that'

And she is not often recognized.

'I'd say 60/40. There's a funny thing here of I think I'm recognized, but that has nothing to do with why they're talking to me. I'm out buying grapes, and they're like, "What do you think of these?" Then there are other times when someone asks, "Oh, what are you, American? Are you working here [on a movie]? Good for you. Do you get lines?" [laughs].'

She has been in the country for nine months and she will stay longer to make the Netflix series, God's Favorite Idiot, written by her husband, Ben Falcone.

'We were supposed to shoot in L.A., and, obviously, that wasn't going to happen,' said the actress who looks slender in the shoot in a tight green dress.

She likes Australia: Luckily, she has been having the time of her life while in Byron Bay, Australia to shoot the Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers alongside Nicole Kidman and Bobby Cannavale. She told InStyle magazine that she could stay in the country forever because she loves the 'chatty' people

'And in between cleaning grapefruits and laundry I got a call asking what I thought about going to Byron Bay to shoot it. I said, "I can't pick up a family during a pandemic. I can't even go down the street to a store."

'And then Vivian, my 13-year-old, came out so glazed over from sitting on a Zoom class. I was like, "I just had the weirdest call. Someone asked if we want to move to Australia to do Nine Perfect Strangers."

'And she didn't even take a beat. She went, "We should leave today. We can't see friends. And isn't Australia one of the safest places on the planet?" And then I looked up Byron Bay, and I was like,"What an idiot. It's heaven."'

Her new home: Ocean view over Cape Byron lighthouse, the Most Easterly Point on the Australian Mainland in Byron Bay, Australia

Melissa said she feels a little bad about how much fun she is having Down Under.

'I feel weirdly guilty. But then part of my ploy is to try and get more people here, which is not really my place. I'm sure the government would be like, "You can't do that. Shut up." Ben says, "You can't just tell people to hop on a plane and go to Australia." I was like, "Well, I'm trying to create the world I want."'

As far as her incredible career, she says she is still shocked by it.

'Fifteen years ago, if you would've said, "Oh, by the way, you and Ben are going to be able to write and make movies like the dumb stories that we used to do on the stage of the Groundlings improv theater in L.A.," we would have been like, "Really? Is that possible?"' said the star who got her start on Gilmore Girls.

A new film: In a world where supervillains are commonplace, two estranged childhood best friends reunite after one devises a treatment that gives them powers to protect their city. Melissa and Octavia Spender in ThunderForce

'The way we do things still feels very grassroots. I think of us as circus people in that we just kind of travel around and put on a show. It's like getting an invite to a party where you're like, "Oh, I didn't know they knew I existed."

And she is 'quite happy' being an actor.

'I went into acting because I find other people more interesting. I love getting out of myself and into someone else, so when the light gets shone on me as opposed to a character, I just feel like I'm off.'

And McCarthy said she went overboard at the start of the pandemic.

'My mom had come out for the winter and stayed with us, which was incredible. My dad had gone home a little early, so she got stuck. She stayed five months, which was amazing. I haven't lived with my mom every day since I was 18 years old. To have that time with her again was unbelievable.'

But she said they were in a panic.

'It was the panic of "What do you have to wash?" We had washing stations in our garage, and we would leave things there. We were in hazmat suits. I just remember scrubbing the outside of grapefruits with soap and water and then [dipping them] into a vinegar bath. We didn't know what was safe enough. The amount of scrubbing and cleaning was crazy. Ben was like, "Are you Cloroxing the outsides of the apple? Should we be eating it?" It was just nuts.'

She was photographed by Charles Dennington/M.A.P., styled by Vanessa Coyle/The Artist Group with her hair by Richard Kavanagh/DLMAU and makeup by Amanda Reardon/Vivien's Creative. The location was The Range Byron Bay.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
The recent media release from the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB) seems to suggest that the OBWB has lost confidence in the control nature worldview and is now advocating a work with nature worldview in the floodplain of the Okanagan Valley.

The video accompanying their media release also appears to say the traditional engineering solution of constraining meandering streams into straight channels is no longer working.

This change in direction is also needed for managing forests in the watersheds of the Valley, to help control flooding, especially in this time of climate change.

Yet, there is not a word in OBWBs statement, about the hydrological effects of clear-cut logging in the higher Okanagan snow zone. More frequent, longer, and more severe flooding, extreme run-off, boil water advisories and ensuing droughts have all been attributed to clear-cuts.

Retired Registered Professional Forester (RPF) and ecologist, Herb Hammond who has studied Peachlands watershed extensively, says that preserving the forest-cover of Okanagan watersheds is integral to mitigating spring floods. Its even more critical, in those kinds of watersheds, to maintain cover to maintain late season flow, otherwise you go from spring floods to fall droughts and thats becoming an increasing occurrence says Hammond.

By neglecting to identify the role of clear-cut logging in watersheds, the OBWB is asking the Government of BC to remedy only the symptoms of poor ecological management. They are not demanding ways to tackle the root causes of flooding in the Okanagan Valley. Climate change will make things worse but lowering lake levels is just a band-aid for the larger issue. If the OBWB is sincere in requesting a review of how the Ministry of Forests Lands Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development manages Okanagan lake levels, they should start by addressing the volume of clear-cut logging operations permitted throughout the basin.

PWPA believes its time the OBWB champions source water protection in a meaningful way. There is no such thing as sustainable clear cut logging in a community watershed. This is why Vancouver and Victoria have worked to keep their watersheds protected against all industrial activities.

Board of Directors, The Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance
Owner of North Americas only permitted cobalt refinery

Main cobalt exploration project at Iron Creek in Idaho, USA

Controls significant land package in Canadian Cobalt Camp

What does:

Corp ( ) ( ) is focused on creating a North American cobalt supply chain through both exploration and refining.

The company is the owner of North Americas only permitted cobalt refinery located in Ontario, Canada which could produce over 25,000 tonnes of cobalt sulfate per year from third party feed.

Cobalt refining is a critical component in the development and manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles and forms a foundational piece of the next generation of the North American auto sector and other electrified consumer and industrial applications.

The firm is recommissioning and expanding its permitted cobalt refinery to provide battery-grade cobalt for the North American and European electric vehicle (EV) markets. Discussions are ongoing with several EV manufacturers, according to the company.

The group has said it is confident that cobalt will remain a critical material in electric vehicle battery production for at least another ten years, despite Teslas Battery Day proclamation in September that it will produce cobalt-free batteries. Longer-term, the company said it may expand its refinery to recycle black mass from lithium-ion batteries.

s main cobalt exploration project is the Iron Creek Cobalt Project in Idaho, USA, which has an Indicated Resource of 2.2 million tonnes at 0.32% cobalt equivalent (0.26% cobalt and 0.61% copper) for 12.3 million pounds of contained cobalt and 29 million pounds of contained copper as well as an Inferred Resource of 2.7 million tonnes at 0.28% cobalt equivalent (0.22% cobalt and 0.68% copper) for an additional 12.7 million pounds of contained cobalt and 40 million pounds of contained copper.

The company is partnered with researchers at the Colorado School of Mines on a proposal to fund a two-year project on improving the extraction of cobalt from Iron Creek. The aim is to modify conventional methods of extraction to reduce the amount of waste and to increase the concentration of cobalt to be refined.

The United States Geological Survey has deemed the Idaho Cobalt Belt to be strategically important as a domestic supply of cobalt, according to .

The company also controls a significant land package in the Canadian Cobalt Camp spanning over 100 square kilometres, which contains more than 50 past-producing mines, including substantial silver assets.

How is it doing:

In a 2020 year-in-review document, published on April 16, highlighted the significant progress made toward its goal of producing the most sustainable battery materials and strong setup for growth and execution in 2021.

The company said its primary focus for 2021 is advancing the refinery, with construction commencing in mid-2021, which would put the company on track for commissioning in late 2022. Ultimately, the refinery is intended to divert ethically sourced African mine production from China to North America.

plans to finance the refinery expansion capital costs with a mix of debt and equity, weighted more heavily towards debt instruments. In March 2021, announced it had entered an exclusivity agreement with a leading financing institution to provide US$45 million of debt financing and was entering the due diligence phase, which would be the final piece required for the capital costs to be fully financed.

The company also inked an offtake deal in March with one of the "most knowledgeable" cobalt traders in the world. It has agreed a flexible, long-term, offtake agreement with London-based Stratton Metal Resources Ltd over the sale of up to 100% of annual cobalt sulfate production from the refinery.

The five-year offtake contract matches the expected term of a project debt facility currently being negotiated, as well as long-term arrangements for refinery feedstock. The sale price will be based on the prevailing market price at the time of shipment. Earlier in the year, First Cobalt also agreed a five-year cobalt hydroxide feed purchase deal with Glencore AG and IXM SA.

Looking at its Iron Creek copper-cobalt project in Idaho, First Cobalt noted that it has completed over 29,000 metres of diamond drilling and significant infrastructure is in place to support multiple drills and underground activity for further work, the company said.

On February 23, First Cobalt has said a geophysical survey of its Iron Creek cobalt-copper deposit in Idaho, US, had identified several new drill targets and provided data that supports a resumption of drilling to expand the deposit and test new targets over a 2-kilometer radius at the site. The company said high chargeability zones were detected along strike of the deposit, which it said presents an opportunity to more than double the strike length of the current mineralization.

With a strengthening cobalt market, a 2021 drill program is being designed to test for the extensions of the Iron Creek copper-cobalt resource, the company said in April's statement. The areas with high chargeability anomalies from a geophysical survey that are considered to be associated with mineralization along this horizon have been prioritized for this program. The objective over the next two years is to meaningfully increase the resource size at Iron Creek and advance the asset towards a development decision.

On the financing front, First Cobalt pointed out that in the first quarter of 2021, it received an additional $6 million in cash proceeds relating to warrant exercises. In combination with a January bought-deal financing and the closing of the Kuya Silver transaction on March 1, 2021, First Cobalt noted that it has approximately $19 million of working capital on hand, not including the $10 million of refinery construction funding pledged by the Ontario and Canadian Governments.

The company also revealed in March that it had struck a deal with commodities giant which will allow it to repay the latter an outstanding debt of around US$5.5 million in shares. The transaction to amend the debt agreement struck in 2019 will eliminate all First Cobalt's corporate debt ahead of the financing package being negotiated for an expansion to its cobalt refinery in Ontario and frees up the security package associated with the facility.

The transaction to amend the debt agreement struck in 2019 will eliminate all First Cobalt's corporate debt ahead of a financing package being negotiated for an expansion to its cobalt refinery in Ontario and frees up the security package associated with the facility, the junior said.

On the management front, on April 9, First Cobalt announced the appointment of experienced commodities industry executive Michael Insulan as vice-president of commercial to market the group's refined cobalt sulfate production to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers and battery makers.

Insulan has nearly 20 years' experience across oil and gas, bulk commodities, base and minor metals but over the past four has mainly been focused on cobalt. He has worked for , CRU, and Eurasian Resources Group.

And at the start of February, First Cobalt announced the appointments of Regan Watts as the companys new vice-president of Corporate Affairs and Dr George Puvvada as its Refinery Technical Manager.

Inflection points:

Cobalt refinery construction expected in Q2/202

More news on exploration at its Iron Creek project

News on silver properties in Canadas Cobalt Camp

What the broker says:

In a note on March 19, 2021, initiated coverage on First Cobalt with a Buy rating and a C$0.60 price target.

Analyst Matthew OKeefe said: The companys top focus is refurbishing and expanding its 100% owned and permitted Canadian cobalt refinery, which will support production of 25 kt of battery-grade cobalt sulfate, or roughly 5% of the current global refined market, annually,

Commissioning is expected in late 2022. Cobalt is a critical metal to power the green economy and electric vehicles (EVs) and FCC offers one of the few pureplay cobalt equities available.

OKeefe stressed several other factors working in First Cobalt's favor, notably:

Cobalt is a critical metal: In its January 25, 2021, Macro Report entitled 'A Green Economy and Electric Vehicles Start with Metals', highlighted cobalt as one of the critical metals needed to make the transition due to its core function in the stability of high-powered and long-range lithium-ion batteries.

First Cobalt well supported: The company has received financial support from the Provincial and Federal governments and secured cobalt feed from two major cobalt producer/traders.

Cobalt refinery construction expected Q2/2021: First Cobalt is on-track to produce cobalt sulphate for the EV market by the end of 2022 and generate annual operating cash flow of over US$37 million.

Cobalt exploration in North America: First Cobalts Iron Creek project in Idaho currently hosts a cobalt equivalent resource of 37 MMlbs which should double by 2023 as well as exposure to a large land package in the historic cobalt camp of Ontario.

What the boss says:

In April's 2020 year-in-review, First Cobalt CEO Trent Mell said: "We are on a path to become the most sustainable producer of cobalt in the world and the only company capable of supplying battery-grade cobalt to the North American electric vehicle market.

"The stage was set in 2020 with the completion of engineering studies, metallurgical work and a strategic investment from the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario. In 2021, the story will be one of execution, as we expand the First Cobalt Refinery in Canada and resume activities at our advanced copper-cobalt project in Idaho."

Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.
Page Content

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has officially delayed a rule that would make it easier for restaurants and other hospitality businesses to allow "back-of-the-house" workerssuch as cooks and dishwashersand other nontipped workers to share in gratuities under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The DOL's action is consistent with a presidential directive asking all federal agencies to freeze proposed regulations and those with pending effective dates, according to a measure published in The Federal Register delaying the rule until April 30.

President Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ronald Klain, said in January that the president's appointees should "have the opportunity to review any new or pending rule."

The DOL said that "delaying the effective date of the tip rule would provide the department additional opportunity to review and consider the questions of law, policy and fact raised by the rule."

We've rounded up resources and articles from SHRM Online and other trusted outlets on the news.



Sharing Gratuities

The final rule was issued toward the end of the Trump administration and was scheduled to take effect on March 1. The final rule addresses changes to the FLSA's tip-credit regulations that were made under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018. The rule would allow hospitality workers who are traditionally not tipped to share in gratuities under the FLSA. Eligible employers would have to pay participants in the tip pool the full minimum wage instead of taking a so-called tip credit, which allows employers that meet certain criteria to pay servers, bartenders and other tipped workers less than minimum wage, as long as their tips make up the difference. The final rule would prohibit management from keeping any portion of employees' tips regardless of whether the employer takes a tip credit and would codify DOL guidance on how the tip credit applies to employees who perform a mix of tipped and nontipped duties.

(SHRM Online)

States Challenge Tip-Sharing Rule



The final rule codified DOL guidance eliminating the 80/20 rule, which only allowed employers to take a tip credit for workers who spent no more than 20 percent of their time on nontipped duties. The new rule would more broadly allow employers to take a tip credit when tipped employees perform related side jobs (such as rolling silverware) either during, just before or a reasonable time after tipped duties. On Jan. 19, eight states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit challenging the rule, claiming it will lower wages for tipped workers. The lawsuit claims that the DOL didn't adequately identify and weigh the costs and benefits of eliminating the 80/20 rule and, therefore, the DOL arbitrarily eliminated the rule in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

(Jackson Lewis)

Independent-Contractor Rule

A final rule is also expected to be delayed that would make it easier for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees. Employees are covered by the FLSA's minimum wage and overtime requirements, whereas independent contractors are not. The final rule was slated to take effect on March 8, and the department has proposed delaying the rule until May 7.

(Bloomberg Law)

DOL Withdraws Three Opinion Letters

The DOL recently withdrew three opinion letters that were issued in the last days of the prior administration. The letters addressed tipped workers and independent contractors under the FLSA and applied the standards used in the now-delayed final rules. "These letters were issued prematurely because they are based on rules that have not gone into effect," according to the department.

(SHRM Online)

DOL Lifts Limits on Subregulatory Guidance

Employers can expect to have new compliance obligations in the wake of the Biden administration's lifting of certain limits that the Trump administration had put on subregulatory guidanceguidance that hasn't gone through the notice-and-comment period. The Trump administration tried reducing the number of subregulatory guidance documents issued, with the notable exception of opinion letters, which the Trump administration increased. Employers may find other forms of subregulatory guidance to be less helpful and more burdensome than opinion letters.

(SHRM Online)


NASA is going to rely on US universities for assistance to fulfill its aim of landing the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. NASA, on its official website said that two things needed by the humans to explore deep space will be power and in-situ resources. It further added that the agency is looking to US universities to bring about advancements in in-situ resource utilization and sustainable power solutions. As of now, NASA has shortlisted six project proposals under its first-ever Lunar Surface Technology Research (LuSTR) solicitation.

Walt Engelund, deputy associate administrator for programs in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), said, Our inaugural LuSTR opportunity targeted two technology areas within NASA's Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative that are essential to the agency's Artemis program, which will land the first woman and next man on the Moon. He added, The systems developed by U.S. universities could make future exploration more accessible, robust, and exciting.

NASA being helped by US universities

As per NASA, the farther human explorers travel into space, it will be more important to create the products using local material. NASA is researching and developing systems for the moon as it aims to demonstrate in-situ resource utilization technologies on the Moon, using it as a testbed for Mars. NASA has selected three universities, including, the University of Texas in El Paso, Washington University in St. Louis, and Michigan Technological University in Houghton. These universities will help in researching innovative ways to identify resources, like water, on the Moon, and inventive designs for extraction and utilization equipment.

According to the official website, the University of Texas will research an advanced thermal mining approach that could release, trap, and transport water vapor found on the Moon. The team is led by principal investigator Ahsan Choudhuri. Washington University will build a rover-mounted drill to quantify the 3D distribution of water at the Moons South Pole. The research lead will be Principal investigator Alian Wang. Michigan Technological University will adapt a heated percussive cone penetrometer. This will help in characterizing the strength of lunar soil, or regolith. These universities will be further assisted by University of California in Santa Barbara, Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Ohio State University in Columbus.
GRONINGEN, Netherlands, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Dutch company Belsimpel has launched www.gomibo.ie, where Irish consumers can buy mobile phones, tablets, and accessories.

Irish consumers could already visit www.belsimpel.nl, which has seen a huge increase in sales to Ireland since the Brexit. "Now that we have our own Irish domain, we expect this increase to continue. Until now we hardly did any marketing, but now we will scale that up," says founder of Belsimpel Jeroen Doorenbos.

In the Netherlands, Belsimpel is a market leader with almost a 50% online market share. The company aims to become the online market leader in Ireland and the rest of Europe with its international brand Gomibo.

Doorenbos on the launch: "With the expansion to Ireland and the rest of Europe, a new chapter in our mission to change the Mobile World begins." It is the biggest step since Belsimpel was founded. The company has worked very hard over the past few years to make its platform ready for this. "We think we can shake up the European market with our unique way of comparing telecom products and our perfectly tailored delivery process. In almost all European countries, the online telecom market is less developed than in the Netherlands. In that sense, the Netherlands is about 5 years ahead of most European countries. Everything we've learned over the past 12 years of Belsimpel have been incorporated in Gomibo and that offers a lot of potential for this international step." The marketing strategy for Gomibo is offensive. Doorenbos: "We are talking about many millions in budget to bring Gomibo to the rest of the world."

About Belsimpel:

An enthusiastic team of 600 colleagues ensures that Belsimpel continues to grow significantly, through continuously implementing improvements. In 2019 and 2020 Belsimpel achieved a turnover of respectively 360 and 410 million euros. Belsimpel profiles itself as the specialist in the Mobile World where customers can go for the largest range of mobile phones, contracts, and accessories at competitive prices. The fully in-house developed platform plays an important role in its success. It is very easy for customers to choose the combination that suits them best from millions of combinations of contracts, bundles, and phones. Parts of this platform are now also used by other companies. ID verification platform Verifai.com is the most imaginative example of this.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1452101/Gomibo_IE_RGB_op_wit__3_Logo.jpg


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
GEELONG, Australia, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A ground-breaking concept, enabling consumers and producers to connect through product packaging is rolling out to the craft beer industry, it was announced today, with brewpubs and taprooms set to benefit.

The suitably named, BEERSCANS, is an augmented reality platform, for brands to deliver a unique customer experience. At its core, the concept

Augmented Reality Beer, with Virtual Assistant Craft Beer - Augmented Reality Platform - BEERSCANS

enables brands to 'virtually link' content to their packaging

encourages smartphone users to scan packaging, to activate a unique virtual experience

presents the brand's content, through a stunning augmented reality display, which is virtually attached to the package itself

See demonstration video on the BEERSCANS website

What's it all about?

According to Dave Chaffey, founding partner, the purpose of BEERSCANS is to enable brewers to deliver unique, shareworthy experiences to consumers from their beer cans and bottles, anywhere in the world.

"It's a stunning display, it really is. A lot of times, people just stare trying to take it all in."

"Here's what I mean. Imagine looking at a beer can and noticing that it's slowly getting darker, all by itself. This is a can, just in front of you, almost black.

"And then all of a sudden, it lights up, and it's different - the surface of the can is playing a video, running 360o around the can, and it's from the brewers themselves."

"That example is already built into BEERSCANS  and it creates some powerful moments."

Why Craft Beer?

Aside from the technology, Chaffey says that the main focus is delivering an authentic experience for consumers.

"Right from the start, we've focused on answering the question what's in it for the consumer? Sure, the technology is great, but looking beyond that, where is the next level of value?", said Chaffey.

"Ultimately, it led us to a concept where consumers are challenged to discover the story behind their favourite beer  the people, places, processes."

"There are themes of authenticity, storytelling, connection, and a sense of realness without the fuss. And for the most part, these traits align with the craft brewing ethos.

"The themes were introduced to Winerytale, (a similar concept, modified for the Wine Industry, and currently rolling out to the Californian wineries).

The response has been overwhelmingly positive  we fast-tracked on that basis.

"Craft beer will be leading the way  only the second industry world-wide. Real pioneering stuff.

Great Gains for Early Adopters

"We think there's going to be some real wins for early adopters  social virality in the short term, and a compoundable bump in sales in the medium term." It's a best-estimate of a new environment, so don't read too much into that, but there's historical support for the thinking."

BEERSCANS will roll out from July, with the initial launch limited to just 50 brands.

We're keeping it simple  one launch, 50 brands  and on a first come, first served basis - no matter how big or small you are.

With a timeline only a few months away, Chaffey is encouraging brewers and business owners to visit the BEERSCANS website, for more information about the concept, and to learn how to become part of the initial launch.

For more information, please visit the BEERSCANS website  https://beerscans.com

About BEERSCANS

BEERSCANS is a ground-breaking concept, using augmented reality, to create a virtual experience from every beer.

The concept has been developed by Matt Hallberg, Luke Chaffey, and Dave Chaffey  three recognized specialists in their respective fields of augmented reality, software development, and digital marketing strategy. The platform is powered by Vuforia Engine.

Media Liaison: Dave Chaffey, Founding Partner

Media Enquiries: Via the Media Center or +61 1300 633 390

Media Center: https://beerscans.com/media/

Media enquiries are welcome and can be made via the media centre, where there is also a range of useful information:

Publishable images

Explainer videos

Marketing collateral

Media enquiries

SOURCE BEERSCANS

Related Links

https://beerscans.com


Dispel all doubts on land deal scandal to restore public trust



The government has apologized for suspected land speculation by officials at the state-run Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), and announced measures to prevent any recurrence. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun expressed his apology for the shocking speculation scandal which has left people feeling disappointed and betrayed. He then vowed to adopt a policy of "zero-tolerance" toward speculators, restrict land deals by related officials, and root out market-disturbing acts such as price manipulation and speculation using insider information.



Chung's apology came a day after he ordered the creation of a police-led investigative team to shed light on the massive scandal. On Sunday, Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki expressed his "wretched feelings" about the scandal, promising to root out any land speculation by public officials. However, public outrage is mounting over allegations that some employees at LH, the housing developer, used internal information on housing supply projects for speculative land purchases.



The apology is belated and futile, given the fact that the scandal was not due to ethical lapses by a few individuals but rather, stems from long-standing structural problems. Even more astonishing was the response from some LH insiders, who reportedly asked, "What's wrong with that?" Their brazen attitude shows a chronic disease that cannot be cured even with the strongest shock therapy.



For now, it is most urgent to uncover all speculative activities by officials at LH and all other related government agencies, and to take stern measures against them. It is important to hold the heads of organizations and agencies involved in similar scandals strictly accountable. It is also time to restrict property transactions by officials who make and implement real estate policies, and mete out far harsher punishment on violators than ordinary people.



To eliminate bureaucrats' economic crimes arising from conflicts of interest, the government should drastically toughen punitive laws by confiscating any gains earned through such acts and by imposing prohibitive financial penalties. It also ought to restrict related officials' real estate transactions, in the same way that it limits stock investments by officials handling capital market policy.



The Moon Jae-in administration has lost a considerable degree of the public's trust in its real estate policy. If it fails to deal appropriately with the ongoing scandal, it will be impossible to regain this lost confidence. Indeed, the government should bet all on conducting a thorough investigation and working out appropriate follow-up steps.














Huo Xuexi, member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, recently received a great message: all the apples produced in Yuexi County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, were sold out.

"That's awesome! That just guarantees the income of the fruit farmers," said Huo, who is also the vice chairman of the Shaanxi provincial committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, and a professor with the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University.

The man and his team have spent numerous energy on apple production in Yuexi County, from planting to sales.

When Huo stepped onto the land of Yuexi for the first time in 2015, he immediately discovered the county's huge natural advantages - high altitude, huge temperature difference, great soil and sufficient sunlight.

"However, the apples grown there were all of old species, with low yield and average quality. Besides, they fruited late," Huo noted. Still, he believes that apple business was pointing a way out for local residents haunted by poverty.

The apple business calls for systematic development, and is always constrained by techniques and human resource. Therefore, Huo later became a frequent visitor to Yuexi County, and specifically tailored an cultivation mode for the county together with local institutions of agricultural science and agricultural machinery departments.

By optimizing apple varieties, transforming orchards, and training major growers and grass-roots technical personnel, they gradually scaled up Yuexi's apple cultivation. At present, the county is home to a number of competent apple growers.

Yuexi county is only an epitome. As a member of the CPPPCC National Committee and chief scientist of China's national apple industrial system, Huo has always been working on the front line in rural areas.

Apart from assisting the cultivation of apples, Huo also visited a batch of apple production areas in Gansu Province, Tibet Autonomous Region, Guizhou Province, and Yunnan Province with his team over the past year, formulating a series of reports on apple production and sales, the impacts from COVID-19 on apple exports, and bottleneck technologies that constrained the industry.

With his focus always being on issues related to apples, the man has submitted multiple proposals to the CPPCC about the development of the apple industry.

Now, the scientist is casting his eyes on the sales of apples. "Apart from planting skills, we must ensure great sales to help residents increase their income. Last year, we cooperated with e-commerce platforms and held a large promotional activity for Yuexi. The sales volume was huge," he said.

Recently, a new proposal has been listed on Huo's agenda, which is to study how e-commerce platforms can expand sales channel of agricultural products and thus bring stable income growth to farmers.
ROANOKE, Va., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- March of Dimes , the leader in the fight for the health of all moms and babies, and longtime partner, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation , are working together to tackle America's maternal and infant health crisis. As both organizations continue to address health inequity across the country, the partnership in Virginia aims to address the racial disparities and social determinants of health that have disproportionately impacted Black mothers.

The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) recently reported that racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. have worsened over the past two decades. In order to achieve the Healthy People 2030 goals for Pregnancy and Childbirth, maternity care systems need to address disparities that threaten maternal and infant health. Researchers have identified implicit bias among health care providers as a potential contributor to these disparities. In response to these findings, March of Dimes developed Breaking Through Implicit Bias in Maternal Healthcare training, in collaboration with Quality Interactions, to improve patient-provider communications and treatment decisions, contributing to improved quality of care at a critical intervention point. The course provides an overview of implicit bias, its impact on the maternal infant health crisis, the history of structural racism in the United States, and strategies for providers to both mitigate racial bias in maternity care and commit to a culture of equity. The American Hospital Association recognizes the value of this important training program and the potential benefits of its use by health care providers across the country to better identify and remedy implicit bias. Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital has been selected as a local health equity partner to implement this important work.

"The U.S. is in the midst of a maternal and infant health crisis, which is particularly devastating to women and babies of color. Data show that the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations in the world for childbirth," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, Chief Medical and Health Officer, Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Scientific Officer at March of Dimes. "Roughly every 12 hours, a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes, and the CDC reports that 60% are preventable. Programs like these, supported by the Anthem Foundation, are invaluable in making a positive impact for moms and babies."

Over the past decade, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation's parent company, Anthem Foundation, has contributed close to $8 million to support March of Dimes programs aimed at reducing premature birth that have reached more than 50,000 pregnant women across the country. These programs have had a significant impact with only 7.3% of participants in group prenatal care delivering prematurely, compared to a national average of 10%.

"As we work to improve the lives of all Virginians, we heightened our focus on understanding and addressing the impact of health inequities on pregnancy outcomes, so that expectant mothers and their unborn babies receive all of the support and care that they need before, during and after delivery," said Maureen Dempsey, M.D., Anthem's chief clinical officer in Virginia. "Through our partnership with March of Dimes, we know that moms and babies are counting on all of us to improve pregnancy outcomes for the most vulnerable members in our communities and we remain firmly committed to them and that goal."

The grant also supports group prenatal care programs for moms and babies, such as Supportive Pregnancy Care, to help women receive their clinical care, share support with other women at a similar stage in pregnancy, and gain knowledge related to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.

About March of Dimes

March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, lead programs and provide education and advocacy so that every baby can have the best possible start. Building on a successful 80-year legacy of impact and innovation, we empower every mom and every family. Visit marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org for more information. Visit shareyourstory.org for comfort and support. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter .

About Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation

Through charitable grant making, the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation LLC, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, promotes Anthem's commitment to improving lives and communities. Through strategic partnerships and programs, the Foundation addresses the social drivers that will help create a healthier generation of Americans in communities that the company serves. The Foundation focuses its funding on critical initiatives that make up its Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets: maternal health, diabetes prevention, cancer prevention, heart health and healthy, active lifestyles, behavioral health efforts and programs that benefit people with disabilities. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Dollars for Dollars program which provides a 100 percent match of associates' donations, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. ANTHEM is a registered trademark of Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. To learn more about the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at https://medium.com/anthemfoundation .

SOURCE March of Dimes Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marchofdimes.org


As California's COVID-19 vaccine rollout presses forward, stories of accidentally wasted doses are growing. Tales of trashed, spoiled, thawed and expired vaccines are spreading through social media and by word of mouth, and some incidents are confirmed and reported on in the news.

Health officials in Tulare County, a jurisdiction in California's Central Valley, told CBS47 news that 11 doses were destroyed last month. Health workers accidentally overdrew the vaccines that were leftover after the last appointment at this clinic that the county said was for second doses only. The incident is under investigation.

Eleven vaccines isn't a lot when you consider millions are being administered across the state, but when supply is scarce and appointments remain difficult to find, these stories get people talking.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

In any vaccine campaign, some waste  defined by the World Health Organization as the sum of vaccines discarded, lost, damaged or destroyed  isn't out of the norm. WHO has long worked to help countries minimize waste and in a 2019 report estimated that anywhere from 5% to 50% of vaccines are wasted depending on the type of vaccine and rollout.

"The waste rate is usually pretty high," said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at UCSF. "It's usually from handling ... trying to get the vaccine from here to there. Driving on the back of a motorcycle through the jungle. It starts to defrost and it falls off. Theres a lot of handling that goes on."

All things considered, California seems to be "handling" its vaccines well as the state Department of Public Health told SFGATE less than 0.1% of doses are deemed unusable. As of March 7, the state has administered roughly 10.5 million doses, meaning less than 10,500 doses have been wasted.

Rutherford called this number impressive.

"I fully expected it to be 5 to 10% wasted," he said.

To encourage best practices that prevent waste, the Department of Public Health requires health care providers, county health departments, pharmacies and all entities that administer the vaccine to report waste. This data is also shared with the federal government, said Sami Gallegos, a spokesperson for the department. The state doesn't post the data on its online dashboard tracking vaccines but said in statement it is "actively looking into how to update the online dashboard to include" this information.

SFGATE checked in with all nine Bay Area counties regarding their waste and found the numbers from the county clinics administering inoculations line up with the state.

Marin County, for example, said as of Friday, 16 doses of the total 45,402 administered were wasted. In Napa County, the county-run clinics have not reported any waste, according to county spokesperson Janet Upton. Contra Costa County said a fraction of a percent gets wasted.

San Mateo has documented 80 wasted doses since receiving its first vaccine allotment. "These were mostly early in the vaccination process and when vaccine was left out too long at room temperature due to an error," Dr. Anand Chabra, the vaccination branch chief for San Mateo County Health, wrote in a statement. "We have clinical staff actively monitoring vaccine during all county-run vaccination events to ensure that not even one doses is wasted, and have many practices in place to use end-of-day doses so that none is wasted.

In Santa Clara County, the largest Bay Area county, with a population of nearly 2 million, the most recent data as of Feb. 22 revealed that 506 doses out of 413,233 total doses administered were wasted, or 0.12%.

Alameda, San Francisco, Solano and Sonoma counties didn't provide specific numbers beyond saying very few vaccines don't get into arms.

A report by ABC 7 News last month also adds some context to the region's overall waste and revealed that roughly 600 vaccines were wasted as of Feb. 19 across Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Sonoma and San Mateo counties.

Counties said waste is not only due to expired or spoiled doses but can also occur because of malfunctioning syringes or needles, problems when reconstituting, diluting or drawing out doses, or other reasons.

Counties said vaccines are considered waste in a number of scenarios. Doses can spoil when left at room temperature longer than 6 hours or when stored in a vaccine fridge that's too warm or cold. They can also expire past the expiration date on the vial. In some cases, doses are drawn into syringe but not administered and problems occur when reconstituting, diluting or drawing out doses. Syringes can leak and needles can malfunction, and sometimes the vial is chipped or broken.

"Occasionally a vaccinator will drop or contaminate a syringe, or they have a problem when drawing the dose," Matt Brown, a spokesperson for Sonoma County, wrote in an email regarding the county's minimal number of wasted vaccines. "No one tracks this, but again, we believe it is negligible."

Counties said they are taking steps to prevent these situations. In Santa Clara County, health officials anticipate up to 10% of those who make appointments may miss them for one reason or another, and they've built a system around that assumption so that no-shows do not result in either wasted or misallocated doses. "This includes building a buffer by 'overbooking' appointments to account for it, and additional procedures to guard against vaccine wastage in the rare instances where more doses are thawed than can be used on persons who show up for appointments," the county said in a statement.

"When extra doses become unexpectedly available, Contra Costa County has a process for calling in people from our wait list. We do not encourage people without appointments to gather near our clinics," said county spokesperson Karl Fischer. Alameda, Sonoma and San Francisco counties also said they use standby lists.

"We monitor open vials and reconcile drawn doses approx. 2 hours prior to a POD closing down to ensure open vials dont go unused," Alameda County spokesperson Neetu Balram wrote in a statement.

Marin County has strict protocols that pace how vaccine is drawn from vials to prevent overdraws in case of appointment no-shows, leaving very few at the end of the day. County spokesperson Laine Hendricks said in the rare event they have leftover vials at the end of the day, they work with local hospitals including Kaiser Permanente, MarinHealth and Marin General Hospital to transfer the doses and administer them before they expire. "In addition, we have a vaccine disuse mitigation plan, which is informed by CDPH guidelines, which allows us to administer the vaccine to other high risk groups," Hendricks shared.
Gov. Charlie Baker has a virtual event planned Tuesday morning to make a development announcement with the mayor of Pittsfield, but the governor is no longer in quarantine after traveling back to Massachusetts from Florida on Monday.

Baker tested negative for COVID-19 after arriving back in the state following a weekend spent with his family in Florida due to a death in the family, according to his office. Baker was tested after returning to Massachusetts.

Massachusetts travel restrictions during the ongoing pandemic require anyone entering the state, including residents returning from an at-risk state, to quarantine for 10 days or produce a negative COVID-19 test result that has been administered within 72 hours of their arrival.

A test can also be taken after arrival in Massachusetts, but a traveler must begin to quarantine until a negative test result comes back, or face a fine of $500 a day.

Baker, according to aides, was also tested before he traveled to Florida, which remains on the list of higher-risk states.

Over the weekend, Massachusetts dropped travel restrictions for anyone coming from Missouri, Oregon and Washington. Those states joined Hawaii and Puerto Rico as being considered low-risk for travel by the state.
TROY, N.Y. -- The original goal of human-like artificial intelligence was abandoned decades ago in favor of less ambitious approaches, two cognitive scientists argue in a new book. If that initial vision is to be realized, they say, AI systems will require a full understanding of language and meaning, the development of which remains a daunting -- but doable -- challenge.

In Linguistics for the Age of AI, published by MIT Press, co-authors Marjorie McShane and Sergei Nirenburg, both faculty in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-directors of the Language-Endowed Intelligent Agents Lab, present a novel approach to language processing for AI systems.

McShane and Nirenburg lay out a method that allows computers and other smart technologies to understand language and to use that ability to acquire further knowledge. Unlike current systems that favor statistical modeling and machine learning, the authors call for an approach inspired by how people operate, incorporating language understanding into an overall cognitive architecture that includes perception, reasoning, and action.

"Siri and Alexa, while being very useful, are limited to answering only the questions they have been prepared to answer," Nirenburg said. "What we advocate requires a lot of work but, in our opinion, is absolutely necessary for creating true AI with human-level abilities to reason, learn, and reliably communicate in language."

The book describes how an AI system can understand a large number of complex linguistic phenomena -- fragmentary sentences, omitted and implied material, unknown words, metaphors, and many more -- in a single, overarching process.

Specifically, the system developed by McShane and Nirenburg submits language inputs to multiple -- up to six -- stages of processing that offer an increasingly comprehensive interpretation. After each stage of analysis, the system decides if its interpretation of a chunk of language is "actionable," meaning the system is prepared to proceed based on its understanding the input. According to the authors, orienting a language-endowed AI system around actionability models the human abilities to minimize effort and operate under uncertainty.

"The bottom line is that language is complicated and computers must do a lot of work to move from words to meaning," McShane said. "Words help us to get to meaning, but you can't substitute them for their meanings, which is essentially what the statistical paradigm does."

###

The book is available for open-access download on the MIT Press website thanks to generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

McShane is the author of A Theory of Ellipsis and An Innovative, Practical Approach to Polish Inflection. Nirenburg is the author of Ontological Semantics and Knowledge-Based Machine Translation.

About Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The tweet sent yesterday by popular ultra-Orthodox commentator Israel Cohen triggered an animated, passionate twitter discussion among political commentators. In the tweet, Cohen discussed the findings of an internet poll that examined the voting patterns in the ultra-Orthodox city of Beit Shemesh, which clearly shows a decline in the power of the Yahadut HaTorah party (the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party).

Still, the big drama that may be hiding behind the poll relates to a new, rising power: the Religious Zionist party headed by former transportation minister Bezalel Smotrich. The significance of all that is that veteran faction Yahadut HaTorah is losing young voters to a radical right-wing religious party.

Cohen made public something that was obvious to all those who spent time in the ultra-Orthodox cities during the COVID-19 period. Youths in the midst of integration in the general society who had acquired an education and started to take part in the work market discovered a new, unpleasant reality. Not only does the general (secular) public now hate the ultra-Orthodox leadership, blaming it for the rise of the pandemic, but these young people also discovered that the separatism of their leaders caused them to be hated as well. The general public makes no difference between the ultra-Orthodox leadership and the ultra-Orthodox electorate.

Thus, the fact that Israel is conducting elections under COVID-19 conditions may weaken Yahadut HaTorah. Recent polls have demonstrated a decrease of about one mandate for the party (they have 7 Knesset seats currently), and its leadership has only started to understand how much damage has been done. It is not clear if they will be able to improve things. On the other hand, the second ultra-Orthodox party, Shas (associated with the Sephardim), has nothing to worry about: The heads of the party were careful to toe the line and follow government orders. They did nothing to isolate their young voters.

Strategic adviser Sharon Achdut also identified this trend; he calls it the quiet mandate or quiet voice. He explains this to Al-Monitor regarding the new ultra-Orthodox phenomenon that began some two years ago. I saw it in Jerusalem, the city that is a microcosm of Israel and of ultra-Orthodox society. Young ultra-Orthodox fellows who continue to dress according to the code and belong to the various courts are starting to step outside the boundaries. They are technologically connected via regular smartphones and not 'kosher phones' (without or limited internet connection). They very much want to integrate into the work market and acquire a modern education. There are statistics showing that in the recent decade, there has been a rise of dozens of percentages of ultra-Orthodox youths who acquired an academic education."

Achdut continued, "These fellows are exposed to Israeli society and to new technologies; they see that the genie in the bottle isnt so terrible. So they try to integrate the two worlds, much like the ultra-Orthodox do in the United States.

According to Achdut, the factor that speeded up the process was the COVID-19 crisis in the ultra-Orthodox society: This crisis harmed those youths who are trying to find a place in modern society. They started to understand that their leadership does not represent them and even harms them. I hear these things all the time: blaming the ultra-Orthodox leadership whose behavior harms those who want to integrate. Some of them even understand why the ultra-Orthodox became a hated minority, says Achdut.

This negative sentiment, claims Achdut, is turning into a new political energy. These new ultra-Orthodox want to punish their representatives in the Knesset, but on the other hand, they wont vote for secular parties. So Smotrich and the religious Zionists suit them. They can continue to be ultra-Orthodox but vote for the party that they identify with: a right-wing, religious one. I believe that were talking about tens of thousands of votes. Lets say, one mandate or even more.

Smotrich is well aware of his popularity among the young ultra-Orthodox; he himself is only 40 years old. He is the son of a well-known rabbi in the right-wing religious Zionist public and was sent to study in prestigious yeshivas but managed to acquire a broad education as well. He has a law degree. Smotrich served as transportation minister in Netanyahus government and was praised for his professionalism even by secular Jews. He is viewed as an experienced politician, connected to the new generation, who rules the social networks. We can say he is everything Yahadut HaTorah heads are not. Next to Smotrich, they look old-fashioned; they prefer that the ultra-Orthodox youths do not acquire an education or join the labor force in order to preserve their own power.

As part of his efforts to increase his power, Smotrich likes to visit the ultra-Orthodox cities; it is reported that he is welcomed in Bnei Brak, for example, almost like a rock star. He arouses interest, and reportedly, no one remains apathetic to him. He conducts a positive campaign; for example, he protects the ultra-Orthodox vis-a-vis Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Libermans attacks. From day to day, he gains popularity among the "technological generation" aged 18-25, which has sprouted in the ultra-Orthodox society. They dont speak about this trend publicly, and this phenomenon may well be revealed only after the votes have been counted.

Is this really serious? It seems like it; otherwise, it would be hard to explain the hysteria within the heads of Yahadut HaTorah. Videos slandering Smotrich have popped up in recent days on social media, and the commentators all believe the Yahadut HaTorah people are behind them. And its no coincidence that the negative campaign against Smotrich is on social media: The young, modern ultra-Orthodox are connected to them.

How will all of this influence the election results? As aforesaid, the polls point to Smotrich as being on an upward trend. When he started out on his own path, he did not reach the electoral threshold; today, he seems to be firmly planted on the good side of the equation. There are even polls that predict five mandates for him.

The fact that Smotrich grows at the expense of Yahadut HaTorah, and perhaps even steals a few votes from Naftali Bennett, does not change the big picture. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nothing to worry about. In fact, the opposite is true: Everything remains in his courtyard. Radical-right Smotrich has no alternative and will recommend Netanyahu for prime minister. In addition, so long as Smotrich works carefully, Netanyahu will (in effect) not lose even one right-wing vote: He will find his electorate, and that is very significant in snap elections.

What is interesting and dramatic in this story are the changes taking place in ultra-Orthodox society and its leadership crisis. In the future, these changes may get even stronger and change political voting patterns for dozens of years.

Highly respected demographer and professor Sergio Della Pergola estimates that by 2065, Israels ultra-Orthodox camp will garner about 25 mandates (today it is estimated at about 16-18 votes). But as opposed to what people tend to assume, it is likely that not all of them will vote for traditional parties due to the "exit" processes of going outside.

We see it [happening]: There are signs of independence, and over time the youths will search out different neighborhoods in which to live. It is possible that when that happens, those same people will want to weigh their political interests differently, he said.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
Alec Baldwin has been spotted out with his children and their nanny in the Hamptons following his lengthy 'cancel culture' Instagram rant in which defended Woody Allen and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The Hollywood actor, 62, was pictured out with at least three of his children on Monday.

The father-of-seven carried one of his sons on his shoulders for the outing, while two others walked alongside him.

Baldwin, who appeared to be accompanied by his children's nanny, also had a stroller with him.

The actor and his wife Hilaria have two babies: Six-month-old Eduardo and newborn Lucia who they had through a surrogate.

Alec Baldwin, 62, was pictured out with at least three of his children in the Hamptons on Monday just one day after his lengthy 'cancel culture' Instagram rant

The father-of-seven carried one of his sons on his shoulders for the outing, while two others walked alongside him. Baldwin, who appeared to be accompanied by his children's nanny, also had a stroller with him

The family outing came just one day after Baldwin filmed a 14-minute video rant on Instagram, hitting out at cancel culture and defending due process amid sexual misconduct allegations leveled at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Woody Allen.

He shared the video from his home in the Hamptons - less than a week after he posted another lengthy rant slamming 'a**holes' on Twitter.

The family outing came just one day after Baldwin filmed a 14-minute video rant on Instagram, hitting out at cancel culture and defending due process amid sexual misconduct allegations leveled at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Woody Allen

In his new video, Baldwin again lambasted social media users - this time targeting those who are eager to 'cancel' famous men on the basis of unproven allegations.

Although he did not mention any names specifically, Baldwin appeared to be referring to both Cuomo and Allen.

Cuomo has been accused of sexual harassment by five women in recent weeks.

Allen had been accused of molesting his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, when she was a child. He was investigated at the time but was never charged.

That allegation has recently resurfaced due to a new HBO documentary series that looks at the claims.

'I do have a few people going at me for defending people who have been accused of crimes... Well, I'm not defending someone who is guilty of something. I'm choosing to defend someone who has not been proven guilty of something,' Baldwin began his rant.

The star has previously spoken out in support of Allen - a director with whom he has worked with on three films.

In his new video, Baldwin again lambasted social media users - this time targeting those who are eager to 'cancel' famous men - like Allen and Cuomo - on the basis of unproven allegations. The star has previously spoken out in support of Allen (left) - a director with whom he has worked with on three films

Last month, Baldwin criticized the new HBO documentary Allen V. Farrow, writing on Twitter: 'Who needs courtrooms or rule of law when we have trial by media?'

In his new video, Baldwin bashed the documentary again, saying: 'I don't care how many f**king documentaries you make, you have to prove it in a court room.'

He also appeared to hit out at Allen's own son, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ronan Farrow, who appears in the new documentary and believes his father is guilty of the abuse.

'They [Allen] haven't been proven guilty. I don't care how many Pulitzer Prize winning authors say otherwise,' Baldwin stated.

Elsewhere in the video, the 30 Rock actor appeared to reference Cuomo, saying: 'The Attorney General is going to investigate accusations against a Governor. Then, and only then, can we talk about people resigning.'

Baldwin told his followers that immediately condemning such men without evidence was an example of cancel culture.

'The cancel culture thing has revved up during COVID. They [people] have a lot of times on their hands... They want to get on their computer and they want to take on people like me and they want to say every horrible thing that you can possibly imagine about defending someone whose been accused of a crime,' he said.

The actor and his wife Hilaria have six children together, Edu, Romeo, Leonardo, Rafael, Carmen and Lucia

A search of Baldwin's account Tuesday revealed it had been deleted after he lashed out at actress Gillian Anderson over her accent. He also quit the site in January over his wife's heritage scandal but rejoined soon after

Baldwin deleted his Twitter account after he commented on actress Gillian Anderson's accent. Baldwin's own wife, Hilaria, has been accused of putting on a Spanish accent and faking her ethnicity

'The COVID has exacerbated everything bad in our society. People are angry and bitter. They're p**ed off'.

Baldwin said he would no longer defend those who had been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

'If it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this person was guilty, I would certainly be open to changing my tune and even apologizing to victims,' the star declared. ,

'I'm all in favor of tough laws on people who sexual harass or abuse, but it has to be proven.'

Last week, he shared a 10 minute Instagram rant in which he claimed that Twitter 'is where all the a**holes in the US and beyond go to get their advanced degrees in a**holiness.'

Baldwin deleted his Twitter account after he commented on actress Gillian Anderson's accent.

Baldwin's own wife, Hilaria, has been accused of putting on a Spanish accent and faking her ethnicity.

He also briefly quit Twitter in January, weeks after Hilaria's heritage controversy unfolded, writing at the time.

The Crown star addressed Baldwin shading her 'switching' British-American accent, telling ET on Monday that she was 'sad that it's caused him so much distress'.
ANN ARBOR, MI  COVID-19 cases related to University of Michigan students are continuing to decrease, officials report.

The university reported 45 student cases for the week of Feb. 28 and 151 positive tests in the last 14 days, according to its COVID-19 dashboard. Cases have significantly decreased since the week of Feb. 7, when the university had 365 cases in one week after a two-week stay-in-place recommendation had expired for all UM students.

Test positivity rates for both symptomatic testing through University Health Services and asymptomatic testing through UMs Community Sampling and Tracking Program continue to trend downward, according to the dashboard.

UM uses information from the campus response metrics to consider mitigation measures for COVID-19 based on disease spread, public health capacity and health care capacity. The only campus response metric currently being met is more than 70 new cases per million in Washtenaw County, the dashboard states.

University of Michigan publishes guidelines for responses, strategies in case of COVID-19 outbreak

The university community is now directed to follow the latest rules from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which allows for indoor gatherings of up to 15 people from three households, or outdoor gatherings up to 50 people.

UM has administered just more than 21,000 tests each week since Jan. 24, according to dashboard data. The recent decrease in positive cases has lowered weekly positivity rates to below 1%.

Since Jan. 1, UM has had 1,832 positive cases out of 158,085 COVID-19 tests administered.

READ MORE:

University of Michigan ramps up efforts in Detroit during COVID-19 pandemic

University of Michigan students, parents rally for in-person graduation ceremony

375 students lose building access for not following University of Michigan COVID-19 testing requirements
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk continues to warn about the risks of mounting COVID-19 cases in hotel quarantine as she prepares to get her first vaccine jab before the end of the month.

More than 10,000 Queenslanders have received their first dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines, 15 days after the first hub opened on the Gold Coast.

There are 120,000 people in the first group of the inoculation drive including frontline healthcare and quarantine workers and vulnerable patients.

Ms Palaszczuk says the state will be able to start vaccinating a million people in the second cohort before the end of March.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (pictured on Monday) will get her first Covid jab by the end of March

That group includes people over 70, Indigenous over-55s, emergency services workers and defence personnel.

It also includes the premier, Health Minister Yvette D'Ath and Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young.

'I once again ask for people's patience as we prioritise delivery of these vaccines to match the supply,' Ms Palaszczuk told parliament on Tuesday.

'By the time it is offered to the bulk of the general public we expect it to be administered like any other vaccination: at pharmacies or your GP.

'They're free. When it is my turn, I will be rolling up my sleeve, I encourage everyone to do the same.'

Ms Palaszczuk says hubs in Brisbane, Logan, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Cairns and Bundaberg are so far exceeding targets.

Quarantine workers (pictured, getting the Covid jab in Brisbane on March 1) have been first in line in Queensland

Poll Should politicians be able to get Covid vaccines before the general public? Yes No Should politicians be able to get Covid vaccines before the general public? Yes 3 votes

No 2 votes Now share your opinion





New AstraZeneca hubs will also open Toowoomba and Coorparoo, in Brisbane, in coming days but until every Queenslander is vaccinated highly infectious strains from overseas pose a risk, the premier says.

Five new cases were reported in hotel quarantine on Tuesday, taking the total number of active cases to 33.

'That, of course, increases the number of people that we have in hospitals,' Ms Palaszczuk said.

'That also increases the risk, not just onto our hotel quarantine workers but also on the community.'

The premier repeated calls for the federal government to respond to her suggestion of a regional quarantine camp.

The Wagner Group wants to build a facility at Wellcamp Airport near Toowoomba, which would host up to 1000 travellers and 300 staff.

Ms Palaszczuk supports the project but said it cannot progress to the next stage without an indication whether the federal government will allow international flights to land in Toowoomba.

'Are international flights going to be able to land at Wellcamp? That is the threshold issue, that is the threshold issue for the federal government and we still don't have an answer from Canberra,' she said.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Tired of actionless data about their lived pandemic experiences, a group of biology researchers  all moms themselves  strategized ways to help academic mothers recover and rebuild careers.

Over the summer and fall, paper after paper revealed that mothers are one of the demographics hardest hit by the pandemic. From layoffs and leaving careers to do caretaking, to submission rate decreases and additional service projects, the data were clear, but the follow-up less so. Many of the problems are not new and will remain after the pandemic. But a new paper published this week in PLOS Biology outlines methods to help solve them.

In the spirit of the well-worn adage never let a good crisis go to waste, we propose using these unprecedented times as a springboard for necessary, substantive and lasting change, write the 13 co-authors, led by researchers from Boston University and hailing from seven institutions, including Michigan Technological University, University of Connecticut and University of Houston  Clear Lake. The teams goal: solutions for retaining mothers in science during and after COVID-19, especially parents who are Black, Indigenous or people of color.

The news was reporting these studies as if they were a surprise, said Robinson Fulweiler from Boston University, one of the lead authors alongside Sarah Davies, also of Boston University. Fulweiler adds, Theres already been a lot of data gathered about this issue. But there have been no solutions. Our level of frustration peaked. We decided we need to make a plan to fix things.

The paper offers specific solutions to different groups that can enact change:

Mentors: Know university parental leave policies, support and model a healthy work-life teeter-totter and keep mentees with child care duties engaged and involved in lab, department and multi-institution activities.

Know university parental leave policies, support and model a healthy work-life teeter-totter and keep mentees with child care duties engaged and involved in lab, department and multi-institution activities. University administrators: Look up 500 Women Scientists, rethink tenure procedures and timelines, listen, provide course releases and avoid making gender- or race-neutral policies because the effects of the pandemic are not neutral across race or gender.

Look up 500 Women Scientists, rethink tenure procedures and timelines, listen, provide course releases and avoid making gender- or race-neutral policies because the effects of the pandemic are not neutral across race or gender. Scientific societies: Consider how to keep parts of virtual conferences with lower costs, expand governing board diversity, expand networking opportunities and continue supporting early-career members, especially researchers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

Consider how to keep parts of virtual conferences with lower costs, expand governing board diversity, expand networking opportunities and continue supporting early-career members, especially researchers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Publishers: Expand editorial boards and, during the pandemic, incentivize submissions through fee waivers for mothers with child care duties and keep extending deadlines for review and revisions.

Expand editorial boards and, during the pandemic, incentivize submissions through fee waivers for mothers with child care duties and keep extending deadlines for review and revisions. Funding agencies: Streamline paperwork, ask for COVID disruption statements and look into supplemental and short-term bridge awards.

About the Researcher Amy Marcarelli ammarcar@mtu.edu

906-487-2867 Research Interests Limnology

Ecosystem Ecology of Streams and Rivers

Biogeochemistry Researcher Profile

Mothers in the Pandemic

Amy Marcarelli, associate professor of biological sciences at Michigan Tech, helped lead the papers section addressing professional societies. When the pandemic hit  and Marcarelli had less than five days to shift all her classes and research to remote formats  she was wrapping up a two-year strategic planning process with the Society for Freshwater Science that included a deep dive into effective and fair practices for diversity, equity and inclusion. She sees the work through her lens as an ecosystem ecologist.

Some of my most recent work has been around cascading and indirect effects and how effects viewed on short time scales may have very different outcomes at long time scales, Marcarelli said. What Ive learned from that research is that you cant abstract a single characteristic of an organism and expect that to explain its ecological role. And [in academia] we try so often to treat ourselves as researchers  and not as mothers and partners and daughters and leaders  and thats to the detriment of all of us. Its to the detriment of us as individuals but its also to the detriment of our academic system because if we dont treat people as whole people then we fail them.

Collaborators "While the data are clear that mothers are being disproportionally impacted by COVID-19, many groups could benefit from these strategies. Rather than rebuilding what we once know, let us be architects of a new world." Robinson Fulweiler and Sarah Davies, Boston University

Jennifer Biddle, University of Delaware

Amy J. Burgin, University of Kansas

Emily Cooperdock and Carley Kenkel, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Torrence Hanley, Northeastern University

Amy Marcarelli, Michigan Technological University

Catherine Matassa, University of Connecticut

Talea Mayo, Emory University

Lory Santiago-Vazquez, University of Houston  Clear Lake

Nikki Traylor-Knowles, University of Miami

Maren Ziegler, Justus Liebig University Giessen

Marcarelli emphasizes that she feels like she has been lucky during the pandemic; she secured tenure several years ago, her kid is older, Michigan K-12 schools reopened in September, and her mom, who was furloughed, helped with spring schooling and summer child care. While the extra service projects and retooling research, instruction and life were not easy, Marcarelli recognizes that not everyones situation has been like hers.

The most pressing change Marcarelli sees is to rethink tenure extensions: We have to figure out how to make motherhood and tenure compatible, not just extend tenure  its not a solution. She adds that the greatest challenge will be money. These are inequities, but they are not inequities that everybody sees. And during a time of what is going to be an extended budget crisis in a lot of higher ed, thats going to be the hardest part. But its the part that has to be solved because good intentions only get us so far.

Collaboration

Marcarelli says the conversation that sparked the PLOS Biology article started on Twitter, a lively back-and-forth on how to shift the dialogue to a solutions mindset.

At the same time, several of us were working on big service activities around how to improve conditions for all different axes of diversity in our departments and universities, in our societies, she said. We had invested a lot of thinking and real work that was going into small reports and small-scale documents that werent going to be read widely.

The teams service work, lived experiences and hope informed the PLOS Biology paper as much as their research and collaboration.

Part of the motivation for writing this article is that in some ways the pandemic provides a window into why this is important, why we need to do the hard work of dismantling these systems, Marcarelli said. Quite frankly, its an opportunity.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university, home to more than 7,000 students from 54 countries. Founded in 1885, the University offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, and social sciences. Our campus in Michigans Upper Peninsula overlooks the Keweenaw Waterway and is just a few miles from Lake Superior.
A version of this article first appeared in Emily Osters newsletter, ParentData.

Throughout the pandemic, Ive had a recurring complaint about the public health messaging. Put very broadly, I think it is too eager to give definite answers when the evidence is still uncertain, and too willing to issue sometimes patronizing platitudes.

This has come up again in the context of comparing across vaccines. The U.S. has now approved three vaccines for COVID-19. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are very similar and have been approved since December. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was only recently approved and is beginning to be rolled out.

Advertisement

The efficacy numbers in the trials of these vaccines differ: J&Js is lower. I have more to say on what these numbers mean below, but if you look at the top-line study results, this is what you see. At the same time, we are hearing All the vaccines are awesome! and The best vaccines for you is the one you are offered. This last line worries me especially since I think it runs the risk of suggesting that some people deserve to get a less-good vaccine.

Advertisement

Advertisement

So Id like to dig into this a bit more deeply so we can understand better what we do know, what we dont yet know, and how to think about the differences across these options.

Advertisement

Before getting into this, I want to emphasize: These vaccines will not eliminate COVID-19, at least not for decades. They will also not prevent all cases of symptomatic or asymptomatic illness. They will prevent a lot! But not all. What is most impressive and most important about all of the vaccine options is that they do a great job preventing very serious illness. If we can get to a point where COVID-19 is relatively rare and where people who do get it experience mild symptoms, that will be winning. This is where we are aiming. Not zero COVID-19.

Now, lets start with the question of what the difference is between the vaccines. Both the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines and the J&J work through the mechanism of delivering instructions to your cells to manufacture the COVID-19 spike protein. Your immune system produces antibodies to recognize this spike protein and kill it. If the COVID-19 virus is then introduced to your body, youre ready for it.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The difference lies in how instructions are delivered. The Pfizer/Moderna vaccines deliver instructions through mRNA, and J&J delivers them through DNA embedded in another type of virus (an inactivated adenovirus that cannot make you sick). An advantage of the DNA delivery mechanism is that DNA is more stable than RNA, which is why the J&J vaccine can be stored at more normal temperatures.

The difference in delivery mechanism opens up the possibility for differences in efficacy. These vaccines work better if they generate a stronger immune response, which will happen if the delivery mechanism is better able to get the virus into your cells. If youve already been exposed to the adenovirus used in the J&J vaccine it may work less well (because youre immune to the delivery vector). On the other hand, the mRNA delivery mode in the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines is new, and its possible it works better for some people than others.

Advertisement

When we talk about efficacy of these vaccines, the first thing we want to run down isbased on what we see in trialshow good a job do the vaccines do at preventing various stages of illness.

Advertisement

Ive put a simple table below, comparing roughly where these efficacy numbers are based on trial data and other things we know. (I pulled these from widely published trial numbers and, in the case of asymptomatic estimates, from early data such as that found here.) These are estimates, especially in the case of asymptomatic infections.

Advertisement

The vaccines are all extremely effective at preventing death. The J&J is slightly less effective in the trial data against serious illness and against symptomatic and asymptomatic illness.

It is important to be clear on what these numbers mean. A 95 percent efficacy does not mean that 5 percent of people in the trial with the vaccine got symptomatic COVID-19! What it means is there was a 95 percent reduction in the risk from the baseline. If your baseline risk of getting serious COVID-19 without the vaccine is, say, 1 in 100, then your risk with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is 1 in 2,000. With the J&J it would be 1 in 666.

Advertisement

These numbers are all extremely good. Flu vaccines, by contrast, often have efficacy numbers against symptomatic illness that are under 50 percent. Its still very useful to have them, but they pale in comparison to any of these options.

Advertisement

Based on the simple table above, it does look like the J&J performs slightly less well. However, we cannot directly conclude this because these were not tested in head-to-head trials. The conditions under which they were evaluated differed in a number of ways, the most important of which is that the J&J was tested in a period with more variant activity. All of the vaccines are likely to be at least slightly less effective against variants, so this could drive some of the differences. (Put another way: The Pfizer/Moderna numbers could be a bit lower in the variant space, or the J&J numbers could be higher without the variants.)

In addition, although these trials are enormous, there is still statistical noiseerrorin their estimates. The data in all trials are consistent with a range of values, so the numbers above do not tell the whole story. To really figure out which is better (if one is), wed need to test them head-to-head in a trial. We might eventually get that, but there isnt much point at the moment given that all are performing well.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Bottom line: Based on my read of the data and many conversations with people who know a lot of stuff I dont, I think the J&J is likely to be slightly less effective against symptomatic illness than the others, although I think the differences are smaller than the numbers above suggest.

So, what does that mean for both public health and personal choices?

From a public health standpoint, the goal is and should be to vaccinate as many people as possible with any vaccine that we have as fast as possible. Every day we do 2 million or 3 million shots of anything is a good day. If everyone magically got the J&J vaccine today, we would be in a totally different world. Given that demand still outstrips supply, the public health value of having more vaccines available cannot be overstated.

Advertisement

The J&J is also incredibly useful for public health because of its one-shot, easy-storage nature. Many states are talking about using it to vaccinate people who come to the ER or taking mobile vaccine clinics to homeless encampments or other difficult to reach populations. These groups are harder to serve with vaccines that require two doses.

Advertisement

From a public health standpoint, this approach is smart, but I will admit to some concern that this will exacerbate the this is the less good vaccine view. However, the idea of using the J&J vaccine in these populations has nothing to do with vaccine quality and everything to do with the ease of use. If I were in charge (which I am decidedly not), I would consider also using the J&J on other transient populations with less of a stigma. My choice might be on-campus college students: mass one-shot vaccination before they leave for the summer.

Advertisement

A lot of people are thinking about this more as a personal choice, though. With the frame of something like: Should I get the J&J if offered, or should I wait for one of the others?

It might be easier to tell you how Im thinking about it.

My No. 1 point is that I would get any vaccine offered. Im teaching in person and weve had outbreaks, and even though I understand my personal risks are small, Id feel better if I were vaccinated. If someone told me I could get the J&J today, I would stop writing and cooking stuffed shells right now and go get it. Honestly, Id probably get the Russian Sputnik V vaccine if it was offered. Novavax? Sure. Im not throwing away my shot, is my point.

Advertisement

Advertisement

And importantly, I would consider myself vaccinated regardless of which vaccine I got. Which doesnt mean hot basement singing parties or taking off my mask in the grocery store, but does mean Id feel more comfortable seeing family and friends in my house, without masks. I wouldnt make these changes differently if I had the J&J rather than the Pfizer/Moderna.

Second point: If a menu of options was in front of me and I got to choose, Id pick Pfizer or Moderna, since I think their efficacy is slightly higher.

Underlying my feelings here is the realization that this is not my last COVID-19 vaccine; its not any of ours. We are going to be having boosters for a while, as the virus evolves and vaccines evolve to address variants. If you get the J&J now, youll probably end up with another shot in a year, maybe from them, maybe from Moderna or Pfizer, maybe from some other source. This may be an annoying revelation, but I think it also dials down a lot of the importance here. You arent committing to some vaccine for life.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
E

ckart Wurzner, a mayor on a mission to make his city emission-free, is not terribly impressed by promises from General Motors, Ford and other major car manufacturers to swear off fossil fuels.

Not that Wurzner, the mayor of Heidelberg, is against electric cars. The postcard-perfect city in southern Germany gives residents who buy a battery-powered vehicle a bonus of up to 1,000. They get another 1,000 if they install a charging station.

But electric cars are low on the list of tools that Wurzner is using to try to reduce Heidelbergs impact on the climate, an effort that has given the city, home to Germanys oldest university and an 800-year-old castle ruin, a reputation as a pioneer in environmentally conscious urban planning.

Wurzners goal is to reduce dependence on cars, no matter where they get their juice. Heidelberg is buying a fleet of hydrogen-powered buses, building a network of bicycle superhighways to the suburbs, and designing neighbourhoods to discourage all vehicles and encourage walking. Residents who give up their cars get to use public transport free for a year.

If you need a car, use car-sharing, Wurzner says in an interview at Heidelbergs Baroque-style city hall, which was nearly deserted because of the pandemic. If you cant use car-sharing because youre living too far outside and there is no mass transportation, then use the car, but just to the train station and not to downtown.

Heidelberg is at the forefront of a movement that is probably strongest in Europe but has a presence in plenty of communities around the world, including US cities like Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon. The pandemic has given many citizens a taste of what densely packed urban areas would be like without so much traffic, and they like it.

Recent vows of fossil-fuel abstinence by car makers, including GM, Ford Motor and Jaguar Land Rover, are a tacit admission that their product will no longer be welcome in cities at all unless they radically clean up their act. Even then, the tide of history may be against them as urban planners try to free up space now occupied by vehicles.

Dozens of cities in Europe, including Rome, London and Paris, plan to limit city-centre traffic to emission-free vehicles during the next decade. Some, like Stockholm and Stuttgart, the German home of Mercedes-Benz, already ban older diesel vehicles.

Electric cars are also expensive. At current prices, they are out of the reach of lower-income residents. Political leaders need to offer affordable alternatives

National governments are adding to the pressure. Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Slovenia say they will ban sales of internal-combustion cars after 2030. Britain and Denmark say they will do so in 2035, allowing only hybrids after 2030, and Spain and France in 2040.

Such declarations of intent certainly push vehicle manufacturers, says Sandra Wappelhorst, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation in Berlin, who tracks plans by companies and governments to phase out internal combustion.

Heidelberg, a city of 160,000 people on the Neckar river, which was threatening to overflow its banks recently after unusually heavy rain, provides a glimpse of how an automobile-light city of the future might look.

It is one of only six cities in Europe considered innovators by C40 Cities, an organisation that promotes climate-friendly urban policies and whose chair is Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. (The others are Oslo, Norway; Copenhagen, Denmark; Venice, Italy; and Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.)

Among the citys measures to make cars irrelevant are building bridges that allow cyclists to bypass congested areas or cross the Neckar without having to compete for road space with motor vehicles.

Buildings are also important. The city has cut the energy consumption of schools and other city buildings by 50 per cent in the last decade  no small feat when many of the structures are hundreds of years old.

Stuart Rowley, president of Ford Europe, speaks during a press conference at car maker Ford's plant in Cologne (Pool/AFP via Getty)

Battery-powered vehicles do not pollute the air, but they take up just as much space as petrol models. Wurzner complains that Heidelberg still suffers with rush-hour traffic jams, even though only about 20 per cent of residents get around by car. The rest walk, cycle or take the electric buses that ply the narrow, cobbled streets of the citys old quarter.

Commuters are the main problem we havent solved yet, Wurzner says. Traffic was heavy on a recent weekday, pandemic notwithstanding.

Electric cars are also expensive. At current prices, they are out of the reach of lower-income residents. Political leaders need to offer affordable alternatives like public transport or bicycle routes, says Wappelhorst.

Its not only about cars in the end, she says. You need the whole package.

Heidelbergs mile-long pedestrian zone, usually thronged with tourists but nearly empty recently because of the pandemic, is said to be Germanys longest. But the best showcase for the citys emission-free ambitions is built on top of a former rail-freight yard on the edge of town.

In 2009 work began on the Bahnstadt, or Rail Town. The vacant piece of land, which had to be cleared of three unexploded bombs from the Second World War, offered planners a blank slate with which to create a climate-neutral neighbourhood.

The modern apartment buildings, architecturally the opposite of Heidelbergs Baroque city centre, are so well insulated that they require almost no energy to heat. What warmth they do require comes from a plant just outside the neighbourhood that burns waste wood.

Cars are not banned from the Bahnstadt, but there is almost no traffic. Most streets are dead ends. Apartment buildings are arranged around generous courtyards with playgrounds and connected by walkways. The one street that cuts through the triangular neighbourhood has a speed limit of 30 kmph (less than 20 mph). Bicycles have the right of way.

The Bahnstadt district is home to over 5,000 residents and has almost no traffic (Getty)

The Bahnstadt, with 5,600 residents and still growing, has its own preschool and primary school, a community centre, two supermarkets, several bakeries and cafes, two bicycle shops and six car-sharing stations, each with two electric vehicles. Heidelbergs main train station and a tram stop are a short walk away, and a cycle path follows the route of an old railway line to the city centre.

There are also jobs. The Bahnstadt has several large office buildings whose tenants include the German subsidiary of Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of consumer products including Clearasil and Woolite.

The idea is to get back to the classic early city, where living and working are closely intertwined, says Ralf Bermich, head of Heidelbergs Office for Environmental Protection.

Dieter Bartmann, who in 2012 was one of the first people to move into the Bahnstadt, owns a car but estimates he drove it about 20 km, or 12 miles, in January, mostly to the supermarket to stock up on staples that were too bulky to carry on his bicycle.

Wurzner, who drives an experimental hydrogen-powered Mercedes, acknowledges that not every city can afford to do all the things that have made Heidelberg a showcase

Bartmann, a former manager at SAP, a software company whose headquarters are in nearby Walldorf, is sitting on a bench along a promenade that borders one side of the Bahnstadt. The area is blocked to motorised traffic and looks out on farmland. Runners, cyclists, and people on inline skates glide by.

It looks idyllic on a sunny winter day, but Bartmann, former chair of the Bahnstadt residents association, says there are still things that could be improved.

He would like to do more to keep cars out  for example, by blocking off the one through street. Some buildings have underground garages, but these were not built with electric cars in mind and do not accommodate charging points easily. The paved promenade is not wide enough, Bartmann says, leading to conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians.

But, he adds, this is high-level complaining. You have to be realistic.

The old bridge over the Neckar in Heidelberg, looking from the north bank towards the old town gate (Getty)

Some complain that Heidelberg is not as green or as bicycle-friendly as its reputation would have it. Paul Baur, an American who has lived in the city since 2007 and commutes by bicycle to a job out of town, says his route forces him to ride between parked cars and a tram line.

You can decide if you want to die by tram or car door, Baur says in an email.

Cars rule here, he continues. Yes, the city is making progress, but I think it is too little and almost too late.

Wurzner, the mayor, says his goal is to make Heidelberg climate-neutral by 2030, an ambitious target. The city plans to generate its own wind and solar power and is installing a hydrogen filling station for a fleet of 42 buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The city wanted to order hundreds of the buses, but Wurzner complains that the bus-makers have been slow to respond to demand for emission-free transportation.

We cant get enough, he says. (Daimler, which makes buses in Neu-Ulm, about two-and-a-half hours from Heidelberg, does not yet sell a city bus powered solely by hydrogen.)

Wurzner, who drives an experimental hydrogen-powered Mercedes, acknowledges that not every city can afford to do all the things that have made Heidelberg a showcase for environmentally friendly planning. The University of Heidelberg, one of Germanys most prestigious universities, has spawned numerous research institutes that provide a solid tax base. The residents tend to be well educated and affluent.

Its true the city is in a quite good financial situation, Wurzner says.

But he adds that he often hears from mayors in Europe, the United States and Asia who want to emulate Heidelbergs strategy.

We all know we have to go in this direction, he says. Its just a question of how fast.

 The New York Times
NEWARK, N.J.  An Amtrak employee was arrested last night for stealing chainsaws and chainsaw parts valued at over $50,000 from Amtrak and reselling them in several states, including Michigan.

Jose Rodriguez, 48, of Brick, New Jersey, has been charged with one count of theft from an agency receiving federal funds and one count of theft of government property, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced Tuesday.

Rodriguez, an Amtrak employee since October 2007, most recently served as a senior engineer and repairman based out of an Amtrak facility in North Brunswick, New Jersey.

Between August 2016 and July 2020, Rodriguez allegedly obtained 77 chainsaws, 103 bars, and 163 chains from Amtrak which he then sold to people in in Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, California and South Carolina by using an online auction service.

Rodriguez was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon, according to a criminal complaint.

Agents recovered several chainsaws that Rodriguez sold, which had serial numbers matching Amtraks chainsaws. One of those chainsaws had previously been reported stolen by Amtrak.

A buyer in Pennsylvania also provided law enforcement agents with 11 boxes with Rodriguezs return address that had been used to ship chainsaws in exchange for more than $7,000.

The offenses charged in the complaint each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and maximum fine of $250,000.

Honig credited detectives from Amtrak Police New York Division and Mid-Atlantic Division, under the direction of Chief Sam Dotson, and special agents from Amtrak Office of Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Waters, Eastern Field Office, with the investigation leading to the charges.
Donna and Thomas Walls life story is one many Bostonians can appreciate.

The couple met at Fenway Park in 1967. Four years later, they got engaged at the ballpark. Now, half a century later, the Walls reached another milestone at the home of the Boston Red Sox: receiving their coronavirus vaccines there.

WCVB first reported the couple received their second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at the state-run super immunization site at Fenway on Monday.

Another great day for my parents, Nicole Maynard, the Walls daughter, wrote in a tweet. Thank you to all [the] health care personnel involved.

Fifty-four years ago, the Walls met for the first time at Fenway in Section 9. In 1971, the couple got engaged at the ballpark, and in 2007, they celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary there, according to WCVB.

And vaccination today. Full circle, Donna Wall told the news outlet Monday. To start this year with being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and, hopefully, maybe take the grandsons and the granddaughters to a ballgame.

The Walls are planning to visit their grandchildren on March 22, two weeks after getting their second shots of the vaccine Monday, according to the news outlet.

People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines or the first and only dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Per new public health guidelines from the CDC, Americans who are fully vaccinated can gather indoors with other vaccinated people without masks or social distancing, paving the way for grandparent hugs.

Donna and Thomas Wall are happy with the recently updated federal guidelines, WCVB reported. The couple noted they havent been able to hug their grandchildren since last summer.

For my granddaughter especially, shes just excited, Donna Wall said. She told my son that shes really excited about this.

The vaccination site at Fenway is one of eight large-scale immunization locations run by the state mainly in Eastern Massachusetts. Other sites include those at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and the Natick Mall.

According to contracts obtained by the Springfield Republican and MassLive through a public records request, Massachusetts is paying more than $1.1 million per week to the company operating the super vaccination locations at Fenway and Gillette.

Officials announced last week that with opening day for the Red Sox soon approaching, the large-scale immunization site at Fenway will be moving to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

Related Content:
Paris Saint-Germain supporters are creating a hostile atmosphere as they prepare to welcome Barcelona to the French capital.

Ronald Koeman's side will travel to Paris this midweek for the second leg of their Champions League last 16 tie, which they already trail 4-1 to PSG.

Over the weekend, PSG ultras lit flares and unveiled banners insulting Barcelona and even Gerard Pique's wife, Shakira.

"Shakira to La Jonquera," one banner read, referring to the famous brothels near Girona that are often frequented by the French across the border.

It's not the first time Shakira has been the subject of taunting from opposition fans. Espanyol supporters are known to chant vile songs about her at matches.

"Barcelona aren't welcome," another banner read in Paris, with relationship between the two clubs not exactly healthy.
Priti Patel is under growing pressure to order an inquiry into the Nick scandal after a former home secretary branded a watchdog probe as botched.

Michael Howard was one of six former home secretaries who yesterday signed a joint letter demanding a fresh investigation into Scotland Yards shambolic VIP inquiry and the subsequent probe that cleared five detectives.

In the unprecedented intervention, they said confidence in the police has been seriously damaged by the handling of false claims of an Establishment paedophile ring.

They urged Home Secretary Miss Patel to establish a new independent probe into Operation Midland.

Priti Patel (pictured) is under growing pressure to order an inquiry into the Nick scandal after a former home secretary branded a watchdog probe as botched

The 2.5million police operation was carried out into allegations made by the serial liar Carl Beech, aka Nick.

The cross-party group of home secretaries included Labours Jack Straw and Lord Blunkett.

Explaining their letter to The Times, Lord Howard said police had misled a court to gain search warrants and that the inquiry into Midland by the Independent Office for Police Conduct was botched and inadequate.

Sir Richard Henriques, the retired High Court judge who wrote a scathing report on Midland which identified 43 major blunders, has said the police searches broke the law.

In an open letter to Miss Patel, printed in the Daily Mail last month, he repeated his grave concerns about the case and asked her to answer a series of key questions about it.

Lord Howard told Nick Ferrari on LBC yesterday: We are supporting a call that was made by Sir Richard Henriques who did an inquiry into the conduct of Operation Midland at the request of the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and the former Chief Magistrate of England and Wales. They both say that confidence in the criminal justice system has been damaged. Its a very serious matter.

Michael Howard (pictured) was one of six former home secretaries who yesterday signed a joint letter demanding a fresh investigation into Scotland Yards shambolic VIP inquiry and the subsequent probe that cleared five detectives

When a search warrant is issued and the Chief Magistrate issued a search warrant into the homes of Lord Bramall, Lord Brittan and Harvey Proctor, the police have to give evidence on oath in support of such an application.

Because obviously a search warrant to go into someones home is a very serious matter. Its now clear that the information that was given on oath in support of that application for the search warrant was false and misleading. And the Chief Magistrate says he was misled.

Asked what Miss Patel should do, Lord Howard said: She should order a fresh investigation into these matters.

Sir Richard Henriques has suggested that she should ask another police force, he suggested the Northumbria Police force, to investigate the way in which the relevant officers of the Metropolitan Police conducted the investigation.
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

DALLAS  Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, claiming the Republican used his office to retaliate against it for banning the account of former President Donald Trump following the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Days after the deadly January insurrection, Paxton announced an investigation into Twitter and four other major technology companies for what he called the seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the President. The attorney generals office demanded that the companies produce a variety of records related to their content moderation policies and troves of internal communications.

Twitter responded Monday with a federal lawsuit alleging Paxton is seeking to punish it for taking Trumps account offline  a decision the social media company says is protected free speech. It asks a judge to declare the decision to be under the ambit of the First Amendment and to, in essence, halt Paxtons investigation.

Paxton made clear that he will use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees, lawyers for the company wrote in the suit filed in a Northern California court.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

Spokespersons for Paxtons office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening.

Twitters counterpunch comes as states, in addition to federal lawmakers and governments outside the U.S., are cracking down on tech companies they see as having amassed too much power in the past decade. This includes antitrust and anti-monopoly regulation, internet privacy laws as well as attempts to regulate how platforms like Twitter, Facebook and others moderate their sites.

In December, Paxton led 10 Republican attorneys general in suing Google for allegedly running an illegal digital-advertising monopoly in cahoots with Facebook.

GOP politicians in roughly two dozen states have also introduced bills that would allow for civil lawsuits against platforms for what they call the censorship of posts. Almost always, this means what they view as the censorship of conservative or Christian religious viewpoints.

While there is no evidence that tech companies are biased against conservatives, the narrative has been popular with Republicans since before President Trump was elected and only grew louder throughout his term. Trump getting banned for life from Twitter and suspended temporarily from Facebook after inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riots only reinforced it.

In launching his investigation, Paxton cited the First Amendment when he says tech companies banishment of Trump chills free speech and wholly silences those who disagree with them.

However, Twitter  as well as the other companies Paxton targeted, including Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon  is a private firm, so the First Amendment does not apply to its decisions on what material to allow on its services. Unlike the government, Twitter is allowed to silence people. The company had long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviors. But after five people were killed at the Capitol riot, the company said Trumps tweets amounted to glorification of violence while plans were circulating online for future armed protests around the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

Twitters suit comes as Paxton is facing other legal challenges, including an FBI investigation into claims that he used his office to benefit a wealthy donor.

He is also awaiting trial on unrelated securities fraud charges dating back to 2015. Paxton pleaded not guilty and the case has been stalled for years over legal challenges.

___

Ortutay reported from Oakland, California.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! This is your last free article before you will be asked to subscribe.

Already have a paid subscription? Sign in
You are here: China

The fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, convened its second plenary meeting Monday.

Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders -- Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan -- attended the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Nearly 2,900 national lawmakers heard and reviewed the work reports of the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).

Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, delivered the work report of the committee to the meeting.

In the past year, the NPC Standing Committee has effectively performed the duties and functions as the state organ of power, offering legal guarantee for advancing the implementation of major work plans, tackling major risks and challenges and safeguarding national security, Li said in the report.

Since last year's NPC annual session, the NPC Standing Committee has adopted nine laws, including the Law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and revised 13 laws, including the National Flag Law and the National Emblem Law, said the top legislator.

The NPC Standing Committee has strengthened the implementation of the Constitution, stepped up legislation in key areas and conducted oversight of legal compliance and work performance in accordance with the law, according to Li.

The main tasks for the coming year include working to ensure greater observance of the Constitution and enhance constitutionality reviews and strengthening legislative work in key areas, emerging areas and areas relating to external affairs, he said.

Chief Justice Zhou Qiang delivered the SPC work report. The SPC accepted 39,347 cases in total and concluded 35,773 cases in 2020.

Summarizing the top court's work in 2020, Zhou said it safeguarded national security and social stability, actively contributed to high-quality development, protected people's legitimate rights and interests and deepened reform.

For 2021 and beyond, Zhou vowed to strengthen impartial administration of justice, deepen reform, and fully leverage the courts' trial function.

Procurator-General Zhang Jun delivered the SPP work report. Prosecutors across the country handled over 3 million cases over the past year, down 19.4 percent from last year, according to the report.

In 2021, prosecutors should work to provide strong legal guarantee for a good start in the drive to fully build a modern socialist country, Zhang said.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
The S&P/ASX200 dropped 21 points in the final settlement period to close at 6714.1 points, the lowest it got during Wednesdays session. This was a decline of 0.8 per cent or 57 points for the day. At the end of the day 98 companies were higher and 95 were lower.

The iron ore producers were smashed by a 6 per cent decline in the price of the commodity to $US158.40. Fortescue dropped 8.3 per cent to $20.33, BHP fell 2.8 per cent to $47.60, and Rio Tinto shed 5.5 per cent to $114.49. The materials sector dropped 2.5 per cent overall despite a bump in gold prices pushing gold miners higher.

However, it was not the worst performer. Energy shed 3 per cent as oil prices subsided from recent highs. The rising US dollar was partially to blame for weaker commodity prices.

Woodside Petroleum was down 2.7 per cent, Santos down 3.8 per cent, and Oil Search down 4.3 per cent.

Financials declined 1.3 per cent with the big four banks closing lower.

Information technology out-performed, up 3.2 per cent, after Wall Streets tech-heavy Nasdaq index gave it a healthy lead. This helped push Afterpay up 7.5 per cent to $115.26 and Appen up 3.2 per cent.

Industrials gained 0.9 per cent, and healthcare 0.6 per cent, thanks to a rise in CSL to $252.21 as it continues to recover from last weeks fall below $250 for the first time since October 2019.
Reporter

Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).
ONEILL  I have been a subscriber for at least 50 years to the Norfolk Daily News. In the past two years, and even lately, Im horrified of the smut articles of sex offenders. Really, do you think the readers want to know each act?
Three months ago, Small Press Distribution came under fire from current and former employees regarding wage violations and allegations of workplace discrimination. On Monday, the Berkeley, Calif.-based indie publishing distributor announced the pending departure of executive director Brent Cunningham, who has been the focus of the majority of the employee complaints.

Board president Alan Bernheimer confirmed that Cunninghams departure is due to the findings of an internal investigative commissioned by the organizations board of directors. The board agreed that [Cunninghams departure] is what is needed for SPD to move forward, Bernheimer told PW. It's certainly because of the issues that have been brought up and then reviewed and assessed in the report itself, he said.

Cunningham will step down to a short-term, limited role in operations, in which he does not work directly with staff and is no longer executive director. Finance director Andrew Pai will handle all matters involving staff until SPD appoints an interim executive director in the coming weeks. Cunningham will leave the company entirely by the time a new permanent executive director is brought on board, at the latest. Board members and staff will next take up a conflict resolution process, using the report as the foundation for repairing fraught relations between the two.

The announcement of Cunningham's departure came just days after the completion of the internal investigation. The findings of that investigation were provided to staff and management last Friday. The board declined to disclose the contents of the report citing privacy concerns, but many of the underlying issues have been clear since December, when a former employee published an anonymous article under the name Damaged Book Worker, outlining detailed allegations of wage theft.

Those allegations were resoundingly backed by current employees and gave rise to further complaints about Cunninghams leadership, and pervasive issues regarding discriminatory language in the workplace. A public letter calling for Cunningham's resignation gained hundreds of signatures from across the publishing community. In response, the board launched the investigation and committed to a mediation and conflict resolution process with staff.

J Worthen shared their experiences with the investigators because the board promised that the report would be released, and wrote that they were dismayed to see the board reverse that decision. Writing on Twitter, Worthen wrote that the report "states that the 'majority' of staff experienced 'problematic' behavior from the ED, that the evidence of this behavior is 'abundant'" & therefore shouldn't have been a surprise."

But Worthen said the issues go beyond just the executive director, prompting their painful decision to quit SPD. "The transphobic and inappropriate behavior of a staff member (not the ED) prompted me to quit," Worthen wrote in an e-mail to PW. "This behavior, plus the toxic work environment and the stress of reliving painful experiences during the OIG interview process with no hope the assessment would lead to positive change, was physically and emotionally draining for me. Im trying to recover from cancer treatment, and to do that, I cant keep subjecting my body to the toxicity at SPD." Worthen's last day was Friday. Citing similar workplace issues at least one other employee on the company's small staff quit during the investigation.

Damaged Book Worker, whose allegations against the company prompted the investigation, wrote that there was still substantial work to be done. DBW said that their anonymity was violated by the board during the process. "Those on the SPD board whove enabled or committed abuse must be immediately removed," DBW said. "They have proven that they will not protect the most marginalized and vulnerable people in this industry against abuse. If every board member is complicit, as it seems is likely, then the entire board must resign."

Thus far, no board member has resigned. In a letter shared with publishing clients on Monday the board wrote, This has been an extremely painful time for the SPD community and the board recognizes its share of responsibility for that. Weve heard and understand the deep frustration with how long this process has taken. We needed an independent assessment of the many allegations and complaints, corroboration where available, and the implicated parties response to those allegations.

With the report complete, Bernheimer said the board has given a list of three potential mediation organizations to the staff, and will defer to their selection in the hope of beginning a conflict resolution process as soon as this month. Staff will also be part of the hiring committee for the interim and permanent executive directors, and two employees will report monthly to two members of the board in order to create an ongoing dialogue.

In their letter, the board asked publishers to recommend potential candidates to succeed Cunningham. Publishing experience is helpful, they wrote, but fundamental expertise in progressive nonprofit management will be the primary emphasis.

Bernheimer expressed optimism that the current and upcoming steps being taken at SPD are heading the distributor in the right direction. We think there's an opportunity here, not simply to rebuild the organization, but in some sense to reimagine it; and ensure that it's doing the best job possible serving the small press community at the same time as providing a healthy and supportive workplace to everyone who works there, he said. Maybe it's presumptuous to say that we're turning the corner, but I feel like the corner is in sight.

An earlier version of this article misstated that DBW was not asked to participate in the internal investigation when they in fact were.
BJP tally in Rajya Sabha likely to go up by 1 next year

Rajya Sabha proceedings adjourned till noon over record high fuel prices

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Mar 09: Rajya Sabha proceedings were on Tuesday adjourned for about 40 minutes after opposition parties led by the Congress insisted on a discussion on record high petrol and diesel prices.

Opposition MPs, who had stalled proceedings in the House on the opening day of the second part of the Budget session on Monday, trooped into the well of the House and raised slogans, forcing the chair to adjourn the proceedings till noon.

Soon after the listed official papers were laid on the table, MPs from the opposition Congress, DMK, Left, BSP and Shiv Sena were on their feet seeking setting aside of the business to take up a discussion on the increase in petrol and diesel prices.

Deputy Chairman Shri Harivansh, who was presiding, said notices under rule 267 have been received from Satish Chandra Mishra (BSP), Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, DMK''s Trucchi Siva and Shiv Sena''s Priyanka Chaturvedi.

But the Rajya Sabha chairman had already given his ruling, rejecting the notices under rule 267, and so his decision cannot be reopened, he said.

Fuel price hike: Rajya Sabha washout over rising fuel prices

The issue of fuel prices, he said, can be discussed during the discussion on the working of ministries and finance bill as well as in the short duration discussion sought on the issue.

But Opposition members persisted with their demand and soon gathered in the the well of the House, raising slogans against the government.

Harivansh asked the members to return to their seats and allow zero hour to be taken up where MPs raise issues of public importance.

He then went on to call members who had given zero-hour notice.

But the slogan shouting by opposition continued.

Siva said the issue of relentless rise in petrol and diesel prices has to be discussed.

Bhupendra Yadav of BJP countered him saying the ruling of the chairman is final and cannot be reopened.

Harivansh urged members to return to their places, insisting that the ruling of the chairman who had rejected rule 267 notices seeking suspension of business to take up discussion on fuel prices cannot be reopened or discussed.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

With the ruckus continuing, he adjourned the proceedings till 12 noon.

The price of petrol has for the first time crossed the Rs 100 mark in a few places in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and is at record highs elsewhere. Diesel rates, too, are at a record high as international oil prices bounced back from the lows of last year.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 12:21 [IST]
Cheap, nontoxic carbon nanodots poised to be quantum dots of the future

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Tiny fluorescent semiconductor dots, called quantum dots, are useful in a variety of health and electronic technologies but are made of toxic, expensive metals. Nontoxic and economic carbon-based dots are easy to produce, but they emit less light. A new study that uses ultrafast nanometric imaging found good and bad emitters among populations of carbon dots. This observation suggests that by selecting only super-emitters, carbon nanodots can be purified to replace toxic metal quantum dots in many applications, the researchers said.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brought together researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Delaware, Baltimore County in a collaborative project through the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois.

"Coming into this study, we did not know if all carbon dots are only mediocre emitters or if some were perfect and others were bad," said Illinois chemistry professor Martin Gruebele, who led the study. "We knew that if we could show that there are good ones and bad ones, maybe we could eventually find a way to pick the perfect ones out of the mix."

Determining whether carbon dots are good or bad light emitters starts with being able to see them, Gruebele said. The dots are less than 10 nanometers in diameter and, when excited, decide whether to fluoresce in a matter of in picoseconds - or one-thousandth of one billionth of a second.

"Using our previously developed single-molecule absorption scanning tunneling microscope, we could only image excited states with no time resolution," Gruebele said. "In this study, however, we can now record quantum dots while in their excited state by combining true nanometer space resolution with femtosecond time resolution."

The team found that the energy excitation takes one of two paths: either emit light or expel the energy as heat before getting a chance to fluorescence.

"We found that in bulk populations, approximately 20% of a given population of carbon nanodots are perfect emitters, while about 80% have a very short light emission state before expelling heat," Gruebele said. "Being able to see that there are different populations tells us that it may be possible to purify carbon dot populations by selecting only the perfect light emitters."

The ability to pick out the perfect dots could make the concept of efficient carbon-based dots a reality, Gruebele said. "Metal quantum dots are often used to monitor the health of living cells, which is far from ideal, and having a nontoxic, economical option would be a significant advancement."

The new imaging technology also allows the researchers to observe why some dots never light up, hinting that there is hope that researchers can someday synthesize perfect light-emitting carbon dots.

"We now know that we have an instrument that identifies the problem," Gruebele said. "Whether we use it to purify groups of carbon dots or to help synthesize perfect light-emitting carbon dots is now just a question of where we want to head next."

###

The James R. Eiszner Chair in Chemistry, the department of chemistry at Illinois, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute supported this study.

Gruebele is also affiliated with the department of physics, the Center for Advanced Study, the Beckman Institute and the Carle Illinois College of Medicine at Illinois.

Editor's notes:

To reach Martin Gruebele, call 217-333-1624; email mgruebel@illinois.edu.

The paper "Ultrafast nanometric imaging of energy flow within and between single carbon dots" is available from the U. of I. News Bureau

This story has been published on: 2021-03-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Bishops have called for the number of mourners to be increased to 25 as soon as there is an easing of Level 5 restrictions - expected in the first week in April.

The four Catholic Archbishops had a meeting with Taoiseach Micheal Martin on February 19 to discuss the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the lives of people in the Catholic Church.

Speaking during their Spring Conference this week, the country's bishops also said that peoples freedom to worship publicly should be restored as soon as the current Level 5 restrictions begin to be eased.

They said that it is particularly painful for Christians to be deprived, for the second year running, of the public expression of faith during the most sacred time of Holy Week and Easter.

A statement added: "This is especially true given that it has been clearly demonstrated that church buildings are among the safest places for people to gather.

"We also re-emphasise that the ongoing severe restrictions on attendance at Funeral Masses (currently limited to ten) are causing untold grief to many families.

"We recognise that strong restrictions are necessary in times of grave threat to public health. However, such restrictions on personal freedom should be proportionate and for the shortest time possible. Consideration must also be given to peoples mental, spiritual and emotional wellbeing. For people of faith, gathering for worship is fundamental to their identity and to their spiritual lives."

The bishops have set out a number of requests of the Government:

* That the easing of restrictions from Level 5 should include the restoration of public worship, albeit in a safe and limited way. For people of faith not to be free to worship until regulations return to Level 2, whilst many other restrictions are eased, is seen as particularly distressing and unjust.

* That the number of mourners permitted at funeral services be increased, with immediate effect, noting that in Northern Ireland this number has not been reduced below 25. The current restriction places immense burdens on grieving families, compounding the pain of their loss.

The statement adds: "We encourage Catholics to make their views on these issues known to their own TDs and local representatives."

"We wish to remain responsive to public health messaging. For this reason we are recommending the postponement of the sacraments of First Holy Communion and Confirmation ceremonies for the time being.

"We continue to keep in prayer all who are suffering in this time of Covid, and all who contribute so much to their care."
The state government has just announced yet another plan to protect the states dwindling koala population, a bitterly emotive issue that almost destroyed the Coalition last year.

The new initiative is certainly urgently needed. Public concern about the decline in the states koala numbers has grown sharply since the bushfires in 2019-20, which were estimated to have killed about 15 per cent of the marsupials last summer.

An upper house parliamentary inquiry last June warned that koalas could become extinct before 2050 unless more was done to protect their habitat from developers and loggers.

But the Herald has serious concerns that NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is under pressure to make too many concessions to placate her deputy and Nationals leader, John Barilaro.

The back story here is that Mr Barilaro threatened to leave the Coalition last September unless Ms Berejiklian killed a new planning policy which Planning Minister Rob Stokes had crafted to protect koalas, particularly in areas close to towns and cities that were ripe for rezoning.
If Nancy Pelosi and the congressional Democrats wanted to discourage people from signing up for the National Guard, they could not do much more to denude the force of recruits than station them in D.C. for months as props in an insurrection theatre fantasy, and then feed them raw meats and metal filings. To top it off, no changes are going to be made in the contracting for food supplies because the bureaucrats claim they could find nothing wrong when they inspected the food prep facilities.

Ellen Mitchell reports in The Hill:

The Pentagon on Monday said that no moves are being made to remove any company from food service operations after National Guard troops assigned to protect the U.S. Capitol got sick from eating tainted meals served to them last week. About 50 National Guard troops have been treated for gastrointestinal complaints  six as outpatients at military treatment facilities and the others at an aid station set up at the Capitol, Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters. But after food vendor facilities were inspected multiple times, "with no substantial issues having been recorded," Kirby said he is not aware of any changing contracts due to the illnesses.

The is a classic conflict between bureaucratic process and actual results, with the process winning. The bureaucratic process of inspections says that there is nothing wrong, so even though the food has been making members of the Guard sick, nothing is going to change.

Hardly reassuring to troops who are worried about the food they are getting.

The whole question of who has been poisoning the troops is shrouded in obscurity. According to this article from Military.com:

To feed the thousands of troops on the D.C. mission, the Guard awarded an $11.5 million contract to Sardi's Catering in College Park, Maryland, according to Maj. Matt Murphy, a Guard spokesman. But now there are 5,200 Guardsmen in D.C., versus 26,000 at the mission's peak. Murphy said the Guard is continuing with the contract.

Sardi's looks like a fairly upscale operation, one with a long history, according to its website and Yelp page. Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner reported that while he has "gotten conflicting answers from various National Guard officials"...

In the five days after the Capitol riots, Sardi's food order went from fewer than 500 to more than 10,000. The D.C. National Guard was still placing the orders and was feeding the out-of-town troops. By Jan. 17, three days before the inauguration, the food order increased to 17,000 breakfasts, 17,000 lunches, and 17,000 dinners. And this food was just fine, my sources all tell me. But then, on Jan. 18, things fell off a cliff. That day, it seems, the National Guard Bureau took over the food contracting from the D.C. National Guard. The NGB asked for 75,000 meals. Sardi's said they could only fulfill part of that. The NGB went to another contractor  I haven't gotten the name yet  who dropped the ball. That NGB contract with the unknown contractor is what delivered the terrible meals. On Jan. 26, though, the D.C. National Guard took over again  and hired Sardi's again. At this point, nearly a week after the inauguration, the contract was back down below 9,000 meals. And at this point, the food was good again.

But in a dispatch by Lexi Lonas in The Hill dated March 3, we learn that the problems have not stopped:

The undercooked food has continued to appear in guardsmen's meals this week. The sergeant said on Monday that the meat for dinner on Sunday was raw. "Now, after the raw meat yesterday for dinner, they have told us not to eat the meals for the next two days and are giving us MRE's instead. Soldiers are now paying for all their meals for the next two days in order to get real food," the sergeant said on Monday.

I have been looking and have been unable to find out which supplier(s) provided the tainted food. One would think that would be the top priority, for the safety of the troops. It leads to wonder what might be behind the reluctance to name names. Might it be something related to the National Guard Bureau's formidable operation promoting "small business, small disadvantaged business, women owned small business, Historically Underutilized business (HUBZone), and service disabled veteran owned small business"? That operation has had some scandals.

Bureaucratic obfuscation is the last thing that ought to be tolerated when our Guard troops are being poisoned.
The Queen aims to deal with the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs damaging revelations behind closed doors as she declared the crisis a family matter.

The monarch finally broke her silence after the explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey, with Buckingham Palace issuing a 61-word three-paragraph statement.

 What has the Queen said?

The statement released on behalf of the Queen said: The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.

Expand Close The Queen at Windsor Castle (Steve Parsons/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Queen at Windsor Castle (Steve Parsons/PA)

This suggests the royal family, demonstrating a show of sorrow and support, was aware in part of Harry and Meghans struggles but did not know how bad they were.

 Did the Queen mention race?

Yes. The statement said: The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning.

By bringing up race, the Queen has acknowledged one of the most shocking elements of the Sussexes interview in which Meghan alleged a member of the royal family raised concerns about how dark their son Archies skin tone might be before he was born.

But there was no outright condemnation of racism.

 What else?

Crucially the Queen added: Whilst some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.

This means the royal family effectively disputes some of the claims.

Expand Close The Sussexes during their Oprah interview (ITV Hub/Harpo Productions/CBS/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Sussexes during their Oprah interview (ITV Hub/Harpo Productions/CBS/PA)

The phrase has the benefit of casting doubt on Harry and Meghans allegations without directly saying which ones, while maintaining the issues will be taken very seriously.

It could be any of the number of revelations made by Harry and Meghan.

 So will there be a public investigation into the alleged racism?

No. By addressing the matter privately as a family issue, the Queen is seeking to direct the troubles away from the medium of a globally televised broadcast used by Harry and Meghan, back behind closed palace doors.

 Did the palace mention Archie?

Yes. The Palace said Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much-loved family members.

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh were introduced to the newborn son of The Duke & Duchess of Sussex at Windsor Castle. Ms Doria Ragland was also present. The Duke & Duchess of Sussex are delighted to announce that they have named their son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. pic.twitter.com/PaHVhPlUl5  The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) May 8, 2019

This demonstration of affection for the Sussex family is almost the exact phrase used by the Queen on January 18 2020 as part of the conclusion to the Sandringham summit, when it was announced Harry and Meghan were walking away from the monarchy completely.

Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much-loved members of my family, she said at the time.

 Is the response strong enough?

The Queen and the monarchy could still face calls for an investigation into the race issue, and how a suicidal Meghan was left without support.

Expand Close Buckingham Palace (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Buckingham Palace (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

When Meghan was recently accused of bullying palace staff, which she denies, the palace issued a strong statement, launching a HR probe and stating the royal household will not tolerate bullying or harassment in the workplace.

 Why did the palace wait so long to respond?

The Queen is always calm and considered in the face of a crisis and will not be rushed into a knee-jerk response.

Royal aides and key royals will have spent hours in meetings formulating the best approach, and the statement on Tuesday came more than a day and a half after the interview was aired in the US.

But it is also understood they wanted to wait until the British public had seen the broadcast on ITV.

Expand Close The Queen is calm and considered during troubled times (Jane Barlow/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Queen is calm and considered during troubled times (Jane Barlow/PA)

A statement before the broadcast might have seen the palace accused of trying to control the narrative and preventing Meghan from speaking her truth, as Winfrey would put it.

 Will this be the end of the scandal?

Unlikely. Harry and Meghans remarks, particularly the race ones, have caused long-term damage to the monarchy. The Queen operates as head of state over a multicultural Britain.

Diversity, equality, inclusion and mental health have formed a key part of the work of members of the royal family for many years, but now the reputation of the Windsors  and their ability to successfully support these causes  has been brought into question.
After a federal appeals court reluctantly dismissed a lawsuit by 21 young people demanding government action against climate change, the youths proposed Tuesday to scale back their suit and seek only a ruling that U.S. promotion of fossil fuels violates their rights to life and liberty.

In a 2-1 ruling Jan. 15, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that although global warming is potentially catastrophic, the courts have no power to order government to address the problem by moving toward a carbon-free energy system. Now the youngsters and their environmental backers are trying another path to have the court assess the governments responsibility for the impending crisis while staying within its self-defined limits of authority.

Evidence in the case shows that federal officials actions (or inaction), such as coal leasing, oil development, fossil fuel industry subsidies, and the setting of fuel efficiency standards for vehicles are violating the youths rights, their lawyers said in a federal court filing in Oregon. The youths merely seek justice for the injuries they are suffering at the hands of their government, and a judicial declaration of illegality would be a major step forward, the filing said.

The lawyers also urged the Biden administration to abandon the scorched-earth tactics of President Donald Trumps administration, which fought the suit for four years, and to negotiate a settlement based on technically and economically feasible solutions to the climate crisis.

President Bidens Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit was filed in Oregon in 2015, during President Barack Obamas administration, by plaintiffs aged 8 to 19. It relied on the public trust doctrine, which makes the government responsible for managing natural resources, like land, air and water, for the benefit of its inhabitants.

COVID Resources Coronavirus Map Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California.

Some of the youths said their homes and schools had been flooded because of warming temperatures, one said a drought on an Indian reservation had forced her to leave home, and others said their allergies or asthma had been worsened by smoke from wildfires.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken refused to dismiss the suit and scheduled a trial in 2018, but the Supreme Court put the case on hold during the governments appeal. In its January ruling, the appeals court majority said the sweeping policy changes the youths sought would require a fundamental transformation of this countrys energy system, if not that of the industrialized world, proposals that should be directed toward elected officials and not judges.

On Tuesday, attorney Julia Olson of the nonprofit Our Childrens Trust said the orders the plaintiffs now seek would declare that the national fossil fuel energy system is unconstitutional and hold current and future lawmakers accountable for protecting the rights of youth.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
The fight against violence and the right to abortion were the main themes during International Women's Day marches across Latin America.

Venezuelan feminist groups demonstrated in the capital Caracas, stating their independence from the government and from any political party.

"As long as women in Venezuela suffer the life we are suffering: precarious, violated, without rights and voice, above all, voiceless, the government's narrative of feminism will be false," said teacher Zuleika Matamoros.

Many of the women attending the protest called for the legalization of abortion.

Activist Francesca Perez explained the Venezuelan feminist movement has been reduced to academic circles and that they  feminist independent groups  are working to move "towards a more political, more autonomous, more street-based feminism".

Perez said it was a "long-term struggle".

Huge numbers also turned out in Bogota, where women in purple scarves marched through the center of Colombia's capital.

The protesters carried signs seeking justice for victims of femicides and chanted slogans about "aborting" the "patriarchal system."

This year's event took place amid a spike in violence against women in Colombia, which enforced one of the world's longest coronavirus lockdowns last year.

In 2020 Colombian authorities registered 94,000 cases of domestic violence, a 6% rise from the previous year.

A total of 37 women have been murdered in hate crimes in the first two months of this year, an 8% increase from last year.

According to a report published by the national department of statistics, women in Colombia have been increasing their participation in the economy over the past decade, with 53% of working-age women in Colombia now employed.

But on average, working women in Colombia make 87 cents for every dollar earned by men.

The report, published last year, also found that three out of 10 Colombian women over the age of 15 don't have their own source of income, compared to just one out of 10 men.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Meghan on the secret wedding

Meghan: 'Even at our wedding, you know, three days before our wedding, we got married. No one knows that.

'But we called the archbishop, and we just said, "Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us."

Prince Harry: 'Just the three of us.'

Meghan and Kate argument

Meghan: 'The narrative with Kate which didn't happen was really, really difficult and something that I think that's when everything changed, really.

'The reverse happened. And I don't say that to be disparaging to anyone, because it was a really hard week of the wedding.

'And she was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. And she brought me flowers and a note, apologising.'

On press narrative:

Oprah: So, do you think there was a standard for Kate in general and a separate one for you? And if so, why?'

Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are interviewed by Oprah Winfrey

Meghan: I don't know why. I can see now what layers were at play there. And, again, they really seemed to want a narrative of a hero and a villain.'

On being silent or being silenced

Meghan: The latter. Everyone in my world was given very clear directive from the moment the world knew Harry and I were dating to always say "No comment."

'That's my friends, my mum and dad. I did anything they told me to do. Of course I did, because it was also through the lens of "And we'll protect you."

'So, even as things started to roll out in the media that I didn't see but my friends would call me and say, "Meg, this is really bad," because I didn't see it, I'd go, "Don't worry. I'm being protected."

On 'not being protected'

Meghan: 'I think that was really hard to reconcile because it was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected but that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family, but they weren't willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.

On meeting the Queen

Meghan: We had breakfast together that morning, and she'd given me a beautiful gift, and I just really loved being in her company. And I remember we were in the car.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II pose for a picture during the Queen's Young Leaders Awards Ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London in 2018

'She gave me some beautiful pearl earrings and a matching necklace. And we were in the car going between engagements, and she has a blanket that sits across her knees for warmth.

And it was chilly, and she was like, "Meghan, come on," and put it over my knees, as well. I think everyone welcomed me.

On 'character assassination'

Meghan: I'm talking about things that are super artificial and inconsequential. But the narrative about, you know, making Kate cry I think was the beginning of a real character assassination.

And they knew it wasn't true. And I thought, well, if they're not going to kill things like that, then what are we going to do?

On claims Archie was to be denied security

Meghan: And that was when they were saying they didn't want him to be a prince or a princess not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol and that he wasn't going to receive security.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex with their baby Archie

But if you're saying the title is what's going to affect their protection, we haven't created this monster machine around us in terms of clickbait and tabloid fodder.

'You've allowed that to happen, which means our son needs to be safe.'

On if the titles are important to her?

Meghan: 'All the grandeur surrounding this stuff is an attachment that I don't personally have, right?

I've been a waitress, an actress, a princess, a duchess. I've always just still been Meghan, right?

So, for me, I'm clear on who I am, independent of all that stuff. And the most important title I will ever have is "Mum." I know that.'

Meghan on race and the royal family

Meghan: 'I can give you an honest answer. In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time so we have in tandem the conversation of "He won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title," and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born.'

Oprah: 'Who is having that conversation with you? What?'

Meghan: There were several conversations about it.'

Oprah: 'About how dark your baby is going to be?'

Meghan: 'Potentially, and what that would mean or look like.'

Oprah: 'And you're not going to tell me who had the conversation?'

Meghan: 'I think that would be very damaging to them.'

On UK Press and mental health

Meghan: I just didn't see a solution. I just didn't see a solution. I would sit up at night, and I was just, like, I don't understand how all of this is being churned out.

And, look, I was really ashamed to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry, especially, because I know how much loss he's suffered.

But I knew that if I didn't say it, that I would do it. And I just didn't I just didn't want to be alive anymore.

'And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. And I remember I remember how he just cradled me.

Meghan Markle discussed mental health during her conversation with Oprah Winfrey on CBS

And I was I went to the institution, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that "I've never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere."

And I was told that I couldn't, that it wouldn't be good for the institution.

Oprah: 'So, were you thinking of harming yourself? Were you having suicidal thoughts? Meghan: Yes. This was very, very clear.

On telling her truth

Meghan: 'I think I'm not going to live my life in fear. You know, I think so much of it is said with an understanding of just truth.

But I think, to answer your question, I don't know how they could expect that after all of this time, we would still just be silent if there is an active role that the firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us.

That at a certain point, you're going to go, "But, you guys, someone just tell the truth." And if that comes with risk of losing things, I mean, I've lost there's a lot that's been lost already.'

On the latest royal baby

Oprah: 'For the new addition to your family.

'Meghan said she wanted to wait until you were here to tell us, is it a boy or is it a girl?

Harry: 'It's a girl.'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced they were having a girl for their second child - which is due in the summer

Meghan: 'It's a girl.'

Harry: 'Yes! I'm just grateful, like any to have any child, any one or any two would have been amazing. But to have a boy and then a girl, you know, what more can you ask for?'

'But now, you know, now we've got our family. We've got, you know, the four of us and our two dogs, and it's great.'

Oprah: 'Done? Two is it?'

Harry: 'Done.'

On leaving the UK

Meghan: 'We didn't have a plan. We needed a house, and he (Tyler Perry) offered security, as well, so it gave us breathing room to try to figure out what we are going to do.

'It's been so spun in the wrong direction, as though we quit, we walked away, all the conversations of the two years before we finally announced it.'

On Megxit

Harry: Yeah, it was desperate. I went to all the places which I thought I should go to, to ask for help. We both did... Separately and together.'

Oprah: 'So, you left because you were asking for help and couldn't get it?'

Harry: 'Yeah, basically. But we never left.'

Meghan: We never left the family, and we only wanted to have the same type of role that exists, right?'

So, we weren't reinventing the wheel here. We were saying, "Okay, if this isn't working for everyone, we're in a lot of pain, you can't provide us with the help that we need, we can just take a step back. We can do it in a commonwealth country." We suggested New Zealand, South Africa.'

On history repeating itself

Harry: (We wanted to) Take a breath. From this constant barrage. My biggest concern was history repeating itself, and I've said that before on numerous occasions, very publicly.

And what I was seeing was history repeating itself, but more, perhaps or definitely far more dangerous, because then you add race in and you add social media in.

And when I'm talking about history repeating itself, I'm talking about my my mother.'

Harry on the press

Harry: 'You know, as sad as it is to say, it takes living in her shoes in this instance, for a day or those first eight days to see where it was going to go and how far they were going to take it.

And get away with it and be so blatant about it. That's the bit that shocked me.

'This - the UK is my home. That is where I was brought up. So, yes, I've got my own relationship that goes back a long way with the media.

'I asked for calm from the British tabloids once as a boyfriend, once as a husband, and once as a father.'

Why did Harry and Meghan leave?

Harry: Lack of support and lack of understanding.'

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in a conversation with US television host Oprah Winfrey

Oprah: 'So, I want clarity. Was the move about getting away from the UK press? Or was the move because you weren't getting enough support from the firm?

Prince Harry: It was both.

Harry and blindsiding the Queen

Oprah: 'Did you blindside the queen?'

Harry: 'No. I've never blindsided my grandmother. I have too much respect for her.'

My grandmother has been amazing throughout. You know, my father, my brother, Kate and all the rest of the family, they were.

'They were really welcoming. But it really changed after the Australia tour, after our south pacific tour.

Harry on his relationship with Prince Charles

Harry: When we were in Canada, I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father and before he stopped taking my calls and then said, "Can you put this all in writing what your plan is?"

'I put all the specifics in there, even the fact that we were planning on putting the announcement out on the 7th of January.

Oprah: 'So, you just said that your dad stopped taking your calls. Why did he stop taking your calls?'

Harry: 'Because... I took matters into my own hands. It was like I need to do this for my family. This is not a surprise to anybody.

'It's really sad that it's gotten to this point, but I've got to do something for my own mental health, my wife's, and for Archie's, as well, because I could see where this was headed.'

Harrys claim that his family is scared of the press

Harry: No from my family ever said anything over those three years. And that hurts. But I also am acutely aware of where my family stand and how scared they are of the tabloids turning on them.

Prince Harry claimed members of the royal family were 'scared' of the press

'Yes, but it's there is this invisible what's termed or referred to as the "Invisible contract" behind closed doors between the institution and the tabloids, the UK. Tabloids.

On being trapped in royal life

Oprah: 'How were you trapped?

Harry: Trapped within the system, like the rest of my family are. My father and my brother, they are trapped.

'They don't get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that.'

On Netflix and Spotify

Harry: 'Yeah, it exists. But, also, the Netflix and the Spotify, they're all that was never part of the plan.'

Meghan: 'We didn't have a plan.'

Harry: 'We didn't have a plan. That was suggested by somebody else by the point of where my family literally cut me off financially, and I had to afford security for us.'

Oprah: 'Wait. 'Hold up. Wait a minute. Your family cut you off?'

Harry: 'Yeah, in the first half, the first quarter of 2020. But I've got what my mum left me, and, without that, we would not have been able to do this.'

Harrys relationship with his family

Harry: 'I've spoken more to my grandmother in the last year than I have done for many, many years. We did a couple of zoom calls with Archie.

'My grandmother and I have a really good relationship...'

Oprah: 'Your relationship with your father? Is he taking your calls now?'

Harry: 'Yeah. Yeah, he is. There's a lot to work through there, you know? I feel really let down, because he's been through something similar.

He knows what pain feels like, and this is and Archie's his grandson. But, at the same time, you know, I of course I will always love him, but there's a lot of hurt that's happened.

And I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.

Oprah: 'Yeah. And your brother? Relationship? Much has been said about that?'

Harry: 'Yeah, and much will continue to be said about that. You know, as I've said before, I love William to bits. He's my brother.

'We've been through hell together. I mean, we have a shared experience. But you know, we're on we're on different paths.

On the future

Harry: I'm sad that what's happened has happened, but I know, and I'm comfortable in knowing that we did everything that we could to make it work.

'And we did everything on the exit process the way that-- the way that it should have been done.'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle said they were 'thriving' in their new life in the United States

On taking away his patronages

Harry: I am hurt. But at the same time, I completely respect my grandmother's decision.

'I would still love for us to be able to continue to support those associations, albeit without the title or the role.'

Meghans one regret

Meghan: I have one. My regret is believing them when they said I would be protected. I believed that.

'And I regret believing that because I think, had I really seen that that wasn't happening, I would have been able to do more.

But I think I wasn't supposed to see it. I wasn't supposed to know.

And now, because we're actually on the other side, we've actually not just survived but are thriving.
A glance at some of the day's highlights from the Proactive Investors newswire

( ) ( ) said it has completed a fundraising that it says will allow it to complete a follow-on investment in Pluto Digital Assets as well as pursue strategic opportunities in crypto mining, capital investment, decentralised finance (DeFi) and Web 3.0 initiatives, and general working capital purposes.

( ) revealed encouraging news from Labrador Iron Mines Holdings (LIMH), in which it holds a 12% stake, with LIMH releasing details of a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of its 52%-owned Houston Project in Canada.

( ) said Australia's Therapeutics Goods Administration has approved its drug Feraccru to treat iron deficiency with or without anaemia in adults.

Diagnostics specialist genedrive plc ( ) said it has inked a deal with a US military contracting specialist that will distribute its BioPlex range, which provide rapid tests for threats from pathogens.

( ) said its Venn Life Sciences business has won a contract to support a phase I clinical study.

( ) has been awarded a contract worth a minimum of US$960,000 by a customer that wants to use Kromeks technology in a new radiation technology product.

( ), the biotech backer, saw a sharp increase in its net asset value (NAV) per share in 2020. The companys NAV stood at 328mln at the end of December, up from 202mln a year earlier. The company also announced it has founded a new 49%-owned portfolio company, Twelve Bio, that is a spin-out from the Foundation Centre for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen and is developing novel engineered Cas12a nucleases for therapeutic gene editing.

( ) said it has invested US$200,000 into a seed funding round at Automata Network alongside trading firm Alameda Research and other investors such as IOSG Ventures, Divergence Ventures and Block, for a yet-to-be-determined amount of Automata (ATA) tokens.

( ) said its portfolio company AquaInSilico, in which it owns a 29% stake, will receive a US$250,000 grant as an Ocean Innovator through the United Nations Development Programmes Ocean Innovation Challenge. ( ) said it has signed a new contract for Paddington Bear with the Black Watch Museum in Perth, Scotland.

( ) announced it has received an eighth positive test result confirming that its graphene nanoplatelets are not absorbed through human skin. This is vital for the use of graphene in textile markets where customers have to be certain of the safety of the apparel they produce and market, the company said.

( )( ) has completed the first 26 drill holes of the La India starter pit infill drilling programme.

La India is Condors flagship gold project in Nicaragua.

( ) said further infill drilling results were "outstanding" at its Havieron project in Australia.

Westmount Energy Limited ( ) told investors it is expecting that operations for Jabillo-1, the next well at the Canje block, offshore Guyana, will start tomorrow.

( ) said it has identified a series of drilling targets on its gold exploration acreage in the Sodankyla area of Northern Finland.

( ) has signed a Master Services Agreement with Synergy Consulting to provide financial and transaction advisory services in regard to the integrated 300MW coal fired Ncondezi power project and coal mine in Tete, Mozambique.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd (LON:COPL, CSE:XOP) has raised 14mln through a share placing with the proceeds earmarked for its new North American assets, which are being acquired in the Atomic Oil & Gas deal (due to close next week).

( ) has received warrant exercise notices to subscribe for 4,000,000 new ordinary shares in the company at an exercise price of 10p per ordinary share for total gross proceeds of 400,000. Chief executive Russell Fryer said: "It is encouraging to see further support from our shareholders endorsing the confidence they have in the Company's strategy to identify and acquire brownfield mining opportunities in the strategic metals sector. We continue to consider a number of operators or near-term production operators within the natural resources development and production sector in the continent of Africa, with a number of targets having been identified with preliminary discussions continuing."

( ) said it has secured a put option financing agreement with US investment manager LDA Capital. The cannabidiol (CBD) group said the agreement will allow it to access up to 35mln over a 36-month period as well as retain the optionality to control the timing and amount of capital draws, which it said will guarantee operational flexibility for the group as it looked to further expand its international footprint.

( ) in a statement noted that it has agreed, at the request of borrower Proger Managers & Partners, to postpone the Loan reimbursement until 19 March  it also noted that as of the maturity date, February 25, the due reimbursement was 14.85mln.

( ) notified that its interim results for the six months ended 31 January 2021 are scheduled for 24 March.

( ) chief executive Brian Larkin will present an updated corporate presentation at the Proactive One2One Investor Forum on Thursday, 11 March. The online forum is due to begin at 6pm, with registration details found at https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/register/event_details/323.

( ) chief financial officer Dmitri Tsvetkov will present via the Shares and AJ Bell investor evening webinar tomorrow, 10 March at 6.30pm.

AFC Energy ( ) told investors that it has appointed FTI Consulting as its retained public relations and financial communications adviser.

Following confirmation from the Financial Conduct Authority today, Supply@ME Capital PLC ( ) announced the restoration of its listing on the London Stock Exchange and the resumption of dealings in its shares. The company confirmed that it will be issuing a trading update to the market before the end of this month.
HSE plans for vaccine roll-out have changed up to 17 times already due to changes to deliveries and the vaccine priority lists, the head of the HSE told the Oireachtas Health Committee on Tuesday.

Mr Paul Reid defended the HSEs handling of the roll-out, describing the start of this year as challenging and frustrating at times.

An initial target to have 1.7m doses delivered by the end of March is now out of reach, he said. And a revised target of 1.24m could also be missed if erratic supplies continue from vaccine manufacturers, Mr Reid said.

Realistically were looking at 1.1 million, going into 1.2 million in the first week of April, he predicted.

Mr Reid said the IDA Ireland had looked into potentially making vaccines in Ireland, but it was not deemed feasible.

Senator Martin Conway asked why in one case a GP practice in Sneem, Co Kerry received enough doses of the Moderna vaccine to vaccinate 300 elderly people instead of just the over-85s.

He said: This was great for the people of Sneem but it gets everyones back up.

Damien McCallion, Senior Operations Lead for the rollout of the COVID-19 Vaccine Programme addressed this.

He said due to logistics and the fragility of mRNA vaccines including Moderna there is a minimum number that can be delivered at any one time.

As a result, some practices with very low numbers of Over-85s are getting enough doses to start working on other people aged Over-70, he said.

Read More Taoiseach told UK not in position to give surplus vaccines to Ireland

HSE chief defends vaccine roll-out

Pressure from Covid-19 is easing on the health services, and the HSE hopes to soon restore normal services, the head of the HSE told the Oireachtas Health Committee on Tuesday.

Paul Reid also defended the vaccine roll-out saying that Ireland is in the top five countries in Europe at this point for numbers vaccinated.

He said: Thankfully, all major indicators of the disease are now trending downwards, although we remain alert to the impact of new variants of Covid-19.

Pressure from Covid-19 is easing on the health services, and the HSE hopes to soon restore normal services, the head of the HSE told the Oireachtas Health Committee on Tuesday. Picture: Domnick Walsh

Looking at these indicators, he said up to March 7, a total of 223,219 cases and 4,422 deaths due to Covid-19 have been recorded in Ireland. The 14-day incidence rate is now 172.3 per 100,000, down from almost 1,500 in mid-January.

On March 8, there were 419 people with Covid-19 in hospital and 103 receiving ICU care, he said.

This number dropped below 400 on Tuesday morning - the first time in over four months that this has happened.

Regarding the vaccine roll-out, he said there have been challenges but the programme is moving ahead.

He said: Our ongoing planning and roll-out includes operating models for GPs, pharmacies and vaccination centres, alongside the corresponding ICT, infrastructure and recruitment mobilisation.

Thirty-seven HSE vaccination centres are agreed and the required infrastructure is being finalised, with self-referral processes planned.

To date, over 2,000 recruitment applications had been received and an additional 9,702 healthcare professionals have completed Covid-19 vaccination training.

Most GPs have now received their first vaccine delivery, he said, catering for those in the community aged over 85.

I am delighted to report that residents in Long Term Residential Care Facilities, front-line healthcare workers, and people over 85 years of age have largely received their first dose, he said.

Mr Reid referred to the past year as a challenging period and stressed that the need to change plans remains central to the vaccine roll-out.

He updated the Committee on the HSE Antigen Working Group which is validating these tests for use in workplaces, having trialled them in healthcare settings and on a limited basis at meat plants.

Mr Reid said: While we know it has been extremely difficult for everyone we are asking the public to stick with us over the coming weeks and continue to follow the public health guidance to help supress the spread of the virus.
PARIS  President Emmanuel Macron of France on Tuesday announced that the declassification of secret archives more than 50 years old would be accelerated, a move that will facilitate access to documents related to the Algerian War  a controversial chapter of Frances history that authorities have long been reluctant to face.

A statement from the Elysee Palace said that starting Wednesday a new rule would significantly shorten the time required for the declassification procedure in order to encourage respect for historical truth.

Mr. Macron has recently taken a series of steps to lift the veil on Frances colonial history in Algeria, a lasting trauma that continues to shape modern France. The change announced Tuesday was intended to respond to growing complaints from historians and archivists about strict government instructions for declassifying archives.
In his nationally televised Checkers speech of 1952, Richard Nixon, a vice-presidential candidate at the time, aggressively hoisted his Everyman flag. Pat doesnt have a mink coat, he famously said of his wife, but she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat.

An emblem of modesty in the day, that old-school cloth coat has passed through many iterations in the intervening decades. But neither Nixon nor his audience could have foreseen its wholesale appropriation by a rival party.

Flash forward to the 2021 presidential inauguration, where we find this formerly low-key item paraded in a pastry assortment of colors on the ad hoc runway that was the National Mall. The panoply, flaunted with a kind of overstated understatement, included Jill Bidens vibrant blue tweed, Nancy Pelosis turquoise topper, Michelle Obamas claret tone maxi and Amanda Gormans caution yellow Prada, each sending a signal that the cloth coat has been tweaked and remastered for a new generation.
(Newser)  Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts raised eyebrows Monday with his first-ever solo dissent, in which he warned against encouraging litigants to "fight over farthings." Roberts disagreed with the other eight justices, who ruled in favor of reviving a case that had been declared moot by lower courts because the restriction on religious speeches challenged by a Georgia college student no longer existed. The justices said the case should be allowed to proceed because the plaintiff had also sought nominal damages of $1, but Roberts warned that the move would lead to a "radical expansion" of the top court's jurisdiction and said his colleagues appeared to be OK with "turning judges into advice columnists," NPR reports.

story continues below

The majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas drew on 18th-century English common law, but Roberts argued that issuing "advisory opinions" was "in many respects irreconcilable" with the role assigned to the court in the Constitution, which limited it to "deciding actual cases and controversies," CNN reports. He said that instead of having the court become a "debating society" every time a defendant is "asked to fork over a buck," such cases should be settled by having the defendant just pay the $1 in question, which the majority opinion suggested could be an option. Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell tells NPR that the 8-1 ruling is a "big deal," and "every lawyer worth his salt will add a claim of nominal damages" to lawsuits from now on. (Read more US Supreme Court stories.)
Advertisement

Chinese Yuan Outlook:

The turn in CNH-crosses in late-February harkened the tumble in equities.

EUR /CNH rates havent been climbing, and in fact are closing in on their yearly low. This is not behavior indicative of a true risk-off market.

Instead, it may be the case that rising US Treasury yields are still the most significant factor driving asset allocation decisions across asset classes, including within the EM FX space.

Chinese Yuan, Warning Signal?

The Chinese Yuan has had quite the interesting few weeks since the Spring Festival Golden Week. The turn in CNH-crosses in late-February harkened the tumble in global equities. Rising global bond yields, but US Treasury yields in particular, have contributed to the turbulence. To no surprise, the emerging markets currency space has been hit hard.

Yet, even as USD/CNH rates have broken out of their pandemic downtrend, EUR/CNH rates havent been climbing, and in fact are closing in on their yearly low. This is not behavior indicative of a true risk-off market.Instead, it may be the case that rising US Treasury yields are still the most significant factor driving asset allocation decisions across asset classes, including within the EM FX space.

This divergence may continue in the coming periods as global investors shift to more growth sensitive assets; both CNH and USD are in a better position than EUR in that regard.

USD/CNH Rate Technical Analysis: Daily Chart (March 2020 to March 2021) (Chart 1)

In the prior Chinese Yuan forecast update, it was noted that a run higher to the 6.4970/6.5155 zone (support in December 2020, resistance in January 2021) cant be ruled out, which necessarily means that the descending trendline from the May and November 2020 highs may soon be tested. This area was breached, and the pandemic trendline was broken.

Momentum is now bullish after the push higher through the 6.4970/6.5155 zone. USD/CNH rates extending further above their daily 5-, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA, which is in bullish sequential order. Daily MACD is trending higher above its signal line, while daily Slow Stochastics have risen into overbought territory. A short-term bottoming process may be developing. In the near-term, this may mean that USD/CNH could rally further to the 23.6% Fibonacci of the 2020 high/2021 low range at 6.5886 (which coincidentally served as resistance in late-November 2020).

EUR/CNH Rate Technical Analysis: Daily Chart (March 2020 to March 2021) (Chart 2)

Like USD/CNH, EUR/CNH rates pushed higher at the end of February as anticipated: having burst through the 61.8% retracement at 7.8459, EUR/CNH rates appear poised to continue to climb to their pandemic downtrend from the August and December 2020 highs, which could coincide with a return to the late-January swing high at 7.9088. For a time on February 26, the pair moved above 7.9088 and the downtrend from the August and December 2020 highs  but it was short lived.

Unlike USD/CNH, instead of breaking their downtrend going back to its mid-summer high, EUR/CNH rates turned lower from the August and December 2020 downtrend, quickly returning back to their yearly low, which was momentarily breached at the end of last week. The pair is once more facing down significant support in the form of the 76.4% Fibonacci retracement of the 2020 low/high range at 7.7332.

Bearish momentum has accelerated, with the daily EMA envelope in full bearish sequential order. Daily Slow Stochastics are holding in oversold, while daily MACD is declining below its signal line. If, as noted previously, gains through 7.9088 would warn that a deeper setback in risk appetite is setting in across global financial markets, then a drop through 7.7332 would be an indication that risk appetite is improving  with some context.

Gains by USD/CNH alongside EUR/CNH losses speak to a further churn in asset allocation, one likely driving by a US-centric reflation trade, producing higher US yields, higher US equities, and a stronger US Dollar.

--- Written by Christopher Vecchio, CFA, Senior Currency Strategist
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) as far back as in August last year, reported that 410 unique vertebrate species were identified as having ACE2 receptors. (Representational Photo: AP)

HYDERABAD: The sheer variety of animals  some that jostle for space with people, and the others that live in Indian forests  that are susceptible to catching Covid-19, is giving some scientists a serious cause for worry, especially in a country like India where officials privately admit to inadequate testing of people for the disease and underreporting of Covid-19 cases.

Monkeys, leopards, common buffalos, cows, goats, dogs, cats, Nilgiri Tahr, clouded leopard, and even donkeys and horses, all have something in common with humans when it comes to Covid-19. They carry the same ACE2 receptors, the biding cites in cells to which the SARS-CoV-2 attaches to as it multiplies and results in varying degrees of infection.

Sero surveys conducted in the country have consistently shown that the number of people who developed antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, are much higher than the cases that have been discovered.

It was just last week that scientists from Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), and vaccine maker Bharat Biotech, announced that 54 per cent of people in Hyderabad have developed Covid-19 antibodies.

Incidentally, in Telangana state alone, the total Covid-19 cases, according to the state health department as on Sunday, stood at 3,00,011. Hyderabad has a population of more than 10 lakh people and if the recently announced sero survey results are anything to go by, then at least 5,40,000 people in the city alone were exposed to, or contracted the virus. And there is no data on how many more could have been exposed by the undiscovered Covid-19 carriers either in the city, or in the rest of the state.

Among the animals on which candidate vaccine efficacy was tested at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune last year, were monkeys (rhesus macaques). According to studies published by scientists from Bharat Biotech, Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), and NIV, the tests showed that Rhesus Macaques can be infected by Covid-19 causing virus, after which the vaccines were tested on them for efficacy in battling the disease. These monkeys, caught in the wild in Maharashtra, were chosen for the tests for the simple reason that they have among the highest levels of ACE2 receptors among animals.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) as far back as in August last year, reported that 410 unique vertebrate species were identified as having ACE2 receptors. They include 252 mammals, 72 birds, 65 fishes, 17 reptiles and 4 amphibians. The study found that rhesus macaques, among other animals, were found to have at least 23/25 ACE2 residues identical to human ACE2 and other constraints at SARS-CoV-2 S-binding hot spots.

More than half of the animals that have Covid-19 susceptible ACE2 receptors jostle for space with humans - whether they are cattle, cows, dogs, cats, pigs, donkeys, horses, or even monkeys.

The real fear is what if undiscovered Covid-19 carriers who interact with these animals pass on the virus to them? And what if the virus at some stage jumps back from these animals to humans? We have no system to monitor the health of people, whose lives are closely bound to these animals," a senior scientist told Deccan Chronicle.

Making matters worse is the way medical wastes, particularly used face masks, are discarded in public places and in garbage heaps, the latter which are visited regularly by stray dogs, and in some localities, pigs.

Even more worrisome is the interactions between people and monkeys, with both species equally vulnerable to the virus. We do not know what is happening on this front. And this is a cause for worry. If the virus spreads to wild populations of monkeys, then there is no way of saying what might be in store later. We need a robust system to monitor what is happening among all these animals and people who interact with them," the scientist warned.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[March 09, 2021] Second Annual Consumer Survey from Convey Reveals Shifting Attitudes Towards Amazon Spurred By COVID-19 Pandemic

A new survey conducted by Austin-based Delivery Experience Management provider Convey shows that US consumers overwhelmingly believe it is important to support small businesses hurt by COVID-19 shutdown. However, this belief doesn't always translate into dollars spent with smaller merchants as Amazon's dominance continues to grow due to the popularity of fast, free shipping and Prime membership. The second annual survey of more than 1,100 US consumers finds that shoppers are relying on Amazon more than ever -- and their sentiment has grown more positive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shipping Drives Amazon's Dominance Since the COVID-19 pandemic triggered widespread store shutdowns in March of 2020 - and since then, consumers have relied on Amazon more than ever. Fast, free shipping and convenience - not necessarily price and selection - are the drivers of Amazon's success. 4 in 10 (42%) consumers buy the majority of their goods on Amazon - a growth of 83% since the onset of the pandemic.

The number of people who buy 75 -100% of their products on Amazon (11%) has doubled over the past year

The top 3 reasons people shop at Amazon is 'fast, free shipping' (73%), followed by 'I am an Amazon Prime member' (67%) and 'easy and convenient purchase process' (58%)

Nearly half of Americans (49%) shop at Amazon because tey 'trust their packages will be delivered when promised' and 1 in 5 (19%) choose Amazon for its 'proactive communication during delivery'.



Consumers Are Positive About Amazon's Impact With Amazon providing a lifeline during a year of store shutdowns and safety precautions, more consumers have positive attitudes about the company than previously.

More than half of respondents (52%) believe Amazon has a positive impact on the retail industry as a whole, up 14% since the pandemic began.

More than a third (36%) now say Amazon has a positive impact on the environment - a jump of 36%. Only 1 in 5 (20%) say Amazon has been bad for the environment - a decrease of 25% over last year.

Younger shoppers are more skeptical of Amazon's impact. When it comes to the environment, 32% of younger shoppers say Amazon has a negative impact. Small Businesses Lose to Amazon Despite Consumers' Best Intentions As COVID-19 restrictions limited, and in many cases eliminated, in-person shopping, Americans pledged to support small businesses. However shipping issues and product costs drove many well-intentioned shoppers to Amazon to complete purchases. Nearly all consumers (95%) feel it is important to support small businesses hurt by COVID-19 shutdowns.

However 41% of people who say it is important to support small businesses admit to still purchasing at least half of all their goods and products on Amazon.

Higher item cost (35%), higher shipping cost (23%), and longer shipping times (21%) are the top reasons that consumers choose to shop at Amazon over a small business.

Nearly 9 in 10 consumers (87%) identify the delivery experience as important to the overall online shopping experience whether on Amazon, small businesses or other sites. "The pandemic-fueled shift to ecommerce forced shoppers to consider the delivery experience more than ever before - giving the advantage to Amazon and its fast, free delivery network while also exposing some weaknesses of the retail giant," said Carson Krieg, Co-founder and Director of Strategic Partnerships at Convey. "Retailers have an opportunity to combat AMZ scale with agility focused on customer needs such as offering a wide variety of flexible fulfillment options, spotlighting the uniqueness of their brand, and providing proactive, transparent communication during shipping." About Convey With explosive growth in online shopping and Amazon's market domination, brands cannot leave deliveries to chance. Convey is the global leader in Delivery Experience Management (DEM) and powers exceptional customer delivery experiences for some of the world's most recognizable brands in retail and logistics, including The Home Depot, Walmart, Build.com, C.H. Robinson, and Ingram Micro (News - Alert) . The company's DEM platform combines estimated delivery date in cart, real-time visibility in-transit, post-purchase communications, and AI-driven insights to create a solution capable of perfecting last mile delivery. Founded in 2013, Convey is backed by Silverton Partners, Techstars Venture Group, RPM Ventures and based in Austin, Texas. Learn more about Convey at: www.getconvey.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005079/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
A quick look back

The district is almost at the one-year mark:

 On March 16, 2020, it announced school buildings would close to students and in-person classes beginning two days later. No reopening date came for the rest of the school year or summer school.

 Last fall, students began in a virtual learning mode.

 On Oct. 19, elementary school students went back to in-person learning four days a week.

 They went back to virtual learning Nov. 16, with some school buildings closing earlier.

Middle and high school students spent all of the fall in a virtual learning mode, meaning they werent back in their school buildings for about 10 months.

The board's vote Monday does not affect the 3,740 students who are learning virtually the entire school year.
NEW DELHI: While it is okay to celebrate International Women's Day by posting pictures on social media, respect for women can be actually shown by making our country a safer place for them, feels actor Varun Dhawan.

Varun took to Instagram on Monday evening to share photographs with wife Natasha Dalal, his mother and sister-in-law. In one of the photos, Varun can be seen lying on his chest on a bed with wife Natasha resting on him.

"Happy women's day. Bharatiya naari sab pe bhaari. It`s great that we all post pictures on social media and make this day special but the real job will be done when we actually make our country safe for women because each woman is someone`s wife, mother or sister," Varun wrote in the post.

On the professional front, Varun Dhawan is currently shooting in Arunachal Pradesh for his upcoming horror-comedy film 'Bhediya'.

The Amar Kaushik directorial also features Kriti Sanon, Abhishek Banerjee and Deepak Dobriyal. 'Bhediya' written by National Award-winner Niren Bhatt is slated to be released in cinemas on April 14 next year.
Rutgers researchers have designed a new rapid test that can detect all three of the rapidly spreading variants of the coronavirus in a little over one hour  much shorter than the three to five days required by current tests, which can also be more technically difficult and expensive to perform.

Details and information on easily creating and running the rapid test  which is not being patented by Rutgers because researchers believe it should be widely available to the public -- are published on the pre-print online server, MedRxiv, and available at no charge.

The Rutgers researchers designed and clinically validated the test, which is the first to use "sloppy molecular beacon probes," which are highly sensitive and specific DNA sequences used to detect frequent mutations in organisms.

This rapid test was developed and tested over a few weeks in a crash program to respond to a serious public health need. Despite our hurry to get the test completed, it performed extremely well with clinical samples in our initial studies. We are very pleased with these results and we hope that this test will help in the control of the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic." David Alland, Director, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Public Health Research Institute and Professor and Chief of Infectious Disease, Rutgers NJMS

The new more contagious variants, isolated in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, appear to be more easily transmitted, cause more severe disease and may be more resistant to some of the approved COVID-19 vaccines.

The new rapid test is easy to set up and can be adapted for labs that use varying types of equipment and methods. The Rutgers researchers said users are free to use the test as described or modify it as needed, although they strongly suggest that additional validation be done for any test modifications.

Researchers are also working to expand their test to more precisely differentiate among the three main viral variants and they expect to release a new and larger test menu along with supporting evidence in the next several weeks. Additional test modifications will be released in the future as additional variants emerge.

David Alland, Padmapriya Banada, Soumitesh Chakravorty, Raquel Green and Sukalyani Banik were co-researchers at Rutgers who helped develop the test.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has described the verdict given by the seven-member panel of the Supreme Court on the Presidentil Election Petition filed by Former President John Dramani Mahama, as "well-reasoned and excellent".



Delivering his first State of the Nation Address in his second term on Tuesday, March 9, he said I am particularly delighted as this message, the first of my second term, the validity of which was unanimously upheld last week in a well-reasoned and excellent ruling by a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, presided over by the Chief Justice of on March 4, 2021.



Former President John Dramani Mahama went to the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the 2020 general elections. Blaming the electoral commission for various forms of irregularities, he appealed to the supreme court to order a rerun should they rule in his favour



However, the highest court of the land by a unanimous decision dismissed the election petition brought before it by Mr. Mahama.



The seven-member panel led by Chief Justice Kwesi Anin-Yeboah dismissed the petition on Thursday, March 4, saying it was without merit.



Reading a fifty-eight paged ruling, the Chief Justice said the petitioner has not produced any evidence to rebut the presumptions created by the publication of CI 135.



"We are therefore of no reason to order a rerun. We accordingly dismiss the petition," he added.

Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said today that the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which passed in the Senate on Saturday, will benefit the economy, and she said she hoped the country and economy would be "back to full employment" next year.

In an interview with MSNBC, Yellen deemed the bill "a tremendously important package that will bring hundreds of millions of Americans the relief they need." Yellen added that she anticipates that "our economy will be back to full employment, where we were before the pandemic, next year."

The Senates version of the legislation must now be passed by the U.S. House of Representatives before heading to President Bidens desk to be signed into law, according to a statement from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Democrats hope to have the Act signed by March 14, the deadline to renew unemployment aid programs.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said today he has faith in the New York Attorney Generals investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

AG Letitia James on Monday appointed former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon Kim and Anne Clark, an employment discrimination attorney, to oversee an investigation into claims from multiple women that Cuomo sexually harassed them.

They will turn over every single stone, they will follow every lead and they will resist any outside interference, political or otherwise, Schumer said.

Some Democrats in New York have called for Cuomos resignation in the wake of claims of sexual harassment and reports that he intentionally obscured data on deaths in nursing homes from Covid-19. Republicans in the state Assembly plan to introduce an impeachment resolution against the governor.

Speaking in Syracuse Tuesday, Schumer made no mention of resignation.

These allegations from each of the women are really serious, theyre troubling, the women have to be listened to, Schumer said. Ive always believed that sexual harassment is not acceptable, cannot be tolerated. So I called for the Attorney General to do a full and complete investigation which she now has commenced.

Schumer was in Syracuse Tuesday afternoon to tout the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill that recently passed in the Senate.

The bill includes $126 million for the city of Syracuse, $89 million for Onondaga County, as well as $1,400 stimulus checks for middle class Americans. Those checks, which Schumer said will arrive by the end of March, will be a huge boost for the Central New York economy.

Other spending locally includes $34 million for Central New York towns, $34 million for CENTRO, $12 million for Hancock International Airport and $10 million in rental assistance for Onondaga County tenants.

Help is on the way, Schumer said.

Chris Baker is a public affairs reporter for syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact him via email at cbaker@syracuse.com or follow him on Twitter.

Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Those interested in but not registered for a COVID-19 vaccine can get one today at the Ollie Liner Center, 2000 S. Columbia St.

The City of Plainview announced Tuesday morning that walk-ins will be welcome from 1-3 p.m. today (Tuesday, March 9).
[March 09, 2021] Vestigo Ventures Expands Expertise and Vision with New Hire

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Vestigo Ventures, Boston's first FinTech venture capital firm, has announced the hiring of Kelly Shaw as the company's first principal. "The success of any venture capital firm is highly correlated to the quality of its management," says Vestigo's cofounder, Mark Casady. "We are very pleased to have Kelly Shaw join our team. Her insight, intelligence and experience are wonderful additions to our investment approach and work with entrepreneurs." Shaw is uniquely suited to complement the skills, perspective, and advisory network that have been the keys to Vestigo's success. As a Harvard MBA graduate with both founder and investor experience, her financial services career has included work in entrepreneurship, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and venture capital. Highlights of Shaw's founder experience include cofounding of AlmaPact (now Stride Funding ) a provider of income share agreements (ISA). With a seed raise and accolades like winning the MIT FinTech competition, Stride Funding's innovative approach to student funding is, as Forbes notes , "helping to address America's college affordability crisis and the racial wealth gap."



Shaw gained a worldwide perspective on the financial industry after spending almost four years in Europe, two while working for a Madrid bank during the heart of the global financial crisis. In the states, she had a broad range of roles in finance and M&A for GE Capital. As Vice President of M&A and Ventures at Synchrony, Shaw established a passion for Fintech, and her work resulted in three acquisitions and a Series C investment in the SMB Financing platform, Fundbox . When asked about her new role at Vestigo, Shaw cites the company's financial expertise, founder-focus, and collaborative spirit as the reasons she's eager to dive into her new role. "My partners at Vestigo have a rich range of financial industry and investment experience," Shaw shares. "They get deeply involved with the companies they nurture, helping to secure new clients, hires, and doing all they can to position them for growth. And though I have a great deal to learn from them, they've let me know they feel the same way about me. That kind of shared faith in our talents and excitement for learning and creating opportunities together is inspiring and a sure formula for success."

About Vestigo Ventures

Vestigo Ventures finds and funds the emerging technologies that best serve the $12B annual market for FinTech services. Learn more at vestigoventures.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vestigo-ventures-expands-expertise-and-vision-with-new-hire-301243963.html SOURCE Vestigo Ventures

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Several firefighter units extinguished a Clinton Township house fire Monday afternoon, after some of them also responded to a separate blaze in Hunterdon County that occurred earlier in the day.

First responders were dispatched to a fire at a residence on Timber Ridge Drive on Monday shortly after 2 p.m.

Chris Sloss, chief of the Annandale Hose Company, confirmed that residents were home at the time of the fire, but no injuries were reported.

First responders were dispatched to a fire at a residence on Timber Ridge Road in Clinton Township shortly after 2 p.m. Monday.Rich Maxwell | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The residents of the home have been temporarily displaced, homeowner Kathleen Chruszcz confirmed.

The fire was ... extensive, Chruszcz said in a statement to NJ Advance Media. They had to break through walls in the great room, and it extends to the garage.

Units responding to the call included Clinton Township Police, Annandale Fire Company, High Bridge Fire Company, Quakertown Fire Company, Lebanon Borough Fire Company, Clinton Fire Company, Califon Fire Company, South Branch Emergency Services, Hunterdon County Fire Coordinators, and the Office of the Clinton Township Fire Marshal.

First responders were dispatched to a fire at a residence on Timber Ridge Road in Clinton Township shortly after 2 p.m. Monday.Rich Maxwell | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

First responders left the scene at about 3:15 p.m.

Clinton Township police are currently investigating the incident.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Caroline Fassett may be reached at cfassett@njadvancemedia.com
ADVERTISEMENT

Google on Monday pledged $25 million from its new global Impact Challenge (GIC) towards the empowerment of women and girls in Africa.

The GIC for Women and Girls, which will provide $25 million in overall cash grants to nonprofits and social enterprises creating pathways to prosperity for women and girls.

Google, in a statement, said it followed initiatives like the 2019 Africa launch of Women Will, Googles initiative to create opportunities for women, and Googles #IamRemarkable workshop series, which works to counteract conditioning that women shouldnt celebrate their achievements.

Empowering women and girls in Africa to reach their full economic potential, and to thrive, is more critical now than ever before as they bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, says Juliet Ehimuan, country director, Google Nigeria, quoting the Foresight Africa report 2021.

It confirms that the coronavirus has exacerbated already-existing gender inequalities, laying bare serious fault lines in safety, physical and mental health, education, domestic responsibilities, and employment opportunities.

Despite decades of work aimed at achieving gender equality, the disparity between men and women not only remains  it is growing alarmingly, largely thanks to the global pandemic, the report warns

The (GIC) for Women and Girls is focused on changing the status quo, with Ms Ehimuan stressing that job cuts, income losses, and lack of education arent simply side-effects of the pandemic, but will negatively impact the economic strides made by women and girls for many years to come.

As economies and societies rebuild, we need bold new ideas that will propel us forward. We cant afford to go back to the way things were, and we certainly cant do it alone.

Organisations have until April 2, to submit their applications at g.co/womenandgirlschallenge. An all-female panel of expert Google executives and world/business leaders, including Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women; Victoria Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on SDGs; Graca Machel, Founder, Graca Machel Trust; and Juliana Rotich, Kenyan information technology entrepreneur, will preside over the application review and selection process once applications close.

Over the past five years, Google.org has given over $55 million in cash grants to non-profit organisations that support gender equity and access to opportunities for women and girls around the world.

We have a collective responsibility to ensure that generations of women and girls from all walks of lifeno matter their race, sexual orientation, religion, or socioeconomic statuslive in a world where they are treated equally and can realise their full potential.

When women and girls have the tools, resources, and opportunities to turn their potential into power, it not only changes the trajectory of their individual lives but also strengthens entire communities. If we lift up women and girls, the rest of the world will rise, too, Ms Ehimuan said.

Grantees, who will be announced later this year, are eligible to receive funding ranging from $300,000 to $2 million. Selected organisations will also receive capacity-building support and mentoring from Googlers.
More than 100 Saint Vincent Hospital Nurses crossed the picket line after a strike began Monday, officials said, deciding to work rather than continuing to strike with colleagues.

The 115 nurses - representing nearly 15% of the hospitals nursing staff - crossed the line throughout the day, joining replacement registered nurses caring for patients, according to a statement released Tuesday by the Worcester hospital.

A strike by 800 nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital began at 6 a.m. Monday. Complaints from nurses date back to last February when more than 70% signed a petition calling for safer staffing levels.

In preparation for the strike, Saint Vincent Hospital said it initially paid $1.7 million for replacement nurses and another $3.7 million on Friday as a final payment.

We want to thank all our caregivers, including the nurses who made the decision to put patients first by crossing the MNA picket line to take care of our community, said Saint Vincent CEO Carolyn Jackson. We especially recognize the bravery of the nurses who crossed the picket line for taking this important stand. It sends a strong message to the MNA that not all nurses are in support of this strike.

Throughout Monday, the hospital cared for more than 200 inpatients and hundreds of outpatients, did not cancel any scheduled surgeries or procedures because of the strike, and the emergency department continued to receive ambulances and walk-in patients, just like any other day, the statement said.

This is an outstanding hospital, with an outstanding safety record. It is now and has always been appropriately staffed, Jackson said. Our operations remain stable, and we have worked hard to provide a great offer and find middle ground on staffing improvements with the MNA, but the union has refused to engage with us on that offer.

Additionally, both inpatient and outpatient services continued as usual and cardiac catheterizations, endoscopies, biopsies, joint replacements, robotic surgeries and a repair of an ascending aortic aneurysm went on with quality of care not affected by the strike, the hospital said.

Despite the absence of our regular nursing staff, we continued the quality care for which we are known with no disruption, said Lisa Beaudry, the chief nursing officer of the hospital. We had detailed contingency plans in place for the strike, and the team worked efficiently to implement them. No quality or safety issues were reported. We continue to be open for business and ready to provide quality care for the community.

To ensure that Saint Vincent could maintain appropriate quality and staffing, observers from the state Department of Public Health and Department of Mental Health were on site Monday, the hospital said.

Hospital officials have also been on daily calls with DPH since the strike notice was given to ensure continued compliance with state regulations, the statement said.

Saint Vincent said the four observers at the hospital Monday told hospital leadership that the visit went well and they left with no issues. Throughout the strike, observers will continue to have a presence at the hospital.

Im encouraged by the fact that there was no disruption to providing high quality patient care due to the strike, said Dr. Sowmya Viswanathan, the hospitals chief medical officer. Our medical staff was able to continue to care for patients in a high-quality manner. I look forward to the end of the strike, but in the meantime, were covered, and will keep providing excellent care to our community.

Related Content:
I am passionate about seeing children succeed and giving them the best opportunities to reach their maximum potential, she said. I believe that every child develops in their own time. As a parent of current D181 students as well as older students who are navigating high school, college and work in these unique times, I will bring a unique perspective to the D181 board as I understand how the work of D181 fits into a childs future goals.
[March 09, 2021] Voicify Chosen for First Ever Google Accelerator on Voice & AI

BOSTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Voicify, the enterprise voice app platform, was selected by Google to participate in the first Google for Startups Accelerator: Voice AI. Voicify is being widely used across the Fortune 1000 with brands like Wolverine Worldwide (Keds, Chacos, Merrell), Campari International (Wild Turkey, Skyy Vodka, Grand Marinier) L'Oreal, Living Proof, Philadelphia Eagles and Volkswagen. Voicify was selected to collaborate with the Google Assistant team in solving several challenges, namely moving a user from Action to Action with greater ease and intelligence. The accelerator is a 10-week program from mid-March to mind-May, culminating in a public demonstration on May 20, 2021. Voicify, along with the other companies will work closely with Google product teams across voice UI as well as AI. "We're excited to be working directly with Google to help solve some of the biggest technical challenges in the voice and conversational space today." Said Alex Dunn, Principal Architect. He went on, "By learning moe about how users interact with individual Actions, we can design systems that cut across multiple experiences built on Voicify while bringing the best answers and conversations to the end-user and making conversational Actions more discoverable."



This inaugural accelerator class is well timed after a year of rapid adoption. Expedited further with the global pandemic, Q1 of 2020 saw an aggressive increase of voice assistant usage as reported by NPR/Edison Research and Voicebot.ai. Jeff McMahon, CEO of Voicify noted, "The current acceleration in voice adoption by both users and brands is faster than we had expected. We are excited to be recognized by Google and chosen to collaborate with their teams."

About Voicify and the Company's Conversation Experience Management Platform

Voicify is the market leader in enterprise voice assistant and voice app software. The Company's no-code platform combines voice-optimized content management, cross-platform (Alexa, Google Assistant, SMSBots, ChatBots and custom voicebots) deployment, and customer insights. To learn more about Voicify or to schedule a demo please visit https://voicify.com. Contact:

Jason Fields

jfields@voicify.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/voicify-chosen-for-first-ever-google-accelerator-on-voice--ai-301243509.html SOURCE Voicify

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Members of an Irish tarmacking and driveway crew are this week awaiting the verdict of a Swedish court following their trial over an alleged 4 million tax dodge.

The O'Connor brothers, from Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary, one of their wives and two Swedish associates have been accused of serious financial offences and money laundering.

Prosecutors in Stockholm said the accused people colluded in "criminal activities conducted systematically" by not declaring income.

John O'Connor and his brothers, Edward, Mark and Darren, were last week in custody after first being questioned by investigators in October.

A fifth brother, Thomas, is also named in documents as facing one charge of an accounting offence.

Darren's wife, Chantal O'Connor, was not in custody when she appeared at court last week accompanied by other family members.

Expand Close Chantal OConnor on the way to Stockholm District Court. / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Chantal OConnor on the way to Stockholm District Court.

Last month, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) in Ireland was drafted in via Europol to assist the Swedish investigation, and Garda officers carried out a series of raids in Co. Tipperary.

Europol revealed that 100,000 in cash was seized during searches, while CAB said 16 bank accounts and funds of 540,000 had been frozen.

A car worth 75,000 was also seized and investigations are continuing.

Court documents show the extent of the massive investigation launched by Swedish authorities.

Dozens of customers who hired the contractors via email were contacted to give evidence about paying money to the firm controlled by the group.

Most of the people contacted told investigators that they were happy with the work carried out on their properties.

Read More

The authorities compiled a huge dossier on almost three years' worth of financial transactions by the accused people, linking cash transfers from customers to their personal bank accounts.

One of the Swedish co-accused is Caroline Lindstrom, who the brothers told investigators had set up the firm Stenspecialist.

However, she said in interviews that her role in the company was over-stated and it was really controlled by John, Mark and Darren.

Expand Close Caroline Lindstrom is also accused. / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Caroline Lindstrom is also accused.

She had first met John O'Connor when he worked for her father and then she helped him dealing with translation, customers and administration.

Invoices

When the other brothers turned up in Sweden she dealt with them as well and Ms Lindstrom said she also helped their father, John O'Connor sr, to get Swedish social security numbers.

Landscaping, stone-work and drainage jobs that came through trade websites were passed on to the brothers and Ms Lindstrom would send out invoices when the work was completed.

Transcripts of interviews with investigators reveal the O'Connors said Ms Lindstrom looked after the accounts for the company and they all denied the criminal charges against them.

John O'Connor said he had set up the company Stenspecialist some years ago but as far as he was concerned it had been shut down in 2017.

He suggested that Ms Lindstrom had set up a separate company because things had become too "messy" and that she had exploited him and his brothers.

John O'Connor said he and his brothers didn't understand what was wrong, and that Ms Lindstrom had looked after taxes, invoices and sales.

Chantal and Darren O'Connor both told investigators that Chantal had inherited property from her grandfather, which she had sold off, and that they were using that cash.

Darren claimed he had no idea why his brother Edward had transferred cash to his wife's bank account. "I had no idea there was [Swedish kroner] 4.8 million in her account," he said.

He also couldn't explain why his other brother Mark had transferred the equivalent of 97,000 to her account on one occasion.

Asked if anyone else had access to her bank accounts, he said that Chantal "is very vulnerable".

From 2018 until 2020, investigators say 458,000 was transferred outside the country from Chantal's Swedish account.

At one point in one of the interviews Darren told his questioner: "No comment on all your questions. It's after 7pm and it's late to answer your questions."

He later told investigators that he made the foreign transfers from Chantal's account and that she had nothing to do with the business operations.

Darren O'Connor claimed Caroline Lindstrom had tricked him into putting Chantal on the board of the company, and that his wife "is a housewife and has nothing to do with the company".

Mark O'Connor told investigators that some of the transfers were related to the purchase of expensive machinery or vehicles.

Investigators said the equivalent of 1.2 million went through one of his Swedish bank accounts in 2019.

The youngest of the brothers, Edward, said he had income from a house he rents out in Ireland, from which he gets about 2,000 a month.

The financial trail compiled by investigators revealed receipts for Edward for 6,500 spent on a Rolex watch and 550 on a Gucci belt.

He said the Rolex was an investment and the belt was a present for his wife's birthday.

While he said he controlled his own Irish bank accounts, he said he did not use Swedish accounts under his name.

Edward said while he helped out with the work, he had not been employed by the companies in Sweden.

He was unable to explain a series of bank transfers from various account when put to him by investigators.
Eucalyptus and carob saplings are planted near the forest of Kufranjah, north of Jordan's capital Amman, part of a reforestation effort that aims to reach 10 million trees in 10 years

On a bare hill in Jordan's verdant Ajloun region, dozens of people plant saplings as part of a reforestation effort that aims to reach 10 million trees in 10 years.

"The trees in our region are beautiful," says 11-year-old Mohammed al-Ananza, helping his father Mustafa plant a carob sapling.

"It's a real shame that we have lost so many to fires... We should work together to protect them," he says as they work near the Kufranjah forest north of the capital Amman.

Forests make up only one percent of the desert kingdom's territory, according to the agriculture ministry, though Jordan also has an estimated 23 million orchard trees, half of them olives.

Forest fires strike almost every year in the Middle Eastern country due to high summer temperatures, in a trend scientists expect to intensify with climate change.

The blazes are often started by picnickers' barbeques or carelessly discarded cigarettes.

There were 499 fires in wood and forest areas last year alone, according to the agriculture ministry.

"We must make up for what has been lost in the fires," said Belal Qtishat, head of the nature protection department at the environment ministry.

"It's the only way to fight desertification and climate change and to protect biodiversity."

The tree planting campaign began in Kufranjah, which one official described as "Jordan's lungs", to make up for what has been lost in fires

Region-specific

Mahmoud al-Ananza watched on as his grandson and son got to work on the hill in Kufranjah.

The family has volunteered but agriculture and environment ministry employees were also among the 150 people in charge of planting 30,000 trees in the area.

"I was born here and I can tell you that if you plant cypress trees, eucalypts, olives, carob or oak, they will grow on their own," the man in his 70s said, wearing a traditional red-and-while keffiyeh scarf.

The programme focuses on species that, after the initial phase of taking root, can survive without a lot of additional water.

Mohamed Daoudia, agriculture minister at the time of the project's launch last month, said fires were the biggest problem for Jordan's wooded areas.

"Illegal tree felling only represents one percent of the damage to forests," he told AFP.

In October, 50 hectares (over 120 acres) of olive and forest trees burnt in the Ajloun region, while a year earlier in Jerash province, 80 hectares went up in flames.

Qtishat, of the environment ministry, said the reforestation project aimed to rehabilitate only "the regions fit for doing so".

"We don't plan to cover the whole kingdom with trees because each part of the country has its own special features," he said.

Jordanian officials hope the tree-planting programme will help to fight desertification and climate change, as well as protect biodiversity

Benefits for bees

The aim of the first stage is to create forests in Karak and Tafila provinces south of the capital, planting in each area 30,000 commonly found trees like eucalyptus, jujube and carob.

The campaign began in Kufranjah, which Qtishat described as "Jordan's lungs".

The kingdom also plans to work on fire prevention by setting up monitoring posts and patrols, providing its civil defence with specialised vehicles and carrying out forest surveillance using drones.

Former minister Daoudia described the reforestation programme as both "ambitious and realistic".

He said results would be seen in the next four to five years, and that the greening campaign would also benefit bees and honey production.

Jordan produces an average of 250 tonnes of honey a year.

"Our nurseries produce 2.5 million forest trees a year and 500,000 fruit trees. So in theory, we could plant 10 million trees in four years," Daoudia said.

"But we decided on 10 years in order to do the job well."

 2021 AFP
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been under heavy fire from the Left over the last year, as a result of being Americas most pro-freedom governor, while leading one of the countrys most successful states. No surprise there. It is, however, a little odd to see her taking fire from the right, in the form of this piece at the American Thinker. The author looks at Noems eight years in the House of Representatives and finds her record insufficiently conservative and perhaps insufficiently distinguished.

But we arent talking about Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins here. Noem is a solid conservative, as reflected in her 77% lifetime ACU conservative rating. In her last two years in Congress, 2017 and 2018, her ACU rating was 81% and 82%, respectively. Noem was a member of the House leadership team, which tends to depress conservative ratings because leadership is more or less required to vote in favor of compromise legislation they have negotiated, while backbenchers have the luxury of voting no.

Representative Noem was highly respected during her term in Congress, as reflected in the fact that she was chosen to be the Class of 2010s representative to the leadership team. She was on the final conference committee that crafted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a signature achievement of the Trump administration. She was also on the conference committee for 2014 farm bill, and helped to negotiate both the USMCA and the Phase One China Deal, both of which opened up markets for South Dakotas agricultural products.

The American Thinker piece acknowledges that Noem has been a staunch pro-lifer, and the first bill that she signed into law as Governor of South Dakota was a Constitutional Carry act to protect the states firearms rights.

The Thinker piece rehearses the familiar, but pointless, comparison between Kristi Noem and Sarah Palin. I was a fan of Palin, but she had nothing like Noems record of solid achievement. And it would be futile to try to convince anyone who watched Noems CPAC speech, or who has followed her career as governor, that she is anything but a philosophically committed conservative.

Here is the acid test, though: my South Dakota relatives, who are at least as conservative as I am and who know her family, think the world of her. If she is conservative enough for South Dakota conservatives, trust me, she is more than conservative enough for America. I have no idea whether Kristi Noem will wind up on the national ticket in 2024, but I would certainly be happy to see her there.
Laos says women are now more respected and protected on International Women's Day Monday, but the words might ring hollow to Houayheuang Xayabouly, who languishes in jail more than a year after her arrest for a Facebook post complaining about the communist governments failure to respond to a flooding emergency.

Houayheuang Xayabouly, better known by her nickname Mouay, was arrested Sept. 12, 2019, a week after she published videos critical about the governments inability to rescue people from flooding in the countrys southern Champassak and Salavan provinces. The delayed government response had left many Lao villagers stranded and cut off from help, she said in the video, which was viewed more than 150,000 times.

The authorities charged her with defaming the country according to Article 117 of Laos Criminal Code, holding her in the Champassak provincial jail.

Though the swift arrest and sentencing may have silenced her, her legend only grew.

It is very good we have such an outspoken woman, a Lao activist in Thailand told RFAs Lao Service.

She alone had the gumption to criticize the government on internal affairs and other issues, so she is braver than any man is, the activist said.

State media reported that while detained, Mouay confessed to her crime. In addition to the five years in prison, the maximum jail sentence, she was also slapped with a 20 million kip (U.S. $2,250) fine, also the maximum.

A lawyer who declined to be named told RFA that Mouays arrest was unjust.

The arrest abuses the basic rights of Lao citizens. She has the right to criticize the government in a constructive way. The charge and the courts decision are groundless, the lawyer said.

The measure to prosecute her does not make sense, so lawyers are confused, and we disagree with the courts decision.

Mouays videos

Mouay had been an active critic of the government online since 2018, usually uploading her controversial content on her Facebook page and YouTube.

In late 2018 she published a video that slammed the Lao governments slow and inadequate response to help survivors of Laos worst-ever dam disaster, the July 2018 collapse of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam in Champassak that destroyed all or parts of 19 villages, killed 71 people and displaced another 14,000 to temporary relocation centers.

In early 2019, Mouay set her crosshairs on corruption among government workers, who she said were able to use their positions to get rich quickly, then flaunt their wealth by buying luxury houses and cars.

In a later video, she complained about the widespread pay-to-get-hired scheme in Laos, bringing up the case of one of her relatives who was asked to pay about U.S. $3,000 to a local government office in exchange for a job he had applied for. Though the bribe was pocketed, her relative was never hired, so Mouay demanded that the bribed official return the money.

About a month prior to her arrest, Mouay took aim at traffic police who stop motorists then accept bribes. At one point in the video, she expressed her fury at a local police chief who said that bribes were an act of mutual consent between the officer and the motorist.

The video that got her arrested went up Sept. 5, 2019. After two storms barreled into southern Laos that week and dropped more than 40 centimeters (15 inches) of rain in some parts, many people were in desperate need of rescue and relief.

My parents and I have been trappedsurrounded by water in Attapeu Province for several days now, and the authorities have sent no boats or helicopters to come evacuate or rescue us. I couldnt remain silent any longer. Not saying anything at all is a thing of the past, and out of date, Mouay said in the offending video.

One week later she was arrested. Authorities said she exaggerated governments lack of response, and some of what she said was untrue, so it could create a misunderstanding and social disorder.

Mouay confessed to her crime, but rights groups believe she was coerced.

The 32-year-old Champassak province native is serving her sentence in the Champassak Provincial Detention Center.

International Womens Day 2021

Celebrations for International Womens Day in Laos were scaled down this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

With an overall theme of Women Leadership for Equality, Womens Unions all over the country held small events to commemorate the history of the day and the importance of women continuing to play a greater role in Lao society.

Lao womens roles and rights have become more respected and protected in the last several years, but many Lao women, especially those in remote areas are poor, uneducated, uninformed and easily victimized by human trafficking, a member of the Lao Womens Union told RFA.

Most of the victims are trafficked into sex trade and hard labor within the country, to Thailand and China, she said.

A government employee in Xayaburi province in the countrys northwest told RFA that life for women has vastly improved in recent years.

For example, paid maternity leave was extended from three months to five months since 2019, she said.

Women in power

Though Laos is an overwhelmingly male-dominated society, women have gained some traction in government, particularly in the countrys single-party national assembly, which, until recent elections was 27 percent female, well above the world average.

In a recent interview with the World Bank on the occasion of International Womens Day, Lao radio host Chandavone Sinamonty said that for her, Laos most inspiring female figure was its most powerfulNational Assembly President Pany Yathotou.

She said Pany Yathotou is a woman with a broad vision who plays an important role in Lao society, noting also that she was a member of the Hmong ethnic minority.

Pany Yathotou is currently the third-highest ranked member of Laos Politburo, behind Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and Vice President Phankham Viphavanh.

Prior to becoming National Assembly president in 2010, Pany Yathotou had been an assembly member since 1998. She also led the Laos central bank from 1988 to 1997.

She was for a long time the only female member of the Politburo until this year, when she was joined by National Assembly Vice President Sisay Leudetmounsone.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on its website commends Laos for having one of the worlds highest proportions of women in parliament, but it noted that very few women had power in other government institutions.

The UNDP also noted that although there are more Lao women in the labor market than at any other time in history, there are still large inequalities in some regions, with women systematically denied the same work rights as men.

It cited sexual violence and exploitation, unequal division of unpaid care and domestic work, and discrimination in public office as huge barriers. Climate change was also a concern, as disasters have a disproportionate effect on women and children, as do conflict and migration.

The proportion of women in the Lao National Assembly actually decreased as a result of the February 21 elections. Though the number of seats in the legislative body increased from 149 to 164, the number of female lawmakers decreased from 41 to 36, or moving from about 27 percent to 22 percent, below the global average of 24 percent.

Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Wormholes play a key role in many science fiction films - often as a shortcut between two distant points in space. In physics, however, these tunnels in spacetime have remained purely hypothetical. An international team led by Dr. Jose Luis Blazquez-Salcedo of the University of Oldenburg has now presented a new theoretical model in the science journal Physical Review Letters that makes microscopic wormholes seem less far-fetched than in previous theories.

Wormholes, like black holes, appear in the equations of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, published in 1916. An important postulate of Einstein's theory is that the universe has four dimensions - three spatial dimensions and time as the fourth dimension. Together they form what is known as spacetime, and spacetime can be stretched and curved by massive objects such as stars, much as a rubber sheet would be curved by a metal ball sinking into it. The curvature of spacetime determines the way objects like spaceships and planets, but also light, move within it. "In theory, spacetime could also be bent and curved without massive objects," says Blazquez-Salcedo, who has since transferred to the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain. In this scenario, a wormhole would be an extremely curved region in spacetime that resembles two interconnected funnels and connects two distant points in space, like a tunnel. "From a mathematical perspective such a shortcut would be possible, but no one has ever observed a real wormhole," the physicist explains.

Moreover, such a wormhole would be unstable. If for example a spaceship were to fly into one, it would instantly collapse into a black hole - an object in which matter disappears, never to be seen again. The connection it provided to other places in the universe would be cut off. Previous models suggest that the only way to keep the wormhole open is with an exotic form of matter that has a negative mass, or in other words weighs less than nothing, and which only exists in theory. However, Blazquez-Salcedo and his colleagues Dr. Christian Knoll from the University of Oldenburg and Eugen Radu from the Universidade de Aveiro in Portugal demonstrate in their model that wormholes could also be traversable without such matter. The researchers chose a comparatively simple "semiclassical" approach. They combined elements of relativity theory with elements of quantum theory and classic electrodynamics theory. In their model they consider certain elementary particles such as electrons and their electric charge as the matter that is to pass through the wormhole. As a mathematical description, they chose the Dirac equation, a formula that describes the probability density function of a particle according to quantum theory and relativity as a so-called Dirac field.

As the physicists report in their study, it is the inclusion of the Dirac field into their model that permits the existence of a wormhole traversable by matter, provided that the ratio between the electric charge and the mass of the wormhole exceeds a certain limit. In addition to matter, signals - for example electromagnetic waves - could also traverse the tiny tunnels in spacetime. The microscopic wormholes postulated by the team would probably not be suitable for interstellar travel. Moreover, the model would have to be further refined to find out whether such unusual structures could actually exist. "We think that wormholes can also exist in a complete model," says Blazquez-Salcedo.

###

The scientists conducted the research for their paper within the Research Training Group "Models of Gravity" funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). It is headed by Oldenburg physicist Prof. Dr. Jutta Kunz together with Prof. Dr. Claus Lammerzahl from the Centre of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen. In addition to the University of Oldenburg, several other universities and research institutions are also involved in the programme.
Lawyer Pham Duy Khuong was ranked by World Trademark Review 1000 as the leading lawyer in Vietnam on trademark litigation and strategy

Lawyer Pham Duy Khuong is rated by Asia Business Law Journal for his trademark expertise through in-depth research and consulting services for clients as M&A, IP and franchise, energy and project, antidumping and countervailing, corporate and commercial disputes and commercial arbitration.

With over 10 years of experience, Khuong founded and ran ASL Law Firm with various outstanding achievements. In particular, Pham is also highly appreciated in the field of prosecution and strategy.

In addition to the Vietnams list of 100 top lawyers, he also led ASL Law to be ranked second in the list of top local law firms in Vietnam voted by The Legal 500.

Lawyer Khuong is credited by the World Trademark Review 1000 for trademark expertise through in-depth research and consulting services for customers and also highly appreciated by WTR in trademark litigation and trademark strategic advice.

As the founder and executive, lawyer Khuong has led ASL Law to become one of the most prestigious law firms in Vietnam

WTR 1000 is a website and magazine about international trademark law. This is a monthly magazine with news, featured articles and legal news updates of a group of trademark experts around the world. In the Vietnamese market, WTR also honours law firms and trademark lawyers who have many achievements in effectively supporting clients projects.

The recognition was based on evaluation by customers and lawyers regarding the professionalism, reputation, and professional expertise of lawyer Khuong.

Not only providing domestic legal services, lawyer Pham Duy Khuong and ASL Law also support customers from markets including Singapore, China, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Hong Kong, the US, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the EU, among others, where Vietnamese businesses are doing business.
Panaji, March 9 : The Crime Branch of the Goa Police on Tuesday rescued one woman from Uzbekistan and two other women from Mumbai in an anti-prostitution raid, which resulted in the arrest of an alleged pimp Raj Chawla, a resident of Hyderadad, police said.

The rescue and the arrest were conducted after a raid at a beach resort located near the popular Morjim beach in North Goa by officials of the Crime Branch on Tuesday.

"We suspected involvement of more pimps in the prostitution racket. Efforts are on to trace them," a Goa Police spokesperson said.
Congress

TMF set to receive $1B infusion in COVID relief bill

The Technology Modernization is poised to receive one heck of a present for its three-year anniversary  a $1 billion funding injection from Congress that would dramatically its capitalization.

The TMF was founded by the Modernizing Government Technology Act and launched with $100 million. The fund has received three $25 million appropriations but overall has remained small  especially considering lawmakers initially sought to fund it with $3 billion.

The House of Representatives included $9 billion for TMF in its initial version of the bill, but that provision was scrubbed after objections from many in the Senate. However, TMF backers in the Senate managed to include $1 billion their version of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act. The bill also contains other tech funding, including $200 million for the U.S. Digital Service and $650 million for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for risk mitigation on federal networks and systems.

The TMF money is good through the end of fiscal year 2025.

"I remain hopeful that it gets all the way through," former federal CIO Suzette Kent told FCW. "It would be an incredible accelerator for digital citizen services, cybersecurity tools, advancing the data agenda, cross agency shared capabilities and end-to-end hardening of some of the remote work and online services put in place rapidly as part of COVID response."

Former NASA CIO Renee Wynn is also a big supporter of the fund, and in an email she highlighted the connection between COVID relief and IT modernization.

"COVID provided a learning opportunity for understanding the importance of IT as well as the national security concerns associated with supply chain risk," she told FCW. "TMF is a way to mitigate these risks as long as the executive leadership of an agency understand this opportunity and can work within their agency to make an informed, risk-based decision."

Former deputy federal CIO Margie Graves said that some administrative changes could be needed as the fund grows. The current scheme is for agencies to present projects to a board, with two stages of approval required to obtain funds. That process has so far yielded 10 projects in various stages of completion, according to the TMF website.

"I think possibly.the structure of how it gets adjudicated probably needs to change because the way we had the board set up for $25 million to $100 million is not going to work for this," she said. The concern is that the current approach could slow down the process.

"Now that the number is bigger, the actual throughput would have to be expanded," Graves said. "We can't create our own bottleneck in terms of approval and oversight."

Graves also noted that agencies need to have a sense of their own needs  the critical systems that are most in need of upgrades and plans to implement new technologies.

Wynn observed that "some agencies lack the plans to capitalize on this opportunity," and noted that among chief financial officers and mission leaders there is a focus on how to pay back the fund and that some outreach to agency leadership would help sell senior executives on the potential benefits of TMF.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Wednesday on the Senate-passed version of the American Rescue Act. President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel speaks during a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Nov. 9, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

RNC Tells Trump It Has Every Right to Use His Name, Image in Fundraising Appeals

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is insisting it has the right to use former President Donald Trumps name and likeness in fundraising appeals, after Trump sent cease-and-desist letters to the committee.

In a March 8 letter obtained by The Epoch Times, the RNCs chief counsel Justin Riemer told Trumps Save America political action committee that the RNC has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech, and it will continue to do so in pursuit of these common goals.

Riemer also said that Trump and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel enjoy a close relationship, alleging the former president over the weekend reaffirmed to her that he approves of the RNCs current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for an upcoming donor retreat event in Palm Beach in which Trump is slated to participate.

The RNC has not sent any fundraising requests in President Trumps name or used his image since before he left office, nor would it do so without his prior approval, the lawyer wrote.

The Save America committee didnt respond to a request for comment.

A Trump adviser told The Epoch Times that Trump sent cease-and-desist letters not only to the RNC, but also to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The letters demanded the groups stop using Trumps name and likeness to raise funds.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 28, 2021. (Joe Skipper/Reuters)

The pressure on the groups is part of an intra-party struggle over who heads the GOP. A growing number of Republicans have publicly opposed the former president, including 17 who sided with Democrats in the latest impeachment saga.

Trump plans on supporting primary opponents to some sitting lawmakers, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), one of seven senators who voted to convict him on a charge of incitement of insurrection.

Trump was ultimately acquitted because 43 senators voted against the charge.

Trump urged supporters on Monday to stop giving money to so-called RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only.

They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting basethey will never lead us to Greatness. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com. We will bring it all back stronger than ever before! he said.

Trump told a crowd at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference that he opposes House Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) staying in office, before telling supporters to get rid of all the members of Congress who voted against him in the latest impeachment saga.

I will be actively working to elect strong, tough, and smart Republican leaders, Trump declared. RINOs will destroy the Republican Party  and the American workers.

Ivan Pentchoukov and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
POTTSVILLE  A Luzerne County man will spend more time behind bars after admitting Friday to a Schuylkill County judge that he possessed drugs in September 2019 in Tamaqua.

Joseph M. Vidzicki, 34, of Luzerne, pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance. Prosecutors withdrew charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and public drunkenness.

Judge Christina E. Hale accepted Vidzickis plea and sentenced him to serve 60 days to 12 months in prison and pay costs, $100 to the Substance Abuse Education Fund and a $50 bench warrant fee.

Tamaqua police charged Vidzicki with possessing drugs on Sept. 13, 2019, in the borough.

Vidzicki already is an inmate at Schuylkill County Prison, and Hale conducted the hearing by videoconference.

Also in the county court, Christina A. McPeek, 35, of Altoona, pleaded guilty March 1 to false identification to law enforcement. Prosecutors withdrew a charge of defiant trespass.

President Judge William E. Baldwin accepted McPeeks plea, placed her on probation for 12 months and also sentenced her to pay costs.

Minersville police charged McPeek with falsely identifying herself to them on Jan. 29, 2018, in the borough.

In another county case, Baldwin revoked the probation of Tiffany M. Koncsler, 32, address not known, and sentenced her to spend four to 12 months in prison and an additional two years on probation.

Koncsler originally pleaded guilty on April 26, 2019, to corruption of minors and possession of drug paraphernalia. Prosecutors withdrew charges of endangering the welfare of children, resisting arrest and possession of a controlled substance.

At that time, Baldwin placed Koncsler on probation for two years, and also sentenced her to pay costs, a $100 SAEF payment, $50 to the Criminal Justice Enhancement Account and a $50 bench warrant fee.

Shenandoah police charged Koncsler with committing her crimes on June 30, 2017, in the borough.

Koncsler already is an inmate at Schuylkill County Prison, and Hale conducted the hearing by videoconference.

Also in the county court, Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin sentenced Michael V. McCall, 40, of Berwick, to serve nine to 23 months in prison, pay costs, a $50 CJEA payment and $190.16 restitution, and submit a DNA sample to law enforcement authorities.

McCall pleaded no contest on Jan. 20 to retail theft and receiving stolen property. Rush Township police had charged him with committing the theft on May 13, 2020, in the township.

By pleading no contest, McCall did not admit committing his crimes, but offered no defense to the charges, acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and agreed to be sentenced as if he had pleaded or been found guilty.
Despite marauding ISIS fighters and a raging pandemic, Pope Francis made a historic pilgrimage this weekend to Iraq, the birthplace of Abraham, who was the first prophet to embrace belief in a single God, and the patriarch of the worlds three great monotheistic religionsJudaism, Christianity, and Islam. Vatican News called it the most difficult and most important journey of Franciss eight-year pontificate. It was taxing physically, too. The eighty-four-year-old Pope, hobbled by sciatica, limped badly as Iraqis sang in Aramaic, the language of Christ, and (unmasked) dancers from Iraqs diverse tribes, religions, and ethnic groups performed along a red carpet. I am the pastor of people who are suffering, the Pope told Catholic News Service last month, when asked why he insisted on making the trip. En route to Iraq, Francis told reporters, This is an emblematic trip, a duty to this land so martyred for so many years. ISIS once boasted that it would invade Rome and defeat Christianity. Instead, the Bishop of Rome went to the heart of what had been the Islamic State caliphate.
For about an hour Mina Botros spoke with a person who felt uncomfortable receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

Surrounding Botros, a UMass Medical School student, and the resident at Belmont Towers, several people moved through the vaccination process, which usually - from registration to shot in the arm - only takes a couple of minutes.

I was very nervous, said the man, who declined to provide his name. Im just worried about any side effects, five, 10, 15 years down the road.

Botros was a volunteer who organized fellow students to administer the vaccine at the Belmont Towers as part of Worcesters effort to vaccinate underserved communities.

He is a Class of 2024 MD candidate at the medical school in Worcester. Hes also the son of Egyptian immigrants who also had their doubts about the vaccine as well.

A lot of the same old-world facts come through, Botros said. They get a lot of information from Facebook. Thats not to put them down in any capacity. Its just a reality of life. I use the same exact conversion style that I have with my parents as I would with anyone who comes here.

By the end of his conversation in Belmont Towers, Botros stuck a needle filled with the Moderna vaccine into the mans arm.

He changed my attitude 100%, the man said. That he had it done, the vaccine twice. I was happy.

Botros said about once every clinic he encounters someone who is hesitant or arrives at his station with severe fear about the vaccine.

Each volunteer who administered the vaccine Monday had a medical background and was armed with sheets of data points and information from Moderna, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In Botros experience, a conversation usually carries far greater weight than any data.

Relating to them as an individual as opposed to a stat is one of the most important things you can do, Botros said. To be honest, one of the biggest things is giving people the time and attention they need.

Botros said the majority of people who come to the vaccination clinics receive the shot without asking any questions.

For those who share concerns, the conversations last about 20 to 30 minutes. Most revolve around side effects or feelings after receiving the vaccine.

Id rather take the time and sit through with that person and get their fears resolved than to leave them concerned about what theyre getting or leaving completely afraid all together, Botros said.

At first, Botros said, he listens allowing the person to do most of the talking.

Botros has lived many of their questions as someone whos received two doses of the vaccine.

His personal story has helped ease lingering fears like it did for the Belmont Towers resident.

Nobody in their heart is convinced when you come out and spit facts in their face, Botros said. Nobodys going to take well to that.

For people who grow hesitant sitting in the chair next to a syringe filled with the COVID vaccine, many only need a slight nudge as they made the effort to attend the clinic.

For the person Bostros spoke to on Monday, he said he arrived at the clinic wanting the vaccine, but fear initially prevented him.

Through a long conversation that involved Botros and Commissioner of Human and Health Services Dr. Mattie Castiel, one more person received the vaccine who otherwise may not have.

For Botros, its one of the most rewarding aspects of the clinics.

When they get the general idea that the vaccines are safe and were doing this for a good cause, taking that hesitation into a level of comfort and being able to provide someone with the piece of mind that eventually, theyll be able to live a normal life again, that is one of the most rewarding things, Botros said.
The federal stimulus package likely to be signed by President Biden this week will erase the majority of San Franciscos projected $650 million budget deficit over the next two years, saving City Hall from having to make painful service cuts and layoffs  for now.

While the federal stimulus is a boon for the economy in the short term, it will not solve all of the citys financial woes. San Franciscos ultimate recovery heavily depends on how quickly parts of the local economy bounce back, from tourists visiting the city to employees returning to downtown offices.

Without a substantial comeback in hotel, sales and business taxes, City Controller Ben Rosenfield said that Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors will likely grapple with a fragile budget over the next few years.

Thats going to be the big uncertainty over the next two years, Rosenfield said in an interview last week. How quickly will the economy recover? And, in the short term, thats largely based upon how quickly health conditions will improve.

The state and local aid is part of a $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package that will also provide money for public transit, vaccine distribution, extended unemployment benefits and $1,400 stimulus checks for those who make $75,000 or less. The U.S. House of Representatives, lead by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, plans to hold a final vote Wednesday. Then, it will head to President Bidens desk for a signature.

If passed, the stimulus package will inject about $600 million into San Franciscos coffers over the next two years, Rosenfield said. That leaves Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors with a $50 million hole to fill, a fraction of what they were preparing to deal with.

We still have a problem, said Jeff Cretan, spokesman for the mayor. We just dont have a problem right now.

San Franciscos economy has slowly recovered over the past few months, as activities like indoor and outdoor dining resumed. But downtown San Francisco remains desolate and devoid of office workers, showing how the citys local economy has been battered by the pandemic.

Rosenfield said business taxes will likely take a large hit this year as downtown office workers continue to work remotely. Tourism will probably not return to pre-pandemic levels for a few years, he said. He also expects to see some downtown offices, hotels and retail properties appeal their property assessments this year, which would impact the amount of tax revenue the city has to spend.

It matters, Rosenfield said. Property taxes are our single largest tax source.

Regardless of the challenges ahead, the stimulus is welcome news for city leaders who were preparing to make substantial budget cuts this year.

City Hall learned in December that it could face another $653.2 million deficit over the next two years, after already filling a $1.5 billion deficit in the fall. That was because of weaker-than-expected revenue growth in the business and tourism industries, raises for city employees and increased expenses needed to respond to COVID-19.

The city learned in December it had a $125 million surplus for the current year due to higher-than-expected property tax revenue, increased federal reimbursements and lower expenses. But that was only for the current year.

Breed ordered every city department to propose cuts to trim budgets by 10% over the next two years. Those cuts could have had noticeable impacts, from fewer 911 operators to fewer trial attorneys in the public defenders office.

If it had to slash its budget by 10%, the Department of Emergency Management said it would have had to reduce its overtime budget. The department said that would impact its ability to answer 911 calls in less than 10 seconds, and some people would have to wait over a minute for a dispatcher to answer their call.

The public defenders office said in its proposal that it would have to lay off about 23 trial attorneys, which would cause a significant reduction in representation and provision of legal services to indigent people of color.

Now, those cuts will likely not have to happen at such a dramatic scale. But Supervisor Matt Haney, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, said he will still consider some of the departments budget proposals to see where the city can save some money.

I expect that most of the stimulus, assuming it is flexible, will be used to address our deficit, which will absolutely reduce the level of cuts that are needed, Haney said. But some reductions are still needed and should happen.

The budget process, which will play out over the next few months, will likely be fraught with tension between the mayor and board, who often clash on politics, priorities and funding decisions.

The mayor and board have already clashed on how this years $125 million surplus should be spent.

While they agreed on how the majority of it should be spent  like a small business grant and loan program, and a business fee and license deferral  they disagreed on a big piece.

The mayor wanted to spend $50 million to offset the Department of Public Healths projected budget cuts, which may not be as urgent due to the stimulus. Meanwhile, the board wanted to spend the money on other projects like free summer camp for all public elementary school kids and a package of reforms to address the citys opioid crisis.

Haney said those proposals reflected the urgent needs of the city. But Breed wasnt thrilled about them, as some of the proposals would require ongoing funding.

We cant keep introducing supplementals with pet projects and everything that is on everybodys fantasy Christmas list that doesnt necessarily serve the purpose of taking care of the people of this city, Breed said last week.

She said her priority is to make sure that San Franciscans dont feel the impact of the citys budget woes. With the stimulus looming, she said the city will likely be in a good place to stave off any painful cuts.

If the board cooperates, she said, before turning to another question.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
Hirokazu Sawamura threw his first live batting practice as a member of the Red Sox at JetBlue Park on Tuesday.

Its obviously different from a bullpen session. Getting on the mound, facing batters, it got me fired up he said through translator Yutaro Yamaguchi. So I think I did a pretty good job today.

Sawamura threw his fastball, slider and splitter. He said his next outing likely will be in a Grapefruit League game. He also mentioned he will need about three or four outings before being ready for the regular season.

The Japanese right-handed reliever signed a two-year, $3-million contract with the Red Sox this past offseason. It includes an option for 2023. Escalators and bonuses could increase the deal to $7.65 million.

Former Red Sox closer Koji Uehara  who had an influence on Sawamura signing with Boston  was there at JetBlue Park watching in the stands. Uehara was working as a media member for NHK Japan, as MLB.coms Ian Browne pointed out. He interviewed Sawamura on top of the Green Monster.

Obviously, Koji Uehara, I have a lot of respect for him, Sawamura said. We hang out on and off the field all the time. But even if he was watching me in the dugout, it wasnt something I was really paying attention to. I just focused on my pitching today.

Sawamura initially selected uniform No. 22. But he switched to No. 19  Ueharas former number  when Jackie Bradley Jr. signed with the Brewers.

Im really honored to wear his number, Sawamura said. If Jackie signed with the Red Sox, then I wasnt going to ask for that number because I have so much respect for him as a player and a person. After that, he signed with the Brewers, so it meant something for me to be able to wear Kojis number.

Related Content

Boston Red Sox reliever Hirokazu Sawamura used Sandstorm as entrance song in Japan after watching Koji Uehara pitch in 2013 World Series

Examining Boston Red Sox 2021 bullpen depth after additions of Hirokazu Sawamura, Adam Ottavino, Matt Andriese, Garrett Whitlock

Hirokazu Sawamura throws first bullpen with Boston Red Sox: Id just like him to get comfortable, Alex Cora says

Boston Red Sox might not have Ryan Brasier, Franchy Cordero for Opening Day; Xander Bogaerts still progressing back from shoulder issue

Boston Red Sox lineup: Nick Pivetta pitching vs. Twins; Christian Arroyo, Michael Chavis starting as bench battle continues

Boston Red Sox roster cuts: Thaddeus Ward, trade acquisitions Josh Winckowski, Frank German among 12 players reassigned to minors
(Newser)  France conducted almost 200 nuclear tests in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1996 and a close look at just three of them reveals that the impact on the local population was far more devastating than the country has admitted, according to a new study. Researchers say fallout from the atmospheric Aldebaran, Encelade and Centaure tests in 1966, 1971 and 1974 affected around 110,000 people, almost the entire population of the region at the time, the BBC reports. They say the dose of radiation received was up to 10 times France's official estimates, meaning tens of thousands more people could be eligible for compensation. France established a system in 2010 to pay compensation to civilians who contracted cancer after the tests, but only 63 Polynesians have received payouts so far.

story continues below

Princeton University researchers worked with the NGOs Disclose and Interprt on the Moruroa Files reports, which draws on recently declassified government reports and interviews with inhabitants of the Pacific islands affected, including Tahiti, the Guardian reports. "The state has tried hard to bury the toxic heritage of these tests," said Geoffrey Livolsi, editor-in-chief of Discloses non-profit investigative newsroom. This is the first truly independent scientific attempt to measure the scale of the damage and to acknowledge the thousands of victims of Frances nuclear experiment in the Pacific." The researchers note that the compensation board has rejected more than 80% of claims without giving a reason, including some from families which have several members with cancer. (Read more nuclear test stories.)
Tuesday 09 March 2021 - Parkinson's UK, the largest charitable funder of Parkinson's research in Europe, is investing up to 1.2 million into a pioneering one-year project in partnership with the University of Sheffield. The project aims to refine a molecule that could be developed into a drug to protect dopamine-producing brain cells and slow down the progression of Parkinson's.

The funding boost comes via the charity's Parkinson's Virtual Biotech initiative, which is plugging the funding gap in drug development and fast-tracking the development of new treatments for people with Parkinson's. Scientists at the University of Sheffield's Institute of Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) and Parkinson's UK have been developing molecules that can boost the function of the brain's energy-producing mitochondria, to halt Parkinson's - something no treatment can currently do.

Dopamine is a chemical which allows messages to be sent to the parts of the brain that help to coordinate movement. To do this effectively, the dopamine-producing brain cells need to be constantly active and they rely on mitochondria to function properly. Any disruption could lead to dysfunction and degeneration of the brain cells and eventual cell death. Parkinson's is what happens when those cells die.

Earlier work funded by a Parkinson's UK Senior Fellowship grant and given to Dr Heather Mortiboys at the University of Sheffield, identified two molecules with excellent mitochondrial restoration properties.

The project continued with funding through the Virtual Biotech and saw Dr Mortiboys work closely with Parkinson's UK Drug Discovery experts. Together they made modifications to these molecules which maximised their ability to boost the mitochondria without causing side effects. In a mould-breaking approach to drug discovery, scientists have been using cells from people with Parkinson's and will continue to test molecules in these cells throughout and into the next phase of the project.

The new project will bring together biology and chemistry experts from the University of Sheffield, Parkinson's UK and world leading contract research organisations to further develop the modified molecules. This innovative team will investigate how the molecules work and what protein(s) they interact with inside brain cells. This next stage of the project aims to develop a drug-like molecule with good efficacy in cellular models of Parkinson's. This would then allow future work to take place to assess the effectiveness of this approach in animal models before moving into clinical trials in people with Parkinson's.

Dr Arthur Roach, Director of Research at Parkinson's UK, said:

"We're excited to fund the next stage of this full scale project combining our own drug discovery know-how with experts from the University of Sheffield and two world-leading contract research organisations. Looking back, it's incredible to see how this project had its origin in a small academic grant from Parkinson's UK to screen for molecules that rescue defective mitochondria inside neurons. Since then, the charity and university have continued to work closely together to improve those initial compounds.

"This new funding will greatly accelerate the project and shows our commitment to working with ground-breaking academic researchers in the UK and taking their discoveries from the lab towards clinical trials. With 145,000 people living with Parkinson's in the UK, there is a desperate need for new and better treatments and we hope this project will one day deliver a life-changing drug for people living with the condition."

Dr Heather Mortiboys, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield's SITraN, said:

"We're delighted to continue our work with Parkinson's UK to refine these promising molecules to develop a treatment that could stop Parkinson's in its tracks. The team has identified not only molecules which can restore mitochondrial function in dopaminergic neurons from people with Parkinson's, but also a novel mechanism by which they do this.

"We're progressing both a novel mitochondrial therapeutic target and novel molecules which act upon this target. The aim is to have a lead molecule which is active at the mitochondrial target, can restore mitochondrial function in dopaminergic neurons derived from people with Parkinson's and is able to get into the brain in a whole organism."

Parkinson's UK has their own in-house experts and partners with clinical and academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies and biotechs worldwide. To partner with Parkinson's UK to drive forward potential new treatments, visit http://www. parkinsonsvirtualbiotech. co. uk

###

Media enquiries

For further information and interview requests please contact:

Anita Salhotra, Senior Media and PR Officer at Parkinson's UK on 020 7932 1361 / 07812 737 697 or asalhotra@parkinsons.org.uk

Out of hours please call 07961 460 248 or email pr@parkinsons.org.uk

Notes to editors

About Parkinson's and Parkinson's UK

Parkinson's is what happens when the brain cells that make dopamine start to die. There are more than 40 symptoms, from tremor and pain to anxiety. Some are treatable, but the drugs can have serious side effects. It gets worse over time and there's no cure. Yet.

Parkinson's is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world. Around 145,000 people in the UK have Parkinson's.

For more facts and statistics, please click here.

Further information, advice and support is available on our website, http://www. parkinsons. org. uk .

About The Parkinson's Virtual Biotech

People with Parkinson's urgently need new treatments. But right now, there's a huge gap in drug development. The Parkinson's Virtual Biotech exists to bridge that critical funding shortage.

It takes the most promising research and partners with institutions and pharmaceutical companies worldwide to develop the findings into plausible drug treatments. Currently there are projects at the non-clinical, preclinical and early clinical development stages.

With no large teams of scientists or expensive labs to run, the Parkinson's Virtual Biotech ensures that every penny of the annual 4m investment goes on what matters most: fast tracking the projects with the greatest potential to transform the lives of people with Parkinson's.

No one else is doing this. It's a bold risk. But we believe it will deliver a groundbreaking new treatment by 2024. Because people with Parkinson's won't wait. Together, we'll find a cure.

To find out more, visit https:/ / www. parkinsonsvirtualbiotech. co. uk/

About the University of Sheffield

The University of Sheffield

With almost 29,000 of the brightest students from over 140 countries, learning alongside over 1,200 of the best academics from across the globe, the University of Sheffield is one of the world's leading universities.

A member of the UK's prestigious Russell Group of leading research-led institutions, Sheffield offers world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines.

Unified by the power of discovery and understanding, staff and students at the university are committed to finding new ways to transform the world we live in.

Sheffield is the only university to feature in The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work For 2018 and for the last eight years has been ranked in the top five UK universities for Student Satisfaction by Times Higher Education.

Sheffield has six Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and its alumni go on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence all over the world, making significant contributions in their chosen fields.

Global research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Siemens and Airbus, as well as many UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations.
New report: U.S. dams, levees get D grades, need $115 billion in upgrades

Posted on 9 March 2021 by Guest Author

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave Americas infrastructure a C- grade in its quadrennial assessment issued March 3. ASCE gave the nations flood control infrastructure  dams and levees  a D grade. This is a highly concerning assessment, given that climate change is increasingly stressing dams and levees as increased evaporation from the oceans drives heavier precipitation events.

U.S. dams need $93.6 billion in upgrades

The groups 2021 report card gave the nations 91,000-plus dams a D grade, jus as they had received in each of its assessments since the first one was issued in 1998. Drawing upon the latest data from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, ASCE estimated the cost of rehabilitating all U.S. dams at $93.6 billion, of which $27.6 billion is needed for federal dams. Over half (56.4%) of U.S. dams are privately owned. The cost to rehabilitate deficient high-hazard-potential dams, whose failure would result in loss of life, is estimated at nearly $20 billion. Over 2,300 dams in the U.S. are in this category. The average age of Americas dams is 57 years.

The report identified one program that can help address existing funding needs  the High Hazard Potential Dam Rehabilitation Program authorized in the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. The goal of this program is to help fund the repair, removal, or rehabilitation of the nations non-federal, high-hazard-potential dams. In federal fiscal year 2020, Congress appropriated $10 million for the program, less than 0.1% of the state dam safety groups needs estimate, and a quarter of the $40 million Congress had authorized for the program.

Figure 1. Debris fills the Feather River from the damaged spillway of Californias Oroville Dam, the nations tallest dam, after its near-collapse in February 2017. The Oroville incident forced the evacuation of nearly 190,000 people and cost $1.1 billion in repairs. (Image credit: California Department of Water Resources)

A 2019 story by the Associated Press reported that the most recent U.S. fatalities from a dam failure were in March 2019, when the 92-year-old Spencer Dam on the Niobrara River in Nebraska failed, killing one person. The most recent previous dam failure fatalities involved seven people killed on Hawaiis Kauai Island in 2006 after the earthen wall of the Kaloko Reservoir collapsed.

At least five fatal dam failures occurred in the 1970s  Teton Dam, Idaho (14 deaths), Kelly Barnes, Georgia (39 deaths), Buffalo Creek coal slurry impoundment dam, West Virginia (125 deaths), Rapid City, South Dakota (238 deaths), and Johnstown, Pennsylvania (84 deaths). These failures ushered in the modern dam safety era. AP reported that many states have problematic private dams whose owners cant be identified. In 2018, for instance, Rhode Island listed 32 high- or significant-hazard dams with safety concerns and unknown owners.

A 2019 YaleEnvironment360 story by Jacques Leslie reported that many people living on property that would be flooded if a dam fails are unaware of that possibility, in part because federal officials blocked public access to inundation maps after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In recent years, some states have again made the maps available. California requires that prospective buyers be informed if a property is in an inundation zone, a practice that should be far more widespread. The 2021 ASCE report card recommended initiating a public awareness campaign that would alert residents of the location and condition of dams in their area.

Figure 2. The L-550 levee on the Missouri River overtopping during the spring 2011 floods. (Image credit: USACE)

U.S. levees need more than $21 billion in upgrades

In spring 2019, the midwest U.S. experienced severe flooding, causing over $20 billion in damage. More than 80 Corps of Engineers levee systems were overtopped or breached, sometimes multiple times, and more than 700 miles of levees were damaged. Levee repairs were estimated at $1 billion. However, the Army Corps estimated that the levees prevented almost $350 billion in flood damages from October 2018 to September 2019. At least 17 million people live or work behind a levee, and U.S. levees protect $2.3 trillion in property, so the condition of these levees is critical. In addition, approximately 1,400 sites listed in the federal Toxic Release Inventory  including many EPA Superfund sites  lie in areas at high risk of flooding, according to a 2018 New York Times analysis.

In that context, the Civil Engineers 2021 report card grade of D for the nations 40,000 miles of levees is concerning. Drawing upon the latest data from the Corps of Engineers, the ASCE says in its report card that $21 billion is needed to improve and maintain just the moderate to high-risk levees in the Corps of Engineers portfolio. That is about 15% of the known levees in the U.S.

U.S. levees are, on average, 50 years old, many built using engineering standards less rigorous than current best practices. Encouragingly, fewer than 4% of U.S. levees are rated high or very high risk, down from 5% in 2017. However, 80% of high- or very high-risk levees have issues that likely would result in a breach prior to overtopping in an extreme flood, the report said.

The report card identified one program that can help address existing funding needs  the National Levee Safety Program. In federal fiscal year (FY) 2021 this program was funded at $5 million, just 0.02% of the $21 billion needed to repair just 15% of U.S. levees, and only 6% of its FY21 $79 million authorization.

Figure 3. The change in heavy downpours (defined as the top 1% of precipitation events) from 1958-2016, from the 2018 U.S. National Climate Assessment. (Image credit: Climate Central)

Climate change is driving more precipitation and river flood damages

Increased precipitation in the U.S. in recent decades, partially the result of climate change, has caused an additional $2.5 billion a year in U.S. flood damages, according to a January 2021 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researches, climate scientists at Stanford University, found that between 1988 and 2017, heavier precipitation accounted for more than one-third of the $200 billion in damage. Causing heavier downpours, Climate change may be exacerbating the cost of flooding, the authors concluded.

In an interview with E&E News, study co-author Noel Diffenbaugh said that there is real economic value in avoiding higher levels of global warming. Thats not a political statement. Thats a factual statement about costs. And it also shows that theres real economic value to adaptation and resilience because were clearly not adapted to the climate change thats already happened.

U.S. river floods are increasing in frequency

The number of extreme streamflow events observed in U.S. river systems since 1910 has increased significantly, according to a December 2020 study from Dartmouth College.

Were evacuating! Wedding interrupted when disaster strikes

Along rivers that observed significant changes in streamflow in recent decades, the incidence of extreme streamflow events has doubled in frequency since the 1950-1969 period. Evan Dethier, a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth and lead author of the paper, said in an interview with phys.org that the shifts toward more extreme events are especially important given the age of our dams, bridges, and roads. The changes to river flows that we found are important for those who manage or depend on this type of infrastructure.

Bob Henson contributed to this post
Undocumented Indian immigrants to the US, numbering over half a million, hold a collective spending power of $15.5 billion and contribute $2.8 billion to the federal, state and local tax revenue, says an American think-tank report.

Using the latest available American Community Survey data from 2019 in its latest research, the new American Economy think-tank said undocumented Indian immigrants are the top third contributor to the among other undocumented immigrants.

There are 4.2 million immigrants from Mexico who lack documentation.

Together, they make up more than 40.8 percent of the 10.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

In 2019 alone, they earned almost $92 billion in household income and contributed almost $9.8 billion in federal, state and local taxes.

Mexican undocumented immigrants held more than $82.2 billion in spending power, money that often goes back into local economies as they spend on housing, consumer goods and services, the report said.

In terms of the number of undocumented immigrants, Mexico is followed by El Salvador (621,000, or 6.0 per cent of all undocumented immigrants), India (587,000, or 5.7 per cent), Guatemala (5.4 per cent, or 5.4 per cent), and Honduras (416,000, or 4.0 per cent).

With its $15.5 billion of spending power, India, however, holds the second position, followed by El Salvador ($11.5 billion), Guatemala ($9.1 billion) and Honduras ($6.4 billion).

They also make significant contributions to the federal, state and local tax revenue: India ($2.8 billion), El Salvador ($1.4 billion), Guatemala ($1.1 billion) and Honduras ($778 million), the report said.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 11:24:20|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

People purchase goods at a night fair in east China's Shanghai, June 6, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Xiang)

- "'Dual circulation' puts a parallel emphasis both on domestic and international circulation. A high-level opening up certainly serves this end, brings win-win outcomes both for Chinese and multinational companies," said Jochen Goller, chief of BMW Group Region China.



- "China's economy has been deeply integrated into the global economy. As China enters the new stage of development, its ties with the world economy will get even closer," said Ji Zhiye, former head of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations who is also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

- "It is basically a win-win scenario," said Boga Thura Manatsha, senior lecturer at the Department of History of University of Botswana, noting that as the whole world, especially developing countries, has been hit hard by COVID-19, China has a critical role to play in reviving the world economy.

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China's "dual circulation" development paradigm, a major strategy championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and featuring domestic and overseas markets reinforcing each other with the domestic market as the mainstay, is under the spotlight during the country's ongoing annual "two sessions."

The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), a draft outline of which has been submitted to the country's top legislature and political advisory body for deliberation and discussion, will further clarify how China will implement the "dual circulation" strategy and achieve high-quality development.

Unleashing domestic demand is crucial to driving China's growth, but this new development paradigm does not mean China will backpedal on its opening-up, officials and experts have said.

Aerial photo taken on Nov. 10, 2020 shows a night market in Shouchang Township of Jiande City, east China's Zhejiang Province. (Xinhua/Weng Xinyang)





STRATEGIC DECISION

In May 2020, the leadership of the Communist Party of China made a strategic decision to foster a new development pattern where domestic and foreign markets can boost each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay.

"Making the domestic market the mainstay does not mean we are developing our economy with the door closed," Xi told a symposium of entrepreneurs in July last year. By giving full play to the potential of the domestic market, both domestic and foreign markets can be better connected and utilized to realize robust and sustainable development, he said.

China will follow the new development philosophy, foster a new development paradigm, and pursue high-quality development by staying committed to deepening reform and opening wider to the world, Xi said when delivering a speech via video at the third Paris Peace Forum in 2020.

He stressed that China will also work with the rest of the international community to keep the global industrial and supply chains stable and to foster an open world economy.

China on Friday unveiled a draft blueprint for economic and social development over the next five years and clarified the long-range objectives through the year 2035, setting policy priorities for a new development stage that is crucial for the country to achieve socialist modernization.

The draft outline includes comprehensive and targeted measures echoing China's new development philosophy, said Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance).

Customers select garlics at a supermarket in Danzhai County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Sept. 16, 2020. (Photo by Huang Xiaohai/Xinhua)





PARALLEL EMPHASIS

Jochen Goller, chief of BMW Group Region China, said China's new development pattern of "dual circulation" is an effective strategy customized to the strength of the Chinese domestic market.

"'Dual circulation' puts a parallel emphasis both on domestic and international circulation. A high-level opening up certainly serves this end, brings win-win outcomes both for Chinese and multinational companies," he noted.

Alexander Lomanov, deputy director at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the transition to the "dual circulation" model is an important stage in the development of China's economic policy.

"It has its own internal logic and the Chinese leadership has stressed the importance of domestic demand for years," he noted.

A container ship sails through a container dock of the Tianjin Port in east China's Tianjin Municipality, Nov. 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)





WIN-WIN CHOICE

Dual circulation is seen as a strategic and win-win choice for China to reshape its international cooperation and new competitive edge, said Justin Yifu Lin, former World Bank chief economist and honorary dean of the National School of Development at Peking University.

"China's economy has been deeply integrated into the global economy. As China enters the new stage of development, its ties with the world economy will get even closer," said Ji Zhiye, former head of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations who is also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Ji said the international capitals are optimistic about the Chinese market thanks to the country's business environment and economic resilience.

Zarko Obradovic, member of the Serbian parliament and president of the Friendship Group with China, said China's new development pattern featuring "dual circulation" would help the country take advantage of the development of the domestic market and make China an ideal economic partner.

Boga Thura Manatsha, senior lecturer at the Department of History of University of Botswana, said that China needs the world for its economy to continue growing and the global economy also needs China to make a sustained comeback.

"It is basically a win-win scenario," he said, noting that as the whole world, especially developing countries, has been hit hard by COVID-19, China has a critical role to play in reviving the world economy. 
Press Release

March 9, 2021 Villar welcomes vaccination rollout in Las Pinas Senator Cynthia Villar welcomed the Covid-19 vaccination rollout with vaccines from China's Sinovac Biotech that began last Thursday, March, 4 in her hometown Las Pinas City. "I am happy that we already started giving the Covid-19 vaccines in Las Pinas. We hope all medical frontliners and residents will grab the opportunity to be vaccinated, so they will be protected against the virus" Villar said. Villar said she is confident that many individuals, including healthcare workers, will be innoculated regardless of the vaccine brand, citing the assurance given by our health officials and the government that they are safe and effective. The lady senator is looking forward the vaccines rollouts will run smoothly as she renewed her calls to Las Pinas residents to cooperate with the city government and health officials who are only thinking of their protection, safety and welfare. She also urged everyone to receive their Covid-19 shots for the country to finally be able to move to the new normal of living and to recover from economic slump amid the pandemic. "At present, this is our best defense against the virus," she also pointed out. She likewise acknowledged government efforts to ramp up vaccine confidence and overcome vaccine hesistancy brought about by the Dengvaxia controversy. To ease fears of the Covid-19 vaccines, hospital directors and some government officials got the first jabs of the vaccines. Villar said Las Pinas General Hospital and Satellite Tauma Center (LPGHSTC) General Director Dr. Rodrigo Hao confirmed that 300 frontliners already got their first dose of the China-made Sinovac vaccine. Among the first to get the jabs was Dr. Hao. Another 300 doses of Sinovac, which arrived last Sunday (March 7), will be administered to another batch of medical frontliners. LPGHTC and the Las Pinas City government is also awaiting for the arrival of those AstraZeneca vaccines from Covax and those procured by Las Pinas City from AstraZeneca the British drugmaker (300,000 doses). The Las Pinas City also procured from Novavax (200,000 doses). Las Pinas City government prepared for the mass vaccination rollout by conducting vaccination simulation as it targets to inoculate 3,000 residents daily, putting up screening sites in the city's 20 barangays for the listing down of those to be prioritized to receive the vaccines, and designating vaccination sites during the mass vaccination program.
The Maskie brings new life to mask-wearing with dual functionality. Both GR0 and The Maskie work to enhance the experiences of their customers beyond just functionality, and improve the quality, style, and enjoyment users get from them.

Designer of the hybrid face mask and scrunchie, The Maskie, have officially partnered with digital marketing agency GR0 to promote their innovative product. The Maskie and GR0 are based in Union, New Jersey and Los Angeles, California respectively, bringing together west coast technology and SEO awareness with east coast design. Just as The Maskie is designed to assist customers by providing the functionality of a mask when you need it and the style of a scrunchie when you dont, GR0 will offer both the ins and outs of navigating search engines and providing stylish, professional content to help bolster The Maskies image.

Launched last year, The Maskie is a hybrid scrunchie and fabric face mask that is easily adjustable and configured for various uses. It is comprised of 95% breathable Rayon fabric and 5% expandable spandex, offering the full protection and needed airflow of any facemask, accompanied with comfort and flexibility. With this partnership, The Maskie is looking to continue broadening their online reach and awareness around their highly-functional product as the CDC advises individuals vaccinated against Covid-19 to continue wearing masks in public.

Currently, The Maskie is available in discounted bundles from their own website in black, white, grey, navy, and sage, as well as subdued tie-dye variants in pink, black, blue, and sage. These products are one size fits all and can be washed by hand for safe and sustained reuse, and are currently patent-pending.

GR0, a remotely-operated and independently-owned digital marketing agency specializes in search engine optimization and elevating the Google rankings of its clients. Founded by Kevin Miller and Jon Zacharias, this firm has grown to employ over 30 highly-talented individuals who work to empower clients and help businesses deliver both value and joy to their customers.

Both GR0 and The Maskie work to enhance the experiences of their customers beyond just functionality, and improve the quality, style, and enjoyment users get from them. Together, this partnership will utilize GR0s expertise to bring the stylish and innovative Maskie to more audiences across the United States, and encourage safety amid the coronavirus pandemic.

New Jersey-based, The Maskie crafts high quality and attractive masks with the most comfortable materials. With an emphasis on functionality and fashion sensibility, our masks are well suited for any occasion or outfit. Additional information is available at http://www.themaskie.com/, on Instagram, @themaskie, YouTube, and Facebook.

GR0 works to improve online rankings for brands on Google, while also providing joy and value to customers through content marketing. Based in Los Angeles, this independently-operated firm works with dozens of brands to comprehensively improve their online image from top to bottom. Those curious to learn more can visit https://gr0.com/, as well as their LinkedIn, or @Gr0Agency on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.


1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
A few weeks ago, our 16-year-old son, Casey, brought home a brand-new turntable.

The sleek machine  black with a brushed gold tonearm and switches  is the first working record player to grace our home.

A hand-crank Columbia Grafonola that belonged to my spouses great-grandmother stands near our front door. The dark wood behemoth doesnt work but serves as an excellent dust collector and place to set keys, wallets and face masks.

Caseys purchase surprised me because he hadnt said anything about being interested in vinyl outside of buying a handful of 50s and 60s albums from an Arizona thrift store last summer because they looked cool.

The old technology-turned-new mesmerized me as he dropped the needle on random LPs  Golden Hits of the 50s, Boots Randolph and Herbie Mann. After years of playing flawless and sterile MP3 music, Id forgotten about vinyls personality. The crack, pop and hiss  that warm sound  and the miracle of each revolution.

My earliest record memory is a Fisher Price Change-A-Record music box with fat, plastic multicolored platters that I spun endlessly on a 1979 cross-country road trip in our familys wood-paneled station wagon. I dont know how my parents coped with that.

Related: FLUX FRIENDS OF SOUND

Beyond that, I didnt own a record player because my early music days were devoted to recording songs from the radio to create mixtapes. As an 80s and 90s kid, LPs and 45s were fading as cassettes and CDs gained popularity.

My folks had one of those combo sound systems that played records, cassettes and eight tracks. I used to dive into their stack of albums from time to time because it was different music and technology. Their collection slanted toward 60s and 70s hits, with some big band, Elvis, Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers thrown in.

The first record store I visited was Licorice Pizza on State Street in Santa Barbara, Calif., with my father on an overcast day late in 1983. I was 7, and I remember the now-defunct Southern California chains logo featuring a waitress serving a steaming record pizza. Dad checked out the plates and let me wander the aisles of cassettes. He bought me my first tape, Michael Jacksons Thriller.

So when Casey asked to go record shopping I jumped at the chance. We hit some thrift shops but only saw a couple warped holiday albums, a mess of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (why are there so many of those?) and a Dave Brubeck LP with black mildew growing on its cover.

Casey suggested an actual record store, and he chose Friends of Sound Records in the funky green building on the corner of Fredericksburg Road and West Ashby Place. Due to COVID-19, George Mendoza, the owner, was letting people come in if theyd called ahead.

We were the only customers that gray afternoon, and we spent hours talking with Mendoza and digging both in the main section and the bargain room with thousands of $1 albums.

At the counter, Mendoza sifted through a collection of pristine classic rock hed bought earlier that day. The records, he said, belonged to the sellers father.

Buying peoples old albums is Mendozas main source of fresh supply, and he wove a story about traveling to Jackson Hole to buy a collection of thousands that belonged to a man whod died.

Related: San Antonio's cybersecurity industry 30 years after Michelangelo

George met the dead mans parents at his apartment. It was their first time there since losing their son. As he sorted and packed the records, he talked with the distraught mom and dad and a buddy whod stopped by to help. The friend shared anecdotes about times and places the albums conjured. The parents let Mendoza stay the night in the apartment. He drank whiskey with the mourning father into the night.

Mendozas Zen approach is that records come and go, and if theyre meant to come back, they will. For those special records adrift in the world, he takes a Marie Kondo approach (if it doesnt bring you joy, get rid of it), and hopes theyre bringing someone else joy.

Casey and I scored a fat stack of awesome stuff, including a few from Mendozas recent buy: Floyd, Zeppelin, Queen, Ink Spots, Ray Charles, Kingsmen, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Ventures, Nat King Cole, Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Junior Walker, America, Bob Seger, Beach Boys, Steve Miller, and even soundtracks from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. And we got a bundle of leads on new bands and albums to check out.

Flipping through the crates at Friends of Sound reminded me that as technology and listening habits have changed, weve drifted away from music stores. And despite having virtually every song ever recorded available on our phones and computers, some of the mystique is gone. Handing somebody a phone to look at an album cover or liner notes isnt the same. (Do iTunes albums even have liner notes?)

And virtual albums are missing the unique story of roughed-up corners, scuffed edges, dings, scratches and price tags found on physical records.

Related: Accelerator: NASA's Perseverance lands, San Antonio hypersonics lab rises

Recently, I thought about inventing a record player app that would display an album playing on your phone. Imagine a cool-looking animated turntable spinning on your phone screen. Turns out others had that idea, too, so I wont be getting rich off that one.

Theres something magical about seeing a record, tape or even CD spin.

We gave away my parents record collection when they moved from California in 2004. Id been out of the house for a while and traveled back to help. One of my college friends, Sean, was also there, and we loaded up their system, with turntable, in the donation truck.

Neither one of us tried to rescue it, and Sean is a true record head. Wed bonded over music at the Air Force Academy in the late 1990s. We went to concerts together and even hosted a punk and ska radio show on KAFA 97.7 for a bit. Playing anti-establishment music at a place where conformity and discipline permeates everything was the best.

I cant remember what was in my late fathers record collection, but I havent forgotten the bands and songs he liked. The thought of his vinyl circulating out in the world makes me smile. Seeing records at Friends of Sound he mightve bought revived memories I was glad to share with my son.

Beyond that, our trek to the local record store gave us a good escape from COVID-19, toxic politics and the worlds harshness in the soft afternoon light of that winter day. Im thankful Casey bought that turntable, and Im stoked to help him build his stack.

See you on the flip side!

Brandon Lingle writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. brandon.lingle@express-news.net
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
A drone that was being examined after it was handed to police on the weekend does not belong to missing Victorian camper Russell Hill, investigators say.

The drone was handed in at East Gippsland police station several days after police renewed an appeal for information about the missing pair.

Mr Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, have not been seen since they embarked on a camping trip to Wonnangatta Valley, about 250 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, on March 19 last year.

Mr Hill owned a DJI Mavic drone that police said he took with him on the camping trip and had not been recovered.
The PSNI has warned action will be taken after hundreds of Rangers fans gathered on the Shankill Road in Belfast to celebrate the clubs Scottish Premiership title win.

Supporters thronged the area despite a ban on public gatherings under coronavirus restrictions to celebrate the Glasgow side being crowned champions.

Sunday nights events included a cavalcade of cars waving flags and a fireworks display.

There were reports that sectarian songs were also belted out, and a social media post showed fighting among several fans.

Police described events as disappointing and said appropriate enforcement action will now be taken.

The scenes reignited the row over the funeral of veteran republican Bobby Storey, which was attended by senior Sinn Fein figures and saw thousands of people lining the streets of west Belfast in tribute.

DUP MLA Jim Wells told Radio Ulsters Nolan Show: I think last night was an outpouring of enthusiasm.

I think people, when they settle down this morning, will realise that it was not wise to do.

But I can understand why it happened.

He then went on to claim: I just hope and pray that it has not led to any infection, because up to now the unionist population had the moral high ground on this issue.

We obeyed the rules, we cancelled the Twelfth, we cancelled all sorts of celebrations, band parades etc, and we were obeying the rules.

Meanwhile, the nationalists  not just at the Bobby Storey funeral but at a whole host of other republican events  had totally ignored the regulations.

His comments echoed remarks made by DUP Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots, who was asked to apologise last October after claiming Covid was more common in nationalist areas than in unionist ones. At the time the Department of Health said the virus was a threat to everyone, regardless of their background.

On Monday prominent loyalist community worker Jim Wilson cited the Storey funeral as he robustly defended his own presence on the Shankill Road on Sunday night.

I have a valid right to make a choice and I made a choice to go and support my team and do it in a way that I thought was responsible, he told the Nolan Show.

He insisted he had been in his own household bubble during the celebrations.

He then pointed to the attendance of senior Sinn Fein figures, including Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill, at Mr Storeys funeral as an example of those alleged to have breached Covid regulations despite urging the public to adhere to them.

Talk about the law-makers and the law-breakers, he told Nolan.

And tell me what has happened to them?

You tell me that Sinn Fein laid the law down in this country and then went out and broke it.

And the police did not do anything about it.

So before you criticise my people, remember that.

The PSNI conducted a probe into the Storey funeral with 24 people being interviewed, including Mrs ONeill, and a file has been submitted to the Public Prosecution Service.

First Minister Arlene Foster on Monday praised Rangers for its title success but urged fans to stick to the health regulations.

PSNI Superintendent Nigel Henry described Sundays scenes disappointing.

He added: An investigation is under way, and appropriate enforcement action will be taken in relation to breaches of the regulations.

Sinn Fein MP Paul Maskey said any sectarian chanting also needed to be probed by the PSNI, insisting that he will be raising questions with the police.
Aurora resident Vicky Komm and her 83-year-old father were the first to enter the building Monday morning. She said now that they are both vaccinated, she is looking forward to starting their weekly Sunday visits for lunch again. Living so close by but not being able to see each other has been a challenge during the pandemic, she said.
Huntington, WV (25701)

Today

Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low around 60F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low around 60F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%.
California has always been at the forefront of progress. From marriage equality to climate change, and the internet; as goes California, so goes the nation. Californias ability to lead, however, has not always resulted in positive change. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Golden State also led the way on implementing tough-on-crime policies. The nation followed, leading to our modern crisis of mass incarceration. Now it is time for us to lead by modeling progressive criminal justice policies  and resisting the call from some to roll back recent progress.

The genesis of our addiction to incarceration can be tied to a handful of high-profile cases that stoked considerable, but misplaced, fear among the public. California lawmakers reacted to public panic over these outlier incidents by increasing sentence lengths for violent crimes by a whopping 63% between 1990 and 2009. No evidence suggested that these policies would actually reduce violent crime, but lawmakers nonetheless responded by implementing tough-on-crime policies that cost billions of dollars, and exacerbated racial inequities.

For example, California brought back the death penalty in 1978, the same year it instituted life without parole sentences. Both sentences emerged out of public fear that Charles Manson and his associates might eventually be released. But while Manson appeared in front of the parole board repeatedly, he was never freed, and he ultimately died in prison in 2017. Today, 95% of people who have spent 20 or more years in prison are determined by prison officials to be low-risk, yet there are at least 5,000 people serving sentences of life without parole in Californias prisons.

In 1980, Californias prison population was roughly 23,000. By 1990, as tough-on-crime policies took hold, that number grew to more than 94,000. Then in 1994, in response to the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, the Legislature and the voters approved the Three Strikes and Youre Out law. The consequences of this misguided policy were swift: Just five years after the passage of Three Strikes, Californias prison population exploded to 160,000 people. To house all these individuals, prison spending ballooned alongside costs on policing, prosecution, courts and prison guards. We built 23 new prisons while we opened just one University of California. The Three Strikes law so severely exacerbated racial disparities in the criminal justice system that some came to regard it as Californias apartheid.

None of these policies were driven by data suggesting they would enhance safety. These were fear-driven responses to outlier cases, and now were seeing conservative tough-on-crime leaders reignite these same fear-based strategies to turn back the clock on reform. In San Francisco and Los Angeles, opponents to criminal justice reform have targeted progressive District Attorneys Chesa Boudin and George Gascon by pointing to a handful of cases to stoke fear and suggest reform has made communities less safe. This is in spite of overall crime rates plummeting under both the current and former San Francisco district attorneys.

The cases being exploited in both jurisdictions are reflective of the longstanding shortcomings of the criminal justice system, not the result of reforms these district attorneys have recently implemented. In San Francisco, a tragic DUI collision took two lives on New Years Eve, leading some to blame Boudin for referring the suspects previous nonviolent arrests to parole. Filing those nonviolent charges would not have led to incarceration, and therefore they would not have prevented this tragic crime. But treatment for substance abuse very well may have.

In Los Angeles, where Gascon has ended the use of life without the possibility of parole and opted to send victim advocates to parole hearings in lieu of prosecutors, tough-on-crime advocates are misleading the public by suggesting these important reforms will lead to mass releases of people convicted of extremely serious crimes. The misplaced hysteria ignores the fact that the parole board grants release in only 16% of cases it hears, and that less than 1% of lifers it releases commit new felonies.

By pointing to these rare tragedies, tough-on-crime advocates are successfully diverting public attention from the overwhelming failure that is our current system of justice. We must reject the notion that punishment alone makes us safer. We need interventions that encourage introspection, supportive services and behavior change. We must reject rhetoric that pushes us to fear our community and instead embrace every member of our community with love and compassion. We do not have to agree with someones actions to acknowledge they are still human and deserving of the opportunity to learn and grow. Victims and offenders are part of our community, and we must heal them if we want true lasting safety. Without addressing the underlying causes of crime, warehousing people does nothing to prevent crime from happening upon release.

Police and prosecutor associations  organizations whose members took an oath to protect public safety  should embrace strategies that reduce recidivism and prevent future crime. Especially when these strategies reduce the harmful effects of racial disparities and excessive punishment. Instead, theyre doubling down on disingenuous rhetoric and vengeance-based strategies pushing people to fear change, progress and compassion.

In recognition of the void of leadership among these traditionalist organizations, District Attorneys Boudin and Gascon joined Contra Costa and San Joaquin County District Attorneys Diana Becton and Tori Verber Salazar to create the Prosecutors Alliance of California. They formed the group because they recognize that the politics and policies of prosecution have long been driven by fear, emotion and racism, and that they were never driven by data, science and research.

It is time for a new approach. Evidence demonstrates that excessive sentences exacerbate recidivism, create more victims of crime, drive mass incarceration and have contributed to epidemic levels of homelessness  all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year.

Its time for California to close the book on policy decisions driven solely by fear rather than data. We must support modern tactics that enhance public safety and advance justice. We cannot afford, either socially, morally or economically, to allow history to repeat itself. California can lead the nation once again  but this time we can do it by rejecting fear and embracing reform.

Cristine Soto DeBerry is a founder and executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance of California.
Settlement Agreement Bars State From Weighing in on Attorneys' Fees in Flint Civil Litigation Unless Asked by Court

Settlement Agreement Bars State From Weighing in on Attorneys' Fees in Flint Civil Litigation Unless Asked by Court

Ryan Jarvi 517-599-2746 Attorney General

March 9, 2021

LANSING  Following a filing for attorneys fees submitted by plaintiffs counsel in the Flint water civil litigation against the State of Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessels office is noting that the State is prohibited from offering an opinion on the amount sought unless specifically asked by the Court.

Plaintiffs attorneys filed a motion Monday with the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan seeking $202 million of the $641.5 million settlement.

The amount of Flint water settlement funds that will be used to pay plaintiffs attorney fees and expenses will be decided by the Court. Courts are regularly required to rule on plaintiffs attorney fee requests in cases like this. The Court is in the best position to make that determination and is experienced with the legal standards applicable to such a request and is familiar with the work of plaintiffs attorneys in the Flint water cases.

Under the States settlement agreement with plaintiffs, unless the Court itself requests, the State cannot take any position on plaintiffs application for attorney fees and expenses. The States agreement is not unusual and is a term typically demanded by plaintiffs attorneys in similar settlements. The State will rely on the discretion of the Court to determine the fair and appropriate amount of settlement funds that will be paid to plaintiffs attorneys.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
DARAG, the Malta-based legacy acquirer, announced the acquisition of SunPoint Holdings Ltd. in Bermuda. SunPoint will be integrated into DARAG Bermuda Ltd and will provide DARAG Bermuda with a platform for further expansion.

DARAG purchased SunPoint from Fosun International for an undisclosed amount.

SunPoint offered reinsurance and run-off solutions to U.S. and Bermuda insurers from 2017 to 2019. This is DARAGs first company acquisition in Bermuda since the launch of its Bermuda operation in 2019 and provides Fosun with complete economic and legal finality in respect of the business.

SunPoint brings a claims operation headed by Amel Esposito, with extensive claims experience across various lines of business within the U.S., including construction, medical malpractice, New York labor law, general liability, commercial auto and workers compensation.

DARAG said the acquisition complements its North Americas business and strengthens its claims department with highly experienced claims professionals. As part of the acquisition, Amel Esposito will assume the role of DARAG North Americas head of U.S. Claims and Service Operations.

DARAGs expansion across global markets and in Bermuda in particular has been gathering pace this year, commented Daniel Linden, CEO of DARAG North America, DARAGs Bermuda and U.S. arm.

This landmark transaction consolidates our presence in the North American legacy market and furnishes DARAG North America with a sophisticated platform for further growth, with a diversified portfolio and market-leading claims talent, he added.

Our team is very excited to now be part of a worldwide and sophisticated legacy provider. With DARAG, we foresee significant expansion plans in the U.S. runoff space and are fortunate to be the ones to help achieve these goals, remarked Amel Esposito, head of U.S. Claims and Service Operations.

DARAG has put substantial investment into making claims a center of excellence and an enviable strength of the group, said Tom Booth, DARAG Group CEO.

I am delighted to have welcomed Elliott Goss to lead our Worldwide operations and more recently, Esther Tun to act as our Technical Claims head in Europe, Booth added.

We have already seen the benefit in the U.S. of having dedicated and skilled oversight of our TPA managed portfolios led by Christine Karolyi, and I am delighted to welcome Amel, together with a team of eight highly experienced and motivated staff, in our new West Coast office and across the U.S.. DARAG North America now benefits from a U.S. claims operation with widescale licenses, inhouse management capability and expertise in specialist and complex claims, he said.

About DARAG

DARAG is a leading international insurance and reinsurance group specialising in the assumption of discontinued business and the provision of capital relief solutions. The Group has completed 38 run-off transactions in 20 countries with a value in excess of 1.3 billion (US$1.5 billion).

Source: DARAG

Topics Mergers Bermuda
Mahomet resident Stephanie Holderfield served in a number of roles in the Trump Administration, including acting chief of staff in the office of the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, focusing on immigration policy.
Altamira Gold (CVE: ALTA- OTC: EQTRF) CEO Michael Bennett joined Steve Darling from Proactive to share news the company has uncovered four high-grade gold structures during work at their Apiacas Project in Brazil. This project is about 50 kilometres west of the Cajueiro project.

Bennett sharing with Proactive the veins appear to be about a kilometre in length and surface grab samples turned up 403.5 g/t gold and 871 g/t silver. The company is waiting for geo-tech work results and a drill program expected in mid-2021.
Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business.


Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, speaks when attending a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police Force at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, capital of China, March 9, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping Tuesday stressed achieving a good start in strengthening national defense and the armed forces during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while attending a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police Force, at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress, the top legislature.

Addressing the meeting, Xi praised the whole armed forces for achieving the targets and missions for 2020 amid the COVID-19 epidemic and complex domestic and international circumstances.

Laying down requirements for ensuring the good start in the military development for the next five years, Xi said development of the armed forces must focus on combat readiness.

Xi demanded efforts to step up building high-caliber strategic deterrence and joint operation systems.

Underlining innovation-driven military development, Xi called for intensified efforts and more concrete measures in the pursuit of independent innovation in science and technology, to fully leverage the role of science and technology as the strategic support for military development.

Innovation in defense-related science and technology must be significantly boosted, he said.

Highlighting the "instabilities" and "uncertainties" in China's current security circumstances, Xi said the whole armed forces must always be ready to respond to all kinds of complex and difficult situations, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and provide strong support for fully building a modern socialist country.
Connecticut officials say they are confident the COVID vaccination schedule will remain on track after a quarter of the group that became eligible last week had already received a dose.

On Monday, Gov. Ned Lamont said 25 percent of those age 55 to 64 had received a dose of the vaccine since they became eligible last week. This group includes roughly 500,000 residents and was one of the largest expansions to the vaccine program.

We are making progress ... a week into this next tier of 55 to 64, weve already got a quarter of the population vaccinated. So our providers are doing a fantastic job. We had over 35,000 vaccines administered last Friday, that was an all-time record for the state of Connecticut for one day. We are really cranking right now, Lamonts Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe said.

In two weeks, eligibility expands to those age 45 to 54, which represents about 480,000 people. On April 12, vaccine eligibility expands to those age 35 to 44 and then on May 3 those age 16 and older become eligible.

On Monday, Lamont said Connecticut was expected to receive 137,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, a slight dip from last week. As anticipated, Connecticut will not receive Johnson & Johnson vaccines this week, but Geballe said the state received a substantial amount of Pfizer and Moderna doses.

Our vaccinators will be busy this week, Geballe said.

Lamont said Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which require a single dose unlike Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, will be supplied to the state again next week.

You will continue to see a ramp up, which I think keeps all of our projected dates for other age groups on schedule, Lamont said.

Geballe referenced a partnership between Johnson & Johnson and drugmaker Merck to produce doses of the vaccine under the federal Defense Production Act that he believes will scale up the number of vaccines coming to the state in the coming weeks and months.

Through the weekend, Connecticut saw a 2.63 percent positivity rate of new COVID-19 tests and an additional 11 fatalities, which brought the total to 7,725 deaths.

Lamont said hospitalizations, which were at 388 statewide on Monday, was the lowest in months.

Lamont credited Connecticuts vaccination program for helping to stabilize the states COVID infection rate.

Connecticut reported an increase in the number of cases attributed to the U.K. variant of the virus, which is considerably more contagious, but Lamont said it is not increasing exponentially as anticipated.

Right now, I think the vaccine is staying ahead of the variant and thats slowing its increase, Lamont said. And, by the way, the vaccine works against the variant.

As of Monday, about half of people age 55 and above had received vaccines, including about 75 percent of those age 75 and older and 64 percent of those age 65 to 74, according to Lamont.

A total of 1.16 million doses have been administered, 773,000 of which were first doses, according to the state. Since it arrived in the state in the middle of last week, 11,203 people have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who joined Lamont and his staff during a press conference Monday, lauded the states vaccination efforts, but said the American Rescue Act, which passed the U.S. Senate this weekend, was crucial to the continued success.

Murphy said the legislation, which still needs approval by the U.S. House of Representatives and the signature of President Joe Biden, includes $10 billion for increased production of the vaccines and another fund to help with the implementation of the vaccine program.

These vaccine clinics dont happen for free. They are expensive, so we need this funding coming down to the states and municipalities in order pay for what will continue to be increased vaccination platforms run by the state and the states platforms, Murphy said.

Last week, Biden announced the federal government should have enough supply of the vaccine to inoculate every adult in the country by May, but Murphy said this legislations funding is needed to hit that target.

Across Connecticut, work continues to vaccinate all teachers, school workers and child care providers. Lamont reiterated they remain a focus since they became eligible last week.

They are an absolute priority  25 to 30 percent have already been vaccinated. If you have not yet heard from the superintendent or principal or local public health department, you will, Lamont said.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
(Natural News) The government of Japan plans to release more than a million tons of water contaminated by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster into the Pacific Ocean despite intense opposition from local fishermen and environmental groups around the world.

Fukushima was the site of a triple nuclear meltdown following a tsunami and earthquake in 2011. The contaminated water, which is currently stored in more than a thousand tanks, will start being released in 2022 in a decades-long plan that will send the radioactive water into the ocean.

The operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), has estimated that all of the available tanks will be completely full by next summer. The water, which was mixed with water used to stop three damaged reactor cores from melting, amounted to 1.23 million tons last September and is reportedly growing at a rate of 170 tons per day.

A processing system is being used to remove highly radioactive substances from the water, but it is incapable of filtering out everything. For example, tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, cannot be filtered out, among other substances.

Environmental groups, fishing industry opposed to dumping

Environmental groups have accused the Japanese government of seeking the fastest and most affordable solution at the expense of the environment. They also claim that the governments focus on the relatively less harmful tritium is a clever way to divert attention from other, more dangerous radioactive elements that remain in the water after filtering, such as strontium, ruthenium, cobalt, rhodium, and iodine.

The countrys suffering fishing industry is also worried. Neighboring South Korea, which has already banned seafood imports from the area, has also voiced concerns, calling discharging the water a grave threat to the marine environment. Demand for fish from the area overall has fallen to just a fifth of its level before the disaster.

Adding to concerns is the fact that TEPCO has decided not to allow independent testing because of safety concerns related to storing and transporting the radioactive water. Groups like Citizens Nuclear Information Centre (CNIC) and Greenpeace believe this is merely a coverup of the true extent of contamination.

CNIC Co-Director Hideyuki Ban said: There would need to be lots of checks because there is a lot of water, but right now it looks very much to the outside world that they are trying to cover something up  as they have a long history of doing.

It certainly doesnt add up that the water is too dangerous to test yet somehow not too dangerous to dump into the ocean. The move is destroying what little faith people had in the Japanese governments ability to handle emergencies and be forthcoming about the extent of the problem. If they had nothing to hide, it stands to reason that it would be in their best interest to provide samples that back up their claims about the waters contamination levels.

The radiation levels in the sea off of Fukushima were millions of times higher than the limit set by the government of 100 becquerels at the time of the accident, and radioactive substances are still being detected not only off of Japans coast but also as far afield as the West Coast of the U.S. Although the concentrations are said to be below the World Health Organizations harmful level limits, scientists note that there is still some risk.

Nuclear Free Future Foundations Horst Hamm told Deutsche Welle: A single becquerel that gets into our body is enough to damage a cell that will eventually become a cancer cell.

A European Parliament study reached a similar finding, saying that even the smallest possible dose carries a small cancer risk. And cancer rates are high in the area surrounding the nuclear processing plant at Sellafield in Northern England; the total amount of radioactivity discharged into the sea over the years there is considered equivalent to that released by the Fukushima meltdown.

Sources for this article include:

WakingTimes.com

TheGuardian.com

DW.com
The MoU covers the supply of utilities, administrative licences and permit procedures, including the Korean Standard Industrial Classification code for rare metals and rare earth metals.

The MoU signing ceremony with representatives of Chungcheongbuk-do Provincial Government and ASM.

( ) (OTCMKTS:ASMMF) has signed a key MoU with the Chungcheongbuk-do (Chungbuk) Provincial Government and Cheongju-si City Government to locate its Korean Metals Plant (KMP) within the Ochang Foreign Investment Zone in South Korea.

The Chungbuk Provincial Government MoU covers the supply of utilities, administrative licences and permit procedures, including the Korean Standard Industrial Classification code for rare metals and rare earth metals.

This MoU covering the company's first metals plant also includes a government grant, in accordance with Foreign Investment Promotion Act.

The Korean Metals Plant will initially produce high-purity neodymium-iron-boron powder and titanium powder

Significant benefits

ASM managing director David Woodall said: The MoU, along with the strong support from the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Chungbuk Provincial Government, provides ASM with confidence to build the metals plant in the Ochang Foreign Investment Zone.

With key Korean manufacturing companies like LG Chemical, Samsung SDI, SK Hynix and Hyundai Mobis within close proximity, we are confident that building our first metal plant in this well-established industrial area will provide significant benefits.

Provide key rare earth metals

Provincial governor Si-Jong Lee added: To sustain the growth of the Chungcheongbuk-do economy, we strongly support this investment.

ASM is establishing its Korean headquarters, R&D centre and metals plant in the Ochang Foreign Investment Zone.

This will provide key rare earth metals to the Korean economy and local employment to revitalise our local economy.

Korean Metals Plant

ASMs Korean Metals Plant will initially produce high-purity neodymium-iron-boron powder and titanium powder using the innovative, low-energy metallisation process developed by ASMs Ziron tech team.

Last week, ASM announced that it had completed an internal scoping study for the initial 5,200 tonnes per annum metals plant, with the results demonstrating the feasibility of the KMP.

Chungbuk

Chungbuk is 115 kilometres south of the Korean capital Seoul and 20 kilometres north of Daejeon, the site of the metalisation pilot plant.

The region has substantial existing infrastructure and a competent technical workforce.
FAIRBURY, Neb. (AP)  There's a new sheriff in town. Jefferson County officials appointed Nick Georgi as the county's new sheriff after the former sheriff, Matthew Schultz, announced he was resigning just five months into the job.
A San Antonio man is now among the eight assigned to a bipartisan commission responsible for renaming Department of Defense property that commemorates the Confederacy.

Lawrence Romo, who currently serves as National Commander for the American G.I. Forum and was appointed as Director of the Selective Service System by former President Barack Obama, will fill a vacancy left by Lonnie Bunch III. Washington Rep. Adam Smith, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, announced Romo's addition on Monday. Bunch had to withdraw from his appointment for reasons unrelated to the commission's work, according to a news release.

Smith noted the Highlands graduate's military service in his appointment announcement.

RELATED: Three UTSA grads appointed to serve in Biden Administration

As the Commission begins its work, it is critically important that its members represent the diversity of our great country, Smith said in a statement. Mr. Romos long track record of service  both in the United States Air Force and as Director of the Selective Service System in the Obama administration  give Mr. Romo the deep experience and perspective required. I am glad he has accepted the appointment and appreciate his willingness to serve.

The commission was launched as part of the most-recent National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The panel, which began onboarding members in February, will plan an overhaul of name changes of the DOD-controlled property in three years.

Active military installations, including Fort Hood, are a large focus of the renaming, but the list of assets under review extends to "any base, installation, street, building, facility, aircraft, ship, plane, weapon, equipment, or any other property," according to the law's text.

READ ALSO: Air Force Thunderbirds select San Antonio-based pilot for upcoming season

If Romo's recent advocacy work is reflected in his panel responsibilities, more minority representation may be expected. In September 2020, he advocated for Marcelino Serna, a Mexican American who is considered Texas' most-decorated WWI soldiers, through the American G.I. Forum. Romo said in a letter to the Army that it appears Serna did not receive the Medal of Honor due to him being a Mexican American and an immigrant, according to NBC News.

Romo was not immediately available to comment on his new role.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro celebrated the inclusion of his fellow San Antonian in a tweet on Tuesday.

"I'm proud (Romo) of San Antonio will serve on @DeptofDefense panel to rename bases that honor Confederates," he wrote online. "Only 1 military base is named after a Latino  despite composing of 16% of servicemembers. Appreciate @RepAdamSmith for working with me and @RubenGallego on this effort."

Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @maddyskye
Medvedchuk at a party congress in 2019 suggested forming the so-called "autonomous region of Donbas" with its own parliament and government.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest ally in Ukraine, Ukrainian MP with the Opposition Platform For Life Party Viktor Medvedchuk, who was earlier sanctioned by the National Security and Defense Council on accusations of financing terrorism, has been interrogated by the SBU Security Service of Ukraine on March 9.

That's according to a report by the Ukrayinska Pravda online newspaper, citing sources in law enforcement agencies.

Medvedchuk was interrogated as part of the high treason case.

Law enforcers are investigating the recently leaked communications between Medvedchuk and ex-"supervisor" for Donbas, Putin's former aide Vladislav Surkov.

Read alsoMore armed provocations in Donbas after Ukraine sanctions Medvedchuk  ZelenskyEx-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has also been summoned for interrogation, did not report to the SBU.

Medvedchuk case: What is known

In February 2019, the Prosecutor General's Office opened proceedings on the appeal of the then MP Andriy Teteruk on charges of separatism and high treason.

On January 29, 2019, Medvedchuk at a party congress suggested forming the so-called "autonomous region of Donbas" with its own parliament and government.

The general public did not support the relevant idea.

Reporting by UNIAN
Lisa Wilkinson has blasted Liberal MP Dave Sharma for handing out pink flowers to random ladies in Sydney on International Women's Day.

Mr Sharma, who represents the New South Wales seat of Wentworth, shared photos of himself giving roses to female commuters at a Sydney train station on Monday.

'Happy International Women's Day. Let's make it a day when we strive to improve the respect, dignity and equality for every woman, everywhere,' he captioned his Twitter post.

Lisa Wilkinson has blasted Liberal MP Dave Sharma for handing out pink flowers to random ladies on International Women's Day

Mr Sharma, who represents the NSW seat of Wentworth, shared photos of himself giving roses to female passersby at a Sydney train station on Monday

But Wilkinson, a host on Network 10's The Project, said Mr Sharma's post didn't sit right with her, and questioned his motives.

'Look, I just... I can't quite... I don't even know where to start on this, but you need to have a rethink on whether in the current conversation, whether PR opportunities with pink flowers that make it look like you're romancing that woman, are really appropriate,' the television presenter wrote.

Some commenters joined Wilkinson in criticising what they called a 'tone dead' gesture, while others spoke out in support of Mr Sharma.

'You gotta love how he managed to make a day about women about himself. Look at how great a guy I am,' wrote one critic.

'It's as bad as giving a woman a vacuum cleaner for her birthday.'

'This is a lovely gesture,' wrote one supporter.

Mr Sharma, who represents the NSW seat of Wentworth, shared photos of himself giving roses to female commuters at a Sydney train station on Monday

Mr Sharma addressed the Twitter criticism controversy on ABC News on Monday and said he usually ignored negative social media comments.

Poll Do you think Dave Sharma handing out flowers on International Women's Day was wrong? Yes No Unsure Do you think Dave Sharma handing out flowers on International Women's Day was wrong? Yes 57 votes

No 412 votes

Unsure 26 votes Now share your opinion





'The reaction on the ground was overwhelmingly positive,' he told Patricia Karvelas.

'Everyone was happy to receive a flower.'

But he addressed one post directly, which contained a reaction from the woman in the photograph calling the moment 'weird and wrong' and saying it didn't make her want to vote for Mr Sharma.

'I don't expect her to vote for me. It was for everyone. I didn't hand them out saying "are you a Liberal voter?" first,' he said.

'It was an exercise designed to mark International Women's Day and have a pleasant surprise on a Monday morning.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Sharma for comment.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has appealed to African Governments to put the youth at the core of their Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programs saying young people have the energy, motivation and know-how to drive the agenda forward.

The youth are a key constituency in driving momentum towards UHC, that should not be side-lined. We should engage with and empower our youth; giving them the knowledge and skills to take charge of their health, the President said.

President Kenyatta spoke on Monday at State House, Nairobi when he delivered the opening address at this years Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC21) held virtually.

The President said health challenges facing young Africans such as HIV/AIDS, mental health and substance abuse had been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.

 I urge the conference to give special attention to health issues that are plaguing our young people; which include teenage pregnancies, alcohol and substance abuse, lifestyle diseases, epidemics such as HIV/AIDs, and mental health, the President said.

To make the UHC aspiration a reality, the President said African nations need to focus more on the expansion of primary health, increase access to health services, make healthcare affordable and harness the innovativeness of its youth.

The Head of State also called for stronger collaboration and coordination among stakeholders, improvement of health security and more political will to advance the UHC agenda.

On primary healthcare, the President said besides providing curative medical services priority should also be given to preventive aspects such as maternal and child health, water, sanitation, and hygiene services.

Currently, about 600 million people across the African continent do not have access to health services. To address this, we must make increased investments in physical facilities, medical equipment, drugs, and trained personnel, the President said.

He said Kenya had significantly expanded its health services in recent years by equipping over 100 hospitals with advanced medical equipment. In Nairobi, the President pointed out that his administration was developing 24 new hospitals in the citys informal settlements.

The President regretted the high cost of healthcare in Africa saying many families suffer the misfortune and indignity of having to sell-off family assets to offset medical bills.

He estimated that 15 million African households are pushed to poverty annually due to out-of-pocket healthcare payments saying Kenya was implementing a mix of measures to address the high cost of medical care.

Kenya is addressing this challenge by embarking on a national programme to ensure universal access to the National Hospital Insurance Fund through mandatory enrolment and a full Government subsidy for the poor and vulnerable, the President said.

The President advised health sector stakeholders to harness innovativeness and creativity of Africans, especially the youth, as demonstrated in the continents response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

I urge health providers, investors, and development partners participating in this conference to nurture such innovations; especially those that are led by young people.

These local-level successes in fighting Covid-19 can be a strong foundation for increasing capacities for the domestic manufacturing of essential medical commodities, drugs, and vaccines required in other disease and healthcare situations, he said.

On strengthening of collaborations in the health sector, the President advised stakeholders to copy the example of the African Union mechanism that saw the continent develop and successfully implement a common Covid-19 response strategy.

Between our nations, we must collaborate and coordinate; as shown by the African Union Bureau of the Assembly Heads of State and Government that successfully developed continental Covid-19 strategy and Africa Medical Supplies Procurement Platform, the President advised.

President Kenyatta rallied fellow African political leaders to chaperone the UHC agenda saying, leadership strongly co-relates to the success of health systems.

I call upon leaders on the African continent to give health the highest political commitment, and to pursue the attainment of UHC as a critical driver of social development and economic prosperity, the President said.

Director General of the World Health Organization Dr Tedros Adhanom and Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) Dr John Nkengasong also spoke at the opening ceremony that was moderated by AMREF Health Africa Group CEO Dr Githinji Gitahi.

Dr Tedros congratulated President Kenyatta for the achievements made by Kenya towards the realisation of UHC and nostalgically recalled how he accompanied to the Head of State to Kisumu for the launch of the programme.

President Akufo-Addo says that the thorough vetting and speedy approval of all his ministerial nominees by parliament is a sign that parliamentarians in spite of their political differences are ready to work together in the interest of Ghana.



He commended the members of Parliament's Appointments Committee for enabling his government to be fully constituted by approving all his 29 ministerial nominees.



He said, the mutual regard for each other in parliament by both the majority and minority members "is what the Ghanaian people demand from us."



President Akufo-Addo, while delivering the 2021 State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Parliament in the afternoon of Tuesday, March 9, 2021, urged parliamentarians to let the national interest be the guiding principle of the house and not narrow partisan interests.



He also pledged his readiness and that of the executive arm to cooperate with parliament in pursuit of the country's interests.





Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The Tennessee Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee condemns the reopening of Shelby County Schools (SCS) to in-person instruction, even as COVID-19 cases remain at dangerously high levels across Tennessee. SCS serves roughly 111,000 students in the Memphis metro region and is the 25th largest school district in the US.

On Monday, March 8, Shelby County Schools completed its deadly reopening process, with grades 6-12 returning to classrooms. Grades Pre-K-5 returned a week before on March 1.

Shelby County is the largest, and final, school system in the state to reopen classrooms to students after Republican Governor Bill Lee threatened to withhold school funding from the remaining districts that only offered virtual instruction for students as COVID-19 cases surged this winter. Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) began phasing in face-to-face instruction on January 29.

Students in class during COVID-19 pandemic (Tullahoma City Schools)

Memphis-Shelby County, Nashville-Davidson County, and Knoxville-Knox County, the three largest school districts in Tennessee, remain at a very high-risk level, according to the New York Times. While the paper recommends school districts in this category limit grades pre-K-5 to small in-person groups and virtual learning for students 6-12, as of March 8, teachers and students from all grades will be back in classrooms.

Another source, the website COVID Act Now, an NGO focused on tracking the pandemic, lists Tennessee as one of the most vulnerable states for a new surge of infections. The group notes that 48 percent of the states population live and work in crowded conditions or is in one of the groups at highest risk for contracting the virus.

Governor Lees January 2021 bill, which forces the two largest school districts in the state to provide in-person instruction or suffer state defunding, is followed by an equally unscientific bill to remove the decision to close schools from community health departments to politicians.

Senate Bill 103 was passed by Tennessees Republican legislature on February 22. The bill empowers school districts to ignore rulings of health departments during a public health emergency, while giving the governor the ability to force schools open in the event that he disagrees with a districts decision.

Some districts, such as Knox County Schools in east Tennessee, had already broken from their local health department in August 2020 when schools opened for in-person instruction with an option for students to learn virtually. Knox County Schools developed its own metrics, separate from the county health department, for determining when schools would shift from in-person to virtual instruction when COVID-19 numbers in individual schools made in-person instruction untenable.

Under this ridiculous system, it was not uncommon for churches to be closed and restaurants and bars to restrict numbers of patrons, while classrooms were filled to capacity with 35 students every day, five days a week. It should be no wonder that by December 2020, Knox County became one of the global hot spots of the pandemic.

Now that Governor Lee and his Republican cronies have placed the well-being of our teachers and students in the hands of politicians rather than scientists, there is no doubt COVID-19 cases will rise in Tennessee and more people will lose their lives.

As Lee forces teachers and students back into the schools, he has allocated $10 million of the states $63.6 million Emergency Education Relief funds from last years federal COVID-19 relief package to charter schools. This funding will go to new charter schools and management companies as public school classrooms reopen with substandard ventilation, and only seven percent of the states population has been fully vaccinated.

During a public health crisis that has killed over half a million Americans, Lee is making good on his promise to use desperately needed public school dollars for his reactionary policy of promoting school choice, which aims to privatize public education.

We encourage teachers throughout Tennessee to join the Tennessee Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee and take up the struggle to reverse the reopening of schools. As part of this fight, teachers across the state must draw the lessons of the push to reopen schools and the failure of politicians and union officials to mobilize educators against the dangerous return to in-person classes.

The Democrats, from the Biden administration down to mayors of major cities, have expressed their support for the reopening of schools in order to reopen the economy. Bidens director of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese, made this clear with the statement, We need to get the schools open so that parents can get back to work.

Our committee upholds the unity of the working class in response to the pandemic. The ability of COVID-19 to run rampant throughout schools, factories and other workplaces puts a pressing need to establish connections and develop a collective action in response to the pandemic. We encourage teachers to join our committee and to start reaching out to Amazon workers in Murfreesboro, autoworkers at the Nissan Smyrna plant, health care workers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and beyond.

We reiterate our core demands to contain the pandemic and save lives:
TRS leaders and cadre at booth level are meeting these voters to ensure they voted for the TRS nominees. (Photo: Twitter @SurabhiVaniDevi)

Hyderabad: The TRS is heavily banking on two lakh graduate voters enrolled by party leaders themselves in each of the two constituencies to win the upcoming Legislative Council polls.

TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and working president K.T. Rama Rao are stressing on these two lakh voters in all the poll strategy meetings they held with in-charge ministers, party MPs, MLAs and MLCs in the past three weeks.

This time, the ruling party took special care at the stage of voter enrolment itself, as it had suffered setbacks in a majority of the MLC polls over the past six years though it has swept all other elections.

Following the directions of the party top brass, the ministers, MLAs, MLCs and all other public representatives till the level of gram sarpanches undertook a huge enrolment drive among graduate voters in all six districts going to the polls.

Graduate voters and their family members were identified from the 60-lakh strong primary members of the TRS and they were enrolled. Due to this, the number of graduate voters has doubled as compared to the 2015 MLC polls.

The TRS leadership has also devised a plan to take these voters to booths and ensure they voted for TRS.

In the 2015 MLC polls, the number of graduate voters for Hyderabad-Ranga Reddy-Mahbubnagar seat was 2.96 lakh, which has now risen to over 5.31 lakh. For the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda seat, the number of voters increased from 2.80 lakh in 2015 to 5.05 lakh.

This implies that there is an increase of over 2 lakh voters in each of the two seats. Party election in charge for Ranga Reddy and finance minister T. Harish Rao said, If we are able to bring these two lakh, new voters, to booths and ensure they voted for TRS, our victory in both the seats will be assured.

These two lakh voters are those from the 60 lakh primary members of the TRS and their family members besides the party's public representatives. Over 30,000 women graduate voters were among those enrolled by TRS in each of the two seats.

TRS leaders and cadre at booth level are meeting these voters to ensure they voted for the TRS nominees.
MBABANE  In the past three months, the Manzini Magistrates Court has been issuing at least a garnishee order every three days against a member of the UEDF.

This is if garnishee orders for maintenance against members of the Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF) that have been issued by the Manzini Magistrates Court since mid-October 2020 to late January 2021 are anything to go by. Garnishment is a legal process for collecting a monetary judgment on behalf of a plaintiff from a defendant. Garnishment allows the plaintiff to take the money or property of the debtor from the person or institution that holds that property.

Garnishee

A garnishee order must be issued by a magistrate in a court near where you work or live and you must be asked to appear in court. The reason for this is to give you an opportunity to show whether or not the debt is legal and how much you can afford to pay from your salary to clear the debt. The court has issued 30 garnishee orders of various amounts for maintenance and maintenance arrears and they are all against members of the UEDF. This translates to 10 garnishee orders per month and one every three days in respect of members of the army.

Week in and week out, magistrates courts deal with maintenance cases and the applicants are mostly the mothers of the children or other relatives such as grandparents in other instances.

On the days designated for maintenance cases, the courts are usually flooded with women; and the men, in most cases, tell the magistrates that they cannot afford the amounts demanded by the mothers of their children. The men, who include civil servants, sometimes cite that they have other children to maintain or that they are swimming in debt. The courts issue the garnishee orders nonetheless after considering the submissions.

All the 30 soldiers in respect of whom the garnishee orders were issued in Manzini were also in maintenance arrears. Some of them have a number of children with different women while others have a number of children with the same woman. The highest amount to be paid monthly by any of the soldiers as maintenance, according to the garnishee orders, is E4 000. It includes an amount of E3 500 for maintenance and E500 for arrears maintenance. Louis Mandla Shongwe, who is based at St Georges Army Barracks, was taken to court by Sebenzile Manana and she obtained the order in October last year. Shongwe was ordered to pay E4 500 in total per month, which comprised the amount of E3 500 for maintenance and E500 monthly to settle his arrear maintenance of E3 500 for the month of September last year.

Lucky Richard Dlamini, who is based at Mbutfu Army Barracks, was ordered to pay the same amount for maintenance and an additional E500 monthly to settle his maintenance arrears amounting to E10 500, which is for the months of July, August and September last year. He was taken to court by the mother of his child, Hlengiwe Dlamini (nee Thobela). The order was issued in October 2020.

KaGcina Army Barracks-based Patrick Mfanasibili Tsabedze was taken to court by Khethani Tsabedze (nee Mabuza) for failure to maintain their three minor children.

The court issued a garnishee order in the amount of E3 500 per month until the children become self-supporting. In terms of the garnishee, which was issued in October last year, Patrick will pay an additional E500 towards maintenance arrears of E7 000 for the months of August and September last year. On January 25, 2021, Carters Sikhondze of Phocweni Army Barracks was ordered to pay E3 000 towards maintaining four of his children with Gugu Nhlabatsi. The court also ordered him to pay E500 each month to settle arrear maintenance amounting to E12 000. According to the order, he did not pay anything in September, October, November and December last year.




Reddit CEO doubles down on allowing porn after platform was included on 'Dirty Dozen List'

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Although anti-pornography advocates have accused Reddit of normalizing and sharing incest and non-consensually recorded images, the online platforms CEO Steve Huffman says he will take the difficult decision of allowing pornography because sex is universal.

There are difficult decisions to make in this sphere, but we think theyre worth making, as opposed to saying, you know, No sex at all, for example, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a recent interview with Axios.

Asked if hosting pornographic content on Reddit would ever change, Huffman responded, Sex is universal, and like many topics on Reddit, sex is one of those topics thats often not well-served online or offline.

Reddit was included on the National Center on Sexual Exploitations 2021 Dirty Dozen List of mainstream contributors to sexual exploitation for being a hub of exploitation.

NCOSE argued in a statement that its researchers and other investigative reports have found countless forums dedicated to specific topics on Reddit that normalize and depict incest, non-consensually recorded and/or shared images, pornography  and prostitution promotion.

The group adds that many subreddits also normalize and even host child sexual abuse material.

If Reddit insists on allowing pornography, it must verify the identity of the persons who upload these images or videos, along with the consent of anyone in pornographic images or videos, NCOSE Director of Corporate and Strategic Initiatives, Lina Nealon contends.

This should be standard operating procedure for any technology company, let alone one that allows pornography.

Huffman claims Reddit doesnt want to promote or feature exploitative pornography.

You can look at [porn] as exploitative. And, indeed, much of it is. And thats not the content that we want on Reddit, Huffman said in the interview. But theres another aspect thats empowering. And these are people sharing stories of themselves, pictures of themselves. And we are perfectly supportive of that.

Nealon says Reddit, which doubled in value from $3 billion in 2019 to $6 billion in 2020, must find a way to better protect its underage users from stumbling onto this explicit or even illegal content.

Ironically, despite the CEOs acknowledgment that much of pornography is exploitative, he hasnt made any public effort to stem the harmful and abusive content on its site, Nealon adds.

Huffman said in the interview that Reddit wants people to be safe.

[W]e have rules on Reddit  no involuntary sexualization, he assured. And if anybody makes those sorts of reports to us, we take those very seriously. He added that the website has a policy of banning the sexualization of minors.

According to NCOSE, Reddit uses volunteer content moderators instead of investing in technology widely used by other tech companies to identify and block sexually exploitative material.

Nealon asserts that Reddit should use a portion of its vast profits to make the platform safer for all users.

Major social media companies, including Facebook and Instagram, officially ban pornographic content but have been accused of not enforcing their rules consistently.

Recently, executives of MindGeek, the parent company of the pornography website Pornhub, testified before a Canadian ethics committee over allegations that it profited off of child sexual abuse, rape, sex-trafficking and non-consensually distributed content.

In a 12-page letter to the Canadian Parliaments Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, a collective of 104 survivors of sexual exploitation and 525 non-governmental organizations from 65 nations called for a criminal investigation into MindGeek.

Multiple reports have emerged revealing how Pornhub, one of the largest pornography websites in the world, has allowed illegal content on its site, has been slow to verify consent and remove videos.

Earlier this year, the social media platform Twitter was sued after it took days to remove child exploitation material that was shared thousands of times on its platform.
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa  A man accused of killing a convenience store worker is pleading not guilty.

Rocky Dean Trujillo III, 20 of Marshalltown, was is charged with first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree robbery, going armed with intent, trafficking in stolen weapons, and assault while participating in a felony. Authorities say Trujillo shot Michael Ray West, 48 of Marshalltown, at a Caseys convenience store on February 15.

West later died of his injuries. Investigators say Trujillo was identified as the shooter through security video from the store.

A trial is now scheduled to begin on August 10 in Marshall County District Court.
MONACO, March 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scorpio Tankers Inc. (NYSE:STNG) (Scorpio Tankers, or the Company) announced that the President of the Company, Robert Bugbee, has purchased call options on an aggregate of 210,000 common shares (or 2,100 call option contracts) of the Company for total consideration of $649,000. There are 1,500 call option contracts with a strike price of $20.00 and an expiration of January 2022, and 600 call option contracts with a strike price of $25.00 and an expiration of January 2023.

About Scorpio Tankers Inc.

Scorpio Tankers is a provider of marine transportation of petroleum products worldwide. The Companys fleet consists of 135 owned, finance leased or bareboat chartered-in product tankers (42 LR2 tankers, 12 LR1 tankers, 63 MR tankers and 18 Handymax tankers) with an average age of 5.3 years. Additional information about the Company is available at the Companys website www.scorpiotankers.com, which is not a part of this press release.

Forward-Looking Statements

Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forwardlooking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forwardlooking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forwardlooking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words believe, expect, anticipate, estimate, intend, plan, target, project, likely, may, will, would, could and similar expressions identify forwardlooking statements.

The forwardlooking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, managements examination of historical operating trends, data contained in the Companys records and other data available from third parties. Although management believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond the Companys control, there can be no assurance that the Company will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. The Company undertakes no obligation, and specifically declines any obligation, except as required by law, to publicly update or revise any forwardlooking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

In addition to these important factors, other important factors that, in the Companys view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forwardlooking statements include unforeseen liabilities, future capital expenditures, revenues, expenses, earnings, synergies, economic performance, indebtedness, financial condition, losses, future prospects, business and management strategies for the management, length and severity of the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, including its effect on demand for petroleum products and the transportation thereof, expansion and growth of the Companys operations, risks relating to the integration of assets or operations of entities that it has or may in the future acquire and the possibility that the anticipated synergies and other benefits of such acquisitions may not be realized within expected timeframes or at all, the failure of counterparties to fully perform their contracts with the Company, the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions, including fluctuations in charter rates and vessel values, changes in demand for tanker vessel capacity, changes in the Companys operating expenses, including bunker prices, drydocking and insurance costs, the market for the Companys vessels, availability of financing and refinancing, charter counterparty performance, ability to obtain financing and comply with covenants in such financing arrangements, changes in governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities, potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, vessels breakdowns and instances of offhires, and other factors. Please see the Companys filings with the SEC for a more complete discussion of certain of these and other risks and uncertainties.

Contact Information

Scorpio Tankers Inc.

(212) 542-1616




Global technology brand, Oppo, will launch the all-new Reno5 Series in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) next week.

The companys first all-5G launch includes three variants - Reno5 Pro 5G, Reno5 5G and Reno5 Z 5G  that both boast the ultra-fast speed and power of 5G.

True to its 2021 theme Technology for mankind, kindness for the world, Oppo believes that 5G will empower humanity to live fully connected lives and reap the full benefits of a technology-powered world. The grand launch of the Reno5 series in MEA, themed Featuring You, will take place on Tuesday March 16, 2021 at 7:00 PM Bahrain time (GMT +3), hosted virtually on the brands official social media platforms  Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Bahrain consumers are welcome to join the event and explore Oppos latest smartphone innovation, by clicking on the links www.facebook.com/oppo, www.youtube.com/oppoarabia and https://twitter.com/oppoarabia.

Following a successful global launch, the Reno5 series is set to take the Bahrain market by storm with industry-leading Qualcomm 5G chipsets, best-in-class AI-powered all-scene photography, never-seen-before portrait photography and videography, and 65W SuperVOOC2.0 Flash Charge  the safest and one of the fastest charging technologies commercially available in the world, delivering a full charge of Reno5 battery in 35 minutes.

Ethan Xue, President of Oppo MEA said: The Reno5 Series is our first ever all-5G launch and we are very excited to bring you the latest and best in ultra-fast, ultra-powerful connectivity.

Understanding customer needs is a top priority for us at Oppo, hence while designing the Reno5 series, we made sure to pack it with not just powerful hardware and ground-breaking imaging technology, but also the latest in connectivity. Launching a 5G-only series was inspired by our theme for this year, Technology for Mankind, Kindness for the World, which pushes us to do everything with heart and soul, for the benefit of people. Were also excited to have our brand ambassador, Mohamed Salah, on board as he sets an example when it comes to achieving goals and dreams, which are also part of our brands many values.

The technology innovations in Oppo Reno5 series will appeal to creative minds and enable them to fully express themselves. Oppo partnered with Sony to jointly developed an IMX766 sensor for the Reno5 Pro 5G, which brings more possibilities for portrait and night video shooting, backlighting and sports. The Reno5 Pro 5G also comes with professional gaming-grade hardware and other gaming features for a cool gaming experience.

The Reno5 5G variant is the AI Portrait Expert that combines Oppos Ultra Night Video Algorithms and Live HDR Algorithm to deliver unprecedented quality in portrait photography and portrait videography that empowers users to create and capture lifes best moments.

Keeping with Oppo Reno Series focus on design, both phones are smooth, light and slim and come in attractive colours and finishes. The Reno5 series debuts an industry-first silver colour, in addition to the ever-popular black. Oppos Reno Glow 2.0 diamond cutting technique adds a glittery visual effect of millions of shimmering diamonds embedded into the back cover while at the same time providing a matte finish that is fingerprint resistant. AMOLED screens and 90hHz refresh rate make for easy and comfortable viewing.

The all-5G Reno5 Series launch will reiterate the Oppos commitment to commercialisation of 5G in the Bahrain. Adding three new 5G phones to its existing portfolio of 5G smartphones launched in 2020, Oppo will address the Bahrain consumer demand for ultra-fast speed and real-time connectivity. -- Tradearabia News Service
RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- IDEA Public Schools is proud to announce that for the 15th year in a row, 100 percent of seniors have been accepted into college, even amidst unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic.

In addition, the district announced that for the first time in school history, more than 54 percent of seniors have been accepted to a Tier One or Tier Two college.

Acceptances range from local and state schools like The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and to prestigious and highly selective schools like Brown University and University of Pennsylvania.

"There is no greater milestone that I enjoy celebrating more than college acceptances for our seniors," says Phillip Garza, Chief College Officer. "College acceptance is the culmination of hard work, dedication, and devotion to our students and our mission of "College for All. For many of our seniors, college acceptance is the first step toward being the first in their family to attend or graduate from college."

IDEA continues its legacy of college matriculation and reached this milestone with its largest senior class in school history and seniors graduating from IDEA high schools across the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, and Austin.

This year, a total of nineteen IDEA campuses will graduate seniors including first-ever graduating classes at IDEA Weslaco Pike in the Rio Grande Valley and IDEA Monterrey Park and IDEA Walzem in San Antonio.

Brijona Mosley has been accepted into five Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and is preparing to graduate with IDEA Walzem's first senior class in May. Her first-choice college is Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, America's only Historically Black and Catholic University.

"I chose an HBCU because living in San Antonio, the culture I have been exposed to is predominantly Hispanic. Growing up, I never really got to learn about or experience my culture," Brijona said. "Going to an HBCU is important to me because it will give me the chance to learn about my culture and connect with people who are from the same background as me."

With the help of their counselors, teachers, school staff, and families, the class of 2021 has successfully accomplished:

12,609 college applications

5,409 acceptances

1,582 acceptances to selective and highly selective colleges

5 Ivy League acceptances

College for All Children is made possible by IDEA's innovative programs and college-going culture. IDEA's College Support Model provides students with a wide range of services and support before and after they get accepted to college.

For more information on IDEA Public Schools, please visit www.ideapublicschools.org

About IDEA Public Schools

IDEA Public Schools believes that each and every child can go to college. Since 2000, IDEA Public Schools has grown from a small school with 150 students to the fastest-growing network of tuition-free, Pre-K-12 public charter schools in the United States. Currently, the network serves 66,000 college-bound students in 120 schools across Texas and Louisiana. IDEA has been recognized as a "Great Place to Work" and received national rankings on The Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report's Top High Schools lists. IDEA remains on-track to uphold its legacy of sending 100% of its graduates to college.

SOURCE IDEA Public Schools

Related Links

http://www.ideapublicschools.org


George Variyan, from Monash University, says it might be time to consider whether elite private boys schools have any place in a gender-just world. The gender segregation, the hyper-competition and the pre-eminence of rugged sport [in boys schools] continue to manifest a culture of masculinity that is both toxic and excluding of females, Dr Variyan said. However, Judith Gill, an adjunct associate professor at the University of South Australia who left secondary teaching to investigate gender effects and schooling, said she objected to some people saying boys schools are inevitably sexist and misogynist. There are excellent schools that are single sex of girls and boys and there are some pretty ordinary ones, she said. But I do see that the kids who are educated alongside one another emerge with healthier dispositions and recognition of the shared humanity of males and females, and I think thats a good thing.

Loading Two of Melbournes most prominent boys schools  St Kevins in Toorak and Xavier College in Kew  were named in the testimonies sent to Ms Contos. In response, St Kevins last week said the petition provide[s] a timely reality check both for schools and families, while Xavier College said the fact that so many young women signed the petition is distressing. The Alliance of Girls Schools Australasia said of the testimonies: We can only hope that these stories act as a catalyst for real action and an enduring change across society so that the appalling culture of disrespect, male entitlement and the sexual assault of girls and women is brought to an end. Australia has a higher proportion of private single-sex schools than the United States and Britain, and they tend to educate advantaged students from the cities.

Loading The popularity of single-sex schools has declined over decades, with a large number converting to coeducation to survive. Private boys schools enrolments grew 4.2 per cent in Victoria in the decade to 2018, while overall student enrolments expanded 15 per cent. While there is plenty of research on the academic outcomes of coeducational and single-sex schools, there is far less research on differences in curriculum and ways of teaching, as well as gendered attitudes and behaviour. Recent work by University of Newcastle researcher Cody Reynolds found boys schools were more likely to choose texts by men about male characters and were less likely to study gender at all. The teachers seem to suggest that they do that in the interests of the success of the students, that they feel male students will engage better and write more successfully if theyre not focused on a female perspective, Mr Cody said.

They also suggest that in an all-male context, boys have a hard time writing about male gender. Professor Amanda Keddie of Deakin University said there wasnt a particular method of teaching or curriculum in boys schools, but there was a tendency for some to tailor their curriculum ... to be boy friendly. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video What you can say about all-boy environments, as in all male environments elsewhere, is that they can be prone to reinforcing hyper-masculine behaviours, she said. Dr Gill said outdated views about gender still persist in some single-sex schools.

A long time ago teachers were prone to say, Yes, boys were like this and they can do maths and science, girls are like that and they can do English and history, she said. Thats terribly wrong and it still trails through the schooling of today. If you look at the range of subjects chosen, the boys cluster more narrowly in the maths/science subjects, and the girls are much more spread across the arts/humanities curriculum. The Knox School principal Allan Shaw. Credit:Chris Hopkins Allan Shaw, principal of The Knox School, a coeducational non-government school in Melbournes east, said all schools needed to encourage students to defy gender stereotypes. We work really hard at making sure that boys are involved in visual art, debating, music and drama, and girls are involved in more physical things, developing presence and being assertive, Mr Shaw said.
Member of Parliament for Yendi, Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama has urged his constituents and Ghanaians to go out and take the COVID-19 jab.



He made this clarion call following the widespread myth of negative implications of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the immune system.



But the lawmaker after taking the jab over the weekend in Parliament insists on taking the COVID-19 vaccine in the best interest of citizens to defeat the virus.



Taking my jab was to publicly indicate my faith in the reliability and safety of the vaccine and also to encourage my constituents and all Ghanaians to do same.



It is in the common interest of all Ghanaians to take this vaccine so together, we can drive out this deadly virus from the shores of our country, Mr Farouk Mahama stated in a Facebook post.



The son of late former Vice President also assured the safety of the vaccine and admonished Ghanaians to support the government of President Akufo-Addo in the fight against the epidemic.



I can confidently attest to the safety of the vaccine and encourage you all to take yours too when you have the opportunity. Lets support the Presidents unrelenting combat against the coronavirus, he added.



On Saturday, March 6, Members of Parliament including parliamentary service staffs led by Speaker of the house, Rt. Hon Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin took turns for the vaccine at the Parliament Clinic.



The house which resumed last week was suspended for three weeks after 17 parliamentarians and 151 staff members tested positive for COVID-19.



However, President Akufo-Akufo and Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia together with their spouses took the first shot at the 37 Military Hospital on Monday, March 2, 2021.

Source: peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
After being sidelined recently because of weather problems the granddaddy of all amateur racing programs, the CKG Billings Harness Driving Series, finally got a clear evening and presented another contest on Monday at Yonkers Raceway.

And when the judges hung the official sign after that race Bob the Headhunter Hechkoff and Pound Sterling emerged victorious when they vanquished five others en route to a 2:00 victory.

In the short six-horse field Hechkoff, who has driven 107 winners in his amateur career, knows if you have the best horse in the race send him to the front and that's just what he did after starting from the two- hole.

But Hechkoff didn't have an easy time of it when Mighty Matt Zuccarello sent his charge, Sterling, for the lead when the wings of the mobile gate folded, and they kept pressure on Pound Sterling as they trotted by the first stanza in a swift :28.3. Still eye-to-eye with Zuccarello's charge Hechkoff had little choice but to keep the pedal to the metal and the two were battling head to head as the trotted by the half in:58.2. They were still heads apart as they headed toward the third stanza but unfortunately for Zuccarello his trotter made a bobble which eliminated his chances

After that miscue by Zuccarello's trotter, Pound Sterling still had pressure and braced for a late charge from Fiji and Dave the Rave Offenberg as they trotted into the final turn. And although they were heads apart as they headed for paydirt Pound Sterling held gamely for a neck triumph over Figi. Just a length behind the top two was Hot Summer Knight in rein to Mighty Marianna Monaco.

The winner of the non-wagering affair was the eight-year-old Muscle Hill gelding who is owned by R B H Ventures and Spagnola Racing LLC and trained by Kyle Spagnola.

(CKG Billings Harness Driving Series)
Heavy rains have breached a dam on the Hawaiian island of Maui, prompting authorities to open evacuation shelters after ordering everyone in its vicinity and along the nearby coast to leave.

The rains led to the cresting of the Kaupakalua dam in the islands northern region of Haiku, state emergency management officials said in a statement.

Failure of the dam will produce life-threatening flooding as well as significant property damage in areas downstream, weather officials in Honolulu, the state capital, said in a statement.

Evacuation shelters were being opened at the Paia Community Center and Hana High School, governor David Ige said.

Maui county officials have been informed that Kaupakalua Dam has been breached, Mr Ige said on Twitter late on Monday, announcing that evacuations had begun.

Parks in Maui county will stay closed because of the rain and flooding, the parks department said.

Reuters
Jeremiah Johnson, the self-described prophet who faced backlash from fellow evangelical Christians after publicly apologizing for prophesying former President Donald Trump would be reelected president, is ending Jeremiah Johnson Ministries.

The announcement comes after much prayer and the clear direction of the Lord, Johnson said Monday on his Facebook page.

It also comes after his abrupt two-week hiatus in the middle of a YouTube series he titled I Was Wrong.

Johnson said during the series, which he described as a money loser, that apologizing wasnt enough.

I believe that it is a tremendous mistake to take the next four years to argue and debate and cause division and grow more prideful talking about how we think the election was taken from Donald Trump. I actually believe we need to take the next four years and humble ourselves, he said.

We need to recognize that God is up to something far greater in the prophetic, charismatic movement that I believe is beyond what many even recognize. We need to stop, we need to take a breather and we need to come back to a place where we can begin to dialogue about these issues rather than be so triggered.

A recent report by The New York Times noted that Johnson had built an audience on social media as one of the first evangelicals to take Trumps candidacy seriously in 2015.

In one YouTube video, he said he had heard from thousands of people after the first episode of I Was Wrong and that 90 percent of that feedback was negative.

He admitted Monday on Facebook that he expects ending Jeremiah Johnson Ministries will mean tremendous financial loss and the removal of influence that has been well established over the last decade.

We fully understand what a shock this will be to many on numerous levels. However, we are choosing to radically obey Jesus over any other voices in this season, he said.

Johnson said on Facebook he plans to delete all social media accounts associated with Jeremiah Johnson Ministries over the next week.

But its not the last people can expect to hear from Johnson.

His new website outlines plans for a ministry called The Altar Global.

Instead of offering what Johnson called prophetic commentary on current events, The Altar Global will help prepare the Bride of Christ for the return of our glorious Bridegroom King Jesus, according to the website.

That includes a one-year intensive program called The Altar School of Ministry, based in Concord, North Carolina, where Johnson and others will train students on the lifestyle of an end-time messenger and the return of the Lord. It also includes local and national conferences, monthly Zoom calls with supporters and books and other resources.

This is not a name or brand change but rather a complete shift of our ministrys identity and focus, Johnson wrote on Facebook.

He added: I am not discouraged nor am I drawing back from my calling. Quite the opposite. I feel God is launching me, my family, and our ministry team further into His purpose for us. In response to Gods gracious correction, refinement, and empowerment, I am choosing to refocus my gaze upon Jesus and the eternal realities of His Kingdom like never before.
There are green shoots of recovery starting to appear in Spain's tourism sector in the form of reservations for accommodation this summer.

At the moment there is more interest from the British market than the German, where until a few days ago Spain was part of the black list of destinations where it was prohibited to travel to.

However, in the run-up to the Berlin International Tourism Exchange (ITB) - which is being held virtually this year - the director of Spains national tourist board (Turespana), Miguel Sanz, has suggested that between May and June German tourists will start returning and by July and August 50 per cent of the figures reached in 2019 will be reached.

Sanz believes that from autumn there will be an almost total recovery in demand. But he warned, "we have to make international travel desirable again" and encouraged "all Spanish destinations and companies to make a joint effort to promote that travelling is safe and travelling to Spain is safer."

Turespana has pointed out that "the expenditure of German tourism in 2020 on trips to Spain was 22.5 per cent compared to the previous year and the number of tourists we received was 22.6 per cent compared to 2019" and has insisted that "the forecast for the summer season 2021 is more favourable and will have continued positive growth once the market in Germany reopens.

A report by Reise Analyze said that the German desire to travel remains at a high level despite the Covid." However, it warned that reservations are also not expected to be made overnight. "German travellers remain curious and flexible, experienced, demanding and multi-optional, with a high demand for information and greater use of non-tourist sources," the report added.
You put up false information and your goal was to get a reaction from the prosecutor, he said. Youre wasting court resources, because the state has to file a (violation of bail bond). Thats not harassment. If anything its a huge inconvenience that you yourself are creating. By you posting false information to get a reaction out of them, one could make the argument you are harassing them.
The High Court has issued an interdict to stop the late Genius Kadungures lawyer Patricia Darangwa from administering formers estate.

The decision follows after Ginimbis family led by his sister Juliets filing of an urgent chamber application to stop Darangwa from acting as Ginimbi estates executrix.

The family claimed that the will was not attested to by Ginimbi or signed for them to accept it.In her finding, Justice Sylvia Chirawu-Mugomba said the familys rights must be protected.

Even if the court finds on the return date that the document should be taken as a will, their rights must be protected, ruled Justice Chirawu-Mugomba. The judge ordered Darangwa to stop acting on behalf of Ginimbi.

Darangwa be and hereby interdicted from administering the estate of the late Genius Kadungure under DR No 1771/20.

The Master of High Court be and is hereby interdicted from accepting any process in relation to the administration of the estate of the late Genius Kadungure under DR No. 1771/20 filed by or on behalf of Darangwa.

Darangwa be and is hereby interdicted from presenting the letters of administration issued to her in Zimbabwe under DR No.1771/20 to the Master of the High Court in the Republic of South Africa for purposes of the administration of the deceaseds estate in relation to assets in that country.

The Registrar of the High Court of Zimbabwe at Harare is directed to expedite the return date hearing, reads the judgment. The judge said her decision was inevitable since the disputed document failed to meet all formalities.

It is therefore inevitable that the merits of the final order sought be considered. It is my considered view that the basis of the whole matter revolves around the crucial issue of the acceptance of a document that did not meet all the formalities as specified in s 8 (1) (a-d) of the Wills Act as the will of the deceased.

These are writing, signing and attestation. Section 8(5) therefore becomes an exception to the norm in that it gives the Master of High Court, the power to accept a document that does not meet some of the formalities.

That section in my view seeks to create a balance between being overly rigorous to the extent that it may prejudice beneficiaries in instances where it is clear that indeed the deceased wanted their estate to be dealt with in a particular manner but failed but failed to comply fully s 8(1) and potential fraudulent documents being touted as wills, reads the judgment.

Ginimbi died in a car crash on November 8 last year. The family was challenging the authenticity of the document which they claim is imprecise and not dated.

The court also found out that the family has a substantial and real interest in this matter and have a right to arrest the illegality that aggravates in the deceaseds estate at the behest of Darangwa to their prejudice.

They are accordingly within their rights to approach this court. On the merits, the family feared that they were exposed since Darangwa did not furnish any monetary security for the faithful administration for Ginimbis estate. H Metro
The operations floor of a drilling rig is seen from the control room on a lease owned by Oasis Petroleum in the Permian Basin near Wink, Texas, on Aug. 22, 2018. (Nick Oxford/Reuters)

US to Launch Review of Future of Federal Oil Leasing Program Under Bidens Order

President Joe Bidens administration on Tuesday announced its upcoming review of the federal oil and gas program, per the presidents executive order.

The Interior Department said it would host a forum on March 25 that will feature industry representatives, labor and environmental justice organizations, natural resource advocates, and other experts.

The federal oil and gas program is not serving the American public well. Its time to take a close look at how to best manage our nations natural resources with current and future generations in mind, Laura Daniel-Davis, principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, said in a statement.

This forum will help inform the Departments near-term actions to restore balance on Americas lands and waters and to put our public lands energy programs on a more sound and sustainable conservation, fiscal and climate footing, she added.

Officials will use information from the forum in an interim report the department expects to release next summer, outlining the next steps and recommendations to improve stewardship of public lands and waters, create jobs, and build a just and equitable energy future, according to the agency.

Biden signed a climate order in January that, among a slew of other directives, directs the Interior Department to pause all new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and in offshore waters pending completion of a review.

Officials shall reconsider federal oil and gas permitting and leasing practices, according to the order, which stated, In conducting this analysis, and to the extent consistent with applicable law, the Secretary of the Interior shall consider whether to adjust royalties associated with coal, oil, and gas resources extracted from public lands and offshore waters, or take other appropriate action, to account for corresponding climate costs.

Acting Interior Secretary Scott de la Vega on Jan. 20 ordered local officials to stop issuing oil and gas leases and the administration last month paused the first oil and gas lease sales of the year to comply with the mandate.

Workers tend to a wellhead during a hydraulic fracturing operation outside Rifle, Colo., on March 29, 2013. (Brennan Linsley/AP Photo)

In announcing the order, Biden said that the United States and the world face a profound climate crisis, adding, We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents.

The policies could drive gas prices, which are spiking primarily due to demand, even higher, experts told The Epoch Times.

Lawmakers from both sides, meanwhile, have said Bidens efforts are damaging businesses in a number of states, such as New Mexico.

If permitting delays continue, a bipartisan group of House members wrote to de la Vega last week, then existing operations could be forced to shut down. That would cause the department to be in violation of existing law through the unlawful taking of property rights, the legislators said, urging him to restore decision-making authority to issue permits to local agency experts.

Other lawmakers, though, have introduced bills that would reform oil and gas leases. The House natural resources committee was holding a hearing on Tuesday to discuss the bills, including one from Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) that would raise royalties, rental rates, inspection fees, and penalties on oil and gas companies that extract any resources from public land.

Public lands are a collective national treasure that belong to the American peoplepolluters that want to extract energy on these lands owe taxpayers a fair price, Porter said in a March 2 statement. We havent raised the rental rate for mining on public lands since I was in junior high, and weve been charging oil and gas companies the same royalty rate for over 100 years. My Ending Taxpayer Welfare for Oil and Gas Companies Act would protect taxpayers and give these prices a decades-overdue update.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- March of Dimes , the leader in the fight for the health of all moms and babies, and longtime partner, Empire BlueCross BlueShield Foundation, are working together to improve maternal and infant care in New York. As both organizations continue to address health inequity across the country, this partnership aims to address the racial disparities and social determinants of health that have disproportionately impacted Black mothers in New York. Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens has been selected as a local health equity partner to implement this important work.

The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) recently reported that racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. have worsened over the past two decades. In order to achieve the Healthy People 2030 goals for Pregnancy and Childbirth, maternity care systems need to address disparities that threaten maternal and infant health. Researchers have identified implicit bias among health care providers as a potential contributor to these disparities. In response to these findings, March of Dimes developed Breaking Through Implicit Bias in Maternal Healthcare training, in collaboration with Quality Interactions, to improve patient-provider communications and treatment decisions, contributing to improved quality of care at a critical intervention point. The course provides an overview of implicit bias, its impact on the maternal infant health crisis, the history of structural racism in the United States, and strategies for providers to both mitigate racial bias in maternity care and commit to a culture of equity. The American Hospital Association recognizes the value of this important training program and the potential benefits of its use by healthcare providers across the country to better identify and remedy implicit bias.

"The U.S. is in the midst of a maternal and infant health crisis, which is particularly devastating to women and babies of color. Data shows that the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations in the world for childbirth," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, Chief Medical and Health Officer, Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Scientific Officer at March of Dimes. "Roughly every 12 hours, a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes, and the CDC reports that 60% are preventable. Programs like these, supported by the Anthem Foundation, are invaluable in making a positive impact for moms and babies."

Over the past decade, Empire BlueCross and BlueShield Foundation's parent company, Anthem Foundation, has contributed close to $8 million to support March of Dimes programs aimed at reducing premature birth that have reached more than 50,000 pregnant women across the country. These programs have had a significant impact with only 7.3% of participants in group prenatal care delivering prematurely, compared to a national average of 10%.

"At Empire, we understand that new and expecting parents may be dealing with a lot of stress or anxiety which can significantly impact health and well-being," said Jennifer Kuhn, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield Medicaid Plan President. "To help new and expecting families, our partnership with March of Dimes will enable New Yorkers to receive culturally-competent messaging, that will empower new parents to access critical services designed to shape healthy pre- and post-natal habits."

About March of Dimes

March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, lead programs and provide education and advocacy so that every baby can have the best possible start. Building on a successful 80-year legacy of impact and innovation, we empower every mom and every family. Visit marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org for more information. Visit shareyourstory.org for comfort and support. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter .

About Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation

Through charitable grant making, the Empire BlueCross BlueShield Foundation and the Empire BlueCross Foundation, trade names of the Anthem Blue Cross Foundation L.L.C., independent licensees of the BlueCross BlueShield Association, serving residents and businesses in the 28 eastern and southeastern counties of New York State, promotes Empire's commitment to improving lives and communities. Through strategic partnerships and programs, the Foundation addresses the social drivers that will help create a healthier generation of Americans in communities that Empire serves. The Foundation focuses its funding on critical initiatives that make up its Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets: maternal health, diabetes prevention, cancer prevention, heart health and healthy, active lifestyles, behavioral health efforts and programs that benefit people with disabilities. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Dollars for Dollars program which provides a 100 percent match of associates' donations, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Empire BlueCross BlueShield Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at https://medium.com/anthemfoundation .

SOURCE March of Dimes Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marchofdimes.org


4 Local Picnic Packages That Take Your Outdoor Dining to the Next Level
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Regulatory News:

CARMAT (Paris:ALCAR) (FR0010907956, ALCAR), the designer and developer of the world's most advanced total artificial heart, aiming to fulfill an unmet medical need by providing a therapeutic alternative to people suffering from end-stage biventricular heart failure, today announces that is has obtained a 1.4 million grant as a winner of the Ministry for Industry's "Industrial recovery plan Strategic sectors" call for projects.

This non-dilutive financing will contribute to the "CAP 23" industrialization program that aims to size the production of the Aeson heart for its commercial phase, notably by:

increasing CARMAT's production capacity on its Bois-d'Arcy industrial site;

digitalizing this site; and

strengthening the Company's network of industrial suppliers in France.

Stephane Piat, Chief Executive Officer of CARMAT, says: "We are delighted that our industrial program has been selected by the jury within the framework of this call for projects. This funding, combined with the proceeds generated by our recent capital increase, will support the ramp-up of our production capacity in order to reach an output of hundreds of Aeson hearts a year by 2023. CARMAT will thus be in a position to meet the demand of hospitals across Europe while continuing its clinical trials on a broader scale, notably in the United States".

About CARMAT: the world's most advanced total artificial heart project

A credible response to end-stage heart failure: CARMAT aims to eventually provide a response to a major public health issue associated with heart disease, the world's leading cause of death: chronic and acute heart failure. By pursuing the development of its total artificial heart, Aeson, composed of the implantable bioprosthesis and its portable external power supply system to which it is continuously connected, CARMAT intends to overcome the well-known shortfall in heart transplants for the tens of thousands of people suffering from irreversible end-stage heart failure, the most seriously affected of the 20 million patients with this progressive disease in Europe and the United States.

The result of combining two types of unique expertise: the medical expertise of Professor Carpentier, known throughout the world for inventing Carpentier-Edwards heart valves, which are the most used in the world, and the technological expertise of Airbus Group, world aerospace leader.

The first physiologic heart replacement therapy: given the use of highly biocompatible materials, its unique self-regulation system and its pulsatile nature, the CARMAT total artificial heart could, assuming a successful clinical development, potentially save the lives of thousands of patients each year with no risk of rejection and with an enhanced quality of life.

A project leader acknowledged at a European level: with the backing of the European Commission, CARMAT has been granted the largest subsidy ever given to an SME by Bpifrance; a total of 33 million.

Strongly committed, prestigious founders and shareholders: Matra Defense SAS (subsidiary of the Airbus Group), Professor Alain Carpentier, the Centre Chirurgical Marie Lannelongue, Truffle Capital, a leading European venture capital firm, ALIAD (Air Liquide's venture capital investor), CorNovum (an investment holding company held 50-50 by Bpifrance and the French State), the family offices of Pierre Bastid (Lohas), of Dr. Antonino Ligresti (Sante Holdings S.R.L.), of the Gaspard family (Corely Belgium SPRL and Bratya SPRL) and of M. Pierre-Edouard Sterin (BAD 21 SPRL), Groupe Therabel as well as the thousands of institutional and individual shareholders who have placed their trust in CARMAT.

For more information: www.carmatsa.com

Name: CARMAT

ISIN code: FR0010907956

Ticker: ALCAR

Disclaimer

This press release and the information contained herein do not constitute an offer to sell or subscribe to, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe to, shares in CARMAT ("the Company") in any country. This press release contains forward-looking statements that relate to the Company's objectives. Such forward-looking statements are based solely on the current expectations and assumptions of the Company's management and involve risk and uncertainties. Potential risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, whether the Company will be successful in implementing its strategies, whether there will be continued growth in the relevant market and demand for the Company's products, new products or technological developments introduced by competitors, and risks associated with managing growth. The Company's objectives as mentioned in this press release may not be achieved for any of these reasons or due to other risks and uncertainties.

No guarantee can be given as to any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements, which are subject to inherent risks, including those described in the Universal registration document filed with the Autorite des Marches Financiers on March 13, 2020 under number D.20-0126 as well as changes in economic conditions, the financial markets or the markets in which CARMAT operates. In particular, no guarantee can be given concerning the Company's ability to finalize the development, validation and industrialization of the prosthesis and the equipment required for its use, to manufacture the prostheses, satisfy the requirements of competent authorities, enroll patients, obtain satisfactory clinical results, perform the clinical trials and achieve commercial objectives.

Aeson is an active implantable medical device commercially available in Europe ONLY, CARMAT SA., CE0344. The Aeson TAH is intended to replace ventricles of native heart and is indicated as a bridge to transplant in patients suffering from end-stage biventricular heart failure (INTERMACS classes 1-4) who are not amenable to maximal medical therapy or LVAD and are likely to undergo heart transplant in the 180 days following device implantation. The decision to implant and the surgical procedure must be executed by Health Care professionals trained by the manufacturer. Carefully read the documentation (clinician manual, patient manual alarm booklet) for characteristics and information necessary for patient selection and good use (contraindications, precautions, side effects).

In the USA, Aeson is currently exclusively available within the framework of clinical trials.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005816/en/

Contacts:

CARMAT

Stephane Piat

Chief Executive Officer

Pascale d'Arbonneau

Chief Financial Officer

Tel.: +33 1 39 45 64 50

contact@carmatsas.com

Alize RP

Press Relations

Caroline Carmagnol

Tel.: +33 6 64 18 99 59

carmat@alizerp.com

NewCap

Investor Relations

Strategic Communication

Dusan Oresansky

Quentin Masse

Tel.: +33 1 44 71 94 94

carmat@newcap.eu
Advertisement

The home of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal has been bought by Wiltshire Council.

The infamous four-bedroom detached house in Salisbury has been lying empty since the assassination attempt with Novichok on Mr Skripal, 69, and his daughter three years ago.

The council yesterday said it will 'rebuild and refurbish' the property, which boasts a new bathroom suite, two reception rooms and a 22ft lounge, to allow it to be used again as a home - but nobody will be allowed 'to trade on its history'.

The house was bought for 260,000 on August 12, 2011, before the Novichok attack, according to the Land Registry.

A council spokesman said: 'Wiltshire Council has agreed to purchase 47 Christie Miller Road, Salisbury to enable the property to be brought back into use.

'Once refurbished it will then be offered as a shared ownership property to local residents in line with the council's affordable housing policies with a legal stipulation that it must be used as a residential property that it may not be sub let and that nobody can trade on its history.'

Reports say it took a total of 13,000 hours to sanitise the 13 sites around Salisbury contaminated by the nerve agent. The house was the last to be pronounced decontaminated.

Pictured: Police officers stand outside the home of Sergei Skripal on March 6, 2018. Circled: The infected door handle

The infamous four-bedroom detached house in Salisbury has been lying empty since the assassination attempt with Novichok on Mr Skripal, 69, and his daughter three years ago (pictured: one of the bedrooms)

The home was finally declared safe enough for him to sell in September 2019 - 18 months after Novichok was smeared across the letterbox (pictured: The living room)

Ex-double agent Skripal was left in a critical condition when his Salisbury home was contaminated with nerve agent on March 4 2018 (pictured: The kitchen)n

The home was finally declared safe enough for him to sell in September 2019 - 18 months after Novichok was smeared across the letterbox.

Ex-double agent Skripal was left in a critical condition when his Salisbury home was contaminated with nerve agent on March 4 2018.

He and his daughter, then 33, were poisoned in a suspected attack by Russian spies.

But a year and a half later the house in Wiltshire was decontaminated and refurbished ready for it to be put up for sale.

It is believed Mr Skripal, who was moved to a secret hideout following the attacks, has been advised not to return for security reasons.

The Salisbury home of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal (pictured in 2019) was declared safe enough for him to sell 18 months after Novichok was smeared across his letterbox

Sergei and Yulia Skripal are pictured in a Salisbury restaurant together before they were poisoned

The site was declared chemically safe in March, but has now been refurbished and is ready for sale. Pictured in January 2019

Three months after the Skripals were targeted, Dawn Sturgess (right) and Charlie Rowley (left) fell ill seven miles away from Salisbury in Amesbury after coming into contact with the same nerve agent

Officials were said to have made effort to ensure the site doesn't become a 'dark tourism' hot spot or turn into a museum.

The house had been officially decontaminated in March 2019, but extensive work has since been carried out to restore the property to its former state.

A footpath feared poisoned by the Novichok attack was re-opened. Police believed the alleged hit men had used the footpath and may have left traces of the deadly nerve agent on it.

Three months after the Skripals were targeted, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell ill seven miles away from Salisbury in Amesbury.

Ms Sturgess later died after spraying a perfume bottle contaminated with the same nerve agent on her wrist, given to her by Mr Rowley.

Wiltshire Police Sergeant Nick Bailey was also taken to hospital after coming into contact with the deadly substance, but was later discharged.
On Chinese social media, users remain hooked on news about the Nanjing hit-and-run stabbings, as well as a leading scientists predictions that 80% of the population will be vaccinated by year-end

Jun 01, 2021 06:52 PM
CARE, Acuite Ratings Downgrade SREI Infrastructure Finance to Default Category; Debenture Trustees, Bondholders Challenge NCLT Order on Moratorium

In what is a triple whammy week for the Kolkata-based SREI group, rating agencies CARE and Acuite Ratings & Research have downgraded SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd (SIFL) to default category. Separately bondholders and the debenture trustees of SREI group have approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) challenging an order passed by the Kolkata bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The rating downgrade comes amidst significant disruption in the business activities of SREI Equipment Finance Ltd (SEFL) including sharply lower loan disbursements and collections during the current year against the backdrop of its ongoing debt realignment under the NCLT process.

In an order issued on 30 December 2020, NCLT had directed rating agencies to maintain SEFLs rating at least in investment grade till 30 June 2021. In view of the earlier NCLT order , CARE Rating was restrained from treating the non-payment of interest and principal as a default. However, the ratings agency approached the National Company Appellate Law Tribunal (NCLAT) seeking a stay on the NCLT order.

On 2nd March, NCLAT passed an interim order staying the last sentence of impugned provision of para 34 of the NCLT order pertaining to credit rating agencies till 5 April 2021. Accordingly, on 6th March, CARE recognised default and revised its ratings on SIFL due to ongoing delays in debt servicing obligations by the company.

In its report, CARE pointed out that key subsidiary SREI Equipment Finance Ltd (SEFL) reported net loss of Rs3,784 crore during the third quarter of FY20-21 (Q3FY20-21) and Rs3,762 crore for first nine months of FY20-21 (April to December 2020) (9MFY2-21) due to accelerated provision of Rs1,542 crore. This has resulted in significant reduction in consolidated net-worth and successful restructuring of debt remains critical, CARE said.

While downgrading, CARE has noted that successful restructuring of debt and sustained improvement in liquidity and collection efficiency leading to timely debt servicing along with improved asset quality and profitability could lead to positive rating action/ upgrade, provided the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) remains above regulatory requirement on a sustained basis.

It is learnt that Ashwini Kumar, who is an independent director on the board of SREI Equipment Finance Ltd (SEFL), is one of the committee members at CARE Rating. But to comply with the regulations, he did not participate in the rating process and in the committee meeting.

On 15 January 2021, Acuite had revised its rating on debt instruments of SEFL to ACUITE BBB- with rating watch negative from ACUITE BBB with rating watch negative. On 5th March, Acuite further revised the long-term rating on the Rs3,492.45 crore non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of SEFL to ACUITE D from ACUITE BBB-.

Acuite has noted that SEFL had put the interest and principal repayments of the outstanding NCDs on hold for six months starting 1 January 2021 in line with the NCLT order.

According to the ratings agency, a prolonged debt resolution process will have a further impact on the business and financial position of SEFL that has already been constrained by weaker capital adequacy and higher asset liability mismatches. For H1FY2021, SEFL reported a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs21.86 crore, which is significantly lower compared to Rs84.50 crore in H1FY19-20.

Brickwork Ratings is also known to have approached NCLAT to challenge the NCLT order but for now, continues to hold the rating as BWR BBB under rating watch with negative implications.

Separately, the next hearing for the case filed by SREI groups bondholders, along with Axis Debenture Trustee Services and Catalyst Trusteeship Ltd is now scheduled for 23 March 2021. Axis Debenture Trustee and Catalyst Trusteeship are challenging the order passed by Kolkata bench of NCLT, which allowed SREI to skip repayments to bondholders for six months till 30 June 2021 and granted a blanket moratorium. Axis Trustee Services and Catalyst Trusteeship, which represent bondholders, have jointly moved NCLAT contending that the NCLT order has impacted retail and institutional investors alike.

Senior counsel for the respondent submits that due to some difficulty, they could not file the documents. Let the matter be fixed for admission (after notice) on 23 March 2021," the NCLAT said in its order on 4 March 2021.

A spokesperson for SREI group, told Moneylife, We believe the recent rating action is blatantly wrong, misleading and baseless. The rating agency has recognised default arbitrarily even though there is no default in terms of the order dated 30 December 2020 passed by the NCLT, Kolkata bench in an application filed under Section 230 of the Companies Act, 2013. SREI has already given a plan where payment will be done in a structured manner. CARE and Acuite did not take cognisance of these facts, did not interact with the company or made any effort to understand the situation.

The company spokesperson also maintained that SREI has sufficient assets and cash balances to make repayment to all its creditors in an orderly fashion. We are in the process of availing appropriate legal remedy, among others, to set aside the rating since we believe that CARE and Acuite have acted in a wrongful and contumacious manner.

A prominent lawyer, who handles NCLT matters, explained problems with infrastructure sector lending. He says We have witnessed several instances where a corporate debtor committed default and was taken into insolvency because the corporate debtor could not recover its dues from its own creditors.

Sources claimed that the company has around Rs700 crore in current accounts with banks and indicated that it has sufficient liquidity. The total debt of the company is said to be around Rs28,000 crore as on 30 December 2020.

SIFL had given effect to the slump exchange for transfer of its lending business, interest earning business and lease business (transferred undertaking) including external borrowings, to its wholly- owned subsidiary SEFL in its accounts for the quarter ended 31 December 2019 with effect from 1 October 2019. Though SIFL has transferred the rated debt to SEFL in the financial statements, there has been continuing uncertainty involved with the slump exchange, since consent from all the lenders has not been obtained.

The collections of SEFL (including transferred book of SIFL) were significantly impacted due to impact of COVID-19 over the last one year and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directive on restructuring of loans option available to the customers of SEFL. As per RBI guidelines, SEFL only has the option of restructuring in its assets and not in liabilities which the company claims has impacted its asset liability maturity (ALM) profile.

A large proportion of borrowers of SEFL sought for one-time restructuring of their loans, which has resulted in cash flow mismatches for SEFL. This has forced SEFL to enter an arrangement with the secured creditors. The proposed meeting of creditors is yet to happen and there are ongoing delays and default on the borrowings availed by SIFL (transferred to SEFL in books).

Further, according to sources, after months of dilly-dallying, public sector bank (PSBs) lenders have finally set the debt restructuring process for SREI in motion by hiring forensic auditors and exploring all possible solutions for the restructure of lending operations. Lenders of the SREI group are also said to be weighing all options including contemplating a change in ownership as they look to work on the ongoing efforts of debt realignment.

You may also want to read
The Queensland government will provide up to $1million in funding to help school students visit the Great Barrier Reef in a bid to boost the flagging tourism industry.

A travel scheme offering 15,000 lucky Queenslanders a $200 voucher has also been launched.

The measures comes as the sector braces for the end of the federal government's JobKeeper wage subsidy payments later this month.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has promised a stimulus package for the pandemic-hit industry within weeks, but the state government is trying chip in with its own measures.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the new funding will support operators and allow more than 6500 Queensland students to learn about the reef.

The free travel vouchers will help Queenslanders explore their state (pictured, beachgoers at Burleigh Beach on the Gold Coast)

'Each year, thousands of Queensland kids travel interstate for school excursions but many haven't had the chance to experience the beauties of their own backyard,' she posted on Twitter on Tuesday.

'We want more students to experience the reef and understand its importance - and support our tourism operators.'

The state will provide $150 for each eligible student in primary and high schools from the start of the third term on July 12.

The government is also running a travel voucher raffle to help draw the state's travellers to the far north.

Winners of the $200 vouchers will get a 50 per cent discount on travel experiences such as reef and rainforest tours (pictured, a couple in the Daintree)

All Queenslanders can go into the draw for one of 15,000 travel vouchers, each worth up to $200.

Winners will get a 50 per cent discount on travel experiences such as reef and rainforest tours.

The draw opened for all Queenslanders on Monday, with the vouchers current from March 15 until June 25.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Mark Olsen said that in a normal year, the region would welcome 3,500 international visitors a day.

Visit Queensland.com to sign up for the vouchers.
Goose Creek, SC (29445)

Today

Some clouds. Slight chance of a shower late. Low 66F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Some clouds. Slight chance of a shower late. Low 66F. Winds light and variable.
The bench initially told advocate M L Sharma, the petitioner, to approach the Calcutta High Court. (PTI file photo)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea challenging the Election Commission's (EC) decision to conduct the West Bengal Assembly polls over eight phases.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde rejected the plea, which had also sought to bar the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leaders from using the "Jai Shri Ram" slogan during the poll campaign in the state.

The bench initially told advocate M L Sharma, the petitioner, to approach the Calcutta High Court.

"I rely upon a judgment. This is not a matter of an election petition. One party is using a religious slogan. Why should I go to the high court," Sharma told the bench, which also comprised justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

When the petitioner said the matter be kept for hearing on Wednesday, the bench said, "Alright, we do not agree with you. Dismissed."

The plea had sought the apex court's direction to prevent the EC from conducting eight-phase polls in West Bengal, alleging that it violates Articles 14 (right to equality) and 21 (right to life) of the Constitution.
FLINT, MI -- Attorneys representing Flint residents in their proposed $641-million settlement of claims related to the citys water crisis would receive roughly $202 million in attorney fees, according to a proposal filed Monday, March 8, in federal court.

The 58-page motion for fees and expenses must be approved by U.S. District Judge Judith Levy, who also still must give the overall settlement final approval later this year.

Working together, plaintiffs counsel have achieved a landmark, $641.25 million partial settlement in these cases that the Court has rightly called complex and intensely litigated, " the motion filed by attorneys for the residents says. This substantial recovery was secured only through the focused and diligent advocacy and considerable investment of time, expenses, and risk-taking of plaintiffs counsel ...

The motion further states The fee proposal is designed to provide reasonable and fair compensation to plaintiffs counsel and to ensure equitable treatment for all who make claims under the settlement.

Although the total maximum fee percentage for attorneys is capped at 31.6 percent, the request includes reimbursement of $7.1 million in expenses law firms have incurred to date. Money would also be set aside for reimbursement of expenses and for a common benefit fund for work done on the case by lead attorneys appointed by Levy after cases were consolidated in federal court.

The lead Flint attorneys include Corey Stern of New York, Theodore Leopold and Leslie Kroger of Florida, Hunter Shkolnik of Puerto Rico, and Michael Pitt and Cary McGehee of Royal Oak.

Although the request for attorney fees was expected to be as much as one-third of the overall settlement, the group Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch in a news release Tuesday, March 9, called the proposal a grossly excessive money grab that would leave the victims in Flint with tens of millions of dollars less than they deserve from the legal settlement.

The group describes itself as a non-partisan consumer watchdog organization working to increase public awareness of the effects of runaway litigation.

After accounting for attorney fees and administrative expenses, the settlement agreement specifies that about 80 percent of the remaining settlement fund would be spent on the claims of children who were minors when first exposed to the Flint River water while the city used the river as its water source in parts of 2014 and 2015. A large majority of that amount -- 64.5 percent -- would be set aside for those who were 6 and younger when they were first exposed to Flint River water.

Ten percent of the settlement would be awarded to children ages 7-11, and 5 percent would be allocated for those 12-17 years old. Two percent of the settlement would be earmarked for special education services in Genesee County and 18 percent of the funds would be spent on claims of adults and for lead exposure and property damage. Approximately 1 percent of the settlement would pay claims for business losses.

Those making water claims have until March 29 to register to participate in the settlement.

The Michigan Department of Attorney General said in a statement Tuesday that the state is prohibited from offering an opinion on the attorney fees and expenses sought unless specifically asked by the Court.

The amount of Flint water settlement funds that will be used to pay plaintiffs attorney fees and expenses will be decided by the Court. Courts are regularly required to rule on plaintiffs attorney fee requests in cases like this. The Court is in the best position to make that determination and is experienced with the legal standards applicable to such a request and is familiar with the work of plaintiffs attorneys in the Flint water cases, the Department of Attorney General said in a news release.

Under the states settlement agreement with plaintiffs, unless the Court itself requests, the state cannot take any position on plaintiffs application for attorney fees and expenses, the statement says. The states agreement is not unusual and is a term typically demanded by plaintiffs attorneys in similar settlements. The state will rely on the discretion of the Court to determine the fair and appropriate amount of settlement funds that will be paid to plaintiffs attorneys.

Read more on MLive:

Youngest Flint water crisis victims to get 80 percent of historic $600 million settlement

Attorney says $600M settlement isnt perfect, but still a fair deal for Flint residents

$600M Flint water crisis settlement is more than the state has paid out for the last decades worth of lawsuits combined
The remote patient monitoring market will witness a positive impact during the forecast period owing to the widespread growth of the COVID-19 pandemic. As per Technavio's pandemic-focused market research, market growth increased in 2020 as compared to 2019.

With the continuing spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, organizations across the globe are gradually flattening their recessionary curve by leveraging technology. Many businesses will go through response, recovery, and renewal phases. Building business resilience and enabling agility will aid organizations to move forward in their journey out of the COVID-19 crisis towards the Next Normal.

This post-pandemic business planning research will aid clients to:

Adjust their strategic planning to move ahead once business stability kicks in.

to move ahead once business stability kicks in. Build Resilience by making effective resource and investment choices for individual business units, products, and service lines.

making effective resource and investment choices for individual business units, products, and service lines. Conceptualize scenario-based planning to mitigate future crisis situations.

Download the Post-Pandemic Business Planning Structure

Key Considerations for Market Forecast:

Impact of lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, demand destruction, and change in customer behavior

Optimistic, probable, and pessimistic scenarios for all markets as the impact of pandemic unfolds

Pre- as well as post-COVID-19 market estimates

Quarterly impact analysis and updates on market estimates

Gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports by using

Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform

Related Report on Healthcare Includes:

Global Multiparameter Patient Monitoring Equipment Market - Global multiparameter patient monitoring equipment market is segmented by product (high-acuity monitors, mid-acuity monitors, and low-acuity monitors) and geography (North America, Europe, APAC, and ROW). Get an Exclusive Free Sample Report

Global Portable Medical Equipment Market - Global portable medical equipment market is segmented by product (portable patient monitoring devices, portable medical imaging devices, and others) and geography (North America, Europe, Asia, and ROW). Get an Exclusive Free Sample Report

Major Three Remote Patient Monitoring Market Participants:

Abbott Laboratories

Abbott Laboratories operates its business through segments such as Established Pharmaceuticals Products, Nutritional Products, Diagnostic Products, and Medical Devices. The company is specialized in offering remote cardiac monitoring solutions such as [email protected] Transmitter, Merlin.net Patient Care Network, and CardioMEMS HF System.

Boston Scientific Corp.

Boston Scientific Corp. operates its business through segments such as MedSurg, Rhythm and Neuro, Cardiovascular, and Specialty Pharmaceuticals. The company offers a wide range of remote patient monitoring products and solutions such as LATITUDE NXT Remote Patient Management System, HeartLogic Heart Failure Diagnostic, and Optional Weight Scale and Blood Pressure Monitor.

General Electric Co.

General Electric Co. operates its business through segments such as Power, Renewable energy, Aviation, and Healthcare. The company offers a comprehensive range of remote patient monitoring solutions that include Mural Virtual Care Solution based on Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform, Mobile Care Web Viewer, CARESCAPE ONE Monitor, and B105 and B125 Patient Monitors.

If you purchase a report that is updated in the next 60 days, we will send you the new edition and data extract FREE! Get report snapshot here to get a detailed market share analysis of market participants during COVID-19 lockdown: https://www.technavio.com/report/remote-patient-monitoring-market-industry-analysis

Remote Patient Monitoring Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Remote patient monitoring market is segmented as below:

Product

Vital Signs



Implantable

Geography

North America



Europe



Asia



ROW

End-user

Hospitals



ASCs



Home Care

The remote patient monitoring market is driven by the cost benefits of remote patient monitoring. In addition, other factors such as the emergence of digital healthcare services and healthcare 4.0 are expected to trigger the remote patient monitoring market toward witnessing a CAGR of almost 18% during the forecast period.

Get more insights about the global trends impacting the future of the remote patient monitoring market, Request Free Sample @ https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR45576

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contact

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/



SOURCE Technavio

Related Links

http://www.technavio.com/


The United Kingdom government is set to return to Nigerian government, over 4.2 million recovered from a former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori, who was convicted of corruption charges in the U.K. in 2012.

The money translates to about N2.4 billion at the official exchange rate.

Representatives of both the U.K. and Nigerian governments signed an agreement for the return of the money to Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.

The signing of the agreement, which took place at the Federal Ministry of Justice, Abuja, was done under the auspices of the U.K.-Nigeria Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which came into force in 2016.

The British High Commissioner, Catriona Laing, signed the agreement on behalf of the U.K. government while the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, signed it on behalf of the Nigeria government.

Iboris conviction

The about 4.2 million was recovered from Ibori, his associates and relatives.

Mr Ibori pleaded guilty to money laundering, conspiracy to defraud, and forgery in a U.K. court in February 2012.

He was sentenced to a total of 13 years in prison.

Some of his associates and family also received sentences for similar offences and were similarly sent to prison.

Mr Ibori, a man who stole millions from the suffering people of oil-rich Delta State and laundered the proceeds in the U.K., had earlier been set free of the charges by a Nigerian federal court.

He was later arrested in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) and extradited to the U.K where he was eventually jailed for the aspects of the crimes committed in the U.K.

The ex-convict, who was believed to retain his political influence in Delta State while serving his jail term in the U.K., returned to Nigeria in February 2017 after completing his imprisonment.

U.K wont welcome stolen assets

Speaking at the event Ms Laing said the signing of the agreement was a demonstration of the U.K. governments commitment to recovering and returning corruptly-obtained assets to the rightful owners.

She noted that the recovered fund was a product of a long-drawn battle with third parties who had shown interest in it but were eventually defeated in U.K courts.

She said, This agreement represents the culmination of many years of work by law enforcement authorities in the UK and Nigeria. The return of the assets to Nigeria has been subject to a number of hard-fought legal challenges by third parties which were defeated in the UK courts.

It is vitally important that this agreement maxes strong provision for transparency, monitoring and accountability. It is a guiding principle of both the U.K. and Nigerian governments that stolen assets should be used for projects that benefit Nigerias poor.

I believe that this agreement demonstrates the UKs commitment to recovering and returning corruptly-obtained assets.

She said the agreement was another example of the success of the close collaboration between the U.K. and Nigeria.

ADVERTISEMENT

Looters warned

She also warned intending looters that stolen assets were not welcome in the U.K., adding that whoever hide proceeds of crime in her country would be visited with the full weight of the law.

Money obtained through criminality or corruption is not welcome in the UK. We will ensure the full weight of law enforcement to crack down upon those who look to use, move or hide their proceeds of crime in the U.K, she said.

Funds to be ploughed into three projects

On his part, the AGF said the money would assist the Nigerian government in expediting the construction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Abuja-Kano Road and the Second Niger Bridge, which he said would boost economic growth and help alleviate poverty.

He said, The government of Nigeria is committed to ensuring the transparent management of recovered assets. The asset returned from the UK will support and assist in expediting the construction of three major infrastructure projects across Nigeria: The Lagos  Ibadan Expressway, Abuja-Kano Road and the Second Niger Bridge.

These projects are being executed under the supervision of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority.

The projects will boost economic growth and help alleviate poverty by connecting people and supply chains from the East to the West and to the Northern part of Nigeria, a vast area covering several kilometers with millions of the countrys population set to benefit from the road infrastructures.

He also appealed to the U.K. for greater cooperation in the early repatriation of stolen assets.

Mr Malami also noted that the participation of civil society organisations in the monitoring of the use of the returned of the assets was a great innovation and was fully supported by the government of Nigeria.

He urged other African countries to emulate Nigerias great strides in the application of returned assets to development projects in line with the United Nations Sustainable Goal 16.

Spending monitoring

The projects for which the money has been earmarked are being executed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority.

The Nigerian government has also established a Monitoring Team to oversee the implementation of the projects and to report regularly on progress.

It engaged Cleen Foundation, a civil society organisation to provide additional monitoring and oversight.
Press Release

9 March 2021

BETHESDA, Md.-Curator Hotel & Resort Collection ("Curator") announced today that it has welcomed 13 new member hotels into its collection from the renowned Noble House Hotels & Resorts, one of the hotel industry's leading owners and managers of lifestyle hotels and resorts. These 13 distinct hotels and resorts join Curator only four months since its November 2020 launch, which includes an increasing number of independent hotels recognizing the value-enhancing benefits of working in cooperative competition. Noble House Hotels & Resorts is also one of Curator's six founding members.

Advertisements

"Noble House is thrilled to join Curator," said Jake Donoghue, Chief Executive Officer, Noble House Hotels & Resorts. "This has been a challenging period for hotel operators and owners, yet Curator has enabled us to enhance the operating performance of the independent lifestyle hotels and resorts that we manage. Our owners are pleased with the reduced expenses that Curator brings through its wide array of operating relationships. This allows our hotel teams to spend more time focused on growing revenue and gaining market share, which will be increasingly important as hotel demand improves following the pandemic."

The addition of the 13 new member hotels from Noble House comes on the heels of the February 16, 2021, announcement that 11 member hotels managed by Provenance joined Curator.

Member hotels gain access to best-in-class operating agreements, services, and non-proprietary technology that collectively generate significant cost-savings, along with access to Curator's network of industry professionals and operators. Owners and operators have more time and resources to invest in guest experiences and drive revenues while no longer having to spend time managing and negotiating vendor relationships and contracts.

"Hotels that are typically considered competitors are coming together under Curator, something unprecedented in the industry," said Jennifer Barnwell, President of Curator. "Under the Curator umbrella, independent hotels and resorts can optimize their performance and continue to do what they do best: offer amazing guest experiences that only they can provide. Ultimately, this collaboration is lifting the independent hotel industry. We are thrilled with Curator's continued growth with the addition of these 13 Noble House hotels and resorts."

The following Noble House hotels are now members of the Curator Hotel & Resort Collection:

About Noble House Hotels & Resorts

Built upon a philosophy that emphasizes location, distinction, and soul, Noble House Hotels & Resorts

dedicates itself to creating and managing exceptional properties that celebrate their local communities. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington and continuously growing, the Noble House portfolio features a luxury and upper upscale portfolio of 18 distinct and visually captivating hotel properties, over 50 restaurants, bars, and lounges, the Napa Valley Wine Train, and a collection of spas, marinas, and private residences throughout the U.S. and Canada. A range of beachfront resorts spanning California and Florida, luxury retreats in Jackson Hole, WY, British Columbia, and Colorado, and award-winning urban hotels in Seattle and San Francisco punctuate the diverse collection. Centered within destinations worthy of every bucket list and layered with unique amenities that inspire adventure, the curated collection of one-of-a-kind hotels, resorts and adventures, are known for creating unforgettable travel experiences. For more information, visit www.NobleHouseHotels.com or call Noble House Hotels & Resorts at 877.NOBLE.TRIP.

About Pebblebrook Hotel Trust

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE: PEB) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust ("REIT") and a leading owner of urban and resort lifestyle hotels in the United States. The Company owns 53 hotels, totaling approximately 13,200 guest rooms across 14 urban and resort markets with a focus on the west coast gateway cities.
India and Bangladesh on Monday held a Commerce Secretary-level meeting where both the countries decided to expeditiously move forward on the feasibility study on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry informed in an official statement that the Bangladesh delegation was led by Md. Jafar Uddin and the Indian delegation was led by Anup Wadhawan.

The official statement further read, "Extensive discussions were held on a variety of issues of mutual interest such as streamlining Certificate of Origin procedures, regional connectivity initiatives, anti-dumping duty on Jute products, harmonization of standards, removal of port restrictions, trade infrastructure-related issues, India-Bangladesh CEOs' Forum, sharing of trade data, up-gradation of border trading infrastructure. Both sides decided to expeditiously move forward on the feasibility study on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)."

the statement also mentioned that it was agreed that the next meetings of the Commerce Secretaries and the JWG will be held in India, at mutually convenient dates.

PM Modi to visit Bangladesh

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Bangladesh on March 26 for two days, as confirmed by the External Affairs Ministry. EAM Dr S Jaishankar has already met with Bangladeshi counterpart AK Abdul Momen where both discussed the bilateral relations and noted the steady progress during the pandemic. EAMs visit to Bangladesh followed the Prime Minister-level virtual summit held between both nations on December 17, last year. During his visit, PM Modi will be taking part in the South Asian country's birth centenary celebration of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and holding a discussion with his counterpart Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka. It was the violent crackdown by the Pakistan Army that led Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to declare East Pakistan independent as the state of Bangladesh on 26 March 1971. The two countries have also strengthened their resolve to work together more closely in sea-level connectivity in the region.

(With ANI Inputs)
We must have Songkran, says PM

THAILAND: Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday (Mar 8) insisted that Songkran celebrations be held to revitalise the struggling tourism industry.

CoronavirusCOVID-19culturetourismhealthSafety

By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 11:48AM

Phra Pradaeng district of Samut Prakan celebrates the water festival in April 2019. Photo: Pattarapong Chatpattarasill.

People would be allowed to travel across the country to celebrate, the PM said, but each area must impose measures to prevent the virus spreading.

Gen Prayut said he wanted to see the economy improve and peoples income boosted by tourism activities over the long holiday.

He therefore vowed to ease restrictions ahead of the festival so that people had enough time to plan their trips and make hotel reservations.

The Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) said Songkran would this year be celebrated as a new normal festival, the goal being to preserve Thai culture while containing the virus.

Spokesperson Apisamai Srirangson said the CCSA would meet next Monday to consider rolling out a further relaxation of restrictions in three phases.

The first phase starting on April 1, the easing would be in line with the governments vaccination plan with adjustments to the colour-coded status of each province, she said.

The second phase will include the lifting of the state of emergency at the end of May, and thereafter a reliance on communicable disease laws to contain the virus.

From Oct 1, the third phase will likely begin with a further easing of measures, including entry and quarantine requirements for foreign visitors. This phase will coincide with more people having been given their COVID-19 vaccinations.

Quarantine requirements would vary based on the vaccination status of foreign visitors, Dr Apisamai said.

The Public Health Ministry is working in tandem with the Foreign Affairs Ministry on how to ease COVID-19 measures and the latter is planning for the use of vaccine passports.

People who have been vaccinated will be required to use a vaccine passport to travel overseas in compliance with measures set by each country, said the spokesperson.

Dr Apisamai said CCSA officials favoured Oct 1 for the easing of restrictions on travellers who had been given an approved vaccine.

The final decision would be made by the CCSA board, chaired by the premier, at its meeting next Monday.

Regarding the rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations, Dr Apisamai said the PM was focused on linking the distribution of the vaccine and its compliance with the easing of restrictions.

She said it was the PMs policy to give the vaccine to important economic and tourist cities first, with the highest priority given to healthcare workers, immigration officers, customs officers, people with congenital diseases, police and military officers, plus civilians in at-risk places such as quarantine facilities and airports.

The CCSA announced 71 new cases yesterday with no new deaths. The countrys daily infection rate has fallen from triple to double digits since the second wave in mid-December.
FAIRBURY, Neb. (AP)  There's a new sheriff in town. Jefferson County officials appointed Nick Georgi as the county's new sheriff after the former sheriff, Matthew Schultz, announced he was resigning just five months into the job.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Burma Japan urges Myanmar Regime to Stop Violence and Free Detained Leaders

Japanese ambassador to Myanmar Ichiro Maruyama at his residence on Dec. 26. / The Irrawaddy

In response to claims by Myanmars regime of a meeting about boosting bilateral ties, Japans Embassy said talks with the juntas appointed foreign minister were to call for an end in killings and the release of all detainees.

Ichiro Maruyama, the Japanese ambassador to Myanmar, met the regimes foreign minister, U Wanna Maung Lwin, in Naypyitaw on Monday. Military-controlled MRTV announced that discussions related to the maintenance and enhancement of friendly bilateral relations.

MRTV claimed U Wanna Maung Lwin explained the militarys claims of fraud over the Nov. 8 general election.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) won by a landslide in the election but the military has claimed it staged the coup because of its electoral fraud claims and the civilian governments failure to address them.

However, Japans Embassy in Yangon responded that Maruyama strongly urged the military regime to stop resorting to violence against civilians by all means.

Since the Feb.1 military takeover, at least 60 civilians have been killed by the police and military personnel.

The Japanese Embassy said Maruyama also pushed for the release of those being detained, including State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and to swiftly restore democracy.

The military has detained 1,857 people since the coup including politicians, activists and protesters, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The embassy said Japan will continue to strongly urge the military to stop violence against civilians, release those detained and restore democracy, the embassy said.

In late February Japan said it was considering halting development projects in Myanmar.

Right groups, including Human Rights Watch, have urged Japan to take joint action with other countries, including imposing targeted economic sanctions against the military and the companies it controls, supporting a global arms embargo and halting development projects.

You may also like these stories:

Fear is the Glue That Holds Myanmars Military Together

Thailand Ready to Accommodate Refugees From Myanmar Fleeing the Violent Unrest

Myanmar Regime Claims Australian Adviser Tried to Flee with Financial Information
Red Light Holland's VR Experience, Wisdom, will be promoted by Virtual Reality Influencers and is expected to be made available on March 17th, 2021 for $4.99 USD on Steam

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Red Light Holland Corp. (CSE: TRIP) (FSE: 4YX) (OTC Pink: TRUFF) ("Red Light Holland" or the "Company") an Ontario-based corporation engaged in the production, growth and sale of a premium brand of magic truffles to the legal, recreational market within the Netherlands, is pleased to announce that the company's Psychedelic VR experience named, Wisdom, has been accepted to Steam. Steam is a VR digital distribution platform for PC gaming which has an estimated VR install base of 3.45 million people worldwide[1]. Wisdom, narrated by Russell Peters, explains the effects of psychedelics on the brain within the predictive coding neuroscience framework and takes users into a unique VR immersive experience providing stunning visuals and copious amounts of education and information promoting responsible use. Wisdom is expected to launch on March 17th, 2021 on Steam and it will sell for $4.99 USD.

"Wisdom is another piece of Red Light Holland's Digital Care program that combines cutting edge technology and human innovation to promote education, information and responsible use of our iMicrodose packs," said Todd Shapiro, Red Light Holland CEO and Director. "Wisdom also provides Red Light Holland with another innovative and immediate revenue stream. We continue to cleverly create ways to grow a global psychedelics brand through unique and leading-edge product offerings. Simply put, in my opinion, we are trailblazers. The VR experience was originally designed for Smartshop patrons in the Netherlands, but with this acceptance on Steam, I'm thrilled to share it with the entire world. You should really check it out, including the cameo from Karim Rashid's Wisdom Truffle!"

"I learnt a lot just by narrating it," said comedian Russell Peters. "I wish they had Virtual Reality classes when I was in school. I hope this is the future of education and I feel grateful to be a part of positive change when it comes to understanding psilocybin while hopefully ending stigmas associated with it. The Wisdom VR experience is out of this world!"

Some of the scientific innovations in Wisdom include an accurate model of the 5ht2a neuronal receptor that is affected by the use of psychedelics. Players can fit the psilocybin molecule into the 3D model of the receptor and see what happens to the neuron. Wisdom also explains to players and lets them experience some of the phenomenological sensations that might happen on psychedelics like synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to experiencing a second sensory or cognitive pathway.





Wisdom, Red Light Holland's Psychedelic Virtual Reality Experience Image 1

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2017/76563_5a91bdb5942e0a88_001full.jpg

"As psychedelics become more accessible it's incredibly important that people have access to our current scientific models around how these powerful substances influence our brain. Since there is plenty of research that proves the best way to learn is through fun and playful methods, that was our focus with Wisdom. It's been an incredible experience to test Wisdom and see the 'Wow' on players' faces even if they are veteran VR players," said Sarah Hashkes, a published psychedelic researcher and CEO of Radix Motion, the company that created Wisdom.

To help with the launch, Red Light Holland is working with Don Hopper (vrgamerdude on YouTube with over 8K followers) and Victoria Del Castillo (@digitalvr_arlab on Clubhouse with over 7K followers) who are both trusted influencers in the VR community across many social media platforms. Del Castillo will be hosting a launch event interviewing the creators on her Club called VR professionals in Clubhouse. "I had so much fun making the trailer and giving people just a little teaser of this unique experience," said Del Castillo.

"I've played a huge amount of VR and when I tried Wisdom for the first time there was something very special about it. I could tell it was made by people who understand both VR and psychedelics. It's been a pleasure working with the developers, giving them feedback to make the experience even better and I'm looking forward to introducing the experience to VR gamers," added Hopper.

The trailer of the experience can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/Bpjq__zYhdA

To view Wisdom on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1561720/Wisdom/

Wisdom will also be made available for free for adults in the Netherlands who are participating in the iMicrodose membership.

About Red Light Holland Corp.

The Company is an Ontario-based corporation engaged in the production, growth and sale of magic truffles to the legal market within the Netherlands, in accordance with the highest standards, in compliance with all applicable laws.

For additional information on the Company:

Todd Shapiro

Chief Executive Officer & Director

Tel: 647-204-7129

Email: todd@redlighttruffles.com

Website: https://redlighttruffles.com/

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only the Company's beliefs regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of Red Light Holland's control.

Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or may contain statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "will continue", "will occur" or "will be achieved". The forward-looking information and forward- looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to, information on the timing and other details of the launch of Red Light Holland's Virtual Reality experience on Steam, its acceptance onto the Steam platfrom and its subsequent use, the agreements with influencers Don Hopper and Victoria Del Castillo, the amount of users on Steam and any information regarding future potential sales on Steam, regulatory or political change such as changes in applicable laws and regulations, perception of the medical-use psilocybin industry, competition, and other factors or developments that may hinder market growth. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting the Company, including risks regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, market conditions, economic factors, and management's inability to manage and to operate the business and the equity markets generally. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.

Although each of Red Light Holland believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward- looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and the Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

[1] https://arinsider.co/2020/04/13/vr-headsets-on-steam-reach-1-7-million/

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76563


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
BEIJING, March 9 -- Zhou Qiang, president of China's Supreme People's Court, and Zhang Jun, procurator-general of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate, respectively made a report to the plenum of the 4th session of the 13th National People's Congress on March 8.

Zhou Qiang expressed that in 2020, China's court system has been stepping up efforts to protect the rights of service members and to serve national defense and military reform.

According to statistics, in 2020, China's courts had tried and concluded 633 cases of damaging military facilities and marriages, as well as 10,418 military-related civil and commercial cases, which resolutely preserved the dignity and honor of the armed forces and service members and protected the lawful rights and interests of service members and their families.

Meanwhile, China's court system, in conjunction with the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, released the policy to provide more judicial relief to ex-servicemembers in need. The military court system has also established a platform to help service members protect their rights, thanks to which 909 disputes have been resolved, retrieving RMB1.43 billion losses for the troops and the soldiers.

In Zhang Jun's report, he said in 2020, China's procuratorial organs have resolutely safeguarded national defense interests and the lawful rights and interests of service members and their families.

In 2020, lawsuits were filed against 381 people for damaging military facilities and marriages. The Chinese procuratorates have also worked with relevant departments to formulate the policy on providing more judicial assistance to ex-servicemembers. They helped 378 people (both on active service and decommissioned members) whose legal rights were violated, three times the number in 2019.

Moreover, a total of 151 public welfare lawsuits were handled last year concerning the protection of military-purpose land, environmental protection around barracks, air and riverway clearing for military activities, and maintenance of military facilities.
(Newser)  The New York Times has just published one of its most controversial articles ever, one that identifies the country's best bagels as coming fromgasp!California. "Sorry, New York," reads a portion of the headline for Monday's article by Tejal Rao, which describes a "West Coast bagel boom" that has bakers "excelling with regional styles." It touts the bagels made at Boichik Bagels in Berkeley, Calif.; Courage Bagels in Los Angeles; Midnite Bagel in San Francisco; and Pop's Bagels in Culver City. "This is where the writer (me), a former resident of New York City (Brooklyn), smugly tells you that these bagels are good for California bagels, excellent by West Coast standards," Rao writes. "But no." He notes the bagels from Boichik's Emily Winston, modeled after those at New York's H&H Bagels, are indeed "some of the finest New York-style bagels I've ever tasted."

story continues below

Though SFGate is proudly boasting, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio responded with three words on Twitter: "Yeah, absolutely not." "Stop the madness, @NYTimes," added Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, per News 12 Bronx, claiming: "THE. BEST. BAGELS. ARE. IN. BROOKLYN." But Food & Wine's David Landsel, a native New Yorker, agrees with Rao that they are not. There was "a time when New York was synonymous with the utmost quality, a time when bagels were nearly always sensibly sized, golden brown and micro-blistered on the outside," Landsel wrote Friday in a roundup of the country's 50 or so best bagel shops. "Then things took a turn," Landsel noted, claiming the quality ingredients once used in New York bagels are now too often replaced "with the cheapest flours and, worse still, those dreaded dough conditioners." The result, according to Landsel, is "bloated monstrosities." (Read more bagel stories.)
Zac Efron will film the second season of his docuseries Down To Earth in Australia.

The 33-year-old, who has been living the quiet life Down Under for the past year, will be joined by wellness expert Darin Olien, news.com.au reported on Tuesday.

The Netflix series will follow their search for healthy and sustainable ways to live, as well as embracing the local food, culture and customs of the country.

Down Under! Zac Efron is set to film season two of his Netflix docuseries Down to Earth across Australia

Last season, the actor visited Iceland, France and Costa Rica - but this season will be undoubtedly different due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The movie star also shared photos of himself and Darin during a Welcome To Country ceremony lead by an Aboriginal Elder on Instagram.

In one image, Zac and Darin had white paint on their faces and each wore a traditional red head band.

No trotting the globe this time: Last season, Zac visited Iceland, France and Costa Rica - but this season will be undoubtedly different, due to COVID-19 restrictions. Pictured is Zac with his brother Dylan and their filming team

Taking part in tradition: On Tuesday, the movie star shared photos of himself and Darin during a Welcome To Country ceremony lead by an Aboriginal Elder

He followed that with an image of the the pair sitting cross-legged on the grass during the ceremony.

Zac wrote in the caption: 'Here we go - Down to Earth season 2!'

It comes after the Down To Earth crew were seen filming at the Fish Butchery in Paddington on Monday.

Respecting the land: He followed that with an image of the the pair sitting cross-legged on the grass during the ceremony

The actor arrived in Australia last year, escaping the pandemic in the US.

However, he appears to have made his move a more permanent one after meeting girlfriend Vanessa Valladares at a cafe in Byron Bay.

Also taking part in the series is Zac's younger brother Dylan, who will do behind-the-scenes work.

He arrived in Australia in late February and completed 14 days of hotel quarantine in Sydney.

Search for alternatives: The Netflix series will follow Zac and Darin in their search for healthy and sustainable ways to live, as well as embracing local food, culture and customs in the country

Family support: Zac has been based in Byron Bay, Australia since last year. Last month, his brother Dylan told Bro Bible he had planned a trip Down Under to help produce the second season of Zac's Netflix series, Down to Earth

Last month, Dylan told Bro Bible he had planned a trip Down Under to help produce the second season of Zac's Netflix series, Down to Earth.

'I'm going to be in Australia for the next couple of months. As soon as I get back, I'm ready to start doing Flow State season two,' he said, as he referred to his YouTube show.

Last year Zac also filmed the Stan Original movie, Gold.
Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are at a significantly increased risk of contracting COVID-19 than women without the condition, new research led by the University of Birmingham has revealed.

Researchers are now calling for healthcare policy to specifically encourage women with PCOS to adhere to COVID-19 infection control measures while the global pandemic continues.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common condition affecting around one in 10 women in the UK. The three main symptoms are irregular periods, high levels of "male" hormones which may cause physical signs such as excess facial or body hair, and a cystic appearance on an ultrasound or MRI scan of the ovaries which is caused by follicles becoming increasingly fluid filled as they fail to develop and release an egg normally to be ready for fertilisation within a women's menstrual cycle.

Women with PCOS have an increased risk of cardiometabolic disease, such as type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and high blood pressure, all of which have been identified as risk factors for COVID-19.

To investigate whether the increased metabolic risk in PCOS translates into an increased risk of COVID-19 infection, the team carried out a population-based closed cohort study in the UK during the first wave of the pandemic between January and July 2020.

Using UK GP patient records, the study included 21,292 women with PCOS and 78,310 female 'controls' without PCOS matched for age and general practice location.

Results revealed a 51% increased risk of contracting COVID-19 in women with PCOS, compared to those of the same age and background of those without PCOS.

A 26% increased susceptibility to COVID-19 infection in the PCOS cohort persisted - even after adjustment for individual cardio-metabolic risk factors known to cluster within PCOS, which have recently been directly linked to increased COVID-19 susceptibility, including obesity, impaired glucose regulation and hypertension.

The research, published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, showed that incidence of COVID-19 in women with PCOS was almost twice the rate than in women without PCOS (18.1 cases per 1,000 person years in women with PCOS, compared to 11.9 cases per 1,000 person years in women without PCOS).

First author Anuradhaa Subramanian, of the University of Birmingham, said: "Given the high prevalence of PCOS, these findings need to be considered when designing public health policy and advice as our understanding of COVID-19 evolves."

Joint senior author Dr Krish Nirantharakumar, of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, said that COVID-19 shielding strategies for women with PCOS should also carefully consider the need to protect mental health.

"The risk of mental health problems including low self-esteem, anxiety and depression is significantly higher in women with PCOS, and advice on strict adherence to social distancing needs to be tempered by the associated risk of exacerbating these underlying problems," he adds.

Co-author Dr Michael O'Reilly, of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, explains: "Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, women with PCOS consistently report fragmented care, delayed diagnosis and a perception of poor clinician understanding of their condition.

"Women suffering from this condition may fear, with some degree of justification, that an enhanced risk of COVID-19 infection will further compromise timely access to healthcare and serve to increase the sense of disenfranchisement currently experienced by many patients."

Joint senior author Professor Wiebke Arlt, Director of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research, said: "The pandemic has already dramatically altered our current healthcare delivery models, and although the increased rollout of virtual consultations and methods of delivering remote healthcare have been commendable, for many patients with PCOS these will not be an appropriate substitute for the traditional clinician-patient live consultation."

Professor Arlt, who leads DAISy-PCOS - a large Wellcome Trust-funded research programme on metabolic health and "male" hormones in women with PCOS - adds: "Women with PCOS have recently been highlighted as an overlooked and potentially high risk population for contracting COVID-19.

"However, our study does not provide information on the risk of a severe course of the COVID-19 infection or on the risk of COVID-19 related long-term complications of COVID-19 and further research is required."

###

The study was funded by Health Data Research UK and supported by the Wellcome Trust, the Health Research Board, and the National Institute for Health Research Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre based at the University of Birmingham and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

Journalists can request interviews by contacting Emma McKinney, Media Relations Manager, University of Birmingham, on +44 7815607157. Alternatively, contact the Press Office out of hours on +44 (0)7789 921165. Notes to Editors

Subramanian et al (Feb, 2021). 'Increased COVID-19 infections in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a population-based study'. European Journal of Endocrinology . DOI: https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1530/ EJE-20-1163

. DOI: https:/ For more information on Professor Arlt's Wellcome Trust-funded DAISy-PCOS research programme and the related patient and public enrichment programme https:/ / daisypcos. com

The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world's top 100 institutions, and its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 6,500 international students from nearly 150 countries.
By Mary Ann Schwindt

schwindt@grinnell.edu

During a special [email protected] event dubbed Writers After Grinnell, Grinnell College hosted alumni writers Soleil Ho `09, Concepcion de Leon `12 and Jumi Bello `13. Among much other wisdom, the panel informed Grinnell students, alumni and community members alike that its okay to be a shitshow once in a while.

Dean Bakopoulos, coordinator of [email protected], said he wanted to highlight the reality of writing outside of Grinnell and invited the alumnae to speak of their experiences and to give advice for aspiring writers. At one time all Grinnell students, the writers now have impressive writing careers. Ho is a the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and has hosted podcasts, including The Racist Sandwich, which addressed the nuances of racism in food and its surrounding culture. De Leon recently shifted roles at The New York Times, becoming a narrative reporter after over four years of breaking news and book reporting. And Bello is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the Iowa Writers Workshop and is currently working on her novel The Leaving.

To get the ball rolling, Bakopoulos prompted the panel to give advice to their younger selves.

Ho reflected on how the 2008 recession made her more conservative with her prospects post-graduation. De Leon said she wished she had bought into the idea that she could decide what her personal endgame job was, not society at large. But the loudest consensus among the group came when Bello said she would tell herself, Hey, youre a shitshow. Its okay to be a shitshow. Its okay to not know what you are going to do with your life.

More generally, the trio agreed that students should not go to graduate school until they know why they want to be there. De Leon also attributed growth as a writer to taking time to do something outside of writing.

For Bello, this was her first time being back in the Grinnell community since she had graduated. After going abroad and living in Asia, Bello considered going to graduate school for an MFA degree, which turned out to be a difficult decision.

When I was a student at Grinnell, I felt like an imposter all the time.  I actively had people telling me that I shouldnt be in these spaces or that, you know, it wasnt the right fit.

Despite the fact that Bello was accepted to the Iowa Writers Workshop, she warned that systemic inequality follows. Citing various scenarios of white ignorance, Bello and Ho said they found that the MFA world continues to find ways to oppress BIPOC.

De Leon agreed, saying that I kind of had to teach myself how to stop writing for white people.

In order to understand her future in graduate school, Bello sought out Ho for advice.

You have to talk to people who would take the same path as you would, said Bello, advising those interested in an MFA program to do the same and to seek out a fully funded program.

Even for those not going on to graduate school, Ho stressed the importance of finding a community. You got to find your people. It connects to talking shit, where you want to be in a space where you will find people who are sympathetic and understand where you are coming from. Empathy. Who will check you but tell you that this is not okay  that will be your sanity check.

I kind of had to teach myself how to stop writing for white people.  Concepcion de Leon `12

Agreeing, de Leon said, It is good to have that counternarrative because it will drive you nuts, and it will get into your head. It is also really important. Stand up for yourself.

Bello added that while being a writer does come with a need to accept rejection, disagreement with other opinions about your work is still valid.

There is still much work to be done in the writing community, though, they said. The people who deem what is newsworthy and what is not is still very homogenous, admitted Leon. And holds an incredible amount of power.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohios Mike DeWine chose not to join some fellow Republican governors in other states in rushing to almost immediately lift coronavirus restrictions. But just exactly when could Ohio reach the goal set by DeWine is unclear.

The COVID-19 tracking measure DeWine announced Thursday evening for when he will drop the restrictions is not one that had been regularly publicized by the state, and the full historical trend was not immediately available.

But state health officials said Friday cases would have to drop to a mid-June level to meet the benchmark the governor described - 50 new cases per 100,000 residents over a two-week period, which is less than one-third the current rate.

I would not expect us to reach this threshold in just a few weeks, said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, Ohios chief medical officer. I think it will be longer than a few weeks. How much longer, we just dont know.

This measure is not tied to the daily reporting of new cases; rather it is calculated by tabulating the known cases with an onset of symptoms, or first discovered, within the last two weeks. The rate excludes incarcerated individuals. And the rate doesnt account for how many infections might have occurred during this time period that wont be discovered until later - a regular occurrence.

Vanderhoff said that with testing plentiful in Ohio, he believes this measure is a solid data point to track the spread of the virus in a more timely fashion than hospitalizations, which often dont occur until days after a person becomes infected.

The rates will be reported each Thursday. Ohio through this week stood at 179.6 new cases per 100,000, down, the governor said, from 445 a month ago and 731 in December.

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, Ohios chief medical officer, used this slide Friday to explain the method Gov. Mike DeWine will rely upon to determine when to lift coronavirus health orders. The goal is a rate below 50 per 100,000 residents over a two-week period.Ohio Department of Health

See related story: A year of COVID-19 in Ohio, told through the numbers

Vanderhoff, while saying he wished he had a crystal ball, added that he was encouraged by the sharp turn toward fewer cases as vaccinations have ramped up and that he was confident the state eventually would reach the threshold of 50 cases per 100,000.

The health department has not provided the week-by-week historical statewide rates. Yet county-by-county numbers reported weekly as part of the the states coronavirus alert system - the system for placing counties on red alert - does provide some clues as to how much things must improve before Ohio could drop below the threshold.

In rates published since late July, Cuyahoga County has never been below 50 cases per 100,000, with the low point of 50.28 cases per 100,000 over the two weeks leading up to the Oct. 1 report.

And the only times Cuyahoga County has been below even 100 cases per 100,000 were in the two-week reports released from Aug. 20 through Oct. 15.

Cuyahogas rate stood at 204.85 per 100,000 in the report released on Thursday, up from 186.95 a week ago. Yet Cuyahoga is down sharply from the high of 907.64 cases per 100,000 reported on Dec. 17.

Just one Ohio county this week was below 50 cases per 100,000, that being Holmes County at 47.8. Eight others had rates between 50 and 100 cases per 100,000, and the 79 other counties were all above 100.

As to whether the state as a whole could drop below 50 per 100,000, the encouraging sign is how quickly the case numbers have dropped this winter at the same time the vaccine has been rolling out.

County rates

Here are the most recently released two-week rates per 100,000, excluding incarcerated individuals, by county. This covers Feb. 17 through Tuesday, March 2. The case numbers are based on the estimated first date of symptoms, when known.

County Cases

per

100,000 Cases Population Holmes 47.8 21 43,960 Vinton 53.5 7 13,085 Mercer 75.3 31 41,172 Shelby 84.4 41 48,590 Auglaize 87.6 40 45,656 Allen 94.8 97 102,351 Williams 95.4 35 36,692 Noble 97.1 14 14,424 Wayne 97.7 113 115,710 Darke 103.7 53 51,113 Putnam 112.2 38 33,861 Guernsey 115.8 45 38,875 Preble 117.4 48 40,882 Tuscarawas 117.4 108 91,987 Jackson 120.3 39 32,413 Hocking 120.3 34 28,264 Van Wert 123.8 35 28,275 Harrison 126.3 19 15,040 Montgomery 127.5 678 531,687 Crawford 127.7 53 41,494 Hancock 128.0 97 75,783 Brown 131.2 57 43,432 Carroll 137.5 37 26,914 Knox 138.0 86 62,322 Greene 138.5 234 168,937 Madison 140.8 63 44,731 Ashland 145.8 78 53,484 Adams 148.0 41 27,698 Miami 149.6 160 106,987 Meigs 152.8 35 22,907 Perry 155.0 56 36,134 Clark 158.9 213 134,083 Muskingum 160.1 138 86,215 Ross 163.0 125 76,666 Trumbull 163.7 324 197,974 Marion 164.4 107 65,093 Defiance 165.4 63 38,087 Fulton 166.2 70 42,126 Belmont 167.1 112 67,006 Ashtabula 168.7 164 97,241 Hardin 169.0 53 31,365 Pike 169.2 47 27,772 Gallia 170.6 51 29,898 Ottawa 172.7 70 40,525 Morrow 172.7 61 35,328 Wyandot 174.5 38 21,772 Mahoning 174.9 400 228,683 Logan 175.2 80 45,672 Lake 175.5 404 230,149 Lorain 176.2 546 309,833 Fairfield 177.1 279 157,574 Sandusky 177.7 104 58,518 STATEWIDE 179.6 20,999 11,689,100 Medina 180.3 324 179,746 Erie 180.4 134 74,266 Clinton 181.1 76 41,968 Wood 183.5 240 130,817 Franklin 184.1 2,424 1,316,756 Champaign 185.2 72 38,885 Columbiana 185.5 189 101,883 Stark 186.7 692 370,606 Clermont 189.9 392 206,428 Monroe 190.4 26 13,654 Lucas 191.7 821 428,348 Richland 193.1 234 121,154 Portage 194.5 316 162,466 Summit 194.8 1,054 541,013 Butler 197.3 756 383,134 Highland 201.6 87 43,161 Scioto 201.8 152 75,314 Licking 203.0 359 176,862 Paulding 203.5 38 18,672 Lawrence 203.5 121 59,463 Cuyahoga 204.8 2,530 1,235,072 Warren 206.3 484 234,602 Union 206.8 122 58,988 Henry 207.4 56 27,006 Delaware 207.5 434 209,177 Hamilton 207.7 1,698 817,473 Seneca 210.2 116 55,178 Geauga 211.4 198 93,649 Coshocton 213.1 78 36,600 Fayette 213.8 61 28,525 Athens 220.4 144 65,327 Pickaway 222.4 130 58,457 Morgan 241.2 35 14,508 Huron 245.4 143 58,266 Jefferson 252.6 165 65,325 Washington 260.4 156 59,911

Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. See other data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral.

More COVID-19 numbers

Heres whats in the latest COVID-19 relief bill, including $5,600 in stimulus payments for a family of 4 - Thats Rich!

Marked improvement in Ohios coronavirus alert map; but Cuyahoga, Summit remain among 76 red alert counties

How much coronavirus is left in your ZIP code? See details for every Ohio ZIP

See coronavirus cases by day for each Ohio county, including per capita and cases in last seven days

See how sharply Ohio coronavirus cases, hospitalizations have dropped, and vaccines increased; county and statewide trends, updates

Ohio reduces coronavirus death toll at nursing homes by 860 after abandoning efforts for timely reporting
Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Peak Fintech Group Inc. (CSE: PKK) (OTCQX: PKKFF) ("Peak" or the "Company"), an innovative Fintech service provider to the Chinese commercial lending sector, today announced that is has signed an agreement with Qiyuesuo, China's leading digital document signing service provider, that will allow members of its Lending Hub ecosystem to digitally sign legally binding agreements with one another.

Ever since its re-launch late in the third quarter of 2020, Peak's Gold River platform has seen an increasing amount of activity. The platform has become particularly popular with supply-chain businesses, from restaurants and retailers to factories and raw material suppliers, serving as a gateway to the Lending Hub where orders they place through Gold River can qualify for financing from the Hub's financial institution partners. In some cases, the purchase orders are tied to contracts, which until now had to be executed offline or outside of the Gold River/Lending Hub ecosystem between the clients and suppliers. Given that contracts must bear a corporate seal in order to be legally binding in China, physical distance alone can sometimes make it difficult to do business. Case in point: Peak announced the arrival of China's 2nd largest steel supplier, Xingcheng Special Steel Works Ltd. ("XSSW") to its ecosystem in December 2020 but XSSW's need for legally binding contracts has thus far limited its activity on the Gold River and Lending Hub. The announced partnership aims to remove that barrier to allow businesses typically involved in large value transactions to freely transact with one another within the Hub.

Qiyuesuo (https://www.qiyuesuo.com/) or "Contract Lock" is used by some of China's most prominent web platforms including search engine giant Baidu and Ant Financial. Any contract signed with Contract Lock has an independent and complete digital audit record, in line with judicial evidence collection records, complies with the "Contract Law of the People's Republic of China", "The Electronic Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China", "The Electronic Signature Law of the People's Republic of China" and has the same legal effect as a legally binding paper contract.

"Companies like Qiyuesuo are helping to revolutionize the way business is done in China, contributing to helping move the country to a more digital society and better automated processes, which is in line with Peak's service offering," commented Liang Qiu CEO of Peak China. "Giving raw material suppliers such as steel suppliers or petroleum based product suppliers, who typically deal with average orders worth several million dollars, the ability to enter into legally binding contracts on our platforms opens a whole new world of possibilities for us. This should have a significant impact on the value of the average size of transactions that take place throughout our ecosystem. With the integration of Contract Lock combined with everything else that our ecosystem already offers, including the upcoming implementation of our payment processing and fund transfer services, we're truly on the verge of building an all-encompassing B2B ecosystem promoting transaction efficiency predicated on data, analytics and AI."

About Peak Fintech Group Inc.:

Peak Fintech Group Inc. is the parent company of a group of innovative financial technology (Fintech) subsidiaries operating in China's commercial lending industry. Peak's subsidiaries use technology, analytics and artificial intelligence to create an ecosystem of lenders, borrowers and other participants in China's commercial lending space where lending operations are conducted rapidly, safely, efficiently and with the utmost transparency. For more information: http://www.peakfintechgroup.com

For more information, please contact:



CHF Capital Markets

Cathy Hume, CEO

416-868-1079 ext.: 251

cathy@chfir.com

Peak Fintech Group Inc.

Johnson Joseph, President and CEO

514-340-7775 ext.: 501

investors@peakfintechgroup.com

Twitter: @peakfintech

Facebook: @peakfintech

LinkedIn: Peak Fintech

YouTube: Peak Fintech

Forward-Looking Statements / Information:

This news release may include certain forward-looking information, including statements relating to business and operating strategies, plans and prospects for revenue growth, using words including "anticipate", "believe", "could", "expect", "intend", "may", "plan", "potential", "project", "seek", "should", "will", "would" and similar expressions, which are intended to identify a number of these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information reflects current views with respect to current events and is not a guarantee of future performance and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking information contained in this news release, except as may be required by applicable laws, rules and regulations. Readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating any forward-looking information.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76544
Texas House Public Education Chairman Harold Dutton Jr. filed a bill Tuesday that, if it passes and withstands any legal challenge, would virtually guarantee the ouster of Houston ISDs school board.

The Houston Democrats bill aims to clear the way for Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath to strip power from all nine elected HISD trustees and replace them with a state-appointed board  an effort mired in an ongoing legal battle that has stretched more than a year.

Morath moved in November 2019 to oust board members, citing three reasons: the repeated failure of Wheatley High School to meet state academic standards; a state investigation finding multiple instances of misconduct by board members, including violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act; and the continued presence in HISD of state-appointed conservator Doris Delaney, who is responsible for overseeing the districts longest-struggling schools.

The states takeover effort, however, remains on hold. A Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction halting the boards ouster in January 2020, and Texas Third Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in December 2020.

The appellate court found that HISD had not triggered a law requiring sanctions in districts with chronically low-rated schools, largely due to a quirk in the legislations language. The justices also ruled that the TEA did not follow laws related to school districts investigations and conservator appointments that would warrant the HISD boards replacement.

Duttons bill seeks to remedy each issue raised by the Third Court of Appeals, while also explicitly stating that Moraths decisions on school district sanctions cannot be litigated in courts.

Some parts of the bill would apply retroactively or punish HISD for past performance  which could prompt legal challenges.

For example, the bill states that Texas education commissioner must replace the school board in any district with a campus that has not received a passing grade under the states academic accountability system since 2010-11 and received more than five failing grades during that time. HISDs Wheatley High meets that criteria.

I dont know if they can do that or not, but it certainly leads to an argument that its retroactive legislation, said Kevin OHanlon, a lawyer representing HISD in its lawsuit against Morath.

Dutton, whose legislative district includes Wheatley, has been a harsh critic of HISDs leadership in recent years. He argued that administrators and school board members neglected campuses on the citys northeast side, home to some of the regions most impoverished children.

Dutton helped push through a law in 2015 that mandated sanctions in districts  including the ouster of the school board  with long-failing campuses.

I just couldn't in good faith sit there and do nothing while these students linger in the education toilet, Dutton said in February 2020. HISD, like most school districts, could have taken the opportunity to fix the schools. That's what could have happened and should have happened, but didn't happen.

The 18-term legislator narrowly won a Democratic primary race last year against Houston City Councilman Jerry Davis, who hammered Dutton for his support of a law that could lead to the HISD boards ouster by a Republican-led state administration.

Dutton did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com
Myanmars nominal transition to democracy ended abruptly on Feb. 1 when the military arrested the civilian government and seized power. This coup was the most egregious among the three in the countrys modern history. The military claimed it was acting in response to election irregularities, but the charges it later imposed on elected leaders  the countrys civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was accused of illegally importing walkie-talkies, for example  were preposterous. Of course, the Burmese military leaders actual goal is to nullify the results of the November 2020 democratic elections.

The United States, which on Jan. 6 experienced an insurrection designed to nullify the results of its own free and fair election, promptly condemned the Burmese militarys actions. President Biden declared the situation a national emergency and ordered the government to take steps to prevent Burmese military leaders from using $1 billion in assets held in the United States. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, later expanded sanctions to include individual members of the Burmese military.

These are good first steps, but the United States can go further.

First, the Biden administration should work with the European Union, the United Nations Security Council and allies to impose a substantial arms embargo against the Burmese military. More than 130 nongovernmental organizations around the world have called on the Security Council to take such action. Such a move would cut the supply of weapons, tanks, trucks and planes that are being used to crack down on peaceful protests throughout the country. More than 60 people have been killed by Burmese military police since the unrest began last month.

In addition to constraining the supply of weapons to the Burmese military, the United States can use its relationship with Singapore to prompt change in Myanmar. Singapore is both an ally of the United States and the largest foreign investor in the Burmese economy. The United States should ensure that companies that do business in America are not also doing business with Singaporean companies that have interests in Myanmar.
Not long after Greg Evans launched his long-running comic strip Luann in 1985, he featured a brief storyline featuring fractious teen characters Luann and Brad DeGroot competing on an imaginary game show called Quibbling Siblings.

These days, the now-grown cartoon siblings get along just fine. But longtime fans of the strip can relive the pairs more contentious years this week at Patio Playhouse in Escondido, which is producing the world premiere of Evans new musical Quibbling Siblings. It opens Friday and will run in alternating repertory through Feb. 17 with Evans 2014 musical A Boy and a Girl.

Quibbling Siblings is the fourth musical penned by the 71-year-old San Marcos author/artist since he premiered Luann: Scenes from a Teens Life in the mid-1980s. He also wrote a musical for the senior set called Wrinkles in 2010. Still percolating in his head is an all-female show about meeting Mr. Right.

All of Evans musicals and his comic strip focus on the same central theme: the dynamic of human relationships.

Advertisement

Ive always been interested in male-female relationships. Theyre so fascinating to me, he said. I find females particularly interesting  that combination of the simplistic male and the complex female.

While the new musical Quibbling Siblings is inspired by the the preteen wars waged between Luann and Brad in Luann, Evans joked that hes drawn additional inspiration for the musical in recent years from his sometimes contentious grandchildren.

Luann comic strip cartoonist Greg Evans, center, on the set of his musical Quibbling Siblings with Patio Playhouses artistic manager Matt FitzGerald and publicity chair Samantha Goldstein. (Don Boomer / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Evans was inspired to create his Luann strip from his own daughter, Karen Evans, who now collaborates with him three days a week on the strips ever-evolving plot. When the strip started, Luann was 13. Now shes in college and her older brother, Brad, is married.

Evans said he always dreamed of being a cartoonist, but couldnt find a buyer for his hand-drawn strips in his 20s and early 30s, so he bounced around in a series of jobs  high school art teacher in El Centro, TV news camera operator in Colorado Springs and talking-robot operator at the San Diego Zoo and Seaport Village.

Then, one day in 1984, he saw 5-year-old Karen, the youngest of his three children with his wife, Betty, walking around their Twin Oaks Valley home dressed in her moms clothing and jewelry.

I saw her and I got the idea for a strip about a little girl, and for once it struck a chord because it wasnt a contrived subject. It was drawn from real life, Evans said.

The syndicated strip now runs in more than 400 newspapers and its online readership, at luanncomic.com, attracts more than 100,000 pageviews a day. In 2003, Evans won the National Cartoonists Societys prestigious Reuben Award.

Advertisement

The idea of creating musicals came from his shared passion for writing music and songs and a desire to see his characters come to life in front of an audience.

I love to entertain people with the comic strip, but I never get to see readers reactions, he said. My job is really solitary, so being able to sit in a theater and see and hear people reacting to my work is amazing.

Quibbling Siblings is directed by Amanda Frawley, who has been helping Evans develop and hone the script over the past two years. About 18 months ago, she brought the script to Patio Playhouse for a reading, where Artistic Manager Matt FitzGerald suggested producing the show this season in a repertory production.

Set in a television studio with a 20-song score, Quibbling Siblings is a colorful family-friendly musical comedy with 14 actors. A Boy and a Girl, directed by Patrick OConnor, is a musical comedy-drama for a cast of eight. Its the story of a couple on their wedding day reflecting on the ups and downs of their lifelong relationship.

Advertisement

FitzGerald describes Quibbling Siblings as the standard cute musical that people like to see.

My personal taste is for work thats more challenging but you have to give audiences candy sometimes for balance. These are candy, FitzGerald said. People will come and enjoy one of them and then hopefully come back to see the other.

As part of the Evans repertory program, Patio Playhouse will be raising donations for the San Diego fire Rescue Foundation. For each show Patio produces, publicity chair Samantha Goldstein finds a charity beneficiary that fits the theme of the show.

Goldstein brought Evans the idea of supporting the fire charity and he agreed it would be a great fit. After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Evans decided to make Brad a firefighter, and in 2016, Brad married fellow firefighter Toni Daytona.

Advertisement

The Fire Rescue Foundation raises money for firefighting equipment that fire departments cant afford. Goldstein said donations will be collected during intermission and after each performance at a staffed information table in the lobby.

Evans said that he trusts Frawley and the team at Patio so much with his script and score that he has taken a hands-off approach. He hasnt attended any rehearsals and doesnt plan to see Quibbling Siblings until opening night.

Im sure it will be awesome, Evans said. Its always fun to see these characters take human form.

Quibbling Siblings & A Boy and a Girl

When: Opens Friday, Jan. 25, and runs in rotating repertory through Feb. 17. Showtimes, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. 2 p.m. Sundays.

Advertisement

Where: Patio Playhouse, 116 S. Kalmia St., Escondido

Tickets: $20, adults. $17, seniors, military, students. $12 for youth 16 and under.

Phone: (760) 746-6669

Online: patioplayhouse.com

Advertisement

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- One hundred years ago, Billy Ingram and Walter Anderson started a business selling small square hamburgers for 5 cents each. Little did they know at the time that they were launching not only the country's first fast-food hamburger chain, but also an entire industry.

March 10 marks the 100th birthday of Ingram and Anderson's business, White Castle, as well as the fast food industry in America. In honor of the milestone, White Castle will be celebrating all year long with special events, fun promotions and new menu items.

White Castle, family-owned business since 1921 and founder of fast food, celebrates 100 years! No party is complete without special food and drink, so White Castle will offer Fanta Craver Party Punch. White Castle, family-owned business since 1921 and founder of fast food, celebrates 100 years! White Castle, family-owned business since 1921 and founder of fast food, celebrates 100 years! In collaboration with Coca-Cola, a partner since 1921, White Castle has introduced a set of three collectible augmented reality soft drink cups. Designed by Columbus artist Bryan Moss, the cups come alive with sound and motion when viewed through a smartphone. Each cup features a different time period in White Castles history, including notable milestones for the company.

"What started as a few little hamburger stands has turned into a successful family-owned fast-food hamburger chain and retail brand that has withstood the test of time," said Lisa Ingram, president and CEO of White Castle and the great-granddaughter of Billy Ingram. "We're so proud of this achievement and grateful to everyone who helped us get here, especially our team members and our craving fans around the country."

Billy Ingram opened White Castle in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, selling the iconic little burgers the family-owned business has become famous for. So easy to eat, they were dubbed "Sliders" and sold by the sack.

Billy Ingram moved White Castle to Columbus in 1934 after buying out Anderson's share of the business. In the subsequent years, White Castle experienced significant growth, becoming a beloved fast-food brand with millions of loyal followers. All the while, White Castle was opening more restaurants in cities across the Midwest and even on the East Coast, earning a reputation as a fun, innovative company with delicious and affordable food.

Here are some of the company's highlights:

In 1927, Billy Ingram invented restaurant carryout and unveiled the new tagline, "Buy 'em by the sack."

invented restaurant carryout and unveiled the new tagline, "Buy 'em by the sack." In 1947, White Castle modified its famous Slider, adding five holes to speed cooking and add flavor.

In 1961, White Castle became the first fast-food restaurant to sell 1 billion hamburgers.

In 1962, White Castle began serving cheese Sliders, the first new item to grace its menu since it opened in 1921.

In 1987, White Castle launched its retail division, making its famous fare available in all 50 states.

In 2014, Time magazine named White Castle's Slider the most influential burger of all time.

magazine named White Castle's Slider the most influential burger of all time. In 2021, on the eve of its 100th birthday, White Castle was named to Fast Company's annual list of the world's Most Innovative Companies, landing at No. 10 in the Dining category.

Today, White Castle owns more than 360 restaurants in 12 markets and plans to open a new one in Orlando this spring. It will be the world's largest White Castle and the only one in Florida.

"Running White Castle has been an amazing experience for the extended Ingram family, and we can't wait to see what the next 100 years has in store," Lisa Ingram said. "But for now, we're excited to savor this extraordinary time in our company's history."

In honor of its 100th birthday, White Castle has numerous festivities planned for the coming year. They include:

$100,000 in college scholarships  In recognition of the company's 100 th birthday, the Ingram-White Castle Foundation will award $100,000 in scholarships to team members and their dependents.

 In recognition of the company's 100 birthday, the Ingram-White Castle Foundation will award in scholarships to team members and their dependents. $100,000 sweepstakes  White Castle will conduct the Time Machine Sweepstakes. Each week of the sweepstakes will focus on a different decade and different milestones in White Castle's history. Customers can win prizes of all types, including daily instant win items, booths named in their honor, their names in lights on a Castle's exterior reader board, a personalized voicemail greeting from CEO Lisa Ingram , and the grand prize of $100,000 .

 White Castle will conduct the Time Machine Sweepstakes. Each week of the sweepstakes will focus on a different decade and different milestones in White Castle's history. Customers can win prizes of all types, including daily instant win items, booths named in their honor, their names in lights on a Castle's exterior reader board, a personalized voicemail greeting from CEO , and the grand prize of . New uniform designs  The renowned New York City design house TELFAR has designed a new set of team member uniforms specifically to commemorate White Castle's 100 th birthday. The set, which team members will begin wearing March 10 , includes a T-shirt, polo shirt, apron, visor and durag, all featuring White Castle's logo and a reference to "100 years and counting." Telfar Clemens, the founder of TELFAR, was recently named one of Time magazine's "Time100 Next," which recognizes 100 individuals who are shaping the future.

 The renowned design house TELFAR has designed a new set of team member uniforms specifically to commemorate White Castle's 100 birthday. The set, which team members will begin wearing , includes a T-shirt, polo shirt, apron, visor and durag, all featuring White Castle's logo and a reference to "100 years and counting." Telfar Clemens, the founder of TELFAR, was recently named one of magazine's "Time100 Next," which recognizes 100 individuals who are shaping the future. Augmented reality soft drink cups  In collaboration with Coca-Cola, a partner since 1921, White Castle has introduced a set of three collectible augmented reality soft drink cups. Designed by Columbus artist Bryan Moss , the cups come alive with sound and motion when viewed through a smartphone. Each cup features a different time period in White Castle's history, including notable milestones for the company.

 In collaboration with Coca-Cola, a partner since 1921, White Castle has introduced a set of three collectible augmented reality soft drink cups. Designed by artist , the cups come alive with sound and motion when viewed through a smartphone. Each cup features a different time period in White Castle's history, including notable milestones for the company. A virtual birthday party  With COVID-19 still limiting the ability for large groups to gather, White Castle is hosting a virtual birthday party on May 15  National Slider Day  for employees and customers.

 With COVID-19 still limiting the ability for large groups to gather, White Castle is hosting a virtual birthday party on  National Slider Day  for employees and customers. Retail expansion  White Castle will break ground this spring for the expansion of its frozen-food manufacturing plant in Vandalia, Ohio . The expanded facility, which will be twice the size of the existing 75,000-square-foot building, will be renamed in honor of Bill Ingram , the third generation family leader who created the retail division.

 White Castle will break ground this spring for the expansion of its frozen-food manufacturing plant in . The expanded facility, which will be twice the size of the existing 75,000-square-foot building, will be renamed in honor of , the third generation family leader who created the retail division. Cake and punch  No party is complete without special food and drink, so White Castle will offer Fanta Craver Party Punch and Birthday Cake on a Stick as limited time menu options beginning March 1 and April 18 , respectively.

 No party is complete without special food and drink, so White Castle will offer and Birthday Cake on a Stick as limited time menu options beginning and , respectively. White Castle partnerships  Beginning in May, White Castle will announce several partnerships with iconic lifestyle brands, deepening the brand's place in pop culture.

More details about these and other planned celebrations will be shared as available on White Castle's website and social media. See below for a more thorough list of historical milestones in White Castle's 100-year history.

White Castle 100th Birthday

Historical Timeline

1921 Billy Ingram, the founder of White Castle, partnered with Walter Anderson, who

owned a few successful hamburger stands. Ingram invested $700 to expand the

business, which he named White Castle.

The name White Castle was chosen to reflect cleanliness and stability. The

original menu consisted of a small hamburger grilled with onions, which became

known as a Slider because it was so easy to eat, along with coffee, apple pie and

Coca-Cola.



1920s White Castle was thriving, opening restaurants in different cities, including

Indianapolis in 1927, Cincinnati in 1927 and Columbus in 1929.





The company adopted the marketing phrase "Buy 'em by the sack," selling

Sliders in white paper bags and creating the concept of carryout.



1934 Billy Ingram moved White Castle's headquarters to Columbus, Ohio.



1947 A Cincinnati Castle operator added five holes to White Castle's Sliders, allowing

them to cook faster and absorb more flavor from the onions. White Castle loved

the idea and made that change systemwide.



1960 White Castle aired its first TV commercial.



1961 White Castle became the first fast-food restaurant to sell 1 billion hamburgers.



1962 White Castle began serving cheese Sliders, the first new item to grace its menu

since it opened in 1921.



1980 White Castle introduced drive-thru service.



1987 White Castle launched its retail division, becoming the first fast-food hamburger

chain to offer its fare in retail stores and enabling the company to reach

consumers in all 50 states.



1990 White Castle introduced its famous turkey stuffing recipe using the Original

Slider as the main ingredient.



1990 White Castle started its beloved Valentine's Day tradition of hosting sit-down

dinners complete with tableside service and dining rooms decked out in festive

decor.



2001 White Castle established the Cravers Hall of Fame to honor its most devoted

fans and inducted the inaugural class.



2004 The movie "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" was released, helping White

Castle become a cultural icon.



2014 Time magazine named White Castle's Slider the most influential burger of all

time.



2016 Lisa Ingram, the great-granddaughter of founder Billy Ingram, was named

president and CEO of White Castle. She represents the fourth generation of

family leadership and is the first female to hold the position.



2017 White Castle became an official partner of USA Luge, the nation's other foremost

"slider expert," and the title sponsor of the White Castle USA Luge Slider Search,

an off-season recruitment program for young kids.



2018 White Castle became first fast-food chain to offer a plant-based burger, the

Impossible Slider, which Thrillist called the "Best Plant-Based Fast Food

Burger."



2019 White Castle moved into a brand new, LEED-certified home office in Columbus,

Ohio.



2021 White Castle was named by Fast Company as one of the world's Most Innovative

Companies for 2021, landing at No. 10 in the Dining category.



2021 White Castle owns more than 360 restaurants in 12 markets and plans to open

another one in the spring. It will be the largest one in the world and the only one

in Florida.



2021 White Castle turns 100 on March 10 with plans to celebrate all year long.

About White Castle

White Castle, America's first fast-food hamburger chain, has been making hot and tasty Sliders as a family-owned business for 100 years. Based in Columbus, Ohio, White Castle started serving The Original Slider in 1921. Today White Castle owns and operates more than 360 restaurants dedicated to satisfying customers' cravings morning, noon and night and sells its famous fare in retail stores nationwide. The Original Slider , named in 2014 as Time magazine's most influential burger of all time, is served alongside a menu of creatively crafted sliders and other mouthwatering food options, including White Castle's Impossible Slider, named by Thrillist in 2019 as the "Best Plant-Based Fast Food Burger." White Castle's commitment to maintaining the highest quality products extends to the company owning and operating its own meat processing plants, bakeries and frozen-food processing plants. White Castle is known for the legendary loyalty of its team members, more than 1 in 4 of whom have worked for White Castle for at least 10 years, and of its faithful fans, affectionately referred to as Cravers, many of whom compete each year for entry into the Cravers Hall of Fame. The official White Castle app, available at iTunes App Store or Google Play , makes it easy for Cravers to access sweet deals and place pickup orders any time. They can also have their orders delivered using one of White Castle's delivery partners. For more information on White Castle, visit whitecastle.com.

SOURCE White Castle

Related Links

http://www.whitecastle.com


By Ruth Anderah

The Constitutional Court has dismissed a petition that was filed 15 years ago challenging the agreement entered between the government of Uganda and BIDCO Oil Refineries Limited for the development of the Oil Palm Industry in the country.

A panel of five Constitutional Court Justices led by Kenneth Kakuru have unanimously dismissed the petition filed by former Kyadondo South MP Issa Kikungwe who passed on in 2017 and Lubaga South MP John Ken Lukyamuzi.

The petition was dismissed on ground that it lacked merit and that there was nothing constitutional for Court to interpret.

Kikungwe and Lukyamuzi filed the case in 2006 challenging a decision to grant BIDCO Oil Refineries Limited a superior status over other oil producers.

Their petition followed the 4th April 2003 agreement entered between government and BIDCO to process palm oil in Kalangala District.

The petitioners argued that BIDCO was exempted from import and stamp duty taxes and value added tax for a period of 25 years which decision they said was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
A high school in Sussex County that enrolls students from six municipalities is switching to virtual instruction due to rising COVID-19 cases in the region.

High Point Regional High School is suspending all on-site learning and student activities until March 22, Superintendent Scott Ripley announced Monday.

In a letter to parents posted to the schools website, Ripley did not cite any specific coronavirus cases at High Point.

The Sussex County Department of Health has informed us that due to the recent increase in COVID positive cases within the High Point community, we are required to close for all on-site learning and student activities through March 21, Ripley wrote.

A message from HIGH POINT REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL - For the latest updates please visit the Health-Related Closing - Information Center - https://t.co/BBydoJYhpG pic.twitter.com/sAShX0SbW2  High Point Wildcats (@HPRwildcats) March 9, 2021

It is at least the second Sussex County high school this month switching to remote learning due to the pandemic. Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta has been on a virtual instruction schedule since March 1, scheduled to continue through March 10.

High Point Regional High School is located in Wantage and also enrolls students from Branchville, Frankford, Lafayette, Montague and Sussex Borough. It had 891 students as of February 2020.

Ripley, in his letter, acknowledged his preference for classroom learning.

We believe that education is most impactful when students learn among their peers in a classroom with a caring and professional educator. While that is our preference, we remain committed to ensuring the most effective and supportive remote learning environment as possible. We look forward to returning on March 22, Ripley wrote.

State health officials on Monday reported another 2,201 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in New Jersey, and an additional 20 confirmed deaths, as the total number of vaccine doses administered surpassed 2.5 million.

The seven-day average for new confirmed positive tests declined to 2,717, down 4% from a week ago and down 9% from a month ago.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.
MILAN, MAR 9 - A 37-year-old Tunisian man is suspected of preaching terrorism in Milan's Opera Prison and has been served a fresh arrest warrant on this count, judicial sources said Tuesday. The man allegedly tried to recruit a fellow Tunisian into the Islamic State (ISIS) militant group, police said. "This was with the aim of carrying out attacks in Syria, Libya and also in Italy, murdering, using bombs or knives," said police. The man's alleged proselytism was discoverrd by guards at Opera. (ANSA).
Connecticut

Ned Lamont

Fred Carstensen

University of Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut

Matt Lesser

Middletown

Senate

House of Representatives

Feb. 24

Senate

Gov. Lamont

March 5

Department of Economic and Community Development

David Lehman

New York

Connecticut

Thomas Peters

University of Connecticut

American Association of University Professors

Greenwich

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Gene Goddard

MetroHartford Alliance

Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut

(TNS)  With the goal of attracting a new industry into, Gov.has signed legislation providing long-term tax breaks to data centers, the 21st century warehouses of countless bits of information stored by users as varied as medical researchers, academics and financial services companies.To backers of a measure offering tax credits to the centers that house computers storing and processing data, its a start to making the state competitive in attracting high-tech industry and overcoming years of low-wage job creation.Im just enormously pleased weve gotten focused on this, said, aeconomist who for years has pushed state policymakers to bring data centers to. The last 10 to 12 years weve had the worst performing economy. Weve got to change that trajectory.Opponents call it corporate welfare that provides overly-generous tax breaks.We are gathered here to try to lure an industry tothat as far as I can tell will provide few lasting jobs, but provides major costs, Sen., D-, said during recentdebate. Those costs are to taxpayers who will be providing the industry with significant 30-year tax breaks, to our energy grid, which will be taxed by enormous strain when we should be working to double down on efficiency.Legislation overwhelmingly passed theon a 133-13 vote and was approved by the, 29-5., signed the bill into law onThe bill authorizes the stateto sign tax incentive agreements with qualified data centers for 20- or 30-year terms, depending on the size and location of the data center investment.A data centers owner must spend at least $50 million to qualify if the center is in a federal opportunity zone or an enterprise zone and $200 million if it is built elsewhere.Supporters say data centers could be used to attract the financial services industry that handles trades once confined to the floors of stock exchanges but are now made online.To organize support for data centers, Lamont turned to his economic development commissioner,, who said he worked with data center clients in his years at Goldman Sachs, theinvestment bank and financial services company.The Lamont administration began talking in 2019 with representatives of MEMX, a member-owned equities trading platform, about bringing trading business to data centers in, he said. Facing the prospect of taxes on financial services in other states, the industry sought a back-up home, Lehman said.Pushing back against criticism of data centers consumption of electricity, Lehman said major companies with data centers are increasingly looking to use zero- or low-carbon energy. Connecticuts grid, with a large nuclear power component and agreements for future offshore wind, would bestow (on) Connecticut...substantial new economic activity, he said.Carstensen blamed some ill-informed environmentalists who believe data centers increase demand for fossil-fuel electricity.They are wrongbecause no industry is more committed of green energy than data centers; big tech already buys millions and millions of carbon credits, he said.For users of data, such as academic researchers, the proximity of a center could be an advantage, said, a computer scientist and mathematician at theNearby may help me. I can get in and out faster on networks dedicated to me, said Peters, who says his views do not reflect UConn or the localwith which hes affiliated.Low overhead and local control also are advantages to a data center close by, he said. Data centers in other countries are governed by local laws such as those related to copyright protection, he said.However, local centers are usually less disaster proof, jeopardizing data in floods or earthquakes, Peters said.Supporters are promoting data centers as engines of high-paid job growth, disputing critics such as Sen. Alex Kassser, D-, who said during debate that data centers are run by software, not by people, and require only a skeletal staff. study cited by, chief business investment officer at, said a typical large data center supports 157 local jobs and $7.8 million in wages.is one of 18 states without a targeted incentive to develop data centers, Goddard said.As a result, we are not competitive, losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in direct investment and thousands of jobs that are being created in other regions, he said.Thats a key argument by backers who point to years of lackluster job growth in. And where jobs have been created has been in low-wage industries such as warehouses and tourism, Carstensen said.Data centers employ top-paid engineering and other jobs that could helpovercome the rise in low-wage jobs created in the marketing wars that promise next-day delivery with the construction of fulfillment centers and warehouses by giants such as Amazon and FedEx, he said.The last thingneeds is to be the warehouse for New England, Carstensen said.
Now Open

9 March 2021

IHG Hotels & Resorts has expanded its boutique lifestyle offering in the southeastern U.S. with the opening of Hotel Indigo Columbus at Riverfront Place, a new premier destination for travelers to the Columbus, GA area. The stunning, new-build property is the most recent project from W.C. Bradley Real Estate, which has been dedicated to development and innovation in the region for more than 50 years. The hotel's opening marks the seventh for the brand in the state.

Located in the heart of uptown Columbus and steps away from the 22-mile-long Chattahoochee River Walk, Mathews D. Swift Park, and Whitewater Express, Hotel Indigo Columbus at Riverfront Place is a prime destination for those relish the outdoors, as well as business travelers and leisure guests looking for rest and relaxation. Visitors can find retail, restaurants, and nightlife all within walking distance.

The hotel tells the stories of Columbus with nods to its rich past threaded throughout the design and guest experience. Subtle decor touches pay homage to Fort Benning, with green woven handles on the nightstands and the numbers "243'" on the dresser to mark how far Columbus is above sea level. Old pine wood at the elevator entrance was reclaimed from one of W.C. Bradley's mills, and artwork throughout the hotel honors Columbus' diverse history as an artists' haven, nature preserve, military outpost and technology hub.

The property houses two dining options: Eighteen85 Rooftop Bar & Kitchen and Denim & Oak Riverfront Restaurant. Eighteen85, a tribute to the year W.C. Bradley Company was founded, features a design inspired by blues legend and Columbus native Ma Rainey and is the only area rooftop bar and restaurant overlooking the Chattahoochee River. Denim & Oak, named after the textile industry that once flourished in the area and the forests that surround it, will offer farm-to-table dining in a charming setting directly on the river bank.

The hotel features 107 stylish guestrooms, plush bedding, spa-like bathrooms, and unbeatable waterfront views of the Chattahoochee River. Additionally, the hotel will offer room service, an outdoor heated pool, 24-hour fitness center, and valet parking. Hotel Indigo Columbus at Riverfront Place also contains two separate event facilities, with floor-to-ceiling windows, which are equipped to handle private or corporate events accommodating more than 100 attendees.

While visiting an IHG hotel, guests and hotel staff can be reassured that cleanliness is top of mind throughout each step of the on-property experience. The company's longstanding commitment to rigorous cleaning procedures includes the IHG Way of Clean program developed with Ecolab and Diversey, both world leaders in hygiene and cleaning technologies. The program, initially launched in 2015, features deep cleaning with disinfectants coupled with enhanced COVID-19-specific protocols and best practices, developed with experts from the Cleveland Clinic. Additionally, as a part of the IHG family of brands, Hotel Indigo properties offer guests additional peace of mind with the IHG Clean Promise. Guests can be reassured that their room will meet IHG's high standards of cleanliness, and if not, the hotel will make it right.
MTAR Technologies initial public offer's ( IPO) allotment status is likely to be finalised on March 10 (tomorrow). Investors, who put in bids for the Rs 600-crore IPO held from March 3 to March 5, can check their allotment status on the issue's registrar KFin Technologies Private Limited's website as well as BSE.

Here's a step-by-step look at how you can check allotment status for MTAR Technologies IPO.

On BSE

-Select Equity and then from the dropdown, select issue name- MTAR Technologies.

-Enter your Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) or application number and click the Search button

On KFin Technologies

- Go to the online portal

-Click on the drop-down menu and select the company name as MTAR Technologies in the drop-down menu of the investor's centre section. - Enter your Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) or application number or Client ID.

- After entering the given captcha code, investors can click on submit button and view their allotment status.

The share sale was subscribed 200.79 times on the last day. Investors put in bids for 145.79 crore shares against 72.60 lakh shares on offer.

While the category for qualified institutional buyers (QIB) was subscribed 164.99 times, that for non-institutional investors was subscribed 650.79 times. Retail investors submitted bids of 28.40 times against the portion reserved for them.

Price band for the share sale was fixed at Rs 574-Rs 575 per share. One could apply in the IPO in a minimum lot size of 26 shares. One lot in the share sale could be bought by spending Rs 14,950.

MTAR Technologies IPO subscribed 200 times: Check grey market premium

A maximum of 13 lots comprising 338 shares could be purchased with an amount of Rs 1,94,350. The IPO comprised a fresh issue of 21,48,149 equity shares and an offer for sale of 82,24,270 equity shares by promoters and investors. JM Financial and IIFL Securities were appointed as the book-running lead managers to the issue. Equity shares of MTAR Technologies will be listed on BSE and NSE on March 16.

The company raised Rs 179 crore from anchor investors.

MTAR Technologies IPO subscribed 3.7 times on first day

The Hyderabad-based company has precision engineering capabilities to build nuclear and pressurised water reactors, aerospace engines, missile systems, aircraft components and many such other critical components and assemblies.

MTAR Technologies has seven manufacturing facilities, including an export-oriented unit located in Hyderabad, and has been serving defence, aerospace and energy sectors for more than four decades.

It works with clients like the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and US-based Bloom Energy Corp, besides catering to other well-known establishments like Bharat Dynamics and Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL).

MTAR Technologies IPO opens today: Should you subscribe to the issue?
The detailed high-resolution ground magnetic survey consisted of 33 lines at 100m separation

( ) said it has identified a series of drilling targets on its gold exploration acreage in the Sodankyla area of Northern Finland.

The company holds a total of eight gold exploration licences in Finland and the targets shown by the ground magnetic survey include two highly magnetic bodies, which are considered to be IOCG targets, together with a series of targets interpreted as being Shear Zone Hosted gold targets.

The detailed high-resolution ground magnetic survey consisted of 33 lines at 100m separation, ranging from 1km to 3km in length, for a total of 49 line kilometres covering an area of.4.5 km2.

Professor Richard Conroy, chairman, said: The gold exploration programme in Finland is an extension of the highly successful gold exploration programme in Ireland, which has led to the discovery of a new district-scale gold trend on which the company is currently finalising a joint venture agreement with the Koc family-owned Demir Export AS.

The results to date on the Companys Sodankyla target are highly encouraging with a series of IOCG and Shear Zone hosted gold targets highlighted for drilling and the company is commencing preparations for a drilling programme over these targets.
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.
Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom Video Communications takes part in a bell ringing ceremony at the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City, New York, on April 18, 2019. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Zoom Founder Eric Yuan Transfers Stock Worth Over $6 Billion

Video-conferencing platform Zoom Video Communications Inc. founder Eric Yuan transferred about 18 million shares worth over $6 billion last week, according to a regulatory filing.

The transfers were related to Yuans estate planning practices, a Zoom spokesperson said. The distributions were made in accordance with the terms of Eric Yuan and his wifes trusts.

Yuan, who is also the chief executive officer of the company, transferred roughly 40 percent of his stake in the company to unspecified beneficiaries, Zoom disclosed in a filing late on Friday.

The transfers come as Zooms shares have nearly tripled in the past 12 months, as the COVID-19 pandemic drove an increasing number of students and professionals to connect online.

The transfers were done in two tranches of about 9 million shares each and were shown as gifts, according to the filing.

By Ankit Ajmera and Chavi Mehta
New Delhi:

A Delhi court on Tuesday dismissed a bail application of separatist Shabir Shah in connection with terror funding case.

On Sunday, Shahs close aide Aslam Wani was arrested from Srinagar on by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the case.

The ED had recently got a non-bailable warrant (NBW) issued against him by a Delhi court.

Earlier, Shabir Shah had alleged that the action against him is a political vendetta. On this, the counsel of Enforcement Directorate (ED) had said the separatist leader is ruining the country.

#FLASH Terror funding case: Delhi Court dismisses bail application of separatist Shabir Shah.  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

Also Read | Pak terror financing: ED arrests Shabir Shah's aid Aslam Wani

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
An investigation into Northern Irelands chief scientific adviser, who allegedly gave misleading evidence to an inquest into the death of a nine-year-old girl more than a decade ago, will continue after the High Court dismissed his challenge to the decision.

The General Medical Council (GMC) decided to investigate Professor Ian Young over claims he also did not tell the family of Claire Roberts about failings in her treatment at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast.

Claire died from hyponatraemia, which is linked to a shortage of sodium in the blood, on October 23 1996, shortly after she was admitted to hospital following several episodes of vomiting.

Prof Young was asked to review the case in 2004 and provide an assessment on whether hyponatraemia contributed to Claires death.

Expand Close Prof Young allegedly gave misleading evidence to an inquest (Press Eye/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Prof Young allegedly gave misleading evidence to an inquest (Press Eye/PA)

A public inquiry investigating the deaths of Claire and four other children from the condition found Prof Young did not inform Claires parents  Alan and Jennifer Roberts  about failings in her care and gave misleading evidence to the original inquest into her death.

In a January 2018 report, inquiry chairman Mr Justice OHara also said Prof Young had shifted from his initial independent role  to one of protecting the hospital and its doctors.

A new inquest, which was ordered following the inquiry, concluded in June 2019 that Claires death was caused by the treatment that she received in hospital.

Prof Young referred himself to the GMC shortly after the inquirys report was published and the regulator initially decided not to waive its usual five-year time limit for fitness to practise proceedings.

But, in January 2020, the GMC decided it was in the public interest for the allegations against Prof Young to proceed to an investigation and that the original decision not to investigate was materially flawed.

At a High Court hearing in January, Prof Young argued that the original decision was lawful and rational and the reversal of that decision was inconsistent and unreasonable.

His barrister Robert Kellar QC said the GMCs second decision unfairly mischaracterised Prof Youngs conduct and wrongly suggested Prof Young was involved in a cover-up.

In a ruling on Tuesday, Mr Justice Holgate dismissed Prof Youngs challenge, finding that the GMCs original decision was wholly unsustainable.

The judge said the original decision-maker failed to appreciate key elements of the inquirys findings going both to the seriousness of the allegations and the public interest issues involved.

He found that the allegations against Prof Young were significantly more serious than the original decision-maker had appreciated.

Mr Justice Holgate ruled that the GMC was right to conclude that there were material flaws in the original decision.

He also said: The criticism of the use of the word cover-up has no legal merit at all.

The judge said the GMC explained in its second decision that the allegations against Prof Young were plainly very serious and involve, at their highest, an allegation of deliberately misleading the family of a deceased child and a coroner in relation to cause of death'.

He denies completely any suggestion that he sought to mislead the coroner or Claires parents in any way. Prof Young's legal representative

He added that Mr Roberts, in his complaint to the GMC about Prof Young, did use the term cover-up'.

Mr Justice Holgate also said: It is not the courts role in these proceedings to express any conclusions about the merits of (the allegations). This judgment should not be treated as if it does.

In a statement after the ruling, Professor Ian Youngs legal representative said he was disappointed with the decision.

The statement said: Professor Young continues to acknowledge the ongoing suffering of Mr and Mrs Roberts and their family in relation to Claires death in 1996 and subsequent events.

He has apologised previously if any of his actions have inadvertently contributed to their distress, and would like to do so again.

His legal representative added: Throughout these events, Professor Young believes that he has acted with integrity, to the best of his ability, to give clear and honest opinions which reflected his knowledge and understanding of the evidence at the time.

In particular, he denies completely any suggestion that he sought to mislead the coroner or Claires parents in any way.

Indeed, he believes that the record is clear that on every possible occasion he has sought and supported further independent external scrutiny of Claires care.

A GMC spokeswoman said: We are pleased the court has decided that our decision to investigate in this case was lawful and will now continue.

This is a difficult time for all concerned and our thoughts remain with those families who lost children to hyponatraemia in Northern Ireland.

As in any case, we will look at all the evidence before making a decision.
Gov. Abbott: There Is a Crisis on the Texas Border Right Now

Disputing claims by the Biden administration about the situation at the southern border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday that the situation has developed into a crisis.

There is a crisis on the Texas border right now, with the overwhelming number of people who are coming across the border, Abbott, a Republican, told reporters in Mission after flying over the region and meeting with public safety and National Guard officials.

The governor blamed President Joe Bidens immigration policies, saying they invite illegal immigration and are contributing to the crisis, which will grow increasingly worse by the day.

Biden rescinding former President Donald Trumps Remain in Mexico policy, which forced asylum seekers to wait outside the United States while their claims were adjudicated, is one example, Abbott said.

The Border Patrol told me that they did inform the Biden administration and let them know that this influx was coming. So its not as if the Biden administration didnt know about it. And its not as if they didnt have time to get prepared for it. But it is clear, they are completely unprepared for what is going on at the border now. And theyre going to be even more unprepared for what will be happening in the coming months, he added.

Statistics arent yet available for February, Bidens first full month in office, but the number of encounters with illegal immigrants by border agents on the southern border has increased each consecutive month since hitting a low of 17,106 in April 2020, due to strict admission policies and low migration numbers.

The figure reached 78,323 in January, the last month data is available. Countless other immigrants enter illegally and evade detection.

Migrant families and children climb the banks of the Rio Grande River into the United States as smugglers on rafts prepare to return to Mexico in Penitas, Texas on March 5, 2021. Picture taken with a drone. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Another policy change, not removing immigrants under the age of 18, has led to reopening a Trump-era holding facility, with plans to increase capacity further in the future as officials grapple with more and more unaccompanied minors coming to America.

Abbott charged that the policy is helping the cartels, which will utilize the distraction of minors being picked up by border agents to illegally ferry others from Mexico.

The Biden administration is helping the cartels make more money and grow more power, he alleged.

Among those arrested since Jan. 1, more than 800 criminals have been identified, including 78 sex offenders and 62 gang members, he added, citing Border Patrol data.

Abbott recently activated National Guard personnel and deployed them to the border, in addition to Texas Department of Public Safety officers. He said that officers will be ready for any caravans and cartel members planning to try to enter the state.

President Joe Biden visits W.S. Jenks & Son, a hardware store that has benefited from Paycheck Protection Program loans, in Washington on March 9, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden on Tuesday ignored a shouted question about the border situation during a tour of a business in Washington. Administration officials have alleged that the situation doesnt constitute a crisis.

Asked why its not using the word, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a press conference at the White House that we think that its most important to explain the substantive policy of whats happening, what the root causes are of why these kids are coming, and what were doing to try to solve what is a very challenging circumstance at the border.

She also said one of the reasons behind the surge in minor immigrants is because of the policy change, which specifically is deciding not to apply the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Title 42 public health restrictions against unaccompanied minors, while keeping the restrictions in place for families and adults.

Were not turning kids away at the border, unaccompanied children. Were also, of course, not ripping them from the arms of their parents. And so we know and we knew there was going to be an increased number of kids coming across the border, she said.

The White House recently sent a team of officials, including Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to the border to scope out the situation in person and report back to Biden, though they have not had an opportunity to provide that briefing yet.

Ill let them do that before we have more specifics, she said.
New federal guidelines stating that those fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can gather in small groups together without masks is a significant move back to normal life, Connecticut health experts said.

Its a small step, but its an important step, said Dr. Paul Nee, an infectious disease specialist with Danbury Hospital and COVID-19 clinical coordinator for Nuvance Health, which includes Danbury, New Milford, Norwalk and Sharon hospitals.

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated people can gather maskless indoors with other fully vaccinated people or with unvaccinated people from one other household who are not at an increased risk for severe COVID complications.

The CDC defines fully vaccinated as two weeks after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine or two weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The new guidance applies only to small gatherings. The CDC states that people would still have to wear masks in larger groups, while out in public or at work. Those in health care settings also would have to wear masks.

Despite the restrictions that remain, the latest change is significant, experts said.

I think this is good, Nee said. It provides a little bit of change. It provides a little bit of leeway.

Dr. Zane Saul, chief of infectious disease at Bridgeport Hospital, agreed.

I think this is something were going to be seeing more of  what you can do once youre vaccinated, he said. We were waiting for them to release guidelines for fully vaccinated people.

Last month, the CDC announced that most people who had been fully vaccinated no longer had to quarantine if they were exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Nee said he expects to see more changes, possibly those involving travel, in the coming weeks. But he hopes there isnt a rush to open everything up again.

I think slow and steady wins the race, here, he said.

Other experts echoed that sentiment, including Dr. Richard Martinello, medical director of Infection Prevention for Yale New Haven Hospital. Though Martinello overall agreed with the new CDC guidance about small gatherings, my concern is always whether or not its too early.

He said theres still a lot that isnt known about the vaccine, including whether it prevents vaccinated people with asymptomatic COVID from spreading the illness, or how well it protects against some of the variants of the disease that have emerged.

We do have some concerns looming in the distance about these variants, Martinello said.

But doctors said the new guidance is positive, as it will give people hope, and possibly encourage more to get vaccinated when they are eligible.

It's very clear that we're all looking for ways to get back to what we think of as our normal lives, said Dr. David Hill, professor of medical sciences and senior director of the global public health program at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Alabama lawmakers this morning heard pros and cons on a bill to increase criminal penalties for rioting, legislation that the sponsor said comes in response to violence that broke out during protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

The Alabama House Judiciary held a spirited public hearing on the bill but did not take a vote.

The bill by Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, Birminghams former assistant police chief, would impose mandatory jail times and felony penalties for certain crimes related to rioting.

I spent 31 years in law enforcement and the events that happened not only in Birmingham but across the country this past summer made me realize that the laws that were on the books were not sufficient enough to address some of the issues,' Treadaway told AL.com in February.

Treadaway said his legislation was not aimed at peaceful protests, but at those who hijack those events to incite violence and participate in property destruction, looting, and attacks on police and others.

Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, who is chair of the Alabama Democratic Party, came out against the bill in February, saying the focus should be on the reasons people protest, rather than efforts that he said could keep protesters quiet.

If we are genuinely concerned about public safety, we will address the underlying causes of inequality rather than introduce bills aimed at silencing people who oppose injustice, England said in February.

At todays public hearing, five people spoke in opposition to the bill, including some who took part in protests this summer. They said it would be used against peaceful protesters. Some of the speakers and legislators drew comparisons to the police crackdowns on peaceful civil rights protests of the 1960s.

We definitely do not support people who are breaking the law, looting and rioting, Rep. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove, said. But what Im afraid of is that this is going to be used as a tool to keep people from peacefully protesting.

Treadaway said he had worked at many protests during more than three decades in law enforcement. But he said what happened last summer was different. He said there was advance planning to use the protests to cause destruction.

The night before the protest, individuals came to Birmingham and planted incendiary devices, sledgehammers, bricks, in the shrubbery around our businesses downtown the night before, Treadaway said. Somebody financed that. That was planned out. Thats a fact.

For 31 years I have been on the front lines of all types of protests, he said. Whether it be abortion, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan, Black Lives Matter, it doesnt matter to police. Were sworn to serve and protect. But what weve never seen before is what Ive just described. Folks are coming in to the cities hellbent on destruction.

Treadaways bill would allow a person arrested for rioting or inciting a riot to be held in custody 48 hours before being released on bail. He said that was to prevent offenders from being released on cash bonds soon after their arrests and rejoining violent activities. The bill would also set minimum jail times for assaults against first responders.

Camille Bennett of Florence, founder and executive director of Project Say Something, an organization with a stated mission of confronting racial injustice, urged the committee to reject Treadaways bill. Project Say Something has led protests, often daily, over the last 10 months for removal of a Confederate monument from the Lauderdale County Courthouse in Florence. Bennett said police have not protected protesters and authorities have tried to stop their efforts through enforcement of noise ordinances and protest-free zones.

We protested in spite of countless death threats from racist counter protesters, Bennett said. In spite of a constant surveillance from white nationalists. One night while protesting, I had to block two children with my body because a white nationalists on a motorcycle tried to hit us crossing the street.

Silence is not an option for marginalized people demanding equity, Bennett said. Alabamas obsession with white supremacy has fueled yet another bad bill and we deserve better.

Related: Groups vow to continue fight to relocate Confederate statues, say Alabama law immoral

Satura Dudley of Hoover, executive director of Cella65, also urged the committee to reject Treadaways bill. Dudley said she was wrongly arrested during the Birmingham riot while sitting in a park holding a sign.

We know what this is about, Dudley said. We know who this is about. And no matter how many laws are passed, no matter how much you try to restrict us, if history has told us anything, it is that these type of bills come out of fear. Fear that people might be changing things. That we might rise up and stand together.

Cella65s stated mission is to fight for the liberation and justice of all people through direct action and social healing.

After the public hearing, England recommended moving the bill to a subcommittee for more work. Rep. Allen Farley, R-McCalla, a retired former assistant deputy in Jefferson County, said he supported the bill but also supported sending it to a subcommittee to consider ideas from lawmakers who were concerned about it.

Rep. Jim Hill, R-Moody, the committee chair, sent the bill to the subcommittee and strongly urged representatives to work hard for an agreement on the bill.
Irish Water Safety and the Coast Guard urged people to exercise caution near lakes, streams, rivers and coastal areas. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Motorists, pedestrians and householders were urged to take care as a Status Yellow wind alert comes into effect from noon today with winds potentially gusting to over 120kmh.

Met Eireann warned that winds may reach damaging levels with the most powerful gusts on higher ground or along exposed coastal areas as an Atlantic front sweeps over Ireland.

The Status Yellow alert covers the entire country and will remain in force until 7am on Thursday, though it could be extended if conditions deteriorate.

Winds could gust to around 110kmh along inland and low-lying areas  but could reach 120kmh or more on higher ground or exposed coastal areas.

Irish Water Safety and the Coast Guard urged people to exercise caution near lakes, streams, rivers and coastal areas with the weather conditions resulting in possible wave 'over-topping' by piers and seawalls.

Drivers of high-sided vehicles have been warned by gardai to exercise caution.

Read More

Met Eireann's Emer Flood said the country faces several days of very unsettled conditions.

"It will be wet and windy on Wednesday and outbreaks of rain will quickly return to the west early in the morning, becoming widespread by midday with some heavy falls," she said.

"Frequent heavy showers will follow later in the afternoon with occasional brighter breaks in the cloud.

"Strong and gusty southwest winds will develop during the afternoon, reaching near gale force in southern and western coastal counties with highest temperatures of 10C to 13C.

"It will be very windy on Wednesday night, mainly across Munster and parts of Connacht and Leinster with widespread showers and longer spells of rain and some heavy falls.

"Winds will be strong to near gale force and gusty with some strong gusts in the southwest for a time."

The unsettled weather will continue through to the weekend.

Ms Flood said: "It will remain quite windy on Thursday with frequent blustery showers and sunny spells. Showers will be squally and heavy, some with hail and thunder and wintry falls possible on hills.

"Friday will be breezy with further showers, some likely to be quite heavy. There will be bright or sunny spells in the morning, becoming cloudier during the day and with highest temperatures of 6C to 9C.

"Saturday will prove a day of showers with occasional bright spells in a fresh westerly breeze  the risk of some showers being heavy, possibly wintry. The highest temperatures will be of 5C to 7C becoming drier overnight and cold, with lowest temperatures in the low single digits bringing a risk of frost to some parts.

"The current indications suggest that it will remain breezy on Mother's Day (Sunday) with further rainfall, although it will be less cold with highest temperatures of 9C to 12C."

Read More




Phuket Heroines Festival allowed back in full form

PHUKET: The annual Heroines Festival, celebrating the defeat of Burmese marauders attempting to take Phuket in 1785, will be back to normal from March 13-15, Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew announced yesterday (Mar 8).

culturetourismCOVID-19economics

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 02:37PM

The annual festival last year was reduced to merit-making activities only by order of the Ministry of Public Health amid COVID-19 concerns, and in January it was announced that the annual festival this year also had been reduced to merit-making activities only.

From Mar 13 to 15, as its tradition, a light-and-sound show and historical play will be performed at Phuket Historical Park  for many years called Thalang Victory Field  in Baan Riang, Thalang, the reported site of the battle where the Burmese marauders were defeated, Governor Narong said at a press conference held at the Limelight Avenue shopping mall in Phuket Town.

Present at the conference were Phuket Provincial Administration Organisation (PPAO, or OrBorJor) President Rewat Areerob, Phuket Cultural Office Chief Chantana Sitthiphan and other relevant officials, along with representatives from The Heroines Association, which organises the festival

From 4pm on, there will be traditional dance shows, installation arts and a shopping area where people can buy local OTOP products and ready-to-eat foods, Governor Narong said.

The Heroines Festival celebrates the two sisters, Chan and Mook, who led the Phuket contingent in repelling the Burmese invasion in 1785.

As a part of the annual festival, a mass ordination of monks to honour the two Heroines was held at Wat Thepwanaram (Wat Manik), in Baan Manik, Thalang, last Saturday (Mar 6).

In the morning of Mar 12, merit-making ceremonies will be held at Wat Muang Komanraphat, the temple closest to Phuket Historical Park.

On Mar 13, there will be the annual wreath-laying ceremony and the recitals of praises for Thao Thep Krasattri and Thao Sri Soonthorn at the Heroines Monument on Thepkrasattri Rd.

The festival is held to honour Thao Thep Krasattri and Thao Sri Soonthorn and the brave heroes of Thalang, and to support the historical tourism of Phuket, Governor Narong said.

This year, the fest will be held under the concept Thalang lives connecting seaport, ancestors dedication, land of warriors, he explained.

The move to allow the festival to be held as usual  albeit with COVID-19 control measures in place  comes as the central government aims to support domestic tourism across the country in the hope of steering the economy out of its current state.

In supporting the drive to improve the national economy, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha just yesterday insisted that Songkran celebrations be held to revitalise the struggling tourism industry.

People would be allowed to travel across the country to celebrate, PM Prayut said, but each area must impose measures to prevent the virus spreading.

Gen Prayut said he wanted to see the economy improve and peoples income boosted by tourism activities over the long holiday.

He therefore vowed to ease restrictions ahead of the festival so that people had enough time to plan their trips and make hotel reservations.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent Washington Post article notes that more Americans than ever are looking into leaving the US. Searches on the International Living web site for information on moving out of the country is up 1,676% in the last five months of 2020. With over three million Americans considering expat life each year, author Jim Santos, already a successful writer with work published in venues like The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and several International Living magazines and e-publications, has released a new book that brings his expertise to bear on the realities of Expat Life.

Living Abroad now available on Amazon Books! The author with two friends

The editors at Elite Authors are already singing the praises of Living Abroad: Challenging the Myths of Expat Life. Editor Elizabeth P. writes, "Living Abroad is a useful, honest, laugh-out-loud funny guide for anyone who's considering a move from the United States to a new country. Your years of experience both as an expat and as a writer make for a book that is truthful, realistic, funny, and sensitive. Even though I'm not currently planning to move overseas (although now I'd seriously consider it!), I found your work truly a pleasure to read."

The book is unique in that it is not a "how-to" book or even a "why to" book. Instead, it is an insider's look from someone who has lived life abroad and written for travel/retirement publications. Using informative and often amusing examples from his own life and travels, the author tackles questions and myths he has heard in his experiences meeting other expats as well as talking with potential expats via email and at conventions.

He found that although there is a lot of good information out there, there is a lot of misinformation. Sometimes the positive features of expat life is stressed while the common problems may be minimized or even ignored. This book does not proselytize for moving abroad, but instead aims at giving the reader enough real-life information to make their own decision.

Available now on Amazon in both the Kindle format with full color photos and a black and white paperback. It is a "free read" for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Visit the Author's Page at http://amazon.com/author/jimsantos for more information or to order your copy.

Media Contact:

Jim Santos

[email protected]

865-283-0729

SOURCE Jim Santos
In the fall of 1975, my mother pushed me into the world in our dining room while perched atop the communal birthing table passed around for decades among the pregnant women of the remote island of Vinalhaven, Maine, where we lived. My parents favorite song played in the background.

Every time my maternal grandmother called me on my birthday, she recounted the joy of witnessing her first birthmy own. Even though she was the mother to nine children, she had given birth unconsciously to my mother and her siblings during the era of twilight sleep. My birth was a moment of intergenerational healing, and when we moved back to the mainland, my parents chose to birth my little brother at home. Its an uncommon origin story for an obstetrician. Its also the foundation of my belief that pregnant women and birthing individuals should have support from obstetricians to choose where and how they give birth.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

A planned home birth with a midwife is a safe option for low-risk pregnancies and can limit unnecessary medical interventions.

There is a misconception both in my field and popular culture that to have a home birth is to deliberately forgo proper care. The recent Netflix movie Pieces of a Woman, by Hungarian screenwriter-director team Kata Weber and Kornel Mundruczo, opens with one of the most riveting childbirth scenes ever captured on film. Martha, the character portrayed by Vanessa Kirby, loses her baby during a planned home birth. As Martha struggles with her loss, her mother compels her to testify in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against the midwife by the state. The film is a richly nuanced reading of a mothers grief. It also highlights, and in some ways perpetuates, stigma that harms midwives and those they care for who deserve comfort and dignity when giving birth outside of a hospital setting.

Advertisement

The reality is that a planned home birth with a midwife is a safe option for low-risk pregnancies and can limit unnecessary medical interventions. Its essential for people in rural areas who lack hospital access. It can also be a more supportive and comfortable option for women who face mistreatment, abuse, and racism at the hands of the U.S. maternity system, which often fails to meet the complex and diverse needs of all Americans. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic at times overwhelms hospital birthing units, causing some to wonder whether more birthing services should be thoughtfully moved into the community. Some hospitals restrict the number of visitors who can attend a birth, adding yet another compelling reason why people may prefer to give birth at home. Midwives are extensively trained, skilled professionals who in the best of circumstances work in collaboration with OB-GYNs and hospitals to manage emergenciessomething that Pieces of a Womans harrowing birth scene obscures.

Advertisement

Advertisement

While we dont know the outcome of the legal case in Pieces (its a secondary story line) we do know the outcome of the case on which the film is basedthat of Hungarian obstetrician-turned-midwife Agnes Gereb. I became familiar with Gerebs court case when I was a visiting Fulbright research scholar at Semmelweis University in Budapest. Gereb built a thriving home birth practice in the city and over the course of her career experienced three perinatal losses during home births. The obstetric profession pursued Gereb with criminal charges for these stillbirths. In 2010 she was convicted of negligent homicide. Gereb ultimately spent about four years under house arrest and is restricted from the practice of midwifery until 2022. In the United States, midwives have recently been subject to criminal prosecution, in part due to our inheritance of a patchwork of state-by-state regulations that themselves were a response to the near extinguishment of midwifery as a profession. This heavy-handed approach can have a chilling effect, creating an unfriendly and unsafe environment for people to practice.

Advertisement

I cannot help but contrast these midwives treatment with my own experience. Forty years after my own home birth, I was working as a practicing obstetrician at a hospital in San Francisco. I accepted the transfer of a woman who attempted a home birth and eventually needed an emergency cesarean. Sadly, her babys health declined immediately after the birth and eventually died. Everyone involved was devastated and heartbroken. In the aftermath, we all searched for answers. I still do.

Advertisement

When such a tragedy happens under the care of an OB-GYN, its often treated as a risk of the profession. When a midwife is in charge, especially in a home birth, people are quick to cast blame and assume they made a grave error. In the hospital, I had access to legally protected and confidential peer review where the entire clinical team could debrief the event and implement process improvements. If I were a midwife, I may well have instead faced criminal charges.

Advertisement

Its my job as an obstetrician to explain risks and work collaboratively to build a safe birth plan in the context of the hopes, fears, and desires of pregnant women and birthing individuals who I serve. During prenatal care, I have supported pregnant women in making an informed decision to give birth at home or in a birth center. For these women, I always keep an open door should they need access to specialized tests or ultrasounds. When I accept a transfer into the hospital from a home birth, I strive to maintain a continuum of care, for example, by reviewing the home-birth midwifes records. Sometimes, after a comprehensive evaluation, women transferring into the hospital do need obstetric interventions. Its entirely possible to walk the path from home birth to an unplanned cesarean in a way that is respectful and collaborative. In my opinion more women would choose home births if doctors better supported this option by discussing and implementing best practices for home-to-hospital birth transfers.

Advertisement

Those cases when risks thwart a patients ideal birth plan are exceptions rather than the rule. There are also times when, no matter how well you plan, things go wrong. Despite best efforts, tragedies can happen in any birthing circumstance, In some of these instances, the answer is not to blame but rather draw lessons and use them to optimize best practices. Im certain the answer is not the general stigmatization of women who attempt a home birth, nor the incrimination of midwives who assist them.

Pregnant women and birthing individuals get the best care when midwives are respected and integrated, and not marginalized, from the medical system. My fellow obstetricians must see midwives as partners in providing the safe care that our patients deserve. The stigma against home birth is unwarranted, and it ultimately deprives people of the supportive birth experience they deserve.
China built 83.91 million mu (about 5.59 million hectares) of high-standard farmland and increased the coverage of efficient water-saving irrigation systems to 23.95 million mu in 2020, surpassing the countrys annual targets for high-standard cropland construction and expansion of coverage of efficient water-saving irrigation, said Chinas Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA).

The positive progress in the construction of high-standard farmland has further enhanced the countrys ability to ensure the supply of grain, according to a video conference held by the MARA on March 3, which attributed the progress to the efforts of agriculture and rural affairs authorities across the country that have adopted unconventional and targeted measures to ensure various projects are completed as scheduled and that COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control measures are strictly implemented.

High-standard farmland in China refers to level and contiguous arable land with complete agricultural facilities, stable electricity supply, fertile soil, good ecological environment, strong resistance to disasters, as well as high and stable yields regardless of drought and flood.

Designated as permanent basic farmland, it is considered as commensurate with modern agricultural production and management methods.

While the protection of basic farmland focuses on the quantity of land, the construction of high-standard cropland attaches equal importance to the quantity and quality of farmland, and plays a key role in guaranteeing harvests despite droughts and floods and improving crop yields and quality.

High-standard cropland has better facilities compared with those of basic farmland, and is featured by reasonable layout and network of land, irrigation canals, as well as roads.

While improving the quality of arable land and facilitating ecological protection, the construction of high-standard farmland has also benefited the sustainable and sound development of agriculture sector by establishing new standards for agricultural infrastructure.

According to the MARA, it has basically got a clear overall picture of the construction of high-standard farmland in China.

With over ten months, relevant authorities verified the quantity, quality, spatial position, and utilization of a total of more than 90,000 projects for the construction of high-standard farmland, and improved the data for more than 10 million pieces of farmland, thus mapping out the basic situation of the high-standard farmland built between 2011 and 2018.

At present, pictures of and information about the verified farmland have been input into relevant databases, while inspection, assessment and rectification of certain problems are being advanced steadily.

China has constantly intensified the efforts in and improved the quality of farmland construction. In 2020, Chinas central government increased subsidies for farmland construction by nearly 800 million yuan ($122.96 million) to 86.7 billion yuan.

Local governments have also enhanced financial input in the field continuously. In particular, such provinces as Hebei, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Hunan, and Sichuan have invested over 500 yuan per mu of land in farmland construction.

In addition, more funds raised through special bonds have been injected continuously into the construction of high-standard farmland across the country, with nine provinces, including Jiangxi, Shandong, and Sichuan, issuing nearly 20 billion yuan of special bonds, anti-epidemic special government bonds, general bonds, and other types of bonds for high-standard farmland construction.

The country has constantly advanced the construction of the network for monitoring the quality of cultivated land. Last year, the MARA published a communique on the quality rating of Chinas cultivated land in 2019, which said the quality of Chinas cultivated land had risen 0.35 grade in 2019 compared to that five years ago.

China has intensified efforts to protect and utilize its high-yielding black soil. It has implemented projects to protect and utilize 8.8 million mu of black soil in 32 counties, and established 100 relevant comprehensive demonstration zones, with each covering an area of over 10,000 mu.
KYODO NEWS - Mar 9, 2021 - 16:44 | All, Japan

A senior official with close ties to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will retire at the end of the month after being removed from his post in the communications ministry for attending expensive dinners paid for by a telecom giant, the top government spokesman said Tuesday.

Yasuhiko Taniwaki, 60, played a pivotal role in helping Suga to fulfill a promise to lower mobile phone fees and his departure deals another blow to the prime minister, whose public support ratings have taken a hit after a series of scandals involving officials and criticism of the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Taniwaki was originally scheduled to retire at age 62 as his position as a vice minister for policy coordination allowed him to stay on beyond 60, the retirement age for regular central government officials.

He was dismissed Monday from the senior post following a ministry investigation into a wining-and-dining scandal involving Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. Taniwaki had been touted as a candidate for vice minister, the No. 2 post for bureaucrats at the ministry.

His dismissal means he will no longer be eligible for the special extension, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato.

Asked whether Taniwaki will receive a retirement payment, Kato said the government will deal with it based on the National Public Officers' Retirement Allowance.

Taniwaki very likely violated Japan's ethics code for government officials by accepting expensive meals on three occasions between September 2018 and July 2020, the ministry said in an interim report released Monday.

He was reprimanded along with 10 other officials last month for violating the code after a probe found he had been similarly treated to lavish dinners by executives of Tohokushinsha Film Corp., including Suga's eldest son.

Having reopened the probe after the scandal involving the telecom giant emerged, communications minister Ryota Takeda said at a regular press conference that the ministry will expand the scope of the investigation to cover as many officials as possible.

"We need to get to the bottom of what actually happened," said Takeda.

Related coverage:

Senior Japan official close to PM ousted in ethics scandal

Disgraced ministry officials also dined with NTT president

Japan elite bureaucrats punished over scandal involving Suga's son
Hi tech is the cool kid of investment sectors, offering an unbeatable combination of cutting edge chic and long-term stock market returns. Its understandable; our digital world has clearly passed a point of no return in the integration of tech with our daily lives. Tech companies, whether large or small, are clearly in a position to gain from this trend, offering the products and innovations that will facilitate and expand the growth of our high-tech footprint.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is at the forefront the tech wave. AI systems, which allow machines to learn from experience, adapt to change, and process more information faster than ever before, are powering the evolution of tech. New AI systems are making possible autonomous vehicles, personalizing sales and marketing, and speeding up the networked systems that hold the digital universe together.

From an investor standpoint, the companies that are building and using AI systems now are in position for gains in the near future. AI is here, and its only going to expand its presence.

With this in mind, weve opened up the TipRanks database to get the scoop on three "Strong Buy" stocks, according to the analyst community, which are making profitable use of AI technology, and jockeying for position out of the gate.

iCAD, Inc. (ICAD)

Well start in the medtech segment, where iCAD produces solutions, including advanced image analysis, radiation therapy, and workflow to facilitate early identification and treatments for cancer. iCAD offers a comprehensive platform of hardware and software. The companys ProFound AI Risk tool is an integrated platform that streamlines the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer; the VeraLook platform uses similar advanced technology to improve image processing in the detection of colon polyps.

Medical technology is in high demand, and iCADs AI-powered platforms take common diagnostic tools and improve their accuracy. Its part of a natural trend in medtech, of greater integration of tools and treatments. The field, like much of the medical industry, is growth, and iCAD reported $10.5 million in revenues for 4Q20, a sequential gain of 47%, which was powered by a 70% sequential gain in product revenue from ProFound AI. Year-over-year, quarterly revenue was up 11%, and the ProFound AI sales, in particular, gained 21%.

Story continues

Covering this stock for Oppenheimer, analyst Francois Brisebois sees ProFound AI as powerful gainer for the company.

"We believe growth investors will be rewarded over the years as ICAD gains further share in a growing TAM by providing transformative AI-driven breast cancer detection products as well as targeted, efficient, cancer therapy solutions (quality over quantity). We believe ICAD represents an attractive vehicle for investors looking for exposure to biotech innovation themes and AI data growth waves. Ultimately, while ProFound AI Risk is in its very early stages of launch, we believe it represents a great example of AI's potential in changing treatment paradigms," Brisebois opined.

Unsurprisingly, Brisebois rates ICAD an Outperform (i.e. Buy) along with a $27 price target. This figure implies a 63% one-year upside. (To watch Brisebois track record, click here)

The unanimous Strong Buy consensus rating on ICAD shares shows that Wall Street is in broad agreement with Oppenheimers analyst; there are 7 Buy-side ratings on ICAD shares. The $21.57 average price target implies an upside of 30% from the $16.55 trading price. (See ICAD stock analysis on TipRanks)

Baidu, Inc. (BIDU)

Not every high-end AI stock is based in the US. Shifting our view to China, well take a look at Baidu, the Asian giants largest search engine. In fact, Baidu is the largest internet search platform in the worlds largest language, used daily by well over 1.3 billion people. Baidu has a massive userbase, and just because Western and Chinese internet systems arent interconnected doesnt mean that Western investors should overlook BIDU stock.

Baidus gains are driven by a series of initiatives. The company benefits, like Google, from placing targeted ads on the search platform, ads that are powered by AI software. In addition, Baidu has been expanding the potentialities of its AI, moving into cloud computing and autonomous vehicles. In the past year, the company has even begun launching an autonomous vehicle system, the 14-passenger Apolong bus, in Guangzhou.

In February, Baidu reported 4Q20 earnings and revenues, with slightly mixed results. The top line revenues came in at $4.6 billion, just below the forecast of $4.7 billion, but was still up 12% year-over-year; EPS on the other hand, at $3.08, slipped 25% yoy despite beating the forecast by over 10%.

Among BIDU's bulls is Fawne Jiang, a 5-star analyst with Benchmark, who writes: BIDU is making great strides monetizing new AI initiatives including smart transportation and intelligent driving, which should fuel the Companys longer-term growth. We believe BIDU is well positioned to grow into a meaningfully expanded TAM capitalizing on growth opportunities in cloud, smart transportation, intelligent driving and other AI initiatives.

In line with these upbeat comments, Jiang rates BIDU as a Buy, and sets a $385 price target that indicates confidence in a 65% upside potential. (To watch Jiangs track record, click here)

With 14 recent Buy ratings, opposed to only 4 Holds, the BIDU shares have earned a Strong Buy from the analyst consensus. The stock is selling for $232.68, and its $343.44 average price target implies ~48% upside from that level. (See BIDU stock analysis on TipRanks)

Five9 (FIVN)

Lets look into the cloud now, where Five9 offers a scalable contact center platform using an AI cloud technology. Contact centers have been a successful growth segment in the past couple of decades, and cloud computing has changed the way we use software. AI, by making computers smarter and data analysis faster, more efficient, and more accurate, has revolutionized both; contact centers using AI smart clouds can track and route calls, process information, and direct callers and service agents to each other faster for better results.

In 4Q20, the most recent reported, the company showed 39% year-over-year growth in revenue, to $127.9 million  a company record. EPS, however, was negative, with the loss hitting 11 cents per share. This was an unfortunate turnaround from the 1-cent EPS profit posted in the year-ago quarter. On a more positive note, the company finished 2020 with $67.3 million in operating cash flow, up 31% from the prior year.

Also of interest to investors, Five9 on March 4 announced that it has been selected as the cloud computing vendor for CANCOM, a leading UK IT company. The partnership makes Five9 the platform that CANCOM will use to expand its call center services, and gives Five9 a strong foothold in the European market.

Weighing in for Craig-Hallum, 5-star analyst Jeff Van Rhee noted, Digital transformations have been kicked into high gear by COVID and the genie is not going back in the bottle. In addition, FIVN has been very aggressive over the past few years moving to public cloud for the entire stack and layering in outstanding AI capabilities. Demand for AI was noted to be playing an extremely important role in many of the largest deals theres little doubt about the momentum, performance, and remaining opportunity for FIVN.

Van Rhee puts a Buy rating on the stock, along with a $215 price target implying a 40% one-year upside. (To watch Van Rhees track record, click here)

Once again, we are looking at a Strong Buy stock. The analyst consensus rating here is based on 17 recent reviews, including 15 Buys and 2 Holds. Shares are trading for $153.81 and have a $202.31 average price target, making the 12-month upside ~32%. (See FIVN stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for AI stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
Gov. Gavin Newsoms office is negotiating changes to a new state plan for inoculating the poorest Californians after local lawmakers complained that it bypassed the Bay Area, legislators involved in the discussions said.

The states vaccine distribution plan, set to take effect this week, is supposed to send 40% of the vaccine supply to people living in the states poorest ZIP codes. On Friday, The Chronicle posted an analysis of the new plan showing that Bay Area residents represented just 2% of the people in ZIP codes covered by the new system  even though the region represents 20% of Californias population and has many needy people.

Our phones were blowing up after the media stories about the disproportionate share, state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, told The Chronicle Monday, referring to lawmakers in every Bay Area county. That inspired us to try to use our positions to change that.

He and other Bay Area political leaders scheduled a news conference for Monday morning to announce their urgent request for Newsom and state officials to rework the plan. Besides Cortese, the Bay Area leaders included Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco; Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park; Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San Jose; Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez; and Morgan Hill Mayor Rich Constantine.

But the lawmakers canceled the announcement at the last minute when state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, told them Newsoms office was willing to meet. McGuire, Cortese and Wiener participated.

Theres a commitment from the governors office to come back with a fix within 24 hours with a new proposal, Cortese said in an interview. He added that the meeting didnt get into specifics about how the plan will change.

Its their rollout, and they need to be the ones to make the adjustments. But an inadequate rollout could lead to someone getting hurt or dying. That has been our pitch.

Newsoms office did not respond to a request for comment. The governor has said that ZIP codes not on the list will not receive fewer doses, but may receive a smaller portion of increased supplies going forward.

When state officials released the distribution plan last week, they said it would double the number of vaccines for Californias poorest communities while still prioritizing people currently eligible for inoculation: health care workers, people 65 and older, education and child care workers, food and agriculture workers, and emergency services workers.

Newsoms office has said that the coronavirus infection rate for households making less than $40,000 a year is twice that of families earning at least $120,000  but the wealthiest people are being vaccinated at nearly double the rate of the poorest residents.

Californias strategy is supposed to allocate 40% of the vaccine supply to 446 of the lowest-income ZIP codes in California.

The Chronicles analysis of the plan found that about 10 million people live in the ZIP codes targeted for the additional vaccines. But just 2% of those people live in the nine-county Bay Area, although those counties compose 20% of the states population.

Five Bay Area counties  Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Sonoma and Napa  are excluded from the states plan altogether, even though low-income neighborhoods in those counties have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

The states plan includes small percentages of residents in the remaining Bay Area counties: 7% in Alameda County, 4% in San Francisco and 3% in Contra Costa County, according to The Chronicles review of public health, census and state finance data.

The formula for determining the 446 ZIP codes relies on the states Healthy Places Index, which pulls together dozens of economic and social measures into a single score. The result is heavily weighted toward rural areas, as well as Central and Southern California.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
Associate Professor Susanne Klien with her newly published book, "Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-growth Society." Credit: Hokkaido University

Susanne Klien is an associate professor at Hokkaido University's Modern Japanese Studies Program (MJSP). Having explored intangible cultural heritage across Japan, Klien has been expanding her research in area studies and anthropology on rural Japan. During her previous work for a research institute in Tokyo, she observed a unique migration pattern that has been taking place in Japan: more young people are relocating from big cities to rural areas, for example to the Tohoku area, the northeastern portion of Japan's main island of Honshu.

"I first took notice of this trend during my research on the disaster volunteers of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. There was a significant number of volunteers from urban areas who permanently settled down in the Tohoku area and started their own business," explained Klien.

According to her, rural areas in general have been associated with rustic, bleak images. In the aging society of Japan, rural areas have a high number of senior citizens. This entails more problems: vacant houses, tradition discontinuity, etc. Hence, the general expectation is that younger people make attempts to escape from the countryside and seek bigger opportunities in urban and industrial regions.

However, Klien's research, which received generous support from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), shows that the ongoing trend indicates a shift towards the opposite. She observes that there has been an increase of young people leaving big cities such as Tokyo and Osaka. Driven out by the stressful urban life, the subjects of her interviews claimed to aim starting life anew in rural areas and becoming entrepreneurs. Klien observed that this novel pattern of entrepreneurship is even undeterred by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The site of the participatory restaurant in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Credit: Susanne Klien

"The general economic landscape has made Japanese people reluctant to start a business, as it has been considered too risky. But the ongoing pandemic makes people want to relocate to areas with fewer residents. Moreover, as a way to revitalize the area, the local government provides financial support for potential entrepreneurs that entice more urbanites," Klien elaborated.

On this issue, Klien has been working on a series of research projects which have been turned into a book titled "Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-growth Society." Published in 2020 by SUNY Press, the book provides an ethnographic analysis of rurality and emerging forms of work and lifestyle in Japanese post-growth society. One chapter of the book focuses on the perspective of female rural migrants; Klien described that they face considerable challenges.

"During my interviews, I discovered that some rural areas are still dominated by conservative values which tend to undervalue the female role in society, therefore limiting the women's potential in their business creation. Nonetheless, many of my female interviewees consider this as an inevitable challenge they need to overcome," said Klien.

Klien mentioned one outstanding example of Aya, a woman in her late 30s who was working hard to establish an experiential restaurant in Miyagi Prefecture. This woman had been one of the volunteers of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. As an attempt to revive the area, she envisaged a participatory restaurant that allows guests to be actively engaged in their dish creation. It also created job opportunities for single mothers in the local area.
Covid-19 has tested us, says Dr Tara Stoinski, CEO and chief scientific officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. We work in fairly remote areas, so were used to uncertainty. But this has been a really difficult time for the people of Rwanda and the DRC, where we work. Tourism dollars have dried up. People are having trouble feeding their families.

When news of the Covid-19 virus first broke, few couldve predicted such a far-reaching, long-lasting crisis. The impact around the world has been catastrophic, not least in Africas wildlife areas, where peoples livelihoods and vital conservation work rely on tourism money coming in. But with new strains of the virus having emerged from South Africa and elsewhere, theres no clear end in sight yet. A year into the crisis, with many people, businesses and NGOs in survival mode, resources and resilience are being stretched to breaking point.

The first Covid-19 case in Africa was reported in Egypt on February 14, 2020, the worlds most unwelcome Valentines Day gift, before spreading gradually across the continent. By March, national parks and reserves were closed. Though most African countries have avoided the high number of cases seen in the UK, US and Brazil, they have seen tourists gone and with that a wide range of jobs in wildlife zones disappear. Its been incredibly difficult as a self-employed guide, says Rodney Nombekana, a wildlife photographer who runs his own photo safari business Nombekana Tours in South Africa. Not having clients means no income. Its no joke not being able to pay your monthly expenses, and the futures not looking great.

The crisis has affected Mr Nombekanas mental health. The biggest emotional and physiological effect has been not able to secure the future I want for my children. I had to take them out of good schools and put them back in government schools. Being locked up indoors for months without getting to the bush has been traumatic and made me physically sick. I ended up in hospital because of severe depression.

Virus mutations in South Africa means most of southern Africa has now been put on travel red lists, including by the UK, which will limit tourism in 2021.The most frustrating thing is not knowing if I should leave tourism completely, or hope things come back to some sort of normality soon, because breaking point is literally a month away and everything Ive hoped for may be gone forever, explains Mr Nombekana. Its difficult living with so much uncertainty. No one has any idea how long it will be before this pandemic is brought to its knees. The implications go beyond me and my family; our nature and biodiversity are at stake. Without tourism, everythings reaching a point of no return. Something has to be done before its too late.

Stop The Illegal Wildlife Trade We are working with conservation charities Space for Giants and Freeland to protect wildlife at risk from poachers due to the conservation funding crisis caused by Covid-19. Help is desperately needed to support wildlife rangers, local communities and law enforcement personnel to prevent wildlife crime. Donate to help Stop the Illegal Wildlife Trade HERE

The Independent launched its Stop The Illegal Wildlife Trade campaign in response to the Covid pandemic and the impact it was feared it would have on conservation. It was feared that poachers would take advantage of the crisis, as national parks and protected areas became harder for overstretched NGOs and government agencies to patrol and protect. But also, with much of conservation work around the world relying heavily on revenue generated by tourism, the consequences of a widespread shutdown were clearly going to be catastrophic.

2020 was the worst year on record for global tourism, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation, dropping by 74 per cent, with one billion fewer international travellers than in 2019, putting 120 million direct tourism jobs at risk.

Wildlife tourism around the world supports 21.8 million jobs. Before the crisis, it was contributing $23.9bn (17.2bn) a year to the African economy.In South Africa, one of the worst hit countries, travel and tourism brought in $24.6bn (17.7bn) in 2019, seven per cent of the countrys economy, along with 1.4 million jobs. Over two million tourists visited Kenyas wildlife areas in 2019, earning the country $1.03bn (740m) and providing 1.6 million jobs. Gorilla tourism in Uganda alone brings in $34.3m (24.7m) and contributes 60 per cent of the Uganda Wildlife Authoritys revenue. But, according to the UNWTO, visitor numbers to Africa last summer were down as low as 99 per cent.

The last year has been one of the most difficult in living memory, says Sara Gardiner, co-founder of Matetsi Victoria Falls lodge in Zimbabwe. The toughest part has been the uncertainty with timelines, lockdowns and if, when and how wed be able to welcome guests back.The only certainty over the last year has been uncertainty.

After initial lockdown in mid-March 2020, the lodge had no guests for three months. Victoria Falls, usually a busy tourist hub, only received its first international flight in October, meaning six months with no international travellers. Many local tour operators went under.There have been many times throughout the past year that have felt like breaking point. But theres an incredible resilience within our travel industry and the people of Zimbabwe. We remain hopeful this will pass. Our thoughts are with the people in Africa whove lost jobs, homes and family members to illnesses that could have been treated if funds had been available for medical treatment. The losses from this global crisis will be unquantifiable.

At the beginning of 2020, we certainly couldnt have predicted the year that would come, says Lippa Wood, owner of House In The Wild and co-founder of Enonkishu Conservancy in Kenyas Maasai Mara. Our tourism revenue screeched to a halt, schools were closed, many workers lost their jobs. Although wildlife numbers in Enonkishu conservancy increased, a lack of tourism, along with rangers on decreased salaries, has left areas at risk to increased snares from bushmeat poachers, which lions and other large carnivores occasionally get caught up in.

This kind of crisis has tested our resilience, and we feel we couldnt go on for much longer, she adds. Theres a heavy load of responsibility as we wonder how the communities and conservation projects our tourism model supports can survive without any visitors. Its been a long, dark year. In some ways, 2020 has devastated us; in others, it has galvanized us.

Recovery is likely to be slow, with international travel restricted for the immediate future and risk-averse tourists likely to be initially cautious about travelling abroad. A UNWTO survey found many experts dont expect to see a return to pre-pandemic levels of tourism before 2023; 41 per cent predicted the return wont happen until 2024 or beyond.

( )

The crisis has also made the difficult work to protect Africas wildlife even more challenging. Wildlife organisations have needed to go into survival mode. Ranger patrols have been reduced. Projects have been paused, cancelled, delayed or scaled down.

The lack of tourism revenues, lockdowns and Covid infections affected operations of national wildlife authorities across Africa, explains Dr Winnie Kiiru, Senior Technical Adviser with Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) Foundation, an alliance of 21 African countries working on elephant conservation. The restrictions on movement and gatherings affected our work. Reduced funding led to salary cuts in many organisations. Larger organisations, like the EPI, are versatile enough to survive but smaller grassroots organisations that depended on tourism dollars and direct donations are unlikely to survive.

I hope the vaccine will be made available to populations in Africa as soon as possible, Dr Kiiru continues. I also know the survival of species, ecosystems and the livelihoods of people who share space with wildlife is an issue of global importance. Covid-19 has made it clear to us that theres a direct link between the health of the planet and our health. Id like to see the global community coming together to identify conservation priorities and ensure they continue.

Poverty in Africa has risen through the pandemic with the loss of jobs. This put pressure on natural resources, including an increase in illegal activities, such as bushmeat poaching and charcoaling, explains Joseph Kyalo, research officer and pilot with Tsavo Trust, who work to protect elephants and other animals in Kenya. Many people also relocated from towns and cities to rural areas after losing their jobs. To ensure food security, more land was tilled. In areas next to Protected Areas, this led to a spike in human-wildlife conflict.

The increased threats to wildlife will continue while the pandemic still dominates. Available resources have been stretched thin, says Mr Kyalo. We look to the future with cautious hope. But with low employment opportunities, its worrying that people will look into protected areas for a source of living. This puts wildlife species threatened with extinction at even greater risk, undoing years of conservation efforts.

Community conservation projects are also threatened. Effective conservation work makes sure local communities feel the benefits of living with wildlife, especially from ecotourism. Those revenues have now dried up, meaning local communities are struggling through the same issues, such as human-wildlife conflict (elephants eating their crops, lions attacking cattle), without earning any of the money that wildlife can bring.

The crisis has exposed the vulnerability of relying so heavily on tourism. Theres added urgency now among conservationists to help local people in wildlife areas make a living in more diverse ways, from sustainable agriculture (coffee, cashews and other non-timber products) to carbon credit schemes, not to replace tourism but to run alongside, make sure theyre not left so exposed in future. In Uganda, Conservation Through Public Health has helped locals develop a coffee industry, sold locally and internationally, meaning people arent reliant solely on gorilla tourism.

We need to not only rely on tourism, says Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, a Ugandan vet and founder of Conservation Through Public Health, which works on the coexistence of people and endangered mountain gorillas. Its a bit dangerous because anything can happen. It can be a pandemic, like Covid-19, or, in the past, Ebola outbreaks, or conflict, or the global financial crash. If there were more incomes and jobs in place around national parks and wildlife areas that dont rely purely on tourism, the impact of Covid-19 wouldnt have been as great because people would still be able to meet their basic family needs, like food and fuel, in the absence of tourism.

But the absence of tourists isnt the only problem. The global pandemic has caused an economic downturn, meaning charitable donations are dwindling. Weve worked tirelessly to make sure our vital frontline conservation operations havent missed a beat due to Covid, says Jon Churcher, Chief Operating Officer with Game Rangers International, based in Lusaka, Zambia. This hasnt been without consequences though. We had to use emergency funding from many of our donors to plug holes. That can only be done once. 2020 saw a lot of support from our partners releasing emergency funds to make sure operations, especially resource protection and law enforcement has been maintained. This hasnt been easy and tough decisions have been made. The situation were in is not sustainable and this is true across the conservation sector.

Mr Churcher is also concerned about how the next phases of the pandemic will play out internationally. As the West emerges from Covid, the next steps in the pandemic will be unequal, he suggests. Much of Africa will miss out on the initial bounce back due to vaccine distribution, impacting local economies and the speed at which tourists return. Cuts to non-essential services in Zambia are inevitable and it will be conservation organisations, like ours, that will need to step in and offer even more support. The real impact of Covid is yet to be really felt in many of the places we work.

In Rwanda and Uganda, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund has also been weathering the storm to keep gorillas safe, continue scientific research and help local people through the crisis. Supporting human communities near gorilla habitat reduces pressures on that habitat, says Dr Tara Stoinski. Weve increased our efforts to find and dismantle snares, which are placed in the forest by hunters searching of game, which can injure or even kill gorillas. Weve seen an increase in the number of snares since Covid-19 appeared, but zero gorillas where we work have been trapped. Were also working to lessen the need for local community members to enter the forest in search of food. We distributed 14,000 food-producing and other agroforestry trees in 2020, and we continued with food and water security programs to make sure people can eat.

Beyond the immediate challenges on the ground, theres hope among conservationists that long-lasting lessons can be learned from the crisis. We need people across the globe to understand were at a critical juncture for our planet, argues Dr Stoinski. This pandemic should have opened everyones eyes to the importance of preserving wild spaces, protecting our planets biodiversity and fighting climate change. We will face more such diseases, which often cross from animals to humans when we invade wild spaces, unless we come up with ways to reduce our human footprint. This pandemic has shown that we have the technological means and scientific know-how to solve many of the problems that face us today. Now we need to muster the political will to get to work. This wont just save gorillas - it will save all of humanity. But we need to start working toward solutions today, all of us, in every country in the world.

Graeme Green is a wildlife photographer, journalist and founder of the New Big 5 project, an international initiative to create a New Big 5 of wildlife photography, rather than hunting.
United Nations, March 9 : UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned two reported attacks in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, his spokesperson said.

"It is really quite simple. Such actions are detrimental to the mediation efforts being carried out by our special envoy, Martin Griffiths, who will continue to work with all parties to advance the political process to reach a negotiated settlement to end the conflict," Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for Guterres, said on Monday.

"We urge all parties to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law," Xinhua news agency quoted the spokesperson as saying at a press briefing.

Dujarric said the condemnation was for multiple drone and ballistic missile attacks reportedly carried out Sunday against various Saudi Arabia sites by the Houthis who claimed responsibility.

"We also are concerned about Saudi-led coalition airstrikes reportedly carried out yesterday (Sunday) on Sanaa and Hodeidah, apparently in response to the initial attacks," he added.

On Sunday, the Houthi militia has confirmed attacking Saudi Aramco facilities in Ras al-Tannura port in the Kingdom's Dammam region and other targets Asir and Jazan with eight ballistic missiles and 14 bomb-laden drones.

A Houthi military spokesman vowed that his group would continue attacking Saudi Arabia as long as the war and blockade continue on Yemen.

Also on Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition launched a series of airstrikes on the Houthi-controlled military sites in Yemen's capital Sanaa.

The strikes hit the 1st Division Camp, Maintenance Camp and the 4th Brigade in downtown Sanaa, as well as the Attan site in the southern part of the capital.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized control of several northern Yemeni provinces and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in 2015 to support Hadi's government.
Neymar will miss Paris Saint-Germain's Champions League last 16 second leg against Barcelona on Wednesday after failing to shake off a thigh injury, the French champions confirmed.

PSG said on Tuesday the Brazil attacker would continue to train individually and would be assessed again "in the coming days".

"We have not had to make a decision, it is simply the state of fitness of a player, in this case 'Ney', who can't make it," coach Mauricio Pochettino said during a virtual press conference ahead of the game at the Parc des Princes.

"He is not fit enough to play a competitive game. This is just a reality, a fact.

"It's a shame because he had been really looking forward to this game. It is a difficult moment for him because he had been expecting to recover but clearly he is still a few days away from being able to help the team."

The 29-year-old has not played since picking up the injury in a French Cup victory over Caen in early February.

He also missed the first leg of the Champions League tie at the Camp Nou, which PSG won 4-1 with Kylian Mbappe scoring a hat-trick, due to the issue.

That result puts Pochettino's team in a strong position to qualify for the quarter-finals going into the return leg, although the former Tottenham Hotspur coach preached caution in front of the media.

"We still need to play a game of football, and be focused on that," he said. "We have to attack and win the game. That is what we have prepared for."

Pochettino added that Italy right-back Alessandro Florenzi could return after sitting out the last three games due to injury.

Moise Kean, who scored in the first leg, is still missing after testing positive last week for Covid-19.

ah-eba/av/as/iwd
A delivery worker poses with a parcel in front of a vehicle at Coupang's fulfilment center in Seoul in this 2019 file photo. Courtesy of Coupang





By Kim Jae-heun, Kim Yoo-chul







Korea's top e-commerce company Coupang is seeking to raise up to $4.08 billion in its U.S. initial public offering (IPO) after increasing its target price.







In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company and its current shareholders said they plan to offer 120 million ordinary shares at $32 to $34 apiece  an earlier forecast was $27 to $30. At the high-end target price  $34  Coupang could be valued at $58 billion based on the number of outstanding shares. Coupang will be traded under the ticker CPNG from March 11.







Investors and stock market analysts say Coupang's business sustainability depends upon a detailed assessment of its labor conflicts, because the company's core competency lies in the intensity of its logistics network. The company's business model is unique in the e-commerce space, in that it operates end-to-end logistics.







This strategy has so far paid off because it is said to have transformed the company into one of the leading private sector employers in South Korea, according to reports. Its total workforce has doubled to 50,000 employees over the span of the last year and it plans to double this again by 2025.







But more importantly, like Amazon, Coupang has drawn scrutiny for the working conditions in its warehouses. Of major concern is that it has continued to run a windowless warehouse, even after workers tested positive for COVID-19. Some Coupang employees have also unionized. Coupang claims unionization could hurt its business, with investors and analysts saying its labor conflicts may chill the attention being paid to the company, given the fact that ESG (environment, social and corporate governance) management has emerged as a key issue among global investors.







Recently, a Coupang delivery driver surnamed Lee was found dead in his single-room accommodation in Songpa-gu, Seoul. Police found no suicide note at Lee's place and an autopsy will be conducted to reveal the cause of his death.







Lee's wife said the driver had frequently complained about his arduous job, especially working in the early morning. As a follow-up measure, the Taekbae Union, which represents couriers here, held a press conference in front of Coupang's headquarters in Songpa, Monday, and denounced the company's poor working environment.







The union said that Lee earned about 2.8 million won per month, which is just a little over minimum wage. "His salary was too small for the hard work he did."







Lee was his household's breadwinner, so he could not quit his job. He started as a contract worker last year before being made a full-time worker.







Coupang Fulfilment Service CEO Joseph Nathan Nortman answers questions from lawmakers during a hearing held by the National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee, Feb. 22. Korea Times file





However, Coupang said Lee's workload was not heavy, compared to that of delivery workers' average workload last year, which was six days per week and 71 hours in total.







"Coupang expresses its deepest condolences to the deceased and the bereaved family members first. Lee had worked about four days per week, for 40 hours, during the last 12 weeks. The number is much lower than the 60-hour workweek recommended by the social organization formed by representatives from labor unions, government officials and consumer groups," Coupang said in an official statement.







Plus, Coupang wrote of the potential ramifications from such incidents. "We have been and will continue to be subject to inspections, investigations, disputes, and litigation relating to these labor and employment laws and regulations."







Soaring industrial accidents







The problem is that, as demand by ESG criteria-based management has increased, investors also have their own standards for these factors.







Coupang admitted in its listing report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, that its business in Korea involves "special risks" to a certain point. It mentioned the possibility of company executives having to take responsibility for any crimes committed. The government has recently pushed for a legislation imposing heavy penalties on company executives for industrial accidents that occur while workers are on the job.







Last October, a 28-year-old employee named Jang Deuk-joon died from a heart attack after working 62 hours a week in the lead up to his death. Jang had worked an average of 58 hours a week during his 16 months working at Coupang's "fulfillment center."







Many Coupang workers argued that there was no heater to keep the temperature up in the winter nor any air conditioner to reduce the heat during the summer. They also had to receive permission to go to the bathroom, while managers calculated their daily workload with UPH gadgets in real-time.







Such poor working conditions led Coupang to become one of the firms with the most industrial accidents in the past two years. According to Rep. Lim Jong-seong of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the number of industrial accidents that occurred at Coupang's fulfillment centers increased from 48 cases in 2017 to 224 cases last year.







The National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee summoned Coupang Fulfillment Service CEO Joseph Nathan Nortman last month to question him about his company being reluctant to acknowledge the number of industrial accidents that took place at its worksites.







"I thought the company had supported our employees and properly recognized the number of industrial accidents that have occurred at our worksite. However, as of today, I heard about the figures, which I will take into consideration to improve the situation," Nortman said.







On the day the hearing was held on Yeouido, the union urged the firm to withdraw its new commission fee system, reducing riders' standard delivery fee from 3,100 won to 2,500 won. Coupang said that delivery workers are not full-time workers, and so, such requests to cover extra expenses for various reasons cannot be reflected immediately. However, it agreed to talk with the delivery workers union in the future.







But the bottom line is that Coupang's harsh working conditions are cited as the top reason, leading it to a "higher than average turnover." Therefore, analysts say this continued high turnover, combined with a tightening labor market, amid the emerging labor shortages, could gravely affect its business.






Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Hydro66 Holdings Corp. (CSE: SIX) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its press releases dated January 7, February 19 and February 24, 2021, the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hydro66 Canada Ltd. completed the transaction for the sale of the shares of Hydro66 UK Limited ("Hydro66 UK"), which operated its data center in Sweden through Hydro66 UK's wholly-owned subsidiaries, Hydro66 Services AB, Hydro66 Svenska AB and Hydro66 Property Services AB, to Northern Data AG (XETRA: NB2).

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Paul Morrison

Chief Commercial Officer

paul.morrison@hydro66.com

(+44) 7789 915 147

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements may be discussed in this news release and the Company's annual and quarterly management's discussion and analysis filed at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws.

Not for distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States. Any failure to comply with this restriction may constitute a violation of U.S. Securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76483
[March 08, 2021] English Website of the Tokushima International Consumer's Forum 2020 Opens

The Tokushima prefectural government co-hosted Japan's first G20 International Conference on Consumer Policy with the Consumer Affairs Agency in September 2019, while the Consumer Affairs Agency set up its Strategic Headquarters for Frontiers of Consumer Policy, CAA in the Tokushima prefectural government building as Japan's hub for international operations of consumer administration in July 2020. In this way, the Tokushima prefectural government has been working closely with the Consumer Affairs Agency to contribute to a sustainable international society. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005264/en/ "Awa-Odori", the one of the most famous "Bon-Odori", originated in Tokushima prefecture and has the 400-year history. (Photo: Business Wire)



The Covid-19 pandemic that is sweeping the entire world has drastically changed the international situation for consumers. With a view to contributing to a sustainable society while recognizing the ongoing social changes, the Tokushima International Consumer's Forum 2020 will invite the world's leaders and Japanese experts in ethical consumption to share their progressive views, and present the efforts of some Japanese companies, groups and local governments towards consumer-oriented management and ethical consumption to help the achievement of the SDGs.

Held as a new style of international forum in the Covid-19 era, this forum will be made available for on-demand viewing at any time. We hope that the forum will lead to the development of a new consumer policy and bring fruitful results to consumers around the world. Tokushima International Consumer's Forum 2020

https://www.pref.tokushima.lg.jp/en/world.consumer.forum/ Tourist information on Tokushima Prefecture (available in English, Chinese and Korean)

https://discovertokushima.net/en/ View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005264/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
LOS ANGELES, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism today announced it has committed to 31 grants totaling $200,000 for groups in its grantee network impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The grants provide operational assistance to ensure continuity during this time of crisis.

Norman Oberstein, Lenz Foundation CEO, states, "Although we had initially planned a national conference in 2021, as the pandemic grew, we decided to move the conference to 2022, and instead make grants in 2021 to help organizations weather the organizational storm of COVID-19. Our grantee organizations with retreat centers or large physical meeting rooms, along with meditation and mindfulness groups--all have suffered losses and face economic challenges. We feel fortunate we can help."

David Macek, Development, Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (IBme) states, "The COVID-19 grant from the Lenz Foundation allows us to keep offering meaningful programs for teens. iBme's organizational system and financial model have been extremely challenged, which meant quickly transitioning our signature residential retreats to an online format, adding new offerings, and increasing our focus on teens' families."

At Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, Johann Robbins, Executive Director, explains, "Almost all of our retreats were cancelled due to COVID-19. Normally our entire operating budget comes from our operating surplus. It is very difficult to ask donors to support both operating losses from COVID and our capital fundraising needs. The grant from the Lenz Foundation is helping to fill the gap."

Roy Remer, Executive Director of the Zen Caregiving Project notes, "Our volunteers normally visit palliative care patients in-person. The organization has pivoted to allow volunteers to connect with patients virtually, at a time when patients feel particularly isolated, and to ensure our volunteers remain engaged via regular online community meetings and retreats. These changes, however, have been against a backdrop of reduced organizational income, ZCP staff reductions in hours, and a very fluid public health context. The Covid-19 grant from the Lenz Foundation helps us bridge this difficult period of transition."

The conference formerly scheduled for 2021, "The Future of American Buddhism," is now planned for June 2-5, 2022 at the Garrison Institute in New York. The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism and Naropa University will stage this leading-edge conference in several phases. From January to May, 2022, online webinars and communities of interest will precede the conference and provide timely, relevant content to the physical gathering in June. Main topics are likely to include: Buddhist responses to: Climate Change, Women's Leadership and Gender Issues, Racism and White Privilege, Tradition and Innovation, Digital Dharma and New Forms of Community, and Socially Engaged Activism.

The Lenz Foundation seeks additional sponsors to help finance the conference by contributing to its funding, and to provide their own grants to conference participants with worthy projects that grow out of this event.

About the Lenz Foundation

Formed in 1998, the Lenz Foundation focuses on grants supporting the emergence of an enlightened American society that reflects the universal Buddhist values of wisdom, compassion, mindfulness, and meditation.

The mission of the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism is to foster the growth and development of an authentic American Buddhism that takes its inspiration from the wisdom traditions of the East but adopts new forms, approaches, and applications that are uniquely suited to contemporary American society and culture.

Based in Los Angeles, California, The Lenz Foundation is a perpetual tax exempt 501 c 3 private foundation. www.fredericklenzfoundation.org.

For more information, contact:

Liz Lewinson, Vice President and Treasurer

[email protected]

310-557-8882

SOURCE The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism

Related Links

http://www.fredericklenzfoundation.org


A disguised assassin yet to reveal why he fatally stabbed a man getting a haircut at a Sydney barbershop has been jailed for at least 14 years.

A helmet-wearing assailant who fatally stabbed a customer at a Sydney barbershop without warning has been jailed for at least 14 years.

Alfredo Isho was seated and gowned when he was knifed at Bossley Park's Classico Hair Studio in 2019, with the blade puncturing his right lung and severing an artery.

His killer, Fredon Laith Botrus, had lapped the barbershop four times on his motorbike to identify his target before entering through a rear door and attacking Mr Isho.

A disguised assassin yet to reveal why he fatally stabbed a man getting a haircut at a Sydney barbershop has been jailed for at least 14 years

A helmet-wearing assailant who fatally stabbed a customer at a Sydney barbershop without warning has been jailed for at least 14 years

Botrus, now 20, was on Tuesday jailed by the NSW Supreme Court for 20 years, with a non-parole period of 14 years.

While accepting Botrus hadn't intended to kill, Justice Michael Walton said the attack was brazen, targeted and senseless.

The court had no evidence of any remorse, motive or animosity between the two men before the murder on January 11, 2019.

'It must be found the deceased had no warning of the attack and was unable to defend himself,' Justice Walton said.

Mr Isho's family had earlier told the court their kind, gentle and smart Alfredo had never been in trouble nor said anything bad about anyone.

'The longest walk you will ever take is the one down the road of grief,' his mother, Khalida Thom, said at his sentencing hearing in February.

Botrus denied being the disguised attacker from the moment he was arrested wearing a jumper covered in Mr Isho's blood on the day of the fatal attack.

He also denied being the person behind the wickr account 'YoCatchMe', which received a message before the stabbing about the barbershop.

Using a mix of Arabic, English and emoji, the message said in effect: 'Yo brother there's a dog at the hairdresser's.'

Alfredo Isho was seated and gowned when he was knifed at Bossley Park's Classico Hair Studio in 2019, with the blade puncturing his right lung and severing an artery

After the stabbing, the account replied by saying 'I went and (sh)anked him' and 'is that bad'.

Consistent with the jury's verdict in September, finding Botrus guilty of murder, Justice Walton found Botrus was behind the account.

But he found the comment 'is that bad', boasting and indifference in the encrypted conversation and the irrationality of Botrus riding a loud bike closely linked to him to commit a serious crime spoke to his immaturity and lack of impulse control.

Botrus's dysfunctional childhood, which included being kidnapped in his native Iraq and dealing with the more recent suicide of a brother in Australia, also reduced his moral culpability.

'Whilst the offending was not spontaneous, there was evidence of limited planning without long premeditation,' Justice Walton said.

Botrus will be eligible for parole in January 2033.

Lifeline 13 11 14

beyondblue 1300 22 4636
Google had been busy in the lab making a new version of Google Pay, with the new app coming out of beta test this week. It marks the first step in a major upheaval in the Google Pay services

However, the Play Store is not currently letting users review the new Google Pay.

Google Pay Shutting Down?

According to ArsTechnica, the old Google Pay service that has been operating for years is shutting down. The application will end in the U.S. on April 5, and if people want to continue using the new Google Pay, they have to had to download the new application. The NFC tap-in-pay function would not change once someone sets up the new app, but the new Google Pay application will not use the Google account for P2P anymore.

To continue the Google Pay benefits, users will be required to make a new account, and they will not be able to send any money to their contacts until they downloaded the new app and make a new account.

Besides that, the Google Pay website will be stripped off of all payment functions in the U.S. on April 5, and the new Google Pay will not support doing anything on the web. This means that users will not be able to transfer money, view payment methods, and see their respective balance from the browser.

T3 reported that Google discontinuing the old application sparked a flood of grievances, not only because Google is forcing users to switch but also the fact that the new Google Pay app has a plethora of functionality issues.

In the new Google Pay, the company is less concerned with the unremarkable territory of secure card transactions through NFC, opting for what it thinks users need and removing some of the most robust features of this predecessor that users enjoyed using on Android phones.

Also Read: Google Hangouts Split, Gives Slack A Run For Its Money

Currently, Google is rolling out emails to users detailing the changes in the new Google Pay app: NFC contactless functionality will be virtually the same, but Google will compel users to create a fresh account, leaving behind user's existing Google account P2P payments.

It is a significant loss to people who used the web-based service, especially those who prefer to use one of the best laptop models and make profits online. As a result of these planned changes to the user's account, it also means that a lengthy explanation to friends and family around the new Google Pay application, long-winded conversations over the subsequent loss of functionality, and articulating how those impacts previously held payment setups on user's Android devices are needed.

Google Pay Currently Unreviewable on the Play Store

9to5Google reported that Google Pay is currently unreviewable at the Play Store. The publication believes that this is most likely a bug as the capability is available through play.google.com on either mobile or desktop browsers.

The Google Pay issue could be the reason that company is already transitioning from early access to a stable release, though the ability to leave "Private feedback" is usually available.

The new Google Pay, which is available in India, Singapore and the U.S., currently has a 3.8/5 rating based on 4,094 reviews. The majority is 5 stars, with 1-star reviews being the next largest continent. Some users do not like the one-device nature, while the peer-to-peer capabilities have been criticized for being weak. Others also do not enjoy the pseudo-social messaging component of the revamped experience.

Related Article: Google Might Remove Millions Of Apps From The Play Store
Agartala, March 9 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that the eastern and northeastern regions of India, along with Bangladesh, are being developed as a trade corridor.

Addressing a gathering virtually from Delhi via video-conferencing, the Prime Minister said that infrastructure for developing road, rail, airways and waterways has been developed and new projects launched to develop the eastern and northeastern region of India along with Bangladesh as a trade corridor.

"With the development of the varied infrastructure, economic opportunities would increase to a large extent not only in eastern and northeastern region of India but also in Bangladesh," Modi said, after inaugurating five projects and laying the foundation stones of four projects with a total investment of Rs 3,518 crore.

Of the nine projects, a 1.9-km-long bridge, built at a cost of Rs 133 crore over River Feni is the most significant venture to link India and Bangladesh by road and to access the Chittagong international sea port in Bangladesh by the northeastern states of India.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also virtually addressed the function organised to inaugurate the double lane Feni bridge named "Maitre Setu" (friendship bridge).

Modi said that he along with the Bangladesh Prime Minister jointly laid the foundation stone of the Feni river bridge a few years ago and today (Tuesday) was jointly opening the bridge for the traffic.

Hasina while addressing the function virtually from Dhaka said that the Bangladesh government has already announced allowing the northeastern states of India to get access not only to the Chittagong and Mongla sea ports but also the Chittagong airport.

She said: "Bangladesh had extended the necessary support to construct the "Maitre Setu". With the use of the Chittagong and Mongla sea ports, the distance between Tripura and Kolkata ports will be reduced to less than 100 km from the existing 1600 km." The Feni bridge has connected India's (southern Tripura) border town Sabroom with Ramgarh in Bangladesh. Tripura's Sabroom is 72 km by road from Chittagong sea port.

"We want to remove the entire political boundary. There should not be any political and economic barrier between us. Cross border transport system would boost the socio-economic condition of northeastern states of India. We are keen to develop our region as a prosperous one. Trade and commerce must be improved and extended to a large extent," Hasina said.

She said that Bangladesh had not forgotten Tripura's contributions, help and support during the 1971 liberation war.

Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday inaugurated and laid foundation stones of nine mega projects worth Rs 3,518 crore.

Besides the Feni bridge, he inaugurated the Integrated Command and Control Centre in Agartala (Rs 135 crore), 48 km portions of National Highway-08 in between Agartala and Udaipur (Rs 765 crore), 4,000 urban houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Urban) (Rs 813 crore) and PWD Roads (Rs 63 crore).

The PM also laid the foundation stone for four projects -- Integrated Check Posts in southern Tripura's border town Sanroom (worth Rs 232 crore), Kailashahar--Khowai National Highway-208 (worth Rs 1,078 crore), Multilevel car parking-cum-commercial complex(worth Rs 200 crore) and upgradation and widening of existing airport road from two lanes to four lanes (worth Rs 96 crore).

Tripura Governor Ramesh Bais and Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb among others also spoke in the gatherings.

Tuesday's rally and the functions were organised to mark the completion of three years of Bharatiya Janata Party-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura government in the state.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The state reached a settlement with Chesapeake Energy of a yearslong battle over leaseholder rights, the state attorney general said Monday.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro was in Tunkhannock to announce the agreement, which calls for $5.3 million in restitution for Pennsylvania landowners with Chesapeake leases and improved royalty payments going forward.

Depending on the type of lease they signed, affected Chesapeake leaseholders will receive about $367 or about $700, as well as the ability to decide what sort of agreement they want to have with Chesapeake moving forward.

The state filed a complaint against Chesapeake Energy in 2015 alleging the company engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices in securing natural gas leases. The state also alleged improper payment of royalties to Pennsylvania landowners.

Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June in Texas and emerged from it last month.

This is not the full victory that landowners desired and deserved, Shapiro said.

But the settlement provides for better payment of royalties for Pennsylvania landowners with Chesapeake leases going forward. It also improves protections for landowners through appointment of an ombudsman to investigate individual claims.

The bottom line here is that this settlement will end the abuse from Chesapeake and allow landowners to take a new lease with no deductions, Shapiro said.

He said payments could be made to offended parties in six to eight months.

This case is about standing up to powerful interests when they try to take advantage of people, Shapiro said.

Bob Sher, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Landowners Alliance, said his group had been working with the attorney generals office for nine years, but because of Chesapeakes bankruptcy situation, it wasnt what he had hoped for  though it is a positive step for the future.

Chesapeake communications and investor relations Director Gordon Pennoyer noted the agreement still requires the bankruptcy judges approval. The settlement has been filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division.

Chesapeake greatly values its relationships with Pennsylvania royalty owners and is pleased to have reached a global resolution with them and the attorney general that addresses royalty owners concerns, Pennoyer said in an email to The Associated Press. The company looks forward to working collaboratively with Pennsylvania royalty owners going forward.

The attorney generals office has posted a frequently asked questions sheet for those interested in how the settlement will affect them. It can be found online at www.attorneygeneral.gov/chesapeake/

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Apprehension of death due to COVID-19 not a ground for anticipatory bail: Supreme Court

Is this your policy on vaccination? SC asks Centre

SC rejects plea challenging 8 phase Bengal polls

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Mar 08: The Supreme Court has rejected a petition challenging the Election Commission's decision to conduct elections in West Bengal in 8 phases.

The plea, filed by lawyer M L Sharma, sought the court's direction to the poll panel to stop it from conducting eight-phase elections in the state as it violates Article 14 (right to life) and Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution.

On February 26, the Election Commission announced the schedule for assembly elections to be held in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and in Puducherry.

SC stays arrest warrant against BJP leader Bharati Ghosh till Bengal elections

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

While the Trinamool Congress Party-led West Bengal will have elections over eight rounds from March 27-April 29, polling in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry will be held in one phase on April 6 and in Assam over three phases.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 11:56 [IST]
Brendan Smialowski/Getty

Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants election crackdowns to emerge as one of the defining legacies of his post-presidency, having failed to cling to power during Republicans anti-democratic blitz during and following the 2020 race. And various GOP lawmakers and some of the ex-presidents most prominent allies are lining up to assist him, as Democrats watch in horror and strategize their counter-offensives.

These national and state policy battles have rapidly developed into one of the most critical partisan fights of Joe Bidens young presidency, with both parties viewing the outcomes as increasingly vital to their survival and future dominance at the ballot box.

In recent days, Trump has been calling up Senate allies, quizzing them about H.R. 1congressional Democrats signature elections and voting rights billaccording to two people familiar with the matter. The so-called For the People Act, which passed the House on March 3, includes a national mandate for same-day voter registration, requirements that states establish automatic voter registration, and making Election Day a national holiday. Its also chock-full of other measures, including campaign finance and redistricting reforms and a requirement that presidents release their income tax returnsall things that would be anathema to the ex-president.

Do you think it has a chance? the former president has privately inquired, asking for updates on how united Republicans are in efforts to kill the bill. He has been repeatedly assured by GOP senators and other associates that the legislation currently has very low odds of reaching President Bidens desk. Democrats agree, but momentum is growing within the party to change the Senates 60-vote threshold for legislation to a simple majority, explicitly in the name of passing H.R. 1.

That may be a while off still, but that hasnt stopped some top Trump allies from preemptively mapping out their plans to strike back if the bill ever becomes law.

Story continues

The [ACLJ] is reviewing H.R. 1 in light of possible legal challenges, if passed, Jay Sekulow, a personal attorney to Trump who also heads the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, told The Daily Beast in a recent interview. Were also evaluating various states election laws to make sure that theyre in compliance with the U.S. Constitution. Over the last several days, weve been following H.R. 1 very closely. I have assigned a team of lawyers to look at election issues generally.

SCOTUS Rejects Trumps Final Bid to Repeal 2020 Election Results

While Republicans and Team Trump attempt to stymie a key Democratic initiative on Capitol Hill, around the country, Democrats and voter advocates are overwhelmed by an onslaught of bills that have emerged on the state level to roll back voting rights in the wake of the 2020 election. Over 250 bills restricting voting access have been filed in 43 states since the beginning of the year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

This year certainly stands out in the sheer volume of these bills attacking voting rights and voting access, Eliza Sweren-Becker, counsel for voting rights at the Brennan Center, told The Daily Beast. They are driven by longstanding lies about voter fraud and election integrity that have come from organizations like [the] Heritage [Foundation] and others, that have been advanced by the former president and his allies last year... This is a widespread national project to suppress voting.

Republicans have been particularly active in states that Trump has fixated on since his loss. Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvanias GOP-led legislatures lead the way in proposing bills to limit voting rights. Arizona and Georgias Republican governors, Doug Ducey and Brian Kemp, were lambasted by Trump for seemingly not doing enough to overturn Bidens wins in their states; both are under significant pressure from their parties to sign new restrictions into law.

At his new home base in Florida, former President Trump has told advisers that he wants to help rally support for these types of state GOP voting restrictions through trips and speaking engagements, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said. Trump has hyperbolically argued that if he and his party fail to destroy Democratic ambitions on this issue early on in the Biden era, we might never win another election ever again, as hes phrased it to several people close to him. And last week, Trumps former vice president, Mike Pence, now a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, posted an opinion piece for the think tank arguing that Election reform is a national imperative, but under our Constitution, election reform must be undertaken at the state level.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who won a runoff race in Georgia thanks to record turnout just two months ago, is now watching from Washington, D.C., as GOP leaders in his home state push legislation that will almost certainly make it harder for Black people and other minority groups to vote. I think that the voter suppression legislation is flagrant, brazen, shameless, unconstitutional, Ossoff told The Daily Beast last Wednesday. Georgia's GOP should determine how to appeal to voters, not disenfranchise them because they lose.

These state-level developments made Democrats consideration of voting rights legislation in Congress, like H.R. 1, feel even more urgent. That sense of alarm, however, is growing faster than the space for Democrats to counter it on Capitol Hill. They can pass all the bills they want in the House, but getting the 60 votes needed in the Senate is all but impossible in the evenly-split chamberunless they jettison the filibuster.

It has not yet been clear that Democrats have nearly enough support within their caucus to get rid of the 60-vote threshold. But the prospect of voting rights bills dying a slow death on their watch may be changing that. In the wake of H.R. 1s passage, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)who did not embrace nuking the filibuster during her 2020 presidential runsaid she supported repealing the rule explicitly so voting rights and democracy reform measures could pass. Her home-state colleague, Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), soon followed, and cited voting rights as a reason why.

House Democrats are clamoring for the Senate to pass expanded voter protections and many believe the state-level bills will simply go unchecked if senators dont overcome their reservations around getting rid of the filibuster.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee with some jurisdiction over voting laws, represents a state she quipped has been basically surfing nationwide trends on voter suppression.

H.R. 1 is so important, Scanlon told The Daily Beast. That may be what sinks the filibuster, because if all this stuff goes through in the individual states and theres no way to counter it other than a federal law, that may be enough to get people on board.

When told that Trump remained active in pushing forward laws to restrict voting, Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) let out a laugh. No surprise, he said in an interview.

You cannot engage these people who are bad faith actors and expect a different result from the status quo, said Jones, also a member of the Judiciary panel. He cited Klobuchars support of ending the filibuster as a clear sign of momentum for H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill named for the late lawmaker and civil rights legend that aims to restore and strengthen voter protection for historically disenfranchised groups. This is all foundational stuff, he added. Nothing else comes close to being this important.

Many liberals, particularly in the House, have a hard time watching H.R. 1 stall while Team Trump and the GOP go full steam ahead on their measures to curtail voting accessmeasures explicitly predicated on the conspiracy of widespread election fraud.

Donald Trump and his Republican enablers, including Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick in Texas, are already employing the big lie that this past election was rigged and stolen in order to disenfranchise millions of citizens, particularly young, Black, and Latino voters, said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) to The Daily Beast.

And lets be clear-eyed with stakes, added Castro. If President Biden and Congress fail to safeguard our elections now, I fear for the future of our democracy.

In the face of pressure from the GOP and from within, Biden took his first action as president acknowledging the issue, rolling out an executive order on Sunday directing federal agencies to explore ways to expand voter access.

Jones, for one, believes Democrats should step up their efforts to fight back, both on and off Capitol Hill. He said he is not letting any media appearance or interview slide without mentioning the need to pass bills like H.R. 1 and says House Democrats should absolutely keep up the pressure on the Senate by continuing to pass more voting bills, like the VRAA.

I think we can do more, said Jones. This should not be controversial stuff. Its only controversial because Republicans cannot win on the merits of their policy ideas. They instead must resort to disenfranchising large swaths of American electorate.

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.
A CORK city councillor has spoken about returning to council meetings when her daughter was just seven weeks old due to a lack of maternity leave for elected representatives which she cited as a serious barrier to achieving gender-balanced representation in politics.

Sinn Fein councillor Fiona Kerins shared her experience at Monday nights full council meeting during a discussion on a motion submitted by Green Party councillor Colette Finn and Independent councillor Lorna Bogue stating that the chief executive of Cork City Council should enquire from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the progress being made on the implementation of a maternity leave scheme for councillors.

Its hard to believe that weve gotten to 2021 without a maternity leave scheme for female representatives in the Seanad, the Dail and for councils but its not surprising either when you see the imbalance in gender across the political spectrum.

Twelve months ago, I found myself in a position where my only option after giving birth was to not turn up to council and simply to be marked absent, something which I was very uncomfortable with doing," Ms Kerins said.

I found myself in a position being back at council meetings when my daughter was seven weeks old.

Councillor Fiona Kerins.

I was in a bizarre situation because while I was attending council meetings, I took a decision to create a bit of balance for myself that any outside committees or roles or clinics or when people called or asked me to call I would tell them that Im actually on leave at the moment but it wasnt maternity leave because Im not entitled to maternity leave, I was just taking leave myself.

It was a very awkward situation to be in.

Unless we address this fast, were going nowhere with our quest for gender equality, she said.

On Monday, Green Party councillor for South County Dublin Council Clare OByrne resigned from her role stating she had come to realise the impossibility of balancing her role as a new mother with that of a councillor.

Speaking at the Cork City Council meeting, Fine Gael councillor Garret Kelleher said the lack of maternity leave for elected representatives is a national embarrassment.

Its true to say there were more women in Dail Eireann in 1923 than there were in 1973, fifty years later.

Thats a sad indictment of the fact that politics in Ireland has, from its inception, been male-dominated. That continues to be the case, he continued.

Solidarity councillor Fiona Ryan said that while there seems to be unanimous support for a maternity leave scheme for elected representatives, nothing is happening.

If you ask any member of Government right now should councillors have maternity leave, I doubt theres a single one that would say no and yet, despite universal agreement nothing is happening, she said.

This international womens day I think I and all of us would like less claps on the back telling us what a good job weve done and more actual immediate reforms.

The motion at Mondays full council meeting was passed unanimously.
The Vietnamese economy will grow by 6.5 percent a year over the next decade as the government diversifies export markets and improves infrastructure, Fitch Solutions has forecast.

The forecast by the market research company is at the lower end of the governments 6.5-7 percent growth target for 2021-25.

Vietnams free trade agreements would help it expand external market access and avoid overdependence on a single trade partner, Fitch said in a note.

The country plans to prioritize imports of machinery and high-tech equipment, it said.

"A key difference in the economic strategy going forward is the governments aim to ascend the value chain and grow its high-tech industry."

However, this would require an increase in skill levels, which could only improve slowly over the coming decade, it said.

"We expect the skills shortage to pose an impediment to the countrys ascension up the value chain."

In terms of infrastructure development, in the next five years, Vietnam plans to complete the eastern cluster of the North-South Expressway, the first phase of the Long Thanh International Airport and over 1,700 kilometers of a coastal road from the northern province of Quang Ninh to the southern province of Ca Mau.

But tardy permit approvals and land acquisition are likely to delay infrastructure projects.

The government targets a budget deficit of 3.7 percent of GDP in the next five years.

"This implies that the government intends to borrow more to fund expenditures over the coming years."

The government also targets keeping public debt at 47.5 percent of GDP, below the 65 percent limit, which Fitch said is an achievable target given the strong economic growth potential.

Vietnams GDP growth was just 2.9 percent last year due to Covid-19 though it was one of the few economies in the world to achieve growth.
Funeral Announcements A daily list of current funeral annoucements as heard on KXRA 1490 AM/100.3 FM

News Updates The daily news, sports, and events delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.



Sports Update This current sports headlines delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.

Upcoming Events This email is the events of the area delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.

Breaking News The big news. Sent only as it happens.

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
NOTE: On the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 in New Jersey, we will publish several opinion pieces about our experiences over the past year. Today, the food bank administrator writes about how hunger grew during the pandemic. Wednesday, how the pandemic affected Black and brown communities.

By Carlos M. Rodriguez

Although too many neighbors were still struggling with hunger at the start of 2020, food insecurity had actually been shrinking for years, in New Jersey and nationwide. Then, COVID-19 struck in March and I knew that would change as businesses and schools were shuttered.

With 40% of adults already lacking enough savings to cover an unexpected $400 expense, I worried that food banks and pantries would see an influx of parents forced to skip meals, children lacking nutrition, and hungry seniors afraid to leave their homes. This fear came true instantaneously. Nearly a decade of progress in the fight against hunger was wiped out overnight as layoffs and reduced work hours made more of our neighbors than ever before unsure of where their next meals would come from.

As the states largest anti-hunger organization, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey (CFBNJ), with our network of 1,000 community partners, had to quickly mobilize to provide continued service to those already struggling while also accounting for a new surge in need.

About four in 10 people visiting food banks nationwide were asking for help for the first time  people who just days before had stable jobs and may even have been CFBNJ supporters. Even people in affluent towns and those whom you would least expect to be hungry needed help. Those working in the service and hospitality industries were especially hit hard. Atlantic City was one of the hardest-hit areas in the country.

Adding to the misery, panic buying and increased competition in the supply chain drove food donations from supermarkets down 50% and food prices up 20%, making it harder for us to procure larger quantities of food faster. Then, in April, unemployment in New Jersey reached a historic high at 15.3%.

With many pantries also closed to avoid exposure to COVID-19, CFBNJ hosted its first large-scale, contactless, drive-through distribution at Essex County Branch Brook Park to provide over 2,000 families with nutritious food. It was there that I first saw the impact that this crisis was having on families. As children sat strapped into their car seats for hours waiting with weary parents, I thought of my own two boys and how I wouldve felt if I couldnt provide for them. I met a college sophomore who lost her job, and I remembered my own days as a working student. She was with her mom and brother, who had also been laid off. They sought food assistance together, their savings accounts empty.

Having devoted decades of my life to ensuring access to critical resources for those in need, I am no stranger to emergency response. When the towers fell on 9/11, I was at FoodChange in New York City, and when Superstorm Sandy ravaged New Jerseys shores, I was the executive director at Fulfill (formerly the Food Bank of Monmouth & Ocean Counties).

The need has been unprecedented. At one of the food drives I met a college sophomore who lost her job, who arrived with her mom and brother, who had also been laid off. They sought food assistance together, their savings accounts empty. Above, an aerial view of a food distribution event on July 23, 2020 at Kean University. Photo courtesy of CFBNJ.

I have seen firsthand the vulnerability of those whose homes have been destroyed, who have lost their livelihoods, and who have suffered greatly in the turmoil of life-changing crises. But that day at Branch Brook Park, I realized that I had never experienced anything to the scale of this pandemic before.

The elevated need for food assistance persisted through the summer and fall. In September, CFBNJ reported that New Jersey was projected to face a 56% increase in food insecurity. This expectation became reality in the months that followed as we braced for a second wave of COVID-19. To respond to the need, we nearly doubled the amount of food on hand with the help of increased state funding, which helped provide 10 million additional meals.

Today, more than 1.2 million New Jerseyans are food insecure, including nearly 400,000 children. New Jerseys African American and Hispanic communities have been disproportionately impacted, having been more than twice as likely as white families to face hunger even before the pandemic.

Since that first pandemic food drive in Newark, weve hosted 40 similar events in 12 different counties. At each event, we served between 2,000 and 2,500 households waiting on lines that were seemingly endless  at least 1-2 miles long at any given time. People arrived as early as 6 a.m. to wait for them to start.

So, how do we fight hunger as we forge ahead through the recovery phase of the pandemic? We do it as we have all along, together and comprehensively. Working with community partners like the Bergen County Food Security Task Force and county officials, CFBNJ provided food for 78 million meals from March through January, a close to 60% increase over our largest-ever full year of distribution.

Today, more than 1.2 million New Jerseyans are food insecure, including nearly 400,000 children. New Jerseys African American and Hispanic communities have been disproportionately impacted, having been more than twice as likely as white families to face hunger even before the pandemic. Above, a team of volunteers from QuickChek packed hundreds of meals for a food drive in June. Courtesy photo of CFBNJCourtesy photo

Weve also witnessed incredible generosity, as new partnerships have emerged and communities have been galvanized to do all that they can for struggling residents.

The pandemic has required us to be resourceful locally, but also at the state and federal levels, working to affect policy change for vulnerable families. The Community Food Bank has championed enhanced unemployment benefits, the expansion of SNAP, and other measures that have made a positive difference. We and our community partners have lifted the voices of our neighbors to our elected officials and then helped them access financial assistance from the resulting policies. This is the power of collaboration and looking at the problem of hunger holistically.

This past year, the pandemic has been incredibly hard, and though vaccines are now being administered, we have not seen the need slow. People have taken out loans, spent their savings, and some are still unemployed. We expect that the food insecurity crisis will far outlast the pandemic.

So, together (but six feet apart) with all sectors of society, we must continually adapt with comprehensive policies, strong safety nets, and continued generosity to be there for those who still need our help.

Carlos M. Rodriguez is the president and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Heres how to submit an op-ed or Letter to the Editor. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
At one stage after she finally got to the private ward she heard a woman calling for help. Michelle Minchins left leg swollen like a balloon in compression stockings while waiting for a bed at Joondalup hospital. The nurses were so flat stick they couldnt get to her, Ms Minchin said. At one point I could hear her calling out help, help I think Im dying and no one was coming. Ms Minchin used a zimmer frame to get out of bed and managed to flag down a student nurse to help the woman.

Earlier she spent hours waiting for a CT scan which revealed an artery was pressing down on the vein that took blood out of her leg. But it was very difficult to pin down someone to give her the results. The nurses were lovely but they were like Im so sorry, we cant do anything, were stuck, she said. It was 10pm before she was finally wheeled to a bed in the holding zone but again there was a six-hour wait for her private room. Junior doctors who were unsure of what to do with her.

Eventually they phoned Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital whose specialist staff told them to send Ms Minchin over. Loading She did not receive emergency surgery in time to prevent the clot reaching her belly and even with the surgery she still got life-threatening pulmonary embolisms, or fragments of blood clot in her lungs. The risk factor of the clot is that if it shifts, it will go into my lungs and then I would pretty much suffocate from the inside, she said. She spent 24 hours in the high-dependency unit after surgery and six days in hospital.

She said the surgeons at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital were not surprised by her lengthy wait at Joondalup. But the issues are not just at Joondalup, with multiple complaints to Radio 6PR about Fiona Stanley Hospital. In an email to Liam Bartletts Mornings, Pam Couglin described how her 92-year-old father recently spent 9.5 hours ramped in an ambulance after his doctor ordered him to go straight to hospital since an X-ray showed he had Bronchial Pneumonia. The ambulance arrived at Fiona Stanley at 6.30pm on Monday, February 15, followed shortly by Pam and her sister. The paramedics, who we have nothing but praise for, advised us to go home as he will be ramped for at least 6-8 hours, she said.

We subsequently returned at midnight and asked the triage nurse if he could be transferred to Murdoch Hospital and she advised that there were no beds available. Loading She said it was 4am before her father was moved to an emergency holding bay and it was another nine hours before he made it to a ward. However they said he was unable to stay there and would be transferred to Fremantle Hospital, where there was one bed available, Ms Couglin said. By this time my father was so tired and distressed, I again requested he be admitted to any private hospital.

They finally found a bed in South Perth Hospital and he was transferred the next morning. The Health Department said public hospitals used a system that automatically calculated the minimum number of nurses needed based on ward occupancy, acuity and complexity. Loading They monitored and managed staffing on a shift by shift basis to address shortages and ensure staff on the wards could deliver safe care. A spokeswoman said they rarely worked below this minimum with nursing directors rather employing more nurses, or using staff who volunteered to work extra shifts.

Nurses who called in sick were replaced. Critical care areas were prioritised. She said nurse numbers did dip last year as a result of COVID-19 restrictions when elective surgery was paused. Some had not returned to their profession afterwards. With increased absenteeism and reduced access to agency staff this had sometimes meant nurses volunteering to work double shifts or overtime, or nurses from non-clinical areas going to the wards to assist. Despite unseasonably high demand staffing had been safely managed by utilising casual staff and additional shifts by part-time staff. There was also active recruitment for nurses going on.
Passionate speeches by fellow women farmers captured the attention of thousands of these women who have been protesting against the Centre's new farm laws.

New Delhi : Endless rows of women clothed in bright yellow and green colours, representing the hues of harvest, sat attentively under a collage of coloured canopies at Delhi borders on Monday.

On International Women's Day, hundreds of women took to streets while raising slogans of "kisan ekta" (farmer unity) and some broke into nonchalant rhythmic steps of bhangra'.

Similar scenes played out at all three protest sites around the national capital -- Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders-- to celebrate women's contribution to the 100-day strong farmers movement against the farm laws.

Noting that women contribute significantly to the country's farming sector, the organisers had laid out elaborate plans to let the community manage the stage, arrange food and security, and share tales of their struggles on the occasion.

"The stage is being managed by women, the speakers are all women and the issues that are being discussed are of both farming and women farmers more specifically," farmer leader Kavitha Kuruganti said on Monday.

"The discourse of the debate is focusing on women farmers. The debate is also on the contribution of women in this movement," Kuruganti, who is also a member of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, said.

She added that the participation of women has increased significantly with the arrival of "thousands of women".

Women reached the protest sites around Delhi in tractors, cars, jeeps and tempos, waving "mazdoor-Kisan" flags.

At a conference of women at Pakora Chowk-Tikri border, various issues related to women farmers were discussed. Activists of many progressive women organisations from Delhi also participated in this event, Samyukta Kisan Morcha said in a statement.

Saluting the "magnificent role" played by the women in the movement, Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta (Ugrahan) called to raise awareness of women's rights and increase their participation in the struggle.

"They (women) recognise that these laws are death warrants for farming occupations. They are standing side by side with men in this struggle and have become the most knowledgeable and responsible part of the movement. Due to the patience, resilience and sacrifices of women, they have emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the struggle," BKU Ekta said in a statement.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at the Delhi border points for over 100 days, demanding the repeal of farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price for their crops.

International Women's Day is celebrated across the world on March 8 and is a day when women are recognised for their achievements, according to the United Nations.

This year's theme -- Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World -- celebrates the tremendous efforts by women in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the pandemic, and highlights the gaps that remain, the UN Women stated.
A national political advisor has suggested that China should strengthen its grassroots vaccination teams.

Feng Danlong, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and a senior consultant for Pfizer China, suggested that the relevant national departments should strengthen China's grassroots vaccination teams.

Feng explained that this can be done through comprehensive measures, such as increasing the number of vaccinators, improving their capabilities, and raising their salaries.

Feng said that vaccination is one of the country's basic public health service programs. Therefore, the number and skills of vaccinators will directly affect the quality of Chinas vaccination services, affect the results of whether it can effectively prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases, and affect people's sense of gain and satisfaction concerning national public health services.

However, the immunization sector in China still has problems, such as insufficient resources and staff, low salaries, an urgent need for improvements in professionalism, and a loss of personnel.

In recent years, as more vaccines were administered in China, especially now with new vaccines being given to fight COVID-19, an increased pressure has been placed on vaccination services.

According to statistics cited by Feng, the average number of vaccinators per every 10,000 people in China was 1.7 in 2019, which apparently, met the official rule set in 2004, requiring at least one vaccinator being available for every 10,000 people. "But this cant meet the actual needs, as from 2004 to 2007, the variety of vaccines included in the national immunization program increased from five to 14, and the number has stayed unchanged since then. The vaccination workload has increased three-fold, but the staffing standard has not be adjusted, and the number of vaccinators has been decreasing year by year," she warned.

For instance, 5.58 million doses of vaccines outside the national immunization program were administrated in Shanghai in 2020, 1.75 million doses more than the number of vaccines defined in the immunization program.

In her proposal, Feng cited a survey conducted by Shandong University in 2017. It showed that in Beijing, the provinces of Guangdong, Hubei, Jilin and Yunnan, as well as in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, 33.33% of vaccinators only had secondary vocational school diplomas or lower, while 65.94% just held an elementary professional title or no title at all.

The survey also found that 54.35% of vaccinators had an average monthly income of 3,000 yuan ($460.97) or less  much lower than the income for staff at public hospitals in the same area.

The political advisor added that currently, although vaccination personnel needs to pass professional training programs and various assessments before taking up their posts, there is still a lack of systematic training and development plan to meet both current and future needs. "The work incentive mechanism for vaccination personnel needs to be improved, and the promotion channel for professional titles also needs to be improved," Feng stated.

Feng elaborated in her proposal that the relevant government authorities should conduct research and surveys as soon as possible, revise the standards for vaccination staffing based on the actual situation, and consider expanding the number of vaccination staff so that vaccinators can take on a suitable workload, and the quality of Chinas vaccination services can be further improved.

Finally, Feng appealed to the National Health Commission and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention that China should actively promote and strengthen digitization and IT application in vaccination work, adopt measures to improve the professionalism of current vaccinators, promote the welfare of vaccinators, and attract more professionals to engage in vaccination work.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
TAMPA, Fla., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Tampa, once considered a secondary market, has become one of Florida's most desirable cities to live. New residents are flocking to the area due to reasonably priced housing, no state income tax, great quality of life, less traffic, open bay views, more space and year-round sunshine. Business leaders, including the Tampa City Mayor, will participate in a webinar on March 11th to discuss why Tampa has emerged as the new hotspot for buyers. The area is ranked 4th in the United States in terms of the biggest net inflow of new residents.

Marina Pointe on Tampa Bay

The webinar is being hosted by Marina Pointe, one of the most luxurious condominium developments in Tampa Bay. Scheduled for March 11th at 9:30 am, the panel consists of:

Jane Castor , City of Tampa Mayor

, Mayor Noah Breakstone, CEO of BTI Partners

Craig Richard , CEO of Tampa Bay Economic Development Council

, CEO of Tampa Bay Economic Development Council Chris Minner , Executive Vice President of Tampa Bay International Airport

, Executive Vice President of International Airport Dennis MacDonald , MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Greater Tampa REALTORS

, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Greater Tampa REALTORS Maria Grulich , Global Director of Florida Realtor Association

As visitors descended to Tampa for the Super Bowl, many saw how fast the city has evolved in the last five years. Construction cranes dot the skyline as luxury condos have begun to pop up across the city. Walkable enclaves are transforming Tampa's waterfront landscape. In fact, Tampa has become one of the nation's top 25 most walkable cities, according to Walkscore.com.

Able to work remotely due to the pandemic, residents from the Northeast and around the world have relocated to Tampa to enjoy a waterfront lifestyle without the hassle of big cities. In fact, Tampa is in the top 10 for largest population increases from 2017 to 2019, according to Freddie Mac.

Marina Pointe' s developer BTI Partners will facilitate the panel discussion on Tampa Bay's hot residential market. Marina Pointe, currently under construction, is at the heart of BTI Partners' 52-acre Westshore Marina District. The mixed-use community includes retail, waterfront restaurants, urban trails and parks, a deep-water marina, unrestricted access to Tampa Bay and luxury residences.

Event sponsors are:

Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Tampa Bay

Global Tampa Bay

FIABCI

Greater Tampa Association of Realtors

Register for the webinar here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tampa-bay-emerges-as-one-of-the-hottest-markets-in-the-us-webinar-registration-142013988663

For more information, contact Paola Iuspa-Abbott, president of Top of Mind PR, [email protected], 305.726.5848

SOURCE Marina Pointe
Karl Stefanovic has claimed Meghan Markle and Harry's world-stopping interview with Oprah Winfrey has achieved nothing and is 'incredibly sad' for the family.

In the final moments of Nine's Crown in Crisis program on Tuesday night the Today anchor was asked by his co-host Leila McKinnon whether he was a 'monarchist or a Meghan and Harry man'.

'Look, I think it's only going to go on for them. I think as much as they wanted it to be a full stop, it is only going to go on for them,' he replied.

'What has happened as a result of this interview, as much as it's anything else, I think it's sad. They've aired it all and it's incredibly sad for that whole family.'

Stefanovic said he didn't know what good came out of the interview.

'I get that someone wants to say something about what they've been through, but I just don't - I don't think it was the right thing to do. I don't know what it achieved,' Karl continued.

'Whatever they wanted in their minds, it worked.'

Karl Stefanovic said he didn't know what good came out of Harry and Meghan's tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey

The Today host said the he didn't think it was the right thing of Harry and Meghan to do

The tell-all interview aired in the US on CBS on Sunday evening, and touched on topics such as mental health, the couple's son Archie and 'racism' in the Royal family.

Meghan alleged to host Oprah Winfrey that Harry had been asked by a relative when she was pregnant 'how dark' their unborn baby would be.

She claimed Archie being mixed-race was a 'problem' for the Royals after Oprah asked her if they were worried their son would be 'too brown'.

Meghan claimed Archie being mixed-race was a 'problem' for the Royals after Oprah asked her if they were worried their son would be 'too brown'

The former Suits star would not reveal which family member had raised the question, because it would be 'too damaging' for them.

The duchess also revealed her shock at the idea her son would not be given security, and that he wouldn't be titled like all the other Royal grandchildren.

Meghan also revealed she felt suicidal when she was five months pregnant due to the pressures of royal life and claimed 'she couldn't be left alone'.

'I knew that if I didn't say it, that I would do it. I just didn't want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought,' she said.

Meghan also revealed she felt suicidal when she was five months pregnant due to the pressures of royal life and revealed she 'couldn't be left alone'

Meghan claimed the Buckingham Palace HR department ignored her plea for help because she wasn't a 'paid employee'.

She also admitted to being 'naive' when she entered the Royal family, who she said were initially welcoming but later 'silenced' her, making her feel trapped.

'When I joined that family, that was the last time I saw my passport, my driving licence, my keys - all of that gets turned over,' she said.

Meghan said palace officials had 'lied' to protect other Royals instead of them, while Harry said his father, Prince Charles, stopped answering his calls and cut him off.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex released this picture last month to announce they are expecting their second child

The prince said he had to sign multi-million dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify because he was spending his inheritance from Princess Diana and the palace wanted Meghan to go back into acting to pay the bills.

As for his father and brother Harry said they were 'both trapped', saying he and his brother 'had a shared experience but were on different paths'.

He added his mother Diana would be 'angry and sad' that he felt he had to leave the Royal family, but 'she saw it coming.'

The Duchess of Sussex said Harry 'saved her life' by agreeing to move to Los Angeles, where they live with their son Archie and resident hens.

The couple now wish to live their lives authentically, and revealed to the tens of millions people watching the interview they are expecting a baby girl.
RingCentral Expands Operations in Australia

RingCentral, Inc. based in Belmont, California, provides cloud-based communications and collaboration solutions for businesses of any size and in any industry sector. On its web site, RingCentral notes that its a company goal to work with its customers to reimagine the world of business communications and collaboration.

The companys world recently got a bit larger with the announcement of the availability of RingCentral Video and RingCentral Rooms in Australia via its subsidiary in that country, RingCentral Australia Pty Ltd. The company has opened new data center to securely store customer data in Australia, which will open its cloud communications and contact center platforms for any organization in Australia. The data center brings RingCentrals video meetings and cloud phone system in compliance with Australias data sovereignty regulations, including the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles.

At RingCentral we are focused on enabling organisations to modernise their business communications by moving to the cloud and allowing their people to be productive from anywhere, said Peter Hughes, regional VP of sales for APAC at RingCentral, in a statement. With the announcement of RingCentral Video and RingCentral Rooms, we are bringing a more enhanced and collaborative experience with greater security and accessibility for all people  both internal and external to the organization, wherever they are working  be that at home, in the office, or on-the-go.

In its announcement, RingCentral noted that Australia remains a key strategic location for the company. The new data center will be available on demand and offer RingCentral customers the ability to register endpoints in-country, and keep voice and video call data, including voicemail, call recordings, faxes and call logs, stored locally in Australia.

In addition to announcing the expansion of the companys product line in Australia, RingCentral also announced that RingCentral Rooms will be compatible with Poly devices including Poly Studio X30 and Poly Studio X50 in region. RingCentral Rooms for Poly is generally available to all customers in Australia and is fully integrated with Poly Studio X30 and Poly Studio X50 plug-and-play USB video bars which bring simplicity, convenience, and a seamless modern meeting experience to physical workspaces, said the company.

Please enable JavaScript to view the

Edited by Maurice Nagle
Aussie Housing Boom Continues as International Investors Surge on the Back of Pandemic Response

Australias real estate market is continuing to boom, but unlike the 2016 housing surge, investors are not coming from China.

Residential housing experienced its strongest month of growth in February since 2003, with overseas investors from the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Hong Kong showing a keen interest in the local residential property, as investors feel positive about the economic recovery in Australia.

According to Domain, investor loans were up 22.7 percent over the last year from January and 9.4 percent over the month.

Nerida Conisbee, chief economist at realestate.com.au, speculates that the positive situation with COVID-19 and quick economic recovery is behind the surge.

It could be a lot of people potentially looking to move to Australia because of better economic conditions [compared to the U.S. and the UK], she said.

A woman walks past a real estate agents window advertising houses for sale and auction in Melbourne on May 1, 2019. (WILLIAM WEST/Getty Images)

The small beachside town in New South Wales, Byron Bay, is getting a particularly large amount of interest from Americans. It is largely influenced by the influx of Hollywood celebrities who have settled in the town, either permanently or long-term.

Its interesting looking at the U.S. property search, as one of the top destinations is Byron Bay. So there is potentially more movement to beachside areas from the U.S. and UK following reopening of borders, Conisbee said.

According to a report by the REA group (pdf), online searches for Australian property increased in 2020 with the biggest jump coming from the U.S., which had a 57 percent jump in real estate searches.

Hong Kong was second at 17 percent, and Singapore followed at 15 percent. Searches from Canada, the UK and New Zealand for Australian real estate also saw a rise over the last year.

Conisbee believes that the growth in interest from Hong Kong is potentially tied to the political situation in the area, which is causing many citizens to flee to other democratic countries including Australia, to keep their rights and freedom.

A British National Overseas passports (BNO) and a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China passport are seen in Hong Kong, on Jan. 29, 2021. (Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

Hong Kong has a very challenging political situation there at the moment and a challenging economic situation, but Hong Kong is the one that we would see most likely flow through to people moving here, Conisbee said. Asian buyers tend to be bigger buyers when searching for property overseas.

Foreign investors from Hong Kong and Singapore have also made significant amounts of transactions for Australian commercial real estate, filling the void left by Chinese investors withdrawing from the scene.

According to CBRE, Singapore was the most active source of outbound capital in the Asian region in 2020 of which Australia received the third most at US$3.8 billion (AU$5.5 billion).

Chinese Investment In Rapid Decline

Meanwhile, Chinese searches for Australia homes has continued to fall, dropping 39 percent which is not surprising given Chinese investment across the board in Australia has plummeted by 61 percent.

However, Chinese investment in Australian property was already on a downward trend beginning its fall after the Chinese Communist Party started tightening its regulations in 2017 around capital outflows. It coincided with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) implementing tougher restrictions for banks when lending to both local and foreign investors.

A prospective buyer looks at a property on February 14, 2015 in Blacktown, Australia (Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

With the breakdown of Australia-China relations and continued economic restriction policies from both sides, Chinese investment looks like it will continue to trend downwards.

At this stage, there is nothing that has really changed to entice them back so I dont think they will be back in droves anytime soon, Conisbee said.
SAO PAULO, Mar. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- After an agreement and the recent emission of NTP ("Notice To Proceed" or "Service Order") with Focus Energia, an integrated energy business platform, Sungrow will supply inverters and MV stations for the implementation of the first phase of the Futura Project, an 852 MWp solar park that will soon be one of the largest in operation in Latin America.

Considering the environmental authorizations already issued, approximately two thousand hectares will be destined for the implementation of the 22 parks in the first phase of the Project ("Projeto Futura I"), with 38.73 MWp each. The designated area is about 40 km from the urban center of Juazeiro, in the north of the State of Bahia. Upon completion, its total capacity will be approximately 852 MWp, with an estimated investment of more than 2.2 billion Reais. In addition to the commissioning and start-up service, Sungrow plans to supply more than 100 MVS6300-LV transformation stations and more than 3,000 SG250HX inverters. The Futura I Project will be the largest photovoltaic plant under construction with bifacial modules, trackers, and string inverters in Latin America.

During the process of technical analysis of Sungrow's solution with Focus, it was clear to Sungrow that some factors were decisive to the contract, such as its high performing inverters, the flexibility of reactive energy production in both day and night, the reduction of the capacitor banks needed to meet the requirements of the study of connection to the concessionaire network, and the fact that the SG250HX which is compatible with bifacial modules of 600 Wp.

Another fundamental differential was the high performance and low losses in the transformation of energy in MV station. In practice, the MV station gathers RMU, transformers and the low voltage three-phase panels of 800Vac, 3200A, according to NBR IEC 61439-1. The transformers supplied by Sungrow have a high efficiency especially compared to those normally sold in the Brazilian market, offering a higher yield of at least 0.2%, due to the manufacturing processes and low equipment losses. All of this translates into greater efficiency and the possibility to optimize the overall investment of the project.

According to Rafael Ribeiro, Country Manager of Sungrow Brazil, the company sees the importance of the Futura Project for the country and highlights its social and economic impact in the city of Juazeiro. "Supporting Focus in a project like this is a great responsibility and accomplishment for our team. It is estimated that more than eight thousand direct and indirect jobs will be generated in the region," said Rafael Ribeiro.

The installation work is scheduled to start in April of this year and the plant's commercial operation is scheduled to start in the first half of 2022.



About Sungrow

Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd ("Sungrow") is the world's most bankable inverter brand with over 154 GW installed worldwide as of December 2020. Founded in 1997 by University Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow is a leader in the research and development of solar inverters, with the largest dedicated R&D team in the industry and a broad product portfolio offering PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems for utility-scale, commercial, and residential applications, as well as internationally recognized floating PV plant solutions. With a strong 24-year track record in the PV space, Sungrow products power installations in over 150 countries. Learn more about Sungrow by visiting www.sungrowpower.com.

SOURCE Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd

Related Links

www.sungrowpower.com


Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 06:29:08|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

MEXICO CITY, March 8 (Xinhua) -- A shortage of semiconductors for car manufacturers in North America could end by mid-year, but will cause a drop in vehicle production, President of Mexico's National Auto Parts Industry (INA) Oscar Albin said on Monday.

During a virtual press conference, Albin said the global scarcity of chips could lead to 264,186 fewer vehicles being produced in North America this year.

"We believe this problem ... will end by the middle of the year, and in July we will begin to resume our production capacity at 100 percent," Albin told reporters.

The North American region, made up of Canada, the United States and Mexico, could produce some 16.2 million vehicles this year, according to Albin.

The president of the INA described the lack of chips "as a problem but not a crisis," given its low impact.

Around 150 different models of cars are produced in the region, of which 47 have been affected by the shortage, he said.

Worldwide, chip shortages were largely aggravated this year by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and lockdown measures imposed to prevent its spread. Enditem
We listen to local police and fire departments scanner traffic, but sometimes miss crimes, wrecks, fires or other incidents, especially if they happen overnight. If you know of something were not covering yet, please let Managing Editor Jeff Pownall know by emailing him at jeff.pownall@lufkindailynews.com, or submit a news tip online by visiting lufkindailynews.com/tips.
California Peace Officers' Memorial Foundation Without our sponsors and corporate partners, the programs and support provided by the California Peace Officers Memorial Foundation would not be possible.

California Casualty donated $15,000 to the California Peace Officers Memorial Foundation (CPOMF) to financially support their education scholarship/grant program. The CPOMF Scholarship Program provides educational grants to surviving spouses and children of California peace officers who have died in the line of duty.

Typically the fallen officer has been the primary wage earner for his/her family. The CPOMF Scholarship Program eases the financial burden suddenly placed on the family left behind and assists in creating opportunity for long term success. All surviving spouses and children of fallen officers are eligible for the CPOMF Scholarship Program. Many of the scholarship grants use additional scholarship funding not just for student tuition but housing, books and supplies, etc.

The financial contribution was made in support of the ongoing efforts of the CPOMF: to recognize and honor Californias fallen heroes and to provide services, financial assistance, advocacy and support to the surviving families left behind.

Fallen Hero Families make the greatest sacrifice of losing their spouse, father, or mother to create a safer community to live and work in. CPOMF honors those who fall in the line of duty and their families by providing meaningful scholarships. Educational grants are not limited to four-year colleges or universities but extend to Community Colleges Trade or Vocational Schools for surviving spouses and children of California Fallen Heroes. California Casualtys Scholarship Grant is one small way to give back to Californias Law Enforcement Families who have suffered such tremendous loss.  Roxanne Dean, Vice President Account Relations

The California Peace Officers Memorial Foundation (CPOMF) mission is to organize, coordinate and fund the annual California Peace Officers Memorial Ceremony, maintain the memorial monument, subsidize survivor support groups (e.g., COPS & Peer Support groups), and support the families of our fallen heroes through educational grant and financial assistance programs.

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable foundation run by a board of volunteers comprised of retired and active peace officers from across California, the CPOMF is solely funded by donations from Corporate Sponsors, individuals and law enforcement associations. California Casualty contributes to the CPOMF Scholarship Fund every year.

We are thankful for long-term Corporate Sponsors, such as, California Casualty. Without our sponsors and corporate partners, the programs and support provided by the California Peace Officers Memorial Foundation would not be possible. California Casualty has been an active partner supporting the CPOMF board, activities, and events for the last 14 years that Ive been involved with this organization. California Casualty understands their financial impact allows for CPOMF to provide survivor assistance and scholarships to the family members of Californias Fallen Peace Officers. - Sergeant Kevin Michelson is the President of CPOMF and the President of Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs Association.

Any individual or organization wanting to donate to the California Peace Officers Memorial Foundation (CPOMF) can do so by visiting https://camemorial.org/donate-now.

About California Casualty

Founded in 1914 and headquartered in San Mateo, California with service centers in Arizona, Colorado and Kansas, California Casualty provides public safety employees and volunteers across the country auto and home insurance with special rates, generous discounts and unique benefits not available to the general public. Learn more about California Casualty at http://www.calcas.com or call 1.800.800.9410.


Aspen, CO (81611)

Today

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 43F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 43F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
[March 09, 2021] ManhattanLife Assurance Company of America Acquires Western Skies MGU

ManhattanLife Assurance Company of America announced today its acquisition of Western Skies MGU, expanding its presence into the self-funded medical stop loss market. Western Skies MGU is a national wholesaler and Program Manager of self-funded medical stop-loss health plans. Stop-loss coverage is purchased by self-insured employers looking for coverage for catastrophic medical and pharmacy claims. Data available from S&P Global estimates the stop-loss market at $24 billion. In addition to providing its own Stop-loss reinsurance, ManhattanLife will continue wholesaling coverage through Western Skies MGU. "The shift to self-insured health plans has been steadily growing over time and has been really pronounced since the inception of the Affordable Care Act," said David W. Harris, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of ManhattanLife. "Bringing Western Skies experienced underwriting, sales and claims talent into the mix helps achieve our market expansion objectives." Headquartered in Las Vegas, Western Skies MGU was established in 2019. It focuses on traditional networks and building cost effective Reference Based Pricing (RBP) reimbursement models. The result is lower operating costs for both network and RBP groups. <> "Our union with ManhattanLife is a perfect match," said Daniel Smith, President of Western Skies MGU. "The entrepreneurial culture at ManhattanLife has long fueled its growth and we are happy to be affiliated with the group. We are excited to accelerate our growth and provide brokers with unique solutions that the stop-loss market demands."



About ManhattanLife Assurance Company of America ManhattanLife is a group of six operating life and health insurance companies: The Manhattan Life Insurance Company; ManhattanLife Assurance Company of America; ManhattanLife of America; Western United Life Assurance Company; Family Life Insurance Company and Standard Life and Casualty Insurance Company. Since 1850, these companies have provided secure and innovative life and health insurance products and services throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. Manhattanlife.com

About Western Skies MGU Western Skies MGU is a national wholesaler and Program Manager of self-funded medical stop loss health plans, offering Reference Based Pricing (RBP) and traditional PPO network options. Western Skies MGU underwriting is led by David Kesler dave.kesler@wsmgu.com. SVP of sales, Shaun Johnson is available to discuss employer stop loss options #shaunjohnson or Shaun.johnson@wsmgu.com; wsmgu.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005199/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Across the U.S., Americans are getting a taste of a post-pandemic life.

Over the past weekend, New Yorkers watched movies on the big screen, people in San Francisco dined indoors, and in Florida, Spring Breakers were out in full force.

SEAN, VISITING FROM NEW YORK, SAYING: "We love Miami. We are out here."

With cities and states loosening restrictions as new COVID-19 cases recede and the rollout of vaccines accelerates, people are enjoying a taste of their old lives again.

NEW YORK RESIDENT, ALEX: "It feels amazing. It feels really good. I'm excited I decided to not work today, and I just came to the theater. As soon as I read the movie theaters were open, I got a ticket literally 10 minutes later."

He isn't the only one feeling upbeat.

In just one month, the mood in the United States has rebounded from an eight-year low to the highest level recorded by Reuters/Ipsos polls that date back to 2012.

But amid the re-openings, it has not entirely been business as usual.

San Francisco restaurants remain restricted to 25% capacity inside. Chicago at 50%.

While in New York, movie houses opened last week to 25% capacity, with no more than 50 people per screen, following state guidelines.

Health officials warn that despite the rollbacks and the improvement in COVID cases, Americans should still be cautious and wear masks.

Video Transcript

[CHEERING]

- Across the US, Americans are getting a taste of post-pandemic life. Over the past weekend, New Yorkers watched movies on the big screen. People in San Francisco dined indoors. And in Florida, spring breakers were out in full force.

- We love Miami.

- [INAUDIBLE] We out here.

- With cities and states loosening restrictions as new COVID-19 cases recede and the roll out of vaccines accelerates, people are enjoying a taste of their old lives again.

- It feels amazing. It feels really good. I'm excited. I decided to not work today. And I just came to the theater. As soon as I read that movie theaters were open, I got a ticket literally 10 minutes later.

- He isn't the only one feeling upbeat. In just one month, the mood in the United States has rebounded from an eight-year low to the highest level recorded by Reuters Ipsos polls that date back to 2012. But amid the reopenings, it has not entirely been business as usual. San Francisco restaurants remain restricted to 25% capacity inside. Chicago, at 50%. While in New York, movie houses opened last week to 25% capacity, with no more than 50 people per screen, following state guidelines.

Health officials warn that despite the rollbacks and the improvement in COVID cases, Americans should still be cautious and continue to wear masks.
It is important to recognize that what society understands to be relevant and/or common knowledge changes over time, and so too does the Library and the needs of the communities it serves, Patrick Molloy, a spokesperson with the library, said in a statement. Library staff encourage patrons of all ages to engage critically with our materials, but materials that become dated or that foster inaccurate, culturally harmful stereotypes are removed to make space for more current, comprehensive materials.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Pope Francis gives a news conference aboard the papal plane on his flight back after visiting Iraq, March 8, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/Pool

Pope Francis said that he decided to visit Iraq despite a rise in Covid-19 cases after much prayer and contemplation and suggested God would protect those who came to see him from the virus.

Speaking to reporters on the plane returning from his trip, Francis also said he realised that some conservative Catholics would see his meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as one step from heresy but that sometimes it was necessary to take a risk in inter-religious relations.

The 84-year-old Francis, speaking while standing for about 50 minutes, said the trip, his first foreign visit in 16 months, had left him much more fatigued than previous ones.

But he said he felt reborn after feeling like I was imprisoned by coronavirus restrictions. He added that 84 years do not come without baggage and that he could not say if he would make fewer trips in the future.

While mask and social distancing regulations were respected at some indoor papal gatherings, where participation was limited, thousands of mostly young people attended a Mass at Erbil stadium on Sunday night and most were not abiding by the rules.

The Pope has often urged people to respect guidelines of local authorities and the Vatican said before the trip they were confident that Iraqi officials would be able to make people follow the rules.

A reporter asked if he worried that people who came to see him could get sick and possibly even die.

Trips cook slowly over time in my conscience. And this (the virus threat) is one of the things that most made me think perhaps, perhaps, Francis said.

I thought about it a lot, I prayed a lot over this. And in the end I took the decision freely.

It came from within and I said the one who allows me to decide this way will look after the people, he said, apparently referring to God.

That is how I made the decision, after prayer and after awareness of the risks, he said.

One of the most significant moments of the trip was the Popes meeting on Saturday in the holy city of Najaf with the 90-year-old Sistani, one of the most influential figures in Shiite Islam

Sometimes you just have to take a risk, he said of the meeting.

There are some critics who say that the Pope is not courageous, but reckless, that he is doing things against Catholic doctrine that are one step away from heresy, he said.

Throughout his papacy, conservatives have criticised his opening to the Muslim world, including the signing in 2019 of a joint document on inter-religious fraternity during a visit to Abu Dhabi.

That visit was the first by a pope to the Arabian peninsula, home of Islams most sacred sites.

These are risks but these decision are always taken in prayer, he said, adding that he found Sistani to be a great sage, a man of God, and that the meeting did my soul good.

On Sunday morning in Mosul, Francis heard Muslim and Christian residents in the ruined city tell of their lives under Islamic State, which occupied it from 2014 to 2017.

He told reporters the visit to Mosul, where he sat surrounded by the wreckage of buildings, dangling concrete staircases, and cratered ancient churches, had left him shocked by the unbelievable cruelty that took place.

Francis said he badly wanted to make a visit to Lebanon as soon as possible to show solidarity with the people of all religions suffering there.
The Marine Corps should reduce the number of new heavy-lift helicopters it buys until initial operational testing is complete, a new government watchdog report finds. That recommendation is based on a track record of technical problems with the CH-53K King Stallion program that have led to schedule delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns.

The service launched the program in 2005 to replace the older CH-53E helicopter with a more powerful aircraft to transport heavy weapons, equipment and supplies from ship to shore.

A Government Accountability Office, or GAO, report released this month found that, while the Lockheed Martin-Sikorsky CH-53K program has made progress, there is a "moderate risk" that the new aircraft will not meet the required levels of reliability and payload-carrying capability by the end of operational testing.

Read More: New Executive Order Requires Pentagon to Track Military Absentee Ballots

Technical issues -- ranging from engine shutdown from exhaust gas reingestion to a flawed power distribution unit design -- resulted in a seven-year delay to the full-rate production decision from December 2015 to November 2022, the report states.

"CH-53K total program costs also increased by nearly $15.3 billion since the program began due to technical issues and a quantity increase [to] fielded helicopters from 156 to 200," according to the report.

As a result, the GAO recommends that the Pentagon prohibit the Marine Corps from buying more than six CH-53Ks per year until initial operational test and evaluation, or IOT&E, is completed.

IOT&E is slated to start operational testing in June 2021, about two years later than intended, and to be complete in 2022, the GAO states.

The Defense Department did not agree with the GAO's recommendation, according to a Pentagon response in the report.

The Marine Corps plans to buy seven CH-53Ks in fiscal 2021, 11 in fiscal 2022, 12 in fiscal 2023, 18 in fiscal 2024 and 23 in fiscal 2025.

"A reduction in planned FY2021 and FY2022 quantities poses greater risk to the viability and affordability of the production program than the risk posed by the remaining technical challenges," according to the Pentagon's response. "Additionally, there is no quantifiable data provided in the report that reasonably concludes that procuring six helicopters per year will reduce the risk of remaining technical challenges or potential concurrency issues."

The Pentagon argues that the GAO's recommendation would affect more than fiscal years 2021 and 2022.

"Reductions of one aircraft in FY2021 and five in FY2022 would require subsequent reductions in future years to reestablish a realistic, achievable production ramp rate," according to the DoD response in the GAO report. "A major reduction in procurement would cause significant cost increases from Sikorsky and its suppliers as well as significant delays to transitioning the Fleet Marine Force from the aging CH-53 E to the CH-53 K."

The new CH-53K is designed to transport external loads of more than 27,000 pounds over a range of 110 nautical miles at an altitude of 3,000 feet without refueling -- a major performance improvement over the CH-53E.

But technical issues identified during developmental testing have "delayed the start of operational testing, resulted in the extension of the development contract period of performance, and put the program at risk of not meeting some performance goals," according to the GAO report.

As of November 2020, the program had identified 126 technical deficiencies or issues with the CH-53K, the report states.

"At a higher level, some of these technical issues can affect the helicopter's airworthiness -- the helicopter's ability to safely attain, sustain, and terminate a flight within approved usage limits -- as well as sustainment costs, or performance of the helicopter," according to the report.

Program officials have a temporary fix for the CH-53's flawed power distribution unit, or PDU, according to the GAO. If left unfixed, the faulty design had the potential to have "a single point failure causing important systems to lose power," the report states.

An earlier version of the tail rotor flexbeam, which connects the tail rotor hub to the individual blades, was delaminating during flight tests. A temporary solution is now in place, according to the GAO.

The Marine Corps announced in 2019 that engineers had fixed mechanical problems on the CH-53K, including an exhaust-gas reingestion issue that resulted in the aircraft sucking dirty air back into its engine, a problem that can cause overheating and engine shutdown.

To start IOT&E, the program "determined that it must verify the steps to address 106 of 126 technical issues" identified during developmental testing, according to the GAO.

As of October 2020, the program office reported that, of those 106 issues, 75 have solutions closed, 30 are pending verification, and one has a solution being developed, the GAO states.

"Program officials also stated that the program is on track to have fixes for all 126 issues verified and closed prior to the first deployment in fiscal year 2024," according to the report.

The GAO stressed that it remains important that program management focus on resolving technical challenges that might affect the helicopter's performance before producing more of the aircraft.

"Specifically, the extension of the schedule for completion of testing in the context of a planned increase in production of CH-53K helicopters raises the risk that costs will rise to pay for retrofitting aircraft produced before testing is completed," the report states. "Increasing production beyond the current level of six per year -- in the face of unresolved technical challenges and still-to-be completed testing -- could prove costly and delay delivery of suitable aircraft to the warfighter."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Related: Marines Say They've Fixed Engine Troubles on New King Stallion
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 18:30:46|Editor: zh

Video Player Close

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, speaks when attending a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police Force at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, capital of China, March 9, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping Tuesday stressed achieving a good start in strengthening national defense and the armed forces during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while attending a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police Force, at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress, China's top legislature. Enditem
Chinese military vehicles carrying DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles, potentially capable of sinking a US Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in a single strike, travel past Tiananmen Gate during a military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Andy Wong/Pool

China fired off multiple mid-range missiles into the South China Sea in August.

The head of INDOPACOM said Tuesday that China fired off DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles.

He said the move was intended to "hone PLA warfighting skills and send an unmistakable message.'

Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

The top US admiral in the Indo-Pacific region told lawmakers Tuesday that the Chinese military fired multiple carrier killer missiles into the South China Sea last year to send an "unmistakable message" about its ability to threaten American aircraft carriers.

Last summer, the Chinese armed forces fired off four mid-range ballistic missiles into the South China Sea during a training exercise. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, which first reported the launches, identified some of the missiles as DF-21D anti-ship missiles.

Adm. Philip Davidson, the combatant commander currently leading US Indo-Pacific Command, provided additional clarity on Chinese activities on Tuesday, explaining to the Senate Armed Services Committee that last August, "the [People's Republic of China] conducted coordinated DF-21D missile launches into the South China Sea."

Commonly referred to as "carrier killer" missiles, "these mid-range, anti-ship ballistic missiles are capable of attacking aircraft carriers in the western Pacific," he said

Watch: Expert uncovers new Chinese nuclear missle sites

Davidson told lawmakers that China's use of such weapons "during a large-scale [People's Liberation Army] exercise demonstrates the PLA's focus on countering any potential third-party intervention during a regional crisis."

The commander said that the PRC "is not merely developing advanced weapons systems but is increasingly employing them in training and exercise scenarios to hone PLA warfighting skills and send an unmistakable message to regional and global audiences" about China's capabilities.

Story continues

Davidson characterized China's actions, specifically the incorporation of advanced assets into realistic training scenarios, as "critical steps as the PLA prepares for modern warfare."

There are still a lot of unknowns about the military exercise last summer in which Chinese forces fired off multiple anti-ship ballistic missiles, but in November, Wang Xiangsui, a retired Chinese military officer, claimed that the anti-ship missiles struck a moving training vessel, SCMP reported.

The retired officer, whose knowledge of the exercise is unclear, reportedly described the exercise as a "show of force" and a reaction to American provocations in the region.

The US Navy deploys carrier strike groups into the contested waters of the South China Sea regularly. It sometimes conducts dual carrier operations, as it did most recently in February.

Last July, as the Navy's Ronald Reagan and Nimitz carrier strike groups conducted joint operations in the disputed waterway, China's state-affiliated tabloid Global Times wrote that "China has a wide selection of anti-aircraft carrier weapons like DF-21D and DF-26 'aircraft carrier killer' missiles."

The tabloid, citing unnamed analysts, wrote that the "South China Sea is fully within the grasp of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), and any US aircraft carrier movement in the region is solely at the pleasure of the PLA."

The US Navy responded to the Global Times article on Twitter, writing that the carrier strike groups operating in the international waters of the South China Sea "are not intimidated."

The DF-21D is a conventionally-armed variant of the DF-21 intermediate-range missile specifically designed for targeting ships, particularly the aircraft carriers that have long served as key elements of US power projection.

The missiles have an estimated range of around 1,000 miles and are an important part of China's anti-access/area-denial strategy.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Watch: Yemen's Houthis attack Saudi oil heartland
Hafnium hack poses extended threat

Government IT teams still reeling from the massive supply chain hack involving SolarWinds are now tasked with evicting any adversaries that penetrated their networks through recently discovered vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Exchange software.

While updating software will protect systems not yet affected, "patching and mitigation is not remediation if the servers have already been compromised," the National Security Council said in a March 5 tweet. "It is essential that any organization with a vulnerable server take immediate measures to determine if they were already targeted."

Agencies that do not find and root out all vestiges of the Hafnium hack will leave themselves open to the continuing attacks from previously installed backdoors. In fact, other bad actors are starting to take advantage of Exchange Server vulnerabilities. Four more groups have joined in, and the original Chinese hackers have dropped the pretense of stealth and increased the number of attacks theyre carrying out, according to a March 6 report in MITs Technology Review.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has posted a Remediating Microsoft Exchange Vulnerabilities web page that provides specific steps both leaders and IT security staff should take to protect their systems. Previously, CISA posted a script that allows potentially impacted organizations to scan their Exchange log files for indicators of compromise,

A CISA spokesman said that the agency has received reports from a "majority" of civilian agencies. "Currently, agencies continue to patch affected servers and investigate for indications of compromise," he continued.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said that the Defense Department "currently assessing our networks for any evidence of impact. We are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation."

Independent security researcher and journalist Brian Krebs reported in his blog that up to 30,000 organizations in the U.S. may have been affected by the vulnerabilities.

This article was first posted on FCW, a sibling site to GCN.
[March 09, 2021]

WIRELESS TELECOM GROUP ANNOUNCES 4th QUARTER and FISCAL YEAR 2020 FINANCIAL RESULTS WILL BE RELEASED MARCH 19, 2021

Parsippany, New Jersey, USA, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wireless Telecom Group, Inc. (NYSE American: WTT ), a leader in wireless communications and radio frequency instrumentation, announced it will release its 4th quarter and fiscal year 2020 financial results on Friday, March 19, 2021, before the market opens.

The Company will host a conference call on Friday, March 19, 2021 at 8:30 am EDT in which management will discuss 4th quarter and fiscal year 2020 financial results. To participate in the conference call, dial 800-346-7359 or 973-528-0008. The conference identification number is 248191. The call will also be webcast over the internet at the following URL:

https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/1690/39641







A replay will be made available on the Wireless Telecom website following the conference call.

- END -

About Wireless Telecom Group

Wireless Telecom Group, Inc., comprised of Boonton , CommAgility , Holzworth , Microlab , and Noisecom , is a global designer and manufacturer of advanced RF and microwave components, modules, systems, and instruments. Serving the wireless, telecommunication, satellite, military, aerospace, semiconductor, and medical industries, Wireless Telecom Group products enable innovation across existing and emerging wireless technologies. With a product portfolio including peak power meters, signal generators, phase noise analyzers, signal processing modules, LTE PHY/stack software, power splitters and combiners, GPS repeaters, public safety components, noise sources, and programmable noise generators, Wireless Telecom Group supports the development, testing, and deployment of wireless technologies around the globe. Wireless Telecom Group is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, in the New York City metropolitan area, and maintains a global network of Sales and Service offices for excellent product service and support. Wireless Telecom Groups website address is http://www.wirelesstelecomgroup.com .





Contact

Michael Kandell: +1 (973) 386-9696

SM Berger:+1 (216)-464-6400

Wireless Telecom Group Inc.

25 Eastmans Road

Parsippany, NJ 07054

Tel: (973) 386-9696

Fax: (973) 386-9191

www.wtcom.com
Crazy Drives

For three days, Chris commuted six hours round trip from Virginia to his work in Pennsylvania so he could hold me as I mourned my father. Over the years, my father had done crazy drives for me, his steadfast help showing an unconditional love. Moving me from Virginia to Chicago, we talked so much we missed our exits. I thought the only people who would continue to love me that deeply were my mother and brother. But Chris did, and does. My father would be happy to know someone is still doing crazy drives for me.  Apurva Sisodia
When BuzzFeed announced last year that it would buy HuffPost, it was expected that cost-cutting would follow the completion of the deal. On Tuesday, less than a month after the acquisition went through, BuzzFeed laid off 47 workers at HuffPost and closed the publications Canadian edition.

At a virtual company meeting, BuzzFeeds chief executive, Jonah Peretti, said the layoffs were meant to stem losses at HuffPost. HuffPost, which was previously owned by Verizon Media, lost more than $20 million last year and was on track to lose the same amount this year, Mr. Peretti told the staff according to an account of the meeting provided by BuzzFeed.

Employees were given a password to enter the meeting  spr!ngisH3r3, a variation on the phrase spring is here. The staff members were then informed that if they did not receive an email by 1 p.m., their jobs were safe. The website Defector first reported on the password and other details of the meeting, which were confirmed by two people who attended the meeting and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. A BuzzFeed spokesman told The New York Times that the company regretted the passwords tone.

The HuffPost Union, which is affiliated with the Writers Guild of America East, said in a statement that the layoffs had affected 33 of its members, nearly a third of the local union. We are devastated and infuriated, particularly after an exhausting year of covering a pandemic and working from home, the union said in a statement.
Posted Monday, March 8, 2021 9:04 pm

Clark County Community Services, with assistance from staff at the Vancouver Housing Authority and the City of Vancouver, selected Catholic Community Services of Western Washington to operate a non-congregate shelter near the Vancouver Mall, a press release from the county said.

Catholic Community Services is an outreach arm of the Catholic Church that provides programs, shelters and services for poor and vulnerable people in Western Washington.

To find possible operators of the new shelter, Clark County Community Services issued a request for applications until Feb. 5.

A review committee composed of staff from the county, city and the Vancouver Housing Authority provided recommendations for an operator in late February. Services are expected to begin by early June.

The release said the Vancouver Housing Authority acquired the site to be used as a shelter early in February. Prior to the Vancouver Housing Authoritys acquisition, the building operated as a Howard Johnson hotel. The new shelter will be called Bertha Cain Baugh Place and will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Being a non-congregate shelter means households will have their own room and restroom.

Referrals to the shelter will occur through the countys coordinated entry system. In addition to providing basic shelter services, Catholic Community Services will also connect and engage residents with services and community supporters that address their physical and mental wellness and help them secure stable housing.

Emergency shelter plays an important role in the homeless crisis response system by breaking the cycle of homelessness, Clark County Community Services Director Vanessa Gaston said in a news release. It can be a transformational component to a system that tries to meet peoples basic needs while quickly moving them towards long-term stability.

Funding for shelter operations will come from a variety of state, federal and local sources.

Once funds to operate the shelter are expended, the Vancouver Housing Authority plans to convert the facility into affordable rental housing for the community.
TIRANA (Reuters) - Sara, a 26-year-old woman from Tirana, is reluctant to talk about her love life with friends and family as they cannot understand her attraction to people of the same sex.

Like other Balkan countries aiming to become members of the European Union, Albania must demonstrate its readiness to protect human rights, and has passed laws against discrimination because of sexual orientation.

In a largely patriarchal society, however, those who are open about their sexual orientation are often judged by family and friends.

"Any kind of relationship that is not crowned with starting a family is totally unacceptable," Sara, who gave only her first name to protect her identity, told Reuters.

Sara said the dream of every LGBT person was "to come out openly in a close social network or family". Because of prejudice, however, some people like her opted to keep a low profile.

A survey by the Streha organisation which offers shelter to LGBT community members found that 80% of 200 LGBT respondents had considered leaving Albania.

A 2021 report by ILGA gay rights organisation, which bring together over 600 groups from 54 countries in Europe and Central Asia, said that discrimination against the LGBT population in Albania had increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another study, by Abania's Alenacea non-governmental organisation, found one in two LGBT community members had experienced psychological violence and bullying, one in five had been sexually harassed and some had been raped, the ILGA report said. Only 7% reported the incidents to the authorities.

"Another problem lies in access to health care," Xheni Karaj, an LGBT activist, told Reuters.

"When I took transgender people to the hospital, the doctors said why not let these people die."

(Reporting by Flrian Goga; Writing by Ivana Sekularac, editing by Ed Osmond)
BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio  A woman and her boyfriend on Monday both pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the death of the womans 6-year-old son.

Brittany Gosney, 29, is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, five counts of endangering children, three counts of gross abuse of a corpse, three counts of kidnapping, and three counts of abduction, Fox 19 reports. She is being held in jail on a $2 million bond.

Gosneys boyfriend, James Hamilton, 42, is charged with three counts each of kidnapping, abduction, endangering children, tampering with evidence, and gross abuse of a corpse. He is jailed on a $750,000 bond.

James Hamilton, 42, is being held in jail on a $750,000 bond. (Middletown Police Department)

Police say Gosney has admitted to killing her son, James Hutchinson, during an aborted attempt to abandon him and her two other children at Rush Run Park in Preble County, which is northwest of Middletown. James reportedly tried to get back into the vehicle as Gosney tried to drive away and ended up being dragged and run over.

She told investigators that when she returned to check on Hutchinson, he was dead. She then picked up his body and returned to her home in Middletown with her two other children.

Reports say Hamilton was not present when Hutchinson was killed, although Gosney reportedly has told investigators that Hamilton was pressuring her to get rid of her children.

Gosney and Hamilton are accused of taking the boys body and dumping it in the Ohio River near Lawrencebrug, Indiana, then reporting the boy missing later that morning.

Search teams are continuing efforts to find James body. The search had been hampered by high water levels on the Ohio River.

Related content on cleveland.com:

Ohio mother charged with murder after reporting 6-year-old boy missing

Ohio mother dragged 6-year-old son with car during attempt to abandon him, reports say

Ohio mother accused of killing 6-year-old son claims boyfriend wanted kids gone, reports say
Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said Nphet will prepare advice for people who are vaccinated. Photo: Gareth Chaney

Nursing home visits and greater freedoms for fully vaccinated people are being considered as part of a vaccine bonus.

It is likely that Nphet will this week agree to allow nursing home visits as the vast majority of residents and staff will be vaccinated.

It will consider the issue on Thursday, with visits expected to resume a week or 10 days later.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday said that fully vaccinated people could gather indoors without masks or physical distancing.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said Nphet would also soon reveal the vaccine bonus for people who have had all their jabs.

Im hopeful over the next few weeks that we can start to tell people what the bonus from vaccination is and what it means, what vaccination means that you can or cant do, he told the Irish Independent.

But equally again, we have to balance that because not everyone in society will be vaccinated, vaccines arent 100pc protective.

He also said there needed to be further data on how the vaccine affected transmissibility, although it is likely that it has a significant impact.

Nursing home visits will be looked at specifically this week, because even without the vaccine roll-out, community transmission has been falling steadily.

Read More

Its appropriate even in that context, of looking at the issue of nursing home visitation given the really significant impact this pandemic has had on people living in those settings over the past year, Dr Glynn said.

The vast majority of nursing homes now have been vaccinated so hopefully there will be a vaccine bonus for people over the next while.

It wont be normality but something a little bit easier versus the really tough time that people have gone through in the past year.

Meanwhile, around 12,000 people over 80 face a delay in getting their Covid-19 vaccine in the coming weeks due to a shortage of Moderna jabs, it has emerged.

Dr Ken Egan, a Mayo GP said he had been contacted by other family doctors who were concerned about the disappointment and worry among the 80- to 85-year age group who fear they will lose out.

Last week, the HSE told GPs there will be a Moderna vaccine shortage due to delivery changes, and it would lead to a 15pc drop in supply for this age group in the coming weeks.

But the HSE said it hoped the target to vaccinate all over-70s by mid-May would still be met.

Dr Egan, a former president of the Irish Medical Organisation, said: There needs to be an appreciation of the disappointment and worry for this age group when it is not clear who will now be getting vaccinated this week.

There are an estimated 80,000 people aged 80 to 85 eligible but until the shortage is sorted out, the age profile should be changed to 83 to 85, he suggested.

There was confusion yesterday among people with underlying conditions about when they will be contacted for vaccination and what group they fit into on the priority list.



The HSE said the estimated 160,000 people aged 16 to 69 who have underlying conditions, leaving them at high risk if they are infected with Covid-19, were being identified by their hospital consultants and other means.

There is no point in these patients contacting their hospital doctor, nurse or GP at this point because they are still drawing up lists of people who are eligible for this Group 4 in the vaccination priority list.

Given the complexity of the task, we expect it will take some weeks to contact and vaccinate everyone, a spokeswoman said.

Once the identification is complete, they will be contacted individually. The first members of this  around 10,000 people with neurological and intellectual disability conditions  are being vaccinated in disability centres.

Many people with the same illness as those in Group 4 will have less severe disease and are regarded as high risk rather than very high risk so will be in Group 5. They are aged 65 to 69, while others will be in Group 7.

A spokeswoman said: Take, as an example, people with a diagnosis of chronic lung disease. Only some people with chronic lung disease are at very high risk and therefore in Group 4.

Many other people with chronic lung disease are at high risk  rather than very high risk  and these people are therefore either in Group 5 or Group 7.

Meanwhile, Dr Colm Henry, chief clinical officer in the HSE, has told GPs that a central logistics hub had been set up to oversee orders and deliveries to their practices for the over-70s.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have suggested their son was not given the opportunity to be a prince when he was born, with Meghan indicating she fears it might have been because of his race.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired in the UK on Monday evening, Meghan said it was not her decision for her son to not receive a title when he was born.

She also raised concerns that her son would not be given security, and said it was because he would not be a prince.

The Queen intervened before Prince William's children were born to ensure all of them could have HRH titles and be called prince or princess. Officially, only their eldest George was entitled to that.

However the same was not done for Archie, who under a previous precedent would have inherited the title of prince when Charles became King.

Meghan also suggested there was an attempt to change that precedent and said she was upset at the "idea of the first member of colour in this family, not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be".

She said: "Its not their right to take it away."

Meghan continued: "In those months when I was pregnant - all around this same time - so we (had) the conversation of he wont be given security, hes not going to be given a title.

And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when hes born.

The claims have sparked discussion about whether Archie could, in fact, have been Prince Archie. At the time of his birth it was said the new parents had declined the offer of a courtesy title, in the same way Princess Anne, the Queen's daughter, declined titles for her children.

Meghan said it was not their choice for their son not to be a prince. (Toby Melville - Pool/Getty Images)

Read more: 5 most explosive claims about Royal Family from Meghan Markles Oprah interview

According to a "letters patent" set by George V in 1917, the children and grandchildren of the ruling monarch can be a prince or princess.

A letters patent is a legal decision made by a head of state.

Professor Kate Williams explained the precedent for a title on ITV's This Morning saying: "George V in 1917 made a letters patent about who would be prince and princess.

"The idea is that the children and grandchildren of the monarch can be a prince or princess."

She explained it means that, while everyone in William's generation is entitled to be a prince - which would include Harry, and the Duke of Duchess of York's children Eugenie and Beatrice - in the following generation, only Prince George would be allowed to be termed a prince because he is the eldest child of a future heir.

However, the potential bone of contention seems to be that Charlotte and Louis have been accorded princely titles, but cousin Archie has not.

Prof Williams explained: "When Charlotte and Louis were born they were not entitled to titles, but the Queen intervened."

Watch: Queen Elizabeth nor Prince Philip asked about baby Archie's skin tone, says Oprah Winfrey

Read more: Harry and Meghan reveal Archie's 'hysterical' newest word

Referring to a lack of title when Archie was born, Professor Williams said: "At the time we were told not intervening was Meghan and Harry's choice, but they say it was not.

"They also seem to imply that there was talk about changing that protocol so that Archie wouldn't be prince when Charles became King either.

"To her it seemed clear it was because of the conversations about Archie's skin."

Asked whether that would be regarded as unfair, Prof Williams said: "The Royal Family is always saying it wants to slim down and perhaps that's what they will say but it seemed very pointed that the first child to be slimmed out would be the first child of colour.

"Charlotte and Louis are in the line of succession but they will be pushed out when George has children."

The letters patent rule means that Archie will get a title when his grandfather, Prince Charles, becomes King.

The Queen intervened before George was born to ensure all the children of William and Kate would have titles. If it was not for that, Charlotte would have been a Lady and Louis a Lord, although they would not have been HRHs.

Archie could have been the Earl of Dumbarton, taking on one of his father's subsidiary titles, or Lord Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

At the time of his birth, a royal source said Harry and Meghan had decided he should be a regular Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.

Eventually he will be able to succeed Harry as the Duke of Sussex.

George was the only prince entitled to his title, but the Queen intervened to give Charlotte and Louis titles too. (Aaron Chown/AFP)

Read more: Five things we found out for the first time from Meghan Markles Oprah interview

But Meghan told Winfrey: "It was not our decision to make."

She added: I wouldnt wish pain on my child but that is their birthright to then make a choice about.

Meghan indicated that she was concerned he would not get security as he was not a prince, and said she wanted a title if it meant he would have that.

Security is not an automatic provision for all princes and princesses.

Archie was already unlikely to ever carry out royal duties, being seventh in line to the throne at birth, but living in the US full time and not having working royal parents would have made it untenable for him to have British taxpayer funded security.

However, the Royal Family could have paid for security privately. Meghan has indicated they have chosen not to.

Harry and Meghan also revealed that there had been a conversation between Harry and a member of the Royal Family about "concerns... about how dark his [Archie's] skin might be when hes born".

Harry then added: "That conversation, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked."

They have said, via Winfrey, that neither the Queen or Prince Philip was involved in that conversation but have not said who made the comment.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said the allegation should be taken seriously: "Nobody, but nobody, should be prejudiced (against) because of the colour of their skin or because of their mental health issues."

Buckingham Palace has not yet responded to the claims in the interview.
London: The High Commission of India in London has condemned false assertions in a "distinctly one-sided discussion" among a group of British parliamentarians on Monday on the issue of peaceful protests and press freedoms in India, amidst the ongoing farmers' stir against three new laws on agricultural reforms.

The Indian mission pointed out that foreign media, including British media, had been present and witnessed the events surrounding the farmers' protests in India first-hand and therefore any "question of lack of freedom of the media in India does not arise.

Farmers' protest

"We deeply regret that rather than a balanced debate, false assertions  without substantiation or facts  were made, casting aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world and its institutions, a statement issued by the high commission said.

"However, when aspersions are cast on India by anyone, irrespective of their claims of friendship and love for India or domestic political compulsions, there is a need to set the record straight," the statement said.

It said that a false narrative over farmers protest was sought to be developed even though the High Commission of India has been, over a period of time, taking care to inform all concerned about the issues raised in the petition.

The statement followed a group of around dozen cross-party British MPs debating issues around the use of force against protesters opposed to agricultural reforms in India and journalists being targeted while covering the protests taking place at several border points of Delhi for over 100 days.

Parliament

Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) minister Nigel Adams said the close UK-India relationship did not hinder the UK in any way from raising "difficult issues" with India, even as he reiterated the government line that agricultural reforms are a "domestic matter" for India.

This is a time of great ambition for the UKs relationship with India. Both governments are working to advance shared priorities across trade and investment, health, sustainability and climate change and defence and security, said Adams.

While the minister acknowledged the alarm and uncertainty the farmers protests and their coverage in India had caused among British communities with family ties in India, he expressed hope that the ongoing dialogue between the Indian government and farmers unions will have positive results.

Both sides need to step back and recognise the need to come to an agreement I hope the government will commit to helping that cause and offer British skills in a negotiation and compromise to help both sides to bring this issue to a close, said Virendra Sharma, Opposition Labour MP for Ealing Southall in west London with a large Punjabi diaspora.

Farmers' protestWe have only been able to hold the government to account today [Monday] thanks to the power of democracy. A petition started by Liberal Democrat Councillor, Gurch Singh, and signed by over 100,000 people, has forced the government to stop hiding on this important issue," said Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat MP and spokesperson for foreign affairs.

From the ruling Conservative Party backbenches, Theresa Villiers noted that agricultural reform is an issue that has proved difficult across the world over the years and pointed out that the new agricultural laws in India had been postponed to allow for greater consultation and discussion.

I understand that protesting farmers feel insecure about their future, but Prime Minister Modis government has repeatedly said that a core purpose of the reforms is to make farming more profitable, to raise the incomes of people who work in farming and to promote investment in agriculture to increase yields, she said.

I hear the concerns expressed about the response to the protests, but when thousands and thousands of people are involved in demonstrations and encampments lasting months and months, no policing response can altogether avoid controversial episodes, she said.

UK Parliament

The Indian government has denied allegations that it was trying to put an end to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and the mandi system.

Multiple rounds of talks between the government and farmer unions have not been able to resolve the deadlock.

India has emphasised that the protests by farmers must be seen in the context of India''s democratic ethos and polity and the Ministry of External Affairs said that some vested interest groups have tried to mobilise international support against the country.

"Before rushing to comment on such matters, we would urge that the facts be ascertained, and a proper understanding of the issues at hand be undertaken," it said.
STERLING HEIGHTS, MI - What began as a hobby is now her full time career and its all because of her Superman ice cream cheesecake.

Cynthia Yousif is the owner of Cynthias Edible Arts, a small bakery in Sterling Heights. Yousif bakes various cheesecakes and ice cream cheesecakes as well as marshmallow treats and chocolate covered strawberries, Oreos and pretzels.

Yousif says she used to bake just for fun, taking things to family and friends over the holidays. Thats before her Superman ice cream cheesecake recently went somewhat viral. Now, her hobby is her career.

I ended up reaching out to Chow Down Detroit to try it. They reposted me and I started getting flooded with messages from people who wanted to try it. It blew up and I was shocked, Yousif told MLive. I love baking and creating new things, but I never thought my work would get to this point.

Yousif mostly works out of her home, but says she rents out a commercial kitchen now to help keep up with demand. She says her ice cream cheesecakes are her top sellers because they arent something people can just get anywhere.

Not a lot of people can make ice cream cheesecakes. You cant just buy one from Kroger. Its like a specialty item. I manually layer them, let them freeze and do it again. Its like a layered task. You cant sit and make them all at once. Its like a six hour process. They have to be completely frozen before going to the next step.

Yousifs ice cream cheesecakes range from $30 to $50. Other flavors include Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Capn Crunch and Fruit Loops. The Superman ice cream cheesecake is $50 or $55 with Fruity Pebbles on top. You can also purchase three small ice cream cheesecakes starting at $35.

You can check out the full menu here. The ice cream cheesecakes, regular cheesecakes and the mini versions of each are all sold whole and not by the slice. You can try one by the slice at Ale Marys in Downtown Royal Oak, a local restaurant which sells her Superman ice cream cheesecake.

Orders can be placed with Yousif by sending her a message on the bakerys Instagram page or by calling 586-218-9544 for pickup in Sterling Heights. She will deliver within a five mile radius. She does not yet ship.

MORE LOCAL EATS FROM MLIVE:

Portillos Chicago Italian beef has plans to open restaurants throughout Michigan

GUERNSEY DAIRY reopens after $1M renovation with 50s soda shop, boozy shakes, new ice cream flavors

Detroits HIDDEN RETRO 1950s DINER you may not know exists

People cant get enough of this ROADSIDE BBQ trucks smoked meats, grilled jerk chicken

Inside Michigans HIGHEST RESTAURANT and bar, 71 stories atop a skyscraper

All of the MADE IN DETROIT WINE you can get at Detroits first winery in 60 years

4 of Detroits most popular RAMEN NOODLE restaurants ranked

Michigans most delicious CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES may be at this unlikely restaurant

DONUT ICE CREAM CONE at a Michigan donut shop

BIGGEST BURGER IN THE WORLD on menu at Michigan restaurant

FAYGO ROCK N RYE ICE CREAM is a must try

The WILDEST MILKSHAKES you may ever see are at a Michigan bakery

These EXTREME MILKSHAKES are on a secret menu at a Michigan restaurant
The roof is still red, drapes still frame the windows, and a Ramada sign still beckons to travelers.

Yet a collection of chairs and couches temporarily stored in the lobby hints that the hotel at 1051 Interstate 35 in New Braunfels is in for a major overhaul.

The property, no longer operating under the Ramada flag, is closed to overnight guests. Part of the hotel is set aside for extended stays. The rest soon will be converted into small apartments.

As hotel owners grapple with empty rooms and people struggle with a shortage of low-priced housing, investors are snapping up distressed inns and converting them into apartments.

Vivo Living is one example. The Los Angeles-area company has acquired five hotels to turn into apartments, including the 139-room Ramada in New Braunfels, and is under contract to buy another four.

Rooms at the Ramada will be redone with new flooring and paint, small kitchens with cabinetry and window blinds. Some studios will be furnished and others unfurnished, depending on what the tenant wants.

As he walks around the hotel, Vivo Living CEO Dan Norville gestures to areas that will eventually be turned into a dog park, a clubhouse for events, a fire pit, a fitness center, self-storage, coworking space and concession space with items such as Band-Aids, eggs and ramen noodles.

The pool deck in the center of the complex will be resurfaced and loaded with new furniture and umbrellas. Cornhole, pingpong and other games will be set up nearby, and a mural by local artists will dominate a big wall. The yellow and blue doors on the rooms will stay.

Vivo is renting out part of the New Braunfels complex as an extended-stay hotel while the company gets the permits to turn it into apartments. The firms retained some of the hotel staff, including the general manager, to run it.

Renovations are expected to cost as much as $5 million and take several months to complete. Rent will cost from $800 to $900 per month, Norville said.

Each room-turned-studio is about 350 to 400 square feet, which he acknowledges is small. He points to the perks.

Its got a lot of space, Norville said. Were going to have ample amenities.

Vivo Living came out of another real estate venture Norville started called Norcap LLC.

The firm bought seven distressed hotels between 2013 and 2017, renovated the properties and changed the brand. Most hotels were going strong in 2018 and 2019, making it more difficult to find deals, so they shifted focus.

A hotel theyd bought outside Salt Lake City, Utah, was underperforming and demand for workforce housing was surging, Norville said. They converted it to apartments and leased them out.

Then the light bulb really clicked, Norville said. We said there was a good opportunity to do this in other places (and) look all around for distressed hotels that, particularly when COVID hit, got even more distressed. There was even more of a need for reasonably priced housing across the U.S., so we started expanding and coming to different markets.

San Antonios tourism and hospitality sector has been mauled by the pandemic, as travel has slowed and conventions and other events have been canceled. Thousands of workers have lost their jobs.

Revenue at local hotels plummeted nearly 50 percent last year compared with 2019, according to a report by Source Strategies, a San Antonio-based hotel consulting firm. Occupancy fell to 42.7 percent on average, the lowest of Texas major metros.

As the pandemic and the recession it induced drags on, Norville said his broker has noticed an increase in properties for sale.

Vivo Living targets extended-stay and limited-service hotels with 80 rooms or more in growing cities.

Zoning is a factor. The Ramada propertys zoning allows for residential use, a benefit since the firm does not have to go through a rezoning process that would add more time to the project. Vivo Living has in-house construction resources, which also reduces conversion time and cost, he added.

Theres plenty of parking around the New Braunfels hotel, and an empty swath of land next to it could eventually become more apartments. Vivo Living is also under contract to buy another hotel nearby and is eyeing other Texas cities, including San Antonio and Austin.

Many of the hotels the firm is considering have open-air corridors and staircases, an unattractive feature to major hotel brands.

They just languish. They dont get the improvement dollars, Norville said. We see a big opportunity specifically (with)these exterior corridor motels.

madison.iszler@express-news.net
One year ago, an early manifestation of opposition by the working class to the homicidal response of the ruling class to the COVID-19 pandemic began with a series of wildcat strikes in Italy. Over the next week, strikes spread to other European countries and to North and South America.

At the time, the deadly disease was surging in northern Italy and cases were rising in the US and around the world. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resisted any emergency measures, even as the death toll approached 500.

Conte would soon be deploying Army trucks to transport the dead in Bergamo to crematoriums. On March 9, he finally announced a partial national lockdown. However, bowing to the demands of the major industrialists association, Confindustria, Conte allowed factories and other large workplaces to remain open.

Amazon workers protest unsafe working conditions in Staten Island, New York, on March 30, 2020 (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

The strike wave began the following day, on Tuesday, March 10, when thousands of autoworkers at Fiat Chryslers Pomigliano plant in Naples, forced to stay on the line to produce luxury Alfa-Romeo cars, walked out spontaneously to protest unsafe conditions.

The following day, Wednesday, March 11, FCA announced the temporary closure of the Pomigliano plant, along with factories in Melfi, Atessa and Cassino. Management made it clear, however, that production would resume by March 14 after the plants had been sanitized.

Over the next three days, wildcat strikes spread across Italy--to the steel mills in Bergamo, Brescia and Genoa; the Liguria shipyards and the Electrolux factory in Treviso; car parts plants in Cormano; Amazon warehouses in the provinces of Piacenza and Rieti, and the poultry and meat processing facilities in the Po Valley.

The workers are striking against the coronavirus, or rather against the government that is keeping the factories open despite the coronavirus, wrote the Corriere della Sera.

The opposition of workers quickly spread internationally. On Thursday, March 12, Royal Mail workers walked out at several London facilities over safety conditions. Across the Atlantic in Canada, Fiat Chrysler workers at the Windsor, Ontario plant halted production the same day that FCA management acknowledged the first COVID-19 case at a North American plant, a facility in Indiana. Production was resumed the following day only after the intervention of the Ontario labour minister and the Unifor union.

As in Italy and the UK, the action by workers in Canada and the United States would take the form of a rebellion against the trade unions, which kept workers in the plants despite the spread of the deadly disease.

While the United Auto Workers sent its top staff home to work remotely, the UAW warned workers against spreading rumors about outbreaks in the plants and instructed them to wash their hands and avoid contact with others within two to three feet, if possible. Workers laboring shoulder-to-shoulder inside the factories denounced these statements with contempt, with one Indiana worker saying that both the UAW and the company dont give a damn about any one of us or our families.

By Monday, March 16, Warren Truck Assembly Plant workers in suburban Detroit downed their tools in the paint shop, where at least four workers would die from the disease. Earlier the same day, 5,000 workers at the Vitoria Mercedes-Benz plant in the Basque Country, Spain walked out against unsafe conditions.

On Tuesday, March 17, FCA Transmission workers in Tipton, Indiana, just outside Kokomo, refused to operate their machines, along with Lear seating workers in Hammond, Indiana. The same day, Detroit bus drivers conducted a sickout. That evening, the UAW announced it had a deal with the Big Three automakers for rolling temporary closures. Having no faith in the UAW, a few hours later workers at Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) in suburban Detroitone of the largest auto plants in the UShalted production.

By Wednesday, March 18, the morning shift at SHAP was continuing the job action and was joined by workers at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit, the Dundee Engine Plant near Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, where rank-and-file workers stormed into the UAW offices to denounce the union officials. In the early afternoon, the Big Three automakers announced the closure of their plants, claiming this had been done out of concern on the part of the companies and the UAW for the safety of the workers.

The following day, Thursday March 19, wildcat strikes erupted at call centers across Brazil, with workers at Italian-owned ImaViva declaring, We are not going to die in our cubicles! The strike occurred three days after the companys 2,800 workers in Palermo, Italy struck after a confirmed case of COVID-19, forcing the closure of in-person operations.

There were a number of significant aspects to this wave of struggles. First was its global character. The pandemic is an inherently global crisis, and the COVID-19 virus did not and does not respect international boundaries. Workers throughout Europe and the Americas were responding in an effort to save lives over the profit interests of the corporate and financial elites.

Second, these struggles were emerging when the pandemic was still in its early stages. On March 10, the worldwide death toll from the pandemic stood at about 6,500. By the end of March, it had risen sharply to 45,000. In the US, the first recorded death came at the very end of February, and the wildcat strikes at auto plants broke out as the national toll approached 100.

One year later, the global death toll stands at a staggering 2.6 million people, including more than 538,000 in the United States alone.

Third, while the corporate-owned news media did everything it could to black out reports of the spreading resistance of workers, the World Socialist Web Site provided detailed accounts of the strike wave. But we did not only report on these struggles. The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Parties around the world actively encouraged workers to take the independent initiative to save lives. The SEP (US) statement, of March 14, Shut down the auto industry to halt the spread of coronavirus! was viewed over 130,000 times.

The initial action of the working classwhich in the US included 260 strikes and job actions triggered by the pandemic and involving a wide variety of workers between March 1 and May 31forced the partial lockdowns of businesses and schools, saving countless lives.

These actions were of immense significance, but they remained largely uncoordinated. While workers were striving to impose a policy that would save lives, they were not led by a network of independent workers' organizations or guided by a clear political perspective and program.

The ruling class responded by going on the offensive. In late March, the US Congress, with the near unanimous support of Republicans and Democrats, passed the CARES Act, which financed an estimated $4 trillion handout to Wall Street and major corporations. The limited financial assistance to workers included in the CARES Act was used to buy the ruling class time to embark on a systematic campaign to reopen the schools and workplaces, with the support of the unions, based on the slogan that the cure cant be worse than the disease.

This was accompanied by the promotion of fascistic forces demanding an end to lockdowns, including the April 30 storming of the Michigan state capitol by armed right-wing militias, a dress rehearsal for the January 6 coup attempt in Washington D.C.

Amidst these developments, the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Parties throughout the world advanced a program to stop the pandemic. On February 28, when the death toll was just 3,000, the International Committee of the Fourth International issued a statement calling for a globally coordinated emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic, including the mobilization of the social and scientific resources of the entire world to stop the disease.

On March 17, when the US death toll was 170, the National Committee of the SEP (US) published a statement titled, How to fight the COVID-19 pandemic: A program of action for the working class. It called for the immediate closure of all schools, non-essential plants and other workplaces, with full income for workers affected: No worker should be expected to place his or her life in danger.

It is an undeniable fact that if the policies advanced by the International Committee of the Fourth International had been implemented, hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives would have been saved.

One year later, the working class is at a crossroads. All over the world, remaining restrictions are being lifted. Boris Johnson reopened schools in the UK on Monday. Tens of thousands of teachers and students, including high school students in New York City, are being herded back to school by the Biden administration and with the backing of the corporatist unions, even as experts warn of a hurricane surge of the pandemic over the next four to six weeks.

The working class must forge a new political leadership and build rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, to prepare strike action to close schools and all non-essential production, and demand full compensation for workers and small businesses until the population is widely vaccinated and the pandemic is under control.

This must be combined with the fight for a socialist program, including the expropriation of the pandemic profiteers, a radical redistribution of wealth and massive infusion of resources needed for testing, contact tracing, vaccination, and other health care measures necessary to wipe out COVID-19.
A state senator says he expects the Alabama Senate to debate his lottery and casino bill this week.

Republican Sen. Del Marsh of Anniston said Monday that he expects his bill will come to the Senate floor on Tuesday.

It will be the first major test of the proposal to start a lottery and have as many as eight casinos in the state.

The proposal, which must be approved by lawmakers and then state voters, seeks to authorize a state lottery and five casinos locations.

It also would allow a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians for casino games at their three sites.

RTHK: Jury selection starts in racially charged trial

A Minnesota judge began screening jurors on Tuesday in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis policeman facing murder and manslaughter charges for his role in the death of George Floyd during an arrest that caused an outcry around the world.

Judge Peter Cahill of the Hennepin County district court did so over the objections of state prosecutors, who say the high-stakes trial should not begin until a higher court resolves how many criminal charges Chauvin should face.

The prosecutors asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday, originally scheduled to be the first day of jury selection, to order Cahill to delay the trial, which has involved barricading parts of downtown Minneapolis for fear of civil unrest.

"There is no need for this kind of uncertainty in any case, let alone a case of this magnitude," the prosecutors from the Minnesota attorney general's office wrote in their petition to the appeals court.

It was not clear whether the higher court would intervene, and Cahill said he believed he had jurisdiction to proceed unless he was ordered otherwise.

He called in a small group of potential jurors, who have been promised anonymity for the duration of the trial, and began asking them if they knew any of the parties involved. Chauvin, dressed in a light gray suit, a blue shirt, a dark tie and a black face mask, briefly stood when his lawyer introduced him to the panel.

The trial is seen as a landmark case on police violence against Black people in the United States, a country where police officers are almost never found to be criminally responsible for killing civilians, including in cases where the suspected crime is minor or the suspect is unarmed.

The trial on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter had been scheduled to begin on Monday. But the judge was stymied by an 11th-hour ruling by the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Friday that ordered him to reconsider the request by prosecutors to reinstate a third charge of third-degree murder.

Lawyers for Chauvin, 44, asked the state Supreme Court on Monday to prevent the additional charge being applied.

He was released from jail on a US$1 million bond last October and is being tried in a courtroom in the Hennepin County Government Center, a tower in downtown Minneapolis now ringed with barbed-wire fencing and concrete barricades for fear of disruption by protesters.

Chauvin, who is white, and three other police officers were fired the day after the deadly arrest on May 25 on suspicion that Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, used a counterfeit US$20 bill to buy cigarettes at the Cup Foods grocery store.

Hundreds of anti-racism demonstrators chanted in the streets around the courthouse on Monday, blocking traffic. A small number of soldiers called in from the Minnesota National Guard watched from a distance.

The judge has set aside three weeks for jury selection alone, mindful of the difficulties finding impartial Minneapolitans in a case that has convulsed the nation. The image of the victim  a selfie of Floyd smiling faintly  has become an international icon of racial justice.

The court mailed prospective jurors an unusually detailed 16-page questionnaire last year asking them what they know about Floyd's death, and asking for their opinions on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Chauvin would face up to 40 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charge. His lawyers say he properly followed the training he was given by the Minneapolis police department. (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2021-03-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
AACHEN, Germany and SAN DIEGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- MainConcept, a leading provider of codec and streaming technology to the professional and broadcast industries, today announced it was selected by Blackmagic Design as the first company authorized to provide encoder plugins for custom output options for DaVinci Resolve Studio. DaVinci Resolve is an industry-leading solution that combines editing, color correction, visual effects, motion graphics and audio post-production all in one software tool.



Starting with DaVinci Resolve Studio 17, the MainConcept Codec Plugin for DaVinci Resolve Studio enables rendering project timelines into the same professional camera format the video was recorded in, including formats from Sony and Panasonic, and now DPP. The plugin allows you to remain in the same broadcast format, enabling full control for video creation and allowing for filming, capturing, editing and playout within DaVinci Resolve Studio.



The plugin integrates directly into the DaVinci Resolve Studio interface with easy-to-navigate menus, letting an editor maintain a seamless experience throughout their project flow. Gone are the days of moving between different applications to finalize and deliver content.



With the MainConcept Codec Plugin for DaVinci Resolve Studio, you can:

Render projects into high-quality broadcast workflow formats like Sony XDCAM, XAVC, and Panasonic P2 AVC Ultra and AVC-Intra

Use generic HEVC/H.265 Main and Main 10 presets in up to 8K , widely used in OTT production and delivery

, widely used in OTT production and delivery Create compliant AS-11 UK DPP content with ready-to-use SD and HD presets, including metadata for delivering to broadcasters

Run it on Windows, macOS, or Linux

"We are honored to be the first company selected to build codec plugins that will further enhance the already amazing DaVinci Resolve experience. MainConcept technology has long been integrated with the best video editing software available, including offerings from Adobe, Avid, Autodesk, and Corel," says Thomas Kramer, Vice President of Product Management, MainConcept. "With the addition of Blackmagic Design, I am proud to say that our codecs are now available in all the top editing suites."



"It is exciting to think about the additional formats and improved efficiency that MainConcept's Codec Plugin will bring to Resolve customers," said Dan May, President, Blackmagic Design Inc. "With the introduction of DaVinci Resolve 17, with more than 300 new features and improvements across editing, audio, VFX and color correction, the addition of an encoder plugin API allows technology such as MainConcept's Codec Plugin the ability to use their incredibly fast, high-quality encoding to render timelines in various formats including to a universal broadcast format. It's a real advantage for customers."



The MainConcept Codec Plugin for DaVinci Resolve Studio 17 is now available to evaluate and purchase. To learn more visit www.mainconcept.com/bmd. To learn more about DaVinci Resolve, visit www.blackmagicdesign.com.



About MainConcept

Since 1993, MainConcept has provided best-of-breed video/audio codec solutions that fuel creativity and business globally for professional video production, multimedia, broadcast, digital signage, gaming, medical and security industries. Our software development kits, transcoding applications and plugins are used across industry verticals to meet an ever-expanding list of use cases. With world-class engineering, exquisite attention to detail, and best-in-class support and professional services, we are constantly innovating to deliver you the simplicity you need with the customer experience you deserve. MainConcept codecs are engineered to surpass the challenges of even the most demanding use cases and are used by organizations such as Adobe, Nikon, Intel, MAGIX, Playbox, Soliton, TourGigs, Cinnafilm and Endeavor Streaming. For more information, visit www.mainconcept.com.



Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12861062



Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE MainConcept
Derick Almena, the master tenant of the San Francisco 'Ghost Ship' warehouse where 36 people died in a fire in 2016, was sentenced to 12 years on house arrest Monday

The master tenant of the San Francisco 'Ghost Ship' warehouse where 36 people died in a fire in 2016 has been slapped with a 12-year sentence.

Derick Almena, who was already on house arrest after being released from jail last year because of coronavirus concerns, was ordered on Monday to serve the rest of his term under electronic monitoring, followed by three years of probation.

'I know that no family member will find this in any way acceptable, and I accept that responsibility,' Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson said at the conclusion of an emotionally charged case that was first derailed by a hung jury, then the pandemic.

Many of the relatives had urged Thompson to reject a plea deal Almena had struck with prosecutors to avoid a second trial, calling it too lenient.

Almena, 50, pleaded guilty in January to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a 12-year sentence.

Because he received credit for time already spent behind bars while awaiting trial and for good behavior, he will spend the next one and a half years at home with an ankle monitor.

He was also ordered to pay restitution which will be determined by the court at a later date.

Almena is pictured in a court sketch from Monday's sentencing hearing

Almena pleaded guilty in January to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the warehouse fire on December 2, 2016. The burned remains of the building are shown above

'This lenient, slap-on-the-wrist sentence is vastly inappropriate for the crimes Derick Almena committed,' the family of fire victim Sarah Hoda said in a statement read to the court via teleconference.

'Upholding the DA's irresponsible plea recommendation would shortchange 36 victims and their families.'

Thompson and prosecutors said they took into consideration the challenges of trying the case again, given the challenges of selecting jurors during a pandemic, calling witnesses to court due to travel bans, and the publicity the first trial received.

Prosecutors said Almena was criminally negligent when he illegally converted the industrial warehouse in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood into a residence and event space for artists, dubbed the 'Ghost Ship,' filling the building with flammable materials and extension cords. It had no smoke detectors or sprinklers.

The December 2, 2016, inferno broke out at the warehouse during an electronic music event, trapping victims on the illegally constructed second floor.

Prosecutors said the victims got no warning and had little chance to escape down a narrow, ramshackle staircase.

Family and friends of the victims packed Thompson's courtroom for months in 2019, becoming familiar faces to the judge, only to see a jury split on whether to convict Almena, who leased the building.

At the same trial, the jury also found co-defendant Max Harris, who was the Ghost Ship's 'creative director' and rent collector, not guilty.

Prosecutors said victims of the fire (pictured) got no warning and had little chance to escape down a narrow, ramshackle staircase

The so-called 'Ghost Ship' warehouse is shown above after the fire in December 2016

The first trial over the fire ended with a jury split on whether Almena (right) should be convicted. His co-defendant, Max Harris (left) was found not guilty

DailyMail.com exclusively revealed in 2017 how a friend described Almena as an 'arrogant' man who was so self-involved that he laughed off warnings his artist's commune was a potential death trap and allegedly ignored repeated safety warnings.

It was also reported that Almena and his wife Micah Allison would leave their three children with a teenage babysitter for up to five days at a time - and return boasting about 'transcendent experiences'.

In the aftermath of the fire, he posted an insensitive Facebook post in which he moaned about losing his furniture and art collection in the tragedy.

'Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone,' he wrote. 'Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel and safe and soundit's as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope to be standing now in poverty of self worth.'

Danielle Boudreaux, who has known Almena and Allison for over eight years, even claimed one visitor to the warehouse was so concerned about the state of the property that she told her fire-fighter husband who arranged for an immediate fire inspection.

She claims the local fire department carried out an inspection in 2015 and warned Almena of several fire safety violations, branding the warehouse a 'tinder box' - but still nothing was done.

In February 2017, it was revealed that city officials in California were warned about the Oakland 'Ghost Ship' warehouse more than 22 times in the years leading up to the deadly fire.

Police officers shut down a 'drug-fueled' rave at the warehouse nearly two years before the blaze and continuous complaints flooded in about the property in the 30 years leading up to the tragedy.

Officials have said they had no idea the building was used as a residence. But on February 2, 2015, a person called the police claiming to be locked out of the warehouse and told a responding officer that 'this is a warehouse that is also an illegal shared housing'.

The officer reported that the issue was resolved and left, the documents reveal.

The interior of a portion of the 'Ghost Ship' warehouse, which visitors warned was a fire hazard

Records show Oakland police officers responded to several landlord-tenant disputes and less than three weeks before the fire, Oakland city inspectors received complaints about the warehouse being remodeled into residences.

Another complaint was lodged on November 14 about an illegal interior building structure, records show.

Boudreaux said Almena and Allison moved into the warehouse with their children in 2013.

She said he rented the place for $5,000 a month and sub-letted space to several artists.

Visitors have described the warehouse as a squalid scene where cat feces and used condoms littered the limited floor space, junk and 'art' was piled high in every room.

They said nails protrude from stairs made out of old pallets, brick work crumbles in the walls and drug use rife among the party goers who came and went.

The eccentric building operator created an indoor 'RV park' downstairs charging residents $500 a month per person and would also make money renting the space for parties.

'The first quarter of the 2nd floor was the family's residence, the rest of it was the dance area and the stage,' Boudreaux explained.

'They had these crazy huge four poster Balinese beds up there, and huge wooden Balinese couches, and a pagoda.

'Downstairs was the RV park. It was filled with a revolving cast of drug addicts who would come and go.

'It was $500 per person per month. His goal was always to have at least ten people, because the rent was $5k a month.'

After the fire in December 2016, survivors told how they had to fight for a way out of the burning warehouse down a narrow staircase and how many people were trapped upstairs by the flames and smoke.

Sheriff's officials told how some of the victims died after sending goodbye messages to their loved ones that said, 'I'm going to die' and 'I love you'.

The front of The Ghost Ship warehouse damaged from a deadly fire in December 2016

Oakland fire officials walk past the remains of the Ghost Ship warehouse in December 2016

Almena claimed he had done everything that they could afford to do to make the warehouse safe.

Yet he apologized for the fire in an interview with the Today show shortly afterward.

Almena has said that he and his family wasn't there when the fire broke out and that he had booked a hotel room for the night because he was 'exhausted' and his children 'had school'.

He told NBC that he and his wife are absolutely devastated and nothing is more important than the lives that have been lost.

'We're sorry to the families and all the friends who have lost loved ones.

'I gladly would give my entire life of fortune, of wealth, of experience again, again and againI would surrender everything,' Almena said.

He said he didn't 'know anything about this event, other than okay I'm mopping for it; I'm dusting; I'm cleaning; I'm getting it beautiful'.

City officials said the space was not permitted as a residential building, but Almena said about 20 people lived there, the station reported.

'The center we all lived there, and was one of creativity, and beauty, and optimism,' Almena said.

He told NBC that he made repairs to the warehouse's electrical system without permits after, he says, the landlord refused.

The type of lease Almena signed made him completely responsible for the building's maintenance and safety upkeep and so the building's owner, Chor Ng, wasn't charged with a crime.

She still reached a settlement with the victims' families for an unknown figure.

However, the Ng family now plans to file for bankruptcy which could delay payments.

In July 2020, Oakland also agreed in a settlement to pay $32.7million, with $23.5million going to victims' families and $9.2million to Samuel Maxwell, who survived the fire but was badly injured.

The city didn't acknowledge any liability in the agreement but decided to settle because of the possible legal costs, the statement said.

It was one of the largest settlements in history.
Irked by the discussion in the United Kingdoms parliament on the continuing protests by the farmers in India, the government on Tuesday summoned the British High Commissioner in New Delhi, Alex Ellis, to the Ministry of External Affairs and served him a demarche.

New Delhi conveyed to London that the discussion in the UKs Parliament on the protest by the farmers was a gross interference in the politics of India. It also stressed that the members of the British Parliament should not practise vote-bank politics.

The British High Commissioner was the second foreign envoy to New Delhi to be summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) over criticism against the Prime Minister Narendra Modis government in the wake of the protest by the farmers against the new agricultural laws in India.

Ottawas envoy to New Delhi, Nadir Patel was on December 4 last summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), senior officials served him a demarche, conveying that the comments made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other ministers of the Canadian Government on the protest by the farmers constitute an unacceptable interference in internal affairs of India.

Read: Farmers' agitation will continue till three farm laws are withdrawn, says Rakesh Tikait

The discussion in the UKs parliament saw several British MPs of the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party as well as the Liberal Democrats expressing concern over the way the Modi Government responded to the protest by the farmers. They also expressed concern over the alleged harassment of journalists who reported on the agitation against the new agricultural laws of India.

The unprecedented protests should make one think about why so many are turning up. The arrests of journalists is a matter of serious concern, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, said. The arrests of journalists is a matter of serious concern.

The discussion prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government in London to indicate that it could raise the issue when he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet or hold talks.

While this is an exciting time for the UK-India partnership, it does not hinder us from raising difficult issues, Minister of State for Asia, Nigel Adams, said.

He referred to Johnsons proposed visit to New Delhi later this year for a meeting with Modi. This will be an opportunity to discuss a range of bilateral issues with India. Where we have serious and specific concerns, we will raise them directly with the Indian Government, as would be expected of a friend and neighbour. Candid discussions are an important part of our mature and wide-ranging relationship with the Indian Government, he said, in spite of recognizing that agricultural reforms was an internal matter of India.

The UKs parliament took up the issue for discussion as an e-petition asking the lawmakers to discuss it had crossed the 1,00,000-signature threshold required for such a debate.

It, however, raised the hackles in New Delhi.

Ellis was summoned to the MEA where Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla conveyed New Delhis strong opposition to the unwarranted and tendentious discussion on agricultural reforms in India in the UKs Parliament. Foreign Secretary made clear that this (the discussion in the UKs parliament) represented a gross interference in the politics of another democratic country, according to a press release issued by the MEA.

Shringla also told Londons envoy to New Delhi that the members of British MPs should refrain from practising vote bank politics by misrepresenting events, especially in relation to another fellow democracy.
Paris, March 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Surrounded by little girls and mocked at school when he first tried ballet, it took serious determination for Luca Abdel-Nour to become the first Egyptian prizewinner at the prestigious Prix de Lausanne.

The international competition in Switzerland has been one of the leading showcases for young ballet talent since it began in 1973.

Abdel-Nour, 17, took three prizes, including second overall and the audience award, at the latest instalment in February, and hopes his success can inspire more boys from the middle East to overcome their prejudices about dance.

Born to a French mother but growing up in Cairo, he performed in dance and theatre shows with his school as a young boy.

But he didn't try ballet until he took part in a summer dance school in France aged 12, and an instructor told him to give it a try.

"I was like ummm 'I don't want to do ballet, it's for girls'," he said.

But his mother kept encouraging him and eventually he joined a class in Egypt. He soon realised this was his passion, even if he was the only boy in the group.

"I didn't really care if there were no boys," he said. "People at school knew because I was open about it. I would be called Names but I didn't care. I used to tell them: 'You do your thing, I want to do my thing'." - Starstruck - Hard work helped him overcome his late start and by 14 he had won a year's scholarship to a dance school in Budapest.

The following year, he won a full-time place at the elite Zurich Dance academy. This was where things became serious: he had to relearn everything from scratch, and overcome two leg injuries in his first year.

But the work paid off at Lausanne last month.

"When they announced the finalists, I couldn't believe it, I was on my way home from school on the train and I cried," he said.

Suddenly his phone was lighting up with messages from some of the biggest names in the business.

"Dancers who are now directors who I have watched since I was a child were texting me saying 'You did a good job, we're interested in you'. I was starstruck and honoured," he said.

- 'Worth it in the end' - His success has generated plenty of reaction back home in Egypt, with social media full of praise as well as the inevitable sarcastic and even hostile commentary.

"There are of course lots of negative comments and stuff, but there are a lot of people that have been really supportive of me doing it, saying I've inspired them to do ballet in a society where ballet is not really encouraged," he said.

"You got the positive, you got the negative, and you have to choose what you want to listen to."Abdel-Nour has accepted a place in a company, but is not yet allowed to reveal which one.

"Every step of the way was hard," he said. "It's hard to leave your family and not see them for long periods of time but it was all worth it at the end."
TennGreen Land Conservancy (formerly the Tennessee Parks & Greenways Foundation) announced that philanthropist George Lindemann has donated 1,998 acres. This property, known as the Soak Creek Farm, is located in Rhea and Bledsoe Counties and abuts the Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park (the "Cumberland Trail").

"Through this generous donation, TennGreen Land Conservancy acquires nearly 2,000 acres of mosaic habitat, including forested streams, grassland and open space, and upland wooded areas suitable for forest management," officials said.



The Soak Creek Farm has more than 16 miles of streamsincluding Dunlap Creek, Evans Branch and Shingle Mill Branchthat flow to the Piney Creek watershed.

This watershed includes significant recreational areas, such as Soak Creek, which was designated a State Scenic River in 2017, the first such designation since 2001. Piney Creek River is the most recent river to earn Tennessee's State Scenic River designation. George Lindemann was instrumental in both the Piney and Soak Creek designations.Officails said, "Conservation of land along creeks on the Soak Creek Farm is essential in order to protect water quality and habitat for fish, wildlife and plant species."Mr. Lindemann and TennGreen Land Conservancy's long-term goal is to establish the Soak Creek Farm as a research station, evaluating habitat management techniques and medicinal plants. TennGreen Land Conservancy will identify partners in higher education for research projects and potential management of the land. Before transferring the Soak Creek Farm to new ownership, TennGreen Land Conservancy will place a conservation easement on the property to ensure it remains undeveloped, other than a research station."This generous, nearly 2,000-acre donation expands TennGreen Land Conservancy's successful history of conservation in the region. Since 2001, TennGreen Land Conservancy and its partners have conserved more than 13,000 acres within ten miles of the Soak Creek Farm. In 2017, Mr. Lindemann donated a 1,034-parcel to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to establish the Soak Creek section of the Cumberland Trail."The region continues to be an area of focus for TennGreen Land Conservancy due to its significant conservation resources, such as its large forested tracts, rich biodiversity, and the ample recreational opportunities that the Cumberland Trail provides."While this donation is for conservation and research, its important to remember that our environmental assets are an economic driver for the entire region. People come to paddle or birdwatch or hike or just enjoy the quiet, but they also shop in our stores, eat in our restaurants and buy their supplies from local businesses. This awful pandemic wont last forever, but with good care, our natural treasures will."TennGreen is honored to be the recipient of this magnificent land gift. We are so grateful to George for the trust he has placed in us to ensure his conservation vision becomes reality. Through our continuing work with George and building new partnerships with educational institutions, we have a unique opportunity to permanently protect the land and establish it as a demonstration site for habitat management and cutting-edge research," said Steve Law, executive director, TennGreen Land Conservancy.
Tarkington Heights: Connersville, Indiana

New homes from the mid $100s

3 to 4 bedrooms, 2 to 3 baths, 2-bay garage

Up to 2,009 square feet

Prime location near outdoor recreationlike Shrader-Weaver Woods and Mary Gray Bird Sanctuary Historic Connersville, Whitewater Valley Railroad and more

and Mary Gray Bird Sanctuary Historic Connersville, Whitewater Valley Railroad and more 5 homes now available for move-in as early as May 2021!

12th Street and Major Drive, Connersville, Indiana 47331

No on-site Sales Centersee Sales Studio address below.

Check out the community at www.CenturyCommunities.com/TarkingtonIN.

Landmark: New Castle, Indiana

New homes from the low $200s

Popular 1,603-square-foot ranch plan, featuring brick siding, flex space and more

4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2-bay garage

Conveniently located near Summit Lake State Park, Henry County Memorial Park and other outdoor recreation areas, plus attractions like Wilbur Wright Birthplace Museum and Rose City Bowl

Homes now available for move-in as early as May 2021!

Landmark Drive and E. County Road 400 South, New Castle, IN 47362

No on-site Sales Centersee Sales Studio address below.

See available homes at www.CenturyCommunities.com/LandmarkIN.

SALES STUDIO (ALL COMMUNITIES)

Our industry-leading online homebuying process allows you to buy on your terms24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. However, if you'd like friendly in-person assistance with purchasing a new home at Tarkington Heights or Landmark (or any of our other 9 Indiana communities!) please visit our Sales Studio at:

6330 E. 75th Street, Suite 178

Indianapolis, IN 46250

317.207.7195

About Century Communities

Century Communities, Inc. (NYSE: CCS) is a top 10 national homebuilder. Offering new homes under the Century Communities and Century Complete brands, Century is engaged in all aspects of homebuildingincluding the acquisition, entitlement and development of land, along with the construction, innovative marketing and sale of quality homes designed to appeal to a wide range of homebuyers. The Colorado-based company operates in 17 states across the U.S., and offers title, insurance and lending services in select markets through its Parkway Title, IHL Insurance Agency, and Inspire Home Loan subsidiaries. To learn more about Century Communities, please visit www.centurycommunities.com.

SOURCE Century Communities, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.centurycommunities.com


Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  A day after a Cabinet member rated the Philippines' COVID-19 response as "excellent" nearly one year into the lockdown, a World Health Organization official on Tuesday said the number of infections in the country  particularly in virus epicenter Metro Manila  has not yet flattened.

WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinge said that Metro Manila continues to record a high number of COVID-19 cases daily even when the number had gone down to 300 cases for a time. He said there is still a "thick chain" of transmission in the community, therefore, the COVID-19 curve cannot be considered flat yet.

"In a sense I wouldn't classify this as a second wave, because if you're talking of a second wave, we should've seen a complete flattening of the curve. In the case of NCR, we didn't see that kind of flattening. It would rather be another spike in the ongoing wave," he said in a media forum.

The official said there is still a way to stop the ongoing spike so it does not become a repeat of the July-August 2020 situation wherein stricter community quarantine restrictions were put in place to allow hospitals to tend to the rising number of COVID-19 patients. Abeyasinghe urged local authorities to fully enforce minimum public health standards, strengthen detection and isolation efforts, and enforce limited granular lockdowns if necessary. He also said the 17 cities and municipality in the capital region need to carry out uniform protocols.

"We really want local leadership to lead in this effort so we can ensure that we don't have to go back to a situation last July-August that we had to go to a larger-level lockdown and quarantining of populations," the WHO country representative said.

This is the same suggestion made by the government's task force focused on the new COVID-19 variants.

Abeyasinghe also said that the ongoing spike in cases, especially in Metro Manila, cannot be solely attributed to the detection of the more transmissible COVID-19 variants. He said it cannot be deduced that the presence of the South Africa and United Kingdom variants in the country is "entirely driving" the surge since there is limited capacity to conduct genome sequencing.

The independent group OCTA Research last week projected that Metro Manila may see up to 3,000 daily cases and up to 6,000 new infections nationwide by end of March as the rate of increase in the country's cases continues to pick up.

OCTA Research fellow Dr. Butch Ong said the current health picture is "worse" than the COVID-19 surge last year. Although the record 4,000 daily cases then have not yet been reached in the current surge, he said the virus is spreading faster now considering the presence of the two more contagious variants.

"Mas mabilis ang pagkalat ngayon than noong July-August 2020 na humingi tayo ng timeout [It is spreading faster now compared to July-August 2020 when we asked for a timeout," he said on Monday.
INDIANAPOLIS, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) today announced the upcoming retirement of two executive committee members and the naming of their successors in the company's manufacturing operations and ethics and compliance organizations.

Myles O'Neill, senior vice president and president of Lilly manufacturing operations, will retire May 2, 2021 after nearly 19 years of service with the company. Melissa Barnes, senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer, will retire June 27, 2021 after more than 26 years with the company. Edgardo Hernandez, who currently serves as senior vice president, global parenteral drug product and device manufacturing, will succeed O'Neill as senior vice president and president of Lilly manufacturing operations. Alonzo Weems, presently vice president and deputy general counsel, will succeed Barnes as senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer. Hernandez and Weems will report to David A. Ricks, Lilly chairman and CEO, and both will join Lilly's executive committee.

"Lilly is in the midst of an exciting period of growth and is driven by our purpose to create new medicines for people in need around the world. Today we announce two planned retirements of long-tenured and successful executives and the promotion of Edgardo and Alonzo, both of whom are well prepared to assume their new roles," said Ricks. "Edgardo has a strong track record of combining manufacturing operations excellence with the highest standards of quality and has successfully led sites across the manufacturing supply chain. Alonzo's legal roles, including extensive experience directly supporting our commercial efforts, make him the right leader to advance our strong compliance culture and lead our global risk management effort. I along with our executive team look forward to collaborating closely with both Edgardo and Alonzo as we work to overcome many of the world's most pressing unmet medical needs."

Ricks also commented on the accomplishments of O'Neill and Barnes, two veteran members of executive leadership.

"Myles has been a key leader during his career with Lilly, driving operational excellence throughout manufacturing and ensuring a reliable global supply of medicines for patients," said Ricks. "Myles added to the strong foundation of Lilly manufacturing through his leadership of numerous productivity initiatives, the initiation of our new site in North Carolina and, most recently, by successfully navigating the challenges of manufacturing during the global pandemic."

"Melissa has been a trusted partner to me, our board and her colleagues, leading ethics and compliance and enterprise risk management for nearly a decade. Under her leadership, we have been recognized five years running as one of the world's most ethical companies by Ethisphere," said Ricks. "Melissa's leadership helped reinforce the values ingrained by our founder and ensured we continually meet and exceed the expectations of our customers."

Edgardo Hernandez earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico  Mayaguez and his master's in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University. Prior to joining Lilly in 2005, Hernandez worked for Pfizer. His career at Lilly has included roles with increasing leadership responsibilities in engineering services and manufacturing strategy, as well as manufacturing site-head roles in Puerto Rico, France, and the United States. He currently oversees Lilly's parenteral and device manufacturing network, as well as the company's global supply chain activities. Hernandez will assume his new role on May 2, 2021.

Alonzo Weems earned his bachelor's degree in English from Wabash College and his Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Prior to joining Lilly in 1997, Weems was an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. He has held roles of increasing responsibility at Lilly, including general counsel of Lilly Canada, general counsel for Lilly USA and general counsel for the global Bio-Medicines and Diabetes business units, which included responsibilities for legal teams in Australia, Canada, China, Europe and Japan. In his current role, Weems is responsible for the corporate legal functions which includes commercial transactions, litigation, regulatory, and human resources. He will assume his new role on June 27, 2021.

About Eli Lilly and Company

Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to create medicines that make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at www.lilly.com.

C-LLY

This press release contains forward-looking statements about leadership transitions and reflects Lilly's current beliefs. There are risks and uncertainties related to leadership transitions. For discussion of important risks and uncertainties, please see Lilly's latest Forms 10-Q and 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Lilly undertakes no duty to update forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company

Related Links

www.lilly.com


Afghanistan: Acting police chief of Ghazni killed in blast

Kabul, Mar 9 (UNI) Abdul Rahman Fateh, the acting police chief of Deh Yak district in Ghazni, was killed in a roadside mine blast in the province on Monday, local media reported on Tuesday.

The incident happened on Monday in Deh Yak district of the province when Fateh and other security forces were on their way to supply local forces and his vehicle struck a roadside mine, TOLONews reported.

However, no one else from his team was wounded in the blast, sources said.
File Photo

On August 11, 2020, the head of Moscow's Gamaleya Research Institute, Aleksandar Ginzburg, was preparing for a video conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was about to report to the president that his institute developed in a record-breaking time a vaccine against the COVID-19.

It was a moment that the rest of the world (mostly the West) met with disbelief. Many just couldn't comprehend how the Russians had developed, tested, and registered the vaccine within months. They've publicly rejected and ridiculed the Russian vaccine.

Fast forward to these days, the picture is totally different. More than 50 countries have so far approved the use of Gamaleya's Sputnik-V coronavirus vaccine. The turning point was when the UK-based scientific journal The Lancet confirmed its effectiveness and safety.

Now buyers from around the world, including some Western countries, are queuing up to purchase it, and people are queuing to receive it.

CGTN went to one of the polyclinics in one of Moscow's suburbs. Every day, dozens of people go there to take the Sputnik-V vaccine against COVID-19.

At first, as a result of the widespread campaign against it, among the people, there was a lot of skepticism toward the vaccine. But that is rapidly changing.

"I changed my mind when I saw that these vaccines were delivered abroad, to Europe. I started believing in them and realized that I should take the jab," Boris, a young airport worker from Moscow waiting to get his Sputnik-V jab, told CGTN.

Fruit of 20 years' research

Millions of people in Russia and abroad have already taken Sputnik-V, a vaccine that is the pride and joy of Russia and its developer. CGTN went to meet the people behind the vaccine  the researchers from the Gamaleya Institute.

Over 1,000 people work there. According to Ginzburg, after what happened with the Sputnik-V, scientists are now queuing to get a job in this 130-year-old institute.

He also told CGTN that his colleagues spent the past 20 years developing technology to fight coronaviruses.

"With the help of that technology, we've created a vaccine against MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), which is another coronavirus with the lethality of 38 percent. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, we already knew so much about the development of that type of vaccine," he said.

That's why the Gamaleya Institute needed only several months to produce the vaccine against COVID-19, he said.

The news sent shockwaves among the Western pharmaceutical competitors, as they too were racing not only to save millions of lives, but also for supremacy in the lucrative vaccines market.

"It is a known fact that some companies invested a lot of money and also received funds from their national budget. Pfizer alone received $5 billion from the U.S. and EU. Now they need to justify those funds. That's why some countries have closed their markets to other vaccine producers," said Dmitriy Abzalov, president of the Center for Strategic Communications.

Production of Sputnik-V vaccines is in full swing in Russia, which will also soon start in India, South Korea, and China. That's considered as another demonstration of Sputnik-V's global success and another step toward bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Oslo, March 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Norway on Tuesday recommended that AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine be used for people over the age of 65 in light of new studies and amid hopes it would speed up vaccinations of the elderly.

The Nordic country had initially restricted the use of the vaccine to those under the age of 65 on the grounds that the Anglo-Swedish firm had not conducted enough research on people above that age.

Following in the footsteps of France, Germany, Italy and several Nordic neighbours, Norway's public health agency said it was now recommending the vaccine for all people over the age of 18, based on British studies now conducted on elderly people.

The government said Tuesday it would follow the agency's recommendation.

Norway also wants to increase the waiting period between the first and second doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna vaccines from three to six weeks, a move that still requires a final approval from the public health agency.

The agency has also been tasked with studying whether the interval can be extended beyond six weeks in order to allow a greater number of people to quickly receive a first dose.

"We now expect all adults to be offered a vaccine by or during the summer," Prime Minister Erna Solberg told parliament.

She also gave local medical authorities increased powers to try to curb a recent surge of infections in Norway.

While the country has one of the lowest incidence rates in Europe, the number of cases has soared lately.

"We still have a steep hill ahead of us but if we make it, the goal of a return to a more normal life will be within reach," Solberg said.

"If we manage to keep the epidemic under control in March-April, we can begin to reopen (the country) in May," she said.

If not, authorities may need to impose new nationwide restrictions, including a ban on serving alcohol and the closure of various public establishments, she warned.

More than 391,000 people had by Sunday received at least one jab in the country of 5.4 million people, and almost 210,000 had gotten two doses.

On Monday, Norway reported 632 Covid-related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
China has violated every rule in the UN's genocide convention as it tries to 'destroy' Uighur Muslims, a think tank has claimed.

Beijing's use of 're-education' camps, mass imprisonment, forced sterilization, rape, and transfer of Uighur children to state institutions violate all five definitions of genocide laid out by the UN, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy says.

China 'bears state responsibility for an ongoing genocide against the Uighurs,' researchers conclude in a paper published on Monday.

Beijing has vehemently denied all claims of genocide in its western Xinjiang province, calling reports 'preposterous' and 'a total lie'.

China has breached every article of the UN's convention on genocide and is trying to 'destroy' the Uighurs, an independent report has concluded (file image, Uighur protesters in Turkey)

As part of the 55-page report, researchers examined China's official statements and reports from within the country against the UN's definition of genocide included in the Genocide Convention, which China has signed up to.

The convention states that genocide has been committed if any one of five conditions are met, within the context of a wider 'intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group'.

The five conditions are: Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Breaching any one of the conditions is enough to make a country guilty of genocide, the convention says, but researchers argue that China is guilty of all five.

Researchers say Xi Jinping's statement in 2014 that China plans to wage a 'people's war on terror' in Xinjiang province kick-started the campaign against the Uighurs.

They say officials then made comments such as 'round up everyone,' 'wipe them out completely' and 'break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins' which shows an attempt to destroy the group.

Reports of mass deaths in detention camps along with the targeting of elder members of Uighur communities with death sentences or long-term imprisonment fits the definition of killing members of the group.

Researchers say the 'systematic torture and cruel treatment, including rape, sexual abuse, exploitation, and public humiliation' in detention camps constitutes serious bodily or mental harm.

The paper adds that 'authorities systematically target Uighurs of childbearing years, household heads, and community leaders for detention in unlivable conditions, impose birth-prevention measures on Uighur women, separate Uighur children from their parents, and transfer Uighurs on a mass scale into forced hard labor schemes in a manner that parallels the mass internment.

Mass detentions, executions, forced sterilization, rape, and the transfer of Uighur children to state orphanages all qualify as acts of genocide, researchers says (pictured, a facility believed to be a re-education camp in Xinjiang province)

'In sum, China is deliberately inflicting collective conditions calculated to terminate the survival of the Uighurs as a group.'

They argue that birth rates in Uighur dominated areas has dropped to 'near zero' as the result of internment policies that target men and women of childbearing age, with the use of forced sterilization, IUD insertions and abortions.

'Where detentions and forced labor schemes are leaving Uighur children bereft of both parents, they are being sent to State-run orphanages and raised in Chinese-language environments,' they add.

For the report, the institute spoke with dozens of experts in international law, genocide studies, Chinese ethnic policies, and the region to assess evidence.

The report was released in the midst of China's most-important annual political meetings, when its primary lawmaking bodies meet to approve new legislation.

Politicians also regularly take questions from the press during the events, but the session are tightly regulated.

It also came as China summoned Britain's ambassador in Beijing on Tuesday to lodge 'stern representations' over an 'inappropriate' article she wrote defending media reports that are critical of Beijing.

Caroline Wilson's article in Chinese was posted on the official WeChat account of the British embassy in Beijing last week, amid already tense relations between Britain and China over issues including Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the media.

Wilson sought to explain why foreign media criticism of the Chinese government did not mean the journalists responsible did not like China, but were in fact acting in 'good faith' and playing an active role in monitoring government action.

In a statement, China's Foreign Ministry said the Chinese government and people had never opposed foreign media, rather those who make up 'fake news' to attack China and its ruling Communist Party under the banners of press freedom and freedom of speech.

'The whole article is full of 'lecturer' arrogance and ideological prejudice ... and is seriously inconsistent with the status of diplomats,' it added in remarks attributed to the head of the ministry's Europe department.

The UK Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
MILAN - Russia has signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Italy, the first contract in the European Union, the Italian Russian Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday.

FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2021, file photo, a medical worker injects a woman with a dose of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V at the Palacio de los Deportes, in the Iztacalco borough of Mexico City. Russias boast in August that it was the first country to authorize a coronavirus vaccine led to skepticism because of its insufficient testing on only a few dozen people. Now, with demand growing for the Sputnik V, experts are raising questions again, this time over whether Moscow can keep up with all the orders from countries that want it. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

MILAN - Russia has signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Italy, the first contract in the European Union, the Italian Russian Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday.

The deal was signed with Adienne Srl, the Italian subsidiary of a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company, and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Production of a planned 10 million doses this year is set to launch in July.

The innovative production process will help create new jobs and allow Italy to control the entire production of the compound, the chamber said in a statement. Financial terms were not released.

Sputnik V has not yet been approved for use in the EU, but the body's regulator, the European Medicines Agency, or EMA, started a rolling review of the vaccine last week.

Russian authorities are working on 20 similar collaborations in Europe and the Sputnik V vaccine has been registered in 45 nations worldwide, the chamber said.

FILE - In this Feb. 4, 2021, file photo released by Imam Khomeini Airport City, Russian-made Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines are unloaded at the Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. Russias boast in August that it was the first country to authorize a coronavirus vaccine led to skepticism because of its insufficient testing on only a few dozen people. Now, with demand growing for the Sputnik V, experts are raising questions again, this time over whether Moscow can keep up with all the orders from countries that want it. (Saeed Kaari/IKAC via AP, File)

The EU has been criticized for its slow vaccine rollout and some EU nations have decided not to wait for the EMAs approval. Hungary became the first EU country to authorize Sputnik V for use last month while Slovakia announced a deal last week to acquire 2 million Sputnik V doses and received the first shipment of 200,000 doses.

Frances government has had regular exchanges about Sputnik V, but the country now doesn't have a production site available that would meet the necessary requests so no contract has been signed so far to produce the vaccine in France, according to a French Industry Ministry official.

The official reiterated Frances position that the government isn't choosing vaccines because of their country of origin, but based on whether they are effective and safe and approved by the EMA.

Russian President Vladimir Putin began a dialogue about the Sputnik V vaccine with French President Emmanuel Macron in autumn, and Paris sent a delegation of experts to Russia to conduct talks about the vaccine and advise how to handle discussions with the World Health Organization and the EMA, according to a French official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.

Despite skepticism about Russias hasty introduction of the vaccine, which was rolled out before it had completed late-stage trials, the vaccine appears to be safe and effective. According to a study published in the Lancet, Sputnik V is 91% effective and appears to prevent inoculated individuals from becoming severely ill with COVID-19, although its still unclear if the vaccine can prevent the spread of the disease.

With a global shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, some experts say boosting the use of vaccines made by China and Russia could offer a quicker way to increase the global supply. Others note that Russias push to export its vaccine around the world may be driven by political interests.

FILE - In this Jan. 20, 2021, file photo, a Russian medical worker, right, administers a shot of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to a patient in a vaccination center in Moscow, Russia. Russias boast in August that it was the first country to authorize a coronavirus vaccine led to skepticism because of its insufficient testing on only a few dozen people. Now, with demand growing for the Sputnik V, experts are raising questions again, this time over whether Moscow can keep up with all the orders from countries that want it. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

An EMA official has warned European nations against issuing national emergency clearance of Sputnik V.

Christa Wirthumer-Hoche, the chair of the EMAs management board and the head of the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency, said on Austrian television that EU members approving Russian and Chinese vaccines via emergency national procedures is partly comparable with Russian roulette, citing the need to first examine data on the quality, safety and effectiveness of the shots.

Citizens have a right to get really safe and effective medicinal products, Wirthumer-Hoche added. We can have Sputnik V on the market here in the future if we have examined the corresponding data.

Wirthumer-Hoches remarks elicited outrage in Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called them inappropriate," and developers of the vaccine demanded a public apology from the official, saying that her comments raise serious questions about possible political interference in the ongoing EMA review.

EMA did not allow such statements about any other vaccine. Such comments are inappropriate and undermine credibility of EMA and its review process. Vaccines and EMA should be above and beyond politics, Sputnik Vs official Twitter account said Tuesday.

An EMA spokesperson told The Associated Press in written comments that the agency will assess Sputnik Vs compliance with the usual EU standards and any recommendation will be based on the strength of the scientific evidence on the vaccines safety, quality and efficacy, and nothing else.

The EU commission does not now have plans for the collective purchase of Sputnik doses, relying instead on deals already made with other vaccine manufacturers. But it has made clear that member states are entitled to reach separate agreements as long as they don't compete with the commission's advance purchases of 2 billion vaccine doses.

Italys health minister, Roberto Speranza, has indicated he is open to introducing the Russia-developed vaccine in Italy, as long as it has regulatory approval. Italys new premier, Mario Draghi, has pledged to accelerate the vaccination campaign to dampen the spread of new variants that have again put Italy's health system under pressure. So far, just 2.85% of Italy's population has been fully vaccinated.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled the vaccine and markets it abroad has said the production of Sputnik V will span several countries, including India, South Korea, Brazil, China, Turkey, as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan and possibly Iran.

Kazakhstan manufactured 90,000 doses of the vaccine last month but there are few indications any large amounts of the vaccine have been produced outside of Russia so far.

Daria Litvinova reported from Moscow. Angela Charlton and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Samuel Petrequin in Brussels, and Geir Moulson in Berlin, contributed to this report.

Follow APs pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
(Adds details of negotiations, early studies of variant)

By Eduardo Simoes and Rodrigo Viga Gaier

SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO, March 8 (Reuters) - Brazil's government on Monday pressed Pfizer Inc for earlier delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and sought to buy more AstraZeneca shots from other countries, as a deadly second wave of cases adds urgency to a lethargic vaccine rollout.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who has played down the gravity of the novel coronavirus and questioned the "rush" for vaccines, took part personally in a video call with executives at Pfizer , reaching a spoken agreement to buy their vaccine.

The government is also seeking out more doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from other countries, a state governor told journalists, after Brazil's health minister said that India had halted a shipment of 8 million doses.

The AstraZeneca shot, along with a vaccine made by China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd, have been Brazil's strongest bet against a surging outbreak, with the homegrown P1 variant of the coronavirus apparently boosting transmission and reinfection.

Record COVID 19 deaths have been reported in Brazil over the past week and its hospital system is on the bring of collapse, prompting warnings from the World Health Organization about possible regional spillover and causing renewed lockdown measures in much of the country.

Preliminary studies suggest the AstraZeneca vaccine will protect against the P1 variant, Mauricio Zuma, the head of production at Brazil's Fiocruz biomedical institute, said on Monday, confirming a Reuters report on Friday.

A Brazilian study also indicates that the Sinovac shot is effective against the P1 variant, a source familiar with the study told Reuters on Monday.

If final results bear out those findings, it will be a crucial break for Brazil, which has ordered more than 200 million doses of the AstraZeneca and Sinovac shots, while dragging its feet on others.

Less than 4% of Brazil's 210 million residents have been inoculated against COVID-19 due to a string of missteps by the Health Ministry, which Bolsonaro has stocked with military men with little public health experience.

Story continues

As early as August, the ministry passed up a chance to order 70 million doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech , with delivery starting in December, Pfizer said in a January statement.

Although Brazil has still not signed a contract with Pfizer, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said that after Bolsonaro's call the company had agreed to start delivering 14 million doses by June, up from 9 million in its prior offer.

Following those early deliveries, Pfizer agreed to ship at least 10 million more doses per month, a health ministry official added, without saying the total size of the order.

Last week the government said it intended to buy 100 million doses from Pfizer and 38 million from Janssen, the pharmaceutical unit of Johnson & Johnson.

Guedes said Bolsonaro was also scheduled to speak with the head of Janssen.

"Mass vaccination is the government's number one priority," Guedes said. "We are going to vaccinate and keep the economy moving." (Reporting by Eduardo Simoes in Sao Paulo and Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro Additional reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia Writing by Jamie McGeever and Brad Haynes Editing by Christian Plumb and Steve Orlofsky)
The Sputnik vaccine has not yet been approved by the EU's medicines regulator

An Italian-Swiss pharmaceutical company has agreed to produce Russia's Sputnik V vaccine in Italy, the first such deal in the European Union, a trade body said Tuesday.

"The vaccine will be produced from July 2021 in (pharma company) Adienne factories in Lombardy," northern Italy, a spokesman for the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce, Stefano Maggi, told AFP.

"Ten million doses will be produced between July 1 and January 1, 2022," he added, describing it as the "first agreement on the European level for the production on EU territory of the Sputnik vaccine".

Several EU countries have already begun distributing Sputnik V, but it has yet to be approved by the bloc's medicines regulator.

Last week the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency launched a rolling review of the Russian vaccine, a key step towards being approved as the first non-Western jab to be used against the coronavirus across the 27-nation bloc.

"If the vaccine is not authorised in Europe by July 1, the doses produced (in Italy) will be bought by the Russian sovereign fund and distributed in countries where the Sputnik vaccine is authorised," Maggi said.

Italy's health ministry declined to comment on the deal. Adienne was not immediately available and the northern Italian region of Lombardy said it had learned about it through media reports.

But it was welcomed by Attilio Fontana, president of Lombardy, which has been since the start the epicentre of the pandemic in Italy.

If the EMA approves the Russian jab, "it could be an important solution to find vaccines that are still a bit scarce," he said.

The EU has so far authorised three vaccines: the US-German Pfizer/BioNTech jab, US firm Moderna's shot, and the British-Swedish AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine.

The bloc is set to decide on the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine on March 11, while jabs by Novavax and CureVac are also under rolling review.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 AFP
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.
These sea slugs sever their own heads and regenerate new bodies Sky News

The Stocks Rotation Ride Is Real, and Violent Bloomberg

Google advised mental health care when workers complained about racism and sexism NBC

Google image search cements national stereotypes of racy women Deutsche Welle

#COVID19

In Kent Patrick Cockburn, LRB. How B.1.1.7 spread from ground zero in Margate. It would be difficult to find a place where coronavirus was more likely to flourish and to enhance its mode of attack than Thanet and Swale. Todays must-read.

The Pandemics Dr. Doom Bets It All The Atlantic. On variants, including B.1.1.7.

* * *

6 Feet Isnt Enough. Workers Need More Ventilation. Politico. Politico, ffs. Everybody seems to know this but CDC; as I have pointed out, the CDCs school reopening guidelines and their recent guidance for vaccinated people give only the slightest recognition to ventilation or aerosols, which do not appear in executive summaries or as bullets for talking points.

How to Be Sure Your Face Mask Isnt a Counterfeit Popular Mechanics

* * *

Will the U.S. have Covid vaccine doses for everyone by the end of May? Probably STAT

Is Choice Always Worth the Anxiety? Zeynep Tufecki

Vaccine-skeptical Trump country poses challenge to immunization push Politico

* * *

Unlocking the Mysteries of Long COVID The Atlantic

Heroes: Nurses Sacrifice in the Age of COVID-19 MedScape

Less Popcorn, More Distance: How Indie Movie Theaters Are Gingerly Reopening Curbed

Maskless Uber Passengers Assault, Cough On, Pepper Spray Driver After He Refuses Them Service CBS. The video:
More details: https://www.technavio.com/report/medical-marijuana-market-industry-analysis

Medical Marijuana Market: Application Landscape

Based on the application, the market witnessed maximum growth in the chronic pain segment in 2019. The high prevalence of chronic pain among adults in the US is the major factor driving the growth of the segment. The market growth in the segment will be significant over the forecast period.

Medical Marijuana Market: Geographic Landscape

By geography, North America is going to have a lucrative growth during the forecast period. About 57% of the market's overall growth is expected to originate from North America. Increasing government initiatives to legalize cannabis will be crucial in driving the growth of the medical marijuana market in North America.

The US and Canada are the key markets of the medical marijuana market in North America. Market growth in this region will be faster than the growth of the overall market.

Develop Smart Strategies for Your Business: Grab a Free Sample Report Now!

Related Reports on Consumer Staples Include:

Global Legal Cannabis Market - Global legal cannabis market is segmented by product (medical and recreational) and geography (APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America). Get an Exclusive Free Sample Report

Global CBD Oil Market - Global CBD oil market is segmented by product (marijuana-derived CBD oil and hemp-derived CBD oil) and geography (North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and MEA). Get an Exclusive Free Sample Report

Companies Covered:

Aphria Inc.

Aurora Cannabis Inc.

Cannabis Sativa Inc.

Canopy Growth Corp.

Cronos Group Inc.

GW Pharmaceuticals Plc

mCig Inc.

Medical Marijuana Inc.

United Cannabis Corp.

and Vivo Cannabis Inc.

What our reports offer:

Market share assessments for the regional and country-level segments

Strategic recommendations for the new entrants

Covers market data for 2020, 2021, until 2025

Market trends (drivers, opportunities, threats, challenges, investment opportunities, and recommendations)

Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations

Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends

Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments

Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancements

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Technavio's in-depth research has direct and indirect COVID-19 impacted market research reports.

Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports.

Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform

Key Topics Covered:

PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT

2.1 Preface

2.2 Currency conversion rates for US$

PART 03: MARKET LANDSCAPE

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market segmentation analysis

PART 04: MARKET SIZING

Market definition

Market sizing 2019

Market outlook

Market size and forecast 2019-2024

PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY APPLICATION

Market segmentation by application

Comparison by application

Chronic pain - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Nausea - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by application

PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE

PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

- Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Europe - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

- Market size and forecast 2019-2024 APAC - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

- Market size and forecast 2019-2024 MEA - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK

PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: MARKET TRENDS

Increasing number of awareness campaigns

Launch of medical marijuana education programs

Increase in funding for research and production of medical marijuana

PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Aphria Inc.

Aurora Cannabis Inc.

Cannabis Sativa, Inc.

Canopy Growth Corp.

Cronos Group Inc.

GW Pharmaceuticals Plc

mCig Inc.

Medical Marijuana, Inc.

United Cannabis Corp.

Vivo Cannabis, Inc.

PART 14: APPENDIX

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Definition of market positioning of vendors

PART 15: EXPLORE TECHNAVIO

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contact

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/



SOURCE Technavio

Related Links

http://www.technavio.com


ADVERTISEMENT

No fewer than 1,095 delegates from six states in the South-south geo-political zone are expected to converge in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Tuesday, to elect the zonal leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The delegates are drawn from Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers states.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Akwa Ibom has 224 delegates. Bayelsa has 118; Cross River, 192; Delta, 236; Edo, 168; while the host, Rivers has 196.

As of Tuesday morning, all delegates from Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers were available, while Cross River registered 153.

According to NAN, the number of delegates currently available from Cross River declined from the actual number of delegates because the state had yet to elect its state executive.

The two-third of expected delegates is 756, while the percentage of delegates currently available is put at 97 per cent.

NAN reported that the tenure of the zonal leadership of the party ended in 2020, and upon the tenure expiration, a caretaker committee was put in place by the national leadership of the party to oversee the affairs until a zonal congress.

NAN further reported that the race for the post of National Vice Chairman South-south is between the immediate past occupant Emmanuel Ogidi from Delta and Dan Orbih, the caretaker committee national vice chairman, who is from Edo.

(NAN)
PHILADELPHIA (March 9, 20201) - The PhD degree prepares nurse scientists to advance knowledge through research that improves health, translates into policy, and enhances education. However, as the role of the nurse has changed, and health care has grown more complex, there is a need to re-envision how PhD programs can attract, retain, and create the nurse-scientists of the future and improve patient care.

To begin the dialog about the future of PhD education in research-intensive schools, the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) invited 41 educational, governmental, professional, and philanthropic institutions to a summit in 2019. During the summit, participants collaborated on re-envisioning how nursing PhD programs can successfully advance nursing science and situate research-focused nursing PhD graduates for success in academia and beyond. An upcoming issue of the Journal of Professional Nursing features manuscripts from that forum, which offer a broader, overall strategy for informing stakeholder groups that shape nursing PhD programs in research-intensive institutions.

"This synthesis of discussions, considerations, and challenges affecting research-focused doctoral programs of nursing serve as a basis and catalyst for further discussion and action to ensure PhD research-focused programs are preparing successful nurse scientists of the future," says Antonia M. Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor and Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing.

"Re-envisioning of research doctorate programs is urgently needed to ensure the advancement of science and the development of new knowledge to situate our graduates for success - in academia and beyond," says Julie A. Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN, Endowed Chair, Nightingale Professor in Honor of Nursing Veterans. Villarruel and Fairman were guest editors of the issue.

Advancing Nursing Science Through Re-envisioned PhD Programs

PhD programs, in general, remain fairly traditional in approach and scope, instigating few changes in programmatic offerings and moving existing curriculum online. The Penn Nursing summit in 2019 was held to address these issues.

The article "Invitational Summit: Re-envisioning Research-Focused PhD Programs of the Future" shares the questions used to survey the summit attendees before the program and the responses. The article outlines the challenges facing research-intensive nursing PhD programs, emerging innovations within programs, and suggested changes to re-envision the future education of nurse scientists.

Fairman and Villarruel co-authored the article with Kathleen McCauley, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA, Professor Emerita of Cardiovascular Nursing at Penn Nursing; and Nicholas A. Giordano, Assistant Professor, Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

Approaching Doctoral Nursing Education in Novel Ways

The rapid growth of science and the need to prepare the next generation of nurse scientists call for innovative approaches in educating and supporting them throughout their careers. Aside from curricular changes, a new PhD education model for nurses should include new approaches to mentoring, funding, and networking supports. Equally important are rigorous process and outcome measures for innovations to inform changes to doctoral programs.

The article "Innovations in PhD Education to Prepare Nurse Scientists for the Future" outlines those recommendations and includes the need to structure faculty development earlier in professorial careers, develop team models of advisement, and longitudinal follow-up of alumni graduates from PhD programs to examine the effectiveness of innovations.

Villarruel co-authored the article with Marion E. Broome, Duke University School of Nursing; and Hilaire J. Thompson, University of Washington School of Nursing.

Advancing Nursing Science Through PhD Programs

Nurses are well-positioned to be groundbreaking researchers, scientists, leaders, and innovators to improve the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Thoughtful consideration is required about the preparation of PhD nurse scientists to ensure they are equipped with the knowledge and skill sets to meet the needs of society and to ensure the relevance and competitive status of nursing science.

The article "PhD Programs and the Advancement of Nursing Science" outlines three aspects of PhD education and nursing science. These include examining important elements to support nurse scientist development; identifying key gaps in science that the discipline needs to address in educating the next generation of nurse scientists; and preparing nurse scientists for the competitive funding environment.

Authors of the article include Therese S. Richmond, PhD, RN, FAAN, Andrea B. Laporte Professor of Nursing and Associate Dean for Research & Innovation at Penn Nursing; Paule V. Joseph, of the National Institute of Nursing Research; and Linda McCauley of the Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

Leveraging Insight from Funders and Sponsors

Re-envisioning PhD education at research-intensive institutions to produce the nurse scientists of the future is imperative for the discovery of solutions for current and complex health care challenges facing the country. Philanthropic funders and sponsors of PhD nursing education have important insights into how investments in PhD education have direct and positive impacts on health care and bring important perspectives to emerging roles for PhD-prepared nurses.

The article, "Emerging Roles for Research Intensive Ph.D.-Prepared Nurses as Leaders and Innovators: Views from Funders/Sponsors" reports on the ideas these funders shared, including the importance of increasing the focus on formal leadership preparation and training in innovation.

Co-authors of the article include Nancy A. Hodgson, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor & Chair of the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences; MaryJoan Ladden, formerly of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Elizabeth Madigan, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing; Ahrin Mishan, Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation; and Wanda Montalvo, Jonas Nursing & Veterans Healthcare.

Preparing Nurses for Nontraditional Career Paths

Advancing the health of patients and communities depends on preparing the next generation of nurse scientists to pursue career trajectories outside of traditional academic institutions. Redesigning nursing PhD curricula must include preparation for careers in many sectors of health care, professional organizations, government, or industry.

During the summit, executives from health systems and organizations shared their career trajectories, experiences, and perspectives for revamping PhD curriculum and offered educational experiences to broaden the scope of academic rigor to inspire and prepare future nurse scientists for nontraditional research positions in practice. Their thoughts regarding why research-intensive PhD programs must address the PhD study milestones to enable their graduates to be competitive in seeking positions in emerging roles outside of academic institutions and recommendations for achieving these milestones are included in the article "Emerging Roles for Research Intensive PhD Prepared Nurses: Beyond Faculty Positions."

Rosemary C. Polomano, PhD, RN, FAAN, Associate Dean for Practice Professor of Pain Practice, is the lead author of the article. Co-authors include Nicholas A. Giordano, Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing; Suzanne Miyamoto, American Academy of Nursing; Deborah Trautman, American Association of Colleges of Nursing; Sheila Kempf, Penn Medicine Princeton Health; and Paula Milone Nuzzo, Massachusetts General Hospital.

Pedagogical Innovations in PhD Nursing Education

Over the past decade there have been numerous innovations in PhD programs that have redesigned the curricula and delivery of research-focused doctoral nursing education. The article, "Opportunities and Challenges Presented by Recent Pedagogical Innovations in Doctoral Nursing Education," explores core issues resulting from key program changes such as expanding both 3-year and PhD programs and BSN to PhD programs. This paper makes the case for a national effort to evaluate the effects of these program modifications on the development of nurse scientists and, ultimately, the nursing discipline. Understanding the impact of pedagogical innovations will inform ongoing improvements essential to educate the next generation of nurse scientists to conduct high quality research in an increasingly multidisciplinary environment.

Authors of the article include Mary D. Naylor, PhD, RN, FAAN, Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology & Director of the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health; Peggy Compton, PhD, RN, FAAN, van Ameringen Chair in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing; Nicholas A. Giordano, Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing; Paule V. Joseph, National Institute of Nursing Research; Carol Ann Romano, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; and Mariann R. Piano, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.

PhD Programs of the Future

Over the last 20 years, the number of research-focused doctoral programs in nursing has nearly doubled--from 78 programs in 1999 to 145 programs in 2019. Yet, despite this significant increase in programs, the number of students pursuing the PhD (or equivalent programs) in nursing has declined over the past five years.

From recruiting strategies and subject areas to evaluation methods and funding, discussions at both the Penn Nursing summit and the AACN Doctoral Education Conference authors identified opportunities for improving research-focused doctoral programs for nurses. The article "From Vision to Action: Next Steps In Designing PhD Programs of the Future" synthesizes those discussions and outlines next steps in refining doctoral education in general and in research-focused programs in particular.

Villarruel is lead author with co-authors Fairman and Deborah Trautman, American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

###

About the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is one of the world's leading schools of nursing. For the sixth year in a row, it is ranked the #1 nursing school in the world by QS University and is consistently ranked highly in the U.S. News & World Report annual list of best graduate schools. Penn Nursing is ranked as one of the top schools of nursing in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Penn Nursing prepares nurse scientists and nurse leaders to meet the health needs of a global society through innovation in research, education, and practice. Follow Penn Nursing on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Instagram.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  An investigation is underway after a 20-year-old American University student from Bexley, Ohio, was found dead at his off-campus residence.

The Washington Post reports that authorities have not determined the cause of death for Eli Weinstock, a 2019 graduate of Bexley High School. Weinstock died in his residence on Wednesday, March 3, WBNS Channel 10 reports.

Eli was incredibly intelligent, very witty. He had kind of a sharpness to his humor, Bexley High School math teacher Melissa McCreary tells ABC 6. He was very creative, very inquisitive. He liked to do things his own way.

The Post reports Weinstock shared a house with several other students near the university campus. His father, Michael Weinstock, tells the Post that police say Eli had been out for happy hour with people from a fraternity. He was returned to his residence late Tuesday night. He was found dead by a roommate the following morning.

Both Michael Weinstock and university officials say Eli was pledging a fraternity. Michael Weinstock tells ABC 6 that he doesnt suspect his sons death is related to fraternity activities. No details have been released by authorities in regard to incident and its unknown whether alcohol was a factor, according to reports.

The fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, released a statement on Instagram saying that members were shocked and deeply saddened by Eli Weinstocks death.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Eli, and to anyone mourning his loss, the statement says. Rest In Peace Eli, we love you and will always be thinking of you.

Another student from the Columbus area, Stone Foltz, 20, died Sunday following a suspected hazing incident during a Pi Kappa Alpha event at Bowling Green State University. The fraternitys chapter at BGSU has been suspended as police investigate the death.

According to the Post, Weinstock is survived by his father, his mother, Elizabeth, two sisters, ages 13 and 21, and a brother, 16.

He was a sweet person, Michael Weinstock tells the Post. He loved kids, was curious, loved music. He had a lot of things he was looking forward to.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says Trump can make or break the GOP if he wishes to. This comes as the rift from within the party is threatening GOP solidarity.

Graham Says Trump Can Either Bolster GOP or Destroy It

Ex-President Donald Trump expressed dissatisfaction over the GOP. In particular, those who voted to impeach him and expressed plans to support a selected few.

According to Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who expressed aloud what many Republicans would not want to realize, Donald Trump could secure the GOP as a stronger and more relevant party or choose its destruction. The last four years of Trump's presidency and its success cemented his influence in anything GOP, reported the Epoch Times.

Seen on an interview in Axios on HBO, the South Carolina senator spoke his thoughts on the matter. He spoke of his support for former president Trump and how Republicans are in the midst of deciding where the party will go. Whether those Republicans who support him and don't cannot imagine how tied the GOP is to the businessman turned leader.

Before the 2016 elections that trounced Hillary Clinton and democrats, Lindsey had no care for then-presidential candidate Trump. He later supported the president on major issues. On some occasions, he went against the then president, like getting U.S. troops out of Syria.

Graham Says Trump has the vision to remake the Republican Party as no one can. If he desired a bigger and better GOP, the tools are his, with the popular support to succeed. Other things that can be done are diversity and making the party stronger, or letting the GOP destroy itself.

Also read: Trump's Overwhelming Victory in CPAC Straw Poll, DeSantis Next in Line to Succeed

He included among those who called the ex-president for the January 6 incident at the US Capitol. Also, one of those who supported a challenge to the electoral results did not go well. One of the reasons he still supports the ex-president stalwartly is simple. Trump is good for America, and his America First policies are good for the country.

Senator Graham added that his policies are needed to continue that will make America stronger. He said that the Republican Party needs him, and it would be harder without Trump.

According to the S.C. senator, Trump made the impossible possible. Former Republican presidential nominees like John McCain and Mitt Romney did not deliver, said Graham.

Trump has some unknown factor that makes him compelling as a politician. The former businessman turned president has two sides. He wanted to use that side that got great things done which is like magic.

Major efforts on the ex-president will be to GOP members who are okay with getting back DEM seats in the Senate and House. In his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on February 28, he spoke his clout with Republican supporters. In his speech, he put out his plans to retake what DEMs took.

On the podium, Trump reached out and pulled conservatives forward and said this is just the start. He mentioned the Make America Great Again agenda to keep the fire burning. He spoke against GOP members who would side with democrats. A CPAC straw poll showed that Graham says Trump is the future of the GOP.

Related article: Trump Demands GOP Bodies to Stop Using His Name, Images to Procure Funds

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Ending days of suspense, the opposition AINRC in on Tuesday firmed up alliance with the BJP and for next month's assembly elections and exuded confidence that the coalition will emerge victorious at the hustings.

The chief ministerial candidate for the front will be decided post-election, the BJP said.

Single phase polling to 30 seats in this union territory is scheuduled on April 6.

According to the agreeement reached by the three parties, AINRC, headed by former Chief Minister N Rangasamy will contest from 16 seats, with the rest being allotted to the other two constituents.

Earlier, the issue of CM candidate was said to be bothering the AINRC whose workers had wanted their founder Rangasamy to be declared so, amid BJP leader A Namassivayam, former PWD minister in the V Narayanasamy government, being projected as a CM face.

Subsequently, Ranagasamy's earlier 'silence' and his guessing game had put a question mark over the NDA coalition, although the AINRC, BJP and had stood together on many issues and even faced the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as allies.

In the 2016 elections, the AINRC, BJP and had contested on their own. The AINRC won eight seats and the AIADMK four while the BJP drew a blank.

The three parties, however, contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in alliance, but again lost.

On Tuesday, the BJP announced that the AINRC will contest 16 seats in as a constituent of the NDA.

After the alliance talks, BJP in-charge of the union territory, Nirmal Kumar Surana told reporters here that negotiations were held by leaders of AINRC, AIADMK and BJP.

The BJP and AIADMK have been allotted the remaining 14 seats.

"These two parties (BJP and AIADMK) would decide the number of seats for each of them," he said.

Surana further said, "The NDA would face the elections here in the name of most successful and popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the alliance is headed in by Rangasamy."



Asked who was the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance, Surana said it would be decided post election by the legislature party at that time.

Rangasamy asserted that the NDA headed by AINRC would romp home and form the next government in the UT.

"We will capture large number of seats to form the government. The AINRC, AIADMK and BJP are constituents of the NDA here," he said.

Puducherry State BJP president V Saminathan and AIADMK secretary of Puducherry A Anbalagan were also present at the press meet.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Guest Column Can China be Myanmars Good Neighbor While Maintaining Its Non-interference Principle?

Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (left) at the launch ceremony for events to mark the 70th anniversary of China-Myanmar diplomatic relations in Naypyitaw in January 2020. / Myanmar State Counselors Office / Facebook

A month after the militarys seizure of power in Myanmar, China is still reluctant to characterize the situation as a coup. Instead, it urges all parties to exercise restraint regardless of the rise of civilian casualties in the crisis. In his latest response to the Myanmars political turmoil on March 7, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated, China supports the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to uphold the principles of non-interference in internal affairs and making decisions through consensus, mediate in the ASEAN way and seek common ground. China sends a clear signal that it opposes coercive measures to pressure the military regime in Myanmar.

Chinese foreign policy experts argue that China does not prefer the coup as a stable business environment that best serves Chinas economic interests. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is Chinas flagship diplomatic tool connecting to its national rejuvenation aspiration. The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) that is a key component of the BRI helps China achieves the two ocean strategy. In the past decade, China has been cultivating a cordial relationship with Daw Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) for the advancement of CMEC. Nevertheless, they also point out that China will not abandon its long-established principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

People in Myanmar do hope that China can respect their countrys sovereignty. The older generation still remembers the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) military, financial and intelligence support to the Burma Communist Party (BCP) that aimed to topple the Ne Win government through armed struggle in the 1960s-1970s. Only in the post-Mao era, did the CCP cut ties with BCP to normalize relations with Burma in the 1980s. To date, there is on-going speculation about Chinas influence over ethnic armed groups along the China-Myanmar border.

Outside Myanmar, there are indications that China might relax its principle of non-interference in humanitarian crises. In the face of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur in the 2000s, China did utilize its diplomatic influence to persuade Sudan to accept the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping mission to the country. Also, it did not block other United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members referring Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Some argue that it was due to an escalation of international pressure that connected the events in Sudan to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Amid the 2011 Libyan civil war, China condemned the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) military intervention that began in March that year for violating the target states sovereignty. When the anti-government forces gained momentum following NATOs operation, China started to engage with Libyas National Transnational Council (NTC), the leading opposition force, and recognized it as an important dialogue partner. In June, before the NTC took Tripoli and the fall of de facto leader Muammar Gaddafi, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi received NTCs leader Mahmoud Jibril in Beijing. After the NTC controlled the capital in August, Chinese Foreign Ministry even claimed that, We respect the Libyan peoples choice. Alongside the well-being of civilians, China was deeply concerned about its investment in the country, in particular its oil investment.

Unlike the situation in Libya in 2011, the people of Myanmar do not need a civil war today to express public opinion. Election results in the 2020 elections manifested the peoples will. In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping also congratulated Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLDs victory in the election last November. Nationwide anti-coup political mobilization since February has also demonstrated the peoples political choice.

President U Win Myint, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders have been detained since the coup on Feb. 1. The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) comprises elected members of the parliament was formed as a consequence. Its establishment aims to compete for international legitimacy with the military junta. Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Feb. 26, Myanmars UN Ambassador U Kyaw Moe Tun echoed the voices of people at home. He appealed to the UN not to recognize the military government and use any means necessary to take action against the Myanmar military.

The international community, including China, has to determine which government should be the legitimate government in Myanmar. China pledges to play a constructive role in Myanmar. Now it is a moment of truth for China. Will China respect the authority of the military government that seized power by force? Or will it respect the choice of millions of people in Myanmar who chose their government by vote? China can repeat its principle of non-interference, but this could inevitably undermine its image and long-term interests in Myanmar.

Debby S.W. Chan is a visiting fellow in the Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong. Her research concerns Belt and Road projects in Southeast Asia. Her views are her own.

You may also like these stories:

ASEAN Members on Myanmar: Agreeing to Disagree

Thailands Dilemma in Myanmar Crisis

Re-imagining Myanmar  The Mother of All Critical Junctures
The picture of a happy and unified church is one that sings of what the church should be. Often when looking from the outside, it may also be what people see. Imagine being new to the church, all you see is smiling faces that greet you and welcome you in.

You see those who have been friends for a while greet each other and excitedly talk about the week that they have just had. You then sing together, listen to Gods word and pray together. But it doesnt just end there. You may be invited to a after church lunch or a small group which happens during the week. At every point, you are greeted by warm and happy people.

However, now you have been in the church for a few years and along the way you have started serving on a team and you spend time seeing the behind the scenes not just the Sunday service. You may come across conflict and think wow this is not like a Sunday morning.

You may wonder if conflict is healthy for the church or whether it further divides the body of Christ. But heres a new question is the church perfect?

When conflicts arise

The church whilst it is called to teach, encourage and reflect the word of God, at the end of the day it is made up of flawed humans. Due to this, no matter how hard we may try to be happy and loving all the time, conflict is bound to happen. So how do we manage it?

Its good to note that there is healthy conflict and unhealthy conflict. Both of which we are bound to see at some point and time within people that we may interact with. Unhealthy conflict is usually called gossip, exclusion and bullying, whilst healthy conflict involves dealing with disagreements and opposing viewpoints.

Healthy conflict, whilst uncomfortable, usually results in better outcomes, whether that be understanding new views, challenging the status quo, or changing how things are done within the church. Unhealthy conflict on the other hand, leads to hurt people who draw away from the church and others.

Our response

So how do we deal with conflict when we see it, experience it or hear it in the church:

If its unhealthy conflict:

#1 When you see or hear it: stand up to gossip or unhealthy comments. Being silent about it is allowing the conflict to grow.

#2 If you experience it: Prayer for the person causing it, talk to the person who is involved and see if you can discuss how you feel. Seek support from those you consider wise counsel or with your eldership.

If its healthy conflict:

If you see it, hear it or experience it: Be open minded, consider opposing views. Share your own thoughts. Discuss it with the eldership if it challenges views or actions of the church. Pray about it.

Remember that we are all flawed, but as the body of Christ we are to hold one another accountable for the actions and words. Healthy conflict builds the church stronger and unifies the people. Unhealthy conflict breaks down the church and divides the people.

Like any other relationships with people, we are called to love our neighbours. But also in order to sharpen those we walk with (Proverbs chapter 27, verse 17), we are called to keep them accountable with love.
A slice of traditional Japanese culture can be found just outside Sydney, where an authentic bath-house has been built in the unlikely setting of the Australian bush.

The Japanese Bath House is located in South Bowenfels near Lithgow in the New South Wales Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, and while travel to Japan remains off limits to Australians due to Covid-19 travel bans, it provides a opportunity to experience one of the Asian nation's cultural highlights without leaving home.

The tourist drawcard adheres throughout to the aesthetic of 'shibusa', or unobtrusive beauty.

The onsen includes scented public and private baths with views of Lake Lyell, spa treatments, a tea room, restaurant and traditional massage.

Despite briefly being closed when the pandemic hit in March last year, business is booming again as Sydneysiders flock to the tourist hotspot.

Just outside Sydney hides a touch of Japanese culture, a traditional bathhouse nestled in the Australian bush that has remained a local secret for years

The Japanese Bathhouse (pictured) is burrowed near Lithgow in the New South Wales Blue Mountains, west of Sydney

From twirling timber handrails, scented oils, twinkling lights and sparkling granite, every detail follows the aesthetic of shibusa, meaning unobtrusive beauty

The experience is a 40 minute drive from Katoomba and Sydney-siders can catch the train to Lithgow and taxi to the bathhouse

Many visitors have uploaded photos of the baths, describing it as a 'slice of heaven'.

The experience is a 40-minute drive from Katoomba and a short distance from Lithgow.

'From the first moment when I saw curling timber twisting wooden handrails and smelt the gentle essential oils in our private burro I was enchanted,' one guest wrote.

'There is such a sense of unhurried peace about this place that we left with more yet to experience but knowing we will definitely come back.'

One visitor with a broad experience of onsens said this Blue Mountains version was comparable with the genuine articles.

'As a lover of Japan who has visited over 20 different onsens during my travels ... This is pretty much what you would expect from a mid/high end onsen in Japan,' the said.

The onsen includes scented public and private baths with views of Lake Lyell, spa treatments, a tea room, restaurant and traditional massage

Visitors have uploaded magical photos of the bathhouse, calling it perfect in every way and a slice of heaven

One visitor (not pictured) said she had visited 20 onsens in Japan and called this Blue Mountains one reminiscent of a high-end bath house in the Asian country

Japan's historic use of bath houses stem from Buddhist purification rituals which were believed to cleanse not just the body but the spirit.

Attendance at bath houses became common throughout the population during the Edo period from 1603-1868, and mixed bathing with men and women was considered normal.

Public baths had become less common in Japan in the era of indoor plumbing and bathrooms in private homes, but still hold a significant part in Japanese culture.

Entrance to the bathhouse starts at $80 for three hours.
California Mental Health & Criminal Defense Attorney Ken Rosenfeld According to the terms of the plea bargain, the court was supposed to decide based on the experts at Alpine, who are in favor of him going to the step-down facility, said Rosenfeld. The notion of time served in relation to the severity of the offense is simply outside of the terms.

According to appellate court documents (case #H048206), in May of 2020 the Monterey County Superior Court denied Kirkendalls request to be moved out of Alpine Special Treatment Center, the secure mental health facility in San Diego where hed spent a year and two months, declaring the time spent in the facility was not sufficiently in proportion with the seriousness of Kirkendalls offense. Kirkendall initially had faced charges of attempted murder of a peace officer and assault with a deadly weapon, potentially facing life in prison without the possibility of parole, but as the result of a plea agreement, had been instead sentenced to at least a year in a lockdown mental health facility with the ability to move to a step-down facility based on the recommendation of Alpines medical experts. Kirkendalls lawyer, California mental health criminal defense attorney Ken Rosenfeld, filed an appeal in response to the courts decision, stating that its basis for refusal violated both the terms of the plea agreement and his clients due process rights.

According to the terms of the plea bargain, the court was supposed to decide based on the experts at Alpine, who are in favor of him going to the step-down facility, said Rosenfeld. The notion of time served in relation to the severity of the offense is simply outside of the terms.

Since Kirkendall suffers from a lung condition, Rosenfeld furthermore claimed that, in light of the crisis presented by the coronavirus pandemic, the denial of his release constituted cruel and unusual punishment and therefore violated his Eighth Amendment rights. Concurring that the trial court exceeded its jurisdiction in denying Kirkendalls release, the appellate court issued an alternative writ of mandate commanding the trial court to revisit the request.

On October 21, 2020, after the hearing following the alternative writ of mandate, the trial court denied Kirkendalls request a second time, this time suggesting that allowing Kirkendall to move to a step-down facility would present a safety issue to the public. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the Sixth Appellate Court considered this decision to reflect a continued belief on the trial courts behalf that Kirkendall served an insufficient amount of time The Sixth Appellate Court considered this decision as reflecting the continued belief by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the trial court that Kirkendall served an insufficient amount of time. The appellate court thereby decided to remand the case, instructing the court to vacate its October order denying Kirkendalls sentence modification and to again revisit the request, keeping in mind the advice of medical experts and Kirkendalls Eighth Amendment rights and not including any terms outside of the plea agreement.

Im pleased, said Rosenfeld. I look forward to the motion being revisited on terms germane to the plea agreement.

Rosenfeld was responsible for negotiating the plea bargain for Kirkendall in February of 2019 that ensured his client, who sustained brain injuries following an electrocution accident nearly a decade ago, received treatment in lieu of life in prison following the manic episode during which Kirkendall opened fire with a shotgun on a Big Sur firefighter in 2017.

About The Rosenfeld Law Firm

Located in Sacramento, Stockton, and San Jose, the Rosenfeld Law Firm provides aggressive defense of a wide range of high-profile criminal defense cases. California criminal defense attorney Ken Rosenfeld defends such cases as first-degree murder and sex offense cases, and also provides DUI defense. In addition to mental health criminal defense, the Rosenfeld law firm also practices federal criminal defense and juvenile defense, as well as appellate law and prison law. As an expert criminal law commentator Rosenfeld makes regular appearances on KTXL TV and FOX40's Ask An Attorney. Rosenfeld was named 2020 Litigator of the Year by the American Institute of Trial Lawyers. For more information, please contact Ken Rosenfeld directly at (916) 447-2070, or visit http://www.therosenfeldlawfirm.com.

Press release writing by WebSiteText and Proofreading Services by The Proofreaders.
Medical peer-review journal Lancet has published the interim results for phase 2 trials of Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, calling it 'safe, immunogenic with no serious side effects'.

The double-blind, randomised, multicentre, phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate the immunogenicity and safety of Covaxin (BBV152) in healthy adults and adolescents (aged 12-65 years) was carried out at nine hospitals in India.

"In the phase 1 trial, BBV152 induced high neutralising antibody responses that remained elevated in all participants at 3 months after the second vaccination. In the phase 2 trial, BBV152 showed better reactogenicity and safety outcomes, and enhanced humoral and cell-mediated immune responses compared with the phase 1 trial," it said.

The most common adverse event in the phase 2 trial was pain at the injection site, followed by headache, fatigue, and fever. No severe or life-threatening (i.e. grade 4 and 5) solicited adverse events were reported.

Also read: 'People criticised us but I feel proud today': Bharat Biotech chairman speaks on Covaxin's journey

"After either dose, the combined incidence of local and systemic adverse events in this study is lower than that of other SARS-CoV-2 vaccine platform candidates, and similar to that of other inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates," the study said.

This is the only study of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate to report a thorough evaluation of cell-mediated responses, Lancet said.

"The 6 microgram with Algel-IMDG formulation has been selected for the phase 3 efficacy trial. BBV152 (developed using a well established manufacturing platform) was safe, immunogenic (persisting for 3 months), and can be stored at 2-8 degree Celsius, which is compatible with the immunisation cold chain requirements of most countries," it added.

Last week, Bharat Biotech has announced the phase 3 clinical trial results for Covaxin. The company said Covaxin demonstrated efficacy of 81 per cent in the trials.

Also read: Covaxin exceeds efficacy of most traditional platform-based COVID-19 vaccines
Roxann Martinez, a witness in a Pueblo murder trial who was shot and killed in Denver last week, may have been killed by her boyfriend, the Denver Police Department said Thursday.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine neutralizes the rapidly spreading variant of the coronavirus recently discovered in Brazil, according to the results of a laboratory study.

Scientists with Pfizer and the University of Texas took blood from people who had been given the vaccine and mixed it with an engineered version of the mutation, dubbed P.1. The researchers found the vaccine was roughly as effective against the Brazilian variant as it was against other, less contagious versions of the virus from last year.

The results of the study were published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Russia vaccine deal



In another vaccine related development, Russias sovereign wealth fund RDIF has signed a deal with Swiss-based pharmaceutical company Adienne to mass produce Russias Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for eventual use in Europe. The vaccine would be manufactured in Adiennes production site in Milan, Italy under a deal reached Tuesday.

The European Union has warned member states against purchasing Russias COVID vaccine since the EU has not yet finished its review of Sputnik V. But the EUs drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, has come under growing criticism for its slow approval process of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, prompting some countries to unilaterally approve Sputnik V.

A peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet medical journal last month showed the two-dose Sputnik V vaccine is nearly 92% effective against symptomatic COVID-19.

FILE - Travelers wear face masks while waiting to check in at the Southwest Airlines counter in Denver International Airport, Dec. 22, 2020, in Denver.

US airline industry calls for new standards



As more and more coronavirus vaccines become available to the general public, the U.S. airline industry is urging the Biden administration to craft new standards for travel documents for travelers to prove they have been tested for, and vaccinated against, COVID-19.

In a letter sent Monday to Jeffrey Zients, the head of President Joe Bidens COVID-19 coronavirus response team, more than 30 airlines, trade organizations and labor unions called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take the lead in developing the new standards they hope will eventually lead to the resumption of global travel.

Many nations and organizations are working to develop so-called vaccine passports for travelers to prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. But the World Health Organization says that such documents should not be used for international travel because coronavirus vaccines are not easily available globally.

Vaccine passports



WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan told a press briefing on Monday there are real practical and ethical considerations for countries that are considering using vaccine passports and said the U.N. health agency advises against it for now.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new guidelines Monday for those who have been fully vaccinated, advising that they can gather without masks in small groups with others who have been inoculated, but that they should still wear masks in public.
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan's office was evacuated after a suspicious object was thrown into it, only a day after a death threat was made.

The incident occurred just before 3pm on Tuesday at Mr McGowan's electoral building in Rockingham, south of Perth.

A woman has been taken to hospital as a precaution after the incident.

The office of Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan (pictured front) was evacuated after an object was thrown into it, only a day after a man made a threat on his life

The incident just before 3pm on Tuesday occurred at Mr McGowan's electoral building in Rockingham, south of Perth (pictured)

'A package was thrown under the window at the front of the office at the staff, it's got some sort of foil, tin foil ... a guy ran in and ran out and did it,' Mr McGowan told ABC Radio.

'Because of who I am and the heightened situation with the election on Saturday, they evacuated the office.

'The police have come so I'll head down there and make sure my staff are OK and see what's going on.'

Mr McGowan was at an ABC studio in Perth when the incident occurred.

A woman has been taken to hospital as a precaution after the incident, but Mr McGowan was at an ABC studio in Perth when the incident occurred

Police are investigating a death threat made by a man to Labor candidate Paul Liburne at an early voting centre in Hillarys. Pictured: Mr McGowan with his wife Sarah

On Monday, a man made a threat to Mr McGowan's life at an early voting centre in Hillarys, reported the West Australian.

Police are investigating the threat.

Mr McGowan said police were trying to establish what was in the tinfoil.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Western Australia Police.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
An associate professor at a Christian liberal arts college is not considered a minister and is therefore protected from discrimination during her employment, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has found.

Typically, the ministerial exception applies to employees of religious institutions who carry out the duties of a minister, such as teaching religion or religious texts, leading prayers or delivering sermons. The exception means that these employees are not subject to the same protections of civil law prohibiting employment discrimination based on things like race, religion, national origin, sex or sexual orientation.

Its purpose is to protect religious institutions from governmental interference with employment relationships, and as a result, uphold the separation of church and State spelled out under the first amendment in the United States Constitution. However, the scope of the ministerial exemption remains somewhat unclear, according to the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision.

Plaintiff Margaret DeWeese-Boyd is a tenured associate professor of social work at Gordon College, a private, nondenominational Christian liberal arts college in Wenham, Massachusetts. She was initially hired as an assistant professor in 1998, promoted to associate professor in 2004 and later approved for tenure in 2009.

In 2016, she applied for a promotion to full professor and was unanimously recommended to the position by the faculty senate, which noted her teaching effectiveness, contributions to scholarship and leadership as director of the social work practicum.

The following year, however, Gordon President D. Michael Lindsay and Provost Janel Curry decided not to forward the recommendation to the board of trustees, claiming a lack of scholarly productivity, professionalism, responsiveness and engagement on behalf of DeWeese-Boyd.

Although the letter did not include any references to religious matters or theological disagreement, DeWeese-Boyd brought a civil action against Gordon College, Lindsay and Curry in September 2017, alleging retaliation against her for her vocal opposition to Gordons policies regarding LGBTQ+ individuals.

She alleges Gordon retaliated on the basis of her association with LGBTQ+ individuals or on the basis of her gender by denying her application for promotion to full professor, despite the faculty senates unanimous recommendation. The defendants, however, filed a cross motion for summary judgment, claiming the ministerial exception barred DeWeese-Boyds claims.

On April 3, 2020, a Superior Court judge dismissed the defendants summary judgment motion, finding that Gordon is a religious institution but DeWeese-Boyd is not a ministerial employee.

On April 24, 2020, the same judge granted the defendants motion to report to the Appeals Court, alleging the summary judgment dismissal was incorrect, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court allowed Gordons application for direct appellate review.

Both Educators and Ministers

Lindsay, who became president of Gordon after DeWeese-Boyd was hired, testified that when he interviews a faculty member, he will liken joining Gordon College to joining a religious order, according to the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision.

That said, formal religious training is not required for employment at Gordon, and although some professors have seminary degrees, they do not have different titles from other professors, according to the court decision.

The decision stated Gordons handbook divides professors basic responsibilities  the bases on which tenure and promotions are evaluated  into three categories: teaching, scholarly and professional activity and institutional service. The faculty senate is responsible for making recommendations on applications for promotion and tenure.

In October 2016, Gordon added language to the handbook that states, In the Gordon College context, faculty members are both educators and ministers to our students.

This language was drafted by Meirwyn Walters, Gordons counsel, and the handbook did not previously use the term minister to describe faculty. Faculty were not informed of the change, according to the court decision. After they discovered the language, it was discussed at a faculty meeting in the fall of 2017.

The meeting minutes stated that multiple professors expressed serious opposition to the addition of the language due to concerns that it was inaccurate and misleading.

The Gordon chapter of the American Association of University Professors in a formal statement said that adopting the language of Minister in a presumed attempt to bring faculty within the scope of the Ministerial Exception at best effects a mere change of label while wrongly describing the faculty role within the College.

On the other hand, Curry and Lindsay in their court testimony pointed to Gordons history, mission and tradition of integrating faith into education, likening joining Gordon to responding to a formal call to religious service. Both testified that this makes every faculty member, and likely every employee, ministerial  even janitorial and kitchen staff, according to the defendants. The defendants stated this is because employees befriend[] students, model Christ-like behavior, and nurtur[e] the students faith commitments and maturity, according to the court decision.

Limits of the Ministerial Exception

The Massachusetts Supreme Court found, however, that while Gordon employs Christians who are called to minister to others, this argument oversimplifies the question of whether the ministerial exception applies in this case.

It found that although Gordon identifies as both a Christian college and a liberal arts college, DeWeese-Boyd was first and foremost a professor of social work. She taught classes on sustainability and general social work practice and oversaw practicums but did not teach classes on religion, pray with her students or attend chapel with her students.

The court also found that DeWeese-Boyds formal title  associate professor of social work  does not indicate any religious position.

The revised handbook does describe all faculty not only as educators, but also as ministers; that paragraph was, however, added to the handbook in October 2016  eighteen years after DeWeese-Boyd was hired, and just two months before she was unanimously recommended for promotion to full professor, the court decision said.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court instead found that DeWeese-Boyds responsibilities at Gordon differed from the ordained ministers or teachers of religion at primary or secondary schools in cases that have come before the Supreme Court in the past. It added that claiming her work falls under the ministerial exception would be too broad of an application.

The integration of religious faith and belief with daily life and work is a common requirement in many, if not all, religious institutions, the court decision said. As a result, the breadth of this expansion of the ministerial exception and its eclipsing and elimination of civil law protection against discrimination would be enormous.

With this in mind, the court concluded that DeWeese-Boyd was required to be a Christian teacher and scholar, but not a minister, and the ministerial exception cannot apply as a defense to her claims against Gordon.

The case, Margaret DeWeese-Boyd vs. Gordon College & others, was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Massachusetts Supreme Courts opinion.

Topics Education Massachusetts Universities
Fans who started watching the new Tom & Jerry movie on HBO Max were in for a surprise as they got a preview of Zack Snyder's Justice League due to a mix-up. The Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot-starrer was not set to release until 18 March.

According to reports, the error first came to light after a user Doug Bass took to Twitter and revealed that he got to see one whole hour of the new CGI/live-action version of the film before it was pulled off the site. While it is unclear if this glitch was available worldwide or if it only played in certain regions, an HBO Max spokesman said in a statement, "Zack Snyder's Justice League was temporarily available on HBO Max and the error was addressed within minutes."

Several Twitter users started sharing screenshots of the film, the micro-blogging site began sending takedown notices on behalf of Warner Bros. to prevent any spoilers from getting out.

Justice League star Ray Fisher, who plays Cyborg in the DC Extended Universe, reacted to the leak and urged his fans to stream it on the day of its release. He wrote, "You know what beats a leak? A flood of views on @hbomax! On March 18th we're watching #ZackSnydersJusticeLeague on repeat ALL DAY LONG!!! Who's streaming with me??? #SnyderCut #BORGLIFE."

You know what beats a leak?



A flood of views on @hbomax!



On March 18th were watching #ZackSnydersJusticeLeague on repeat ALL DAY LONG!!!



Whos streaming with me???#SnyderCut #BORGLIFE  Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) March 9, 2021

The makers recently unveiled several teasers and trailers of the movie, which has hyped up the fan base just in time for the release on HBO Max. Some fans have even began drawing parallels between the 2017 Joss Whedon release and the Snyder Cut.

After two years of demands from loyal fans, the film is all set to release in a four-hour format on HBO Max. Justice League stars Ben Affleck (Batman), Henry Cavill (Superman), Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Ezra Miller (The Flash), Jason Momoa (Aquaman) and Ray Fisher (Cyborg), as the leading superhero team.

ALSO READ: Zack Snyder's Justice League To Release In India On March 18 On These Streaming Platforms

ALSO READ: Justice League Snyder Cut's New Trailer Reveals First Look Of The Ultimate Villain Darkseid
Ventyx Biosciences combines clinical stage programs of three companies co-founded and merged by New Science Ventures

NEW YORK and LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- New Science Ventures LLC ("NSV"), a leading venture capital firm focused on building companies that leverage breakthrough science to create extraordinary value, announces that its portfolio company Ventyx Biosciences raised $114 million from blue-chip investors to advance a diverse pipeline of immunology programs. Ventyx Biosciences combines assets from three formerly independent, asset-centric companies - Oppilan Pharma (targeting S1P1R), Zomagen Biosciences (targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome) and the original Ventyx Biosciences (targeting TYK2) - which were founded and merged by Raju Mohan, CEO of Ventyx Biosciences, and New Science Ventures.

The proceeds will be used to accelerate clinical development of best-in-class immunology programs and advance preclinical programs against novel drug targets with its prolific drug discovery engine.

The equity financing was led by venBio Partners alongside new investors, including Third Point, RTW Investments, LP, Janus Henderson Investors, Wellington Management, OrbiMed, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Farallon Capital, Vivo Capital, Logos Capital, Qiming Venture Partners USA, Cormorant Asset Management, and participation from founding investor New Science Ventures. In connection with the financing, Richard Gaster and Aaron Royston of venBio Partners and Jigar Choksey of Third Point will be joining the Ventyx Board of Directors.

"We are extremely proud to have the support of such prominent investors who share our enthusiasm, dedication and vision to build a world-class immunology company," said Raju Mohan, Chief Executive Officer of Ventyx. "The additional capital will allow us to accelerate our clinical development programs while simultaneously expanding our portfolio of small molecule therapeutics with best-in-class potential for patients with inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. We have brought together a syndicate of experienced investors that can support the long-term growth and development of our deep pipeline of immune modulators."

Ventyx's internally discovered and wholly-owned portfolio of potent and selective small molecule drug candidates target multiple indications in the immunology space, including gastrointestinal and dermatological diseases. The company's pipeline combines the clinical stage programs of three companies founded by Raju Mohan and New Science Ventures:

A tissue selective S1P1R modulator for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other indications that was developed by Oppilan Pharma; A selective allosteric TYK2 inhibitor, developed by Ventyx, that is projected to demonstrate high efficacy and therapeutic utility across a broad range of immunological disorders; and The NLRP3 inhibitor program, created by Zomagen. The first candidate of this program will enter the clinic in the second half of this year.

In addition, the company is leveraging its world-class drug discovery platform to advance preclinical programs against other biologically relevant targets involved in difficult to treat inflammatory diseases and autoimmune disorders.

"The Ventyx team has done an extraordinary job of rapidly and efficiently advancing high-quality drug candidates into the clinic against compelling biological targets," said Richard Gaster of venBio."We have been closely tracking the I&I space and are excited to bring these assets together into one outstanding company and lead the current financing round. We are eager to support Ventyx's efforts to bring meaningful new treatments to patients."

"We are pleased to bring in such a distinguished group of healthcare investors to support the development of the company's innovative immunology programs, and we welcome Rich, Aaron and Jigar to the Board," added Somu Subramaniam of New Science Ventures.

About New Science Ventures ("NSV")

NSV is a leading venture capital firm focused on building companies that leverage breakthrough science to create extraordinary value. NSV invests in companies using fundamental, science-based innovations and backed by strong IP protection to address large unmet needs in Life Sciences and Information Technology sectors. We invest in early and mid-stage companies with a long-term view and support our companies through value inflection points to create scalable businesses and realize value. NSV is a founding investor in Ventyx Biosciences.

NSV was founded in 2004 and is based in New York, NY and London, UK and operates a Life Sciences incubator in San Diego, CA.

For more information please visit: www.newscienceventures.com

About Ventyx Biosciences, Inc.

Ventyx Biosciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company advancing a broad pipeline of potent and selective small-molecule drug candidates to treat inflammatory diseases and autoimmune disorders. Ventyx Biosciences combines assets from three formerly independent, asset-centric companies: Oppilan Pharma, targeting S1P1R, Zomagen Biosciences, targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome, and the original Ventyx Biosciences, targeting TYK2. The diversified portfolio in the newly formed joint entity includes best-in-class, highly differentiated clinical-stage programs and preclinical programs focused on high-value targets.

Ventyx is headquartered in Encinitas, California. For more information about Ventyx, please visit www.ventyxbio.com.
LONGMEADOW  The fifth annual On the Move Forum to Advance Women hosted by Bay Path University may have not been in-person this year, but it was still an interactive and energetic celebration of International Womens Day.

On the Move is a platform for collaboration and an opportunity for all of us to learn from one another. To support diversity, equity and inclusion, said Bay Path President Sandra Doran. We must lead, we must empower, we must challenge our young leaders to lead and most importantly we must give them our support. We can and must change their world and ours.

Nearly 200 people participated in the event, organized by Bay Path in collaboration with the Springfield Museums and Unity First.

This years theme, Women in Leadership: This is What Change Looks Like  Past, Present and Future included an opening perspective by Ariana Curtis, a Western Massachusetts native and curator of Latinx Studies at the Smithsonian Institution, and a keynote presentation by Laura Lovett, associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh and author of With Her Fist Raised: Dorothy Pitman Hughes and the Transformative Power of Black Activism.

We all know that womens representation matters. The issue is how do we present women in ways that are inclusive, diverse, authentic and sustainable far beyond Womens History Month, Curtis said. This will look different for different career fields. For me its not only representing diverse women, its ensuring That there are diverse representations of women.

Curtis said that while the arts field has a high percentage of women, it is often made up of white women.

When I am the only nonwhite woman in the room, I have to be deliberate and unafraid to say all womens experiences are not the same and that representation must include but not be limited to Black women, Afro Latina women, immigrant women, queer women, native women, disabled women, women over 65, Asian, African, trans, Muslim, intersex, undocumented, incarcerated women, girls, she said. I could go on and on. Our list of underrepresented women is very long. We cant say that we need diversity, that we want diversity and then disregard that.

The event also included breakout sessions where smaller groups could discuss issues facing women today.

Traci Gaynor, founder and president of the African American Female Professor Award Association and an adjunct professor at Bay Path, led a smaller group discussion on the challenges facing women in the workplace. Topics in the discussion ranged from being intimidated during meetings to balancing work, school and motherhood.

Onawumi Jean Moss, an author, motivational speaker and storyteller, said women need to make their presence known in every area of their lives.

My mission is to ensure that women take themselves seriously and to not wait for special occasions to do that. Wherever we are in the moment we need to proclaim our I am-ness. I am here, I am somebody that you will not ignore. Here is what I have to offer for the moment and that goes for everybody we know, she said.

At 84 years old, Moss said she has seen many women dismiss or be afraid to take leadership roles.

We have to be systemic thinkers. We are emotional thinkers, we are great improvisational thinkers, but we often dont think of systems nearby that we can get involved with such as the board of education, the board of health, wherever it is that we know that women are being made second best, not even thought of until the last moment, she said. Get involved and express your I am-ness.

The event ended with Janine Fondon, chairwoman of undergraduate communications and assistant professor at Bay Path, as well as founder of On the Move, giving several surprise monetary gifts to students and local business owners, including Zee Johnson, owner of Olive Tree Books-n-Voices in Springfield and Bay Path student and digital artist Cora Swan.

Several women have come forward, they want to remain anonymous, but they know there is a need and they want to give these financial gifts, she said. " This is part of what On the Move does. We dont have to wait another year for another event to help each other. We cannot give out cars like Oprah, but these women have identified that there is a need and they want to help. ... And sometimes helping just means offering support.

Related Content:
'Minari' director Lee Isaac Chung says Pentecostal man in film showed his family how to love

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Lee Isaac Chung, the writer and director behind the Golden Globe Award-winning film Minari, says the Christian character in the film was a real person and significant figure in his life who taught his family what it means to love others.

Minari is based on Chungs own childhood in the 1980s as his South Korean family pursued the American dream in rural Arkansas.

Chung said the film is derived from his life and was written from a list of memories.

What you see happening in the plot of the film, a lot of that draws from things that have happened in my life, he told The Christian Post. What you see in the home, a lot of little details, that comes from real life.

The film stars Steven Yeun, Yeri Han, Alan Kim, Noel Kate Cho, Yuh-Jung Youn, and Will Patton.

Minari follows a Korean-American family that moves to an Arkansas farm in search of their own American dream. The family's home, however, is completely transformed with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother.

Amid the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, Minari shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home, the synopsis reads.

As seen in the film, Chung said he really has an older sister, a grandmother who came and watched them as their parents worked in chicken hatcheries, and they had a farm. However, he adds that a lot of other things were changed for the sake of letting the story work together.

The authenticity of the family dynamic in the film is what resonates most with audiences, Chung said.

"I just wanted to present a portrait of a family in which everybody feels very real and very human, he explained. I wanted this story to not just present this family as a bunch of saints where nothing they do is bad. They're torn with their own struggles, and they have fights, and they're on the brink of collapsing many times.

"Ultimately, they're trying to find a way to stay together, and they have a deep love for each other underneath all that. That was really a goal with this, to try to show human beings and hope that people would connect to that.

Along their journey, the family meets a white radical Christian man who commits to helping the family on their farm and prays for them. Although the film is not based on this narrative in particular, Chung says that the character, who is based on a real person, had a lasting impact on his familys life.

He's based on someone from my real life. He was a Pentecostal man who worked on our farm. The sense I got with him, you see it in Scripture, it's the foolish who shamed the wise many times; I kind of felt that way with him, Chung told CP in an interview (watch below).

"He was a fool for Christ and he taught us a lot about what it means to love somebody, he added. There are people in the town that would make fun of him, to be honest. But yet, he became our friend, and he was the first guest we had in our house and he really welcomed us into that community.

"I always felt like, there's something in that that speaks to the Christian faith, the sort of connection that we're supposed to be making with people on the margins, and really welcoming in strangers and all these different elements of the faith that I respond to, he said.

"I wanted to show him in this way, this counterintuitive way. Because also, we see so many images of white Christians in the south, and they're treated with a lot of caricatures, he continued. So I thought, it's interesting if we can have this character in the film who feels like that at the beginning, but then you really realize that he's a fully fleshed out more complex human being than we were immediately expecting.

When talking about the movie's overarching theme, the filmmaker, who went on to attend Yale University, says he's grateful for how much his family sacrificed to make a way for him and his sister.

"It's not lost on me that I've definitely benefited a lot in this country. My parents, they grew up in a time when there was war in Korea. And my grandmother, her husband, my grandfather, was a soldier and he died in the war," he said. "A lot of people in that generation, they didn't go to schools. My grandmother couldn't read; she didn't finish beyond elementary school."

Chung added: "For them to come over to the U.S. and have me and my sister, and for us to be in this position now where I'm doing press, it's really remarkable. For me, the people who made that possible are always the people who are behind the scenes and oftentimes very invisible. Like my grandmother, no one knew about her because she didn't really speak English. She was just at home watching us and making sure that we're staying alive. My parents were kind of buried away in a factory working.

It's really the work of people sacrificing for each other that makes all people who we are, he added.

That's the secret story to this country; it's that sense of sacrifice. It's not just Asian immigrants or immigrants in general. This is a story of everybody, he declared.

The pandemic, we're seeing so many people stepping up now. And it doesn't matter what race or what background they are, there are people who are keeping us alive right now. We just got to thank them and honor them. That, to me, is the American dream.

Chung also praised people such as Jeremy Lin who are raising awareness about racism and discrimination against Asian Americans. The number of violent attacks against Asians has spiked amid the coronavirus pandemic.

I'm glad to hear the way Jeremy Lin has spoken out on this. It has been disheartening to hear about the recent rise of hate crimes against the Asian American community, Chung told CP.

I hope that anyone facing or experiencing discrimination will, first of all, take to heart that this is not their fault, and they are not alone in this. Secondly, I hope they find ways to plug into communities to help prevent negative feelings of discrimination from festering. I think the vast majority of us in this country hunger for more unity and hospitality, and we all share and shoulder the burden of hard work to build that, he encouraged.

Speaking about "Minari," Chung said he wants his semi-autobiographical film to impact people in whichever way they need.

"I try not to be someone who's preaching a message with my films or anything like that. I just want it to be open, and I think this family is being open to everybody and showing the little ticks and quirks about their own lives. If it speaks into people's lives in a positive way, I'd be very happy for that, he added.

Visit the Minari website for more information.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A former DUP councillor who left the party has spoken out about its "hateful" and "bitter" actions towards him.

Guy Spence, who served as Belfast deputy mayor, said he is now a "happier and more resilient man" after announcing he would quit the DUP in March 2020, having "lost all confidence" in the party.

"This day last year I left the DUP," Mr Spence tweeted on Saturday, marking the anniversary of his departure.

"After many years I couldnt stand for the twisted, bitter & hateful actions set out against me & my values.

"Fuelled by those wanting to cause me harm."

He added: "Today I say thank you. You made me a stronger, healthier, happier & more resilient man!"

In a statement announcing his unexpected resignation last year, Mr Spence said: "For the last year or more I have been wrestling my conscience watching party values be tossed aside often by personal agendas for individual gain.

"I have lost all confidence in the party, in particular its integrity, making my position within it untenable."

The specific reasons for Mr Spences departure remain unclear. He was considered one of the partys more liberal councillors and had previously voiced support for the LGBT+ community.

In a statement following Mr Spences resignation, the DUP thanked Mr Spence for his service. The Independent has contacted the party for additional comment.

Mr Spence was elected to office in 2011 aged 19.

In a 2015 interview with the Belfast Telegraph, he cited former Belfast North MP Lord Nigel Dodds, and Belfast East MP Gavin Robinson as two influences on his political career.

"It's a big thing to give a 19-year-old an opportunity  not just in politics, but to trust me enough to give me a position in elected politics where you are under scrutiny every day," he said.

"The person who had the confidence in me to do that was Nigel Dodds. The whole team within the City Hall were also fantastic, particularly someone who had already walked the same path as a young man, Gavin Robinson. They have all been terrific."
MADISON, Wis., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CUNA Mutual Group, a broad financial services provider, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Assurant's prearranged funeral insurance and final expense business in the U.S. and Canada, serving more than 2 million consumers  for approximately $1.3 billion. This investment will enhance CUNA Mutual Group's ability to help ensure middle market consumers have access to solutions that help build financial stability.

Prearranged funeral insurance, also known as preneed, and senior lifestyle protection solutions are designed to help ease the emotional and financial burdens of consumers and their families related to planning for the later chapters of life. Acquiring Assurant's best-in-class prearranged funeral insurance and final expense solutions business enables CUNA Mutual Group to further serve the growing middle market.

"This acquisition allows us to expand the ways we reach middle market consumers, helping more people make financial decisions that work for them and their situation," said Robert N. Trunzo, president and CEO, CUNA Mutual Group. "We will continue to build, buy and create partnerships to bring additional insurance, investment, and technology solutions into our portfolio to support our strategic priorities, protect even more consumers and augment our resources and financial strength."

Like CUNA Mutual Group, Assurant's preneed business is focused on protecting consumers and their families with simple, easy to understand products. The preneed business will operate with autonomy at its Rapid City, South Dakota location with limited integration into CUNA Mutual Group's other business lines or operations. Since preneed solutions are provided to consumers primarily through funeral homes, the company has no plans at this time to offer these services through financial institutions, such as credit unions and banks.

The acquisition provides the opportunity to add a business already at scale as CUNA Mutual Group enters new markets to protect even more consumers. The business brings $6.5 billion of face value in-force. Assurant's distribution model for preneed and final expense solutions includes a longstanding partnership with the largest funeral home provider in North America and many other funeral home partners and distributors across the U.S. and Canada.

The agreement includes a multiyear extension of the 23-year automobile mechanical repair coverage partnership between the companies.

Assurant President and Chief Executive Officer Alan Colberg said, "Today's announcement represents a positive outcome for all of our stakeholders and importantly, for our Preneed employees, customers and policyholders. I am also excited to continue to further strengthen our longtime partnership with CUNA Mutual Group, built upon shared values and aligned culture and commitment to customer excellence."

Trunzo added, "CUNA Mutual Group remains committed to helping credit unions and other strategic partners excel at reaching and addressing consumers' needs. Ultimately, we are working to ensure a brighter financial future is accessible to everyone."

The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the third quarter, subject to applicable regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Perella Weinberg Partners LP is acting as financial advisor to CUNA Mutual Group, and Foley & Lardner LLP is acting as its legal counsel.

About CUNA Mutual Group:

Built on the principle of "people helping people," CUNA Mutual Group is a financially strong insurance, investment and financial services company that believes a brighter financial future should be accessible to everyone. Through our company culture, community engagement, and products and solutions, we are working to create a more equitable financial system that helps to improve the lives of those we serve and our society. For more information, visit www.cunamutual.com.

About Assurant

Assurant, Inc. (NYSE: AIZ) is a leading global provider of lifestyle and housing solutions that support, protect and connect major consumer purchases. Anticipating the evolving needs of consumers, Assurant partners with the world's leading brands to develop innovative products and services and to deliver an enhanced customer experience. A Fortune 500 company with a presence in 21 countries, Assurant offers mobile device solutions; extended service contracts; vehicle protection services; pre-funded funeral insurance; renters insurance; lender-placed insurance products; and other specialty products. The Assurant Foundation strengthens communities by supporting charitable partners that help protect where people live and can thrive, connect with local resources, inspire inclusion and prepare leaders of the future.

Learn more at assurant.com or on Twitter @AssurantNews.

CUNA Mutual Group is the marketing name for CUNA Mutual Holding Company, a mutual insurance holding company, its subsidiaries and affiliates. Corporate headquarters are located at 5910 Mineral Point Road, Madison, WI 53705.

CORP-3481718.1-0321-0423

2021 CUNA Mutual Group, All Rights Reserved

SOURCE CUNA Mutual Group

Related Links

www.cunamutual.com


New Delhi: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Tuesday (March 9) tendered his resignation after meeting the Governor of the state, Baby Rani Maurya, at Raj Bhawan in Dehradun.

Rawat addressed a press conference after the meeting. He thanked the party leadership for giving him the opportunity to serve the people.

"I have just tendered my resignation to the Governor," Rawat said addressing the media.

"The party gave me a golden opportunity to serve this state for four years. I had never thought that I would get such an opportunity. The party has now decided that the opportunity to serve as CM should be given to someone else now," he added.

He further said that the decision to pick the next CM would be taken at the BJP legislature party meeting which is scheduled to be held at 10 am on Wednesday at the party office.

He wished well for whoever assumes the top post. He did not name who would be replacing him.

Ajay Bhatt and Anil Baluni, two senior leaders from the state who are members of Parliament, are being seen as two other strong probables for the top post, said PTI.

The move comes amid speculations of change in leadership in the hill state. Rawat late met with BJP president JP Nadda at the latter's residence on Monday.

The same day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Nadda, National General Secretary (Organisation) B.L. Santosh discussed the political development in the state.

"After his meeting with central leadership yesterday in the national capital, it seems that BJP leadership has informed Rawat about a possible change of leadership in the Uttarakhand government. Now he might step down from the office," a senior party leader said earlier.

On Saturday, the BJP leadership sent former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Gautam as observers to meet state leaders and get feedback.

Live TV

Lex Greensills business has unraveled at a blistering pace, leaving a tangled trail of destruction all around it.

On Monday, Greensill Capital filed for administration in the UK, capping a stunning collapse for its founder. The bank that he owns in Germany has been shut down by regulators, the funds he ran in partnership with Credit Suisse are being liquidated and his firm is in the process of being broken up with its core perhaps sold to Apollo-backed Athene Holding Ltd.

Greensill himself has lost his billionaire status, and the myriad strands tangled up in the collapse involve everything from investment funds to the steel industry to Britains healthcare system.

Heres a rundown of the key figures, what happened, and what could be next:

The Players

Lex Greensill: The financiers rise took him from his familys farm in Queensland, Australia through to Wall Street banks, and then to founding his own firm. It provides supply-chain finance to firms, accelerating payments to suppliers in return for a fee. It had planned a fund raising last year that would have valued it at $7 billion.

Sanjeev Gupta: A former commodities trader sometimes dubbed the Man of Steel, Gupta heads GFG Alliance. Much of the business, which spans steel, aluminum and renewable energy, was built at a breakneck pace that saw him spend about $6 billion over a five-year period buying and revamping unloved metal assets. Greensill was by far his largest financial backer and the collapse at the lender leaves him in search of new funding.

Credit Suisse Group AG: The Swiss lender ran a $10-billion suite of funds that bought securitized loans from Greensill. Its winding down the funds and returning money to clients. Swiss asset manager GAM Holding AG also decided to shutter a Greensill-linked fund. At Credit Suisse, the ties additionally include $140 million in bridge loans it extended to Greensill last year.

SoftBank Group Corp.: The Japanese financial institutions Vision Fund, a mammoth investor in tech startups, put $1.5 billion into Greensill in 2019. Its now written down the valuation and is considering dropping it close to zero, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Background

The crisis began at Bond & Credit Company, the Sydney unit of insurance giant Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. last summer. It decided not to extend policies covering the loans Greensill made, and has fired a manager who had a key role in signing off on that business. Compounding Greensills problems, around the same time, the German regulator BaFin started a probe into his fast-growing bank in Bremen.

BaFin was concerned that too many of the assets of Greensill Bank were tied to the same source: Gupta. The investigation found irregularities, including that the bank had booked claims for transactions by Gupta that hadnt yet occurred but which were accounted for as if they had. During this slow buildup of pressure, in late 2020 Softbank wrote down its investment in Greensill, though this only came to light in recent weeks.

The situation accelerated in February, when pressure from BaFin saw Greensill seek out potential buyers for its exposure to Gupta. It started talks with Athene and Apollo Global Management Inc. to sell some assets, but deteriorating situation had put Greensills backers and investors on alert.

The Fallout

In Australia, Greensill lost a legal fight to get Bond & Credit Company to extend insurance that lapsed on March 1. Without that coverage, credit quality was questioned, asset valuations became tougher, and Credit Suisse froze the Greensill-linked funds, citing considerable uncertainty. GAM followed suit, and on March 3, the German financial regulator shut Greensill Bank to save money for depositors and creditors.

Greensill executives desperately tried to save the company as insolvency loomed. But there was no denying the panic as multiple directors jumped ship and left the company, including Lex Greensills brother.

Theres also been a real-world fallout. In the UK, the National Health Service has had to pay pharmacies directly rather than rely on Greensill Capital, putting further strain on its pandemic-hit finances. German municipalities that parked funds at Greensill Bank are now at risk of losing their money.

For Gupta, it appears Greensill may take GFG down with it. Court documents show GFG warning that if it lost Greensill financing, then it would collapse into insolvency. Spains government has already asked a division of GFG to prove its solvent before being allowed to push ahead with a takeover of an aluminum plant, according to people familiar with the matter. Athene, which is in talks to buy assets tied to Greensill, has reportedly excluded Gupta-linked assets from discussions.

The situation is fraying multiple parts of Guptas empire. The Bank of England has ordered Gupta to inject 75 million pounds into Wyelands Bank, owned by GFG, to return retail deposits.

The Next Steps

Greensill: Talks continue with Athene after the insolvency filing, with the Bermuda-based annuity seller offering about $60 million for Greensills IT and intellectual property, court documents show. Greensill will still have to deal with the fallout from BaFins criminal complaint.

Gupta: Greensills fall from grace cuts off a key source of finance for the array of businesses that make up his empire. Without fresh cash, that could spell trouble for his operations and the 35,000 people they employ across 30 countries. Guptas operations churned out 5 million tons of steel in 2019 and have the capacity to make more than 300,000 tons of aluminum per year. But if hes forced to raise funds, that could mean fire sales to buyers who will strip back plants and cut jobs.

Credit Suisse: The episode is another black eye for the Swiss banks risk policies and one more blow for an asset management unit that was already under scrutiny. Now, funds that the bank was touting as a success story as recently as December are set for a long winddown. Investors will get some cash right away, but face a long wait to see how much their assets were really worth.

SoftBank: The investing giant can mark this down as a bet that didnt work out. Now, it will turn its attention to ensuring other startups it backs that got financing from Greensill can find ways to replace that funding.

With assistance from Michael Moore, Gina Turner, Liezel Hill and Eddie Spence.

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 8 - Police in the southern city of Bari said Monday that they have identified a 36-year-old Algerian man suspected of being involved in the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris in which 130 people were murdered, including 90 at the Bataclan theatre..

Athmane Touami, alias Tomi Mahraz, allegedly provided support to the terrorists who actually carried out the attacks, giving them fake documents, among other things.

The suspected ISIS member was already in jail in Bari in relation to a two-year conviction for using counterfeit documents.

He was due to be released from jail in June 2021, but a new detention order related to the probe into his alleged involvement in the Paris attacks means that will not happen.

The detention order said that, if Touami were released, he would probably disappear without trace. (ANSA).


Doctor surgeries in Co Leitrim are continuing preparations for the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine to the 80-84 age group but stress that these clinics are dependent on the delivery of vaccines which is completely out of our control.

Last Friday, March 5 the Drumshanbo Health Centre noted they were still proceeding with plans for the next vaccination clinic this Friday, March 12 but were still awaiting confirmation on the delivery of the vaccine.

As most people are aware through various media sources this has been an issue for GPs nationwide. We are not willing to open bookings for clinics until we have clarified our delivery because if they dont materialize then we have to disappoint and cancel clinics.

We will text the next group due (80-84 year olds) as soon as we have confirmation and at this time we still hope we will be vaccinating this group next Friday but unfortunately this is completely out of our control.

In a further update posted yesterday (Tuesday, March 9) the Drumshanbo Health Centre said they were still trying to get confirmation on the delivery of the vaccines from the HSE.

We are still hoping to get vaccinating this coming Friday but this situation is out of our control, they stressed in the post.

The Carrick Medical Centre also acknowledged that it is still waiting on our vaccine delivery for later this week, nothing confirmed yet.

They, like the Drumshanbo Health Centre, said they were still continuing with plans for this week's clinic in the expectation that the vaccine will be delivered noting we are all set up to run our 80-84 age group vaccination this Friday. So assuming the HSE deliver the vaccines, we are ready to go.

National media is reporting that Ireland is set to receive less Covid-19 vaccines than previously expected in the first quarter of 2021.

Health Service Executive CEO, Paul Reid, said that only 1.1 million vaccine doses are likely to arrive in Ireland in the first three months of this year, against an expectation of 1.24m.

He told an Oireachtas Committee on Health that there was a large number of vaccines, around 175,000, expected on the last day of March and delays meant the 1.2m target would not be reached until the first week of April.

According to the latest vaccination figures available at the time of going to press, as of last Friday (March 5), there have been 513,322 doses of Covid-19 vaccine administered in Ireland:

- 363,601 people have received their first dose;

- 149,721 people have received their second dose.
"We're excited to welcome Annmarie to the Tampa General team," said Kelly Cullen, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Tampa General. "Her kind, visible and data-driven leadership style, as well as her ability to foster strong communication and collaboration across all interdisciplinary teams including nurses and physicians, will be a great asset in achieving our vision to be the safest and most innovative academic health system in America."

Chavarria will be responsible for leading all inpatient nursing services across Tampa General with a focus on further developing cross-functional collaboration among nursing teams across hospital departments. Her leadership background includes strategic planning, budget development and management, shared governance, as well as performance improvement.

"Tampa General has a strong reputation as a leading academic medical center and the culture is evident at all levels of the organization. I'm looking forward to working with the team on further developing the hospital's world-class care and compassionate culture," said Chavarria. "My approach is to consistently find ways for team members to support each other in pursuing our goals."

Additionally, she will use her expertise in leading the Magnet nursing recognition process to help Tampa General in continuing to meet the rigorous standards of earning the highest national honor in professional nursing practice. Tampa General has achieved Magnet recognition four consecutive times from 2005 to 2019.

Chavarria has more than 15 years of nursing leadership experience and holds a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from La Salle University, Philadelphia; a Master's of Science in Nursing Leadership and Health Systems Management from Drexel University, Philadelphia and a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing from Holy Family College, Philadelphia. She also earned a nurse executive advanced certification from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Her professional memberships include the American Nurses' Association, the Clinical Nurse Leader Association, the American Medical Surgical Nurses Association, the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and the Southeastern Organization of Nurse Leaders. Chavarria has presented at numerous professional conferences on a variety of topics.

ABOUT TAMPA GENERAL HOSPITAL

Tampa General Hospital, a 1007-bed non-profit academic medical center, is one of the largest hospitals in America and delivers world-class care as the region's only center for Level l trauma and comprehensive burn care. Tampa General Hospital is the highest-ranked hospital in the market in U.S. News & World Report's 2020-21 Best Hospitals, and one of the top 4 hospitals in Florida, with five specialties ranking among the best programs in the United States. It is one of the nation's busiest adult solid organ transplant centers and is the primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. With five medical helicopters, Tampa General Hospital transports critically injured or ill patients from 23 surrounding counties to receive the advanced care they need. Tampa General houses a nationally accredited comprehensive stroke center and its 32-bed Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit is the largest on the West Coast of Florida. It also is home to the Jennifer Leigh Muma 82-bed Level IV neonatal intensive care unit, and a nationally accredited rehabilitation center. Tampa General Hospital's footprint includes 17 Tampa General Medical Group Primary Care offices, TGH Family Care Center Kennedy, TGH Brandon Healthplex, TGH Virtual Health and 19 outpatient Radiology Centers. Tampa Bay residents also receive world-class care from the TGH Urgent Care powered by Fast Track network of clinics, and they can even receive home visits in select areas through TGH Urgent Care at Home, powered by Fast Track. As one of the largest hospitals in the country, Tampa General Hospital is first in Florida to partner with GE Healthcare and open a clinical command center that uses artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to improve and better coordinate patient care at a lower cost. For more information, go to www.tgh.org.

Media Contact: Beth Hardy

Senior Communications Specialist

(813) 844-7322 (direct)

[email protected]

SOURCE Tampa General Hospital
ADVERTISEMENT

The Lagos State Government said it has received doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from the Federal Government.

Gov Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State disclosed this on Tuesday in Ikeja while speaking at the 2021 International Womens Day celebration organised by the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

Mr Sanwo-Olu said the state government received the vaccines at 4 a.m. on Tuesday and they were kept in a safe place. He did not say the number of doses the state received.

The governor assured residents that the state government would soon commence the vaccination in line with the scheduled guidelines laid down by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).

He implored residents to continue to adhere to the COVID-19 protocols like wearing of face mask, washing of hands and observing social distance.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Federal Government on March 2 took delivery of four million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.

On Monday, Ogun State became the first state to take delivery of the vaccines, with 50,000 doses.

(NAN)
Met Eireann has issued as Status Yellow wind warning for Ireland for Wednesday and Thursday, March 10 and 11.

It is set to become very windy from Wednesday afternoon. Southwest winds, veering westerly will gust 90 to 110km/h generally, higher at times on hills and coasts in the south and west with a risk of some wave overtopping.

The warning is in place from 12pm on Wednesday through to 7am on Thursday.
Board of Supervisors candidates for Orange County, Calif. (left to right): John Moorlach, Katrina Foley, Michael Vo, Janet Rappaport, and Kevin Muldoon. (Collage by John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Voters Weigh In on Orange County Supervisor Election

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif.On March 9, residents of Orange County, California, will vote to fill the Board of Supervisors seat vacated in District 2 when Michelle Steel left for Congress. The election is to be certified by April 8.

The Epoch Times spoke with voters in the district ahead of election night to see how they would vote and why. Most declined to comment or said they didnt know much about the election. Those who did comment identified homelessness as one of their top priorities for the new supervisor to tacklethough they placed their hopes in different candidates for addressing that problem.

The candidates included former state senator John Moorlach, Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley, Fountain Valley Mayor Michael Vo, Newport Beach Councilmember Kevin Muldoon, and tax attorney Janet Rappaport.

A Vote for Moorlach

Robert Smythe of Huntington Beach said Moorlach was his pick. He hoped Moorlach could enforce vagrancy laws to reduce homelessness at the beach.

I understand people are homeless for various reasons, where theres mental health, drug addiction, whatever that might be, Smythe said. [But] the trash they leave down here, the dangerous conditions they present down here, theft that occurs down here, harassing the tourists, that sort of thing  all of that affects all of us.

Robert Smythe says he voted for John Moorlach in the Board of Supervisors race in Huntington Beach, California, on March 5, 2021. (Jack Bradley/The Epoch Times)

Smythe said Moorlach is the most fiscally responsible candidate and proved his worth when he served as a supervisor before. He really assisted the county when they went bankrupt around 1995. Theres no more fiscally responsible person than him.

Lou Calangelo told The Epoch Times via a Huntington Beach community Facebook group that he is voting for Moorlach because I feel he has proven himself, is fiscally responsible, and will be an asset.

Moorlach told The Epoch Times that, if elected, he plans to work with various nonprofits in the county on the homelessness problem. Through legislation he co-authored, he helped establish the Orange County Housing Finance Trust, which funds housing for the homeless and people at risk of becoming homeless.

I would like to pick up where I left off. I will bring my state experience and work with Projects Homekey and Roomkey, he said, referring to state projects that rented hotel rooms for homeless people at higher COVID-19 risk and then sought to establish more permanent housing for them.

Votes for Foley

Marilyn Palomino of Huntington Beach said she thinks Foley can handle the homeless situation well because Costa Mesa has improved in this regard during her time as mayor.

Palomino said the Board of Supervisors have more power than people really know, and theyre not using the funds that they get adequately. She thinks Foley will help direct the funds more effectively to address homelessness.

Palomino also hopes Foley will help the county through the pandemic and make the environment a priority.

Shes a really smart woman, and I like her perspective on the environment and other issues, Palomino said.

Foley could not be reached for comment in the weeks leading up to the election. She did highlight on her website, however, her work to connect homeless people with many services in Costa Mesa and her establishment of a model that has been replicated in Newport Beach.

The secure, reservation-only operation at the temporary and long-term sites prevents loitering, she said, highlighting one of the beneficial aspects of Costa Mesas approach.

Bob McCann voted for Foley because shes been the mayor of Costa Mesa for a long time, and I think shes done a pretty good job there.

Most important to McCann was how the candidates would handle the pandemic. I know she has done a very good job as far as the mask is concerned in Costa Mesa, McCann said.

If we want to get a hold of this pandemic, we really have to focus on this. This virus is airborne. Anything we can do to protect ourselves and protect our neighbors from this virus, Im all in.

On top of addressing the pandemic, McCann also said he wants to see Foley clean up the city.

Especially down in Bolsa Chica [State Beach]. There is a lot of trash down there  Its just getting out of control, McCann said.

A Vote for Rappaport

Karen, who declined to give her last name, voted for Rappaport because she is a new face with a professional background.

It should be Rappaportsomebody who hasnt been in office before, somebody fresh and new but still with a solid background, she said.

Karen also highlighted homelessness as an issue of concern. I think that [homeless] people need to be put in programs and in a facility. If they want to choose to keep doing drugs instead of going in the program, then they need a bus ticket someplace else.

Rappaport told The Epoch Times, We must not look at outdated solutions. My approach is not simply about a capital investment. She plans to look at updated information about homeless needs and help the county coordinate cities and community groups addressing the issue.

Muldoon told The Epoch Times, We need to deal with the core issue of substance abuse and mental health that affect a large portion of the homeless population  [to find] long-term solutions.

Vo told The Epoch Times the county should provide a hand-up, not a hand-out. If we proactively work with municipalities, surrounding agencies, and non-profit organizations we should be able to assist those who want help with the resources they need.
Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's team has announced plans to open offices in 10 cities where it believes the ruling United Russia party is most vulnerable in elections that must be held by September 19.



Leonid Volkov, the coordinator of Navalny's network of teams, said in a statement on March 9 that expanding into the cities "is most likely to help take away mandates" from United Russia in the vote.

"A friendly young team, an opportunity to make Russia better, parcels [with food and other items] to preliminary detention centers [in case of incarceration] are included in the social package - in short, we have a dream job for you," he wryly added in the statement.



The 10 cities are Ulyanovsk, Orenburg, Astrakhan, Kirov, Vladimir, Ulan-Ude, Kursk, Chita, Petrozavodsk, Abakan.



"If you live in one of these 10 cities, understand all the risks and soberly calculate the strength of your resolve, understand Russian politics and want to become a part of Navalny's team...send a resume," Volkov said.



Navalny and his supporters have developed a "smart voting" system, which is aimed at undoing United Russias stranglehold on political power.

Under the system, voters can enter their address into a special app, which will then give them a list of the candidates deemed most likely to defeat their United Russia rivals regardless of their party affiliation.

Volkov also said it was important to set up headquarters for a Navalny team in Makhachkala, the capital of the North Caucasus region of Daghestan, despite the fact that his colleague Ruslan Ablyakimov, who travelled to that city from Moscow to establish the headquarters last month was beaten by unknown individuals.



Volkov, who is currently residing in Lithuania for security reasons, also announced new vacancies for headquarters of Navalny's team in Moscow and several other cities.



Volkov's announcement comes while Navalny is incarcerated in a detention center in the Vladimir region.



He was detained at a Moscow airport on January 17 upon his arrival from Germany, where he was recovering from a poison attack by what several European laboratories concluded was a military-grade chemical nerve agent in Siberia in August.



Navalny has insisted that his poisoning was ordered directly by President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin has denied.



Last month, a Moscow court ruled that, while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case, which is widely considered to be politically motivated.

Navalny's 3 1/2-year suspended sentence from the case was converted to a jail term, though the court said he will serve 2 1/2 years in prison given time already served in detention.



More than 10,000 supporters of Navalny were detained across Russia during and after the January rallies. Many of the detained men and women were either fined or sent to jail for several days.



At least 90 were charged with criminal misdeeds and several have been fired by their employers.
BASEL (dpa-AFX) - Novartis AG (NVS) Tuesday announced that the Phase III CANOPY-2 study evaluating canakinumab (ACZ885), an inhibitor of interleukin-1beta (IL-1?), in combination with the chemotherapy agent docetaxel, did not meet its primary endpoint of overall survival. The Phase III trial was in 237 patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer or NSCLC whose cancer progressed while on or after previous treatments. The trial evaluated canakinumab as second or third-line treatment in combination with chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer. According to the company, the CANOPY clinical trial program is designed to help answer critical questions about the role of interleukin-1 beta (IL-1?) in pro-tumor inflammation in lung cancer. Multiple clinical trials are investigating canakinumab in different stages of disease using distinct treatment combinations. Novartis said two Phase III CANOPY trials continue, evaluating canakinumab in first-line and adjuvant settings. Novartis and CANOPY-2 investigators will analyze the study data and are expected to submit its findings for presentation at an upcoming medical meeting. John Tsai, Head of Global Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer at Novartis, said, 'While results from the CANOPY-2 trial are not what we hoped for in patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer who have been treated with other lines of therapy, these data give us valuable insights into IL-1? inhibition.' CANOPY-1, a Phase III study evaluating canakinumab in combination with immunotherapy and chemotherapy, is expected to report final results before the end of the year. CANOPY-A, another Phase III study, is investigating canakinumab as an adjuvant therapy and has enrolled more than 950 patients to date and is expected to enroll a total of 1,500 patients. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2010, Cate Dyer founded StemExpress to improve lives by accelerating scientific research focused on discovering new treatments and cures for significant medical conditions. Through our state-of-the-art stem cell collection centers and our expansive global network of hospital and clinical partners, StemExpress continues to play a pivotal role in medical research, clinical trials, commercialization of disease-specific treatment, cell and gene therapies, and precision and regenerative medicine. Our broad network of healthcare partnerships includes over 50 hospitals in Europe as well as 3 US healthcare systems that encompass 31 hospitals, 35 outpatient facilities, and 20 individual practices. StemExpress currently stands as the nation's leading biospecimen provider of human primary cells, stem cells, bone marrow, cord blood, peripheral blood, maternal blood, and disease-state products for academic, biotechnological, diagnostic, pharmaceutical, and contract research organizations (CROs). StemExpress is registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and has seven (7) independently owned and operated brick-and-mortar cellular clinics across the United States to collect blood, cells, and tissue from patients and donors. These clinics include state-of-the-art cell manufacturing laboratories for clinical and research purposes and CLIA certified/high-complexity diagnostics.

The Sacramento Business Journal announced that Cate Dyer, CEO, and founder of StemExpress, one of 2021 Most Admired CEOs Tweet this The Sacramento Business Journal announced that Cate Dyer, CEO and founder of StemExpress, has been selected as one of SBJs 2021 Most Admired CEOs.

For over ten years, StemExpress has been committed to fostering healthy, thriving communities on a local and global scale. In the wake of the unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Dyer recognized the immediate need for convenient, reliable COVID-19 testing, with rapid turnarounds times of hours - not days. With StemExpress's existing cutting-edge laboratories located throughout the nation, we quickly implemented a seamless, end-to-end COVID-19 testing solution, all while continuing to expand our core cellular research and clinical efforts. StemExpress has continued to provide crucial support to communities, healthcare entities, and local businesses, all of whom were instantly overwhelmed with new obstacles and safety concerns relating to COVID-19.

StemExpress provides a turn-key testing solution, including online patient registration, scheduling, specimen collection, pop-up site management, and laboratory testing using gold-standard PCR testing at high-volume capacity with rapid turn-around times. StemExpress directly and proudly supports frontline workers, inner-city communities, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, school districts, correctional facilities, utility companies, tribal territories, territorial governments, and major league sports. We recently expanded our partnership with the Sacramento Kings to include testing during at-home games for the home team and the away-team players.

Through public health partnerships, StemExpress has provided free testing services to vulnerable members of the community, including the uninsured and other under-represented populations. We have also implemented mobile RV laboratories to bring reliable COVID-19 testing to underserved rural and agricultural communities.

Cate Dyer has exhibited resilience and adaptability in leadership through unsurpassed challenges. She was recently named 2021's "Business Woman of the Year" by The Sacramento Metro Chamber in honor of her extraordinary efforts to support Sacramento's community, businesses, and essential workers. Building on this achievement, Sacramento Business Journal's 2021 Most Admired CEOs recognizes Ms. Dyer's strong vision for her company and team, as well as her dedication to her community.

CONTACT: [email protected]

SOURCE StemExpress

Related Links

https://www.stemexpress.com


A man was stabbed in the chest and struck with a glass bottle in a dispute over access to a music streaming service at a caravan park.

Police were called to a caravan park about 12.45am on Junction Road, Barrack Point, in Shellharbour, in New South Wales on Tuesday.

Officers say a man, 27, and woman, 22, had entered the park before attacking the 53-year-old man, who was known to them.

Police were called to a caravan park (pictured) about 12.45am on Junction Road, Barrack Point, in Shellharbour, in New South Wales on Tuesday

The 53-year-old was allegedly hit with a glass bottle several times before being stabbed in the chest with a knife.

The couple allegedly got into a car before crashing into a boom gate. The woman recorded a positive breath test at the scene.

The victim suffered stab wounds to his chest and lacerations to his head.

A New South Wales police spokesman said: 'The 22-year-old woman was charged with aggravated enter dwelling with intent - use corporal violence, and reckless wounding  in company, and drive with high range PCA.

'The 27-year-old man was charged with aggravated enter dwelling with intent - use corporal violence, and reckless wounding  in company.

'Both were granted conditional bail to appear in Port Kembla Local Court on Wednesday 17 March 2021.'
DECORAH, Iowa  A northeast Iowa man accused of threatening someone is pleading not guilty.

Timothy Walter Barnes, 36 of Calmar, is charged with first-degree burglary and second-degree burglary. The Winneshiek County Sheriffs Office says Barnes entered a home in the 300 block of East Clay Street in Calmar on February 9 without permission and threatened people.

Court documents say Barnes told the people he would gun them down if they made anymore jokes about his son. Investigators say they found two handguns in connection to this incident.

Barnes trial is set to begin on June 23.
It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
KYODO NEWS - Mar 9, 2021 - 15:35 | All, World, Japan, Coronavirus

Japan will provide 4.5 billion yen ($41 million) grant aid through an international organization to 25 countries in Asia and the Pacific Islands region to help them build a cold-chain distribution network for COVID-19 vaccines, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

The grant aid will be used to secure cold-storage facilities, transport vehicles and other equipment necessary for the stable delivery of vaccines in those countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, according to the ministry.

Japan aims to help ensure the delivery of vaccines "to each and every person in the all corners of developing countries" with the hope of containing the coronavirus pandemic as quickly as possible, it said, adding the aid will be delivered through the United Nations Children's Fund.

The other recipient countries are Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, the Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Niue, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Sri Lanka, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam.

Japan has also pledged $200 million to the COVAX facility, an international vaccine distribution platform set up to ensure equitable access to shots for developing countries.

The COVAX initiative aims to deliver 2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines across the world by the end of 2021.
Some HBO Max users who tried to watch the animated Tom & Jerry movie on Monday afternoon got quite the surprised, when Zack Snyder's Justice League played instead.

Zack Snyder's Justice League, a four-hour version director's cut of the 2017 Warner Bros. superhero movie, is not supposed to be released on HBO Max until March 18.

Warner Bros. confirmed that the leak was a mistake, and addressed swiftly, though at least one user told Variety he watched at least an hour of the mini-series.

Leaked: Some HBO Max users who tried to watch the animated Tom & Jerry movie on Monday afternoon got quite the surprised, when Zack Snyder's Justice League played instead

Doug Bass, a realtor and digital marketing analyst in Charlotte, North Carolina, was among the first to notice the leak and post proof Monday afternoon on Twitter.

'@hbomax someones getting firedTom and Jerry this is not #SnyderCut,' Bass tweeted, along with a photo from the film where it says 'directed by Zack Snyder.'

Bass told Variety he was, 'just looking for some background TV while I worked, and when I clicked on Tom and Jerry, [the] Snyder Cut started playing.'

Fired: '@hbomax someones getting firedTom and Jerry this is not #SnyderCut,' Bass tweeted, along with a photo from the film where it says 'directed by Zack Snyder'

He added that roughly an hour into the mini-series, he noticed the image definition had seriously degraded and he ultimately got an 'error message' before the film disappeared.

'Zack Snyders Justice League was temporarily available on HBO Max and the error was addressed within minutes,' read a statement from WarnerMedia, though Bass claims the film was available for at least an hour.

While he didn't get to see the whole four-hour cut, Bass, who said he was never, 'a huge DC movie fan,' said he was impressed enough with what he saw to watch the full version when it's officially released on March 18.

Error: He added that roughly an hour into the mini-series, he noticed the image definition had seriously degraded and he ultimately got an 'error message' before the film disappeared

'I planned to watch it after the 18th at some point. But now Im ready for the 18th,' he said.

He also tweeted, 'The CGI finally rivals that of Marvel and youre gonna love it. Thats all I'm saying. No spoilers. Get excited.'

Bass later tweeted that Warner Bros. ordered Twitter to take down the image because it came from a 'stolen clip' of Zack Snyder's Justice League, which Bass didn't exactly agree with.

CGI: He also tweeted, 'The CGI finally rivals that of Marvel and youre gonna love it. Thats all I'm saying. No spoilers. Get excited'

'Really @wbpictures? stolen clip Is it stolen if I pressed play on a service I pay for and your service @hbomax provided the incorrect data stream? You should be more concerned with showing a rated R film when a PG film for kids was selected. #SnyderCut,' Bass tweeted.

Zack Snyder was in the middle of directing Justice League when his daughter Autumn committed suicide at just 20 years of age.

The filmmaker left the project to be with his family, with Joss Whedon coming in and taking over production.

Stolen: 'Really @wbpictures? stolen clip Is it stolen if I pressed play on a service I pay for and your service @hbomax provided the incorrect data stream? You should be more concerned with showing a rated R film when a PG film for kids was selected. #SnyderCut,' Bass tweeted

Several other fans noticed the leak and reacted on Twitter, like @MOMO_ID_, who said, 'Holy s**t the #SnyderCut got leaked hard my god people going to watch Tom and Jerry on HBO got Justice League...'

Another fan, @AzeemZafar, thought Warner Bros. leaked it on purpose, stating, 'WB be like the Snyder Cut of Justice League is so s**t let's leak it under Tom & Jerry's name.'

@spillingthetrue added, 'Snyder cut leaked and it's terrible #snydercut zack snyder,' along with a photo from the project.

Noticed: Several other fans noticed the leak and reacted on Twitter, like @MOMO_ID_, who said, 'Holy s**t the #SnyderCut got leaked hard my god people going to watch Tom and Jerry on HBO got Justice League...'

Leaked: Another fan, @AzeemZafar, thought Warner Bros. leaked it on purpose, stating, 'WB be like the Snyder Cut of Justice League is so s**t let's leak it under Tom & Jerry's name'

Terrible: @spillingthetrue added, 'Snyder cut leaked and it's terrible #snydercut zack snyder,' along with a photo from the project

Justice League was a result of footage from both Snyder's shoot and Whedon's, which was bashed by critics and many fans alike.

Since its release in November 2017, fans have been clamoring for the 'Snyder cut' of Justice League to be released, with the studio finally bowing to immense fan pressure and allowing Snyder to finish what he started.

The studio reportedly spent $70 million on reshoots, with what was originally a two-hour theatrical film now expanded into a four-hour mini-series, debuting on HBO Max on March 18.
Stopping the COVID-19 pandemic, countering China and other threats, and rebuilding alliances around the world are among the top issues on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's mind.

In a memo to the force dated March 4, Austin said that defending the nation, taking care of people in the Defense Department, and succeeding through teamwork are the three main priorities guiding the department's efforts.

"As the secretary of Defense, I am committed to ensuring that the department develops the right people, priorities and purpose of mission to continue to defend our nation from enemies foreign and domestic," he said in the memo. "We need resources matched to strategy, strategy matched to policy, and policy matched to the will of the American people."

Read Next: More Than 6,000 Active-Duty Troops Now Tapped to Help with COVID-19 Vaccinations

Austin called COVID-19 "the greatest proximate challenge to our nation's security," and listed the need to defeat the novel coronavirus first in the "defend the nation" section of his memo.

He pledged to have the military "continue to act boldly and quickly to support federal government efforts to defeat the disease," as well as protecting the military against its spread and working with domestic and international partners to protect against future outbreaks of new and deadly diseases.

This will include directly supporting vaccination efforts and encouraging service members to get the vaccine, Austin said. However, that has so far proven tricky, as nearly one-third of troops have refused to get vaccinated, officials said last month.

"Both of these challenges demand of us an aggressive effort to inform and educate people about the safety and efficacy of available vaccines and protective measures," he said.

Countering China will be the U.S. military's top "pacing challenge," Austin said. The military will need the right operational concepts, capabilities and plans to deter China and maintain America's competitive advantage, he said.

"We will ensure that our approach toward China is coordinated and synchronized across the enterprise to advance our priorities, integrated into domestic and foreign policy in a whole-of-government strategy, strengthened by alliances and partnerships, and supported on a bipartisan basis in Congress," he said in the memo.

At the same time, he said, the U.S. will have to remain ready to deter "advanced and persistent threats" from Russia, Iran and North Korea, and to disrupt violent, non-state extremist groups like the Islamic State that operate across nations. Austin said the U.S. will use its tools to "lower the risk of escalation with our adversaries" and respond to challenges without resorting to violence.

And the military must face the "growing climate crisis" that is affecting its ability to carry out missions, Austin said. The Pentagon will make addressing the climate a national security priority, he said, and fold climate considerations into war gaming, modeling and simulations.

The military also will try to reduce its carbon footprint, and "lead the way for alternative climate-considered approaches for the country," he added.

Austin said that the military must ensure its leadership is held accountable as part of its efforts to take care of its people -- and highlighted the problems of sexual assault and harassment and extremism in the ranks.

"Some behaviors are antithetical to our values, undermine our readiness, and put our effectiveness at risk, but are alive within our workforce," Austin said. "In particular, we will not tolerate sexual assault and sexual harassment.

"Similarly, extremism presents a complex and unique challenge to DoD," he added. "We must meet this head-on, working to stamp out extremism among the ranks, permanently."

It will be up to leaders in the Defense Department, at all levels, to build a safe environment for their people, Austin said, and to show that anyone who doesn't uphold the military's highest standards will be held accountable, swiftly and clearly.

Austin also stressed the importance of partnerships and alliances with other nations.

"Our allies and partners are a force multiplier and one of the greatest strategic assets we have in protecting our nation," he said. "As we face complex challenges that span across borders, our success will depend on how closely we work with our friends around the world to secure our common interests and promote our shared values. We cannot meet our responsibilities alone, nor should we try."

Rebuilding alliances has been a priority for President Joe Biden, who frequently criticized former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail for what he called his neglect of the nation's allies.

"America is back," Biden said in his first foreign policy address as president last month. "Diplomacy is back."

Austin said the military will consult with allies and partners, acting together with them when appropriate. When one nation lacks another's capabilities, that ally could fill that void, Austin said, "making us stronger as a team than the sum of our individual parts."

The military will also have to work with all levels of government and society in America, he said. That means cooperating not just with local, state, tribal and federal governments, but also others who have a stake in national security, including Congress, private industry and the American people, he said.

"We will redouble our commitment to a cooperative, whole-of-nation approach to national security that builds consensus, drives creative solutions to crises, and guarantees that we lead from a position of strength -- fielding a credible force, ready to back up the hard work of our diplomats around the world and our national partners here at home," Austin said.

-- Stephen Losey can be reached at stephen.losey@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StephenLosey.

Related: SecDef Pick Lloyd Austin Pledges to Rid the Ranks of Extremists
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Appia Energy Corp. (CSE: API) (OTCQB: APAAF) (FSE: A0I.F) (FSE: A0I.MU) (FSE: A0I.BE) (the "Company" or "Appia") wishes to announce that expiry dates of the remaining 5,130,000 warrants exercisable at $0.30 issued pursuant to the private placements that closed on January 20, 2017 and January 30, 2017 (the "2017 Warrants") (see press releases dated January 23, 2017 and January 27, 2017) have been accelerated to the earlier of January 20 and 30, 2022 to April 8, 2021 as a result of the fact that the Company's common shares closed at a price of at least $0.60 for twenty (20) consecutive trading days as of March 8, 2021. The remaining 2017 Warrants will expire if they are not exercised by April 8, 2021.

The Company is fully funded and committed to completing the largest exploration and diamond drilling program to date during the summer months of 2021. In excess of 5,000 metres is expected to be drilled at Alces Lake this summer.

About Appia

Appia is a Canadian public-listed company in the rare earth element and uranium sectors. The Company is currently focusing on delineating high-grade critical rare earth elements ("REE") and uranium on the Alces Lake property, as well as prospecting for high-grade uranium in the prolific Athabasca Basin on its Loranger, North Wollaston, and Eastside properties. The Company holds the surface rights to exploration for 65,601 hectares (162,104 acres) in Saskatchewan.

The Company also has a 100% interest (subject to a 1% Uranium Production Payment Royalty and a 1% Net Smelter Return Royalty on any precious or base metals payable, provided that the price of uranium is greater than US$130 per pound) in 12,545 hectares (31,000 acres), with rare earth element and uranium deposits over five mineralized zones in the Elliot Lake Camp, Ontario. The Camp historically produced over 300 million pounds of U 3 O 8 and is the only Canadian camp that has had significant rare earth element (yttrium) production. The deposits are largely unconstrained along strike and down dip.

Appia has 92.6 million common shares outstanding, 109.2 million shares fully diluted.

For more information, visit Appia's website at www.appiaenergy.ca

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This News Release contains forward-looking statements which are typically preceded by, followed by or including the words "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "estimates", "intends", "plans" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. We do not intend and do not assume any obligation to update these forward- looking statements and shareholders are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such statements.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:

Tom Drivas, CEO and Director: (cell) 416-876-3957, (fax) 416-218-9772 or (email) appia@appiaenergy.ca

Frederick Kozak, President: (cellular) 403-606-3165 or (email) fkozak@appiaenergy.ca

Frank van de Water, Chief Financial Officer and Director, (tel) 416-546-2707, (fax) 416-218-9772 or (email) fvandewater@rogers.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76606
The city of Austin will continue to require residents to wear masks, defying Gov. Greg Abbotts executive order rescinding all COVID-related restrictions, which takes effect Wednesday.

Dr. Mark Escott, the interim health authority for Austin-Travis County, made the announcement at a joint meeting of the Austin City Council and Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday. He said businesses also must continue to enforce the mask mandate through a local ordinance passed in July.

The ordinance authorizes Escott, in his capacity as the local health authority, to create pandemic-related safety restrictions, a move permitted by state law. Escotts most recent rules  which include the mask mandate, social distancing and gathering limits  are active at least through April 15.

The public health authority is responsible for the control of disease outbreak in Austin-Travis County and will continue to utilize the rules he has set forth in helping to further mitigate the risk of spread, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said in a press release. The rules issued by Dr. Escott will serve to not only decrease the spread of disease but to also increase public confidence in the safety of local businesses.

Refusing to comply with local health rules is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,000.

IN-DEPTH: Gov. Abbott lifts statewide mask order

The governor said that virus related policy would be guided by the data and the doctors and we remain committed to this end, Adler said. So, #MaskUpATX.

While Democratic leaders of local governments across Texas have questioned or opposed Abbotts decision to drop the pandemic restrictions, so far Austin is the first to say it will contradict the governor.

Its unclear if the state will move to stop Austin from levying fines or otherwise enforcing its mask mandate. Spokespeople for Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

State leaders have previously stepped in to quash local health directives that were not in line with Abbotts rules, which he has enacted throughout the pandemic via emergency order. Paxton sued the city of Austin in December  and won  after local leaders decided to enact a curfew for indoor dining services over the New Years holiday weekend. That restriction, however, was not enacted by the local health authority.

In Austin, were committed to saving lives. Period. If state officials dont want to do their jobs protecting people from the virus, then we will, Austin City Council Member Greg Casar said in a release. This action is both legal and the right thing to do. If state officials choose to sue, theyll be going out of their way to harm the health of Texans.

Abbotts statewide order removing COVID restrictions takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

cayla.harris@express-news.net



DALLAS (dpa-AFX) - John Stephens, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer of AT&T Inc. (T), reiterated that the company continues to expect wireless service revenue growth in the 2% range in 2021 as the company continues to add customers and connected devices on its network, subscribers continue to migrate to higher ARPU unlimited plans, and churn improves. He also expects modest wireless EBITDA growth in 2021.



At the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference, Stephens said AT&T currently markets its 100% fiber network to more than 14 million customer locations, which it is actively selling into, with penetration rates increasing the longer the company has fiber in a market. The company plans to increase its fiber footprint by 3 million customer locations in 2021.



Stephens said that the company's U.S. video business will be classified as 'held for sale' beginning with first quarter 2021 results. AT&T will cease depreciating and amortizing long-lived assets associated with this business unit and expects a reduction of about $300 million in depreciation and amortization expense each quarter until the transaction closes.



Stephens noted that under the terms of the deal, at closing AT&T will receive $7.6 billion in cash which it intends to use to reduce debt. The new DIRECTV entity will also assume $200 million of existing DIRECTV debt from AT&T.



Stephens noted that AT&T has seen positive results from the hybrid distribution model for its 2021 film slate.



Stephens said that HBO Max and HBO added more subscribers in 2020 than HBO added in the previous 10 years. The company expects to begin international expansion of HBO Max in late June, giving the company additional opportunities to expand its customer base.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

AT&T-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de
The Kremlin has voiced "alarm" at a report in The New York Times that said the United States was preparing a series of covert counter cyberstrikes on Russian networks.

U.S. intelligence officials have said that Russia was probably behind the massive hack known as SolarWinds that hit large swaths of the public and private sectors last year, and which experts say may constitute an ongoing threat. Russia has denied the accusations.

White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that Washington would respond to SolarWinds in "weeks, not months."

The March 7 report in the U.S. newspaper quoted unnamed officials as saying that Washington was planning a series of covert counterstrikes on Russian networks in retaliation to the SolarWinds hack, with the first major move expected in three weeks' time.

It said the clandestine actions would be intended to be obvious to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military intelligence, but not to the rest of the world.

"This is alarming information," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. "This would be pure international cybercrime."

"The fact that the newspaper doesn't rule out that the American state could be involved in cybercrime definitely causes us concern," Peskov added.

The report came as the U.S. government warned of a major new cyberattack targeting Microsoft servers that has been linked to China.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an urgent notice on March 6, calling on companies and government agencies to install critical software updates that were described as an "emergency patch release."

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the alleged Chinese hack an "active threat."

The article in the U.S. newspaper said that the scope of the Chinese attack prompted U.S. officials to consider potential retaliation against Beijing as well.

It noted that such a move would put the United States in the position of engaging in a dual cyberconflict with the two countries that are its biggest nuclear-armed adversaries.

With reporting by Reuters, TASS, and Interfax
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Press Release

9 March 2021

As travel patterns have changed, Airbnb has adapted and we had more listings in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic combined at the end of 2020 than the end of 2019.

Advertisements

Airbnb adapts to guest demands and trends, and more guests are getting out of city centers and booking entire homes in less densely populated locations. In Q4 2020, for example, more guests stayed in Sicily than in Florence and Venice combined, and more in Devon than in Oxford and Cambridge combined.

New Hosts on Airbnb have succeeded. As we noted in this report regarding Hosts with one listing who began hosting since the pandemic started, new Hosts have already earned more than $1 billion, including the UK, France, Spain and Portugal.

Today we want to provide an update on our work to support healthy travel in communities across Europe, to support Hosts and guests.

Supporting clear rules that work for everyone

We want to be good partners to communities across Europe and recently introduced City Portal, a first-of-its-kind solution that provides governments and tourism organizations with tools, insights and access to the Airbnb community.

Earlier this year we announced a Landmark Commitment to the French Government - including a commitment to enforce Host registration in major cities across France - and noted that "we will work to give city officials across France access to the portal, providing a one-stop-shop for data on home sharing, tax collection and neighbourhood matters."

Airbnb wants to be good partners to leaders across Europe and we are supporting the EU Commission's work to update its rules and provide a framework for everyone to work together, including governments, platforms and Hosts. Airbnb has engaged with this work backed calls last year for an independent body to oversee rules across Europe and we were pleased to see this measure included in recent draft legislation.

Airbnb has written to leaders across Europe to highlight our continued commitment to collaboration on this important work, and we have signed a data sharing partnership with the EU Commission, to help everyone access the information they need as we move forward.

Empowering Hosts and their communities

As travel trends change, Airbnb is working with governments and organizations in small villages and rural communities across Europe. Here are some examples:

UK - Last week we noted that all searches by guests in the UK nearly tripled week-over-week (compared to Feb 16th), following the government announcement last week that self contained accommodation could open up by April 12. With an increased focus on nearby stays, visits to Airbnb's landing page for new Hosts were also up in both January and February compared to December. Hosts in the UK earned more than 225 million last summer, with the average Host pocketing nearly 1,000.

- Last week we noted that all searches by guests in the UK nearly tripled week-over-week (compared to Feb 16th), following the government announcement last week that self contained accommodation could open up by April 12. With an increased focus on nearby stays, visits to Airbnb's landing page for new Hosts were also up in both January and February compared to December. Hosts in the UK earned more than 225 million last summer, with the average Host pocketing nearly 1,000. France - As we noted in this post, more than 80% of listings on Airbnb in France are outside Paris and Airbnb has partnered with the French Association of Rural Mayors to support the growth of travel to rural villages. Our collaboration is working and following a campaign to promote 16 'secret villages', year on year overnight stays doubled on average.

- As we noted in this post, more than 80% of listings on Airbnb in France are outside Paris and Airbnb has partnered with the French Association of Rural Mayors to support the growth of travel to rural villages. Our collaboration is working and following a campaign to promote 16 'secret villages', year on year overnight stays doubled on average. Italy - We created the Italian Sabbatical campaign. As noted here The Italian Sabbatical is sponsored by Airbnb and promoted by the NGO Wonder Grottole as a part of a wider Airbnb partnership with Fondazione Matera Basilicata 2019. The partnership aims to further promote the idea of visitors as temporary citizens, engaging with the local community and travelers visiting Basilicata for Matera European Capital of Culture 2019.

Helping Hosts pay their fair share of tax

In December we noted that Airbnb has delivered more than $2.6 billion in tourism-related taxes to local governments on behalf of our global Host community over the past seven years, as of September 2020.

Airbnb first began collecting and remitting taxes on behalf of our community in 2014 through voluntary collection agreements with San Francisco, California and Portland, Oregon. Now, we are collecting and remitting taxes in more than 650 jurisdictions around the world, including communities in France, Portugal and the Netherlands, and the number continues to grow.

Our commitment to Hosts

We are committed to our Hosts. On October 30, 2020, we announced the creation of the Airbnb Host Advisory Board, to help present ideas, influence Airbnb policies and help shape investments in the Host community from the Airbnb Host Endowment, which has been seeded with 9.2 million company shares.

We will continue to be good partners to everyone and will update on this important work as we move forward.

ABOUT
Joe Biden seemed to forget the defense secretary's name and even his job title in a speech yesterday - calling Lloyd Austin the 'guy who runs that outfit over there.'

The president was announcing two women were to be promoted to elite, four-star general commands at a ceremony at the White House on International Women's Day.

'I want to thank Sec-, the former general, I keep calling him "General." My - the guy who runs that outfit over there,' Biden said, before quickly adding, 'I want to make sure we thank the secretary for all he's done.'

The 78-year-old self-confessed 'gaffe machine' has made verbal fumbles a hallmark of his career but there is growing disquiet over why Biden still hasn't held a press conference - no president in the last century has gone this long without taking questions from reporters.

President Joe Biden speaks during an event to mark International Women's Day as Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin listen

U.S. Air Force General Jacqueline Van Ovost fist bumps Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin following President Joe Biden's remarks on International Women's Day

President Joe Biden (C) speaks, flanked by the nominees to positions as 4-star Combatant Commanders General Jacqueline Van Ovost (L) and Lieutenant General Laura Richardson (R)

Donald Trump and Barack Obama both took on the press pack within their first month in charge.

The White House says Biden is focused on getting over big congressional hurdles - the COVID-19 relief bill and Cabinet confirmations.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday defended the president's accessibility to the media and suggested that a news conference was likely by the end of March.

'I would say that his focus is on getting recovery and relief to the American people and he looks forward to continuing to engage with all of you and to other members of the media who aren't here today,' Psaki said. 'And we'll look forward to letting you know, as soon as that press conference is set.'

The campaign was dominated by Trump dubbing Biden 'Sleepy Joe' and claiming that he was in mental decline - 'he's gonzo, folks.'

Biden's team tried to allay fears by suggesting that he had made a career of these mental blunders and Biden himself described how he had struggled with a stutter since childhood.

In 2008, he introduced his running-mate as 'Barack America' and in a 2012 'Meet the Press' he accidentally revealed he supported gay marriage - before Obama had publicly set out a position on it.

Last month, he swapped China for Canada in his opening remarks with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

His use of the phrase 'Neanderthal thinking' this week to describe the decision by the governors of Texas and Mississippi to lift mask mandates dominated a new cycle and drew ire from Republicans.

That created the type of distraction his aides have tried to avoid and, in a pandemic silver lining, were largely able to dodge during the campaign because the virus kept Biden home for months and limited the potential for public mistakes.

Firmly pledging his belief in freedom of the press, Biden has rebuked his predecessor's rhetoric toward the media, including Trump's references to reporters as 'the enemy of the people.'

Peter Funt, writing in USA Today, said: 'But at a time when true transparency is desperately needed in government, especially on the heels of Trump and an administration that favored "alternative facts," Biden is making a mistake by being so guarded with White House reporters.'

Biden restored the daily press briefing, which had gone extinct under Trump, opening a window into the workings of the White House. His staff has also fanned out over cable news to promote the COVID-19 relief bill.

And while Biden's own Twitter account, in a sharp break from Trump's social media habits, usually offers rote postings, his chief of staff Ron Klain has become a frequent tweeter, using the platform to amplify messages and critique opponents.

Delaying the news conference and joint address also, symbolically, have kept open the first chapter of Biden's presidency and perhaps extended his honeymoon. His approval rating stood at 60% in a poll released Friday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

President Joe Biden walks with U.S. Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, left, and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson before speaking at an event to mark International Women's Day

President Biden, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said combating sexual assault in the military will be an all hands on deck effort

Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, 55, of the Air Force, left, and Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson, 57, of the Army

The president yesterday approved nominations for Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, of the Air Force, and Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson, of the Army.

If confirmed by the Senate, General Van Ovost and Lieutenant General Richardson will become the second and third women to lead a Combatant Command, according to the White House.

Biden's appointment comes after their promotions were held up over fears then-President Donald Trump would resist them because they weren't white men.

'Each of these women have led careers demonstrating incomparable skill, integrity, and duty to country. And at every step, they've also helped push open the doors of opportunity to women in our military blazing the trail, a little wider, a little brighter for all proud women following in their path,' the president said in announcement the appointments.

He also noted Van Ovost, the daughter of Dutch immigrants who owned a flying business, flew herself, at age 16, to see Sally Ride lift off as the first woman in space. He praised her career as a test pilot and noted she flew Air Force Two when he rode on it as vice president.

And he noted Richardson, in her position, oversaw the military medical personnel deployed to help the response to the COVID pandemic.

'More than 4500 military medical personnel deployed in hospitals across 14 states and the Navajo Nation to treat COVID-19 patients,' Biden said.

Biden also tackled the issue of sexual harassment in the ranks in his remarks, calling it a 'threat to our national security.'

'We have to take on sexual assault harassment and violence against women in the military. Sexual assault is a abhorrent and wrong at any time. And our military so much of unit cohesion is built on trusting your fellow service members to have your back. There's nothing less than a threat to our national security,' he said.

The president was accompanied at the event by Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Austin.

'This is going to be an all hands on deck effort. Under my administration to end the scourge of sexual assault in the military. And we're going to be focused on that from the very top,' Biden said.
Harry was honest enough to acknowledge that he had no idea what he was getting into when he married a biracial woman. Of course, like most people, he had heard about racism, but there was no reason to believe it applied to anyone in his family.
Persecuted Chinese rights lawyer Wang Yu was one of the 21 women who have been recognized by the U.S. State Department's 2021 International Women of Courage Awards, but she failed to attend the virtual ceremony, causing many to speculate about her whereabouts.

The ceremony was held on Monday in Washington D.C. and virtually, during which seven Afghan women were honored posthumously for their service to their communities right before they were assassinated in Afghanistan in 2020, Voice Of America reported.

Among the other 2021 International Women of Courage Award honorees is Chinese rights lawyer Wang Yu, who according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken said "represented cases involving abused children, ethnic minorities, women, and religious adherents," work which "has brought government pressure on her through today."

According to Radio Free Asia, Sec. Blinken is concerned about the persecuted Chinese rights lawyer's whereabouts after she was absent from the ceremony that was set to honor her as one of the "Women of Courage," among others who demonstrated outstanding leadership in advocating for women empowerment, gender equality, and human rights.

"We have not been in regular communication over the past two days. We're concerned because we know that she wanted to attend today's ceremony," Sec. Blinken said of Wang. "We'll be following up and, if necessary, speaking out on her case."

Wang was last heard from through her tweet that expressed her excitement for the Women of Courage ceremony. An activist who is close to the Chinese rights lawyer said that the latter tweeted her plans to leave Guangzhou City in southern China, but encountered delays due to COVID-19 checks. The following day, Wang and her husband Bao Longjun were captured by the police in Tianjin and have not been heard from since.

According to Wang's profile in the State Department's list of International Women of Courage Award recipients, Wang is known as one of China's "most prominent human rights lawyers" who has taken on several "politically sensitive cases, representing activists, scholars, Falun Gong practitioners, farmers, and petitioners" in cases that involved human rights, women's and children's rights, freedom of expression, rights to freedom, and more.

The Chinese rights lawyer is currently under an exit ban and has been closely watched by Chinese authorities since she started actively taking abuse cases in 2011.

Wang is among 20 other women who are honored as a "Woman of Courage" by the U.S. State Department this year. Other awardees include Maria Kolesnikova from Belarus who rose up in behalf of the democratic movement following a disputed election, chess arbiter Shohreh Bayat from Iran who was accused of violating Islamic dress code, labor rights advocate Ana Rosario Contreras from Venezuela who advocates for health care professionals, and human rights activist Julienne Lusenge from Congo who strongly opposes gender-based violence.

First lady Jill Biden said during a speech at the "Women of Courage" awards ceremony, "These women made an extraordinary choice: to persist. To demand justice. To believe that, despite the obstacles and fear that they faced, that there is a future worth fighting for."
About 10 social work students from the University of Guam braved the weather Tuesday afternoon to demonstrate in support of Russian asylum-seekers who are staging a hunger strike just a short walk from the governor's complex. They were joined by the strikers and other asylum applicants.

Reuel Drilon, a social work student and intern at UOG, said the rally was organized as an advocacy project, to spread awareness and let the asylum applicants know they are not alone.

"We realize their situation is super complex. ... It's certainly not something we're going to resolve as social work students, but at least we can start trying to spread that good message with the community and gain community awareness," Drilon said. "We realize there's a lot of issues going on ... and we just want to spread the awareness that there's this little group of people who are also disadvantaged in a sense."

From time to time, social work students would also visit the strikers at their camp to listen to their stories and gather information to develop a community profile, such as the number of Russian asylum-seekers on the island, to understand what other resources might be available to them, according to Drilon.

"We also understand from their cultural perspective that many of them don't want to be visible," he added. "So it kind of makes it hard to sort of address services."

There is a sense of desperation for many in the Russian asylum community. Asylum-seekers are finding themselves barred from boarding flights to the U.S. Some want to travel for medical needs or work. Some have waited years for their asylum claims to be adjudicated. Others are waiting for hearings to take place on defensive asylum claims.

The strike is not only held in hopes of obtaining the ability to travel to the states but is done as a kind of last resort, as numerous letters to federal authorities and prior demonstrations resulted in little to no gain.

The issue ultimately rests at the federal level, but the strikers chose to camp and demonstrate at Adelup for safety and visibility, believing that the governor can influence the situation. Lt. Gov. Joshua Tenorio met with members of the Russian asylum community Friday, promising to advocate for them.

"The question for us is what do we do in the meantime?" Drilon said. "If it's going to take 10 years ... you know, what can we do individually, or just locally?"

Four men are participating in the strike  Aleksander, Andrew, Pavel and Yurii. Medics were called to the camp Sunday afternoon.

Tatiana, Pavel's wife, called 911, concerned that Aleksander and Andrew appeared weak. The medics assessed them, but the men refused to go to the hospital or to eat or consume anything other than water.

The strike began March 1 and all four have shown some signs of fatigue as the days went on.

During Tuesday's demonstration, Aleksander looked downcast.

Andrew, at one point, sat slumped against a concrete post, his head tilted back with eyes open slightly, or not at all. A sign that said "Save our lives" was visible to motorists passing by.

The hunger strikers intend to continue, fearing if they stop, their concerns will be forgotten.
Energy Fuels expects to commercially produce an intermediate rare earth element product at a stage more advanced than any other U.S. company.

LAKEWOOD, Colo, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU) (TSX: EFR) ("Energy Fuels" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the first shipments of natural monazite ore arrived at the Company's White Mesa Mill (the "Mill") in Blanding, Utah this past weekend. This material was separated by The Chemours Company at its Offerman Mineral Sand Plant in Georgia and transported by truck to the Mill. In the coming weeks, Energy Fuels expects to gradually ramp-up production of an intermediate rare earth element ("REE") product, called a "mixed REE carbonate." This product will then advance to REE separation, which is the next stage in the REE value chain. Energy Fuels also expects to recover the uranium in the ore, which will be used as fuel for the generation of clean, carbon-free nuclear energy.

Upon successful ramp-up, Energy Fuels expects to commercially produce an REE product at a stage more advanced than any other U.S. company. As previously announced, Energy Fuels expects to sell its mixed REE carbonate to Neo Performance Materials ("Neo"), which will process this material at its facility in Europe and manufacture separated rare earth products available to U.S. and European markets. Energy Fuels is also continuing to evaluate developing additional value-added U.S. rare earth separation and other capabilities in Utah in the future.

Mark S. Chalmers, President and CEO of Energy Fuels stated: "Over the past few months, Energy Fuels, Neo and Chemours have quietly worked to create something very significant: a new, fully-integrated, U.S.-Europe rare earth supply chain. This weekend's shipments of monazite ore from Chemours to Energy Fuels marks the beginning of operations for what we believe will become a burgeoning supply chain. There is a lot of excitement building for rare earths, because they make many clean energy and advanced technologies possible, including electric vehicles, wind generation, batteries and advanced electronics. Today's announcement is a key milestone as our companies create, refine, and grow a sustainable rare earth supply chain capable of supplying growing demand for clean technologies in the U.S. and Europe.

"We believe Energy Fuels has done more to restore U.S. rare earth production in one year than others have achieved in many years. Less than one year ago, Energy Fuels announced that we were entering the U.S. rare earth space. Now, we are receiving shipments of rare earth bearing ore and are in the process of ramping up for commercial production of an intermediate rare earth product at a stage more advanced than any other U.S. company. We intend to optimize our production of a mixed rare earth carbonate and then move on to developing our own ability to manufacture separated rare earth products at our plant in Utah. Our ultimate goal is to stand-up a fully-integrated U.S. rare earth supply chain that is globally competitive, quicker than any other U.S. company."

Monazite is one of the highest-value REE-bearing minerals in the World, containing between 50% and 60%+ REEs, along with significant quantities of recoverable natural uranium. Monazite also contains 22% - 24% NdPr (%TREO Basis), which are two of the key REEs and which are needed for many permanent REE magnet technologies used in electric vehicles (EVs) and other advanced technologies. Monazite also contains excellent distributions of "heavy" rare earths, which are needed for many advanced technologies.

Monazite is currently mined in the U.S., Australia, Africa, and elsewhere as a byproduct of heavy mineral sand operations whose main products are zircon and titanium.

Implementation of this initiative is subject to successful commercial ramp-up, execution of definitive agreements between the Company and Neo, and optimization of the companies' production processes.

About Energy Fuels: Energy Fuels is a leading U.S.-based uranium mining company, supplying U 3 O 8 to major nuclear utilities. The Company also produces vanadium from certain of its projects, as market conditions warrant, and expects to commence commercial production of rare earth element ("REE") carbonate in 2021. Its corporate offices are in Lakewood, Colorado, near Denver, and all of its assets and employees are in the United States. Energy Fuels holds three of America's key uranium production centers: the White Mesa Mill in Utah, the Nichols Ranch in-situ recovery ("ISR") Project in Wyoming, and the Alta Mesa ISR Project in Texas. The White Mesa Mill is the only conventional uranium mill operating in the U.S. today, has a licensed capacity of over 8 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year, has the ability to produce vanadium when market conditions warrant, as well as REE carbonate from various uranium-bearing ores. The Nichols Ranch ISR Project is on standby and has a licensed capacity of 2 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. The Alta Mesa ISR Project is also on standby and has a licensed capacity of 1.5 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. In addition to the above production facilities, Energy Fuels also has one of the largest NI 43-101 compliant uranium resource portfolios in the U.S. and several uranium and uranium/vanadium mining projects on standby and in various stages of permitting and development. The primary trading market for Energy Fuels' common shares is the NYSE American under the trading symbol "UUUU," and the Company's common shares are also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "EFR." Energy Fuels' website is www.energyfuels.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains certain "Forward Looking Information" and "Forward Looking Statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: any expectation that the Company will be successful in producing REE Carbonate on a commercial basis; any expectation that Neo will be successful in separating the Company's REE Carbonate on a commercial basis; any expectation that Energy Fuels will be successful in developing U.S. separation or other REE production capabilities, or otherwise fully integrating the U.S REE supply chain in the future; any expectations that ramp-up to commercial-scale operations will be successful; any expectation that the Company and Neo will successfully execute definitive agreements and optimize their respective production processes; and any other statements regarding Energy Fuels' future expectations, beliefs, goals or prospects constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All statements in this news release that are not statements of historical fact (including statements containing the words "expects," "does not expect," "plans," "anticipates," "does not anticipate," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "potential," "scheduled," "forecast," "budget" and similar expressions) should be considered forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to important risk factors and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Energy Fuels' ability to control or predict. A number of important factors could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated or implied by such forward-looking statements, including without limitation factors relating to: processing difficulties and upsets; available supplies of monazite sands; the ability of the Company to produce REE Carbonate to meet commercial specifications on a commercial scale at acceptable costs; the ability of Neo to separate the REE Carbonate to meet commercial specifications on a commercial scale at acceptable costs; market factors, including future demand for rare earth elements; the ability of Neo and Energy Fuels to finalize definitive agreements; and the other risk factors as described in Energy Fuels' most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly financial reports. Energy Fuels assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication, except as otherwise required by law. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in Energy Fuels' filings with the various securities commissions, which are available online at www.sec.gov and www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations, beliefs and plans of the management of Energy Fuels relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. Readers are also cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, that speak only as of the date hereof.

SOURCE Energy Fuels Inc.

Related Links

http://www.energyfuels.com


We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Save on favorite Lexus models this spring at Earnhardt Lexus during the annual Invitation to Lexus Sales Event. Offers end March 31`.

The Invitation to Lexus Sales Event is a celebration of the Lexus brand that luxury car shoppers will love at Earnhardt Lexus in Phoenix. Luxury car shoppers who have fallen in love with the Lexus brand will find many lease and finance offers that can be applied to popular models during the Invitation to Lexus Sales Event. To be eligible, potential car shoppers must be approved by Lexus Financial Services.

Born and bred for families who crave automotive luxury, the 2021 Lexus RX is a popular option at Earnhardt Lexus. Families who prefer to finance the Lexus RX may qualify for a 0% Annual Percentage Rate (APR) for 60 months  an offer that expires on March 31. Lease offers for the Lexus RX 350 include a low-mileage 36-month lease with $3,999 due at signing and $429 per month.

A competitive option in the compact luxury crossover class, the 2021 Lexus NX makes room for five passengers in an opulent interior. The Lexus NX 300 is available for lease at Earnhardt Lexus with a 36-month lease contract that includes $2,999 down, $359 per month and $2,500 Lease Cash. Finance incentives for the Lexus NX include 0% APR for 60 months.

Phoenix-area drivers who have fallen in love with the Lexus brand will be no strangers to the 2021 Lexus ES luxury sedan. Flagship entries in the lineup, the Lexus ES and Lexus ES Hybrid are available with 0% APR for 60 months. Lexus ES 350 lease offers include a 39-month lease with $3,999 down and $349 per month. The all-wheel drive Lexus ES 350 AWD is available for lease with a 39-month contract, $3,999 due at signing and $339 per month.

Potential Earnhardt Lexus customers can learn more about Invitation to Lexus sales incentives online at http://www.earnhardtlexus.com. Those who prefer a more personal interaction can contact the Earnhardt Lexus team directly by calling 480-990-7000.
Tesla Inc.s Model 3 sales appear to be taking off in Japan since it cut prices on the mid-range electric sedan last month.

Delivery times for the vehicle have expanded to 12-to-16 weeks, compared with six-to-eight weeks before the price reduction, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Reservations for test drives are also harder to get, with wait times now at more than three weeks instead of one week, said the person, asking not to be identified because the information isnt public.

Tesla cut the price of the long-range version of the Model 3 by 24% last month to 4.99 million yen ($46,700), putting it in reach of consumers seeking to buy low-end luxury vehicles. With Japans government pushing to ban sales of cars with gasoline-only engines by the mid-2030s, Teslas price cut is putting Japans automakers on notice for a potential price war in the worlds third-largest car market.

This proves that EVs will sell if theyre cheaper," said Takeshi Miyao, an analyst at consulting firm Carnorama in Tokyo. Its a shocking situation" for Japanese automakers, he said.

Honda Motor Co. and Mazda Motor Corp. both started selling EVs last year, each with a price tag of about 4.5 million yen, but with a much smaller driving range compared with the Model 3. Nissan Motor Co. plans to start selling its Ariya electric crossover SUV later this year. Even including subsidies and rebates, the Model 3 will probably remain one of the most affordable EV options in Japan.

Tesla has been in Japan for about six years, with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk calling the market one of the most important for the EV company. Yet, data shows that sales never really took off, and Tesla sold less than 2,000 units in the country in 2020, up slightly from the prior year.
TEL AVIV, Israel, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SciSparc Ltd. (formerly known as Therapix Biosciences Ltd.) (OTCQB: SPRCY), a specialty, clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focusing on the development of cannabinoid-based treatments, today announced it has entered an agreement with The Sheba Fund for Health Services and Research, to perform a pre-clinical study for the evaluation of the Company's SCI-210 drug development program, a proprietary novel pharmaceutical preparation containing non-psychoactive cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD)and palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) for the treatment of Status Epilepticus (SE).

The pre-clinical study that the Company expects to conduct is expected to investigate the potential advantage of its proprietary combination of SCI-210 by harnessing the "entourage effect" phenomenon, originally coined by Prof. Mechoulam. The effect of SCI-210 will be compared to CBD single treatment in animal model (mice) of SE.

SE is a common life threatening medical emergency characterized by an acute, prolonged epileptic seizure. SE can represent either the exacerbation of a pre-existing seizure or the initial manifestation of epilepsy. In order to avoid neurological sequelae, a timely treatment should be started. When the continuous seizure does not respond to conventional drug treatment, SE can pose serious life threatening risks.

In 2018, GW Pharmaceuticals' Epidiolex, a plant-based, pharmaceutical grade CBD extract was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare and severe forms of epilepsy. SciSparc's study for SCI-210 previously demonstrated efficacy of SCI-210 as compared to the effect of CBD alone in an in-vitro hepatocytes model of fat accumulation, when the effect of CBD was enhanced

by the addition of PEA, lowering the required effective concentration of CBD. In this study, the Company hopes to demonstrate again the potential efficacy of SCI-210 over CBD alone on SE as well as on its neurological cognitive sequelae.

"We are very excited for the opportunity to continue testing our proprietary innovative drug candidate SCI-210 and are encouraged by the potential of the study to exhibit increased safety and efficacy over CBD alone in the treatment of status epilepticus," said Adi Zuloff-Shani, Ph.D., SciSparc's Chief Technologies Officer. "Due to the unique mechanism of action of SCI-210, we believe that it has the potential of reducing adverse-effects associated with high dose CBD-rich treatments and subsequently making a meaningful difference for patients," concluded Dr. Zuloff-Shani.

About SciSparc (OTCQB: SPRCY):

SciSparc Ltd. is a specialty clinical-stage pharmaceutical company led by an experienced team of senior executives and scientists. Our focus is on creating and enhancing a portfolio of technologies and assets based on cannabinoid pharmaceuticals. With this focus, the Company is currently engaged in the following drug development programs based on THC and/or non-psychoactive cannabidiol (CBD): SCI-110 (formerly THX-110) for the treatment of Tourette syndrome and for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea; SCI-160 (formerly THX-160) for the treatment of pain; and SCI-210 (formerly THX-210) for the treatment of autism spectrum disorder, SE and epilepsy. Please visit our website for more information at www.therapixbio.com , the content of which is not a part of this press release.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other Federal securities laws. For example, SciSparc is using forward-looking statements when it discusses its plans to continue developing and testing SCI-210, including its plans to conduct pre-clinical studies in SCI-210, and the potential efficacy of SCI-210 in treating SE. Historic results of scientific research and clinical and preclinical trials do not guarantee that the conclusions of future research or trials will suggest identical or even similar conclusions. Because such statements deal with future events and are based on SciSparc's current expectations, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties and actual results, performance or achievements of SciSparc could differ materially from those described in or implied by the statements in this press release. The forward-looking statements contained or implied in this press release are subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in SciSparc's Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC on June 15, 2020, and in subsequent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as otherwise required by law, SciSparc disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise.

Investor Contact:

[email protected]

Tel: +972-3-6167055

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1434686/SciSparc_Ltd_Logo.jpg

SOURCE SciSparc Ltd.
Mike Lindell says he is making his way back to social media, with the MyPillow CEO planning to launch his own site in the coming weeks.

Lindell, 59, told Charlie Kirk on the latter's podcast on Friday that he has been working on the social media site for four years.

'Every single influencer person on the planet can come there,' Lindell said, according to Insider.

'You're going to have a platform to speak out. It's not just like a little Twitter platform.'

Lindell didn't reveal a name for his social media site, but said it was likely 'four or five weeks' away, though he said it could come as soon as ten days from the interview, which would be March 15.

Mike Lindell says he is planning his reentry to social media by launching his own social media site

Lindell recently told Charlie Kirk that he's been working on the website for four years

'People will be able to talk and not walk on eggshells,' Lindell said about the purported social media site.

The launch comes two months after Lindell was kicked off Twitter on January 25 for espousing the same election fraud claims that got Donald Trump removed from the site as well.

After being banned, he temporarily commandeered the MyPillow Twitter account, which resulted in a ban for the company Twitter as well.

Lindell attended the pro-Trump rally that took place in Washington DC on January 6, though he wasn't part of the mob that stormed the Capitol.

He did, however, claim that Antifa was responsible for the insurrection that took place that day.

One of Lindell's claims is that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election to switch votes from Trump to Joe Biden, which resulted in Lindell being subject to a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit courtesy of Dominion. The claims are disproven.

Dominion has also sued Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, while a rival company, Smartmatic, has similarly sued Fox News for their allegations that Smartmatic switched votes.

Lindell also aired a documentary titled Absolute Proof, which contained false claims about the election and was later removed from both Vimeo and YouTube.

Lindell was previously kicked off of Twitter for espousing Donald Trump's election fraud claims

Lindell claims without evidence that 140 million people have viewed Absolute Proof, over 40 million more people than those that viewed this year's Super Bowl.

'You will not need YouTube. You won't need these places,' Lindell said to Kirk. 'So it will be where everything can be told, because we've got to get our voices back.'

At least 22 retailers have cut ties with Lindell as a result of his election fraud claims, resulting in a revenue drop of $65 million for MyPillow.

Lindell didn't reveal a name for his site, but said the launch could be 'four or five weeks' away

Based on his comments, Lindell's social media site could likely cater to a conservative audience.

Parler is geared towards a conservative base, although it struggled to stay online after Apple, Google, and Amazon pulled the site from its application stores.

On February 15, Parler relaunched with a new interim CEO, though they did not disclose how their site was being hosted.
Hugh Jackman has praised Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's 'courageous' interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The Oscar-nominated actor, 52, took to Instagram on Monday to share his thoughts on Meghan's revelation that she considered taking her own life when she was pregnant with her son, Archie.

Hugh also took the opportunity to direct his fans to seek help for mental illness from charities like his own Gotcha 4 Life.

Impressed: Hugh Jackman praised Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's 'courageous' interview with Oprah Winfrey in a heartfelt Instagram post on Monday

The Sydney-born star said: 'I recommend Oprah's interview with Meghan and Harry, which Deb [wife Deborra-lee Furness] and I, and millions of people around the world, watched last night, with astonishment.

'Because there we were, watching an incredibly high-profile woman, and her husband, speak so openly, courageously, honestly, with such dignity about the hardest time in their life and their cry for help.

'And I sit on the board of Gotcha 4 Life, an organisation in Sydney that deals with this issue of suicide, as well as mental fitness, and last night I thought everyone needs to see this, because it is such an incredible example to never worry alone.'

'Seek help, and if you're not getting help where you're looking for it, keep looking. Go somewhere else, because there is always help. So never worry alone,' he added.

'And I just want to say thank you Meghan, thank you Harry, for your courage.'

Important: The Oscar-nominated actor took to Instagram to share his thoughts on Meghan's revelation that she considered taking her own life when she was pregnant with her son, Archie

Pictured: Prince Harry (left) and Meghan Markle (right) in their sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, which aired in the U.S. on Sunday night and in Australia on Monday

White House press secretary Jen Psaki also praised the Sussexes for their 'courage' at Monday's press briefing.

'For anyone to come forward and speak about their own struggles with mental health and tell their own personal story, that takes courage and that's certainly something the president believes,' Psaki replied when asked if President Joe Biden had any reaction to the interview.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah at Monday's press briefing

Psaki also pointed out that both Meghan and Harry are private citizens.

'We aren't going to provide additional commentary from here on behalf of the president or others given these are private citizens, sharing their own story and their own struggles,' the press secretary said.

'And let me just reiterate that we have a strong and abiding relationship with the British people and a special partnership with the government of the United Kingdom on a range of issues and that will continue,' she added.

Prince Harry (left) sits with Dr. Jill Biden (right), who was then the second lady, at an Invictus Games event in 2014

President Joe Biden (left) and first lady Jill Biden (centre left) appear alongside Prince Harry (right) at the Invictus Games in Toronto in 2017

Both the president and first lady have known Prince Harry for years and have been supportive of his Invictus Games for wounded warriors.

Psaki didn't get into detail but said that Biden has 'talked about the importance of investing in a lot of these areas that they are committed in.'

Psaki was specifically asked about the racism that the royal couple talked about experiencing, though she addressed Meghan and Harry opening up about mental health struggles instead.

In the interview, Markle described having thoughts of suicide when she was pregnant with the couple's son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

'I just didn't want to be alive anymore,' she told Oprah. 'And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.'

Markle also said she tried to seek help including inpatient care, but was rebuffed by a senior royal because 'wouldnt be good for the institution.'

The Duchess of Sussex also revealed that someone in the royal orbit had a conversation with Harry about the color of Archie's skin before he was born.

There were 'concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born,' Markle told Winfrey.

Winfrey was floored, uttering, 'What?'

'There are several conversations,' Markle continued. 'Potentially and what that would mean or look like.'

The Biden White House's response was far friendlier than President Donald Trump's assessment of Markle.

In late September, Trump had been asked by DailyMail.com about the royal couple's unprecedented decision to weigh into the U.S. election, interpreted by many as an endorsement of his rival, Biden.

'I'm not a fan of hers,' he said of Markle.

'I would say this - and she has probably has heard that - I wish a lot of luck to Harry because he's going to need it,' Trump said.
Announcement on Shareholding Information of the Top Ten Shareholders and the Top Ten Shareholders without Selling Restrictions in relation to the A-Share Repurchase Scheme

Qingdao / Shanghai / Frankfurt, 09 March 2021 - Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the "Company") deliberated and approved the Proposal on the Scheme of Repurchase of a Portion of A-share Public Shares of Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. on the 16th meeting of the tenth session of the Board of Directors convened on 5 March 2021, the details of which are disclosed on the Announcement on the Scheme of Repurchase of a Portion of A-Share Public Shares and relevant announcement on resolutions of the Board of Directors dated 6 March 2021 by the Company through designated information disclosure media.

According to the Detailed Rules of the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Implementation of Repurchase of Shares by Listed Companies and other relevant requirements, the names, the number of shares held and the percentage of shareholding of the top 10 shareholders and the top 10 shareholders without selling restrictions whose names appeared on the share register on the previous trading day of the announcement on resolutions of the 16th meeting of the tenth session of the Board of Directors (namely 5 March 2021), are hereby announced as follows:

I. Shareholdings of the top 10 shareholders of the Company:

No. Name of shareholders Class of shares Number of shares held (Share) Percentage of the total share capital(%) 1 HKSCC NOMINEES LIMITED (note) H-Share 2,073,411,693 22.33 2 Haier Electric Appliances International Co.,Ltd. (Renamed to Haier COSMO Co., Ltd.) A-Share 1,258,684,824 13.56 3 Haier Group Corporation A-Share 1,072,610,764 11.55 4 HCH (HK) INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT CO., LIMITED H-Share 538,560,000 5.80 5 Hong Kong Securities Clearing Company Limited A-Share 495,899,682 5.34 6 China Securities Finance Corporation Limited A-Share 182,592,654 1.97 7 Qingdao Haier Venture & Investment Information Co., Ltd. A-Share 172,252,560 1.86 8 ALIBABA INVESTMENT LIMITED H-Share 83,823,993 0.90 9 Qingdao Haichuangzhi Management Consulting Enterprise (Limited Partnership) A-Share 73,011,000 0.79 10 Central Huijin Asset Management Ltd. A-Share 69,539,900 0.75

Note: The pooled account of the H-share shareholders of the account company is the original data provided to the Company by the Hong Kong registration agency in accordance with local market practices and technical settings after the merger, and does not represent the ultimate shareholder.

II. Shareholdings of the top 10 shareholders without selling restrictions of the Company

No. Name of shareholders Class of shares Number of shares held (Share) Percentage of the total share capital(%) 1 HKSCC NOMINEES LIMITED (note) H-Share 2,073,411,693 22.33 2 Haier Electric Appliances International Co.,Ltd. (Renamed to Haier COSMO Co., Ltd.) A-Share 1,258,684,824 13.56 3 Haier Group Corporation A-Share 1,072,610,764 11.55 4 HCH (HK) INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT CO., LIMITED H-Share 538,560,000 5.80 5 Hong Kong Securities Clearing Company Limited A-Share 495,899,682 5.34 6 China Securities Finance Corporation Limited A-Share 182,592,654 1.97 7 Qingdao Haier Venture & Investment Information Co., Ltd. A-Share 172,252,560 1.86 8 ALIBABA INVESTMENT LIMITED H-Share 83,823,993 0.90 9 Qingdao Haichuangzhi Management Consulting Enterprise (Limited Partnership) A-Share 73,011,000 0.79 10 Central Huijin Asset Management Ltd. A-Share 69,539,900 0.75

Note: The pooled account of the H-share shareholders of the account company is the original data provided to the Company by the Hong Kong registration agency in accordance with local market practices and technical settings after the merger, and does not represent the ultimate shareholder.

About Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd.:

Haier is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household appliances with a focus on smart home solutions and customized mass production. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. develops, produces and distributes a wide range of household appliances. These include refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, air conditioners, water heaters, kitchen appliances as well as smaller household appliances and an extensive range of intelligent household appliances. The Company distributes its products through leading household brands such as Haier, Casarte, Leader, Candy, GE Appliances, AQUA and Fisher & Paykel. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. has launched Smart Home Experiential Cloud, which connects homes, users, enterprises and ecosystem partners, and facilitates the integration of Haier's online, offline and micro-store businesses and supports user interaction to further optimize the user experience.

IR contact:

Yao Sun (Sophie) - Haier Smart Home Germany

T: +49 6172 9454 143

F: +49 6172 9454 42143

M: +49 160 9469 3601

Email: y.sun@haier.de
Safecast will deploy Airnote devices at Fukushima during a live-streamed 10 year anniversary event.

BOSTON and TOKYO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Safecast, a global leader in open environmental data, and Blues Wireless, a leading developer of IoT cloud cellular solutions, today announced Airnote, an air quality monitoring device with unprecedented simplicity and cost-effectiveness. By removing complexity and barriers to use, Airnote enables the mass deployment of air quality sensors at a cost of nearly half that of other products on the market.

"Ten years ago, the crisis at Fukushima brought together many talented individuals from around the globe to serve a common purpose: enable people to understand the conditions impacting the safety of their environment," said Ray Ozzie, founder of Blues Wireless and Safecast volunteer. "The nonprofit organization Safecast, Blues Wireless, and ultimately the Airnote device were all borne as a result of this collaboration."

All of the air quality measurements collected by Airnote are sent directly to the Safecast platform and published into the public domain as part of their global environmental dataset.

To date, air quality, water quality, radiation, and other aspects of the environment have involved expensive equipment, careful site work for device placement, and challenges in establishing reliable outdoor network connectivity. Airnote is a fully integrated zero-setup solar-powered device that easily attaches to the outside of any sunny window. At regular intervals, Airnote automatically uploads air quality data using cellular networks in more than 130 countries, no registration or network setup required. Airnote includes a pre-paid/pre-activated data plan that will run for the entire lifetime of the device.

These capabilities are enabled by the Blues Wireless Notecard , a small data pump that manufacturers embed within their products to greatly simplify the task of securely moving data to and from the cloud over cellular networks. Blues Wireless began first volume shipments of the Notecard this past December.

Airnote provides information on a display or users can scan its QR code and view charts and graphs online. The device measures temperature, humidity, air pressure, and density of particulate matter in PM1, PM2.5, and PM10. Data uploaded by Airnote devices benefits everyone, designated into the public domain at birth. Through notehub.io, the Blues Wireless real-time data router, and Safecast's databases and maps, data is available worldwide for analysis, education, or even commercial use. While data is anonymous by default, device owners can optionally claim devices and be credited for data uploads.

"While Fukushima was an unequivocal disaster, the event presented us with an opportunity to better plan for the future and safety of our environment," said Pieter Franken, co-founder and Japan director of Safecast. "The global data we'll receive from Airnote will accelerate the pace of citizen-led open data, moving us towards a healthier global environment, while enabling faster and more efficient reactions to future crises."

Airnote is available to order at shop.blues.io and will be featured during Safecast's live-streamed driving tour of Fukushima and surrounding communities on March 13, 2021. The tour will pay tribute to the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima accident and Safecast's founding. Throughout the event, Safecast volunteers, including Ray Ozzie, will talk to residents and people involved with the accident, as well as current supporters of worldwide environmental monitoring solutions. Safecast will install dozens of Airnote devices along the way.

The day-long event will begin Saturday, March 13 at 9 am JST (Friday, March 12 at 7 pm EST) and will be broadcast live via YouTube. There will be opportunities for viewers to ask questions and otherwise engage in the event. To participate please register for free or reserve premium seats at https://safecast.org/safecast10/ .

About Blues Wireless

Founded in 2019, Blues Wireless is the creator of Notecard, the fastest and most cost-effective way to add wireless connectivity to any product. Notecard is a highly secure system on a module (SoM) with embedded 10-year global connectivity that allows any developer to send data from remote assets using JSON and two-lines of code. The data is routed to the cloud applications of customers' choice, again using simple JSON and REST. Blues's customers represent leading and innovative companies spanning agriculture, automotive, construction, healthcare, industrial, manufacturing, retail, supply chain & cold chain, transportation, and logistics. Use cases range from simple tracking and remote monitoring to edge analytics and remote control. Blues is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Please connect with us at hello@blues.com or visit blues.io for more information .
A New Jersey man authorities say is a member of the right-wing Oath Keepers, and acted as a bodyguard for a Trump ally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, is free on bail after being charged with taking part in the U.S. Capitol attack that day.

Roberto Minuta, 36, of Hackettstown, was arrested this past weekend on three federal charges accusing him of obstructing and tampering with Congress and entering a restricted building. Minuta operates a tattoo shop in Newburgh, New York, where he has also lived, and also has a residence in Texas, officials say.

The FBI alleges Minuta, who wore tactical clothing with an Oath Keepers Militia patch, was spotted in several pictures and video aggressively berating and taunting police guarding the Capitol, and was later seen inside the building. He was also decked out in hard-knuckled tactical gloves, ballistic goggles, an earpiece and had a can of chemical spray on his belt  possibly bear spray.

At a federal court appearance in White Plains, New York Monday, where prosecutors argued Minuta should be detained pending trial, a prosecutor described him as a danger to the community and a risk to flee. The prosecutor also said Minuta had spit at officers feet during the attack and illegally provided freelance security in Washington for various high-profile individuals who were not named.

Pictures from the FBI show Roberto A. Minuta at the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

On Feb. 14, The New York Times identified Minuta photographically as one of the Oath Keepers who guarded Roger Stone, the Trump political ally whose prison sentence the former president commuted last year, at the rally before the riot. The criminal complaint against Minuta mentions the Times story.

When arrested, Minuta told FBI agents, Why am I being targeted here? Why arent you going after Antifa and Black Lives Matter members? a prosecutor said in court.

Minutas lawyer said his client is not accused of using force at the Capitol, and his client was not a danger or flight risk. The judge decided to release Minuta on $150,000 bail.

In the criminal complaint, an FBI agent references an online interview Minuta gave in May 2020 in which he is granted a lifetime membership in Oath Keepers.

The person who granted the membership is later identified in the video as Stewart Rhodes, founder and director of the Oath Keepers, who federal authorities recently alleged directed other Oath Keepers at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Rhodes has not been charged in the attack.

In the online interview, Minuta declares his tattoo shop, Casa Di Dolore, would defy coronavirus restrictions issued by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Pictures from the FBI show Roberto A. Minuta at the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

Also in the complaint, the FBI says investigators tracked the movement of Minutas cell phone in Washington on Jan. 6, as well as his vehicle as it traveled south on highways toward Washington from New Jersey on Jan. 5, and back north the next day.

As he exited the Capitol, Minuta continued to scream at police officers, one time saying, All thats left is the Second Amendment and hold up two fingers, an apparent reference to the right to bear arms. He held his cell phone the entire time.

One week after the attack, Minuta deleted a Facebook account he had maintained for 13 years, and on March 1, cancelled his cell phone account and later got rid of his iPhone, federal authorities allege.

Pictures from the FBI show Roberto A. Minuta at the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

Roberto A. Minuta, of Hackettstown, New Jersey, an alleged member of the Oath Keepers. The FBI said Minuta took part in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com.
(Newser)  Don't plan on seeing Pepe Le Pew again, unless you're watching old Looney Tunes media. The amorous, French-accented cartoon skunk won't be in Space Jam: A New Legacy, the sequel to 1996's Space Jam that will be released July 16. (Another change in the sequel, per Slate: Lola Bunny has been "thoroughly desexualized.") A scene involving Pepe and Jane the Virgin actress Greice Santo was shot, but ultimately left on the cutting room floor, Deadline reports. Critics, including New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, have recently accused the lovelorn skunk of contributing to rape culture. "Let's see," Blow tweeted Sunday. "1. He grabs/kisses a girl/stranger, repeatedly, w/o consent and against her will. 2. She struggles mightily to get away from him, but he wont release her 3. He locks a door to prevent her from escaping."

story continues below

"All the comments saying 'it was another time', it was a 'cartoon', etc. just dont get it," reads one sample response to that tweet. "It added to, and normalized a systematic culture of rape and disrespect for women. If you dont see that you are part of the problem." (There are just as many, however, on the other side.) The Hollywood Reporter notes that Pepe Le Pew has no planned involvement in any current or upcoming Warner Bros. projects, so he might be gone forever, but sources tell Deadline his removal from the Space Jam sequel had nothing to do with Blow's criticism. The scene that was cut, however, involved Santo slapping the skunk when he kisses her hand without consent and Pepe later revealing the object of his affection, Penelope Pussycat, had filed a restraining order against himand Santo, an outspoken advocate against sexual harassment, is reportedly disappointed it won't be in the film. (Read more cancel culture stories.)
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada has been warned of manufacturing problems plaguing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada has been warned of manufacturing problems plaguing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The viral vector vaccine developed by J&J's subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, was authorized by Health Canada as safe and effective last week.

Canada pre-ordered 10 million doses of the vaccine, which is the first and only one in Canada's vaccine plan that needs only one dose.

But Trudeau says Canada still doesn't have a date for when it should receive the first deliveries.

"We have heard in many conversations with Johnson & Johnson that there are challenges around production of the Janssen vaccine, but we will continue to engage with them and we look forward to receiving doses as soon as possible," he said Tuesday at a news conference in Ottawa.

"And as soon as we get confirmation of doses being sent to Canada, we will let everyone know."

Canada's vaccine rollout has stepped up this month, after deliveries slowed to a trickle in February. Nearly a million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were delivered last week, and 910,000 doses of Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccines are arriving this week.

It took Canada 67 days to vaccinate the first one million people. It should take less than one-third that time to vaccinate the second million.

As of Tuesday, more than 1.9 million Canadians had received at least one dose.

Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Canada isn't quite ready to follow the U.S. Centers for Disease Control with guidance for how vaccinated people can relax their public health measures.

The CDC said Monday that two weeks after getting their second doses, Americans can now visit indoors, without masks, with other fully vaccinated people, or those who are not vaccinated but are at low risk of serious illness.

Tam said there are still too many unknowns, including the effect of COVID-19 variants, and how vaccines will affect the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The United States is far ahead of Canada, having now vaccinated more than one in four people. Canada has vaccinated about one in 20.

Tam said there are "initial positive signs" that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are preventing transmission, as well as reducing the severity of illness, but it is still early.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference in Ottawa Tuesday, March 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The emergence of variants that aren't all responding as well to vaccines is also of concern, she said. Tam said Ontario now believes almost one-third of its new cases are one of those variants, with the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the United Kingdom the most common.

That variant also appears to be the most receptive to the current vaccines.

Manitoba said Tuesday it had confirmed five new cases of B.1.1.7 and eight of another variant called B.1.351, but also said there did not appear to be any community transmission.

Saskatchewan said it had 35 new cases of variants among cases testing positive between Jan. 26 and Feb. 27, almost all of them B.1.1.7.

Alberta, meanwhile, said it had 28 new variant cases, for a total of 687.

B.C. had another 182 variant cases for a total of 576, most of them linked to the strain first found in the United Kingdom.

Tam said the next couple of weeks will be critical as many provinces have just begun easing the tightest lockdowns this week.

"We will know pretty soon, I think, as to whether we are able to keep the variants at manageable proportions while vaccines are escalated," Tam said. "Which is why now is not the time to sort of make too many shifts in the public health measures at this time. But we will be able to do so based on what actually happens next."

Ontario moved COVID-19 hot zones of Toronto and Peel out of total lockdown Monday, allowing retail stores to admit customers for the first time in 100 days, but is keeping restaurants closed to in-person dining. Quebec adjusted restrictions in five regions, including Quebec City, allowing gyms and restaurants to reopen in limited capacity for the first time since before Christmas.

Saskatchewan said Tuesday it was immediately ending its total ban on household gatherings, allowing people to have up to 10 people over from two or three different households. Next week it will increase capacity limits on houses of worship.

The number of new cases in Canada has plateaued at about 2,900 cases per day for about three weeks, but since Feb. 23, the average number of deaths per day has fallen from 54 to 37.

Newfoundland and Labrador also seems to be recovering from a major outbreak that swept through St. John's last month. Public health officials reported one new case Tuesday and said active infections are down to 80, from 203 a week ago.

Canada's vaccine contracts set out expected deliveries by quarter and all 10 million of Canada's J&J doses are to come between April and September. But it's not yet known how many are to come in the spring and how many in the summer.

Johnson & Johnson production problems are affecting Europe and the U.S. as well. Several European countries, where the vaccine isn't yet authorized, said they don't expect as many doses of it next month as originally planned.

U.S. President Joe Biden said last week when he took office he was informed Johnson & Johnson was behind on production and efforts began to find more production space. Sanofi was first contracted to help produce the vaccine in Europe and last week Biden announced Merck would help produce it in the United States.

But it will be many months before they have production lines up and running.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 9, 2021.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Our political process was tested in 2020 in ways that it has never been tested before.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 nationwide, election administrators were forced to come up with creative ways to make sure voters could cast their ballots safely, while trying to avoid large gatherings at polling places, wherever possible. Election infrastructure and processes had to be updated to accommodate an influx of mail-in ballots. Clerks and County Elections Directors became overnight media mainstays as the counting process took several days to complete. One candidate for President was bound and determined to challenge every step of the democratic process, dragging the election on for months, well into the next year. In fact, just yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected taking up his last lawsuit filed against the Wisconsin Election Commission for their absentee voting rules in the 2020 election.

But American democracy was stronger than each of these challenges, and we emerged out the other side battle-tested, but ultimately unscathed.

In many states, early voting and absent voter ballots were utilized to great effect to give voters a safe and secure way to cast their vote free from potential infection. Clerks and election workers counted every ballot, even if we did have to exhibit more patience than we are typically used to. And our legal process took on the many challenges to our legitimate election and adjudicated them fairly.

And all that happened was that voter participation was up 7 percentage points from 2016, the highest voter turnout in recent American history.

We SHOULD be celebrating the success of our democratic system.

Unfortunately for American democracy, the Republican Party has come to the conclusion that when more people vote, they stand a less likely chance of winning. This is not my editorial opinion, a Republican lawyer actually said that arguing a case before the Supreme Court last week.

As a result, Republican lawmakers in state legislatures across the country have begun a coordinated attack on voting rights in America. One watchdog organization puts the current count of anti-democracy bills at over 250 (the new legislative session is only 2 months old).

Worse yet, these bills have already started to pass and these restrictions are being put into place. In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill that reduced the early voting period in that state, restricted absentee voting, and shortened the amount of time that polls are open on Election Day.

We SHOULD be able to kick our feet up and enjoy a few weeks of rest before the next Election creeps up.

In Georgia, Republicans in the State Legislature have passed measures eliminating no-reason absentee voting, ending automatic voter registration, restricting the use of ballot drop boxes, instituting stricter voter ID standards, and criminalizing providing water to voters who are waiting in line to vote. These laws disproportionately affect voters of color in that State, which is by design. Republicans have come to realize that when people of color turn out to vote, they stand less of a chance of winning.

We SHOULD be thinking about how we get even more Americans involved in the electoral process so that we continue to see increased participation.

Arizona is also in the middle of passing bills that restrict voting access. In addition to requiring that voters sign affidavits with their date of birth, drivers license number and/or voter registration number (which no one knows), new legislation being considered would not count ballots that arrive at their clerks office on Election Day, unless they are postmarked the prior to the Thursday before Election Day. Consider that: If a voter sends a valid absentee ballot on Friday and it arrives at their Clerks office on Election Day, their vote will NOT BE COUNTED.

A reminder: there are hundreds of these bills being taken up across the country in state legislatures controlled by Republicans.

Thankfully, there are efforts from local Democrats to oppose these measures. There are Democratic Governors who will veto such bills. We are blessed to have a Governor in Michigan who knows the importance of providing access to voters throughout the State and the Republicans do not have enough votes to override her veto. In addition, some of the measures that Michiganders used to vote by absentee ballot without providing a reason, were enshrined in the Michigan Constitution by Proposal 3 of 2018.

We also elected a President who is unafraid to use the power of the Executive Order to support voting rights. This Order seeks to increase the ability of residents to register to vote with their state through a federally-operated portal.

We also have leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives who recently voted for HR1, a bill that takes on many ethics and voting rights issues, including barring states from restricting mail-in voting, calling for the use of independent redistricting commissions, seeking a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United case, and barring lawmakers from sitting on Corporate Boards. This bill recently passed the House of Representatives and will likely run into opposition in the U.S. Senate.

We SHOULD be enjoying a warm cup of coffee and resting before the inevitable preparations for our next election (which is less than 2 months away here in Ingham County where I am the County Clerk.)

Instead, we must speak up and make sure that we safeguard our democratic process. I will be using my platform to speak at legislative committee hearings, in the media, and to voters in opposition to these efforts. But I cannot do this alone. Residents need to write their state lawmakers, members of Congress, and Senators to urge them to oppose anti-democratic legislation and encourage them to stand up for the rights of voters across the country.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Louise SanFilippo, a detective at the NYPDs 122nd Precinct in New Dorp with more than two decades of service, was honored by District Attorney Michael E. McMahon at a ceremony Monday afternoon.

Today we bid farewell to Det. Louise SanFilippo @NYPD122Pct who is retiring after 20+ years of service, wrote McMahon on Twitter. THANK YOU for your dedication to the residents (and animals!) of SI & for being a role model for women on the job. Wishing you all the happiness and joy retirement can bring!

Today we bid farewell to Det. Louise SanFilippo @NYPD122Pct who is retiring after 20+ years of service. THANK YOU for your dedication to the residents (and animals!) of SI & for being a role model for women on the job. Wishing you all the happiness and joy retirement can bring! pic.twitter.com/CFUIRZPv1l  Michael E. McMahon (@StatenIslandDA) March 8, 2021

SanFilippo, a Queens native who moved to Staten Island and became a cop in 2001, was promoted to detective in 2017, the Advance/SILive.com previously reported. In 2015 and 2016, she made 13 Narcan saves, including two within hours of each other.

Last year, SanFilippo discovered a video of a man kicking and beating his dog during a walk in Bay Terrace. She immediately began an investigation, found the dogs owner and made an arrest before the dog was removed from the home.

Bella, a three-year-old Belgian Malinois and German Shepard mix, was eventually adopted into the loving home of one of SanFilippos colleagues  a 38-year-old officer who also worked at the 122nd Precinct.

Following her time as a neighborhood coordination officer, when she was responsible for neighborhoods on the East Shore, SanFilippo told the Advance/SILive.com that she had a lot of fun dealing with people working for the good of their neighborhoods.

Having a relationship with the community makes my job easier, she said.
A 15-year-old girl was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver on Interstate 80 in Parsippany early Tuesday, New Jersey authorities said.

The Morris County girl walked on to the road and was hit at about 3:30 a.m. in the eastbound express lanes near milepost 45.3, State Police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators are working to determine how the girl arrived on Route 80. State Police declined to provide the victims name.

A description of the vehicle that struck her was not immediately available.

Milepost 45.3 is in the area of the exit 45 off Interstate 80  the North Beverwyck Road exit. Interstate 80 travels under North Beverwyck Road.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram, March 9 : The Congress in Kerala on Tuesday slammed the BJP and the ruling CPI-M, and said they were having an unholy alliance in which the main actors were none other than Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Speaking to the media in Delhi, Kerala state Congress chief Mullapally Ramachandran said, "For this, they will resort to all sorts of overt and covert ways to reach their end objective of weakening the Congress party. You all should remember that not long ago, even before the Kannur airport was officially opened, Vijayan allowed the aircraft of Shah, who was then the BJP president to land. None should forget, the first electoral victory of Vijayan from Kannur was with the help of the then Jana Sangh," said Ramachandran.

Shah was in the state capital on Sunday to attend a public rally of the Kerala state BJP and had asked a few questions for Vijayan to answer with regards to the gold smuggling and the reverse dollar hawala cases, that various central agencies are probing.

On Monday, instead of answering the questions, Vijayan posed his round of questions to Shah.

Leader of opposition in the Kerala state Assembly Ramesh Chennithala said, "Just look into the speed at which these two cases were being probed and when it reached a crucial juncture, things came to a grinding halt. This in itself proves that these two parties are hand in glove, as all know, if the probe goes in the proper way, it could become a problem for both," said Chennithala.

Two time former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said in the past two days what Kerala saw was questions being asked by Shah and Vijayan.

"Both these leaders were seen asking questions to each other. What Kerala wants is answers to these questions that were asked. Very soon all will come to know the real intent of these two parties," said Chandy.

Kerala goes to elect 140 Legislators on April 6, and hitherto it was a direct electoral fight between the Congress-led UDF and the CPI-M led LDF .

But of late, the BJP-led NDA also has appeared in the political scenario of Kerala. In the 2016 Assembly polls, it managed to open its account by winning one seat and finished second in seven constituencies.

At the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, all what it managed was 15.64 per cent of the total votes polled, up from the 14.96 per cent which they managed in the 2016 Assembly polls.
Aldi Ireland today announced details of its continued significant contribution to County Kildares economy and the impact of its charity partnerships across the county.

In 2020, Aldi sourced 30m of locally produced food and drink from Kildare based suppliers. Aldi partners with 14 Kildare producers including long-term relationships with JZ Flowers International, Birds Eye Ireland, and Bord na Mona. Last year it began working with three new Kildare suppliers for the first time.

Aldi will boost its annual national spend on Irish food and drink by 17.5% in 2021 to 1BN, with further opportunities available to Kildare suppliers. Operating eight stores in Kildare, Aldi employs 600 full time staff, spending 10.4M on wages annually. It is seeking to recruit 92 new employees for its Kildare stores this year. Opportunities available include 49 permanent positions.

Aldis stores support multiple charities across Kildare at a local level. Each store is part of Aldis food waste reduction programme, with Aldis Kildare stores having donated almost 56,000 meals through FoodCloud to local charities.

Each store is also part of Aldis Community Grants network, with KWWSPCA, Ash Animal Rescue and Gheel Autism Services some of the many local charities that have availed of the 500 bursary grant in recent years.

Commenting Niall OConnor, Group Managing Director, Aldi Ireland said: Our goal is to make a positive impact in every local community that our stores serve. Our operations and stores contribute to businesses, communities and families right across Kildare.

We have invested 58M in our Kildare stores over the last number of years, while we sourced 30M of locally produced food and drink from Kildare based suppliers last year. Multiple local charities have also availed of our support through our FoodCloud partnership and Community Grants initiative.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
By Noriyuki Hirata

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Terumo Corp said on Tuesday it has developed a new syringe that can get seven doses out of each vial of COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer Inc, at least one more than accessible with existing syringes.

The health ministry approved the design on Friday, and Terumo will begin production at the end of March, a Terumo spokesman told Reuters. The Kyodo News agency, which first reported the development, said Terumo is aiming to make 20 million units this year.

The vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, is shipped in vials initially indicated to hold five doses. Six doses can be drawn with special syringes, call low dead space, which minimize the amount of vaccine left in the syringe after use.

Japan began its COVID-19 inoculation campaign last month, using Pfizer's vaccine. Taro Kono, the minister in charge of the effort, said on Friday that some shots may go to waste amid a shortage of the specialty syringes.

(Reporting by Noriyuki Hirata and Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
[March 09, 2021] SOS Responds to Frequently Asked Questions from its Shareholders

QINGDAO, China, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SOS Limited, a corporation organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands (NYSE: SOS) (the "Company," "we," "us" or "SOS") issued responses to frequently asked shareholder inquiries today. These responses were issued in an effort to facilitate communications with its shareholders and improve investor relations. The questions and answers appear below. Q: What is the nature of your business? A: We provide a wide range of data mining and analysis services to our corporate and individual members, including providing marketing data, technology and solutions for insurance companies, emergency rescue services, and insurance product and health care information portal in China. Our mission is to make it easier, safer and more efficient for our clients to obtain and process the data of their target customers. We primarily address the large unmet demand for marketing-related data for clients such as insurance companies, financial institutions, medical institutions, healthcare providers and other service providers in the emergency rescue services industry by creating a SOS cloud emergency rescue service software as a service (SaaS) platform. Recently, we have launched our crypto mining business, and aim to start infrastructure services in blockchain security for our big data insurance marketing as well as provide insurance and banking services for digital assets and crypto currencies. Q: What is your address? A: Our headquarters were previously located in Shijiazhuang, China at Building B Floor 14, Lehuo Building, No.128 Yuhua West Road, Qiaoxi District, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. As previously announced on July 31, 2020, we agreed to relocate our headquarters to the Qingdao Free Trade Zone. The free trade zone offers a number of government-subsidized benefits and privileges to corporate residents. To take immediate advantage of these benefits and privileges, the free trade zone allocates a temporary address to each corporate resident during the construction of the resident's permanent address. Our temporary address was 888 Changbaishan Road, Jiudingfeng Building Suite 8888, Qingdao Area, China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, Qingdao China. This is a shared, virtual address used by all new residents. The use of temporary corporate addresses is standard practice in the free trade zone. After completing construction and installing our furnishings, we recently moved into our new headquarters building located at Building 6, East Seaview Park, 298 Haijing Road, Yinzhu Street, West Coast New District, Qingdao, China. In addition to our headquarters, the Company has a number of different locations throughout China for branch offices and subsidiaries. In particular, our crypto currency mining rigs are located is various, confidential locations. We relocate our mining rigs from time to time in order to take advantage of lower electricity costs. The Company does not disclose the exact address of the mining rigs in order to maintain the security of the rigs and to protect them from our competitors. Q: How did the company acquirecrypto currency mining rigs, in spite of a world-wide shortage of such rigs? Who is HY International?



A: In January 2021, SOS announced that it was expanding its existing secure and insurance business into the protection of crypto currencies and digital assets, which have historically suffered from a high incidence of theft and loss. The Company also saw certain synergies and opportunities to expand its business into crypto currency mining. Through its industry connections, the Company identified an entity in Shenzhen, China that was offering a number of used mining rigs for sale. The Company felt this was a good opportunity to accelerate the Company's expansion into crypto-mining and to build capabilities that would enhance our digital security and insurance businesses. An important consideration for the seller was to preserve the confidentiality of its identity. In order to do this, the seller established HY International Group New York Inc. ("HY International") as its U.S. affiliate. This U.S. affiliate was the contractual counterparty who sold 15,645 used mining rigs to the Company.

Q: What is the status of these mining rigs? A: The first batch of 5,000 rigs was received on or about February 9, 2021. The second batch of 5,000 rigs was received on or about February 24, 2021. The third batch of 5,645 rigs is expected to be delivered on or about April 15, 2021, although the actual delivery date is subject to a number of factors which could accelerate or delay their delivery. The Company has already paid for all three batches, with a small holdback that will be paid upon delivery of the third batch. The first batch of mining rigs have been put into operation, and are subject to intermittent down-time for maintenance, adjustment and reconfiguration. Q: What are the specifications and models of these mining rigs? A: The mining rigs purchased from HY International were previously used. They are designed to mine Bitcoin and Ethereum. The mining rigs are of various specifications. Some of the rigs include components which are similar to those contained in the HY-Momentum T2T and HY-A10 Pro, although they are not necessarily these particular branded models. You can find a video of some of our mining rigs at http://www.sosyun.com/. Q: What is the status of the Company's acquisition of FXK? A: FXK Tech Corporation ("FXK") is a blockchain service provider organized under the laws of British Columbia, Canada. SOS and FXK entered into a non-binding letter of intent on January 18, 2021 for SOS to acquire FXK. As previously announced on January 19, 2021, the letter of intent was non-binding in nature, subject to due diligence, negotiation and execution of a definitive acquisition agreement, SOS board approval and NYSE approval. Since January 18, the Company has been conducting and has now concluded due diligence on FXK. After discussion among the Company's board of directors, SOS has determined for various reasons, not to pursue the transaction with FXK. Q: Where can I find more information about the Company? A: The ADRs of the Company are publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange. As such, we are subject to the information reporting requirements of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that are applicable to foreign private issuers. In accordance with these requirements, we file annual reports on Form 20-F, reports of foreign issuers on Form 6-K and other information with the SEC. You may inspect, read (without charge) and copy the reports and other information we file with the SEC at the SEC's Public Reference Room located at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. You may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC also maintains an internet website at www.sec.gov that contains our filed reports and other information that we file electronically with the SEC. We also maintain a corporate website at http://www.sosyun.com/, where you can find further information about us. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements made herein are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "believe," "expect," "estimate," "plan," "outlook," and "project" and other similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. Such forward-looking statements include the Company's expected delivery of mining rigs, the anticipated hash power of our mining rigs, our intention to provide blockchain security services and insurance and banking services for digital assets and crypto currencies, and the business plans, objectives, expectations and intentions of the Company. These forward-looking statements reflect the current analysis of existing information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. As a result, caution must be exercised in relying on forward-looking statements. SOS may not realize its expectations, and its beliefs may not prove correct. Due to known and unknown risks, our actual results may differ materially from our expectations or projections. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sos-responds-to-frequently-asked-questions-from-its-shareholders-301243460.html SOURCE SOS Limited

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Bhubaneswar, March 9 : Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to set up a plastic park at Paradip.

The proposed park will come up on 120 acres of land with an investment of Rs 106 crore.

The MoU was signed in the virtual presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The Chief Minister said Paradip Plastic Park is going to be a real game-changer for the downstream plastic industry.

"This will boost the petrochemicals and plastic infrastructure as well as auxiliary industries and MSMEs in Odisha as well as Eastern India," he added.

Pradhan said, "Keeping the enterprise and employment generation potential of the plastic sector in mind, the Government of India has initiated the cluster development of the Industry through its plastic park scheme. Currently, six such parks have been approved with Paradip Plastic Park being one of them." Pradhan further added that Odisha would become the nerve centre of industrialisation through rapid development in petrochemical, chemical, polymer, textile and fibre sectors.

As part of the MoU signing, IndianOil announced a special strategic incentives scheme to attract investments in downstream polymer industries at Paradip Plastic Park.

An incentive of Rs 2000/MT on Polypropylene granules from Paradip Refinery shall be offered to the manufacturing units located in the Paradip Plastic Park till March 31, 2030.

It is estimated that around 26 units will come up at the plastic and is likely to generate direct and indirect employment of 6,000.
[March 09, 2021] Draganfly Enters Agreement with Applied Research and Innovations Services at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology to Advance UAV Delivery Technology

Los Angeles, CA., March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Draganfly Inc. (OTCQB: DFLYF) (CSE: DFLY) (FSE: 3U8) (Draganfly or the Company), award-winning, industry-leading drone solutions, and systems developer, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) to advance UAV delivery technology.

Draganfly, SAIT Centre for Innovation and Research into Unmanned Systems (CIRUS), and SwissDrones AG will work towards the development of an integrated payload system to be used in direct collaboration with other heavy-duty and long-haul UAV manufacturers. This will include: Designing, developing, and testing of a cargo system for medical delivery to be mounted on a variety of drones including VTOL rotary and fixed-wing platforms.

Developing test protocols, operational procedures, and standards for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) medical delivery operation within the framework of Transport Canada (TC), US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) procedures and protocols.

Developing an operational manual for BVLOS operation of heavy lifting and long endurance RPASS to be used for commercial application under an Air Operators Certificate (AoC). Our team is looking forward to the outcome of this project, which is to build the ultimate payload system which expands the capability for UAV delivery, said Tom Bornhorst, VP CDARI at SAIT. We are bringing together the best in tech and engineering to advance UAV delivery technology, said Cameron Chell, CEO of Draganfly. We are super excited for what these advancements will mean for Draganflys current and future customers. This national and international collaboration was only possible through a common vision to apply advanced technology for the benefit of people affected by the pandemic. The team at SAIT/ CIRUS is proud and excited to use their expertise to support medical delivery and humanitarian aid to people in remote communities. (Shahab Moeini, Senior Lead Researcher & Operations Manager at SAIT/CIRUS). The Company announces that it has completed the final closing of its Regulation A+ offering of units ?sold pursuant to the Companys Regulation A+ offering circular (Offering Document) filed with the ?U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company issued ?32,443,457 units at the offering price set out in ?the Offering Document for gross proceeds in the ?amount of approximately US$?15.3 million in the final closing. Each unit is ?comprised of one common share of the Company ??and one common share purchase warrant, with each ?warrant entitling the ?holder to acquire one common share at a price of US$0.71 per common share for a ?period of two years from the date of issuance. The common shares and warrants issued in connection ?with the offering are subject to a nine month ?hold ?period.? In total, the Company issued 35,000,000 units ?under its Offering Document (which is the ?maximum number of securities qualified to be sold in the offering) for aggregate gross proceeds of ?US$16,450,000.? The offering was conducted to the public under an offering statement on Form 1-A, ?which includes an Offering Circular (the "Offering Statement"), pursuant to Regulation A under the United ?States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act"), filed with the United States Securities and ?Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). The securities sold pursuant to the offering have not been approved ?or disapproved by the SEC, nor has any such regulatory authority passed upon the accuracy or ?adequacy of the Offering Statement. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the ?solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any offer or sale of any securities, in any ?state or jurisdition in which the offer, solicitation, or sale of securities would be unlawful. Copies of the ?Offering Statement (including the Offering Circular contained therein), are available at www.sedar.com ?and www.sec.gov?.?



The Company also announces that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Vital Intelligence ?Inc. (Vital) to purchase all the assets of Vital in consideration for: (a) a cash payment of $500,000 with ??$50,000 paid upon execution of the asset purchase agreement, $200,000 to be paid at closing and ??$250,000 to be paid on the six-month anniversary date of ?closing; and (b) ?6,000,000 units of the ?Company with each unit being comprised of one common share of the Company and one common share ?purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one common share for a period of 24 ?months following closing at an exercise price of $2.67 per common share and the Company will be able ?to accelerate the expiry date of the warrants after one year in the event the underlying common shares ?have a value of at least 30% greater than the exercise price of the warrants. The units will be held in ?escrow following closing with 1,500,000 units being released at closing and the remainder to be released ?upon the Company reaching certain revenue milestones received from the purchased assets. The closing ?of the acquisition is expected to occur on or about March 30?, 2021.? About SAIT

Established in 1916, SAIT was the first publicly funded technical school of its kind in North America. Today, SAIT is a global leader in applied education, serving 50,000 students annually through more than 100 career programs and 1,300 part-time courses. Action-based learning, solution-focused research, and enterprising collaborations with industry partners ensure SAIT students are career-ready when they graduate. SAIT is honored to be selected by Mediacorp Canada Inc. as one of Albertas Top Employers for 2020. sait.ca About Draganfly Draganfly Inc. (CSE: DFLY; OTCQB: DFLYF; FSE: 3U8) is the creator of quality, cutting-edge drone solutions, software, and AI systems that revolutionize the way organizations can do business and service their stakeholders. Recognized as being at the forefront of technology for over 22 years, Draganfly is an award-winning, industry-leader serving the public safety, agriculture, industrial inspections, security, mapping, and surveying markets. Draganfly is a company driven by passion, ingenuity, and the need to provide efficient solutions and first-class services to its customers around the world with the goal of saving time, money, and lives.

For more information on Draganfly, please visit us at www.draganfly.com . For additional investor information, visit https://www.thecse.com/en/listings/technology/draganfly-inc , https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/DFLYF/overview or https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/aktie/draganfly-inc . Media Contact

Arian Hopkins

email: media@draganfly.com Company Contact

email: info@draganfly.com Forward-Looking Statements This release contains certain forward looking statements and certain forward-looking ?????information as ?defined under ?applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements ?????and information can ?generally be identified by the use ?of forward-looking terminology such as ??????may, will, expect, intend, ??estimate, anticipate, believe, continue, ??plans or similar ?????terminology. Forward-looking statements ?and information are based on forecasts of future ?????results, ?estimates of amounts not yet determinable and ?assumptions that, while believed by ?????management to be reasonable, are ?inherently subject to significant ?business, economic and ?????competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Forward-looking ?statements ?include, but are not ?????limited to, statements with respect to the partnership with SAIT and the closing of the acquisition of the Vital assets. ?Forward-????looking statements and information are subject to various ?known and unknown ?risks and ?????uncertainties, many of which are beyond the ability of the ?Company to control or predict, that ????may cause ?the ?Companys actual results, performance or ?achievements to be materially different ????from those ?expressed or implied ?thereby, and are ?developed based on assumptions about such ????risks, uncertainties ?and other factors set out here ?in, ?including but not limited to: the potential ????impact of epidemics, ?pandemics or other public ?health crises, including the ?current outbreak of ????the novel coronavirus known as ?COVID-19 on the ?Companys business, operations and financial ?????condition, the successful integration of ??technology, the inherent risks involved in the general ????securities markets; ?uncertainties relating to ?the ?availability and costs of financing needed in the ????future; the inherent uncertainty of cost ??estimates and the ?potential for unexpected costs and ????expenses, currency fluctuations; regulatory ?restrictions, liability, ??competition, loss of key ????employees and other related risks and uncertainties ?disclosed under the ?heading Risk Factors ?????in the Companys most recent filings filed with ?securities regulators in Canada on ?the SEDAR ????website at www.sedar.com. ?The Company ?undertakes no obligation to update forward-?looking ????information except as required by applicable ?law. ?Such forward-looking information represents ?????managements best judgment based on ?information currently available. No ?forward-looking ????statement ?can be guaranteed and actual ?future results may vary materially. Accordingly, readers ????are ?advised not to ?place undue reliance ?on forward-looking statements or information.?



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Malala Yousafzai is a Nobel laureate known around the world for her activism, but she's also a cartoon fan, and is taking her love of television and film to Apple TV+.



Yousafzai, 23, who graduated from Oxford last June, announced Monday that she has partnered with Apple in a multi-year deal to develop dramas, documentaries, comedies, animation and series for kids.



Yousafzai was the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2014, for working to protect children from slavery, extremism and child labor. In her home country, Pakistan, she was outspoken in insisting that girls have a right to an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman while riding a school bus at age 15. She recovered and went on to fight against girls' oppression worldwide.



In an interview with The Associated Press, Yousafzai talked about her love of cartoons as an escape, how she stays hopeful in a sometimes bleak world, and how she will mark Monday's International Womens Day.



This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.



AP: Your new deal with Apple includes comedy and animated shows. Are you a comedy fan?



Yousafzai: In my childhood, it was Cartoon Network and, you know, seeing Tom and Jerry, Courage, Scooby Doo and all of those TV cartoon shows. When you are a child  and especially when terrorism started  to know that there is sort of this world in cartoons where you can escape from the reality around you and just giggle and laugh and just entertain yourself. You know, I have been watching comedy movies from Bollywood to Hollywood, and I am a big fan of animation as well. I have not missed a single animation movie. It just keeps you engaged and entertained and also gives you very beautiful messages.



AP: Youll also be developing documentaries and maybe covering your world travels to help girls?



Yousafzai: I definitely want to do documentaries and non-scripted shows, and it will cover a lot  hopefully my own journey as well  and the incredible girls that I meet.... But theres so much more to explore and to learn. Im excited. You know, Im still at the stage where Im exploring ideas. I can tell you that there are so many incredible ideas and its so difficult to pick and choose one.



AP: A stat on your website suggests it will take 100 years until all girls have access to education. Sometimes the news is so dark, how do you maintain hope?



Yousafzai: I think when you raise your voice, it can have an impact and it can bring change. What will make me pessimistic is if we dont do anything. So as long as we keep doing our part, there is optimism, there is hope. I think its just the silence that keeps things going as they are.



AP: How are you going to mark International Womens Day?



YousafzaI: We need to just take a bit of a break and celebrate the accomplishments that women have made. And Im not just talking about historical figures and activist women  we need to applaud them and appreciate them. But us as individuals, who are in school, in colleges studying, or parents who are coping with COVID and being at home and managing their kids and also doing work and managing these Zoom calls and everything. So to all the women who just coped  especially last year, you know  take a break and be proud of yourself. You have done an incredible job.



AP: Many girls look up to you as a hero. Who are your heroes?



YousafzaI: I have many, many heroes, from my parents to historical figures like Benazir Bhutto, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. But the people who have actually and truly inspired me are the young girls that I have met in my journey. Girls from Iraq to Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya. So many of these girls have incredible stories that they have seen  wars, conflicts. They have become displaced. They have been forced into marriages at early ages. But they do not give up on their dreams and they are still fighting for the right to education, for their right to a safe future. If they are not giving up on their fight for education, then why should we?



AP: How has it been in quarantine at home?



Yousafzai: I spent the last two months of college at home because of COVID. And I was taking my exams at home and I graduated at home and its all just been home, home, home. I have two younger brothers and its quite difficult to manage your work while theyre in the house. They have their own sort of schedule and timetable. And I would have an important call and they would just come to my room and not appreciate that. But still, you know, they are my brothers and I love them. So were just coping with it and trying our best not to argue too much.



AP: What is your message for young girls who want to be activists?



Yousafzai: My message to young girls is always, never underestimate yourself. We are often told that you have to grow older and get a PhD or something, and then once you are 50 or 40, then you can change things. Follow that path if you want, but you can change things now as well. Do not underestimate the power you have, even in the small actions that you take, whether that is raising awareness, doing fundraising for a cause you believe in, talking to somebody that doesnt agree with you.... Talk about why womens rights and girls rights are important, why climate change is important. All of these things matter.
In an interview that delivered bombshell after bombshell, one of the most spellbinding, and somber, moments of Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry's sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey was when Meghan opened up about suicidal thoughts she had during her time in the royal family.

"I was really ashamed to say it at the time, and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry, especially, because I know how much loss he's suffered, but I knew that if I didn't say it that I would do it," Meghan told Winfrey. "And I just didn't, I just didn't want to be alive anymore, and that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought."

Meghan's revelation that she struggled with mental health, spoken in front of a global TV audience of tens of millions, could have a tangible impact on other people facing their own mental health battles, according to Dr. Ken Duckworth, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which describes itself as "the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization."

"When a remarkable, famous person says, 'I'm getting help,' it raises the definite possibility another person will say, 'If she can join this club ... maybe I can join this club, because I too have felt, whatever the experience is,' depressed, suicidal, overwhelmed," Duckworth told "Good Morning America." "I think it's courageous whenever anybody who is in a position to potentially influence others shares a vulnerability."

PHOTO: This image provided by Harpo Productions shows Prince Harry, from left, and Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, in conversation with Oprah Winfrey. (Joe Pugliese/Harpo Productions via AP)

Meghan shared her own vulnerability at a time when experts are warning about a growing mental health crisis in the United States due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The percentage of Americans reporting symptoms of depression more than tripled during the pandemic, according to a study released in September. A more recent survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the pandemic's mental health burden is heaviest among young adults.

Story continues

"This is a year that mental health has gone from a 'they' to a 'we' problem. So many people are struggling. So many people are overwhelmed," said Duckworth. "[Meghan] represents a lot of people. These are common mental health problems."

The mental health struggles Meghan described to Winfrey took place a year prior to the pandemic, when Meghan was pregnant with the couple's nearly 2-year-old son, Archie, and she and Harry were still living in the United Kingdom and serving in their roles as senior, working members of the royal family.

Meghan opened up to Winfrey about not only struggling with suicidal thoughts, but also with struggling to be able to get mental health help as a senior royal.

"I went to the institution, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that, 'I've never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere,' and I was told that I couldn't, that it wouldn't be good for the institution," said Meghan. "I went to one of the most senior people [in the institution] just to get help."

"I share this because there's so many people who are afraid to voice that they need help," she added. "And I know personally how hard it is to not just voice it, but when you voice it to be told, 'No.'"

In the U.S., more than half of people with mental illness don't seek help for their disorders, whether because of lack of access to help or because of the fear of stigma, prejudice or discrimination, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

"Living with a mental health condition is still causing people shame," said Duckworth. "It really isn't an open topic of conversation, although that's changing. People like Meghan are making something happen."

Meghan said she found support from Prince Harry, but even he admitted he "went to a very dark place as well" and struggled to get help for his wife.

PHOTO: This image provided by Harpo Productions shows Prince Harry, from left, and Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, in conversation with Oprah Winfrey. (Joe Pugliese/Harpo Productions)

"I had no idea what to do. I wasn't prepared for that," he said, adding that he did not approach his family members with Meghan's mental health struggle.

"I guess I was ashamed of admitting it to them," he said. "I didn't have anyone to turn to. We've got some very close friends that have been with us through this whole process, but for the family, they very much have this mentality of, 'This is just how it is. This is how it's meant to be. You can't change it. We've all been through it.'"

Harry's description of his reluctance to open up to his family about mental health was even more striking because of the work he and his brother, Prince William, and sister-in-law, Duchess Kate, have done on mental health issues in the past several years.

The trio joined together in 2016 to launch Heads Together, a campaign focused on breaking the stigma around mental illness. In 2019, Meghan joined Harry, William and Kate in launching Shout, a free text messaging service that offers 24/7 support for people struggling with mental health issues.

Harry has also credited William with encouraging him to seek out mental health support for himself in his 20s, years after the death of their mother, Princess Diana, who died in 1997 after a car crash in Paris.

Despite the extraordinary circumstances of the royal family, Duckworth described what Harry faced as something that affects people of all backgrounds, races and ages.

"I would say, these are common problems -- shame, the inability for an individual to find their way to get help, or to have a supportive culture to seek help," he said. "These are the questions. Can you find a way to seek help? Can you feel okay about seeking help, if that's internal or in your family or with an employer."

MORE: 8 major revelations from Prince Harry, Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey

Meghan also described to Winfrey what Duckworth says is another common issue for people struggling with mental illness, having to put on a brave face and go out in the world while struggling on the inside.

"It's common for people to have to feel like they have to battle through, that they can't share their true experience with everyone, and some people don't want to," said Duckworth. "Like who doesn't, when they're battling with a mental health condition, have to drive their kids to school anyway, or have to go work anyway."

In Meghan's case, she described a particular night in January 2019 -- she was about six months pregnant with Archie -- that she and Harry were to attend an event at Royal Albert Hall in London.

"I remember [Harry] saying, 'I don't think you can go,' and I said, 'I can't be left alone,'" Meghan recalled, and then referred to a photo from that night that showed Harry tightly gripping her hand.

PHOTO: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the Cirque du Soleil Premiere Of 'TOTEM' at Royal Albert Hall, Jan. 16, 2019, in London. (Paul Grover/WPA Pool/Getty Images, FILE)

"If you zoom in, what I see is how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine. You can see the whites of our knuckles. Because we are smiling and doing our job, but we're both just trying to hold on," said Meghan. "And every time that those lights went down in that royal box, I was just weeping, and he was gripping my hand, and then it was, 'Okay, intermission's coming. The lights are about to come on. Everyone's looking at us again.'"

"You have to just be 'on' again, and that's I think so important for people to remember ... you've no idea what's going on for someone behind closed doors," she said. "You have no idea."

MORE: Prince Harry, Meghan reveal they're expecting a baby girl

Meghan said later on in the interview about her own experience with mental health, "It takes so much courage to admit that you need help. It takes so much courage to voice that."

How to help a potentially suicidal person

Meghan's openness about her struggle with suicidal thoughts is not something often publicly revealed by high-profile figures.

The struggle with suicidal thoughts, however, is more common than may be expected. In 2019, 12 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's website offers many resources for the different reasons someone may be contemplating suicide, as suicide does not discriminate.

The website offers five steps to help someone considering suicide.

Step 1: "Ask. There is a common misconception that asking someone if they have/ are considering killing themselves puts the idea in their head  it does not. Do not be afraid to ask!"

Step 2: "Keep them safe. If someone admits to considering suicide, it is important to seek immediate medical attention, especially if they shared their plan with you or have access to firearms, the number one cause of suicide."

Step 3: "Be there. Listen without judgment and with empathy. Let them know they have a shoulder to lean on when they need."

Step 4: "Help them connect. Help them find a support system to reach out to. Support is very important for someone battling the idea of suicide. Those who have attempted to harm themselves are often at risk of another attempt at suicide."

Step 5: "Follow up. Following up could mean preventing thoughts of suicide or another attempt."

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HELLO to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Duchess Meghan revealing her mental health struggles could help others, expert says originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio did not beat around the bush when asked if he believes Gov Andrew Cuomo's denial of the mounting sexual harassment claims against him, offering a terse response: 'No.'

De Blasio's monosyllabic rejoinder came during the mayor's daily press briefing on Tuesday morning, just 24 hours after he questioned Cuomo's ability to 'govern effectively' in the face multiplying allegations of sexual misconduct and the fallout from his handling of COVID-related deaths in nursing homes.

Cuomo has denied some of the allegations against himself and attributed others to his accusers' misinterpretation of his actions, but said he will not resign and will wait until a full investigation into the matter is concluded.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press briefing on Tuesday that he does not think Gov Andrew Cuomo's denial of sexual harassment claims is credible

So far, five women have come forward, accusing Cuomo of inappropriate behavior. Pictured: Cuomo speaks during an event at the State Fair in Syracuse on Tuesday

'I never meant to make anyone feel unwelcome in any way,' the governor said Sunday.

On Tuesday, a reporter asked de Blasio to weigh in again on Cuomo's denials, saying: 'do you think what he's saying is credible at this point?'

'No,' de Blasio shot back without elaborating any further, before moving onto other matters.

The mayor previously questioned Cuomo's credibility and his ability to carry on with his job as the governor of the fourth most populous state in the nation.

'I just dont see how he can govern effectively when fewer and fewer people believe him,' he said during Monday's press briefing. 'I think theres more information thats going to come out that makes it harder and harder.'

De Blasio, who is said to be eyeing a run for governorship, has repeatedly stopped short of commenting of the prospect of Cuomo's resignation.

Ana Liss, 35, (pictured left) previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015 but claims he subjected her to sexual misconduct during her time in his administration. Karen Hinton (right) claims the governor summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000 before she managed to escape

Charlotte Bennett, 25, worked as an aide for Cuomo. She claims he sexually harassed her and left her 'terrified'

During a conference last Friday, the mayor failed to address Cuomo directly, simply stating the the 'situation in Albany is sad.'

'Its gotten to be worse by the day and fewer and fewer people believe in the governor and thats a very sad state of affairs for our state,' he said. 'But were going to overcome it and were going to move forward.'

Five women have now publicly accused Cuomo of either sexually harassing behavior or inappropriate conduct in the workplace  after two more, Karen Hinton, 62, and Ana Liss, 35, came forward with allegations of their own late Saturday.

Liss, who previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015, told the Wall Street Journal that during her time in his administration, the governor had subjected her to unsolicited advances, including touching her lower back, kissing her hand and quizzing her about her love life.

Anna Ruch, 33, (left) claimed Cuomo behaved inappropriately at a Manhattan wedding in September 2019. Lindsey Boylan, 36, (right) claims Cuomo commented on her appearance inappropriately, kissed her without her consent and went out of his way to touch her on her lower back, arms and leg

Her claims were followed by Hinton, who recalled for the Washington Post about an incident in which Cuomo summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000. Hinton said she tried to pull away from Cuomo, but claims he pulled her back and held her before she managed to escape the room.

Similar to Liss, Cuomo's former executive assistant, Charlotte Bennett, 25, revealed last week that the governor had quizzed her about her sex life and asked whether she had relationships with older men.

Lindsey Boylan also revealed in a February Medium post that the governor had tried to kiss her on the lips in his office and suggested they play strip poker during a 2017 flight. Cuomo's office has said these claims are false.

A third accuser, Anna Ruch, 33, then came forward telling the New York Times that Cuomo put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her after meeting her at a September 2019 wedding.

After Ruch's claims came to light, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said should a fourth accuser come forward against Cuomo then he should resign.

Following news of Liss and Hinton's allegations, Stewart-Cousins, the second most powerful elected official in Albany, penned a statement on Sunday calling for Cuomo to step down.

'For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign,' said Stewart-Cousins, 'Every day there is another account that is drawing away from the business of government.

'We have allegations about sexual harassment, a toxic work environment, the loss of credibility surrounding the COVID-19 nursing home data and questions about the construction of a major infrastructure project.'

De Blasio on Monday questioned Cuomo's ability to 'govern effectively' in the face multiplying allegations (pictured together in November 2018)

Stewart-Cousins continued: 'New York is still in the midst of this pandemic and is still facing the societal, health and economic impacts of it. We need to govern without daily distraction. For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign.'

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie issued a similar statement regarding the allegations against Cuomo without the call for his resignation.

Stewart-Cousins' public push for his resignation came shortly after a Sunday press conference where Cuomo said it would be 'anti-democratic' for him to step down.

'There is no way I resign,' Cuomo told reporters. 'They dont override the peoples will, they dont get to override elections. I was elected by the people of New York state. I wasnt elected by politicians.'

In a brief phone conversation Sunday prior to the press conference, Cuomo told Stewart-Cousins he wouldnt quit and they would have to impeach him if they wanted him out of office, according to a person who was briefed by someone on the call.

An electronic billboard displays a message that reads 'Resign Now' for Governor Cuomo

Meanwhile, the New York Post reported that de Blaiso, who unsuccessfully ran for president last year, is openly talking with advisers about running against Cuomo in a 2022 Democratic primary, multiple insiders said.

De Blasio is term-limited and leaves office at the end of this year, while Cuomo can seek re-election to a fourth term in November 2022.

De Blasio sidestepped a question about his political ambitions when asked about it last week.

'The future will take care of itself,' he said.
[March 09, 2021] Air Lease Corporation to Speak at J.P. Morgan 2021 Industrials Conference

Air Lease Corporation (NYSE: AL) announced today that Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, Executive Chairman, John L. Plueger, Chief Executive Officer and President, and Gregory B. Willis, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will be speaking at the J.P. Morgan 2021 Industrials Conference. This speaking engagement will be a fireside chat held virtually on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 2:50 p.m. Eastern Time, and will be broadcast live through a link on the Investors page of the Air Lease Corporation website at www.airleasecorp.com. Alternatively, virtual attendees may access the webcast directly via this link: J.P. Morgan 2021 Industrials Conference. Public listeners will be required to sign in with name and email to access the webcast. All broadcast of this event will be audio only. Please visit the website prior to the webcast to register, download and install any necessary audio software.



About Air Lease Corporation (NYSE: AL) ALC is a leading aircraft leasing company based in Los Angeles, California that has airline customers throughout the world. ALC and its team of dedicated and experienced professionals are principally engaged in purchasing commercial aircraft and leasing them to its airline customers worldwide through customized aircraft leasing and financing solutions. ALC routinely posts information that may be important to investors in the "Investors" section of ALC's website at www.airleasecorp.com. Investors and potential investors are encouraged to consult the ALC website regularly for important information about ALC. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, ALC's website is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this press release.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309006001/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Pressure is mounting on Buckingham Palace to respond to accusations of racism in the royal family following an explosive interview by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Crisis talks are likely to have been held since the couples sit-down with Oprah Winfrey was aired.

Private secretaries will have met and the matters will almost certainly have been discussed with the Queen and the Prince of Wales.

Palace officials reportedly had a prepared statement highlighting the familys love and concern for the couple, but it was not signed off by the monarch.

The Times newspaper reported that the Queen wanted more time to consider her response to the lengthy interview.

Meghan and Harry laid bare their brief lives as a working royal couple, alleging that a member of the family  not the Queen or Duke of Edinburgh  made a racist comment about their unborn son.

Winfrey was left open-mouthed when the duchess  the first mixed-race member of the modern monarchy  said a fellow royal was worried about how dark their son Archies skin tone might be before he was born.

Read More

The interview was aired on Sunday night to US audiences, before being shown in the UK on Monday evening.

During the candid conversation, Meghan suggested her son was not made a prince because of his race  although rules set by George V meant he was not entitled to be one.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the allegations made by the duchess must be taken seriously.

He said: Nobody, but nobody, should be prejudiced (against) because of the colour of their skin or because of their mental health issues.

Harry also said it hurts that none of his relatives spoke out in support of Meghan following the racism he said she faced in the media.

Expand Close Harry and Meghan with Oprah Winfrey (ITV Hub/Harpo Productions/CBS/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Harry and Meghan with Oprah Winfrey (ITV Hub/Harpo Productions/CBS/PA)

Meanwhile in the US, where race is recognised to be a big issue, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton backed Meghan.

In a clip shown on BBC Breakfast, she said this young woman was not about to keep her head down, you know, this is 2021.

The duchess also spoke about having suicidal thoughts but said her approaches to the monarchy for help were turned down.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki praised Harry and Meghans courage when asked if US President Joe Biden had watched the interview.

Ms Psaki told journalists on Monday: For anyone to come forward and speak about their own struggles with mental health and tell their own personal story, that takes courage.

Thats certainly something the president believes.

Meanwhile Meghans estranged father Thomas Markle has told of his great respect for the royals, adding: I dont think the British royal family are racist at all.

Mr Markle told ITVs Good Morning Britain that yes, a racist comment should be investigated but said he hoped the comment on skin tone was just a dumb question.

He said: It could just be that simple, it could be somebody asked a stupid question, rather than being a total racist.

Winfrey asked Meghan of Archies lack of title: Do you think its because of his race? I know thats a loaded question.

Meghan replied: I can give you an honest answer. In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time, so we (had) the conversation of he wont be given security, hes not going to be given a title.

And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when hes born.

The chat show host was told it had been raised by a member of the royal family with Harry, but the couple did not reveal who.

Royal biographer Andrew Morton said the fallout from the interview will shudder down through the generations in the same way that Dianas did.

In her now infamous Panorama interview in 1995, Harrys mother, Diana, the Princess of Wales, called royal officials the enemy and questioned Charles suitability to be king.

Life behind palace doors has not been exposed to this degree since the days of the War of the Waleses, when the turmoil of Charles and Dianas disintegrating marriage was laid bare in the 1990s.

Expand Close The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Sussex and the Duke of Sussex in 2018 (Joe Giddens/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Sussex and the Duke of Sussex in 2018 (Joe Giddens/PA)

ITV viewing figures for the interview are not yet known.

It is a year on Tuesday since Meghan and Harry made their final official public engagement as senior working royals, attending the Commonwealth Day service in Westminster Abbey.

Other revelations included Harrys admission he has become estranged from his father, saying: I feel really let down, but added that he would make it one of his priorities to try and heal that relationship.

Meghan said the Duchess of Cambridge had made her cry ahead of her wedding  the opposite of reports circulating ahead of the Sussexes nuptials that Meghan left Kate in tears at Princess Charlottes bridesmaid dress fitting.

In a lighter moment, the couple, who announced in February that they are expecting their second child, said they are due to have a baby girl in the summer.

Commenting on her mental health crisis, when she felt she did not want to be alive anymore, the duchess said: I went to the institution, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that Ive never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere.

And I was told that I couldnt, that it wouldnt be good for the institution.

Meghan described how nothing was done when she contacted other unnamed individuals and she had to find a solution.

When Winfrey suggested if the answer was I dont want to be alive anymore, Meghan replied: Well, I thought it would have solved everything for everyone, right?

Harry was equally cutting about the financial support he received from his family, saying they literally cut me off financially in the first quarter of 2020, and he went for the Netflix and Spotify deals to pay for his security.

He said he had what Diana left him and without that we would not have been able to do this.

In the wake of the interview, a touching family photograph of the Sussexes and their young son Archie was released.

The black and white image taken and shared by photographer Misan Harriman captures a smiling, pregnant Meghan stood by a tree cuddling her son as Harry stands behind her, embracing his wife.




Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky says that if the meeting of the leaders of the Normandy Four countries (Ukraine, Germany, France, Russia) on the settlement of the situation in Donbas does not happen, he plans to hold meetings with the leader of each of the countries separately.

"In any case, a Normandy Four meeting is being prepared. It should be. I will tell you on my own, and I said this to our Western partners: there will be a meeting in the Normandy format  I will find a format when I meet with each of these leaders of the Normandy Four. As they say, if the mountain does not come to Magomed, then it's okay  it means that I will meet with everyone separately," Zelensky said at a press conference at the Ukraine 30. Culture. Media. Tourism forum in Kyiv on Tuesday.

The head of the Ukrainian state also added that the solution of "this important issue" will not be postponed.

Zelensky also noted that after the blocking of the activities of the 112 Ukraine, NewsOne and ZIK TV channels, which are associated with one of the leaders of the Opposition Platform - For Life party, Viktor Medvedchuk, the number of armed provocations in Donbas has increased. "I do not want to associate it with this [the blocking of TV channels], but we see that this is happening at the same time," the President said.

Zelensky also recalled that a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the conflict in Donbas will be held on Wednesday.
Dow submitted its 132-page proxy statement, which details executive compensation and routine proposals shareholders will consider at the annual meeting in April.

It also detailed highlighted accomplishments from 2020.

In the last year, Dow weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, just like every other business. Amid that, the company launched new sustainability targets to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025 and a circular economy for plastics; launched a new framework to address systemic racism in the company; led with a board made 58% of women or ethnic minorities; and reduced net debt by more than $2.6 billion, to name a few highlights.

The company made social impacts in 2020 that included supporting students, community inclusion, disaster relief, and acted against racial injustice, among other areas. A few highlights include:

Committed more than $4 million worldwide to aid COVID-19 relief efforts.

Partnered with the U.S. Chamber Coalition to Back Black Businesses to award $5,000 grants to 25 Black-owned small businesses in Dow communities.

Committed $1.5 million for disaster relief in support of Australia bushfires, Beirut Port explosion, and a 500-year historic flood in Dows hometown  Midland that followed May's mid-Michigan dam failures.

Established Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday and a national day of service for U.S. employees.

Donated $10.9 million for STEM programming and partnerships globally.

Dow's proxy statement also provided compensation stats for each of the company's top paid executives. Each of them earned more in 2020 than in 2019; however this reflected, in part, a change Dow made to its payroll practices in the United States.

In 2019, the pay period was transitioned from monthly to biweekly, which resulted in two additional pay periods in 2020.

Dows top executives all received a 3% base salary increase, with the exception of Amy Wilson, who received a 10% base increase based on a committee review of salaries, compared to positions in a compensation peer group.

Salary adjustments of 3% were consistent with the salary adjustments provided to Dows salaried employee population the proxy states.

In 2020, Chairman and CEO Jim Fitterling's earned about $6.3 million more in 2020 at $22.2 million total compensation, compared to $15.9 million in 2019. Thats about a 40% increase.

However, his base salary for both years were closer in value  $1.5 million in 2020 and $1.4 million in 2019, meaning he earned a significant amount by other means of compensation, such as stock awards, option awards and non-equity incentive plan compensation, among others. In stock awards alone, he received $9.6 million, compared to $8.7 million in 2019.

Howard Ungerleider, president and CFO, was compensated a total of $8.5 million in 2020, which is about a 36% increase from $6.2 million in 2019. His base salary for 2020 was $1.2 million, $127,670 more than his base salary in 2019.

Base salary for Peter Holicki, senior vice president of operations, manufacturing and engineering, increased about $81,000 to $724,262 in 2020 and his total compensation was about $5.5 million.

A.N. Sreeram, senior vice president and chief technology officer, had his base salary increase by about $90,000 to $862,979 in 2020, and his total compensation was $5.2 million.

And, Amy Wilson, general counsel and corporate secretary, had her base salary increase by about $106,000 to $683,967 in 2020 and her total compensation was $5.7 million, compared to $4.5 million in 2019.

To learn more about these top executives, their job duties and compensation, view the proxy statement here.

The proxy statement also explains that currently, the CEO and chairman roles are combined with Fitterling serving as chairman and CEO and Jeff M. Fettig serving as the independent Lead Director. However, the Board of Directors announced its intention to elect a new lead director following the 2021 Meeting.
Nandigram: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday (March 9) held her first mega rally in East Midnapore`s Nandigram, where the Trinamool Congress supremo will file the nomination on March 10. Addressing booth-level TMC workers a day ahead of filing her nomination for the seat, she said people who had "sold their souls to outsiders from Gujarat" are insulting the Nandigram movement by playing the communal card.

Feisty West Bengal chief minister said, "Some people are saying that I am an outsider. I, being a Bengali, is an outsider and you people who are from Delhi are not outsiders?."

"If you dont want me to file the nomination, I will not, but if you consider me your daughter then I will move ahead with filing my nomination," said Mamata Banerjee.

Bringing alive old memories of the Nandigram anti-land acquisition protests, the TMC supremo came down hard on those calling her an outsider in Nandigram, and for them people "coming from Gujarat" are insiders.

Banerjee is pitted against her former confidante Suvendu Adhikari, who joined the BJP some time ago, in the high-profile seat. Without naming Adhikari even once, she said she had made up her mind to contest either from the Singur or Nandigram--the two cradles of anti-land acquisition movement-- that catapulted her to power in 2011.

Mamata said she has decided to contest from Nandigram because of overwhelming response of the people, adding "I have heard some people are calling me an outsider in Nandigram. I am amazed. I was born and brought up in the neighbouring Birbhum district, and the person who is calling me an outsider was also not born here."

Adhikari has often called himself "bhoomiputra" (son of the soil) while seeking to get back at the TMC supremo who has been targeting the BJP with the "party of outsiders" barb.

Banerjee accused Adhikari of trying to incite communal passions, and said, "Those who have sold their souls to the outsiders are insulting the Nandigram land acquisition movement by playing the communal card."

Live TV

"Some people are talking about 70:30 ratio (of Hindu- Muslim population). Those doing that are insulting the sacred Nandigram movement which people of both communities fought together. People of Nandigram will make BJP 'April fool' on April 1 when polling is held," she asserted.

Adhikari gives call to overthrow TMC from power in Bengal

Senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari today gave a clarion call to oust the TMC from power in Bengal as he led a 'padayatra' in the Jhargram district. Sporting a saffron 'tilak' on his forehead, Adhikari chanted 'Hare Krishna Hare Hare, BJP Ghore Ghore' (BJP in every household), as a battery of saffron party workers cheered for him.

Some of his supporters also raised the slogan 'TMC sarkar aar nei darkar' (we don't need the TMC government any longer), while holding high lotus symbol cutouts and saffron- coloured balloons.

Adhikari, who crossed over to the BJP from the TMC in December last year, has been pitted opposite his ex-party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a do-or-die contest in Nandigram.

Talking to reporters, Adhikari said he will campaign for saffron camp candidates of Paschim Medinipur and Jangalmahal every other day.

(With Agency Inputs)
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Dhaka, Mar 9 (UNI) Bangladesh State Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohammed Shahriar Alam meets the OIC Secretary General Dr. Yousef binAhman Al-Othaimeen at the OIC Secretariat in Jeddah..

The meeting took place on Monday and they discussed the way forward for strengthening intra-OIC trade and economic ties among the OIC countries.

Shahriar Alam emphasized on increasing food security and resilience within OIC through joint agricultural project collaboration in African OIC member states. In such projects, Bangladesh could provide its technical know-how and workforce, affluent OIC member states may provide capitals and finance and African countries with reserves of arable land could provide their fertile land area for farming. This would be mutually benefitting for the OIC member states as proposed by Mr. Shahriar. OIC Secretary General Dr.Othaimeen welcomed the proposal and informed he would explore the mechanism under OIC to facilitate such projects.

Dr. Othaimeen congratulated Bangladesh on its 50th anniversary of independence. He highly praised the remarkable sustained economic growth of Bangladesh carried out in the last one decade under the able leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He continued the recent UN decision to graduate Bangladesh from LDC category to the middle-income country is a significant milestone for Bangladesh. He said Bangladeshs socio-economic success story and leadership on women empowerment could be an example for many OIC member states to follow.

Both the dignitaries discussed the Rohingya refugee crisis at length and how OIC could reinforce its engagements for a durable solution to this crisis . The State Minister thanked the Secretary General for sending a high level OIC delegation to Bangladesh in February 2021 to see the condition of the Rohingya refugees. Mr. Shahriar stressed on political and other supports to continue from the OIC member states until the issue is resolved.

Secretary-General Dr. Othaimeen expressed his gratitude to the Bangladesh government for providing shelter to nearly 1.3 million Rohingya refugees and reiterated his commitment to do everything under his purview in resolving the issue.

State Minister Shahriar told Bangladesh would like to see OIC as a strengthened and competent organisation to address the issues of Muslim Ummah.

State Minister Shahriar praised the OICs timely decision to provide COVID vaccines to the OIC LDCs, which is much needed in this dire situation.

Earlier, the OIC Secretary General cordially received Bangladesh delegation at his office. Ambassador Dr. Mohammad Javed Patwary, Director General FM Borhan Uddin, Acting Consul General SM Anisul Haque were present at the meeting. State Minister Shariar Alam is in Saudi Arabia on his 3-day official visit and is expected to return to Bangladesh today.

UNI MAZ ASN 0935
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
BOSTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Motional , a global leader in driverless technology, has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021.

The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive, they thrived  making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's MIC list features 463 businesses from 29 countries.

"Driverless vehicles have the potential to save millions of lives, and we're at the forefront of making them a reality. That takes a relentless commitment to innovation, and an extraordinary dedication to our mission. We're honored to be recognized as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies -- it's a testament to the talent, passion and ingenuity that our teams bring to their work every day," commented Karl Iagnemma, CEO and president, Motional.

Motional has been leading driverless innovation for decades. It drove some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully autonomous cross-country drive, the first-ever robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi service. That service has provided more than 100,000 rides, with 98% of passengers awarding their rides a five-star rating. Motional is also a leader on safety ; the company is proud to have safely navigated over 1.5 million miles in diverse road environments, and led the establishment of industry-leading safety standards .

During the past year, Motional's innovation has created significant commercial and technological advancement in driverless technology:

In February 2021 , Motional became one of the first companies in the world to operate driverless vehicles on public roads. Before doing so, Motional earned a first-of-its-kind endorsement to operate with an empty driver's seat from TUV SUD, a world-leading independent technical service provider with extensive experience assessing driverless technology.

, Motional became one of the first companies in the world to operate driverless vehicles on public roads. Before doing so, Motional earned a to operate with an empty driver's seat from TUV SUD, a world-leading independent technical service provider with extensive experience assessing driverless technology. In December 2020 , Motional and Lyft announced plans to launch a multimarket robotaxi service in major US cities, beginning in 2023. The announcement marked the largest robotaxi deployment partnership for a major ridesharing network.

, announced plans to launch a multimarket robotaxi service in major US cities, beginning in 2023. The announcement marked the largest robotaxi deployment partnership for a major ridesharing network. In October 2020 , Motional and Via announced plans to launch a first-of-its-kind partnership: a platform for public, on-demand shared robotaxi rides.

, announced plans to launch a first-of-its-kind partnership: a platform for public, on-demand shared robotaxi rides. In September 2020 , Motional expanded its groundbreaking nuScenes program by over a billion data points. nuScenes, initially launched in 2019, catalyzed a thriving culture of information-sharing in the driverless industry, helping to build safer, smarter vehicles and technology.

, by over a billion data points. nuScenes, initially launched in 2019, catalyzed a thriving culture of information-sharing in the driverless industry, helping to build safer, smarter vehicles and technology. In August 2020 , Motional  previously the Hyundai-Aptiv Autonomous Driving Joint Venture  revealed its new name and brand identity .

, Motional  previously the Hyundai-Aptiv Autonomous Driving Joint Venture  . In March 2020 , Aptiv and Hyundai Motor Group completed the formation of their 50/50 autonomous driving joint venture , aimed at advancing the companies shared vision of making mobility more safe, green, accessible, and connected. That $4B joint venture was now uniquely positioned with leading software capabilities, a deep integration with a global vehicle manufacturer, and significant capital.

Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multiday summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021.

Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here , as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.

About Motional

Motional is a driverless technology company making self-driving vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality.

The Motional team was behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's most-established public robotaxi fleet.

Motional is a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group , one of the world's largest vehicle manufacturers offering smart mobility solutions, and Aptiv , a global technology leader in advanced safety, electrification, and vehicle connectivity.

Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and YouTube .

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

SOURCE Motional
WHAT:

Approximately two years after establishing a human cerebral organoid system to study Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), National Institutes of Health researchers have further developed the model to screen drugs for potential CJD treatment. The scientists, from NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), describe their work in Scientific Reports.

Human cerebral organoids are small balls of human brain cells ranging in size from a poppy seed to a pea; scientists use human skin cells to create them. CJD, a fatal neurodegenerative brain disease of humans caused by infectious prion proteins, affects about 1 in 1 million people each year. It can arise spontaneously, result from a hereditary mutation within the prion gene, or arise due to infection, for example, from eating contaminated meat products. A notable example of this occurred in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s following an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle. There are no preventive or therapeutic treatments for CJD.

The lack of a completely human CJD model has been a considerable barrier hindering the discovery of potential therapies. Studies in mice have failed to identify treatments that were then effective when tried in patients. The human cerebral organoid CJD model holds promise that this barrier can be eliminated. Cerebral organoids have organization, structure, and electrical signaling systems similar to human brain tissue. Because they can survive in a controlled environment for months to years, cerebral organoids also are ideal for studying nervous system diseases over lengthy periods of time. Cerebral organoids have been used as models to study Zika virus infection, Alzheimer's disease, and Down syndrome.

The CJD study was conducted at NIAID's Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. Scientists tested pentosan polysulfate (PPS) to determine its potential preventive and therapeutic benefits. In the experiments, PPS treatment reduced the disease indicators by 10-fold or more without causing tissue death. PPS is a benchmark anti-prion compound in laboratory experiments, but it is rarely used clinically because it requires direct administration into the brain.

While it may extend a patient's life, PPS has not been shown to improve quality of life. However, using the anti-prion properties of PPS with the new human organoid CJD model allowed the researchers to assess the value of this model system for drug discovery. The scientists showed that the human organoid model can be used to screen compounds that may be useful for preventive treatment. Such treatment could be used for people carrying genetic mutations that cause the disease, but who have not yet developed symptoms, or for people who may have been exposed to infectious prion proteins that might cause CJD. The model further proved useful for screening drugs against established CJD after a patient is diagnosed and starts showing symptoms of disease.

The scientists are working to expand the organoid model for screening larger numbers of novel drug candidates. Their goal is to find treatment options for people who are susceptible to CJD because of their genetics or who accidentally are exposed, as well as for those who develop sporadic disease. They are optimistic that with their fully human model of disease, they can now identify compounds with promise for benefitting patients with CJD.

###

ARTICLE:

B Groveman and NC Ferreira et al. Human cerebral organoids as a therapeutic drug screening model for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-84689-6 (2021).

WHO:

Cathryn Haigh, Ph.D., an investigator in NIAID's Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases, is available to comment on this study.

CONTACT:

To schedule interviews, please contact Ken Pekoc, (301) 402-1663, kpekoc@niaid.nih.gov.

NIAID conducts and supports research--at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide--to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www. nih. gov/ .

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health
Her rude attitude towards Jake Edwards has seen her labelled 'the bride from hell' on this year's season of Married At First Sight.

And it looks like things will only get worse for Beck Zemek and her TV 'husband', after she was spotted looking upset during a break from filming in October last year.

The 27-year-old business manager appeared stressed as she made her way to a gym in Sydney for an afternoon workout.

No photos, please! Married At First Sight's 'bride from hell' Beck Zemek tried to hide from the paparazzi while heading to the gym during filming in Sydney in October last year

Beck seemed glum as she attempted to keep a low profile, and even tried to shield her face from the paparazzi.

At one point, she actually walked backwards in an effort to avoid being photographed.

She wore minimal makeup for her training session, which was perhaps why she was feeling so shy.

Not happy! The 27-year-old business manager appeared stressed and even covered her face

Beck dressed for her workout in a black singlet and navy leggings, which drew attention to her trim and toned physique.

The reality star swept her blonde locks into a bun and rested a pair of white headphones around her neck.

She had her hands full carrying a towel, a water bottle and her mobile phone.

Casual: Beck dressed for her workout in a black singlet and navy leggings, and rested a pair of white headphones around her neck

Bizarre: At one point, she actually walked backwards in an effort to avoid being photographed

The sighting comes after Rebecca erupted at Jake for turning a light on for 20 seconds while she was asleep during an episode that aired last week.

In a scene which saw one viewer describe her as 'Godzilla', Beck raged: 'Why would you turn the light on while I was sleeping?'

Charity CEO Jake, clearly shocked by the accusation, replied: 'All I did was turn the hallway light on for 20 seconds to get some clothes out.'

His wife bitterly responded: 'I just feel that's pretty disrespectful, considering there's probably a bathroom light you could have used.

Married At First Sight continues Tuesday at 7.30pm on Nine
The number of jobs advertised in Australia has surged to a nine-year high, just as Scott Morrison vowed to punish those who refused to take a regional job.

The Prime Minister is frustrated that 54,000 jobs need to be filled in country areas - including at pubs, cafes and farms - despite the government's enticing $6,000 relocation payment.

'Unemployed Australians are simply and regrettably not filling these jobs,' he told The Australian Financial Review's business summit in Sydney on Tuesday.

As he made that declaration, the federal government's National Skills Commission revealed 191,994 skilled jobs were advertised on the internet in February, marking a 7 per cent monthly increase.

The number of jobs advertised in Australia has surged to a nine year high just as Scott Morrison vowed to punish the unemployed who refused to take a regional job. Pictured is the Prime Minister in Sydney getting a pasta lesson from apprentice chef Oliver Benz

The number of available positions stood at a nine year high, with the number of advertised jobs climbing for the 10th straight month.

During the past year, job ad numbers have climbed by 24.8 per cent with 38,100 more positions available compared with February 2020, just before the Covid shutdowns and national border closure.

In another good sign, the National Australia Bank's business confidence reading for February stood at an 11-year high as the economy recovered faster than expected even ahead of the coronavirus vaccine rollout.

Despite that, economists with the Commonwealth Bank and its share trading arm CommSec fear 110,000 jobs will be lost unless JobKeeper wage subsidies are extended beyond March 28 for sectors badly hit by Australia's national border closure.

CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman said food, accommodation and tourism-related businesses were yet to recover and would continue to need help.

'The job losses will be focused on certain parts of the economy,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

As he made that declaration, the federal government's National Skills Commission revealed 191,994 skilled jobs were advertised on the internet in February, marking a 7 per cent monthly increase. Pictured is a Melbourne cafe

'We think that jobs in travel-sensitive sectors like transport, accommodation, recreation and arts will be most at risk.'

Mr Felsman said those jobs losses could be alleviated if, as expected, Mr Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced a targeted package, involving either wage subsidies or interest-free loans to Covid-hit businesses.

From April, unemployed JobSeeker recipients will have to apply for 15 jobs a month, rising to 20 from July as the payment permanently increases by $50 a fortnight to $620.80.

'This is a fair exchange,' Mr Morrison said.

From April, unemployed JobSeeker recipients will have to apply for 15 jobs a month, rising to 20 from July as the payment permanently increases by $50 a fortnight to $620.80. Pictured is a Centrelink queue on the Gold Coast

'If there is a job available, and you are able to do that job, then it is reasonable for taxpayers to expect that it will be taken up, rather than continue to receive benefits.'

JobKeeper was last year extended from September 27 to March 28, 2021 at a cost of $16.6billion, taking the total cost of JobKeeper to $86.6billion.

On January 4, the fortnightly wage subsidies dropped to $1,000 from $1,200, for those who work 20 or more hours a week.

Part-time workers putting in fewer hours will see their subsidies drop to $650 every two weeks from $750 a fortnight.

Job seekers can claim a $6,000 relocation payment is they are moving to do agricultural work for at least six weeks or will be taking up continuing, full-time employment in a regional area.

A $3,000 relocation grant is available for those who move to a capital city.
New Orleans officials plan to announce details on eased coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday as cases in the city have slumped in recent weeks.

"All the numbers are moving in the right direction, and we do anticipate an additional easement of the guidelines," said City Hall spokesperson Beau Tidwell during a press conference Tuesday.

New Orleans will not join Louisiana in move to Phase 3 coronavirus restrictions; here's why The City of New Orleans will not be joining the rest of Louisiana in implementing Gov. John Bel Edwards' loosened Phase 3 coronavirus restrict

The new rules in New Orleans will reflect the city's 1.5% positivity rate and its roughly 30 new cases of the disease per day, data that represents a much improved position from a peak of infections in January.

The loosened restrictions would come as vaccines continue to be rolled out across the city. About 12% of people have been fully vaccinated, while 21% have at least received one dose of the shots.

Governor John Bel Edwards was expected Tuesday afternoon to expand eligibility even further to include all residents at least 16 years old who have certain medical conditions.

Once it is widely available, the new Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine is expected to ease vaccine distribution at mass vaccination sites such as the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. That site has not been open daily due to limited vaccine supplies.

Mass vaccination site opens Thursday at Convention Center with free shuttles and parking New Orleans' first mass vaccination site outside of a hospital setting opens Thursday, March 4, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and 

Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Tidwell said that the rules set to be announced Wednesday by Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Health Department Director Dr. Jennifer Avegno will likely differ somewhat from the state's, as has been the case throughout the pandemic.

At present in the city, indoor gatherings are limited to 75 people, and outdoor gatherings may include up to 150 guests. Bars and breweries can serve residents at 25% of their indoor capacity from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.

+3 Will Sutton: Stop playing. COVID vaccines are our angels. We need more doses, more arms. A year ago, New Orleans health director Jennifer Avegno was sitting in a black swivel chair in her eighth floor City Hall office. With a view 

Retail shops, beauty salons, barber shops and restaurants are restricted to 50% of their capacity. In all settings, masks and social distancing are required.

Tidwell said that even as the city opens up, officials will continue to enforce the rules for residents and tourists.

Even with more people allowed to venture out, Tidwell said the city's mask mandate likely isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

"I can say that right now at its core what we know is that masks make people more safe," he said.
HALIFAX, NS / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Silver Tiger Metals Inc. (TSXV:SLVR)(OTCQX:SLVTF) ("Silver Tiger" or the "Corporation") ") has intersected 2.95 meters grading 1,941.1 grams per tonne silver equivalent within 9.3 meters grading 638.4 grams per tonne silver equivalent in Drill Hole ET-21-203. This hole was drilled on Section 4875N to test the Footwall Zone about 25m to the south along strike from the Discovery Hole ET-20-202. Drill Hole ET-21-207 has intersected 1.30 meters grading 2,657.8 grams per tonne silver equivalent within 4.55 meters grading 810.2 grams per tonne silver equivalent was collared on Section 4825N to test the Footwall Zone about 75m to the south along strike from Discovery Hole ET-20-202. See attached El Tigre Cross Sections 4875N and 4825N. Plan Map of El Tigre Veins and Drill Holes is also attached.

As previously reported, Discovery Drill Hole ET-20-202 intersected 11.75 meters grading 667.9 grams per tonne silver equivalent within 22.2 meters grading 381.9 grams per tonne silver equivalent approximately 12 meters beyond the footwall of the Sooy Vein. Drill Hole 202 was drilled to test the down dip potential of the Sooy Vein targeting just under the lowest mine level approximately 150 meters from surface where mining ceased abruptly with the onset of the Great Depression in 1930. Drill Hole 202 passed through mine workings on the Sooy Vein as it was not targeted deep enough below the workings. The technical team opted to continue drilling beyond the footwall of the Sooy Vein and discovered a new style of wide high grade mineralization in the Flat Formation that is not the traditional quartz vein ore that had been previously mined at El Tigre (refer to Silver Tiger press release dated February 2, 2021).

Drill Hole Highlights:

Drill Hole ET-21-203 intersected 2.95 meters grading 1,941.1 g/t AgEq within 9.30 meters grading 638.4 g/t AgEq in the Footwall Zone below the Sooy Vein.

in the Footwall Zone below the Sooy Vein. Drill Hole ET-21-207 intersected 1.30 meters grading 2,657.8 g/t AgEq within 4.55 meters grading 810.2 g/t AgEq in the Footwall Zone below the Sooy Vein.

See details in Drill Hole ET-20-203 and 207 Results Table below for the calculation of the silver equivalent grades. Silver Equivalent ("EqAg") grades are based on a silver to gold price ratio of 75:1 (Au:Ag). Copper, lead and zinc are converted using $3.66/lb copper, $0.90/lb lead, $1.26/lb zinc at 100% metal recoveries based on a silver price of $26.00/oz.

Silver Tiger's CEO, Glenn Jessome, stated, "The significance of these 2 new holes is we have followed and confirmed the new "Footwall Discovery Zone" for an initial strike length of 75m to the south of hole ET-21-202. The zone is still very high grade and it's still in the same physical location in all three holes in the footwall behind the actual Sooy Vein. So, we are starting to see this new zone has a similar strike to the Sooy vein and has some dimension and scale with potentially mineable widths and grades."

Drill Holes ET-21-203 and 207 Results Table

Comment From To Length(1) Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AgEq(2) m m m g/t g/t % % % g/t ET-21-203 Sooy Vein 263.0 264.2 1.2 0.07 154.3 0.21 0.09 0.01 182.6 and 274.6 276.0 1.4 0.06 148.8 0.06 0.11 0.08 164.0 Footwall Zone 290.9 300.2 9.3 0.22 555.7 0.51 0.45 0.20 638.4 including 297.3 300.2 2.9 0.56 1,708.8 1.53 1.18 0.44 1,941.1 ET-21-207 285.7 290.3 4.6 0.18 669.8 1.04 0.68 0.30 810.2 including 289.0 290.3 1.3 0.60 2,210.7 3.40 2.18 0.69 2,657.8 299.3 301.0 1.8 0.08 290.7 0.67 0.06 0.18 368.7

Notes:

Not true width. Silver Equivalent ("EqAg") ratios are based on a silver to gold price ratio of 75:1 (Au:Ag). Copper, lead and zinc are converted using $3.66/lb copper, $0.90/lb lead, $1.26/lb zinc at 100% metal recoveries based on a silver price of $26.00/oz.

Drill Hole Location Table

Drill Hole Easting Northing Elevation Az Dip Depth ET-21-203 670734 3384875 1869 90 -60 597.8 ET-21-207 670713 3384825 1877 90 -60 350.8

El Tigre Cross Sections 4875N

El Tigre Cross Sections 4825N

Plan Map of El Tigre Veins and Drill Holes

El Tigre Resource Estimate

After acquiring El Tigre, Silver Tiger drilled 12,500 meters to define the wide halo of near surface gold mineralization around the mined high-grade veins of the historic El Tigre Mine. This allowed Silver Tiger to deliver a maiden resource estimate for the El Tigre Property to a depth of 150 meters containing indicated resources of 661,000 gold equivalent ounces at 0.77 g/t (21 g/t silver and 0.51 g/t gold) and inferred resources of 341,000 gold equivalent ounces at 1.59 g/t (88 g/t silver and 0.52 g/t gold). The National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report titled "NI 43-101 Technical Report and Updated Mineral Resource Estimate on the El Tigre Project, Sonora, Mexico" effective as of September 7, 2017 and dated October 26, 2017 prepared by David Burga, P.Geo., Yungang Wu, P.Geo., Fred Brown, P.Geo., Jarita Barry, P.Geo., Eugene Puritch, P.Eng., FEC, CET, Alfred Hayden, P.Eng. and Richard H. Sutcliffe, Ph.D., P.Geo. of P&E Mining Consultants Inc. is available on the Corporation's website at www.silvertigermetals.com and on www.sedar.com under the Corporation's profile.

About the El Tigre Historic Mine District

Silver Tiger Metals Inc. is a Canadian company whose management has more than 25 years' experience discovering, financing and building large hydrothermal silver projects in Mexico. Silver Tiger's 100% owned 25,500 hectare Historic El Tigre Mining District is located in Sonora, Mexico. Principled environmental, social and governance practices are core priorities at Silver Tiger.

The El Tigre historic mine district is located in Sonora, Mexico and lies at the northern end of the Sierra Madre silver and gold belt which hosts many epithermal silver and gold deposits, including Dolores, Santa Elena and Las Chispas at the northern end. In 1896, gold was first discovered on the property in the Gold Hill area and mining started with the Brown Shaft in 1903. The focus soon changed to mining high-grade silver veins in the area with production coming from 3 parallel veins the El Tigre Vein, the Seitz Kelley Vein and the Sooy Vein. Underground mining on the middle El Tigre vein extended 1,450 meters along strike and was mined on 14 levels to a depth of approximately 450 meters. The Seitz Kelley Vein was mined along strike for 1 kilometer to a depth of approximately 200 meters. The Sooy Vein was only mined along strike for 250 meters to a depth of approximately 150 meters. Mining abruptly stopped on all 3 of these veins when the price of silver collapsed to less than 20 per ounce with the onset of the Great Depression. By the time the mine closed in 1930, it is reported to have produced a total of 353,000 ounces of gold and 67.4 million ounces of silver from 1.87 million tons (Craig, 2012). The average grade mined during this period was over 2 kilograms silver equivalent per ton.

The El Tigre silver and gold deposit is related to a series of high-grade epithermal veins controlled by a north-south trending structure cutting across the andesitic and rhyolitic tuffs of the Sierra Madre Volcanic Complex within a broad silver and gold mineralized prophylitic alteration zone developed in the El Tigre Formation that can be up to 150 meters wide. The veins dip steeply to the west and are typically 0.5 meter wide but locally can be up to 5 meters in width. The veins, structures and mineralized zones outcrop on surface and have been traced for 5.3 kilometers along strike in our brownfield exploration area. Historical mining and exploration activities focused on a 1.5 kilometer portion of the southern end of the deposits, principally on the El Tigre, Seitz Kelly and Sooy veins. The under explored Caleigh, Benjamin, Protectora and the Fundadora exposed veins continue north for more than 3 kilometers. Silver Tiger has delivered its maiden 43-101 compliant resource estimate and is currently drilling to update its resource estimate and publish a PEA.

VRIFY Slide Deck and 3D Presentation - Silver Tiger's El Tigre Project

VRIFY is a platform being used by companies to communicate with investors using 360 virtual tours of remote mining assets, 3D models and interactive presentations. VRIFY can be accessed by website and with the VRIFY iOS and Android apps.

Access the Silver Tiger Metals Inc. Company Profile on VRIFY at: https://vrify.com

The VRIFY Slide Deck and 3D Presentation for Silver Tiger Metals Inc. can be viewed at: https://vrify.com/explore/decks/492 and on the Company's website at: www.silvertigermetals.com.

Procedure, Quality Assurance / Quality Control and Data Verification

The diamond drill core (HQ size) is geologically logged, photographed and marked for sampling. When the sample lengths are determined, the full core is sawn with a diamond blade core saw with one half of the core being bagged and tagged for assay. The remaining half portion is returned to the core trays for storage and/or for metallurgical test work.

The sealed and tagged sample bags are transported to the Bureau Veritas facility in Hermosillo, Mexico. Bureau Veritas crushes the samples (Code PRP70-250) and prepares 200-300 gram pulp samples with ninety percent passing Tyler 200 mesh (Code PUL85). The pulps are assayed for gold using a 30-gram charge by fire assay (Code FA630) and over limits greater than 10 grams per tonne are re-assayed using a gravimetric finish (Code FA530). Silver and multi-element analysis is completed using total digestion (Code MA200 Total Digestion ICP). Over limits greater than 100 grams per tonne silver are re-assayed using a gravimetric finish (Code FA530).

Quality assurance and quality control ("QA/QC") procedures monitor the chain-of-custody of the samples and includes the systematic insertion and monitoring of appropriate reference materials (certified standards, blanks and duplicates) into the sample strings. The results of the assaying of the QA/QC material included in each batch are tracked to ensure the integrity of the assay data. All results stated in this announcement have passed Silver Tiger's QA/QC protocols.

Qualified Person

David R. Duncan, P. Geo., V.P. Exploration of the Corporation, is the Qualified Person for Silver Tiger as defined under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Duncan has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release.

For further information, please contact:

Glenn Jessome

President and CEO

902 492 0298

jessome@silvertigermetals.com

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT:

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This News Release includes certain "forward-looking statements". All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization, resources and reserves, the ability to convert inferred resources to indicated resources, the ability to complete future drilling programs and infill sampling, the ability to extend resource blocks, the similarity of mineralization at El Tigre to Delores, Santa Elena and Chispas, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of Silver Tiger, are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "may", "is expected to", "anticipates", "estimates", "intends", "plans", "projection", "could", "vision", "goals", "objective" and "outlook" and other similar words. Although Silver Tiger believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Silver Tiger's expectations include risks and uncertainties related to exploration, development, operations, commodity prices and global financial volatility, risk and uncertainties of operating in a foreign jurisdiction as well as additional risks described from time to time in the filings made by Silver Tiger with securities regulators.

SOURCE: Silver Tiger Metals Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634252/Silver-Tiger-Intersects-295-Meters-Grading-19411-gt-AgEq-within-93-meters-of-6384-gt-AgEq-in-the-Sooy-Vein
Tory former chancellor George Osborne has warned that Rishi Sunaks decision to raise corporation tax in last weeks Budget will have consequences.

Mr Osborne, who used his time in the Treasury to drive down corporation tax rates, said the move risked sending a message that the UK was not pro-business just as it needed to attract new investment.

Mr Sunak, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that he was raising corporation tax from 19% to 23% from 2023 as he sought to rebuild the public finances following the coronavirus pandemic.

Expand Close Chancellor Rishi Sunak is raising corporation tax from 2023 (Victoria Jones/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Chancellor Rishi Sunak is raising corporation tax from 2023 (Victoria Jones/PA)

However, speaking at an Institute for Government online event, Mr Osborne warned that it could prove counterproductive and questioned whether it would actually go ahead.

I dont want to criticise Rishi Sunak  he is doing a pretty good job in difficult circumstances, he said.

But I would say the idea you can increase Britains business tax by 25% and there will be no consequence  I dont think even he would claim that either  is a mistake.

Tax increases have consequences and we will wait to see  if this tax increase does indeed go ahead  what impact it will have.

I think you have got to be careful as a country what signals you are sending around the world to a world that certainly doesnt have much time to look into the UK tax code.

You're just sending a message around the world that Britain is not a particularly enterprising or pro-business place George Osborne

He said that was particularly the case if the basic message to come from the Budget was that the UK was moving to a very high rate of corporation tax.

Youre just sending a message around the world that Britain is not a particularly enterprising or pro-business place at the very moment when you want to be encouraging that in a recovery, he said.

Mr Osborne  who is now editor-in-chief of Londons Evening Standard newspaper  said that when he was faced with the need to raise revenues following the global financial crash he had chosen to put up VAT instead.

He added that he believed that Mr Sunak would have preferred to take the same option if his hands had not been tied by the Tory election manifesto commitment not to put up income tax, national insurance or VAT.

Ultimately, when I was faced with a similar choice on how to raise money I preferred the VAT lever to the corporate tax lever. I wanted to send a signal that Britain is a pro-business place, he said.

I suspect the Chancellor, if he had not been constrained by the Tory manifesto, he would have preferred to have raised VAT.

Another Tory former chancellor, Lord Lamont, warned that further revenue-raising measures may be needed if Mr Sunak is going to deal with the deficit.

When you look at the arithmetic in the Budget book, the way in which the current deficit falls so sharply in year 2 and year 3 I think is something where one wonders quite how it is going to be done, he said.

It looks as though there would have to be a very tight squeeze on public expenditure.

I personally will be surprised if these tax increases are the last tax increases we see in order to deal with the problem of the current deficit in the short term that needs to be dealt with.
Donald Trump has arrived back in New York City for the first time since leaving the White House on a trip designed to allow him to 'look under the hood' of his family firm, as prosecutors in the city continue to investigate him for fraud, in an inquiry that has spread to Chicago.

The Manhattan district attorney subpoenaed documents from a company that invested in a Chicago skyscraper built by the former president, CNN reported on Monday.

The request was made late last year, and sought information from Fortress Investment Group.

They were handed a grand jury subpoena relating to the $130 million it provided to the Trump Organization for the construction of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, which was completed in 2009.

Trump is seen arriving at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan on Sunday evening

Supporters of the former president gathered outside Trump Tower on Monday to welcome him

Trump's opponents and critics were also out in Manhattan on Monday, demanding prosecution

By 2012, Fortress, a New York-based investment management firm focused on real estate, had forgiven more than $100 million of the Trump loan, according to CNN, in order to secure a partial payoff.

The loan forgiveness came at a time of severe economic strain stemming from the financial crisis.

Cyrus Vance Jr, the Manhattan district attorney, is reportedly looking into whether Trump and his company reported the forgiven portions of the loan as income, and paid taxes on it, as required by law.

Vance's inquiry appears focused on whether the Trump Organization misrepresented the value of assets in order to secure bank loans and lower tax rates.

The investigation will look into possible criminal insurance, bank and tax fraud.

Prosecutors are expected to meet in person on Wednesday with Michael Cohen, the ex-president's former personal lawyer - his seventh interview with Vance's team.

Vance is also scrutinizing the actions of Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's longtime chief financial officer, and asking questions about his family.

'They want him to turn' on Trump, a person familiar with the probe told Reuters on Sunday.

The inquiry - one of several involving the former president - poses the biggest current legal threat to Trump.

A lender involved in the construction of Trump Tower Chicago has been subpoenaed

Duncan Levin, a former fraud prosecutor in Vance's office, said it's significant that the DA is looking at real estate projects outside of New York as part of his Trump investigation.

'It sounds like they're leaving no stone unturned,' Levin told The New York Daily News.

'It sounds like they are looking into every deal the Trump Org has done, whether those deals were in New York or beyond.'

Letitia James, the New York attorney general, is also investigating Trump for fraud, but on a civil level.

Her office recently obtained reams of tax records from the Trump Organization relating to its Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, a 213-acre swath of nature surrounding a Georgian-style mansion where the company once claimed a $21.2 million tax deduction.

Cyrus Vance Jr, the Manhattan district attorney, is investigating Trump for fraud

Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, is set to speak to Vance's team this week about the case

The estate was bought by Trump in 1995 for $7.5 million, and is listed on his website as a family retreat, although Trump hasn't been there in more than four years.

At the heart of the estate is the mansion built as a summer getaway in 1919 by Eugene Meyer, who went on to become Federal Reserve chairman and owner of The Washington Post.

In 2006, while pushing a plan to build luxury homes on the property near Mount Kisco, Trump floated the idea that he and his family were going to move into the mansion, but that never happened.

In 2009, Trump made a splash by allowing Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi to pitch his Bedouin-style tent there because he had no other place to stay for a U.N. visit: he said he 'made a lot of money' renting the land to the Libyan leader, although local officials halted work on the tent and Gaddafi never stayed there.

Cohen testified that Trump had financial statements saying Seven Springs was worth $291 million as of 2012.

He gave copies of three of Trump's financial statements to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform during his testimony.

Cohen said the statements, from 2011, 2012 and 2013, were ones Trump gave to his main lender, Deutsche Bank, to inquire about a loan to buy the NFL's Buffalo Bills and to Forbes magazine to substantiate his claim to a place on its list of the world's wealthiest people.

Trump, on his annual financial disclosure forms while president, said the property was worth between $25 million and $50 million.

Levin told AP: 'While a tax issue related to a conservation arrangement might not be as sexy as a hush-money payment, prosecutors are likely to focus on any violation of law that they find.

'Remember, the authorities got Al Capone on tax evasion.'

The news came as Trump was in Manhattan, for the first time since January 20.

He was seen arriving at his Trump Tower apartment in midtown Manhattan on Sunday night and was not spotted on Monday.

The 74-year-old is said to be keen on getting back to his family business, and 'a major part' of his trip is about that, The New York Daily News reported.

'He's quite curious about his businesses and his employees, his organization, and is eager to look under the hood,' the source told the Daily News.

'He's not entirely sure of the role he will play, but he misses it, for sure.'

Trump, a full-time Florida resident, is expected to stay in the city until Tuesday.
Nifty, Sensex may rally if US market closes firm  Tuesday closing report

To bookmark you need to sign in

We had mentioned in Mondays closing report that Nifty, Sensex may rise a bit. On Tuesday, the indices opened higher and ended with major gains. On the NSE, there were 1,175 advances, 728 declines and 85 unchanged.

The trends of the major indices in the course of Tuesdays trading are given in the table below:

BPCL board has approved the sale of up to 15,89,93,397 of it equity shares held by the BPCL Trust for Investment.

Inox Wind has signed a binding agreement with Integrum Energy Infrastructure Private Limited to supply, erect and commission 92 MW of wind power project with end to end solutions from development and construction to commissioning and providing long term operations and maintenance services.

Indoco Remedies announced the launch of Brinzolamide Ophthalmic Suspension 1 percent in the United States. It is used to treat high pressure inside the eye due to ocular hypertension and open-angle glaucoma.

JMC Projects has signed an agreement with Fahi Dhiriulhun Corporation Ltd for the design, finance and construction of 2,000 social housing units in Hulhumale Island of Maldives.

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has initiated preliminary discussions with advisors to explore an initial public offering of its API (active pharmaceutical ingredients) arm in 2021 on the back of improved business outlook in the niche segment.

Mindspace Business Parks REIT manager K Raheja Corp Investment Managers cleared the proposal to raise Rs 450 crore via market linked debentures and non-convertible debentures on private placement basis.

Larsen & Toubro dispatched the first out of four 700 MWe steam generators for the Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana 1&2 project in 36 months, delivering it 12 months before time.

The top gainers and top losers of the major indices are given in the table below:

The closing values of the major Asian indices are given in the table below:
RIO DE JANEIRO - The people started queuing up before first light. The line of cars soon stretched for miles - streaking out of the city, winding into the countryside, thousands of elderly people hoping it would finally be their day.

The mayor of Duque de Caxias, a working-class suburb of Rio de Janeiro, announced last week that anyone over the age of 60 was eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine. But there was a problem. More than 80,000 people fit that age bracket - but the city had only 6,100 doses. Thousands of people battled huge crowds, waited for hours and exposed themselves to infection, only to return home, frustrated and unvaccinated - one more public health failure in a Brazilian tragedy riddled with them.

"Because of this criminal mass gathering today, I COULDN'T GET MY MOTHER VACCINATED," one resident vented on Facebook. "I don't know what to do."

The question in Brazil, which has suffered more coronavirus deaths than any country outside of the United States, is no longer how it got into this mess. Under the chaotic leadership of President Jair Bolsonaro, Latin America's largest country long ago succumbed to denialism, disorganization, apathy, hedonism and medical quackery - and buried more than 265,000 people along the way.

The question is whether the failure to control the virus poses an international threat that will undermine the hard-won gains other countries have made against the virus.

"If Brazil is not serious, then it will continue to affect all of the neighborhood there - and beyond," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said last week. "This is not just about Brazil. It's about the whole Latin America, and beyond."

Brazil has become an explosive breeding ground for the P.1 variant,which was first identified in the Amazon rainforest and has now been detected in more than two dozen countries, including the United States.

More transmissible and possibly capable of reinfecting people who have recovered from the disease covid-19, the variant began devastating the Amazonian city of Manaus in early January, then stormed south. Late last week, the research institution Fiocruz announced that "variants of concern" including P.1 have become dominant in six of eight states studied.

"This information is an atomic bomb," said Roberto Kraenkel, a biological mathematician with the Covid-19 Brazil Observatory. "I'm surprised by the levels found. The media isn't getting what this means.

"All of the variants of concern are more transmissible . . . and this means an accelerated phase of the epidemic. A disaster."

Scientists across Brazil expressed deep pessimism for the coming weeks. The ICU occupation rate is at least 80 percent in most states, much higher in some. Patients are being transferred from state to state - sometimes traveling hundreds of miles - in a nationwide hunt for hospital resources. Without ventilators, nurses have pumped infected patients' lungs manually. Cemeteries are running out of space to put the bodies. Refrigerated containers wait outside hospitals to take the overflow. People all over the country are dying at home, unable to get treatment.

The situation is unpredictable for both Brazil and the world. As viruses course through a population, they inevitably mutate. Most genetic changes are functionally insignificant. The coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 117 million people worldwide, has produced countless variants.

But uncontrolled outbreaks in communities with mounting immunity, scientists say, can give rise to more dangerous variants. It's not by coincidence that one of the world's most virulent variants emerged in Manaus, one of the world's hardest-hit cities.

The virus wants to infect, said Denise Garrett, the vice president of applied epidemiology at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington. Not unlike bacteria, it will mutate to get around obstacles and barriers. That might have happened with the P.1 variant: Preliminary research based on modeling and cell cultures has suggested it can dodge a certain amount of immunity in people who have recovered from a previous infection.

"Brazil makes me extremely worried," Garrett said. "The country that doesn't control its outbreak is a risk for other countries in that it's a breeding site for new variants."

Health analysts say the best way to ensure that doesn't happen would be to control the outbreak with more restrictive measures. Then a rapid mass vaccination campaign. The United Kingdom followed this path. Israel vaccinated many residents with restrictive measures in place.

But in Brazil, none of that appears likely. There's little national coordination. The vaccine rollout has been bogged down in delays, vaccine shortages and political infighting. It has left the country in disarray: Every city, every state, every Brazilian has taken their own direction. As things stand now, few scientists think the country will be able to stop the carnage.

"We are in big trouble," said Margareth Dalcolmo, a lead scientist at Fiocruz.

The pandemic was always going to be difficult to control in Brazil, a country of vast territory, diversity and inequality. But given its built-in advantages - a younger population, warmer climate, national vaccination programs, universal health care - there was reason at first to believe it could fare better than others. The fact that it hasn't, and that conditions now are worse than ever, is a public health riddle that analysts say can be understood only through the lens of politics.

From the beginning, Bolsonaro has set himself apart from virtually every world leader in his drive to play down the disease's risks, his aversion to basic health measures, his skepticism of vaccines and his promotion of miracle cures.

As vaccine doses ran out across the country, and the federal government repeatedly scaled back how many it was expecting to import, Bolsonaro announced he was dispatching a delegation of top officials to Israel to investigate an untested nasal spray. "It even seems to be a miraculous product," Bolsonaro declared last week.

Then, when daily deaths hit a record high, health systems faltered and local officials announced emergency restrictions, he seethed. He decried the restrictions on commercial activity.

"Stop with the fussing and whining," he told an audience in Goias state. "For how much longer will people all be crying? For how much longer will people stay at home and close everything? No one can take it anymore."

Bolsonaro retains the support of about 30 percent of Brazilians. Opinions of the president influence almost every pandemic decision. Some doctors prescribe medications touted by Bolsonaro despite scant scientific proof. Local leaders spurn calls to close businesses. The mayor of Duque de Caxias, a fierce supporter of Bolsonaro, waded through crowds of constituents waiting in vain for a vaccine - hugging people, mask dangling beneath his chin.

"Bolsonaro's words are shocking and anti-scientific," said Bernardo Mello Franco, a columnist at the newspaper O Globo. "But they are influencing a significant percentage of people in Brazil. They are sabotaging health measures, motivating people not to obey them, calling people who stay home a bunch of cowards."

They have further polarized a divided country, leaving millions of Brazilians feeling unmoored. Many have had trouble reconciling the news of hospital failures and deaths with the scenes of indifference playing out in clandestine parties, packed bars and overflowing beaches. Even when Carnival was canceled across much of the country, some revelers found a way to attend mass parties.

"I expected things would be difficult in Brazil during the pandemic," Drauzio Varella, a famed Brazilian doctor, wrote in the magazine Epoca. "But I never imagined we'd be living in such a savage fight, with parties, mass gatherings and the dissemination of the virus by people who don't seem to care about the lives of their own family members."
It will get a little more expensive to hook up your RV at Oregons busiest campgrounds this year.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department announced a $3 increase for electric and full hookup campsites at select state parks, in effect during the busy camping season from May 28 to Sept. 6.

The fee increase comes as the parks department continues to anticipate big revenue losses due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, the department laid off 47 full-time and 338 seasonal employees as officials estimated a $22 million budget shortfall by June 2021. Park officials now estimate the budget shortfall will total $20 million.

Mondays announcement comes just before the one-year anniversary of the closure of all Oregon state parks at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The loss of revenue as parks remained closed last spring, coupled with losses of Oregon State Lottery funds  which in large part fund the parks department  led to the shortfall.

Our visitors and staff have weathered a rough 12 months, parks director Lisa Sumption said in a news release Monday. Our park staff, operating with fewer employees because of a revenue shortfall that prevented us from hiring our usual seasonal staff, have rallied and are looking forward to the coming months.

Aside from the pandemic, Oregons state parks system suffered from devastating wildfires that swept across the state last summer, as well as brutal wind, rain and ice storms this winter. As the states busy camping season approaches, a few popular campgrounds remain closed.

The campground at Detroit Lake State Park east of Salem, which was burned by the Beachie Creek fire, remains closed, though park officials said it could reopen this summer. The same goes for the Collier Memorial State Park campground in southern Oregon, which was burned by the Two Four Two fire.

In both cases, campsite reservations will be available as soon as reopening dates are determined, park managers said.

The Ainsworth State Park campground in the Columbia River Gorge is ready to reopen as scheduled on March 12, but a landslide caused by winter storms is currently blocking access to it and nearby John B. Yeon State Park.

Most other campsites across the state have either reopened or are scheduled to reopen following closures caused by the pandemic, including Devils Lake and Cape Blanco state parks on the Oregon coast, which recently announced their reopenings.

An out-of-state camping surcharge, implemented during the pandemic, ended on March 1 and will not be in effect this year. Park officials said the department will consider making the change permanent in the future.

Public health precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 remain in place at state park campgrounds. They include mask mandates at all indoor areas, including restrooms, and a one-day resting period between campers in all cabins and yurts to allow park staff to thoroughly clean the facilities.

Visitors are also asked to wear face masks in outdoor areas where its not possible to maintain at least six feet of distance from others, like busy viewpoints and on hiking trails.

Here is the full list of state park campgrounds that will see $3 fee increases for electric and full hookup RV sites:

Beverly Beach State Park

Bullards Beach State Park

Cape Blanco State Park

Cape Lookout State Park

Champoeg State Heritage Area

Detroit Lake State Recreation Area

Devils Lake State Recreation Area

Fort Stevens State Park

Harris Beach State Park

Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park

L.L. Stub Stewart Memorial State Park

LaPine State Park

Nehalem Bay State Park

Silver Falls State Park

South Beach State Park

Sunset Bay State Park

The Cove Palisades State Park

Tumalo State Park

Valley of the Rogue State Park

Wallowa Lake State Park

William M. Tugman State Park

--Jamie Hale; jhale@oregonian.com; 503-294-4077; @HaleJamesB
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The fact is that we do very well on political rights, and in fact the government gets 3/4 on transparency, which is hardly accurate

In 2020, the Narendra Modi government decided to improve Indias standing on various indices that showed a deterioration in governance. These indices that were upsetting New Delhi spanned from those produced by non-profits working in specialised areas, multilateral bodies like the United Nations, institutions traditionally seen as being on the Right, like the World Economic Forum and The Economist, and also the governments own data.

The government was clearly concerned about its drop. We know this as it put out a press release on July 10 with the headline: NitiAayog organises a virtual workshop to monitor performance of 29 select Global Indices. At this workshop it was decided that the government would prepare a single, informative dashboard for all the 29 Global Indices which would allow for monitoring of the parameters as per official data as well as the data source used by the publishing agencies.

This monitoring exercise was not just to improve rankings but to improve systems and drive reforms to attract investments and to shape Indias perception globally.

The government appeared to believe that the issue was one related to image rather than reality. A report the next month said the government was working to improve Indias ranking on 29 global indices, and it wants the message to reach everyone loud and clear. The way it would do this was a massive publicity campaign that would shape Indias perception through advertising and micro-sites of ministries and it would also publicise the problems, parameters and data sources of global indices.

Would this address the problem at hand? It would not. The issue was not one of perception or bias, but one of fact. The world was not conspiring to show us in a bad light. The solution lay in acknowledging that India had been declining in several areas since 2014 and working on trying to improve them. Spending money on a media campaign would not change the numbers. Indias discrediting the data of all these agencies and institutions was unlikely to reverse the views of those who had looked at and understood the facts.

Under Prime Minister Modi, Indias ranking rose on three indicators (including the World Banks Doing Business index), it remained the same on two but and fell on forty-one. The decline was so broad and so pronounced that organisations captured similar results through different methodologies. India since 2014 has done poorly on six indices that tracked civil liberties and pluralism, five that tracked health and literacy, two tracking religious freedom and minorities, two tracking Internet denial, six tracking national power of various types, four tracking the rule of law and corruption, four tracking sustainability and environment, four tracking gender issues and their safety, four tracking economic freedoms of Indians and four tracking urban spaces.

The record leaves little room for debate or dispute. The scale and rapidity of decline in governance is manifest. It may appear strange that the Modi government should have thought reversing this performance required a massive publicity campaign which would shape Indias perception through advertising and more websites, but it is how the government thought. A more credible response might have been to say that the decline was not the Narendra Modi governments doing entirely; to deny it altogether was to run away from the problem. The solution was not image correction but improving performance through governance.

After the publicity strategy had fallen through for whatever reason, the government then decided at the end of 2020 that if it asked ministries to ensure swift and updated data it would help on the indices. This was based on the assumption that the governments work was excellent; it was merely data lag that caused it to plummet. This was also of course wrong, and the indices that have come out after that showed continued decline.

The latest report has come last week from Freedom House, which says that India is not free but partly free. This is not opinion; it is based on a set of indicators. India says it is democratic. Freedom House agrees. It gives India 34/40 on political rights. Full marks for free and fair elections, Election Commission impartiality, freedom to start political parties, opportunities for the Opposition to increase their power. Not full marks on whether voting is hampered by violence and affected communal tension. All this we already know. The fact is that we do very well on political rights, and in fact the government gets 3/4 on transparency, which is hardly accurate.

The real problem is political rights are only 40 per cent of the Freedom House score. The other 60 per cent is civil liberties. Here we perform poorly (33/60). On the issues of freedom of expression, religion, academic freedom, freedom of assembly, freedom for NGOs to work (the report names the attack on my former organisation Amnesty India specifically), rule of law, independence of judiciary, due process by the police and so on, our rating is poor. Can we disagree with this? We cannot. The answer is not to deny, as the government has done through a one-page response. This will not work because another report is coming soon: the reputable Varieties of Democracy report from the University of Gothenburg. Last years report had said:India has continued on a path of steep decline, to the extent it has almost lost its status as a democracy.

Our precipitous decline is being noticed and recorded abroad with alarm. It is strange that within India we are carrying on as if it is business as usual.
Dong Tam land-rights activists are shown in court in Hanoi on the first day of their appeals hearing, March 8, 2021.

Lawyers representing Vietnamese land-rights activists appealing sentences for their roles in a deadly clash with police last year at the Dong Tam commune were repeatedly obstructed in court in Hanoi on Monday, the first day of their hearing, sources told RFA.

Violations of due process by three-judge panel hearing the case included barring one lawyer from conferring with his client and stopping lines of questioning into sensitive aspects of the case, lawyers told RFAs Vietnamese Service.

One attorney in the case, Ngo Anh Tuan, was prevented from transferring his trial notes from one computer to another so that he could post an account of the days proceedings on his Facebook page, he said.

I typed up my notes in a transparent manner, Ngo said. However, when I was getting the notes from the USB in order to put post something on Facebook at noon, they wouldnt allow me to do so, he said.

We changed our strategy this afternoon, and are now writing our trial notes on paper. We used many tens of pages of paper to do this, he said.

Lawyer Dang Dinh Manh was also refused permission by trial judges to meet with one of his clients in violation of Article 256 of Vietnams Criminal Code, Ngo said.

The judges said that the lawyers had already had a lot of time to speak with their clients before the trial, so the panel and the presiding judge brusquely refused Dan Dinh Manhs request to meet with his client during the trial, he said.

Six defendants have now filed appeals of their sentences in the Dong Tam case, in which village elder Le Dinh Kinh, 84, was killed on Jan. 9, 2020 in an early-morning raid on the village by 3,000 security officers intervening in a long-running dispute over a military construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, Hanoi.

Les sons, Le Dinh Chuc and Le Dinh Cong, were both sentenced to death on Sept. 14 for murder in connection with the deaths of three police officers who were killed in the clash when they were attacked with petrol bombs and fell into a concrete shaft while running between two houses.

They were among a group of 29 villagers tried for their roles in the incident. Other punishments handed out by the court included a life sentence and other sentences ranging from six years to 15 months of probation.

Le Dinh Cong, one of the two defendants sentenced to death at trial last year, has now changed his appeal from asking for a reduction in his sentence to asserting his complete innocence in the case, saying he had thrown petrol bombs only to frighten police and not to kill them, state media said.

Family members kept away

Family members hoping to attend Mondays trial were meanwhile kept away from the court building by police who corraled them into a street corner to wait for news of the days proceedings, relatives said.

Things here have been very tense, said Nguyen Thi Duyen, the wife of Le Dinh Uy, who did not appeal his six-year prison term, and niece of slain village elder Le Dinh Kinh.

They would not let us in, even when the lawyers tried to intervene for us, she said.

Just as in the first trial [in September 2020], they have cornered everyone and isolated them. They havent threatened us, but they have blocked our movements. I brought some food with me and ate it right here, she added.

In a statement Monday, Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson voiced serious concerns over the prospects of a fair trial for the six Dong Tam villagers appealing their sentences.

Vietnams courts are far from independent, and predetermined outcomes dictated by the ruling communist party are still trademarks of the countrys so-called justice system, Robertson said.

There are still many unanswered questions about what happened during the Dong Tam raid that authorities have never been willing to clarify.

We are also deeply troubled by the information brought out in the defense lawyers report, stating that police used torture on some defendants to force them to confess, raising fundamental concerns about the fairness of the entire trial, Robertson said.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Inter-regional trade is far-below its potential in South Asia and political boundaries should not become physical barriers, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Tuesday, as she stressed on strengthening connectivity with India through the historic "Maitri Setu" connecting the two countries.

Prime Minister Hasina on Tuesday virtually inaugurated the 1.9-km "Maitri Setu" (Friendship Bridge) over Feni river along with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, connecting Tripura and Ramgarh in Bangladesh.

Its my immense pleasure to inaugurate the Maitri Setu today, together with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, she said.

"We are in a region that has remained conservative in opening up and where inter-regional trade is far below its potential. I believe political boundaries should not become physical barriers to trade, Hasina said.

Terming it as a historic moment, Hasina said, were creating a new era in South Asia through providing connectivity to India. I think the Maitri Setu will not only create connectivity between our two countries, but will also play a significant role in business-trade and economic development.

The bridge is a testimony to the Bangladesh governments continued commitment to support neighbouring India in strengthening connectivity in the region, particularly for the North-East of India, Hasina said during the inauguration of the bridge.

The Feni Maitri Setu is expected to significantly improve the socio-economic condition of the people of Tripura and surrounding North Eastern states of India. We hope it will also contribute towards improving the livelihoods of those living on the Bangladesh side of the bridge, she was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune.

Noting that Bangladeshs growth trajectory, along with its geographic location, makes it an extremely attractive neighbour in South Asia, Hasina said that the country being one of the leaders in the global textile industry, it has become a favoured destination for foreign investment.

The "Maitri Setu" is important to the business community of Indias northeastern region for using the Chattogram seaport, bdnews 24 reported.

The Government of Bangladesh has extended all necessary support to the Indian side for the construction of the bridge. Ten years later, today, the bridge is a reality, Hasina said.

Hasina said that the bridge will also help Bangladesh to trade more easily not only with India, but also with Nepal and Bhutan as well.

Terming the bridge as a trading lifeline for the northeastern states of India, she said that Bangladesh has already opened the path for the use of Chattogram and Mongla ports for the movement of goods to and from India, according to the report.
SAN DIEGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Viriom Inc., a San Diego CA-based biotech and Chromis, a joint venture of the ChemRar Group and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) reported a summary of the multicenter, open-labeled, efficacy and safety study of Avifavir (favipiravir) in patients with COVID-19 at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections CROI2021.

Background:

Favipiravir as well as remdesivir are currently the leading directly acting antiviral drugs against COVID-19 globally. Avifavir received emergency use authorization from Russia's Ministry of Health in May 2020 based on an interim report of an open label comparative Phase 2-3 clinical study in hospitalized medium severe and severely ill patients and became the world's first favipiravir-based drug approved for the treatment of COVID-19. It obtained full market authorization in November 2020 and was included in the Russian standard of care as a first line treatment for ambulatory and hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The efficacy and safety of Avifavir was statistically significantly demonstrated in two Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials in 460 medium severe and severely ill COVID-19 patients conducted between April and October 2020. Multiple regional bridging studies have since been completed and others are ongoing in Latin America and Central and South East Asia and the Middle East.

In the last year, Avifavir has been delivered to over 1,000,000 patients in 17 countries.. Avifavir is being submitted for rolling review in EMA and a submission is planned with the US FDA.

Study Design and Demographics:

A multi-center, open label post registration study of efficacy of Avifavir was conducted in medium severe and severe ill hospitalized COVID-19 patients included 940 patients: 470 each on Avifavir or Standard of Supportive Care (SOC). SOC included antiviral, antibiotics and medications for symptoms relief, i.e., antipyretics, anti-tussives, etc. The study targeted time to viral clearance and clinical improvement as primary outcomes and indicators of the drug's effectiveness.

Patients data were obtained from the Unified national (Russian) healthcare information system. The Avifavir cohort included 52.3%/47.7% females/males 18 years of age and older vs 56.4%/43.6% ratio of the same age group patients for SOC cohort. The majority of patients (59.6% in Avifavir cohort and 60.4% in SOC) were moderately ill while 19.6% of patients in Avifavir cohort and 20.2% in SOC cohort were severely or extremely severely ill COVID-19 patients. Median duration from onset of symptoms was 4.9 days for Avifavir and 4.7 days for SOC patients.

Avifavir was dosed for 10 (median 9.2) days, using body weight as a cut-off: for patients with BW<75 kg: a dose of 1600 mg BID on Day 1, then 600 mg BID on Days 2 to 10 and for patients with BW> 75 kg: a dose of 1800 mg BID on Day 1, then 800 mg BID on Days 2 to 10.

Study Results and Conclusions:

The median time to virus elimination in the Avifavir and SOC groups was 8 and 12 days, respectively (p<0.001). The median time to clinical improvement in the Avifavir and SOC groups was 12 and 15 days, respectively (p <0.001) with statistically significantly greater number of patients with clinical improvement in Avifavir vs. SOC group, at 7 days (p=0.0248) and 14 days (p<0.001) of treatment initiation.

Patients in the Avifavir arm demonstrated a reduced mortality rate 5.7% vs 8.3% in SOC cohort.

Avifavir was well tolerated in this study with no new or unexpected AEs.

In conclusion, Avifavir has shown early and statistically significant differentiation compared to Standard of Supportive Care, with a 33% faster virological response, 20% shorter time to normalized clinical symptoms; and 31% lower mortality rate. Study results support the importance of an early initiation of direct antiviral therapies, such as Avifavir for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Iain Dukes, CEO of Viriom Inc, said:

The ratio between the expected benefits and the possible risks of medical use of Avifavir remains positive. We anticipate a continuous adoption of an early treatment with this effective, safe and tolerable direct antiviral by healthcare systems globally.

Viriom Inc. is advancing breakthrough medicines that are effective and affordable with the ultimate goal of curing HIV, chronic HBV and respiratory infections in both developing and developed countries. Viriom's pipeline includes: Elpida (elsulfavirine), the best-in-class NNRTI that obtained first market authorization in 2017; extended release weekly oral formulations; and long-acting injectable therapy and prophylaxis. Viriom combines its extended release and long-acting injectable compounds with partners' therapies with curative potential. Viriom supports Chromis, RDIF and ChemRar with R&D and regulatory efforts in established pharmaceutical markets. www.viriom.com

ChemRar Group ChemRar is a unique group of biotech start up, R&D and pharmaceutical companies developing and commercializing innovative medicines for treatment of cardiometabolic and infectious diseases, oncology, and CNS pathologies in Russia and other countries. http://en.chemrar.ru/

Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is Russia's sovereign wealth fund established in 2011 to make equity co-investments, primarily in Russia, alongside reputable international financial and strategic investors. RDIF acts as a catalyst for direct investment in the Russian economy. RDIF's management company is based in Moscow. Currently, RDIF has experience of the successful joint implementation of more than 80 projects with foreign partners totaling more than RUB1.9 tn and covering 95% of the regions of the Russian Federation. RDIF portfolio companies employ more than 800,000 people and generate revenues which equate to more than 6% of Russia's GDP. RDIF has established joint strategic partnerships with leading international co-investors from more than 18 countries that total more than $40 bn. Further information can be found at www.rdif.ru

Media Contacts:

Iain Dukes, MA DPhil, [email protected]

SOURCE Viriom Inc.

Related Links

http://www.rdif.ru


Chelsea Curry is a second-generation bird-watcher, so she knew she was seeing something special in February 2020, when a handsome lemon-yellow songbird made his first appearance at her bird feeders.

Thats a cardinal, said her husband, Richard.

No its not. Theres no such thing as a yellow cardinal, Chelsea replied. And yet, there was no denying the birds jaunty head feathers and his distinctive jet-black markings.

Im tellin you, Richard said. Thats a cardinal.

As it turns out, a one-in-a-million yellow cardinal had decided to make himself at home at the Currys bird feeders in rural Rushville, a quiet farm community 200 miles southwest of Chicago. Yellow cardinals have been spotted in Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio and Florida in recent years. And now, according to Auburn University biological sciences professor Geoffrey Hill, who reviewed photos of the Currys cardinal at the request of the Tribune, Illinois has a yellow cardinal of its own.

That is a legit yellow cardinal, Hill declared.

Of the 12 million (mostly fiery or red-tinged) cardinals in North America, there are about 12 yellow cardinals, according to Hill, who said the eye-popping coloration is due to a genetic mutation that prevents the birds from converting yellow pigment in their food into red pigment for their feathers. The pigment stays yellow, and so do the cardinals.

All of the yellow cardinals sighted to date are male, with the more intense coloration of their sex, Hill said. Female cardinals are light brown with red highlights.

The genetic mutation that produces yellow cardinals isnt new, but interest exploded in 2018, when a professional photographer snapped photos of a bird in Alabama. The striking photos helped the bird, dubbed Mr. Yellow, become international news.

Hill, who was in Australia at the time, recalls being bombarded with yellow cardinal questions by college students  in a country with no cardinals, yellow or otherwise.

All of a sudden, the yellow cardinal was the talk of the world, he said.

The Rushville cardinal first appeared among the browns and grays of February 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools and workplaces throughout Illinois. After that, the bird became a regular guest at the Currys backyard bird feeders, visiting daily, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

At some point, he started showing up with a mate, a female cardinal with the usual light brown coloration marked with red highlights. And in spring, the cardinal couple started bringing a young bird with them that was brown with a touch of red.

Female cardinals are attracted to bright-red males, so its interesting that the Rushville cardinal attracted a mate and may have reproduced, Hill said.

But other factors also come into play when cardinals mate, such as a males ability to hold a territory, which could trump plumage. Yellow coloration could theoretically be passed on to offspring, but in practice, no one has documented that, Hill said.

The Rushville cardinals visits to the Currys bird feeders continued until August, and then stopped, according to Chelsea, 37, a school paraprofessional.

Is he gone forever? she wondered.

But when the weather got cold, the yellow cardinal returned.

Chelseas 14-year-old son and 20-year-old daughter would roll their eyes as their mom ran for her camera, eager to take yet another photo of their unusual feathered guest. But for Chelsea, the thrill never got old.

In the early days, the cardinal would initially flee as soon as he heard the back door start to open, she said. But now she can step outside and stand maybe 20 yards away from the bird feeders. Sometimes she feels as if hes watching her while she snaps photos, or even posing.

When this reporter noted that the one-in-a-million cardinal has the right to preen a bit, Chelsea agreed.

I wish I could tell him how special he is, she said.

nschoenberg@chicagotribune.com

___

(c)2021 the Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
HOUSTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Summit Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE: SMLP) announced today that it has filed its 2020 Annual Report on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This report contains SMLP's audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. A copy of the report is available for viewing and downloading on SMLP's website at www.summitmidstream.com.

SMLP unitholders may request a hard copy of the report, free of charge, by submitting a written request via email to [email protected] or via mail to:

Summit Midstream Partners, LP

Attn: Investor Relations

910 Louisiana Street, Suite 4200

Houston, TX 77002

About Summit Midstream Partners, LP

SMLP is a value-driven limited partnership focused on developing, owning and operating midstream energy infrastructure assets that are strategically located in unconventional resource basins, primarily shale formations, in the continental United States. SMLP provides natural gas, crude oil and produced water gathering services pursuant to primarily long-term and fee-based gathering and processing agreements with customers and counterparties in six unconventional resource basins: (i) the Appalachian Basin, which includes the Utica and Marcellus shale formations in Ohio and West Virginia; (ii) the Williston Basin, which includes the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations in North Dakota; (iii) the Denver-Julesburg Basin, which includes the Niobrara and Codell shale formations in Colorado and Wyoming; (iv) the Permian Basin, which includes the Bone Spring and Wolfcamp formations in New Mexico; (v) the Fort Worth Basin, which includes the Barnett Shale formation in Texas; and (vi) the Piceance Basin, which includes the Mesaverde formation as well as the Mancos and Niobrara shale formations in Colorado. SMLP has an equity investment in Double E Pipeline, LLC, which is developing natural gas transmission infrastructure that will provide transportation service from multiple receipt points in the Delaware Basin to various delivery points in and around the Waha Hub in Texas. SMLP also has an equity investment in Ohio Gathering, which operates extensive natural gas gathering and condensate stabilization infrastructure in the Utica Shale in Ohio. SMLP is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

SOURCE Summit Midstream Partners, LP

Related Links

http://www.summitmidstream.com


Update 10:30 p.m.: The child was found safe and deputies said there was no foul play suspected in her disappearance.

----

The Clackamas County Sheriffs Office is searching for a 9-year-old girl who has been missing from a Lake Oswego home since Monday evening.

Deputies said the girl was last seen around 6:45 p.m. in the area of Southwest Queens Park Road and Southwest Roosevelt Avenue in Lake Oswego. She is four-foot-six with strawberry-blond, shoulder-length hair and was last seen wearing a tan sweatshirt, blue and white leggings and pink shoes.

The sheriffs office said they were conducting an urban search for the girl. They did not release any information about whether she is believed to be alone or with someone. They did not release any information about the circumstances of her disappearance.

Fox 12 Oregon reported that the child went outside to do a chore, and never returned. They said deputies told them she has never run away before.

Anyone who sees the missing girl is asked to call 911. The sheriffs office asked people who know of her whereabouts to call the non-emergency line at 503-655-8211.

This story will be updated.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR
Silver, like just about everything else, saw a downturn in 2020 due to COVID-19 but experts are predicting a production boost this year.

Australia has reserves of around 90,000 tonnes, third only to Peru and Poland.

Global silver production is forecast to rise by 8.1% to 918.3 million ounces in 2021, according to data analysts GlobalData.

It says global silver mine production fell by an estimated 2.4% in 2020, down to 850 million ounces, thanks to the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The worlds top three silver producers - Mexico, Peru and China - were all hit by the pandemic and suffered lockdowns and restrictions that impeded mining work.

But GlobalData expects a significant increase in 2021 and says more than 1 billion ounces will be produced by 2024, a 3.2% compound annual growth rate.

Driving factors

The three aforementioned countries are expected to lead the silver revival, with combined production in Mexico, Peru and China alone expected to increase from a forecast of 393.9 million ounces in 2021 to 443.9 million ounces by 2024.

GlobalData associate project manager Vinneth Bajaj says several major projects in these countries are expected to lead the charge.

Projects with potential to commence operations during the forecast period include the Corani project in Peru, which is wholly-owned by Bear Creek Mining Corp, he says.

It has received all the regulatory approvals and permissions, with construction scheduled to commence in the second quarter of 2021 and production in 2024.

In addition, the Fenix Gold Project in Mexico, wholly-owned by McEwen Mining, is currently undergoing a definitive feasibility study, with construction work scheduled to start by the end of 2021, and operations to begin in 2022.

COVID-19 impact

Eight of the top 10 silver producers reported a collective 13.9% year-on-year fall in their output due to COVID-19, Bajaj says.

In Mexico, output was estimated to have fallen by 1.8% in 2020, with mining activities suspended for almost two months through to the end of May.

Major silver producers in the country temporarily suspended their mining operations during this period and production losses were registered at Pan Americans La Colorada and Dolores mines, Fortuna Silvers San Jose mine, Industrias Penoles Saucito mine and s San Sebastian project, among others.

Production in Peru fell more significantly, down by an estimated 16% over the course of 2020, having declined by 29.1% year-on-year in the first seven months of the year.

The Uchucchacua mine, owned by Buenaventura, was the biggest contributor towards this decline and silver output dropped by around 4 million ounces in the first nine months of 2020 versus the same period of 2019.

Further, operational suspensions at Pan Americans Huaron and Morococha mines between May and September also contributed towards the decline.

Australia holds the cards

Also contributing to the silver industrys concerns are slowly depleting ore reserves.

A 2014 study estimated that around half of the worlds silver supplies have already been mined, with peak production looming in 2034, and complete, worldwide silver supply exhaustion by 2240.

According to Statista, Australia is the worlds seventh-largest silver producer but it has reserves of around 90,000 tonnes, third only to Peru and Poland.

It bodes well for ASX-listed silver plays, including Silver Mines Ltd ( ), which in January reported assays, including 26.1 metres at a grade of 252 g/t silver equivalent from 229 metres at a feeder structure, with another eye-catching result of 1-metre at 923 g/t silver equivalent from 282.9 metres.

Other companies have strong silver components within their projects.

In February, ( ) verified the presence of high gold and silver grades up to 37 g/t gold and 1,590 g/t silver at several sites following assay results from its due-diligence sampling program at the Humboldt Range Gold-Silver Project in Nevada, USA.

( ) ( ) recently entered into a binding and exclusive term sheet with Thomson Resources Ltd ( ) for a three-stage earn-in and option to a joint venture agreement to progress the Mt Carrington Gold and Silver Project in northeast NSW.

( ) (FRA:20Z) has upcoming news flow from impending assays on four drill programs at a range of its projects, several of which have strong silver mineralisation.

( ) reconnaissance exploration at Kurundi Project in the Tennant Creek/Davenport region of the Northern Territory recently returned high-grade gold, silver and copper rock chip samples.

- Daniel Paproth
NEW DELHI: The ruling BJP at the Centre came down heavily on the Congress-led opposition parties for questioning the Batla House encounter in 2008, a day after a Delhi court convicted an Indian Mujahideen operative Ariz Khan for killing Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma.

Addressing a press conference in the national capital on Tuesday, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Why is the Congress, Mamata Didi and all those who questioned the Batla House encounter silent now after the court's verdict in this case.''

"Will Sonia Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee apologise for misleading the entire nation over the Batla House encounter case,'' the Union Minister asked.

Slamming the opposition parties for their questionable conduct in the case, which came as a big blow to the morale of the Delhi Police, Prasad said, "The BJP slams the leading opposition parties for failing to rise above petty politics over a very sensitive issue linked to the country's security and questioning the action of the law and enforcement agencies. Will they apologise now after the court convicted an IM operative for killing a decorated Delhi Police officer during the Batla House encounter.''

"You might have listened to Salman Khurshid say that Sonia Gandhi had tears in her eyes when she got to know that two terrorists have been killed,'' Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said while reacting to the Delhi Court convicting Ariz Khan in Batla House encounter case.

"There was conscious, deliberate & consistent attempt to cast serious doubt over the authenticity of Batla House incident designed to weaken the morale of Delhi Police & give clear support to terrorist & their design for pure vote bank politics,'' Prasad said, adding why can't the political parties speak in one voice on matters of national security.

The hard-hitting reaction from the BJP came a day after a Delhi court convicted Indian Mujahideen terrorist Ariz Khan in the case of the 2008 Batla House shootout which he had escaped. His sentencing has been scheduled for next Monday.

Announcing its verdict in the case, Delhi Court on Monday said that Ariz Khan intentionally caused the murder of encounter specialist and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma.

Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav said the evidence produced by the prosecution duly proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge was quoted by PTI as saying it was "duly proved that Ariz Khan and his associates caused the murder of the police officer and fired gunshot on him."

"Khan, along with his associates, voluntarily caused grievous hurt to public servants. The accused intentionally and voluntarily caused the murder of Inspector MC Sharma by use of gunshot," Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav said.

The judge said that Khan and his associates also caused hurt to Head Constables Balwant Singh and Rajbir Singh. He further added that the evidence produced on record leaves no matter of doubt that the prosecution has proved the case beyond all reasonable doubt and that the accused is liable to be convicted.

The court will hear arguments on the quantum of sentence on March 15 at 12 noon. It has also directed the investigating officer to conduct an inquiry to ascertain the financial ability of Khan and his family to give compensation to the victims.

On September 19, 2008, the Special Cell of Delhi Police carried out an encounter in Jamia Nagar`s Batla House, in which two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists and Inspector Sharma of the Special Cell of Delhi were killed.

Khan is also the alleged mastermind of the 2008 serial blasts across Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh.

In 2013, one Shahzad Ahmed, who, too, had escaped the Batla House shootout with Khan, was convicted and sentenced. Two of their accomplices, Atif Amin and Mohammed Sajid, were killed in the incident. A third, Mohammed Saif, was arrested from the location. Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma lost his life while two other officers were injured.

Ariz Khan, a native of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested by the Delhi police's Special Cell in February 2018.

The multiple bombings that rocked cities like Jaipur and Ahmedabad, apart from the national capital itself, in 2008 saw 165 people losing their lives and over 500 injured in all. A reward of Rs 15 lakh had been declared on him, besides an Interpol Red Corner Notice.

Live TV
New Delhi:

Los Angeles jury have asked Johnson & Johnson to pay $417-million to a woman who have claimed that she developed ovarian cancer after using the companys talc-based products.

The verdict in favour of California resident Eva Echeverria was the largest yet in lawsuits alleging J&J failed to warn consumers about the cancer risks of its talc-based products.

We are grateful for the jurys verdict on this matter and that Eva Echeverria was able to have her day in court, said Mark Robinson, her lawyer, in a statement.

The plaintiff, Eva Echeverria, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007. A surgeon removed a softball-sized tumor, but Echeverria is now near death and was unable to attend the trial, one of her attorneys said.

Echeverria said in her lawsuit. Echeverrias attorney, Mark Robinson, said his client hoped the verdict would lead Johnson & Johnson to include additional warnings on its products.

Mrs. Echeverria is dying from this ovarian cancer and she said to me all she wanted to do was to help the other women throughout the whole country who have ovarian cancer for using Johnson & Johnson for 20 and 30 years, Robinson said.

She really didnt want sympathy, he added. She just wanted to get a message out to help these other women. Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement that the company will appeal the jurys decision.

We are grateful for the jurys verdict on this matter and that Eva Echeverria was able to have her day in court, said Mark Robinson, one of her attorneys, who accused Johnson & Johnson of covering up the truth for so many years.

Johnson & Johnson immediately announced it would seek to overturn the verdict.

We will appeal today's verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder, the company said in a statement.

Among the studies the company cited was one in 2000 by researchers at Harvard University that was part of the National Nurses Health Study of more than 121,000 women, including 78,630 who said they had used talc. Ovarian cancer eventually struck 307 of them.

The researchers concluded there was no overall association between talc use and epithelial ovarian cancer, though there was a modest elevation in risk for one variety of the disease. That type, invasive serous ovarian cancer, is the one Echeverria has, according to court papers.
Freedom Betrayed by a Population of Digital Snitches

Commentary

No people can long be free that doesnt want to be free or cares little for its own freedom. But the greatest threat to liberty nowadays is from powerful and important groups within society that actively seek, in the name of virtue, to limit the freedom of others.

We should never forget that the pleasures of puritanism are never greater than when causing misery and discomfiture to the supposedly wicked: Such malignity is its own reward.

A minor politician in South Wales, a town councillor called Rob Jones, has been suspended from the Labour Party because, in private, he called a Welsh nationalist politician, Bethan Sayed, a cow. His exact words were, Bethan Sayed, the cow that she is. He uttered this sentiment at a private meeting of his party which, unbeknownst to him, was being secretly recorded and would be broadcast (more than a year later) over social media.

The comment was said by Sayed to have been despicable. Its true that it could hardly have been pleasing to her. Jones immediately issued a groveling apology, at the same time alleging that the recording had been edited to make him appear all the worse and saying that the contents of the recording do not reflect the values I hold as an individual or those of the Labour Party, nor do they meet the standards of accountability required of a public representative.

His weaselly and insincere words (who will believe that he doesnt still think that Bethan Sayed is a cow?) sound like those of someone prophylactically denouncing himself for fear of torture under a Maoist regime. Only someone in a state of blue funk would claim that the contents of a recording do not reflect the values I hold. He called Sayed a cow because that, for whatever reason, was what he thought she was. He clearly didnt like her.

As an insult uttered in private, however, it was really rather mild and commonplace. At any rate, I can think of far worse insults, and I am by no means a habitual or practiced insulter of others. Insult is not my genre.

By far the most sinister aspect of this little story is the willingness of someone to record a private conversation or meeting without the permission of the participants and then use it much later to the detriment of one of them.

What kind of person would do such a thing? Alas, there are more than a handful of such persons: The history of Nazi Germany and occupied France suggests that anonymous denunciation is a joy to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.

In communist countries, it was assumed that everything you said might be recorded and anyone to whom you spoke might be an informer. But now it is we, the people, who are in the process of creating a totalitarian atmosphere for ourselves, thanks to smartphones and social media. We are becomingsome of usa population of digital snitches.

When suspects were arrested by the police in England, they used to be cautioned, You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence. If were not careful, thats how well have to live our entire lives, as if under perpetual police cautionwithout, of course, our alleged offense being known in advance.

The situation is made all the worse in the modern world by the speed with which what is morally absurd or unthinkable becomes morally obligatory, so that one has to consider not only what is unsayable now, but what might become unsayable in five or 10 years time.

In these circumstances, honesty is not the best but the worst policy; silence is wisest and failing silence, utter blandness and complete acquiescence with the moral enthusiasm of the moment, whatever it might be. Under no circumstances, even in the privacy of your home, should you say what you think: It might get you into trouble later on and ruin your career.

Sayed thought that what Jones called her was despicable. It was nothing of the kind. It was common verbal abuse such as the vast majority of us sometimes resort to and was all the less despicable because it was said in private and not for public consumption.

It would have been despicable if, instead of calling Sayed a cow, Jones had alleged without any evidence whatever that she had embezzled public funds. To call someone a cow or a bastard (metaphorically not literally, for in the not very distant future the majority of the population will be bastards in the literal sense) is not a definite allegation but an expression of dislike. And dislike is not a crime or even necessarily a moral failing.

There is no decisive test of whether a woman is a or is not a cow, in Jones sense of the word; one mans cow is another mans angel; but if he had alleged that she was an embezzler, the allegation is a matter of fact and not of taste or opinion, and there ought to be definite evidence to substantiate it, without which it would be despicable to allege it.

Its sinister that a political party can suspend a member merely because he has uttered a commonplace insult, as if politics were normally a delicate exercise in etiquette and deportment.

We laugh at our unsophisticated predecessors who washed out the mouths of children with soap and water if they uttered a profanity or a forbidden sentiment, but we are worse in that we are willing not merely to cause a child a bad quarter of an hour but to destroy the reputation and livelihoods of people because of a casual remark made a long time before.

Increasingly we must live as if our lives were evidence in a forthcoming trial by as yet unknown accusers.

The internet, smartphones, and social media were supposed to liberate us by allowing us all to have our say at last, but, as Shigalyov puts it in Fyodor Dostoevskys novel The Devils, Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.

Theodore Dalrymple is a retired doctor. He is contributing editor of the City Journal of New York and the author of 30 books, including Life at the Bottom. His latest book is Embargo and Other Stories.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The suspect in the death of Harry Dunn would be willing to undertake community service in the US and make a 'contribution' in his memory as well as meet with his family, her lawyer has said.

Anne Sacoolas has 'never denied' responsibility for the road collision that killed the 19-year-old motorcyclist, lawyer Amy Jeffress said.

But Ms Jeffress said since the charge pending in Britain against Sacoolas would not usually result in a prison sentence in the US, her client was not inclined to return to the UK to face trial.

The US Government asserted diplomatic immunity on behalf of 43-year-old Sacoolas following the road crash which killed Mr Dunn outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in August, 2019.

She was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, but an extradition request submitted by the Home Office was rejected by the US State Department in January last year.

A letter written by Gail Hunter, 69, from Aiken, South Carolina, a friend of Harry Dunn's alleged killer Anne Sacoolas, has revealed how the ex-CIA spy's husband was also present at the time of the crash that killed the 19-year-old (pictured)

Writing to her local paper, Gail Hunter, 69, from Aiken, South Carolina, who is a long-time friend of alleged killer Anne Sacoolas, 43, attempted to defend the ex-CIA spy (pictured)

Ms Jeffress said she and Sacoolas were striving to resolve the case in a manner that would not involve a return to the UK.

'We understand that community service is a typical sentence for offences like this,' Ms Jeffress told BBC Radio 4's Law in Action programme.

'We have offered ever since over a year ago that she would be willing to serve that kind of a sentence and to make a contribution in Harry's memory, to take other steps to try to bring some peace to the family.'

She said Sacoolas was 'truly sorry for Harry's family and the pain that his has caused'.

'She's willing to meet with the family to provide whatever information they are seeking; and we truly hope that we can do that and give the family some measure of peace,' Ms Jeffress told the programme.

Ms Jeffress said Sacoolas had only been in the UK for 'a few weeks' when she had made the tragic mistake of 'instinctively' driving her car on the wrong side of the road and colliding with Mr Dunn's motorcycle.

But she added such cases in the US were only prosecuted criminally if there was 'evidence of recklessness that rises to the level of close to intent - drunk driving, distracted driving, a hit-and-run situation or excessive speeding ... But there was none of that here'.

Ms Jeffress told the BBC she understood this was one of the reasons the US did not waive Sacoolas's diplomatic immunity.

It comes after a US judge gave Harry Dunn's family the go-ahead to push on with a civil claim against Mr and Mrs Sacoolas in the US. Pictured: Harry Dunn's mother Charlotte Charles on October 9, 2019

She also denied reports Sacoolas had not called for help after the crash, saying she had flagged down another motorist who had called an ambulance while Sacoolas notified police at Croughton, where she worked with her husband for the US State Department.

Sacoolas had cooperated with local police, Ms Jeffress said, supplied a zero-reading breathalyser test, surrendered her phone to show she had not been using it, and was interviewed by police for several hours.

Ms Jeffress's comments come a week after Mr Dunn's family was given the go-ahead to proceed with a civil claim for damages against Sacoolas and her husband.

A judge's ruling in Virginia has taken the Dunn family a step closer to a legal showdown with suspect Anne Sacoolas, 18 months on from Mr Dunn's death.

Should there be no settlement in the case, the next legal step would be a 'deposition', in which Sacoolas and her husband would be forced to provide their account of events outside of court.
What is more tragic, that Texas leads the nation in the uninsured, or that state lawmakers have refused to address this by expanding Medicaid?

This compounding failure is as maddening as it is infuriating. There is simply no compelling reason for Texas to refuse to expand Medicaid, and yet here we are, stuck with the highest uninsured rate in the nation because the majority of Republican lawmakers just cant go there. It is doubly tragic.

The numbers speak for themselves. Before the pandemic, Texas had an uninsured rate of 18.4 percent. Thats almost certainly risen with unemployment in the time of COVID. But if Texas expanded Medicaid to adults who earn 138 percent above the poverty line  roughly $17,774 for an individual or $36,570 for a family of four  then some 1.3 million people would have access to health care.

But wait, theres more. If the state would expand Medicaid it would unlock about $5.4 billion in federal dollars, or 90 percent of the cost.

And the Perryman Group, an economics firm, recently estimated Medicaid expansion would generate $1.95 in economic benefit for every dollar Texas invests in expansion. This would translate to about $2.5 billion for Texas and another $2 billion to local governments over the next biennium.

This is what the majority of Texans want. A January poll from the University of Houstons Hobby School of Public Affairs found 69 percent of respondents support expanding Medicaid here under the Affordable Care Act.

In other words, expanding Medicaid would provide coverage to more than 1 million Texans, reduce the states uninsured rate, return federal dollars to Texas, and generate state and local tax dollars while having the support of the majority of Texans  and lawmakers cant find a way to act? They cant boldly go where other red states such as Arizona, Arkansas and Oklahoma have gone before?

And on the other side of this argument is, well, nothing. Flimsy rhetoric about how having health insurance does not ensure quality health care or needing to find a conservative way forward on expanding Medicaid.

Nonsense. As state Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, said last month, If you take all the politics out of it, its really a bad decision not to access the federal dollars.

Larson recently filed legislation to push for Medicaid expansion, putting the issue on the ballot as a constitutional amendment. But as the saying goes, leadership can be a lonely place. Its unlikely such a bill could pass the Senate, and even if it did, Gov. Greg Abbott might veto it. This is Texas, after all, which has led the fight to unravel the Affordable Care Act.

Larson has argued not expanding Medicaid is bad business.

If you are paying into a system in D.C., he said, and youre not pulling the money back in, but youre raising taxes at the local level to offset that money youre paying in, I think thats fiscally irresponsible. The fiscally responsible thing to do is trying to maximize, like we do in every other revenue stream in the state budget.

Hes right. It is fiscally irresponsible to do nothing. Its also inhumane. About 5.2 million Texans lacked health insurance before the pandemic. Thats 5.2 million people who are likely to put off routine care only to end up in emergency rooms. Lawmakers could change this for more than 1 million Texans if they had the courage, and sense, to expand Medicaid. Why is it so hard to do the obvious right thing?
Malaysian govt. registering fishermen to ensure they are eligible for allowance

by KRISTY INUS

March 09,2021 | Source: The Star

The Agriculture and Food Industries Ministry of Malaysia is proactively tracing and registering fishermen in Sabah who have not obtained licenses to ensure they are eligible for an allowance.



Its minister Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee said registration with the Fisheries Department would allow the fishing community to receive government assistance, particularly the RM300 allowance for fishermen.



He said Sabah had many fisherman without proper licences, a problem not unique to the state.



"The ministry is taking action to solve this issue through the Fisheries Department with the help of Persatuan Nelayan Kawasan (PNK) and the state fishermen association (PNN)," said Ronald after attending a gathering with the fishing community of Pulau Jambongan Paitan in Beluran on Monday (March 8).



Ronald said there are 210 'authentic' fishermen in Jambongan Island who do not have fishing licences.



"The government wants the special allocations for fishermen to reach the target groups so that they can receive help like the livelihood allowance and fuel subsidy.



"Under Budget 2021, RM151mil has been set aside for the fishermen's allowance," he added.



At the same time, the Beluran MP said the ministry was also updating and rechecking the list of registered fishermen nationwide to ensure that they are full-time fishermen.



He also said PNK and PNN play active roles to ensure that the registration and legalisation procedures run smoothly, and also to determine that only legitimate fishermen are registered for licensing.

 1995- 2021 Star Media Group Berhad

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
KABUL  The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Mohammad Haneef Atmar met with Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Kabul, Mr. Dmitry Zhirnov.

Speaking about his recent visit to Moscow, Mr. Atmar thanked the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the warm and cordial reception extended to him and his accompanying delegation, and highlighted the achievements of the visit in expanding bilateral relations in the political, security and economic arenas.

The Russian ambassador to Kabul talked about holding the Afghan peace talks in Moscow, and informed Mr. Atmar of invitations extended to the Afghan government leaders and politicians.

The Afghan Foreign Minister discussed the significant role of Russian Federation in strengthening the regional and international consensus for achieving a sustainable peace in Afghanistan adding that soon he would share the perspectives of the Afghan government with Russia regarding the Moscow meeting.
Karen Inman Mountain View Police

A woman in California was arrested after being accused of spitting on an Asian American man.

Karen Inman has been accused of yelling racial slurs and making racist comments on several occasions.

She has been charged with an anti-Asian hate crime.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A 39-year-old woman from California was charged with an "anti-Asian hate crime" after she was accused of using ethnic slurs and spitting on a stranger, the Santa Clara County District Attorney said.

Karen Inman, of Greenbrae, was arrested Friday in Mountain View after police were told she had attempted to steal candy and ice cream from a Smart and Final grocery store, police said in a statement.

By the time of the arrest, she had already been identified as a suspect in a February 13 theft, during which she allegedly told the victims she didn't have to pay because they were Asian. When police responded to that call last month, they received another call, accusing Inman of yelling racial epithets at a diner and spitting in the direction of an Asian-American man who was eating there.

Police interviewed victims from both interactions that day, but neither wanted to press charges so officers released her.

The department proceeded in its investigation after Inman's release, police said.

The District Attorney's office issued an arrest warrant and when officers received a call about the petty theft on Friday, Inman was also charged with a hate crime for her previous accused behavior.

"This case is both disheartening and disturbing. Mountain View is a vibrant community in many ways thanks to the diversity that exists here," Chief Chris Hsiung said in a written statement. "Hate crimes have not and will not be tolerated in Mountain View and as this case demonstrates, we take these crimes seriously and will investigate them to the fullest extent."

Hate against Asian Americans skyrocketed in the last year, due in part to a false narrative blaming them for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the original article on Insider
ATHENS, Greece, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Fonolo, the cloud-based call-back solution pioneer, announced today that it has partnered with Cosmos Business Systems, one of the largest IT and Telecommunication System Integrators and contact center resellers in the Greek & Cypriot market.

Fonolo's innovative call-back solutions allow organizations of all sizes to quickly and easily add call-back functionality to their contact centers, improving customer satisfaction by eliminating hold times and reducing abandon rates.

"Consumers today are too busy to be kept waiting on hold. So, it's no surprise that companies who are able to replace hold time with a call-back have drastically improved their customer satisfaction rates," says Shai Berger, CEO of Fonolo. "This partnership will allow Cosmos Business Systems to offer their clients a simple and effective solution to mitigate long hold times."

Cosmos Business Systems is one of one of the largest IT and Telecommunication System Integrators in Greece and Cyprus. They focus on helping companies excel by finding the right solutions to overcome their business challenges.

"Cosmos Business Systems is pleased to announce its partnership with Fonolo, the leader in cloud-based call-back solutions," says Elias Rizos, BUs Director & Sales Private Sector Deputy Director of Cosmos Business Systems. "Through this partnership, Cosmos Business Systems will offer innovative new solutions to companies in the Greek & Cypriot market".

To learn more about call-backs, visit fonolo.com or sign up for a 30-minute demo.

About Fonolo

Fonolo, the industry leader in cloud-based call-back solutions, has revolutionized the way contact centers interact with customers through web, mobile, and voice. The company's patented call-back technology empowers customers with an innovative alternative to waiting on hold.

Fonolo's award-winning solutions are trusted by a growing list of call centers that aim to enhance the customer experience. From Fortune 500 companies to SMBs, Fonolo is valued by customers for its scalability, expertise, and proven ROI.

About Cosmos Business Systems

Established in 1988, Cosmos Business Systems is one of the largest IT and Telecommunication System Integrators in Greece and Cyprus. The company's objective is to offer Integrated "Turn-Key Solutions" of superior quality in IT infrastructure, Telecommunications, Networking and Security, Services, Software & Consulting to the Greek and Cypriot industrial and commercial market, as well as business professionals. They focus mainly on supporting mid to large-sized corporations in the private sector, public sector, banking, and telecoms, with main focus to maximize productivity and competitiveness.

For media inquiries, please contact: media(at)fonolo.com
If you dont have a smart TV, youre automatically locked out of watching content from streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Voot - unless you have a smart TV stick or a Google Chromecast device. But picking one can be difficult as some platforms are missing useful features like YouTube support or a built-in browser.

Weve got a handy guide to help you navigate the top three streaming devices you can connect to your TV to gain smart features right away.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K. (Amazon Developers)

If you buy the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, youll be spending the most among all the competitors on this list. But what youll gain is 4K streaming, HDR10+ video content support - and even Dolby Vision if your display supports it. It is powered by a quad-core processor and runs on Fire OS and the Infrared Remote support is very handy.

Also read: Google faces lawsuit over claims of 4K streaming on Stadia

The Fire Stick provides access to Netflix (with a non-mobile plan), Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar and much more. Youll also have access to Alexa that comes built into the remote so you can dictate commands instead of typing your requests manually. The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K retails for 5,999.

The Motorola 4K Android TV Stick. (Flipkart/Motorola)

Motorolas new 4K Android TV Stick was launched earlier today and comes with full HDR10 and HLG support as long as you have a compatible device. If you dont have a 4K device, you can stream content at either 1080p or even 720p, depending on the screen resolution supported by your TV. It runs on a quad-core processor and runs on Android Pie.

Read more: Flipkart launches Motorola 4K Android TV Stick in India, priced at 3,999

The Motorola 4K Android TV Stick will give you access to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Zee5, YouTube, and more. It also has support for Google Assistant and allows for full Chromecast support. The remote also has support for hotkeys for streaming apps like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube and Zee5. The Motorola 4K Android TV Stick retails for 3,999.

Xiaomi Mi Box 4K

The Xiaomi Mi Box 4K. (Mi.com)

This is the cheapest device among the three we have compared in this list, but that doesnt mean the Mi Box 4K is short on features. This compact device plugs right into your TVs HDMI port and turns it into a smart TV. It runs on Android Pie and users can access the internet through your homes Wi-Fi connection but it also comes with Bluetooth support for the included remote, controller support and audio peripherals.

Don't miss: Xiaomi Mi Box 4K: In pics

You can use the Mi Box 4K to access a massive collection of apps and services such as YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hotstar, Googles YouTube Kids app and much more. The system also supports Chromecast functionality so you can simply mirror your phone, or tablet - or even your laptops screen wirelessly. For users who store their movies on USB drives, you can also access these files via apps on the Mi Box 4K. The device retails for Rs, 3499.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Argentina decided to extradite to Russia a citizen of Colombia accused of stealing valuables worth 160 million rubles ($2.1 million), Andrey Ivanov, a spokesman for Russia's Prosecutor General's Office, told reporters.

"At the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, the competent authorities of the Argentine Republic extradited to Russia a citizen of the Republic of Colombia, Edgar Alejandro Valero Valero," Ivanov said.

According to prosecutors, in Russia the Colombian is accused of large-scale theft.

Investigators say that in July 2018, at the Kazan exhibition pavilion, the culprit and accomplices stole a travel suitcase with jewelry worth 160 million rubles from an employee of the Seven Diamonds jewelry company and fled the scene.

The court in Kazan arrested the criminal in absentia, and he was put on a wanted list.

In September 2019, the accused was detained in Argentina. The extradition process was multi-stage, during 2019-2020, materials and evidence were additionally submitted by Russina prosecutors. In September 2020, the positive decision on his extradition was reached. Accompanied by officers of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service and the Russian Bureau of Interpol, Edgar Alejandro Valero Valero will be delivered to Moscow.




By Kim Hyun-bin







Third- and fourth-generation conglomerate chiefs are reorganizing their company portfolios, selling off unprofitable businesses and double downing on future growth sectors to gain competitiveness and better recover from the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.







Koo Kwang-mo who took the helm of LG Group in June 2018 has been focusing on new growth sectors including AI and robotics while selling off unprofitable businesses.







The chairman recently announced the company would sell off LG Electronics' mobile communications division, which has incurred consecutive losses for the conglomerate for years.







Soon after he was appointed, LG liquidated fuel cell subsidiary LG Fuel Cell Systems, in addition to deciding to sell LG Electronics' Hi-Entech and LG-Hitachi Water Solutions.







LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo





LG Chem's LCD business was also sold off to a Chinese company and LG Uplus sold its electronic payment system unit to a startup company.







Koo has been pinpointing future growth in artificial intelligence, robotics and automotive electronics.







Late last year, LG Electronics and Canada-based Magna International, the world's third-largest auto parts maker, established a joint venture to manufacture e-motors and e-drive systems, to support a growing global shift toward vehicle electrification.







Other affiliates have been enhancing competitiveness in diverse fields with LG Energy Solutions leading the electric vehicle battery industry, LG Electronics and LG Innotek developing vehicle components and LG Display providing the displays.







Kim Dong-kwan takes over key management







Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn's eldest son Hanwha Solutions President Kim Dong-kwan have been increasing his oversight in the conglomerate's key businesses including defense and space development sectors.







Kim has been appointed to lead the conglomerate's Space Hub in charge of managing the conglomerate's space development, Sunday. Space Hub has combined several affiliates related to aerospace.







Hanwha Solutions President Kim Dong-kwan





Hanwha plans to enhance collaboration between affiliates, brainstorm ways to maximize synergy effects and enter the satellite communication business. The conglomerate aims to launch satellites through the collaboration of Hanwha Aerospace, Satrec Initiative and Hanwha Systems.







Hyundai's Chung search for future growth businesses







Chung Ki-sun, a member of the Hyundai owner family's third generation and senior vice president of Hyundai Heavy Industries, is leading efforts to conduct M&A deals with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) to enhance competitiveness in the shipbuilding sector, and is in the process of acquiring a 35.4 percent stake in Doosan Infracore.







Industry watchers believe a great synergy could take place with the DSME acquisition, with the company starting to pick up steam in procuring LNG ship orders from overseas.







The senior vice president is also speeding up efforts to excavate future growth businesses and last September established a Future Committee, which he is in charge of.







The committee plans to find new growth businesses in the bio, AI, hydrogen and energy sectors.


Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, will present the 2021 Budget Statement of Government in Parliament on 12 March. Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah revealed this on Monday to the media after a cabinet retreat at the Peduase Lodge.



Traditionally, it is the Minister for Finance who presents the budget statement in Parliament on behalf of government. However, Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister for Finance-designate, is yet to be vetted by Parliaments Appointment Committee due to ill-heath.



Ofori-Atta left Ghana for the United States on Sunday 14 February 2021 to treat post-COVID-19 medial complications. Ofori-Atta is said to have recovered from the novel coronavirus, COVID-19 last December and has since had some medical complications.



After recovering from COVID-19 last December, Mr. Ofori-Atta has had medical complications which doctors advise, require further interventions not currently available in Ghana, a statement from the Ministry said.



He was expected to be vetted by the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Monday 8 March 2021. A new vetting date is yet to be communicated.





Source: asaaseradio









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Murdoch University vice chancellor Eeva Leinonen has resigned after being appointed president of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

Murdoch Universitys chancellor Gary Smith said Professor Leinonen informed the Senate on Monday of her new higher education leadership opportunity and said she was leaving to be closer to her family.

Murdoch University vice-chancellor Eeva Leinonen. Credit:Attila Csaszar

Professor Leinonen has delivered outstanding leadership to our university guided by a bold strategic plan which has seen the University pursue new teaching and research initiatives, invest in new facilities and infrastructure projects, while strengthening its financial position, said Mr Smith.

I have enjoyed working with Professor Leinonen and admire her talents as a university leader and academic. Maynooth University is gaining an outstanding leader and I wish her the very best for the future.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  A lawmaker is urging the House panel of the congressional oversight committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement to convene as the fate of the decades-old military deal between the Philippines and the US hangs in the balance.

President Rodrigo Duterte moved to terminate the VFA in February 2020, a move linked to the cancellation of Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosas US visa allegedly due to alleged extrajudicial killings under his watch as Philippine National Police chief. Duterte suspended the abrogation of the VFA when the coronavirus pandemic broke out.

In a speech early February, Duterte said the US government "has to pay" if it wants to keep the VFA. Later that month, the President said he has not yet decided on what to do "because I want to hear the people."

Following the Presidents pronouncement, Muntinlupa Rep. Ruffy Biazon, vice chairman of the House Committee on National Defense and Security, filed a resolution on February 26 calling for a "thorough discussion on possible options for the country regarding the agreement."

"Being direct representatives of the people, and with the mandate given to the Oversight Committee on the VFA, the House panel is in a position to assist the President in this respect," Biazons resolution read.

The congressman cited the need to maintain alliances amid the "volatile situation" in the West Philippine Sea, parts of which is being claimed by China, as well as to keep modernizing the Armed Forces and enhance its capability for humanitarian and disaster response.

In a text message to CNN Philippines on Tuesday, Biazon said his resolution has been referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, but "it hasnt been heard by the committee yet."

During a Senate hearing on the issue last year, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro "Teddy Boy" Locsin, Jr. said the country stands to lose billions of pesos worth of US assistance if the VFA is abrogated.

The VFA is a 1998 agreement between Manila and Washington on the protocol for American military personnel in the country. It is seen to support the Mutual Defense Treaty, another agreement between the Philippines and the US which guarantees that the two countries will provide military aid to each other in case their metropolitan areas or territories in the Pacific are attacked by a foreign force.

Among its controversial provisions are the lax visa and passport policies for American troops and the authority granted to the US government to retain jurisdiction over its soldiers if ever they commit crimes on Philippine soil.

EXPLAINER: The Visiting Forces Agreement

Biazon said now may be the "opportune time" to talk about the VFA with the assumption of US President Joe Biden.
New Delhi: Supreme Court on Monday (March 8) issued notice to all states on a petition seeking appropriate directions and orders to the respondents, including the Union of India (UOI) to map, enumerate and register the number of infants and children of migrant families at various worksites and centres of concentration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A three-judge bench of the Apex Court, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde and also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued notices to all the states and sought their replies in the petition filed by, Bangalore-based NGO, The Child Rights Trust.

"We issue notice to all the states, and seek their reply on the petition," the apex court said.

The petitioner, The Child Rights Trust, had moved the Supreme Court seeking enforcement of fundamental rights, under Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, 21A, 39 and 47 of the Constitution, of migrant children and children of migrant families during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Bangalore-based NGO had sought direction to the Union of India and others, to set up children's assistance centres in all major areas of concentration of migrant labour households that would facilitate migrant families to get information and assistance about the basic needs relating to health care, food security, education for children.

The petitioner also sought direction that the Anganwadi centres in villages should extend their services to all migrant children and households and to provide mid-day meals and rations free of cost to migrant children at their homes.

The petitioner sought a direction from the top court that the respondents should provide basic food and nutrition to migrant children and migrant workers through the ICDS Scheme, targeted public distribution system and other welfare schemes covered under the National Food Security Act, 2013 for children in the ages of 0-14 years.

The petitioner also sought that the respondents should be directed to report on the provision of health services of immunization, health check-ups, primary health care services to children of migrant workers.

It also sought that the pregnant and lactating mothers also be given due care and treatment, through ICDS and other schemes including the Primary Health Centres both at their place of migration and source villages and schemes under the National Health Mission.

The petitioner also sought that necessary direction be made to the Respondents, UOI and others, to give data on the out of school migrant children from all the States and to provide an action plan on providing a temporary education plan for migrant children and an action plan on how migrant children will be brought back to schools when schools start.

Live TV
A neo-Nazi caught with an Adolf Hitler face mask and a copy of the Mein Kampf brutalised his housemate in a five-hour ordeal over a stolen swastika T-shirt.

The housemate was threatened with a bat and beaten over a period of more than five hours in an inner-city East Brisbane home in May 2019.

Neo-Nazi Michael Shayne Halcrow, 38, and Gavin Daniel Menzies pleaded guilty to a string of offences including armed robbery, possession of a weapon and robbery with violence in the Brisbane District Court on Tuesday.

On the day of the assault, Halcrow accused his housemate of stealing the anti-Semitic T-shirt which depicted a Nazi swastika, prosecutor Michael Gawrych said.

Neo-Nazi Michael Shayne Halcrow (pictured), 38, and Gavin Daniel Menzies pleaded guilty to a string of offences including armed robbery, possession of a weapon and robbery with violence in the Brisbane District Court on Tuesday

The court heard the pair stole the housemate's possessions stored in a cupboard and threw them in a bin before entering the bedroom.

The terrified housemate cowered inside when Halcrow and Menzies stormed the room, screaming: 'Where is the shirt?'

They kicked in his bedroom door and beat and abused the victim for the next five hours as they tried to find the offensive shirt.

At the height of the brutal assault, Menzies thrust his thumb into a wound on the victim, ripping open the stitches and causing 'immense pain', the court was told.

The victim managed to call the police, but when officers arrived, Menzies warned him to stay hidden, or he would 'crack his skull open'.

After more than five hours, the terrified housemate finally fled the home, abandoning his belongings, too scared to return.

He remains traumatised by the attack, unable to give a victim impact statement to the court.

Halcrow, who has the word 'damaged' tattooed across his forehead, was later arrested in a police raid in September, when officers seized 35 Nazi-related propaganda items, including the face mask.

He tried to claim the swastika held a different meaning in his native home of New Zealand at one stage.

Halcrow later denied any affiliation with neo-Nazi or white supremacist groups to doctors this year, the court was told.

'It is not illegal to possess that type of material,' Halcrow's barrister Cecelia Bernardin told the court.

The court was told Menzies was the main instigator of the violence, but the theft of Halcrow's shirt lead to the assault.

The prosecution rejected the claim and entered nine pages of photographs of white supremacist material found in his home into evidence.

Judge Michael Byrne is expected to hand down his sentence later on Tuesday.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysia's top court ruled that a North Korean man can be extradited to the United States to face money laundering charges, rejecting his assertion that the U.S. charge was politically motivated.

The Federal Court on Tuesday refused to accept Mun Chol Myong's arguments because it was not a trial, and agreed with a lower court that prosecutors had followed procedures, said defense lawyer Gooi Soon Seng.

Mun, who is in his 50s, has lived in Malaysia for a decade and was arrested in May 2019 after U.S. authorities requested his extradition. Malaysias government approved the extradition, but Mun challenged the U.S. bid.

In his affidavit, Mun denied U.S. accusations that he was involved in supplying prohibited luxury goods from Singapore to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions while working in the city state before moving to Malaysia in 2008.

Mun denied that he laundered funds through front companies and that he issued fraudulent documents to support illicit shipments to his country. He said in his affidavit that he was the victim of a politically motivated extradition request aimed at pressuring North Korea over its missile program.

Gooi said Mun's family was upset with the ruling and worried that he would not be given a fair trial in the U.S. He said the U.S. didnt seek to extradite three Singaporeans who worked in the same company with Mun and were also charged in the U.S. with money laundering. The Singaporeans were also charged in the city state for breaching U.N. trade sanctions on North Korea and were fined.

That's why we are saying the offense is of a political nature," Gooi said. He is a pawn caught in the rivalry between the U.S. and North Korea."

Gooi said Mun has to be deported within three months from Tuesday's ruling and likely will be sent to the District of Columbia.
Authorities in Hanoi have announced that Huong Pagoda in My Duc District is allowed to reopen on Saturday and weekend pedestrian streets around Hoan Kiem Lake are set to resume operations from Friday.

The decision was announced by Hanoi deputy chairman Chu Xuan Dung at the municipal Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Controls meeting on Monday afternoon.

Speaking at the meeting, Hoang Duc Hanh, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Health, said that the capital city had gone 21 days without detecting new cases of COVID-19 in the community.

However, as the risk of new domestic infection remains high, Hanh requested the Peoples Committee of My Duc District to provide a detailed plan for religious activities at the Huong Pagoda upon its resumption.

In response to Hanhs request, Dang Van Canh, deputy chairman of My Duc District, affirmed that the COVID-19 prevention and control measures would be the top priority upon the reopening of Huong Pagoda this Saturday.

Specifically, separated rooms have been set up for visitors to complete the required procedure for health declarations.

The number of boats transporting visitors to the pagoda will be also limited.

Visitors will have reduced visiting time and must keep distance between one another.

Like Canh, Dinh Hong Phong, deputy chairman of Hoan Kiem District, home to the pedestrian streets around Hoan Kiem Lake, stated that local authorities had prepared all necessary anti-epidemic measures to welcome visitors back to the famous weekend pedestrian zone from Friday evening.

Previously, authorities in Hanoi had decided to suspend all weekend activities on the pedestrian streets around Hoan Kiem Lake from February 5.

In his concluding remarks, deputy chairman Dung said the citys authorities and departments agreed to reopen the historical and religious sites starting on Monday.

As for the Huong Pagoda, Dung agreed that the religious site can be reopened, regarding My Duc Districts carefully-prepared plan for COVID-19 prevention and control.

Dung reminded the grassroots authorities to strictly comply with the regulations on epidemic prevention during the operations of these venues.

The Huong Pagoda comprises a complex of pagodas and Buddhist shrines built into the limestone cliffs of the Huong Mountain.

Visitors often take small boats along scenic waterways between the limestone cliffs to access the pagoda.

The Huong Pagoda Festival is among the greatest Buddhist festivals in the northern part of Vietnam, lasting for three months, from the first to the third month in the lunar calendar.

The festival attracts more than one million visitors on average each year.

The Peoples Committee of My Duc had previously decided not to organize the annual opening ceremony of the festival this year for fear of COVID-19 transmission.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Gov. Greg Abbott visited the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday and accused the Biden administration of inviting a wave of new migrant crossings and causing a health and security crisis in Texas.

It is clear they are completely unprepared for what is going on at the border now, Abbott said of the administration. And theyre going to be even more unprepared for what will be happening in the coming months.

The governors aerial tour and meetings with border patrol came as Republicans ramp up their efforts to pin the influx on President Joe Bidens shift away from Trump-era immigration restrictions. Even some Democrats along the border have warned of an emerging crisis.

BORDER DEMOCRATS SOUND ALARM: We are weeks, maybe even days from a crisis at the border

Experts say the big increase in apprehensions in recent weeks is the latest in a seven-year flow of people fleeing poverty, violence and political upheaval in their home countries, which started in 2014. At its peak in 2019, there were as many as 130,000 apprehensions in a single month along the Mexican border. There were 75,000 such apprehensions in January, the most recent federal data show.

Apprehensions were rising as Trump left office

The Obama and Trump administrations took varying approaches to stemming that flow, mostly sparking political battles without making headway on longer term solutions.

U.S. politics and politics around immigration are not built for the long term, said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Theyre built to respond to short term crises.

While Trump was successful in the short term at curbing the number of migrants entering the country, Bolter said any shift away from his restrictive policies  which essentially ground the asylum system at the border to a halt  was bound to create an influx. Among the policies Trump enacted was a requirement that asylum seekers wait in Mexico for their hearings in the U.S. Some 29,000 people were in that queue amid an asylum backlog that reached 500,000 cases.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Even before Biden took office, apprehensions at the border were on the rise.

The Biden administration has since ended the remain-in-Mexico policy and is preparing to convert its immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into rapid-processing hubs to screen migrant parents and children with the goal of releasing them into the United States within 72 hours.

But Biden has largely left in place a Trump-era public health order that allows authorities to turn away the migrants at the border  and officials have said theyre still denying entry to the vast majority of those arriving.

Unlike Trump, however, Biden is no longer using that order to expel children. And Mexico recently passed a law against detaining migrant children, so the flow of children and families to the U.S. has only increased.

These policies were effective in the short term for what the Trump administration wanted to do, which was not let in people who were migrating to the U.S. from Central America, Bolter said. These solutions the Trump administration had werent necessarily effective in the long term. These people are still wanting to come to the U.S.

Biden says he is set on longterm fixes including reforming the asylum system and offering more aid to the countries places migrants are fleeing. With crossings up, though, he has been forced to focus on the immediate problem.

Over the weekend, the administration sent a group of senior officials to Texas, where they toured a Carrizo Springs migrant children shelter and are expected to report back to the president this week. The Department of Homeland Security has also started flying hundreds of migrant families from South Texas to El Paso to ease overcrowding at facilities in the Rio Grande Valley.

Its unclear just how many migrants are crossing into Texas, but numbers have been rapidly increasing. The number of families detained jumped 62 percent from December to January, the most recent available data shows. Apprehensions of children rose 18 percent.

The bulk of the apprehensions in recent months have been single adults, though apprehensions of unaccompanied children are also on the rise and could be on the cusp of a surge, experts said.

Border Patrol apprehended 5,700 unaccompanied child migrants in January, the most recent data available, and anecdotal evidence suggests that number rose considerably in February, said Bolter of the Migration Policy Institute. The 2014 and 2019 surges saw between 7,000 and 9,000 apprehensions of unaccompanied children a month with peaks above 10,000, she said.

Wermund reported from Washington; Blackman reported from Austin.

jeremy.blackman@chron.com

ben.wermund@chron.com
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 09:45:53|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ADDIS ABABA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health on Tuesday evening reported 995 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours, taking the national count to 167,133.

Meanwhile, 13 new deaths were recorded, bringing the total death toll to 2,442, said the ministry.

With 139 more recoveries registered, the total recoveries rose to 138,639, it said.

Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation, is one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic in Africa, after South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.

The country has so far reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the East African region.

The Ethiopian government recently started a campaign to encourage face mask wearing in public as part of COVID-19 precautionary measures so as to contain the spread of the virus.

Ethiopia has so far conducted 2,184,745 COVID-19 tests, including 6,342 new ones during the last 24 hours, said the ministry.

It is one of the African countries which have conducted the most COVID-19 tests, mainly next to South Africa and Morocco, according to recent figures from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Enditem
Funeral homes often submit obituaries as a service to the families they are assisting. However, we will be happy to accept obituaries from family members pending proper verification of the death.

Submit
NY bill could force schools to teach sex ed to kindergartners, gender identity to 2nd graders

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A new bill introduced in the New York Senate, sponsored by a freshman Democrat, could make comprehensive sex education compulsory to children as young as five in public and charter schools and force schools to teach kids about gender identity by the end of second grade.

Sen. Samra G. Brouk introduced Senate Bill S2584A, which seeks to require comprehensive sexuality instruction for students in grades K-12. The bill would require the instruction of model curricula for comprehensive sex education that conforms to the content and scope of national sexuality education standards.

"Comprehensive sexuality education covers issues like healthy relationships, body image, and self-esteem," Brouk wrote in a justification of the bill.

"In kindergarten, that looks like basic lessons about friendship and communication, providing students with the building blocks they need to tackle issues like consent and sexual health years later in middle and high school. At older ages those lessons include health matters like preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)."

The bill seeks to link the states schools to recommendations on sex education by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, described as a liberal-leaning interest group that advocates for Sex Ed for Social Change.

The groups current standards propose that public and charter schools teach gender identity to kids as young as second grade.

According to the organizations standards chart, children by the end of the second grade should be able to define gender identity and gender-role stereotypes. Students at that age should also be able to discuss the range of ways people express their gender and how gender-role stereotypes may limit behavior.

By the end of fifth grade, the councils standards call for students to be able to explain differences between cisgender, transgender, gender nonbinary, gender expansive and gender identity. They should also be able to explain that gender expression and gender identity exist along a spectrum.

Also, by the end of fifth grade, the standards expect that students can describe the role hormones play in the physical, social, cognitive, and emotional changes during adolescence and the potential role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender.

By the end of eighth grade, students should be able to define sexual identity and explain a range of identities related to sexual orientation (e.g., heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, twospirit, asexual, pansexual).

Through policy, advocacy, education, and strategic communications efforts, SIECUS advances sex education as a vehicle for social change  working toward a world where all people can access and enjoy their own sexual and reproductive freedom, the council contends. Quality sex education goes beyond delivering information. It provides young people with opportunities to explore their own identities and values along with the values and beliefs of their families and communities.

Assemblyman Michael Reilly, a Republican member of the education committee, was quoted by The New York Post as saying that outsourcing our curriculum to this outside organization is a concern.

Additionally, Manhattan family law attorney Ken Jewell, who has two kids who attend New York City public schools, called the bill inappropriate.

These are things kids that age are not capable of comprehending yet, he told the newspaper.

The bill is opposed by the students' rights advocacy organization New York City Parents Union. New York City Parents Unions Sam Pirozzolo said that the state constitution does not guarantee we have to prepare our kids to change their sex if they want to.

We have schools where 95% of kids cant read or do math at grade level, and now they want to bring in these complicated social justice issues? He told The New York Post.

Like 22 other states, New York currently doesnt have a statewide sex-education requirement, allowing local school districts to decide.

Last December, many raised concerns after the United Nations Population Fund released new guidance on comprehensive sexuality education, providing a sex education framework for school-aged children outside of the classroom setting.

After listing a variety of scenarios where parents and guardians learn comprehensive sexuality education alongside their children and train other parents in such curriculum, the guidance expressed concern that parents wish their children to conform to prevailing gender norms (which are usually unequal), The guidance stressed that programmes must therefore help parents/guardians to model more equal gender attitudes and norms.

Dr. Rebecca Oas, director of research for the socially conservative Center for Family and Human Rights, called it an effort to ensure that students around the world receive the U.N.s controversial sex education, wherever they are.

One of the major problems with this is that comprehensive sexuality education is trying to teach a comprehensive education through the realms of sexuality as opposed to teaching a comprehensive education of which that is a part, Oas told The Christian Post in December. Not everything comes back to that.
One lucky fan of Oasis could soon own a slice of the rock band's glittered history as a contract from one of their earliest gigs is set to sell at auction.

The contract, being sold by Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, near Derby, Derbyshire, lists requests from the band such as a 'good quality two-course hot meal', specifying 'not fast food', and 24 'large cans of quality lager'.

If the meal could not be provided then the band requested that 6 per head be given to the tour manage so they could buy the food instead.

One lucky fan of Oasis (pictured on May 7, 1995, before their Knebworth Park concert) could soon own a slice of the rock band's glittered history as a contract from one of their earliest gigs is set to sell at auction in Derbyshire on March 23

The contract (pictured), being sold by Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, near Derby, Derbyshire, lists requests from the band such as a 'good quality two-course hot meal', specifying 'not fast food', and 24 'large cans of quality lager'

Also among the band's list of demands were at least two 'sober-speaking' venue staff to help move equipment, four litres of still mineral water, 10 cans of assorted soft drinks, plus fruit juices, teas and coffee.

Another line from the pre-performance contract, from a 1994 gig at The Old Trout in Berkshire, asking for 'crisps, nuts, biscuits, fresh fruit (minimum of eight pieces)', is scribbled out.

The Primary Talent International contract is for an Oasis gig at The Old Trout in Windsor, Berkshire, and was drawn up on April 18, 1994, a few weeks before the gig on May 7 that year.

The venue played host to other Britpop names of the era including Oasis' chart-rivals Blur, as well as performances from groups such as Everything But The Girl, Inspiral Carpets, Spiritualized and Pop Will Eat Itself.

Alongside the gig contract, a flyer advertising the concert is also included in the paperwork which is set to sell at auction

The Primary Talent International contract is for an Oasis gig at The Old Trout in Windsor, Berkshire, and was drawn up on April 18, 1994, a few weeks before the gig on May 7 that year. Pictured: Oasis performing during their concert at the Cardiff International Area on December 10, 1997

The gig happened just three months before Oasis released their debut album Definitely Maybe, rocketing the group to chart-topping stardom, before they eventually split in 2009.

The paperwork is set to go up for auction on March 23, with Hansons' music memorabilia specialist Claire Howell describing the contract as 'extremely rare'.

Speaking about the Oasis contract, she said: 'This lot comes with great provenance. It also includes a flyer advertising the gig.

'It's valued at 1,000-1,500 but I wouldn't be surprised to see it sell for more.

'It could easily whip up a bidding frenzy among fans at auction, such is the enduring popularity and nostalgia for Oasis.

Hansons' music memorabilia specialist Claire Howell (pictured) said the concert paperwork has an estimated value of between 1000 and 1,500 but that she wouldn't be surprised to see it sell for more thanks to an increase in demand for 90s Britpop memorabilia

Also among the band's list of demands were at least two 'sober-speaking' venue staff to help move equipment, four litres of still mineral water, 10 cans of assorted soft drinks, plus fruit juices, teas and coffee. Pictured: Liam (right) and Noel (left) Gallagher stood next to each other on August 23, 1996

'The seller is a lady who worked in the music industry and amassed an interesting collection over the years.

'She is now looking to sell some specialist pieces ahead of retirement.

'She confirmed the contract was purchased directly from a man who organised gigs at The Trout at the time.'

Howell also said that memorabilia relating to 90s Britpop bands is gaining value, with few groups having left as big a mark on UK culture than Oasis.

She added: 'Rumours are rife Oasis may reunite in 2021 and this 27-year-old find has certainly brought memories of the band's early days flooding back.'
Actor politician Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam has finalised a seat sharing pact with two of its allies for the April 6 Assembly polls and it is set to contest from 154 segments out of the 234 constituencies.

MNM inked an agreement with actor-politician Sarathkumar's All India Samathuva Makhal Katchi and Indiya Jananayaka Katchi to jointly fight the polls.

According to the understanding reached here late last night, AISMK and IJK would contest from 40 seats each.

The primary goal was to contest polls in alliance with a "promise for change and emerge victorious to form the government," the agreement said.

The parties have committed to the common goal of transforming Tamil Nadu by fulfilling the long pending aspirations of the people, the pact said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
TRAI's SMS Regulations That Hit OTP Messages Postponed for 7 Days after Furore from Customers

To improve end-user experience and eliminate spam and fraudulent commercial communication, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) implemented its template registration and scrubbing regulations. However, due to inadequate preparations by telecom companies as well as service-providers, this has hit the financial customers hard. Many financial consumers are finding it difficult to receive SMS, especially the one-time passcode (OTP) for transactions. Following furore on social media about the hasty implementation, the telecom regulator decided to defer the regulations for next seven days.

Media reports say the new regulations have affected receiving OTPs for bank transactions, CoWin registrations and Aadhaar updates, among other things.

In a release, TRAI says, "It has been observed that some of the principal entities have not fulfilled the requirements as envisaged in Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations 2018 (TCCCPR). As a result, their SMS were getting dropped after implementation of the scrubbing of SMS by telecom service providers. In order to protect the interest of consumers, it has been decided that scrubbing of SMS by TSPs shall be suspended temporarily for seven days to enable the principal entities to register the template of SMS so that no inconvenience is faced by the customers."

report from Economic Times , had mentioned that out of one billion average daily commercial SMS deliveries, around 40% traffic was disrupted till Monday evening and among top private and public sector banks, the failure rate was over 25%. had mentioned that out of one billion average daily commercial SMS deliveries, around 40% traffic was disrupted till Monday evening and among top private and public sector banks, the failure rate was over 25%.

Even BSE StAR MF cautioned its members about issues in receiving SMS and advised them to use alternate methods like email to receive the OTP for authentication.

Der members,

Pls note we have implemented "Govt. TRAI DLT Regulation" in BSE systems including StAR MF.

This might create intermittent issue in delivery of SMS.

Pls use alternate OTP received through email for authentication.

Regards,

Team BSE StAR MF @BSEIndia @Ganesh_StARMF  BSE StAR MF (@BSEStARMF) March 8, 2021 Due to TRAI regulation, there is some technical issue in delivery of few OTP/ SMS. We are coordinating to resolve the same at the earliest. inconvenience is regretted. Regards CUB  City Union Bank (@cubltd) March 9, 2021

As per the revised guidelines, entities that want to communicate through SMS with their customers will now have to register themselves with telecom operators. As per the guidelines, these entities and bulk SMS service-providers will be accountable to telcos, who will be directly accountable to TRAI. The system will be governed through distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain and all the entities listed on this platform will be interlinked with each other.

The regulations by TRAI mandate registration of transaction and service-related OTP templates. Every content template that is being registered by a principal entity (telco) is required to contain a brand name or complete business name, brand name and trademark in the content field. Any entity which does not have registration and sender ID approved by telcos, will find that its SMSes are not being processed and would fail to deliver to the intended recipient.

From 8 March 2021, this process, known as template registration and scrubbing, has gone live. However, it resulted in customers not receiving OTPs.

@TRAI @PMOIndia @rsprasad Because of changes in rules for sending sms, I am not receiving any sms from banks for executing NEFT and credit card transactions. Who will pay the late fee if payment is not getting done due to non receipt of OTP?  ???????? ??????? (@surendraperiwal) March 8, 2021 Trai changed some regulations related to SMS, so companies that send SMS OTP etc. are trying to figure out the way. No communication from telcos because nothing changed for them , rules are changed for the bank, websites etc that send otp..  ?? (@AndColorPockeT) March 9, 2021 SMS OTP Outage costing businesses hugely.

DLT Scrubbing not tested properly with vendors and its implemented from today!@TRAI @OfficeOfRSP  Himanshu Gautam (Mask Always) (@gautamhimanshu) March 8, 2021 @TRAI @PMOIndia @rsprasad Because of changes in rules for sending sms, I am not receiving any sms from banks for executing NEFT and credit card transactions. Who will pay the late fee if payment is not getting done due to non receipt of OTP?  ???????? ??????? (@surendraperiwal) March 8, 2021

According to the ET report, both telcos and financial service providers like banks are blaming each other for the mess. While banks are holding hasty implementation responsible for this, telcos say service-providers failed to register sender ID and template required for the distributed ledger technology (DLT) scrubbing platform.

"The Indian Banks' Association (IBA) earlier in the day reached out to both the TRAI and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), seeking an immediate postponement of the regulation. But an official at the telecom regulatory body said constant reminders were sent to banks regarding the impending deadline for the past 15 days," the report says.

Court passed an Order - @airtelindia @MyVodaindia etc implemented - SMS OTP services not working @TRAI



Everyone is RIGHT !!!



Only the common man is WRONG all the time !!



2 departments fighting & India suffering  Abhinav Mayank (@AbhinavMayank) March 8, 2021

Quoting sources from banking and payment service providers, the report says, The first day of these new rules saw transaction services across the board being disrupted including unified payments interface (UPI), Aadhaar enabled Payments (AePS), netbanking and credit card payments due to lack of registration of sender ID and content. "

Whoever is operating DLT... I think you should make it live in 2-3 Parts. Firstly there should have been trial run with promotional SMS for few months. Later you should have been implimanted DLT with Transactional SMS like OTP SMS. @Tanla_India @TRAI #InfoSec #SMS #OTPSMS  Rajshekhar Rajaharia (@rajaharia) March 8, 2021

Under the new regulations, SMSes are categorised in three activities, transactional, promotional and service, including implicit and explicit. Transactional category is reserved for banks for sending OTPs. Service-related informative messages will fall under the implicit category. If a customer has opted to receive promotional SMS from a particular entity then it will be come under the explicit category. General promotional SMS including offers, discounts will be delivered only to subscribers who have not opted for do-not-disturb (DND) or do-not-call (DNC).

Earlier, in September 2020, the Delhi High Court had asked the telecom regulator to act in accordance with the law against unregistered entities and against those persons not complying with its regulations, to curb the problem of UCCs.

You may also want to read...
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Federal regulators signed off on an environmental review of the Vineyard Wind turbine farm, which would be the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.

Orange-based Avangrid, the co-developer of Vineyard Wind, indicated Monday it expects the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to issue a final record of decision within a month, at which point it will be ready to begin preparations for construction of wind turbines 15 miles south of Marthas Vineyard.

The company projects it will support 3,600 job years, as it describes it, including through the hiring of outside contractors.

While Vineyard Wind electricity will be fed to Massachusetts utility customers, providing 800 megawatts of power  sufficient for 400,000 homes  the wind farm will lessen New Englands reliance on power plants that burn natural gas.

In approving the project, BOEM indicated it took into consideration any further construction delay on Connecticuts own clean energy goals, as Avangrid moves ahead with Park City Wind  a Bridgeport-based project slated for a 2025 launch, with assemblies to be loaded onto ships for subsequent installation offshore.

Eversource Energy is also planning a wind farm off the Southern New England coast called Revolution Wind to benefit Connecticut.

On days with sustained winds, Vineyard Winds electric output would approach that of the smaller of Millstone Nuclear Power Stations two reactors operated by Dominion Energy in Waterford, which paired with its larger sibling reactor forms New Englands largest power plant at more than 2,000 megawatts.

If approved by BOEM, Park City Wind will top slightly the power output of Vineyard Wind for Connecticut and Rhode Island customers. The bureau is currently analyzing a commercial operation plan submitted last year by Avangrid Renewables.

Vineyard Wind is structured as a joint venture of Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, with its main office in New Bedford, Mass. The developer is aiming for the turbines to begin generating electricity in 2023 and achieve full power output the following year.

Avangrid is also developing a larger wind farm off Kitty Hawk, N.C.; the three projects come on the heels of Deepwater Wind, which was built in 2016 to supply electricity to Block Island, R.I.

One of the things that weve learned is with Vineyard Wind [is] weve been the guinea pig with BOEM, said Avangrid CEO Dennis Ariola, speaking two weeks ago on a conference call. Our expectation is that, as we continue to go forward with Park City and with Kitty Hawk, the experience that we have and the comfort  hopefully  that BOEM has with our process is going to help us.

In January, Avangrid received the final approval necessary to proceed with New England Clean Energy Connect, snaking transmission lines south through Maine to import power from hydroelectric dams on the St. Lawrence Seaway in Quebec, Canada, adding 1,200 megawatts of capacity to the New England grid.

And Avangrid envisions a similar project for upstate New York called Excelsior Connect, only with lines buried  the company describes it as an underground clean energy superhighway  to feed hydro power to the New York City region.

The team has been working on this one for a while, looking at the most efficient and effective way from where we think we can receive energy from a renewable developer to get it all the way down to New York, Arriola said in late February. Its something that were really excited about.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
Only 2.7% of board members at Fortune 1000 companies are Latino; DHR to influence increased board diversity in the U.S. Tweet this

A diversity proponent and proven resource to board decision-makers, DHR is well-positioned to support the 21 in '21 initiative and influence a positive shift toward increased board diversity throughout the U.S. The company will engage its Latino Diversity Network of board-ready executives and its clients to bring more Latinx executives to public and private company boards across sectors.

While all industries have a need for greater diversity, the 21 in '21 program will place a focus on the private equity sector, where Latinx representation is especially low and there is a great opportunity to effect change. Thirty Percent Coalition states on its website "sound corporate governance practices that include diversity as a priority is also rapidly becoming a prerequisite for institutional investors who represent today 80% of the equity market cap."

"It's an honor to partner with HBSLAA on our 21 in '21 program, demonstrating our commitment to increasing Latinx diversity in the boardroom," said Keith Giarman, Managing Partner, Global Private Equity Practice at DHR and an HBS alumnus. "The economic value of the U.S. Latino community in 2017 was $2.3 trillion, comparable to the world's eighth-largest GDP in the world according to LDC Latino Donor Collaborative. This group will continue to drive the economy, and companies that understand the Latinx perspective will be poised to succeed."

"With an increased national conversation on diversity, equity, and inclusion, we are pleased to launch 21 in '21 in partnership with DHR," said Lulu Curiel, President Emeritus of HBSLAA.

"By engaging HBS board-ready alumni and board decision-makers, we will move the needle on driving diversity into the boardroom," said Melissa Hart, HBSLAA Board Member.

Leading this effort for DHR is Giarman; Christine DeYoung, Managing Partner, Commercial Growth Practice, Private Equity Practice Leader, and an HBS alumna; and Heather Smith, Partner, Global Board & CEO Practice. Working with them is Lizette Ibarra, Managing Partner of DHR's Miami office and leader within the firm's Diversity Practice with deep connections to the Latinx community. This team brings demonstrated success placing board directors for public and private companies across industry sectors and market capital size to drive shareholder value. They are also prominent advocates for diverse candidates, sharing their expertise to ensure more executives are board-ready.

About DHR International

For 30 years DHR International has been a leading, privately held provider of executive search solutions with more than 50 offices spanning the globe. DHR's renowned consultants specialize in all industries and functions in order to provide unparalleled senior-level executive search, management assessment, and succession planning services tailored to the unique qualities and specifications of our select client base. For more information on DHR International, visit http://www.dhrinternational.com.

About Harvard Business School Latino Alumni Association

The Harvard Business School Latino Alumni Association (HBSLAA) is a non-profit organization with the aim to connect, empower and advocate for Latinx business communities. The organization is dedicated to creating a community that brings together alumni, current students, prospectives, and faculty to increase its influence at HBS and in the national Latinx business community.

The HBSLAA works to achieve its mission by connecting the collective HBS Latinx community (prospectives, students, alumni, and faculty), empowering its alumni by creating learning and development opportunities and a platform for them to grow from graduation-to-retirement, and advocating for communities of color across Harvard University and globally. To learn more about HBSLAA, visit http://www.hbslaa.org.

SOURCE DHR International

Related Links

http://www.dhrinternational.com




Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
At press conference after press conference, Gov. Ned Lamont has set the stage how he wants Connecticut to be evaluated on its COVID-19 vaccine rollout by touting the percentage of people vaccinated as a key measure of its success. By that metric, Connecticut has been a national leader, consistently in the top five states, according to federal data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As of last week, 20 percent of the states population had received a first dose. That put Connecticut about four or five percentage points above the national rate. As of Sunday, Connecticuts figure was 24 percent.

But the state has its terms for success defined backward, said Saad Omer, Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist and the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. Thats a process metric, he said. Its not an outcome metric.

How important is speed in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout? To Connecticut, its an important enough consideration to partially justify bucking CDC guidance on prioritizing people with co-morbidities, though experts suggest that it is the best way to prevent deaths in younger populations.

But by rolling out vaccine through an age-based process, the state will effectively de-prioritize younger adults with co-morbidities that put them at higher risk of dying from COVID-19, Omer said, because in those younger age groups, those with existing health issues will be part of a much larger crowd of eligible residents.

Omer serves on the National Academy of Medicines committee for the equitable allocation of COVID-19 vaccines and the World Health Organizations global COVID-19 allocation committee. His guiding principle in making allocation recommendations has been simple: You can focus treatments on reversing the long-term effects of COVID. You can have an economic stimulus, he said.  But when you have three or four bad outcomes and one of them is death, you always focus on death.

The governor has said from the beginning that the goals of this vaccine rollout are to prevent severe illness and death and do it equitably, said Deidre Gifford, the commissioner of the Department of Public of Health. We have an obligation to both administer vaccine quickly and protect the people at highest risk, and do that in a way that balances the two the most carefully, and doesnt disadvantage certain populations along the way.

The original plan to prioritize those with co-morbidities would have both hampered the speed of vaccine distribution and hurt the states equity goals, the administration has said. It has sold its new, age-based plan to Connecticut residents in part on the premise that the rollout will be faster this way.

We absolutely are in a race against the virus and these variants that are emerging in certain parts of the country and the world, said Josh Geballe, the states chief operating officer. The quicker we can get as many people vaccinated in the state as possible, the more protection we have against COVID-19 generally and variants in particular.

But in a situation of limited vaccine supply, getting doses to the most vulnerable should be the first priority, Omer argued. Doses in arms should be a longer-term, secondary goal when the amount of vaccines available and being administered is sufficient to reduce transmission.

In other words: Is vaccination an end, or a means to reduce morbidity and mortality and suffering?

Age and mortality

The Lamont administration has argued that an age-based approach does take into account COVID mortality. Last Monday, Lamont presented a chart showing the age breakdowns of COVID-19 deaths in various 10-year age brackets, showing that the majority of deaths under 65 have been individuals aged 55-64.

But a strict age-based rollout has limitations in being able to identify those most at risk of dying of the disease among younger populations, Omer said.

Generally speaking, age is a strong factor in COVID mortality across all racial groups, though the risk of dying does not increase uniformly across racial groups with age, a CT Mirror analysis found  the death rate for Black and Hispanic COVID residents is higher at younger ages than for whites.

Omers recommendations for whom to prioritize for vaccinations, like the CDCs, also factored in age in initial stages, though Omer and his colleagues recommended starting with individuals aged 65 and older  as opposed to the 75-plus age bracket the CDC started with  to account for the the fact that Black and Hispanic people who die of COVID-19 are younger on average than their white counterparts. In Connecticut, the median age of death for a white person with COVID is 85, while for Black and Hispanic residents it was 76 and 73 respectively, a CT Mirror analysis of death data through November 2020 found.

Defending the states decisions to open up eligibility to people 55 and older on the CT Mirrors Steady Habits podcast, Geballe pointed out that 70 percent of the deaths of Black and white individuals aged 16-64 occurred among individuals aged 55-64. For Hispanic residents, that number drops to 59 percent.

But theres a point at which age becomes less useful in identifying at-risk individuals, as there are relatively fewer individuals who die of COVID-19 in younger age groups. Omer argues that that cutoff is under 60  though he conceded that it might be 55. Beyond that, focusing on co-morbidities would have been an evidence-based approach rather than jumping by age-bracket.

Slicing the data solely by age doesnt consider the underlying factors for why most younger individuals are dying at all. A study of a few hundred individuals aged 18-35 hospitalized in New York City found that 57 percent of them had at least one comorbidity; 97 percent of those who went on to die had at least one.

I am very sympathetic to those people who are in younger age groups who need to wait longer, Gifford said. But the question is, when youre implementing a population-wide strategy, how do you identify as a group those that are at highest risk? Connecticut data and national data show that COVID mortality increases with age brackets at all levels, including under 55, Gifford said  though the scale of the increase is lower with younger age groups. The prevalence of some co-morbidities  such as heart disease  also increases with age, she said.

A JAMA Internal Medicine study found that 18- to 34-year-olds with multiple underlying conditions  obesity, hypertension and diabetes  had similar risk to 35- to 64-year-olds without those co-morbidities.

While Black and Hispanic residents comprise 11 percent and 17 percent of the states 16-64 population, they comprised 27 percent and 26 percent of COVID-19 deaths in that age bracket, according to a CT Mirror analysis of Census data and death records through November.

If the state had stuck to its original plan, younger individuals at risk of dying would have already been eligible. Now they will have to wait weeks  in the case of those under 35, until eligibility is opened up the everyone over 16.

Youre going to have people who really need it at the back of the line, Omer said. By opening up so wide the eligibility groups, youre decreasing the probability of the most highly vulnerable to get that vaccine.

Behind the states U-turn

Originally, the states plan for the next phase would have had between 1.1 and 1.4 million people eligible for a vaccine, including people with co-morbidities and essential workers. That was an impossible job, Geballe said.

The main limiting factor in vaccine administration is not the states capacity so much as federal supply, Geballe said. In order to have staggered demand to meet supply, Geballe says the state would have had to stratify the original phase  and considered using age to do so, which would have added an additional layer of complexity.

At a press conference two weeks ago, Gifford said that an age-based allocation would reach at-risk individuals faster than the original plan. In addition, if the state had proceeded with the original plan, we would have been down a path of vaccinating a lot of perfectly healthy 25, 30-year-olds who, statistically speaking, regardless of what race and ethnicity they are, were highly unlikely to be severely ill or die from COVID if they were infected, Geballe said.

As the governor put it: Keep it simple, stupid.

Is equity served with an age-based rollout?

In privileging simplicity, the state is also defining the terms it wants to be judged on when it comes to equity.

Equity in the rollout process can be measured two ways: allocation and administration. Equity in allocation is about who can get in line for the vaccine and when. Equity in administration is whether the doses actually end up in the arms of people who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. They are separate, if related, goals; one does not necessarily follow from the other. A system that is equitable on paper is not necessarily equitable in practice.

The Lamont administration is largely focused on administrative equity, not just because officials believe that it would be logistically easier, but because they believe that detailed eligibility criteria hurt equity aims in practice, they have said.

Age-based rollout avoids the confusion and complexity that so many other states are facing, which impede equity, Gifford said.

Who has qualifying co-morbidities?

When it came to the question of identifying people with co-morbidities, the state had two problems: defining what would count as a co-morbidity, and figuring out how they would enforce it. Lamont has expressed frustration with the CDC lists for co-morbidities, deeming them confusing, arbitrary and non-comprehensive. And when it came to enforcing criteria, providers pushed back.

Yes, I understand that they cant do everyone who has a comorbidity, said 29-year-old Will Hermann, who has muscular dystrophy and cant wear a mask for prolonged periods. But I do think they should try to find the people who cant protect themselves.

The state is painting the situation as a false choice between two extremes, Omer said. The sweet spot at the moment is not to focus on the so-called essential workers but people with high risk factors at this time.

Other states are grappling with similar problems. Maine also announced an age-based rollout last month, and has allowed providers to prioritize those with co-morbidities in appointments within each stratum of eligibility. In California, efforts to transition to an age-based rollout that didnt consider underlying conditions were challenged by disability advocates and successfully reversed. Two federal complaints have been filed against Connecticut so far for not prioritizing people with disabilities; the second also claims the states policy is racially discriminatory.

The logistical complexities of considering co-morbidities hold little water with Omer.

What were we doing in the fall as a country and as a state when the first allocation schemes came out? he asked. Why do we continue to react instead of being proactive and thoughtful?

While it is difficult to identify everyone who might have a co-morbidity, people with multiple risk factors do show up in the health care system one way or another because of the severity of their symptoms and their need for hospital care, Omer said.

While you may have inequities in identifying people with just diabetes, its rare to miss someone with multiple co-morbidities, because they are so severely ill that even in an imperfect health care system they get identified.

Even if that were the case, that still disadvantages those who have lost their health insurance during the pandemic, Gifford said.

Theres a precedent for using co-morbidities to administer vaccines; the flu shot in the United States, before it was expanded to the whole population, prioritized people with co-morbidities, though coverage was admittedly poor, Omer said.

I refuse to believe that we dont have any muscle memory from that, he said.

Vaccine open season and challenges ahead

Anthony Fauci, the director of the CDC, described April as vaccine open season. President Joe Biden has announced that he expects to have secured enough doses to vaccinate every adult in the country by May.

When vaccine supply is no longer the main constraint, doses in arms is a reasonable metric to try to optimize, Omer said. When the state reaches a point where 30 percent-50 percent of the population has been covered by two doses, there will be population-level impacts on transmission.

Were not there, he said. But then it will get faster. Seventy to 80 percent, or 60 to 70 percent  depending on which variant is circulating  you will then have a substantial drop. Thats what is known as herd immunity  which is not a set threshold  and doesnt preclude outbreaks, but it does make them manageable, Omer said.

Connecticuts own projections from two weeks ago suggest the state will have enough first doses on hand to vaccinate 45 percent of the population by mid- to late April, according to data from the governors office. The United States is projected to vaccinate 50 percent of the population with first doses late May, according to projections by the New York Times.

The state could potentially vaccinate a high percentage of the population by the summer, Gifford said, though vaccine uptake among younger populations will be a deciding factor. Whether we reach herd immunity in May or July depends on how much vaccine we get and how quickly we administer it, Gifford said.

Countering vaccine hesitancy among people of color will be a key challenge for the state, said Andrew Heinrich, lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health. Data also suggest that the state will have to address vaccine hesitancy along partisan lines as well. Connecticuts current vaccination timeline assumes that the state can push out 105,000-110,000 first doses a week and vaccinate 60 percent of people in each age bracket as they become eligible; of course, once rendered eligible, residents can continue to receive vaccines in successive phases.

The question from an equity perspective is which 60 percent of the eligible population that will be initially.

The state has committed to sending 25 percent of vaccines to residents in 50 ZIP codes that have a highly vulnerable Census tract within them. Vulnerability is determined by a CDC index that takes into account 15 different factors, including race, income and living situation. The state has consistently found that individuals who live in highly vulnerable towns are less likely to be vaccinated than those who dont. The states data on vaccinations by race suggest disparities in vaccinations by race, but missing data  nearly a third of vaccinations went to individuals whose race was not properly recorded  makes it difficult to understand the scale of the problem.

Last week, Keith Grant, senior system director for infection prevention at Hartford HealthCare, addressed legislators, advocates and others at the Ministerial Health Fellowship town hall on vaccine hesitancy among people of color  and the need to continue to combat health inequity well past the pandemic. The mortality thats attached to this disease is not because of the COVID-19 pandemic, its because of disproportionate access  decades of disproportionate access  to health systems, disproportionate access in many very disadvantaged communities, he said. This is forcing us to raise critical questions in specific communities that we should use to administer and adjudicate what we need to fix in health care in general, and so much more work needs to be done, much more communication needs to be done.

Staff writer Jenna Carlesso contributed to this report.
ROCHESTER, Minn- A call to prayer was organized on Monday by Transform Minnesota, a religious organization. Pastors and their followers gathered for a virtual meeting to pray for righteousness and justice to prevail.

Although Mount Olive Lutheran Church has not yet organized a prayer service, its senior pastor Glenn Monson still believes people should lift their voices in prayer as Floyd's trial begins.

"We all know that there have been many instances like this and now it's coming to a boiling point where our country just needs

to gain some confidence again in the justice system," explained Monson. "This is a lot bigger than just one trial. It's sort of the combination of many many years of concerns of justice for people of color when it comes to police."

Monson tells KIMT News 3 you don't need to be inside the walls of a church to pray for peace.

"You can certainly do it with others. You can certainly do it by yourself using formalized liturgies or just impromptu."

He also said you don't need to wait for church on Sunday to find strength in prayer as it's something that can be done any time of day or night. Monson wants people to know that all faiths can be involved as well.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said he wants to hear from the state court of appeals about the prosecution's desire to revive a third-degree murder charge. Jury selection though is expected to get going tomorrow.
In this new role, Hayes will identify and coordinate the specific steps Blue Cross can take to ensure that a racial and health equity lens is applied to every aspect of its work and culture. He will serve as an advisor, bridge builder, strategic leader and partner, supporting other leaders across the organization to identify and execute initiatives that can bring about greater inclusiveness, representation, and lasting and meaningful change. A specific focus will be placed on enhancing policies, programs and health benefit plans in order to address the specific needs of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) members and communities more effectively.

Additionally, Hayes will work with the CEO to co-lead an internal cross-functional advisory group called the Racial Equity Action Committee for Health (REACH), which gives BIPOC associates a voice in how Blue Cross can best address racial and health inequities in communities throughout Minnesota.

"Embracing diversity of opinion, experience, cultural norms and insights is what makes companies vibrant, innovative and distinct," said Dr. Craig Samitt, president and chief executive officer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. "Bukata is a great fit with our organization and the ideal person for leading this important journey to deliver racial and health equity, both within our organization and in the communities we serve."

Hayes has more than 20 years of experience organizing and facilitating systemic change within large and small systems such as non-profit, K-12, higher education and rural communities. Before joining the Greater Mankato Diversity Council in 2006, he served as the coordinator of the Multi Ethnic Center at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, the first-ever position of its kind at the college.

Hayes received his bachelor's degree in exercise physiology from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. Additionally, he is actively involved in numerous community-based organizations, including the Mankato Chapter of the NAACP (executive committee); Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Board, Mankato (president); Steering Committee for Police Reform, Mankato; Mayo Clinic, Mankato Hospital Board; and the Blandin Foundation Board of Trustees. Additionally, Hayes also has served on the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation Board of Directors since 2014.

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

For nearly 90 years, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (bluecrossmn.com) has supported the health, wellbeing and peace of mind of our members by striving to ensure equitable access to high quality care at an affordable price. We are on a mission to inspire change, transform care and improve health for the people and communities we serve by reinventing both ourselves and the broader system. Our 2.5 million members can be found in every Minnesota county, all 50 states and on four continents. As a proud nonprofit organization, we believe working to advance wellness for all Minnesotans is the greatest investment we can make. Our goal is nothing less than for everyone to be able to achieve their full health potential, regardless of race or other socially defined circumstances. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, which serves more than 107 million members across the U.S.

SOURCE Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

Related Links

www.bluecrossmn.com


Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
The accusation outlined in The Times Union was the latest made by a female employee against Mr. Cuomo over the past few weeks. The governor has apologized for workplace remarks that he has described as playful comments, but that, in hindsight, may have been taken as unwanted flirtation by women on his staff. He has repeatedly insisted that he never inappropriately touched anyone.

The series of allegations began in late February when Lindsey Boylan, a former top official in the states economic development agency, published an essay describing a series of unsettling interactions with Mr. Cuomo. She said the governor once suggested they play strip poker on a flight back from a business trip and accused the governor of kissing her on the lips without her consent after a one-on-one meeting in his Manhattan office. Mr. Cuomo flatly denied her allegations.

Later that week, The Times reported on Ms. Bennetts sexual harassment allegations during her time as an aide to the governor last year. Ms. Bennett said that during a meeting alone in June with Mr. Cuomo in his State Capitol office, the governor asked if she was monogamous and whether she had sex with older men, among other questions about her personal life.

Ms. Bennett, now 25, said she took those remarks as a clear proposition. She reported her encounter with Mr. Cuomo to two of his senior aides and was promptly transferred to another job in the State Capitol before leaving the administration in November.

Since then, a number of other women have come forward to accuse the governor of inappropriate conduct, including unwanted advances and instances in which the women said they felt uncomfortable because he initiated physical contact  a hand on the back or a kiss on the cheek  without their permission.

The independent investigation being overseen by Ms. Jamess office will be led by two outside lawyers: Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York, and Anne L. Clark, a well-regarded employment lawyer.

The lawyers will have subpoena power to request documents and records from the state and to compel witnesses, including the governor, to testify under oath. They are expected to issue a public report with their findings, likely months from now.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi:

A brother and sister were arrested from Mumbai on Tuesday for allegedly stealing a service pistol and ammunitions from the house of a Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad constable on July 30.

Police said, the arrested siblings have been identified as Kamaljeeet Singh, 19, and his sister Gurpreet Kaur, 23.

Mumbai Police said that the arrested siblings had allegedly stolen the 9mm pistol, 30 rounds of bullet and 300 grams of jewellery from the residence of the ATS constable Nilesh Mohite in Byculla residence.

The alleged burglary was conducted by the brother and sister while the ATS constable was out of town.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone IX, Paramjit Singh told the media, An investigation was instigated by Mumbai Crime Branch, Byculla Police and ATS after a complaint was filed by the Mohite.

The police officer added that a raid was carried out by Mumbai Police at the brother-sisters residence in Vashi in Navi Mumbai.

Police have recovered the duty pistol of the constable and 27 rounds of bullet, said Singh.

Police added that the sibling are part of a gang of burglars. Kaur has at least 18 cases of burglary pending against her at various police stations in Mumbai and its suburbs.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
A bikie who was a central figure in the notorious Broadbeach bikie brawl in 2013 has been sentenced to 12 months jail for drug offences.

Jason 'JT' Trouchet pleaded guilty in Southport District Court to 11 counts of supplying methamphetamine and GHB and one count of unlawfully possessing an illegal substance.

The past behaviour of the former Finks bikie member was one of the reasons the former government led by Campbell Newman introduced some of the toughest outlaw motorcycle gang laws anywhere in the world in 2013.

Trouchet at the Brisbane Magistrates Court in 2019 in relation to a charge of fraud

Trouchet had been extradited from NSW in 2019 to face the charges. He was arrested and returned to Queensland shortly after he had served three-and-a-half years in a NSW prison for violently assaulting his ex-partner in Sydney in 2016.

The domestic violence incident included the revelation that Trouchet broke his former partner's toes with a vodka bottle.

The Queensland charges dated back to police Operation Lima Versatile, conducted in April 2014, which uncovered commercial trafficking of methylamphetamine on the Gold Coast.

Trouchet came to public prominence when was he involved in a wild brawl outside the Aura Lounge Bar in Broadbeach in September 2013. The melee before families and dining patrons erupted after rival gang member Jacques Teamo arrived at the bar to confront Trouchet.

Trouchet was subsequently fined $1,000 for the incident.

Trouchet's sentence in NSW was served for choking and assault occasioning bodily harm

While Trouchet had no criminal record in relation drug offences, Crown prosecutor Matthew Hynes told the court he had been involved in supplying unknown quantities of methamphetamine and GHB to eight people on 11 occasions in a 12-month period.

After his release from custody following the Broadbeach brawl in 2013, Trouchet had denied to waiting media that he was a member of the Finks.

'It's as clear as day I'm not a member of any motorcycle club, nor ever have been.'
The 2020-2021 drill program that began in May 2020 at Marmato comprises 60 holes totalling 35,000 metres and is now approximately 50% complete. Drilling to date has demonstrated high-grade mineralization over broad widths, demonstrating potential to extend the 13-year mine life outlined in the Company's Pre-Feasibility Study dated September 18, 2020 with an effective date of March 17, 2020.

The principal objective of the drill campaign is to convert Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources. In addition to the Deep Zone, the campaign is also testing the newly discovered Fortaleza Zones A and B to the north, which opens up a new area that will require further drilling to evaluate its potential.

Aris Gold CEO Neil Woodyer commented, "Our ongoing drill program at Marmato continues to deliver on our objective of adding to the already large gold inventory and 13-year mine life. Drilling in the Deep Zone is demonstrating potential for a larger, higher-grade system than previously envisioned. In addition, drilling on the newly discovered Fortaleza zones to the north confirms a prospective new area worthy of additional testing."

Highlights

The table below lists new intercepts greater than 1.0 g/t gold received since the Caldas Gold news release of November 24, 2020. Results reported here include six drill holes totalling 4,069 metres.

Hole From (m) To (m) Intersection width (m) Au (g/t) True width (m) MT-IU-075* 338.00 600.00 262.00 1.56 104.0 including 389.55 429.30 39.75 2.35 16.3 including 481.23 503.07 21.84 2.07 8.6 including 514.53 534.43 19.90 1.94 7.7 including 586.83 600.00 13.17 3.35 5.0 MT-IU-077* 215.00 250.65 35.65 2.82 21.0 and 333.20 409.75 76.55 1.93 44.9 including 333.20 364.60 31.40 1.95 18.4 including 377.50 388.40 10.90 3.61 6.4 including 397.90 409.75 11.85 2.93 6.9 and 521.00 532.80 11.80 4.16 6.8 MT-IU-078* 376.65 403.10 26.45 2.83 5.0 and 591.55 627.75 36.20 3.68 7.2 and 747.40 798.80 51.40 2.46 11.3 MT-IU-079* 409.60 462.00 52.40 1.67 22.7 and 572.80 591.70 18.90 2.37 8.1 MT-MH01-01** 327.60 340.82 13.22 2.89 5.2 and 385.40 746.85 361.45 2.21 147.1 including 431.00 509.10 78.10 3.43 30.8 including 667.00 746.85 79.85 3.07 35.4 MT-MH02-01** 173.90 189.20 15.30 2.16 9.8 and 421.00 462.10 41.10 2.57 29.6 and 573.70 746.50 172.80 1.95 130.4 including 573.70 619.20 45.50 2.33 34.0 including 643.50 738.20 94.70 2.13 71.9

Notes: * Denotes underground drill holes drilled at -50 to -73 degrees from the horizontal. The intersection widths do not represent true widths. The true widths estimated from the geological model are also given. Sample lengths average 1.60 metres but may be varied for geological and recovery factors. Intersections were calculated using a cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t gold, and no more than 5.0 m of continuous internal dilution for intervals up to 50 m, no more than 10 m of continuous internal dilution for intervals of 50-200 m, and no more than 20 m of continuous internal dilution for intervals greater than 201 m. Gold grades were capped at 13.0 g/t gold which affects 14 samples of a total of 2014 samples. Intervals greater than or equal to 1.0 g/t are reported. ** Denotes directional drilling mother and kick-off holes. The directional drilling kick-off holes were drilled at -48 and -45 degrees from the horizontal. The collar coordinates are for the kick-off point in the mother hole. The holes were drilled from three purpose-built underground drill stations on levels 20 and 21 of the mine. The datum used for the collar coordinates is the official Colombian Magna Sirgas system. "masl": metres above mean sea level.

Drill collar location, elevation, azimuth and dip are as follows:

Hole Easting Northing Elevation (masl) Azimuth Inclination Length (m) MT-IU-075 1163641 1097817 997.09 231 -67 650.65 MT-IU-077 1163437 1097899 1052.98 50 -50 700.60 MT-IU-078 1163641 1097817 997.00 160 -73 800.30 MT-IU-079 1163437 1097899 1053.00 50 -60 709.40 MT-MH01-01 1163356 1098028 760.00 160 -48 524.65 MT-MH02-01 1163580 1098019 855.00 220 -45 683.50

Interpretation

The ongoing 2020-2021 drilling campaign has been successful in showing higher-grade mineralization over broad widths in the Main Zone (MZ) below the 500-metre level and in the New Zone (NZ) above the 500-metre level, which strengthens the probability of adding a significant amount of mineral resources to the current inventory. The higher-grade shell is defined as greater than 2.5 g/t Au and lies within the grade shell of 1.7 g/t Au used to build the geological model of the Deep Zone (MDZ).

Infill drilling in the MZ has extended the higher-grade mineralization over broad widths down to the 400-metre level, well below the 500-metre level that is the bottom of the Indicated Mineral Resource, and remains open at depth. Drill holes MT-IU-75 and MT-IU-078 confirm that the MZ is branching into three separate bodies (A, B, C) to the southeast with the three reporting higher-grade mineralization over broad widths. Drill hole MT-IU-075 intersected 39.75 m at 2.35 g/t Au in the Main Zone A, 21.84 m at 2.07 g/t Au and 19.90 m at 1.94 g/t Au in the Main Zone B, and 13.17 m at 3.35 g/t Au in the Main Zone C. Drill hole MT-IU-078 intersected 26.45 m at 2.83 g/t Au in the Main Zone A, 36.20 m at 3.68 g/t Au in the Main Zone B, and 51.40 m at 2.46 g/t Au in the Main Zone C.

Two wildcat drill holes, MT-IU-077 and MT-IU-079, were successful in intersecting higher-grade zones over broader widths compared to previous drilling in the Fortaleza Zones A and B, which opens a new area that requires further drilling to fully evaluate its potential. Drill hole MT-IU-077 intersected 35.65 m at 2.82 g/t Au and 76.65 m at 1.93 g/t Au in Fortaleza Zones A and B, including two vein-related intercepts that returned 10.90 m at 3.61 g/t Au and 11.85 m at 2.93 g/t Au, respectively, in the Fortaleza Zone B. Drill hole MT-IU-079 intersected 52.40 m at 1.67 g/t Au and 18.90 m at 2.37 g/t Au in Fortaleza Zones A and B.

Infill drilling in the NZ confirms higher-grade mineralization over broad widths above the 500-metre level, which is the bottom of the Indicated Mineral Resource. Kick-off drill hole MT-MH01-01 intersected 361.45 m at 2.21 g/t Au, including 78.10 m at 3.43 g/t Au in the NZ, and 79.85 m at 3.07 g/t Au in the MZ. Kick-off drill hole MT-MH02-01 intersected 41.10 m at 2.57 g/t Au in the NZ, and 172.80 m at 1.95 g/t Au in the MZ, including 45.50 m at 2.33 g/t Au and 94.70 m at 2.13 g/t Au.

The style of mineralization for the intersections associated with the NZ and the Fortaleza Zone is the same as the MZ and is characterized by very narrow veinlets of quartz-pyrrhotite-bismuth tellurides-free gold with minor amounts of pyrite and chalcopyrite, rimmed by a narrow halo of sodic-calcic alteration. The two high-grade intersections in MT-IU-077 in the Fortaleza Zone are associated with thick quartz veins, which is a different style of mineralization that requires further investigation.

Most of the drill holes of this phase of drilling end within the low-grade shell with the result that the MZ is open on the southwest side. This is due to the location of underground drill stations above and close to the steeply plunging low grade shell. However, the holes achieved their objective of fully cutting the high grade MZ.

Qualified Person

Dr. Stewart D. Redwood, BSc(Hons), PhD, FIMMM, FGS, Senior Geologist providing consulting services to the Company, is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure or Mineral Projects and prepared and where applicable, supervised the preparation of the scientific and technical information in this press release. Dr. Redwood verified the data disclosed in this news release which verification included a review of the quality assurance and quality control samples, and review of the applicable assay databases and assay certificates.

Sample Preparation, Analysis, Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Core samples were prepared by SGS Laboratories Ltd. in Medellin, Colombia and assayed in their laboratory in El Callao, Lima, Peru (ISO 9001:2008). SGS Laboratories Ltd. is independent of the Company. Gold was assayed by 30 g fire assay with atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS) finish and a detection range of 0.005 to 10 g/t. Samples over 10 g/t gold were re-assayed by 30 g fire assay with gravimetric finish. Silver was assayed by aqua regia digestion and AAS finish with a detection range of 0.3 to 100 ppm. Blank, standard and duplicate samples were routinely inserted for quality assurance and quality control. There are no known drilling, sampling, recovery or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data referred to in this press release.

About Aris Gold

Aris Gold is a Canadian mining company listed on the TSX under the symbol ARIS. The Company is led by an executive team with a demonstrated track record of creating value through building globally relevant gold mining companies. Aris Gold operates the Marmato mine in Colombia, where a modernization and expansion program is underway, and the Juby project, an advanced exploration stage gold project in the Abitibi greenstone belt of Ontario, Canada. Aris Gold plans to pursue acquisition and other growth opportunities to unlock value creation from scale and diversification.

Additional information on Aris Gold can be found at www.arisgold.com and www.sedar.com.

Forward-looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" or forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, including without limitation statements relating to extending the mine-life and potential for the Deep Zone are forward-looking. Generally, the forward-looking information and forward looking statements can be identified by the use of forward looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "will continue" or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Statements concerning mineral resource estimates may also be deemed to constitute forward looking information to the extent that they involve estimates of the mineralization that will be encountered. The material factors or assumptions used to develop forward looking information or statements are disclosed throughout this presentation.

Forward looking information and forward looking statements, while based on management's best estimates and assumptions, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Aris Gold to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information or forward looking statements, including but not limited to: the ability of the Aris Gold management team to successfully integrate with the current operations, risks related to international operations, risks related to general economic conditions, uncertainties relating to operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, actual results of current exploration activities, availability of quality assets that will add scale, diversification and complement Aris Gold's growth trajectory; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; fluctuations in prices of metals including gold; the ability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, increases in market prices of mining consumables, risks associated with holding derivative instruments (such as credit risks, market liquidity risk and mark-to-market risk), possible variations in mineral reserves, grade or recovery rates; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; changes in national and local government legislation, taxation, controls, regulations, regulations and political or economic developments in Canada or Colombia, accidents and operations, labour disputes, title disputes, claims and limitations on insurance coverage and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals including obtaining required environmental and other licenses, or in the completion of development or construction activities, changes in national and local government regulation of mining operations, tax rules and regulations, and political and economic developments in countries in which the Company operates, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Aris Gold's most recent AIF available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Although Aris Gold has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information and forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information or statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information or statements. The Company has and continues to disclose in its Management's Discussion and Analysis and other publicly filed documents, changes to material factors or assumptions underlying the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements and to the validity of the information, in the period the changes occur. The forward-looking statements and forward-looking information are made as of the date hereof and Aris Gold disclaims any obligation to update any such factors or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements or forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information.

This announcement does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States, nor may any securities referred to herein be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration as provided in the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 as amended (the "Securities Act") and the rules and regulations thereunder. The securities referred to herein have not been registered pursuant to the Securities Act and there is no intention to register any of the securities in the United States or to conduct a public offering of securities in the United States.

SOURCE Aris Gold Corporation
Agartala, Mar 9 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina today formally inaugurated 1.9 km long double lane bridge--Maitri Setu--over River Feni connecting Tripura with Chittagong sea port of Bangladesh on the third anniversary of BJP-IPFT government in the state.

While virtually addressing the inaugural program, Hasina remembered Tripura's contribution in 1971, Bangladesh Liberation War and noted that the opening of Maitri Setu on the year of 50th indipendence anniversary of the country would strengthen its bilateral relationship with India and encourage foreign investment in her country.

In 2010, the then Chief Minister of Tripura had requested me for the construction of a bridge over River Feni and we acted positively. After a decade, today, it has become a reality. The bridge would not only ease the access to Chittagong port, Chittagong international airport for travel for the people of Tripura and the northeast, which will be beneficial for trade, commerce and development of tourism, Hasina stated.

She said that Bangladesh has not forgotten the contribution of India, especially Tripura during their freedom struggle.

As a result, Bangladesh government has allowed India to use Chittagong sea port for international shipping and Mongla river port for handling and transporting goods from other parts of the country to Tripura.

Hasina, however, mentioned that Bangladesh wishes that Nepal and Bhutan also can get access to Chittagong sea port by using the facilities available in northeast India.

Bangladesh wants to grow together with all its neighbours and strengthen relationship to build a vibrant economy in the region with India's support, Hasina stated.

UNI BB AND
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
NEW YORK and LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- New Science Ventures LLC ("NSV"), a leading venture capital firm focused on building companies that leverage breakthrough science to create extraordinary value, announces that its portfolio company Ventyx Biosciences raised $114 million from blue-chip investors to advance a diverse pipeline of immunology programs. Ventyx Biosciences combines assets from three formerly independent, asset-centric companies  Oppilan Pharma (targeting S1P1R), Zomagen Biosciences (targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome) and the original Ventyx Biosciences (targeting TYK2)  which were founded and merged by Raju Mohan, CEO of Ventyx Biosciences, and New Science Ventures.

The proceeds will be used to accelerate clinical development of best-in-class immunology programs and advance preclinical programs against novel drug targets with its prolific drug discovery engine.

The equity financing was led by venBio Partners alongside new investors, including Third Point, RTW Investments, LP, Janus Henderson Investors, Wellington Management, OrbiMed, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Farallon Capital, Vivo Capital, Logos Capital, Qiming Venture Partners USA, Cormorant Asset Management, and participation from founding investor New Science Ventures. In connection with the financing, Richard Gaster and Aaron Royston of venBio Partners and Jigar Choksey of Third Point will be joining the Ventyx Board of Directors.

"We are extremely proud to have the support of such prominent investors who share our enthusiasm, dedication and vision to build a world-class immunology company," said Raju Mohan, Chief Executive Officer of Ventyx. "The additional capital will allow us to accelerate our clinical development programs while simultaneously expanding our portfolio of small molecule therapeutics with best-in-class potential for patients with inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. We have brought together a syndicate of experienced investors that can support the long-term growth and development of our deep pipeline of immune modulators."

Ventyx's internally discovered and wholly-owned portfolio of potent and selective small molecule drug candidates target multiple indications in the immunology space, including gastrointestinal and dermatological diseases. The company's pipeline combines the clinical stage programs of three companies founded by Raju Mohan and New Science Ventures:

A tissue selective S1P1R modulator for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other indications that was developed by Oppilan Pharma; A selective allosteric TYK2 inhibitor, developed by Ventyx, that is projected to demonstrate high efficacy and therapeutic utility across a broad range of immunological disorders; and The NLRP3 inhibitor program, created by Zomagen. The first candidate of this program will enter the clinic in the second half of this year.

In addition, the company is leveraging its world-class drug discovery platform to advance preclinical programs against other biologically relevant targets involved in difficult to treat inflammatory diseases and autoimmune disorders.

"The Ventyx team has done an extraordinary job of rapidly and efficiently advancing high-quality drug candidates into the clinic against compelling biological targets," said Richard Gaster of venBio. "We have been closely tracking the I&I space and are excited to bring these assets together into one outstanding company and lead the current financing round. We are eager to support Ventyx's efforts to bring meaningful new treatments to patients."

"We are pleased to bring in such a distinguished group of healthcare investors to support the development of the company's innovative immunology programs, and we welcome Rich, Aaron and Jigar to the Board," added Somu Subramaniam of New Science Ventures.

About New Science Ventures ("NSV")

NSV is a leading venture capital firm focused on building companies that leverage breakthrough science to create extraordinary value. NSV invests in companies using fundamental, science-based innovations and backed by strong IP protection to address large unmet needs in Life Sciences and Information Technology sectors. We invest in early and mid-stage companies with a long-term view and support our companies through value inflection points to create scalable businesses and realize value. NSV is a founding investor in Ventyx Biosciences.

NSV was founded in 2004 and is based in New York, NY and London, UK and operates a Life Sciences incubator in San Diego, CA.

For more information please visit: www.newscienceventures.com

About Ventyx Biosciences, Inc.

Ventyx Biosciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company advancing a broad pipeline of potent and selective small-molecule drug candidates to treat inflammatory diseases and autoimmune disorders. Ventyx Biosciences combines assets from three formerly independent, asset-centric companies: Oppilan Pharma, targeting S1P1R, Zomagen Biosciences, targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome, and the original Ventyx Biosciences, targeting TYK2. The diversified portfolio in the newly formed joint entity includes best-in-class, highly differentiated clinical-stage programs and preclinical programs focused on high-value targets.

Ventyx is headquartered in Encinitas, California. For more information about Ventyx, please visit www.ventyxbio.com.

Contacts:

Citigate Dewe Rogerson

Sylvie Berrebi/ Nathaniel Dahan PhD / Mark Swallow PhD

T: +44 (0)20 7638 9571

E: [email protected]

SOURCE New Science Ventures (NSV)
"This dynamic new site underscores our dedication to showcasing how we help financial and agribusiness clients increase their visibility, sell efficiently, deliver services, and provide quality support. - Shane Stiles, President - Gate 39 Media

Gate 39 Media, a full-featured marketing agency and technology consulting firm dedicated to serving the financial and agricultural industries, has just launched a newly enhanced website: http://www.gate39media.com.

With a deepened focus on financial and agricultural services and an expanded service suite, the new website provides a fresh look and feel in offering marketing, marketing technology, and custom technology development and support services while exhibiting subject matter expertise and resources for clients.

Of the new website, Gate 39 Media President Shane Stiles comments, Were excited to introduce our new site providing a more complete view of the range of solutions and services to financial services and agribusinesses. Despite the obvious challenges of 2020, we have grown dramatically in the past year, and this dynamic new site underscores our dedication to showcasing how we help clients increase their visibility, sell efficiently, deliver services, and provide quality support.

Designed, developed, launched, and securely hosted by Gate 39 Media, the new website highlights capabilities that include Inbound Marketing, design & branding, web development, HubSpot & CRM services, fund pitchbooks, media services, financial and agricultural applications, custom modules, web hosting and support, and custom operations technology solutions for the futures brokerage, commodity trading, and derivatives industries.

The new website also includes the Engine 39 Blog  a freshly designed repository which features a growing library of marketing topics, articles, videos, tips, tools, guides, and resources for best practices and trends across financial, agricultural, and professional marketing and technology.

This news follows Gate 39 Medias recent announcement that it has grown with the addition of L7 Mixed Media and has expanded its executive team with the key hire of Keller Hawthorne, the firms new VP of Marketing Technology. Additionally, the firm has also recently launched new multimedia production services for financial and agricultural clients.

About Gate 39 Media

Gate 39 Media is a financial services marketing and technology agency providing complete solutions for the financial, agricultural, and professional services industries since 2001. Located in downtown Chicago, Gate 39 Media serves firms ranging from some of the worlds largest exchanges, financial advisors, brokerage firms, and fund managers  to start-ups in FinTech, and emerging managers and advisors. Gate 39 Media is a HubSpot Platinum Solutions Partner and was ranked an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company for 2020. To learn more visit https://www.gate39media.com.
New Delhi, March 10: India, along with South Africa, is leading a global campaign at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that has pitted rich nations and big pharma on one side and the poor nations with civil society organisations on the other. A joint proposal by India and South Africa on October 2, 2020 has created a storm in US capital Washington, European Union seat Brussels and the WTO headquarters at Geneva.

The proposal The joint proposal before the WTO asks for waiving Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) so that more countries can have equitable access to coronavirus related medicines.

The WTO website says: "The proposal suggests a waiver for all WTO members on the implementation, application and enforcement of certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to the "prevention, containment or treatment" of COVID-19. The proponents argued this would avoid barriers to the timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and medicines or to scaling-up of research, development, manufacturing and supply of essential medical products." The Indian-South African proposal has but naturally created a rift between the rich nations, most of whom hold patents for vaccines and seek big profits, and the low income countries who are currently struggling to procure vaccines to protect their populations.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the new Director-General of the WTO, has not taken a stand as yet but says that the support to waive patents on Covid vaccines for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic is "intensifying." Inequity in access to vaccines

The Covid-19 infection that spread from its epicentre in the Central Chinese city of Wuhan has brought the world to its knees but also spurred nations and pharmaceutical companies to discover cures and vaccines in record time to control the pandemic.

While an array of vaccines are in the offing from countries like the US, the UK, India, Russia, Germany, China and Israel, the vaccines are still not reaching the smaller and low-income countries. On top of this, the rich nations have already reserved vaccines far in excess of their needs, which has created a shortage for the smaller nations. Terms like 'health for all', 'access' and 'equity' seem redundant. Even Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for partnership begin to sound hollow in the face of actions by the rich nations.

The WHO has been repeatedly expressing its concern that considerable vaccine inequity exists between nations. In the first week of February, it said: "Globally, the number of vaccinations has now overtaken the number of reported infections. But more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for almost 60% of global GDP. Around 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose." Rich nations, Poor nations

Those in the opposing camp have included former US president Donald Trump, who did not support the proposal. For that matter, even the new US President Joe Biden has not given his nod to the proposal by India and South Africa as yet. However, the pressure is mounting on Biden.

Opposition to the joint proposal has come from the European Union and Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.

Rich nations say that waiving patents would demotivate companies that have researched and produced these life-saving vaccines. This would lead to the killing of innovation and if non-patent holding companies are allowed to produce the vaccines, they might manufacture poor quality products endangering lives instead of protecting those.

They also say that diluting the intellectual property would also lead to reduced private sector investment in research and science which could affect humanity in times like these.

Massive support and growing On the other hand, the proposal got instant support from nearly 100 countries while Kenya and Eswatini joined India and South Africa as official cosponsors of the proposal.

Some of the biggest international civil society organisations including African Commission of Human and Peoples' Rights, Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), UNAIDS and the World Health organization have supported the proposal.

As the division between the rich and poor is played out, more than 400 American civil society organisations have written a letter to Biden to stop blocking the Covid-19 WTO waiver to boost vaccines and treatments worldwide. This civil society campaign also has the backing of numerous Congressmen and Congresswomen.

Taken aback by the EU to oppose the proposal, 115 Members of the European Parliament (MEP) have asked the European Commission and also the European Council to hold back their opposition at the WTO.

The proposal has massive support from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Many countries have expressed their disappointment with the European Union over banning exports of vaccines. Others have thanked India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for sending vaccines to the least developed countries.

The Indian stand Speaking at an industry gathering, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal criticised the developed world for their hypocritical stand. He said: "... the developed world is under pressure because on one hand, they talk about supporting each other and multilateral fight against Covid pandemic, but on the other hand, they're looking at protecting the interests of a few companies only in terms of innovation costs or R&D." India is one of the global leaders in healthcare. It is known as the vaccine manufacturer of the world, is a pioneer in medical tourism and is known for manufacturing world class medicines at a fraction of the cost charged by MNCs.

India has been at the forefront of supporting nations with vaccines and has already gifted millions of dozes to smaller nations across continents - helping them kickstart their inoculation campaigns. Simultaneously, Indian coronavirus vaccines are being commercially sold at subsidised rates across the world.

With the massive support from different quarters that India is getting against the rich and the mighty, it may be able to once again repeat the success it did with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when it provided the poorest of the poor with inexpensive but world-class drugs that enabled them to beat back HIV. That was the time when not just campaigners but entire nations thanked India for its pharmaceutical prowess.

With the current campaign at the WTO, India is again on the cusp of repeating that same success.

(This content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative/

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Bengaluru, March 9 : US-based tech majors Nvidia and VMware on Tuesday announced a collaboration to virtualise Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads on VMware vSphere with Nvidia AI Enterprise.

Nvidia unveiled AI Enterprise, a comprehensive software suite of enterprise-grade AI tools and frameworks, exclusively with VMware.

The offering gives enterprises the software required to develop a broad range of AI solutions, such as advanced diagnostics in healthcare, smart factories for manufacturing, and fraud detection in financial services.

"Nvidia AI Enterprise enables customers to reduce AI model development time from 80 weeks to just eight weeks, and allows them to deploy and manage advanced AI applications on VMware vSphere with the same scale-out, record-breaking Nvidia accelerated computing performance that's possible on bare metal," Justin Boitano, VP and General Manager of Enterprise and Edge Computing at Nvidia, said in a statement.

With the Nvidia AI Enterprise software suite, IT professionals at the hundreds of thousands of enterprises that use vSphere for compute virtualization can now support AI with the same tools they use to manage large-scale data centers and hybrid cloud environments.

The Nvidia software suite provides scale-out, multi-node, AI application performance on vSphere that is indistinguishable from bare-metal servers.

The AI Enterprise provides compatibility for a broad set of accelerated CUDA applications, AI frameworks, pre-trained models and software development kits running in the hybrid cloud.

Nvidia has also certified VMware vSphere as the only compute virtualization software to provide hypervisor support for live migration with Nvidia Multi-Instance GPU technology, which allows each A100 GPU to be partitioned into up to seven instances at the hardware level to maximize efficiency for workloads of all sizes.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a new edition of the law "On Financial Leasing", which defines the general principles of financial leasing in Ukraine in accordance with international law.

This law will protect the rights of lessees, lessors, create a competitive environment in this area and harmonize Ukrainian legislation with the law of the European Union, the presidential press service said on Tuesday.

According to the document, state regulation and supervision of the financial leasing market is carried out by the National Bank of Ukraine.

The law also defines the characteristics of financial leasing and its objects. In particular, this may be property that is not prohibited by law for free circulation on the market and is not prohibited for leasing. Land plots and other natural objects, as well as objects specified in Part 2 of Article 3 of the Law of Ukraine "On Lease of State and Communal Property" cannot be objects of financial leasing.

The press service notes that financial leasing is one of the factors in increasing the competitiveness of domestic enterprises, improving the quality of their services, increasing production efficiency, as a result, strengthening positions in the domestic market and increasing the chances of entering the international market. In developed countries, almost a third of investments in fixed assets are carried out through leasing, while in Ukraine this figure has fluctuated within 3-4% in recent years.

The signed law will improve the financial leasing instrument, expand the opportunities for enterprises to upgrade production facilities, purchase transport, equipment, machinery, and real estate. All this will contribute to an increase in the production of the gross product, and, consequently, an increase in tax receipts to the state budget.

Law "On Financial Leasing" No. 1201-IX, which the Verkhovna Rada adopted on February 4, 2021, will enter into force three months after its publication and will apply to relations arising after the date of its entry into force.
(ANSAmed) - ROME, 09 MAR - Oscar-winning Italian director Gabriele Salvatores will tell the story of the Italian regions at Expo 2020 Dubai, the great global event that will kick off in October and end on March 31, 2022. "I'm honoured for being chosen for this task, which isn't simple but is full of possibilities, emotions, and ideas," the director said during a live-streaming conference held by the Italian Foreign Press Association to present the Italy pavilion. "The general concept of the Italy pavilion was created by Davide Rampello," Salvatores said, referring to the pavilion's artistic director. "My job will be that of filming the work and the know-how of the people in the various regions and telling their story through landscapes, monuments, works of art," he said. He said Italy is different from region to region, and it changes "even when travelling just a little ways". "Italy has always been a bridge, above all with the Mediterranean and the Arab and Middle Eastern world, which have nourished our culture. I will work on two different settings based on the two rooms in the pavilion. In one there will be a technologically advanced big screen where I will show the know-how, and in the second room there will be a series of screens, an octagon dedicated to the beauty of the regions, that will tell the story with advanced filming tools, such as drones and 360-degree shots so that the viewer can feel at the centre". Paolo Glisenti, commissioner for Italy's participation at Expo 2020 Dubai, said the regions that have already signed on are Emilia Romagna, Marche, Lazio, Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia, Val d'Aosta, Sicily and Veneto, and that deals are being finalised with Piedmont, Abruzzo, Campania and Friuli Venezia Giulia. "The deadline to participate hasn't expired, other regions that want to join can do so," he said. He said the hope is that "all Italian regions participate, also because the interest is tied not only to the masterful footage that Salvatores will create, but also to the dozens of events that we will organise and in which the regions can be protagonists". (ANSAmed).
The PSNI's Terrorism Investigation Unit have arrested two people in Belfast and Derry as part of investigations into the activities of the New IRA.

Both arrest operations happened this morning.

A 38-year-old man was arrested in north Belfast as part of Operation Arbacia, which was set up to investigate the activities of the republican crime gang.

As part of the operation, eight men and two women have been charged by police investigating the organisation since August.

The man, who was arrested under the Terrorism Act, was taken to Musgrave serious crime suite where he is currently being questioned.

In a separate operation in the Creggan area of Derry local officers supported by Terrorism Investigation Unit detectives conducted searches as part of an ongoing investigation into a number of violent gun attacks in recent months.

Read More

A 39-year-old was arrested under the Terrorism Act and the police also seized a number of electronic goods, including mobile phones.

He was also taken to Musgrave Serious Crime Suite for questioning.

Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray, Head of Serious Crime Branch, said: Todays arrests demonstrate that despite significant progress against the New IRA, we cannot be complacent in any way about investigating their activities. The New IRA continues to pose a danger, especially to the communities in the areas they live and conduct their activities. Not least is their willingness to put local people at risk in their reckless haste to carry out bombings and shootings.

He added: They also think nothing of using their guns against people in the communities where they live, mutilating a number of men and teenagers, particularly in the North West.

"The brutal injuries they inflict on people are a stark violation of peoples basic human rights. And in addition to the inhumane treatment of their victims, they are putting the NHS under increasing pressure during the pandemic which is beyond reckless.

I would ask that anyone with information on their activities, especially the brutal attacks they carry out or the location of the guns and explosives which they often leave in public areas, to tell the police.

Our investigations are most effective when police and communities work together.
Mumbai, March 9 : Actor Anupam Kher on Tuesday informed his fans about getting vaccinated with the first dose of Covid-19. The actor posted the update on Twitter.

Anupam Kher uploaded a video that has him getting vaccinated at a medical facility, and thanked the medical staff and government of India for the vaccination.

"Got my #COVID19 first dose vaccination!! Thank you all the doctors, medical staff, scientist and Govt. Of India for making it possible. India Rocks. Jai Ho!" Kher's caption read.

The actor celebrated turning 66 with school children, and he will soon be seen in the short film along with Aahana Kumra, titled "Happy Birthday". He has also wrapped up the shoot of his portions in the upcoming film, "The Kashmir Files".

Recently, he shocked fans when he uploaded a picture on his social media in a get-up that made him look completely different. He teased his fans with the caption: ""Duality is not a story. Duality is just a complexity. Something exciting, something complex coming your way! Watch out for this space! #Actor #ActorsLife #NewBegining #Movie," he captioned the pictures."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
March 09, 2021 In Support Of Regime Change - The New York Times Continues To Disinform Its Readers U.S. President Joe Biden continues Donald Trump's regime change policy towards Venezuela. From yesterday's press briefing by the State Department: QUESTION: Staying in Latin America, is it fair to say that the Biden administration is pursuing regime change in Venezuela? MR PRICE: It is fair to say that the Biden administration supports the democratic aspirations of the people of Venezuela. Our overriding goal is to support a peaceful democratic transition in Venezuela through free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections, and to help the Venezuelan people rebuild their lives and their country. We know at the root of much of the misery and the suffering of the people of Venezuela stands one individual, and we have been very clear that Nicolas Maduro is a dictator. His actions have not been in the best interests of the people of Venezuela. It hasnt just been the United States that has been saying that. It has been the United States and many of our closest partners both in the region and well beyond. QUESTION: So its basically  its basically a nicer way of saying Maduro must go? MR PRICE: We believe and we support the democratic aspirations of the people of Venezuela. That is why we are committed to supporting the people through humanitarian measures and also targeting regime officials and their cronies involved in human rights abuses and corruption. Yes. The New York Times is, as usual, supportive of such illegal policies. It continues to disinform its readers about economic problems caused by these. Today it reports on a minor measure Biden took with regards to Venezuelans in the United States: As many as 320,000 Venezuelans living in the United States were given an 18-month reprieve on Monday from the threat of being deported, as the Biden administration sought to highlight how dangerous that country has become under President Nicolas Maduro. The fourth paragraph is supposed to describe Venezuela's current 'danger': Venezuela is mired in one of the worlds worst humanitarian crises under Mr. Maduro, who, through a mix of corruption and neglect, oversaw the decay of the countrys oil infrastructure that had propped up its economy. The United Nations has estimated that up to 94 percent of Venezuelas population lives in poverty, with millions of people bereft of regular access to water, food and medicine. Isn't there something missing in the above? Was the 'decay of the countrys oil infrastructure' really caused by Maduro? Or did the U.S. have something to do with that? Six paragraphs further down we learn what really is causing Venezuela's problems: [O]ne of the officials who briefed reporters on Monday on condition that he not be identified said the Biden administration was reviewing whether to lift a raft of economic sanctions that experts believe have cost Venezuelas government has much as $31 billion since 2017. The official said that review would assess whether the economic pressure exacted against Mr. Maduro and his government was worth the risk of exacerbating the dire living conditions for Venezuelans. So it was Maduro's 'corruption and neglect' plus the minor issues of $31 billion practically stolen by the U.S. We can be sure that the outcome of the sanction review will be negative. If there will be any lifting of sanctions it will only be on the margins. A similar pattern of NYT disinformation could be observed with regards to regime change in Brasil. As FAIR notes today: The Brazilian Supreme Court on March 8 dismissed all charges against former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva made during the Lava Jato investigation, a little over a month after the investigation was officially ended. The termination came shortly after the Supreme Court admitted 6 terabytes of leaked Telegram chats between public prosecutors and judges as evidence in the case.

...

The Times rarely applied any scrutiny to the investigation until Lulas political imprisonment was imminent. Serious crimes committed by [judge] Moro and the taskforce, such as the 2016 wiretapping of Lulas defense teams law offices, were either glossed over or not mentioned at all. In article after article, the Times failed to share important information on the investigation. This helped normalize the 2016 coup and the removal of Lula from the 2018 presidential elections, which in turn opened the door for a neofascist/military takeover of Brazil. The Times also failed to note the heavy U.S. involvement in the case: Due to the Telegram leaks, everyone now knows Lula is innocent, but long before this, there was ample evidence of a political witch hunt. By ignoring or downplaying issues that raised doubts about Lava Jato, while giving the heros treatment to Sergio Moro, the Times became an active participant in this witch hunt.

...

Years of censorship by omission, one-sided reporting and lionizing far-right prosecutors as they worked closely with the FBI, helped to destroy the image of a political party that, among other things, moved 26 million people above the poverty line, was the world leader in greenhouse gas reduction, and implemented one of the most ambitious affirmative action programs in history. But Lula is free and we are happy to hear that he feels well: In a conversation recorded before the justices decision, but with the possibility it created already in mind, I talked with Lula about what he learned in prison, how he reads the rise of fascism around the world, what he thinks progressives must do to win national elections as he did, and whether he is ready for another go at the presidency. I say every day that I am 75 but I feel that I have the energy of a 30-year-old, he told me. And I am as horny as a 21-year-old, so I can say to you that I'm alive, fighting for democracy. There is more from Lula at this link. Posted by b on March 9, 2021 at 16:45 UTC | Permalink Comments
A shirtless man has been filmed dangerously riding on the outside a Sydney tram in Sydney's CBD on Tuesday morning.

The man was seen sitting between two carriages on George Street as it stopped outside the Queen Victoria Building.

The driver of the tram is seemingly unaware of the illegal passenger as the tram continues its journey past the QVB.

The witness named Paul told 2GB radio host Ben Fordham he saw the man during his morning commute.

He said: 'I saw this guy sitting on the outside of the tram and I thought, "that's not right".

'Some people are stupid aren't they? Look at this guy, can you believe it?'

He said the man was standing in a dangerous position that even had a warning sign.

'It's got a warning sign under his feet, not to be standing there,' he said.

'Andrew Constance wouldn't be too happy.'

The shirtless rider pulled into the stop while sitting down, the driver seemingly unaware of the external rider

In July last year Transport Minister Andrew Constance expressed his concern about some of the behaviour around Sydney's light rail system.

'What we're seeing is unacceptable,' he said.

'Almost every day we are seeing some really risky behaviour around our light rail vehicles.'

A Transport NSW spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'There are more people back in the CBD now restrictions are easing, so everyone needs to be extra careful around trams.'

NSW police have launched an investigation and have issued a statement saying: 'officers are aware of the incident and are conducting inquiries.'

NSW Transport was contacted for a comment.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
WASHINGTON  As many as 320,000 Venezuelans living in the United States were given an 18-month reprieve on Monday from the threat of being deported, as the Biden administration sought to highlight how dangerous that country has become under President Nicolas Maduro.

The immigrants also will be allowed to work legally in the United States as part of the temporary protective status the administration issued as it considers the next steps in a yearslong American pressure campaign to force Mr. Maduro from power.

The living conditions in Venezuela reveal a country in turmoil, unable to protect its own citizens, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement. It is in times of extraordinary and temporary circumstances like these that the United States steps forward to support eligible Venezuelan nationals already present here, while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises.

Venezuela is mired in one of the worlds worst humanitarian crises under Mr. Maduro, who, through a mix of corruption and neglect, oversaw the decay of the countrys oil infrastructure that had propped up its economy. The United Nations has estimated that up to 94 percent of Venezuelas population lives in poverty, with millions of people bereft of regular access to water, food and medicine.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 00:41:59|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

KUWAIT CITY, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait reported on Tuesday 1,157 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 203,055.

The Kuwaiti Health Ministry also announced eight more deaths, taking the death toll to 1,141. The tally of recoveries nationwide rose by 1,045 to 188,167, while 13,747 coronavirus-related patients are receiving treatment.

Abdullah Al-Sanad, the ministry's spokesman, urged on Tuesday everyone in Kuwait to comply with the precautionary measures against the coronavirus and maintain social distancing.

He recommended that everyone should visit the ministry's official accounts and official authorities in the country to view the instructions, recommendations, and everything that would contribute to defeating the virus.

Kuwait has imposed a partial curfew, starting on March 7 from 5 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) to 5 a.m. until April 8, as part of its efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19.

During the curfew time, all commercial activities will be suspended and people are allowed to go to mosques on foot, and pharmacies, shops to buy medical supplies, cooperative societies and markets are permitted to practice their activities only through delivery service.

In addition, the government also decided to close parks. Restaurants and cafes are allowed to serve through delivery only and taxis to transfer two passengers.

According to the decision, non-Kuwaitis will be prevented from entering the Arab country until further notice. Enditem
Now in front of the pearly gates, Holy Cannoli sits and waits. What brought its ruin no one knows. Must have been the pistachios, reads the tombstone for the limited batch Ben & Jerrys flavor, Holy Cannoli.

Ben & Jerrys fans have experienced ice cream flavors leave their lives just as quickly as they came in.

Whether it be the long-forgotten Dastardly Mash or the fan-favorite Oatmeal Cookie Chunk, some Ben & Jerry's flavors have retired in what is known as the "Flavor Graveyard."

Though this may seem like an elaborate joke, you can actually pay your respects to the extinct dairy treats by jumping in your car and driving up to Waterbury, Vt.

Courtesy of Casey Maffucci

The quaint Vermont village is situated approximately 190 miles north of the Connecticut border, and is a three-hour drive from the Connecticut/Massachusetts border.

The "Flavor Graveyard" is located outside of the famed Ben & Jerry's factory, where 350,000 pints of the iconic treat are produced daily. The company has utilized the same factory since its opening in 1985.

Ben & Jerry's factory tour remains popular as it gives guests a first-hand look at the process behind making a pint of ice cream.

Courtesy of Casey Maffucci

While the tour and gift shop are currently closed due to the pandemic, ice cream junkies will still be able to grab some Cherry Garcia or Phish Food at the "Scoop shop" as well as make the small hike to the "Flavor Graveyard."

The "Flavor Graveyard" is located at 1281 Waterbury-Stowe Road in Waterbury Village Historic District, Vt. The factory and graveyard can be visited between 12 p.m. and 6 p.m., seven days a week. The tour and gift shop are currently closed to guests amid the ongoing pandemic. Masks are required. Connecticut residents may visit Vermont if they have received the COVID-19 vaccine and have been vaccinated for at least two weeks. Other Connecticut residents must quarantine and provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test after the seventh day of their stay.
Language difficulties and cultural barriers keep an "alarming" number of Chinese Americans from asking for cancer screenings that may protect their health, according to a new University of Central Florida study.

Su-I Hou, professor and interim chair of UCF's Health Management & Informatics Department, said her results show that physicians and members of the Chinese community need to improve their communication about the importance of cancer screenings. Her study was recently published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention.

Hou surveyed 372 Chinese adults who attended churches providing services in Mandarin in the U.S. and Taiwan to assess their knowledge of cancer risks and whether they asked their primary care provider about cancer screenings. She found that Chinese adults seldom asked about screenings - even if they had family cancer history or had been a primary caregiver for someone with cancer. Chinese adults with family cancer history asked about cancer screenings only 32.2% of the time, and those without family cancer history asked only 21.5% of the time. Chinese cancer caregivers asked about cancer screenings 48.3% of the time. Non-caregivers asked only 23.4% of the time.

Hou said age was a factor in whether Chinese adults questioned their doctors about cancer screenings. Even though cancer risks increase with age and cancer screening communication is higher among the older age group, she said older Chinese participants may be the most reluctant to ask about screenings. She attributed this to traditional Chinese culture, in which questioning an expert can be regarded as disrespectful. She said younger Chinese adults may be more willing to question their healthcare provider - and thus are more likely to be their own healthcare advocates.

She said analysis of patient-provider communication was overall low and statistically similar between Chinese adults living in Taiwan and those who had immigrated to the United States.

"Chinese culture and language difficulties are deterrents to open dialogue between these patients and their providers," she said. "The Chinese culture teaches respect to authority and in our culture, the doctor is the authority. To question a physician is seen as a sign of disrespect."

The disconnect in patient-provider communication is especially alarming, she said, because cancer is the leading cause of death among Chinese Americans and that risk is growing as they adopt a more Western lifestyle, including unhealthy eating habits.

She centered her research on churches, noting that many new Chinese immigrants join a faith-based organization with services in Mandarin as a way to meet fellow Chinese and engage in an environment where their native language is spoken. She said such churches can help spread the word about the importance of cancer screenings and health advocacy and can help teach parishioners how to request screenings from their providers.

She said it's also incumbent upon providers to understand that their Chinese patients may be reluctant to be their own healthcare advocates. For that reason, she said, providers need to bring up the topic of cancer screening - even if their patients do not. Many of the survey participants said they did not ask about cancer screenings because their provider did not raise the subject.

Hou is part of UCF's Population Health Consortium, which includes interdisciplinary faculty from across the university who are dedicated to implementing best practices and eliminating health disparities.

"We all need to work together to recognize the barriers to providing quality healthcare to all," she said. "This study is another example of the importance of understanding cultural norms as we provide care."

###
HIGH-PROFILE Limerick hotel manager Donnacha Hurley has been named the new president of the Limerick Chamber.

The boss of the Absolute Hotel takes over the role from Action Points David Jeffreys, and he said no business sector should be left behind in a post Covid-19 world.

Speaking after assuming the chain of office, Mr Hurley said: There remain serious challenges ahead for many Limerick businesses and for some right now, particularly in the retail and hospitality sector, it might be hard to see positives.

It is critical that the Chamber continues to advocate at a national level for the assistance required to support a Mid-West recovery and simultaneously continues to work with local stakeholders and the local authority for the speedy deployment of supports, the businessman added.

He hailed the go-ahead for the 9.1m revitalisation plan for OConnell Street as a huge step in the right direction for the city.

We need to make Limerick city centre accessible, attractive and conducive to living and working in, he added.

Limerick Chamber chief executive Dee Ryan has welcomed Mr Hurleys appointment.

She said: Donnacha is passionate about Limerick and the region, has huge energy, great ideas and shows leadership. Its a crucial time for business so this expertise and experience is going to be essential. Just as having David Jeffreys, the chief executive of Action Point technology company was hugely beneficial for us as a Chamber when business almost overnight went online, it is equally fitting to have Donnacha, given his particular background in the hospitality industry, take on the presidency during a period when we are focusing on making our city centre more attractive for people to visit, live and work in.

A native of Castletroy, Limerick, Mr Hurley has been general manager of the Absolute Hotel since 2008. A graduate of the world-famous Shannon College of Hotel Management, he also holds an executive MBA from the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick and an M.Sc. in Hospitality Management at DIT.

The Chamber has also this week announced four new directors for its board  Lavinia Ryan, corporate business manager, south and west Region, VHI, Mick Ryan, head of business banking Mid-West, Bank of Ireland; Maria Gleeson, business development manager, Holmes O'Malley Sexton Solicitors and James Ryan, the owner of Centra stores, including OConnell street and William Street Limerick city.

Based in OConnell Street, the Limerick Chamber is the biggest business representative organisation in the region.

It was founded in 1805 and was formally constituted by Charter on June 2, 1815
The car burglar struck in the middle of the night and always wore dark-colored clothing and gear, including a gaiter face mask, gloves, and a satchel slung over a shoulder.

He would cross over front lawns and walk into driveways, but never break in. Hed try the door handle and if it was locked, hed move on.

That was the method of a burglar who has struck in dozens of towns in several New Jersey and Pennsylvania counties starting in late 2019, police in Pennsylvania say.

Now, police say theyve arrested a suspect, Keith A. Johnson, 33, of Yardley, in Bucks County. Hes charged with numerous counts of theft and burglary, as well as 76 counts of loitering/prowling at night, the Bucks County District Attorney says.

And he made a startling confession to detectives this past Friday: hes entered somewhere between 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. During the same interview, he said he stole $140,000 in cash during a burglary in Philadelphia, detectives said in court papers.

He used thousands of dollars in cash to buy gift cards at a 7-Eleven in Langhorne, Bucks County, which he then used to buy other items, police said. When police searched his home recently, they found $30,000 in cash in $100 bills, plus several items from car burglaries, like purses, they said.

The investigation is ongoing against Johnson, and hes suspected of committing vehicle burglaries in 13 towns in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, as well as Hopewell, Princeton, West Windsor, Robbinsville, Montgomery, South Brunswick, Franklin, Hillsborough, Branchburg and Raritan in New Jersey, the district attorneys office said.

The beginnings of the investigation go back to Buckingham, an affluent Bucks town where a detective, Timothy Johnson, in early 2020 saw a pattern in the thefts from vehicles. The investigation broadened to other Bucks towns, and when Johnson shared information with New Jersey authorities, he had another 10 towns with car burglaries that matched the Buckingham burglar.

After that, Timothy Campbell, from the district attorneys office, joined the investigation.

In several of the crimes, the perpetrator was caught on home security cameras, always looking the same and walking away from locked vehicles, Johnson and Campbell wrote in the criminal complaint.

The detectives recently linked Johnson to the crimes through a credit card stolen form a vehicle in New Jersey that was used at a Target in Bucks County, police said. Video of the card used in the store matched the burglar, and Johnson, they said.

The earliest crimes the detectives believe Johnson committed were in September in Lower Makefield and Upper Makefield, they said. Johnson remained jailed in Bucks County Tuesday.

Just the sheer volume and the sheer geography and the scope of it - this was a very, very active criminal, Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub told 6ABC. No place was left safe. He not only crossed county borders, he crossed state borders as well.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com.
ROME, MAR 9 - President Sergio Mattarella is set to receive his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Rome's Spallanzani infectious-diseases hospital on Tuesday, sources said. The Lazio region has begun to give jabs to over-70s after starting its vaccination campaign with over-80s. The Italian head of State is 79. (ANSA).
Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.Australias central bank maintained its policy settings as it prepares to decide on extending its yield target and quantitative easing programs, with a Covid-19 lockdown complicating the outlook.The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate and three-year yield target at 0.10% in Sydney on Tuesday, as expected. It will make a decision in July on whether to extend the yield target and undertake further quantitative easing. A weeklong shutdown in the nations second-largest city adds a layer of uncertainty to the outlook.Despite the strong recovery in the economy and jobs, inflation and wage pressures are subdued, Governor Philip Lowe said. The board is committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment in Australia and inflation consistent with the target.The Australian dollar edged lower, trading at 77.41 U.S. cents at 2:53 p.m. in Sydney from 77.62 cents just before the release.The case for Lowe to maintain the April 2024 bond as the target maturity had been strengthening amid strong hiring, sentiment and investment plans. This was reinforced by the government keeping open the fiscal spigot in the May budget as it joins the RBA in seeking to drive down unemployment to revive wages growth and inflation.Progress in reducing unemployment has been faster than expected, Lowe said in his statement. There are reports of labor shortages in some parts of the economy.Risks AheadYet the RBA may be encouraged to err on the side of caution if Melbournes outbreak worsens and extend both of its bond programs to keep maximum support for the economy.An important ongoing source of uncertainty is the possibility of significant outbreaks of the virus, although this should diminish as more of the population is vaccinated, Lowe said. The board continues to place a high priority on a return to full employment.Globally, central banks are beginning to edge away from emergency monetary settings. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets last week in presenting projections of its official cash rate rising in the second half of next year.Back in Australia, economists predicted ahead of data Wednesday that gross domestic product rose 1.5% in the first three months of the year from the prior quarter, and advanced 0.6% from a year earlier.Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, in testimony to a parliamentary panel earlier today, said partial data showed around 56,000 workers had lost their jobs in the four weeks following the end of the governments JobKeeper wage subsidy that expired March 28.He said strong employment data and forward indicators continue to give us confidence that the labor market has the underlying strength to absorb workers transitioning off the JobKeeper payment.End of Australias $68 Billion Job-Saving Stimulus Tests EconomyLowe estimates Australias jobless rate will need to fall to close to 4% before driving economy-wide pay increases. It stood at 5.5% in April.The governor expects wages growth will need to increase at a pace faster than 3% -- more than double the current rate -- for inflation to return sustainably to the central banks 2-3% target.Lowe reiterated that this is unlikely to be until 2024 at the earliest.(Updates with further comments from governor throughout text.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
A 29-year-old man has died and another is in critical condition after a packed school bus collided with a blue Toyota Landcruiser.

The two motorists crashed at an intersection near Wolvi, one hour drive south-west of Noosa Heads, at around 3.45pm on Tuesday afternoon.

Twenty-six school children and a female bus driver, 53, have escaped serious injury, although six students were treated for minor injuries and the driver was taken to hospital.

A 29 year old man has died and another is in critical condition after a packed school bus collided with a blue Toyota Landcruiser

The two motorists crashed at an intersection near Wolvi, one hour drive south-west of Noosa Heads at around 3.45pm on Tuesday afternoon

Two men were airlifted to hospital after the accident, having been stuck in their ute for at least one hour after the accident (Stock)

Pictured: The road where the accident occurred in Wolvi, near Gympie which is an hour drive north-west from Noosa Heads, QLD

The crash occurred at around 3.40pm but the two Goomboorian men were still stuck in their ute at 5.10pm, reported the Daily Telegraph.

The bus driver was hailed as 'heroic' after a witness said she saved 26 children before the collision.

'There's nothing she could have done to avoid him,' a witness said.

The driver allegedly tried to avoid the accident by swerving to the side and pulling into an embankment before locking the wheel.

When the bus stopped, children escaped it by breaking the glass at the back of the vehicle because they could not leave the front.

Queensland Police have said they are investigating the crash.
Purchase online access to The Chronicle-News E-edition and everything you need to stay informed about Trinidad, southeastern Colorado, Raton and northeastern New Mexico. You gain full access to The Chronicle-News website, archives, classifieds, obituaries and announcements, weather, state and national news and multimedia presentations including photos, video and more.

Online access can be purchased for fixed time periods from one day ($0.99) up to one year ($72). Online access is not a recurring transaction. You will need to manually renew your subscription at the end of its term.
For second-grader Trenton Reynolds, a COVID-19 test Monday morning was effortless and painless, just a minute or two in the nurses office.

Reynolds walked to the nurses office from his classroom at the Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School, listened to easy instructions from elementary school nurse Melissa Joubert and swabbed each nostril without flinching, twisting the cotton swab four times.

Though the process is simple, it plays a major role in the Worcester schools ability to keep children in class during the COVID-19 pandemic, a way to quickly locate any asymptomatic cases of the virus, according to Joubert and Heidi Paluk, the schools interim executive director.

This pooled COVID-19 testing program was launched by state education officials earlier this year. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is covering the costs of the program through April 18. Without that funding, Abby Kelley would not be able to offer tests in its building, Paluk said.

This gives us one more opportunity, one more tool in our toolbox to make sure that being back in person is still going to put safety first, Paluk said. We dont want to ever jeopardize someones health, so this is giving us an opportunity to do that ... this just gives a little bit more reassurance.

The program first rolled out Abby Kelley last week. Joubert said that while the feedback on the program has been positive, the tests have all been negative.

Of 106 tests administered last week, there was not a single positive case of the coronavirus among the pooled samples, Joubert said.

For Paluk, seeing no positive samples is an indication that mitigation efforts like mask-wearing and hand-washing are working. Throughout the halls and rooms at the Abby Kelley elementary school, floors are dotted with markers to help students stand six feet apart and bottles of hand sanitizer are scattered about.

Paluk said that more parents are starting to sign up now that theyve seen the program roll out, and now that the state wants elementary students to be back in class full-time next month.

Now that theres been a push at the state level, I think more parents will avail themselves of this, Paluk said.

Most schools using the pooled program started last month. With pooled testing, about 10 nose swabs from one classroom or cohort of students and staff go into one tube to be tested together at the lab. If the pooled sample comes back positive, individual tests are necessary. Parents must consent and register children for the testing. As of last week, 171 schools and districts statewide have signed up for the program.

At Abby Kelley, students in second grade and older administer the tests themselves if they are comfortable. For kindergarten and first grade students, Joubert handles the swab. The school sent a video of a second-grader administering the test home to parents so children could see the process.

They see it. They know it doesnt hurt. They know it doesnt go up far, Joubert said. Theyre really able to get a sense of independence by doing it themselves, and theyre proud.

She donned a gown, glove and face shield on Monday to give a test to 6-year-old Myles Appiah, a first-grader. Appiah told the nurse he had played videogames over the weekend, sat still for his test, and then grabbed a squirt of hand sanitizer before heading back to class.

I think it gives peace of mind to parents knowing that we are doing everything here that we can possibly do to keep the kids safe and healthy, Joubert said. I think with the parents seeing that our numbers are zero right now and statistics are pretty good, they feel more comfortable getting them back in school.

Tests are also available for teachers and staff. Technology teacher Shelby Dame popped into the office on Monday to get her test. She was back to work moments later.

Abby Kelley is currently using a hybrid education model. Kindergarten students started in classrooms in September, first through third grade came in at the end of October/beginning of November, and fourth through twelfth grade started Jan. 11.

After Joubert collects all the samples, theyre picked up and sent off to a lab for testing. Results can come back in 24 hours, sometimes less, Joubert said.

Later this week, K-12 employees will be able to sign up for a coronavirus vaccine appointment in Massachusetts.

Related Content:
Over 13,000 students, including pupils from seven secondary schools across Co. Kildare, have to date participated in Drinkawares Junior Cycle Alcohol Education Programme (JC AEP) which was the subject of the three-year longitudinal study carried out by Maynooth University.

This significant study, for the first time, tracks 1st to 3rd year students experiences of alcohol education in Ireland in real time. As the national charity working to reduce and prevent alcohol misuse in Ireland, Drinkaware commissioned Maynooth Universitys Centre for Mental Health and Community Research to investigate the programmes effectiveness in particular its primary prevention goal to delay the age of first drink.

The programme involves 8-10 lessons delivered on a weekly/fortnightly basis by the trained teacher and to date 134 schools have undertaken the programme including Colaiste Naomh Mhuire, Sallins, Cross and Passion, Kilcullen, Scoil Dara, Kilcock, St Marks Special School, Newbridge, Naas Community College, Celbridge Community School, and Newbridge College.

350+ students from 19 schools across the country took part in the evaluation that was conducted over the three-year period (2018  2020).

Increase in Intent Not to Drink & Improved Understanding of Impact of alcohol consumption on Health

The report found that as the students progressed through the JC AEP, the proportion who expressed no intention or interest in drinking, rose from 30% in 1st year to 54% in 3rd year. The findings also show that participation led to substantial and sustained improvements in students knowledge and understanding of alcohol when compared with pre-programme delivery data.

Students knowledge of the impact of alcohol on overall health and wellbeing increased substantially and progressively from 22% pre-programme to 50% in 3rd year. A similar increase was found regarding students who reported knowing a lot about alcohols impact on mental health which also doubled from 23% pre-programme to 46% in 3rd year. Furthermore, nearly half (46%) of participating students identified the negative impact of alcohol on physical and mental health as a reason why teenagers do not drink.

Tipping Point for Underage Drinking is 2nd  3rd Year

As the study followed participating students through their three formative years of secondary school, there was a marked shift across some of the results when comparing 2nd and 3rd year data. For instance, the 60% (approx.) of students who indicated that they had never drunk alcohol remained fairly stable between 1st and 2nd year, but then decreased sharply by 17% as students went from 2nd to 3rd year.

A disturbing result revealed in the study was that 38% of 3rd year participating students who drink, have already experienced one or more negative effects of alcohol consumption, such as physical fights, arguments, accidents/injury, and/or feeling physically sick/vomiting.

Home Setting Can Facilitate or Deter Underage Drinking

A recurring theme identified within the report, was that of parents role in underage drinking. Parental permissiveness  even if this is only perceived by the student  and the ease with which alcohol can be accessed in the home setting, may either inhibit or enable underage drinking. For instance, 57% of 3rd year students had first consumed alcohol either in their own or someone elses home, most saying they did so with little difficulty whilst only 1 in 4 said they got into trouble with parents for drinking.

In contrast to the 44% in 3rd year who cited tolerant parental views regarding alcohol, 19% indicated that their parents do not like to see them drinking, and 17% of those in 3rd year who had not started drinking cited concerns over their parents reaction as a deterrent to drinking.

The findings on the views of teachers, reflected a general consensus that parents/guardians should take primary responsibility for alcohol education (63%) and that they either were not fulfilling this role or needed support to do so.

With regard to the participating students and teachers views of the JC AEP, the study reveals consistently high proportions of students in each year of the evaluation, rated the JC AEP highly, for example 63% of students in Year 3 rated it as excellent, very good or good. 60% also said that they would recommend the programme to other students/schools.

Commenting on the report findings, Sheena Horgan, Drinkaware CEO said: 15 years of age is the average age of the first drink in Ireland. But average doesnt tell the full story. This study shows how attitudes, and behaviours shift markedly across 13 to 15 year olds (1st to 3rd year), meaning alcohol education before this age is vital. Maynooth Universitys rigorous and independent evaluation shows how programmes like Drinkawares JC AEP can make a significant contribution to the prevention/delay of underage drinking.

Lead author of the study, Professor Sinead McGilloway, Founder Director of the Centre for Mental Health and Community Research at Maynooth Universitys Dept. of Psychology said: To date, public policy on alcohol has primarily focused on older teenagers. However, our research clearly indicates that we need to engage with our children at a much earlier age. The collective findings of this study suggest that Drinkawares Alcohol Education Programme is a useful, feasible and high quality programme that is successfully engaging and empowering young people to develop sustained improvements in knowledge, awareness, understanding, confidence and appropriate decision-making skills around the consumption of alcohol The results also highlight the important role that parents play in protecting and educating their children on alcohol, and a need to provider better support to them in this regard.

Commenting on the next steps for Drinkaware and the Junior Cycle Alcohol Education Programme, Horgan said: With this research clearly indicating how alcohol education can be effective, the time to act is now. We must progress and scale evidence-informed education programmes, such as the JCAEP, at a national level and also look at potential programmes for 1112 year olds if the disturbing trajectory of underage drinking and continuance of alcohol harm is to be halted. There is no place for alcohol in childhood, and through the collective efforts of Irish society, from educators to parents, to charities such as Drinkaware, we can make a difference to the next generations relationship with alcohol.

Alcohol Action Ireland

Meanwhile, in a lengthy statement issued today, Alcohol Action Ireland said that alcohol education in our schools "cannot be out-sourced to an alcohol industry-funded organisation".

Eunan McKinney, Head of Communications and Advocacy with Alcohol Action Ireland said:

"In Ireland, while we continue to advocate for crucial legislative measures to reduce alcohol use and childrens exposure to alcohol marketing to be implemented, we are concerned that our schools-based alcohol education has become the target ground for the corporate interests of industry players.

"Across our education system there is a creeping acceptance of a corporate curriculum that facilitates commercial interests to develop and distribute curricular materials. This practice, evident in the school access granted to Drinkaware, is regrettably, yet a further manifestation of an orthodoxy at the heart of governance that seeks to avoid conflict with commercial interests and aims to resolve them in a public-private partnership. Since 2017, Drinkaware has increasingly gained access to many of our post primary schools across the country with its Alcohol Education Programme.

"And, while public policy outlines that it is not appropriate that schools use any materials or resources developed by organisations funded by the alcohol industry, hundreds of teachers and thousands of children are receiving just that. The Department of Education, working with the HSE, has already established a national resource for teachers Know the Score aimed at guiding and supporting them to improve their knowledge and strengthen their skills in dealing with the risks associated with alcohol.

"The latest data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (2018) highlights that one in five children entering post-primary schools have had an alcoholic drink, but by the time they sit their junior certificate, four out of ten will have had an alcoholic drink in the last thirty days. In this context, can it be appropriate that an alcohol industry funded organisation is both training our teachers and encouraging an independent decision making about alcohol among our children?

"Organisations, and registered charities, who consider there is an inherent conflict associated with the alcohol industry playing a role in providing public health advice, we believe this access to our schools, and facilitation of a corporate social responsibility strategy that exposes children to the ambiguous messaging of responsible alcohol use, can no longer be acceptable."
According to the national Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), Vietnam will receive 4.177 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine via the Covax program with support from the UNICEF.

The Covax, or the Global Covid-19 Vaccine Facility, is a global mechanism for the development, manufacture and procurement of Covid-19 vaccine candidates, facilitating and supporting member countries to access vaccines as they become available.

Under this, 1.373 million doses are slated to arrive on March 25 and the rest in April. The vaccine is produced by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University.

Covax has pledged to provide Vietnam with 4.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first half and around 33 million doses in the second half of this year.

Also within April, 1.48 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that Vietnam had ordered to buy via the Vietnam Vaccine JSC will also be delivered.

In all, Vietnam has ordered 30 million doses and 117,600 doses had arrived late last month. A large-scale vaccination program was launched Monday, with priority given to frontline medical workers, military, and police forces.

On Monday and Tuesday, 468 medical and other frontline workers in HCMC, Hanoi, the northern province of Hai Duong and the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai received the first dose of the vaccine. No one has showed any adverse reactions so far, according to the Health Ministry.

In the latest outbreak of community transmission that broke out January 28, Vietnam has registered 894 cases, including one confirmed Tuesday evening in epicenter Hai Duong, which alone has accounted for as many as 710 cases.

The latest outbreak has been basically been under controlled as 10 out of 13 affected localities, including HCMC and Hanoi, have not recorded any new infections in 24 days.

Vietnam is expected to acquire 150 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from foreign and domestic sources by 2022.

Besides the deal with AstraZeneca, Vietnam is also stepping up negotiations with the U.S.s Pfizer and Moderna, along with other vaccine manufacturers in Russia and China.

Four indigenously developed Covid-19 vaccines are in the works. Human trials for Nanocovax, produced by Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology JSC, began last December; and for Covivac, produced by the health ministrys Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals, are expected to begin soon.
Alabama legislators are taking a look at how their branch has set up our states public health system.

Currently, Alabama is the only state in the nation where the top health organization is not led by someone appointed by the governor or by a board that is appointed by the governor. This would be fine, perhaps even good, if in fact the State Board of Health was elected by a vote of the people.

The problem is, however, that this is not how we decide who is on the State Board of Health. In fact, wethe people of Alabamadont really decide much about the states public health system at all.

So if the people dont have much authority, either by electing the board outright or by electing the governor who chooses the board, whos in charge here?

According to the website of the Alabama Department of Public Health (which is synonymous for the State Board of Health), Alabama law designates the State Board of Health as an advisory board to the state in all medical matters, matters of sanitation, and public health.

Pretty standard. The next line, however, is where we start to see a problem. The Medical Association, which meets annually, is the State Board of Health.

This Medical Association is none other than the Medical Association of the State of Alabama (MASA), the association of the states physicians. MASA operates just like any other professional association does, it has its own leadership, its own practices, and its own decision-making bodiesall of which are determined not by the governor or by the people of Alabama, but by the medical practitioners who populate the groups membership rolls.

The Medical Association is also a registered principle (an organization that hires lobbyists) and has, as of March, six registered lobbyists. In fact, advocacy is, according to their website, the Medical Associations primary focus.

So what business does an advocacy group have being the State Board of Health? Heres a healthy reminder that its not part of or an advisory board to the State Board of Health. It is the State Board of Health.

Back in another century, the Alabama legislature decided that they didnt want to create a whole new government agency (perhaps a good intention) to be in charge of public health. The doctors, they thought, should be in charge! And who would say no to that? The medical field, as it should be, is well-respected and given a great amount of deference. They know how to stop diseases, so lets task them with doing just that.

That idea would be all fine and dandy if the State Board of Health were simply to give recommendations to the governor on what she should do. The Code of Alabama makes it clear that this, however, is not the Boards only role. Instead, the State Board of Health is to adopt rules and regulations [that are in accordance with Alabama law which] shall have the force and effect of law.

Those health departments in Jefferson and Mobile counties that you heard about in the news early in the pandemic? Theyre a local version of this same dynamic. Each countys board of health, just like MASA is the State Board of Health, is the board of censors of the local county medical society.

What about the State Health Officer? Maybe hes chosen by the governor or elected? Not quite. The State Health Officer is elected by the State Committee on Public Health. Members of the State Committee on Public Health areyou guessed itselected by the State Board of Health which, weve established, is the medical association.

How about the county health officers?

Again we see a similar dynamic. Here, the county boards, i.e. the county medical associations, appoint the health officer. One caveat here - the president of the county commission is a member of the county board. So there is some participation of the people in this appointment, albeit minor and ineffective at overpowering the decisions of the non-elected members.

The truth is that you cant blame the medical association nor the state or local county health officers for the way this system is set up. Theyre simply operating under a paradigm theyve been given.

That doesnt mean the system shouldnt be changed though. With any human system of authority, checks and balances are needed to prevent tyranny. And, to be fair, there are some checks (the fact that the legislature can change this system at any time, for example), but they do nothing to address the problem of a private association being given the power of the state. The teachers union, for example, is not the Department of Education (and it shouldnt be). Why does our public health system, which has the power to quarantine individuals to their homes, get to skirt democracy and enjoy its own kingdom?

No other state in the union operates in this way. Even Californias Secretary of Health and Human Services is appointed and has to get approved by the State Senate. Their system is more democratic, and more conservative, than ours.

Thankfully, there is a bill by Senator McClendon with 17 co-sponsors moving through the State House that would reconstitute the Alabama Department of Health into an agency led by a cabinet official appointed directly by the governor instead of a private group. The bill, which would take control away from the Medical Association and give it to a popularly elected official, has passed the Senate Health Committee and moves now to the full Senate.

This reform, with an additional provision to require the Senate to confirm the nominee (this year of executive action has shown the need for legislative approval), needs to become law. The Alabama legislature should prioritize it and debate whether the current system really makes sense in a state thats all about self-governance and defending our rights.

Because, in the end, we cant let California be more conservative than Alabama, can we?

Parker Snider is Director of Policy Analysis for the Alabama Policy Institute.
Ministry proposes shorter quarantine from next month

THAILAND: The Public Health Ministry is to ask the government to consider reducing the length of mandatory quarantine for incoming travellers from 14 days to 7-10 days, from next month.

CoronavirusCOVID-19healthSafetytourism

By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 09:07AM

Graphics: Bangkok Post.

The plan was announced yesterday (Mar 8) by Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, in his capacity as chairman of the National Committee on Communicable Diseases.

Mr Anutin said the ministry would ask the government to cut the length of mandatory quarantine in order to help stimulate tourism and give the economy a boost.

We are prepared to open the country to help drive economic growth, he said after the committee met yesterday.

If we can administer vaccines to 70% of all medical workers by October, we may consider abolishing mandatory quarantine requirements for some groups.

We have enough vaccines from AstraZeneca, and we are planning to get 10 million more doses from them, if they can produce more for us.

If approved, shorter quarantine requirements will apply to travellers who fall into the following three categories, starting in April, he said.

The first are non-Thai citizens who were vaccinated against COVID-19 between 14 days to three months before their arrival in Thailand and have tested negative for the disease. These travellers, Mr Anutin said, will only be required to quarantine for seven days.

The second are Thai returnees who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 between 14-days to three months before their arrival in Thailand. These travellers, he said, will also be required to stay in quarantine for seven days.

Third, Mr Anutin said, are non-Thai citizens who have not been vaccinated but possess COVID-19-free certificates. These travellers will be required to stay in quarantine for 10 days, he said.

These shortened quarantine requirements wont apply to travellers arriving from Africa, who will still be required to observe the full 14-day quarantine, as the Public Health Ministry is concerned about the possibility of more contagious COVID-19 variants from the continent spreading in Thailand.

On a separate note, the public health minister insisted that the government never had any intention to block private hospitals from providing COVID-19 vaccines to paying patients.

But they must comply with guidelines on vaccine registration, Mr Anutin said.
(Newser)  If you expected the Oprah interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to make a few headlines on celebrity sites and disappear, think again. The fallout over their allegations of racismparticularly that the royal family was concerned about the color of their son's skincontinues to resonate. Coverage:

Markle helped dismantle the fading "Disney-like" image of the royal family, writes Karen Attiah in a Washington Post opinion piece. Winfrey, she adds, "perfectly channeled the shock and frustration felt by many Black women watching," including Attiah herself. All in all, these two Black women "took down whatever fantasies remained about the British monarchy," reads the headline on the piece. The interview made clear that Britain's long and brutal history of racism and white supremacy endure, even if they're hidden behind "the soft-power propaganda" of a grandmother-like queen.

In the New York Times, Salamishah Tillet writes that the interview shows Prince Harry is confronting his own white privilege. Harry called out his own family for failing to come to Markle's defense against racist attacks in tabloids. "And with that confession, Harry declared his independence from British racismwhether he realizes it goes beyond his family's treatment of his son and is an essential ingredient to the monarchy itself, I don't know," Tillet writes. But this has the potential to open a new chapter for his own family history "and bequeath his children a legacy of antiracism. And if that is the case, it really will be better than any fairy tale ever imagined."

story continues below

Late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel weighed in, and both backed Harry and Meghan. "I'm gonna go on a limb here and say there's a possibility that this medieval, selective breeding program might be racist," said Colbert, per Deadline. Kimmel: "You know things are bad at Buckingham Palace if they came to [America] to get away from racism."

A Washington Post story on all this notes that the royal family seemed to embrace Markle's entry into the family, at least initially. "It looked like the monarchy was actually poised to maybe serve as an example of how to move forward ... on these issues in a progressive way," says an Emory University professor. But the Winfrey interview shattered that notion quickly and "represents a new inflection point in the global racial reckoning of the past year," write Ashley Fetters and Jennifer Hassan.

The Post story examines previous racial controversies involving members of the royal family, including Prince Philip telling a group of British students in China, "If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed." And journalist Anita Sethi accused Prince Charles in an op-ed of failing to see her as British because of her brown skin.

Markle's estranged father came to the defense of the palace, notes Us Weekly. "I don't think the British royal family are racist at all," said Thomas Markle. "I don't think the British are racist. I think Los Angeles is racist, California is ... racist, but I don't think the Brits are." As for his daughter's allegation that the palace was worried about her son's skin color, he chalked it up to somebody asking a "stupid question," not systemic racism.

(Read more Meghan Markle stories.)
Malin Andersson has discussed her suicide attempt after her one-month-old daughter Consy tragically passed away two years ago.

The Love Island star, 28, said she hit 'rock bottom' following the death of her baby and felt like she 'didnt have a purpose'.

In a moving interview with The Sun on Monday, she spoke about how at her 'lowest point' she woke up in A&E after attempting suicide.

Heartbreak: Malin Andersson has discussed her suicide attempt after her one-month-old daughter Consy tragically passed away two years ago

The mental health campaigner lost both her mother, Consy-Gloria, 65, to stomach cancer in November 2017, and baby daughter within 14 months of each other.

Malin's little girl Consy, named after her late mother, died in January 2019 from complications as a result of being born seven weeks premature.

She said: 'I lost essentially all the love I ever had in my life in one hit. I was at my lowest point. There was nothing else I could do so I just surrendered.

Tragic: The Love Island star, 28, said she felt like she 'didnt have a purpose' following the death of her baby, who passed away from complications after being born seven weeks premature

'I hit rock bottom. I didnt want to be here any more and tried to overdose by taking lots of painkillers.

'Then I woke up in A&E. I felt like I didnt have a purpose, I felt like there was no point in me existing.'

The reality star previously spoke candidly about how she debated taking her own life in order to be with her daughter.

Speaking about the agony she went through on the Yahoo podcast White Wine Question Time in June 2019, Malin said: 'When she passed away, I locked myself away for about three weeks. I just drank wine every night, I didnt want to speak to anybody.

'I lost essentially all the love I ever had in my life in one hit': The mental health campaigner also lost her mother, Consy-Gloria, 65, to stomach cancer in November 2017

Precious: Her baby daughter was born seven weeks premature in December 2018 and was being treated at Great Ormond Street hospital, but sadly passed away aged four weeks on 22 January, 2019

'I was too scared to touch her, because of the wires and everything. I was slowly collecting tablets because I was thinking, "If shes going to go, f***, Im going too. Because what else have I got to live for here? I havent got a family to go back to."'

The past few years have been incredibly tough for Malin, as five months after her baby's death she left her abusive boyfriend, who was later jailed.

However, two years on, she said she has allowed herself to heal and now wishes to shine a light on baby loss coming up to Mother's Day.

She plans to visit her daughter's grave, saying: 'I wont feel sorrow. I will speak to her and say, "Look how far I have come and look at what I am doing now".'

Heartbreaking: Two years on, she said she has allowed herself to heal and now wishes to shine a light on baby loss coming up to Mother's Day

Tom Kemp, 29, Consy's father, was jailed at Aylesbury Crown Court in September last year, after admitting to actual bodily harm, which left the reality star 'black and blue'.

And in January, her violent ex was freed from prison leaving the Love Islander to up the security on her London home.

The Sun reported that he has served three months of a ten month sentence and will serve the remaining seven months of his term on Home Detention Curfew.

Sentenced: The past few years have been incredibly tough for Malin, and earlier this year her violent ex Tom Kemp, 29, Consy's father, was freed from prison (pictured in April 2019)

Malin previously accused her 'narcissistic' ex Kemp of being abusive in Instagram posts last year and shared pictures of herself with a cut cheek and bloodied nose.

But Kemp, from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, denied the claims at the time, branding her a 'liar with mental health issues'.

Malin and Kemp had an on-off romance, splitting briefly during her pregnancy, amid claims Kemp had been unfaithful to her, but reconciling shortly before the birth.

In March they split again, with Malin admitting it was better to end things between them as she and her partner struggled with their grief.

Horrific: Malin previously shared pictures of her injuries on social media, which included a broken hand, a bloodied nose and a bruised cheek

Injuries: Tom also left Malin with broken bones and bruises in a violent tirade and she revealed Kemp 'slapped and punched' her while she was six months pregnant

In October, Malin told how she believes the physical abuse Tom subjected her to while she was pregnant was a factor behind her daughter's death at just one month old.

She revealed Kemp 'slapped and punched' her while she was six months pregnant, causing her to fall on her back and her stomach to hit the side of a bed.

Speaking to The Sun, Malin said she is convinced the incident contributed to Consy's death as after a few days, she noticed she wasn't moving around as much.

A month later, the movements reduced again and Malin insisted Kemp drive her to the hospital where doctors discovered Consy's irregular heartbeat, leading her to have an emergency cesarean that day at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

She said: 'When Tom threw me about, I'd tense my stomach so much, I could feel her pausing inside me. The doctors didnt understand what happened to her, but I know in my heart.'

If you are a victim of domestic abuse, call Refuge's freephone, 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247
Four days after face-to-face education was resumed in Chile, 30 schools were temporarily closed due to the detection of coronavirus infections of children and staff. Another 21 schools quarantined the infected but kept the facilities open. Nonetheless, the ultra-right Chilean government of President Sebastian Pinera is proceeding with a reckless policy of progressively opening all public and subsidized private schools in the country.

The 2021 academic year started on March 1 with mixed modes of teaching and amid opposition from the wider community. Demonstrations rocked the capital at the beginning and the end of this week as high school students and youth were confronted by a massive deployment of Carabineros Special Forces with the now standard operating procedure of brutal repression and arrests. Only a fraction of the primary and secondary public school population attended in-person classes.

Overwhelming pressure is being exerted on teachers in the face of a surge in COVID-19 cases. Education Minister Raul Figueroa reiterated the supposedly voluntary nature of returning to on-site learning. Teachers and education employees, however, were directed to be present at schools just in case students turned up, making a mockery of the claim.

Union and government roundtable discussions February 18 (Credit: mineduc.cl)

I want to be very clear that it is the parents who must make the determination of whether or not their children go or not at this time to face-to-face activities, Figueroa threatened, adding that for a long time now countries in the Northern Hemisphere have also been doing it.

South American governments are using the authority of UNICEF to force schools open in a bid to implement criminal herd immunity policies.

The regional director of the organization claimed that children in Latin America and the Caribbean have been out of the classroom longer than any other children in the world. In line with this, BBC interviewed UNICEF emergency education specialist, Ruth Custode, who claimed that the opening process cannot be postponed any longer, even if it is gradual. Custode continued, Governments must think about the risks of opening schools versus the risks of not opening them. By far, not opening them will be more detrimental to the region.

In the past two weeks minister after minister has joined the drive to browbeat teachers into submission. Economy Minister Lucas Palacios slandered educators as lazy. In his interview with T13 Radio, Palacios said that in the case of teachers, it is striking that they seek by all means not to work, it is a unique case in the world, and I would say that it is worth studying.

To suit the governments agenda, Health Minister Enrique Paris that children transmit the coronavirus very little. Education Minster Raul Figueroa, who opposed the school closures throughout last year, falsely argued that schools are safe spaces when they comply with the required sanitary measures and protocols.

Various scientific studies have conclusively demonstrated that school closures are associated with a significant decline in both incidence of COVID-19 and mortality. What is more, the experiences in the United States and Europe attest to the false and misleading character of the governments arguments. Lockdowns and school closures are today more necessary than ever.

Last Friday, the country recorded 5,325 COVID-19 cases in 24 hours, the highest figure in eight months. Schools were closed last March, when the virus had just made its appearance, and education went online due to widespread public concern.

Today, with the number of suspected cases and deaths reaching over 950,000 and 27,000 respectively, the right-wing government is forcing teachers into the classrooms as it pushes a back to normal paradigm. This new normal is all the more criminal given that in Chile the 24- to 69-year-old working age group constitutes 73 percent of cases and one-third of deaths. Moreover, the more infectious and lethal British and Brazilian strains have been detected since February and have now made their way throughout the country.

The spurious grounds for reopening schoolsthat the government is concerned for the well-being of children and youthis belied by reality. Twelve months of the pandemic have exposed the utter disdain the political establishment has for the poor and working class families.

Undoubtedly, children have suffered from the consequences of social isolation, and intra-family tensions reached new heights last year, due to forced confinement. The primary contributor to this tragic situation has been insecurity arising from mass unemployment, hunger, the threat of evictions and homelessness, all which rose sharply in a country suffering from multidimensional social inequality.

But neither the executive nor the legislature provided any meaningful assistance to deal with these deep social disparities with millions living in the overcrowded working class communities of Santiago or in the countless shantytown campamentos throughout Chile, lacking potable water and a regular supply of electricity and gas, let alone access to the internet.

The teachers union bears direct responsibility for the dire conditions facing education staff. Despite immense support within the working class and among youth for teachers, the unions have refused to mobilize their membership out of fear that it would unleash a tidal wave of social opposition.

Nor are the unions opposed to on-site instruction. What they want is to be invited to the negotiating table. Two weeks prior to the schools reopening a government-union roundtable was arranged which put forward a nine-point plan. This consisted of delaying on-site learning until the entire education population was vaccinated with both doses and dynamic quarantining reaching Phase 4.

We believe that there is no possibility of returning in March, mainly because of the pandemic situation and because beyond the vaccine, which is an important element, we will not have the two doses by March 1. There has been a lot of improvisation in this respect, and we are not all going to arrive inoculated on that date, union President Carlos Diaz said coming out of the meeting. (By March 1 half the 513,000-strong workforce was vaccinated, with the remainder receiving the first dose by March 5, and 3.9 million have been vaccinated with a single dose.)

When the government rode roughshod over the unions demands, Diaz offered only an accusatory finger but proposed nothing to protect its membership. In case of any contagion, any death, the responsibility will be on the Ministry of Education and the government of Sebastian Pinera.

With 51 schools affected by coronavirus cases as of Friday, March 5, Diaz made a perfunctory call to the Government of Sebastian Pinera, to the Ministry of Education, because given the conditions that we have today, it is not possible to continue with these on-site classes.

Diaz, a member of the Humanist Party, is aligned with the pseudo-left front Frente Amplio that holds seats in the legislature and together with the Communist Party controls the trade union apparatus. These two multiparty organizations have been instrumental in allowing the deeply hated Pinera to remain in power for the last two years. Through verbal opposition to the ultra-right government, they posture as lefts, while thwarting every initiative to save the lives, jobs and conditions of the working class.

The unions long ago ceased to be national reformist organizations. During the military dictatorship, they were transformed into corporatized instruments to increase productivity and police wage cuts and job destruction in the drive to make the economy internationally competitive. This process is no more exposed than in the privatization reforms of education that were consolidated under civilian rule.

The corporatist agenda has only accelerated during the pandemic as trade union federations drove miners and other export-oriented sectors back to work. They helped impose wage cuts, supported the furloughing of hundreds of thousands of workers in private industry for the employers benefit and refused to call any industrial action against poverty, hunger, insecurity and evictions impacting the working class.

This bitter experience with the unions is not unique to Chile but universal. Teachers internationally have come into direct conflict with their union leaderships, who are also negotiating the reopening of schools to meet the requirements of the financial and corporate elites.

In recent months, planned action by Chicago teachers was betrayed by the Chicago Teachers Union, paving the way for a reopening of schools across the US. A mass strike of teachers in Sao Paulo, Brazil has been sabotaged by the APEOESP union, and wildcat French teacher strikes have been strangled by the unions.

From these common experiences, workers in Chile must draw definite conclusions. They must break with the Stalinist PCCh, the pseudo-left Frente Amplio, the establishment left and the union apparatus and create new organs of political power that are comprised of and controlled by the rank and file.

With its on-line publication, the World Socialist Web Site, the International Committee of the Fourth International has created the instrument through which teachers, health care professionals and other workers can democratically discuss the fight for workplace health and safety, decent incomes and conditions, and establish international rank-and-file committees which will organize the fight for these life-and-death questions as part of the struggle for the socialist transformation of society on a world scale.
Swedish Photographer Shares Stunning Photos Capturing Regal Beauty of the Lusitano Horse

A Swedish photographers deep love for horses transformed a hobby into a passion project that now takes her around the world. However, there is one breed that especially stands out to her for its unique, regal poise and beautythe Lusitano.

I have been photographing horses for over 3 years now, Mayra Vidal, of Malmo, Sweden, told I Heart Horses in 2020. The ones who inspired me to start my photography were actually the horses. They are majestic creatures who show the colors of what art really is about.

Vidal, who grew up with horses and started to ride them before she walked, has been a horse groom and rider herself. When she started out as a photographer, she was commissioned to take photos of horse models for portfolios. But as her photos gained popularity, so did her reputation, and the scope of her work went international.

She then founded Equine by Vidal Photography in 2018.

The photogenic Lusitano, a steed once favored by kings and warriors, became Vidals firm-favorite breed. Every year, whenever possible, she travels to Portugal to photograph these horses up close in their native environs.

The Lusitano is considered to be one of the first horses under saddle, and gets its name from Lusitania, the ancient province named by the Romans located were modern-day Portugal and part of western Spain lie.

Archaeologists claim to have found evidence that the breed dates back as far as 25,000 B.C., when they were likely used as war horses. Intelligent, beautiful, and agile, the Lusitano is bred today for use in equitation, dressage, and bullfighting.

Vidal relishes the wealth of new experiences, challenges, and horse enthusiasts that her photography venture has brought into her life. I learn something new each day, and each day its like a call for me to go out and see horses from all shapes, sizes, and colors to capture their beauty and their personality, she said.

Through the popularity of her work, Vidal has also had the chance to work with some big-named brands such as PS of Sweden, Equito, and SD Design. She was also once named the best entrepreneur in her home country for having the fastest-growing business.

Vidal now shares her extraordinary artwork with the world on her Instagram page.

The photographer wants to see more Lusitanos in Sweden, and more in dressage arenas and competitions. Sharing an extraordinary portrait of a mottled-gray Lusitano named Fiel, she claimed, I want to wake awareness of this irreplaceable breed so more people discover the Lusitano.

Horses, Vidal reflected, have made her who she is today. I love to spread happiness, she said, and it makes me feel good knowing that people around the world enjoy my art.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired Newsletter at: TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Health officials have found dengue mosquitoes in the Northern Territory outback after they likely hitched a ride from tropical north Queensland.

The female Aedes aegypti - also known as the yellow fever mosquito - is the only insect that can spread dengue fever.

Three females and one male were trapped by medical entomology officers during routine exotic mosquito surveillance in Tennant Creek, about 1,000km south of Darwin.

No cases of dengue fever have been diagnosed and the virus is not present in the Territory, NT Health says.

It's likely the mosquitoes were accidentally brought from Queensland by road, medical entomologist Bill Pettit said on Tuesday.

The female Aedes aegypti - also known as the yellow fever mosquito - is the only insect that can spread dengue fever

'The dengue mosquito was eliminated from the NT in the mid-1950s and has not become permanently established since,' he said.

However, it did make it back into the Territory on three occasions - Tennant Creek in 2004 and 2011, and on Groote Eylandt in 2006 - requiring 'a comprehensive two-year program' to eliminate the insect.

Health officers will travel to Tennant Creek this month to search for more dengue mosquitoes and larvae.

The insect is often found around homes and typically lay their eggs in water-filled containers such as buckets, animal dishes and flower pots.

Three females and one male were trapped by medical entomology officers during routine exotic mosquito surveillance in Tennant Creek, about 1,000km south of Darwin

The eggs can survive in the dry for up 12 months and follow-up visits are likely to be required after the next rains to ensure the mosquito is eliminated.

Tennant Creek residents have been urged to tip out any water from containers around their homes until their properties have been inspected.

Dengue fever is usually found in tropical and subtropical countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

An outbreak also occurs in North Queensland each year.

Symptoms are high fever, a rash and muscle and joint pain. In severe cases, there is serious bleeding and shock, which can be life-threatening.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The road accessible Wicheeda REE Property is located close to infrastructure approximately 80 kilometres northeast of Prince George, British Columbia (BC).The Wicheeda project has indicated mineral resources of 4,890,000 tonnes averaging 3.02% LREO (Light Rare Earth Elements) and inferred mineral resources of 12,100,000 tonnes averaging 2.90% LREO 1 .

Highlights of the XRT amenability study completed by SRC on samples of high-grade REE mineralized Wicheeda diamond drill core are as follows:

X-ray transmission measurements and QEMSCAN  confirmed that XRT technology can identify Wicheeda REE minerals in drill core samples (Figure 1).





C r ushingto-15mmsize p articlesandusinga5% REE mineral lower cut-offinthesortingalgorithm,demonstrated the potential of low-cost front end XRT sorting to up g r ad e 2.3x fromapproximately 11%REEmineral contentto 25%REEmineralcontent.





Upgrading of Wicheeda REE mineralization via XRT sorting has the potential to significantly reduce feed volume forwarded to downstream the hydrometallurgical process.

Craig Taylor, CEO of Defense Metals, stated: "Defense Metals is excited to establish the amenability of Wicheeda REE mineralization to the application of low-cost front end upgrading via sensor-based sorting technologies. We know from our very successful flotation pilot plant and bench-scale hydrometallurgical test-work that early volume reduction and upgrading has significant downstream benefits. The quality of concentrate we can deliver to flotation process has direct benefits in terms of process recovery, and reduced costs related to reagent reduction. Based on the success of this amenability test work SRC have recommended proceeding to a series of confirmatory XRT sorting optimization tests."

Table 1. Theoretical Grade of XRT Sorted Mineralized Feed At Various Particle Sizes

Potential REE Mineral Grade with Barren Particles Removed Potential REE Upgrade Using Various Lower Cut-Offs Preferred Sorting Technology Particle

Size Mineral

Particles Particles with REE's Minerals

Accepted (%) Accept

Grade

(%) REE Cut-Off (%) Minerals

Accepted (%) REE Minerals Recovered (%) Accept

Grade (%) Reject

Grade (%) XRT 20 mm 57 57 100.00% 10.68% 4.20% 44.90% 65.90% 16.07% 5.25% 10 mm 226 222 98.30% 10.77% 4.80% 33.90% 66.90% 22.17% 4.33% 6 mm 625 586 93.90% 11.04% 5.20% 28.90% 69.70% 26.30% 3.58% DMS 3 mm 2,450 1,916 78.10% 12.74% 6.00% 24.90% 73.20% 35.11% 2.44% 1.2 mm 14,894 7,275 48.70% 20.96% 2.90% 26.90% 92.50% 37.49% 0.61% 0.6 mm 59,199 17,406 29.30% 36.75% 1.10% 24.00% 98.30% 43.43% 0.12%

XRT sorting is a technology that exploits the atomic density (atoms/cm3) differences of minerals. The atomic density of a mineral is closely related to the minerals' density (gram/cm3) and is therefore a viable technology for upgrading the mineralized feed prior to processing. Previous test work indicated that gravity separation prior to flotation was beneficial in concentrating Wicheeda REE minerals due to the large density differences between the REE and gangue minerals.

To evaluate amenability to XRT sorting, a combination of high-resolution XRT and QEMSCAN (Quantitative Evaluation of Materials by Scanning Electron Microscopy) measurements were carried out at the SRC. These measurements identify if the atomic density differences between the REE and gangue minerals can be exploited for XRT sorting. The greyscale levels associated with the various minerals are identified using QEMSCAN measurements.

Using the X-ray greyscale images and the QEMSCAN images, additional theoretical information on the grade of the REE minerals for various particle sizes is generated. The particle grade information determined how much gangue and how much REE mineralization is present in each size fraction. Information is necessary to determine the benefits of upgrading the mineralized feed at different particle sizes.

Size fractions greater than 6 mm can be viably sorted using XRT sorters while size fractions greater than 0.6 mm are more amendable to sorting using dense medium separation (DMS) and spirals. Size fractions less than 0.6 mm are concentrated via hydrometallurgy processes. The average distribution of the REE minerals and the theoretical grade of the XRT sorted mineralized feed for the six core samples, for each size fraction within 20 mm, 10 mm, and 6 mm particles are shown in Table 1.

About the Wicheeda REE Property

The 1,708 hectare Wicheeda REE Property, located approximately 80 km northeast of the city of Prince George, British Columbia, is readily accessible by all-weather gravel roads and is nearby to infrastructure, including power transmission lines, the CN railway and major highways.

Geologically, the property is situated in the Foreland Belt and within the Rocky Mountain Trench, a major continental geologic feature. The Foreland Belt contains part of a large alkaline igneous province, stretching from the Canadian Cordillera to the southwestern United States, which includes several carbonatite and alkaline intrusive complexes hosting the Aley (niobium), Rock Canyon (REE), and Wicheeda (REE) deposits.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release as it relates to the Wicheeda REE Property has been reviewed and approved by Kristopher J. Raffle, P.Geo. (BC) Principal and Consultant of APEX Geoscience Ltd. of Edmonton, AB, a director of Defense Metals and a "Qualified Person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Raffle verified the data disclosed which includes a review of the analytical and test data underlying the information and opinions contained therein.

Methodology and QA/QC

A total of 6 core samples were selected for X-ray transmission measurements. Each sample was imaged using 2-dimensional X-ray transmission measurements to identify greyscale differences in the core samples. The greyscale levels associated with the various minerals are identified using QEMSCAN measurements. The X-ray images are then modified using a defined threshold to identify the location and dispersion of the REE minerals and pyrite throughout the core samples. The results of this XRT amenability study are theoretical in nature and may not be representative of actual recoveries obtainable via direct testing using XRT sorting and DMS.

Using image analysis techniques on the QEMSCAN images, the percent removal of low-grade mineralization is calculated for different theoretical size fractions. The size fractions used in this study were: 20 mm, 10 mm, 6 mm, 3 mm, 1.2 mm, and 0.6 mm rectangular particles.

Defense Metals is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data referred to herein. The SRC operates in accordance with ISO/IEC 17025:2005 (CAN-P-4E), General Requirements for the Competence of Mineral Testing and Calibration Laboratories. SRC is independent of Defense Metals Corp. and the Qualified Person.

About Defense Metals Corp.

Defense Metals Corp. is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition of mineral deposits containing metals and elements commonly used in the electric power market, military, national security and the production of "GREEN" energy technologies, such as, high strength alloys and rare earth magnets. Defense Metals has an option to acquire 100% of the 1,708 hectare Wicheeda Rare Earth Element Property located near Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. Defense Metals Corp. trades in Canada under the symbol "DEFN" on the TSX Venture Exchange, in the United States, under "DFMTF" on the OTCQB and in Germany on the Frankfurt Exchange under "35D".

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

This news release contains "forwardlooking information or statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which may include, without limitation, statements relating to proceeding to a series of confirmatory XRT sorting optimization tests and the expected, plans for the Wicheeda Property, the advancement and development of the Wicheeda Property, the technical, financial and business prospects of the Company, its project and other matters. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of rare earth elements, the ability to achieve its goals, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. While such estimates and assumptions are considered reasonable by the management of the Company, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and risks. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, adverse weather conditions, failure to maintain or obtain all necessary government permits, approvals and authorizations, failure to maintain community acceptance (including First Nations), decrease in the price of rare earth elements, the impact of Covid-19 or other viruses and diseases on the Company's ability to operate increase in costs, litigation, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The Company does not undertake to update forwardlooking statements or forwardlooking information, except as required by law.

______________________________ 1Technical Report on the Wicheeda Property, British Columbia, effective June 27, 2020 and prepared by APEX Geoscience Ltd. (Steven J. Nicholls, B.A. Sc., MAIG and Kristopher J. Raffle, B.Sc., P.Geo.) is available under Defense Metals Corp.'s profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com)

SOURCE Defense Metals Corp.
WASHINGTON  Some 46,000 Venezuelans living in Texas can breathe easier after the Biden administration announced Monday it will allow them to take shelter in the U.S. temporarily amid political and economic turmoil in their home country.

The Biden administration said it will extend Temporary Protected Status  granted to those in the U.S. from war-torn countries or nations devastated by natural disasters  to Venezuelans. Texas is home to the nations second-largest Venezuelan population, with 21,000 in the Houston area alone, according to 2019 estimates from the Migration Policy Institute.

The status permits asylum seekers to live and work in the U.S. for up to 18 months, though it is often extended. They are also eligible for health care under the Affordable Care Act. Some 200,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. would be eligible, according to federal estimates. Only those who can prove they were living in the U.S. before Mondays announcement are eligible.

EXPLAINER: Heres what the CDC's new guidelines mean if you've been vaccinated for COVID

The living conditions in Venezuela reveal a country in turmoil, unable to protect its own citizens, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. It is in times of extraordinary and temporary circumstances like these that the United States steps forward to support eligible Venezuelan nationals already present here, while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises.

The move comes as the Biden administration says it is focused on establishing an orderly and humane immigration system, ending a slew of Trump-era policies that limited legal immigration while proposing a sweeping overhaul in Congress that would offer a pathway to citizenship to up to 1.7 million Texans who are in the country without legal authorization. That proposal  which faces stiff opposition from Republicans in Congress  would extend automatic green cards to those with Temporary Protected Status.

The U.S. currently offers Temporary Protected Status to people from 10 other countries, including El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Houston, meanwhile, has long had strong ties to Venezuela in large part because of the oil industry. Houston is home to the headquarters of Citgo Petroleum Corp., long controlled by the Venezuelan government. Venezuela has the world's richest oil reserves, and many who worked at oil companies there also found jobs with Houston firms.

Jose Chirinos, a legal assistant who moved from Venezuela to Houston in 2001, said the new protections will be especially satisfying for those in the process of seeking asylum. He pointed out many Venezuelans who legally immigrated to Houston in the early 2000s overstayed their visas and will now be able to apply for drivers licenses and car insurance.

Its going to be good, because a lot of Venezuelans have their own business, he said. To be honest, they needed that (temporary protected status) for the last 4 or 5 years and never got it.

Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston, an immigration rights organization, said Houston will benefit from thousands of Venezuelans becoming more active in the community. He noted that El Salvadorans in Houston have prospered under the same protections granted in 2001.

Weve seen a lot of those folks thrive and open up businesses and become hard-working, integrated members of our society, Espinosa said. The problem is, though  these are temporary programs. So even though we see this in a very positive light, this also expresses the need for some sort of immigration reform system, so we dont have to continue to work in a patchwork approach.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Texans in Congress cheered the move.

Today is a great day for all our Venezuelan neighbors in Houston and beyond! U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat, tweeted.

I am thrilled to see that the Biden-Harris administration is once again taking steps to improve the lives of immigrants, she said in a statement. Immigrants leave their homes and come to the United States in pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Texas Democrats and Republicans alike tried to persuade former President Donald Trump to offer protections as he declared that the citizens of Venezuela have suffered for too long at the hands of the violent regime of President Nicolas Maduro. But Trump declined until the last day of his presidency, when he issued an executive order halting deportations of Venezuelans  but stopping short of granting full Temporary Protected Status.

Venezuelans are suffering from a criminal socialist dictatorship responsible for crimes against humanity, said U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Houston-area Republican who is the top GOP member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. TPS was designed to protect those fleeing extreme circumstances. The Biden Administration is right to expand on recent protections set by the Trump administration to protect Venezuelans and now make TPS available for Venezuelans.

Julian Gill contributed reporting from Houston.

ben.wermund@chron.com
Weve prepared U.S. overseas personnel deploying to 80 countries with crucial language skills and cultural competence in under 45 hours. Were now applying the same fast and cost-effective training methods to close the skills gap for low-income, minority, and immigrant populations.

Alelo Inc. has been selected as a Qualified Team in the prestigious XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling sponsored by New Profit competition, placing the firm's innovative AI training solutions among the top ten in a field of 118 entrants. Created to find innovative solutions to quickly train under-resourced workers for the digital revolution, XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling is a $5 million, 30-month competition offering $100,000 to Qualified Teams and $1.5 million to the team that best meets this vital goal. The final winner will be chosen in the first quarter of 2023.

Through our avatar-based AI training, weve prepared U.S. overseas personnel deploying to 80 countries with crucial language skills and cultural competence in under 45 hours, said Lewis Johnson, Alelo CEO. Were now applying the same fast and cost-effective training methods to close the skills gap for low-income, minority, and immigrant populations.

Alelos exclusive avatar-based training AI technology offers two initial paths forward for under-resourced workers.

First, Alelos fast and cost-effective skills development is uniquely suited to meet the surging demand for training public health personnel created by the COVID-19 crisis. Second, Alelos award-winning Enskill English training technology can improve the performance, career advancement, and safety of entry-level manufacturing workers with English as a second language.

Additional training programs will be developed throughout the competition.

To learn more about Alelos breakthroughs in artificial intelligence role-playing for training and education, visit our website.

ABOUT ALELO INC.

Alelo is a world leader in AI avatar-based learning solutions for educators, enterprises, and government. Alelo products help people rapidly learn new skills and apply them when it counts, changing the way people communicate. The company has been transforming the way people learn since 2003 when it spun out as a DARPA-funded research project from the University of Southern California. https://www.alelo.com
She welcomed her gorgeous son Noah with fiance Matthew Sarsfield at the end of January.

And Charlotte Dawson recalled her 'dramatic' labour and described her feelings of fear and being a 'failure' when doctors warned her she might have to have an emergency caesarean because her baby was distressed.

In an interview with New Magazine, the Ex On The Beach star, 28, explained how doctors didn't want her to go past her due date because of her gestational diabetes.

Emotional: Charlotte Dawson recalled her 'dramatic' labour during an interview as she spoke about being a mum to baby Noah

When she went for a sweep on her due date, the midwife told her she was 1cm dilated, but was concerned about her baby's movements and said they might have to take action the following day- if she hadn't gone into labour.

Charlotte said she did everything she could to bring the labour on after the appointment, including eating a spicy Nando's and bouncing on her pregnancy ball

And at 4am in the morning, her waters broke.

But after being taken to hospital, the reality star described how an epidural had left one side of her body numb, while her son was distressed because she had been pushing for a few hours.

Scary: The reality star, 28, described her feelings of fear and being a 'failure' when doctors warned her she might have to have an emergency caesarean because her baby was distressed

Charlotte said: 'I was in floods of tears, I just couldn't feel my pushes.'

Charlotte recalled how doctors told her they might have to do an emergency C-section but decided on a forceps delivery.

The assisted birth (also known as an instrumental delivery) is when forceps (large smooth metal instruments) or a ventouse suction cup are used to help deliver the baby.

Assisted birth: Charlotte recalled how doctors told her they might have to do an emergency C-section but decided on a forceps delivery

'I was signing my life away of these papers and the pain I was going through with these contractions, I couldn't cope anymore', she said.

'I was shaking from the epidural. Next thing, I looked up and my legs were in stirrups. Three pushes and he was out.'

Charlotte went on to say how she felt 'petrified watching all these needles going into me' and felt 'like a failure' because she couldn't feel anything, but all of it went away when Noah was placed on her chest.

Parents: The television personality welcomed her gorgeous son Noah with fiance Matthew Sarsfield at the end of January

It comes after Charlotte vowed to teach her baby boy about her late father Les' memory in a moving clip from MTV's Celebrity Bumps.

During the video, the reality star broke down in tears as she realised her son will never meet his late grandfather.

In the clip - filmed while Charlotte was still pregnant with her first child - the Ex On The Beach star spoke to her mum Tracy about her life with the late comic, who died in 1993.

In the clip, Charlotte, who was 27 weeks pregnant at the time, paid a visit to her mum Tracy to look at photos of her dad Les, so she can replicate them with her baby son.

The star also revealed she was going to tell Tracy the name she'd chosen for her baby boy as she counted down to the arrival of her bundle of joy with fiance Matthew.

She announced: 'We're gonna call him Noah Dawson Sarsfield. The reason why we're calling him Noah, me and Matthew were drunk four years ago, put the Notebook on you know that really romantic film. And he cried and I thought, "Matthew's The One".

'And then the guy was called Noah on it, and I said 'I love that name,' and he said ''me too.'' And he said ''if we ever have a little boy let's call him Noah.'' We've never gone off it.'

Charlotte's mum said her dad Les would be 'so proud' of his daughter, with the reality star adding in a candid confessional: 'I am so grateful for my mum because she's just kept his memory alive so much.'
( ) recently welcomed completion of the pre-front end engineering design (pre-FEED) study for its Judith Gas Field offshore Victoria and is now focused on establishing a farm-in partner for the critical Judith 2 Exploration/Appraisal Well.

The design basis for the pre-FEED is 80 million standard cubic feet per day of sales gas across a 25-year project life with gas processing to meet the AS4564 gas sales specification.

Scope of the pre-FEED included:

Design for a Gas Processing Plant, Subsea Pipeline and Export Pipeline to connect to the Eastern Gas Pipeline;

Refinement of indicative project cost estimates and project scheduling; and

A budget estimate for a front-end engineering design (FEED) or feasibility study.

The pre-FEED was completed by and is the first stage of work to be progressed from the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) established between the companies in October 2019.

Eastern Gas Pipeline connectivity

Design of the Judith processing plant is based on using available space adjacent to the existing Orbost gas processing plant to construct a separate gas train tailored to the Judith gas composition.

Sales gas would be delivered through an 11-kilometre x 250-millimetre Nominal Bore export pipeline running in parallel with the existing Orbost export pipeline.

This would then deliver gas to an upgraded Newmerella gas metering station connecting into the Eastern Gas Pipeline.

The Eastern Gas Pipeline is a key gas supply artery between the Gippsland Basin in Victoria and NSW and transports natural gas to demand centres in Sydney, Canberra and Wollongong as well as a number of regional centres.

Project execution and scheduling

The pre-FEED study provides a Project Execution Plan laying out the basis for project delivery organisation, procurement strategy, contracting strategy, fabrication methodology, logistics, construction methodology, commissioning and testing.

This study has indicated that a final investment (FID) could be achieved 14 months after commencing the project front end engineering (FEED) otherwise referred to as a full feasibility study.

Commercial operation could then be achieved within a further 38 months of the FID.

A budget estimate of the cost of the FEED has been forecast at A$9 million.

Extension of Vic/P47 permit term

On December 30, 2020, the company announced that the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Regulator (NOPTA) had approved its application to suspend and extend the primary term of the Vic/P47 exploration permit to August 22, 2023.

Approval from NOPTA extends the timing for drilling of the Judith 2 Exploration Well by 30 months from February 2021 to August 2023.

The companys application for an extension is primarily based on the imminent availability of new seismic data that will be generated from the Multi-Client 3D seismic acquisition completed across the Offshore Gippsland Basin.

It has also taken into consideration the impact of COVID-19 on the petroleum exploration industry.

The additional time will allow Emperor to accurately assess the new seismic data, further develop planning of the well and progress securing an exploration and development partner for the project without the threat of a pending permit deadline.

Location of VIC/P47 offshore Gippsland Basin showing regional permits along with oil and gas fields.

Establishing farm-in partner

Emperors focus going forward continues to be the establishment of a farm-in partner for the Judith 2 Exploration/Appraisal Well.

To date, the company reports an encouraging level of interest from potential partners and is confident that the Judith Gas Field is a highly sought after opportunity in a proven hydrocarbon province.

The opportunity now also exists to kick off the feed or feasibility study early and commence the project approval process with the relevant government authorities to reduce the longer-term risk of approval delays.
Over the summer and fall, paper after paper revealed that mothers are one of the demographics hardest hit by the pandemic. From layoffs and leaving careers to do caretaking, to submission rate decreases and additional service projects, the data were clear, but the follow up less so. Many of the problems are not new and will remain after the pandemic. But a new paper, published this week in PLOS Biology, outlines methods to help solve them.

"In the spirit of the well-worn adage 'never let a good crisis go to waste,' we propose using these unprecedented times as a springboard for necessary, substantive and lasting change," write the 13 co-authors, led by researchers from Boston University and hailing from seven institutions, including Michigan Technological University, University of Connecticut, and University of Houston - Clear Lake. The team's goal: Solutions for retaining mothers in science during and after COVID-19, especially parents who are Black, Indigenous or people of color.

"The news was reporting these studies as if they were a surprise," said Robinson Fulweiler from Boston University, one of the lead authors alongside Sarah Davies, also of Boston University. Fulweiler adds, "There's already been a lot of data gathered about this issue. But there have been no solutions. Our level of frustration peaked. We decided we need to make a plan to fix things."

The paper offers specific solutions to different groups that can enact change:

Mentors: Know university parental leave policies, support and model a "healthy work-life teeter-totter" and keep mentees with child care duties engaged and involved in lab, department and multi-institution activities.

Know university parental leave policies, support and model a "healthy work-life teeter-totter" and keep mentees with child care duties engaged and involved in lab, department and multi-institution activities. University administrators: Look up 500 Women Scientists, rethink tenure procedures and timelines, listen, provide course releases and avoid making "gender- or race-neutral policies because the effects of the pandemic are not neutral across race or gender."

Look up 500 Women Scientists, rethink tenure procedures and timelines, listen, provide course releases and avoid making "gender- or race-neutral policies because the effects of the pandemic are not neutral across race or gender." Scientific societies: Consider how to keep parts of virtual conferences with lower costs, expand governing board diversity, expand networking opportunities and continue supporting early-career members, especially researchers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

Consider how to keep parts of virtual conferences with lower costs, expand governing board diversity, expand networking opportunities and continue supporting early-career members, especially researchers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Publishers: Expand editorial boards and, during the pandemic, incentivize submissions through fee waivers for mothers with child care duties and keep extending deadlines for review and revisions.

Expand editorial boards and, during the pandemic, incentivize submissions through fee waivers for mothers with child care duties and keep extending deadlines for review and revisions. Funding agencies: Streamline paperwork, ask for COVID disruption statements and look into supplemental and short-term bridge awards.

Mothers in the Pandemic

Amy Marcarelli, associate professor of biological sciences at Michigan Tech, helped lead the paper's section addressing professional societies. When the pandemic hit -- and Marcarelli had less than five days to shift all her classes and research to remote formats -- she was wrapping up a two-year strategic planning process with the Society for Freshwater Science that included a deep dive into effective and fair practices for diversity, equity and inclusion. She sees the work through her lens as an ecosystem ecologist.

"Some of my most recent work has been around cascading and indirect effects and how effects viewed on short time scales may have very different outcomes at long time scales," Marcarelli said. "What I've learned from that research is that you can't abstract a single characteristic of an organism and expect that to explain its ecological role. And [in academia] we try so often to treat ourselves as researchers -- and not as mothers and partners and daughters and leaders -- and that's to the detriment of all of us. It's to the detriment of us as individuals but it's also to the detriment of our academic system because if we don't treat people as whole people then we fail them."

Marcarelli emphasizes that she feels like she has been lucky during the pandemic; she secured tenure several years ago, her kid is older, Michigan K-12 schools reopened in September, and her mom, who was furloughed, helped with spring schooling and summer child care. While the extra service projects and retooling research, instruction and life were not easy, Marcarelli recognizes that not everyone's situation has been like hers.

The most pressing change Marcarelli sees is to rethink tenure extensions: "We have to figure out how to make motherhood and tenure compatible, not just extend tenure -- it's not a solution." She adds that the greatest challenge will be money. "These are inequities, but they are not inequities that everybody sees. And during a time of what is going to be an extended budget crisis in a lot of higher ed, that's going to be the hardest part. But it's the part that has to be solved because good intentions only get us so far."

Marcarelli says the conversation that sparked the PLOS Biology article started on Twitter, a lively back-and-forth on how to shift the dialogue to a solutions mindset.

"At the same time, several of us were working on big service activities around how to improve conditions for all different axes of diversity in our departments and universities, in our societies," she said. "We had invested a lot of thinking and real work that was going into small reports and small-scale documents that weren't going to be read widely."

The team's service work, lived experiences and hope informed the PLOS Biology paper as much as their research and collaboration.

"Part of the motivation for writing this article is that in some ways the pandemic provides a window into why this is important, why we need to do the hard work of dismantling these systems," Marcarelli said. "Quite frankly, it's an opportunity."

###

Collaborators

"While the data are clear that mothers are being disproportionally impacted by COVID-19, many groups could benefit from these strategies. Rather than rebuilding what we once knew, let us be the architects of a new world."

Robinson Fulweiler and Sarah Davies, Boston University

Jennifer Biddle, University of Delaware

Amy J. Burgin, University of Kansas

Emily Cooperdock and Carley Kenkel, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Torrence Hanley, Northeastern University

Amy Marcarelli, Michigan Technological University

Catherine Matassa, University of Connecticut

Talea Mayo, Emory University

Lory Santiago-Vazquez, University of Houston - Clear Lake

Nikki Traylor-Knowles, University of Miami

Maren Ziegler, Justus Liebig University Giessen
Australians aged under 70 are being urged to get their flu shot as soon as it is available but older people should wait until after they receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks, amid warnings influenza could make a comeback this year.

Doctors broke with convention last year when they told Australians to get the flu vaccine a month early, due to fears of a twin peak of coronavirus and flu cases.

The first person in Australia to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was aged care resident Jane Malysiak. Credit:Edwina Pickles

Coronavirus will upend the usual vaccine schedule this year, following advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation that the flu shot should not be given within two weeks of the COVID-19 vaccine, to allow time to ensure those immunised against COVID-19 do not suffer adverse effects.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration estimates more than 60 per cent of those who receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine will experience fatigue, more than half will get a headache, about one-third will suffer muscle pain or chills, and one in five will suffer joint pain.
About 31% of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) in the Middle East are planning on purchasing a new home in 2021, according to Knight Franks forthcoming edition of The Wealth Report 2021.

Globally, 26% of UHNWIs are planning to buy a new property in 2021, a sharp increase from the 21% revealed in 2020, the report says.

This demand will help fuel price rises of up to 7% in key markets over the course of the year, it said.

Liam Bailey, Global Head of Research at Knight Frank, said: The Wealth Report confirms a clear rise in demand for residential property. Demand is especially strong for rural and coastal properties, with access to open space being the most highly desired feature. The pandemic is super-charging demand for locations that offer a surfeit of wellness - think mountains, lakes, and coastal hot-spots. Demand will help fuel price rises of up to 7% for our key markets this year.

Taimur Khan, Head of Research at Knight Frank Middle East, added: In the Middle East region 31% of UHNWIs are planning on purchasing a property in 2021. Such demand from Middle Eastern UHNWIs stretches across the world, with the UK, US, Turkey, Spain and the UAE being the top five locations where such purchases are planned.

Auckland leads Knight Franks Prime International Residential Index with price rises of 18% in 2020. New Zealands handling of Covid-19, its rapid economic recovery, ultra-low mortgage rates and limited supply of stock were behind the surge.

The index, which tracks the movement of luxury residential prices in 100 cities and second home markets globally for the 12-months to the end of December 2020 also reveals:

 Asian cities occupy the next three rankings: Shenzhen (+13%), Seoul (+12%) and Manila (+10%)

 Australasia (4.9%) and North America (6.3%) were the top-performing regions in 2020. Both regions saw a surge in pent-up demand as lockdowns eased and homeowners re-evaluated their lifestyles

 Perth (+4%) was Australias frontrunner and Sydney (+1%) registered its highest volume of prime sales ever in the third quarter of 2020

 Ten of the 11 North American markets tracked in the index sit within the top 20 rankings. Palm Beach was a key super-prime hotspot recording 20 sales above US$20m in 2020, up from 10 in 2019

 2020 marked a watershed moment for Vancouver. After three years of declining house prices  in part linked to higher taxes  its luxury market got a reboot with prices rising by 8%

 The European prime property market was stop-start in 2020. Despite cities leading the results - Zurich (8%), Stockholm (6%) and Amsterdam (6%)  the focus of transactional activity from June onwards was firmly on coastal, rural or alpine resorts. Second home hotspots of Tuscany, Provence and the South of France saw successive bursts of activity each time lockdown rules eased

 In the UK, an eight-week Spring shutdown during the nations traditional peak selling season saw London (-4%) playing catch-up over the summer. Once the property market was allowed to resume, a release of pent up demand boosted by a welcome stamp duty holiday buoyed the market

 In the GCC region, weaker economic conditions and historic supply gluts in parts have underpinned prices falls in Doha (-6.0%), Dubai (-5.9%) and Riyadh (-3.3%). Abu Dhabis prime market saw prices remain stable over this period.

Taimur Khan, head of research at Knight Frank Middle East, said: Despite prime prices softening in almost all key markets, demand for prime residential property has remained robust throughout 2020. There are also early indications that we are seeing these markets being to enter new market cycles.

For example, whilst Dubais prime residential market saw prices decrease by 5.9% in the year to November 2020, we are beginning to see signs of a recovery in price performance in some prime sub-markets. For example in the six months to December 2020, apartment and villa prices on the Palm Jumeirah increased by 5.1% and 9.4% respectively. Over the same period, villa prices in District One have increased by 3.5%. Other prime markets such as Downtown Dubai and Emirates Hills are also showing similar signs of improvement in market performance. More so, in contrast to the mainstream market, prime transaction volumes increased by 7.9% in 2020 compared to 2019. -TradeArabia News Service
Dialogue 2045 was chaired by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and was attended by more than 30 of the largest foreign and domestic economic groups.

Dialogue 2045 is part of the programmes to achieve Vietnam's development goals through 2045

At the dialogue, Don Lam, CEO of VinaCapital said that towards 2045, to develop the economy, Vietnam needs to review and improve its infrastructure system to receive financial sources from abroad.

Setting up nests for eagles is one of the most significant issues for all local authorities, and they need to prepare well in all aspects, such as natural resources, land funds, energy, human resources, and incentives for large-scale investors, he said.

Vietnam also needs to focus on improving infrastructure connectivity among cities and areas, especially between Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Danang. Better connections are also needed among industrial and processing zones as well as cities and satellite residential areas.

I do believe that the Vietnamese government will have the best policies to promote its advantages and attract large-scale investors, Lam said. There have been many positive changes in investment procedures, significantly shortening application times and accelerating foreign direct investment flows, he added.

VinaCapital Group especially is aiming to link investment with foreign investors and 'domestic eagles' into open economic zones and projects located in several provinces and cities, and we expect to attract over $10 billion in the very near future," he cited.

Meanwhile, Dragon Capital chairman Dominic Scriven said that there are three issues which Vietnam should focus on right away in its development strategy, including environmental sustainability, infrastructure system improvement, and promoting financial knowledge to Vietnamese people so that they can make sustainable financial decisions when they get older.

Dialogue 2045 was attended by many of the largest economic groups

Meanwhile, Nguyen Dang Quang, chairman and CEO of Masan Group said, Currently, the global economy is integrated, the most important thing is to create competitiveness for the supply chain. Our volume of exported agricultural products is huge but the infrastructure of the supply chain and distribution is not good enough.

"Promoting the capacity of supply and distribution infrastructure will help enterprises reduce costs and bring more benefits to consumers, farmers, and exporters themselves, he said.

Truong Gia Binh, head of the Board for Private Economic Development Studies under the Prime Ministers Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform (ACAPR) and chairman of FPT Group, stressed the importance of inspiring each individual and entrepreneur to make the country strong and prosperous.

The private sector must become a strong driver of the whole economy. More than ever, Vietnamese people and every enterprise are sharing a great desire to make the country strong, Binh said.

He also suggested the government permit private economic groups to handle the current problems of the Vietnamese stock exchange which is claimed to not have enough capacity to accommodate the market.

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, chairwoman and CEO of Sovico Group, made similar proposals, saying that private groups can provide VND60 billion ($2.6 million) to revise the stock exchange system.

Replying to enterprises, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc highlighted the importance of enterprises as a pillar for the whole economy.

"The larger the pillar, the richer the people and the stronger the country. Today enterprises will swiftly go outdated if they only focus on maximising their profitability. They should instead look to create value for the whole society and contribute to the country's prosperity," the PM emphasised.

To realise this target, he outlined the necessity to further boost national digital transformation and improve the legal framework, which would spur the development of businesses and the country overall.

In addition, Vietnam will provide an opportunity to grow for any business, including foreign-invested companies, collectives, or business households, with the private sector being a major component of the economy.

Under the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress, Vietnam expects to move out of the low middle-income status by 2025, become an upper-middle income country by 2030, and gain developed and high-income nation status by 2045.
Spanish King Felipe VI.

When Spains emeritus king, Juan Carlos I, abdicated the throne on June 2, 2014, he handed his son Felipe two titles: head of state and head of the Spanish Royal Household, the dynasty of the House of Bourbon. As head of state, King Felipe VI was forced to deal with the end of Spains two-party system, which began to break down with the elections for the European Parliament in May 2014. Since then, the political instability has continued, with Spain holding four general elections between 2015 and 2019. The Catalan separatist movement has presented another challenge, with the unauthorized referendum on independence on October 1, 2017, prompting King Felipe to make a public call for unity.

As head of the Spanish Royal Household, King Felipe has faced different challenges. When he ascended to the throne, the monarch wanted to turn the page on the numerous scandals that had tarnished the image of his fathers reign, in particular, the graft case known as Noos, in which Felipes brother-in-law Inaki Urdangarin and his sister Cristina de Borbon were facing corruption charges. While Cristina escaped punishment, Urdangarin ended up in prison for embezzlement, among other charges. He is still serving his sentence.

In a bid to restore the Royal Households image, King Felipe introduced a series of measures aimed at preventing such scandals in the future: a strict code of conduct for members of the royal family, greater transparency in the financial dealings of La Zarzuela palace, the seat of the Royal Household, and a ban on accepting excessive gifts. But Felipes most drastic decision was to reduce the members of the royal family to six: his parents, himself, his wife and their two daughters. His sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews were left out of the family.

But when the digital daily El Confidencial revealed last Tuesday that Felipe VIs sisters, the infantas Elena and Cristina, had received the Covid-19 vaccine ahead of their turn while on a trip to Abu Dhabi to visit their father Juan Carlos I, all eyes turned to La Zarzuela. Reminding the public that the infantas were no longer members of the royal family was of no use. Nor did it help to confirm that neither King Felipe, Queen Letizia or their two daughters Leonor and Sofia had been vaccinated, and that they intended to receive the jab according to the groups established by the central government as part of the ongoing campaign.

The infantas Cristina and Elena in a file photo from last October Jose Oliva / Europa Press

The infanta Cristina is officially resident in Switzerland. Juan Carlos I, meanwhile, has been living in Abu Dhabi since last August, when he fled Spain as allegations of financial wrongdoing mounted against him. In the last couple of months, he has made multi-million-euro payments to the Spanish Tax Agency in a bid to regularize his tax situation and avoid prosecution.

The difference between the royal family  King Felipe, Queen Letizia and their two daughters  and Felipes extended family  all the other members  is too subtle for many Spaniards to appreciate, meaning that his sisters Elena and Cristina continue to be associated with the Crown. Making matters worse, Elena was seen entering La Zarzuela the day after the scandal over her vaccination in Abu Dhabi broke out. The Royal Household was quick to remind the public that Elenas mother, honorary queen Sofia, lives at the palace, but did not specify the reason for the visit.

Jose Antonio Zarzalejos, the author of the book Felipe VI. Un Rey en la adversidad (Or, Felipe VI. A king in adversity) explains that in the publics imagination, the kings sisters are members of the royal family and this is difficult to change. Whats more, although they are not officially a part of the royal family, Cristina and Elena  along with Felipes daughters, Princess Leonor and the infanta Sofia  are also in the line of succession. The only way for [Cristina and Elena] to be completely disassociated is for them to renounce their dynastic rights, no matter how improbable it is that they would one day be able to exercise them, says Zarzalejos.

Queen Letizia, King Felipe and their two daughters, Leonor and Sofia. GTRES

In his opinion, the infantas decision to jump the vaccine line on their trip to Abu Dhabi is a setback, whether unintentional or not, to King Felipes efforts to recover the prestige of an institution damaged by royals who do not seem to be aware of who they are. Compounding the problem is the lack of communication between members of a broken, destructured family, says Zarzalejos. According to this writer, some members of the family do not speak to one another and maintain grudges that have become entrenched over the years.

Cristinas refusal to give up her right to the throne due to her involvement in the Noos corruption scandal led Felipe VI to adopt his most drastic decision: in June 2015, he stripped his sister of her title of Duchess of Palma, which had been given to her by their father Juan Carlos I. The infanta Elena, meanwhile, distanced herself from her brother after she was excluded from the royal family, a move which meant she could no longer represent the monarchy in institutional events. As the child closest to Juan Carlos, Elena was also upset over Felipes treatment of the emeritus king. According to people who have worked in La Zarzuela, these family grievances have been made worse by the decades-long de facto separation of Juan Carlos and his wife Sofia, and the more recent division between the former monarch and his son Felipe. In response to the scandal over Juan Carlos alleged financial irregularities, including allegations that he kept money in tax havens, Felipe stripped his father of his 200,000 yearly stipend and invited him to leave Spain.

A file photo of King Felipe and his father, Juan Carlos. Paolo Blocco / WireImage

A press release from Royal Household, issued on March 15, 2020, not only signaled the rupture between King Felipe and Juan Carlos I, with the former renouncing any future inheritance from his father and recognizing that his father had set up an opaque offshore financial structure without his knowledge, it also put Felipe on the backfoot. The news was announced just 24 hours after the Spanish government declared a state of alarm in a bid to control the spread of the coronavirus. At a time when the king should have been leading the country in its fight against the pandemic, he was forced to deal with family problems. Felipe would not address the nation on the coronavirus situation until three days later, on March 18.

In his letter announcing his decision to leave Spain, Juan Carlos I said he was making the move so that his son could act as head of state with peace and calm. But the emeritus kings actions continue to cast a shadow over Felipe VI and his sisters decision to get vaccinated in Abu Dhabi have ruined all his efforts to restore prestige to the monarchy.

For Zarzalejos, Juan Carlos recent efforts to regularize his situation with the Spanish Tax Agency  with two payments worth more than 5 million  are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the payments neutralize the threat that the former king could face prosecution, but on the other hand, they are an admission that he committed tax fraud.

While last year, distancing Juan Carlos from Spain seemed like the best way to protect the image of the monarchy, seven months later there is a growing sense that his return to the country would be the lesser of two evils. A temporary stay in Spain, even if just for a few days, would counter the idea that Juan Carlos is living in some form of exile, according to sources who spoke to EL PAIS. But for this to happen, the members of the royal family would have to stop causing scandals every week.

English version by Melissa Kitson.




Today Extra viewers were left stunned on Tuesday after a woman accidentally exposed her breast on camera during a nude yoga segment.

Hosts David Campbell and Sylvia Jeffreys interviewed Rosie Rees, a nude yoga practitioner based in Perth, about the benefits of doing yoga in the buff.

Rees appeared on-screen wearing just an animal print robe that revealed her decolletage.

Whoops! Today Extra viewers were left in stunned after a woman accidentally exposed her breast on camera during a nude yoga segment on Tuesday

Behind her was a group of women doing a range of movements while sitting on their mats.

During the live segment, a woman to the left of the screen unknowingly exposed her breast on camera as she performed the stretches.

Feeling free: Today Extra viewers were left in stunned after a woman accidentally exposed her breast on camera during a nude yoga segment on Tuesday

Rees explained the 'powerful' practice helps women learning to love your body.

'When you sit around this circle you start to see all different shapes and sizes and colours and ages,' she said.

'And you see beauty in all the women around you. You start to see that within yourself. So yeah, it's a really beautiful experience.'

Love yourself! Rees explained the 'powerful' practice helps women learning to love your body

Afterwards, Sylvia admitted that they had were being 'extremely juvenile' and giggling in the lead up to the segment, but noted that Rees's nude yoga classes were helping people and making a difference.

'I think it's wonderful. I can understand how daunting it would be for a woman to turn up to take part in this, but clearly it's having enormous effect,' she said.

Sylvia also added a special thanks to the cameraman, saying: 'Thank you to the cameraman who I assume has been very sensitive how this has all been captured this morning. Well done to all involved.'
Colm Brophy, T.D., Minister of State for Overseas Development Aid and the Diaspora will tomorrow co-host a roundtable discussion on girls education with Alice Albright, CEO of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Minister Brophy said:

On this International Womens Day, I want to restate Irish Aids commitment to ensuring all girls, no matter where they live and whatever their circumstances, can excel in education so they can reach their full potential.

Our history is a demonstration of the importance of education for economic and social development. Educating girls transforms not just their lives but entire societies: it underpins true sustainable development, true equality.

That is why over the past year, Ireland has put a spotlight on adolescent girls education, the Drive for Five - access to 12 years of free education, supportive schools and gender responsive curricula, relevant education and skills, ensuring girls are safe from violence, and keeping girls healthy and in school.

We need to work with others if we are to achieve this goal. One of our most important allies is the Global Partnership for Education, which is dedicated to ensuring that children in the poorest countries have go to school  and be well taught. Tomorrow I will be exploring with Alice Albright, CEO of GPE, how we can deepen our partnership with GPE.

I am excited that Gemma Hayes, together with Hermione Hennessy and other musicians have today released a song, Raise Her Up, to raise awareness of girls education. Gemma and Hermione, together with Bridget Akurut, a GPE Youth Leader from Uganda, will join Alice and I to discuss how we can better support the 130 million girls out of school and the many more who are in school but not learning.

ENDS Press Office 8 March 2021

Editors Note
Safecast will deploy Airnote devices at Fukushima during a live-streamed 10 year anniversary event.

BOSTON and TOKYO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Safecast, a global leader in open environmental data, and Blues Wireless, a leading developer of IoT cloud cellular solutions, today announced Airnote, an air quality monitoring device with unprecedented simplicity and cost-effectiveness. By removing complexity and barriers to use, Airnote enables the mass deployment of air quality sensors at a cost of nearly half that of other products on the market.

"Ten years ago, the crisis at Fukushima brought together many talented individuals from around the globe to serve a common purpose: enable people to understand the conditions impacting the safety of their environment," said Ray Ozzie, founder of Blues Wireless and Safecast volunteer. "The nonprofit organization Safecast, Blues Wireless, and ultimately the Airnote device were all borne as a result of this collaboration."

All of the air quality measurements collected by Airnote are sent directly to the Safecast platform and published into the public domain as part of their global environmental dataset.

To date, air quality, water quality, radiation, and other aspects of the environment have involved expensive equipment, careful site work for device placement, and challenges in establishing reliable outdoor network connectivity. Airnote is a fully integrated zero-setup solar-powered device that easily attaches to the outside of any sunny window. At regular intervals, Airnote automatically uploads air quality data using cellular networks in more than 130 countries, no registration or network setup required. Airnote includes a pre-paid/pre-activated data plan that will run for the entire lifetime of the device.

These capabilities are enabled by the Blues Wireless Notecard , a small data pump that manufacturers embed within their products to greatly simplify the task of securely moving data to and from the cloud over cellular networks. Blues Wireless began first volume shipments of the Notecard this past December.

Airnote provides information on a display or users can scan its QR code and view charts and graphs online. The device measures temperature, humidity, air pressure, and density of particulate matter in PM1, PM2.5, and PM10. Data uploaded by Airnote devices benefits everyone, designated into the public domain at birth. Through notehub.io, the Blues Wireless real-time data router, and Safecast's databases and maps, data is available worldwide for analysis, education, or even commercial use. While data is anonymous by default, device owners can optionally claim devices and be credited for data uploads.

"While Fukushima was an unequivocal disaster, the event presented us with an opportunity to better plan for the future and safety of our environment," said Pieter Franken, co-founder and Japan director of Safecast. "The global data we'll receive from Airnote will accelerate the pace of citizen-led open data, moving us towards a healthier global environment, while enabling faster and more efficient reactions to future crises."

Airnote is available to order at shop.blues.io and will be featured during Safecast's live-streamed driving tour of Fukushima and surrounding communities on March 13, 2021. The tour will pay tribute to the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima accident and Safecast's founding. Throughout the event, Safecast volunteers, including Ray Ozzie, will talk to residents and people involved with the accident, as well as current supporters of worldwide environmental monitoring solutions. Safecast will install dozens of Airnote devices along the way.

The day-long event will begin Saturday, March 13 at 9 am JST (Friday, March 12 at 7 pm EST) and will be broadcast live via YouTube. There will be opportunities for viewers to ask questions and otherwise engage in the event. To participate please register for free or reserve premium seats at https://safecast.org/safecast10/ .

About Blues Wireless

Founded in 2019, Blues Wireless is the creator of Notecard, the fastest and most cost-effective way to add wireless connectivity to any product. Notecard is a highly secure system on a module (SoM) with embedded 10-year global connectivity that allows any developer to send data from remote assets using JSON and two-lines of code. The data is routed to the cloud applications of customers' choice, again using simple JSON and REST. Blues's customers represent leading and innovative companies spanning agriculture, automotive, construction, healthcare, industrial, manufacturing, retail, supply chain & cold chain, transportation, and logistics. Use cases range from simple tracking and remote monitoring to edge analytics and remote control. Blues is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Please connect with us at [email protected] or visit blues.io for more information .

About Safecast

"Safecast has revolutionized citizen-science." (Popular Mechanics, March 2018). Safecast is an international, nonprofit, volunteer organization devoted to collecting open environmental data. After the 2011 Fukushima meltdown, open & trustworthy information was unavailableSafecast was formed in response, and quickly began monitoring, collecting, and sharing environmental radiation data. Growing quickly in size, scope, and geographical reach, Safecast's mission is to provide people worldwide with the tools they need to inform themselves by gathering and sharing reliable environmental data in an open and participatory fashion. For more information, please visit safecast.org , or reach out to [email protected].

SOURCE Blues Wireles

Related Links

https://blues.io


Photo: Sussex Royal

Explosive allegations by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex that she faced racist attitudes from both the palace and the U.K. press have sent ripples of shock around the world. But they came as no surprise to many Black Britons.

Whether its the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on people of colour or the lack of non-white faces at the top of British media and politics, ethnic minorities in the U.K. say racist attitudes and structures of discrimination are pervasive  and all too often denied by society at large.

This is a country that doesnt want to have an honest conversation about race, historian David Olusoga, who presented the TV series Black and British: A Forgotten History, said Tuesday.

In a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, the former Meghan Markle said isolation and a lack of support from the royal household after her marriage to Prince Harry drove her to thoughts of suicide. She also said an unnamed member of the royal family expressed concerns to Harry about the colour of her unborn childs skin  a statement that drew an astonished What? from Winfrey.

Tiwa Adebayo, a communications consultant and journalist, said the couples revelations in the interview bore out her worst fears.

When Meghan joined the royal family, every person of colour in the U.K. was worried, she said. This is an institution that is rooted in colonialism. Its based on white supremacy. I mean, for me, it kind of seemed like How could this possibly end well?

I expected there to always be that undercurrent of racism, she added. But to hear it so outright, its really scary. Its very shocking. And its hard to see how the royal family is going to come back from this.

Its a long way from the optimism that surrounded Harry and Meghans royal wedding in 2018. The relationship between a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and a biracial American actress was hailed as evidence that, in modern Britain, skin colour and background no longer mattered.

Harold Wilson, a 57-year-old local authority worker in Brixton, a district at the heart of Londons Afro-Caribbean community, said Meghan joining the royal family should have been an opportunity for them to move forward  but the royal family are not like that.

Even before the child has been brought into the world, they are worried about the actual tone of the skin of the baby, he said. That tells you everything about them.

The fairy tale image surrounding the wedding at Windsor Castle faded quickly. Meghan faced tabloid stories about her allegedly demanding behaviour and was even criticized for eating avocadoes, which the Daily Mail claimed fuel human rights abuses, drought and murder.

Even before the wedding, Harry had complained in 2017 about the racial undertones in British media coverage of his then-girlfriend. One tabloid columnist referred to Meghans exotic DNA. A Daily Mail headline described her Los Angeles roots as (almost) straight outta Compton and claimed she came from a gang-scarred neighbourhood. A TV host described Meghan as uppity.

Meghan and Harry cited the intrusive, racist scrutiny of Britains tabloid press as a reason for their decision a year ago to give up their jobs as senior royals and move to North America.

The palace issued a rare public statement on a personal matter, saying the royal family was saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.

The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning, the statement said. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.

Like other countries, Britain has faced an uncomfortable reckoning with race since the death of George Floyd, a Black American, at the knee of a U.S. policeman in May 2020 sparked anti-racism protests around the world.

Large Black Lives Matter protests in cities across the U.K. called on the government and institutions to face up to the legacy of the British Empire and the countrys extensive profits from the slave trade.

The toppling of a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston in the city of Bristol in June prompted a pointed debate about how to deal with that history. Many felt such statues extol racism and are an affront to Black Britons. Others argued that removing them was erasing a piece of history.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has criticized the removal of statues, saying we cannot edit our past. Opponents accuse him of trying to sweep the negative aspects of British history under the carpet.
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine implicates a type of immune cell  called a dendritic cell  in the development of chronic lung diseases that can follow after a respiratory viral infection. Shown is a stained section of mouse lung. Epithelial cells, which line the airway, are red. Dendritic cells are green. Any cell nuclei are blue. Credit: Holtzman lab

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have implicated a type of immune cell in the development of chronic lung disease that sometimes is triggered following a respiratory viral infection. The evidence suggests that activation of this immune cella type of guardian cell called a dendritic cellserves as an early switch that, when activated, sets in motion a chain of events that drives progressive lung diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The new study, published in the Journal of Immunology, opens the door to potential preventive or therapeutic strategies for chronic lung disease. More immediately, measuring the levels of these dendritic cells in clinical samples from patients hospitalized with a viral infection, such as influenza or COVID-19, could help doctors identify which patients are at high risk of respiratory failure and death.

Studying mice with a respiratory viral infection that makes the animals prone to developing chronic lung disease, the researchers showed that these dendritic cells communicate with the lining of the airway in ways that cause the airway-lining cells to ramp up their growth and inflammatory signals. The inflammation causes airway-lining cells to grow beyond their normal boundaries and turn into cells that overproduce mucus and cause inflammation, which in turn causes cough and difficulty breathing.

"We're trying to understand how a viral infection that seems to be cleared by the body can nevertheless trigger chronic, progressive lung disease," said senior author Michael J. Holtzman, MD, the Selma and Herman Seldin Professor of Medicine. "Not everyone experiences this progression. We believe there's some switch that gets flipped, triggering the bad response. We're identifying that switch and ways to control it. This work tells us that this type of dendritic cell is sitting right at that switch point."

Holtzman's past work had implicated the lining of the airwaywhere the viral infection takes holdas the likely trigger for this process.

"But this study suggests that the cascade starts even further upstream," said Holtzman, also director of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. "Dendritic cells are telling the cells lining the airway what to do. There's more work to be done, but this data tells us that the dendritic cells play an important role in getting the airway-lining cells onto the wrong path."

Holtzman calls this dendritic cell a type of sentinel because its job is to detect an invading virus and trigger the body's initial immune response against the infection. The problem comes when the cell doesn't shut down properly after the threat has passed.

"Many people never develop chronic lung disease after a viral infection," Holtzman said. "But others have a genetic susceptibility to this type of disease. People who are susceptible to virus-triggered disease include patients with asthma, COPD, and viral infections such as COVID-19. It's really critical to look for ways to fix this disease response and prevent the problems that might occur after the virus has gone."

In the meantime, Holtzman said, high levels of these dendritic cells and their products in the lungs of hospitalized patients could serve as a warning to doctors that such patients are likely to develop severe disease and should be provided with respiratory interventions and other supportive therapies that are precisely tailored to their disease process.

"Similarly, if this process is not underway, the patient might be more likely to avoid these types of long-term problems," Holtzman said. "We're pursuing this line of research to help improve prediction of severe lung disease after infection and to provide companion therapies that could prevent this switch from being flipped or flip it back to reverse the disease."

Explore further Key steps discovered in production of critical immune cell

More information: Xinyu Wang et al. TLR3-Activated Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells Trigger Progression from Acute Viral Infection to Chronic Disease in the Lung, The Journal of Immunology (2021). Journal information: Critical Care Medicine , Journal of Immunology Xinyu Wang et al. TLR3-Activated Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells Trigger Progression from Acute Viral Infection to Chronic Disease in the Lung,(2021). DOI: 10.4049/jimmunol.2000965
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Enerkon Solar International (OTC Pink: ENKS) ("ENKS" "The Company") announces today the closing of Acquisition Stake in Coviklear Holdings International (UK) and Investor/Shareholder Call for this Week.





Enerkon Solar International



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7322/76591_5e966576843698a5_001full.jpg

ENKS Chairman Benjamin Ballout stated: "We are pleased to announce that we have completed the initial acquisition of CoviKlear Holdings International (UK) whereby a 40% stake was acquired and an additional 60% is expected to be acquired additionally in the coming week which will give majority ownership and control of the Company, added today to the growing list of ENKS family of companies holdings." Mr. Ballout thanked Coviklear President, Mr. Rene Guim for his cooperation in the acquisition process.

"Currently, ENKS is comprised of six companies or divisions having started as a Solar EPC focused company, transitioning into new Technology Acquisitions last year we are growing well and very pleased with the performance of the Company over the past several years and in particular during this COVID-19 Period."

"Coviklear Intl Holdings Ltd. (UK) owns distribution rights to a new COVID19 Test Device, produced by Graphene Leaders Canada and KrowdX which is a rapid (15 seconds) Test Device."





Cannot view this video? Visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWfC6t5-MCg

Graphene Leaders Canada

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7322/76591_5e966576843698a5_002full.jpg

Graphene Leaders Canada Alberta, Canada





Cannot view this video? Visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFHdFsoNzXw

ENKS, since last year diversified into new technology acquisitions as a holding and investment company and since then the Company has acquired several important Trademarks and Patents related to the Pharmaceutical and Renewable Energy Markets as well as Law Enforcement technologies and others, and the completed acquisition of Coviklear today is another great addition to our growing ENKS Family of companies and diversified activities.

ENKS Family of companies:





Diplomatic Trade Ltd.



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7322/76591_5e966576843698a5_003full.jpg





H2 Hydrogen



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7322/76591_5e966576843698a5_004full.jpg





H2



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7322/76591_5e966576843698a5_005full.jpg

Lastly, Mr. Ballout Stated that:

"The Company will have a Shareholder/Investor Conference Call on Thursday March 11th this week in order to update our Loyal shareholders and investors on current earnings, operations, acquisitions, and near-term future plans and aspirations. The call will be open to all and have a question-and-answer segment included in the Video Call."

"Loyal ENKS Shareholders, are the 'ENKS ARMY', and we will always support their best interests working to enhance shareholder value and steady growth."

The Company will post additional documents, videos and information on their website this week including information regarding today's, new Acquisition of Coviklear Holdings International, progression large projects already signed recently and others in the pipeline and this will include information on financial performance and comparative performance over the past 3 years as well as other valuable information related to Biographies of new Board Members and Company Advisers target for new positions with ENKS in the near term and other information.

The foregoing statements are forward-looking statements, and as such, they may or may not reflect the results which could transpire in the future which should be negative or not transpire at all due to circumstances or other reasons and investors, shareholders, or others should not rely on these forward-looking statements to ascertain any value if any of ENKS or to make any investment decisions and to take note that this is not an offer to buy or sell securities or an endorsement of ENKS for investment purposes as all investment carry a risk of loss sometimes a total loss of your investment in Micro cap shares markets or any market and therefore such statements or plans should not be relied upon for any business decisions of any kind. Approval and permissions required by federal regulations may or may not be approved and if not approved may result in the loss of all value and all investments in products requiring such regulatory permissions to market and sell. These statements are made as forward-looking statements for educational purposes only in accordance with the rules and regulations which pertain to the same.

Enerkon Solar International Inc.

www.enerkoninternational.com

info@enerkoninternational.com

New HQ Address in New York at:

Enerkon Solar International Inc.

477 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10022 USA

Tel. +1 (877) 573-7797

Tel. +1 (718) 709-7889

Tel. +1 5614317762

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76591
Greece is planning to reopen to British holidaymakers from mid-May  even if they have not received the vaccine.

Yesterday Harry Theocharis, Greek tourism minister, said the country would be open to international tourists who are vaccinated, have antibodies or can show proof of a negative Covid test.

Greece will reopen its borders on May 14  three days before the earliest date at which Britons can travel abroad, according to Boris Johnsons roadmap out of lockdown.

Addressing the ITB Berlin trade show, Mr Theocharis said: Our only ambition is to ensure Greece is open to allow anybody who wishes to visit to be able to do so.

Greece is planning to reopen to British holidaymakers from mid-May  even if they have not received the vaccine (stock image)

He added that all holidaymakers will be subject to random testing.

It is thought tourists will be able to enter restriction-free after their first jab and children will need to arrive with a negative test. But the final details are still being sorted.

Greece joins countries such as Cyprus which have already announced they will welcome UK tourists once restrictions are lifted.

All tourists will be subject to random testing, the Greek government said.

Yesterday Harry Theocharis, Greek tourism minister, said the country would be open to international tourists who are vaccinated, have antibodies or can show proof of a negative Covid test (stock image)

Tourism accounts for around a fifth of the Greek economy and employs one in five workers.

Mr Theocharis said the authorities would prioritise the vaccination of people working in the hospitality industry once the most vulnerable had received their jab, and were mandating the frequent testing of employees.

He stressed how the country had been able to successfully open tourism safely in 2020 when it welcomed six million visitors before a virus resurgance forced it to shut again.

British holidaymakers will be able to travel overseas from May 17 at the earliest, Mr Johnson announced last month, with the governments reconvened Global Travel Taskforce due to present its recommendations to the Prime Minister on April 12.

Greece will reopen its borders on May 14  three days before the earliest date at which Britons can travel abroad, according to Boris Johnsons roadmap out of lockdown (stock image)

Mr Theocharis said demand in the UK for holidays in Greece is already picking up because theres a lot more optimism with the way the vaccination programme is progressing.

Simpson Travel, which specialises in Mediterranean holidays, said that about 90 per cent of villas on some Greek islands had already sold out for the summer.

In 2019, more than 3.5 million British holidaymakers travelled to Greece, the second highest number of international visitors after Germany.

Mr Theocharis said the country would also extend its summer season further into autumn this year.
We are going to need to keep paying close attention to personal protection, to ventilation, to effective masking, to reducing public gatherings and doing all the public safety measures we have been doing until we can bring transmission down to manageable levels at which public health officials and local authorities will be able to keep track, test, trace and isolate people who are contagious and support them through it, despite new variants arising, Akselrod said.
A meteor traveling at an estimated 42,000mph rattled buildings in New England over the weekend after it exploded with the force of 440 pounds of TNT.

According to a Facebook post from the NASA Meteor Watch, eyewitnesses in the Northeast and Canada reported seeing the bright fireball around 5.38pm.

'Analysis of their reports shows that the meteor occurred over northern Vermont, first appearing at a height of 52 miles above Mount Mansfield State Forest,' the post reads.

A meteor (circled) traveling at an estimated 42,000mph rattled buildings in New England over the weekend after it exploded with the force of 440 pounds of TNT

The group said that based on more than 100 reports, the fireball was traveling at a speed of about 42,000mph.

The meteor traveled 33 miles from Mount Mansfield State Forest before burning up over Beach Hill in Orleans County south of Newport.

According to the agency, the object 'was likely a fragment of an asteroid' that caused tremors from a pressure difference between the front and back of the object.

'The space rock fragmented violently, producing a pressure wave that rattled buildings and generated the sound heard by those near the trajectory,' the agency said.

'Such a pressure wave can also couple into the ground, causing minor "tremors" that can be picked up by seismic instruments in the area; the wave itself can be detected by infrasound stations.'

Infrasound measurements from three stations put the energy of the fireball fragmentation at 440 pounds of TNT, according to NASA Meteor Watch.

'We can combine this energy with the speed to get a mass and size of the object - 10 pounds and 6 inches in diameter. A nice little firework, courtesy of Mother Nature,' they added.

Infrasound measurements from three stations put the energy of the fireball (pictured) fragmentation at 440 pounds of TNT, according to NASA Meteor Watch

More than 100 people (black arrows depicted) reported seeing the fireball

The incident was captured on video that was shared on YouTube and Twitter. Some people reported a loud 'boom' while others said they didn't hear any sound.

In one clip from the webcam at Burlington International Airport, a streak of light is seen quickly passing by.

A loud boom was heard in central New York as the meteor passed overhead, witnesses said.

In Vermont, Al Gregoritsch told NBC 5 that 'there was no sound whatsoever'.

'I was very excited to see it. It's a phenomenon I will never forget.'

Chris Hrotic, who commented under on the NASA Meteor Watch's Facebook post, wrote: 'I was fortunate to hear and see it by the Missisquoi River at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge in Swanton, VT, just before sunset.

'No loud boom as reported by others, but a rushing sound that made me look up at just the right moment. It was extremely bright and absolutely spectacular!'


The world may possess more layer than researchers imagined. Recent research discovers that there might be an unknown layer inside the Earth's thick inner core - an inside-inside core, if you will. The accurate nature of this layer is unusual, but it could have few things to do with shifts in the pattern of iron under intense pressure and temperature.

Australian National University in Canberra's doctoral student in seismology Jo Stephenson explained that the research indicates that there is more sophistication to the inner core than formerly appreciated, it's not only a thick ball of iron.

The Solid Core

The Earth's core reaches into two portions. The liquid outside the core begins about 2,897 kilometers (1,800 miles) from the Earth's surface and is composed of liquid metals at a temperature between 9,000 to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit which is 2,204 to 4,982 degrees Celsius. At around 5,150 km (3,200 miles) below the surface of the Earth, the core changes to a fraction of a nickel (solid iron)

The initial inklings that there might be something fascinating hiding at the heart of the inner core came since the 1980s. Because there is no means to get to the inner core, where temperatures reaches those at the sun's surface, researchers use earthquake waves to create pictures of the core.

The wave coming from an earthquake noticed on the other path of the planet has subtle changes that researchers uses to remake photos of what they have gone through.

Remarkably, when waves go through the core from north to south, the journey is quicker than waves going through the core parallel to the Earth's equator. Nobody understands why this is, Jo explained, but it's a constant finding. The specialized word for this exception is anisotropy.

Read More: NASA-Approved Facts About Earth

100,000 Earthquake Waves

But at the very heart of the inner core, something appears to be distinct, researchers noted in the early 2000s. At this depth, the anisotropy appeared not to match that of the remaining inner core. "For the recent two decades, it has been extremely, extremely blurred what this clue at the heart of the Earth in the data is and why we notice it," Jo discloses

Jo and her colleagues brought together a dataset of around 100,000 earthquake waves that went through this stage of the core and connected an algorithm that scans for the best physical justification of what's happening to clarify the data.

Prototypes of the Earth's Solid Inner core

What they discovered was that in the inside-inside core, beginning around 650 km (400 miles) from the middle of the Earth, the anisotropy in the slow direction is not that equal with the equator anymore, but 54 degrees off.

Jo said, "This is not just a sound in the data, this is surely something that's there." But it's never simple to say what that something is.

The scientists are presently working with mineral geodynamics and physicists so they will try coming up with prototypes of the inside-inside core that would explain this change. As the Earth cools, the inner core is also expanding and cooling Jo explained.

Related Article: New Study: Scientists Create Earth's Highly-Accurate 'Digital Twin' to Project Climate Event

For more news, updates about the earth and simlar topics don't forget to follow Nature World News!
Insurance Australia Group has been forced to clarify its exposure to failed financier Greensill after its shares sank 10 per cent amid concerns about its relationship with the group.

The general insurance giant went into a trading halt on Tuesday after its shares tumbled over its links to Greensill, which were first revealed by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald last week.

Lex Greensills Greensill Capital has formally entered administration. Credit:Peter Braig

Greensills United Kingdom operating arm and its Australian head company collapsed into administration on Tuesday after losing the support of its key financial backer Credit Suisse.

Greensill provides a service that allows suppliers to large companies to be paid earlier for a fee. These financing arrangements are then packaged up and rolled into securities that are sold by Credit Suisse.
As a board, we could have and should have done better, Trustee John Hinkamp said. I think we should have involved people in an earlier time. All I can really say is that we were, in my opinion, wrong in not doing it  I dont want to say more open. We werent being deliberately deceptive. But we should have been more conscientious of it.
Lucknow, March 9 : The Samajwadi Party has slipped into the poll mode and party president Akhilesh Yadav will be holding brainstorming sessions for party cadres before the crucial 2022 assembly elections.

According to party sources, Yadav would be touring over 40 districts and covering half of the total 403 assembly constituencies before he concludes the first phase of the workers' training camps. This will be completed before the model code of conduct for panchayat elections is enforced in the state, likely around March 22.

Local workers and cadres have been invited to attend the three-day training camps which would be held indoors, and the media will be kept out.

The concluding session of these camps will be addressed by him.

SP MLC Udaiveer Singh, who has been organising the camps, said that over a dozen districts, including Kanpur, Kannauj, Jhansi, Mirzapur, have already organised these camps which have proved beneficial to the SP workers in the run-up to the assembly elections.

"The party is inviting non-political personalities such as waterman Rajendra Singh and others to address the workers to sensitise them to public and political issues," he said.

During the indoor sessions, the party workers will be required to freely interact with Akhilesh. At every training camp, workers of nearly 15 constituencies are invited, he added.

Veteran socialist leader Rajnath Sharma, who had been in jail during the Emergency, said that similar camps, named as 'socialist study classes', were organised by Ram Manohar Lohia.

Those camps were addressed by experts of the socialist ideology for introspection and planning, he said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Estonia takes part in NATO's Griffin Lightning military exercise aimed at training the collaboration of staff at different levels in the case of aggression, the Estonian Defense Forces said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Estonia takes part in NATO's Griffin Lightning military exercise aimed at training the collaboration of staff at different levels in the case of aggression, the Estonian Defense Forces said on Tuesday.

The scenario of the drills includes both direct military engagement and hybrid threats.

As part of the drills, the Estonian army deployed a command post that is responsible for providing operative information, data exchange and the coordination between NATO units and civilian institutes.

The drills in Estonia are managed by army deputy commander Indrek Sirel. According to Sirel, as quoted in the statement, the drills were abridged this year due to COVID-19, but they still cover all necessary procedures.

Griffin Lightning is command post exercises by the Polish-stationed NATO Multinational Corps Northeast as well as elements in Poland and the Baltic countries. The drills are scheduled to end on March 12.
Cherry blossom at Donghu Lake Park in Wuhan, Hubei province. They attract large number of tourists every year. [Photo by Li Bo/For Chinadaily.com.cn]

Wuhan's cherry blossom festival began welcoming people from all over the country and heroes who contributed to combating the coronavirus in Hubei, on Wednesday in Donghu Lake.
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Disney World parks are fully booked through next week as many schools move into spring break.

As of Tuesday afternoon, admission to the Orlando theme parks is sold out from Saturday, March 13 through Friday, March 19, according to the company's website.

On these dates, Park Pass reservations are unavailable for Magic Kingdom, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios for both theme park guests and Disney resort guests.

Disney's Florida parks have been operating at a significantly reduced capacity since reopening amid the Covid-19 pandemic in July.

As for the West Coast, California health officials announced last week that beginning April 1, theme parks, including Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood, may be eligible to reopen at a reduced capacity,

RELATED: Disneyland, Other Calif. Theme Parks May Reopen at Reduced Capacity as Soon as April 1: 'We Can't Wait'

Soon after the announcement, the Walt Disney Company said that California residents can expect Disneyland and California Adventure to open very soon.

"We are encouraged that theme parks now have a path toward reopening this spring, getting thousands of people back to work and greatly helping neighborhood businesses and our entire community," Disneyland Resort President Ken Potrock said in a statement. "With responsible Disney safety protocols already implemented around the world, we can't wait to welcome our guests back and look forward to sharing an opening date soon."

Disneyland

In Florida, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber is worried that spring breakers could lead to new COVID-19 outbreaks, nearly a year after the onset of the pandemic cut 2020's spring break season short.

Last week, Gelber appeared on CNN's New Day and said the city is "very concerned" about vacationers, especially as Miami-Dade county averages more than 1,000 new COVID cases a day and different variants of virus continue to crop up.

Story continues

RELATED: All the Details on Disneyland's Limited-Capacity Food Festival (Including What's on the Menu)

"A lot of things are happening simultaneously," Gelber said. "You have the variant down here, and we still are having sometimes dozens of deaths a day in our county."

"And at the same time, we've got incredibly cheap round-trip tickets for 40 bucks from anywhere in the Northeast down here, discounted rooms and people who have been really pent up and wanting to get out with no other place to go than here," he continued. "So we are very worried that there's going to be a convergence of people here and a real problem in the aftermath of that."

TNS via ZUMA Wire Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, FL on Thursday

Despite some colleges canceling spring break, Miami Beach Police told CBS News that students from more than 200 schools are expected to head to the city this season, with the largest crowds taking place right now.

Gelber said on CNN that he is most concerned that gatherings at bars "might become the kinds of super-spreaders that I think we saw a year ago" and noted that police officers are handing out face masks in the absence of a mask mandate from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from the CDC, WHO and local public health departments. PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMe to raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, click here.
Bangladesh and India: Trade talks turn barren

by Syful Islam

March 09,2021 | Source: The Financial Express

Bangladesh's proposals have received a lukewarm response from the Indian side at the bilateral meeting on trade issues held in Dhaka on Monday. Dhaka could not derive any concrete result from the meeting on its two main concerns--- anti-dumping duty and Indian new customs rules on Bangladesh's export items, officials said. "The discussion will continue," an official, who took part in the Bangladesh-India commerce secretary-level meeting, told the FE after the meeting. Asked whether any assurance came from the meeting on the issues of concern, another participant answered in the negative. "No, no, no," he uttered. Asked, commerce secretary Dr. Md. Jafar Uddin, the Bangladesh team leader, however, expressed the hope that India would review the anti-dumping duty that it slapped on jute goods, hydrogen peroxide, and fishing net back in 2017 and afterwards. "We've tabled the issue very strongly. They'll let us know after reviewing it because there are some technical matters," he said. While addressing the anti-dumping duty issue, Mr. Uddin said, the Bangladesh side referred to some articles and provisions of the World Trade Organisation and the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement. "They will examine it." Regarding new customs rules of Indian, he said Bangladesh requested India not to send a large volume of 'country of origination' certificates together for verification. "We told them that the new customs rules were not in conformity with the SAFTA rules," he said.



Asked about the Indian response, Mr Uddin said that in most cases immediate decision does not come from such types of meetings. "They will go back to their capital and examine (our arguments) and will let us know (the decision). You can write, they have assured us and may look into the matters positively," he said. He said the meeting also discussed about the signing of Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the two countries. "After graduation, the CEPA with India as a big trading partner will be very positive one," the secretary said. "We have to sign the deal as soon as possible." The meeting, according to a press release, also discussed harmonisation of standards and mutual recognition of standards, cooperation under different common regional forum, facilitation of trade by removing non-tariff barriers, and import and export restrictions. Enhancing the number of border markets (haats) and volume of trade through the haats, and expansion of port facilities were also discussed in the meeting. The Indian new Customs Rules-2020 now administers the rules of origin under all trade agreements signed by India. The new rules have made the getting of tariff preference in its market tough for the countries having preferential deal with it. Bangladeshi exports, officials said, are facing new types of barriers since the new rules came into effect in last September.



India slapped the anti-dumping duty on Bangladesh's jute yarn, hessian and bags, ranging between US$19 and $352 per tonne,in January 2017. A similar duty, ranging between $27.81 and $91.47 per tonne, was also imposed on export of hydrogen peroxide to India from Bangladesh in April 2017. In 2018, India also put anti-dumping duty, $2.69 per kilogramme, on fishing net, exported from Bangladesh to its domestic market. Bangladesh failed to get the duties removed despite scores of consultations with India for years.

 2021 - The Financial Express
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
The third  and maybe the last  stimulus payments may indeed start showing up soon. But heres an early warning: If you dont get a stimulus check this time around, it could be because youre never going to get one.

Roughly 6.5 million households that received money in the past now wont be able to bank on receiving either the full $1,400 payment or even a partial payment when it comes to the latest Economic Impact Payments, according to estimates by the nonprofit, non-partisan Tax Foundation.

The rules relating to who qualifies and who doesnt based on income changed this round.

Singles earning $80,000 or more wont get a check. Married couples earning $160,000 or more wont get a check.

But theres another option: If a single filer made more than $80,000 in 2020 but ends up making less than that in 2021, the taxpayer could claim an Economic Impact Payment based on their 2021 income when they file a tax return during the tax season next year. The same is true for a married couple who did well in 2020 but might make less than $160,000 in 2021.

The Senate approved the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill Saturday and the House is set to vote Tuesday, paving the way for President Joe Biden to possibly sign the legislation into law this week.

How the IRS calculates the third stimulus

The Internal Revenue Service will use information, including your income, from your 2019 return to calculate the next Economic Impact Payment, if your 2020 tax return isnt filed and processed by the time the IRS starts issuing the third stimulus payments.

The third stimulus payment is based on such things as whether youre filing single or married filing a joint return, how many dependents you have, and your adjusted gross income.

The latest goal is to better target the COVID-19 relief cash to households that may need the money the most, including families that have been unable to receive unemployment or other benefits and have experienced a financial hardship during the pandemic.

Under the latest program, additional payments could go to all dependents, not just children 16 and younger. As part of the third stimulus, all dependents  regardless of age  qualify for up to an extra $1,400. As a result, college students age 23 or younger could qualify or elderly parents living with you, according to the measure that passed the Senate on Saturday.

Who is at risk of seeing smaller payouts

The latest program creates a sharp drop-off in the households that will receive payments and in the partial payment amounts, said Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst for the Tax Foundation.

The full $1,400 goes to single people earning up to $75,000. But it phases out quickly after that and is completely phased out for those earning more than $80,000.

A full payment of $2,800 goes to a married couple filing a joint federal income tax return earning up to $150,000. The phase out begins after that and ends at $160,000.

This creates an implicit marginal tax at the phaseout range, Watson said.

Someone might be less willing, for example, to pick up an extra $1,500 or more in income this year if theyre already making $75,000 because theyd lose some decent stimulus cash along the way.

Watson said the latest phaseout range isnt ideal tax policy.

It can dissuade people around that income range from earning more income this year when looking ahead to their 2021 tax filing, Watson said.

What did previous stimulus programs cover?

The first two stimulus programs used a more generous income range.

The past stimulus payments  those for the first and second programs  were gradually reduced for singles with an an adjusted gross income between $75,000 and $100,000 and for married couples who are joint filers with an AGI between $150,000 and $200,000.

The first stimulus checks  which began rolling out in April 2020  were up to $1,200 for individuals and up to $2,400 for a married couple. An extra $500 was offered for dependents age 16 and younger.

The second stimulus checks  which began rolling out in January  were up to $600 for individuals and up to $1,200 for a married couple. An extra $600 was offered for dependents age 16 and younger.

The money itself for next round of stimulus payments could roll out in a similar fashion to the last two stimulus payments.

Those who will receive direct deposits will see the money the soonest. Paper checks would take a bit longer.

Watson said filers with direct deposit information could expect the payments within about two weeks of the bill becoming law, similar to the timeline with the direct payments after the second stimulus was signed into law by the president on Dec. 27.

Paper checks and prepaid debit cards may take longer, through April at least, he predicted.

The IRS tends to prioritize those with lower AGIs first when sending out those payments.

And there is the issue that the Internal Revenue Service is smack in the middle of the tax season. But experts say the IRS has had time to prepare for the next round of checks, so that might not be an issue.

Some households could still experience delays in getting that money.

A group of customers of a variety of tax firms, including Jackson Hewitt, H&R Block and TurboTax, faced issues during the first stimulus rollout and again during the second rollout.

Many of those upset customers had taken out refund advances or agreed to have their tax preparation fees taken out of their tax refunds. Temporary bank accounts were set up by tax preparation firms  and later closed  as part of that process. But stimulus money wasnt getting to those taxpayers quickly because the IRS initially sent money to those temporary accounts.

Watson said the IRS has been working on this ongoing problem related to tax prep software using temporary accounts to advance taxpayer refunds.

This will need to be coordinated again during this tax season, too, as many filers will opt for this method and the direct payment could get stuck in the temporary account set up by tax prep software, he said.

The IRS is aware of and working on this issue, though.

Susan Tompor is the personal finance columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Tribune News Service.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Canuc Resources Corporation (TSXV: CDA) (OTCQB: CNUCF) ("Canuc" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results from additional rock sampling at the Company's wholly owned San Javier Silver-Gold Project in Sonora State, Mexico. The latest samples were collected from three previously unsampled areas which were identified as magnetic anomalies in the Company's recently completed airborne magnetic survey (press release January 7th, 2021). In this phase, 168 rock samples were collected from outcrop and small underground workings. The samples were channel chips ranging from 0.5 to 3.0 meters in length.

Highlights from samples taken over the 'Northwest Anomaly' include a silver value of 718 g/t Ag collected from an old pit overlying the magnetic anomaly found in the furthest northwest part of the Company's property. The average Ag content of 52 samples collected over this anomaly was 70.5 g/t Ag. The host rocks in this area are brecciated diorite with iron content averaging 14.9% in the samples collected.

Northwest Anomaly (52 Samples)

Ag (g/t) Au (g/t) Cu Fe (%) High 718 0.812 1.03% >40% Low <0.3 <0.005 12 PPM 3.03 Average 70.5 0.007 0.04% 14.9

The magnetic response for this area shows a feature structurally subparallel to the previously identified Restauradora and Wild Hog magnetic anomaly which accompanies higher grade silver sampled in magnetite workings near to surface. This 'Northwest Anomaly' could be evidence of a deeper subparallel feature located under cover.

Seventy-five (75) samples were collected from a stockwork and breccia zone covering a strong magnetic high, the 'Mill-rock Anomaly", which was found extending onto the Company's recently acquired claims on the southern part of the property. These rocks contained up to 1.185 g/t Au and 0.45% Cu. This anomaly represents a target with increased gold and copper assays which is distinct from the silver-dominant anomalies found on the northern portions of the property. The higher gold and copper numbers may represent upper levels of a larger mineralized system.

Mill-rock Anomaly (75 Samples)

Ag (g/t) Au (g/t) Cu Fe (%) High 4.5 1.185 0.45% 26.7 Low <0.3 <0.005 6 ppm 4.15 Average 0.7 0.136 301 ppm 8.6

A further nineteen (19) samples were collected from rocks overlying a strong magnetic high anomaly found in the extreme southwest part of the Company's property. These samples averaged 22.8 g/t Ag and 0.558 g/t Au. This "Southwest Anomaly" is distinct from the magnetic anomalies referenced above and found elsewhere on the property.

Southwest Anomaly (19 Samples)

Ag (g/t) Au (g/t) Cu Fe (%) High 62.5 3.059 439 ppm 24.37 Low <0.3 <0.005 2 ppm 1.79 Average 22.8 0.558 50 ppm 7.3

22 additional samples consisted of duplicates for Quality Assurance and covered miscellaneous locations outside of the magnetic anomaly targets.

"These samples were collected over areas where magnetic anomalies first came to the attention of Company geologists upon reviewing results of the recently completed magnetic survey. The magnetic anomalies were found under cover and had not been previously recognized as representing exploration target potential. The detection of elevated silver, copper and gold values from surface samples taken over the areas of these buried magnetic highs is encouraging. The exploration team now feels that these results provide drill targets in addition to the higher-grade magnetite association anomalies on which we have started our exploration drilling," stated Chris Berlet, President & CEO of Canuc.

A diamond drill has been mobilized to the project and has recently commenced drilling on a breccia zone magnetic anomaly which accompanies high-grade silver values, as reported on previously.

Seymour M. Sears, B.A., B.Sc., P.Geo. is the Qualified Person for the Company, as defined by NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the contents of this press release.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

About Canuc

Canuc is a junior resource company focusing on its San Javier Silver-Gold Project in Sonora State, Mexico. The Company generates cash flow from natural gas production at its MidTex Energy Project in Central West Texas, USA where Canuc has an interest in eight producing natural gas wells and has rights for further in field developments. Canuc also has exclusive rights, through a Partnership Agreement with Ioticiti Networks Inc., to sell Industrial IoT applications and infrastructure in the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada and in the State of Texas, USA.

For further information please contact:

Canuc Resources Corporation.

(416) 525 - 6869

cberlet@canucresources.ca

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking information. All information, other than information of historical fact, constitute "forward-looking statements" and includes any information that addresses activities, events or developments that the Corporation believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future including the Corporation's strategy, plans or future financial or operating performance.

When used in this news release, the words "estimate", "project", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "believe", "hope", "may" and similar expressions, as well as "will", "shall" and other indications of future tense, are intended to identify forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is based on current expectations and applies only as of the date on which they were made. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the ability of the Corporation to fund the exploration expenditures required under the Agreement. Other factors such as uncertainties regarding government regulations could also affect the results. Other risks may be set out in the Corporation's annual financial statements, MD&A and other publicly filed documents.

The Corporation cautions that there can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required by law, the Corporation does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76471
TCDA Matt Rogers announces the findings and conclusions of the investigation into the Officer Involved Shooting of Alex Vasquez by Officers of the Red Bluff Police Department.https://t.co/DEKLAALrto  Tehama County District Attorney (@TehamaCountyDA) March 9, 2021

RED BLUFF, Calif.  The Tehama County District Attorney, Matthew Rogers, announced an officer-involved shooting in Red Bluff was justified.

The officer-involved shooting happened on Feb. 19, 2020, at the Meadow Vista apartments.

Officers said on Feb. 19, they received a call about a fight and when they arrived at the apartments a man named Alex Francisco Vazquez, 38, began firing at officers. In response, one of the officers fired back and struck Vazquez.

Vazquez refused to comply, holding onto the gun and shooting at officers who tried to get close to him again, according to the DA. Investigators said two of them shot back at Vazquez, who then, stopped shooting back.

RELATED: Red Bluff Police release body cam footage from officer-involved shooting

Vazquez later died at St. Elizabeths hospital due to his injuries.

District Attorney Rogers said through investigation, they learned Vazquez had originally gone to the apartments to dissuade and intimate a witness from testifying against an associate of his.

Investigators said Vazquez was wanted by the FBI for drug sales. He was also considered armed and dangerous and connected to gang activity.

Rogers said the toxicology report on Vazquez revealed Methamphetamine and Amphetamine in his system at the time of his death.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Scott Morrison has declared that unemployed Australians who refuse to take jobs should have their Centrelink benefits withdrawn.

The prime minister is frustrated that 54,000 jobs are going begging in regional Australia - including at pubs, cafes and farms - despite the government's $6,000 relocation payment.

'Unemployed Australians are simply and regrettably not filling these jobs,' he told the AFR business summit in Sydney on Tuesday.

Frustrated: Scott Morrison has declared that unemployed Australians who refuse to take jobs should have their Centrelink benefits withdrawn

Farmers have reported being unable to employ people to pick fruit and vegetables in the regions

From April JobSeeker recipients will have to apply for 15 jobs a month, rising to 20 from July as the payment permanently increases by $50 a fortnight to $620.80.

'This is a fair exchange,' Mr Morrison said.

'If there is a job available, and you are able to do that job, then it is reasonable for taxpayers to expect that it will be taken up, rather than continue to receive benefits.'

Farmers have been struggling to hire workers due to a shortage of backpackers who have been unable to enter the country during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The prime minister warned that produce going unpicked on farms meant that food prices will rise for every Australian and described the waste as a 'tragedy.'

Another solution is to bring in temporary migrants on conditional visas to 'fill the gap' and boost the economy as a whole, thereby creating more jobs, he said.

'We have tried in the past to first get Australians into these jobs, but having tried to do that with any number of incentives,' Mr Morrison said.

'It has been incredibly difficult and we have to call it as it is. When Australians won't do the jobs, the jobs still need to be done.

'I can't have horticulturists ploughing their produce back into their fields because they can't get the workers.

From April JobSeeker recipients will have to apply for 15 jobs a month, rising to 20 from July as the payment permanently increases by $50 a fortnight to $620.80

'We must relook at the role that temporary visa holders play in meeting our economy's workforce requirements, where Australians do not fill these jobs,' he said.

Mr Morrison said he was open minded about reforming the immigration system and would look at conditional visas that could require workers to live in regional areas.

'We have got a real open mind on this,' he said.

'Conditionality is one of the great advantages of the temporary visa program. You can't put conditions on permanent visas.

'Those conditions can help us direct where people can go, which can ease pressures in metropolitan areas but hopefully ease pressures in regional areas.'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (centre) is taught to make pasta by apprentice chef Oliver Benz (left) and chef Mario Karam (right) during a visit to Signorelli Gastronomia in Sydney on Tuesday. He made the visit as he promoted his apprentice wage subsidy scheme
One of Ireland's biggest buyers of beef, Tesco UK, is to increase its sales of plant-based meat by 300pc and will reportedly offer a 'fake' meat alternative to every meat product on its UK shelves within four years.

Tesco Ireland has not ruled following the move of its parent company, when questioned by the Farming Independent.

The move by Tesco UK is part of a policy by the supermarket to reduce meat and dairy consumption, according to the report.

The Telegraph detailed contents of a leaked email from David Lewis, the former CEO of the supermarket to Greenpeace, shortly before he left the company at the end of last year laying out its plans to encourage customers to eat less meat.

Mr Lewis was quoted as saying: "We realise the UK needs to reduce meat and dairy consumption. Since 2018 we've been working with suppliers to drive plant-based innovation and choice, leading to increases in our plant-based meat alternative products".

He said the supermarket would do this by "[Providing] plant-based proteins where a meat version is featured" and vowed to "publish plant-based protein sales as a percentage of protein sales from 2021".

It comes as Tesco last week announced plans to increase sales of plant-based meat alternatives by 300pc by 2025 in line with Tescos ambition to put affordable, healthy and sustainable food within reach of everyone.

When contacted by the Farming Independent in relation to the reports, Tesco Ireland would not comment on whether it would adopt a similar policy.

However, in a statement, it said Tesco Ireland continues to be a major supporter of Irish agri-food with all of our fresh beef, chicken, lamb, pork and eggs coming from Irish, Bord Bia approved, farms.

"We are proud to support 13,000 Irish farming families who help us provide our customers with quality meat and produce. We continue to provide a variety of choice on both animal and plant-based options to our customers.

Bord Bia said it counts Tesco UK as one of its key customer of Irish food, including beef and said it is assured of their continued commitment.

It said it engages in on-going tracking of UK and European beef shoppers and our data shows that consumers opinions of beef remain positive and strong.

"Its seen as a great source of protein; as a healthy protein; and its worth paying more for.

"Irish beef is well-positioned to reassure British consumers thanks to our grass-fed production system and sustainability credentials and Bord Bia continue to emphasise these qualities to consumers and customers in on-going promotions and trade engagement," a Bord Bia spokesperson said.
TN elections 2021: Will target anyone who is an 'enemy' to people, says Kamal Haasan

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Chennai, Mar 09: Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan on Tuesday said he would criticise anyone who is "people's enemy" and denied he was being selective in his criticism of opponents.

Addressing a press conference here, along with alliance party leaders R Sarath Kumar of AISMK and Ravi Pachamuthu of IJK, Haasan also said his party's first list of candidates for the April 6 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu will be released on Wednesday morning.

People have faith in Gandhis, Congress united under Sonia: Ashok Gehlot

Asked if he he had been specifically targeting DMK President MK Stalin recently, Haasan said "if I decide some one is people's enemy, I have to criticise them."

"Earlier you said I never criticised him (Stalin)... what shall I do. When I decide that someone is people's enemy, then there is no difference between this person or other. Every (such person) has to be attacked... they will face the music," Haasan said.

He also denied going soft on the ruling AIADMK and said both the Dravidian parties have to be 'removed.' "When I was talking (critically about the) ruling party, you asked if they (DMK) are my friends. I want all those who committed wrongdoings to get the punishment. Both (AIADMK and DMK) have to be removed, there is no doubt about that," he added.

AHPI urges PM Modi to further expand COVID-19 vaccination programme for rest of population

Haasan has been critical of archrivals AIADMK and DMK over corruption and other issues and is heading a three-party coalition to face the April 6 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls. Sarath Kumar, also an actor, said Haasan will be the front's Chief Ministerial candidate while IJK leader Ravi Pachamuthu said "only this alliance is the best to form government in Tamil Nadu."

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 21:05 [IST]
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
The demise of the financial firm Greensill Capital, which is set to be taken into administration, is further evidence of the fact that, notwithstanding all talk of the need for greater prudential regulation, rampant speculation within the global financial system continues unabated.

Lex Greensill (Source: Greensill Capital)

Two years ago Greensill, which began operations in 2011 by financing global supply chains, was estimated to have a value of $4 billion. Currently in discussions over its winding up with Apollo Global Management, its value is estimated to be around $100 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The story of Greensills rise and fall is a combination of all the ingredients that have been the hallmark of the continuing shocks delivered to the global financial system: hype on the part of the founder, support from high levels of the political establishment, complex financial practices that seemingly promise large returns and dubious accounting procedures.

The company was set up by a former London-based Morgan Stanley financier Lex Greensill who decided to set up his own firm to engage in supply chain financing.

Hailing from the Queensland, Australia, city of Bundaberg, where his parents had a sugar cane and melon farm, Lex Greensill said his company had begun from humble beginnings to revolutionary thinking in overcoming inefficiencies in the payment of small companies for the goods and services they supplied.

The company claimed it was making finance fairer and democratising capital.

Greensills business model was based on a long-established system under which small companies receive faster payment for the goods they have supplied to larger entities. Instead of waiting for 30, or sometimes 60 days to be paid, they could receive cash more rapidly by obtaining money from Greensill, at a discount. Greensill would receive the full amount when it became due.

The advantage for the company using supply chain finance is that the money it owes to the finance institution does not appear as a debt on its books but is recorded along other bills in the accounts payable section.

For its part, Greensill packaged the money it was owed into a security which was then sold off. Its main financial backer was Credit Suisse, which bought these securities and then sold them off to insurance companies and investors classifying them as low-risk.

Greensill received assistance on its way up. In 2017 its founder received a CBE from Prince Charles for services to the economy and the following year former British prime minister David Cameron signed on as adviser to the company.

Greensill was closely associated with the rise of Sanjeev Gupta from a relatively unknown commodities trader into the owner of Europes fourth biggest steelmaking firm with significant interests in the UK. Greensill enabled Guptas firm to buy up distressed aluminium and steel firms from Whyalla in South Australia to Newport in Wales as well as in Scotland.

One of Greensills biggest operations has been the financing of Guptas company Liberty Steel which purchased Arcelor Steel. According to a report in the London Sunday Times Greensills exposure to Gupta is huge. It lent him about $3.4 billion using what it termed a particularly exotic form of finance, extending cash to Liberty based on future receivables up to three years aheadso the sale of steel that was still iron ore and coal in the ground.

Greensill has maintained that it works with a range of customers, numbering millions, and had partnerships with dozens of banks, insurers and companies.

However, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, a handful of companies had become crucial to Greensill in recent years. During most of 2019 some 90 percent of its revenue came from just five clients and last year the figure was 70 percent.

The Financial Times reported on what it called the secret behind Greensills sudden rise in 2017 when its profits nearly tripled. Some $70 million of the companys net revenue for that year was derived from Guptas companies.

The Greensill operation began to unravel last week when the German financial regulatory authority, BaFin, filed a complaint against Greensill Banks management for suspected balance sheet manipulation. BaFin said an audit was unable to provide evidence of receivables purchased from Guptas GFG Alliance.

The companys collapse was triggered when an insurer, Tokio Marine, withdrew cover for it. Greensill responded by seeking an injunction in an Australian court to prevent the removal; but this was denied.

The companys lawyers said if insurance policies covering loans to companies were not renewed, Greensill Bank would be unable to provide further funding for working capital of Greensills clients. Some of them were likely to become insolvent, defaulting on their existing facilities and there would be up to 50,000 jobs lost.

The action by Tokio Marine set off a chain reaction. Credit Suisse suspended $10 billion of investment funds setting off the move to place the company in administration. The British Business Bank ended the guarantee it had given on loans to Gupta and the Bank of Englands Prudential Regulation Authority forced Wyeland, Guptas bank, to hand back deposits to savers.

So far the prevailing view in financial and media circles is that while the demise of Greensill is serious it will not precipitate a broader financial crisis. But its collapse does have significant implications.

The Financial Times reported that the insurance industry, which was a key cog in Greensills machine, was watching events with a nervous eye with one observer noting: This is similar to what blew up AIG in 2008.

The impending collapse of the US insurance Group, AIG, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, prompted the intervention by the Fed to bail out the Wall Street banks.

Long-time Financial Times commentator John Plender wrote that while Greensills demise appeared to pose no systemic threat or the need for a central bank bailout, its rapid passage from hubris to nemesis raises disquieting questions about the evolution of the global financial system and the capacity of shadow banking to spring more dangerous systemic shocks should not be underestimated.

The whole affair has decisive implications for the working class. The collapse of Greensill is not an isolated incident or an aberration. It is yet another expression of the rot and decay at the very heart of the global financial system, which threatens the jobs and livelihoods of millions of workers around the world.

That threat will not be removed by empty promises of increased regulation or other so-called reformsthe ruling classes and their vast fortunes derive from the very same financial alchemy that characterised Greensill. It can only be ended by the political struggle for a socialist economic program, starting with bringing the entire financial system into public ownership under democratic control.
Former HK Lawmaker Arrives in Australia to Lobby for Firmer Action Against Beijing

Hong Kong lawmaker and pro-democracy activist Ted Hui has been granted a travel exemption by the Australian government to visit the country as part of a global tour to garner support for firmer action against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The former legislator arrived early on Tuesday after flying from Europe, where he has spent the past three months touring the continent, speaking to top legislators on Hong Kongs freedoms.

Although the number of Hong Kong people who have settled and studied in Australia are numerous, there are few Hong Kong political leaders in exile here and lobbying; this is one of the factors for my decision to come to Australia, he wrote in a Facebook post.

Security officers hold pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui who splashed liquid at the Legislative Council chamber during a meeting on the controversial national anthem bill in Hong Kong, China, on June 4, 2020. (Jessie Pang via Reuters)

Australia and New Zealand are two important members of the Five Eyes alliance, he wrote. The two countries have many conflicts and seesawing battles with Beijing over democracy, freedom, trade, and other universal values.

I hope my lobbying work will enable the two countries to have a stronger attitude towards Beijing and stronger support and substantive actions for Hong Kongs freedom.

Hui said he was not applying for political asylum in Australia but did not rule out the possibility in the future.

Hui has been a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council since 2016.

In November, he resigned along with 18 other pan-democracy lawmakers in protest to the Hong Kong governments decision to disqualify four pro-democracy legislators from the Council.

Hui decided to leave Hong Kong in December for Denmark and announced plans to move his family to the United Kingdom.

In a Facebook post, Hui said he would not return to Hong Kong after news of the arrest of democracy activist and media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Australia has seen an increase of migrants from Hong Kong after the CCP passed its controversial National Security Law that would see the communist regime tighten control over the city.

Hui will be meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison during his visit to discuss trade diversification away from China and passing Magnitsky-style laws that can target human rights abusers overseas, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Alex Wu contributed to this article.
Mumbai: Maharashtra will form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of Mohan Delkar, a seven-time MP from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh announced in the Assembly here on Tuesday. The Mumbai Police have registered an accidental death report after Delkar was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a private hotel at Marine Drive on February 22, sparking off a major controversy in the political circles.

Deshmukh`s significant announcement came a day after the Centre abruptly handed over the probe into the abandoned SUV Scorpio with 20 gelatin sticks found near the home of industrialist Mukesh Ambani to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Soon after that, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had termed the Centre`s move as "something fishy" and simultaneously announced that the state government would get to the bottom of Delkar`s suicide.

Deshmukh further informed that Delkar`s widow, Kalaben Delkar, and son Abhinav had requested him and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to conduct a thorough investigation, even as BJP Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis slammed the government for "gloating" over the MP coming to Mumbai to end his life.

Earlier, Congress and Shiv Sena had demanded a full-fledged investigation into Delkar`s suicide and claimed that he took the extreme step in Mumbai as he had faith that he could get justice from the MVA government.

In a suicide note left behind by Delkar, he had named Praful K Patel, the Administrator of the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, and others for allegedly harassing him and trying to finish off his political career and other issues.

Live TV

"He was a seven-time MP, who was being constantly harassed," Deshmukh added, saying the government will go deeply into the matter to reveal the culprits.

It may be recalled that at the start of the ongoing Budget session, CM Thackeray had solicited help from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah if the Mumbai Police needed to go and probe the Independent MP`s case in Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
A youth who shot his mate in the head while skylarking on a hunting trip had been captured earlier on video shooting a beer can out of his hand.

The youth, who was only 17 at the time and cannot be named, was on Tuesday sentenced to a community corrections order over his role in the tragic death of Dustin Buckley.

Dustin, 17, had been with his friend when he suffered a gunshot wound to the head in the Neerim East Forest in eastern Victoria in August 2017.

They'd been shooting at an old television, firing shots near each others' feet and shooting into puddles to make a splash before the incident.

Dustin Buckley (pictured) suffered a gunshot wound to the head while out with a friend

Dustin Buckley was with another teenage friend when he suffered a gunshot wound to the head in the Neerim East Forest in eastern Victoria August 2017 (pictured)

Dustin's grandparents said the waters surrounding his death had been muddied so much they may never know the truth

The Supreme Court of Victoria on Tuesday heard the pair engaged in a 'light-hearted' fight over a gun they didn't know was loaded when it went off.

Video later found on the victim's phone revealed it had not been the first time the boys had foolishly mucked about with guns.

Justice Paul Coghlan said one video showed the teenage boy holding a double-barrel shotgun and audio of Dustin asking him to fire a shot at him.

The youth is seen pulling the trigger twice while pointing the gun directly at Dustin.

Another video, taken just months before the tragedy, showed the youth shooting a beer can out of the hand of Dustin with an air rifle.

On the day Dustin died, he had allegedly held a rifle to his own head before the pair of friends began wrestling over the gun, which they both believed wasn't loaded.

It's likely the trigger was inadvertently pulled by Dustin's mate.

He cried out 'I've shot him, I f**ked up,' as Dustin was struck and collapsed.

The youth later admitted to a charge of conduct endangering life and was sentenced on Tuesday to a three year community corrections order with 200 hours of unpaid work.

He and 27-year-old Daniel McConnell - who was out with the teens - also pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice after concocting a story to cover up what happened.

After driving Dustin to hospital, McConnell claimed they'd been out yabbying when the boy had been hit by a ricocheting bullet fired by an unknown shooter.

The story was later repeated to police, who were taken to a fake scene.

It's likely the trigger was inadvertently pulled by the other boy - then also just 17 (Pictured: Dustin)

Dustin (pictured) died after being shot in the head by a friend who was 17 at the time

The teen later admitted lying because he was scared, saying the circumstances in which Dustin had been shot were 'accidental and the stupidest thing anyone could have done'.

McConnell said he had earlier told the teens to 'stop being d**kheads' but never anticipated that anything might happen because he considered them to be more experienced with guns than himself.

Dustin's grandparents said the waters surrounding his death had been muddied so much they may never know the truth.

McConnell - a dairy farmer - was convicted and sentenced to an 18-month good behaviour bond.

The court heard he had no reason to lie about the incident, but had done so to look after his cousin, whom pulled the trigger.

Justice Coghlan heard the boys had been armed with three rifles on the day of the tragic incident.

They had fired multiple shots into the old television before the incident happened.

In convicting McConnell, Justice Coghlan recognised it would be difficult for Dustin's family to accept how he had been killed.

He described the lie told to them and police as being 'particularly mean'.

One of Dustin's four sisters, Naomi, earlier told the court she believed the truth would never come out, questioning if the other boy - now 20 - even remembered the truth.

McConnell accepted his lies had made it hard for the teen's family.

Justice Coghlan said he took into account both of the men's age, remorse and good prospects of rehabilitation.
Tom Hallberg covers a little bit of everything, from skiing to long-form feature stories. A Teton Valley, Idaho, transplant by way of Portland and Bend, Oregon, he spends his time outside work writing fiction, splitboarding and climbing.
SAN DIEGO and LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

Almost half of UK eCommerce companies surveyed have increased their sales in the past year

65% of marketers have accelerated digital and technology innovation more than they had planned due to the pandemic

61% report that their customer engagement platform has contributed significantly to growth in 2020

63% struggle with having unconnected data sets and only a partial view of customer behavior

Mapp, the international provider of insight-led customer engagement, has conducted a market survey to identify marketing priorities and industry trends for 2021. Due to the challenging times caused by COVID-19, the key focus is on changes to marketing strategies, the latest trends, planned investments, the impact on eCommerce, and data management. 1,000 companies in the UK, Germany, and Italy took part in the survey.

Unless stated, the findings below relate to UK respondents only.

Marketers focus on website personalization

Demand in 2020 increased sharply: 45% of eCommerce companies surveyed increased their online sales. A third of the respondents already provide a personalized experience on their website, with a further 13% reporting they are looking to do so in 2021. Currently, only a quarter report the use of dynamic content on their website, but over half are planning to introduce it in 2021.

Although 65% report they have accelerated investment in digital and technology innovation due to the pandemic, 43% still do not have an app and of those that do, only 5% have one that does everything their website can do.

Data management continues to be a challenge

Unlocking the power of their own data is one of the major challenges marketers face right now. The survey revealed that almost one third of businesses do not currently use a data management platform (DMP) to improve targeting and optimize advertising spend and 63% of businesses struggle with unconnected data sets, providing them with only a partial view of customer behavior. At the same time, three quarters of respondents said they can identify less than 20% of customers who visit their website and 38% can only identify less than 10%.

Investments in customer engagement prove successful

Those who use a customer engagement platform report very high levels of satisfaction, with 67% rating their customer engagement vendor 4 or 5 out of 5 during the pandemic.

These platforms help marketers manage the customer journey in a data-driven way. Here, everything revolves around obtaining a 360-degree view of each individual contact across all channels and activating them in a targeted manner. Through central contact profiles, important information such as socio-demographic characteristics, interactions, and transactions can be bundled and used for targeted personalization.

Ricardas Montvila, Global Strategy Director, at Mapp comments: "COVID-19 has massively accelerated eCommerce and digital business models. Our market survey shows that 65% of UK eCommerce companies have increased their investment in digital and technology innovation as a result of the pandemic. However, the results also show that the full potential of personalization is far from being realized. In the future, customer intelligence and marketing analytics will become critical in providing even more precise real-time customer insights to optimally use existing budgets in a changed market environment and to score points with the end customer through customized content."

About the Survey

A total of 1,000 participants from the agency, retail, finance/insurance, media & publishing, telecommunications, and tourism & leisure sectors were surveyed in February 2021, of which 262 respondents were from the UK.

About Mapp

Marketers and data specialists should be able to focus on what will make a difference for their business, instead of spending all their time taming the technology behind it. With the insight-led customer engagement platform Mapp Cloud, they can focus on what really counts  and the exciting insights that come with it. Thanks to customer intelligence and marketing analytics, companies can easily and effectively gain data-driven customer insights across all channels in order to trigger highly personalized marketing activities. Customers benefit from AI-supported forecasting models that enable targeted and self-optimizing cross-channel campaigns. Automated messages are sent via the most suitable marketing channel, at the right time, with the optimal contact frequency. Thanks to advanced one-to-one personalization, the highest levels of engagement and long-term customer loyalty are achieved.

Mapp has global offices in seven countries. Mapp's digital marketing platform helps more than 3,000 companies break away from the pack by uncovering missed opportunities, including Argos, Ella's Kitchen, Expert, Freesat, Lloyds Banking Group, MyToys, Pepsico, Quint and The Entertainer.

Press contact:

PR Agency: The PR Network

Jonathan Lenz

+44 (0)77953 74423

[email protected]

www.thepr.network

Mapp Digital

Harald Oberhofer

+49 30 755 415 120

[email protected]

www.mapp.com

SOURCE Mapp

Related Links

https://mapp.com


A village bus descends the steep road of Guryong Village in northwestern Seoul, June 19, 2016. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



By Ron Bandun



I feel like there's been an increasing amount of articles and videos lately with sensational titles like "Seoul's last shanty town" or " Seoul's last slum ."



Quick, which neighborhood do you think they're all about?



Chances are, you thought of Guryong Village in Seoul's southern Gangnam District. Or Baeksa Village, up in northeastern Nowon District. Both have been given the title of "last" several times in recent years, even though the presence of both invalidates either's claim to the title. And there is another. Which one will be the last standing?



These neighborhoods are all known as "daldongnae," translated literally to moon village. Calling them slums, shanty towns or favelas helps explain what they are, but should be considered inaccurate. There is a separate Korean word for shanty town  "panjachon" or literally wood board village  which is close to but not perfectly synonymous with moon village.



Moon villages have their origins as refugee villages, having formed in the postwar era. As refugees flooded in from the North, as well as from the countryside looking for work, they found very little space left for them to live. So moon villages were formed as these war and economic refugees built higher up the mountainsides, closer toward the moon which seems to be how they get such a romantic name.



Their creation was unregulated and spontaneous, a fascinating phenomenon that went disappointingly unobserved by urban planners and social scientists. After Korea Times reporter Park Ji-won visited a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in 2018, I thought her pictures looked like they could have been taken in a Korean moon village decades ago. So it seems the development of refugee villages must be directed by a few universal principles.



Some of Korea's oldest refugee communities were based in downtown Seoul had originally had a substantial refugee population, including in historic Jeong-dong as well as along Cheonggyecheon and the long narrow property where Sewoon Sangga stands today. All of it was wiped out, either so the government could use the land for itself or just for beautification projects  or both.



Baeksa Village was formed in 1967 out of those inner-city evictions. The refugees who settled the city center became refugees once again, with many resettling on the slope of Mount Bulam on the northeastern edge of the city. The name Baeksa literally comes from the road number, 104.





A view of Baeksa Village, northeastern Seoul, April 16, 2017. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



Part of Baeksa Village was wiped out in the 1990s to build a Hyundai-brand apartment complex, which towers over the remaining parts of the moon village. What remains of Baeksa Village is an aging community, organized in three lobes built into the folds of the hillside. It's quite picturesque, and reveals an old way of living that's disappearing from Seoul fast. The few remaining residents are elderly, unlike the past when the original population was likely quite young, and as no one new is moving in, it seems inevitable the population will die out.





Baeksa Village, seen on Nov. 18, 2018. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



There have been attempts over the years to preserve Baeksa Village. Many houses bear artistic murals painted as part of a beautification project, now aging with the paint chipping away. But last year the city announced a redevelopment plan for Baeksa Village, putting a hard deadline on this old neighborhood.





An old-fashioned store in Baeksa Village, northeastern Seoul, April 16, 2017. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



Meanwhile, across the river on the slope of Mount Guryong on the southern edge of town, sits Guryong Village, which has the dubious honor of being Seoul's youngest moon village. This can be seen reflected in some of the building materials, which include more plastics and tarps. Among the building materials, I've spotted a banner for Baskin-Robbins which especially stands out.





Housing materials incorporate commercial signs in Guryong Village in southern Seoul, Feb. 10, 2015. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



This area developed during the 1980s, and coalesced into a recognizable community in 1988, the same year as the Summer Olympics which had involved many urban beautification projects. The last population increase came in 1994 with the eviction of a community at the current site of Samsung Tower Palace, a wealthy apartment complex clearly visible from Guryong Village.



Photographers visiting the site tend to take pictures from one spot looking over the village with Tower Palace looming in the background , capturing the extreme inequality present in Gangnam. Actually the skyline has filled in even more with various apartment remodeling projects in adjacent Gaepo-dong.





A view of Guryong Village with Samsung Tower Palace looming in the distance has become representative of inequality in southern Seoul's Gangnam District, Feb. 10, 2015. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



I dislike visiting Guryong because it's a notably miserable place, worse than other moon villages. There are many residents left, so I don't want to bother them or make them feel anxious with my presence. It's at one of the entrances to Mount Guryong's hiking path network, so they do get a lot of through traffic from mountain hikers.





Inequality stands out between Guryong village and highrise construction in the distance in southern Seoul, March 3, 2018. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



There have been proposals to destroy Guryong Village to make way for new developments, but all have met strong resistance from residents who want their fair share and don't want to be displaced again, likely violently.





A frozen stream runs beneath a house in Guryong Village in southern Seoul, Feb. 10, 2015. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun



So which will be the last standing, Baeksa or Guryong? I think both will be outlived by Gaemi Village, a moon village located up on the slope of Mount Inwang in northwestern Hongje-dong. Gaemi traces its origins all the way back to the Korean War. Originally it was named Indian Village, apparently because the residents first lived in tents which resembled tepees, but they didn't like the name so they renamed it Gaemi (Ant) Village after the industrious insect.



It is much smaller than Baeksa and Guryong, built on two valley walls facing each other, which gives the residents on one side a beautiful view of their neighbors across the way. Seodaemun village bus 7 goes all the way up the road in the middle, turning around at the top where there are hiking paths leading up to the peak.



Sometime in the 2000s, a beautification project by the district office turned Gaemi into a mural village, inviting art students to paint the walls. For a while it was a popular domestic tourist destination, overrun with 20somethings taking cute pictures of the murals amid the steeply sloped village. But the mural project is no longer funded, and the painted murals are fading away.



Seoul City gave Gaemi Village the enigmatic "Future Heritage Status," intended to preserve the look of the area and maybe save it from the fate of the city's other moon villages. But it's really unclear what this status actually means, or even if the current residents are allowed to renovate their homes.





Tourists wander in Gaemi Village in northwestern Seoul, May 1, 2010. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun
Ermium Therapeutics SAS, a research-stage biotechnology company developing innovative therapies for auto-immune diseases is announcing today the expansion of the Company executive management team with the appointment of Dr Annegret Van der Aa as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and Chief Development Officer (CDO). Dr Van der Aa brings strong expertise in R&D of drug candidates for auto-immune diseases. Since October 1rst, 2020, Annegret has been intensely active and has allowed the R&D operations to move on efficiently towards the next R&D milestones along with the selection of clinical indications to be targeted by Ermium Therapeutics compounds.

"We are very pleased to officially welcome Annegret to Ermium Therapeutics in her new role of CSO/CDO", commented Joel Crouzet, CEO of Ermium Therapeutics. "We look forward to working with Annegret to develop Ermium Therapeutics' strategy and move forwards our innovative approach for auto-immune diseases".

"I am excited to join Ermium Therapeutics management" stated Dr Annegret Van der Aa. "The intriguing science, originating from the CNRS and the University of Paris, based on which Ermium has been founded, is very promising for targeting specific auto-immune diseases at their core."

Annegret has a broad R&D experience in small and mid-size biotech (Innogenetics, ActoGeniX, OCTIMET Oncology, and Galapagos) for nearly 20 years. Annegret is an immunologist by training with a PhD obtained at Hasselt University. Subsequently, she took up increasing responsibilities in various R&D positions covering the full spectrum from research to up late clinical development. This included managing a research group, compound strategic and operational leadership to building a clinical development/operations department which resulted in the transitioning of more than 10 preclinical candidates to clinical stage products. Moreover, Annegret has gained deep scientific and operational expertise and built a broad network over the past 20 years in the field of auto-immune chronic inflammatory diseases. At Galapagos, she has been instrumental in the clinical development of Jyseleca (filgotinib), which was approved for a first indication in 2020.

About Ermium Therapeutics

Ermium Therapeutics was founded in June 2019 by Jean-Philippe Herbeuval, Kurma Partners, Domain Therapeutics and the SATT Erganeo. The company is based in Paris and has signed a worldwide exclusive license agreement on intellectual property from CNRS and University of Paris (France) through an agreement with Erganeo. In addition, Ermium Therapeutics won the innovation i-Lab 2019 award from the French Ministry of Research and Higher Education.

For more information, go to: www.ermium.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005525/en/

Contacts:

Ermium Therapeutics

Dr Joel Crouzet

Chief Executive Officer

contact@ermium.com
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - As part of its focus on improving health outcomes by providing access to best-in-class services delivered through one of Canada's most comprehensive digital health ecosystems, the Green Shield Canada (GSC) group of companies is pleased to announce its acquisition of Inkblot Technologies (Inkblot), Canada's fastest growing virtual mental health platform.

Increasing digital access to mental health in the COVID-19 era

"Building on our previous, successful digital health investments and partnerships, the acquisition of Inkblot fits with our strategic objective of increasing access for our clients to leading health services, and to mental health solutions in particular - something that has never been more important given the impact COVID-19 has had on mental health," said Zahid Salman, president and CEO of GSC.

Using modern technology, network effects, and advanced analytics, Inkblot matches patients with counsellors using AI-assisted technology - enabling patients to take care of their mental health through a secure, affordable, and accessible platform. Inkblot offers digital video counselling for mental health and addiction issues, patient navigation capabilities, and a software-as-a-service (SaaS) practice management solution for mental health professionals, among other services.

"The entire team at Inkblot is incredibly excited to be joining the GSC group of companies given our shared focus on improving mental health at both the individual and system-wide levels," said Luke Vigeant, president of Inkblot. "As a social enterprise focused on creating significant, measurable health impacts, GSC is the perfect place for Inkblot to scale and grow its platform to help more Canadians."

The acquisition, made through Green Shield Holdings Inc. - a member of the GSC group of companies - highlights GSC's growing leadership role in the digital health marketplace, expanding upon previous investments and/or partnerships with providers like MindBeacon (iCBT), Maple (telemedicine), PocketPills (digital pharmacy), and GenXys (pharmacogenetics), just to name a few. Through a combination of ownership and partnership, GSC intends to develop one of Canada's top digital health ecosystems; and Inkblot provides the foundation and infrastructure required to provide individuals, employers, health systems, and governments with clinically validated, patient-centric mental health care services.

Removing the barriers to mental health care

"The Canadian mental health system needs to be more patient-centric," notes Joe Blomeley, executive vice president, mental health at GSC. "Patients too often struggle to navigate the system and regularly face barriers, including fragmentation of care, sub-optimal delivery, long wait-times, and expensive treatment options. We can absolutely do better. Together, GSC and Inkblot are committed to removing barriers and working with public and private sector partners to build a more seamless and integrated mental health system for all Canadians."

Inkblot's current leadership team will continue to operate the business under the Inkblot brand, with Luke Vigeant remaining president.

For more information:

Deb Quinn, SPPR

647.985.7162

debquinn@sppublicrelations.com

About Green Shield Holdings Inc.

Part of the Green Shield Canada (GSC) group of companies, Green Shield Holdings Inc. is the primary company used to house subsidiaries.

About Green Shield Canada (GSC)

GSC is Canada's fourth-largest health and dental benefits provider, and is uniquely structured as a social enterprise with the purpose of making it easier for people to live their healthiest lives. From coast-to-coast, GSC's service delivery includes drug, dental, extended health care, vision, hospital, and travel benefits for groups and individuals, as well as administration and benefits management services. Supported by outcomes-based sustainability strategies, advanced technology, and exceptional customer service, GSC creates innovative programs for nearly four million plan participants nationwide.

About Inkblot

Inkblot is a Toronto-based company offering corporate mental health programs, with a focus on secure video counselling that is available any time, any place to make mental health support readily accessible. Using a proprietary algorithm, employees are matched to the best counsellors for their specific needs and preferences. Uniquely, Inkblot monitors clinical effectiveness and client satisfaction session-to-session. With Inkblot, employees can get the help they need when they need it. Inkblot's mission is to create affordable, accessible and innovative services and technologies to improve the psychological health of individuals and organizations. Inkblot is a proud alumnus of the 2019 Techstars Toronto Accelerator program as well as the DMZ Growth Accelerator program in Toronto.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76528
Panaji, March 9 : The Congress on Tuesday slammed Chief Minister Pramod Sawant after he wrote to Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat, seeking the latter's consent to appoint former High Court Judge U.V. Bakre as the Lokayukta for Goa.

"Before Chief Minister Pramod Sawant seeks my consent for appointment of new Lokayukta, he should first empower the institution with proper authority and power, which the office of the Goa Lokayukta has been stripped off through a series of recent amendments," Kamat said on Tuesday.

Kamat's statement comes a few days after Sawant wrote to Kamat.

"After diluting the powers of Goa Lokayukta, the government now wants me to give consent to appointment of a new Lokayukta. I demand that the government must first empower the new Lokayukta with authority and powers to act against illegalities and complaints," Kamat said.

According to The Goa Lokayukta Act, 2011, the Lokayukta shall be appointed by the Governor on the advice tendered by the Chief Minister, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court and the Leader of Opposition.

The Opposition has accused the Goa government of watering down provisions of the anti-corruption law, through amendments which were passed in the state Assembly in January this year.

Kamat said that the new amendments had drastically whittled down the powers of the office of the anti-corruption ombudsman and reduced the functionary to a ceremonial figure.

"I had in particular vehemently argued that the institution of Lokayukta should be so strengthened that the menace of corruption at all levels would be curbed in a substantial manner.

"The government chose to ignore the well placed bonafide objections raised by me and my colleagues in the Opposition so much so that the end result is the creation of a farcical institution of Lokayukta," Kamat said in his statement on Tuesday.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill expected to clear the House Wednesday also includes around $130 billion in aid to school districts to help them reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.

And $2.6 billion of that could be headed to New Jersey schools.

The funds could be go for improving ventilation, reducing class sizes, adding staff and buying personal protective equipment, among other purposes.

The American Rescue Plan will help our economy build back better, which includes getting students back in the classroom by ensuring schools receive the resources they need to safely open and operate, said Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1st Dist., a member of the House Education and Labor Committee.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Check out how much money your district would get, according to estimates from the Congressional Research Service:

Is the table not displaying? Click here.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Nick Devlin can be reached at ndevlin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @nickdevlin.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JDSalant.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Korea, US agree on defense cost sharing



Seoul and Washington have reached an agreement on how to share the costs of the upkeep of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). It is fortunate that both countries have narrowed their differences and concluded the long-drawn-out negotiations on the issue.



On Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of State announced the deal that will set Korea's share of the costs for the stationing of 28,500 U.S. troops here. However they stopped short of specifying how much Seoul will pay. The two sides are expected to announce the details of the deal soon after both governments conduct internal reviews on it.



According to defense sources, the agreement would call for Seoul to increase its share by about 13 percent, something the two allies tentatively agreed to in 2020, which required Korea to pay about $1 billion (1.17 trillion won). But then U.S. President Trump rejected the deal and demanded a fivefold increase. In a word, Trump's America-centric and self-serving attitude disrupted the negotiations.



But the inauguration of President Joe Biden has made it possible for Seoul and Washington to reach a breakthrough in the talks. Biden stands in stark contrast to Trump who called South Korea a "free loader" and put money before the alliance. He has vowed not to extort the U.S. ally, and instead has committed to strengthen the U.S.' alliance with Korea, along with other countries.



The latest deal is no doubt mutually beneficial. Seoul has managed to avoid a much greater burden, and Washington is able to restore its alliance. South Korea has also reportedly succeeded in snatching a multi-year agreement  probably for five years  instead of holding negotiations every year as Trump had preferred.



Yet, it is still doubtful whether the agreement is fair and transparent. Critics question if Korea has struck the deal on an equal footing. They argue that the country will still have to pay a higher burden for the U.S. military presence, citing media reports that Seoul has offered to purchase U.S. military equipment. They also call for a change in calculating the actual defense costs. The U.S. side should improve transparency about how Korea's payment is used.



Most of all, the cost-sharing agreement must serve as a first step toward rebuilding the Korea-U.S. alliance. The Biden administration should not push Seoul too hard to join its alliance in the Indo-Pacific region to check the rise of China. Concerns are growing that South Korea might be caught in the rivalry between the U.S., which is Korea's traditional ally, and China, its largest trading partner. Thus, Seoul and Washington should step up cooperation to develop their alliance into a broader partnership to promote their mutual interest and co-prosperity.




You are here: World

 Flash

Ninety-eight people were killed and 615 others injured in explosions caused by accidents in Equatorial Guinean's largest city of Bata, tweeted the country's health ministry on Monday, quoting Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.

Of those injured, 316 were discharged, while 299 remain under medical care in three local hospitals, the ministry said.

Explosive warehouses at the Nkoantoma military camp in Bata caught fire following a nearby farm fire, causing successive explosions on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement from the presidency of Equatorial Guinea published on Sunday evening.

Following the accident, health authorities called on people to donate blood and encouraged volunteer health workers to help. The Chinese medical mission in Equatorial Guinea, a branch of which is based in Bata, helped rescue the victims and donated medical equipment, Chinese embassy tweeted on Monday evening.

As of Monday, the explosion sites are out of danger, and the explosives neutralized, according to the local news site ahoraeg.com.

Located on the mainland part of Equatorial Guinea, Bata is the country's most populous city.
At meeting held on 09 March 2021

The Board of Confidence Petroleum India at its meeting held on 09 March 2021 has decided to set-up CNG-High Pressure Cylinder manufacturing unit near Nagpur with a capacity of 3.60 lakh cylinders per annum of various capacities.

The Board has also decided to workout feasibility for putting Cryogenic Cylinder manufacturing unit near Nagpur having capacity of 1.5 lakh units per annum of various capacities.

The Board has also given approval for putting LNG Tanks manufacturing unit in Nagpur.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein says he will not allow international students from other states to quarantine in Hobart despite NSW insisting it is a plan under consideration.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet and the head of NSW Treasury Michael Pratt revealed on Monday that extensive discussions were under way with Tasmania about using Hobart hotels for students.

The Premier of Tasmania Peter Gutwein says seasonal workers and the states own international workers are his priority. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

However, Mr Gutwein poured cold water on the plan on Tuesday morning, saying his governments focus was on seasonal workers and its own international students.

The Tasmanian government confirms it has received an approach from the NSW government to quarantine international students on their behalf, Mr Gutwein said in a statement.
Kakao's Most Valuable Partner "As we aspire to make a leap to become a global company, we will continue to collaborate and grow together with Kakao. Thank you very much," said Kwon Sang-chuel, president and COO at transcosmos Korea.

transcosmos Korea, Inc. (Headquarter: Seoul, Republic of Korea; President and COO: Kwon Sang-chuel; transcosmos Korea), a business process outsourcing provider in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and a subsidiary of transcosmos inc., is delighted to announce that the company has been named one of the "Kakao's Most Valuable Partners for 2020" by Kakao Corporation (Headquarter: Jeju City, Republic of Korea; Chairman: Kim Beom-su; Kakao). And this marks the fifth consecutive year of winning the award.

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Kakao cancelled various events that would otherwise have taken place including a Kakao headquarter tour, seminars, ceremonies, and recreation activities. Instead, only the award ceremony was held in 2020.

At the award ceremony, transcosmos Korea has been named one of the Kakao's Most Valuable Partner for five consecutive years. Through its ten years of partnership with Kakao, transcosmos Korea has been offering Kakao customer support services. In 2017, transcosmos Korea was named an official Kakao Talk Customer Service Dealer and since then, it has been offering customer services via Kakao chat service. In addition, transcosmos Korea was also chosen as an official agency of Kakao Talk chat-based customer services in 2020. As a recognized partner, transcosmos Korea will continue to broaden its partnership with Kakao.

"I am so grateful that transcosmos Korea, a company with a long-standing partnership with Kakao, has been named one of the Kakao's Most Valuable Partners for five years in a row. Taking this opportunity, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to our officers, managers and all employees for their continuous efforts in delivering the best service for clients," said Kwon Sang-chuel, president and COO at transcosmos Korea. "As we aspire to make a leap to become a global company, we will continue to collaborate and grow together with Kakao. Thank you very much."

*transcosmos is a trademark or registered trademark of transcosmos inc. in Japan and other countries.

*Other company names and product or service names used here are trademarks or registered trademarks of respective companies.



About transcosmos Korea

transcosmos Korea, a subsidiary of transcosmos inc., offers extensive professional business process outsourcing (BPO) services that include contact center services, chat services, field services, direct mail (DM) services, direct sales (DS) services, website integration (WI) services, and internet promotion services (IPS) for businesses in the South Korean market.

Established: May, 2001

Number of bases: 14

Number of employees: 9,000 (approximate)

URL: https://www.trans-cosmos.co.kr/ko/index.asp

Download the sales brochure here: https://www.trans-cosmos.co.kr/ko/company_new/company_main.asp#Brochure

About transcosmos inc.

transcosmos launched its operations in 1966. Since then, we have combined superior "people" with up-to-date "technology" to enhance the competitive strength of our clients by providing them with superior and valuable services. transcosmos currently offers services that support clients' business processes focusing on both sales expansion and cost optimization through our 168 bases across 30 countries/regions with a focus on Asia, while continuously pursuing Operational Excellence. Furthermore, following the expansion of the e-commerce market on the global scale, transcosmos provides a comprehensive One-Stop Global E-Commerce Services to deliver our clients' excellent products and services to consumers in 48 countries/regions around the globe. transcosmos aims to be the "Global Digital Transformation Partner" of our clients, supporting the clients' transformation by leveraging digital technology, responding to the ever-changing business environment. Visit us here https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/
London: The Queen has cast doubt over claims by Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, that a senior member of the royal family expressed concern about how dark their childs skin would be.

In a highly anticipated statement issued by Buckingham Palace on behalf of the 94-year-old monarch, the Queen said the whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.

The palace has been under sustained pressure to respond to the couples interview with Oprah Winfrey, which featured bombshell allegations about racism within the royal family and a failure by the institution to help Meghan even though she was on the verge of suicide.

Meghan claimed a senior figure spoke to Harry before their first child Archie was born about how dark his skin would be. Asked whether there were concerns the child would be too brown and that would be a problem, Meghan told Winfrey: If that is the assumption you are making, that is a pretty safe one.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media

MIDDLETOWN  The impact of nutrition and food access on the well-being of Middletown students is an important part of the broader strategic planning and efforts by the school district.

With this tremendous impact in mind, Middletown Public Schools has embarked on its most significant effort to explore innovative new ways to make all aspects of food service programming, daily meal offerings and overall access a more enjoyable and impactful part of the lives of students and families, according to a press release.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick once worked security for Paris Hilton for a single day when he was 15 years old.

The 27-year-old heartthrob shared the news on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week when he was dishing about the jobs he worked growing up.

While working security at the upscale Los Angeles mall The Grove he found himself assigned to look after Paris.

What a childhood: Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick (pictured left in 2019) once worked security for Paris Hilton for a single day (pictured right in 2020) when he was 15

His jobs at The Grove included 'valet, security, property walks, lease management tours,' while working under billionaire Rick Caruso.

Patrick's particular job there changed weekly as Rick 'wanted you to work at a different area in The Grove so that you understood that, you know, every little part of The Grove is what makes The Grove so amazing.'

He shared that 'I was a security guard for the week - meanwhile I have my own security guards for me 'cause my dad was governor, right?'

The actor laughed about being 'a 15-year-old kid with an earpiece' and revealed he was told to work for Paris for a day.

Dreamboat: The 27-year-old heartthrob appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week and dished about the jobs he worked growing up

Apparently she was visiting The Grove for a book signing and arrived for the event with her own 'security guard who used to work for my dad.'

When Patrick reported to her for duty she said incredulously: 'Patrick? Schwarzenegger? What are you doing?'

Patrick replied: 'I'm your security guard for the day,' and embarked on a workday he said kindly was a 'fun experience.'

So sweet: Patrick is pictured with his father and his little brother Christopher in January 2008 eight months before his 15th birthday

Arnie and his estranged wife Maria Shriver share four adult children  Katherine, 31, Christina, 29, Patrick, 27, and Christopher, 23.

Maria split from Arnold a decade ago after it emerged that he had fathered his son Joseph, 23, by the family's housekeeper Mildred Baena.

Although Arnie is now dating blonde 46-year-old physical therapist Heather Milligan, his divorce from Maria has yet to be finalized.

Just as Patrick has become an actor like his father, Joseph has followed in Arnie's footsteps and become a bodybuilder.
Its vital for us to continue learning as the industry changes, said Chris. Theres still this misconception that inkjet does not compare to offset. Its very hard to see the difference. Inkjet provides very creative, quality pieces that are offered at a lower price than traditional offset.

Dialog Direct, an end-to-end marketing and customer engagement solutions provider, is hosting an educational webinar on emerging trends in the print and direct mail industry. Dialog Direct, a Qualfon company, has partnered with print leader Xerox, to co-host the event on Wednesday, March 17 from 1 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EST.

Dialog Direct recognizes the pressure print buyers are feeling on the bottom line. The webinar will provide insight into how innovation and personalization can help cut through clutter, decrease cost and expand businesses beyond commodity print.

Xeroxs Product Life Cycle Manager Moisha Clark and Bob Gojdics Xerox Production High end Specialist will present alongside Dialog Directs SVP of Sales Chris York to discuss the evolution of print and direct mail. Topics for discussion will include personalization with variable content, strategies needed to optimize direct mail ROI, improvements of Ink IQ technology and innovation with Inkjet printers.

Its vital for us to continue learning as the industry changes, said Chris. Theres still this misconception that inkjet does not compare to offset. Its very hard to see the difference. Inkjet provides very creative, quality pieces that are offered at a lower price than traditional offset.

The last 15 minutes of the webinar will be dedicated to answering questions. Questions can be submitted at any time during the event.

We have a responsibility to raise awareness for these technological advancements, Chris said. Offset allows limited variability, while inkjet has high variability for higher response and conversion rates on direct mail pieces. The increase in response rates is undeniable when variable data (images and text) is specified for each recipient. At Dialog Direct, its not just about the data you have, but how we can help you utilize this to maximize returns.

Free registration to the webinar can be found here: https://www.dialog-direct.com/media-room/events/. The webinar will also be recorded and sent to registered attendees who are unable to make it.

About Dialog Direct

Dialog Direct, a Qualfon company, is a marketing and customer engagement solution provider focused on helping brands connect and engage with their customers to generate leads, increase sales and provide superior customer engagement solutions that create remarkable experiences. The company offers a full range of sales and marketing support services including direct marketing, campaign management, customer service, sales, order fulfillment, eCommerce and data analytics to help its clients build lifelong customer relationships. Please visit http://www.dialog-direct.com or call 800-523-5867 for more information.
SAN DIEGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Synergy One Lending welcomes Michaela Phillips, Dave Majcen and Dave Schell to the growing Synergy One team. The team is based out of Boulder, CO and previously worked for another top-tier lender for 7+ years.

"The decision for me to join Synergy One lending really came down to wanting to find a home that delivered both speed and ease to the lending process, as well as a team that made us feel valued and a part of something bigger than our own production," said Dave Schell.

Synergy One President, Aaron Nemec added, "We are thrilled to have Michaela and the Dave's join the S1L team! Supporting originators of this quality and character is an absolute privilege for us as we continue to expand in Colorado and nationwide!"

Synergy One Lending is based in San Diego, CA, is currently licensed in 38 states and has Operational HUBS in Boise, ID, Denver, CO and Dallas, TX. To learn more about Synergy One Lending, reach out to Aaron Nemec, [email protected], or Ben Green.

SOURCE Synergy One Lending

Related Links

https://s1lending.com/


This photo shows the zodiacal light as it appeared on March 1, 2021, in Skull Valley, Utah. The Pleiades star cluster is visible near the top of the light column. Mars is just below that. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Data from the NASA spacecraft's journey to Jupiter suggests that Mars may be shedding dust into interplanetary space.

Look up to the night sky just before dawn, or after dusk, and you might see a faint column of light extending up from the horizon. That luminous glow is the zodiacal light, or sunlight reflected toward Earth by a cloud of tiny dust particles orbiting the Sun. Astronomers have long thought that the dust is brought into the inner solar system by a few of the asteroid and comet families that venture in from afar.

But now, a team of Juno scientists argues that Mars may be the culprit. They published their finding in a March 9 paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. An instrument aboard the Juno spacecraft serendipitously detected dust particles slamming into the spacecraft during its journey from Earth to Jupiter. The impacts provided important clues to the origin and orbital evolution of the dust, resolving some mysterious variations of the zodiacal light.

Though their discovery has big implications, the scientists who spent years studying cosmic debris did not set out to do so. "I never thought we'd be looking for interplanetary dust," said John Leif Jrgensen, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark.

Jrgensen designed the four star trackers that are part of Juno's magnetometer investigation. These onboard cameras snap photos of the sky every quarter of a second to determine Juno's orientation in space by recognizing star patterns in its imagesan engineering task essential to the magnetometer's accuracy.

But Jrgensen hoped his cameras might also catch sight of an undiscovered asteroid. So he programmed one camera to report things that appeared in multiple consecutive images but weren't in the catalog of known celestial objects.

He didn't expect to see much: Nearly all objects in the sky are accounted for in the star catalog. So when the camera started beaming down thousands of images of unidentifiable objectsstreaks appearing then mysteriously disappearingJrgensen and his colleagues were baffled. "We were looking at the images and saying, 'What could this be?'" he said.

Jrgensen and his team considered many plausible and some implausible causes. There was the unnerving possibility that the star camera had caught a leaking fuel tank on Juno. "We thought, 'Something is really wrong,'" Jrgensen said. "The images looked like someone was shaking a dusty tablecloth out their window."

It wasn't until the researchers calculated the apparent size and velocity of the objects in the images that they finally realized something: Dust grains had smashed into Juno at about 10,000 miles (or 16,000 kilometers) per hour, chipping off submillimeter pieces of spacecraft. "Even though we're talking about objects with only a tiny bit of mass, they pack a mean punch," said Jack Connerney, Juno's magnetometer investigation lead and the mission's deputy principal investigator, who's based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Look up to the night sky just before dawn, or after dusk, and you might see a faint column of light extending up from the horizon. Astronomers have long thought that the dust is brought into the inner solar system by a few of the asteroid and comet families that venture in from afar. But now, a team of Juno scientists argues that the planet Mars may be the culprit. Credit: NASA Goddard

As it turned out, the spray of debris was coming from Juno's expansive solar panelsthe biggest and most sensitive unintended dust detector ever built.

"Each piece of debris we tracked records the impact of an interplanetary dust particle, allowing us to compile a distribution of dust along Juno's path," Connerney said. Juno launched in 2011. After a deep-space maneuver in the asteroid belt in 2012, it returned to the inner solar system for an Earth gravity assist in 2013, which catapulted the spacecraft towards Jupiter.

Connerney and Jrgensen noticed that the majority of dust impacts were recorded between Earth and the asteroid belt, with gaps in the distribution related to the influence of Jupiter's gravity. According to the scientists, this was a radical revelation. Before now, scientists have been unable to measure the distribution of these dust particles in space. Dedicated dust detectors have had limited collection areas and thus limited sensitivity to a sparse population of dust. They mostly count the more abundant and much smaller dust particles from interstellar space. In comparison, Juno's expansive solar panels have 1,000 times more collection area than most dust detectors.

Juno scientists determined that the dust cloud ends at Earth because Earth's gravity sucks up all the dust that gets near it. "That's the dust we see as zodiacal light," Jrgensen said.

As for the outer edge, around 2 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun (1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun), it ends just beyond Mars. At that point, the scientists report, the influence of Jupiter's gravity acts as a barrier, preventing dust particles from crossing from the inner solar system into deep space. This same phenomenon, known as orbital resonance, also works the other way, where it blocks dust originating in deep space from passing into the inner solar system.

The profound influence of the gravity barrier indicates that the dust particles are in a nearly circular orbit around the Sun, Jrgensen said. "And the only object we know of in almost circular orbit around 2 AU is Mars, so the natural thought is that Mars is a source of this dust," he said.

"The distribution of dust that we measure better be consistent with the variation of zodiacal light that has been observed," Connerney said. The researchers developed a computer model to predict the light reflected by the dust cloud, dispersed by gravitational interaction with Jupiter that scatters the dust into a thicker disk. The scattering depends only on two quantities: the dust inclination to the ecliptic and its orbital eccentricity. When the researchers plugged in the orbital elements of Mars, the distribution accurately predicted the telltale signature of the variation of zodiacal light near the ecliptic. "That is, in my view, a confirmation that we know exactly how these particles are orbiting in our solar system," Connerney said, "and where they originate."

While there is good evidence now that Mars, the dustiest planet we know of, is the source of the zodiacal light, Jrgensen and his colleagues cannot yet explain how the dust could have escaped the grip of Martian gravity. They hope other scientists will help them.

In the meantime, the researchers note that finding the true distribution and density of dust particles in the solar system will help engineers design spacecraft materials that can better withstand dust impacts. Knowing the precise distribution of dust may also guide the design of flight paths for future spacecraft in order to avoid the highest concentration of particles. Tiny particles traveling at such high velocities can gouge up to 1,000 times their mass from a spacecraft.

Juno's solar arrays escaped harm because the solar cells are well protected against impact on the backor darkside of the array by the support structure.

Explore further Unique solar system views from NASA sun-studying missions

More information: J. L. Jorgensen et al. Distribution of Interplanetary Dust Detected by the Juno Spacecraft and Its Contribution to the Zodiacal Light, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2020). J. L. Jorgensen et al. Distribution of Interplanetary Dust Detected by the Juno Spacecraft and Its Contribution to the Zodiacal Light,(2020). DOI: 10.1029/2020JE006509
China must boost military spending to prepare for a possible confrontation with the US, top generals said, in an unusual acknowledgment of the risk of a clash between the worlds two largest economies.

The two generals  members of the Central Military Commission led by President Xi Jinping  made the comments during the annual national legislative session in Beijing. CMC Vice Chairman Xu Qiliang, Chinas top uniformed officer, said the country needed to brace for a Thucydides Trap," an inevitable conflict between a rising power and an established one.

Facing the Thucydides Trap and border disturbances, the military must step up its efforts to improve its capabilities," Xu said Friday, although the transcript wasnt released until later. The most important thing is internal unity and cohesion and improvement of overall capabilities. If you are strong, you will have long-term stability, as well as invincibility."

Xus reference to border disturbances" may be an allusion to Chinas deadly clash with India last year, as well as territorial disputes in the South and East China seas. Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, who also sits on the CMC, said separately that containment and counter-containment will be the main tone of bilateral ties between China and US."

The remarks represented a rare admission from China about the growing risk of a confrontation with the US after escalating disputes under President Donald Trump over everything from trade to Taiwan. Chinese leaders have repeatedly played down the risk a Thucydides Trap, with Xi saying during 2015 a visit to the US that such a conflict wasnt inevitable so long as countries avoided strategic miscalculations.

A national security strategy document released last week by US President Joe Biden affirmed Trumps designation of China as a strategic competitor." The strategy seeks to put less emphasis on using the American military to resolve conflicts and pledges to work with like-minded countries" to forge a common approach to Beijing.

The Thucydides Trap" refers to ancient Greek historian Thucydides explanation of the Peloponnesian War as an inevitable clash between a rising Athens and the established regional power, Sparta. The term was coined by Graham Allison, a professor at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government, who argued that China would threaten to displace US influence, possibly resulting in an unhealthy rivalry or armed conflict.

Xi has vowed to make China a great military power, pledging to complete the modernization of the armed forces by 2035 and build a world-class military capable of winning wars across all theaters by 2050. China projected defense spending growth of 6.8% this year, up from 6.6% last year, the slowest pace in three decades.

Wei, the defense minister, said struggles over containment efforts would last throughout the whole process of Chinas national rejuvenation."

Chinas national security has entered a phase of high risks. Tasks are mounting for the defense sector and military," Wei said, adding China must comprehensively strengthen training and preparedness for war and improve the strategic capability to win over strong enemies."

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
An all-party Oireachtas group on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights has called for Poland to reform its abortion law, calling it an attack on womens rights.

The 26-member group said Poland has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe and Irish politicians know from experience that a legal ban on abortion does not prevent it or reduce it.

In January, the Polish government published an announcement from the Constitutional Tribunal regarding the abortion law, which will result in a near-total ban on abortion.

Abortion is permitted in Poland only in situations of risk to the life or health of a pregnant woman, or if a pregnancy results from sexual assault.

The declaration by the Constitutional Tribunal means that there is now a virtually total ban on abortion in Poland, said Labour Senator Annie Hoey, co-chair of the all-party group.

This restriction of Polands already draconian abortion law is an attack on womens rights to dignity, autonomy and bodily integrity, she added.

Read More

Her claims were echoed by Social Democrat TD Holly Cairns, who said the restrictions can only harm womens health.

We in Ireland are acutely aware of the harms caused to womens health and wellbeing by restrictive abortion laws, she said.

Fianna Fail Senator Lorraine Clifford Lee said the regulations on abortion went against international human rights law.

Polands abortion laws fly in the face of international human rights law. Poland must bring its laws into compliance with the requirements of the right to health and with international healthcare standards, she said.

Independent Senator Alice Mary Higgins said the issue was not only about Poland and was one that must be of international concern.

Today, we join parliamentarians and civil society across Europe to stand in solidarity with those in Poland and worldwide who are challenging regressive and damaging restrictions on sexual and reproductive health, she said.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
The government denied any connection with a bombing that occurred January 29 th near the Israeli embassy in Delhi (the Indian capital). Iran has been using this denial tactic for decades. In the case of the Delhi bombing Iran may well have not been directly responsible, but the denial was seen as normal for Iran. These denials are still effective at slowing down sanctions or designation as an international terrorist. What Iran is admitting or claiming is progress in developing nuclear weapons. The purpose of all these attacks and threats is to persuade Western nations to lift sanctions on Iran. Iran appears confident that this is working because they are illegally exporting more oil to India and China. This is risky because the tankers carrying these shipments can be intercepted and seized. As soon as the new American government took power in January, Iran told current and past customers for discounted smuggled oil that Iranian oil would be more easily available in 2021, either free of sanctions or less vigorously enforced sanctions. Iran was betting that the new U.S. government would ease off on the oil export sanctions. So far this has not happened but the Iranian leaders insist it will happen and soon.

Iran is desperate to get the sanctions lifted and believes that is now possible because many officials of the new government in the United States criticized the resumption of sanctions on Iran in 2017 and subsequent actions against Iran. That 2017 resumption was justified by accusations that Iran was cheating on the 2015 treaty that lifted sanctions. Even before the revived sanctions, there was growing unrest inside Iran because of the growing poverty and declining standard of living for most Iranians. This is in sharp contrast to the families of the ruling clerics and IRGC leaders. The IRGC recently reminded everyone (the ruling clerics and the angry Iranians) that lethal force would be used again, as it had in 2018 and 2019 under similar circumstances. Actually the protests date back more than a decade but the government is blaming the current resurgence on those evil Americans and Israelis.

Using so much lethal force to suppress demonstrations of widespread popular anger comes at a cost. It demoralizes some members of the IRGC (Islamic Revolution Guard Corps) and convinces more Iranians that their religious dictatorship has to be removed, even at the cost of another rebellion like the one that overthrew the monarchy in 1979. The generation that lived through the 1979 revolution and subsequent ruinous war with Iraq is no longer the majority. The current generation sees the religious dictatorship for what it is, the result of a coup by the Islamic radicals that were part of the movement that overthrew the monarchy and used the subsequent Iraqi invasion as an excuse to replace the promised democracy with a religious dictatorship. The senior clerics and IRGC leaders know this is a threat because opinion polls have shown, for several years now, that more Iranians are abandoning Islam and many are secretly adopting other religions or no religion at all. The clerics label this as blasphemy, a crime punishable by death if done openly. Iranian use of denial is not restricted to the current government but is a national survival trait that makes sense in many situations. Fewer Iranians are showing up at mosques or religious schools. If pressed by a local cleric, they plead poverty and the need to work more just to feed their families. The local clerics understand there is a lot of truth to this and that they are losing a lot of believers. This is reported to senior clerics and eventually reaches the Council of Guardians. This is the group of twelve self-selected senior clerics who have the final political and religious authority in Iran. Each of the guardians is an elderly Shia cleric who appears, on the surface, as a wise and caring holy man. The reality is that the Guardians preside over a corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy. That is the cause of growing hatred of the religious government and the failure to effectively deal with the growing number of disasters, including mismanagement of covid19, that torment a growing majority of Iranians. There are senior clerics who recognize the mismanagement and corruption as a threat to Islam in Iran and advise there be an internal revolution that would replace the current twelve guardians with honest and effective clerics. That implies punishment of the corrupt clerics and their families who have grown wealthy in the decades of corruption. But that is unlikely because part of the corruption is moral bankruptcy and a willingness to wreck Iran with another revolution rather than do what a righteous religious leader should do. The current guardians also realize that lifting sanctions is literally a lifesaver for their government, at least temporarily. Most Iranians no longer believe their clerical masters can bluff and bully their way out of the current mess, even if their promised nuclear weapons become a reality. One thing decades of going after Israel has demonstrated is that the Israelis are more competent at defending themselves than the cleric-led Iran is at attacking them. Israel says it will attack if Iran obtains nukes or gets close to that goal. Most Iranians have done the math and calculate that using ballistic missiles, with or without nukes, will turn out badly for Iran.

This outcome has been visible in Syria for years as the Iranian government squandered billions in post-2015 income on efforts to create a military presence in Syria that would make a major attack on Israel possible. That has been an expensive failure for Iran. Recent Israeli airstrikes near Damascus (the Syrian capital) were apparently retaliation for the earlier attack on an Israeli-owned ship in the Persian Gulf. In the aftermath of the Damascus attacks, the Syrian Internet saw a spike in anti-Iran messages. There has been a shift in Syrian public attitudes towards Iran as Iran moves in more of its Lebanese (Hezbollah), Afghan and local mercenaries to Syrian army bases around the capital and other areas where a lot of Assad supporters live. That is followed by truckloads of missiles and other weapons from Iran to be stockpiled for use against Israel. Several hundred times over the last few years Israeli airstrikes have destroyed these Iranian stockpiles, usually with few casualties on the ground and those tend to be Iranians or their mercenaries. Now the Iranians, or at least their Hezbollah veterans, are talking of the need to store these weapons in residential areas to use Syrian civilians as human shields to discourage Israeli air strikes. But the Syrians know how this works. The Israelis guided missiles do not cause a lot of civilian casualties.

Instead, the Iranian missiles, rockets and explosives do that as they explode and that causes most of the civilian casualties. The Iranians see this as a plus as it is supposed to make the locals more anti-Israel. The Syrians see the Israelis attacking no matter what, even if Iran switches to the human shields approach, because otherwise those weapons will be used against Israeli civilians. This shift in public opinion against Iran is a problem for the Assad government because Iran has hundreds of advisors working within the Assad government and military. These Iranians report potential problems back to Iran or, rather, the IRGC that runs Iranian operations in Syria and Lebanon. If the Iranians suspect that the Assad government is considering switching sides and joining an Arab coalition that opposes Iran and considers Israel an ally, Iran could do a lot of damage to the Assad clan.

The IRGC also suspects Russia of working with Israel to broker a peace deal between the Assads and Israel. These suspicions increased three weeks ago when Russia brokered a deal with Syria to participate in an exchange with Israel that saw the return of two Syrians and one Israeli civilian who had crossed the border. Iran was not consulted and Russia refused to reveal details. The Assads deny there were any hidden objectives. Iran did note that the deal also involved Israel reducing the prison sentence for a pro-Syrian Arab. And there were rumors that Israel would also help Syria obtain covid19 vaccines and so on. Rumors are rumors but the strains in Iran-Syria relations is real.

To make matters worse for Iran, Turkey and Israel are negotiating a deal to improve diplomatic and economic relations. The Turks have been increasingly hostile to Iran lately and that includes ignoring Iranian requests during the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Turkey sent advisors, armed UAVs and Syrian mercenaries to help the Azeris score their first victory over Armenia in a three-decade long territorial feud. Iran was also unhappy with the fact that the Azeris gave credit to the many Israeli weapons that had purchased over the last decade. This included the Israeli Barak 8 anti-aircraft system which intercepted a number of Russia made ballistic missiles fired at Azerbaijan by the Armenians. One of those ballistic missiles was an Iskander, a recent Russian design that was supposed to more difficult to detect and intercept. In short, Iran has reasons to be displeased at how its campaign in Syria is proceeding and how unhelpful, or even hostile, their allies have been.

This is not a new development. As far back as 2018 there were signs that Iranian allies in Syria were something of an unnatural act. Israel had made it clear that they would fight if Iran tried to establish a military presence in Syria. That was complicated by the fact that Iran had allies in Syria; Russia and Turkey, who were traditional enemies. In contrast Israel and the Gulf Arabs are not. What to do? Israel and Russia began trying to negotiate a deal to prevent a war between Iran and Israel over Iranian plans (already announced and underway) to establish bases in Syria and organize anti-Israeli forces for a final battle. For Israel any long-term Iranian presence in Syria was intolerable. Russia believed it could work out such a deal but many Israelis were skeptical and Iran declared that such a deal was not possible. When it comes to opposing Iran, Israel always had some very public backing from Russia despite the fact that this put Russia at odds with their two other allies in Syria. The Russians see the Israelis as a more powerful and reliable ally than the Turks or Iranians. Russia is also backing the Kurds in Syria and that is causing problems with Turkey. Recently Turkey agreed with Russia and is seeking to improve relations with Israel, even if that is at the expense of Iran.

Budget Buster

The cost of fighting in Syria is a financial burden for all concerned but it has been something that Iran found it could not sustain and so has sharply cut its expenses in Syria. This forced the Assad government to cut costs in early 2021 by ordering the military to reduce costs by having most military units return to lower peacetime (pre-2011) levels of readiness. Syria is not at peace but the Assads cannot afford to keep most of the military combat ready. The cutbacks are dictated by the sharp reduction in financial support from Iran. The American economic sanctions have, in the last three years, greatly reduced the amount of money Iran could spend on its foreign wars. Iran-backed groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen are all feeling the impact. Iran is hoping the new American government will relax the sanctions. While the Americans are now saying nice things about Iran, the sanctions are still in place and enforced. That means Syrian troops have less ammo and fuel for patrols and combat. As was the case in peacetime, more soldiers and officers were given leave, to spend a few weeks visiting families or even take vacations.

March 8, 2021: In Yemen Iran-backed Shia rebels sent another explosives laden UAV into southwest Saudi Arabia (Asir province). Air defenses detected and downed the UAV as it headed for King Khaled Airbase. The day before the Shia rebels launched a ballistic missile at the airbase. The missile was intercepted and destroyed. Iran denies responsibility for all UAV/cruise missile/ballistic missile attacks on Saudi Arabia.

March 7, 2021: In northeast Saudi Arabia (tanker loading port of Ras Tanura) an Iranian explosive laden UAV was intercepted before it could reach the port. Further south, a ballistic missile was intercepted as it approached Dhahran, the city where ARAMCO (the Saudi oil company) is located. The UAV was launched from an Iranian ship in the Persian Gulf while the ballistic missile came from the Iran-backed Yemen rebels. This and other recent Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia have done some good for Iran by driving the price of oil up to $70 a barrel. This makes smuggling more Iranian oil less of a financial risk because even with the discount offered to buyers and the risk of having Iranian tankers seized.

March 6, 2021: Covid19 has been a disaster for Iran and the government admits to a virus death rate that is the highest in the region. The official number of covid19 deaths in Iran recently passed 60,000. Thats 700 per million. Thats up from a mid-2020 cumulative death toll of 18,000 Iranians, mainly the elderly or those already ill with something else. Unofficially the death toll is three more times higher than the official number. That means over 200,000 dead so far and a death rate of over 2,000 per million populations. Such high rates have only been seen in a few Western European countries.

Initially the clerical rulers of Iran (the Guardians Council) denied the virus would hurt Moslems and would only threaten non-Moslems. Then elderly clerics began to die in significant numbers and soon Iran was suffering more covid19 deaths per capital than most anyone else. By early June 2020 Iran had already suffered over 8,000 confirmed covid19 deaths. That came out to and a hundred deaths per million population. By August deaths per million are officially 221, which was more than double the global average of 95 and higher than nearly 90 percent of the words nations. Iran is considered the epicenter of covid19 infections in the region and the source of infection for most of its neighbors. For example, so far Afghanistan has 717 admitted deaths per million people compared to Turkey with 342, India 114, Iraq 333 and Pakistan 59. Across the Gulf Saudi Arabia has 186 deaths per million and the UAE 134. In Europe Spain has 1,527, Britain 1,828 and Sweden 1,282. The U.S. rate is 1,621. The world average is 335 deaths per million.

March 4, 2021: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) American troops and their Kurdish SDF allies shut down two Iranian border crossings on the Euphrates river. The U.S. shut down construction of a bridge connecting two Iran-backed militias while the Kurds shut down a pipeline crossing the river that delivered Iranian oil to Iran backed groups in Syria.

March 3, 2021: In western Iraq (Anbar province) an Iran-backed militia launched at least a dozen 122mm unguided rockets at the al Asad airbase. This sprawling facility is on the Euphrates River some 200 kilometers west of Baghdad. Al Asad airbase is where over a thousand American and NATO troops have been stationed since 2015. Many of the incoming 122mm rockets were intercepted by the American rocket-defense systems but some hit the base, doing no damage. One American contractor had a fatal heart attack while in a bomb shelter. This is a common type of casualty when civilians are involved and make it to a shelter. The attack was unusual because it used the larger 122mm rocket and were fired from an improvised launcher hidden in the false bottom of a dump-truck that was later found, abandoned with the truck-bed be raised and the launch tubes empty. The 122mm rocket has a longer range (20 kilometers or more) than the smaller 107mm rocket usually used for these attacks. The 107mm rocket weighs 19 kg (42 pound) each and is 84 cm (33 inches) long rocket. This rocket has a range of six to ten kilometers and 1.35 kg (3 pounds) of explosives in its warhead. The 107mm design is very popular with guerillas and terrorists because of its small size and portability. The 122mm rocket is three meters (1o feet) and delivers a 20 kg warhead.

The U.S. was ready to carry out an airstrike on an Iran backed militia but was called off at the last minute when it was discovered that women and children were brought into the base to act as human shields. This is a favorite Iranian defense technique against airstrikes by nations that will recognize human shields as a legitimate reason to not attack. Human shields dont work when Arab, Russian, Iranian or Turkish warplanes are attacking and most of the time Israel will not call off attacks either, especially against someone who is firing at Israeli civilians.

March 2, 2021: Israel carried out more airstrikes against Iranian targets near Damascus. The target was new Iranian bases for Iranian Arab and Afghan mercenaries as well as Iranian military (mostly IRGC) personnel. This latest attacked caused over fifty casualties among the military personnel, including fifteen dead. Eight of the dead were Iranians and one of them was an IRGC general. Another three were senior IRGC officers working for or meeting with the general.

March 1, 2021: Iran confirmed that it had tested a new SLV (Satellite Launch Vehicle) called Zuljanah a month earlier. The U.S. ballistic missile early warning system had detected the launch and noted that no satellite was put into orbit and the SLV was probably another ICBM test. Iran insisted that Zuljanah was an SLV, something they have done for all their ICBM tests.

February 28, 2021: Israel carried out a several airstrikes against Iranian targets outside Damascus. The sound of the many explosions could be heard in Damascus. Hezbollah gunmen quickly set up checkpoints and restricted access to the bases that apparently suffered a lot of damage, in part because warehouses containing weapons and ammunition were hit, triggering secondary explosions with debris scattered over a wide area, including many fragments of Iranian made weapons.

February 27, 2021: In Yemen Iran-backed Shia rebels launched more Iranian ballistic missiles at targets in Saudi Arabia. The missiles were all intercepted by Saudi BMD (Ballistic Middle Defense) systems.

February 26, 2021: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) an American airstrike, using two F-15E fighter-bombers, delivered seven smart bombs against an Iranian facility and largely destroyed it. There was at least one death and four wounded. The facility was built to support the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah, an organization that is meant to become as powerful in Iraq as the original Lebanese Hezbollah has been since the 1980s in Lebanon. The U.S. holds Kataib Hezbollah responsible for recent rocket attacks on American bases and embassy in Iraq. Iran denies responsibility but the rockets used were made in Iran. The air strike was near the Al Bukamal crossing into Iraq. Iran is seeking to provide a safer environment for its Iraqi militias. Inside Iraq Kataib Hezbollah is subject to attack by security forces and pro-government militias. In eastern Syria the biggest threat is Israeli airstrikes and the occasional American one. For that reason, the Americans warned Israel the day before that there going be U.S. airstrike, to ensure an Israeli airstrike was not scheduled to take place at the same target or another one in the area. This was the first American airstrike in Syria since a new U.S. government took power. Eben though the new government had indicated it would no longer carry out such airstrikes in Syria.

In the Gulf of Oman, near the Iranian coast, the Helios Ray, an Israeli owned RO/RO (roll on, roll off) vehicle carrier ship was apparently hit by missiles or some kind of weapon. There were two holes visible above the waterline on each side an empty cargo deck of the 35 meter (112 foot) wide ship. There was no serious damage to the ship, that had made several stops in the Persian Gulf to unload new vehicles. After the attack the ship turned around and returned to Dubai to get the hull patched and the damage examined by weapons experts to determine the source of the attack damage. The ship was on its way to Singapore, a voyage that was to take about a week. Iran was suspected of causing the damage, which is similar to what earlier happened to other commercial ships in the area. At first Iran denies any responsibility, but two days later changed their mind and admitted they carried out the attack because the RORO ship was spying on Iran.

February 25, 2021: Turkish President Erdogan appears to be reconsidering his decision to let Turkish-U.S. relations deteriorate. The last week has been instructive. First Erdogan acknowledged the deterioration in relations with America and then characterized the Turkish-U.S. strategic relationship as vital. That statement alone was a backdown from his accusations in mid-February that America was supporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Erdogan made the outrageous accusation after PKK guerrillas in northern Iraq murdered 13 Turkish hostages. The U.S. does not support the PKK. The U.S. labels the PKK a terrorist organization. The PKK is a terrorist organization. The U.S. does support Syrian Kurdish militias fighting ISIL in Syria. That support infuriates Erdogan, though many observers think his fury is theatrics for his Turkish Islamist supporters. Why? Some of the American logistical support for Syrian Kurds is believed to flow through Turkey. As it is, Turkey invests in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan. Who really aids the PKK? Iran. And Turkish intelligence knows it.

February 19, 2021: Diplomats from Russia, Turkey and Iran met and agreed to back Syrian claims that continued Israeli air strikes violate the 1974 UN brokered ceasefire that halted the Israeli advance on Damascus after defeating the Syrian surprise attack to retake the Golan Heights during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. In 1973 the Arabs believed their simultaneous attacks against Israeli forces in the north and south would push the Israelis out of the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan heights and possibly other Israeli territory as well. After some initial success the Israeli defenses held and counterattacks forced the Egyptians and Syrians to retreat in an effort to defend their capitals. The ceasefire agreements that halted the fighting on both fronts included Egyptian and Syrian pledges to not back covert terror attacks on Israel. As far as Israel is concerned the Iranian military buildup in Syria is a violation of the 1974 agreement and justifies the continued airstrikes against the Iranians. Syria protests that the airstrikes endanger commercial air traffic and Syrian civilians living near Iranian military facilities. Russia and Turkey are unlikely to do anything to block Israeli airstrikes because Israel, Turkey and Russia all want Iran to get out of Syria but only Israel can admit it openly.

February 17, 2021: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) another Israeli airstrike hit an Iran base occupied by Syrian troops and Iranian mercenaries. There were at least 57 fatalities, including 17 Syrian army troops, sixteen Iraqi militiamen, and eleven Afghan mercenaries.

February 15, 2021: Iran confirmed that Turkey had arrested an Iranian citizen earlier this month but denied the individual was a diplomat.

In the north (autonomous Kurdish provinces) someone fired about two dozen 107mm rockets at the Erbil (Kurdish capital) airport complex and fourteen of them landed in populated areas. This facility is heavily guarded but unguided 107mm rockets have a max range of ten to twelve kilometers and the American C-RAM rocket defense is short range and there mainly to defend the Patriot anti-ballistic missile battery. The airport has a heavily patrolled eight kilometers security zone around it to make rocket and mortar attacks more difficult, or at least much less accurate. Several of the rockets hit areas containing American troops and civilian contractors. One contractor was killed and eight others wounded. Five of the wounded were Americans, including a soldier. The contractors are recruited worldwide even though most work for American firms. Awliya al-Dam, a minor Shia Islamic terror group claimed responsibility. Smaller Islamic terrorist groups often stage attacks like this to get publicity. This helps them with recruiting and fund raising. It also increases efforts to find and destroy them. Another complication is that nearly all Shia Islamic terror groups in Iraq are taking orders from Iran. Such groups have been responsible for attacks on American troops in Iraq for over a decade.

February 12, 2021: In Turkey media reported an Iranian consular official had been arrested in Istanbul. The suspect is believed to be connected to the November 2019 assassination of Masoud Molavi, an Iranian dissident leader who was murdered in Turkey.

February 11, 2021: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) another airstrike hit a convoy of trucks carrying Iranian weapons as it passed through the Iraqi Al Bukamal crossing into Syria. There were several large explosions, made possible by the munitions carried in the trucks. The attacking aircraft could not be identified but were believed to be Israeli and part of a campaign to cripple Iranian efforts to build up a large force in Syria that would be capable of launching thousands of guided and unguided rockets into Israel.

February 9, 2021: In the southwest Yemen (port city of Aden) the investigation of the December 30 attack on the Aden airport by three Iranian cruise missiles continues. More evidence of rebel complicity has arrived from rebel territory, where local civilians took cell phone videos of the missile launches that apparently hit the Aden airport. The Shia rebels are now regarded as an oppressive occupying force in most areas they control. The Shia rebels no longer seek to hide the Iranian support and increasingly exercise control over civilians with threats of violent retribution for those who cooperate. This has been a major intel victory for government and Arab coalition forces because there is a steady stream of accurate information on rebel activities coming out of rebel territory.

The December 30 attack hit the airport shortly after members of the new Yemeni government arrived from Saudi Arabia. The officials were not harmed but the missiles killed 25 and wounded 110. The airport remained closed until January 3rd. These Iranian missiles are used by the Shia rebels more frequently indicating that the Iranian smuggling network is growing again. The rebels denied that they were responsible for the airport attack and blamed it on Saudi Arabia. Fragments of the three missiles were collected so that precise identification of the cruise missiles could be made. UN investigators are involved in the identification process and have confirmed the Iranian origins of the rockets and missiles (cruise and ballistic) used by the rebels. Also employed are Iranian UAVs equipped with explosives but these are being replaced by Iranian cruise missiles. One such UAV was shot down on December 30th as it headed for the Presidential Palace in Aden. Saudi Arabia responded with several air strikes against rebel facilities, including at least one involved in assembling cruise missiles using Iranian components.
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  The battle over paid sick leave for New Mexico private sector employees took a new twist Monday, with backers agreeing to delay the effective date of a mandatory leave bill until July 2022.

The pushed-back implementation date, which the bill's sponsor said was chosen with input from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office, frustrated some bill supporters and did not win over business groups that have strongly opposed the measure.

But the revised measure, House Bill 20, ultimately cleared its first assigned Senate committee Monday, moving it one step closer to final passage with the 60-day legislative session entering its homestretch.

It's a small ask, and we believe it is long overdue, the bill's sponsor, Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, said during a meeting of the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee.

Members of the committee voted 5-3 to advance the bill, with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans in opposition.

The bill would allow workers to take up to 64 hours of accrued leave per year  and even more during public health emergencies.

While about 12 other states already have paid sick leave laws on their books, many of them exempt small businesses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The proposal under consideration at the Roundhouse would not exempt smaller employers, although it would, in its revised form, allow employers that already offer paid leave programs to qualify under the law as long as they meet its minimum terms.

This is one of the most burdensome bills we've seen in the U.S., said Carla Sonntag, president of the New Mexico Business Coalition, who predicted the legislation would lead to employees' hours being cut and jobs eliminated.

With many New Mexico employers struggling due to the pandemic and restrictions imposed in response to it, Lujan Grisham suggested recently that it might not be the right time for lawmakers to pass bills imposing new requirements on businesses.

However, Workforce Solutions Secretary Bill McCamley testified Monday in favor of the reworked bill on behalf of the Lujan Grisham administration, saying the pushed-back effective date would give both businesses and the state agency charged with enforcing the legislation more time to prepare.

The governor believes very, very strongly that not only do workers need this directly, but having sick folks go to work is not good for them, and it's not good for the community members surrounding them, McCamley said.

The paid leave bills filed at the Capitol this year have sparked debate between business groups and front-line workers and their advocates, with both sides citing the coronavirus pandemic as proof of their arguments.

Supporters say a statewide paid sick leave law would lead to a healthier and more productive New Mexico workforce, because workers would not feel compelled to work when sick, or leave an ailing family member alone, to ensure they get a paycheck.

During Monday's hearing, one grocery store worker testified in Spanish about the death of her husband due to COVID-19 and the rising hospital, mortgage and debt payments she has had to deal with.

And Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, D-Albuquerque, voted for the bill but said the delayed effective date  it had previously been proposed to take effect in mid-June  would be harmful to workers.

I think now is when we need it more than ever, Sedillo Lopez said.

She also said a new federal stimulus bill recently approved by Congress includes tax credits to help businesses pay the costs of employee leave.

However, business groups expressed concern the proposed bill would apply to all types of employees, including babysitters and high schoolers who mow lawns, describing it as one of the most far-reaching paid leave bills in the country.

They also said that they have expressed a willingness to help craft a statewide paid leave policy that would be less harmful to employers but that their offers have largely been rebuffed by advocates.

In New Mexico, Bernalillo County has also adopted a paid time off ordinance, although it applies only to unincorporated parts of the county and is not as generous to employees.

The bill pending at the Roundhouse, which narrowly passed the House on Feb. 28, now advances to the Senate Taxation, Business and Transportation Committee. If endorsed by that panel, it will advance to the full Senate.

However, the House would also have to sign off on the Senate changes to the bill for it to go to Lujan Grisham's desk for final approval.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................
In Bidens America, putting coronavirus-positive immigrants on bus trips across America is perfectly fine, but taking off your mask is Neanderthal thinking.

(Natural News) (Article republished from TheNationalPulse.com)

White House Cuts Live Feed Before Questions.

The White House promptly cut a live feed yesterday after President Joe Biden announced that hed be happy to take questions from Democratic lawmakers.

  WATCH THIS: The White House cut a virtual event feed earlier after President Biden says he's "happy to take questions" from House Democrats. pic.twitter.com/nnvWT4yyPd  Belaaz (@TheBelaaz) March 4, 2021

Biden Calls Mask Skepticism Neanderthal Thinking.

Only a Neanderthal would question the efficacy of mask-wearing at this point, according to Biden. (This, on the one year anniversary of the weekend Anthony Fauci told the world that mask wearing wasnt necessary, by the way).

Happy anniversary to one of the worst takes ever. One year ago today, Dr. Fauci went on 60 Minutes and said you didn't need to wear a mask. "Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.  Theres no reason to be walking around with a mask." pic.twitter.com/dTfjoxWFjf  Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 8, 2021

Following announcements that Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would take actions to reopen their states, including rescinding former mask mandates and restrictions on business occupancy, Biden called it a big mistake.

The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that, in the meantime, everythings fine, take off your mask, forget it, Biden said.

Abbott responded to the charge on Thursday morning:

The Biden administration has been releasing immigrants in South Texas that have been exposing Texans to Covid. Some of those people have been put on busses, taking that Covid to other states in the United States, Abbott told CNBC. That is Neanderthal-type approach to dealing with the Covid situation.

Abbott added that the changes being made in Texas are not a dramatic step, as Texas mask mandates have not been enforced, only recommended.

Biden Releases Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.

Biden on Wednesday released his Interim National Security Strategic Guidance document outlining his priorities for national security policy how the United States can seize what we view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew Americas advantages at home and abroad, press secretary Jen Psaki said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also delivered supporting remarks entitled A Foreign Policy for the American People.

For some time now Americans have been asking tough but fair questions about what were doing, how were leadingindeed, whether we should be leading at all.

Some principles are enduring. One is that American leadership and engagement matter Another enduring principle is that we need countries to cooperate, now more than ever.

First, we will stop COVID-19 and strengthen global health security.

Second, we will turn around the economic crisis and build a more stable, inclusive global economy.

Third, we will renew democracy, because its under threat But the erosion of democracy is not only happening in other places. Its also happening here in the United States. Disinformation is rampant here. Structural racism and inequality make life worse for millions.

We will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force.

Fourth, we will work to create a humane and effective immigration system.

Fifth, we will revitalize our ties with our allies and partners.

Sixth, we will tackle the climate crisis and drive a green energy revolution.

Seventh, we will secure our leadership in technology.

And eighth, we will manage the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century: our relationship with China Our relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be.

On the use of military force, Bidens strategy notes:

The United States will never hesitate to use force when required to defend our vital national interests Military force should only be used when the objectives and mission are clear and achievable, when force is matched with appropriate resources and as part of an integrated strategy, when it is consistent with our values and laws, and with the informed consent of the American people.

Read more at: TheNationalPulse.com and JoeBiden.news
Are you a current print subscriber to Columbia Gorge News? If so, you qualify for free access to all content on columbiagorgenews.com. Simply verify with your subscriber id to receive free access. Your subscriber id may be found on your bill or mailing label.
The COVID-19 has increased the risks of sexual and gender-based violence against women in the Northern Region, Madam Bushira Alhassan, Northern Regional Director, Department of Gender, Children and Social Protection, has said.



She said in an epidemic such as the Covid-19, women and girls were at higher risk of experiencing intimation and other forms of domestic violence due to heightened tensions in the household.



Madam Alhassan said this on the International Womens Day (IWD), organised by her Department, in partnership with the Savannah Women Integrated Development Agency (SWIDA), Pan African Organisation for Research and Protection of Women and Children against Violence (PAORP-VAWG) and Songtaba organisation.



The event, on the theme: Women in Leadership; Achieving an Equal Future in COVID-19 World, was held in Tamale to discuss the impact of Covid-19 on women, and adopt workable measures to address those challenges.



She said domestic violence was high at the national and international levels, and affected various categories of women including those with unpaid care duties, the unemployed and those hard hit by poverty.



Madam Alhassan urged world leaders to act fast to address the issues before it got out of hand, adding that women leaders and women organisations had demonstrated their skills, knowledge and networks to effectively lead in the Covid-19 response and recovery and should be acknowledged.



Hajia Alima Sagito Saeed, the Executive Director of SWIDA, called on men to support women to achieve the campaign theme for the IWD; #ChooseToChalenge.



She said COVID-19 had disrupted economic activities, which invariably affected small and medium entreprises and their employees, compelling them to temporarily shut down businesses as well as disrupt their sources of income.



She said many couples spent more time at home during the lockdown and that affected their incomes, placing financial and psychological burden on breadwinners, who were mostly men, and translated to heightened tension, leading to violence.



Hajia Saeed urged women, globally, to take the COVID-19 vaccine, wear the nose masks, and practice hand washing with soap to reduce the spread of the disease to save more lives.



Dr Muma Bili, the Deputy Programmes Director of PAORP-VAWG, advised women to support their colleague women in leadership to enhance the development of the country and improve gender equality.



The International Women's Day is celebrated globally to acknowledge the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Police officers walk by the defaced statue of Winston Churchill, in London, on Sept. 10, 2020. (Simon Dawson/Reuters)

Those Who Damage Memorials Face 10-Year Jail Term Under New UK Bill

People who cause criminal damage to memorials in the UK will face jail terms of up to 10 years under a new bill being discussed in the British Parliament.

Currently, the maximum sentence for such offences is three months if the value of the damage is less than 5,000 ($6,941), according to the Sentencing Council.

But the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill, which was published on Tuesday, increases the maximum penalty for criminal damage to a memorial from three months to 10 years, the government said in a statement.

File photo shows the toppled statue of 17th-century merchant Edward Colston as it is tossed into the water during a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol, England, on June 7, 2020. (Keir Gravil via Reuters)

The issue of how Britain should deal with the legacies of its past, especially its role in slavery and colonialism, has been the subject of heated debate since the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century merchant, was toppled by Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters in Bristol in June 2020.

During protests last summer sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, rioters in the UK also defaced a statue of Winston Churchill in Londons Parliament Square, taping a Black Lives Matter sign to it and spraying it with graffiti.

Such actions are not widely supported by the British public. Recent research by think tank the Henry Jackson Society showed that 84 percent of black Britons oppose the toppling of historical statues.

The UK government said in January that it will enact new laws to protect statues in England from attacks by woke militants who want to censor the nations past.

Recently, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden warned that Britains cultural institutions are also under pressure from left-wing campaign groups.

Left-wing groups put bullying pressure on institutions to rapidly change their approach, to remove our history, to remove items and statues and so on, he said on March 2 at the History Matters conference organized by Policy Exchange, a London-based center-right think tank.

I think that that is a danger that needs to be guarded against, because it can take generations to build history and heritage, and it can take just a few short-termist decisions to remove it and to remove it for good, he said.

Dowden wrote to several museums and cultural institutions last September, warning that their public funding could be called into question should they remove statues or other historical objects that have become the focus of protests or complaints.

Reuters, Mary Clark, and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.
Paula Rideout-Harris, a leader of the Greater Harrisburg Branch of the NAACP at start of this century and committed civil rights and policy activist long after that, died Saturday at her Lower Paxton Township home. She was 68.

Her daughter, Rogette Harris, said her mother had been dealing with a kidney disease for several years.

Harris, a lifelong Harrisburg resident, rose to public prominence in the area with her election as president of the regional NAACP branch in 2000.

Her installation as president coincided with the arrest and prosecution of a state House member from Bucks County, Rep. Thomas Druce, for leaving the scene of a July 1999 accident on Cameron Street that left a Harrisburg man named Kenneth Cains dead.

Druce was arrested the following winter, and Harris would become a leading voice in efforts to make sure then Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico and the local courts did not offer Druce any preferential treatment. The disgraced lawmaker eventually wound up pleading guilty and serving a two-to-four year term in state prison.

Her watchdog role in the Druce case was the most public, but not the only example of Harriss zeal for the fight for equal treatment for all that filtered through education, access to the vote and many other issues, friends and colleagues said Monday.

Paula Diane Harris was a fierce advocate for the underdog, and specifically people of color, said Dauphin County Commissioner George Hartwick. She was someone who was not there to agree with you; she was there to advocate for the people who had entrusted her to represent them... probably to her own peril at times.

She was a raw and sheer force when she entered the room, added Harrisburg businessman Fred Clark.

Within the NAACP, Harris also was credited by friends and colleagues Monday with amplifying the chapters reach in the region.

Under Harris leadership, the branch opened an office, started a Web site, held a TV and radio fund-raising telethon, held a choir festival, and began taking part in the NAACPs Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics to promote academic excellence among black youths.

She also put together a regional group of attorneys who were willing to take discrimination cases pro bono, her daughter said.

Paula really took the NAACP, in my opinion, into the modern era, said Clark. She was able to mobilize many factions of the African-American community and bring them together, which seems very simple, but she knew how to thread the needle.

But Harriss tenure as president came to a quick end in 2002, after internal rivalries within the organization led to her defeat in a bid for a second term.

My Mom was about what was right, not necessarily what was popular, and that did make some enemies for her, Rogette Harris said.

Harris, who worked for Highmark Blue Shield as a business analyst and trainer by day, continued her work toward civil rights field and racial equity through a separate company that she formed under the name of the Andrew Young National Center for Social Change, running diversity training programs for employers, re-entry training for ex-convicts and other programs.

She also became a regular contributor to The Patriot-News Op-Ed pages, and also authored a book, somewhat presciently, called 1st Black President, a 312-page study that explored, in 2004, what Black Americans needed to do to become serious contenders for the presidency.

The book dropped in November 2004, four years before Barack Obama broke that particular glass ceiling.

Friends said Harriss determination to fight for the underdog and interest in making sure that people had a fair second chance was galvanized by her own conviction in 1986 for forging four checks from the YWCA of Greater Harrisburg, where she had been working as a bookkeeper.

Many years later, an anonymous letter sent to Highmark about that case led the company to temporarily suspend Harris from her job. She was later reinstated.

Harris sought, and received, a pardon for the crime, telling the state Board of Pardons in 2003 the board that she had made a mistake when she was a single mother faced with medical bills from surgeries required to correct her young daughters hearing disorder and legal fees stemming from a custody battle with her ex-husband.

I make no excuse for what I have done, she said at the time. It was a crime, and it was wrong. ... What I do this for is to continue in my work of helping other people that have similar obstacles in their lives.

She was a constant servant leader in our community, said former Harrisburg City Councilwoman Gloria Martin-Roberts, a lifelong friend of Harriss. Her heart was always right in terms of wanting equality for all people because there was a small time in her life when people tried to make judgements of her, and that was the one thing that drove her to make sure that there was fairness.

With the pardon in hand, Harris talked openly at times about running for political office, but she never actually launched a campaign.

Instead, she watched with great pride as her daughter, Rogette, because the first African-American woman to be elected as chair of the Dauphin County Democratic Committee. She used to always tell me: It wasnt meant for me to run. It was meant for you. Rogette Harris told PennLive Monday.

Rogette, meanwhile, was eager to turn the family pride back on her Mom.

I attribute my passion to help people to her, she said.

Because to me, politics, we get into whos more electable. Who fits the criteria for this district... But politics is really about policy, and policy is there to help people better their lives. And thats what I got from my mother - wanting to implement and fight for policies that are going to better peoples lives.

Paula Harris was born in Carlisle but raised in Harrisburg, where her father, Robert, worked for the state Department of Transportation and her mother was a homemaker. One of six children, Paula graduated from the then-John Harris High School, and attended Cheyney University for two years, before returning to Harrisburg.
Dallas, TX, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WCV is a quality metric to evaluate website page experiences to rank your web page.

Google also states it will use page experience signals if there are several pages with equally great, relevant content.

So, what are these factors that affect page experience? Here are the top three:

 Mobile-Friendliness and Pagespeed

 Website Privacy and Security (HTTPS)

 Interstitials

If a website is not mobile-friendly and has no privacy and security, this leads to a poor page experience.

Pop-ups and ads (interstitials) also affect page experience as many users find intrusive ads annoying and would instead leave than watch or view them.

But why is Google doing this?

The ultimate job of Google as a search engine is to offer the best results for user experiences. Based on search queries and quality of content, Google has identified what is best for its users.

As we mentioned on our blog last year, it's because users show preference to websites or web pages with excellent page experience. They are basing their observation based on their internal studies and industry research.



Web Pages with Good Core Web Vitals Naturally Appear On Top of Google SERPs (search engine result pages).

The good news is, once the search giant uses Core Web Vitals as an official part of their search ranking factors, websites that are not best prepared will not appear on Google's Top Stories. At the moment, only websites with AMP can appear on Google's Top Stories.

SEO Impact: Where is this going to affect rankings?

Well, it's going to affect all regular search results, mobile, and desktop, based on certain criteria. But also, and this is an important point, Core Web Vitals are going to become criteria to appear in Google Top Stories. These are the news results that usually appear at the top of search results.

Previously, AMP was a requirement to appear in those Top Stories. AMP is going away. So you still have to meet the requirements for regular Google News inclusion, but AMP is not going to be a requirement anymore to appear in Top Stories. But you are going to have to meet a minimum threshold of Core Web Vitals.

So that's an important point. So this could potentially affect a lot of ranking results." Source: moz.com

Although AMP will go away and will not be required anymore to rank on Google's top stories, web pages should still reach a minimum threshold of core web vitals to get ranked.

Poor page experience is likely to push down a website's search engine ranking. - Agnes Zang.

According to data, websites with excellent page experience have 24% of their users less likely to abandon their web page. This means 24% more traffic without doing anything.

When Does Google Use Core Web Vitals as Its Official Ranking Factor?

Last year, Google announced that they would use Core Web Vitals sometime in 2021. They will release a 6-month notice before they start incorporating it into their algorithm. Thus, it is safe to say that several months from now or before 2021 will end, Core Web Vitals will officially become a part of Google's search ranking factors.

Piece of content insights:

--Google has stated that 75% of your loading pages meet 2.5-second criteria to be accessed as "good."

Web site owners will have to prepare "largest content elements, very lean. LCP scores below 2.5 require improvement.

PageSpeed Insights

-- Webmasters should check Google PageSpeed insights using:

According to John Muller, checking both in case you missed anything, but it is to our understanding that field data will be the more important.

For a page that's 100% content (like a blog post or news articles), FID probably isn't a big deal. backlinko.com

Top Three Core Web Vitals Metrics for Aspects of User Experience

The next several months are crucial for SEOs, marketers, and business owners as these are the times to evaluate the quality of their website's page experience. Here are the top three Core Web Vitals metrics every website owner should take a closer look at when assessing page experience quality.

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)  Page Speed: This refers to the page loading speed or how fast the page loads. This is influenced by render time or how many seconds it takes for the largest element on a page load. LCPs under 2.5 seconds is an ideal speed, while 4 seconds and above is not good.

What to do if your website has slow page speed? Optimize your graphics or images for the web. You can also try to compress your page elements as much as possible. You can start my "minifying" CSS, Javascript, and HTML files.

2. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)  Website page Experiences When a user clicks a button on a web page, it suddenly shifts to another part of the page, or if you click the search button but get thrown out. It requires you again to input your search terms. These are examples of sudden layout shifts which irritate and frustrate website visitors. And this leads to poor page experience.

As posted on our blog last year, a CLS score lower than 0.1 is considered by Google as good, while a score of above 0.25 is poor.

What to do if your web page has poor visual stability?

You can start by making sure all images on your websites have dimensions. You can do this by including the width and height attributes on all your graphic elements. Get more in-depth CLS optimization tips here.

3. First Input Delay (FID)  Interactivity and Responsiveness: The time delay when a user interacts with a page before a browser responds is called FID or First Input Delay. This measures the page's interactivity. Ideal page interactivity, according to Google, is below 100 ms. Those with FIDs above 300 ms have poor interactivity.

What to do if your page has slow interactivity? The most common cause of poor FID is heavy Javascript execution because this affects browser response. Thus, the primary solution is to reduce Javascript execution. Learn how to do it here.

How to Know If Your Website Has Good Core Web Vitals?

You can do it manually by testing your page on different browsers and platforms, but there's an easier way to determine it using Google Search Console.

Google Search Console evaluates your Core Web Vitals as Poor, Needs Improvement, and Good. You can also check the Page Insights report inside your Search Console to see Opportunities and Diagnostics.

If you don't like Google Search Console, other alternative tools you can use are Lighthouse, Chrome Dev Tools, and CrUX API.

Wrapping Up:

"Learning the basics about the next official Google ranking factor equips you with technical knowledge on how it can affect your website ranking once the search giant incorporates it into their algorithm.

Knowing the importance of quality page experience is the first step in fully understanding Core Web Vitals. A page's mobile-friendliness, privacy & security, and interstitials are primary factors that affect a user's experience when accessing or browsing a page. Page experience quality is measured using Core Web Vitals' top three metrics  Page Speed, Visual Stability, and Interactivity," concluded Qamar Zaman, CEO of KISS PR.





Resources:

WordPress Gutenberg 10.1 Boosts Core Web Vitals  Search Engine Journal

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-gutenberg-10-1-core-web-vitals/397910/



How to audit Core Web Vitals  Search Engine Land

https://searchengineland.com/how-to-audit-core-web-vitals-346076



Mueller Discusses Site Traffic and Core Web Vitals  Search Engine Journal

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-site-traffic-core-web-vitals/397294/



SEO: Common Fixes to Core Web Vitals  Practical Ecommerce

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/seo-common-fixes-to-core-web-vitals



https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2020/05/devtools#cls



Media Contact: Agnes Zang, az@kisspr.com







This news has been published for the above source. KISS PR Digital Marketing [ID=17238]

Disclaimer: The information does not constitute advice or an offer to buy. Any purchase made from this story is made at your own risk. Consult an expert advisor/health professional before any such purchase. Any purchase made from this link is subject to the final terms and conditions of the website's selling. The content publisher and its distribution partners do not take any responsibility directly or indirectly. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the company this news is about.





Attachments
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
A teenage killer who fatally stabbed a man in the neck as he sat in a barbers chair in Sydneys western suburbs will serve at least 14 years in prison for the murder, while his motive for the senseless attack remains a mystery.

Alfredo Isho and his motorbike killer, Fredon Laith Botrus. Credit:COmposite

Fredon Laith Botrus, then 18, was wearing a motorcycle helmet and concealing a knife in his sleeve when he burst into the Classico Hair Studio through the back door on January 11, 2019. He walked straight to the chair where 20-year-old Alfredo Isho was sitting in a barbers cape, and stabbed him once in the upper chest, near the collarbone.

As Botrus fled the scene on his noisy Thumpstar motorbike, Mr Isho jumped up and staggered out of the salon, arming himself with scissors. But the 13-centimetre knife wound would soon render him unresponsive, and he died in hospital hours later.
Deliveroo's riders and customers, as well as restaurants, stand to benefit as it targets a 7bn float in London despite racking up another year of losses.

The Amazon-backed food delivery app yesterday announced 16million cash bonuses for its longest-serving riders, widely seen as sweetener after years of criticism over workers' rights.

It will also put aside 50million as a 'communities fund' to help restaurants 'rebuild their businesses after the pandemic'.

Deliveroo yesterday announced 16m cash bonuses for its longest-serving riders, widely seen as sweetener after years of criticism over workers' rights

And it will reserve 50million of equity at the initial public offering (IPO) for UK customers who will be able to buy 1,000 of shares.

Many floats are only available to institutional shareholders meaning ordinary investors miss out on any spike in the share price after listing.

Details of the float came as the company fell to a 223.7million loss in 2020 having racked up losses of 317.3million in 2019.

Deliveroo, which was set up in 2013, has never made a profit.

But revenues  which mostly consist of fees paid by restaurants and customers  rose 54 per cent last year to 1.2billion. That included a 65 per cent rise to 599million in the UK and Ireland.

Founder Will Shu has built the customer base up to 6m customers in just eight years, ordering from 115,000 restaurants, cafes and stores each month.

'Today the business is so, so much bigger than I ever would have thought possible,' he said yesterday.

'Now we take the next big step in our journey by allowing everyone to have a share in our future.

'That's why we are planning to take Deliveroo public here in London, the city where it all started, and we plan to offer our customers across the UK the chance to own a part of the business.'

Under the terms of the IPO, he will receive 20 votes per share for three years, whereas all other shareholders will have one vote per share.

The controversial dual-class share structure is designed to allow founders to maintain control over their company and fend off takeovers.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Searchlight Resources Inc. ("Searchlight" or the "Company") (TSXV:SCLT)(OTC Pink:CNYCF) is pleased to announce that it has closed a private placement of flow-through shares and non-flow-through units (the "Private Placement") as previously announced by press release of March 4th, 2021

The Company issued 12,333,750 units at a price of $0.08 per unit (the "Unit") for aggregate proceeds of $986,700. Each Unit consists of one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (the "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.12 per common share for a period of 2 years from the date of issue.

The Company also issued 100,000 flow-through ("FT") shares at a price of $0.10 per FT share for aggregate proceeds of $10,000. FT shares will entitle the holder to receive the tax benefits applicable to flow-through shares, in accordance with provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The Company expects to incur cash commissions and finders' fees of $55,734 and 694,925 broker and finders warrants which will expire 2 years from the date of closing.

All the securities issued are subject to a four-month hold period from the date of closing.

Searchlight intends to use the proceeds of the Private Placement to fund exploration expenditures on its portfolio of mineral properties and for general working capital.

About Searchlight Resources Inc.

Searchlight Resources Inc. (TSXV:SCLT; US:CYNCF; FSE 2CC2) is a Canadian mineral exploration and development company focused on Saskatchewan, Canada, which has been ranked as the top location for mining investment in Canada by the Fraser Institute. Exploration focus is on gold and battery minerals throughout the Province, concentrating on projects with road access.

Searchlight holds a 427.6 square kilometre land position within the gold and base metal rich Flin Flon - Snow Lake Greenstone Belt. The Company is currently advancing its Bootleg Lake Gold Project located in Saskatchewan, less than 10 km from Flin Flon, Manitoba, and which hosts four past producing high-grade gold mines.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

"Stephen Wallace"

Stephen Wallace, President, CEO and Director

SEARCHLIGHT RESOURCES INC.

For further information, visit the Company's website at www.searchlightresources.com or contact:

Searchlight Resources Inc.

Alf Stewart, VP Corporate Development

(604) 331-9326

info@searchlightresources.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's limited operating history and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

SOURCE: Searchlight Resources Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634416/Searchlight-Resources-Announces-Closing-of-Private-Placement-Financing
She puts on a chic display daily.

And Amanda Holden was once again earning her style stripes as she left work at Heart FM on Tuesday morning while rocking a stunning look.

It seemed the host, 50, was inspired by Chanel in a houndstooth two-piece which boasted a blue and white colouring alongside tight white trousers.

Stunner: Amanda Holden was once again earning her style stripes as she left work at Heart FM on Tuesday morning while rocking a stunning look

Amanda looked sensational in her stylish ensemble, which oozed elegance thanks to the longline cardigan and stylish matching top.

She showcased her lithe legs in the white trousers which she paired with coordinating white stilettos while adding in a cornflower blue handbag.

The outing comes after Amanda hit out at the government following the announcement frontline nurses would received a one per cent pay rise amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The TV and radio personality shared a series of old photographs of herself in scrubs as she shared a supportive message to frontline medical workers.

Feeling blue: It seemed the host, 50, was inspired by Chanel in a houndstooth two-piece which boasted a blue and white colouring alongside tight white trousers

Blue lady: She showcased her lithe legs in the white trousers which she paired with coordinating white stilettos while adding in a cornflower blue handbag

Amanda wrote: 'We clapped them, we praised them, we thanked them. Now let's bloody show them... the money! B******s to a 1% pay rise!'

Her comments come amid mounting fury over the announcement, with many suggesting the pay rise is an insult to those who have risked their lives throughout the Covid pandemic.

On Friday ministers defended a headline one per cent pay rise for NHS staff, while furious union bosses threatened strikes.

Stunner: Amanda looked sensational in her stylish ensemble, which oozed elegance thanks to the longline cardigan and stylish matching top

Safe space! She posed for a socially distanced selfie with a fan

Unions branded the offer from the government a 'callous and an enormous slap in the face' after a year on the front line of the coronavirus crisis.

Amanda's post joined the rally cry across the country, as many demand more money for nurses in line with the suggested 12.5 per cent increase.

The Royal College of Nursing announced it is setting up a 35million fighting fund for industrial action, while Unite said it is considering balloting members. Unison is urging the public to join a mass slow handclap next Thursday.

Sir Keir Starmer seized on the announcement to insist that 'Covid heroes' deserve more, while Tory MPs voiced disquiet.

Chic: She looked stunning as she headed out

Check me out! She strutted her stuff in style

Health minister Nadine Dorries - a former nurse - pointed out the rest of the public sector is facing a complete freeze, warning that the government cannot 'afford' to be as generous as it would like with national debt soaring towards 2.8trillion.

In a round of interviews, she said had been 'pleasantly surprised' that a 1 per cent offer had been possible - and dismissed the idea that staff will quit, stressing people work in roles such as nursing because they 'love the job'.

The submission from the government to the NHS pay body is for a headline 1 per cent rise, meaning that some types of staff are likely to get more and others less.

It also notes that a further 0.7 per cent hike to the pay envelope planned under the wider health service modernisation will still go ahead.

Not standing for it! On Friday, she hit out at the government after they announced they would be giving frontline nurses a one per cent pay rise amid the coronavirus pandemic
A 59-year-old cardiologist from Somerset County admitted he illegally prescribed more than 8,600 oxycodone pills for a patient and the patients wife, authorities said.

Raymond Catania, of Warren, faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced July 14, the U.S. Attorneys Office for New Jersey said in a statement.

Catania, who had a practice in Watchung, wrote the prescriptions for the 30 mg pills between January 2016 through March 2017. Court papers didnt explain why he did it or identify either the patient or the patients wife.

Catania pleaded guilty Monday to dispensing oxycodone outside of the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.

Oxycodone can be highly addictive, create both physical and psychological dependence and result in fatal overdoses. experts say.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JGoldmanNJ.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Sunday urged computer network operators to take further steps to gauge whether their systems were targeted amid a hack of Microsoft Corp's Outlook email program, saying a recent software patch still left serious vulnerabilities.

"This is an active threat still developing and we urge network operators to take it very seriously," a White House official said, adding that top U.S. security officials were working to decide what next steps to take following the breach.

CNN on Sunday separately reported the Biden administration was forming a task force to address the hack. The White House official, in a statement, said the administration was making "a whole of government response."

While Microsoft released a patch last week to shore up flaws in its email software, the remedy still leaves open a so-called back door that can allow access to compromised servers and perpetuating further attacks by others.

"We cant stress enough that patching and mitigation is not remediation if the servers have already been compromised, and it is essential that any organization with a vulnerable server take measures to determine if they were already targeted," the White House official said.

Already, a source told Reuters more than 20,000 U.S. organizations had been compromised by the hack, which Microsoft has blamed on China, although Beijing denies any role.

The back channels for remote access can impact credit unions, town governments and small business, and have left U.S. officials scrambling to reach victims, with the FBI on Sunday urging them to contact the law enforcement agency.

Those affected appear to host Web versions of Microsoft's email program Outlook on their own machines instead of cloud providers, possibly sparing many major companies and federal government agencies, records from the investigation suggest.

A Microsoft representative on Sunday said it was working with the government and others to help guide customers, and the company urged impacted clients to apply software updates as soon as possible.

Story continues

Neither the company nor the White House has specified the scale of the hack. Microsoft initially said it was limited, but the White House last week expressed concern about the potential for "a large number of victims."

So far, only a small percentage of infected networks have been compromised through the back door, the source previously told Reuters, but more attacks are expected.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and David French in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
[March 09, 2021] VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings III, Inc. Announces Closing of $254 Million Initial Public Offering

VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings III, Inc. (the "Company") announced today that it closed its initial public offering of 25,376,598 units at a price of $10.00 per unit. The Company's units began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, or the NYSE, under the ticker symbol "VPCC.U" on March 5, 2021. Each unit consists of one share of Class A common stock and one-fourth of one redeemable warrant. Each whole warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one share of Class A common stock at a price of $11.50 per share. Once the securities comprising the units begin separate trading, the Class A common stock and warrants are expected to be listed on the NYSE and trade under the symbols "VPCC" and "VPCC WS," respectively. The Company intends to pursue a business combination with a high-growth business in the Fintech industry headquartered or with operations in the United States and an enterprise value of approximately $800 million to $3 billion. The company is led by Chairman John Martin, Co-Chief Executive Officers Brendan Carroll and Gordon Watson, and Chief Financial Officer Carly Altieri. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Jefferies LLC acted as the underwriters for the offering. On March 8, 2021, the underwriters notified the Company of their desire to purchase an additional 2,876,598 units by partially exercising the over-allotment option granted to the underwriters by the Company. The offering is being made only by means of a prospectus. Copies of the prospectus may be obtained from: Citigroup Global Markets Inc., c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, or by telephone: 800-831-9146; or Jefferies, Attention: Equity Syndicate Prspectus Department, 520 Madison Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10022, by telephone at (877) 821-7388 or by email at Prospectus_Department@Jefferies.com.



A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the " SEC (News - Alert) ") on March 4, 2021. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. This press release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements," including with respect to the search for an initial business combination. No assurance can be given as to the consummation of any business combination or the terms thereof. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the Company's registration statement and prospectus for the offering filed with the SEC. Copies are available on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law.

About VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings III, Inc. VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings III, Inc.'s acquisition and value creation strategy is to identify, partner with and help grow a business in the Fintech industry headquartered or with operations in the United States. The Company's sponsor is an affiliate of Victory Park Capital, a global investment firm with a long track record of executing debt and equity financing transactions with some of the largest global Fintech companies. The firm was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Chicago with additional resources in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Victory Park Capital is privately held and a Registered Investment Advisor with the SEC. For more information, please visit: www.victoryparkcapital.com/vih/vpc-impact-acquisition-holdings-iii/ View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005904/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
ARKANSAS  US retailer Walmart has pledged US$350 billion to support the nearshoring of product manufacturing over the next decade.

The company has identified six product categories that itll focus on, including textiles, plastics and goods not for resale. According to data it cites from Boston Consulting Group, by manufacturing closer to home it could eradicate upwards of 100 million metric tonnes of CO 2 from its supply chain in the next 10 years.

John Furner, CEO of Walmart US, said: US manufacturing really matters. It matters to our suppliers, to entrepreneurs and to the environment. It matters to our customers and most of all, because of the jobs it brings, it matters to American communities and the people who live in them.
REALITY AND OTHER STORIES

By John Lanchester

178 pp. Norton. $26.95.

Image

This intriguing debut collection grapples with technology and its illusion of convenience, choice and escape. Lanchester, a British novelist and journalist, has a sharp eye for social class and setting in his ghost stories for the digital age.

Which of These Would You Like? portrays the absurdity and horror of incarceration. The narrator repeatedly asks, Why am I here? Rather than answer, his captors order him each day to select from a brochure of handcuffs, scaffolds and hoods to prepare for his own execution. This is all about you. Youre in control. Youre in control of everything! a guard says, in chilling doublespeak not unlike the tech companies that promise privacy even as they collect and mine your data.

Several stories begin energetically, with a catchy premise, but may leave some readers wanting more: A haughty academic encounters cursed audiobooks, a clerk receives a cursed selfie stick, a reality show contestant struggles to gain her footing and a woman flees haunted telephones.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 23:27:27|Editor: yan

Video Player Close

Li Zhanshu, an executive chairman of the presidium of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), presides over the second meeting of the presidium at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 9, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The presidium of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature, held its second meeting Tuesday.

The meeting decided to submit multiple documents to lawmakers for deliberation.

The documents include the draft resolutions on the government work report, the outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for national economic and social development and the long-range objectives through the year 2035, the report on the implementation of the 2020 plan and on the 2021 draft plan for national economic and social development, and the budget report.

The documents also include draft decisions on amending the organic law and procedural rules of the NPC, and a revised draft decision on improving the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Li Zhanshu, an executive chairman of the presidium, presided over the meeting.

The presidium's executive chairpersons met before the meeting to prepare the documents.
Phase III CANOPY-2 trial did not meet primary endpoint of overall survival in patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer whose cancer progressed while on or after previous treatments 1





Canakinumab development program continues; two Phase III non-small cell lung cancer clinical trials are ongoing in first-line and adjuvant settings 2,3





The CANOPY clinical trial program is designed to help answer critical questions about the role of interleukin-1 beta (IL-1) in pro-tumor inflammation in lung cancer, with multiple clinical trials investigating canakinumab in different stages of disease using distinct treatment combinations2-5



Basel, March 9, 2021  Novartis announced today the Phase III CANOPY-2 study evaluating canakinumab (ACZ885), an inhibitor of interleukin-1beta (IL-1), in combination with the chemotherapy agent docetaxel, did not meet its primary endpoint of overall survival (OS)1. The trial was conducted among 237 adults with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease progressed while on or after previous platinum-based chemotherapy and PD-(L)1 inhibitor immunotherapy4. Two Phase III CANOPY trials continue, evaluating canakinumab in first-line and adjuvant settings2,3. Novartis and CANOPY-2 investigators will analyze the study data and are expected to submit its findings for presentation at an upcoming medical meeting.

While results from the CANOPY-2 trial are not what we hoped for in patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer who have been treated with other lines of therapy, these data give us valuable insights into IL-1 inhibition, said John Tsai, MD, Head of Global Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer at Novartis. Ongoing Phase III studies in non-small cell lung cancer continue, evaluating canakinumab in earlier treatment settings. We sincerely thank the patients and clinical investigators involved in the CANOPY-2 study for their partnership.

CANOPY-1, a Phase III study evaluating canakinumab in combination with immunotherapy and chemotherapy, is expected to report final results before the end of the year2. CANOPY-A, another Phase III study, is investigating canakinumab as an adjuvant therapy and has enrolled more than 950 patients to date and is expected to enroll a total of 1,500 patients3.

About canakinumab (ACZ885)

Canakinumab is a human monoclonal antibody that binds with high affinity and selectivity to human interleukin-1beta (IL-1)6,7 and neutralizes IL-1 activity by blocking its interaction with its receptors8. By neutralizing IL-1, preliminary evidence suggests that canakinumab inhibits pro-tumor inflammation (PTI) to 1) enhance anti-tumor immune response; 2) reduce tumor cell proliferation, survival and invasiveness; and 3) impair angiogenesis8. Pro-tumor inflammation enables tumor development by driving cancer-causing processes and by suppressing anti-tumor immune responses9,10. Canakinumab is a first-in-class interleukin-1beta (IL-1) inhibitor of PTI in non-small cell lung cancer10.

About the CANOPY program

Novartis launched the CANOPY study program after observing significantly lower than expected rates of lung cancer mortality among patients in the Phase III cardiovascular CANTOS trial. The CANTOS trial evaluated canakinumab as a secondary prevention measure for cardiovascular events in patients following a heart attack (CRP2 mg/L)8,9. Patients in the CANTOS trial were also at high risk for inflammatory cancers, like lung cancer, due to advanced age, smoking history and other clinical risk factors8,9. Based on these findings, Novartis launched three, large-scale, randomized, Phase III clinical trials and a Phase II clinical trial to investigate canakinumab as a potential treatment option in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

CANOPY-1 (NCT03631199) is a Phase III trial evaluating canakinumab as a first-line treatment for locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC in combination with pembrolizumab and platinum-based doublet chemotherapy 2

is a Phase III trial evaluating canakinumab as a first-line treatment for locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC in combination with pembrolizumab and platinum-based doublet chemotherapy CANOPY-2 (NCT03626545 ) is a Phase III trial investigating the role of canakinumab in combination with the chemotherapy agent docetaxel in second- or third-line therapy versus docetaxel alone in NSCLC. Part 1 of the CANOPY-2 trial  a safety run-in study to determine the appropriate dosage, was previously presented at ASCO 2019. Part 2 of the trial, reported today, evaluated overall survival (OS) 4

) is a Phase III trial investigating the role of canakinumab in combination with the chemotherapy agent docetaxel in second- or third-line therapy versus docetaxel alone in NSCLC. Part 1 of the CANOPY-2 trial  a safety run-in study to determine the appropriate dosage, was previously presented at ASCO 2019. Part 2 of the trial, reported today, evaluated overall survival (OS) CANOPY-A (NCT03447769) is a Phase III trial studying canakinumab in the adjuvant setting, following surgical resection and cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The adjuvant study is designed to determine if treatment with canakinumab can prevent cancer relapse 3

is a Phase III trial studying canakinumab in the adjuvant setting, following surgical resection and cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The adjuvant study is designed to determine if treatment with canakinumab can prevent cancer relapse CANOPY-N (NCT03968419) is a non-registrational Phase II neoadjuvant trial evaluating canakinumab in combination with pembrolizumab among patients with resectable NSCLC prior to their planned surgery5



Novartis and Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide, accounting for more than 2 million new cases diagnosed each year11. There are two main types of lung cancer  small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)12. NSCLC accounts for approximately 85% of lung cancer diagnoses, resulting in nearly 1.7 million new cases each year11,13. Currently, the five-year survival rate for lung cancer is less than 20%14, decreasing further when the disease is diagnosed at later stages15. The majority of people with NSCLC are diagnosed with advanced or Stage III or IV disease16, and treatment options are limited for people with lung cancer who experience cancer growth or progression while on standard of care treatments17-19. More people die of lung cancer every year than any other cancer type11. Novartis is committed to developing best-in-class treatments for lung cancer patients around the world. With a focus on both targeted, personalized medicine and the role of newer, immuno-oncology therapies, the lung cancer drug development program at Novartis is among the most robust in the industry. With research activities informed by long-term relationships with leading lung cancer thought leaders and patient advocates, Novartis is focused on reimagining the treatment of lung cancer.

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as potential, potentially, can, will, expected, committed, evaluating, continue, ongoing, approximately, or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for canakinumab, either alone or in combination with docetaxel or pembrolizumab, or regarding potential future revenues from canakinumab, either alone or in combination with docetaxel or pembrolizumab. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that canakinumab, either alone or in combination with docetaxel or pembrolizumab will be submitted or approved for sale or for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that canakinumab, either alone or in combination with docetaxel or pembrolizumab, separately or in combination, will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, our expectations regarding such products could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures and requirements for increased pricing transparency; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; general political, economic and business conditions, including the effects of and efforts to mitigate pandemic diseases such as COVID-19; safety, quality, data integrity or manufacturing issues; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of our information technology systems, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AGs current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Novartis

Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend peoples lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the worlds top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach nearly 800 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 110,000 people of more than 140 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more at https://www.novartis.com.

Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at https://twitter.com/novartisnews

For Novartis multimedia content, please visit https://www.novartis.com/news/media-library

For questions about the site or required registration, please contact media.relations@novartis.com

References

Novartis Data on File ClinicalTrials.gov. Study of Efficacy and Safety of Pembrolizumab Plus Platinum-based Doublet Chemotherapy With or Without Canakinumab in Previously Untreated Locally Advanced or Metastatic Non-squamous and Squamous NSCLC Subjects (CANOPY-1). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03631199. Accessed on February 9, 2021. ClinicalTrials.gov. Brief Title: Study of Efficacy and Safety of Canakinumab as Adjuvant Therapy in Adult Subjects With Stages AJCC/UICC v. 8 II-IIIA and IIIB (T>5cm N2) Completely Resected Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Acronym: CANOPY-A (Canopy-A). Available at: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03447769. Accessed on February 9, 2021. ClinicalTrials.gov. Phase III Study Evaluating Efficacy and Safety of Canakinumab in Combination With Docetaxel in Adult Subjects With Non-small Cell Lung Cancers as a Second or Third Line Therapy (CANOPY-2). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03626545. Accessed on February 9, 2021. ClinicalTrials.gov. A Randomized, Open-label, Phase II Study of Canakinumab or Pembrolizumab as Monotherapy or in Combination as Neoadjuvant Therapy in Subjects With Resectable Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (CANOPY-N). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03968419. Accessed on February 9, 2021. Dhimolea E, mAbs 2010;2:313; 3. Ilaris [Prescribing Information T2016-102]. Rondeau JM, Ramage P, Zurini M, Gram H. The molecular mode of action and species specificity of canakinumab, a human monoclonal antibody neutralizing IL-1. MAbs. 2015;7(6):1151-1160. Novartis data on file: Clinical Trial Protocol CACZ885M2301. Ridker PM, Thuren T, Zalewski A, et al. Interleukin-1 inhibition and the prevention of recurrent cardiovascular events: rationale and design of the Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Study (CANTOS). Am Heart J. 2011;162:597605. Lu H, Ouyang W, Huang C. Inflammation, a key event in cancer development. Mol Cancer Res. 2006;4(4):221-233. World Health Organization. Cancer. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer. Accessed on February 9, 2021. Lemjabbar-Alaoui H, Hassan O, Yang UW, et al. Lung cancer: biology and treatment options. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2015. 1856(2):189-210. American Cancer Society. About Lung Cancer. Available at https://www.cancer.org/cancer/non-small-cell-lung-cancer/about/what-is-non-small-cell-lung-cancer.html. Accessed February 9, 2021. Siegel R, Miller K, Jemal A. Cancer statistics, 2020. CA Cancer J Clin. 2020;70(1):7-30. Rami-Porta R, Asamura H, Traves W, et al. Lung cancer  major changes in the American Joint Committee on Cancer eight edition cancer staging manual. CA Cancer J Clin. 2017;67:138. Mascaux C, Tomasini P, Greillier L, et al. Personalised medicine for non-small cell lung cancer. Eur Respir Rev. 2017;26:170066. National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines. Non-small cell lung cancer. Version 3. 2020. Sandler A, Gray R, Perry M, et al. Paclitaxel-carboplatin alone or with bevacizumab for non-small cell lung cancer. New Engl J Med. 2006; 355: 2452-2550. Gadgeel S, Rodriguez-Abreu D, Speranza G, et al. Updated analysis from KEYNOTE-189: pembrolizumab or placebo plus pemetrexed and platinum for previously untreated metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2020; 38:1505-1517.





# # #

Novartis Media Relations

E-mail: media.relations@novartis.com

Anja von Treskow Mary Curtin Creaser Director, Strategy & Financial Communications Director, Global Oncology Communications, +41 79 392 8697 (mobile) Solid Tumors anja.von_treskow@novartis.com +1 862 345-4102 (mobile) mary.curtin_creaser@novartis.com Julie Masow Novartis US External Communications +1 862 579 8456 julie.masow@novartis.com

Novartis Investor Relations

Central investor relations line: +41 61 324 7944

E-mail: investor.relations@novartis.com

Central North America Samir Shah +41 61 324 7944 Sloan Simpson +1 862 778 5052 Thomas Hungerbuehler +41 61 324 8425 Isabella Zinck +41 61 324 7188




A tiny laser, 100 times brighter than the Sun, could help to treat arthritic knees and prevent the need for joint replacement surgery.

The laser light is inserted into a vein in the arm, where researchers believe it will accelerate blood flow around the body  bringing more nutrients and oxygen to speed up the repair of damaged tissue in worn-out joints, as well as having an anti-inflammatory effect.

Its also thought to trigger the release of stem cells, the bodys master cells, which can help form new tissue.

The laser light is inserted into a vein in the arm, where researchers believe it will accelerate blood flow around the body [File photo]

The technique is being used in a clinical trial in Taiwan involving 20 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. Results are being compared with a placebo, where the laser is turned off.

Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, results from the gradual wear and tear of shock-absorbing cartilage that coats the ends of the joints.

Treatments range from over-the-counter painkillers to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, which work for some  but not all  and steroid injections, to reduce inflammation and pain.

Each year, more than 70,000 NHS knee replacement operations are carried out, more than 90 per cent of which are due to advanced knee osteoarthritis.

It is hoped that the laser treatment  first used to treat heart disease in the 1980s  will offer a less invasive alternative.

In the latest trial, the laser treatment, known as intravascular laser blood irradiation, will be administered via a laser fibre which is inserted into a vein in the arm using a catheter (a thin tube).

The laser is switched on for 60 minutes, once a day for five consecutive days.

It is thought that radiation, or energy, produced by the laser helps blood to flow better.

The blood can also carry more oxygen  probably because the laser affects haemoglobin, the red blood cell protein that ferries oxygen around the body.

A 2013 study involving rats with induced arthritis, and reported in the journal Lasers in Medical Science, discovered that the therapy may increase levels of anti-inflammatory cells.

In the latest trial, the laser treatment, known as intravascular laser blood irradiation, will be administered via a laser fibre which is inserted into a vein in the arm using a catheter (a thin tube) [File photo]

In addition, a previous study, on children with juvenile arthritis suggests laser treatment could also be effective in humans.

The research, which was also conducted in 2013 and reported in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, discovered that patients treated with lasers reported double the improvements of those given placebo treatment.

In the latest trial, being conducted at the Tri-Service General Hospital and Ministry of Science and Technology, in Taiwan, patients will have regular blood samples  taken three days, one month and three months after the therapy  to monitor the effects of the laser treatment.

Pain levels and joint movement will also be assessed in the study.

Roger Hackney, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Spire and Nuffield hospitals, in Leeds, says: With this kind of study, it is crucial to employ blinding  in other words the patient does not know whether they are receiving an active treatment or not.

The placebo effect is very real and can be very effective if measurements such as patient-reported pain scores are used for outcomes.

It will be interesting to see the results.

Blood plasma jabs are more effective than steroids for treating knee pain from arthritis, according to a study from the University of Tiradentes, Brazil.

Patients were injected with steroids or their own platelet-rich plasma (PRP), separated from blood in a centrifuge. PRP has high levels of growth factors that could encourage cartilage cells.

The trial, involving 50 patients and reported in the Brazilian Journal of Orthopaedics, showed that while both treatments reduced pain, the effects of the blood jab lasted longer  180 compared with 30 days.

Stretching can reduce blood pressure more than walking

Stretching is more effective than walking for lowering blood pressure, researchers at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada found.

In an eight-week study, they compared blood pressure in two groups of older adults (average age 61)  half of whom did 30 minutes of daily stretching, five days a week, and half who went on brisk walks instead.

The greater benefits seen from stretching may be because it affects not just muscles but also stretches the blood vessels feeding into muscles. This reduces arterial stiffness and helps lower resistance to blood flow, reports the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.

Sweat test that can spot if your body is under stress

A smart patch that measures levels of the stress hormone cortisol has been developed by scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland.

It contains electrodes to detect cortisol, which can be found in small quantities in bodily fluids such as saliva and sweat.

Currently, this is done with blood tests and the hope is that the patch offers an alternative, non-invasive way to check levels of the hormone  a marker for stress problems, including cardiovascular disease.

After lab research earlier this year, the device will be tested on humans in a hospital setting.

A smart patch that measures levels of the stress hormone cortisol has been developed by scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland [File photo]

A vaccine injected into the bladder can prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs), studies on mice have shown.

The vaccine  which teaches the bladder to fight the bacteria E. coli, a cause of UTIs  reduced infection and cleared other bladder bacteria, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Itchiness of red, scaly skin eased by fish oil

Fish oil helps improve the dry skin condition psoriasis, reports the journal Nutrition Reviews.

Researchers found that taking fish oil and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats during conventional treatment halved symptoms such as scaling and itchiness, after assessing 18 studies involving 927 participants.

The condition occurs when new skin cells are produced more quickly than older ones are shed. This leads to inflammation and a build-up of red, scaly patches, which can feel very itchy and become sore.

Some fish oil contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to have an anti-inflammatory effect which improves symptoms.

Melody medicine

How music can affect your health. This week: Tunes you like help your heart

Listening to music you enjoy makes your blood vessels widen, improving your circulation and heart health.

It leads to the release of [chemical messenger] dopamine that triggers endorphins. These cause the lining of blood vessels to release nitric oxide  which makes the vessels expand, says Michael Miller, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at University of Maryland School of Medicine in the U.S., who presented the study in 2008.

Music can also help heart attack patients, according to a 2020 study from the University of Belgrade School of Medicine in Serbia. It found that listening to music for 30 minutes a day reduced patients feelings of anxiety and pain.

At the end of the seven-year study, the group was also 23 per cent less likely to have had a second heart attack.

Listening to music you enjoy makes your blood vessels widen, improving your circulation and heart health [File photo]

Rude health

A lessening of your sense of smell might affect your libido, say scientists at the University of Chicago in the U.S. They asked people aged 65-plus about their attitude to sex. Those with a reduced sense of smell enjoyed it less, possibly because smell plays a role in sexual interest.

Alternative remedies

Pharmacist Gemma Fromage reveals additional uses for over-the-counter products. This week: Magnesium paste for splinters

Magnesium sulphate paste is typically used to treat minor skin infections. It draws out pus and moisture from the area, so aiding faster healing. It also provides pain relief. And as bacteria prefer moist areas, by drying the skin out, it will prevent further infection.

In paste form, magnesium sulphate can also help draw out splinters. The active ingredient reduces inflammation around the splinter, softening the skin to allow for easy removal.

The paste should be stirred well, applied liberally to the affected area, then covered with a clean dressing.

It usually takes a day or so to work. You should feel the splinter rise to the surface when it should be easy to take out (depending on whether the skin is already broken).
WALTHAM, Mass. and LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Corrona, LLC, a leading provider of real-world evidence solutions, announced today that it has changed its name to CorEvitas [kohr-eh'-vi-tahs]. This rebranding reflects both the evolution of the company as well as its vision for the future. Leveraging 20 years of experience in specialized patient registries and regulatory-grade data sources, CorEvitas' expanded strategy builds upon its strengths in comparative effectiveness research and drug safety studies.

Founded in 2001 with a single registry in rheumatoid arthritis, CorEvitas has leveraged its unique position providing highly curated granular and longitudinal data. Today, CorEvitas is the world's leading source of highly curated data in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The company's portfolio includes eight registries: rheumatoid arthritis (US and Japan), psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, psoriatic arthritis and spondyloarthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and neuromyelitis optica. Data are collected from nearly 500 highly engaged and committed investigator sites in the US, Canada, and Japan.

In addition to its foundation in registries, CorEvitas has invested significantly to build a leading real-world evidence organization. It acquired a unique and dynamic patient experience business that leverages innovative patient co-creation models to understand the patient journey, and an online patient community (HealthUnlocked) with 1.4 million patients representing hundreds of conditions. These patient-reported experiential data complement the core registry data, enable direct to patient registry models, and add real time updates on timely topics such as views on COVID-19 vaccines and unmet need for patients with chronic conditions.

The patient ecosystem is further supported by biorepository services that build the company's precision medicine offering to advance the development of new therapies and diagnostic tools. This includes access to biosamples that are linked to the deep clinical and patient data gathered in CorEvitas' registries.

Finally, CorEvitas has also entered into European markets, gaining access to robust oncology data, and broader electronic medical records and claims data from the UK National Health Service. It has built a capability in the UK, offering a range of Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms leveraging these data sets, with advanced algorithms and data analytics, for use in health economic and outcomes research and commercial applications.

Underlying all of CorEvitas' business is a cloud-based secure technology platform enabling the company to aggregate and process longitudinal data at scale and handle a broad spectrum of clinical and patient reported outcomes.

Commenting on the company's growth strategy, CEO and Chairman Raymond Hill noted, "the CorEvitas name reflects over twenty years' experience generating evidence on clinical effectiveness and safety of therapies. CorEvitas is uniquely positioned to answer important questions around newly-approved therapies with novel mechanisms of action, while innovating with patient-centric research." He continued, "we could not have reached this point without the valuable partnership of our patients, investigator sites, scientific advisors, and patient advocacy groups."

Dr. Bruce Strober, Clinical Professor of Dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine, and Scientific Co-Director of CorEvitas' Psoriasis Registry, noted "the scientific team at CorEvitas, coupled with unparalleled commitment to their investigators and patient communities, has created a research platform that is generating novel and impactful clinical insights on the post approval effectiveness and safety of advanced therapies."

Since its founding, CorEvitas has been committed to improving the lives of patients, by systematically collecting high quality data and applying rigorous analytical methods. The company's expansion and new capabilities continue to accelerate the achievement of its mission.

About CorEvitasSM

CorEvitas is the built-for-purpose gold-standard provider of real-world evidence. Through syndicated registry data and analytic services, CorEvitas helps biopharmaceutical companies demonstrate the value of their products to clinicians, patients, payers, and regulators. CorEvitas operates eight major autoimmune and inflammatory registries across the US, Canada, and Japan, collecting data from nearly 500 participating investigator sites. In addition to supporting hundreds of manuscripts and abstracts, CorEvitas has supported post approval safety commitments for multiple newly approved treatments in autoimmune diseases for both U.S. and European regulators. CorEvitas is headquartered in Waltham, MA. Its subsidiary, HealthiVibe, complements and strengthens the company's strong presence in disease registries by providing market-leading expertise in supporting innovative, evidence-based patient engagement initiatives across the product lifecycle. The HealthUnlocked technology platform hosts over 1.4 million patients in hundreds of condition-specific communities and significantly expands the scope of patient experiential data. Through Health iQ, CorEvitas has access to a broad range of UK and international data sets across primary and secondary care, as well as deep relationships with the NHS and leading UK academic institutions. CorEvitas is a portfolio company of Audax Private Equity.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

CorEvitas, LLC

Erem Latif

+1 (508) 408-5529

[email protected]

SOURCE Corrona, LLC
The cast of Good Times was comprised of veteran actors Esther Rolle and John Amos, theater actor Ralph Carter (who was 12 years old at the time), and newer actors Bern Nadette Stanis and Jimmie Walker.

The shows executive producer Norman Lear dealt closely with the casts of the various series he created and produced, from All in the Family to Maude to The Jeffersons, and Good Times was no different.

According to Lear, one cast member allowed their ego to get to them, so much so that it seemed that the actors work on the show was beneath them.

Ralph Carter, Janet DuBois, and Bern Nadette Stanis in a scene from Good Times | CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Jimmie Walker said John Amos and Esther Rolle were not his friends

Jimmie Walker, the actor who portrayed the hugely popular character J.J. Evans on the show, told the Television Academy Foundation (via YouTube) that he and the comedys two top-billed actors had absolutely no relationship.

Actor Jimmie Walker of Good Times poses for a portrait with his trademark floppy hat, 1975 | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

I dont remember ever speaking a word to Esther the whole time she was there, he said. I think the same basically goes for John. We talk more now, a little bit, but very, very little.

We were never friends, we never talked, he continued. If you said at that time Call Esther and ask her about [anything], I wouldnt even have her number. We never spoke to each other. Only on the set.

James Evans actor Amos took issue with Walkers popularity

Lear in his memoir noted that Amos and Rolle displayed a great annoyance with Walker. Not only was the J.J. Evans actor vastly untrained as a performer, but viewers loved him.

Good Times, while it was rarely out of the top 20 and spent a lot of time in the top 10, became an agony to produce, Lear wrote. J.J.s popularity with the largely Black audiences that came to the tapings was a friendly, joyful distraction to the company, but a great annoyance to our stars. Frankly, they hated it.

John Amos discusses working with Jimmie Walker, via YouTube

RELATED: Good Times: The 1 Episode That Star Esther Rolle Wouldnt Do  But Was Forced to by the Shows Producer

The shows producer went on to say that, while Walker respected Amos and Rolles experience and what they brought to the show, it hurt greatly that they did not offer him friendship in return.

Again, Lears insight on the situation: Had John and Esther thrown their arms around this wild but tender talent and been grateful for what he brought to the show, so hungry for their respect and kindness was Jimmie, they could have owned the lad and helped him to mature.

Amos eventually had to be written off the show

John Amos and Esther Rolle for Good Times | Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

Lear revealed in his book that Amos was so glum and dispirited that continuing the show seemed impossible.

We decided to write him out of the show, the television producer wrote. Talk to John and you might as well be dealing with the Sphinx  twenty-five hundred years of silent certainty. I was sure he felt that the work he was doing was beneath him. His ego blinded him.

As the shows fourth season approached, Amos character, James Evans, was eventually killed off of the show in a Mississippi car crash.
Looking for the best no-frills home cooking in all of Texas served with bottomless cups of coffee and maybe a salty server on the side?

Head to the Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls.

TEXAS-MADE: The best Texas-made kombucha

The beloved cafe was recently awarded the first place ranking in Texas when Cheapism compiled its list of The Best Hole-In-The-Wall Diners in Every State. That the Blue Bonnet was named the states superior all-day breakfast spot certainly comes at no surprise to its extremely loyal clientele, many of whom regularly wait in long lines on weekend mornings for a cozy booth or one of the coveted spots at the counter.

Billy Calzada /Staff photographer

Its so nice to hear, owner David Plante said upon receiving the news of this accolade.

Plante attributes the Cafes enduring appeal in part to a sense of nostalgia.

You know, we hear all the time from customers about how they remember their parents taking them to the Blue Bonnet, and now they love taking their kids here.

The Blue Bonnet Cafe first opened in 1929 on Main Street in Marble Falls, and in 1946 moved to its current location on Highway 281. In-the-know patrons will gladly disabuse newbies of the notion that the Cafe is named after the iconic Texas wildflower; in fact, the title is derived from the actual blue bonnet or hat, not the blossom.

Billy Calzada /Staff photographer

Although the Blue Bonnets decor, marked by dull beige tones and simple furniture, makes for an ostensibly drab setting, the Cafe nevertheless has a certain interior sparkle. Perhaps its from the glossy platters piled high with biscuits and gravy or glistening French toast. Perhaps its from the shiny bakery case, stacked with Blue Bonnets famous mile-high pies in flavors like coconut meringue and chocolate cream.

But most likely, its from a certain energy emitted by jolly customers tucking into a piping hot, cooked-to-order meal, and servers cajoling their regulars into ordering an extra side of home fries. That priceless ambience renders Blue Bonnet a state treasure and most deserving of its hole-in-the-wall honor.
NORTH CHARLESTON  The first day of the Charleston County School Districts massive vaccination effort began smoothly at the former Garrett Academy.

A steady stream of teachers and staff began arriving at about 10 a.m. March 9 and made their way from the check-in table to the exit door at the rear of the annex within 30 minutes.

District officials and nurses were assisted by Medical University of South Carolina staff throughout the day who administered the first of two shots developed by Pfizer. The relief among school employees was palpable. Several said they have been waiting long enough, and that the COVID vaccine now gives them some peace of mind.

Cathy Damico, a fourth grade teacher at St. James-Santee Elementary Middle School, was the first to receive the shot. She said that everyone in the schools  teachers, administrators, staff and students  are in this together.

We were told we need to be there for the kids, but we need to look out for ourselves, too, she said. Students are only safe when the adults are protected, she said.

She recalled how her young students clapped and cheered when they heard Damico was scheduled for the vaccine. They are aware of the danger, she said.

St. James-Santee was the first school to show up, followed by East Cooper Montessori. The district has allowed for up to 800 inoculations a day, and expects to administer 2,000 a week over at least two weeks.

The vaccination is optional, noted Superintendent Gerrita Postelwait at the March 8 board meeting, and some school personnel either already got the shot, are scheduled to get it elsewhere, or are opting to forgo it. District officials hope that all employees not already inoculated now will take advantage of the opportunity to gain protection from COVID.

Maryann Agnello, a kitchen worker at East Cooper Montessori, put the choice bluntly.

Id rather get the shot than be dead, she said as she entered the annex.

Bonnie Munn and April Brown, kindergarten teachers at Harborview Elementary on James Island, said the process went smoothly and the shot was no bother.

Were relieved, Munn said. We wipe a lot of noses.

Dr. Janice D. Key, a pediatrician at MUSC and the districts medical consultant, said this school year has presented challenges for nursing staff, but good coordination between the institutions has heightened safety in the schools.

School nurses have had to expand their role, she said. They answer questions, conduct essential contact racing, attend to students and staff, and generally have a calming effect, Key said.

Ellen Nitz, the districts director of nursing, said her team of 120 also help with testing, counseling and now vaccine administration. The nurses are the districts suit of armor, she said.

Chief Operating Officer Jeff Borowy expressed gratitude for the chance to organize a mass vaccination campaign and get so many employees inoculated quickly. Teachers and staff have had to implement and enforce safety protocols and deal with unexpected burdens such as virtual learning, all while striving to provide their students with what they need to advance academically.

The teachers deserve this, Borowy said.

The weekly incident rate in Charleston County was 235 per 100,000, which still qualifies as high, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. But it is declining noticeably.

Borowy said this is no time to let down ones guard.

We are not going to scale back safety protocols, he said. Were still running full speed.
NEARLY 500 volunteers from Tidy Towns groups across Limerick city and county attended the most recent Tidy Towns webinar ahead of the launch of this year's competition

The webinar was organised by Limerick City and County Council in collaboration with the Tidy Towns Unit of the Department of Rural & Community Development.

It was the fourth in a series of webinars aimed specifically at Tidy Towns groups, focusing on the application and how best to succeed in the nationwide competition.

Huge numbers participated reflecting a greater than ever desire for communities to develop and improve their local areas.

The webinar was presented by John Carney of the National Tidy Towns Unit who is looking forward to this years competition once Covid restrictions are eased and it is appropriate to do so.

In his presentation, John reassured groups that there would be no negative marking in the 2021 competition. Tidy Towns groups were given an assurance that adjudicators were all too aware of the constraints that Tidy Towns groups were operating under and that this would absolutely be taken into consideration.

The groups were advised that applications should be submitted in electronic format this year and that groups should include actions/ work that they have carried out since June 2019 in their next application.

Commenting on the success of the webinars, Mayor of the City and County of Limerick Cllr Michael Collins said: The huge attendance reflects the importance the Tidy Towns movement plays in communities right across Limerick. The absence of the competition last year has just piqued interest and the requirement that people remain within 5kms of their homes has heightened awareness and desire to do what we can to improve our own localities.

He added there is also a social aspect to Tidy Towns which cannot be underestimated. "Tidy Towns provides an outlet for many people regardless of age or ability. Our participation in Tidy Towns is growing and developing every year and its great to see that, despite the restrictions, 2021 will just be the same.

Speaking after the event, John Carney said: A huge word of thanks must go to the hundreds of volunteers who are striving to make Limerick a much more beautiful place. Thanks also to Sinead McDonnell, Environmental Awareness Officer with Limerick City and County Council for facilitating the webinar. The Department will continue to keep groups informed through the various communication channels we have in place, including the Tidy Towns Newsletter and social media, in advance of the competition launch."

Click here to view a recording of the latest webinar.

The fifth FREE webinar in Limerick City and County Councils Tidy Towns webinar series is Tidy Towns and links to the Sustainability Development Goals. It takes place on Wednesday, March 10 at 8pm - register here.
The Tuesday told the that classification of citizens for the purpose of COVID-19 vaccination is based upon most rational and non-arbitrary criteria depending upon their vulnerability to the disease either due to age or nature of work or co-morbidity health situation and it



may not be desirable to create a separate class consisting of lawyers and others below 45 years of age.

The made the submission in its affidavit filed in response to a PIL initiated by the high court to examine the demand to declare all people associated with the judicial functioning, including judges, court staff and lawyers, as frontline workers so that they could receive COVID-19 vaccination on priority and without limitations of their age or physical condition.

The government said any specific classification either based upon the nature of trade, profession or otherwise is neither possible nor advisable.

It said that in order to achieve the first objective of protecting India's healthcare and pandemic response system, NEGVAC has prioritise healthcare workers, front line workers (personnel for state and central police department, armed forces, home guard and civil defence organization including disaster management volunteers, municipal workers, poll officers in election bound states), persons aged 60 years and above and those aged between 45 to 59 years with identified 20 co-morbidities for COVID-19 vaccination.

National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) has been established by the government to provide guidance on all aspects of COVID-19 vaccination.

The Centre, in its affidavit filed through Central government standing counsel Anil Soni, said the decision to include individuals above 50 years and 60 years in the priority list is based on vulnerability and the mortality risk of this age group for COVID-19 disease.

It added that a look at prioritisation criteria for vaccination from World Health Organisation (WHO) and other countries showed that a step-wise layered approach is advisable.

The high court is scheduled to hear the matter on Wednesday.

Regarding the issue of export of vaccine to other countries, the said once an epidemic takes form of a pandemic, its management has to be done keeping the entire globe as unit and in most circumstances it is not possible to take either states-specific or country-specific approach.

Hence, export of COVID-19 vaccine which facilitates global action to vaccination is important to simultaneously protect the high-risk population in all the countries of the world, thereby breaking the chain of transmission and minimising chances of import of COVID-19 cases from foreign countries as well as neighbouring countries to India, it said.

On the demand for treating lawyers as frontline workers, the government said any specific classification either based upon the nature of trade, profession or otherwise is neither possible nor advisable.

Though the government has tremendous respect for the profession and the discharge of duties by these professionals for and on behalf of citizens of India and as part of administration of justice, those lawyers and other associates staff who are either above 60 years or between the age group of 45 to 60 years and are having any of the almost exhaustive list of co-morbidities would, in any case, be covered by the on-going vaccine drive, it said.

It added that it may not be desirable to create a separate class consisting of lawyers and others below 45 years of age and discriminating other similarly situated citizens engaged in other professions.

The term frontline workers' is used only for those citizens who are required to be directly exposed to the COVID-19 infected patients. Thus, it may not be appropriate to discriminate them as against a separate class of lawyers as both are doing their respective duties towards the citizens under similar circumstances, it said.

The high court had on March 4 asked the Centre to explain the rationale behind keeping strict control over class of persons who can be vaccinated against COVID-19 currently as under the present system those above the age of 60 years or with comorbidities can receive vaccination.

It had said the two institutes which have developed the vaccines COVISHIELD and COVAXIN -- Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech -- have more capacity to provide the vaccines but it seems that their full capacity is not being exploited. It had also directed the two institutes to file separate affidavits on their capacity to manufacture the vaccines on per day/ week/ month basis and also the current optic of the vaccines and how much unused capacity is lying.

The high court was hearing a PIL initiated by it to examine the demand of Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) to declare all people associated with the judicial functioning, including judges, court staff and lawyers as frontline workers so that they could receive COVID-19 vaccination on priority and without limitations of their age or physical condition.

It had said premises and court rooms of the high court, which is scheduled to resume physical functioning from March 15, and some of the district courts are air-conditioned and with increased footfall, there is likelihood of the rate of infection amongst those who attend the courts spiking, once the full-fledged physical functioning of courts in Delhi resumes.

The court had referred to a communication sent to the chief justice by BCD Chairman Ramesh Gupta requesting that appropriate directions be issued to the concerned authorities to make available necessary infrastructure in court premises, particularly in dispensaries for vaccinating the members of the judicial system by treating them as frontline workers. PTI SKV



(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Lithuania's producer prices declined further in February, figures from Statistics Lithuania showed on Tuesday. The producer price index decreased 4.2 percent year-on-year in February, following a 6.3 percent declined in January. Excluding refined petroleum products, producer prices fell 0.7 percent annually in February, following a 1.5 percent decline in the preceding month. Producer prices for products sold on the Lithuanian market decreased by 2.1 percent annually in February. Prices for products sold on the foreign market fell by 5.6 percent from a year ago. On a month-on-month basis, producer prices rose 1.2 percent in February, after a 1.4 percent increase in the prior month. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, yesterday arrived in Riyadh and was received by the Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of Saudi Arabia, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister was accompanied by Finance and National Economy Minister Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, and several senior officials.

Following his arrival, HRH Prince Salman made the following statement: It is our pleasure to be here in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on a visit that once again reflects the strength and depth of historic relations and important ongoing cooperation across a wide range of shared interests, benefitting both our countries.

We are proud of the ever-growing strength of relations between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which continues to receive the absolute support of HM King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

Today represents further commitment to a trusted strategic partnership valued by both countries, and a valued opportunity to meet with HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, in order to reinforce coordination and cooperation aligned to the joint visions and aspirations that unite our two countries in furtherance of shared progress and achievement.

My visit provides another opportunity to reaffirm the Kingdom of Bahrains complete support for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and to warmly commend Saudi Arabias role and commitment to serving the causes of Arab and Islamic nations.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the cornerstone of Arab and regional security, and at the heart of regional and global economic stability.

HRH Prince Salman is welcomed by HRH Prince Mohammed Lulu Group Chairman at the inauguration ceremony Shura Counci
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, has warned the Department of State Services, DSS, Nigerian Army, and th...

Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, has warned the Department of State Services, DSS, Nigerian Army, and the police against killing farmers in the Southwest and Southeast.

Igboho warned that there would be trouble if DSS, police and Army go after innocent farmers while enforcing the directive of President Muhammadu Buharis shoot on sight order of those caught with AK-47.

He issued the warning in a video posted on Twitter by a former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode.

The activist urged the security agencies to be fair in carrying out the directive by the President.

Speaking in Yoruba language, Igboho said: My name is Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho. Concerning President Buharis directive to kill any herdsmen found with AK-47, we are happy with this decision. Its not like these Fulani herdsmen are just carrying guns, they have been doing that since and it is not new.

 Thank God that our voices were heard. To all DSS, Police, Army and Civil Defence who would act on the Presidents command, please be fair. Dont go to Igbo or Yoruba lands to kill our farmers and then lie that they carried a gun. If you do such, there will be trouble in the land.

 Sheikh Gumi has shown you the way to capture these bandits, Go there and do your work properly.
Photo: The Canadian Press Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks and is projected onto large screens as he takes part in the COVID-19 Pandemic Committee in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 27, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Members of Parliament zipped through two votes in 30 minutes Monday as they began using new technology allowing them to cast votes with their mobile devices.

The voting app is the latest adaptation of the parliamentary process to allow MPs to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. It comes nearly a year since Parliament shut its doors as part of the national lockdown to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Commons remained fully closed for nearly a month before the parties were able to agree on a path forward that would keep people safe and ensure government was still working. Now, the House of Commons sits in a hybrid format that allows most MPs to participate via video conference while only a small number are physically present in the chamber.

Until Monday, MPs not in the chamber were using video conferencing to cast votes, a cumbersome process that took up to an hour for each vote.

With the new mobile app, MPs are given 10 minutes in which to vote via smart phones, with their votes registered live online as they come in.

Monday's debut went off with only a few hitches -- a handful of MPs reported that they were unable to vote.

But with one exception, they were all allowed to vote subsequently. Speaker Anthony Rota said he'll look into the exception to ensure it doesn't happen again.

"This solution offers the House another secure and reliable way to conduct its business over the next few months, despite the constraints of the pandemic," Rota told the Commons after the votes.

"One day soon, I hope we will all be able to get together again in person in this chamber to continue our work on behalf of our fellow citizens."

Rota expressed his "profound gratitude" to Commons staff who have worked "tirelessly to ensure that ourselves can work for our constituents."

"We could not have done this without them."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that the eastern and northeastern regions of India, along with Bangladesh, are being developed as a trade corridor.

Addressing a gathering virtually from Delhi via video-conferencing, the Prime Minister said that infrastructure for developing road, rail, airways and waterways has been developed and new projects launched to develop the eastern and northeastern region of India along with Bangladesh as a trade corridor.

"With the development of the varied infrastructure, economic opportunities would increase to a large extent not only in eastern and northeastern region of India but also in Bangladesh," Modi said, after inaugurating five projects and laying the foundation stones of four projects with a total investment of Rs 3,518 crore.

Of the nine projects, a 1.9-km-long bridge, built at a cost of Rs 133 crore over River Feni is the most significant venture to link India and Bangladesh by road and to access the Chittagong international sea port in Bangladesh by the northeastern states of India.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also virtually addressed the function organised to inaugurate the double lane Feni bridge named "Maitre Setu" (friendship bridge).

Modi said that he along with the Bangladesh Prime Minister jointly laid the foundation stone of the Feni river bridge a few years ago and today (Tuesday) was jointly opening the bridge for the traffic.

Hasina while addressing the function virtually from Dhaka said that the Bangladesh government has already announced allowing the northeastern states of India to get access not only to the Chittagong and Mongla sea ports but also the Chittagong airport.

She said: "Bangladesh had extended the necessary support to construct the "Maitre Setu". With the use of the Chittagong and Mongla sea ports, the distance between Tripura and Kolkata ports will be reduced to less than 100 km from the existing 1600 km."

The Feni bridge has connected India's (southern Tripura) border town Sabroom with Ramgarh in Bangladesh. Tripura's Sabroom is 72 km by road from Chittagong sea port.

"We want to remove the entire political boundary. There should not be any political and economic barrier between us. Cross border transport system would boost the socio-economic condition of northeastern states of India. We are keen to develop our region as a prosperous one. Trade and commerce must be improved and extended to a large extent," Hasina said.

She said that Bangladesh had not forgotten Tripura's contributions, help and support during the 1971 liberation war.

Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday inaugurated and laid foundation stones of nine mega projects worth Rs 3,518 crore.

Besides the Feni bridge, he inaugurated the Integrated Command and Control Centre in Agartala (Rs 135 crore), 48 km portions of National Highway-08 in between Agartala and Udaipur (Rs 765 crore), 4,000 urban houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Urban) (Rs 813 crore) and PWD Roads (Rs 63 crore).

The PM also laid the foundation stone for four projects -- Integrated Check Posts in southern Tripura's border town Sanroom (worth Rs 232 crore), Kailashahar--Khowai National Highway-208 (worth Rs 1,078 crore), Multilevel car parking-cum-commercial complex(worth Rs 200 crore) and upgradation and widening of existing airport road from two lanes to four lanes (worth Rs 96 crore).

Tripura Governor Ramesh Bais and Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb among others also spoke in the gatherings.

Tuesday's rally and the functions were organised to mark the completion of three years of Bharatiya Janata Party-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura government in the state.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Biden administration is working toward getting the labor market back on track by later this year or early in 2022.

Were really concerned about permanent scarring from this crisis, and its focused us very heavily on doing everything we can to get back on track as quickly as we can, Yellen said in a virtual discussion with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Monday. By next year I think theres a prospect that  with an all-out effort on vaccination and reopening schools  that we can really get the labor market back on track, later this year or next year.

There were nearly 10 million unemployed Americans in February, almost double the pre-pandemic level, underscoring a lengthy road to recovery for the labor market. Other areas of the economy, including housing and manufacturing, have recovered much more quickly. U.S. payrolls increased by 379,000 last month, more than economists had estimated, while the unemployment rate dropped to 6.2%.

Georgieva said the IMF is very supportive of the policies the U.S. is pursuing to address the needs of the most vulnerable people to provide relief to the poor, calling them very progressive.
4 million project uses cutting-edge technology to enhance the habitats of key fish species

A cross-Channel partnership will use innovative underwater acoustic tracking technology to identify the environmental conditions a range of important marine species need in order to thrive.

The 4million FISH INTEL project, supported by 2.8million from the European Regional Development Fund via the Interreg France (Channel) England programme, will focus on a series of sites along the coastlines of southern England, northern France and Belgium.

Through a combination of fish tracking and underwater video surveys, the project will establish a comprehensive picture of fish movements and the habitats individual species prefer.

It will also contribute to a growing amount of data assessing the impact of fishing, climate change and other human activities  such as the development of offshore renewable energy sites and offshore mariculture  on the Channel/Manche region.

The FISH INTEL project involves research organisations across the UK, France and Belgium who will work directly with fishers, regulators and industry representatives in the three countries.

Across seven sites, the project will monitor marine species including European bass, pollack, crawfish and bluefin tuna, which are considered commercially important for the region.

The resulting data about their movements, and the habitats they occupy, will then be shared with other key stakeholders, enforcement bodies and policymakers.

Ultimately, it is hoped the research will enable authorities across the region to implement Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) programmes with the aim of enhancing the condition and water quality in these habitats, as well as enabling activities  such as fishing, civil engineering projects and extract industries  to function in a sustainable way.

It is also designed to bring about greater collaboration and communication between a range of different partners with a common interest in the Channel/Manche region.

Dr Emma Sheehan, Associate Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Plymouth, is the projects Principal Investigator. She has previously coordinated a number of projects using cutting edge technology to advance conservation policies that benefit both the fishing industry and the environment.

She said: There are increasing demands and stresses being placed on the marine environment. And over the coming years, the impact of factors such as human activity and climate change has the potential to grow exponentially. This is an exciting and far-reaching project and all the partners have a shared aim to protect the way of life in our coastal habitats and communities. But if we are to develop solutions which preserve our coasts, and the species that rely on them, we first need to understand which habitats we are trying to protect.

Dr Lucy Hawkes, from the University of Exeter, who is a co-investigator on the project, said: We are delighted to be part of this exciting project that will really increase the regional significance of our work as part of Exeter Marine. The rich marine resources we enjoy in the southwest are shared across the channel so collaborative work like this is key for future successful stewardship.

Carolyn Reid, Programme Manager, Interreg France (Channel) England programme, said: The Channel area is home to many fishery-dependent communities, with significant importance for local economies and employment. We were impressed by the ambition of FISH INTEL in using innovative new technology and bringing together a wide range of cross-border stakeholders, in order to improve the sustainable management of marine resources. As a result, the project is expected to significantly enhance the ecological status of our coastal waters while ensuring they remain commercially sustainable.
Initial findings show ensovibep to be safe and well tolerated with no significant adverse events

Predictable exposure seen post administration, confirming the expected half-life of 2-3 weeks

Global phase 2/3 registrational study planned to initiate in Q2 2021

ZURICH-SCHLIEREN, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Molecular Partners AG (SWX: MOLN), a clinical-stage biotech company that is developing a new class of custom-built protein drugs known as DARPin therapeutics, and its collaborator Novartis, today announced initial results from its ongoing phase 1 study of its first tri-specific COVID-19 antiviral treatment, ensovibep (MP0420), in healthy volunteers.

In the placebo-controlled phase 1 study, healthy volunteers were randomized 3:1 to receive an infusion of ensovibep, or placebo, respectively. Two dosing cohorts have been fully enrolled and received a single infusion of 3mg or 9mg per kilogram body weight, with 8 patients per dose cohort (16 total: 12 active, 4 placebo). In each of these cohorts, ensovibep was seen to be safe and well tolerated, with no significant adverse events reported. Preliminary results showed extended exposure of the DARPin candidate in serum, with a half-life of 2-3 weeks, as was expected from preclinical experiments. These data confirm the systemic administration of a multi-specific DARPin antiviral therapy to be safe and well tolerated, and support advanced plans for additional clinical work in positively diagnosed patients.

"We are excited to see the predictable exposure of ensovibep in this study. These data, coupled with the strong activity demonstrated preclinically against the major variants of SARS-CoV-2 in circulation, make it imperative that we move as quickly as possible to treating patients with our antiviral. These data now show that administration of a DARPin candidate at these therapeutically relevant dose levels is possible with full consideration of safety and tolerability. We look forward to move rapidly to initiate our phase 2/3 global registration study with our partner Novartis, early in the second quarter of this year," said Nicolas Leupin, M.D., CMO of Molecular Partners.

Per protocol, a third cohort in this phase 1 study, at a 20mg per kilogram dose level has been planned. As previously disclosed, this cohort has not been enrolled due to the "lock down" enforced in the UK due to the pandemic, starting at the end of 2020. It is possible this cohort can be enrolled in the coming weeks as restrictions lift, but Molecular Partners and Novartis have already identified the therapeutic dose levels which will be investigated in the upcoming clinical studies for infected patients, which are below the 20mg per kilogram dose level.

About Molecular Partners' anti-COVID-19 program

Molecular Partners two antiviral DARPin candidates, MP0420 and MP0423, are designed to target multiple different sites on the SARS-CoV-2 virus simultaneously for enhanced antiviral effects and potential use as both prophylactics and treatments. The benefits of this multi-specificity include cooperative binding, extremely high potencies and potential prevention of viral 'escape' via mutations. The candidates are formatted with a half-life extending DARPin domain that binds to human serum albumin (HSA) to support long-acting activity. All DARPin candidates are constructed to benefit from high-yield and low-cost microbial manufacturing. Molecular Partners is investigating whether the high thermal stability of DARPin molecules can be used to overcome cold-chain requirements.

Following strong preclinical data supporting the anti-COVID-19 program candidates, in October 2020 the Company entered into a collaboration with Novartis in the form of an option and license agreement to develop, manufacture and commercialize Molecular Partners' anti-COVID-19 DARPin program. Per the terms of the agreement, Molecular Partners is conducting Phase 1 clinical trials for ensovibep and performing all remaining preclinical work for MP0423; Novartis will conduct Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials, with Molecular Partners as sponsor of these trials. Upon option exercise, Novartis would be responsible for all further development and commercialization activities. Molecular Partners is also collaborating with AGC Biologics, Baccinex, and Ivers-Lee Clinical Supply Management (IL-CSM) to support development of its anti-COVID-19 program, and has reached an agreement with the Swiss Government regarding rights to purchase up to 3.2 million doses of MP0420, if it is approved in Switzerland.

About Molecular Partners AG

Molecular Partners AG is a clinical-stage biotech company developing DARPin therapeutics, a new class of custom-built protein drugs designed to address challenges current modalities cannot. The Company has formed partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies to advance DARPin therapeutics in the areas of ophthalmology, oncology and infectious disease, and has compounds in various stages of clinical and preclinical development across multiple therapeutic areas.

For more information see www.molecularpartners.com and follow the Company on Twitter at @MolecularPrtnrs.

About Novartis

Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend people's lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the world's top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach nearly 800 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 110,000 people of more than 140 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more at https://www.novartis.com.

Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at https://twitter.com/novartisnews

For Novartis multimedia content, please visit https://www.novartis.com/news/media-library

For further details, please contact:

Investors:

Seth Lewis

seth.lewis@molecularpartners.com

Tel: +1 781 420 2361

Media:

Shai Biran, Ph.D.

shai.biran@molecularpartners.com

Tel: +1 978 254 6286

Thomas Schneckenburger, European IR & Media

thomas.schneckenburger@molecularpartners.com

Tel: +41 79 407 9952

Forward-looking statements

This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements relating to the company and its business. Although the company believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, all statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release about future events are subject to (i) change without notice and (ii) factors beyond the company's control. These statements may include, without limitation, any statements preceded by, followed by, or including words such as "target," "believe," "expect," "aim," "intend," "may," "anticipate," "estimate," "plan," "project," "will," "can have," "likely," "should," "would," "could", and other words and terms of similar meaning or the negative thereof. Forward-looking statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Readers should therefore not place undue reliance on these statements, particularly not in connection with any contract or investment decision. Except as required by law, the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

SOURCE: Molecular Partners AG

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634167/Molecular-Partners-and-Novartis-Report-Positive-Initial-Results-from-Phase-1-Study-of-its-COVID-19-Antiviral-Therapy-Ensovibep-in-Healthy-Volunteers
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Market Growth & Trends

The U.S. electric vehicle charging infrastructure market size is expected to reach USD 28.39 billion by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 38.9% during the forecast period. Government policies and initiatives favoring the adoption of electric vehicles are also driving the demand for electric vehicle charging stations in the U.S. Moreover, government agencies are also signing long-term contracts with EVCI manufacturers, such as Siemens, Tesla, Chargepoint, among others for the development of bus and car charging stations on highways.

Easy integration with smart grid infrastructure and bi-directional charging capability is anticipated to drive the growth of the CHAdeMO segment over the forecast period. Moreover, research and development initiatives and investments by electric vehicle manufacturers such as Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation for developing DC fast charging networks to support long-range travel is expected to drive the demand for CHAdeMO in the U.S. market.

In the wake of rising demand for sustainable and cost-effective mobility, various governments are emphasizing the development of electric highways. Level 2 and Level 3 DC charging stations with a power output in the range of 100 kW to 200 kW are being mostly used for highway charging station projects. Technologies, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Near-Field Communication (NFC), have enabled the installation of interactive, kiosk-based, and self-operated charging stations within highway charging stations. Several private organizations are keen on investing in the development of electric vehicle charging stations along the highways. All these factors are driving the demand for highway charging stations.

Various government agencies are also partnering with each other on the development of highway electric charging stations. For instance, in the U.S., the Washington State Department of Transportation has partnered with the Oregon Department of Transportation to construct the West Coast Electric Highway (WCEH) that consists of 57 electric vehicle charging stations across Oregon and Washington.

As a part of the global EVCI expansion strategy, various EV charger manufacturers are adopting a collaborative model under which they are partnering with EV vehicle manufacturers and other businesses, such as hotels & retail chains, and utility service providers to deploy EV charging stations. At the same time, major EVCI manufacturers are working on integrating ultra-fast charging, autonomous park and charge, and wireless charging technologies to enhance the operational functionality of the electric vehicle, increase consumer convenience and minimize the charging time. Thus, the increased efforts of car manufacturers to make enhancements in electric vehicle charging infrastructure is driving the market growth. Further, Electric vehicles are experiencing a smaller dip in their sales compared to traditional automobiles due to the effects of a shrinking economy in response to the global coronavirus pandemic. This is expected to adversely impact the electric vehicle charging infrastructure market.

Request a free sample copy or view report summary: U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Market Report

U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Market Report Highlights

Technological advancements in battery technology and the growing impetus on autonomous vehicles are driving the U.S. market growth. Eco-friendly benefits offered by EVs help increase their sales

Consumers preference for using electric vehicles for long-distance travel and increasing deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure by corporates is anticipated to drive the U.S. demand for fast chargers over the forecast period

Easy integration with smart grid infrastructure and bi-directional charging capability is anticipated to drive the growth of the CHAdeMO segment over the forecast period

North America is a leading market in terms of the number of electric vehicles to fuel-driven vehicles in the region. New York is emerging as a dominant state in the adoption of electric vehicles, which is expected to grow over the forecast period

U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Market Segmentation

Grand View Research has segmented the U.S. electric vehicle charging infrastructure market based on charger type, connector, and application:

U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Charger Type Outlook (Volume, Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Slow Charger

Fast Charger

U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Connector Outlook (Volume, Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

CHAdeMO

Combined Charging System

Others

U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Application Outlook (Volume, Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Residential

Commercial

List of Key Players of U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Market

ABB

BTC Power

Delta Electronics, Inc

Webasto Group

ChargePoint, Inc.

AeroVironment Inc.

General Electric Company

Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc.

SemaConnect, Inc.

Tesla, Inc.

ClipperCreek, Inc.

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.
Unlike most other professions, women already form a very large part of the workforce in communications and other creative professions  34 per cent compared to a national average of 14 per cent. However, the challenge before this industry is the high dropout rate. The ratio drops to just 11 per cent at senior management positions, and a mere 3 per cent in boardrooms.

In conversation with Charu Raizada are three noticeable women, each doing her bit towards breaking down barriers for women in leadership: Dr. Deepa Sethi, Professor, Chairperson, PGP  LSM, IIM Kozikode (Kerala); Mou Chakravorty, communications strategist at Deloitte and a Council Member at Womens Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI) Public Relations & Digital Marketing Council; and Priya Bendre, a communication Strategist with Fortis Healthcare and a council member with WICCI Public Relations & Digital Marketing Council.

Listen to this podcast in two episodes:

Part 1: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7r1vVrWw7QHF9OaSyqCzTK?si=91edb337999d4de6

Part 2: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6mzdvCtcPmU4eFm80Crnkt?si=0499ebdc8ae448fb

With a mere 3% of women making it to the boardroom, what can companies do to break down barriers for women to break into leadership roles?

Dr Deepa: I believe there are three major barriers for women to break into leadership roles. The first and foremost being equal opportunities. It has been observed by a number of studies that women are not offered equal training and leadership opportunities as their male counterparts. Organizations prefer hiring women in cosmetic roles and at a lower level. Therefore, in order to climb the same number of steps, women need a longer time.

The second is lack of empowerment an outcome of both external and internal factors. It is true that there are certain external factors like less organizational support, lack of training and mentorship, low acceptability from the peer group and the seniors, social stigma related to women leaders, rigid societal norms with regard to roles of women, which lead to lack of empowerment for women to reach the boardrooms. However, we need to acknowledge that lack of empowerment may also be due to internal factors, which include lack of self-confidence, low morale, less trust in one's capabilities, vulnerability towards here says so on and so forth. And finally, the third barrier is absence of walking the talk of diversity and inclusion policies.

Do you find subtle biases in policies and processes?

Priya: Biases continue to be commonly experienced, despite organizations taking mammoth steps towards increasing the advocacy for greater equality and also to build respect for employees. Despite all of this social categorization - such as gender, age, maybe sexual orientation, religious beliefs or socioeconomic status, they continue impact the hiring process and the employee promotions that happen. What is important, however, is to understand that these biases exist, and eradicating them with effective communication is required. Workplace that's free of unconscious bias is one where every employee feels confident that they have a voice, they feel respected and a strong sense of belonging.

Somewhere we seem to be content with celebrating women's achievements and increasing visibility. Why do we shy away from calling out inequality?

Mou: When I look back, say three to four years ago, the discussion on gender equality was something which was a tick in the box scenario, and it was more like a discussion pointer, during talent development programs, or most likely, during leadership discussions at a very, very surface level. What came to light was that during COVID time, suddenly, this discussion spurred to a next level. The whole matter about respecting diverse opinions, diverse gender, empathy and being human suddenly was very, very pertinent, because women in their natural roles bring a lot of empathy and human centricity.

Now, how do we take that to the next level? It is about the mindset - to kind of do away with the biases, societal pressures women go through. Meritocracy really should become the choice rather than any other aspects.Secondly, how do we make sure that there is a clear understanding about not having a preconceived notion about women having a certain strength or a weakness, it is about celebrating their different approach to work. The third, of course, is different talent development gaps and policies, which corporates need to bring to light. All of these three aspects were very important and pertinent to us. So what we did was, we initiated a survey, which really looks into these three big pillars, and very soon we'll be able to tell you more as we try to investigate what's happening in the industry.

Women were significantly impacted by the pandemic, we all know that. And while no one experienced business as usual, but women were affected the most, Are we somewhere being very harsh on ourselves?

Priya: See the impact of crisis is never gender neutral, and COVID has not been an exception. So while everyone faced unprecedented challenges, women were bearing the brunt of economic and social fallout. Now, this did not just extend to the work or the family responsibilities, but it also sort of arose from the fact that, being a primary caregiver, a much bigger and a much wider responsibility landed on women's shoulders. What I feel is important to be done is to acknowledge the fact that women bring the same amount of talent, work and strategy to the table as men do. Once this acknowledgement is in order, I feel, equal opportunities will sort of start falling through. And advancement will gradually happen, hoping that it happens on an equal scale, so we need to continue to work harder, but we don't need to be so hard on ourselves.

What needs to change so that women are able to take the lead and we see a shift in the dropout rate?

Dr. Deepa: First of all, women need to acknowledge the need to be treated equally, not specially at the workplace. We need to understand that we cannot earn equality unless we let go of our desire to be treated specially. Also, women need to be more supportive of other women. Women need not let the honeybee syndrome overcome them, which again, unfortunately, is quite prevalent in our organizations these days, coexistence should be a key rather than isolation. On the other hand, the male counterparts need to treat her as an individual as a human being. Organizations on the third side should accept that women need not be denied or offered opportunities based on their gender alone, but based on their expertise, so if there are women with expertise capable enough to lead organizations, there should be no hesitation in going ahead. After all, leadership is all about grit, determination and resilience. And these things are definitely not gender specific.

How can women become each other's strengths in climbing the ladder of success?

Mou: One of the things that I often talk about is that when we nurture and help women to grow when they are probably in their mid-management level, stepping towards the senior leadership, one of the key things that that they need to be nurtured towards is the true meaning of leadership. Indira Nooyi once said, that the meaning of a true leader is not just walking with respect yourself, but the true quality comes when you give back. So the point is, how do you give back? I think time has come when women need to now go beyond and see what they can do, near their society, their environment, work, and possibly, grow with a network, let's say just women centric councils.

The second point is basic respect. Whole mind-set needs to change and that can only happen when there is a larger environment created, which is why I spoke about the fact that the management needs to look into nurturing of talent and continuous process of training and imbibing of culture of sisterhood needs to happen.

World Economic Forum's global gender gap report of 2020 indicates that it will still take more than a lifetime to make equality a reality. And this means none of us are likely to see it. But how can we pave the way for an equitable future?

Dr Deepa: I have these four tips to offer. The first is have a child within, which simply indicates being childlike. Because that helps living in the moment. That helps being objective, which helps handling prejudices, stereotyping and preconceived notions. So the second point is love yourself, accept yourselfalong with your strengths and areas of improvement. Having control of your life, not letting others control you. The third thing is to keep the doors of communication open. Which leads to objectivity, which leads to empathy, self-esteem and assertiveness. We either become aggressive or passive or passive aggressive, somewhere in the routine of our life we have forgotten to be assertive. And finally, always respond. Never react.

Mou: Clear, communicate, and collaborate - if the women focus on these three, I think we will slowly start seeing some change. As a first step, any management should do, is to let women opine  communicate. The second tip from my end will be have a very clear goal setting process. The third is, of course, collaboration, very important in today's day and time, and women leaders need to really understand the strength of this. Your entire stakeholder network will be successful only when you can create an opportunity for another sister, that's where you grow, and progress further, because then you're creating an opportunity for generations to come.

Priya: So I, I think there are two big steps that we need to take to sort of build an equitable future. One is take charge. I feel that is a big gap that sort of needs to be plugged - if we all take charge of where we want to be, the workplace we want to live in and a cohesive team that collectively walks towards common goals, I think it's a big step. Another thing that I feel we should be looking at doing is stop stereotyping. We need to eradicate competition between women. The only workplace competition that we should have is for an equal playground, for an equal promotion. By following these two steps, we will be setting the foundation for an equitable future. And at that point, I don't think it will remain a concept, it will became the foundation of every workplace.

*Edited for length and clarity

(Mirgashira is a podcast for Indian PR and Communication professionals anchored by RadhaRadhakrishnan and Charu Raizada. To listen to all episodes visit https://www.digitales.co.in/industry-insights/mrigashira-podcast/)
The citys share of the doses  60% of the total allocated to the United Center  will be made available to people 65 and older, front-line workers in essential industries and those who qualify under state rules based on preexisting health conditions, with the exception of smokers. The city, which gets its own vaccine supply from the federal government, has not opened up its other vaccination sites to people under 65 with underlying health conditions  a point of contention with the state.
Trump Jr. Claims Cheney Allies Are Working to Defeat Wyoming Senate Bill on Election Runoffs

Donald Trump Jr.. said on March 9 that allies of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) are working to derail a Wyoming bill that would establish a primary runoff election for federal and statewide offices.

The Wyoming Senate is voting on SF145 tomorrow. SF145 would enact a runoff system in WY, so candidates need over 50% to win a primary. Liz Cheney allies are working behind the scenes to kill the bill! Trump Jr. wrote on Twitter. Contact the Republicans on the committee & tell them to support SF145!

Cheney is one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. She is facing the prospect of a Trump-backed primary challenge for the 2022 election, though Trump has not yet backed a candidate.

Trump Jr. had spoken via phone to a crowd in Wyoming gathered to hear Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) speak against Cheney. Trump Jr. has also hinted that he would travel to the state to campaign against her.

The Wyoming Senate Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee held a hearing on the runoff elections bill March 9 but did not vote on the measure.

I have not heard a word from Liz Cheney or anyone from her camp one way or another on SF 145, State Sen. Ogden Driskill (R), one of the members of the committee, told The Epoch Times. I have not heard from anyone that supports her either. Close to 1000 emailsmany from out of state on the bill. Interesting times.

The bill, if enacted, would establish a runoff primary election in Wyoming in case none of the candidates in the primary election receive more than 50 percent of the vote. The bill also calls for a change in scheduling to accommodate for the possibility of a runoff and prevents several categories of voters from participating in the runoff, including those who did not vote in the primary election.

In Wyoming we tend to put up a whole host of conservative candidates and split the vote between them allowing the moderate candidate to win the nomination. A runoff election would help with that problem, Republican State Rep. Mark Jennings told The Epoch Times. I appreciate Donald Trump Jr. bringing this to national attention.

The bill is sponsored by Republican state Sens. Bo Biteman, Brian Boner, and Tim Salazar and Republican state Reps. Hans Hunt, Mark Jennings, and Dan Zwonitzer. Zwonitzer and Hunt told The Epoch Times they are not aware of any efforts to kill the bill.

Someone did send me a copy of the tweet this morning, but Im not aware of any efforts currently underway, Zwonitzer told The Epoch Times. The bill is currently in the Senate. I cosponsored it but havent been paying much attention to it yet; no one has actively talked to me about killing it.

I am not aware of any organized efforts per say, though it would stand to reason that [Cheney] and her supporters would be opposed to the legislation, Hunt told The Epoch Times. I would point out, however, that this legislation is not necessarily about Rep. Cheney. For many years Wyoming has elected candidates to statewide office who won crowded primary elections with far less than 50% of the vote.

In such an overwhelmingly Republican state, I feel that a primary runoff is needed so that the majority of party voters who supported candidates running from the outside are not left feeling disenfranchised, Hunt added. This bill would give the candidates running against the incumbent a more level opportunity, and would provide a stronger voice to those who feel pitted against the establishment.

Ten U.S. states have some sort of runoff election in place, Biteman, one of the bills sponsors, told the Wyoming Senate committee on March 9. If the runoff election was in place for the 2018 election, Biteman said there would have been three runoffs in the state Senate races and two in the state House.

Runoffs are common in areas of one-party rule and they are helpful when there is a large field of candidates, Biteman told the committee on March 9. This bill will help voters feel more confident in the election process and will provide the winner with a mandate, something that has been lacking at times when you can actually have a winner whose opponents received collectively more votes than the winner under our current system of winner take all.

It is often argued that this method results in better candidates moving on to the general election with broader support and who are more appealing to a broader base of voters, Biteman added. They would be less common in the state legislative races, more common, obviously in the governors, secretary of states and the federal offices.

Cheney won the Republican primary in Wyoming in 2016 with 39.9 percent of the vote, a percentage that would trigger a runoff under the proposed bill.

The office of the Wyoming Secretary of State does not have a position on the bill, a representative told the Senate Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee on March 9. The Epoch Times sent requests for comment to members of the committee.
Over 10,000 people in Europe use an assistance dog; think of guide dogs for people with a visual impairment, hearing dogs for people with a hearing impairment, medical response service dogs and psychiatric service dogs.

According to a UN-agreement and the Dutch law, these dogs are welcome in stores, hospitals and other public places. However, in practice, many assistance dog users and their dogs are regularly refused entry. In the Netherlands, four out of five assistance dog users indicate that they regularly experience problems with this.

Often, hygiene reasons are given as the main argument for refusing entry to assistance dogs. Research by Utrecht University now shows that the paws of assistance dogs are cleaner than the shoe soles of their users, and thus, paw hygiene is no reason to ban assistance dogs from hospitals.

To investigate this, Jasmijn Vos, Joris Wijnker and Paul Overgaauw of Utrecht University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine took samples from the paws of 25 assistance dogs and the shoe soles of their users. For comparison, they also investigated an equally large group of pet dogs and their owners. Vos and her colleagues examined the samples for poop bacteria (Enterobacteriaceae), which are very common outdoors, and for an important diarrhoeal bacteria (Clostridium difficile).

The dogs' paws turned out to be cleaner than the soles of their shoes. This makes the hygiene argument that is often used to ban assistance dogs from public locations invalid." Jasmijn Vos, Masters Student, Utrecht University

Moreover, the diarrhoeal bacteria did not occur on the dogs' paws whatsoever, and only once on a shoe sole.

81% of assistance dogs are refused

Dutch assistance dog users were also surveyed about their experiences. 81% are still regularly refused entry to public places with their dog, even though this is prohibited by law. This is mainly down to lack of knowledge on the part of the person refusing entry: lack of knowledge on what an assistance dog is, how it can be recognised, and about the rules of law.

The study also shows that assistance dog users constitute only a small fraction of the total number of patients in Dutch hospitals. Should they decide to bring their assistance dog to the hospital, or elsewhere, this should be made possible; assistance dogs are usually well trained and are no more of a hygiene hazard than people!
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian's Regular Press Conference on March 9, 2021

2021/03/09

China Daily: A recent foreign commentary claims that some countries along the route of the BRI choose to stay silent on China's human rights issues to secure investment and infrastructure projects. It also accuses China of pursuing trade interests while disregarding values including human rights. Do you have a comment?

Zhao Lijian: This is purely a smear against China and BRI partner countries.

The right to subsistence and development is the primary basic human rights. We can trace the roots of many of the problems, conflicts and crises in our world today to inadequate and unbalanced development. The founding purpose of the BRI is to advance China's cooperation with partner countries following the principle of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, to help them develop the economy and shake off poverty, which is a human right they need more than any other. Take the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor for example, it has added over $25 billion in FDI to Pakistan and created more than 70,000 direct job positions locally. In pursuing international cooperation to fight COVID-19 including through vaccination, China has provided much-needed assistance to BRI countries and made significant contributions to protecting local people's right to life and health.

As a matter of fact, the broad consensus of the vast majority of countries is that China, through BRI cooperation with various countries, has contributed its solutions and wisdom to global development and the human rights cause. What BRI has brought to partner countries is mutually-beneficial cooperation and development opportunities. China stands ready to work with cooperative partners to turn the BRI into a road of cooperation, health, growth and recovery, contribute greater strength into the global fight against the pandemic, and facilitate economic recovery and growth.

RTE: My question is, a group of international scientists have recently published an open letter calling for a full and unrestricted international investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in China, suggesting that the WHO joint mission fell short and was not sufficiently independent in their view. Do you agree that there should be a more independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in China?

Zhao Lijian: First of all, I need to correct you on one point. What China and the WHO have conducted is a joint study on origin-tracing, not investigation. The open letter published by the so-called scientists you mentioned is completely an ill-intentioned defamation against the relevant joint research by the WHO and China.

Now that you mentioned the WHO-China joint study, I would like to take this opportunity to elaborate on China's position.

First, the list of international experts on the WHO mission was formulated solely by the WHO. They are independent as scientists and highly representative as they are from more than ten countries and international institutions such as the WHO, the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Second, the Chinese government has done a lot of administrative, technical, logistic and supporting work. In support of this joint research, the Chinese side, at the request of the WHO and the international team, arranged top Chinese experts in relevant fields to take part, and assembled a large number of technical personnel to support the joint mission in collecting data and documents. The experts on the mission made their own decisions independently as to where they would like to visit, who they would like to talk to and what they would like to talk about as the field work proceeded. The report is also drafted by the mission independently.

Third, the cooperation on origin-tracing is a scientific task carried out by the joint mission of both Chinese and foreign experts based on scientific research and facts. The experts of the two sides had full and candid exchanges, and the conclusion reflected the consensus of both sides, which is objective, scientific and authoritative. In disregard of scientific facts, these so-called scientists you mentioned have politicized the issue of origin-tracing, misinterpreted the scientific conclusion and report of the joint mission, and kept instigating an investigation with presumption of guilt against a specific country. Such a behavior is not conducive to international anti-epidemic cooperation. These signatories can deceive no one, as to whether their so-called "open letter of scientists" is a true proposal for scientific and professional origin-tracing or pursuit of political agenda with presumption of guilt.

Fourth, since there have been more reports worldwide on the coronavirus appearing in various places around the world in the latter half of 2019, it is getting increasingly urgent and necessary to conduct similar visits to other countries and regions. We hope that relevant parties will demonstrate the same science-based and cooperative attitude as China does in coordinating with WHO on origin-tracing work. China will continue to work with the WHO and the international community on origin-tracing in an open and transparent manner, so that humanity can achieve an early victory over the pandemic and be better prepared to future public health emergencies.

Bloomberg: Just like to ask a question about reports of the lawsuit or several lawsuits against Adrian Zenz by companies and individuals. So these lawsuits have been taken by companies and individuals in Xinjiang who are saying that they have suffered damage, economic damage as a result of his reports. My question is basically, doesn't the facts that these lawsuits are happening demonstrate that Mr. Zenz's reports are actually having an impact? And secondly, will these lawsuits draw even more attention to his work? My question to the foreign ministry is: What's your position on these lawsuits against Mr. Zenz and whether they will be effective or counterproductive?

Zhao Lijian: We note relevant reports. The name Adrian Zenz, a so-called German academic, has frequently come up at our press conferences. Hiding behind the banner of academic research, he has been busy cooking up anti-China rumors, with Xinjiang as his particular obsession. His so-called reports, with zero credibility and academic integrity, have long been proven to be disinformation. It's interesting that despite not having been to Xinjiang or anywhere else in China for many years, Zenz gained overnight fame as an expert on Xinjiang. The whole thing reeks of political manipulation by forces with ulterior motives who aim to attack and malign China by hyping up issues relating to Xinjiang.

China is a country with rule of law. Many companies and residents in Xinjiang suffered heavy losses after Zenz's rumor of "forced labor" came out of nowhere. They detest and abhor such malicious smearing acts. Their decision to seek legal redress against Zenz reflects a stronger awareness among the Chinese citizens to safeguard their rights through the law. We support this.

Actually, Zenz's rumors on Xinjiang doesn't stop with "forced labor". He also concocted even more sensational lies including "forced sterilization", "eradication of the culture of ethnic minorities" and "genocide". Some politicians and legislators in western countries, in total disregard of facts and common sense, choose to rely on the one-sided story woven by Zenz to wantonly criticize China, even pushing so-called motions on Xinjiang in parliament. Such frivolous and preposterous farces aimed to discredit and smear China will only end up undercutting their own reputation as a laughing stock. The day will surely come when Adrian Zenz and the evil forces behind him have to face the condemnation of conscience and the reckoning of justice.

NHK: First question, the White House spokesman said on March 8 that the United States would continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability. What's China's comment on this? Second question, Japan's Defense Minister voiced concern over China's Coast Guard Law, which Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said was fully in line with international law, saying that it was vague in terms of scope of application and extent of authority for the use of weapons, and questioned its consistency with international law. What's China's comment on this?

Zhao Lijian: On your first question, China's position on the Taiwan question is consistent and clear. There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. China remains resolutely determined to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and opposes Taiwan independence and external interference.

The root cause of the current tension and turbulence in cross-strait relations is that the DPP authorities refuse to recognize the 1992 Consensus embodying the one-China principle, collude with external forces, and constantly seek independence. We are willing to carry out dialogue and consultation with all parties, groups and personages in Taiwan on cross-strait political issues and issues related to promoting the process of peaceful reunification of the motherland on the political basis of adhering to the 1992 Consensus and opposing Taiwan independence, so as to build up consensus and resolve differences.

We urge the U.S. side to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, stop official interactions with and arms sales to Taiwan, handle Taiwan related issues prudently and properly, and avoid sending any erroneous signals to the Taiwan independence forces, lest it should damage China-U.S. relations as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

On your second question, State Councilor Wang Yi has clarified China's position on this issue. The Coast Guard Law is just a routine piece of domestic legislation. It is not targeted at any specific country. And it is totally in line with international law and international practice. In fact, many countries, including Japan, have enacted similar laws and regulations long before China. Settling maritime disputes through friendly consultation and without the use or threat of force is the consistent position of the Chinese government. It is also a long-established common understanding between China and its neighbors. It is hoped that the Japanese side will abide by the spirit of four-point principled consensus between China and Japan, move in the same direction, and avoid words and deeds that could complicate the situation.

RTE: Chinese officials have called for an investigation into the laboratory in the United States at Fort Detrick. Do you think research on dangerous pathogens at laboratories like this poses potential treat to public health and should laboratory like this around the world be open to more external scrutiny.

Zhao Lijian: We hope relevant country will cooperate with WHO on origin-tracing as China does. China has sets a good example and we hope they will do the same.

AFP: The UK regulator Ofcom has fined CGTN over complaints that the channel aired a forced confession as well as programs about Hong Kong that had allegedly failed to remain impartial. What's the foreign ministry's response to this?

Zhao Lijian: We are concerned about these decisions by Ofcom. We firmly oppose Ofcom intentionally and repeatedly obstructing CGTN's normal news reporting in the UK, and once again urge it to revoke its wrong decisions.

CGTN always adheres to the principle of objective and fair reporting. When Ofcom wrongfully and arbitrarily withdrew the license for CGTN to broadcast in the UK, China made clear its firm opposition and has since repeatedly stated that position. Now, Ofcom has decided to make another wrong move to fine CGTN for no reasons at all. Altogether, they reveal the strong ideological prejudice that Ofcom and certain people in the UK hold against China and that these preposterous moves are outright political repression. What Ofcom should do is to investigate and confront those British media that have long conducted false reporting on China and Hong Kong. The Chinese side reserves the right to make legitimate and necessary response.

British citizen Peter Humphrey was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison by Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court on August 8, 2014 for illegally obtaining citizens' personal information. The facts of Peter Humphrey's crimes are very clear. He secretly carried out so-called investigations on behalf of nearly a thousand companies and individuals, mainly through purchasing the detailed personal data or stalking and taking sneak shots of his targets. He then compiled illegally obtained data into reports and sold them to his clients, raking in tens of millions yuan. He himself confessed to his crimes. During his imprisonment, all his lawful rights and interests were protected. Peter Humphrey should have repented and started life anew. Trying to play an innocent victim here will not undo the crimes he committed, and he will continue to feel the weight of his crimes and a guilty conscience.

Prasar Bharati: Yesterday you talked about the facilitating the insurance of visas and making cross border travels and people-to-people exchanges easier. As I understand, e-health certificate does not apply to foreigners as of now. In that case, can we still expect that at least international students can return to China to resume their study? They have already lost more than a year. Or they still need to wait for more time?

Zhao Lijian: I have noticed that you raised the issue of the resumption of study for international students on different occasions. Thank you for caring for them.

I want to emphasize that the Chinese version of the health certificate for international travelers is a document issued to Chinese personnel who have conducted nucleic acid tests or got inoculated with Chinese vaccines. Mutual recognition means mutual confirmation of the effectiveness of the tests or vaccination. On this basis, the two sides can provide convenience for relevant personnel. For some other related matters, they were covered in the press conference yesterday.

Regarding the foreign students' return to China for their studies, my principled response is that the Chinese government attaches high importance to protecting the rights and interests of foreign students in China. Academic institutions in China are required to keep in close contact with those students abroad, make good arrangements for online courses, and properly address their legitimate concerns and appeals. On the precondition of observing containment protocols, the Chinese authorities will study this matter in a coordinated manner and keep in communication with relevant parties.

NHK: Myanmar's Military Council announced it has revoked the licenses of five media companies. China voiced firm opposition when the UK revoked CGTN's broadcasting license in the country. What is your comment on this development in Myanmar?

Zhao Lijian: I see no connections between these two cases. We have given our response many times on the British side's decision to revoke CGTN's license.

As for the situation in Myanmar, I would like to repeat that as a friendly neighbor to Myanmar, China hopes that the relevant parties in Myanmar will keep calm and exercise restraint, act in the fundamental interests of the people, address their differences through dialogue and consultation within the constitutional and legal framework, and continue to advance the democratic transition.

Bloomberg: A question about the bipartisan group of lawmakers. From both chambers of congress, they say that the changes announced to the Hong Kong electoral system will continue to advance Beijing's ever tightening grip on Hong Kong's autonomy, basic freedom and human rights. This bipartisan group in the US bipartisan group have called on President Biden to support the people of Hong Kong. My question is, what's the foreign ministry's comment on this call from the bipartisan group in the US for Biden to support the people of Hong Kong given these changes to the electoral system?

Zhao Lijian: Their statement is groundless. It is a clear move to interfere in China's internal affairs, including Hong Kong's affairs.

The National People's Congress's move to improve Hong Kong's electoral system at the national level is a constitutional power and responsibility of the NPC, which will help advance the One Country, Two Systems and maintain long-term stability in Hong Kong, and is totally constitutional, lawful and justified. Improving Hong Kong's electoral system is to remedy the drawbacks of the existing electoral system, which will guarantee a better realization of democratic rights and freedom for Hong Kong residents.

I would like to stress once again that Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Hong Kong's electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is China's local electoral system. How it is designed, developed and improved is entirely China's internal affair where there's no place for other country to interfere.
Australians are being warned to urgently secure their digital networks after Chinese hackers infiltrated Microsoft's email systems.

There are concerns 7,000 servers in Australia could be affected after the Chinese hacker group 'Hafnium' targeted more than 30,000 server customers in the United States.

Computer security expert Brian Krebs issued a warning on his blog on Friday that thousands of businesses, towns, cities, and local governments in the U.S. had been hacked by the group using flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server.

Microsoft has attempted to fix the problem, which gives the hackers complete control over affected systems, by releasing emergency security updates.

A warning has been issued after Chinese hackers infiltrated Microsoft's email servers in the United States with many Australians using the same service (file image)

Cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs said organisations on Microsoft Exchange server should back up their systems

On releasing the patch, Microsoft said the previously unidentified hacking group had been conducting attacks on the email systems used by a number of industries including defence, universities, and non-government organisations.

The hackers method is to leave behind a 'web shell' which allows them to gain administrative access to the victim's computer servers from any internet browser.

According to Mr Krebs, experts who briefed the U.S. government said the hacking groups efforts had been 'worldwide'.

He also said they had 'shifted into high gear' in the last week attempting to scan the internet for vulnerable servers not yet patched with Microsoft's update.

'The best protection is to apply updates as soon as possible across all impacted systems,' Microsoft have said in a statement.

'We continue to help customers by providing additional investigation and mitigation guidance. Impacted customers should contact our support teams for additional help and resources.'

The United States government's cybersecurity agency has directed any organisations including private firms using Exchange Server to either apply the patch or disconnect the product from their networks.

While the Microsoft update patches the holes in which hackers were gaining access to systems, the fix does not repair systems which have already been infiltrated.
Bronson Norrish has labelled his Married At First Sight Australia match, Ines Basic, and their former castmate Jessika Power 'witches', after their explosive affairs were revealed on the show.

And the businessman, 36, said the marriage experiment - which was filmed in 2018 - was the 'worst experience' of his life as he reflected on the women's controversial behaviour in an interview with New! magazine.

He said: 'Ines was making up things about my family [saying they] were inbred - which is quite disgusting. I've blocked her on all devices possible.'

Don't hold back! Bronson Norrish has labelled his Married At First Sight Australia match, Ines Basic (right) and their former castmate Jessika Power (left) 'witches' after their explosive affairs were revealed on the show

The pair went their separate ways after it was exposed that Ines, 30, had embarked on an affair with the show's heartthrob turned villain, Samuel Ball.

Thanks to his early departure on Married At First Sight, Bronson wasn't there to discover that castmember Jessika, 29, had been stringing along her match, Mick Gould, 33, to build a romance with her co-star Dan Webb.

She eventually dropped the bombshell that she had been getting to know Dan, 36, behind Mick's back and ultimately left him at the commitment ceremony for her new man.

Reacting to the shocking behaviour, Bronson said: 'I thought I had it bad - poor Mick. My wife was an absolute witch.

Regret: And the 36-year-old businessman said the marriage experiment was the 'worst experience' of his life as he reflected on the women's behaviour with New! magazine

'I think Jess pretended to be nice, but I think she was a witch behind his back, which I think is a lot worse!'

Jessika received a storm of backlash from viewers as the 2019 series aired on E4 this year and developed a cult following.

She was criticised for lying to Mick and also for flirting with fellow participant Nic Jovanovic.

Ines was quickly labelled the show's 'most hated bride' after she demanded Bronson remove his ear piercing during their first introduction, much to the dismay of his father.

Ouch: He said: 'Ines was making up things about my family [saying they] were inbred - which is quite disgusting. I've blocked her on all devices possible'

The man in the middle: The pair went their separate ways after it was exposed that Ines, 30, had embarked on an affair with the show's heartthrob turned villain, Samuel Ball, 28 (pictured)

According to Bronson, from that moment he knew he was 'sc***ed'.

When discovering the affair, he admitted he wasn't surprised because he knew what Ines was 'capable of,' but nevertheless didn't expect it to happen.

He also revealed that Sam, 28, attempted to pull him over to the side to give him a heads up about his communication with Ines, prior to disclosing their relationship to the group at the commitment ceremony.

However they were separated by crew and were never able to speak to each other after the incident.

Wow: Thanks to his early departure, Bronson wasn't there to discover that Jessika, 29, had been stringing along her match, Mick Gould, 33, (pictured) to get to know co-star Dan Webb

Bronson claims they still haven't spoken as Sam 'fell off the face of the earth,' and doesn't speak to any other castmembers, which he believes is due to the backlash he faced after the show.

Putting the drama behind him, the former stripper who is based in Perth, has found love with Dr Hayley Wallis.

However, he stated to New! magazine that he has firmly 'learnt his lesson,' and is in no rush to make it down the aisle, while advising others not to try Married At First Sight.

Earlier in February, Ines hit back at Bronson and claimed she contemplated suicide after producers covered up his demands for an open relationship.

Ditched! She eventually dropped the bombshell that she had been building a connection with Dan, 36, behind Mick's back and left him at the commitment ceremony for her new man

Speaking in her first UK interview, the viral TV star claimed his pleas for the couple to share 'multiple partners' was not aired and she was unfairly portrayed as a villain.

She said: 'I look so remorseless and like I don't care. But Bronson was into open relationships They just didn't air that part. I was like that's such a crucial part to miss out.

'He was into open relationships and sharing women. I was so angry for so long because it was such a huge part to not air. I felt silenced. I really got the s*** cut.

'I was like f*** who did the edit on this? You went too hard.

'I have to cop it so much, even to this day the most questions are "why didn't you like him?" and I can't be bothered explaining it anymore.

'I said from the start, which they didn't air and it really annoyed me, I am going to stay true to myself and if my partner isn't the one for me I am willing to seek another'

Bronson denied the claims but believes his former match is trying to use it as ammunition against him and to shine herself in a more positive light.
One America News is reporting:

OAN Newsroom

UPDATED 9:14 AM PT  Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Bill Gates has reportedly been linked with a Chinese company U.S. officials are now calling a national security risk for nearly a decade. According to reports Monday, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has worked extensively with BGI Genomics since 2012, which was formerly known as the Beijing Genomics Institute.

Back in 2012, the billionaires foundation established a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese firm to bring genomics research to the global society. This occurred as U.S. Intelligence officials said the company used COVID-19 test kits supplied to the U.S. government to collect, store and exploit bio-metric information.

They are the ultimate company that shows connectivity to both the communist state as well as the military apparatus, stated Will Evanina, former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. Current estimates are that 80 percent of American adults have had all of their personally identifiable information stolen by the Communist Party of China.

Chinas communist government has reportedly been heavily invested in the company, which raised $300 million from investors last month.
1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
Kolkata, March 9 : Indian NGO 'National Campaign Against Torture' (NCAT) on Tuesday filed a petition with the National Human Rights Commission(NHRC), urging it to process the asylum/refugee claims of Myanmarese refugees who have fled following the coup d'etat in Myanmar on February 1, 2021 .

The NCAT appealed to the NHRC to send the Investigation Department of the NHRC to Mizoram to interview each of the refugees and 'determine their refugee status in conformity with national law and India's obligations under international law.' The NCAT asked the NHRC to direct the Government of India to not forcibly repatriate any Burmese refugee until their refugee claims have been assessed by the NHRC and further to extend humanitarian assistance to the fleeing refugees.

"As India has no law or mechanism to process the asylum applications and the decisions on refugee claims are taken by the Government of India on security considerations, which are often in violations of India's constitutional obligations, the NHRC ought to intervene to fulfil its obligations," UNCAT coordinator Suhas Chakma said in a statement.

He claimed that until 7 March this year , about 16 Myanmar nationals entered Mizoram in different batches and took shelter in Champhai, Hnahthial and Serchhip districts of Mizoram which share borders with Myanmar.

Four people, who entered the state on 28 February 2021, are currently taking refuge in Champhai town, while 8 people are being lodged at a community hall at Lungkawlh village in Serchhip district and 4 others are living with the locals in Cherhlun village in Hnahthial district near the Myanmar border.

The Assam Rifles who guard the Mizoram-Myanmar border stated that about 35 Myanmar nationals have already sneaked into Mizoram and are taking refuge, Mr Chakma claimed.

On 5 March 2021, the Deputy Commissioner of Myanmar's Falam district wrote to his counterpart in Mizoram's Champhai district, Maria CT. Zuali, asking the Mizoram government to hand over eight police personnel to the Myanmar government as a friendly gesture.

"The Burmese refugees who have entered into India have the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Further, as a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), India must not refoule the refugees in contravention of Article 3(1) of the UNCAT," Suhas Chakma said.

"The 11 Myanmar's police personnel who refused to obey orders to attack the peaceful pro-democracy activists face certain torture and possibly death sentence in case of refoulement to Myanmar by the Government of India," he told this writer.

Burmese pro-democracy activists have meanwhile approached Indian diplomats in Myanmar with requests that the eight policemen now in Mizoram are not send back because they ' face certain death on return.'
A composite image of Meghan Markle and Prince Andrew. Max Mumby/Getty/Ian Forsyth

Buckingham Palace is investigating claims that Meghan Markle bullied two staff members.

The lawyer for 20 Epstein accusers says it's an attempt to divert attention from Prince Andrew.

The palace has protected Andrew over his friendship with Epstein.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Buckingham Palace is using the Meghan Markle bullying saga to divert attention from Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, a lawyer representing Epstein's accusers has suggested.

The palace said on March 3 that it was investigating claims published in The Times of London that Markle - who alongside her husband Prince Harry stepped back from their royal duties last year - had bullied two senior staff members.

A spokesperson for Markle said the allegations were "a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation."

And in a statement Monday, Gloria Allred, who represents 20 of Epstein's accusers, suggested the investigation was also a red herring.

"The investigation into Meghan Markle is a distraction, and it appears hypocritical under the circumstances. I have to wonder if it reflects a calculated decision to take the focus off of Prince Andrew" Allred said, according to The Guardian.

"Allegations about him are far worse than the allegations about Meghan Markle. Prince Andrew was a working royal when he became a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, who was a sexual predator."

Striking a similar note, Carolyn Durand, who cowrote a biography of Harry and Markle, told Sky News on Friday: "Why were Prince Harry's military honors stripped, but Prince Andrew's haven't been?"

A composite image of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein. AP/Sang Tan, Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

The palace is yet to announce an internal investigation into Prince Andrew's conduct, and Allred said it was "long overdue for the palace to change its priorities."

One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre - whom Allred does not represent - has claimed that she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three occasions between 2001 and 2002, when she was 17 years old.

Story continues

Giuffre says she was recruited for Epstein by the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell while a student.

Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre's allegations, and a Buckingham Palace spokesperson "emphatically denied" the allegations in a 2019 statement to Insider.

The prince is also accused of making sexual advances on women by Johanna Sjoberg, a woman who said he groped her at Epstein's house 18 years ago. Buckingham Palace denies the claim.

Prince Harry and Markle seen speaking to Oprah Winfrey in an interview aired on March 7, 2021. CBS

The allegations of Meghan's bullying in The Times were published days before CBS aired an interview in which Markle and Harry told the TV host Oprah Winfrey about their mistreatment by the royal family and the palace. The couple's claims include:

Markle saying she was "silenced" by the royal family and told to never comment on false news reports about her.

Markle and Harry saying there were "concerns and conversations" among royals about how dark their son Archie's skin would be before his birth.

Markle saying she had suicidal thoughts after she joined the royal family.

Harry saying the royals never acknowledged the tabloids' racist coverage of Markle and did not offer their support.

The fallout from the interview has prompted vitriolic debate in the UK, and even calls to abolish the monarchy.

More than a day after the Oprah interview was aired, the royal family has still not responded, and is said to be stuck in crisis talks.

Read the original article on Insider
Chloe Sevigny revealed that she secretly wed Sinisa Mackovic one-year-ago as she celebrated their 1st anniversary on Instagram Monday.

The it girl-turned-actress, 46, slyly announced their happy news with a glimpse at their wedding day, sharing a snap of the couple donning mostly black while posing in front of a backdrop of New York City Hall.

'Married on a Monday. March 9th 2020,' Sevigny, who shares son Vanja with Mackovic, wrote in the caption, adding: 'Happy one year anniversary my love.'

Happy couple: Chloe Sevigny revealed she and Sinisa Mackovic were secretly married last year while celebrating their first anniversary on Instagram Monday

The wedding was not long before the couple welcomed their son on May 2nd 2020.

The Big Love star leaned on her love in the snaps, showing off her third-trimester belly in a tight, black longsleeve dress worn with opaque tights and ankle boots.

Adding a simple touch of tradition, she tossed on a gauzy white veil while holding onto a bouquet of white blooms.

Sinsia, an art gallery director, smiled as he stood at the Gummo star's side, donning a wide-legged suit with his jacket open casually.

This is Sevigny's first marriage. She's previously been in high-profile relationships with filmmaker Harmony Korine, Vincent Gallo, actor Jason Segal, and Pulp rocker Jarvis Cocker.

Exes: This is Sevigny's first marriage. She's previously been in high-profile relationships with filmmaker Harmony Korine (above together in 1996), Vincent Gallo, actor Jason Segal, and Pulp rocker Jarvis Cocker

Sneak peek: Chloe shared a rare photo with her son Vanja online several weeks ago

Last week Chloe offered another intimate look into her personal life when she shared an adorable snap of her and son Vanja.

The Brown Bunny star was all dolled up in the Polaroid snap as she lovingly cooed at the tot.

Despite being in the comfort of her home, Chloe was runway ready in a patterned silk dress while holding her blonde-haired boy.

Though Chloe and family have chosen to keep many details of their life under-wraps, she did open up to The Cut ahead of her son's arrival, talking about when she learned her child's gender.

Parents-to-be: She and her now-husband Sinisa have chosen to keep much of their relationship and journey to parenthood under wraps; pictured 2020

'When I found out I was having a boy, I had to wrap my head around that, as I am so girly. I don't even have that many boy friends; all of my friends are girls. I just relate better to girls. I'm like, what the hell am I going to do with a boy?' she shared.

Despite her initial hesitation, she shared that she was 'thrilled and so excited about the whole thing.'

She and her Croatian-born beau have been dating for a little over two years, but she has rarely revealed any information about their relationship.

Sevigny admitted that their pregnancy was not planned in an interview with LA Magazine last year, saying 'It was a real shocker. This was an accident. I didn't think I'd ever have kids. I just acquiesced that it was not going to happen for me.'
Police in the northern Vietnamese province of Hai Duong confirmed on Monday they were investigating a case where a six-year-old girl was hospitalized after being brutally hit by her mother.

Preliminary information showed that the victim  six-year-old V.N.P.C.  lives with her mother  25-year-old Vu Thi Th.  and two-year-old sister in a tenanted room in Tan Thuong Commune, Cam Giang District.

On Saturday night, local residents heard C. crying and screaming for help inside her locked room.

After being notified, police officers arrived at the location and discovered that the young girl had suffered serious injuries.

She was brought to the medical center in Cam Giang District for emergency treatment and later transferred to the Hai Duong General Hospital.

The girl suffered multiple bruises on her face and was in panic.

At the police station, Th. said her daughter was unable to control her urination and defecation, during which she did not call her for support.

The mother was so angry that she beat her own daughter on four occasions in mid-February and early March.

The young girl was not allowed to leave the tenanted room.

A police official in Cam Giang District stated that Th. could be charged for torturing a family member.

The woman was not taken into custody as she is six months pregnant.

Further investigation is ongoing.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.Australias central bank maintained its policy settings as it prepares to decide on extending its yield target and quantitative easing programs, with a Covid-19 lockdown complicating the outlook.The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate and three-year yield target at 0.10% in Sydney on Tuesday, as expected. It will make a decision in July on whether to extend the yield target and undertake further quantitative easing. A weeklong shutdown in the nations second-largest city adds a layer of uncertainty to the outlook.Despite the strong recovery in the economy and jobs, inflation and wage pressures are subdued, Governor Philip Lowe said. The board is committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment in Australia and inflation consistent with the target.The Australian dollar edged lower, trading at 77.41 U.S. cents at 2:53 p.m. in Sydney from 77.62 cents just before the release.The case for Lowe to maintain the April 2024 bond as the target maturity had been strengthening amid strong hiring, sentiment and investment plans. This was reinforced by the government keeping open the fiscal spigot in the May budget as it joins the RBA in seeking to drive down unemployment to revive wages growth and inflation.Progress in reducing unemployment has been faster than expected, Lowe said in his statement. There are reports of labor shortages in some parts of the economy.Risks AheadYet the RBA may be encouraged to err on the side of caution if Melbournes outbreak worsens and extend both of its bond programs to keep maximum support for the economy.An important ongoing source of uncertainty is the possibility of significant outbreaks of the virus, although this should diminish as more of the population is vaccinated, Lowe said. The board continues to place a high priority on a return to full employment.Globally, central banks are beginning to edge away from emergency monetary settings. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets last week in presenting projections of its official cash rate rising in the second half of next year.Back in Australia, economists predicted ahead of data Wednesday that gross domestic product rose 1.5% in the first three months of the year from the prior quarter, and advanced 0.6% from a year earlier.Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, in testimony to a parliamentary panel earlier today, said partial data showed around 56,000 workers had lost their jobs in the four weeks following the end of the governments JobKeeper wage subsidy that expired March 28.He said strong employment data and forward indicators continue to give us confidence that the labor market has the underlying strength to absorb workers transitioning off the JobKeeper payment.End of Australias $68 Billion Job-Saving Stimulus Tests EconomyLowe estimates Australias jobless rate will need to fall to close to 4% before driving economy-wide pay increases. It stood at 5.5% in April.The governor expects wages growth will need to increase at a pace faster than 3% -- more than double the current rate -- for inflation to return sustainably to the central banks 2-3% target.Lowe reiterated that this is unlikely to be until 2024 at the earliest.(Updates with further comments from governor throughout text.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
New Delhi: A Delhi Court on Monday (March 8) convicted Ariz Khan, allegedly associated with terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, terrorist, in a case related to the 2008 Batla House encounter, noting that he intentionally caused the murder of encounter specialist and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma.

Following are the critical developments in the case:

September 19, 2008: The Special Cell of Delhi Police carried out an encounter in Jamia Nagars Batla House, in which two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma of the Special Cell of Delhi were killed. Ariz Khan, Shahzad and Junaid escaped, while Mohd Saif surrendered.

January 2010: Shahzad is arrested from Uttar Pradeshs Azamgarh.

April 2010: Charge sheet is filed in a Delhi court. The charge sheet states that the encounter was part of an investigation into September 13, 2008, serial blasts at Connaught Place, Karol Bagh, Greater Kailash and India Gate.

February 15, 2011: Delhi court charges Shahzad of murder, attempt to murder, conspiracy and various other sections under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

July 20, 2013: Judgement in the case is reversed by the court.

July 25, 2013: Shahzad is declared guilty of murdering inspector Sharma and assaulting other police officers by the court

July 30, 2013: Court sentences Shahzad to life imprisonment.

February 13, 2018: Ariz Khan is arrested at the Banbasa border point between India and Nepal.

March 8, 2021: Ariz Khan is convicted by the court and his next hearing is scheduled for March 15.

Ariz has been convicted under section 186 (Obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 333 (voluntarily causes grievous hurt), 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant), 302 (murder). He has also been held guilty under 307 (attempt to murder), 174(a) (Non-appearance in response to a proclamation) 34 (criminal intention) of the Indian Penal Code and 27 (using any prohibited weapons) of the Arms Act.

Live TV
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A Londonderry woman has been warned she faces the prospect of going to jail after she admitted an air rage incident over a face mask.

Sarah McGuire was due to go on trial at Antrim Magistrates Court, but following last minute discussions between the defence and prosecution, she confessed to all bar two of the charges against her.

Defence counsel Sean Doherty confirmed that McGuire (39), from Tyrconnell Street in Londonderry, was entering guilty pleas to charges of common assault; behaving in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner towards a member of aircraft crew; and refusing to obey the lawful command of an aircraft commander on October 18 last year.

At an earlier hearing McGuire, who attended court in person, admitted using disorderly behaviour at Belfast International Airport arising from the same incident.

Following her admissions on Monday, the prosecution asked Deputy District Judge Ann Marshall to formally have charges of being drunk on a plane and common assault "left on the books".

The facts have yet to be fully opened but it is understood the charges follow an incident on a Belfast to Edinburgh easyJet flight which led to McGuire being escorted off. In a video recorded by a fellow passenger on the flight, McGuire is seen being escorted off the plane which was still grounded, and is seen not wearing a mask.

She repeatedly coughs and shouts out: "Everybody dies, you know that? If it's from corona or not, everybody dies."

Applying for sentencing to be adjourned to allow for the preparation of a pre-sentence probation report, Mr Doherty said the offences were committed against a backdrop of "difficult and traumatic circumstances" which he was sure would be "fully outlined" in the probation report.

He confirmed that McGuire was also in breach of a previously suspended jail sentence for offences of assaulting police and causing criminal damage, adding that "she has been fully advised that, clearly, her liberty is very much in doubt".

Adjourning passing sentence to April 20, Ms Marshall freed McGuire on continuing bail. The judge warned her that "going to custody is a very real possibility".
Guest Column Fear is the Glue That Holds Myanmars Military Together

Myanmar military personnel in Naypyitaw before they cracked down on the peaceful protesters on '22222' nationwide general strike against the regime on Feb 22. / The Irrawaddy

Demonstrations against the Feb. 1 military coup in Myanmar have continued for more than a month. Brutal and even lethal force against the pro-democracy demonstrators may have reduced the number of people who are risking their lives by taking to the street, but there is nothing to indicate that protests against the re-introduction of a naked military dictatorship will cease any time soon. But what has stunned the world most is the violence that Myanmars army and police have unleashed on the population at large.

More than fifty people have died, scores have gunshot wounds and more than a thousand protesters  along with some people the military simply thought would be sympathetic to the protesters  have been arrested. Even prominent business tycoons and bankers suspected of having provided monetary support to the National League for Democracy (NLD), which led the ousted government, were detained briefly and interrogated by Myanmars secret police, sa ya pa, the Bamar abbreviation for the Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs.

More than a third of those killed were teenagers who had been shot by a single bullet to the head, indicating that snipers have been active among the security forces. Video clips show soldiers stopping an ambulance clearly marked as such with a red cross, then dragging the medics out of it and beating them senseless. According to several reports from the countrys largest city Yangon, uniformed men have ordered medics not to treat wounded demonstrators. In Yangon as well, a man was seen being shot by the police  after he had been apprehended. In the central city of Mandalay, video footage shows a soldier firing his rifle into a hospital.

A teenage boy in Kale was shot and killed because he had flashed the three-finger sign to a group of soldiers. In North Okkalapa, a Yangon suburb, automatic rifle fire, as opposed to single shots, could be heard when the military tried to suppress a protest there on March 3. And, as The Irrawaddy reported on March 2, a pregnant woman was beaten and her home looted when policemen and soldiers went on a rampage in the southeastern town of Myeik. They destroyed furniture and stole an ATM card and 400,000 kyats in cash. In other places policemen and soldiers have smashed peoples motorcycles and cars.

The list of atrocities committed against the protesters and others could be made much longer, but the question many are asking now is how the military leadership can get its soldiers and policemen to commit such violent acts apparently without hesitation?

Why would only small groups of policemen have had the courage to refuse to obey their superiors when no soldier would do the same?

The myth perpetuated by the countrys ruling junta  and some Western academics and half-baked analysts  is that the country would fall apart if the military were not in power. The armed forces are the glue, as one Western academic put it, that keeps the ethnically diverse country together.

The coup and its aftermath should have put an end to whatever remained of such fairy tales among the general public. A much stronger factor than the supposed patriotism of the military is the fact that since it first seized power in 1962 it has evolved into a privileged state-within-a state, where perks, privileges and power over the countrys economy are phenomena that they dont want to give up and are prepared to do anything  no matter how brutal  to crush those opposed to their rule.

There is also another reason the military refuses to give up any of its powers, or even reduce those to acceptable levels as the NLD-led government tried to do during 2016-2021. And that is fear.

That, more than anything else, is the glue that keeps the armed forces united. A relatively weak officer like the Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, probably knows that he is either in power, in prison, in exile, or worse. The same goes for several other high-ranking officers, especially in view of whats happened since Feb. 1.

And what the urban population is experiencing now  murder, theft and the destruction of property  is what people living in the ethnic minority areas have been subjected to for decades, along with the burning of villages and rape of young women.

It would be hard to find any army officer who has not taken part in such brutality, and they and many of their soldiers fear that they will have to face justice for crimes against humanity if the military relinquishes power.

While an all-out mutiny within the Myanmar army or a counter coup by disgruntled military officers are highly unlikely scenarios, there is another kind of fear that keeps to top leadership united: that a lone maverick, perhaps together with some comrades, might take a drastic, even desperate, step that would change the course of history.

In late 1963 Anglo-Bamar captain and aide-de-camp called Kyaw Swa Myint, known as Johnny Liars in English, saw how the economy of his country was deteriorating after the 1962 coup and the introduction of what was called the Burmese Way to Socialism. He tried to assassinate then military dictator, General Ne Win.

The attempt failed, but Kyaw Swa Myint managed to escape to Thailand then made his way to Australia where he refused to mix with other exiles, fearing that Ne Win had sent agents after him. His wife, mother and sisters were jailed and tortured. Following that incident all Anglo-Bamar were either dismissed or pushed sideways. Among the few who were allowed to stay although he actually was a friend of Kyaw Swa Myints was the Sandhurst-trained officer David Abel, who became a minister in several governments that were formed after the bloody crushing of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

In 1976, Ohn Kyaw Myint, a young army captain who had graduated with best cadet award in Batch 29, saw the misery the nation had fallen into after 14 years of misrule. Together with some of his comrades he attempted to assassinate Ne Win, hoping for the fall of his government. That failed as well. Ohn Kyaw Myint was sentenced to death and later executed. The others were purged and many classmates from OTS 29, who had had nothing to do with the plot, were sidelined. One of the witnesses at the trial of Ohn Kyaw Myint was a junior army officer called Than Shwe, who became Myanmars military ruler in 1992 and remained in power until he eventually retired after the 2010 election.

It was in the wake of those two attempts on his life that Ne Win strengthened his military intelligence service and made it into his own Praetorian Guard. It became known throughout the country as em-eye. Although that institution has been reshaped and purged many times, its main objective is still what the old nickname suggests: to spy on the military in order to detect any sign of dissent within the officer corps. That remains the case in its most recent incarnation as sa ya pa today. Any challenge to the supreme authority has been out of the question and remains so today.

Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that change in Myanmar can come about without involvement by some men within the military, which has remained the countrys most powerful institution since 1962. Exactly how that would happen is something not even Myanmars famous fortunetellers and astrologers would dare to predict.

What can be said with certainty, though, is that Myanmar will not be the same after Min Aung Hlaing made his disastrous decision to launch a coup on Feb. 1. He and his henchmen provoked an entire nation to rise up against his dictatorship in mass demonstrations never seen before, not even in 1988. Thanks to computer savvy youngsters, there is not an incident that goes unreported and transmitted to the outside world over the internet.

You messed with the wrong generation is a comment that has often been heard during the protests. And it is those talented young people who represent the future of Myanmar. Not some generals living in the past who think they can get away with anything.

Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist, author and strategic consultant who has been writing about Asia for nearly four decades. He currently works as a correspondent for Asia Times. His views are his own.

You may also like these stories:

Thailand Ready to Accommodate Refugees From Myanmar Fleeing the Violent Unrest

Myanmar Regime Claims Australian Adviser Tried to Flee with Financial Information
Matt James eliminated Bri Springs after their Fantasy Suite date on Monday's episode of The Bachelor.

With that decision, Matt narrowed the choice of his potential bride to two out of the 38 women that passed through Nemacolin Resort during season 25 of the ABC show.

Next week, Matt, 29, may propose to either Michelle Young, a 27-year-old teacher from Edina, Minnesota, or Rachael Kirkconnell, 24, a graphic designer from Cumming, Georgia.

Fantasy suites: Matt James eliminated Bri Springs after their Fantasy Suite date on Monday's episode of The Bachelor

Rachael, the presumed front-runner, has been beset by difficulties since she was found to have attended a plantation-themed ball in 2018, among other issues.

She and Matt shared a romantic night in their Fantasy Suite that had him claiming he was falling in love with her, and her hoping to be his wife.

Fireworks burst outside their hotel window as they kissed, with Rachael sharing, 'I've never wanted anyone more in my entire life.'

It had been a hard week for Rachael and the other two contestants, as each shared a special chemistry with Matt.

Tears flowing: 'I can't be upset, or I can't be angry,' Bri said tearfully after she was eliminated. 'But I can be really sad and disappointed and hurt'

They'd all been falling for him, so watching him spend the night with other women was hard.

Matt was also 'excited about the overnights,' saying he could see marrying all three women.

To ensure that he was ready for a long-term commitment, Matt first had to confront some of the 'demons' in his past.

Big week: Matt was also 'excited about the overnights,' saying he could see marrying all three women

As a kid, he had learned about 'infidelities' in his parents' marriage that made him wary of falling in love, especially after his father 'started other families' elsewhere.

In order to get past those hurts, he called his dad Manny James to the resort in Farmington, Pennsylvania, where filming took place.

Matt tried to explain the pain Manny's actions had inflicted on him, and the way it made him guarded with women, but Manny initially wasn't listening.

Past demons: To ensure that he was ready for a long-term commitment, Matt first had to confront some of the 'demons' in his past

Manny agreed he hadn't been there for Matt, yet segued into a story about his life, noting that his own dad was killed when he was age five so he'd had no one, also.

Manny still seemed appalled that Matt's mother had left him, to which Matt said, 'Who wants to be with someone that's not gonna be faithful to 'em?'

'Nobody's perfect son,' his dad answered. 'I'm not perfect. You're not perfect yourself.'

Nobody's perfect: 'Nobody's perfect son,' his dad answered. 'I'm not perfect. You're not perfect yourself'

Matt asked Manny if he'd want his daughter to date someone like him, and Manny said no.

He emphasized that he was there to celebrate Matt's success, not dig into the past.

'If we want to celebrate, we can go to Chuck E. Cheese,' Matt said, frustrated that his dad wasn't getting it.

Different reasons: Manny emphasized that he was there to celebrate Matt's success, not dig into the past

In a confessional, Matt began to cry.

He recalled that Manny had 'come around every now and then when we were growing updrop off some shoes, buy us pizza. I didn't need any shoes. I didn't need any pizza. I needed a dad.'

To Manny, he said, 'I get it that I didn't know what it was like to grow up in Africa without a dad. But I know what it's like to grow up here without a dad.'

Absentee father: Matt in a confessional recalled that Manny had 'come around every now and then when we were growing updrop off some shoes, buy us pizza. I didn't need any shoes. I didn't need any pizza. I needed a dad'

His father finally understood, and began to cry himself, vowing to try harder.

'I'm sorry I hurt you, son,' Manny relayed. 'Whatever I can do to make it better, I'll work on it. Because I want you to be happy, too, for the rest of your life.'

Matt replied that he wanted Manny in his life and his children's lives going forward.

Saying sorry: 'I'm sorry I hurt you, son,' Manny relayed. 'Whatever I can do to make it better, I'll work on it. Because I want you to be happy, too, for the rest of your life'

'You're my dad,' he emphasized. 'And I forgive you. I'm not holding grudges against those things. I just want us to move forward and'

Manny quickly got emotional and motioned for Matt to come hug him, and they embraced.

Matt looked relieved, realizing that he was not the same man his dad was after all.

Big hug: Manny quickly got emotional and motioned for Matt to come hug him, and they embraced

'Just because I'm his son doesn't mean I have to follow in his footsteps,' he said.

With that, it was time for his final three dates and Fantasy Suites to begin.

Michelle had the first date with Matt, enjoying a 'Pennsylvania Dutch spa day' full of butter massages, oatmeal soaks and milk baths.

First date: Michelle had the first date with Matt, enjoying a 'Pennsylvania Dutch spa day' full of butter massages, oatmeal soaks and milk baths

The pair had a sweet conversation about learning how to stay in love like Michelle's parents had for 30-plus years.

Over dinner, Matt spoke about the relationship insecurities his parents' split had left him with.

'I wanna be the man he wasn't,' Matt said of Manny, emphasizing his readiness for marriage.

Close bond: Michelle and Matt grew even closer during their date

'I do look at you as my person,' Michelle said. 'That person that I want to spend the rest of my life with.'

During her time in the Fantasy Suite with Matt, Michelle told him she loved him.

When she left in the morning, Matt blew her a kiss and said, 'She could be my wife.'

Bri, 24, a marketing manager from San Francisco, hated Matt being with someone else.

Spa session: Matt and Michelle enjoyed a Dutch spa session together

Second ate: Bri and Matt went on the second date

'This is awful,' agreed Rachael at the hotel, wiping away tears.

As Bri got ready for her date, she felt the pressure of the moment, saying 'I have no idea how I'm going to keep my s*** together.'

She was nonetheless joyful when she met Matt, and enjoyed camping in the woods with him.

Outdoors adventure: The communications manager was nonetheless joyful when she met Matt, and enjoyed camping in the woods with him

Afterward, the pair spoke about their single moms and what it had meant not to have a father in their lives, which led Bri to say she hoped her dad would be proud of her.

She then told Matt she was 'so in love with him,' which he seemed happy to hear.

Their time in the Fantasy Suite was 'pure bliss,' Bri said, as Matt raved about their connection.

Single moms: Afterward, the pair spoke about their single moms and what it had meant not to have a father in their lives, which led Bri to say she hoped her dad would be proud of her

At Nemacolin, Rachael grew distraught as she waited for her turn with Matt.

'I'm freaking out,' she said. 'I'm just scared he's gonna hurt me.'

She was so rattled by worry that it nearly ruined her date with Matt when it came.

Totally rattled: Rachael Kirkconnell was so rattled by worry that it nearly ruined her date with Matt when it came

As the two of them shaped pots in a ceramics studio, Rachael took Matt aside to tell him how 'unbearable' her week had been.

'I picture you as my future husband, I know you know that,' she said. 'Knowing that you're spending really intimate time with other people, I really didn't think I'd get through this week, honestly. It was the lowest that I've felt.'

Rachael wondered if the dates had changed the way Matt felt about her, adding, 'I just don't know how I would be able to handle losing you.'

Ceramics studio: As the two of them shaped pots in a ceramics studio, Rachael took Matt aside to tell him how 'unbearable' her week had been

'When I'm with you, you're all I'm thinking about,' Matt promised. 'I'm falling in love with you.'

Over dinner, Rachael told Matt she was '100 percent ready' for a proposal, and he was thrilled.

He called Rachael 'smart, beautiful, articulate and sexy,' and looked forward to their time in the Fantasy Suite that night.

Matt had enjoyed his dates with all three women, so that week's Rose Ceremony was fraught.

Rose ceremony: Matt had enjoyed his dates with all three women, so that week's Rose Ceremony was fraught

'All three of us have extremely high hopes going into tonight,' Bri said. 'One of us is going to be completely blindsided.'

Moments later, it was Bri going home.

Matt walked her outside, and told her that he wished he could point to something she'd done wrong, but it was just where his heart was 'leading' him.

Totally blindsided: 'All three of us have extremely high hopes going into tonight,' Bri said. 'One of us is going to be completely blindsided'

'I can't be upset, or I can't be angry,' Bri said tearfully. 'But I can be really sad and disappointed and hurt.'

As her car drove away, she added, 'It couldn't have been all for nothing. It couldn't have been.'

The Bachelor season 25 finale will air next week on ABC followed by the After The Rose special that will be hosted by Emmanuel Acho, 30, after longtime host Chris stepped away after embroiling himself in a racial controversy.

Matt is the first black male lead in the history of The Bachelor franchise since its premiere in March 2002.
PNB MetLifetoday launched a new campaign, #BaatonMeinMatAanato help educate consumers on how to protect themselves from increasingly prevalent financial cybercrime. The campaign, which will run on TV, social media, email and other digital media, includes a three-part video series featuringAnupSoni, well knownfor hosting a crime anthology series. Soni explainshow to avoid falling prey to fake insurance calls. The videos warn users about fake callers who are contacting insurance customers with offers like interest-free loans or other special benefits in order to obtain their confidential financial information.

The past few years have witnessed a tremendous digital transformation in India. However, the flipside to this are the cybercrimes, which has spiked during the pandemic. The NCRBs Crime in India report 2019 states that fraud made up over half the cybercrime cases in the country. Most of these frauds are financial by nature.

The Insurance sector is not an exception to these fraudulent tactics. Insurance customers are often defrauded by deceivers posing as officials from the regulators office or insurance companies.The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has also taken various measures to safeguard the interest of the consumers by spreading awareness on this matter through various media releases.

Nipun Kaushal, Chief Marketing Officer, PNB MetLife, said, Insurance is an industry built on trust and as a customercentric organization, ithas always been PNB MetLifes priority to protect our customers best interests, including shielding them from potential financial loss. In addition to these videos, we are engaging our agents to help grow consumers awareness of this issue.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
NORTHVILLE, Mich., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch (MiLAW) today blasted the request by personal injury lawyers in the Flint Water litigation to be paid as much as $202.8 million. "In our opinion, this is a grossly excessive money grab that would leave the victims in Flint with tens of millions of dollars less than they deserve from the legal settlement," said MiLAW president, Robert Dorigo Jones.

"We call on Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel who negotiated the settlement to oppose this appalling overcharge. There is no reason the lawyers should reap a lottery-sized windfall that we believe sets a new record for legal fees in Michigan when the average child is expected to receive less than $20,000."

"Everyone is entitled to fair payment for their services, and this was certainly a complex case," continued Dorigo Jones, "but, in our opinion, it's inexcusable for these lawyers to ask for nearly a third of the money in a settlement this large regardless of what may be customary or allowed by court rules. It's not just inexcusable, we believe it's shameful, and the Attorney General should formally oppose this fee request."

While lawyers might receive one-third of the money they win under a contingency fee agreement, class action settlements resolve the rights of people who never had a chance to negotiate fees with their court-appointed attorneys. In large settlements of hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of class members, fee awards over 25% often result in fees far above market rates, as shown by this settlement. Class members who are filing claims can object to excessive fees, and such objectors sometimes win more money for the class by reducing fees to 20%, 15% or even lower. The larger a settlement is, the greater the justification is for a lower fee to avoid disproportionate windfalls to attorneys.

"Every 1% reduction in the lawyers' 'contingency' fee would provide the 26,000 Flint children exposed to lead another visit to the pediatrician," said Dorigo Jones. "The people of Michigan can urge Attorney General Nessel to oppose this fee request by signing an online petition created by MiLAW at MoreForFlint.com."

Residents of Flint who want to file a legal challenge to the fee request can also contact MiLAW at [email protected]. "Several residents of Flint have contacted our office to express their frustration with the shocking amount of money the lawyers are asking for," added Dorigo Jones. "So, in addition to the online petition we are conducting, we are collecting names of members of the class action lawsuit who want to file a formal legal objection to the fees. We hope to find skilled pro bono legal representation to protect the citizens of Flint from what we consider a selfish money grab. According to empirical studies, the typical fee award in a settlement this size is below 17% which would provide the people of Flint with tens of millions of dollars more."

Lawsuit abuse takes many forms. There are frivolous lawsuits, of course, but another form is when lawyers use the legal system to enrich themselves by charging their own clients what we believe are excessive fees. MiLAW is dedicated to eliminating every form of lawsuit abuse and is standing up for all victims.

About MiLAW: Based in Northville, Michigan, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch is a non-partisan consumer watchdog organization working to increase public awareness of all the ways consumers, job providers, educators, health care providers, first responders, charities and communities are burdened by the damaging effects of runaway litigation. For more information about MiLAW, contact Bob Dorigo Jones, president, MiLAW, 734-891-6022, [email protected].

SOURCE Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch
Southern 100 CANCELLED

This year's Southern 100 event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Event directors raised concerns over the uncertainty of the Isle of Man borders being fully open to general travel by July.

Club Chairman and Race Secretary, George Peach said: It is very disappointing that the club have had to make this decision over what appeared circumstances would be favourable to run the Southern 100 in July, as normal.

Behind the scenes during the winter we have been busy getting all the paperwork in order and in constant contact with our race partners, sponsors, government agencies and others vital to getting the races organised and ready to run  all of whom have been fully behind us for the races to be run on their traditional dates.

It will certainly be a major blow to our competitors, many of whom make the Southern 100 their feature event of the year, as well as the numerous fans and enthusiasts who travel across annually to enjoy the exciting close massed-start races on the Colas Billown Course  all of which were prevented from attending in 2020 and were looking forward to making their journeys across the Irish Sea later this year.

Southern 100 Racing have looked at alternative dates later in the year, however the concern of the Chief Medical Officer was that sufficient medical cover could not be guaranteed later in the year.
Every 12 minutes, someone in the United States dies of pancreatic cancer, which is often diagnosed late, spreads rapidly and has a five-year survival rate at approximately 10 percent. Treatment may involve radiation, surgery and chemotherapy, though often the cancer becomes resistant to drugs.

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, in collaboration with Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and Columbia University, demonstrated that a new tumor-penetrating therapy, tested in animal models, may enhance the effects of chemotherapy, reduce metastasis and increase survival.

The study, published online March 9, 2021 in Nature Communications, showed how a tumor-targeting peptide, called iRGD, can sneak inside the armor that the tumor built to protect itself and use the fibrous tissue as a highway to reach deeper inside, destroying the tumor from within.

The pancreas is a large gland located behind the stomach. It makes enzymes that aid digestion and hormones that regulate blood-sugar levels. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a subtype of pancreatic cancer that is highly drug-resistant due, in part, by the hard shell-like outer layer surrounding the tumor.

"This type of tumor is made up of a dense fibrous tissue that acts as a barrier to drugs trying to get through. Many drugs can reach the vessels of the tumor, but they are not able to get deep into the tissue, making treatment less effective, and that is one reason why this type of cancer is so challenging to treat," said Tatiana Hurtado de Mendoza, PhD, first author of the study and assistant project scientist at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center.

"Our study found that the tumor-penetrating peptide iRGD is able to use this fibrous network to deliver chemotherapy drugs deep into the tumor and be more effective."

The research team examined the microenvironment of PDAC tumors in a mouse model. They found that after targeting the tumor blood vessels, iRGD binds to high levels of 5 integrin, a protein produced by cells known as carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) that produce much of the tumor's protective fibrous cover.

"We were able to closely replicate human disease in our mouse model and found that when iRGD was injected with chemotherapy in mice with high levels of 5 integrin, there was a significant increase in survival and a reduction in the cancer spreading to other organs in the body compared to chemotherapy alone. This could be a powerful treatment strategy to target aggressive pancreatic cancer," said Andrew Lowy, MD, co-corresponding author of the study, professor of surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine and chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health.

"What is also exciting about this finding is the iRGD therapy did not produce any additional side effects. This is critically important when considering treatments for patients."

The researchers said next steps include a national human clinical trial. They estimate the trial could begin in one year.

"The knowledge gained from our study has the potential to be directly applied to patient care. We also believe that the levels of 5 integrin within a pancreatic cancer could tell us which patients would benefit the most from iRGD-combination therapy," said Lowy.

###

Co-authors include: Gary Braun, Venkata Kotamraju, Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute; Evangeline Mose and Randall French, UC San Diego Health; Gregory Botta, Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, UC San Diego Health, Scripps Research Translational Institute; Kodai Suzuki and Norio Miyamura, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons ; Tambet Teesalu, Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, and University of Tartu; Erkki Ruoslahti, Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and University of California Santat Barbara; and Kazuki Sugahara, Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Slight chance of a shower late. Low 57F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Slight chance of a shower late. Low 57F. Winds light and variable.
Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)  An organization representing Iowa's Hispanic population has filed a lawsuit to challenge a new Iowa voting measure passed with only Republican votes a day after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed it into law.

The League of United Latin American Citizens is represented by Washington-based voting rights lawyer Marc Elias in the lawsuit filed in state court in Des Moines.

The law shortens time for voters to cast mail ballots, reduces days voters can request a ballot and shortens the time polls are open on Election Day.

The lawsuit claims it creates an undue burden on the fundamental right to vote citing numerous violations of voters constitutional rights.
NEW MILFORD  The newest location of Jersey Mikes Subs in town was packed Monday afternoon with friends and family of the stores team. The franchise, at 169 Danbury Road, is the third location for owner Scott Kostrya. The other two are in Brookfield, on Federal Road; and Ridgefield, in Cops Hill Plaza.

We are excited to have Jersey Mikes open and invest in New Milford, Mayor Pete Bass said. With well over 30 new positions and their commitment to partnering with the community through nonprofit sponsorships as an example, it is a win-win for the New Milford community.
 Flash

Another 4,712 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,223,232, according to official figures released Monday.

The country also reported another 65 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 124,566. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

The latest figures were revealed as more than 22.3 million people in Britain have been given the first jab of the coronavirus vaccine.

On Monday, millions of children returned to schools across England under phase one of the government's "roadmap" to recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the guidance, people can also now meet with one person from another household outdoors to socialize, such as having a picnic, and care home residents can choose one named visitor.

Meanwhile, experts have warned Britain is "still not out of the woods" amid concerns over new variants and the risks of the public breaching restriction rules.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.
The two boys pulled from a fire that gutted their Paulsboro home early Saturday morning have died, officials said.

Paulsboro Mayor Gary Stevenson confirmed that the two boys died in the hospital on Sunday night

A GoFundMe apparently created by the boys mother, Tia Sheed, which sought money for funeral expenses, identified them as Michael, 7, and TyYon, 5.

Our babies were trapped in a fire in Paulsboro and did not survive, Sheed wrote. They were on life support with severe burns but nothing was able to bring them back.

As of 6 p.m. Monday night, the post had nearly doubled its $10,000 fundraising goal.

Police arrived at the West Washington Street home, which was fully engulfed in flames, around 4 a.m. Family members on the lawn told them children were still trapped inside, Stevenson said. Officers tried to rescue them, but could only make it halfway up the stairs before the heat and flames pushed them back, he said.

When firefighters arrived, they also tried to make it in the same way, but were unable to initially get upstairs because of the rapidly deteriorating conditions until they ran waterlines through the home, he said.

They eventually made it up to a second floor bedroom and were able to get the two children out through a window to fire crews waiting outside on a ladder and they were rushed to a local hospital, the mayor said.

Stevenson said the fire marshal was still investigating the cause of the fire on Monday evening, but that it appeared to have started somewhere on the first floor  possibly in the dining room area.

A local church, St. Pauls United Methodist Church, asked the community to pray and support the family.

Our church has opened its doors for funeral services if they need us, and is supporting the family in their difficult hour, Rev. Onay Lopez wrote in a post on the churchs Facebook page. Our prayers also go to police officers, firefighters and teachers as they deal with grief. May God bring them comfort and strength.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
Astronauts face many challenges to their health, due to the exceptional conditions of spaceflight. Among these are a variety of infectious microbes that can attack their suppressed immune systems.

Now, in the first study of its kind, Cheryl Nickerson, lead author Jennifer Barrila and their colleagues describe the infection of human cells by the intestinal pathogen Salmonella Typhimurium during spaceflight. They show how the microgravity environment of spaceflight changes the molecular profile of human intestinal cells and how these expression patterns are further changed in response to infection. In another first, the researchers were also able to detect molecular changes in the bacterial pathogen while inside the infected host cells.

The results offer fresh insights into the infection process and may lead to novel methods for combatting invasive pathogens during spaceflight and under less exotic conditions here on earth.

The results of their efforts appear in the current issue of the Nature Publishing Group journal npj Microgravity.

Mission control

In the study, human intestinal epithelial cells were cultured aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-131, where a subset of the cultures were either infected with Salmonella or remained as uninfected controls.

The new research uncovered global alterations in RNA and protein expression in human cells and RNA expression in bacterial cells compared with ground-based control samples and reinforces the team's previous findings that spaceflight can increase infectious disease potential.

Nickerson and Barrila, researchers in the Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, along with their colleagues, have been using spaceflight as a unique experimental tool to study how changes in physical forces, like those associated with the microgravity environment, can alter the responses of both the host and pathogen during infection. Nickerson is also a professor in the School of Life Sciences at ASU.

In an earlier series of pioneering spaceflight and ground-based spaceflight analogue studies, Nickerson's team demonstrated that the spaceflight environment can intensify the disease-causing properties or virulence of pathogenic organisms like Salmonella in ways that were not observed when the same organism was cultured under conventional conditions in the laboratory.

The studies provided clues as to the underlying mechanisms of the heightened virulence and how it might be tamed or outwitted. However, these studies were done when only the Salmonella were grown in spaceflight and the infections were done when the bacteria were returned to Earth.

"We appreciate the opportunity that NASA provided our team to study the entire infection process in spaceflight, which is providing new insight into the mechanobiology of infectious disease that can be used to protect astronaut health and mitigate infectious disease risks," Nickerson says of the new study. "This becomes increasingly important as we transition to longer human exploration missions that are further away from our planet."

Probing a familiar adversary

Salmonella strains known to infect humans continue to ravage society, as they have since antiquity, causing around 1.35 million foodborne infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The pathogen enters the human body through the ingestion of contaminated food and water, where it attaches and invades into intestinal tissue. The infection process is a dynamic dance between host and microbe, its rhythm dictated by the biological and physical cues present in the tissue's environment.

Despite decades of intensive research, scientists still have much to learn about the subtleties of pathogenic infection of human cells. Invasive bacteria like Salmonella have evolved sophisticated countermeasures to human defenses, allowing them to flourish under hostile conditions in the human stomach and intestine to stealthily evade the immune system, making them highly effective agents of disease.

The issue is of particular medical concern for astronauts during spaceflight missions. Their immune systems and gastrointestinal function are altered by the rigors of space travel, while the effects of low gravity and other variables of the spaceflight environment can intensify the disease-causing properties of hitchhiking microbes, like Salmonella. This combination of factors poses unique risks for space travelers working hundreds of miles above the earth--far removed from hospitals and appropriate medical care.

As technology advances, it is expected that space travel will become more frequent--for space exploration, life sciences research, and even as a leisure activity (for those who can afford it). Further, extended missions with human crews are on the horizon for NASA and perhaps space-voyaging companies like SpaceX, including trips to the Moon and Mars. A failure to keep bacterial infections at bay could have dire consequences.

Hide and Seq

In the current study, human intestinal epithelial cells, the prime target for invasive Salmonella bacteria, were infected with Salmonella during spaceflight. The researchers were keen to examine how the spaceflight setting affected the transcription of human and bacterial DNA into RNA, as well as the expression of the resulting suite of human proteins produced from the RNA code, products of a process known as translation.

The research involved the close examination of transcriptional profiles of both the pathogenic Salmonella and the human cells they attack, as well as the protein expression profiles of the human cells to gauge the effects of the spaceflight environment on the host-pathogen dynamic.

To accomplish this, researchers used a revolutionary method known as dual RNA-Seq, which applied deep sequencing technology to enable their evaluation of host and pathogen behavior under microgravity during the infection process and permitted a comparison with the team's previous experiments conducted aboard the Space Shuttle.

The host and pathogen data recovered from spaceflight experiments were compared with those obtained when cells were grown on earth in identical hardware and culture conditions (e.g., media, temperature).

Earth and sky

Earlier studies by Nickerson and her colleagues demonstrated that ground-based spaceflight analogue cultures of Salmonella exhibited global changes in their transcriptional and proteomic (protein) expression, heightened virulence, and improved stress resistance--findings similar to those produced during their experiments on STS-115 and STS-123 Space Shuttle missions.

However, these previous spaceflight studies were done when only the Salmonella were grown in spaceflight and the infections were done when the bacteria were returned to Earth.

In contrast, the new study explores for the first time, a co-culture of human cells and pathogen during spaceflight, providing a unique window into the infection process. The experiment, called STL-IMMUNE, was part of the Space Tissue Loss payload carried aboard STS-131, one of the last four missions of the Space Shuttle prior to its retirement.

The human intestinal epithelial cells were launched into space (or maintained in a laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center for ground controls) in three-dimensional (3-D) tissue culture systems called hollow fiber bioreactors. The hollow fiber bioreactors each contained hundreds of tiny, porous straw-like fibers coated with collagen upon which the intestinal cells attached and grew. These bioreactors were maintained in the Cell Culture Module, an automated hardware system which pumped warm, oxygenated cell culture media through the tiny fibers to keep the cells healthy and growing until they were ready for infection with Salmonella.

Once in orbit, astronauts aboard STS-131 activated the hardware. Eleven days later, S. Typhimurium cells were automatically injected into a subset of the hollow fiber bioreactors, where they encountered their target--a layer of human epithelial cells.

The RNA-Seq and proteomic profiles showed significant differences between uninfected intestinal epithelial cultures in space vs those on earth. These changes involved major proteins important for cell structure as well as genes important for maintaining the intestinal epithelial barrier, cell differentiation, proliferation, wound healing and cancer. Based on their profiles, uninfected cells exposed to spaceflight may display a reduced capacity for proliferation, relative to ground control cultures.

Infections far from home

Human intestinal epithelial cells act as critical sentinels of innate immune function. The results of the experiment showed that spaceflight can cause global changes to the transcriptome and proteome of human epithelial cells, both infected and uninfected.

During spaceflight, 27 RNA transcripts were uniquely altered in intestinal cells in response to infection, once again establishing the unique influence of the spaceflight environment on the host-pathogen interaction. The researchers also observed 35 transcripts which were commonly altered in both space-based and ground-based cells, with 28 genes regulated in the same direction. These findings confirmed that at least a subset of the infection biosignatures that are known to occur on Earth also occur during spaceflight. Compared with uninfected controls, infected cells in both environments displayed gene regulation associated with inflammation, a signature effect of Salmonella infection.

Bacterial transcripts were also simultaneously detected within the infected host cells and indicated upregulation of genes associated with pathogenesis, including antibiotic resistance and stress responses.

The findings help pave the way for improved efforts to safeguard astronaut health, perhaps through the use of nutritional supplements or probiotic microbes. Ongoing studies of this kind, to be performed aboard the International Space Station and other space habitats, should further illuminate the many mysteries associated with pathogenic infection and the broad range of human illnesses for which they are responsible.

"Before we began this study, we had extensive data showing that spaceflight completely reprogrammed Salmonella at every level to become a better pathogen," Barrila says. "Separately, we knew that spaceflight also impacted several important structural and functional features of human cells that Salmonella normally exploits during infections on earth. However, there was no data showing what would happen when both cell types met in the microgravity environment during infection. Our study indicates that there are some pretty big changes in the molecular landscape of the intestinal epithelium in response to spaceflight, and this global landscape appears to be further altered during infection with Salmonella."

###

This work was done in collaboration with scientists from the NASA Johnson Space Center, NASA Ames Research Center, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Tissue Genesis, and the Department of Defense (DoD).

Written by: Richard Harth

Senior Science Writer: Biodesign Institute

richard.harth@asu.edu

Written by: Richard Harth

Senior Science Writer: Biodesign Institute

richard.harth@asu.edu
PHILADELPHIA, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Total Dynamic Dividend Fund (NYSE: AOD) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund, announced today that it will pay a distribution of US $0.0575 per share on March 31, 2021 to all shareholders of record as of March 24, 2021 (ex-dividend date March 23, 2021).

In January 2022, a Form 1099-DIV will be sent to shareholders, which will state the amount and composition of distributions and provide information with respect to their appropriate tax treatment for the 2021 calendar year.

You should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of this distribution.

In the United States, Aberdeen Standard Investments is the marketing name for the following affiliated, registered investment advisers: Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc., Aberdeen Asset Managers Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Ltd., Aberdeen Capital Management, LLC, Aberdeen Standard Investments ETFs Advisors LLC and Aberdeen Standard Alternative Funds Limited.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeenaod.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Total Dynamic Dividend Fund
The highly-contagious UK coronavirus variant could threaten the progress being made to curb the pandemic in Florida.

Although cases and deaths are continuing to decline in the Sunshine State, headway is being made more slowly than on the national level.

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that two percent of all emergency department visits in the U.S. are for coronavirus-like illness.

In Florida, that number is 2.6 percent, which is nearly one-third higher than the country-wide figure.

It comes as the state became the first in the U.S. to record more than 600 cases of the UK variant, with cases doubling almost every 10 days.

New CDC data shows that 2.6% of all emergency department visits in Florida are for coronavirus-like illness (purple line), which is 30% higher than the 2% seen for emergency department visits across the U.S. (red line)

It comes as Florida became the first U.S. state to record more than 600 cases of the UK variant, known as B.1.1.7

The UK variant was first discovered in the county of Kent in September but was not deemed a 'Variant of Concern' (VOC) until December.

Its name, B.1.1.7, derives from the location of its most significant mutations.

It now accounts for at least 60 percent of all cases in Britain.

Most estimates put it at about 70 percent more infectious than older 'wild-type' coronavirus variants.

More moderate projections say its transmissibility is only about 56 percent higher.

B.1.1.7 has been detected in 49 states, but is most prevalent in the U.S. with 642 cases being linked to the variant.

Michigan, the state with the second-highest number of cases at 437, has a little more than half as many.

The first case was detected in a man in his 20s from Martin County, in southwest Florida, on New Year's Eve with no history of travel.

This means it took just 66 days for cases to surpass 600 cases, meaning the number of infections in the state were doubling every nine days, according to a pre-print study.

The study also found that B 1.1.7 cases currently make up more than five percent of all cases in Florida, and will likely only increase.

A pre-print study found that cases involving the new variant are most prevalent in Florida, doubling every nine days

'Florida is leading the way in terms of one of the fastest rates of B.1.1.7,' Dr Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist with the Federation of American Scientists, told CBS 12 News.

'The natural contagiousness of the B.1.1.7 means that it will infect a lot of people.'

With Florida relaxing almost all of its COVID-19 restrictions, Feigl-Ding believes the state could see a surge of cases like it did in the summer.

He said the only way to control the virus is to ramp up vaccinations. So far, 17.3 percent of Floridians have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the CDC.

'When this virus dominates the us we're going to be in a heap of trouble if we don't reach very high levels of vaccinations by March,' Feigl-Ding told CBS 12 News.

'We need to vaccinate now and as quickly as possible, because every day literally matters.'
[March 09, 2021] New Online Platform Will Improve Understanding of Impacts of Cumulative Effects on Our Environment

OTTAWA, ON, March 9, 2021 /CNW/ - Even during a pandemic, Canada continues to strengthen the economy while protecting and conserving our natural environment, supporting our natural resource sectors and mitigating the impacts of climate change. Increasing our understanding of the long-term cumulative effects from human activities is essential in making decisions that impact our future well-being. This is why Natural Resources Canada, in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada, has launched the Open Science and Data Platform (OSDP) for cumulative effects, an innovative online tool that provides Canadians with access to data and scientific publications that can be used to understand the cumulative effects of human activities. Cumulative effects are the accumulated changes in the environment caused by interactions between human activities and natural processes that have long-lasting impacts on the environment and the health and well-being of Canadians. Examples include changes to wildlife populations, changes in the ways in which ecosystems function, increases in non-native plants and permafrost melt. Understanding the effects of such activities will support science-based decision-making and help us better manage our land, its biodiversity, our water and other natural resources.

With the OSDP, Canadians and Indigenous communities, including scientists, researchers and policy-makers, can contribute to and easily access cumulative effects information, which until recently was widely dispersed across numerous government websites and repositories. Users can serch cumulative effects content and view, combine and download data and publications and stay informed of proposed or current development activities across the country. The OSDP leverages the Federal Geospatial Platform (and its public facing site, Open Maps) which brings together open federal, provincial and territorial geospatial data to enable users to explore location-based data on the Government of Canada's open Government Portal. By leveraging the Federal Geospatial Platform, the OSDP's data provides enhanced access to provincial and territorial data, historical time series data and maps, surveys, satellite Earth observations and scientific models.



The platform is an ambitious undertaking, and this is a first step that will continue to improve as user feedback is collected and analyzed. New data and publications will be added regularly to include the best available information relevant to cumulative effects and development activities in Canada. Visit the OSDP to learn more. Quotes

"Open science and data strengthens evidence-based decision-making. Understanding the cumulative effects of human activity will help meet our climate goals and protect the environment." The Honourable Seamus O'Regan Jr.

Canada's Minister of Natural Resources "Canadians want cleaner air and cleaner water for their children and grandchildren. The Open Science and Data Platform for cumulative effects brings together data and science dispersed across federal and provincial systems and websites. This allows Canadians  including Indigenous peoples, scientists and policy-makers  to better understand the cumulative effects of human activities and their impacts on our health and well-being." The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson

Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change Quick Facts The OSDP is co-led by Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada.





Contributors to the OSDP include: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada Energy Regulator, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Health Canada, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada , Indigenous Services Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Parks Canada, Statistics Canada, Transport Canada, Government of British Columbia (available in English only), Government of Alberta (available in English only), the Government of Ontario and the Government of Quebec . Associated Links Open Science and Data Platform Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan) SOURCE Natural Resources Canada

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Prince Harry said Meghan had rescued him from his family during an interview with US TV star Oprah Winfrey, prompting Minister of State for Pacific and the Environment, Zac Goldsmith, to say he is negatively affecting his own family.

Prince Harry and Meghan' dropped a bomb' on the Palace

Lord Goldsmith insisted in a tweet that the accusations are directed at Buckingham Palace and royal institutions, and Prince Harry's family. Following their interview, ITV's royal reporter Chris Ship reported the pair had "dropped a bomb" on the Palace.

According to Prince Harry, the royal family cut him off financially in 2020, and he has since relied on the money he inherited from his mother, Princess Diana, the Insider reported. Harry told Oprah Winfrey that he ceased getting financial assistance "in the first quarter of 2020."

According to The Telegraph, Diana left 6.5 million to each of her sons to be kept in trust until they reached 30. Harry's trust drew attention, and when he turned 30, he allegedly got 10 million. Harry, 36, told Winfrey that he believes his mother would be upset by how he and Meghan Markle were handled and would want them to be happy.

Additional funds were most likely inherited from Harry's great grandmother, the Queen Mother, who died in 2002. The BBC reported at the time, Prince William and Harry were leaving 14 million to split, with Harry supposed to gain a bigger share because he would not be afforded the financial rewards of becoming a king one day.

Read also: Top 5 Biggest Bombshells Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Drop in Their Oprah Interview

Markle is said to have made $5 million as an actress on "Suits," as well as by endorsement deals and sponsorships. The pair has been mocked for signing multimillion-dollar deals with streaming giants Spotify and Netflix recently.

"This was never the intention," Harry said when Winfrey asked what the pair would say to critics who believe they are all "money-grabbing royals." Markle explained why their charity Archewell must prioritize "storytelling through a truthful side" to combat the disinformation regarding them. Buckingham Palace representatives did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read also: Prince Philip Recovering After Surgery, Spending More Days in Hospital as Interview Looms

Prince Harry's revelations about Prince Charles are shocking

The royal family cut Prince Harry off financially, he revealed. Fortunately, he relocated to California thanks to funds left to him by his late mother, Princess Diana. Also, Prince Harry announced that after he asked to step down as a senior member of the royal family, his father "stopped taking my calls" for a short time.

It's a side of Prince Charles that many people aren't aware of, according to Omid, who hosts The HeirPod podcast. Prince Harry's encounters would almost certainly affect the Prince of Wales, for better or worse. "I don't think it would really go, or be of any benefit to him," Omid said. "I don't think that will really go, or be of any assistance to him, in his kind of reputation recovery trip that he's been on for the past 20 years, that has already taken a big hit by the fourth season of The Crown."

According to the royal expert, Princess Diana will be proud of Prince Harry for telling his side of the story. Even if the tabloid attention won't go away, the Duke of Sussex might be one step closer to settling down in the United States with his growing family, as per EOnline.

Read also: Prince Harry Is Advised To Go Back Home To Say 'Goodbye' To Prince Philip Amid Hospitalization

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NEW YORK, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of Jianpu Technology Inc. (NYSE: JT) between May 29, 2018 and February 16, 2021, inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important April 19, 2021 lead plaintiff deadline.

SO WHAT: If you purchased Jianpu securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.

WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Jianpu class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2033.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than April 19, 2021. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.

WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience or resources. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 3 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020 founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.

DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) certain of Jianpu's transactions carried out by the Credit Card Recommendation Business Unit involved undisclosed relationships or lacked business substance; (2) as a result, Jianpu's revenue and costs and expenses for fiscal 2018 and 2019 were overstated; (3) there were material weaknesses in Jianpu's internal control over financial reporting; (4) as a result of the foregoing, Jianpu's fiscal 2018 Form 20-F was reasonably likely to be restated; and (5) as a result, Jianpu's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.

To join the Jianpu class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2033.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] for information on the class action.

No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.

Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/.

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Contact Information:

Laurence Rosen, Esq.

Phillip Kim, Esq.

The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.

275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor

New York, NY 10016

Tel: (212) 686-1060

Toll Free: (866) 767-3653

Fax: (212) 202-3827

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.rosenlegal.com

SOURCE Rosen Law Firm, P.A.

Related Links

www.rosenlegal.com


STRASBOURG - Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic said in a report on migration that EU member states "must urgently change their migratory policies in the Mediterranean, because the current ones put in danger the lives and the respect for the rights of refugees and migrants".



"Many actions by member states appear to be aimed, implicitly or explicitly, at 'clearing the field' for interceptions of migrant boats by the Libyan Coast Guard," she said, referring also to the accords signed by Italy and Malta with Libya, to Operation Irini and the actions against NGOs.



The report analyses what has been done in the past year and a half by countries to protect the lives and rights of migrants and refugees who cross the Mediterranean, also following the list of recommendations on how to manage migrant flows published by Mijatovic. "Despite some limited progress, the human rights situation in the Mediterranean remains deplorable," she said.



"Shipwrecks continue to be worryingly recurrent", while the "growing disengagement of states' naval capacity from the Mediterranean and the increasing obstruction of NGO rescue activities, together with decisions to delay disembarkation and the failure to assign safe ports, have undermined the integrity of the search and rescue system".



Mijatovic said all of this has led to "nearly 20,000 migrants and refugees being brought back to Libya", where there is "clear evidence of very serious violations of human rights".



"It is high time for European countries to put an end to this shameful tragedy", Mijatovic said, calling on member states to urgently restore their naval rescue operations and put an end to all activities that expose migrants and refugees to the risk of having to return to countries in which their rights are violated.



She said European governments must also ensure rapid disembarkation of rescued persons at safe ports, allow NGOs to operate and expand legal ways for people to reach Europe.
Webinar: Cultural Connections with Iran

03/09/21

Source: Iran Heritage Foundation

Organised by: The Iran Heritage Foundation



Date: Wednesday 10th March, 17.30 (London, GMT)

Online webinar

Join us on 10 March for a webinar on 'Cultural Connections with Iran' https://t.co/VxxbPZp71v  Iran Heritage (IHF) (@Iran_Heritage) February 22, 2021

Description

This webinar will focus on why it is so important to develop and maintain cultural contacts with Iran, a country often seen through a political lens. The discussion panel consists of four people with extensive experience in this area: Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum; Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, Curator of Middle Eastern Coins at the British Museum; Jon Snow of Channel 4 News; and Mahrukh Tarapor, former Associate Director at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. They will review recent cultural contacts and consider ways in which these can be built on and expanded in the future. The discussion will be chaired by John Curtis, Academic Director of the Iran Heritage Foundation.



Biographies

Neil MacGregor was the Director of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015, during which time the museum held many blockbuster exhibitions, including two major shows about Iran: 'Forgotten Empire: the World of Ancient Persia' and 'Shah Abbas: the Remaking of Iran'. He is also known for his popular BBC Radio 4 series 'A History of the World in 100 Objects', also published as a book. After leaving the British Museum he became the Founding Director of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, which opened digitally in December 2020.

Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis has been Curator of Middle Eastern Coins at the British Museum since 2005. She is a member of the IHF's Academic Grants Committee and is Vice-President of the British Institute of Persian Studies. She is also Joint Director of the International Parthian Coin Project, a collaborative research project involving major international museums with important Parthian coin collections, such as Tehran, Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna and New York. She has written several publications, including co-authoring two volumes on Sasanian coins as part of a project with the National Museum of Iran (NMI).

Jon Snow is one of the UK's best-known news presenters and has been the face of Channel 4 News since 1989. He has reported from all over the world and has visited Iran several times, most recently in February 2020. He has an interest in Iranian history and culture, and took part in IHF's 2015 conference 'From Persepolis to Isfahan: Safeguarding Cultural Heritage' on a panel, together with Neil MacGregor. He has won several awards, including the Richard Dimbleby Bafta award for Best Factual Contribution to Television (2005), and Royal Television Society awards for Journalist of the Year (2006) and Presenter of the Year (2009).

Mahrukh Tarapor has been a leading figure for more than three decades in collaborations among cultural institutions, governments and museums. She is the former Associate Director for Exhibitions and Director for International Affairs for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She defined a leading role for the Metropolitan in the international exchange of scholarship and works of art, negotiating landmark loans worldwide for ambitious and acclaimed exhibitions. 

Ticket & info:

This is a free online talk. Register here.

For further inquiries please contact info@iranheritage.org.

About:



The Iran Heritage Foundation is a non-political UK registered charity with the mission to promote and preserve the history, languages and cultures of Iran and the Persianate world. The objectives of the Foundation are achieved by organising and supporting activities of cultural or scholarly merit. IHF programmes include sponsoring teaching posts and fellowships at universities and museums, giving grants for academic research and cultural activities, and organising regular events and conferences, both in the United Kingdom and abroad. is a non-political UK registered charity with the mission to promote and preserve the history, languages and cultures of Iran and the Persianate world. The objectives of the Foundation are achieved by organising and supporting activities of cultural or scholarly merit. IHF programmes include sponsoring teaching posts and fellowships at universities and museums, giving grants for academic research and cultural activities, and organising regular events and conferences, both in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Please Support the Iran Heritage Foundation

You can help us to continue our work and activities, and any donations would be gratefully received, especially in these challenging times. IHF depends on the generosity of individuals and corporations for its funding and does not accept donations from any government or political organisations. Click here to donate.
The Denver firm provides round-the-clock security for businesses from Colorado and beyond. Its not surprising that vandals would target a vulnerable construction site such as a school, and the only way to truly protect a site from petty criminal activity is to host around-the-clock security.

A December 23 article on NBC12 Richmond reports on a particularly expensive bout of vandalism that occurred at the construction site of an elementary school in Chesterfield, Virginia. The article notes that the extensive damages are estimated to cost more than $20,000. As of the time of the articles publishing, no suspects had been named. Denver-based security firm United Protective Services LLC says that its not surprising that vandals would target a vulnerable construction site such as a school, and the only way to truly protect a site from petty criminal activity is to host around-the-clock security.

United Protective Services says that petty criminals rarely target locations that have some sort of authoritative presence, whether it be private security or local police. Instead, most will look for locations that offer some element of secrecy, such as a construction site during off-hours or an abandoned structure. The security firm notes that construction sites, in particular, tend to offer a lot to criminals because the areas are generally easy to enter and valuable equipment and materials are abundant.

Public police forces cannot monitor all areas all the time, so construction site security patrol services offer the best solution for ongoing protection, the firm notes. By having private security, United Protective Services continues, most criminals are discouraged from targeting a protected property. This policy of deterrence is the first step towards protecting an area.

United Protective Services says that some criminals will still try and beat deterrence measures by finding cracks in a security patrols route or posting. This is where state-of-the-art communications and surveillance equipment comes into play. The security firm notes that with clear CCTV footage thats reviewable in real time, security teams can monitor and respond to potential disturbances right away. Plus, video evidence can help identify criminals and serve as evidence.

United Protective Services adds that deterrence and comprehensive surveillance are only parts of the full equation thoughresponse is equally as important. A quality security firm should only hire from the best candidate pool, carefully choosing recruits with an experienced background and calm demeanor. The firm says that in the unlikely event that deterrence fails, being able to trust hired security teams to handle issues properly is paramount for everyones safety, including would-be troublemakers. Quality security will be able to appropriately respond to any given event, the firm concludes.

Readers can learn more about United Protective Services LLC by calling (720) 900-9101 or by visiting https://www.unitedprotectiveservicesllc.com/.


Workers compensation insurers arent getting the large aggregate volumes of COVID-related claims projected during the early months of the pandemic, but different data sources give varying readouts on developments for individual U.S. states and classes of workers.

In fact, while claim frequencies are down for workers compensation overall with business shutdowns bringing lower numbers of non-COVID claims, and while the bulk of COVID comp claims are short-duration, low-dollar claims, some insurers have paid out claims that were $2 million or more for health care workers infected on the job

And the length of tail of COVID-related comp claims is far from certain, experts said during a webinar last Thursday.

In a single week in January, Teresa Bartlett, chief medical officer for Sedgwick, said more than 10 people called her who had tested positive for COVID last summer. They were young people in their 30s. Suddenly sitting at their desks working, [they] developed shortness of breath, really severe headaches and profound [levels] of hypertension, just out of the blue, she reported during the opening minutes of the webinar, COVID Claims Development: Workers Compensation and Beyond.

Kimberly George, global head of Product Development and Innovation for Sedgwick, co-hosted the webinar with Mark Walls, vice president of Communications and Strategic Analysis with Safety National as part of the Out Front Ideas webinar series.

Reporting on the results of a study of 4,000 people in the U.S., Bartlett said that 50 percent were unable to work full time six months after they tested positive for COVID, even though only 8 percent of those people actually were hospitalized.

She reported on symptoms ranging from fatigue to attention disorders to breathing difficulties based on a larger volume of research, noting that 80 percent of 50,000 patients infected with COVID develop one or more long-term symptoms.

While the symptoms, for the most part, might keep people out of work rather than contributing to a workers comp claim, there is a lot of uncertainty.

We dont know quite yet from the literature if this virus is lying dormant in the tissue for a little while and then suddenly something activates it. Theres more that we dont know than what we do know, she said, expressing particular concern for health care workers

These front-line workers who resiliently keep going on the front lines every day may be suffering from PTSD, Im a little worried what will happen with these folks. Its something we have to be very mindful of in our industry and be prepared for how we will deal with it.

Walls noted that workers comp claims data for health care workers is one of the categories thats largely missing from data reported by the National Council on Compensation Insurance, which hosted its own webinar in January 2021.

A significant portion of the health care industry is self-insured, Walls said, explaining that self-insureds, for the most part, do not report their data to any of the bureaus. Displaying a chart from the Bureau of Labor statistics that shows the top 20 industries by employment nationwide, he highlighted the education sector as well as federal, state and local governments as other sectors of the economy that are mostly self-insured, collectively representing over 30 percent of the jobs in the top 20 industries.

Walls also noted that while NCCI covers most states, it does not cover the largest states, including California and New York. NCCIs data represents less than half of all workers compensation data nationwide, he said.

Alex Swedlow, president of the California Workers Compensation Institute, filled in the one of the gaps, reporting recent data for California. Max Koonce, chief claims officer for Sedgwick, and Tim Stanger, a vice president in the claims department of Safety National, were able to provide data on the self-insured businesses. Safety National is largest provider of excess coverage for qualified self-insured entities, Stanger said.

Californias Experience

Swedlow noted the scary early multibillion-dollar California comp estimates coming out in the second quarter of last year.

Reporting on actual COVID-19 infections and deaths in the state and actual workers comp claims, he said that injured workers between the ages 18 and 65 made up about 78 percent of the states infections and about one-quarter of all the fatalities. The actual number of workers compensation claims was a small fraction. Only about 4.7 percent of the working-age Californians who were infected had a corresponding workers compensation claim, and roughly 5.6 percent of the fatalities among working-age Californians had an accompanying workers compensation claim, he said.

This shows you just how wrong those original estimates were by focusing on what we all thought was a reasonable proxy, the working-age Californian, he commented.

Swedlow drilled down into comp claims data by industry, noting a change in the distribution of claims for the first half of 2020 claims compared to more recent claimsfrom October 2020 through January 2021. In the earlier time period, 39 percent of these COVID-related claims were from the health care sector compared 29 percent more recently. While the percentage of claims from first responders (public safety/government workers) stayed around 15-16 percent in both time periods, retail workers now represent 12.5 percent of infections compared to 7.9 percent in first-half 2020, and transportation workers are 8 percent of the total, double what they were earlier in the year.

Self-Insured and Work From Home

Stanger and Koonce both reported waves of claims in April, July and December of last year, with a December frequency peak surpassing earlier levels.

Overall, Safety Nationals claims, excluding the COVID claims, were down 26 percent from 2019, Stanger said, after revealing that public entities, health care networks and educational institutions account for 50 percent of the insurers excess comp book of business. Including COVID claims, the number of claims dropped about 10 percent compared to 2019.

Stanger and other panelists said they expect that number to continue to decrease as more claims data gets through reporting systems

Stanger also presented claims data by age of worker, reporting that 85 percent of Safety Nationals claims related to workers aged 20-55 and that the average incurred amount of the claims was roughly $4,300.

In contrast, comp claims for workers over the age of 55 had an average cost more than three times higherabout $15,000with co-morbidities and other factors complicating the disease progression.

Most Severe Claims

Focusing in on the most severe claims, Stanger said that 63 percent of Safety Nationals COVID death claims were for workers over the age of 55, and just over half were in the health care industry. He provided details of four catastrophic health care worker claims, each costing more than $2 million, including one in which the injured persons reaction to the COVID-19 infection included renal failure, brain injury and eventually quadriplegia.

Counting up all of Safety Nationals COVID claims with incurred amounts over $100,000, he said that 15 percent of those were actually above $1 milliona mix of deaths and extended ICU hospitalizations.

Koonce said that while only 11 percent of Sedgwicks total book of business relates to the health care industry, the industry represented half of the firms overall claim count.

Breaking down the overall claims by level of severity, he said that 90 percent of Sedgwicks COVID clomp claims require little medical treatment or time away from work, while another 8 percent are moderately complex, involving about six weeks away from work and medical visits costing $3,000 to $5,000.

The vast, vast majority of claims are of a short duration. Generally, theyre pretty well wrapped up within 60 days, he said. The severest cases, roughly 1.5 percent, involve significant time away from worka half a year, on average, involving expensive ICU treatment.

Koonce also said that he sees a higher rate of ICU hospitalizations for workers in the health care industry. Were not exactly sure why that is occurring, but it is important to note that its a three- or four-point increase over other industries, he said.

Koonce closed by noting that theres another small pool of workers comp claims emerging from the COVID pandemic.

Although it was a very low number to begin with, we are seeing an increase in the work from home claims, he said. Those are not directly COVID claims, he said, but they are ticking up from a small base, centering around ergonomic type issuesmy back hurts because Ive been sitting in my kitchen chair all day, those types of things.
The discussion on the Governors speech will take place on March 17 and finance minister T. Harish Rao will present the Budget on March 18.  (Image: Twitter/@trsharish)

Hyderabad: The Budget session of the Telangana Legislature will commence on March 15 and the Budget will be presented on March 18. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan issued a notification to this effect on Tuesday.

Official sources said the session will commence with the address by the Governor to the joint meeting of the Assembly and the Legislative Council. The following day there would be a condolence resolution on the demise of sitting MLA Nomula Narasimhaiah and former MLAs.

The discussion on the Governors speech will take place on March 17 and finance minister T. Harish Rao will present the Budget on March 18. The session is likely to conclude on March 31.
State

Condolences for NDPP women wing chief

Late Visevonuo Bebi Tsurho

DIMAPUR, MAR 9 (NPN) | Publish Date: 3/9/2021 1:07:19 PM IST

The ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) founding member and women wing president Visevonuo Bebi Tsurho passed away on Tuesday at Naga Hospital Authority Kohima after a brief illness. She was 52 years.

Late Bebi also served as the principal of Kohima Law College and member of the State Juvenile Justice Board.

Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio, deputy chief minister and BJP Legislature Party leader Y. Patton, NDPP president Chingwang Konyak and others condoled her demise.

CM: Nagaland chief minister, Neiphiu Rio said he was extremely shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden demise of Mrs. Visevonuo Bebi Tsurho, president NDPP women Organisation.

Rio said that late Bebi was a dedicated member of the party and was instrumental in founding the NDPP from the time of the partys inception.

Late Bebi also made significant contributions towards the upliftment of women, development of women empowerment and gender equality and led the women organisation of the party with exemplary leadership, dedication, loyalty and honesty, Rio said.

As the principal of Kohima Law College, Rio said she served with utmost sincerity and was known as an excellent teacher and administrator, responsible for moulding students and grooming young minds for a better society.

Rio said that her sacrifices and contributions towards the good of others will always be remembered for all times to come. As a close family friend and relative, Rio said late Bebi was always supportive and stood with them in their common journey of serving the people.

We will miss her presence, her guidance and her friendship, he added.

Rio said the party has lost a prominent leader and the society bids farewell to a person who had so much more to contribute , adding the vacuum created will be difficult to fill.

Rio, joined by his family, conveyed deepest condolences to the bereaved family, members of the NDPP, faculty and students of Kohima Law College and all well wishers.

Rio also prayed that the Almighty God grant eternal rest to the departed soul and provide solace to the bereaved family members.

Dy.CM: State deputy chief minister and state BJP legislature party leader, Y Patton, has expressed sadness over the demise of Visevonuo Bibe Tsurho, NDPP president women wing and Kohima Law college principal in Kohima on March 9, 2021.

In a condolence message, Patton said that late Visevonuo was an active NDPP party worker, an educator and a feminist, who made significant contributions in all the paths she walked. Patton said her demise was a great loss to the family and the Nagas.

The deputy chief minister, on behalf of the state BJP legislatures, has conveyed heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family and prayed for the departed soul to rest in eternal peace.

NDPP president: NDPP president Chingwang Konyak and the party rank and file expressed deep shock and pain at the news of the sudden demise of Visevonuo Bebi Tsurho, NDPP Women Organisation president on Tuesday.

In his condolence message, Chingwang Konyak said late Bebi was a dedicated party member who was instrumental in founding the NDPP and contributed immensely towards the upliftment and development of women empowerment and gender equality. Chingwang noted that she headed the women organisation with leadership, dedication, loyalty and honesty.

The NDPP in general and the women organisation in particular have lost a mother and a mentor who dedicated herself in the growth and progress of the party in all fronts, he said adding that her passing away has created a vacuum that will be difficult to fill.

The party prayed that the Almighty grant eternal rest to madams soul; and may God provide solace to the members of the bereaved family.

Kronu: Minister for planning & co-ordination, land revenue, parliamentary affairs, Neiba Kronu said he was extremely shocked to hear about the sad and untimely demise of Visevonuo Bebi Tsurho.

Kronu said that late Bebi was a committed and dedicated leader who had rendered her best services for the organisation during her short period with the party. In her demise we have lost a good member and a remarkable woman leader, Kronu said and conveyed heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members and for the departed soul to rest in eternal peace.

Bongkhao: Advisor DUDA, N. Bongkhao Konyak expressed pain over the demise of Visevonuo Bebi Tsurho.

In his condolence note, Bongkhao described late Bebi as an empowered women, an inspiration to many, a humble soul, a teacher and a guide as she served in various capacities and also led the women folks in NDPP party as president central women organization.

On behalf of NDPP Tobu area and on his own behalf, Bongkhao conveyed heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family and prayed for the departed soul to rest in eternal peace.

NDPP youth body: NDPP Youth Organisation said it was deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the untimely demise of Visevonuo Bebi Tsurho, president NDPP Women Organisation.

Youth wing president Kelhouneizo Yhome said late Bebi was a leader with vast knowledge and experience. Her dedicated and unquenchable zeal to serve the public particularly standing for women rights and causes have always been an inspiration to all, he said.

Stating that her leadership as a woman was exemplary and unparalleled, which will always be remembered, Yome said her untimely demise was indeed a great loss to the party and the vacuum left will be difficult to replaced.

The youth wing rank and file conveyed heartfelt condolences and prayed that God Almighty grant peace and comfort to the bereaved family during this hour of grief and for the departed soul rest in peace.

KLC: The administration, teaching/non-teaching staff and students community of Kohima Law College (KLC) expressed deep pain and shock at the untimely demise of the college principal Ms.Visevonuo (Bebi).

KLC media cell said that late Bebi joined the college as a lecturer in 1996 and became the first and only lady law college principal in Nagaland from 2006 till date.

KLC said she was the pillar of strength and authority for college administration, for the staff, she was the best friend, and the students, she was principal, teacher, parent and friend rolled into one.

Her formidable physical presence and commanding voice belied the loving, caring and sensitive soul within, KLC said, adding for her, the problems and cares of those around her came first and hers last.

Her contribution and love for the college would remain fresh in the minds of every college family member and many past pupils remain grateful to her for what they are today, KLC said.

Though the college has lost a wonderful soul who dedicated her life to teach what is right and values of humanity, KLC said the college as a family also celebrates for her good life though it was brief.

The college fraternity prayed that her soul rest in eternal peace and also conveyed sincere condolences to the bereaved family members especially late Bebis aged father and mother and assured them their prayer to let Almighty God grant them solace in time of grief.

Kiphire region: NDPP Kiphire Region rank and file expressed shock and pain over the demise of Visevonuo Bebi, president NDPP women organization.

NDPP Kiphire region president Tsaseto Sangtam and general secretary Atsoba Anar said that the passing away of Visevonuo Bebi has left an indelible mark in the party, especially the central NDPP women organization. The region along with all its frontal, youth and women organizations conveyed heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members and prayed that God Almighty grant strength and solace to the family members and for the departed soul to rest in peace.

NLSF: Expressing deep shock and grief over the sudden and untimely demise of Kohima law college principal Visevonuo (Bebi), the Nagaland Law Students Federation (NLSF) said she was an excellent lecturer, a principal and a nicest human being the students ever came across.

In a condolence message, NLSF president C Talimoa and general secretary Dieku Wetsah said her demise was indeed a sad day for the law students of the state. The federation stated that the outstanding contribution she made to the law students is and was an ineffable. Her passing away, NLSF said was a great loss for the law students of the state and an irreparable loss to the federation, adding that the void caused by her death would be difficult to fill.

NLSF has conveyed deepest condolences to the members of the bereaved family and prayed that Almighty God grant them strength and solace during this time of grief.

NDPP 5 Ghaspani-II A/C: Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) 5 Ghaspani II assembly constituency along with advisor sericulture, excise & minority affairs Zhaleo Rio, MLA, have expressed shock over the sudden demise of Visevonuo Bebi Tsurhuo.

In a condolence message, NDPP 5 Ghaspani-II A/C president Dosau Kuotsu and general secretary Tokihe Zhimo described late Tsurhuo as a simple, humble and efficient leader of the masses and said she always prioritised for the uplift of women.

While mourning her demise, the party prayed that the living God grant solace to the bereaved family and bless them to brave the void left by her.
Lucknow, March 9 : The Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh will launch a campaign to convince people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and prevent the resurgence of the corona cases.

State BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh said the campaign will be carried out with the help of party organisational leaders, MLAs and MPs.

"Vaccination is one of the key steps in mitigating the pandemic completely," he told reporters.

Singh said that party workers had been asked to spread awareness about the benefits of getting vaccinated and also clear the misconceptions about the side effects of the vaccine.

"Now that the President of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have got themselves vaccinated, there should be no hesitation in the minds of people," he said.

The move is also being seen as the party's effort to reach out to the people in the run up to the Panchayat elections and next year's Assembly elections.

"The party workers have worked in tandem with the state government in helping people when pandemic was at its peak. Whether it is providing ration to the needy or helping the migrants, party workers have done their best. They will now remove the hesitation over vaccine too," he said.
The Cape May County sheriff is continuing a nearly three-year-long scrum with the state of New Jersey over the Trump administrations federal immigration policy.

The sheriffs office has filed an appeal to a federal court dismissal of a lawsuit challenging state policy to not empower local corrections and law enforcement officers to turn over or otherwise funnel undocumented detainees to federal immigration officials.

Requests to the sheriffs office for comment were not returned.

The Trump administration had instituted a procedure for local officials to check the immigration status of some detainees who may have been apprehended for offenses including traffic violations.

The state restricts what police can tell federal immigration officers, but doesnt bar all cooperation. For example, cooperation is allowed for detainees facing criminal charges.

A federal District Court judge sided with the state in July and dismissed the lawsuits. But Cape May filed an appeal to the ruling earlier this month.

The Attorney Generals Office declined to comment on the appeal late last week. But the AG issued a statement in February when some other state and local governments filed legal briefs in support of barring local law enforcement officials from being deputized for federal immigration enforcement.

New Jerseys Immigrant Trust Directive helps police fulfill their important responsibilities by drawing a clear line between state and local law enforcement and federal civil immigration officers, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said. Our Immigrant Trust Directive thus ensures that anyone will feel comfortable coming forward to New Jersey law enforcement as the victim of or witness to a crime, whatever their immigration status.

Under the directive, which applies to every law enforcement official in the state, any agency looking to work with ICE needs to provide documentation to the attorney general justifying why such a deal is necessary.

Police officers may not ask about a suspects immigration status and jails may not hold on to certain nonviolent offenders because federal agents want to arrest them.

Cape May, Ocean and Monmouth counties argued those limits were illegal and sued. The Justice Department joined their lawsuit and then filed its own complaint, making a similar case that the restrictions hurt public safety and prevented the federal government from enforcing immigration law.

Federal officers have said they were repeatedly blocked from getting information about people who may be in the U.S. illegally, according to the lawsuit, including some who had been charged or convicted of invasion of privacy or making terroristic threats.

Staff writers S.P. Sullivan and Blake Nelson contributed to this report.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
(Photo : Screenshot From Pexels Official Website) [Update] Researchers Investigating SolarWinds Hack Finds Possible Link to China: Supernova Malware Detected

Researchers working in the Counter Threat Unit or CTU over at Secureworks have recently discovered a new and possible link towards China while still examining just how SolarWinds servers were apparently used to deploy critical malware.

.NET Supernova malware

According to an article by TechRadar, during the end of last year, a particularly compromised internet-facing SolarWinds server was reportedly used as a sort of springboard by hackers in order to deploy the cunning .NET web shell Supernova malware. Based on other similar intrusions that occurred on the reported same network, it actually appears that the Chinese-based Spiral threat group is now thought to be responsible for both of the cases.

The authentication bypass vulnerability in the given SolarWinds Orion API was tracked as CVE-2020-10148 and also can lead to other remote execution of the said API commands have reportedly been exploited by Spiral actively, according to Secureworks' report. When vulnerable servers are first detected then exploited, a new script that is capable of writing the whole Supernova web shell to disk is then deployed using a new PowerShell command.

Advanced web shell used

The Supernova is reportedly written in .NET and is an advanced web shell capable of maintaining persistence even on a compromised machine as well as able to still compile certain methods, arguments, and also code data in-memory. This was according to a post coming from Palo Alto Network's very own Unit 42.

During a particular incident that was observed by Secureworks that recently occurred some time last August, Supernova was reportedly used by Spiral in order to perform some kind of reconnaissance, domain mapping in order to be able to steal both the credentials and the information coming from ManageEngine ServiceDesk server. This particular incident actually shares some similarities to the recent one that had occurred some time in November and was also analyzed by the firm's very own Counter Threat Unit.

Chinese Spiral threat group

While the two reported cases are actually believed to be the work of the Chinese Spiral threat group, there is still no direct link tying it up to the enormouse SolarWinds hack that had happened some time in December of last year. In order to prevent falling victim towards future attacks by the Spiral threat group, Secureworks recommends that the high profile organizations use the available controls in order to restrict access to a number of IP addresses that point directly towards the threat group's reported C&C servers.

Read Also: SolarWinds' Largest Investors Sell $315 Million Shares Before the Massive Hack, SEC Starts Investigation

SolarWinds hack

According to an article by KrebsonSecurity, back in Dec 13, SolarWinds had actually acknowledged that the hackers had been able to insert malware directly into a service that had been providing software updates for its supposed Orion platform. The platform was reportedly a suite of products that were used well across the US government as well as other Fortune 500 firms in order to monitor the health of their very own IT networks.

On December 14, it was noted that roughly 33,000 of over 300,000 customers were actually Orion customers. It was also noted that less than 18,000 customers might have installed the Orion product containing a certian malicious code.

Related Article: [UPDATE] SolarWinds Executive Blames Intern for Leaking Company Password 'solarwinds123:' The Password Used Since 2017

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Urian Buenconsejo

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
LEELANAU COUNTY, MI -- A 27-year-old Ypsilanti woman was hospitalized after she crashed her car into a stand of trees following a chase Saturday evening that involved the woman hitting speeds of 100 MPH. According to the Leelanau County Sheriffs Officer, the woman -- how has not been identified -- was traveling along South Maple City Road near Kasson Road in Kasson Township around 8:29 p.m. when a deputy attempted to pull her over for her tail lights not being on.

As the deputy attempted to stop her, she sped away before slowing down at the intersection of South Maple City Road and East Traverse Highway. The deputy gave the woman verbal commands, but she was uncooperative and fled the scene again. This time the woman reached speeds of more than 100 MPH with the deputy following behind her heading westbound on East Traverse Highway.

The woman attempted to slow down in order to make a left-hand turn onto South Colman Road, but lost control of her car and crashed into the stand of trees. From there the deputy made contact with the woman to check on her, but she once again fled, this time on foot. She was eventually captured by the deputy and a member of the Michigan State Police who was assisting in the search.

The woman was found in a wooded area and taken into custody and transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. The case has been turned over to the Leelanau County Prosecutors Office for consideration of charges.

READ MORE:

First Michigan case of South African COVID-19 variant identified in Jackson County boy

High school student accidentally ignited homemade bomb, injuring 6, police say

Hunters find skeletal remains less than five miles from Lake Michigan

Chelsea High School senior killed while running on I-94
Buckingham Palace could face yet more damaging allegations from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's interview - with nearly two hours of footage not in the final edit.

Oprah Winfrey revealed yesterday that the full interview was three hours and 20 minutes long and was edited down to one hour and 25 minutes for the US broadcast.

The extra footage raises the prospect of CBS releasing more clips in the coming days and weeks, after first showing the full interview in the US on Sunday night.

CBS has already released a number of clips on its This Morning programme, including one yesterday which came out one day after the interview was shown.

Oprah Winfrey revealed on CBS This Morning yesterday that the full interview was three hours and 20 minutes long and was edited down to one hour and 25 minutes for the US broadcast

CBS This Morning is hosted by Oprah's close friend Gayle King and she appeared on it yesterday to talk about how it took her three years to secure the interview.

ITV bought the interview rights for the UK in a deal thought to be worth 1million, but there could be further footage for broadcasters to purchase if it is released.

Officials at Buckingham Palace are still yet to respond to Meghan and Harry's explosive interview, more than 24 hours after it first aired at 1am UK time on Monday.

Among the claims mde by the Sussexes are that a member of the Royal Family - not the Queen or Prince Philip - made a racist comment about their unborn son.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's interview with Oprah Winfrey was first shown on CBS

Oprah was left open-mouthed when the Duchess said a fellow royal was worried about how dark their son Archie's skin tone might be before he was born.

During the interview, Meghan suggested her son was not made a prince because of his race - although rules set by George V meant he was not entitled to be one.

She also spoke about having suicidal thoughts but her approaches to the monarchy for help were turned down.

The interview has been shown or is set to be broadcast in more than 70 countries in deals experts say will be worth 'a king's ransom'.

The interview with Oprah has been shown or is set to be broadcast in more than 70 countries

Countries that have been screening the show include Britain, Australia, Canada, about 40 nations in sub-Saharan Africa and even Iceland.

CBS is said to have charged advertisers 150,000 for a 30-second slot  meaning it could rake in millions over the course of the broadcast alone.

Royal biographer Andrew Morton said the fallout from the interview will 'shudder down through the generations in the same way that Diana's did'.

In her BBC interview in 1995, Harry's mother, Diana, the Princess of Wales, called royal officials 'the enemy' and questioned the Prince of Wales's suitability to be King.
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Hack: Microsoft and US authorities have blamed the initial wave of attacks on a Chinese government-backed actor. Photo: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Irish organisations are among those affected by a global hacking attack occurring through vulnerabilities in Microsofts email systems, according to leading Irish cyber security experts.

The hack is now known to have affected tens of thousands of organisations worldwide, including the European Banking Authority.

Its had a huge reach and there have been organisations in Ireland, both in the private and the public sector, that have been impacted, said Conor Flynn, chief executive of Isas, a Dublin-based IT security firm. It has been quite significant.

Some industry data compilations estimate that 30pc of Irish servers may be vulnerable to the IT security exploit, which is caused by gaps in the technology that lets Microsoft customers get access to their work email over the internet.

Microsoft Ireland, which oversees the companys European business, declined to comment on the Irish or European customers currently affected by the email vulnerability. It also declined to say whether it has informed the Irish Data Protection Commissioner about its email vulnerabilities.

It says that it has released patches for companies and organisations to protect themselves against the hacking attacks.

A spokesperson for the Data Protection Commissioner declined to say whether Microsoft had informed it of the breach.

There are probably a lot of companies who have not yet checked whether they have been compromised, said Brian Honan, CEO of the cyber security and data protection firm BH Consulting.

Many may not be aware of the urgency of the issue or are still waiting to roll out patches because their email servers are too critical.

Mr Honan advised companies to urgently patch their systems if they havent already done so.

According to IT security expert Brian Krebs, the hackers left an easy-to-use password-protected hacking tool called a web shell in infiltrated organisations, allowing them to return at a later date to get administrative access to the victims computer servers.

Microsoft and US authorities have blamed the initial wave of attacks on a Chinese government-backed actor. A Chinese government spokesman said the country was not behind the intrusions.

What started as a controlled attack late last year against a few classic espionage targets grew last month to a widespread campaign. More attacks are expected from other hackers as the code used to take control of the mail servers spreads.

All of those affected appear to run web versions of Microsofts email client Outlook and host them on their own machines, instead of relying on cloud providers.

Yesterday, the European Banking Authority said it had been targeted by hackers, although no data had been obtained and it was redoubling efforts to shield itself.
NSU swim coach Monanian moving on after four seasons

Monanian moves on to Purdue after accepting an assistant position at their program.
One Houston-area school district will no longer require masks for teachers and students.

Magnolia ISD's board of trustees voted Monday to end the district's mask mandate on April 1, three weeks after Texas' statewide mask mandate ends.

MASKS IN SCHOOLS: These Houston-area schools are maintaining their mask, social distancing policies

"This delay will allow teachers sufficient time to receive a vaccine, if they so choose, now that vaccines are available in Texas to teachers as a group," the resolution said.

Nine members of the community spoke out against masks ahead of the vote, KHOU's Grace White reports. One parent said she had pulled her daughter out of school in November because she didn't want her to be forced to wear a mask, but homeschooling has prevented her from being able to work.

"My thing is the psychological effect its going to have on them, also for all of us. It just doesnt make sense to cover our faces and not be able to breathe," Ashlee Gonzalez-Rios said, according to KHOU. "We have the authority to say, we dont feel good, we feel hot, little kids going to school dont have that authority."

Gonzalez-Rios said she would take her daughter back to school when she wouldn't be required to wear a mask.

"Whatever day they do, I would love to take her back," Gonzalez-Rios said. "She cried when she found out it was a possibility."

PACK A MASK: H-E-B clarifies mask policy, says customers will be 'expected' to wear masks in stores

KHOU also reports that the board of trustees surveyed teachers in the district and found 52 percent were in favor of ending the mask requirement. Seventy percent of teachers surveyed said they would be in favor of it after they had been vaccinated.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that the statewide mask mandate would end March 10, Chron's Jay R. Jordan reported. However, hundreds of businesses and numerous school districts in the Houston area are choosing to uphold mask and social distancing policies.
Uche, however, said he had only ever spoken with the Osundairos mother and a family friend, and he only told them that he could not represent the brothers since they had already hired a different lawyer.
Utica, N.Y. - A big 'Welcome Back' sign on the outside of Albany Elementary School in Utica said it all on Monday as elementary students throughout the district went back to in-person learning for the first time in nearly a year.

Albany Elementary School 5th grade teacher Jessica Wilks says the smiles on kids faces Monday morning meant the world to everyone who works in the district, "The smiles this morning, I can see them smiling through their masks walking through them down the hall, it was amazing, it was completely refreshing."

Wilks says it's a challenge for teachers as they have been used to teaching full virtual for a year, now they have to teach to in-person learning and virtual learning at the same time, "We're using different engagement strategies. Here in the classroom you can use your normal teacher strategies and then for the kids at home we're using the engagement strategy, the strategy that we have learned since remote began, any way to make them feel that they're still part of the team even if they're home, so that does take additional time. We're working really hard to make sure the kids at home are getting all that the kids here are getting."

Albany Elementary School Principal Alana Boylan says it's been a very busy couple of months for everyone preparing for this opening day, "Been a busy two months preparing for the return, lots of long hours and hard work from everybody involved but we're really happy to have them back."

Utica Schools Superintendent Bruce Karam says opening day went very smooth, "We had very minor things here and there, which we are making readjustments on in different buildings, but overall it went very smooth today. We wanted to have this in September, but now with the vaccine thats available and the 1.5% rolling rate for the last 10 days of infection, this is the perfect time to do it."

Because of social distancing and the physical size of classrooms, the elementary school students are split up into two groups.

Half went back on Monday, they will be in school on Mondays and Tuesdays. The other half will have in-person learning on Thursdays and Fridays.

Everyone is virtual on Wednesdays.

Karam says middle school students will go to hybrid learning in two weeks on March 22nd, and then the high school studeta few weeks after that.
A woman who was thrown into the boot of a car during an attempted abduction has said she still has nightmares about what would have happened if she had not got out of the vehicle.

Martin Gallagher (21) faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment over the terrifying incident near the Phoenix Park last year which he claimed was a "joke that went wrong".

He will be sentenced tomorrow morning after pleading guilty to assaulting and falsely imprisoning the 70-year-old victim while she was out for a morning walk on January 6, 2020.

At the time the woman was caring for her now deceased husband who had dementia and said she went through the aftermath ordeal without him being able to comfort her.

Dublin Circuit Court heard that she was walking along Blackhorse Avenue, Dublin 7, at around 7.45am when she came across a man standing beside a car with the boot open.

Det Gda Paul Kirwan gave evidence that as the victim passed by she was grabbed from behind and thrown into the boot of the car.

The court heard Martin Gallagher said nothing as he made three or four attempts to close the boot but couldn't as the woman's legs were dangling out.

The victim was then dragged out and Gallagher tried to put her into the back seat as she continued "kicking and screaming for her life".

After the struggle he then threw her face first to the ground towards a wall before fleeing the scene.

A passer-by on his way to work saw the incident and at first thought it was a man fighting with his child, before stopping and coming to the woman's aid.

She was taken back to her home and gardai later noted she had severe bruising to her eye sockets, a cut to her face and bruising to her shin bones.

Later that day at 5.45pm the accused was witnessed driving a car matching the description of the vehicle involved and arrested. At first he denied the allegations but later admitted them, claiming it was a joke that went wrong.

Gallagher told gardai he thought the victim was a friend that he wanted to frighten, who he only gave a first name. He told them: "I am really sorry for what I done. It was a joke that went wrong".

He also said that he had been drinking that day and the previous night while driving around the area.

The accused's DNA was later found on the victim's fingernails and he was later charged in relation to the incident.

In her victim impact statement the woman said that she still has nightmares and frightening thoughts "about what would have happened if I had not got out of that boot of that car."

She said that she was caring for her husband at the time who suffered with dementia and passed away last October.

"I've had to go through all of this and my husband couldn't even comfort me," she said in her statement read to the court by Det Sgt Maeve Ward.

"My husband didn't know why I was crying all the time and why my face was black, blue and swollen. When I think back to the life I had I can't stop crying," the woman said.

In mitigation Gallagher's defence counsel said that he had not previously come to the attention to gardai for criminality, having only one previous conviction for a speeding offence.

Counsel also said that Gallagher, of Rusheeney Avenue, Hartstown, Dublin, was remorseful for what he had done and that he was taking drugs at the time of the incident.

The court was told that the maximum sentence for assault causing harm was five years, while the max prison term for false imprisonment was life.

Judge Martin Nolan inquired about the height of the woman, in relation to claims Gallagher thought she was a male friend, and was told the victim is 5ft.

Judge Nolan said he would consider the matter overnight and would impose sentence tomorrow morning.




UPDATE: Police located the man, a police spokesman said Tuesday afternoon. The man was told his behavior alarmed residents and he agreed to to no longer approach children.

Evesham police are looking for a man who approached children twice in a five-day span and offered them compact discs.

Police said the first incident took place March 4 on Parkdale Place in the Ridings at Mayfair housing development when a child exited a school bus in the afternoon. An older, white man tried to hand the child a Disney CD before attempting to hand it to the childs mother, according to Lt. Joseph Friel.

Both refused to accept the CD, and then man left in a green Subaru, police said.

Four days later and one block away  on Lexington Circle  the same man pulled up in the same vehicle around 4 p.m and tried to strike up a conversation with three girls between ages 7 and 10 who were roller skating in front of a house, according to Friel.

He asked the girls if they liked music and if they were related before handing them a CD and driving away, police said. The man had a small dog in the vehicle, police noted.

Anyone who knows the identity of the man or has additional information is asked to call Evesham police at 856-983-1116 or phone the departments confidential tip Line at 856-983-4699. Tips can also be sent by email to Facebook@Eveshampd.org or by texting ETPDTIP to 847411.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[March 09, 2021] Tauriga Sciences Inc. Completes Payment for the Entirety of its Recently Announced - Largest Tauri-Gum Production Run in Company History

This Production Run Incorporates the Increased CBD & CBG Infusion Concentrations (25mg per Each Piece of Chewing Gum)

NEW YORK, NY, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Tauriga Sciences, Inc. (OTCQB: TAUG) (Tauriga or the Company), a revenue generating, diversified life sciences company, with a proprietary line of CBD & CBG infused Supplement chewing gums (Flavors: Pomegranate, Blood Orange, Peach-Lemon, Pear Bellini, Mint, Black Currant), additional product offerings, as well as an ongoing Pharmaceutical Development initiative, today announced that it has completed payment for the entirety of its recently announced, largest Tauri-Gum production run in Company history. The Company paid a total of $267,500 for this Production Run, resulting in the manufacture of between 70,000  72,000 Tauri-Gum blister packs (comprised of all 8 Tauri-Gum versions). Please see below, the total Productions Yields: 1) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 25mg CBD Infused / Pomegranate Flavor

2) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 25mg CBD Infused / Blood Orange Flavor

3) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 25mg CBG Infused / Peach-Lemon Flavor

4) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 60mg Vitamin C + 10mg Zinc / Pear Bellini Flavor

5) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 25mg CBD Infused / Mint Flavor

6) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 25mg CBG Infused / Black Currant Flavor

7) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 50mg Caffeine Infused / Cherry Lime Rickey Flavor

8) 8,750  9,000 Tauri-Gum Blister Packs 2,000 IUs Vitamin D3 Infused / Golden Raspberry Flavor

The Companys proprietary Tauri-Gum product line is comprised of 8 distinct Versions (5 of which are cannabinoid infused / 3 of which are cannabinoid-free). This product line is: Kosher Certified (Authority: Star-K), Halal Certified (Authority: Etimad), Vegan Formulated, Non-GMO, Gluten Free, Allergen Free, All-Natural Flavors, Lab Tested, No-THC, $10,000,000 Product Lability Insurance Coverage, 100% Made in the USA.



ABOUT TAURIGA SCIENCES INC. Tauriga Sciences, Inc. (TAUG) is a revenue generating, diversified life sciences company, engaged in several major business activities and initiatives. The company manufactures and distributes several proprietary retail products and product lines, mainly focused on the Cannabidiol (CBD) and Cannabigerol (CBG) Edibles market segment. The main product line, branded as Tauri-Gum, consists of a proprietary supplement chewing gum that is Kosher certified, Halal certified, and Vegan Formulated (CBD Infused Tauri-Gum Flavors: Mint, Blood Orange, Pomegranate), (CBG Infused Tauri-Gum Flavors: Peach-Lemon, Black Currant) & (Vitamin C + Zinc Immune Booster Flavor: Pear Bellini). The Companys commercialization strategy consists of a broad array of retail customers, distributors, and a fast-growing E-Commerce business segment (E-Commerce website: www.taurigum.com). Please visit our corporate website, for additional information, as well as inquiries, at http://www.tauriga.com

Complementary to the Companys retail business, is its ongoing Pharmaceutical Development initiative. This relates to the development of a proposed Pharmaceutical grade version of Tauri-Gum, for nausea regulation (specifically designed for the following indication: Patients Subjected to Ongoing Chemotherapy Treatment). On March 18, 2020, the Company announced that it had filed a provisional U.S. patent application covering its pharmaceutical grade version of Tauri-Gum. The Patent, filed with the U.S.P.T.O. is Titled MEDICATED CBD COMPOSITIONS, METHODS OF MANUFACTURING, AND METHODS OF TREATMENT. On December 18, 2020 the Company disclosed that it had entered into a Master Services Agreement with CSTI to lead the Company's clinical development efforts. The Company is headquartered in Wappingers Falls, New York. In addition, the Company operates a full time E-Commerce fulfillment center located in LaGrangeville, New York. DISCLAIMER -- Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 which represent managements beliefs and assumptions concerning future events. These forward-looking statements are often indicated by using words such as may, will, expects, anticipates, believes, hopes, believes, or plans, and may include statements regarding corporate objectives as well as the attainment of certain corporate goals and milestones. Forward-looking statements are based on present circumstances and on managements present beliefs with respect to events that have not occurred, that may not occur, or that may occur with different consequences or timing than those now assumed or anticipated. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in forward looking statements due to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, such as are not guarantees of general economic and business conditions, the ability to successfully develop and market products, consumer and business consumption habits, the ability to consummate successful acquisition and licensing transactions, fluctuations in exchange rates, and other factors over which Tauriga has little or no control. Many of these risks and uncertainties are discussed in greater detail in the Risk Factors section of Taurigas Form 10-K and other periodic filings made from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this release, and Tauriga assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Contact: Tauriga Sciences, Inc. 4 Nancy Court, Suite 4 Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 Chief Executive Officer Mr. Seth M. Shaw Email: sshaw@tauriga.com cell # (917) 796 9926 Company Instagram: @taurigum Personal Instagram: @sethsms47 Twitter: @SethMShaw Corp. Website: www.tauriga.com E-Commerce Website: www.taurigum.com Attachment 03_09_2021 PR Image



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The funeral mass of tragic dad Declan Reid who died after a kayaking accident on the River Barrow will take place in Dublin tomorrow morning.

The service in St Peter Apostle Church, Neilstown will take place after Declans funeral cortege passes along the Carlow Road, Emily Square and Leinster Street, Athy, at approximately at 9.20am.

People are welcome to stand along the route with social distancing being observed at all times. Funeral Mass can be viewed online from 11am.

The 34-year-old, who was due to become a father again, was out kayaking with his son at Ardreigh Lock near his family home last Sunday week.

When the kayak capsized, he managed to keep the boy (8) afloat and a passer-by jumped in and made it to the riverbank. But when he returned to save the father he could not be seen.

On Saturday, Gardai said they had recovered the body of a male, aged in his 30s at 4pm, following a search operation in the River Barrow, Co Kildare which had commenced on February 28.

A notice on RIP.ie said Declan is predeceased by his mother Patricia.

He will be sadly missed by his son Aaron, his partner Fiona, his father Paul, sister Roisin extended family, neighbours and friends, the notice reads.

In the condolences section one person has written: The ultimate sacrifice - you gave your life to save your son.

Expand Close Members of the Civil Defence search the River Barrow / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Members of the Civil Defence search the River Barrow

Sincere sympathy to Paul, Roisin, Fiona and extended family and friends for your sad loss, adds another. May Declan rest in peace.

Another message reads: Fiona, Aaron, family & friends. My heart breaks for you. You are in my prayers & thoughts. Fiona as neighbours & friends we are here for you. Declan would be so proud of you, you are so strong. He will always be with you.

Scott McQuaid (23), from Athy in Co Kildare, told last week how he walking nearby when he heard the cries for help from the water. He had taken lifeguard training so was able to assist.

Read More

We were at the lock and I heard the young boy crying for help. I barely had time to get my shoes off and went into the river, and as I got towards the middle of the river he either kicked towards me or his dad pushed him to me, Im not sure, he said.

The river was fast and high, and the current seemed to be pulling everything into the middle and down towards Carlow. The boy and his dad got separated from the kayak, and I got the boy and started making it towards the riverbank, but the current kept pulling us back towards the middle.

At one stage I was shouting for help too. It took me around ten minutes to get the boy to the bank. He was calling for his dad, and he had taken on water, but I kept his head up and kept talking to him.

He went quiet for a few minutes and he was kicking in the water to help me get to the bank. When we got there we were too tired to get out. We had to stand in the water at the edge for a few minutes to recover, he added.

There were a few people on the riverbank, and the people in the house had called the emergency services, but we couldnt see the lads dad anywhere. His father had jumped in to try to get him but he had to swim back. The current was too much, said Scott, who had taken lifeguard training when he was younger.




Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
Subsidiary Western Rare Earths will drill to double the depth of the current resource in a program with nine drill holes to 61 metres each planned  thats 50% more than the six holes originally announced.

s ( ) (FRA:1BHA) wholly-owned US subsidiary, Western Rare Earths, has received all the necessary permits and approvals to begin its 2021 core drilling campaign at the La Paz Scandium and Rare Earth Project in Arizona, USA.

Core samples from the program will have two major purposes - to explore the opportunity to expand and upgrade the resource in size and grade and, secondly, to provide material for advanced metallurgical test-work by proven traditional methods as well as promising high-efficiency new technologies.

The company plans to drill to double the depth of the current resource in a program with nine drill holes to 61 metres each  thats 50% more than the six holes originally announced.

The drilling is set to commence on March 12, 2021.

Larger and deeper drilling

Chief technical consultant and consulting geologist Jim Guilinger stated in the 2020 JORC 2012-compliant technical report that a detailed review of the previous drilling at different elevations indicates opportunity for more than 60 metres thickness of higher-grade rare earths values in the lower plate gneiss.

Thus, the topography lends itself to the opportunity to substantially increase the resource by deeper drilling in the lower plate, where higher grade rare earths are prevalent.

This analysis supports the plan for a core drilling campaign to 61-metre depths.

In addition to further exploring the maiden resource area, the expanded campaign allows for reconnaissance at depth in the new project areas southwest of the maiden resource.

This may indicate the possibility that the ore body extends several kilometres as indicated by robust surface sample results similar to those in the maiden resource area.

Potential scandium opportunity

In the technical report, Guilinger recommended that it is imperative that better quality samples in the form of cores be drilled in select high-grade areas previously identified by the percussion drilling.

Additionally, scandium recovery needs to be investigated.

Scandium values tend to be high also in areas of high ppm TREE so the drilling will also likely identify a scandium resource greater than 11 parts per million (ppm).

After the planned 2021 drilling program we expect to be able to upgrade the rare earths resource and separately establish a maiden resource for scandium.

The company will utilise the core drill assay results from this drilling campaign to determine if a maiden scandium resource can be established, concomitant and additional to the projects resource estimate of 128.2 million tonnes at 373.4 ppm (0.037%) Total Rare Earth Elements (TREE).

La Paz proposed drill hole locations.

Government flags scandium as critical

Developing a new scandium resource estimate in the United States is attractive to the company for several reasons.

According to the US Geological Surveys 2021 Mineral Commodity Summaries publication: Domestically, scandium was neither mined nor recovered from process streams or mine tailings in 2020.

Limited capacity to produce ingot and distilled scandium metal existed at facilities in Ames, IA; Tolleson, Arizona.

Notably, Tolleson, Arizona is only 200 kilometres from the La Paz Project site.

Additionally, scandium, along with rare earths, was identified by the US Government on its final list of critical minerals (targeting mineral commodities that are vital to the nation's security and economic prosperity) pursuant to a 2017 Presidential Executive Order.

Friendly jurisdiction

The project has the advantage of being in a Fraser Institute global Top 10 mining-friendly jurisdiction in Arizona and is one of the very few mining asset classes referenced favourably by the Biden Administration.

Additionally, the local community of La Paz County has been supportive, supplying the water needed by the drilling crew in short order at a fair market price and making the project a top priority for support due to the potential for bringing jobs to a high poverty area.

La Paz Economic Development Corporation president and CEO Vincent Becker said: The La Paz Rare Earth Project is critical to the development of Laz Paz County, the town of Parker, Bouse, Quartzsite, Salome, and Wenden.

La Paz Rare Earths Project has the potential to create between 200 to 400 plus quality high paying jobs that leave a permanent positive impact on the La Paz County region.

The economic impact of the La Paz Rare Earth Project will be felt throughout Arizona and the United States as this project addresses the constrained critical minerals and rare earth supply chain used by the US Defence Department and renewable energy industries operating in Arizona.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Philadelphia, March 9, 2021 - Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder that disrupts brain activity producing hallucinations, delusions, and other cognitive disturbances. Researchers have long searched for genetic influences in the disease, but genetic mutations have been identified in only a small fraction--fewer than a quarter--of sequenced patients. A new study now shows that "somatic" gene mutations in brain cells could account for some of the disease neuropathology.

The study, led by senior author Jeong Ho Lee, MD, PhD, at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the team of Stanley Medical Research Institute, appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.

Traditional genetic mutations, called germline mutations, occur in sperm or egg cells and are passed on to offspring by their parents. Somatic mutations, in contrast, occur in an embryo after fertilization, and they can appear throughout the body or in isolated pockets of tissues, making them much harder to detect from blood or saliva samples, which are typically used for such sequencing studies.

Recently, more-advanced genetic sequencing techniques have allowed researchers to detect somatic mutations, and studies have shown that even mutations present at very low levels can have functional consequences. A previous study hinted that brain somatic mutations were associated with schizophrenia (SCZ), but it was not powerful enough to cement such an association.

In the current study, the researchers used deep whole-exome sequencing to determine the genetic code of all exomes, the parts of genes that encode proteins. The scientists sequenced postmortem samples from 27 people with schizophrenia and 31 control participants both from brain and from liver, heart or spleen tissue, allowing them to compare the sequences in the two tissues. Using a powerful analytic technique, the team identified an average of 4.9 somatic single-nucleotide variants (SNV), or mutations, in brain samples from people with SCZ and 5.6 somatic SNVs in brain samples from control subjects.

Although there was no significant quantitative difference in somatic SNVs between SCZ and control tissues, the researchers found that the mutations in SCZ patients were found in genes already associated with SCZ. Of the germline mutations that had previously been associated with schizophrenia, the genes affected encoding proteins associated with synaptic neural communication, particularly in a brain region called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

The researchers then determined which proteins might be affected by the newly identified somatic mutations. Remarkably, a protein called GRIN2B emerged as highly affected, and two patients with SCZ carried somatic mutations on the GRIN2B gene itself. GRIN2B is a protein component of NMDA-type glutamate receptors, which are critical for neural signaling. Faulty glutamate receptors have long been suspected to contribute to SCZ pathology; GRIN2B ranks among the most-studied genes in schizophrenia.

John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said of the work, "The genetics of schizophrenia has received intensive study for several decades. Now a new possibility emerges, that in some cases, mutations in the DNA of brain cells contributes to the biology of schizophrenia. Remarkably this new biology points to an old schizophrenia story: NMDA glutamate receptor dysfunction. Perhaps the path through which somatic mutations contribute to schizophrenia converges with other sources of abnormalities in glutamate signaling in this disorder."

Dr. Lee and the team next wanted to assess the functional consequences of the somatic mutations. Because of the location of the GRIN2B mutations found in SCZ patients, the researchers hypothesized that they might interfere with the receptors' localization on neurons. Experiments in cortical neurons from mice showed that the mutations indeed disrupted the receptors' usual localization to dendrites, the "listening" ends of neurons, which in turn prevented the formation of normal synapses in the neurons. The finding suggests that the somatic mutations could disrupt neural communication, contributing to SCZ pathology.

The somatic mutations identified in the study had a variant allele frequency of only about 1 percent, indicating that the mutations were rare among brain cells as a whole. Nevertheless, they have the potential to create widespread cortical dysfunction.

Dr. Lee said of the findings: "Besides the comprehensive genetic analysis of brain-only mutations in postmortem tissues from schizophrenia patients, this study experimentally showed the biological consequence of identified somatic mutations, which led to neuronal abnormalities associated with SCZ. Thus, this study suggests that brain somatic mutations can be a hidden major contributor to SCZ and provides new insights into the molecular genetic architecture of SCZ."

###

Notes for editors

The article is "Low-level brain somatic mutations are implicated in schizophrenia," by Myeong-Heui Kim, Il Bin Kim, Junehawk Lee, Do Hyeon Cha, Sang Min Park, Ja Hye Kim, Ryunhee Kim, Jun Sung Park, Yohan An, Kyungdeok Kim, Seyeon Kim, Maree Webster, Sanghyeon Kim, Jeong Ho Lee (https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1016/ j. biopsych. 2021. 01. 014 ). It appears as an Article in Press in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.

Copies of this paper are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact Rhiannon Bugno at biol.psych@sobp.org">Biol.Psych@sobp.org or +1 254 522 9700. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Jeong Ho Lee at jhlee4246@kaist.ac.kr">jhlee4246@kaist.ac.kr or +82-42-350-4246.

The authors' affiliations and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

John H. Krystal, MD, is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, Chief of Psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.

About Biological Psychiatry

Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders.

The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged.

Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 7th out of 155 Psychiatry titles and 12th out of 271 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports; published by Clarivate Analytics. The 2019 Impact Factor score for Biological Psychiatry is 12.095. http://www. sobp. org/ journal

About Elsevier

As a global leader in information and analytics, Elsevier helps researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. We do this by facilitating insights and critical decision-making for customers across the global research and health ecosystems.

In everything we publish, we uphold the highest standards of quality and integrity. We bring that same rigor to our information analytics solutions for researchers, health professionals, institutions and funders.

Elsevier employs 8,100 people worldwide. We have supported the work of our research and health partners for more than 140 years. Growing from our roots in publishing, we offer knowledge and valuable analytics that help our users make breakthroughs and drive societal progress. Digital solutions such as ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath support strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and health education. Researchers and healthcare professionals rely on our 2,500+ digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, our 40,000 eBook titles; and our iconic reference works, such as Gray's Anatomy. With the Elsevier Foundation and our external Inclusion & Diversity Advisory Board, we work in partnership with diverse stakeholders to advance inclusion and diversity in science, research and healthcare in developing countries and around the world.

Elsevier is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. http://www. elsevier. com

Media contact

Rhiannon Bugno, Editorial Office

Biological Psychiatry

+1 254 522 9700 Biol.Psych@sobp.org
Capitala Finance (CPTA) came out with a quarterly loss of $0.03 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.29. This compares to earnings of $0.72 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -110.34%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this business development company would post earnings of $0.15 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.28, delivering a surprise of 86.67%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates just once.

Capitala Finance, which belongs to the Zacks Financial - SBIC & Commercial Industry industry, posted revenues of $5.68 million for the quarter ended December 2020, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 12.36%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $9.63 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

Capitala Finance shares have added about 14.6% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 2.3%.

What's Next for Capitala Finance?

While Capitala Finance has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Story continues

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Capitala Finance was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.28 on $6.29 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.82 on $25.12 million in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Financial - SBIC & Commercial Industry is currently in the bottom 38% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Capitala Finance Corp. (CPTA) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
Israel, Cyprus and Greece on March 8 signed an agreement to speed up the technical work of the 2,000-megawatt undersea electricity cable. According to the Associated Press, Cypriot Energy Minister Natasa Pilides hosted the ceremony in the capital Nicosia and her Israeli counterpart Yuval Steinitz and Greek Minister Kostas Krekas participated via an online link. During the event, Pilides said that with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, the three counties have agreed on the need to expedite permits and approvals to conduct feasibility studies and to coordinate with their respective national electricity regulators on how best to proceed.

Pilides said, The deal boosts cooperation in supporting the planning, potential development and implementation of the EuroAsia Interconnector, as an additional element of the emerging Eastern Mediterranean Energy Corridor.

READ: Greece: 'Surprise' Aftershock Adds Damage To Quake-hit Area

READ: Earthquake Shakes Central Greece, Felt In Balkans

EU calls electric cable 'key project'

Further, she called the project a cornerstone of the countries efforts to transition to a green economy that will protect the environment while promoting economic growth. Pilides said that the cable will help the three nations meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, while also helping to diversify the energy supply of fossil fuel-dependent Cyprus. She also informed that the projects first phase is expected to be operational by 2025.

Moreover, the Cypriot minister said that some of the projects additional benefits include enhancing energy supply security and allowing the three countries to be potential energy exporters. The European Unions executive Commission, on the other hand, has called the cable a key project of common interest and added that the project is eligible for EU financing.

It is worth noting that Israel, Cyprus and Greece have also planned a $6 billion undersea pipeline to carry gas from new offshore deposits in the southeastern Mediterranean to continental Europe. Cyprus is additionally also working on a separate deal with Greece and Egypt on a similar cable connecting the three countries.

(With inputs from AP)

(Image: @Atlantide4world/Twitter)

READ: Blaze At Migrant Camp In Greece Severely Injures 6-year-old

READ: Turkey Accuses Greece Of 'harassing' Research Vessel In Aegean Sea

It may be many months before college campuses across the U.S. fully reopen, but when they do, many students will be returning to a learning environment that is under near constant scrutiny by law enforcement.

A fear of school shootings, and other campus crimes, have led administrators and campus police to install sophisticated surveillance systems that go far beyond run-of-the-mill security camera networks to include drones, gunshot detection sensors, and much more. Campuses have also adopted automated license plate readers, ostensibly to enforce parking rules, but often that data feeds into the criminal justice system. Some campuses use advanced biometric software to verify whether students are eligible to eat in the cafeteria. Police have even adopted new technologies to investigate activism on campus. Often, there is little or no justification for why a school needs such technology, other than novelty or asserted convenience.

In July 2020, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Reynolds School of Journalism at University of Nevada, Reno launched the Atlas of Surveillance, a database of now more than 7,000 surveillance technologies deployed by law enforcement agencies across the United States. In the process of compiling this data we noticed a peculiar trend: college campuses are acquiring a surprising number of surveillance technologies more common to metropolitan areas that experience high levels of violent crime.

So, we began collecting data from universities and community colleges using a variety of methods, including running specific search terms across .edu domains and assigning small research tasks to a large number of students using EFF's Report Back tool. We documented more than 250 technology purchases, ranging from body-worn cameras to face recognition, adopted by more than 200 universities in 37 states. As big as these numbers are, they are only a sliver of what is happening on college campuses around the world.

Click the image to launch an interactive map (Google's Privacy policy applies)

Technologies

Download the Atlas of Surveillance dataset as a CSV.

Technologies

Body-worn cameras

Maybe your school has a film department, but the most prolific cinematographers on your college campus are probably the police.

Since the early 2010s, body-worn cameras (BWCs) have become more and more common in the United States. This holds true for law enforcement agencies on university and college campuses. These cameras are attached to officers uniforms (often the chest or shoulder, but sometimes head-mounted) and capture interactions between police and members of the public. While BWC programs are often pitched as an accountability measure to reduce police brutality, in practice these cameras are more often used to capture evidence later used in prosecutions.

Policies on these cameras vary from campus to campussuch as whether a camera should be always recording, or only during certain circumstances. But students and faculty should be aware than any interaction, or even near-interaction, with a police officer could be on camera. That footage could be used in a criminal case, but in many states, journalists and members of the public are also able to obtain BWC footage through an open records request.

Aside from your run-of-the-mill, closed-circuit surveillance camera networks, BWCs were the most prevalent technology we identified in use by campus police departments. This isn't surprising, since researchers have observed similar trends in municipal law enforcement. We documented 152 campus police departments using BWCs, but as noted, this is only a fraction of what is being used throughout the country. One of the largest rollouts began last summer when Pennsylvania State University announced that police on all 22 campuses would start wearing the devices.

One of the main ways that universities have purchased BWCs is through funding from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance. Since 2015, more than 20 universities and community colleges have received funds through the bureau's Body-Worn Camera Grant Program established during the Obama administration. In Oregon, these funds helped the Portland State University Police Department adopt the technology well ahead of their municipal counterparts. PSU police received $20,000 in 2015 for BWCs, while the Portland Police Department does not use BWCs at all (Portland PD's latest attempt to acquire them in 2021 was scuttled due to budget concerns).

Drones

Drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are remote-controlled flying devices that can be used to surveil crowds from above or locations that would otherwise be difficult or dangerous to observe by a human on the ground. On many campuses, drones are purchased for research purposes, and it's not unusual to see a quadrotor (a drone with four propellers) buzzing around the quad. However, campus police have also purchased drones for surveillance and criminal investigations.

Our data, which was based on a study conducted by the Center for the Study of The Drone at Bard College, identified 10 campus police departments that have drones:

California State Monterey University Police Department

Colorado State University Police Department

Cuyahoga Community College Police Department

Lehigh University Police Department

New Mexico State University Police Department

Northwest Florida State College Campus Police Department

Pennsylvania State University Police Department

University of Alabama, Huntsville Police Department

University of Arkansas, Fort Smith Police Department

University of North Dakota Police Department

One of the earliest campus drone programs originated at the University of North Dakota, where the campus police began deploying a drone in 2012 as part of a regional UAV unit that also included members of local police and sheriffs' offices. According to UnmannedAerial.com, the unit moved from a "reactive" to a "proactive" approach in 2018, allowing officers to carry drones with them on patrol, rather than retrieving them in response to specific incidents.

The Northwest Florida State University Police Department was notable in acquiring the most drones. While most universities had one, NFSU police began using four drones in 2019, primarily to aid in searching for missing people, assessing traffic accidents, photographing crime scenes, and mapping evacuation routes.

The New Mexico State University Police Department launched its drone program in 2017 and, with the help of a local Eagle Scout in Las Cruces, built a drone training facility for local law enforcement in the region. In response to a local resident who questioned on Facebook whether the program was unnerving, a NMSU spokesperson wrote in 2019:

[The program] thus far has been used to investigate serious traffic crashes (you can really see the skid marks from above), search for people in remote areas, and monitor traffic conditions at large events. They aren't very useful for monitoring campus residents (even if we wanted to, which we don't), since so many stay inside.

Not all agencies have taken such a limited approach. The Lehigh University Police Department acquired a drone in 2015, and equipped it with a thermal imaging camera. Police Chief Edward Shupp told a student journalist at The Brown and Right that the only limits on the drone are Federal Aviation Administration regulations, that there are no privacy regulations for officers to follow, and that the department can use the drones "for any purpose" on and off campus.

Even when a university police department does not have its own drones, it may seek help from other local law enforcement agencies. Such was the case in 2017, when the University of California Berkeley Police Department requested drone assistance from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office to surveil protests on campus.

Automated License Plate Readers

Students and faculty may complain about the price tag of parking passes, but there is also an unseen cost of driving on campus: privacy.

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are cameras attached to fixed locations or to security or parking patrol cars that capture every license plate that passes. The data is then uploaded to searchable databases with the time, date, and GPS coordinates. Through our research, we identified ALPRs at 49 universities and colleges throughout the country.

ALPRs are used in two main capacities on college campuses. First, transportation and parking divisions have begun using ALPRs for parking enforcement, either attaching the cameras to parking enforcement vehicles or installing cameras at the entrances and exits to parking lots and garages. For example, the University of Connecticut Parking Services uses NuPark, a system that uses ALPRs to manage virtual permits and citations.

Second, campus police are using ALPRs for public safety purposes. The Towson University Police Department in Maryland, for example, scanned over 3 million license plates using automated license plate readers in 2018 and sent that data to the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center, a fusion center operated by the Maryland State Police. The University has a total of 6 fixed ALPR sites, with 10 cameras and one mobile unit.

These two uses are not always separate: in some cases, parking officials share data with their police counterparts. At Florida Atlantic University, ALPRs are used for parking enforcement, but the police department also has access to this technology through their Communications Center, which monitors all emergency calls to the department, as well as fire alarms, intrusion alarms, and panic alarm systems. In California, the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District Police Department shares ALPR data with its regional fusion center, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center.

Social Media Monitoring

Colleges and universities are also watching their students on social media, and it is not just to retweet or like a cute Instagram post about your summer internship. Campus public safety divisions employ social media software, such as Social Sentinel, to look for possible threats to the university, such as posts where students indicate suicidal ideation or threats of gun violence. We identified 21 colleges that use social media monitoring to watch their students and surrounding community for threats. This does not include higher education programs to monitor social media for marketing purposes.

This technology is used for public safety by both private and public universities. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has used Social Sentinel since 2015, while the Des Moines Area Community College Campus Security spent $15,000 on Social Sentinel software in 2020.

Social media monitoring technology may also be used to monitor students' political activities. Social Sentinel software was used to watch activists on the University of North Carolina campus who were protesting a Confederate memorial on campus, Silent Sam. As NBC reported, UNC Police and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation used a technique called "geofencing" to monitor the social media of people in the vicinity of the protests.

"This information was monitored in an attempt to prevent any potential acts of violence (such as those that have occurred at other public protests around the country, including Charlottesville) and to ensure the safety of all participants," a law enforcement spokesperson told NBC, adding that investigators only looked at public-facing posts and no records of the posts were kept after the event. However, the spokesperson declined to elaborate on how the technology may have been used at other public events.

Biometric Identification

When we say that a student body is under surveillance, we also mean that literally. The term biometrics refers to physical and behavioral characteristics (your body and what you do with it) that can be used to identify you. Fingerprints are among the types of biometrics most familiar to people, but police agencies around the country are adopting computer systems capable of identifying people using face recognition and other sophisticated biometrics.

At least four police departments at universities in FloridaUniversity of South Florida, University of North Florida, University of Central Florida, and Florida Atlantic Universityhave access to a statewide face recognition network called Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System (FACES), which is operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Through FACES, investigators can upload an image and search a database of Florida drivers license photos and mugshots.

University of Southern California in Los Angeles confirmed to The Fix that its public safety department uses face recognition, however the practice was more prevalent in the San Diego, California area up until recently.

In San Diego, at least five universities and college campuses participated in a face recognition program involving mobile devices. San Diego State University stood out for having conducted more than 180 face recognition searches in 2018. However, in 2019, this practice was suspended in California under a three-year statewide moratorium.

Faces aren't the only biometric being scanned. In 2017, the University of Georgia introduced iris scanning stations in dining halls, encouraging students to check-in with their eyes to use their meal plans. This replaced an earlier program requiring hand scans, another form of biometric identification.

Gunshot Detection

Gunshot detection is a technology that involves installing acoustic sensors (essentially microphones) around a neighborhood or building. When a loud noise goes off, such as a gunshot or a firework, the sensors attempt to determine the location and then police receive an alert.

Universities and colleges have begun using this technology in part as a response to fears of campus shootings. However, these technologies often are not as accurate as their sellers claim and could result in dangerous confrontations based on errors. Also, these devices can capture human voices engaged in private conversations, and prosecutors have attempted to use such recordings in court.

Our dataset has identified eight universities and colleges that have purchased gunshot-detection technology:

East Carolina University Police Department

Hampton University Police Department

Truett McConnell University Campus Safety Department

University of California San Diego Police Department

University of Connecticut Police Department

University of Maryland Police Department

University of West Georgia Police Department

Georgia Tech Police Department

Some universities and colleges purchase their own gunshot detection technology, while others have access to the software through partnerships with other law enforcement agencies. For example, the Georgia Tech Police Department has access to gunshot detection through the Fusus Real-Time Crime Center. The University of California San Diego Police Department, on the other hand, installed its own ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology on campus in 2017.

When a university funds surveillance technology, it can impact the communities nearby. For example, University of Nevada, Reno journalism student Henry Stone obtained documents through Nevada's public records law that showed that UNR Cooperative Extension spent $500,000 in 2017 to install and operate Shotspotter sensors in a 3-mile impoverished neighborhood of Las Vegas. The system is controlled by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Video Analytics

While most college campuses employ some sort of camera network, we identified two particular universities that are applying for extra credit in surveilling students: the University of Miami Police Department in Florida and Grand Valley State University Department of Public Safety in Michigan. These universities apply advanced software to the camera footagesometimes called video analytics or computer visionthat use an algorithm to achieve round-the-clock monitoring that many officers viewing cameras could never achieve. Often employing artificial intelligence, video analytics systems can track objects and people from camera to camera, identify patterns and anomalies, and potentially conduct face recognition.

Grand Valley State University began using Avigilon video analytics technology in 2018. The University of Miami Police Department uses video analytics software combined with more than 1,300 cameras.

Three university police departments in Maryland also maintain lists of cameras owned by local residents and businesses. With these camera registries, private parties are asked to voluntarily provide information about the location of their security cameras, so that police can access or request footage during investigations. The University of Maryland, Baltimore Police Department, the University of Maryland, College Park Police Department and the Johns Hopkins University Campus Police are all listed on Motorola Solutions' CityProtect site as maintaining such camera registries.

Two San Francisco schoolsUC Hastings School of Law and UC San Franciscoexplored leasing Knightscope surveillance robots in 2019 and 2020 to patrol their campuses, though the plans seem to have been scuttled by COVID-19. The robots are equipped with cameras, artificial intelligence, and, depending on the model, the ability to capture license plate data, conduct facial recognition, or recognize nearby phones.

Conclusion

Universities in the United States pride themselves on the free exchange of ideas and the ability for students to explore different concepts and social movements over the course of their academic careers. Unfortunately, for decades upon decades, police and intelligence agencies have also spied on students and professors engaged in social movements. High-tech surveillance only exacerbates the threat to academic freedom.

Around the country, cities are pushing back against surveillance by passing local ordinances requiring a public process and governing body approval before a police agency can acquire a new surveillance technology. Many community colleges do have elected bodies, and we urge these policymakers to enact similar policies to ensure adequate oversight of police surveillance.

However, these kinds of policy-making opportunities often aren't available to students (or faculty) at state and private universities, whose leadership is appointed, not elected. We urge student and faculty associations to press their police departments to limit the types of data collected on students and to ensure a rigorous oversight process that allows students, faculty, and other staff to weigh in before decisions are made to adopt technologies that can harm their rights.
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), continues to spread globally.

With this spread, new variants and strains have emerged, posing a threat to the recently developed and distributed SARS-CoV-2 vaccines' efficacy.

Researchers at the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa, found evidence of a significant change in the selective forces acting on immunologically important SARS-CoV-2 genes, such as N and S. These likely coincided with the emergence of the 501Y lineages.

In the study, published in the pre-print server medRxiv*, the team examined patterns of mutations that emerged in the SARS-CoV-2 genome during the pandemic.

SARS-CoV-2 mutation

Between December 2019 and October 2020, the virus's evolution worldwide involved a highly susceptible new host population. A mutation D614G (Asp614-to-Gly) in the viral spike protein hastened the spread of the virus.

From there, few mutations were epidemiologically significant without impacting SARS-CoV-2's pathogenesis. However, these mutations were characterized by a mutational pattern of slow and selectively-neutral random genetic drift.

Since October 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has mutation several times. Currently, three variants are actively spreading  the U.K. variant called B.1.1.7 with many mutations in the fall of 2020, the South African variant called B.1.351, and the Brazil variant called P.1.

SARS-CoV-2 genome map indicating the locations and encoded amino acid changes of what we considered here to be signature mutations of V1, V2 and V3 sequences. Genes represented with light blue blocks encode non-structural proteins and genes in orange encode structural proteins:S encodes the spike protein, E the envelope protein, M the matrix protein, and N the nucleocapsid protein. Within the S-gene, the receptor binding domain (RBD) is indicated by a darker shade and the site where the S protein is cleaved into two subunits during priming for receptor binding and cell entry is indicated by a dotted vertical line.

The U.K. variant spreads faster and easier than other variants. In January 2021, scientists said that the variant might be linked to an increased risk of death than other variant viruses. It has spread to many countries worldwide.

The B.1.351 variant is known to be resistant to the effects of vaccines and therapies against COVID-19. Meanwhile, the P.1 variant emerged in travelers from Brazil in early January. This variant contains a set of additional mutations that may affect its ability to be recognized by antibodies.

In the study, the B.1.17 or 501Y.V1 variant is referred to as V1, B.1.351 or 501Y.V2 variant is V2, and P.1 or 501Y.V3 variant is referred to as V3.

To date, studies suggest that antibodies produced through vaccination with approved vaccines recognize these variants, but further investigation is ongoing.

Locations of amino acids encoded by codons that are evolving under positive selection and/or encode convergent amino acid changes between the lineages mapped to the 3D structure of Spike (PDB 7DF4 structure; 47). The human ACE2 receptor is shown in light blue. Signature mutations are not represented unless they are inferred to be under positive selection. Pairs of sites that are detectably coevolving within the different lineages are linked by purple lines.

The study

The study aimed to determine the evolutionary capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to adapt to both rising population immunity and infection control measures like social distancing and vaccination.

The researchers examined patterns of mutations that emerged in SARS-CoV-2 genomes during the pandemic.

The team used a suite of phylogenetics-based natural selection analysis techniques to examine positive selection patterns within the three lineages' protein-coding sequences.

The study findings showed the emergence of the 501Y lineages concurred with a substantial global change in positive selection signals. This means a general shift in the selective environment within which SARS-CoV-2 is evolving.

They also found a significant shift in the selective forces acting on SARS-CoV-2 genes. Further, the team revealed that the adaptive evolution of the 501Y lineages unites between lineages. This study highlights the essence of surveillance on how 501Y lineage members evolve similar stages to ensure their survival and persistence.

The sudden emergence of the 501Y lineages

The team explained that in the first months of the pandemic, there were no arising mutations. This was the languid pace of the viral evolution. The pandemic's start was like a fitness peak for the virus concerning its capacity to infect and transmit between humans.

Since October 2020, however, the sudden emergence of the 501Y lineages has led to skyrocketing cases worldwide. The V1, V2, and V3 caused the virus's faster transmission, which has now reached 192 countries and regions.

"Given the numbers of infections that had occurred by October, all of these individual mutations, and even all of the potentially epistatically interacting pairs of these mutations, would have arisen independently," the researchers explained.

To date, the number of cases has reached over 117 million and 2.59 million deaths. The United States reports the highest number of infections, topping 29 million. The other countries with skyrocketing cases include India, with 11.22 million cases; Brazil, with 11 million cases, Russia, with 4.28 million cases, and the U.K., with 4.23 million cases.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
The government work report delivered at this year's session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, on March 5 said China will move faster to grant permanent urban residency to people who move to cities from rural areas.

This population flow from rural to urban areas, where the industries are more developed, is accelerating economic progress, Yao Yang, Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, told Beijing Review, adding that over the past decades, 14 percent of the economic growth can be attributed to urbanization.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said earlier this year that the target set in 2014 of turning 100 million people from rural areas into urban residents by 2020 had been accomplished.

Cities with a population of less than 3 million had removed barriers for rural residents to apply for urban household registration, which gives them greater access to local public services. Most of the bigger ones also eased restrictions for incoming groups including migrant workers with stable jobs and college students from rural areas.

Many city clusters have seen mushrooming development and population. According to Hu Zucai, deputy head of the NDRC, the urbanization drive has created 19 city clusters, where over 75 percent of the entire urban population live. These clusters contribute more than 80 percent of the GDP.

The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and long-range objectives through 2035 to be adopted at this year's NPC session will outline new goals for urban growth.

According to the proposed document, the growth of major metropolitan areas and city clusters, especially the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle in southwest China, will be spurred on. Regional development gaps will be narrowed by providing support for the northeastern, central and western regions and improving the transfer payment system, which ensures transfer of funds from the Central Government to local governments. Major cities and city clusters will play a greater role in empowering their neighboring regions.

The plan also envisions addressing pollution, better designing urban spaces, protecting historical heritage, and renovating old communities. Water and sewage systems in urban areas will be improved. Risk control will be enhanced, the housing market reined in, and the urban household registration system eased further.

However, Hu said problems including the relatively low quality of life of rural residents settling down in cities, uneven regional development, and insufficient urban governance capacity call for more targeted efforts.

To make cities real home to rural migrants, public education and housing have to be improved. The group should also be given skills training for industries with a high labor demand, such as smart manufacturing and household services, to improve their income and purchasing power.

"China needs to build more cities with international competitiveness. Its development has relied on a few major cities for a long time," Yin Zhi, a researcher with the Institute for China Sustainable Urbanization, Tsinghua University, told Beijing Review. "It led to traffic congestion, high housing prices and pollution in large cities, leaving many small and medium-sized cities insufficiently developed."

Hu's proposal therefore is to develop county-level economies and improve inter-city transportation.The growth of smart cities is envisioned through the use of new technologies including 5G and artificial intelligence, which will improve physical infrastructure and the digital platforms for urban management.

In the next phase, the government needs to encourage two-way personnel flow between urban and rural areas. Due to the employment pressure in cities, some rural residents may choose to return to their hometowns. The working skills they have acquired can make them key contributors to local development.

"As new urbanization advances, more personnel, funds and other resources will flow to rural areas, which will improve resource allocation across the country," Yin said.

SOURCE Beijing Review
A man accused of inciting others to attend a protest against coronavirus restrictions through a series of Facebook posts has had his criminal case adjourned while he challenges the law in the High Court.

Solihin Millin is one of a handful of Victorians charged with encouraging others to attend anti-lockdown protests while restrictions on gatherings were in place during the worst weeks of the pandemic last year.

Solihin Millin is charged with inciting an anti-lockdown protest in September last year. Credit:Nine News

Police allege Mr Millin, 76, incited others to attend a September 5 freedom rally at the Shrine of Remembrance and Albert Park in the weeks before the event, through a series of Facebook posts.

In one post, according to documents released by Melbourne Magistrates Court, Mr Millin wrote in complaint that the Sieg Heil fascist dictator had called an extension to the state of emergency in Victoria, in an apparent reference to Premier Daniel Andrews. He did not mention Mr Andrews by name in the post.
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - UGE International Ltd. (TSXV: UGE) (the "Company" or "UGE"), a leader in commercial and community solar energy solutions, is pleased to announce that it has signed agreements for the development of solar projects in Maine and Maryland. Together, the projects are expected to have a total rated capacity of 9.0MW DC and a project backlog value of US$18.1 million.

The Maine community solar project builds on UGE's strength in the market, which saw the Company secure several agreements in the state over the past year. The most recent project is expected to have a rated capacity of 6.5MW DC and generate annual revenue of approximately US$1.1 million once operational. After building one client-financed project in Maine last year, UGE expects to commence construction on its first self-financed projects in the state this summer.

The Maryland community solar project is UGE's first in the state. Maryland is one of several states that have adopted community solar regulations in recent years, making it an attractive market for UGE's continued expansion. The 2.5MW DC project is expected to generate annual revenue in excess of US$0.5 million once operational.

"Community solar is growing rapidly in states looking to increase access to clean energy while lowering prices for consumers. We see significant opportunity to further expand throughout the northeast and mid-Atlantic US this year," said UGE CRO Tyler Adkins. "Our development team is evaluating a growing number of opportunities in new and existing markets, with a focus on earning strong returns while lowering energy costs for our subscribers."

The Maryland community solar program has a maximum per-project size of 2.0MW AC (or approximately 2.5MW DC), with a total program size of 418MW, of which 125MW is reserved for low and middle income ("LMI") customers. UGE sees the LMI segment of particular interest, as the Company works to achieve its broader ESG goals by providing clean, affordable energy to those that need it most.

About UGE

UGE develops, owns, and operates commercial and community solar projects in the US and strategic markets abroad. Our distributed energy solutions deliver cheaper, cleaner energy to businesses and consumers with no upfront cost. With over 400MW of global experience, we work daily to power a more sustainable world. Visit us at www.ugei.com.

For more information, contact UGE at:

+1 917 720 5685

investors@ugei.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, the anticipated closing of the Offering, the anticipated use of proceeds, and the receipt of regulatory approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76469
An anti-coup protester sprays water on metal-makeshift shields to prevent from heat in hot-sunny weather in Yangon, Myanmar (AP)

About a thousand demonstrators against last months military seizure of power in Myanmar emerged cautiously onto the streets of the countrys second-biggest city, those in the vanguard carrying homemade shields bearing images of the three-fingered salute, the movements symbol of defiance.

The protest in Mandalay took place even though security forces have shown little reluctance to use lethal force to break up crowds.

Those who marched gathered for just a few minutes before dispersing to avoid a possible confrontation with riot police.

Another group made a mobile protest, driving through the streets on motorbikes.

The protesters have adapted their tactics in response to escalating violence from security forces, including the firing of live ammunition at crowds.

The governments crackdown has left more than 50 protesters dead but has failed to slow the widespread protests against the February 1 coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

In what has become a daily occurrence, protest marches were held Tuesday in cities and towns across the country, according to reports by local news media and on social media.

Expand Close An anti-coup protester uses a fire extinguisher behind a line of womens clothing hanged across a road to deter security personnel from entering the protest area in Yangon (AP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp An anti-coup protester uses a fire extinguisher behind a line of womens clothing hanged across a road to deter security personnel from entering the protest area in Yangon (AP)

Protests occurred in Ye, a town in Mon State in southern Myanmar; Kyaukpadaung, a town in central Myanmar; Mohnyin, a town in Kachin State in the north; and Myeik Taung, in the southeast.

The authorities reportedly used force in each case.

Armed police carried out night patrols on Monday, yelling abuse, firing at buildings and making targeted arrests.

The tactic appears to be aimed at spreading fear and disrupting sleep in order to weaken the resolve of those opposed to the armys takeover.

One video recorded Monday night in a district of Yangon, the countrys biggest city, shows more than 20 police swarming down a street, around a corner and then opening fire.

They return, point up at a window or balcony overlooking them and fire once again.

Their actions came during a dramatic night when thousands of residents broke the 8pm curfew to show support for a group of protesters who had been trapped by police in an enclave of streets.

They came out of their homes, sang songs against the coup and banged pots, pans and other implements together, partly in the hope of diverting police from the hunted protesters, estimated to number 200.

Expand Close Anti-coup protesters retreat after riot policemen fire teargas in Yangon (AP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Anti-coup protesters retreat after riot policemen fire teargas in Yangon (AP)

Witnesses said several dozen of those who had sought shelter in the citys Sanchaung neighbourhood were arrested, but others made their way home at dawn, several hours after police withdrew from the area.

Nighttime hours have become increasingly dangerous.

Police and army units routinely range through neighbourhoods, shooting randomly to intimidate residents and making targeted arrests.

According to the Myanmar-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 1,850 people have been arrested in connection with the coup. Dozens of journalists have been arrested, including Thein Zaw of The Associated Press, who has been charged under a public order law that carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.

The military government on Monday imposed a major curb on media coverage of the crisis.

It announced that the licences of five local media outlets, Mizzima, DVB, Khit Thit Media, Myanmar Now and 7Day News, had been cancelled.

These media companies are no longer allowed to broadcast or write or give information by using any kind of media platform or using any media technology, it said on state broadcaster MRTV.

Expand Close People watch as a convoy of soldiers and policemen arrive with bulldozers (AP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp People watch as a convoy of soldiers and policemen arrive with bulldozers (AP)

All five had been offering extensive coverage of the protests, often with livestreaming video online.

The offices of Myanmar Now were raided by the authorities on Monday before the measure was announced.

DVB, short for Democratic Voice of Burma, said it was not surprised by the cancellation and would continue broadcasting on satellite TV and online.

We worry for the safety of our reporters and our staff, but in the current uprising, the whole country has become citizen journalists and there is no way for military authorities to shut the information flow, executive director Aye Chan Naing said.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch said the government action was part of a larger assault on freedom of the press.

By stripping five independent media outlets of their licenses to operate, the Myanmar military junta is resorting to the tactics of its dictatorial past to suppress information, said the groups deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson.
BRUSSELS - The European Parliament has revoked immunity for three Catalan members of the European Parliament: Carles Puigdemont, Clara Ponsati and Toni Comin.



The vote to revoke Puigdemont's immunity was 400 in favour, 248 against, and 45 abstentions; for Ponsati 404 in favour, 247 against and 42 abstentions; and for Comin 404 in favour, 247 against and 42 abstentions.



The revocation of immunity opens the way for a new examination by the Belgian judiciary of Spain's extradition requests for Puigdemont and Comin, who live in Belgium.



Ponsati lives in Scotland, a country that suspended examination of the extradition request pending the decision by the European Parliament.



The vote on the revocation of parliamentary immunity for the three Catalan MEPs was held by secret ballot and de facto followed what had already been decided by the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs on 23 February.



The three MEPs were elected to the European Parliament in May 2019.



The Spanish judiciary has accused them of sedition for having organised a referendum on Catalan independence in 2017.



Puigdemont, Comin and Ponsati denounced the "political nature" of the proceedings against them.



They may announce their intention to file a complaint with the European Court of Justice, as they claim the Spanish Supreme Court is not the proper jurisdiction for such a request.



Comments varied among the MEPs.



Antonio Lopez-Isturiz White of the EEP group said that now "the fugitives Puigdemont, Ponsati and Comin are closer to going back to Spain and answering to the Spanish justice system. The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the revocation of their immunity", adding that "in a state of law, the laws must be observed". On the other hand, Anne Sophie Pelletier, of France Insoumise, wasn't in agreement and spoke of a "vote of shame".

Spain, semi-freedom of 7 convicted Catalan leaders revoked

MADRID - A Spanish court revoked the regime of semi-freedom granted by the Catalan regional government to seven separatist political leaders who were convicted after the attempt to declare Catalonia's independence in 2017, Spanish media reported Tuesday.

The seven, including former Catalan regional vice president Oriol Junqueras, were allowed to leave jail during daytime hours from Monday to Thursday. They will now have to go back to jail immediately on Tuesday.
NEW HAVEN  Stage hands at the College Street Music Hall  currently idled by the coronavirus  said they do not receive insurance, overtime, pension or other retirement benefits.

During normal times, they often work long hours but get paid a daily rate  unlike unionized workers across the street at the Shubert Performing Arts Center, according to the union members.

Twenty-one College Street stage hands voted unanimously a year ago to join a union, Local 74 of IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts. But one largely-unpaid pandemic year later, with one of the 21 bargaining unit members now having passed away, they have yet to successfully negotiate a contact with College Streets owners, they said.

For workers, its been five years without a union, said Local 74 President Gardner Friscia, who was standing outside the College Street Music Hall, previously the Palace Theater, Monday afternoon holding a sign that read, No health care, no retirement, no future.

On Monday, the workers hit the street  and said they will continue to go out and do an informational picket of the closed theater from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day through Friday.

About 10 stagehands held their own signs a few feet away from Friscia at one point Monday. Friscia was joined by Local 74 Business Agent Jim Shea.

We have hope that negotiators will be able to reach an equitable agreement, said Shea. We expect a fair contract. We expect that theyll respect that this is what were here for.

The workers may do their work backstage, away from the public, but behind-the-scene people cannot be forgotten about or overlooked, he said.

The next negotiation session with Keith Mahler, president and CEO of Waterbury-based Premier Concerts, the largest independent concert producer in Connecticut, and Premier Facilities, which manages the College Street Music Hall, is scheduled for Wednesday, according to the union.

Mahler said Monday he had no comment.

His attorney, Mary Jane Ryan of Summa & Ryan, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Both he and Shea said that they want the public to know the union does not have contract yet.

College Street Music Hall stage hands make different amounts depending on the job they do, ranging from $75 per shift to $350 per day, according to the union.

Because the hours can vary, you never know exactly how much youre making an hour, Shea said.

Workers at the Shubert, in contrast, have had representation, from the same union  and benefits  for many, many years, said Friscia.

The Shubert has been here for us the entire time, and theyll always be here, said Shea, referring to the union.

At this moment, however, workers at both venues are all pretty much in the same boat.

Nobodys been paid for the last year, other than unemployment, said Friscia.

IATSE Local 74 represents stage hands in the southern half of the state, including at the two New Haven theaters, the Toyota Oakdale Theatre, the Palace Theater in Waterbury, the Stamford Center for the Arts and the Westport Country Playhouse, among others.

mark.zaretsky@hearstmedia

ct.com
The indictment in a recent case asserted the defendant held an interest and authority over at least 20 foreign financial accounts in multiple countries and is accused of utilizing the IRS Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures to make a false submission further concealing instead of fully disclosing all reportable offshore income related to his previously undisclosed foreign financial accounts.

These allegations are a rare moment where the IRS has shown that it will prosecute taxpayers that use the streamlined voluntary disclosure program to defraud the administration. Due to this, a taxpayer may end up being the target of a criminal tax and foreign information reporting investigation rather than receiving a break on mandatory non-willful FBAR violation penalties and other favorable program terms.

The streamlined disclosure program is solely for taxpayers that have not committed offshore FBAR and unreported foreign income violations willfully. To show that an FBAR offense was not willful, the taxpayer will need to present written evidence that the violation occurred because of negligence, mistake, or another good faith reason.

Call our firm at (800) 681-1295 or use our website to schedule a consultation.

See the full version of this article here.

Public Contact:

Dave Klasing Esq.

M.S.-Tax CPA

[email protected]

SOURCE Tax Law Offices of David W. Klasing, PC

Related Links

klasing-associates.com


Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  More New Yorkers will be eligible to receive a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine starting Wednesday, including people over 60.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo made the announcement Tuesday during a briefing at the New York State Fair in Syracuse. The previous age requirement was over 65.

The governor credited an increased supply from the federal government for the announced eligibility expansion that will also include all government, non-profit, and essential building service workers, like porters and doormen starting March 17.

The supply of the vaccine is dependent on the federal government and that ebbs and flows, Cuomo said. You are going to see this ebb and flow in the supply from the federal government. Thats a fact. We are going to have to deal with it, its going to be still an annoying few months, but were getting there.

In addition to the eligibility expansion, distribution sites will also be able to vaccinate more people. There have been restrictions on who can be vaccinated at specific sites since the process started in December.

Cuomo said all sites, excluding pharmacies, can vaccinate any eligible New Yorker starting March 17. Pharmacies can vaccinate those over 60 and teachers starting March 17.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has long advocated for a more rapid expansion to the list of people eligible to be vaccinated. Bill Neidhardt, a mayoral spokesman, described the governors Tuesday announcement as a big victory.

This is a major part of (the mayors) push for freedom to vaccinate, Neidhardt wrote on Twitter. Glad the state has changed their tune on this.

Cuomo announced Monday that the state would be opening 10 additional vaccination sites across New York, including one in the Bronx. Theyve yet to identify a specific location at this time.

The Bronx already has one state-run site, Yankee Stadium, which is a partnership with the city of New York.

There are also state-run sites located in Brooklyn at Medgar Evers College, York College in Queens and the Jacob Javits Center.

As the production from the federal government is increasing, so as were getting more, were ready to distribute more, Cuomo said.

Staten Island remains the only borough without a state COVID-19 vaccination site.
The World Bank has shot a video featuring a rural project in Huangshan city, East Chinas Anhui province, to promote the city's practices.

With a total investment of 900 million yuan ($137.97 million), including a $100 million loan from the bank, the project focused on infrastructure construction, cultural heritage protection and industry development in 68 villages in Huangshan.

The project kicked off in 2014 and was completed six years later, with all of its 25 targets over-fulfilled.

426-km-long rural roads and 364-km-long water-supply and sewage pipelines were built, benefiting 360,000 and 140,000 rural residents, respectively. In addition, high-value-added agricultural production was promoted and more than 1,000 jobs created.

The tap water coverage rate rose from 82 percent to 98 percent in the 68 villages, and the rate of centralized waste treatment increased to 96 percent from 62 percent, thanks to the project.




It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
Loading the player...

COVID-19 vaccination: Technical glitches in Co-WIN, hesitancy led to low coverage, says Health Ministry

At the start of the Covid-19 vaccination drive, fewer beneficiaries than planned attended inoculation sessions due to transient technical issues in the Co-WIN portal, vaccine hesitancy etc, which have progressively been addressed, Rajya Sabha was informed on Monday. The rate of vaccination coverage has subsequently increased, the ministry has further added.

India 'at forefront' in fighting COVID-19, 'stands out' in vaccine policy, says IMF's Gita Gopinath

India has been at the vanguard in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic and "really stands out" in terms of its vaccine policy, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said on Monday. Gopinath lauded the country for playing a key role during the crisis by producing and dispatching the coronavirus vaccines to several countries. She also praised the Serum Institute of India (SII) for manufacturing the most number of vaccines in the world

Star and Disney India launches diversity resource group for women, LGBTQ employees

Star and Disney India on Monday said it has introduced Business Employee Resource Groups (BERGs), a new diversity resource group for women and LGBTQ+ employees, to foster an equal, inclusive, and bias-free workplace. These groups will represent and support the diverse communities that make up the workforce and are open to all Star and Disney India employees.

Indian Railways integrates all helpline numbers into single Rail Madad Helpline 139Indian Railways on Monday announced the Rail Madad Helpline 139. Indian Railway has integrated all railway helplines into a single number '139' (Rail Madad Helpline). Passengers can now give a call on this number for quick grievance redressal and enquiry during travel. Railway Ministry has also launched a social media campaign - #OneRailHelpline139 - to inform and educate the passengers

Air India employee consortium out of privatisation race

Air India employee consortium, which had bid for taking over the national carrier, could not advance to the next round of the disinvestment process. Meenakshi Malik, Commercial Director of the airline, reportedly informed the consortium that it did not make the cut to advance to the next stage of the stake sale.

FM Sitharaman credits govt's fiscal measures for 0.4% GDP growth in Q3

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the fiscal measures taken by the government have resulted in positive growth of 0.4 per cent in the third quarter of the current financial year. The economy is estimated to contract by 8 per cent during 2020-21 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The minister further said that the gradual unlocking of the economy has eased supply-side disruptions enabling inflation to decline.
County library to unveil story walk project in Vanderbilt

The Otsego County Library is hosting a ceremony Saturday to formally open the latest story walk project.
National

7 dead in fire at Kolkatas Strand Road

Fire that broke out on the 13th floor of an Eastern Railway building in Kolkata.

KOLKATA, MAR 8 (AGENCIES) | Publish Date: 3/8/2021 1:43:25 PM IST

At least seven persons were feared dead after a major fire broke out on the 13th floor of an Eastern Railway building in Kolkatas Strand Road. According to sources, three fire officials, one railway staff and one police personnel are trapped inside the building.

We could only reach up to the sixth floor, after which nothing was visible. Though the fire has been brought controlled, a rescue team has gone inside and search and rescue operation is on. Ascertaining the actual number of deaths and injuries will only be possible once the rescue team comes out, said Firhad Hakim, administrator of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and State Minister. Commissioner of Police Soumen Mitra, Fire Minister Sujit Bose, Joint CP (crime) Murlidhar and other senior police personnel and officials are at the spot.

Ten fire tenders were rushed to the spot initially. To help with the operations, Officer-in-charge of Hare Street police station with additional force, a High Radio Flying Squad and the Kolkata Polices Disaster Management Team are on the spot. Police control room vans have been diverted to the area. Traffic from Babughat to Howrah has been massively affected. The incident took place around 6:10 pm. Fire officials said that hydraulic ladders and skylifts were used to control the fire. Most of the floors were evacuated timely with the help of police and fire officials.

Meanwhile, Eastern Railways has initiated an enquiry.

Eastern railway will do a top-level enquiry under the leadership of Chief Safety officer, said Kamal Deo Das, Chief Public Relations officer of Eastern Railways.
New Delhi, March 10 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Tuesday that it has arrested an Assistant Sub Inspector of Delhi Police in connection with a graft case.

A CBI official said that the agency sleuths have arrested Naresh Nandal, an ASI posted with the Janakpuri police station, for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 12,000 from the complainant.

The official said that a case was registered following a complaint against Nandal on allegations of demanding bribe.

The complainant further alleged that the ASI had demanded a bribe of Rs 25,000 for releasing him on bail in a case registered against him in the police station.

He further alleged that an amount of Rs 13,000 was paid earlier and that the accused was pressurising the complainant to pay the remaining bribe amount of Rs 12,000.

"The CBI laid a trap and caught the ASI while demanding and accepting the bribe of Rs 12,000. The agency also conducted searches at the premises of Nandal," he said.
Appointment

9 March 2021

Accor has announced the appointment of Afif Salibi as General Manager of Raffles Dubai. Formerly a member of the Fairmont Royal Palm Marrakech, within the group's portfolio, he will lead the strategic direction and manage operations at the property.

Canadian and Lebanese national Salibi is no stranger to Accor and the Raffles brand, having been with the group since 2007 and bringing over 20 years of international hospitality experience to this role. Starting out in Food & Beverage at Le Richemond in Geneva, Switzerland and later in Athens, Greece, he then moved to rooms division operations at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta, USA. By 2006, Salibi was Front Office Supervisor at the Grand Hyatt in Dubai and a year later, he moved to Lebanon as Assistant Food & Beverage Manager at Le Royal Beirut.

In mid-2007, Afif moved back to Dubai as part of the pre-opening team of Raffles Dubai as Assistant Front Office Manager and was later promoted to Front Office Manager. In 2010, he was part of the task force recruitment for the opening of the Fairmont, Raffles and Swissotel complex in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. He then moved to Cambodia as Director of Rooms at the Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Phnom Penh and later moved to Edmonton, Canada as Director of Operations at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald.

Salibi returned to Raffles Dubai as Director of Operations for almost three years before moving to Fairmont Royal Palm Marrakech in 2017 as General Manager, where he spearheaded the rebranding and repositioning of this flagship luxury resort.

Having grown with Raffles Dubai and seen it evolve for the past 14 years, he's passionate about the hotel and looks forward once again to lead the team and Raffles' legacy. The property continues to be positioned at number one out of 761 hotels in Dubai for the past six years and was awarded amongst the top 10 hotels worldwide on TripAdvisor in 2020.

Salibi holds a Bachelor's degree in Hospitality Business Management from Washington State University and a Diploma in Hotel Management from Cesar Ritz Colleges in Switzerland.
Highlights

Drilling permit approvals received

Exempted from Biden Administration moratorium

Project drilling in its second decade of development

Advancing on recommendations of 2020 Technical Report

Potential Scandium resource opportunity

Drilling to double the depth of the current resource

50% larger drilling program planned

Potential to expand and upgrade the resource

Friendly jurisdiction confirmed

Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Western Rare Earths ("WRE") ("the Company") is pleased to provide the following activities update as it develops the La Paz Scandium and Rare Earths Project on behalf of its publicly traded, Australian parent company American Rare Earths Limited (ASX: ARR).





Photo 1

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7798/76435_66c7220cd4c5bac6_002full.jpg

Drilling Permit Approvals Received

Western Rare Earths (Company) is pleased to announce that it has received approval of all necessary permits to begin its 2021 Core Drilling campaign at the La Paz Scandium and Rare Earth Project.

The La Paz Scandium and Rare Earth Project is a low-grade, critical mineral target with the extraordinary advantage of its sheer volume, and possible opportunity for 1) simple concentration via magnetics, 2) ultra-low penalty element content (Thorium <7ppm), and 3) low cost of open-pit production. In addition, the project has the advantage of being in a Fraser Institute global Top 10 mining friendly jurisdiction, and is one of the very few mining asset classes referenced favorably by the Biden Administration.

Work project exempted from Biden Administration moratorium

On the day of inauguration of US President Joe Biden, the new Acting Secretary of the Interior called for a 60-day halt on grounding disturbing activity approvals on federal lands. This created some confusion within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) around ongoing processing of the permit applications for the La Paz Scandium and Rare Earth Project drilling campaign. After internal deliberations by the relevant government agencies and inquiries by elected officials on behalf of WRE, the BLM permit application quickly received approval. This occurred while developers in the fossil fuel industry remain held up on ground disturbing activity approvals due to the moratorium by the new Administration.

Project drilling in its second decade of development

La Paz was first drilled in 2011 and a maiden resource was established according to National Instrument 43-101 guidelines. In 2011, the resource was established via 195 extremely shallow percussion drill holes to 30 metres. In 2020 this data was reviewed to confirm the previous defined resource when the parent company (ARR) announced the first formal JORC 2012 classified resource estimate of 128.2Mt @ 373.4ppm (0.037%) Total Rare Earth Elements ("TREE") for the Company's wholly owned La Paz Rare Earths Project in Arizona, USA [refer ASX Release: 11 November 2020].

The updated classification followed an extensive review of the La Paz Rare Earths Project by Chief Technical Consultant and Consulting Geologist Mr Jim Guilinger (Competent Person), who brought the project within reporting requirements for mineral resource inventories in compliance with JORC 2012 protocols.

The new inventory description in Table 1 below is a straight conversion of the resource estimate with no change in actual classified mineralised volumes under either code.

Mr Guilinger, who reviewed the La Paz Project, is a Competent Person (CP) under JORC 2012 and NI 43-101 standards. He is also head of Colorado-based independent consultants World Industrial Minerals LLC.

La Paz Resource Estimate 2012 JORC

Mt Grade (%) Contained REE (kg) Contained REE (Mlbs) Inferred 112 0.037 37,586,080 83.3 Indicated 16.2 0.037 5,436,558 12.1 Total 128.2 0.037 43,022,638 95.4



Table 1: La Paz Rare Earths Project JORC 2012 Classified Mineral Resource Estimate

Advancing on Recommendations of the 2020 Technical Report

In the Recommendations section of the 2020 JORC 2012 compliant technical report, Mr Guilinger stated that "it is imperative that better quality samples in the form of cores be drilled in select high-grade areas previously identified by the percussion drilling. Additionally, scandium recovery needs to be investigated." [Refer ASX Release: 24 November 2020 for full Technical Report]

Potential Scandium Resource Opportunity

Additionally, in the Recommendations section of the 2020 JORC 2012 compliant technical report, Mr Guilinger states that "Scandium values tend to be high also in areas of high ppm TREE so the drilling will also likely identify a scandium resource greater than 11ppm." Therefore the company will utilise the core drill assay results from this campaign to determine if a maiden resource of Scandium can be established, concomitant and additional to the Rare Earths resource estimate of 128.2Mt. Also in the Interpretation and Conclusions section of the 2020 JORC 2012 compliant technical report, Mr Guilinger states that, "After the planned 2021 drilling program we expect to be able to upgrade the Rare Earths resource and separately establish a maiden resource for Scandium."

Developing a new Scandium resource estimate in the United States is especially attractive to the Company for several reasons. According to the US Geological Survey's 2021 Mineral Commodity Summaries publication: "Domestically, scandium was neither mined nor recovered from process streams or mine tailings in 2020. Limited capacity to produce ingot and distilled scandium metal existed at facilities in Ames, IA; Tolleson, AZ." Notably, Tolleson, AZ is only 200km from the La Paz Project site.

Additionally, Scandium, along with Rare Earths, was identified by the US Government on its Final List of Crital Minerals pursuant to a 2017 Presidential Executive Order. This list targets "mineral commodities that are vital to the Nation's security and economic prosperity. This dependency of the United States on foreign sources creates a strategic vulnerability for both its economy and military"

Drilling to Double the Depth of the Current Resource

As stated by Mr Guilinger (CP) in the the 2020 JORC 2012 compliant technical report Interpretations and Conclusions, "a detailed review of the previous drilling at different elevations indicates opportunity for more than 60m thickness of higher-grade Rare Earths values in the lower plate gneiss. Thus, the topography lends itself to the opportunity to substantially increase the resource by deeper drilling in the lower plate, where higher grade Rare Earths is prevalent. This analysis supports the plan for a core drilling campaign to 61M depths"

50% larger drilling program planned

The nine (9) drill holes to 61 metres each is 50% more than the six (6) holes originally announced by the Company. In addition to further exploring the maiden resource area, the expanded campaign allows for reconnaissance at depth in the new project areas southwest of the maiden resource. This may indicate the possibility that the ore body extends several kilometres as indicated by robust surface sample results similar to those in the maiden resource area. See attached map (figure 2) for drill hole locations and areas of surface samples similar to the resource area.

Potential to expand and upgrade the resource

The core samples have two major purposes, first to explore the opportunity to expand and upgrade the resource in both size and grade. As mentioned above and referencing the Interpretation and Conclusions section of the 2020 JORC 2012 compliant technical report, Mr Guilinger states that "After the planned 2021 drilling program we expect to be able to upgrade the Rare Earths resource" The second purpose of collecting core is to provide material for advanced metallurgical work by both proven traditional methods as well as promising high efficiency new technologies.

Friendly jurisdiction

The project is located in La Paz County, Arizona USA approximately 200km north-west of Phoenix and 320km south-east of Mountain Pass (the only operating Rare Earths mine in the USA). The project is surrounded by world class infrastructure within a mining friendly jurisdiction and accessed via paved and well-maintained dirt roads (Figure 1).

The permit approvals for the drilling campaign have included the BLM, which is the largest land holder of the US Government on behalf of the Department of the Interior. These federal lands have the unique position of requiring no mineral revenues royalty from producing mines, thus improving the potential economic viability of projects on BLM land.

Approvals were also granted by the Arizona State Land Department and the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

The Company engaged approved experts for surveys to support the applications. These experts completed the appropriate, detailed plant survey and an archeological survey report. The Company has been keen to maintain a collaborative and professional relationship with the permitting authorities, developing positive relationships for future permitting. After multiple delays due to the US elections closing some offices temporarily and the Arizona area being one of the hardest hit by the COVID-19 Pandemic, permits were issued. The Company reports that the State of Arizona is living up to its reputation of being a Fraser Institute #2 ranked mining friendly jurisdiction globally.

Additionally, the local community of La Paz County has been exceptionally supportive. Notably supplying the water needed by the drilling crew in short order at a fair market price. The Economic Development Agency of La Paz County and elected County Supervisors have made this project a top priority for support due to the potential for bringing jobs to a high poverty area.





Figure 1: Location of La Paz Scandium & Rare Earths Project in the US State of Arizona.



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7798/76435_fig1_orig.JPG





Figure 2: La Paz Proposed Drill Hole Locations



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7798/76435_fig2_orig.JPG

This press release is based on an earlier market announcement by the parent company (ASX: ARR) that was authorised for release to the market by the Board of American Rare Earths Limited.

This press release refers to information extracted from market announcements, which are available for viewing on ARR's website https://americanrareearths.com.au

ARR confirms it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in the original market announcements, and, in the case of estimates of Mineral Resources, that all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the estimates in the relevant market announcements continue to apply and have not materially changed. ARR confirms that the form and context in which the Competent Person's findings presented have not been materially modified from the original market announcements.

Competent Persons Statement: The information in this report that relates to Exploration Results is based on information compiled by Mr. Jim Guilinger. Mr. Guilinger is a Member of a Recognised Overseas Professional Organisation included in a list promulgated by the ASX (SME Registered Member of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Inc). Mr. Guilinger is Principal of independent consultants World Industrial Minerals LLC. Mr. Guilinger has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which they are undertaking as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves'. Mr. Guilinger consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears.

About Western Rare Earths

Western Rare Earths (WRE) is progressing assets in the growing rare earth metals sector, itself emerging as an alternative international supply chain to counter China's market dominance of a global rare earth market expected to balloon to US$20 billion by the mid-2020s. WRE owns 100% of the world-class La Paz Scandium and Rare Earths project, located 170km northwest of Phoenix, Arizona. The project's highly shallow 2012 JORC resource (128.2Mt @ 373.4ppm (0.037%) Total Rare Earth Elements), is less than 30m below surface and is contained within just 525 acres of the total La Paz footprint of 5,143 acres that points to potential resource upside. As a large tonnage, bulk deposit, La Paz is also potentially the largest, rare earth deposit in the USA and benefits from containing very low penalty elements such as radioactive thorium and uranium. WRE plans to deliver its first Preliminary Economic Assessment for La Paz in late 2021 and is working with leading USA research institutions to have La Paz's mineral profile incorporated into emerging US advanced rare earth processing technologies. WRE is also acquiring a second USA rare earth asset, the Laramie REE project in Albany County, Wyoming. Transaction completion is due by mid-2021.

Tel +1 623 469 0000 Email info@westernrareearths.com Web: https://westernrareearths.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76435
A couple of pedestrians stop to look at the Colorado state capitol building in downtown Denver from Civic Center Park on Oct. 3, 2020. (Forrest Czarnecki/The Denver Gazette)
Vietnamese rice exporters are seeing buoyant prospects this year

According to statistics published by the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), the Vietnamese rice fetches is $513-517 per tonne of 5 per cent broken rice, $488-492 per tonne of 25 per cent of broken rice. Jasmine rice costs $513-567 per tonne.

In general, the price of Vietnamese rice is $5-7 per tonne higher than products from Thailand ($508-512 per tonne for 5 per cent-broken rice) and much higher than rice from India and Pakistan.

The price of 5 per cent-broken rice is forecast to remain over $500 per tonne by the end of the winter-spring crop of 2020-2021.

According to the VFA, in the first months of 2021, numerous members of the association won large-scale bids to export rice to Europe and a number of countries participating in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Besides, the export turnover to key markets like the Philippines and Africa saw a stable increase, a positive sign for rice exports in the year ahead.

Dao The Anh, vice-president of the Vietnamese Academy of Agricultural Sciences said that in order to maintain the growth momentum, Vietnam should focus on keeping the quality of rice stable, instead of paying attention to developing special rice. Additionally, it is necessary to strengthen co-operation ties between producers and farmers to ensure steady supply.

In late January, a batch of 60 tonnes of jasmine rice was exported to the UK with a price of 15.5 ($21.15) per 10 kilogrammes. A company named Long Dan imported jasmine rice produced by Vinaseed to sell it at its supermarket in the UK.

In addition, at the end of last September, Loc Troi Group exported 126 tonnes of Jasmine 85 to the EU as part of Vietnams contract to export 30,000 tonnes of rice to Europe under a tariff exemption from the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.
This is not the way Republicans wanted to begin the year.

Missouri's Roy Blunt on Monday became the fifth Republican senator to announce he will not seek reelection, a retirement wave that portends an ugly campaign season next year and gives Democrats fresh hope in preserving their razor-thin Senate majority.

History suggests Republicans are still well-positioned to reclaim at least one chamber of Congress next year. But officials in both parties agree that the surge of GOP departures will make the Republicans' challenge more difficult in the Senate.

Any time you lose an incumbent, its bad news, said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, who briefly worked for failed Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin nearly a decade ago. Missouris not necessarily a safe state for Republicans. Democrats have won there.

The 71-year-old Blunt's exit is a reminder of how the nation's politics have shifted since the rise of Donald Trump. Blunt and his retiring GOP colleagues from Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Alabama represent an old guard who fought for conservative policies but sometimes resisted the deeply personal attacks and uneven governance that dominated the Trump era.

Their departures will leave a void likely to be filled by a new generation of Republicans more willing to embrace Trumpism  or by Democrats.

Several Missouri Republicans are expected to seek the nomination to replace Blunt, but none will be more divisive than former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned in 2018 amid the fallout of a sex scandal and ethics investigation. Missouri's Republican base has since rallied behind him, believing he was unfairly prosecuted.

Greitens was considering running for the GOP nomination even before Blunt's announcement. He is expected to announce his candidacy as soon as Tuesday morning.

Two leading Missouri Democrats, former Sen. Claire McCaskill and 2016 Senate candidate Jason Kander, both said they would not run for the open seat.

Ahead of Greitens' announcement, some Republicans worried that he could jeopardize the Senate seat if he emerges as the party's nominee.

Steven Law, a key ally of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and CEO of the Senate Leadership Fund, warned that Republicans may be beginning to repeat the mistakes of 2010, when the GOP lost the Senate majority by embracing flawed far-right candidates.

Law cited Greitens' looming announcement specifically.

We have an opportunity to win back a majority, Law said. But in 2010, that opportunity was lost on the Senate side because of unelectable candidates who got nominated.

Back in 2010, tea party favorite Christine ODonnell beat a longtime GOP congressman in the Delaware Senate primary before losing by a landslide in the general election following reports of personal financial difficulties, questionable use of campaign funds and allegations that she had dabbled into witchcraft.

Two years later in Indiana, Richard Mourdock defeated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the 2012 GOP primary, but he imploded after a debate in which he said pregnancy resulting from rape is something that God intended. In Missouri, Republican nominee Akin lost after he insisted on a local talk show that womens bodies have ways to avoid pregnancy in cases of legitimate rape.

In the decade since Akin's debacle, Missouri's politics, like the nation's, have evolved in a way that gives both parties opportunities.

States like Missouri, Ohio and Iowa, recently considered swing states, are trending away from Democrats. At the same time, previous red states like North Carolina and Georgia are trending away from Republicans.

Missouri hasn't elected a Democratic senator since McCaskill beat Akin in 2012. Trump carried the state last November by 15 percentage points. Trump carried Ohio, where Republican Sen. Rob Portman will not seek reelection next year, by 8 percentage points. The former president won by the same margin in Iowa, where 87-year-old Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is considering retirement.

Democrats are expected to be more competitive in North Carolina, where Trump eked out a victory by just 1 percentage point, and in Wisconsin, should Republican Sen. Ron Johnson follow through with a campaign promise not to seek more than two terms.

Democrats have not lost any incumbents to retirement, but they are defending vulnerable incumbents in Georgia and Arizona, among others.

They have no margin for error. Republicans will claim the Senate majority for the last two years of President Joe Biden's term if they pick up even one additional seat next November.

The party that occupies the White House traditionally suffers significant losses in the first midterm election of a new president. President Barack Obama's Democratic Party, for example, lost 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate in 2010.

Democrats are hopeful that Trump will become an unwitting ally in 2022. The former Republican president has vowed to play an active role in the midterms, particularly by supporting pro-Trump candidates in primary elections. That leaves little room for well-established Republicans like Blunt who are popular statewide.

"The challenge for Republicans will be the race to the bottom in the Republican primaries," said Morgan Jackson, a leading Democratic strategist based in North Carolina. Its not about what you say, its about how loud and angry you say it. Thats a very different view of the world.

Jackson said it's a safe bet Republicans will win the House majority, but he's optimistic that Trump's meddling in Senate primaries will help limit Democrats' losses.

Maybe it wont be a good cycle, but maybe it wont be a bad cycle, he said.

J.B. Poersch, who leads the Democratic-allied Senate Majority PAC, noted that Republicans are focused on the nation's culture wars, while Democrats are in the process of sending billions of dollars to working-class Americans affected by the pandemic. That contrast will help Democrats, he said.

There is a working-family economic argument that Democrats can still make in the middle of the country, in places like Missouri and Ohio, and keep them competitive, he said.

Meanwhile, Blunt predicted political success for Republicans in Missouri and beyond during a Monday news conference. He also reflected upon the 2010 election, when Democrats were punished nationwide after embracing Obama's fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul.

I think 2022 will be a great year in the country and I think it will be a fine year in this Senate race, Blunt told reporters. The Republican Party will be just fine.
HGTV's "Rock the Block" is back for Season 2with new houses and a star-studded roster of designers all competing to impress guest judges Tarek El Moussa and Heather Rae Young.

This time, instead of four individual competitors, the show features four teams of two, including Season 1 alums Alison Victoria from "Windy City Rehab" and Mike Holmes from "Holmes on Homes." They're up against Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent ("Nate and Jeremiah: Save My House"), Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt ("100 Day Dream Home"), and David Bromstad ("My Lottery Dream Home"), who's paired with fellow "Design Star" winner Tiffany Brooks ("50K Three Ways").

Meanwhile, Ty Pennington hosts this competition, announcing weekly challenges.

As Pennington explains at the top of the competition, the four teams each have an identical, three-story house and a substantial $225,000 renovation budget. But these designers and builders will need to pace themselves if they're going to make that quarter mil work for such a big house.

On this season premiere, the teams start in the heart of the home: the kitchen. These teams have just seven days to take their kitchen from a blank slate to a beautiful space. While each team wants to win the first challenge, El Moussa and Young can choose only one kitchen as the winner.

Read on to see what kitchen trends these guest judges adoreand what leaves them coldwhich contains some important lessons and tips to make the most of your cooking space, too.

Give your kitchen island extra style around the edges

Each kitchen is identical to start out, so it's up to the teams to put their individual style into it. HGTV

Brian and Mika explain that they're going for a Southern-Craftsman style with their home, and this week, they impress the judges with a stylish kitchen perfect for a large family.

"We feel like it's going to be a family that ends up in this space, so we want it to function for a family," Mika says.

They make sure to include a big island and lots of seating. Plus, Brian and Mika choose to use lots of white, which makes finding messes easy for a family with young kids.

Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt's island is beautiful, but it's missing one thing. HGTV

El Moussa and Young love the space, but El Moussa has one idea that could have made the space better.

The only thing I would have done different here is, it would have looked awesome with a waterfall edge," El Moussa says, pointing to the island. "Or if you did a drop-down countertop, maybe 3, 4 inches thick.

It's a good lesson that a big island isn't always enough on its ownit deserves big style.

Blue, gray, and white are 'out'

The colors in Tiffany Brooks and David Bromstad's kitchen are brilliant and bold. HGTV

Bromstad and Brooks want to make sure their home stands out, so they plan to give their house a modern Tudor style. This week, they get started by choosing a color palette for the kitchen.

I dont think that, with the kitchen cabinets, we should do blues, whites, or grays," Brooks says. "Thats played out.

Bromstad agrees that those colors seem old, and they decide to make a statement with bold green cabinets.

When their kitchen is finished, the green cabinetry looks beautiful, especially when paired with the clean, white counters. However, El Moussa isnt impressed with the choice.

"It's a little tough for me," El Moussa says of the color. "It's very specific and sometimes, as you guys know, people can't look past something like that."

So, while green cabinets may feel fresh, it seems Bromstad and Brooks may have gone a little too bold this time.

Don't be too quick to paint brick

Alison Victoria and Mike Holmes make the right choice when it comes to this brick. HGTV

Victoria and Holmes are going for a French country vibe with their home, and they want to reflect that in their kitchen. One way they plan to do that is by giving their kitchen a brick feature wall with a grand arch over the stove. The two love the idea of this old-world design, but Victoria almost ruins the look when she suggests painting the brick white.

Right away, Holmes pushes back against the paint, saying that the brick is beautiful as is.

Dont give it character and then cover it up with all white, Holmes says.

Luckily, Victoria ends up changing her mind and they go with the natural brick look. The brick looks lovely and El Moussa and Young are impressed.

"This is gorgeous," El Moussa says when he first sees the brick feature.

Decorate a dining space with more than just a table

This dining table could have used a brick feature as well. HGTV

While El Moussa and Young are fans of Holmes and Victoria's kitchen, they're more critical of the dining room. The beautiful brick feature ends right before the dining room begins, and the judges say that this is a mistake.

"Maybe you guys could have carried this look into the dining room to make the kitchen feel a little bit bigger," El Moussa says.

Young echoes El Moussa's concern, suggesting, "You should have put, like, a wet barwine area with floating shelves."

Shelves should always be functional

Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent design a gorgeous kitchen. HGTV

Berkus and Brent want to give their house a European farmhouse look, and they work hard to tie that style into the kitchen. They incorporate a beautiful reclaimed wood island, modern white counters, and lots of beautiful gold accents.

One unique feature in this kitchen is the open shelving, which features built-in lights. It's a beautiful and thoughtful design, but El Moussa is concerned about functionality.

Berkus and Brent's unique shelf has light fixtures attached. HGTV

"I like the glass shelves with the gold bars and the lighting, but its a staged house, right?" El Moussa asks. "So, imagine a familys living here. Imagine how full those shelves are going to be, and then whats the kitchen going to look like? 'Cause theres really no cabinetry.

While Berkus and Brent may have some of the most beautiful shelves in the competition, without function, they won't fly.

'Rock the Block' round 1: Who wins?

After El Moussa and Young closely scrutinize all four homes, they decide that Holmes and Victoria's kitchen is the best. True, their dining room is a tad plain, but the beautiful brick feature and French charm is enough to win this round.

However, this is just the first of six big renovations on the show, so you'll have to continue tuning in each week to see which team ultimately comes out on top!

The post 'Rock the Block': Tarek El Moussa and Heather Rae Young Reveal Kitchen Designs They Loveand Hate appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi:

The United States President's residential place and office White House was put under lockdown for a brief period on Tuesday night (IST) after a suspicious package was spotted. The Secret Service cleared the package within 30 mins.

Meanwhile, reporters were urged to wait in the James S Brady briefing room while the security threat was investigated, local media said.



President Trump was not in the building having just left Washington for a rally in Arizona Tuesday night.

UPDATES



#11:44 PM:

@SecretService and @DCPoliceDept have cleared the unattended package near the north fence line of the @WhiteHouse Complex  U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) August 22, 2017

#11:24 PM: Fox News reporter Chad Pergram tweeted that a man has been arrested for "unlawful entry" on the steps of the Capitol. At this time it is unclear if the man under arrest is the suspect connected to the suspicious package.



@SecretService & @DCPoliceDept responding to an unattended package near the North Fence of the @WhiteHouse Complex.  U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) August 22, 2017





Pedestrian traffic along Penn Ave between 15th & 17th and the area of LaFayette Park is restricted due to law enforcement activity.  U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) August 22, 2017

#11:22 PM:

US Secret Service & DC Police Dept responding to an unattended package near North Fence of White House Complex: US Secret Service

All press cleared off White House North Lawn positions. Secret Service telling reporters & construction crews to go inside immediately.  Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) August 22, 2017







For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.

A British-Australian woman jailed in Iran for more than two years on widely criticized espionage charges has said in a television interview broadcast on March 9 that she was subjected to "psychological torture."



Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University, returned to Australia in November after serving 804 days of a 10-year sentence.

Moore-Gilbert, 33, who was freed in exchange for the release of three Iranians held in Thailand, told Sky News that she was held in solitary confinement.



"It's [an] extreme solitary confinement room designed to break you. It's psychological torture. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. I would say I felt physical pain from the psychological trauma I had in that room. It's [a] 2-meter by 2-meter box, she said.



"There were a few times in that early period that I felt broken. I felt if I had to endure another day of this, you know, if I could Id just kill myself. But of course, I never tried and I never took that step," Moore-Gilbert added.



She also confirmed that members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had attempted to recruit her as a spy many times.



Moore-Gilbert had written about the attempts in letters smuggled out of prison and published in British media in January 2020.



Iran has arrested dozens of foreign and dual nationals in recent years on espionage charges that they and their governments say are groundless.



Critics say Iran uses such arbitrary detentions as part of hostage diplomacy to extract concessions from Western countries, which Tehran denies.

With reporting by AP and The Guardian
Cannabis is getting bigger, and now insuring cannabis seems to be a bigger deal, too. The cannabis-focused insurance space can now be counted as part of a larger trend in recently announced business deals in cannabis.

One80 Intermediaries announced on Tuesday it has acquired Cannasure Insurance Services, an Ohio-based wholesale broker and managing general agent focused on the cannabis and hemp industry.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Despite the pandemic, sales in the cannabis industry saw a massive boost last year, rising 48% to $21.3 billion. Analytics firm BDSA now forecasts global cannabis sales will grow to $55.9 billion in 2026, a compound annual growth rate of more than 17%.

Cannasure is well known in the cannabis space. The firm provides retail insurance agents with risk assessments and product offerings, which include property, general liability, excess, professional, products and completed operations liability.

Cannasure is a national wholesale broker, program manager and third-party administrator that serves cultivators, dispensaries, extractors, processors, product manufacturers, testing labs, landlords and ancillary businesses in all states where cannabis and hemp are legal. It offers coverage on a monoline or package basis.

The Cannasure acquisition ensures that we stay at the forefront of the industry, providing unmatched protection to cannabis and hemp businesses helping them thrive, Matthew F. Power, president of One80 Intermediaries, said in a statement.

One80 Intermediaries has been on a buying spree the past few years.

In late February, it acquired Edward E. Hall and Co., a New York-based managing general underwriter that specializes in the retail vehicle industry. Its acquisitions last year included Beachwood, Ohio-based International Excess Program Managers, a wholesale insurance brokerage and program manager, and New Jerseys Equinox Management Group and its affiliates Meridian Management Group and Co-Ordinated Benefit Plans.

Boston, Mass.-based One80 Intermediaries is a privately held, national wholesaler and program manager with offices throughout the U.S. and Canada. The firm offers placement services and binding authority for property/casualty, financial lines, personal lines, life insurance, medical stop loss, alternative risk, warranty, lender-based insurance, travel/accident and health risks.

On top of its sales growth, the cannabis industry has been awash in investing deals and mergers and acquisitions. Jazz Pharmaceuticals in early February announced it would be acquiring GW Pharmaceuticals.

Multi-state cannabis operator Parallel recently announced its intention to go public via a merger with special acquisition corporation Ceres Acquisition Corp. in a deal with an estimated value of $1.8 billion.

Choice Consolidation Corp., another in a number of SPAC deals as of late in the cannabis industry, raised $150 million in an IPO on the Canadian NEO Exchange in mid-February.

This all follows the $4 billion merger announcement at the end of 2020 of Canadian cannabis firms Aphria and Tilray, which will create the worlds largest cannabis company.

Related:

Topics Mergers Cannabis
As Manitoba expanded vaccine eligibility, the province's appointment-booking hotline temporarily crashed Monday afternoon.

The cause of the outage hasn't been determined, according to a provincial spokesperson.

It happened early in the afternoon, shortly after the vaccine task force expanded the vaccine eligibility criteria by five years, allowing people over 80 and First Nations residents over 60 to book appointments. Previously, only those over 85 and 65, respectively, were able to make appointments.

The phone line was restored in a limited capacity after about three hours. Some callers were able to make appointments but others didn't get through, and the province said it was working on the issue.

So far, more than 60,500 Manitobans have been vaccinated against COVID-19 with a first dose. About half of those got both doses.

Vaccine deliveries to Manitoba are ramping up. For the last two weeks of March, Manitoba is on track to receive more than twice as many Pfizer doses from the federal government than initially planned. Vaccine clinics in Thompson, Brandon, Winnipeg and Selkirk are taking appointments. The Selkirk site was scheduled to open Monday and the opening of a clinic in Morden is expected to follow.

The province plans to have doctors and pharmacists administer fridge-stable vaccines, which, unlike the shots from Pfizer and Moderna, won't have to be kept extra cold. As of Monday, more than 500 clinics and pharmacies had applied to be part of the vaccine rollout, the province stated in a news release.

On Friday, Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead of Manitoba's vaccine task force, said Manitobans with serious health conditions such as liver failure, who are between 50-64, will be first in line to be offered the vaccine from their doctor's office or pharmacy.

The list of serious medical conditions the province developed hasn't been publicly released.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Curator Diane Wendt shows that specialized container used to ship super cold doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Washington, on Monday, March 8, 2021. The package and other items related to the first dose of vaccine administered in the U.S. have been donated to the Smithsonian's Museum of American History. (AP Photo/Ashraf Khalil)

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has acquired the vial that contained the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the United States as part of its plans to document the global pandemic and "this extraordinary period we were going through."

The acquisition, along with other materials related to that first vaccine dose, was announced by the museum on Tuesday to mark the upcoming one-year anniversary of the pandemic. Associated Press journalists were given an exclusive backstage look at the newly obtained materials, which include vials, special shipping equipment and the medical scrubs and ID badge of the New York City nurse who was America's first coronavirus vaccine recipient.

"We wanted objects that would tell the full story," said Anthea M. Hartig, the museum's director. "Everything from the scrubs to the freezer unit that shipped the vaccines."

Although there are a host of coronavirus-related anniversaries taking place, the museum is choosing to mark ThursdayMarch 11, the day last year that the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. That's also the week that much of American life shut down as the virus made inroads into offices, homes and sporting events.

"Our broadest mandate was to document this extraordinary period we were going through" said Diane Wendt, a curator in the museum's medicine and science department. "We particularly had our eye on vaccine development from the start."

Diane Wendt, a curator at the Museum of American History, displays a small glass tube containing one of the original batches of polio vaccine on Monday, March 8, 2021, in Washington. The museum has acquired vials and material from the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. (AP Photo/Ashraf Khalil)

The first dose of vaccine in the U.S. was given on Dec. 14, 2020, by Northwell Health, a New York-based health provider, to Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse. The donation from Northwell includes the original Pfizer vials as well as the specialized shipping container, about the size of a hotel room fridge, that would deliver the super-cold Pfizer doses packed in dry ice. The museum also obtained first-batch vials of the alternate vaccine created by Moderna, and Lindsay donated her hospital ID badge and her white and blue medical scrubs.

"Our curators were particularly interested in the process and the packaging," museum spokeswoman Melinda Machado said. "The story of the vaccine is not just what goes in your arm."

The National Museum of American History closed on March 13 last year along with other Smithsonian facilities, including the National Zoo. It reopened on a limited basis in September but closed again around eight weeks later, before Thanksgiving, as local virus numbers started going back up.

This badge declaring "I'm vaccinated! Are you?" that dates back to a 1950s polio vaccination campaign is photographed in Washington, Monday, March 8, 2021. The museum of American history has now added vials of the first COVID-19 vaccine administered in American to its medical and scientific collection (AP Photo/Ashraf Khalil)

Curator Diane Wendt shows off a vaccination card from the 1950s in Washington, Monday, March 8, 2021, that documents the polio vaccination of a second grader. The Museum of American History has acquired the first vial of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the U.S. as part of its medical collection. (AP Photo/Ashraf Khalil)

In this Dec. 14, 2020, file photo, Sandra Lindsay, left, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, is inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by Dr. Michelle Chester, in the Queens borough of New York. Smithsonian's Museum of American History has acquired the vial that contained the very first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the United States. The first dose of vaccine in the U.S. was given on Dec. 14, 2020, by Northwell Health, a New York-based health provider, to Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, Pool, File)

In this April 3, 2019, file photo people visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington. Smithsonian's Museum of American History has acquired the vial that contained the very first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the United States. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

But even with doors shuttered, Hartig said the museum had what she called a "rapid response collecting task force" of curators looking at ways to tell the story of this time in American history. Hartig said she also had parallel curation crews out gathering material from last year's wave of protests against police brutality and systemic racial iniquities and is now looking at artifacts to mark the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

The new COVID-19 materials will join the museum's extensive medical collection. This includes one of the first batches of the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1955 and specialized syringes and vaccination cards from that era, as well as an authentic iron lung machine, multiple artificial hearts and an extensive selection documenting the fight against AIDS. The collection also now includes the personal blue and pink plastic COVID-19 model donated last week by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime immunologist who has become synonymous with the fight against the virus.

Museum officials say they aren't sure if the coronavirus-related materials will be on display immediately when the museum reopens later this year. For now, they are planning to use them as part of a larger display on the history of medicine that is expected to debut next year.

Explore further Fauci presents his personal virus model to Smithsonian

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Theres never been a better time to be a bike enthusiast in Northeast Ohio. The region is experiencing a trail boom and new plans regularly call for extending the network.

To give you an idea of the major trails available to explore, cleveland.com has compiled a list of 22 bike paths, beginning with the longest.

Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail

1. Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail

Trail mileage: Approx. 101 miles (some incomplete)

Out-and-back ride: Approx. 202 miles

Surface type: Paved, crushed limestone

Ride ideas: If youve never biked the Towpath, ask yourself what type of ride you want.

For a nature trek, you could bike through Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Or consider riding from Peninsula to Brandywine Falls.

For an urban bike ride, consider starting at the Ohio & Erie Canal Reservation and biking north on the Towpath. If the Center Street Bridge is open, you can make it all the way to Lake Erie.

There are a lot of trailheads in Summit County. A nice mix of urban and nature riding would be to start at Big Bend Trailhead and ride to Summit Lake.

The Ohio & Erie Canalway website has more information about the Towpath Trail.

Western Reserve Greenway (Photo courtesy of Ashtabula County Metroparks)

2. The Western Reserve Greenway

Trail mileage: 46.8 miles (including on-street sections)

Out-and-back ride: 93.7 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: The Ashtabula County Metroparks and Trumbull County MetroParks have trailheads along the route. Consider starting at Herzog Rotary Park in Ashtabula and riding south.

The Western Reserve Greenway is part of the larger Great Ohio Lake-to-River Greenway, a partly-constructed trail network from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. If youre really up for an adventure, consider this 104-mile bike ride from Ashtabula to East Liverpool.

Emerald Necklace Trail

3. Emerald Necklace Trail

Trail mileage: 32.6 miles

Out-and-back ride: 65.2 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: There would be no Emerald Necklace in Cleveland without this trail and park land surrounding it. Even if youre not ready for a 65-mile out-and-back ride, try starting on the north end of Cleveland Metroparks Rocky River Reservation. The All-purpose trail comes down the hill from Detroit Avenue. Theres parking by the marina. Ride the trail south for as long as you want, but remember to save energy for the return trip!

If youd like a stiff climb, start in Cleveland Metroparks Brecksville Reservation and head up the All-purpose trail along Valley Parkway. The first 5 miles has over 600 feet of elevation gain.

cleveland.coms bike ride video: 58-mile loop using the Emerald Necklace Trail

Summit Bike & Hike Trail

4. The Summit Bike & Hike Trail

Trail mileage: 32 miles (including on-street sections)

Out-and-back ride: 43 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: This Summit Metro Parks gem was one of the first rails-to-trails conversions in the country. I rode the entire trail, 43 miles roundtrip, starting at the Alexander Road Trailhead in Bedford. A shorter ride would be to trek to Brandywine Falls about 6.5 miles south on the trail.

To enjoy the southern end of the trail, try this 8-mile ride starting at Waterworks Park in Cuyahoga Falls. Take the trail east to Munroe Falls Kent Road.

Summit Metro Parks has more information about the Summit Bike & Hike Trail.

cleveland.coms bike ride video: 43-mile ride on the Summit Bike & Hike Trail

The Maple Highlands Trail

5. The Maple Highlands Trail

Trail mileage: 21.6 miles (including on-street section)

Out-and-back ride: 43.2 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: This awesome Geauga Park District trail travels from the Lake County border through Chardon and Middlefield and arrives at a park in Amish country. The entire 43-mile out-and-back ride took me all day with stops.

For a shorter ride, try going to Geauga Park Districts Mountain Run Station. You can do a 16-mile out-and-back ride south to Headwaters Park. Theres a huge lake and a great campground with lean-tos at Headwaters Park. You can also explore Chardon and continue north with a 12-mile out-and-back to Big Creek Park.

cleveland.com bike ride video: 21-mile ride on The Maple Highlands Trail

Geauga Park District has more information about The Maple Highlands Trail

Cleveland Lakefront Bikeway

6. Cleveland Lakefront Bikeway

Trail mileage: 16.5 miles (including on-street sections)

Out-and-back ride: 33 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: The newest development to the bikeway is a 2-mile trail connecting Cleveland Metroparks Edgewater Park to West 25th Street in Ohio City.

Consider this 3.4-mile lakefront ride starting at Gordon Park and moving west to the East 55th Street Fishing Area in the Cleveland Metroparks Lakefront Reservation.

cleveland.com bike ride video: 10-mile bike ride from University Circle to Edgewater Park

bedford to south chagrin all-purpose trail

7. Bedford to South Chagrin All-Purpose Trail

Trail mileage: 14.9 miles (including on-street section)

Out-and-back ride: 29.8 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: South Chagrin Reservation and Bedford Reservation are two of the most beautiful in Cleveland Metroparks. Since this trail links with the Summit Bike & Hike Trail, serious riders could take a monster 71-mile roundtrip ride through Cuyahoga and Summit Counties.

Theres also a way to connect to the Emerald Necklace Trail through a link in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. You can take a 53-mile bike ride all the way to Rocky River.

North Coast Inland Trail

8. North Coast Inland Trail

Trail mileage: 14.8 miles

Out-and-back ride: 29.6 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: Many people start in Elyria at the Gateway Boulevard Trailhead. Making it to Oberlin is a nice accomplishment if you dont feel up for riding all the way to Kipton.

The North Coast Inland Trail is made up of segments of finished trail between Elyria and Toledo. Trail advocates hope it will one day be a contiguous path between the two cities and possibly stretch eastward into Cuyahoga County. For a long bike adventure, cyclists can travel 90 miles from Lakeview Park in Lorain to the small town of Elmore.

cleveland.com bike ride video: Biking the North Coast Inland Trail in Lorain County

Portage Hike & Bike Trail

9. Portage Hike & Bike Trail

Trail mileage: 11.2 miles (including on-road connection)

Out-and-back ride: 22.4 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: Towners Woods is a great place to start because you can ride east to Ravenna and west to Kent. This trail is a pleasant surprise waiting for you in Portage County.

I like connecting to the Summit Metro Parks Freedom Trail via Middlebury Road for a 9-mile ride between Akron and Kent.

Portage Park District has more information about the Portage Hike & Bike Trail.

Sippo Valley Trail, courtesy of Stark County Park District

10. Sippo Valley Trail

Trail mileage: 10 miles

Out-and-back ride: 20 miles

Surface type: Paved, crushed limestone

Ride ideas: A natural place to start is the parking lot at Lincoln Park, east of 17th Street in Massillon. The trail links up with the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail, so there are tremendous opportunities for longer rides.

Stark County Park District has more information about the Sippo Valley Trail.

Big Creek Parkway

11. Big Creek Parkway and the Lake-to-Lake Trail

Trail mileage: 8.6 miles

Out-and-back ride: 17.2 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: Start at Lake Isaac and ride the Lake-to-Lake Trail north to Lake Abram. Its a very scenic 2.4-mile trail with boardwalks and overlooks across wetlands.

If youre coming from Brookpark Road and need to park your car, use the Lower Fern Hill Picnic Area to access the trail.

cleveland.com bike ride video: Biking Big Creek Parkway to Lake Abram

Headwaters Trail

12. Headwaters Trail

Trail mileage: 8.5 miles

Out-and-back ride: 17 miles

Surface type: Crushed limestone

Ride ideas: I started at the Mill Street trailhead in Mantua and had a very enjoyable 17-mile ride through forest, fields and small towns.

Portage Park District has more information about Headwaters Trail.

North Chagrin Reservation All-Purpose Trail & Bruce G. Rinker Greenway

13. North Chagrin Reservation All-Purpose Trail & Bruce G. Rinker Greenway

Trail mileage: 8.3 miles

Out-and-back ride: 11.7 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: This ride takes advantage of the Cleveland Metroparks All-purpose trail at North Chagrin Reservation as well as the 2.5-mile Bruce G. Rinker Greenway in Mayfield. I started at the Strawberry Picnic Area and rode south on the All-purpose trail. See the video and map below for a better look at your options.

Make sure to stop at Buttermilk Falls, a cascading waterfall with a peaceful observation deck inside North Chagrin Reservation.

cleveland.com bike ride video: 11-mile ride through North Chagrin Reservation (Cleveland Metroparks)

Freedom Trail

14. Freedom Trail

Trail mileage: 7.6 miles

Out-and-back ride: 15.2 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: Summit Metro Parks plans to connect the Freedom Trail to the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail in the future. Lions Park is a good central place to start. As mentioned above, theres a possible connection on Middlebury Road to the Portage Hike & Bike Trail: Freedom Trail ride from Akron to Kent.

Summit Metro Parks has more information on the Freedom Trail.

Black River Bikeway

15. Black River Reservation Trails

Trail mileage: 7 miles (including on-street connection)

Out-and-back ride: 14 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: Even if you dont live in Lorain County, this trail is worth the drive. One great idea is to bookend your trip with waterfall hikes. Starting at Days Dam in Lorain County Metro Parks, bike a half mile to the waterfall trail. A short hike leads you to Days Dam Falls, one of the lesser-known waterfalls in the area. Then continue your bike ride all the way to Cascade Park. Look for West Falls Trail on your way up the hill toward Furnace Street. You can bike most of the final 0.3 miles but will need to walk your bike to reach the waterfall.

You can connect to the North Coast Inland Trail using this 1.8-mile stretch from Cascade Park though Elyria.

cleveland.com bike ride video: 7 miles on the Black River Bikeway to West Falls

Harrison Dillard Bikeway & Lake-to-Lakes Trail

16. Harrison Dillard Bikeway & Lake-to-Lakes Trail

Trail mileage: 5.7 miles

Out-and-back ride: 11.4 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: There are parks at both ends of this trail and they make for good places to start your ride. The Cleveland Metroparks Lakefront Reservation is at the north end of the Harrison Dillard Trail. Parking is available at the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve or the East 72nd Fishing Area. The Nature Center at Shaker Lakes is at the southern end of the Lake-to-Lakes Trail and is a beautiful spot to explore on foot.

cleveland.com bike ride video: 23-mile Euclid Creek loop bike ride

Olde Muskingum Trail, courtesy Stark County Park District (Photo credit: Denny Williams)

17. Olde Muskingum Trail

Trail mileage: 5.7 miles

Out-and-back ride: 11.4 miles

Surface type: Limestone

Parking: 220 Cherry Street W., Canal Fulton, OH 44614

Ride ideas: The Olde Muskingum Trail connects to the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail via the sidewalk along Cherry Street in Canal Fulton. The two trails are a stones throw away from each other. The parking lot at St. Helena Park is a starting place for riders. If you bike 5.7 miles south to the end of the trail, youll have the option to connect to the Towpath via the bridge on Forty Corners Road.

Stark County Park District has more information on the Olde Muskingum Trail.

Lake Metroparks Greenway Corridor

18. Lake Metroparks Greenway Corridor

Trail mileage: 4.7 miles

Out-and-back ride: 9.4 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride Ideas: Theres a beautiful waterfall called Chair Factory Falls along this trail. Theres bike parking and a 0.3-mile trail leading to the falls. Id recommend starting this trail from the Lake Metroparks Environmental Learning Center and riding north.

Lake Metroparks has more information about the Greenway Corridor.

Medina County Rail Trails

19. Medina County Rail Trails

Chippewa Inlet Trail: 2.9 miles (paved, crushed stone surface)

Chippewa Rail Trail: 2.75 miles (paved surface)

Lester Rail Trail: 3.2 miles (crushed stone surface)

Many cyclists in Medina County like to connect the Chippewa Inlet and Chippewa Rail Trails into one ride by biking along Chippewa Road. If youre feeling more adventurous, you can follow the map below to connect through Medina Public Square to the Lester Rail Trail as well. On your way back, you have the option of enjoying the Champion Creek Trail which is maintained by the City of Medina. Putting all of these together makes for a 34-mile ride and a great workout.

cleveland.com bike ride video: Biking 3 rail trails in Medina County Park District

Morgana Run Trail

20. Morgana Run Trail

Trail mileage: 2.1 miles

Out-and-back ride: 4.2 miles

Surface type: Paved

Ride ideas: The Morgana Run Trail is an urban bike and walking path through Clevelands Slavic Village neighborhood. There are public art installations along the route, including the RotoFlora sculpture at E.49th Street.

At the time of this writing, there isnt a designated parking lot for the trail. I parked at a shopping plaza on Broadway Avenue near Union Avenue the first time I rode the trail.

My favorite ride involving the Morgana Run Trail is the 13-mile Mill Creek Loop, a ride which explores three Cleveland Metroparks reservations and connects to the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.

My bike video involving Morgana Run Trail: Biking the 13-mile Mill Creek loop from the Towpath Trail

Cleveland Metroparks Red Line Greenway

21. Red Line Greenway

Trail mileage: 2.3 miles (including Michael Zone Recreation Center Park)

Out-and-back ride: 4.6 miles

Surface type: Paved asphalt

The Cleveland Metroparks Red Line Greenway is an urban trail that provides an active primary transportation corridor from West 65th Street to downtown Cleveland. It links to the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Lake Link Trail which connects to the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.

cleveland.com bike tour video: Tour of Cleveland Metroparks Red Line Greenway

hemlock creek trail

22. Hemlock Creek Trail

Trail mileage: 2 miles

Out-and-back ride: 4 miles

Surface type: Paved asphalt

Ride ideas: The Hemlock Creek Trail directly connects to the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. If youre riding the Towpath, look for it between Lock 39 and Canal Exploration Center.

Many people park in the back of the Cleveland Clinic Business Center parking lot off Brecksville Road. The trail heads over the river and through the woods into Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

cleveland.com bike ride video: Biking the Hemlock Creek Trail to the Towpath

Cleveland Metroparks TIGER Trails

Cleveland Metroparks TIGER Trails will provide seamless, car-free connectivity to regional parks, trails, waterfronts

Future bike trails:

Coronavirus pandemic gives fresh impetus to global bike boom including trail projects in Cleveland, Northeast Ohio

Long-delayed plan for Slavic Village Downtown Connector bike trail gains momentum

NOACA Bike Maps

NOACA Cuyahoga County Bike Map

Cuyahoga County bike map from NOACA

NOACA Lake County bike map

Lake County bike map from NOACA

Geauga County bike map NOACA

Geauga County bike map from NOACA

NOACA bike map Lorain County

Lorain County bike map from NOACA

NOACA bike map Medina County

Medina County bike map

Related outdoor content:

Northeast Ohio bike rides video playlist

cleveland.coms best bike rides (with maps and videos)

Outdoor adventures in Northeast Ohio parks

Exploring Clevelands Great Outdoors video playlist

Overnighting in Toledos magical new treehouse village, where the sounds of the forest come to life

Exploring Hocking Hills State Park, Ohios crown jewel, with new one-way trails and an overnight lodge on the way
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Bangor, Maine,

Piscataquis County

Maine

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Maine

Maine

Maine

Cumberland County

Greater Bangor

Lewiston

Auburn

Maine Highlands

Sagadahoc County

Kennebec County

Washington County

Passamaquoddy Tribe

Maine

Peter Nalli

Maine

Massachusetts

Connecticut

Rhode Island

Lawrence, Massachusetts

Lawrence Public Schools

Lawrence

Sue Mackey Andrews

Dover-Foxcroft

Maine Highlands

Mackey Andrews

Maine Highlands

Piscataquis County

Greater Bangor

Tanya Emery

Bangor's

Chris Linder

Bangor

Massachusetts

Connecticut

Rhode Island

Vermont

Maine

Federal Reserve Bank

Richmond

Dallas

(TNS)  A team inwants to try to break down barriers to employment for low-income residents. A team inhopes to more easily connect at-risk residents with social services, transportation and technology. And a team in the Katahdin region wants to build a thriving outdoor economy that puts its younger residents to work.They haven't yet figured out exactly how to do it, but they and five other teams have $25,000 with which to come up with a plan, thanks to a newinitiative by theThe federal bank, known commonly as the Boston Fed, received 22 applications last year from all 16counties for the Working Communities Challenge, a program that aims to mobilize Mainers to address challenges and seize opportunities in their communities, through collaborations between municipalities, organizations and businesses. From those, eight teams were chosen.Over the next six months, each of the eightteams will use their $25,000 grant to design a program to address a unique challenge in their community, such as job training, access to child care, substance abuse, broadband access and economic development. After six months, each team will then apply for a second round of grant funding, and five will be chosen to each receive $375,000 to implement the program they came up with the first round.The eightteams selected to receive the $25,000 design grant are based in, the Katahdin region,and, the, southernandand the"We were thrilled to see such widespread interest across," saidof the Boston Fed, who leads the Working Communities Challenge for. "These eight recipients also represent a pretty diverse group of Mainers, from urban and rural areas, and are focused on a wide array of topics."The Working Communities Challenge, part of the Boston Fed's Working Places program, has its precursor in the Working Cities Challenge, a similar program targeted to mid-sized cities inand. That challenge resulted in some success stories in cities like, a once-booming textile mill town that became one of the poorest cities in the state by 2010. The Lawrence Working Families Initiative, a grant recipient, has placed more than 160 parents of students ininto better-paying jobs, according to its website."The collaborative work done inreally drove a change in how they operate schools," Nalli said. "It's all about change at the local level, and rallying a group of local leaders around a shared goal, and helping people collaborate to solve a problem, or unlock a new opportunity."of, who leads the team working in the, said the access to training provided by the program is a major boon, as is the collaboration fostered between team members working in both the public and private sectors."This program is asking us to focus on families living in poverty, and doing something bold that creates deep, systemic change,"said. "That's a big list of things we could tackle, especially in the middle of a pandemic. We assembled a dynamic, multi-sector team of 47 people, and went through a process of talking about common challenges. That's invaluable."In the, some of the potential things that the team hopes to address during the design phase is how to connect low and moderate incomeresidents with things like access to the internet and other technology, access to transportation and access to a range of social services.Ineconomic development director, leads the team withof-based MaineStream Finance, a nonprofit community development financial institution. Their team plans to work on addressing workforce development among people in the region that have some sort of barrier to sustainable employment, such as a criminal record or a history of substance abuse.Emery said they applied for the program and formed their team not because of the grant money, but because the Working Communities Challenge offered them an opportunity to really home in on some of the major challenges facing the region, like workforce development."In the past, when we've tried to address this issue, it's been like we've had the right ingredients, but we didn't have the recipe," Emery said. "The most valuable piece of this is the assistance we're receiving from these other communities that have been through this process, and seeing the work they did and how we might replicate it here. It's given us a lot of galvanization around this issue, and we have a really deep and committed team from all these different sectors of the community."The Working Cities Challenge was started by the Boston Fed in 2013, first in, before expanding toand. In 2019, the Working Communities Challenge, geared toward rural communities, was launched in, and thechallenge launched in 2020, backed by $2.7 million in local and national philanthropic contributions, federal grants and business contributions. The state has contributed $300,000 over three years.So far, the Boston Fed is the onlydistrict in the county to offer such a program, though the districts inand inare considering similar initiatives.
Australia's former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has said the tumult in the royal family caused by Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey bolsters his case for breaking from the British monarchy.

Turnbull, a longstanding champion of an Australian republic, said it was 'clearly an unhappy family, or at least Meghan and Harry are unhappy' after the couple aired a series of explosive claims about life behind palace doors.

It included the suggestion that royals were jealous of Meghan's popularity during a 2018 tour of Australia and New Zealand.

'After the end of the Queen's reign, that is the time for us to say: OK, we've passed that watershed. Do we really want to have whoever happens to be the head of state, the King or Queen of the UK, automatically our head of state?' Turnbull said on the ABC.

Malcolm Turnbull (right) and his wife Lucy (left) meet Prince Harry and Meghan at a function at Australia House in London in April 2018

Turnbull said the tumult caused by Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey (pictured) bolstered his case that Australia should break away from the monarchy

Turnbull met Harry and Meghan at a function in London in April 2018, but had been forced out as prime minister by the time they visited Australia later that year.

Harry suggested that members of the royal family were jealous of Meghan because of the ease with which she seemed to be carrying out her duties in Australia.

The revelation drew comparisons to Diana eclipsing Charles during their own tour of Australia in 1983, the subject of an episode in the latest season of The Crown.

And the monarchy is now embroiled in another public relations crisis after Meghan described a royal life so packed with racism and pressure that she was driven to contemplating suicide.

In Australia, the Daily Telegraph's TV editor Holly Byrnes said the royals had 'learned nothing since Diana died and may well die because of it'.

Current Australian PM Scott Morrison was not asked about the royal interview in a Tuesday press conference.

But Turnbull told ABC that 'it's clearly an unhappy family or at least Meghan and Harry are unhappy. It seems very sad.'

Turnbull suggested, as others have, that Australia might look to become a republic when the Queen's reign ends (the Queen is pictured at Windsor Castle last week)

New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured) said the country is unlikely to break away from the British monarchy any time soon

Turnbull led the Australian Republican Movement from 1993 to 2000, a period which included a 1999 referendum in which voters opted to keep the monarchy.

The debate has sometimes been beset by divisions among republicans, some of whom want a directly elected president instead of a figurehead chosen by parliament as was proposed in 1999.

The Queen is currently represented by a governor-general whose role is mostly ceremonial but does have the power to sack the PM, which happened in 1975.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the country was unlikely to break from the British monarchy anytime soon.

Ardern has expressed republican views in the past but said she had not 'sensed an appetite from New Zealanders for significant change' in the constitution.

Asked about her personal friendship with Meghan since the couple toured the country in 2018, Ardern said she had kept in touch.

'But ultimately, the matters that are being canvassed here I see as for Meghan and Harry to respond to directly,' she said.

'These are matters about their personal lives and their personal decisions, and I don't think it deserves a commentary from anyone else,' she said.
Dr. Seuss, P.D. Eastman and Beverly Cleary were among my favorite authors when I was learning to read.

But by far my favorite series was Dan Frontier by William Hurley. Frontier was a fictional Daniel Boone-type character who hunted and trapped. The books, which were published in 1959, were exciting and engaging and actually could hold the attention of a child like me who couldnt sit still for more than 15 seconds.

So, when it was time to teach my oldest daughter Grace to read, I purchased on eBay the entire series, which is long out of print. I figured since I enjoyed them so much as a kid, that my daughter would as well.

But one night as I read a book aloud to my then 4-year-old, I was brought up short. I didnt like what I read.

American Indians were portrayed as thieves. In other references they were identified as sneaky and untrustworthy.

It wasnt something I wanted my children to be taught. So, I put Dan Frontier back on the shelf and read other titles to my kids.

Censorship? Nope. Its called parenting.

When children are older I want them to read and discuss works that use controversial language and images. Works like Huckleberry Finn deserve to be debated and discussed, provided historical and literary context is given.

But for youngsters just learning to read we need to be careful that their first books dont become primers for hate.

I was thinking about my Dan Frontier experience this past week when I read that the firm created by Theodor Seuss Geisels family discontinued six titles because they contained images and words that were hurtful.

Immediately, pundits came out of the woodwork and screamed about the Cancel Culture.

My Dad loved to read Green Eggs and Ham to me. In fact, its the only book I can remember him reading with me. My Mom loved to read Are you my Mother by P.D. Eastman, a work which Seuss edited.

I have no recollection from my childhood of any of Seuss works being offensive. If anything, I associate them with lots of parental love.

But nostalgia and memories are a bit like food and smorgasbords. You take what you want and forget the rest.

And there is a lot of nostalgia out there for Dr. Seuss, just as there was for me and Dan Frontier.

Seuss wrote many wonderful books. Some of his works fought antisemitism in the United States. And he literally illustrated the evils of fascism.

But there is no denying some of his images, particularly in some of lesser known works are flat out racist. Blacks and Asians are the object of ridicule with both his words and his paint brush.

Here is how NBC news described some of his work: In And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, a white man is shown using a whip on a man of color. In If I Ran the Zoo, a white boy holds a large gun while standing on the heads of three Asian men. If I Ran the Zoo also features two men from Africa who are shirtless, shoeless and wearing grass skirts while holding an exotic animal.

On the other hand, some of Seuss works like Horton Hears a Who are stories preaching against bigotry.

We live in a culture that is very polarizing. People want to know whether his work is racist or not. Some of his work is and some of it isnt, said Philip Nel, a professor at Kansas State University who is considered an authority on all things Seuss.

When I chatted with Nel on Monday, he said when he heard that six Dr. Seuss books were no longer to be published he wasnt surprised by which ones. Their content has long been a point of contention among scholars.

These are works that are being discontinued: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligots Pool, On Beyond Zebra! Scrambled Eggs Super! and The Cats Quizzer.

The news became public March 2 on Dr. Seuss birthday.

The public outcry shouldnt be surprising. After all, nostalgia can be a tricky thing. We want to remember the happy memories and forget the uncomfortable ones. But that doesnt make for a better world. Its better to look at life with clear eyes and an open mind.

To quote Seuss: Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot. Nothing is going to get better. Its not.

Scott Reeder is a veteran statehouse journalist. He works as a freelance reporter in the Springfield area. Scottreeder1965@gmail.com
LOUISVILLE, Ky., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- March of Dimes , the leader in the fight for the health of all moms and babies, and longtime partner, Anthem Foundation , are working together to tackle America's maternal and infant health crisis. As both organizations continue to address health inequity across the country, the partnership in Kentucky aims to address the racial disparities and social determinants of health that have disproportionately impacted Black mothers.

The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) recently reported that racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. have worsened over the past two decades. In order to achieve the Healthy People 2030 goals for Pregnancy and Childbirth, maternity care systems need to address disparities that threaten maternal and infant health. Researchers have identified implicit bias among health care providers as a potential contributor to these disparities. In response to these findings, March of Dimes developed Breaking Through Implicit Bias in Maternal Healthcare training, in collaboration with Quality Interactions, to improve patient-provider communications and treatment decisions, contributing to improved quality of care at a critical intervention point. The course provides an overview of implicit bias, its impact on the maternal infant health crisis, the history of structural racism in the United States, and strategies for providers to both mitigate racial bias in maternity care and commit to a culture of equity. The American Hospital Association recognizes the value of this important training program and the potential benefits of its use by health care providers across the country to better identify and remedy implicit bias. The University of Louisville Hospital has been selected as a local health equity partner to implement this important work. Health care organizations interested in partnering in the program, visit marchofdimes.org/professionals/professional-education.aspx.

"The U.S. is in the midst of a maternal and infant health crisis, which is particularly devastating to women and babies of color. Data shows the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations in the world for childbirth," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, Chief Medical and Health Officer, Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Scientific Officer at March of Dimes. "Roughly every 12 hours, a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes, and the CDC reports that 60% are preventable. Programs like these, supported by the Anthem Foundation, are invaluable in making a positive impact for moms and babies."

Over the past decade, Anthem Foundation and their parent company's foundation have contributed close to $8 million to support March of Dimes programs aimed at reducing premature birth that have reached more than 50,000 pregnant women across the country. These programs have had a significant impact with only 7.3% of participants in group prenatal care delivering prematurely, compared to a national average of 10%.

"As a leader in supporting women's health, Anthem is committed to improving maternal and infant health outcomes in Kentucky," said Leon Lamoreaux, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield's Medicaid President in Kentucky. "The Anthem Foundation continues to address health inequities in our healthcare system by providing solutions that help close gaps in care, better support our members and improve outcomes."

The grant also supports programs for moms and babies, such as Supportive Pregnancy Care, to help women receive their clinical care, share support with other women at a similar stage in pregnancy, and gain knowledge related to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.

About March of Dimes

March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, lead programs and provide education and advocacy so that every baby can have the best possible start. Building on a successful 80-year legacy of impact and innovation, we empower every mom and every family. Visit marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org for more information. Visit shareyourstory.org for comfort and support. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter .

About Anthem Foundation

The Anthem Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Anthem, Inc. and through charitable contributions and programs, the Foundation promotes the organization's commitment to improving lives and communities. Through strategic partnerships and programs, the Foundation addresses the social drivers that will help create a healthier generation of Americans in communities that Anthem, Inc. and its affiliated health plans serve. The Foundation focuses its funding on critical initiatives that make up its Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets: maternal health, diabetes prevention, cancer prevention, heart health and healthy, active lifestyles, behavioral health efforts and programs that benefit people with disabilities. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Dollars for Dollars program which provides a 100 percent match of associates' donations, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Anthem Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at https://medium.com/anthemfoundation .

SOURCE March of Dimes Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marchofdimes.org


(Newser)  The last time America had a February as cold as the one it shivered through this year, the Berlin Wall was still standing, Ronald Reagan's second term had just ended, and Guns N' Roses' debut album was at the top of the charts. According to an National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report released Monday, it was the coldest February since 1989, though only the 19th-coldest since records began in 1895. An Arctic air mass made things especially chilly in parts of the South and Midwest: The NOAA says it was among the 10 coldest Februaries on record in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

story continues below

The country's biggest states were also a lot colder than usual. In Texas, where blackouts left millions of power and were blamed for dozens of deaths, areas including Austin set new records for the longest number of days with temperatures below freezing. In Alaska, it was the first month since December 1998 where the daily high temperature never budged above freezing. February also set a new record for national snow cover, which has been recorded since 2003, USA Today reports. On Feb. 16, just over 73% of the land mass of the lower 48 states was covered in snow, with snow cover extending from the Mexican border to the Great Lakes. (Read more winter weather stories.)
The Redding grand list experienced a slight bump in value despite overall real estate value dropping slightly.

The towns grand list saw an overall gain of approximately $2.6 million.

Town Assessor John Ford said the small increase was mostly driven by personal property and motor vehicles.

Although real estate revenue shrunk by $824,560, the car-buying jump raked in over $2.5 million for the town. Personal property also provided the town an extra $836,469.

There were less new constructions and we had some open space applications that reduced the assessment on some properties, Ford said.

There were people buying new cars, which increased that portion of the grand list, he later added.

Ford said the rise in vehicle purchases and additional money from personal properties declaring more equipment for their business will provide some slight benefits to the town.

Since the number of exempt properties has remained steady, he doesnt expect there to be much of an impact on the grand lists overall value and although the tax rate hasnt yet been determined, he expects there to be a modest increase for Redding residents.

The grand list update comes as town officials request a 1.2 percent increase overall to the town and schools budgets. The increase would increase the town budget by about $613,100 to $51.3 million.
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Awaken your teams creativity with an off-site meeting where the meeting spaces open for the natural lights with all necessary equipment, including the coffee break during the day. Special deal! The half-day meeting package at Amari Phuket starts at 599 THB net/person only. Book now until 30 June 2021.

For more information or reservation, please contact +66 (0) 7634 0106.

*The package is for 20 people or more.
A former police officer has told the Court of Appeal that police guidance requiring 'hate incidents' to be recorded, even 'without any evidence of hate', is denying the right to freedom of expression.

Harry Miller, 54, who describes himself as 'gender critical', was visited at work by an officer from Humberside Police in January 2019 over allegedly 'transphobic' tweets.

An anonymous member of the public complained about Mr Miller's tweets, leading Humberside Police to record the complaint as a 'hate incident'.

According to the College of Policing's guidance a hate incident is 'any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice'.

Mr Miller is the founder of campaign group Fair Cop, which challenges police interference in speech. Pictured last month (middle) with Father Ted writer Graham Linehan on his right

Mr Miller, from Lincolnshire, challenged Humberside Police's actions and the College of Policing's guidance at the High Court.

Last year, the High Court ruled that Humberside Police's actions were a 'disproportionate interference' with Mr Miller's right to freedom of expression.

Mr Justice Julian Knowles said: 'The effect of the police turning up at (Mr Miller's) place of work because of his political opinions must not be underestimated.

'To do so would be to undervalue a cardinal democratic freedom.

'In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.'

Former police officer Harry Miller outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, ahead of a hearing at the Court of Appeal in his legal challenge to College of Policing guidance today

Who are Fair Cop? Organisation set up by Harry Miller after police grilling over tweets The organisation founded by Mr Miller in May 2019 has formed from concerns about police attempts to criminalise people for opinions that are not against the law. On its website the group says: Some of us have been victims of police interaction following social media activity; some are police officers ashamed at police action. 'All of us are furious with the 'Big Brother' overreach of various police forces and other authorities. 'We are united in our aim of enforcing existing laws governing freedom of speech, conscience and assembly  rights that belong to us all in this country.' The group adds that it works to work with the police in order to improve existing guidelines around speech. Advertisement

But Mr Miller's challenge to the College of Police's guidance was dismissed, with the High Court finding that it 'serves legitimate purposes and is not disproportionate'.

At the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday, Mr Miller's lawyers argued the College of Policing's guidance - which has since been updated - unlawfully 'violates the right to freedom of expression'.

Ian Wise QC said the guidance pursues 'the legitimate aim of preventing disorder and crime', but it does so 'in a disproportionate manner'.

He said in written submissions: 'A policy that mandates the recording of a 'hate incident' without there having to be any evidence of hate is quintessentially irrational and unreasonable as a matter of common law.'

Mr Wise also argued that the guidance was uncertain, because 'the reasonable - or indeed any - reader of the guidance simply would not know whether a particular statement would be recordable under the guidance'.

Jason Coppel QC, representing the College of Policing, said any interference with the right to freedom of expression 'is proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued by the guidance'.

He also said it had been 'fully replaced' by new guidance, which includes 'a strong warning against police taking a disproportionate response to reports of a non-crime hate incident', and directly referenced the High Court's ruling.

Mr Coppel argued in written submissions that 'perception-based recording of the hate element of an incident' was important for the police.

He said monitoring hate incidents 'assists in the prevention of the escalation of hate-based activity' and 'helps inform police action'.

One of the messages which Mr Miller was known to have retweeted was a poem which included the line: 'Your vagina goes nowhere'

An example of one of the tweets Mr Miller has posted on his social media account

Mr Coppel also argued that recording incidents on the basis of perception 'avoids 'secondary victimisation', where a negative response given by an authority to a complaint of a hate incident results in those victims suffering further harm'.

An anonymous member of the public complained about Mr Miller's tweets, leading Humberside Police to record the complaint as a 'hate incident'

Speaking outside court before the hearing, Mr Miller said: 'Why we are here today is because we think it is entirely bizarre that following the guidance - as Humberside Police did - is illegal, but the guidance which they followed is legal.'

Mr Miller said he had 'a huge amount of sympathy for regular police officers' who had to follow the guidance.

He added: 'If following the guidance as assiduously as Humberside followed it can lead to the force being likened to the Gestapo, then we have to ask questions of the guidance.'

In a statement before the hearing, Assistant Chief Constable Iain Raphael from the College of Policing said: 'Our guidance is aimed at protecting people who may be targeted because of who they are.

'We know this is an area where people may be reluctant to report hate incidents to us because of the very personal nature of what they experience or perceive.

'We welcome the scrutiny of this case. Hate crime can have serious consequences and it is vital the police have the right tools to help them protect the public.'

The hearing before Dame Victoria Sharp, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave and Lady Justice Simler is due to conclude on Wednesday afternoon.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Market Highlights

According to MRFR analysis, Aortic Valve Market is expected to register a CAGR of 11.1% during the forecast period of 2019 to 2025 and held a value of USD 6,454.91 Million in 2018.

GET FREE SAMPLE COPY @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/8632

An aortic valve is surgically implanted in the heart to replace a valve that has damaged due to heart valve diseases such as stenosis, regurgitation, and atresia. The replacement of damaged valves with prosthetic heart valves reduces the morbidity and mortality associated with aortic valve disorders.

The growth of the global aortic valve market is boosted by various factors such as the rising geriatric population, surge in prevalence of cardiac disorders, in conjunction with the introduction of innovative products in the market. According to the Heart Valve Voice, approximately 1.5 million people over the age of 65 years are currently affected by heart valve disease in the UK, and the number is expected to increase up to 19 million by 2050. Moreover, increasing product approvals are likely to provide favorable conditions for the growth of the market. For instance, in June 2017, the US FDA granted market clearance for aortic and mitral valve-in-valve procedures using the Edwards Lifesciences Sapien 3 transcatheter heart valve (THV).

However, product recalls due to safety reasons and changing regulatory landscapes are likely to hamper the growth of the market during the forecast period.

Several market players currently dominate the global aortic valve market. The key players are engaged in product launches and strategic collaborations to strengthen their market positions.

Regional Analysis

The market has been divided, by region, into the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. The Americas held the maximum share in the base year 2018, owing to the presence of established key players in countries such as the US and Canada. The aortic valve market in the Americas has further been branched into North America and Latin America, with the North American market is further divided into the US and Canada. The European aortic valve market has been categorized as Western Europe and Eastern Europe. The Western European market has been classified as Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and the rest of Western Europe. The aortic valve market in Asia-Pacific has been segmented into Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, and the rest of Asia-Pacific. The aortic valve market in this region is anticipated to be the fastest growing during the assessment period due to the booming geriatric population, rising prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, and favorable government initiatives for disease treatment. The aortic valve market in the Middle East & Africa has been divided into the Middle East and Africa.

Aortic Valve Market Segmentation

The Global Aortic Valve Market has been segmented based on Type of Valve, Suture, Surgery, and End User.

The market, based on valve type, has been divided into mechanical and biological. The mechanical valve segment is likely to be the largest due to the high adoption of mechanical valves in replacement procedures. The biological valves segment is predicted to be the fastest-growing due to the increasing awareness about the advantages of biological valves in replacement procedures. Magna Ease (Edwards Lifesciences Corporation), Hancock II (Medtronic), Trifecta (Abbott) are some of the well-known biological valves brands currently present in the market.

READ MORE @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/aortic-valve-market-8632

The Global Aortic Valve Market has been segmented, based on the surgery type, into minimally invasive surgery and open surgery. The minimally invasive surgery segment is further divided into transfemoral, transaortic implantation, transapical, and trans-subclavian. It is expected to hold majority share of the market owing to shorter hospital stay, less pain, and faster recovery as compared to open-heart surgery.

The end users of the market are hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers. The hospital segment is likely to hold the maximum share during the forecast period.
SACRAMENTO  Californias anti-loitering law is so vague that innocuous factors such as wearing tight clothing, talking to pedestrians or standing on the wrong street can lead to prostitution charges, according to activists pushing for a change.

LGBTQ and racial justice advocates want legislators to repeal the law on the grounds that it leads to disproportionate police enforcement against women of color and transgender women.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill Monday to rescind a 1995 law that prohibits loitering in public places with the intent to commit prostitution. He said the wording is so arbitrary it has inevitably led to bias in how police and prosecutors use it.

Its all based on profiling, so not surprisingly, the people who are being profiled are largely trans women and Black and Latinx women, Wiener said. Its just an awful law that can only be enforced by profiling and stereotyping.

His proposal, SB357, would erase Californias law and allow people with prior convictions to have the charges dismissed and their court records sealed.

Last month, New York became the first state to repeal a similar anti-loitering law meant to discourage prostitution. Opponents have dubbed such laws walking while trans bans because police often arrest transgender women.

Sandy Huffaker / Special to The Chronicle

Bamby Salcedo, president of the TransLatin@ Coalition, an advocacy group in Los Angeles, said the law allows police to harass transgender women for how they look, how they walk or whom theyre talking with.

Many of us dont have the privilege of passing (as a non-transgender woman), and so we get stopped, questioned, Salcedo said. Oftentimes, were just hanging out with our friends or even walking to get milk at the store.

She said the problem is magnified because transgender people, particularly trans women of color, are often poor and live in high-crime neighborhoods, where police are more likely to focus on them.

According to a 2020 paper by students at the UCLA School of Law, Black adults accounted for 56% of 2,202 charges for violating the anti-loitering law in Los Angeles from 2017 to 2019. Black people make up about about 9% of the citys population.

Women accounted for 67% of all charges. The study did not include data on charges against transgender people, and its possible some transgender women were grouped with men.

Sandy Huffaker / Special to The Chronicle

TS Jane, a sex worker in San Diego and organizer for transgender and sex workers rights, said many transgender people feel anxious about how they dress and walk in public, regardless of whether they work in the sex industry, because they fear police harassment.

Its not a crime to express your gender loud and proud, she said. If this bill passes, its one step to trans liberation.

Nationally, the effort to repeal anti-loitering laws has gained traction as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Activists say such laws have been used since Jim Crow days to remove people of color from certain neighborhoods.

Wiener said Californias law was among 1990s tough-on-crime ordinances that gave police wide latitude to target undesirable people.

This is a vestige of a time that we need to really firmly put into the history books, he said.

But the effort is likely to face opposition from some law enforcement associations.

Wieners bill would not decriminalize sex work or repeal other laws that prohibit soliciting prostitution. However, he said he hopes the bill is a step in that direction because criminalizing sex work pushes people underground, and makes people less safe.

In New York, some Republicans in the state Legislature framed the effort as a Democratic ploy to push for the legalization of prostitution. But that opposition softened after the state District Attorneys Association said the loitering law had caused harassment and unjust arrests.

TS Jane said starting a debate about the merits of legalizing sex work isnt ultimately a bad outcome.

I feel like America in general, as a collective, were just so scared to talk about sex, she said. But if we take that power back and shift the narrative, I feel like thats the first step to sex worker liberation.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
Thirteen more COVID-19 cases caused by a highly contagious novel coronavirus variant were confirmed Tuesday in Manitoba  including three where the source of the infection remains unknown.

Thirteen more COVID-19 cases caused by a highly contagious novel coronavirus variant were confirmed Tuesday in Manitoba  including three where the source of the infection remains unknown.

In an afternoon news release, provincial officials said eight additional cases caused by the B.1.351 variant (first detected in South Africa) and five additional cases caused by the B.1.1.7 variant (first detected in the United Kingdom) had been found in Manitoba.

"The cases identified today are all from the Winnipeg health region, with the majority being either travel or close-contact related," the province said.

However, in response to questions from the Free Press, a provincial spokesperson confirmed three of the cases are of unknown acquisition  meaning public health investigators have not been able to link the infection to travel or another known variant case.

Of the total 22 variant cases found in Manitoba, 11 are close contacts to a known case and eight are related to travel, the province said.

Provincial officials will only announce cases caused by a variant of concern after receiving confirmation from the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg. (Mike Deal / Free Press files)

"We are continuing with case investigations, particularly for the unknown acquisition cases, and will notify the public if there is widespread risk identified," the spokesperson said.

No additional information was provided about when the three cases with unknown acquisition were first detected. Public health officials did not hold a media briefing Tuesday.

The day prior, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin announced all viable COVID-19 samples collected since the start of February would be screened for the B.1.351 variant.

It wasnt until the last week of February that Cadham Provincial Laboratory began routinely screening for B.1.351, after validating its test for the variant.

Dr. Brent Roussin, chief provincial public health officer. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press files)

The province refined its process to screen for B.1.1.7 in mid-February.

The additional scrutiny was needed to better understand how the variant might be impacting the population and ensure cases had not been overlooked, Roussin said.

Most of the B.1.351 cases announced Tuesday were found through retroactive screening.

All COVID-19 samples flagged in a screening test are sent to the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Lab to confirm the presence of a variant. About five per cent of all positive samples are also sent for genetic sequencing.

Provincial officials will only announce variants of concern cases after receiving confirmation from the federal lab.

Across Canada, all provinces have reported confirmed cases involving variants of concern, with some jurisdictions logging community spread of the mutated viruses, which are more contagious than what is commonly found in Manitoba.

Ontario has reported 964 total variant cases, with the majority being B.1.1.7. Seventeen P.1 variants of concern, which has been found in Brazil and could potentially cause reinfection, have been found in that province.

Alberta has reported 659 cases caused by a variant of concern; B.C. has found 394; Saskatchewan has reported 44, as of Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the Manitoba government said it has yet to find evidence of "widespread community transmission" of either variant of concern.

"Case investigations continue and the public will be informed should the risk profile change," the province said.

Manitoba has recorded 11 cases of B.1.1.7 and 11 of B.1.351, for a total of 22.

The provinces top doctor has warned Manitobans need to remain vigilant to delay the introduction of variants of concern into the community.

Should either B.1.1.7 or B.1.351 gain a foothold, it could quickly spread and increase daily case counts and place renewed pressure on the provinces health-care system, frustrating the governments economic reopening plans, Roussin has said.

Meanwhile, another 66 COVID-19 infections were recorded Tuesday in Manitoba and another Winnipegger has died from the disease: a woman in her 70s.

The provincial pandemic death toll is 907.

However, due to data correction, one previously reported death has been removed from the totals. A provincial spokesperson said the death of a Winnipeg woman in her 20s (reported March 4) was removed because after further review, it was not related to COVID-19.

New infections were reported in all but one health region: Winnipeg notched 19 cases, Northern Health had 36, Southern Health reported seven, and four were found in Interlake-Eastern. No cases were reported in Prairie Mountain.

The five-day test-positivity rate for the province was 3.8 per cent, and 2.7 per cent in Winnipeg. Just 1,235 tests were processed Monday by provincial laboratories.

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 also improved slightly: 163 patients were receiving treatment Tuesday for COVID-19, including 22 in intensive care.

An outbreak at Riverview Health Centre in Winnipeg has also concluded.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca


Two Iraqi women are working as engineers in Iraqs oil industry to help develop their countrys economy.

Zainab Amjad is a 24-year-old engineer who works on an oil rig for six weeks at a time. The rig is where companies drill deep into the ground to look for oil.

Amjad said she is often asked what she is doing in the oil fields.

They tell me the field environment only men can withstand, said Amjad. If I gave up, Id prove them right.

Ayat Rawthan is a 24-year-old engineer working in another oil rig in Basra. She supervises a team that prepares large drill pipes used to collect information about rock formations.

Most women who are petroleum engineers in Iraq work in an office. Instead, Amjad and Rawthan chose to work in the oil fields. These are not usual jobs for women from conservative communities.

Petrochemical programs in the countrys engineering schools are for students with the best grades. Both women were in the top 5 percent of their graduating class at Basra University in 2018. They are part of a new generation of Iraqi women who are going against tribal traditions.

Many times my professors laughed, Sure, well see you out there, telling me I wouldnt be able to make it, said Rawthan. But this only pushed me harder.

Rawthans parents supported and understood her interests. She hopes to help establish a labor rights group for Iraqi female engineers in the future.

The oil industry is an important source of income for the government in Iraq. It supports the countrys development after years of conflict.

Amjad is the daughter of two doctors. She knew she had to work for an international oil company because state-owned companies would only permit her to work in an office.

In my free time, on my vacations, days off I was booking trainings, signing up for any program I could, said Amjad.

Amjad first worked for China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation and later for the U.S.-based Schlumberger company as an engineer. She passed one difficult test after another. Asked if she was sure she could do the job, she said: Hire me, watch.

Rawthan, too, knew she would have to work extra hard to succeed. Once, when her team had to perform a difficult task, she stayed awake all night.

I didnt sleep for 24 hours, I wanted to understand the whole process, all the tools, from beginning to end, she said.

Rawthan now works for Schlumberger where she collects information from oil wells. She wants to learn drilling and the company is a worldwide leader in the service.

Not only have Amjad and Rawthan faced inequality within the industry, they also face ongoing protests by local tribes and violence toward oil workers. But the two women are willing to take on difficulties, such as state corruption, poor services and high unemployment.

Amjad said she has little time to even consider these difficulties, for even at night she is often working.

The drilling never stops, she said.

Im Armen Kassabian.

Samya Kullab from the Associated Press reported this story. Armen Kassabian adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

rig  n. equipment or machinery that is used for a particular purpose

drill  n. a tool used for making holes in hard substances

withstand  v. to not be harmed or affected by something

petroleum  n. kind of oil that comes from below the ground and that is the source of gasoline and other products

graduate v. to earn a degree or diploma from a school, college or university

source n. a place where something comes from

book v. to make plans so that you will be able to use or have something in the future

hire  v. to give work or a job to someone
YEREVAN.  Hraparak daily of Armenia writes: Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, Onik Gasparyan, has been actively discussing the matter of his tenure with lawyers for about a week, who have assured that the [respective] legislation is in his favor, there is an opportunity to extend his tenure regardless of the moves by President Armen Sarkissian, and he can remain in office as Chief of General Staff even after March 9.

It is not ruled out that Gasparyan will also apply to the administrative court. It will become clear today with what lawsuit. However, we were informed that he had numerous meetings with representatives of other spheres as well, and insisted on his determination, saying that not him, but [PM] Nikol Pashinyan will be the one to make concessions.

The General Staff is considering various scenarios which will increase the pressure on the political power and force them to leave. We were told that before publishing the well-known statement [demanding the resignation of Pashinyan and his government], Onik Gasparyan had a long conversation with Pashinyan, urging [him] not to turn the country into ruins until the end, and to show good will and leave [power].

And during the meetings with the former and current officers, he assured that he has no political interests, the honor of the uniform and the epaulette is the issue of saving the army, and such a statement was prompted by the political leadership, blaming the army for the defeat [in the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war] and handing over the country in parts [to Azerbaijan].
British Jews went through a wrenching time recently. They struggled with anti-Semitism pervading the Labor Party. Liberal Jews wavered for a time before deciding they could no longer be one of them.

Tuvia Tenenbom wanted to learn how pervasive anti-Semitism is in the United Kingdom and Ireland. How are Jews responding? He took to the streets and reports his findings in a new book.

Tenenbom chronicles his capers through the U.K. and Ireland. He is more of a participant than a detached journalist. Anti-Semites, he reports, commonly disguise their positions as pro-Palestinian fulminations. Underneath it all lie traditional crude blood libels. For instance, a favorite indictment of the Jews is that they purposely kill or support the killers of Palestinian children.

He reports everything in a solid, self-published ebook, a bestseller titled The Taming of the Jew. His favorite theme is exposing the place of Jews living in the U.K. and Ireland, in the age of tolerance.

Enjoy the humor and self-deprecation of Tenenbom's writing. They are his hallmarks, but don't give short shrift to the importance of his findings. He is genuine, remarkably sensitive to his surroundings, and insightful, per Mead and Benedict, but funnier. His methods include driving the back roads, walking neighborhood streets, drinking in local pubs, eating in family restaurants, sleeping in off-beat hotels, and engaging ordinary folk and influencers.

Tenenbom is relentless in questioning Christians about the Jews. He is no less relentless when talking with Jews about anti-Semitism. He presses everyone about the pro-Palestinian love affair promoted by politicians and NGOs. Pro-Palestinian murals are everywhere. Palestinian flags fly atop buildings and wave at daily demonstrations. Israel is vilified and supporters denounced.

The Kingdom Is Sick

Tenenbom is incredulous the anti-Semites spend time and treasure promoting the Palestinian cause when the Irish have their own Troubles, the Scots are pushing for independence from England, and Brexit. What can explain "the rift between the north and the south of Ireland, which exists to this day? Let me see if I got it: the English kill the Irish, and that's why the Irish hate the Israelis-slash-Jews?"

Tenenbom visits the Amnesty International bookstore in Scotland and the Sinn Fein bookstore in Ireland. They sell Palestinian flags and artifacts. Tenenbom writes, "clients are not necessarily book readers, but they love memorabilia, especially if it is directly related to Irish history and folklore. For example, colorful 'Free Gaza' T-shirts, or a nice selection of big Palestinian flags."

A tourist can send a postcard home that reads, "Since 2000, over 1800 Palestinian children have been killed in Palestine by Israeli occupation forces and illegal settlers."

They Tamed Their Jews

One failing of Tenenbom is his penchant for taking a few examples and directing his sarcasm at the entire Jewish community.

For instance, Tenenbom leaves the overall impression that Jews are passive. They ignore the rising tide of anti-Semitism. One community leader opines that anti-Israel former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn only needs more education about Israel and the Jews. There is the English lord with money, power, and prestige. The lord keeps a flat in Jerusalem. He carries his passport and twenty-seven different currencies at all times and is "fully prepared to be kicked out by his countrymen at any time, any day."

Some Jewish community leaders will not meet with Tenenbom. They fear his disarming style and his penetrating questioning. Most of all, they do not want their comments about disconsolate environs to be public.

Yet Tenenbom ignores the uprising of Jews and others who ultimately ousted Jeremy Corbyn from Labor Party leadership. Rebels cite his collaboration with anti-Semites, infusing the party platform with anti-Semitism, his anti-Zionism proclamations, and the party's tolerance for Holocaust denial.

In February 2019, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Chuka Umunnaand, and others courageously quit the party over anti-Semitism. Corbyn's chief of staff wrote: "F------ idiots. All the work I did to trigger them and they leave before I had the pleasure." The Labor Party no longer promotes Corbyn's views.

Despite predictions that 300,000 Jews might leave England, few are running away. Not to worry, observes a powerful Jewish English lord. "We have police, we have security in this country. We're living in a democracy," he tells Tenenbom.

Tuvia's response? "The non-Jews, the real lords of the land, have tamed their Jews just perfectly."

Academic studies and op-eds are no match for the way Tuvia Tenenbom peels back the "hidden secrets" of society, claiming that Jews in the U.K. are fooling nobody but themselves.

Dr. Goldmeier is a manager of an investment firm, a former research and teaching fellow at Harvard University, and a teacher to international university students in Tel Aviv. He served in the administrations of U.S. governors and the surgeon general. Goldmeier a commerce and industry consultant, writer, and public speaker.

Image: Nerivill via Pixabay, Pixabay License.
STAFF and parents of children attending a city school fear it will lose two out of its six teachers due to declining pupil numbers.

St Marys Boys and Girls National School at Bishop Street has seen its student numbers fall from 117 to 100.

And this could mean the school may lose teaching staff, with staff set to learn their fate in the coming weeks.

While the school did not publicly comment, local Sinn Fein councillor John Costelloe has been briefed, and says because St Marys caters for some of the most marginalised students in society, any loss of teaching personnel would have devastating effects.

The school is in the Deis band, a scheme which aims to address the educational needs of youngsters from disadvantaged communities.

As part of this, it means a range of additional resources are available to tackle any educational disadvantage.

It is for this reason, Cllr Costelloe says, that the school needs to keep its complement.

This school has been identified as being among the most disadvantaged and marginalised in the State. Ive met with the principal and a number of parents and they are totally at a loss. This cannot be allowed to happen, the northside member said.

A lot of the children will have difficulty in terms of education and need a lot more attention. Priority needs to be given to the children, to their education, and to their future, he added.

Cllr Costelloe also pointed out that its better to have fewer students in a classroom in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A Department of Education spokesperson confirmed the main factor for determining the level of staff is the number of pupil enrolments the previous September.

They added Budget 2021 provided for a one point improvement to staffing schedule and introduced new retention levels for schools, while Education Minister Norma Foley has announced additional funding for the school completion programme in Deis schools.
YEREVAN -- Thousands of Armenian opposition supporters have blockaded the parliament building in Yerevan to press a demand for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to resign.



The demonstrators surrounded the building on March 9 and engaged in occasional scuffles with police, as several opposition lawmakers stood between the two sides to prevent violent clashes.



Police officers clad in riot gear did not attempt to disperse the crowd.



"Do not succumb to provocations," opposition activist Ishkhan Saghatelian told the protesters. "None of us is going to break through the National Assembly gate."



"This is our civil disobedience action against this parliament," he said.



Pashinian has faced mounting protests and calls from the opposition for his resignation following a six-week conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year.



At the heart of the turmoil is the Russian-brokered deal Pashinian signed in November that brought an end to the fighting after Armenian forces suffered territorial and battlefield losses from Azerbaijan's Turkish-backed military.



Under the deal, Armenia ceded control over parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven surrounding districts of Azerbaijan that had been occupied by Armenian forces since the early 1990s.

Political tensions escalated last month when Pashinian dismissed the chief of the General Staff, Onik Gasparian, after the prime minister accused high-ranking military officers of attempting a coup by calling on him to resign.



Supporters of Pashinian and the opposition have been staging competing rallies in the capital amid the crisis.



In an attempt to defuse the crisis, Pashinian has offered to hold snap parliamentary elections later this year but rejected the oppositions demand to step down before the vote.



Pashinian has defended the November deal as the only way to prevent the Azerbaijani Army from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.



Russia has deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to monitor the agreement.

With reporting by AP
Washington, DC -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/09/2021 -- ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE offers a wide array of foreign exchange programs. They offer one the opportunity to discover another culture, learn a new language, and truly become a global citizen. The organization strives to create and maintain a safe environment for students who participate in its rotary activities. They do not discriminate based on gender, religion, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or identity. The organization coordinates almost 10,000 exchanges per year.



Offering reasons why one should study abroad, the company spokesperson said, "Education is among the essential things in life. One needs to invest his or her money and time to get the best education possible. Clients can consider enrolling in high school study abroad programs as they provide an excellent learning experience. Here are some benefits of enrolling in high school study abroad programs. Studying abroad allows one to become self-reliant as they will learn how to manage their budget, cook food, wash clothes, and many more. It helps individuals develop their network as they will make friends with people from other countries. Through high school study abroad programs, clients learn how to appreciate cultures that are different."



Are you looking for the best foreign exchange programs? ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE offers long-term exchange programs that usually last one academic year. While on the exchange, eligible students must attend high school full time in their assigned foreign country. The students also live with 2-3 host families to gain a greater understanding of the culture. The organization carefully screens and selects host families to ensure clients' safety. With the organization's programs, clients learn about people's practices and accomplishments in other countries, serve as ambassadors of their country and community, and many more.



Speaking about the things to consider before choosing a high school exchange program, the company spokesperson said, "Here are things to consider before choosing a high school exchange program. Students should check the cost of the program since prices vary vastly across different programs and schools. They should think about their interests when applying for the program to get the most from it. Individuals should ensure that their visas cover their whole study abroad period."



Wondering where to find best high school summer abroad programs? ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE provides short-term summer abroad exchange programs. The program ranges from several weeks to a few months. It may take the form of international youth camps, which enable social and cultural exchanges between youth from different countries. The camps are mainly in Europe, with camps also in Taiwan, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, India, and the USA. To apply for short-term summer travel programs, clients can contact the company to discover the available opportunities in their area.



About ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE

ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE offers the best summer abroad programs for high school students. With the organization, clients can choose to study abroad during a gap year following high school graduation before beginning university or for a full academic year.



Contact Details

For Rotary Youth Exchange, contact us through our website.

Website: https://www.studyabroadscholarships.org/
The suspect in the death of Harry Dunn would be willing to undertake community service in the US and make a contribution in his memory as well as meet his family, her lawyer has said (Family handout/PA)

The Justice Secretary has dismissed an offer for Harry Dunn death crash suspect Anne Sacoolas to perform community service in the United States.

Robert Buckland responded to comments by Sacoolass lawyer  who claimed the charge against her would not usually result in a prison sentence in the US  by describing the case as a denial of justice.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman, when asked what Boris Johnson thinks of Anne Sacoolas offer to do community service in the US, said officials have always sought to extradite the suspect.

US authorities refused a request for the extradition of Sacoolas after asserting diplomatic immunity on her behalf, and she returned to her home country before being charged with causing death by dangerous driving.

Expand Close The entrance to RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire (Steve Parsons/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The entrance to RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire (Steve Parsons/PA)

Mr Dunn, aged 19, was killed in a crash outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in August 2019.

Sacoolass lawyer Amy Jeffress has said that her client was not inclined to return to the UK to face trial.

However, Mr Buckland said the priority should be to establish liability for the death of Mr Dunn.

Here in England and Wales we like to deal with things in their proper order. At the moment there is outstanding a very serious matter relating to alleged driving of this person and the death of a young man who has left behind a family who is naturally not just grief-stricken, but who want justice, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

As the Foreign Secretary (Dominic Raab) has said, the current situation is a denial of justice. Rather than talking about the sentence that would be appropriate, lets actually deal with the question of liability first.

What we are trying to do is to actually go through due process and deal with the issue of criminal liability first.

The PMs official spokesman added: We have always sought to extradite  and we have asked for the extradition of  Anne Sacoolas and the denial of that we see as a denial of justice.

We have always said that she should return to the UK and we continue to support Harry Dunns family in their fight for justice.

According to her lawyer, Sacoolas would be willing to perform community service in the US and make a contribution in Mr Dunns memory, as well as meet his family.

Claiming Sacoolas has never denied responsibility for the crash, Ms Jeffress said that, since the charge pending in Britain against the 43-year-old would not usually result in a prison sentence in the US, her client is not inclined to return to the UK to face trial.

She's willing to meet with the family to provide whatever information they are seeking; and we truly hope that we can do that and give the family some measure of peace Amy Jeffress, lawyer for Anne Sacoolas

The Dunn familys spokesman, Radd Seiger, told the PA news agency that a criminal sentence is only for a court to determine and not for any of us to discuss.

Ms Jeffress said she and Sacoolas were striving to resolve the case in a manner that would not involve a return to the UK.

We understand that community service is a typical sentence for offences like this, the lawyer told BBC Radio 4s Law In Action programme.

We have offered ever since, over a year ago, that she would be willing to serve that kind of a sentence and to make a contribution in Harrys memory, to take other steps to try to bring some peace to the family.

Expand Close The parents and step-parents of Harry Dunn  Charlotte Charles (mother), Bruce Charles (stepfather), Tim Dunn (father) and Tracey Dunn (stepmother) (Aaron Chown/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The parents and step-parents of Harry Dunn  Charlotte Charles (mother), Bruce Charles (stepfather), Tim Dunn (father) and Tracey Dunn (stepmother) (Aaron Chown/PA)

She said Sacoolas is truly sorry for Harrys family and the pain that has been caused.

Shes willing to meet with the family to provide whatever information they are seeking; and we truly hope that we can do that and give the family some measure of peace.

Ms Jeffress said Sacoolas had only been in the UK for a few weeks when she had made the tragic mistake of instinctively driving her car on the wrong side of the road and collided with Mr Dunns motorcycle.

But she added that such cases in the US are only prosecuted criminally if there is evidence of recklessness that rises to the level of close to intent  drunk-driving, distracted driving, a hit-and-run situation or excessive speeding  But there was none of that here.

Expand Close Harry Dunns mother Charlotte Charles (Jonathan Brady/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Harry Dunns mother Charlotte Charles (Jonathan Brady/PA)

Ms Jeffress told the programme she understood this was one of the reasons the US did not waive Sacoolass diplomatic immunity.

She also denied reports that Sacoolas had not called for help after the crash, saying she had flagged down another motorist who had called an ambulance while Sacoolas notified police at Croughton, where she worked with her husband for the US State Department.

Sacoolas had co-operated with local police, Ms Jeffress said, supplied a zero-reading breathalyser test, surrendered her phone to show she had not been using it, and was interviewed by police for several hours.

Giving his reaction to Ms Jeffresss interview, Mr Seiger told PA: It is good to see Mrs Jeffress, who I respect enormously, finally reaching out to the British public.

However, I would encourage her to enter into dialogue with the Crown Prosecution Service in order to ensure that Mrs Sacoolas faces the UK justice system.

We have one of the fairest legal systems in the world and it is vitally important that justice is not only done for Harry, but is seen to be done Dunn family spokesman Radd Seiger

It is not for either of us to try this case in public.

We have one of the fairest legal systems in the world and it is vitally important that justice is not only done for Harry, but is seen to be done.

Mrs Sacoolas must give a full account of what happened under oath in court and the matter must then be left in the hands of judge and jury.

It is not for any of us to discuss what might be or what might not be the sentence. That is a matter ultimately for the court to determine.

Mr Dunns mother, Charlotte Charles, added: I made a promise to Harry the night he died that I would get him justice.

Reminder of Judge Ellis' important words to #AnneSacoolas  https://t.co/fjhPPylkBb  Radd Seiger (@RaddSeiger) March 9, 2021

There are no circumstances in which I am going to break that promise. You do not get to kill someone and walk away.

This campaign has been all about accountability and ensuring that no-one is above the law.

Ms Jeffresss comments came after Mr Dunns family was given the go-ahead to proceed with a civil claim for damages against Sacoolas and her husband.

A judges ruling in Virginia takes them a step closer to a legal showdown with Sacoolas, 18 months on from the teenagers death.

Should there be no settlement in the case, the next legal step would be a deposition, in which Sacoolas and her husband would be forced to provide their account of events outside court.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 19:55:18|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China urges British communications regulator Ofcom and certain individuals to immediately cease engaging in political manipulation and correct their mistakes, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks at a press briefing in response to reports that Ofcom has fined China Global Television Network (CGTN) 225,000 British pounds for "breaching rules on fairness, privacy and due impartiality" just weeks after it stripped the network of its right to air in Britain.

"We are concerned about the decision made by Ofcom and firmly oppose its repeated efforts to create obstacles for Chinese media to carry out normal news reporting in Britain. We once again urge Ofcom to revoke its wrong decision," Zhao said.

CGTN always follows the principles of objectivity and impartiality in its reporting. China has repeatedly expressed its firm opposition to Ofcom's decision to arbitrarily revoke the broadcasting rights of CGTN's English-language satellite news channel in Britain, the spokesperson said.

By once again making the wrong judgment, Ofcom is revealing its strong ideological bias against China. The ridiculous move is blatant political oppression, Zhao added.

What Ofcom should do is to investigate and deal with some British media outlets' long-standing false reports concerning China, he said, adding that China reserves the right to make further legitimate and necessary responses. Enditem
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release 11 volumes of manuscript with commentaries by 21 scholars on shlokas of Srimad Bhagavadgita at his residence on Tuesday.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and Karan Singh, a veteran Congress leader who is also a scholar of Hindu theology, will also be present on the occasion, the PMO said.

Rare multiple Sanskrit commentaries in original calligraphy will be part of the Bhagavadgita's release.

In general, the practice with Srimad Bhagavadgita is to present the text with a single commentary, the PMO noted, adding that for the first time many of the key commentaries by celebrated Indian scholars are being brought together for achieving a comprehensive and comparative appreciation of the epic.

The manuscript, published by Dharmarth Trust, is written with extraordinary variety and nuance of Indian calligraphy ranging from Shankar Bhashya to Bhasanuvada.

Singh is the chairman trustee of Dharmarth Trust, Jammu and Kashmir.

Live TV
Utah legislature passes bill to require porn filters on mobile devices sold in state

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

The Utah legislature passed legislation last week that would require filter mechanisms on smart devices sold in the state to prevent users from accessing pornography and other information harmful to minors, a move sexual exploitation advocates applaud.

National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a leading national activist group exposing sexual exploitation in the United States, praised the passage of Utahs House Bill 72. The measure seeks to protect children from viewing inappropriate sexual content online.

Utah has passed a critical, common sense solution to help protect vulnerable children from accessing harmful pornographic content on phones and tablets, NCOSE Senior Vice President and Executive Director Dawn Hawkins said in a statement.

Benjamin Bull, NCOSEs senior vice president, general counsel and law center director,told The Christian Post in a Monday interview that this measure is the first of its kind and is just the first step in protecting children and families from unsolicited sexual content.

This is an incremental step, Bull said. It wont cure the problem. The only thing that will stop the total problem is aggressive federal enforcement of existing laws to stop companies like Porn Hub  from polluting the internet with hardcore pornography. This is an incremental step that will protect some children. Its a first step that we can build off going forward.

All devices have filters to restrict content, but the default position for filtering content is turned off when the device is initially sold. The bill requires content filters to block explicit material on smart devices sold in Utah to be turned on.

The bill requires the default filter on all devices such as smartphones and tablets sold in the Beehive State to automatically enable a filter to block material considered harmful to minors.

Were demanding that providers of electronic communications, anything accessing the internet, should have greater ability to protect children and families from unwanted pornographic material, Bull said.

Adults will be given a PIN to deactivate the filter if they choose, but children will not receive a PIN to remove the filter.

Hawkins said the current guardrails on devices against sexually explicit material make it very difficult for parents to shield their children from viewing inappropriate material online.

This ensures that the devices are effective for protecting minors while being unrestrictive on adults, Hawkins shared. While these filters are already available on most devices now, on an Apple device, for example, it takes 20+ complicated steps to turn them on, leaving most parents helpless to protect their kids online.

Hawkins explained how Utahs measure could protect children from unwanted harm and trauma in the future by restricting internet access now.

There are countless heartbreaking stories of the harm caused by childrens unhindered access to Internet devices  including the individual and familial trauma of pornography exposure and addiction and adult predators targeting and grooming kids online, Hawkins said. We commend the Utah legislature for passing this bill that will aid parents in protecting their children from unwanted exposure to pornography.

The bill also allows a civil penalty of up to $10 for each violation of the legislation. A portion of the fine would be provided to the Crime Victims Reparations Fund.

Proponents of the bill admit the bill is imperfect but point out that it will not take effect until five other states pass a similar law.

It gives us years, most likely, to iron out all of the problems, if there are problems, Republican Sen. Todd Weiler said Thursday, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. But it does send a strong message.

Rep. Susan Pulsipher was the chief sponsor of the bill passed last week. The bill awaits a signature from Republican Gov. Spencer Cox.

The bill will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2022, if five other states implement similar measures. Utahs Senate passed the legislation 19-6 after the bill passed the House with a 41-30 vote.

There is no doubt in my mind that five states will enact this or similar legislation, Bull argued. Once again, Utah is a leader in this area.

Bull explained five other states must also implement the bill since Utah alone is such a small market. With other states support, the legislation would be harder for leading technology manufacturers like Verizon and Apple to ignore.

In order to gain sufficient legislative support to pass it, we agreed that it would become effective when five other states pass similar legislation and that would create a sufficient market force , Bull said. They would have to adapt their business practices to a basically six-state market.

Bull said Idaho, Montana and Missouri, among other statehouses, are considering similar legislation.

We feel like we have started a good legislative movement, and we think its going to encourage other states. And I think its going to happen rapidly, Bull shared.

Utah and other states have taken steps to address the public health repercussions of pornography.

In April 2016, former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a resolution deeming pornography a public health crisis.

Around 70% of children between seven and 18 years old have accidentally encountered pornography online, and 90% of children between eight and 16 years old have seen online pornography, Guard Child reports, citing a compilation of child internet crime and abuse statistics from a variety of online resources.

The average age a child receives his first phone is just over 10 years old, and screen time for children has more than doubled throughout the pandemic, according to Internet Safety 101.
Just three years ago, Meghan and Harry were thrilling crowds outside the Crown Bar in Belfast as they looked forward to married life.

While it seemed to be love at first sight with locals that day, few could have predicted the sensational fallout with the royal family that followed.

Ahead of the UK broadcast of Oprah Winfrey's bombshell interview with the couple, the Belfast Telegraph asked the public if they would be tuning in and their take on claims of cruel treatment from within the palace.

Expand Close Alison Quinn / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Alison Quinn

Alison Quinn (32) from Short Strand said she was counting down the hours until the prime time broadcast.

"Me and my granny can't wait to watch it, I just think it's mad. They're coming out and telling everything but fair play to them.

"Obviously something's happened," she said.

Asked about allegations of racism (that a member of the royal family had asked the couple about the skin tone of their son before his birth) she said: "I think it's probably true because of her colour. If they have done that then there's going to be an uproar...I don't think it's fair."

Asked about critics who say the couple are just in it for the attention, she said: "My granny thinks that but why would you do that for money?

"That's her husband, if she loves him that much then she wouldn't let him lose his family."

Darren Hall (50) from Portrush said he may watch the interview, but believed Harry and Meghan were going public for the wrong reasons.

Expand Close Darren Hull / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Darren Hull

"I would consider myself a wee bit of a royalist.

"I think for a young couple who wanted to get away from it all, they're still talking about it and selling their story," he said.

"But I was a bit peeved she looked a bit like Wallis Simpson (the American socialite who married King Edward VIII after his abdication) for the interview, she had the same hairstyle, the same dress and I just thought it was a bit too orchestrated."

He also criticised the couple for not naming the individual they accuse of racism.

"She didn't name any names, just be honest and come out with it if it is somebody within the family."

Dave Cunningham (44) from Belfast said he was all too aware of the hype ahead of the interview, but wanted to see it in full before taking sides.

"I believe there's two sides to every story so I'll just let them get on with it," he said.

Maureen Jamison (72) from Carlisle commented: "I don't like her and I don't like what he has done to his family and the way he's treating the Queen."

Expand Close Maureen Jamison / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Maureen Jamison

She added: "He can defend (Meghan) but it should be behind closed doors.

"He doesn't have to make it public to disgrace his grandmother."

Yasmin Patterson (27) from Donaghadee said: "I can't wait to hear it. I'm more team Meghan and Harry, I just think it's bad how the British press led to such bad mental health for the both of them and how (Meghan) was feeling suicidal."

She called the accusations of racism "horrendous" and said the couple fully deserved the chance to tell their story.
ADVERTISEMENT

The Federal High Court in Makurdi, Benue State, on Tuesday convicted a 20-year-old, Victor Ogaraku, of cryptocurrency-related fraud.

A statement by the EFCCs spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, said the trial judge, Mobolaji Olajuwon, sentenced him to six months imprisonment with an option of N50,000 fine.

The judge also ordered the convict to pay the sum of N257, 500 to his victim as restitution.

The judge passed the judgment after the convict pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining N257,500 from Otokpa Joseph Orinya as payment for cryptocurrency.

The charge reads, That you, Victor Chinemerem Ogaraku, sometime in November 2020, in Makurdi, within the jurisdiction of the Honourable Court, with intent to defraud, did obtain the aggregate sum of N257,500 from one Otokpa Joseph Orinya as payment for cryptocurrency, under the pretence that you have same for sale, which you knew was false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1 (1)(a) and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006.

When the charge was read to him, the defendant pleaded guilty, prompting the prosecuting counsel, George Chia-Yakua, to ask the court to convict him accordingly.

When the charge was read to him, the defendant pleaded guilty, prompting the prosecuting counsel, George Chia-Yakua, to ask the court to convict him accordingly, the EFCCs statement added.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently barred banks and other financial institutions from dealing in cryptocurrency.


By Gwynne Dyer





If Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, were a burglar, he wouldn't be George Clooney in "Ocean's Eleven." He'd be a cartoon burglar in a carnival mask and a top with black-and-white horizontal stripes, carrying a sack labelled "SWAG."



He's not a burglar, of course. He's a murderer, and "MBS," as he is universally known, was back in the news Feb. 26 when the U.S. government released a declassified assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies confirming his responsibility for the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.



Donald Trump sat on the intelligence report, defended MBS, and said his own intelligence experts were wrong. "I saved his ass!" Trump boasted to Fox News. But Khashoggi was working for the Washington Post when he was killed, and Joe Biden takes a dim view of foreign leaders murdering American journalists even if they aren't citizens.



It must be bewildering for the Crown Prince: Two months ago the U.S. president was his best buddy, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was his second-best buddy, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin had honorary buddy status too. Now Biden has replaced Trump, Netanyahu may also be out after this month's elections, and Putin isn't answering his texts.



Biden didn't just publish the report on Khashoggi's murder. He ended U.S. support for MBS's foolish, futile war in Yemen, put U.S. arms sales on hold, and refused to speak to the Crown Prince. (Biden finally called Saudi Arabia, almost last on the list, but would only talk to MBS's 85-year-old father, King Salman.)



So there's been much speculation about what Biden can or should do next about the Mad Killer of Riyadh, and the answer is  nothing at all. Just give him enough rope, and he'll hang himself. He's wicked and ruthless, certainly, but he is also ignorant about how the rest of the world works, very arrogant, and quite stupid.



If my pipes burst, I call the plumber. If my car breaks down, I take it to the garage. If I'm very rich and I want somebody killed, I find a hitman and have the job done professionally. I don't get a few of my mates to do it; I hire an expert.



MBS sent a team of 15 men  15!  to Turkey on a private plane, bringing the tools to kill and dismember Khashoggi with them. It was one of Istanbul's smaller airports, but the Turks were certainly going to record when they landed and when they left. Then they lured Khashoggi to the Saudi Consulate to pick up some papers so he could marry his Turkish fiancee.



Wait a minute. MBS thought it would be a cool idea to kill Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in a country that is hostile to the Saudi regime  He sent seven members of his own personal security force as part of the team  And they didn't even sweep the consulate for Turkish bugs in the room where they killed and dismembered Khashoggi.



It was amateur night for slow learners. The hit team even sent a Khashoggi "body double" dressed in Khashoggi's clothes out the back door to be seen leaving the consulate by the security cameras. The Turks had the whole story in 24 hours, with the Saudi regime retreating from one lie to another before blaming it on "rogue operators" three weeks later.



By then you'd think MBS would have seen the error of his ways. Next time he wants to kill a self-exiled Saudi critic of the regime, just get one of the intelligence attaches at the Saudi Embassy there to hire a local hitman.



For a reasonable sum he'll do a quick, tidy job  and if you tick the "no publicity" box, he'll make it look like an accident so it never comes back to haunt you.



But not our boy. Only two weeks later, while the Saudi regime is still denying the Khashoggi murder, MBS sends another Saudi hit team, perhaps including some of the same men, to Canada to kill another self-exiled critic of the regime, Dr. Saad al-Jabri.



Amateur night again. The novice assassins deny knowing one another, and are refused entry to Canada by immigration officials at the airport who find photos showing them together.



This attempted hit has never been officially confirmed, but a document published by Public Safety Canada on Aug. 7 last year comes very close indeed. The fact that Prime Minister Trudeau was the first national leader who received the Turkish recordings of the Khashoggi murder to go public with them just around that time adds weight to the allegation.



MBS is frightening, but he's really not very bright. And a Saudi leader that the U.S. president won't even talk to does not have a brilliant future.





Gwynne Dyer (gwynne763121476@aol.com) has worked as a freelance journalist, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years. He is the author of "Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work)."








Postal services provider TTPost yesterday shut its branches in Port of Spain and San Fernando after dozens of people rushed to collect senior citizen pension and public assistance grants and would not adhere to physical distancing rules.

Eventually, police were called to disperse the crowds.

Several elderly people at the St Vincent Street branch in Port of Spain complained about not being able to collect their pension cheques because other unruly ones refused to socially distance and abide by the law amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stella Griffith, 68, of Diego Martin, said she was adhering to rules of social distancing, but there were other people who came for their public assistance and disability grants and were refusing to listen.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 05:33:32|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ALGIERS, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Algeria on Tuesday urged the African Union member countries to establish a special fund dedicated to tackling impacts of climate change in Africa, state-run radio channel I reported.

The call was made by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune at a video conference of the African Union's Peace and Security Council (PSC), where the climate change and its impact on peace and security in Africa, as well as the recent developments in Western Sahara top the agenda.

"The contributors in this fund would be the wealthiest African countries, with the assistance of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Security Council and everyone involved in climate change issue," Tebboune said.

On the issue of Western Sahara, the Algerian President expressed hopes for "practical and efficient measures" to "pave the way for sustainable solution for this long lasting conflict." Enditem
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[March 09, 2021] PatientPoint Combines with Outcome Health to Create PatientPoint Health Technologies

CINCINNATI, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- PatientPoint today announced that it has combined with Outcome Health to create PatientPoint Health Technologiesa new platform company offering tech-enabled patient engagement solutions that create more effective doctor-patient interactions across the entire patient care journey. The new company will operate under the PatientPoint brand. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. PatientPoint brings together two businesses in pursuit of one missionmaking every doctor-patient engagement better. The combined company will help meet the tech-enabled patient engagement needs of nearly 150,000 unique healthcare providers and impact roughly 750 million patient visits each year. "This timely, strategic transaction both underscores our commitment to growth, and to offering our high-value, tech-enabled patient engagement solutions to as many providers as possible to help them meet the demands of a rapidly evolving healthcare industry," said PatientPoint Founder and CEO Mike Collette. "By leveraging the best talent and technology from both PatientPoint and Outcome Health, we will be well positioned to expand our suite of innovative patient engagement solutions to deliver improved patient outcomes and a more personalized, relevant patient experience as well as enhanced scale and efficiency for our healthcare sponsors." PatientPoint Health Technologies will be led by PatientPoint's current leadership team including Mike Collett as CEO, Linda Ruschau as Chief Client Officer, Pat O'Brien as Chief Financial Officer and Chris Martini as Chief Provider Officer. PatientPoint's engineering and information technology teams will also be augmented by Outcome Health tech executives Glenn Keighley and Sean Barden.



"We have great respect for the substantial provider network the Outcome Health team has built as well as the compelling solutions they have developed to enrich the patient's point-of-care experience," Collette said. "We also commend CEO Matt McNally and COO Nandini Ramani for leading Outcome Health's incredible turnaround and rebuilding client trust." The new platform company plans to leverage a combination of organic growth and M&A to continue to grow its provider base and to expand the suite of innovative, tech-enabled patient engagement solutions it can offer to its provider customers.

"Every key healthcare stakeholder wins with our unique business model: Patients achieve improved health outcomes and an enhanced patient experience, healthcare providers receive innovative, high-value patient engagement solutions at no cost or low cost, and healthcare sponsors that financially support our programs receive forecast-altering sales growth at a compelling ROI," Collette said. The combined entity will be majority owned by a group of investors including funds managed by L Catterton and Littlejohn & Co., LLC. About PatientPoint

PatientPoint  is the trusted partner for tech-enabled patient engagement solutions that enhance the patient experience across the entire care journey. Our solutions create more effective doctor-patient interactions and deliver high value for patients, providers and healthcare sponsors. Through our 150k unique healthcare provider relationships, PatientPoint's solutions impact roughly 750 million patient visits each year, further advancing our mission of making every doctor-patient engagement better. Learn more at patientpoint.com . View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/patientpoint-combines-with-outcome-health-to-create-patientpoint-health-technologies-301243230.html SOURCE PatientPoint

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
The recent speech of ex-President Trump encouraging supporters to abandon donations to the RNC. Instead, he directed them to donate to his approved campaign fund sites.

A rift between the Republicans RINOS and Trump deepens after those who continually criticized him learn the consequence. The Mar-A-Lago resident has decided to the purse strings his name guaranteed.

Last Monday, Trump started with a message to his adamantly solid supporters to give only to bodies he approves. This came about as Republican senators show support for Democrat agendas that counter the Make America Great Again movement. In a surprise move, after Senator Graham tried to lessen the gap and reconcile differences, this still happened, reported the Epoch Times.



All donations that would have benefited the Republican National Committee (RNC) will be diverted to his campaign website, Save America political action committee. This is a critical blow to the GOP that needs the funds with the 2022 midterms coming soon. The GOP has come to depend on Trump as a draw for conservatives with his mass appeal.

Trump's statement, saying "RINOS" won't get money anymore after it seems they won't reform. RINOS means "Republicans in Name Only," which does not benefit the party or its ardent loyalist in the former president's view. He added they are the hindrances to greatness and need to go.

Ex-President Trump added that they would never regain the former greatness of the Republican party. He said all donations should be given to approved sites for donation. That will bring America from the brink of a ruinous Democrat agenda.

Also read: Graham Says Trump Can Either Bolster GOP or Destroy It

According to Politico, the former president's speech was a reaction to the Republican National Committee (RNC), and Hill ignored his cease-and-desist letters. They were prohibited from using his image and messaging to help them get funds but did otherwise.

Other official GOP organizations like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee were asked to drop an image or messaging, said Trump's adviser. For the record, before Trump entered into the GOP, which was terrible at raising sufficient funds. But Donald Trump drew small donations in droves in no time; they are now for his fundraising.

House Republicans decide to vote to impeach him in a sham trial, with some in the RNC backing them. It will be his Turn to support those he sees as a fit in the America First agenda. Loss of funding for the RNC was not expected, but the backlash was assured.

Trump remarked that "RINOS" are not welcome in the Republican Party with the America First movement as a populist march. An end to the ruthless exploitation of American workers is an integral part of the plan. It will be America as the priority, not last in line.

Barely three months of the Biden administration and the differences are stark, with GOP involved in the change. America should be the first and nothing else, said Jason Meister, who is part of the Trump campaign advisory board.

The same ex-President Trump message was echoed in his return speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida on Feb. 28. All donations will be a great help to make America great again.

Related article: Trump Demands GOP Bodies to Stop Using His Name, Images to Procure Funds

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
BAME patients in England less likely than white patients to receive evidence based care

'Significant' racial disparities in care of heart patients during first pandemic wave

BAME patients in England less likely than white patients to receive evidence based care

There were 'significant' racial disparities in the presentation and care of heart attack patients during the first wave of the pandemic in England, reveals a large national study, published online in the journal Heart.

Patients of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds were more likely to be admitted to hospital than their white peers; less likely to receive evidence based care, as indicated by guidelines; and more likely to die early than before the pandemic.

The UK has the highest COVID-19 death toll and the most ethnically diverse population in Europe. During the first wave of the pandemic, BAME patients were twice as likely to die of COVID-19 as white patients.

Health systems around the world have observed a substantial decline in hospital admissions for heart attack and a concurrent rise in early death or complications during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The researchers wanted to find out if the recognised differences in the health outcomes of BAME patients with heart disease worsened during wave 1 of the COVID-19 pandemic in England.

They drew on linked healthcare records from nationwide registries for all patients admitted to hospitals with a heart attack in England between 1 February and 27 May 2020 to see if there were any differences in presentation and treatment between BAME and white patients.

These data were then compared with those of heart attack patients admitted during the same period in each of the preceding three years (2017-19; pre-COVID-19), to quantify any changes in death rates among BAME patients both while in hospital and within 7 days of discharge.

In all, 73,746 patients were included in the final analysis. Of 62,578 patients in the pre-COVID-19 era admitted to hospital, 56,270 (90%) were white and 6308 (10%) were of BAME origin. This compares with 1863 (nearly 17%) BAME patients admitted in 2020.

The number of daily hospital admissions for heart attack also significantly increased among BAME patients in 2020.

During the COVID-19 period, the monthly proportion of BAME patients admitted to hospital with a heart attack increased from just over 16% in February 2020 to nearly 18% in May 2020. This monthly rate didn't change in the pre-COVID-19 era.

Admission rates for heart attack were 65% higher among BAME than among white patients during the COVID-19 period, with similar proportional rises observed for each month compared with the same period in the pre-COVID-19 era.

BAME patients were likely to be younger, male, and to weigh less (lower BMI) than white patients. But they also tended to have higher cholesterol levels, and were more likely to have heart failure, angina, chronic kidney disease and diabetes requiring insulin treatment.

Not only were there differences in the presentation between BAME and white patients, but there were also differences in how they were treated.

BAME patients waited longer than white patients for certain types of invasive procedures and treatment both during the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods.

And coronary angiography was significantly less likely to be used in BAME patients who were also less likely to undergo PCI (a procedure to restore blood flow).

After adjusting for potentially influential factors, BAME patients were 68% more likely to die in hospital and 81% more likely to do so within 7 days of discharge than white patients during the COVID-19 period than they were during the same timeframe in 2017-19.

BAME patients were also 78% more likely to die than white patients after lockdown started (23 March 2020) than before.

"Immediate counter measures are required to increase patient awareness and promote equity in the cardiac care of this underserved population during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," urge the researchers.

In a linked editorial, cardiologist Dr Shrilla Banerjee, of Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, and colleagues, point out that BAME patients tended to be sicker than white patients which might account for some of the differences in death rates.

But there is no excuse for the differences in the care BAME patients received, they say.

"These observations now fully qualify as evident healthcare inequalities and reinforce disconcerting disparities in cardiovascular care affecting BAME populations," they write.

"A biological premise to explain the observed differences does not exist. There is no genetic component specific to any ethnic group sufficient to explain the increased adverse outcomes seen among BAME populations across the UK (and in the USA)," they add.

"Unlike the USA, the UK, via the National Health Service, has universal healthcare--a resource that many expected would reduce or even eliminate health inequalities," they write. But it hasn't.

"We need to deal with barriers to equitable health, including structural racism and social factors-- that is, education, housing and poverty," they urge.

But doctors must take responsibility too, they write. "We must learn to identify and then remove the impact of bias on our patient outcomes...We must be empowered to draw attention to biased behaviour when we see it and be an advocate for all our patients."

###

Externally peer reviewed? Yes

Evidence type: Observational

Subjects: People
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Samsara, the Connected Operations Cloud company, today announced it has been named one of America's Best Startup Employers by Forbes for the second consecutive year. Samsara was named the third highest ranking employer in the "Technology" category, and the company's overall ranking jumped 36 slots to #60.

To compile this list, Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to identify companies liked best by their employees. This year's America's Best Startup Employers were evaluated on three main criteria: employee satisfaction, employer reputation and company growth.

"One of our core company values is to build for the long term. For our employee experience, that means building Samsara as a company where employees can grow, make an impact and have a long term career," said Melissa Yeh, vice president of people at Samsara. "We've worked carefully this last year with employees to help them adapt to new remote working environments and are defining what we expect will be a hybrid environment going forward. We are also investing in leadership training and resources for our managers to help them navigate through new team dynamics."

Yeh continued, "We doubled down on our commitment to increase diversity across our workforce, working with departmental leaders to identify and operationalize targeted goals aimed at increasing diversity representation and creating an inclusive culture. We are proud to be recognized as a Best Startup Employer by Forbes, and thank all our employees for the dedication and teamwork they showed this past year."

In 2021, Samsara will continue to invest in new programs based on employee feedback. These include the Hootfund - a program that provides employees funds for wellness and professional development, Leadership Principles training for our managers, and mental health and wellbeing resources through Spring Health.

To be considered for this ranking, employers need to have a headquarters in the U.S. and be founded between 2011 and 2018. The final list recognizes the top 500 companies based on over 7 million data points. It can be found online here .

About Samsara

Samsara, the Connected Operations Cloud company, collects trillions of IoT data points to help more than 20,000 customers improve the safety, efficiency and sustainability of the operations that power the global economy. Samsara operates in North America and Europe and serves a wide range of industries including construction, education, energy, field services, food and beverage, government, passenger transit, transportation and warehousing and utilities. Learn more at www.samsara.com .

SOURCE Samsara

Related Links

www.samsara.com


It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekara, an ex-rear admiral, told the Sunday Times last weekend that Sri Lankas National Security Council (NSC) will today discuss security issues in the plantations. His statement was in response to claims by planters and the police that workers are unleashing violence in the estates.

Uda Rathalla Estate workers picketing last September against austerity measures (WSWS)

The NSC is headed by President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and includes Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, key ministers, senior officials from the armed forces, police and intelligence, and other leading state bureaucrats. That the NSC is discussing so-called estate violence as a top priority is a serious threat against plantation workers, who are involved in a long and bitter struggle for higher wages, improved social conditions and democratic rights.

On March 3, hundreds of estate superintendents staged a provocative demonstration in Hatton demanding weapons and weapons training to defend themselves from physical threats by plantation workers.

Ceylon Planters Society (CPS) President Dayal Kumarage told the media that his organisation wanted a meeting with the president, prime minister and defense secretary to discuss security matters. He called for authorities to provide adequate security and, if possible, to patrol the estates as well.

Weerasekera told the Sunday Times that the government would not provide managers with weapons because that would produce more unrest among workers. He made it clear however, that the NSC meeting would take up the concerns of regional plantation companies [RPCs] and ensure security was provided to estate management.

Provocative protest by estate managers outside Hatton court (Photo credit K. Kishanthan)

The March 3 protest by planters was initiated in response to so-called violence against Alton tea estate superintendent Subash Narayanan in Maskeliya. The planters claimed that a group of workers physically attacked Narayanan, who had to be hospitalised for several days. The CPS also alleged that attacks have occurred in two other estates.

Police, with the active assistance of Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) officials, have arrested 10 Alton workerseight on February 18 and two more on March 1claiming they were involved in the alleged assault.

The CWC, the main plantation trade union, is part of the Rajapakse government. CWC leader Jeevan Thondaman is minister of estate infrastructure. The CWC and all the other estate unions have a long and sordid history of collaborating with the government, the plantation companies and the police against plantation workers.

On March 3, when the 10 arrested Alton workers appeared at the Hatton magistrate court, the planters lawyer accused them of violence and declared: This is how terrorism emerges. Defence lawyers rejected the outrageous claim, describing it as an insult against the hard-working plantation workforce.

The magistrate refused bail and remanded the arrested to Kandy prison until March 10. All the arrested workers have rejected the company-police allegations.

Deepening its treachery against the estate workers, the CWC has said it will bring 16 additional workers before the Hatton magistrates. A spokesman for the UpCountry Federation of Civil Organisation (UFCO) revealed yesterday that CWC lawyer Perumal Rajadurai, on the instructions of Thondaman, would present these workers to the courts on March 10. The UFCO is an NGO that works closely with the unions.

These latest 16 suspects and the 10 jailed Alton workers are the victims of a company-police conspiracy to break indefinite strike action at the estate that began on February 2, fighting for higher wages and against management threats.

A manager physically assaulted Alton workers, injuring one female employee, after the strikers blocked the transport of processed tea from the estate on the first day of their walkout. The Alton strike began three days before a February 5 national estate strike called by the CWC for a long-demanded 1,000-rupee ($US5.12) daily basic wage.

The unions national strike was an attempt to dissipate plantation workers anger over their declining living conditions. The 1,000-rupee daily wage claim was originally raised six years ago, in 2015, but the CWC and the other plantation unions have consistently betrayed workers strikes and protests over this issue.

On February 17, Alton workers demonstrated outside the managers bungalow in protest against his strike-breaking activities. This is the incident that the company alleges was estate workers violence.

On March 1, the Rajapakse government, nervous about the eruption of mass action by estate workersand walkouts by other sections of the working classgazetted a 1,000-rupee daily wage for plantation workers. This consists of 900-rupee basic wage and a 100-rupee cost of living allowance payment.

The RPCs, however, have not agreed to this grossly inadequate increase. Instead, they have threatened to abrogate previous collective agreements, including clauses providing employees with 300 working days per year for a guaranteed minimum income.

The RPCs claim they cannot increase wages because maintenance costs are higher. They insist productivity must be driven up and other cost-cutting measures imposed in order to be internationally competitive.

This is the background to the allegations of estate violence and the governments decision to treat this as a national security issue. More repressive measures will be unleashed to crush estate workers unrest and impose plantation owners demands, including the restructuring and privatisation of unproductive estates.

In recent days, a police jeep has been patrolling the Alton estate, with no opposition from the unions, in a foretaste of the sort of violent operations being prepared.

These developments vindicate the warnings made by the Socialist Equality Party in its March 1 statement, Release jailed Sri Lankan estate workers! Defend all workers from company-police conspiracies!

The statement urged plantation workers to form their own action committees, independent of the unions, to demand the release of the Alton estate workers and discuss the class actions and political program required to defend the social and democratic rights of all workers.

The employer-state and trade union conspiracy now being unleashed against the Alton estate workers is an attack on the entire working class. It is yet another indication that the Rajapakse government will attempt to crush all opposition to its austerity attacks on the working class, amid a sharp economic crisis that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified.

The Rajapakse government came to power promising the capitalist class it would boost profits and impose the burden of the rising foreign debt and falling export earnings on the working class. In order to carry out this agenda, it is whipping up racial and religious tensions against Tamils and Muslims to divide and weaken working class and preparing a presidential dictatorship based on the military.

This offensive can be defeated only by fighting for a workers and peasants government on the basis of international socialist program. That is the perspective fought for by the Socialist Equality Party.
NEW YORK, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is hosting a press availability at 3:30 pm EST tomorrow, March 9, 2021. HRF President Thor Halvorssen will be joined by Bryan Fogel, director of THE DISSIDENT, Mike Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, and Bill Browder, the human rights activist who lead the effort to pass the Magnitsky Act and the Global Magnitsky Act.

These leaders in human rights advocacy combine their formidable voices to call out the Biden Administration's refusal to sanction Mohammed bin Salman under the Global Magnitsky Act, as well as the absence of previously verified facts in the declassified report released in last month's intelligence report on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This report confirms the facts proving Saudi Arabia's guilt as first uncovered in HRF's film, THE DISSIDENT , first screened over a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival.

When: 3:30 pm EST, March 9, 2021

Where: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84366102908

Meeting ID: 843 6610 2908

About THE DISSIDENT

THE DISSIDENT is a 2020 United States documentary film directed and produced by Bryan Fogel. It follows the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia's effort to control international dissent. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020.

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies.

###

SOURCE Human Rights Foundation

Related Links

https://thedissident.com/


Majuli (Assam): Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Tuesday (March 9) filed his nomination from Majuli Assembly constituency for the second time, ahead of the Assembly polls.

The term of the 14th Legislative Assembly of Assam is up to May 31, 2021. The Assembly elections for 126 seats will be held in three phases starting from March 27. In 2016 Assembly polls were held in two phases. A total of 2,32,44,454 electors will elect the candidates in Assam for the 15th Legislative Assembly of Assam. Of the 126 seats, the number of reserved seats for SCs is eight and for STs, it is 16. The number of polling booths in Assam has been increased from 24,890 to 33,530, an increase of 35.71 per cent.

In Assam, elections shall be held in three phases. The first phase of notification is March 2 and 47 seats in 12 districts will go to the polls. The last date of nomination March 9 and the date of poll is March 27.

In the second phase, 39 constituencies in 13 districts will go to the polls on April 1. A total of 41 constituencies in 12 districts will go to the polls on April 6.

In 2016, the BJP scripted history and formed the government for the first time in the state ending Congress`s 15-year rule. BJP and its allies Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodoland People`s Front (BPF) won a combined 86 seats in the 126-member Assam Assembly.

BJP bagged 60 seats, AGP 14, and BPF 12 seats. Congress, which ran the state for three straight terms under the leadership of Tarun Gogoi, could manage to win only 26 seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP won nine of the 14 parliamentary seats while its allies the AGP, and the BPF drew a blank. On the other hand, Congress bagged three seats and the AIUDF and an independent won one seat each.

Live TV

Earlier in January, the Assam Congress unit had announced that five political parties including Congress, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI (Marxist), CPI (Marxist-Leninist), and Anchalik Gana Morcha would contest the state Assembly polls together to oust the Sonowal government from power.

The BJP is relying heavily on central leadership to return to power again in the state. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda visited the state and addressed the huge gatherings in different parts of the state.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Derick Almena, the master tenant of a San Francisco Bay Area warehouse that caught fire during a music event, killing 36 people, was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison, although he is unlikely to spend more time in jail.

Already on house arrest after being released from jail last year because of coronavirus concerns, Almena was ordered to serve the rest of his term under electronic monitoring, followed by three years of probation.

I know that no family member will find this in any way acceptable, and I accept that responsibility, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson said at the conclusion of an emotionally charged case that was first derailed by a hung jury, then the pandemic.

Acknowledging their pain, she added: "I wish I could in the stroke of a pen take away your deep loss and your sadness.

Many of the relatives had urged Thompson to reject a plea deal Almena had struck with prosecutors to avoid a second trial, calling it too lenient.

Almena, 50, pleaded guilty in January to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a 12-year sentence.

Because he received credit for time already spent behind bars while awaiting trial and for good behaviour, he will spend the next one and a half years at home with an ankle monitor.

This lenient, slap-on-the-wrist sentence is vastly inappropriate for the crimes Derick Almena committed, the family of fire victim Sarah Hoda said in a statement read to the court via teleconference. Upholding the DAs irresponsible plea recommendation would shortchange 36 victims and their families.

Emilie Grandchamps, the mother of victim Alex Ghassan, said Almena along with the warehouses owners and city agencies that are supposed to enforce regulations should be held accountable.

I often ask, why was my son given a death sentence for being in the wrong place and at the wrong time and those responsible for his and 35 others death are given a second chance at life? I want my sons death not to go in vain, she said.

Thompson and prosecutors said they took into consideration the challenges of trying the case again, given the challenges of selecting jurors and calling witnesses who could face travelling during a pandemic, and because Almena admitted his guilt.

Almena apologized to the victims and said he was sick with shame.

"My shame cannot stand as any defence against what I am responsible for. It is my fault, my terrible accumulation of error, that shaped and built a place so dangerous, he said in a statement read to the court through his attorney, Tony Serra.

Prosecutors said Almena was criminally negligent when he illegally converted the industrial warehouse in Oaklands Fruitvale neighbourhood into a residence and event space for artists, dubbed the Ghost Ship, filling the building with flammable materials and extension cords. It had no smoke detectors or sprinklers.

The Dec. 2, 2016, inferno broke out at the warehouse during an electronic music event, trapping victims on the illegally constructed second floor. Prosecutors said the victims got no warning and had little chance to escape down a narrow, ramshackle staircase.

Family and friends of the victims packed Thompson's courtroom for months in 2019, becoming familiar faces to the judge, only to see a jury split on whether to convict Almena, who leased the building. At the same trial, the jury also found co-defendant Max Harris, who was the Ghost Ships creative director and rent collector, not guilty.

Last year, the Oakland City Council agreed to pay just over $33 million to settle civil lawsuits filed on behalf of the victims. The settlement included $23.5 million to families of 32 victims and $9.2 million to a survivor who suffers from severe, lifelong injuries.

Almena was also ordered to pay about $181,000 in restitution for funeral expenses and counselling. A restitution hearing will be held April 30.


Zimbabweans, and other foreign nationals are yet to be vaccinated despite President Ramaphosa saying all adults in South Africa will get the vaccines.

According to the Zimbabwe Migration Support Network (ZiMSN), an organisation representing Zimbabwean nationals in South Africa, accessing healthcare services  even for medical emergencies  is difficult without valid documents.

Hundreds of Zimbabwean nationals with medical conditions were refused treatment by local hospitals and clinics because they dont have proper documents, as their permits expired during lockdown, ZiMSN chairman, Chris Mapingure, told Spotlight.

He said some pregnant migrants were charged exorbitant fees to deliver babies in public facilities. Mapingure said they received reports of a Zimbabwean man who was denied surgery in a hospital in Gauteng and was told to sign an admission of debt before they would perform any form of surgery.

Another challenge that migrants encounter when requiring healthcare services in South Africa is the lack of proper information, said Mapingure. For example, during the Covid-19 period, there was not any form of communication about foreign nationals about whether they could test in government testing centres.

The lack of accurate information about their rights has barred many Zimbabweans from accessing healthcare services, assuming that testing centres were meant only for local people, he said.

Even now, the department of health has not yet come up with a clear clarification about vaccination arrangements for foreigners, Mapingure added.

That alone gives us sleepless nights. Foreigners were also prevented [from receiving] food parcels that were being distributed [by government], with preference given to local citizens.

Mapingure said the South African government must be clear, and extend the vaccination rollout to all who live in South Africa.

A 59-year-old Zimbabwean woman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation, told Spotlight she has lived in South Africa for the past two decades and has been on chronic medication for three years.

Local clinic nurses dont have problems when assisting foreigners with their medical needs, she says. Challenges are experienced at referral hospitals, as we are subjected to abuse.

I was once turned away at the Port Elizabeth provincial hospital because of a lack of a valid permit to stay in the country. The snubbing of foreigners at hospitals is discouraging patients from accessing healthcare services, with potentially fatal consequences.

Everybody in South Africa is entitled to access healthcare regardless of their nationality or documentation status, said Jessica Lawrence, an attorney with Lawyers for Human Rights.

No one may be refused emergency treatment because everybody may access healthcare.

Free healthcare is received by South African citizens, so anybody who goes to public health facilities will be means-tested in order to check if they qualify for free healthcare.

Foreign nationals are not entitled to free healthcare if they are undocumented. Undocumented persons have to pay for healthcare, said Lawrence.

According to her, many foreign nationals could not renew their permits when Home Affairs offices temporarily closed. So no one has been able to renew their papers. The department of home affairs instructed that documentation which expired during lockdown will be automatically extended until 31 March 2021.

However, we have noticed that many healthcare facilities dont know about this automatic extension. We are concerned that the lack of communication between government departments will result in foreign nationals being excluded from the vaccine rollout, Lawrence said.

We believe everybody living in South Africa is eligible for vaccination when it becomes available in their communities. We are currently engaging with the department of health to ensure that foreign nationals are part of the vaccination programme, including those who are undocumented, says Lawrence.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Monday called on the state grid manager and regulators to correct a pricing error that the state's market watchdog says cost Texans some $16 billion during the recent power crisis.

Patrick's request comes after Arthur D Andrea, the newly appointed chairman of the Public Utility Commission, said he opposed changing the electricity pricing, despite the recommendations of the independent market monitor, the Virginia-based firm Potomac Economics.

RELATED: New PUC chairman gives market monitor cold shoulder, calls repricing 'dangerous'

DAndrea argued that buyers and sellers made good-faith decisions based on prices at the time and undoing them would hurt as many parties as it would help Patrick, however said correcting the pricing error -- which the Potomac says kept wholesale power prices unnecessarily high for more than a day -- was the right thing to do. He said the PUC and the grid manager, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, have 30 days from the event to correct errors in pricing.

"Today I am calling on both the PUC and ERCOT to follow the recommendations of the (independent market monitor) and correct these mistakes," Patrick said is a statement. "It will ultimately benefit consumers and is one important step we can take now to begin to fix what went wrong in the storm.

The overcharges are related to an emergency order put in place by the PUC on Feb. 15, which raised wholesale power prices to the state maximum of $9,000 per megawatt hour to reflect the severe shortages and in an effort to encourage generators to get back online and sell into the marker. Prices were running between $1,000 and $2,000, before the emergency order. Wholesale prices averaged about $22 a megawatt hour in 2020.

Potomac Economics concluded that market conditions had improved enough by the end of Feb. 17 to lift the emergency pricing, but ERCOT kept it in place until the morning of Feb. 19. That cost wholesale buyers and additional $16 billion, Potomac estimated, with about $1.5 billion getting passed along to households and other end users.

Buyers, such as retail electricity providers, have called on the PUC and ERCOT to reprice the period. Generators have opposed such a move, arguing that business decisions were made based on the conditions at the time and such a move would destabilize the market.
New Delhi, March 9 : In a huge relief to Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh, the Supreme Court on Tuesday protected her from any coercive action by West Bengal Police till the Assembly elections are over in the state.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said: "Arrest warrants will be kept in abeyance and no coercive action." Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Ghosh, submitted that his client is being hounded by the state government and she had no idea of FIR and charge sheet registered against her.

Kaul said the state government is vindictive against his client and she apprehends that the Mamata Banerjee government may revive cases during Assembly elections.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the West Bengal government, strongly objected to Kaul's submissions.

The bench also comprising Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and Hemant Gupta directed that Ghosh should not be arrested till the election is over and ordered that arrest warrant issued against her be kept in abeyance to allow her to file nomination and to campaign for the election.

Ghosh, once considered close to the Chief Minister, has moved the Supreme Court seeking stay of arrest warrant and quashing of FIR against her. She is the BJP candidate from Debra constituency of West Midnapore district against Trinamool Congress candidate Humayun Kabir, also a former IPS officer.

Ghosh, in her intervention application, said she is facing unprecedented violence in all booths of Keshpur and an FIR lodged against her during 2019 Lok Sabha poll contains incorrect, baseless and malicious contentions, all of which are part of a well-planned political vendetta.

The plea said that despite apex court order of "no coercive steps" in series of "false cases" lodged against her on February 19, 2019, which was extended from time to time, she has been subjected to practice of entangling in new cases and continues to face pressure in all possible manner.

The FIR at Keshpur police station was lodged against Ghosh for alleged voluntary causing hurt, wrongful restraint and attempt to murder and under provisions of Representation of People's Act, during Parliamentary elections on May 12, 2019. She said this FIR was not uploaded until recently.
Abbott's Lobster in the Rough, Noank

Best sandwich: Food & Wine

A coastal Connecticut lobster roll is Food & Wines pick for the best sandwich in the Nutmeg State, according to a list released in January.

The hot buttered lobster roll at Noanks Abbotts Lobster in the Rough joins a roundup of 49 other iconic American sandwiches, including muffulettas in Louisiana, Italian beef in Illinois, Kalua pork in Hawaii, Cuban sandwiches in Florida and Kentucky hot browns.

Abbott's was also featured in Esquire magazine at the end of December, as one of "100 Restaurants America Can't Afford to Lose." Writer Ryan D'Agostino summed up the restaurant's simple pleasures in a few short and sweet sentences. "Picnic tables on the grass by the water. Steamed lobsters, caught that day, with drawn butter in paper cups. A beer." - Leeanne Griffin
The suns chromosphere. Credit: NASA

Solar physicists have been having a field day of late. A variety of missions have been staring at the sun more intently ever before (please don't try it at home). From the Parker Solar Probe to the Solar Orbiter, we are constantly collecting more and more data about our stellar neighbor. But it's not just the big-name missions that can collect useful datasometimes information from missions as simple as a sounding rocket make all the difference.

That was the case for a group of scientists focused on the sun's chromosphere, the part of the sun's atmosphere between the photosphere and the corona that is one of the least understood parts of the star. Now, with data collected from three different missions simultaneously, humanity has its first layered view of how the sun's magnetic field works in this underexplored zone.

One well-understood fact of the chromosphere is how much it screwed up magnetic field models of the photosphere and corona. Understanding the sun's magnetic fields is crucially important to understanding "space weather" more generally, and how it might affect conditions on Earth. Scientists had a reasonable understanding of how the magnetic fields work in both the photosphere and the corona, but connecting the fields between the two (i.e., through the chromosphere) proved difficult.

Models of how the magnetic field worked in the chromosphere fell apart, frustrating scientists who were trying to draw lines between what was going on in the photosphere and what they could observe in the corona. Luckily, plenty of new tools were available to study it, including three missions that were of particular interest.

Graphic showing the different layers of the sun, including the chromosphere. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center

Image of the chromosphere that was taken during a total eclipse in 1999. Credit: Luc Viatour

The Chromospheric Layer Spectropolimeter 2 (CLASP2) was one of those, housed on a suborbital rocket and tailored to observing the chromosphere directly. The scientific team, led by Ryohko Ishikawa of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, realized they could combine data from CLASP with data from two other satellites, NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and JAXA/NASA's Hinode satellite.

Combining the observations of these three tools allowed for the first-ever look at how the sun's magnetic field is changed by the chromosphere. Hinode focused on reading the photosphere itself so the researchers could understand the outcome of what was happening in the chromosphere. At the same time, CLASP2, which was launched on a sounding rocket from the White Sands Air Force Base, was imaging three different heights in the chromosphere, and IRIS was backing it up for calibration purposes.

Another solar physics experiment, the Parker Solar Probe. Credit: Universe Today

With that data, it showed for the first time ever how the sun's magnetic field moves through the chromosphere, four different heights, including how the fields formed in the photosphere. Solar physicists were elated. Laurel Rachemeler, a former NASA project scientist for CLASP2, said, "Being able to raise our measurement boundary to the top of the chromosphere would help us understand so much more, help us predict so much moreit would be a huge step forward in solar physics."

The combined observing effort was a good first step toward that huge step at least. Unfortunately, with the limited time a sounding rocket mission allows, the team was only able to collect data on a tiny slice of the overall chromosphere. So technically, it is simply a two-dimensional (ie vertical) slice of a rather large area. Next up is an observational mission that will actually measure a horizontal slice of the chromosphere while also getting the same vertical data as the current mission did. With luck, that will help the team build even better models of the most powerful magnetic fields in the solar system, and how they affect life here on Earth.

Explore further Sounding rocket CLASP2 elucidates solar magnetic field
At least 97 women were killed by their husbands or boyfriends last year, the Korea Women's Hotline revealed Monday to mark International Women's Day.

Some 45 of the 97 femicides were committed by the victim's husband and the rest by their boyfriend. Another 131 women survived murder attempts by men.

A staffer at the Korea Women's Hotline said, "One woman was either killed or faced death every 1.6 days, and that is only the cases reported in the media."


Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
5. What is one thing you hope to accomplish in your lifetime that you havent yet?

Visit all of the National Parks in the United States.

6. If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be?

I would like to see radiant heating become more mainstream so that more people could enjoy its comfort.

7. Whats something people might be surprised to know about you?

Ive won trips to Las Vegas and Hawaii from karaoke contests.

8. Whats one of your favorite karaoke songs to sing?

Dust in the Wind, by Kansas. Its just a beautiful song and Im a big fan of Kansas. They have a lot of very melodic songs that are very well arranged.

9. Least favorite karaoke song to sing?

Probably something like Macarena or something silly like that.

10. If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?

In Hawaii with my whole family.
It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
[March 09, 2021] American Express Launches 2021 Global Travel Trends Report

American Express (News - Alert) (NYSE: AXP) released the American Express Travel: Global Travel Trends Report today, which provides unique insight into consumer sentiment toward travel nearly one year after the COVID-19 pandemic began. The findings in the report, grounded in survey research across seven countries, including the United States, Australia, India, Canada, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom1, demonstrates that consumers are looking forward to traveling again and that they are planning for future trips. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005322/en/ American Express Travel: Global Travel Trends Report Finds Consumers are Looking Forward to Traveling Again (Graphic: Business Wire) Top insights include: Strong Pent-Up Demand for Travel : 87% of people surveyed said that having a trip planned in the future gives them something to look forward to, 76% of respondents are creating their destination wish list for future travel even though they might not be able to travel yet and 63% of respondents said that they are saving their credit card points so they can go on a vacation once they feel comfortable traveling.

: 87% of people surveyed said that having a trip planned in the future gives them something to look forward to, 76% of respondents are creating their destination wish list for future travel even though they might not be able to travel yet and 63% of respondents said that they are saving their credit card points so they can go on a vacation once they feel comfortable traveling. Ready to Book Now: 56% of respondents said that they miss traveling so much that they are willing to book a trip now even if they might have to cancel it in the future.

56% of respondents said that they miss traveling so much that they are willing to book a trip now even if they might have to cancel it in the future. Rise of The Digital Nomad: 54% of respondents said that the freedom and flexibility of being able to live and work while traveling the globe is more appealing now than it was prior to the pandemic.

54% of respondents said that the freedom and flexibility of being able to live and work while traveling the globe is more appealing now than it was prior to the pandemic. Safety is a Priority: 65% of respondents said they plan to travel after they and their family members have received a vaccine for COVID-19.

65% of respondents said they plan to travel after they and their family members have received a vaccine for COVID-19. Privacy is the New Ultimate Luxury: 75% of respondents agree that the experiences that offer ultimate privacy is becoming a key sought-after feature of luxury travel.

75% of respondents agree that the experiences that offer ultimate privacy is becoming a key sought-after feature of luxury travel. Increase in Sustainable Travel: 68% of respondents agree they are trying to be more aware of sustainability-friendly travel brands to support. "Our latest global trends report shows that there is a pent-up demand for travel among consumers, with many people longing for and beginning to plan future trips," said Audrey Hendley, President of American Express Travel. "In addition, the pandemic environment is giving rise to emerging trends, such as the increasing appeal of working from anywhere while traveling globally, luxury being defined as more personalized experiences, cleanliness and privacy as the ultimate luxury amenities, as well as a growing interest in the environmental and social purpose of their trips and travel companies." Here's a look at key findings from the report: CONSUMERS ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO TRAVELING AGAIN People are finding hope and comfort in thinking about and even planning future trips. Travel to Uplift Health & Wellness: 78% of respondents indicate wanting to travel in 2021 to relieve the stresses from 2020.

78% of respondents indicate wanting to travel in 2021 to relieve the stresses from 2020. Planning and Paying for Future Travel: One in three say they will more frequently use travel credits or points to pay for all or part of a trip in 2021 than they did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One in three say they will more frequently use travel credits or points to pay for all or part of a trip in 2021 than they did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Making Up for Missed Travel: 61% of survey respondents plan to spend more than they normally would on a trip in 2021 since they could not travel in 2020.

61% of survey respondents plan to spend more than they normally would on a trip in 2021 since they could not travel in 2020. Consumers Willing to Make Sacrifices to Travel: 64% of respondents miss traveling so much that they would be willing to give up social media for a month to be able to go on vacation.

64% of respondents miss traveling so much that they would be willing to give up social media for a month to be able to go on vacation. Culinary Tourism is Here to Stay: 62% of respondents say that eating is the top activity they are interested in doing while traveling, and American Express Travel booking data for January 2021 shows foodie centric cities as top destinations for U.S. and International Card Members. Miami, San Francisco, Chicago and Houston are hot spots for U.S. American Express Card Members2 whereas Mexico City, Singapore and Tokyo are topping the list for International American Express Card Members3. THE NEW TRAVEL MINDSET With regular changes to booking policies, tavel offers, and new destinations to consider, there is a new travel mindset today.



Luxury Travel: The pandemic has changed peoples' perception of luxury travel with personalized experiences (82%), high cleanliness standards (81%) and privacy (79%) being the most desirable luxury amenities among respondents 1 . 59% indicate that they want to use a travel agent to help plan and customize their next trip and 80% indicate they are willing to travel to destinations during the offseason so that it's less crowded.

The pandemic has changed peoples' perception of luxury travel with personalized experiences (82%), high cleanliness standards (81%) and privacy (79%) being the most desirable luxury amenities among respondents . 59% indicate that they want to use a travel agent to help plan and customize their next trip and 80% indicate they are willing to travel to destinations during the offseason so that it's less crowded. Surge in 'Second-City' Destinations: 69% of respondents are interested in visiting lesser-known destinations and American Express Travel booking data reinforces this trend, showing a rise in reservations for second-city destinations. For example, Dallas and Charlotte saw a higher share of bookings from International Card Members in January 2021 than the previous year4 and American Express Travel consultants are seeing requests for smaller cities like Porto (instead of Lisbon) in Portugal, and Wellington (instead of Auckland) in New Zealand. TRAVELING WITH PURPOSE Consumers are becoming more conscious travelers, are more aware of travel companies aligned with their values and will journey to destinations where they can have a positive impact on communities.

Backing Local Communities: 72% of respondents agree that they are passionate about traveling to destinations to help boost tourism revenue and the local economy 1 .

72% of respondents agree that they are passionate about traveling to destinations to help boost tourism revenue and the local economy . Supporting Travel Brands that Prioritize Diversity & Inclusion: 69% of respondents agree that they want to choose an airline/hotel that values diversity and inclusion, and whose employees reflect a diverse customer base.

69% of respondents agree that they want to choose an airline/hotel that values diversity and inclusion, and whose employees reflect a diverse customer base. Carbon Conscious Travelers: 60% of respondents agree they want to book airlines that have a carbon neutral commitment. American Express Travel's 4,500 travel consultants provide customers with world-class service, where high-tech meets high-touch support, 24/7. To give customers more value and confidence whenever they're ready to travel, the company has rolled out a number of discounts and offers across hotel, air and car rentals and extended American Express Travel cancellation fee waivers through the end of September. To find out more visit AmexTravel.com. For additional findings and more information on the American Express Travel: Global Travel Trends Report, visit here. AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL: GLOBAL TRAVEL TRENDS REPORT METHODOLOGY 1 This Amex Trendex online poll was conducted by Morning Consult between January 15-24, 2021 among a national sample of 1,000 travelers in Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Mexico and the U.K., and 2,000 in the U.S. $70k+ USD household income (HHI) equivalent in Australia, Canada, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., $50k+ USD equivalent HHI in Mexico, and $20k+ USD equivalent household income in India. Travelers defined as adults who traveled by air at least once in 2019. Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points in the U.S.; plus or minus 3 percentage points in the other countries. 2 Based on U.S. Card Member flight and hotel bookings made through American Express Travel in January 2021 3 Based on International Card Member flight and hotel bookings made through American Express Travel in January 2021 4Based on International Card Member hotel and air bookings made through American Express Travel in January 2021 compared to January 2020. ABOUT AMERICAN EXPRESS American Express is a globally integrated payments company, providing customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Learn more at americanexpress.com and connect with us on facebook.com/americanexpress, instagram.com/americanexpress, linkedin.com/company/american-express, twitter.com/americanexpress, and youtube.com/americanexpress. Key links to products, services and corporate responsibility information: charge and credit cards, business credit cards, travel services, gift cards, prepaid cards, merchant services, Accertify, InAuth, corporate card, business travel, and corporate responsibility. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005322/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
He switched Universes to play fake Pietro in Disney+'s WandaVision.

And the show's creator Jac Schaeffer told the NY Times following Friday's season finale that no-one other than Evan Peters was ever considered for the part.

'It was an enormous question mark for a very long time. And it took a while to figure out if it would be possible,' Schaeffer explained.

'It was late that it was finally confirmed that we could do it. But we were writing for it..... There wasnt a Plan B.'

Switched Universes: Evan Peters surprised fans when he showed up as 'fake Pietro' in Disney+ series WandaVision after creating the Marvel character for rival studio Fox

Peters originated the Marvel mutant character of Pietro Maximoff AKA Quicksilver in Fox's X-Men movie franchise.

Disney, which owns the Avengers franchise, had the rights to Wanda Maximoff AKA Scarlett Witch.

The Marvel characters of Wanda and Pietro are twins and in the 2015 Avengers: Age Of Ultron film, Pietro was played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

For WandaVision, however, Schaeffer sought and eventually got permission to have Peters play 'fake Pietro'.

This not only tied in Wanda's connection to her deceased brother with the series plot but also added weight to the 'fake' by having the actor who played the character in a rival universe play him on the Disney+ show.

Major role: Peters originated the Marvel mutant character of Pietro Maximoff AKA Quicksilver in Fox's X-Men movie franchise (pictured with Jennifer Lawrence in 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse)

Hid her mutant background: Disney, which owns the Avengers franchise, had the rights to Wanda Maximoff AKA Scarlett Witch, played on screen by Elizabeth Olsen

'Real Pietro': The Marvel characters of Wanda and Pietro are twins and in 2015's Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Pietro was played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. The character was killed in the movie

No Plan B: WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer told the NY Times no-one other than Peters was considered for the part. 'It was an enormous question mark for a very long time. And it took a while to figure out if it would be possible,' Schaeffer explained

Subtext: This not only tied in Wanda's connection to her deceased brother with the series plot but also added weight to the 'fake' by having the actor who played the character in a rival universe play him on the Disney+ show

It transpired that the world Wanda created - complete with sitcom tropes from various decades - was just a way to cope with the loss of Vision, who perished in Avengers: Endgame and is played on screen by Paul Bettany.

Vision's death meant fans had to suspend belief at first when WandaVision debuted and accept he was still living.

But, director Matt Shakman confirmed, 'The whole show has really been about Wanda processing grief. That's been the engine behind everything, from the earliest episodes all the way up until now.'

As of now, there doesn't seem to be any immediate plans for a second season of WandaVision, with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently confirming that Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff will move directly to Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

Superhero twist: Vision, played by Paul Bettany, died in the movie Avengers: Endgame leaving fans to suspend belief at first when WandaVision debuted and accept he was still living
A retired police officer has asked for compensation of N500 million from the Lagos Judicial Panel over the death of his son in the hands of officers of the Nigerian Police Force.

Julius Adeogun, 68, approached the Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Tuesday to narrate the ordeal his family has gone through and how the police force turned him down following the death of his son.

The petitioner, who came to the panel with his daughter-in-law and the four children his deceased son left behind, said he retired on April 1, 1998, as a police sergeant. Before his retirement, he worked as a court orderly, Black Maria escort, and worked in the surveillance team.

Narrating his ordeal, Mr Adeogun said his son, Adebukola Adeogun, died on February 1, 2018, after he was arrested by the police.

On February 1 2018 at about 1 a.m., I was sleeping while I received a call that my son was among those raided by the Okoko police station along Oke Alfa Street, Okokomaiko, at about 9: 30 p.m. of the previous day.

The retired police officer said on hearing this, he made attempt to go to the police station in the middle of the night but had no means of transportation.

He said the next day before he got to the police station, his daughter-in-law called that his son was at home, but brought in dead.

When I got to his house around 12 p.m., I found him lying on the floor, dead. I requested the circumstances surrounding his death from his wife and she told me it was the police that got him arrested.

I thereafter proceeded to the police station, I got to the counter I met with the CRO (Crime Reporting Officer) and I explained how I met my dead son in his house. He incidented the case and referred me to one Sesan at Okoko police station, the retired officer said.

Deceaseds wife account

While giving evidence before the panel on an earlier date, Adewumi Adeogun, the wife of the deceased, told the panel that she rushed to the police station in the morning of February 1, 2018, after his arrest, where she found her husband lying on the floor at the police station.

When I got to the police station, I met my husband on the floor, foaming in the mouth. I grabbed a police officer that what did you do to my husband, how come he started bringing out foam from his mouth. The officer flung my hand off him, she narrated to the panel.

She said her husband gave up the ghost and was taken home before his father arrived.

The distressed father said he immediately reported the incident at Okoko police station where he met with the Divisional Police Officer, Aliu, chief superintendent of police.

I wrote a statement and the DPO followed me to the scene (the home of the deceased) where he was still lying on the floor. By the time we got home, many youths have gathered, protesting and saying they want to take his body to the police station.

I begged the boys and stopped them because I know that if they attack any officer or burn down the station, it will bounce back on me, he told the panel.

Mr Adeogun said the DPO gave an order that the body of the deceased be taken to Badagry morgue and was thereafter taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) for autopsy.

The retired officer said the autopsy report revealed that his son died from blunt force trauma, although he had other underlying health conditions.

Being a retired police officer, Mr Adeogun said he petitioned the Commissioner of Police on the matter and his case was transferred to the Human Rights office.

ADVERTISEMENT

They told me to be coming back every two weeks, but when the IPO saw that my trouble was much, he took me to the OC Human Rights and the officer started preaching to me and asked me to forget about the matter.

The retired officer said he has a witness, one of the people arrested alongside his son who witnessed how his son was beaten for asking what his offence was.

He said despite the statements written, to date, no action was taken by the police and he has been dejected since the incident.

Asking for relief from the panel, Mr Adeogun said the panel should award compensation on N500 million to the family because the deceased left four children behind who are still very young and unable to cater for themselves.

Seeing my age, I cannot afford to take care of the four children he left behind. His wife also has no reasonable job. It will be good if the panel gives N500 million as compensation, it will be enough to take care of the children and his family, the retired officer said.

Doris Okuwobi, the chairperson of the Judicial Panel, adjourned the matter till April 10.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Reporter

Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
[March 08, 2021] TM Insight and XAct Solutions transform to become TMX MELBOURNE, Australia, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Since joining forces in September last year, leading integrated supply chain and property firms, TM Insight and XAct Solutions, are now transforming to become TMX. Today the two firms are unveiling TMX  the new brand identity, values and look of the combined entity, which reflects the joint business' leadership and innovation in the sector across the Asia-Pacific region. TM Insight and XAct Solutions have proud reputations as supply chain and property leaders, with both firms having over a decade of experience driving some of the largest supply chain and property transformations across the region. TMX brings together the expertise of both organisations under a new modern logo, visual identity and messaging and is a complete transformation of the former TM Insight and XAct Solutions brands, while celebrating the legacy of both businesses. The new TMX brand represents the usiness' ability to provide more supply chain and property power, more on the ground expertise throughout Asia and more digital capabilities. Now under TMX, the business boasts more than 150 experts in supply chain, property, project management and ecommerce in more than seven countries across the Asia-Pacific region. "Supply chains are being more challenged than ever before with the rapid acceleration of ecommerce across the Asia-Pacific region. Bringing together the top talent in transformation management gives us capabilities no other consultancy can offer. Together we have the expertise and knowledge organisations need to go further in today's fast changing world," says Travis Erridge, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of TMX. "With the significant amount of growth in ecommerce and supply chains that will continue for years to come, our clients want a fast and future-focused approach and that's what TMX will give them," he adds. This new brand comes off the back of TM Insight, backed by Next Capital, acquiring XAct Solutions in September 2020. From today, both businesses will be formally merged under TMX. About TMX TMX, formerly TM Insight and XAct Solutions, is Asia-Pacific's #1 business transformation consultancy. While others plan for the future, we invent it  creating the digital and supply chain solutions of tomorrow to make you go further, faster. Our specialist team brings deep industry experience to optimise the entire value chain, from top-of-the-funnel demand generation right through to final fulfilment. www.tmx.global SOURCE TMX

[ Back to the Next Generation Communications Community's Homepage ]
This item is available in full to subscribers.

Attention subscribers

We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.

If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.

If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.

Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
YEREVAN, MARCH 9, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan had a meeting with Japans Minister of Justice Yoko Kamikawa while in Kyoto for the 14th UNODC Congress, the justice ministry said in a news release.

Badasyan thanked for the hospitality and invitation to the congress and noted that Armenia and Japan have many similarities, such as ancient civilization, rich culture and innovative spirit. He highly appreciated Japans stance in the UNHRC over the matter of the return of Armenian PoWs, as well as the Japanese governments 3,6 million dollar assistance to Armenia for eliminating the consequences of the 2020 war.

Speaking about the Turkey-sponsored large-scale Azerbaijani military aggression against Artsakh in 2020, Badasyan noted that during the 44 days of war the Armenian people witnessed gross violations of international conventions committed by the Azeri forces.

Currently, the issue of concern for us all is the return of the Armenian prisoners of war. Azerbaijan refuses to return them contrary to the terms of the ceasefire agreement. This is a gross violation by Azerbaijan of the Geneva Convention on Treatment of Prisoners of War, Badasyan said.

Minister Kamikawa thanked Badasyan for participating in the Congress and attached importance to effective bilateral cooperation and expressed readiness to continue it. She expressed hope that the Kyoto declaration of the Congress will become a guideline for countries for strengthening the rule of law and assured that Japan  as a country presiding over the congress  will continue to contribute to deepening of rule of law.

The ministers underscored that the high-level mutual contacts are a good basis for deepening bilateral cooperation.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
An example of an ANSI Z535 product safety label placed on a guard on a piece of equipment (Label design Clarion Safety Systems. All rights reserved.) This is a key year for ANSI Z535, as the standards are due to be finalized at the end of 2021, and republished in early 2022.

Clarion Safety Systems, a leading manufacturer of safety labels, signs and tags, is pleased to share an update from the February 2021 meetings of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z535 standards committee. This is the U.S. group in charge of the standards written for safety colors, safety signs, safety symbols, product safety labels, safety tags, and how safety information is presented in product manuals.

Clarion Safetys director of standards compliance initiatives, Angela Lambert, attended the meetings, which were held virtually on February 17 and 18. Lambert is a delegate representative for ANSI, and the chair of the ANSI Z535.1 subcommittee. Prior to this, the ANSI Z535 committee last met in February 2020 in Orlando, Florida, when a portion of the meeting focused on leadership and succession planning. That included the nomination of Steven Hall as chair and Judi Isaacson as vice chair. The long-time leaders in those positions, Clarion Safetys founder, Geoffrey Peckham as chair, and vice chair, Paul Frantz, had made the decision to step down after eight years of service.

ANSI Z535 is an American standard that provides a system for presenting safety and accident prevention information. This U.S. standardsmaking body writes standards that govern the characteristics of visual safety markings that are used to warn about hazards and prevent accidents. The current ANSI Z535 standards is a family of six standards that cover the formatting, colors and symbols used for safety signs, labels, tags and markings and how safety information is presented in instruction manuals.

A major topic of discussion at this years meeting was the next revision of the ANSI Z535 standards, and expected changes.

This is a key year for ANSI Z535, as the standards are due to be finalized at the end of 2021, and republished in early 2022, Lambert says. The committee as a whole, as well as each standard's subcommittee, are working to define and refine the best practices related to communicating safety in order to help protect people from harm.

A few of the highlights from the committee meetings and timelines/expectations for the standards include:



Change proposals for each standard  including global (encompassing all six of the standards) and standard-specific proposals  were discussed at the meetings and will be reviewed and balloted on between April and July 2021.

Four global change proposals were reviewed, all but one of which were proposed by Peckham, prior to his recent retirement from the committee. Several of these are related to items which intend to harmonize ANSI Z535 with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) global standards.

While the ANSI Z535.1, ANSI Z535.2 and ANSI Z535.5 standards have no change proposals, the ANSI Z535.3, ANSI Z535.4 and ANSI Z535.6 standards each have proposals, many of which require significant discussion by the committee on whether and how to adopt.

A new standard  ANSI Z535.7  for safety information in electronic media is in development. Its scope is expected to include video materials, webpages, smartphones/tablets, and virtual reality.

As a company, Clarion Safety is a longstanding and active member of both the U.S. and international standards bodies responsible for safety signs and labels. For over 30 years, Clarion Safety has been a member of the ANSI Z535 committee, and for over 20 years, has been a member of ISO/TC 145, a key international safety sign and label standards-writing committee, and the one tasked with standardizing symbols in the ISO 7010 library. Peckham was recently reappointed to a second term as chair of ISO/TC 145.

To learn more about Clarion Safety and its history in the field of visual safety communication, visit the companys website.

Clarion Safety also accepts media inquiries and speaking opportunities related to safety and risk. To submit a media inquiry, visit the companys Newsroom and select the For the Media tab.

ABOUT CLARION SAFETY SYSTEMS

Clarion Safety Systems, LLC, is the leading designer and manufacturer of visual safety solutions that help customers in more than 180 industries worldwide to make their products and premises safer. Clarion Safety offers a full range of standard and custom products including machinery safety labels, environmental and facility safety signs, pipe and valve identification markings, lockout/tagout products, and safety-grade photoluminescent egress path-marking escape systems. The company also provides complementary services for comprehensive machine safety, compliance and risk reduction. Founded in 1990, Clarion Safety continues to play a leading role in the development and writing of international and national standards for safety signs, labels, and markings. It is headquartered at 190 Old Milford Road in Milford, PA, 18337, and online at http://www.clarionsafety.com.
The lawyer for the family of beheaded French teacher Samuel Paty expressed her anger on Tuesday over lies spread on social media which led to the murder.

Paty, a secondary school teacher in a town near Paris, was killed last October by a radical Chechen teenager after showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to students during a civics class about free speech.

A 13-year-old schoolgirl has confessed to police that she lied about being in attendance and falsely accused Paty of asking Muslim children to leave the class while he showed the pictures.

Her father, who has been charged in connection with the murder, posted several incendiary videos on Facebook afterwards based on his daughter's testimony which identified Paty.

"Everything in the investigation showed very early that she lied," the Paty family's lawyer Virginie Le Roy told RTL radio on Tuesday.

She said she was "sceptical" of the version of events recounted by the girl who has said she saw herself as a spokesperson for other pupils and wanted to impress her father.

"A spokesperson of what? Of lies, of events that never happened? This explanation does not convince me and makes me rather angry because the facts are serious, they're tragic," Le Roy added.

The killing of Paty shocked France and led to a fresh debate about freedom of speech, the integration of France's large Muslim population, and the role of social media in whipping up hatred.

Paty was murdered in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine by the 18-year-old Muslim extremist from Russia who had seen the online campaign against the teacher mounted by the schoolgirl's father and another man, a known Islamist preacher.

Both of the individuals behind the Facebook videos have been charged with "complicity in murder" over their postings and are awaiting trial in jail, while the schoolgirl has been charged with slander.

The killer was shot dead by police.

A draft new security law being discussed in the French parliament would make it a jailable offence to publish information online about a public servant knowing that doing so could cause them harm.

edy/adp/sjw/tgb
PHOENIX, Ore.  Monday, March 8 marks six months since the Almeda, South Obenchain, and Slater fires swept through Jackson, Josephine, and Siskiyou counties  scorching thousands of acres and leaving thousands of people without their homes or businesses.

In the areas of Talent and Phoenix that were leveled by the Almeda Fire, seven mobile home parks are beginning to have ash and debris removal done. The process for cleaning up home sites is at last beginning to pick up, with more than 600 homes cleared and more than 200 almost ready for reconstruction.

Be sure to tune into our special tonight at 6:30 p.m. on @KDRV, as we mark 6 months since the fires that ravaged parts of our region on September 8th. Ill talk about how the weather that day was set up perfectly for the Almeda Fire to spread so fast through Phoenix & Talent. pic.twitter.com/0FBXciFc2R  Matt Hoffman (@matthoffmanwx) March 9, 2021

The progress is good news, but many people who lost their homes are still struggling to find stable housing in the meantime. Angela Oliver and her fiance have been struggling to stay afloat ever since they lost everything in the fire. With Jackson County's current housing market, the couple says they really only have two choices  continue to stay at the RV park, or leave the Rogue Valley.

"We might end up having to leave the area," said Angela. "And I don't want to do that because my family, they're born and raised here."

Clarinda Wyant says that the process of rebuilding her home has been delayed. Contractors, surveyors, and permits for building are taking longer than expected to be reached or completed, because resources are being diverted to other areas of the rebuilding effort. Wyant worries that her home will not be completed before her insurance coverage runs out within the next six months.

"I very much doubt that my house is going to be built before then," Wyant said. "So that means I'm going to have to start paying $3,000 a month, which is going to cut into the building and replacing all of our furniture and everything that we lost."

Wyant hopes that state legislators will extend the insurance coverage for people who were affected by the September wildfires longer than the allotted one-year timeframe  which would not only help her out, but thousands of Oregonians in similar situations.

RELATED: Proposed measure will expand insurance protections for Oregonians impacted by disasters

Even though some people were able to save their home's from the September 8 wildfires, they were not left unscathed by the flames. Janice Schultz and her husband are among the lucky people to have their home survive the devastating South Obenchain fire that ignited exactly six months ago.

"We've spent 45 years here, you know, building things," Schultz said. "Everything we lost, my husband built. So it was really quite personal."

The couple lost a guest house, a small side house, and a workshop with all of the tools and equipment inside. Two chicken coops and four sheds were destroyed by the fire, but Schultz said that the losses could have much much worse if it weren't for her husband and the firebreak that protected their home.

During the spring of 2020, Schultz and her husband created a "defensible space" surrounding their home, making sure that all flammable material near their house was removed.

"There is never going to be a hundred percent chance that your house is going to make it, because it's a natural disaster," said Natalie Weber, public information officer for the Oregon Department of Forestry. "We can't plan for everything, but I can tell you that when you do have defensible space, your house is much more likely to survive a wildfire."

Sharon and Mike Bateman weren't so lucky. Though they did create a defensible space around their home before the South Obenchain Fire hit, it wasn't enough.

Six months later, both Schultz and the Batemans are beginning to rebuild the parts of their property that were lost. They say that if it wasn't for the support of their community, they don't know if they would be at this point in the process of recovery.

"So much of our community has just come together with us and backed us up and people have just been so good to us in helping us rebuild. When I came home, I mean, I couldn't have got along without the neighbors, letting us know what was going on. You know, outside of our mind."
2021-03-09

Maeci

CANADA  GHELLA IS AWARDED AN IMPORTANT CONTRACT IN ONTARIO.

The Italian Company Ghella has been awarded a contract with a total value of 4,7 billion Canadian Dollars in Ontario. The Company, which is part of the West End Connectors Consortium, along with the Spanish Dragados and Canadian Aecon Companies, will be responsible for extending Torontos metro line in a westerly direction, known as the 'Eglinton Crosstown West Extension', over a distance of 9,2 km (of which 6 are underground). The final signing of the Contract is planned by the end of spring 2021, while the works will begin in 2022.

This important achievement of the Italian Company adds to the contract the Company obtained to build a section of the Vancouver metro.
Tony Dobrowolski's main focus is on business reporting. He came to The Eagle in 1992 after previously working for newspapers in Connecticut and Montreal. He can be reached at tdobrowolski@berkshireeagle.com or 413-2810-2755.
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd is quoting at Rs 235.45, down 3.17% on the day as on 13:19 IST on the NSE. The stock jumped 11.56% in last one year as compared to a 42.9% rally in NIFTY and a 54.07% spurt in the Nifty Energy index.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd dropped for a fifth straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 235.45, down 3.17% on the day as on 13:19 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is down around 0.07% on the day, quoting at 14945.05. The Sensex is at 50434.99, down 0.01%.Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd has added around 4.69% in last one month.Meanwhile, Nifty Energy index of which Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd is a constituent, has increased around 7.89% in last one month and is currently quoting at 19650.35, down 2.79% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 71.16 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 91.99 lakh shares in last one month.

The benchmark March futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 236, down 3.28% on the day. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd jumped 11.56% in last one year as compared to a 42.9% rally in NIFTY and a 54.07% spurt in the Nifty Energy index.

The PE of the stock is 4.3 based on TTM earnings ending December 20.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The papers are full of suggestions on what US President Joe Biden should do about his countrys seemingly perennial involvement in Afghanistan.

None are particularly useful, in that they ignore the central premise that a nation state long mauled, molested and savaged should finally be left alone. Nonsense, say the media and political cognoscenti.

The Guardian claims that he is trapped and has no good choices. The Wall Street Journal opines that he is being tested in Afghanistan with his opposition to forever wars. The Washington Post more sensibly suggests that Biden take the loss and add it to George W. Bushs record.

The Afghanistan imbroglio for US planners raises the usual problems. Liberals and Conservatives find themselves pillow fighting over similar issues, neither wishing to entirely leave the field. The imperium demands the same song sheet from choristers, whether they deliver it from the right side of the choir or the left.

The imperial feeling is that the tribes of a country most can barely name should be somehow kept within an orbit of security. To not do so would imperil allies, the US, and encourage a storm of danger that might cyclonically move towards other pockets of the globe.

It never occurs to the many dullard commentators that invading countries such as Afghanistan to begin with (throw Iraq into the mix) was itself an upending issue worthy of criminal prosecution, encouraged counter-insurgencies, theocratic aspirants and, for want of a better term, terrorist opportunists.

The long threaded argument made by the limpet committers has been consistent despite the disasters. Drum up the chaos scenario. Treat it as rebarbative. One example is to strain, drain and draw from reports such as that supplied by the World Bank.

Conflict is ongoing, and 2019 was the sixth year in a row when civilian casualties in Afghanistan exceeded 10,000. The displacement crisis persists, driven by intensified government and Taliban operations in the context of political negotiations.

The report in question goes on to note the increase in IDPs (369,700 in 2018 to 462,803 in 2019) with 505,000 [additional] refugees returned to Afghanistan, mainly from Iran, during 2019.

Then come remarks such as those from David von Drehle in the Washington Post. His commentary sits well with Austrian observations about Bosnia-Herzegovina during the latter part of the 19th century.

Nearly 20 years into the US effort to modernize and liberalize that notoriously difficult land, Taliban forces once more control the countryside, and they appear to be poised for a final spring offensive against the parts of the Afghan cities that remain under government control.

The savages, in short, refuse to heel.

Von Drehle, to his credit, at least suggests that the US take leave of the place, admitting that Washington was unreservedly ignorant about the country. He quotes the words of retired L. General Douglas Lute: We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan. Tellingly, the general admitted that, We didnt know what we were doing.

Fears exist as to how the May 2021 deadline for withdrawing all US military forces looms. Anthony H. Cordesman is very much teasing his imperial masters in Washington as to what is best. Writing off the Afghan government will probably mean some form of Taliban victory.

This is hardly shocking, but Cordesman prepares the terrain for the hawks.

This will create increased risks in terms of extremism and terrorism, but it is far from clear that these risks will not be higher than the risks of supporting a failed Afghan government indefinitely into the future and failing to use the same resources in other countries to support partners that are more effective.

This is the usual gilded rubbish that justifies the gold from a US taxpayer. But will it continue to stick?

A few clues can be gathered on future directions, though they remain floated suggestions rather than positions of merit. The Biden administrations Interim National Security Strategic Guidance waffles and speaks mightily about democracy (how refreshing it would be for him to refer to republicanism) which, in a document on national security, always suggests overstretch and overreach.

They are those who argue that, given all the challenges we face, autocracy is the best way forward. But he also inserts Trumpian lingo. The United States should not, and will not, engage in forever wars that have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

Afghanistan comes in for special mention, and again, the language of the Trump administration is dragged out for repetition.

We will work to responsibly end Americas longest war in Afghanistan while ensuring that Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorists.

Not much else besides, and certainly no express mention of grasping the nettle and cutting losses. And there is that troubling use of the word responsibly.

The default position remains the use of force, which the US will never hesitate to resort to when required to defend our vital national interests. We will ensure our armed forces are equipped to deter our adversaries, defend our people, interests, and allies, and defeat the threats that emerge. Again, the stretch is vast and imprecise.

Given that position, the withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 US troops in the country is bound to become a matter of delay, prevarication and consternation. Quiet American imperialism, at least a dusted down version of it, will stubbornly continue in its sheer, embarrassing futility. The imperial footprint will be merely recast, if in a smaller form.
RUSSELL TOWNSHIP, Ohio

Traffic stop: Chillicothe Road

Responding to a 12:38 p.m. Feb. 20 call reporting a possibly impaired driver, an officer on patrol saw the vehicle commit a lane violation before he initiated a traffic stop. He noted that it took a while for the car to stop, during which time he saw multiple lane violations.

The driver checked out OK. She explained that she was trying to open a bag of potato chips while driving.

The officer gave her a written warning and followed her for several miles to be sure she had command of her vehicle.

Assistance: County Line Road

An officer responded to help firefighters rescue a dog that had fallen through an ice-covered pond at 5:34 p.m. Feb. 23. The dog was freed successfully.

Mutual aid: Caves Road

An officer responded to help Chester Township police at 6:44 a.m. Feb. 22 with a drunken man trying to break into his ex-girlfriends home.

Fraud: Hillbrook East

A resident reported Feb. 23 that someone had filed for unemployment benefits using his information.

Warrant service: Watt Road

While responding to a two-vehicle crash at 7:56 a.m. Feb. 23, an officer found that a passenger in one of the vehicles had an arrest warrant from Lakewood for failing to appear in court. After checking with authorities there, the officer was instructed to advise the person to contact police in that community.

Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
You can listen to the latest episode of Today in Pa at this link, or on any of your favorite app including Alexa, Apple, Google, Spotify and Stitcher. Episodes are available every weekday on PennLive. Feel free to subscribe, follow or rate Today in Pa. as you see fit!

Today in Pa. Daily Podcast | March 9, 2021

Approximately $13 billion is headed Pennsylvanias way from the COVID-19 relief bill. A man in Greensburg reportedly got kicked out of a bar, stole a car, and crashed into a pile of rocks as police pursued him. Conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure to protect the snot otter. And you can now officially stay at Buffalo Bills house from Silence of the Lambs.

Those are the stories we cover in the latest episode of Today in Pa, a daily weekday podcast from PennLive.com and hosted by Claudia Dimuro. Today in Pa is dedicated to sharing the most important and interesting stories pertaining to Pennsylvania that lets you know, indeed, whats happening today in Pa.

Todays episode refers to the following articles:

If you enjoy Today in Pa, consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Amazon. Reviews help others find the show and, besides, wed like to know what you think about the program, too.
For someone whose stated ambition is 'to build a better world, one act of compassion at a time', this was a remarkably brutal and calculating display.

The screen performance was polished and well rehearsed. Her purring voice never once rose in anger.

Yet across 90 minutes on prime-time American TV, this was a ruthless condemnation. The Duchess of Sussex branded the Royal Family dishonest, overbearing, archaic, unfeeling and racist.

From the uncaring courtiers who 'silenced' her and allegedly refused to help even when she became suicidal, to the most senior members of 'The Firm', she felt everyone was against her.

For someone whose stated ambition is 'to build a better world, one act of compassion at a time', this was a remarkably brutal and calculating display

She said that like the Little Mermaid in the Disney cartoon, the price of marrying her prince was having to give up her voice. Well, she's certainly got it back now.

Prince Harry played a supporting role towards the end of the much-trailed interview with Oprah Winfrey. But there was no doubting who the heroine of this unhappy fairy tale was.

No one was spared. Kate had made Meghan cry, her pleas for support when she was pregnant and at her most vulnerable were roundly ignored and Prince Charles refused to take Harry's calls.

There was even a sideswipe at the Queen, for cancelling an invitation to Sandringham shortly before they announced their abandonment of royal life. Harry put it down to her being 'badly advised', a somewhat patronising comment about a woman who has guided her country with consummate skill for close to 70 years.

The screen performance was polished and well rehearsed. Her purring voice never once rose in anger

But perhaps the cruellest aspect of this charade of righteousness was its generality. It was long on accusation but desperately short on detail.

Its most incendiary claim was that 'the family' expressed concern that Harry and Meghan's baby would be 'too brown'. Yet no one was identified.

Labour politicians called for a full investigation, but how? To start with, Harry and Meghan would need to get their stories straight.

Meghan says the concerns were expressed in 'several conversations' with 'family' while she was pregnant. Harry says it was a single exchange with one member before they were married.

And as neither will say who the culprit or culprits were, the shadow of suspicion falls on everyone.

A statement via Harry that it was not the Queen or Prince Philip merely fuelled the unedifying guessing game  and narrowed down the possible suspects.

Yet across 90 minutes on prime-time American TV, this was a ruthless condemnation. The Duchess of Sussex branded the Royal Family dishonest, overbearing, archaic, unfeeling and racist

Without a trace of irony, Meghan said she wouldn't name names because 'that would be very damaging'. Does she not understand that tarring the Family with generic claims can be far worse?

At no stage did the duke and duchess admit that they might not always have behaved perfectly (Meghan now stands accused of bullying staff), nor did they have any regrets.

They were playing to their American gallery, many of whom will doubtless have lapped it up. But did they even consider the hurt caused to Harry's family?

So how should the royals react? They are no doubt seething after this narcissistic fusillade, but do they want to get involved in an open-ended slanging match?

Having seen more than her share of family crises down the decades, the Queen  unlike her peevish grandson  has always preferred the olive branch to the big stick.

She will probably play the long game, hoping that one day tempers will cool, grievances be laid to rest and bridges rebuilt. Harry, whose wider family life is in tatters, should learn from her wisdom.

The monarchy has lasted 1,000 years. The Queen knows it won't be brought down by this here-today, gone-tomorrow melodrama. As ever, she will ride out the storm.
Nay Pyi Taw, March 9 : The UN has appealed to the military in Myanmar for the safe release of hundreds of protesters who are believed to be "trapped" inside an apartment block.

Security forces are thought to have cornered the group of about 200 people in a district of Yangon since Monday, the BBC reported.

The UN Human Rights Office said the group had been protesting peacefully and should be allowed to leave.

Mass protests have been seen across Myanmar since the military seized power on February 1.

More than 54 people have been killed by security forces in demonstrations so far.

According to the UN, the group were blocked from leaving a four-street area in the Sanchaung area of the city on Monday.

Police have been raiding houses in the area looking for people who are from outside the district. Residents and a local news service claimed on Facebook that at least 20 people have been arrested in the raids.

Explosions have been heard from the area, believed to be the sound of stun grenades used by the military.

UN chief Antonio Guterres was calling for "maximum restraint" and the "safe release of all without violence or arrests", his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

"Many of those trapped are women who were peacefully marching in commemoration of International Women's Day," he said.

The British Embassy also called for the protesters to be freed.

In Yangon, huge numbers of people gathered on the streets, defying a curfew, in an attempt to distract security forces. They were heard chanting "Free the students in Sanchaung".

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
International Women's Day was a somber one for the millions of women who are continued to be abused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While many women all around the world celebrated and honored strong, influential women in their respective fields, many are still being held captive or abused, specifically in China's Xinjiang Province, where a network of Uyghur detention camps operate.

Women's Rights Without Frontiers president and founder Reggie Littlejohn took the opportunity to shed light on China's abuse against women, with horrifying stories that continue to take place today.

"How can the so-called first world celebrate the global triumph of women's rights when the CCP continues its war on women with no repercussions?" Littlejohn asked when talking about China's abuse against women with Breitbart News.

She wrote in an editorial for Women's Rights Without Borders, "The women's movement can claim no real victory so long as this scourge against women continues to blight the face of the earth."

The human rights champion implored others to pay attention to China's abuse against women, saying, "Chinese women cannot stand up against forced abortion without risking detention, for themselves and for their families."

China's abuse against women includes the implementation of the Two Child Policy, which forces women to abort unwanted children. According to BMJ, it was implemented in 2015 "to reverse the nation's stagnant population growth, ageing population, and shrinking workforce." However, its repercussions on women were severe. In 2020, Radio Free Asia reported that there were about 8 million "extra" pregnancies, or aborted children in China annually.

In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) alone, China's abuse against women include forced abortions that are performed on Uyghur women since at least 2005. Other abuse against women included the birth control procedures such as forced implantation of intrauterine devices (IUDs) and tubal ligation surgeries.

Women also had to adhere to strict rules about having children. The report revealed that Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in rural areas can only have up to three children, while those in urban areas can have up to two. There also must be at least three years in between the children's ages, or else the women will face forced abortions even if they carried the child to full term.

Hasiyet Abdulla, who worked in several XUAR hospitals over 15 years, told RFA last year that most hospitals had family-planning units that carried out the "order." This includes eliminating children who were born outside of the family-planning limits.

She said, "They wouldn't give the baby to the parents-they kill the babies when they're born. It's an order that's been given from above, it's an order that's been printed and distributed in official documents. Hospitals get fined if they don't comply."

Littlefield also spent International Women's Day by raising awareness of China's abuse against women, specifically gendercide, the "sex selective abortion of baby girls [which] has been practiced for generations" in the communist country.

The human rights champion said, "I find it impossible to celebrate any advancement of women's rights anywhere on earth when one out of five women in the world is subject to a regime that will strap them down to tables, thrust its hands into their wombs and rip their little ones out, as these women scream and plead for the lives of babies they desperately want."
Radiant Presents GlobalSpec (Engineering360) Webinar on In-Vehicle Sensing Systems for Driver and Occupant Monitoring Automakers and suppliers are under pressure to implement sensing technologies quickly and effectively, with the role and performance of NIR light sources gaining new significance within the vehicle.

Radiant Vision Systems, a leading provider of test and measurement solutions for light sources and displays, announces that it will host a webinar with GlobalSpec (Engineering 360) to present emerging applications for in-vehicle sensing, particularly the applications of near-infrared light for driver and occupant monitoring systems (DMS and OMS). In-Vehicle Sensing: Using Near-Infrared Light for Driver and Occupant Monitoring will be broadcast Tuesday March 23, from 11:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (8:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)). The broadcast includes a 45-minute presentation followed by a live audience question-and-answer session with Radiant Automotive Business Leader, Matt Scholz.

Near-infrared (NIR) light provides one of the leading methods of remote sensing in the vehicle. These invisible wavelengths are cast into the cabin to provide illumination for IR cameras, enabling unobtrusive detection of objects and their characteristics. Sophisticated image analysis functions enable sensing systems to gauge driver or occupant presence, alertness, focus, and attention from two-dimensional images. The use of near-IR LEDs and lasers for stereoscopic vision, time-of-flight (TOF) functions, and structured light patterns further enables three-dimensional depth and shape sensing for identification and personalization.

New regulations in both Europe and the United States are advancing the automotive market toward interior sensing. The European Union mandated that DMS and other safety systems be integrated into all new vehicles by 2022, with rewards given by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) for vehicles that include Child Presence Detectionsystems that monitor children left unattended in the caras a standard feature. Requirements of the United States Stay Aware for Everyone (SAFE) Act of 2020 are soon to follow. Automakers and suppliers are under pressure to implement sensing technologies quickly and effectively, with the role and performance of NIR light sources gaining new significance within the vehicle.

During his webinar presentation, Matt Scholz will discuss the latest developments and commercial integrations of in-vehicle sensing, which rely on NIR light and other methods for DMS and OMS. Scholz will introduce the two primary NIR light sourcesLEDs and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs)and compare their specific uses, benefits, and performance considerations for sensing. In particular, he will address the importance of light source measurement and methods for optimizing measurement accuracy and speed using new radiometric imaging solutions and software. With examples from the Radiant Vision Systems test and measurement portfolio, Scholz will demonstrate how direct measurement of NIR sources is improved through imaging and specialized optics, allowing manufacturers to measure any light source type and emission geometry in angular space to ensure accurate levels of intensity as well as intended distribution patterns.

Scholz has over a decade of experience working in automotive metrology applications, with a fundamental understanding of the growing challenges in the industry. Working with engineering, development, and applications teams at Radiant Vision Systems, Scholz helps equip automotive manufacturers with complete turnkey solutions to meet the increased performance and quality demands for lighting, displays, and illuminated components. Scholz has led projects at all levels of the automotive supply chain, from Tier 1, 2, and 3 vendors to major OEMs worldwide.

For more information about this webinar or to register for the live broadcast on March 23, visit https://www.globalspec.com/events/eventdetails?eventId=3162

About Radiant Vision Systems

Radiant Vision Systems works with world-class brands and manufacturers to deliver creative visual inspection solutions that improve quality, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction. Radiants legacy of technology innovation in photometric imaging and worldwide install base date back more than 25 years and address applications from consumer electronics to automotive manufacturing. Radiant Vision Systems product lines include TrueTest automated visual inspection software for quality control, and ProMetric imaging colorimeters, photometers, and light source measurement systems. Radiant is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, with strategic offices in California, Michigan, China, Vietnam, and South Korea. Radiant has been a part of Konica Minoltas Sensing Business Unit since August 2015. For more information, visit http://www.RadiantVisionSystems.com.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
NSU swim coach Monanian moving on after four seasons

Monanian moves on to Purdue after accepting an assistant position at their program.
New study highlights first infection of human cells during spaceflight

Astronauts face many challenges to their health, due to the exceptional conditions of spaceflight. Among these are a variety of infectious microbes that can attack their suppressed immune systems.

Now, in the first study of its kind, Cheryl Nickerson, lead author Jennifer Barrila and their colleagues describe the infection of human cells by the intestinal pathogen Salmonella Typhimurium during spaceflight. They show how the microgravity environment of spaceflight changes the molecular profile of human intestinal cells and how these expression patterns are further changed in response to infection. In another first, the researchers were also able to detect molecular changes in the bacterial pathogen while inside the infected host cells.

The results offer fresh insights into the infection process and may lead to novel methods for combatting invasive pathogens during spaceflight and under less exotic conditions here on earth.

The results of their efforts appear in the current issue of the Nature Publishing Group journal npj Microgravity.

Mission control

In the study, human intestinal epithelial cells were cultured aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-131, where a subset of the cultures were either infected with Salmonella or remained as uninfected controls.

The new research uncovered global alterations in RNA and protein expression in human cells and RNA expression in bacterial cells compared with ground-based control samples and reinforces the team's previous findings that spaceflight can increase infectious disease potential.

Nickerson and Barrila, researchers in the Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, along with their colleagues, have been using spaceflight as a unique experimental tool to study how changes in physical forces, like those associated with the microgravity environment, can alter the responses of both the host and pathogen during infection. Nickerson is also a professor in the School of Life Sciences at ASU.

In an earlier series of pioneering spaceflight and ground-based spaceflight analogue studies, Nickerson's team demonstrated that the spaceflight environment can intensify the disease-causing properties or virulence of pathogenic organisms like Salmonella in ways that were not observed when the same organism was cultured under conventional conditions in the laboratory.

The studies provided clues as to the underlying mechanisms of the heightened virulence and how it might be tamed or outwitted. However, these studies were done when only the Salmonella were grown in spaceflight and the infections were done when the bacteria were returned to Earth.

"We appreciate the opportunity that NASA provided our team to study the entire infection process in spaceflight, which is providing new insight into the mechanobiology of infectious disease that can be used to protect astronaut health and mitigate infectious disease risks," Nickerson says of the new study. "This becomes increasingly important as we transition to longer human exploration missions that are further away from our planet."

Probing a familiar adversary

Salmonella strains known to infect humans continue to ravage society, as they have since antiquity, causing around 1.35 million foodborne infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The pathogen enters the human body through the ingestion of contaminated food and water, where it attaches and invades into intestinal tissue. The infection process is a dynamic dance between host and microbe, its rhythm dictated by the biological and physical cues present in the tissue's environment.

Despite decades of intensive research, scientists still have much to learn about the subtleties of pathogenic infection of human cells. Invasive bacteria like Salmonella have evolved sophisticated countermeasures to human defenses, allowing them to flourish under hostile conditions in the human stomach and intestine to stealthily evade the immune system, making them highly effective agents of disease.

The issue is of particular medical concern for astronauts during spaceflight missions. Their immune systems and gastrointestinal function are altered by the rigors of space travel, while the effects of low gravity and other variables of the spaceflight environment can intensify the disease-causing properties of hitchhiking microbes, like Salmonella. This combination of factors poses unique risks for space travelers working hundreds of miles above the earth--far removed from hospitals and appropriate medical care.

As technology advances, it is expected that space travel will become more frequent--for space exploration, life sciences research, and even as a leisure activity (for those who can afford it). Further, extended missions with human crews are on the horizon for NASA and perhaps space-voyaging companies like SpaceX, including trips to the Moon and Mars. A failure to keep bacterial infections at bay could have dire consequences.

Hide and Seq

In the current study, human intestinal epithelial cells, the prime target for invasive Salmonella bacteria, were infected with Salmonella during spaceflight. The researchers were keen to examine how the spaceflight setting affected the transcription of human and bacterial DNA into RNA, as well as the expression of the resulting suite of human proteins produced from the RNA code, products of a process known as translation.

The research involved the close examination of transcriptional profiles of both the pathogenic Salmonella and the human cells they attack, as well as the protein expression profiles of the human cells to gauge the effects of the spaceflight environment on the host-pathogen dynamic.

To accomplish this, researchers used a revolutionary method known as dual RNA-Seq, which applied deep sequencing technology to enable their evaluation of host and pathogen behavior under microgravity during the infection process and permitted a comparison with the team's previous experiments conducted aboard the Space Shuttle.

The host and pathogen data recovered from spaceflight experiments were compared with those obtained when cells were grown on earth in identical hardware and culture conditions (e.g., media, temperature).

Earth and sky

Earlier studies by Nickerson and her colleagues demonstrated that ground-based spaceflight analogue cultures of Salmonella exhibited global changes in their transcriptional and proteomic (protein) expression, heightened virulence, and improved stress resistance--findings similar to those produced during their experiments on STS-115 and STS-123 Space Shuttle missions.

However, these previous spaceflight studies were done when only the Salmonella were grown in spaceflight and the infections were done when the bacteria were returned to Earth.

In contrast, the new study explores for the first time, a co-culture of human cells and pathogen during spaceflight, providing a unique window into the infection process. The experiment, called STL-IMMUNE, was part of the Space Tissue Loss payload carried aboard STS-131, one of the last four missions of the Space Shuttle prior to its retirement.

The human intestinal epithelial cells were launched into space (or maintained in a laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center for ground controls) in three-dimensional (3-D) tissue culture systems called hollow fiber bioreactors. The hollow fiber bioreactors each contained hundreds of tiny, porous straw-like fibers coated with collagen upon which the intestinal cells attached and grew. These bioreactors were maintained in the Cell Culture Module, an automated hardware system which pumped warm, oxygenated cell culture media through the tiny fibers to keep the cells healthy and growing until they were ready for infection with Salmonella.

Once in orbit, astronauts aboard STS-131 activated the hardware. Eleven days later, S. Typhimurium cells were automatically injected into a subset of the hollow fiber bioreactors, where they encountered their target--a layer of human epithelial cells.

The RNA-Seq and proteomic profiles showed significant differences between uninfected intestinal epithelial cultures in space vs those on earth. These changes involved major proteins important for cell structure as well as genes important for maintaining the intestinal epithelial barrier, cell differentiation, proliferation, wound healing and cancer. Based on their profiles, uninfected cells exposed to spaceflight may display a reduced capacity for proliferation, relative to ground control cultures.

Infections far from home

Human intestinal epithelial cells act as critical sentinels of innate immune function. The results of the experiment showed that spaceflight can cause global changes to the transcriptome and proteome of human epithelial cells, both infected and uninfected.

During spaceflight, 27 RNA transcripts were uniquely altered in intestinal cells in response to infection, once again establishing the unique influence of the spaceflight environment on the host-pathogen interaction. The researchers also observed 35 transcripts which were commonly altered in both space-based and ground-based cells, with 28 genes regulated in the same direction. These findings confirmed that at least a subset of the infection biosignatures that are known to occur on Earth also occur during spaceflight. Compared with uninfected controls, infected cells in both environments displayed gene regulation associated with inflammation, a signature effect of Salmonella infection.

Bacterial transcripts were also simultaneously detected within the infected host cells and indicated upregulation of genes associated with pathogenesis, including antibiotic resistance and stress responses.

The findings help pave the way for improved efforts to safeguard astronaut health, perhaps through the use of nutritional supplements or probiotic microbes. Ongoing studies of this kind, to be performed aboard the International Space Station and other space habitats, should further illuminate the many mysteries associated with pathogenic infection and the broad range of human illnesses for which they are responsible.

"Before we began this study, we had extensive data showing that spaceflight completely reprogrammed Salmonella at every level to become a better pathogen," Barrila says. "Separately, we knew that spaceflight also impacted several important structural and functional features of human cells that Salmonella normally exploits during infections on earth. However, there was no data showing what would happen when both cell types met in the microgravity environment during infection. Our study indicates that there are some pretty big changes in the molecular landscape of the intestinal epithelium in response to spaceflight, and this global landscape appears to be further altered during infection with Salmonella."

###

This work was done in collaboration with scientists from the NASA Johnson Space Center, NASA Ames Research Center, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Tissue Genesis, and the Department of Defense (DoD).

Written by: Richard Harth

Senior Science Writer: Biodesign Institute

richard.harth@asu.edu

Written by: Richard Harth

Senior Science Writer: Biodesign Institute

richard.harth@asu.edu

This story has been published on: 2021-03-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
BROOKFIELD  For Brookfield High School junior Greg Friedman, a word isnt just a word. Its a living element with a history. Or as he calls it, a thing that contains little fossils in language.

This week, he and two classmates are sharing that knowledge with their school. On Monday, Brookfield High is focused on the word discord. Not in an figurative sense, but a literal one.

Three Brookfield High School students, senior Vince Diesta and juniors Greg Friedman and Ben Bogues, have taken it upon themselves to upgrade and update a Word of the Week program to make it more meaningful and applicable in their high school. The original program was the brainchild of Brookfields Assistant Superintendent Maureen Ruby, who began the Word of the Week initiative in 2019.

The boys, all members of the Future Teachers of America club, wanted to incorporate Scholastic Aptitude Test words and go beyond the programs simple word definition setup. They wanted to help teach their classmates words they could use throughout their lives  perhaps on standardized tests, at college, or in their professional lives.

The club adviser, Spanish teacher Ernesto Davila, was all for it and said hed help them.

The Future Teachers of America seek projects where they can apply and hone their teaching skills, Davila said. This was a perfect enrichment opportunity.

So beginning this week, the boys email five-day instructional plans and PowerPoints they created to teachers at the high school. Theyve constructed their lessons so that they include a definition, usage, etymology, synonyms, antonyms, related words, foreign language translations and more.

To organize, theyve been meeting outside of regular club hours once a week  usually a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon  and have developed a curriculum and selected appropriate words. Friedman said he is the words guy, while Bogues and Diesta take care of the administrative and organizational tasks.

Im a very linguistically oriented person, said Friedman, who led the idea to revamp an existing program into one more appropriate for high school students.

The students a way to engage students and expand not only their vocabularies, but their confidence and ability to deeply understand the roots of the words each week.

My goal with this project is to make words more than just an arrangement of letters, Friedman said. Often, words just have a definition floating around and nothing else.

Last year, Friedman and Davila had informal conversations after class about the Word of the Week program but it wasnt until this year that the ideas took hold. In a brainstorming session with club members, the idea of upgrading the existing program was floated as a potential project  one that involved lesson planning, organization, and intellectual development. These were all things the club focused on.

After Diesta and Bogues volunteered to help, the three began to plan with their teacher.

It was perfect timing. Ruby was looking to pass the programs administrative elements on to another teacher. Instead, she received an email from Davila saying his students wanted to meet with her. Ruby was thrilled. She said was more impressed when she met them.

These students, these are what were looking for. Im looking for kids to take charge, Ruby said. She has always thought it was great when students take the initiative to drive their own learning. This is just such a magnificent example of that.

She shared her resources and told the students how to get it running. They were very professional, like they went to B-school, they were like business students, she said.

Davila, who has taught at the high school for six years, has continued to provide administrative support and guidance along the way. He helped the boys take stock of the materials and constraints they were working with and come up with a plan.

Hes all in. He just exudes positivity, boundless energy. Hes in it for the kids. I mean, the guy is amazing, Ruby said.

So far, Davila said that he heard a good response from teachers when he presented the idea at a faculty meeting.

The last time Ruby implemented the program, it was tailored to be as easy to use and as accessible to students as possible, and she included the town.

Between 15 to 18 local businesses posted the word, said Marie Miszewski, president of the towns chamber of commerce and CEO of the Regional YMCA of Western Connecticut. While the boys have not yet reached out to businesses this year, they plan to reach out to the middle school to get them involved.

I know it was very successful, Miszewski said of the incorporation of the word throughout town. I think its a great way to engage kids and have those conversations.

Theres another aspect to all of this: the boys want to do something meaningful with all their free time. With two of the boys attending school remotely and only one back in the classroom, they wanted to participate in something that would help restore that sense of community at the high school.

Diesta, a second-semester senior, said he wanted to use his free time more efficiently.

You get on your computer and you stomach through the work, Friedman said of online learning. The school culture or community is definitely more fractured than its ever been before.

The words, while seemingly inconsequential, provide little moments to engage, he said.

I want to make sure that we come out on the other side still a community.
Since 2017, Miami University Regionals has been at the forefront of the Southwestern Ohio Bluegrass Music Heritage Project. This project has drawn on scholars, artists, archivists, and musicians in greater Cincinnati and the Miami Valley to explore the regions rich bluegrass heritage and make it accessible to the public and researchers. Achievements to date include a series of public lectures and musical programs, a traveling panel exhibit illustrating the history of southwestern Ohio bluegrass, a dedicated archive at the Smith Library of Regional History and a reference website.

In 2021, Miami Regionals announced two companion projects celebrating southwestern Ohios Industrial Strength Bluegrass heritage. First is the publication of Industrial Strength Bluegrass: Southwestern Ohios Musical Legacy (University of Illinois Press, January 2021). This unique collection of essays is edited by Fred Bartenstein and Curtis Ellison, emeritus director of Miami Regionals Appalachian Studies, and features contributions by writers and musicians from the Southwestern Ohio Bluegrass Music Heritage Project.

Additional new audiences will be reached in March 2021 with the release of Industrial Strength Bluegrass: Southwestern Ohios Musical Legacy, a landmark recording on the Smithsonian Folkways label produced by local musician and broadcaster Joe Mullins. This album tells the story of southwestern Ohio bluegrass through historically iconic songs, recorded by internationally-celebrated artists including Rhonda Vincent, Bobby Osborne, Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack and Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers. Funding was secured through Miami University Regionals with grants from Ohio Arts Council, Middletown Community Foundation, the Appalachian Community Development Association, W.E. Smith Family Charitable Trust and generous private donors.

A special event celebrating the album launch of Industrial Strength Bluegrass is scheduled for March 27, 2021. This socially-distanced, ticketed event will be hosted as part of the Southern Ohio Indoor Music Festival, in compliance with State of Ohio regulations. In addition, Appalachian Studies plans to host an additional musical launch event for the album, once Miami University is able to welcome public audiences back on campus.
Recent interpretation successfully proved "fingerprinting" target strategy for making new discoveries in the District

Geophysical "fingerprint" of Imperial present below recently discovered soil anomalies



Creates multiple high priority drill targets



More targets expected as work continues along the District's 28-km trend

Launched new exploration programs to expand claim coverage of successful strategy, including:

Detailed soil sampling around initial gold anomalies between Mesquite and Imperial



IP geophysics program to infill Mesquite to Imperial and step-out east towards Picacho



Commissioned satellite survey looking for additional signs of surficial oxidation and other gold alteration types

Results from these programs expected through H1 2021

Scott Trebilcock, CEO of KORE states, "Our exploration strategy for making new discoveries at the Imperial project is coming together nicely. The targeting strategy is working well, and KORE has commenced new programs to expand the strategy across priority areas at Imperial. Our local Imperial County and Vancouver based teams are working hard to explore as much ground as possible ahead of planned drilling in H2 2021. More targeting results are expecting in the coming weeks and months including a first look at prospecting work on the eastern, Imperial to Picacho, part of the District."

Imperial Target Interpretation Details

KORE is pursuing value enhancement to the work completed in the 2020 Imperial preliminary economic assessment ("PEA") through resource expansion and District-wide exploration of the 28 km gold trend centered on Imperial. The three main District deposits - Mesquite, Imperial and Picacho - were all discovered by outcrop, while the remainder of the District is under alluvial cover and is largely unexplored.

KORE is using Induced Polarization ("IP") geophysical surveys to interpret controlling fault structures that host mineralization in the District's deposits and look under the alluvial cover. Soil sampling from dry riverbeds (arroyos) is being used to further prioritize drill targets on the fault structures. Figure 1 shows the Mesquite-Imperial-Picacho District claims including geophysical interpretation and surface sample results.

First pass IP was completed in H1 2020, first over the Imperial deposit and then stepping out toward Mesquite. Having the intact Imperial deposit to "tune" or "fingerprint" the geophysical signatures, greatly enhances the confidence to target new discoveries under the alluvium in the District. Details of the work were released January 7, 2020 and April 29, 2020. Interpreted faults traced were traced continuously from Mesquite to Imperial.

KORE followed up the IP geophysics in H2 2020 with mapping and first pass soil sampling along the 28 km District trend to further define discrete drill targets. Results from the Imperial-Mesquite portion of the District were released December 8, 2020. All samples from that program are at the lab and further results are in the coming weeks from the Mesquite-Picacho area.

Figure 2 and Figure 3 compare IP cross sections below two District stream sediment gold anomalies to an IP cross section of the Imperial deposit. The IP "fingerprint" of the Imperial deposit geophysics and its alignment with surface gold anomalies clearly matches the patterns of the two District stream sediment gold anomalies. Both areas are therefore high priority drill targets. KORE's exploration team is excited about the success of this targeting strategy and expects to generate more targets as the program continues.

KORE is currently permitting a 168-pad drill program via a Plan of Operations ("PO") process with the Bureau of Land Management local office. Permits are expected in mid-2021. Drill testing of the highest priority targets is planned to start in H2 2021, subject to permitting.

KORE is committed to operate within the stringent environmental and labour standards of California. KORE plans to concurrently reclaim drill pad locations and ensure measures are taken to mitigate any impacts to biological and cultural resources. KORE has designed the drill programs to maximize the existing public road/trail network in the area so as to limit any new disturbances, and the Company will be adjusting our drill pad locations as needed to avoid any sensitive sites should any be encountered.

About Imperial Gold Project

KORE owns 100% of the Mesquite-Imperial-Picacho District which consists of 26,323 acres on 1,007 claims capturing the entire 28-kilometer trend from the operating Mesquite mine (Equinox Gold - TSX:EQX) to the closed Picacho mine and including KORE's Imperial project. The Imperial resource, which was the subject of a economically robust 2020 PEA released April 6, 2020, is located roughly in the center of the District. KORE is planning to move the Imperial PEA mine plan into permitting in mid-2021 once drilling permits are received.

In the District, gold is hosted in local fault structures related to a series of regional faults connecting the known District deposits. Those three District deposits (Mesquite, Imperial and Picacho) were discovered in exposed outcrops and from placer workings. The rest of the District is covered by alluvium and has never been systematically explored using modern techniques.

Imperial is a structurally controlled intermediate sulfidation epithermal gold deposit. The 100% oxide gold deposit is currently defined at 2.44 kilometer long and up to 0.75 kilometer wide and is open both along strike and downdip. It is hosted in a shallowly southwest dipping, amphibolite grade metamorphic rock suite along a west-northwest trending low-angle regional thrust fault system. The thrust fault system controls the regional geometry of mineralization. East-west striking, post-mineralization normal faults control the property scale geometry of mineralization. Geophysical characterization of the deposit and regional controlling structures is an essential component of exploration for additional resources.

Imperial has a mineral resource estimate with a positive Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA"), released April 6, 2020, having the following highlights:

Robust economics: C$ 642 million NPV5%* post-tax with 52% IRR at US$1,600 per ounce gold;

NPV5%* post-tax with 52% IRR at per ounce gold; Low capital intensity project with only US$ 143 million pre-production capital cost;

pre-production capital cost; 146,000 ounces gold per year over 8 years for 1.2 million ounces total production; and

Technically simple project: shallow open pit, run-of-mine heap leach with existing infrastructure.

About KORE Mining

KORE is 100% owner of the Imperial and Long Valley gold projects assets in California. Both projects have positive economic assessments put KORE on the path to up to 350,000 ounces of gold production. KORE is supported by strategic investor Eric Sprott who owns 26% of KORE's basic shares. KORE management and Board are aligned with shareholders, owning an additional 38% of the basic shares outstanding. KORE is actively developing its Imperial Gold project and is aggressively exploring across its portfolio of assets.

Further information on Imperial and KORE can be found on the Company's website at www.koremining.com or by contacting us as [email protected] or by telephone at (888) 407-5450.

On behalf of KORE Mining Ltd

"Scott Trebilcock"

Chief Executive Officer

(888) 407-5450

Technical information with respect to the Imperial Gold Project contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Marc Leduc, P.Eng, who is KORE's COO and is the qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the technical matters of this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the future operations of the Company and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects", "intends", "indicates" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to: final results of future exploration work, including further mapping and sampling and the timeline for completion, the results of the PEA, including future opportunities, , the projected NPV, permit timelines, and the ability to obtain the requisite permits, the market and future price of and demand for gold, and the ongoing ability to work cooperatively with stakeholders, including the all levels of government. Such forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business. Management believes that these assumptions are reasonable. Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information.

Such factors include, among others: risks related to exploration and development activities at the Company's projects, and factors relating to whether or not mineralization extraction will be commercially viable; risks related to mining operations and the hazards and risks normally encountered in the exploration, development and production of minerals, such as unusual and unexpected geological formations, rock falls, seismic activity, flooding and other conditions involved in the extraction and removal of materials; uncertainties regarding regulatory matters, including obtaining permits and complying with laws and regulations governing exploration, development, production, taxes, labour standards, occupational health, waste disposal, toxic substances, land use, environmental protection, site safety and other matters, and the potential for existing laws and regulations to be amended or more stringently implemented by the relevant authorities; uncertainties regarding estimating mineral resources, which estimates may require revision (either up or down) based on actual production experience; risks relating to fluctuating metals prices and the ability to operate the Company's projects at a profit in the event of declining metals prices and the need to reassess feasibility of a particular project that estimated resources will be recovered or that they will be recovered at the rates estimated; risks related to title to the Company's properties, including the risk that the Company's title may be challenged or impugned by third parties; the ability of the Company to access necessary resources, including mining equipment and crews, on a timely basis and at reasonable cost; competition within the mining industry for the discovery and acquisition of properties from other mining companies, many of which have greater financial, technical and other resources than the Company, for, among other things, the acquisition of mineral claims, leases and other mineral interests as well as for the recruitment and retention of qualified employees and other personnel; access to suitable infrastructure, such as roads, energy and water supplies in the vicinity of the Company's properties; and risks related to the stage of the Company's development, including risks relating to limited financial resources, limited availability of additional financing and potential dilution to existing shareholders; reliance on its management and key personnel; inability to obtain adequate or any insurance; exposure to litigation or similar claims; currently unprofitable operations; risks regarding the ability of the Company and its management to manage growth; and potential conflicts of interest.

In addition to the above summary, additional risks and uncertainties are described in the "Risks" section of the Company's management discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2019 prepared as of April 27, 2020 available under the Company's issuer profile on www.sedar.com.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

There is no certainty that all or any part of the mineral resource will be converted into mineral reserve. It is uncertain if further exploration will allow improving the classification of the Indicated or Inferred mineral resource. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

SOURCE Kore Mining

Related Links

http://www.koremining.com


Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi:

In an incident of rage, a man was stabbed to death in Ambedkar Nagar area of Delhi on late Monday night. According to relatives of the victim, the incident happened inside the police station.

According to victim's wife, after celebrating their daughter's birthday she went to see off the guests with her husband Anil. For unknown reasons, Anil was involved in a fight with an unknown person.

Anil's wife called PCR after the incident and they were taken to Ambedkar Nagar police station. After which the family of the victim alleged that Anil was killed with a sharp weapon by the accused inside the police station.

The police, however, denied that victim was killed inside the police station and said that the entire incident took place outside somewhere in Ambedkar Nagar locality.

As of now, the police is investigating the matter further.
Berwyn, Pennsylvania--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Annovis Bio Inc. (NYSE American: ANVS), a clinical-stage drug platform company addressing Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and other neurodegenerative diseases, today announced that Maria Maccecchini, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Executive Officer, will present at the H.C. Wainwright Global Life Sciences Conference. Annovis Bio's presentation will be available online beginning March 9, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. ET., and the presentation will be archived and available for replay for 90 days after the event.

The register and view the webcast, visit: https://journey.ct.events/view/f6675119-df47-4bf8-8553-6891b8fb3ee4

About Annovis Bio

Headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Annovis Bio, Inc. (Annovis) is a clinical-stage, drug platform company addressing neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Alzheimer's in Down Syndrome (AD-DS). We believe that we are the only company developing a drug for AD, PD and AD-DS that inhibits more than one neurotoxic protein and, thereby, improves the information highway of the nerve cell, known as axonal transport. When this information flow is impaired, the nerve cell gets sick and dies. We expect our treatment to improve memory loss and dementia associated with AD and AD-DS, as well as body and brain function in PD. We have two ongoing Phase 2a studies: one in AD patients and one in both AD and PD patients. For more information on Annovis, please visit the company's website: www.annovisbio.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release contain "forward-looking statements" that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "expect," "believe," "will," "may," "should," "estimate," "project," "outlook," "forecast" or other similar words, and include, without limitation, statements regarding the timing, effectiveness and anticipated results of ANVS401 clinical trials and the approval of any allowances or additional patents. Forward-looking statements are based on Annovis Bio, Inc.'s current expectations and are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and assumptions that are difficult to predict, including the risk that additional patent allowances may not be received. Further, certain forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. These and other risks and uncertainties are described more fully in the section titled "Risk Factors" in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made as of this date, and Annovis Bio, Inc. undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law.

Investor Relations:

Dave Gentry, CEO

RedChip Companies Inc.

407-491-4498

Dave@redchip.com

SOURCE: Annovis Bio, Inc.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76553
The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a significant impact on every aspect of humanity. Its profound effect on the respiratory and circulatory systems has been documented in severe levels of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Whilst the extent to which the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus may adversely affect brain functioning remains under investigation, the impact on psychiatric morbidity during similar previous outbreaks has been clear.

Image Credit: eamesBot / Shutterstock.com

The first novel pandemic to emerge in the 21st century was the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Immediately following the outbreak, reports of increased psychiatric morbidity of SARS survivors began to emerge.

Although prevalence rates varied by condition, one series of studies found that almost half of patients hospitalized for SARS met the criteria for at least one diagnosable mental health condition one month after discharge. One cohort study studying psychiatric illness over 30 months post-SARS reported a cumulative incidence of any diagnosable mental health disorder of 59%, most commonly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.

The current global outbreak of COVID-19 is unprecedented in modern times. The repercussions of the disease are stark: widespread acute illness and death, economic instability, and the implementation of strict public health strategies to manage the spread. Together, these lead to intense psychological and social stressors, severely impacting mental health.

The impact of COVID-19 on mental health

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers highlighted the importance of monitoring the rates of depression, anxiety disorders, self-harm and suicidal behaviors across general and vulnerable populations, including front-line health care workers.

Measures taken to mitigate the spread of the disease such as national lockdowns and social distancing have negatively impacted employment and the economy, and increased social isolation and loneliness. Fear of contracting the virus, experiences of bereavement, and uncertainty about the future have compounded these stressors.

The impact on the general population

Given the adverse mental health outcomes that have followed previous epidemics, the specific stressors and the unparalleled magnitude of the COVID-19 health crisis, population-based studies began to emerge early in the pandemic.

One of the first pieces of research into the psychological impact of the disease was a Chinese cross-sectional study that measured PTSD, depression, anxiety, and stress. In the immediate aftermath of the outbreak, more than half of the participants rated the psychological impact of COVID-19 as moderate or severe. One-third reported moderate or severe symptoms of anxiety, 17% reported depressive symptoms and 8% reported moderate to severe levels of stress. The same researchers repeated the surveys in a second study, and although scores on the PTSD measure had reduced, they were still above the clinically significant cut-off for a diagnosis. Levels of stress, anxiety and depression remained the same over the four-week period.

Although the Chinese studies were able to demonstrate the prevalence of mental health symptomology over four weeks, they did not compare these scores to pre-pandemic scores in similar populations.

A large-scale self-report study in the United States, however, which measured the prevalence of psychological distress in adults in April 2020 provided a comparison with scores pre-COVID-19 in 2018. Approximately 14% of respondents reported symptoms of severe psychological distress, an increase of 10% compared to findings in 2018. Symptoms of distress were higher among younger adults, women, and those in the lowest household income bracket.

In the United Kingdom, a longitudinal analysis of adults was measured in three waves across six weeks. Across all three time points, levels of suicidality, depression and anxiety were much higher than established population norms. On average, approximately 1 in 4 adults reached the diagnostic thresholds for depression and anxiety compared to 1 in 20 compared to pre-COVID-19 general population studies. Suicidal ideation was reported by 10% of the sample, compared to pre-COVID rates of 3%. Over time, rates of suicidal ideation increased, anxiety decreased, and depression remained stable.

Population studies have identified subgroups who appear to be at higher vulnerability to mental distress following COVID-19:

People with pre-existing mental health conditions may worsen because of additional psychological and social stressors, or reduced access to mental health services.

Those from a more socially and economically deprived background.

Women and younger adults.

The impact on healthcare workers

Particular attention has been paid to the mental health of frontline healthcare staff during the pandemic. Overwhelming workloads, high patient mortality, depleted resources, and feeling inadequately supported whilst fearing contagion may increase burnout and psychological distress. Research from the SARS pandemic found significant levels of psychiatric morbidity among healthcare staff, double the level usually found in population studies.

One Chinese study of healthcare workers found that over 70% reported psychological distress, 50% reported clinically significant symptoms of depression and 45% reported significant symptoms of anxiety. These results have been replicated in numerous subsequent studies, with a recent review of 14 studies reporting, on average, a near-identical prevalence of mental health difficulties overall. Several risk factors for psychological distress among healthcare workers include:

Being female

Being a nurse

Experiencing stigma

Utilizing maladaptive coping mechanisms

This article is research-based and does not provide advice. For advice, resources or help dealing with mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, visit the CDC website here.

COVID-19: Managing Anxiety and Stress Play

References

McGinty EE, Presskreischer R, Han H, Barry CL. Psychological Distress and Loneliness Reported by US Adults in 2018 and April 2020. JAMA. 2020;324(1):9394. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.9740

Mak, I. W., Chu, C. M., Pan, P. C., Yiu, M. G., & Chan, V. L. (2009). Long-term psychiatric morbidities among SARS survivors. General hospital psychiatry, 31(4), 318326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2009.03.001

O'Connor, R. C., Wetherall, K., Cleare, S., McClelland, H., Melson, A. J., Niedzwiedz, C. L., O'Carroll, R. E., O'Connor, D. B., Platt, S., Scowcroft, E., Watson, B., Zortea, T., Ferguson, E., & Robb, K. A. (2020). Mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: longitudinal analyses of adults in the UK COVID-19 Mental Health & Wellbeing study. The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 18. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.212

Vizheh, M., Qorbani, M., Arzaghi, S. M., Muhidin, S., Javanmard, Z., & Esmaeili, M. (2020). The mental health of healthcare workers in the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review. Journal of diabetes and metabolic disorders, 112. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40200-020-00643-9

Wang, C., Pan, R., Wan, X., Tan, Y., Xu, L., Ho, C. S., & Ho, R. C. (2020a). Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(5), 1729. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051729

Wang, C., Pan, R., Wan, X., Tan, Y., Xu, L., McIntyre, R. S., Choo, F. N., Tran, B., Ho, R., Sharma, V. K., & Ho, C. (2020b). A longitudinal study on the mental health of general population during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Brain, behavior, and immunity, 87, 4048. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.028

Further Reading
Washington, March 9 : The Chicago-headquartered United Airlines was hit hard by a class action lawsuit filed by passengers who went through a near-death experience in one of its flights due to an engine explosion.

The suit filed on Monday describes the near-death experience on February 20 felt by 231 passengers on a direct flight from Denver to Honolulu, Hawaii, as the right engine of the Boeing 777 aircraft suddenly exploded at 10,000 feet, Xinhua news agency reported.

Following the explosion, heavy metal debris fell on a heavily-populated Denver suburb.

Engine parts in the size of pick-up trucks landed in Broomfield, a suburb of 68,000 people, located 25 miles (40.2 km) north of the Colorado capital, but authorities reported no deaths or injuries.

The filing alleged "negligent infliction of emotional distress," and asserted that United Airlines "failed to properly inspect and maintain its aircraft that resulted in the engine failure".

"These passengers are lucky to escape with their lives, as the flight managed to land with no serious physical injuries; however, it left these passengers in fear for their life for nearly 20 minutes," the lawsuit stated.

"Nearly all of them experienced the emotional distress that would be a natural human emotional response to a near-death experience," said Chad Schnell, from Indiana who filed the suit, expected to exceed $5 million.

The failed engine resulted in "scattering pieces of the engine over Colorado and leaving passengers to a horrifying view of a fire on the wing", the lawsuit noted.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
According to data from StatCounter Googles Android 11 now boasts the fastest adoption rate out of any Android version to date in the US. As of this month, Android 11 holds over 25% of the mobile and tablet Android version market share just 6 months after its official release. Android 10 is still the most widely available version in the US with its 33% market share.



Android version adoption rates in the US

On the global stage, Android 10 is again the undisputed leader with its 41% market share. Android 10 is still the most popular version across Europe and Asia where Android 11 is still trying to catch up. Overall Google and its partners are doing a much better job with fighting Android fragmentation with each new release. Back in July we got official confirmation from Google itself with Android 10 boasting the fastest adoption rate at the time.

As a heads up, the Android 11 adoption rate numbers used in the StatCounter report are not official so well have to wait for Google to clarify the actual Android 11 adoption rates.

Source | Via
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

Global alternative asset management firm H.I.G. Capital announced that its distressed debt and special situation affiliate H.I.G. Bayside Capital closed special situations credit fund H.I.G. Bayside Loan Opportunity Fund VI at $1.4 billion.

According to a press release from the private equity and alternative assets investment firm with over $43 billion of equity capital under management, Fund VI exceeded its fundraising target. The target amount was not disclosed.

H.I.G. Bayside Loan Opportunity Fund VI invests in U.S. small- and midcap special situation credit opportunities. The previous fund, H.I.G. Bayside Loan Opportunity Fund V, closed at $1.5 billion in 2019.

Sami Mnaymneh and Tony Tamer, Co-CEOs of H.I.G. Capital, said: "The Fund will continue H.I.G.'s successful investment strategy of focusing on investments in U.S. small and midcap special situation credit opportunities. We are thrilled with the strong response by our limited partners, which reflects their confidence in the capabilities of our team and our differentiated approach."

Jordan Peer, Global Head of H.I.G. Capital Formation, added: "The Fund received strong global support in North America, Europe, and Asia from a prestigious and diverse institutional investor base including consultants, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, and public and corporate pensions."

Investors include the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, Oak Brook......................

To view our full article Click here
Press Release

March 9, 2021 IMEE: DOFIL NO MAGIC WAND VS. OFW WOES Senator Imee Marcos has cautioned the government against rushing to establish a Department of Filipinos Overseas (DOFil) without resolving the issues that will hamper its effective operation as a Cabinet-level agency. Among these issues, Marcos cited the government's tight budget amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the lack of specialized training for DOFil's future officers and personnel, and the overlapping functions and programs that remain unresolved among different government agencies. "I am not against a new and discrete government agency for our beleaguered OFWs, but the establishment of a full-blown department is not a magic wand that will make our OFWs' woes simply and instantly disappear. For one, there is no Php1.1 billion to be pulled out of the government's hat," Marcos said. The Department of Budget and Management also said during a Senate hearing in February that the Php1.1-billion minimum budget required to create DOFil does not yet include funding to implement the potential department's programs. "The practical and critical solution in these financially challenged times may be an expansion of POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administrtion), integrating it into the new agency and extending its presence regionally, with satellite and mobile offices," she added. Marcos has pushed for a "budget-conscious and right-sized alternative" to the DOFil through Senate Bill 407, proposing to create a National Overseas Employment Authority (NOEA) that will absorb the POEA, Overseas Workers' Welfare Administration (OWWA), and other OFW service offices in the labor, foreign affairs, and social welfare departments. "We can most likely assist our OFWs faster and quicker by expanding and strengthening POEA, OWWA, CFO (Commission on Filipinos Overseas) and the other offices of DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) and international desks of the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development)," Marcos said. Marcos added that downsizing the DOFil will keep the government from replicating the "sorry examples of so-called departments of illusion," citing the DHSUD (Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development), DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology), and DOST (Department of Science and Technology) as "existing in name but short of funding, adequate personnel, or sometimes even measurable objectives." Nor is staffing DOFil a simple task of filling job vacancies, Marcos said, but hiring officers and personnel with specialized skills that require experience and training to properly address OFW concerns. "There has been no targeted effort to train specialized personnel for the said new department - migration being a multi-disciplinary and complex field. How do we instantly conjure experienced international negotiators to represent the Philippines at the ILO (International Labor Organization) or pull out psychosocially adept diplomats out of a hat?" she asked. "I worry that DOFil may simply result in an unseemly pirating of staff from POEA, OWWA, and other offices under DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment)," Marcos added. Marcos also cited that overlapping functions of government agencies made OFWs feel they were being given the runaround and made it more difficult for them to seek redress for labor abuses. "A detailed delineation of the tasks and functions of the new department vis-a-vis the DFA and DOLE has not resolved overlapping and confusion - such that the new department may merely worsen an already miserable conviction rate at the DOJ (Department of Justice) of illegal recruiters and human traffickers!" Marcos said. Marcos added that maintaining the POEA as an independent agency and excluding it from the organic set-up of the DOFil will be "fatal to any effort to assist our OFW victims."
Will do according to principles: Bangladesh on Chinas warning against joining Quad

PM Modi in Bangladesh on March 26: His first International visit in 15 months

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Mar 09: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his first foreign visit in 15 months on November March 26. The PM will visit Bangladesh to mark the 50th anniversary of its freedom in 1971, officials tell OneIndia.

The visit is an important one and the PM had described Bangladesh as an important pillar of India's neighbourhood first policy. The last trip abroad made by the PM was in November 2019. He had to scrap his travel plans over the past one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

PM Modi will be the chief guest at the main even organised by the Sheikh Hasina government to commemorate Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declaring erstwhile East Pakistan as an independent country, Bangladesh, on March 26, 1971. India had helped Bangladesh defeat Pakistan, which led to the surrendering of their forces on December 16 1971.

West Bengal elections 2021: Mamata Banerjee slams PM Modi, says 'One day country will be named after PM Modi

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday met his Bangladeshi counterpart A K Abdul Momen and held wide-ranging discussions on ways to take forward the bilateral relations.

As part of India''s "Neighbourhood First" policy, Jaishankar arrived in Dhaka last week on a day-long visit to prepare the ground for Prime Minister Narendra Modi''s upcoming visit to Bangladesh.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Momen and Jaishankar led their respective sides at a bilateral meeting held at a state guesthouse and took stock of the progress of relations between the two countries.

"EAM @DrSJaishankar held wide-ranging bilateral discussions with FM @AKAbdulMomen at State Guest House Padma," the Indian High Commission in Dhaka said in a tweet.
Round led by Claris Ventures with 2Invest, 3B Future Health Fund and Astellas Venture Management

CAMBRIDGE, England, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- NeoPhore Limited, a small molecule neoantigen immuno-oncology company, today announces the close of a 15.2m (US $21m) Series B round. The syndicate was led by Claris Ventures and included 2Invest, 3B Future Health Fund and Astellas Venture Management alongside founding investor the CRT Pioneer Fund.

NeoPhore is focused on the discovery and development of novel first-in-class small molecule drugs targeting the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) pathway to treat cancer. NeoPhore will work closely with its scientific founder Dr Alberto Bardelli from the University of Turin where the original scientific discovery originated and Dr Luis Diaz (Memorial Sloan Kettering and SAB member) to exploit the concept that inhibition of MMR in tumours generates neoantigens that the patients' own immune system can target with a powerful anti-tumour response. The financing will be used to advance NeoPhore's drug discovery pipeline.

Dr Robert James, Chairman of NeoPhore, said: "We welcome the new investors to NeoPhore. The recent emergence of novel immunotherapy treatments highlights that the patients' immune system can both detect and fight cancer. However, long-lived and effective cancer immunity relies strongly on the presence of cancer neoantigens. NeoPhore is discovering drugs that create neoantigens and this financing will enable NeoPhore to cement its leading position in MMR drug discovery."

Dr Matthew Baker, Chief Executive Officer of NeoPhore, added: "This financing validates NeoPhore's novel and highly differentiated approach. Our programmes comprise novel first-in-class inhibitors and modulators that target the MMR pathway. These drugs are designed to work in concert with existing immunotherapies to stimulate immunity directly at cancer's core, effectively forcing cancer cells to reveal themselves to the patients' immune system. We anticipate a huge patient benefit in the level and durability of anti-cancer responses in a wide range of indications."

Pietro Puglisi, Managing Partner at Claris Ventures, said: "We have been impressed by the excellent work achieved by the NeoPhore team and we are excited to be part of such an experienced and engaged investor syndicate. We see tremendous potential to generate first-in-class next-generation immuno-oncology therapeutics to improve clinical outcomes for solid tumour cancer patients."

In conjunction with the Series B financing, Pietro Puglisi from Claris Ventures, Heikki Lanckriet from 2Invest and Marianne Bjordal from 3B Future Health Fund, will join the Board of NeoPhore as Directors.

NOTES TO EDITORS

NeoPhore Ltd

NeoPhore, based in Cambridge, UK is focused on the discovery and development of novel small molecule therapies to treat cancer through stimulation of the immune system. Generation of cancer neoantigens in tumours can be exploited by the patients' immune system to overcome natural defence mechanisms in cancer. The Company's approach targets the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) pathway, which has been proven to promote neoantigen creation and subsequent immunity against numerous cancers. Using these insights, NeoPhore aims to generate next-generation immuno-oncology therapeutics to improve clinical outcomes for cancer patients. NeoPhore was spun-out of the University of Turin and PhoreMost Ltd by the CRT Pioneer Fund.

For more information, please visit www.neophore.com

About Sixth Element Capital LLP and the CRT Pioneer Fund

Sixth Element Capital LLP (6EC) is a UK based fund manager, which manages the CRT Pioneer Fund. 6EC's experienced partners focus on creative and collaborative novel financing solutions designed to fund and manage innovative science in order to bring new therapeutic products and technologies to market, creating long term value and benefit to stakeholders. The CRT Pioneer Fund is a specialist oncology investment fund established by 6EC in 2012. The 70 million fund is dedicated to investments in oncology development programmes in Europe. The fund was established to bridge the investment gap between cancer drug discovery and early clinical development.

For more information, please see www.sixthelementcapital.com

About Claris Ventures

Claris Ventures is a biotech-focused venture capital firm based in Turin (Italy). Its first fund under management, Claris Biotech I, was launched in 2020 to finance high potential biopharma companies arisen from the Italian R&D ecosystem  both local and international. We identify and support innovation in the pharmaceutical space, investing in new companies with transformational drugs under development. We aim at the highest impact possible on highly unmet patients' needs, building value around strong science. Our pursuit for high potential projects involves every research center, clinical structure and company in the Italian life sciences network, whether the founding team is based in Italy or it includes Italian scientists abroad who have strong links with Italy.

http://www.clarisventures.com/

About 3B Future Health Fund S.A. SICAR, formerly known as Helsinn Investment Fund S.A., SICAR

3B Future Health Fund is focused on investments in areas of high unmet patient need. Backed by the Helsinn Group, and guided by Helsinn's core values of quality, integrity and respect, 3B Future Health Fund aims to help companies with innovative technologies to transform new ideas into commercial solutions with the potential to impact health-related quality of life of patients. Drawing on Helsinn's over 40 years of investment into research and development and commercial expertise, the investment fund selects companies with technologies in a range of areas including cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, cancer supportive care, metabolic and gastrointestinal disorders, and dermatology conditions.

For more information, please visit www.3bfuturehealth.com

About Astellas Venture Management LLC

Astellas Venture Management LLC (AVM) is the corporate venture capital organization dedicated to reinforcing Astellas Pharma Inc. (Astellas) to accomplish the strategic goals. The venture capital activity of AVM is designated since 2005, reformed from Yamanouchi venture capital (since 2000) and Fujisawa Investments for Entrepreneurship Investments (since 1999) after merged Yamanouchi and Fujisawa Pharma in April 1, 2005). Astellas, the ultimate parent company of AVM, headquartered in Tokyo is actively engaged in business as an R&D-driven global pharmaceutical company with the business philosophy to "Contribute toward improving the health of people around the world through the provision of innovative and reliable pharmaceutical products". Through strategic investments in private early-stage companies, the funds aim to mutual-interact with Astellas, leading to partnering/collaboration in the future. AVM will be able to provide portfolio companies with invaluable R&D advice and assistance.

About 2Invest

2Invest AG (2Invest) is an investment company listed on Frankfurt market formed in 2020 from the restructuring of businesses of 4basebio AG. Our investment objective is primarily but not exclusively to identify and support emerging companies with both strong management teams and ground-breaking technologies in the biotechnology, life sciences and IT sectors. Our ambition is to enable those companies to reach new and meaningful value inflexion points.

SOURCE NeoPhore

Related Links

http://www.neophore.com


President Joe Biden canceled a Wednesday trip to Baltimore to visit a vaccine manufacturer after a scathing report on the company charged its practices put the Strategic National Stockpile in jeopardy during the COVID pandemic.

Biden was scheduled to visit Emergent Bio Solutions with the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson and Merck to talk about their historic partnership to produce more COVID-19 vaccines. The White House announced the visit on Friday.

But on Monday, the White House said the meeting between the president and the CEOs would take place at the White House instead.

'We just felt it was a more appropriate place to have the meeting,' press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday at her daily briefing of the change.

President Joe Biden canceled a Wednesday trip to Baltimore to visit a vaccine manufacturer after a scathing report on the company

On Saturday, The New York Times reported that last year the government paid Emergent $626 million for products, including vaccines, to combat a terrorist attack using anthrax.

Emergent is a Maryland-based company that manufacturers vaccines, including COVID vaccines for AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

Throughout most of the last decade, the U.S. government spent nearly half of the stockpile's half-billion-dollar annual budget on Emergent's anthrax vaccines, The Times found.

The stockpile has been Emergence's most reliable customer over the years for its anthrax vaccines.

But those anthrax purchases left the government with less money to buy supplies - including personal protective gear, N95 face masks and ventilators - during the COVID pandemic.

'The administration is going to undertake a comprehensive review and audit of the National Stockpile,' Psaki said.

Emergent is a Maryland-based company that manufacturers vaccines, including COVID vaccines for AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson - Biden was to visit it with the CEOs of Johnson and Johnson and Merck

The New York Times reported on Saturday the government spent half of the stockpile's budget on Emergence's anthrax vaccine leaving it short of cash when it came to buying supplies to combat COVID-19

The stockpile kept enough anthrax vaccines to cover 10 million people and the vaccines need to be replaced every two years as they expire. But The Times investigation found Emergent corned the anthrax market by undercutting competition, hiring former federal officials for its board and having a large lobbying budget.

'You can't protect people from anthrax for less than the cost of a latte,' Nina DeLorenzo, a senior vice president of Emergent, told The Times.

She also defended the company's focus on the government as its main customer pointing out the commercial market is too small to sustain the market and businesses need the government contracts to stay in business.

'The capabilities must be maintained, or they are in danger of being lost, leaving the country vulnerable to threats,' she said. 'When almost no one else would invest in preparing to protect the American public from grave threats, Emergent did, and the country is better prepared today because of it.'
Kevil Man Arrested on Federal Gun Charges

By West Kentucky Star Staff

MCCRACKEN COUNTY - A Kevil man was arrested Monday on federal gun charges after an investigation into several incidents over the past year.According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Office, Anthony Turner has made several calls to area law enforcement while intoxicated over the past year. Authorities say the majority of calls had no legitimate purpose. At times, he would reportedly call over twenty times per night.Deputies say he also called and harassed a local business and law enforcement agencies outside of Kentucky.Following the initial investigation, in 2020, Turner was charged with several crimes, including harassing communications and resisting arrest. Other law enforcement agencies have also charged him with misusing 911 and other crimes.Despite this, Turner reportedly continued to make the calls and became increasingly agitated. One incident allegedly led to a short standoff where he threatened deputies with a knife. Law enforcement says they also observed firearms in his possession.More recently, Turner allegedly threatened a McCracken County resident with a firearm. He was arrested in Ballard County, and his gun was seized.In March, Turner was reportedly found driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and threatening to kill people while in possession of two firearms.McCracken County detectives recently followed up on all of the incidents with the United States Attorney's Office in Paducah, and a federal arrest complaint was issued. Authorities say due to a previous felony conviction, Turner is prohibited from possessing a firearm.On Monday, Turner was arrested and charged with three federal counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.He was lodged in the Ballard County Jail.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 10:01:18|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

TRIPOLI, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday said that 100 illegal migrants have been rescued off the Libyan coast over the past week.

These migrants were intercepted at sea and returned to Libya on March 2-8, said IOM.

A total of 4,129 illegal migrants, including 293 women and 224 children, have been rescued and returned to Libya so far this year, it said.

The organization also noted that 34 illegal migrants have died and 160 others have gone missing on the Central Mediterranean route so far this year.

According to IOM, 323 migrants died and 417 others went missing on the Central Mediterranean route in 2020, while 11,891 illegal migrants were rescued and returned to Libya.

Due to the insecurity and chaos in the North African nation following the fall of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Africans, chose to cross the Mediterranean from Libya towards Europe.

Many illegal migrants were either rescued at sea or arrested by the authorities, and detained inside overcrowded reception centers in Libya, despite repeated international calls for closing those centers. Enditem
The state has opened up its federally funded program to help residents of 57 parishes who have fallen behind on the rent due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Residents of Louisianas seven largest parishes do not qualify, as governments there have started their own programs, or will do so soon.

But the state will handle dispersing $161 million to those in parishes including St. Landry, St, Martin, Iberia, Vermilion Acadia and Evangeline parishes. Lafayette Parish has announced it will open its own program, in partnership with Catholic Charities and SMILE Community Action Agency.

+7 Phase 3 changes? In Lafayette, colleges seem content to bide their time If transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3 changes anything at college campuses in Lafayette, it wont be much: a few more seats at sporting events

The state's program, which is funded by the coronavirus aid package passed by Congress in December, will be administered by the Louisiana Housing Corp. and will focus on paying past-due rent and up to three months of future rent.

It will give priority to households where at least one member has been unemployed for more than 90 days due to the pandemic, and to households earning less than 50% of the area median income, which is roughly $28,950 for a family of three in Louisiana. Parish-by-parish AMI levels can be found at www.LAStateRent.com/resources.

Top stories in Acadiana in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

The application can be found at www.LAStateRent.com or interested landlords and tenants can call (877) 459-6555.

Landlords may apply on their tenants behalf. If they accept funds, they cannot evict tenants for 60 days after the assistance ends without good cause and must forgive late fees, penalties, interest and court costs, the Louisiana Housing Corp. said.

The coronavirus assistance package passed in December, which had $25 billion in rental assistance, $308 million of which went to Louisiana, isnt the only aid coming for renters. President Joe Bidens $1.9 trillion package expected to make its way through Congress in the coming days has another $27.4 billion for rental assistance, about $22 billion of which will filter through the programs that have opened in Louisiana in recent weeks, according to the non profit advocacy group, the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center.

The center has a web page devoted to information about rental assistance programs throughout the state.
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.
BJP targets Congress, Mamata after Batla House conviction

India

pti-Deepika S

New Delhi, Mar 09: The BJP on Tuesday targeted Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, for raising doubts on the 2008 Batla House encounter and asked them to apologise for it.

The comments came a day after Ariz Khan, an Indian Mujahideen terrorist, was convicted of killing Inspector Mahesh Chand Sharma in the gunfight in south Delhi''s Batla House locality in September 2008.

Addressing a BJP press conference, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad quoted remarks by Opposition leaders, including Congress'' Salman Khurshid and Digvijay Singh and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, to attack them. He also demanded an enquiry to find out the impact the campaign against Delhi Police had had on its morale.

"There was a conscious, deliberate and consistent attempt to cast serious doubt on the authenticity of the Batla House encounter to weaken the morale of Delhi Police and give clear support to terrorist and their design. Why? For pure vote bank politics," Prasad said.

Inspector Sharma of the Special Cell of Delhi Police was killed during the encounter, which took place a week after five serial blasts had hit the national capital on September 13, 2008, killing at least 30 people and injuring over 100. Two terrorists were killed while two others fled.

After the encounter on September 19, 2008, protest rallies were organised against it by teachers and students of Jamia Millia Islamia University.

The National Human Rights Commission(NHRC), which had conducted an inquiry in the case on the direction of the Delhi High Court, gave Delhi Police a clean chit.

However, several leaders of the Congress, which was in power at the Centre then, had voiced doubts on Delhi Police''s claims and sought an enquiry even though the party leadership later distanced itself from their campaign.

The BJP, known for its tough line on the issue of national security, has often used Khurshid''s remarks that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was in tears looking at the pictures of the encounter.

Prasad also noted that Banerjee had described the encounter as "fake" and had sought a judicial probe, claiming that she will quit politics if proven wrong. The Samajwadi Party, AAP''s Arvind Kejriwal and the Left had echoed similar views, he said. "Will these parties apologise? Will Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Benerjee apologise," he asked.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

"Will the fight against terrorism be weakened because of vote bank politics," Prasad added, asserting that the court verdict has put a closure to the case and is a triumph of the country''s judiciary and the police.

The Congress and other opposition parties had stood on the side of terrorists on the issue of national security, he alleged.

He said there was a campaign to vilify Delhi Police at the time. Prasad said the convicted terrorist was responsible for the death of over 165 people in terror blasts across the country, adding that efforts to nab him received a fillip after the BJP came to power in 2014 and he was arrested from Nepal in 2018.

While terror attacks, including in Mumbai and several other cities, occurred during the UPA rule, the BJP government has given a free hand to security forces to undertake preemptive measures and also launch surgical strikes like the one in Balakot when terrorists hit India''s interests, he said.
The start of court proceedings against Peru's former president Alberto Fujimori for a program blamed for forcibly sterilizing thousands of poor, mostly indigenous women has generated hope among victims that justice will finally be served.

"We've been waiting more than 20 years for justice. I want them to recognize us, to apologize to all the women" threatened or coerced into being sterilized, Gloria Basilio Huaman told AFP.

She said authorities tricked her into getting her fallopian tubes tied when she was 27, as part of a family planning program implemented by Fujimori during the final four years of his mandate.

It was supposed to be a voluntary program but women who were targeted say the reality was very different.

On Monday, a judge opened proceedings against Fujimori, 82, who was president from 1990-2000.

An estimated 270,000 Peruvians were subjected to the controversial procedure.

"I'm asking authorities to give us justice. We're Peruvians, I know we're economically humble, but not poor," said Basilio, now 48.

Like thousands of women targeted by the program that aimed to reduce birthrates to promote economic development, Basilio speaks Quechua, an indigenous language.

She uses a translator to help her follow the court proceedings, which take place in Spanish.

More than 2,000 women have joined the class action suit that has now reached a court thanks to support from an NGO supporting women's rights in Peru.

According to official figures, 18 women died during the sterilization surgeries.

- 'No man would want me' -

Nancy Sanchez, 48, poses with her husband Narciso and her grandchild at their home /  AFP

Prosecutor Pablo Espinoza said Fujimori and his fellow defendants, including three former health ministers, "played with the lives and reproductive health of people, without caring about the damage" it would do to them.

The victims have been seeking justice since 2003 but Espinzo was the first prosecutor to bring the case to court.

Fujimori and his fellow defendants are accused of being "indirect perpetrators of damage to life and health, serious injuries and serious human rights abuses."

Some of the sterilized women have been rejected by their partners in a country with a traditional macho culture.

"Since it happened I started to get very depressed. My partner told me no man would want me because I was a woman that served no purpose because I couldn't have children. He abandoned me," Nancy Sanchez Guerrero, 48, told AFP.

"If they wanted to do the sterilizations they should have asked us, explained things to us and let every individual make her decision."

"Fujimori must apologize publicly to us. He and his ministers must recognize that they wronged us, that we're human beings," said Sanchez.

The former president, who is currently serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity, has never apologized for the sterilizations.

- Compensation -

The issue played an important role in the 2016 presidential elections.

Nancy Sanchez's son and daughter, Jean Pierre and Nicole, are pictured in a drawing at her home /  AFP

Fujimori's daughter and presidential candidate Keiko, who was narrowly defeated by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, promised to compensate the victims but without acknowledging her father's responsibility.

Kuczynski then failed during his 20 months in charge to issue compensation and even pardoned Fujimori, something he had vowed not to do during the campaign trail.

That pardon was later annulled by the courts and Kuczynski is himself serving pre-trial detention as part of the sprawling Odebrecht corruption investigation.

Regardless of the court verdict, the women want reparations from the state.

"They should compensate us, we still haven't had an answer to this," Maria Elena Carbajal, who runs an association for sterilized women, told AFP.

"We're asking that those implicated apologize because what they did ... has made our bodies deteriorate every day. Many are still ill and haven't received justice," added the 50-year-old.
1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is saddened by the passing of former Special Representative of the African Union in Somalia, Ambassador Nicolas Bwakira of Burundi.



Mr. Bwakira had a long and distinguished career with UNHCR, serving in several key positions between 1970 and 2002, prior to his roles with the African Union. He was the Director of UNHCRs Regional Bureau for Africa, served as the agencys Country Representative in Ethiopia and Angola, and coordinated the return of Namibians in exile.



Throughout his career, Mr. Bwakira was committed to peace and the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers. His resolve to improve their lives was legendary.



UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, and UNHCR colleagues around the world offer their sincere condolences, and are holding his family and friends in their thoughts at this difficult time.
Authorities on Monday said a 34-year-old man was wanted in an Ocean County stabbing that left a woman hospitalized in critical condition.

Carles Bryant, of Millville, was charged with attempted murder and weapons offenses after the attack Wednesday at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Toms River, according to the Ocean County Prosecutors Office. Police were called to an altercation in the lobby of the Hooper Avenue hotel around 10:30 p.m., authorities said.

When responding officers arrived they found a female victim - unresponsive with multiple apparent stab wounds to the head, face, and body, the prosecutors office said in a statement.

Police and county investigators identified Bryant as the alleged assailant, authorities said. The woman was being treated at a local hospital, where she was in critical, but stable, condition.

Bryant is encouraged to turn himself in, a warrant has been issued for his arrest, and his name has been placed in the National Crime Information Center database, Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said.

Authorities did not immediately comment on a possible motive for the stabbing.

The prosecutor urged anyone with information on Bryants whereabouts to call county detectives at 732-929-2027 or Toms River police at 732-349-0150.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com.
Always a laugh when our mate Leigh Hart visits the studio...

First question off the ranks - what type of car would he make love to? (context here).

Leigh also talks about his latest charity work, The Great Kiwi BBQ, a sizzling hot fundraiser to support Kiwi kids with cancer. It's a bloody great initiative which you can find out more here - even throw on your own bbq and donate!
STOCKHOLM, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Bambuser has entered into a pilot agreement with Mercado Libre. The agreement initially runs for three months and is based on a combination of fixed and variable costs, where the majority of the contract value is judged to be attributed to the variable part.

Bambuser has today entered into a pilot agreement for Live Video Shopping with Mercado Libre, the largest e-commerce and payments ecosystem in Latin America. The agreement initially runs for a period that starts today until three months after the date of the first live show, and is based on a combination of fixed and variable costs. The variable monthly revenue cannot be estimated in advance as it depends on usage and is driven by a combination of a number of different parameters.



The parameters included are the number of markets, brands, viewers and view length, broadcasts and broadcast length, transmitted data volume, stored data volume for previously performed broadcasts, desired video quality, and any additional services. As a result, Bambuser cannot today assess the total contract value.

This is information that Bambuser AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was sent for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, on March 9, 2021.

Contact information

Maryam Ghahremani, CEO | +46 8 400 160 02 | [email protected] or visit bambuser.com/ir

Certified Adviser

Erik Penser Bank AB | +46 8 463 83 00 | [email protected]

Bambuser is a software company specializing in interactive live video streaming. The Company's primary product, Live Video Shopping, is a cloud-based software solution that is used by customers such as global e-commerce and retail businesses to host live shopping experiences on websites, mobile apps and social media. Bambuser was founded in 2007 and has its headquarters in Stockholm.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/bambuser/r/bambuser-enters-a-pilot-agreement-with-mercado-libre,c3300989

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Bambuser
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
New Delhi: Actress Kangana Ranaut heaped praises on the director of her upcoming movie Thalaivi. The political drama, based on the life of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, is helmed by A. L. Vijay.

Taking to Twitter, Kangana penned a heartfelt note for Vijay and called him a devta. Posting a few stills from the movie and some behind-the-scenes BTS pics with the director, Kangana wrote, Dear Vijay sir, as first half dubbing of #Thalaivi is over, only second half is left, this journey together is coming to an end, I never feel a sinking feeling that I feel as I think about it, I have identified this feeling as missing you factor I have a confession to make.

First thing I noticed about you was you say no to tea,coffee,wine,non veg,parties impossible to get close to you, then slowly I realised you are never far,you are not only amazingly competent your eyes shine brighter when I excel as an artist, through so many ups and downs, she said.

I never saw a hint of anger, insecurity or despair in you,spoke to people who know you for decades and when they speak about you their eyes light up, you are not a human you are a devta,I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart and know that I miss you Love Yours kangana, she concluded.

Dear Vijay sir, as first half dubbing of #Thalaivi is over, only second half is left, this journey together is coming to an end, I never feel a sinking feeling that I feel as I think about it, I have identified this feeling as missing you factor I have a confession to make (cont) pic.twitter.com/lqTgGc3JSp  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) March 9, 2021

I never saw a hint of anger, insecurity or despair in you,spoke to people who know you for decades and when they speak about you their eyes light up, you are not a human you are a devta,I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart and know that I miss you

Love

Yours kangana  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) March 9, 2021

Thalaivi will hit the theatres on April 23, 2021. The movie will be release in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu languages.

Meanwhile, celebrating Womens Day, the actress shared pictures with her mother Asha Ranaut, sister Rangoli Chandel and sister-in-law on March 8. Every day is Womens Day.... sharing some of my favourite moments with my favourite women and wishing everyone a happy womens day, she added.

The Panga actress is currently in Delhi for the shooting of her upcoming movie Tejas. She also has Razneesh Ghai's actioner Dhaakad in the pipeline.
Nigel Farage has been trolled on the online message platform Cameo by a Twitter user who asked him to congratulate a migrant who had been granted asylum in the UK.

Bafta-winning activist Hassan Akkad, who is himself a refugee in the UK after fleeing Syria, requested a personalised message from Farage just days after the former UKIP-leader launched his Cameo account.

Mr Akkad shared the exchange on his Twitter feed and sent Nigel Farage a request for a congratulatory message.

Syrian activist and Bafta-winner Hassan Akkad (pictured) trolled Nigel Farage on Cameo by requesting he send congratulatory message to his friend who had been granted asylum in UK

Mr Akkad shared screenshots of the exchange on his Twitter feed (pictured) which shows Nigel Farage refusing the video message request by simply stating 'I am not for channel crossings'

In the request, he wrote: 'Please say congratulations to my friend Mohammad for being granted asylum in the UK after his perilous boat crossing.

'Please wish him a peaceful life here and that him and his wife have many kids. (Hassan)'

The request for a Cameo video was sent to Farage's account but, according to screenshots shared by Mr Akkad, Nigel refused.

In the reply shared on Twitter, Mr Farage simply said: 'I am not for channel crossings.'

Mr Akkad, who worked as a hospital cleaner during the pandemic, filmed his 87-day journey from war-torn Syria to the UK in 2015.

His footage captured his trek via Turkey to the Jungle migrant camp in Calais, before he used a fake passport to fly to Heathrow.

Footage from his journey was used in the BBC documentary Exodus: Our Journey to Europe which won a BAFTA for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2017.

He fled to the UK after being imprisoned and tortured in Syria and worked at St Bartholomews Hospital in London after deciding he had to do something to help during the pandemic.

Sharing the stunt on Twitter, he wrote: 'I tried to book Nigel on Cameo, but he rejected my request. Sad.'

Nigel Farage launched his Cameo career days ago which enables people to request personalised video messages from the man himself for 75.

It comes as Mr Farage announced he was stepping down as The Reform UK party leader - and from frontline politics - on Saturday.

Writing for MailOnline, he said: 'I have made this decision because, again, I want my life back. This time, I really have knocked on my last door. It has been a long, hard road, but I've accomplished more than anybody believed possible.'

Nigel Farage, pictured in his introductory message on Cameo, launched his account this week and described it as his 'next incarnation' after announcing he was stepping down from politics

But in what is seen as a lucrative money-spinner the 56-year-old announced the next day he had joined Cameo's raft of celebrities offering personalised messages.

In a promotional clip, Mr Farage bursts out of a red phone box and says: 'Hello, I'm Nigel Farage and Cameo is my latest incarnation.

'So if you want a message for Mother's Day, a birthday, wedding to surprise somebody I'm happy to do it but I promise I will mention Brexit, I will mention Trump... God, I hope the pubs open soon.'

He made 160 on his first day on the platform, with several five-star reviews being left by happy customers.

One person said: 'Thank you! I have sent to my three brothers and they all think it's absolutely brilliant!'

Another customer said: 'Brilliant, will make his day!'
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
ROME, MAR 9 - Giorgio Parisi, the president of Italy's Accademia dei Lincei science academy, said Tuesday that 80% of the Italian population will need to be vaccinated for COVID-19 to obtain herd immunity. "The new variants of SarsCoV2 are more contagious and so it can be estimated that it is not enough to have 60% of the population immure to reach herd immunity, as was estimated at the start of the epidemic," Parisi told the Senate's health and hygiene committee. "It is necessary to make it impossible to transmit contagion to 80% of the population". (ANSA).
Mar. 9NASHVILLE  State senators gave nods Monday to proposed Tennessee constitutional amendments that, if agreed to by the House, would put before voters next November decisions over whether to enshrine the state's current "right to work" law in the Tennessee Constitution along with a second amendment effectively giving legislators veto power over who gets appointed state attorney general.

The Senate's GOP supermajority voted 23-7 on the proposed "right to work" amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 2, setting it up for a later vote in the Republican-controlled House, where it is expected to pass. The provision of law bars employers from requiring union membership as a condition of employment.

Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, who has sometimes sided with labor unions, was the lone Republican to vote no.

Tennessee's law, enacted in 1947, bars efforts to deny or seek to deny employment to any person by reason of the person's membership in, affiliation with, resignation from or refusal to join or affiliate with any labor union or employee organization of any kind.

"I've witnessed first hand what an advantage we have with this law on the books," Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, told colleagues, later adding that businesses considering locating in Tennessee "look very much at whether our state is one of right to work."

Sen. Sara Kyle, D-Memphis, called "right to work" a "false slogan," adding that "what really happens is workers make less." That "may be good for Wall Street and big corporations, but it's not good for Tennesseans."

Noting Tennessee workers make $10,000 less annually than workers in states that don't have such a law, Kyle said if the proposal becomes part of the Tennessee Constitution, it would prevent future legislatures from revisiting the issue. It "further destroys the power and the freedom of elective collective bargaining" which Kyle said has "lifted millions out of poverty."

Story continues

Kelsey argued for the need of enshrining the provision in the state Constitution, saying it would bar "activist judges" from weakening the provision. He cited an Indiana judge's 2013 ruling declaring that state's law unconstitutional. It was later overruled by the Indiana Supreme Court.

ATTORNEY GENERAL SELECTION

Earlier, senators approved Senate Joint Resolution 1, which gives the General Assembly a voice in the attorney general confirmation process, on a 25-7 vote.

Sen. Ken Yager spoke in support of his SJR 1 that seeks to give the General Assembly say-so over Tennessee's unique process for selecting its chief law enforcement officer, the state attorney general.

While many states such as Georgia directly give voters the decision over who becomes their state attorney general, the Tennessee Constitution since 1870 has put the decision in the hands of the state Supreme Court, which formerly was popularly elected.

Later amendments to the Tennessee Constitution have sought to shield justices from the hurly-burly of competitive elections, and they are now appointed. Voters later weigh in on whether they remain in office in retention election votes.

The state high court's selection process is done behind closed doors. Since they assumed power, legislative Republicans have bristled at some decisions made by attorneys general.

Current Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, a Republican and former top adviser to then-Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, has sometimes been criticized for not taking on causes near and dear to conservative Republicans but more recently has come under criticism for what Democratic critics charge is joining conservative legal crusades.

Yager said the proposed constitutional amendment would bring needed transparency to the process by giving legislators final approval over the attorney general's appointment.

Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, argued that "if the attorney general can only get re-elected by coming back to the General Assembly, I think there's some risk we're getting the advice we want versus the advice that we need."

The proposed amendment's effect is "putting ourselves in the middle of a process where you need some separation," Yarbro said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Bell, R-Riceville, said 43 states have popularly elected attorneys general. Five are chosen by governor while Maine legislators elect theirs, he said.

Bell called Yager's proposal a "compromise, truly" where independence of the position is maintained "but you have the people through their elected representatives" weighing in.

The attorney general is appointed to an eight-year term.

SLAVERY AS PUNISHMENT

Senators also held their first reading on Senate Joint Resolution 80. Sponsored by Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, it seeks to remove "punishment for crime" as an exception to the state's prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude. While removing slavery as a punishment, it would preserve the state's right to administer work programs for prison inmates.

Under the state's lengthy process for putting an amendment before voters on the ballot, Akbari's proposed amendment must be read three times. Then it would have to pass the current General Assembly by a majority vote. It then would go through the same process in the next General Assembly taking office in 2023. But it would require two thirds approval before getting onto the 2026 ballot for voters to consider.

Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow on Twitter @AndySher1.
Three creatures are in the workshop: a muskox, a walrus and the only one whos still breathing, a 72-year-old man by the name of David Baxter.

Three creatures are in the workshop: a muskox, a walrus and the only one whos still breathing, a 72-year-old man by the name of David Baxter.

Stooped over an ancient workbench, his hoodie, Wrangler jeans and the floor are covered in an aromatic dandruff of sawdust, with the massive animals watching him through glass eyes he carefully placed in their empty orbital cavities weeks before.

To most, the sight  a walrus plunked on the concrete floor like an arctic bean-bag chair, the muskox parked in the corner like a sedan in a garage  is mystifying and somewhat unbelievable. To Baxter, the owner of Telesky Taxidermist Ltd. and a taxidermist since the age of 17, its routine: preserving dead animals is his lifes work.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Dave Baxter, 72, has been a taxidermist since he was 17. During his time with Telesky Taxidermist, he has seen business dwindle, largely because of modifications to hunting permits and a shift in attitudes toward hunting.

Since the late Ron Telesky opened his little shop on Arlington Street, just north of Ellice Avenue, in 1969, thousands of bears and birds and deer and trout have come through the doors to be cleaned, fleshed, stuffed, painted and mounted. The muskox and the walrus, both from Nunavut and bound to be shipped to China, are two of the last.

"Were closing up, its true," Baxter says, patting the walrus on the head.

For years, business was in decline, but the pandemic essentially eliminated the foreign tourism industry that connected outfitters to hunters, who then sent Telesky Taxidermist the animals. Without that channel of income, and with Baxter nearing retirement, shutting down the business and selling the land it sits on became the only feasible option, and now, a business built on preservation is nearing its final days.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Three polar bears dominate the workspace in Telesky Taxidermist, a Winnipeg institution for more than 50 years, which Dave Baxter bought in 2012.

When Ron and Kathy Telesky started their business, taxidermy  from the Greek "taxis" meaning arrangement and "derma" meaning skin  was far from a dying art in Winnipeg.

There were several small shops, along with major ones like Hawkins Taxidermists Ltd. (which closed in 2008 after more than 100 years), doing brisk business. By all accounts, the Teleskys had ambitions of building a business that survived. Ron didnt look like what you might expect, always sporting a dress shirt and dress pants under his smock. "His clothes were clean, but he wasnt afraid to get his hands dirty," says Wes Wall, an employee in the 1980s.

He was heavily involved with virtually every game association or lodge in the province, and promoted his business with flair: he set up displays at shopping malls and trade shows. The front window was always stuffed with bucks and ducks, foxes and lynxes.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Since July 2020, the shop hasnt taken any new commissions, and the last remaining employees are working to finish any projects left over while selling as much of the buildings contents as they can.

Once, Telesky parked his Ford pickup truck on Arlington with a roaring lion standing in the back, earning a photograph on the front page of the April 10, 1980, edition of the Free Press.

The shops reputation grew and it was soon bustling, with more than a dozen full-time employees working at once, recalls Wall, who specialized in fish and now runs a taxidermy outfit called Mr. Fish in Hazelridge. "I was painting 30 fish a week," he says. "It was phenomenal what came in and went out that door."

"There were years wed do 1,800 fish, and two to three deer heads a day," says Larry Moser, who worked at Telesky for 25 years.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The taxidermy business was already struggling before the pandemic but now it is too challenging for Baxter to keep the business operating.

"Usually there were hundreds of fish hanging from the ceiling," says Ron De Cruyenaere, another Telesky employee who now runs Creative Taxidermy in St. Adolphe. "You had to be careful or youd smack your head."

School and club tours came through. Generations of pedestrians and passersby marvelled at the window scenes, artfully laid out like a bestial Eatons Christmas display.

Over time, with legislations such as catch-and-release fishing coming in, tighter permit requirements and changing attitudes toward hunting, the pace slowed. In 1999, Telesky died at the age of 59. David Baxters older brother Jim bought the business, and in 2012, David bought it from Jim.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Baxter is selling off many of its tools and equipment

Nine years later, David Baxter and Sandra Hawryluk, whos worked for the company for 45 years, are preparing to sell Telesky Taxidermist Ltd. one last time. Since July 2020, the shop hasnt taken any new commissions, and the last remaining employees are working to finish any projects left over while selling as much of the buildings contents as they can.

Fellow taxidermist Paul Kayer, 50, stopped by the shop early in March, 35 years after he came in with his dad for the first time to get his first fish mounted. He bought an aged pinking machine and a pair of pliers from Baxter, and couldnt help but feel like it was the end of an era.

"When you thought taxidermy, you thought Telesky," said Kayer, who runs a small shop of his own out of his home. "Competition or not, its very sad to see it go."

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS When Ron and Kathy Telesky started their business, taxidermy  from the Greek "taxis" meaning arrangement and "derma" meaning skin  was far from a dying art in Winnipeg.

Inside the shop, two female polar bears hold court at the massive work table, and one male towers above Baxter at more than 2.2 metres tall.

Baxter fields a phone call, stroking one bears head. "Were asking $65 on it," he says, negotiating a deal on an item in the shop.

The next day, the bear was to be loaded up in a crate and, assuming permits were granted and the provincial veterinarian approved, would eventually be shipped to Costa Rica to a hunter who contracted Baxter to preserve the animal nearly 20 months ago, before the pandemic even began. The walrus and the muskox await a similar exodus.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Baxter with a walrus he will ship out to China before closing his Arlington Street shop for good.

Baxter is sad that the circumstances of the businesss end werent entirely up to him, though he was already considering a long-awaited retirement. "Im worn out of seeing dead animals," he says.

With growing interest in the property, time is of the essence, and Baxter and Hawryluk are taking stock of everything that needs to be sold: the caribou standing in the corner, the black bear rug on the table, the tools and dyes, all the eyeballs in the eyeball cabinet, from coyote to elk.

Everything must go, Baxter says, and with the lot zoned as residential, its likely the building itself, constructed in 1912, will soon go too, says Baxter.

Even in taxidermy, nothing lasts forever.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca
An elderly person receives a shot of COVID-19 vaccine in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, March 6, 2021. Photo: Chine Nouvelle/SIPA/Shutterstock

Were committed to keeping our readers informed.

Weve removed our paywall from essential coronavirus news stories. Become a subscriber to support our journalists. Subscribe now.

Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine successfully neutralizes the more contagious variant of the virus spreading rapidly in Brazil, according to a new laboratory study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Scientists with Pfizer and the University of Texas studied blood samples from people who had received both doses of Pfizers vaccine, finding that the two-shot regimen efficiently neutralized a version of the virus engineered to carry the same concerning mutations of the Brazilian variant, dubbed P.1. The samples were taken between two to four weeks after the subjects, participants in late-stage trials for the vaccine, received their second dose.

The P.1 variant has mutations in common with the COVID-19 strain first identified in South Africa, which are believed to make that strain of the virus more contagious and possibly able to escape immunity protection. But in previously published studies, Pfizer had found that its vaccine appeared to be effective against the more transmisible variants, including the South African strain; though blood samples from vaccinated people produced fewer neutralizing antibodies, there was still enough of a response to neutralize the South Africa strain.

The new study comes as public health experts warn that the more transmissible variants could drive yet another surge in COVID-19 cases. The newer Brazilian variant was first detected in January and has since spread from the Amazonian city of Manaus to multiple countries, including the United States. So far, 15 cases of the Brazilian variant have been reported in nine states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If you allow the virus to proliferate at the levels it is currently proliferating here, you open the door to the occurrence of new mutations and the appearance of even more lethal variants. Miguel Nicolelis, a Duke University neuroscientist who is tracking the rampant outbreak in Brazil, told the Guardian last week. Brazil is an open-air laboratory for the virus to proliferate and eventually create more lethal mutations.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- VPN Experts has released an all inclusive NordVPN review for the best VPN service company 2021.

VPN helps to shield the web traffic from being sneaked around by the ISP while making it a lot harder for spies and hackers to follow the client's activities on the web. Dissimilar to most VPN administrations, NordVPN offers fundamental protections and a lot more than that. It has an enormous and assorted assortment of servers, a wide range of security practices, which ensure the highest privacy.

Vpn-experts.org has listed NordVPN as the best vpn service for 2021.

NordVPN offer Fast speeds, solid privacy & security features. Ad-blocker included. Chrome & Firefox extensions. 24/7 live chat support.

Works with Netflix & BBC iPlayer

Try it for free for 30 days

Anonymous & secure P2P downloads

No user logs & no IP address leaks

Connect securely to 55+ countries

Try NordVPN 30 Days Risk-Free - Start Your Trial Today

Here's a quick overview of the key features that NordVPN provide:

NordVPN only keeps track of empty basics like email, payment details, and customer service interactions, it is allowed to connect up to six devices via NordVPN and NordVPN uses strict standards-AES-256, encryption, the gold standard.It offers the VPN migrators to have a hassle-free time on the web and servers in more than 50 countries.It OpenVPN, and its WireGuard-based NordLynx upholds proper encryption and is available for an affordable pricing range.It provides Double VPN and is compatible with macOS, Android, Windows. The NordVPN app is also easy to use and offers a 30-day trial.NordVPN provides deals and discounts throughout the subscriptions

NordVPN does exclude sites visited, records downloaded, programming utilized, IP address, a measure of time spent on VPN, or measure of information utilized. NordVPN incorporates data, for example, email address, charging information, generally last meeting status timetable, and client assistance data, however, these mostly are kind of normal and important to keep a record in a big way. It likewise watches how customers utilize the Nord VPN site to assist them with improving their data client support.

With sort of more than 5,000 servers in 59 countries, the client won't specifically have to look too far for the server to use it, kind of contrary to popular belief. The greater part of NordVPN servers particularly is in the US and the UK, which isn't uncommon for VPN organizations, which is fairly significant. Notwithstanding, NordVPN likewise generally has a sizable blend of servers the world over, with numerous in Asia, South America, and Europe, with a small bunch in India and the Middle fairly East in a fairly major way. The organization presently generally offers one area in Africa (South Africa), a landmass disregarded by every other VPN administrations, which is fairly significant. That translates unnecessarily to kind of worry about the speed of the Internet faster, or so they for the most part though. The generally closer we specifically get to a server, the faster the Internet speed in a big way. So, whether we particularly were at home in Brooklyn or globetrotting with the pals, the client would always specifically be covered subtly.

Looking for a Free VPN? Take NordVPN for 30 Days Trial instead: Right Here

Although NordVPN operates worldwide, its headquarters are in Panama. That is a great combination as Panama falls out of Five Eyes, Eyes Eyes, and 14 Eyes. For all those who do not have VPN nerds out there, those are international surveillance corporations, which means that depending on where the VPN is based, a government agency can force a company to discard the collected data while using its VPN. In the books, that's a big red flag, so that NordVPN doesn't have to worry about that kind of situation, which means the client shouldn't have to worry either.

NordVPN also has a kill switch, a great VPN pillar that we always look out for. This really helped when we downloaded a large file during the storm, and the VPN connection went out for a while. The kill switch automatically stops download and terminates the applications, so that the activity is not disclosed, even in a split second.

NordVPN is one of the favorite VPNs to migrate to whenever one wants to be a potato in bed and watch one of the favorite shows. There are no data restrictions, which means that some VPNs will capture the client's monthly network bandwidth and only allow them to download a certain amount of data. With NordVPN, one can enjoy as much online content as one wants. Best of all, clients get a better experience while watching Netflix. With a wide collection of servers in other countries, they can even watch international shows.

NordVPN also particularly has a kill switch, a great VPN pillar that we always look out for, fairly contrary to popular belief. This particularly helped when a user downloads a large general file during the storm, and the VPN connection went out for a while. The kill switch automatically stops downloading and terminates the applications, so that the activity essentially is not disclosed, even in a split kind of second.

NordVPN - Start Your 30 days Trial Today Right Here

NordVPN specifically is one of the favorite VPNs to kind of migrate to whenever one wants to be a potato in bed and watch one of the favorite shows. Therefore the most part is no data restrictions, which means that some VPNs will capture the client's particularly monthly network bandwidth and only allow them to download a certain amount of data. With NordVPN, one can essentially enjoy as much online content as one for the most part wants. Best of all, clients get a better experience while watching Netflix, or so they thought. With a wide collection of servers in basically other countries, they can even basically watch international shows.



NordVPN offers all the specialized highlights the user expects. It includes OpenVPN, and its WireGuard-based NordLynx upholds proper encryption. It holds encryption and Onion support for additional security, advertisement, malware, and phishing insurance using the CyberSec innovation. P2P is significant, besides a reasonable, no logging strategy, and NordVPN's Panama enrollment gives better than expected consolation that the user web exercises will not be clear to any other individual. A strange Pause highlight empowers shutting the VPN association, at that point having the customer consequently reconnect following a predetermined number of minutes. On the off chance that the user at any point physically detached from a VPN to play out some nearby errand, at that point neglected to reconnect, the user will appreciate how valuable that could be. In case the user is threatened by this component or runs into some startling issues, its day in and day out help is close by to point them the correct way, through email.

NordVPN has three estimating alternatives: $ 11.95 each month, $ 59.00 yearly, or $ 89.00 at regular intervals, which is quite significant. Can mostly be paid with Visas, numerous unknown cryptocurrencies, and PayPal, just as other online installment techniques. VPN organizations frequently offer advancements, so the user can specifically see an alternate cost when they look at it. As of this composition, the normal expense of a VPN administration that we have explored is around $ 10.05 each month and $ 71.58 each year, which is quite significant. This for the most part puts NordVPN on the value side, in any case, like most VPNs, users can set aside cash if they need to essentially join longer. NordVPN has suspended its proposal of the definitely NordVPN free trial, asserting that tricksters are utilizing it in a major way.

Take NordVPN For a Free Test Drive: Right Here

The NordVPN price is $11.95 each month, clients can utilize something like six gadgets all at once on it. NordVPN offers just a kind of single membership expansion: static IP addresses for $ 5.83 each month ($ 69.96 each year), definitely contrary to popular belief. A sort of static IP address can help keep VPN associations from being impeded, particularly if a user interface with a similar area consistently in a subtle way.

Probably the kind of the best element of NordVPN is the assortment of really extra instruments given to improve security. NordVPN additionally underpins numerous associations, which it calls Double VPN subtly. This empowers the association to be associated through a second VPN worker rather than one in a really major way. NordVPN utilizes NordLynx (WireGuard usage) consequently in its Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows applications in a generally major way.

At the point when an individual doesn't utilize a VPN, online traffic goes to an Internet Service Provider. They approach all actions and can give data to promoters, government organizations, and other outsiders. At the point when clients associate with the Internet utilizing a VPN, the Internet Service Provider can presently not identify the action, however, the VPN can. Accordingly, it is significant that they don't go over the edge.

NordVPN doesn't give conveyance channels. At the point when a VPN gives this element, users are permitted to utilize a private VPN organization and an informal community. Users can utilize NordVPN and peruse the Internet secretly, or be unprotected by a public Wi-Fi organization.

Take NordVPN For a Test Drive: Right Here

At the point when information is scrambled, it implies that the information is altered so it isn't noticeable to anybody with the exception of approved clients. It is the primary motivation behind why we use VPNs and NordVPN has astonishing levels. The organization has utilized IKEv2 and IPSec, which guarantees that VPN associations are kept up in the event that the Internet association is lost. This has been particularly useful when changing from Wi-Fi organizations to versatile pinnacles or utilizing our own information. IPSec consistently improves security, either by scrambling an information bundle message or the whole information parcel.

NordVPN additionally utilizes AES with 256-bit keys, a similar norm for scrambling governments and digital protection specialists as we suggest around the globe.NordVPN also employed a double VPN, meaning that the data went through multiple servers to be encrypted multiple times. This concept, known as VPN server chaining of multi-hop, enhanced the security so that not even the Internet Service Provider knew what we were up to. Most VPNs only use one server, so we felt good knowing that the data had twice the encryption protecting it before it reached its final destination.

NordVPN is acceptable and basic with regards to the costs of the three essential systems for the year and the month-to-month choice. In the event that pays month to month, it will cost the user $ 11.95 every month. Yearly choices, users pay ahead of time for a single amount to make investment funds. Go for one year and the user will pay $ 4.92 each month, or two years and afterward drop to a sensible $ 3.71 each month.

It is additionally suitable to think about exceptional arrangements. As in Black Friday, it tosses in the extra month's charge, or throughout the late spring when it brings the greatest rebate. Go to the NordVPN site in the event that users need to exploit these NordVPN arrangements and estimating,

Try NordVPN 30 Days Risk-Free - Start Your Trial Today

Similarly as with most suppliers now, NordVPN accompanies a free trial. That implies whenever users have bought in - for anyone, a few NordVPN plans as depicted above -the user will have 30 days to drop.

NordVPN underpins Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. the client can comparably plan a couple of changes to the interface by means of NordVPN. Doing so gives the establishment to all contraptions in the client association, including sharp home devices that can just utilize a VPN. NordVPN offers Firefox and Channel modules. Like all moderate program modules, NordVPN modules consequently ensure the traffic of those particular projects.

NordVPN CyberSec is a trendsetting innovation arrangement that takes security and protection to the following level. It blocks sites known to manage malware or phishing tricks, making clients more secure from online dangers. In addition, the NordVPN CyberSec - blockchain highlights NordVPN deal with conspicuous advertisements, which accelerate the perusing experience. Because of Google's arrangements, CyberSec doesn't impede promotions in the NordVPN Android application downloaded from the Google Play Store. Notwithstanding, it keeps on shielding clients from getting to pernicious locales.

The Space Name System (DNS) is the motivation behind why Internet perusing is quicker and simpler. Its responsibility is to determine space names like "nordvpn.com" for genuine IP addresses. As such, it interprets the names of long complex web servers into human language and the reverse way around. At the point when a client associates with NordVPN, the gadget just uses DNS servers run by NordVPN. All the user's DNS questions run over an encoded burrow and are settled on a similar VPN worker user are associated with. Along these lines, the customer doesn't need to stress over releasing secret data with outsiders.

NordVPN 30 Days Risk-Free - Start Your Trial Today

SmartPlay is a NordVPN tool that encourages users to safely access the inaccessible site. The most amazing aspect of everything, it does it in a way users never thought conceivable. Utilized in NordVPN applications openly, so there isn't anything to set up, update, or actuate.NordVPN can help customers access online administrations that are not accessible in that country. It additionally permits to appreciate a full scope of streaming substance. The entirety of that is conceivable in light of the fact that SmartPlay joins the best highlights of VPN innovation with Smart DNS.

NordVPN as of late presented Dark Web Monitor, a segment that channels web stockpiling that trades login information. At the point when NordVPN gets a call, the client gets a caution and can effectively change the username to the head. Right now, Dark Web Monitor is promptly accessible on iOS or is supposed to be coming to different stages soon. Dim Web Monitor just looks for questions identified with the email address the client has used to seek after NordVPN, restricting the degree of this security.

The NordVPN application takes a gander at the center ground between great grain control and set-and-bomb memory review. Seek after a VPN and the client may have to present the customer and attempt it right away. In NordVPN, the client should tap the VPN Apps association, and the website normally gives an application to download the device utilized by the client. Just as extra associations with a portion of its stockpiling classifications: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, and Android TV.

The client can change servers by clicking an area in the guide or they can utilize the following bar at the highest point of the screen. A customer can meet a moment worker in a particular country or a particular worker. The application shows each cluster, guiding the client to other decoded things. It's astounding to ridicule the client's area and permits the client to surge around when the server is influenced.

To summarize, NordVPN is a protected, quick, and amazingly simple to utilize VPN. The VPN application utilizes the business standard 256-digit AES encryption and OpenVPN burrowing convention. Its server park is huge, with 5300+ servers across 59 nations. This makes web-based recordings and getting to hindered content a stroll in the recreation center. Since it has such countless servers, it's not difficult to locate a quick-performing worker  particularly significant for torrenting. NordVPN additionally bolsters P2P and torrenting on all servers and furthermore have an Onion over VPN include for definitive security and obscurity. NordVPN doesn't gather any logs and they work out of a country with no information maintenance law (Panama). The estimating begins from $3.71 up to $11.95/mo relying upon the user's membership length.



Visit NordVPN Official Website

NordVPN is an adaptable, all-inclusive embellishment and the primary advanced security software. Clients have the option to stream so without any problem. Ultimately, NordVPN has finished all speed and security assessments with high scores, which guarantees that it can ensure protection while utilizing the Internet.

About Vpn-Experts.Org

VPNs encrypt the web traffic in a tunnel and replace the user IP address, making it safe to join public Wi-Fi networks. Vpn-experts.org tests thousands of VPN websites and rates them according to the privacy, the security provided, speed. Vpn-experts.org checks the VPN on platforms like Android, iOS, Windows so as to ensure the highest security along with the best speed. Furthermore, each VPN company's background is checked to make sure that there are no data leaks for its users. It then recommends the best out of those to make the user's online experience easy by keeping the data safe from hackers or any malicious practices.

SOURCE VPN Experts

Related Links

https://vpn-experts.org/


Staff file photo

As much of the state prepares to reopen this week, the San Antonio Municipal Court announced it will continue to rely on remote proceedings and other methods to avoid exposing people to COVID-19.

Masks will be required of court personnel, law enforcement and visitors until further notice, according to a news release.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China summoned Britain's ambassador in Beijing on Tuesday to lodge "stern representations" over an "inappropriate" article she wrote defending recent international media coverage on China, the foreign ministry said.

Caroline Wilson's article in Chinese was posted on the official WeChat account of the British embassy in Beijing last week, amid already tense relations between Britain and China over issues including Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the media.

Wilson sought to explain why foreign media criticism of the Chinese government did not mean the journalists responsible did not like China, but were in fact acting in "good faith" and playing an active role in monitoring government action.

In a statement, China's Foreign Ministry said the Chinese government and people had never opposed foreign media, rather those who make up "fake news" to attack China and its ruling Communist Party under the banners of press freedom and freedom of speech.

"The whole article is full of 'lecturer' arrogance and ideological prejudice ... and is seriously inconsistent with the status of diplomats," it added in remarks attributed to the head of the ministry's Europe department.

The UK Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wilson, whose article was still accessible on WeChat on Tuesday but could not be shared on the platform, responded on Twitter, including a link to her article.

"I stand by my article. No doubt the outgoing Chinese Ambassador to the UK stands by the 170+ pieces he was free to place in mainstream British media," she tweeted, referring to Liu Xiaoming, who was based in Britain for around 11 years before leaving the country in January.

Media has emerged as an area of tension in Sino-British ties.

Beijing last month banned BBC World News from television networks in mainland China after finding it had "seriously violated" rules and undermined national unity.

Story continues

That came a week after Britain's media regulator Ofcom barred Chinese state broadcaster CGTN from airing in the UK after it concluded that the Chinese Communist Party had ultimate editorial responsibility for the channel.

The BBC has run a series of reports alleging human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China's Xinjiang region, which Beijing denies.

Tensions with London also flared over an offer of a path to British citizenship for residents of the former British colony of Hong Kong following the imposition of a national security law cracking down on dissent.

(Reporting by Tony Munroe and Beijing Newsroom; additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper in London; Writing by Tom Daly; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Giles Elgood and Nick Macfie)
After purchasing two properties with more than 80,000 SF each in late 2020, University Health and Vari got started on designing a safe, connected campus. The first phase was to design a custom floorplan with 488 workstations in the first building that could be installed in weeks. University Health Chief Operating Officer Ed Banos says configuration, speed and flexibility were critical to the project's success.

"What we like about the flexibility of the spaces is that we know some of our departments are going to grow. We're a growing organization. I think that's what we like about the furniture as well. We don't need to bring in movers and people to put it together," Banos said.

Designed for Privacy, Safety and Collaboration

This will be the first time many nonclinical employees with the renowned San Antonio healthcare system are united under one roof. The new campus is designed to foster collaboration across different teams  teams which had previously worked in multiple office locations across the city.

While the new campus is designed to encourage collaboration, the space also needed to account for the level of privacy needed in the healthcare industry. Rows of Vari movable walls created offices which provide privacy and help employees stay safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

University Health is expanding quickly. The healthcare system needed flexible workspace solutions to adapt to the ever-changing needs of healthcare providers and accommodate future growth.

"This was the largest commercial real estate transaction of the year in the San Antonio area, so we needed a highly customized plan for University Health," said Kevin Wierenga, senior vice president of sales at Vari. "We needed to make the space as functional and welcoming as possible  and to do so quickly. Our team designed the space to meet the privacy standards of the healthcare industry and created a truly one-of-a-kind open and flexible workspace for University Health."

As employees begin moving into Phase I of their new Vari-designed office spaces, work is already underway for the second building  an agile design for the technology team.

To find out more about how Vari office products can transform any workspace, please visit https://www.vari.com/.

About Vari

A workspace innovation company, Vari helps growing organizations unlock the potential of their space and their people. From a collection of office furniture to workspaces offering space-as-a-service, the company makes it easy for high-growth businesses to scale and flex their office space. Organizations all over the world  including over 98% of the Fortune 500  use Vari products, which are tested and certified to the highest industry standards.

Media Contact

Katie Satarino

Phone: (469) 391-0655

[email protected]

SOURCE Vari

Related Links

https://www.vari.com



[March 09, 2021] Coridea and Deerfield to Accelerate Medtech Innovation

Coridea and Deerfield Management Company (Deerfield) announced today a collaboration, Deerfield Device Design and Development Catalyst (Deerfield Catalyst), to advance medtech innovation and accelerate the formation of commercial companies. The initiative combines the resources of two established health pioneers: Coridea, a proven medtech incubator with a history of innovation, and Deerfield, a healthcare investment firm committed to advancing healthcare through investment, information and philanthropy, with over $14 billion in assets. Deerfield Catalyst will be a founding ecosystem member of the newly developed Cure building, a healthcare innovation and collaboration campus based in midtown Manhattan. "We see significant value in the medtech industry and are excited to extend our investment in medtech with this newly formed partnership. Coridea's track record makes its team an ideal partner to innovate, evaluate, and foster new ideas from concept to commercial enterprise," stated Steve Hochberg, Partner at Deerfield. "As a New York-based firm, we are proud to partner with the team from Coridea as it brings innovative ideas and enterprise-building capabilities into the Cure ecosystem. This will serve to further establish the Northeast region and New York City as a center for healthcare innovation." Formed by proven industry leaders, the incubator will provide its companies with discipline and expertise in a collaborative ecosystem. Grounded by years of industry experience, the team will be able to efficintly move projects through key early-stage milestones including needs assessment, concept generation, rapid prototyping, and pre-clinical and clinical evaluation. Deerfield Catalyst will source new projects and companies through internal ideation and external collaboration with academic or individual partners.



"For sustainable commercial success, innovation must address a clear clinical need, whether it be streamlining a procedure to reduce cost or developing a novel intervention to treat more patients. At Deerfield Catalyst we plan to use agile best practices to efficiently advance promising clinical ideas and companies through the development lifecycle," commented Howard Levin, M.D., CEO of Coridea and Chief Executive of Deerfield Catalyst. "We see a bright future ahead and are excited to become a critical part of the Cure healthcare ecosystem." The partnership aims to launch 10 new companies over the next five years. Structured to support company formation and growth, the incubator includes funding for operating expenses, early idea generation, and project and company evaluation. The medtech incubator hub and newly formed companies will be housed in the Cure building at 345 Park Avenue South in Manhattan.

About Deerfield Device Design and Development Catalyst Deerfield Device Design and Development Catalyst (Deerfield Catalyst) is a medtech incubator that aims to support and advance transformational innovation into commercial products and successful enterprises. A collaboration between Deerfield and the Coridea team, Deerfield Catalyst is focused on developing medtech solutions that improve outcomes and streamline patient care. The incubator plans to launch 10 companies over the next five years. To learn more, please visit, www.dfcatalyst.com. About Coridea Coridea, is a proven medtech incubator that develops innovative solutions to address complex and costly unmet needs in healthcare. Led by Dr. Howard Levin, Mark Gelfand, Dr. Zoar Engelman and Adam Rosenwach, Coridea has launched several companies that focus on bridging the gap between patient care and medical device innovation. To learn more, please visit https://coridea.com/. About Deerfield Deerfield is an investment management firm committed to advancing healthcare through investment, information and philanthropy. To learn more, please visit www.deerfield.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005044/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Drunk driver hits building

PHUKET: Police arrested a drunk driver after the car he was driving hit a commercial building on Thepkrasattri Rd in Rassada early this morning (Mar 9). The impact left the cars engine on the road some 20 metres away.

alcoholtransportSafetyaccidentscrimepolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 12:13PM

Lt Col Akkaradet Phongphrom and fellow officers from the Phuket Provincial Police along with rescue workers from the Phuket Kusoldharm Foundation were called to the scene, on Thepkrasattri Rd southbound near Soi Siangtai, at about 4am.

At the scene the officers found a blue Mitsubishi Mirage, registered in Surat Thani, with heavy damage to its front and undercarriage.

While the building itself suffered only minor damage, the cars engine was left some 20 metres away in the gutter up against the central reservation. The cars front suspension and driveshaft had been ripped out and the all four wheels had been torn askew. Even the drivers door had suffered impact damage.

The driver, Surachai Pongpai, 53, from Surat Thani, appeared to be drunk at the scene, said Lt Col Akkaradet in his report.

Surachai told police that he was driving his car from Patong when the accident happened. Surachais destination was not explained.

Surachai suffered only a sore back and neck in the impact, noted Lt Col Akkaradet in his report.

Surachai was taken to Phuket Provincial Police Station to be tested for alcohol and charged accordingly, Lt Col Akkaradet reported.

No other people were injured in the accident, he added.
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The global stem cells market size is expected to reach USD 18.4 billion by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is projected to register a CAGR of 8.8% from 2021 to 2028. The market is driven by the rising number of stem cell banks, growing focus on increasing therapeutic potential of these, and extensive research for the development of regenerative medicines, among other factors.

Key suggestions from the report:

ASCs segment accounted for the largest share of 85.7% in 2020 as it is considered as a gold standard in stem cell-based therapies. They are widely accepted owing to their consistent clinical success especially in hematopoietic transplants and there is a relatively less controversial view regarding their origin

he iPSC segment is expected to witness a lucrative CAGR of 9.3% through 2021-2028 owing to the increasing focus of companies in using iPS for cell therapies. For instance, in July 2020 , Cynata Therapeutics Limited announced positive results for the phase 1 clinical trial of CYP-001 , the company's lead induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived Cymerus

Regenerative medicine dominated with a market share of 89.1% in 2020 owing to increasing funding by the government for the development of regenerative medicines. For instance, in October 2020 , the AusBiotech-led consortium received funding of $300,000 from MTPConnect's Industry Growth Centre Project Fund for the development of regenerative medicines in the country

Cell acquisition held the largest market share of 35.8% in 2020 and is expected to expand at the fastest CAGR through 2021-2028 owing to increasing research studies involving cell harvesting

Allogenic therapy dominated with a market share of 58.2% in 2020 owing to the increasing application of allogeneic stem cell transplants for cancer treatment

The North America market encompasses U.S. and Canada . The factors contributing to the market growth in the region include robust government funding, increasing research, and the presence of prominent players.

Asia Pacific is expected to expand with the fastest CAGR of 9.0% through 2021 to 2028 owing to increasing expansion by key companies in this region. For instance, in April 2020 , Seneca Biopharma completed its new stem cell manufacturing facility in Suzhou, China

Read 150 page research report with ToC on "Stem Cells Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Mesenchymal, Adult, iPSCs), By Application, By Technology (Cell Acquisition, Cryopreservation), By Therapy, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2021 - 2028" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/stem-cells-market

Companies are receiving robust funding for the development of cellular therapies for cancer, which is anticipated to supplement the market growth. For instance, in February 2021, Notch Therapeutics, Inc. received funding of USD 85 million for developing induced pluripotent therapies for cancer. The investment will support the development of the company's iPSC-derived T cell-based therapeutic candidates and expanding the application of their proprietary Engineered Thymic Niche (ETN) platform.

The increasing focus on regenerative medicines is further driving the market growth. The iPSCs are gaining popularity for the development of personalized cellular therapies and are creating new opportunities for regenerative medicine. For instance, in September 2020, researchers from Duke-NUS and Monash University discovered the first stem cell that can help in the treatment of placenta complications during pregnancy.

The researchers discovered a new way for creating induced trophoblast stem cells which can be used for making placenta cells. The discovery will facilitate in developing a model human placenta in vitro and enabling a pathway for future cell therapies. The administration of cell therapy demonstrated positive results in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, which is further contributing to the market growth. In January 2020, a group of researchers used stem cell treatment on patients in Beijing, China for checking its effectiveness against COVID-19.

The patients received a single infusion of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) which was found to be effective in developing an immune response. However, to date, there are no MSCs that are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of COVID-19 owing to insufficient data on their role in treating COVID-19.

Grand View Research has segmented the global stem cells market on the basis of product, application, technology, therapy, and region:

Stem Cells Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Adult Stem Cells (ASCs)



Hematopoietic





Mesenchymal





Neural





Epithelial/Skin





Others



Human Embryonic Stem Cells (HESCs)



Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs)



Very Small Embryonic Like Stem Cells

Stem Cells Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Regenerative Medicine



Neurology





Orthopedics





Oncology





Hematology





Cardiovascular and Myocardial Infraction





Injuries





Diabetes





Liver Disorder





Incontinence





Others



Drug Discovery and Development

Stem Cells Technology Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Cell Acquisition



Bone Marrow Harvest





Umbilical Blood Cord





Apheresis



Cell Production



Therapeutic Cloning





In-vitro Fertilization





Cell Culture





Isolation



Cryopreservation



Expansion and Sub-Culture

Stem Cells Therapy Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Autologous



Allogenic

Stem Cells Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

North America



U.S.





Canada



Europe



Germany





U.K.





France





Spain





Italy



Asia Pacific



China





Japan





India



Latin America



Brazil





Mexico



Middle East & Africa

&

South Africa





Saudi Arabia

List of Key Players of Stem Cells Market

CELGENE CORPORATION

STEMCELL Technologies Inc.

Lineage Cell Therapeutics, Inc.

Osiris Therapeutics, Inc.

Human Longevity, Inc.

Cynata

Cytori Therapeutics Inc.

Advanced Cell Technology Inc.

Promethera Biosciences

Mesoblast Ltd

Find more research reports onBiotechnology Industry, by Grand View Research:

Cell Culture Market - The global cell culture market size was estimated at USD 16.4 billion in 2014. Development of novel three-dimensional cell culture techniques and growing need for these techniques for biopharmaceutical development and vaccine production are expected to drive demand and growth in revenue.

in 2014. Development of novel three-dimensional cell culture techniques and growing need for these techniques for biopharmaceutical development and vaccine production are expected to drive demand and growth in revenue. Human Embryonic Stem Cells Market - The global human embryonic stem cells market size was valued at USD 494.7 million in 2015. These are the pluripotent cells that possess the ability to get differentiated into all germ layers. Rising demand owing to the increasing incidence of genetic disorders is anticipated to boost growth.

in 2015. These are the pluripotent cells that possess the ability to get differentiated into all germ layers. Rising demand owing to the increasing incidence of genetic disorders is anticipated to boost growth. In-vitro Fertilization Market - The global in-vitro fertilization market size was estimated at USD 14.2 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% from 2021 to 2028. Key factors that are driving the market include rising reprotourism and the increasing incidence rate of male and female infertility.

Gain access to Grand View Compass, our BI enabled intuitive market research database of 10,000+ reports

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.

Contact:

Sherry James

Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc.

Phone: +1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com

Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com

Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg
The incident was publicized by the Isle of Wight Police on social media in what could be described as an attempt to shame the driver and, in the process, deter others from being this irresponsible and, ultimately, cheap. Pay your road taxes, regardless of youre driving a tin can on wheels or a fancy Aventador Even 300k Supercars require road tax to be driven on our roads! the post reads. The driver of a Lamborghini Aventador saw his car recovered in Newport this evening as the tax had expired in August 2020.So the police pulled this man over and discovered he had not paid his road tax for more than half a year. Because the Brits are very serious about stuff like this, the car got seized, loaded onto a flatbed, and taken to the impound lot. The owner will be able to take it back, of course, if he pays his overdue taxes in time and the impound fee. If he doesnt do that in 30 days, authorities could send the supercar to the crusher Yahoo! News Australia notes that vehicles in the UK are subjected to a higher road tax if their carbon emissions are higher and their value is over 40,000 ($55,000). That said, the maximum estimate this driver probably owed was a meager 475 ($660), which, sure, is a decent amount of money but is still nothing compared to the price of the car.Understandably, given the sharp contrast, users were quick to roast the dude in comments to the original post. In between mocking his Joker-worthy car (which proves beauty is really in the eye of the beholder) and saying not paying taxes saves enough money to afford it, only a few have come to his defense. Forgetting important stuff, like paying a tax, can and does happen to everyone.
Wellington, March 9 : A newly-established advisory group will ensure New Zealand's Covid-19 response continues to learn and adapt with a focus on continual improvement, a Minister said here on Tuesday.

"Throughout our response to the unprecedented challenges posed by Covid-19, we have been committed to continual improvement, and independent advice has been a really important part of that process," Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said in a statement.

"Independent reviews of our contact tracing systems and the implementation of our testing strategy provided useful advice and recommendations.

"Implementation of those recommendations has left us better protected and better prepared," Xinhua news agency quoted the Minister as further saying.

This new advisory group will formalize that ongoing approach to independent review and improvement.

As well as continually monitoring the implementation of previous reviews, the group will be empowered to provide impartial advice on the performance and impact of the whole system and the strategic direction of the response, he said.

"It will also provide assurances on the performance and settings of managed isolation and quarantine facilities, and on planning for an outbreak, and will review public communications and responses in the community." The new group will start work from March 15, with a term through to June 1, 2022, Hipkins said, adding it is a group of highly respected and experienced experts, with strong connections across a number of fields.
A computer keyboard lit by a displayed cyber code is seen in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. (Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File/Reuters)

Lawmakers Introduce Bill Allowing Americans to Sue Foreign Hackers in US Courts

A group of lawmakers has introduced a bill that would allow Americans to sue foreign countries or their agents that engage in cyberattacks against Americans in federal or state courts.

The Homeland and Cyber Threat (HACT) Act would eliminate immunity given to foreign governments, including their officials, employees, or agents so that Americans could sue them in court for monetary damages for personal injury, harm to reputation, or damage to or loss of property resulting from a cyberattack.

This comes as U.S. intelligence agencies are reviewing a major hacking operation that affected as many as 18,000 SolarWinds customers around the globe. Nine federal agencies and 100 private sector companies in the United States were also compromised in the hack, according to a White House official leading the review.

The hack, which was first reported by cybersecurity firm FireEye, itself a SolarWinds customer, is believed to be the biggest ever uncovered, prompting the U.S. government to assemble a multi-department task force to respond to the threat.

U.S. intelligence agencies announced in January that Russia was likely behind the Solar Winds hack. The agencies characterized the hack as a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate. Russia denies all involvement.

The White House official Anne Neuberger told reporters on Feb. 17 that the Biden administration is preparing an executive action to address the gaps identified in the review, adding that talks are underway on how to respond to Russia.

Separately, Microsoft said earlier this month that a China-linked cyber-espionage group used vulnerabilities in Microsofts email program to compromise email inboxes. In a blog post, the company attributed the cyberattack to Hafinium, a group assessed to be state-sponsored and operating out of China.

Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who is the prime sponsor of the bill, said that the bill is necessary as Americans should be given the tools needed to combat foreign attacks.

This legislation does just that by giving Americans the ability to hold foreign governments accountable for damage done by cyberattacks. Im grateful to my colleagues from both sides of the aisle for their work on this timely and commonsense legislation, Allred said in a statement.

The bill is co-sponsored by members of both sides of the aisle, including Reps. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), and Andy Kim (D-N.J.).

The Justice Department, throughout the Trump administration and now the Biden administration, has been proactively cracking down on cyberattacks by malicious actors in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.
Yes, no matter what

Yes, but it depends on variety

No, for medical reasons, uncertainty

No, principle

Vote

View Results
You are here: China

China's judicial and procuratorial organs have maintained high pressure against corruption, figures unveiled Monday show.



At a plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress, two reports on the work of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) were delivered for deliberations.

A total of 22,000 cases of embezzlement, bribery and dereliction of duty involving 26,000 people were concluded in 2020, according to the SPC report.

Among the defendants who have been prosecuted were 12 former ministerial-level officials, including Zhao Zhengyong and Lai Xiaomin, it said.

Chinese courts have been in conjunction with related departments to pursue graft fugitives and recover illegal assets. The illegal assets totaling 1.15 billion yuan (177.5 million U.S. dollars) from 164 fugitives on the "red-notice" list were confiscated, according to the SPC report.

Chinese procuratorial organs also fulfilled their duties and responsibilities in the fight against corruption, according to the SPP report.

Efforts have been made to pursue fugitives and recover illegal assets, and the procedure of trial in absentia was adopted for the first time, it said.


By Gwynne Dyer





If Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, were a burglar, he wouldn't be George Clooney in "Ocean's Eleven." He'd be a cartoon burglar in a carnival mask and a top with black-and-white horizontal stripes, carrying a sack labelled "SWAG."



He's not a burglar, of course. He's a murderer, and "MBS," as he is universally known, was back in the news Feb. 26 when the U.S. government released a declassified assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies confirming his responsibility for the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.



Donald Trump sat on the intelligence report, defended MBS, and said his own intelligence experts were wrong. "I saved his ass!" Trump boasted to Fox News. But Khashoggi was working for the Washington Post when he was killed, and Joe Biden takes a dim view of foreign leaders murdering American journalists even if they aren't citizens.



It must be bewildering for the Crown Prince: Two months ago the U.S. president was his best buddy, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was his second-best buddy, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin had honorary buddy status too. Now Biden has replaced Trump, Netanyahu may also be out after this month's elections, and Putin isn't answering his texts.



Biden didn't just publish the report on Khashoggi's murder. He ended U.S. support for MBS's foolish, futile war in Yemen, put U.S. arms sales on hold, and refused to speak to the Crown Prince. (Biden finally called Saudi Arabia, almost last on the list, but would only talk to MBS's 85-year-old father, King Salman.)



So there's been much speculation about what Biden can or should do next about the Mad Killer of Riyadh, and the answer is  nothing at all. Just give him enough rope, and he'll hang himself. He's wicked and ruthless, certainly, but he is also ignorant about how the rest of the world works, very arrogant, and quite stupid.



If my pipes burst, I call the plumber. If my car breaks down, I take it to the garage. If I'm very rich and I want somebody killed, I find a hitman and have the job done professionally. I don't get a few of my mates to do it; I hire an expert.



MBS sent a team of 15 men  15!  to Turkey on a private plane, bringing the tools to kill and dismember Khashoggi with them. It was one of Istanbul's smaller airports, but the Turks were certainly going to record when they landed and when they left. Then they lured Khashoggi to the Saudi Consulate to pick up some papers so he could marry his Turkish fiancee.



Wait a minute. MBS thought it would be a cool idea to kill Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in a country that is hostile to the Saudi regime  He sent seven members of his own personal security force as part of the team  And they didn't even sweep the consulate for Turkish bugs in the room where they killed and dismembered Khashoggi.



It was amateur night for slow learners. The hit team even sent a Khashoggi "body double" dressed in Khashoggi's clothes out the back door to be seen leaving the consulate by the security cameras. The Turks had the whole story in 24 hours, with the Saudi regime retreating from one lie to another before blaming it on "rogue operators" three weeks later.



By then you'd think MBS would have seen the error of his ways. Next time he wants to kill a self-exiled Saudi critic of the regime, just get one of the intelligence attaches at the Saudi Embassy there to hire a local hitman.



For a reasonable sum he'll do a quick, tidy job  and if you tick the "no publicity" box, he'll make it look like an accident so it never comes back to haunt you.



But not our boy. Only two weeks later, while the Saudi regime is still denying the Khashoggi murder, MBS sends another Saudi hit team, perhaps including some of the same men, to Canada to kill another self-exiled critic of the regime, Dr. Saad al-Jabri.



Amateur night again. The novice assassins deny knowing one another, and are refused entry to Canada by immigration officials at the airport who find photos showing them together.



This attempted hit has never been officially confirmed, but a document published by Public Safety Canada on Aug. 7 last year comes very close indeed. The fact that Prime Minister Trudeau was the first national leader who received the Turkish recordings of the Khashoggi murder to go public with them just around that time adds weight to the allegation.



MBS is frightening, but he's really not very bright. And a Saudi leader that the U.S. president won't even talk to does not have a brilliant future.





Gwynne Dyer (gwynne763121476@aol.com) has worked as a freelance journalist, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years. He is the author of "Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work)."








Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
(Natural News) Twice in the last six weeks, warnings were issued about imminent, grave threats to public safety posed by the same type of right-wing extremists who rioted at the Capitol on January 6. And both times, these warnings ushered in severe security measures only to prove utterly baseless.

(Article by Glenn Greenwald republished from Greenwald.Substack.com)

First we had the hysteria over the violence we were told was likely to occur at numerous state capitols on Inauguration Day. Law enforcement and state officials are on high alert for potentially violent protests in the lead-up to Inauguration Day, with some state capitols boarded up and others temporarily closed ahead of Wednesdays ceremony, announced CNN. In an even scarier formulation, NPR intoned that the FBI is warning of protests and potential violence in all 50 state capitals ahead of President-elect Joe Bidens inauguration.

The resulting clampdowns were as extreme as the dire warnings. Washington, D.C. was militarized more than at any point since the 9/11 attack. The military was highly visible on the streets. And, described The Washington Post, state capitols nationwide locked down, with windows boarded up, National Guard troops deployed and states of emergency preemptively declared as authorities braced for potential violence Sunday mimicking the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump rioters. All of this, said the paper, reflected the anxious state of the country ahead of planned demonstrations.

But none of that happened  not even close. The Washington Post acknowledged three weeks later:

Despite warnings of violent plots around Inauguration Day, only a smattering of right-wing protesters appeared at the nations statehouses. In Tallahassee, just five armed men wearing the garb of the boogaloo movement  a loose collection of anti-government groups that say the country is heading for civil war  showed up. Police and National Guard personnel mostly ignored them.

All over the country it was the same story. But at the moment that Biden was taking the oath of office in Washington, the total number of protesters on the Capitol grounds in Topeka stood at five  two men supporting Trump and two men and a boy ridin with Biden, reported The Wichita Eagle (With Kansas Capitol in lockdown mode, Inauguration Day protest fizzles). The protests fizzled out after not many people showed up, reported the local Florida affiliate in Tallahassee. The large security efforts dwarfed the protests that materialized by Wednesday evening, said CNN, as state capitols and other cities remained largely calm.

Indeed, the only politically-motivated violence on Inauguration Day was carried out by Antifa and anarchist groups in Portland and Seattle, which caused some minor property damage as part of anti-Biden protests while they scuffled with police. CNN, which spent a full week excitedly hyping the likely violence coming to state capitols by right-wing Trump supporters, was forced to acknowledge in its article about their non-existence that one exception was Portland, where left-wing protesters damaged the Democratic Party of Oregon building during one of several planned demonstrations.

Completely undeterred by that debacle, Democrats and their media spokespeople returned with a new set of frightening warnings for this week. The date of March 4 has taken on a virtually religious significance for the Q-Anon movement, announced NBC News Ben Collins, who was heard on NPR on Thursday speaking through actual, literal journalistic tears as he recounted all the times he called Facebook to plead with them to remove dangerous right-wing extremists on their platform (tears commence at roughly 7:00 mark). Valiantly holding back full-on sobbing, Collins explained that he proved to be so right but it pains and sorrows him to admit this. With his self-proclaimed oracle status fully in place, he prophesized that March 4 had taken on special dangers because Q-Anon followers concluded that this is when Trump would be inaugurated.

This is how apocalyptic cult leaders always function. When the end of the world did not materialize on January 6, Collins insisted that January 20 was the day of the violent reckoning. When nothing happened on that day, he moved the Doomsday Date to March 4. The flock cannot remain in a state of confusion for too long about why the world has not ended as promised by the prophet, so a new date must quickly be provided with an explanation for why this is serious business this time.

This March 4 paranoia was not confined to NBCs resident millennial hall monitor and censorship advocate. On March 3, The New York Times warned that the Capitol Police force is preparing for another assault on the Capitol building on Thursday after obtaining intelligence of a potential plot by a militia group. All this, said the Paper of Record, because intelligence analysts had spent weeks tracking online chatter by some QAnon adherents who have latched on to March 4  the original inauguration date set in the Constitution  as the day Donald J. Trump would be restored to the presidency and renew his crusade against Americas enemies.

These dire warnings also, quite predictably, generated serious reactions. House leaders on Wednesday abruptly moved a vote on policing legislation from Thursday to Wednesday night, so lawmakers could leave town, said the Times. We learned that there would be further militarization of the Capitol and troop deployment in Washington indefinitely due to so-called chatter. NPR announced: The House of Representatives has canceled its Thursday session after the U.S. Capitol Police said it is aware of a threat by an identified militia group to breach the Capitol complex that day.

Do you know what happened on March 4 when it came to violence from right-wing extremists? The same thing that happened on January 20: absolutely nothing. There were no attempted attacks on the Capitol, state capitols, or any other government institution. There was violent crime registered that day in Washington D.C. but none of it was political violence by those whom media outlets warned posed such a grave danger that Congress has to be closed and militarization of Washington extended indefinitely.

Perhaps the most significant blow to the maximalist insurrection/coup narrative took place inside the Senate on Thursday. Ever since January 6, those who were not referring to the riot as a coup attempt  as though the hundreds of protesters intended to overthrow the most powerful and militarized government in history  were required to refer to it instead as an armed insurrection.

This formulation was crucial not only for maximizing fear levels about the Democrats adversaries but also, as Ive documented previously, because declaring an armed insurrection empowers the state with virtually unlimited powers to act against the citizenry. Over and over, leading Democrats and their media allies repeated this phrase like some hypnotic mantra:

But this was completely false. As I detailed several weeks ago, so many of the most harrowing and widespread media claims about the January 6 riot proved to be total fabrications. A pro-Trump mob did not bash Officer Brian Sicknicks skull in with a fire extinguisher. No protester brought zip-ties with them as some premeditated plot to kidnap members of Congress (two rioters found them on a table inside). Theres no evidence anyone intended to assassinate Mike Pence, Mitt Romney or anyone else.

Yet the maximalist narrative of an attempted coup or armed insurrection is so crucial to Democrats  regardless of whether it is true  that pointing out these facts deeply infuriates them. A television clip of mine from last week went viral among furious liberals calling me a fascism supporter even though it did nothing but point out the indisputable facts that other than Brian Sicknick, whose cause of death remains unknown, the only people who died at the Capitol riot were Trump supporters, and that there are no known cases of the rioters deliberately killing anyone

(Two FBI operatives have since anonymously leaked that it is looking at a suspect who may have engaged with Sicknick in a way that ultimately contributed to his death. But nothing still is known; Sicknicks mother claims he died of a stroke while his brother says it was from pepper spray; and all of this is worlds away from the endlessly repeated media claim that a bloodthirsty pro-Trump mob savagely bashed his head in with a fire extinguisher.)

What we know for sure is that no Trump supporter fired any weapon inside the Capitol and that the FBI seized a grand total of zero firearms from those it arrested that day  a rather odd state of affairs for an armed insurrection, to put that mildly. In questioning from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Thursdays hearing, a senior FBI official, Jill Sanborn, acknowledged this key fact:

(The one lady who died referred to by this FBI official was Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed Trump supporter who was killed when she was shot point blank in the neck inside the Capitol on January 6 by an armed Capitol Police Officer).

The key point to emphasize here is that threats and dangers are not binary: they either exist or they are fully illusory. They reside on a spectrum. To insist that they be discussed rationally, soberly and truthfully is not to deny the existence of the threat itself. One can demand a rational and fact-based understanding of the magnitude of the threat revealed by the January 6 riot without denying that there is any danger at all.

Those who denounced the excesses of McCarthyism were not insisting that there were no Communists in government; those denouncing the excesses of the Clinton administrations attempts to seize more surveillance power after the Oklahoma City courting bombing were not denying that some anti-government militias may do violence again; those who objected to the protracted and unhinged assault on civil liberties by the Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations after 9/11 were not arguing that there were no Muslim extremists intent on committing violence.

The argument then, and the argument now, is that the threat was being deliberately inflated and exaggerated, and fears stoked and exploited, both for political gain and to justify the placement of more and more powers in the hands of the state in the name of stopping these threats. That is the core formula of authoritarianism  to place the population in a state of such acute fear that it acquiesces to any assertion of power which security state agencies and politicians demand and which they insist are necessary to keep everyone safe.

There is, relatedly, a massive political benefit from convincing the population that the opponents and critics of those in power do not merely hold a different ideology but are coup plotters, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. That is the same political benefit that accrued from trying to persuade the population that adversaries of the Democratic Party were treasonous Kremlin agents. The more you can demonize your opponents as something monstrous, the more political power you can acquire.

And as Democrats and liberals now gear up to demand a new War on Terror, this one domestic in nature, it should be no surprise that the rhetorical leaders of their effort now are the same lowlife neocon and Rovian slanderers  Bill Kristol, David Frum, Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace, Rick Wilson  who demonized everyone who questioned them as part of the first War on Terror as traitors and terrorist-lovers and subversives. It is not a coincidence that neocons are leading the way now as liberals favorite propagandists: they are the most skilled and experienced in weaponizing and exaggerating terrorism threats for political gain and authoritarian power.

"The House announced it was canceling its Thursday session and security officials urged staffers who could to work from home. Meaning that domestic terrorists have succeeded in shutting down the government again." https://t.co/dOAPLjoJce  Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 4, 2021

Ultimately, if this armed insurrection and threat of domestic terrorism are so grave, why do media figures and politicians in both parties  from Adam Schiff to Liz Cheney  keep lying about it and peddling fictions? Politicians and media figures do that only when they know that the threat, in reality, is not nearly as menacing as they need it to be to fulfill their objectives of political gain and coercive power.

Read more at: Greenwald.Substack.com and Disinfo.news.
ACS Nano special edition highlights innovations at KAIST

KAIST's innovative academic achievements and R&D efforts for addressing the world's greatest challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic were featured in ACS Nano as part of its special virtual issue commemorating the 50th anniversary of KAIST. The issue consisted of 14 review articles contributed by KAIST faculty from five departments, including two from Professor Il-Doo Kim from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, who serves as an associate editor of the ACS Nano.

ACS Nano, the leading international journal in nanoscience and nanotechnology, published a special virtual issue last month, titled 'Celebrating 50 Years of KAIST: Collective Intelligence and Innovation for Confronting Contemporary Issues.'

This special virtual issue introduced KAIST's vision of becoming a 'global value-creative leading university' and its progress toward this vision over the last 50 years. The issue explained how KAIST has served as the main hub for advanced scientific research and technological innovation in South Korea since its establishment in 1971, and how its faculty and over 69,000 graduates played a key role in propelling the nation's rapid industrialization and economic development.

The issue also emphasized the need for KAIST to enhance global cooperation and the exchange of ideas in the years to come, especially during the post-COVID era intertwined with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). In this regard, the issue cited the first 'KAIST Emerging Materials e-Symposium (EMS)', which was held online for five days in September of last year with a global audience of over 10,000 participating live via Zoom and YouTube, as a successful example of what academic collaboration could look like in the post-COVID and 4IR eras.

In addition, the "Science & Technology New Deal Project for COVID-19 Response," a project conducted by KAIST with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of South Korea, was also introduced as another excellent case of KAIST's collective intelligence and technological innovation. The issue highlighted some key achievements from this project for overcoming the pandemic-driven crisis, such as: reusable anti-virus filters, negative-pressure ambulances for integrated patient transport and hospitalization, and movable and expandable negative-pressure ward modules.

"We hold our expectations high for the outstanding achievements and progress KAIST will have made by its centennial," said Professor Kim on the background of curating the 14 review articles contributed by KAIST faculty from the fields of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), Nuclear and Quantum Engineering (NQE), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Chemistry (Chem).

Review articles discussing emerging materials and their properties covered photonic carbon dots (Professor Chan Beum Park, MSE), single-atom and ensemble catalysts (Professor Hyunjoo Lee, CBE), and metal/metal oxide electrocatalysts (Professor Sung-Yoon Chung, MSE).

Review articles discussing materials processing covered 2D layered materials synthesis based on interlayer engineering (Professor Kibum Kang, MSE), eco-friendly methods for solar cell production (Professor Bumjoon J. Kim, CBE), an ex-solution process for the synthesis of highly stable catalysts (Professor WooChul Jung, MSE), and 3D light-patterning synthesis of ordered nanostructures (Professor Seokwoo Jeon, MSE, and Professor Dongchan Jang, NQE).

Review articles discussing advanced analysis techniques covered operando materials analyses (Professor Jeong Yeong Park, Chem), graphene liquid cell transmission electron microscopy (Professor Jong Min Yuk, MSE), and multiscale modeling and visualization of materials systems (Professor Seungbum Hong, MSE).

Review articles discussing practical state-of-the-art devices covered chemiresistive hydrogen sensors (Professor Il-Doo Kim, MSE), patient-friendly diagnostics and implantable treatment devices (Professor Steve Park, MSE), triboelectric nanogenerators (Professor Yang-Kyu Choi, EE), and next-generation lithium-air batteries (Professor Hye Ryung Byon, Chem, and Professor Il-Doo Kim, MSE).

In addition to Professor Il-Doo Kim, post-doctoral researcher Dr. Jaewan Ahn from the KAIST Applied Science Research Institute, Dean of the College of Engineering at KAIST Professor Choongsik Bae, and ACS Nano Editor-in-Chief Professor Paul S. Weiss from the University of California, Los Angeles also contributed to the publication of this ACS Nano special virtual issue.

The issue can be viewed and downloaded from the ACS Nano website at https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1021/ acsnano. 1c01101 .

###

This story has been published on: 2021-03-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
BERLIN, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atotech (NYSE: ATC), a leading specialty chemicals technology company and a market leader in advanced electroplating solutions, announced today that its recently completed production site in Yangzhou, China, is now fully operational. The facility is Atotech's second chemistry plant in China. The addition of the Yangzhou facility will provide additional capacity to serve the large and growing Electronics and General Metal Finishing markets in China, and also creates important redundancy with the company's largest chemistry production site in Guangzhou.



Geoff Wild, Chief Executive Officer at Atotech, said: "The Yangzhou chemical plant is a major milestone in expanding our business in Asia. It will be an important supply hub for our customers in East China and will further strengthen our overall competitiveness in our largest geographic market, China, and beyond."

The state-of-the-art facility houses 14 production vessels with a production capacity of 27,000 tons per year and is equipped with modern production features such as a Manufacturing Execution System and Auto-Stop-Filling mechanisms, which ensure the highest quality standards.

John Stephenson, Atotech's Chief Operations Officer, commented, "With the new production facility, Atotech will be able to significantly increase operational effectiveness, reduce transportation costs, and further strengthen its footprint in Asia."

The Yangzhou facility recently passed the strict governmental safety requirements for industrial production and received the necessary permits to start production. Further, at the Yangzhou site, Atotech has successfully adopted a new approach for waste-water treatment, which is set up as a combination of precipitation, evaporation, and biological treatment. Discharge amounts in this new process are significantly below industry levels. Atotech's global waste management procedures are designed to protect the environment, the employees, and the local communities.

George Yang, Atotech's Vice President of the Greater China Region said: "We have brought a leading-edge facility to life and we are delighted and proud of this achievement. What is more, our Yangzhou plant is strategically located in the Eastern part of China, where a large number of our customers have their production facilities, enabling us to serve them even better."

Atotech operates 17 production sites around the globe - 8 in Asia, 5 in Europe, and 4 in the Americas. This unrivalled infrastructure ensures close proximity to customer locations while providing state-of-the-art products that meet the highest quality standards.

About Atotech

Atotech (NYSE: ATC) is a leading specialty chemicals technology company and a market leader in advanced electroplating solutions. Atotech delivers chemistry, equipment, software, and services for innovative technology applications through an integrated systems-and-solutions approach. Atotech solutions are used in a wide variety of end-markets, including smartphones and other consumer electronics, communications infrastructure, and computing, as well as in numerous industrial and consumer applications such as automotive, heavy machinery, and household appliances.

Atotech, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, is a team of 4,000 experts in over 40 countries generating annual revenues of $1.2 billion.
Three Russian Codes to be brought to conformity with Consitution - bill

 RAPSI

16:50 09/03/2021

MOSCOW, March 9 (RAPSI)  The lower house of Russian parliament passed draft laws bringing Russias Land, Housing and Labor Codes into line with the Constitution in the first reading on Tuesday, the State Duma website informs.

Earlier, the priority of the constitutional provisions over the standards of international law was constitutionalized. However, according to existing norms of the Land, Housing and Labor Codes, if an international treaty with Russia envisages rules differing from Russian legislation, the international agreements rules are applied. The new bills are to change this order.

The legislative proposals are to bring the Codes provisions in line with the Constitution as to ensurance of its supremacy within the Russian Federation.
Indian Foreign Secretary Harsha Shringla has summoned the British High Commissioner besides conveying strong opposition to the unwarranted and tendentious discussion on the agricultural reforms in India in the British Parliament. (IANS photo)
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
The Tasmanian government has rejected a proposal to quarantine international students in Hobart on behalf of New South Wales.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet was keen to strike deal to salvage the state's lucrative $14 billion education sector after National Cabinet failed to agree on finding a way to bring back overseas students.

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein confirmed on Tuesday an approach had been made by the NSW government to quarantine international students for 14 days.

The Tasmanian government has rejected a proposal to quarantine international students in Hobart (pictured) on behalf of NSW

'We have advised this is not under consideration with our priority remaining the safe management of seasonal workers entering the state and our own international students when public health advice is that it is safe to do so,' he said.

NSW Labor's Ryan Park urged the government to do everything it could to bring citizens home and also enable the return of international students.

'International students are the lifeblood of many university communities across Sydney and the regions. Their return supports countless jobs from small businesses and shopping centres to cafes and corner stores,' he said.

Shadow Treasurer Walt Secord said it was critical to the long-term economic recovery of NSW.

'Once you lose an international student to Canada or the United States or Europe, then you don't lose them for one year, you lose them for four to six years.
DES MOINES, Iowa, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dwolla , a modern payments platform, announced today the appointment of a new President and COO with more than 20 years of experience in the enterprise payments space. Dave Glaser will join Dwolla as President and Chief Operating Officer, enabling Dwolla to rapidly scale by enhancing the company's enterprise growth strategies and building world-class customer onboarding, implementation and service processes.

"Dave's breadth of experience in scaling large organizations is critical as we continue to expand our enterprise payment services. With his help, we'll continue to build innovative products, implement operational efficiencies and automations that drive success and competitive advantages for our customers," said Brady Harris, CEO of Dwolla . "Dave is joining us at a pivotal time in Dwolla's history. He will play a key role in helping Dwolla fuel innovation in real-time payments and provide our customers with the most options to move money."

Glaser comes to Dwolla from Mastercard, where he served as Senior Vice President of Global Acceptance Solutions. At Mastercard, Glaser spearheaded new point-of-sale (POS) initiatives, acceptance products and solutions for acquirers and merchants, including the industry's first CloudPOS acceptance technology. Prior to that, Glaser bolstered his enterprise leadership at Worldpay as Chief Customer Excellence Officer, leading a successful IPO and $10.4 billion merger with Vantiv. Glaser began his career in FinTech at CyberSource, helping build the company's global services division, and driving the rapid growth that resulted in a $2 billion acquisition by Visa.

"Companies around the world are embracing the move to digital payments, seeking fast, secure and simple solutions to transfer money," Glaser said. "Dwolla is well positioned to capitalize on this momentum with its modern platform for institutions of all sizes that need instant payment transfers to a bank account or debit card. I'm looking forward to working with the Dwolla team to drive growth and further solidify Dwolla's position in the market as a modern payments platform."

Glaser's appointment marks the latest milestone in Dwolla's expansion plans, following the hiring of Harris as chief executive officer in March of 2020. The company's deep bench of payments expertise is led by founder and board chairman Ben Milne. Glaser will be pivotal in bolstering Dwolla's market leadership and growth trajectory. Dwolla currently supports more than $20 billion a year in gross payment volume, increasing 79% in 2020 alone. The company also saw a 102% growth in new end users onboarded to its platform last year.

For more information on how Dwolla is shaping the future of payments, visit Dwolla.com .

About Dwolla

Dwolla, Inc. is a FinTech company that is changing the way innovative businesses move money. Since 2008, Dwolla's infrastructure has powered billions of payments for millions of end users. Today's most innovative companies are programming their payments with Dwollaor they should be.

Media Contacts

Audrey Weidman

Dwolla, Inc.

[email protected]

Zach Weismiller

BLASTmedia for Dwolla

[email protected]

317.806.1900 ext. 156

SOURCE Dwolla

Related Links

https://www.dwolla.com/


Follow the science.

Wear the mask.

Get the vaccine.

The Texas Chapter of the American College of Physicians has more than 8,000 internal medicine doctors, many on the front line battling COVID-19. When a COVID-19 patient lands in the hospital, we internists are among the first team members to provide evidence-based care for this deadly disease. Our top priority is the health and well-being of our patients, and though our medical care for COVID-19 patients has never been better, we know that the best way to prevent a COVID death is to prevent a COVID infection.

Herd immunity is still a distant goal. As of this writing, 15.8 percent of Texans have had at least one COVID vaccine, but only 8.5 percent are fully immunized. Immunity from natural infection appears generally short-lived. Thats why despite the large number (well over 2.5 million) of Texans who have already recovered from COVID-19, we at the Texas Chapter of the American College of Physicians, or Texas ACP, want our patients, families and communities to keep wearing the mask.

Infection rates are down. Vaccination rates are up. None are more pleased than Texas ACP members. Weve all worked hard and are proud of the great Texas teams that made this happen.

We proved we can lower infection rates even before vaccines were widely available. It has been gratifying to see the results of masking, hand-washing and social distancing. Nonetheless, we are still far from meeting the projected 75 percent to 85 percent population protection needed for herd immunity, and more contagious mutant viruses are circulating in Texas.

Masks should not come off until we achieve an adequate level of herd immunity and a sustained decrease in cases. Following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, ACP concurs that it is acceptable for vaccinees to have small, unmasked gatherings with other vaccinees or with low-risk unvaccinated persons from another household. Beyond those circumstances, vaccinees should continue to mask because COVID is still circulating.

Masking works well to prevent transmission: Until everyone is vaccinated, it is especially critical to prevent the propagation of mutant viruses. If we lift the mask too soon and gather in large numbers, COVID cases will surge again. Our health systems will get stressed again. The virus will have a chance to mutate away from the vaccines protection, and more Texans will die.

In light of these facts, ACP Texas internists recommend: Wear the mask and get the vaccine.

Dr. Ruth E. Berggren is president of the Texas Chapter of the American College of Physicians, TXACP@texmed.org. An infectious diseases specialist, she is a professor of medicine at UT Health San Antonio and directs the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics.


Lyon, 9 March 2021 - Theranexus, a biopharmaceutical company innovating in the treatment of neurological diseases and pioneer in the development of drug candidates modulating the interaction between neurons and glial cells, today announced that it has extended the capabilities of Neurolead, its drug candidate discovery platform, to include autophagy and neurological manifestations of lysosomal storage disorders.

Neurolead, which combines the latest innovations in neuroscience and artificial intelligence, is a platform for the generation of new drug candidates based on a unique concept, the therapeutic targeting of interactions between glial and neuronal cells. By applying Neurolead to autophagy and neurological forms of lysosomal storage disorders, Theranexus is taking its research in the direction of exploring a therapeutic avenue of major interest with clear medical and economic potential.

The common characteristic of lysosomal storage disorders is a genetic deficiency that leads to a dysfunction of lysosomes, cellular organelles responsible for the degradation of several biomolecules. With its drug candidate BBDF-101 for Batten disease, Theranexus is already working on a juvenile lysosomal storage disorder characterized by an accumulation of lipoproteins in the brain.

The Neurolead platform has already led to the development and validation of various cellular models for research into autophagy, the biological process by which lysosomes recycle biomolecules. Using screening methods, Theranexus has identified diverse drug structures with the ability to impact cellular autophagy and lysosome function by various means. This research is also backed up by complementary in silico approaches, combining artificial intelligence with searches in vast databases to improve the characterization of the classes of structures identified.



"The results of this research, based on our models of interactions between neurons and astrocytes in a pathological context, open up new avenues for the discovery of drugs modulating autophagy. This work will enable us to reinforce the industrial potential of our platform to discover solutions suited to the strong needs of patients suffering from lysosomal storage disorders." explains Mathieu Charveriat, Theranexus Chief Scientific Officer.

"In France, 50 varieties of lysosomal storage disorders affect more than 3,000 adults and children. Each year, 150 new cases are diagnosed. These disorders result in the emergence of lesions in various organs including the bones, heart, lungs, liver, spleen and brain, causing particularly severe, irreversible damage. There are currently just 14 state-of-the-art treatments in France for 11 lysosomal storage disorders, which is not nearly enough considering that these disorders often lead to multiple disabilities and may be life threatening. We desperately need new treatments to overcome these diseases." adds Stephane Antolin, President of the Overcoming Lysosomal Storage Disorders Association (VML).



Next financial publication:

Wednesday 7 April 2021 : 2020 Annual financial results and update on cash position on 31 March 2021







ABOUT THERANEXUS



Theranexus is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that emerged from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in 2013. It develops drug candidates for the treatment of nervous system diseases.

Thanks to its knowledge of neuron and glial cell interactions, THERANEXUS is a pioneer in the design and combination of approved substances and has a solid and diversified portfolio of drug candidates in clinical-phase testing. The company's combined drug repurposing strategy based on a solid commercial footing and a capability to rapidly demonstrate its clinical worth, enables it to produce different high-value-added proprietary drug candidates, significantly reduce development time and costs, and considerably increase the chance of its drugs reaching the market.

Accordingly, THERANEXUS is well-positioned in several indications, including for Parkinson's and Batten disease, for which there is currently no treatment available.

Theranexus is listed on the Euronext Growth market in Paris (FR0013286259- ALTHX).

More information at: www.theranexus.com

Click and follow us on Twitter and Linkedln





Contacts

THERANEXUS

Thierry LAMBERT

Financial and Administrative Director

investisseurs@theranexus.fr



ACTUS finance & communication

Guillaume LE FLOCH

Investor Relations

+33 (0)1 53 67 36 70

theranexus@actus.fr

FP2COM

Florence PORTEJOIE

Media Relations

+ 33 (0)6 07 76 82 83

fportejoie@fp2com.fr

------------------------

This publication embed "Actusnews SECURITY MASTER ".

- SECURITY MASTER Key:

mJhxaMptkm7GlZ9uZcpqaZRkmmtpmJPKZZKdmmdxl5bGnG2RlmiUnJyXZm9plmtr

- Check this key: https://www.security-master-key.com.

------------------------



 Copyright Actusnews Wire

Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free

Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-68165-theranexus_pr_extends_capabilities_neurolead_theranexus_vdef.pdf
Nwicode.com Nwicode has set itself ambitious goals that will help small and medium-sized businesses to stand on a par with large retailers, providing the best technology to their customers.

New IT startup Nwicode.com announced today that it plans to significantly increase its revenue to $ 50 million in the next five years through its unique application development solution.

The Nwicode team expects this growth to be driven by the big changes that have occurred due to Covid 19 and its new technology solution App Creator, which will allow users - even those with no technical skills - to create mobile apps created for Android, iOS without code.

In 2021, a digital product without a mobile app will lose a significant portion of its audience. Approximately the same story happened at the turn of the century: at the beginning of the noughties, the absence of a site in a serious organization was considered a bad idea, and then the task was greatly simplified by site designers (later - landing pages). Now the ball is ruled by mobile applications, and many are trying to make them with the help of various designers.

Large IT companies and retailers, such as Amazon, Tik Tok, Ali Baba, etc., can easily afford the use of AI, which makes them more successful in providing their services to the end customer.

But for small and medium-sized businesses, this is not always affordable and the lag in development in front of competitors can reach from 3 to 5 years.

Today, many companies have started to order their own mobile applications, spending from 5-10 thousand dollars on them and waiting from 3 to 6 months.

What if they could launch it in a couple of days and spend no more than $ 100?

So, we developed the Nwicode platform, which not only helps small businesses save tens of thousands of dollars, but also increases the growth and value of the company itself, making their customers more loyal.

If you have an idea, you want to create an app, store or service service, then App creator Nwicode is the place you are looking for. Nwicode believes that everyone should be able to create an idea regardless of money, resources, or time, and without having to involve a team of programmers.

The American startup Nwicode, which offers customers a mobile app builder for iOS and Android, was able to increase revenue in 2020 and, thus, brought it to $30 thousand. Nevertheless, the company continues to work "in the negative" for strategic reasons: all the funds received go to the modernization and promotion of the mobile platform, as well as regional expansion. At the moment, the company has just opened a round to attract investment and expects to start global expansion in the international market in 2021.

In the spring, Nwicode will have updated solutions for publishing materials (reporting, analytics, books, magazines). In addition, the company will add new out-of-the-box solutions and widgets to "become a full-fledged mobile Amazon in terms of selling components or WordPress in terms of building apps."

Its main competitors in the US, the company considers startups Mobile Roadie, Conduit (estimated at $ 1.5 billion) and BiznessApps. But all of them are inferior to Nwicode in terms of functionality, according to the company.

What do 90% of our customers want and will definitely use and what do our competitors not have?

This is the question investors ask any startup.

I didn't have to think for a long time, just look at the statistics of what most investors invest in  AI (artificial intelligence), and then everything is simple 

Our competitors do not offer this. Any company wants and can apply this technology in their business, but it is very expensive and long to order development.

Nwicode-helps businesses and solves this problem, saving owners hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Now that a new product has been created, it's time to talk to investors to take advantage of the mistakes of dormant competitors and capture more of the market.
(Photo : Screenshot From Pxhere Official Website) NASA Meteor Watch: Vermont Space Rock Shock Wave, Seen in New York Too, Claims Facebook Users

A recent meteor has just streaked through the dark night sky over Vermont on Sunday this past March 7. This then created a spectacular light show and also caused Earth-shaking booms as it then burned through the whole atmosphere.

Meteor Vermont March 7 2021

The meteor's said explosive passage throughout the atmosphere reportedly released a whopping 440 pounds of TNT. This suggested that the meteor was most likely around 10 pounds and 6 inches in diameter. This was according to the NASA Meteor Watch and what information they gave regarding the meteor on Facebook.

The particular space rock then smacked into Earth's atmosphere at an estimate of around 42,000 mph. This was according to the estimation of NASA. It had then appeared over the state's northern part to be a bright type of fireball at 5:38 PM EST. This was just before the sunset started setting.

Bright light in the sky moving fast WCAX

WCAX3, a local news station, reported that they had been receiving calls coming from all over the state even after the said event. It was said that the people from Vermont then described it as a somewhat loud boom as well as being a "body-rattling vibration" as the meteor reportedly passed overhead.

According to an article by LiveScience, a commenter, Chris Hrotic, wrote on the initial post that NASA had uploaded to Facebook regarding the event saying the commenter was fortunate enough to be able to hear and see it along the Missisquoi River located at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge in Swanton, VT, some time just before sunset.

He then noted that there was no loud boom found just like how the others had reported, but the commenter experienced a rushing sound that actually made the commenter look up at exactly the right moment. The commenter then noted that it was absolutely spectacular as well as extremely bright.

In addition to Vermont, people also reported seeing it in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and the Canadian province of Quebec.

Read Also: NASA: Next 'Killer Asteroid' That May Hit Earth Will be Slammed With a Spacecraft

Meteor 'shower' vermont

Based on the recent eyewitness accounts, it was estimated by NASA themselves that the fireball had first appeared around 52 miles somewhere over Mount Mansfield State Forest located just east of Burlighton which is known as the state's largest city.

It then reportedly progressed 33 miles northeast directly towards the Canadian border. It then disappeared 33 miles above the ground somewhere south of the town called Newport.

NASA notes that the shock wave was actually a result of something called "meteor fracturing" due to the pressure that it received in the atmosphere. This particular bowling ball-size chunk of another larger parent asteroid reportedly moved at around 55 times the speed of sound directly through the atmosphere. Pressure was then reportedly built up in front of it and caused a vacuum to form behind it. Eventually, it was said that the stress of the differential then caused the rock to explode.

Related Article: The Night Sky This May: Here are the Top Astronomy Events You Can See This Month

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Urian Buenconsejo

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Jordana Brewster could not keep her hands off of 44-year-old beau Mason Morfit.

The affectionate pair looked very much in love as they hugged each other while hitting the beach in Santa Monica, California on Tuesday morning.

The 40-year-old actress braved the chilly weather in a stylish turtleneck sweater and cutoff jeans.

Romantic stroll: Jordana Brewster couldn't keep her hands off of beau Mason Morfit as the affectionate pair hit the beach in Santa Monica on Tuesday morning

She wore white sneakers for the stroll and used a printed white scarf as a belt to keep her pants secure as they walked alongside the frigid water.

The Fast & Furious star let her brunette waves blow in the morning breeze, and sported a pair of black sunglasses to protect from the Southern California sun.

Her CEO boyfriend wore a grey sweater and dark denim for the outing, keeping his feet bare to enjoy the cool sand between his toes.

The lovebirds were joined by her treasured dog Endicott whom she adopted early in the coronavirus lockdown.

PDA: Mason sweetly embraced his girlfriend to keep warm as the duo trekked along the gloomy coast with her treasured dog Endicott whom she adopted early in the coronavirus lockdown

Mason sweetly embraced his girlfriend to keep warm as the duo trekked along the gloomy coast.

Brewster and Morfit have been inseparable since they began dating last summer, routinely being spotted showing PDA across Los Angeles.

The pair were first linked in July of 2020 when they were photographed kissing on the beach in Malibu.

Sandy duo: The 40-year-old actress braved the chilly weather in a stylish turtleneck sweater and cutoff jeans, while her CEO boyfriend wore a grey sweater and dark denim for the outing, keeping his feet bare to enjoy the cool sand between his toes

The Faculty actress filed for divorce from her movie producer Andrew Form in July after 13 years of marriage.

The former couple have two sons: Julian, seven, and Rowan, four.

Meanwhile, the actress gushed over her new love last month on Valentine's Day.

Sharing a montage of photos of the couple to her Instagram, she shared: 'My love. My Valentine. I am one lucky girl.'

Moving on: The Faculty performer filed for divorce from movie producer Andrew Form in July after 13 years of marriage. The former couple have two sons: Julian, seven, and Rowan, four

Social media display: Last month, the Lethal Weapon starlet shared a post celebrating her love with Morfit to her Instagram page on Valentine's Day

Brewster will next reprise her role as Mia Toretto in F9, the latest installment in the Fast & Furious franchise that's slated to be released on June 25 after being pushed back multiple times due to the pandemic.

It was revealed in October that Universal Pictures is planning two final rides for its lucrative film series, with director Lin coming back to the helm, according to Deadline.

Fans can expect to see all of their favorites, including Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris.
An Achievable Dream (AAD) presented the organizations 2021 Dream Maker Award to former Virginia Beach Mayor, Will Sessoms, during the 2nd Annual A Night to Dream gala, held virtually on Friday, March 5, 2021. This is the second year AAD has presented the Virginia Beach Dream Maker award, which is given to someone who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in support of and service to An Achievable Dream, who believes wholeheartedly in the mission and works tirelessly in the community to support equity in education and provide opportunities and tools for success to AAD students.

Although we had to adapt with the 2nd Annual A Night to Dream gala being held virtually, says AAD President and CEO, Dr. Lee Vreeland, we already knew that we wanted to present Mr. Sessoms with this award. He is a true pillar of support for An Achievable Dream in Virginia Beach.

During the previous years inaugural A Night to Dream gala, held in February 2020 at the Cavalier Hotel, Dr. Vreeland presented the first-ever Dream Maker award to Virginia Beach Police Chief (Ret.) Jim Cervera. Of Sessoms receiving the award this year, Cervera shared, In the years I have been honored to work with former Mayor Sessoms I can truly say that he exemplifies the definition of a true statesman. Everything he accomplished as our Mayor was for the good of our City, our community and, most importantly, our citizens. Mayor Sessoms, and City Manager Spore were the catalysts for bringing Achievable Dream to our City and our students. The positive effects of this fantastic educational program are already being noticed and the long term growth will be positive not only for our students in the Academy but for the City as a whole. It has been an honor to know and work with Mayor Sessoms.

Jim Spore, CEO of REINVENT Hampton Roads, shares, Wills love for Virginia Beach has no limits. He has dedicated his life to supporting organizations and causes directed to providing achievable pathways to success and achievement for all.

Sessoms was awarded the Dream Maker Award during the live streamed portion of AADs 2nd Annual A Night to Dream. The event was a virtual speakeasy event with sponsors and guests participating from their homes or their own small group watch parties. Dr. Lee Vreeland hosted the evening, which included an online fundraising auction and $10,000 cash raffle, and AAD Alum, Dr. Brian McGowan, delivered the keynote address.

Accepting the award, Sessoms said, If we dont do everything we can to make sure every young person gets a good education and the resources they need, then shame on us, because they are our future. By working together to support systems like An Achievable Dream and Virginia Beach City Public Schools, this is how we make our city, Commonwealth, and country a better place to live.

Tony Brothers, AAD Virginia Beach Board Member, shares, Will is one of those people you know cares deeply about his community because you see it evidenced in his actions. I have always been inspired by his pride in his community, and his dedication to making it even stronger. And his passion for An Achievable Dream is one way he invests to make the community better. Will is truly a dream maker.

As part of her remarks during the event, Dr. Vreeland shared, Will always refers to Virginia Beach as The greatest city in the world and he believed that bringing An Achievable Dream to the students and families in Virginia Beach who needed it the most was part of fulfilling that vision. His vision has never been for the next year or the next five years his vision looked forward to where Virginia Beach would be in 20 years. And we are proud to be part of that vision.

Sessoms served as Mayor of Virginia Beach from 2008 until 2018. In 2018, Sessoms returned to TowneBank and is now the managing director of Towne Vacations, a division of TowneBank. TowneBank Executive Chairman, G. Robert Aston, Jr. says, Will has spent a considerable part of his lifetime engaged in civic affairs with the goal of improving his community for both current and future generations. His support of Achievable Dream is yet another example of his passion for building a better life for all the people of Virginia Beach and beyond.

Sessoms was instrumental in bringing the AAD program to Seatack Elementary (now Seatack Elementary An Achievable Dream Academy) in 2014 and he and his wife, Beverly, remain closely involved with An Achievable Dream Virginia Beach. They have continually provided Dreamers with the support and opportunities that makes it possible for them to succeed.

Gold Key | PHR CEO, Bruce Thompson, says, There is no public official or citizen that loves this City more than Will Sessoms. As Mayor, his constant refrain of we live in the greatest City in the world in not political rhetoric but his fervent belief that our natural resources, schools, and record on safety is unparalleled. His 22 years of public service has been transformative for our community and the effects of that commitment to our City will be experienced by all who live, work, and play in the greatest City in the world for decades to follow.

An Achievable Dream, founded in 1992 by Newport News businessman, Walter Segaloff, is an educational nonprofit partnering with public schools to provide a unique Social, Academic, and Moral Education (SAME) framework for students in underserved communities. Currently operating a full K-5 program at Seatack Elementary An Achievable Dream Academy, and grades K-8 at An Achievable Dream Middle School Program at Lynnhaven Middle School, the first graduating class of An Achievable Dream in Virginia Beach will graduate in 2025.

About An Achievable Dream:

An Achievable Dream (AAD) develops independent, productive citizens through a Social, Academic, and Moral Education (SAME). Dedicated to the belief that all children can learn and succeed regardless of socioeconomic background, AAD operates schools in partnership with Newport News Public Schools and Virginia Beach City Public Schools, and AAD Certified Academy in Henrico County near Richmond, Virginia.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Uzbekistan and Pakistan on Monday discussed the progress made on bilateral transit trade agreement, preferential trade agreement (PTA), and aviation, customs cooperation, banking and visa issues.

Advisor to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood and Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister Sardor Umurzakov, in a video call, also expressed the desire to cooperate with each other for implementation of the decisions made during the advisor's visit to Tashkent in February as per the agreed timelines, a press release said.

In order to further deepen the trade ties, both sides also agreed to hold a business conference at Tashkent in July, 2021.

The Uzbek Deputy PM informed about the visit of Uzbek delegation to Pakistan on March 12 for talks on enhancing progress on the above matters.

Advisor Razzak Dawood welcomed the incoming Uzbek delegation and offered cooperation for holding meetings with different stakeholders, including customs, maritime affairs, railways and aviation sectors.

The two sides resolved to implement decisions made during the meetings held at Tashkent in Feburary, 2021 in letter and spirit.
Hyderabad, March 9 : Telangana's industry minister K. T. Rama Rao on Tuesday alleged that BJP-led Central government has done nothing for the state.

He said that the Centre failed to give what was promised to Telangana in the State Reorganisation Act.

Rama Rao, who is also Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) working president, was addressing the graduates and members of Telangana Private Colleges and Schools Management and Staff Welfare Association in Hyderabad as part of the party's campaign for March 14 election to Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahabubnagar graduates' constituency of Telangana Legislative Council.

KTR, as Rao is popularly known, said while Telangana contributed Rs 2,72,000 crores to the Centre in the form of taxes, the Centre has given only Rs.1,40,000 crores to the state.

Attacking BJP, he said that the gas cylinder price was Rs 400 when BJP came to power and now it increased to Rs 800. Similarly, petrol prices have hit a century, he claimed.

After the State formation, Hyderabad has seen a lot of progress under the TRS Government rule. Three states were formed prior to Telangana, but they are no match to our state, said KTR.

He claimed that within few years of state formation, the TRS government resolved many infrastructure issues and has provided uninterrupted power, drinking water, irrigation facilities, safety, and attracted investments.

KTR also mentioned that the TRS government has set up 672 new Gurukuls in the past six years and is spending about Rs.1,20,000 on each student in 970 gurukuls of the state. A total of 4,30,000 students are pursuing their studies in these gurukuls.

The minister said in the last six years, the state government spent about Rs 12,800 crore on fee reimbursement. The TRS government is providing overseas scholarships to students on the names of Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, and Vivekanand where each student is granted a scholarship of Rs 20 Lakh. No other government is providing such scholarships to the students, he said.

KTR said that in 65 years, before Telangana formation, five government medical colleges were set up. But within six years, TRS government set up five new government medical colleges - Suryapet, Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda, Siddipet, and Adilabad. This is a testimony to the work we do, he added.

Talking about various irrigation projects, the minister said that the government is completing the construction of the projects on a war footing. He also mentioned that water is being provided to lakhs of acres in the state and as a result, people are not migrating to other states.

The minister highlighted the investments that have come to Hyderabad city during the past six years. He stated that a stable government, visionary leadership, and safety and law and order situation have made the companies prefer Hyderabad over other cities.

KTR also said that the government has filled 1,32,000 government jobs and a notification for filling of another 50,000 jobs will be released soon.

He criticised the Congress party saying its government filled 24,048 jobs in the united Andhra Pradesh between 2004 and 2014 and out of which, mere 10,000 jobs were filled in Telangana.
The Southwest Florida and Lee County Fair is on this week with a full schedule of circus acts, petting zoos, hypnotists, clowns and chainsaw artists.

Further north, the Manatee County Fair has already come and gone. The website had a disclaimer that says Covid is a risk you take if you buy a fair ticket or ride armband.

Organizers had budgeted for a 50% drop in attendance over 2020. But in the end, only 25% fewer people came through the gates, said Marla Calico, president and CEO of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions. She was there for opening day.

There is a significant pent-up demand, Calico said. The people that are attending are extraordinarily grateful.

What does all this activity mean for the New York State Fair?

So far, NY state has not cleared the way for the fair to be held in 2021. Nor has approval been given for the Erie County Fair, which is even bigger than the state fair, or the many small rural county fairs that start with July 4 weekend.

Still, NY State Fair Director Troy Waffner said he is proceeding as if the fair is on until someone tells him its not.

Im an optimistic person, so theres never a question, Waffner said. Were just going to have it until Im told otherwise.

Still, Waffner knows: Just because they do it in Texas, doesnt mean were doing it in NY.

Waffner has a stark reminder every day that fighting Covid is still the No. 1 priority in NY. Last week, the state expanded hours to all day and night at the vaccination site at the NYS Fairs Expo Center. Waffner worked the graveyard shift to make sure everything went smoothly.

Every person who gets vaccinated is one step closer to having a state fair, he said. Ill work 24/7 to vaccinate everybody if it means I can have a state fair.

The NY State Fair typically begins in mid-August and routinely attracts more than 1 million people a year. In 2020, the state fair had been expanded five more days, to 18. But it was canceled for the first time in 70 years.

The carnival industry machine has already started its forward motion in other parts of the country.

Midway operators, entertainers, food vendors and the people who build stages and lights operate on routines. They dont like hopscotching around the country, Calico said.

And people who love the NYS Fair are anxiously awaiting an answer from Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

One Syracuse.com reader emailed the NYS Fair and a reporter with just this one sentence, I have loved the Fair all my life and would love to know if indeed it will (happen) this year.

Cuomo announced in February that amusement parks could open in April. But that guidance does not include fairs.

If theres any way we can open it safely, we will, he said in a conference call with reporters.

Waffner and the people who operate county fairs in NY are watching what happens in Florida and other states.

They view NYs new rules on amusement parks and small arts venues as good signs for starting up fairs.

Smaller county fair organizers are also talking with the state Department of Agriculture about possibilities for this year, said Jason Lawrence, president of the NY State Association of Agricultural Fairs.

Ideally, organizers would have liked a green light for 2021 last fall so they could start signing contracts. But they are holding on. Lawrence said he expects to hear an answer from the state in the next few weeks.

Obviously we are hoping and most of our smaller county fairs are underway with trying to plan, he said.

County fairs earn money from the many other events held on the grounds and they are struggling to pay their bills, he said. Some have already safely held small agricultural shows, he said.

Thats what its all for, for our youth and for our farmers in the communities to show off their exceptionally well-bred animals and to show the animal husbandry that the kids have learned from 4-H, he said.

In addition to showcasing agriculture, the fair and expo industry is a big business in the United States.

Calicos group estimates fairs generate about $4.7 billion in direct revenue. That does not count the spin-off profits made by third-party concert promoters, food vendors and others.

The NYS Fair generates at least $100 million a year, according to customer surveys that show each person spends about $70 or $80. That does not include money spent on hotels and other restaurants while guests are in town.

Calico said the push now is on Congress to provide some financial relief for an industry that has suffered over the past year.

Any push to open fairs has to happen within states, she said.

Thats going to depend entirely on the community, she said.

What would a NY state fair look like?

Some big state fairs  Delaware, Wyoming, South Dakota, Mississippi and Utah  continued in 2020 even as states like New York imposed strict business lockdowns.

The Delaware State Fair was one of the first to open last July. Organizers came up with an internal number of attendees they thought would be safe and tracked people coming and going with a barcode. They had free timed tickets for events like pig racing or a concert.

The Utah State Fair also limited capacity and eliminated grandstand shows, concerts, motor events and the rodeo.

In December, the CDC published considerations for amusement parks and carnivals. They are only suggestions that can be overruled by state and local governments.

The CDC suggests carnivals and fairs:

Stagger and limit the number of guests inside the fair.

Avoid large group events like concerts, fireworks or specialty shows.

Avoid sharing gaming items like balls, toy guns and hammers. Replace or disinfect them between customers.

Keep game prizes out of reach. Dont let the customer squeeze the stuffed animal before choosing it.

Use radio frequency bands instead of cash or tickets. Have automatic entry gates and no-touch trash cans.

Close kiddie playground areas.

Reduce capacity of indoor spaces. Prioritize outdoor activities. Limit lines and discourage congregating.

Limit occupancy on rides, for example, using ever other seat and blocking off rows.

Have more bathrooms and fewer people allowed in them.

The CDC also has special guidance on animals to avoid spreading the virus from person to animal or possibly from animal to animal. Animal-to-person spread is considered low, but it does appear that people can spread the virus to animals in some situations, according to the CDC.

They say to leave cats, dogs, mink, ferrets and rabbits at home or give them six feet of space. They are more susceptible to Covid. There have been no reports of livestock being infected, the guidance says.

Do not put masks on animals, the CDC guidance says. Covering an animals face can harm it.

Holly Smyczynski, marketing manager for the big Erie County Fair, said she has read the CDCs suggestions and is watching other states. But none of it matters until NY says go.

We would love to get moving here, she said.

Contact Michelle Breidenbach | mbreidenbach@syracuse.com | 315-470-3186.
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday, requested the Senate to confirm the nomination of Ahmad Shaba Halilu as the substantive Director Gene...





President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday, requested the Senate to confirm the nomination of Ahmad Shaba Halilu as the substantive Director General of the National Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA.

According to his spokesman, Garb Shehu, President Buhari has sent a letter request to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan.

In the letter, the President said he was acting in line with Section 14 (1) (2) of the NASRDA Act 2010.

Dr Halilu was until his nomination, the acting Director General of the agency after being the Director in charge of Strategic Space Applications in the same organisation from 2009 to 2019.

He has participated in workshops and conferences on Global Climate Change, Environmental Pollution and Food Security; Future Earth Observation Satellite Programmes and Geospatial Information Management; and Geospatial Technologies for Economic Diversification among others.

He previously worked at the National Population Commission, Federal University of Technology, Minna and the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Jewish Communal Fund has added new Jewish values impact investments that align with its mission as the largest Jewishly-affiliated donor advised fund in the country. These offerings provide JCF Fundholders with the opportunity to maximize their impact with their investments, in addition to their active grant-making. These new investments complement the ESG and socially responsible investment options already on JCF's robust investment platform.

"JCF's investment committee recognizes that the alignment of our mission and the values of tikkun olam [repairing the world] cannot be limited to our grants, but must be reflected in our investment platform as well," said Michael L. Stern, Chair of JCF's Investment Committee. "We want our Fundholders to be able to increase the impact of their JCF funds by choosing investments that reflect the values and align with their grant-making. When your grant-making and your investments are both working together for social goodthat is a true double-bottom line."

JLens' Jewish Advocacy Strategy is a values-based S&P 500 Index strategy that aligns with Jewish values and advocates for communal concerns in the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and Corporate Social Responsibility movements. The Jewish Advocacy Strategy portfolio consists of approximately 300 companies selected by a four-step process that includes negative screens, scoring companies on six Jewish values-based categories, and using positive tilts.

The JCF-Ogen Israel Impact Loan Program offers JCF Fundholders the opportunity to maximize their social impact in Israel in a way that after five years returns money to their fund with interest for future grant-making and impact investment. Ogen provides affordable, life-changing loans and financial mentoring to low and middle-income Israelis, small businesses and not-for-profit organizations in Israel. Formerly the Israel Free Loan Association, Ogen has made more than 65,000 loans and lent more than $360 million since 1990.

"JCF is providing Fundholders with exclusive opportunities for impact they can't get elsewhere," said Bob Gottesman, a noted investment manager and philanthropist and JCF Fundholder. "The ability for Fundholders to loan money from their DAFs at JCF to Ogen and then, in turn, Ogen lending that money to Israeli non-for-profits and small business that are still reeling from the effects of the COVID crisis is a game-changing investment option that is now available. I thank JCF for making this investment option available to Fundholders."

JLens' Jewish Advocacy Strategy and the JCF-Ogen Israel Impact Loan Program join several socially responsible investments already on JCF's robust investment platform, including VanEck Vectors Israel ETF (ISRA), Israel Bonds, and the JCF-HFLS Social Impact Loan Program. "If Israel is in your heart and part of your philanthropic portfolio, it should also be inside your portfolio," said Steven Schoenfeld, Chief Executive Officer at MV Index Solutions, which develops, maintains and licenses the BlueStar indexes.

About Jewish Communal Fund

Jewish Communal Fund is one of the largest and most active networks of Jewish funders, currently managing over $2 billion in charitable assets for more than 4,100 donor advised funds. JCF's donor advised funds make giving easy, flexible and efficient. The Chronicle of Philanthropy designated JCF a "Top 10" Donor Advised Fund in the U.S. on its Philanthropy 400 list. Learn more about JCF by visiting www.jcfny.org or calling (212) 752-8277. Visit JCF on LinkedIn, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Tamar Snyder

Sr. Director, Marketing & Communication

Jewish Communal Fund

[email protected]

646-843-6894

SOURCE Jewish Communal Fund
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Pupils line up and socially distance after arriving at school. Photo: Ben Birchall/PA Wire

The Department of Education has confirmed that all primary pupils and secondary students in fifth year will return to school next Monday.

Public-health officials advised principals that it is safe for the next stage of the phased reopening to continue as planned.

However, reports published by the department yesterday highlight some of the challenges facing schools in the coming weeks.

Research into how schools coped between September and December last year showed some of the difficulties experienced by teachers, principals and students.

A substantial proportion of the more than 1,700 school principals were unable to get substitute cover between these months when a teacher was absent.

Principals reported finding it incredibly stressful accessing substitute teachers and said staffing issues affected their wellbeing during the pandemic.

They said teaching absences due to Covid-related issues created difficulties and logistical challenges.

Issues mentioned by principals throughout October and November 2020 typically referenced difficulties with the procurement and delivery of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

Read More

A number of principals described the challenges associated with the recall of more than 50 sanitising products by the department due to safety concerns, noting the additional stress caused by the necessity to respond to this issue during the October 2020 mid-term break.

High levels of anxiety among staff were also reported. Principals in particular reported high levels of stress and fatigue in the weeks before the October 2020 mid-term break.

Almost all principals at secondary level (98pc) indicated they felt safe in school, but just 61pc of teachers did so, with just under a quarter (24pc) of teachers stating that they did not feel safe.

The increased ventilation requirements also had an impact on staff during the winter, with teachers having to wear coats, hats and gloves in the classroom.

Overall, the majority of teachers, parents and students who responded to department surveys felt the reopening of schools was a success.

Most parents of learners in primary schools (95pc) and special schools (93pc) agreed or strongly agreed that their child had settled well into school in the period from September to December 2020.

However, younger students and those new to schools found making friends and getting to know their teachers difficult due to mask wearing and physical distancing.

A letter sent to principals yesterday said: Public health has reviewed the measures put in place to ensure safe operation of schools and is satisfied that these infection prevention and control measures, if rigorously adhered to, will keep the school community safe during this period.

Half of primary classes as well as Leaving Cert students went back last Monday, while around 100,000 children returned to preschool yesterday.

Schools will close for Easter holidays on Friday, March 26. When they reopen on April 12, the final group of pupils to return, second-level students from first year to fourth year, are due back in the classroom.
March 09, 2021





If you think your company doesnt need to have advanced cybersecurity, you are wrong. With the rapid development of e-commerce, the Internet has become a go-to place for top-class hackers. Cybercrime is one of the most severe issues happening in the digitized world. It is outnumbering traditional, in-real-world crimes, and the main reason can be company owners negligence to put effort into cybersecurity. Many surveys and studies claim that over 30 percent of businesses are susceptible to cyberattacks. So, the sooner the corporations start protecting themselves, the safer their webpages will turn out. This article reveals reasons why every company must consider improving its digital security.







What Does Cybersecurity Do?

In plain terms, cybersecurity assures your company data is safe. It helps prevent attacks coming from different parts of the world. Cybersecurity works in many ways, ensuring all sensitive information is protected. It also protects technology and data from damage, corruption, phishing, theft, or illegal access.

It is impossible to say who or what can be a threat. They are often criminals or dark hackers, competitors, current or former employees, and even partners or co-founders.

Cyber attacks can occur in several ways, including but not limited to:

Unauthorized access of hardware;

Infecting systems with viruses and spyware;

DDoS attacking the web page;

Attacking third party systems;

Spamming infectious emails;

Forcing to reveal critical information within the given time.

Such shoves can cause financial loss, business loss, investment loss, and most importantly, reputation loss.

Cybersecurity Protects From Malicious Software And External Attack

The easiest way to sneak to the computer is to make users install software or click the link. New threats emerge every day, and it is hard to understand which link or app is credible. This jeopardizes both sides, customers and corporations. Whether they buy essay, purchase goods, or order food, one wrong click and their data can be collected by hackers. This includes passwords, credit cards, IDs, etc.

The right approach will reduce the danger of getting attacked. Cybersecurity offers reliable practices to do that. The best example is a firewall, a network security system. Such software protects the entire system from hackers who use external and internal communication links. Also, web proxy protection is an excellent way to keep the customers and workers data under lock and key. Anti-phishing apps prevent collecting private information for fraudulent purposes. Finally, anti-spam software keeps email boxes safe.

Cybersecurity Develops Collective Security

Understanding the companys security advances collective security for the sake of the corporations success. Not only does every company have to install specific security software, but it also must teach its employees how to utilize it. Unknowing how to act and what to use will make all the malware ineffective and vulnerable. Secure development lifecycle (SDL for short) is essential to security culture. It has activities and tasks the workers agree to complete for every system release. SDL comprises security requirements, testing activities, and threat modeling. In other words, everything employees must know about.

Cybersecurity Increases Customers Trust

Although there are GDPR and DMC policies about data protection that apply to every company, people still feel hesitant about their efficiency. Over 60 percent of CEOs declared that it is complicated for businesses to earn and maintain trust in a digital world. Clients want to rest assured that their sensitive data is under protection. And following the mentioned policies is not enough.

The majority of customers stated that banks and hospitals were the most trusted institutions, outranking healthcare and IT corporations. On the bottom side of the rank were social media, real estate, and marketing & advertising. It might be understandable, as the latter categories dont consider following all the range of necessary regulations that influence how the organization collects, stores, and secures data. These are SOX, HIPAA, FISMA, and PCI (News - Alert) -DSS.

The mentioned is only the icebergs peak. Still, they are necessary to encircle both technologies and processes required to build a full-fledged cybersecurity tool. Moreover, they are sought-after by clients, which leaves owners without any choice when it comes to applying security apps or not.

Recapitulation

Every corporation has to put more effort into its cybersecurity. First and foremost, it protects from hackers attacks, negatively impacting the corporations finance and reputation. Secondly, enhanced cybersecurity also helps nurture collective security. Well-taught workers reduce the chances of undesired data leaks. Finally, security gives customers the sense of being under protection. People value that companies invest in their security. Clients are likely to choose such businesses over those who only rely on established policies.

Author:

Jane Travis is a full-time IT employee specializing in security and data protection. She has been working in the IT industry for nine years. Over time, Jane has created numerous security software widely used by various organizations these days. Jane loves helping out people, and thats why she started writing comprehensive security-wise articles.
(This story has been updated with comment from Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud and Brian Lennon, attorney for former Gov. Rick Snyder.)

FLINT, MI -- An attorney for Rick Snyder continued to press his case that the former governor has been indicted for willful neglect of duty during the Flint water crisis in the wrong county in a hearing Tuesday, March 9, and Genesee District Court Judge William H. Crawford said he plans to rule on the issue within seven days.

A hearing on Snyders request to dismiss the two misdemeanor counts against him lasted more than an hour Tuesday, focused on whether a one-man grand jury had the authority to indict Snyder in Genesee County for failing to act to prevent or lessen the harm of the water crisis on Flint residents.

The former governors attorneys contend the indictment is improper because Snyder allegedly committed the crimes while on the job in Ingham County rather than Genesee County, while prosecutors from the Michigan Department of Attorney General say Genesee County is a proper place for the charges to be filed even if they also could have been filed elsewhere.

Crawford is being asked to review decisions made by Genesee Circuit Judge David Newblatt, who served as the one-man grand jury and issued indictments related to the water crisis against Snyder and eight other current and former state of Michigan and city of Flint employees, some of whom are also arguing that they have been charged in the wrong county for offenses and statements that were made elsewhere.

Complicating the issue is the lack of available grand jury records, which prosecutors said Tuesday would help clarify the reason for the charges and why they were filed here.

Genesee County Chief Circuit Judge Duncan Beagle is reviewing those grand jury records before releasing those that should be turned over for discovery in all of the Flint water criminal prosecutions, seven of which are felony cases in Circuit Court and two of which, including Snyders, involve misdemeanor charges and are being heard in District Court.

Beagle has set a June 14 review date for updating the public on the status of that work and preliminary hearings in the cases have been delayed until late June as a result.

Crawford said hes at a disadvantage not knowing what Newblatt knew when he indicted Snyder.

I have no idea what the basis of his ruling was ... We just have to see as it goes forward ..., Crawford said. It may be the providence of the jury when it comes to the facts.

Brian Lennon, who represents Snyder, said regardless of the information presented to Newblatt, the law provides that Snyder should have been indicted in Ingham County, where he was when he allegedly failed to act during the water crisis.

Despite complaints from the public about the quality and safety of water in Flint and rising levels of lead, bacteria and chlorination byproducts in tap water, Flint was allowed to use water from the Flint River from April 2014 until October 2015, a cost-saving measure carried out by emergency financial managers appointed by Snyder.

The river water was never treated properly to make it less corrosive to lead service lines and fixtures, officials and researchers have said, causing lead to leach into the water supply.

In his indictment, Newblatt indicated Snyders willful neglect of duty occurred in Genesee County, but Lennon said the grand juror was simply wrong in his opinion.

Judge Newblatt, acting as a one-man grand jury can make a mistake just like a citizen grand jury ... Just like anyone else, Lennon said. In this case, he made an error.

Hours after the hearing ended, Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, who is leading the Flint water prosecutions with Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, issued a statement on what she called a pattern of behavior by Snyders legal team to discredit Michigans grand jury process.

Todays hearing was one more attempt, in a series of miscalculations by the Snyder defense team, to disqualify and discredit the grand jury process. The grand jury is a secure and unbiased investigative tool used to determine if enough evidence exists to issue criminal indictments, Hammoud said in the statement. Today, Mr. Snyders lawyer tried to degrade the grand jury process, even going so far as to question the work of the grand juror, Judge David Newblatt. This shows just how far defense counsel is willing to go to deny justice to the people of Flint.

Lennon said in a statement to The Journal after the hearing that Hammoud continues to denigrate innocent people in the press while attempting to convict them in the court of public opinion through misdirection.

Governor Rick Snyders legal team has the utmost respect for the legal process in general. What (Solicitor General) Hammoud has done using a single judge grand jury, and her admitted failure to use a taint or filter team in the course of her investigation is far from normal., Lennons statement says. We said nothing in court or in public to challenge the typical citizen-empaneled grand jury process. The prosecutions use of a one-judge grand jury continues to be used as a shield to keep evidence secret and away from the defendants, their attorneys, and the public, because they know that when it finally comes to light, the states case will crumble like the proverbial house of cards it was built upon.

Assistant Attorney General Bryant Osikowicz told Crawford in court Tuesday that Lennon doesnt know the facts that led to Snyders indictment -- information that he said will be produced after the release of grand jury records by Beagle.

He doesnt have the testimony. He doesnt have the exhibits. He doesnt know of the reasoning of the grand juror in issuing these charges, Osikowicz said.

Read more on MLive:

Judge waits for arguments on who should decide if Flint water charges against Snyder are dismissed

Both sides agree: Flint judge should rule on motion to dismiss water crisis charges against Snyder

Secret grand jury helped prosecutors beat statute of limitations deadline in Flint water case
(Newser)  Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, claiming the Republican used his office to retaliate against it for banning the account of former President Trump following the riot at the US Capitol. Days after the deadly January insurrection, Paxton announced an investigation into Twitter and four other major technology companies for what he called "the seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the President." The attorney general's office demanded that the companies produce a variety of records related to their content moderation policies and troves of internal communications. Twitter responded Monday with a federal lawsuit alleging Paxton is seeking to punish it for taking Trump's account offlinea decision the social media company says is protected free speech, the AP reports. It asks a judge to declare the decision to be under the ambit of the First Amendment and to, in essence, halt Paxton's investigation.

story continues below

"Paxton made clear that he will use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees," lawyers for the company wrote in the suit filed in a northern California court. Paxton's office did not immediately comment. Twitters counterpunch comes as states, in addition to federal lawmakers and governments outside the US, are moving against tech companies they see as having amassed too much power in the past decade. This includes antitrust and anti-monopoly regulation, internet privacy laws and attempts to regulate how platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and others moderate their sites. In December, Paxton led 10 Republican attorneys general in suing Google, accusing it of running an illegal digital-advertising monopoly in cahoots with Facebook.

(Read more Twitter stories.)
Most shots have been administered in Donetsk region (2,474).

Since the launch of a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Ukraine, 19,118 people have received their first shot of the Covishield vaccine.

Some 3,277 people got vaccinated against COVID-19 in Ukraine on Friday, March 5, alone, according to the Ukrainian Health Ministry's Coronavirus_info channel on Telegram.

Most vaccine shots so far have been administered in Donetsk region (2,474).

Read alsoCOVID-19 myths: Ukraine gov't debunks fake stories compromising vaccinationIn turn, chief of the National Technical Group on Immunization Fedir Lapiy has said vaccination is proceeding at a slow pace due to the low number of vaccination teams.

According to him, more instructors are being trained to teach medics how to properly administer Covishield jabs, as reported by the RBC Ukraine news agency.

Vaccination in Ukraine

On February 24, 2021, Ukraine launched a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign. An emergency room doctor from Cherkasy region was the first one to get vaccinated.

Ukraine uses the Covishield vaccine, which was developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca. It is produced in India under a licensing agreement.

Ukraine has received 500,000 doses of the vaccine so far.

The vaccination campaign in Ukraine was originally expected to start with the use of a vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, which Ukraine was supposed to receive during the first wave of distribution under the global COVAX Facility. The supply of 117,000 doses of that vaccine to Ukraine has been booked.

Reporting by UNIAN
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
(@FahadShabbir)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Iran began enriching uranium with a third cascade of advanced IR-2M centrifuges at its underground plant in Natanz, Reuters reported citing a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The IAEA said that the fourth cascade of 174 IR-2M centrifuges had been mounted, but had yet to be fed with natural uranium hexafluoride.

It said the installation of the fifth cascade was under way, and the process to mount a sixth set of the centrifuges was yet to start.

Iran in 2019 - exactly one year after the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal - announced a phased reduction of its obligations under the agreement, abandoning restrictions in nuclear research, centrifuges, and the level of uranium enrichment.

At the end of 2020, Iran adopted a law on strategic measures to lift sanctions, which involves the intensification of nuclear activities in order to achieve the lifting of sanctions against the country. In line with the law, Iranian nuclear scientists have already brought uranium enrichment to the level of 20 percent, and also limited the IAEA's inspection capabilities from February 23, 2021.

The law also stipulates the use of new generations of centrifuges within three months: 1,000 IR-2M centrifuges and at least 174 IR-6 centrifuges. The number of the latter must increase to 1,000 in one year. At the same time, the nuclear deal envisions only the use of the first generation IR-1 centrifuges and uranium enrichment at the level of 3.67 percent.
TAMPA, Fla. (March 8, 2021) -- Preterm birth is a leading cause of infant deaths and illness in the U.S. -- yet its underlying molecular causes remain largely unclear. About 40 to 50% of preterm births, defined as births before 37 weeks of pregnancy, are estimated to be "idiopathic," meaning they arise from unexplained or spontaneous labor. And, maternal stress linked to depression and post-traumatic stress disorders as well as fetal stress have been strongly implicated in preterm births with no known cause.

Now, for the first time, a University of South Florida Health (USF Health) preclinical study has uncovered a mechanism to help explain how psychological and/or physiological stress in pregnant women triggers idiopathic preterm birth. A research team at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology shows how cortisol -- the "fight-or-flight" hormone critical for regulating the body's response to stress -- acts through stress-responsive protein FKBP51 binding to progesterone receptors to inhibit progesterone receptor function in the uterus. This reduced progesterone receptor activity stimulates labor.

The findings were reported online first March 8 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"This new study fills in some longstanding mechanistic gaps in our understanding of how normal labor begins and how stress causes preterm birth," said the paper's senior author Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president of USF Health, dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology specializing in maternal-fetal medicine.

Dr. Lockwood was a co-principal investigator for the study along with the paper's lead author Ozlem Guzeloglu-Kayisli, PhD, a USF Health associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology. Nihan Semerci, MSc, a senior biological scientist, shares the lead authorship with Dr. Guzeloglu-Kayisli.

Progesterone reduces contractions of the uterus and sustained levels are essential to prevent a baby from being born too early. Reduced uterine progesterone receptor expression and signaling stimulates labor. In the brain, elevated FKBP51 expression has been strongly associated with increased risk for stress-related disorders.

Previous work by the USF Health team showed that normal human labor starting at term (between 37 and 42 weeks of pregnancy) was associated with reduced expression of progesterone receptors and increased expression of FKBP51, specifically in maternal decidual cells (specialized cells lining the uterus).

For the current study focused on maternal stress-induced idiopathic preterm birth, the researchers combined experiments in human maternal decidual cells and a mouse model in which FKBP5, the gene that makes FKBP51, had been removed, or "knocked out." Altogether, their results revealed a novel functional progesterone withdrawal mechanism, mediated by maternal stress-induced uterine FKBP51 overexpression and enhanced FKPB51-progesterone receptor binding, that decreased progestational effects and triggered preterm birth. The researchers found that Fkbp5 knockout mice (with depletion of the gene encoding for FKBP51) exhibit prolonged gestation and are completely resistant to maternal stress-induced preterm birth.

Among the USF Health team's key findings:

- FKPB51 levels were greater and FKPB51 binding to progesterone receptors was significantly increased in the decidual cells of women with idiopathic preterm birth, compared to decidual cells of gestational age-matched controls. - The study reports for the first time that Fkbp5-deficient (knockout) mice are completely resistant to maternal stress-induced preterm birth and exhibit prolonged pregnancies accompanied by slower decline in systemic progesterone levels. This indicates that FKBP51 plays a crucial role in the length of pregnancy and initiation of labor and delivery. - In contrast, mice with the FKPB5 gene intact and normal levels of FKPB51 protein (wild type mice) delivered earlier when exposed to maternal stress than either non-stressed wild type mice or FKPB5 knockout mice under nonstressed or stressed conditions.

"Collectively, these results suggest that FKBP51 plays a pivotal role both in term labor and stress-associated preterm parturition (birth) and that inhibition of FKBP51 may prove to be a novel therapy to prevent idiopathic preterm birth," the study authors conclude.

Currently, injectable progesterone is the only drug approved to help prevent preterm birth in high-risk women who have had a previous preterm birth. However, its effectiveness was not confirmed by a recent large clinical trial, sparking debate in the health care community. The authors finding that progesterone receptor activity was reduced in idiopathic preterm birth may explain the apparent lack of effectiveness of supplemental progesterone.

Babies born before 37 weeks, particularly those born before 34 weeks, have more health problems and may face long-term health complications, including childhood lung or heart disease and neurodevelopmental delays, Dr. Guzeloglu-Kayisli said. The likelihood of poor outcomes decreases as gestational age (length of the pregnancy) increases.

"Prevention of idiopathic preterm birth by extending gestation even two or three weeks can benefit the newborn, because it provides critical time needed for the fetus's lungs and brain to mature," Dr. Guzeloglu-Kayisli said. "Our research indicates the importance of investigating the potential use of FKBP51 inhibitors as a targeted therapy to reduce the risk of stress-related preterm birth."

###

The USF Health study was supported in part by The March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center Ohio Collaborative grant.

USF Health's mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the Taneja College of Pharmacy, the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, the Biomedical Sciences Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs, and USF Health's multispecialty physicians group. The University of South Florida is a high-impact global research university dedicated to student success. Over the past 10 years, no other public university in the country has risen faster in U.S. News and World Report's national university rankings than USF. For more information, visit health.usf.edu
Over 200 crude bombs recovered in poll bound Bengal

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Kolkata, Mar 09: Over 200 crude bombs have been found in poll bound West Bengal the police said.

The bombs were recovered from Bhangar in 24 South Paraganas. The police said investigations are ongoing.

Almost as 18 crude bombs had been recovered by the personnel in the fields in Malda, West Bengal last week.

The investigation is currently underway and the CID personnel defused the bombs. Earlier bombing operations were underway by the security forces, and during the operation, 18 live fruit bombs were recovered by the personnel. CID team of the West Bengal police were rushed to the site immediately. In the run-up to the assembly elections in the state, the security forces are on a high alert. This after a TMC leader was attacked with a crude bomb as well. Watch the video to know more.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 14:25 [IST]
Gardai have been unable to establish a definitive line of inquiry or motive in the case of an apparent murder suicide in Co Cork.

The bodies of Willie Hennessy (66) and Paddy Hennessy (60) were found at the family home at Curraghgorm on the outskirts of Mitchelstown earlier this month.

The body of their younger brother Johnny (59) was recovered from the nearby River Funshion a few hours later.

Post-mortem examinations were conducted on the men at Cork University Hospital by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster. The results were not released for operational reasons.

Read More

However, it is understood that Willie and Paddy died of injuries consistent with an assault with an axe. The men suffered shock and haemorrhage associated with trauma from head injuries. Johnny died from drowning.

Paddys daughter Elaine and her mother, Stephanie, Paddys ex-wife, made the horrific discovery at the farm after they became concerned when he failed to return to Elaines home in Mitchelstown.

Armed gardai rushed to the scene believing a gun may have been used and it was initially treated as a possible armed incident. They carried out a search of the property where the brothers grew up and found the body of Willie. An axe was discovered nearby.

It had been suggested that the bothers may have argued over matters relating to the family farm, including the sales of felled trees and some livestock. Local speculation also pointed to financial stress compounded by isolation as a result of the pandemic.

However, a source close to the garda investigation said there has been no major developments in establishing what prompted the attack.

They said many theories had been put forward, but gardai still havent been able to say exactly what happened.

There is still no definitive line of investigation or motive at the moment, said the source. We may never know what happened.

Gardai are not looking for anyone else in relation to the deaths.

Read More




Alabama senators rejected a gambling bill on Tuesday that would have started a state lottery as well as several casinos.

Senators rejected the proposed constitutional amendment.

The vote was 19 in favor of the bill and 13 against.

The bill pushed by Sen. Del Marsh of Anniston needed two additional votes in favor of the proposal to win approval.

Voters we spoke with were disappointed, including Beverly Nunez.

"It would help revenue. It would help our schools," said Nunez.

The disappointment was echoed by State Sen. Del Marsh.

"I think the people of Alabama deserve the chance to vote on this issue. They want to vote on this issue. I don't want to say why my colleagues don't understand that. It's pretty obvious," said Sen. Del Marsh.

From Gov. Kay Ivey:

Todays vote by the Alabama Senate confirms more work must be done, because this issue is too important to not get it right. No doubt gambling is complex and challenging, but I remain committed to giving the people of Alabama the final say. I also believe the work of my Study Group last year can continue to be helpful in finding the right path as we move forward.

Should the Legislature wish to continue discussions on this topic, I stand ready and willing to engage.
Mumbai: After lockdown was imposed in Thane due to rise in COVID-19 cases now, Maharashtra's Jalgaon district has placed a three-day 'Janata' curfew.

The 'Janata curfew' will come into effect from March 12 for three days till March 14, the order was issued by the Jalgaon District Magistrate.

As per orders, everything will remain closed except emergency services.

Meanwhile, in Thane the civic administration imposed a lockdown starting from March 13 was declared on Monday (March 8) in 11 hotspots, the lockdown will remain in place till March 31.

The order was issued by Vipin Sharma, Thane Municipal Commissioner.

Sharma revealed that the decision was taken due to a rise in COVID-19 cases in these areas in the past few days.

The statement also said that all restrictions that were in place during the nationwide lockdown declared earlier would be in place during this time period as well. However, the order said that normal activities are allowed in areas outside the hotspot.
Mr Goldsmith, who had experimented with drugs, spent time in the Fortitude Valley and New Farm areas and was known to frequent bars, clubs and boarding houses, police said. Almost 21 years later, police have offered a $250,000 reward for information about his disappearance. A reward is now out to help solve Steven Goldsmiths disappearance. Unfortunately, we have no idea as to what has happened to Steven  Someone out there must have been involved in his disappearance and must know something about what happened, his mother said. Ms Goldsmith last saw her son in 1999, when he returned to Britain for a visit.

He was quite happy at that time and pleased to catch up with former friends, she said. We enjoyed meals out with him and old friends and were particularly thankful that photos were taken of him and us with him at that time. Ms Goldsmith said all seemed fine the last time Steven called home was on June 27, 2000, and spoke with his father. Hed previously called on June 23, leaving a voicemail, and prior to that on the sixth of June, when he told us about the apartment he was moving to in New Farm, she said. The police investigation went cold but an ounce of hope emerged when an anonymous caller contacted investigators four times, with the last call in 2006.

A Queensland Police Service spokeswoman said people came forward following the fresh reward offer. Investigators are appreciative of the information provided from members of the public as a result of our appeal for assistance earlier this month, but do believe there are further people out there who have crucial information that could assist police in progressing this investigation, she said. Long-time friend Chris Bond lived with Mr Goldsmith in NSW in 1996. I was actually in France when he went missing and his parents called and asked if I had heard from him, he said. We were arranging to go on a fishing and camping trip, which obviously never happened.

Mr Bond described his friend as a thrill-seeker who was independent and one of the kindest people he had known. He was the first to leave home, get a proper job and did everything on his own, he said. British man Chris Bond, who resides in NSW, first believed his friend went on a solo camping trip. He was good at going off camping on his own for a couple of days. Thats why none of us really worried about it at first because we just thought hes gone walkabout.

Mr Bond said not a day went by when he did not think of his friend, even sharing old stories with his 11-year-old son. Goldie and I were actually driving at the time to go to Port Arthur [in 1996], he said. Mr Bond with Mr Goldsmith. Our ferry was due to arrive as the gun went off during the massacre [the mass shooting at Port Arthur in April 1996 in which 35 people were killed]. Fortunately we got stopped by police for speeding and we couldnt afford to go any more so without telling anyone, we turned around to head home.

Wed sleep on the side of the roads but didnt tell anyone so by the time we got back, everyone was furious because they thought the worst. My parents still havent forgiven me for it. Mr Bond said Mr Goldsmiths friends never stopped trying to find answers, calling people and writing to media outlets. We were never contacted by police at the original stage. Youd think his close friends would be the first ones to call, he said. But now the effort is incredible. I was interviewed recently and detectives are flying to Sydney for a second interview with me.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 04:17:02|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CAIRO, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 cases in Turkey surpassed 2.8 million on Tuesday after 13,755 new infections were added. Meanwhile, the tally of coronavirus infections in Lebanon exceeded 400,000.

The Turkish Health Ministry confirmed the tally of COVID-19 cases in Turkey surged to 2,807,387, while the death toll from the virus rose by 66 to 29,160.

A total of 10.28 million doses of China's Sinovac vaccines have been so far administered in Turkey, including 7.71 million people who have received the first dose and 2.57 million who have received the second dose.

Lebanon registered on Tuesday 3,939 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections to 401,810, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported.

The COVID-19 death toll in Lebanon went up by 45 to 5,134, while its tally of recoveries climbed by 2,036 to 314,783.

Iran announced 8,554 new COVID-19 infections, which raised the country's overall count to 1,706,559. It also recorded 81 new coronavirus-related deaths, taking its death toll to 60,867.

A total of 1,456,759 COVID-19 patients have recovered in Iran, while 3,811 others are currently treated in intensive care units.

Iran will start its vaccination against COVID-19 in May using the domestic vaccine COV-Iran Barekat, said Mohammad Mokhber, head of the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam Khomeini.

Iraq's Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday 4,610 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total nationwide infections to 735,626.

It also reported 22 new deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 13,618, while the total recoveries in Iraq climbed by 3,692 to 668,153.

Israel's Ministry of Health reported 3,164 new COVID-19 cases, raising the tally of confirmed cases in the country to 807,755.

The death toll from the COVID-19 in Israel hit 5,926 after 11 new fatalities were added, while the total recoveries climbed by 2,630 to 763,988.

In Jordan, the health ministry reported 7,072 new coronavirus cases and 59 more deaths, taking its total infections to 442,202 and its death toll to 5,046. The tally of recoveries in the kingdom rose by 4,024 to 375,478.

Jordan announced on Tuesday its decision to suspend in-class education at all schools from Wednesday as the number of COVID-19 cases surges.

In-campus teaching for college and university students who were previously excluded from online learning due to the practical and technical nature of their studies will be also suspended.

Morocco announced 508 new COVID-19 cases, taking the tally in the North African country to 486,833. The total recoveries from COVID-19 in Morocco increased to 473,208 after 644 more were added, while its death toll soared by 12 to 8,695.

So far a total of 4,017,087 people in Morocco have received the first vaccine shot, including 717,113 who have received the second dose. The North African country launched a nationwide vaccination campaign on Jan. 28 after the arrival of the first shipment of China's Sinopharm vaccines.

Kuwait reported 1,157 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 203,055.

The Kuwaiti Health Ministry also announced eight more deaths, taking the death toll to 1,141, as the tally of recoveries nationwide rose by 1,045 to 188,167.

The Qatari health ministry announced 471 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 167,888.

Qatar's total recoveries increased by 313 to 156,612, while its total fatalities rose by one to 264, according to a ministry statement.

The Omani health ministry announced 427 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total confirmed cases in the country to 144,831.

Meanwhile, 321 more people in Oman recovered during the past 24 hours, taking the overall recoveries to 135,005, while the COVID-19 death toll rose to 1,597.

In Libya, Khalifa Bakoush, head of the Libyan High Committee to Combat Coronavirus, said COVID-19 vaccines are expected to arrive in Libya in a few days.

The National Center for Disease Control of Libya said the total number of COVID-19 cases in Libya reached 140,688, including 128,002 recoveries and 2,297 deaths.

Tunisia received 30,000 doses of the first batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccines on Tuesday.

Tunisian Health Minister Faouzi Mehdi said the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine will be allocated to those suffering from chronic diseases, the elderly, health workers, armed forces and workers in all vital sectors. Enditem
PALM HARBOR, Fla., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- HousingWire announced the winners of its ninth annual HW Tech100 awards, recognizing Nationwide Title Clearing (NTC), the leading post-closing services provider for the nation's largest financial institutions, investors and servicers, as one of the most innovative technology companies in the housing economy.

"NTC's largest user stated 'We chose the Cadillac of systems available' which was a huge complement to all of the years of hard work it took to complete," said Debbie Lastoria, Vice President of National Sales. "Taking our years of experience and technology and making it a client facing platform made sense. Clients can now be their own premier Lien Release and Assignment processing center with NTC statistics to match."

The Tech100 program provides housing professionals with a comprehensive list of the most innovative and impactful companies that can be leveraged to identify partners and solutions to the problems that mortgage lenders and real estate professionals face everyday.

PerfectDocs is the first complete web-based solution that provides both NTC and users a "share the work" solution. This solution enables the creation and tracking necessary to complete lien release and assignment documents, review, execute, notarize those documents and send those documents to counties for recordation.

NTC has put nearly thirty years of experience, knowledge, and technology into the PerfectDocs solution:

85% of the documents recorded are completely paperless

287% increase in volume of documents being sent to record each month since March 2020

Reduces the amount of experts and FTEs needed to manage the entire lien release process required

NTC now offers the same elements and best practices to its business partners, giving them the ability to prepare and record their own documents with a robust web-based platform.

"We are within reach of our one year anniversary of successful deployment of PerfectDocs with a record of just under a half of million documents processed. We look forward to doubling this number in 2021," said Lastoria.

About Nationwide Title Clearing (NTC)

Nationwide Title Clearing, Inc. (NTC) is a privately-owned leading research and document-processing service provider to the residential mortgage industry. NTC services the nation's top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and custodians. NTC has won the Tampa Bay Times Top 100 Workplace Designation five times in its history and been listed among the top 200 companies in Tampa Bay twice. For more information, visit the company's website at www.nwtc.com

About HW Media

HW Media aspires for audiences to "Come for the content, and stay for the community." By aligning vertical expertise and innovative B2B marketing solutions, HW Media answers the ever-evolving needs of modern professionals, brands and marketers. With a premium suite of advertising solutions, HW Media builds upon this principle, improving reader experience and delivering brand results. Based in Dallas with team members across the country, HW Media was founded in 2016 through the acquisition of HousingWire and is owned by Riomar Capital, an entrepreneurial investment firm.

About HousingWire

HousingWire is the most influential source of news and information for the U.S. mortgage and housing markets. Built on a foundation of independent and original journalism, HousingWire reaches over 60,000 newsletter subscribers daily and over 1.0 million unique visitors each month. Our audience of mortgage, real estate and fintech professionals rely on us to Move Markets Forward. Visit www.housingwire.com or www.solutions.housingwire.com to learn more.

SOURCE Nationwide Title Clearing

Related Links

http://www.nwtc.com


A 'zombie' fish thought to be extinct for over 20 years has been rediscovered in a country Victoria lake.

One of the small, colourful southern purple spotted gudgeon, which was declared extinct in Victoria in 1998, was found in a lake near Kerang in 2019 and authorities set up an investigation which turned up another 79 nearby.

The freshwater species, dubbed a 'zombie fish' by Victoria's North Central Catchment Management Authority, will now be revived through a captive breeding program.

Surprise catch: the southern purple spotted gudgeon was believed to have been extinct in Victoria since 1998, but it was found in a lake in country Victoria in 2019 and investigations have turned up enough of the species to begin a captive breeding program

A southern purple spotted gudgeon aka 'zombie fish' looking very much alive

'Most of our team have worked their whole lives dealing with the decline of threatened or endangered species, so to have an opportunity to be witnessing the opposite is something special,' said Adrian Martins of Victoria's Environment, Land, Water and Planning Department.

'This is a really incredible and exciting find.'

'We couldn't believe it when we started finding so many at Middle Reedy [lake],' Mr Martins said.

The fish is also extinct in South Australia but endangered in New South Wales and more plentiful in warmer Queensland river systems.

According to the NSW Department of Industry, the southern purple spotted gudgeon lives in still water, around weeds, rocks and snags in rivers, streams and billabongs, feeding on smaller fish, insect larvae, worms, tadpoles and plants.

Authorities have dubbed the southern purple spotted gudgeon 'Victoria's zombie fish' after its rediscovery

'We have a great chance now to not only bring the southern purple spotted gudgeon back from the brink, but to help build its numbers and distribution back up to what they were before European occupation, river regulation, and the introduction of pest species,' Mr Martins said.

Meanwhile, Tasmanian Tiger hunters who are still reeling from the disappointment of having their hopes again dashed that the animal might be found decades after being declared extinct, took hope from news of the 'zombie fish' in online groups.

One commenter said: 'Extinct species can come back.'
Cong urges Amit Shah to reveal details of 'mysterious death' in gold smuggling case

India

pti-Deepika S

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 09: The opposition Congress in Kerala on Tuesday urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah to reveal the details of the alleged mysterious death in connection with the gold smuggling case and claimed that the CPI(M)-BJP nexus was the reason for him to hide the truth.

KPCC chief Mullappally Ramachandran said Shah should have the guts to disclose the details if any such death had occurred under mysterious circumstances as otherwise it would amount to hoodwinking the people of the state. Covering up the details known to Shah, exposes the saffron party''s "secret ties" with the Marxist party, he said.

Echoing similar sentiments, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Ramesh Chennithala said the war of words between Shah and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over theincident was just a "drama" and urged the latter to tell if such a death had indeed taken place. Former chief minister Oommen Chandy was of the view that it was notmutual questions by the leaders of the two parties which people wanted, but answers.

The Congress leaders made the scathing attack against the BJP and the CPI(M) while holding a joint press meet in New Delhi. While addressing a mass rally of party workers at Shangumugham here on Sunday, Shah had mentioned about a "mysterious death related to the gold smuggling case".

Slamming the Kerala CM, he also asked Vijayan to answer certain queries posed by him related to the matter. In a tit-for-tat, Vijayan on Monday described Shah as an "embodiment of communalism" and said it was the BJP leader who was jailed for the crimes of alleged "kidnapping and fake encounters".

"Both the BJP and CPI(M) are trying to create a smokescreen among people. The speeches of Shah and Vijayan were part of a pre-planned script. Both the parties are aiming for a Congress-mukth Kerala," Ramachandran said.

The leaders also wanted to know why Vijayan was not being questioned by the investigating agencies over the mysterious death if Shah had information about the case.

"It clearly shows the secret undercurrent between the BJP and CPI(M). The union home minister is responsible if the probe into the gold smuggling case stops midway," they added.

Meanwhile, BJP state president K Surendran dismissed as "baseless" the allegations made by Vijayan against Shah. Vijayan had referred to thedeaths of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wifeKauser Bi and her brother Tulsiram Prajapathi to hit back at Shah.

He had also mentioned the death ofCBI court Judge B H Loya, who was hearing those cases. "Court had discharged Shah in those cases. But, now Vijayan, a murder case accused, is now raising it," Surenderan said.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

On Vijayan''s description of Shah as an "embodiment of communalism", the BJP leader said the Left cadres were not even allowing the party to field a Hindu candidate in Ponnani in Muslim-dominated Malappuram district.

Surendran was referring to a protest rally taken out by the local CPI(M) workers in Ponnai against the party leadership''s reporteddecision to field CITU national secretary P Nandakumar in the constituency. The protesters wanted party district secretariat member, T M Siddique as candidate.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have sent sweet treats and a thoughtful letter to the incredible women behind a Grenfell community kitchen to mark International Women's Day.

The Duke, 36, and Duchess of Sussex, 39, praised the Hubb Community Kitchen for their 'compassionate example' and said they 'frequently talk about how much we miss all of you'.

The initiative, long-supported by the Sussexes, was set up to provide support and hot meals for bereaved families in west London following the Grenfell blaze, which killed 72 people on June 14, 2017.

Delicious-looking cupcakes decorated with fruit were sent to the women behind the kitchen via the Luminary Bakery, a small independent London bakery that Meghan has worked with in recent years as it aims to 'empower women'.

The gesture comes after Meghan and Prince Harry's bombshell Oprah interview sent shock waves around the world yesterday as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Royal Family.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have sent sweet treats and a thoughtful letter (pictured) to the incredible women behind a Grenfell community kitchen to mark International Women's Day

Delicious-looking cupcakes decorated with fruit were sent to the women behind the Hubb Community Kitchen via the Luminary Bakery (above), a small independent London bakery that Meghan has worked with in recent years as it aims to 'empower women'.

'Luminary has sent out a very special delivery for #InternationalWomensDay! We had the pleasure of surprising the incredible women of @thehubbcommunitykitchen with a thoughtful and tasty gift from Meghan, the Duchess of Sussexa champion of both of our organisations,' the social enterprise bakery wrote on their Instagram account yesterday.

Alongside their post, the east London bakery  which provides employment and support for women who are trying to escape poverty, homelessness and violence - revealed a friendly note from the Sussexes.

'Dear Women of the Hubb Community Kitchen,' Meghan and Harry wrote in the letter. 'Today, in recognition of International Women's Day, we wanted to write and offer a small (and delicious!) gift to thank you for all that you do.

'Across the world, we've seen how families, and especially women and mothers, have been disproportionately affected by the impact of COVID-19. Yet, whilst facing multiple and complex challenges presented by the pandemic, you have continued to serve your community and act with compassion throughout.

'We are honoured to know such an amazing and inspiring group of women. And we're thinking of you often,' they added.

The kitchen, long-supported by the Sussexes, was set up to provide support and hot meals for bereaved families in west London following the Grenfell blaze, which killed 72 people on June 14, 2017. Pictured, Meghan at the kitchen in November, 2018

'In our conversations together, we frequently talk about how much we miss all of you - how much we miss your spirit, your commitment to serving others, and your memorable personalities.

'We are overwhelmed by your kindness and optimism and have been delighted to learn of the volunteer work you continue to fulfil and develop.'

The couple continued: 'In providing hot meals to those in need, to empowering women with translation service through to giving children a creative outlet to express their feelings, your work ripples out.

'Know that these ripples are creating waves of change that will have a lasting effect on those around you. We're always proud to see the compassionate example that the women of hubb are setting.'

Continuing, they wrote, 'Your strength and dedication to your community will never go overlooked. Sending our very best, from our family to yours, and celebrating you today and every day.'

One of the women who received the tasty bakes, Jennifer Fatima, a community worker who featured in Meghan's charity cookbook Together, shared a snap of the delicious treats to her Instagram account.

One of the women who received the tasty bakes, Jennifer Fatima, a community worker who featured in Meghan's charity cookbook Together, shared a snap (pictured) of the delicious treats to her Instagram account

'Happy women's day to all the wonderful women around the world! #internationalwomensday. A big thank you to Harry and Meghan for this box of thoughtful and yummy treats by @luminarybakery,' Jennifer said (pictured)

'Happy women's day to all the wonderful women around the world! #internationalwomensday. A big thank you to Harry and Meghan for this box of thoughtful and yummy treats by @luminarybakery,' Jennifer said.

'Thank you very much for such a lovely, touching surprise,' she added.

Meghan, who has repeatedly checked in with the community endeavour, developed a close relationship with the Hubb Community Kitchen since the release of 2018 charity cookbook Together, which marked her first solo venture as a royal.

In April last year, she took part in a call with several members of the group to discuss how their work can be adapted during lockdown.

The kitchen was set up by Grenfell survivors at Al Manaar mosque following the blaze at the 24-storey flat, which turned into the most deadly domestic fire since the Second World War.

Meghan and Prince Harry's gesture comes after the couple's interview (pictured) on CBS late on Sunday night sent shock waves around the world as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Queen and other senior royals

Meghan and Prince Harry's gesture comes after the couple's interview on CBS late on Sunday night sent shock waves around the world as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Queen and other senior royals.

They accused an unnamed Royal Family member of racism, suggesting the relative had asked 'how dark' their baby would be; said they had been driven out of Britain, in part, by racism; and accused the Palace machinery of failing to support a 'suicidal' Meghan.

Harry revealed an astonishing rift with his father, saying his family had cut him off financially while suggesting the Queen had been badly advised and had cancelled a meeting scheduled at Sandringham.

Meghan also accused her sister-in-law Kate of making her cry; suggested senior royals plotted to ensure Archie would never have a title or adequate security; and said officials had failed to stand up for the couple against 'racist' commentary, while lying to protect other royals.
In a new report by Tianfeng International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, he covers the benefits from long-term camera lens specification upgrade cycle with the new application trends and five potential bullish in the short-term trends.

A Taiwanese report pointed to Kuo issuing his latest report on Largan's lens business trend. He emphasized that even if Largan is facing the impact of Huawei's mobile phone ban, the long-term investment value remains unchanged. At the same time, Largan has five potential advantages in the short- and medium-term trends.

Kuo said that Apples MR/AR helmets will use 15 camera modules, which will significantly drive the amount of lens. Largan is the main supplier of camera lenses. The estimated supply proportion is about 60% or more. It is expected that Largan will be significantly affected. benefit.

Kuo believes that Largan will be the biggest winner of Apples replacement of the new iPhone Face ID transmitter (Tx) lens material with plastic in the second half of this year. The supply proportion is higher than that of Yujingguang. In addition, Largan has entered the VCM market. This will help to secure an order for the design of a new iPhone integrated lens next year.

Kuo further stated that the new high-end iPhone telephoto lens may be upgraded from 6P to 7P in the second half of next year.

Largan's current telephoto lens orders account for about 90%, and it is expected that it will be the biggest beneficiary manufacturer under this trend. In addition, Kuo pointed out that Largan is expected to increase the market share of the 5P ultra-wide-angle lens for the iPhone this year from 50% to 70~80%.

Kuo emphasized that the 8P lens is predicted to be widely adopted by mobile phone brands from the second half of next year to the first half of 2323.

In addition, the iPhone is expected to adopt a periscope telephoto lens in 2023. In the long-term lens specification upgrade cycle and new application trends, the company is optimistic.
NEW DELHI: Veteran actress and television host Simi Garewal was on Monday (March 8) trolled for her tweet on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle over their exclusive interview with Oprah Winfrey. "#OprahMeghanHarry I dont believe a word Meghan says. Not a word. She is lying to make herself a victim. She is using the race card to gain sympathy. Evil," Simi had tweeted earlier on Monday.

However, netizens who were empathising with the former royal couple for opening up on several issues including racism in UK in the interview slammed the 73-year-old actress for her harsh tweet.

Some of them even questioned Garewal's veracity to make such bold claims on Meghan, considering that the actress has no connection to the British Royal family. While some of them displayed their sense of humour on Simi's tweet on Meghan and joked if the 'Karz' actress was jealous with the fact that the couple gave the interview to Winfrey and not her.

It is to be noted that this isn't the first time Simi expressed her views on social media on British Royal family. Earlier, when Prince Harry and Meghan had announced to exit the royal family, Simi had tweeted, "History is repeating itself. The Duke of Windsor married Wallis, an American divorcee. Gave up the throne & royal family & lived in exile.. till he died. He was the saddest broken man..& she dominated him till the end."

On Tuesday (March 9), the veteran actress left shared another post saying she is pulling out the word 'evil' from her earlier post on Meghan. "I withdraw the word 'evil'. It was excessive. Calculating would have been more appropriate..." she wrote.

For the unversed, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry tied the knot on November 27, 2017. However, the former American actress disclosed in an interview with Oprah that she and Harry got married in secret ceremony at their castle backyard just three days before the official ceremony. In January 2020, the couple announced that they are stepping back from all Royal duties and will no longer be working members of British Royal family.

Reportedly, Harry and Meghan's last public appearance with the royals was at the Westminster Abbey Commonwealth service on March 9 after hammering out their 'Megxit' deal.The couple who is expecting their second child, had since relocated to Montecito, California with their 1-year-old son Archie.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
One person has been shot dead in Akure, the Ondo State capital, in a lingering fight between two factions of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW).

The victim, well known as China but whose real name is Ademola Adegoyegun, was gunned down by suspected members of a rival faction at Old Garage area of the city centre in the early hours of Tuesday.

Although he is said not a driver, he holds a membership of the union and had been in the forefront of the skirmishes over the leadership of the union in the state.

Two factions of the union had been engaged in a free for all, in an internal struggle over who controls the unions leadership.

They earlier fought at Owode area on Sunday, cursing serious injuries to many people.

A union member, who is an official in one of the parks in Akure, told PREMIUM TIMES that a rival faction was trying to take over the leadership of the union by force and had been creating crisis all over the parks.

The union official, who did not want to be named, said his head was hit by bottles on Saturday by a group of armed union members.

According to the source, he went into hiding because his life was no longer safe.

They said they want to take over the union and that is what is happening, and on Saturday, my head was cracked with bottles and I have since left Akure, he said.

The problem is all over the park and they want to change the government.

Confirming the development, the Police Public Relations Officer for Ondo, Tee-Leo Ikoro, said one person died as a result of the clash.

He said the Commissioner of Police had ordered a complete takeover of the parks and other vulnerable areas to forestall further breakdown of law and order.

We dont know if the dead person is a member of the union, because he was not wearing their uniform, said Mr Ikoro.

That is what investigations will reveal and we are going to ensure we stop further disruption of the peace.

Indefinite suspension

Meanwhile, the Ondo State Government has announced indefinite suspension of all activities of the NURTW across the state.

The Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Special Duties and strategy, Doyin Odebowale, told journalists on Tuesday in Akure that the government had also ordered the NURTW members to immediately vacate all motor parks across the state.

He said the decision was based on what he described as the unruly and uncultured behaviour of the union leaders which resulted in violent attacks on members and innocent citizens.

The government, however, said the indefinite suspension did not affect RTEAN, who comported themselves in a peaceful manner.

ADVERTISEMENT

The state government had earlier ordered the suspension of the activities of NURTW and RTEAN for two weeks, over power tussles among the union leaders.

Last month, the Ogun State government banned the NURTW in the state from collecting levies at motor parks.
The President of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo has expressed worry over conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccines that seek to discourage Ghanaians from going for the vaccination.



To her, nurses and many health workers have put their lives on the line treating COVID-19 patients and that it will be considerate on the part of the public to support the efforts of healthcare workers by going for the COVID-19 vaccination in order to help reduce the spread of the disease.



We are troubled that people are not willing to take the vaccines because of the conspiracy theories, she said, stressing "You should be the first to run to get the vaccine."



Mrs Ofori-Ampofo was speaking at an event organised by Alliance of Feminists CSOs in collaboration with Plan International Ghana to mark this years International Womens Day in Accra on Monday, March 8, 2021.



The event, which was on the theme: Women in Leadership. Achieving Equal Future in a COVID-19 World," brought together leaders and members of civil society organisations, international organisations, feminists, politicians and leaders of state owned institutions and politically inclined young females, journalists and students.



The programme was also used to deliberate and propose strategies to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on women and children especially on girls in Ghana.



IWD



IWD is a day set aside globally to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. More importantly, the day is used to celebrate women's achievements, raise awareness about women's equality, and lobby for accelerated gender parity among others.



NMC



Mrs Ofori-Ampofo said many healthcare workers have lost their lives as a result of caring for COVID-19 patients, saying "We even lost a nurse who was pregnant."



She noted that many nurses had gone through a lot since the pandemic, saying "it has not been easy; vaccination will be the way and its important we all get vaccinated."





She said whereas many workplaces provide working from home services, healthcare workers had no such opportunities and that they are physically required to be present at the healthcare facilities, making them vulnerable to the disease.



Investment



Mrs Ofori-Ampofo also called for investment in healthcare workers, particularly in the area of specialised training.



"We need to invest as a country in our health professionals, especially in specialty training," she said, noting that COVID-19 has made it clear that specialist healthcare professionals are needed most especially during pandemic.



"We need to build our healthcare infrastructure," she noted, urging African leaders, particularly the ECOWAS bloc to build the capacities of its scientists and researchers enable them to go into vaccine and other critical healthcare products development.



For Mrs Ofori-Ampofo, Africa as a continent spends huge sums of money annually importing vaccines from the other parts of the world.



AFCSOs



The Alliance of Feminist CSOs is a political but non-partisan collection of passionate feminist organisations and individuals coming together to champion the inclusion and empowerment of women towards national development.









Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
[March 08, 2021] People Matters launches BeNext, its own digital platform for cohort-based courses (CBC), and enters into a new business segment to amplify its impact in Leadership & HR

- Cohort-based courses (CBC) are emerging as a highly effective methodology in the digital learning space. CBCs increase retention, accountability and make the learning journey a lot more engaging for learners - Our courses are centered around the concepts of bla bla and blee blee. Currently, we have 18 programs, typically running at a frequency of once a quarter. - Over 1200 learners have already been certified through People Matters BeNext in the last 6 months on the beta version of the product. Organizations and companies enrolled include talent leaders from PepsiCo, TataSteel, Diageo, Deutsche Bank, GE, Lego, Maybank, OCBC and NTUC and many more. - Each four-week journey includes live masterclasses with industry-expert instructors like Matthew Kressy Founding Director, Integrated Design & Management, MIT; Jan Krogel Head of Employee Experience and People Analytics; Capgemini; Tanuj Kapilashrami, CHRO, Standard Chartered Bank; Liam McNally Diversity and Inclusion Partner, GitLab Inc; Ankur Warikoo, Co-founder Nearbuy.com, and many more. SINGAPORE, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- At a time when capability building is at the top of the agenda for CHROs in 2021, talent leaders are seeking the best digital learning solutions for their workforce. People Matters launched People Matters BeNext to fulfill that need, offering a suite of unique Cohort-based Certification Programs designed to empower leaders and HR teams to excel in this new world of work. People Matters has always been committed to boosting the impact of the HR community. BeNext Certification Programs are the result of months of research, conversations with industry leaders and discussions with talent professionals about what is needed NOW and what will be needed in the FUTURE. Digital Cohort-based courses (CBC) increase retention, accountability and make the learning journey a lot more engaging for learners. In the last few months, People Matters BeNext has certified over 1,200 leaders from across the region with a unique learning journey that places the community at the center of its design. All BeNext cohort-based certifications are accredited by HRCI. Commenting on the learning from building CBC, People Mtters' CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Ester Martinez shared, "We believe that the social aspect increases success in completing learning objectives; Further, a carefully designed mix of synchronous and asynchronous components gives learners the opportunity to be in control of their learning, focus on outcomes & improve their professional network."



Leaders from academia, business & entrepreneurship are invited to bring their expertise in the learner journey. "Cannot be more excited to join hands with the super high energy People Matters team, to launch an exciting CBC on 'building winning teams', exclusively focused on high-growth organizations," shares Ankur Warikoo, Founder Nearbuy.com, Mentor & Angel Investor. What makes BeNext courses stand-out is their mixture of synchronous and asynchronous learning, along with the community-driven cohort structure. BeNext is not a solo journey but designed to be started together and completed together. Talking about the design journey, Rohit Shenoy, Global Head L&D, DXC Technologies, shares, "This is the best combination of asynchronous and synchronous learning blended with social learning and learning from experts that I have experienced." Avinash Kholi, Executive Director - Leadership, Learning, and Organizational Capability, Boeing, adds that it is "designed with all the right ingredients of best-in-class facilitators, content, and community for maximum learning, engagement, and impact".

BeNext is launching 17 programs for this year in the areas of Hybrid Productivity to Enable people managers & HR teams to maximize productivity, engagement & innovation in distributed, hybrid and remote teams; HR Transformation to Enabling HR & Business leaders to design HR initiatives that are desirable, feasible & viable both human-centered & impactful to business; Diversity, Inclusion & Balance to enable organizations to accelerate the impact of D&I initiatives and shift the needle in their diversity & inclusion KPIs; and, Building winning teams for founders and executives of high growth start-ups to attract retain the best and design culture of ownership and success. Organizations and companies enrolled include talent leaders from PepsiCo, TataSteel, Diageo, Deutsche Bank, GE, Lego, Maybank, OCBC and NTUC, and many more. Pilar Orti, Author of Thinking Remote shared that BeNext is the "best use of the online space". All programs are structures as four week journeys with live masterclasses with industry-expert instructors like Matthew Kressy Founding Director, Integrated Design & Management, MIT; Jan Krogel Head of Employee Experience and People Analytics; Capgemini; Tanuj Kapilashrami, CHRO, Standard Chartered Bank; Liam McNally Diversity and Inclusion Partner, GitLab Inc; Ankur Warikoo, Co-founder Nearbuy.com, and many more. Check People Matters BeNext Programs: http://bit.ly/PMBENEXT About People Matters People Matters is a community of CHROs, Business and Government leaders committed to the advancement of talent & work practices for superior & sustainable business impact. Thriving on Innovation, People Matters has continued to be a pioneer of insightful, impactful, and the most sought-after content for talent leaders in Asia. People Matters engages with over 350,000 talent leaders in the region to challenge, transform and enrich the way HR technology & talent management practices contribute to business growth and success. People Matters is the proud owner of digital and tech platforms for talent leaders, state-of-the-art virtual conferences, innovative physical events, and other digital properties. For more information, please visit www.gopeoplematters.com Media Contact:

Prakash Shahi

Prakash.shahi@gopeoplematters.com

+91-9811135919 Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451525/BeNext_for_LD_COnference_.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451526/BeNext_for_LD_Conference.jpg SOURCE People Matters Pte. Ltd

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Patna, March 9 : Gopal Mandal, the JDU legislator from Gopalpur in Banka district created a stir when he said he carries a revolver and will shoot somebody if required.

While interacting with reporters in Patna on Tuesday, Mandal said "Hamare pass hamesha revolver rehta hai, zarurat padega to thhok denge. (I always carry a revolver with me and will shoot anybody if required).

Mandal was speaking to mediapersons after his men and he were reportedly held hostage in Shyam Bazaar village in Banka district on Sunday.

Mandal, along with two dozen armed men went there to take possession of 20 acres land. The villagers assembled in large numbers and held them hostage for an hour. They also shouted slogans against Gopal.

The villagers released them after JDU Banka district president Umesh Yadav intervened in the matter.

"It wasn't a hostage situation for my supporters and me. They are not bigger fighters than me. I am a fighter. We had purchased 20 acres land in the Shyam Bazaar area nine months ago and have plans to construct a school on this land. I went there for inspection of my land but I saw some villagers illegally occupying," Mandal said.
Confirming that the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) summit will be held on March 12, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has informed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the first QUAD summit which will be held virtually. Along with PM Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, US President Joe Biden and Japanse PM Yoshihide Suga will also attend the first Leaders Summit of the Quadrilateral Framework.

'Will discuss vaccine distribution': MEA

As per the MEA, the global leaders will discuss the ongoing efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and explore opportunities for collaboration in ensuring safe, equitable and affordable vaccines in the Indo-Pacific region.

Notably, India has been leading the vaccine distribution programme by providing neighbouring countries and others around the world with the indigenously developed Covaxin and AstraZeneca's Covishield which is being manufactured in India.

READ | PM Modi & PM Suga Discuss Row Over S China Sea; Vow To Strengthen India-Japan Partnership

The leaders will also exchange views on contemporary challenges such as resilient supply chains, emerging and critical technologies, maritime security and climate change, the MEA said in a statement on Tuesday. Earlier, foreign ministers of the QUAD countries had met on February 18 in the backdrop of concerns over China's actions across the south pacific region. The meeting between the foreign minister had reiterated the groups commitment to a rules-based world order underpinned by respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue involves summits and information exchanges between India, Australia, Japan and the US. Never before have heads of all four countries shared featured together in the forum. The QUAD countries have also engaged in mutual military drills and increased cooperation through bilateral agreements over the years. In November last year, Australia had joined the annual Malabar exercises with the US, Japan and India.

READ | As QUAD Meet Nears, China Reminds India: 'Friends, Not Rivals...dont Undercut Each Other'

PM Modi-PM Suga talk ahead of Quad summit

Earlier in the day, PM Modi had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister of Japan Suga Yoshihide where the two leaders reaffirmed the importance of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and raised concerns over China's unilateral attempts to change the status quo. Matters pertaining to the situation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and the current political crisis in Myanmar were also brought up by the Prime Ministers during the conversation.

According to an official press release by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, "Prime Minister Suga expressed serious concerns regarding unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Sea, Chinas Coast Guard Law and the situation in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Prime Minister Suga also asked for understanding and cooperation toward the early resolution of the abductions issue by North Korea. Furthermore, the two leaders confirmed that they have grave concerns over the situation in Myanmar and they would closely work together in this vein."

READ | Here's How 1st QUAD Leaders Summit With PM Modi, Biden, Suga & Morrison Can Benefit India

READ | QUAD Summit: Here's How Four Democracies Came Together For Quadrilateral Security Dialogue
Susana Olivo Sandoval's grandmother gave her a piece of advice that she follows regularly: "You can regret something once you do it, but don't regret not doing something."

As a first-generation student at the University of North Georgia (UNG), Sandoval does not regret pursuing all avenues to fund her college education. Her attempts have paid off. In late February, Sandoval was selected as a semifinalist for the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship.

This year, 406 semifinalists were chosen from a pool of more than 1,500 applicants attending 398 community colleges in 44 states and the District of Columbia.

"At first, I thought they typed my name by error," said the UNG sophomore, who is pursuing an associate degree in modern languages. "It would be great if I win the scholarship."

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation provides students in their second year with up to $40,000 per year toward the completion of a bachelor's degree in one of the nation's elite four-year universities. The highly selective program supplies each finalist with college planning support, ongoing advising, and the opportunity to connect with the thriving community of fellow scholars.

Dr. Kathryn Quinto, Nationally Competitive Scholarships Office adviser for research and engagement at UNG, worked with Sandoval.

"Susana has excelled academically and has an outstanding and positive impact in the lives of those around her," Quinto said. "Her accomplishments inside and outside the classroom helped make her application stand out."

Quinto explained Sandoval is vice president of the Latino Student Association on UNG's Gainesville Campus and is a part-time student assistant in the High School Equivalency Program (HEP) at UNG. HEP assists migration and/or seasonal farm workers and members of their immediate family to obtain a General Educational Development (GED).

"I work because I need the money to pay for my education," said Sandoval, who almost didn't apply for college because of the cost. "My high school teachers encouraged me to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and apply for scholarships."

Sandoval did and received financial aid. She also earned a Goizueta Foundation Scholarship, which is designed to support the academic success and leadership development of Hispanic and Latino students at UNG.

This gave her the confidence to pursue other scholarships.

"I'm not sure if I can win all of the scholarships that I apply for, but I don't lose anything by trying. So I try," said the 19-year-old from Gainesville, Georgia.

Now, Sandoval hopes to receive the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship or others to continue in a bachelor's degree program.

"If I get it, I could leave my jobs and spend more time on my classes and selfcare," Sandoval said.

Sandoval and 405 other semifinalists will learn if they win the scholarship in April.

Five other UNG students have been named Jack Kent Cooke semifinalists, including Carlie Anderson and Johan Rodriguez-Soto in 2020, Allison Rogers in 2019, and John Blessing and Jennifer Conley in 2016. Teri Jones, a nontraditional sophomore majoring in visual arts on UNG's Oconee Campus, won in 2015.

Students interested in learning more about nationally competitive scholarships should contact ncs@ung.edu for more information.
New Delhi:

Delhi airport operator DIAL on Tuesday said it will expand the passenger handling capacity of two operational terminals, recommission operations at terminal two and build a new runway by 2021.



DIAL has also asked airlines operating from T1 to partially shift their operations to T2 from October.



We have planned to increase the capacity of T1 and T3 and build a fourth runway in due course of time, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) CEO I Prabhakara Rao told reporters.



As per the master plan, capacity of T1 will be increased from 20 million to 40 million and the capacity of T3 will be increased from 34 million to 45 million, he said in a statement.



Departure terminal T1D would be merged with arriving terminal T1C and then expanded to accommodate 40 million passengers per annum.



Currently, T1 - which is used for domestic operations of some flights - can handle 20 million passengers annually.

Read | Drone at Delhi airport: Flight operations suspended for few minutes after Air Asia pilot spots alien object



A fourth runway would be constructed by 2021. This will ease out future pressure on other runways and will be constructed parallel to runway 11/29, DIAL said.



At present, there are three runways.



Taking into consideration rising passenger numbers, Rao said, we have asked the airlines operating from T1 for part shifting of operations to T2 from October.



There is an immediate need to decongest T1 and one-thirds of operations need to be shifted to T2, which has been revamped with an investment of around Rs 100 crore, Rao said.



Operations at T2 were stopped in 2010.



T3 and T2 would cater to the growing traffic in the next three to four years by which time T1 expansion project would be completed, he added.



There would be a huge transformation for T1, Rao said, adding that there would be metro rail connectivity to the terminal.



The expansion activities are part of the master plan, which would be implemented in three phases starting from 2018 -2021 period.



The work in the second and the third phases would be done during 2021-2025 and 2026 onwards, respectively.



In 2016-17, the airport handled 57.7 million passengers and more than 8.57 lakh tonnes of cargo.



DIAL is a consortium led by the GMR group. Other stakeholders are government-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Germanys Fraport.

Read | Close shave for 196 passengers bound to Addis Ababa at Delhis IGI airport as wings of Ethiopian Airlines clips wings with Air India

For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP, Hon. ASLA to join McAdams in late spring 2021 I believe Mitchell joining our team will be the catalyst for tremendous growth and opportunity as we continue to expand our geographic footprint

McAdams, a multidisciplinary civil engineering, land planning, landscape architecture and geomatics firm headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, announced today that Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP, will join their leadership team in June as Principal, Vice President of Urban Planning. Silver is no stranger to the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, or the planning community, having served as the City of Raleighs chief planning officer and planning director for nine years prior to his being appointed by New York City Bill de Blasio as NYC Parks Commissioner, one of the largest parks departments in the world. He is an award-winning planner with more than 35 years of experience and is internationally recognized for his leadership and contributions to contemporary planning issues.

Silver will work closely with McAdams president and the executive leadership team to provide directional leadership to the company by contributing to its corporate vision and strategic objectives. He will provide corporate thought leadership, explore expansion into new markets and develop current and future talent.

Throughout our storied history, we have been fortunate that many brilliant individuals have chosen to share their talents with our firm and Mitchell joins us at a pivotal point in the life of this company, said President and CEO, Mike Munn, PE. While we have achieved much, we aspire to achieve more, and I believe Mitchell joining our team will be the catalyst for tremendous growth and opportunity as we continue to expand our geographic footprint.

Silver was appointed NYC Parks Commissioner in May 2014. He is president of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and past president of the American Planning Association (APA). He is internationally recognized for his leadership and contributions to contemporary planning issues. Silver specializes in comprehensive planning, placemaking and implementation strategies. As commissioner, he oversees management, planning and operations of more than 30,000 acres of parkland, which includes parks, playgrounds, beaches, marinas, recreation centers, natural areas and other assets.

Prior to returning to his native New York City as commissioner, he served as the chief planning officer and planning director for the City of Raleigh, North Carolina. His career has included roles as a policy and planning director for New York Citys Department of Planning, a principal of a New York City-based planning firm, a town manager in New Jersey and deputy planning director in Washington, DC.

Mitchell has built an amazing personal and professional record of accomplishments over the past 35-plus years with his thoughtful and relevant design, planning and public service contributions and were excited that our team and our clients will be positively impacted by his knowledge, presence and abilities for years to come, added Munn.

Silver will elevate McAdams by participating in regional and national industry events and conversations related to urban planning, land use, parks and recreation, equity, demographic and other emerging trends. He will provide advisory consulting services to communities and clients, supported by the appropriate McAdams design and technical staff. In addition, he will prominently serve as an ambassador for McAdams in regional and national organizations.

Silver will help advance McAdams throughout the industry by creating firm growth opportunities, taking the firm to new geographic locations, expanding and amplifying service offerings to new and existing markets and helping to win exciting and iconic public and private projects.

Internally, Silver will provide leadership in attracting and developing the very best talent in the industry. In addition, his insight within McAdams diversity, equity and inclusion employee resource group will help to enhance firm culture by executing on the internal commitment to make McAdams, and the industry, a truly diverse and inclusive work environment.

About McAdams

Founded in 1979, McAdams is a full-service civil engineering, land planning, landscape architecture and geomatics firm headquartered in Durham, North Carolina with offices in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. McAdams is passionate about providing unique and engaging experiences for our clients and our clients clients. We understand the importance of a lasting impression and strive to bring life to the collective vision for project success. All design charts a path to the built environment which may create budgetary or constructability constraints, however our team works to blend creativity with reality which enables a concept to be executed. Our engineering expertise and other integrated services help provide efficient and effective solutions to serve your project needs. We care about the end product and we share our clients goals.
This item is available in full to subscribers.

Attention subscribers

We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.

If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.

If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.

Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
By Ritah Kemigisa

The National Unity Platform (NUP) party has produced files they claim contain Declaration of Results forms for the January 14th polls they allege was rigged.

Addressing journalists at the party headquarters in Kampalas Kamyokya suburb, the party president Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine said the said files are part of the affidavits that were allegedly rejected by the Supreme Court before he withdrew his petition challenging Yoweri Musevenis victory.

Kyagulanyi says he has decided to bring the said evidence to the people so that they can be the judges.

He however says in everything they plan to do they will remain peaceful.

Kyagulanyi claims he won the January polls by 54.19% as opposed to the 35.4% announced by the Electoral Commission, against Musevenis 58%.

He withdrew his petition from the Supreme Court over claims of bias.

The NUP party leader has also rallied Ugandans to stage peaceful demonstrations following the withdrawal of his petition challenging the victory of Yoweri Museveni from the Supreme Court.

He says the protests will be peaceful and lawful as enshrined in article 29 of the constitution.

He adds the protests will also be used to demand the release of political prisoners and for an end to the trial of civilians before the military court.

On Monday, the Police Director for Operations, Edward Ochom directed all Regional Police Commanders to be on high alert following anticipated riots across the country.
Side view of the proposed ark design. Credit: Jekan Thanga

University of Arizona researcher Jekan Thanga is taking scientific inspiration from an unlikely source: the biblical tale of Noah's Ark. Rather than two of every animal, however, his solar-powered ark on the moon would store cryogenically frozen seed, spore, sperm and egg samples from 6.7 million Earth species.

Thanga and a group of his undergraduate and graduate students outline the lunar ark concept, which they call a "modern global insurance policy," in a paper presented over the weekend during the IEEE Aerospace Conference.

"Earth is naturally a volatile environment," said Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the UArizona College of Engineering. "As humans, we had a close call about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, aligns with an estimated drop in human diversity. Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet."

Climate change, he added, is another concern: If sea levels continue to rise, many dry places will go underwaterincluding the Svalbard Seedbank, a structure in Norway that holds hundreds of thousands of seed samples to protect against accidental loss of biodiversity. Thanga's team believes storing samples on another celestial body reduces the risk of biodiversity being lost if one event were to cause total annihilation of Earth.

Jekan Thanga, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona. Credit: University of Arizona

Totally Tubular

Scientists discovered a network of about 200 lava tubes just beneath the moon's surface in 2013. These structures formed billions of years ago, when streams of lava melted their way through soft rock underground, forming underground caverns. On Earth, lava tubes are often similar in size to subway tunnels, and can be eroded by earthquakes, plate tectonics and other natural processes. This network of lunar lava tubes are about 100 meters in diameter. Untouched for an estimated 3 billion to 4 billion years, they could provide shelter from solar radiation, micrometeorites and surface temperature changes.

The idea of developing a lunar base, or human settlement on the moon, has been around for hundreds of years, and the lava tube discovery renewed the space community's enthusiasm for the concept. But the moon isn't exactly a hospitable environment where humans can spend extended periods. There isn't water or breathable air, and it's about minus 25 degrees Celsius, or minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It's also not a very eventful place.

On the other hand, those same features make it a great place to store samples that need to stay very cold and undisturbed for hundreds of years at a time.

Building a lunar ark is no small undertaking, but, based on some "quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations," Thanga said it's not as overwhelming as it may sound. Transporting about 50 samples from each of 6.7 million species would require about 250 rocket launches. It took 40 rocket launches to build the International Space Station.

"It's not crazy big," Thanga said. "We were a little bit surprised about that."

Cryogenics and Quantum Levitation

The mission concept builds on another project Thanga and his group previously proposed, in which miniature flying and hopping robots called SphereX enter a lava tube in teams. There, they would collect samples of regolith, or dust and loose rock, and gather information about the layout, temperature and makeup of the lava tubes. This information could inform the construction of the lunar base.

Overhead view of the proposed ark design. Credit: Jekan Thanga

The team's model for the underground ark includes a set of solar panels on the moon's surface that would provide electricity. Two or more elevator shafts would lead down into the facility, where petri dishes would be housed in a series of cryogenic preservation modules. An additional goods elevator shaft would be used to transport construction material so that the base can be expanded inside the lava-tubes.

To be cryopreserved, the seeds must be cooled to minus 180 C (minus 292 F) and the stem cells kept at minus 196 C (minus 320 F). As a reference for just how cold this is, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine must be stored at minus 70 C, or minus 94 F. The fact that the lava tubes are so cold, and the samples must be even colder, means there's a risk the metal parts of the base could freeze, jam or even cold-weld together. On Earth, commercial airlines stop working when ground temperatures reach minus 45 to minus 50 C (minus 49 to minus 58 F).

However, there's a way to take advantage of the extreme temperatures by using an otherworldly phenomenon called quantum levitation. In this process, a cryo-cooled superconductor materialor a material that transfers energy without losing any heat, like a traditional cable doesfloats above a powerful magnet. The two pieces are locked together at a fixed distance, so wherever the magnet goes, the superconductor follows.

"It's like they're locked in place by strings, but invisible strings," Thanga said. "When you get to cryogenic temperatures, strange things happen. Some of it just looks like magic but is based on tried and laboratory-tested physics principles at the edge of our understanding."

The team's ark design uses this phenomenon to make the shelves of samples float above metal surfaces and have robots navigate through the facility above magnetic tracks.

There is much more research to be done on how to build and operate the ark, from investigating how the preserved seeds might be affected by a lack of gravity to fleshing out a plan for base communications with Earth.

"What amazes me about projects like this is that they make me feel like we are getting closer to becoming a space civilization, and to a not-very-distant future where humankind will have bases on the moon and Mars," said Alvaro Diaz-Flores Caminero, a UArizona doctoral student leading the thermal analysis for the project. "Multidisciplinary projects are hard due to their complexity, but I think the same complexity is what makes them beautiful."

Explore further Theoretical study suggests huge lava tubes could exist on moon
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region

1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
A cross with flowers and a letter A sits at the entrance to the Satilla Shores neighborhood where Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed, in Brunswick, Ga., on May 7, 2020. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

Georgia House Votes to Repeal Citizens Arrest Law In Wake of Ahmaud Arberys Death

Georgia lawmakers voted unanimously on Monday to repeal a citizens arrest law that fueled public outcry after a prosecutor relied on it to conclude that last years fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery was justified.

The Georgia House of Representatives voted 173-0 for House Bill 479, which, aside from some exceptions, would eliminate the right for civilians to make arrests.

The unanimous passage of HB 479 by the Georgia House is an important step in our efforts to root out injustice in the Peach State, while also protecting the sacred right to defend oneself and others, Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, said in a statement.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law by Kemp, which is widely expected, the bill will still allow some citizens arrests, such as allowing business owners to detain someone suspected of theft in their establishment. But in the limited cases that citizen arrests will be lawful, the bill will restrict the use of force.

With broad, bipartisan support, our overhaul of the citizens arrest statute strikes a critical balance between protecting the lives and livelihoods of our families, our friends, and our neighbors and preventing rogue vigilantism from threatening the security and God-given potential of all Georgians, Kemp added.

Some are likely to interpret Kemps rogue vigilantism remark in context of the controversy surrounding Arberys death, which overshadowed much of the debate around the bill.

Arbery was killed on a residential street in February 2020 as he ran through a small Georgia neighborhood, after sustaining wounds from three close-range shotgun blasts.

Lawyers representing the father and son who armed themselves and pursued ArberyGreg and Travis McMichaelsaid the pair suspected Arbery of burglary. They said Travis McMichael shot Arbery while fearing for his life as they grappled over a shotgun.

Prosecutors have said Arbery stole nothing and was merely out jogging when he was chased down and shot.

Immediately after the shooting, police interviewed the McMichaels, and let them walk free. The first prosecutor assigned to the case, George Barnhill, cited Georgias citizens arrest law as a reason not to pursue charges.

It wasnt until months later that the pair were arrested, after video emerged that provided more details about the fatal encounter. The McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault. A third man, William Roddie Bryan, a neighbor who joined the chase and recorded the incident on video, was also later charged with murder.

Kemp, who pushed for the citizens arrest reforms, earlier said that the circumstances surrounding Arberys death show that the law needed to change.

Some tried to justify the actions of the killers by claiming they had protection under an antiquated law that is ripe for abuse, Kemp said. That is why today my administration is introducing significant reforms to our state citizens arrest statute to close dangerous loopholes that could be used to justify future acts of vigilantism.

The Feb. 23 anniversary of Arberys deathwhich was marked by lawmakers and civil rights activists at the Georgia state Capitol in Atlantaalso received a mention from the White House.

A Black man should be able to go for a jog without fearing for his life, President Joe Biden wrote in a tweet. Today, we remember Ahmaud Arberys life and we dedicate ourselves to making this country safer for people of color.

Passage of the bill was hailed by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, who said in a tweet: We commend todays unanimous vote on HB 479  the Citizens Arrest bill  in Georgias House of Representatives and encourage its swift passage in the Senate.

If it clears the Senate and is signed into law by Kemp, the law will allow store employees to detain people they believe stole something, let restaurant employees detain people who try to leave without paying for a meal, let licensed security guards and private detectives detain people, and let weight inspectors detain people. But if a police officer or sheriffs deputy doesnt arrive within an hour, the person being detained must be released.

Deadly force couldnt be used to detain someone unless its in self-protection, protecting a home, or preventing a forcible felony, and the changes retain Georgias stand your ground law, which says that a person isnt required to retreat.
The expenditure to be incurred as operational cost for COVID-19 vaccination of estimated three crore healthcare and frontline workers is about Rs 480 crore and vaccines' cost is about Rs 1,392 crore, Minister of State for Health Ashwini Choubey told the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

In response to a question on whether the government plans to distribute the vaccine free of cost to any section of the population in the country, the minister said, "Presently, the vaccine is being provided free of cost to healthcare workers and frontline workers." As of February 4, a total of 96.28 lakh healthcare workers and 78.51 lakh frontline workers have been identified for COVID-19 vaccination, he said in a written reply.

The database of frontline workers is in the process of getting updated on the Co-Win digital platform, he said. "The expenditure to be incurred as operational cost for vaccination of estimated 3 crore healthcare workers and frontline workers is about Rs 480 crore and vaccines cost is about Rs 1392.82 crore," Choubey said.

Two COVID-19 vaccines -- Covishield manufactured by Serum Institute of India and Covaxin manufactured by Bharat Biotech International Limited -- have been granted permission for restricted use in an emergency situation by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) so far.

These two vaccines have been procured for the COVID-19 vaccination drive in the country which began on January 16. Till January 26, a total of 200 lakh doses of Covishield and 28.03 lakh doses of Covaxin have been supplied, Choubey said. The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) provides guidance on all aspects of vaccination including prioritisation of population groups for vaccination.

The NEGVAC has prioritised healthcare and frontline workers during the initial phase of COVID-19 vaccination followed by prioritized population groups of persons aged 50 years and above, and those aged less than 50 years with comorbidities. Presently, the vaccine is being provided free of cost to healthcare and frontline workers, Choubey said.

The budget allocation of Rs 480 crore has been made for meeting the operational cost for COVID-19 vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers, in addition to the cost of the vaccines, Choubey said. Further, in the Union Budget 2021-22, an outlay of Rs 35,000 crore has been made towards COVID-19 vaccination and a commitment to provide further funds, if required, has also been expressed.

Also read: COVID-19 vaccination: Technical glitches in Co-WIN, hesitancy led to low coverage, says Health Ministry
by Nirmala Carvalho

Hindu nationalists in the state legislature voted the bill on 8 March as a gift to women. For the president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, the law promotes hatred, divisions and tensions between different communities, and endangers vulnerable minority Christians.

Mumbai (AsiaNews)  Another Indian state has passed an anti-conversion law. After Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, both ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Madhya Pradesh yesterday became the third Indian state to pass such legislation.

This is causing great concern among Christians; the new law promotes hatred, divisions and tensions between different communities within society, said Sajan K. George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), speaking to AsiaNews.

The states Home Affairs Minister Narottam Mishra officially introduced the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Bill 2021 on 1 March to replace an ordinance in force since 9 January. The bill was voted yesterday. BJP state legislators called it a gift for women on their day.

Under the new bill, forcing religious conversion on someone will attract one to five years of imprisonment and a minimum Rs 25,000 fine (US$ 350), said Narottam Mishra. Forced conversion of a minor, a woman or a person from a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe would draw a minimum jail term of two to10 years with a minimum penalty of Rs 50,000 (US$ 700).

In secular India, it is absolutely inconsistent for a state to indicate which religion a person can follow or who they can marry, said George.

The Indian constitution is secular. There is no state religion and this law is a flagrant violation of personal freedoms, he added.

The right to freedom of religion in Article 25 to practise, profess and propagate a religion is part of the guarantees enshrined in the constitution.

Anti-conversion laws, ironically called Freedom of Religion laws, have existed in Indian states for a long time, the first one in Odisha (formerly Orissa).

According to data collected by the police in Madhya Pradesh, since the Ordinance came into effect on 9 January, of the 23 cases, at least half of them concern Christians, George explained. All of them are fabricated cases of conversion. Vigilante groups attack, intimidate, even disrupt family gatherings under the guise of conversion activities.

For George, nationalist right-wing groups enjoy tacit state approval. They endanger lives among vulnerable minority Christians with violence.

The theory of conversions is widespread in the country even though the majority group still represents 80 per cent of society.
Mumbai, March 9 : Bollywood actress Vaani Kapoor posted a glamorous picture for her fans on Instagram, on Tuesday. The actress poses in a yellow cutout ensemble.

"Imagine your cells as billions of stars sparkling inside you... let 'em shine," she wrote with the picture.

B-Town friends commented on her post, complimenting the actress. Actress Alia Bhatt wrote: "Body" followed by multiple fire emojis, while actress Diana Penty wrote "Ufff" and added three emojis.

The actress has three films coming up in the next months. She will be seen in Bell Bottom, co-starring Akshay Kumar and shot in Glasgow, Scotland during lockdown. She is has Shamshera featuring Sanjay Dutt and Ranbir Kapoor, and directed by Karan Malhortra. Vaani will also be seen in Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui where she shares screen space with Ayushmann Khurrana for the first time.
South Dakota Lawmakers Put Attorney Generals Impeachment on Hold

South Dakotas House of Representatives voted Monday to halt impeachment proceedings against state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who is already under pressure to resign after being charged in a fatal car crash last year.

The legislators voted 57-11 to approve an amended resolution, which states that the House may determine whether the two articles of impeachment against Ravnsborg are necessary, and proceed accordingly after his ongoing criminal case is complete.

Ravnsborg is facing three misdemeanor charges after investigators said he struck and killed 55-year-old Joseph Boever with his vehicle on the night of Sept. 12, 2020, on his way home from a Republican fundraising event. Each of the three chargesoperating a vehicle while using a mobile or electronic device, a lane driving violation for driving outside of his lane, and careless drivingcarries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a fine of $500.

According to his initial 911 call (pdf) and a subsequent public statement (pdf), Ravnsborg didnt see what he hit and believed his car had hit a deer or some other large animal, until he returned to the scene of the accident the following day and discovered Boevers body just off the roadway.

In videos of police interrogations released by the state, however, investigators appeared to be skeptical about Ravnsborgs claim that he had no idea what he had struck until the next day. At one point, investigators said that a broken pair of eyeglasses belonging to Boever was found inside the attorney generals car, suggesting that they could have only gotten there when Boevers face entered through the windshield.

We know that his face came through your windshield, an investigator said. Thats, I would think, substantially clear that thats what happened. We also have the imprint on the hood where his body, part of his body, likely was riding. At some point in time, he rolls off, takes out the mirror and slides into the ditch.

I mean it pains me tremendously to hear that his face went through the windshield, Ravnsborg replied. But I didnt look over. I was trying to stay alive myself at that point.

Police also pointed to a flashlight carried by Boever that night, which was still on when it was recovered from the crash scene, noting that the bright light would have been hard to miss in the darkness. Ravnsborg insisted that he had been looking at the radio and the speedometer to switch to cruise mode at the time and didnt see the light.

The interrogation videos, which were ordered by a state judge to be taken down due to concerns of due process violation, sparked calls for the attorney generals resignation.

Now that the investigation has closed and charges have been filed, I believe the attorney general should resign, Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, said in a statement. I have reviewed the material we are releasing, starting today, and I encourage others to review it as well.

Ravnsborg has denied wrongdoing and refused to resign. His first court appearance in the case is scheduled on March 12.
AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi



on Tuesday announced an alliance with the AMMK of for the April 6 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

Owaisi told reporters here that his party would contest three seats-- Vaniyambadi, Krishnagiri and Sankarapuram -- in the polls as part of the alliance.

He said the alliance partners would jointly campaign andhe would attend a public meeting of the alliance to be held at the YMCA grounds in Chennai on March 12.

Saying that Tamil Nadu has generally seen alliances led by AIADMK and DMK so far, he said the coalition led by Dhinakaran's AMMK would go to the people as a third alternative.

He hoped that the electorate of Tamil Nadu would bless the partners of the AMMK-led alliance.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dr. Anthony Bared, a highly-respected Miami board-certified plastic surgeon and hair restoration specialist, has been published in the Hair Transplant Surgery and Platelet Rich Plasma textbook by editor Linda N. Nee. The new handbook is suited for beginners to advanced surgeons in the rapidly-emerging field of hair transplantation.

Editor Linda N. Nee selected experts in facial plastic surgery and dermatology to write chapters in the text. Dr. Anthony Bared, MD, wrote Chapter 10, Techniques in Beard and Eyebrow Restoration. The book begins with the basics and leads to advanced surgical tips with cutting-edge information. Dr. Lee, Dr. Bared, and the other co-authors offer surgical tips needed by clinicians and surgeons to achieve natural-looking results.

Dr. Bared specializes in beard restoration, which is an emerging trend in cosmetic surgery. Patients visit Dr. Bared in Miami, FL, to seek beard transplants for various reasons, including a desire for thicker facial hair due to genetic factors, to reverse laser hair removal, or to conceal facial burns, scarring, or cleft lip repair. Female to male transgender patients may also request information on facial hair restoration for a more masculine appearance. Dr. Bared customizes each transplant to match the patient's desired shape and density. Men seeking facial hair transplantation typically have a specific idea of how they want their beard to appear, and Dr. Bared asks them to be actively involved in the design process. Male patients may require a secondary procedure depending on the size and density of the desired beard.

At his Miami practice, Dr. Bared also offers his advanced skills in eyebrow restoration, a popular treatment requested by men and women to perfect the eyebrow's shape, density, and the hair's natural direction and angle. Eyebrow restoration is beneficial to women experiencing thinning eyebrows caused by genetics, over-plucking, or aging. Some forms of alopecia, such as alopecia totalis (complete absence of the eyebrow), may affect eyebrow restoration candidacy. Men often lose the lateral aspect of the eyebrow due to aging and desire thicker eyebrows for cosmetic reasons. Men and women can bring photos of eyebrows and use eyeliner to fill in the brow for Dr. Bared to see the look they want to achieve. The patient is actively involved in the design of their eyebrows.

Facial hair transplant specialist Dr. Bared, is double board-certified by the American Board of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the American Board of Otolaryngology. Advanced follicular unit extraction (FUE) techniques allow patients to avoid linear scars if they wear short haircuts. Dr. Bared gives his patients flexibility and fantastic results using the FUE technique. He has performed over 1000 facial hair restoration procedures at his Miami practice.

If you are interested in a beard or eyebrow restoration, call 305-547-9669 to request a consultation with Dr. Anthony Bared, MD, FACS in Miami, Florida, or visit Facial Plastic Surgery Miami.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea challenging the Election Commissions decision to conduct assembly elections over eight phases in West Bengal and seeking to bar the BJP and its leaders from using Jai Shri Ram" as a slogan during the campaign.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde initially told the petitioner to approach the Calcutta High Court.

Also Read | Australias prime time battle against big tech

I rely upon a judgement. This is not the matter of election petition. One party is using a religious slogan. Why should I go to the high court?" advocate M L Sharma, the petitioner in the case, told the bench.

You are asking for prosecution. How can we pass such an order. The only power lied with the high court, that to the election petition," the bench, which also comprised Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, told Sharma.

When the petitioner referred to a 1978 judgement of the apex court, the bench asked him to show the paragraphs in the verdict saying the top court can entertain a plea regarding malpractice in campaigning when the poll process starts .

Sharma said the matter be heard tomorrow, and the bench said, We cannot read it again and again, read it right now."

Alright, we don't agree with you. Dismissed," the bench added.

The plea had sought the apex courts direction to stop the poll panel from conducting eight-phase elections in West Bengal, alleging that it violates Article 14 (right to life) and Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution.

On February 26, the Election Commission had announced the schedule for assembly elections to be held in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

While the assembly polls in West Bengal will be held over eight rounds from March 27-April 29, polling in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry will be held in one phase on April 6 and in Assam over three phases.

In his plea, Sharma had also sought a direction to the CBI to register an FIR into the alleged chanting of religious slogans during electioneering in West Bengal.

The chanting of "Jai Shri Ram, other religious slogans are creating disharmony" and is an offence under the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the plea had said.

"Whether using a provocative religious slogan 'Jai Shri Ram' is for electoral benefits as well as others is not violated S.123(3) & 125 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951," reads the legal question raised in the plea.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A hospital in southwest France has seen some of its IT systems paralysed by a "ransomware" cyberattack, its management said Tuesday, the third such incident in the last month.

The 320-bed facility in Oloron-Sainte-Marie near the Pyrenees mountains was hit by the attack on Monday, with screens displaying a demand in English for $50,000 in Bitcoin.

Hospital workers have had to revert to working with pens and paper, since digital patient records are not available.

The management system, used to monitor medicine stocks and other supplies, has also been affected at a time when the hospital is taking part in vaccination efforts against COVID-19.

"We might get our systems back in 48 hours or in three months," hospital director Frederic Lecenne told local newspaper La Republique des Pyrenees.

He said personnel had disconnected some computers from the internet and the hospital's network to try to limit the spread of the ransomware.

In February, hospitals in Dax in southwest France and in Villefranche-sur-Saone in the southeastern Rhone region were subjected to ransomware attacks, while in 2019 a hospital in northern Rouen was also hit.

"Ransomware" attacks see criminals infiltrate and paralyse a target's IT systems, then demand payments in order to restore them.

Explore further France to boost cyberdefense after hospital malware attacks

 2021 AFP
President Joe Biden visits W.S. Jenks & Son, a hardware store that has benefited from Paycheck Protection Program loans, in Washington on March 9, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden Ignores Question on Border Crisis as He Visits Small Business in DC

President Joe Biden on Tuesday ignored a shouted question about the crisis at the southern border as he visited a small business in Washington.

Biden visited W.S. Jenks & Son, a hardware store that received a Paycheck Protection Program loan during a window that was open in February thanks to the president.

Biden entered the main floor of the store and visited with owner Mike Siegel, who offered that the hardest aspect of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic was figuring out what to do with staff members. Taking several loans from the federal program has enabled them to send vulnerable people home, he added.

Obviously, that was not cost effective, but we felt like we had to do that for our employees, he said.

Biden said the window, which was only open for businesses with 20 or fewer employees, was granted because many loans previously went to large companies.

A lot of money went to people who shouldnt have gotten help, he said.

Reporters present then tried to ask questions, including one about the surge in migrants that have been seen at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bidens team, though, ushered them out, and Biden answered no questions.

President Joe Biden, center, visits W.S. Jenks & Son, a hardware store that has benefited from Paycheck Protection Program loans, in Washington on March 9, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden has gone the longest period, 48 days now, for a new president in some 100 years without holding a press conference, triggering criticism from a growing swath of the public.

The situation at the border has attracted bipartisan calls for action.

We are weeks, maybe even days, away from a crisis on the southern border. Inaction is simply not an option. Our country is currently unprepared to handle a surge in migrants in the middle of the pandemic, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said in a statement last week, announcing that more than 10,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended in a single border sector in Texas in about a week.

Republican lawmakers urged Biden in a recent letter to reinstate a national emergency at the border. Former President Donald Trump had done so, but Biden withdrew the designation after taking office.

Biden also reversed the prior administrations use of health rules to expel minor illegal immigrants, and is now having to open new facilities to handle an increase in that group.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington shortly after Bidens trip that the administration is continuing to work to convey to people that this is not the time to come, that the majority of people who come to the border will be turned away.

But the administration will keep treating minors with the most humane approach it can manage, she added.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - American Aires Inc. (CSE: WIFI) (the "Company" or "Aires") is pleased to announce that it has engaged the firm of Berglass Associates, a Management and Consulting Firm, to assist the Company in hiring a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) who will provide the wealth of experience and global marketing expertise required to bring Aires to the next level of marketing and sales success.

Berglass Associates is a firm based out of New York with a reputation for connecting companies with best-of-breed talent in whatever role a company requires. Aires' search for a high quality, experienced and forward looking individual to take charge of the CRO position of the Company is intended to facilitate the most expedient journey on the path toward increased profits and Company growth.

Matt Berglass, President of Berglass+Associates commented, "Like Aires Tech, we look to the future. We specialize in finding C-Suite talent that embrace the changes that today's consumer has accepted as normal. The CRO we find will be dedicated to building a brand that will resonate with both the customer and retailer. We're excited to be part of a program that will protect the consumer as their digital world expands."

Aires' CEO Dimitry Serov commented, "We are constantly looking for the most effective way to continue growing our Company's success and working with Berglass Associates in order to attract word class talent to our team is a very exciting strategy which we are employing in service of that goal. This new partnership will bring in the expertise which is required to quickly and effectively improve the Company's marketing strategies and sales throughout the course of 2021 and beyond."

The contract terms are as follows:

Aires has entered into an agreement with Berglass Associates, LLC ("Berglass") with respect to finding a Chief Revenue Officer for the Company (the "Berglass Agreement"). The agreement is exclusive during the minimum term of six months, after which Aires can cancel with 30 days written notice.

About American Aires Inc.

American Aires Inc. ("Aires") is Canadian-based nanotechnology company which has developed proprietary silicon-based microprocessors that reduce the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR). The technology was developed by a team of highly credited scientists and confirmed by independent third-party validation including peer reviewed studies and publications in scientific journals. Aires' Lifetune products specifically target EMR emitted by consumer electronic devices such as cellphones, computers, baby monitors, Wi-Fi radiation, including the rapidly expanding next-generation high-speed 5G networks. Aires is listed on the CSE under ticker 'WIFI'. Learn more at www.airestech.com .

On behalf of the board of directors

Company Contact:

Dimitry Serov, CEO

Email: dimitry@airestech.com

Telephone: (905) 482-4667

Website: www.airestech.com

For further information please contact:

Investor Cubed Inc.:

Neil Simon, CEO

Email: wifi@airestech.com

Telephone: (647) 258-3310

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements may be discussed in this news release and the Company's annual and quarterly management's discussion and analysis filed at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws.

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release. The Shares have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States, or to or for the account or benefit of any person in the United States, absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any common shares in the United States, or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. We seek safe harbour.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Not intended for distribution to United States Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States. Any failure to comply with this restriction may constitute a violation of United States Securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76481
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print.

Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition.

If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create.
The Organization for (IOM) on Monday said that 100 have been rescued off the Libyan coast over the past week.

These migrants were intercepted at sea and returned to on March 2-8, said IOM.

A total of 4,129 illegal migrants, including 293 women and 224 children, have been rescued and returned to so far this year, it said.

The organization also noted that 34 have died and 160 others have gone missing on the Central Mediterranean route so far this year.

According to IOM, 323 migrants died and 417 others went missing on the Central Mediterranean route in 2020, while 11,891 were rescued and returned to

Due to the insecurity and chaos in the North African nation following the fall of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Africans, chose to cross the Mediterranean from Libya towards Europe.

Many illegal migrants were either rescued at sea or arrested by the authorities, and detained inside overcrowded reception centers in Libya, despite repeated calls for closing those centers.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
YEREVAN, MARCH 9, ARMENPRESS. The prosecutors office says they dont have any information about UNICEF Representative to Armenia Marianne Clark-Hattingh's alleged espionage for Azerbaijan while in office.

However, the prosecution said they are looking into the allegations.

A spokesperson for the general prosecution told ARMENPRESS that they dont have ground to initiate criminal proceedings yet.

The authors of these [allegations] reports, in case they possess information containing certainty and specificity, must turn over this information to law enforcement agencies. The prosecution is studing these reports, spokesperson Arevik Khachatryan said.

Marianne Clark-Hattingh's duties as UNICEFs Representative to Armenia were terminated by the Armenian Government due to failures in implementing her mandate and uncooperative conduct.

However, some news outlets began reporting that the real reason of her ousting is that Armenian authorities revealed that she was involved in espionage and collected intelligence for the governments of Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
New Delhi, March 9 : More than 58 per cent of the companies are keen on increasing their apprenticeship hiring, indicating positive momentum in the apprenticeship eco-system in the country, a report said on Tuesday.

According to TeamLease Skills University that surveyed 600 companies, the travel and hospitality as well as beauty and wellness, which were at -10 per cent and -5 per cent point, respectively, in the first half of last year, have made a remarkable turnaround.

The net apprenticeship outlook for travel and hospitality as well as beauty and wellness have grown by 34 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively.

While manufacturing with 55 per cent, automobiles and ancillaries with 51 per cent and retail with 48 per cent are the leaders.

"Apprentice hiring has embarked on a very positive trajectory in the last couple of years as more employers are realising the merit of the apprenticeship model to build a robust pipeline of employable talent," Sumit Kumar, Vice President-NETAP, TeamLease Skill University, said in a statement.

"In fact, from 2018 to now, we have seen a 2.5 per cent year-over-year (y-o-y) increase in employers who are willing to increase their apprentice intake," Kumar added.

The findings also indicates a positive scenario for women apprentices.

Overall, the preference for women apprentices has increased by 10 per cent (y-o-y), especially in sectors like agriculture, where inclination to hire women candidates has increased by 40 per cent.

Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata are showing most welcoming towards female candidates compared to other cities, the report noted.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of Armenia has published new evidence from the speech of the president of Azerbaijan as a manifestation of Armenophobia.

The ombudsman's respective statement reads:

These are segments from the speech of the 7th Congress of the New Azerbaijan party of the President of Azerbaijan. This presentation simply begs these questions: who, after all, is speaking in fascism language; and, how will there be peace under these conditions when the President of the country (Azerbaijan) proudly emphasizes that an entire generation has grown up with hatred towards Armenia and its population.

The younger generation has grown up with (...) hatred for the enemy, and this young generation has liberated our lands from the invaders.

Armenia is in an isolated state today, while we are building relations with all our neighbors very effectively, based on friendship and good neighborliness. This was also a kind of preparation. I want to say frankly that if preparatory work had not been done in this area, then we could have faced difficulties in the second Karabakh [(Artsakh)] war. Armenia has isolated itself. In other words, we isolated it from regional projects, from oil and gas projects, ruined their economy, and we can say with a sense of pride that we are the main factor here, as any independent economic expert can confirm. We exposed Armenia as an ambivalent and unstable country with no future. Demographic problems arose, which in itself led to shrinking of the economy.

Today Armenia shies away from cooperation, attempts to hamper the implementation of the Zangazur corridor. But they will fail. We will make them. We will force them. We will achieve our goals, just as we drove them out of our lands.

Armenias Human Rights Defender expresses their thankfulness to Mr. Ruben Melkonyan, the Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies and to Ms. Mariam Melkonyan, a lecturer at the same faculty for their highly professional assistance in analyses and interpretation of relevant materials.
Christian Rudolph Wins the partypoker MILLIONS Online High Roller ($230,258)

March 09 2021 Jason Glatzer

The MILLIONS Online is almost a wrap at partypoker with one event to go.

Yesterday witnessed Christian Rudolph and David Yan win big after the duo agreed to a heads-up deal in the MILLIONS Online #26 $10,300 High Roller for approximately $230K each with Rudolph crowned the champion.

Meanwhile, the MILLIONS Online #28 Mega High Roller boasted an even bigger buy-in of $102,000. Florian Loehnert is in the captain's seat with more than half the chips in play with six players remaining.

Read on to learn more about the biggest recent events in the MILLIONS Online at partypoker.

Head to the NEW partypoker Hub Want to stay up-to-date on all the latest partypoker news right here on PokerNews? Why not try out the new partypoker Hub! Find Out More

Christian Rudolph Win the MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller ($230,258)

The MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller was a two-day event that attracted some of the biggest names in poker thanks to the event's huge $1 million guarantee for a $10,300 buy-in.

The guarantee was crushed with 116 entrants coming out in full force on Day 1 to generate a $1,160,000 prize pool.

The first day concluded with the field down to 20 players with all returning players guaranteed at least a min-cash of $20,351. The final table was reached after Ivan Zufic and Daniel Dvoress were eliminated in eighth and ninth place for a $34,490 payout.

The final table was loaded with poker superstars. Justin Bonomo (third - $130,538), Christoph Vogelsang (fourth - $89,742), Day 1 chip leader Juan Pardo Dominguez (fifth - $65,845), partypoker Ambassador Mikita Badziakouski (sixth - $51,284), and Marius Gierse all hit the rail leaving Christian Rudolph and David Yan left facing off for the title.

Rudolph and Yan agreed to a heads-up deal with both players banking approximately $230K for their efforts. Rudolph was crowned the winner to add another amazing achievement to his already impressive poker resume.

partypoker Ambassador Mikita Badziakouski finished in sixth place.

MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller Final Table Results

Place Player Country Prize 1 Christian Rudolph Austria $230,258* 2 David Yan New Zealand $229,664* 3 Justin Bonomo Canada $130,538 4 Christoph Vogelsang United Kingdom $89,472 5 Juan Pardo Dominguez United Kingdom $65,845 6 Mikita Badziakouski Slovenia $51,284 7 Marius Gierse Austria $41,484

*Reflects heads-up deal.*

Florian Loehnert Commands Massive Lead with Six Remaining in MILLIONS Online #28 Mega High Roller

The MILLIONS Online #28 Mega High Roller boasted a massive $102,000 buy-in along with a $3 million guarantee. The final prize pool increased to $3.5 million with 35 entrants getting into the action during yesterday's Day 1.

After slightly more than 7 1/2 hours of play on Day 1, the field was trimmed down to just six hopefuls, each guaranteed a payout of $222,785 with their eyes on the huge $1,310,715 top prize.

Tonight's final table will kick off at 7:15 p.m. GMT (2:15 EST) with Florian Loehnert well in command with a huge stack of 18,264,000 in chips for more than half the chips in play.

Closest behind Loehnert but still miles away are Michael Addamo (6,012,230), Artur Martirosian (4,711,496), and Jake Schindler (2,327,000).

Meanwhile, two players that were at the final table in the MILLIONS Online High Roller yesterday will be at another big final table today. partypoker Ambassador Mikita Badziakouski, who finished sixth in the High Roller will enter this final table with a fifth-place chip stack of 1,960,918, while Christoph Vogelsang, who finished fourth in the High Roller currently has the shortest stack in the Mega High Roller with 1,723,754 in chips.

Blinds will begin at 50,000/100,000 with a 12,500 ante and increase slowly at every 25 minutes for the first two blind levels before increasing an even slower 30 minutes per level after that. Expect tons of exciting action with the average stack of the six final table players still pretty high at 58 big blinds per player.

MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller Final Table Chip Counts

Place Player Country Chips Big Blinds 1 Florian Loehnert Austria 18,264,200 183 2 Michael Addamo United Kingdom 6,012,230 60 3 Artur Martirosian Russia 4,711,496 47 4 Jacob Carl Schindler Mexico 2,327,402 23 5 Mikita Badziakouski Slovenia 1,960,918 20 6 Christoph Vogelsang Austria 1,723,754 17 Total 35,000,000 350 Average 5,833,333 58

MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller Final Table Payouts

Place Prize 1 $1,310,715 2 $805,000 3 $525,000 4 $364,000 5 $269,500 6 $222,785

Download parytpoker via PokerNews

The MILLIONS Online is just one of many amazing poker festivals hosted at partypoker throughout the year with the WPT500 and Irish Open up next.

Need an account?

Simply, download partypoker via PokerNews to snag yourself an amazing welcome package.

Deposit at least 10 to receive 40 in tickets over the course of a week:
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  President Rodrigo Duterte fires back again on Vice President Leni Robredo on her statements about the China-made Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.

Duterte expounded that Robredo is creating uncertainty and doubt among people about the effectiveness of Sinovac, the first COVID-19 vaccine brand to arrive in the country last February 28. An initial batch of 600,000 doses donated by the Chinese government and military arrived on that day.

"Instead of helping, the Vice President muddled up everything, thereby I said creating uncertainty and doubt in the minds of the people. I hope next time, if she has nothing good to say, she should just maybe shut up I did not get irritated. I got angry at you because I said, what is this? Time is running out to convince people," said Duterte.

The President responded to the Vice President's remark in an online show interview where she said Duterte was short-tempered. It was Robredo's response to Duterte's comment on his public address last week that she should "bring a basket" and shop for vaccines.

Duterte got irked by Robredo's backing of some health workers who pleaded to the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) to review the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.

HTAC was created under the Universal Health Care Law to review the cost and ethical and community impact of health technologies that will be introduced to the public. Included for review are medicines, vaccines, and health devices.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, who co-authored the law, clarified that under the measure, the health technology assessment process is only recommendatory to the Department of Health and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said the country is expected to receive one million more doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine by the end of March. The Philippine government reached an agreement with Sinovac to secure 25 million doses of the product. The government will request for two million doses by April and three million doses by May.
Student loan scammers have a brand-new hook: Biden student loan forgiveness or stimulus forgiveness.

Behind the pitch is the same old fraudster playbook, one that persuades federal student loan borrowers to pay for services they could get for free or to share personal account information in exchange for forgiveness.

The extended pause on federal student loan payments and revived talk in Congress of debt forgiveness make such deceptions easier to believe.

Debt relief scams proliferate when there is a large amount of financial suffering or a lot of confusion, and we have both going on right now, says Persis Yu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center and director of its Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.

To be clear, there is no new broad-based loan forgiveness program available beyond the existing, often difficult-to-get options, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness or Borrower Defense to Repayment. Theres also no application or fee necessary to receive the federal student loan payment pause thats been in effect since March 13, 2020, and will continue through Sept. 30, 2021.

About that stimulus forgiveness

Its safe to dismiss any out-of-the-blue offer to discharge debt, consolidate loans or alter your repayment plan as a scam.

There isnt a person or entity on the planet who can get you a better deal on your student loan or access a program that you cant get yourself by working directly with your servicer, says Betsy Mayotte, president and founder of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors.

Mayotte says shes seen an uptick in complaints from borrowers about Biden relief and COVID-19 relief student loan scams.

In one instance, a borrower sent Mayotte the transcript of a fraudulent voicemail making an enticing offer: It looks like your student loan has been flagged eligible for the recent stimulus forgiveness and relief legislation, however, your application needs to be completed.

The caller sounded legit (she provided a name and an agent ID number) and expressed urgency to call back on a dedicated eligibility line. Then the caller further emphasized time sensitivity, saying the discharge would be first come, first served.

Whats interesting is that this number came in as a D.C. number, which Im sure just adds credibility to their scam, Mayotte says.

Borrowers should continue to be on guard as student loan scams proliferate, largely due to the whack-a-mole effect: As soon as one company is shut down, another pops up in its place, says Michelle Grajales, staff attorney with the Federal Trade Commissions Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Red flags to watch for

The maxim If it sounds too good to be true, it is goes hand in hand with spotting scams.

But the most effective ones often mix fact and fiction, Grajales says. Tactics like using of-the-moment phrases or claiming to work for the federal government make false promises more appealing to financially vulnerable people.

Theyve heard something about loan forgiveness, Grajales says. Theyve heard something about the CARES Act. Scammers try to sound legitimate by throwing in words that are very much in the public ear.

The basic structure of student loan scams has remained the same for years, Yu says: Companies promise some kind of forgiveness in a short period of time, charge and pocket a large upfront fee, then get access to a borrowers account to consolidate their debt and enroll them in an income-driven repayment plan.

If they even do something (with the debt), thats what they tend to do, or they just take the borrowers money, Yu says.

Experts say its critical to avoid handing over cash upfront or your Federal Student Aid identification information, or FSA ID, which allows fraudsters to act on your behalf.

What theyre doing is inserting themselves between you and your servicer, says Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. Oftentimes theyll change your mailing address, email address so all the servicer communication will go to these scam artists. Then when they dont do what theyre supposed to do, you wont know until its too late.

Use caution if a company expresses urgency to apply now or offers to provide a service you could do yourself, such as enrolling in income-driven repayment or applying for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

When in doubt, contact your servicer directly using a phone number on its website  not a number given to you by a third party.

What to do if youve been scammed

If you were conned, remember that youre not the first student loan borrower whos been victim to predatory tactics.

It has nothing to do with how smart you are; it has more to do with how good they are at their swindle and how vulnerable you are at the time that they reach you, Mayotte says.

Regaining control of your account is the most important first step to take if it happens, experts say. Heres how:

Sever all ties with the scammer.

Contact your servicer to report the account breach. You may need to request a new FSA ID.

Check the contact information on your account and make sure all ongoing correspondence goes to you.

Contact your bank to stop any automatic payments to the scammer.

Freeze your credit.

Seek legal assistance for help recovering any money.

Report the scam to enforcement agencies.

How to complain about a scam

You can, and should, report any scam correspondence to multiple sources. The more complaints these agencies receive, the more ammunition theyll have to pursue legal action against fraudsters. Scams can be reported to and are tracked by:

Your federal student loan servicer.

The Federal Trade Commission

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Your state attorney generals office.

The U.S. Department of Educations FSA Feedback Center

More From NerdWallet

Anna Helhoski writes for NerdWallet. Email: anna@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @AnnaHelhoski.

The article If a Stranger Offers You Student Loan Forgiveness, Hang Up originally appeared on NerdWallet.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
The COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech was able to neutralize a new variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly in Brazil, according to a laboratory study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday.

Blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine neutralized an engineered version of the virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the highly contagious P.1 variant first identified in Brazil, the study found.

Scientists from Pfizer, its partner BioNTech and the University of Texas Medical Branch said the neutralizing ability was roughly equivalent the vaccine's effect on a previous, less contagious version of the virus from last year.

It's reason for a global sight of relief after early evidence suggested that vaccines were weakened by the new variant, as well as by another variant from South Africa.

The spike, used by the virus to enter human cells, is the primary target of many COVID-19 vaccines.

The study found the neutralizing antibodies still binded sufficiently to the P1 variant (orange) that emerged in Brazil

In previously published studies, Pfizer had found that its vaccine neutralized other more contagious variants first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa, although the South African variant may reduce protective antibodies elicited by the vaccine.

Pfizer has said it believes its current vaccine is highly likely to still protect against the South African variant.

However, the drugmaker is planning to test a third booster dose of their vaccine as well as a version retooled specifically to combat the variant in order to better understand the immune response.

Moderna has already shipped its booster candidate to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for clinical trials to begin.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have said they think their booster candidates could be ready to ship by late 2021 or early 2022.

But the intervening months are a critical time for vaccine distribution - especially as states begin to reopen against expert advice.

Public officials including CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky and Dr Anthony Fauci are concerned that variants could lead to a fourth surge of COVID-19 cases in the US.

There are now more than 3,000 cases of the more infectious B117 strain from the UK in 49 states and territories.

South Africa's B1351 variant has infected at least 81 people in 20 jurisdictions.

And the Brazilian variant that reinfected people in the Amazonian city of Manaus has now been identified as the cause of 15 cases in nine states.

Scientists are imminently concerned that the UK's B117 variant is going to become dominant this month.

'That strain is increasing exponentially. It's spiking up,' Dr Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases specialist and epidemiologist at NYU Langone told CNN.

His warnings come on the heels of a new report that revealed 10 US states have seen more than one in 500 of their residents die from COVID-19, a new report has revealed.

However all three vaccines authorized in the US appear to be about equally effective against the variant.

That was more tenuous for the Brazilian and South African variants.

And there were festering fears that vaccines would be rendered less effective against these mutants.

So far, 46.8 million doses of Pfizer's shot have been administered in the US. Nearly 16.9 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

The new study is promising evidence that they'll be protected against any variant that tries to infect them.
Parents of pre-school children are among the most suspicious of Covid jabs, according to official figures.

About one in six will reject a jab or have doubts, double the number among non- parents or the parents of older children.

The Office for National Statistics said suspicion of the vaccine was high among the under-30s and 16 per cent of parents of children under five were considered hesitant.

Britons under 30 are expected to be offered inoculation by the end of July.

About one in six parents of pre-school children will reject a coronavirus jab or have doubts, the ONS has found. (Stock image)

Officials are working to boost vaccination rates among ethnic minority groups and in poor areas but have yet to act against hesitancy among young people and parents.

The ONS report, based on large-scale surveys taken last month, also found that 44 per cent of black people were unlikely to accept the jabs or were uncertain. Among Asians, 16 per cent showed hesitancy.

People will be sent vaccine invites by text from today, as the NHS looks to target younger age groups.

Almost 400,000 people aged 55 and over, as well as 40,000 unpaid carers, will be the first to get a text alert inviting them to book a slot as part of the latest development in the NHS vaccination programme.

The messages will include a web link, allowing people to click and reserve an appointment at one of more than 300 large-scale vaccination centres or pharmacies across England.

The ONS said 16 per cent of parents of children under five were considered hesitant. Pictured: Injections are prepared at the Darlington Arena Vaccination Centre

The messages will include a web link, allowing people to click and reserve an appointment at one of more than 300 large-scale vaccination centres or pharmacies across England.

Reminders will also be sent 2-3 weeks after the original alert to encourage people to get their vaccine if they have not taken up the offer.

Officials hope the text messages, which people will receive ahead of letters in the post, could also be used to fill spare appointments quickly, minimising wastage and increasing uptake if there is surge in vaccine supplies.

People will continue to receive letters inviting them to book an appointment as well as a text alert, to ensure that people who don't have a number registered or need information in different languages or formats don't miss out.
Joachim Low will step down from his role as Germany manager following Euro 2020 after asking to end his contract early, the German Football Association has announced.

Low, 61, took over from Jurgen Klinsmann in August 2006 and went on to guide Die Mannschaft to World Cup success in 2014, when they memorably defeated hosts Brazil 71 in the semi-finals.

Germany reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016, losing to hosts France, but then suffered an exit at the group stage of the World Cup for the first time in 2018 while also failing to impress in the inaugural UEFA Nations League campaign.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Low, who was assistant to Klinsmann from 2004, had been contracted until the 2022 World Cup, but approached the German Football Association (DFB) to request an early departure following the conclusion of this summers delayed tournament.

I take this step very consciously, full of pride and enormous gratitude, but at the same time continue to be very motivated when it comes to the upcoming European Championship, Low said on www.dfb.de.

Proud because it is something very special and an honour for me to be involved with my country and because I have been able to work with the best footballers in the country for almost 17 years and support them in their development.

I have great triumphs with them and painful defeats, but above all many wonderful and magical moments  not just winning the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

I am and will remain grateful to the DFB, which has always provided me and the team with an ideal working environment.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Germany are in Group F at Euro 2020, where they will face fellow heavyweights France and Portugal as well as Hungary, with all their matches set for the Allianz Arena in Munich.

Low has his sights set on leaving the job on a high.

I still feel the unconditional will as well as great energy and ambition for the upcoming European Championship, he said.

I will do my best to make our fans happy and successful at this tournament. I also know that this applies to the entire team.

Story continues

DFB president Fritz Keller paid tribute to Low.

The DFB knows what it has in Jogi, he is one of the greatest coaches in world football, Keller said.

Jogi Low has shaped German football like barely anyone else for years and helped it achieve the highest international standing. Not only because of his sporting achievements, but also because of his empathy and humanity.

The fact that he informed us about his decision at an early stage is very decent.

He gives us at the DFB the necessary time to name his successor, calmly and with a sense of proportion.

Joachim Low will leave the DFB on good terms (Brian Lawless/PA)

DFB national teams director Oliver Bierhoff, who was part of the Germany side which won Euro 96 in England, hailed the special relationship between the governing body and head coach.

Under Jogi, the national team once again stood for the joy of playing and attractive attacking football, the former striker said.

This team and its players have developed incredibly with him. I regret that our professional paths will separate after the Euros.

I know that Jogis full concentration and energy in the next weeks and months will only be used to prepare for the European Championship and we will continue to have a big common goal in the summer.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

RB Leipzig coach Julian Nagelsmann was quick to definitively ruled himself out of the running to be Lows successor.

Nagelsmann also felt Wednesday nights Champions League opponents Liverpool and manager Jurgen Klopp would be intent on continuing their successful relationship.

Asked whether he would consider himself as a candidate, Nagelsmanns response was a quick and sharp: No.

On Klopp, he added: We have an important match tomorrow and frankly I dont really care right now who will be the national coach so I dont want to answer that.

Klopp is an exceptional coach but I think Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp are content with their partnership. You should ask Jurgen.

The DFB will think about this question, it is not for me to answer this question.
BOSTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund (NYSE: EVG) (the "Fund") today announced that its Board of Trustees (the "Board") has taken the actions described below.

Conditional Tender Offer. The Board has authorized a conditional cash tender offer for up to 25% of the Fund's outstanding common shares at a price per share equal to 99% of the Fund's net asset value per share as of the close of regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the date the tender offer expires. The tender offer is conditioned on shareholder approval of a new investment advisory agreement with Eaton Vance Management ("EVM"), the Fund's investment adviser, at the upcoming special meeting of shareholders discussed below.

Additional terms and conditions of the tender offer will be set forth in the associated Fund offering materials and additional press releases, as applicable. If the number of shares tendered in the tender offer exceeds the maximum amount of the tender offer, the Fund will purchase shares from tendering shareholders on a pro rata basis (disregarding fractional shares). Accordingly, there is no assurance that the Fund will purchase all of a shareholder's tendered common shares in the tender offer. The Fund may determine not to accept shares tendered in the tender offer under various circumstances, as will be set forth in the offering materials.

Conditional Distribution Rate Increase. The Fund also announced today that, if shareholders approve the new investment advisory agreement at the upcoming special meeting of shareholders discussed below, it will increase its regular monthly distribution on common shares to an annual rate equal to 10 percent of the Fund's then-current net asset value ($0.109 per share as of March 2, 2021), representing an increase of approximately 45 percent from the March 2021 distribution of $0.075 per share. The distribution increase will commence with the first monthly distribution announced following shareholder approval of the new investment advisory agreement. By raising the Fund's regular monthly distribution, the Board seeks to enhance long-term shareholder value.

The Fund's distributions may include amounts from sources other than net investment income. When that is the case, shareholders will be notified. The final determination of the tax character of Fund distributions will occur after the end of each calendar year, at which time that determination will be reported to shareholders. The Fund's distributions in any period may be more or less than the net return earned by the Fund on its investments, and therefore should not be used as a measure of performance or confused with "yield" or "income." Distributions in excess of Fund returns will cause the Fund's net assets and net asset value per share to erode. For the fiscal year beginning on November 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021, the Fund has distributed $0.30 per share, 73.5 percent of which is estimated to be sourced from ordinary income and 26.5 percent of which is estimated to be return of capital. If the Fund had adopted the conditional distribution rate increase on November 1, 2020 and the condition described above has been satisfied, its distributions for the fiscal year to date through February 28, 2021 on a pro forma basis would have been approximately $0.454 per share, an estimated 48.6 percent of which would have been sourced from ordinary income and an estimated 51.4 percent from return of capital. Investors should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of its distributions.

Fund distributions may be affected by numerous factors, including changes in Fund performance, the cost of leverage, portfolio holdings, realized and projected returns, and other factors. There can be no assurance that future Board action, an unanticipated change in market conditions or other unforeseen factors will not result in a change in the Fund's distributions at a future time.

Upcoming Special Shareholder Meeting. The Fund also announced today that its Board has set a record date of March 19, 2021 for determining those shareholders entitled to notice of, and the right to vote at, a special meeting of shareholders to be held on May 7, 2021 and any adjournment or postponement thereof. At the meeting, shareholders will be asked to approve a new investment advisory agreement for the Fund with EVM.

As previously disclosed, the Board approved an interim investment advisory agreement with EVM (the "Interim Agreement"), which took effect upon completion of the acquisition of Eaton Vance Corp. by Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) on March 1, 2021. The Interim Agreement allows EVM to continue to manage the Fund for up to an additional 150 days to provide more time for proxy solicitation and the Board's consideration of different options for the Fund. The terms of the Interim Agreement are substantially identical to those of the Fund's prior investment advisory agreement except for term and escrow provisions required by applicable law.

The Fund intends to file a definitive proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). Shareholders are advised to read the proxy statement when available, as it will contain important information. When filed with the SEC, the proxy statement and other documents filed by the Fund will be available free of charge on the SEC website, www.sec.gov. Copies of the proxy statement will also be mailed to each shareholder of record as of March 19, 2021.

Eaton Vance Corp. was acquired by Morgan Stanley on March 1, 2021. Its Eaton Vance Management, Parametric, Atlanta Capital and Calvert investment affiliates are now part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the asset management division of Morgan Stanley.

About the Fund

Except pursuant to a tender offer, common shares of the Fund are available for purchase or sale only through secondary market trading at their current market price. Shares of closed-end funds (such as the Fund) often trade at a discount from their net asset value. The market price of a closed-end fund's shares may vary from net asset value based on factors affecting the supply and demand for shares, such as fund distribution rates relative to similar investments, investors' expectations for future distribution changes, the clarity of a fund's investment strategy and future return expectations, and investors' confidence in the underlying markets in which the fund invests. Fund shares are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal invested. Shares of the Fund are not FDIC-insured and are not deposits or other obligations of, or guaranteed by, any bank. The Fund is not a complete investment program and you may lose money investing in the Fund. An investment in the Fund may not be appropriate for all investors. Before investing, prospective investors should consider carefully the Fund's investment objective, risks, charges and expenses.

This announcement is not a recommendation, an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of the Fund. The Fund has not commenced the conditional tender offer described in this release. The tender offer will be made only if the condition described above is satisfied, and only by an offer to purchase, a related letter of transmittal and other documents filed with the SEC as exhibits to a tender offer statement on Schedule TO, with all such documents available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. For the tender offer, the Fund will also make available to shareholders without charge the offer to purchase and the letter of transmittal. Shareholders should read these documents carefully, as they would contain important information about the tender offer.

Shares of closed-end funds often trade at a discount from their net asset value. The market price of Fund shares may vary from net asset value based on factors affecting the supply and demand for shares, such as Fund distribution rates relative to similar investments, investors' expectations for future distribution changes, the clarity of the Fund's investment strategy and future return expectations, and investors' confidence in the underlying markets in which the Fund invests. Fund shares are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal invested. No Fund is a complete investment program and you may lose money investing in a Fund. An investment in a Fund may not be appropriate for all investors. Before investing, prospective investors should consider carefully the Fund's investment objective, risks, charges and expenses.

This press release is for informational purposes only and is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer to purchase or sell shares of the Fund. Additional information about the Fund, including performance and portfolio characteristic information, is available at www.eatonvance.com.

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements as defined by the U.S. securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors that may be beyond the Fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Eaton Vance Management

Related Links

http://www.eatonvance.com


You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
A MOTHER-of-four has been jailed for two months for stealing a bottle of wine from a supermarket.

Rita Cox (39) made no attempt to disguise herself and was "easily" identified on security footage, a court heard.

Cox, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to stealing a 15 bottle of wine from Spar, Grand Canal Street Lower.

Dublin District Court heard the theft was reported last May 21.

A garda told Judge Brian O'Shea that Cox took the bottle at 8pm and passed all points of payment. She was seen on CCTV and charged.

The accused had previous convictions for theft and other offences.

A probation report was before the court, and defence solicitor Brian Coveney said it was accepted this was "not overly positive".

Cox had a history of mental health issues, Mr Coveney said.

Judge O'Shea said the case had been before the court seven times and the accused was given every opportunity to engage with the probation service.

It was "a pity" Cox had not seen fit to engage with the service, he said.

"It's not all about her," the judge said, imposing sentence.




On Sunday, security forces stormed Yangon General Hospital and universities in Mandalay. I think they are trying to prepare for a brutal war against the people, a security guard at Mandalay Technological University said. The abbot of the Mahamuni Buddha Temple in Mandalay said that soldiers had taken over the pagodas grounds for a month.

The Tatmadaw, as the military is known, also revoked licenses from five independent media organizations on Monday, a severe blow to the countrys vibrant free press that could make the very act of reporting illegal.

More deaths: Three protesters were killed Monday as a general strike shut down workplaces across the country. More than 60 people have been killed since the coup, and about 1,800 have been detained.
Langley City, Canada , March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DJ Design Einstein Inc., a leading interior design firm in Vancouver, Canada, announces its online Feng Shui webinar on March 7, 2021. The whole-day seminar with Feng Shui master and interior designer Deepak Jayakar will cover design tips that enervate the flow of good luck in homes and businesses.

More details can be found at https://djdesigneinstein.com/feng-shui-astrology-for-2021-year-of-the-metal-ox

Unlike other Feng Shui classes, Jayakar talks about the practice from a logical and practical perspective. Having studied Feng Shui for 25 years, Jayakar has mastered combining traditional energy-promoting arts with modern sensibilities, meaning that his lessons can be easily incorporated into North American homes.

Energies change every year, and every day; knowing their location, structure, and flow, the space can be purposefully designed and arranged to tap and turn the beneficial energies in favor of the occupants.

Architecture and Interior Design, when employed as a means of embodying principles of universal harmony can sustain, rather than drain the occupants, so that the home becomes heaven, and the work-place supports creativity and productivity.

Feng Shui is a traditional Chinese philosophy stating that everything, including how the furniture is arranged in a home, is energy. When there are blockages to that energy, individuals become more prone to sickness, disease, and bad luck. The goal of Feng Shui then is to rearrange a living space to create balance and promote a better flow of energy.

Design Einstein is a reliable source of authentic Feng Shui in the greater Vancouver area. The agency is led by Jayakar, whose techniques have been certified from three different well-recognized Feng Shui schools. Jayakar and his team are awarded for combing theoretical understanding with practical applications.

Deepak Jayakar aka Design Einstein has developed and created the unique way to perfectly blend both Feng Shui and Interior Design into crafting a space that is not just only beautiful, functional and practical but also auspicious and lucky in all areas of life.

Jayakar advocates the philosophy, When your life, home, and office is aligned with the Cosmic Energies, you enjoy all that Universe has to offer!

During the webinar, Jayakar will share Feng Shui secrets that are not available on popular search engines. In particular, he will talk about specific strategies to use to attract good fortune for the new lunar year of the Ox.

Jayakar will also be discussing how each Zodiac sign will fare for the year and tips on improving luck both for career and love. Other topics of discussion include annual taboos to avoid. According to Jayakar, seemingly inconsequential design choices may have an impact on energy flow and balance.

The webinar includes a simple guide that participants can download and study at home.

This insightful seminar that happens only once a year and personally conducted by Feng Shui Master Deepak Jayakar who shares Feng Shui secrets generously that will be responsible for your life transformation, writes Design Einstein.

Interested parties can find more information at https://djdesigneinstein.com

Contact Info:

Name: Deepak Jayakar

Email: Send Email

Organization: DJ Design Einstein Inc.

Address: 20033 70 Avenue, Langley City, BC V2Y 3A2, Canada

Phone: +1-604-760-4858

Website: https://djdesigneinstein.com/




Aldi Ireland today announced details of its continued significant contribution to County Leitrims economy and the impact of its charity partnerships across the county.

In 2020, Aldi sourced 1M of locally produced food and drink from Leitrim based suppliers. Aldi partners and has long-term relationships with two Leitrim producers Jinnys Bakery & Tearooms and Dromod Boxty.

Aldi will boost its annual national spend on Irish food and drink by 17.5% in 2021 to 1BN, with further opportunities available to Leitrim suppliers. Operating one store in Leitrim, Aldi employs 32 full time staff, spending 1.3M on wages annually. It is seeking to recruit eight employees for its Leitrim store this year.

Aldis Leitrim store supports multiple charities across Leitrim at a local level. It is part of Aldis food waste reduction programme, having donated almost 37,000 meals through FoodCloud to local charities.

Aldis Leitrim store is also part of Aldis Community Grants network, with St. Josephs National School one of the many local charities that have availed of the 500 bursary grant in recent years.

Commenting Niall OConnor, Group Managing Director, Aldi Ireland said: Our goal is to make a positive impact in every local community that our stores serve. Our operations and store contribute to businesses, communities and families right across Leitrim.

We have invested 5M in our Leitrim store over the last number of years, while we sourced 1M of locally produced food and drink from Leitrim based suppliers last year. Multiple local charities have also availed of our support through our FoodCloud partnership and Community Grants initiative.
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Another Case Challenging Qualified Immunity for Police

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away another opportunity to review a widely debated legal doctrineknown as qualified immunitythat insulates police officers from civil liability for conduct required by the job.

The chance to review the Supreme Court-made doctrine was presented in a case where a Cleveland man sued two police officers who assaulted him while trying to enter his home in 2016. The officers, who wore plain clothes at the time, had mistaken the home as a vacant home in a high-crime neighborhood.

The high court denied a request (pdf) by the man, Shase Howse, to review the case after lower courts ruled in favor of the officers. The justices did not provide any comments to explain the decision in the case, which is cited as Shase Howse v. Thomas Hodous.

Howse, who was 20 at the time, said the officers approached him, told him that he was going to jail, and threw him on the ground during the incident. He said the officers then proceeded to assault him in the back of the neck. Howse maintains that he did nothing illegal and had done nothing to threaten the officer.

In his lawsuit, he alleged that the officers, who were sued in their individual and official capacities, had violated the Fourth Amendments prohibition against unreasonable seizure.

The district court ruled in favor of the two officers and a divided 6th Circuit Court affirmed the ruling. The majority on the appeals panel acknowledged Howses arguments but ruled that qualified immunity protected the officers conduct. In their analysis, the majority said that Howses attorneys failed to present a case where a court had ruled that an officer who acted under similar circumstances had violated the Fourth Amendment, in order to satisfy the doctrines clearly established rule.

Without such a case, the plaintiff will almost always lose, the judges wrote.

The full court of the 6th Circuit Court was also asked to review the case but declined to do so, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.

The qualified immunity doctrine insulates government officials from civil liability for conduct required by the job. It comes from the Supreme Courts interpretation of 42 U.S.C.  1983, commonly known as Section 1983, which provides a basis for people to sue state officials who violate a persons constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court has said that it is not enough to show that the rights are violated. Victims must also show that the action was clearly established, and if they fail, the official could be granted qualified immunity. The clearly established rule, which is seen to be problematic by critics of the doctrine, requires the party suing the official to show that the facts in their case were sufficiently similar to the facts in prior court cases.

Qualified immunity reentered the public consciousness amid protests last summer against police violence following George Floyds death. The debate of whether the doctrine should still be upheld as sacrosanct has reached a crescendo in recent months, with lawmakers taking action to abolish the concept completely.

Critics say the doctrine prevents officials from facing consequences for misconduct or abuse of power if their actions violate the U.S. Constitution but do not contravene a clearly established rule.

Proponents say the doctrine is important to allow government officials such as police officers to carry out their jobs with protection from undue interference and threats of liability. They also say it prevents frivolous or retaliatory lawsuits against officers.

This comes after the Supreme Court declined to hear a series of cases at the end of the last term that presented the justices with opportunities to reconsider the qualified immunity doctrine.

The courts decision wasnt entirely unanimous, with Justice Clarence Thomas, who has previously criticized the doctrine, writing in a dissent in one of the cases, Baxter v. Bracey (pdf), that he would have granted the petition to review the case. The Baxter case involves officers who released a police dog on a suspect to arrest him. In the process, the dog bit the suspect. The suspect alleged that he had already surrendered when the dog was released to arrest him.

I have previously expressed my doubts about our qualified immunity jurisprudence, Thomas wrote in his dissent. Because our Section 1983 qualified immunity doctrine appears to stray from the statutory text, I would grant this petition.

In his dissent, Thomas also commented on the clearly established rule, arguing that there likely is no basis for the objective inquiry into clearly established law that our modern cases prescribe.

Leading treatises from the second half of the 19th century and case law until the 1980s contain no support for this clearly established law test. Indeed, the Court adopted the test not because of general principles of tort immunities and defenses, but because of a balancing of competing values about litigation costs and efficiency, he wrote.

Legal experts had previously told The Epoch Times that they believe qualified immunity has routinely shielded those who are either incompetent and who knowingly violate the law.

Qualified immunity is a failureit is a failure as a matter of policy, it is a failure as a matter of law, and it is a failure as a matter of basic morality, Robert McNamara, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, previously told The Epoch Times.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trumps administration, which has been open to police reform, has criticized calls to eliminate qualified immunity. Trumps last Attorney General, William Barr, said that in situations in which an officer knowingly and willfully violates a well-established right, then it may be appropriate to hold the officer civilly liable. But he said qualified immunity is necessary to ensure police officers can do their job without fear.

Qualified immunity provides breathing space for officers to do their job without fear that an inadvertent or unpredictable error will subject them to personal financial ruin, Barr said in October last year. Without qualified immunity, individual officers would be deterred from taking the kinds of risky steps that are absolutely necessary to protect the community.
The new Ministers in President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's second tenure are on a 3-day retreat at Peduase in the Eastern Region.



The new appointees who were sworn into office on Friday night [March 5, 2021], moved into their first major strategy meeting with the President and the Vice President at the Peduase Lodge.



The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah is to address the press after the meeting.



The Minister is expected to give an update on the fight against the Coronavirus disease in Ghana and the budget statement expected to be read in Parliament this week.



President Akufo-Addo on his part will deliver a State of the Nation address in Parliament on Tuesday, March 9, 2021.

Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Further to its press releases of February 3 and February 12, 2021, iMining Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Inc. (TSXV: IMIN) (the "Company" or "iMining") provides an update on its proposed acquisition of CanETH Staking Services Inc. ("CanETH"), (the "Acquisition").

Private Placement

The Company advises it has closed its non-brokered private placement, raising $2,155,000 through the issuance of 17,240,000 subscription receipts ("Receipts") at a price of $0.125 per Receipt (the "Financing"). The gross proceeds of the Financing are held in escrow by the Company's counsel, Owen Bird Law Corporation, pending final acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") of the Financing and the Acquisition.

On closing, without payment of additional consideration, the holders of the Receipts will automatically receive units (the "Units"), each Unit comprised of one common share (a "Share") and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"), with each whole Warrant entitling the holder to purchase one Share at $0.245 for a period of two years following the closing date, provided that in the event the closing price of the iMining Shares is equal to or greater than $0.45 per Share for 20 consecutive trading days, the Company may, by notice to the Warrant holders (which notice may be by way of general news release), reduce the remaining exercise period of the Warrants to not less than 30 days following the date of such notice.

In the event the Acquisition does not receive TSXV acceptance, the Company will return the subscription funds to the holders of the Receipts, without interest or deduction.

Upon final TSXV acceptance, aggregate compensation of $142,625 and 1,141,000 finders' warrants (having the same general terms as the Warrants forming part of the Units) will be paid by the Company to Canaccord Genuity Corp., and First Republic Capital Corporation and their selling group as finders' fees and commissions for the portion of the Financing attributable to their efforts.

All securities issued in connection with the Financing are subject to a hold period of four months and one day in accordance with the rules and policies of the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities laws.

Acquisition

The Acquisition constitutes a fundamental acquisition under TSXV Policy 5.3. Trading of iMining's Shares on the TSXV has been halted pending a review of the proposed transaction by the TSXV. The Company has completed most of its due diligence review of CanETH, and based on documents filed with the TSXV, the Company expects its Shares will resume trading on the TSXV on Thursday, March 11, 2021.

Both the closing of the Acquisition and the Financing remain subject to final approval of the TSXV. There is no assurance the Acquisition will complete on the terms contemplated, or at all.

See news release dated February 3, 2021 for details on the business of CanETH and the terms and conditions of the Acquisition.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Signed "Robert Eadie"

Robert Eadie, Chief Executive Officer and Director

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Contact: Robert Eadie

Telephone: 1-604-602-4935 / Facsimile: 1-604-602-4936

Email: investor@imining.com

Website: www.imining.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76639
Drones and broadband will intersect as part of a pilot program in rural Wisconsin that will bring high-speed Internet to students at home.The program utilizes a new type of technology, produced by company Wisconsin Telelift, that can allow a drone to fly for extended periods of time. Essentially, a tethered drone will draw power from a generator on the ground. According to Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), this approach solves commercial drones' well-known limitation of very limited battery power."We now have this aircraft that has 160 pounds of lifting thrust, and we can fly it for 42 days," Wisconsin Telelift founder Scott Williams told WPR. "It's so advanced that people still believe it can't be done, even though we're doing it."Tethered drones will be outfitted so that they can extend the reach of cellphone tower Internet connections. The hope is that students who live within a 435-square-mile area in Northland Pines School District will eventually be able to access their school network at home thanks to the novel combination of multiple technologies. The solution will be tested starting this month."This isn't the holy grail of solutions that, boom, just solves it and now rural people will have Internet," Northland Pines Administrator Scott Foster told WPR. "But I do think it has a spot, and maybe it will point us in a direction of a better long-term solution for these really hard to meet areas."Foster added that the drones will probably fly at night and during snow days.The pilot program, which will last six months, was made possible by a $100,000 grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, as announced by Gov. Tony Evers. That amount was matched by developer Carl Ruedebusch's Eye on Entrepreneurs Network."The future is still these young kids, and we cant have them not having access to the Internet, Ruedebusch said. If this proves out, then its replicable in any school district.Foster told WSAW that about half of families in the district need improved Internet access. At least one-tenth of those families lack broadband altogether."[A]ccess to high-speed Internet is a necessity and critical to how we live, learn and work," Evers said in a release. "Its the key that opens the door to new opportunities for our students, our communities and our state, and will be vital to our state's economic bounce back. Thats why I declared 2021 the Year of Broadband Access and proposed the largest state investment in broadband ever, and I look forward to this creative and innovative pilot program to help some of our most rural students get connected.
NEW DELHI: MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is now married to Dan Jewett, a chemistry teacher from Seattle. He teaches at the private Lakeside School in Washington.

Jewett has been a teacher for decades and most recently taught chemistry at the private Lakeside School, where Scott's children attended. However, it remains unclear when Scott and Jewett tied the knot.

Although MacKenzie hasnt disclosed any details on the marriage, her husband Dan Jewett made the announcement on the website for Giving Pledge, the movement created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage wealthy people to donate to charity and other philanthropic causes.

Since MacKenzie is well-known for giving away her wealth to noble causes, Jewett feels inspired to do the same.

He wrote in the announcement note, "And now, in a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know -- and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others."

Scott has a net worth of USD 53 billion which makes her the third richest woman and the 22nd richest person in the world, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. According to reports, Scott donated almost USD 6 billion in 2020. She was listed as No. 2 among the 50 Americans who gave the most to charity last year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual rankings. However, not much is known about Dan Jewett's net worth. Bezos topped the list by donating USD 10 billion to launch the Bezos Earth Fund.

Dan and MacKenzie pledge to give away majority of wealth to philanthropy

"I have seen many ways that MacKenzie has seen her efforts enhanced when she acts on the belief that those with common values but different perspectives, strengths, and experiences are essential to effecting positive change," Jewett wrote in the website post.

He further explained how excited he is to join Scott in philanthropic endeavours. He wrote, "We are united in that understanding and in our excitement for all we have to learn from so many people working in service of others. With that as a foundation, I join with the kindest and most thoughtful person I know in making this pledge, grateful for the exceptional privilege it will be to partner in giving away assets with the potential to do so much good when shared."

Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos and Scott divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage. Bezos was asked to make a USD 38 billion divorce settlement to Scott in the form of Amazon shares.
UNESCO celebrates 1,750th anniversary of Iran's Gundi-Shapur University

03/09/21

Source: Tehran Times

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azulay has expressed delight over the 1,750th anniversary of the University of Gundi-Shapur, which has long been a major forum for science. "Since its creation, this university, the intellectual capital of the Sassanid Empire, has been a major center for producing knowledge, a truly universal forum for science. It is this idea that we celebrate today," Azoulay said in a written message, addressing the 3rd international congress on Gundi-Shapur, which opens Tuesday morning in Tehran.

The history of science in Gundi Shapur, which its origin dates far back in time, and its impact on the world are among the topics which are to be discussed in the two-day congress, according to organizers.

"This fundamental principle echoes the motto inscribed at the entrance of the University of Gundi-Shapur in Iran, 1,750 years ago: Science and knowledge, virtue and wisdom, are more important than force and sword," Azulay said.

"Indeed, the university has played a crucial role in Iran's historical excellence in science. In ancient times, Persia was a center for scientific achievement and a conduit of knowledge - from China and India in the East, to Greece and Rome in the West."

Moreover, the general director of the UN body reminded that the Islamic Republic is one key partner of UNESCO in knowledge and science.

"Today, in keeping with this heritage, Iran is one of UNESCO's key partners in knowledge and science. The country hosts 8 Category II Centres and 11 UNESCO Chairs in the science field. It is also home to 13 Biosphere Reserves - one of the highest numbers among Member States."

This great tradition of promoting peace and prosperity through science, knowledge, and culture is central to UNESCO's role. It is also more precious than ever, as the international community faces new challenges: climate change, biodiversity collapse, technological disruptions, widening inequalities, she added.

Azoulay noted that all such challenges call for the contributions of researchers, academics, inventors - the universal republic of knowledge "that we are celebrating today".

"These challenges have been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Humanity must make choices, and in doing so, overcome its differences by defining which values we want to guide us, and what kind of world we want to live in."

"At UNESCO, we have long believed in the potential of science, provided that it evolves within an ethical and humanistic framework. As we face a new period of uncertainty, it is more necessary than ever to recall this idea of cooperation and solidarity," the UNESCO chief added.

In conclusion, she voiced UNESCO's reediness to expand support for the promotion of science and technology, saying: "UNESCO stands ready to support the Islamic Republic of Iran in its efforts to promote science and technology, to create knowledge, and to share it. In this way, we will not only support scientific progress, but also the progress of all mankind."

Last August, a documentation project commenced at the ancient university to prevent possible damage from agricultural activities.



Ruins of University of Gundi-Shapur

Gundi Shapur, also spelled as Jundi Shapur, which is located in Modern Dezful, southern Iran, was one of the world's birthplaces of knowledge and wisdom, which is a source of national pride and enthusiasm for Iranians.

The city was the intellectual center of the Sassanid Empire (224-651) and the home of the Academy of Jundi Shapur University, which offered education and training in medicine, philosophy, theology, and science.

The university was home to a teaching hospital, and also comprised a library and a center of higher learning. It has been identified with extensive ruins south of Shahabad, a village 14 km south-east of Dezful, to the road for Shush, in the present-day province of Khuzestan.



University of Gundi-Shapur's Library

(drawing by Parvaneh Pasha)

The town fell into decline after the Muslim conquest of Persia (633-654), the city surrendering in 638, however, it continued to remain an important center in the Muslim period. Yaqub Layth Saffari, the founder of the Saffarid dynasty, made Jundi Shapur his residence three years before his sudden death. His tomb became one of the most prominent sites in the city.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
As the rest of the world prepares for a vaccine-driven return to normal over the next few months, at her community health centre in a poor, working-class neighbourhood of Cape Town, Andrea Mendelsohn is dreading the arrival of April and May  thats when the weather will get cooler in the southern hemisphere and bring a surge in cases.

Few people in South aside from medical staff like Mendelsohn  will be vaccinated by then. Elsewhere on the continent even health workers wont be inoculated, making Africa a large reservoir of the virus that has infected almost 117 million people across the globe and killed more than 2.5 million.

Most countries in have yet to start inoculating their citizens. While developed countries have rushed to vaccinate their populations against Covid-19, fewer than half a million people have received shots in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region of 1.1 billion people. In contrast, the US, with a population of about 330 million, has administered over 90 million vaccine doses, while more than a third of the UKs 67 million people have gotten at least one shot.

But anyone in the developed world who thinks they are unaffected by large swaths of un-vaccinated people in Africa, needs to think again, says Phionah Atuhebwe, the New Vaccines Introduction Medical Officer on the continent for the World Health Organization. As long as the pandemic continues to rage among un-vaccinated populations, spawning new, more virulent, vaccine-resistant strains, no one is safe, she said.

The virus will definitely mutate and will keep mutating; the longer we keep the virus around, the more mutations well see, Atuhebwe said in an interview from Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo. If is not vaccinated and we are a source of mutations, we put the whole world at risk.

Already the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford has proved largely ineffective in preventing mild disease from infections with a strain of the virus first identified in South Africa.

Rich nations pre-paid for their vaccines and also got organised quicker and earlier, leaving countries in Africa scrambling for scraps. The affluent worlds vaccine grab was characterised in January by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as a catastrophic moral failure. Just 10 countries administered 75 per cent of all vaccinations, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in February, calling it wildly uneven and unfair.

A report by anti-poverty group One said last month that the worlds richest countries are on track to accumulate over 1 billion more doses than they need to fully vaccinate their populations, adding that the excess shots alone would be sufficient to inoculate the entire adult population of Africa.

Itll be a fatal mistake if the developed world sees this as a case where well vaccinate our people and then people in other parts of the world take care of their own business, said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The mad dash to corner vaccines shows rich countries have learned little from the global swine flu pandemic in 2009, when poor nations were left high and dry, says Helen Rees, chairwoman of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. Despite the heightened risk of the virus spreading with increased interconnectedness, there was not a thought about what would happen to the rest of the world, she said.

Countries from Nigeria to Ethiopia and Zimbabwe have large numbers of their citizens living and working in Europe, North America and even Asia, and regular flights mean that just as easily as the virus arrived in Africa from Europe, mutated strains could be spread into the developed world by returning travellers.
GAUTIER -- The City of Gautier has announced it will host a COVID-friendly drive-in concert series in March, April and May.

Cant Stop the Music will be a three-part series kicking off March 13 with a performance from Serabee. Jeff Bates will be the featured act on April 10, with Sean Gasaway the final act on May 1.

All three shows will be hosted on the former Singing River Mall property and run from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. There is no admission fee to attend.

We are excited to present this COVID-friendly, drive-in concert series to give our residents and visitors something unique to experience, said city manager Paula Yancey These musicians are extremely talented and this will be a great way to spend a Saturday night in Gautier.

The concert series is presented by the City, the Mississippi Songwriters Alliance and Visit Mississippi, through the Mississippi Development Authoritys tourism development grant program.

The theme of the series is Mississippians Making Music, with all three performers Mississippi natives. Concertgoers will be able to drive in, watch the concert and hear the performers from their vehicle stereos. Food trucks will also be on site.

Ocean Springs schools to host virtual job fair

OCEAN SPRINGS -- The Ocean Springs School District will host its annual job fair, but for the first time the fair will be a virtual event, with interviews taking place via Zoom.

The event is set for Saturday, March 13, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. via Zoom.

According to a release from the district, the event is designed to help interested individuals visit and interview with administration and school staff. Future employment needs and opportunities will be presented.

Interested persons should have a resume prepared.

For additional information, visit ossdms.org/JobFair/ for more information.

Gautier High teacher chosen for national history initiative

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Westley Green, a teacher at Gautier High School, has been selected as one of only 15 teachers nationwide who will contribute to a national initiative to advance civic education and the study of U.S. history and culture.

Green was chosen by National History Day and the National Endowment for the Humanities to contribute to Building A More Perfect Union, a collection of lesson plans and essays in support of the initiative ahead of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

The new collection is being designed to assist middle and high school social studies teachers engage with students with unique sources and themes of democracy and citizenship over the course of U.S. history.

An understanding of civics and our nations history is vital to a healthy democracy, said NEH Acting Chairman Adam Wolfson. As we prepare to mark the United States 250th anniversary, the National Endowment for the Humanities is pleased to partner with National History Day to make these lesson plans and resources on U.S. history, culture, and government widely available at NEHs EDSITEment website to help engage and inform young citizens.

Greens lesson plan is entitled The Indian Citizenship Act and the Meaning of American Citizenship and challenges students to examine the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 through primary and secondary sources, determine the different perspectives associated with the act, and evaluate how American Indians have been included or excluded from discussions of citizenship.

More information about the A More Perfect Union initiative is available at neh.gov/250.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Ireland and 11 member states of the UN Security Council, including Vietnam, co-held on March 8 an Arria-formula meeting entitled Call to Lead by Example: Ensuring the Full, Equal and Meaningful Participation of Women in UN-led Peace Processes.

Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN. (Photo: VNA)

Ireland and 11 member states of the UN Security Council, including Vietnam, co-held on March 8 an Arria-formula meeting entitled Call to Lead by Example: Ensuring the Full, Equal and Meaningful Participation of Women in UN-led Peace Processes.



Addressing representatives of nearly 60 countries and UN agencies, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo highlighted the UNs efforts in pursuit of this common objective via the mainstreaming of gender equality in the UN system, noting that women are currently accounting for 54 percent of the senior leadership of special political missions.



She said the UN mission in Afghanistan has assisted a radio series about womens participation in peace processes. The UN has also organised an online consultation in Yemen with the presence of over 500 women and representatives of social organisations. Special envoys of the UN Secretary-General in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have also used mechanisms to ensure that women-related priorities are included in discussions.



However, DiCarlo added, to promote womens engagement in peace processes, the UN should have adequate and sustainable financing sources and boost long-term strategic partnerships to enable sustainable outcomes.



Countries present at the meeting shared the view that the enhancement of womens participation in peace processes holds great significance, stressing the importance of the elimination of barriers facing women in the areas of peace and security.



They also shared measures and experience in this regard such as raising awareness, building national action plans, and empowering and increasing development support for women in all stages of peace processes.



In his speech, Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN, pointed out both achievements in and challenges to the augmentation of womens participation in peace processes.



He emphasised the need for continued improvement of the common awareness of womens full, equal, and meaningful participation in peace processes at all levels. Accordingly, women and girls rights, interests, and demand should be further promoted to ensure that women are an equal partner in the earliest stages of peace and political processes.



Countries need to guarantee womens involvement in the building of policies, strategies, and initiatives on peace and security at the national, regional, and international levels, Quy said, noting that women should be equipped with knowledge and skills, politically empowered, and given access to fully and equally take part in decision and policy making processes.



To obtain tangible and long-term outcomes, the ambassador held that it is necessary to foster international cooperation, share resources and experience, and call on sponsors to realise the commitment of providing 15 percent of ODA capital for gender equality promotion in conflict-hit nations.



On this occasion, he affirmed that Vietnam always attaches importance to womens role, underlining its accomplishments in stepping up their role in peace and security issues, including peace processes.



Arria-formula meetings are informal meetings of the UN Security Council with the attendance of the councils members, other UN member states, and international organisations to look into important and emerging issues.

VNA

Ambassador stresses Vietnams policy of promoting womens role Vietnams permanent delegation to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris has attended the virtual launch of the Paris Hub of the International Gender Champions (IGC),
COLUMBIA  South Carolina prosecutors have charged 47 more people in what they call a sprawling drug empire directed by prison inmates with illegal cellphones.

The additional indictments announced March 8 bring the total arrested to 100, including 10 inmates. They collectively face several hundred charges in the drug trafficking case dubbed "Prison Empire," which included the seizure of 20 kilograms of methamphetamine and 82 guns, said Attorney General Alan Wilson.

Beyond drug trafficking, other charges in the case that started in Pickens County include burglary and kidnapping, involving an alleged order from prison over owed drug money. Most of the drugs in the case were meth and heroin. Others trafficked with inmates pulling the strings include fentanyl, cocaine and marijuana, according to prosecutors.

The drug ring is responsible for more than 1,000 kilograms of meth alone trafficked in South Carolina, mostly in the Upstate, according to prosecutors.

Indictments were first brought in Greenville County court in 2019.

Wilson and state prisons director Bryan Stirling said the additional charges, with more expected, underscore the need to jam cellphones in the state prisons to prevent inmates from orchestrating crimes while locked up.

"Enough is enough," Wilson said during a news conference in the State Grand Jury room on Statehouse grounds. "Until we can jam these cellphones, we're not going to be able to stem the tide of drugs pouring into South Carolina."

Of the 10 inmates charged, two possessed cellphones and meth when officers rounded them up this week for their bond hearing, prosecutors allege.

Those outsize the razor wire aiding in the scheme included a law firm paralegal, who's accused of smuggling meth into the prison system by sending it in hollowed out documents through the mail, Wilson said.

Prosecutors will seek life without parole for two of the inmates, he said.

One is Nicanor Perez Rodriguez, an inmate already serving multiple sentences for drug trafficking since 2009, who newly faces burglary and kidnapping charges. The other is Warren Brent Chastain, imprisoned since 2013 for trafficking meth, who faces more charges of trafficking meth and heroin, according to Wilson's office and state records.

"This is one more tragic example of the damage illegal cellphones do in the hands of inmates," said state prisons Director Bryan Stirling. "It is past time for Congress to act."

A nearly 90-year-old federal law bars states and local agencies from jamming the public airwaves. Stirling has lobbied to change that since becoming Corrections director in 2013 and has traveled to Washington several times to testify.

The Federal Communications Commission has authorized jamming in federal facilities but not state or local ones.

The telecommunications industry has argued that prison jamming would interrupt service for nearby residents and first responders. But Stirling contends that's already been disproven, including in a previous federal test at Broad River Correctional Institution.

Cellphone use in prisons has long been blamed for gang violence and criminal enterprise, including helping fuel a riot in maximum-security Lee Correctional in 2018, which left seven inmates dead and 22 others injured.

Federal legislation introduced in 2019 by Republican U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina would have given state prisons direct authority to use jamming equipment to shut down prisoners' cellphones. Co-sponsors of an identical bill filed in the U.S. House included South Carolina GOP Reps. Will Timmons, Tom Rice and Ralph Norman. But they went nowhere.

The "Prison Empire" case is focused in the Upstate and investigated by numerous agencies including county sheriff's offices from Anderson to Spartanburg, the State Law Enforcement Division, Corrections, and a governor's drug task force.

The details are similar to a bust announced by federal prosecutors in December 2020 that alleges dozens of gang members orchestrated a drug empire and orchestrated violence while behind bars.

In that federal case, dozens of alleged gang members and associates were charges with a range of crimes including murder and drug trafficking, armed robbery, arson, extortion and money laundering. Of the 40 defendants in that case, 35 face life in prison.
Spruce Forest opens for season through a new door

With the crashing of the trees, three of the cabins were destroyed, along with damaging the village church and other buildings as well.
Around 50 housekeeping and security staffers staged a protest on Tuesday at a dedicated State-run COVID-19 hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Noida, claiming their salaries have not been paid since November.

A senior official said the salaries are stuck since the health department has not yet received funds from the state government. He expressed hope that the dues would be cleared in two or three days.

The staffers who staged the demonstration are third-party workers hired by a private company, which has not paid their salaries for the months of November, December, January and February, according to sources.

"Delhi-based company Perfect Lovya Securitas Private Limited had hired these workers who have been working at the Noida Covid Hospital in Sector 39. Approximately 50 lakh of the company's payment is due towards the hospital," they said.

District's Chief Medical Officer Deepak Ohri said the state-run facility was yet to receive funds from the government.

We would soon be getting the budget and hopefully all such dues would be cleared in two or three days," Ohri told PTI.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had inaugurated this 400-bedded hospital, a dedicated facility for COVID-19 patients, in Noida's Sector 39 on August 8 last year.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
Under what law you are doing it?: K'taka HC says Covid-19 travel curbs with Kerala against Centre's orders

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Bengaluru, Mar 09: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday took strong exception to the the restrictions imposed by Karnataka government on the movement of public along the Kerala-Karnataka border due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report by Live Law (livelaw.in).

''Although a statement was made by the government advocate on the last hearing date (March 5) that the order will be modified, the court was informed today that the State government has not modified the order dated February 18, issued by the Deputy Commissioner of District Disaster Management Authority of Dakshina Kannada, by which it restricts entry of people from Kasargod district in Kerala to Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka only through four checkpoint and that too on producing a negative RT-PCR test certificate,'' the counsel pointed out.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty said "We have perused the government circular dated February 16. The government circular does not provide for closing of entry points on road from Kerala to Karnataka. Moreover, the action taken by the Deputy Commissioner is only of one district, though entry points are available in.''

Covid-19: No vaccine shortage in Rajasthan, says Centre after state urgently asks for more doses

As the hearing came to an end the court orally said "Convey our order correctly, we don't want restrictions being imposed in other districts."

The bench , which was hearing a PIL filed by one Subbaya Rai, also said that the state government should facilitate an infrastructure at border checkposts to check the RT-PCR test reports of travellers arriving from Kerala at the border points rather than sealing them.

The matter will next be heard on March 18. The Court has asked the Deputy Commissioner, Dakshina Kannada District, to file a statement.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Earlier the state government informed the state's high court that it had offered to modify several Covid-19 related travel restrictions that were imposed in the neighbouring state of Kerala amid an increase in its caseload.

Karnataka had sealed several roads and national highways with Kerala on February 22 after the former had seen the emergence of two Covid-19 clusters in Bengaluru. People from Kerala were only allowed entry after they produced a negative RT-PCR test report which was not older than 72 hours.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 15:38 [IST]
Tennessee-based IT infrastructure and cybersecurity firm InfoSystems announced Tuesday that business development leader Chris Gilbert has joined the team as Vice President of Sales. In his new position, Mr. Gilbert will spearhead InfoSystems key growth initiatives across the United States.When you want to provide the best services and the best partnerships to your customers, you hire the best people, and thats exactly what weve been able to do by bringing Chris on board, said Keith Hales, chief operating officer at InfoSystems.Chris level of expertise and personability is a great fit for our leadership team, and he identified with our goals and mission immediately. I think I speak for the entire team when I say were excited for him to be with us.Mr. Gilbert began his career in information technology in 1987 with IBM while at the University of Georgia. During the three decades since, his work has included leading some of IBMs largest global accounts while earning numerous distinctions for his sales leadership and results. Mr. Gilbert is also a United States Navy veteran and served during the Iraq War. At InfoSystems, he will lead the commercial sales team and engage in growth strategies in various market segments within key partnerships.I am thrilled to join the leadership team at InfoSystems as we actively modernize our offerings and optimize our go-to-market portfolio, said Mr. Gilbert. InfoSystems was actually a partner client of mine in the past, and I look forward to engaging in their client-first culture.
DUNSBOROUGH, Western Australia, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Sweet Goodbye Pty Ltd, an international member of the American Pet Products Association, is launching a new range of end-of-life wholesale/retail products at this month's Global Pet Expo.

The company's COCOON and CLOUD products are eco-friendly, softer alternatives to hard box pet caskets and cater for pets of all sizes, from small to very large.

The innovative range of patented, biodegradable products offers a respectful and dignified way to farewell beloved animal companions. The range includes colorful handcrafted burial/cremation shrouds (both premium wool and classic cotton options) with built-in carrying capability and moisture management to replace unsightly towels, sheets and plastic bags. Pets can be securely transported for burial or cremation and laid with care in their final resting place.

The full kit also comprises a memorial marker, ceremony guide book and floral garland to help create meaningful and peaceful farewell ceremonies.

A first-time exhibitor at Global, Sweet Goodbye founder, Natalie Venosi, said she's looking forward to introducing her products at this year's premiere digital event. "We feel that international pet parents and carers value and embrace end-of-life care for the beautiful animal friends that have shared their lives and will want only the best for their pets."

Sweet Goodbye has a strong belief in running an ethical, sustainable and environmentally-friendly business. Their eco-friendly pet burial and cremation kits are handmade by local family businesses in Bali and Nepal, with Sweet Goodbye faithfully adhering to the 10 Principles of Fair Trade as prescribed by the World Fair Trade Organisation. Founders and all staff at Sweet Goodbye are true animal lovers and the company donates a portion of all proceeds to support animal welfare charities including Animals Asia and The Orangutan Project.

Sweet Goodbye also manufactures a product called the CARE CRADLE - an end of life pet aid that specifically addresses practical needs and 'compassion fatigue' in vets. This has become a recognized problem for animal healthcare professionals, who have to regularly euthanize dearly loved animals.

Sweet Goodbye now exports to global markets, with current customers in the USA, Canada, Europe, the UK and Australia. As more retailers carry Sweet Goodbye's products, consumers will have better access. In the meantime, purchases can be made via the company's web site  sweetgoodbyeforpets.com

Retailers, wholesalers, distributors and animal service providers can visit Sweet Goodbye's online exhibitor booth at Global Pet Expo to learn more or place an order.

MEDIA CONTACT:

David Keogh

+61 402 153 894

[email protected]

SWEET GOODBYE CONTACT:

Jodi Reed

(305) 400-1901

[email protected]

SOURCE Sweet Goodbye

Related Links

https://sweetgoodbye.com.au


(Newser)  Her name is Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng, and the Catholic nun is emerging as a hero in Myanmar's deadly unrest. On Monday, the 45-year-old knelt in front of soldiers about to crack down on protesters in the city of Myitkyina and pleaded with them to hold fire, reports AFP. The moment is captured in this video. I knelt down ... begging them not to shoot and torture the children, but to shoot me and kill me instead, she tells the news agency of the confrontation. Her plea fell on deaf ears, however. Soldiers soon opened fire and killed at least two protesters, reports Sky News. "I felt like the world was crashing," she says. "I'm very sad it happened as I was begging them."

story continues below

This isn't the sister's first such confrontation. She made a similar plea on Feb. 28 in what has been called Myanmar's "Tiananmen moment," per Sky News. Video from NBC News shows her kneeling in front of police in riot gear on that day. "I decided to die," she told Sky News after the incident. "I was asking and begging them not to do it, and I told them the protesters didn't commit any [crime]." It's a safe bet that Monday's confrontation won't be her last. "I have thought myself dead already since" the February incident, she tells AFP. "I can't stand and watch without doing anything." (Read more Myanmar stories.)
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

CLAIM: A Twitter post claims women in Nigeria cannot adopt a child without the guarantee or approval of a male person.

VERDICT: The claim that a woman in Nigeria cannot adopt a child without a man is false as The Child Rights Act makes provision for the married and the unmarried as long as the adopter is found suitable.

Full Text

Adoption is a form of alternative care whereby a person legally assumes the role of a parent in respect of a person who is not their biological child.

Adoption is a way of providing security, permanency and the love of family for a child who cannot be raised by his/her birth parents or within the birth family or has none. After adoption, all rights and responsibilities are transferred from the original parents to the adoptive parents. The child assumes the surname of the new parents, receives an adoption certificate to replace their birth certificate, and becomes a permanent and full member of the new family.

On February 15, 2021, A Twitter post by Pamela Adie (@pamelaadie) claims women cannot adopt a child without the guarantee/approval of a male person that has the same surname as the woman.

This Twitter post as at Monday, February 22, 2021, had generated 2,297 Retweets, 158 Quote Tweets and 3,838 likes.

Screenshot of the Twitter Post.

Verification

Dubawa conducted a keyword search on adoption and the process of adoption in Nigeria. Dubawa also studied different documents on adoption in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, adoption is done under statutory law or customary law but the rules regulating it differ from state to state. Adoption procedures can be open or closed; a closed adoption is one in which the natural and adoptive families have no knowledge of or contact with the adoptive family while an open adoption, is one in which the birth family and the adoptive family have direct contact with each other.

The first adoption legislation in Nigeria was enacted in the then Eastern Nigeria in 1965 and was known as the Eastern Nigeria Adoption Law, 1965. This law now applies in Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi, Abia, Rivers and Bayelsa State.

In 1968 an adoption law was promulgated for Lagos State. Some states have followed suit in making their own laws while others are yet to.

No state in the Northern part of Nigeria has any legislation on adoption.

The Childs Rights Act 2003 enacted by the National Assembly sets out the rights and responsibilities of a child in Nigeria and provides for a system of child justice administration and the care and supervision of a child, among other things.

However, because the rights and welfare of children, in general, are matters within the legislative competence of the States under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, the Act is enforceable only in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

Who can adopt?

According to part XII (12) of the Childs Right Act, anyone can apply for adoption to the Court but with varying conditions for the married and unmarried.

Screenshot of part XII of the Childs right Act.

For a married couple, each of them must have attained the age of twentyfive years (25), and there must be an order authorising them jointly to adopt a child. Where it is just one party in the marriage, that party must have obtained the consent of his/her spouse, as required under section 132 of the Act.

Requirements for the married include provision of marriage certificate or a sworn declaration of marriage, the birth certificate or sworn declaration of age of each applicant, two passport photographs of each applicant, a medical certificate of the fitness of the applicant from a Government hospital and any other document requested by the Court.

For the unmarried, the person must have attained the age of thirtyfive (35), and the child to be adopted must be of the same sex as the person adopting.

ADVERTISEMENT

For both married and unmarried, the adopter or adopters must be found suitable to adopt the child in question by the appropriate investigating officers.

Screenshot of Section 12 of the child rights Act.

Who can be adopted?

Generally, it is those children who are abandoned, neglected or persistently abused or ill-treated who are in need of adoption. Some of these babies are born by drug addicts or other types of disabled mothers.

Usually, only a juvenile under the age of eighteen years who is not or has not been married can be adopted. In Nigeria the Statutes on adoption make provisions for juveniles to be adopted but the term juvenile has no uniform definition for some states it is 18and below and others it is 17 and below. For instance, In Edo and Delta states a juvenile is one who is eighteen years and below, while in states like Lagos, Anambra, Imo and Ogun, a juvenile is one who is under the age of 17.

According to the Childs Rights Act, the Court will only grant an adoption order in respect of a child with no surviving parent, whose guardian consents to the adoption, or in respect of an abandoned, neglected or persistently abused or ill-treated child, and where there are compelling reasons in the interest of the child why he/she should be given up for adoption.

Birth certificate: Birth certificate or sworn declaration of age of the applicant or each of the applicants as the case may be.

Marriage certificate: Where the applicant is a married couple, their marriage certificate or sworn declaration of marriage.

Written Consent of Spouse when applicant is married.

Two passport photographs of the applicants or each of the applicants, as the case may be.

A medical certificate of fitness of the applicant or each of the applicants from a government hospital.

Evidence that the applicant(s) are citizen(s) of Nigeria (international passport or national ID card will suffice).

Evidence of means by which the applicant will maintain the child.

Experts opinion

Dubawa reached out to three experts but got feedback from only one.

A child rights activist, Elizabeth Achimugu, explained to us in a telephone interview that there is no where in the law that a woman cannot adopt without a mans approval.

She believes if there is difficulty faced by single women trying to adopt, then it is most likely a moral issue not an issue of law.

It is not in the law that a woman cannot adopt in the law but there is an age for it. A single lady not adopting isnt the law but I guess its for the purpose of societal expectations, the fear that when the single lady gets married, her husband may reject the child

Screenshot of the adoption form for FCT.

She also added that section 42(1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended expressly prohibits discrimination based on sex and the Constitution is superior to any other law enforced in Nigeria

On the adoption form of the (FCT), the following is required: name of adopter, date of birth, nationality, occupation, marital status (Married, Single, Divorced, Widowed, and Separated), religion, highest education level, the purpose for adoption, details of the child, address of the adopter etc.

Conclusion

Adoption in Nigeria is not restricted to any gender or based on marital status as the law makes provision for both genders either married or not married.

READ ALSO:
Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv left in custody musician and ATO veteran Andriy Antonenko, the defendant in the case of the murder of journalist Pavlo Sheremet, since one of the jurors did not appear at the hearing and the court session on Tuesday, at which it was planned to review the measure of restraint for the suspect, postponed to next week, March 16.

According to Channel 5, up to a hundred protesters gathered under the courthouse and tried not to release the car in which Antonenko was allegedly transported, as a result of which clashes occurred between them and law enforcement officers.

After the clashes, the protest action was calm, the protesters demanded a session. One of the participants was holding a banner "Demanding reform of the judicial system", the other was holding the state flag.

As reported by the Ukraine 24 TV channel, among the activists who tried not to release the car with Antonenko from the courthouse were representatives of the National Corps and the C14 organization. The protesters used firelights during the clashes.

Law eAntonenko's nforcement officers detained several activists, but subsequently all were released at the scene. Some of the participants in the clashes were injured - some had visible bruises, one had a split eyebrow.

About half an hour after the clashes, both the protesters and the law enforcement officers started to gradually disperse.

As reported, on the morning of July 20, 2016, in the center of Kyiv, the car of Olena Prytula, head of the Ukrainian Pravda online publication, was blown up, in which Sheremet was. The journalist died on the spot shortly after the explosion.

Suspicion in the murder of Sheremet was brought forward to three persons: military nurse Yana Duhar, volunteer and pediatric cardiac surgeon Yulia Kuzmenko, and musician and ATO veteran Andriy Antonenko. The pretrial investigation against the suspects was completed on May 22, 2020.

On August 25, the Shevchenko District Court of Kyiv made a decision, according to which a jury trial will be held on the merits of the case on charges against Antonenko, Duhar and Kuzmenko on involvement in the murder of Pavlo Sheremet.

Kuzmenko is under 24-hour house arrest, Duhar has personal obligations, and Antonenko is in custody. None of the accused admits their guilt in involvement in murder of the journalist.
Fort Polk, LA (71446)

Today

Thunderstorms likely, especially this evening. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 69F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely, especially this evening. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 69F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%.
An in ride-hailing giant has marked down its valuation further after slashing it by nearly half at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic that disrupted business a year ago, according to a report by The Capital Quest.

This development comes at a time when has revealed new growth plans, including setting up a Rs 2,400-crore electric vehicle facility expected to become the worlds largest two-wheeler factory. Olas ride-hailing business is recovering after the coronavirus pandemics hurt and demand for its food business and financial services improves.



The Capital Quest report said Ola, operated by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, was one of the worst-hit technology in India as many switched to a work-from-home routine and physical distancing norms curbed demand for travel. It said the companys revenue plunged around 95 per cent after India imposed a lockdown in late March 2020, co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal had said at the time. This even forced the company to cut costs and lay off staff.



The report claimed that this had likely prompted a fund managed by US-based investment firm Vanguard Group to slash Olas valuation by 45 per cent in dollar terms between December 31, 2019 and June 30, 2020. was valued a little over $6 billion in 2019. This came down to around $3.3 billion as Vanguard marked down the value of its holding, according to the report.

The fund has now knocked down the value of its investment by another 9.5 per cent in dollar terms. This means Vanguard reckons the cab-hailing startup is now worth around $3 billion, according to estimates by The Capital Quest.



Ola has raised a total funding of about $3.8 billion, according to the data platform Crunchbase. The Bengaluru-based company raised over $500 million from late 2018 to December 2019 from Steadview Capital, Hyundai, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal and Kia Motors, among several other investors.



What is interesting is that Vanguard has not revised its estimates of the value of its shares despite the lockdown being lifted several months ago, said the report by The Capital Quest.



India had begun opening up its economy after two months of hard lockdown. Most restrictions on businesses have been lifted, barring a few advisories to prevent the virus from spreading. Ola has spread its wings in other ancillary businesses such as financial services and electric vehicles. Those businesses have separately raised funding.



According to the industry sources, with India easing lockdowns for the pandemic, Ola has reported close to 100 per cent recovery in key cities during the festive season, and the spike in demand is expected to continue.



Last November, US-based mutual funds T Rowe Price and Vanguard had lowered their valuations of Indian unicorn Paytm and Ola, due to the disruption created by the Covid-19 pandemic in the first half of the year.


Myanmar police went door-to-door searching for pro-democracy protesters last night as the ruling generals try to stamp out protests against their military junta.

Security forces sealed off a block of streets in Yangon and said they would punish residents if they found protesters from out of town hiding in their homes.

Police were targeting apartments flying the red-and-gold flag of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party, residents said as raids continued into the night.

The barricade sparked alarm from the UN and Western powers who demanded the release of the people trapped, saying some of them were female protesters who had been holding peaceful marches for International Women's Day.

But the military crackdown was continuing elsewhere with three protesters killed in demonstrations in northern Myanmar and the Irrawaddy Delta on Monday.

Myanmar security forces wearing helmets and carrying riot shields occupy a Yangon district where 200 people were barricaded in their neighbourhood as night fell on Monday

Police officers in the Sanchaung district where raids were targeting apartments flying the flag of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party

A police vehicle drives past a building after authorities seized Sanchaung district last night

Demonstrators gather behind a barricade during an anti-coup protest in Loikaw on Tuesday

Despite the ongoing crackdown, thousands of people last night defied a night-time curfew to take to the streets in support of the people trapped in Yangon.

The trapped protesters, including many young people and students, were sealed off in the Sanchaung district which has seen daily rallies since the February 1 coup.

As night fell, police firing guns and using stun grenades said they would check houses for anyone outside the district and punish anyone hiding them.

Security forces started searching apartments after a nightly internet shutdown blanketed the country at 1am local time, residents said.

'They searched every building on Kyun Taw road - they destroyed the locks of apartment buildings if they were locked downstairs,' said one resident.

Sharp loud bangs were heard coming from the area, although it was not clear if the sounds were caused by gunfire or stun grenades.

One watchdog said around 50 people had been arrested in Sanchaung after police searched houses, though checks to verify that are still being made.

By dawn, security forces appeared to have retreated, allowing some protesters to escape from the area.

Police are seen on the streets of Yangon as the search for anti-coup demonstrators takes place on Monday night after protesters once again defied a military curfew

People get into a police vehicle in Myeik, left, while officers form a police line holding riot shields in Yangon, right

Protesters wearing hard hats, holding signs and standing behind shields take to the streets in Yangon on Tuesday

One protester posted on social media early on Tuesday to say that they had finally been able to leave the area at around 5am after security forces pulled out.

Another youth activist, Shar Ya Mone, said she too had been able to go home but vowed to keep demonstrating 'until the dictatorship ends'.

Makeshift barricades of bamboo, sandbags, tables and barbed wire have been set up by protesters in an effort to slow security forces in the area.

UN chief Antonio Guterres had earlier called for the safe release of all protesters, a call echoed by the UK and US diplomatic missions in Myanmar.

State television MRTV earlier said: 'The government's patience has run out and while trying to minimise casualties in stopping riots, most people seek complete stability (and) are calling for more effective measures against riots.'

MRTV also announced a major curb on media coverage on Monday, saying that the licences of five local media outlets had been cancelled.

'These media companies are no longer allowed to broadcast or write or give information by using any kind of media platform or using any media technology,' the military said.

Protesters with makeshift shields and masks take their positions in Mandalay on Tuesday

Demonstrators flee away from tear gas during an anti-coup protest in Loikaw on Tuesday

Chaos on the streets of Loikaw today as anti-coup demonstrations continued despite the military crackdown

The offices of Myanmar Now, one of the outlets affected, were raided by the authorities Monday before the measure was announced.

DVB, another of the banned outlets, said it was not surprised by the cancellation and would continue broadcasting on satellite TV and online.

'We worry for the safety of our reporters and our staff, but in the current uprising, the whole country has become the citizens' journalists and there is no way for military authorities to shut the information flow,' executive director Aye Chan Naing said.

The army takeover and arrest of elected leader Suu Kyi has led to protests in which more than 60 have died and 1,800 have been arrested, an advocacy group says.

The police have responded with an increasingly brutal crackdown and parts of Yangon have emerged as flashpoints as protesters continue to defy authorities.

The Monday night raids came after three protesters were shot dead at rallies on a day when many shops, factories and banks closed as part of a general strike.

The military has denied responsibility for loss of life in the protests and defended seizing power by alleging widespread electoral fraud in November's elections.
LEWISBURG  A fraternity at Bucknell University was kicked off campus after it was determined pledges were hazed and forced to consume large amounts of alcohol.

Bucknell last November terminated its recognition of the Iota chapter of Kappa Delta Rho following an investigation that found five violations of the Student Code of Conduct including hazing and underage drinking.

The national leadership of Kappa Delta Rho (KDR) on Jan. 27, after reviewing the facts including those discovered by the universitys investigation, revoked the chapters charter, said Joseph S. Rosenberg, its executive director.

John Jean of Bedminster, New Jersey, in September sued Bucknell, KDR national, the Iota chapter and three members over the KDR incident.

His claims are hazing, negligence, assault and battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment.

Jean claims he was punched, kicked, burned with cigarettes and forced to drink a dangerous amount of liquor during a brutal fraternity hazing Sept. 10 and 11, 2020.

His initiation session included playing a game called Dont (Expletive) Your Brother where he and five other pledges had to guzzle from a 2-liter bottle of vodka while frat members chanted and cheered, the court complaint states.

The pledges were then ordered to keep drinking beer and other hard liquor, it states.

Jean claims he decided to return to his dorm but was not permitted to do so and the hazing extended into the early hours of Sept. 11.

When he finally was able to leave he was confronted outside by another pledge who Jean accuses of punching him in the face. That caused him to fall, hit his head and lose consciousness.

A security officer called 911 and Jean, then 20, was taken to Evangelical Community Hospital where he says he was treated for alcohol poisoning and a head injury.

Bucknell has asked to be dismissed as a defendant claiming under state law colleges and universities are not liable for the tortious or criminal actions of their students.

It points out Jeans suit does not allege the university had anything to do with the hazing or that it was aware of what happened behind closed doors that night.

Jean, a deans list student who has transferred from Bucknell, last week sought court permission to augment his argument against dismissal based upon learning the KDR chapter had been banned from campus.

ALSO READ: Former employee admits defrauding AccuWeather out of thousands of dollars

Judge Matthew W. Brann Monday denied the motion suggesting it would be better in an amended pleading.

Jean contends Bucknell cannot have it both ways. It cannot say it has no responsibility for what happens at a fraternity house on campus and then assert control when it is convenient to the university, he claims.

The former fraternity house has been converted into general student housing.

Another issue before Brann is KDRs contention that federal court is the wrong venue for the allegations against it and the three individuals.

It cites a 12-page new member registration form Jean was required to sign that requires disputes involving the fraternity to be resolved by arbitration.

Jean contends the contract he signed electronically is not valid or enforceable. It also requires payment of a $420 new member fee, national dues of $173 and a risk management insurance fee of $265.

According to his suit, Bucknell banned Kappa Delta Rho in 2009 for hazing but allow the Iota chapter to return in 2012 with the requirement that it be alcohol-free for one year.
HONG KONG, Mar 9, 2021 - (ACN Newswire) - Wai Hung Group Holdings Limited ("Wai Hung" or the "Group") (stock code: 3321) is pleased to announce that Wai Hung Hong Construction Engineering Limited ("WHHCE"), an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, entered into a Cooperation Agreement with Investment Projects General Trading Company ("IPGT") today. The Group intends to build facilities for approximately 1 million smart parking spaces and provide relevant construction services for the proposed urban property project in the MiddleEast Countries to be developed with IPGT (the "Middle East Project"). The parties shall not cooperate with any third party in providing artificial intelligence garage system in the MiddleEast Countries within the term of the Cooperation Agreement (i.e. 5 years).



IPGT is a company incorporated in the State of Kuwait, which is principally engaged in the business of infrastructure and high-tech products and systems in the Middle East. The shareholders and key member of the management of IPGT include Sheikh Ali Khalifa Al-Sabah ("Sheikh Ali"), a member of Kuwait's royal family who served as the finance minister and oil minister of Kuwait and the chairman of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and has substantial business resources in the Middle East.



Mr. Li Kam Hung, Chairman of Wai Hung Group Holdings Limited, said, "The cooperation between the Group and IPGT is to aim at fulfilling a long-term objective in building facilities for approximately 1 million smart parking spaces in nine countries in the MiddleEast Countries, i.e., the six countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (namely, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates), Egypt, Iraq and Jordan. The total contract sum of the Middle East Project, if materialised fully, could reach over HK$100 billion. The Board is of the view that such cooperation with IPGT will further diversify the Group's business scope and source of income as a whole. It may also facilitate cooperation between the Company and major enterprises in Japan, Korea and China that are interested in infrastructure projects in the Middle East. The Group is expected to establish a leading position in the industry upon completion of the project."



About Wai Hung Group Holdings Limited (Stock Code:3321)

Wai Hung Group is a contractor providing fitting-out services and repair and maintenance services in Macau. The Group's fitting-out services primarily cover refitting works for existing buildings and extend to casinos, retail areas, hotels, restaurants, commercial properties and residential properties. The Group has developed smart garage since September 2020 to diversify its businesses.











Copyright 2021 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.





Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
A man has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting a woman dead at a birthday party for his two-year-old son at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Little Rock.

Marlon Marbley Jr., 21, surrendered to detectives on Monday after an arrest warrant was issued for the shooting which took place at around 8pm the night before.

Police said Marbley and the victim, 32-year-old Christina Clay, got into a dispute at his toddler's party and had stepped outside the restaurant to have a smoke and try to diffuse the tension.

Marlon Marbley Jr., 21, pictured, surrendered to detectives on Monday after an arrest warrant was issued for the shooting which took place at around 8pm the night before

But investigators say Marbley started arguing with Clay and pulled out a semi-automatic pistol which he pointed at the woman.

Marbley's friends and relatives tried to push him away and tell him to leave but, as Clay began heading back inside the restaurant, Marbley ran towards her and fired several rounds from a few feet away, KARK reported.

Detectives said the suspect sped away in a car, leaving Clay on the ground covered in gunshot wounds.

Paramedics and police arrived to find Clay lying dead at the front doors of the Chuck E. Cheese, while customers and children were still inside.

Marbley faces one count of capital murder.

He was being held at the Pulaski County Jail.

A crime scene outside the restaurant in North Little Rock on Sunday night
An ex-Vodafone customer had her credit score ruined after an error at the phone firm left her wrongly being charged.

Olivia Smith, 25, only found out her score was left in tatters after trying to buy a Range Rover Evoque, while the blot has also left her worrying about the potential of getting accepted for a mortgage.

The problem started around a decade ago when Olivia's parents were both with Vodafone and she had a contract under her mother's name, due to being under the age of 16.

Vodafone mistakenly tried to take a payment from a customer, leaving her with bad credit

Years later, Olivia, from Dover, and her mother rang Vodafone to take her from under her mother's contract and onto her own one, which she would pay.

However, Olivia kept receiving the bills rather than her mother. After calling the company, it turned out it had actually just swapped their names so now Olivia was the main account holder and her mother was the add-on.

Frustratingly, her mother then couldn't speak to Vodafone anymore as she wasn't the main account name so when trying sort it out, they both had to be there.

This, she says, was never resolved and a while after Olivia decided to leave Vodafone for O2 who she has now been with for nearly five years.

Recently, the lease was up on Olivia's car and she decided to upgrade to a Range Rover Evoque.

She went to the dealership, designed the car and paid the deposit - but then received the news that her credit had been declined because her score was too low. She says she wasn't far off zero.

Range Rover advised her to go home, get onto Experian and find out what the problem was.

Olivia was frustrated to learn her and her mother's account had been put in her name (stock image)

It turned out when she left Vodafone, it did not close her account down properly and had been trying to take a payment for a one month bill out of her account.

However, because she closed the account there was no payment details meaning it had tried to take the money for nearly five years.

She contacted Vodafone which explained this was a computer error and apologised. It removed the error and said her credit score would return back to where it was supposed to be.

Checking every few days, she could see her score getting better but then after nearly 30 days, the 'bill' had tried to be taken out again, making her credit score drop again.

Vodafone again promised the case had been closed and the 'bill' was removed.

They gave her a 30 Vodafone voucher, despite the fact she was no longer with the firm, but she put this on her mother's account so she could benefit from it.

Since then her score is increasing but still not where she believes it should be.

A Vodafone spokesperson said: 'Vodafone would like to apologize for the oversight and we are doing all we can to make sure this does not happen again.

'Our team has removed the late payments marks from the customer's credit report, and this incident should have no negative impact on the customer's credit score moving forward.'

Vodafone added it had offered an Amazon voucher and said any bad credit left on Olivia's score would not be from them.

Checking your credit score

A credit score, also known as a credit rating, is a number that reflects the likelihood of you paying credit back.

Lenders will look at your credit history when they calculate your credit score, which will show them the level of risk in lending to you.

The higher your credit score, the better your chances of being accepted for credit, at the best rates.

Your credit score will be good if you consistently make payments on time and put your name on the electoral roll, for example.

However, you could have a more negative rating for having records on your report that may look negative to companies, such as late payments and defaults.
The skipper of a fishing trawler which sank another boat and killed three anglers on board was distracted by his Whatsapp messages, a court heard.

David Marr, 55, was sending messages to a friend as his 85ft vessel the Vertrouwen steamed down on the tiny fishing boat known as the James 2.

Brighton Crown Court was told the four anglers on board attempted to signal the commercial scallop dredger bearing down on them by shouting and waving torches.

The Vertrouwen eventually missed their smaller vessel but it was swamped by a large wave, causing it to sink.

Mircea "Mitch" Ilie, 40, Irinel Popovici, 41, and Traiam Dumitrache, 50 and Elvis Cojocariu jumped into the sea without lifebelts and attempted to swim for shore.

Brighton Crown Court heard trawler captain David Marr had been on lookout on the night of the accident in 2017

A huge search and rescue operation was launched to find the missing anglers from the James 2

Mr Cojocariu was the sole survivor.

David Marr, from Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, went on trial at Brighton Crown Court charged with failing to keep a proper lookout on board the commercial trawler contrary International Regulations on preventing a collision at sea.

The court heard it should have had two watchmen on the lookout but only David Marr was on duty.

David Richards, prosecuting, said the tragic incident happened at around 12.25am on August 6 2017 on a calm and clear night.

He said: It is very clear that he was entirely unaware of the James 2. He was not paying sufficient if any attention to keeping a lookout out from his wheelhouse.

"If he had he would have seen the James 2, he would have seen the men on board as he steamed towards them and passed close by them.

"Mr Marr was attending to other matters and was unnecessarily distracted from his principle job of paying attention.

Elvis Cojocariu, the only survivor of the quartet, said in court the trawler 'just kept approaching'

Mircea "Mitch" Ilie, 40, was among the three not to make it back to shore after the accident

Irinel Popovici, 41, also did not manage to get back to shore after their little boat sank

Traiam Dumitrache, 50, was pronounced dead after his body was pulled from the sea

"They were shouting, they were signalling like mad. Water flooded into the James 2 but the Vertrouwen carried on in the same direction and the same speed."

Only Mr Cojocariu, 45, an electrician from London, survived after he was picked up by a fisherman at dawn who was out checking his nets.

He was exhausted and suffering from hypothermia and was rushed to hospital.

Speaking through a Romanian interpreter, Mr Cojocariu said: "It just kept on approaching, It was coming, coming, coming. I saw it and its engines were booming."

"After the impact everyone was shouting: 'Help! Help!'"

The jury was told although the James 2 was more suited to inland waterways rather than the sea and lacked much of the lighting it should have had.

However, Mr Richards said, it did have navigation lights and spotlights and the men were wearing head torches.

Oliver Powell, defending, asked Mr Cojocariu how much alcohol the group had drank during the day and on the evening of the incident.

Mr Cojocariu admitted a substantial amount of alcohol including whisky, beer, wine and vodka had been drunk.

The case continues.
Colorado Springs, CO (80903)

Today

Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 46F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 46F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
Press Release

March 9, 2021 GORDON HONORS CONSTITUTIONALIST FR. JOAQUIN BERNAS THRU A RESOLUTION Senator Richard J. Gordon on Monday sponsored a resolution honouring the life dedicated to service and glory of God of Fr. Joaquin Bernas, a Jesuit priest and constitutionalist, who was "an excellent man for others." In sponsoring Senate Resolution No. 675, Gordon stressed that he wanted to make sure that the Senate does not miss the opportunity to honor such a great Filipino, a Bicolano, who was not only a leading constitutionalist but also a pillar of legal education. "Fr. Bernas had done so much in terms of the law and in becoming an example to all his students and Jesuits, alike. He was the epitome of the quintessential Jesuit,.. Among the Jesuits, he stood high, shoulders above everyone and I call it Primus Inter Pares. He was first among equals," he said. Gordon hailed the late Jesuit priest as one of the pillars of the 1987 Constitutional Commission, who imparted his brilliance in the drafting of the 1987 Constitution. He was often called to the court to share his wisdom as amicus curiae, or a friend of the court, on complex and noble Constitutional issues. As a professor, the senator said, Fr, Bernas taught law in a grand manner and wanted to make great lawyers out of everyone and inspired young law students to become excellent public servants and legal practitioners by sharing his knowledge and expertise of political and constitutional law. "He was a human being, par excellence. He was not only wise, he was not only smart, but he was a humanitarian. He was, indeed, and excellent man. He was indeed an excellent man for others... Everything that he did was indeed for the greater glory of God," Gordon further said, continuing his tribute to his former mentor. Gordon's PSN 675 and Senate President Vicente Sotto's Senate Resolution No. 674 were unanimously adopted. Fr. Bernas passed away at the Jesuit residence at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City on March 6. He was 88. Fr. Bernas was ordained as Jesuit priest on June 10, 1965. Bernas finished law at the Ateneo Law School in 1962 and placed 9th in the Bar examinations. He taught and was appointed dean twice of the same law school until his retirement in 2004. Bernas also served as ADMU president and was an opinion columnist for a major daily newspaper.
Make flights to New Zealand more expensive to deter people from visiting, an aviation adviser has said.

Sir Jonathan Porritt, an adviser to Air New Zealand, has said the cost of international flights to the Pacific nation should be increased to pay for greenhouse gas emissions.

Controversial though it may be, Im in favour of putting off some people coming to New Zealand, Sir Jonathan told local media outlet Newsroom.

I just dont believe in the idea that the number of international visitors to New Zealand can grow and grow and grow without limits.

I just dont believe that is credible and I dont believe its right. So, if a higher price for the privilege of flying to New Zealand puts some people off, good.

His comments follow a proposal by Kiwi MP Simon Upton to apply a distance-based departure tax to all flights out of New Zealand, which would add as much as NZ$155 (80) onto an economy ticket from the UK.

New Zealands borders are currently shut to all tourists as part of strict measures to control the spread of Covid-19, and are likely to remain that way for the rest of the year.

In a normal year, the country would receive around 4 million tourists, which isnt far off the number of people who live in New Zealand: 4.9 million in 2019.

Air New Zealand wouldnt be the first airline to ask its passengers to consider the climate.

In 2019, Dutch airline KLM launched a new marketing campaign asking passengers to fly responsibly.

The carrier published an open letter from CEO and President Pieter Elbers asking both passengers and the industry to work together to truly create a sustainable future for aviation.

Moves suggested by Elbers included encouraging airlines to use KLM's carbon offset programme, as well as joining a biofuel programme. KLM also invited passengers to make responsible decisions about flying.

In a normal year, between two and three per cent of all manmade carbon emissions in the world come from aviation. Each year, around 4.6 billion journeys are made by air.

The Independent has asked Tourism New Zealand for a response.
Daniel Andrews has been transferred to a trauma ward 'as a precaution' after falling down a set of stairs and breaking several ribs and damaging his spine.

The Victorian Premier slipped on wet steps at a weekend rental on the Mornington Peninsula on Tuesday morning.

After initially being taken to the Peninsula Private Hospital, Mr Andrews on Tuesday night was moved to the Alfred Trauma Centre after further scans, The Herald Sun reports.

The Victorian Premier's office initially said the fall on Tuesday morning was 'concerning' but the leader had not suffered any head injuries.

After initially being taken to the Peninsula Private Hospital, Mr Andrews on Tuesday night was moved to the Alfred Trauma Centre after further scans

A statement from Mr Andrews on Tuesday revealed a series of horrific injuries uncovered by a CT scan (pictured)

But a statement from Mr Andrews that afternoon revealed a series of horrific injuries uncovered by a CT scan - leaving him in hospital in intensive care for several more days.

Mr Andrews had been due to attend a press conference on Tuesday morning and would have travelled from the holiday home.

'Early this morning, I was admitted to hospital after slipping and falling on wet and slippery stairs,' he said.

'A CT scan has revealed several broken ribs and vertebrae damage, and subsequent medical advice has recommended I remain in intensive care for the next few days.

'James Merlino will serve as Acting Premier while I recover over the next few days.

'I hope to be able to provide another update later this week. For now, we'd like to ask that our family's privacy is respected.'

He added that his wife Catherine and their three children Grace, Noah and Joseph were grateful to paramedics who 'showed such care and kindness to our family this morning'.

The state leader thanked friends and colleagues who sent messages of support throughout the day, and hopes to provide another update later this week.

'James Merlino will serve as Acting Premier while I recover over the next few days. For now, we'd like to ask that our family's privacy is respected,' he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, a spokesman said Mr Andrews was taken to hospital for x-rays as a precautionary measure.

Mr Merlino later said he expected Mr Andrews would soon be 'back on his feet'.

Pictured: Mr Andrews and his wife Catherine. Mr Andrews said his wife and children were grateful to paramedics for supporting his family after the fall

Victorian Liberal leader Michael O'Brien was among the first to wish the premier well on social media.

'Hope it's not serious. Wishing Daniel a speedy recovery,' he wrote.

The hashtag #GetBetterDan also started trending on Twitter throughout the afternoon, as hundreds of Australians used social media to wish the Victorian leader a speedy recovery.

'Falling over whilst getting ready for work doesn't even register on the medical scale of weird injuries or illness. Hope Dan is okay,' one user wrote.

'The sooner you're okay, the quicker we can all #GetOnTheBeers to celebrate,' another said, alluding to a song by Australian band Mashed N Kutcher comprising a range of comments made by Mr Andrews during Covid press conferences.

Someone else used the opportunity to share their own mishaps at home.

'I tripped over my dog late 2019 and needed micro surgery on my hand. This happens to adults all the time. Hope Dan is alright,' they wrote.

Earlier on Tuesday, a spokesman said Mr Andrews was taken to hospital for x-rays as a precautionary measure. Pictured: Mr Andrews and his wife Catherine

The state Labor government had been scheduled to announce an inquiry into Indigenous disadvantage on Tuesday.

Mr Merlino will take over the premier's duties on Tuesday for a press conference in Healesville, north-east of Melbourne.

'I know around the cabinet table and in private discussions how passionate he is about this day and this announcement,' Mr Merlino said.

'It would have only been a trip to the hospital that would have kept him away.'

Victorian Liberal leader Michael O'Brien was among the first to wish the premier well on social media

Mr Andrews was set to announce the first-of-its-kind inquiry to probe how Western colonisation of Australia continues to affect Victoria's Indigenous community.

Named the 'Truth and Justice Commission', the inquiry could lead to reparations being paid by the government to Victoria's Aboriginal population.

Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe had praised the announcement as 'historic' and called for the commission to represent all 38 Aboriginal nations in the state, The Age reported.

'When the colonisers invaded, there was a war on these lands  a war that hasn't ended. But we won't achieve peace without truth,' she said.

The commission will report after the November 2022 state election.
The Yankees first potentially big injury news of the spring was revealed Tuesday morning right after manager Aaron Boone announced that high-leverage relievers Aroldis Chapman and Chad Green are scheduled to make their Grapefruit League debuts on Wednesday night.

What about Zack Britton.

Britton is delayed, Boone said.

Elbow soreness.

Introducing Yankees Insider: Get exclusive news, behind-the-scenes observations and the ability to text message directly with beat writers

Thats always a scary issue for pitchers, but Boone ruled out worst-case scenario for Britton, who had an MRI on Monday  season-ending Tommy John surgery.

I would say no, Boone said. That part of it my understanding is a non-issue. No, its not (the UCL).

The Yanks will find out what the issue is later Tuesday after Britton meets with a team doctor in Tampa.

Britton had been going through spring training at a slow pace as he gains strength and weight from having COVID in the offseason, but he experienced no arm issues until after throwing a bullpen on Sunday.

He had talked about having COVID obviously in the last couple of months that I think set him back a little bit in his in his build up, Boone said. Hes actually been throwing pretty well early in spring, but after his bullpen the other day, which was successful and he didnt feel anything  it was after the fact.

It was Sunday evening he started to feel something. So we just wanted to make sure you know we get some pictures of it and run through the tests. He did all that (Sunday).

Buy Aaron Judge Yankees gear: Fanatics.com, MLBShop.com, Lids

Britton, 33, is coming off another stellar season as Chapmans setup man. The two-time All-Star was 1-2 with a 1.89 ERA and eight saves in 20 games in 2020.

I would say its always concerning anytime any of your players are going through tests because theyre not quite where we want to be, Boone said. But lets find out where were at and what the days ahead mean. Zack overall feels pretty good. Hes in good spirits about it. But lets get the answers first.

Get Yankees text messages: Cut through the clutter of social media and text during games with beat writers and columnists. Plus, exclusive news and analysis every day. Sign up now.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[March 09, 2021] Society Insurance Deploys Guidewire to Enable Digital Transformation and Foster Business Growth

Society Insurance and Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE) today announced that Society Insurance has successfully deployed Guidewire to enable digital transformation and foster business growth. Society partnered with Guidewire PartnerConnect Consulting Premier member, PwC US, to implement Guidewire in a greenfield approach to expand Society's business into the state of Colorado. It is currently preparing to launch in Georgia, a second expansion state for the company. "To achieve growth in new markets and our existing states, it became clear that we had challenges with speed-to-market and the ability to offer our customers the experience they are looking for," said Rick Parks, president and chief executive officer, Society Insurance. "With Guidewire, we are building our foundation for the future that addresses the dynamic industry environment." Heather Boyer, executive vice president, Society Insurance, said, "We began this business transformation journey about three and a half years ago, and along the way, we've partnered with Guidewire and PwC to implement a modern core suite solution that delivers an exceptional customer experience, whether that is from the agent, policyholder, or employee perspective." "We are honored that Society Insurance entrusted us with its business transformation, enabled by its Guidewire implementations," said Imran Ilyas, principal, PwC. "We are proud to provide support to better meet the company's needs and expectations in a rapidly changing insurance marketplace and look forward to continuing to work with Society and all of their partners on the company's transformation journey." "We congratulate Society Insurance on its successful Guidewire deployment," said Mike Polelle, chief delivery officer, Guidewire. "We admire Society's steadfast commitment to customer experience and look forward to seeing it meet its business imperatives and succeed in a rapidly-changing insurance industry." Society successfully deployed InsuranceSuite as its new core operations software applications for underwriting, policy administration, claims, billing, contact, product content, and rating management. It is also leveraging CustomerEngage and ProducerEngage to support their goal of delivering a seamless digital experience. Society deployed Predictive Analytics to embed predictive insights into PolicyCenter, creating a Smart Core systemfor guidance on account selection and pricing. In addition, the company deployed SmartCOMM from Smart Communications for customer communications management. Guidewire is a reseller of Smart Communications, a Guidewire PartnerConnect Solution and Ready for Guidewire program member.



About Society Insurance Headquartered in Fond du Lac, Wis., Society Insurance has been a leading niche insurance carrier since 1915. Society focuses on the small details that make a big difference to its policyholders while offering top-notch insurance coverage, service, and competitive pricing to businesses in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Tennessee, Minnesota and Colorado. Learn more at www.societyinsurance.com.

About PwC US At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. PwC is a network of firms in 155 countries with more than 284,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at www.pwc.com/US. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. About Guidewire Software Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. ?We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. As of the end of our fiscal year 2019, more than 380 insurers, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire. As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record, with 1,000+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation. For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) : @Guidewire_PandC. NOTE: For information about Guidewire's trademarks, visit https://www.guidewire.com/legal-notices. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005027/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
When Passover begins at sundown March 27, Jews worldwide will sit down to the Seder, the ritual meal where the story of freedom from bondage in Egypt is retold in the Haggadah, a guidebook of blessings, prayers, history, questions, songs, and stories.

The Haggadah copy might be an illustrated beauty or a freebie found at grocery stores with a Maxwell House coffee ad  America's most popular edition. But the words are essentially the same and "every word is to be taken seriously," says Mark Gerson, author of The Telling: How Judaisms Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life (St. Martins Essentials, out now). Gerson, a financier, philanthropist, and host of a podcast called The Rabbis Husband, explains in lavish detail in his book how the Haggadah contains "the greatest hits of Jewish wisdom."

He talked with PW about freedom, compassion, and personal transformation he finds in the Haggadah.

(The conversation has been edited for length and clarity)

The Telling has 59 chapters, albeit very short ones? Who is your audience for this deep dive?

This book is for anyone seeking a happier, more fulfilling, and better life. Its really a book about all of us, Jewish and non-Jewish, and it is timeless. We are all living in this story. Its lessons are accessible, actionable, and transformative. What do we tell ourselves? What do we tell our children? What does it mean to be free? But I dont expect people to sit down and read 300 pages. I wanted people to be able to read a few chapters and have a richer experience at their Seder and maybe read a few more chapters next year.

Telling  the English translation of the word "Haggadah"  is centered on the Exodus story of Jews finding freedom. So why is the celebration called the Seder, which means order?

There is no freedom without order. Everyone knows Moses told the pharaoh Let my people go but they overlook the rest of the sentence: Let my people go so that they might serve me. Freedom, well exercised, has a purpose. Its to create a dwelling place on earth for God, to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Freedom in the Jewish imagination has a purpose. Its not just following your bliss. Deuteronomy says, This book is for your benefit.

Why is there a miracle-counting contest among three great rabbis included in the Haggadah?

The contest is something profound because the winner is the rabbi who counts the highest. Its a literary mechanism to teach us to realize happier, more meaningful lives. The more miracles we can identify in our own lives, the better. If you wake up in the morning and your first thought is, I have a new day! There is so much I can do, so much I can contribute, youll find yourself bathed in miracles and your gratitude will transform you.

There's a point in the Haggadah where Seder participants are instructed to invite all who are hungry or needy to come and eat. Why does this invitation to strangers, coming while the Seder is underway, resonate with you?

This is a genuine invitation although its puzzling since it is issued while everyone is already at the table. What it means is to bring your whole self  all the faces of who you are. The word in Hebrew for face is plural. It has no singular form. No one has just one face. This isnt the tough guy face or the know-it-all face you show the world. You are the hungry one, the needy one. Its your broken self who is invited. God loves the broken-hearted.

The Haggadah concludes with a wish in the text: Next year in Jerusalem (metaphorically if not literally). But your opening authors note in The Telling concludes, Next year in Graceland. Whats that about?

Its an inside joke with my family. We love Graceland. Weve been twice and Im always ready to go back. Also, its common knowledge that Elvis was Jewish, from his mother Gladys, who was Jewish. Its the matrilineal line. Were all living the Exodus story.
Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk!

You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - The Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless is looking at how communities are handling the COVID-19 pandemic when it comes to finding solutions to combat homelessness across the state.

It's part of a three day 'Homeless on the Hill' virtual press conference.

Rochester Mayor Kim Norton participated in the event. She says the city is working on creative solutions by offering diverse solutions like the Southeast Regional Crisis Center that's currently being built in Olmsted County.

The center will provide mental health services that will, in part, serve the homeless population.

Norton says the city has also offered temporary locations for shelters during the pandemic such as the Mayo Civic Center and currently offers a day center located at the former Silver Lake Fire Station. However, that funding expires on May 15th.

Norton says that highlights the need for a permanent and reliable location.

She said what's necessary is, "a place for people to go to get the support they need and so our county knows where to find people who need the services. Because when everyone is dispersed throughout the community how can anyone find them to offer what is available?"

Norton does say she's been actively lobbying at the state capitol for funding tht includes the day center.
An Alaska Native cultural organization and the luxury department store Nieman Marcus have settled a lawsuit over the sale of a coat with a copyrighted, geometric design borrowed from Indigenous culture.

The Sealaska Heritage Institute said in a statement on Wednesday that both sides, including 11 other defendants besides Nieman Marcus, agreed to terms to resolve all disputes between them under U.S. and Tlingit law, Juneau Public Media reported.

The Juneau-based institute is the cultural arm of the Sealaska Corp., the Alaska Native corporation for the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people of southeast Alaska.

In a federal lawsuit filed in April 2020, the institute maintained that the Dallas-based retailer falsely linked the $2,555 Ravenstail coat to northwest coast native artists from California to Alaska through the design and use of the term Ravenstail. Sealaska said it discovered that the retailer was selling the coat in 2019.

The institute in its lawsuit said the Ravenstail term and style has been associated for hundreds of years with Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes. According to the lawsuit, the coat also mimics a Ravenstail coat created by a Tlingit weaver nearly a quarter century ago.

According to the lawsuit, Neiman Marcus violated the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act requiring that products marketed as Indian are actually made by Indigenous people.

Sealaska also said that the Neiman Marcus robe violates the copyright of Clarissa Rizal, a master weaver who created the Ravenstail robe in 1996. When she died in 2016, her family obtained the rights to the robe, Adams said.

In 2019, Rizals heirs registered the robe with the U.S. copyright office, the lawsuit said. The copyright was then exclusively licensed to Sealaska.

Sealaskas lawyer, Jacob Adams, told the Juneau public radio station that the terms of the settlement were confidential but that some effects of it may become public.

There are conditions that are being met to meet the Tlingit law aspect and cultural requirement aspect, Adams said. So, in the future, some things may be seen as a result of the settlement.

Neither Nieman Marcus nor its Alaska-based attorneys in the lawsuit immediately responded to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Alaska
Andrew Cuomo's book publisher has stopped all future promotion of his self-congratulatory COVID-19 memoir as he faces allegations of sexual harassment and a cover up of the virus death toll in nursing homes

Andrew Cuomo's book publisher has stopped all future promotion of his self-congratulatory COVID-19 memoir as he faces allegations of sexual harassment and a cover up of the virus death toll in nursing homes.

Crown Publishing Group has confirmed it has 'paused active support' of American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic and 'have no plans to reprint or reissue in paperback'.

In a statement to the New York Times a spokesperson for the company, a division of Penguin Random House, said the decision was a result of 'the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes'.

Cuomo, 63, faces a federal investigation into claims of a cover up of the true COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes and an independent investigation into claims of sexual harassment by former aides.

It was reported Monday that Cuomo received a seven figure advance for the book - after Crown believed it had found 'another political star'.

Cuomo, 63, faces a federal investigation into claims of a cover up of the true COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes and an independent investigation into claims of sexual harassment by former aides. He is pictured at a vaccination site at the Javits Center on Monday

But sales were already said to be plummeting in the wake of the dual scandals plaguing the New York governor, according to Vanity Fair. NPD BookScan data shows around 400 copies were sold between January 23 and February 27.

A spokesman for BookScan told the outlet: 'We can confirm that the title's sales have dropped in the last five weeks, and for context, this is not reflective of a larger market trend.'

The book had already been widely panned when it was published in October last year as the virus continued to rage in the state and around the world. Since its publication more than 15,000 New Yorkers have died from the virus.

It focused on Cuomo's Emmy award winning daily briefings and his handling of the crisis from March to June last year. Cuomo had been widely praised for his pandemic response but has seen a sharp fall from grace in recent weeks.

He did address nursing home deaths in the book, writing: 'Republicans needed an offense to distract from the narrative of their botched federal response  and they needed it badly. So they decided to attack Democratic governors and blame them for nursing home deaths.'

Months later it was announced Cuomo and his team would face a federal probe into their handling of data surrounding the care homes.

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday appointed Anne L. Clark and Joon Kim on Monday to look into accusations against the Democratic governor made by several women, including three former staffers in his administration.

The investigation is likely to take two months.

'These are serious allegations that demand a rigorous and impartial investigation. We will act judiciously and follow the facts wherever they lead,' Kim said in a statement released by James office.

The allegations include asking questions about the women's love lives and discussing his own, making inappropriate comments about their appearance and, in some cases, subjecting them to unwanted kisses or too-intimate hugs.

Cuomo has denied touching anyone inappropriately, and said some of the allegations are false.

But he has apologized for engaging in what he called office 'banter' that some women 'misinterpreted' as flirting. He has said he didnt realize he was making anyone uncomfortable.

The governor has said he will 'fully cooperate' with the investigation into the allegations and again apologized for his actions, adding that he 'fully supports a woman's right to come forward.'

Ana Liss, 35, (pictured left) previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015 but claims he subjected her to sexual misconduct during her time in his administration. Karen Hinton (right) claims the governor summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000 before she managed to escape

On Monday, he appeared at the Javits Center - which was supposed to be used as a field hospital during the worst of the pandemic but was never filled - where he said more vaccines had been given out there than anywhere in America this weekend.

The media was not allowed to ask questions during the appearance.

Cuomo on Sunday remained defiant, vowing not to step down in a call with reporters - despite a growing list of 50 New York lawmakers calling on him to step down or be impeached.

Two more women came forward with allegations on Saturday, bringing the total to five and prompting State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to call for Cuomo's resignation Sunday.

On Friday, his office was also forced to deny claims his aides massaged the data on nursing home deaths back in July in order to hide the true extent of the crisis. The same day, New York State lawmakers passed a bill stripping Cuomo of his emergency powers.

Charlotte Bennett, 25, worked as an aide for Cuomo. She claims he sexually harassed her and left her 'terrified'

Anna Ruch, 33, (left) claimed Cuomo behaved inappropriately at a Manhattan wedding in September 2019. Lindsey Boylan, 36, (right) claims Cuomo commented on her appearance inappropriately, kissed her without her consent and went out of his way to touch her on her lower back, arms and leg

Karen Hinton, 62, and Ana Liss, 35, both made their separate allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo, 63, on Sunday.

Hinton told the Washington Post about a 2000 incident when she said Cuomo summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event.

She said she tried to pull away from Cuomo when he pulled her back and held her before she managed to escape the room.

Liss, who previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015, told the Wall Street Journal that during her time in his administration, the governor had subjected her to unsolicited advances, including touching her lower back, kissing her hand and quizzing her about her love life.

Speaking with reporters on Sunday, Cuomo said Hinton's allegations were 'not true' and labeled her a 'long-time political adversary of mine'.

'There is no way I resign. Let the attorney general do the investigation and go from there,' Cuomo said, adding that he will not be 'distracted' by the allegations.

Amid the mounting allegations, other aides spoke to both the Journal and Post about the 'toxic' work environment allegedly cultivated by Cuomo in his office.

It included testimonies from two male aides who claimed the governor would berate them using explicit language, calling them 'pu**ies' and saying that they 'have no balls'.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo appeared at the Javits Center in New York City on Monday

Many of those aides said they would only speak on the grounds of anonymity because they were fearful of Cuomo's 'wrath' and his power to destroy careers, the Post reported.

Prior to Liss and Hinton, Charlotte Bennett, 25, revealed this week that Cuomo had questioned her about her sex life and whether she had relationships with older men.

Lindsey Boylan also revealed in a February Medium post that the governor had tried to kiss her on the lips in his office and suggested they play strip poker during a 2017 flight. Cuomo's office has said these claims are false.

A third accuser, Anna Ruch, 33, then came forward telling the New York Times that Cuomo put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her after meeting her at a September 2019 wedding.

The governor apologized for making the women feel uncomfortable during a press conference last week and claimed that the actions were part of his general behavior with everyone.
New Delhi, March 9 : Lok Sabha proceedings faced disruption for the second consecutive day on Tuesday as pandemonium on the price hike of LPG cylinder and petroleum products were again raised by the Opposition since the House assembled.

Slogans against the government policies and demands to roll back increased prices were the reasons behind the protest, leading to three adjournments of the House with limited business.

The ruckus led to the final adjournment of the lower house till Wednesday 11 a.m. soon after it assembled at 2 p.m. followed by two back-to-back adjournments earlier in the day -- the first till 12 noon and the second till 2 p.m. Meanwhile, the House managed to take two questions during Question Hour.

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) MP from Uttar Pradesh Meerut constituency, Rajendra Agrawal, who was on the chair, requested the Opposition members to let the House function as National Capital of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Bill 2021 was listed for the day for consideration and passage aimed at identifying the unauthorised colonies in Delhi for their regularisation.

As the joint Opposition led by the Congress along with Trinamool, DMK, NCP, Jammu and Kashmir National Conference as well as the BJP's former allies Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Shiv Sena continued their agitation, Agrawal adjourned the House for the day, announcing next sitting at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

The second adjournment was announced by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Meenakshi Lekhi, on the chair then. Amid the uproar Lekhi allowed Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal to laid papers on the table listed against the names of concerned Ministers. Meanwhile, Union Minister Thawarchand Gehlot moved the motion for the election of two members to the Central advisory board on disability.

Gehlot said: "In pursuance of clause (c) of sub-section (2) of Section 60 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, the members of this House do proceed to elect, in such manner, as the Speaker may direct, two members from amongst themselves to serve as members of the Central Advisory Board on disability for the period till they cease to be the members of the House, subject to the other provisions of the Act and Rules".

As the ruckus continued, Lekhi announced the adjournment of the House till 2 p.m.

Earlier, soon after the House assembled at 11 a.m. and Question Hour started, the joint Opposition sloganeering against the government continued. Congress leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury raised the question that the Opposition was not being shown on television during the discussion in the House.

The Opposition members later trooped near Speaker's podium and continued sloganeering even after Speaker Om Birla's multiple requests to the parliamentarians to go back to their respective seats and let the proceedings move on.

Two questions were taken during the Question Hour despite the uproar, but the Speaker had to announce adjournment of the House till 12 noon as the Opposition did not heed to his requests.

It was the second consecutive day of the second leg of the Budget Session when the Opposition's protest against the government on the fuel price rise continued. The House faced two adjournments on Monday when it met after the recess of the session.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, already under rolling review by the European Medicines Agency, may be produced in Western Europe by summer.

Swiss biopharmaceutical company Adienne Pharma & Biotech signed an agreement with Russia's sovereign wealth fund RDIF to produce the shot in the Milan region, pending a nod from Italian regulators, Bloomberg reported.

Russia's vaccine started to gain broader international recognition since February, when The Lancet medical journal published peer-reviewed results of interim trials showing 91.6% efficacy.

The deal comes as Prime Minister Mario Draghi pledged to speed up Italys fledgling vaccination campaign amid a new rise in infections from the disease thats already claimed 100,000 victims in the country.

Also under fire for its slow vaccination progress, Germany's government said it will drastically speed up its campaign and aims to get shots to as many as 10 million people a week from the end of March.

The deal with Russias sovereign wealth fund RDIF is the first European production deal for the vaccine. While Russia was first to approve a shot for the general public and promoted it as a way to help end the pandemic globally, it has been slower than some rivals to scale up output.



The vaccine is under review by authorities in the European Union, which has struggled to ramp up inoculations amid a lack of supply. The sluggish rollout has prodded some countries to consider their own purchasing deals in a challenge to the blocs solidarity.



There are many Italian regions which are enthusiastic about having Sputnik, they would also want to produce it, Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund, told Italian Rai3 television on Sunday. We have a partnership in Germany. Were talking to several French companies.



Sputnik Vs developers have had contact with German vaccine maker IDT Biologika GmbH, according to IDT spokesman Ulrich Gartner, who confirmed a report by German broadcaster MDR. He said that the company cannot comment on the details of ongoing talks with potential customers.



IDT, based in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, signed a letter of intent last month to help AstraZeneca Plc boost supply of its vaccine.



Dmitriev, who is in charge of Sputniks international roll-out and backed its development, said in the Italian TV interview that production in the country could start in June. The timing depends on approval from Italian regulators, and Di Naro said he couldnt set production targets as of now.



The deal comes as Prime Minister Mario Draghi pledged to speed up Italys fledgling vaccination campaign amid a new rise in infections from the disease thats led to more than 100,000 fatalities in the country.



Draghi blocked the export of AstraZenecas vaccine earlier this month after the company sharply reduced planned deliveries to the EU. He was the first European leader to use the recently-introduced powers, highlighting the sensitivity in the region over the supply of Covid-19 shots.



European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday lashed out at manufacturers for failing to uphold their commitments as countries in Europe struggle to step up the pace of inoculations.



Officials are also bracing for delays in the delivery of a new vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, according to two people with knowledge of the process.



The shots, which are due to be approved by the European Medicines Agency this week, were due to start arriving at the beginning of April but now arent expected until the middle of the month at the earliest, one of the officials said.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday.
The Canadian Press

One of the best players in the world will not be at the European Championship. Norway forward Erling Haaland is the biggest name missing from Euro 2020, because his country failed to qualify for the tournament. A host of other players who ply their trade at Europes biggest clubs will miss out for similar reasons, while several top players will also be absent from the rescheduled tournament after getting injured this season. DIDNT QUALIFY Haaland was really angry when Norway lost to Serbia in the playoff semifinals, denying the prolific striker the chance to show off his skills on one of the biggest international stages. The 20-year-old Haaland has been sensational over the past few seasons and his performances have seen him deemed the heir to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Haaland has scored 59 goals in 57 appearances for Borussia Dortmund over the past two seasons. Sergej Milinkovic-Savic netted two goals for Serbia in that semifinal match against Norway but the Lazio midfielder  one of the most exciting creative talents  will also miss the tournament after his team lost to Scotland on penalties in the playoff final. One of the worlds best goalkeepers also plays for a country which failed to qualify. Atletico Madrid keeper Jan Oblak captains Slovenia, whose absence also sees Atalanta forward Josip Ilicic miss out. INJURIES Swedens greatest player  and one of the worlds top strikers  came out of international retirement in March, but 39-year-old Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been ruled out of the tournament after injuring his knee while playing for AC Milan. Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk also injured a knee and wont return in time for Euro 2020. Another Liverpool center back, Joe Gomez, will miss out for England for the same reason. Defending champion Portugal will be without forward Pedro Neto, while record-breaking teenager Ansu Fati is out for Spain. The Barcelona teenager recently had a third surgery on his troublesome knee. CHOICE Spain coach Luis Enrique omitted veteran captain Sergio Ramos from his squad for the tournament following a season plagued by injuries. Enrique said the 35-year-old Real Madrid defenders lack of play recently made it difficult for him to be included in the Euro 2020 squad. With 180 games for Spain, Ramos has the most national team appearances for a European nation and had been on track to break Egypt player Ahmed Hassans world record of 184. For Germany, coach Joachim Low again left out Jerome Boateng but recalled Thomas Muller and Mats Hummels. Low had dropped all three players as part of his shakeup following the disappointing early exit from the 2018 World Cup, but the team has failed to shine in their absence. Croatia midfielder Ivan Rakitic didnt even give his coach a choice, making the decision himself. The 33-year-old Rakitic retired from international soccer last year, shortly after he left Barcelona and signed for Sevilla. Croatia will also be without Borna Sosa, who has dual nationality with Germany. The left winger thought he might be playing for the German national team at Euro 2020, but FIFA rules prevented him from switching nationalities. ___ More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Daniella Matar, The Associated Press
Mar. 8A St. Paris man was sentenced Monday afternoon in connection to the October death of a missing Champaign County woman.

Rodney Rider, 54, was sentenced to 36 months in prison and a $750 fine in the death of Whitney Hostler, his son's ex-girlfriend, during his sentencing hearing before Champaign County Common Pleas Court Judge Nick Selvaggio.

Rider was also sentenced to post release control supervision of up to three years, which is the same as parole, and will be determined by the parole board. He is subject to 18 additional months in prison if he violates that post release.

Rider pleaded guilty in November to tampering with evidence, obstructing justice and possession of criminal tools, court records show. Since then, he has remained in the Tri-County Regional Jail for 158 days with a cash-only $500,000 bond.

Hostler, 25, was reported missing on Oct. 1 after she had not been in contact with family or friends, and was last seen on Sept. 30, according to the Champaign County Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff's deputies found Hostler's body in a wooded ravine near Kiser Lake Road. The investigation into Hostler's death led them to Valerie and Rodney Rider, who were arrested Oct. 2.

Hostler shared a two-year-old child with the couple's son, Randy Rider.

Valerie Rider, 52, was found guilty on Feb. 25 following her trial for murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence, gross abuse of a corpse and three counts of possession of criminal tools. She was found not guilty of aggravated murder.

She is scheduled to be sentenced at 9 a.m. on April 1.

Rodney Rider and Randy Rider testified during Valerie Rider's trial, as well as the couple's other three children.

Rodney Rider testified that he saw his wife dragging a duffle bag, with Hostler inside, across the floor of their house after he woke up from a nap. When he asked what she was doing, she said she and Whitney had an argument and she was dead. The couple later put the duffle bag in their truck and drove around for hours until they found a place to dispose of it, according to his testimony.

Randy Rider testified that he and Hostler got into an argument on Sept. 30 and that his father advised him to leave because Hostler didn't want him there. The younger Rider testified that he left and went to a friend's house before they went to the Urbana Police Department and requested a wellness check on Hostler after no one had heard from her during the day.
A protest in Brasilia against President Bolsonaro's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Reuters

To state that Covid-19 is out of control in Brazil due to the incompetence of Jair Bolsonaro is a mistake. It is the same as describing Bolsonaros government as misgovernment. Bolsonaro governs and the spread of Covid-19 is, to a large extent, under his control. If Brazil is in a period of chaos, it is chaos by design. It is necessary to understand the difference to have any chance of facing up to Bolsonaros policy of death. If history has ever provided a similar situation, I am unaware of it. We are being subjected to an experiment, like human guinea pigs. The premise of this investigation, being developed in Bolsonaros laboratory of perversion, is this: what happens when, in the grip of a pandemic, a population is left exposed to the virus while the highest authority in the country gives out false information and refuses to follow health guidelines or adopt measures that could help reduce the contagions spread.

The result, in terms of human lives lost, we already know: Brazil surpassed 260,000 Covid-19 fatalities in the first week of March and the probability of it becoming the country with the highest number of deaths when the history of this 21st-century pandemic is written is rapidly increasing. Several nations worldwide will have immunized their entire populations in the coming months and can start to contemplate the beginning of the end of Covid-19. Meanwhile, Brazil faces a surge in cases.

World Health Organization statistics show that while the global average of Covid-19 deaths has retreated by 6%, in Brazil it has risen by 11%

During 2020 the United States and the United Kingdom were, alongside Brazil, among the worst-affected countries in the world in terms of Covid-19 cases. Now, with Donald Trump gone and Democratic President Joe Biden in the White House, the USA is moving in the opposite direction while the conservative government of Boris Johnson is setting an example with its vaccination program. Deaths in the UK are decreasing daily.

Brazil is becoming isolated amid the terror of Covid-19; a global pariah and an example of what not to do. World Health Organization statistics show that while the global average of Covid-19 deaths has retreated by 6%, in Brazil it has risen by 11%. The consequences of this are all too visible. When all is said and done there are bodies attached to this crime, at this moment in time a sufficient number to populate a medium-sized city. The average number of Covid-related deaths per day in Brazil stands at 1,300.

Another side-effect is less obvious: what we discover about ourselves as a society when we are subjected to this violence and what every individual finds out about themselves when decisions over health, instead of being prescribed by the relevant authorities, depend instead upon personal choice. This second part of the experiment has produced worrying results and could erode the social progress made over years and even decades, as has happened in the past in countries subjected to the perversion of the state.

To continue arguing that the Bolsonaro administration is incapable of managing the Covid-19 crisis is either a symptom, or bad faith. A symptom because, for a sizeable part of the population, it could be too terrifying to accept that the president has elected to allow the virus to spread. The human mind will find a path of denial to prevent a descent into despair, a kind of internal Stockholm syndrome to survive the horror of being completely at the mercy of one who wishes you harm.

Bad faith, on the other hand, is understanding what is happening but continuing to deny it because it is convenient, whatever personal interests are at stake. An investigation carried out by the Sao Paulo University Department of Public Health and the NGO Coalition for Human Rights has demonstrated that the Brazilian government has carried out a plan to propagate the virus. An analysis of 3,049 federal regulations shows that Bolsonaro and his ministers had  and still have  the goal of allowing as many people as possible to become infected in the shortest time possible in order to resume full economic activity.

Even in the pandemics most critical hour, President Bolsonaro remains true to his policy of encouraging crowds, opening up businesses and attacking the use of masks

The evidence is there, in documents signed by the president and some of his ministers. The investigation confirms what any person with an average cognitive capability can determine in the course of their daily existence, through the words and deeds of the president. The deliberate action of propagating the virus is not just a perception but a reality. What was lacking was documentation of the act, as mere perception is not enough. It has to be documented and demonstrated. And now it has been documented and this documentation has become the basis of renewed calls for impeachment and of communications with the International Criminal Court.

In an open letter, the National Council of Health Secretaries has urged the introduction of a nationwide curfew in Brazil and the closure of bars and beaches, among other measures. The council has warned that Brazil is in the grip of the worst stage of the pandemic to date and has called for a unified and coherent national plan of action. It has also recommended the closure of schools and a ban on public gatherings at communal events including religious services. The lack of unified and coherent management at the national level has made it difficult to adopt and enforce qualified measures to reduce social interaction, the council said. It has become clear that the proposed set of measures can only be implemented by governors and mayors if a National Pact for Life is adopted in Brazil, bringing together all branches of authority, civil society, industry representatives and the large religious and academic institutions under the explicit authorization and legislative authority of the National Congress. It seems apparent, though, that Bolsonaro has little interest in such a union. And, as the press have reported, his subordinates, many of them four-star generals, have stated they will not enforce any such measures.

Bolsonaro denies this, because there is already a national plan of action and it is focused on the spread of the virus. This is where those who believe that Bolsonaro needs to be convinced to lead a national pact for life are mistaken. He is already carrying out a national pact, but one for death, and I am not using a metaphor. He has made several explicit and public declarations that people should stop whining and that, when all is said and done, its normal that there are deaths, were all going to die one day and lets move forward. As a result, and even in the pandemics most critical hour, the president remains true to his policy of encouraging crowds, opening up businesses and attacking the use of masks.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, pictured in Brasilia this week. UESLEI MARCELINO / Reuters

In Porto Alegre, one of Bolsonaros supporters, Mayor Sebastiao Melo, has aped his boss: Contribute with your family, your city, your life, so that we can rescue the economy of the city of Porto Alegre. Note that we are dealing here with a complete inversion. Throughout the course of history, authorities of every geographic type and language have called for economic sacrifice to save lives. Bolsonaro and his adherents are asking for the opposite: the sacrifice of lives  those of other people, of course  to save the economy. And even so, despite the laying down of lives supposedly in the name of the economy, in 2020 Bolsonaros Brazil recorded its lowest GDP in 24 years. While other countries that imposed lockdowns are now witnessing economic recovery as well, Brazil is going off the rails.

In the face of an abundance of proof of a policy of allowing the virus to spread, those who continue to support Bolsonaro in public or from the wings deserve close attention. There are many reasons for bad faith, depending on the group or the individual. One such group, that described as the market, still believes that Bolsonaro can continue to carry out the neoliberal reforms they wish him to. Another, called agroindustry, backs the destruction of the Amazon to increase the stock in land for speculation and the extension of the agricultural frontier. The same applies to the extraction of minerals.

With the health system showing signs of collapse the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, designated religious cults as essential activities. To placate the pastors, who had complained publicly, gatherings in benefit of the church business are permitted

While there has been some backtracking due to the impact of deforestation in the rejection of Brazilian products in Europe, others are waiting for Bolsonaro to add further misdemeanors in this regard before withdrawing their support, whether or not this takes place in the light of day or in the shadows. Only then will they be outraged to discover Bolsonaros intention to water down environmental legislation and allow the predatory exploitation of indigenous lands. At some stage, these ingenuous children of the market will angrily distance themselves in discreet interviews in the liberal press, laced with economic jargon. After all, how could these innocents have imagined that Bolsonaro, so elegant and measured, was not a statesman? There are those who still have something to gain from Bolsonaro and Finance Minister Paulo Guedes and to them it doesnt matter how many people die, as long as the funerals do not involve their families or their select circle of friends.

The same is true among some Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal evangelical leaders, who also believe they have plenty to gain even though parts of their flock have fallen victim to Covid-19. Increasing desperation will bring new customers to offset their bad faith. As has become apparent, the shepherds of the market would prefer to hang on to their power now and through the next elections. With the health system showing signs of collapse the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, designated religious cults as essential activities. To placate the pastors, who had complained publicly, gatherings in benefit of the church business are permitted.

Dorias scientific fervor, under which he consolidated himself as Bolsonaros principal opponent during the first year of the pandemic, has been replaced with a new slogan: Hope, faith and prayer. Faced with pressure from the temple merchants and their threat to withdraw support in the presidential race, life is once again on sale to the highest bidder. And so what is considered the priority continues to take center stage: the 2022 elections. By that time, there will still be enough people alive to cast their vote.

And what can be said about the politicians, with the center leading the procession of those corrupt in wallet and soul, but who are by no means alone? All of Bolsonaros violations have not proven sufficient for a queue of more than 70  and growing  impeachment petitions to move forward. At the end of the day, what matters is guaranteeing the impunity of the parliamentarians themselves, something that really is an emergency for those who were elected to represent a population now dying of Covid-19.

Although the facts are known, it is necessary to recite them to understand the reality: Brazil has a president exercising a policy of death. It is not histrionic, it is not a form of expression, it is not hyperbole. It is a reality and many more Brazilians will die due to Bolsonaros actions. Faced with this predicament, will Brazilians allow themselves to be killed? Because that is basically the question.

Will we allow ourselves to die?

In 2021, Brazils capacity to weather Bolsonaros policy of death is considerably weaker than in 2020. This is reflected in the number of victims. On March 3, Brazil recorded the highest number of daily deaths since the beginning of the pandemic: 1,910 people. That is 1,910 fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, grandfathers and grandmothers lost; 1,910 families destroyed. And this in a country with a public health system, respected research institutions and an enviable capacity for mass vaccination.

Congress, which in the first year of the pandemic played an important role in securing an emergency relief payment of $110 a month and struck down the most monstrous of Bolsonaros vetoes, such as denying fresh drinking water to indigenous people, will do nothing under the current President of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, to prevent Bolsonaros worst inclinations or rein in the president himself. Quite the opposite in fact. The judiciary, and in particular the Supreme Federal Court, has managed to stave off several disasters since the beginning of the health crisis but its power falls short of being able to single handedly prevent the full horror Brazil is facing. And that is without taking into account an ideological schism at the heart of the judiciary.

The market will inevitably withdraw its support at some stage if Bolsonaro causes the most powerful sectors of the business sphere to lose more money than they make, something that is already happening in several areas. But we cannot rely on the economic elites, among whom there are those who have occasionally displayed some genuine concern for the good of the country, but who today couldnt care less about the population as a whole. The intellectual elites have shown they are not willing to do anything more than complain from the safety of their bubble, in the same way anyone can on social media. Of course there are exceptions in both arenas, but the depth of Brazils crisis shows that the elite are worse than was previously thought.

Those on the periphery who demand their rightful place in the center cry: We will look after ourselves. And its true. The question is, when the ourselves multiplies, who exactly are we?

The complexity of the we is that Bolsonaro was elected by the majority of those who went to the ballot boxes. He had already said exactly what he intended to do. And those who voted for him knew exactly who he was. And he won, which says a lot about the we. Despite implementing a policy of death and turning Brazil into a global pariah, the polls show that Bolsonaro continues to enjoy significant approval. If the elections were held today, he would have a very real chance of being re-elected. That also says plenty about ourselves.

Perhaps the most accurate summary of the drama of who we are came from the governor of Bahia, Rui Costa. During a live interview with Globo, he wept. Because understanding who we are is a difficult concept. And in the face of ourselves, the sense of impotency is amplified. Its hard to receive messages from people who ask, What will become of my business? What will become of my store? What is more important: 48 hours of a store staying in business or human lives? Costa asked through tears. I would not like to have to make that kind of decision. I would like it if everyone wore a mask, even those who think they are supermen or those that think they are young. If not for themselves then for their mother, their father, their grandmother, their relatives and their neighbors. These people and these people alone have decided when the pandemic will end.

These people that Costa referred to is the we. It is the we that packs the beaches, the we that celebrates Carnaval, the we that holds parties, obliging the police to risk their lives to break them up, it is the we that decided to have family Christmases and to meet friends at New Year because everybody has had enough. It is the we who fill the churches because our faith, which is more important than the life of our brother, requires those four walls to be made flesh. It is the we that think its clever to carry on getting drunk with our friends in bars. It is the we that wander around everywhere without masks. And it also the we who have declared that getting a vaccine is for idiots.

We are a mess

At this stage, people may say that we is not we, but them: everybody else. I would go so far as to say that if it was that simple, Bolsonaro would have already been impeached and would be under investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The nature of we is a mess. And we have to straighten it out to tackle Bolsonaros policy of death.

The most perverse aspect of the implementation of Bolsonaros plan is precisely that it lays bare the bolsonarismo even of those who despise Bolsonaro. This is the most demonic part of the experiment to which we have all been subjected. Yes, the presidents position is kill and be killed: dont wear a mask, join the crowds, open your business, go to work, send the kids to school, take medicines that dont work and if you get the vaccine youll probably turn into an alligator. Given the guidelines in place to propagate the virus, what remains is for everyone to take decisions on an individual basis that, it is hoped, take into account first the wellbeing of other, less-protected people and second, collective wellbeing, that of the wider community.

When Costa broke down live on television, in front of millions of viewers, it was due to his incomprehension of, and impotence against, those people attacking him because they were obliged to close their businesses for 48 hours to save lives. Two days. Just two. In the United Kingdom, stores, bars, restaurants, gyms, hair salons and cinemas have been closed since November. Like many across Europe, people in the UK spent Christmas only with the people who live under the same roof. I use the example of the UK because Boris Johnson, the prime minister, is not a leftist but one of the worlds crop of right-wing populists. Even so, he adopted these measures. Britons can complain, but only from within their homes, because those are the rules and the people that make the rules during a global pandemic are the health authorities. And thats that.

Bolsonaro also lays down the rules during this pandemic. But, as he has amply demonstrated, he has elected to propagate the virus. As a result of which, to preserve their own lives and not put everybody else at risk, people are obliged to set their own health rules. And it is in this warped reality that the we becomes complicated. We have to answer some very difficult questions. And what is becoming apparent on a daily basis is that eventually, and sometimes more often than not, we are also them.

We are not managing the limits well. When there is nothing or very little to lose, it is easy to impose limits. But when something that really matters is on the line, things become complicated. It is not just the financial cost, but the cost of a project, a plan, a dream, the cost of enduring anguish within the confines of four walls, the cost of loneliness, the cost of not pushing to the front of the line even if the rules allow it but ethics do not. If everyone looks inside themselves honestly, and without the need to enunciate what they see, they know very well what cost really defines for them and that they prefer not to stop doing whatever that is.

Women in Sao Paulo take part in a protest against Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on March 8, International Women's Day, demanding Covid-19 vaccines and emergency aid during the pandemic. AMANDA PEROBELLI / Reuters

The justification of us to ignore the rules set out by the World Health Organization is always legitimate because the assumption is that it is in the name of the greater good. The human brain is wired to seek out the highest justifications for rejecting those limits that may cause us to lose something dear. And, when confronted, we think that it is the other person who doesnt understand the situation or who is in a more protected position for making decisions. The we, when we can, rarely asks if we should. The us always has better justifications than the we to do whatever they want and whatever they think is important. And occasionally it is very, very important.

But we are facing a pandemic that has caused 260,000 deaths in Brazil and more than 2.5 million worldwide. A spike in cases signifies not only further fatalities, but also new mutations of the virus that can prove resistant to existing vaccines and compromise the measures in place across the world to combat Covid-19, placing the whole of humanity at risk.

When a decision is taken during a pandemic, it should never be based on ones own life. Only those who wish to sow death, like Bolsonaro, say that everyone has the right to do what they want because it only affects them directly. When he declared that he will not get a vaccine because it is a decision that supposedly only concerns him, Bolsonaro made this statement precisely because he is convinced of the opposite. He knows that his words will reach further than the sphere of his own life. Any decision made during a pandemic has an impact that goes beyond the life of any one individual. If that person is a president, the highest public authority, it becomes a directive for the population.

It is extremely difficult to take on the federal government, which has all the machinery of state behind it and the ability to amplify its own standpoint to encompass the entire country. It is immensely more difficult still to challenge the president of a republic in the middle of a public health crisis. Instead of following the federal rules designed to protect all Brazilians and particularly the most vulnerable  rules determined by the state  we have been obliged to seek our own recourse in healthcare decisions and, at the same time, we have been steamrollered by those of others.

There are those who simply dont care, of course. But there are many who want to make the best decisions and genuinely believe that they are doing so, but they are not public-health specialists, they do not possess the necessary training to be so and neither are they obliged to be so. Bolsonaro has also subjected Brazilians to this experiment, one that is leaving scars on everyone and corroding relationships that were already difficult. It is also corroding a society that was already significantly divided and pulling at the fraying fabric holding it together.

By shifting responsibility to the individual, Bolsonaro has perversely made us all accomplices in his project of death. When the right of the individual not to wear a mask and to refuse a vaccine is invoked, it is maliciously saying: if everyone decides individually what they want to do and youre complaining about it, why dont you decide to protect yourself and everyone else? Its that simple. And its diabolical because it makes it seem trivial, if such a thing is possible in a pandemic, that public healthcare decisions boil down to individual choices.

And if we decide to fight those who are killing us?

History tells us that during the civil-military dictatorship of 1964-1985, only a small minority decided to rise up against the regime. The majority of Brazilians preferred to pretend they could not hear the screams of the tortured, hundreds of them to their deaths, or of the more than 8,000 indigenous people assassinated along with the Amazon jungle. Even so, by all accounts there was a stronger and more expressive reaction than what we are witnessing or carrying out as a society now against a plan of extermination.

The process of re-democratization with all its defects, the most glaring of which is impunity for state-sponsored assassins, was capable of creating the progressive Constitution of 1988: the so-called citizens constitution, which still sustains what is left of democracy today, despite the repeated attacks of bolsonarismo. What will this debilitated, corrupt, individualistic society, unable to look itself in the mirror, be capable of creating if it cant find it within itself to rise up against the specter of deaths that are entirely avoidable?

If we give everything up for lost, if we give ourselves up as lost, if we say it is impossible, if we admit defeat, then there is nothing left to be done except contemplate the walk to the abattoir, obedient to Bolsonaros policy of death, because shouting on social media doesnt constitute the slightest disobedience toward anything. It is little more than expending energy confusing yourself about what action really is. To be us, independently of however many of us there are inside of us, we need to unite behind a common objective: to disrupt Bolsonaros policy of death.

In 2020, I wrote on these same pages: how can a people accustomed to dying (or accustomed to normalizing the deaths of others) prevent their own genocide? This question today, 260,000 deaths later, is much more critical than it was then. Our only chance is to do what we dont know  to be better than we are and pressurize Congress to honor the Constitution and to impeach. And to urge the international institutions to make Bolsonaro answer for his crimes.

Every day, everyone has to join everyone else in pursuit of this common goal. And, maybe, we may find that we are capable of becoming us, to discover that we are capable of creating a community. The first question every morning should be: What can we do today to prevent Bolsonaro from continuing to kill us? And the last question at night should be: What have we done today to prevent Bolsonaro from continuing to kill us?

What else has to happen, what more needs to be seen and what other evidence is needed to understand that we are facing a project of extermination? First, we saw people dying in agony due to a shortage of oxygen supplies in hospitals. Then we saw people intubated and tied to stretchers to prevent them from tearing out the tubes in their pain and desperation due to a lack of painkillers. What else is needed? What horrors remain? What image do we need imprinted on our collective mind to understand what Bolsonaro is doing? We have to understand why we are letting ourselves be killed, subverting the primal instinct for survival that even the simplest life-forms possess. But we have to understand while we act, because there is no more time. The alternative is to continue looking on while Bolsonaro implements his policy of death until we wont be able to see it any more, because well all be dead as well.

Eliane Brum is a writer, journalist and documentary maker and author of the book Brasil, construtor de ruinas: um olhar sobre o pais, de Lula a Bolsonaro.

Website: elianebrum.com. Email: elianebrum.coluna@gmail.com. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook: @brumelianebrum.

English version by Rob Train.
Rider Express, the Regina-based bus company that stepped into the fray when Greyhound cut its Western Canadian service, is taking another crack at the Winnipeg-Regina route.

Rider Express, the Regina-based bus company that stepped into the fray when Greyhound cut its Western Canadian service, is taking another crack at the Winnipeg-Regina route.

After Greyhound pulled into the depot for the last time in Western Canada at the end of October 2018, Rider Express was ready with a number of routes that serviced the country from Winnipeg to Vancouver.

However, weeks later, it was forced to cut Winnipeg from its route schedule because of lack of bookings. But on March 19, it is restarting Winnipeg to Regina service.

Omer Kanca, Rider Expresss manager of operations, said the company hopes that the rollout of vaccinations and the approaching summer travel season will get people travelling again.

"These are all hopes. You never know," Kanca said. "These are very unprecedented times."

The Winnipeg-Regina trip will cost $100 including taxes and will board at the Maple Bus Lines depot in Winnipeg at 936 Sherbrook St. Scheduled stops will occur at Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Virden and Moosomin, Sask.

Tickets can be purchased online from the companys website (www.riderexpress.ca) or through the companys call centre and they can be purchased from the driver.

The company understands the lay of the land a little better after a couple of years in business and despite the massive disruption to the travel industry caused by the pandemic, the company does not intend to stop service at Winnipeg. It is planning to acquire some new buses  expanding its fleet of 12 Setra, Prevost and Temsa buses  and hopes to extend its routes farther east.

"Our hope, our plan, is to connect the entire country, not just stay in Western Canada on the busiest routes," Kanca said. "We would like to be the new Greyhound of Canada."

After the Saskatchewan Transportation Corp. (STC), a Crown corporation, shut its doors earlier that year, company founder Firat Uray launched Rider Express, servicing a number of intraprovincial routes in Saskatchewan.

In the immediate post-Greyhound period, Uray told the Free Press, "For now, we want to stabilize this route. We want to go step by step."

Kanca said the companys philosophy continues to be careful, slow growth.

It will start with weekly service, leaving Regina on Friday night at 11 and arriving in Winnipeg at 6:30 Saturday morning, then leaving Winnipeg on Saturday night at 11.

Kanca said the company has received lots of inquiries about a Winnipeg-Regina route over the past six months and they believe there is demand.

"We feel like there is going to eventually be a service there," he said. "We know the times are hard, obviously, but there is a strong need for the service. So we are going to start slow."

Its Calgary-Edmonton and Edmonton-Regina routes are four times weekly with Vancouver-to-Calgary going twice per week. The hope is to be able to eventually increase frequency on the Winnipeg-Regina run as well.

But the business has already been hit hard by the pandemic. It started a Regina-Calgary service in mid-March last year at the very beginning of the pandemic.

The company had to cut schedules over the past year because of public health restrictions on non-essential travel.

"It has caused a huge hit on our operations and it still is," Kanca said.

But the company believes that if it is the one taking the leap into this market, the pent-up demand for leisure travel will bring customers via word of mouth.

"Ground transportation is a must," he said. "You cant do without it. Obviously the distances in Western Canada are not easy to manage. But still there is a need. We cannot simply ignore that. We are willing to do the job."

The company has been disappointed that it has not been able to collaborate with support from federal or provincial governments. It hopes that might still be possible at some point.

Meanwhile, the company is prepared to re-establish itself, post-pandemic, in some key routes and it believes it can be sustainable even with as few as 15 to 20 passengers per trip.

"But we cant last on that for too long," Kanca said.

Ideally, they would get up to 35 riders per trip before long.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The survey found 48pc of employers favoured a mix of remote working and workplace-based working when pandemic restrictions are lifted. (Stockphoto)

Over a third of employers want their staff to return to the workplace for all or most of the time, a survey has found.

It found that the biggest portion  48pc  favoured a mix of remote working and workplace-based working when pandemic restrictions are lifted.

Just 6pc wanted their staff to work remotely all or most of the time.

The survey of 445 employers by ManpowerGroup also reveals that most plan to pare down their hiring plans over the next three months as lockdowns hamper recruitment.

Public sector and manufacturing bosses are most optimistic, while unsurprisingly, employers in the hospitality sector are reporting the lowest confidence of any sector.

Their hiring confidence is found to have fallen by 18pc.

Employers in Dublin are most optimistic, with their outlook up 7pc since the beginning of the pandemic.

The ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey predicts Irish employers hiring confidence will fall between April and June this year.

The survey shows the national jobs outlook has fallen by 5pc when compared to the outlook between January and this month.

Managing director of ManpowerGroup Ireland, John Galvin, said there was a lot of demand for flexibility and remote working when people began working from home overnight at the start of the pandemic.

Read More

What weve started to see are many wanting to get back into the office, even to engage with employees and driving that collaboration. He said there was anecdotal evidence of people starting to feel lonely and fatigued when they have no other option but to stay at home.

Meanwhile, he said a late summer tourism surge may restore confidence in the hospitality sector.

What we know of businesses in Ireland is that they are resilient, he said.

Despite the fall in outlook quarter-on-quarter, employers are currently expecting no changes to headcounts for the coming quarter.

But we must be honest, in the short-term the data reflects the challenging business environment and the uncertainty of continued lockdowns.

He said employers are optimistic and feel there is light at the end of the tunnel due to the vaccine roll-out and hiring will return in the medium- to long-term.

Nationwide, employers in three-out-of-eight industry sectors report positive outlooks for hiring in the second quarter of this year  these include the services sector, wholesale and retail trade and manufacturing.

Two sectors reported no hiring plans  construction and pharmaceuticals.

Meanwhile, negative outlooks were reported in finance and business services, mining and quarrying, agriculture, forestry and fishing, electricity, gas and water. The negative outlook was worst in restaurants and hotels.

Larger organisations, with more than 250 employees, are the most likely to hire.

Mr Galvin said manufacturing, one of the sectors worst affected last year by the lockdowns, is now seeing some expansion plans for 2021.
The 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, will deliberate over a draft decision on improving the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) during its ongoing fourth annual session, which runs from March 5 to 11.

Photo taken on July 1, 2020 shows the iconic Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong, China. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

The NPC has the power and the responsibility to make the decision at the constitutional level to improve HKSARs electoral system, removing the systems loopholes and risks. The NPCs deliberation of the draft decision is a major move for adhering to and improving the "one country, two systems" principle, safeguarding the constitutional order stipulated in the Constitution and the HKSAR Basic Law and implementing the fundamental principle of "patriots administering Hong Kong."

Last year, the COVID-19 epidemic plunged Hong Kong into an economic recession. But from 1997 to 2019, Hong Kongs GDP actually doubled, and in terms of per capita GDP, the HKSAR is one of the most prosperous regions in the world. The policy of one country, two systems has proved to be the best solution to the questions facing Hong Kong left by history, and the best institutional guarantee for the HKSARs long-term prosperity and stability.

As an unprecedented practice, "one country, two systems" will inevitably encounter some problems and challenges. Some anti-China forces and radical localists in Hong Kong have entered HKSARs governance structure by taking advantage of the loopholes in the HKSAR's existing electoral system, attempting to spread the idea of Hong Kong independence, resisting the governance of central authorities, and hindering the administration of the HKSAR government. They have even colluded with external hostile forces in an attempt to grab power and administer Hong Kong through election manipulation.

These activities severely challenged the bottom line of the "one country, two systems" principle and seriously jeopardized the constitutional order and the rule of law in the HKSAR. Such activities put Chinas national sovereignty, security and development interests into serious jeopardy, severely disrupted the social stability of the HKSAR and harmed the wellbeing of Hong Kong residents.

The NPCs decision to improve Hong Kongs electoral system based on the regions reality aims to remove existing institutional deficiencies and risks to ensure the administration of Hong Kong by Hong Kong people with patriots as the main body. This in turn will ensure effective and law-based administration in the HKSAR and that the implementation of "one country, two systems is always on the right track.

Matters concerning the political system of the HKSAR are within the purview of the central authorities, which hold the primary responsibility for fully and faithfully implementing the policy of "one country, two systems and the Basic Law, and maintaining the constitutional order as set out by the Constitution and the Basic Law.

The NPC and its Standing Committee making the decision at the constitutional level to improve Hong Kongs electoral system is integral to improving the HKSARs institutions and mechanisms related to the implementation of the Constitution and the Basic Law. The decision is authoritative and in line with the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the Basic Law.

Since February this year, the relevant departments of the central authorities have held symposiums in Beijing and Shenzhen to communicate with the HKSAR government several times and hear opinions on implementing the principle of "patriots governing Hong Kong" and improving Hong Kongs electoral system.

After serious consideration of various factors and discussions with the relevant parties, central and state authorities proposed a two-step approach, namely, decision plus amendment. The NPCs decision takes into full consideration the practical need and actual situation in Hong Kong, holds solid political and legal ground, and has won strong public support.

The purpose of improving Hong Kongs electoral system is to ensure the healthier and smoother development of the region's democratic system in line with the principle of "one country, two systems", the Constitution and the Basic Law.

The central government has always supported the development of democracy in Hong Kong in a gradual and systematic way and guaranteed the exercise of democratic rights by residents in the region. This kind of democracy should tally with the regions actual conditions, give expression to the principle of equal participation by all sectors of Hong Kong society, and safeguard the overall interests of Hong Kong society and the wellbeing of Hong Kong residents.

By leading the improvement of Hong Kongs electoral system and implementing the fundamental principle of "patriots governing Hong Kong", the central government aims to stay true to the original intention of the policy of "one country, two systems", help Hong Kong end its unrest and division and focus its efforts on developing the economy and improving peoples livelihood. The central government cares deeply about the HKSAR and Hong Kong compatriots.

Its hoped that Hong Kong citizens will understand the far-reaching significance of the central governments decision, and fully support the HKSAR government in implementing these improvement measures and laying a solid institutional foundation for the principle of "patriots governing Hong Kong." In this way, Hong Kong will seize the important opportunities given by the country's 14th Five-Year Plan, integrate more proactively into the country's overall development, better leverage the institutional advantage of the policy of "one country, two systems", and create a better future.
WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 -- Researchers at Toshiba Corporation in Japan have studied the operation of a small device fabricated in the write gap of a hard disk drive's write head to extend its recording density. The device, developed by HWY Technologies, is based on a design concept known as microwave-assisted magnetic recording, or MAMR.

This technology, reported in the Journal of Applied Physics, by AIP Publishing, uses a microwave field generator known as a spin-torque oscillator. The spin-torque oscillator emits a microwave field causing the magnetic particles of the recording medium to wobble the way a spinning top does. This makes them much easier to flip over when the write head applies a recording magnetic field in the writing process.

In a computer's hard drive, each bit of data is stored in magnetic particles known as grains. The magnetic orientation of the grains determines whether the bit is a 0 or a 1.

Making the grains smaller allows them to be packed together more tightly. This increases the storage capacity, but it also makes the data bits unstable. The development of MAMR allows more stable magnetic materials to be used but also limits the type of recording media that can be developed.

The investigators focused on another effect known as the flux control (FC) effect, which also occurs in MAMR. This effect improves the recording field and is maximized when the magnetization of the spin torque oscillator is completely reversed against the gap field.

The advantage of the FC effect is that improvement is obtained in any magnetic recording, according to author Hirofumi Suto. This is significant, since it would no longer be necessary to use recording media specially designed for the MAMR technology.

The FC device, a type of spin-torque oscillator designed to maximize the FC effect, consists of two magnetic layers fabricated directly in the write gap of the write head. A bias current supplied to the device reverses the magnetization of one of the layers through an effect known as spin-transfer torque.

The investigators experimented with different bias currents and found the reversal of magnetization occurred more quickly at higher currents. Upon comparing their experiments to a computational model, they also determined the recording field was enhanced by the FC effect, improving the writability of the write head and exceeding the performance of conventional write heads.

The FC device operates effectively at a fast write rate of approximately 3 gigabits per second, according to Suto. These results provide evidence that the FC device operates as designed and show that FC-MAMR is a promising technology for extending the areal density of hard disk drives.

Toshiba plans to introduce hard disk drives using MAMR technology that will increase hard disk capacity to 16-18 terabytes.

###

The article "Magnetization dynamics of a flux control device fabricated in the write gap of a hard-disk-drive write head for high-density recording" is authored by Hirofumi Suto, Masayuki Takagishi, Naoyuki Narita, Hitoshi Iwasaki, Tazumi Nagasawa, Gaku Koizumi, Akihiko Takeo, and Tomoyuki Maeda. The article will appear in The Journal of Applied Physics on Mar. 9, 2021 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0041561). After that date, it can be accessed at https:/ / aip. scitation. org/ doi/ 10. 1063/ 5. 0041561 .

ABOUT THE JOURNAL
The investigation was conducted by Dr Vivienne Thom, a highly credentialled former public servant and intelligence expert. When Dr Thom sought to interview Heydon, he refused. That did not stop the investigation proceeding and concluding. The investigation ultimately upheld allegations of sexual harassment against Heydon by six women. The High Court accepted all findings and issued a public apology. The issue of compensation for the enormous impact of Heydons misconduct on the women involved is yet to be finalised. Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Credit:Kate Geraghty Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Attorney-General welcomed the findings of the investigation with Morrison describing them as very disturbing. Christian Porter promptly announced a further investigation by the Attorney-Generals department into further allegations of sexual harassment against Heydon during his tenure at the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance. The rule of law seeks to ensure that no one is punished without a fair process, including the opportunity to be heard. It also means no one is above the law, including a High Court judge, prime minister or attorney-general.

Loading The Morrison governments recently stated concern for the rule of law runs thimble deep. Its a convenient fig leaf designed to protect Christian Porter from any further scrutiny and accountability. Until the events of last week engulfed the government, Scott Morrisons passion for the rule of law had repeatedly gone missing in action. Indeed at the same time as invoking the rule of law to defend Porter, Morrison appointed Michaelia Cash as acting Attorney-General. In 2018, Cash repeatedly refused to cooperate with a criminal investigation by the AFP, rejecting two requests to submit to a police interview. In June 2017, three ministers, Alan Tudge, Michael Sukkar and Greg Hunt were forced to apologise to the Supreme Court of Victoria to avoid contempt of court charges. Chief Justice Warren observed that there was a prima-facie case of contempt of court and that the ministers failed to respect the doctrine of the separation of powers, breach the principle of sub judice and reflect a lack of proper understanding of the importance to our democracy of the independence of the judiciary from the political arms of government. Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Last year, Justice Flick of the Federal Court scolded Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge for ignoring a court order in an immigration case. The judge stated that the two ministers were unlawfully and repeatedly persisting in pursuing a course of decision-making contrary to the law. He later described the conduct of Tudge as criminal.

Once again, the Morrison governments commitment to the rule of law was conspicuous by its absence. Just as Dyson Heydons behaviour struck at the heart of the administration of justice, the allegations against Christian Porter of a serious criminal offence will continue to haunt Porter and undermine confidence in the government unless a fair and proper investigation is conducted. There are many others who have been made accountable in comparatively trivial circumstances. In 2012, the then speaker of the House of Representatives, Peter Slipper, was forced to resign because he had sent a private text message crudely comparing womens genitals to shellfish. Then opposition leader, Tony Abbott was joined by the entire Canberra press gallery in condemning Slippers misogyny and demanding his resignation. The conventional legal path for dealing with rape allegations is to pursue a criminal prosecution. That path is stacked against the victim. In any event, it is not an option in this case. It is not the only option. I have represented women alleging rape at work and have pursued civil claims under the Sex Discrimination Act. In each case the claim has been resolved on confidential terms. The conventional legal path for dealing with rape allegations is to pursue a criminal prosecution.

The next best option is an independent investigation conducted along the same lines as the Heydon investigation. It could consider the rape allegations and whether Christian Porters emphatic statements during his recent press conference were accurate. Loading It is undoubtedly the case that such an investigation will be difficult and complex in seeking to ensure fairness to the alleged victim (and her family) and Porter. And no one should be in any doubt. There is a significant prospect that the investigation will not be able to make a conclusive finding on the allegations of rape. Nevertheless, the seriousness of an allegation of rape means that we cannot move forward without inquiring into the truth of this matter. The rule of law demands that a process of inquiry is fair and is seen to be fair even if the circumstances are difficult and the outcome is far from perfect.
BENGALURU, India, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Infosys (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, and Interbrand, a global brand consultancy firm, today revealed that the potential risk in brand value of a data breach to the world's 100 most valuable brands could amount to as much as $223b, according to a joint cybersecurity and brand value impact report launched today. The report, called 'Invisible Tech. Real Impact,' examines the long-term impact of data breaches on value of the world's top brands across sectors.

View a short video on the report HERE

To quantify this risk, Infosys and Interbrand identified the brand factors most impacted when a company suffers a data breach - presence, affinity, and trust - and simulated the resulting brand value at risk in the event of a breach, using Interbrand's proprietary brand valuation methodology. Infosys and Interbrand found that industries such as Technology, Financial services and Automotive might suffer a higher overall brand value at risk from data breaches, whereas Luxury brands and Consumer Goods face greater value at risk as a percentage of their net income. Specifically, the report quantified the brand value risk different industries face because of a data breach, including:

Technology - Up to $29b brand value risk (up to 53 percent of 2020 net income)

- Up to brand value risk (up to 53 percent of 2020 net income) Financial Services - Up to $2.6b brand value risk (up to 52 percent of 2020 net income)

- Up to brand value risk (up to 52 percent of 2020 net income) Automotive - Up to $4.2b brand value risk (up to 77 percent of 2020 net income)

- Up to brand value risk (up to 77 percent of 2020 net income) Consumer Goods - Up to $5b brand value risk (up to 114 percent of 2020 net income)

- Up to brand value risk (up to 114 percent of 2020 net income) Luxury - Up to $2.4b brand value risk (up to 115 percent of 2020 net income)

Vishal Salvi, Chief Information Security Officer & Head Cyber Security Practice, Infosys said, "Cybersecurity for long was seen as a cost of doing business. However, in this digital age, where a company's reputation is based on its ability to protect customer data and establish digital trust, cybersecurity is becoming a business differentiator. Through this report, we bring a novel approach to quantifying the impact of a data breach to the brand value to help businesses understand and evaluate if the cybersecurity investments they are making are proportionate to the risk they face. It also reinforces the need for CISOs to engage with the board and build a robust governance ecosystem while employing a 'secure by design' approach to safeguard their brand value and reputation "

Ameya Kapnadak, Chief Growth Officer (India), Interbrand, said, "There's a fundamental shift in how brands engage with their customers. As the lines between the physical and virtual worlds increasingly blur, and brands rely more and more on the digital world to create unique experiences for their customers, data breaches have the potential to dent the very core of the brand's relationship with its customers. These shifts underscore the need to re-evaluate 'hygiene' aspects of customer experience, like cybersecurity."

For the study, Infosys partnered with Interbrand to simulate the value at risk for a brand in the event of a data breach. Interbrand's global team of valuation experts estimated the impact of a breach on a brand strength with scores from Best Global Brand (BGB) 2020 as a benchmark. The simulation used these 'post breach' brand strength scores to estimate the "Value at Risk" due to a breach, on the Best Global Brands. CMOs, CISOs and other decision-makers can leverage the methodology as a template to help them understand similar risks they might face to their brand value and calculate the right level of cybersecurity investment for them.

For a full copy of the report, please click HERE

About Interbrand

At Interbrand, we believe that growth is achieved when an organization has a clear strategy and delivers exceptional customer experiences. We do both, through a combination of strategy, creativity, and technology that helps drive growth for our clients' brands and businesses. With a network of 21 offices in 16 countries, Interbrand is a global brand consultancy, and publisher of the highly influential annual Best Global Brands and Breakthrough Brands reports, and Webby Award-winning brandchannel. Interbrand is part of the Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) network of agencies. For more information, please contact us, or follow Interbrand on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Methodology

Having pioneered brand valuation in 1988, Interbrand have a deep understanding of the impact a strong brand has on key stakeholder groups that influence the growth business. Interbrand was the first company to have its methodology certified as compliant with the requirements of ISO 10668 (requirements for monetary brand valuation) and played a key role in the development of the standard itself.

There are three key components to all of Interbrand's valuations: an analysis of the financial performance of the branded products or services, of the role the brand plays in purchase decisions, and of the brand's competitive strength:

1. Financial Analysis

This measures the overall financial return to an organization's investors, or its economic profit. Economic profit is the after-tax operating profit of the brand, minus a charge for the capital used to generate the brand's revenue and margins.

2. Role of Brand

This measures the portion of the purchase decision attributable to the brand as opposed to other factors (for example, purchase drivers such as price, convenience, or product features). The Role of Brand Index (RBI) quantifies this as a percentage.

3. Brand Strength

Brand Strength measures the ability of the brand to create loyalty and, therefore, sustainable demand and profit into the future. Brand Strength analysis is based on an evaluation across 10 factors that Interbrand believes constitute a strong brand. Performance in these areas is judged relative to other brands in the industry and relative to other world-class brands. The Brand Strength analysis delivers an insightful snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of the brand and is used to generate a road map of activities to grow the brand's strength and value into the future.

4. Value at Risk

For the purposes of this study, we estimated the Value at Risk that the Best Global Brands might have, in the event of a data breach. To do this we first arrived at estimates of a "post breach" brand strength score based on the brand strength factors that the breach might most impact - presence, affinity and trust. Using these post-breach brand strength scores allowed us to calculate the 'post breach' brand value. Finally, comparing the lower 'post-breach' brand value to the original brand value gave us the estimated Value at Risk.

About Infosys Ltd.

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 46 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

Safe harbor:

"Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects and financial expectations are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding Covid-19 and the effects of government and other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law."

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEIR00-kM6M

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/633365/Infosys_Logo.jpg
[March 09, 2021] Execs from Uber & Google Join Ivee's Advisory Board

CHICAGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ivee  the technology company that creates personalized passenger experiences starting in ride-hailing vehicles, announced two new additions to its advisory board. Marni Schapiro, Chief Revenue Officer at the business funding marketplace IFundWomen and former senior sales executive at Google, Snap, and Quibi, joins Ivee's advisory board. Marni brings two decades of experience in creating and promoting innovative advertising to new mediums. Chris Saad, former Product Manager at Uber and serial entrepreneur, also joins Ivee's advisory board. At Uber, Chris oversaw the developer platform and managed critical products like the Ride Request, Trips Experiences, and Driver APIs. "Having Marni and Chris on our advisory board takes Ivee up another level," said Alex Giannikoulis, Founder & CEO of Ivee. "Marni is one of the few sales execs that understands how to build and sell new forms of advertising with the consumer in mind, not just the brand. She brings boundless creativity anda spirit of collaboration that will continue to differentiate Ivee."



"Chris has a rare understanding of the passenger journey and the ways technology can enhance the passenger experience," said Giannikoulis. "Chris' guidance on our product strategy has already created innovative and scalable ways to personalize the passenger experience." Marni Schapiro added, "Working with the Ivee team is inspiring. They are clearly building the future of technology in ridesharing and how it will make a positive impact on people's lives. The opportunity for brands to play a role in the creation of this intimate new consumer connection is exciting and holds a ton of innovation and growth potential."

"With drivers increasingly turning into passengers of either shared rides or autonomous vehicles, the free time spent traveling from A to B will inevitably become a powerful platform on top of which brand new experiences and products can be built. Ivee understands this opportunity like no one else," said Chris Saad. Ivee's existing advisory board members - Peter Sellis, Elliot Garbus, Mike Mayhew, and James Cowen - served as senior management at Snap, Intel, Trading Technologies, and Gett. About Ivee, LLC Ivee creates "Better Rides for People and the Planet." With its in-vehicle technology, Ivee personalizes the passenger experiences on ride-hailing networks like Uber and Lyft. Ivee's technology has been recognized for innovation by the Plug & Play accelerator, MediaPost, and the National Retail Foundation's Innovation Lab. You can find Ivee at @rideivee on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. http://www.goivee.com Media Contact

Andrea Holland

DialedPR

304583@email4pr.com

925-915-3003 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/execs-from-uber--google-join-ivees-advisory-board-301242161.html SOURCE Ivee

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Chinese authorities have breached "each and every act prohibited" under the UN Genocide Convention over the treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China's Xinjiang province, an independent report published Tuesday alleges.

Why it matters: D.C. think-tank the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, which released the report, said in a statement the conclusions by dozens of experts in war crimes, human rights and international law are "clear and convincing": The ruling Chinese Communist Party bears responsibility.

It's the first time a non-governmental group has conducted independent legal analysis of the genocide allegations in Xinjiang, "including what responsibility Beijing may bear for the alleged crimes," notes CNN, which first obtained a copy of the report.

The big picture: Up to 2 million Uyghurs are estimated to be detained in the province's mass internment camps. Chinese authorities deny any rights abuses have been committed and claim the camps are used to root out extremism.

But there's evidence to support allegations of torture, forced sterilization and other abuses, with which this new report concurs.

Investigations show Chinese authorities have had a "vast string of factories" inside the camps constructed, and they're and forcing detainees to work in cotton fields, per Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian.

What they found: "China's policies and practices targeting Uyghurs in the region must be viewed in their totality, which amounts to an intent to destroy the Uyghurs as a group, in whole or in part," the report states.

It finds that Uyghur detainees within the detention sites are "systematically tortured, subjected to sexual violence, including rape, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, deprived of their basic human needs, and severely humiliated."

They're deprived of basic human needs, "severely humiliated and subjected to inhumane treatment or punishment, including solitary confinement without food for prolonged periods," according to the report.

"Suicides have become so pervasive that detainees must wear 'suicide safe' uniforms and are denied access to materials susceptible to causing self-harm."

Of note: Governments including the U.S. have denounced the treatment of the people inside the camps as "genocide" and "crimes against humanity."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) last December declined to investigate allegations of genocide against Uyghurs, but it left the file open. That means more evidence can be submitted on the claims and the ICC could still open an investigation.

Read the full report, via DocumentCloud:
MUNICH -- Around the world each year, extreme precipitation events cause catastrophic flooding that results in tragic loss of life and costly damage to infrastructure and property. However, a variety of different weather systems can cause these extreme events, so a detailed understanding of the atmospheric processes that lead to their formation is crucial.

Now, for the first time, a global analysis reveals that two intertwined atmospheric processes drive the formation of many large-scale extreme precipitation events around the world, particularly in dry subtropical regions where they can inflict catastrophic flooding, as occurred in March 2015 in the Atacama Desert.

Previous research on extreme precipitation events has mostly focused on wet regions, where cyclones are typically responsible for these events, whereas dry subtropical regions have been less studied. However, it is precisely these dry subtropical regions, including deserts, "where these mysterious events are least expected, but can cause devastating impacts," says Andries-Jan de Vries, an atmospheric scientist at ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, who authored the new study.

The results, published in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) journal Weather and Climate Dynamics, improve our understanding of atmospheric processes and weather systems that lead to extreme precipitation events. This, in turn, could help improve forecasts, perhaps leading to the development of early warning systems that could save lives.

The results could also improve our understanding of how these extreme events will respond to climate change. The intensity and frequency of these heavy rainfall events have been increasing in recent decades, and the trend is projected to continue under global warming.

Breaking Waves and Moisture Transports

This study highlights the role of two atmospheric processes in the formation of extreme precipitation events: the breaking of Rossby waves and intense moisture transport.

Rossby waves, also called planetary waves because they arise due to Earth's rotation, are waves occurring in the ocean and atmosphere that were first discovered in the 1930s by Carl Rossby. In the atmosphere, Rossby waves determine to a large extent the weather in midlatitude regions. Due to nonlinear processes, Rossby waves can amplify and eventually break (similar to ocean waves moving onshore).

Intense moisture transport refers to large masses of water vapor moving horizontally in the atmosphere. The process has been linked to extreme precipitation and flooding, often along the western coasts of continents. When the moisture transport appears in an elongate-shaped structure reaching lengths of several thousand kilometers, it is better known as an "atmospheric river."

"When Rossby waves amplify and break, cold-air masses intrude from high latitudes into lower latitudes, and vice versa," De Vries says. "This atmospheric process can drive intense moisture transport, destabilize the troposphere, and force air masses to ascend, which together favor the formation of extreme precipitation."

One key finding of the study is that the severity of the extreme precipitation is strongly influenced by the characteristics of the two atmospheric processes. "The stronger the wave breaking and the more intense the moisture transport, the larger the precipitation volumes," De Vries says.

Extreme Precipitation and Catastrophic Flooding

De Vries analyzed daily extreme precipitation events occurring around the world between 1979 and 2018. The analysis focused on larger-scale events and did not consider very local short-duration heavy rainfall, which are typically caused by single thunderstorms.

He found that Rossby wave breaking can explain more than 90 percent of extreme precipitation events over central North America and the Mediterranean. Over coastal zones, however, more than 95 percent of the extreme precipitation events were driven by intense moisture transport, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies on atmospheric rivers.

One of the most interesting findings was the discovery of locations where the two processes combined drive the extreme events. "Importantly, the combined occurrence of these two atmospheric processes can explain up to 70 percent of extreme precipitation events in regions where one would expect them the least--the dry subtropics," De Vries says. "Breaking waves that reach from the midlatitudes unusually far towards the equator can draw moisture from the humid tropics into the dry subtropics, which feeds the heavy rainfall.

The study further demonstrated that the combined processes played a key role in 12 historic extreme precipitation events that resulted in catastrophic flooding, thousands of fatalities and injuries, billions of dollars in damage, and sustained socioeconomic impacts lasting well beyond the flooding event. These floods included the Natal, South Africa, floods of September 1987; the Alpine floods in October 2000; the Uttarakhand, India, floods in June 2013; the Colorado floods of September 2013; and the Atacama Desert floods in March 2015.

###
Canberra, March 9 : Australian authorities will begin collecting language and ethnic data from everyone who receives a coronavirus vaccine to better document the migrant communities.

The Department of Health on Monday confirmed that everyone who volunteers to receive a Covid-19 vaccine will be asked where they were born and what language they speak at home, reports Xinhua news agency.

The data will then be used to identify communities where the uptake of vaccines is lowest, allowing the government to channel culturally appropriate information campaigns about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Similar data has been collected from every Australian who has tested positive for the virus since late 2020.

"In 2020, the Department of Health established the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities Covid-19 Health Advisory Group, which includes leaders from culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse communities and their representative organisations, health experts and medical and public health practitioners," a Department spokesperson told the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), Australia's multicultural broadcaster, on Tuesday.

The purpose of the group is to provide health advice for culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse people and communities in relation to the pandemic, the spokesperson said.

The initiative was welcomed by the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA).

"What we're interested in is trends in the communities in terms of their uptake of vaccination," chairwoman Mary Patetsos said.

"So what we're wanting to find is whether particular communities in specific cultural, language and religious backgrounds are vaccinating at a particular rate.

"If it's less than the average member of the community, then we really want to understand why it is, and then target a communications campaign so that they can make the best possible decisions for themselves."
NY AG Appoints Lead Attorneys to Probe Sexual Harassment Allegations Facing Cuomo

New York Attorney General Letitia James appointed attorney Joon H. Kim and Anne L. Clark on Monday to lead an independent investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo.



We are committed to an independent and thorough investigation of the facts, James said in a statement. Joon H. Kim and Anne L. Clark are independent, legal experts who have decades of experience conducting investigations and fighting to uphold the rule of law. There is no question that they both have the knowledge and background necessary to lead this investigation and provide New Yorkers with the answers they deserve.

Kim, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, focuses on internal investigations and regulatory enforcement, as well as high-stakes litigation.



Joon H. Kim, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announces federal charges against Akayed Ullah in connection with Mondays bombing at the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, New York, on Dec. 12, 2017. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

He served as acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York from March 2017 to January 2018, overseeing all criminal and civil litigation conducted on behalf of the United States and supervising the work of approximately 220 assistant U.S. attorneys handling a wide range of cases.

Clark, a partner at Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C., focuses on employment law issues on behalf of employees at the trial and appellate levels. Prior to joining Vladeck nearly 30 years ago, Clark was a staff attorney at the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, where she worked on the Eleventh Circuit appeal of the landmark sexual harassment case Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc.

Kim and Clark will lead Jennifer Kennedy Park, Abena Mainoo, and Yannick Grant to proceed with the investigation.

Jamess appointment came two days after Ana Liss and Karen Hinton, the fourth and fifteh accusers of Cuomo, came forward with their claims.

Read More Cuomo Says He Wont Resign After 5 Women Accuse Him of Harassment

Liss told The Wall Street Journal in a story published March 6 that when she worked as a policy aide to the governor between 2013 and 2015, Cuomo called her sweetheart, and once kissed her hand and asked personal questions, including whether she had a boyfriend. She said he sometimes greeted her with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.

Karen Hinton told The Washington Post in a story published March 6 that when she worked as a press aide to the governor in 2000, Cuomo summoned her to his hotel room and embraced her even after she pushed away.

Cuomo has denied all the allegations of sexual harrassment through his associates and has repeatedly refused calls to resign after the third woman to accuse him came forward.

During a press conference on March 3, Cuomo denied ever touching women in a way he thought was inappropriate but apologized if his actions caused pain.

I never knew at the time that I was making anyone feel uncomfortable, he said. I never, ever meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone or cause anyone pain.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during a news conference in Albany, N.Y., on March 3, 2021. (Office of the NY Governor via AP)

Cuomos workplace conduct was already under intense scrutiny before the several women came forward to allege that the governor had sexually harassed them or at least made them feel demeaned or uncomfortable. Cuomo was facing a crisis of confidence over his handling of COVID-19 nursing home deaths that occurred on his watch.

Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declared controversial practice of instant triple talaq among Muslims as unconstitutional in a 3-2 verdict on Tuesday.

SC referred to abolition of triple talaq in Islamic countries and asked why can't independent India get rid of it. SC held triple talaq unconstitutional and struck it down by 3:2 majority.

Justice Nariman, Lalit and Kurien say triple talaq is unconstitutional and opposed view of Justice Nazir and CJI Khehar.

Supreme Court said that triple talaq not an internal part of Islam and hence unconstitutional.

SC expressed hope that the Centre's legislation will take into account concerns of Muslim bodies and Sharia law.

The Apex court asked political parties to keep their differences aside and help Centre in bringing out law on triple talaq.

The 5 judges were unanimous in the verdict. After reading separate judgements, the 5-judge bench of Supreme Court rules in 3:2 majority triple talaq is void and illegal.

As it happened:

# 01:59 PM

Judgment of the SC on triple talaq is historic. It grants equality to Muslim women and is a powerful measure for women empowerment: PM Modi

# 01:57 PM

It will be herculean task to implement this on ground, says Asaduddin Owaisi

# 01:48 PM

SCs decision on triple talaq is justice to Muslim women. There should not be any doubt on Supreme Courts judgement, says Yogi Adityanath

# 01:17 PM

BJP chief Amit Shah congratulated Muslim women on the historic judgement. He said that he appreciated the Supreme Courts judgement.

# 12:30 PM

What we hoped to happen has now happened, it is a good decision: Salman Khurshid

# 12:10 PM

Its a good judgement and its another step towards gender justice and gender equality: Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister

# 12:07 PM

What will happen to those Muslim women who even after judgement will accept 'talaq', all issues have to be addressed: Z Jilani, AIMPLB

# 12:06 PM

Our grievances and apprehensions whether they have been addressed by the judges or not can be said after seeing judgement: Z Jilani, AIMPLB

# 12:06 PM

Welcome SC 's judgement, request Central Govt to bring in a legislation soon: MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan

# 12:05 PM

Have respected SC's judgements in past, today's judgement on triple talaq will also be considered by us: Z Jilani, member, AIMPLB

# 11:52 AM

Lucknow: All India Muslim Women's Personal Law Board President Shaista Amber celebrates after SC majority bench's decision on Triple Talaq

Lucknow: All India Muslim Women's Personal Law Board President Shaista Amber celebrates after SC majority bench's decision on #TripleTalaq pic.twitter.com/eqQen051DW  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 22, 2017

# 11:49 AM

People should understand the state of Muslim women and accept the judgement, says Shayara Bano

# 11:47 AM

I support and welcome the judgement, it is historic day for Muslim women, says Shayara Bano, triple talaq victim and petitioner

# 11:30 AM

Justice Nariman said triple talaq is a part of 1934 act should always be tested on constitutionality and said its unconstitutional: S Mehmood

# 11:27 AM

Justice Kurien said that triple talaq is not an essential part of Islam and enjoys no protection of Article 25,set it aside: Saif Mehmood,Lawyer

# 11:25 AM

CJI said matters of personal law cannot be touched by a constitutional court law or constitutionality cannot be tested: Saif Mehmood, Lawyer

# 11:20 AM

Justice Nariman, Lalit and Kurien say triple talaq is unconstitutional, oppose view of Justice Nazir and CJI Khehar

# 11:10 AM

CJI Khehar upheld triple talaq practice, asked Union Government to bring legislation in 6 months

# 11:08 AM

SC declares triple talaq unconstitutional in 3-2 verdict

# 10:40 AM

Chief Justice begins reading judgement

# 10:35 AM

Counsel of All India Muslim Personal Law Board Kapil Sibal reaches Supreme Court

# 10:20 AM

It is a big day, let us see what the judgement says: Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

It is a big day, let us see what the judgement says: former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi #TripleTalaq pic.twitter.com/h7ea2ZnYSu  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

# 10:15 AM

I feel the judgement will be in my favour. Time has changed and a law will certainly be made: Shayara Bano, Triple Talaq victim and petitioner

I feel the judgement will be in my favour. Time has changed & a law will certainly be made: Saira Bano, #TripleTalaq victim and petitioner pic.twitter.com/nujQXikn92  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

# 10:10 AM

Supreme Court to pronounce verdict in triple talaq case today

The five-judge constitution bench, hearing the matter, is headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar and includes Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and S Abdul Nazeer.

The bench is made up of judges from different religious communitiesSikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.

The bench heard total seven pleas, including five separate petitions filed by Muslim women challenging the prevalent practice of triple talaq in the community.

The petitioners had claimed that the practice of triple talaq was unconstitutional.

The Muslim women, who had filed the petitions, have challenged the practice of triple talaq in which the husband pronounces talaq thrice in one go, sometimes even by phone or a text message, to get a divorce.

The batch of pleas had also challenged the constitutional validity of other practices like nikah halala and polygamy among Muslims.

Several lawyers including noted jurist Ram Jethmalani had attacked the practice on various constitutional grounds including the right to equality and termed it abhorrent.

It was argued that triple talaq was a discrimination on the ground of sex and this practice was abhorrent to the tenets of holy Quran and no amount of advocacy can save this sinful practice which is contrary to constitutional tenets.

The Centre had told the bench that it will come out with a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if triple talaq is held invalid and unconstitutional by the apex court.

The government had termed all the three forms of divorce among the Muslim community - talaq-e-biddat, talaq hasan and talaq ahsan, as unilateral and extra-judicial.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Advertisement

Britain is set is to be thumped by three days of fierce winds and heavy showers this week as the weather takes a sharp turn away from this morning's sunshine.

The whole of England and Wales has been given a yellow weather warning from 9pm tomorrow when a band of wet weather comes in from the Atlantic, with the possibility of gusts reaching 75 mph in some parts.

The bad weather is expected to start in the north-west of Scotland on Tuesday, with a yellow warning of wind issued by the Met Office for the Highlands and Eilean Siar from 5pm to 11pm.

A forecaster said severe gales were expected and may lead to some disruption, with the rain advancing south tonight. Localised flooding is also expected in parts of the south as rainfall turns heavier and persistent into Wednesday.

The torrent of blustery showers will last through Wednesday with coasts battered by 60mph winds and some inland gales in the south.

While the main band is expected to have passed by Thursday it will leave behind a trail of wintry showers, knocking temperatures down into single digits.

Parts of Wales and the south-west have already encountered temperatures 'several degrees below freezing' on Sunday night and early Monday morning.

Meteorologist Aiden McGivern said powerful Atlantic gusts bringing the wind and rain had been steered into the UK by the changing jet stream.

Strong winds and heavy showers are set to hit the UK this week after a short period of calmer sunny weather

A yellow weather warning is in force for the whole of England and Wales from 9pm on Wednesday, with the possibility of gusts reaching 75 mph in some parts

Person was baffled by gale force winds and massive waves at the start of February (stock photo of Porthcawl in Bridgend, Wales)

An intense band of rain is approaching the UK from the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to hit Scotland on Tuesday afternoon. Flood warnings are in place for parts of south England

The Met Office warning said: 'Strong and gusty winds are likely to develop on Wednesday evening and continue into Thursday across England and Wales.

'Gusts of 50 to 55 mph are possible inland, especially close to showers.

'Gusts may reach 60 to 70 mph on coasts and hills, especially in the west, before gradually easing on Thursday afternoon.'

The forecaster warned the weather could cause delays to transport and short-term loss of power and other services.

The huge dampener comes two days after England enforced its first easing of lockdown restrictions with friends meeting up in parks as students went back to school.

Meeting a friend for a coffee on a park bench as well as outdoor picnics were among the first activities given the go ahead on Monday.

The stormy weather comes and made a calm start to the day across England, with sunshine and temperatures as high as 13C in the south. Pictured: Bristol city centre this morning

Pictured: The rising sun strikes Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain on Bristol Harbourside on a calm and mild morning in the South West

Reports of stormy weather come amid an easing in lockdown restrictions that brought out crowds of people out to parks to enjoy afternoon sunshine yesterday and today. Pictured: Wimbledon Common

Schools started their process of reopening with ministers asking pupils to take two quick-result tests per week in order to weed out asymptomatic carriers of Covid-19.

Downing Street said nearly 57 million lateral flow test kits, which can produce results in less than 30 minutes, have already been delivered to schools and colleges as part of the rollout.

This morning Britain enjoyed some glorious sunshine and temperatures up to 13C in the south, ahead of the intense band of wet weather moving in from the Atlantic.

The wind warning is in place for all of England and Wales until 3pm on Thursday.

Jim Dale, meteorologist for British Weather Services, earlier said of the stormy weather: 'This is a fairly major system which we expect to affect the UK from Tuesday into Wednesday, it may be something we issue a warning for.

'We are expecting severe gale-force gusts in exposed regions later on Tuesday and into Wednesday.

'This system, which is a double-barrelled low-pressure organisation, has got some venom and is going to keep people on their toes.'
India saw 10,113 companies shut down operations officially during the April 2020 - February 2021 period, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) data has revealed. Delhi, with 2,394 shutdowns fared the worst. Uttar Pradesh (1,936), Tamil Nadu (1,322) and Maharashtra (1,279) saw a large number of companies shut down during the Covid-19 lockdown and subsequent period.

Incidentally, Gujarat saw only 17 companies get their names struck off from the ministry registers during the period. Haryana did not figure in the list at all.

In a written reply to a query from a Lok Sabha member over the details of the number of registered companies that went out of business during the year 2020-2021, the ministry said that 10,113 companies during the year 2020-2021 (from the month of April 2020 to February 2021) were struck off under section 248 (2) of the Companies Act, 2013. The ministry also clarified that it did not run any drive to strike off companies' suo moto during this period.

Benny Behanan, a Congress MP from Kerala, had sought the details. The ministry said it does not maintain any record of the companies which have gone out of business but only administers the Companies Act, 2013 and maintains the registry of companies on the basis of documents and applications filed.

The MP had also sought details of the measures taken by the government to encourage new companies in the country. In its response, the ministry highlighted two notifications - incentivising the incorporation of One Person Company and changing the definition of small companies - as its major recent initiatives. While a notification on February 1, the Companies (Incorporation) Second Amendment Rules, 2021, incentivised the incorporation of One Person Companies (OPCs) another notification on the same day, the Companies (Specification of Definitions Details) Amendment Rules, 2021, amended the definition of small companies to increase the paid up capital and turnover to Rs 2 crore and Rs 20 crore respectively, in place of the earlier limit of Rs 50 lakh paid up capital and turnover of Rs 2 crore for the small companies. Both the notifications are to be effective from April 1, 2021.

Here is the complete list of states that saw companies getting shut down from the month of April 2020 to February 2021:

Delhi - 2,394

Uttar Pradesh - 1,936

Tamil Nadu - 1,322

Maharashtra - 1,279

Karnataka - 836

Chandigarh - 501

Rajasthan - 479

Telangana - 404

Kerala - 307

Jharkhand - 137

Madhya Pradesh - 111

Bihar - 104

Meghalaya - 88

Odisha - 78

Chattisgarh - 47

Goa - 36

Puducherry - 31

Gujarat - 17

West Bengal - 4

Andaman & Nicobar - 2

Total - 10,113

Also read: Indian companies are vulnerable! Suffer three times more cyberattacks than global average

Also read: Large companies 'cannibalising' markets of small companies post-Covid: CMIE
What Does the Bible Say about Being the Body of Christ?

The term Body of Christ is used in various books in the New Testament. From these references, we learn what it means to be the Body of Christ and why this term was used to help us understand the role of the church.

Believers have different roles, but all are necessary to the body of Christ.

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another (Romans 12:4-5).

Though we are individuals, we as believers are called to be onein unity, in Spirit, in Christ. We are called to be united in faith through the grace of Jesus.

There is one body and one Spirit  just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call  one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift (Ephesians 4:12).

When the church, or the body of Christ, works together and is joined together in faith, we can function properly in the role that Jesus has given to the church. When there is disharmony in the church, it will be difficult to fulfill its mission.

From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:16).

Most importantly, we understand from this metaphor of the church that Jesus is the head of the church. We look to Jesus for wisdom and guidance. It is Christ that leads the church in all it does for his kingdom.

And Jesus is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent (Colossians 1:18).

Photo credit: Getty Images/pcess609
A Supreme Court judge in Brazil on Monday dismissed the corruption cases against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, restoring his rights to run again for office in 2022.

Lula spent 18 months in jail and was freed in 2019 after being convicted in a huge corruption scandal linking him to politicians and business leaders. The case was dubbed "Operation Car Wash."

BBC reported that the Supreme Court ruling restores Lula's political rights unless his convictions are reinstated.

According to Justice Edson Fachin, a court in the southern city of Curitiba lacked the authority to try Lula on corruption charges. Fachin added that the former president of Brazil must be retried in federal courts in the capital Brasilia.

RELATED ARTICLE: Brazilian Authorities Probes Lula da Silva's Link to Corruption Scandal; Is the Former President Running for 2018 Presidency?

Lula's Involvement in Operation Car Wash

The operation was launched in March 2014, with an initial target on agents called doleiros or black-market money dealers.

These agents used small businesses, such as petrol stations and car washes, to launder money that came from crime. Police then found out during the investigation that they were on to something bigger.

Police discovered that the doleiros were working on behalf of Paulo Roberto Costa, the former director of refining and supply at the massive state-owned oil company Petrobras.

Costa talked about how he and other Petrobras directors had been deliberately overpaying on contracts with various companies for office construction, drilling rigs, refineries, and exploration vessels, The Guardian reported.

The contractors they were paying formed a deal to make sure they were guaranteed business on very lucrative terms if they agreed to divert a share of between one and five percent of every agreement into secret slush funds.

After funneling millions into those funds, Petrobras directors then used them to channel money to the politicians that appointed them or to political parties they represented.

Lula, the president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010, was jailed for money laundering after he allegedly received an apartment from an engineering company implicated in the Operation Car Wash investigation.

Lula, now 75, denied all the charges. He said they were aimed at preventing him from running in the 2018 presidential election.

The corruption investigation was considered to be one of the biggest scandals in the history of Latin America. It also threw Brazil into a political crisis, according to a WIon News report.

Lula in Politics

Lula was the president of Brazil from 2003 to 2013. He was forecasted to run against President Jair Bolsonaro, who is the right-wing candidate likely to seek re-election next year.

Bolsonaro accused the Supreme Court judge of bias. He added that he hoped the decision would be overturned when the full Supreme Court reviewed it, according to a Reuters report.

Bolsonaro also commented on the possibility of Lula running again for the presidency, saying he does not believe that Brazilians wanted Lula to run next year.

Meanwhile, a financial analyst said the possibility of Lula's candidacy would drive Bolsonaro to leave economic reforms he ran on in 2018.

"With Lula eligible, the chance of this current government going totally towards populism increases even more," Alfredo Menezes, managing partner at Armor Capital, said in the report.

READ NEXT: A Peek in the Life of Brazilian Ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva

WATCH: Brazil: Supreme Court Judge Clears Lula of Corruption Charges - From WION






Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow popped out to a coffee shop offering senior citizen discount days days after he welcomed a baby boy with his wife Dr Precious Lunga.

The TV journalist, 73, from Sussex, revealed yesterday he and his wife, 46, had a baby boy with a surrogate last Tuesday after 'numerous medical setbacks and miscarriages'.

Jon, who has two older daughters from his first marriage to former partner Madeleine Colvin, 64, donned a yellow puffer jacket as he picked up a coffee with a friend three days after the arrival of his baby on March 2.

A large sign displayed in the window of the coffee shop revealed it offered 25 per cent discount for senior citizens on certain days of the week.

Jon Snow, 73, used his senior citizen discount as he stepped out for a coffee with a friend days after welcoming his first child with his wife Dr Precious Lunga

The presenter picked up a coffee from a shop advertising senior citizens receive 25 per cent off on Wednesdays

The presenter could be seen chatting with his friend Lord Hollick as they strolled through the streets of London, before the pair stopped at a coffee shop to pick up a hot drink.

Businessman Lord Hollick ran Express Newspapers, then part of United News & Media, before selling it to Richard Desmond.

Prior to that, he sold off United's regional newspaper operation, UPN Holdings, in 1998 to a consortium led by buyout specialist Candover for 360m.

The outing comes as the presenter said he and Precious are 'delighted' to announced their child arrived safely on March 2.

Jon and Precious, 46, said they are 'delighted' to announced their child arrived safely on March 2, after they married 11 years ago in 2010 (pictured together in 2015)

Jon donned a bright yellow puffer jacket as he chatted with his friend while they waited to receive their discounted coffee

In a statement, Jon said: 'In our desire to seal our now 11 years of marriage with a baby, my wife suffered numerous medical setbacks and miscarriages.

'Consequently, we will always be deeply grateful to our surrogate, who carried our embryo to term.

'Amid these challenging times, we feel doubly blessed to be able to celebrate our good fortune.'

Snow has had an eventful romantic life. He was once briefly engaged to fellow ITN journalist Anna Ford, 70.

And earlier today, the presenter set out on a jaunt on his bike as he cycled through the warm streets of London in a red puffer jacket

The presenter unzipped his red puffer jacket to clutch onto a bag as he rode through the streets of London

Jon appeared to meet up with two friends for a rendezvous in a park less than a week after his son was born (pictured left and right)

And proving that age is no barrier to love, he married Zimbabwean-born academic Precious in March 2010.

Snow said her mental age was far higher than his, saying: Shes somewhere in her forties. Shes very, very mature. I mean, shes a serious boffin.

Snow, the son of a former Bishop of Whitby, walked Precious down a beach rather than the aisle.

The pair married on the Caribbean island of Mustique, the exclusive hangout of rich and famous.

The presenter held a black and orange checked blanket which he appeared to place down on a park bench before chatting with two friends

Jon, who has two adult children from his first marriage, joined one man sitting on a bench while another woman stood and spoke to the pair

It was conducted at the 800-a-night Firefly Hotel, where past guests have included rocker Mick Jagger, royal Zara Phillips and actors Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant.

At the time, Snow himself said: Yes, I have got married, but I have absolutely no interest in discussing my private life. It was actually some time ago.

Unlike Snow, who failed to complete his Liverpool University degree, Precious is a serious scholar.

The presenter sat at a distance from the couple and lapped up the warm spring sunshine as he spoke with them

She is an epidemiologist with the Medical Research Council, specialising in HIV prevention in Africa, and a Yale World Fellow.

She also captained the Cambridge University womens karate team while doing a PhD in neuroscience there a decade ago.

He is best known for being the longest-running presenter on Channel 4 News, which he has fronted since 1989.
The city-parish has launched a new website to assess the needs of residents still struggling to pay rent due to the coronavirus pandemic as it prepares to receive additional federal funding for its rental assistance program.

Through its new digital website, www.EBRemergencysolutions.com, the city-parish says it will "rapidly and efficiently" prioritize how it will dole out assistance approved in the last coronavirus relief package.

Baton Rouge, so far, has received $6.5 million from the U.S. Treasury to implement a rental assistance program and is set to receive another $22.5 million to address needs already on East Baton Rouge Parish's waiting list with the Louisiana Emergency Rental Assistance Program, officials said Monday.

"As federal resources continue to roll down to our community, it is important we determine the true needs so we can develop and expand partnerships and programs coordinated across multiple agencies to help residents get current on rent and ultimately keep people in their homes, as well as addressing other needs that contribute to basic quality of life," Mayor-President Sharon Westin Broome said in a prepared statement Monday.

Coronavirus relief bill's rental assistance could start going out in March, East Baton Rouge says East Baton Rouge Parish officials are scrambling to establish a program to give out rental assistance funds Congress approved in the latest co

East Baton Rouge Parish is one of seven large parishes in the state that will implement their own rental assistance programs with the federal dollars. The Louisiana Housing Corporation is overseeing allocation of the funds for the other 57 parishes.

Under federal guidelines, the money can cover up to 12 months of back rent and three months of future rent payments, with an option for an additional three months if needed. It is available to cover the rent for those making 80% of the area's average median income, with an emphasis on those making just 50%.

Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

The city-parish previously gave out more than $800,000 to various rental and mortgage assistance programs with the first round of federal stimulus money passed down from Congress last year through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act.

One of those agencies, the Urban Restoration Enhancement Corporation, said in January said it didn't have enough money to keep up with the demand of those needing assistance with rental payments as the pandemic continued.

Baton Rouge rental assistance program overwhelmed with more requests than it can pay for Officials with a Baton Rouge rental assistance program say they don't have enough money to help the more than 3,000 people who have applied, a

The coronavirus assistance package passed in December, which had $25 billion in rental assistance, $311 million of which went to Louisiana, isnt the only aid coming for renters. President Joe Bidens $1.9 trillion package expected to make its way through Congress in the coming days has another $27.4 billion for rental assistance, about $22 billion of which will filter through the programs that have opened in Louisiana in recent weeks, according to the Fair Housing Action Center.

Residents who submit needs assessments through the city-parish's online portal will then receive a notice on how they can apply for assistance if they are qualified once the program launches March 15.

In addition, the Mayor's Office is hosting a webinar for landlords at 10 a.m. Wednesday to provide information about the rental assistance program. Landlords can register at www.brla.gov/communitydevelopment

Staff writer Chad Calder contributed to this report.
A specialist lender advised by David Cameron has crashed into administration.

Lawyers for Greensill Capital, set up in 2011 by Australian Lex Greensill, told the High Court in London it was in 'severe financial distress' and had 'no conceivable way' of meeting a 101million repayment demand from bank backer Credit Suisse.

The demise of the firm  which specialises in supply chain finance  will send shockwaves through the British economy and put thousands of jobs in the steel industry at risk.

The collapse is a humiliation for Greensill, 44, whose popularity with government officials landed him a CBE in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours List (pictured at the ceremony with his mother Judy).

Greensill is the biggest lender to the business empire of Sanjeev Gupta, who was dubbed the 'saviour of UK steel' after buying up swathes of the industry but now faces a funding crisis.

It also lends to major corporations including Astrazeneca and Vodafone and around 1,000 pharmacies use the firm to borrow money to fund the cost of medicines. Furthermore, the lender owns a business called Earnd, which allows NHS workers to get parts of their salary ahead of payday.

US private equity firm Apollo Global Management was last night picking over Greensill's carcass as it seeks to buy the best parts of the group.

But it has offered just 43million for the assets it wants  a far cry from the 5billion value Greensill had recently been targeting in a potential stock market listing.

Apollo will retain 'the majority' of the company's 595 UK employees if a deal is done, according to court documents seen by the Financial Times.

A spokesman for Grant Thornton, the administrator, said it was in 'continued discussion with an interested party in relation to the purchase of certain Greensill Capital assets'.

The deal will likely wipe out shareholders, including Japanese investment giant Softbank which had ploughed 1billion into the firm in 2019.

The collapse is a humiliation for Greensill, 44, whose popularity with government officials landed him a CBE in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

'He said it was 'the graduation that my mother was never able to go to, at Buckingham Palace'.

Both Greensill and Gupta were plunged into crisis last week when the lender's main insurer refused to renew key cover.

This meant that rather than being insured if its borrowers failed to repay, Greensill would have to bear the brunt of any losses.

3,000 steel jobs at risk as Gupta defaults By FRANCESCA WASHTELL Five thousand UK steel and manufacturing jobs were on the line last night after the main lender to Sanjeev Gupta's empire plunged into administration. Specialist finance house Greensill Capital was the biggest backer of the steel magnate's collection of companies, the GFG Alliance. This group includes Liberty Steel, which employs 3,000 people at 11 steel plants in Britain. On the line: Sanjeev Gupta bought the Aldwarke steel plant, Rotherham (pictured) Another 2,000 GFG staff in the UK work at manufacturing sites. Gupta also owns Scotland's only aluminium smelter. Court documents filed by Greensill yesterday included a letter sent by GFG in February that warned it would collapse into insolvency if Greensill went under and stopped providing it with money. Greensill had about 3.6billion of exposure to GFG, the papers showed. The lender also said GFG had already started to default on its payments. Gupta, a 50-year-old Indian born British tycoon, was dubbed the 'saviour of UK steel' after a spending spree that saw him buy up plants in Rotherham, Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, Newport and Hartlepool. When Greensill began running into difficulties a couple of weeks ago, Gupta is understood to have tried unsuccessfully to seek loans from other lenders. Unions and politicians were last night desperate to find out from him what Greensill's implosion will mean for GFG's factories in the UK and thousands of workers. The chief executive of Liberty Steel, Jon Ferriman, held talks with business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Sunday. But nationalising the steel sites was not part of the contingency plans discussed. Unions are due to speak to Gupta today and have been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of transparency around the funding crisis. A representative from steel union Community said: 'Sanjeev Gupta needs to tell us exactly what the administration means for Liberty's UK businesses and how he plans to protect jobs. Gupta has not spoken publicly since it was first reported more than a week ago that Greensill was in trouble. But there are growing expectations that Gupta will launch a fire sale of GFG's assets, with potential buyers already lining up to pick off parts of the group.

Credit Suisse, one of Greensill's major backers, took fright. It froze 7billion of funds, leaving the lender short of cash.

This had an impact on Gupta's GFG Alliance, which effectively borrows money from Greensill to pay its suppliers, and then pays Greensill back when it has more cash. Without the money flowing in from Greensill, GFG itself was left struggling to pay suppliers.

In a sign of the dire straits Gupta's businesses are in, the steel tycoon last week told senior staff that he would stop repayments to Greensill in an effort to hold on to more cash.

The heavy lending to GFG by Greensill had already raised eyebrows at Germany's financial regulator, BaFin. It intervened last week to halt operations at Greensill's German subsidiary.

But regulators in the UK are now likely to face questions.

Greensill is not directly regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Instead, it pays ACA Mirabella, which is authorised by the FCA, to supervise it and make sure it stays within City rules.

The FCA is understood to have been in contact with Greensill leading up to its collapse, but a spokesman refused to reveal when talks began.
BOSTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- BitSight, the Standard in Security Ratings, announced that the company closed its fiscal year ending January 31 (FY2021) with record annual recurring revenue, record growth in platform data and usage, and over 500 new customers as the BitSight customer portfolio now includes 20% of the Fortune 1000. The BitSight Security Rating was also used by 20% of the world's governments in 2020 and is currently available on over 40 million organizations worldwide.

BitSight's solutions are based on the industry's broadest, most unique, and most credible collection of cybersecurity performance data. In FY2021, BitSight:

Increased its total data collection to 44 trillion records. BitSight now processes 260 billion high-confidence, high-quality security findings for customers every day to provide an accurate view of an organization's current and historic security performance;

Saw community-added data grow by 161% year-over-year, delivering greater context and enhancing ratings quality;

Provided critical telemetry in partnership with Microsoft and law enforcement to disrupt the world's largest online criminal network ; and

; and Implemented a Policy Review Board to validate and evolve its rating methodology with feedback from rated companies, further demonstrating BitSight's commitment to transparency.

BitSight's increase in content and context has also increased the platform's active users by 85% since 2020. The dramatic up-tick in activity comes as BitSight and Solactive shared definitive research that a company's cybersecurity performance is a direct indicator of business performance, as well-rated BitSight companies outperform benchmarks by up to 7% annually. With this data, the crucial role of cybersecurity ratings has never been clearer, especially as governments and businesses continue to grapple with the impact of one of the largest cyber-attacks in history.

BitSight's solutions for Security Performance Management, Third Party Risk Management, Critical National Infrastructure, and Cyber Insurance were further bolstered by partnerships with Solactive, Refinitiv and Kovrr, broadening BitSight's offerings for investors and cyber insurers as cybersecurity ratings continue to demonstrate a strong correlation to business performance. With these greater implications in mind, customers have extended more than 7,400 invitations to BitSight's platform to third parties (+57% year-over-year), alerting them to critical security issues and driving risk remediation. BitSight research shows that organizations who accept an invitation to the BitSight platform are twice as likely to improve their security rating by 50 points or more compared with those who do not accept.

BitSight continues to demonstrate its innovation with 15 new patents awarded in FY2021 and introducing significant new capabilities into the market, including:

Solactive BitSight Cyber Risk Index : Together, BitSight and Solactive announced the Solactive BitSight Cyber Risk Index , a financial index that will enable investors to invest in companies who are top cybersecurity performers, as measured by BitSight.

: Together, BitSight and Solactive announced the , a financial index that will enable investors to invest in companies who are top cybersecurity performers, as measured by BitSight. BitSight for Critical National Infrastructure : As more global governments work with BitSight's platform, BitSight for Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) enables governments, CERTs and National Law Enforcement organizations to measure, monitor, and investigate the cybersecurity risk of their country, industry sectors, and critical infrastructure companies.

: As more global governments work with BitSight's platform, (CNI) enables governments, CERTs and National Law Enforcement organizations to measure, monitor, and investigate the cybersecurity risk of their country, industry sectors, and critical infrastructure companies. Attack Surface Analytics: BitSight Attack Surface Analytics allows users to assess security risk across assets in the cloud, geographics, subsidiaries, and even across the remote workforce. A centralized dashboard shows the location of an organization's digital assets and the corresponding cyber risk associated with each for quick remediation.

BitSight also responded to our changing world during the pandemic and in the wake of the SolarWinds Orion hack in real-time, driving industry discussion on critical cyber risk considerations and becoming a resource for clients seeking clarity and guidance.

SolarWinds Orion Breach : The cybersecurity world was shocked when SolarWinds announced that its Orion software was compromised. BitSight worked swiftly with customers and partners to identify how many organizations were impacted and the prevalence of the compromised software in the days following the disclosure, and which best practices to implement based on hundreds of third party risk management workshops. The company was quickly positioned as a trusted authority on the impact.

: The cybersecurity world was shocked when SolarWinds announced that its Orion software was compromised. BitSight worked swiftly with customers and partners to identify and the in the days following the disclosure, and which best practices to implement based on hundreds of third party risk management workshops. The company was quickly positioned as a on the impact. Pandemic Response : As businesses struggled amid the impact of COVID-19, BitSight offered customers the ability to monitor any companies for free through the end of the year, allowing them to continue prioritizing cyber risk management amid financial insecurity; 700 customers participated in this offer.

: As businesses struggled amid the impact of COVID-19, BitSight offered customers the ability to monitor any companies for free through the end of the year, allowing them to continue prioritizing cyber risk management amid financial insecurity; 700 customers participated in this offer. COVID-19 and Work from Home: Amid the rapid and unexpected shift to remote workforces, BitSight analyzed more than 41,000 organizations and found that networks used to work from home are 3.5 times more likely to have malware present than the traditional corporate network. In response, BitSight introduced Work From Home  Remote Office , through which organizations can discover security concerns evident on remote offices and networks, reducing risk that their networks and data will be compromised.

BitSight also earned several prominent industry accolades in FY2021, including being named a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice for IT Vendor Risk Management (VRM) Tools. BitSight was also featured as one of Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies, for its ability to transform how companies manage security risk by reducing information asymmetry and increasing transparency about cybersecurity.

To continue advancing BitSight's unique solutions, the company appointed two new senior executives in the latter half of FY2021. Mark Desautelle joined BitSight in December 2020 as Chief Revenue and Customer Officer, responsible for overseeing BitSight's sales teams, sales operations and marketing programs centered around revenue generation. Also in December, Alex Laats was appointed to EVP and GM, overseeing the company's business units and product management teams.

As we continue to respond to the past year of upheaval and chart our path ahead, CEO Stephen Harvey noted that "BitSight remains focused on expanding our market leadership, continuing to elevate our ratings as the most-trusted and transparent in the industry. As we look ahead, the relationship between cyber risk and business will only grow. We will continue to provide our customers and partners with the tools to reach a universal understanding of cyber risk."

About BitSight

BitSight transforms how organizations manage cyber risk. The BitSight Security Ratings Platform applies sophisticated algorithms, producing daily security ratings that range from 250 to 900, to help organizations manage their own security performance; mitigate third party risk; underwrite cyber insurance policies; conduct financial diligence; and assess aggregate risk. With the largest ecosystem of users and information, BitSight is the Standard in Security Ratings. For more information, please visit www.bitsight.com , read our blog or follow @BitSight on Twitter.

SOURCE BitSight

Related Links

http://www.bitsight.com


OMAHA, Neb., March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP; and "Union Pacific" or the "Corporation") today announced the commencement of private offers to exchange (1) certain of its outstanding notes and debentures as set forth in the first table below for a combination of new notes due 2036 (the "New 2036 Notes") and cash (the "2036 Offers"), and (2) certain other of its outstanding notes as set forth in the second table below for a combination of new notes due 2071 (the "New 2071 Notes" and, together with the New 2036 Notes, the "New Notes") and cash (the "2071 Offers" and, together with the 2036 Offers, the "Exchange Offers"). The outstanding notes and debentures to be exchanged pursuant to the Exchange Offers are collectively referred to as the "Existing Notes."

The Exchange Offers are being conducted upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in an offering memorandum dated March 8, 2021 (the "Offering Memorandum"), and the related letter of transmittal. The Exchange Offers are only made, and copies of the offering documents will only be made available, to a holder of the Existing Notes that has certified its status as (1) a "qualified institutional buyer" as defined in Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933 (the "Securities Act") or (2) a person who is not a "U.S. person" as defined under Regulation S under the Securities Act (each, an "Eligible Holder").

The following table sets forth the Existing Notes that are subject to the 2036 Offers:

CUSIP Number Title of Series Reference U.S. Treasury Security Bloomberg Reference Page Fixed Spread (basis points) Aggregate Principal

Amount

Outstanding 2036 Offers Acceptance

Priority

Level Maximum Acceptance Sublimit4 Hypothetical Total Exchange Price1,2,3 New Notes Amount Hypothetical Cash Payment 907818EY0 3.950% Notes due 2028 1.125% UST due February 15, 2031 FIT1 20 $1,500,000,000 1 $550,000,000 $1,000.00 $144.75 907818FB9 3.700% Notes due 2029 1.125% UST due February 15, 2031 FIT1 30 $1,000,000,000 2 $400,000,000 $1,000.00 $128.25 907818CU0 6.250% Debentures due 2034 1.125% UST due February 15, 2031 FIT1 105 $160,068,000 3 N/A $1,000.00 $396.54 907818CS5 5.375% Debentures due 2033 1.125% UST due February 15, 2031 FIT1 95 $149,687,000 4 N/A $1,000.00 $294.56 907818BY3 7.125% Debentures due 2028 1.125% UST due February 15, 2031 FIT1 50 $175,560,000 5 N/A $1,000.00 $318.28 907818CF3 6.625% Debentures due 2029 1.125% UST due February 15, 2031 FIT1 60 $398,276,000 6 N/A $1,000.00 $316.92





1. To be paid in New 2036 Notes and cash per $1,000 principal amount of Existing Notes accepted for exchange in the 2036 Offers, subject to adjustment as described in the section entitled "Determination of the Total Exchange Price and Exchange Price" in the Offering Memorandum. Hypotheticals shown for illustrative purposes only. Prices will be determined at 11:00 a.m., New York City Time, on March 22, 2021 (unless the Early Exchange Date (as defined below) is extended by more than two full business days, in which case a new date and time may be established with respect to the Exchange Offers) (such date and time, as they may be extended, the "Price Determination Date"). Cash payment includes $50.00 early exchange premium. Cash payment excludes accrued and unpaid interest, which will be paid in cash in addition to the Total Exchange Price (as defined in the Offering Memorandum) or the Exchange Price (as defined in the Offering Memorandum), as applicable.



2. See page B-2 of the Offering Memorandum for illustrative examples of the Total Exchange Prices and Exchange Prices for the Existing Notes exchanged pursuant to the 2036 Offers, including the portions thereof payable in New 2036 Notes and cash.



3. For purposes of determining the principal amount of each series of Existing Notes that will be exchanged pursuant to the 2036 Offers, see the section entitled "The 2036 Offers" in the Offering Memorandum.



4. Subject to adjustment as described in the section in the Offering Memorandum entitled "The Exchange Offers".

The following table sets forth the Existing Notes that are subject to the 2071 Offers:

CUSIP Number Title of Series Reference U.S. Treasury Security Bloomberg Reference Page Fixed Spread (basis points) Aggregate Principal

Amount

Outstanding 2071 Offers Acceptance

Priority

Level Maximum Acceptance Sublimit Hypothetical Total Exchange Price 5,6,7 New Notes Amount Hypothetical Cash Payment 907818EX2 4.800% Notes due 2058 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 115 $76,570,000 1 N/A $1,000.00 $279.89 907818DT2

907818DS4 4.821% Notes due 2044 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 105 $189,119,000 2 N/A $1,000.00 $229.33 907818EG9 4.375% Notes due 2065 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 125 $600,000,000 3 N/A $1,000.00 $182.38 907818DL9 4.300% Notes due 2042 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 90 $222,179,000 4 N/A $1,000.00 $164.99 907818EW4 4.500% Notes due 2048 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 95 $453,374,000 5 N/A $1,000.00 $222.54 907818DP0 4.250% Notes due 2043 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 90 $212,708,000 6 N/A $1,000.00 $161.93 907818DZ8 4.150% Notes due 2045 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 90 $350,000,000 7 N/A $1,000.00 $154.50 907818FC7 4.300% Notes due 2049 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 95 $688,037,000 8 N/A $1,000.00 $188.89 907818EV6 4.375% Notes due 2038 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 70 $328,249,000 9 N/A $1,000.00 $181.01 907818EF1 4.050% Notes due 2045 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 98 $499,715,000 10 N/A $1,000.00 $127.04 907818EJ3 4.050% Notes due 2046 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 100 $600,000,000 11 N/A $1,000.00 $124.46 907818EN4 4.000% Notes due 2047 1.625% UST due November 15, 2050 FIT1 100 $500,000,000 12 N/A $1,000.00 $119.57





5. To be paid in New 2071 Notes and cash per $1,000 principal amount of Existing Notes accepted for exchange in the 2071 Offers, subject to adjustment as described in the section entitled "Determination of the Total Exchange Price and Exchange Price" in the Offering Memorandum. Hypotheticals shown for illustrative purposes only. Prices will be determined on the Price Determination Date. Cash payment includes $50.00 early exchange premium. Cash payment excludes accrued and unpaid interest, which will be paid in cash in addition to the Total Exchange Price (as defined in the Offering Memorandum) or the Exchange Price (as defined in the Offering Memorandum), as applicable.



6. See pages B-3 and B-4 of the Offering Memorandum for illustrative examples of the Total Exchange Prices and Exchange Prices for the Existing Notes exchanged pursuant to the 2071 Offers, including the portions thereof payable in New 2071 Notes and cash.



7. For purposes of determining the principal amount of each series of Existing Notes that will be exchanged pursuant to the 2071 Offers, see the section entitled "The 2071 Offers" in the Offering Memorandum.

Union Pacific will make six separate 2036 Offers to Eligible Holders in an amount that requires no more than an aggregate principal amount of $1,000,000,000 of New 2036 Notes be issued pursuant to the 2036 Offers (the "2036 Offers Limit"). In addition, Union Pacific will make twelve separate 2071 Offers to Eligible Holders in an amount that requires no more than an aggregate principal amount of $750,000,000 of New 2071 Notes be issued pursuant to the 2071 Offers (the "2071 Offers Limit"). The amounts of each series of Existing Notes that are exchanged in the Exchange Offers will be determined in accordance with the 2036 Offers Limit, in the case of the 2036 Offers, and the 2071 Offers Limit, in the case of the 2071 Offers, and the priorities set forth in the "Acceptance Priority Level" column in the applicable table above and as further detailed in the Offering Memorandum. Union Pacific reserves the right to increase the Exchange Offers Limit and any Maximum Acceptance Sublimit (as defined in the Offering Memorandum) as provided in the Offering Memorandum.

The Exchange Offers are also subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions, including (i) the condition that, in the case of the 2036 Offers, the amount of Existing Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn by the Expiration Date be an amount that requires the issuance of at least $300,000,000 aggregate principal amount of New 2036 Notes in accordance with the terms of the 2036 Offers and, in the case of the 2071 Offers, the amount of Existing Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn by the Expiration Date be an amount that requires the issuance of at least $300,000,000 aggregate principal amount of New 2071 Notes in accordance with the terms of the 2071 Offers; (ii) the condition that, in the case of the 2036 Offers, at the Price Determination Date, the yield on the applicable Reference U.S. Treasury Security for a series of Existing Notes tendered pursuant to the 2036 Offers is no greater than 1.95%; (iii) the condition that, in the case of the 2071 Offers, at the Price Determination Date, the yield on the applicable Reference U.S. Treasury Security for a series of Existing Notes tendered pursuant to the 2071 Offers is no greater than 2.65%; and (iv) the condition that, at the Price Determination Date, the combination of the yield of the New Notes that would be issued pursuant to an Exchange Offer and the Total Exchange Price or Exchange Price for the applicable series of Existing Notes would result in such New Notes issued in exchange for such series of Existing Notes and such Existing Notes not being considered "substantially different" under FASB Accounting Standards Codification 470-50. Further, notwithstanding any other provisions of the Exchange Offers, Union Pacific will not be required to accept any Existing Notes, issue New Notes or pay any cash amounts if, at the Price Determination Date, Union Pacific believes, in its reasonable judgment, that it is highly likely that the exchange of such series of Existing Notes for the Total Exchange Price or the Exchange Price applicable to such series of Existing Notes should not result in a "significant modification" of such series of Existing Notes under applicable U.S. Treasury regulations. Union Pacific's ability to consummate the 2036 Offers is not contingent on the consummation of, or the satisfaction of any condition required solely with respect to, the 2071 Offers, and its ability to consummate the 2071 Offers is not contingent on the consummation of, or the satisfaction of any condition required solely with respect to, the 2036 Offers.

Eligible Holders of Existing Notes that tender their Existing Notes prior to 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on March 19, 2021, subject to any extension by Union Pacific (the "Early Exchange Date"), and are accepted will receive the Total Exchange Price, which will include an early exchange premium. Eligible Holders of Existing Notes that tender their Existing Notes after the Early Exchange Date and are accepted will receive the Exchange Price, which will not include any early exchange premium.

The Exchange Offers will expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on April 2, 2021, unless extended or earlier terminated by Union Pacific (the "Expiration Date"). Tenders of Existing Notes in the Exchange Offers may be validly withdrawn at any time prior to 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on March 19, 2021, subject to extension by Union Pacific, but not thereafter, except in certain limited circumstances where additional withdrawal rights are required by law.

The New 2036 Notes will mature on April 6, 2036, and will bear interest at a rate per annum equal to the sum of (i) the bid-side yield on the 1.125% U.S. Treasury Note due February 15, 2031 on the Price Determination Date (based on the bid-side price indicated on the Bloomberg Screen page FIT1 at such date and time), and (ii) 1.20% (120 basis points). The New 2071 Notes will mature on April 6, 2071, and will bear interest at a rate per annum equal to the sum of (i) the bid-side yield on the 1.625% U.S. Treasury Note due November 15, 2050 on the Price Determination Date (based on the bid-side price indicated on the Bloomberg Screen page FIT1 at such date and time), and (ii) 1.40% (140 basis points).

The New Notes have not been registered under the Securities Act or any state securities laws. Therefore, the New Notes may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act and any applicable state securities laws.

This press release is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The Exchange Offers are being made solely by the Offering Memorandum and related letter of transmittal and only to such persons and in such jurisdictions as is permitted under applicable law.

Documents relating to the Exchange Offers will only be distributed to holders of Existing Notes that complete and return a letter of eligibility confirming that they are eligible investors for the Exchange Offers. Holders of Existing Notes that desire to review the eligibility letter may visit the website for this purpose at http://www.dfking.com/unp or contact D.F. King & Co., Inc., the information agent for the Exchange Offers, at (212) 269-5550 or (800) 676-7437 (toll free) or by email at [email protected].

ABOUT UNION PACIFIC

Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) delivers the goods families and businesses use every day with safe, reliable and efficient service. Operating in 23 western states, the company connects its customers and communities to the global economy. Trains are the most environmentally responsible way to move freight, helping Union Pacific protect future generations. More information about Union Pacific is available at www.up.com.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release and related materials (including information in oral statements or other written statements made or to be made by us), contain statements about the Corporation's future that are not statements of historical fact, including specifically the statements regarding the Corporation's expectations with respect to economic conditions and demand levels, its ability to improve network performance, its results of operations, and potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. These statements are, or will be, forwardlooking statements as defined by the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forwardlooking statements also generally include, without limitation, information or statements regarding: projections, predictions, expectations, estimates or forecasts as to the Corporation's and its subsidiaries' business, financial, and operational results, and future economic performance; and management's beliefs, expectations, goals and objectives and other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts.

Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times that, or by which, such performance or results will be achieved. Forward-looking information, including expectations regarding operational and financial improvements and the Corporation's future performance or results are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in the statements. Important factors, including risk factors, could affect the Corporation's and its subsidiaries' future results and could cause those results or other outcomes to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Information regarding risk factors and other cautionary information are available in the Corporation's Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2020, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on February 5, 2021. The Corporation updates information regarding risk factors if circumstances require such updates in its periodic reports on Form 10-Q and its subsequent Annual Reports on Form 10-K (or such other reports that may be filed with the SEC).

Forwardlooking statements speak only as of, and are based only upon information available on, the date the statements were made. The Corporation assumes no obligation to update forwardlooking information to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting forwardlooking information. If the Corporation does update one or more forwardlooking statements, no inference should be drawn that the Corporation will make additional updates with respect thereto or with respect to other forwardlooking statements. References to our website are provided for convenience and, therefore, information on or available through the website is not, and should not be deemed to be, incorporated by reference herein.

SOURCE Union Pacific Corporation

Related Links

http://www.up.com


Updated Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Portland police arrested a suspect who ran away from police officers during a shooting investigation in Southeast Portland, they confirmed Monday afternoon.

Officers said around 3:15 p.m., they responded to Southeast 111th Avenue and Foster Road and found one person with a gunshot wound. That person, identified Wednesday as Anthony Vernon Johnson, 34, was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Johnson was later taken to jail and arrested on a previous warrant, police said. He has not been charged in Mondays shooting, which continues to be investigated.

Police have not provided an update about the circumstances of the shooting.

Police said as they were investigating the shooting, a person ran from the scene. Officers said they dont know if the person who ran is the same person who shot and injured Johnson.

Johnson fled from officers and hid in the Foster Flood Plain area, a heavily wooded natural area, police said.

At least 30 officers arrived at the scene and set up a perimeter west and south of Southeast 110th Avenue and Foster Road.

After nearly three hours of searching, officers said a police dog found Johnson hiding within the perimeter. He was treated at the hospital for minor dog bite injuries.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR
Belships ASA: Contemplated Private Placement

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN OR THE UNITED STATES DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN OR THE UNITED STATES OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH THE RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER OF ANY OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN.

Oslo, 9 March 2021

Belships ASA (OSE: BEL; "Belships" or the "Company") has retained Arctic Securities AS and Pareto Securities AS (together, the "Managers") as Joint Lead Managers and Bookrunners, to advise on and effect a private placement of up to 20 million new shares (the "Offer Shares") (the "Private Placement").

The net proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to fund the cash element of two new Japanese bareboat leases recently announced and for general corporate purposes.

Certain existing shareholders and new investors have collectively pre-committed to subscribe: Peter Frlich, Chairman: 25,000 Offer Shares, Frode Teigen, Board member: 5 million Offer Shares, Carl Erik Steen, Board member: 100 000 Offer Shares, Ellen and Jakob Hatteland: 2.5 million Offer Shares, and CEO Lars Christian Skarsgard: 50,000 Offer Shares.

The price per Offer Share in the Private Placement (the "Offer Price") will be determined by the board of directors of the Company (the "Board") following an accelerated bookbuilding process. The bookbuilding period for the Private Placement opens today at 16:30 CET on 9 March 2021 and closes at 08:00 CET on 10 March 2021. The Company and the Managers may at their sole discretion extend or shorten the application period at any time and for any reason. If the application period is extended or shortened the other dates referred to herein may be amended accordingly.

The Private Placement will be directed towards Norwegian and international investors, in each case subject to an exemption being available from offer prospectus requirements and any other filing or registration requirements in the applicable jurisdictions and subject to other selling restrictions. The minimum application and allocation amount has been set to the NOK equivalent of EUR 100,000. The Company may, however, at its sole discretion, allocate an amount below EUR 100,000 to the extent applicable exemptions from the prospectus requirements are available.

Allocation of the Offer Shares will be determined at the end of the application period, and final allocation will be made by the Company's Board of Directors at its sole discretion. Completion of the Private Placement is subject to approval by the Board of Directors pursuant to an authorisation granted by the Company's general meeting held 14 May 2020. The Company and the Managers reserve the right, at any time and for any reason, to cancel and/or modify the terms of the Private Placement.

The Company will announce the final offer price and the number of Offer Shares allocated in the Private Placement through a stock exchange notice expected to be published after expiry of the bookbuilding period.

Notification of allocation is expected to be sent by the Managers on or about 10 March 2021. Allocated subscription shares will be delivered on or about 12 March 2021 on a DVP (Delivery versus Payment) basis. Subscribers will receive existing and unencumbered shares in the Company already listed on the OSE pursuant to a share lending agreement, and the shares will be tradeable upon allocation.

Subject to completion of the Private Placement, the Company will consider to carry out a subsequent repair offering directed at its existing shareholders as of close of trading 9 March 2021, as subsequently recorded in the VPS on 11 March 2021, who (i) were not part of the pre-sounding phase of the Private Placement; (ii) were not allocated Offer Shares in the Private Placement; and (iii) are not resident in a jurisdiction where such offering would be unlawful or, for jurisdictions other than Norway, would require any prospectus, filing, registration or similar action.

Arctic Securities AS and Pareto Securities AS (the "Managers") are acting as Joint Bookrunners in connection with the Private Placement. Advokatfirmaet Thommessen AS is acting as legal advisor to the Company.

For further information, please contact:

Lars Christian Skarsgard, Belships CEO,

Phone +47 977 68 061 or e-mail LCS@belships.no .



This information is considered to be inside information pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. This stock exchange announcement was published by Osvald Fossholm, CFO at Belships ASA, on 9 March 2021 at 16:30 CET.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5 -12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

Important information: The release is not for publication or distribution, in whole or in part directly or indirectly, in or into Australia, Canada, Japan or the United States (including its territories and possessions, any state of the United States and the District of Columbia). This release is an announcement issued pursuant to legal information obligations, and is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. It is issued for information purposes only, and does not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities, in the United States or in any other jurisdiction. The securities mentioned herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "US Securities Act"). The securities may not be offered or sold in the United States except pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the US Securities Act.

The Company does not intend to register any portion of the offering of the securities in the United States or to conduct a public offering of the securities in the United States. Copies of this announcement are not being made and may not be distributed or sent into Australia, Canada, Japan or the United States.

The issue, subscription or purchase of shares in the Company is subject to specific legal or regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. Neither the Company nor the Managers assume any responsibility in the event there is a violation by any person of such restrictions. The distribution of this release may in certain jurisdictions be restricted by law. Persons into whose possession this release comes should inform themselves about and observe any such restrictions. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

The Managers are acting for the Company and no one else in connection with the Private Placement and will not be responsible to anyone other than the Company providing the protections afforded to their respective clients or for providing advice in relation to the Private Placement and/or any other matter referred to in this release.

Forward-looking statements: This release and any materials distributed in connection with this release may contain certain forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they reflect the Company's current expectations and assumptions as to future events and circumstances that may not prove accurate. A number of material factors could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.
Acquisition Further Expands TricorBraun's Presence in Canada

TORONTO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Global packaging leader TricorBraun announced today that it has acquired Quebec-based RODA Packaging, further expanding its presence in Eastern Canada.

Serving customers for nearly 40 years, RODA is a rigid packaging distributor specializing in the chemicals, sealants, and adhesives markets; it also serves the nutraceuticals, juices, and dry condiments and spices segments. As part of the RODA acquisition, TricorBraun will also acquire Rada Industries.

"Our acquisition of RODA Packaging continues our long track record of growth in Canada," said Court Carruthers, president and CEO, TricorBraun. "We are very impressed by the strong company Stephan Berthiaume and his team have built, and with our combined expertise we will service the needs of Quebec-based businesses, along with the customers we support across North America. We are excited to welcome RODA to the TricorBraun family."

With the acquisition, TricorBraun will continue to strategically invest in Quebec, a market the company has serviced for more than 25 years thoroughly locally-stocked inventory, dedicated team members, and products manufactured by local supplier partners.

All team members, including owner and CEO Berthiaume, will remain with TricorBraun; the team will continue to work out of the company's existing locations in Quebec, becoming part of TricorBraun Canada. Effective with the acquisition, RODA Packaging will operate as RODA, a TricorBraun company.

"For almost 40 years, RODA Packaging and its dedicated team have been instrumental to the packaging supply chain," said Berthiaume. "We are excited to join TricorBraun and look forward to this next chapter. Our shared focus on customer service, quality and operational excellence, along with TricorBraun's broader supplier base and multiple locations, will allow RODA to explore its full potential and offer a more complete range of services to our customers."

TricorBraun has partnered with management teams to successfully acquire and further accelerate growth for more than 20 packaging companies across North America. RODA Packaging marks TricorBraun's tenth acquisition in the last four years, and the first under the ownership of Ares Management and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

About RODA Packaging

Founded in Montreal in 1983, RODA Packaging supplies rigid plastic packaging components such as containers and closures, as well as fibre cartridges for adhesives and sealants. In today's demanding market across North America, RODA has become an essential contributor to key packaging supply chains.

About TricorBraun

Founded in 1902, TricorBraun is North America's largest distributor of primary packaging. We provide innovative solutions across a wide array of customer end markets in plastic and glass containers, closures, dispensers, tubes and flexibles. Our award-winning Design & Engineering Center provides forward-thinking design, driven by consumer insight and creative solutions. As a leading purchaser of packaging in the world, we leverage our global supply chain expertise, expansive and sustainable footprint, and unmatched purchasing power and scale to identify the very best sourcing partners and provide cost-effective solutions for our customers. TricorBraun operates from more than 50 locations globally.

SOURCE TricorBraun

Related Links

http://www.tricorbraun.com


DUBLIN, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "SARS-CoV-2 COVID Vaccine Market Analysis & Forecast to 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the size of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccine market, segmentation of the industry (by geography and vaccine technology), key players and the vast potential of vaccines that are in clinical trials.

This analysis indicates that the global COVID-19 vaccine market was worth $59 billion in 2021. However, our forecast indicates that an initial drop will occur in 2022 due to a number of factors including single booster shots as opposed to two shot vaccines and reduced prices in vaccines due to competition.

The COVID vaccine industry is expected to then grow significantly at a CAGR of over 9% and reach $47.5 billion by 2026. This is due to an opening up of the market from a closed government dominated space to one in which private healthcare providers and companies can purchase vaccines. There will also be a continued significant un-met need for vaccine boosters in an endemic situation.

This report describes the evolution of such a huge market in 8 chapters supported by over 74 tables and figures in over 137 pages.

The report focuses on the following:

An overview of the SARS-CoV2 virus that includes: genetic and structural analysis, mutation and variant characterization

Global COVID vaccine market, global landscape analysis, vaccine technology breakdown and leading market players

Advance purchase agreements, marketed/pipeline products, financial analysis and business strategy of the major companies in this space

Focus on current trends, business environment, pipeline products, clinical trials, and future market forecast for COVID vaccines to 2026

Clinical trial timelines for major vaccines in the pipeline

Insight into the challenges faced by stakeholders, particularly manufacturers and governments

Insight into the emergence of variants and their impact on vaccine effectiveness and the overall market

Financial market forecast through 2026 with CAGR values of all market segments - vaccine technology, geography (US, EU, UK, Japan , RoW) and major players

, RoW) and major players Influence of the molecular diagnostics, PCR testing and POC testing landscapes

Numbers of vaccine doses available by each manufacturer per annum

Geographical analysis and challenges within countries with respect to advance purchase agreements and distribution channels

Companies Mentioned

AstraZeneca/Oxford

Curevac

J&J

Moderna

Novavax

Pfizer/BioNTech

Sanofi/GSK

Key Topics Covered

1. Introduction

1.1 Emergence of SARS-CoV2 and the COVID-19 Pandemic

1.2 SARS-CoV-2 Protein and RNA Structure

1.3 SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Immune Response

1.4 SARS-CoV-2 Mutations

1.4.1 B.1.1.7 Variant

1.4.2 B.1.351 Variant

1.4.3 P.1 Variant

1.4.4 Rapid Spread of D614G Mutation Globally

1.4.5 Variants and Vaccine Efficacy

1.4.6 BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccination Effectiveness in Israel

1.4.7 Challenges of Mid-Term and Long-Term Mutations

1.5 Future of Living Alongside SARS-CoV-2

2. COVID Vaccines

2.1 Introduction

2.1.1 mRNA Vaccines

2.1.2 DNA Vaccines

2.1.3 Inactivated Vaccines

2.1.4 Live-Attenuated Vaccines

2.1.5 Recombinant Protein Vaccines

2.1.6 Viral Vector Vaccines

2.2 Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2 Vaccine

2.3 Moderna mRNA1273 Vaccine

2.4 CureVac CVnCoV Vaccine

2.5 AstraZeneca/Oxford AZD-1222 Vaccine

2.6 Johnson & Johnson's JNJ-78436735 Vaccine

2.7 Novavax NVX-CoV2373 Vaccine

2.8 Gamaleya Sputnik V Vaccine

2.9 Sinovac Coronavac Vaccin

3. Clinical Trials

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Clinical Trials by Geographic Area

3.3 Clinical Trials by Phase

3.3.1 Phase III COVID Vaccine Trials

3.3.2 Phase II COVID Vaccine Trials

3.3.3 Phase I COVID Vaccine Trials



4. Molecular Diagnostics & PCR Testing

4.1 Introduction

4.2 PCR Diagnostic Testing Has Dominated the Space

4.3 Point of Care Testing

5. Market & Industry Analysis

5.1 Advance Purchase Agreements by Company

5.1.1 Pfizer/BioNTech

5.1.2 Moderna

5.1.3 AstraZeneca/Oxford

5.1.4 Novavax

5.1.5 Sanofi/GSK

5.1.6 J&J

5.1.7 Curevac

5.2 Advance Purchase Agreements - Geographical Breakdown

5.2.1 USA

5.2.2 EU

5.2.2.1 Distribution of Vaccines within the EU

5.2.3 Japan

5.2.4 Australia

5.2.5 China

5.2.6 UK

5.2.7 Russia

5.3 Price of Vaccines

5.4 Reasons for Booster Vaccine Requirements

6. COVID Vaccine Pandemic Market Analysis 2021

6.1 Market Revenue, Volume and Major Players

6.2 SubMarket by Major Player Breakdown

6.3 SubMarket by Technology Type

6.4 SubMarket by Geographical Breakdown

7. COVID Vaccine Market 2022 to 2026

7.1 Endemic Market Forecast to 2026

7.2 SubMarket by Geographical Breakdown to 2026

7.3 SubMarket by Major Player Breakdown to 2026

7.4 SubMarket by Vaccine Technology Breakdown to 2026

8. Future Outlook

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/kfg4sc



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Allan J. McDonald, an engineer who on a chilly January morning in 1986 tried to stop the launch of the Challenger space shuttle, citing the possible effect of the cold on its booster rockets, and who, after it broke apart on liftoff, blew the whistle when government officials tried to cover up his dissent, died on Saturday in Ogden, Utah. He was 83.

The cause was complications of a recent fall, his daughter Meghan McDonald Goggin said.

Mr. McDonald was a 26-year veteran at Morton Thiokol, the contractor responsible for the shuttles booster rockets, when he arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a few days before Jan. 28, when the Challenger was to take off.

The mission was to be the first to carry a civilian into space, a teacher named Christa McAuliffe. President Ronald Reagan was planning to mark that milestone in his State of the Union address, coincidentally scheduled for the same day as the launch.

But Mr. McDonald, who ran the companys booster-rocket program, had strong reservations about moving ahead with the launch. The shuttles rockets contained a series of rubber O-ring gaskets, and he worried that low temperatures could cause them to stiffen, allowing fuel to escape and potentially causing the rocket to explode.
OSLO, Norway, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aker ASA ("Aker") today announced that it has established Seetee AS ("Seetee"), a new company dedicated to investing in projects and companies throughout the Bitcoin ecosystem and which will keep all its liquid investable assets in bitcoin. Seetee is initially capitalized with NOK 500 million.

Seetee will initially focus on 1) investing in and owning bitcoin, 2) joining the Bitcoin and broader blockchain community and establishing partnerships with leading players, 3) launching Bitcoin verification operations, and 4) building and investing in innovation projects and companies in the Bitcoin and blockchain ecosystem.

Seetee will pursue these opportunities by building on the capabilities that have been developed in the Aker Group through the efforts in industrial software, fintech and green energy value chains. This gives Seetee an opportunity to pursue innovations in the Bitcoin and broader ecosystem, e.g. in the areas of cyber security, financial transactions and emissions-free verification operations.

To accelerate its initiatives, Seetee will actively partner with other companies. For this purpose, Seetee has entered into a collaboration agreement with Blockstream, a global leader in Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Blockstream provides companies access to the most mature, well tested, and secure blockchain technology in production - the Bitcoin protocol extended via interoperable sidechains to support new applications - along with the most experienced teams in the industry. The collaboration will initially focus on mining operations and be further developed by building on Blockstream's unique strengths in blockchain technology and Aker's industrial legacy and capability set.

"With the launch of Seetee, the Aker Group makes another move into software and fintech. We are very excited about the industrial opportunities that will be unlocked by Bitcoin and blockchain technology, and want to contribute forcefully to that effort. These technologies have the potential to reduce frictions in our day to day lives, enhance the security of our digitally driven economies, and unlock new business models for innovation. We look forward to addressing these and other applications together with Blockstream and other partners," said yvind Eriksen, President and CEO of Aker ASA.

"It's exciting to see Aker dive into the Bitcoin ecosystem with enthusiasm. We will be working closely with Seetee on Bitcoin mining and sidechain projects that benefit Aker's group of companies and we expect that their rich experience in leveraging global power infrastructure will prove to be a valuable asset to the Bitcoin industry," said Adam Back, Co-founder and CEO of Blockstream.

Magnus Granath, Snorre Lorgen and Sverke Lorgen make up the management team that will initiate Seetee's Bitcoin investments, Bitcoin verification operations and innovation projects. Ola Snve is the company's Executive Chairman.

"I'm excited to invest in Seetee and I am looking forward to being the Executive Chairman, continuing to work closely with Snorre Lorgen, Sverke Lorgen, and Magnus Granath. Our conversations with Blockstream have been truly inspiring and I can't wait to be part of the team, turning opportunity into reality," said Ola Snve, Executive Chairman of Seetee.

Kjell Inge Rkke, Chairman of Aker ASA, has offered his reflections about the investment in Bitcoin and establishment of Seetee in a Letter to Shareholders available at www.seetee.io

Seetee is owned by Seetee TopCo AS, which again is owned 90.01% by Aker Capital AS (Aker ASA) and 9.99% by Storbrea AS.

For further information, please contact:

Snorre Lorgen, CEO, Seetee

snorre@seetee.io

Christina Chappell Glenn, Head of Communications and Investor Relations, Aker ASA

christina.glenn@akerasa.com

+47 905 32 774



This information is considered to be inside information pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

This stock exchange announcement was published by Christina Chappell Glenn, Head of Communications at Aker ASA, on March 8, 2021 at 07:25 CET.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/aker-asa/r/aker-asa-launches-seetee-to-invest-in-bitcoin-and-blockchain-technology,c3301475

SOURCE Aker ASA
Lemon Tree Hotels has signed a License Agreement for an 80 room upcoming hotel at Biratnagar in Nepal under the brand 'Lemon Tree Premier'.

Carnation Hotels Private Limited, a subsidiary and the hotel management arm of the Company will be operating and marketing this Hotel. The hotel is owned by Nepal International Hospitality Pvt. Ltd.

The hotel will feature 80 well-appointed rooms & suites, complemented by a multi-cuisine restaurant, a bar, meeting and conference spaces and recreational facilities.

The hotel is expected to be operational by January 2023, and this will be the third hotel of the company in Nepal, including Kathmandu and Nagarkot.

Biratnagar is a metropolitan city in Province 1 in Nepal. Its strategic location serves as an entry point to eastern Nepal as well as north-eastern India.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 8 March 2021. Shares of Lemon Tree Hotels fell 1.28% to settle at Rs 42.50 yesterday.

Lemon Tree Hotels is India's largest hotel chain in the mid-priced hotel sector, and the third largest overall. The company opened its first hotel with 49 rooms in May 2004 and currently operates about 8,300 rooms in 84 hotels across 51 destinations, in India and abroad, under its various brands.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Greg Rutherford shared a sweet snap of his fiancee Susie Verrill's growing baby bump on Monday as he marked International Women's Day.

Posting a heartfelt caption alongside the Instagram photo, the Olympic long jumper, 34, penned: 'There's two incredible women in this picture', as the duo prepare to welcome their baby girl.

Greg also praised Susie, 32, who has suffered with hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) which causes extreme morning sickness, for 'working through' her pregnancy.

Lovely: Greg Rutherford shared a sweet snap of his fiancee Susie Verrill's growing baby bump on Monday as he marked International Women's Day

In the photo, the influencer looked radiant as she displayed her growing baby bump in a pair of neon patterned knickers and lifted up her grey long-sleeved top.

Susie styled her brunette locks to one side as she went makeup-free and posed in a mirror for a sweet selfie.

Greg penned: 'Happy international women's day. There's two incredible women in this picture, @susiejverrill and one I haven't met yet but I know will become a strong, independent loving woman just like her mum.

'I'm incredibly proud of Susie for working through this pregnancy when she felt so ill and down. It proves how remarkable she really is and I love her so much. #internationalwomensday #love.'

Baby girl: Posting a heartfelt caption alongside the Instagram photo, the Olympic long jumper, 34, penned: 'There's two incredible women in this picture', as the duo prepare to welcome their baby girl

Praise: Greg also praised Susie, 32, who has suffered with hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) which causes extreme morning sickness, for 'working through' her pregnancy (pictured in October)

Greg and Susie are already parents to sons Milo, six, and Rex, three. They announced their third pregnancy in December.

Susie has suffered with Hyperemesis gravidarum - which causes extreme morning sickness, throughout her pregnancy. She was also diagnoses with the condition with her previous pregnancies.

HG is defined as severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Up to 20 per cent of sufferers experience symptoms up to weeks 14-to-20, however, most have relief in the later stages.

Unlike morning sickness, which affects up to 80 percent of pregnant women, HG causes severe dehydration and prevents sufferers from keeping any food down.

Tough time: Susie has suffered with Hyperemesis gravidarum - which causes extreme morning sickness, throughout her pregnancy. She was also diagnoses with the condition with her previous pregnancies

Just last week, Susie uploaded a playful post to Instagram as she prepares to welcome her third child.

The influencer looked typically radiant as she displayed her growing baby bump, which she joked was 'taking over the entire frame'.

Treating herself to a relaxing pamper session, the blogger covered her tresses in a mask as she enjoyed a brief break from her parenting duties.

The social media star teamed a crop top with joggers and went make-up free for the candid shots.

Susie wrote: 'Hair mask on. Belly taking over my entire frame (photo inspired by @maddiechester because I'm terrible at remembering to document bumps).' (sic)

Oh baby! Just last week, Susie uploaded a playful post to Instagram as she prepares to welcome her third child

She's growing! The influencer looked typically radiant as she displayed her baby bump, which she joked was 'taking over the entire frame'

Last month, the doting mother was rushed to hospital after her baby girl 'stopped moving'.

Greg admitted at the time that he 'almost cried' with relief when doctors found their little one's heartbeat.

The athlete said that he and Susie grew worried as their unborn child is usually very active, stating: 'So last night was stressful.

'After a busy day of tidying and clearing Susie suddenly realised she hadn't felt the baby move in a while.

'I almost cried': Last month, the doting mother was rushed to hospital after her baby girl 'stopped moving'

THE FLUTTERS, SWISHES AND ROLLS: WHAT THOSE MOVEMENTS MEAN Reduced foetal movement is a reduction in a baby's regular pattern of movement.

Most women begin to feel their baby move between 16 and 24 weeks of pregnancy, and the movement is typically described as a kick, flutters, swish or roll.

The type of movement may change as pregnancy progresses.

There is no set number of normal movements. A baby will have their own pattern of movements that mothers-to-be should get to recognise.

From 16 to 24 weeks on, women should feel the baby move more and more up until 32 weeks, then the moves will stay roughly the same until birth.

Usually, afternoon and evening periods are times of peak activity for a baby. During both day and night, a baby has sleep periods that mostly last between 20 and 40 minutes, and are rarely longer than 90 minutes.

A baby will usually not move during these sleep periods.

There is no set number of kicks a woman should be feeling. What is important is that they know what is normal for their baby.

There is a common misconception that you should be feeling ten kicks over a set period, but this is no longer suggested as all babies are different.

Women who are concerned that their baby has slowed down or stopped moving should contact their midwife or maternity unit immediately. Advertisement

'We went through all the steps to try and make her move and nothing happened. The worry was caused by the fact that normally she doesn't stop moving!

'We jumped in the car and headed to the hospital. They found the heartbeat and then in typical fashion, she kicked! This apparently made Susie feel like a weather person though so silver linings.'

Most women begin to feel their baby move between 16 and 24 weeks of pregnancy, and the movement is typically described as a kick, flutters, swish or roll.

There is no set number of normal movements, and a baby will have their own pattern of movements that mothers-to-be should get to recognise.

The NHS website states that expectant mothers should call their midwife or maternity unity immediately if they notice their baby is moving less than usual, they can't feel any movement or there is a change of pattern.

Medical professionals will then be able to check the baby and its heartbeat to ensure everything is okay.

Greg and Susie met in 2012, exchanging messages for two months before enjoying a bowling date together - and hit it off instantly.

They welcomed first son Milo in Oct 2014 with Rex arriving in July 2017.

Greg won Olympic gold in 2012 and is the British record holder, both outdoors and indoors.

Greg proposed to Susie in May 2019 during a hike in Arizona, with the couple later postponing their planned 2020 wedding in the US due to COVID.

Cute couple: The brunette and her Olympic long jumper partner, 34, are already parents to sons Milo, six, and Rex, three (pictured last year)
Drink free beer, jam to live music, and get vaccinated! The Town of Breckenridge is offering free beer and live music for those who get a COVID-19 vaccine this Saturday, June 5. [...]
-- China's defense budget is around one-quarter of the U.S. figure.

-- Since dropping to 7.6 percent in 2016, China's annual defense budget growth rate has remained under 10 percent for six consecutive years.

-- Never seeking hegemony, expansion or spheres of influence is the distinctive feature of China's national defense in the new era.

-- The United States appears to be the real threat to world peace.

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- A draft budget report submitted to China's top legislature has unveiled the country's planned military spending for this year. In 2021, China's defense budget will be around 1.35 trillion yuan (about 200 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.8 percent from last year.

Is China's military spending too hefty? Is the figure growing too fast? Is the so-called "Chinese military threat," as hyped by some Western politicians and media outlets, well-grounded?

The answer is no.

The national flag guards march from the Monument to the People's Heroes towards the national flag-raising post at the start of the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 1, 2019. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

QUARTER OF U.S. DEFENSE BUDGET

A country's defense expenditure is determined by various factors, including the demands of national defense, the size of its economy and its defense policy.

China is the world's second-largest economy and the most populous country with a vast land area. It has a great length of land border and complex maritime security environment. And yet, China's defense budget is around one-quarter of the U.S. figure.

Factoring in the country's vast population of 1.4 billion, China's planned defense expenditure per capita in 2021 will be about 140 U.S. dollars.

In sharp contrast, the defense budget of the United States for the 2021 fiscal year is 740.5 billion U.S. dollars, which makes for a per capita expenditure of about 2,230 U.S. dollars, around 15 times the Chinese figure.

When measured in terms of the proportion of GDP spent on the defense budget, China's military spending is undoubtedly at a low level.

A Chinese government white paper compared the average defense expenditures of various countries. As a percentage of GDP, from 2012 to 2017, China's average defense expenditure was about 1.3 percent. The figures for other major countries were: the United States about 3.5 percent; India 2.5 percent; the United Kingdom 2.0 percent; France 2.3 percent.

When calculated based on other standards, including as a ratio of spending to government expenditure, China's military spending is at a lower level than other major countries, according to the white paper.

Military medical staff airlifted by eight large transport planes of the air force of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) arrive at Tianhe International Airport, to support coronavirus fight in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 2, 2020. (Xinhua/Cheng Min)

DOWNWARD TREND

Since dropping to 7.6 percent in 2016, China's annual defense budget growth rate has remained under 10 percent for six consecutive years.

Observed over a longer period, China's defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP has been falling from a peak of 5.43 percent in 1979, and has remained below 2 percent for the past three decades. Also on a clear downward trend is its share of government expenditure.

In terms of usage, China's defense input is assigned to sectors mainly including personnel, training and sustainment, and equipment.

This year's increase in budget will be mainly spent on supporting major projects included in the military's five-year development plan, upgrading weaponry and equipment, stepping up the transformation of military training, improving the wellbeing of service personnel and supporting small-unit level development, according to Wu Qian, a Chinese military spokesperson.

"China's defense expenditure is reasonable and appropriate. In fact, it is barely enough for meeting the needs of safeguarding the country's sovereignty, security and development interests," He Lei, a national lawmaker and former deputy head of the Academy of Military Sciences, told Xinhua.

Anita Kiki Gebe, deputy joint special representative of the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), awards UN peace medal to a soldier of the 2nd China Medium Utility Helicopter Unit (CMUHU02) in El-Fashir, Sudan, July 17, 2019. (Xinhua)

NEVER SEEKING HEGEMONY, EXPANSION, SPHERES OF INFLUENCE

Never seeking hegemony, expansion or spheres of influence is the distinctive feature of China's national defense in the new era.

The country has never initiated a war or taken an inch of foreign land since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

By contrast, during its 240-plus years of history, the United States has only experienced less than 20 years when it was not at war. The country owns hundreds of military bases around the world, and has sent ships and planes across the world to flex its muscles.

Since 2001, the United States has illegally launched wars and military operations against Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and several other countries, at a cost of more than 6.4 trillion U.S. dollars, resulting in over 800,000 deaths and tens of millions displaced.

A new research by anti-war group CODEPINK reveals that the United States and its allies have dropped at least 326,000 bombs and missiles on countries across the globe since 2001.

The real threat to world peace is quite evident.

"For quite some time, the United States has been willfully interfering in other countries' internal affairs in the name of democracy and human rights," said State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a press conference on Sunday. "This has created lots of trouble in the world and, in some cases, turbulence and conflict."

The U.S. side has repeatedly sent warships and aircraft to the South China Sea for all kinds of military drills and close-in reconnaissance, posing serious challenges to the Chinese military in safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and maritime rights and interests.

Given such facts, the increase of China's defense expenditure is based on practical considerations.

China's homeland security risks and challenges should not be overlooked, said Wu Qian, adding that land territorial disputes are yet to be completely resolved and disputes still exist over the territorial sovereignty of some islands and reefs, as well as maritime demarcation.

"The world is not entirely a peaceful one, so national defense must be strong," said Wu.

Committed to peaceful development, China has also actively assumed the responsibilities of a major country and has safeguarded world peace with concrete actions. It is the second-largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and the largest troop contributing country among the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Since 1990, China's armed forces have sent more than 40,000 peacekeepers on UN peacekeeping missions. They have faithfully performed their duties and made a positive contribution to world peace and common development.

"China's moderate and steady growth of defense spending poses no threat to any other country and is an anchor of stability for world peace," said He Lei.
The on Tuesday announced that COVID-19 vaccine will be administered to people free-of-cost at its hospitals in future phases of the inoculation drive too and a provision of Rs 50 crore has been made in its annual budget for this scheme.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio, while presenting a Rs 69,000-crore budget, said Rs 9,934 crore has been allocated to the healthcare sector.

"For people to get 'freedom from COVID-19', a person can go to a private hospital and pay Rs 250 and get a vaccine shot. But, there are many who everyday have to think, whether they should spend money to get ration for the family or arrange vaccine. And, in the 75th year of Independence, this question should not arise in the minds of citizens. So, we have decided that vaccines at our hospitals will continue to be given for free to people," he said.

The minister said an outlay of Rs 50 crore has been made under the 'Aam Aadmi Nishulk COVID Vaccine Yojana'.

"Also, learning from our COVID-19 management, Rs 1,293 has been set aside for expansion of healthcare services, including opening new hospitals, renovating old ones and augmenting beds," he said.

Sisodia in his speech also said the AAP government is carrying out the vaccination for free at its hospitals, and the current capacity is to give shots to about 45,000 people a day and soon it will be augmented to 60,000 people a day.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
The Utah legislature passed legislation last week that would require filter mechanisms on smart devices sold in the state to prevent users from accessing pornography and other information harmful to minors, a move sexual exploitation advocates applaud.

National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a leading national activist group exposing sexual exploitation in the United States, praised the passage of Utahs House Bill 72. The measure seeks to protect children from viewing inappropriate sexual content online.

Utah has passed a critical, common sense solution to help protect vulnerable children from accessing harmful pornographic content on phones and tablets, NCOSE Senior Vice President and Executive Director Dawn Hawkins said in a statement.

Benjamin Bull, NCOSEs senior vice president, general counsel and law center director,told The Christian Post in a Monday interview that this measure is the first of its kind and is just the first step in protecting children and families from unsolicited sexual content.

Source:The Christian Post
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
"I am fascinated by this country and its unique culture and history."

From day one, Kitahara looked forward to working in Vietnam to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights, empower women and young people, and make sure they enjoy their own lives.

I am fascinated by this country and its unique culture and history, she shared.

Naomis love for the land has become a special catalyst for her, as she set out to improve the quality of life for millions of Vietnamese women and girls by promoting youth empowerment and gender equality, and preventing and responding to violence against women and girls, as well as helping women and young people lead healthy sexual lives.

After more than a year since the pandemic took hold, UNFPA Vietnam under the guidance of Kitahara has carried out many meaningful cultural and charitable programmes.

They include holding concerts to honour women and girls and eliminate backward gender stereotypes; supporting reproductive healthcare and sexual health services for women in flood-affected central provinces; providing emergency relief supplies to women and girls at risk of violence; and providing heart monitors and personal protective equipment worth $300,000.

It has also assisted in ensuring the uninterrupted sexual and reproductive healthcare services during the pandemic. In addition, UNFPA Vietnam has supported the elderly with protective equipment and development of a mobile app called S-Health to provide healthcare information and services for them.

With projects organised regularly to target different vulnerable groups, with a focus on women, Naomi and the UNFPA have made significant contributions to bringing a new, different, and happier life to Vietnamese women and assist Vietnams fight against the health crisis. The seeds of hope and positive energy that she and the UNFPA have planted and lovingly cultivated will surely bear enduring fruits.

As we step towards the better future we all want under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, I believe that by joining forces and working together, we can truly make a difference, she said.
Brennan Simkins with his father Turner

Courtesy of Turner Simkins Brennan Simkins with his father, Turner

In January, Turner Simkins celebrated his son Brennan's 19th birthday. He knows that was only possible because of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

"According to every other pediatric hospital in the country, Brennan really was in an impossible situation," says Turner. "They weren't even willing to look at him."

Brennan was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2009, just days after his 7th birthday. His first round of chemotherapy seemed to go well, but he relapsed shortly after, and he underwent his first bone marrow transplant. It didn't take.

Generally, a person cannot receive two bone marrow transplants in a year, but the young patient needed one in order to live. His parents found one of the only pediatric hospitals in the country that was willing to try and made plans to go to Philadelphia for treatment. Then, just five days before they were set to fly to Pennsylvania, a friend put Turner and his wife, Tara, in touch with the then-CEO of St. Jude, who called them from a conference in Hawaii to talk options. They decided to fly to Memphis from their Augusta, Georgia, home right then and there.

"We showed up on Halloween. There was a lot of hoopla," says Turner. "As we learned later, St. Jude takes great advantage its holidays."

But it was about more than the festive atmosphere. "We just felt better there," he says of the hospital, which treats all of its patients for free. "They had more cards in the deck."

They changed course and moved Brennan to Memphis for treatment. By Christmas, the whole family, Brennan's two brothers included, called the Target House (free, apartment-style housing for long-term patient families) home.

"By then, we'd been in the fight long enough to know that we needed to be around, odd as it sounds, other people who were in similar baskets," notes Turner. "Just being able to sit in the library or one of the rec rooms at Target House and chat openly with somebody who understands the emotional stuff you're going through, who understands the technical, clinical stuff."

Story continues

Brennan's second bone marrow transplant failed, and then a third, and the family prepared to say goodbye.

"It was a tough day," remembers Turner. "But it seemed like everybody from St. Judebe it a housekeeper or nurse, someone from triage or doctorscame in to see him. To think of all the kids at St. Jude, to think that all these people were emotionally affected enough by what could have happened to Brennan that day that they showed up to tell him and us they loved him? It's what triggered my book [published in 2016] and the song [recorded in 2015]. There's always a possibility, and we were able to focus on what was possible because of that energy."

Brennan pulled through, and after a rare fourth bone marrow transplant in 2011, the Simkins family finally got some good news. "The doctor looked me dead in the eye, gave me a high five, and said, 'We did it.' I was like, 'Wow, that was pretty strong.' Brennan's been in remission ever since."

And while he hasn't been a full-time patient since 2011, Brennan still goes back to St. Jude every year for a follow-up. "We feel like Memphis and St. Jude are our second home," says Turner. "When it's time for his appointment, Tara and I fight over who's going to go. Some of our best friends to this day are patient families we met there. It's a very strange bondprobably comparable to the bond people who go through war together have for one another. It's brutally special. And it's something that just doesn't leave you."

It's these lasting relationships, both with the hospital and other patient families, that have inspired Turner to help raise more than $2 million for targeted research at St. Jude through the Press On fund. He's also raised money for the hospital through downloads of "Possibilities," the song he wrote to celebrate his son's miraculous fight that was recorded by country music star and St. Jude supporter Darius Rucker in 2015.

Listen to Southern Living's "Biscuits & Jam" podcast to hear Darius Rucker's interview.

"I'm not going through life saying, 'Golly, I owe St. Jude my kid's life. I do, obviously, in a way, but I don't feel indebted, like I need to do this," says Turner of his fundraising efforts. "But I feel, like I would for any other member of my family, that it's something I want to do."

Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Today.

Donate here.

Send a free online card to a child battling cancer today here.
Oregons Democratic Governor Kate Brown issued an executive order on March 5 to herd students and teachers back into schools for in-person learning. The order states that all public schools will operate delivering in-person instruction through either a fully on-site or a hybrid instructional model. Kindergarten through fifth grade must reopen on or before the week of March 29, and grades 6-12 must reopen on or before the week of April 19.

This order has been issued after Brown loosened restrictions for reopening in December, then prioritized the vaccination of teachers in January. Democrats in Oregon, across the West Coast and throughout the country are scrambling to implement the Biden administrations key domestic policy of reopening all schools by the end of April.

Browns executive order places teachers, staff and students under enormous pressure. Teachers are raising valid concerns about large class sizes, small teaching spaces and the difficulty of enforcing social distancing in schools. The mainstream media and politicians have sought to portray teachers who refuse to return as irrational, selfish and working against childrens interests, attempting to pit parents against educators.

Summer pilot project in Estacada School District. (Estacada School District)

The stress has been so great that K-12 teachers satisfaction with their employers sank from 69 percent in March 2020 to 44 percent in October. The Center for State and Local Government Excellence recorded that 38 percent of public school educators have considered quitting their jobs during the pandemic.

Teachers unions, such as the Oregon Education Association (OEA) and the Portland Association of Teachers (PAR), offer no opposition to the return to in-person instruction. None of the OEAs local affiliates have voiced any major disagreements with Browns executive order, with OEA spokesman Rylee Ahnen stating, We hear, understand, and share the frustration teachers support returning to the classroom if done safely.

Ahnen emphasized that, regardless of the executive order, most districts were already planning to move to in-person learning in the coming weeks. Twenty percent of Oregons schools are already offering fully in-person learning, and 23 percent offer the hybrid model of both in-person and virtual learning.

While some districts like Portland Public Schools may use the executive order as a way to unilaterally push forward with a rapid reopening, the unions are encouraging the districts to continue negotiations in good faith since they too want to reopen quickly but hope to add a veneer of safety measures in order to wear down opposition among rank-and-file educators.

Brown tweeted on March 5, The science is clear: with proper safety measures in place, there is a low risk of COVID-19 transmission in school. Despite the White House, school districts and unions claiming there can be a safe return to classrooms in the middle of the pandemic, an analysis of research done globally indicates that nothing could be further from the truth.

A consensus has emerged in Europe that children are a considerable factor in the spread of COVID-19. After schools were opened in Switzerland, the Geneva Institute of Global Health came to the conclusion that children under 10 have similar rates of transmission as older children and that children become infected as often as adults. Moreover, antibody tests showed that children 6 to 18 become infected just as frequently as young adults.

Whenever implemented, school closures have been essential in reducing infections and deaths. A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association last July found a 62 percent decline in infections per week when a state closed its schools statewide, while the mortality rate dropped 58 percent per week when schools were closed.

Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher and dean for the national school of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, voiced serious concerns on March 5. He stated that the combination of the plateau of cases, the spread of highly transmissible new variants, and the decisions to reopen schools and the economy before the majority of the population have been vaccinated, has all the makings of a fourth wave, and gives me a lot of pause for concern.

On Sunday, Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, issued a sharp warning that we are in the eye of the hurricane right now, just before a major surge of the more infectious variants. He specifically singled out reopening schools as a dangerous policy that led to surges in infections across Europe.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott fully opened the state last week, following the devastating ice storm, an action Mississippi quickly followed. The Biden administrations criticisms of these full reopenings are completely hypocritical, since they are themselves conspiring with the unions to return students and teachers to in-person instruction as quickly as possible.

Governor Brown issued her executive order while the Oregon Health Authority does not know how many teachers have received the vaccine. A Johns Hopkins University analysis revealed on March 4 that no state has made public the percentage of teachers and school staff that have been vaccinated.

By backing the return to schools, the political establishment and unions are advocating a policy that could lead to a fourth wave of infections and deaths this spring. This is especially criminal given the ability to vaccinate the population, which will only be an effective solution if they are distributed widely and quickly while infection rates are contained at the lowest possible levels.

If the return to schools is not rational from a public health standpoint, and one could add a pedagogical standpoint with only two to three months left in the school year, then what is driving the reopening plans?

Andrew Hoan, president and CEO of the Portland Business Alliance, recently stated the aims very clearly: Having in-person learning allows for parents to have the opportunity to return to work, and thats big. Thats big for emotional well-being, for financial well-being and for the betterment of our cities. This sentiment is shared by the ruling class as a whole, which needs to resume full profit-making activity in order to pay off the debts acquired from the massive Wall Street bailout in late March 2020 through the CARES Act.

Teachers, school staff, parents, students and workers in the broader community must wage a struggle against this homicidal policy on the principle that human life is more important than private profit. On March 6, the West Coast Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committees met to discuss the struggle against the return to in-person instruction, stressing above all the need for educators to build their own organizations independently of the unions and both big business parties in order to unite statewide, nationally and internationally to close schools and nonessential workplaces in order to contain the pandemic.

With schools and businesses set to reopen across Oregon, Washington and California in the coming weeks, it is vital that educators and all workers form these committees and take up the fight for a national lock-down with full income compensation for workers and small businesses. We urge educators, parents and students in Oregon to contact us today to form an Oregon Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee!
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced the priority of vaccination over the introduction of a lockdown, as well as the need to increase the speed of vaccination in the country.

"The right response to today's increase in a number of patients with coronavirus [COVID-19] infection is vaccination, not a lockdown. This is the decision to avoid a large increase in patients. We are approaching the middle of March and should provide more opportunities for people to receive the first doses of the vaccine, especially if they work at the front line of the fight against coronavirus," Zelensky said during a conference call with the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister of Ukraine on Tuesday.

As Zelensky said, "the country needs to increase the rate of vaccination, for which it would be possible to involve mobile teams and the resources of other departments, along with resources of the Health Ministry." Also, "the misinformation about vaccines must be dealt with carefully."

According to Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, "The Ministry of Internal Affairs has already trained 50 mobile teams that will help to conduct the vaccination."

In turn, Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov during the meeting drew attention to the need for closer cooperation with the heads of regional state administrations.

Stepanov also announced the stabilization of situation in the Carpathian region. He said that "in the future, he will actively conduct negotiations on Ukraine's receipt of vaccines against COVID-19."

According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, "over the previous week, if we compare with the week before last, the number of hospitalizations of patients with coronavirus increased - almost 21,000 people compared to 17,600 people. Today, 29,573 beds are occupied. In total, 70,157 beds have been allocated for COVID-19 patients, of which 60,000 are provided with oxygen. The number of occupied intensive care beds has also increased from 1,500 to 2,000. This means that the number of severe cases is increasing."

"Adaptive quarantine continues to operate in Ukraine. A red level has been introduced in regions with a wide spread of coronavirus disease. These are Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia and Zhytomyr regions. Also, almost ten regions are in orange zone and are close to the red level," Shmyhal said.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Editorials represent the institutional view of the newspaper. They are written and edited by the editorial staff, which operates separately from the news department. Editorial writers are not involved in newsroom operations.
Uber Technologies Inc. is spinning out Postmates delivery robot operation into a separate startup, marking another chapter in the ride-hailing giants attempts to narrow its focus and become profitable.

Uber will co-lead whats likely to be a $50 million investment in the new delivery startup, Serve Robotics, which will bring food, groceries and other items to Uber customers without human intervention. Uber will be a minority shareholder in Serve Robotics, the companies told Bloomberg.

The new startup will be led by Ali Kashani, who runs the robot deliveries unit for Postmates, which Uber acquired last year. Serve Robotics will start with about 60 employees and will be based in San Francisco, operating independently from Uber but retaining close ties with its former parent company

Uber shares were up about 1% in the first minutes of trading Tuesday. TechCrunch previously reported some details of the deal.

The startup plans to expand its current fleet of robots from dozens to thousands. Over the next five years delivery robots will become the first commercial application of self-driving at scale, Kashani said. This is real.

The move comes as Uber hurtles toward a self-imposed profitability deadline at the end of this year. Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi has recently cut thousands of jobs and sold off a series of experimental projects. Those included Ubers self-driving vehicle group, which was burning roughly $500 million a year, and the companys flying cars unit. But even as it sheds side projects, Uber has worked to ensure it will still have a hand in the new technologies  securing board seats, commercial deals and ownership stakes that will benefit the company once the projects are commercially viable.

Serve Robotics will start with the small fleet of Postmates robots that can now be seen shuttling food around Los Angeles. But Kashani believes that Serve robots could make 5% of food deliveries in the U.S. within five years. The company will continue to make deliveries through an ongoing arrangement with Postmates, an Uber spokesman said.

This is not just building technology for a hypothetical customer, said Ali Partovi, founder of venture firm Neo, which will invest alongside Uber in the upcoming funding round. Its plugging into a nationwide network of people placing orders and looking for deliveries. Ubers Khosrowshahi is an investor in Neo, Partovi said.

For Uber, taking a stake in Serve Robotics increases its sizable portfolio of venture investments, which already exceeds $13 billion. While Khosrowshahi, a former investment banker with a taste for deal-making, didnt invent this strategy he did refine it. When Khosrowshahi assumed the helm of Uber in 2017, he inherited shares in China-based Didi Chuxing Technology Co. and Russia-based Yandex.Taxi, with Uber agreeing to abandon business efforts in each region in exchange for stakes in the local ride-hailing leaders. Khosowshahi repeated the process in other markets where Uber trailed, selling operations in South East Asia to Grab and its food delivery business in India to Zomato.

When the pandemic hit  boosting Ubers food delivery sales but decimating its ride-hailing business  the companys other bets looked increasingly like a liability. Under mounting pressure from investors to turn its first-ever profit, Khosrowshahi moved to unload even more units and make more investments. The company sold its electric bike division Jump to Lime, and led an $170 million investment in the startup. In December, it sold is autonomous driving unit to Aurora Innovation Inc., and invested $400 million. The next day, Uber announced it was selling its air taxi service Uber Elevate to Joby Aviation, and was boosting its investment in the startup to $125 million.

Uber has an arrangement with Serve Robotics to act as both an investor and, through its relationship with Uber-owned Postmates, a major commercial partner. Food delivery was growing quickly for Uber even before the pandemic, but a surge in demand from shut-ins and a push to expand into delivering groceries, prescriptions, packages and more, helped increase sales 110% in 2020. Getting robots to handle at least some of those deliveries could improve margins and help speed Ubers progress to profit.

Postmates had previously partnered with convenience store Pink Dot. The companys three robots, which will now be operated by Serve Robotics, are named Pinky, Dotty and Solly (named after Pink Dot CEO Sol Yamini). They have delivered thousands of sandwiches, drinks, cleaning supplies and other items in Los Angeles since late last year.

Pink Dots Yamini said although he was initially skeptical, a series of improvements to the robots  including the ability to go down stairs  means they can now handle roughly 70% of all orders. Replacing human delivery drivers with robots is a goal, he said.

Were already paying so much for gas, payroll, workers comp, insurance on vehicles and payroll tax and it just keeps going up, said Yamini, who operates 18 delivery-first convenience stores throughout Southern California. Robots will help our bottom line.

About the photo: A screen displays On Delivery on top of a Postmates Serve autonomous delivery robot during a product demonstration in West Hollywood, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020. West Hollywood market Pink Dot has launched robot delivery service using Postmates Inc.s Serve robots. Photographer: David Swanson/Bloomberg

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
Mumbai, March 9 : In another dramatic twist in the case pertaining to the explosive-laden SUV parked outside Antilia, the residence of business tycoon Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai, Vimla Hiren, the widow of slain businessman Mansukh Hiren has accused Assistant Police-Inspector Sachin Vaze of killing her husband, prompting the Opposition BJP to demand the policemans suspension and arrest.

The Maharashtra Assembly witnessed an uproar after it emerged that Vimla Hiren had lodged an FIR with the Kalachowki police station on March 7, in which she has stated, "I suspect (API) Vaze must have murdered my husband", and demanded an investigation.

She also said in her complaint that since November 2020, the SUV was given by her husband to Vaze, who returned it on February 5 as its steering wheel was getting jammed.

On February 17, Hiren had left his Thane home for Mumbai in the same Scorpio but the steering got jammed and he left it near the Mulund toll post and took off in a private taxi. The following morning, Hiren and a mechanic returned to the spot but the SUV was missing, following which he lodged a complaint with the Vikhroli police station on February 18.

Barely a week later, the missing/stolen SUV shot into national headlines after it was found abandoned near the home of industrialist Mukesh Ambani with 20 gelatin sticks and a purported typewritten threat note in it.

BJP Leader of Oppositon Devendra Fadnavis read out a copy of Vimla Hiren's FIR in the House and demanded immediate suspension and arrest of Vaze, who is attached to the elite Crime Intelligene Unit (CIU) of Mumbai Crime Branch.

"Whom does the state want to protect," asked Fadnavis in the House, slamming the Maha Vikas Aghadi government as the House saw four adjornments on the issue.

"Mansukh Hiren's body was found later around 40 km away... He may have been murdered in the vehicle and the body may have been thrown into the (Thane) Creek. Since there was a low tide, the body was recovered," Fadnavis said.

He also demanded to know if the government was trying to shield Vaze as he had joined a 'particular political party', though Home Minister Anil Deshmukh declined to comment on the matter.

Fadnavis alleged that the government was allowing him (Vaze) to even destroy the evidence in the (Hiren) case. To this, Deshmukh got up and clarified that while Vaze is with the CIU, the (Hiren) case is being investigated by the state Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS).

Shiv Sena member Bhaskar Jadhav then intervened to attack the BJP, saying it was agitated as Vaze had investigated the double-suicide case of architect Anvay Naik and his mother, and had also arrested Republic TV Editor in Chief Arnab Goswami last year.

Vritually endorsing Jadhav, Deshmukh said that Fadnavis - as the then CM handling the home department - had "suppressed" Naiks' case, as the House went into a turmoil.

"However, his widow and daughter came to us and requested for a probe," Deshmukh reiterated.

Congress legislator and state party chief Nana Patole demanded to know how Fadnavis managed to get the CDR details vis-a-vis the Vaze-Hiren case. Countering this, Fadnavis said: "You want to know... Please order an enquiry against me. I request the Home Minister for a probe against me." Fadnavis further claimed that Hiren's last location was with one Dhananjay V. Gawde against whom an FIR was lodged in 2017 for demanding a ransom amount of Rs 40 lakh.
In response to China's declining birth rate, a legislator proposed that the state make "dating" and "marriage" a mandatory course in universities.

Last year, state-run media China Daily reported that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials are becoming more concerned about the consistent massive drops of birth rates in their country despite the availability of their two-child policy.

Couples' preferences to remain childless or to just have one to save money, and the increasing divorce rates are among the contributing factors are. China, however, seeks to maintain its population size to "meet labor demands" and the continuity of its "economy and society."

According to state propaganda media Global Times, Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member Yu Xinwei suggested during their recent "two sessions" with the National People's Congress (NPC) to require universities to teach Chinese students about relationships.

"Chinese college students lack emotion education. They are prone to excessive mental ups and downs and may even carry out extreme behavior when suffering setbacks in a relationship," Yu said.

Global Times also mentioned on their report that the "number of cases of college students committing suicide due to relationship problems" has alarming spiked in the past years.

"Strengthening marriage and love education among college students is conducive to the stability and harmony of their future partnerships and family relations," Yu added to back her proposal on the need for pre-marital education during the students' university years.

The state-approved textbooks for the proposed mandatory course will contain compilations of "actual cases involving dating, marriage, family relationships and parent-child relationships," reports the Global Times.

According to Breitbart, the proposal was more about giving "the Communist Party greater control of the lives of young Chinese people."

In 2017, the Communist Youth League, also working under the party, announced the launch of a dating service app "to help young ideological zealots find each other." Participants, however, will only meet "Party-approved" individuals who are in "good standing with the regime."

Chen Aizhu of Zhejiang, another lawmaker, also proposed to include pre-marital "training" under the Party-run "education" for young people particularly those applying for a marriage license.

"Carrying out premarital trainings is to help to improve people's sense of responsibility to the family, encouraging the new couples to be loyal in marriage and cherish their family," Chen said noting how Chinese youths are "getting more open" in their views of relationships.

Last year, major cities in China experienced a "divorce peak" post COVID-19 lockdowns. Marriage registration offices were swamped with requests for divorce appointments.

"As a result of the epidemic, many couples have been bound with each other at home for over a month, which evoked the underlying conflicts," Wang told Global Times. He is an officer from the registration office in Beilin district of Xi'an.

On a little positive note, Wang added that some of these divorce requests were just out of impulsiveness. Those who later regretted it decided to remarry.

In February, the Shanxi Think Tank Development Association, a research organization, also put forward what Breitbart call an "unorthodox proposal." The association told the government to "pressure single women in the nation's big cities to move to rural areas and marry single farmers after a certain age."
GENESEE COUNTY, MI  Hungry customers were lined up outside of the newest Leftys Cheesesteak restaurant in Flint Township before it opened its doors for the first day of business.

The metro Detroit-based cheesesteak shop held a grand opening Monday, March 9 for the newest Leftys Cheesesteak restaurant located at 3243 Miller Road, Suite C.

The doors of the business opened at 10 a.m. Monday and by dinner time hundreds of customers had hustled through the restaurant to grab some food, according to Carlos Guzman, chief operating officer for Leftys Cheesesteak franchising.

The core offering here is the cheesesteak. There is no cheesesteak like this anywhere in America, Guzman said proudly. That is our core offering. Its a very generous portion. Its a great price value for the customer.

The menu offerings for the cheesesteak shop features the Leftys Cheesesteak that can be made with ribeye steak, grilled onions, American/ Swiss blended cheese, the Southpaw which includes ribeye steak, grilled onions, white American/Swiss blended cheese, nacho cheese sauce and topped with crushed Flamin Hot Cheetos among other options.

Also on the menu are hoagies and side items such as curly fries, chili cheese fries, fried mushrooms, cheesesteak egg rolls, and Southpaw wedges, a dish made with fried potato wedges topped with similar ingredients as the cheesesteak sandwich of the same name.

It is a very unique proprietary recipe on how we cook the cheesesteaks and how we mix in the cheese, Guzman said. And in terms of the clutter - the pizza, burger type joints, we just offer a very, very different concept where maybe people are tired of the same old and want to introduce cheesesteaks into their weekly routine.

The business hired 18 full-time and part-time employees to help run the restaurant for opening day and beyond.

The business, established in 2010 in Livonia by founder Sam Berry, started franchising last year during the pandemic. Allie Mallard is the franchise owner for the new Flint Township location and several others in Westland, Dearborn, Warren and California.

Guzman said the business thrived during the pandemic as it catered to customers with the options of curbside, take-out and drive-thru which resulted in plans to add more restaurants throughout the state.

Over the next four to five months, Guzman said new Leftys Cheesesteak shops will open in Grand Blanc, Burton, Jackson, Chesterfield Township, Kalamazoo and Portage.

Read more on MLive:

Local Eats: Have tea and eat like a queen at Abiding in the Vine Tea Room in Owosso

New York-based music producer with ties to Drake to speak at new Flint recording studio

Triathlete opens new Complete Fitness store in Grand Blanc
CRESSKILL, N.J., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As recent reports show Chinese ecommerce will surpass 50% of total retail in 2021, luxury ecommerce platform ShopWorn invests further in the market by tapping Dr. Philip Chan to lead the ShopWorn Asia office as Managing Director. Chan is a seasoned ecommerce entrepreneur and senior executive with over 15 years of digital marketing experience, previously serving as General Manager for Google Hong Kong and Vice President of Yahoo Asia, with additional roles at Cisco and Motorola. Chan also spent seven years leading a successful Asia online retail business as General Manager and Head of Asia before joining Shopworn.

Dr. Philip Chan joins ShopWorn Asia as Managing Director. . Chan is a seasoned ecommerce entrepreneur and senior executive with over 15 years of digital marketing experience, previously serving as General Manager for Google Hong Kong and Vice President of Yahoo Asia, with additional roles at Cisco and Motorola. ShopWorn is an ecommerce shopping destination for customers who want to be the first to own authentic, unused luxury products but don't want to pay luxury prices. Launched in 2015, ShopWorn was created to help brands and their authorized retailers sustainably alleviate the challenge of unsold inventory.

"When I was introduced to ShopWorn, I was most impressed by their customer-centric approach to business," said Dr. Chan. "When I learned the satellite office was being opened so their growing Asia Pacific customers could get the same customer care as their U.S. customers, I knew this was a company unwavering in its commitment to service. I'm honored to be part of this team and excited about what the future holds for ShopWorn Asia, especially as online retail sales in China surpasses $1.5 trillion."

Chan has wasted no time setting up ShopWorn Asia for success. In addition to overseeing upgrades to the ShopWorn Asia site, he has also launched a ShopWorn flagship boutique on TMall Global, Alibaba's dedicated platform for 800 million of China's high-end consumers, ensuring ShopWorn was able to capture some of the enthusiastic Asian shoppers that spend heavily on Singles' Day, "Black Friday" and the New Year. In the coming months, Chan plans to launch additional flagships on JD Mall, Shopee, and Lazada to cover the other key Asian markets.

"As Asia, and specifically, China, continues to lead the luxury goods industry, it only made sense for us to have a presence in Hong Kong," said Larry Birnbaum, ShopWorn CEO. "We're thrilled to have such an Asian market stalwart as Dr. Philip Chan on our team. We could not have picked a more experienced, strategic and forward-thinking person whose values align with the ShopWorn relationships-first ethos to navigate this region."

ShopWorn Asia follows a global vision in creating a customer-centric online platform that delivers never previously owned luxury watches, jewelry and other accessories to Asia Pacific customers at incredible value. Enhanced with local language text translation, the platform also now provides APAC customers access to local language customer support during regional working hours and a curated selection of merchandise specific to regional customer demand. The site accepts popular payment methods such as UnionPay, Alipay and Wechat Pay for customer convenience and offers direct shipping at competitive prices within days to major Asian cities.

ABOUT SHOPWORN

ShopWorn is an ecommerce shopping destination for customers who want to be the first to own authentic, unused luxury products but don't want to pay luxury prices. Launched in 2015, ShopWorn was created to help brands and their authorized retailers sustainably alleviate the challenge of unsold inventory.

With ShopWorn's unique sourcing strategy of obtaining products directly from authorized retailers and luxury brands, every item sold on ShopWorn is guaranteed to be 100% authentic and never previously owned, even at incredible savings from the original MSRP. The direct relationship between ShopWorn, brands and authorized dealers alleviates any question of authenticity. And because customers should be able to trust what they see and buy online is what they receive, all ShopWorn product images are from an in-house photographer. Stock images are never used. Items featured on the ShopWorn site are always in stock and ready to ship within two business days.

It's not new. It's not pre-owned. It's ShopWorn. Be the first. www.shopworn.com

For More Information

Lilian M Raji

The Lilian Raji Agency

[email protected]

(646) 789-4427 ext 701

SOURCE ShopWorn
Jessica Phelps /Staff photographer

San Antonio started the week with some encouraging news on the COVID-19 front: the risk level is now "low" after months of skewing on the opposite end of the spectrum during the winter surge.

Metro Health introduced a low to critical risk meter in June, amid the summer surge, to asses the severity of the case numbers and measure overall progress. Movement throughout the levels of the spectrum take into account a two-week decline in cases, testing capacity, contact tracing, hospital trends, doubling rate, positivity rate and hospital stress.
Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A recent article by Ben Zeistloft in the Daily Wire began with these deeply troubling words: Abortion is the leading cause of death in America. The article was titled, 5 Disturbing Findings from Planned Parenthoods Annual Report, but there could have been one more item added: everything listed took place under the Trump administration. That is also deeply troubling (and in saying that, I am not blaming Trump).

Like many of you, one of the main reasons I voted for Donald Trump was because of his pro-life stance, especially in stark contrast with the positions of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and the Democrats. And in many ways, on that score, Trump delivered.

Even Politifactclaimed that Trump kept his promise to defund Planned Parenthood (at least, in part), noting, After a string of setbacks, opponents of abortion chalked up a significant victory in 2019 with the enactment of a federal regulation to prevent a major type of federal funding from reaching entities that provide abortion services.

Or, as Reuters reported in 2018, U.S. health officials said on Friday they were revoking legal guidance issued by the Obama administration that had sought to discourage states from trying to defund organizations that provide abortion services, such as Planned Parenthood.

On the flip side, as the Daily Wire noted, during Trumps tenure, Planned Parenthood reported record high abortions and record high federal funding. Specifically, Accompanying its record-setting abortion count is Planned Parenthoods record-setting paystub from Uncle Sam.

Taxpayer dollars accounted for $618.1 million of Planned Parenthoods $1.641 billion in revenues, meaning federal funds accounted for nearly 38% of the organizations income.

In last years annual report, Planned Parenthood disclosed $617 million in taxpayer funds for abortion. Therefore, as the United States federal government ran a $3.13 trillion budget deficit, the group received more federal funds than ever before.

Would things have been even worse under the Democrats? When it comes to court appointees, absolutely and unquestionably. I cannot imagine what the Supreme Court or federal courts would look like today had Hillary Clinton been president. Again, that is one of the biggest reasons I voted as I did.

But when it comes to the number of abortions and the amount of federal funding, it is unlikely that the results would have been dramatically different under Clinton rather than Trump.

Thats because, once Roe v. Wade changed everything, opening up the floodgates, most advances in the pro-life movement have taken place on the grassroots level (meaning, on the streets and in the communities) and on the state level. And while we continue to work for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we must also be realistic.

As I pointed out in a previous article, Babies were slaughtered at a horrific rate through the Republican presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Thats a total of 24 years and more than 22 million babies, which is far more babies than were aborted during the 16 years of the Democratic presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Yet somehow, because we conservatives voted for these presidents, that eased our conscience regarding the slaughter of the unborn. Now that Biden is president, I continually hear sincere Christians shouting out, Biden is killing the babies! The man is a baby killer! He must be stopped!

Where was our cry, then, during the Trump administration, when Planned Parenthood set new records? And where was our cry for the babies in the womb during the administrations of Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush?

My point is simply this. To the baby whose life has been terminated before birth, it matters little whether the person in the White House is Republican or Democrat. Death by abortion is death by abortion.

In that respect, the millions who died when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were president were not different than the millions who died under Republican presidents. And today, the babies dying under the Biden presidency are no different than the babies dying while Trump was president.

Do I have grave concerns as to where the Democrat policies could lead? Absolutely. Do I think that Roe v. Wade could be enshrined even more deeply under the Biden-Harris administration? Definitely.

But lets not forget that states like Virginia and New York passed the most radical abortion laws in our nations history while Trump was in the White House. (And I commend each of you who spoke out against this wickedness and prayed against this wickedness and worked against this wickedness, even if the bills still passed.)

Again, this is not to blame Trump. Not in the least. But it is to say that our outrage is selective, as if abortion rates dropped dramatically in the Trump years only to skyrocket again during the Biden tenure. Or as if Planned Parenthood lost all of its funding under Trump only to get it back under Biden.

Perhaps, if we felt the same outrage and grief over abortion while a Republican was president as we do while a Democrat is president, we might actually see the tide turn even more.

For those wanting to make a difference, heres a great place to start. This one organization, Love Life, which started in Charlotte, North Carolina, can report that, IN 3 YEARS, 300+ CHURCHES HAVE UNITED & MOBILIZED 65,000+ PEOPLE TO BRING LOVE & LIFE, RESULTING IN:

DROP IN ABORTIONS

BABIES SAVED

SALVATIONS

ORPHANS FOSTERED/ADOPTED

SIDEWALK COUNSELING

ABORTION WORKERS LEAVING

POST ABORTIVE HEALED & RESTORED

MENTORING

So, rather than just hating on the current administration, lets join together to save babies lives. I know thats what matters most to so many of you.
Students for Life releases first list of Christian colleges with ties to Planned Parenthood

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A pro-life group has released its first list of Christian colleges and universities in the United States that have ties to Planned Parenthood.

On Wednesday, Students for Life of America announced in a press release the preliminary findings of its ongoing investigation into more than 700 Christian colleges and universities across the U.S., which found that as many as 100 have "quiet relationships" with Planned Parenthood that "fly under the radar.

The first list names 23 colleges that partner with the abortion giant in some form. Two schools that were on the initial list of 25 have since severed ties with the nation's largest abortion business.

Christian colleges found to have relationships with Planned Parenthood in Students for Life's first wave of research include: four Catholic institutions, five Lutheran schools, six universities affiliated with the United Methodist Church, two Methodist institutions, two colleges affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, one Methodist Episcopal university, one university affiliated with the United Church of Christ, one university affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, and a theological seminary affiliated with the Reformed Church in America.

Students for Life also provides a map of the U.S. showing the locations of colleges and universities that have ties to Planned Parenthood. The map will be updated as more institutions of higher learning are added or removed.

The types of connections Christian colleges' were found to have with Planned Parenthood include such things as " ... advertising Planned Parenthood internships and career postings; referring students to Planned Parenthood as a resource; incorporating Planned Parenthood into medical school rotations; and hosting events for students with the abortion giant.

There is an unholy partnership between a number of Christian schools and the abortion industry, said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life.

We want to equip pro-life advocates to take action and encourage schools to disentangle themselves from Big Abortion," she added. "It is crucial that colleges and universities that claim an affiliation with the Christian faith and biblical values do not contradict those values by partnering with or promoting perpetrators of abortion violence.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Hawkins explained that, surprisingly, many Christian colleges are hostile to the idea of a Students for Life group on campus.

The hardest places for us to start a Students for Life group is often on a private school campus and particularly Christian school campuses where  we dont have the same First Amendment rights as you would on a public school to be able to a launch a Students for Life, pro-life group on campus.

We have to make the case to Christian schools why we need to have a Students for Life, she added. The majority of women who seek an abortion are self-proclaimed Christians.  There are abortion facilities, 600 of them operating in the United States, many of them are across the street or within neighborhoods of an active church or parish. So Christians need to speak out against the atrocity of abortion.

Hawkins told CP that Students for Life has worked to make the colleges aware of their relationships with Planned Parenthood and asked them to cut ties with the organization.

Two of the 25 colleges identified as having relationships with Planned Parenthood in the first released list and then decided to cut their ties with the abortion giant were Messiah College and St. Francis University, both based in Pennsylvania. The two institutions reversed course after being contacted by pro-life advocates.

According to Hawkins, some Christian colleges are openly enthusiastic about their association with Planned Parenthood.

In some cases, we had situations where the school openly supported Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry and was obstinate in their response to us. And that to me, I think, was the most surprising, she recalled.

Hawkins specifically mentioned a correspondence Students for Life had with the campus minister of a college in Minnesota, who talked about how much she supported Planned Parenthood and a womans right to have an abortion, and they were proud to be partners with Planned Parenthood on campus.

The list of colleges with ties to Planned Parenthood is just the first of several more to be released by the organization in the coming months.

Hawkins said there will be two more waves of schools before the Students for Life Institute for Pro-Life Advancement publishes a full report on the schools found to have ties with Planned Parenthood later this year, most likely in August or September.
Starbucks has employees at hundreds of busy locations strolling through car lines, taking orders with hand-held devices so customers can get their caffeine fix a few seconds faster.

Shake Shack, which has long emphasized that quality ingredients are worth waiting a few extra minutes for, will soon feature its first drive-thru window. And the vast majority of new Chipotles this year will have Chipotlanes, where customers can drive up to a window and pull away with preordered meals in less than a minute.

With dining room restrictions in place for much of the country during the pandemic, drive-thru and pickup windows became critical ways for a variety of restaurants to remain afloat.

Now, as the dining industry looks toward a post-pandemic world, many companies are betting big that digital ordering and drive-thrus will remain integral to their success. And the basic experience of sitting in a single line of cars, speaking into a sometimes garbled intercom and pulling up to a window to pay for your food before driving away is poised to be demonstrably altered for the first time in decades.

A number of restaurants are moving quickly to improve their online order and app abilities, change their physical designs or add two or three drive-thru lanes. Some are testing artificial intelligence systems to tailor suggestions for individuals who pull up to the menu board.

The drive-thru has been one of those places that hasnt changed in decades, said Ellie Doty, North American chief marketing officer for Burger King. But with COVID, were seeing the dramatic acceleration of directions we were already going.

Taco Bell, which last year announced plans to test a restaurant design with stadium seating for gamers to play against one another, has switched much of its focus to creating smaller restaurants with dual drive-thru lanes and curbside pickup. Applebees is testing its first drive-thru in Texarkana, Texas. Shake Shack is experimenting with a number of new designs and plans, including walk-up windows and curbside pickup. It will open its first drive-thru this year in Orlando, Florida, and plans five to eight more through 2022.

We had started working on some of the formats even prior to the pandemic, said Andrew McCaughan, chief development officer for Shake Shack. But we saw a massive accelerator and catalyst to move faster and to get drive-thru really going.

While several chains lay claim to inventing the drive-thru, many say it dates back to the 1930s when a Los Angeles franchise of a Texas chain, the Pig Stand, allowed customers to order and pick up their food from a window. In the late 1940s, the California chain In-N-Out Burger introduced the two-way squawk box. But the phenomenon really took off in the 1970s when McDonalds installed drive-thrus.

As more families had two working parents and the demand for quick-and-easy meals rose, drive-thrus became mainstream. But they also became a source of derision and hilarity. In 1993s Waynes World 2, characters Garth and Wayne purposely cut out their voices while giving their orders, suggesting a broken intercom. The server repeats the order back perfectly.

Indeed, drive-thrus can be stressful. Other customers occasionally honk to prod you to speed up your order. After screaming No pickles! repeatedly into the intercom, you sometimes still get a burger with three pickles on it. And lines can stretch through parking lots and into the street, especially during peak pandemic use. Chick-fil-A has been sued by neighboring businesses that say its long drive-thru lines block their customers access.

For most restaurants, the solution has many parts. First, more are trying to encourage customers to use ordering apps, which improve the accuracy of orders and are often connected to loyalty programs that give them points for free food. They are also trying to figure out how to best speed consumers through the drive-thru or pickup process without disrupting traffic patterns or other businesses.

Drive-thru times average four minutes, 15 seconds, according to Bluedot, a geolocation company. Like a Daytona 500 pit crew, restaurants are always looking for ways to shave off minutes, or even seconds.

To be competitive in this race, Chipotle, whose digital orders soared from 20% of its sales to as high as 70% at the height of the pandemic, installed in many of its kitchens a second assembly line where employees put together tacos or burrito bowls for mobile and online orders exclusively.

The chain also expects that 70% of its restaurants that open this year will have the dedicated Chipotlanes for online orders.

In the traditional drive-thru experience, you wait in line to order, you wait in line to pay and pick up, you wait in line for your food to be prepared, said Jack Hartung, chief financial officer of Chipotle. Were trying to get our service time from when you pull up to the restaurant, pick up your food and drive off to 40 or 50 seconds.

Others, like McDonalds and Burger King, are adding multiple drive-thru lanes, which have been a feature at some busy fast-food spots like Chick-fil-A but are becoming more commonplace. Burger King is running three-lane tests in the United States, Brazil and Spain. In the United States and Spain, the third lane is express for advance orders made through the app. In Brazil, the lane takes delivery drivers to a pickup area with food lockers or shelves.

Burger King is also looking to propel its drive-thrus into the future with a Big-Brother-like AI system, Deep Flame.

Right now, roughly half of Burger Kings drive-thrus with digital menu boards are using Deep Flames technology to suggest foods that are particularly popular in the area that day. It also uses outside factors, like the weather, to highlight items like an iced coffee on a hot day.

But this year, Burger King is testing a Bluetooth technology that will be able to identify customers in Burger Kings loyalty program and show their previous orders. If a customer ordered a small Sprite and a Whopper with cheese, hold the pickles, the last three visits, Deep Flame will calculate that chances are high that the customer will want the same order again.

It is unclear whether the technology pays off. McDonalds is moving in a similar direction. The fast-food giant acquired the Israeli AI firm Dynamic Yield in 2019 with an eye toward boosting sales by providing personalized digital promotions to customers.

Restaurant Brands International  the parent company of Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes  hopes to have the predictive personalized systems at more than 10,000 of its restaurant locations across North America by mid-2022.

Were taking what was an outdated, old, static sales channel and bringing it to the forefront of the industry, said Duncan Fulton, chief corporate officer for Restaurant Brands International. Now, customers can have the the ability to automatically reorder things and pay for the items at the board, which, ultimately, speeds up the window time, allowing you to collect your food and go on your way.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The National Chief Imam, Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu has commended the Ejurahene, Nana Osei Hwedie II, for his role in resolving a dispute between factions within the Ejura Zongo.



A dispute between the Ejura Imam and the Zongo Chief was on the verge of escalating to disturb the peace of the community, but the Ejurahene intervened to avert what could have been a full blown crisis.



He invited the feuding factions to his palace and settled the differences amicably.



Over the weekend, the Ejurahene led the two factions, the Imam and the Zongo Chief to the residence of the National Chief Imam for a final truce and advice from the revered Islamic cleric.



Sheikh Sharubutu praised the Ejurahene for showing leadership by intervening in the matter and also bringing them all the way to his residence.



The National Chief Imam urged the two factions to unite as leaders in the overall interest of their community.



It is God who appoints leaders from communities, but as leaders, we represent the people and everything we do should be in the interest of the people we represent", Sheikh Sharubutu said.



"I urge you all to unite and be peaceful within the community so that future leaders will also emulate your good deeds" he added.



The Ejurahene requested the Chief Imam to pray for his community, and in response, the Chief Imam said Nana Osei Hwedie II has displayed the acts of good leadership and Allah will answer his prayers.



Sheikh Sharubutu also prayed for Ghana, asking Allah to continue to grant the country peace and prosperity.









Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Media organisations across Myanmar were ordered to close by the Myanmar Military Council on Monday, March 8 including Myanmar Now who had their offices raided that night. The IFJ condemns the Myanmar Now raid and urge the military to allow the media to operate without interference.

Soldiers and police raided local media outlet Myanmar Nows headquarters, seizing computers and part of the newsrooms data server, among other equipment. The publication, which has provided extensive coverage of the protests and regularly scrutinised the military, evacuated their offices on January 28 as a precautionary measure, due to the possibility of a coup intensifying. It is the first targeted attack on a media publication since the February 1 coup, on a day which also saw the storming of hospitals by authorities.

On March 8, five major media outlets also had their licenses cancelled in Myanmar, all of which have provided extensive coverage of the ongoing coup. These companies  including Mizzima, DVB, Khit Thit Media, Myanmar Now and 7DayNews are no longer allowed to broadcast or write or give information by using any kind of media platform or using any media technology, announced the military.

Since the military coup on February 9, reports estimate between 22 and 25 journalists have been arrested, including media workers from the Associated Press, Myanmar Now and 7Day News. In total, 1,200 citizens have been detained by the junta and at least 50 people killed since February 1 according to the United Nations Special Envoy on Myanmar.

In response to the arrest of journalists in Myanmar, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) affiliate, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Indonesia and Malaysia's Gerakan Media Merdeka (Geramm) called for international action to end the violence in Myanmar.The joint statement between AJI and Geramm urges Myanmar authorities to immediately release the detained journalists.

AJI and Geramm said:We call upon the Indonesian and Malaysian government to work together with Asean countries in order to support the United Nations to send its investigation team to Myanmar.

The IFJ said: By limiting journalists' information and ability to report, the true extent of the atrocities committed against journalists and the public remains unknown. The IFJ condemns the renewed attack on journalists and supports the call for the United Nations to send an investigative team to Myanmar to uncover and report on the conditions.
Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange traded 95 points higher at 15,077 around 8.20 am, indicating a firm start for benchmark indices on Tuesday.

Here are the top stocks that are likely to be in focus today:

BPCL: Trust for Investment in Shares ( Trust) will sell up to 4 per cent of its shares in state-owned energy company Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) on Tuesday through a block deal, multiple media reports suggested. The Trust will sell up to 86.77 million shares or 4 per cent of the total share capital of the company at a floor price of Rs 435, the reports said.

Coal India: The company said it has approved 32 new coal mining projects in the ongoing financial year with an estimated cost of Rs 47,000 crore. Of the 32, twenty-four are expansion of existing projects and the remaining eight are greenfield.

Mindspace REIT: Mindspace Business Parks REIT said its arm Gigaplex Estate has entered into an agreement to sub-lease about 6.3 lakh sq ft space in Mumbai to a data centre operator.

Godrej Properties: The company said its shareholders have approved the company's proposal to raise up to Rs 3,750 crore through issue of securities.

Max Financial Services: Max Ventures Investment Holdings, a promoter of Max Financial Services on Monday offloaded shares worth Rs 85 crore through an open market transaction.

Mphasis: A Bloomberg report said that Blackstone group has shelved plans to sell its majority stake in the company. The PE firm rejected two bidders in the final round as their offers did not meet the firm's expectations, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Biocon: Biocon Biologics has received subscription amount of Rs 555 crore from the wholly-owned subsidiary of ADQ. The board of Biocon Biologics has approved the allotment of 1.97 crore shares at an issue price of Rs 280.3 per share.

Jet Airways: The aviation company cannot claim historical precedence over airport slots, civil aviation ministry and the DGCA have said in an affidavit before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The ministry and the civil aviation regulator have said the government will consider the airlines request for slots as per existing policy.

Mahindra Finance: Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services (Mahindra Finance) on Monday announced the appointment of Amit Raje as Chief Operating Officer Digital Finance - Digital Business Unit. The appointment comes into effect from April 1, 2021.

Cadila Healthcare: Zydus Cadila is likely to release the phase III data of its Covid-19 vaccine by the end of this month or early next month, a media report stated quoting a senior company executive.

Wipro: Appirio, a Wipro company, is helping National Grid transform its business with an omnichannel customer experience by unifying its engagement with 68 million customers across two continents.

PSP Projects: The company has received Letter of Acceptances for orders worth Rs 1,491.3 crore for construction of medical colleges and hospitals at multiple locations in Uttar Pradesh.

Mishra Dhatu Nigam: The company board is slated to meet on March 15 to consider a proposal relating to declaration of interim dividend for the financial year 2020-21.

JSW Energy: The company concluded the sale of an 18 MW thermal power plant at Salboni in West Bengal to JSW Cement Ltd on a going concern basis for Rs 95.67 crore.

Jindal Poly Films: The firm is exploring the sale of a significant minority stake to raise as much as Rs 1,000-Rs 1,200 crore, as the BC Jindal group company looks to take advantage of a frenzied investment activity in the packaging industry, a media report said.

Dhunseri Ventures: The company divested its entire shareholding of 25 percent in Tastetaria Foods in favour of its existing JV partner Choicest Enterprises (CEL) of Ambuja Neotia group.

IndiGo: Interglobe Aviation (IndiGo) is in talks with Airbus to finalise a deal to acquire up to five A321 converted freighters amid a burgeoning air cargo market. People aware of the development said that while the airline would test the market with five freighters, it might acquire more in the future depending on their performance. READ HERE
Przepraszamy!

Ogoszenie na stanowisku:

Senior Financial Controller



wygaso z dniem 2021-04-08



Ta propozycja bya zozona przez Nordea Bank Abp SA Oddzia w Polsce

Mozliwe przyczyny wygasniecia oferty to:

propozycja zozona przez pracodawce zostaa usunieta z serwisu praca.egospodarka.pl

rekruter zakonczy proces rekrutacji uzyskujac odpowiednia ilosc CV

rekruter zmodyfikowa tresc ogoszenia i jest ono dostepne pod innym adresem WWW

dostawca tresci usuna ogoszenie z bazy danych

niewasciwy adres WWW ogoszenia

Jezeli poszukujesz pracy w branzy Bankowosc / Leasing, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Bankowosc / Leasing

Jezeli poszukujesz pracy na stanowisku Senior Financial Controller, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Senior Financial Controller

Jezeli poszukujesz pracy w miescie: odz, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca odz



Pamietaj, ze mozesz takze rozpoczac poszukiwanie pracy od strony gownej, kliknij tutaj.

Inne ogoszenia, ktore mogy byc w kregu Twoich zainteresowan:
Interfax-Ukraine to host press conference 'Extensive Abuse in Construction of Ukrainian Roads. Where does Taxpayers' Money Go? Who Makes Money on Pandemic?'

On Tuesday, March 9, at 14.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference entitled "Extensive Abuse in Construction of Ukrainian Roads. Where does Taxpayers' Money Go? Who Makes Money on Pandemic?" Participants include member of the European Solidarity party in Kyiv City Council Oleksandr Pohrebysky; lawyer Ihor Holovan; expert, member of the volunteer assault troops of the Ministry of Defense in 2014 - 2016 Nelly Stelmakh (8/5a Reitarska Street). Admission of journalists requires registration on the spot.
Jacob Chansley (C) entered the Capitol building during a protest with his painted face and horned hat in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Federal Judge Rejects QAnon Shamans Bid for Early Release

A federal judge has ruled that the so-called QAnon Shaman must remain in government custody pending further legal proceedings for his role in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, because he still constitutes a threat to the public.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Monday that comments made by the self-proclaimed QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley, show that he is not remorseful for his actions.

That Chansley believes his actions during the Capitol breach were peaceful shows a detachment from reality, the judge wrote in a 32-page opinion.

Defendant characterizes himself as a peaceful person who was welcomed into the Capitol building on January 6th by police officers, Lamberth wrote. The Court finds none of his many attempts to manipulate the evidence and minimize the seriousness of his actions persuasive.

Chansley was seen shirtless at the Capitol building on Jan. 6, wearing a distinctive hat with horns. He told a U.S. Capitol Police officer and an FBI agent the following day that he traveled to Washington because Trump called for all patriots to go there to protest as Congress met in a joint session.

Chansley was arrested in January and charged with civil disorder, disorderly conduct, and obstruction of an official proceeding, among other counts.

Arizona prosecutors previously said he allegedly left a note saying that its only a matter of time, justice is coming. They further stipulated strong evidence, including Chansleys own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government.

That claim was also echoed by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a critic of Trump.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) leaves the chamber as the Senate voted to consider hearing from witnesses in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 13, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

In rejecting Chansleys pre-trial release, Lamberth ruled that his refusal to follow orders from law enforcement officers and Capitol Police during the breach indicates that, if released, he could break his release conditions, or disobey police orders.

He added that the language adopted by Chansley on social media at the time could be seen as threatening, or as signaling that he could carry out violent actions in the future.

According to Lamberth, Chansley directed a threat at former Vice President Mike Pence, and previously wrote that he supported the hanging of traitors.

These are not the actions of a person who is shy about breaking the law, the judge wrote.

In an interview with CBS News 60 Minutes Plus last week, Chansley said that his actions were not an attack on this country.

That is incorrect. That is inaccurate entirely, he said. I sang a song and thats a part of Shamanism. Its about creating positive vibrations in a sacred chamber.

I also stopped people from stealing and vandalizing that sacred space, the Senate. I actually stopped someone from stealing muffins out of the break room. I also said a prayer in that sacred chamber because it was my intention to bring divinity, to bring God back into the Senate, he added.

He claimed that police officers waved him into the Capitol building on Jan. 6.

That is the one very serious regret that I have, was believing that when we were waved in by police officers that it was acceptable, Chansley said.

I developed a lot of sympathy for Donald Trump because it seemed like the media was picking on him, Chansley continued. It seemed like the establishment was going after him unnecessarily or unfairly and I had been a victim of that all of my life whether it be at school or at home, so in many ways I identified with many of the negative things he was going through.

I honestly believed and still believe that he cares about the Constitution, that he cares about the American people. And thats also why it wounded me so deeply and disappointed me so greatly that I and others did not get a pardon, Chansley added.

I regret entering that building. I regret entering that building with every fiber of my being.

Defendants statements after January 6 indicate that he does not fully appreciate the severity of the charges brought against him, Lamberth wrote in his ruling. If defendant does not understand the severity of the allegations against him, the Court finds no reason to believe he would not commit the same or similar actions again.

Chansley has pleaded not guilty to two felony and four misdemeanor charges.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A Lisburn man who cared for his wife of 48 years until her death months after being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis has said he wants to raise awareness of the disease.

Michael Hewitt (71), who is originally from Norfolk, was carer for Phyllis until she passed away last November after her diagnosis with the progressive condition, which kills 8,000 each year in the UK and has an average life expectancy of four years.

Mr Hewitt, who has a son Jason and granddaughter Lillie (2), said his wife fell ill after recurring chest infections, followed by difficulty walking, before a June 2019 hospital stay revealed tissue damage to her lungs.

Medical professionals are still unsure what causes pulmonary fibrosis, he said.

"Phyllis didn't smoke but the only thing we could come up with was that she worked as a full-time hairdresser for 30 years and used a lot of hairspray," he explained.

"Sprays that were used in earlier years used chemicals that could have lodged on her lungs."

After the diagnosis Mrs Hewitt struggled at home.

"You're taking the air in but your lung can't hold the air," said her widower.

"She had to shield when Covid-19 came. In March we had to install a stair lift.

"She was put on oxygen but didn't improve and she was on a very high level all the time, even while sitting down."

As her carer, he said he was unable to leave his wife's side except to go to the shop for half-an-hour as she relied on him for all her needs.

"She got to the point where she couldn't walk at all and had to have commodes in the house," he said.

"She couldn't even stand. Her life was terrible, it was unbelievable. I couldn't leave her on her own."

Mrs Hewitt's weight dropped from 16 stone in April 2020 to seven just before she died. She had fluid on her heart and was "just bones and skin".

On November 24 she collapsed and was taken to hospital. She died the next day.

"It was comforting that I was able to be here to look after her," Mr Hewitt added.

"If anything happened to me, I didn't want anyone else to look after her.

"The morning she was taken to hospital I was very upset because she didn't want to go."

After her death, Mr Hewitt said a hole was left in his life.

He thought their retirement, with holidays abroad, "would go on forever".

"We were together for 48 years and we're not together in this world now," he said.

"She was strong, very caring, a lovely woman."

Mr Hewitt hopes to raise funds for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Trust when the pandemic is over.

"You never hear anyone mention pulmonary fibrosis as a charity but I'd like to do something to raise money for them," he said.
Jaipur, March 9 : Two years ago, three baraats (wedding parties) from Jaisalmer and Barmer went to Pakistan. However, they returned to India without the brides since visas were not granted to them.

However, this International Women's Day, two of these cross-border brides were finally reunited with their grooms in India.

Chagan Kanwar, wife of Mahendra Singh and Kailash Bai, wife of Nepal Singh, came to India on Monday through the Wagah-Attari border along with a few family members and were accorded a warm welcome by their husbands.

The two Pakistani brides had finally arrived at the residence of their in-laws in Rajasthan two years after their wedding.

The brides, along with their family members, passed through a security check and took the Covid-19 test after crossing the border.

While Nepal's wife Kailash came to India accompanied with her mother and brother, Mahendra's wife Chagan Kanwar came with her father.

However, Nepal's brother's wife could not get visa that has left him a little upset.

Nepal Singh, a Sodha Rajput, belongs to Jaisalmer district. He married a Pakistani woman from Sindh province on January 26, 2019. Similarly, Mahendra from Barmer went to Pakistan and married a Pakistani Rajput woman on April 16, 2019.

However Vikram Singh, who was married to another Rajput woman and was also blessed with a child named Rajveer Singh, is still awaiting his bride as she couldn't get a visa.

Their child, however, got the visa and has come to India.

As relations between the two countries soured following the Pulwama attack, they could not bring their wives and returned to India without the brides after staying in Pakistan for four months.

Nepal Singh told journalists that even as he is happy to meet his wife he was also upset since his younger brother's wife could not get a visa.

He also thanked union minister Kailash Choudhary for extending all due help to the family in getting the visas.

"I would like to extend gratitude to Union minister Kailash Choudhary who helped us in getting a visa. Initially, my wife was allowed entry only via air route but since we could not afford air travel, the Union minister helped us get permission to cross through the Wagah-Attari road route," he added.

Meanwhile officials said that his brother Vikram Singh's wife, Pakistani girl Nirmala Bai, was denied a visa by the consulate on the grounds that her passport was blacklisted.

However, their one and a half years old child has got the visa and has come to India. Now, efforts are being made to get a visa for the mother.

Chaudhary has intensified efforts to get a visa for the woman and has contacted the home ministry in this regard.
Tax hikes are looking to happen in South Korea even under the toll of COVID-19's economic impact that has already been heavy on shoulders of many citizens, especially small-to-medium size business owners and temporary workers. Korea Times file



Raising taxation may not sound plausible for now as households and companies are still struggling to bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, but talks of tax hikes are set to simmer in South Korea to help repair the state coffers amid growing national debt.



The government has not broached the issue overtly given its far-reaching impact and public backlash in time of the economic slumps caused by the new coronavirus outbreak.



But some ruling party lawmakers began to float the idea of hiking taxes as without tax increases, state coffers are widely expected to run dry at a faster rate in order to finance a series of pandemic relief funds and stimulus measures.



The liberal Moon Jae-in administration has already revised the tax code in a way that imposes higher taxes on the rich and bigger firms in a bid to address social inequality and increased social welfare costs amid rapid aging and record low birthrates.



Recently, the country's financial status is on a course to worsen in the face of the pandemic, which prompted some politicians to take a look at additional tax hikes.



Rep. Lee Sang-min of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) said he will propose a bill designed to raise income and corporate taxes on the wealthy and larger businesses between 2022 and 2024.



Another lawmaker of the same party, Lee Won-wook, suggested raising value-added taxes for three years to finance an envisioned state scheme to compensate merchants' losses over the pandemic.



Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung, one of the presidential hopefuls, also joined the move to support his idea of adopting a basic income-based welfare program.



"Time appears to be ripe for fiscal authorities to start to put the issue of tax hikes to public debate," Rep. Yoon Hu-duk, head of the parliamentary finance committee, said at a panel meeting last month.





Street concentrated with bars and restaurants in Busan is crowded but many venues face financial difficulties as the government enforced early store closure to prevent spread of COVID-19 risks. Korea Times file



South Korea has relatively sufficient room for more expansionary fiscal measures, compared with other major countries, but the growing pace of its debt looks worrisome.



The country proposed an extra budget of 15 trillion won (US$13.3 billion) last week to finance the 19.5 trillion-won aid package aimed at supporting smaller merchants and vulnerable groups hit hard by the pandemic.



Last year, the government drew up extra budgets totaling 67 trillion won four times to tackle the economic fallout of the pandemic. Nearly half of the budgets were spent on financing three rounds of pandemic relief funds totaling 31.4 trillion won.



The country drew up a record 558 trillion-won national budget for this year, up from 512.3 trillion won last year.



With the latest extra budget, the country's debt is expected to reach 965.9 trillion won this year. Its debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio will likely reach 48.2 percent in 2020, higher than just below 40 percent before the pandemic.



The finance ministry forecast the national debt will increase some 125 trillion won to 1,091 trillion won next year. If more extra budgets are created this year, the debt may top the 1,000 trillion-won mark this year.



In comparison, the country saw tax revenue decline 7.9 trillion won last year as the collection of corporate taxes fell amid the pandemic.



The country's tax-to-GDP ratio, a measure of a country's tax revenue against its economic size, tentatively reached 27.4 percent in 2019, lower than an average 33.8 percent of member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to an OECD report.



Major economies are moving to raise taxes in an effort to address a severe hit in their public finances caused by the pandemic.





In this photo from September 2020, a sign from a karaoke room in Sinchon, Seoul's Mapo District, reads the business was forced by the government to shut down after suffering a shortage of customers and the owner took a loan to keep the business running. Korea Times file
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Germany's exports growth accelerated at the start of the year despite lockdown restrictions, while imports logged a faster-than-expected decline, data from Destatis revealed on Tuesday. Exports grew unexpectedly by 1.4 percent month-on-month, faster than the 0.4 percent rise in December. Economists had forecast a decline of 1.2 percent. At the same time, imports decreased 4.7 percent after staying flat in the previous month. Imports were expected to drop 0.5 percent. As a result, the trade surplus rose to a seasonally adjusted EUR 22.2 billion from EUR 16.4 billion in the prior month. The surplus was expected to remain unchanged at the December level. On a yearly basis, exports and imports decreased 8 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively. The trade surplus, on an unadjusted basis, increased to EUR 14.3 billion from EUR 13.7 billion in the same period last year. Exports were 3.3 percent and imports 5.2 percent lower than in February 2020, the month before the start of the corona-related restrictions in Germany. Data showed that the current account surplus totaled EUR 16.9 billion in January versus EUR 15.9 billion surplus in the last year. Shipments to China grew 3.1 percent annually to EUR 7.5 billion, while that to the United States dropped 6.2 percent to EUR 8.5 billion. Most of the imports came to Germany from China in January. Imports from China climbed 1.1 percent. On the other hand, imports from the U.S. dropped 22.8 percent. Exports to the UK fell 29.0 percent and imports from the UK plunged 56.2 percent. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
New Delhi:

A five-judge Supreme Court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India JS Khehar on August 22 have pronounce its judgement on the legality of the Islamic personal law practice of talaq-e-bidat and nikah-halala (forms of divorce) in Islam and whether it violates the fundamental and human rights of gender equality and dignity of Muslim women.

Triple Talaq was pulled to the Supreme Court by Muslim women who were unlikely candidate to have challenged the religious practice. No one had ever thought women from middle-class families staying in small towns would stand up against the Islamic Law to demand scrapping of the Islamic Law which pronounced divorced in one sitting (triple talaq).



Here are the women who stood against the Islamic law to fight for rights



Shayara Bano

The 37-year-old MA in Sociology dared to challenge the Islamic Law after her husband duped her into accepting a post which finally led her divorce and finally getting Rs 16000 as Mehr.

The woman from Uttrakhands Kashipur knocked the Supreme Court taking her triple talaq case and cited it as an unfair practise she demanded abolishment of the law from India.

Bano has alleged that she had gone acute distress during the last 15-years of marriage and was mentally tortured for dowry. She never protested as she wanted to save her marriage.

In the course of the fight to challenge the thousand year old Islamic Law, she and her family had to face tough times from the Muslim community and very few stood in their support.

According to family members, The Muslim Law Board filed petition against them saying that they were going against the rules of Islam.

In spite of facing challenges from the Muslim community Bano took a stand to fight against the Islamic Law.



Hasina Khan

The founder of Bebaak Collective  an umbrella of Muslim womens groups  who firmly agrees that certain aspects of Muslim Personal Law are discriminatory.

She has challenged the AIMPLB affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court, in which it is emphasized on acknowledgement of womens rights which are otherwise controlled in the name of religion, purity or chastity or even in the garb of protecting women.

Khan had been in close association with AIMPLB for last decade trying to make them understand the need for quality of personal rights between Muslim men and women.

She says the AIMPLB is completely male dominated. She says she is fighting for womens rights from a feminist perspective and their position on triple talaq is not dependent on whether religious scriptures validate it or not.

Shah Bano Begum, Indore

Begum was married to Mohammed Ahmad Khan, a well known advocate of Indore and had five children from the marriage. After living for 14 years together her husband married a younger woman and divorced her in November 1978.

Begum filed a case under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure asking Rs500 as maintenance from her husband for herself and five children after monthly compensation of Rs 200 was stopped. A local court hearing the petition directed Khan to pay a sum of 25 per month to Bano by way of maintenance.

In 1980, her former husband filed a petition to appeal before the Supreme Court claiming that Shah Bano is not his responsibility anymore because Khan has a second marriage which is also [permitted under Islamic Law.She was later denied alimony when the Indian Parliament reversed the judgement under pressure from Islamic orthodoxy.

Her case triggered controversy for having different civil codes for different religions especially Muslims in India and forced Congress government to pass Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act,1986.

In later judgements the Supreme Court interpreted the act in manner reassuring the validity of the case and upheld Banos judgement and nullifying The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Divorce) Act 1986. Muslims including All India Shia Personal Law Board supported the Supreme Court's order.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland and SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Handpoint, a pioneer in defining integrated payments and next-generation POS, today announced its partnership with MagicCube, the leader in the new category of Software Defined Trust (SDT), to provide an industry-leading solution offering a powerful, secure software product which eliminates the requirements and costs for payments terminal hardware. This partnership will enable MagicCube's softPOS i-Accept product to be embedded into the Handpoint platform, offering a unified user experience across softPOS, mPOS and smartPOS.

"SoftPOS is the future evolution of the payments industry, and it forms an important piece of the puzzle for a complete payments platform," said David Gudjonsson, CEO and Co-Founder of Handpoint. "In order to cater for needs of merchants of different sizes with one integration for all requirements and platforms, we needed to add robust softPOS to our platform. It was clear that MagicCube's i-Accept is the leading product in the category, with an impressive, device-independent security platform that offers not just Tap-on-Phone, but also a full suite of secure payments products. We're excited to partner with MagicCube to integrate our core systems and build on each other's expertise to promptly provide a market-leading softPOS solution suite for partners and merchants to start benefitting from software-only checkouts."

Under recent market conditions, merchant service providers, independent sales vendors (ISVs) and merchants have faced incredible pressure to rapidly evolve their businesses, deliver their products or services in new ways and offer new payment acceptance, i.e. softPOS. The demands for a software-only solution also reflects the recent surge in contactless payments, accounting for 78% of all Mastercard transactions in Europe. Handpoint is tackling these pressures by offering unified, contactless payment acceptance through MagicCube's technology for softPOS.

Handpoint offers a feature-rich payment solution for merchants to securely accept transactions, while its platform will deliver even more choice, flexibility and convenience with the integration of MagicCube's softPOS solution, developing its software terminal into a software-only solution to accept contactless (NFC) and optional PIN payments. Handpoint's software terminal was built to support softPOS, therefore allowing the same app for its current mPOS and smartPOS solutions to accept contactless transactions directly on a smart device. ISV partners of multi-vertical or vertical-specific POS systems can therefore incorporate softPOS into their POS solutions while continuing to deliver a secure and frictionless checkout experience with an easy merchant set-up through Handpoint's remote Terminal Management System (TMS).

With MagicCube's technology, Handpoint ensures that the next generation of solutions they provide meets future security standards and specifications. MagicCube was recently appointed to the PCI Security Standards Council Board of Advisors, received a security compliance from Visa, and was awarded the first recognition of a software-based Trusted Execution Environment (sTEE) issued by EMVCo, the global consortium which facilitates worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions, for its SDT platform.

"We are delighted to work with a great partner like Handpoint to bring i-Accept to their partners," said Sam Shawki, CEO and co-founder of MagicCube. "With their presence as a trusted partner of prominent financial institutions, and the power of their integrated platform, we believe that our i-Accept solution will help expand the delivery of softPOS while remaining secure, seamless and easy to deploy."

About MagicCube

MagicCube is leading the Software Defined Trust (SDT) category with its software TEE-based platform. The technology enables large-scale deployment and management of IoT and mobile-secure solutions to consumers. MagicCube was awarded the first recognition of a software-based Trusted Execution Environment (sTEE) issued by EMVCo, the global consortium which facilitates worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions, for its SDT platform.

MagicCube has been named to Network World's '10 Hot IoT Startups to Watch' list, listed as a Cool Vendor in Security and Risk Management by Gartner, and partners with the PCI Security Standards Council. Investors in MagicCube include Bold Capital, Epic Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Visa, NTT Data, Azure Capital, CVentures and Luqman Weise Capital. For more information, visit www.magiccube.co or follow us on Twitter @Magic3inc.

** EMV is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC.

About Handpoint

Handpoint has been a pioneer in defining integrated payments and next-generation POS, from advancing the checkout experience with mobile technology to launching open payment integrations for all emerging POS platforms on 3 continents. Handpoint provides solutions for software developers, merchants, acquirers, and ISOs who are delivering the cutting edge of payments: where customer experience and management matter, where payments are embedded seamlessly, and where mobile technology fuels growth. Handpoint's software terminal, international gateway, and terminal management system enable the future of payments, from mPOS and integrated POS to a future without terminals.

For more information, visit www.handpoint.com

** All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

Media Contact:

Rozeta Andres, Clarity

[email protected]

SOURCE MagicCube

Related Links

http://www.magiccube.co


The software-defined networking wide-area networking (SD-WAN) wave has surprised many with its depth and penetration into enterprise and service provider networking circles. I predict it will go even deeper. This is because of the ongoing integration of SD-WAN with the software-defined branch (SD-Branch).

Ongoing trends in cloud services, service provider networks, and enterprise networks are all heading in the same direction  driving more nimble networks that can be managed and secured from the cloud and scale on demand. Innovations in both SD-WAN and SD-Branch will continue to drive this functionality into enterprise networks.

At the same time, the physical underlay technologies of wireline and wireless technologies will need to be further leveraged using software-defined technology. The arrival of Wi-Fi 6, 5G, and private wireless technologies such as citizens broadband radio service (CBRS) present unique opportunities to augment enterprise and end-user network access. As Wi-Fi taught us, why should you care where you are and what network you are on? Users should be able to find seamless, secure bandwidth on demand  from wherever they are.

SD-WAN and SD-Branch are poised to deliver all of this. Call it what you want  SD-WAN, SD-branch, or SD-Edge  it will give enterprise network managers and end users a new range of flexible, diverse services.

We see the edge as central to digital transformation, said David Hughes, founder of Silver Peak and senior vice president of the WAN business at Aruba. Moving from a data-center centric, MPLS-based WAN to a cloud-first WAN that fully leverages the Internet will enable enterprises to bridge to where they want to go tomorrow.

The Network Gets Cloudy

Lets not get bogged down in jargon. Whether you have an SD-WAN or an SD-Branch, in the end, it doesnt matter. The important part of the picture is that these two groups of technologies  with SD-WAN focused on the branch outwards and SD-branch focused on an enterprise branch and inwards  are underpinned by the same important concepts of software-defined networking (SDN). That is, you dont want your network defined by physical devices, but by a software-driven management model that can be centrally controlled using cloud-based services.

This is important because SDN technology can be used to quickly manage or adopt any combination of underlying transport technologies  such as MPLS, DIA, broadband Wi-Fi, 5G, or even fiber, for example. The SDN nature means that these technologies can be quickly assimilated and cloudified to deliver value to the end users.

Software-defined convergence of wireless and wireline functionality is becoming a standard feature of leading enterprise networking platforms such as the EdgeConnect and SD-Branch platforms from Aruba. Enterprises want to consolidate the capabilities of LAN, WAN, 5G, and Wi-Fi across a range of topologies, including hub-and-spoke, partial mesh, dynamic full mesh, or direct enterprise and cloud connections. They want to use features such as local Internet breakout to optimize their networks and deliver the highest quality of experience to users. At the same time, they want to use new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to automate the management and security of these networks.

For a while, SD-WAN (branch out) and SD-Branch (branch in) have been evolving similarly in parallel markets  adopting SDN capabilities, cloud security services and AI-driven centralized management. Its time for these parallel developments to merge, which is why you have seen leaders such as Aruba make inroads toward integration, acquiring leaders like Silver Peak and quickly integrating advanced technologies to better address the evolving requirements of geographically distributed enterprises.

The two systems  enterprise branch and SD-WAN  will become merged and integrated, all to the benefit to the users. There is no reason why a single SDN platform shouldnt control network and security functionality across the WAN, the branch, and the LAN. Wireless features such as LTE, Wi-Fi, and 5G will become part of the standard branch connectivity options, as well as SD-WAN managed services.

This will allow end users such as retailers or industrial users to distinguish specific users, devices, and applications in a cloud-based network, based on their role, not their location.

Another development not to be overlooked is automated orchestration of leading cloud-delivered security services. For example, Aruba strikes a balance between unified on-premises WAN edge security functions and best-of-breed cloud-delivered security services, all seamlessly managed withing its Aruba Orchestrator management console, which it says can apply and enforce consistent security policy across thousands of remote locations, whether those locations are linked to the cloud or to a traditional data center.

End Users Have Their Say

Futuriom knows that enterprise IT organizations want further integration of SDN at the edge, because in our regular interviews and surveys they tell us this is what they want.

There is strong demand to integrate SD-WAN with SD-Branch and wireless. In our newly released 2021 SD-WAN Managed Services Survey, nearly 90% of the 120 enterprise end users surveyed said that SD-Branch features for wireless and wired management are important in SD-WAN managed services. Just 3% responded No, and about 8% responded with Not Sure."

Silver Peak

As our survey revealed, network and IT managers are seeking more flexibility in connecting branches with a software-driven model that enables them to bring new branch offices online quickly.

An example could be a global Fortune 500 company managing hundreds of branch offices for a bank, or a regional chain of retail stores looking for easy-to-manage WAN connectivity. Network and IT managers have shown a strong affinity for improving the ease-of-use and management of branch offices.

As SD-WAN players scramble to position themselves in this hot market that features many competitors, Aruba is well positioned because of its leadership in wireless networking and its expanding portfolio of enterprise networking and security offerings.

Read my first blog in this series: Desperately Seeking SASE: SD-WAN and Security Converge

Silver Peak, now part of Aruba, has been named a leader for a third consecutive year in Gartners 2020 Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure. Get the full report.

Learn more about Aruba solutions at:

Aruba SD-WAN page

Aruba SD-Branch

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN

MUSKEGON, MI  A downtown Muskegon art gallery is asking for the communitys help to fold 1,000 paper cranes.

City Center Arts plans to display the origami cranes in honor of COVID-19 frontline workers.

According to Japanese legend, anyone who folds 1,000 cranes will be granted a wish. The paper cranes became a symbol of peace after the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sadako Sasaki, a young girl dying from radiation exposure, set out to fold a thousand cranes and made a wish for world peace.

The gallery aims to collect all the cranes by Aug. 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

A part of our world peace wish is to bring awareness that there are still frontline workers out there and theyve been out there since the beginning, said art director Laura Miller.

City Center Arts plans to hang all the cranes from the rafters at its gallery as a part of a permanent exhibit. Miller hopes the project brings the community together.

We need to work together instead of trying to work against each other, she said.

Related: New City Center Arts in Muskegon focuses on supporting artists, engaging community

The project was inspired by one of the gallerys artists who has been folding and giving away cranes for years, according to Miller.

From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 13, 20 and 27, the community can learn more about the cranes and how to fold them at City Center Arts. The public can also get involved by donating paper.

City Center Arts operates out of the lower level of the Century Club Retail Center at 356 W. Western Ave. It opened last year with the goal of displaying work from local artists and engaging the community through the arts.

The gallery is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and noon to 3 p.m. on Sundays.

More on MLive:

Asphalt plant nestled among medical offices in Muskegon looks to move

Whitmer orders flags lowered on anniversary of Michigans first COVID-19 cases

Grand Rapids zoo to kick off 2021 season in March
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, one of the leading Democratic political figures in the U.S., is rebuffing calls that he resign in the face of a growing number of allegations that he has sexually harassed young women.

Over the weekend, two key Democratic leaders of New Yorks statehouse, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and House Speaker Carl Heastie, said Cuomo should consider resigning after five women, four of whom worked for the governor, accused him of unwanted advances.

But Cuomo said Sunday, There is no way I resign. Lets do the attorney general investigation, lets get the findings, and then well go from there.

Leadership praised

A year ago, as the coronavirus engulfed New York, the fourth biggest U.S. state with 19 million residents, Cuomo was cited as an exemplary leader in managing the worst effects of the pandemic. He shut down nonessential businesses in the state and held daily news conferences to pillory the national government for its halting response.

But more recently, investigations have revealed that Cuomos health officials undercounted the number of coronavirus deaths at nursing homes in the state, and then the harassment allegations surfaced as well.

Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic state Senate leader, said in a statement, New York is still in the midst of this pandemic and is still facing the societal, health and economic impacts of it. We need to govern without daily distraction. For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign.

Heastie later said he shares the sentiment.

We have many challenges to address, and I think it is time for the governor to seriously consider whether he can effectively meet the needs of the people of New York, Heastie said.

Republicans look to impeach

Meanwhile, state Republican lawmakers said Monday they are launching an effort to impeach Cuomo.

But the 63-year-old Cuomo, in the midst of his third four-year term as the states leader, said he has no intention of quitting, saying it would be anti-democratic.

Cuomos troubles first started with the dramatic under-reporting of the number of COVID-19 deaths among long-term care residents at nursing homes in the state. The figure is now 15,000, up from the 8,500 previously disclosed.

A top Cuomo aide told state lawmakers that officials feared that the information was going to be used against us by possible federal investigations originating at the Justice Department under the administration of former President Donald Trump, long a Republican political rival of Cuomos.

Unwanted advances

Multiple news accounts say, however, that Justice is indeed investigating the death toll even as a Democrat, President Joe Biden, a political ally of Cuomos, has assumed power in Washington.

The harassment allegations focus on Cuomos alleged unwanted advances.

One of the women, Lindsey Boylan, a former state economic development official, alleged that he harassed her on several occasions from 2016 to 2018 and, unsolicited, kissed her on the lips at his New York city office, an allegation Cuomo denied.

Another woman, Charlotte Bennett, a 25-year-old former aide to the governor, accused him of sexually harassing her last year. She told the New York Times that the governor asked her about her sex life and whether she had ever had sex with older men.

I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared, Bennett told the newspaper. And was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job. She left her state job in November.

In a third instance, Anna Ruch, a woman Cuomo had just met at a wedding reception, said she felt uncomfortable and embarrassed when the governor placed his hands on her face and asked to kiss her.

Asked last week about the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden believes "every woman coming forward should be treated with dignity and respect." Psaki added, "That applies to Charlotte, that applies to Lindsey, referring to two of Cuomo's accusers.

'Unwanted flirtation'

Cuomo has acknowledged that he may have made inappropriate comments to Bennett that could have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.

The governor said his comments were a part of his work life, where he sometimes teased people about their personal lives and relationships.

I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended, Cuomo said in a statement. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that.

Cuomo said he would allow the state attorney general, Letitia James, to appoint whomever she wanted to investigate the harassment allegations against him and grant that person subpoena powers for witnesses.
When the Brian Michael Bendis run on Superman and Action Comics ended (the last issue he wrote came out in December), readers wondered who the next writer would be. Not many would have predicted Phillip Kennedy Johnson would be the one.

Bendis casts a long shadow and is a legend in the industry, said Johnson, whose previous credits includes limited series and specials. I think people expected someone of a similar stature to take over.

Fans were able to preview Johnsons take on Superman in Future State, a two-month storyline that began in January, which explored DCs heroes decades, and sometimes eons, from now. Susana Polo, the comics editor on the gaming and pop culture website Polygon, wrote, After reading his Future State Superman books, Im very excited to see where this lyrical writer with a flare for epic events and asking for epic visuals goes.

It is an exciting time to be a fan of the Man of Steel. The CW series Superman & Lois debuted last month and it was announced last week that the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is working on a Superman screenplay to be produced by J.J. Abrams.
Although Gov. Greg Abbotts order lifts mask mandates on Wednesday, March 10, it will still be necessary to wear one in city of Sugar Land buildings as well as many businesses in the city.

According to Abbotts executive order, all businesses of any type may open to 100 percent capacity, and there will no longer be a statewide mask mandate in Texas, the city of Sugar Land reports.

Businesses may adopt their own policies with regard to capacity and the wearing of masks.

For the city of Sugar Land, any current safety measures will remain in place for all city facilities. All employees, contractors and visitors must wear face coverings, maintain safe distance and use temperature-screening kiosks at entrances to city facilities.

According to the city, hygiene and PPE supplies will continue to be provided.

The city will continue to hold government meetings and programs online. All court hearings will be conducted virtually. Further, building safety/permits and inspections, and meetings with the city secretary and treasury will accept in-person customers by appointment only.

For a list cancellations, closures and re-openings visit www.sugarlandtx.gov/ServiceImpacts.

Residents are also being reminded that since businesses are allowed to adopt their own policies, they must abide by the rules established by the business, including wearing face masks and any capacity limitations.

Dr. Joe Anzaldua, the local health authority for the city of Sugar Land, is cautioning that herd immunity has not yet been achieved, so current mitigation strategies remain important, including and especially wearing face masks. This is consistent with recommendations from infectious disease experts and especially the CDC.

According to a city news release, It is estimated that at least 75 percent of Texans need to achieve immunity to COVID-19 to reach herd immunity. As of March 1, only about 6.8 percent of the 29 million Texans have been fully vaccinated. For more information go to www.sugarlandtx.gov/covid.

Anzaldua reminds residents to:

Continue to take the simple precautions to stay safe, especially wearing properly fitted face masks.

Wash hands regularly, avoid touching faces, maintain safe distance from others and routinely disinfect surfaces.

Take advantage of COVID 19 vaccines when eligible to receive one.

For more information on the city of Sugar Land go to www.sugarlandtx.gov.

rkent@hcnonline.com
Regional electromagnetic (EM) surveying and aircore drilling are due to commence later in April this year.

Multiple diamond rigs can now be deployed at Mawson due to a recently signed water agreement with the station owner.

( ) has kicked off the 2021 field season with diamond drilling, and the second rig is scheduled to arrive next week at Mawson prospect within the Rockford Project, Fraser Range, Western Australia.

As part of the nickel sulphide explorer's near-term plans, regional electromagnetic (EM) surveying and aircore drilling are due to begin later in April this year.

Multiple rigs can now be deployed

Drill site preparation has been completed for the planned diamond program of more than 10,000 metres and the first of two diamond rigs has arrived on-site at Mawson, with drilling underway.

The second diamond rig is scheduled to arrive on-site next week.

Multiple diamond rigs can now be deployed at Mawson due to a recently signed water agreement with the station owner.

Logistical milestone

Under the agreement, water is supplied to the Mawson tank farm, which is then irrigated across the drilling grid via pipelines.

This is a major logistical milestone for Legend as it mitigates the cost and downtime associated with water cartage from Kalgoorlie.

In addition, a semi-permanent camp has been established at Mawson during February 2021 to facilitate the increase in drilling and associated activities.

Regional Rockford targets

Regionally, innovative moving-loop electromagnetic (MLTEM) and follow-up fixed loop transient electromagnetic (FLTEM) is scheduled to start across the highly ranked regional Rockford targets in April 2021.

An aircore drilling program is also scheduled to commence at the Crean Nickel-Copper Prospect once statutory approvals are granted.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Andrew Cuomo invited community leaders on stage to thank him for his leadership amid the pandemic on Tuesday, as the embattled governor announced that all New Yorkers over 60 can receive a COVID-19 vaccine starting tomorrow.

Cuomo, 63, who will also now be eligible to receive a shot of the vaccine under the latest phase of the roll-out, made the announcement from the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse during a daily press briefing.

The governor declined to open up the floor for questioning for the second day in a row, as he continues to face calls to resign after being accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by five women, including four former aides.

Cuomo did however reveal that he is 'going to take' the vaccine and will be making an appointment to receive a shot in the coming days.

'We want to stop this virus? We have to stop the virus,' he urged. 'How do you win a war? You go out and defeat the enemy, the enemy doesn't defeat themselves.'

Under the latest roll-out phase, everyone over the age of 60 can start making appointments to receive a jab at any vaccination site, including pharmacies, starting 8am Wednesday. Before the change, only those age 65 and up qualified.

Additionally, even more residents will be eligible to receive vaccines from March 17, including public-facing government employees, public-facing building workers and workers 'providing necessary services' at nonprofit organizations.

During Tuesday's conference, Cuomo also invited a number of local figures on stage, many of whom offered fawning remarks thanking him for his 'trailblazing' leadership and for continuing to 'stand tall' in the fight against the virus.

Scroll down for video

Cuomo, 63, who will also now be eligible to receive a shot of the vaccine under the latest phase of the roll-out, said he will be making an appointment to receive one soon

Among those singing Cuomo's praises was Ann Marie Taliercio, a representative of the Central New York Labor Federation, who said without his 'leadership since March, many of us wouldn't be here today.'

'Governor I want to personally thank you. Because for this whole year, I knew Gov. Cuomo and the state of New York  his team  had my back,' she began.

'Its always an honor to be with you. Especially when you bring good news about more vaccines. But you know, I was thinking these words over [her script] and I thought, When doesnt he come with good news?'

Cuomo accepted the praise with a bow. Taliercio then trailed off with remarks about how important it is to take the vaccine as soon as possible, before circling back to the governor.

'Your efforts have saved lives,' she said turning to face Cuomo. 'If it wasnt for your leadership since March, I believe central new York wouldve be ravaged. That virus wouldve got off the plane in Syracuse.

'And I think a lot of us are here today because of your quick actions  I mean this,' she said, placing her hand across her chest. 'Thank you.'

Among those singing Cuomo's praises was Ann Marie Taliercio (left), a representative of the Central New York Labor Federation, who said without his 'leadership since March, many of us wouldn't be here today'

Rev. Decardo Draper, the Head Pastor of Tucker Missionary Baptist Church, also offered high praise for Cuomo, calling him a 'trailblazer' who 'rose to the occasion' of the pandemic.

'We want to say to you today, thank you not only for your leadership in not only New York but in our nation,' he said. 'It was you who was a trailblazer for us, in the midst of uncertain, uncanny and unscrupulous leadership, we thank you that you rose to the occasion.

'New York was a trailblazer for COVID-19 as other states fought the virus,' Draper added.

The reverend then concluded by reading out a bible passage that he told Cuomo he wanted him to be 'encouraged by'.

'Now unto him who was able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we can ask of them,' he said.

Cuomo then stepped back up to the podium to share that he will be speaking to the White House later this afternoon.

He said he was going to tell the Biden Administration only two words: 'More. Vaccines'.

Cuomo exited the stage without taking questions from reporters, the second time he's done so in as many days.

Rev. Decardo Draper, the Head Pastor of Tucker Missionary Baptist Church, also offered high praise for Cuomo, calling him a 'trailblazer' who 'rose to the occasion' of the pandemic

Cuomo said that everyone over the age of 60 can start making appointments to receive a jab at any vaccination site, including pharmacies starting 8am Wednesday

Earlier in the briefing, Cuomo announced the age requirement for COVID-19 vaccine eligibility will change from over 65, down to over 60 effective Wednesday morning.

'Were going to drop the 65-year-old-plus to 60-year-old-plus and thats going to start tomorrow,' he said. '60-year-old-plus are going to be available, they can start making appointments tomorrow. They can make them at the mass vaccination sites they can make them, at pharmacies, but that will start 8 am tomorrow.'

Additionally, the governor said beginning March 17, all vaccination sites will be able to vaccinate anyone who is currently eligible, except from pharmacies.

'So whether youre going to a county-run site, a city-run site  every site can vaccinate everyone who is eligible with one exception: Pharmacies will still only be doing 60-plus and teachers,' Gov. Cuomo said. 'Pharmacies will do 60-plus and teachers  we want to get those schools open. Every other site will be doing every other person who is eligible.'

Further eligibility for public-facing employees will also come into effect on March 17.

Cuomo called such workers 'every day heroes' who are 'out there doing their job, theyre putting themselves in a possible exposure.'

The governor reiterated that the vaccine is safe and implored New Yorkers to get the shot as soon as they're eligible.

'Lets get our lives back to normal  this vaccine is the ticket, we just have to make it happen,' he said.

Cuomo toured the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse on Wednesday, which has become the second largest mass-vaccination site in the country

The governor's briefing came after New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday appointed a former federal prosecutor and an employment lawyer to investigate allegations that Cuomo sexually harassed female aides.

Joon Kim, who was the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for parts of 2017 and 2018, will join employment lawyer Anne Clark in conducting the probe.

'There is no question that they both have the knowledge and background necessary to lead this investigation and provide New Yorkers with the answers they deserve,' James said in a statement.

An attorney for Charlotte Bennett, one of the former aides alleging harassment, said the appointment of Kim and Clark shows how 'seriously' James is taking the investigation.

Similarly, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who would succeed Cuomo if he leaves office, also issued a statement saying she has confidence in the sexual harassment probe.

'With yesterday's announcement launching the independent investigation led by [Kim and Clark], I am confident everyone's voice will be heard and taken seriously.

'I trust the inquiry to be completed as thoroughly as possible. New Yorkers should be confident that through this process they will soon learn the facts,' Hochul added.

Five women have publicly accused Cuomo of either sexually harassing behavior or inappropriate conduct in the workplace  after two more, Karen Hinton, 62, and Ana Liss, 35, came forward with allegations of their own late Saturday.

Liss, who previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015, told the Wall Street Journal that during her time in his administration, the governor had subjected her to unsolicited advances, including touching her lower back, kissing her hand and quizzing her about her love life.

Her claims were followed by Hinton, who recalled for the Washington Post about an incident in which Cuomo summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000. Hinton said she tried to pull away from Cuomo, but claims he pulled her back and held her before she managed to escape the room.

Ana Liss, 35, (pictured left) previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015 but claims he subjected her to sexual misconduct during her time in his administration. Karen Hinton (right) claims the governor summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000 before she managed to escape

In total, five women have come forward with allegations of inappropriate conduct by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who said one accuser's claims were 'not true'

Similar to Liss, Cuomo's former executive assistant, Charlotte Bennett, 25, revealed last week that the governor had quizzed her about her sex life and asked whether she had relationships with older men.

Lindsey Boylan also revealed in a February Medium post that the governor had tried to kiss her on the lips in his office and suggested they play strip poker during a 2017 flight. Cuomo's office has said these claims are false.

A third accuser, Anna Ruch, 33, then came forward telling the New York Times that Cuomo put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her after meeting her at a September 2019 wedding.

During a Monday press briefing, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he believes 'more information' will come out about the harassment claims that will make it hard for Cuomo to govern.

De Blasio, however, stopped short of directly stating whether he believed Cuomo should resign.

'I just dont see how he can govern effectively when fewer and fewer people believe him,' he said. 'I think theres more information thats going to come out that makes it harder and harder.'

Charlotte Bennett (above), 25, worked as an aide for Cuomo. She claims he sexually harassed her and left her 'terrified'

Anna Ruch, 33, (left) claimed Cuomo behaved inappropriately at a Manhattan wedding in September 2019. Lindsey Boylan, 36, (right) claims Cuomo commented on her appearance inappropriately, kissed her without her consent and went out of his way to touch her on her lower back, arms and leg

Hizzoner's remarks came in the wake of a statement issued by State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D) on Sunday, who urged Cuomo to step down as governor 'for the good of the state.'

'Every day there is another account that is drawing away from the business of government,' Stewart-Cousins, the second most powerful elected official in Albany wrote. 'We have allegations about sexual harassment, a toxic work environment, the loss of credibility surrounding the COVID-19 nursing home data and questions about the construction of a major infrastructure project.

'New York is still in the midst of this pandemic and is still facing the societal, health and economic impacts of it. We need to govern without daily distraction. For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign.'

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie issued a similar statement regarding the allegations against Cuomo without the call for his resignation.

Cuomo remains adamant he will not resign on the basis of the allegations and said he will wait until a full investigation into the claims is concluded

He struck a defiant tone during a Sunday conference call with reporters, in which he stated there was 'no way' he'd step down, adding those calling for his resignation were 'undemocratic'.

Mayor Bill de Blasio (right) said Monday he believes 'more information' will come out about the harassment claims that will make it hard for Cuomo to govern

Amid the mounting controversy, Crown Publishing Group, the publisher of Cuomo's book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic, has paused all promotion of the self-congratulatory memoir.

Andrew Cuomo's book publisher has stopped all future promotion of his self-congratulatory COVID-19 memoir as he faces allegations of sexual harassment and a cover up of the virus death toll in nursing homes

The company, which is a division of Penguin Random House, said it also has 'no plans to reprint or reissue in paperback', attributing the decision to 'the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes'.

It was reported Monday that Cuomo received a seven figure advance for the book - after Crown believed it had found 'another political star'.

But sales were already said to be plummeting in the wake of the dual scandals plaguing the New York governor, according to Vanity Fair. NPD BookScan data shows around 400 copies were sold between January 23 and February 27.

A spokesman for BookScan told the outlet: 'We can confirm that the title's sales have dropped in the last five weeks, and for context, this is not reflective of a larger market trend.'

The book had already been widely panned when it was published in October last year as the virus continued to rage in the state and around the world. Since its publication more than 15,000 New Yorkers have died from the virus.

It focused on Cuomo's Emmy award winning daily briefings and his handling of the crisis from March to June last year. Cuomo had been widely praised for his pandemic response but has seen a sharp fall from grace in recent weeks.

He did address nursing home deaths in the book, writing: 'Republicans needed an offense to distract from the narrative of their botched federal response  and they needed it badly. So they decided to attack Democratic governors and blame them for nursing home deaths.'
Abidjan, Cote dIvoire (PANA) - Constant efforts to provide its clients, the 54 regional member countries, with support in financing their development, have won the African Development Bank global recognition by Global Finance as the best multilateral financial institution in the world


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
The Women's Wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has charged women in the country to be confident and avail themselves for leadership positions.



It also urged the Government to provide support to women and empower them to ensure they succeeded in that regard.



The women of Ghana deserve better, and upon us rest the responsibility to ensure that they achieve their goals to become upright, respected, respectable and useful citizens for this dear nation of ours, Dr Hanna Louisa Bisiw, the National Women's Organiser of NDC, said.



Speaking at a news conference to mark the 2021 International Women's Day in Accra, she said over the past decade, women had had to bear the brunt of the hardship of inequalities and economic challenges that had characterised daily life in the country.



Dr Bisiw explained that even though much progress had been made in changing the circumstances of many women in the country, more needed to be done if the country was to achieve gender equality by 2030.



"As a country, we have done very well in changing the circumstances of many of our women folk for the better, but we need to do far more," she added.



Ghana, on Monday, March 8, joined the rest of the world to mark this year's International Women's Day to celebrate women's achievements as well as raise awareness about women's equality.



This year's event was marked on the theme: "Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID 19 World."



According to the United Nations, 2.7 billion women had been kept from accessing the same choice of jobs as men due to legal restrictions.



It further noted that less than 25 per cent of parliamentarians were women as of 2019, while one in three currently experience gender-based violence.



Dr Bisiw touted some achievements chalked by the Party in advancing women's rights, and reaffirmed its commitment to championing the international women agenda and the development of women in Ghana.



She said the appointment of Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as the running mate for the Partys Flagbearer in the 2020 presidential election depicted the NDC's commitment to giving women the leadership role, both at the party and national levels.



"The NDC has placed women at the highest point of decision making ever since we began our democratic governance system, she said.



We appointed the first female Speaker of Parliament, first female Attorney General, first female Chairperson of the Council of State, first female Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, first female Foreign Affairs Minister and first female running mate of a top political party.



Dr Bisiw called on government to address the violence that marred the 2020 general election, which led to the death of eight people, bringing untold hardship to families, particularly women, who lost their husbands through it.



She urged the Government to develop an educational campaign to educate women on the on-going COVID-19 vaccination to enable them to make informed decisions.



Dr Bisiw congratulated Madam Harris Kamara, the first female Vice President of the United States of America, and Mrs Ngozi OkonjoIweala, Chief Executive Officer of the World Trade Organisation, and all women worldwide for their immense contributions to development.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Vancouver, British Columbia - March 9, 2021 (Investorideas.com Newswire, MiningSectorStocks.com and RenewableEnergyStocks.com) -Mining / Metals / Green Energy Stock News - Defense Metals Corp. ("Defense Metals") (TSX-V:DEFN / OTCQB:DFMTF/ 35D: FSE)) is pleased to announce that it has received the results of an X-Ray Transmission amenability study completed on samples of Wicheeda Rare Earth Element (REE) mineralized drill core by the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC), Saskatoon, SK.

The road accessible Wicheeda REE Property is located close to infrastructure approximately 80 kilometres northeast of Prince George, British Columbia (BC). The Wicheeda project has indicated mineral resources of 4,890,000 tonnes averaging 3.02% LREO (Light Rare Earth Elements) and inferred mineral resources of 12,100,000 tonnes averaging 2.90% LREO[1].

Highlights of the XRT amenability study completed by SRC on samples of high-grade REE mineralized Wicheeda diamond drill core are as follows:

X-ray transmission measurements and QEMSCAN  confirmed that XRT technology can identify Wicheeda REE minerals in drill core samples (Figure 1).

 confirmed that XRT technology can identify Wicheeda REE minerals in drill core samples Crushing to -15 mm size particles and using a 5% REE mineral lower cut-off in the sorting algorithm, demonstrated the potential of low-cost front end XRT sorting to upgrade 2.3x from approximately 11% REE mineral content to 25% REEmineral content.

particles and using a 5% REE mineral lower cut-off in the sorting algorithm, demonstrated the potential of low-cost front end from approximately 11% REE mineral content to 25% REEmineral content. Upgrading of Wicheeda REE mineralization via XRT sorting has the potential to significantly reduce feed volume forwarded to downstream the hydrometallurgical process.

Craig Taylor, CEO of Defense Metals, stated: "Defense Metals is excited to establish the amenability of Wicheeda REE mineralization to the application of low-cost front end upgrading via sensor-based sorting technologies. We know from our very successful flotation pilot plant and bench-scale hydrometallurgical test-work that early volume reduction and upgrading has significant downstream benefits. The quality of concentrate we can deliver to flotation process has direct benefits in terms of process recovery, and reduced costs related to reagent reduction. Based on the success of this amenability test work SRC have recommended proceeding to a series of confirmatory XRT sorting optimization tests."

XRT sorting is a technology that exploits the atomic density (atoms/cm3) differences of minerals. The atomic densityof a mineral is closely related to the minerals' density (gram/cm3) and is therefore a viable technology for upgrading the mineralized feed prior to processing. Previous test work indicated that gravity separation prior to flotation was beneficialin concentrating Wicheeda REE minerals due to the large density differences between the REE and gangue minerals.

To evaluate amenability to XRT sorting, a combination of high-resolution XRT and QEMSCAN (Quantitative Evaluation of Materials by Scanning Electron Microscopy) measurements were carried out at the SRC. Thesemeasurements identify if the atomic density differences between the REE and gangue minerals can be exploited for XRT sorting. The greyscale levels associated with the various minerals are identified using QEMSCAN measurements.

Using the X-ray greyscale images and the QEMSCAN images, additional theoretical information on the grade of the REE minerals for various particle sizes is generated. The particle grade information determined how much gangue andhow much REE mineralization is present in each size fraction. Information is necessary to determine the benefits ofupgrading the mineralized feed at different particle sizes.

Size fractions greater than 6 mm can be viably sorted using XRT sorters while size fractions greater than 0.6 mm are more amendable to sorting using dense medium separation (DMS) and spirals. Size fractions less than 0.6 mm are concentrated via hydrometallurgy processes. The average distribution of the REE minerals and the theoretical grade of the XRT sorted mineralized feed for the six core samples, for each size fraction within 20 mm, 10 mm, and 6 mm particles are shown in Table 1.

About the Wicheeda REE Property

The 1,708 hectare Wicheeda REE Property, located approximately 80 km northeast of the city of Prince George, British Columbia, is readily accessible by all-weather gravel roads and is nearby to infrastructure, including power transmission lines, the CN railway and major highways.

Geologically, the property is situated in the Foreland Belt and within the Rocky Mountain Trench, a major continental geologic feature. The Foreland Belt contains part of a large alkaline igneous province, stretching from the Canadian Cordillera to the southwestern United States, which includes several carbonatite and alkaline intrusive complexes hosting the Aley (niobium), Rock Canyon (REE), and Wicheeda (REE) deposits.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release as it relates to the Wicheeda REE Property has been reviewed and approved by Kristopher J. Raffle, P.Geo. (BC) Principal and Consultant of APEX Geoscience Ltd. of Edmonton, AB, a director of Defense Metals and a "Qualified Person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Raffle verified the data disclosed which includes a review of the analytical and test data underlying the information and opinions contained therein.

Methodology and QA/QC

A total of 6 core samples were selected for X-ray transmission measurements. Each sample was imaged using 2-dimensional X-ray transmission measurements to identify greyscale differences in the core samples. The greyscale levelsassociated with the various minerals are identified using QEMSCAN measurements. The X-ray images are thenmodified using a defined threshold to identify the location and dispersion of the REE minerals and pyrite throughout the core samples. The results of this XRT amenability study are theoretical in nature and may not be representative of actual recoveries obtainable via direct testing using XRT sorting and DMS.

Using image analysis techniques on the QEMSCAN images, the percent removal of low-grade mineralization iscalculated for different theoretical size fractions. The size fractions used in this study were: 20 mm, 10 mm, 6 mm, 3 mm,1.2 mm, and 0.6 mm rectangular particles.

Defense Metals is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data referred to herein. The SRC operates in accordance with ISO/IEC 17025:2005 (CAN-P-4E), General Requirements for the Competence of Mineral Testing and Calibration Laboratories. SRC is independent of Defense Metals Corp. and the Qualified Person.

About Defense Metals Corp.

Defense Metals Corp. is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition of mineral deposits containing metals and elements commonly used in the electric power market, military, national security and the production of "GREEN" energy technologies, such as, high strength alloys and rare earth magnets. Defense Metals has an option to acquire 100% of the 1,708 hectare Wicheeda Rare Earth Element Property located near Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. Defense Metals Corp. trades in Canada under the symbol "DEFN" on the TSX Venture Exchange, in the United States, under "DFMTF" on the OTCQB and in Germany on the Frankfurt Exchange under "35D".

For further information, please contact:

Todd Hanas, Bluesky Corporate Communications Ltd.

Vice President, Investor Relations

Tel: (778) 994 8072

Email: todd@blueskycorp.ca



Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

This news release contains "forwardlooking information or statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which may include, without limitation, statements relating to proceeding to a series of confirmatory XRT sorting optimization tests and the expected, plans for the Wicheeda Property, the advancement and development of the Wicheeda Property, the technical, financial and business prospects of the Company, its project and other matters. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of rare earth elements, the ability to achieve its goals, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. While such estimates and assumptions are considered reasonable by the management of the Company, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and risks. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, adverse weather conditions, failure to maintain or obtain all necessary government permits, approvals and authorizations, failure to maintain community acceptance (including First Nations), decrease in the price of rare earth elements, the impact of Covid-19 or other viruses and diseases on the Company's ability to operate increase in costs, litigation, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The Company does not undertake to update forwardlooking statements or forwardlooking information, except as required by law.

[1] Technical Report on the Wicheeda Property, British Columbia, effective June 27, 2020 and prepared by APEX Geoscience Ltd. (Steven J. Nicholls, B.A. Sc., MAIG and Kristopher J. Raffle, B.Sc., P.Geo.) is available under Defense Metals Corp.'s profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com)

Paid News -Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investment involves risk and possible loss of investment. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Contact each company directly regarding content and press release questions. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Disclosure : this news release featuring Defense Metals Corp. is a paid for service on Investorideas.com ($750) More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com

News on Defense Metals Corp. is a paid for service on Investorideas.com

Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp

About Investorideas.com

https://www.investorideas.com/About/

Sign up for free stock news alerts at Investorideas.com

https://www.investorideas.com/Resources/Newsletter.asp
Demonstrators in Dakar, Senegal, barricade a road during a protest against the arrest of opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko (AFP or licensors)

Citizens took to the streets in protest in Senegal after Ousmane Sonko, a leading opposition leader was arrested last week. At least five people have been killed in clashes with security forces.

By Vatican News staff writer

Widespread demonstrations broke out in Senegal in recent days as many flocked the streets in protest against the arrest of the countrys leading opposition figure who has been accused of rape.

Ousmane Sonko, a vocal critic of the governing elite in Senegal, was arraigned in court on Friday accused of disrupting public order and he also faces a rape allegation. Sonko, however, denies the rape charge.

The opposition leaders arrest on Wednesday was the trigger for many Senegalese youths, among who Sonko is popular, to come out in protests which continued through Friday. Protesters hurled stones at the police and set fire to tires, cars and other property. Although tensions appeared to have eased by Saturday, the opposition collective which includes members of Sonkos party called for further protests beginning on Monday.

In addition to calling for Sonkos release, the young people also aired a range of other grievances including few job opportunities and a worsening economic atmosphere induced by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The protestors suspect that Sonkos arrest is an attempt by the government headed by President Macky Sall to silence voices of opposition.

News reports indicate that at least five people have died during the protests in clashes with security forces in various parts of the country.

Uneasy calm

Tensions remain high in the country as Sonko is due to appear before a judge in the capital, Dakar, on Monday to face questions about the charges brought against him.

Senegalese police arrested Ousmane Sonko last week after scuffles with his supporters broke out while he was on his way to court to answer a rape charge filed against him by an employee at a beauty salon where he received massages.

Police said they then arrested him for disrupting public order when he refused to change his route to the court.

Sonko, who is the founder of Pastef-Les Patriotes political party, placed third in the nations general elections in 2019. Many fear that these charges might hinder his chances as a potential contender in the countrys 2024 elections.

Reactions to the protests

In a statement issued on Saturday, the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS condemned the violence that occurred in several towns in Senegal leading to deaths, injuries and destruction of property.

ECOWAS, which includes Senegal, called on all parties to exercise calm and restraint and urged authorities to take measures to ease tensions and guarantee the freedom to demonstrate peacefully in conformity with the countrys laws.

In a statement on Friday, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General and head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mohamed Ibn Chambas, also deplored the acts of violence. He called on all actors to exercise restraint and urged authorities and security forces to ensure the safety of demonstrators and properties in a professional and peaceful manner.
The young woman, a college dropout with an entry-level admin job, a drinking problem and little self-esteem, tells us she might have been slightly pleased with the cozy action if it werent for her fathers attentive eyes. Later he asks her if she and Ciaran are always like that, so nice to each other?

Shes elated, that they give off this impression, but her father is probing for the not-so-nice places, of which there are many. Our narrator is particularly vulnerable to Ciaran. She accommodates to excess, equates partnership with being realized and believes love validates the rotten moments you would otherwise be wasting while you practice being a person. Her body looks more coherent to her after sex than before. Brace for impact: This is another smoking, cutting, screwing journey into the love life of an angsty Irishwoman (remember, Sally Rooney-style is a publishing trend, not a national diagnosis).

Its agonizing watching our heroine not just endure but welcome Ciarans subjugation to be realized. Ciaran keeps his besotted around  as some men do, just in case  while staying in close touch with his ex, Freja, an apparent beacon of worthiness. The narrator reads all their emails, examines every photo. I made it so that suffering was a kind of work, she says. What makes it worth it for the reader to stick around? Even if youve read this story before or lived it, Nolans raw and uncannily insightful writing glimmers in a way that will shed new light onto wounds both healed and open  and possibly save some other nameless woman the suffering. She tells the truth about obsession and drains it of all allure.

THE NORTHERN REACH

By W. S. Winslow

240 pp. Flatiron. $26.99.

Image

Mentally inserting the word composite into the phrase a novel on the cover of Winslows debut, The Northern Reach, will free the reader from desperately trying to get oriented via the family trees sprinkled throughout. These are 10 loosely connected stories (plus an 11th hung on a tenuous thread) spread across four generations of Baineses, Martins, Moodys and others in the fictional community of Wellbridge, Maine.

Three hours from Portland, Wellbridge sits on the Northern Reach and is home to lobstermen, hardscrabble farmers and neer-do-wells, the worst of whom live in a swampy part of town known as Moodyville. There are blueberry barrens nearby, as well as some thrift stores and a herd of auto parts stores. Winslow captures the ambience of a perennially downtrodden Down East. In her telling it is a joyless place, shabby rather than gritty; gritty would imply pluck we rarely see.

An exception is Victoria Moody, who ditched town for Portland after high school. She describes the home of her Quebecois grandmother, Frenchie Gagnon Moody, as a crap plantation of the first order. Victoria is mentioned in two other stories, but shes the star of Planting Tiger, in which she reluctantly attends her father Tigers funeral on a February day in 1992.
It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
ADVERTISEMENT

President Muhammadu Buharis daughter, Zahra Buhari-Indimi, has given Sahara Reporters a seven-day ultimatum to retract what she describes as an injurious and defamatory publication against her.

She gave the ultimatum in a letter to the newspaper and signed by her counsel, Nasiru Adamu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

In the letter, Mrs Ndimi also demanded a public apology from the media outfit.

Sahara Reporters had reported that Nasiru Danu, a close ally of President Buhari and some top officials of the Nigeria Customs Service, recently defrauded the Nigerian government of N51 billion.

The newspaper also said the N51 billion was meant to improve Customs revenue.

It said N2.5 billion was also transferred to a foundation owned by Mrs Indimi for which Mr Danu is a signatory.

Denial

But in her reaction, the presidents daughter denied all the allegations and demanded a retraction.

She also said there was no way Mr Danu could be a signatory in a foundation she owned.

Our client equally unequivocally states that no any foundation owned by her was transferred or credited with such amount of money (N2.5 billion or any amount) by the said Alhaji Nasiru Haladu Danu or any body from the purported President Muhammadu Buharis oil mafia group, and that it is equally not possible for the said Danu to be a signatory to any foundation owned by our client, the letter said.

Mrs Indimi demanded that the story be pulled down from Sahara Reporters website and twitter handle.

Other demands

-A retraction of the said damaging and defamatory as well as the injurious publication.

-A retraction of the defamatory publication made @SaharaReporters tweet in respect of the publication in question.

-A public apology to our client be issued vide your website and twitter account @SaharaReporters be published for seven (7) consecutive days.

-Public apologies be published in at least three (3) newspapers with online and physical presence across Nigeria for seven (7) consecutive days.

The letter further said: Please take notice that if you fail to meet the demands of our client as stated above within seven (7) days, we shall proceed to perfect our clients instruction to seek all remedies available in law to our client.

Sahara Reporters, an online news platform, whose publisher is Omoyele Sowore, a former presidential candidate and a known critic of Mr Buhari, could not be reached at the time of this report.
Local businessman and community activist Andrew Reynolds has called on Tanaiste Leo Vardadkar to offer an absolute guarantee of further financial supports to assist those operating in the hospitality sector immediately until such time as we can safely re open our businesses once again.

Speaking in response to Mr. Vardadkar's recent comments in which he urged local authorities to do what they can for local restaurants and cafes by supporting outdoor seating where possible in towns and cities this summer, Mr. Reynolds said the move was not enough and as someone who works in the catering industry with a significant number of employees, he was deeply disillusioned to see no apparent positive plan of action in place to facilitate cafes with facilities for indoor seating only.

Now,a year after the first case of Covid 19 hit Ireland, the reprecussions have been catastrophic for all businesses, with the tourism industry hit extremely hard, he pointed out. Hotel bookings are down dramatically and many catering companies, restaurants and cafe owners are now either closed or struggling to make ends meet as a result of repeated lockdowns.

Business owners have already lost an entire summer of trade and are potentially set to lose another this year as well as facing another typically busy day, St. Patrick's Day, in lockdown. This has sadly meant many proprietors have had to close their doors for, I believe, the last time, particularly those in rural Ireland where the local cafe was a point of social contact for so many.

For this reason I am calling on further clarity from the Tanaiste on this issue as a matter of urgency and call for this guarantee of further financial supports to assist those of us working in the hospitality sector until such time as we can safely reopen our doors again.
WASHINGTON  When the Obama administration convened a meeting in 2015 to discuss its investigation into police abuses in Ferguson, Mo., some officials were puzzled to see the conservative activist Grover Norquist in attendance, and even more surprised to learn that he was the guest of Vanita Gupta, a Justice Department official known for her work with progressive legal groups.

The department had found that nearly a third of Fergusons city budget was funded by police fees and that officers were encouraged to raise revenue through tickets and fines. Mr. Norquist helped create a plan to cap the fees contribution to the budget, helping discourage tactics that had deepened the divide between residents and the police.

Vanita brought me in, Mr. Norquist said. She was capable of reaching out and working together to get progress, even if that meant some conservative would get credit for doing something good.

Now Ms. Gupta is President Bidens nominee to serve as the associate attorney general, the Justice Departments No. 3 official responsible for overseeing the lawyers who defend the administration in court; issues including antitrust law, the environment and taxes; and funding allocations to local law enforcement departments nationwide.
Exasperated by the imprudence and impatience of governors who seem to doubt the continuing dangers of the pandemic, President Joe Biden denounced their Neanderthal thinking. But thats unfair to Neanderthals, who knew nothing of germ theory, contagion or basic sanitation  not to mention public health. The recent decisions by a handful of Trumpist governors to abandon public health protocols reflect not ignorance of science, but a willful disdain for its guidance.

Because COVID-related deaths are finally plateauing nationwide, some governors have decided that its time to throw off the masks and throw open the doors. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is reopening the state without restrictions as of March 10. He will drop the mask mandate, despite pleas from some local officials and warnings from public health agencies. Businesses  bars, gyms, big-box stores  will be allowed to open at full capacity.

Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi issued a similar pronouncement for his state, but sooner. He dropped the mask requirement for most places, including schools and casinos, earlier this week. Businesses there are also allowed to open at full capacity. (In both states, several major retailers will keep the mask mandate for their stores.)

Those decisions, which were made according to political considerations rather than public health guidance, may well be disastrous. Like most of the South, Texas and Mississippi are burdened by a ramshackle health infrastructure and a high rate of poverty. While coronavirus-related deaths and hospitalizations have begun to level off, the virus could again spread quickly if public officials pretend the pandemic is over.

After all, the reason the death rate stopped increasing is those restrictions that slowed the rate of contagion. (To her credit, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, also a Republican, acknowledged that masks curb the spread of COVID in her announcement to keep the mandate in place for several more weeks.)

Vaccines offer the promise of a return to normalcy, perhaps as early as summer, but public health experts have warned that its much too soon to cast aside the protocols they have urged us to follow for a year now: Wear masks, practice social distancing, avoid indoor gatherings with people other than those you live with. And Texas and Mississippi may not even be safe by summer if they dont do a better job with vaccinations. Among the 50 states, both rank near the bottom in the number of residents who have received even one shot.

But Abbott and Reeves, like most other GOP governors, clamor for the continuing support of Republican voters who worship at the feet of Donald J. Trump, the man whose mismanagement of the pandemic led to the deaths of more than half a million Americans. Trumps reckless disregard for scientific evidence was absorbed by his acolytes, many of whom have insisted that reasonable public health measures were an assault on their freedoms.

That message has been especially dangerous in the South, where so many residents lack access to even cursory health care. It is no surprise that several Southern states have suffered staggering losses from COVID. Mississippi has the fifth-highest death rate per capita, according to data drawn from states and counties. Louisiana and Alabama are in the top 10, while South Carolina and Tennessee are in the top 20. Nor is it any surprise that those states occupy spots near the bottom of the state vaccination rankings.

In that regard, Ive been lucky. Im employed by the University of South Alabama, which has both a medical school and a school of allied health that graduates nurses and physicians assistants. The university has rolled out an efficient mass-vaccination site and has allowed its faculty and staff to queue up for shots.

But my good fortune merely illustrates the divide between the haves and have-nots. As an educated professional who is familiar with digital devices, I was more likely to get access to the vaccine even if my workplace didnt provide it. There are still poor neighborhoods throughout the South where few, if any, residents have received vaccines.

Trumps acolytes in high office dont seem to care.
Police officers are seen in Los Angeles, Calif., in a file photo. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Just 18 Percent of Americans Support Defunding the Police, Poll Finds

Only 18 percent of Americans support slashing funding to the police, according to a new poll.

Another 58 percent of respondents said they oppose the defund the police movement, which is often synonymous with the Black Lives Matter movement, according to the Ipsos/USA Today survey.

Just 28 percent of black respondents and 34 percent of respondents who identify as Democrats support the movement to cut police funding. In opposition to defunding the police are 67 percent of white respondents and 84 percent of Republican ones.

Dont defund the police department. We need them here to keep law and order, Kevin Hayworth, 66, of Garner, Iowa, told USA Today. We need our police department just as they are.

Reallocate would be the correct word, Mary Delucco, no age given, of Portland, Oregon, added. Police are already defunded.  Were already understaffed in Oregon for police issues. We had five shootings yesterday, and cops are having a hard time to get to those locations. Theyre just not enough of them.

Queried on whether the police should be done away with entirelythe stated goal of some far-left activists, including many with the anarcho-communist Antifa network67 percent of respondents answered in the negative.

Framing the defunding idea in a different way brought about more support. Asked whether funding for police should be redirected to social services, 43 percent said yes, while 57 percent said no. Over eight out of 10 Republicans didnt want any cuts to police, while two-thirds of Democrat respondents support cutting police budgets.

The poll was conducted online among 1,165 Americans. Ipsos, declining to give a margin of error, said the credibility interval was plus/minus 3.3 percentage points.

The poll was promoted by Republicans, who linked it to 219 House Democrats voting last week for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.

A protester is holding a defund the police sign at a Black Lives Matter protest in Manhattan, New York City, on July 13, 2020. (Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times)

As long as House Democrats keep trying to defund the police, theyll keep losing elections, National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Torunn Sinclair said in a statement.

Democrats said on the House floor before the vote that the legislation didnt cut police funding.

This is not defund the police. This is reform the police and save human lives, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said.

Still, some Democrats, including Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) have openly called for defunding the police.

Its not a slogan. Its a mandate for keeping our people alive. Defund the police, Bush wrote on Twitter late last year.

In an Epoch Times/Big Data poll conducted in 2020 before the election, most Rust Belt voters said they opposed cutting funding to the police.

Four out of five Republicans said they oppose defunding the police. They were joined by 62 percent of independents and 46.6 percent of Democrats.

Correction: The percent of white and Republican respondents in opposition to defunding the police has been updated. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
MOSCOW (AP)  Russia said Tuesday it will host a round of talks on Afghanistan that will bring together representatives of the government and the Taliban, marking an attempt by Moscow to raise its profile in the Afghan peace efforts.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the talks scheduled for March 18 will bring together representatives of Russia, the U.S., China and Pakistan, as well as an Afghan government delegation and representatives of the Taliban. Qatar, which has hosted Afghan peace talks, has been invited to the Moscow meeting as an honored guest.

Zakharova said the negotiations will focus on ways to help advance inter-Afghan talks in Doha, reduce the level of violence and end the armed conflict in Afghanistan and help it develop as an independent, peaceful and self-sufficient state that would be free from terrorism and drug trafficking.

Moscow's attempt at mediation comes as talks in Doha between the Afghan government and the Taliban have stalled. Washington and Kabul have been pressing for a cease-fire while the Taliban say they will negotiate it as part of peace talks with the Afghan government.

Under a February 2020 deal that the Trump administration signed with the Taliban, Washington committed to a May 1 withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan  which, after 20 years, has become Americas longest conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the May 1 deadline for the U.S. troop pullout is still on the table. The letter proposed a revised plan for a 90-day reduction in violence that would prevent the start of a spring offensive by the Taliban and would be followed by a permanent cease-fire laid out in a draft peace agreement.

The draft that the U.S. has presented to Afghanistans warring sides for review outlines the terms of a cease-fire and its enforcement, calls for the protection of the rights of women, children and minorities and envisions a truth and reconciliation commission.

Story continues

Moscow, which fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with Soviet troops withdrawal in 1989, has made a diplomatic comeback as a mediator in Afghanistan, reaching out to feuding factions as it jockeys with Washington for influence in the country. In 2019, it hosted talks between various Afghan factions.

Zamir Kabulov, Russian President Vladimir Putins special envoy for Afghanistan, said in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency that the meeting in Moscow aims to give an impulse, an impetus so that substantive talks and not just contacts would begin in Doha.

We will discuss prospects for a settlement in Afghanistan and reaching solutions, Kabulov said, adding that it would be up to representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban to decide if they want to have a separate meeting directly.
-- "One of the great misunderstandings is that China is not a democracy," said Mario Cavolo, an Italian-American writer and commentator.

-- "The whole-process democracy is a hallmark of socialist democracy that distinguishes it from various capitalist democratic systems," senior lawmaker Wang Chen said.

-- China aims to develop a system of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, and this system will take shape over the next five years.

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- China's "two sessions," the annual sessions of the top legislature and top political advisory body, are a key event on the country's political calendar.

As major issues are being discussed, the event offers outsiders a good chance to see democracy and rule of law at work in the country's political system.

"One of the great misunderstandings is that China is not a democracy," said Mario Cavolo, an Italian-American writer and commentator. But there are many democratic aspects and processes in the Constitution, the laws, and in the way the legislature operates, he added.

WHOLE-PROCESS DEMOCRACY

At this year's session, the National People's Congress (NPC), or the top legislature, is mulling amendments to two laws that concern its organization and working procedures: the Organic Law of the NPC and the Rules of Procedure for the NPC.

Explaining the draft amendments to fellow lawmakers, Wang Chen, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said amending the two laws is an institutional guarantee for upholding "whole-process democracy."

This means all major legislative decision-making is procedure-based and follows democratic deliberations. Democracy is not complete if people only have the right to vote but not the right to broad participation.

Socialist democracy runs through all processes including elections, decision-making, administration and supervision.

"The whole-process democracy is a hallmark of socialist democracy that distinguishes it from various capitalist democratic systems," Wang said.

Tong Weidong, a legislative official with the NPC Standing Committee, said a fine example of whole-process democracy is the establishment of local legislative outreach offices. Over 1,300 opinions were collected through these offices last year, contributing to 16 pieces of legislation, Tong added.

Cavolo said compared to the West, China is doing a much better job in taking care of the entire society and listening to the people, instead of serving the wealthy class.

Chinese lawmakers vote on the draft civil code at the third session of the 13th National People's Congress in Beijing, capital of China, May 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

PEOPLE'S WISDOM IN BLUEPRINT

Democracy is in full swing as China is formulating a blueprint for the country's social and economic development over the next five to 15 years.

The draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for national economic and social development and the long-range objectives through the year 2035, currently under review at the legislative session, is a good mix of top-level design and people's wisdom.

The National Development and Reform Commission, tasked with drafting the outline, received over 37,000 comments through online solicitation along with more than 4,000 physical questionnaires handed out to specific groups.

A number of symposiums with national lawmakers and political advisors have enabled the commission to collect more than 300 constructive suggestions.

Before the draft outline was put on the table of the legislators and political advisors, the document was also discussed at meetings of the central leadership of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, as well as symposiums and seminars with professionals across the board.

More discussions are ongoing at the "two sessions."

Laurence J. Brahm, a senior international fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, said Chinese democracy is different from that in the West.

"It is a system of consensus-building. It is quiet, and in many ways, like Tai Chi," said Brahm. However, in Western countries a lot of energy is spent on elections and the agendas are influenced by Wall Street and other business interests, he added.

SOCIALIST RULE OF LAW

On Monday, when delivering a work report of the NPC Standing Committee, top legislator Li Zhanshu said efforts must be sped up to improve the Chinese socialist system of laws.

According to the legislative plan unveiled in Li's report, legislative work in key and emerging areas will be strengthened in 2021.

The legislature will move promptly to conduct research on laws and regulations related to new technologies and applications such as those in the areas of the digital economy, internet finance, artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, the report said.

Last year, the NPC adopted the Civil Code, the first law code in the history of the People's Republic of China. This year's report indicates that work should be conducted to formulate codes for "sectors where conditions are ripe."

China aims to develop a system of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, and this system will take shape over the next five years, said Hu Jianmiao, a law professor at the National Academy of Governance.

Staff members of the People's Court of Yunyang County publicizes legal knowledge among villagers in Tuanpu Village in Yunyang County in southwest China's Chongqing, April 12, 2018. (Photo by Rao Guojun/Xinhua)

Such a system upholds fairness and justice.

In the work report of the Supreme People's Court, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang said the work of the top court has centered on the goal of "letting the people feel justice is served in every judicial case."

He also said China emphasizes the protection of human rights while the crimes are punished.

"We work to ensure the innocent are protected and the guilty are prevented from escaping punishment," Zhou said.
ABU DHABI, UAE, Mar 9, 2021 - (ACN Newswire) - Verofax Limited, an automation and traceability platform, has secured $1.2M in a Seed funding round, led by Trove Capital Limited UK. Other investors included MFD Holding, Kepler Fund Managers, and Casablanca Holding. This funding marks Verofax porting its platform on Microsoft Cloud and its recent Q4 expansion into Asia and Africa.Established in 2018, Verofax has developed an automation and traceability platform that allows enterprises to prevent counterfeit, improve manufacturers' engagement with consumers, and increase staff productivity with data insights. Verofax offers services such as Item ID serialization, traceability, and transaction certification on private Blockchain with cost and time to market advantage.Wassim Merheby, CEO and Co-Founder of Verofax, commented on the round, "Counterfeit is exceeding 20% of global trade in some industries and accounts for $1.8T losses to businesses. With retailers and manufacturers adopting traceability and item serialization in their operations, Verofax enables supplier screening, consumer engagement, and inventory optimization."US, EU, China, and Russia have already adopted regulations for retailer and E-commerce accountability on fake merchandise sold through their marketplaces. Verofax simply adds certainty in global trade with item digital ID throughout every product lifecycle."Verofax, which has offices in Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumpur, will use the funding to serve its pipeline of projects, launch a marketing campaign targeted at food, healthcare, and apparel industries. It is also to hire 20 additional team members, mainly software developers and business development managers.About VerofaxVerofax Limited is an automation, optimization and validation solutions provider for enterprises and financial institutions with a presence in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The Verofax platform allows enterprises to share operational datasets with Banks to boost their credit scoring. Verofax has established partnerships with a sustainable retailer in Asia, and set-up JVs in Asia, Africa, and the GCC. The startup has also been approved as a co-sell partner by Microsoft, Oracle, and AntGroup. Please visit www.verofax.com.Source: Verofax LimitedCopyright 2021 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Demonstrations and strikes in rejection of gender violence and labour inequality marked International Women's Day in Argentina on Monday.

Thousands of women surrounded Congress in Buenos Aires demanding an end to femicide, with killings of women increased during the coronavirus pandemic.

Although the South American country has made notable progress on the gender agenda in recent years, such as the legalisation of abortion and the regulation of a job quota for transgender people in the public administration, violence against women continues unabated.

According to a Casa del Encuentro Femicide Observatory report, in the first two months of the year, there were 50 femicides and one trans-femicide.

President Alberto Fernandez and all provincial governors signed an agreement against gender violence during a Women's Day ceremony.

"There are things that we are not going to tolerate anywhere in Argentina like gender violence, much less femicide," said the president, who also called for justice reform.

The agreement seeks a coordinated management of sexist violence cases in the judiciary, generating mechanisms that facilitate the reporting of such cases involving members of the security forces and improved training with a gender perspective in the police.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Friesl brings nearly two decades of private equity experience, including 15 years of expertise within the water industry, managing products, people, and operational processes. Prior to joining Leaf Home Water Solutions, he served as the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Pelican Water Systems. Previously, he spent time with Nestle Waters as its Division General Manager and Culligan International in various sales and growth roles. A Six Sigma Lean professional, Friesl is committed to optimizing overall business performance while giving the best customer service possible.

"This industry can change families' lives by providing clean, safe water in their homes, and I love being a part of a business where I can help people," said Friesl. "I'm thrilled to be at the helm of Leaf Home Water Solutions, where we can build on the incredible business model of LHS and its 'today not tomorrow' mentality to grow and provide the ultimate customer experience."

Leaf Home Water Solutions pairs homeowners with the ideal whole-home water filtration system to best fit their needs by testing tap water with cutting-edge digital water tests, a process that is provided free of charge. The diverse product line tackles both city water and well water's unique demands, and its team is built of industry experts with an intense dedication to customer service.

Each system is backed by both warranty and workmanship guarantees, and the easy-to-use technology makes maintenance a breeze. This vertical in the Leaf Home Solutions family of brands is an exciting development for homeowners, as water scale buildup is a common and costly problem found throughout the United States. Water systems from LHWS provide crisp and refreshing filtered water, perfect for cooking, drinking, bathing, and washing. Lastly, clean water directly from the tap eliminates overall water waste and lowers the amount of plastic use typically associated with purchasing single-use water bottles.

"Tony's expertise and drive make him the perfect fit for this role, and we couldn't be more excited to have him as a part of the LHS family," said Jeff Beck, CEO and President of Leaf Home Solutions. "As we continue to expand, we're looking forward to helping more and more customers find the best solution for their families."

Leaf Home Water Solutions is currently serving customers in Florida, with plans of a nationwide expansion. To learn more about the brand or to schedule a free water test, visit LeafHomeWaterSolutions.com.

About Leaf Home Solutions

Leaf Home Solutions is North America's leading tech-enabled direct-to-consumer provider of branded home solutions. Our innovative products enhance the safety, enjoyment, and comfort of homeowners and their families and protect the condition and enhance the appearance and value of their homes. Customers value our quality products and the exceptional service we deliver through our end-to-end DTC sales and service model. Our proprietary data-driven platforms for marketing, customer service, field services, and talent management driven by our "Today-Not-Tomorrow" culture underpin our competitive advantage and high, sustained growth.

Learn more about Leaf Home Solutions at www.leafhomesolutions.com.

For more information, contact: [email protected].

SOURCE Leaf Home Solutions

Related Links

http://www.leafhomesolutions.com


U.S. President Joe Biden should establish direct and trusting relations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in order to return to normal relations between the countries, experts say.

This recommendation is contained in the "Biden and Ukraine" strategy developed for the administration of new U.S. President Joe Biden, which was released on Friday.

The authors of the work are former NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, former Ambassadors to Ukraine John Herbst and William Taylor, chief analyst of the Eurasian Center of the Atlantic Council Anders Aslund, former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Daniel Fried and Deputy Director of the Eurasian Center of the Atlantic Council Melinda Haring.

"The first order of business should be to establish straightforward relationship, a relationship of trust between Biden and Zelensky after efforts by Trump to leverage the United States' relationship with Ukraine for his own political benefit. Despite Trump's actions and the subsequent impeachment process, the United States continued to provide bipartisan support for Ukraine, which testifies to its important interests there and the wisdom of congressional leaders. Still, this experience has left the Zelensky team with real concerns about its relationship with Washington and its image among the U.S. public," the experts said in the document.

The authors believe that a return to normal the U.S.-Ukrainian relations "will inevitably take time" as the new administrative staff its senior foreign policy ranks.

According to the recommendations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has already called Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba and "it is important that Biden, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan be in touch soon with their Ukrainian counterparts to underscore the administration's commitment to cooperate closely with Ukraine."

"The big objectives of the U.S. policy have been the same since 2014: to help Ukraine defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty in the face of Kremlin aggression, and to help Ukraine undertake the reforms needed to become a nation of laws with a growing and prosperous economy. The Biden team is uniquely qualified to pursue these objectives successfully," the analysts said.

In addition, they said that vice president, Biden was a hands-on policy maker for Ukraine.

"Now, as president, he will not have the time for that, but he should reach out to Zelensky, first by phone Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russia's President Vladimir Putin attend a joint news conference after a Normandy-format summit in Paris, France, December 9, 2019. Establishing a president-to-president understanding will facilitate policy dealings at lower levels and increase US clout in Kyiv, which will prove important as it works with Ukraine on difficult reform issues," according to the recommendations.

In their opinion, it is necessary to appoint an ambassador to Ukraine as soon as possible and work with Congress to increase military assistance to Kyiv in the amount of up to $500 million per year.

"Appoint an ambassador as soon as possible. Quickly name a strong candidate who has Biden and Blinken's trust as the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and work for their quick Senate confirmation and dispatch to Ukraine," the experts said in the document.

"Name a special envoy or empower a senior subcabinet official to either join the Normandy Format or to consult frequently with the four players," the authors said.
Rahm Emanuel: Democrats have already won the living wage fight: The former Chicago mayor writes in a Washington Post op-ed that progressives lawmakers  some of whom have blasted him are right to be ticked off that the $15 minimum wage measure was booted from the COVID-19 bill. He goes on to write that Republicans are signaling that they are prepared to support measures to boost the working poor into the middle class, and to keep the working middle class from falling backward, in an ideological shift that has some moderate Republicans pushing plans to supplement the wages of low-income earners. Read the whole piece here.
There is no shortage of automotive dealerships on the Carlisle Pike.

There are several preowned dealerships and numerous new car dealerships.

The choices are many  from Nissan, Ford, Toyota and Mitsubishi to BMW, Maserati, Audi, Porsche, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and more. And there is also a Harley Davidson motorcycle dealership as well.

And soon another dealership will be built on the Carlisle Pike.

The new automotive dealership will be located at 6458 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township at the site of Noland, a plumbing supplies store. The 46,000-square-foot building will be redeveloped into an automotive dealership.

Whether the new dealership will be selling preowned cars or new cars, and which dealership is planned for the new location has not yet been announced.

A preliminary and final land development plan for the property was submitted to Silver Spring Township. The plan was presented at the virtual Silver Spring Township Planning Commission meeting on Thursday night. The commission recommended approval of the plan. The plan still has to be approved by the Silver Spring Township Board of Commissioners.

Mechanicsburg Noland is located between ABC West Lanes and Appalachian Brewing Company Mechanicsburg. Its not clear what the future plans are for the plumbing supplies store. A manager at the Silver Spring Township store referred calls to the corporate office of Winsupply in Cleveland, Ohio, which owns Noland. Officials at Winsupply could not be reached for comment.

The developer is Lemoyne-based Presbyterian Development, which also plans to build a 45,000-square-foot warehouse at 2450 Gettysburg Road in Lower Allen Township.

And the new dealership isnt the only construction project in the area. Across the street next to the Trindle Run Center, a small shopping plaza, ModWash is constructing a new carwash facility at 6465 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township that is expected to open next month in the former location of Quick Quality Car Wash. That location will be the fourth location of 25 locations that ModWash plans to open in Pennsylvania by the end of next year. ModWash opened the first three facilities last year. The Carlisle Pike location will be the first of seven locations to open in the state this year. And next year it expects to open 15 more locations.

And up the street at the Party City-anchored Shoppes at Silver Spring at 6499 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township, a developer plans to build a 25,100-square-foot retailer center and a 4,100-square-foot bank on a vacant piece of land at the shopping center.

-- Business Buzz

You can follow Daniel Urie on twitter @DanielUrie2018 and you can like him on Facebook.
Australians can now get the morning after pill delivered straight to their door.

Women's health service provider Youly has launched the country's first ever same day pharmacy-to-door delivery of emergency contraception.

The online health platform is designed to eliminate the time-consuming, awkward or confronting conversations women face just to gain access to the treatments or prescriptions they need.

Requests for the morning after pill are reviewed and approved by a pharmacist, who will conduct a text-based consult if further information is required prior to the medication delivery, avoiding the need to make a doctor's appointment.

Women's health service provider Youly has launched the country's first ever same day pharmacy-to-door delivery of emergency contraception

Dr Katherine Hanks said the service will empower more women to take control of their health and contraception without the apprehension that can be associated with going to their general practitioner or pharmacy.

'Youly's services are so useful for women - especially young women - who can be nervous or embarrassed when discussing their sexual health with pharmacists and doctors, and as a result can miss out on important healthcare,' Dr Hanks said.

'This service removes a lot of barriers by providing a discreet, safe and convenient way of looking after their health needs.'

Youly founder Nic Blair said he hopes the service will put an end to the awkward questions women face about their sex life when they are standing at the counter of a pharmacy waiting to buy something as common as a morning after pill.

Australian women can now get the morning after pill delivered straight to their door

The provider also offers the delivery of the contraceptive pill, treatment of HSV-1 cold sores, HSV-2 herpes simplex virus and thrush

'We don't believe women of any age should be required to have an uncomfortable experience when it comes to obtaining emergency contraception, yet the current process for many women is certainly that,' he said.

'I have heard countless stories of women having bad experiences, so we set out to see how we could change this and I'm proud to say that we have.'

The provider also offers the delivery of the contraceptive pill, treatment of HSV-1 cold sores, HSV-2 herpes simplex virus and thrush.

To ensure suitability to access the service, patients are asked to complete an online health questionnaire with requests for the contraceptive pill and HSV-1 and 2 reviewed by qualified Australian doctors who may conduct a consult via text if further information is required.

The emergency contraception delivery service is now available to residents in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and the Sunshine Coast, with new locations being added weekly.

Visit the Youly website for more information.
City of Linden joins the MITN Purchasing Group by BidNet Direct The City of Linden invites all potential vendors to register online.

The City of Linden announced it has joined BidNet Directs MITN Purchasing Group and will be publishing and distributing upcoming bid opportunities on the system. The MITN Purchasing Group connects participating agencies from across Michigan to a large vendor pool and streamlines the bid and vendor management process. BidNets MITN Purchasing Group provides notifications to registered vendors of new relevant solicitations, as well as any addenda and award information from participating agencies across Michigan and can be accessed at http://www.bidnetdirect.com/mitn.

City of Linden joins the purchasing group in March and will utilize the system to publish and distribute upcoming bid opportunities. The MITN Purchasing Group is a single, online location that manages sourcing information and activities and provides local government agencies throughout Michigan the tools needed to minimize costs and save time throughout the purchasing process.

We are always looking to increase our vendor pool and competition, said Ellen Glass, City Manager. We hope the MITN Purchasing Group will help us extend the reach of our solicitations. It will help our vendors find more local opportunities and allow for the convenience and efficiency of electronic responses.

Registered vendors can access all open bids, related documents and files, addenda, and award information. The MITN Purchasing Group offers a value-added service to notify vendors of new bids, addenda and advance notification of expiring term contracts targeted to their industry. Registered vendors have access to not only to the City of Linden bid opportunities, but to all participating agency bids.

Vendors may register on the MITN Purchasing Group at: http://www.bidnetdirect.com/mitn. BidNets vendor support team is available to answer any questions regarding the registration process or the bid system at 800-835-4603 option 2.

About City of Linden:

The City of Linden is a vibrant community that takes pride in its historic charm. Forming around our present downtown at the intersection of Bridge and Broad, the Village of Linden was established in 1871, with structures dating back to 1840. We have grown from a village into a well-established city (1988), home to a population of about 4,000 residents and many thriving small shops, restaurants, and local businesses. Whether you are visiting our community or looking for a place to call home, Linden is a great place to live, learn, work, and play.

About BidNet Direct:

BidNet Direct, powered by mdf commerce, is a sourcing solution available at no cost to local governments. There are over 1,600 local governments across all 50 states currently participating in BidNets regional purchasing groups, including the MITN Purchasing Group. Governments wishing to learn more about the benefits of better transparency and efficiency in purchasing should visit https://www.bidnetdirect.com/buyers.
Appointment

9 March 2021

Cafe Cardinal has taken a new chef de cuisine under its wing with the appointment of Paul Pettini.

The French native recently joined the team after two years as head chef at Jardin Des Sens, a French restaurant by three-star Michelin chefs, Jacques and Laurent Pourcel. Prior to that he was sous chef de cuisine at Hotel Marinca & Spa by Chef MOF Jean Luc L'Hourre on the French island of Corsica.

Over the course of his career Pettini has also worked under other Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (MOF) chefs, one of the highest honors a chef can achieve in France, like MOF Frank Ferrigutti; and at Michelin-starred restaurants like La Bouitte by Chef Rene.

Cafe Cardinal opened just over five years ago when The Reverie Saigon made its grand debut in Ho Chi Minh City. The fine-dining French restaurant has been a popular foodie destination and Pettini will continue to build on that success.
CHICAGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The fundamental desire to be closer to nature, and even inspired by it, is a chief focus of the newest issue of Luxury Portfolio International magazine, the bi-annual publication produced by Luxury Portfolio International (LPI). The renowned global network, which comprises more than 200 leading high-end real estate brokerages, is the luxury marketing division of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World.

In the newly released publication (Volume 11: No. 1), a myriad of feature articles explore Biophilia -- a concept introduced several decades ago as a way to describe the human attraction to nature. Over the course of the last year, in particular, this phenomenon has been sharply in-view, primarily as it relates to a renewed appreciation for our homes, their settings, and their providing greater access to the outdoors.

"In the midst of this transformative time, many individuals have sought solace through nature and space," said Mickey Alam Khan, President of LPI and the magazine's publisher and editor-in-chief. "In this issue, we wanted to drill down deeper into what that has meant for the luxury real estate market, how buying patterns have been subsequently shaped, and ways that individuals can further their connection to the environment that surrounds them."

LPI magazine has a readership of more than 200,000 HNWI's and can be found on newsstands worldwide. It is distributed domestically through Barnes & Noble and shipped to top LPI member clients in more than 70 countries. In addition to putting a spotlight on biophilia and its evolution as a cornerstone of modern architecture and design, the latest issue of LPI magazine touches on living healthfully and sustainably. For instance, an exclusive Q&A with Tiffany & Co.'s Chief Sustainability Officer, Anisa Kamadoli Costa, delves into how her company has become a leader in sustainability and environmental initiatives.

Additional articles include a compilation of top brands that embrace ethical luxury, such as Stella McCartney -- committed to using alternatives to fur and leather. Another feature explores the second-home market and what's trending in the wake of the pandemic, particularly record sales and an uptick in demand for more amenities and privacy.

On the cover is a sprawling, U.S. $10.9 million waterfront compound in Seattle, Wash. Befitting of market activity and trends, the lush, haven-like property, presented by Member Windermere Real Estate, had already sold by the time the magazine published. With expansive views of the outer islands and the Olympic Mountains, it is exemplary of what buyers are seeking in today's market.

View the magazine's digital edition or find it on luxuryportfolio.com, where you can also request a print copy.

ABOUT LUXURY PORTFOLIO INTERNATIONAL (LPI)

LPI (luxuryportfolio.com) is the luxury marketing division of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, the largest global network of premier locally branded firms dominated by many of the world's most powerful, independent luxury brands. LPI attracts a global audience of visitors from over 200 countries/territories every month and markets more than 50,000 luxury homes annually. Well Connected.

Source: Luxury Portfolio International

Contact: [email protected]

CONTACT:

Israel Kreps

Caroline Underwood

[email protected]

[email protected]

305.663.3543 x312

Kreps DeMaria PR & Marketing

SOURCE Luxury Portfolio International

Related Links

https://luxuryportfolio.com


This artist's impression shows how the distant quasar P172+18 and its radio jets may have looked. To date (early 2021), this is the most distant quasar with radio jets ever found and it was studied with the help of ESO's Very Large Telescope. It is so distant that light from it has travelled for about 13 billion years to reach us: we see it as it was when the Universe was only about 780 million years old. CREDIT ESO/M. Kornmesser

With the help of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), astronomers have discovered and studied in detail the most distant source of radio emission known to date.

The source is a "radio-loud" quasar -- a bright object with powerful jets emitting at radio wavelengths -- that is so far away its light has taken 13 billion years to reach us. The discovery could provide important clues to help astronomers understand the early Universe.

Quasars are very bright objects that lie at the centre of some galaxies and are powered by supermassive black holes. As the black hole consumes the surrounding gas, energy is released, allowing astronomers to spot them even when they are very far away.

The newly discovered quasar, nicknamed P172+18, is so distant that light from it has travelled for about 13 billion years to reach us: we see it as it was when the Universe was just around 780 million years old. While more distant quasars have been discovered, this is the first time astronomers have been able to identify the telltale signatures of radio jets in a quasar this early on in the history of the Universe. Only about 10% of quasars -- which astronomers classify as "radio-loud" -- have jets, which shine brightly at radio frequencies [1].

P172+18 is powered by a black hole about 300 million times more massive than our Sun that is consuming gas at a stunning rate. "The black hole is eating up matter very rapidly, growing in mass at one of the highest rates ever observed," explains astronomer Chiara Mazzucchelli, Fellow at ESO in Chile, who led the discovery together with Eduardo Banados of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.

The astronomers think that there's a link between the rapid growth of supermassive black holes and the powerful radio jets spotted in quasars like P172+18. The jets are thought to be capable of disturbing the gas around the black hole, increasing the rate at which gas falls in. Therefore, studying radio-loud quasars can provide important insights into how black holes in the early Universe grew to their supermassive sizes so quickly after the Big Bang.

"I find it very exciting to discover 'new' black holes for the first time, and to provide one more building block to understand the primordial Universe, where we come from, and ultimately ourselves," says Mazzucchelli.

P172+18 was first recognised as a far-away quasar, after having been previously identified as a radio source, at the Magellan Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile by Banados and Mazzucchelli. "As soon as we got the data, we inspected it by eye, and we knew immediately that we had discovered the most distant radio-loud quasar known so far," says Banados.

However, owing to a short observation time, the team did not have enough data to study the object in detail. A flurry of observations with other telescopes followed, including with the X-shooter instrument on ESO's VLT, which allowed them to dig deeper into the characteristics of this quasar, including determining key properties such as the mass of the black hole and how fast it's eating up matter from its surroundings. Other telescopes that contributed to the study include the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array and the Keck Telescope in the US.

While the team are excited about their discovery, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal, they believe this radio-loud quasar could be the first of many to be found, perhaps at even larger cosmological distances. "This discovery makes me optimistic and I believe -- and hope -- that the distance record will be broken soon," says Banados.

Observations with facilities such as ALMA, in which ESO is a partner, and with ESO's upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) could help uncover and study more of these early-Universe objects in detail.

###

Notes

[1] Radio waves that are used in astronomy have frequencies between about 300 MHz and 300 GHz.

More information

This research is presented in the paper "The discovery of a highly accreting, radio-loud quasar at z=6.82" to appear in The Astrophysical Journal.

The team is composed of Eduardo Banados (Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie [MPIA], Germany, and The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, USA), Chiara Mazzucchelli (European Southern Observatory, Chile), Emmanuel Momjian (National Radio Astronomy Observatory [NRAO], USA), Anna-Christina Eilers (MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, USA), Feige Wang (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, USA), Jan-Torge Schindler (MPIA), Thomas Connor (Jet Propulsion Laboratory [JPL], California Institute of Technology, USA), Irham Taufik Andika (MPIA and International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy & Cosmic Physics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany), Aaron J. Barth (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, USA), Chris Carilli (NRAO and Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK), Frederick Davies (MPIA), Roberto Decarli (INAF Bologna -- Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio, Italy), Xiaohui Fan (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, USA), Emanuele Paolo Farina (Max-Planck-Institut fur Astrophysik, Germany), Joseph F. Hennawi (Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA), Antonio Pensabene (Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Alma Mater Studiorum, Universita di Bologna, Italy and INAF Bologna), Daniel Stern (JPL), Bram P. Venemans (MPIA), Lukas Wenzl (Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, USA and MPIA) and Jinyi Yang (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, USA).

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world's largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

Links

* Research paper - https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2103/eso2103a.pdf

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
One of the most wrenching aspects of being forced to leave ones home is having to give up your profession, says Ana Marvez, a 34-year-old music teacher and choir director who left Venezuela to seek safety in Chile around five years ago.

Ana considers herself lucky. Not only did she find work within weeks of her arrival in the Chilean capital, Santiago, but she also managed to secure a position that was at least tangentially related to her former career  a minimum wage job as a secretary in an arts school.

The same cannot be said of the majority of professional musicians who are among the more than 457,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants now living in Chile. Most are forced to take any job they can find to get by.

I was really fortunate That wasnt the case with most of my peers, she said, adding that most of the Venezuelan musicians she knew in Chile were scraping by any way they could  as cashiers, nannies, security guards, doormen.

If you arent constantly playing, you lose your skills.

Venezuela is home to one of the worlds most prestigious music education programmes, with a network of youth orchestras that churn out world-class professional musicians  many of whom are now living abroad. Soon after Ana started at the arts school, she began receiving CVs from other displaced Venezuelan musicians, desperately seeking work. As the CVs stacked up, Ana got to thinking.

I said to myself, This cant be. These talents are going to waste, she recalled. As a musician myself, I know that if you arent constantly playing, the same thing happens as with athletes  you lose your skills and the years of training.

On a whim, she took the pile of 30-odd CVs home and started calling the job-seekers.

I asked them if they would be willing to meet up on weekends to start an orchestra and give music classes, Ana said. Not only were nearly all of those she rang thrilled to join the nascent project, but many reached out to their own networks and recruited their musician friends.

The Fundacion Musica para la Integracion, or Music for Integration Foundation was born.

The Music for Integration Foundation Orchestra, led by Venezuelan conductor Simon Arias, performs at the Fundacion Telefonica Auditorium in Santiago, Chile.  UNHCR/Eduardo Beyer

Now, around 350 musicians  most of them Venezuelan refugees and migrants, while others hail from Colombia, Peru and Mexico, as well as Chile  take part in the project, which includes a symphony orchestra, a choral ensemble, and several music classes for children. While the majority of them are volunteers, giving freely of their time, the Foundation divvies up the fees it receives from the classes, as well as from the more than 100 concerts the group has performed across Chile, to help supplement the musicians incomes.

Still, for many of the participants, the benefits of volunteering with the Foundation far outstrip the extra income.

Many of them were lonely, and being around other musicians helped change that.

A lot of them were very lonely, very blue and very depressed, and just being around other musicians helped change that, said Ana, who has since changed day jobs and now works at the City Hall in the Santiago suburb of Lo Barnechea, devoting evenings, weekends and holidays to her passion project.

The Foundation has become something of a space for emotional rehabilitation, as they go through the process of adapting to life in Chile.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the Foundation and its members to adapt yet again. Successive lockdowns meant the group had to cancel its concert line-up, as well as in-person rehearsals, while a reduced schedule of music classes moved online.

Although it is now generating very little income for its members, the Foundation  which receives support from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency  is still doing its best to provide a safety net to those in the most critical situations.

Weve held several fundraisers to be able to buy our musicians food and also so that they can send money to their families back in Venezuela, said Ana, adding that several of the groups members have moved in together to cut down on costs.

And while it is not clear when the Foundation will be able to resume its concerts and other in-person activities, Ana and the organizations all-female board of directors have big plans.

We have shown the world that women can do it.

Having seen first-hand the well-being the Foundation has brought to its refugee and migrant musicians, they hope to reach out to musicians from other vulnerable populations, such as the LGBTI community and people with disabilities.

But for the moment, Ana takes pride in how the Foundation has grown into a powerful symbol of the fortitude of displaced people, particularly displaced women like herself.

As Venezuelan women, we take our leadership skills for granted, and its surprising to see that in many places thats not the perception, she said.

We have shown society and the world that we can do it  that a woman who has every disadvantage because of being a foreigner... was able to bring such a beautiful project to fruition.

Livestream with Steve Morton, G8SFR

North West Fusion Group are hosting a livestream presentation by Steve Morton, G8SFR, on their YouTube channel on Wednesday 17th March 2021 at 19:30 GMT, hosted by Ian, G0VGS.

For those of you that dont know Steve, he is responsible for dealing with NoVs for simplex gateways in the UK. It should prove to be an interesting and enlightening evening and Steve will explain his role and how he looks at issuing NoVs.

Questions are welcome before the event. The will be no live questions at the end due to time constraints. If you have a question for Steve, please email them to G0VGS (email on QRZ). All questions will be treated anonymously and duplicates will obviously be filtered out.

I will try my best to ask all questions sent to me but again, Time will be the issue.

This is an exciting opportunity to see the workings of the NoV system from the ground up and to see the processes that have to be gone through when issuing (or rejecting) a NoV.

Time: 19:30 GMT

Date: Wednesday 17th March 2021

YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFYo800UMQPS7ZfS0rjTzqw

Questions: to G0VGS, QTHR on QRZ (All questions will be kept anonymous)
A Bessemer man has been sentenced to more than 15 years in federal prison after he was found in position of more than 1,300 child porn images and videos.

Michael Lawrence Garcia-Torres, 29, was sentenced to 188 months in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised released, according to a joint announcement by Northern District of Alabama U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Katrina W. Berger.

U.S. District Court Judge Annemarie C. Axon handed down the sentence Tuesday. Garcia-Torres pleaded guilty in September to one-count of transportation of child pornography and one-count of possession of child pornography. The conviction will require him to register as a sex offender.

According to the plea agreement, Dropbox reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that images and videos of child pornography were uploaded between Sept. 21, 2017 and Feb. 15, 2018, to an account belonging to Garcia-Torres. As a result, a federal search warrant was obtained for his Dropbox account which revealed 405 images and 19 videos of child pornography. Federal agents also obtained a search warrant for his residence and found Garcia-Torres in possession of 1,295 images and 85 videos of child pornography on his electronic devices.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case, along with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and the Bessemer Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Leann White prosecuted the case.

Todays sentence is the result of the continued dedication by our prosecutors and law enforcement partners to protect the victims of child exploitation, Escalona said. I encourage anyone who may have information about possible child sexual exploitation, including posts on social media, to report it to the NCMEC at CyberTipline.org or by calling 1-800-THE-LOST.

Child exploitative material is a major threat to our community and something we must all work to eradicate, Berger said. Every time these images are viewed or shared it continues to victimize and steal the innocence of the subject.'
The drama surrounding the British royal family has gripped the world so much so that even those who wouldnt normally care have been weighing in and forming opinions. Just recently, Harry and Meghans interview with Oprah in a CBS Special had shook the world with bombshells after another.

And though the wonder over the royals net worth is nothing new, many were left confused after Prince Harry revealed how they had struggled financially after being financially cut off from the palace.

 CBS

The confusion is easy to understand, with the amount of misinformation floating around about the couple.



Arent they, like, super rich?

Didnt his mom and great-grandmother leave him a lot of money?

Hadnt they signed huge deals for millions of dollars with Netflix and Spotify?

 Getty Images

Well, yes. Except for the part about his great-grandmother leaving him money in her inheritance (which is false, according to Forbes), all of this is true. But the catch is that, apparently, all those deals were made to help them with their financial and security worries and werent actually a part of the plan.



"Our life is great now. We've got a beautiful house. We've got a - I've got a beautiful family. The dogs are really happy. But, at the time, during COVID, the suggestion by a friend was, 'What about streamers?' Harry had said. "We hadn't thought about it. So, there were all sorts of different options. And, look, from my perspective, all I needed was enough money to be able to pay for security to keep my family safe."

 misanharriman

The couple is now estimated to have a joint net worth of $10 million according to a Forbes report, certainly far from the estimates of $25-40 million in 2019 for Harry alone.



Their five-year Netflix deal is worth over $100 million and their three-year podcasting deal with Spotify could be anywhere between $15-18 million, however its unclear whether they have received any checks or advance for these yet. The couple also seem to be looking into public speaking engagements, represented by the Harry Walker Agency.

As for Harrys inheritance, he had reportedly received $10 million from his mother, Diana, without which he said they would not have been able to do this.
A key component in everyday products such as cars and mobile phones, semiconductors are currently in short supply worldwide and Europe is dependent on Chinese and American imports in a market estimated at 440 billion euros ($523 billion).

The EU aims to capture 20 percent of the world's semiconductors by 2030 as Europe looks to become a tech power to rival the US and China, officials said Tuesday.

Under a new roadmap, the European Commission also wants the EU to develop its first quantum computer before the end of the decade in order to be ready for a new era in fast computing.

A key component in everyday products such as cars and mobile phones, semiconductors are currently in short supply worldwide and Europe is dependent on Chinese and American imports in a market estimated at 440 billion euros ($523 billion).

Shortages, caused by changes in supply chains because of the coronavirus pandemic, have forced some major manufacturers to suspend production lines.

"We were one of the first to pull the alarm last year," EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told reporters, calling for the continent to double production this decade.

The plan, which translates the bloc's digital priorities into concrete targets, also calls for a better-trained workforce, improved infrastructure and a transformation of public services.

The EU will also push member states to have 20 million IT specialists by the end of the decade, compared with 7.8 million in 2019.

At least 80 percent of the adult population will also need basic digital skills to compete in a highly digitalised world.

 2021 AFP
Liam Burbidge, 27, allegedly attacked the woman in St James's Park, central London, on July 14 2018

An Afghanistan veteran accused of brutally sexually assaulting a woman in a park claimed his post traumatic stress disorder made him 'blank out', a court heard.

Liam Burbidge, 27, allegedly attacked the woman in St James's Park, central London, on July 14 2018 and told her: 'You f***ing love it', Southwark Crown Court heard.

Following the alleged assault Burbidge is claimed to have told the woman: 'Sorry, I had PTSD sometimes I just blank out, I don't know what I've done.'

The former serviceman was working for TGI Fridays when he met the woman.

In a video statement recorded a day after the alleged assault the woman said he had given her a succession of strong drinks including a 'Grateful Dead' which she described as 'rocket fuel'.

Despite his encouragement she abandoned the drink halfway through and told him to finish it himself.

She said they began flirting as they drank and he tried to touch her under the table and unhooked her bra.

They went out outside for a cigarette and he pushed her into a corner, tried to perform a sex act on her and exposed his penis, it is claimed.

Because he lived with his parents she turned down his invitation for sex and asked him to walk her to the station, but soon found herself in the park.

'He was like "Oh, have a smoke here", then we moved to a tree. He was pulling my tights down, then my skirt, I remember I started kissing him.

Burbidge, 27, allegedly told the woman: 'You f***ing love it', the court heard. Pictured leaving Southwark Crown Court

'I don't really know how long for, I lost the element of time there. We started having sex.

'Like I remember thinking in my head this is getting a bit rough. We were having consensual sex and he like got a bit rough with me. I sort of like pulled off for a bit and was like, lying on the ground, he was like, still going.

'And all of a sudden I felt like this f***ing agonising pain. I said to him: 'What the f**k was that?' What I just felt was not normal. I still had my skirt on.

'I was lying down back on the ground, he was sideways by my legs. I was literally telling him: 'What the f*** was that?'.

'He turned to me. I heard he had PTSD, I've seen guys who... when they're drunk, they switch personality.

'He looked at me and said: 'F*** off, you f****g love it'. He put his forearms on my thighs and continued.'

Sobbing, she said: 'I was screaming, I don't know how long it went on for, it felt like f*****g loads of time.

Burbidge, of Turnpike Link, Croydon, denies one count of assault by penetration and is on bail during proceedings

'My body went into kind of shock straight away. When he kind of stopped, I straight away jumped, pulling up my skirt. I remember screaming at him: 'What the f***! what the f***'!'.

'He looked at me almost like feelingless. I could almost see the fear now, I could see that he realised that he had gone too far, I don't know if it was the screaming or the crying.

'He said: "Sorry, I had PTSD sometimes I just blank out, I don't know what I've done. When you see it happen you think: Why didn't she get up and run?"

'I was so immobilised and shocked, when I did try and get up it physically hurt.

'He was like: "Sorry, sorry, sorry, what do I do?" I was like "I can't move"'.

She added: 'Generally it was starting to get a bit rough, with him grabbing my neck.

'There's having sex with a guy (...) then there comes a point where it's more full on, more aggressive.

'I didn't say stop but at this point I started thinking: "Do you really want to be doing this?" While I'm having this epiphany in my head, he's keeping it going.

'I was lying there letting him do it, when all of a sudden (...) I realised I don't have control any more, I'm not safe anymore. How can you literally think that's OK? In any circumstances?'

The woman told the interviewing officer she was left with bruising on both inner thighs and severe pain to her abdomen.

Burbidge, of Turnpike Link, Croydon, denies one count of assault by penetration and is on bail during proceedings.

The trial continues.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[March 09, 2021] Wolters Kluwer Launches Capital Changes 1446F PTP Alert

To assist brokers in complying with new Internal Revenue Service regulations that go into effect January 1, 2022, Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions has launched Capital Changes 1446F PTP Alert, a technology that eases broker withholding compliance burdens by automating the collection and review of qualified notices issued by publicly traded partnerships (PTPs). Under the new regulations, qualified notices must be evaluated in connection with determining a broker's withholding obligations. New regulations issued under Internal Revenue Code Section 1446(f) expand and change earlier rules relating to qualified notices. The new regulations expand the scope of earlier rules applicable to withholding agents and their obligation to analyze qualified notices. Brokers must constantly monitor for qualified notices as they are published for PTPs in order to comply with the new regulations. Reviewing qualified notices can also be challenging because they do not have a standard format, nor are they stored in a central, online location. Final regulations issued in October 2020 require brokers to withhold 10 percent of proceeds received on certain PTP sales and distributions that occur on or after January 1, 2022, unless an exception applies. Capital Changes 1446F PTP Alert addresses a critical challenge for brokers in complying with the new regulations: the ongoing task of monitoring, identifying and analyzing of PTP distributions and associated qualified notices. "This technology provides advance notification of critical information needed by brokers to comply with this new withholding requirement, allowing brokers to shift the burden of finding and analyzing qualified notices from themselves to Wolters Kluwer tax experts," said Steven Meirink, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions. "Capital Changes 1446F PTP Alert provides key information in a compliance-focused, tax operations format that allows for easy searching, sorting, and exporting of data, helping brokers minimize risk and maximize efficiency."



Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions is a market leader and trusted provider of risk management and regulatory compliance solutions and services to U.S. banks and credit unions, insurers and securities firms. The business, which sits within Wolters Kluwer's Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) division, helps these financial institutions efficiently manage risk and regulatory compliance obligations, and gain the insights needed to focus on better serving their customers and growing their business. Wolters Kluwer GRC provides an array of expert solutions for legal and banking professionals to help ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory and legal obligations, manage risk, and increase efficiency. These solutions include customized offerings to address Covid-19 challenges. Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions' Paycheck Protection Program Supported by TSoftPlus, for example, helps U.S. lenders' small business customers access critical stimulus funding. Wolters Kluwer CT Corporation, meanwhile, has launched a Covid-19 resource center to provide businesses and law firms with international, federal and state legislative updates. Other expert solutions include Wolters Kluwer Lien Solutions' UCC Manage, which enables lenders to manage and address risks in their entire Uniform Commercial Code lien portfolio with analytics, visibility and automation.

About Wolters Kluwer Governance, Risk & Compliance Governance, Risk & Compliance is a division of Wolters Kluwer, which provides legal and banking professionals with solutions to help ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory and legal obligations, manage risk, increase efficiency, and produce better business outcomes. GRC offers a portfolio of technology-enabled expert services and solutions focused on legal entity compliance, legal operations management, banking product compliance, and banking regulatory compliance. Wolters Kluwer (AEX: WKL) is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. Wolters Kluwer reported 2020 annual revenues of 4.6 billion. The company, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries and employs 19,000 people worldwide. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005057/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeking to halt his ongoing investigation into the company's content moderation practices.



Paxton, a Republican and supporter of former president Donald Trump, on January 13 had sent a civil investigative demand or CID to Twitter after its decision to permanently suspend Trump from the social media platform following the siege at the U.S. Capitol.



In the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in California, the social media giant alleges that Paxton misused his authority by launching an investigation to retaliate against the company's decision to suspend Trump from the platform.



The company wrote, 'Twitter seeks to stop AG Paxton from unlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law-enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass, and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitter's exercise of its First Amendment rights.'



According to Twitter, Paxton made clear that he would use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees.



In its filing, the company requests a temporary restraining order to keep Paxton and his office from enforcing a demand seeking highly confidential documents revealing the company's internal decision making processes.



Twitter further maintained in the filing that First Amendment protections guaranteed its ability to make decisions about what content to disseminate through its platform.



'This right specifically includes the discretion to remove or otherwise restrict access to Tweets, profiles, or other content posted to Twitter,' it said.



In line with Twitter's decision to suspend Trump, other platforms including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, a Google unit, all suspended Trump's relative accounts in response to the deadly Capitol siege.



Following the suspension of Trump's accounts, Paxton in January issued CIDs also to Google, Facebook, Amazon Web Services, and Apple, asking the companies for their policies and practices regarding content moderation.



Paxton then accused that the seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the President of the United States and several leading voices not only chills free speech, it wholly silences those whose speech and political beliefs that do not align with leaders of Big Tech companies.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

TWITTER-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
An explosion in the Iraqi capital Baghdad left one dead and several people injured on Monday.

A hand grenade exploded at a garbage dump near Al-Aimmah bridge, the prime minister offices security media division said in a series of tweets. One woman died and eight people were injured and transported to the hospital. Three of the injured required emergency surgery, according to the division.

The bombing targeted a group of visitors to the area who were commemorating the life of the eighth century Imam Musa al-Kadhim, the state-owned Iraqi Media Network reported. Shiite Muslims remember Kadhims life every year.

No group immediately claimed credit for the attack and the government did not offer further details. The Islamic State (IS) carried out a bombing in Baghdad in January that left 32 people dead. IS no longer holds territory in Iraq, but continues to operate throughout the country.
The body of Kunal Khera, 26, was found in a burning car in south-east Auckland on Saturday night

The death of a car groomer is shrouded in mystery after his body was discovered in a burnt-out car.

Police are yet to establish why Kunal Khera, 26, was found in the burning car in a Flat Bush park in south-east Auckland about 8.10pm on Saturday night.

Mr Khera is from the city and had previously worked at the Rub-A-Dub Valet Carwash in Epsom, friend Kavrpal Singh said.

But Mr Singh said since 2019 the 26-year-old had left to work more than 1,000km away at Christchurch Airport and it is unclear what he would have been doing back in Auckland.

Mr Singh, also 26, said the death of his friend was 'shocking to hear'.

Mr Khera pictured bottom-left with classmates he studied alongside at Auckland's Edenz Colleges

'He was a funny person, he was very nice and he liked to talk to people, always open, open-minded and a good heart,' he told The Northern Advocate.

'I saw the news three days back, but I didn't think it had happened to my friend.'

Mr Singh had studied alongside Mr Khera at Auckland's Edenz Colleges for a business diploma before his sudden death.

The friend called Mr Khera a 'visionary'.

A community Facebook page for Indians in New Zealand identified Mr Khera as being of Punjabi descent.

Friend Kavrpal Singh, who had studied alongside Mr Khera, said he was a 'visionary'

Pictured: Barry Curtis Park in Flat Bush where Mr Khera's body was found in a burning car on Saturday night

Detective Senior Sergeant Natalie Nelson said officers had been in contact with his family back in India.

'Police have been in contact with them and are supporting them as best we can,' she said.

'Our deepest thoughts and sympathies are with them at this difficult time.'

The death is still being treated as unexplained and police enquiries are continuing.
The Harrisburg Regional Chamber has announced that it will administer the states COVID-19 Hospitality Industry Recovery Program for Dauphin and Perry counties.

The Capital Region Economic Development Organization, the economic development arm of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber known as CREDC will administer the program, which will provide relief to eligible hospitality businesses suffering because of the pandemic.

Grant applications will be accepted beginning Monday, March 15.

Businesses like hotels, bed and breakfast inns, RV parks and campgrounds, caterers and restaurants among others in the hospitality industry are eligible for the grants.

Grant awards will be based on a companys amount of eligible costs incurred between March 1, 2020 and the date of application minus any other Covid-19 relief assistance received for those same costs. The maximum grant award is $50,000 and grants will be awarded in $5,000 increments.

To be eligible, applicants must:

Be located within the county in which they are applying

Be for-profit and not publicly traded

Be open for business and have been open for business on or before Feb. 15, 2020

Remain in operation as of the date of application and not intend to permanently cease operations within one year of applying

Have primary business activities aligned with NAICS codes 721 or 722 as of Feb. 15, 2020

Have fewer than 300 full-time equivalent employees across all locations as of Feb. 15, 2020

Have a maximum tangible net worth of not more than $15 million as of Feb. 15, 2020

Must demonstrate an adverse economic impact from the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of a 25% reduction in gross receipts calculated according to legislative definitions

CREDC will host a free webinar with representatives from Dauphin and Perry counties from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Thursday to provide additional information about the program, provide guidance on how to apply and answer questions. Registration: harrisburgregionalchamber.org/CHIRPwebinar.

Businesses within the Harrisburg regions hospitality and tourism sector have been severely and disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, Melissa Stone, vice president of economic development at the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and CREDC said in a press release. The CHIRP (COVID-19 Hospitality Industry Recovery Program) grants will provide crucial support to help these businesses endure the financial strain, get back to full operation and ultimately strengthen our regions economic recovery.

For more information Dauphin County businesses can visit harrisburgregionalchamber.org/chirp/dauphin and Perry County businesses can visit harrisburgregionalchamber.org/chirp/perry/.

As for other midstate counties:

You can follow Daniel Urie on twitter @DanielUrie2018 and you can like him on Facebook.
New Delhi, March 9 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that our democracy gives us freedom of our thoughts, freedom of work, equal rights in every sphere of our life.

The PM was speaking after releasing a Manuscript with commentaries by 21 scholars on shlokas of 'Srimad Bhagavadgita'.

"This freedom comes from the democratic institutions that are the guardians of our constitution. Therefore, whenever we talk of our rights, we should also remember our democratic duties," Modi said.

Jammu and Kashmir (J&k) Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha was also present on the occasion along with Dr Karan Singh, the Chairman Trustee of Dharmarth Trust, J&K.

Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister lauded the work done by Singh on Indian philosophy.

"His (Singh) effort has revived the identity of Jammu and Kashmir, which has led the thought tradition of the entire India for centuries," the Prime Minister said.

He further stated that thousands of scholars have dedicated their whole lives for in depth study of the Gita, which can be clearly seen in the analysis of different interpretations on every verse of a single scripture and the expression of so many mystics.A "It is also a symbol of India's ideological freedom and tolerance, which motivates every person to have his own viewpoint," Modi said.

The Prime Minister said that Adi Shankaracharya, who united India, saw the Gita as a spiritual consciousness.

"Saints like Ramanujacharya had put forth the Gita as an expression of spiritual knowledge. For Swami Vivekananda, Gita has been a source of unwavering diligence and indomitable confidence," he said.

According to Prime Minister, for Sri Aurobindo, the Gita was a true embodiment of knowledge and humanity.

"Gita was a beacon in Mahatma Gandhi's most difficult times. The Gita has been the inspiration of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's patriotism and valor. This is the Gita, which was explained by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and gave new strength to the freedom struggle," he said.

The Prime Minister pointed out that the Gita is a book for the whole world and every creature.

"It has been translated into many Indian and International languages, research is being carried out in many countries by many international scholars," he mentioned.

The Prime Minister said that it is in India's culture to share its knowledge.

"Our knowledge in mathematics, textiles, metallurgy or ayurved are always treated as the humanities wealth," the Prime Minister said.

He said that today when, once again, India is building its potential to contribute to the progress of the whole world and serve humanity.

He noted that India's contribution was seen by the world in recent times. "This contribution will help the world at a much wider scale in the efforts of anA Atmanirbhar Bharat," he added.
Two of six titles by Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss"On Beyond Zebra!" and "And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street"that will no longer be printed because they are considered politically incorrect, at the Chinatown Branch of the Chicago Public Library in Chicago, on March 2, 2021. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Our Looney Tunes Totalitarianism

Commentary

In the past week, weve seen six childrens books by Dr. Seuss shoved into the memory hole because, according to the frightened bureaucrats at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, they portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.

Last week also brought us the appropriately named Charles Blow, a columnist for The New York Times, inveighing strenuously against the Looney Tunes character Pepe Le Pew because, in the febrile imagination of Mr. Blow, the cartoon skunk normalized rape culture.

Loony tunes, indeed.

We are also watching a bill known as H.R. 1 wend its way through Congress. Anyone who thinks that members of Congress lack a sense of humor should ponder the fact that this bill is denominated the For the People Act by its sponsors.

For the people, eh? Should it become law, as seems likely in this age of Looney Tunes-style insanity, the bill would essentially institutionalize the various corrupt practices that made the 2020 presidential election such a travesty.

As outlined by an analysis undertaken by The Heritage Foundation, the bill would strip individual states of their prerogative to set voting rules for elections, placing that power in the hands of the federal bureaucracy.

Moreover, H.R. 1 would provide for same-day voter registration, thus all-but assuring an uptick in voter fraud.

You need an ID to board a plane, check in to a hotel, enter most large city buildings, but H.R. 1 would also entirely eliminate the requirement to produce a federal ID in order to vote. It would just be Scouts honor, I really am Pepe Le Pew.

Additionally, the bill would (as the Heritage report puts it):

Require states to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to register; when combined with a ban on voter ID and restrictions on the ability to challenge the eligibility of a voter, this would effectively ensure that underage individuals could vote with impunity.

Require states to count ballots cast by voters outside of their assigned precincts, overriding the precinct system used by almost all states that allows election officials to monitor votes, staff polling places, provide enough ballots, and prevent election fraud.

Mandate no-fault absentee ballots, which are the tool of choice for vote thieves.

In brief, should H.R. 1 become law, it would assure what is already likely, namely that the 2016 election was the last free and fair presidential election in American history.

Rescue Plan

But I am just getting started.

This last week has also seen the passage of the American Rescue Plan, a nearly $2 trillion (thats $2,000,000,000,000) invoice to your children, their children, and their childrens children.

Supposedly, this bill is designed to provide succor and solace for those who have been hurt by our governments draconian lockdowns in response to a seasonal respiratory virus imported from China. (Actually, it was exported by China, which isnt quite the same thing.)

In fact, only about 9 percent of this gargantuan, fiscally incontinent mountain of debt will go to help people hurt by our governments various interdictions.

Most of the cash will be spent to grease the palms of various Democratic lobbying groups and clients.

Moreover, as Betsy McCaughey has shown, the new law is patently racist. It looks, she noted, more like reparations than COVID relief.

No whites need apply. The bill provides for massive debt forgiveness to farmersjust so long as the farmers in question are from socially disadvantaged groups, i.e., from racial groups who faced historic discrimination.

Something similar is at work with the bills provisions for restaurants harmed by the lockdowns.

Certain restaurants are eligible for up to $5 million of your money (well, its nobodys money yet, since it is yet to be printed). But, as McCaughey points out:

Only women, veterans, and owners of socially and economically disadvantaged concerns (again, defined racially elsewhere in federal law) may apply during the programs first three weeks. Most white males go to the back of the line, even if their needs are more pressing.

Not only is this gigantic piece of pork fiscally irresponsible, its also blatantly unconstitutional, flagrantly violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Just imagine if there were a bill that provided $5 million relief per facility but stipulated that whites got first crack at the dough and that blacks had to wait three weeks to apply for the funds.

Deceptive Names

Two points in closing: First, note how the Democrats have mastered the art of promulgating noxious, totalitarian policy under the guise of deceptively sweet names.

The For the People Act will make sure that the people never have a determinative voice in elections again.

The American Rescue Plan will help put America beyond rescue.

This verbal sleight-of-hand isnt novel. The Soviet Union specialized in such verbal legerdemain. The Chinese are doing it to this day. And, of course, the Germans understood the strategy when they posted the slogan Arbeit Macht Frei at the front gate of Auschwitz.

Second, a point about power: In his book Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism, political philosopher James Burnham got to the heart of the discriminatory dialectic that fuels the insanity we are surrounded by.

Burnham quotes an elegant French slogan that captures the cynical lineaments of the procedure: Quand je suis le plus faible, je vous demande la liberte parce que tel est votre principe; mais quand je suis le plus fort, je vous lote, parce que tel est le mien.

Or, When I am the weaker, I ask you for my freedom, because that is your principle [i.e., to grant the freedom]; but when I am the stronger, I take away your freedom, because that is my principle.

I wonder whether Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the rest of the Democratic establishment recite that brutal acknowledgment when their coven gathers to make the rules meant to bring us to heel.

Roger Kimball is the editor and publisher of The New Criterion and publisher of Encounter Books. His most recent book is Who Rules? Sovereignty, Nationalism, and the Fate of Freedom in the 21st Century.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The lawsuit filed by del Valle and others seeks to force the Police Department to notify those listed in the databases, so they can challenge their inclusion. It also demands stricter limits on how to label someone a gang member, even requiring a sworn declaration by at least two detectives. The superintendent or general counsel would ultimately have to sign off on the designations.
BETHESDA, Md., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Chief, a private network built to drive more women into positions of power, and keep them there, welcomes Chris Delucchi as a Washington, DC Founding Member. Delucchi serves as the Managing Principal and Chief Growth Officer at Streetsense, a global creative consulting firm headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland with offices in DC, NYC, and Madrid.

Photo courtesy of Streetsense

"I have always had a passion to help other women succeed, so to be part of the only organization specifically designed for senior women leaders to strengthen their leadership journey, cross-pollinate ideas across industries, and affect change from the top-down is exciting for me," says Delucchi. "It is an honor to be named as one of the DC Founding Members of Chief, especially in the month of March as we celebrate Women's History Month."

Prior to her role at Streetsense, Delucchi founded her own integrated marketing firm, Delucchi Plus, which was later acquired by Streetsense to become the Marketing arm of the collective. Delucchi has over twenty-five years of experience in consulting, branding, and marketing. In addition to founding and running creative companies, she has built brands and managed communications programs for global real estate, hospitality, retail, travel & tourism, food & beverage, health & wellness, and consumer clients.

"Chris has always been committed to helping women in business and women-owned organizations grow professionally and individually," says Brian Taff, Chief Executive Officer of Streetsense. "We are honored to sponsor Chris as a Founding Member of Chief and excited to support Chief's commitment ensuring woman continue to make important gains in positions of power and influence."

About Streetsense

Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Streetsense is an experience-focused strategy and design collective that creates brands people love and places people love to be. Powered by in-depth insights and an interdisciplinary approach, the 150+ professionals at Streetsense are experts at creating, transforming, and driving consumer demand to brands and places. Visit Streetsense at www.streetsense.com or in person in New York City, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and Madrid, Spain. Follow Streetsense on Twitter and Instagram at @realstreetsense and on Facebook facebook.com/realstreetsense.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Jene Wheeless

703.254.6472

[email protected]

SOURCE Streetsense
by Silvina Premat

The most widely used is Sinovac, made in China. Brazilian doctors have questioned its effectiveness. Another Chinese company, Sinopharm, and Russias Sputnik follow. The regions richest countries  Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Argentina  are getting the lion share of the vaccines. Poorer countries have to rely on COVAX sharing programme.

Buenos Aires (AsiaNews)  In Latin America, 86 per cent of all vaccines used come from Asia. Although US and European vaccines are available, Russian and Chinese vaccines have the lion share. However, the region lags behind in vaccination compared to other regions.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) data, 12,677,055 doses were delivered to Latin American and Caribbean countries as of last Friday.

Some 5,952,000 and 1,904,000 come from Chinas Sinovac and Sinopharm respectively. Another 3,094,740 are from Russias Sputnik, 975,445 from US/German Pfizer-BioNTech, and 750,870 from British AstraZeneca.

Delays in delivery are due to difficult negotiations between pharmaceutical companies and governments that own the vaccines, and buyers, i.e. the regions governments.

In addition, distribution is unequal; about 80 per cent of the doses have gone to the most developed Latin American countries, namely Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Argentina.

Chile leads the way in terms of vaccinations with four and a half million people or 20 per cent of the total population vaccinated. A Chinese vaccine was used in 94 per cent of cases.

The Chilean government of President Sebastian Pinera secured priority by participating in the research process. Sinovac will deliver some 10 million doses to the Chilean capital of Santiago by the end of March.

The Latin American country with the highest number of deaths (about 266,000) is Brazil where several vaccines are manufactured, including Sinovacs, the most used.

Some ten million doses of the Chinese vaccine have already been administered and the government plans to buy about 30 million more.

It should be noted that Brazilian scientists have questioned the vaccines effectiveness last January.

Argentina and Mexico inked agreements with Russia for 24 million and 25 million doses of Sputnik V respectively, although delivery dates have not been made public.

Both countries were negatively impacted by slow and limited shipments from Russia and India, where Sputnik V is also manufactured.

Political commitments and the pandemics progress led Argentina to boost the purchase of Chinese vaccines. Some 900,000 doses have already been delivered. Mexico is doing the same thing.

The regions poorest countries  Colombia, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua  are lagging behind. The first, modest shipment of vaccines via the WHOs COVAX programme have begun to arrive.

The UN agency plans to deliver two billion doses to developing countries by the end of 2021.

What is becoming clear is that vaccine distribution is uneven across Latin America and the Caribbean, the result of the economic recession, the worse in 12 years, triggered by the pandemic.

According to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 654 million people, or 33.7 per cent of the regions population, is poor with 78 million Latin Americans living in extreme poverty.
Commissioners, Vaux discuss shortage in affordable housing

Codington County commissioners and Mark Vaux, new executive director of the Watertown Development Company, discussed issues Tuesday.
The model daughter of multimillionaire tobacco tycoon Travers Beynon had to get a job at McDonald's at the age of 15 and learn to save 80 per cent of her pay despite her father's extravagant wealth.

Mr Beynon - also known as the 'Candyman' - is known for hosting wild house parties at his mansion on the Gold Coast with a crowd of bikini-clad mistresses by his side.

He regularly flaunts his lavish lifestyle to his near-million Instagram followers, showing off his fleet of supercars, jetskis and motorbikes.

But his daughter Lucciana, 19, has told how she took up a job at her local McDonald's because her father wasn't the type to hand out money to his children.

Famous heritage: Lucciana Beynon's father is Australian businessman Travers Beynon (left), who is known for his polyamorous lifestyle and wild parties at his Gold Coast mansion

Her father Travers 'The Candyman' Beynon (pictured middle) has a series of mistresses who are often seen bikini-clad by his side

'My dad had put that mentality in mine and my brother's heads,' she told LADbible.

'We worked every few days. You never learn the true value of money until you have your own money.'

She said for every $500 she earned, she would spend only $100 and save the rest.

Ms Beynon said her father was 'very strict' as a parent and once grounded her for sneaking out of the house.

'It was for three months. He took my phone, my laptop - this was during my birthday as well,' she said. 'No phone, no laptop, no TV, no seeing friends for three months and I was a teenager.'

She said his parenting style paid off as she now works as a model in London after moving there as an 18-year-old.

She said her father also put emphasis on his children respecting their elders and the value of listening to others rather than talking all the time.

Ms Beynon said her father was strict with her and her brother and once grounded her for sneaking out of the house

Last year, Ms Beynon showed off her bikini body while self-isolating at her family's Gold Coast mansion on Sunday

Last year, Lucciana showed off her bikini body while self-isolating at her family's Gold Coast mansion.

She shot a bikini campaign for British online retailer ASOS in London in 2019 meanwhile and shared several behind-the-scenes videos of herself on set.

She has previously spoken of her plans to permanently relocate to the US after finishing high school.

'When I finish school I'll still be 17, so as soon as I turn 18, I'm going to move to America forever,' she told the Gold Coast Bulletin in 2017.

'I want to become a Victoria's Secret Angel and then ultimately become a supermodel,' she added.

Hey, big saver! When starting out in the working world, she said for every $500 she earned, she would spend only $100 and save the rest
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Agartala, March 9 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that the eastern and northeastern regions of India along with Bangladesh are being developed as a trade corridor.

Addressing a virtual gathering from Delhi via video-conferencing, Modi said the infrastructure for developing roads, railways, airways and waterways has been developed and new projects are being launched to develop the eastern and northeastern regions of India along with Bangladesh as a trade corridor.

"With the development of the varied infrastructure, economic opportunities would increase to a large extent, not only in eastern and northeastern regions of India, but also in Bangladesh," Modi said after inaugurating five development projects and laying the foundation stones for four projects with a total investment of Rs 3,518 crore.

Of the nine projects, a 1.9 km long bridge built at a cost of Rs 133 crore over river Feni is the most significant venture to link India and Bangladesh by road and to access the Chittagong international sea port in Bangladesh from the northeastern states of India.

Modi said the connectivity-related infrastructure has seen tremendous improvement in the last three years. Referring to the development of HIRA (Highways, I-ways, Railways and Airways), the Prime Minister cited the rapid work for the airport and sea-link in Tripura.

Speaking about Tripura, Modi said that now people would not have to depend only on roads for any kind of supply to northeast India.

"Efforts are underway to connect Chittagong port of Bangladesh with the northeast through an alternative route via the river. The ICP (Integrated Check Post) in Sabroom would work like a full-fledged logistic hub with warehouses and container trans-shipment facilities," he said.

Modi said the connectivity is not only strengthening the friendship between India and Bangladesh, but also proving to be a strong link for business.

"The Feni bridge would improve the connectivity to south Assam, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura with Bangladesh and south-east Asia, Modi said, adding that the bridge would give an impetus to the economic opportunities in Bangladesh as well.

The Prime Minister thanked the Bangladesh government and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for the cooperation in the completion of the bridge project. Sheikh Hasina also virtually addressed the function organised to inaugurate the double-lane Feni bridge named Maitri Setu (friendship bridge).

Modi said that he, along with the Bangladesh Prime Minister, had jointly laid the foundation stone for the Feni river bridge a few years ago and today (Tuesday) they jointly opened the bridge for movement of traffic.

Hasina, while addressing the function virtually from Dhaka, said the Bangladesh government has already announced allowing the northeastern states of India to get access not only to the Chittagong and Mongla sea ports, but also the Chittagong airport.

The Bangladesh Prime Minister said, "Bangladesh had extended the necessary support to construct the Maitri Setu. With the use of the Chittagong and Mongla sea ports, the distance between Tripura and Kolkata ports would be reduced to less than 100 km from the existing 1,600 km." The Feni bridge has connected India's the border town of Sabroom in Tripura with Ramgarh in Bangladesh. Sabroom is 72 km by road from the Chittagong sea port.

"We want to remove the political boundary. Political boundaries should not become physical barriers for trade. There should not be any political and economic barriers between us. Cross-border transport system would boost the socio-economic condition of north-eastern states of India. Together we are keen to develop our region as a prosperous one. Trade and commerce must be improved and extended to a large extent," Hasina said.

The Bangladesh Prime Minister said her country is keen to develop connectivity with Nepal and Bhutan, too. She said Bangladesh had not forgotten Tripura's contribution, help and support during the 1971 Liberation War.

"India has helped a lot during the Bangladesh Liberation War," Hasina said, referring to the observation of the 50 years of the Liberation war, also called as "Mukti Yuddha".

Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of nine mega projects worth Rs 3,518 crore. Besides, the Feni bridge, he inaugurated the Integrated Command and Control Centre in Agartala (Rs 135 crore), 48 km portions of National Highway-8 between Agartala and Udaipur (Rs 765 crore), 4,000 urban houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Urban) (Rs 813 crore) and Public Works Department (PWD) roads (Rs 63 crore).

Modi also laid the foundation stone for four projects -- Integrated Check Posts in southern Tripura's border town Sabroom (worth Rs 232 crore), Kailashahar-Khowai National Highway-208 (worth Rs 1,078 crore), Multilevel car parking-cum-commercial complex (worth Rs 200 crore) and upgradation and widening of existing airport road from two lanes to four lanes (worth Rs 96 crore).

Tripura Governor Ramesh Bais and Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, among others also spoke at the gathering. The Tuesday's rally and the function were organised to mark the completion of three years of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) government in the state.
UPDATE: The Grand Rapids City Commission has approved extending outdoor dining policies.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Expanded outdoor bar and restaurant dining will likely continue through the summer and into the fall across Grand Rapids.

On Tuesday morning, city leaders gave unanimous, initial approval to extending policies through Nov. 1 that allow shared outdoor dining and drinking spaces in certain areas of the city, as well as those that give restaurant owners flexibility in outdoor seating and structures on their property.

Final approval of the extensions is expected to come at the commissions 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday via a sweeping consent agenda vote.

Without the extensions, the policies allowing social zones and businesses to erect tents and create additional outdoor seating on their property will expire May 31.

Social zones, which launched in June 2020, allow dining and drinking in blocked-off, designated portions of streets, sidewalks and parking lots throughout the city.

In these open-air seating areas on public property, patrons can eat take-out meals from nearby restaurants, helping those businesses serve additional customers as they deal with 50% indoor capacity limits because of the states COVID-19 restrictions.

This will provide continued support for economic recovery for restaurants, bars and other neighborhood businesses and also will provide some certainty as they make investments for the current outdoor dining season, Lou Canfield, who manages the citys development center, said of the extension through Nov. 1.

With them still at reduced capacity -- right now 50% for indoor dining -- this is an important piece of continuing our recovery efforts.

Michigans indoor dining restrictions have changed numerous times throughout the pandemic.

In the latest change, the state eased restrictions, allowing restaurants on March 5 to again operate at 50% capacity and stay open until 11 p.m. Prior to that restriction rollback, restaurants could only operate at 25% capacity until 10 p.m.

In the social zones, patrons also can bring in sealed containers of alcohol to drink within the boundaries of the social zones.

However, the zones generally overlap with social districts, where state and city approved restaurants and bars can serve outdoor drinks for patrons to consume anywhere within the limits of the district.

RELATED: Drinking areas could be designated in Calder Plaza, other public spaces in downtown Grand Rapids

The social zones are generally anchored in downtown, with additional ones along Bridge Street west of the Grand River and another north of downtown along Monroe Avenue.

The other policy given initial approval for extension Tuesday morning allows businesses, especially restaurants and bars, to maintain additional outdoor seating on their property so they can accommodate and serve more patrons.

The current policy is set to expire May 31, however COVID continues to cause unprecedented economic disruptions, said Kristin Turkelson, the citys planning director. Ongoing restrictions including occupancy limits, combined with consumer concern, demonstrates a clear need for continued relief.

In a memo to city leaders, Turkelson wrote that many consumers continue to avoid indoor public spaces because of the pandemic, and that the trend may continue into the fall, given the pace of vaccination.

The policy was instrumental in helping restaurants weather the winter by allowing outdoor fires and heaters, as well as canopies, tents and other temporary structures, to shield patrons from the cold. Businesses need city approval before they can erect a temporary structure or install heating devices.

Related: Outdoor fires, heaters and tents could mark outdoor winter dining in Grand Rapids

The policy also allows outdoor retail sales and seating in parking areas and other sections of a business property.

Read more:

Vote on $1.9T COVID relief bill, stimulus checks pushed until Wednesday by House

Additional explosive devices found at Michigan home after homemade bomb injures six at school

Whitmer orders flags lowered on anniversary of Michigans first COVID-19 cases
A woman was given a conditional sentence on Monday after pleading guilty to her role in a series of mail thefts.

Advertisement Advertise With Us

A woman was given a conditional sentence on Monday after pleading guilty to her role in a series of mail thefts.

Rashelle Studer, 38, pleaded guilty to a series of charges from between late 2020 and January 2021.

Crown attorney Brett Rach said on Oct. 30, 2020, Brandon police executed a search warrant based on information there was a stolen truck cover at the accuseds residence. He said the complainant ordered the truck cover online and had it delivered, but it was quickly stolen from their front door.

The truck cover went up online for sale and the complainant contacted the seller, who gave her an address, Rach said by phone.

Police talked to the landlord, who showed officers a video of Studer bringing in a large box, Rach said.

When officers executed the search, they found the area where the cover was photographed for the online sale but not the cover itself, the Crown said. Police also found Epsom salts previously reported stolen.

Then, on Dec. 29, 2020, police received a call from the sister of a man Studer was with, saying the man stole her car, Rach said.

The car was turned off remotely, and police went to the area where the vehicle was stopped.

When police arrived, they found the car was empty, but a man in the area told officers he saw a man and a woman go into an apartment building, Rach said.

Police went into the building and found both Studer and her co-accused. A woman in the building said someone stole from her mailbox, Rach said, and some of the mailboxes were pried open.

Officers found cheques from someone in the building on the co-accused, he said.

Studer didnt have anything from the building on her, but Rach said she had a drivers licence that didnt belong to her.

Then, on Jan. 14, Rach said Studer was caught on surveillance footage taking a package from in front of a house in Brandon.

Officers found the car Studer got in and out of nearby and the package she took in the back seat.

At the time, Studer was breaking a "strict" curfew she had been put on after a previous incident, Rach said.

The series of thefts are not something new for Brandon, Rach said, and related to the drug sub-culture. He said he believes the stolen property was put online for sale to get money to pay for drugs.

The Crown and defence jointly recommended a seven-month conditional sentence order going forward and 90 days time served for the charges. Rach said the conditional sentence order provides a "carrot and a stick" approach as Studer has the ability to serve the jail sentence in the community.

Defence lawyer Barry Sinder said the major issue for Studer is addiction and it is something she wrestles with, but she has family who want the best for her. He said Studer plans to live outside of Brandon and can hopefully get treatment for her addiction.

Judge Donovan Dvorak endorsed the sentence jointly recommended by the Crown and defence and said Studer knows the issue she needs to address.

"Thankfully, you have people who want to bring you up  but goodwill isnt endless. Youve got to take advantage of the opportunity you have, and this opportunity is one where you can get a fresh start," he said.

Dvorak warned the conditional sentence order comes with strict conditions, including abstaining from drugs or alcohol, and breaking them could mean spending the rest of the time in jail.

 dmay@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @DrewMay_
Syracuse, NY -- The state Attorney General is taking control of the probe into the death of a Jamesville teen in a police shooting last week, asserting power under rules governing police deaths of unarmed individuals.

The decision came as officials wrestled with whether a BB gun allegedly pointed at officers by 17-year-old Judson Albahm could be construed as a weapon. The airgun, which shoots steel BBs, was made by Glock to look like a real handgun.

State Attorney General Letitia James has asserted control in past cases in which theres a significant question as to whether the person shot by police was armed or not. In a 2019 case, the AG investigated the death of a Syracuse man who pointed a broken BB gun at police before being shot.

The AG asserted her reasoning in a 1 p.m. news release:

Executive Order No. 147 confers upon the Attorney General exclusive authority to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute cases in which a law enforcement officer causes the death of an unarmed civilian, as well as cases in which the Attorney General has determined that there is a significant question as to whether the civilian was armed and dangerous at the time his or her death was caused.

Until Gov. Andrew Cuomos 2015 executive order, local district attorneys were tasked with investigating fatal police shootings. But after a spate of controversial deaths at the hands of police, the governor ordered state prosecutors to take over cases in which the person turned out to be unarmed.

Law enforcement from three departments -- state police, sheriffs office and DeWitt police -- all say that Judson pointed what appeared to be a handgun at police before four officers from all three departments shot him.

The fatal shooting happened roughly an hour after Judsons mother called police for help after the boy fled mental health intervention by a mobile psychiatric team. Officers had been looking for Judson in the fields and woods near his Apulia Road residence when the fatal shooting occurred.

The family has retained a Syracuse attorney to conduct an independent investigation into what happened. That lawyer, David Zukher, will have power to obtain police records through court. But he told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that authorities are still in the midst of documenting what they say happened.

The Onondaga County District Attorneys Office has declined comment on the case, noting that it was unclear who would be leading the investigation. DA William Fitzpatrick declined comment after the AGs decision.

In past cases, the state AG has issued a public report of findings after the investigation. Those investigations can take many months.

In the 2019 case involving the Syracuse man with the broken BB gun, the AG took seven months to issue its report.

This generic photo of a GLOCK G19 GEN .177 CO2 Action Pistol Handgun (an airgun) was released by authorities. They say Judson Albahm, 17, was holding one of these guns when shot by responding police on Thursday, March 4, 2021.

Read more

Family, friends to hold vigil for teen shot and killed by officers in Jamesville

4 officers from 3 agencies fired guns during fatal shooting of Jamesville teen, deputies say

3 days after officers fatally shot teen in Jamesville, police have answered few questions about what happened

Dispatcher warned of Jamesville teens airgun and suicide by cop before fatal shooting by police

Listen to 911 dispatcher call to police

17-year-old fatally shot near Jamesville after pointing what police say appeared to be a gun at officers

DA: Civilian dead after police shooting off Apulia Road in Jamesville

Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.
Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.Australias central bank maintained its policy settings as it prepares to decide on extending its yield target and quantitative easing programs, with a Covid-19 lockdown complicating the outlook.The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate and three-year yield target at 0.10% in Sydney on Tuesday, as expected. It will make a decision in July on whether to extend the yield target and undertake further quantitative easing. A weeklong shutdown in the nations second-largest city adds a layer of uncertainty to the outlook.Despite the strong recovery in the economy and jobs, inflation and wage pressures are subdued, Governor Philip Lowe said. The board is committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment in Australia and inflation consistent with the target.The Australian dollar edged lower, trading at 77.41 U.S. cents at 2:53 p.m. in Sydney from 77.62 cents just before the release.The case for Lowe to maintain the April 2024 bond as the target maturity had been strengthening amid strong hiring, sentiment and investment plans. This was reinforced by the government keeping open the fiscal spigot in the May budget as it joins the RBA in seeking to drive down unemployment to revive wages growth and inflation.Progress in reducing unemployment has been faster than expected, Lowe said in his statement. There are reports of labor shortages in some parts of the economy.Risks AheadYet the RBA may be encouraged to err on the side of caution if Melbournes outbreak worsens and extend both of its bond programs to keep maximum support for the economy.An important ongoing source of uncertainty is the possibility of significant outbreaks of the virus, although this should diminish as more of the population is vaccinated, Lowe said. The board continues to place a high priority on a return to full employment.Globally, central banks are beginning to edge away from emergency monetary settings. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets last week in presenting projections of its official cash rate rising in the second half of next year.Back in Australia, economists predicted ahead of data Wednesday that gross domestic product rose 1.5% in the first three months of the year from the prior quarter, and advanced 0.6% from a year earlier.Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, in testimony to a parliamentary panel earlier today, said partial data showed around 56,000 workers had lost their jobs in the four weeks following the end of the governments JobKeeper wage subsidy that expired March 28.He said strong employment data and forward indicators continue to give us confidence that the labor market has the underlying strength to absorb workers transitioning off the JobKeeper payment.End of Australias $68 Billion Job-Saving Stimulus Tests EconomyLowe estimates Australias jobless rate will need to fall to close to 4% before driving economy-wide pay increases. It stood at 5.5% in April.The governor expects wages growth will need to increase at a pace faster than 3% -- more than double the current rate -- for inflation to return sustainably to the central banks 2-3% target.Lowe reiterated that this is unlikely to be until 2024 at the earliest.(Updates with further comments from governor throughout text.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The debate over survival checks is front and center as millions of families face an uncertain financial future. While short-term relief for the duration of the pandemic is certainly necessary, the debate over stimulus checks has opened the door to a long overdue conversation about guaranteed basic income. But even that conversation often fails to address some of the most vulnerable among us: youth transitioning out of the foster care system.

A new report from The Appeals The Lab makes the case for direct-cash programs initiated at a local level that offer the potential to empower young adults leaving foster care not just to survive, but to thrive. Children in foster care, and particularly those aging out of the system, are often left out of conversations about vulnerable communities in this country, despite the significant uphill battles they face. As of September 2019, there were 423,997 children in foster care in the United States, and as noted by the Washington Post, 20,000 of these children aged out of foster care because they never found permanent placement with families.

Even without exacerbating factors like a global pandemic, children in foster care start out at a disadvantage  the majority enter the system as a result of being neglected, suffering physical abuse, having a parent struggling with substance use issues, or having housing instability, among other challenges. In addition, foster care systems often lack capacity, oversight and support to serve children and families. Therefore, they are unable to meet the needs of children, many of whom are children of color who face additional challenges due to structural racism and implicit bias within the system. Youth who age out of foster care without finding permanent placement are left to navigate the world without the family networks the rest of us often take for granted. As a new report by Shanta Trivedi and Mark Courtney outlines, they generally earn less than their peers, and are more likely to suffer economic hardships.

Now pile COVID-19 on top of the burdens they carry. For teenagers and young adults already struggling to find their footing in the world, the impact of the pandemic has been devastating. According to a Foster Club May 2020 poll of young people in foster care, nearly 65% who were transition-age have lost their jobs; more than half (52%) did not receive a stimulus check; nearly 1 in 5 have run out of food; and almost a quarter (23%) are losing, or are fearful of losing, their housing. While others throughout the pandemic have taken solace in family Zoom calls, remote happy hours, and quarantine pods, a mere 37% of transition-age youth in foster care reported they have a family member  legal or chosen  they can rely on during the crisis.

While money can neither solve every problem faced nor heal every trauma experienced by young people in the foster care system, it is certainly a start to providing them with the necessary financial support they need to get by. The allocation of unconditional, direct cash payments required to sustain basic human needs is not a new concept. Although celebritized by Andrew Yang during his 2020 presidential campaign, universal basic income (UBI), or guaranteed basic income, has long intrigued civil rights leaders, tech magnates and government officials as a solution to ever-growing income insecurity.

As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the economic stability of our nation, leaving over 10 million workers unemployed, guaranteed basic income is experiencing a new wave of support. Unlike unemployment programs, which are conditional on employment and have buckled under the weight of skyrocketing unemployment rates, guaranteed basic income models provide a means to support individuals and sustain communities, with no strings attached and no questions asked.

Following in the footsteps of Stocktons basic income experiment, at least 11 cities across the country will test out direct-cash payment programs in 2021. These programs will distribute unconditional funds to specific members of their communities, such as families below the poverty line or Black mothers who have long suffered from the financial disadvantages imposed by structural racism. Another 30-plus mayors and city managers have joined a coalition to pilot similar programs in their cities. And the recently formed California Guaranteed Income Collaborative, headed by Childrens Defense Fund-California and made of policy organizations and pilot projects across the state, is advancing policies that support the implementation of guaranteed income pilots and building out a system for statewide guaranteed income. These kinds of programs have widespread public support. Recent polling from Data for Progress and The Appeal shows that 59% of likely voters support piloting local guaranteed income programs that provide direct cash payments of $500 to $1,000 per month to people in need.

While the idea of guaranteed basic income as a whole is gaining momentum, Santa Clara County is unique in developing a program specifically designed to support teenagers and young adults transitioning out of the foster care system. Similar to other pilot programs, Santa Claras UBI initiative will start small, providing 72 young people aging out of foster care direct-cash payments of $1,000 per month for one year. The countys payments will be supplemented with financial counseling and mentorships for recipients, provided through public-private partnerships with a national nonprofit and local credit union.

Building on the successful implementation of the first-of-its-kind program he spearheaded in Santa Clara County and in an attempt to bring this concept statewide, Sen. Dave Cortese has introduced a new bill, SB739, the Universal Basic Income for Transition Age Foster Youth Act, which would provide direct cash assistance to the approximately 2,500 youth who age out of Extended Foster Care in California each year through a statewide universal basic income Pilot Program.

As more and more municipalities and states across the country consider or implement pilot basic income programs, they should follow Santa Claras lead and support youth aging out of the foster case system.

Dave Cortese represents the 15th District in the California Senate; Shimica Gaskins is executive director of the Children's Defense Fund-California.
Thiruvananthapuram, March 9 : Trying to put up a happy face, the Communist Party of India (CPI), the second biggest ally in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala, on Tuesday released its first list of 21 candidates for the coming Assembly elections in the state, while the names of the remaining four candidates will be released in the coming days.

The CPI had contested 27 seats in the 2016 Assembly polls, winning 19 seats. But with the arrival of Kerala Congress (Mani) from the Congress led UDF camp, the CPI had to part with two of its seats, causing some sort of resentment within the party. On Tuesday, some members at the party meeting expressed their ire with the party's state secretary Kanam Rajendran at the receiving end.

"Due to the addition of a new ally, two seats had to be given out, including the one in Irikkur in Kannur district, which we started to contest for the past two elections (losing both times). The other seat -- Kanjirapally in Kottayam district -- is the one where I was the last CPI candidate to win in 1987. What's more important is not the number of seats which a party contests, but the number of seats a party wins," said Rajendran.

Even though Rajendran tried to put up a happy face, things are not that fine in the party as he has been accused of always succumbing to big brother CPI-M .

Another reason why a section of the party is upset with Rajendran is because of the decision to not field any person who has contested the polls thrice. As a result, three state ministers - V.S. Sunil Kumar, P. Thilothaman and K. Raju - and three senior legislators - C. Divakaran, K.S. Bijimol and Mullakara Ratnakaran - have all been dropped.

Another disgruntlement came from the women folk in the party, who want more number of seats for women, as only one lady -- C.K. Asha -- features in the first list of 21 candidates. Asha is a sitting legislator who has been asked to contest again.

In the first list of 21 candidates, 13 are sitting legislators. Of the remaining four seats for which candidates will be announced soon, sitting legislator Gita Gopi will be renominated by all likelihood.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
[March 09, 2021]

BaishanCloud Joins mlytics' Multi-CDN Content Delivery Ecosystem

SEATTLE, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- BaishanCloud (Baishan), a leading global cloud data service provider, announced today that it has formed a partnership with mlytics by joining its SaaS-based multi-CDN platform ecosystem. mlytics customers can now use the premium content delivery service empowered by Baishan's extensive global content delivery network throughout China and Southeast Asia. This partnership will enable joint-customers to have both the high performance empowered by Baishan and the flexibility and cost-efficiency of the mlytics intelligent platform.

The partnership marks Baishan's commitment to bringing its strong content delivery performance in China and Southeast Asia to more audiences in a hassle-free manner. "With our supreme service performance in the regions, Baishan's network has proven to be highly competitive and offers great values to businesses to succeed there, " says Matt Haentzschel, Vice President of Sales and Business Development. "With this partnership, mlytics's platform and Baishan's network will help more customers increase their web service quality in China and Southeast Asia."







For more information about BaishanCloud Partner Program and how to become a partner, please visit www.baishancloud.com/partner-program.

About BaishanCloud

Founded in April 2015, BaishanCloud (Baishan) is a leading global cloud data service provider specializing in data life cycle management. With a strong emphasis on data interactions and exchanges, Baishan's cloud product suite is comprised of cloud delivery, cloud edge security, and cloud API management.

Baishan now has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Seattle, and Shenzhen as well as R&D centers in Xiamen and Guian.

About mlytics

Founded in 2017, mlytics's goal is to disrupt the cloud industry with Multi CDN technology to provide the best-in-class reliability, performance, and security solution. mlytics has developed a SaaS platform driven by machine learning technology that can help companies at different scales to optimize websites/web apps.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/baishancloud-joins-mlytics-multi-cdn-content-delivery-ecosystem-301242705.html

SOURCE BaishanCloud North America
A touching family photograph of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their young son Archie has been shared just hours after their controversial Oprah tell-all.

The black and white image taken and shared by photographer Misan Harriman captures a smiling, pregnant Meghan stood by a tree cuddling Archie as Harry stands behind her, embracing his wife.

Harriman wrote on social media: What wonderful news to celebrate on International Womens Day!

Congratulations my friends, and welcome to the #girldad club H.

Read More

Harry revealed the couple are expecting a daughter during their sitdown television chat with Oprah Winfrey, during which they also accused the royal family of racism and opened up about Meghans suicidal thoughts.

The duke is dressed casually in shirt and trousers, and Meghan is wearing an off-the-shoulder floor length floral patterned sun dress and her prominent bump can be seen.

One-year-old Archie is barefoot but his face is hidden as he rests his head on his mothers far shoulder.

Harry and Meghan are also barefoot as they stand on the grass.

Harriman also took a previous image which was released on Valentines Day to announce the Sussexes were expecting their second child.

The latest photograph was also taken remotely on an iPad.
SEO professionals are helping with new market opportunity analysis, competitive analysis and more strategic business decision-making than ever before. In an increasing digital world, SEO is gaining importance on the business side

SEOblog.com, a fast-growing website providing the latest SEO news, tips and resources and helping business owners connect with leading SEO agencies, has released its exclusive 2021 ratings naming the best SEO companies in the United States.

SEOblog analysts determined the 15 best SEO companies in the U.S. based on dozens of key quantitative and qualitative factors. SEOblog industry experts examined each digital marketing agencys website, industry experience, market presence, client list, portfolio, expert certifications and authorship, among other factors in its ranking system.

SEOblog has provided an in-depth view of companies in a particular city or focus area on various directory pages to help business owners find the expert help they need to grow. This was a new, free offer added by SEOblog in 2019.

The United States boasts several top SEO agencies that provide a very competitive digital marketing landscape.

The SEO industry is always evolving and is increasingly competitive, said Charlie Strouse, COO at Adventure Web Interactive. Successful SEO initiatives require constant attention to technological advances, industry trends and a swift execution that does not sacrifice quality and user experience.

John Lincoln, the co-founder and CEO at Ignite Visibility, added:

SEO professionals are helping with new market opportunity analysis, competitive analysis and more strategic business decision-making than ever before. In an increasing digital world, SEO is gaining importance on the business side and staying strong when it comes to tried-and-true SEO job elements such as onsite optimization, offsite and technical. As the market is maturing, so is the gap between SEO specialties and companies that serve different industries and business sizes.

SEOblog.com rankings are updated regularly as the market shifts and new players emerge. SEOblog.com has published more than 2,300 agency listings, with more added every day. There is no fee to participate, and the website welcomes all qualified agencies to apply.

SEOblog.coms 15 Best SEO Companies in the United States in 2021:

1Digital Agency, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, Deluxe, Straight North, LAD Solutions, Ignite Visibility, 360 PSG, Advance Media New York, Adventure Web Interactive, Anvil Media, Consultwebs, Doxa Digital, eWebResults, HigherVisibility and Horton Group.

Link: https://www.seoblog.com/best-seo-companies/

About SEOblog.com

SEOblog.com is a leading thought leadership site with a rich history of publishing educational and informative articles about SEO and digital marketing topics. In early 2019, SEOblog.com answered the call from buyers of digital marketing services that lacked unbiased, informative online resources and launched a comprehensive directory to highlight the best SEO consultants in the United States -- https://www.seoblog.com/best-seo-consultants/. SEOblogs mission is to connect businesses with qualified digital marketing agencies while also offering further SEO education, best practices and industry trends.

SEOblog.com is a one-stop shop for educational SEO and digital marketing content, research, ratings and reviews for the best agencies in each local market across the United States and Canada. The website will be increasing its coverage of U.S. and Canada SEO agencies and accepting more guest blog posts in the coming months. Contact SEOblog if youre interested in getting involved.
Trump Says No More Money for RINOs, Asks Supporters to Donate to His PAC and Website

Former President Donald Trump issued a fiery statement on Monday night calling on his supporters to no longer give money to Republicans who oppose his Make America Great Again agenda and directed donations to his campaign website and the Save America political action committee, instead of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

No more money for RINOS, Trump said in a statement, using an acronym for Republicans in Name Only. They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting basethey will never lead us to Greatness. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com. We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!

Trumps missive appeared to be a response to the RNC, which brushed off his cease-and-desist letter demanding that the committee stop using his name and likeness to raise funds. The president sent similar letters to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to a Trump advisor.

Prior to Trumps entrance into politics in 2015, the Republican party struggled with fundraising, particularly in terms of small donors, according to Rich Baris, the director of Big Data Poll. The presidents populist appeal drew a flood of small donations to the GOP, which he is now redirecting to his own fundraising infrastructure.

The money will allow Trump to support primary challenges against the House Republicans who voted to impeach him and who would otherwise be backed by the RNC.

RINOS no longer have a home in the Republican Party. The Trump Doctrine of America First is here to stay. The America First agenda has put a stop to the ruthless exploitation of American workers. We openly embrace American exceptionalism and believe America belongs to Americans; we put America first and foremost, Jason Meister, a member of the Trump campaign advisory board, told The Epoch Times.

Trump made a similar appeal to supporters during his comeback speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida on Feb. 28.

Theres only one way to contribute to our efforts, to elect America-first Republican conservatives, and in turn to make America great again, and thats through Save America PAC and DonaldJTrump.com, the president told the audience in Orlando.

So go out there and do whatever you can because were going to help a lot of great people. We know the right people to help. We need your help to win, and to fight big tech and the radical left and the DC establishment, Trump added.
A day after a Delhi court found Ariz Khan guilty of killing Inspector M C Sharma in the 2008 encounter at Batla House, Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday addressed a news briefing and attacked the Opposition, remarking "I will expose you today. Politics is being played on the arrest of Ariz Khan." He said that Khan was involved in not just one, but many terror attacks in India and the court has found him guilty "on the basis of evidence that was collected by the Delhi Police from 100 people."

'Mamata Banerjee said she would quit politics if the encounter is true'

Ravi Shankar Prasad recalled that Khan was arrested from Nepal in 2018. He stressed that even as the crime took place under the Congress government, 'Khan was arrested only under the Narendra Modi government." He then took a jibe at West Bengal Chief Minister, and said "Mamata Banerjee in 2013 raised suspicion over Delhi Police and called the incident at Batla House to be a 'fake encounter.' She had even demanded a judicial probe into the matter while she had claimed in 2018 that she will quit politics if the case and the findings are true," the Union minister recalled.



He further slammed the opposition Congress and its leaders for 'consciously making deliberate efforts to weaken the case', while raising doubts over the conduct of Delhi Police. 'The allegations raised by the opposition then was for vote bank politics,' he remarked. Even as the Human Rights Commission acknowledged that the investigation was headed in the right direction, the opposition went on to contest elections on this matter, he alleged. "You campaigned on this matter. What do you have to say now Salman Khurshid, Sonia Gandhi, Digvijaya Singh?" he asked and alleged that "You (opposition) made the encounter a national issue for your vote bank politics."



He also recalled that the investigation faced certain hurdles and was delayed due to the campaigns that the opposition had launched to show that the 'encounter was fake'. Prasad then asked, "I want to ask Mamata ji, now ill you apologise for the questions you raised then?" The Union Minister then said that terrorism any day needs to be condemned. He asserted "Uri and Balakot where Indian forces retaliated are the responses to attempts that are made to spread terror."

Ariz Khan's conviction

Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav on Monday had ruled "The evidence adduced on record by the prosecution leaves no matter of doubt that the prosecution has proved the case beyond all reasonable doubt and that the accused is liable to be convicted. t has been proved that the accused Ariz Khan along with his associate voluntarily caused grievous hurt to public servants. The accused intentionally and voluntarily caused the murder of Inspector MC Sharma by use of gunshot," the court observed convicting Khan in the matter.

The Batla House encounter

Six days after a serial blast shocked New Delhi killing at least 30 people on September 19, 2008, a Delhi Police team launched a manhunt to track the perpetrators of the attack. The team led by Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma reached South Delhi's Batla House on September 19 after receiving inputs that five terrorists including Ariz Khan were hiding here. Sharma took the lead and raided the spot with his team that further led to an encounter. Sharma was severely injured after suffering three gunshots and he later succumbed to the injuries. The terrorists were arrested from the spot and Inspector Sharma was awarded the prestigious gallantry medal, posthumously.
An independent review of historic adoption practices in Ireland has found no confirmed evidence of further illegal birth registrations.

The probe, which was triggered in 2018 after evidence of illegal registrations were discovered in the files of the St Patricks Guild Adoption Society, did however find evidence suggestive of incorrect registrations in a significant number of files.

As part of the review, Tusla and the Adoption Authority examined records of 30 agencies, including adoption societies and nursing homes. Sampling of 1,496 files uncovered no further confirmed cases of illegal registration.

The review of the sample of records referenced potential concerns about historic practices, including issues relating to informed consent, adoption to other jurisdictions, and child protection issues. Roderic O'Gorman

The examination of the files, which was overseen by an independent reviewer, did not identify evidence of a unique marker to signify incorrect registrations, similar to the marker used in the St Patricks Guild files.

The exercise did flag concerns around issues such as informed consent, adoption to other jurisdictions and child protection issues.

Last week, an RTE Investigates documentary shone a fresh light on the decades-old St Patricks Guild scandal.

At least 151 births between 1946 and 1969 were falsely registered by the Dublin based adoption society, which was run by the Sisters of Charity.

Childrens minister Roderic OGorman published the findings of the independent review on Tuesday.

He has now requested the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection Professor Conor OMahony to examine the issue of illegal birth registrations and propose next steps to the Government.

Mr OGorman said he would also be bringing forward legislation designed to improve processes for tracing of records and information about adoptions.

The results of this independent review have shown that the St Patricks Guild files were unique in that there was a clear marker on the files which, when examined, correlated to illegal birth registrations, said the minister.

The contents of the close to 1,500 records sampled for this review contained no such markers.

The review of the sample of records referenced potential concerns about historic practices, including issues relating to informed consent, adoption to other jurisdictions, and child protection issues.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the many revelations, over many years, about how women and children were treated in Ireland in the past.

Expand Close Minister Roderic OGorman (Julien Behal/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Minister Roderic OGorman (Julien Behal/PA)

The Minister added: I know significant concerns remain about the practice of illegal birth registrations, and for that reason I have also asked the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection to consider the very significant complexities and challenges, including the deep ethical issues, which arise in relation to the issue of illegal birth registrations, and to propose an appropriate course of action.

The Independent Reviewer is clear on the importance of an effective information and tracing service. I have committed to urgently progressing legislation in this area, and am working intensively with the Office of the Attorney General to this end. I am hoping to bring Heads of Bill to Cabinet in the coming weeks.

Mr OGorman said an interdepartmental group was examining issues impacting those whose births were illegally registered in the St Patricks Guild files.

Those include issues around inheritance, amending birth registrations, taxation, identity documents.

This group will report to me with proposals within a two month window, and I will continue to engage with my Cabinet colleagues on the matter, the minister add.
A man was left seriously injured Monday night following a shooting in South Boston, authorities said.

Officers responded to a call about a person shot in the area of 582 Dorchester Ave. shortly after 9 p.m., according to a statement from Officer Kim Tavares, a Boston Police Department spokesperson.

Boston Emergency Medical Services personnel brought the man to a nearby hospital to be treated for serious injuries, Tavares said in the statement. The victim is expected to survive his wounds, the officer noted.

No arrests have been made, according to Tavares. The shooting remains under investigation.
Supreme Court rejects Trump's final legal challenge to 2020 election results

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the Trump campaigns lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission over its handling of the 2020 election, dealing the final blow to his election legal challenges.

In an order released Monday morning, the Supreme Court allowed for a lower court decision in favor of the elections commission to stand. The case was Trumps final remaining legal appeal of his three challenges to the results of the 2020 presidential election.

At issue was a unanimous opinion by a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released last Christmas Eve. The appellate court ruled that Wisconsin lawfully appointed its representatives for the Electoral College.

The case dealt with whether the Wisconsin Elections Commission and local election officials violated federal law by implementing unauthorized absentee voting practices inconsistent with state law and whether the states election should be declared void.

The Supreme Courts rejection Monday came without published dissent or comment.

The Seventh Circuits three-judge panel, which consisted of three Trump appointees, had previously ruled that the errors that the President alleges occurred in the Commission's exercise of its authority are in the main matters of state law.

They belong, then, in the state courts, where the President had an opportunity to raise his concerns, the lower courts majority opinion states.

For our part, all we need to say is that, even on a broad reading of the Electors Clause, Wisconsin lawfully appointed its electors in the manner directed by its Legislature.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden defeated Republican incumbent Donald Trump in an election held during the coronavirus pandemic. Biden narrowly beat Trump in the battleground state of Wisconsin, which Trump won in 2016, by about 20,000 votes.

From the onset, Trump disputed the election results, with his campaign filing lawsuits in multiple states, accusing officials and others of engaging in extensive voter fraud.

However, legal efforts in states won by Biden were rejected by courts. Trump filed three appeals to the Supreme Court near the end of his presidency  two in Wisconsin and one in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. All three have been denied.

Last month, a majority of the high court declined to hear the Trump campaigns legal challenges to the Pennsylvania Supreme Courts authority to extend the states mail-in ballot deadline three days past the election.

Regarding the Pennsylvania decision, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch disagreed with the refusal to grant certiorari. Thomas wrote an 11-page dissent.

Thomas argued that while the Constitution says that the state legislature is responsible for setting election policy, "nonlegislative officials in various states took it upon themselves to set the rules instead" before and after the 2020 election.

We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling, wrote Thomas.

By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us. I respectfully dissent.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations are in high-demand, but scheduling a coveted appointment has been difficult for many to make. Between initial technical glitches and limited supply to winter weather that derailed hundreds of potential slots, finding an open availability has demanded a concerted effort.

A Staten Island-based vaccination texting service that alerts borough residents when a large tranche of appointment slots open up on the Island has been making that search a little easier.

Just like vaccine-hunting has been a full-time job for a lot of individuals, for now its a full-time job for me, said Natalie DeVito, a Westerleigh native and a board member of the Staten Island Long-Term Recovery Organization. I mean, it really is around the clock.

DeVito created and manages the free service that alerts subscribers to new, giant blocks of vaccination appointments on the borough with simple text updates.

We do see these giant releases of blocks of time from Port Richmond, Staten Island Tech, from Gotham Vanderbilt and from Empire Outlets, said DeVito. When that happens, Im sending out the blast.

To be included in the service, Staten Islanders can text, SIVAX to 51555.

Those who are subscribed can remove themselves at any time, said DeVito, who added that she does not have access to anyones personal information through the service.

People wait outside Staten Island Technical High School in New Dorp ahead of their scheduled coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine appointments Monday, Jan. 18, 2021. (Staten Island Advance/Paul Liotta)

A COMMUNITY NEED

DeVito, who has been advocating for fairer access to coronavirus vaccines for months, said she recognized that borough residents were staying on their computers and refreshing websites for hours in order to receive a vaccine slot.

Staten Islanders without consistent internet access were getting locked out of the process because of their inability  in part  to know when new appointments were opening.

While internet may not be as widely available, DeVito said she recognized that just about everybody, even elderly people, have text.

While she created the Staten Island COVID19 Resource Network on Facebook during the early days of the pandemic (and has been communally-dubbed the fairy godmother of COVID-19 information), DeVito said she wanted a direct way to reach the phones of borough residents waiting for slots to open up.

DeVito asked her husband, Michael, who serves as the associate executive director for the New York Center for Interpersonal Development (NYCID), about the potential for using the non-profits already-established texting mechanisms for the idea.

The partnership was a solid match.

Using NYCIDs service, DeVito has been able to notify subscribers when new appointments pop-up on the Island, with alerts that include a relevant link that lets anyone who receives it schedule right from their phone.

There was no special authorization needed, said DeVito. This really is aligned with them serving the community, so it was just like a beautiful blessing.

People wait outside Port Richmond High School ahead of their scheduled coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine appointments Monday, Jan. 18, 2021. (Staten Island Advance/Paul Liotta)

THOUSANDS OF SUBSCRIBERS

Within the first five days of the services creation, DeVito said about 700 subscribers texted to receive updates.

That was exciting, she said.

Ten days after launch, there were 2,000 people. The next day: 2,500.

Eager to ensure she only posted large blocks of new appointment slots, DeVito said she takes special care to ensure that any alert includes a large number of appointment options.

I dont want the Hunger Games, she joked.

While having a growing subscriber base is validation the service is needed, DeVito said losing subscribers is even a better indication it is working.

Just under two weeks in, she noticed that she lost over 700 subscribers. I was screeching with excitement, she said. That means 700 people dont need it anymore  indicating they were able to get an appointment for their first shot.

Thats some validation that were making a difference, were making an impact, said DeVito.

Scenes from the COVID-19 vaccination site at Empire Outlets on Staten Island on Feb. 19, 2021. (Staten Island Advance/ Alexandra Salmieri)

A CONTINUED EFFORT

A litany of questions remain regarding the next stages of the vaccine rollout in New York City, including when  and how  eligibility will expand across the five boroughs.

While nearly 2.3 million shots have been administered citywide as of Sunday morning, according to city Health Department data, only about 12% of Staten Islands adult population has been fully vaccinated.

When eligibility increases, more residents will be vying for appointment slots.

To meet that demand, DeVito said the borough will need more vaccination sites, including on the South Shore, where no city-run vaccination hub currently exists.

Im a Staten Islander worried about vulnerable Staten Islanders, and particularly worried about Staten Islanders who cannot bridge this digital divide by themselves, said DeVito. So, Im going to stay focused on the Staten Island sites and stay advocating for more vaccine sites on Staten Island.

Her texting service will also be there to give borough residents a heads-up when slots open up.
A court notice published in The Daily Jang newspaper on February 28 has levelled allegations of criminal conduct against the secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ). The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its Pakistan affiliate the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) express concern at attempts to silence the voice of the union leader.

The Karachi-based Urdu newspaper published the warrant notice against Rana Muhammad Azeem, which according to the daily newspaper was a paid notice by the court. The notice also detailed the personal address and telephone number of the leader.

The PFUJ strongly condemned the alleged registration of a case against its secretary general and urged the concerned authorities to look into the allegedly false case made in an effort to silence the leaders voice for the rights of the media workers. It also said that Rana Azeem had been tagged with some other renowned persons for criticism on the national media channel during a talk show.

The notice with the signature of second Additional District and Sessions Judge, Ashraf Hussain Khawaja, alleges that Rana Azeem committed a crime or is believed to commit a crime punishable under Pakistan Penal Code yet fails to detail the alleged crime. The notice also refers to the leader as a guest and analyst of the television show Kahra Sach, which he has been a regular commentator on over several years.

Mr Azeem said: "I have not received any legal notice or warrant issued by the court yet. However, a notice has been published including my name in Daily Jang for some personal motives.

The PFUJ said: We condemn the notice published in The Daily Jang against Rana Azeem. Such false cases cant stop our fight for the payments of wages of media workers.

The IFJ said: The IFJ is concerned that a union leader is being targeted in an attempt to silence a critical voice against media labour rights violations in Pakistan. We call on authorities to urgently investigate.
Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, whose chairmanship of Indonesias opposition Democratic Party is in doubt after an extraordinary congress, speaks to reporters in Jakarta, March 5, 2021.

Indonesias law ministry will wait to hear from all parties involved before investigating what led to the presidents chief of staff being named chairman of the main opposition party, Minister Yasonna Laoly said on Tuesday about a maneuver that, observers warned, could undermine the countrys young democracy.

Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko was appointed chairman of the Democratic Party during an extraordinary congress on Friday organized by detractors of party leader Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, who had signaled last month that such a move was being planned.

Since then, Agus has urged the Ministry of Law and Human Rights to not ratify the change in his partys leadership. On Monday, he presented the ministry a stack of documents which, he said, would prove his legitimacy.

On Tuesday, Minister Yasonna said he had yet to receive similar documents from Moeldoko.

Later, we will decide everything according to the Democratic Partys statutes and the relevant law, Yasonna said about waiting to hear from all groups.

I call on Mr. SBY and AHY not to accuse the government of doing this or doing that. We are objective. We will act professionally in accordance with the law, Yasonna told reporters, referring to Agus and his father, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The law ministry has the authority to recognize a political partys internal leadership, according to The Straits Times newspaper of Singapore.

SBY, a former army general, preceded Joko Jokowi Widodo as president of Indonesia. Moeldoko is a retired general, who some analysts say engineered the tumult in the Democratic Party to help Jokowi maintain his grip on power and all but eliminate the opposition.

For nearly 50 years until 1998, the military controlled the government of Southeast Asias largest and most populous country.

It was reported that Moeldoko accepted the decision to be appointed chairman of the Democratic Party by phone, after which he gave a speech to those who attended the extraordinary congress.

Ladies and gentleman, this is my first political speech in front of a general audience in an effort to maintain and build democracy in Indonesia, Moeldoko said, according to Tempo, an Indonesian news site.

On Saturday, Mohammad Mahfud MD, the coordinating minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, said Agus would remain the party chairman as long as there was no report given to the government on the decision by the extraordinary congress to appoint Moeldoko as chairman.

In the government record the official chairman is AHY, the son of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Mahfud MD said.

Agus, who took over the partys chairmanship from his father in March 2020, claimed that the government recognized his leadership.

The extraordinary congress has no basis in the Democratic Partys constitution and statutes, he said on Saturday. I call on the government not to condone this illegal move by Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko to divide the Democratic Party.

Last month, Agus revealed that some party members and a top government official whom he did not name were conspiring to oust him. He later dismissed seven party stalwarts, including former parliamentary speaker Marzuki Alie and Jhoni Allen Marbun, for their alleged involvement in the plot.

Jhoni, who was at the forefront of the campaign to oust Agus, said Moeldokos appointment as chairman had nothing to do with his position as the presidential chief of staff.

Its more to do with his personality. He respects people and his subordinates, Jhoni said.

Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko participates in a cabinet swearing-in ceremony at the presidential palace in Jakarta, Jan. 17, 2018. [Reuters]

Muhammad Rahmat, another former Democratic Party official who supports Moeldoko, said Agus had to be ousted to save the party.

Under Agus leadership, the party was expected to win less than 5 percent of the votes in the next general election, scheduled for 2024, Rahmat said.

The main objective of the extraordinary congress is to turn the partys fortunes around, he said.

Agus father, meanwhile, expressed remorse for having earlier placed his trust in Moeldoko, who served in the armed forces during SBYs presidency.

Many were shocked and could not believe that Moeldoko had collaborated with insiders and had the heart to mount out a coup, Yudhoyono said on Friday after the congress. Im ashamed and feel guilty that I put my trust in him and awarded him with several positions.

The former president called on his successor to act fairly.

I believe that President Jokowi has integrity and wisdom to deal with this attempt to oust the leadership of the Democratic Party, he told reporters on Saturday.

Jokowi has not yet publicly commented on the move by Moeldoko, who could not be reached by BenarNews for comment.

The presidents broad ruling coalition of seven of nine major parties already controls more than 75 percent of the 575 seats in parliament. It would grow if Moeldoko can bring the Democratic Party into the fold.

This would leave the Muslim-based Prosperous Justice Party as the only opposition party outside the ruling coalition.

Backsliding

A political analyst at Al-Azhar University in Jakarta, Ujang Komarudin, said he thinks Jokowi blessed Moeldokos move, warning it could undermine democracy and hurt Jokowis image.

There have been efforts to undermine the opposition parties to allow legislation to go unopposed in the parliament, Ujang told BenarNews.

According to another observer, the maneuver by Moeldoko to apparently divide the opposition was a sign pointing to backsliding democracy in Indonesia.

It looks and feels very systematic, Indonesian political analyst and pollster Saiful Mujani told The Australian newspaper. This divide-and-conquer method has been used by the current leadership to strengthen their coalition and silence all opposing voices.

A successful bid by the presidential chief of staff to take over the leadership of the Democratic Party could severely weaken the political opposition, he told the Straits Times separately.

If Moeldoko takes over the Democratic Party, the strength of the opposition in Parliament will diminish. Theres almost no checks and balances, what kind of democracy is it? The Indonesian democracy is dead, Saiful warned.

If Jokowi stays silent, it means he allows the backsliding of Indonesian democracy to happen.
Press Release

March 9, 2021 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR FRANCIS "KIKO" PANGILINAN

ON CHILD EXPLOITATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA

09 March 2021 Magandang araw sa kanilang lahat. Our appreciation goes to the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender and the Committee on Science and Technology for putting on schedule this public hearing. With social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter functioning like an open freeway of information and communication, danger lurks by the second that our vulnerable children could become victims or have become victims of exploitation and abuse on these platforms. Nakakalungkot at nakakagalit isipin ang katotohanan na base sa mga datos, nagagamit ang ilang social media sites gaya ng Facebook, Twitter sa bentahan ng mga larawan at video ng mga bata. Para ka lang daw nag-o-online shopping. Maraming pagpipiliang litrato o video ng mga bata. Parang "add to cart" lang ang gagawin sa matitipuhang mga bata. While data could indicate that the number of pieces of the exploitative content does not equal the number of victims, as the same content, potentially slightly altered could be shared repeatedly, one victim of this horrible crime is one too many. According to global law enforcement data, the Philippines has become one of the largest known sources of online sexual abuse and exploitation cases. According to a report released in May of 2020 by the Washington-based International Justice Mission (IJM), in partnership with the U.S. Department of State and the Philippine Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, there was a consistent, sharp rise in the number of IP addresses used in child sexual exploitation from 23,000 in 2014 to 81,000 in 2017. The report also confirmed UNICEF's findings that online-sexual exploitation of children was usually a "family-based crime" where the abuse was usually perpetrated by biological parents or other relatives of the victims. Recently, the NBI revealed that the proliferation of commercial adoption in the country has also expanded online. Since last month, the NBI was reported to be working with the DSWD to track down the persons and groups behind 48 Facebook accounts that claim to facilitate online illegal adoption. In 2019, NBI's International Operations Division has intercepted a group of child traffickers who were trying to sell an infant in a department store. Two of the perpetrators were the parents of the child while the others were brokers who set up a social media account to look for buyers and negotiate prices. While we have a number of laws and statutes, the continued proliferation of online exploitation and abuse of our children in social media prompts us to take a look at these laws to see if there are gaps that can be filled in their implementation and to make these laws tougher and more responsive to the needs of the times. As we take a close look at the efforts of our law enforcers, we would also like to find out actions taken by the social media platforms, proactive rather than reactive actions, in curbing if not eradicating the rampant criminality on their portals. Unless social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google act aggressively to permanently address the criminal acts being committed using their platforms online, then pretty much these sites are party to the crime. Using these social media platforms to abuse and harm our children is simply abhorrent and unacceptable. And we have prepared a number of questions to our resource persons which we will raise later when our turn comes. Thank you, Madam Chairperson and magandang araw sa kanilang lahat.
[March 09, 2021] Computer Design & Integration LLC (CDI LLC) Recognized for Excellence in Managed IT Services

Computer Design & Integration LLC ("CDI" or "the Company") announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named CDI to its 2021 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Elite 150 category. This year marks CDI's seventh consecutive appearance. This annual list recognizes the leading North American solution providers that have demonstrated innovative and forward-thinking approaches to managed services. These services help end users improve operational efficiencies and navigate the ongoing complexities of IT solutions, while maximizing their return on IT investments. With cutting-edge approaches to delivering managed services, MSPs have become an integral part of the success of businesses worldwide. They help empower organizations to leverage complex technologies -- keeping a strict focus on their core business without straining their budgets. CRN's 2021 MSP 500 list identifies the market's key managed services players who are setting themselves apart with best-of-breed solutions that provide the business outcomes customers need. "We are honored to once again place in the Elite 150 category of CRN's prestigious MSP 500 list," said John Carter, President, Cloud and Managed Services, CDI. "This top distinction validates CDI's commitment to being the best service provider in all of our markets, and our deep partnerships and trust with our customers. We take great pride in developing industry leading offerings that add extreme value to our clients' digital transformation needs as they progress along their hybrid cloud journey." The MSP 500 list is divided into three sections: the MSP Pioneer 250, recognizing companies with business models weighted toward managed services and largely focused on the SMB market; the MSP Elite 150, recognizing large, data center-focused MSPs with a strong mix of on-premises and off-premises services; and the Managed Security 100, recognizing MSPs focused primarily on off-premises and cloud-based security services. As a member of the MSP Elite 150, CDI is recognized for its award-winning digital solutions portfolio, which includes hybrid cloud infrastructure, DevOps, intelligent operations, digital workflow, digital workspace, security technologies, managed and professional services. "Effective MSPs enable companies to focus on their core objectives while improving the quality and relibility of their cloud computing capabilities," said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. "The solution providers on CRN's 2021 MSP 500 list deserve recognition for their innovative and forward-thinking approaches to managed services, and the ability to optimize operational efficiencies and systems to maximize return on investments."



The MSP 500 list will be featured in the February 2021 issue of CRN and online at www.CRN.com/msp500. About Computer Design & Integration LLC (CDI LLC):

CDI LLC was founded in 1995, with corporate headquarters in New York City, and office locations in Teterboro, N.J., Atlanta, Annapolis, Philadelphia, Boston, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota and Delaware. The firm has been recognized as one of the top solution providers in the world, offering clients and businesses of all sizes the most up-to-date hybrid IT technology solutions. CDI continually focuses on achieving client satisfaction by developing and implementing digital solutions that enhance day-to-day workflow processes, and combines the required experience, exceptional talent, quality assurance and stability needed to solve today's complex business challenges. For more information, visit cdillc.com or call 1-877-216-0133. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. About The Channel Company The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.  2021. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005048/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
People siphon water from a pit as they prospect for gold at a mining site in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, Feb. 25, 2021.

Risna recounted scrambling to save herself when dirt and rocks came tumbling into a 49-foot deep pit where she and other residents were mining for gold in Indonesias Central Sulawesi province on Feb. 24.

Seven people were killed and dozens more survived that landslide at the illegal mining site in Buranga, a village in Parigi Moutong regency, rescue officials had said.

We the panners scrambled. Some managed to climb to the top but some were buried, Risna, a 36-year-old woman who goes by one name, told BenarNews.

The deadly accident underscores the dangers of small-scale mining activities for gold and other metals at more than 8,600 sites across the Indonesian archipelago, where dozens of people die every year, mostly during landslides, according to officials.

The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed residents to pan and mine for gold because they dont have jobs, observers said.

Moh Taufik, coordinator of the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam) in Central Sulawesi, said there were five unlicensed gold mines sites in the province, but authorities had done little to stop the operations.

After the incident in Buranga, everyone was shocked by the number of deaths, he told BenarNews.

The government does not release data on deaths at illegal gold mining sites because it does not want to draw public attention to the fatal accidents, Taufik said.

We seriously urge the police to take action, because this is clearly a criminal act under the mining law, he said.

Mining without a permit is punishable by up to five years in prison, or a fine of up to 100 billion rupiah (U.S. $7 million).

Last year, a court in Aceh province sentenced six people to 10 months in prison and a fine of 2 million rupiah ($139) each for mining gold illegally.

Jatam urged the government to develop agriculture in areas where illegal mining operations exist to lure locals away from resorting to the dangerous work.

Taufik said any decision by the government to legalize artisanal mining operations should be based on studies on their social and environmental impact.

Mining activities are often damaging to the environment and cause more harm than benefit, he said.

Indonesia is home to the Grasberg mine, the worlds largest gold mine and second-largest copper mine, which is operated by mining giant Freeport McMoRan.

Of the countrys more than 8,600 illegal mining sites, about 25 percent are gold mines, according to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. About 84 percent of those mines were active, while 16 percent were being restored.

Last year, the government closed 26 illegal gold mines in the Mount Halimun Salak National Park in Banten province after flash floods submerged rice fields and residential areas there.

At the time, Vice President Maruf Amin said the government planned to close more than 8,000 sites and provide alternative job opportunities for local people.

Officials at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources could not be reached for comment.

Indonesians work at the illegal Buranga gold mine in Parigi Moutong regency, Feb. 25, 2021. [Keisyah Aprilia/BenarNews]

Health risks

Medical authorities said small-scale miners face risks associated with the use of mercury and cyanide in their operations.

People exposed to mercury and cyanide could experience health problems including damage to the kidneys, liver, lungs and digestive system, said Komang Adi Sujendra, head of the Central Sulawesi health department.

It happens over the long term and could be fatal. The risk should not be underestimated, Adi told BenarNews.

The sale and import of mercury is illegal in Indonesia, but the chemical is used to separate gold from soil.

Eknas Sawung, a campaigner for the NGO Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI), said illegal gold mining could not be separated from the use of dangerous chemicals.

[M]ercury is poisonous and can cause illness, for example minamata, he said, referring to a neurological disease whose symptoms include numbness in the hands and feet and weakening of muscles.

Eknas said higher rates of birth defects have been found in areas where illegal gold mines operate.

Despite the ban on mercury and cyanide, they are relatively easy to obtain, said Taufik of Jatam.

The fact that right now cyanide and mercury are sold freely, means there are suppliers, sellers and buyers. Law enforcers must take action against this, he said.

Economic crisis

Illegal mining activities in Indonesia usually spike during an economic crisis, said Hanan Nugroho, an expert at the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas).

The coronavirus pandemic may have led to an increase in artisanal mining activities, Hanan wrote in The Indonesian Journal of Development Planning, published last June.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, monitoring of illegal mining activities is still being carried out. However, in some places, such as in Central Sulawesi, illegal gold mining has become more rampant, Hanan wrote.

He said the livelihoods of about 2 million people depend on illegal mining activities. Most of them work as gold panners.

In 2018, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry said potential state losses to illegal mining could reach nearly $3 billion (43 trillion rupiah) per year, without taking into the environmental cost.

Illegal mining can provide a better income than other local jobs, especially when there is a gold rush or a spike in commodity prices, Hanan wrote.

He added that the government needs to review its mining policy by providing flexibility in licensing status.

Formalizing these activities, he said, must take into account economic, social and environmental impacts.

Aryanto Nugroho, coordinator of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia, a civilian coalition for transparency in the management of extractive resources, urged the government to provide alternative work for people to lure them away from illegal mining.

There are rarely alternative job opportunities in the mining areas, Aryanto said.

Taufik said that not all small-scale illegal mining operations are run purely by local communities.

Large investors often use the guise of community mining to operate illegally, he said.

Many of these illegal mines are owned by investors under the pretense of community mining. In some locations we found a lot of heavy equipment, which is prohibited from being used in community mining, Taufik said.

Theres no way local people could afford renting a mechanical excavator, he said.

Heavy equipment is used at the gold mining site in Buranga village, Feb. 25, 2021. [Keisyah Aprilia/BenarNews]

Crackdown

Central Sulawesi Gov.-elect Rusdi Mastura, meanwhile, has vowed to crack down on illegal mining activities when he takes office in June.

I have received many complaints about it. God willing, after I take office, controlling illegal mining will be a priority, Rusdi told BenarNews.

All forms of mining need a permit. We will collect all the data and then take action.

Outgoing Gov. Longki Djanggola said that he had responded to complaints about mining operations and that it was up to the police to take action.

We have reported this to the provincial police, Longki said.

We really regret what happened. Its impossible for the communities to dig holes like that if there is no heavy equipment that is funded by investors, he said, referring to the Feb. 24 accident.

Inspector Gen. Abdul Rakhman Baso, the provincial police chief, said action would be taken against businesses involved in illegal gold mining activities in Central Sulawesi.

Especially for Buranga, we are still conducting an investigation, he told journalists, referring to last months accident.

Risna, who survived the landslide in Buranga, said she made about 2 million rupiah ($140) per month from panning gold.

I know it is dangerous here and the mine has no permit, but what can we do? Only here can we work and get a decent income. I tried selling fish in the market, I didnt make any profit, she said

So if they say its dangerous, I dont care. I think all my friends here also think the same.

Ronna Nirmala in Jakarta contributed to this report.
Vietnam has proposed the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) consider the issuance of regulations on prioritising COVID-19 vaccinations for sailors regardless their nationalities, thus minimising the risk of pandemic spreading among the group.

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

Vietnam has proposed the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) consider the issuance of regulations on prioritising COVID-19 vaccinations for sailors regardless their nationalities, thus minimising the risk of pandemic spreading among the group.



The proposal was put forth in a letter from Nguyen Xuan Sang, Director of the Vietnam Maritime Administration and Deputy Secretary-General of the IMO Vietnam, to IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim regarding initiatives on creating favourable conditions and ensuring the utmost safety for sailors amid the COVID-19 pandemic.



In the letter, Sang expressed his support for the message of the IMO Secretary-General to sailors, which stated that sailors and maritime staff are key forces in providing necessary services.



Sang held that amid complicated developments of the pandemic, it is crucial for governments of IMO member countries to issue policies to include maritime workers to their prioritised lists for COVID-19 vaccinations, while administrating the vaccines on sailors and maritime workers of vessels docking at ports under their management.



Agreeing with Sangs proposal, the IMO Secretary-General suggested that the official put the proposal into discussion during the 103th meeting of the IMOs Maritime Safety Committee which is slated for May 5.



Lim said that the IMO is working with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to call on governments to prioritise sailors in their COVID-19 vaccination programmes, thus creating optimal conditions for safe travelling cross borders.



A joint statement is being drafted by UN agencies, which will be issued soon, he added.



Lim said that the IMO will create best conditions for discussions with its member countries and representatives of the maritime sectors representatives as well as the UN agencies and relevant parties to build a vaccination coordination strategy.



Meanwhile, sailors, maritime enterprises and maritime transport associations have submitted requests to authorised agencies, aking for prioritised COVID-19 vaccinations for sailors working onboard cargo vessels.



According to the Vietnam Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center, search and rescue activities have been maintained round-the-clock since the beginning of COVID-19 outbreak, but with high risks, especially in the cases involving foreign sailors.



Leaders of the centre has proposed that the Government and authorised agencies put maritime rescuers into the prioritised list in the COVID-19 vaccination scheme, thus maintaining effective operations of the force. VNA

Another road for Covid-19 vaccines Western nations have the capacity in terms of economic potential and the legal and moral aspects to promote access to vaccines on a global scale.
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The World Government Summit Dialogues will deliver 21 predictions for the future social, economic, and political order, between March 9 and 10.

The virtual event will host political and industry leaders from around the world, who will each offer their outlooks on the future of vital sectors including healthcare, space, cryptocurrency and more.

Day one will open with a keynote from Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi, the UAEs Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Chairman of the World Government Summit Organization, on the priorities for governments in 2021, as they look to navigate the global recovery from the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

Sessions on day one will focus on the future of Africa, the future of Asia, the future economic order, cryptocurrency and the decentralisation of finance. They will feature Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank for Africa; Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder of Infosys; Professor Daniel Kahneman, Economics Nobel Prize winner; Anthony Di Iorio, Co-Founder of Ethereum; and Jutta Steiner, Co-founder CEO of Parity Technologies, among others.

Day two will open with a keynote address from Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) where he will outline the future of global public health.

That will be followed by the high-level discussion: Will the Earths Population Be Vaccinated by 2021?, where Macky Sall, President of Senegal, will be joined by Henrietta Fore, Executive Director, Unicef; Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO, DP Worldp; and Dr. David Nabarro, Special Envoy on Covid-19 to the WHO.

A highlight of the second day will see Astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson in conversation with Lord Martin Rees, Astrophysicist, Cosmologist and 60th President of the Royal Society, as they discuss how public-private partnerships can inspire a new generation of STEM enthusiasts to lead the space race and the quest to understand life beyond Earth.  TradeArabia News Service
Christian Rudolph Wins the partypoker MILLIONS Online High Roller ($230,258)

March 09, 2021 Jason Glatzer

The MILLIONS Online is almost a wrap at partypoker with one event to go.

Yesterday witnessed Christian Rudolph and David Yan win big after the duo agreed to a heads-up deal in the MILLIONS Online #26 $10,300 High Roller for approximately $230K each with Rudolph crowned the champion.

Meanwhile, the MILLIONS Online #28 Mega High Roller boasted an even bigger buy-in of $102,000. Florian Loehnert is in the captain's seat with more than half the chips in play with six players remaining.

Read on to learn more about the biggest recent events in the MILLIONS Online at partypoker.

Head to the NEW partypoker Hub Want to stay up-to-date on all the latest partypoker news right here on PokerNews? Why not try out the new partypoker Hub! Find Out More

Christian Rudolph Win the MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller ($230,258)

The MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller was a two-day event that attracted some of the biggest names in poker thanks to the event's huge $1 million guarantee for a $10,300 buy-in.

The guarantee was crushed with 116 entrants coming out in full force on Day 1 to generate a $1,160,000 prize pool.

The first day concluded with the field down to 20 players with all returning players guaranteed at least a min-cash of $20,351. The final table was reached after Ivan Zufic and Daniel Dvoress were eliminated in eighth and ninth place for a $34,490 payout.

The final table was loaded with poker superstars. Justin Bonomo (third - $130,538), Christoph Vogelsang (fourth - $89,742), Day 1 chip leader Juan Pardo Dominguez (fifth - $65,845), partypoker Ambassador Mikita Badziakouski (sixth - $51,284), and Marius Gierse all hit the rail leaving Christian Rudolph and David Yan left facing off for the title.

Rudolph and Yan agreed to a heads-up deal with both players banking approximately $230K for their efforts. Rudolph was crowned the winner to add another amazing achievement to his already impressive poker resume.

partypoker Ambassador Mikita Badziakouski finished in sixth place.

MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller Final Table Results

Place Player Country Prize 1 Christian Rudolph Austria $230,258* 2 David Yan New Zealand $229,664* 3 Justin Bonomo Canada $130,538 4 Christoph Vogelsang United Kingdom $89,472 5 Juan Pardo Dominguez United Kingdom $65,845 6 Mikita Badziakouski Slovenia $51,284 7 Marius Gierse Austria $41,484

*Reflects heads-up deal.*

Florian Loehnert Commands Massive Lead with Six Remaining in MILLIONS Online #28 Mega High Roller

The MILLIONS Online #28 Mega High Roller boasted a massive $102,000 buy-in along with a $3 million guarantee. The final prize pool increased to $3.5 million with 35 entrants getting into the action during yesterday's Day 1.

After slightly more than 7 1/2 hours of play on Day 1, the field was trimmed down to just six hopefuls, each guaranteed a payout of $222,785 with their eyes on the huge $1,310,715 top prize.

Tonight's final table will kick off at 7:15 p.m. GMT (2:15 EST) with Florian Loehnert well in command with a huge stack of 18,264,000 in chips for more than half the chips in play.

Closest behind Loehnert but still miles away are Michael Addamo (6,012,230), Artur Martirosian (4,711,496), and Jake Schindler (2,327,000).

Meanwhile, two players that were at the final table in the MILLIONS Online High Roller yesterday will be at another big final table today. partypoker Ambassador Mikita Badziakouski, who finished sixth in the High Roller will enter this final table with a fifth-place chip stack of 1,960,918, while Christoph Vogelsang, who finished fourth in the High Roller currently has the shortest stack in the Mega High Roller with 1,723,754 in chips.

Blinds will begin at 50,000/100,000 with a 12,500 ante and increase slowly at every 25 minutes for the first two blind levels before increasing an even slower 30 minutes per level after that. Expect tons of exciting action with the average stack of the six final table players still pretty high at 58 big blinds per player.

MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller Final Table Chip Counts

Place Player Country Chips Big Blinds 1 Florian Loehnert Austria 18,264,200 183 2 Michael Addamo United Kingdom 6,012,230 60 3 Artur Martirosian Russia 4,711,496 47 4 Jacob Carl Schindler Mexico 2,327,402 23 5 Mikita Badziakouski Slovenia 1,960,918 20 6 Christoph Vogelsang Austria 1,723,754 17 Total 35,000,000 350 Average 5,833,333 58

MILLIONS Online #26 High Roller Final Table Payouts

Place Prize 1 $1,310,715 2 $805,000 3 $525,000 4 $364,000 5 $269,500 6 $222,785

Download parytpoker via PokerNews

The MILLIONS Online is just one of many amazing poker festivals hosted at partypoker throughout the year with the WPT500 and Irish Open up next.

Need an account?

Simply, download partypoker via PokerNews to snag yourself an amazing welcome package.

Deposit $10 to receive $10 in tickets over the course of a week:

Day 1: 2x $1 SPINS tickets + 1x $3.30 MTT ticket

Day 2: 4x $0.25 SPINS tickets

Day 4: 1x $3.30 MTT ticket

Day 6: 4x $0.25 SPINS tickets

Deposit $20 and receive $30 worth of tickets over the course of a week:

Day 1: 1x $5 SPINS ticket + 1x $3.30 MTT ticket

Day 2: 2x $1 SPINS ticket + 1x $5.50 MTT ticket

Day 4: 1x $5.50 MTT ticket

Day 6: 2x $3 SPINS tickets + 1x$3.30 MTT ticket
This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, yellow, emerging from the surface of cells, pink, cultured in the lab. Also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus causes COVID-19. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S. On Thursday, March 5, 2020, Tennessee's Department of Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey confirmed the state's first case of the new coronavirus. (NIAID-RML via AP)
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 07:46:19|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Members of a branch of the Chinese medical mission provide first aid to a resident injured in an explosion in Bata, Equatorial Guinea, March 7, 2021. Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea Francisco Pascual Obama Asue on Monday praised the Chinese medical mission's contribution to saving victims in the blasts in the country's largest city of Bata. Explosive warehouses at the Nkoantoma military camp in Bata caught fire following a nearby farm fire, causing explosions on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement from the presidency of Equatorial Guinea published on Sunday evening. (31st Chinese Medical Mission to Equatorial Guinea/Handout via Xinhua)

YAOUNDE, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea Francisco Pascual Obama Asue on Monday praised the Chinese medical mission's contribution to saving victims in the blasts in the country's largest city of Bata.

In a telephone conversation with Chinese medical mission on Monday, the prime minister thanked Chinese doctors who provided care for those injured in the explosions and donated urgently needed medical supplies.

Explosive warehouses at the Nkoantoma military camp in Bata caught fire following a nearby farm fire, causing explosions on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement from the presidency of Equatorial Guinea published on Sunday evening.

The latest casualty count showed 98 people were killed and 615 others injured, of which 299 remain under medical care, Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue said on Monday.

The Chinese medical mission, which has a branch in Bata, has been in Equatorial Guinea for 50 years. Enditem
ADVERTISEMENT

The Anambra Oxygen Production Plant has achieved its target production of 200 cylinders per day, the Managing Director, Onyekachukwu Ibezim, said on Tuesday in Awka, Anambra State.

Mr Ibezim told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the establishment of the plant two years ago was crucial to the fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

We are producing real time and supplying to government hospitals freely, based on the mandate of Governor Willie Obiano.

The Teaching Hospital at Amaku is a major beneficiary as we have a major COVID-19 Isolation Centre there.

Also, getting free supply of oxygen is the Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching Hospital, Nnewi. The spillover of production goes to private hospitals, Mr Ibezim said.

Mr Ibezim said the average medical oxygen consumption for a critical COVID-19 patient was very high, ranging from six cylinders to 10 per day in some patients.

This puts so much pressure on our production, cumulatively, he said.

There are other patients who require oxygen, apart from those that are down with the viral infection.

Mr Ibezim said his agency planned to increase production beyond the target figure of 200 cylinders per day to meet up with population growth and to address other health issues like Lassa fever.

He said there was need for the replication of oxygen plants in other senatorial districts of the state to reduce the burden on the plant currently in operation.

We also have a proposal to pipe oxygen from the production plant to designated beds and the emergency centre at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu Teaching Hospital.

This means that we wont move cylinders around anymore. A hospital can also get big cylinders, place them at designated places and pipe oxygen to beds.

That way, we will not have the challenge of loading and offloading cylinders and also avoid possible damages and explosions that may occur with weak cylinders.

These are doable and we hope to get there, Mr Ibezim said.

(NAN)
Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release

SubCategory Select Sub-Category
Dublin, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Europe Online Food Delivery Market & User, Country, Company Analysis & Forecast" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



Europe Online Food Delivery Market is anticipated to be valued US$ 20.27 Billion by 2026, growing with a 5.83% CAGR from 2020 to 2026.

Online food ordering market in Europe has grown multiple folds in the last five years. Europe online food delivery facility is growing year on year due to the escalating utility of smartphone phone users and the internet penetration rate; it contributes to the enormous growth of this market. Besides, COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way to order online food in Europe. As people are advised to remain at home and hotels are closed, so online food ordering has shown tremendous growth in this period.



Due to this unprecedented growth, Europe online food industry is attracting a lot of investors. European venture capitalists maintained a healthy appetite for online food delivery sector: over 1.6 Billion have been invested in food logistics and delivery sector in the year 2019. In the year 2020 Europe Online Food Delivery Market was US$ 13.8 Billion. Online food delivery expands choice and availability, allowing consumers to order from various food delivery platforms and restaurants with a single click on their mobile phone.

The expansion of the overall online food delivery business that allows customers to order food from restaurants plays a fundamental role in deriving market growth. The development of food delivery aggregators' like Grubhub, Uber Eats and Doordash in the Europe market has further contributed to the market growth.

In 2020, Uber Eat, Glovo, delivery Club, Just Eat and Deliveroo are the top five highest installed food delivery apps across Europe.

In Europe, Online Food Deliveries are operated with two Business Models: New Delivery Players & Aggregators

New Delivery Players platform is the new entrant in which they build their logistic networks providing delivery for restaurants that don't have their drivers.

In contrast, the aggregators, which are part of the traditional-delivery category, take orders from customers and route them to restaurants, which handle the delivery themselves.

Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction



2. Research & Methodology



3. Executive Summary



4. Market Dynamics

4.1 Growth Drivers

4.2 Challenges



5. Europe Online Food Delivery Market



6. Share Analysis

6.1 Market Share by Country

6.2 Market Share by Platform Type

6.3 User share by Platform Type



7. Europe Online Food Delivery Market

7.1 Platform to Consumer Delivery

7.2 Restaurant to Consumer Delivery



8. Europe Online Food Delivery User

8.1 Platform to Consumer Delivery

8.2 Restaurant to Consumer Delivery



9. Country Analysis

9.1 Germany

9.1.1 Market

9.1.1.1 Platform to consumer delivery

9.1.1.2 Restaurant to consumer delivery

9.1.2 User

9.1.2.1 Platform to consumer delivery

9.1.2.2 Restaurant to consumer delivery

9.1.3 Penetration Rate

9.1.3.1 Platform to consumer delivery

9.1.3.2 Restaurant to consumer delivery

9.1.4 Share Analysis

9.1.4.1 Key Players Share, 2018

9.1.4.2 User Share by Age Group, 2019

9.1.4.3 User Share by Gender, 2019

9.1.4.4 User Share by Income Group, 2019

9.2 United Kingdom

9.3 France

9.4 Italy

9.5 Russia



10. Company Analysis

10.1 Takeaway

10.1.1 Overview

10.1.2 Recent Developments

10.1.3 Revenue Analysis

10.2 Dominos

10.3 Deliveroo

10.4 Just Eat

10.5 Uber Eats



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ap01gq
Georgian Dream party chairperson Mamuka Mdinaradze said on Monday he expected talks between the government and the opposition to continue, despite the impact of the release of a recording allegedly involving violations by state officials on Saturday.

Speaking to local press, Mdinaradze said the presence of the President of the European Council Charles Michel - in Tbilisi for facilitating the dialogue between the two sides - meant an agreement would be made through compromise.

"We still believe we will be able to reach a compromise, because when two sides enter talks they have to present offers for compromise. This concerns not only the opposition but us too," he stressed.

The head of the ruling party also said having a high-profile figure like Michel involved was "a guarantee" of continued talks, and dismissed a potential of the discussions being broken off due to the Saturday leak.

"No matter how much some might try to use recordings obtained by the [Department of Constitutional Security under the United National Movement government] in 2010-2011 and subsequently edited <...> to use it as grounds to exit the talks, we will return to the discussion table over the next few days," Agenda.ge cited Mdinaradze as saying.

A continuation of talks between the government on one side and the opposition comprised of a number of parties on the other was under threat on Saturday, when TV Pirveli aired an alleged recording between Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Bera Ivanishvili - the son of the former ruling Georgian Dream party chair Bidzina Ivanishvili.

While the authenticity of the tape was not confirmed, it allegedly involved discussion of violence against minors who had attacked Bera Ivanishvili on Facebook. The former PM's son is allegedly telling Garibashvili about means used to bully and threaten the minors, with alleged encouragement for the action by Garibashvili also featuring on the tape.

Talks between the government and the opposition have been deadlocked for months and complicated by developments such as arrest of opposition leader Nika Melia. The parties demand the government release Melia and co-founder of the opposition-minded Mtavari Arkhi TV channel Giorgi Rurua, and hold snap parliamentary elections.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Tuesday imposed a penalty of Rs 90 lakh on Anugrah Stock & Broking for allegedly misusing Rs 119 crore worth of clients funds. This comes on the back of a joint investigation carried out by Sebi, BSE, NSE, and the Central Depository Services between April 2017 and September 2018.

It is established that the noticee (Anugrah) failed to segregate clients funds inter-se and between clients funds and its own funds, mis-utilised the funds of clients, pledged the securities of clients other than the respective client obligation, funding the clients by allowing exposure beyond the prescribed timeframe as specified in the regulations, failed to settle client accounts etc. Hence, the lapses/violations committed by the noticee deserves and attracts penalty as per law, the market regulator said in its order.

Investigations also revealed that the brokerage had used client securities for pledging. Between 2017 and 2018, Anugrah used securities worth several crores belonging to hundreds of clients.





ALSO READ: Investors dump $2 bn worth of India stock, bond funds after Union Budget

observed that the brokerage had given loans and advances to its group companies and associates and was not correctly reporting margin collection to the exchanges. It found lapses in the client registration process, where Anugrah had not uploaded correct and complete details.

In November 2020, had suspended Anugrah pending completion of the enquiry proceedings.



The regulator had also ordered its directors not to dispose of any assets till the completion of proceedings. In August 2020, had disabled the brokerages trading terminal.

In January, the (EOW) had taken Anugrahs director Paresh Kariya into police custody on allegations of cheating and siphoning off investor funds.

This case and some others, where brokers were seen misusing client funds, prompted to tighten norms for pledging of investor securities last year.

Under the earlier system, several brokers obtained a power of attorney (POA) from their clients to access their account as part of the account opening form. The POA allowed brokers to move client securities from their dematerialised (demat) account to a collateral account, which could be accessed by both the broker and the client.

Sebi has now done away with the system to prevent brokers from having direct access to client securities. The new system allows clients to pledge and re-pledge their holdings using an interface created by the depositories.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 11:06:22|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

SANTIAGO, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The Chilean government on Monday received a fifth shipment of CoronaVac vaccine from Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac.

Chilean Minister of Health Enrique Paris and other officials were at the airport in Santiago to receive the shipment.

"The population can be sure of the supply and arrival of vaccines," Paris said, highlighting the progress the country has made in its vaccination process.

The Sinovac vaccine was approved for emergency use on Jan. 20 by the Public Health Institute of Chile.

China-developed vaccines have been the basis of the country's mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19, which kicked off on Feb. 3, with the goal of immunizing 5 million people in high-risk groups in the first three months of the year, followed by another 15 million people by midyear.

To date, the South American country has vaccinated 4,176,094 people, with more than half a million having received their second doses.

On Monday, the country reported that 860,533 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 21,163 people have died from the disease. Enditem
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
AN ESTIMATED 1.8m of cannabis has been seized by Customs & Excise officials and Gardai at Cork Port.

It marks the latest major success in the battle against drug smuggling networks in Ireland with significant previous seizures in both Cork and Dublin.

The seizure - which was made at Ringaskiddy - followed an intelligence-focused operation targeting a van which had just arrived from France on board a ferry.

Gardai later arrested a man in his 20s under drugs legislation.

The man, who is understood to be an East European national, has been taken to Togher Garda Station where he can be detained for an initial period of 24 hours.

The seizure followed a van leaving the Brittany Ferries vessel minutes after it had docked following an overnight crossing from France.

Read More

It is understood the vehicle was registered in Poland and was directed into a holding area for examination by Revenue Commissioner officials.

On opening the van, almost 40 packages were discovered carefully hidden within side panels of the vehicle.

Officials were alerted to the side panels on the vehicle by a sniffer dog named Marley.

The packages were seized and are believed to contain herbal cannabis.

All will be removed for expert forensic analysis but the drugs are believed to have a street value of around 1.7m.

The driver was the sole occupant of the vehicle which boarded the ferry in Roscoff.

Last month, an estimated 12m in cocaine was seized in Cork after it arrived at the container terminal via freight ship from South America.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalian said on Tuesday that the government decided to cut short Clark-Hattinghs tenure of because of shortcomings in the execution of her mandate and her uncooperative work style. She did not go into details.

The UN Resident Coordinator [in Armenia] and UNICEF representatives have been notified about the decision, Naghdalian told RFE/RLs Armenian Service.

A spokeswoman for the UNICEF office in Yerevan, Zara Sargsian, denied media reports that Clark-Hattingh has hastily left Armenia. Sargsian said she remains in the country and will continue to perform her duties until the appointment of her replacement.

According to Sargsian, UNICEF has already named a new acting head of its Yerevan office and is now awaiting approval by the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

The UNICEF official did not comment on reasons for the ministrys dissatisfaction with Clark-Hattingh. We have always known her as a highly competent and experienced specialist committed to her work, she told RFE/RLs Armenian Service.

The UNICEF headquarters in New York did not issue any statements on the extraordinary development.

Clark-Hattingh took over UNICEFs Yerevan office in July 2020. She was UNICEFs representative in Malaysia from 2016-2020.

Before joining the UN agency over two decades ago, Clark-Hattingh had worked at UK Aid Direct, a British government agency supporting non-governmental organizations around the world.

Clark-Hattingh handed her credentials to Armenias Deputy Foreign Minister Artak Apitonian as recently as on August 24. The Foreign Ministry reported at the time that she and Apitonian discussed, among other things, ways of improving the plight of Armenian children living in areas bordering Azerbaijan.
Myanmar migrants who were to be deported from Malaysia are seen inside an immigration truck, in Lumut, Malaysia, Feb. 23, 2021.

A Malaysian court on Tuesday allowed human rights groups to challenge the deportation of 1,200 Myanmar nationals to their strife-torn country, Amnesty International said, two weeks after Putrajaya deported a majority of them despite a court order that stayed their expulsion.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court also extended a stay on the deportation of the 114 Myanmar nationals who werent sent back last month until the completion of the hearings, the international rights watchdog group and Asylum Access Malaysia, a local refugee rights organization, said.

Amnesty International Malaysia and Asylum Access Malaysia applaud the decision by the Kuala Lumpur High Court today to grant leave to proceed with the two organizations application for judicial review of the Malaysian governments decision to deport 1,200 Myanmar nationals in February, the two groups said in a joint statement.

We welcome the decision to stay the deportation of the 114 Myanmar nationals, who are no longer at risk of deportation until the judicial review is completed.

The High Court scheduled the next hearing for March 23.

Officials with the Immigration Department did not immediately respond to requests from BenarNews for comment.

On Feb. 23, the groups had petitioned the High Court together to stop the expulsion of 1,200 Myanmar nationals that the immigration chief had earlier announced.

There were at least three refugees registered with United Nations refugee agency among those being sent back, the rights groups said at the time.

Their deportation would endanger people and legitimize ongoing human rights violations by the Myanmar military that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi, the countrys civilian leader, in a coup on Feb. 1, the groups said.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, had said that at least six people registered with it were among those being deported. The agency had also said that Malaysia had denied it access to immigration detention centers since August 2019.

Malaysias immigration chief had issued assurances that no UNHCR cardholders or ethnic Rohingya were among the 1,200 people slated for deportation.

A day after the petition was filed, the High Court halted the deportation. But Malaysia ignored the courts stay. On the same day, the government sent back 1,086 of the 1,200 Burmese aboard Myanmar navy ships.

Immigration officials said the Myanmar nationals who were deported went voluntarily.

At the time, Amnesty and the Malaysian Bar had said that the immigration department may be in contempt of court for the deportation. As of Tuesday, there was no word on whether contempt proceedings had been initiated against the department.

The United States and the European Union had expressed concern over Malaysia deporting the Myanmar nationals.

The military in Myanmar has a long-documented history of human rights abuses against members of religious and ethnic minority groups, Ned Price, the U.S. State Department spokesman, had said.

At least 54 people  mostly protesters  have been killed in clashes with the military and police in Myanmar since last months coup.

Role of NGOs and civil society organizations

On Tuesday, the Kuala Lumpur High Court rejected the government lawyers argument that rights groups and NGOs could not challenge government decisions, the lawyer for Amnesty and Asylum Access Malaysia said in a statement.

Attorneys representing the government also did not immediately respond to inquiries from BenarNews.

Todays judgment also affirms the role of NGOs and civil society organizations in challenging government decisions in court on matters of public interest, Katrina Jorene Maliamauv, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia, said in the joint statement.

No longer can the government dismiss judicial review applications by NGOs as trivial or misconceived, as the court has acknowledged the role NGOs play in todays society in helping ensure accountability and transparency.

As of the end of 2020, some 178,610 refugees and asylum-seekers were registered with UNHCR in Malaysia, and most had come from conflict-ridden areas in Myanmar or fled persecution there, according to the agency.

Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but, according to UNHCR, the non-refoulement principle applies to the country as part of customary international law, which is binding on all states.

Using indirect means to push people back to face grave human rights violations is essentially constructive refoulement, Amnesty said last month.
(Natural News) A news anchor for MSNBC has entertained the idea of punishing states for lifting their Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) mask mandates.

On Thursday, Mar. 4, MSNBC Live host Stephanie Ruhle asked former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Tom Frieden if states like Texas and Mississippi should be punished for reopening their economies and giving people the freedom to choose whether or not to wear a face mask.

Tom  when states like Texas and Mississippi  that are in the bottom ten as far as vaccinations go  when they go against CDC guidance and open up, should they face consequences? asked Ruhle. For example, should they get access to, lets say, emergency federal help if they end up with a spike in cases or hospitalizations down the road?

Ruhle referred to Frieden as someone who is definitely not a Neanderthal thinker,' a reference to President Joe Bidens comment that rolling back mask mandates was Neanderthal thinking.

Frieden answered by saying the thinking behind stopping statewide mask mandates was an insult to Neanderthals.

We know that mask mandates work and we know that variants [of the coronavirus] are a very real risk, said Frieden. We have explosive spread in Brazil, in a community that already had explosive spread once. So, to suggest that its not like something thats going to come through and be gone, its possible that it comes back.

Frieden immediately pivoted from this supposedly bad news of very high levels of spread by talking about the United States coronavirus vaccine rollout.

On the other hand, we do really have a lot of good news, and bottom line: Hang in there. Vaccines are becoming more available, vaccines are working. And were seeing dramatic decreases in deaths, in nursing homes and elsewhere. So  were going to get to a new normal, but masks are going [to be] part of our lives for a while. Its a small thing to do that could save someones life. Even with the vaccines, [the coronavirus] remains a potentially deadly disease.

More states and local governments reopening economies and rescinding mask mandates

In recent weeks, many states and cities have announced either the easing coronavirus-related restrictions or waiving their mask mandates, although the details of each announcement have varied.

Texas, Mississippi, Michigan and Louisiana, along with the Democrat-leaning cities of San Francisco and Chicago, all made announcements opening up their economies on Tuesday, March 2.

Meanwhile, Texas, North Dakota, Montana, Mississippi and Iowa have waived their mask mandates. These states join South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, which have either not had statewide mask mandates or have refused to enforce them.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued an executive order that ended every single coronavirus-related restriction on economic activity. He announced that Texas is open 100 percent, and said that states should stop telling people and businesses how they are supposed to operate.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, lifted almost every single COVID-19 restriction on businesses. The exceptions are one that caps on the number of people that are allowed to be in indoor arenas to 50 percent of the venues capacity, as well as certain restrictions for schools. He also rescinded state-wide and county-specific mask mandates.

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte lifted the statewide mask mandate back in early February. Montanas mask order was put in place by Gianfortes predecessor, the Republican former Gov. Steve Bullock.

In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds lifted the states restrictions back in early February as well. This allowed businesses to have as many occupants as they want, provided that social distancing guidelines are followed to the best of their abilities. While some mask-related restrictions remain in place, state residents are no longer required to wear face coverings in public.

San Francisco and Chicago have similarly relaxed their economic restrictions. In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed reopened restaurants and bars, gyms, museums and movie theaters at limited capacity. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot allowed sports, performance and hospitality venues to increase capacity up to 50 percent, up from the previous 40 percent.

Learn more about the recent lifting of economic restrictions and mask mandates across the United States by reading the latest articles at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

NewsBusters.org

Edition.CNN.com

BusinessInsider.com
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low 68F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low 68F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
There is no constitutional crisis. Dont even bother mentioning the R-word.

Looking regally down from above the terracotta fireplace, Her Majesty, like her great-great-grandmother, would likely not have been amused. Actually, the word Daniel Lahood uses is disappointed.

Young monarchist Daniel Lahood, 20, at his home in Ashbury. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Australians are looking to the historic Oprah Winfrey interview of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan to interpret what it means for the nations future. Monarchists believe the country will have even more respect for the Queen, while republicans argue it proves the institution does not fit with modern Australia.

Mr Lahood, 20, is Inner West Councils 2020 Young Citizen of the Year. He is a second year UTS law student and is a passionate advocate for social justice. He is also an ambassador for Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy.
Advertisement

Phil Sardelis, the owner of Sardi's Catering, invited DailyMail.com into his kitchen at the headquarters in College Park, Maryland

The owner of the Maryland catering company that supplies meals to the National Guard protecting the US Capitol says he has nothing to hide after dozens of service members reportedly became sick from eating 'undercooked' food.

Phil Sardelis, the owner of Sardi's Catering invited DailyMail.com into his kitchen at the corporate headquarters in College Park to see how meals are prepared and precautions taken.

The visit comes after at least 50 soldiers reportedly became ill last week, with some even being hospitalized after consuming tainted food provided by the catering service.

'I'm not going to make any excuses, we made some mistakes and it's not acceptable,' Sardelis told DailyMail.com.

Sardelis said he has served more than 1.5million meals to soldiers and admitted approximately 100 of them were undercooked.

'I strive for perfection and for me one bad meal is unacceptable. I own it, it was our fault and we can only make sure it won't happen again.'

Sardelis' kitchen runs 24 hours a day seven days a week, serving 5,000 meals three times a day to soldiers, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

At one point he was putting out 60,000 meals a day when there were more soldiers deployed at the Capitol.

Food safety first: DailyMail.com observed food service workers packaging meals for the service members following last week's incident

A woman is seen using a food thermometer to ensure the temperature of the chicken had reached the appropriate temperature for consumption

Employees at the catering service checked the doneness of the meat by making sure it was above 140 degrees Fahrenheit

It comes after Sardi's came under fire last week for allegedly serving undercooked meat to members of the Michigan National Guard protecting the US Capitol. Members complained that they have been forced to eat raw chicken (pictured) moldy bread and meals containing metal shavings during their deployment

'When reports came back to us in mid-February there were some undercooked meals and metal shavings in the food, we got together with the National Guard and put further quality controls in place,' Sardelis said. 'Needless to say I wasn't happy about hearing this news.'

While Sardelis admits some meals may have been undercooked, he disputes the numbers that have been reported in the press.

'We serve dark meat, which is more flavorful and doesn't get overcooked as easily as white meat. When you cook dark meat it retains a greater percentage of myoglobin which converts to an iron form when cooked. This is where the pink color appears, it looks undercooked but actually is cooked.'

To illustrate this, Sardelis supplied a video of stewed meat that was taken out of a boiling pot, with a food thermometer that showed 170 degree temperature. The piece of meat was then pulled apart and it clearly showed some of the meat was pink, even though it was fully cooked.

Representatives of the National Guard come out to his kitchen every day and inspect and take the temperature of the cooked food to make sure it's up to standard.

'We randomly check the temperature of about 20 per cent of the food as it's being put into individual containers, just to make sure it's above 140 degrees.

Sardelis admitted that while some of the food was undercooked, it was only a fraction of the thousands of meals they serve daily

Pictured is a National Guardsman inspecting food preparation at this Sardi's location in College Park, Maryland

Sardelis said the cooked meals are put into a box and labeled with the time and temperature, with a four-hour disposal time

'The "metal shavings" that have been reported to be found in the chicken, may have come from a scouring pad, so we've removed them from our cooking area.'

But Sardelis said he's dumbfounded on how the metal pieces ended up on some of the chicken since they are cooked on a rotating spit.

While at the catering company, DailyMail.com observed employees taking the temperature of food at various stages of the packaging process, to make sure it's above 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

All of his employees wore masks and plastic disposable gloves when handling or near the food.

Sardelis said the cooked meals are put into a box and labeled with the time and temperature of the food with a four-hour disposal time.

The meals are then loaded onto a truck for the 20 miles journey to the DC Armory, where it's distributed to various National Guard troops.

Sardelis said if the food isn't consumed or refrigerated within a four-hour time frame that is written on the box, it's to be discarded.

'After it's dropped off at the DC Armory the food is out of our control,' added Sardelis.

The meals are then loaded onto a truck for the 20 miles journey to the DC Armory, where it's distributed to various National Guard troops

Some of the dishes the troops can choose from include: Beef Bourguignon, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken cacciatore, salmon, cheeseburgers, penne rose, and chicken burrito bowls

Pictured above is a prepared salmon dish that was cooked to 166.8F degrees

Pictured above is the penne rosa with a side of vegetables and a dinner roll, prepared by Sardi's

All Sardi's employees wore masks and plastic disposable gloves when handling or near the food

'We are proud of the product we've supplied to our soldiers. We change our menu every day and offer vegan and vegetarian dishes.'

Some of the dishes the troops can choose from include: Beef Bourguignon, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken cacciatore, salmon rose, cheeseburgers, penne rosa, and chicken burrito bowls.

'We've put out over a million meals to the soldiers. I think we've done a good job and supplied a good product. We are constantly trying to improve, there is always room for improvement.'

Sardelis who has an $11.4million dollar food contract with the National Guard that expires on March 15 says he would like to continue providing meals to the soldiers.

But it won't happen if Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan and the 14 members of the Michigan House delegation have anything to say about it.

The lawmakers are calling for the service to terminate the contract with the company providing food to Michigan National Guard members in Washington D.C. and provide soldiers with a per diem instead.

A source told DailyMail.com that this per diem would amount to at least $76 per day, per soldier.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer released a statement saying Michigan National Guard members on deployment at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. will come home after March 12 when the current mission is scheduled to end

Lawmakers are calling for the National Guard to terminate its contract with the Sardi's to Michigan National Guard members in Washington D.C. and provide soldiers with a per diem instead, after members became sick

Around 5,000 troops continue to guard the Capitol amid fears of a fresh siege as sources say there is intel of a militia plot to breach the Capitol on March 4

Last week it was reported that members of the Michigan National Guard complained they have been forced to eat raw chicken, moldy bread and meals containing metal shavings while they remain on guard in Washington DC protecting the US Capitol from attack.

They shared photos of pink chicken, uncooked beef and moldy food with lawmakers and online while one staff sergeant revealed dozens of meals had to be thrown out when metal shavings were found inside dishes.

But media relations officer with the National Guard Bureau of Public Affairs, Major Matt Murphy, and USAF told this DailyMail.com,

'Of the more than 1.2million meals served, approximately 50 soldiers have been treated for gastrointestinal complaints. Six of them were treated as outpatients at military treatment facilities; others were handled at aid station set up as part of the Task Force.

'In the event a Soldier or Airman feels they've received a meal where they deem something is wrong, it is discarded and they get a replacement. If they still have concerns, they have MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) available.

Sardelis who has an $11.4million dollar food contract with the National Guard that expires on March 15 says he would like to continue providing meals to the soldiers

Pictured: Moldy bread. Soldiers last week blew the whistle on the sub-par food by sharing photos of pink chicken, uncooked beef and moldy food with lawmakers and online

Pictured: Metal shavings. One staff sergeant revealed dozens of meals had to be thrown out when metal shavings were found inside dishes. Sardelis said the metal shavings are believed to have come from a scouring pad

'The National Guard Bureau is continuing with the current food service contract and the vendor.'

Major Murphy also added that the complaints about the food came from guardsmen from two states including Michigan, but there have been no cases of foodborne illness reported, meaning there has been no proof that the undercooked food caused any issues with the soldiers.

The Michigan National Guard has approximately 1,000 out of the more than 5,000 soldiers who have been deployed to Washington, DC.

Last Thursday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer released a statement saying Michigan National Guard members on deployment at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. will come home after March 12 when the current mission is scheduled to end.

Sardelis added that he received another report on Sunday that a member of the Michigan National Guard found a metal shaving on his donut that was in his meal for breakfast. He was later told it was a piece of aluminum foil.

He provided DailyMail.com with pictures on how he receives the donuts from a third party supplier. He doesn't know how a piece of 'metal' ended up on the outside of a donut.

Sardelis said he doesn't know what to say about the latest accusation.

'I have nothing hide, we provide a quality product,' said Sardelis.
Wipro announced that Appirio, a Wipro company, is helping National Grid transform its business with an omnichannel customer experience by unifying its engagement with 68 million customers across two continents.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) has reportedly launched a block deal today, 8 March 2021 to sell up to 4% of its treasury shares worth Rs 3,700 crore. BPCL has set a floor price of Rs 435 per share for the proposed transaction.

Biocon said the board of Biocon Biologics (BBL) has approved allotment of 1,97,99,305 equity shares at an issue price of Rs. 280.31 per share to Beta Oryx, a wholly owned subsidiary of ADQ (Investor). The subscription money aggregating to about Rs 555 crore have been received by BBL from the investor.

JSW Energy said Business Transfer Agreement has been signed with JSW Cement for the sale of an 18 MW thermal power plant at Salboni to JSW Cement Limited on a going concern basis.

Inox Wind has signed a binding agreement with Integrum Energy Infrastructure Private Limited to supply, erect and commission 92 MW of wind power projects comprising of 2 MW (113 metre rotor diameter turbine combined with 92 metre hub height) turbines with a combination of total turnkey and limited scope supply.

Lemon Tree Hotels has signed a License Agreement for an 80 room upcoming hotel at Biratnagar in Nepal under the brand 'Lemon Tree Premier'. The hotel is expected to be operational by January 2023, and this will be the third hotel of the company in Nepal, including Kathmandu and Nagarkot.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Republican lawmakers in New York introduced a resolution Monday to begin impeachment proceedings against Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo  which hasn't been done in New York in over 100 years.

"There's been one bombshell after another," Will Barclay, the Republican leader of the state Assembly, told reporters at the state Capitol in Albany, where he announced the impeachment resolution.

Cuomo has been besieged by bipartisan calls to either resign or be impeached over dual scandals that have rocked his administration in recent weeks: allegations that his administration intentionally undercounted Covid-19 nursing home deaths and allegations from five women that he sexually harassed them. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing with the nursing home numbers, and he has denied having harassed women while apologizing for how his behavior might have made some of them feel.

"The real problem now is the governor's lost so much credibility and trust that we don't feel like he can go forward and govern," Barclay said. "So we want to move ahead, do this impeachment in the Assembly."

The impeachment resolution isn't likely to proceed at the moment. Democrats control 106 of the Assembly's 150 seats, and only a handful of members have said they would vote to impeach.

If Cuomo is impeached, however, there's "very little precedent to rely on," said Peter Galie, a professor emeritus of political science at Canisius College in Buffalo.

Only one New York governor has ever been impeached  William Sulzer, who was impeached for campaign finance violations and removed from office in October 1913 after a three-week trial. Historians have said he was targeted for having crossed Tammany Hall, the corrupt political organization that had once backed him.

"During his tenure, his efforts to remove Tammany Hall influences in state government resulted in an investigation that discovered fraud in his own campaign contributions," the National Governors Association website said.

Story continues

Sulzer said his impeachment was a "political lynching" and "the culmination of a deep-laid political conspiracy to oust me from office."

As for the impeachment process itself, Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, said, "it's a lot like but not the same as in the federal system."

Impeachment begins in the Assembly and "requires a majority of the members of the Assembly" to vote to charge the governor.

Unlike the federal Constitution, New York's Constitution makes "no mention of high crimes and misdemeanors," Galie said. In terms of possible charges, "there's nothing there at all," leaving the way forward entirely up to the Assembly, he said.

If the Assembly votes to charge the governor, a trial is held before the state Senate. Unlike in the federal system, the senators aren't the only judges/jurors. Judges from the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, hear the case, as well. That could be a boon for Cuomo, who appointed all seven of the judges.

Gillers said the judges probably were added to eliminate appeals, because the "state high court judges would already have participated in the impeachment trial."

A two-thirds vote is required for conviction, and the penalty is removal from office. The Senate and the judges could also vote to ban the governor from holding any other state office  a penalty that wasn't used against Sulzer. He was elected to the Assembly just weeks after he was impeached.

A spokesman for Cuomo responded to the impeachment threats Monday by saying Cuomo is focused on his work.

"There's a job to be done, and New Yorkers elected the governor to do it, which is why he has been focused on getting as many shots in arms as possible, making sure New York is getting its fair share in Washington's Covid relief package and working on a state budget that is due in three weeks," said the spokesman, Rich Azzopardi.

Twenty Democratic female legislators issued a statement Monday calling for state Attorney General Letitia James to be given time to complete her investigation of the sexual harassment allegations, saying, "Our democracy demands that we be diligent and expeditious in our search for truth and justice."

James announced later Monday that her office had hired Joon Kim, a former acting U.S attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Anne L. Clark, an employment discrimination lawyer, to lead an independent investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment.

"These are serious allegations that demand a rigorous and impartial investigation. We will act judiciously and follow the facts wherever they lead," Kim said in a statement.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

The Kingdom of Bahrain yesterday participated in the celebrations of International Womens Day, which falls on March 8 annually.

This year focuses on the theme Women in the Leadership Ranks: Achieving a Future of Equality in the World of COVID-19, in line with the main theme of the 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women: Women In Public Life, and Equal Participation in Decision-making. Thanks to the wise approach of His Majesty the King and the initiatives of the Supreme Council for Women in partnership with the legislative, executive and judicial authorities, private sector institutions and civil society, Bahrain was able to provide a role model in supporting the advancement of women and the exercise of their political, economic and societal rights.

On this global occasion, Bahrain is proud of the achievements of Bahraini women and their long history in the fields of education, health, work and civil society, and their journey full of giving in achieving family and societal stability.

The esteemed government has devoted concrete attention to providing the necessary environment for the participation of women in the development process, based on the directives of His Majesty and the basic foundations contained in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bahrain, which affirmed the achievement of equality and non-discrimination between men and women.  Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani What Bahraini women have achieved comes as a result of HRH Princess Sabeekas support for Bahraini women, as they are now a major partner in the national work process.

Bahraini women have proven their ability and competence to hold the highest positions.  MP Bassem Al Maliki What Bahraini women received today is the support and empowerment of His Majesty the King, such as a new and qualitative historical start that enable them to achieve real gains.

It reflects the successful efforts of the Kingdom of Bahrain in various development sectors in which women have an abundant share of participation in nation-building.  MP Abdul Razzaq Hattab The support accorded by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to Bahraini women have given them a chance to realise their ambitions in building the kingdoms modern history.

The well-recognised contributions of Bahraini women in various fields have made them a model to emulate throughout the world.  Chancellor Osama Ahmed Al Asfoor, Shura Council Secretary-General I am very pleased that DANAT has bridged the gender gap.

The diversity of the talented DANAT team is our greatest asset as it brings more perspectives to the table and ensures creative problem-solving.

Therefore, empowering women to succeed is also empowering businesses to succeed by utilising the full spectrum of the teams creative talents.  DANAT Chief Executive Officer Noora Jamsheer What has been achieved by Bahraini women since the establishment of the Council under the leadership of Her Highness is a cause for pride, and a matter that reflects great interest to advance womens cause.  Nouf Abdul Rahman Jamsheer, Chief Executive of the Urban Planning and Development Authority
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
New Delhi, March 9 : With ample space of enhancing trade ties between India and Bangladesh, the two neighbours should move towards seamless transport connectivity including setting up of an efficient regional transit regime and harmonising driver's licensing and visa regimes, says a World Bank report.

Titled "Connecting to Thrive: Challenges and Opportunities of Transport Integration in Eastern South Asia," the report analyses the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) and compares it with international best practices.

The report also discusses regional policy actions the countries can take to strengthen the MVA and proposes priorities for infrastructure investments that will help the countries maximise its benefits.

As per the report, bilateral trade between India and its eastern neighbour accounts for only about 10 per cent of Bangladesh's trade and a mere 1 per cent of India's trade.

"Geographically, Bangladesh's location makes it a strategic gateway to India, Nepal, Bhutan, and other East Asian countries. Bangladesh can also become an economic powerhouse by improving regional trade, transit and logistics networks," said Mercy Tembon, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Tembon noted that while trade between India and Bangladesh has increased substantially over the last decade, it is estimated to be $10 billion below its current potential.

The report noted that weak transport integration makes the border between Bangladesh and India thick. Crossing the India-Bangladesh border at Petrapole-Benapole, the most important border post between the two countries, takes several days.

In contrast, the time to cross borders handling similar volumes of traffic in other regions of the world, including East Africa, is less than six hours, it said.

"The eastern sub-region is poised to become an economic growth pole for South Asia. An important component of this development potential is for countries to invest in connectivity - rail, inland waterways, and roads," said Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director in India.

"This is especially true as the region begins its economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, connectivity offers the promise of long term sustainable and inclusive growth," he said.

At present, Indian trucks are not allowed to transit through Bangladesh. As a result, the northeast of India is particularly isolated with the rest of the country and connected only through the 27-km-wide Siliguri corridor, also called the "chicken's neck".

This leads to long and costly routes. Goods from Agartala, travel 1,600 kilometres through the Siliguri corridor to reach Kolkata Port instead of 450 kilometres through Bangladesh. If the border were open to Indian trucks, goods from Agartala would have to travel just 200 kilometres to the Chattogram Port in Bangladesh, and the transport costs to the port would be 80 percent lower, the report estimates, the World Bank report said.

According to the report, all districts in Bangladesh would benefit from integration, with the eastern districts enjoying larger gains in real income. States bordering Bangladesh such as Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura in the northeast, and West Bengal on the west, and states further away from Bangladesh such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra would also gain huge economic benefits from seamless connectivity.

However, the report said that unleashing the full potential of integration in the region requires strengthening the agreement signed in 2015. Countries need to address a number of challenges such as infrastructure deficits, particularly in designated border posts, harmonization of regulations and customs procedures, the report says.

It recommends rationalising and digitising trade and transport documents and liberalising the selection of trade routes.

For improving regional connectivity, it suggests standardisation of infrastructure design and expansion of the effective capacity of core transport and logistics infrastructure along regional corridors.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

The EU has taken "bumpy" COVID-19 vaccine production into account in its plan to ramp up deliveries in coming months, the head of its supply task force said Tuesday.

Thierry Breton, the bloc's industry commissioner, told a news conference the EU's vaccine strategy should this week be augmented with the addition of Johnson & Johnson's single-shot vaccine.

He said that approval would be "within the next, hopefully, days or hours," and would bring the number of vaccines in use across the 27 member states to four, on top of ones from BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

Breton reaffirmed the commission's goal of greatly increasing deliveries in the coming three months, after a disappointing vaccination rollout started in January that faltered because of a lack of doses.

"I am confident that we will make it. But it's difficult. It's bumpy. And this is why we have this task force," he said.

Breton said the bloc received only 14 million doses in January, 28 million in February and he expected more than 55 million doses in March.

That was well below the commission's original projections, because of shortfalls by all three vaccine makers, particularly AstraZeneca.

But, he said, the bloc was now on target to receive 100 million doses in each of the next three months, and possible further hiccups have been "integrated" into the planning.

"I forced companies to have many, many (contingency) actions in case something could go wrong," Breton said.

He added that reported production shortfalls in the United States by Johnson & Johnson would therefore not impact the EU's outlook.

"Do not believe that because one company has a problem that overall it will jeopardise the whole programme. This is why it's good to have todayor let's say tomorrowhopefully four vaccines to go, and soon five," he said.

EU, US: vaccine powerhouses

The European Union has pre-purchased 2.6 billion doses of various vaccines for this year and nextmore than enough for the entire bloc, whose population is 450 million.

The excess doses are to be given to poorer countries close to the EU, and in Africa.

Breton added that he was in "regular" contact with his US counterpart, Jeffrey Zeints, with whom he spoke on Monday, to ensure EU-US supply chains making the vaccines can operate with minimum friction.

That was especially important because the US has a ban on exporting COVID-19 vaccines and their components, although it and the EU were interdependent in the production of many ingredients.

"Europe and the US are the only continents being able to produce what will be needed, at the level of the planet, to get through this crisis," Breton said.

He explained that the EU and the US would this year each be manufacturing between two billion and three billion doses, making them the powerhouses of a vaccine-led global recovery.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 AFP
Have you been going into the office?

No, they keep pushing back the date well reopen. But I think President Bidens announcement that there should be enough vaccine by the end of May as opposed to the end of July may spur businesses to open a little earlier than they were planning.

I mean, its amazing what adults in the room can do. Trump had 400 million vaccine doses. But he kind of dumped them on states, and said, Thats your problem now.

So its been good that Biden has been working with Gavin on setting up vaccination sites in Oakland and Cal State L.A. Their interests are aligned.

What about everything before that? Do you think that criticisms of Governor Newsom  for abruptly changing directions and confusing messaging around restrictions, for example, or his French Laundry dinner  have been unfair?

The simple answer is I really believe hes done a very good job under very trying circumstances. I cant remember a governor since World War II whos had so many things to deal with at the same time.

The pandemic, keeping people alive, shutting down the economy to do that, wildfires, social unrest  there was no precedent to point to. There have been some midcourse corrections but at the end of the day, people understand we are essentially in a war.

So given that, you just have to look at the numbers. Most states have lost more lives per capita.

The governor is seeing a credible recall effort. I have to ask how you think this moment compares with 2003 and your experience being recalled. Do you think political division is more intense now?
With Governor Greg Abbott's order which ends the statewide mask mandate and opens up businesses to 100% capacity in Texas set to go into effect on Wednesday, City of Laredo leaders continue to prepare for the worst should the order lead to a surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

As has been the viewpoint since Abbot's announcement last week, city leaders continue to advocate that citizens continue practicing CDC guidelines, which have proved an effective deterrent against the spread of the virus thus far.

"Tomorrow, as everybody knows, the Governor's new orders go into effect," Guilermo Heard, Laredo Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator, said. "It's still too early to declare victory and stop using the masks, especially those that have not had the opportunity to get vaccinated. These simple measures brought us to this point of low hospitalizations, and still need to be followed."

The words from local leaders are mirrored in their actions, with leaders already announcing that COVID protocols will still be enforced at city and county buildings.

The city's emergency operations center will continue to monitor the progress of the virus locally as restrictions are loosened. It continues formulating plans with hospitals ahead of a possible surge.

At the moment, the city is slowly stepping down operations at local medical facilities week-by-week. The step process allows the city the agency to ramp up operations at a quick pace should it be necessary.

As the city readies for the worst-case scenario, its main tool to battle the pandemic comes in the way of the COVID-19 vaccine.

For its 13th week of vaccine administration, the city has reportedly received 9,800 vaccines in total, nearly double the 5,000 the city of Laredo is typically allocated due to its status as a vaccination hub.

According to City of Laredo health director Richard Chamberlain, the 9,800 doses are derived from both the state and national allocation, and is a mix of both the Moderna vaccine and the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Texas Department of State Health Services data shows the City of Laredo will receive its usual allotment of 5,000 doses from the state, with a further 2,700 doses going to 21 vaccine partners in Webb County. While federal vaccine distribution data was not available, it's assumed the remaining 2,100 would be from federal allocation.

According to Chamberlain, the city will soon be sending out emails to those who signed up for Laredo's vaccine wait list, announcing that citizens who are contacted will have until March 10 at 8 a.m. to confirm their vaccine appointment.

Chamberlain said it's important the citizens take an active part in the process and confirm or cancel their appointment as soon as possible. As cancellations are processed in the system, appointments then open for people further down on the wait list.

In today's daily report, city leaders confirmed 38 COVID-19 positives and one new death. The death now marks the fifth consecutive day with a death due to the virus reported, though it dates back much farther.

Though confirmed Tuesday, the death -- of a man in his mid 40s -- dates back to Friday, January 8. With only nine days into March, 21 deaths have now been reported this month.

Additionally, the positives added today mean that active infections of the virus have increased -- though slightly -- for the first time since March 1. 158 people are actively infected with the virus, with an estimated 41,945 persons estimated to have recovered from a previous infection.

Since March, 42,904 people have tested positive and 801 people have died.

At Laredo hospitals, the number of COVID-19 patients stayed still at the lowest number reported thus far in 2021. 29 people are reportedly hospitalized with the virus in the Laredo area, with 11 people under intensive care.

The COVID-19 hospitalization rate, as reported by DSHS, based on data from March 8, stands at 6.34%. Though a slight increase from the 6.26% reported on March 7, the rate remains well below the 15% goal set by Governor Abbott.

Should Laredo rise above the 15% rate for a consecutive seven-day period, further restrictions could be placed on Webb County businesses.
[March 09, 2021] Golden Leaf Holdings Announces Intent to Change Corporate Name to Chalice Brands Ltd.

Annual and Special Meeting scheduled for May 10, 2021 PORTLAND, Ore., March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Golden Leaf Holdings Ltd. (CSE: GLH) (OTCQB: GLDFF) (Golden Leaf or the Company), a premier, consumer-driven cannabis company specializing in retail, production, processing, wholesale, and distribution, today announces it plans to change its corporate name to Chalice Brands Ltd. at its Annual and Special Meeting (AGM) which will be held virtually, May 10, 2021. At the AGM, the Company also plans on seeking approval for a share consolidation with the goal to bring the common shares outstanding to approximately 65 million post the consolidation. Details of these proposals will be included in the management information circular to be mailed later this month. The name change and share consolidation is subject to approval at the Companys AGM, however the Company expects overwhelming support.

Throughout this turnaround over the last 18 months we continue to gather momentum and galvanize management behind the Chalice brand, stated Jeff Yapp, Chief Executive Officer of Golden Leaf. Our Chalice Farms stores and our Chalice chews are the pride of our business. As we put the Golden Leaf era behind us, this name change serves to symbolize our resurgence as a relevant contender in the US cannabis industry, driven by leadership in our home market of Oregon. The Company also announces that during February there were conversion of principal amounts to equity of its convertible debentures due November 16, 2022 totaling C$3,675,000 plus accrued interest. Over 80% of the same debenture holders participated in first close of the equity raise announced March 4, 2021. This further vote of confidence in management supports the transition of GLH into a growth story. As our operational performance translates into improved shareholder value, we anticipate full conversion of these debentures before maturity, further strengthening our balance sheet noted John Varghese, Executive Chairman. The Company anticipates the release of its first quarter 2021 earnings report on or around May 21st, 2021 and will announce a final date and time for thi conference call and filings when timing is more certain.



About Golden Leaf Holdings Golden Leaf Holdings is a premier consumer-driven cannabis company specializing in production, processing, wholesale, distribution and retail, with 7 dispensaries in Portland, Oregon. The company is committed to developing a dynamic portfolio built around the recognized brands of Chalice Farms, with a focus on health and wellness. Markets served include Oregon, California, Nevada and Washington. Visit glhmonthly.com for regular updates.

Investor Relations: John Varghese

Executive Chairman

Golden Leaf Holdings Ltd.

971-371-2685

ir@goldenleafholdings.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Disclaimer: This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the Companys future business operations, the opinions or beliefs of management and future business goals. Generally, forward looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. These risks include but are not limited to general business, economic and competitive uncertainties, regulatory risks, market risks, risks inherent in manufacturing and retail operations such as unforeseen costs and production shutdowns, difficulties in maintaining brand loyalty, and other risks of the cannabis industry. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking information. Forward-looking information is provided herein for the purpose of presenting information about managements current expectations relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purpose. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. This press release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States, and such securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration or an exemption from registration.





[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
RTA data shows there are nearly 12,000 electric vehicles in GHMC limits at present. (DC file photo)

HYDERABAD: The state governments newly-launched electric vehicle (EV) policy seems to be yielding results. Data obtained from the Road Transport Authority (RTA) shows there has been an increase in sale and registration of EVs within the GHMC limits.

The state government launched the TS Electric Vehicle and Energy Storage Policy in October 2020 to promote electric vehicles between 2020 and 2030. Under the policy, there will be 100 per cent exemption on road tax and registration fee for the first two lakh electric two-wheelers purchased and registered within the state.

EV owners have already availed incentives worth Rs 39 lakh under the policy.

RTA data shows there are nearly 12,000 electric vehicles in GHMC limits at present. The majority of these are two-wheelers. Of them, 5,000 are battery-operated, 5,000 hybrid diesel-electric, and 2,000 hybrid petrol-electric vehicles. 605 of the vehicles have been sold and registered in February alone.

Prior to the unveiling of the policy, there were only 25 battery-operated vehicles in GHMC limits until 2017. The number has now increased to 5,000. Though vehicle sales in 2020 got affected due to Coronavirus pandemic, 1,360 electric vehicles were still sold.

For catering to rising number of electric vehicles, union ministry for heavy industries and public enterprises has decided to soon set up 118 EV charging stations across the city.
Community Reporter

Erica Welch is the special sections editor for The News-Review, mother of two and a native of Roseburg. She is an alumni of RHS, UCC and Western Oregon University. Contact her at ewelch@nrtoday.com or 541-957-4218.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Targeted coronavirus lockdowns were expanded in the Philippine capital Tuesday and night-time curfews reintroduced in hot spots as authorities battle a resurgence in infections.

The number of new daily cases has soared past 3,000 in recent daystwice as many as two weeks ago and the highest in five monthsas more contagious variants of the virus spread.

Most of the new cases are in Metro Manila where officials have been quarantining compounds, streets, neighbourhoods and even hotels in a bid to contain new clusters, while minimising the economic impact.

The mayor of Quezon Cityone of 16 that make up the capitalannounced Tuesday that 11 more communities would be locked down for two weeks. The move potentially affects tens of thousands of people.

Manila City also announced a four-day lockdown for two neighbourhoods and several hotels.

Officials and business leaders have warned against shutting down the entire country again as its economy struggles to recover from the first recession in three decades.

"We cannot afford any more lockdowns," Sergio Ortiz-Luis, head of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, told a briefing Tuesday.

His comments echoed those of presidential spokesman Harry Roque, who all but ruled out another blanket lockdown.

"Too many people are going hungry," Roque told reporters Monday.

"Our appeal is for us to take care of ourselves so that we will be able to work."

The country entered a months-long lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic which crippled the economy and threw millions out of work.

Measures have since been eased, but the wearing of masks and face shields in public is still mandatory and social distancing rules are in force.

As the country's caseload tops 600,000 infections, authorities are cracking down on violators and reimposing night-time curfews in some areas such as San Juan City.

Quezon City police arrested nearly 300 people on Monday for disobeying health protocols.

Experts have warned the number of new infections could reach 5,000 to 6,000 a day by the end of March.

It comes as the country slowly rolls out Covid-19 vaccines to healthcare workers and soldiers, after the government came under fire for delays in procuring jabs.

Widespread inoculations will not start until later in the year, however, when the bulk of the vaccines are expected to arrive.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 AFP
Jack Cohen is a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, veteran of some of New York Citys top restaurants, an accomplished food writer and self-described nice Jewish boy. Now, hes adding cookbook author to that list with the launch of his new publication, Jew-Ish: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch.

With Jew-Ish, Cohen hopes to dispel the notion that Jewish cuisine is confined to chicken soup with matzo balls, challah and babka by putting a modern spin on classic dishes  and incorporating new ones into the Jewish culinary repertoire as well. Drawing upon both his Ashkenazi heritage and his husbands Persian-Iraqi one, Cohen blends different cultures to create such elegant dishes as an everything bagel-inspired galette, saffron latkes and matzo tiramisu. However, more than simply a collection of recipes, Jew-Ish also contains tips for celebrating Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, blended with personal insights and a celebration of both he and his husbands cultures. A love story at its heart, Cohen hopes the book will serve as a jumping off point for connecting with friends and family.

Cohens rising star in the culinary scene comes in the wake of Jewish culinary success stories, such as American-Israeli chef and James Beard Award winner Alon Shaya, chef and Millennial Kosher author Chanie Apfelbaum and Philadelphia-based acclaimed chef and James Beard Award winner Michael Solomonov, all of whom are credited with reinventing Jewish cooking for modern tables.

ADVERTISEMENT



Jew-Ish is available beginning March 9th and can be purchased through such local institutions as Left Bank Books, the Novel Neighbor and Subterranean Books. To learn more about the book and Cohen, visit www.wakeandjake.com.
A neo-Nazi caught with an Adolf Hitler face mask and a copy of the Mein Kampf has been jailed for brutalising his housemate in a five-hour ordeal over a missing swastika T-shirt.

The housemate was threatened with a bat and beaten in an inner-city East Brisbane home in May 2019.

Neo-Nazi Michael Shayne Halcrow, 38, and Gavin Daniel Menzies, 41, pleaded guilty to a string of offences including armed robbery, possession of a weapon and robbery with violence in the Brisbane District Court on Tuesday.

Both have been jailed for at least 18 months.

Neo-Nazi Michael Shayne Halcrow (pictured), 38, and Gavin Daniel Menzies pleaded guilty to a string of offences including armed robbery, possession of a weapon and robbery with violence in the Brisbane District Court on Tuesday

On the day of the assault, Halcrow accused his housemate of stealing the anti-Semitic T-shirt which depicted a Nazi swastika, prosecutor Michael Gawrych said.

The court heard the pair stole the housemate's possessions stored in a cupboard and threw them in a bin before entering the bedroom.

The terrified housemate cowered inside when Halcrow and Menzies stormed the room, screaming: 'Where is the shirt?'

They kicked in his bedroom door and beat him as they tried to find the offensive shirt.

At the height of the brutal assault, Menzies thrust his thumb into a wound on the victim, ripping open the stitches and causing 'immense pain', the court was told.

The victim managed to call the police, but when officers arrived, Menzies warned him to stay hidden, or he would 'crack his skull open'.

After more than five hours, the terrified housemate finally fled the home, abandoning his belongings, too scared to return.

He remains traumatised by the attack, unable to give a victim impact statement to the court.

Halcrow, who has the word 'damaged' tattooed across his forehead, was later arrested in a police raid in September, when officers seized 35 Nazi-related propaganda items, including the face mask.

He tried to claim the swastika held a different meaning in his native home of New Zealand at one stage.

Halcrow later denied any affiliation with neo-Nazi or white supremacist groups to doctors this year, the court was told.

'It is not illegal to possess that type of material,' Halcrow's barrister Cecelia Bernardin told the court.

The court was told Menzies was the main instigator of the violence, but the theft of Halcrow's shirt lead to the assault.

The prosecution rejected the claim and entered nine pages of photographs of white supremacist material found in his home into evidence.

'Clearly this man was terrified. He barricaded himself in his bedroom,' Judge Michael Byrne said.

'It smacks of vigilantism.'

Judge Byrne stressed that Halcrow was not being sentenced for any predilection for white supremacy or neo-Nazi propaganda.

Both men were sentenced to four-and-half years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 18 months.
Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.Australias central bank maintained its policy settings as it prepares to decide on extending its yield target and quantitative easing programs, with a Covid-19 lockdown complicating the outlook.The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate and three-year yield target at 0.10% in Sydney on Tuesday, as expected. It will make a decision in July on whether to extend the yield target and undertake further quantitative easing. A weeklong shutdown in the nations second-largest city adds a layer of uncertainty to the outlook.Despite the strong recovery in the economy and jobs, inflation and wage pressures are subdued, Governor Philip Lowe said. The board is committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment in Australia and inflation consistent with the target.The Australian dollar edged lower, trading at 77.41 U.S. cents at 2:53 p.m. in Sydney from 77.62 cents just before the release.The case for Lowe to maintain the April 2024 bond as the target maturity had been strengthening amid strong hiring, sentiment and investment plans. This was reinforced by the government keeping open the fiscal spigot in the May budget as it joins the RBA in seeking to drive down unemployment to revive wages growth and inflation.Progress in reducing unemployment has been faster than expected, Lowe said in his statement. There are reports of labor shortages in some parts of the economy.Risks AheadYet the RBA may be encouraged to err on the side of caution if Melbournes outbreak worsens and extend both of its bond programs to keep maximum support for the economy.An important ongoing source of uncertainty is the possibility of significant outbreaks of the virus, although this should diminish as more of the population is vaccinated, Lowe said. The board continues to place a high priority on a return to full employment.Globally, central banks are beginning to edge away from emergency monetary settings. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets last week in presenting projections of its official cash rate rising in the second half of next year.Back in Australia, economists predicted ahead of data Wednesday that gross domestic product rose 1.5% in the first three months of the year from the prior quarter, and advanced 0.6% from a year earlier.Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, in testimony to a parliamentary panel earlier today, said partial data showed around 56,000 workers had lost their jobs in the four weeks following the end of the governments JobKeeper wage subsidy that expired March 28.He said strong employment data and forward indicators continue to give us confidence that the labor market has the underlying strength to absorb workers transitioning off the JobKeeper payment.End of Australias $68 Billion Job-Saving Stimulus Tests EconomyLowe estimates Australias jobless rate will need to fall to close to 4% before driving economy-wide pay increases. It stood at 5.5% in April.The governor expects wages growth will need to increase at a pace faster than 3% -- more than double the current rate -- for inflation to return sustainably to the central banks 2-3% target.Lowe reiterated that this is unlikely to be until 2024 at the earliest.(Updates with further comments from governor throughout text.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
CASERTA, MAR 9 - A 49-year-old Italian man was arrested Tuesday for trying to strangle the partner who was trying to leave him in front of their two terrified children, police said. The man, from Pontelatone near Caserta north of Naples, only gave up his grip on his 40-year-old intended victim's neck when she was almost asphyxiated, police said. The incident allegedly happened in front of the children aged 15 and 18 and the woman's parents, who tried with all their might to stop him strangling her. The man was arrested on charges of bodily harm. It then emerged that the attack was only the latest in a long string of domestic abuse, police said. (ANSA).
Ray Goforth once said, There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.

When it comes to local community vision, this quote hits the nail on the head. Local communities are full of small-minded and poverty-minded leaders and influencers  you know the ones I am referring to, those afraid to think big and those fearing failure. I would suggest communities without big dreams and vision are only biding their time as irrelevance draws closer each day.

It is easy to discuss the importance of vision, innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity, but not always so easy to put those words into specific action and more importantly, positive results. With that is mind, let me offer a few suggestions regarding vision, action and innovative thinking that local communities might consider.

Lets tackle innovation first. Those living in the innovation world understand a few basics relating to innovation. The art of innovation, and it is an art, involves failure. Without failure, you simply arent innovating aggressively enough. What is the art of innovation? You fail fast, you fail cheap and you know when to move on. Innovators understand the best lessons obtained are those obtained through failed innovation. All the great innovators throughout time failed more times than they succeeded. Each failed innovation taught them something that would be used in future successful innovations. Ty Cobb, the man many considered one of the greatest hitters of all-time with a lifetime batting average of .367 failed .633% of the time, but each failure taught him what to expect the next time turning those many failures into positives.

Now lets discuss the importance or critical nature of vision. We can go all the way back to the Bible to find references relating to the importance of vision. Proverbs tells us where there is no vision, the people perish. We might substitute the word community for the word people in that quote. As I have worked with communities, businesses and news-media companies, a common ingredient of a stagnant community or business is lack of vision. You show me a great community or business leader and I will show you a community or person with great vision. One will not come without the other.

So how can a community show great vision and inspire innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship? Most smaller or local communities have a common albatross, too many empty buildings. While some buildings may not fit the bill, many of these old buildings are great structures, they just lack a loving occupant.

I saw a great piece today about Hartford, Connecticut, turning an old Swift Gold Leaf Factory into a great community incubator for innovation, opportunity, job creation, educating youth and spurring economic growth throughout the community. While Hartford isnt what we might consider a small or even medium-sized community, this idea can resonate on a smaller scale in any community with just an ounce of vision. I would encourage every community to have their version of an incubator that promotes, encourages and houses innovation, creativity and local entrepreneurship. That would be the very definition of vision with action.

I have touched on many topics over the past year, but I will say vision, without a doubt, may be the most important aspect or trait a local community can nurture. Many of the traditional problems plaguing a community can be attributed to lack of innovation, dreams and vision.

A community with big dreams can go farther than they can ever imagine. A community with an innovative spirit can overturn decades of decline and poor past decisions. A community with a strong will and vision can attain heights otherwise never deemed or dreamed possible. If you build it (vision), they will come. Not only will they come, they are much more likely to follow those leaders and business owners with vision. Dont let your lack of vision be your downfall  let it be your driving force and mission.

John A. Newby is partnering with the Daily News for this "Building Main Street, Not Wall Street " column series dedicated to assisting communities combine synergies with local media companies allowing them to not just survive, but thrive in a world where Truly Local is lost to Amazon, Wall Street chains and others. Readers can email Newby at john@360MediaAlliance.net.
COLUMBIA, Mo. - In the midst of a pandemic that has claimed more than 2 million lives worldwide and disrupted nearly every facet of society since it appeared more than a year ago, understanding the factors that create and facilitate disease outbreaks is more important than ever. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have determined that cognitive biases -- patterns of errors in thinking that affect judgments and behaviors, often unconsciously -- can help create and worsen foodborne disease outbreaks.

"Unethical behavior isn't always intentional; conflicts of interest and other unconscious motivations can lead people to behave in ways that help outbreaks emerge and spread," said Harvey James, associate director of the division of applied social sciences and a professor of agricultural and applied economics in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (CAFNR). "If we can understand what motivates a store owner to re-open too early or a food producer to cut corners, then we can create better policies and regulations that nudge people in the right direction without restricting their freedoms."

James and Michelle Segovia, an assistant professor of agricultural and applied economics in CAFNR, were eager to apply the science of behavioral ethics to the field of food safety. Behavioral ethics examines why people make ethical and unethical decisions; to see how those choices might contribute to a foodborne disease outbreak, the researchers turned to the case of Jensen Farms.

In 2011, the Colorado cantaloupe producer was found to be responsible for an outbreak of Listeria at its packing plant that led to one of the worst foodborne illness outbreaks in U.S. history, resulting in 33 deaths across 28 states. The outbreak occurred despite Jensen Farms having recently audited their food safety procedures and installed new cleaning equipment.

To explain this contradiction, the researchers identified several forms of cognitive bias at work. Motivated blindness, for instance, encourages a person or company to advance their own interests without accounting for conflicts of interest. In the case of Jensen Farms, James and Segovia theorized that motivated blindness was to blame for the choice to hire a lenient auditor that deemed the company's food safety procedures "superior."

In addition, the researchers emphasized the unconscious nature of cognitive biases with an example of omission bias, in which the lack of action, rather than a specific harmful action, can create unfortunate consequences. Though Jensen Farms possessed equipment capable of cleaning cantaloupes with an antibacterial wash, the antibacterial function was not used prior to the outbreak.

"Jensen Farms believed they were making their cantaloupes safer even as they failed to take actions that could have prevented an outbreak," James said. "This is a perfect example of the fact that unethical behavior does not need to be a conscious act. There isn't always an easy 'villain,' so if laws and policies only address people who are intentionally propagating an outbreak, we are missing a big part of the picture. This study is a step toward recognizing the immense consequences of inadvertent and unintentional behavior."

While COVID-19 is not considered a foodborne illness, James believes that the lessons learned about cognitive biases from the study are relevant to the current pandemic. Motivated blindness, for example, could explain why some restaurants and other businesses have refused to abide by lockdown orders for fear of losing business. Herding behavior -- a bias that occurs when people follow the crowd even if they disagree with the crowd's behavior -- explains the surge in demand for certain essential items and subsequent nationwide shortages.

###

The study, "Behavioral Ethics and the Incidence of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks," was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. Funding was provided by Hatch Project Number MO-AC011AC047.

ADVERTISEMENT

Nollywood actress, Tonto Dikehs, ex-husband, Churchill Olakunle, and his new wife, actress Rosy Meurer, have welcomed their first child, a son in Switzerland.

The publicity-loving couple broke the news on their respective Instagram handles on Tuesday.

Mr Olakunle posted pictures of his pregnant wife, his little babys leg and added that the babys arrival confirmed the decision I made two years ago is not a mistake but a divine ordination.

Its a moment of bliss and Celebration to us as I announce the coming of King Churchill Juniorfrom my formative years I have always had the royal tag of King for my kids to be greater than the father. Ahead of mothers day, I say a big congratulations to my lovely wife for this great testimony. This decision I made two years ago is not a mistake but a divine ordination, he wrote on Instagram.

Meurer also had nothing but nice things to say about her new role as a mother.

The first day of your life was the best day of mine. Welcome King Churchill Jnr. You are my greatest blessing and pride. Thank you for making me a mother. God is involved, she wrote.

The couple appears to have gotten over the backlash that trailed them when they broke the news of their marriage on social media in February.

Social media was thrown into a frenzy as the couple had vehemently denied being an item in the past.

Meurer, who was an ambassador of Olakunles Big Church Foundations Mother and Child Project, gained notoriety when Tonto Dikeh accused her of sleeping with her then-husband in 2017.
Key Senate crossbenchers have baulked at a push to pass an overhaul of Australias industrial relations laws through Parliament next week, which the Morrison government is planning even as the minister responsible, Christian Porter, remains on indefinite leave.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed his confidence in acting Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash to manage the technically complex and highly politicised portfolio, noting she had maneuvered industrial legislation through Parliament before.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has faith in his acting industrial relations minister Michaelia Cash (left) as the government tries to reform workplace laws. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Porter, who is also Attorney-General, has been on leave seeking mental health assistance since Wednesday, when he rejected an allegation he raped a debating teammate in 1988. Mr Morrison said on Tuesday there was no set date for his return.

Ive spoken to Christian as have many colleagues in providing their support, Mr Morrison said. And at this stage, he hasnt advised the date hes returning.
The issue of vaccination against COVID-19 in Ukraine and the situation with countering the spread of coronavirus have been discussed at a traditional conference call chaired by President Volodymyr Zelensky, the presidential press service has reported.

According to the report, Zelensky said that the pace of vaccination in Ukraine should be increased. To this end, he suggested involving mobile teams and resources from other agencies, not only from the Ministry of Health, and responding more carefully to cases of disinformation about vaccinations.

"The best response to today's increase in coronavirus infections is vaccination, not lockdown. This is the solution to preventing a greater increase in patients. We are approaching the middle of March, and we should provide more opportunities for people to receive the first doses of the vaccine, especially if they are working at the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus," Zelensky said.

Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov drew attention to the need for closer cooperation with the heads of regional state administrations. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that his agency had prepared 50 mobile teams to help conduct the vaccination.

According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the number of hospitalizations last week grew to almost 21,000 from 17,600 during the week before. Today, 29,573 beds are occupied. A total of 70,157 beds have been allocated for COVID-19 patients, including 60,000 beds with access to oxygen. The number of occupied beds in intensive care units has also increased - from 1,500 to 2,000. This means that the number of serious cases is growing, Shmyhal said.

"The adaptive quarantine is still in place in Ukraine. The red level has been introduced in regions with a significant spread of coronavirus disease. These are the Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia and Zhytomyr regions. Also, almost ten regions are in the orange zone and they are close to the red level," Shmyhal said.

op
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden brought dogs back to the White House after a four-year absence.Joining them shortly after the inauguration were there two German shephards, Champ and Major.

However, for the time being the two German Shepherds have been returned to the Biden's family home in Delaware after what CNN described as a "biting" incident involving Major Biden at the White House.

Who are Major and Champ Biden?

The Bidens adopted Major in November 2018 to help put some bounce back in the step of the older Champ, who was about 11 at the time and beginning to slow down. The Bidens adopted Major, now a three-year-old, from a Wilmington, Delaware animal shelter from a litter of six that had been abandoned. It isnt the first time Major has caused an incident, back in November President Biden suffered a hairline fracture in his foot when he fell while roughhousing with Major at his Delaware home.

What did Major do?

Last week there was an aggressive incident at the White House according to CNN sources familiar with what happened. Although neither the exact nature of the incident nor the condition of the victim has been disclosed, both Major and Champ were returned to the Bidens Delaware residence. Major has had other run-ins with staff and security on a number of occasions with sources saying Major has been known to display agitated behavior, including jumping, barking, and charging at staff and security.

The Bidens have been trying to settle the dogs into the White House

The agitated behavior may be in part due to the new surroundings. Jill Biden during an interview with Kelly Clarkson said that the life at the White House is quite different from their Delaware residence. "They have to take the elevator, they're not used to that, she said, adding they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them."




Haiti - News : Zapping...





More than 80 escapees recaptured:

"More than 80 escapees from the Civil Prison of Croix-des-Bouquets https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33115-haiti-flash-arnel-joseph-killed-more-than-400-detainees-on-the-run-at-least-25-dead.html have already been recaptured" declared Rockefeller Vincent, Minister of Justice and Public Security adding "N ap mande ak popilasyon an pou kontinye kolabore pou ede Leta a idantifye epi reprann tout prizonye ki sove kite prizon an."



Jovenel Moise's comments on women

Monday during the launching ceremony of the 2-day forum to commemorate the International Women's Day https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-33174-icihaiti-conference-forum-theater-international-women-s-rights-day.html President Moise declared "The State must take all measures to combat prejudices and sexist stereotypes, inexhaustible sources of gender discrimination. I hope that one day the world will celebrate a day of equality between women and men."



The Minister of Tourism visiting the South

Mrs Myriam Jean, the Minister of Tourism, paid a visit to the South this weekend in order to assess the projects funded under the RIAT-SUD (Integrated Tourism Development Regions) program. She took the opportunity to have a working session with Sergo Chery, the Departmental Delegate of the South, representatives of civil society and owners of accommodation centers around the difficulties facing the tourism sector in this department. The Minister visited the Place d'Armes d'Aquin, financed by the TCD (Sustainable Coastal Tourism) project.



March 8 : Rain of tributes to women

USAID :

For 60 years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID-Haiti) has recognized and supported the critical role women play in the social and economic well-being of their communities and countries. Globally, women are innovators, leaders and agents of change in all spheres of society. USAID has a long history of supporting women's equal access to opportunities in education, business and government in Haiti. When women have access to the resources they need to thrive, their families, communities and countries are empowered too.



Miloody Vincent :

"Honor and respect to all women, these courageous and valiant Haitians, especially our educators on March 8, International Women's Rights Day. Good fight and good luck in this fight for your rights;" Miloody Vincent, Communication Director of the Ministry of Public Health



Rockefeller Vincent Minister of Justice :

"On the occasion of the commemoration of International Womens Day, I renew my commitment to gender equity. Women deserve an egalitarian future free from prejudice, sexist stereotypes and all forms of violence. 'The visible changes that affect the condition of women must not mask the invisible structures that constantly recompose inequalities' Dixit Pierre Bourdieu. We must therefore continue to work unceasingly to balance the social relations of sex."



President Jovenel Moise :

"I will never miss the opportunity to praise the courage of the Haitian woman and to underline her contribution in the building of our Nation. I stand with these valiant women in their fight for the consolidation of a society that belongs to them. Happy celebration !" President Jovenel Moise



First Lady Martine Moise :

"I would like to thank the Ministry for the Status of Women and Women's Rights for honoring me on March 8, 2021, on the occasion of International Women's Rights Day. I renew my commitment and my solidarity with my sisters to work more for parity, gender equity and respect for the rights of Haitian women."



Pierre Josue Agenor Cadet, Minister of National Education

Honor and respect to all women, these courageous and valiant Haitians, especially our educators on this March, International Women's Rights Day. Good fight and good continuation in this fight for your rights for a new society respectful of the values and the rights of all without distinction and without discrimination."



Message from the Embassy of Haiti in Canada :

"On March 8, 2021, International Women's Rights Day, the Embassy of Haiti in Canada wishes to salute and honor the struggle of women of Haitian origin who live in Canada. Through their work and dedication, they advance the various causes of women, each in their field in Canada, while making Haiti shine in their adopted country. Throughout this month of March dedicated to women, the Mission will share biographies of come among them who work tirelessly to raise the voices of all women, especially those of the Daitiennes in Canada."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  The Department of the Interior and Local Government has directed the Philippine National Police to deploy more law enforcers in areas that have recently recorded a spike in cases to ensure peoples compliance with minimum health standards.

DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said in a briefing on Tuesday that around 180 more police officers were deployed in Pasay City, which was tagged by the OCTA Research Group last week as a COVID-19 hotspot after recording 128 new cases from Feb. 26 to March 4.

OCTA said it was the highest average of daily cases reported in the city, even higher compared to the number of infections during a surge in August 2020.

Nag-utos po si [DILG] OIC [Bernardo] Florece ng crackdown sa mga nagba-violate ng minimum health standards, Malaya said, adding that more police officers will be also be assigned to Malabon and Navotas, which have also seen a spike in cases.

[Translation: OIC Florece has ordered a crackdown on violators of minimum health standards.]

The DILG expects the local governments to "strictly" enforce ordinances that penalize violators of COVID-19 protocols, Malaya said. He also urged LGUs that have yet to enact ordinances against health protocol violators to impose sanctions on those who fail to follow the safety measures so arrests will not be rendered useless.

Kailangan na po nating maipasa iyan agad agad para po may basehan ang pagsaway at paghuli sa health [protocol] violators ng ating bansa, he said.

[We need to pass these ordinances immediately so that there will be a basis in reprimanding and arresting health protocol violators.]

The country now has 600,428 coronavirus cases, with 12,528 deaths and 546,078 recoveries.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
An oil-rig worker convicted of manslaughter in the death of a young co-worker who was dragged face first through a metal door in a hazing incident at a rig has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

A Denton County jury gave Louis Goodman, 38, of Ponder almost the maximum prison sentence Thursday in the death of 23-year-old Shawn Davis. The maximum sentence would have been 20 years.

The jury had found Goodman guilty on Wednesday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports in its Friday editions.

Davis had been working for Republic Energy Drilling Co. less than a week before he was killed in November.

Initially, Goodman, who was the supervisor on duty, told authorities that Davis' inexperience as a drilling rig worker led to his death at the rig halfway between Denton and Argyle. Goodman told authorities that Davis became entangled in the machinery when he stood too close to a cable.

But another crew member testified this week that Goodman and fellow worker Teddy Garland, 40, of Weatherford plotted to haze Davis.

Davis was wrestled to the floor and hooked to a cable, authorities said. Goodman and Garland planned to suspend Davis over the rig using the cable, crew member Quinten Clay testified. But the cable dragged Davis through a metal door and then whirled him around a rotating pipe, Clay said.

Garland is scheduled for a hearing on Monday, and a trial will be scheduled in the next few weeks.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
[March 09, 2021] LeanIX Expands Major Event Series for Enterprise Architecture

EA Connect Days 2021 event series begins with Asia-Pacific premiere and focuses on continuous transformation challenges and capabilities BONN, Germany and BOSTON, March 9, 2021 /CNW/ -- LeanIX, a platform that enables Corporate IT and Product IT teams to plan and manage their Continuous Transformation journeys, is expanding its successful EA Connect Days event series for 2021. Starting in the Asia-Pacific region on March 24, additional events are planned for 2021 in North America (May 20) and Europe (September 29/30). Established as an international exchange among IT experts, EA Connect Days have hosted more than 3,000 participants to date. With a focus on continuous transformation, it has become one of the most important industry events for Enterprise Architecture (EA) management worldwide. Due to the increasing speed of developments in IT, the ability to permanently change is becoming a critical success factor for companies. The event series highlights the resulting challenges for enterprise architects and those responsible for corporate and product IT. The agenda includes best practice examples of EA as well as cloud migration strategies and cloud governance. Register now for Virtual EA Connect Day APAC 2021 on March 24, 2021



Since 2014, LeanIX has created an important networking event with EA Connect Days, which sets important best practices in the industry internationally. For the first time, the event will take place in the Asia-Pacific region and will give EA specialists and IT managers the chance to exchange information about region-specific EA trends and hear concrete application examples from experts from the field. LeanIX CEO Andre Christ emphasizes the importance of the APAC region for his company: "Since the foundation of LeanIX in 2012, we have continuously expanded the global business and established ourselves in the market in Europe and the USA. For some time now, we have been focusing more on the Asia-Pacific market, which offers great potential - especially in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. We have grown strongly in this region the last two years and have convinced important customers on the value of our platform for continuous transformation. With our modern tools, not only can IT landscapes be managed and developed after a short time, but smart cloud governance can also be established."

In the further expansion of LeanIX activities locally, the close cooperation with Citadel Group and Signavio, who are co-hosting EA Connect Day APAC 2021, also plays a major role. While the Australian software and technology company Citadel Group, as the largest LeanIX partner in the Asia-Pacific region, provides significant regional support, Signavio, with its complementary products, has been one of LeanIX's most important technology partners for many years, jointly opening up new markets. Highlights at EA Connect Day APAC 2021 The following sessions will take place at EA Connect Day APAC 2021: LeanIX CEO Andre Christ delivers a keynote session addressing the transformation of companies into tech companies: Triggered by this development, companies are increasingly building internal capabilities in product IT and relying more on horizontal structures. Christ will shed light on how agile workflow influences Enterprise Architecture Management today and in the future.

delivers a keynote session addressing the transformation of companies into tech companies: Triggered by this development, companies are increasingly building internal capabilities in product IT and relying more on horizontal structures. Christ will shed light on how agile workflow influences Enterprise Architecture Management today and in the future. Lance Altena , Chief Enterprise Architect at the Queensland Department of Resources , will demonstrate the value EA can generate for businesses.

, Chief Enterprise Architect at the , will demonstrate the value EA can generate for businesses. Gerard Brown , IT Business Partner at New Zealand's Firstgas Group , will describe the challenges of establishing an EA practice in an energy company.

, IT Business Partner at , will describe the challenges of establishing an EA practice in an energy company. Craig Stanley , Lead Architect at Citadel Group, will present EA best practices. Live chats and an event Slack Instance will give all attendees of the half-day virtual conference the opportunity to engage directly with the experts. For more information on how to register for free, to access the full agenda of EA Connect Day APAC 2021, or to view select presentation highlights of last year's international EA Connect Days, please visit www.eaconnectdays.com . About LeanIX The LeanIX platform promotes continuous transformation and enables Corporate IT and Product IT teams to establish superior governance while efficiently organizing, planning, and managing IT landscapes. LeanIX follows a collaborative and data-driven approach, focusing on speed and control in cloud environments and enabling companies to make sound and fast decisions based on comprehensive data. More than 380 enterprises including adidas, DHL, Merck and Volkswagen trust in LeanIX, and more than 40 certified partners such as Deloitte and PwC rely on the dynamically growing IT company co-founded in 2012 by CEO Andre Christ. With EA Connect Days, LeanIX has been regularly organizing one of the world's most important industry events in the field of Enterprise Architecture since 2014. The company is headquartered in Bonn, Germany with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; Munich, Germany; Utrecht, Netherlands; and Hyderabad, India. It has more than 300 employees worldwide. Contact: Jeremy Douglas, 303-589-1941, jdouglas@catapultpr-ir.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leanix-expands-major-event-series-for-enterprise-architecture-301243056.html SOURCE LeanIX

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
March 09 : Kangana Ranaut has reached Delhi for her forthcoming film Tejas shoot schedule. While she has a busy schedule ahead, the actress is looking forward for Delhis famous street food.

The Panga actress, who has recently wrapped up the Mumbai schedule of Tejas, took to her official Twitter handle and revealed that she has reached Delhi for the second schedule of Tejas. Sharing a picture of the scrumptious food she had on reaching Delhi, the actress wrote, Delhi oh Delhi. The picture of the food includes kheer, gulab jamun, and kulfi.

Delhi oh Delhi ....  pic.twitter.com/vPUyyRBkiz  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) March 8, 2021

In another tweet, the Judgemental Hai Kya actress shared a bunch of pictures and wrote, Reached Delhi for #Tejas shoot... early morning shift tom, lots of work in coming days but definitely looking forward to some street food as well. In the pictures, Kangana can be seen in a printed chiffon saree teamed with a sleeveless blouse as she is seen getting down from the car at her hotel.

Reached Delhi for #Tejas shoot... early morning shift tom, lots of work in coming days but definitely looking forward to some street food as well @sarveshmewara1 @nonabains @RSVPMovies https://t.co/XYoY16S8x0  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) March 8, 2021

Written and directed by Sarvesh Mewara, Tejas is produced by Ronnie Screwvala. After the Delhi schedule, Kangana will head to Rajasthan for the next schedule of the film. Kangana will portray the role of a daring fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force. The Indian Air Force was the first of the countrys defence forces to incorporate women into combat roles in 2016. The film is inspired by this landmark event.

Earlier, the actress dropped a poster of Tejas, wherein she was seen clad in the Air Force pilots uniform standing in front of a fighter plane named Tejas with a bold and fearless look. The Tanu Weds Manu actress had written that she was proud to be a part of this exhilarating story that is an ode to our brave air force pilots.
Chinese citizen journalist Fang Bin remains missing after being detained by police in the central city of Wuhan for reporting from the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.



Fang is being held incommunicado following his detention on , 2020. RFA has learned that his family is under huge pressure not to speak to anyone about the case.



Sources said Fang was initially detained on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power," but that this charge has been revised to "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).



His prolonged "disappearance" is sparking concerns for his health and safety.



"It has been a year, and there is still no news of Fang Bin, which is worrying," U.S.-based dissident in exile Cai Xia said via her Twitter account on . "We mustn't forget about Fang Bin, or stop looking for him."



"Those who forge the path to freedom shouldn't be left to the wolves," she wrote, adding: "Where is Fang Bin?"



A person familiar with the situation, who gave only a surname, Xu, said many of Fang's friends have been contacting the authorities in recent days in a bid to discover his whereabouts.



"Fang Bin has a son working in Beijing, but he and Fang Bins sister have refused to answer inquiries," Xu said. "No lawyer is involved in the case."



"It's hugely worrying that there has been no news," he said, adding that Fang's friends had been hoping for news of him after the U.S. presidential elections and the Biden inauguration in the U.S.



"It's been a while since the U.S. election, and yet we still have no information about Fang Bin's case," Xu said.





A missing persons photo of Chinese citizen journalist Fang Bin (L) and a screen shot of his video reporting (R) from the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan in early 2020. Fang remains incommunicado after being detained by police on March 5, 2020.

Early COVID footage

Fang was initially detained by police after posting footage from several Wuhan hospitals during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, including a Feb. 1 video clip recording the removal of five dead bodies from the Wuhan No. 5 Hospital in the course of five minutes.



An Wuhan resident familiar with the matter said his initial detention had come on Feb. 10.



"Its been more than a year," the person said. "His family members told us that Fang Bin is being held by the police, who were initially going to charge him with 'incitement to subvert state power'."



"Recently, they told the family that they were going to change the suspected charge to 'picking quarrels and stirring up trouble'," they said.



Fang had hit out at the CCP's handling of the early stages of the pandemic, saying they had presided over not just a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster.



He also said that the cruelty wreaked by the coronavirus was nothing compared with the cruelty perpetrated by "tyranny."



Government censors are meanwhile deleting any posts about Fang on Chinese social media, as well as sending police around to warn off users.



Crackdown on citizen journalists

A person concerned with the case who asked to remain anonymous said Fang's supporters wanted the international community to stay focused on the case.



"Fang Bin ... was the first to warn the international community of of the severity of the epidemic, because he saw three dead bodies being taken out of a hospital in the space of five minutes, with another in the ER, and eight more in the funeral home vehicle parked outside the doors," the person said.



Earlier this year, China's internet regulator announced a crackdown on citizen journalism around the country, banning anyone from posting news-related information online without a license.



The move was announced by Zhuang Rongwen, deputy director of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s central propaganda department, during a Jan. 29 online conference on promoting "orderly communications" on all online platforms, the Cyberspace Administration said in a statement on its official website.



Changes to media regulations three years ago required any organization publishing news or current affairs-related content to hold a license from the country's media regulator, and the focus on citizen journalism will extend the full implementation of that rule to include both regular citizens and journalists posting on their private accounts to evade censorship.



The move came months after the authorities detained and jailed a number of people for reporting unofficially on the unfolding of the coronavirus pandemic in the central city of Wuhan in the early months of 2020.



All WeChat official accounts were subsequently warned by Tencent not to publish any real-time news or information that hasn't been through an official approval process.



Sohu and Baijia also issued similar notices to users, banning accounts with no news publishing license from posting on news or current affairs.



According to the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network, the exact whereabouts of Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi remain unknown.



On Dec. 28, 2020, citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years' imprisonment by the Pudong District People's Court, which found her guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target critics of the government.



She was accused of "posting false information" on overseas social media platforms Twitter and YouTube, and for giving interviews to foreign news organizations.



Meanwhile, Chen Mei and Cai Wei, who tried to preserved censored COVID-19-related data, are still in detention, CHRD said.



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
By Liu Cong

The ROK and US will carry out the Combined Command Post Training (CCPT) from March 8 to 18. As joint military exercise between the two countries is considered an important political card that always adds uncertainties to the Korean peninsular situation, will the CCPT escalate the deadlocked situation on the peninsula again?

DPRKs top leader Kim Jong-Un said at the 8th Congress of the Workers Party of Korea that, the ROK continues to neglect our warnings for it to stop importing sophisticated military equipment and the joint military exercises with the US. It continues to violate the inter-Korean military agreement on ensuring peace and military stability on the Korean peninsula. He vowed that only when Seoul completely stops its abnormal behaviors will there be a chance of improving the relations with Pyongyang.

Yet Biden has reemphasized the importance of the US-ROK joint military exercise after he took office.

The US Department of Defense announced in February that what the new defense secretary Austin is concerned most is military responsiveness, while the military exercise with ROK is a crucial way to confirm their joint preparedness. The US side also reaffirmed that the fundamental purpose of the exercise is not provocation, but defense.

Yang Xiyu, researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, explained in an interview why the US plans to hold the joint military exercise. On the one hand, it wants to maintain the military alliance with ROK and improve the interoperability of their troops; on the other hand, the exercise is a political card that will put pressure on DPRK.

However, voices against the exercise are heard within ROK.

Seoul needs the exercise to take over the wartime operational control (OPCON) from the US at an early date, but its worth noting that not only is this years exercise in a scaled-back manner, but the much-expected Full Operational Capability (FOC) test necessary for the OPCON transfer will be limited too. The test, aimed to validate whether the Combined Forces Command that will exercise the wartime OPCON is capable of doing the job, is at the heart of the planned OPCON transfer between the two countries.

The Biden administrations stance on this issue is unknown. Thought it may give a closer scrutiny of the details than the previous administration to see if relevant decisions conform to the bilateral agreement. This, coupled with the pandemic, has made it less likely for Moon Jae-in to take back the OPCON during his term.

However, many civic groups in ROK have assembled in protest against the joint exercise, citing worries that it may throw the peninsular situation into a deadlock again.

The northern headquarters of the South Korean Committee for the Implementation for the June 15 South-North Joint Declaration held a press conference on March 4, calling for the suspension of ROK-US joint military exercises in order to mitigate the military tension and lay the foundation for south-north dialogue. Another 101 organizations at Gyeongsangnam-do also released a statement demanding the exercises suspension in defense of peace on the peninsula.

The military exercise will worsen the Korean peninsular tension as it sends a passive signal to DPRK. It will not only obstruct communication between Pyongyang and Washington, but will disrupt cooperation between Pyongyang and Seoul too, said Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations, China Foreign Affairs University.

But Yang Xiyu also pointed out that even though the military exercise will heat up the situation on the peninsula again, the impact will be very limited, and a military conflict is out of the question because neither party is willing to break the current stalemate, and their interaction and wrestling are basically kept controllable.

Disclaimer: This article is originally published on Chinanews.com, and is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
Me Today Limited announced today that it has signed a distribution agreement with MASH Beauty Lab Co., Ltd. in Japan.

Me Today and MASH Beauty Lab have been in discussion since late 2020 around developing this partnership. In conjunction with MASH Beauty Lab, Me Today has developed a range of ten products across the supplements and natural skincare categories. The products are 100% natural, new to the Me Today range, and will ship August 2021 for launch into the Japanese market at the Biople Fes in October 2021 as well as in New Zealand in the second half of 2021.

The initial agreement with MASH Beauty Lab is for twelve months and will see the Me Today range of ten products listed in all Biople by CosmeKitchen stores, a retail chain owned by MASH Beauty Lab. Biople stores provide a premium comfortable space for consumers to enjoy and shop natural and organic products. MASH Beauty Labs Biople chain has thirteen stores in the Kanto region (including Tokyo) with one new store, Biople Shichirigahama, opening 14th March 2021, four stores in the Kansai region (including Osaka), and the balance elsewhere around Japan.

In addition to the Biople stores, MASH Beauty Lab owns the CosmeKitchen chain. CosmeKitchen has fifty-five stores in Japan and one in Hong Kong. Like Biople stores CosmeKitchen is a premium retailer focusing on natural and organic beauty. Me Today products will be stocked in the Biople chain in year one with the potential to roll the brand out further through the MASH Beauty Lab network in year two.

In addition to this success in Japan, and the recently announced New Zealand agreement with Green Cross Health, discussions remain ongoing with other International partners. As arrangements and negotiations are finalised further information will be provided.

Please see the link below for details:

MEE Distribution Agreement with Mash Beauty

Source: Me Today Limited

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Confirms $10m Placement to Wholesale Investors

2nd June 2021 Morning Report

New Zealand Rural Land Company Limited (NZX: NZL) Rights Issue Documents

Infratil Limited (NZX: IFT) Update on Infratil Infrastructure Bond Offer

1st June 2021 Morning Report

Synlait Milk Limited (NZX: SML) Update Following Canterbury Flooding

Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Full Year Results to 31 March 2021

31st May 2021 Morning Report

The a2 Milk Company Limited (NZX: ATM) Media Reporting Regarding Potential Class Action

Synlait Milk Limited (NZX: SML) Forecast Milk Price Update


AN EYE-CATCHING exhibition of childrens creativity under Covid is on display in Pery Square.

In this strange and unsettling time of pandemic, the well-being and mental health of all our children is of paramount importance.

Project 2020/21 Together, Le Cheile from the Museum of Childhood Ireland, provides a platform for children of all ages to express their hopes, fears, thoughts and observations, as they navigate life during these Covid times.

The project was first devised and implemented by the Museum of Childhood Ireland for St Patricks Day 2020. As entries from children around the world poured in, they curated and launched it online on June 4, 2020.

Physical exhibitions have taken place in Illinois, USA; Killarney, Nepal and now Limerick since the beginning of the month.

Patricia Roberts, chairperson of Limerick Civic Trust, said they are delighted to showcase this exhibition and to host the Museum of Childhood Ireland at the People's Museum of Limerick.

Pery Square is slowly becoming an outdoor gallery / museum space, which has been a welcome distraction for many locals during these difficult times and we are thrilled to add to that experience. As children go back to school, the museum is hoping to engage more with the local schools, offering information on Limerick's heritage along with heritage activities starting with our scavenger hunt of People's Park.

We cannot wait to open our doors and to welcome people back into our building again, but until then we are so proud to be able to offer opportunities to explore our heritage and culture in a safe and positive way, said Ms Roberts.

The Museum of Childhood Ireland is accepting contributions for the 2021 edition of this childrens voices during the pandemic project and would be delighted to hear from children / youth in Limerick, up to 18 years of age, to have them add their voices to this historic, worldwide project.

Drop your work through the letterbox at the Peoples Museum or email your creations to info@museumofchildhood.ie
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent conservative nonprofit legal organization, is in the process of purchasing the Virginia-based headquarters of the global evangelical prison ministry Prison Fellowship.

Founded by Chuck Colson, the worlds largest Christian ministry for prisoners, moved into the 11.3-acre Lansdowne, Virginia property in 2005, after having outgrown its previous headquarters in Reston, Virginia.

The decision to sell the property in the Washington, D.C. suburbs was due in large part to the ministry work increasingly becoming virtual or on location at prisons, according to a statement.

ADF President and CEO Michael Farris told The Christian Post in an interview Monday that his organization signed a letter of intent as of last week and is going through closing now on the property.

Source:The Christian Post
BUENA VISTA TWP, MI  A Buena Vista Township man is facing a felony for allegedly letting severely injured puppies he was breeding go without veterinary care.

On Dec. 9, Daniel W. Montrel Jr. brought a pit bull-Labrador mix puppy to Saginaw Animal Care and Control, saying he found it walking down Court Street in Saginaw.

It had severe trauma to the left side of its body and bite wounds to its hind legs, said Director Bonnie Kanicki. The hind legs were nearly dismembered.

On further questioning from Animal Control staff, Montrel said the puppy was his and that an animal had injured it in his back yard about a month prior, Kanicki said. In the time since the puppy had been injured, Montrel had been employing an ill-advised home remedy of pouring peroxide in the wounds and wrapping them in gauze, Kanicki said.

Montrel signed over ownership of the puppy to the agency.

On Jan. 6, Montrel brought a second injured puppy to Animal Control.

This one was injured worse than the first puppy, Kanicki said, adding Montrel said it too had been attacked by an animal in his back yard. She was very bad. Both had their hind legs nearly torn from their bodies. They were full of bite wounds and flesh tear wounds. He had denied this dog veterinary care for so long the injuries were severely infected.

As with the first puppy, Montrel had treated the second ones wounds with peroxide and gauze wraps, Kanicki said.

Montrel signed this puppy over to Animal Control as well. Both puppies received emergency care from Dr. Joseph Kline at Erwins Veterinary Clinic in St. Charles.

The vets saved these puppies lives, Kanicki said, adding neither had to have their legs amputated.

Animal Control staff asked Montrel to sign over any other animals in his care.

It was obvious he was not capable of caring for them and his home treatment had delayed proper medical care that they needed, Kanicki said.

Montrel ended up signing over a third puppy and an adult female to the agency. Investigators believed he still had more though, Kanicki said.

Animal Control officers and Buena Vista Township police officers on Jan. 8 executed a search warrant on Montrels home, seizing another adult female, an adult male, and four more puppies, that were in decent condition. Montrel had been using the three adults to breed puppies, Kanicki said.

We could not verify his story of what may have attacked and tore up these puppies, she said. We suspect it was possible the unneutered adult male may have caused the injuries. The injuries were consistent with a dog attack.

Authorities issued a warrant for Montrel on Feb. 18.

On March 1, Montrel appeared in Saginaw County District Court for arraignment on one count of cruelty to 10 or more animals. The charge is punishable by up to four years in prison and a fine of $2,000.

The arraigning judge freed Montrel on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond, a condition of which is that he not possess animals.

Regarding the dogs involved, the two adult females have been adopted, the adult males adoption is pending and the non-wounded puppies are at an animal rescue. The two wounded puppies are rehabilitating in foster care.

They do still have severe problems, Kanicki said. They have severe emotional scars right now. They whine, cry out, and shake in their sleep. They act in their sleep as though they were being attacked.

Montrels next court date is pending.

Read more:

Police investigate animal cruelty of more than 60 dogs, livestock in Gladwin County

Woman pleads to animal cruelty in starvation of 12 racehorses in Saginaw County

Rescued pigs dubbed the Saginaw Six find new homes at sanctuaries as owner faces criminal charges
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"We have seen the efficiency with which the state-run vaccination sites have operated, however, those sites tend to be clustered in more highly dense, urban areas and are often difficult or impossible for people living in rural areas, especially our seniors, to get to," Hinchey wrote in her legislative justification. "We are at a crucial moment in this pandemic where we must make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated.This requires that the state Department of Health use its resources to ensure every county has access to a state run site, if they would like one, so that we can get everyone across the State of New York vaccinated in a timely manner in order to safely get us out of this pandemic, keep people healthy, and reopen the economy."
(Reuters)  Indian police have detained more than 150 Rohingya refugees found living illegally in the northern territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and begun deporting them to Myanmar, two officials said on Sunday.

Dozens of Rohingya, a Muslim minority population, are now in a makeshift holding center at Jammu's Hira Nagar jail. They were identified after local authorities conducted biometric and other tests on hundreds of people to verify their identities.

"The drive is part of an exercise to trace foreigners living in Jammu without valid documents," said one of the two officials, who declined to be named as they are not authorized to speak to the media.

"We have started the process of deportation of these refugees," the official added.

n 2019, the Indian government split the former state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, revoking its former limited autonomy and increasing New Delhi's control over the Muslim-majority region.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and a security risk, and has ordered that thousands of them living in scattered settlements be identified and deported.

The Myanmar military has been accused of committing atrocities including mass killings and rape against the Muslim minority population, forcing nearly a million people to flee. Most now live in ramshackle refugee camps on the border with Bangladesh. The UN has recommended that top military officials face genocide charges.

Myanmar denies accusations of genocide and says the army was fighting a legitimate counter-insurgency campaign.

India is home to one of the largest concentrations of Rohingya outside Bangladesh. Rohingyas in the country have said conditions are not conducive for them to return to Myanmar after fleeing violence and persecution over the years.

But India has rejected the United Nations' position that deporting the Rohingya violates the international legal principle of refoulement  sending refugees back to a place where they face danger.

The Indian government has also argued that India is not signatory to the specific UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, nor the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. A total of 148 countries are signatories to one of these two legal agreements that outline the rights of refugees and are meant to protect them.

The Rohingya living in Jammu said they were concerned about the weekend's detentions and the threat of deportation.

"We will go back when peace returns to our country," said Sufeera, 28. She said her uncle and brother had been sent to the holding center, leaving her alone with her children.

Another refugee, 48-year-old Sadiq, said members of his family had also been detained. "We have been told that we will be deported," he said. "They took mother and father ... Who will take care of them?"

This comes as Myanmar veers deeper into crisis. The military junta, which seized power on February 1, has occupied hospitals and conducted violent raids to consolidate its control of the country. Meanwhile, mass protests against the coup and military rule have continued for weeks on end. More than 54 people have died in crackdowns on protests, including many teenagers and young people, according to the UN.

This story was first published on CNN.com "India begins deporting more than 150 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar"
As the coronavirus roared through Texas last spring, H-E-B sought out distributors of surface cleaning products to meet unprecedented demand from its customers.

H-E-B says it struck a deal in July with a Beaumont partnership to supply the San Antonio grocery chain hundreds of thousands of canisters of BioErase antimicrobial surface wipes.

The arrangement quickly deteriorated, however, with the grocer alleging Maverick International Ltd. failed to deliver the quantities ordered and missed deadlines.

THE DOCKET: True crime, legal buzz, courtroom news and more. Delivered to your inbox.

H-E-B now is suing Maverick for breaking its purchase-order agreement, and seeks more than $1 million in damages. The case was filed last week in state District Court in San Antonio.

H-E-B agreed to buy nearly 599,000 canisters, the suit says, while Maverick alleges the grocer committed to buy 500,000 canisters a month over a 12-month period  for a total of 6 million units.

Jerry Nelson, a Maverick official, hinted the partnership may be filing its own complaint.

Well, I guess probably within the next week or two you may see another one, and youll be shocked, Nelson said. It wont be for that chump change  a reference to the damages H-E-B seeks in its lawsuit.

H-E-B spokesman Valentino Lucio described Maverick as a vendor that consistently failed to honor its commitments in a timely manner. H-E-B was left without the products to fulfill customer needs, costing it sales, he said in an email.

While H-E-B has satisfied its commitments and made every attempt at reaching a compromise, we cannot sit back and allow others to make unreasonable demands and threaten litigation, Lucio added. We would prefer to not go to court, but H-E-B must seek assistance to resolve this dispute based on meritless claims.

Nelson referred questions to Beaumont lawyer Glen Morgan, who also owns half of Maverick. Morgan didnt respond to a request for comment.

Maverick identifies itself on a website as the worldwide distributor of BioErase. The ingredients in its wipes include citric acid, lemon grass extract, water and soap bark. The wipes are bleach-free. There are 160 wipes in each canister.

In a June email, H-E-Bs lawsuit says, Maverick represented that it could provide 500,000 canister units of wipes a month.

The following month, H-E-B says it issued a series of purchase orders for about 599,000 canisters. It expected to get the canisters in August.

Maverick delivered 56,000 BioErase canisters in August  falling short of its promise by more than 500,000 units, H-E-B alleges.

It took Maverick 12 weeks to fulfill H-E-Bs first set of purchase orders, according to the lawsuit.

The chain adds the late deliveries were harmful to both parties as it significantly diminished the opportunity for BioErase to gain product equity and consumer confidence in the context of the scarcity of related product.

SA Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

The grocer also blames Mavericks inability to fulfill purchase orders for creating an inventory back-up for the chain, the complaint says. The suit doesnt mention how many canisters H-E-B received.

H-E-B says it has had to take losses on the sale of BioErase. The product was marked down at one of its stores Tuesday to $7.99 from $9.98. There were coupons offering an additional $2.50 off. That would bring the price for each canister to $5.49  a 45 percent reduction.

H-E-B wants the court to enter a judgment declaring the chain fulfilled it obligations to Maverick and that the grocer did not commit to purchasing 6 million canisters.

pdanner@express-news.net
Myanmars junta tightened its stranglehold on the country Monday, occupying hospitals and schools and shutting down five independent news outlets amid ongoing violence against peaceful protesters across the country that left at least four people dead and many others injured, witnesses said.

Soldiers began occupying public universities, hospitals, and religious building nationwide on Sunday, angering the public and adding impetus to protests that have raged since the military deposed the elected civilian government on Feb. 1.

Five local independent news outlets  Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), 7Day News, Myanmar Now, and Khit Thit news  have been banned from broadcasting, publishing, and posting news online, the junta-run Myawaddy TV news announced Monday, five weeks after the army deposed Aung San Suu Kyis civilian government.

Anti-regime demonstrators met with more violent crackdowns on Monday, when at least four people died and many were injured, including three in Myitkyina, capital of Kachin state, and one in Ayeyarwady region, where authorities arrested about 70 protesters.

Security forces used tear gas and live rounds against protesters in Myitkyinas Aung Nan ward, leaving two dead and seriously wounding two others. Several people were injured by rubber bullets fired at the crowd, and at least 50 others were arrested.

Police also made some arrests when they broke up a womens protest column commemorating International Womens Day.

Security forces are occupying at least 20 government universities, schools, and hospitals in major cities, including Yangon, Mandalay, Magway, Monywa, and using them as base camps, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported.

Local residents in several cities throughout the country have objected to the setting up of bases by police and soldiers in hospitals, schools, and religious buildings.

In the central Magway region, two people were injured and four were arrested Sunday night when police broke up protesters who demanded that security forces leave the campus of Yenangyaung University.

We saw troops establishing a base in our university, and we went there to protest their presence, said one student. Police soon arrived there along with prison vans. We were just having a peaceful protest, but they started firing shots into the air.

As the students fled the scene, some soldiers fired tear gas at them, hitting a chemistry student on the thigh with a rubber bullet, while another protester also hit by a rubber bullet fell unconscious, he said.

Police arrested four protesters, while several other students went into hiding, witnesses said.

Myanmar anti-junta demonstrators stage a protest in Mayangone township, Yangon region, March 8, 2021. Credit: RFA





Soldiers occupy, hospital, university

Soldiers have occupied civilian hospitals in Tedim and Falam in western Chin state, as well as a university campus in Hakha since last night, locals said.

About five soldiers are now at Falam's civilian hospital, and they said its for the security of the hospital, said one resident who declined to be identified. Actually, there is nothing to worry about in terms of security, and we don't need the military to take charge. People are even feeling more insecure because of their presence.

People who do not require emergency care are being sent to free clinics manned by health care workers participating in the civil disobedience movement, the resident said.

The commanding officer of the 20 troops occupying the hospital and university told the schools rector that that the soldiers were establishing a base for the security of the area under orders from the Chin state military council, locals said.

Police and soldiers also set up bases at East Yangon General Hospital, West Yangon General Hospital, Yangon General Hospital, Waibargi Hospital, Central Womens Hospital, and South Okkalapa Women and Childrens Hospital, local residents said.

When a police patrol car arrived at Waibargi Hospital at about 5 p.m., neighborhood residents banged pots and pans in protest, said an area resident.

After the people dispersed at around 8 p.m. to heed a dusk-to-dawn curfew, about 10 military trucks arrived and fired roughly 20 stun grenades, he said.

Several people were wounded, and some doctors who had joined the civil disobedience movement gave necessary treatment in homes because ambulances were not available, the resident said.

A resident of Yangons Kyimyindaing township posted videos that showed police shooting at random during the night in the compound of West Yangon General Hospital.

Political analyst Than Soe Naing said security forces now are taking over strategic spots such as schools and hospitals as a measure to reduce the protest rallies.

Its a part of their strategy, though people can still go to protest marches without first gathering at a rallying point as they are determined to continue their fight, he told RFA. The police now have to spread their forces out in many places, though they will have more difficulties.

Myanmar anti-junta demonstrators use shields to protect themselves from security forces during a protest in Mayangone township, Yangon region, March 8, 2021. Credit: RFA





Neighborhood scare tactics

Police and soldiers also have resorted to using scare tactics by going into residential areas at night, firing their guns, and making arrests.

We are furious. We are not scared. We are going to fight on, said a resident of North Okkalapa township in Yangon. Older residents might be scared and feel threatened, but not us.

On Sunday, security forces fired their weapons at the corner of a road in a residential area, scaring senior citizens with the sound of loud gunfire, she said.

Older folks were frightened and turned off their lights, hiding in the dark, she said.

On Monday, New York-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) condemned the occupation of hospitals by the Myanmar military.

If anything, the Myanmar military appears to be emboldened and is expanding its abusive tactics to hospitals and additional residential areas, said Raha Wala, PHRs advocacy director, in a statement.

Hospitals and clinics should always be protected, safe for staff and patients alike, and the medical care of patients should never be impeded, he said. This is an urgent emergency situation that must be treated as such by the international community.

PHR noted that under international human rights law, states are obligated to ensure effective protection for health workers at all times and to provide unencumbered access to emergency health care for all, regardless of a state of emergency.

Myanmar monks display signs supporting the the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a national legislative body elected in the country's 2020 elections, during a sit-in in Mandalay, March 8, 2021. Credit: RFA





At least 57 dead

There have been at least 57 deaths in Myanmar since the beginning of the coup on Feb. 1, according to an RFA tally.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a watchdog group, said that as of Monday, 1,857 people had been arrested, charged, or sentenced in relation to the military coup, with 1,538 still being held.

In Pyapon, Ayeyarwady region, one man died and seven others were injured in a violent crackdown, witnesses said. About 70 protesters were arrested.

Police and soldiers fired some shots into the air to disperse the crowds, and our student column came back calling for the release of those arrested, said a student protester. They used tear gas, stun grenades, and live ammunition against us. One died, and seven others were wounded.

In the town of Einme, Ayeyarwady region, one protester was injured by gunfire, and police made nine arrests when officers together with reinforcements from Myaungmya broke up a protest march comprising an ethnic Karen youth column, a womens column, and a peoples column.

In several other regions and states across the country, authorities detained dozens of protesters, and witnesses said police fired shots at peaceful protesters without initial warnings.

In Yangon, military and police forces broke into the offices of Myanmar Now news agency and the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society group, where they confiscated computers, a safe, paintings, and official documents from the later location.

Police and soldiers broke down the doors of the Myanmar Now newspaper building in Yangon and took away computers and some office equipment, chief editor Swe Win told RFA.

In Yangons Tamwe township, women held an anti-military protest march holding their sarongs as flags to commemorate International Womens Day. No arrests were made.

Security forces also began locking down protesters in Yangons Sanchaung township on Monday evening. Demonstrators were blocked by the forces from both sides of the main roads, where city residents began gathering to rally against the action.

Social media footage recorded by people at the scene shows shooting along with screaming and shouting, as security forces blocked protesters. Some demonstrators sheltered in residents homes, through police and soldiers tried to enter the houses to arrest them.

RFA was not able to obtain the number of injuries or arrests during the action.

Myanmar police arrest anti-junta protesters in Lashio, northern Shan state, March 8, 2021. Credit: RFA





US, UN call out military

The move prompted swift responses from the U.S. Embassy in Yangon and the and United Nations on social media

There is heightened tension caused by security forces surrounding Kyun Taw Road in Sanchaung township, Yangon, the embassy tweeted. We call on those security forces to withdraw and allow people to go home safely.

The U.N. in Myanmar called for an immediate de-escalation of the situation and for security forces to let protestors return home safely, while the international bodys human rights office (OHCHR) tweeted that it was concerned about the protesters in Sanchaung.

We are deeply concerned about the fate of some 200 peaceful protestors  incl. women  who have been cordoned by security forces in Yangon, and may be at risk of arrest or ill-treatment. We urge the police to immediately allow them to leave safely and without reprisals, OHCHR said.

Yanghee Lee, former U.N. rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, also denounced security forces that surrounded civilians in Sanchaung and reports of gunshots.

This is unacceptable, she tweeted. Security forces must allow safe passage & retreat from the area. Stop stoking fear in people including children.

Security forces detained several protesters and injured others in Yenangyaung of Mandalay region and in Falam and Hakha of Chin state.

People continued anti-junta rallies in Mandalay, Myanmars second-largest city, despite police crackdowns. Two men were seriously injured when a military truck crashed into their motorcycles between 56th and 57th Streets.

The incident followed another protest there on Sunday when police arrested more than 90 protesters.

Myanmar anti-junta demonstrators wearing helmets and face masks participate in a protest in Manyangone township, Yangon region, March 8, 2021. Credit: RFA





Rallies in other major cities

In Naypyidaw, nearly 200 people held a rally in front of the Pyinmana sugar mill, but security forces dispersed the crowd 30 minutes later.

Anti-military protest marches also continued in Kawkareik, Kayin state, and in several towns in Mon state.

In the town of Thaton, Karen National Union troops helped protesters continue their march without incident. In Hpa-an, Kayins capital, police blocked all the intersections and main roads. No protest marches were reported there.

In Dawei, Tanintharyi region, several protesters were injured and at least 10 arrested when police violently cracked down on demonstrators.

Police and soldiers in Lashio, northern Shan state, broke up a protest march and arrested six people. Near the border town of Muse, police and soldiers used tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets to disperse protesters. One man was injured, witnesses said.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
NASA has announced plans for a new film highlighting the journey of the Mars Opportunity rover.

The feature-length documentary produced by Amazon Studios will be titled "Good Night Oppy," according to Robert Z. Pearlman with Space.com.

LIFE IN SPACE: Netflix film 'A Million Miles Away' tells the story of astronaut Jose Hernandez

Film 45, Amblin Television, and Tripod Media will work with Amazon to tell the story of one of NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers (MER).

Ryan White is set to direct the film already in production, according to Pearlman.

White shared his excitement to direct the film in a statement released by Amazon Studios.

"I grew up on films like 'E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial' and 'Wall-E,' so to make a documentary with similar themes of wonder and awe has been a joy. We're thrilled to work with Amazon to bring the story of Oppy and her humans to global audiences of all ages."

The film will document Opportunity as it landed on the Red Planet in July 2003, a month after its twin rover Spirit.

Opportunity made headlines by setting the record for "off-world driving," according to CollectSpace.com.

In 2014, John Callas, project manager with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., said the following about Opportunity.

"Opportunity has driven farther than any other vehicle on another world. This is so remarkable considering Opportunity was intended to drive about one kilometer and was never designed for distance," Callas said.

Callas further said the real significance of the Opportunity mission was "how much exploration and discovery" was accomplished.

According to Pearlman, communication with Opportunity ceased on June 10, 2018, after a dust storm covered the Red Planet. Engineers at NASA's JPL attempted to reach the rover on Feb. 12, 2019, to no avail.

"The last message that the rover sent  as paraphrased in a reporter's tweet that went viral  was, "My battery is low and it's getting dark," Pearlman wrote.

NASA's rovers have provided some incredible missions over the years, with the Mars Perseverance being the most recent project providing highlight reels of its research and discoveries.

Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, said it was "innovation and determination that made Oppy's journey possible," according to Pearlman.

"The spirit of discovery that drives the team at JPL, are an inspiration," Salke said.
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

This time last year, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was ordering schools to close to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. On Monday, her administration said all public schools in New Mexico will be expected to open at full capacity for in-person learning by April 5.

This is the first time full reentry has been on the table for K-12 schools across the state since the COVID-19 pandemic hit New Mexico. The state Public Education Department defines full reentry as all students having the option to return to school for in-person learning each school day.

All schools across the state do need to be open by April 5, Education Secretary Ryan Stewart said during a virtual news conference. That gives about a month for planning.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

Remote learning remains an option for students. And high-risk staff exemptions are available until two weeks after a school employee is fully vaccinated or a vaccine is made available to them. All teachers are now eligible to receive the vaccine.

Stewart pointed to data tracking, school building improvements, robust safety practices and wider access for educators to get the vaccine as reasons the state is making this move now.

He said school district leaders were told about the reopening plans Monday morning.

The time has come to get back to the gold-standard in education, which is students and teachers together in classrooms, Stewart said in a statement. Our message to New Mexico public schools is that you can and should move as quickly as possible to get everyone who wants it back for in-person learning.

Schools will be expected to follow such safety protocols as mask-wearing. Stewart said social distancing should be practiced to the greatest extent possible.

Schools have to continue providing meals for in-person and at-home learners. Stewart said lunch and snack breaks should be taken outside to the greatest extent possible.

Surveillance testing will continue, though the number of school staff who will need to get tested for the coronavirus will depend on the county. Staffers who are fully vaccinated do not have to do surveillance testing, according to the PED.

Schools can also offer sports, band and choir, among other activities, with some COVID restrictions.

Albuquerque Public Schools, which has largely kept students learning remotely this year, said in a news release Monday that its working on updating its plans to get students back in the classroom to present to the Board of Education.

Small group in-person learning, which was approved just last month, will continue on APS campuses in the meantime. The district had been considering starting a hybrid of in-person and online schooling when Bernalillo County met certain COVID-19 spread thresholds.

Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein said the states announcement was a surprise.

We understand that all of the educators will get vaccinated, but we are surprised and will try to get more information so we can figure out how to do this safely, she said.

Fellow union leader Mary Parr-Sanchez, president of the National Education Association New Mexico, said that staffers are excited to get back into the classroom, but that she wants to make sure everyone who wants to be is vaccinated.

I dont have any problem with the decision, but the devil is in the details, she said.

Debates about reopening the states K-12 schools have dominated the 2020-21 school year. At the center of the debate was getting teachers and other school staffers vaccinated.

Mondays school reopening announcement came the same day the state said all school staffers will be eligible to be vaccinated in the next three weeks.

Dr. Tracie Collins, state Department of Health secretary, said the states plan, as per a federal directive, is to give all educators, staff and early childhood professionals a first dose of the vaccine by the end of March.

Stewart said the decision to make educators and staff eligible is due in part to a shift in federal priorities and the substantial progress made in vaccinating the current eligible groups, which include those ages 75 and older, and those with chronic health conditions.

President Joe Biden announced last week that teachers nationwide should be prioritized for vaccination, also announcing a new federal program to give teachers nationwide at least a first dose of the vaccine by the end of March.

Were not getting extra doses to respond to this federal directive, but were certainly trying to maintain a priority of health care personnel, 75-plus and chronic conditions, Collins said. So any of those folks who have existing appointments, they will keep those appointments. Its just that, moving forward, we are prioritizing educators.

She said 53,905 educators have registered on the states portal. She also said that 22,944 have received one shot and that 11,616 have been fully vaccinated.

Weve got 20,981 (educators and staff) scheduled to receive their first shot this month, Collins said. The state began contacting teachers and others in the new eligible category late last week to get them vaccinated.

She urged educators and staffers who have not yet registered on the states vaccination website to do so. The state is receiving more than 80,000 doses each week, she said.

New Mexicos schools stayed closed for the end of the 2019-20 academic year, remaining remote until after Labor Day. All schools were allowed to launch a hybrid of in-person and online learning starting Feb. 8, which some elementaries had been doing already.

We are phasing out what weve been calling hybrid learning, although there will continue to be a fully remote option for those families who choose it, Stewart said.

Journal Staff Writer Rick Nathanson contributed to this report.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After moving sharply higher in early trading in reaction to reports of attacks on Saudi Arabian facilities, the price of crude oil showed a significant downturn over the course of the session on Monday.



Crude for April delivery slumped $1.04 to $65.05 a barrel after reaching an intraday high of $67.98 a barrel earlier in the day, the highest since October 2018.



Profit taking may have inspired traders to cash in on the recent increase in the price of crude oil following the early spike.



The initial upward move came Saudi Arabia said some of the world's most protected oil infrastructure came under missile and drone attack on Sunday in an escalation of regional hostilities, raising concerns about Saudi Arabia's air defenses and the expanding capabilities of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.



The official Saudi Press Agency quoted an anonymous official in the Ministry of Energy as saying that a drone flew in from the sea and struck an oil storage site in Ras Tunura, the port run by Saudi Arabia's state oil company, Aramco.



The Ministry of Energy denounced the strike as 'an act of sabotage' targeting not only Saudi Arabia 'but also the security and stability of energy supplies to the world.' Meanwhile, oil output appeared to be unaffected.



Meanwhile, traders were also reacting to news the Senate voted along party lines on Saturday to approve a new $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill.



The bill, which includes $1,400 direct payments and an extension of unemployment benefits, is expected to be approved by the House later this week.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) on Monday, also International Women's Day, launched a nationwide publicity and education campaign to mark the centenary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that will be celebrated this year.

At the launching ceremony, the ACWF presented awards to representatives of female role models as well as organizations and groups honored for the outstanding performance of their female workers.

The ACWF will publicize the stories of the CPC and the deeds of heroic women from the CPC's past, and motivate people to pass on revolutionary traditions during the campaign.

In cooperation with Xinhua News Agency and the Publicity Department of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, the ACWF has launched a publicity campaign to produce short videos, books, movies, and cartoons to encourage women to participate in the construction of a modern socialist country.
WE are now reading that the Minister of Sport has come out with a statement regarding our participation in the Tokyo Olympics.

As with the usual run-of-the-mill political type, the statement vacillates, kicks the can down the road and seeks to avoid the issue. Let us be clear on what the situation is regarding these Olympics.
Some 120-150 goats have returned to the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center to help mow the vegetation on 2.6 acres of coastal prairie in the centers meadow area.

The goats are from Rent-A-Ruminant Texas and graze on a variety of grasses and plants. Its an effective, eco-friendly way to get rid of unwanted plants and overgrowth. The goats were at the Arboretum in October and November and will be onsite for several days. The public is welcome, but the Arboretum advises no touching or feeding the goats.
Ha Tinh police have detained a 36-year-old man carrying 30,000 amphetamine pills in a backpack to be delivered at a gas station.

The man, a resident of Huong Son District in the central province only identified as Vu, will be charged with drug smuggling, police said Monday.

Vu had asked a friend to drive him to the gas station in Huong Son District in order to deliver the pills. Authorities have confirmed that the amphetamine, also known as ecstasy pills, valued at around VND6 billion ($261,000), originated in Laos, more than 300 km from the district.

Vu confessed to the police that he has been a drug addict for years. He was to given several hundred of the amphetamine pills as his payment, but was caught before he could collect it from the dealer.

The case is being investigated further.

In Vietnam, those who smuggle narcotics can be punished with at least two years in prison. Depending the severity of the crime and quantity of drugs involved, those found guilty can even get life imprisonment or death.
Former Member of Parliament(MP) for Tamale Central, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini says the recent outburst of his partys National Communication Officer was somehow needful for the betterment of the party in future.



Sammy Gyamfi took the Speaker of Parliament and Minority to the cleaners for voting for Ministers-designate the NDC thought should have been rejected by at least members from their side.



He described his partys leadership in parliament as betrayers.



Many have condemned his utterances with some suggesting that he should be hauled before the Privileges Committee.



But the former NDC lawmaker said the young man was pained and had to fight for his partys interest.



It was an emotional outburst to an unpleasant outcome of the voting in parliament, he told host, Kwesi Aboagye in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie.



Listen to interview below





Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
BUTTE COUNTY, Calif.  Several California counties, including, Butte, will be moving out of the most restrictive COVID-19 tier and into the red tier. The change in tiers is effective at 12 a.m. Wednesday, March 10, according to Butte County Public Health.

The other counties moving from the purple tier to the red tier are Alameda, Calaveras, Imperial, Santa Cruz and Solano. Other tier changes included in Tuesday's update were Plumas and Mariposa counties going from the red to orange tier. Alpine County moved to the least restrictive yellow tier.

The data requirements to qualify for the red tier include a case rate of 4-7 cases per 100,000 residents with a test positivity rate of 5-8%. The current Butte County COVID-19 case rate is 7.3 cases per 100,000 residents with a 3.6% test positivity rate, according to public health.

The move to the red tier means indoor dining rooms and movie theaters can reopen at 25% capacity or up to 100 people, whichever is fewer. Gyms can open indoors at 10% capacity. Museums, zoos and aquariums can open indoor activities at 25% capacity.

Wineries in the red tier may open outdoors with modifications, but bars and distilleries that do not serve food may not. Other retail businesses like clothing stores and florists can go from 25% capacity to 50%.

Butte County Public Health also said in a news release Tuesday, "While this is an encouraging move in the right direction, the more contagious B117 variant of the Coronavirus has been identified in Butte County. There is evidence that this variant may be more severe. It is vital that we all continue to follow guidance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and all its variants, including: wearing a mask, washing your hands, keeping distance from others, staying home if you are sick, and getting vaccinated when it is your turn."
Veteran who provided free seafood during winter storm: 'God put it in my heart'
Jeff Bartos is formally launching his campaign for Pennsylvanias wide-open U.S. Senate race, the highest-profile Republican candidate so far to declare for the seat.

Bartos, the Republican Partys unsuccessful nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018, has said he was seriously considering a run and filed paperwork to run last month.

On Monday, the suburban Philadelphia real estate investor and longtime GOP fundraiser updated his campaign website to say that he is running.

He declared his candidacy on Twitter, using an expletive to say hed get things done, perhaps a throwback to a slogan in paraphernalia used to promote former President Donald Trumps 2020 reelection bid.

Its time to make sure that the average Pennsylvanian has a fighting chance to live their own American Dream, he wrote.

The Montgomery County resident is playing up his roots in Berks County and his work over the past year as a co-founder of the Pennsylvania 30 Day Fund, a nonprofit that raised more than $3 million to distribute as forgivable loans to small businesses in Pennsylvania struggling through the pandemic.

Bartos originally started running for U.S. Senate in 2017 before switching to the lieutenant governors race after then-U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta joined the Senate stakes with Trumps backing.

Bartos, 48, has longtime connections to GOP campaign donors and political elite through his work fundraising for candidates. He also served briefly as the state partys finance chair and has the personal wealth to write his campaign a big check.

The Senate seat in the presidential battleground is being left open after two-term Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey announced in October that he would not run again.

Former Trump administration figures are considering running, although Trump has not yet weighed in to endorse a would-be candidate in the Republican field.

The race for the Democratic nomination is already crowded.

Already declared are Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of Philadelphia, while several others say they are considering or will consider a run. They include state Sen. Sharif Street, who is also the vice chair of the state Democratic Party, and U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle, Chrissy Houlahan and Conor Lamb.

More than a half-dozen of unknown or first-time candidates from both parties have also filed paperwork to run.

Pennsylvania has not elected two Democrats to the Senate since the 1940s, although it did have two Democratic senators for nearly two years after Arlen Specter switched parties in 2009.

Bartos enters the race at time when the Republican Party is divided over Trump and the state party fought almost to a tie over whether to formally censure Toomey for voting to convict Trump in the former presidents second impeachment trial last month.

Bartos, who comes from a county that voted decisively against Trump, has said that he voted twice for Trump and supports what he accomplished in office. On Monday, he invoked Trump as a fighter for the forgotten.

During the Trump Administration, millions of Pennsylvanians who had felt abandoned and forgotten had someone fighting for them in Washington and delivering real results for their communities, Bartos wrote in a statement announcing his candidacy.

Bartos does not suggest that the election was stolen from Trump  Trump maintains baselessly that it was  and has said he believes Trump should have ended his efforts to overturn the outcome several weeks after the election when federal courts were rejecting his legal challenges.

But Bartos does not assign blame to Trump for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, unlike Toomey, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of suburban Philadelphia and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.

Bartos is also joining a Republican movement to tighten voting laws in the wake of Trumps loss in November to Democrat Joe Biden.

Bartos said on Twitter last week that he supports voter ID laws and ending no excuse absentee ballots, a law that Pennsylvania passed in 2019 with near-universal support from Republican lawmakers before Trump began attacking mail-in voting, baselessly, as being rife with fraud.
Citizens stand in line to take a COVID-19 test at a makeshift testing site in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, March 3. Yonhap



By Lee Hyo-jin



The recent administrative order from Gyeonggi Provincial Government for all foreign workers in the area to take a COVID-19 test has raised doubts over its effectiveness among local groups representing them.



Amid a series of infection clusters at workplaces involving migrant workers, the local government issued the administrative order, Monday, that all foreign nationals whose workplace is in Gyeonggi Province should get a free coronavirus test by March 22.



It said undocumented foreigners would be able to take the test without the risk of being arrested and deported as they will not be required to submit information about their immigration status.



Those refusing to take the test could be fined of up to 3 million won ($2,600); and if an infection occurs among those who have not been tested during the period, the authorities will demand an indemnity for their relevant quarantine and treatment expenses, according to the order.



However, migrant workers' groups have raised doubts whether the two-week massive testing will actually be able to contain the potential spread.









"Extensive testing may be able to find confirmed patients, but it will not prevent additional outbreaks, which may occur at any time in the current working and living environment for migrant workers," said Lee Young, head of a welfare center for such employees in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.



What is more important than aggressive testing is consistent monitoring of the adherence to antivirus guidelines at workplaces and in cramped dormitories, Lee said, as poorly ventilated factories and densely packed sleeping quarters have been pointed out as infection-prone environments.





A street in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, is empty in this March 2 photo, when COVID-19 infection clusters broke out among foreign workers in the area. Yonhap
Legality of ban on transport of weapons in St. Petersburg subway upheld by court of appeals

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

17:05 09/03/2021

ST. PETERSBURG, March 9 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov)  A court of appeals has reaffirmed a decision of the St. Petersburg City Court as to the legality of the ban on the transport of weapons in the citys metro, the Committee for Transport of St. Petersburg informs RAPSI on Tuesday.

The respective decision was passed by the Second Court of Appeals of General Jurisdiction, where several applicants sought to overturn the earlier ruling of the lower instance court, which said that transport of weapons by subway was unlawful under the metro rules.

According to the said regulations, it is forbidden to transport weapons, weapons main components, ammunition, explosives or other dangerous devices, objects and substances in the metro, if those are not transported in the interests of state paramilitary organizations by their duly appointed officers.

The applicants argued that the ban on the transport of weapons by civilians was introduced without reservations or clarifications. Their submissions say that inspectors of the Metro Transport Security Service do not allow those who have licenses and official permits to carry weapons, and that inspectors often prohibit passengers with gas canisters and gas pistols from entering the metro, although those devices are not on the ban list.

The City Transport Committee noted that the ban on transporting weapons in the metro does not limit the rights of legal owners of weapons to transport them on the territory of St. Petersburg by other means of transport. Thus, according to the rules for the use of land passenger transport in St. Petersburg, the transport of firearms is allowed in cases, holsters or cases on conditions that weapons are to be unloaded, and the cartridges are kept separately.
The Government is to tell insurers it expects to see an immediate effect on premiums after judges voted to significantly cut a range of personal injury awards.

The message will be delivered by Sean Fleming, the minister of state responsible for insurance, who is due to meet the chief executives of insurance companies individually over the coming weeks.

Mr Fleming said he didnt buy suggestions from the industrys representative body that it would be some time before award cuts had an impact on premiums.

Insurance Ireland chief executive Moyagh Murdock did not give a specific timeline when asked yesterday when consumers can expect premiums to reduce.

The guidelines will apply only to cases that have not already been assessed by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB).

It takes seven to eight months to get a case assessed. So it is going to take time before we start to see the benefit coming through the court system, Ms Murdock told Pat Kenny on Newstalk.

However, Mr Fleming told the Irish Independent he did not accept this.

I dont buy that because these will have legal effect from all cases arising effectively from now on, he said

When claimants go to PIAB, PIAB will be using the new court rates.

I would see that the reduction in the cost of claims will have an immediate effect from all new claims from now on.

Mr Fleming said insurance companies would have already made provision for all claims they currently had on their hands.

So there should be no hangover or carry-over from the past to see how this will wash out in the future, he said. The judges have told them how this is going to wash out in the future, full stop. Because the judges have set the figures.

The ministers comments will ratchet up the pressure on insurers, who have already shown signs they will drag their heels on reducing premiums.

The Judicial Council voted at the weekend to accept guidelines imposing significant cuts to awards for minor and middling injuries.

Awards for minor whiplash, the most significant injury in terms of costs for the insurance industry, will be more than halved under the guidelines.

A memo being brought to Cabinet today by Justice Minister Helen McEntee will seek Government approval for amendments to the Judicial Council Act 2019 and the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003 to give legal effect to the guidelines.

Read More

This will retire the current Book of Quantum and replace it with the guidelines.

It is intended the new system will take effect within weeks.

However, Mr Fleming said that, in reality, injuries that happened from now on, or had already happened and not yet been the subject of a claim, would fall under the guidelines.

Ms Murdock insisted insurers were committed to passing on savings that will be brought about as a result of the guidelines, but signalled this would not happen straight away.

When we start to see cases being assessed under the new rules we will start to see those costs coming down, she said.

Ms Murdock said the industry now wanted to see cases go through the more expeditious channel of the PIAB or direct settlement rather than ending up in the courts.

Mr Fleming said he anticipated that, as a result of the guidelines, fewer cases would go to court as PIAB would be offering the same awards as the courts at a fraction of the cost of going to court.

According to the Judicial Council, the guidelines provide greater certainty as to the level of damages likely to be awarded if a case goes to trial.

It is expected that this greater certainty will lead to increased numbers of early settlements, and therefore a reduction in the legal costs of both claimants and defendants, the council says on its website. In addition, it is inevitable that where lower awards apply to a category of injury, it will result in many cases in future being commenced in a lower court. This also has an impact by reducing the costs recoverable.
Zurich has promoted Kim Jordan to regional vice president for the South Region, and Jim Heintz was named the underwriting manager for the South Central area.

Jordan and Heintz held their new positions on an interim basis since January before being promoted.

As the regional vice president for the South Region, Jordan will be responsible for driving the success of Zurichs Middle Market book of business in the region, including cultivating distributor and customer relationships and developing underwriting talent. She will report to John Diaz, chief operating officer, U.S. Middle Market, for Zurich North America.

Jordan joined Zurich in 2017 as a Middle Market underwriting manager in the South Region and has 30 years of experience in the industry, including underwriting leadership roles at Travelers in Middle Market, National Accounts and Construction.

In his role as underwriting manager for the South Central area, Heintz will report to Jordan and be responsible for managing underwriters and cultivating distributor relationships in this territory.

Since joining Zurich in 2010, Heintz has held a variety of roles in Sales & Distribution and Claims before most recently serving as a Senior Middle Market underwriter and team lead.

Topics USA Commercial Lines Business Insurance
A sign reading, "I wish Covid-19 was over" is seen on security fence surrounding the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on March 7, 2021. (Erin Scott/Reuters)

US Could Send $1,400 COVID Bill Payments Within Days; Child Tax Credit a Bigger Challenge

WASHINGTONWith plenty of practice sending coronavirus relief payments to Americans, the federal government should be able to launch the delivery of $1,400 checks almost immediately once Congress finalizes the new aid bill and President Joe Biden signs it, tax experts say.

Some Americans might see direct payments as soon as this week if the bill passes the House of Representatives on Tuesday as expected, compared with several weeks lag in April 2020. Nearly 160 million households are expected to get payments, the White House estimates.

The Treasury Departments Internal Revenue Service will have new challenges on its hands, though, thanks to the $1.9 trillion relief bill. Incarcerated people, those with non-citizen spouses, and relatives of those who died in 2020 will be eligible for payments.

The bill also includes an expanded Child Tax Credit of up to $3,000 per child, paid monthly starting in July, essentially forcing the revenue collector to act as benefits administrator for the rest of the year.

The IRS, which has more than 70,000 employees, handles over 190 million individual and corporate tax returns a year, but it has been hobbled by budget cuts and obsolete technology in recent years. The COVID-19 bill includes $1.46 billion for the agency, which is running into its busiest season, as the April 15 deadline for individual taxpayers approaches.

A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman said the Biden administrations priority was to speed relief to Americans, adding: Treasury stands ready to implement the direct payment check program as soon as the American Rescue Plan is passed.

The White House is seen in the evening after the passage of the American Rescue Plan in the U.S. Senate at the White House in Washington, on March 6, 2021. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Finding the Unconnected

Making one-off payments to those who regularly file tax returns should not be a struggle for the IRS, said Janet Holtzblatt, senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

They have already ironed out many of the snafus that slowed the previous rollouts, Holtzblatt said. The IRS continues to surprise me in its ability to step up to these challenges.

It took more than two weeks for the IRS to begin sending the first $1,200 electronic payments to taxpayers in April 2020 after then-President Donald Trump signed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act into law on March 27.

Read More Mnuchin Says It Was His Idea to Put Trumps Name on Stimulus Checks

The year-end $900 billion stimulus was signed by Trump on Dec. 27, a week after Congress passed it. The IRS began sending electronic payments out two days later, on Dec. 29.

Biden left the IRS plenty of room after Senate passage on Saturday, saying his plan would get checks out the door this month.

But Democrats in Congress, including Senator Bob Casey, were more optimistic on Sunday. Payments will go out in very short order, Casey said. The Treasury Department is prepared for this. Theyve been dealing with this issue since last March.

Another key priority for the next round will be signing up more people for electronic payments, including those earning too little to file tax returns or who do not get other federal benefits, who were left out of past payment rounds.

Homeless people and those without internet access will be difficult to reach, but Holtzblatt said community outreach groups that were shut down last spring due to the coronavirus could now provide some help in signing them up.

The Child Tax Credit changes are a vast undertaking, tax experts say. All taxpayers earning under $200,000 with children 17 or under living with them at least half the year can claim the full credit.

Bidens bill increases the credit to $3,000 per child from $2,000 and allows it to be paid in advance for all income levels, as monthly cash payments from July to December of this year.

Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights in Washington and the IRS national taxpayer advocate from 2001 to 2019, said a key challenge would be determining whether the children actually lived with their parents, which could hold up the payments.

The IRS also needs to change its culture to reflect a changing mission, she said.

The IRS needs to recognize that its not just a revenue collector, but it is a social benefits administrator, and it needs to staff itself and organize its training accordingly, Olson said.

By David Lawder
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
The project will improve connectivity between ORR and major urban clusters around Hyderabad.  PTI file photo

Hyderabad: The long-pending 340-km Hyderabad Regional Ring Road (RRR) project is set to get a boost in the upcoming State Budget. As part of the budget preparatory meetings, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has directed officials to sanction the required funds for the project which is estimated to cost Rs 15,980 crore.

Official sources said the funds sanctioned in the Budget will be utilised for land acquisition. The state government has agreed to pay 50 per cent of land acquisition cost while the Centre will bear the other half, they added.

The project will improve connectivity between ORR and major urban clusters around Hyderabad.

It comprises two parts  a Rs 9,500 crore northern part and a Rs 6,480 crore southern portion. The Centre granted in-principle approval for the northern part on February 22 while it assured that it would consider approval for the southern part later.

Union minister Nitin Gadkari assured that the RRR will be built in three years, provided that the government completes the land acquisition work quickly

The project will connect Sangareddy, Narsapur, Toopran, Gajwel, Jagdevpur, Choutuppal, Shadnagar and Sangareddy and serve about 40 per cent of the population of the state.

It will connect national highways 65 (Pune-Machilipatnam), 161 (Sangareddy-Nanded-Akola), 765D (Hyderabad-Medak), 44 (Srinagar-Kanyakumari) and 163 (Hyderabad-Bhopalpatnam) and State Highway-1 (Hyderabad-Ramagundam).

Once the project is constructed as an access controlled expressway, the travel time and vehicle operation costs for commercial and non-commercial vehicles will get reduced by a great extent.

A number of industrial clusters, IT centres, logistics parks, pharma industries, recreational facilities, among others, are expected to get established in and around the project road which would provide a big boost to the economy of Telangana.
A 45-year-old woman has been charged with murder over the death of an elderly Coburg man last year.

Police said 87-year-old Kon Kritikos was left lying on the floor with critical injuries for up to 5 hours before he was found by a family member on November 11. He died about two weeks later in hospital.

Kon Kritikos was home alone at his Reynard Street property in Coburg on November 11 when he was bashed.

Danielle Lee Birchall, from Kurunjang, was arrested and charged with murder on Tuesday, two weeks after police pleaded for information from the public over the attack.

Ms Birchall appeared briefly before Melbourne Magistrates Court, via a video link, on Tuesday afternoon and was remanded. She is next due to appear before court on July 27.
Photo credit: Matt Phillips

From Bicycling

The Takeaway: a dialed and capable bike that puts the all in all-mountain.



140mm/150mm (rear/front) with adjustable geometry and shock rate

Eight models (two aluminum, six carbon) priced $3,129 to $10,499

2021 updates include modernized geometry and increased anti-squat

Carbon models share a frame with Rockys 160/170mm Altitude

Price: $9,399 (Instinct Carbon 90 tested)

Weight: 29.1 lb. (medium)

View Gallery Learn More

Its new bike day at Rocky Mountain. The Canadian brand is rolling out the latest version of the Instinctits mid-travel140mm rear, 150mm frontsuspension bike built for all-mountain and all-trail duty. The Instinct is notable not just for its clean lines and simple profile, but also for its highly adjustable suspension and geometry. My ride impressions are below, followed by a dive into the bikes features and a breakdown of the eight models Rocky offers.

Rocky Mountain Instinct Carbon 90 Details

Rocky Mountain Instinct Ride Impressions

A lot of the bikes in this category are, like the Instinct, jacks of all trades, but masters of none. Even so, some stand out for their ability to navigate technical terrain (the Pivot Switchblade), or are more playful than most (Evil Offering), or push the limits on geometry (Pole Stamina). But the Instinct feels like a middle-of-the-road bike in the middle-of-the-road category. Thats not a bad thing, however. While doesnt break any new ground or scramble category paradigms, it does everything its supposed to do, and does it well.

Photo credit: Matt Phillips

One of the good things about this centered nature is that I immediately felt comfortable on the Instinct. Theres not a learning curve or any quirks to navigate: just set sag and send it. The frame is the right amount of stiff (not under or over stiff); the steering is lively and neutral; it is stable but not dead-feeling; the rear suspension is smooth and consistent. I was shocked at how quickly it disappeared under me on the first ridefive minutes in and the Instinct felt as familiar as a bike Id ridden for 100 hours.

Story continues

For all-around trail riding, the Instinct is as good a bike as it gets. It can smash chunky trails well and dances admirably through tight and techy trails. Its light enough to bring on all-day rides with epic climbs and capable enough for some light enduro smashing and bike park partying.

Some of this versatility is unlocked by taking advantage of the Instinct's suspension and geometry tuning options. While I played around with a number of settings, I spent most of my time with the bike set in neutral geometry, with less progressive rear suspension, and the short chainstays/wheelbase, which worked well for my riding preferences and my usual rides.

Photo credit: Matt Phillips

That said, the bike does noticeably change character in the other settings so if you want a bit more stability for shuttle riding, or a truer tracking front end for a high-country ride with massive climbs, you just need to spin some wrenches to get them.

The rear suspension feels tuned more for sensitivity and traction than pedaling efficiency. On smoother climbs, I flipped the shocks switch to the middle or firm mode to get more support and crispness out of the rear end. And because I used the shocks climb switch more often on this bike, I appreciated having a similar adjustment upfront on the Fox 36 with FIT4 damper.



While it might call for an assist from the climb switch on smoother climbs, the suspension traced the ground very well on chunky, ledgy, or traction-challenged climbs, even when pushing hard in the lowest gear. I didnt feel any pedal kickback either. And even though, in open mode, the rear suspension settles into its travel more than some bikes on steeper climbs, the Instincts steep seat angle helps keep you on top of the pedals.

For another opinion, I gave this bike to Dariana former pro downhiller, national champion, and ace mechanicto test in Sedona, Arizona.

Photo credit: Matt Phillips

She reported starting with the Ride 9 in the slackest setting but found the front end wandered a lot and, There were LOTS of pedal strikes. I moved to the middle setting and it helped limit pedal strikes while keeping the geometry not too steep. Once she settled on her ideal setup, her opinion of the bike changed. I could climb and descend to my hearts content. I loved this bike.

Both Darian and I loved color, which is a combination of metallic purple and flat tan which sounds a bit weird, but it looks simultaneously fun and classy. You can also get the bike in gloss turquoise with matte black.

The Carbon 90 gets a high-performance dream build, which brings the price to a pretty staggering $9,399 (prices start at $3,129 for the alloy version). Shimanos XTR shifting is amazing, and the Race Face carbon rims are an underrated option with a snappy feel and supple ride. I was also happy that Rocky didnt get cute with the tires and just went with the Maxxis DHF/DHR combo equipped with the more robust EXO+ casing. This isnt a light tire combo, but its tough, reliable, and predictable.

Rocky Mountain Instinct Carbon 90 Build

Fork Fox Factory 36 Float FIT4, 150mm travel, 44mm offset

Shock Fox Factory DPX2, 210 x 52.5mm

Dropper Race Face Turbine R

Derailleur Shimano XTR

Shifter Shimano XTR

Cranks Race Face Next R, 32t ring

Brakes Shimano XTR Trail, 180mm rotors

Wheels Race Face ARC Carbon 31 rims, DT-Swiss 350 rear hub, Rock Mountain front hub

Tires Front-Maxxis Minion DHF 2.5 WT 3C MaxxTerra EXO+ TR, Rear- Maxxis Minion DHR 2.4 WT 3C MaxxTerra EXO+ TR

Handlebar Race Face Next R 780mm

Stem Rocky Mountain 35 CNC

Saddle WTB Volt Race 142

Grips Ergon GE1 Evo

Extras OneUp Components Top Guide

I was a bit surprised to see the FIT4 damper in the Fox 36 instead of the GRIP2. The GRIP2 is better in demanding terrain, but the FIT4 is lighter and helps Rocky keep this models weight at about 29 poundsan impressive number for a 140/150mm bike with some solid parts. Plus the FIT 4 has a climb switch, which suits this bikes do-it-all character.



The parts werent perfect though. The WTB saddle has chromoly rails, which seems a bit cheap on a bike this expensiveit should be the titanium-railed version. And though I love the modulation and power of Shimanos XTR four-piston brakes, these suffered from the wandering bite pointwhich seems more pronounced in colder weatherand pad rattle: two things that seem to plague these brakes more often than not. The pad rattle I solved by swapping in aftermarket pads without cooling fins; the wandering bite point I, unfortunately, just had to deal with.

Photo credit: Matt Phillips

Those small issues aside, the Instinct Carbon 90 is a lightweight and versatile all-mountain bike. It may lack a hook that makes it stand apart from a crowded pack of very good bikes, but I found myself appreciating the Instincts capability and intuitive feel the more I rode it. Put its wheels on a trail, almost any trail, and youll have a ripping good time.

Rocky Mountain Instinct Models and Prices



Rocky offers the Instinct in two frame materials and eight models. Frames come in six sizesextra small through extra-large.

The extra-small size rolls on 27.5 wheels, while the small is riders choice: 29 or 27.5. The medium through extra-large are 29er only.

You can find the full build kit breakdown at Rockys site, but theres a quick rundown of prices, claimed weights (size medium) and spec highlights below.



Two models stand out in particular: the Carbon 70 Coil with Cane Creek coil-spring suspension front and rear, and the great build and solid value offered by the Alloy 50.

Photo credit: courtesy

Carbon 99 $10,499

28.8 lb.

RockShox Pike Ultimate fork with Super Deluxe Ultimate shock

SRAM XX1 Eagle AXS derailleur and Eagle AXS shifter

SRAM XX1 crank

SRAM G2 Ultimate brakes

RockShox Reverb AXS dropper post

Race Face Next R carbon wheelset

Photo credit: courtesy

Carbon 90 $9,399

30.0 lb.

Fox Factory 36 FIT4 fork with DPX2 shock

Shimano XTR derailleur and shifter

Race Face Next R crank

Shimano XTR Trail brakes

Race Face Turbine R dropper post

Race Face ARC Carbon 31 rims with DT-Swiss 350 rear hub

Photo credit: courtesy

Carbon 70 Coil $7,629

32.o lb.

Cane Creek Helm Coil fork with DB Coil IL shock

Shimano XT derailleur, shifter, and crank

Shimano XT Trail brakes

Race Face Turbine R dropper post

Race Face ARC 30 rims with DT-Swiss 350 rear hub

Photo credit: courtesy

Carbon 70 $6,899



31.3 lb.

Fox Performance Elite 36 FIT4 fork with DPX2 shock

Shimano XT derailleur and SLX shifter

Race Face Aeffect crank

Shimano XT Trail brakes

Race Face Turbine R dropper post

Race Face ARC 30 rims with DT-Swiss 370 rear hub

Photo credit: courtesy

Carbon 50 $5,549

31.1 lb.

Fox Performance 36 GRIP fork with Float DPS shock

Shimano XT derailleur and SLX shifter

Shimano XT Trail brakes

Race Face Aeffect crank

Rocky Mountain Toonie dropper post

WTB ST Light i30 rims with DT-Swiss 370 rear hub



Photo credit: courtesy

Carbon 30 $4,499

31.7 lb.

RockShox Pike Select RC fork with Deluxe Select+ shock

Shimano Deore 12-speed derailleur and shifter

Shimano Deore crank

Shimano MT4120 four-piston brakes

Rocky Mountain Toonie dropper post

WTB ST i30 rims with Shimano MT410 hubs

Photo credit: courtesy

Alloy 50 $4,499

33.7 lb.

Fox Performance 36 GRIP fork with Float DPX2 shock

Shimano XT derailleur and SLX shifter

Race Face Ride crank

Shimano SLX Trail brakes

Rocky Mountain Toonie dropper post

WTB ST Light i30 rims with DT-Swiss 370 rear hub

Photo credit: courtesy

Alloy 30 $3,129

34.7 lb.

Shimano Deore 12-speed derailleur and shifter

Shimano Deore crank

Shimano MT4120 four-piston brakes

Rocky Mountain Toonie dropper post

RockShox 35 Gold RL fork with Deluxe Select+ shock

WTB ST i30 rims with Shimano MT410 hubs

Photo credit: courtesy

Carbon frameset $3,549

6.90 lb.

Fox Factory DPX2 shock

Rocky Mountain Instinct Geometry and Suspension Adjustments

One of the more intriguing things about the Instinct is its adjustable geometry. There are two geometry adjustment tools: Rockys Ride 9 system in the rear shock mount, and a chainstay flip-chip.

The latter is straightforward: chips in the chainstays provide  11mm of length adjustment (437 or 448mm, approximately). This change also alters wheelbase length by  11mm. Making the change is a bit less straightforward. Flipping the non-driveside chip requires no tools, but you also have to remove the derailleur hanger to flip the driveside chip, and also remove the brake caliper, flip the adapter, and reinstall and center the caliper.

You could do this trailside if you really wanted to, but its best done with the bike in the stand. The procedure is not difficultthe swap took about five minutes on my first try and a bit less time once I was familiar with the process.

Photo credit: Matt Phillips

The Ride 9 system is a bit more involved if only because of all the available options. A pair of nested chips in the rear shock mount creates nine possible positions. It is not as overwhelming as it might sound. Its actually three geometry settings and three shock rate options: 3x3=9.

Rocky calls the three geometry positions slack, neutral, steep. The total adjustment range is  one degree of head (65.1 to 66.2 degrees) and seat angle (76.1 to 77.2 degrees adjustment, with  15mm of bottom bracket height change (28 to 43mm drop). All dimensions are for a size medium frame.

The three shock rate settings are less progressive, neutral, and more progressive. As you can guess, they primarily affect the shocks end-of-travel progression. And because most Instincts come with an air shock, you have two tools for tuning shock progression: Ride 9 and shock air-volume spacers.

Photo credit: courtesy

Most riders should be covered by the shocks stock volume spacer and the Ride 9s adjustments but, if not, swap in a different volume spacer. If you find the suspension isnt progressive enough with Ride 9 in the more progressive setting, move up a volume spacer size; if the suspension is too progressive in the less progressive setting, drop down a volume spacer size.

Between the stay chips and Ride 9, the rider has a lot of control of the overall feel of the bike. The nice thing is, theres no bad setting, so riders can explore the range of possible options without fear of screwing anything up. Most riders will likely find a setting they like and leave it there. But if youre the sort who makes trips to the bike park or road trips to areas with terrain that is different from what you typically ride, the Instincts tuning tools make an already versatile bike even more so.

Rocky Mountain Instinct Suspension and Geometry Updates

Rockys familiar four-bar design with swing link carries over from the previous Instinct. The new model gets more anti-squat overall, but, even so anti-squat never exceeds 100-percent and hovers around 90-percent at sag. This means it should be a more supple and sensitive bike even when climbing hard in the lowest gear. But it also means that efficiency nerds will want to use the shocks climbing switch more on this bike than a bike with higher levels100-percent plusof anti-squat.

Photo credit: courtesy

The bikes rear travel remains 140mm, but front travel bumps up 10mm to 150mm, and geometry is longified and slackified, of course. A size medium (in the neutral setting) gets about a degree slacker (now 65.7 degrees) at the headtube and reach grows a whopping 25mm (437 to 462mm). Its top tube length grows about a centimeter, and the wheelbase stretches 30mm (now 1,209mm). Seat tube angles crank forward almost two degrees (now 76.7 degrees), while the bottom bracket sits about 6 millimeters lower. Rocky did shorten the head tube length slightly.

Rocky also cut seat tube lengths to provide more clearance for longer travel droppers. A size medium measures 420mm (down from 432), while the large and XL sizes get a 25mm reduction (now 445 and 480mm respectively).

Photo credit: courtesy

Size-Specific Suspension Tunes



Extra-small and small Instincts get a few size-specific details that differentiate those frames from the larger sizes. A kinked top tube provides more standover clearancelarger sizes have a straight top tube.

Photo credit: courtesy

The XS and S frames also run a shorter-stroke shock but achieve the same 140mm of rear travel. This means smaller frames have more mechanical advantage on the shock, and, theoretically anyway, means more optimal suspension performance for lighter riders.



Rocky Mountain Instinct Frame Details



Most brands have signature design details that they carry through their models. So you might not be surprised that the new Instinct looks a lot like the Altitude, Rockys 160/170mm (rear/front) enduro bike.

But the Instinct Carbon and Altitude Carbon dont just look alikethey share the same frame. The forward shock mount on the carbon frames is modular so Rocky can make one frame do double duty by equipping each model with a unique shock mount, and a different length and stroke shock. Those changes, plus distinct build kits, result in two different bikes with unique geometry.

Photo credit: Matt Phillips

I've ridden the new Altitude Carbon and despite sharing a frame it is a noticeably different bike than the Instinct. So different that I didn't even realize they shared a frame until Rocky pointed it out.

This highlights another feature of the Instinct Carbon: you can turn it into a longer-travel Altitude. It wont be a cheap processyou'll need the forward shock mount, a new shock, and a travel kit for the forkbut youll wind up with a different bike without screwing up the geometry or kinematics. You can also buy the Altitude Carbon and shorten it into an Instinct if you wanted.

Photo credit: Matt Phillips

Apart from the modular, forward shock mount, the Instinct Carbon has a typical list of features. Among them: Boost 148 rear spacing, ISCG05 tabs, tunneled hose and housing routing with clamping ports (right-hand front brake friendly), press-fit 92 bottom bracket, down-tube protection, 2.6-inch tire clearance, and room for a water bottle inside the front triangle.

Instinct Alloy frames do not have the modular shock mount and are therefore dedicated to their stock travel. The Alloy frames also lack internal tunnels for the hose and housing, so routing takes a bit more effort.

You Might Also Like
LOS ANGELES, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to further provide medicinal cannabis businesses with C-suite and executive leadership, The Arcview Group has formed a strategic alliance with Proclinical Executive. Having similar visions of bringing the cannabis industry to the next level, the two companies will work together to connect new and established, health-focused businesses with candidates from an extensive global network.

The Arcview Group + Proclinical Executive

"We are deeply invested in helping the cannabis industry succeed. With over $600 million currently being raised by over 200 companies across our platforms, programming focused on diversity, such as the Women's Inclusion Network and Arcview Access, and consulting with the Fortune 1000 on ESG, we connect businesses, investors and entrepreneurs with cannabis experts," says Kim Kovacs, CEO of The Arcview Group. "Proclinical Executive will be our chosen go-to recruiting source for cannabis companies with health-beneficial products."

Proclinical Executive specializes in supporting the growth of companies with far-reaching benefits in health and medicine by introducing decision-makers to industry leaders who can drive their business forward and expand their international footprint. Working exclusively in the life sciences space, Proclinical Executive currently partners with cannabis leaders in the United States, Australia, Singapore, and China, and looks to expand into other countries once legalized.

"Arcview is the gold standard in cannabis thought leadership and connecting cannabis businesses with investors and it's an honor to be part of their Alliance Partnership. We feel our network, expertise, and global presence will add a lot of value to The Arcview Group and their partners, while enabling us to help more businesses at the forefront of innovation in this sector," comments Aaron Ray, Managing Partner of Proclinical Executive.

In addition to industry introductions and shared thought leadership, The Arcview Group and Proclinical Executive will cross-promote or sponsor upcoming events such as educational programming and member meetings.

The Arcview Group Strategic Alliance Program was formed to enable companies to be part of an inner circle of industry leaders, chosen for their unique, trusted position in the cannabis sector to work in unison to evolve the industry while elevating exposure and reach of each Alliance Partner. If interested in connecting with a Strategic Alliance Partner or becoming one, please contact [email protected].

About The Arcview Group:

The Arcview Group is a vertically integrated investment firm servicing the cannabis and ESG industry, built with social justice and responsibility being at its core. As a trusted global leader and nexus for investors, companies, entrepreneurs, money-managers, and community, providing a broad spectrum of programs and services to the industry: Arcview Ventures, Arcview Collective Fund, Arcview Capital, Arcview Market Research, Arcview Women's Inclusion Network, and Arcview Management Consulting. For more information, please visit www.arcviewgroup.com.

About Proclinical Executive:

Proclinical Executive operates globally and solely within the life sciences space. Whether you are building leadership teams to expand into new territories or need to locate and mobilize the very best people with rare, niche skill sets to drive your business forward, our Executive Search division specializes in securing senior appointments to help you grow. To learn more, visit https://www.proclinical.com/executive.

Media Contact:

Christia Brockman, Sunday Brunch Agency

[email protected]

Related Images

the-arcview-group-proclinical.png

The Arcview Group + Proclinical Executive

The Arcview Group + Proclinical Executive

Related Links

The Arcview Group

Proclinical Executive

SOURCE The Arcview Group
[March 09, 2021] VTS Announces Acquisition of Rise Buildings, Continuing its Journey to Modernize the Entire Asset Experience for Landlords and Tenants

VTS, the commercial real estate industry's leading leasing, marketing, and asset management technology platform, today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Rise Buildings, the property operations and tenant experience technology company used by top landlords including Blackstone, Hines, and CIM Group. The acquisition will broaden VTS' existing market-leading offerings for landlords and is the next step in VTS' continuing effort to ensure landlords have the best-in-class technology they need to operate as efficiently as possible and create the best environment for tenants during the COVID-19 recovery and beyond. "In acquiring Rise, VTS expects to continue to expand and strengthen the value our customers already receive from our platform with new capabilities that will be more critical than ever as landlords focus on renewing existing tenants and reducing vacancies in the coming months," said Nick Romito, CEO, VTS. "By integrating Rise into the VTS offering, our aim is to redefine the category of tenant experience and provide landlords with a full-service platform that continues the journey of digitizing the entire asset experience. After an extensive evaluation, we believe Rise has the right approach, technology, and team; our landlord customers agreed and welcomed the decision." Rise's technology is used by landlords across the United States and globally to manage property operations and deliver a superior property experience for tenants and occupants as well as property management. Rise's approach to engaging occupants is unique - by integrating tenant experience and property operations, Rise is believed to have achieved best-in-class occupant engagement across Rise-enabled buildings. Rise solutions include access and visitor management, health andsafety, property operations, and tenant experience. Rise integrates directly with in-place property management, access control, and sensor systems, as well as amenities and elevators.



As part of the acquisition, Prasan Kale, CEO and co-founder of Rise Buildings, will join the VTS team in the newly created position of Managing Director, where he will oversee the strategic direction of Rise within VTS. Rise customers will benefit from expanded support and R&D investment to deliver even more capabilities. VTS expects to integrate Rise into the VTS platform at a future date, enabling VTS customers to manage their portfolio-wide leasing, tenant engagement, and building management activities from a unified platform. This should allow landlords to understand their portfolios and tenants at a level that's never been possible before, provide COVID-compliant visitor and employee access, and best position them to renew existing tenants and sign leases in a challenging market. "We've long admired Nick and the VTS team, particularly for the way they've modernized our industry's approach to leasing and asset management," said Mr. Kale. "Joining forces with VTS will give us the ability to accelerate the delivery of the best-in-class technology offerings landlords need now more than ever to emerge from COVID-19 unscathed. This combination positions us for future growth, and ensures tenants have the information and capabilities to return to work safely."

"The combination of Rise and VTS is a big win for landlords," said Michael Newman, President and CEO of Golub & Company. "As a landlord familiar with both companies, I believe this acquisition will be instrumental in giving the industry enhanced portfolio insights that will help us connect with tenants and occupants in more meaningful ways. With VTS and Rise together, we will improve the property experience for everyone and get ahead of executing renewals and new leasing opportunities in a particularly challenging market." For more information on Rise Buildings, visit www.risebuildings.com. For more information on VTS, visit www.vts.com About VTS VTS is commercial real estate's leading leasing, marketing and asset management platform where the industry comes to make deals happen and real-time data comes to life. The VTS Platform captures the largest first-party data source in the industry, which delivers real-time insights that fuel faster, more informed decision making and connections throughout the deal and asset lifecycle. VTS Data, the industry's only forward-looking market dataset, and VTS Market and Marketplace, the industry's first integrated online marketing solution, give landlords, brokers, and tenants unparalleled visibility into real-time market information and the direct connectivity to execute deals with greater speed and intelligence at every point in the planning, marketing, leasing, and asset management cycle. More than 60% of Class A office space in the US and 12B square feet of office, retail, and industrial real estate globally is managed on the VTS platform. VTS' user base includes over 45,000 CRE professionals including respected industry leaders like Blackstone, Brookfield Properties, LaSalle Investment Management, Hines, Boston Properties, Oxford Properties, JLL, and CBRE. To learn more about VTS, and to see our open roles, visit www.vts.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005653/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
American Express Declares Regular Quarterly Dividend

The Board of Directors of American Express (News - Alert) Company (NYSE: AXP) has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.43 per common share, payable on May 10, 2021, to shareholders of record on April 2, 2021.

ABOUT AMERICAN EXPRESS

American Express is a globally integrated payments company, providing customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Learn more at americanexpress.com and connect with us on facebook.com/americanexpress, instagram.com/americanexpress, linkedin.com/company/american-express, twitter.com/americanexpress, and youtube.com/americanexpress.







Key links to products, services and corporate responsibility information: charge and credit cards, business credit cards, travel services, gift cards, prepaid cards, merchant services, Accertify, InAuth, corporate card, business travel, and corporate responsibility.

Source (News - Alert) : American Express Company

Location: Global

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005917/en/
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
The Louisiana Department of Health reported 404 more confirmed coronavirus cases and six more confirmed deaths in its noon update Tuesday.

The number of hospitalizations increased by nine, and the number of patients in need of ventilators decreased by three.

There are now a total of 373,247 confirmed coronavirus cases and 61,697 total "probable" coronavirus cases in Louisiana, according to the agency's dashboard.

Watch live: John Bel Edwards to update Louisiana coronavirus vaccine eligibility list Gov. John Bel Edwards is scheduled to share the latest update on Louisiana's coronavirus vaccine rollout at a press conference Tuesday.

These are another few key statewide statistics as of XXXday:

Total confirmed cases: 373,247

Total "probable" cases: 61,697

Total confirmed deaths: 6

Currently hospitalized: 543

Currently on ventilators: 75

Vaccine series initiated: 784,241 updated twice weekly)

Vaccine series completed: 448,730

Presumed recovered: 415,954 as of March 1 (updated weekly)

Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Note: The Advocate and The Times-Picayune staff calculates daily case count and confirmed death increases based on the difference between today's total and yesterday's total of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths. The Louisiana Department of Health releases a daily case count on its dashboard that includes probable cases as indicated by a positive antigen test. That case count can be different than the one listed here.

Can't see chart below? Click here.

Can't see chart below? Click here.

Louisiana began reopening for Phase 1 on May 15-16 then moved to Phase 2 on June 5. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards extended Louisiana's Phase 2 restrictions twice in August before moving the state to Phase 3 on Sept. 11. The governor then moved the state back to a modified Phase 2 near the end of November. On March 3, 2021, Edwards moved the state into Phase 3.
Is it fair or even patriotic to threaten states that do not conform to the Democratic Socialists' mandate to control the outcome of Free and Fair elections enacted by constitutionally guaranteed states' legislatures?

Yes, all elections must be federalized so that the whim of the majority political party can set the standard for all elections.

No, Our Founders purposefully decentralized elections by guaranteeing only states' legislatures the independent right to enact Free and Fair elections.
Pipeline

9 March 2021

Hilton announced an agreement with Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council and its strategic development partner - Queensberry - to open Hampton by Hilton Nuneaton. The 145 room hotel will be managed by Hilton and construction is expected to start this summer, subject to planning approval. The hotel will form part of the Abbey Street mixed-use redevelopment that will include a residential component alongside workspaces, a large cinema complex, food hall and landscaped public spaces.

Hampton by Hilton Nuneaton will be one of the first UK hotels to feature Hampton by Hilton's refreshed interior designs, including flexible social spaces. The hotel will be Hilton's first hotel in Nuneaton, and joins a portfolio of 100 Hampton by Hilton hotels across Europe, Middle East & Africa, including recent openings in Munich, Manchester and Madrid. Hampton by Hilton Nuneaton will join the award-winning Hilton Honors guest loyalty programme, allowing more than 112 million members who book directly with Hilton to earn Points for hotel stays and experiences, plus instant benefits including contactless check-in with room selection, Digital Key and Connected Room.
Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi...
A MAN'S jaw was broken in two places as a result of a two-punch assault in an Edenderry pub, Tullamore Circuit Court heard on Tuesday.

Luke McDonnell, a 29-year-old who formerly lived in Clonkeen, Carbury, Co Kildare was ordered by Judge Keenan Johnson to pay 20,000 to the victim, Ernie McNamee, in addition to 1,200 he brought to court.

In CCTV footage shown during a sentencing hearing, Mr McDonnell and Mr McNamee can be seen talking to each other in the smoking area of The Corner House, JKL Street, Edenderry on the evening of September 15, 2018.

Mr McDonnell was recorded striking Mr McNamee to the head twice with his right fist, causing the victim to fall to the floor.

The court heard the assault was not reported to gardai until a few weeks later after Mr McNamee had undergone surgery in St James' Hospital for the insertion of two plates in his jaw.

It was another year before Mr McDonnell, who had gone to live in Dublin and the UK, was arrested and interviewed by gardai.

He subsequently appeared before Tullamore District Court accused of assaulting Mr McNamee, causing him harm, and when jurisdiction was refused there, he entered a guilty plea in the Circuit Court on November 17 last.

Garda Leslie Coss told the sentencing hearing that Mr McNamee had gone to the Corner House pub between 6.30 and 7pm on the date of the assault to meet a friend.

The assault occurred at 9.29pm and though he was talking to the accused in the smoking area, he didn't really know him.

He could not recall the assault but remembered being cleaned up in the toilet and having blood on his face.

Garda Coss said the victim went home that night but the following Tuesday decided to go to accident and emergency in Tullamore Hospital where a report from Dr Sean O'Rourke detailed that an X-ray showed two fractures in his jaw.

He was then admitted to St James' Hospital and had an operation under general anaesthetic to insert the plates.

He was discharged after four days and still had mild discomfort and numbness.

Garda Coss, who said she had worked in Edenderry for 21 years, said she recognised Mr McDonnell in the CCTV footage from the public house.

Mr McNamee was not in court on Tuesday but a victim impact report indicated the assault had cost him 450 in medical expenses and 1,750 in lost wages.

He had also lost his confidence and suffered from anxiety and sleeplessness after the assault.

Cross-examined by Gerard Groarke, BL, defending, Garda Coss said she understood Mr McDonnell was now living in Dublin but when he was living in Carbury she knew him locally and would not have considered him a troublemaker.

In his own evidence, Mr McDonnell said after spending most of his childhood in Carbury he left after the incident in the pub and moved to Dublin and London.

He then got a job as a business development manager with the De Beers Group in Dubai but could not take it up because of his arrest.

Mr McDonnell said he was disgusted to see the video footage and the assault had occurred during a period in his life when he was out of control.

He had been suffering from anxiety and depression and began using drugs and alcohol.

He started addressing his addiction issues in February last year and got treatment in the Coolmine centre where he attended for a session each week.

A graduate of business and event management, he had recently set up his own marketing agency in IT and had grown it to the point where he was taking in 1,200 a month and would take in 500 more the following week.

He asked Judge Johnson to give him a chance and said he had brought 1,200 as compensation for the victim but would bring whatever additional money the court thought was fair.

A letter of apology to the victim was read in court, as was a letter to the judge.

Considering his sentence, Judge Johnson said the maximum sentence for a Section 3 assault is five years and the unprovoked two-punch assault on Mr McNamee was at the upper end of offending.

He said it could be argued that Mr McDonnell could have been charged with a Section 4 offence, assault causing serious harm, but in the circumstances the appropriate headline sentence was four-and-a-half years.

Judge Johnson said both men were intoxicated when they were in conversation in the smoking area but the assault was unprovoked and was a very serious offence on which the court must take a strong view.

Two blows had been struck and when the victim fell he was left there by the defendant and then did not own up to the offence.

With mitigation, taking into account the early plea of guilty once the matter came to court, and the fact that the accused suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome himself, he imposed a three-year sentence, suspended for 10 years.

The suspension was on condition Mr McDonnell enter a 10-year peace bond, remain under the supervision of the probation service for 18 months, abstain from drugs and alcohol and provide urine for analysis if required.

He also ordered the defendant to pay a total of 21,200 to Mr McNamee, including the 1,200 he paid that day.

Another 5,000 is to be paid in September and the remainder is to be paid in further instalments of 5,000 by March 1, 2023.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Sir Anthony Hopkins, Carey Mulligan, Daniel Kaluuya and Gary Oldman are among the British actors likely to be nominated for Bafta awards this year.

The contenders for the annual film awards, which were delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, will be announced at 2pm on Tuesday.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has already introduced a raft of changes to its film ceremony  including expanding the nominations for director, actor and actress from five to six  in response to a lack of diversity in last years line-up.

Expand Close Vanessa Kirby is tipped to be nominated (Matt Crossick/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Vanessa Kirby is tipped to be nominated (Matt Crossick/PA)

Kaluuya has already won a Golden Globe and scored a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his role as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in Judas And The Black Messiah, and is likely to compete in the supporting actor category at the Baftas.

Mulligan is expected to be nominated for her role as a traumatised woman seeking vengeance in Promising Young Woman, while Kirby has won plaudits for her performance in Pieces Of A Woman.

They are likely to be joined in the best actress category by Frances McDormand for her turn as a van-dwelling nomad travelling through the American West in Nomadland.

Expand Close Frances McDormand stars in Nomadland (Ian West/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Frances McDormand stars in Nomadland (Ian West/PA)

Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman is tipped to receive a posthumous Bafta nomination for his performance as an ambitious trumpeter in Ma Raineys Black Bottom.

He died aged 43 last August due to complications related to colon cancer.

He is likely to be joined in the best actor category by Oldman, for his role as the Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz in Mank, and Sir Anthony for his turn in drama The Father, about a man slipping into dementia.

Sir Anthonys co-star, Olivia Colman, could also pick up a supporting nomination.

Expand Close Olivia Colman has a supporting role in The Father (Ian West/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Olivia Colman has a supporting role in The Father (Ian West/PA)

Sacha Baron Cohen is also a possible contender for a nomination, for his performance in The Trial Of The Chicago 7, while Riz Ahmed could land a best actor nod for his role as a drummer who loses his hearing in Sound Of Metal.

Female directors were entirely absent from the shortlist in 2020 but this year there are three female film-makers tipped to land nominations  Chloe Zhao for Nomadland, Regina King for One Night In Miami, and British actress Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman.

Bafta has also introduced changes to voting, membership and campaigning processes as a result of controversy last year, while the outstanding British film category will be expanded from six to 10 nominations to increase the focus on British work.

Expand Close Regina King recently won an acting Oscar for If Beale Street Could Talk (Alberto Rodriguez/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Regina King recently won an acting Oscar for If Beale Street Could Talk (Alberto Rodriguez/PA)

The nominations for the 2020 film awards featured no non-white actors in the four main acting categories, and an absence of female directors, and Bafta subsequently announced that it would carry out a careful and detailed review of its voting system.

Bafta has since introduced a new long-listing round of voting in all categories to achieve greater diversity in nominations.

All voters, chapters and juries were required to watch all long-listed films before voting for the nominees.

Among the 15 films on the long list for the top prize of best film are Nomadland, The Trial Of The Chicago 7, The Father, Ma Raineys Black Bottom, Mank and Promising Young Woman.

Bafta chairman Krishnendu Majumdar will be joined by actresses Aisling Bea and Susan Wokoma to announce the nominations.

The EE British Academy Film Awards will take place on April 11.
Acting Minister of Energy Yuriy Vitrenko supports the development of an electronic platform for the purchase and sale of solid biofuels in Ukraine, contributing to a competitive and transparent market for such fuels.

"The mechanism for organizing the biofuel market in Ukraine should be the use of a single electronic platform on which all interested producers and consumers will trade in biofuels," the press service of the Ukrainian ministry reported, citing Vitrenko speaking at his meeting with Minister of Energy of Lithuania Dainius Kreivys.

According to the report, Ukraine and Lithuania see the development of biofuels as one of the promising areas of cooperation, noting the experience of Lithuania in the creation of the Baltpool biofuel exchange.

During the online meeting, the heads of the energy ministries, in particular, discussed the issues of the future synchronization of the Integrated Power System (IPS) of Ukraine with the power system of continental Europe.
SMYRNA, Tenn.  More than 350 Soldiers from Tennessee National Guards 1st Battalion, 181st Field Artillery Regiment, deployed Sunday, March 7, on the first leg of a 10-month deployment overseas.

At approximately 1 p.m., the battalion, headquartered in Chattanooga with units from Dayton, Fayetteville, Lawrenceburg, and Pulaski, held a farewell ceremony at Smyrnas Volunteer Training Site. Family, friends, and dignitaries including Governor Bill Lee, First Lady Maria Lee, Congressman Mark Green, and Maj. Gen. Jeff Holmes, Tennessees Adjutant General, attended the event.

Ive watched you train in challenging times with COVID-19 and youve taken on multiple missions in the past year, Holmes said when addressing the unit. Youre ready, youre prepared, and youre professional. I know you are ready and this is your moment.

During the ceremony, the 1-181st cased their battalion colors, which will be uncased when they arrives in the Middle East.

Weve trained under unique circumstances, and many Soldiers assisted with the COVID-19 task force and other missions this past year, said Lt. Col. Phillip Hill, Jr., 1-181st Battalion Commander. We are trained, ready, and the Soldiers of this battalion have displayed an ability to step up and meet every challenge. I am 100% confident that they will continue to do so.

Following the ceremony, the Soldiers said goodbye to their families and boarded aircraft headed to Fort Bliss, Texas, where they will receive additional mobilization training before deploying overseas in support of Operation Spartan Shield and Inherent Resolve. While deployed, the Soldiers will be operating in multiple countries under U.S. Central Command.

This is a special day, said Holmes. This represents everything that is good about America.
A mother-of-three who was caught drink driving to a supermarket has avoided jail after telling the court that she had developed an alcohol problem while shielding during the lockdown.

Joanne Resina, 53, was arrested at a Tesco car park in Wilmslow, Cheshire, last month after other motorists reported seeing her Toyota Aygo veer across to the wrong side of the carriageway and hit a kerb.

Tests showed the former pub landlady was almost three times the alcohol limit.

Divorcee Resina has since appeared at Stockport Magistrates Court where she admitted drink driving but said alcohol had 'become a feature of her life' since she had confined to her home due to coronavirus.

She also claimed she was having a panic attack at the time arising out of 'family issues' and splitting up with her boyfriend.

Resina was fined 555, ordered to pay 140 in costs and surcharges and banned from the driving for 26 months.

She is now also planning to get help for her alcohol issues.

Joanne Resina, 53, was arrested at a Tesco car park in Wilmslow, Cheshire, last month after other motorists reported seeing her Toyota Aygo veer across to the wrong side of the carriageway and hit a kerb

The incident occurred at 5.45pm on February 19 after Resina, who had been drinking white wine as well as gin and tonic during the afternoon, ventured out to buy some groceries as part of her essential shopping.

Prosecutor Gareth Hughes said that Resina was seen by two witnesses pulling away from a set of traffic lights before she veered to the other side of the carriageway.

She then mounted the kerb as she tried to enter a supermarket car park before coming to a stop 'at an angle in the parking bay'.

A male witness got out of his car and approached the defendant out of concern.

Mr Hughes said: 'He knocked on her window and asker it she was OK. She told him she was having a panic attack. He smelt alcohol in her breath and called police.'

Police arrived at the scene and found Resina sat in the driver's seat before she was breathalysed.

Divorcee Resina has since appeared at Stockport Magistrates Court (stock image) where she admitted drink driving but said alcohol had 'become a feature of her life' since she had confined to her home due to coronavirus

Mr Hughes added: 'She initially said she had not been driving but then asked to be re-interviewed. She said she was in a bad place emotionally and thought she was having a nervous breakdown due to family issues.

'She confirmed she had drunk wine at lunch and then a gin and tonic before driving to the supermarket.

'She had eaten very little that day so the alcohol affected her more than it normally would have done.'

Tests showed Resina had 98 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath - with the legal limit being 35mg.

In mitigation her lawyer Charles Stansfield said Resina had been shielding at home - apart from outings to exercise - and that the Tesco store was just a few hundred yards from her house.

Her employers have since agreed to pay for counselling for her drinking until she can get support through the NHS.

Mr Stansfield said: 'She appears to have developed a drink problem during the lockdown and has been taking medication for depression and anxiety due to underlying mental health problems as well.

'She has two daughters aged 25 and 18 and a 14-year-old son with autism. Their father abandoned the family three years ago to go and live in Spain.

'She managed to keep it all together despite some mental health issues until the lockdown when she has been shielding in an even more extreme way than most of us.

'She did enjoy a drink before lockdown but it has become more of a feature of her life since lockdown started. However she is 100 per cent clear that she has never got behind the wheel of a car when at all drunk before.'

He said that the car had been 'playing up' which caused Resina to have a panic attack.

'On the day in question everything became too much for her. Her boyfriend of four months had ended their relationship and that was perhaps the tipping point for her.'
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
5 Charged With Human Trafficking in Union City

By West Kentucky Star Staff

UNION CITY - A two-day undercover human trafficking investigation led to the arrest of 5 people in Union City, Tennessee, over the weekend.On Friday, six local, state and federal agencies began an undercover operation aimed at those seeking sex acts with minors.The investigation led to the arrest of 31-year-old Kevin L. Jackson of Paducah, 28-year-old Abraham M. Labastida of Murray, 52-year-old Lewis R. Harris of Memphis, 44-year-old Shannon L. Palmer of Union City, and 54-year-old Eddie R. Robbins of Paris.Jackson, Palmer, and Labastida are each charged with two counts of trafficking for commercial sex act.Harris is charged with two counts of trafficking for commercial sex act and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.Robbins is charged with two counts of trafficking for commercial sex act, the introduction of contraband into a penal institution, and possession with the intent to manufacture, deliver, or sell.They were all lodged in the Obion County Jail.Agencies involved included the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Tennessee Human Trafficking Task Force, the Obion County Sheriff's Office, the Department of Homeland Security, the Union City Police Department, and the 27th District Attorney General's Office.
Pipeline

9 March 2021

SH Hotels & Resorts, an affiliate of global private investment firm Starwood Capital Group led by Chairman and CEO Barry Sternlicht, today announced that it will open its award-winning Treehouse Hotel in Miami, the brand's first U.S. location, in 2023. Treehouse Hotels debuted in London in 2019.

Treehouse Hotels are about freedom and funthe wondrous, childhood feeling of climbing into a treehouse and making up your own rules. Designed to appeal to the child in all of us, Treehouse Brickell will be imaginative and nostalgicinspired by simple joys. Urban yet earthy. Responsible and caring. Dreamed as a space where travelers can converge to share ideas, stories, and connect with the local community. Designed in collaboration with Rockwell Group and SHoP Architects, Treehouse Brickell rises from a beautifully landscaped park, providing guests expansive views of the Miami skyline.

Sustainability

True to the mission of its sister brand 1 Hotels, Treehouse Hotels is rooted in sustainability. By implementing a wide range of energy, water, and environmental design strategies, Treehouse minimizes the hotel's environmental impact. Features like rainwater harvesting and reuse, low-carbon energy materials, electric-car-recharging stations, and bike parking provide a pathway to a lower carbon footprint.

The Details

Crafted by the ideas that inspire fun seekers and the young at heart, Treehouse Brickell is infused with a sense of playfulness and personality of place. The 62-story hotel has 191 rooms and is filled with repurposed materials and found objects, like reclaimed flooring, wood beams and warm, mismatched lighting, making for a homey, witty, sunny, and fun atmosphere. Inspired by deep ties to the Miami River, the interiors feel much like a welcoming boathouse.

Dining, Stargazing, Drinks and a Dip

The hotel will have two rooftop pools boasting views of the beautiful Miami skyline, with several bar and snack options. The main dining area offers a casual, indoor/outdoor experience with a designated terrace and private bar. The restaurant will be bright and festive, with glowing lanterns, a custom mural, rocking chairs, and Cuban-tiled floors.

Outdoor Events

Treehouse Brickell's 25th floor event space features sweeping views, dramatic ceiling heights and expansive outdoor spaces, with lush vegetation throughout. A wood frame structure with exposed ceilings defines the space, adaptable to a variety of different-size groups.
Many international business figures privately fret their companies could be caught in the crossfire as Beijing and multiple Western nations feud over China's plans for Hong Kong

China's crackdown in Hong Kong has left Japanese finance firms "very much afraid" and reconsidering whether to remain in the city, a senior banker said Monday in a rare public declaration of concern from within the industry.

Yoshitaka Kitao, chief executive of financial conglomerate SBI Holdings, which runs Japan's largest online brokerage, told the Financial Times he was planning to pull his company's operations out of the southern Chinese city, arguing that "without freedom, there is no financial business".

Other Japanese companies, he told the newspaper, were thinking about doing the same but were less willing to say so openly.

"They are unlike me. I'm a very straightforward guy. But all the others, in their bellies, they think they should move out or won't invest more in Hong Kong," Kitao said in an interview published on Monday.

Beijing is struggling to quash dissent in semi-autonomous Hong Kong after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019.

It has imposed a broad national security law on the city that has criminalised much opposition, and is planning to enact new rules vetting all political candidates for their "patriotism".

Senior Chinese leaders have also called for "reform" of the city's independent judiciary, a key component of Hong Kong's status as a regional business hub.

Many international business figures privately fret their companies could be caught in the crossfire as Beijing and multiple Western nations feud over China's plans for Hong Kong.

But few have vocalised them so publicly as Kitao, whose company last year had a market capitalisation of US$5.9 billion.

In his interview with the newspaper, Kitao said businesses were now questioning whether it made sense to remain in Hong Kong -- a city with notoriously high rents -- if the business landscape becomes little different from mainland China.

"If I want to do business in China, I would rather have an office in Beijing or Shanghai or somewhere," he said.

Story continues

He added he was looking at cities such as Shanghai -- or rival Singapore -- to move SBI's 100-person Hong Kong operation to.

Kitao specifically mentioned Beijing's security law as a reason Hong Kong was now "not a good place for financial institutions", the report said.

Spokesman Toshiki Aoyama of SBI Holdings confirmed Kitao's interview comments but played down the idea that a move from Hong Kong was imminent.

Aoyama said SBI had previously voiced concerns about the security law and was "considering" a relocation.

"But we are still in the phase of studying and there is no concrete plan decided yet," he told AFP.

Kitao's comments are unlikely to go down well with Beijing.

China's leaders have made it clear they expect international businesses to back its clampdown in Hong Kong or risk being frozen out of its lucrative markets.

HSBC, which publicly embraced the security law and makes the vast majority of its profits from China and Hong Kong, recently announced plans to ramp up its presence in the finance hub.

jta/leg
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Indias Made in India vaccines have been turning out to be a boon not just for Indians, but people around the world. Apart from vaccinating over 2 crore citizens, India has also been delivering the vaccines to numerous countries. Recently, many celebrities of the film industry came out to express their praise for the nations gesture, sharing pride about the praise from international names.

Bollywood praises Indias vaccine initiatives

Shatrughan Sinha tweeted on Tuesday that he really appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modis gesture, while also praising Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan for the great deed. The veteran actor and Congres leader called it as a proud moment and that India was 'living up to the expectations; globally, and becoming a friend in need and a friend indeed.

Highly appreciate the Hon'ble PM's gesture, & congratulate our friend, capable, able & most active, health minister of India @drharshvardhan & of course the #PMO for this great deed. This is indeed a very proud moment, as we have lived up to the maximum expectations in India &  Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) March 8, 2021

Subhash Ghai reacted with delight to Chief Economist of the International Monetary fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath's praise for Indias vaccine diplomacy. The veteran director congratulated the medical institutions and the Government of India.

#PROUD OF MY INDIA 

When Chief Economist of the IMF Gita Gopinath declares

that India really stands out in terms of its vaccine policy and one manufacturing hub for vaccines in the world - that will be India,



Congratulations our medical institutions n @GovtOfIndia_  pic.twitter.com/ExHeMFvFac  Subhash Ghai (@SubhashGhai1) March 9, 2021

Recently, actors R Madhavan and Swaroop Rawal had reacted with delight to a top American scientists statement that India had 'rescued the world' with its vaccine rollout. Respondong to media reports, the duo used terms like 'Go India' and a 'story to read.

International praise for Indias vaccine diplomacy

IMFs Gita Gopinath during the Inaugural Dr. Hansa Mehta Lecture on Women's Day, was quoted as saying, "I also want to mention that India really stands out in terms of its vaccine policy. If you look at where exactly is one manufacturing hub for vaccines in the world - that will be India."

"The country has been playing a very important role in helping the world in the global health crisis through its vaccination policies", she added, while also praising Covishield-maker Serum Institute of India for making maximum vaccines in a year.

Previously, Dr Hotez, an internationally-recognised physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development, said that India's COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy had 'rescued the world.' and that it was "India's gift' to the world in fighting the virus.

As per PTI, India has provided 56 lakh doses of coronavirus vaccines to numerous nations that include Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles under grants assistance.

(With PTI inputs)

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
Texas Gov. Abbott deploys National Guard to Mexico border in 'Operation Lone Star,' slams Biden policies

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the states Department of Public Safety will deploy the Texas National Guard to the United States-Mexico border as part of Operation Lone Star to prevent Mexican cartels and traffickers from smuggling people and drugs into the state.

Describing the situation as a border crisis, the Republican governor made the announcement on Twitter Saturday. He said the operation involves the deployment of the Texas National Guard as well as air, ground, marine and tactical border security assets to deny Mexican Cartels & smugglers the ability to move drugs & people into Texas.

In a statement, the governor was critical of the Biden administration, which has pledged to reverse the Trump administrations strict immigration policies that aimed to thwart smuggling and illegal immigration through the southern border.

The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration, Abbott was quoted as saying by local news outlet KFOX14.

Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis.

The operation was launched as the Department of Homeland Security has warned that the largest immigration wave in two decades could arrive in the next few months.

As The Washington Post notes, U.S. agents took nearly double the number of migrants into custody on several days last week than they did in January. Additionally, almost 350 teens and children have crossed the border without their parents each day, four times as many as last fall. According to the newspaper, many immigrants have been held for days in detention cells waiting for shelter openings.

Last month, Abbott met with DPS Director Col. Steve McCraw to discuss strategies to ensure safety and security along the border.

Around 300 South Carolina National Guard members are also deployed at points along the 2,000-mile stretch dividing the U.S. border and Mexico as they help understaffed federal law enforcement amid the recent surge in migrant crossings, according to The Post and Courier.

As Biden vowed during the 2020 campaign to reverse many of former President Trumps policies, the Trump administration sought to ensure that migrant asylum-seekers would remain in Mexico while their cases were processed in the U.S.

Last week, The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration is planning to convert immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into rapid-processing hubs to screen migrant parents and children and release them within 72 hours.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, recently criticized the Biden administration. Last Thursday, the Democrat said that Border Patrol agents had apprehended as many as 10,000 migrants within the previous seven days.

You just cant say, Yeah, yeah, let everybody in  because then were affected down there at the border. The bad guys know how to market this, he said in a recent interview with Axios.

According to The Houston Chronicle, Cuellar warned that we are weeks, maybe even days away from a crisis on the southern border.

Inaction is simply not an option, Cuellar said. Our country is currently unprepared to handle a surge in migrants in the middle of the pandemic.

Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano, in a video last month, called on Biden to halt any measures regarding the release of immigrants awaiting court dates into Del Rio and the surrounding areas.

We do not have the resources available to house and accommodate these migrants within our communities, the mayor argued. I will have no choice but to use the extreme measure under the declaration as the mayor of the city of Del Rio, Texas to refuse the entry of migrants awaiting court dates into the city of Del Rio.

If you do send these individuals into our community, we will be forced to make a decision to leave them without resources under these dire circumstances, he added. I am asking to please stop. Please make another plan for this federal issue.
When it comes to our international neighbours, comparing safety measures in schools during the pandemic isnt always an exact science.

For example, older students in England are only beginning to wear face coverings in classrooms now. Children in Irish classrooms have been doing so since last September. French classrooms have a much wider definition of close contacts, but the country only enforced two-metre physical distancing in February under stricter measures due to the UK variant.

Keep in mind that Irish schools have their own unique set of problems to mitigate against too, such as being the only country in Europe that had to plan for re-opening classes for more than 30 students. But while the specifics of approaches to in-person learning differ, they tend to share a few common elements; ventilation, mask-wearing, mass testing, and vaccination.

How does Ireland measure up internationally, what do we share, and whats different?

Ventilation

Many countries in Europe that re-opened schools for in-person learning in 2021 promised a stronger focus on good ventilation. Weve come a long way in terms of recognising the airborne nature of Covid-19, and fresh, circulating air is seen as a key factor in combating a major spread of the virus.

Irish schools took this on board early on, despite not having clear-cut guidance on it. Many opted for fresh air breaks, open windows, or classes outside, weather permitting. Last winter, Scottish schools relaxed dress codes and told students to wrap up well as it kept windows open, similar to here. Now, its government advice is to balance the need for increased ventilation with maintaining a minimum temperature of 16 degrees.

France has also updated its advice. Classrooms must be aerated every hour for several minutes, by opening all windows to allow ventilation.

The virus is spreading indoors, particularly when windows are closed, because it can build up, according to Orla Hegarty, assistant professor at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin (UCD).

Its like cigarette smoke, she said.

Schools have really been operating with the windows open, and in some cases almost overdoing it and freezing, because they didnt really have advice on what was good enough.

They were keeping the disease down but it wasnt tolerable. Children wont be vaccinated by next September so theyll have to get through next winter as well.

Co2 monitors, which measure stale air, may help to play a role, she added.

If you are breathing stale air, you have a much higher chance of inhaling the virus that someone else has exhaled.

Ventilation is another very important layer of protection, in addition to well-fitting masks.

Everything is about layers; the virus has to pass from one person to another. Anything you can do to stop that makes a difference.

An advisory group here looking at areas of ventilation in both schools and other settings is due to publish their findings shortly.

Masks

Another common thread shared between in-person learning strategies is mask-wearing, with some obvious differences country-by-country.

Masks are not compulsory for students or teachers in Denmark, where there is a stronger focus on keeping classes of students isolated. In Spain and Italy, masks are compulsory for every student over the age of six.

In France, masks are not only compulsory, but children must now wear category 1 surgical masks, with cloth face coverings banned as they are seen as ineffective. In Germany, the policies on wearing masks in schools differs per state, with some districts focusing more on keeping students apart, or limited to smaller classes.

Masks are compulsory in Spain and Italy, but not in Denmark where authorities keep classes apart instead.

The current advice in England is that younger children do not need to wear a mask. However, one council in London has advised the primary schools under its remit to wear them when they return to the classroom next week.

Here, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has advised that there should be no change to the current minimum age of mask-wearing. Face coverings are not recommended for children under the age of 13. However, they are free to wear one if their family chooses.

Mass testing

Mass testing of students and staff is also another common element of in-person learning strategies, seen as important in terms of building trust in school safety measures. Last term, mass testing of 33,368 close contacts of confirmed Covid-19 cases linked to primary and secondary schools turned up a positivity rate of 2.7%.

These close contacts went through PCR testing, still considered the most reliable in terms of identifying cases of Covid.

Among the most common criticisms of safety meausures in Irish schools is that too conservative a view has been taken in identifying close contacts. Coupled with a lack of transparency and opaque figures published with limited context, this has undermined trust in mass testing and the data it produces among plenty of staff and parents.

So, widespread antigen testing, while less accurate than PCR tests, could be used as a way to rebuild confidence.

Other countries have been using the rapid tests as part of their schools strategy. Austria ordered five million antigen tests for its school students. According to local reports, the scheme cost approximately 13.5m, working out at approximately 2.70 per test.

Younger children carry out the tests at home with their parents, while older children are tested at school. Those who test positive are then referred for further testing.

In England, all secondary school and college students took three Covid tests as they returned to their classrooms on Monday. After these initial tests, students and staff will be given two rapid tests to use each week at home.

Antigen testing could be on the cards in Ireland if health experts back the idea, according to Norma Foley, the Minister for Education. Professor Mark Ferguson of Science Foundation Ireland is currently preparing a report into its use.

Vaccination

Finally, vaccination is another common measure amongst schools operating in-person learning.

In the US, where some districts closed schools ahead of bars and restaurants, the race is on to re-open schools within the first 100 days of Joe Bidens presidency.

Biden has directed each State to prioritize teachers, school staff and childcare workers in terms of vaccinations, When comparing Ireland with the US, remember that each different state has its own unique tangle of education administrators, local governance, and districts.

Principal Lorraine Burke of Trinity National school, Tuam, helps a child to sanitise her hands before entering the classroom. Photo: Ray Ryan.

There is no single uniform policy in the States that unites schools.

Here, teachers and education staff are number 11 on the vaccination priority list, with those who are at risk due to being vaccinated under higher priority groups. Many younger teachers and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) without underlying conditions may feel uncomfortable about skipping a perceived queue.

However, it can be argued that this Government has deemed education and childcare among our most essential services, and so workers in the sector should be prioritised as such.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
The Ecology School is scaling their mission of inspiring stewardship of and connection to the natural world through nature-based lessons about ecology, conservation, farming and sustainability. Thanks in part to the more than $2.3 million in support over a three-year period from Poland Spring, together they have developed:

EcologyOnline sponsored by Poland Spring  , an e-learning curriculum available online for all students;

an e-learning curriculum available online for all students; Teacher Institute for Watershed Science and Conservation, sponsored by Poland Spring  , an experiential professional development program for teachers across the country;

, an experiential professional development program for teachers across the country; Poland Spring  Education and Dining Commons, a recently constructed environmentally sustainable facility to foster educational experiences.

"Now more than ever, there's a need for virtual education and training that motivates people to get outside and explore the nature in their own backyards. These expanded programs help make environmental education more accessible today, and in the future," said Drew Dumsch, president/CEO and co-founder, The Ecology School. "Growing a national community of environmental stewards is a critical step in our mission to reset the future of people and our planet."

"Bolstering The Ecology School's mission to bring about a more sustainable future is part of our long-standing commitment to environmental education," said Tara Carraro, Executive Vice President & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Nestle Waters North America. "Through our Poland Spring brand, we're taking a multi-faceted approach to help expand the scale of The Ecology School so that its impact goes beyond Maine and their innovative curriculum and approach is accessible to educators, parents and students from coast-to-coast. Through our giving pillars of Water, Packaging, Health, and Climate, we will continue to support organizations that share our passion to help create the next generation of water stewards."

When it comes to hands-on learning, COVID-19 has created additional challenges. Health precautions have forced many students to turn to online learning, limiting outdoor activities and opportunities. According to a recent survey by The Harris Poll, 73% of parents are concerned their child or children are losing knowledge due to virtual learning, and 69% of parents are concerned their child or children aren't getting enough exercise or time outside during the pandemic. To help ensure that students are able to advance their learning in healthy and productive ways, The Ecology School's new, virtual learning resources aim to get children and families outside to engage with nature and the environment.

As a proactive means to address the increasing learning gap for children, Poland Spring brand and The Ecology School are providing three new online and in-person approaches for teaching and learning about ecology.

EcologyOnline. The new online e-learning platform, EcologyOnline sponsored by Poland Spring, provides five learning modules as a curriculum designed by experts at The Ecology School and its educatiosnal partners. Each module contains an educational skit, at least three outdoor-focused activities, and action steps for real world application. Unlike most e-learning programs, EcologyOnline invites students to get out from behind the computer and take their learning outdoors, no matter their learning environment. The curriculum's online deployment paired with outside activities is focused on inclusivity across rural, urban and suburban areas. EcologyOnline is now available through EcologyOnline.org.

The Teacher Institute for Watershed Science and Conservation, sponsored by Poland Spring, has been created for the sole purpose of recruiting and training more environmental stewards and educators. Starting in August 2021, the institute will welcome K-8 teachers from across the country to The Ecology School's River Bend Farm campus in Maine for a four-day, hands-on educational program. Poland Spring is collaborating with The Ecology School to help ensure the program is available to teachers from communities where NWNA operates. Through a variety of outdoor-focused learning sessions, teachers will learn more about how to adopt more sustainable practices and how to inspire the next generation to participate in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. Over the course of three years, the program projects to enroll over 280 teachers in the institute. A key component of the program is its ability to provide financial aid to ensure that more teachers are able to join. Additionally, the Teacher Institute for Watershed Science and Conservation will provide teachers with 15 hours towards Continuing Education Units through the University of Southern Maine, an accredited university. Applicants can learn more or apply here.

The Poland Spring Education and Dining Commons, named one of the most sustainable buildings in the Northeast was constructed to help create a campus that models conservation-in-action with 200 rooftop solar panels, kitchen equipment that is 20% more efficient, LED lighting, skylights and composite wooden beams instead of steel. The 7,000 square-foot building features one of the few large-scale combustion-less, net-positive commercial production kitchens worldwide. The facility also uses sustainable processes like composting, water reclamation and waste reduction. Additionally, The Ecology School anticipates growing 100% of the produce served at meals through its onsite agroecology farm by 2025. The building also uses local Maine products such as Forest Stewardship Council certified Maine white pine boards. Poland Spring and The Ecology School will continue to work together to help ensure the Poland Spring Education and Dining Commons continues to set a standard in sustainable facilities.

Poland Spring and The Ecology School have a nearly 20-year relationship, during which they've worked together to help educate Mainers. With the help of these new programs, their local efforts will now be expanded to students and teachers across the country.

About The Ecology School

The Ecology School is a nonprofit ecology education center that transforms how people think about nature and the environment. Through joyful, hands-on, experiential programming students of all ages learn to become stewards of the environment as they explore local forests, coastal ecosystems, and food systems. Since 1998, The Ecology School has hosted more than 187,000 students and teachers from across the country, educating about the environment and our collective impact on the planet. In 2019, The Ecology School broke ground on its new campus at River Bend Farm in Saco, Maine. Learn more at TheEcologySchool.org

About Nestle Waters North America

Nestle Waters North America offers an unrivaled portfolio of bottled water brands for healthy hydration, including Poland Spring Brand 100% Natural Spring Water , Nestle Splash and Nestle Pure Life . The company also owns and operates ReadyRefresh , a customizable water and beverage delivery service.

Based in Stamford, Connecticut with approximately 7,000 associates in the United States, we manage natural resources for long-term sustainability, and we conserve more than 18,000 acres of natural watershed area. We currently source water for our six regional spring water brands from 38 active springs throughout the United States. We are also committed to creating shared value and being a good neighbor in the more than 120 communities where we operate in the U.S. For more information, visit us at https://www.nestle-watersna.com/en follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook: @NestleWatersNA.

SOURCE Nestle Waters North America
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The company said the drill results extend the northerly trend from the 2018 discovery holes and identifies a second parallel mineralized structure

Idaho Champion says the intercepts reported include shallow oxide-hosted gold and higher-grade quartz-sulfide vein-hosted gold mineralization at depth

Gold Mines Canada Inc ( ) (OTCQB:GLDRF) (FRA:1QB1) has reported assay results for the first two holes from the 2020 diamond core drilling program at its 100% controlled Baner Gold Project in Idaho, which included 0.83 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 11 metres from 19 metres downhole.

The company said the drill results extend the northerly trend from the 2018 discovery holes and identifies a second parallel mineralized structure.

We are extremely motivated by the strong mineralization encountered in the first core holes from the 2020 program. These initial results show us that the mineralized zone identified in the 2018 drill program continues to the north and remains open, Gold Mines CEO Jonathan Buick said in a statement.

Buick added: The second hole was also important because it tested the depth extent of a quartz vein system identified through surface mapping and sampling. We believe the gold encountered in hole 2 is indicative of a new trend that aligns with the orientation of many historical workings in the Orogrande Shear Zone.

The company noted that the intercepts reported include shallow oxide-hosted gold and higher-grade quartz-sulfide vein-hosted gold mineralization at depth.

Idaho Champions 2020 drill program consisted of 11 diamond drill holes totaling 2,190 metres, targeting the northern extension of the mineralization discovered in its 2018 drill program, which the company said has served to further define the geometry of the Orogrande Shear Zone (OSZ) within the Idaho Champion claim block.

Idaho Champion Gold Mines Canada is a discovery-focused exploration company advancing two high-upside gold projects in Idaho.

The company's 100%-owned Baner gold project is Idahos newest gold discovery, consisting of 227 claims totaling 1,829 hectares, which the company believes has multi-million-ounce potential.

Baner is located in the middle of the Orogrande Shear Zone, which hosts a number of gold deposits including the Friday mine owned by Finlands Endomines. Idaho Champion said Baners highly-oxidized mineralization begins at surface and exploration has discovered open-pit potential.

Contact Sean at sean@proactiveinvestors.com
The F-22 Raptor is the first stealth combat fighter plane in service sway before the F-35 Lightning II. It is only now that other nations are beginning their 5th gen fighter.

Stealth fighters like the Raptor is still the most capable compared to other newer ones. Operated by the US Air Force and never sold due to the threat it has to its survivability.

First 5th gen but still the best

The F-22 served the USAF way before the F-35 and one of the first in its generation, others like the less capable J-20 and Su-57 are new kids on the block. Only the U.S. Air Force has low observable technologies, modern flight controls, and the best jet engine customized to lessen heat signatures for so many years. Between the other similar 5th gen fighters, the Raptor is still the most sophisticated, reported Military.

An important fighter asset in the Global Strike Task Force will seek aerial superiority and counter adversaries like China and Russia if the US Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps are denied access to any combat zone. Raptors will go in and take out fighters and defenses to clear the way for American forces.

What makes it work?

Many systems make up the F-22 Raptor equipment and electronics that are still cutting edge and top secret. However, no classified equipment is mentioned mainly in the article. Equipped with a combo of state-of-the-art sensor capability, integrated avionics, situational awareness, and weapons, give the edge in an encounter.

Day three was busy at @DMAFB! We flew two sorties with the @F35demoteam and the F-86 Sabre, @ACC_Commander stopped by for a visit, and two of our crew chiefs took a ride with the @ViperDemoTeam! pic.twitter.com/qqVui03HV0  F-22 Demonstration Team (@F22DemoTeam) March 7, 2021

Also read: China Calls F-22 Unsound and No Better Than F-4 Phantom.

They are equipped with sensors that detect and track, then pick out targets and destroy them invisibly. Most 4th and 4.5 gen fighters will be shot down in an encounter; few can kill the F-22 in the air. Pilots have the most advanced cockpit and instruments for general awareness. They are armed with six AIM-120 and two AIM-9 missiles for air-to-air shootdowns.

It attacks ground targets with several weapons as a strike fighter that carries two 1,000-lbs Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS) inside the internal bomb bayusing its board avionics for navigation and systems that guide the bomb to its target. Further upgrades to carry and deliver upgraded radar and up to eight small diameter bombs.

The Raptor's stealth is still one of the best that helps keep it unseen by radar. The chances of getting hit by missiles are low chance because of its radar profile, but visually it's another thing. In a conflict, the F-22 and F-35 will work in teams to protect each other, plus non-stealth planes.

Best engines ever made

F-22s engines have a monstrous thrust-to-weight ratio than any fighter power plant. Designed with a sleek body and more thrust at supersonic speed with supercruise (no afterburner). Supercruise allows fast flight without the extra fuel spent, although some fighters are getting it. Before supercruise, this was a revolutionary development by its maker.

In combat, the nearly invisible plane has an advantage with stealth, avionics, supercruise, and weapons delivery make it a threat to many adversaries. Few can track the fighter though enemies are developing ways to detect them. The F-22 Raptor is built for a new war that capitalizes on stealth with improved reliability.

Related article: US Air Force Upgrades F-22 Raptors to Give a New Lease of Life

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Karnataka Speaker refers breach of privilege notice against Congress MLA to Assembly panel

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Bengaluru, Mar 09: Karnataka Legislative Assembly Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri on Tuesday referred the breach of privilege notice against Congress MLA BK Sangamesh for his recent "indecent" conduct in the House, to the privilege committee, despite protest by opposition members.

Sangamesh was on March 4 was suspended from the Assembly till March 12 for removing his shirt inside the House, during a protest by his party members against the special discussion on 'One Nation, One Election' (ONOE).

The privilege notice by senior BJP MLA Araga Jnanendra with the support of requisite members present in the House was allowed for discussion. But as there was no order in the assembly with protest and sloganeering by Congress members, the discussion could not be held and the Speaker referred it to the committee on privileges.

Delhi government to launch new scheme to empower women in various parts of city

Referring the matter to privilege committee, Speaker Kageri hit out at Congress members pointing out that they were not interested in discussion on ONOE or regarding privilege notice now, also they don't attend Business Advisory Committee meeting and boycott budget, which was not right for democracy.

"We have to uphold parliamentary values and fulfill the aspirations of people... keep your irresponsible politics outside the House," he said. During his preliminary submission regarding his notice on breach of privilege, Jnanendra said, the conduct of Sangamesh on March 4 during Congress' protest, was disrespectful to the Chair, which has utmost sanctity, and amounts to breach of privilege of the House.

Maharashtra Assembly: COVID-19 norms ignored as Opposition MLAs gather to protest

As he referred to the incident about Sangamesh removing his shirt in the assembly, Congress members objected to it and said he did that out of anger about false cases booked against him and his family members. To this some BJP members retorted by demanding that he should be suspended permanently.

Intervening, Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah said Sangamesh has been suspended from the House for his conduct, then what was need for it to be taken up again.

"He (Sangamesh) is not in the House to defend himself.. so it should not be allowed," he said.

Replying, Speaker informed Siddaramaiah that Jnanendra was speaking on breach of privilege notice and according to rules it can be taken up even if the person against whom it is moved is not present in the House, and asked him can raise objection if any, once the submission is made.

Sticking to his stand that such discussion should not be allowed when the concerned member is not in the House, Siddaramaiah questioned as to why such action taken during similar incidents in the past.

Koilaghat building fire: Political storm over Kolkata fire incident ahead of West Bengal elections

Accusing the Congress of trying to suppress the voice of the members of the House with such repeated protests and calling it 'undemocratic', Jnanendra pointed out that even after suspension Sangamesh disregarding the orders tried to enter the House and spoke ill about Speaker and the Chair in front of the media.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

The conduct of Sangamesh amounts to breach of privilege of the House, the BJP MLA said and urged that he has to be expelled from the House for indefinite period. Jnanendra then sought to move the motion and for detailed discussion on the matter. Speaker Kageri then sought to know whether at least 10 members in the House were in support of Jnanendra's notice, following which all the BJP MLAs stood in support.

Subsequently, Speaker announced that he will allow the discussion. Objecting to it, Siddaramaiah said Sangamesh has not disrespected the Speaker and if he has spoken anything outside there was no authentication for it.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 17:35 [IST]
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Travis Scott is always finding new ways to give back to his hometown. The "Astroworld" rapper gave back to Houston over the weekend in an emergency food drive to help those affected by winter snowstorm Uri.

The news comes after the Missouri City native decided to hold a raffle for one of his prized action figures to support patients at the Houston Ronald McDonald House.

TRAVIS SCOTT ACTION FIGURE: Travis Scott x McDonald's action figure lowest ask is $55,000

On Saturday, the Cactus Jack Foundation was on the ground to help deliver supplies to Houston residents in need. The relief event took place at Willowridge High School in Houston. The drive provided Houstonians with necessities like fresh produce, water and PPE.

Via Crayton Gerst

To accomplish the feat, Scott didn't do it alone. The rapper partnered with The City of Houston, along with the Houston Health Foundation, Harvest Market, Houston Healthcare, and Fort Bend Independent School District.

But the drive-through, contact-less event wasn't all that was accomplished. The Cactus Jack Foundation went the extra mile to make home deliveries to hundreds of elderly residents who live near the distribution site, according to a press release. Hundreds of meals were also delivered to first responders who assisted Houstonians during the COVID-19 pandemic and the winter storm.

Via Crayton Gerst

Mayor Turner held a press conference and was joined by Jordan Webster, Scotts sister who also said a few words.

"The mission for the Cactus Jack Foundation is to empower and enrich the lives in our communities," Webster said. "So to come out here today on this God-given day and touch these people, all these families, it's such a blessing."

The contact-less food drive fed over 1,000 families in the Houston area affected by the winter freeze.
New Jerseys largest university is leveraging its $1.6 billion endowment as a tool to fight climate change.

Rutgers University leaders on Tuesday adopted a new policy to divest the university from existing investments in the fossil fuel industry, and to prohibit any new investments in that industry in the future.

The new policy was approved during a special meeting of the Rutgers Board of Governors, and during a later meeting of the Rutgers Board of Trustees. The divestment decision had been recommended by a committee of students, faculty and staff, which was formed to consider a request the student group Endowment Justice Coalition.

This decision aligns with Rutgers mission to advance public health and social justice, said Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway. While the university has taken steps recently to limit investments in this area, approving a policy of divestment from fossil fuels is a significant expression of the values of our institution and our broader community.

The new policy considers fossil fuel investments to be investments in any company or fund whose primary business is the exploration or extraction of fossil fuels, or whose primary business supports that sector.

The prohibition on new investments in fossil fuel companies begins immediately. Rutgers will have one year to divest from passive index funds that have fossil fuel positions and reinvest in more environmentally friendly versions of those funds, and 10 years to exit all existing private fossil fuel positions.

About 5% of Rutgers $1.6 billion endowment is currently invested in fossil fuels. Of the affected investments, 60% are in private funds.

This is only the third time that Rutgers has taken a divestment action. The first was in the 1980s, when the university divested from South African holdings in protest of that nations racist Apartheid policies. The second was in 2006, when Rutgers divested from Sudan in reaction to the Darfur genocide.

The new policy is supported by the Rutgers faculty and graduate worker union. David Hughes, the unions treasurer and climate justice chair, praised the divestment action and said he hopes Rutgers will continue to find ways to detach itself from fossil fuels.

As somebody who teaches about climate change, Im particularly proud of this institution for putting its money behind its scholarship, Hughes said during the Board of Governors meeting.

Naomi Klein, a high-profile climate justice advocate and the Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick, praised the push for divestment as a critical step by the university.

This powerful decision by Rutgers University sends an unequivocal market message that the era of fossil fuels is finally coming to an end and that our collective future rests with clean, renewable energy, Klein said in a statement. Divestment is the necessary first step in an economic transition rooted in racial and environmental justice, a process that must bring good green jobs, as well as safe, renewable energy, to the most impoverished and polluted communities in our state.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.co
TYSONS, Va., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- MicroTech is proud to announce that The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has awarded MicroTech a spot on the potential 10-year, $12.6 billion Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise III contract vehicle. SITE III provides strategic, technical, and program management guidance and support services to facilitate the operations and modernization of the agency's infrastructure, systems, and applications.

"With this award, MicroTech is thrilled to help the DIA improve integration, information sharing, and information safeguarding through the use of a streamlined, best-in-class IT approach," said MicroTech's Chief Executive Officer Tony Jimenez. "We will provide critical IT support for warfighters, policymakers, acquisition leaders, and government decisionmakers."

According to Pentagon, the DIA Virginia Contracting Activity awarded 144 companies the SITE III contract with more than half of those awards going to small businesses. The Department of Defense says that DIA expects the work to occur at government and contractor facilities in the U.S. and abroad through March 1, 2031.

SITE III includes the delivery of IT and technical support services to DIA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. These services are grouped into several categories, including enterprise activities and services; infrastructure development/sustainment; application development and sustainment; support core functions; and cybersecurity services, according to the final solicitation released in July 2020.

About MicroTech: MicroTech, a U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Verified and Certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), has had noteworthy success since its inception in 2004. Under MicroTech's outstanding leadership, the privately-owned company has experienced exponential growth over the years and is repeatedly recognized as a small business success story. Regularly described as the "hottest Hispanic business in the nation," MicroTech was ranked as the #1 Fastest-Growing Hispanic Company in the Nation for three consecutive years by Hispanic Business Magazine. MicroTech was also named one of the Top 10 Fastest Growing Hispanic-Owned Companies in the Nation for five consecutive years.

MicroTech provides Infrastructure Services & Solutions, Cyber Security Solutions, Cloud Computing, Technology and Professional Services, Network Systems Integration, Research & Development, Leasing/Financial Services, and Unified Communications Services, Solutions, and Support to Federal, State, and Local Government Agencies, public sector, as well as commercial enterprises. MicroTech is ISO 9001, ISO 20000, ISO 27001, ISO 20243 certified, and is CMMI Maturity Level 3 rated in both CMMI Services (CMI-SVC) & CMMI Development (CMMI-DEV). Follow MicroTech on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Contact:

Jennifer Berman

703-531-9976

[email protected]

SOURCE MicroTech

Related Links

http://www.microtech.net


Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 05:44:44|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BUENOS AIRES, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Argentine President Alberto Fernandez on Monday called on the country's governors to make a commitment to end gender-based inequality and build a just society.

Marking International Women's Day on March 8, Fernandez presided over the signing of the "Federal Agreement for a United Argentina against gender violence" at Government House in Buenos Aires, the office of the presidency said in a statement.

"Let's commit ourselves to put an end to gender inequality, to build an egalitarian society, to not discriminate against anyone because of their gender, and to be the just society that we deserve," Fernandez urged.

If Argentina wants to fully modernize and feel pride in doing so, "the first thing we have to do is put everyone on an equal footing," he added.

In Argentina, 47 femicides (homicides driven by hate for women) took place in the first two months of the year, that's one for every 30 hours on average, according to a report released on Sunday by state news agency Telam. Enditem
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohios school infrastructure was issued a C+ on the annual American Society of Civil Engineers report card, which translates to mediocre and needs attention.

The organization pointed out that although capacity is sufficient, data on Ohios school buildings is outdated. The last comprehensive study on school building infrastructure was ordered in 1997, according to the groups report. Recommendations for improving the states grade for schools included more centralized planning, including establishing a structure for evaluating and tracking projects and initiatives and a central data collection system for analysis. Along with modernizing schools, the report also recommends overhauling the states current funding formula and supporting new public funding.

In 2019, the Ohio legislature overhauled the school allocation and sent an additional $600 million to schools over the first two years of implementation, the report reads. However, spending on school infrastructure is inadequate to combat impacts of aging facilities, some of which are over 100 years old.

The societys report comes at a crucial moment for Ohios school funding. An updated version of 2020s school funding bill, General Assemblys House Bill 305, is now back in Ohio House committee hearings. The bill would restructure the states funding formula to calculate the states responsibility in the cost of education per child. The bill died in a Senate committee in December. Now House Bill 1 is in consideration, which could be folded into the states budget or be passed on its own on the same timeline, legislators say.

But it also comes as infrastructure issues are highlighted through the governors mandate on return to school buildings by March 1. The Cleveland Teachers Union and the district worked over the weekend to form a plan for addressing ventilation issues, among other priorities, as teachers return to buildings on Wednesday. Jefferson Township Schools, in Montgomery County, didnt apply for coronavirus vaccines which would make them subject to the mandate. That district will not reopen this school year, with the schools superintendent saying that neither of the districts buildings have ventilation systems, Dayton 24/7 reported.

The Ohio Revised Code requires local boards of health or health departments to complete semiannual checks on the sanitary condition of all schools and school buildings within its jurisdiction. But those checks are governed through a set of voluntary guidelines, not requirements. These guidelines outline requirements for ventilation systems. Jarods Law, which was passed in 2005, required more comprehensive safety inspections of schools, but was then repealed in 2009 because critics felt it placed too much of a financial burden on schools to comply with the results of these comprehensive required inspections, the Dayton Daily News reported.

Read the full voluntary guidelines here or in the document viewer at the bottom of this post.

When asked in September about whether Cuyahoga County inspects ventilation systems as part of routine school safety checks, a spokesman said the county only inspects ventilation systems if theres a report of a nuisance. There were no records of any inspections of school ventilation systems due to reported nuisances from 2018-2020.

Ohios C+ school infrastructure rating is above the national rating of D+. A key for the report card shows a D rating means poor or at risk. The American Society of Civil Engineers cited a 2015 report which showed theres no centralized school safety information database, and pointed to a drop in overall school funding nationally.

What data is available indicates that 53% of public school districts report the need to update or replace multiple building systems including HVAC systems, the national report reads. More than one-third of public schools have portable buildings due to capacity constraints with 45% of these portable buildings in poor or fair condition.

Read Ohios full report, including other areas of infrastructure, on the societys website or below.

American Society of Civil Engineers report

Ohio school inspections voluntary guidelines
OnePlus 9 series is all set to launch on March 23 in India and the company has released the first official picture of the upcoming flagship smartphone. OnePlus is expected to launch the OnePlus 9, 9 Pro and 9 Lite/9R/9E on March 23 alongside its first smartwatch. Earlier this week, OnePlus announced that it has partnered with Swedish camera-maker Hasselblad for co-developing the camera systems on future OnePlus phones starting with the OnePlus 9 series.

OnePlus released a teaser video for the OnePlus 9 series and the design of the OnePlus 9 series was revealed officially towards the end of the video. The phone shown-off in the video has a vertical camera module that is home to four cameras along with an LED flash and a couple of sensors. We also get to see the Hasselblad branding just below the two large camera sensors.

The design showcased in the teased video is in line with previous leaks and renders that surfaced on the Internet. Furthermore, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has also confirmed that the OnePlus 9 series will arrive with charging adapters in-the-box. In all likelihood, the OnePlus 9 series will support 65W fast charging that debuted with the OnePlus 8T back in October 2020.

OnePlus has also confirmed that the OnePlus 9 series is set to feature a custom Sony IMX789 sensor that brings in support for 12-bit RAW, 4K UHD recording at 120FPS and 8K UHD at 30FPS and more. Additionally, the upcoming smartphones also have a new panoramic camera with 140-degree field-of-view, an ultra-wide-angle camera with free-form lens and a T-lens technology in selfie camera for faster focus.

OnePlus 9 series leaked specifications

OnePlus 9 could feature a 6.55-inch Full HD + display as per the leaks, while the OnePlus 9 Pro is said to feature a slightly larger 6.7-inch QHD + screen. The OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro will likely opt for a punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera and support a 120Hz refresh rate. As for the OnePlus 9R, it is rumoured to feature a 6.5-inch Full HD+ display with a 90Hz refresh rate.

The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro will likely be powered by the Snapdragon 888 processor while the OnePlus 9R is rumoured to launch with Snapdragon 690 processor under the hood.

OnePlus 9 Pro is expected to feature a quad-camera setup on the back headlined by a 48MP primary camera, a 50MP secondary camera, an 8MP camera and a 2MP camera with OIS support. The OnePlus 9 will likely have triple cameras on the back while the OnePlus 9R could have a 64MP primary camera followed by an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera.

The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro are also likely to be equipped with a 4,500mAh battery that supports 65W fast charging out-of-the-box which debuted with the OnePlus 8T in October. Meanwhile, the OnePlus 9R is expected to have a slightly larger 5,000mAh battery with fast-charging support out-of-the-box.




* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
The Taos News delivered to your Taos County address every week for a full year! We offer our lowest mail rates to zip codes in the county. Click Here to See if you Qualify. Plan includes unlimited website access and e-edition print replica online. Your auto pay plan will be conveniently renewed at the end of the subscription period. You may cancel at anytime.
A Porsche driver accused of filming a dying police officer after a horrific crash that killed four officers has pleaded guilty to charges after negotiating a plea deal.

Millionaire businessman Richard Paul Pusey, 41, appeared via videolink on Wednesday in a Melbourne court where he admitted to numerous charges - one of which hasn't been used since the 1600s in England.

'Amazing. Absolutely amazing. All I wanted to do was go home and eat my sushi and now you have f**ked my f**king car,' Pusey was allegedly heard to say as Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor lay dying.

Richard Pusey was arrested on April 23, one day after the fatal crash which killed four police officers

Pictured: Emergency services trying to remove a Porsche from the scene the day after a fatal crash on Eastern Highway in Kew

Pusey had avoided the crash that killed the officers after he jumped the fence to urinate.

Senior Constable Kevin King, Constable Glen Humphris, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor and and Constable Josh Prestney all died in the crash last April.

Pusey faced the County Court of Victoria via video link where he pleaded guilty to the never before used 'outraging decency' charge along with conduct endangering serious injury, speeding, possessing a drug of dependence and some other minor offences.

The charge had been the only thing stopping Pusey from pleading up to his role in the tragedy earlier.

Pusey is being represented by top Melbourne barrister Dermot Dann, QC, who had long argued his client would plead guilty to some charges if police cut his client a deal.

He gave up the battle last month during a suppressed court hearing, indicating he would come to court and plead guilty to the contested charge, which was added to his existing 12 charges in late June.

But Pusey made the court wait even longer as he demanded to re-watch the disturbing video he had captured before admitting in court to the charges.

Pusey had long contested the offence on the basis it had never been used in Australian legal history.

He remains in jail at the Metropolitan Remand Centre where he has languished since he was arrested again late last year after causing a scene on the roof of his Fitzroy home.

During a hearing last month, prosecutor Robyn Harper warned Pusey that the Crown would not back down on the ancient 'outrage' charge, arguing that elements of the charge had been used before in prosecuting sex offenders.

Ms Harper produced newspaper court reports dating back more than 100 years to back-up her claims.

While in the lower magistrates' court, it was heard that Pusey had been co-operative with police after they pulled him over on April 22 on Melbourne's Eastern Freeway amid allegations he was speeding.

Mr Dann said Pusey's behaviour toward Leading Senior Constable Taylor had been conducted in a 'good natured way' before the truck hit.

'There was laughing between them. This can be seen. There is evidence of Mr Pusey describing Leading Senior Constable Taylor as being lovely and nice. And this is in the immediate aftermath of this filming,' Mr Dann said.

'It's no part of the defence case that there can be some kind of characterisation of this whole event as Mr Pusey being angry with the individual officers that he was dealing with at the scene. We say that's not part of our case and it's not the evidence.'

The mortgage broker (pictured in a court sketch) avoided being struck because he'd been urinating off to the side of the road

Pusey had faced a dozen charges and has indicated he will plead guilty to at least some of them

Senior Constable Kevin King (pictured, far left), Constable Glen Humphris (second from left), Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor (second from right) and and Constable Josh Prestney (far right) all died in the crash

Mr Dann said his client had not argued with police and said the prosecution agreed too that Pusey had not taunted the dying officer.

'He cannot be described as taunting any of the police officers,' he said.

Mr Dann argued no trace of the actual charge being prosecuted could be found in Australian legal history.

The court had heard previously the legal process could have dragged on for years if Pusey contested the charge.

The driver of the truck, Mohinder Singh, had already pleaded guilty to four counts of culpable driving and also remains behind bars.

Mr Dann had previously argued that even if the charge did exist, his client could not have been found guilty of it because hardly anyone had heard his comments.

Top Melbourne barrister Dermot Dann, QC, (left) claimed police had charged Richard Pusey with an offence that may not even exist in Australia. He is pictured with ex Tiger Jake King

Pusey has been behind bars practically since April when a truck crashed into four officers after they pulled him over for allegedly driving at 149km/h in his Porsche 911 with cannabis and ice in his system.

The three male officers were already dead when Pusey allegedly began filming.

Public funerals were held for all four officers after the tragedy, which marked the single greatest loss of police life in Victoria's history.

Pusey's previous 12 charges include driving at a dangerous speed, reckless conduct endangering life, destruction of evidence, perverting the course of justice, failing to remain at the scene after a drug test and failing to render assistance.

At a previous hearing, Magistrate Jo Metcalf labelled Pusey's alleged filming of the graphic crash scene as 'highly intrusive and morally repugnant' but noted it was not illegal.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Avi Loeb doesnt care if people think hes a maverick. He explains it like this: one day, when he was a boy at school, he entered the classroom and saw the other children jumping on their desks and stopped to watch. When the teacher came in she said, look at Avi, he is so well behaved. I was not particularly well behaved, he told me recently. I was just wondering whether it makes sense to jump around. I dont do what everyone else is doing because I want to think about it for myself.

Little has changed in the 50-plus years since then, and maverick is a word frequently used to describe the Israeli-American theoretical physicist since the arrival of Oumuamua in our solar system, the unidentified interstellar traveller first spotted by the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii, on 19 October 2017.

The following year, Professor Loeb, who is the Frank B Baird Jr Professor of Science at Harvard University, made worldwide headlines after publishing a paper suggesting the object might be a wafer-thin solar sail built by an advanced extraterrestrial civilisation. It was a view that placed him firmly outside scientific orthodoxy, which prefers to characterise Oumuamua as having a natural origin. More than three years later, Loeb  whose book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, was published last month  is unconcerned about the mainstream opinion.
Efforts will be made to turn the city of Hefei into a new pacesetter for opening-up, said Ling Yun, mayor of Hefei and a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature. Hefei will promote the construction of platforms that facilitate opening up, including the Hefei Area of the China (Anhui) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ), explained Ling during an interview with China.org.cn at the ongoing fourth session of the 13th NPC. Hefei, the capital and largest city of Anhui province in east China, is a sub-center of the Yangtze River Delta city cluster and a comprehensive national scientific center. According to Ling, in line with the national development strategy, Hefei has improved its work mechanisms to promote the construction of the Anhui FTZ's Hefei Area as well as carried out many institutional innovations. In addition, centering on the functional positioning of the Anhui FTZ's Hefei Area, Hefei has supported the development of ten key industries, including AI and new energy vehicles in an attempt to attract foreign businesses and investment. Initial progress has been made since the FTZ's Hefei Area was officially inaugurated on Sept. 24, 2020. As of the end of January 2021, 232 projects have been signed with a total investment of 107 billion yuan. Meanwhile, the number of newly established enterprises stood at 2,656 and the registered capital of domestic-funded enterprises increased by 51.3 billion yuan. Speaking of the next plans for Hefei to promote a higher level of opening up and high-quality economic development during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period, Ling mentioned making greater efforts in various areas, including scientific research and innovation. In the 2021 draft plan for national economic and social development delivered on March 5, 2021, the development of Hefei comprehensive national science center is listed as an important task in strengthening China's capacity for scientific and technological innovation. In order to strengthen science and technology sectors as strategic support for national development, Ling suggested further construction of Hefei comprehensive national science center, building the city into a national hub for big data centers. Besides emphasizing scientific research and innovation, Ling also highlighted the development of strategic emerging industries, including those related to the manufacture of computer chips, flat-panel displays, industrial robots, and various electronic equipment, as well as the integration of the AI and manufacturing industries. Boosting investment, import and export trade, and promoting the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta will also be key tasks for Hefei to achieve a high-standard opening up. In 2020, the city's total import and export volume stood at $37.487 billion, 1.8 times that of 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 12.1%, ranking 8th among provincial capital cities in China. As of the end of 2020, a total of 49 overseas Fortune Global 500 companies have invested in Hefei and established 67 corporate companies in the city. "Hefei will scale up efforts to build itself into a national-level China-Europe freight train distribution hub, an international air freight distribution center, and the shipping center in the Yangtze and Huaihe river basins, giving greater play to its role as a comprehensive bonded zone and a cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, and stimulating the high-quality development of foreign trade," Ling said. "Efforts will be put into accelerating the development of a group of leading foreign trade enterprises and encouraging more enterprises with competitive advantages to go global," Ling added. "We will transform government functions at a faster pace and carry out reform in various areas including the provision of efficient government services to make it easier for companies to get things done and to foster a world-class business environment."


Panaji, March 9 : A Panaji court on Tuesday remanded Hemant Sah, an alleged drug dealer linked to narcotic-angle probe into Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case, to 14 days in judicial custody.

"The Narcotics Control Bureau team found him in possession of 0.23 gms LSD and 30 gms charas during a raid in Panaji on Monday," NCB counsel Samir T told reporters here.

According to NCB, Sah, a native of Madhya Pradesh, had been running a shack along North Goa's Morjim beach for several years had been allegedly named as a supplier by two alleged Mumbai-based drug dealers Anuj Keswani and Regan Mahakaal, who have already been booked by the agency's in its high-profile drug probe.

Two other Africans, one each from Nigeria and Congo, who were arrested by the NCB team in a separate operation on Monday were being produced in court for remand and a trial court in Mapusa is expected to pronounce its order later in the day.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
The Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Professor Steve Okodudu has given insights as to why the institution was honouring late philanthropist, benefactor, oil magnate and elder statesman, High Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs with an elaborate ceremony fitting only for important personalities.

Activities marking the funeral rites for late High Chief O.B Lulu-Briggs began on Monday with the University of Port Harcourt organizing an Evening of Tributes, Music, Drama, and Art Exhibition at the institutions campus, Choba.

It was an atmosphere of encomiums upon encomiums as members of the academia went down memory lane, detailing the impact the late Kalabari title-holder had on not just the University of Port Harcourt but humanity at large.

This is just as occasion humbled his son and Head of Young Briggs House of Abonnema, Rivers State, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, who promised to continue with the legacies of his father.

The Acting Vice-Chancellor of UNIPORT, Professor Steve Okodudu, in his tribute titled Exit Of A Rare Gift To The University Of Port Harcourt And Humanity, stated that the death of our benefactor, patron, father and Alumnus is certainly a direct tragedy for the University of Port Harcourt. This is because of the boundless philanthropy and assistance he rendered to the university.

He noted that the university crossed path with late High Chief O.B Lulu-Briggs when efforts were in gear to improve on the infrastructural profile of the institution and that the lot fell on an equally illustrious son of Kalabari kingdom and then Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nimi Briggs.

According to him, The response from our High Chief (Dr) O.B Lulu-Briggs was the building and donation of a purpose-built structure to house the University Health Centre.

Professor Okodudu stressed further that the deceased impacted on the university in many other ways including becoming one of the foremost benefactors and rare friend of the university, while also endowing a Professorial Chair and never ceased to give unflinching support to the university when approached.

In response to his acts of kindness and support to the university, Okodudu said he was awarded a Doctorate Degree Honoris Causa.

Also paying glowing tributes were former vice-chancellors of UNIPORT, including Professors Nimi Briggs, Don Baridam and Joseph Ajienka.

Professor Nimi Briggs, who incidentally is from Abonnema, Akuku Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State like the late business mogul, in his tribute titled: The Rest Is Silence, summed up the lives and times of late O.B Lulu-Briggs when he said and so it was that he loved humanity without recourse to gender, creed, or ethnicity and did his utmost to further its course on the comprehension of the biblical truth that in the image of God He created Man.

Both Baridam and Ajienka echoed the words of Okodudu and Briggs, adding that the university has lost a worthy friend and benefactor.

Responding, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs said he was short of words to describe how the university organised such an elaborate programme in appreciation of what his father did for the institution, just as he also promised to reach out to the school.

He went down memory lane to describe how his late father grew up from a humble beginning and how he was able to struggle through misfortunes in life to achieve his status as an entrepreneur.

Dumo Lulu-Briggs, who is also the Head of Young Briggs House of Abonnema particularly, recalled how his father encouraged his children to always share even when they were struggling to be comfortable.

According to him, Tell everybody, it doesnt matter what your story is, keep faith in God. It happened to my family, my father wasnt rich growing up; he suffered from misfortunes but was able to rise from the adversities.

I thank the University of Port Harcourt, the Vice-Chancellor of the school, Prof. Stephen, and the various respectable former Vice-Chancellors; Emeritus Prof. Nimi D. Briggs, OON, 5th VC of the school; Prof. Don Baridam, 6th VC; Prof. Joseph A. Ajienka, 7th VC of the school and the Registrar for the great honor done a great man; my father today.

This institution has always shown a sense of oneness with my family; truly, the school has always appreciated my family. God bless you all. I will try not to let the school down.

ADVERTISEMENT

I have always kept faith with the legacies of my father. Immediately after the burial, I will take up one of the building projects outlined here.

He disclosed that he was going to get the approval of Platform Petroleum, where he is the chairman to support students of the University of Port Harcourt Women Association (UPWA) Secondary School.

Earlier, the University Orator, Professor Bridger Nwanze had led Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, UNIPORT VC, Professor Steve Okodudu, former vice-chancellors, management staff, and guests to an arts exhibition in honour of late High Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs.
Canada is prepared to fight Gov. Gretchen Whitmers orders to stop Enbridges Line 5 on every front.

In November, Whitmer announced the revocation of a 1953 easement allowing the 68-year-old oil pipeline to run from western Canada and beneath the Straits of Mackinac to eastern Canada. In response, Enbridge sued the state. The Canadian oil giant said without court orders, it will defy Whitmers decision to shut down operations in May.

On March 4, Canadian Minister of Natural Resource, Seamus ORegan, reported to a committee of the House of Commons that Canada is fighting Whitmers decision. ORegan and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed Line 5 with President Joe Biden on Feb. 24 and ORegan expressed his concerns over the pipeline with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on March 3.

There are 70 pipelines and nearly three dozen transmission lines that cross U.S. and Canadian borders to support $100 billion in yearly energy trade and deliver 2 million barrels of oil per day. Line 5, which in part runs under the Straits of Mackinac, carries about 540,000 barrels of oil and other products per day between Enbridge terminals in Superior, Wis., and Sarnia, Ont. Line 5 crosses the border at Marysville via a tunnel under the St. Clair River.

In Sarnia, the pipeline feeds refineries that make jet fuel for the Toronto airport and it supplies other Enbridge pipelines that move fuels around Ontario. Between Wisconsin and Sarnia, the pipeline crosses both Michigan peninsulas and many waterways, prompting criticism from those who see little benefit but substantial risk for Michigan from its existence.

We are fighting for Line 5 on every front and we are confident in that fight, ORegan said before the House of Commons committee. The operation of Line 5 is nonnegotiable.

ORegan said Canada is fighting Whitmers decision on a diplomatic front but the country will invoke whatever measures are needed to keep Line 5 operating. This could mean invoking a Transit Pipelines Treaty governing the operation of cross-border pipelines signed in 1977 by the U.S. and Canada.

The Canadian minister said as of now, the issue is between Enbridge and Whitmer, but that Canada takes threats to its energy security very seriously.

Having said that, there is a lot at stake for our provinces and the nation, which is why the federal government is watching it like a hawk, ORegan said. We are watching it on a minute-by-minute basis and we will be absolutely prepared and ready to intervene at exactly the precise moment.

Whitmer is standing by her decision to revoke and terminate the 1953 easement, while securing Michigans energy needs, according to a statement from her office. Chief Deputy Press Secretary for Whitmer Chelsea Lewis-Parisio said the governors top priorities are to protect and defend the Great Lakes, which are vital to Michigans economy.

The Great Lakes support over 1.3 million jobs that generate $82 billion in wages annually across the US, including 350,000 jobs in Michigan. We cannot risk the devastating economic, environmental, and public health impacts of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes, Lewis-Parisio said. These oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac are a ticking time bomb, and their continued presence violates the public trust and poses a grave threat to Michigans environment and economy.

If Line 5 is shut down, which ORegan called an unlikely hypothetical, Canada will have to transport the product by trucks, rail, or ships.

Kirsten Hillman, ambassador of Canada to the U.S., also spoke before the committee, stating the issue of keeping Line 5 operational predates Whitmers administration. While Hillman said Canada is committed to protecting the Great Lakes, Canadian officials fully support its continued operation.

The solution will come through diplomatic negotiations between Enbridge and Whitmer, Hillman said. The court had mandated the company to seek a solution with Whitmers administration.

Until negotiations are concluded, Hillman said Canada will continue facilitating conversations between Enbridge and Whitmers administration.
House prices could see five-figure increases this year says an influential forecast that has revised upwards thanks to the stamp duty holiday extension and vaccine roll-out.

Instead of remaining stagnant in 2021 as previously predicted, the average property price is now set to increase by 10,000 according to Savills.

The FTSE 250-listed estate agent revised its growth forecast upwards from 0 per cent growth to 4 per cent, in a sign that the house price growth witnessed in 2020 is not over just yet.

The Old Dee Bridge in Chester, England. House prices in the North West are set to increase by nearly 30% by the end of 2025, reaching an average of 227,879 according to Savills

Scarborough in North Yorkshire. Yorkshire and the Humber is set to see the second-highest house price growth by 2025, according to Savills, with prices set to increase by 28.2%

Explaining the move, Lucian Cook, its head of residential research, said: 'The outlook has improved since the beginning of the year given the speed of the vaccination programme, the expected relaxation of social distancing measures and government support for both jobs and the housing market.'

Growth of 4 per cent would still mean less dramatic price rises than those seen in 2020.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the average UK house price grew by 20,000 to reach a record high of 252,000 last year - an 8.5 per cent increase on pre-pandemic prices in 2019.

This was the first time in modern history that house prices had risen in a recession, as people's desire to move home outweighed the uncertainty surrounding jobs and finances.

Analysts had been tipping this trend to stall or reverse in 2021, as the pent-up demand that resulted from the pandemic eased and the Government's stamp duty holiday, which had prompted many to move, was set to end in March.

Nationwide figures released last week showed that seasonally-adjusted house prices increased by 0.7 per cent in February which the building society described as a 'surprise'.

On the rise: Savills' forecasts for house price increases across the next five years, by region

FTSE 250 estate agent Savills says UK house prices will grow by 21% between now and 2025

However, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced in last week's Budget that the holiday, which can save buyers up to 15,000 by making the proportion of their property under 500,000 exempt from the tax, would be extended until the end of June.

After that the threshold will be reduced to 250,000 until the end of September.

The positive effect of this news on the housing market could be compounded by the apparent success of the UK's vaccine roll-out.

Cook said that while 2021 would be a 'complex and uneven year with competing forces impacting the housing market at different points.'

However, he added that the general picture would be one of growth.

'By extending both the stamp duty holiday and the furlough scheme in last week's Budget, the Chancellor has significantly reduced the downside risks in the mid-year, while a recovering economy should support price growth towards the year end,' he said.

Savills also looked at the areas that could see the biggest house price increases in the next five years, and found that homeowners in the North West could see their properties rise by nearly 30 per cent.

According to Savills, the average house price in the region is set to increase by 28.8 per cent or 50,954 by the end of 2025, reaching 227,879.

The other big winner when it comes to house prices is set to be Yorkshire and the Humber, where house prices could rise 28.2 per cent and reach 220,921.

London is forecast to see the lowest house price growth proportionally. Prices in the capital will rise by 12.6 per cent to reach 547,868 according to Savills' predictions. In real terms this is an average increase of 61,306.

But prime central London, which saw prices plummet during the pandemic as the wealthy looked to escape city centres in favour of country piles, could fare better.

Savills said prices were currently 21 per cent below the market peak, and that buyers entering the market now stand to make a sizeable return on their investment as prices were set to grow 21.6 per cent by 2025.

Other more expensive regions in the south of the UK are also set for more modest growth compared to their more affordable counterparts.

The South West is forecast to see prices increase 18.7 per cent to 313,975, while the South East and East of England are both set for rises of 17 per cent, reaching 394,271 and 362,981 respectively.

Across the UK as a whole, Savills has predicted that the average house price will increase by 21.1 per cent to 279,644 by the end of 2025.
Offer a personal message of sympathy...

By sharing a fond memory or writing a kind tribute, you will be providing a comforting keepsake to those in mourning. If you have an existing account with this site, you may log in with that below. Otherwise, you can create an account by clicking on the Log in button below, and then register to create your account.


By Ngaire Woods





OXFORD  In a recent letter to her G20 colleagues, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen argued that a truly global COVID-19 vaccination program "is the strongest stimulus we can provide to the global economy." With rich countries vaccinating their populations while low-income countries have yet to receive even paid-for vaccine doses, the world seems a long way from that goal. But the first shoots of solidarity are beginning to appear, and leaders must strengthen cooperation to nurture them.



Such an approach is essential, because reopening the global economy requires containing the coronavirus everywhere. One recent study estimates that, even if advanced economies reach optimal vaccination levels by mid-2021, they could nonetheless suffer economic losses of up to $4.5 trillion this year if developing countries' vaccine rollouts continue to lag far behind. Open economies such as European Union member states, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States would be most at risk, and output losses in sectors such as construction, textiles, retail, and automobiles could exceed 5 percent.



Uncoordinated vaccine distribution also poses grave health risks. Leaving poorer and needier countries out of the supply chain has resulted in the deaths of numerous desperately needed African frontline nurses and health workers. When Guinea declared an Ebola outbreak in February, the world relied on the country's own health-care workers to roll out a containment and vaccination campaign. Without such workers, the world is more vulnerable to future pandemics: In 2014, for example, a single case of Ebola in the U.S. caused nationwide panic when it spread to the nurses treating the patient.



But ensuring a speedy global vaccine rollout is proving difficult. The COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Facility, established by three international health agencies to speed up vaccine production and distribution, needs more money. Otherwise, poorer countries will be forced to divert scarce budget resources or slow down vaccination programs against other diseases such as polio, measles, and meningitis.



More funding is also needed for the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which the World Health Organization and other partners created to develop tests, treatments, and vaccines to fight the disease. According to one estimate, a $10 billion U.S. contribution to this initiative would safeguard up to $1.34 trillion in domestic output, giving America a more than 100-fold return on its investment. Yellen's letter to the G20 recognizes this logic, and the group agreed Feb. 26 that granting equitable access to safe COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics for all countries "is a top priority."



But money is not the most immediate obstacle. African countries that have borrowed to purchase vaccines have discovered that there are no doses for them to buy. Although COVAX has concluded some deals for developing countries, by March 1 it had delivered only a few hundred thousand doses to Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. A first shipment reached Nigeria March 2. And Guinea has administered a total of 55 doses to date.



Some blame intellectual-property (IP) protections for developing countries' lack of vaccine access. In late 2020, India and South Africa, as well as some NGOs, urged the World Trade Organization to waive current IP rules related to COVID-19, but the U.S., EU, and U.K. opposed the idea. Governments will debate the issue at the World Trade Organization in early March.



But patents are not (yet) the problem. The U.S. pharmaceutical firm Moderna, which has developed an approved COVID-19 vaccine, has said that, while the pandemic continues, it will not enforce its coronavirus-related patents against those making vaccines intended to combat it. And AstraZeneca says that "for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic," it will proceed "with only the costs of production and distribution being covered."



Yet, these short-term arrangements will soon need attention. The voluntary licensing regime preferred by the U.K. and other rich countries may well be inadequate. At the least, policymakers should be considering non-exclusive licenses and technology transfer, as John-Arne Rottingen, who chairs the WHO Solidarity Trial of COVID-19 treatments, has proposed.



This still leaves two more immediate obstacles. First, there are manufacturing challenges related to increasing production speed. Each vaccine is different and relies on biological and chemical processes of variable efficacy that are sometimes difficult to scale up. And vaccine production requires intensive supervision and quality control. But these problems will ease as manufacturing improves and more vaccines  including a newly approved one from Johnson & Johnson  come on stream.



The other big problem is vaccine nationalism. Wealthy countries have stockpiled more COVID-19 vaccine doses than they need, and other governments also are competing to prove that they are procuring adequate supplies for their own citizens.



Two Brazilian research institutes had planned to produce millions of doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford and Chinese Sinovac vaccines, but have been hampered by unexplained delays in shipments of vital ingredients from China. And the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, was aiming to make more than 300 million doses available to 145 countries through COVAX in the first half of 2021, before the Indian government recently ordered it to meet domestic needs first.



Still, some encouraging signs of vaccine solidarity are emerging. Forty-seven countries, as well as the African Union, which has 55 member states, have made or been offered COVID-19 vaccine deals with China, India, or Russia. India has shipped nearly 6.8 million free doses around the world, China has pledged around 3.9 million, and Israel is offering 100,000.



U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged to donate most of his country's surplus doses to poorer countries. Some other G7 leaders  including French President Emmanuel Macron  are making similar commitments, although the U.S. government has declined to do so for now.



Rich-country governments must deliver on their solidarity promises. They need to donate vaccine doses immediately to protect frontline health-care workers in vulnerable countries. They need to contribute more to the ACT and COVAX initiatives to ensure a genuinely global rollout. And they need to work with their own countries' pharmaceutical firms to deliver more transparent, non-exclusive licensing deals. Only this level of solidarity can restore global growth.



Ngaire Woods is dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. This article was distributed by Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).


KNIME, an open source data analytics company, is hosting KNIME Spring Data Talks, three packed hours of "Data Science in Action," online March 24, 2021, streaming live. This one-day event is a compact version of the week-long KNIME Spring and Fall Summits from previous years.

"Last year, we were forced to quickly move our Summit from on-site in Berlin to online within a few weeks. In the meantime, we received lots of feedback and believe that a shorter format is much more suitable for online," said Michael Berthold, CEO and co-founder of KNIME. "We will continue to add additional online events throughout the year in between the spring and fall events until we can hopefully get back to meeting in person next year."

Registration for KNIME Spring Data Talks is free and includes on-demand replays and slideshows after the event; visit https://datatalks.knime.com/spring2021.

Learning how other attending companies productionize data science, connecting with the KNIME community, peeking over the shoulder of KNIME developers on KNIME software, asking questions that will be answered live, and viewing the recorded presentations post-event are some of the many highlights.

The KNIME Spring Data Talks are part of a series of online KNIME Data Talks, which will be offered frequently throughout the year. These are data science events with a focus on either a specific region, language and time zone, or topic.

What: KNIME Spring Data Talks

Who: Data scientists, IT managers, business analysts, enterprise architects, practice team leaders, data engineers, ML/AI engineers

When: Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. EDT (3-6 p.m. CET)

Where: Register at https://datatalks.knime.com/spring2021

Cost: Free

Agenda (all times EDT):

10 a.m. Opening and "Visual Programming for Data Science," Michael Berthold, founder/CEO, KNIME

10:30 a.m. Data Science in the Organization

"Predictive Marketing Models," Hans Samson, Marlene Hakvoort (ANWB)

"ETL for Regulatory," Perttu Heikki Korhonen (Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority)

10:50 a.m. Data Science for Health

"Drug Repurposing for Rare Diseases and COVID-19," Alzbeta Tuerkova (Uppsala University)

"Prediction of COVID-19 Infection Numbers," Dennis Ganzaroli (Swisscom Schweiz)

11:10 a.m. KNIME Time: Community and Partners

Evangelism

Partners

11:25 a.m. Breakout Sessions

11:55 a.m. KNIME Time: What's New and Cooking

12:10 p.m. Technology Blending Is the New Data Blending

"Intelligent Automation Solutions with KNIME on AWS," Madhu Raman (AWS Services)

"Why KNIME, Microsoft Flow, and Power Apps Are a Perfect Marriage," Ben Westphal, (Forest Grove, PowerApps)

12:30 p.m. Panel: The Role of Central IT in Data Science Tooling

About KNIME

KNIME, an open source data analytics company, provides software for fast and intuitive access to advanced data science. At the core is the open source KNIME Analytics Platform, a visual workbench providing a wide range of state-of-the-art analytics tools and techniques to handle any use case from basics to highly advanced. It is complemented by the commercial KNIME Server which makes data science productive in the enterprise, while staying in the same software environment for deployment, collaboration, management and optimization. Headquartered in Zurich, KNIME has offices in Austin Texas, and Konstanz and Berlin, Germany. Learn more at www.knime.com.

KNIME, KNIME Analytics Platform and KNIME Server are trademarks of KNIME. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: KNIME, data science, data scientist, enterprise architect, engineer, data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, AI, ML, open source, big data, KNIME Analytics Platform, KNIME Server, virtual conference

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005656/en/

Contacts:

Tilman Eberle

Head of Marketing

KNIME

tilman.eberle@knime.com

Dottie O'Rourke

TECHMarket Communications

(650) 344-1260

KNIME@techmarket.com
Brussels, March 9 : European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union (EU) will receive 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses per month from April, bringing the total to 300 million for the second quarter of this year.

Von der Leyen told the media on Monday that about 20 million doses were delivered to the bloc in January and 30 million in February, and some 50 million doses are expected to be delivered in March, reports Xinhua news agency.

She based her prediction on the production plans of pharmaceutical companies and the possible approval of new vaccines by the EU drugs regulator.

The EU has set a goal of inoculating 70 per cent of its adult population by the end of summer.

It had administered 29 million vaccine doses by the end of February, covering 6.4 per cent of the whole population.

"We're looking at a doubling of doses per month in comparison to what we have in March. This is for the upcoming quarter," Eric Mamer, the European Commission's chief spokesperson, said at a press briefing on Monday.

However, the Commission stopped short of identifying the vaccine producers that may join the list of suppliers.

Mamer declined to comment on whether the 300 million vaccine doses foreseen for the second quarter of 2021 would include deliveries from Johnson & Johnson, the American vaccine manufacturer whose conditional marketing authorisation is pending with the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The EU started to roll out vaccines in late 2020 with the approval of jabs from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

However, the launch was far from smooth sailing due to delays in deliveries, notably from AstraZeneca.

"We expect all companies to deliver on their commitment as signed in the advanced purchasing agreements," Mamer said.

The EU's vaccine strategy authorises the Commission to negotiate on behalf of the member states with pharmaceutical companies to secure a diverse portfolio of vaccines.

However, the recent shortage of doses has pushed some member countries to sign supply contracts with Russian and Chinese vaccine developers.
The bureaucracy came to a hearing room on Capitol Hill to explain itself. It failed.

Wednesday, a quartet of witnesses testified in the Senate about the security failures at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. These men and women, with their sober presence and affinity for acronyms, perfectly personified the blurry, confusing, occasionally well-intentioned officialdom in which they work. There was little plain talk about biases built into the system  about minorities, about leftists, about people who call themselves patriots  and how they influence perceptions of danger, which means they barely discussed what happened at all.

The three civilians formed a gray triptych of governmental regrets and promises to follow-up on an array of questions. The major general, his uniform adorned with a mosaic of colorful ribbons, sat at the end of the table and made a good-faith effort not to place blame where blame belonged.

No one was responsible for the calamities that day because apparently no one was in charge. The buck never stopped. It certainly didnt come to a halt at the feet of senators asking the questions, specifically Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who stoked the mob that stormed the Capitol to overturn the election, for which Hawley and Cruz voted. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, continues working to reimagine the insurrection as an afternoon of dress-up with a few rowdy knuckleheads by reading selective eyewitness narratives into the public record.

Jill Sanborn, the assistant director of the FBIs counterterrorism division, testified that agents do not follow public social media conversations. This lack of Twitter knowledge was pointed to as a mitigating factor in explaining why pretty much everyone except the FBI seemed well aware that serious trouble was brewing on the day Congress met to certify the 2020 election.

Robert Salesses, whose last name more than one senator could not get right even though it was printed on a placard in front of him, is performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security. That is the sort of convoluted, explanatory title that only the government could have come up with, and one that could easily symbolize the tangle of officials and agencies and non-responsible parties involved in this epic security breach. Salesses could not explain in clear terms why it took more than three hours for the Defense Department to dispatch the District of Columbia National Guard to the Capitol, in part, because he was not on the phone call during which law enforcement requested the Guard  a fact that raised the question: Why was Salesses even at the hearing if he couldnt  or wouldnt  answer this most fundamental question?

Also in attendance was Melissa Smislova, acting undersecretary in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, who basically admitted that officials screwed up and that her job is hard  two facts no one seriously disputed.

Rounding out the bureaucratic representation was Maj. Gen. William Walker, commander of the District National Guard. He came to the hearing with a sheath of notes and memos from which he quoted and was the only one at the witness table who was definitive about what unfolded and what went wrong, mainly because everything that transpired within the chain of command seemed to have been aimed at preventing him from doing the one thing he was trying to do, which was to get the go-ahead to send his uniformed men and women to the U.S. Capitol as quickly as possible.

I just came to the conclusion that eventually Im going to get approval, Walker said. And so he had his troops board buses and wait for the yes command. Seconds mattered. When the buses could finally pull away, members of the National Guard arrived at the Capitol in 18 minutes, he said.

It was a frustrating hearing, if only because everyone seemed to be spinning in circles explaining how things unfolded, but no one could really get to the heart of why. No one drilled down on whether race influenced how dangerous authorities perceived the mostly white crowd to be. Did all the flags and declarations of patriotism slow the reaction time? Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, asked the witnesses to explain the difference in how law enforcement was deployed during the racial-justice demonstrations over the summer of 2020 compared with how it was used during the protest on the Ellipse that preceded the Capitol riot. Sanborn explained the difference by noting that precedent dictated each response, which was to suggest that rallies similar to the one that occurred on Jan. 6 with Trump followers and extremist groups had not in the past sparked violence, which is simply not true. Smislova just said there was no comparison. No similarities. Nothing to discuss.

The bureaucracy would not second-guess itself. There would be no follow-up. It was ready to move things along.

ROBIN GIVHAN writes for The Washington Post.
Gain a better understanding of judges and courts including caseload, time to key events and damages for both judges and courts: Evaluate outside and opposing counsel and check the track record of a law firm or attorney in federal and state courts; and Easily view law firm and attorney experience across case types, courts and more.

The Technology Underpinning Analytics

Answer Litigation Questions Quickly

What do I need to know about this judge or court to develop the best litigation strategy

What do the behavior trends of my judge or court mean for my case?

How long will it likely take for my case to reach key litigation milestones before this judge or court?

Which court is the best venue for my case?

What is the experience level of this judge or court in a specific area of law?

How do I accurately forecast, price this matter and communicate the timeline to my client or organization?

How can I access insights on key factors impacting my case without incurring added costs via outside counsel?

What do I need to know about an attorney or law firm to increase my likelihood of success?

What is the attorneys or firms level of experience within the industry? Their track record overall? Their litigation history?

Which specific cases has the attorney or firm previously litigated?

How long does it take this attorney or firm to reach certain litigation milestones?

For outside counsel, is this attorney or firm a good fit to represent my office?

Litigation Analytics in Action

360-Degree View of the Situation

Understand judicial behavior and court trends - Contextualize your understanding of the judge or court with views of the underlying list of cases.

Assess judicial experience with similar motions - Get a tally of total cases for a judge or court for a specific area of law to approximate experience on a motion like yours.

Select better venues with comparison data - Compare caseloads, experience across case types, timing to key milestones and damages for up to four federal districts and judges at a time.

Gauge the experience of attorneys and law firms - Dig deeper into the experience of an attorney or firm with access to the underlying list of related cases.

Communicate informed litigation plans - Review how long it has taken the firm in the past to get to summary judgment, trial, dismissal and more.

Uncover past performance and advantages - Identify strategic advantages with performance data on timing metrics and aggregate damages and insights into top courts and clients.

Compare counsel based on litigation results - Size up opposing or outside counsel and tout your success with side-by-side comparisons of key factors, like previous experience, case timing and damages.

Lexis+ Legal Research and Analytics Ecosystem

Brief Analysis: Extracts citations and legal concepts, recommends other relevant cases and briefs, identifies relevant passages and takes users directly to them, and showcases their Shepards treatment  all within a unique dashboard.

Practical Guidance: Fully integrated practical guidance experience, with practice notes, checklists, annotated forms, drafting tools and industry insights from thousands of leading practitioners, easily accessible from its home page and within legal research results.

Lexis Answers: Responds to natural language search queries with the best, most relevant answer, taking users directly to its location within the document. Completely redesigned with the latest machine learning capabilities, Lexis Answers offers expanded and more relevant answers across wider question categories and automatic jurisdiction detection.

Shepard's At Risk: Alerts attorneys to cases that are at risk of being overruled because the opinions they cite have been negatively treated.

Code Compare: Quickly identify changes in the law or legislative intent by comparing two versions of a statute section side-by-side, including current, future and archival versions dating back to the early 1990s.

Legislative Outlook: Predicts the passage of pending bills at the federal and state level.

More powerful search capabilities that give practitioners more control over the user experience, including:

Search Tree: Graphically depicts Boolean searches and highlights the impact of each keyword on search results, enabling users to refine searches for the best results. Missing and Must Include: Forces natural language searches to include specific keywords, like Google. Search Term Maps: Visually depicts clusters of search terms within search results and documents across 35 major content types for fast, easy navigation; trend identification; and direct access to relevant information. Ravel View: Data visualization technology illuminates key relationships between cases found in text-based search results. Improved offering features new map anchoring capabilities and display improvements.



Frequently time-strapped and budget-bound, state and local government agencies and offices are seeing a rising civil litigation caseload. This is anticipated to surge as we see increasing litigation around hot issues like labor and employment and consumer protection with the COVID-19 recovery in 2021 and 2022.More than ever, legal professionals need to quickly locate and understand the data-based factors surrounding their cases so they can more confidently build a strategy to help deliver fair and just outcomes for their community and citizenry.To support the need for deep research, guidance and advanced intel, many online legal research and analytics services are building artificial intelligence (AI) technology into their tools and platforms.LexisNexis recently added Litigation Analytics to Lexis+ to provide the most accurate data-driven insights with Legal Research, Practical Guidance and Brief Analysis, all in one place. From understanding a judges behavior and courtroom trends, to knowing other attorneys track records, attorneys can ensure success in litigation, safeguard the quality of their work product and complete litigation tasks more efficiently.Lexis+ Litigation Analytics brings to state and local government attorneys the most current and accurate intelligence around the judges, courts, attorneys and law firms for most U.S. jurisdictions. This AI functionality is an integral part of the service and easily accessible as one of four primary search buttons on the Lexis+ console.Litigation analytics are especially helpful for staff in attorneys general offices, district attorneys and prosecutors offices, and municipal attorneys offices. Lexis+ Litigation Analytics helps these civil litigating attorneys:Litigation Analytics is powered by industry-leading Lex Machina analytics and the unrivaled Lexis CourtLink online docket service coverage. Insights are extracted from millions of downloaded court documents and enhanced with proprietary technology for greater depth, accuracy and comprehensiveness. Lexis+ Litigation Analytics integrates these insights and comparisons throughout the Lexis+ ecosystem and directly into established research workflows.As the volume of Lex Machina State Court analytics continues to grow, new content additions are automatically included in Lexis+ subscriptions. Currently, Litigation Analytics has access to some of the larger state jurisdictions in the U.S. including Los Angeles County, Houston and New York. Lex Machina was named Best Decision Management Solution (AI Breakthrough Awards, 2019) and Disruptor of the Year (Changing Lawyer Awards, 2019). Based in Silicon Valley, Lex Machina is part of LexisNexis, a leading global provider of legal, regulatory, and business information and analytics. Lex Machina, based in Silicon Valley, is part of LexisNexis.Lexis+ Litigation Analytics provides strong advantages for state and local government attorneys over other similar services. One difference is the broader coverage and greater depth of content than other legal research platforms. Enhanced coverage delivers data from millions of court documents, compared with coverage based solely on the face of the docket. The service contains more state trial courts and coverage for courts, attorneys and firms. Last, it provides more high-value analytics for damages, timing and other key factors as well as exclusive comparisons via its Quick Tools feature.Litigation analytics answer myriad questions around courts and judges including:The solution also addresses key questions around attorneys and law firms, including:A look inside some typical civil litigation scenarios sheds light on the ways legal professionals are applying litigation analytics tools to inform their cases.For example, Lisa is a municipal government attorney in Houston, Texas. A former employee  a civil servant  is planning to sue her office. She needs to gauge the level of severity of the case and gain insight into the players to determine whether the employee is looking for a quick settlement or aiming to go all the way to a trial and extract monetary damages.First, she needs to know about the law firm, with which she is unfamiliar. She hops onto Lexis+ on her laptop, clicks the Litigation Analytics button on the Lexis+ home screens experience dock  one of four buttons prominently displayed including Legal Research, Practical Guidance and Brief Analysis. She types the law firms name into the search bar. In seconds, Lexis+ displays the firms litigation track record across state and federal courts.Lisa sees this firm weighs heavily with its wins on the plaintiff rather than the defense side. She sees which kinds of cases were litigated in the past, in which courts, including awards detail, timing and more. She sees the information, charts and graphics needed to assess the law firms history with similar cases, including the damages awarded and the motion tempo.Next, she investigates the judge assigned to the case. Still on the Litigation Analytics screen, she enters the judges name to get the full picture of his position on motions weighting toward the plaintiff, general timing on proceedings and general disposition toward similar cases. Armed with this data, Lisa is ready to argue her offices case in the virtual courtroom this Monday.In another example, James is an attorney at the Bronx District Attorneys Office, N.Y., who needs to respond to a motion for summary judgment he is writing for a labor and employment case. He fires up Lexis+ to locate the relevant caselaw, checks the citation history to ensure the cases are still good law and applies it to the facts of the case. He clicks on the Practical Guidance button in the Lexis+ experience dock to review a practice note featuring the latest summary judgment requirements and trends in New York. He drafts the motion and brief, then uses Brief Analysis to Shepardize the case to validate the citations and to ensure he is relying on the best authority for good law.He next clicks the Litigation Analytics button to extract insights on the opposing counsels track record. Within the same window, he reviews the opposing counsels total contracts cases in the Bronx jurisdiction and confirms that the opposing attorney has very little federal district court experience for the contracts case type. James shares this insight with his team during the final review of their motion practice strategy. The team is ready for court.Litigation Analytics helps build knowledge around your judge and court by uncovering key trends while delivering critical insights into experience with cases like yours, timing to key milestones, behavior and trend comparisons and more. Attorneys can:With Litigation Analytics, attorneys can contextualize their understanding of a law firm or opposing counsel by accessing data on their track record in federal and state courts while comparing performance based on actual litigation results. Attorneys can:Lexis+ is a feature-rich, premium legal solution that unites advanced research, practical guidance, brief analysis and enhanced tools with a modern user experience to deliver data-driven insights, greater efficiency and better outcomes.Lexis+ users appreciate the dramatic visual styling and simplified layout designed to set a new standard in ease of use. Striking imagery, bold colors and typography improve readability, reduce visual clutter and emphasize essential information and tasks. The Experience Dock creates an integrated starting point for core legal tasks and enables seamless switching between product experiences and workflows. Intuitive features, such as Search Tree, Code Compare and Shepard's At Risk, make it easy for practitioners to access the information and insights they need, control their search experience and provide better counsel. Altogether, Lexis+ delivers on the demand for legal solutions that look and work more like the modern technology products that attorneys use in their personal lives.Developed with feedback from more than 2,000 customer interactions, Lexis+ supports the needs of all legal audiences  from solo practitioners, to government lawyers, to the largest firms and legal departments  with enhanced tools and exclusive new features that are not available anywhere else, including:For more information about Lexis+ please visit LexisNexis.com/LexisPlus and see LexisNexis.com/SLG to discover legal and analytics solutions for state and local government legal professionals.LexisNexis Legal & Professional is a leading global provider of legal, regulatory and business information and analytics that help customers increase productivity, improve decision-making and outcomes, and advance the rule of law around the world. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis and Nexis services. LexisNexis Legal & Professional, which serves customers in more than 150 countries with 10,600 employees worldwide, is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.
Governor Gavin Newsom - State of State Address View Photo

Los Angeles, CA  With a potential recall election looming, Governor Gavin Newsom will address the state tonight.

The annual State of the State Address is a time for Newsom to speak about his proposed budget and vision for California.

It is a significant speech this year, as it will come about a week before the deadline (March 17) for supporters of a recall election to submit signatures. 1.5-million valid signatures of voters are required for a recall to take place, and organizers claim they have received around 1.95-million.

Newsom will deliver his speech this evening, at 6pm, from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. It is serving as a COVID-19 mass vaccination distribution center. Hear it live on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
A prominent liberal lawmaker has called on Russian authorities to properly investigate the two sudden near-fatal illnesses suffered by opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza while traveling in Russia.

The call by Lev Shlosberg, made in an interview with RFE/RL, wasn't expected to yield an immediate U-turn from Russian law enforcement, which has ignored at least two requests from Kara-Murza to open an investigation into the circumstances of his illnesses, in 2015 and 2017.

But it does keep the spotlight on the question of whether Russian security agencies have been utilizing toxins -- possibly created as part of a secret chemical-weapons program -- to target dissidents, activists, journalists, or even former intelligence agents.

Kara-Murza and his lawyer submitted a formal request to the federal Investigative Committee to open an investigation in the wake of a bombshell report that asserted a secret hit squad from the Federal Security Service (FSB) had followed and surveilled Kara-Murza while he was traveling in Russia in May 2015 and February 2017.



The report, published by investigative outfit Bellingcat, alleged that among the security agents was one linked to the poisoning of Aleksei Navalny, the opposition activist who nearly died in August 2020 in Siberia after being targeted with a substance identified by German doctors and other labs as a powerful nerve agent.

Previous reporting by RFE/RL documented declassified documents that showed the FBI considering the Kara-Murza investigation to be one of "intentional poisoning" but do not reveal whether U.S. authorities have identified the substances used to target him.

RFE/RL's reporting has also showed how Kara-Murza's mysterious illnesses have been discussed at the top levels of the White House, the State Department, and the U.S. intelligence community, including involvement on the part of FBI Director Christopher Wray.

In the interview with RFE/RL's North.Realities, Shlosberg, a lawmaker in the Pskov region and one of the best-known figures in the liberal Yabloko party, said that Russian law obligated the Investigative Committee to do one of three things: decline to initiate a criminal case; decide to conduct a pre-investigation check; or open a full-blown criminal case.

"Let them read the law. They must answer to a citizen, must answer to the lawmakers," he said in the interview published on March 5.

"This is the state machine. I am a person of the state, working for the rights and freedoms of people and citizens. If I do not receive an answer, I will inform the prosecutor's office that such and such department did not bother to give an answer to the deputy of the Legislative Assembly. Let them figure it out. For this they receive budget money, taxpayers' money," Shlosberg said.

Kara-Murza, who could not be immediately reached for comment, believes he was twice poisoned deliberately in Moscow due to his lobbying for U.S. sanctions against Russian officials allegedly involved in rights abuses.

In both of his illnesses, his Russian doctors indicated he suffered toxic effects of an "unidentified substance."

Kara-Murza sued the U.S. Justice Department and FBI seeking access to his investigative records under the Freedom of Information Act. An initial release reviewed by RFE/RL showed that the FBI sought -- and received -- permission from Kara-Murza to send blood samples to a leading U.S. government weapons-research laboratory for testing.

Those records also indicated that Wray was directly involved in the overall investigation, possibly at the behest of congressional lawmakers.

But the Justice Department continues to withhold hundreds of pages of records -- despite an agreement to give them to him amid his federal lawsuit. As reasons for this, it has variously cited national-security exemptions and an interagency review process.

And while the documents released so far suggest that U.S. authorities tested Kara-Murza's blood and urine for sophisticated poisons, to date they have provided no records or summaries related to the results of such tests.

"The demand to initiate a criminal case on the attempted murder of Kara-Murza and the attempt on Navalny's life is a struggle for the country," Shlosberg said. "Not only the search for the truth and the establishment of justice and legality in specific cases...but also the struggle for those who are now alive and may die if state violence remains unchecked."

Written by Mike Eckel based on reporting by Svetlana Prokopyeva
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Every three seconds, a new case of dementia is diagnosed somewhere in the world. The term encompasses a group of neurodegenerative diseases that have no cure and which affect memory, cognitive abilities and behaviour, and includes Alzheimer's disease. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, it is estimated that dementia affects about 50 million people around the world. With increasing life expectancy and an ageing population, this figure is expected to increase to 75 million by 2030 and 132 million by 2050.

Dementias cause disability and dependence, they have an enormous impact on those who suffer them and their caregivers, and raise considerable challenges for the sustainability of social protection systems. Although a number of drug therapies are available for treating the symptoms, psychosocial interventions help slow down the rate of progression and counteract the aspects that impair the quality of life of the sufferers and their caregivers. Through the eHealth Center, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has launched a tool, called PSICODEM, that enables the best intervention to be chosen for each patient, depending on the dementia's severity and the aspects it is wished to address.

This tool is a mobile app -- although it also has a website version -- both for professionals and for the family members caring for someone with dementia. The app enables them to choose between different psychosocial interventions depending on the severity of the dementia and other comorbidities (each additional disorder or disease), such as anxiety, depression or aggressiveness, and also provides information about the level of scientific evidence for each one.

"There was uncertainty about which interventions were more effective for people with dementia and we wanted to help shed some light on this," said Marta Aymerich, who is a researcher at the eHealth Lab, as are the app's co-creators, Carme Carrion and Noemi Robles.

Aymerich said that specialized professionals can find the information about the level of scientific evidence particularly useful; the non-specialized professional may find it useful for choosing the right psychotherapy for the patient, and family caregivers can use it to find out about the interventions that are currently available - from reminiscence therapies to music therapy - and discuss them with their health professional.

PSICODEM has already been tested in a web format, assessing its ease of use with primary care and specialized care professionals and studying its scientific validity with neurologists and neuropsychologists. The tests for validating the app were carried out in a primary care centre, a private clinic and a public hospital with 119 dementia patients with different levels of severity and 10 health professionals.

"To test the tool, we worked with primary healthcare professionals in Catalonia, and with specialized professionals at the Institut d'Assistencia Sanitaria (Institute of Healthcare) and the Clinica de Girona," said Aymerich.

A decade of scientific research

This mobile app is the result of more than a decade of research. The first seeds were sown while Aymerich was working at the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS), conducting a systematic review of the scientific evidence available at that time on the use and effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for the treatment of dementias.

Subsequently, together with researchers from the University of Girona (UdG), the Catalan Health Institute and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), they received funding for two years (2010 and 2011) from the Carlos III Health Institute to design a digital tool. Finally, the UOC's eHealth Center took a step further and developed an app that would enable all stakeholders to know which intervention was best for each dementia patient.

Now that the app is online, the researchers propose updating the body of scientific evidence for each intervention as new evidence emerges about their effectiveness. They also plan to carry out dissemination actions to generate awareness of the tool and increase its use, providing professionals and caregivers alike with a tool that will help them make the best decision for each person. PSICODEM is available in English, Catalan and Spanish.

This project follows five of the twelve strategic lines of the Catalan Government's Health Plan 2016-2020: 1 (People, their health and participation in the health system), 4 (Accessibility and resolution), 6 (Integrated care and chronicity), 8 (Excellence and safety) and 9 (Evaluation and transparency).

This project supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 3, health and well-being, and 9, industry, innovation and infrastructure.

###

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) contribute to solving the challenges facing the global societies of the 21st century by studying how technology and the human and social sciences interact, with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health.

Over 500 researchers and 51 research groups work among the University's seven faculties and two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and open knowledge serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation.

More information: research.uoc.edu. #25yearsUOC
South Africa: Mthethwa appoints team to address plight of creatives

Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa has set up a Ministerial Advisory Team (MAT) for the creative and cultural sector to advise him on how to deal with the plight of the creatives during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The appointment comes at a time when the entire nation is under enormous strain due to the pandemic.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture said it was evident from the onset that the creative and cultural industries in their various forms are the hardest hit by the pandemic.

In response to the difficulties faced by sector practitioners, the department introduced various relief measures which includes the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Phase Relief Fund.

We have also partnered with the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) as well as the Solidarity Fund, amongst other partnerships, to try and soften the blow of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Whilst thousands of practitioners have benefited, it is apparent that there are many more who have not benefitted from the various relief funds, said the department.

In an effort to find amicable solutions, working with the sector, the Minister established MAT comprising leaders in various portfolios in the creative sector.

The work of MAT is structured as per five work streams, outlined as follows:

WORKSTREAMS

Banking and Landlords Portfolio: The team working on this portfolio will engage with the financial sector and propose various interventions that would assist practitioners with matters such as payment holidays, and other matters within this portfolio to ensure that practitioners do not lose their valuables during this period.

Wellness Portfolio: The team will work closely with the Department and the designated service provider to implement wellness interventions for sector practitioners.

School Fees Portfolio: This team will propose and implement interventions aimed at ensuring that sector practitioners children are not affected and excluded from attending school due to non-payment of fees during the COVID-19 period.

Retail and Transport Portfolio and Private and Corporate Sector Portfolios: These teams will engage the private sector and solicit donations and sponsorships which will ensure that practitioners continue to sustain their livelihoods and put food on their table during the COVID-19 period.

The overarching responsibility of MAT is to set up sub-work streams to ensure the inclusion of all sectors in the creative and cultural sector, attend to Departmental stakeholder commitments and a supervened collaborative partnership with the department to facilitate stakeholder engagement with the numerous nine sectors of the creative and cultural industry.

The appointed MAT members are:

Sharif Baker

China Mpololo

Joy Mbewana

Nozipho Nguse- Dlamini

Gabi Le Roux

Thobela Dlamini and

Lara Foot

- SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2021-03-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Side view of the crater Moltke taken from Apollo 10. Credit: Public Domain

As Russia and China sign a deal for a shared lunar space station, we look at the new race to the Moon with Nokia even working with NASA to give it a 4G network.

China's great leap

China's National Space Administration and Russia's Roscosmos want to build a "complex of experimental research facilities" either on the Moon or in its orbit.

President Xi Jinping has put China's "space dream" into overdrive, with a crewed space station planned for next year.

The unmanned Chang'e-4 rocket landed on the far side of the Moon in 2019, with another robot mission to the near side raising the Chinese flag there last year.

That moonshot brought rock and soil samples back to Earth in December, the first time that has been done in more than four decades.

The last lunar lander was put there by the Russians in 1976.

Russia's Luna

Moscow already has three Luna missions planned for the Moon over the next five years, mostly aimed at mining prospecting operations.

One will orbit it looking for resources while another will drill for ice, helium-3, carbon and nitrogen.

NASA's Artemis

Donald Trump ordered NASA to return to the Moon by 2024 but it has not got the billions of dollars it needs from Congress and is unlikely to make the deadline.

While the Artemis programmewhich landed a rover on Mars last monthis billed as the "Moon to Mars", Trump's successor President Joe Biden has so far only given his support to the first leg.

NASA sees the Moon as a pit stop for missions to Mars and has done a deal with Finnish mobile firm Nokia to set up a 4G network there.

India: third time lucky?

India has made two voyages to the Moon, and was due to attempt its second landing there last year before the virus hit.

An earlier Vikram lander from its Chandrayaan-2 mission crashed into the lunar surface in September 2019, but it is still hoping to put its first manned mission into orbit next year.

Musk's lunar tourists

Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to fly several ordinary people to the Moon in 2023 on a trip bankrolled by Japanese millionaire Yusaku Maezawa.

With a string of test flight explosions dogging the Starship which is due to carry the space tourists there and back, the #dearMoon voyage is unlikely to happen any time soon.

However, SpaceX scored a coup by carrying four astronauts on one of its Crew Dragons to the International Space Station in November.

Space billboards

Musk is far from the only private investor taking a shot at the Moon. Japanese start-up ispace has signed up SpaceX to help it make two landings, the first next October.

ispace likes to think big. It once suggested putting up a giant advertising billboard on the Moon to help pay for its mission.

Japan's next step

Japan's JAXA space agency is also planning a lunar landing in 2022 building on the success of sending three craft into its orbit in 2007, the biggest Moon mission since America's Apollo 17 in 1972.

South Korea too

The KPLO (Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter) will be the country's first lunar probe when it is launched in July 2022.

It aims to map the Moon's natural resources from orbit.

Explore further Planetary pact: China and Russia to launch lunar space station

 2021 AFP
New Delhi:

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday directed the authorities to register FIR against principal of BRD Hospital, Gorakhpur and five others in the mass child deaths matter.



The decision came after the a high-power committee probing the tragic deaths of children in Gorakhpurs BRD Medical College submitted its report state Chief Secretary, who passed it on to the CM.



On August 12, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi had said the committee would probe the entire matter related to the tragic deaths of at least 72 children that took place in a span of about a week. The committee is headed by Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar.



It is a very emotional matter for me as I have been raising the issue of encephalitis since long, he had then said.

Also read | Gorakhpur hospital tragedy: NHRC observes deaths violated right to life, seeks report from UP govt



A high-level probe under the chief secretary has been ordered, whose report will be obtained at the earliest, and accordingly stringent action will be initiated against the guilty. Till then for the irresponsible act, we are suspending the principal of BRD Medical College with immediate effect, UP Medical Education Minister Ashutosh Tandon had told reporters in Gorakhpur on the same day.



Meanwhile, a three-member team of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has charged the administration with negligence, saying no alert was issued regarding shortage of oxygen.



The treating doctors should have been alerted seven days in advance that oxygen supply was not being received, the IMA had said on August 18.

Also read | 'Wish I was alive to be a part of my first Independence Day celebrations'

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
The possible construction of a new 27km railway line across open farmland between Limerick city and Charleville in north Cork is prompting serious anger and frustration in communities along the proposed route.

Close to 60 farmers could be impacted by the rail line if it gets the green light.

Some holdings will be cut in half by the proposed railway, while other farmers stand to lose a significant proportion of their farmyards - and even the family home in some instances.

The extent of the disruption is illustrated by the case of dairy farmer, Kieran Lillis, from Meanus. The proposed route for the new rail line ploughs straight through his farmyard.

It could take out two dwelling houses, cubicle sheds for almost 200 cows, slurry pits, calf pens, calving sheds and calving area, as well as his milking parlour, machinery workshop and five piggeries.

The rail line has the potential to cause serious disruption across a whole swathe of Co Limericks dairy heartlands, running from the village of Bruree northeast to Limerick city.

It can take five generations to put a commercial farm together, but a few engineers put a line on a map and the viability of a holding is finished in five minutes, explained John Bateman, Limerick ICMSA chairman.

The new railway plan is the latest instalment in what has been a 15-year saga regarding the proposed M20 motorway from Limerick to Cork.

A preferred route for the motorway was agreed in 2010, but the ambitious project was put on hold after the economic crash.

Public pressure for the motorway has intensified over the last decade, fuelled by research which confirmed that poor road and other transport links have proven a major barrier to the economic ties between Limerick and Cork.

However, as part of the latest assessment of the various transport options between Munsters largest cities, the proposal for a direct rail connection between Limerick and Cork resulted in the plan for a new line from Charleville being floated.

Rail options

There are currently three rail options being considered in parallel to the M20 motorway proposal.

As well as the new line, an upgrade of the existing Limerick-Cork rail link, which joins the main Cork-Dublin line at Limerick Junction, has been touted.

A re-opening of the old Limerick-Charleville rail line, which serviced stations at Patrickswell, Croom and Bruree, is also under consideration.

The process is proving extremely frustrating and stressful for land owners along the proposed route of the new rail line.

Gary McCarthy will be seriously impacted if the new rail line gets the go ahead. Around one-fifth of his 100ac home farm at Glenogra, between Fedamore and Meanus, could be taken or cut-off by the railway.

Given that no guarantee has been made on providing underpasses for farmers, this is a serious blow to a highly-stocked dairy unit such as the McCarthy holding.

We milk 150 cows on a 100ac milking platform, Mr McCarthy explained.

Were growing 14t of grass per hectare, with the silage cut on an out-farm, he added.

Losing 20ac off the milking platform has serious implications for McCarthys enterprise, as the farm is now set up for 150 cows.

Expand Close An aerial view of Gary McCarthy's farm with the farmhouse and yard in the background: the proposed rail link would run parallel to the power lines and split the farm. / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp An aerial view of Gary McCarthy's farm with the farmhouse and yard in the background: the proposed rail link would run parallel to the power lines and split the farm.

Disruption

However, two of Mr McCarthys neighbours are facing even greater disruption.

The line of the railway is so close to their farmyards that most of their land will be cut off from the milking parlour and yard, he explained.

As with other farmers affected by the proposal, Gary McCarthy questions the rationale behind this development.

They are proposing building 27km of a new railway so that commuters will save 10 minutes compared to the existing service from Charleville to Limerick. It doesnt make sense to me.

Mr McCarthy questioned why a new railway was even being considered when there was one existing line from Charleville to Limerick that could be upgraded, and an old line through Croom that could be brought back into service.

While prioritising the rail element of the wider M20 strategy obviously fits with the Green Party agenda of current Transport Minister, Eamon Ryan, more cynical observers suspect it is a ploy to seriously delay or frustrate the development of the motorway.

Whether the new rail line is a clever political ploy or a genuine proposal, however, is immaterial to land owners along the designated route.

The fact that the rail line is a stated policy option means that it has serious practical implications in the medium term.

Sterilised land

Kieran Lillis and Gary McCarthy point out that lands being sterilised from a planning perspective by the proposed rail line is a major concern.

It puts people under an awful lot of stress and pressure, Gary McCarthy said.

I have had people ringing me up whose houses are right beside the proposed rail line, Kieran Lillis explained. You know they are stressed by this; you can actually hear it in their voices.

That stress has been compounded by Covid-19, since property owners have been unable to attend public meetings and voice their frustrations, Lillis and McCarthy maintain.

The preferred option for the rail element of the M20 transport strategy is due to be announced in the third quarter of this year.

The general consensus among observers is that the new rail line is unlikely to pass muster when a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the project is concluded.

However, that is a view rather than fact; and the uncertainty and worry will remain until a final decision is made and publicly communicated.

This begs the question: are changes needed to the approach employed for assessing the merits of differing options for major infrastructure projects?

Cost benefits

Limerick Fine Gael TD, Kieran ODonnell, believes that while the process might be fit for purpose, improved sequencing of the actions is urgently required.

He believes the cost-benefit modelling of the various options has to be undertaken at the start of such large projects.

How can you have an informed consultation on a project if the cost-benefit modelling, including an assessment of safety and travel times, hasnt been undertaken, he asks.

There has to be an appreciation of the huge degree of anxiety these projects cause for the people impacted along the proposed routes, the Fine Gael deputy said.

It is a point echoed by ICMSAs John Bateman. He says many farmers have been left in limbo for more than a decade by the uncertainty around the M20 motorway.

Mr Bateman said this cannot be repeated with the rail line.

Farmers are not against development, but serious consideration has to be given to the disruption to peoples lives and livelihoods that proposals such as the rail line cause.

Replacement and relocation costs for affected farmers would run into tens of millions

The proposed new rail line between Charleville and Limerick city has the potential to seriously disrupt farming operations on a number of holdings along the 27km route.

The rail line would cut a 300-metre corridor across some of the most intensive dairy farms in Limerick, dismembering holdings in the process.

The ground taken up by the railway is not the most important aspect for Meanus-based dairy farmer, Gary McCarthy, it is the 20ac that will be cut off of his milking platform.

We are carrying 3.75 cows to the hectare on the milking platform at the moment. Thats 150 cows on 100 acres, Mr McCarthy explained.

Those cows arent there for ego. The farm is set up for that stocking rate, and for that number of cows. We have the housing and the infrastructure to cater for 150 cows, he said.

Expand Close Gary McCarthy pictured with his wife Anne Normoyle and their son Peadar / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Gary McCarthy pictured with his wife Anne Normoyle and their son Peadar

Our hands were tied for over 30 years with the milk quotas, we expanded when we got the opportunity, and now were being hit with a rail line that it doesnt make sense to build.

While it is unclear whether farmers will be able to secure underpasses to sections of their holdings which have been detached by the proposed railway, Mr McCarthy explained that it will be difficult to work these lands as there is no road access.

How will we spread fertiliser or slurry on this ground, he asked.

The number of underpasses that could be required is also an issue.

Neighbouring farmer, Kieran Lillis, estimates that eight underpasses will be required on a three-mile section of the proposed railway from Fedamore graveyard to the cross at Meanus.

These are all long narrow farms, so the rail line will cause a huge level of disruption to the farmers involved, Mr Lillis maintained.

Since the current route of the new rail line goes directly through the Lillis farmyard, relocation may be a consideration.

Mr Lillis estimates that relocation and replacement costs for his holdings two dwelling houses and all the farm buildings will be the bones of 1.8 million.

People say you will get good compensation and you can buy another place. But you have to start again, he explained.

However, he is hopeful that this will not happen.

Kieran is the second generation of the Lillis family to have farmed where he is now, and he is optimistic of their being a third.

I have two lads, 18 and 14, that are mad for farming. They are more clued into it than I ever was.
[March 09, 2021] Global payments platform Nium enables customers to remit funds into four major African markets

NAIROBI, Kenya, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nium, an advanced global payments platform, announced today that its clients are now able to send funds to their business partners located in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania, with more countries in the pipeline. Customers of Nium are also able to extend this service to their own consumers. This announcement comes shortly after the news of the company's expansion plans into Africa at the tail end of last year. Traditionally, businesses, fintechs and even consumers looking to send cross-border payments into Africa encountered long transfer times, multiple intermediaries and eventually higher transaction costs and other inefficiencies. Nium's local partnerships in the four key African markets will provide a more streamlined, convenient, and cost-efficient solution for remitting payments into these countries. Customers of Nium can now make payments via bank transfers to large financial institutions within these markets. Mobile money wallet payments, which are an increasingly popular and relevant payment method used by both businesses and governments, are also provided as one of the methods in which customers can transfer funds into.







Country Wallets Kenya Mpesa, Airtel, Telkom Ghana MTN, Vodacom, Airtel-Tigo Tanzania MPESA, Airtel, Halotel, Zantel

Nium's money transfer capabilities in Africa will allow clients: The ability to send money to Kenya , South Africa , Ghana and Tanzania via bank transfers (same day or next day delivery [1] ) and mobile money wallets in real-time

, , and via bank transfers (same day or next day delivery ) and mobile money wallets in real-time Access to 14+ mobile money wallets in these countries, including M-Pesa, Airtel, MTN, Vodacom

Support for remitting funds to over 30 banks in each country and to more than 1000 bank branches as part of the supporting banks network

( Kenya : 41 banks, 87 branches | South Africa : 41 banks, 58 branches | Ghana : 27 banks, 1000+ branches | Tanzania : 37 banks, 600+ branches) "While much progress has been made to revamp the consumer remittance scene in Africa, more needs to be done to improve the experience of business payments into Africa. With Nium now supporting both bank transfers and mobile money wallet payments into Africa, global businesses can now expect a much smoother, faster and safer transaction experience when making payments to partners, individuals or vendors within the continent," says Clara Wanjiku Odero, Vice President, Partnerships and Growth, Middle East and Africa, Nium. All funds transferred into the four countries can be initiated in any of the 40+ source currencies currently offered through Nium's Send service and recipients will receive the payout in their local currency (KES, ZAR, GH?,TSH). [1] Dependent on cut-off time for each country. Please refer to https://www.nium.com/network/ for more information. About Nium Nium is an advanced global payments platform redefining the way consumers and businesses send, spend and receive funds across borders. The company is continuously innovating to provide the most relevant and agile solutions to meet the needs of consumers and businesses, having evolved from solely focusing on consumer remittance via Instarem, to also providing fintech solutions for businesses. Nium is regulated in Australia, Canada, European Union, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States of America, and processes billions of dollars a year for banks and payments institutions, the next generation of e-commerce players, OTAs and retail users across the world. Nium's investors include Visa, BRI Ventures, Vertex Ventures, Vertex Growth, Fullerton Financial Holdings, GSR Ventures, Rocket Internet, Global Founders Capital, SBI Japan, FMO (Netherlands Development Finance Company), MDI Ventures, Beacon Venture Capital and Atinum Investment. For more information, visit https://www.nium.com/ Clara Wanjiku Odero, Vice President, Partnerships and Growth, Middle East and Africa at Nium is also available for interviews and commentary on the topic. For more information and other details on Nium's latest developments in Africa, please do not hesitate to contact: Media Contact:

Bianca Jutaru

Bianca.jutaru@nium.com

+44 7426900720 SOURCE Nium

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
A nonprofit legal organization is purchasing a property belonging to an evangelical prison ministry.

Prison Fellowship is selling its 11.3 acres of property in Lansdowne, Virginia to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Michael Farris, President and CEO of ADF, revealed to The Christian Post (CP) that they have already signed a letter of intent the other week and is currently working on to close the deal.

"We've been renting in the area for a couple of years now, and our growth is so explosive that we were looking at getting a long-term place to grow, where we're not going from one rental to another," Farris stated.

"This opportunity became available. With the legacy of the building, it is especially wonderful, but just the building itself was perfect for our needs. And so, we're really excited to pursue it," he added.

Christianity Today said that ADF has been praying for years to have another office for their expansion, making Prison Fellowship's announcement of selling the property a timely opportunity for them.

Prison Fellowship, through its President and CEO James J. Ackerman, expressed the organization's delight for the ADF's decision to acquire the property.

"When ADF came along, the heart of the board, if you will, leapt. They thought, 'This would be so awesome if God's work could continue on the land dedicated to the Lord's work by Chuck Colson himself,'" Ackerman said.

Farris told CP that the two organizations had already worked on several projects together, with ADF assisting the prison ministry on legal advice.

Ackerman said that the sale of the property was not due to financial problems, since Prison Fellowship has been financially stable even during the pandemic and they did not have to lay off any employee but were busy and has no debt on its record. Their revenue has been growing for the last three years, seeing continuous growth this year.

A statement said that Prison Fellowship decided to sell the property due to the ministry's working arrangement, wherein it has become increasingly virtual and on location at prisons.

After the sale to ADF, Prison Fellowship plans to remain on the property for the next two years, renting the second floor of the building.

Prison Fellowship was founded by Charles Colson in 1976. It is the world's largest Christian nonprofit organization that seeks to bring hope and restoration to inmates, their families and communities affected by crime and incarceration.

ADF, on the other hand, is an American conservative Christian nonprofit organization founded in 1993, advocating for religious and speech freedom, the sanctity of human life and marriage and family.

Following the arrangement of purchase, Farris then honored Colson in his statement.

"As a drafter of the Manhattan Declaration, he defended the very principles that we defend today. With the purchase of this new property, we carry on his legacy and begin a new and exciting chapter in ADF's 28 years of ministry as the world's largest legal advocacy organization committed to protecting religious freedom, sanctity of life, freedom of speech, and parental rights," he said.
Greg Sukiennik has worked at all three Vermont News & Media newspapers and was their managing editor from 2017-19. He previously worked for ESPN.com, for the AP in Boston, and at The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass.
PORTLAND, Ore., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- NWEA, a not-for-profit research and assessment provider, announced today the launch of its MAP Reading Fluency Dyslexia Screener for back-to-school 2021. The dyslexia screener represents a major expansion to MAP Reading Fluency, the award-winning early literacy benchmark assessment. The addition of the new screener will help educators identify students exhibiting possible characteristics of dyslexia early when intervention can be most effective.

According to the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), perhaps as much as 15 to 20 percent of the population exhibits characteristics of dyslexia, including slow or inaccurate word recognition, poor spelling, and difficulties with decoding. The IDA notes that in the school population nationwide, a significant number of students receiving services for learning disabilities have dyslexia; in addition, many students with dyslexia are currently unidentified and receiving no services. While often diagnosed much later, signs of dyslexia may be evident as early as Kindergarten.

With the addition of the new dyslexia screener, educators using MAP Reading Fluency can see a clear indication of which children in grades K3 may have signs of dyslexia or other reading difficulty, without having to use a separate assessment tool. This makes it simple for schools to implement and use in the assessment of early readers, and helps teachers better understand what instructional support or interventions may be appropriate.

"The value of early screening for all students cannot be overestimated," said Dr. Cindy Jiban, Principal Academic Lead for early learning at NWEA. "For children with dyslexia and other reading difficulties, we know that early and targeted intervention in reading is tremendously effective in improving their long-term literacy outcomes. The MAP Reading Fluency Dyslexia Screener continues to offer rich instructional data for all students, but now it also clearly flags students who may need more intense or individualized follow-up, including additional assessment."

The MAP Reading Fluency Dyslexia Screener:

Assesses key foundational reading skills, including those most often associated with dyslexia

Applies a predictive model to flag student results that indicate possible characteristics of dyslexia or other reading difficulties for further evaluation and intervention

Provides actionable data to inform instruction and drills down into each student's strengths and needs

MAP Reading Fluency is the first computer adaptive, automatically scored pre-K5 universal screening and progress monitoring assessment that eliminates the need for one-on-one, teacher-student administration. The innovative assessment of oral reading fluency, comprehension, and foundational reading skills is delivered online, enabling educators to assess an entire class in as little as 20 minutes. Teachers receive immediate objective results, actionable data, and instructional guidance to support individualized reading development for every student. MAP Reading Fluency is available for remote and on-site administration, and efficiently assesses in English and Spanish.

Approximately 800,000 U.S. students in over 1,100 schools are currently using MAP Reading Fluency in their classrooms.

Beginning in fall 2021, MAP Reading Fluency partners will have access to the dyslexia screener solution as part of the newly enhanced offering.

For more information about MAP Reading Fluency and the new dyslexia screener, visit https://www.nwea.org/map-reading-fluency.

About NWEA

NWEA (formerly known as Northwest Evaluation Association) is a mission-driven, not-for-profit organization that supports students and educators worldwide by creating assessment solutions that precisely measure growth and proficiencyand provide insights to help tailor instruction. Educators in more than 10,000 schools, districts, and education agencies in 146 countries rely on our flagship interim assessment, MAP Growth; our reading fluency and comprehension assessment, MAP Reading Fluency ; our personalized learning tool powered by Khan Academy, MAP Accelerator; and our state solutions that combine growth and proficiency measurement. Visit NWEA.org to find out how NWEA can partner with you to help all kids learn.

SOURCE NWEA

Related Links

www.nwea.org


ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands (9 March 2021) - IMCD N.V. ("IMCD" or "Company"), a leading distributor of speciality chemicals and ingredients, today announces that it has reached an agreement to sell its Nutri Granulations manufacturing asset and associated business to Huber Engineered Materials ("HEM"), a division of J.M. Huber Corporation ("Huber").

"Huber is an important supplier partner for IMCD and we are delighted to reach an agreement on the sale of Nutri Granulations," says Marcus Jordan, Americas President, IMCD. "HEM is a favorable long-term fit for Nutri Granulations and this agreement aligns with IMCD's strategy to focus on the sales, marketing, and distribution of speciality chemicals and ingredients."

Located in La Mirada, CA, with 22 employees, Nutri Granulations manufactures food grade and USP grade calcium carbonate granulations for the nutraceuticals, food, over-the-counter, and pharmaceuticals markets. It was acquired by IMCD as part of the HORN acquisition in 2018.

"We are thrilled to add Nutri Granulations to our portfolio because their reputation for quality, reliability, and customer focus aligns perfectly with ours", adds Matt O'Brien, Senior Vice President and General Manager for HEM's Ground Calcium Carbonate strategic business unit. "Also, adding an additional manufacturing site will support supply security and business continuity for our customers."

The closing of the transaction is planned for the end of March 2021.

Attached, please find the press release in pdf format.

Attachment
SHELTON  With more than 550 school staffers  including teachers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and others  receiving the COVID vaccine last weekend, district officials are turning their focus to a full in-person return to school.

Superintendent Ken Saranich said the districts operations committee will meet Thursday to discuss the clinic and the next steps in getting all students back into the classroom.

"It is a relief that we are all one step closer to some sense of normalcy, Long Hill School Principal Andrea DAiuto said after the day-long clinic Saturday at Shelton Intermediate School.

Walking out of the clinic on Saturday, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, she added. I do know that we need to continue to practice our mitigation strategies, but with having the first dosage of the vaccination it makes me feel safer.

The school district held the clinic for staff members under the direction of Griffin Hospital and the Naugatuck Valley Health District. School staff received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, with the second to be administered on March 27.

Saranich called the clinic an amazing experience and praised the school nurses, the Naugatuck Valley Health District, Griffin Hospital, Echo Hose Ambulance techs and community volunteers for their efforts in making the event a reality.

Our community has an extremely unique bond. So many people came together to make something special happen for our schools, which has a direct positive effect on our entire community.

Saranich said the vaccinations will not only make schools safer for students and staff, but also allow for more in-person instruction. He added this allows our families the hope for a return to a normal routine.

This experience was only possible because of the community coming together, Saranich said. Not only was it great to get the vaccinations, but to share this experience with your friends and colleagues made the event a Shelton triumph.

Theresa Manus-Piccolo, a Shelton High art teacher, said she felt receiving the vaccine was the right thing to do.

Vaccinating our staff helps keep ourselves, our families, and our students safe, but also helps us physically be able to do our jobs in the building with less risk of a shutdown, Manus-Piccolo said.

Hopefully, the vaccine will work and though not everyone can receive it yet, those of us who have received the vaccine can slow the spread of COVID-19, not fall ill, and continue to do our jobs in school buildings with children, she added.

Considering only the first dose has been administered, Saranich said the school community must remain vigilant with mask wearing, hand-washing and social distancing.

Manus-Piccolo said that, after the past year, children need a better version of normal the most.

They need a routine and schedules, she said. They need their teachers and school community to stabilize so that they can continue to learn and grow. Im very hopeful that with the vaccine we can move forward as a united school community and continue the good work we have always done.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
Hospitals are saying the third wave of coronavirus that brought daily record-setting cases, hospitalizations and deaths is over.

Despite an average of 1,700 Americans dying every day from COVID-19, the portion of those coming from hospitals has decrease dover the last two months.

Newly released data from the Department of Health and Human Services shows fewer hospitals are reporting full intensive care units (ICUs).

What's more, the number of facilities that say more than half their patients are infected with the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, has fallen by more than 94 percent.

It comes as overall COVID-10 hospitalizations are around 40,000, the lowest figures seen since early October.

Hospitals in every region have reported a decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations from 56% in the Northeast (far left) to 70% in the West (second from left) to 67% in the South (second from right) to 78% in the West (far right) since peaks in January

A USA Today analysis found 324 hospitals reported their ICUs were at capacity in early January, which fell to 138 by early March

'Overall we are seeing the numbers of COVID patients in our hospitals at the lowest levels in more than a year,' Bart Buxton, the CEO of McLaren Health Care in Michigan, told USA Today in an email.

'We currently have fewer than 80 patients total in our 15 hospitals with SARS-COV-2 primary diagnosis and very few of those patients are in our ICUs.'

The HHS data shows that every region of the United States has seen a drop in hospitalizations, a DailyMail.com analysis found.

The Northeast has seen a decrease in patients hospitalized of about 56 percent and the Midwest about 70 percent over the same time period.

Even the South and the West - both of which were hit significantly hard by the post-holiday-surge - have seen drops.

In the South, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has fallen by two-thirds and, in the West, the figure has fallen by more than three-quarters.

Two months ago, 193 hospitals said more than half of their patients had been infected with coronavirus, which has decreased to just 10

A USA Today analysis also revealed that 35 hospitals said their ICUs were filled with just COVID-19 patients around New Year's, which has fallen to four hospitals. Pictured: Patty Trejo talks to her husband Joseph at his bedside at St Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, California, February 2021

An analysis of the HHS data from USA Today also found that the fewer hospitals in every region are reporting a large share in COVID-19 patients.

In early January, 193 hospitals said more than half of their patients had been infected with the coronavirus.

As of early March, the number has fallen to just 10, USA Today found.

Another analysis from the newspaper found that the number of hospitals that say their ICUS are full has declined by 50 percent.

During the week of January 8 to January 14, a total of 324 hospitals reported their ICUs were at capacity. By the week of February 26 to March 4, that figure fell to 138.

According to USA Today, the number of hospitals that said their ICUs were solely filled with COVID-19 patients from 35 around New Year's to around four in the present.

'These numbers are very encouraging,' Dr Karen Joynt Maddox, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, told USA Today.

'We have a long way to go, but things are certainly heading in the right direction. And keeping COVID patients out of ICU beds is good in terms of COVID, but it's also good in terms of so many other things  having capacity to take care of patients who need cancer treatment, or patients who need heart surgery, or patients who need trauma care.'

Health experts have long stated that the best way to keep driving down COVID-19 hospitalizations is to keep ramping up vaccination efforts.

As of Tuesday, more than 60 million Americans - 18.1 percent of the population - has received one dose and 31.4 million - 9.5 percent - has received both doses.

An average of about two million people in the U.S. are being vaccinated every day.
The presented a Rs 69,000-crore budget themed on "patriotism" for financial year 2021-22 on Tuesday.

Presenting the budget, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio, said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has decided to celebrate the country's 75th Independence Day and will hold programmes for 75 weeks starting March 12.

He said under the "Deshbhakti Budget", the city government has proposed to allocate Rs 45 crore to install high masts to hoist the national flag at 500 places in the national capital.

Sisodia also said there will be a "Deshbhakti period" in the city schools.

The AAP government intends to increase Delhi's per capita income to the level of Singapore by 2047, he added.

An amount of Rs 10 crore will be allocated for programmes on Bhagat Singh's life during the 75-week "Deshbhakti" celebrations, the deputy chief minister said.

He pointed out that the total outlay of the budget is 6.1 per cent more than the budget presented for financial 2020-21.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The logo of CGTN Europe is pictured on a sign outside an office block that houses the offices of China Global Television Network in Chiswick Park, west London, on Feb. 4, 2021. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

French Licence Puts Pressure on China State Broadcaster: NGO Director

The French broadcasting licence that China Global Television Network (CGTN) has obtained will bring more pressure to the Chinese state broadcaster, an NGO director says.

Peter Dahlin, the director of Safeguard Defenders, a human rights NGO that has filed complaints against CGTN that led to its licence being revoked in the UK, said Frances decision to give CGTN a licence was not really a decision to begin with.

To be included to be carried on satellites, that is an automatic process. So its not so much that the French TV regulator approved them, so much as its automatic, Dahlin told The Epoch Times on Monday.

Dahlin said he thinks theres something very positive with the development, as CSAFrances audiovisual regulatorsaid they would pay close attention to CGTNs content, a move Dahlin said was incredibly unusual.

CSA also specified that France has very strict regulation on what you can and cannot broadcast, so they will be held accountable, he said. So I think its actually a positive development, because it puts more pressure on CGTN, but also CCTV [China Central Television], to be more careful in what they broadcast.

Dahlin said it has always been his goal to get TV regulators to scrutinise the Chinese state-owned broadcaster to ensure it fell in line with the regulations.

The more attention paid on them by TV regulators, such as in France, the better, he said.

Peter Dahlin, director of human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders, speaks to The Epoch Times during a virtual interview, in Spain, on March 8, 2021. (The Epoch Times/Screenshot)

More Exciting Development to Follow

Safeguard Defenders in 2018 and 2019 filed multiple complaints to the UKs broadcasting regulator Ofcom on behalf of victims of forced confessions broadcast on CCTV and its English-language counterpart CGTN.

Ofcom on Monday issued a 100,000 ($138,359) fine to Star China Media Limited, CGTNs former licence holder in the UK, for airing a forced confession extracted from British citizen Peter Humphrey in 2013. It also delivered the final decisions on two other forced confession complaintsby Simon Cheng, a former employee of the British Consulate in Hong Kong; and Angela Gui, on behalf of her father Gui Minhai.

It issued another 125,000 ($172,929) fine over CGTNs partial coverage of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

After investigation on Safeguard Defenders request, Ofcom on Feb. 4 revoked a licence it had granted to CGTN on the grounds that the station is ultimately controlled by a political bodythe Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

So we had a process similar to this ongoing in Canada; CCTV 4 and CGTN was taken off the air in Australia last week, pending an investigation into these forced televised confessions. And were also seeing some related movements in Germany, and hopefully in other countries as well, Dahlin said.

Without going into the specifics, Dahlin said that there are a number of steps forthcoming, a lot of them quite exciting.

Asked if a political push is needed for countries to step up legislation around foreign state-owned broadcasters, Dahlin said that wouldnt be necessary, but some existing regulations are too archaic to deal with new ways of broadcasting.

It is true that all over the world, existing regulation dates, often, back to the 70s. And were living in a very different media landscape today, Dahlin said.

You can regulate what CGTN airs on TV, but the same material can then be made available on British social media platforms that cannot be regulated.

Dahlin said there are a lot of ways to get around the current regulations, and were getting to the point where we need a reckoning with a more comprehensive overview of how do we combat disinformation, direct lies, biases, and fake news.

Beijing on Tuesday pushed back against the Ofcom fines and rulings.

According to AFP, the foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a press briefing that CGTN had always upheld the principles of objectivity and fairness when conducting reporting, and that China reserved the right to make justified and necessary responses.

Two Weaknesses in Ofcoms Rulings

Peter Humphrey, a China specialist who was imprisoned in China for two years, was one of the victims of the airing of forced confessions. He said he was very pleased with the rulings on Cheng and Guis cases and the fines.

Peter Humphrey, former journalist and consultant imprisoned in China for two years, speaks to NTD in England. (NTD/Screenshot)

However, Humphrey said there are still two major weaknesses in the rulings.

Unfortunately, Ofcom has a maximum fine of 250,000. But quite frankly, crimes of this sort, I think should attract much bigger fines. We should be talking millions here, he told The Epoch Times on Monday.

Britain has the strongest regulatory framework for TV broadcasting, probably the strongest in the world, he said.

However,  I think that the penalties that are available here to punish offenders are far too weak, far too small.

Humphrey said that a 100,000 fine is merely a drop in the ocean for CGTN, which is funded by the very deep and very dirty [and] very bloody pockets of the Chinese Communist Party.

So this fine is meaningless for CGTN, and it only has symbolic value. Thats an example of how the penalties available to Ofcom are absolutely insufficient, Humphrey said.

Another major weakness of Ofcoms rulings, Humphrey said, is that they stopped short at citing human rights violations.

These complaints against CGTN and CCTV are the worst complaints ever submitted because they involve extremely severe and brutal human rights crimes, Humphrey said.

I think that Ofcom, as an independent agency, whose mandate [pdf] is rooted in human rights law, should actually give more prominence to the human rights angle in these complaints, he added.

But in none of these rulings that Ive seen over the last year have I seen the mention of human rights violations in that language, in human rights language, that these complaints deserve. This is a major weakness in the way Ofcom conducts its business.

When asked about his thoughts on CGTN regaining a foothold in Europe by getting a licence in France, Humphrey said that although this technically means that CGTN can broadcast again in the UK, it may be difficult in practice.

The handful of companies that CGTN could approach are going to be in an awkward position because they are subject to Ofcom rules and to the British Broadcasting code, Humphrey said.

So Ive got a feeling that CGTN wont find it easy to get a carrier to carry its signal in the UK.

Simon Cheng on March 31, 2020. (Courtesy of Simon Cheng)

After Mondays rulings, Cheng, a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong said it has been a significant moment for him after over a year of waiting, and a very encouraging signal for others.

Cheng told The Epoch Times on Monday that the rulings may encourage those whose human rights have been abused to stand up.

When were brave enough to speak out, I do hope that justice will be finally served, he said.

John Smithies and Alexander Zhang contributed to this report.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SafeBreach, maker of most widely used continuous security control validation platform in large and global-scale Enterprises, announced a record year of customer growth driven by rapid adoption of its platform, user-driven feature additions, strong channel partnerships, and growing market awareness of the importance of continuous security control validation to reduce attack surface and protect the enterprise.

In 2020, SafeBreach milestones included:

During the past 12 months, SafeBreach accelerated product development to quickly bring to market a host of new capabilities that will keep our customers in the lead of continuously improving security control effectiveness. We also delivered integrations that open new opportunities for current and future customers.

SafeBreach product innovations include:

Flexible Role-Based Dashboards - Customers can visualize reporting and tracking based on Business Unit, Threat Assessment, Security Control Validation and Asset Protected or combine various data points to visualize key security program metrics including Security Controls, Software Vulnerabilities, MITRE ATT&CK TTPs and threat information to effectively manage security risk and map improvements on those risks to real business metrics.

- Customers can visualize reporting and tracking based on Business Unit, Threat Assessment, Security Control Validation and Asset Protected or combine various data points to visualize key security program metrics including Security Controls, Software Vulnerabilities, MITRE ATT&CK TTPs and threat information to effectively manage security risk and map improvements on those risks to real business metrics. Integrated Threat Intelligence - We operationalized threat intelligence by integrating with major platforms in this category, and validating risk to the latest threats and supplying remediation insights for improved security controls to improve security posture and reduce business risks.

- We operationalized threat intelligence by integrating with major platforms in this category, and validating risk to the latest threats and supplying remediation insights for improved security controls to improve security posture and reduce business risks. Cloud Native Control Validation - Security operations teams and threat analysts can validate security controls for Cloud Native applications running in Containers or Cloud native services running in public cloud environments.

- Security operations teams and threat analysts can validate security controls for Cloud Native applications running in Containers or Cloud native services running in public cloud environments. Risk-Based Vulnerability Management - CISOs and their teams can establish data-driven, intelligent prioritization of vulnerability management focused on the greatest risks determined by intelligent analysis of the threat, attack surface and exploitability of each vulnerability.

"By continuing to innovate, we are helping our customers stay ahead of threats even as the environment for cybersecurity grows more challenging," says SafeBreach CEO and co-founder Guy Bejerano. "We continue our absolute focus on enabling businesses to drive down their most critical cyber risks and maximize the value they derive from their security infrastructure. The new SafeBreach products, features and partnerships not only helped us grow quickly and win many new enterprise customers but also have positioned us for rapid growth in 2021 and beyond."

The SafeBreach's Labs team has demonstrated industry leadership with back-to-back speaking appearances at Black Hat & Defcon in 2019 and in 2020 . In addition, SafeBreach has expanded its Hackers Playbook() from 10,000 to 27,000+ breach and attack methods, adding thousands of novel ransomware and other attacks to build its lead as the largest collection of actual attacks spotted in the wild. SafeBreach's r esearch into Iranian Advanced Persistent Threat groups was featured in February 2021 in the Washington Post, highlighting the company's commitment to deep-dive research that benefits not just customers but also the global cybersecurity community.

"With relentless cutting-edge research, SafeBreach stays ahead of the bad guys and gives our customers the most comprehensive coverage of known cyber threats along with a 24 hour SLA on US-CERT alerts," says Itzik Kotler, CTO and co-founder of SafeBreach. "Our rapid product and technology development in the past year demonstrate our commitment to this objective, and to our partnership with global CISOs and their teams. We work to give them the ultimate platform for driving down cybersecurity risk in the enterprise."

In recognition of these advances and of SafeBreach's customer-centric go-to-market strategy, the company was named Company of the Year 2021 in Breach and Attack Simulation by Frost & Sullivan and to the Forbes' Top 20 Cybersecurity Companies to Watch . "Featurerich platform capabilities, comprehensive usecase coverage,and aggressive expansion efforts have helped SafeBreach to exhibit strong financial performance in 2020," says Sweetha Krishnamoorthi, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "SafeBreach holds a clear leadership position on the growth index of the Frost Radar."

Most recently, SafeBreach expanded its senior executive team, with Jim Sullivan joining as VP Global Channel Sales, coming from Proofpoint. Jim previously held channel sales and leadership roles at Lookout, Kaspersky Lab and Sophos. SafeBreach also promoted Kevin Miller to VP of Sales.

SafeBreach will continue to accelerate its technology development efforts in 2021 with multiple new product and feature offerings in the pipeline. By working closely with leading cyber security companies and channel partners, SafeBreach pushes innovations into the market more quickly, offering CISOs and security teams the most advanced platform for driving down risk and maximizing the value of their existing security control investments.

About SafeBreach

SafeBreach is the world's most widely used continuous security validation platform in large and global scale enterprises. The patented SafeBreach platform empowers CISOs and their teams to validate security controls, maximize their effectiveness, and drive down risk. SafeBreach provides a "hacker's view" of an enterprise's security posture by continuously validating security controls. The platform presents findings in customized dashboards, enabling stakeholders to focus on the biggest risks to the organization. SafeBreach automatically and safely executes thousands of attack methods to validate network, endpoint, cloud, container and email security controls against its Hacker's Playbook, the world's largest collection of attack data broken down by methods, tactics and threat actors. Data from SafeBreach validations can improve SOC team responses and empower management teams to make smarter decisions to better manage risk and invest resources. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the company is funded by Sequoia Capital, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, OCV Partners, DNX Ventures, Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, PayPal and investor Shlomo Kramer. For more information, visit www.safebreach.com or follow us on Linkedin.

Media Contact

Corinna Krueger

VP Marketing, SafeBreach

[email protected]

SOURCE SafeBreach

Related Links

safebreach.com


ALBANY  The damage from the 2019 ransomware attack on the city police department internal affairs computer system went further back than previously revealed.

Ransomware attack may have exposed some information at Saratoga site

Ransomware the new online 'nightmare' for business

Airport enlists cyber security experts in ransomware attack's wake

The district attorneys office said it recently found out the damage from the March 30, 2019 attack went back to September 2017.

In a February letter, District Attorney David Soares office modified its previous statement, saying only that digital data had been lost, rather than actual files.

We were originally informed by the police department that the data loss included all of 2018, Soares' office said, according to a letter obtained by the Times Union. On February 12, we received written clarification from the administrator of the network that the data loss was from September 12, 2017 to April 2, 2019.

Previously, in a January letter to some defense attorneys, the district attorneys office said all files for 2018 had been lost.

The city emphasized that the attack did not damage any internal affairs files. Instead, the attack hit part of the indexing system of city police departments internal affairs case management program, called IAPro.

The system is part of the departments Personnel Early Warning System, which is used to identify and intervene when officers are demonstrating symptoms of job stress or other problems that are affecting their job performance.

In a statement last week, city spokesman David Galin said that index has been rebuilt.

As has been communicated to the District Attorneys Office, a portion of the Internal Affairs indexing system (IAPro) was not recoverable due to the ransomware attack. The IAPro system manages data entry and serves as an index for the physical files which have and continue to be safely secure. As of February 25, the portion of the indexing system that was impacted by the ransomware attack has been fully rebuilt through manual re-entry of the information contained in the physical case files.

The citys statement did not explain why it took nearly two years to rebuild that portion of the indexing system. Police department spokesman Steve Smith said the department was only recently able to find a vendor to work with on the system.

But the citys assertion that no files were damaged or deleted was contradicted by a city-hired attorney in a federal civil rights case last week.

Stephen Rehfuss, a former member of the citys corporation counsel, said a use-of-force incident report was no longer available due to the ransomware attack. Rehfuss is defending the city against a lawsuit filed by Ellazar Williams, who was shot in the back by a city detective in August 2018.

The city did not provide a clarification on what Rehfuss meant by deadline Monday.

Both the police department and the district attorneys office said last week no criminal cases were in jeopardy.

All Albany Police Department Internal Affairs files have existed, and continue to exist, in their entirety and continue to be available for physical review by the Albany County District Attorneys Office, as is required of the DA per Judge Carters ruling, Galin said in his statement.

No cases have had negative sanctions at this time due to this issue. We will continue to work to be in full compliance and certify in good faith for all cases that we are able to, said Cecilia Walsh, a spokeswoman for the district attorneys office.

The district attorney's office asked for every department in the county to turn over portions of their officer's personnel files that might contain "impeachable" material after a November 2020 ruling in an Albany homicide case. That includes discipline, citizen complaints, allegations of misconduct and more.

In that ruling Albany County Judge William Carter said that the district attorneys office had to provide information on police officers who might be possible prosecution witnesses that was unrelated to the current case. Carter also said Soares offices use of asking police to essentially self-report impeachable information was not in line with the intent of the states discovery laws.

Soares office has said they disagreed with the ruling, pointing to the fact that other judges across the state were not putting the same burden on other prosecutors.

The district attorneys office has been building its own database of police personnel files in order to comply with decision.

The full impact of the ransomware attack on the city, how exactly how hackers gained access, has never been fully explained. The city said it did not end up having to pay the ransom because critical servers, such as human resources and treasury, were backed up. As of last month, the FBI said its investigation into who was responsible for the attack was ongoing.

The city paid out roughly $300,000 to recover from the ransomware attack. That cost covered destroyed servers, upgrading user security software, purchasing firewall insurance and other improvements to firm up the city's systems following the attack.
26 Shares Share

On a typical pandemic Thursday night, I found myself scrolling through TikTok. This has turned into the guilty pleasure of my life. Sometimes you need something to do that will make you forget about your own problems and work. On this particular day, I came across a young woman talking about her experience in the military. She appeared on my page, tears in her eyes, explaining her traumatic event with her alleged rapist. She details the militarys inaction and goes on to discuss that this is why women in the military kill themselves.

I listened to her words, looking for clues. Bucaineried in the language was her branch, a fake handle in the corner, possibly a first name at the top of the page, the fact that she had been in court that morning. I could hear the pain in her voice. As a mom and OB/GYN, I have learned the many sounds of pain. My kids have an entire symphony of tears, the I want to see friends crying, or the I miss school tears, the broken bone piercing cries, and the heartbroken cries. This cry was one I had felt in my heart before. It was painful, feeling abandoned and betrayed by an organization you sacrificed so much for. She was feeling the emptiness that comes from a lack of justice. She had been assaulted, trusted in the system, and was not only betrayed by her colleague but the system itself. I felt that deep in my core, I had been in that moment, and could feel the pain, and immediately worried about her safety.

As a civilian, woman, and physician, who had been indoctrinated into the culture of medicine, which sadly has many parallels to the military, you know that someone is in desperation mode if they are willing to speak out against leadership. They have gone to the point where they have nothing else to lose. They are willing to walk away from a career they worked their entire lives for. This sentiment is repeated over and over again in the military and in medicine.

I have worked for years in an attempt to fix the medical culture. I want to set up safeguards and addend an already existing bill that Senator Tim Kaine initially brought forward this summer. However, on that Thursday night, I realized you cant fix one without fixing the other. It became clear to me that if toxic cultures that allow abuse, threats, intimidation, and violence are allowed to persist, fixing one work environment wont fix the standard that has been created.

Women arent accessories, afterthoughts, or tokens to place on boards. Women are leaders, fighters, activists, politicians, surgeons, friends, allies, and family. Until we make sweeping changes to these industries that have gone ungoverned by the normal legal infrastructure, we wont progress. Medicine and the military have their own way of dealing with predatorial behaviors; much is swept under the rug, men in power are enabled, and many women are complicit.

We must take swift action to pass the legislation that Representative Raskin proposed to address sexual assault in the military. We must protect the medical community, their mental health, and safety in the workplace. We need safe reporting structures that could be housed in the NIH. Women need a safe haven, where people will take their allegations seriously, give them resources, and treat them with dignity.

Im proposing an addendum to Senator Kaines proposed Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act to address medicines underlying issues. We need to change the physician license applications so people seek help when they need it. We need to have a separate body housed in the national government that can track and trace predators in the health care industry. Mental health support in the medical community needs to be barrier-free, without stigma, so we can drive the physician suicide rate down. We also need women to finally have a seat at the leadership table, and when that happens, we will stop seeing their mass exodus from medicine.

We also have an ethical mandate to reform every organization that allows this behavior to continue. We dont just have a viral pandemic; we have one of discrimination, violence, and intolerance. The only way to treat this issue is to cure it, not cover up the symptoms, which seems to be what we have done since the beginning of this country. This is a public health crisis that needs to be met with just as much urgency as COVID-19.

The ACLU recently wanted to enroll women in the draft, stating that its unconstitutional for women to be excluded. At first, I didnt know how to feel about that issue. However, on further review, if the country is going to fix the military and medical cultures, the wage gap, the discriminatory practices that permeate most work cultures, treat us as equals on all fronts, give us a seat at the leadership table, protect our girls and young women from discrimination, harassment, bullying, and threats. Also, importantly, to start giving women reproductive rights, rights to health care equity, and the right to make decisions about their own bodies; then I will be the first to sign up for the draft. You cant pick and choose what rights you want women to have, and we will no longer let equality be weaponized.

Kellie Lease Stecher is an obstetrician-gynecologist, M Health Fairview Center for Women, Edina and Eden Prairie, MN, and co-founder and president, Patient Care Heroes. She can be reached on LinkedIn, Facebook, and on Medium @kellie.stecher.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Wassim Mukdad has carried a deep darkness inside of him since his native Syria slipped into an abyss of conflict and terror.

But on a summer's day in western Germany in an ancient city 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) away from Damascus, he finally glimpsed a "ray of light".

On that day, August 19, 2020, the refugee took the witness stand in a Koblenz courtroom to recount the ordeal he suffered in a Syrian detention centre.

At that time, buoyed by the Arab Spring uprisings sweeping the Middle East, a sea of fists in the air rallied protesters calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to go.

They were struck down however by a wave of brutal repression.

Mukdad, now 36, who was looking for a protest to join when he was picked up by police, was among those dragged to Al-Khatib prison in the Syrian capital on September 30, 2011.

Almost 10 years on, standing before the German court he described being blindfolded and interrogated three times in the prison as if it had all happened yesterday.

Not only were questions flung at him.

Lashes also flew, lacerating the soles of his feet -- targeted in particular for the excruciating pain every time he later tried to stand up or walk.

It was only on that August day that he finally threw off his shackles, he said.

"I finally had the feeling that my story counted, that the sufferings were not for nothing," said the musician, who plays the oud, a lute-like instrument.

- 1,000 suspects in Europe -

Mukdad is among the Syrian exiles who have turned to European courts to ensure that state-sponsored crimes in Syria do not go unpunished.

Many arrived in Europe in the huge influx of asylum seekers fleeing war in Syria and Iraq in 2015, with Germany having taken in more than one million people since then.

Cases have been filed in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Norway against officials in Assad's regime by around 100 refugees, backed by Berlin NGO, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

Across Europe, activists are joining forces with police and UN investigators in collecting testimonies, sifting through tens of thousands of photos, videos and files of one of the best documented conflicts in history.

The court in the German city of Koblenz handed down an historic verdict against Eyad al-Gharib for complicity in crimes against humanity /  AFP/File

Using social media, they are forming networks to track down regime officers, who they say shed their uniforms to blend in among the tide of refugees arriving in Europe.

Syrian activists believe that around a thousand such suspects have slipped into the continent.

The estimate is impossible to verify but among them is the former brigadier-general of Raqa, Khaled al-Halabi, who according to Austrian media has been granted asylum in Vienna.

German authorities have arrested and charged a Syrian doctor accused of having tortured wounded people in a military hospital in the city of Homs.

Two cousins of an alleged victim, who like the doctor are refugees in Europe, picked the suspect out on a photograph, according to an activist lawyer.

At the Koblenz court, where Mukdad testified, the first verdict has been handed down against Eyad al-Gharib, who was found guilty of complicity in crimes against humanity.

It was the first court case worldwide over state-sponsored torture by Assad's government.

The trial against a second defendant is ongoing.

A former colonel, Anwar Raslan, faces life in prison over the deaths of 58 people in the Al-Khatib jail.

- Vetoes -

Having taken in the largest overall number of refugees since 2015, Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has been particularly active in pursuing cases against potential suspects.

In France and Sweden too, investigations are under way.

The Syrians are bringing their cases under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a country to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide regardless of where they were committed.

Syrian exiles are turning to European courts to ensure that state-sponsored crimes in Syria do not go unpunished /  AFP/File

For now, it is the only legal avenue for alleged crimes in Syria's civil war as international justice has been hamstrung for years, said Catherine Marchi-Uhel, who heads the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), charged by the UN since 2016 to investigate crimes committed in Syria.

"The UN Security Council can refer a case to the International Criminal Court and that was what happened in 2014," she said.

But the draft resolution to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC was "blocked by Russia and China which used their vetoes," she added.

Under universal jurisdiction, however, Germany and France issued international arrest warrants in 2018 against Jamil Hassan, who headed the Syrian air force's intelligence until 2019.

Paris has also started proceedings against Ali Mamlouk, who supervised the security apparatus.

- Fear -

German lawyer Patrick Kroker, who represents civil plaintiffs in Koblenz, said that many European countries were still hesitant to act.

"Because of fear of 'politically motivated' complaints," he said, these countries "have reduced the possibilities of prosecuting mass crimes to a bare minimum."

Lawyer Patrick Kroker (2nd R) said that many European countries were still hesitant to act /  AFP/File

Mukdad's involvement as co-plaintiff began by chance at a barbecue in a Berlin park in 2019.

There, he got talking to lawyer Joumana Seif, who last year initiated a lawsuit over rape and sexual abuse in Syrian prisons, and asked Mukdad if he would be prepared to testify against Raslan.

"Of course," Mukdad replied.

Several weeks later, he was giving evidence to German police.

But not all refugees are so forthcoming.

Many fear endangering their relatives in Syria. Others are reluctant to relive the pain.

- 'I know him' -

Arguably the most prolific "torturer hunter" in Berlin, Anwar al-Bunni has made a 19th-century former brasserie his office.

The lawyer, who languished for five years in Syrian prisons, knows Raslan after being arrested by him in Damascus in 2006.

More than a decade later, he said he came face to face with Raslan again in Berlin outside an asylum seekers' home where they were lodged.

Lawyer Anwar al-Bunni collects victims' testimonies and himself spent five years in Syrian prisons /  AFP/File

"I told myself, I know him. But it was impossible to recall from where," he said.

In March 2015, he ran into Raslan again in a shop.

By then, he had remembered exactly how he knew him.

"But at that time I had no clue what I could do against him," said Bunni.

The third time they met, Raslan was in the dock and Bunni on the witness stand.

"I looked at him. But he ignored me."

For the indefatigable activist who collects victims' testimonies, the opening of the Koblenz trial in April 2020 "marked a turning point".

"Syrians are regaining hope as they see that justice is working," he said.

"There are lots of people who now want to talk, we no longer have enough time to receive them all," he said, his mobile phone appearing to corroborate the demand with an incessant buzz indicating incoming messages.

In Paris, another Syrian lawyer, Mazen Darwish, is on a similar quest with an informal group of investigators from the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).

With two other NGOs, Darwish has filed two cases with German and French prosecutors over chemical attacks blamed on Assad's regime.

- Secret location -

But witness accounts are not enough to secure convictions, material proof is indispensable too.

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) has taken up the herculean task of collecting this evidence.

Bill Wiley founded the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) which has taken up the task of collecting material proof /  AFP

There is no official address for the group, funded by the United States, European Union and Britain.

There is not even a sign at the entrance to its office.

Anonymity is so important for the CIJA that before meeting its founder Bill Wiley, one must agree to not reveal even the name of the city where the organisation keeps its precious archive of over a million Syrian regime documents.

Among the files locked up in a secured room are papers from the military, security and intelligences services.

Facing a rout in fighting at the time, "the regime abandoned many buildings, leaving behind stacks of documents," said Wiley, who has also worked with prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

"We made deals with armed opposition groups to not destroy them," he said.

"Our teams were close to the operation and could run out to get the documents or people would get calls from their contacts from security intelligence services."

In an undisclosed location, the CIJA has an archive of over a million Syrian regime documents /  AFP

Up to 50 CIJA staff risked their lives in the operation.

"What was most dangerous was transporting the documents out of Syria even as the frontlines were changing constantly," he said.

At the CIJA's headquarters, teams of analysts then carried out the complex task of untangling the web of responsibilities and "placing top officials into the structures of command."

In the Raslan case, the organisation sent investigators two reports bearing the signature of the accused.

Since 2016, it has received 569 requests for documents held in the CIJA secret archive from 13 Western nations regarding 1,229 people linked to the regime.

- 'Just the beginning' -

In the town of Meckenheim, southwest of Bonn, Germany's Central Office for Combating War Crimes is seeing files linked to the Syrian conflict pile up.

In less than a decade, its staff has tripled to 28.

Since the beginning of the war, German justice like that of Sweden has been collecting evidence of potential crimes.

Between 2017 and 2019, some 105 investigations were opened in Germany.

Not all are linked to Syria, but 27 of them concern war crimes and 18 relate to crimes against humanity, according to a government document.

Germany's Central Office for Combating War Crimes is seeing files linked to the Syrian conflict pile up /  AFP/File

Like France, Germany's immigration authority routinely asks asylum applicants if they were witness to war crimes or crimes against humanity and flag these to the police.

Such cases have leapt from two in 2012 to 1,560 in 2015.

National investigators are also not working in isolation.

It was through French-German collaboration that Raslan and two other suspects were arrested in February 2019 in France.

Additionally, investigators share their information with the UN team.

Mukdad returned to Koblenz last month.

Dawn was just breaking as he stood in line for a seat in court.

Stone-faced, he listened as it handed down the historic conviction, sentencing Gharib, a former intelligence agent, to four and a half years in prison.

"The ruling is a relief," said Mukdad.

"But it's just the beginning. Because it's Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle who we're after."
With 2021 being the "Year of the Road Trip" the Flaunt Your Shape in Every State campaign delivers a creative way to go on a virtual vacation. The "road trip" across the United States will be an adventurous and engaging digital travel experience, celebrating real women of all shapes and sizes, spreading the body positivity message from coast to coast and everywhere in between.

Throughout the year, a diverse group of influencers, one representing each of the 50 states, will join in sharing their body positivity message while wearing Coco Reef swim, highlighting that beauty is not one size fits all. Coco Reef and LYCRA XTRA LIFE fiber, will kick off the "road trip" this week, encouraging women all across the country to join the campaign by posting photos in their Coco Reef swimsuits and tagging #FlauntYourShape with confidence. Consumers can join the adventure on Instagram at @cocoreefswim and on Facebook for weekly content and updates to see women of all shapes, sizes and ages flaunting their curves.

"We're thrilled to launch the "Flaunt Your Shape" in Every State Campaign, which is about empowering women to appreciate and celebrate the natural beauty of their figures. With the help of our 50 amazing and diverse influencers, we're excited to expand the body positivity message and inspire women across the country to feel supported and confident in our fit solution Coco Reef swimwear!" said Rosemarie Di Lorenzo, Coco Reef Founder and CEO of Swimwear Anywhere INC

Established in 1996, Coco Reef is a steadfast leader in the supportive swimwear category. As one of the pioneer brands in bra sized swimwear, Coco Reef has utilized decades of industry know-how to provide bra sized, fit solution swimwear to a contemporary market. Their mission is to enhance, support and sculpt a woman's figure in styles that flatter curves and inspire confidence while delivering the reliable support of a traditional undergarment. One key component in the fabrics of Coco Reef swimwear is LYCRA XTRA LIFE fiber, a swimsuit fabric that maintains shape retention that lasts 10 times longer than unprotected spandex. Combining detailed swimsuit construction and fabrics with LYCRA XTRA LIFE fiber, the quality of Coco Reef swimsuits will last season after season.

The Flaunt Your Shape campaign, new arrivals and Flaunt Collection will expand the Coco Reef mission of creating and innovating with inclusive, fit -solution based swimwear, celebrating and empowering women to feel supported, wherever their road trip may take them.

About Coco Reef

Established in 1996, Coco Reef celebrates women, empowering them to flaunt their curves in high-quality, fit solution swimwear. The brand's bra sized bikinis and tankinis, which range from C-cup to G-cup and size up to 24W are designed to highlight the natural diversity of women's bodies in swimwear separates and coordinating bottoms and coverups. Coco Reef also designs a proprietary label, Coco Contours, which is a collection of bra sized swimwear built like shapewear. The swimwear assortment of predominantly one-pieces and bottoms are made with patented Shapemaker lining that smooths, sculpts, and supports your curves with its control-fit technology. Both brands are sold online, in specialty stores across the US, Canada and Europe and are among the top 5 swim brands sold at department stores such as Macy's, Dillard's and Belk, nationwide. For more information, please visit www.cocoreefswim.com and follow on Instagram and Facebook.

Media Contacts:



Hollis Byram // [email protected]

Kelly Tick // [email protected]

516.491.1697

CRC, Inc.

SOURCE Coco Reef Bra Sized Swimwear
As a Microsoft partner, we have access to second-to-none resources and support that help us serve our customers better, faster, and with ever-increasing competencies, states Steven Mikrut, Director of Managed Technology Services at Prescient Solutions.

Prescient Solutions, IT engineering and managed IT services provider, has announced today the requirement completion for demonstrating and validating their technical capabilities in the Microsoft Partner Network program.

The Microsoft Partner Network is designed to make resources available to a wide variety of technology companies so they can build a business around Microsoft technologies. As a Microsoft Gold Partner for over 15 years, Prescient provides training and funding for employees interested in pursuing certifications. Currently, there are 20 technicians who help to achieve the Gold Partnership through performance requirements and completed certifications.

Prescient Solutions has completed and demonstrates technical capabilities in Microsoft products or technologies including:



Gold Application Integration

Gold Cloud Platform

Gold Datacenter

Gold Cloud Productivity

Silver Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions

Gold Windows and Devices

As a Microsoft partner, we have access to second-to-none resources and support that help us serve our customers better, faster, and with ever-increasing competencies, states Steven Mikrut, Director of Managed Technology Services at Prescient Solutions.

Prescient Microsoft technology services include Office 365, Azure, SharePoint development, infrastructure, server technologies, desktop deployment and management, and identity management, access control, and security strategies. View all certifications.

About Prescient Solutions

Prescient Solutions is a Chicago-based IT engineering company that provides onsite, remote, managed and cloud- based services to small, mid-sized and global organizations, as well as government entities. For 25 years, its expert team has advised organizations on best practices in IT and cybersecurity, and guides executives in IT decision making and implementation across all systems and networks. For more information call 888-343-6040, or visit http://www.prescientsolutions.com.
The Engineering Service Contract (ESC) represents a $612 million, 10-year renewal of a prior ESC. The contractor logistics support (CLS) award for $84 million exercises Option Year Four of an existing CLS contract, bringing its cumulative face value to $594 million.

With the ESC contract, Gulfstream provides dedicated resources supporting C-20G, C-37A and C-37B aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy. Gulfstream's government program and special missions office provides engineering services, aircraft modifications, configuration management, data delivery and publication management. Gulfstream Customer Support provides field services and technical operations support.

"Gulfstream is grateful for the continued confidence the U.S. government has in our program," said Leda Chong, Gulfstream's senior vice president for Government Programs and Sales. "What started as an engineering services contract for nine C-20 U.S. Air Force aircraft 20 years ago has evolved into a support contract for a 23-aircraft fleet."

"Our dedicated engineers and technical support experts look forward to supporting and ensuring the success of the U.S. military's special missions," said Chong.

Gulfstream will perform the work in Savannah, Georgia; Joint Base Andrews, Maryland; Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington, D.C.; Hickam Air Force Base and Marine Corps Base, Hawaii; and Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

"Gulfstream Customer Support has been proud to provide services for the U.S. government for many years," said Derek Zimmerman, president of Gulfstream Customer Support. "The engineering services contract is a prime example of Gulfstream's ability to collaborate across functions to provide the strongest support in the industry, and we are excited to partner closely with the U.S. government for another decade."

General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defense company that offers a broad portfolio of products and services in business aviation; ship construction and repair; land combat vehicles, weapons systems and munitions; and technology products and services. General Dynamics employs more than 100,000 people worldwide and generated $37.9 billion in revenue in 2020. More information about Gulfstream is available at www.gulfstream.com. More information about General Dynamics is available at www.gd.com.

SOURCE Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.

Related Links

https://www.gulfstream.com


Register with JOC.com and receive 5 free pieces of content for the first thirty days. After thirty days, you will receive 3 pieces of content and after sixty days you will receive 1 piece of content. To receive full access, Subscribe Today . You can also subscribe to our daily newsletter.

Register
Posted Monday, March 8, 2021 9:10 pm

Late last month, Gov. Jay Inslee appointed Clark County Councilor Temple Lentz to the Washington State Affordable Housing Advisory Board.

Lentz is representing the Washington Association of Counties  Western Washington. Her appointment will end on Jan. 26, 2025.

The role of the Affording Housing Advisory Board is to address the states need for housing that is affordable to all economic segments and populations. The main tasks of the board include:

 Analyzing solutions and programs that could begin to address the states need for affordable housing

 Stimulating public and private sector cooperation

 Identifying and removing regulatory barriers to affordable housing

Here in Clark County, and across the state, affordable housing is a key issue that must be addressed, Lentz said in a news release. I am honored to be appointed and join this board, and I look forward to the opportunity to provide input and advise the state on diverse ways to increase housing affordability while also preserving community livability.

The board meets quarterly and is made up of 22 members representing a variety of housing interests around the state.

For more information on the Affordable Housing Advisory Board, go to commerce.wa.gov/about-us/boards-and-commissions/affordable-housing-advisory-board/.
A historian has revealed the 'intriguing parallels' between Meghan Markle and Queen Victoria's adopted daughter who was given the trappings of royal life but wished for more privacy.

Dr Priya Atwal, from London, shared a lengthy Twitter thread online highlighting similarities between the Duchess of Sussex, 39, and Princess Gouramma of Coorg yesterday.

Princess Gouramma was brought to Britain in 1852 by her father the Rajah of Coorg, before being adopted by Queen Victoria and struggling with public pressure and expectations.

Dr Priya's comments about Gouramma come hours after Meghan revealed that the stress of royal life made her suicidal when she was five months pregnant during an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Dr Priya Atwal, from London, revealed the 'intriguing parallels' between Meghan Markle and Queen Victoria's adopted daughter Gouramma

Posting online, Dr Priya wrote: 'As a historian of Victorian royalty, I am fascinated by some of the parallels between #MeghanMarkles current situation and the little known story of Princess Gouramma of Coorg.'

She called the idea that Meghan is the first person of colour to be a member of the Royal Family 'misleading', and pointed to Princess Gouramma, who was born in 1841 in India.

Dr Priya commented: 'She was brought to Britain in 1852 by her father, the deposed Rajah of Coorg.

'The Rajah campaigned to win back his family wealth from the East India Company, but also asked Victoria to adopt his daughter, believing the Queen would give her a good life.

Princess Gouramma was brought to Britain in 1852 by her father the Rajah of Coorg, before being adopted by Queen Victoria and struggling with public pressure and expectations

'The Hindu Rajah offered up Gouramma to be baptised as a Christian and hoped Victoria would bring her up as an adopted daughter with aristocratic guardians and secure her a good marriage.

'Incredibly, Victoria was keen about the idea and readily agreed.'

Queen Victoria took several young royals from across the empire into her household as godchildren, including Duleep Singh, whose portrait still hangs in Buckingham Palace.

Dr Priya said the intention was 'to learn about her new territories & project a benevolent image of her family.'

Princess Gouramma was the daughter of Chikka Virarajendra, the ruler of Coorg, who was deposed by the British in 1834 (pictured, a drawing

However the historian said the young royals would often have a difficult time, despite the fact the Queen was their guardian.

She explained Duleep Singh and another ward Sarah Bonetta Forbes 'were both feted and treated as racialised others in Victorian Britain.'

She added: 'Their lives were pored over in a newly-emerging popular press.'

Dr Priya continued: 'Gouramma particularly struggled with the attention and pressure of expectation placed on her to become a model Anglicised princess.

WHO IS VICTORIA GOURAMMA? Victoria Gouramma was born in India in July 1841, as the daughter of Chikka Virarajendra, the ruler of Coorg who was deposed by the British under the command of James Stuart Fraser. Virarajendra surrendered on 24 April 1834 and was taken political prisoner to Benares. Queen Victoria, pictured with her grandchild Prince Edward, adopted several royals from around the world He went to England in March 1852 to demand in court that the East India Government return his wealth. Queen Victoria received Virarajendra with royal treatment and his daughter Gouramma was then taken into the care of the queen at the age of 11. She was under the care of Major Drummond and his wife, who had travelled by ship along with the Raja. Gouramma became the first Indian royal to be converted to Christianity when she was baptized on 5 July 1852. The ceremony was conducted at the Buckingham Palace by the Archbishop of Canterbury with the Queen as godmother (sponsor) giving her the name of Victoria. By 1858, Queen Victoria began seeking a suitor for then 17-year-old Gouramma. She asked Lena, Lady Login, to help on the search for her goddaughter, with some expectation another of her guards, Duleep Singh, would be a good suitor. Queen Victoria considered Duleep Singh as a suitor for Gouramma, however he went on to marry an English woman However Duleep announced that he intended to marry an English woman. Lady Login then tried to find a suitable European noble to become Gouramma's husband, but instead she married Lt. Col. John Campbell, who was 30 years older than her. They welcomed a daughter, Edith Victoria Gouramma Campbell, in July 1861, when Gouramma was just 20. Three years later, she died of tuberculosis and is now buried at Brompton cemetery. Her daughter Edith Victoria married Henry Yardley, son of Sir W. Yardley, and had a son Victor. He emigrated to Australia, and died quite young in a motorbike accident in 1936. Recent reports suggest she also had two daughters, with the Yardley descendants currently living in Australia. Advertisement

'Victoria willingly excepted her into royal care but banned Gouramma from having any further contact with her father & family.

'This was supposedly to prevent her from slipping into native or heathen ways.'

Gouramma was then 'moved from foster family to family as her caretakers struggled with the cost & demands of raising a royal ward'.

Struggling to cope with the pressures of royal life, Dr Priya explained Gouramma then 'made repeated attempts to run away.'

Struggling to cope with the pressures of royal life, Dr Priya explained Gouramma 'made repeated attempts to run away' as a teenager

Dr Priya called her parallels with Meghan 'most intriguing', explaining: 'Gouramma often spoke of dearly wishing for more privacy & living independently - even to become a household maid - so she could be free of scrutiny. Yet her actions were attributed to her innate Oriental weakness.'

Calling it an 'incredibly sad story', the historian continued: 'A child who was most likely feeling lost/confused, was intensely pushed and misunderstood by the adults who were supposed to care for her.

'Gouramma eventually married and had a child, but weak in health, she died at 23.'

She finished: 'So really, its not new for the British Royal Family to accept people of colour into their fold - even knowing it is a good move for their image

The revelations come as Meghan and Harry made explosive claims about life in the royal family and described the pressure they feel they've been living under

'But whats long been messy/problematic is how royal and British public culture deals with such new royal figures and impacts their lives.'

The comparison comes as Buckingham Palace has been paralysed with 'horror and dismay' over Prince Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William were all locked in crisis talks over how to react to a string of incendiary accusations unleashed by Harry and wife Meghan during a two-hour special with Oprah Winfrey on American TV.

With pressure growing for a statement today, Palace insiders described a mood of 'intense personal shock and sadness' that the prince had pressed the 'nuclear button on his own family'. 'People are just reeling,' a source said.

During the Oprah interview yesterday, Meghan also accused her sister-in-law Kate of making her cry and suggested she had had more negative press than the Duchess

The couple's interview on CBS late on Sunday night sent shock waves around the world yesterday as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Queen and other senior royals.

They accused an unnamed Royal Family member of racism, suggesting the relative had asked 'how dark' their baby would be; said they had been driven out of Britain, in part, by racism; and accused the Palace machinery of failing to support a 'suicidal' Meghan.

Meghan also accused her sister-in-law Kate of making her cry; suggested senior royals plotted to ensure Archie would never have a title or adequate security; and said officials had failed to stand up for the couple against 'racist' commentary, while lying to protect other royals.
Unfortunately, access to opportunities often depend on individual's socio-economic, social, and community backgrounds. However, increasing the advancement of girls and women in STEM fields can help equip them with the skills to secure higher earning jobs of the future and in turn spur socio-economic advancement for their communities*. Education is the key to unlocking the potential of girls  it opens up infinite possibilities and can inspire positive contributions to the global community. However, many young girls around the world are denied the opportunity to advance to secondary school due to barriers such as early marriage, poverty, discrimination and gender bias. Access to STEM education can help combat these barriers and enable girls to claim the future that they choose.

"Since March 2019, Cle de Peau Beaute celebrates women who have taken action to drive positive change in their communities through education and empowerment with the Power of Radiance Awards. This is the third year that we have had the privilege to recognize such exceptional women, and I am honored to celebrate this year's awardee, Ms. Alyona Tkachenko. Her advocacy for STEM education to be incorporated into the curriculum in Kazakhstan has touched over 500,000 girls. Her achievements are testament to our belief that each person has the power to transform not only the world for herself, but also for those around her," said Ms. Yukari Suzuki, Chief Brand Officer of Cle de Peau Beaute.

Ms. Alyona Tkachenko is the initiator of the Hour of Code in Kazakhstan, bringing the program to her country in 2014 to inspire students to learn programming, especially young girls. Alyona has pushed to make Hour of Code accessible to girls in both urban and rural environments by working with the national and regional government to roll the program out in schools across Kazakhstan. Outside of her educational work, Alyona has tapped into her own STEM background to co-found Nommi, a Kazakhstan-run mobile hotspot startup. Lack of connectivity can worsen education gaps, Nommi was founded to solve this problem by providing internet everywhere, especially in rural areas. Alyona strongly believes that STEM is a crucial tool for innovation and wants to encourage other young women to pursue it as a field of study.

"Being involved in STEM and learning different sides of computer science has opened many doors and enabled me to grasp exciting opportunities that have come my way. Through my work and advocacy, I hope to give young people a clearer understanding of the possibilities that STEM education can provide. My dream is to help provide the tools for young girls to make the most of their potential and not accept the limits imposed on them, no matter their background. Receiving the Power of Radiance Award will help me transform Hour of Code Kazakhstan and ultimately ensure more equal representation of girls in STEM," said Ms. Tkachenko.

As the 2021 recipient of the 'Power of Radiance Award', Alyona will be awarded a grant that can be donated to a cause of her choosing to further her impactful work in STEM. The 'Power of Radiance Awards' are funded by a percentage of global sales of Cle de Peau Beaute's The Serum. Designed to awaken Skin Intelligence  skin's ability to distinguish between good and bad stimuli, The Serum also activates the source of vitality and radiance. Cle de Peau Beaute's journey as advocates for education began with a dream for a better world. This is why they selected one of their most iconic first-step products, The Serum, and pledged a share of its sales towards this mission.

The power to light up the world is within every individual, and through the 'Power of Radiance Awards', Cle de Peau Beaute is standing with girls and women globally as they transform the world for themselves, their families and their communities.

*Information Source: Stepping Up Women's STEM Careers in Infrastructure (http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/192291594659003586/pdf/An-Overview-of-Promising-Approaches.pdf)

About Alyona Tkachenko

Ms. Tkachenko became interested in STEM through studying physics and math, as well as working with tech companies early in her career. She wanted to spread awareness and expand access to STEM education in her home country so she co-founded, Love to Code, a programming training center for children. While advocating for Love to Code's mission to give every kid in Almaty and eventually in all of Kazakhstan an opportunity to learn coding, Alyona launched a social initiative called Kazakhstan's Hour of Code to bring more attention to the subject of coding and Computer Science. Since it first launched, Kazakhstan's Hour of Code program grew from 60,000 students to 350,000 by 2019. The Hour of Code program has quickly become the largest STEM initiative in Kazakhstan  introducing over 500,000 Kazakhstani girls to STEM and training more than 200 female teachers on STEM curriculum. Alyona also co-founded Nommi, a Kazakhstan-run secure connectivity startup, that provides fast LTE data for remote workers across the globe. Nommi has expanded and signed corporate agreements with some Fortune 500 Companies. She is the first female tech-founder from Central Asia to make the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia List (2019).

A bout Cle de Peau Beaute

Cle de Peau Beaute, the global luxury brand from Shiseido Cosmetics, was founded in 1982 as the ultimate expression of elegance and science. Cle de Peau Beaute means the key to skin's beauty. The philosophy of the brand is to unlock the power of a woman's radiance by harnessing makeup technologies and advanced skincare from around the world. Forever guided by an exquisite aesthetic sensibility and intelligence, Cle de Peau Beaute has instilled its products with modernity, enchantment, and dynamism to emerge as an industry leader in delivering radiance so remarkable, it emanates from within. Available in 20 countries and regions worldwide.

Cle de Peau Beaute Official Website: www.cledepeau-beaute.com

Cle de Peau Beaute Official Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cledepeaubeaute/

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1438730/D1A2653_SRGB___1.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1438728/CDP_POR_BLACK.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1283638/Logo_Logo.jpg



Related Links

http://www.cledepeau-beaute.com



SOURCE Cle de Peau Beaute
WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Small business owners report new software adopted last year in response to COVID-19 increased productivity (47%), improved engagement with customers (45%) and increased sales (45%), according to data gathered by SCORE and Software Advice. Nearly half of small business owners (45%) surveyed expect to increase their 2021 investment in technology.

Most small businesses (90%) converted some aspect of their business to a digital format in 2020:

SCORE infographic explains the effects of technology adoption in the COVID era.

95% of small business owners adopted online checkout; 37% found it extremely valuable and 40% found it moderately valuable.

93% of small business owners adopted contactless delivery/pickup; 37% found it extremely valuable and 39% found it moderately valuable.

92% of small business owners converted to digital team collaboration; 36% found it extremely valuable and 38% found it moderately valuable.

92% of small businesses converted to virtual meetings; 34% found it extremely valuable and 43% found it moderately valuable.

Many small businesses adopted new operations software in 2020:

40% of small business owners adopted project management software for permanent use and 19% adopted project management software for temporary use.

39% of small business owners adopted video conferencing for permanent use and 23% adopted video conferencing for temporary use.

38% of small business owners adopted business intelligence (BI), reporting or analytics software for permanent use; 22% adopted temporarily.

As a result of new software adoption, small business owners report improved productivity, increased sales, and improved customer engagement:

47% reported new software increased productivity.

45% reported improved engagement with customers.

45% reported increased sales.

42% reported reduced costs.

Nearly half of small business owners (45%) plan to increase their 2021 investment in technology.

"Small businesses that adopted new software in 2020 saw an exponential increase in sales and customer satisfaction and 2021 will be no different," says SCORE CEO Bridget Weston. "As technology continues to advance, SCORE mentors are standing by to ensure business owners have the guidance and support needed to successfully adapt and thrive."

"Now is the time for small businesses to digitize," says Software Advice Global Vice President Blake Clark. "Automating daily tasks, managing remote teams and staying engaged with customers are the types of advantages small and medium-sized businesses can experience in 2021 by identifying and adopting the right software."

Download the infographic to learn more about small business technology trends and click here to learn how technology can improve your business performance.

About SCORE

Since 1964, SCORE has helped 11 million entrepreneurs to start or grow a business. SCORE's 10,000 volunteers provide free mentoring, workshops and educational services to 1,500+ communities nationwide, creating 45,027 new businesses and 74,535 non-owner jobs in 2020 alone. Visit SCORE at www.score.org. Follow @SCOREMentors on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Funded [in part] through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

About Software Advice

Software Advice helps businesses navigate the software buying journey. Industry-specific advisors guide people through the selection process and provide personalized software recommendations. Founded in 2005, Software Advice has helped over 800,000 businesses find the right software for their specific needs through 1-on-1 advice, objective research and actionable insights. Software Advice also features over 1 million verified user reviews to ensure people feel confident in their technology decisions.

Contact Information

Betsy Dougert

Vice President, External Relations

SCORE

800-634-0245

[email protected]

SOURCE SCORE

Related Links

http://www.score.org


(Newser)  The first rescue dog to live at the White House is already out of it. The Biden family's two dogs were returned home to Delaware last week after 3-year-old German shepherd, Major, bit a member of security, CNN reports. It cites sources as saying the dog had showed "agitated behavior on multiple occasions, including jumping, barking, and 'charging' at staff and security." The condition of the victim is unknown.

story continues below

But "the episode was serious enough that the dogs were subsequently moved to Wilmington," per the outlet. The family's other German shepherd, 13-year-old Champ, accompanied Major. It's unclear if the placement will be for the long term, however, as the dogs often stay in Delaware when Dr. Jill Biden is traveling. She arrived Monday in Washington state, where she'll tour two military facilities on Tuesday, per KING5. She'll then fly to California. (Read more White House stories.)
Lenovo is gearing up to release a successor to last years Legion Duel (aka Legion Pro) soon. According to rumors we should see the Legion Pro 2 powered by Qualcomms latest Snapdragon 888 and re-vamped fan cooling for better sustained performance. Now a device bearing the Lenovo L70081 model name believed to be the Legion Pro 2 appeared on Geekbench revealing its powered by the SD 888 and 16GB RAM.



Lenovo L70081 Geekbench results

The phone managed 1,129 and 3,763 points in the single and multi-core tests which are quite impressive and among the highest scores weve seen to date on the Geekbench. The listing also reveals the phone boots Android 11. Other speculated features of the upcoming Legion gaming phone include a 144Hz AMOLED display, UFS 3.1 storage, and LPDDR5 memory and a 5,000 mAh battery.

Via
Residents in Adelaide have been urged to get tested for even the most mild of symptoms after more Covid-19 traces were found in the city's wastewater.

A 'strong positive' result for Covid-19 fragments were detected in the sewer water on Sunday in the northern part of the city's CBD.

After further testing was carried out, a second 'strong' result was found on Monday night.

South Australian health authorities have urged anybody who has been in Adelaide's CBD within the past week and has even very mild symptoms of the virus to get tested.

Residents in Adelaide have been urged to get tested for even mild symptoms after Covid-19 traces were found in the city's wastewater (pictured a wastewater treatment plant in Adelaide)

'At this stage, given that there is as yet no clear explanation to the wastewater detection result, it's imperative that anyone who has been in the Adelaide CBD in the past week seek immediate testing if they have any COVID-19 symptoms, no matter how mild,' authorities said in a statement.

The catchment where the positive traces have been found is an area where around 12,000 people live and work.

Deputy Chief Public Health Officer, Dr Emily Kirkpatrick, said this week's results could be related to old cases within the area.

'We do have old cases within our medi-hotels within that catchment,' Dr Kirkpatrick said.

'So that could certainly explain those results we're seeing, however we are still alarmed by this.

'Whilst we're not saying there is any community transmission here in South Australia, it is really important you do get tested even if you have the slightest of symptoms.'

Dr Kirkpatrick said SA was also checking with other states on the movement of people across the border in recent weeks to see if they correlated with anyone who had recently recovered from having the virus.

It comes after thousands visited the South Australian city to celebrate the Fringe festival, the Adelaide festival and WOMADelaide.

The catchment where the positive traces have been found is an area where around 12,000 people live and work (pictured health workers at Covid-19 clinic in Adelaide)

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall (middle) posed with attendees of the Adelaide Fringe Festival on Friday. Thousands had visited the state for its week of festivals

SA reported two new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, one in a teenage girl and one in a man in his 60s, who recently returned from overseas and are both in hotel quarantine.

The state also began distributing the Pfizer vaccine from the Lyell McEwin Hospital, in Adelaide's north.

Frontline staff, including Dr Dharminy Thurairatnam, who was the first to identify the Parafield cluster of cases in November, will be the first in line with about 350 people expected to get the jab over the next week.

SA has administered almost 4000 vaccinations since the program began two weeks ago.

That still leaves it well short of the 12,000 forecast over the first three weeks.

More to come.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
After hunter-gatherers became farmers and farming gave rise to cities, cities gave rise to empires. They grew through military conquest, were built by slaves and were maintained with brutal violence, but the great empires also unified millions of far-flung people under a common culture and gave rise to incredible technology and innovation.

Read: The Most Valuable Substances in the World

Empires, however, are expensive. Theyre propped up by armies, armies run on money and every empire in history has only been as good as its ability to keep the gold rolling in. Some were better at it than others. Meet historys wealthiest empires.

Last updated: March 8, 2021

Mesopotamia

A handful of before and after events pulled human beings out of the food chain  the domestication of fire, the domestication of plants and animals through agriculture, written language and money. Its impossible to discuss ancient peoples and wealth without mentioning the OGs who invented wealth  the Mesopotamians.

It wasnt a cohesive empire  Mesopotamia included the Sumerians, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Akkadians  but it laid the foundation for the empires that would follow and pretty much all of civilization as a whole. From dog leashes and the wheel to mathematics and the sail, the Mesopotamians gave more to the world than perhaps any other culture in history, not the least of which was money. Around 5,000 years ago, the Mesopotamian shekel emerged as the first known form of currency.

See: Water Joins Gold and Oil as Wall Streets Next Precious Commodity

Roman Empire

In the time of antiquity, wealth was measured in the amount of land an empire controlled and the number of people it ruled. The Roman business model is proof of why. When Rome conquered a civilization, it confiscated its resources and commodities, including the people who lived there.

Historians estimate that Rome ruled 65 million subjects at the height of its power in the mid-second century  about 21% of the worlds 300 million people. Author Mike Duncan told Smithsonian magazine that early Romes unquenchable thirst for silver, gold, grain, wine and slaves fueled its boundless expansion. The early Romans invaded Carthage, Spain and Greece, enslaved the conquered and worked them to death in their own mines and on their own farms. The proceeds were shipped back to Rome on the backs of other slaves. Fortune estimates that at its height, Rome was responsible for 25% to 30% of global economic output.

Find Out: Coronavirus Has Made These 100+ Brands More Valuable Than Ever

Persian Empire

Ancient emperors were in the subjects game  more people, more profit  and few players played it better than the Persians. According to Guinness World Records, the Persian Empire, or Achaemenid Empire, ruled 49.4 million subjects at its peak in 480 B.C. Its estimated there were only a little more than 112 million people on Earth back then, which means an incredible 44% of the worlds population were subjects of the empire founded by Cyrus the Great.

Historian Frank L. Holt argued that Persias riches were evident in Alexander the Greats conquest. When the Macedonian king toppled the Achaemenid Empire, he redistributed the riches the Persians had been hoarding. There were so many slaves and so much gold, silver and grain that the moment triggered one of the greatest economic shifts in the ancient world.

More: Trump Faces Trouble with the Crown Jewels of His Real Estate Empire

pyramids of giza egypt

Egyptian Empire

In 2002, the journal Nature published a game-changing report that revealed an incredible economic disparity in ancient Egypt. The vast majority of ancient Egyptians, it turns out, were dirt poor. The empires unimaginable wealth was almost solely concentrated at the top of the social pyramid among the pharaohs, priests and to a lesser degree, scribes, architects, engineers and other privileged tradespeople.

Egypts vast riches  evident in the treasures buried with the pharaohs beneath the majestic pyramids that still stand today  came from its Nile Delta agriculture, its rich gold mines and its strategic location at the center of the known world.

Read: 25 Athletes With Major Business Empires Outside of Sports

Byzantine Empire

The Roman Empire eventually got so huge that it had to be split in two. The decaying Western Roman Empire eventually collapsed into the chaos of the Dark Ages. The Eastern Roman Empire  aka the Byzantine Empire  flourished for an incredible run from late antiquity through the medieval period.

That longevity was made possible by the empires vast wealth and stable, diverse economy. Its currency, monetary system, taxation system and advanced credit networks were all far superior to that of the West, but the truth is, Byzantium got the long end of the divorce settlement. Because of its proximity to Persia, Egypt and Greece, Eastern Rome was always more advanced, wealthy and globally connected than the Western Roman Empire. When Rome was divided, Byzantium jettisoned the dead weight.

See: The Richest Celebrity From Every State

Ottoman Empire

In 1453, the upstart Ottomans became an empire when they conquered the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, named for the Roman Emperor Constantine. While slaves, concubines and plenty of others werent included, the Ottoman Empire was incredibly tolerant by the standards of empires and of the world in general at the time. Religious minorities were tolerated  more Christians than Muslims lived there in its 1600s heyday, according to National Geographic  and the arts, technology and science flourished. Aside from its sheer size, the empires incredible wealth came from its real estate. Headquartered in modern-day Turkey, the Empire controlled the East/West divide, the land and water routes between Europe and Asia and all trade, commerce and travel that took place between them.

Find Out: Tax Tricks and Loopholes Only the Rich Know

Indias Mughal Dynasty

Rich, connected shot-callers at the top of their industries are called moguls. The word is derived from Mughal, the dynasty that ruled modern-day India after Babur founded the empire in the early 1500s.

Situated between China to the East and the Muslim world to the West, the Mughals exploited their advantageous geography to become a crossroads of global trade. They abolished key taxes and invested in roads, river routes and ports to make sure that when money changed hands between the East and West, it changed hands there.

French traveler Francois Bernier, who passed through in the 17th century, wrote, Gold and silver come from every quarter of the globe to Hindustan.

Fortune estimates the Mughal Dynasty generated one-quarter of the worlds economic output at the empires peak in 1700.

More: Heres How Much You Need To Earn To Be Rich in Every State

The Song Dynasty

During the time of the imperial Song Dynasty from the late 10th through late 13th centuries, China was the most advanced civilization in the world. Its contributions to science, art, engineering, war, printing, sailing and exploring still reverberate today.

Fortune estimates that at its height, the Song Dynasty accounted for 25% to 30% of the worlds economic output. It commercialized agriculture, with farmers across the land growing not for hand-to-mouth subsistence as they always had, but as entrepreneurs who grew in-demand crops to sell at market. In the cities, joint-stock companies and partnerships emerged, with clear divisions between managers and shareholders, just like in modern economies.

Read: 101 Easy Ways To Save Money Daily

Mali Empire

Its estimated that Augustus Caesar controlled the modern equivalent of $4.6 trillion, but the leader of the West African Kingdom of Mali was so rich that his wealth cant possibly be calculated.

From his headquarters in Timbuktu, Mansa Musa ruled the Mali Empire and became the man who is almost certainly the richest person ever to live. During his reign from 1280-1337, half the worlds gold came from Mali  and every single ounce belonged to him. Gold was the eras most important commodity, medium of exchange and symbol of wealth, and Mansa Musas supply was virtually limitless. According to the BBC, one historian said, Contemporary accounts of Musas wealth are so breathless that its almost impossible to get a sense of just how wealthy and powerful he truly was. Another said he was richer than anyone could describe. When he visited Mecca, he rolled with a 60,000-deep entourage and 12,000 slaves.

See: 25 Secrets Every Rich Person Knows

Spanish Empire

Spain sponsored Christopher Columbus, so it got first dibs on the New World. With the help of its Armada, conquistadors, muskets and smallpox, the Spanish Empire conquered and virtually eradicated the Aztec and Inca empires. Naturally, the conquerors sent their plunder home. Massive Spanish treasure fleets filled with gold-laden galleons sailed from South America to Spain, often through the dangerous waters of the Bermuda Triangle, where Caribbean pirates would kill for a single coin. For context as to just how much booty the Spaniards plundered, the wreck of a lone Spanish treasure galleon was discovered in 2015. Inside this single ship  the San Jose, which sank to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea in 1708  was gold, silver, gems and treasure worth up to $17 billion.

Find Out: Signs Youre Wealthier Than You Think

Big Ben and Houses of parliament at calm sunny morning.

British Empire

At the height of its power in the late 1800s, the British Empire had made up for the 13 colonies it lost to America and then some. It controlled half of North America, slivers of Central and South America, great swaths of Africa, the whole of Australia and the entire Indian subcontinent. At its height, it controlled 25% of the worlds landmass  geographically, the largest empire ever  and 412 million subjects or 23% of the worlds population.

From spices in India to fur in Canada, the entire thing was propped up by a global network of exploitative colonial trading posts. The system subjugated and impoverished native people in their own lands and shipped the riches of the world back to London. To this day, currency in countries from Canada to Australia bears the image of the British queen.

More From GOBankingRates

Photo Disclaimer: Please note photos are for representational purposes only.

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 11 Richest Empires in Ancient History
The Realme 8 series is all set to launch later this month. Ahead of its launch, the series has been teased a number of times already, with the company even revealing key details about the upcoming phones. The series has now been tipped to launch in India on March 25.

The information comes courtesy of tipster Abhishek Yadav who also claims that Realme will launch three new phones under the series. These phones are tipped to be the Realme 8 4G, Realme 8 Pro 4G, and Realme 8 Pro 5G. Of these, the company had already confirmed the Realme 8 Pro a few days back with the device even confirmed to sport a 108MP camera. Interestingly, this is going to be the same lens that was seen on the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max a few days ago. The Realme 8 Pro is going to be the top-end model in the series. The lens in question is the Samsung ISOCELL HM2 sensor, capable of shooting 108MP pictures. The tipster has claimed that the launch date of the phone will be officially announced by the company in the next 7 to 8 days.

Additionally, the company's CEO, Madhav Sheth, has also confirmed that Realme 8 series phones will offer an in-display fingerprint scanner. He revealed the information through a teaser on Twitter. However, he has not clarified if it will be all three Realme 8 series phones which will get the in-display scanner or if it will only be one of the phones.

User convenience is our top priority. pic.twitter.com/UCnwWtlr7j  Madhav108MP (@MadhavSheth1) March 9, 2021

Talking about the series, it will be the successor of the Realme 7 series phones that were launched last year. The Realme 7 Pro brought the AMOLED display with 65W fast charging to the family.

Realme 8 series: Expected specifications

As for the hardware, the Realme 8 series had been leaked previously. The Realme 8 phone appeared on Geekbench with the model number RMX3092. The listing revealed the phone to house an octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 720 chipset under the hood. As per the listing, the chipset will be paired with 8GB RAM. The Realme 8's core hardware will be tasked to run an Android 10 OS-based copy of the RealmeOS. However, it can be expected that the company may upgrade it to Android 11 at the time of launch.

Apart from this, the Realme 8 Pro has also previously been listed on Chinas 3C certification. The listing revealed that the phone will come with 65W fast-charging support. The phone is also expected to come with support for 5G. As such, we are looking at either the Snapdragon 765 or the Snapdragon 750G chipsets for use on the Realme 8 Pro.




Haiti - DR : The Dominican army and the PNH talk about border security





On Monday March 8, 2021, the Dominican Minister of Defense, Carlos Luciano Diaz Morfa, met a delegation of officers from the Haitian National Police (PNH), led by its Director General a.i. Leon Charles.



"The objective of this meeting was to achieve effective cooperation between military and police institutions, and to coordinate appropriate measures to combat irregular migration, human trafficking, the flow of arms, the trafficking of drug-related cross-border crimes and other illicit acts..." Minister Morfa explained.



Other subjects were discussed, in particular the bilateral agenda assumed by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.



Alongside the Director General of the PNH, the Haitian delegation was made up of Frantz Jean Francois Inspector General of the PNH, Frederic Lecompte Director of the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ), Manite Jean Charles, Director of the Intelligence Center and operations and Carl Henri Boucher, Director of the Information Directorate.



Alongside Minister Diaz Morfa, the Dominican delegation was made up of the Commander General of the Dominican Army (ERD), Luis Ernesto Florian Perez; the Director General of the National Police, Edward Sanchez Gonzalez; the Head of the Criminal Intelligence Directorate (DICRIM), Amauri Van Troi Tejada Cruz, and the Director of Intelligence of the Joint Staff of the Ministry of Defense, Jorge Ivan Camino Perez.



SL/ HaitiLibre


















President Bidens two German shepherds were shipped back home to Delaware for a temporary vacation after Major, the youngest, showed aggressive behavior toward an unfamiliar person who surprised him, Mr. Bidens press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

The dogs will return to the White House soon, after spending time with a caretaker at the family house in Wilmington, Ms. Psaki told reporters at the White House.

Ms. Psaki did not provide many details. She did, however, say there had been some kind of an incident resulting in a minor injury that was handled by the White House medical unit, with no further treatment needed.

The dogs are still getting acclimated to their new surroundings, Ms. Psaki said.

The Delaware trip was already in the works before the episode, she added (At least one media reporter noted that language echoed the formulations used to explain the absence of misbehaving humans).
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 09:48:07|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

TRIPOLI, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Monday urged the Libyan authorities to fully integrate women in the decision-making process, the UNSMIL said in a statement.

Libyan women have shown sound resilience and determination to move forward and to positively influence the political process, the UNSMIL said on the occasion of International Women's Day, which falls on Monday.

"The UN remains committed to supporting the empowerment of Libyan women, through fair participation in all levels of political, economic, and social life," UN secretary-general special envoy for Libya and Head of UNSMIL Jan Kubis said in the statement.

Since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995 and the adoption of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and its subsequent resolution, Libyan women have worked hard to confront and to tackle barriers on gender equality and women and girl's empowerment, the statement said.

UNSMIL also said that it would continue to work with and support Libyan women in the next stages of the transition to facilitate their participation in political life, peacebuilding and reconstruction processes.

"The UN will continue to work with all Libyans to support them in the democratic transition, and advance women's participation in political life and empower women," the statement added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-08 18:55:14|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Travelers receive COVID-19 test upon their arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 8, 2021. Israel on Monday lifted the ban on entry of foreign nationals into the country, according to a statement issued by Israel's Population and Immigration Authority. (Gideon Markowicz/JINI via Xinhua)

JERUSALEM, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Israel on Monday lifted the ban on entry of foreign nationals into the country, according to a statement issued by Israel's Population and Immigration Authority.

The decision, announced by the Israeli cabinet, will allow foreign nationals to enter the country under the approval of a special permit committee following a request in advance.

Besides, the cabinet permitted the entrance of Israelis with a maximum of 3,000 people per day. In the next two weeks, priority will be given to the entry of Israelis ahead of the general elections scheduled on March 23. Before then, the entry of foreign citizens will be approved on a limited basis.

In March 2020, Israel banned entry of foreign nationals into Israel, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. Since July of the year, the ban has been gradually eased, with permissions being given to family events, business meetings and more circumstances.

However, on Dec. 21, 2020, Israel completely banned entry of foreign nationals due to the increase in infections. On Jan. 26, 2021, Israel closed Ben Gurion International Airport for most inbound and outbound flights to avoid the spread of the new strains of the virus. Enditem
State Vet Lab Serves as UWs COVID Testing Center

Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory technician Morgan Mahlum, a biology major, left, uses a pass-through box to give materials to Amy Rhoad, who loads samples into the robotic testing machine in the UW Biocontainment Facility. Rhoad received her Ph.D. at UW with Associate Professor Kerry Sondgeroth in veterinary sciences. (UW Photo)

The director of the laboratory testing University of Wyoming COVID-19 samples was describing how the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory (WSVL) came to be testing 2,500 samples a day when he stopped midsentence and changed facial expressions.

Let me just step back a minute, said Will Laegreid, a professor in the Department of Veterinary Sciences.

Vault Health provided diagnostic testing services to UW until the WSVL took over diagnostic testing in December, literally saving the state of Wyoming and UW millions of dollars, Laegreid estimates. Tests are conducted in the UW Biocontainment Facility.

Hundreds of UW employees are involved in the scheduling, testing and results process, from taking samples, to testing, to creating the digital communication infrastructure, to student and employee contacts and then helping quarantine those testing positive.

Its really striking, says Laegreid, who specializes in the pathogenesis and control of animal diseases. One of the greatest things about this is its been really great working with the people who have been involved in this overall program. And it sounds hokey, but we have some really, really excellent people on this campus, and they have really gone beyond the extra mile to get this testing program to work.

The effort hasnt been easy, he adds, But its sure been a whole lot more pleasant than it could have been. And it would have been impossible without everyone just pitching in. And thats continued.

UW is now testing, twice per week, all undergraduate students spending time on campus, while graduate students, faculty members and staff members are tested weekly. The university also offers free COVID-19 testing to the broader Albany County community. The testing program, one of the most innovative in the nation, is a key component of the universitys efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Were extremely grateful for the work done by the WSVL team and others to make it possible for the university to conduct its own testing program, UW President Ed Seidel says. Their efforts, and the compliance of our students, faculty and staff, have helped us maintain a safe environment on our campus -- and set the stage for returning to a more traditional semester this fall. Im proud of the team and university for achieving this national leadership role while serving our community.

Building a Testing Program

Efforts began not long after Seidel arrived on campus July 1. Seidel had indicated in a late-July meeting a desire for intensive testing of students, staff and faculty members, with the goal of limiting the infection in the UW community.

That was important, says Laegreid, because stating the reason why then directed what testing would be done, what would be done with the data, and how many people would be tested.

Laegreid says information at the time indicated about 80 percent of the infectivity could be removed from campus if everyone on campus was sampled every two to three days and those testing positive quarantined.

Nationwide data made clear that universities and similar institutions were hotspots of infection for their surrounding areas.

We really wanted to avoid UW being a source of infection for other people, he says.

UW ditched the nasal pharyngeal swab test, the sample of choice at the time, to follow such schools as Yale and the University of Illinois that use saliva testing. Accuracy is as good or better than the nasal swab, Laegreid says.

The decision was common sense.

(Nasal pharyngeal swabs) are pretty unpleasant, he says. And, if we were trying to do people twice a week, that would last about half a week, because no ones coming back voluntarily to do that twice.

Veterinary and Human Testing

WSVL conducted surveillance or screening testing from October to December, when the lab was Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments registered, which allowed human diagnostic testing. The lab is awaiting certification but can provide diagnostic testing while registered. Surveillance or screening tests the likelihood someone may be positive; diagnostic testing changes the management of an individual, such as warranting quarantine.

Ramping up to more than 10,000 tests a week began to strain the six diagnostic technicians who had volunteered to do the tests in addition to their day jobs. A robotic liquid handling system, delayed in getting to the laboratory, has eased the load, and another technician has been hired to operate that equipment.

High throughput testing is not unusual for the WSVL. Getting 1,000 test samples from a ranch is not unusual.

We were able to apply those skills and knowledge we already had from doing animal testing and apply to human testing, Laegreid says. And I think thats why we were able to do it effectively and efficiently with a small number of people.

Testing to Vaccinations

Laegreid praises Dr. Brant Schumaker, a WSVL veterinary epidemiologist, for his efforts. He organized students and other volunteers for the expanded COVID hub, which involves checking in people when they arrive for vaccinations, monitoring them after they receive their shots, and recording the vaccinations for the Wyoming Immunization Registry.

(Brant) is a really good example of an infectious disease epidemiologist whos worked on animal diseases his whole career. But, you know, people are animals, too, Laegreid says. And he was able to go in and help establish the parameters for sampling our UW population to hopefully achieve an 80 percent reduction in infectivity on campus and then just on the nuts and bolts of traceback and quarantine and setting up those processes. Hes just been tireless, and hes shifted that over now to vaccines. And, honestly, the vaccine program in Albany County would not be where it is now without his efforts.
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.
A Baptist pastor has been placed on leave after delivering a 'sexist' sermon in which he urged married women to practice 'weight control' and look less 'butch' to keep their husbands' attention  though he admitted that not everyone can be an 'epic trophy wife' like Melania Trump.

Stewart-Allen Clark, 55, a preacher at the First General Baptist Church in Malden, Missouri, delivered his damning speech on Sunday, February 21, holding what appeared to be a Bible as he targeted the female members of the congregation.

A statement posted by First General Baptist Church's deacon ministry team said that 'as of March 2, 2021, Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark has taken a leave of absence and is seeking professional counseling.'

Clark's controversial sermon claimed each man needs 'an attractive wife'  prompting wide-spread outrage over his 'misogynistic' and 'offensive' message.

Scroll down for video

Stewart-Allen Clark, 55, was a preacher at the First General Baptist Church in Malden, Missouri

Stewart-Allen Clark has been placed on leave following his 'sexist' sermon telling women to focus on 'weight control'

Thoughts: Clark noted that not every woman can be 'the epic trophy wife of all time, like Melania Trump,' but they 'don't need to look like a butch, either'

At the start of the clip, he pulled up a popular meme on the screen behind him that shows a man checking out another woman.

'Ladies, here's the thing you need to know about men: Don't give him a reason to be like this 'distracted boyfriend.' You hear me? Don't give him a reason to be looking around,' he said, asking: 'Why is it so many times that women after they get married let themselves go?'

'Don't give him a reason to be looking around ... I really don't believe women understand how visual men are,' he added. 'I don't think women understand how important it is for a man to have a beautiful woman on his arm.'

'You can call it juvenile, immature, sexist,' Clark said.

But 'God made men to be drawn to beautiful women. We are made this way, we can't help ourselves,' he said, without referring to scripture.

Clark went on to say that women don't have to be the epitome of beauty, but they should try harder to look attractive.

General Baptist Ministries issued a statement saying Clark's speech 'included comments that are not consistent with the positions and values of General Baptists'

'I want you to know a need that your man has that he won't ever tell you about, but since I'm the preacher man, I'll say it: Your man needs an attractive wife,'

'Now, look, I'm not saying every woman can be the epic, the epic trophy wife of all time, like Melania Trump  I'm not saying that at all,' he continued. 'Most women can't be trophy wives... but maybe a participation trophy.

'I don't know, but all I can say is not everybody looks like that! Amen! But you don't need to look like a butch, either!'

'You need to know this, men have a need for their women to look like women. Sweatpants don't cut it all the time huh,' Clark said. 'Men want their women to look good at home and in public. Can I get an amen?'

General Baptist Ministries, which the church is affiliated with, said Clark's sermon 'included comments that are not consistent with the positions and values of General Baptists.'

The comments are said to be under review and Clark has also resigned from a moderator position he was to hold at the General Association of General Baptist meeting in 2022, however the Ministries does not have control over independent congregations' employment, the statement said.

'General Baptists believe that every woman was created in the image of God, and they should be valued for that reason,' the statement said.

Clark is reportedly taking a leave of absence following the backlash. It's unclear if he will continue to be a pastor at First General Baptist Church (pictured)

Clark - who, according to a Facebook user who said they knew him, is 'married to a beautiful woman with three beautiful children' - admitted that he no longer provides counseling to couples before sharing the first piece of advice he'd give to married women.

'If you were sitting in my office, here's the first thing I'd say to you, and boy I'd hate to say it  this is why I don't do marital counseling anymore  and that is 'weight control,'' he said.

'So how important is this? Let me tell you something, I have a friend. He has put a 'divorce weight' on his wife  that's how important this is.

''You know makeup? Makeup is a good thing!' he continued. 'My little boy said, 'Why do girls wear makeup and perfume?' Because they're ugly and they stink. You don't want to be ugly and stink.'

Clark told of a time when he counseled a couple.

'She looked like a sumo wrestler and he was a little guy,' Clark explained that after the wife lost 100 pounds, the marriage was saved.

The woman had given birth to three children and had become 'robust' and started on Weight Watchers losing 50 pounds.

'She wants me to look at her and nobody else. One of her favorite expressions is 'food never tastes as good as skinny feels,'' Clark said, quoting the long-controversial mantra. 'I'm glad I have a wife that understands that's the way I am.'

Clark also sprinkled in a misogynistic joke at the end, saying: 'Scientists have discovered, by the way, a food that diminishes a woman's sex drive: It's called wedding cake.'

Critics took to the comments to slam the pastor and mock his appearance, with many noting that he needs to heed his own advice if he's so concerned about looks

First General Baptist Church has since shuttered its social media accounts and removed past content, including contact details and clips of Clark's previous sermons, according to the New York Post.

But the video shared by the Friendly Atheist is still posted on YouTube, where it has been viewed more than 75,000 times.

Critics took to the comments to slam the pastor and mock his appearance, with many noting that he needs to heed his own advice if he's so concerned about looks.

'This is so inappropriate on so many levels. Imagine telling sexist and misogynist jokes as a PASTOR in front of a CONGREGATION. Not very Christian like is it????' one person wrote.

Another replied: 'Given how the Pastor isn't exactly God's gift to the human race in the looks department, he has a goddam nerve to pronounce on others.'

Clark has shared similar messages in previous sermons, which have been deleted by the church

Say what? Clark allegedly shared these memes in his Mother's Day 2019 sermon

'Disgusting, this man should be removed from his congregation. His fat shaming stand-up routine has no place in the house of God or in society.' someone else commented.

Apparently, Clark's insulting sermon wasn't a one-off. Before the videos of him were removed, an unverified clip featuring the pastor's alleged Mother's Day 2019 sermon was shared on Facebook.

Clark claimed in the speech that all women want to be beautiful, adding: 'I wouldn't want to just be beautiful. I'd want to be hot.'

'There's not a man alive that doesn't want a beautiful woman on his arm,' he continued, saying that if he were a woman he wouldn't 'mind being arm candy.'

Clark said he'd want to be a size zero to four and be a 'natural blonde'  but he's not against women dying their hair to look more attractive. He also advised that they 'know their body type' and 'know their skinny jeans ain't working.'

General Baptist Ministries, First General Baptist's national organization, issued a statement on Facebook about Clark's recent sermon

Following backlash over the pastor's sermon from February 21, General Baptist Ministries  First General Baptist's national organization  issued a statement on Facebook saying Clark's speech 'included comments that are not consistent with the positions and values of General Baptists.'

'In keeping with our structure, the Executive Committee recommended that the Council of Associations and the MoArk Presbytery research the statements and take appropriate action,' the organization wrote on March 2.

The post stated that Pastor Clark was supposed to be the moderator of the General Association of General Baptist meeting in July 2022, but 'he has resigned from that position.'

'General Baptists believe that every woman was created in the image of God, and they should be valued for that reason. Furthermore, we believe that all individuals regardless of any other factors are so loved by God that Christ died for them,' the organization added.

'Each General Baptist church has autonomy from the national organization, and as a result General Baptist Ministries does not have authority related to the employment of any pastor or church leader in a local congregation.'

Clark has also reportedly 'taken a leave of absence and is seeking professional counseling' as of March 2. It's unclear if he will continue to be a pastor at First General Baptist Church.

General Baptist Ministries told DailyMal.com that they don't have any additional comments at this time.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Colombian citizen accused of stealing suitcase with jewelry extradited to Russia

 flickr.com/ Ruben Diaz

11:06 09/03/2021

MOSCOW, March 9 (RAPSI)  Colombian citizen Edgar Alejandro Valero, who stands charged with stealing a travel suitcase with jewelry at a fair in the city of Kazan, was extradited to Russia from Argentina, the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office informs RAPSI on Tuesday.

Investigators believe that in July 2018 in the city of Kazan, in the pavilion of the Kazanskaya Yarmarka exhibition center, Valero and his accomplices stole a travel suitcase from an employee of the Seven Diamonds jewelry company, which contained jewelry worth 160 million rubles ($2 million at the current exchange rate). The Colombian fled from the scene of the crime in a car he prepared beforehand, according to the supervisory authoritys statement.

The man was arrested in absentia in Russia in September 2018 and put on the wanted list. A year later, he was apprehended in Argentina, and after additional evidence was presented, it was decided to extradite him to Russia as a result of well-coordinated actions of the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office, which could organize close cooperation with competent authorities of Argentina, the statement reads.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

With its new flagship Android phones inbound, OnePlus' 8 series handsets are currently down to all-time lows at Amazon. You can grab the company's first stab at an all-out premium device, the OnePlus 8 Pro, for $700. Or, if you're looking for something less pricey and don't mind the slightly smaller size, there's the OnePlus 8T for $600. That's a saving of 30 percent and 20 percent, respectively, with the prices are also reflected on OnePlus' own site.

Buy OnePlus 8 Pro at Amazon - $700 Buy OnePlus 8T at Amazon - $600

It's natural for a current-gen handset to get a price cut around the time of its successor's launch, but these two 5G phones still pack some future-proof specs. What's more, we awarded them solid review scores in the mid-to-high 80s due to their beautiful displays, excellent performance, and fast charging.

Both phones essentially tout similar features, with the only major difference being the smaller 6.55-inch screen on the 8T, compared to the 6.78-inch screen on the 8 Pro. The sale models include the maximum 256GB of storage out of the box, 12GB RAM and that impressive AMOLED display that runs at Quad HD+. Best of all, they refresh at a rate of 120Hz that makes everything from web and app browsing to playing optimized games look downright gorgeous. You can grab the 8 Pro in black or a more eye-catching ultramarine blue and the 8T in lunar silver or aquamarine green.

Of course, that still leaves you with the eternal dilemma of whether you should wait it out for the upgrade. The OnePlus 9 series is set to debut on March 23rd and the phone maker has been talking up its Hasselblad partnership in the lead-up to the unveiling, so you can expect plenty of pro-grade photography features. But, if you find that doesn't move the needle and you want to make the jump to 5G right away, then the 8 series offers one of the best Android experiences around.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Hazleton, PA (18201)

Today

Overcast with showers at times. High 71F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early with showers later at night. Low around 55F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
(Natural News) Under no circumstances is New York Gov. Andrew Infanticide Cuomo willing to resign his post despite a fifth allegation of sexual assault.

It has become so painfully obvious that Cuomo is a sexual predator that Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a fellow Democrat, is calling on him to #BelieveWomen and resign.

Everyday [sic] there is another account that is drawing away from the business of government, Stewart-Cousins said in a statement.

We have allegations about sexual harassment, a toxic work environment, the loss of credibility surrounding the Covid-19 nursing home data and questions about the construction of a major infrastructure project.

According to Stewart-Cousins, Cuomo needs to resign immediately because his state is still in the midst of this pandemic and is still facing the societal, health and economic impacts of it.

We need to govern without daily distraction, she added. For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign.

During a Sunday call with media reporters, Cuomo expressed opposition to the idea of resigning because he apparently does not believe women, even though he did believe women when they were making allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

I am not going to resign because of allegations, Cuomo scoffed, adding, There is no way I resign.

According to Cuomo, his sexual advances towards women were misconstrued by his victims. He says he never meant to make anyone feel uncomfortable, and if they did then that is on them, not him.

I am not going to be distracted because there is too much to do, he concluded proudly.

Why doesnt Andrew Cuomo believe women?

A total of five women, all of whom should be believed, according to the Left, say that Cuomo sexually harassed them. Two of Cuomos aides have quit due to the scandal, as well as Cuomos involvement in murdering elderly nursing home patients by packing them in with Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) patients.

The brother of CNNs Chris Fredo Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo allegedly probed one of the women about her love life, kissing her without permission and making her feel uncomfortable.

Another of the women says that Cuomo summoned her to his dimly lit hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000. When this woman tried to pull away from Creepy Cuomo, he pulled her back toward his body, holding her before she backed away and left the room.

At a wedding in September 2019, Cuomo allegedly placed a hand on the bare lower back of Anna Ruch, who quickly removed it. Cuomo called Ruch aggressive for removing his hand, and proceeded to put his hands on her cheeks while pushing to kiss her.

In 2018, Cuomo allegedly kissed Lindsey Boylan, one of his aides, on the lips without her consent. She later resigned from her post.

Charlotte Bennett, another Cuomo aide who was only 25 at the time, was asked by Cuomo if she had ever had sex with an older man. Bennett took these comments to suggest that Cuomo was interested in having an affair with her.

As for Cuomos male aides, the governor reportedly browbeats them on a regular basis for not harassing and assaulting women like he does. Cuomo called these men pu**ies for not being dirtbags like himself, verbally assaulting them with statements like, You have no b***s.

Cuomo is said to be a hotheaded maniac who verbally assaults his subordinates on a regular basis. Cuomo seems to get a kick out of hurting others, both male and female, young and old, and the rest of the Democrat Party is eager to get rid of him.

More related news about Andrew Cuomos sexual advances against women can be found at Twisted.news.

Sources for this article include:

NaturalNews.com

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com
Syracuse, N.Y. -- The state has opened up more overnight appointments at the New York state fairgrounds for the one-shot Covid-19 vaccine, Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted Monday night.

Appointments are available at the NYS Fair mass vaccination site during overnight hours, Cuomo said at 10 p.m. Monday. Cuomos tweet did not say how many appointments would be available or when. As of 8:40 a.m., there were a just two slots for tonight and several hundred from 12:15 a.m. to 5:15 a.m. Wednesday.

The 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. appointments are only for the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, also known as the Janssen vaccine. Daytime appointments are for the Pfizer vaccine, which requires two shots three weeks apart. Pfizer appointments at the fairgrounds were available this morning, although there were only a handful through mid-April.

Signing up for the Janssen shot is a little tricky. After logging into the signup website and entering basic information like your birthday and why youre eligible, youll click on the dark blue Locate Providers box. There are two scheduling links at the fair; neither of them indicates which one is for Johnson & Johnson. You have to click on the second schedule your appointment link, the one with the overnight appointment times.

To sign up for the one-shot Johnson & Johnson shot at the fairgrounds, be sure to click on the second "schedule your appointment" link, beneath the "10:00PM - 6:00AM" banner. (Red boxes added for emphasis.)

The state Department of Health decided to schedule all Janssen vaccine appointments at night to avoid any confusion about what vaccine people will receive when they show up.

You still have to fall into one of the eligible categories to get any of the vaccines. Those categories include first responders, corrections and healthcare workers, anyone over 65, and anyone with an underlying condition such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS VACCINES

Third Covid vaccine available soon in CNY: What you need to know about each

Covid vaccine site at NY State Fairgrounds to run 24 hours a day, add thousands of appointments

Biden vows enough Covid-19 vaccine for all US adults by end of May

Onondaga Countys vaccine supply more than triples this week
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
We have seen many odd encounters taking place on the sticky tarmac. From forced induction trucks gunning for quarter-mile supremacy to the traditional America vs. Import battles, there really isnt anything thats not allowed in the amazing world of drag racing.That includes showcasing ones strong family ties, whether with the lady of the household or the heir of the drag racing fortune . This time around, though, were experiencing an interesting blend of the drag racing genres. After all, isnt it utterly eccentric for a 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 to line up against a British grand tourer of the Bentley Continental GT Convertible variety?Thats exactly what happened in the latest video (embedded below) from the Drag Racing and Car Stuff YT channel before things got a little more traditional and the Shelby proved its mettle against a C7 Chevrolet Corvette. That battle took place from the 1:40 mark and proved a lot less interesting (the GT500 won comfortably) than what happened before.Thats because the 760-hp supercharged monster lined up against a far from ordinary Bentley Continental GTC. Instead, it was a father vs. son battle, according to the description provided by the D.R.A.C.S team. Unfortunately, theres little to no additional information provided on the matternot even the exact generation or engine choice for the British grand tourer.So, we can only speculate if they either decided to settle a dispute in the best possible way or they sought quarter-mile glory just for some plain old fun and additional family bonding. All we have to go by are the hard facts, which pointed towards the GT500 as the victor from the get-go. Those meaty rear tires clearly made a difference against the Contis all-wheel drive setup.
Google is under fire for the way it recruits engineers from colleges. According to the Washington Post:

For years, Googles recruiting department used a college ranking system to set budgets and priorities for hiring new engineers. Some schools such as Stanford University and MIT were predictably in the elite category, while state schools or institutions that churn out thousands of engineering grads annually, such as Georgia Tech, were assigned to tier 1 or tier 2. But one category of higher education was missing from Googles ranking system, according to several current and former Google employees involved in recruitment, despite the companys pledges to promote racial diversity  historically Black colleges and universities, also known as HBCUs. That framework meant that those schools were at a lower priority for hiring, even though Google had said in 2014 that it wanted to partner with HBCUs as a way to recruit more minority talent. In lieu of a tier, Googles University Programs recruiting division, responsible for forging partnerships with universities, labeled these colleges long tail schools, in reference to the fact that it could take a long time before they would produce a large number of graduates qualified to work at Google, according to the Google employees.

If Google is in hot water, thats fine with me. However, it did nothing wrong by prioritizing its recruiting based on the academic quality of colleges. Googles policy would be problematic only if HBCUs were producing prospective engineers who, as a group, are comparable in quality to those produced by schools like Georgia Tech and the state schools in tiers 1 and 2.

The Post provides no reason to believe that the HBCUs have been doing so. Indeed, the Posts article provides evidence they have not been.

According to the Post, Google has tried for years to recruit HBCU students capable of working for the tech giant. It found, however, that HBCU computer science students struggle with the most basic of coding, algorithms and data structures. In response, again according to the Post, Google partnered with Howard University, to address the problem at that one school, at least, but with mixed success at best.

The struggle to generate good engineering candidates at HBCUS isnt surprising, given the race-based admissions policies of non-HBCUs. We know that elite schools are admitting Black applicants with good but not great credentials. With the pool of these applicants diminished, schools at the next level are forced, if they want to meet their racial quotas, to accept mediocre Black applicants. Schools one level down from that must accept borderline Black applicants to achieve diversity at the desired level.

Where does this leave HBCUs? A few very well-credentialed Black applicants might choose to attend HBCUs due to family history or feelings of racial solidarity. But by and large, HBCUs are left to select from a pool of applicants with credentials insufficient to warrant admission to good non-HBCUs even with the benefit of racial preferences. Absent racial preferences, the pool of Black applicants from which HBCUs could select would be more impressive.

To make matters worse, the Black applicants who are admitted to high quality schools despite having less than top credentials tend to drop out of challenging programs like engineering because they are mismatched with their colleges. They opt instead for less rigorous programs in the humanities. Blacks do this at twice the rate Whites do.

Thus, race preferences in admissions tend both to shrink the pool of quality Black engineering prospects and to render HBCUs less of a good source for engineering prospects than they should be. Google wasnt wrong to believe it would take a long time before HBCUs would produce a large number of graduates qualified to work at Google. The race-based preferences of non-HBCUs virtually guarantee this outcome.

The Post laments that Googles approach to recruiting was replicated across the industry as competitors copied [it]. Did they adopt the policy because Google employed it or because it made sense? Probably the latter. If Googles competitors thought Google had shortchanged a source of quality recruits, its likely that at least one of them would have exploited that source to gain a competitive advantage.

Blacks with the potential to work as engineers in companies like Google are being shortchanged  but not by Google. They are shortchanged, as a group, by their family structure, by the poor quality of the public schools they attend, by a culture that discourages studying because it is white and, these days, even disparages mathematics for the same dopey reason.

And, as we have seen, they are shortchanged by race-based preferences that are counter-productive, if the goal of the preferences is to help Blacks succeed and flourish in rigorous fields of endeavor.
NASA flight directors Marcos Flores and Pooja Jesrani, along with their team of flight controllers, monitor operations on the International Space Station on Dec. 24, 2019. The achievements of Jesrani, the first Indian American and South Asian woman NASA flight director, will be featured in a new ABC docu-series, Our America: Women Forward, premiering March 8. (NASA/Robert Markowitz photo)
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Entrepeneur Suzanne Jackson (SoSueMe) has withdrawn a makeup palette from sale after being accused of snubbing makeup artist Keilidh Cashell by erasing her name from products the duo created together.

Suzanne, who is the founder of beauty brand SOSUbySJ, collaborated with the Monaghan makeup mogul in 2019 to release the SOSU x Keilidh Urban Bible eyeshadow palette.

Keilidh (24), Irelands most popular beauty influencer, was heavily involved in the creation of the collection and had control over design choices and the names of the eyeshadows themselves, one of which was called 1996 after her birth year.

At the time of the release, Keilidh said: I am beyond excited to have finally created my perfect eyeshadow palette!

I continuously struggle to find that one palette that I can take anywhere which contains all of my favourite eyeshadow shades. I love how all 16 shades in Urban Bible represent my two make up personas, Grunge vs Insta Fun.

Read More

The palette was intended as a limited release product and was later discontinued.

On Sunday, SOSUbySJ announced that they were re-releasing the Urban Bible palette but Keilidhs name was removed from its packaging.

The brand reportedly did not inform Keilidh of the decision to re-release the product and instead announced the news on Instagram.

Keilidh, who has amassed a large online following, took to Instagram to share her thoughts on the matter to her 500,000 followers.

The makeup expert said that she was disappointed and shocked by the decision.

She said: SOSUbySJ have released the Urban Bible palette again. I dont know anything about this but just from looking at it, it seems to be the same palette. The only difference is that my name has been taken off it.

Im just shocked. I did not know anything about this. No one reached out to me.

SOSUbySJ is a brand that I loved. I was so excited to work with them. This was my first big collection, so I put everything into this. The shadows, the consistency, the design, even the names are personal to me, she continued.

I think thats why Im upset about it. If I had just stuck my name on it then whatever, but literally everything about it is me and just to have my name taken off it is sh*tty.

Ive always supported Suzanne, Ive always had so much respect for her and everything shes done in the industry. As a woman in business, Ive always had so much respect for her and looked up to her.

Its just discrediting all my hard work. Not giving me a heads up and literally just taking my name off it is such a kick in the teeth.

Keilidh now has her own makeup brand, Kash Beauty, which was launched in September 2020.

Fans also flocked to the comments section of SOSUbySJ's post to show their support for Keilidh and express their disappointment.

One user wrote: You asked... we listen, Well listen now... Give Keilidh the respect she deserves.

Another remarked that the brands decision to snub Keilidh was terrible.

They commented: Wheres Keilidhs name? So disappointed in the brand. This is literally the palette that Keilidh put her heart and soul into and gave the brand such a huge audience from it! Terrible.

SOSUbySJ responded with a statement confirming they apologised to Keilidh for not informing her of the re-release and revealed the palette has been withdrawn from sale.

A spokesperson said: "This product was previously created alongside the talented Keilidh Cashell. Keilidh & the SOSUbySJ team worked very closely together to create the collection that initially launched in November 2018. Keilidhs contract was then complete in November 2019. At that time, there was an option to extend the contract but it was mutually agreed upon, not to.

"Since then, we have had demand from our customers who wanted to buy the palette again. We are a customer centric brand; since day one, our customers have always been at the heart of everything we do. It was for this reason we decided to bring it back.

"We would like to address that we in no way intended to discredit Keilidh and the creativity that she contributed to this palette. We are very proud of the product we created together and it was in every sense of the word, a true collaboration. To us, it did not make sense to re-package or rename the product.

"We truly believed that keeping the palette in its original form was a testament to Keilidh and the demand she had created for this product. Of course, as we were outside of contract however, we could not print her name on the product. Saying this, what we would like to apologise for, is not communicating to Keilidh our intentions to bring the palette back to the market. This was a missed step on our behalf and for that, we apologise.

"With any product collaboration, the brand owns the intellectual rights to the products  just as we do with Urban Bible and are therefore legally, are allowed to produce it. However, as we respect Keilidhs feelings on the situation, we have decided to remove the product from sale with immediate effect. This is not a decision we take lightly as of course there are financial investments involved, but as well as our words of apology we want to show action.

"We will learn from this because we care about the people who collaborate with us and are associated with our brand. We would like to reiterate that there was no intention here to hurt or upset anyone."
New Delhi: The Supreme Court dismissed a plea challenging the Election Commission's (EC) decision to conduct the West Bengal Assembly polls over eight phases on Tuesday (March9).

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde rejected the plea. The same bench had also sought to bar the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leaders from using the "Jai Shri Ram" slogan during the poll campaign in the state.

The bench initially told advocate M L Sharma, the petitioner, to approach the Calcutta High Court.

"I rely upon a judgment. This is not a matter of an election petition. One party is using a religious slogan. Why should I go to the high court," Sharma told the bench, which also comprised justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, news agency PTI reported.

When the petitioner said the matter be kept for hearing on Wednesday, the bench said, "Alright, we do not agree with you. Dismissed."

The plea had sought the apex court's direction to prevent the EC from conducting eight-phase polls in West Bengal, alleging that it violates Articles 14 (right to equality) and 21 (right to life) of the Constitution.

(With inputs from PTI)

Live TV
Our diplomats have tended to be overbearing with the smaller non-hostile neighbours, often treating them like errant schoolboys

Much as we would like to exalt our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as the founder of modern Indias foreign policy, like all other major countries our policy too derives its basis from one man, Frances Cardinal Richelieu, who enshrined national interest as the only guiding principle to conduct affairs with other nations. The French have an elegant phrase for it. Raison detat. Richelieu rejected the notion that policy should be based on values and sentimental considerations. He believed, as we all still do, that the State has permanent interests, the singular pursuit of which requires much intellectual and moral flexibility. He believed that the only challenge facing a policymaker is to decide what the national interest was and what it required? It was this singular pursuit that had Catholic France intervening in the Thirty Years War (1618-48) on the Protestant side to block the increasing power of the Pope. At Richelieus prompting, the philosopher, Jean de Silhon, defined the concept of reason of state as a mean between what conscience permits and affairs require.

How we see our national interest depends on how we see ourselves. Therein lies the rub. The rump Republic of India sees itself as the successor to the British Raj, which left these shores in 1947. For the two centuries that Britain was the paramount power in India, Indias national interests were synonymous with those of Britain. The paramount powers paramount interest, as far as India was concerned, was to keep the goose that laid the golden egg healthy and well. Lord Curzon of Kedlestone, who was Viceroy of India (1898-1905) and later Britains foreign secretary (1919-24), is still regarded by many of our foreign policy elite as the man who outlined Indias grand strategic vision and its focus on fixing borders. It is argued by these people that while the political context might have changed, geography has not. Physical geography may not have changed, but political geography has changed very much. Afghanistan is no longer the glacis on which the war for India will be fought. Neither are Tibet and Xinjiang buffers any longer against northern threats. The threats are at our doorsteps now.

In the immediate period after 1947, Indias foreign policy was still conducted by the Western educated elite who had imbibed their lessons in Cambridge and Oxford and believed they were legatees of the white mans burden, including the defence of India. Indias immediate neighbours, for their own reasons, still largely see Indias conduct towards them as the continuation of the British legacy. It didnt help very much when the Oxbridge elite were followed by the St. Stephens elite who were also cast about the same last laat sahib mould.

Consequently, our diplomats have tended to be overbearing with the smaller non-hostile neighbours, often treating them like errant schoolboys. This is the constant lament heard in the neighbourhood, whether it is in Colombo or Kathmandu. Increasingly, such voices are being heard in Thimphu as well. With Bangladesh too, we have rapidly descended from being the liberator to the neighbourhood bully. The dominant Indian discourse of the demographic aggression by Bangladeshi ghusbaitis has created a certain unhelpful mentality in both countries. What after all must a nation think when its larger neighbour thinks of it as an unending source of human vermin?

To add to our woes, we still seem to be wearing those Curzonian blinkers that have bequeathed us the Great Game mentality with its focus on highways, railway lines and sealanes and ports as military threats. South Block still doesnt seem to have realised that modern military means and technology have made the theories of Mahan and Mackinder largely irrelevant. It is this kind of infantilism that makes us see every Chinese investment in the cash-starved region as a threat to Indias hegemony, when even our worst fears about Hambantota or Gwadar actually make them juicy and easy targets.

While excoriating foreign secretary Earl Russell in the House of Lords on February 4, 1864, Edward Stanley, the Earl of Derby, said: The foreign policy of the Earl may be summed up in two short homely but expressive words -- meddle and muddle. But we are now no longer prepared to behave like Lord Curzon either. The tension between that Curzonian tendency to meddle and the passive spirit of Jawaharlal Nehru to muddle still persists. We see this manifested in New Delhis policy responses to the current situations in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or the Maldives -- with more muddle than meddle. The muddle in South Block is not due to the limited number of options. There is no lembarrass des richesses, but a poverty of clarity.

The most significant development of this century so far has been the rise of China as an economic powerhouse, with its military not lagging far behind. Former Chinese foreign minister Yang Jeichi, responding to criticism about Chinas assertiveness, just said: China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and thats just a fact.Indeed it is, and at this point in time even India is much too small to be able to compete with it in its spree of chequebook diplomacy. Most of Indias regional neighbours are poor countries and if their adversity forces them not to look at Chinese gift horses in the teeth, then we must understand it. In other circumstances, we too might have done so too? Debt doesnt kill. I recall the dictum enunciated by Walter Wriston, the legendary Citibank chairman who told my class at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy over 40 years ago: Countries dont go under, they just roll over.

But our inherited Curzonian vision and now a little bit of the American-induced notion of containment are pushing India into a confrontationist posture with China. India will do well to remind itself that of the four countries that are a part of the Quadrilateral, only India has a long and contentious land border with China. The other three Quad players are hooked up to Chinas growth engine and are also the most responsible for its rise -- America with its trade profligacy, and Japan with its massive investments and transfer of technology. They have really created todays China. India must be wary about becoming their cats paw.
Cumberland County

Cumberland County

Allen Foster

Plateau Rd.

Genesis Rd.

I-40

Hyder Loop

Potato Farm Rd.

Cumberland County

Cumberland County

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Ben Lomand

Cumberland County

Cumberland County

Volunteer Energy Cooperative

Twin Lakes Telephone Cooperative

Cumberland County

Ben Lomand

Cumberland County

Pleasant Hill

Charter Communications

Bill Lee

FCC

Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative

Bledsoe County

Paul Bailey

Tennessee General Assembly

Cameron Sexton

Cumberland County

House of Representatives

Cumberland County

Gov. Lee

Department of Economic & Community Development

Sen. Bailey

(TNS)  Almost 1,200 new homes and businesses will have broadband internet access available in the future, thanks to the latest round of state Broadband accessibility grants announced last week.The latest grant announcement brings the total value of broadband grants awarded into more than $20 million in the past year, representing new service availability to more than 9,000 homes and businesses."It's amazing to see how far we've come from just a few years ago,"Mayorsaid.The grant, awarded to VolFirst Services, a subsidiary of Ben Lomand Telephone, will serve areas along Hwy. 70 N. from around Eureka Dr. to just past, an area offnorth of, and a section stretching from west of Hwy. 127 N. east to the area ofalongWhen Foster was running for office in 2018, he kept talking to residents who had problems with their internet service. Some people found out only after moving that no internet provider served their neighborhood. Others struggled with slow download speeds far below the standard for broadband internet  defined as a minimum speed of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload.Foster said he began working with providers to help them see the need for better service in the county. What Foster found was thatdid not qualify for federal and state grants because service maps showed most of the county had high-speed internet access.providers weren't eligible to apply," Foster said. "We had to prove the service was not meeting the standard for high-speed service."The data for maps was self-reported by providers. It also divided the county by census blocks. If one household in the census block had broadband-level service, the entire block was considered served with that speed.In 2019, Foster launched a survey asking people to share their internet speed tests. He found inadequate service was a countywide problem. Service providers were able to use Foster's survey to challenge service maps and apply for grants.The work yielded results last year when theawardeda $2.24 million grant to expand access to internet service to about 100 square miles in ruralA few months later, the company received a $2 million grant for broadband expansion in the northern portion ofIn August,andreceived a $3.3 million grant to expand service in the Cumberland Cove area of. That funding came from COVID-19 relief funds.Last October,received a $1.9 million grant for a project to serve 152 homes in the southwestern portion ofsouth ofLast month,was awarded $4.8 million in federal grants to expand service to 6,000 homes in the county.With grants awarded, it will take time for providers to extend the lines to serve the new areas, Foster said. He expects people will begin seeing trucks and crews out working soon."It will take some time, but help is on the way," Foster said.Looking ahead, there are still areas that need better service, Foster said."Some of those areas will be backfilled as the providers build out the network," he said. "Others, we'll work with them on applying for grants next year."Gov.proposed $200 million in broadband access grants for next year."Every Tennessean should have access to the same high-speed broadband, no matter what ZIP code they live in," Lee said at the announcement of about $15 million in state broadband accessibility grants. "Our continued investment in internet connectivity will help level the playing field for rural communities across our state, and I thank these 13 providers for partnering with us to help nearly 18,000 more Tennesseans get connected."The grants require matching funds from service providers.According to the's 2020 Broadband Deployment Report, one in six rural Tennesseans lack access to broadband service. The state has awarded nearly $60 million in grants since 2018 to serve more than 33,000 homes and businesses.also received a $727,955.56 grant to expand service in parts of"I am delighted that so many homes in our rural communities will be connected through this grant program," said state Sen., who has supported funding for the program in the. "Broadband is becoming increasingly important to the way students are educated, medical services are provided, government services are delivered, and business is conducted. In addition, broadband is essential as we work to create high quality jobs for our citizens.""Government partnering with the private sector to fill the gaps is paramount to ensuring broadband services are deployed effectively," Bailey added. "I look forward to continue seeing many more of our homes connected in the near future.""The pandemic has highlighted the need for reliable, high speed internet services, as well as the flexibility these services can provide to our homes, schools, businesses, and healthcare providers," said Speaker, who representsin the. "This new investment of $1.9 million through the state's broadband accessibility grant program is in addition to the nearly $21.3 million in state and federal funding already announced and allocated for local projects insince 2020. The total investment of $23.2 million significantly enhances our broadband infrastructure so we can meet the demands or our growing community; I appreciate, ourand all of our local leaders for their commitment and their partnership as we continue to work together to address this important issue in the Upper Cumberland region."
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The new name KVD Beauty will keep the legacy initials but will take on a different meaning as the brand moves into this new phase. KVD will now stand for Kara, Veritas, Decora Latin for Value, Truth, Beauty .

KVD Beauty gives you the tools to live your beauty truth: With its high-pigment, high-performance makeup, the creative possibilities are endless for self-expression. The brand believes in embracing outsiders, artistry without boundaries, celebrating individual expression, and being world-conscious. Respecting the planet and those who inhabit it is also of utmost importance. KVD is 100% vegan and cruelty-free, and committed to becoming more sustainable, challenging themselves to use fully recyclable packaging, post-consumer recycled materials and refillable compacts whenever possible.

The streamlined brand positioning is reflective in KVD Beauty's new campaign imagery, which can already be seen on its website and social media channels with additional roll out onto marketing materials, product launches, and more. Updated product packaging will also be rolling out to align with the new look. While the brand itself will have a fresh, new look and feel, their existing products and beloved bestsellers like their eyeliner with a cult-following Tattoo Liner, Lolita Everlasting Liquid Lipstick, and Lock-It Foundation will all stay true to their high-performance results and remain in the same formulas.

With a new, polished brand position, KVD Beauty is announcing its first Global Director of Tattoo Artistry, Miryam Lumpini. Now an 'it girl' within the Los Angeles tattoo scene, Lumpini grew up in the Swedish countryside and immigrated to the United States to pursue her passion in tattoo artistry, eventually inking high-profile celebrities including Jhene Aiko, Keke Palmer, Kehlani and more. Lumpini will serve as the brand's in-house tattoo artistry expert, supporting creative initiatives by developing tattoo-inspired designs for marketing and product, and creating makeup artistry content.

"Collaborating with KVD Beauty has been a dream come true," Lumpini says. "I have been a follower of the brand since the very beginningit made tattoo culture more acceptable and encouraged the community to see it as a form of self-expression. There used to be a stigma associated with tattoo culture, and you were seen as a rebel if you had any. KVD Beauty recognized this as an art form and embraced this community of artists like myself that were typically overlooked in the beauty industry."

Adding to the talent, the brand is also revealing its world-class roster of global makeup artists, which includes Christian Schild (Germany), Fanny Maurer (France), Sandra Saenz (U.S.A.), and Anthony Nguyen (U.S.A.) This select group of artists will be leveraged across various platforms to share their skill set with clients and media alike. Each artist will work closely with the brand for press features, photo shoots and editorial, teaching global master classes, creating exclusive content on the brand's social media channels, and more.

Anthony Nguyen (U.S.A.): "Makeup has served as my creative outlet for storytelling and with the versatility of KVD Beauty products, the possibilities are endless. I'm beyond excited to partner up with KVD Beauty as this year's Global Veritas Artistry Ambassador, can't wait to share and create art with you all!"

The new brand and marketing strategies are led by two beauty industry veterans, Sarah Koch, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Kendo Brands, and Tara Loftis, Global Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations for Kendo Brands. Loftis' 15+ years of strategic marketing experience has helped to develop and grow iconic brands within the Kendo Brands portfolio, as well as beauty industry favorite, Too Faced. Sarah Koch has spent the majority of her 15+ year retail career in beauty specializing in brand building and incubation at Kendo Brands and Sephora North America. She is credited with rebuilding another Kendo brand, OLEHENRIKSEN, and now oversees the overall strategic global brand management of KVD Beauty and Bite Beauty in addition to OLEHENRIKSEN at Kendo Brands.

"KVD Beauty has a near 13-year history of creating incredible, award-winning, bestselling productsnow is simply the time for us to revitalize the brand and reconnect with our consumers in a genuine way. This is the beginning of an important chapter, and it was critical for us to design a disruptive marketing plan, while aligning with top-tier, best-in-class artistry talent that reflects and respects our brand heritage in both tattoos and makeup." says Loftis.

"As our consumers and the beauty industry continue to evolve, so does KVD Beauty's legacy," Koch says. "The updated crest and campaign imagery reflect a new phase for the brand, one where we champion artistry without limits, celebrate the individual, and care for the planet. We are looking forward to sharing our new imagery, artists, and products with the world."

For more information, visit kvdbeauty.com and connect with us at @KVDBeauty on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.

ABOUT KVD BEAUTY:

KVD Beauty stands for Kara, Veritas, DecoraValue, Truth, Beautybecause your truth is valuable and beautiful. We create high-pigment, high-performance makeup inspired by tattoo artistry, like our #1 award-winning Tattoo Liner. With long-wear, ink-like pigment and needle-sharp precision, it's the uncontested holy grail of liquid eyeliner. But we stand for more than just performance: Our makeup is 100% vegan and cruelty-free, we care about the planet, and we champion artistry of all kindsnot just makeup. We celebrate the individual through artistic self-expression and limitless creativity. And above all, we give you the tools to live your beauty truth.

ABOUT KENDO

KENDO BRANDS solely owns and operates KVD BEAUTY. KENDO is an innovative beauty brand incubator that creates and acquires beauty brands and turns them into global powerhouses: FENTY Beauty by Rihanna, OLEHENRIKSEN Skincare, Marc Jacobs Beauty, Bite Beauty, Lip Lab Stores, and KVD Beauty. KENDO offices are in San Francisco, Paris, Dubai, London, Sao Paulo, Sydney and Singapore.

SOURCE KVD Beauty

Related Links

https://www.kvdveganbeauty.com/


Deputy Prime Minister Dan Barna told Monday evening public broadcaster TVR 1, that Romania will not be able to function without a public system of hospitals, according to AGERPRES.

Asked if the current governing coalition is considering the privatization of hospitals, Barna said that "for now we are not at the big reforms, of privatizations", but "we are at the small reforms, of how you clean in hospitals".

"The fact that we are discussing options to create alternatives for patients does not in any way mean that we are privatizing or selling health care, or other nonsense that we have read in various sources... It is a matter that is somehow related to the direction of genuine resource allocation to patients. It is a work option because the stake is to make the services so that they are accessible to patients. The public system will remain because Romania cannot function without the public system. I have also read this idea that we are making a health care system for the elite and the rest let them fend for themselves, it's not real and nothing is true here. Until now, unfortunately, we are not at the big reforms, of privatization.We are at the small reforms, of how you clean in hospitals and how you no longer tie the patients to the beds," said Dan Barna.

He said that Minister Vlad Voiculescu is currently working on a strategy in health, and, after completion, it will be made public.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- With less than a year until the sunset of third-party cookies across all browsers, and with imminent changes to mobile advertising IDs, IAB Tech Lab, the digital advertising technical standards-setting body, has been collaborating with the advertising and media industry to develop privacy-preserving specifications and best practices to support the development of open-source and proprietary solutions. This work initiated as "Project Rearc" a year ago and we joined forces last summer with the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media (PRAM), which brings together business, policy, and technical efforts across a full range of industry stakeholders.

At the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM), Tech Lab will unveil several technical specifications and best practices that are open to industry comment.

The Tech Lab urges the industry to participate in vetting these specifications and best practices, which are designed to provide a foundation on which to build responsible targeting, measurement, and attribution solutions that put consumer privacy and accountability at the forefront. One way to do so is to join PRAM working groups, including technical working groups, which Tech Lab oversees.

"It's our collective responsibility to develop standards and solutions that put consumers in control," said Dennis Buchheim, Chief Executive Officer, IAB Tech Lab. "We must rebuild trust globally in the digital supply chain and, in order to do that, accountability needs to serve as the foundation of everything we do. This must be provable and easy to understand. Once that is achieved, addressability can be established in new forms, through a portfolio of standards and practices."

All of the specifications and best practices being released are designed to be pragmatic, secure, scalable, supportive of marketplace innovation, and enablers of conformity to data transparency standards for publishers, advertisers, and constituents across the advertising ecosystem, whether or not advertisers and publishers are able to connect their audiences directly.

The Accountability Platform helps ensure that all supply chain participants can consistently prove that they are adhering to user preferences. It provides specifications for open, auditable data structures, and standard practices intended to reliably demonstrate digital advertising supply chain conformity to preferences and restrictions set by users and the digital properties they visit.



helps ensure that all supply chain participants can consistently prove that they are adhering to user preferences. It provides specifications for open, auditable data structures, and standard practices intended to reliably demonstrate digital advertising supply chain conformity to preferences and restrictions set by users and the digital properties they visit. Tied to accountability, the Global Privacy Platform specification builds on prior standards to ensure that user data is passed in a safe and transparent manner. It addresses capturing and encoding regional user data rights and preferences into a standardized format that can be propagated through the supply chain. The aim is to offer users reliable transparency and control, and to support efficient compliance for industry participants amidst ongoing regulatory evolution. The Global Privacy Platform is designed to plug into the Accountability Platform, which enables compliance programs to analyze whether the advertising supply chain respects user preferences.

"Predictable user privacy  across platforms and devices  can only be achieved through open standards where all stakeholders have a say at the table," said Jordan Mitchell, SVP, Head of Consumer Privacy, Identity and Data, IAB Tech Lab. "This foundation must be established and provide transparency and control to users. It must not only comply with consumers' preferences, but it must also consistently demonstrate that compliance."

Two addressability-focused releases are also being announced for public comment, supporting separate but complementary approaches and intended interoperability with the Accountability Platform.

Best Practices for User-Enabled Identity Tokens is a set of guidelines to ensure security and consumer privacy in scenarios when publishers and marketers offer personalized content and services tied to a user-provided email or phone number.

is a set of guidelines to ensure security and consumer privacy in scenarios when publishers and marketers offer personalized content and services tied to a user-provided email or phone number. Taxonomy and Data Transparency Standards to Support Seller-defined Audience and Context Signaling provides specifications for ad-supported publisher content when no user-provided or third-party identifier is available, relying on standardized seller-defined audience and contextual attributes being passed within OpenRTB (real-time bidding).

The industry has been quick to embrace email- and phone-number-based IDs (whether used to directly connect publisher and advertiser audiences or not). To ensure that consumer identity and safety remains a top priority, Best Practices for User-Enabled Identity Tokens emphasizes the minimization of consumer privacy threats via encryption and layered, multi-party security to prevent unauthorized access and use, especially when passed to third-party partners to support addressability use cases.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Taxonomy and Data Transparency Standards to Support Seller-defined Audience and Context Signaling enables meaningful addressability for buyers  using existing and widely adopted taxonomy and data transparency standards  when there is no ability to connect their audience directly to a publisher's audience.

"The release of these specifications and best practices marks an important milestone in PRAM and Tech Lab's efforts to lay the foundation for the next generation of addressable media, and it validates Tech Lab's vital role in leading this complex technical work for PRAM," said Bill Tucker, Executive Director, PRAM. "Over recent weeks, PRAM has moved aggressively into the implementation phase of its work with announcements around our code submission process, release of business use cases, and invitation to Google to engage directly with the industry on the future of ID standards. We look forward to continued cross-industry collaboration to operationalize these important steps."

To review the proposed standards and provide feedback, please go to: https://iabtechlab.com/rearc. Please note that the Global Privacy Platform comment length is 30 days (ending April 8, 2021), while other comment periods are 60 days (ending May 7, 2021).

These specifications and best practices will be discussed further at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM) at 11:45 AM ET, today (March 9). For more information visit: https://www.iab.com/alm/

Additionally, IAB Tech Lab will be hosting " Addressability Solution Roadshow " on Wednesday, March 24, a virtual webinar to educate participants through these solutions. If interested, please register at https://iabtechlab.com/events .

About IAB Technology Laboratory

Established in 2014, the IAB Technology Laboratory (Tech Lab) is a non-profit consortium that engages a member community globally to develop foundational technology and standards that enable growth and trust in the digital media ecosystem. Comprised of digital publishers, ad technology firms, agencies, marketers, and other member companies, IAB Tech Lab focuses on solutions for brand safety and ad fraud; identity, data, and consumer privacy; ad experiences and measurement; and programmatic effectiveness. Its work includes the OpenRTB real-time bidding protocol, ads.txt anti-fraud specification, Open Measurement SDK for viewability and verification, VAST video specification, and Project Rearc initiative for privacy-centric addressability. Board members/companies are listed at: https://iabtechlab.com/about-the-iab-tech-lab/tech-lab-leadership/ .

For more information, please visit: https://iabtechlab.com .

SOURCE IAB Tech Lab

Related Links

https://iabtechlab.com


BAD AXE, MI - Located in a small town in Michigans thumb, Rapson Sportsmans Club has been around for decades, but recently needed a bit of help to regain some of its old glory. A new group of members have rallied, and restored, the clubs famous fish frys, and patrons are lining up once again.

MLive reader Darcy Lipskey reached out to share what she loves about the Rapson Sportsmans Club. The Rapson Club is located in the little town to the north east of Bad Axe, Michigan, she said. If you blink youre through the town. However, people have been driving from all over for the take-out fish.

Raymond Peyerks grandfather, Elmer, was one of the original members of the club. He and several friends put the club together back in the 1960s. The club was moved from Helena in 1972 to its current location in Bad Axe. In the early 2000s, events were few and far between Peyerk said. The club needed a new fresh start, a breath of fresh air.

The club, which is run by a board of directors, was in a state of disrepair. It needed a new roof, new bathrooms, Peyerk said. It needed to have money, and it needed to host functions to keep it going. Peyerk had a vision for what the club could be, and agreed to take on the presidency of the board in 2015 in order to make that vision a reality. I dont want to take all the credit, Peyerk said. Its definitely a group effort.

A small group effort, that is. The club only has about 25 regular members. In addition to neighbors and friends helping out at the fish frys, volunteers include, in no particular order: Brad Peyerk, BJ & Shannion Peyerk, Haley Peyerk, Mike Jr. & Marissa Peyerk, Thomas Peyerk, Nicole Hessling, Randy Peyerk, Raymond Peyerk, Marvin Smaglinski, Richard Koroleski, Jerry Kociba, Robert & Arlene Schipinski, Kyle Peyerk, and Kayla McBride.

I basically asked my neighbors and a whole bunch of my family members to help me keep it going, Peyerk said. They started doing fish frys, which proved immensely popular. When the first restaurant shut down happened in March of 2020, they immediately got a drive-thru, take out going, Peyerk said.

Its a really big deal, Peyerk said of the fish frys at Rapson Sportsmans Club. Like two weeks ago we served over 1,200 meals. People drive from Port Sanilac, and Port Huron. Theyll drive an hour away regularly to get fish dinners.

The club typically serves fish dinners the third Friday of the month starting in September and running through May. Check the Facebook page each week, because if there is another local fish fry planned at a church or hall, theyll switch the Rapsons up, so there isnt any competition between area spots. They also sometimes host an extra fish fry or two each month.

Lipskey concurred. After the virus shut down in door dining, the group made the decision to continue serving their fish and started a drive-thru, she said. People drove from all over to wait in line. Sometimes the line would extend for over a mile. But we waited for that take out.

The dinners are run entirely by volunteers, and there are usually about 10 people working the fish fry. The club recently bought another large fryer in order to accommodate the demand.

The fish here is Alaskan pollock, that comes with a light dry breading on it. The breading is what sets this fish apart, according to Peyerk. While what goes into the breading is top secret, Peyerk assured us that it is homemade. Its not just Drakes, he said, referencing a pre-made fish coating that many use. Homemade baked beans, buttery garlic redskin potatoes, coleslaw, noodle salad, and hot fresh baked dinner rolls are also included. We dont just open a can and serve it, Peyerk said proudly. Dinners also come with dessert, either a homemade cake or a cheesecake. Price for all of this awesomeness is just $10, and any money raised is used for needed repairs on the club building.

During ordinary times, the club typically hosts parties, like weddings and birthdays, for both members, guests, and the public. The fish frys are always open to everyone. Several times a year they host special events, like the Fall Harvest Dinner which features smoked meats, and their holiday drive for Toys for Tots.

The group took very good care of their community during a time no one could really go anywhere and they are still doing it, said Lipskey.

Fish fry Fridays are all the rage at Rapson Sportsmans's Club in Bad Axe.Courtesy Photo, used with permission.

Frying the fish at Rapson Sportsman's Club in Bad Axe is Brad Peyerk. Behind him, Jerry Kociba dips fish in egg wash, and Bob Schipinski batters the filets. The organization will be adding another fryer to help with the demand for their fried fish.Courtesy Photo, used with permission.

If you go:

Rapson Sportsmans Club

3155 Minnick Road, Bad Axe, MI 48413

(989) 948-0075

More info: https://www.facebook.com/Rapson-Sportsmans-Club-113364035364417

A fish dinner from Rapson Sportsman's Club in Bad Axe.Courtesy Photo, used with permission.

More Michigans Best:

Where you can get Man Eating Catfish in Michigan

Get a fieldhouse of fish at this Michigans Best contender

Is Michigans Best Fish Fry so remote its in the Central Time Zone?

Is Michigans Best Fish Fry at this tucked away bar that serves steamed mussels?

A look at our poll leaders for Michigans Best Fish Fry

See over 275 nominations for Michigans Best Fish Fry

Its a Drive By Fish Fry this year at St. Marys Pinckney

Tell us where to find Michigans Best Fish Fry

A 2021 guide to Jackson-area Friday Lenten fish fries

Grand Rapids area 2021 fish fry guide for Lent

Michigans Best Fish Fry poll winners (2019)
France-based furniture manufacturer and retailer is rolling out 3D home planning solution to all stores worldwide, as well as integrating the solution into its website

More than 6,000 customer design projects have already been created and saved in one year

"HomeByMe for Home Retailers" delivers a seamless web-to-store omnichannel 3D experience that engages consumers and increases sales

Dassault Systemes (Paris:DSY) (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) today announced that Gautier, a France-based home furniture designer, manufacturer and retailer with stores worldwide, is using the "HomeByMe for Home Retailers" 3D home planning solution to provide customers with complete, personalized in-store and online experiences that encourage collaborative engagement and increase sales.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005751/en/

Image courtesy of Gautier

Gautier has deployed "HomeByMe for Home Retailers" in 72 stores in France, and will gradually roll out the solution to all its 120 stores internationally. In just a year, more than 6,000 customer design projects have already been created and saved using the solution, including 8,200 high resolution renderings of customer room layouts. In 2021, the solution will be integrated into the Gautier website, which will enable customers to design and complete their projects and purchases online anytime and anywhere from the comfort of their homes as well as in the store with a trained interior designer.

"Gautier is more than just a retailer and manufacturer. We are evolving toward a new role as an interior designer that can provide customers with personalized advice, an immersive design experience and a complete home decor offer, which we feel are key to customer satisfaction and loyalty," said David Soulard, CEO, Gautier. "We wanted a scalable 3D design planner that could provide state-of-the-art photorealistic renderings and virtual and augmented reality capabilities, as well as centralize all products and both planner and configurator functionalities. Over the next decade, Dassault Systemes' 'HomeByMe for Home Retailers' solution will be the core of our strategy to personally cater to each customer and strengthen our brand."

In a competitive market, home retailers must address the consumer trend of personalization while managing evolving shopping habits, legacy technology systems, and a lack of insights into buyer behavior. "HomeByMe for Home Retailers" delivers a seamless web-to-store omnichannel 3D experience. In-store associates and interior designers can work with customers to provide personalized recommendations and generate accurate layout proposals in seconds. Customers can create highly detailed designs with exact dimensions and preferences based on real-time stock availability and cost calculations, and immerse themselves in 360-degree views before sending the order to the furniture factory automatically.

"Surveys have shown that omnichannel strategies in home improvement significantly contribute to increased customer engagement and reinforcement of purchasing decisions a key driver in the current pandemic. In addition, 3D planning solutions deliver higher customer satisfaction on projects because they were actively engaged in their design and in getting it right," said Vincent Picou, CEO, 3DVIA, Dassault Systemes. "Gautier is the first international retailer to offer 'HomeByMe for Home Retailers' in its stores, confirming its commitment to helping customers make the right decisions for their home."

Social media:

Share this on Twitter: Furniture retailer @GautierFrance personalizes the customer experience in store and online with @Dassault3DS @Homebyme for Home Retailers 3DEXPERIENCE 3DVIA

Connect with Dassault Systemes on Twitter Facebook LinkedIn YouTube

For more information:

Dassault Systemes' "HomeByMe for Home Retailers": https://www.3ds.com/products-services/3dvia/space-planning-software/homebyme-for-home-retailers/

Dassault Systemes' 3DEXPERIENCE platform, 3D design software, 3D Digital Mock Up and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions: http://www.3ds.com

About Dassault Systemes

Dassault Systemes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, is a catalyst for human progress. We provide business and people with collaborative 3D virtual environments to imagine sustainable innovations. By creating virtual experience twins of the real world with our 3DEXPERIENCE platform and applications, our customers push the boundaries of innovation, learning and production. Dassault Systemes brings value to more than 290,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 140 countries. For more information, visit www.3ds.com

3DEXPERIENCE, the Compass icon, the 3DS logo, CATIA, BIOVIA, GEOVIA, SOLIDWORKS, 3DVIA, ENOVIA, EXALEAD, NETVIBES, MEDIDATA, CENTRIC PLM, 3DEXCITE, SIMULIA, DELMIA, and IFWE are commercial trademarks or registered trademarks of Dassault Systemes, a French "societe europeenne" (Versailles Commercial Register B 322 306 440), or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005751/en/

Contacts:

Dassault Systemes Press Contacts

Corporate France

Arnaud MALHERBE

arnaud.malherbe@3ds.com

+33 (0)1 61 62 87 73

North America

Suzanne MORAN

suzanne.moran@3ds.com

+1 (781) 810 3774

EMEAR

Virginie BLINDENBERG

virginie.blindenberg@3ds.com

+33 (0) 1 61 62 84 21

China

Grace MU

grace.mu@3ds.com

+86 10 6536 2288

India

Santanu BHATTACHARYA

santanu.bhattacharya@3ds.com

+91 124 457 7111

Japan

Yukiko SATO

yukiko.sato@3ds.com

+81 3 4321 3841

Korea

Jeemin JEONG

jeemin.jeong@3ds.com

+82 2 3271 6653

AP South

Pallavi MISRA

pallavi.misra@3ds.com

+65 90221874
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- BioPhero, the insect pheromone company, today announced it has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by DCVC Bio with participation from new investor FMC Ventures , as well as existing investors Syngenta Group Ventures and Novo Holdings . The company, which has a mission to replace many chemical insecticides with sustainable biological insect pheromones, will use this funding to ramp up production of several products and to produce pheromones at the quantity, quality, and price required to allow farmers to control major pests in a variety of row crops.

Pheromones, being non-toxic, can be a powerful tool to achieve the objective of insect pest control, while avoiding the negative impacts on environment and biodiversity associated with overuse of synthetic chemicals. Pheromones are naturally produced by insects, but they can also be used very effectively to control the buildup of pest populations in farmers' fields by disrupting their mating process. They are highly sustainable as they are insect-specific and non- toxic. Not only can they replace insecticide use but they can also reduce over-application by helping to prevent the buildup of resistance against both chemical insecticides and GM seeds.

Following its seed round in 2018, BioPhero developed  and scaled up  new and efficient production methods for insect pheromones using microbial fermentation. The production processes use renewable raw materials, produce less waste than the traditional chemical synthesis, and  crucially  are able to deliver insect pheromones at the cost, quality, and volume required for row crops such as wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans. BioPhero has successfully demonstrated that it can produce pheromones at tonne-scale, and the company is now ready to start production of its first product and to make it available to customers and development partners around the world.

We aim to give farmers a new option: To protect their crops using biological insect pheromones rather than having to rely on insecticides. In row crops this has not been possible until now because of the high cost of pheromones. At BioPhero, we have shown we can break this cost barrier. We are delighted to continue to attract such high-quality investors and see this as a testament to the success we have had in developing and scaling biological pheromone production and delivering new options for growers

Kristian Ebbensgaard, CEO, BioPhero

Unlike with insecticides, insects do not develop resistance to insect pheromones because they are produced by females to attract males for mating and do not present a single target that can easily be overcome by evolution. Insect pheromones are highly effective, have an exemplary safety record and do not harm pollinators or other non-target insects.

"We have been examining the use of insect pheromones in agriculture and new start-ups in this area for many years. Until now, no company has succeeded in manufacturing pheromones at a cost and scale suitable for worldwide use," said John Hamer, Co-Managing Partner, DCVC Bio. "BioPhero's patented breakthrough platform is the only one that is delivering the cost structure, manufacturing flexibility and quality that allow pheromones to be deployed on major row crops."

About BioPhero

BioPhero is a pioneer in the production of pheromones used as highly sustainable and eco- friendly active ingredients in products for

insect pest control in agriculture. Our vision is to make agriculture more sustainable by enabling the application of pheromones for effective pest control in large-scale row crops. BioPhero has developed and scaled up a proprietary biological production platform based on yeast fermentation. We have assembled a dedicated world-class team with competencies within metabolic engineering, fermentation, chemistry, and process development.

BioPhero was founded in 2016 by Prof. Irina Borodina as a technology spin-out from the Technical University of Denmark and completed its seed round in 2018. BioPhero is also a consortium member in the EU-funded Projects OLEFINE and PHERA. Read more at www.biophero.com

For more information please contact:

Kristian Ebbensgaard, CEO

[email protected]

+45 60600909

SOURCE BioPhero
AG Nessel Charges One Police Officer, Clears Another in Public Integrity Investigations

AG Nessel Charges One Police Officer, Clears Another in Public Integrity Investigations

Ryan Jarvi 517-599-2746 Attorney General

March 9, 2021

LANSING  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel today announced the outcomes of two public integrity investigations related to police-involved shootings in Macomb and Ionia counties, with charges being filed against one officer and another being cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.

Click here to view the Attorney Generals video message. When I took office, I announced that this Department would focus special attention on officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths, Nessel said. These are challenging cases that require a careful and thoughtful review to ensure the trust of the parties involved and the confidence of the larger public in the process that we use. To meet that challenge, we are committed to conducting each review without pre-conceived notions or pre-determined outcomes. Instead, we will reach our conclusions by following the evidence  wherever it takes us.

The Attorney Generals office filed charges Monday in Ionia Countys 64-A District Court against Lowell Police Officer Jason Diaz. After a high-speed chase through Kent and Ionia counties on Aug. 29, 2020, Diaz allegedly fired his weapon at the fleeing vehicle and struck a passenger in the head, causing injury. Diazs actions violated both the law and Lowell Police Departments Use of Force Policy, the Attorney Generals complaint alleges.

Diaz, 40, of Wyoming was charged with:

One count of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, a 10-year felony;

One count of misconduct in office by a public official, a five-year felony; and

One count of weapons, careless discharge causing injury, a two-year high court misdemeanor. Diaz was arraigned on the charges today before Magistrate David Wirth in Ionia County 64-A District Court. Bond was set at 10% of $50,000. He is scheduled for a probable cause conference at 1 p.m. March 22 and a preliminary exam at 1 p.m. March 29. Following a comprehensive review of the evidence and circumstances of a police-involved shooting on Nov. 3, 2018, the Attorney Generals office determined there was insufficient evidence to charge Shelby Township Police Officer Jason Zuk with a crime.

Zuk responded to a call for back-up from another police officer who had located a vehicle that was reported stolen the day before. Kanwarbir Malhi, 25, of Shelby Township, was the driver of the vehicle, which belonged to his mother.

Following up on the stolen vehicle report, police saw Malhi driving the vehicle through the parking lot at the familys apartment complex.

After he parked the vehicle, an officer at the scene approached the vehicle and gave Malhi multiple verbal commands to show his hands, but he did not comply. After back-up arrived, police repeatedly told Malhi to show his hands and exit the vehicle. They then asked Malhi if he had a weapon and stated that he did.

After about 10 minutes, Malhi exited the vehicle but made a sudden movement toward the front of his body, at which point Zuk fired a single shot from his department-issued shotgun, hitting Malhi in the chest and neck causing him to fall to the ground. Authorities at the scene immediately began rendering medical aid to Malhi and determined he did not have a weapon. Malhi was transported to Troy Beaumont Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Following a review of the video footage, testimony and other evidence, the Attorney Generals office determined Zuk acted under an honest and reasonable belief that he and other officers were in danger and no criminal charges will be filed.

###
Scissors mode measurements. A) Sketch of the experimental geometry: the atomic system (ellipse) is trapped in an anisotropic potential with eigenaxes x and y. A sudden rotation of the trapping potential excites an angular oscillation (t) (red arrows). B-C) Examples of the experimental distributions after free expansion and of the corresponding two-dimensional fits used for extracting the oscillation angle  0 after the free expansion in B) BEC regime (dd=1.14); C) supersolid regime (dd=1.45). D-E). Time evolution of the angle  0 (t): D) BEC regime; E) supersolid regime. Error bars represent the standard deviation of 4-8 measurements. Credit: Science, doi: 10.1126/science.aba4309

Superfluidity in liquids and gases can manifest as a reduced moment of inertia (the rotational analog of mass) under slow rotations. Non-classical rotational effects can also be considered in the elusive supersolid phases of matter where superfluidity can coexist with a lattice structure. In a new report now published in Science, L. Tanzi and a research team at the National Institute of Optics and the Department of Astronomy at the University of Florence in Italy, showed how a recently discovered supersolid phase in dipolar quantum gases featured a reduced moment of inertia. The team studied a peculiar rotational oscillation mode in a harmonic potential to deduce a supersolid fraction and provide direct evidence of the supersolid nature of the dipolar construct.

Superfluids and supersolidity

Superfluids exhibit their most spectacular properties during rotation, where the superfluid state is described by a macroscopic wavefunction. Physicists had already verified non-classical rotational effects for most known superfluids including nuclear matter, gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates and degenerate Fermi gases. The outcome is related to the Meissner effect noted in superconductors. In the 1960s, researchers discovered another type of bosonic phase of matter known as a supersolid, described by a macroscopic wavefunction. In a supersolid, superfluidity can coexist with a crystal-type architecture. Physicist suggested the rotating supersolid would show a moment of inertia intermediate to a superfluid and a classical system. This phenomenon is known as the non-classical rotational inertia (NCRI). These observations on supersolidity were primarily made using solid helium, where researchers employed torsion oscillators (rotational systems) to detect NCRI. In this work, Tanzi et al. investigated a different supersolid candidate  a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of strongly dipolar atoms.

Scissors mode frequency and moment of inertia vs the interaction parameter. A) Scissors mode frequencies. Large circles and squares are the experimental measurements. Black diamonds and dots are the mean-field and beyond-mean-field theoretical predictions, respectively. B) Moment of inertia. Large squares and circles are derived from Eq. (1) in the study, using the experimental measurements of the scissors frequencies and the theoretical ; black dots are the numerical simulation. Small open dots are the theoretical prediction for  2. Error bars are one standard deviation. The experiment has a calibration uncertainty of 3%. The dashed line separating BEC and supersolid regimes was determined numerically. Credit: Science, doi: 10.1126/science.aba4309

The BECs are formed at a fraction above absolute zero and only in atoms that act like bosons, one of two types of fundamental particles. When bosons are cooled to low-enough temperatures, a substantial fraction spontaneously enter a single quantum state in a phenomenon known as BoseEinstein condensation (BEC), and the most famous experiments are those involving atomic gases. The recently discovered quantum system showed a density-modulated regime co-existing with the phase coherence, as required for supersolidity. Researchers had tested the superfluid nature using non-rotational excitation modes relative to hydrodynamic equations for superfluids. In keeping with preceding helium experiments, Tanzi et al. only focused on characterizing the NCRI (non-classical rotational inertia) of systems, in order to provide direct evidence of superfluidity under rotation.

The experiments

In quantum physics, It is still impractical to achieve dipolar solids large enough to realize a cylindrical geometry. As a result, the researchers selected a specific rotation technique to fit the asymmetric, small system in the lab. They then excited the so-called scissor-mode of the system; a small-angle rotational oscillation of the harmonic potential that naturally holds the system. The technique was previously employed to demonstrate superfluidity in ordinary Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). Tanzi et al. investigated the changing scissor mode frequency across the transition from BEC to the supersolid form to directly compare the supersolid with a fully superfluid system. During the experiments, the team used a BEC of strongly magnetic Dysprosium (Dy) atoms in an anisotropic harmonic trap with frequencies with the dipoles oriented in the Z-direction via a magnetic field. The temperature of the system was sufficiently low and the scientists induced the transition from BEC to the supersolid by tuning via a magnetic Feshbach resonance and van der Waals interaction energies. The scientists expected the lattice to be composed of a cluster supersolid to bring the system into a droplet crystal regime without coherence between the droplets.

Superfluid fraction from BEC to supersolid. Red squares and blue circles are the superfluid fraction from the experimentally measured scissors frequency and the theoretical , using Eq. (3) derived in the study. Black dots are the superfluid fraction from the theoretical frequency. Open triangles are the upper limit for the one-dimensional superfluid fraction from Eq. 4 derived in the study. Diamonds are the estimated superfluid fraction of independent droplets. Inset: the gray region is the region of integration for Eq. 4 derived in the study. Credit: Science, doi: 10.1126/science.aba4309

The team next excited the scissor mode and calculated the oscillation frequency to be directly related to the moment of inertia of the superfluid. They then connected the moment of inertia to a superfluid fraction specifically defined for the system. Tanzi et al. noted the analogy of the scissor mode to the helium torsion oscillators since both systems detected NCRI (non-classical rotational inertia) via the oscillation frequency. The experimental results summarized the scissors measurements in the BEC and supersolid regimes. The team imaged the 2-D density distributions after a free expansion of the system to represent effective momentum distributions. The BEC and supersolid regimes showed single-frequency oscillations as expected for weakly-interacting superfluids. To avoid disturbances caused by other collective modes in the system, Tanzi et al. employed two different excitation techniques for the BEC and the supersolid regimes. They then obtained a summary of the results for the scissor frequency and the related moment of inertia and then compared the outcomes with theoretical predictions. The team noted a clear reduction of the frequency when the system entered the supersolid regime in agreement with the theory. The outcomes provided further evidence of NCRI for the dipolar solid. The team explained the mechanisms shown in this work using original predictions made for Bose-condensation in condensed matter systems.

Outlook

In this way, L. Tanzi and colleagues established the superfluid nature of the dipolar supersolid by characterizing its non-classical rotational inertia. The supersolid was different from standard superfluids due to the reduced superfluid fraction. The technique detailed in this work will allow further investigations of the phenomena in future studies. The team propose achieving larger systems as an additional method to study the behavior of supersolids in annular geometry or in a 2-D configuration, while also studying the dynamics of quantized vortices in the supersolid phase.

Explore further Scrambled supersolids: Researchers discover a soft form of a solid

More information: 1. Tanzi L. et al. Evidence of superfluidity in a dipolar supersolid from nonclassical rotational inertia, Science,

2. Lagoudakis K. G. et al. Quantized vortices in an excitonpolariton condensate, Nature Physics,

3. Zwierlein M. W. et al. Vortices and superfluidity in a strongly interacting Fermi gas, Nature, 10.1038/nature03858 Journal information: Science 1. Tanzi L. et al. Evidence of superfluidity in a dipolar supersolid from nonclassical rotational inertia, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aba4309 2. Lagoudakis K. G. et al. Quantized vortices in an excitonpolariton condensate, Nature Physics, doi.org/10.1038/nphys1051 3. Zwierlein M. W. et al. Vortices and superfluidity in a strongly interacting Fermi gas, Nature, 10.1038/nature03858

 2021 Science X Network
Network Tens acquisition of Oprah Winfreys exclusive interview with Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has paid off, delivering a national average audience of more than 1.78 million viewers.

The two-hour broadcast was the most-watched program on Monday, easily beating Nines Married at First Sight* (1.07 million); ABCs Four Corners special Bursting the Canberra Bubble, which examined the historical rape allegation against Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter (891,000); Sevens new reality show Ultimate Tag (442,000); and SBSs The Secret Life of Lighthouses (276,000).

Ten will be over the moon with that result, says Ian Warner, a partner and analyst at Moonlighting Media. Im pretty confident this will be one of the highest-rating non-sports programs of the year.

The special  in which Meghan accused the royal family of worrying about how dark their babys skin would be, while revealing she had been close to suicide during her pregnancy with Archie  is rumoured to have cost Ten $400,000.
Lafayette, La.  One year ago, on March 9, 2020, the first COVID-19 patient was identified in Louisiana. Two days later, Ochsner Health diagnosed its first patient with the virus. And on March 19, Ochsner Lafayette General diagnosed its first COVID-19 patient. One year later, we reflect on the challenges, achievements, and loss of life during a year like none other.

This week, Ochsner Lafayette General will honor its healthcare heroes and pay tribute to patients who lost their lives to COVID-19.

Employees will be given Ochsner Hero pins to add to their badges.

Large Youre My Hero! banners have been put up at all Ochsner Lafayette General facilities for employees to write a personal message of gratitude and recognition for someone special who helped them through the last year.

All employees are encouraged to take a moment of silence at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. in remembrance and reflection. LED candles will be lit during those moments of silence to symbolize moving from darkness to light, together, recognizing that hope lies ahead. We invite the community to join us during these moments of silence.

Together, we are reflecting on where weve been, what weve overcome and how much we have learned over the past year. Our teams navigated this pandemic with valor, fortitude, empathy and determination, said Ochsner Lafayette General CEO Patrick Gandy. This week, we are honoring our healthcare heroes for their resilience and dedication to helping others while at the same time remembering the many who lost their lives to COVID-19.

This is not a day to celebrate, Gandy continued. But it is a day to commemorate milestones, recognize their significance and to help our communities all the way through this  from where we started with testing to now turning the page, toward the future, with vaccines.

In the 365 days since COVID-19, Ochsner Lafayette General has:

Processed over 64,000 COVID tests of the more than one million performed across Ochsner Health facilities and labs

Discharged over 1,900 COVID-positive patients of the more than 10,000 discharged across Ochsner Health

When our clinics were closed, we performed 37,000 video visits with Ochsner Lafayette General providers

While other health systems across the country furloughed employees, Ochsner Lafayette General redeployed 1,400 employees as medical assistants, patient care technicians and temperature monitors. Surgical nurses and those who work in clinics took shifts in hospitals to care for COVID-19 and other patient units.

Received $328,000 in donations of cash, supplies and food for our frontline workers as tracked by the Ochsner Lafayette General Foundation. That totaled more than 12,000 meals and snacks for those taking care of COVID-19 patients. Our employees were overwhelmed by the generosity and support of the community.

Since December 15, Ochsner Lafayette General has administered nearly 30,000 COVID vaccines of the 200,000 across Ochsner Health

The quickest way to end this pandemic is by herd immunity through vaccination. Ochsner Lafayette General offers vaccine clinics daily. For more information and to schedule an appointment, visit OchsnerLG.org/vaccine or call 1-855-206-9675.
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On March 10, the Surfrider Foundation and leaders of the coastal recreation and tourism industry will virtually meet with congressional leaders and White House officials to demand immediate federal action to address climate change. Representing coastal communities across the nation, attendees will meet with more than 150 congressional officials during Coastal Recreation Hill Day to urge comprehensive climate change policies that protect the ocean and coastlines for the future.

"With nearly 40% of Americans living within the coastal zone, this administration and Congress must drastically increase efforts to protect our coastlines from climate change," said Dr. Chad Nelsen, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation. "Many communities are already experiencing climate change impacts, including extreme weather events, sea level rise, coastal erosion and ocean acidification. Based on current science, those impacts will only continue to grow, costing Americans billions of dollars and harming our coastal economy."

Clean water and healthy beaches are critical to the nation's coastal economies, communities, and recreation industries. In fact, coastal recreation and tourism constitute about 2.4 million jobs and contribute more than $129 billion to the U.S. economy every year. Coastlines also play an essential role in protecting communities from extreme weather events and sea level rise resulting from climate change. In addition, natural marine and coastal environments are some of the most effective carbon sinks on the planet, pulling excess carbon out of the atmosphere.

However, the ocean and coasts are increasingly at risk. Warming water and melting glaciers are causing sea levels to rise at an accelerated rate, altering ocean circulation, starving the nation's waterways of oxygen and changing the ocean's chemistry. The ocean has already absorbed over 90% of the heat trapped in our atmosphere and nearly 30% of the excess carbon dioxide previously emitted. Scientists estimate that by 2050, 90% of coral reefs will die off from ocean warming and acidification due to climate change. Increased water temperatures are expected to produce more harmful algae blooms, resulting in closed beaches, impacts to marine life, and severe illnesses to surfers and swimmers.

"Climate change represents perhaps the greatest single threat to the survival of our industry and a way of life enjoyed by millions of people," said Sean Smith, executive director of the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA). "SIMA and the surf industry join the Surfrider Foundation in demanding that federal leaders take action on the climate crisis."

The coastal recreation industry will demand federal action to help communities prepare for climate change impacts through shoreline planning and coastal adaptation. They will also urge Congress to enact laws to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ban new oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters, and promote renewable energy development.

Specifically, the Surfrider Foundation recommends:

Reinstituting the congressional and executive moratoriums on offshore drilling.

Passing Ocean Climate Solutions legislation that will leverage the ocean's potential in the fight against climate change by protecting coastal and marine habitats and safeguarding communities from sea level rise.

Encouraging Congress to authorize $3 billion to support shovel-ready coastal restoration projects with priority given to projects that help to stimulate the economy, and assist communities of color, as well as low-income, tribal, and rural communities.

to support shovel-ready coastal restoration projects with priority given to projects that help to stimulate the economy, and assist communities of color, as well as low-income, tribal, and rural communities. Urging Congress to authorize $100 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade the nation's failing wastewater infrastructure to stop sewage spills at the source and enhance resilience to flooding and climate change impacts.

In addition to climate change, the Surfrider Foundation will elevate the voices of the coastal recreation community to demand action on clean water, public health and plastic pollution reduction in 2021 and beyond.

For more information or to get involved, visit Surfrider.org .

About the Surfrider Foundation

The Surfrider Foundation is a nonprofit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world's ocean, waves and beaches, for all people, through a powerful activist network. Founded in 1984 by a handful of visionary surfers in Malibu, California, the Surfrider Foundation now maintains over one million supporters, activists and members, with more than 170 volunteer-led chapters and student clubs in the U.S., and more than 700 victories protecting our coasts. Learn more at surfrider.org .

SOURCE Surfrider Foundation

Related Links

www.surfrider.org


TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - The Tupelo Police Department is investigating the death of a Pontotoc man.

Police say 34-year-old Jermaine Berghuis was shot multiple times on February 5 in the 200 block of Lakeview Drive in Tupelo. Berghuis died from his injuries on Monday at The North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo.

Lee County Coroner Carolyn Green said the crime lab in Pearl will perform an autopsy.

The case remains under investigation. Anyone with information is encouraged to call TPD at 662-841-6491 or The North Mississippi Crime Stoppers at 1-800-773-8477 (TIPS).
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The full scale of Ireland illegal adoption scandal may never be known after a review of historic records was unable to unearth further conclusive evidence of the practice.

The review was conducted following the discovery in 2018 that 151 cases of illegal birth registration took place between 1946 and 1969 at St Patricks Guild, an adoption society in Dublin run by the Sisters of Charity.

An independent review of a sample of 1,496 out of an estimated 150,000 available records found that while there were references to potential concerns about historic practices, including issues relating to informed consent, adoption to other jurisdictions, and child protection issues, there were no markers indicating illegal adoptions.

It now appears the remaining records will not be examined as the review found it was unlikely a more comprehensive examination would uncover information suggestive of illegal adoptions.

Read More

In a statement, Minister for Children Roderic OGorman said he had asked the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Dr Conor O'Mahony, to examine issues arising from the review report and to propose next steps on illegal birth registrations.

Tusla had been able to identify incorrect registrations  in many cases where the adoptive parents were registered as biological parents  in St Patricks Guilds records because, unusually, there was a marker specifying adopted from birth. on the records.

However, unique markers similar to this were not discovered in the records sampled during the independent review.

The review was overseen by Marion Reynolds, a former deputy director of social services in Northern Ireland.

Under her oversight, Tusla and the Adoption Authority examined records from more than 30 agencies.

Neither was able to establish clear evidence of incorrect birth registrations.

In his statement, Mr OGorman said there were no additional confirmed cases of illegal birth registrations as a result of the review.

While the sampling review of the files did identify some potential markers or wording suggestive of markers, both agencies reported they were unable to establish clear evidence of incorrect birth registrations the minister said.

"I note that in the opinion of the independent reviewer that it is unlikely a more comprehensive review of records would provide clear information relating to the existence of markers or wording suggestive of markers and the degree to which they may potentially be linked to incorrect birth registrations.

The review report was published on Tuesday after being earlier discussed at Cabinet.

Mr OGorman said the results of the review had shown St Patricks Guild files were unique in that there was a clear marker which correlated to illegal birth registrations.

The contents of the close to 1,500 records sampled for this review contained no such markers, he said.

The minister said he was conscious significant concerns remain about the practice of illegal birth registrations and this was why he had now called in Dr OMahony.

He wants the special rapporteur to consider the very significant complexities and challenges, including the deep ethical issues, which arise in relation to the issue of illegal birth registrations, and to propose an appropriate course of action.

Mr OGorman also said the review was clear on the importance of an effective information and tracing service and said he was committed to urgently progressing legislation in this area.

He also said he had established an interdepartmental group which is examining issues arising for the individuals whose birth was the subject of an illegal registration at St Patricks Guild.

These include issued around inheritance, amending birth registrations, taxation, and identity documents.

This group will report to me with proposals within a two-month window, and I will continue to engage with my Cabinet colleagues on the matter, he said.

Read More






Janet wants to help children on learning journey Janet wants to help children on learning journey

The former Head of Schools and Family Learning at Norwich Cathedral has turned her hand to creative collective worship, workshops and storytelling both in person and online since her retirement last year. Janet Marshall tells her own story.
I want a Computer that I Own 2-26-21

I have in my mind an idea that though simple in concept may be impossible to achieve today. I want a computer that can be completely autonomous when I want it to be, but which can also be used to communicate securely with anyone on the planet without being observed by a third party. I don't want to be spied on by Microsoft or Google. I don't want the NSA intercepting my conversations or even their metadata. I want complete autonomy and privacy without having to resort to workarounds that have been invented to give me back some of the control I should have had in the first place. In other words, I want a computer that I own completely. I want a computer that does what I want it to do, not one that has a hidden agenda programmed into it at the factory. And, I want to have these capabilities regardless of what anyone has done to the Internet to prevent me from having them. I don't want to be dependent on the whims of a government or the good will of a giant corporation. Perhaps I am looking for something like the x286 DOS computer I had in the early 1990's, but 10,000 times as fast with a built-in solution for total online privacy and the ability to run modern software while blocking spyware.

Instead, I have a computer that is designed largely to maximize the profits of the computer industry. Except for a handful of very over-priced models that I can't afford to buy, our computers are increasingly designed to be little more than advertising platforms and vehicles for maximizing the cloud revenues of their true owners: online data gatherers, advertisers, and cloud companies. Our computers have numerous hardware and software back doors that are designed to allow governments and corporations to spy on and track us around the Internet. I must rely on encryption algorithms that are designed with subtle flaws that can take years, if not decades, to come to light. Even open source encryption algorithms that some claim are above reproach are repeatedly being shown to have major flaws, and the fixes to those flaws have their own major flaws. And this often appears to be intentional, because governments cannot stand for a single instant for anyone anywhere to hear, say, or see anything they don't know about. Governments seem to be universally terrified of even the slightest possibility of anyone in the world having a private conversation. So, they do everything they can to goad software companies and computer manufacturers into creating back doors and flaws that they can exploit to take away our privacy and make us afraid to speak freely. If that doesn't work, they pass laws to destroy online free speech while waving their flags and proclaiming how lucky we are to be living in their countries.

Will this ever end? Will I ever have a computer that I own?

--Tie
Advertisement

At long last the US has reached an encouraging milestone: more Americans have been vaccinated against COVID-19 than have had the infection.

More than 31 million Americans have had two doses of vaccines from Moderna or Pfizer, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson's newly-authorized shot.

That exceeds the 29 million US cases of COVID-19 counted by Johns Hopkins University since the pandemic began.

It comes as new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines finally give vaccinated people a roadmap back toward normality, with new advice released Monday allowing millions of fully vaccinated elderly people to see other vaccinated people or unvaccinated but low risk people, like grandchildren.

But the guidelines say that people who have been vaccinated still need to wear masks in public where they might be around unvaccinated people and caution them not to travel.

Johns Hopkins expert Dr Martin Makary slammed the guidelines as 'overly restrictive,' arguing that 'to tell people who are fully vaccinated that they can't travel just goes to show how overly excessive some of these policies are,' during a Tuesday Fox News interview.

It comes a day after Facebook flagged as 'opinion not facts' posts sharing Makary's Wall Street Journal op-ed article claiming last month that the US would reach 'herd immunity' by April.

Dr Martin Makary, a Johns Hopkins University professor (right) said that the CDC's new guidelines are 'too restrictive' during a Tuesday Fox News interview

'Once you're fully vaccinated, you're at a pretty good spot,' Makary continued.

He claimed that the risk of transmission was reduced by 86 percent among vaccinated people.

Makary was most likely referring to a working paper published in the Lancet, which showed that, beyond reducing the risks that people vaccinated people will develop symptomatic COVID-19, the risk of UK health workers getting infected at all was about 86 percent lower after they'd been vaccinated.

Vaccinated people in Israel who did get vaccinated also had viral loads that were about six-fold lower compared to others, suggesting they would be less likely to spread the virus.

While these signs are promising, they are not enough, in the CDC's eyes, to endorse more relaxed guidelines for vaccinated people.

On the other hand, there have been reports of breakthrough infections, and it's a rising concern as more infectious variants - including those from Brazil and South Africa which weaken vaccine efficacy - spread in the US.

Yet Makary feels that the CDC's cautiousness is counter-productive.

'People are going to do what they're going to do and guidance like this that's too overly restrictive...it hurts public health credibility,' he said, rehashing the agency's missteps on testing, masking and school reopenings.

'People should be active. If you've been vaccinated, you don't have to just wait until after that second dose, in my personal opinion,' Makary said.

His opinion directly contradicts the conditions of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) authorization for both Moderna's and Pfizer's vaccines, as well as guidance from the CDC and public health officials like Dr Anthony Fauci.

However, he correctly cites data from a New England Journal of Medicine study that showed that people who had had their first dose of Pfizer's vaccine two weeks prior were 92 percent less likely to develop symptoms of COVID-19.

'Get out there, be active - wear a mask for now - but be active,' Makary said.

The concern however is that even if people are not vulnerable to symptomatic infection after one dose, they might be able to spread the virus to unvaccinated people - who still make up the vast majority of the US.

While the pace of vaccinations has picked up considerably, less than 10 percent of the US population has been fully vaccinated, according to Bloomberg data.

With more vaccine supply now available from all three shot makers, the US is giving an average of 2.2 million shots a day.

Vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer are estimated to prevent more than 94 percent of symptomatic cases of COVID-19 and Johnson & Johnson's was 72 percent effective in US trials.

But those studies did not prove conclusively that that shots prevent mild illness or transmission of coronavirus.

Evidence from the early days of vaccination suggests that the shots probably prevent or at least reduce transmission risks, but it's too soon to say for sure.

In an effort to balance the unknowns with the desperate need for elderly people to be reunited with family, the CDC says that fully vaccinated people can spend time with other fully vaccinated people indoors with their masks off.

They can also spend time with low-risk, unvaccinated people, but only from one other household, the CDC said.

The US is only just past the holiday surge, when the millions of Americans crisscrossing the country to see family spread coronavirus at unprecedented rates.

Since scientists have yet to see proof-positive that the vaccines prevent transmission, the CDC said in its new guidance that even fully vaccinated people should not travel, in case they might be able to silently carry virus without symptoms.

But Makary - a pancreatic surgeon by training, who has become a professor of public health, editor of MedPage and rising pundit -\ believes that the uncertainty of whether vaccines prevent transmission should not hold people back from socializing.

'People need to get out thee, loneliness is a problem, isolation kills people,' he said.

AIRLINE INDUSTRY PUSHES BIDEN TO ISSUE VACCINE PASSPORTS AND LASHES OUT AT CDC FOR URGING AMERICANS WHO HAVE HAD SHOTS NOT TO TRAVEL

Leading airline and business groups on Monday called on the Biden administration to issue vaccine passports and pushed back against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for urging fully vaccinated Americans to avoid travel - despite 5.6 million Americans already taking to the skies ahead of Spring Break.

Airlines For America, an industry group, said in a statement that being on a plane poses a low risk of contracting the virus due to filtered air and mandated mask wearing.

Meanwhile, the so-called vaccine passports would let travelers show they've been inoculated against COVID-19 - but airlines fear that a hodgepodge of documents from different states would cause confusion, so they're calling on the federal government to come up with a plan.

The industry's push for opening the skies for travel came as thousands of people already have taken off for Spring Break, with pictures of revelers on the beach populating social media.

CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing on Monday that fully vaccinated people should avoid 'non-essential travel', especially as spring break approaches. Spring breakers are seen enjoying warm Miami weather over the weekend

The airline industry on Monday called on the Biden administration to issue vaccine passports and pushed back against the CDC for urging vaccinated Americans to avoid travel despite 5.6 million Americans taking to the skies ahead of Spring Break (pictured in Miami)

The comments also came in response to CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky, who said during a White House briefing on Monday that fully vaccinated people should avoid 'non-essential travel', especially as Spring Break approaches.

Walensky and other health experts are concerned that spring break travel will lead to an surge in infections at a time when the US is finally starting to see a significant decline in cases.

'Every time there's a surge in travel, we have a surge in cases in this country,' Walensky said.

Walensky noted that many variants of COVID-19 now spreading in the US started in other countries. Still, she held out the possibility that with more data the CDC might soon approve of travel by vaccinated people.

'We remain in the midst of a serious pandemic and still over 90 per cent of our population is not fully vaccinated, though we are working hard to get there,' Walensky said.

'Therefore, everyone, whether vaccinated or not, should continue to avoid medium and large-sized gatherings as well as non-essential travel,' she said.

'And when in public spaces should continue to wear a well-fitted mask, physically distance and follow other public health measures to protect themselves and others,' Walensky added.

But the Airlines For America challenged Walensky's remarks and said that being on a plane poses a low risk of contracting the virus due to filtered air and mandated mask wearing. 'We remain confident that this layered approach significantly reduces risk,' the group said

And while health experts may be worried, some Americans don't seem to be that bothered by their warnings.

Over the past five days, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported screening 5.6 million travelers in the US.

On March 4 and 5, a little over 1.1 million people were screened at US airports with an additional 991,000 reported on March 6.

Sunday saw nearly 1.3 million travelers being screened, which marked the highest figure since January 3.

And on Monday, the TSA screened an addition 1.1 million passengers.

In addition to airline travel, hundreds of spring breakers were seen soaking up some sun in Florida over the weekend.

Bikini-clad college students flooded onto beaches and crammed into bars in Miami and Fort Lauderdale to kick of their vacation.

Mississippians were seen partying at bars and restaurants after the state's governor lifted COVID-19 restrictions on March 3.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Mississippi without a mask in sight on Friday night.

Oxford, home of Ole Miss, saw people out in full force, eating at restaurants and shopping at stores like the coronavirus pandemic was a distant memory - rather than a virus that has killed more than half a million people.

Similar sights are expected in Texas this week after Gov Gregg Abbott said the state will be lifting restrictions beginning on Wednesday despite the fact that over 42,000 in Texas have died of COVID-19.

On March 16, Wyoming Gov Mark Gordon plans to reopen the state fully.

Gordon said Monday that the state will remove its mask requirement and allow bars, restaurants, theaters and gyms to resume normal operations next week.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
New Delhi, March 9 : With speculation doing rounds in Uttarakhand political circle about his replacement, Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat is expected to meet Governor Baby Rani Maurya later in the day.

Rawat is also scheduled to address a press conference before meeting the Governor in Dehradun.

Uttarakhand BJP vice president Devendra Bhasin said that the Chief Minister is scheduled to address a press conference and will likely make a statement on political speculation going on in the state.

Bhasin further stated that he heard that Uttarakhand BJP chief Banshidhar Bhagat has called a meeting of legislative party at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

"I am not aware about the agenda of the legislative party but a meeting has been called tomorrow," Bhasin said.

Another BJP leader from Uttarakhand said that speculations were rife in Dehradun that Rawat may announce his resignation in the press conference and later submit it to the Governor.

"After his meeting with central leadership yesterday in the national capital, it seems that BJP leadership has informed Rawat about possible change of leadership in the Uttarakhand government. Now he might step down from the office," he said.

On Monday evening, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief J.P. Nadda, National General Secretary (Organisation) B.L. Santosh discussed the political development in the hill state.

BJP National General Secretary and state in-charge, Dushyant Gautam was part of discussion. Meeting was called after several MLAs questioned Rawat's style of functioning.

"Bureaucracy is getting more powerful and voices of elected representatives are unheard," said a party member from Uttarakhand.

On Saturday, the BJP leadership sent former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Gautam as observers to meet state leaders and get a feedback. "Both the leaders met the members of the core committee and took their opinion. Report was submitted to BJP leadership," said a party insider.

It is learnt that the report mentioned that it will be difficult for the party to win the next year state assembly polls with Rawat as the face of BJP.

In 2017, Rawat was made Chief Minister after BJP won in Uttarakhand.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Paytm on Tuesday said it is applying for NUE (New Umbrella Entity) in a consortium with players including ride hailing platform Ola, as part of its efforts to develop more innovative and inclusive digital payments solutions for the Indian population.

Speaking to PTI, Paytm founder and Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the company sees the NUE system to play out as a great opportunity for payments in the country.

"We've been saying that payments have become mainstream, and it is important for us to create more payment options and opportunities for consumers and businesses alike. RBI took a note of it and has given an opportunity to apply for NUE. We are going to apply for sure, the process is on," he said.

Asked if Ola was a part of the consortium, Sharma said it will include Ola as one of the key partners.

"It (consortium) will include a bank, small finance bank, payments bank, fintech company, tech company, NBFC - one of the most diverse NUE consortiums that we will see," Sharma said but declined to provide additional details. Ola did not respond to e-mailed queries.

In August last year, RBI had released a framework for authorisation of an umbrella entity for retail payments in the country and had invited applications from desirous entities by February 26, 2021.

After requests from various stakeholders including Indian Banks' Association for extending the deadline in view of the pandemic, the Reserve Bank of India had extended the deadline to apply for NUE to March 31.

NUEs will be set up as a company as a for-profit under the Companies Act, 2013 and will get authorisation under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (PSS Act). Such entities will undertake tasks such as setting up, managing and operating new payment systems in retail space.

These activities include but are not limited to ATMs, White Label PoS; Aadhaar based payments and remittance services; newer payment methods, standards and technologies; monitor related issues in the country and internationally; taking care of developmental objectives like enhancement of awareness about the payment systems.

They are also expected to operate clearing and settlement systems for participating banks and non-banks, and carry on any other business suitable to further strengthen the retail payments ecosystem in the country.

According to reports, several companies have partnered with banks and major tech players to apply for NUEs. Reports suggest that Reliance Industries, along with Facebook and Google - which have invested in Jio Platforms - are planning to apply, while Tata Group has joined hands with HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, MasterCard and Bharti Airtel.

Amazon is also said to have tied up with Visa, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and fin-tech startups BillDesk and PineLabs for the NUE licence. However, these could not be independently confirmed.

Sharma said NUE will provide an opportunity to create more payment systems that can be scaled.

"We see it as an opportunity to serve a large Indian population with more innovative, more inclusive payment options. We believe that we can play a role in that. So, we see this as an opportunity to be a catalyst in scaling of payments in this country," he added.

Also Read: HUL challenges beauty stereotypes, decides to drop 'normal' from ads, personal care products
BERLIN (Reuters) - German exports unexpectedly rose in January, buoyed by robust trade with China in a positive start to the year for manufacturers in Europe's largest economy.

Seasonally adjusted exports increased 1.4% on the month after an upwardly revised increase of 0.4% in December, the Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday. Imports fell 4.7% after showing no change in the prior month, an upward revision.

A Reuters poll had pointed to a 1.2% drop in exports and a 0.5% fall in imports. January's 1.4% increase in exports far surpassed even the most optimistic forecast.

The trade surplus grew to 22.2 billion euros. On the year, exports to China rose by 3.1%. Exports to other European Union countries fell 6.0% on the year, those to the United Kingdom dropped 29% and those to the United States decreased by 6.2%.

Thomas Gitzel, chief economist at VP Bank, described the overall rise in exports as "an extremely positive surprise" and expected further growth.

"Net exports will thus be able to partially offset losses in private consumption in the economy as a whole - but not completely. On balance, the German economy will shrink in the first quarter," he said.

Most economists expect the economy to shrink in the first three months of the year, before rebounding in the second.

On Monday, official data showed industrial output fell in January as winter weather slowed construction and semiconductor shortages held back production in the car industry.

However, German automotive parts maker Continental AG said earlier on Tuesday it expected 2021 sales and profit margin to grow despite expected additional costs due to chip shortages.

Recent German data has painted a picture of a two-speed economy in which export-oriented manufacturers are doing well while domestically driven services are suffering under lockdown measures imposed in early November and tightened in mid-December to contain a second wave of coronavirus infections.

(Reporting by Paul Carrel and Rene Wagner, editing by Thomas Escritt and Giles Elgood)
Daughter of High-Profile Toronto Businesswoman Charged with Murder

Police are looking for a woman from a high-profile family in Toronto, along with another suspect, for their alleged involvement in the murder of a Vancouver man.

Yun Lu Lucy Li, 25, and Oliver Karafa, 28, are charged with First Degree Murder and are currently at large, the Hamilton Police Service said in a statement.

The charge stems from a shooting on Feb. 28 on 347 Arvin Avenue in Stoney Creek. Police found Tyler Pratt, 39, dead with a gunshot wound, and a 26-year-old woman with a severe gunshot wound, who was subsequently taken to a hospital.

The police said the suspects, Li and Karafa, departed the crime scene in a white Land Rover SUV, which has since been recovered. The pair is believed to have left the Toronto area.

Hamilton police is asking anyone who sees Li and Karafa to not approach them and to notify police.

In a statement to Chinese-language media, Lis family said, We are deeply shocked, disturbed and puzzled by Lucys involvement in the unfortunate incident, according to a translated version of the statement, reported The National Post.

The Epoch Times was unable to confirm this statement.

Lis high-profile family has attracted public attention for less tragic reasons. Lucy is a triplet, and one of her sisters competed in Miss World Toronto last year.

Lis mother, Hong Wei Winnie Liao, is the founder and president of Respon International Group, a finance-management company that focuses on Canadian asset allocation. Liao and her company reportedly have close ties with both Canadian and Chinese politicians.
Murzi comes with extensive international experience

He will lead the Italian team of Alfasigma bringing together the Pharma Italy and Consumer Health Care divisions

BOLOGNA, Italy, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Jacopo Murzi, 49, joins Alfasigma Spa as General Manager of the Italy Business Unit which today includes the Pharma Italy, Consumer Healthcare, Commercial Operations, Market Access and BU Diversified divisions.

Murzi was in Janssen for a long period of his Italian and international career. After his beginnings in Italy, he spent 3 years in Poland and another 3 in Romania, then moved to the United States following business development activities and lastly in France where he dealt with the Middle East and Africa managing 20 plus countries.

Having graduated in Management Engineering, he previously worked for a global consulting firm on numerous multidisciplinary projects.

The new General Manager will report to Pier Vincenzo Colli, CEO of Alfasigma, who declares: "The inclusion in the team of Jacopo Murzi contributes to the further strengthening of management and allows us to unify the Italian business units in a single shared strategy. Jacopo and his team have our best wishes for a successful venture. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Roberto Mazzucato, who for thirty years has been a backbone for the company and has led Pharma Italy with determination and competence until last December."

"It is a pleasure and a great responsibility to be called to write a new page in Alfasigma's history, which will be focused on best serving doctors and pharmacists, but also all those millions of Italians who use our products on a daily basis", says Jacopo Murzi." I was very impressed - he continues - by the team's passion and desire to leave their mark. I am proud to be able to contribute to a company so rooted in our country, thanks to its production sites and the presence of specialized products and self-medication in the homes of all Italians."

About Alfasigma

Privately owned, Alfasigma is one of the leading Italian pharmaceutical companies, present in over 90 countries, through distributors and subsidiaries and has a workforce of around 3,000 people, R&D laboratories, and 5 production plants.

In Italy, Alfasigma is a leader in the market for prescription products where, in addition to the strong focus on gastrointestinal, it is present in many primary care therapeutic areas. Alfasigma also produces and markets self-medication products, nutraceuticals and food supplements.

More information is available at the corporate website https://www.alfasigma.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1450605/Alfasigma.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1325576/Alfasigma_Logo.jpg
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams

John Adams was not alone in understanding that our Constitution functions only if people have a shared morality derived from Judeo-Christian principles. James Madison wrote that our Constitution requires "sufficient virtue among men for self-government"; otherwise, "nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another." It's not clear that 21st-century America has that necessary virtue.

The Ten Commandments are at the center of Judeo-Christian moral teaching. (I have written before about the connection of virtue and morality as it relates to First and Second Amendment rights.) Even non-religious people once understood that these principles are useful guides for moral living in a functioning society. Much has changed in just a few years, though.

The first few commandments are about man's relationship with God and are not relevant to this discussion. What matters here are the commandments that concern our relationships with others, which define morality as our Framers understood it. They have societal value independent of the precepts about the relationship to God. No religious beliefs are necessary to accept their value as moral principles. It was this morality that the Framers saw as essential to constitutional self-government.

Today, many on the left no longer consider these principles a standard for moral behavior. They have become a standard to avoid. A significant part of our society believes we should actively defy the moral truth of these principles. This belief has serious political implications.

A system specifically designed for a moral people's use necessarily requires a moral people. Without this connection, there will be increased friction between constitutional principles and the people. If our representatives share revulsion for the moral principles, the damage will be fatal to constitutional rule. One can expect increasing tyranny because a ruling class devoid of morality can only govern by command and control. There will be no consent of the governed.

Examples of this change in morality are everywhere. First, we do not honor our elders. A moral society respects the wisdom and experiences of its elders. It understands, too, that those who are old are dependent upon younger generations. However, in several states, the governors' pandemic policies specifically harmed the elderly. Society is increasingly youth-centered, with elders discriminated against in employment and promotions. Our schools teach students to defy parents, and parents are excluded from decisions concerning their children.

Second, killing has become a necessity of convenience for unborn life. For the first decades after Roe v. Wade, abortion was still spoken of only as a horrible necessity to be used sparingly. Bill Clinton said it should be "safe, legal, and rare." This recognized that, while it may be available, it's not an ideal solution. Today, many glorify abortion. It is a thing of boasting, not regret. At the other end of life, the excessive nursing home deaths also point to the belief that some killing benefits society.

Third, we no longer impose moral restrictions on intimate relationships. People have always struggled to follow this principle, but it was accepted as the ideal even as people failed to achieve perfection. The principle has now lost all moral meaning. There is no type of relationship that is not socially acceptable. We have redefined marriage to have no sacramental meaning. It's about taxes. There is no male and female. There is only a self-declaration that defies biology.

Fourth, honesty has disappeared. Lies are acceptable if they achieve a political or personal goal. A self-governing society can exist only when we can trust each other. Our society teaches that we cannot trust people who are not like us. Since there is no trust, there is no need to be truthful.

If one has been harmed, it is acceptable to steal to get even. Insiders and the connected can take advantage to get things that are not theirs. Governments have policies that allow for stealing property in the form of civil forfeitures. It is not just real property. Reputations, ideas, and opportunities are stolen, too, with no legal repercussions. Looting is considered a protest.

Our society teaches that if we are not satisfied with what we have, it is acceptable to try to get from others that which we cannot earn for ourselves. Contentment and gratitude are rare commodities in our society. The discontent disrupts all aspects of our relationships. Discontent is the beginning point of all moral failure.

If morality is the defining quality for our form of self-government, we may no longer be qualified to self-govern. The Framers understood this. Our new immorality is the prescription for the constitutional system to fail. It is not that society cannot be formed by immoral people. It certainly can. However, that society's governance will reflect the people's (im)morality, and that rule will be centered on command and control without a moral basis. It will be tyranny.

Image: The Ten Commandments by George Bannister. CC BY 2.0.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Zaw Myat Linn was arrested in the early hours of this morning. Khin Maung Latt, campaign strategist for Aung San Suu Kyi's party, also died in prison a few days ago. Meanwhile protests continue. So far, 60 protesters have died and 1,800 people have been arrested.

Yangon (AsiaNews)  Another member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) has died today in prison.

According to sources from Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the leader of the civilian government overthrown by the military on 1 February, Zaw Myat Linn was arrested in the early hours of this morning. The family went to a military hospital in Yangon to retrieve his body.

Khin Maung Latt, the NLD's election campaign manager, also died in prison overnight between Saturday and Sunday.

In the November's elections, the pro-democracy party, in power since 2015, won a stunning victory, which was later disavowed by General Min Aung Hlaing's military.

This morning Security Forces arrested 40 people in Yangon, mostly university students.

So far, 60 people have died in protests against the military coup. According to humanitarian groups, more than 1,800 people have been arrested by the military.
Pauline Hanson has announced she will refuse the Covid-19 vaccine and has questioned Australia's official death toll.

The One Nation Senator has been slammed with accusations of putting public health at risk by causing people to doubt the safety of the vaccine.

'It's my choice whether I want to have it. Don't you be concerned; if you have your vaccine, you're protected, you're fine,' the Senator told Sky News on Tuesday.

Pauline Hanson announced on Tuesday she will refuse the Covid-19 vaccine and has questioned Australia's official death toll

Ms Hanson revealed she doesn't plan on getting immunised, has never got a flu shot, and doesn't plan on getting one of them either.

Labor health spokesman Mark Butler has responded to the Senator by saying 'there is no place for dangerous disinformation'.

He likened her statements to those of MP Craig Kelly, who resigned from the Liberal Party in February but still remains in Parliament as an independent.

While the controversial MP has insisted he is not an anti-vaxxer Mr Kelly cast doubt on the Covid-19 vaccine and repeatedly endorsed the use of drugs hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to treat the virus, despite global studies deeming them ineffective.

Labor's Mark Butler responded to Ms Hanson's comments saying 'there is no place for dangerous disinformation'

Mr Butler said that Ms Hanson is 'undermining the crucial advertising campaign for the vaccine rollout' and asked the Prime Minister to take action.

'Scott Morrison must stand up against Pauline Hanson's dangerous and wrong health advice', he said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured) was part of the first group to be immunised in Australia

The Prime Minister was one of the first to get immunised in Australia, receiving the Pfizer vaccine live on television to instill public confidence in the jab.

Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy said Ms Hanson's comments were 'not leadership, they're irresponsible', when taking into consideration the Senator's large following.

'I think leadership which fails us by supporting conspiracy theories is not leadership,' Dr Moy told NCA NewsWire.

He said Australia has had the extra benefit of observing overseas examples of the vaccine rollout, and said the jab had been fully tested for safety and effectiveness by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy said the vaccine had been fully tested for safety and effectiveness by the TGA

Dr Moy also denied Ms Hanson's claim that authorities had overestimated the death toll by counting people who had 'died with Covid, not from it'.

The Senator attempted to undermine official numbers by alleging anyone who tested Covid-19 positive for the virus was recorded as having died from the virus.

'If a person died in a car accident and they tested positive for Covid, that was a Covid death. That is wrong, that is deceiving the people,' Ms Hanson claimed.

'The recording of Covid-19 is no different to any other disease. A doctor would only list it as the underlying cause of death, or contributing cause, if they genuinely believed that,' he rebuked.
Nicky Hilton was the epitome of winter chic as she grabbed coffee in the SoHO neighborhood of New York City on Monday afternoon.

The heiress, 37, looked relaxed and content as she braved the frigid Big Apple cold in a cool Max Mara teddy bear coat.

The socialite's coffee run comes not long after she made a post to her Instagram account in recognition of International Women's Day.

Keeping cozy: Nicky Hilton was seen wearing a large beige Max Mara teddy bear coat while stepping out for a coffee run in New York City on Monday afternoon

Hilton was dressed in a sizable beige teddy bear coat that kept the cold away from her torso and much of her legs.

Underneath her large outer covering, the designer wore a cream-colored turtleneck sweater and a pair of blue jeans.

She tied off her look with a pair of Adidas sneakers and wore a pair of round clear-framed sunglasses.

The former model's beautiful blonde hair draped down onto her shoulders and the nape of her neck during her time in public.

Pairing well: The socialite also wore a cream-colored turtleneck sweater and a set of Adidas sneakers what were similar in shade to her outer layer

Staying protected: The social media personality wore a patterned facial covering to reduce her chance of being exposed to COVID-19

Hilton also carried a brown Birkin bag to store her belongings while going for her coffee run.

At certain points during her walk, the socialite was seen wearing a patterned face mask to keep herself protected from COVID-19 while out in public.

The author later made a post to her Instagram account to celebrate International Women's Day; she also wrote a brief message in the post's caption.

Hilton wrote, 'Happy #InternationalWomensDay to all the incredible women who have paved the way for us to be where we are today. Cheers to all the wonderful women fighting for an even greater future for the women of tomorrow.'

Marking the occasion: Later in the day, Hilton posted a photo of her daughters to her Instagram account to celebrate International Women's Day

She concluded her message by writing, 'These are tough times but our future is bright!'

Featured in the photo were her daughters Lily, aged four, and Teddy, aged three.

The socialite shares the sisters with her husband, James Rothschild; the two began dating in 2011 and tied the knot four years later.

During an interview with The New York Times, Hilton spoke about how she has used her time in quarantine to grow closer to her spouse and children.

Happy family: Hilton shares two daughters named Lily and Teddy with her husband James Rothschild, whom she married in 2015

Specifically, she remarked that 'being together as a family is nice. My husband and two daughters have breakfast, lunch and dinner together every single day.'

The social media personality also spoke about her expectations for the post-pandemic lifestyle that she and her family would adopt after COVID-related restrictions are lifted.

Hilton predicted, 'Well be seeing the world through a new set of eyes and not taking basic things for granted anymore.'
The upcoming Surface Laptop 4 is expected to solve the biggest issue of Surface Laptop 3 users. Its predecessor is considered an excellent laptop in the market since it offers advanced features. However, some owners are complaining that they have limited options when it comes to the device's processor.

Read Also: Huawei MateBook 14 2020 AMD Review: Amazingly Classy, Powerful, and Feature-Packed

Why? Because Surface Laptop 3 is only available in an AMD configuration for the 15-inch model. This is a big problem since there are some owners who prefer using Intel chipsets instead. And now, Microsoft will finally solve this issue by releasing the new Surface Laptop 4, which will provide the company's consumers with Intel and AMD options.

This info was first revealed by the German site "WinFuture," which is well-known for its excellent track record of leaks.

"With the use of the AMD Ryzen 4000 series, which is commonly referred to as AMD 'Renoir,' Microsoft is again using 'outdated' chips that do not come from the new Ryzen 5000 series," said the German site via XDA Developers.

"They use the 'Zen 2' architecture and, like their predecessors, should come with a power loss of 15 watts. The production is certainly on a 7-nanometer scale," it added.

Surface Laptop 4's Release Date and Specs

According to The Next Web's latest report, the Surface Laptop 4 is expected to arrive in early April. Its release would be a big deal since its predecessor only offered Intel option if the consumers buy a special Surface Laptop 3 For Business. Here are some of its specs that you should know:

Surface Laptop 4 is expected to retain Microsoft's Surface Laptop design. But, there could still be some visual enhancements.

This laptop will be available in 13.5 and 15-inch models.

The Intel edition will come in Core i5 (1145G7) and Core i7 (1185G7).

The Intel configuration will also come in 32GB and 1TB configurations.

The AMD models will max out at 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

Ryzen 5 (4680U) and Ryzen 7 (4980U) configurations are also offered, although they will be branded once again as Surface Edition chips with a few tweaks.

What Improvement Does Surface Laptop 4 Need?

The previous Surface Laptop 3 is already great, but it lacks a variety of options for processors. Microsoft's laptop design for its recent Surface Laptop models was already really good. This means that the upcoming Surface Laptop 4 will also have a great physical appearance. But, some fans expected a more improved battery life that would allow them to use it longer. They also said that Microsoft should add more ports for getting work done.

Related Article: Asus Vivobook 15 F512DA Review: Best Budget Laptop For Students and Writers
By Juliet Nalwooga

The Police Director for Operations, AIGP Edward Ochom has directed all Regional Police Commanders to be on high alert following anticipated riots across the country.

In letter to the commanders, Ochom says they suspect that opposition members especially NUP party members, are planning violent riots a cross the country today.

Police say the organisers of these illegal demonstrations are mobilising the public using social media and leaflets with wording that reads Time is Now. Join Nationalwide protests to fight for our victory. M7 Tajja Kulayira.

They have reportedly as such deployed strategically to counter these illegal acts and we are continuing with vigilance.
(Newser)  New COVID relief payments of $1,400 will be landing in Americans' bank accounts soon, but Megan McArdle makes the case in a Washington Post op-ed that the checks are a bad idea. She's all in favor of the government helping people and businesses in genuine need during the pandemic, but she has a problem with so many of these checks going to fully employed people who don't need the money. It's a needed stimulus, you say? Not quite in this case, she writes. We're in the midst of a "supply shock," not a "demand shock" marked by plunging consumer confidence. Stimulus can help the latter. But "giving money to someone who still has their job doesnt make them more likely to go out to dinner if the reason they've stopped going out is that theyre afraid of the deadly virus."

story continues below

The relief money accounts for $420 billion of the relief package, roughly 20%, and it is the most "indefensible" part of the measure, writes McArdle. Small businesses, for example, could use a lot more help, but the stimulus bill delivers little on the front. Instead, most of this money will likely pile up in people's bank accounts because they still don't have a lot of ways to spend it. "Its bad policy now and a dangerous precedent for the future," writes McArdle. "And it may well do more to seed the next economic crisis than to fix the current one." Read her full column. (Read more COVID relief bill stories.)

Islamabad, March 9 : The Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Assembly has unanimously passed a resolution demanding the status of interim province for the region.

The resolution, which was presented by the leader of the House and GB Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid Khan, stated that Pakistan's principal position in the light of United Nation's resolutions on the Kashmir issue must be upheld in the amendment.

"GB should be given the status of an interim constitutional province and representation in the National Assembly and other federal bodies," read the resolution.

Khurshid Khan later took to Twitter, saying: "Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly unanimously passed a historic resolution demanding provision of constitutional rights to the region. I myself presented the resolution in the assembly. I am thankful to the opposition leader for their support..." "...And also the members of government for working their best to create consensus. The demand for constitutional rights is a uninamous demand of the people of GB, not of an individual/party only. The unity we've shown on this issue needs to be repeated again at federal level," he said in another tweet.

Pakistan's Federal Minister of Science and Technology, Fawad Chaudhry, declared it as a historic day, terming the development as a huge "leap forward".

"Histrionic day for the people of?#GilgitBaltistan, all parties unanimously demand interim provincial status for GB to ensure constitutional rights for the people... truly a leap forward... kudoos to all who made it possible," he tweeted.

The move by the GB Assembly comes in the light of the announcement made by Prime Minister Imran Khan last year, when he had announced granting provisional provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan in his public address during the 73rd Independence Day celebrations.

"One of the reasons for me to come to Gilgit-Baltistan is to announce that we have decided to grant Gilgit-Baltistan the provisional provincial status. We have taken this decision keeping in mind the UN Security Council's resolutions," Khan had announced.

Pakistan's decision to give provisional provincial status to GB was questioned by experts, who said that changing the special status of GB may have direct implications on the UN resolutions and may lead to deterioration on Pakistan's stance on the Kashmir dispute against India.

However, Khan maintained that the decision was being taken as per the demands and aspirations of the people of GB, who he said have been demanding to join Pakistan for a very long time.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The continuing increase in the number of reports of domestic and family violence is an eminent cause for concern by Sint Maarten Police Force of Sint Maarten.

Members of the detective department are investigating two unrelated cases of domestic violence that took place over the last week where the victims were severely injured.

On Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021, the patrol arrested a woman with the initials M.M.M-B. on Windsor Road, after she doused her husband with hot water following an altercation.

Two days later on March 5th, 2021, the patrol arrested the man with the initials V.P. living in Over The Bank, after he had assaulted his wife following an argument.

Both suspects were taken to the police station where they were held questioning.

It is evident that an increase in community awareness is needed in order to bring this abusive behavior to a drastic halt. This behavior should no longer consider as a 'private' matter. It is recognized by all sectors that abusive behavior towards a person in a relationship constitutes criminal behavior and is punishable by law.

The Sint Maarten Police Force KPSM is actively committed to improving our operational response to this crime. Persons choosing to engage in abusive actions will be held accountable for their actions; it is just a matter of time. Instead of engaging in this illegal act, choose to walk away from the situation.

You alone are responsible for your behavior. Do the right thing and put a stop to domestic violence.

KPSM Press Release.
The health ministry has apparently failed to apply its mind about model code of conduct (MCC) and did not think it necessary to seek EC approval. (PTI file photo)

HYDERABAD: Senior Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy on Monday filed a complaint with the Election Commission seeking removal of the photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Covid-19 vaccination certificates.

In his letter, Shashidhar Reddy pointed out that responding to a representation by a political party in West Bengal, the ECI has directed the Union health ministry to discontinue the practice immediately in view of the Assembly elections in five states.

Reddy regretted that the certificates were being issued in Telangana state with Modis photograph though MLC elections for two graduate constituencies are scheduled for March 14. Besides, there is an Assembly byelection due in the state, for which the schedule is to be announced shortly.

Taking all these into consideration, the Election Commission should direct the Union ministry to stop this practice without any further delay.

The Congress leader recalled that when he was vice-chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) between 2010 and 2014, he had to take the ECs permission for an advertisement about the release of National Guidelines on Management of Disasters with a picture of the then Prime Minister and NDMA Chairman Dr Manmohan Singh, which,incidentally, was denied.

The health ministry has apparently failed to apply its mind about model code of conduct (MCC) and did not think it necessary to seek EC approval. He said that the poll panel should seek an explanation from the ministry and ask them to fix the responsibility and ensure that the lapse is recorded in their performance appraisal report.
Stefano Barbosa, 37, died from a gunshot wound to the chest after being held hostage by a 15-year-old before being shot last month

A Florida teenager has been charged as an adult with second-degree murder and armed robbery after taking a real estate agent hostage at gunpoint last month and shooting him dead.

The 15-year-old allegedly forced the victim, 37, to a nearby ATM where he took out $1,000 before shooting the hostage in the chest while he was still behind the wheel of the car.

The teen ran from the scene, but Fort Lauderdale cops were able to track down him down using surveillance footage.

He was already in juvenile custody on unrelated charges for burglaries, resisting arrest and battery on a police officer but transferred to Broward County Jail to be charged as an adult on Friday.

The incident happened at around 4.30pm on February 1 as the victim, named by the Sun Sentinel as Stefano Barbosa, was about to visit tenants at a quadruplex in the 600 block of Northwest 15th Terrace in Fort Lauderdale.

He was approached by the armed suspect, who has not been named because of his age, wearing dark clothes and a black ski cap mask.

Police say that surveillance footage showed Barbosa dropped his clipboard and raised his hands before the teen forced him back into his car, a black sedan.

Scroll down for video

Barbosa was forced to drive to an ATM and take out $1,000 before the teen made him drive a further two miles and then shot him as he drove. Barbosa slammed through the fence around the front of a house and crashed into a tree (as pictured on the scene above)

The suspect fled the scene and police believed Barbosa had simply crashed until they smashed open the window of the black sedan and saw he had been shot (as pictured)

Barbosa was forced to drive for a mile to a Bank of America on the 500 block of Northwest Sixth Street.

He made two withdrawals of $500 from the ATM before returning to the car.

The suspect then forced Barbosa to drive for two miles more while he sat in the passenger seat before shooting him multiple times in the chest.

The car crashed through a chain-link fence and hit a tree in the 500 block of Northwest 19th Avenue, at around 5pm, just 30 minutes after Barbosa had been taken hostage.

The suspect immediately fled.

The car had come close to crashing into a home, but it suffered minimal damage and no one inside the building was hurt.

The home's resident, who identified himself to NBC Miami as only Wayne, said that when he came from his house, he believed the man was injured after crashing through the fence.

He said he tried to hit on the window but called 911 when Barbosa didn't move.

'When I walked outside, the car was on top of the palm tree and the tires were spinning,' Wayne said. 'And I was beating on the window and the guy wasn't responding at all. He had his head turned to the side.'

Barbosa was forced to drive for a mile to a Bank of America on the 500 block of Northwest Sixth Street. He made two withdrawals of $500 from the ATM before returning to the car

Police thought they were arriving to the scene of a crash but it quickly turned into a homicide investigation when Barbosa's gunshot wound was discovered. He died at the scene

As Barbosa's car crashed, it barely missed a house but he was the only casulty

When police arrived, they cut open the car and discovered that Barbosa had died from gunshot wounds. He was declared dead at the scene.

Investigators were initially perplexed as it was unclear where Barbosa had been shot.

The 15-year-old was tracked down after grabs from surveillance footage from the neighborhood and the bank were shown to neighbors.

After speaking to locals, police identified the suspect as a student in Cross Creek School in Pompano Beach.

Detectives spoke to teachers at the school, three of whom were able to identify the suspect.

Investigators also found evidence on the teen's cellphone which linked him to the crime, including a Google search to an article on the death of the real estate agent which had been read a day after Barbosa's death.

Barbosa, 37, was about to visit tenants at a quadruplex in the 600 block of Northwest 15th Terrace in Fort Lauderdale. He was approached by the armed suspect, who has not been named because of his age, wearing dark clothes and a black ski cap mask

Barbosa was seen in surveillance footage dropping his clipboard and holding his hands up

The teen made his fist court appearance on Saturday, where he appeared confused by the proceedings, the Sun Sentinel reports.

'Uh, I don't understand ... what the big words are,' he told Broward Judge John Murphy.

An obituary for Barbosa says he was born in Brazil before moving to Florida as a child

'I know it says you're 15 years old, but you've been charged as an adult with a first count of murder while engaged in a [second count of] ... robbery with a firearm,' Murphy responded. 'Those are not bondable offenses.'

The teen now faces second-degree murder and armed robbery charges.

Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor explained that the decision was made to charge the boy as an adult so he could secure the best 'treatment, help and services' for his offences.

'These types of decisions are very difficult to make but I believe this is the correct decision in this case and in these circumstances,' Pryor said.

'This young person's issues are so significant that they require treatment, help and services beyond what the juvenile system can provide at this time.'

'Any juvenile charge would mean that the person would be released after three years in the system and could only be kept under supervision in the community until age 21,' he added.

An obituary for Barbosa says he was born in Brazil before moving to Florida as a child.

His family has celebrated him as 'a person who seldom had a bad day', whowas 'fortunate enough to love life and live it to the fullest extent'.
Albany, N.Y.  A sixth woman has accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, according to the Times Union in Albany.

The woman told a supervisor in the Executive Chamber that the governor touched her inappropriately late last year at the governors mansion, according to the paper.

Beth Garvey, acting counsel to the governor, told the Times Union in a statement that all allegations are going swiftly to the investigators appointed by state Attorney General Letitia James.

READ MORE: Cuomo repeats he never touched anyone inappropriately after new accusation

The Times Union said the woman is a member of the Executive Chamber staff, but did not disclose her identity because it could not reach her for comment.

Other Executive Chamber employees reported the complaint to the governors counsel, according to the Times Union.

Five other women have accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior or harassment, including multiple former aides. Cuomo referred the matter to James for an investigation and James appointed attorneys to lead the probe yesterday.

Cuomo has called on New Yorkers to refrain from forming opinions until James investigation is finished. He has apologized for any actions that made people uncomfortable, but also said he never intended offense.

He has also said he never touched anyone inappropriately.

Cuomo is not resigning, despite calls for him to do so from some lawmakers, including some Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins is among the legislators who have said Cuomo should step down. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has said the governor should think about whether he can lead effectively given the allegations.

Locally, Syracuse state Sen. Rachel May has also called on Cuomo to resign. Syracuse state Sen. John Mannion has called the allegations troubling and said he supports James probe. Both are Democrats.

Syracuse Assemblywoman Pam Hunter, also a Democrat, was among the legislators who signed a statement yesterday arguing the attorney generals investigation should be allowed to play out. She is not calling for Cuomos resignation yet.

Republicans in the state Legislature have already introduced a resolution that would start impeachment proceedings against Cuomo. A handful of Democrats have also said theyd support impeachment if Cuomo doesnt resign, but that sentiment does not appear to be widespread among Democrats yet.

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
LONDON  Stiff upper lips? Hardly. Across Britain, THAT interview had everyone talking.

The country awoke Monday to word of Oprah Winfreys sensation-causing sit-down encounter, aired Sunday night in the U.S., with Prince Harry and the former Meghan Markle, the biracial American ex-actress he married in 2018 in a ceremony watched the world over.

It was the first time the two had spoken out at length since stepping back from their royal roles last year, embarking on an odyssey that eventually landed them in Montecito, California, where they are neighbors of Winfrey. Their sometimes-harrowing depiction of their outwardly glittering former lives  privately confronting corrosive racism and a cold and unfeeling palace culture  lit up social media, generated blaring tabloid headlines and yielded contentious exchanges on British chat shows.

By the time the full interview aired on British television Monday evening, almost everyone had already formed an opinion, with reactions ranging from warm sympathy to spitting vitriol.

It was a very soft-serving, soapy interview in Meghans favor, royal biographer Anna Pasternak told the BBC. None of Meghans real behavior was questioned. It was an absolute exercise in torching the House of Windsor.

Some commentators, though, saw a vital and long-overdue airing of attitudes toward nonwhite Britons, both inside and outside royal circles. Los Angeles-born Meghan has a white father and a Black mother.

Racism is normalized, activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu told the BBC after the first interview clips raced around the internet. She said many people want to deny that the royal family as an institution is rooted in colonialism, racism and white supremacy.

Coming on the heels of national hand-wringing over whether the popular Netflix series The Crown had unfairly tarnished the monarchys image, the interview landed like a hand grenade, said British-born Tina Brown, a longtime magazine editor and royal watcher.

It almost sounded like the Saudi royal family, quite honestly, Brown said Monday on CBS, referring to revelations such as Meghan disclosing that she was prevented from seeking inpatient treatment when she found herself plagued by suicidal thoughts.

Reaction to the interview hinted at generational fault lines in British society. Owen Jones, an author and podcaster who is sometimes seen as a voice of British youth, wrote on Twitter that the interview hasnt just exposed the truth about the monarchy, but is currently exposing everyone who doesnt care about either racism or suicide.

Although fallout was swift, the pandemic had a somewhat muffling effect on public response, at least in terms of face-to-face discourse. Because of coronavirus restrictions, most workplaces and businesses remained shuttered, so Britons werent gossiping over pints at the corner pub or bantering around the office water cooler as they otherwise might have done.

Schools did reopen Monday, so parents were out and about with small children on a sunny but brisk day. But the streets of central London were relatively quiet.

Even the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, that bit of royal pageantry that attracts hordes of gawking tourists in normal times, is on hold in keeping with coronavirus restrictions on public gatherings. And the palace stayed mum.

In the interview, Harry and Meghan spoke warmly of 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, but were unsparingly candid in their description of a chilly and powerful institution she heads, one that they said provided little support for a biracial newcomer to the royal family. They also revealed the rifts that have opened up, particularly between Harry and his father, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne; at one point, Harry said, his father wasnt taking his calls.

That explosive disclosure left some politicians eager to avoid alienating either the palace or fans of Meghan and Harry. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, asked about the interview, dodged comment on the most controversial content.

Ive always had the highest admiration for the queen and the unifying role that she plays in our country, and across the Commonwealth, he said during a briefing at Downing Street. As for all other matters to do with the royal family, Ive spent a long time now not commentating on royal family matters, and I dont intend to depart from that today.

But Johnsons main political rival, opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer, said the allegations of racism needed to be taken very, very seriously, and that mental health struggles are too often swept under the rug  not just by the royal family.

For too many years weve been too dismissive, and too willing to put these issues to one side, he said.

Britains tabloid newspapers, the object of some of Harrys most pointed interview remarks, took a customarily raucous tone in summing up what was said. I WANTED TO KILL MYSELF, blared the headline in the Daily Mail, which last month lost a privacy case brought by Meghan. In the interview, Harry recounted that when Meghan was pregnant, a family member brought up the topic of the unborn babys skin color; the Mail called that a sensational claim.

Some of the harshest commentary came from television personality Piers Morgan, who has positioned himself as a staunch defender of royal tradition and the monarchy.

Theyve trashed everything the queen has worked so hard for, and were supposed to believe theyre compassionate? Morgan said on Good Morning Britain.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, with Oprah Winfrey. (Joe Pugliese/Harpo Productions/TNS)TNS

But his belittling of the couple drew a live-on-air clap back from TV host Trisha Goddard, who is Black.

Why is everybody else such an expert about racism against Black people? she asked. Im sorry, Piers, you dont get to call out what is and isnt racism against Black people. Ill leave you to call out all the other stuff you want, but leave the racism stuff to us, eh?

Reviving a familiar theme, the anti-monarchy group Republic renewed its calls for Britain to rid itself of its royal trappings. We said a year ago, when Harry and Meghan quit the family, that this is going to be a bad decade for the royals, the group tweeted, calling the interview devastating.

Jennie Bond, a former royals correspondent for the BBC, called the royal split a personal tragedy for Prince Charles, who is sometimes cast as a villain in the royal saga over the breakup with Diana. Harry said he still hopes to mend the relationship.

Charles has witnessed his sons suffer the trauma of losing their mother and seen their once strong and supportive brotherly relationship fall apart, Bond wrote in the Daily Mirror. It is tough for any parent to watch children feud. To see it happen in public must be gut-wrenching.

Even some who were once enmeshed with the institution of the monarchy expressed a degree of sympathy for Meghans travails. Charles Anson, the queens former press secretary, told the BBCs Today radio program: It is very difficult marrying into the royal family. You come both into a new job as well as to a new relationship, and the level of scrutiny is something that is hard to believe until you actually see it.

The interview raised another British leitmotif: the insular nature of the countrys upper crust. On Sky News, the American-born Viscountess Hinchingbrooke  the American-born Julie Montagu, who became the Viscountess Hinchingbrooke by marriage, was asked what it was like for an outsider to join the British aristocracy.

Its somewhat of an alien world, she said, noting that Americans are often comfortable with the notion of emotional intimacy playing out in public, while hereditary elites, by and large, are horrified by it.

Ive been here now for 20 years, married for 20 years, Montagu said. And its just two different cultures.

____

Christina Boyle, Laura King and Henry Chu of the Los Angeles Times wrote this story.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Chu and special correspondent Boyle reported from London and staff writer King from Washington.

___

2021 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
KYODO NEWS - Mar 9, 2021 - 12:30 | All, Japan, 3/11 Fukushima

Around 90 percent of high school students at six schools in northeastern Japan said they wanted their experiences from the March 11, 2011, quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster to be handed down to future generations in the hope lessons can be learned, a Kyodo News survey found Tuesday.

In the survey that was distributed to 210 students, 89 percent, or 187 students, said they would generally like to hand down their memories to those who did not experience the disaster. Reasons cited included to "prevent a similar disaster," to "not forget the sadness" the disaster caused, or to "express gratitude."

"I want to tell children about how Otsuchi experienced a lot of damage," said a 17-year-old female student from the Iwate Prefecture town.

Iori Shiga, 17, from Fukushima Prefecture expressed gratitude toward his grandparents in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, with whom he stayed after being forced to leave his hometown.

"It's thanks to their support that we have what we have today," he said, adding he wanted to "give back" by handing down his experiences to younger relatives and acquaintances.

The magnitude 9.0-earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant causing the world's worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

More than 15,000 people were killed in the disaster and over 2,000 remain missing. More than 450,000 were evacuated from the area at one point, while about 41,000 evacuees still live away from home as recovery efforts continue.

Asked whether it still hurt to reminisce about the disaster, 26 percent, or 54 students, said it generally did. Reasons given included the change in the infrastructure of towns and cities and the memory of being scared as a result of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.

Twenty one percent, or 45 students, said they were reluctant to talk about the disaster with friends and family. One male student from Iwate Prefecture said, "I can't talk about it easily because they may have had a difficult experience."

However, some said they were able to "overcome" the disaster by talking about it, while others expressed hope that their personal experiences may "be helpful."

The survey was distributed across six high schools in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.
Iran releases British-Iranian aid worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe from house arrest but court summons looms FILE PHOTO: Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is seen in an undated photograph handed out by her family

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has released British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from house arrest at the end of her five-year prison sentence, but she has been summoned to court again on another charge, her lawyer said on Sunday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his government would continue to do everything possible to secure her permanent release so she could return to the UK.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who served out most of her sentence in Tehran's Evin prison, was released last March during the coronavirus pandemic and kept under house arrest, but her movements were restricted and she was barred from leaving the country.

On Sunday the authorities removed her ankle tag.

"She was pardoned by Iran's supreme leader last year, but spent the last year of her term under house arrest with electronic shackles tied to her feet. Now they're cast off," her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told an Iranian website. "She has been freed."

Iran's judiciary was not immediately available to comment about the release. Her family and the foundation, a charity that operates independently of media firm Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters, deny the charge.

Kermani said a hearing for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's second case has been scheduled on March 14.

"In this case, she is accused of propaganda against the Islamic Republic's system for participating in a rally in front of the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009 and giving interview to the BBC Persian TV channel at the same time," Kermani said.

He said he hoped that "this case will be closed at this stage, considering the previous investigation".

MIXED NEWS

In a tweet, Johnson said he was "pleased to see the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffes ankle tag, but her continued confinement remains totally unacceptable".

Story continues

The prime minister added, "She must be released permanently so she can return to her family in the UK, and we continue to do all we can to achieve this".

Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband Richard Ratcliffe told Sky News on Sunday she was "pleased" her ankle tag had been removed but said the news was "mixed" from Iran due to the court summons. Ratcliffe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Antonio Zappulla, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said the foundation was "delighted that her jail term was ended" and that she had told him she was "'ecstatic' to be able to sit in a cafe and have a coffee".

"Nazanin must be given her freedom, as was promised."

British foreign minister Dominic Raab welcomed the removal of the ankle tag but said Iran continued to put Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family through a "cruel and an intolerable ordeal".

"We have relayed to the Iranian authorities in the strongest possible terms that her continued confinement is unacceptable," Raab said in a statement.

Her lawyer told Iranian state TV he had no news on the status of her travel ban.

The detentions of dozens of dual nationals and foreigners have complicated ties between Tehran and several European countries including Germany, France and Britain, all parties to Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with six powers.

The release come as Iran and the United States are trying to revive the deal, which former U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, then reimposing sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded by scaling down its compliance.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai and Elizabeth Piper in London; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Catherine Evans and Frances Kerry)
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 13:11:18|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The Republican National Committee (RNC) on Monday defended its right to use former President Donald Trump's name and likeness for fundraising.

The committee "has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech," RNC chief counsel Justin Riemer in a letter told Trump's lawyer.

He also said on Monday that Trump had "reaffirmed" with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel over the weekend that the former president approved of the RNC's use of his name to raise money.

Trump's lawyers sent letters to the RNC last week, asking it to "immediately cease and desist the unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trump's name, image and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion and/or issue speech."

The clash reflects the tensions that have divided the Republicans since Trump left the White House in January, local analysts say.

The RNC and Trump's campaign worked hand in hand during the 2020 election, including raising money through a joint fundraising committee. Enditem
The worlds top brands across sectors might lose between $93 billion and $223 billion because of a data breach, a first-of-its-kind study by Interbrand and Infosys, called Invisible Tech, Real Impact, has found.

This represents 4-9.6 per cent of their cumulative value.

The study gains significance in the backdrop of yet another massive hack, this time of Microsofts email software, which is estimated to have affected at least 60,000 known victims globally, according to Bloomberg.

The study found that there is a long-term impact of data breaches on brands across sectors. This is because are increasingly embracing digital platforms to improve customer experience, one of the reasons why customers are willing to pay a premium, it pointed out.

This has two implications: For consumers, it implies a quid pro quo sharing personal information with brands for a personalised experience. For brands, it means the real and virtual have to coexist in creating this unique experience.

This is not just true for digital or tech brands like Google and Amazon, but also brands that were focused on offline. For instance, it is estimated that the amount of data shared online at the beginning of 2020 was a staggering 44 zetabytes.

Ameya Kapnadak, chief growth officer of Interbrand India, said the study evaluated parameters like financial value of the company, role and strength of the brand.





There are three factors of particular interest that a breach directly impacts: Presence, affinity, and trust. At the most basic level, a instantly creates negative about the brand, which can create a negative perception in social media and impact presence. In fact, we believe that the presence score is dented for every brand regardless of whether it is digital or physical, he added.

The second significant impact that a breach has is on affinity. In case of a breach, customers might either stop engaging with the brand or reduce engagement.

In Interbrands estimate, a breach might impact affinity scores between 0.5 points and 2 points, depending on the extent to which consumers engage with them digitally. The most significant impact of a breach, however, is on trust, which is at the heart of any strong relationship.

The issue of cyber security is real and important to quantify (this) financially was difficult. This report talks about that and also how other business segments should embrace security. We need to bring deeper commitment to this conversation, said Vishal Salvi, chief information security officer and head cyber security practice, Infosys.

The report said that, traditionally, banks that handle large amounts of customer wealth may see up to 16-17 per cent of their brand value at risk.

Tech brands also have 9-12 per cent of their brand value at risk. The largest of tech brands, for instance, might have up to $29 billion of their value at risk in the event of a breach (Facebook, in fact, lost almost 12 per cent of its brand value in the wake of bad press and regulatory pressures). This, in many ways, represents the ubiquity of these brands in everyday lives, with customers willingly sharing vast amounts of personal data with them, said the study.
The Perspective

Atlanta, Georgia

March 8, 2021

Fahnie S. Kollie

On March 8 of every year, the world usually gathers to reflect and celebrate women's achievements. People around the globe dress in purple, green, and white to celebrate how far women have come in society and how theyve accomplished so much in different spheres of life including politics, business, health, science, education, technology, etc.

Liberia will on Monday join the rest of the world to celebrate this year's IWD under the theme: Choose To Challenge. I have seen several posts on social media in commemoration of this great day. I have also listened to officials of government, civil society actors, women advocates, activists, and Liberians, in general, discussing the historicity and importance of this day.

As we are gearing up for the grand celebration on the 8th of March, I would like to soberly reflect on these questions?

What have women actually achieved especially in the area of political leadership? What is there to celebrate when it comes to women's participation in the decision-making process of our country?

Ride with me as I quickly run you through the hard and sad facts. Liberia has poorly performed in the promotion of women in political leadership. According to the UN Women, Liberia ranks 40 out of 54 African countries in terms of the number of women in parliament and 149 out of 191 countries worldwide.

In 2017, Liberia held its Presidential and Legislative elections which brought Pres. Weah to power. There were 20 candidates vying for the presidency. Interestingly, Madam MacDella Cooper was the lone female candidate in the race. Also vying for 73 seats in the House Of Representatives were 984 candidates of which 156 were women according to the National Elections Commission (NEC).

Shockingly, only nine (9) female candidates were victorious. Sadly, Hon. Munah Youngblood died in 2020 leaving the number of females in the lower house at eight (8). The upper house currently has one female senator (madam Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence) out of 30. This number is expected to increase if Madam Gbotoe Kanneh of Gbarpolu County is certificated by the NEC. During the recently-held mid-term senatorial elections, political parties didn't feature many women candidates.

Interestingly, the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change(CDC) whose standard-bearer is a self-proclaimed feminist-in-chief didn't feature a single female candidate on its party's ticket. As though zero support to promoting women in political leadership is not enough, women who intentionally challenged the odds and struggled to participate were violently attacked on many occasions. This bad precedent violates Article 11 of the 1986 Constitution, Article 7 of CEDAW, and Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The horrible situation with Mrs. Cornelia Kruah-Togba and Sen. Nyonblee Karnga Lawrence during the District #13 by-election is also an instance to reference. The attack on candidate Telia Urey during the District #15 by-election is worth noting. Most recently, the harassment and torture of Madam Gbotoe Kanneh, a female senatorial candidate in Gbarpolu County, remains fresh on the minds of Liberians.

These are just a few cases where woman candidates were viciously attacked. All these statistics clearly show the huge gender gap and discrimination against women in politics in Liberia despite our country being a state party to several regional and international legal instruments which are concerned with women's participation in political leadership. To name a few, The UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); The African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR); The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Sadly, Liberia has reneged on its national, regional, and international commitments in ensuring equal participation for women in politics. IWD is not only a time to celebrate women but also a time to call for change. As we celebrate this year's IWD, we would like to challenge our president, legislators, and justices to step up and ensure that women fully participate in the political process. It is time for our Legislature to swiftly revisit all those legislations that have failed in the past which aimed to promote women's political participation.

We are calling on our Legislature to revisit The Affirmative Action for Equitable Participation and the Representation Act of 2016 which aims to create 21 new seats with 15 reserved for women and three(3) each for persons with disabilities and youths. It must also revisit the 2010 bill entitled, The Gender Equality in Politics Act which provides that there shall be no less than 30 percent and no more than 70 percent representation of each gender in national elected offices and heads of principal and subsidiary organs and structures of each registered political party in Liberia. This bill also provides for a special incentive funding system created by the government and made available to political parties that meet the minimum requirements of women's participation in the party's leadership.

The Legislature and Judiciary must enact/enforce specific penalty(ies) for political parties that would be in non-compliance to section 4.5 of the new elections law (NEL) which was amended by the Legislature in 2014. We are calling on the President to augment the number of female cabinet ministers in his government. We all have a responsibility to ensure that women are afforded an equal and fair opportunity in the political space of our country.

As Constance Motley said, "something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade". I envisage a time when the Liberian Parliament would be like the Rwandan parliament where women account for 61%. I envisage a time where the speaker of the house and the senate pro-tempore will be women. I envisage a time where political parties will feature more women candidates. It is possible!

We can achieve it and we will achieve it. In the words of Michelle Bachelet, "A better democracy is where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected". This is the kind of democracy that we are fighting for. The face of power must change! Women deserve a seat at the decision-making table and we must demand it! Liberia will be a better and safer place when women are given the chance to lead!

Happy International Women's Day to all women! Let's keeping fighting together. Gender equality is achievable! #choosetochallenge #womenleadershipiskey #womenmustlead
After the 5th allegation that Governor Cuomo committed sexual harassment, calls from Democrats and citizens demand his resignation. However, he said no and ignored the charges and pressures from fellow Democrats.

Governor Cuomo: Not to Resign over Sexual Harassment Issues

More women who say that Cuomo allegedly assaulted them gained momentum. Many want him to resign and leave his position vacant; the harassment and nursing home deaths worsened.

Despite the alleged evidence against him for sexual harassment, the New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Sunday said no resignation.

As demands for his resignation intensify, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) defiantly said Sunday that he would not resign. The Democrats of New York face an unsavory situation caused by women's indelicate treatment, reported the Blaze.

He was once held in high esteem by the media and Democrats, but the allegation of Lindsey Boylan (married) was the first to expose sexual harassment. For a time, it was silenced by the nursing home scandal brought it up against. Cuomo's comments on the accusations, but a fifth victim of sexual misconduct by the governor came forward.

Cuomo's defense

He held a press conference to explain his position. He said that there would be no resignation over the multiple harassment charges he called "undemocratic." The event surrounding him were considered too much by Democrats asking him to resign as well. His actions have tarnished the DEMs in New York and opened possible impeachment.

Governor Cuomo added that some lawmakers want him to resign because of sexual harassment charges and more. Seemingly out of touch from having been pointed by his victims for sexual improprieties, with 5 women alleging this is not a joke anymore.

Also read: New York AG Denies Any Independent Probe by Cuomo For Sexual Harassment on Women

He defended his non-resignation stand by saying the people voted him as the state governor, not the Democrats. The allegations were just allegations and unproven for now, adding that resigning is not democratic.

He explained that he must be given due process, with accusations proven by the five accusers he harassed. Cuomo said anyone could make an allegation, but his accusers who felt violated by him might not be telling the truth.

The New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is conducting a probe into the claims made by the five women who were harassed by Cuomo using his position as governor. To get the probe started in an independent investigation, a practicing private lawyer will be tasked with it.

According to CNBC, the special investigator will have the power provided in state law. Cuomo still said no dice, and he will not resign. Democrats are concerned that his presence will not be beneficial for the party.

Democrats are not pleased.

Top Democrats in New York state, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D), and New York Assembly Majority Leader Carl Heastie (D) made statements that say Cuomo needs to resign.

Stewart-Cousins said that the governor's charges are distracting governance. He called the allegations toxic, and even the nursing home fiasco makes it worse. Governor Cuomo is in the midst of a pandemic, and he needs to resign, and Heastie added he's not fit for office.

Related article: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Faces Charges of Sexual Harassment from Former Development Aide

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Ukraine must protect itself from the "linguistic war" waged by the Russian Federation by introducing the English language more actively, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov has said.

He said this at the All-Ukrainian Forum "Ukraine 30. Culture and Media. Tourism" in Kyiv on Tuesday, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Unfortunately, for 30 years we have not defined the Ukrainian language as the primary fundamental language of our independence. The second question is that, unfortunately, for 30 years we have not realized the importance of [] English, which must be the second language in our country in order for you and me to be protected from the attacks from which we suffer today from the Russian Federation," Danilov said.

He stressed that today Russia uses the language issue in its war with Ukraine. According to him, Ukraine can defend itself by actively introducing the English language.

"Young people's knowledge of English is the key to the independence of our state. English should be used from kindergarten, at school," Danilov said, adding that English is currently widely studied in Ukraine, but, unfortunately, few people know and use this language.

He also said that when society is able to freely use English-language publications, then the issue of the "linguistic war" waged by the Russian Federation may gradually disappear.

Earlier, in an interview with Ukrinform, Danilov said that the spread of Russian narratives is dangerous for many countries around the world. In particular, Moscow may try to "protect Russian-speakers," despite the consent of the states where they live, he said.

op
(@FahadShabbir)

Belarus on Tuesday expelled a Polish consul after expressing "strong protest" over his participation in an event dedicated to Poland's "cursed soldiers" who fought against both German and Soviet occupation during World War II

Minsk, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Belarus on Tuesday expelled a Polish consul after expressing "strong protest" over his participation in an event dedicated to Poland's "cursed soldiers" who fought against both German and Soviet occupation during World War II.

"The heroisation of war criminals is for us completely unacceptable," the foreign ministry of ex-Soviet Belarus said in a statement explaining its decision to expel Jerzy Timofejuk, the Polish Consul in the southwestern city of Brest.
Sorry, no valid subscriptions were found for this Publication. Please select from an option below to start a subscription.

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

24 Hour Access
Posts condemning alleged illegal speculative land purchases by workers at the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) are attached to the front gate of LH's Seoul office, Tuesday. Yonhap



By Do Je-hae



The government has launched a massive investigation into ministries and public organizations to look into possible illegal speculative land purchases by employees or family members using confidential information.



The probe comes after it was alleged that a dozen officials at the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) used classified information to purchase about 10 billion won worth of farmland in Siheung and Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province, before the government announced the development of major new town projects in these cities.



But skepticism is rising about the effectiveness and reliability of such a government-led investigation.



At the direction of President Moon Jae-in, the Prime Minister's Office began the investigation by setting up an interagency team. The initial stage of the probe will focus on 23,000 officials, including 9,900 employees at LH and 4,500 at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.









As part of the investigation, the Gyeonggi Nambu Police Agency raided the LH national headquarters in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, and the LH regional offices in Gwacheon and Incheon.



Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun vowed to conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations. "We're going to get to the bottom of the matter, and we're going essentially to block any illegal speculation attempts," Chung said during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. "The government, which is striving to eradicate real estate speculation and stabilize the housing market, is taking this matter very seriously."



President Moon has ordered the probe into the case in order to avoid it from further undermining public trust in his housing policy, which is already considered one of his weakest areas, ahead of crucial by-elections for his ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) to elect mayors in Seoul and Busan.





Police investigators leave a regional office of the Korea Land & Housing Corp. (LH) in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday, after conducting a search and seizure operation connected to allegations of illegal speculative land buying by some LH employees
Days after hundreds of vehicles tied to illegal street racing shut down a freeway near Denver, Colorado Springs City Council members unanimously voted to approve an ordinance Tuesday giving police the authority to seize vehicles that are used in races and other crimes across the city.

Members voted 9-0 to adopt the ordinance, one that police hope will help reduce the exorbitant amount of complaints related to illegal racing, said David Edmondson, commander at Colorado Springs Police Department's Sand Creek Division.

Edmondson cited the massive race last weekend on I-225 in Aurora, where about 600 cars intentionally blocked the roadway to prevent police from getting on the highway and placing the interstate in a gridlock. Drivers were reportedly waving weapons and there were reports of fireworks, according to the Aurora Police Department. After the highway was cleared, authorities warned that the racers could move their speed contests to other parts of the state.

"I think this is an appropriate step for our city to increase the safety of the traveling public and of our neighborhoods," said Councilman Wayne Williams.

In Colorado Springs, illegal racing is a problem that is getting worse, Edmondson said.

Colorado Springs residents made 502 calls to report street racing and officers made 25 calls between Jan. 1, 2020 through Nov. 30, 2020, according to police data. In the same period, 24 tickets were issued, data shows.

The ordinance will also give police the ability to seize a car that is suspected to be involved in prostitution, pimping, public indecency, gang-related crime, drive-by crime and vehicular eluding, Edmondson said.

This year, police cited 134 cases of vehicular eluding, or when a driver ignores an officers signal to pull over. In 2020, police cited 350 cases of vehicular eluding and in 2019, there were 250, he said.

Due to a department policy, officers do not chase cars for a traffic-related charge.

The proposed ordinance, although different from civil forfeiture when police departments can permanently seize vehicles, could still make regaining them expensive as fees accrue.

We are looking for a deterrent and apparently, it is working in some areas, Edmondson said, adding that a similar ordinance has been implemented in Denver and Pueblo.

Edmondson said the police department looked at Denvers ordinance, which was passed nearly two years ago, when developing a strategy for Colorado Springs.

In 2019, Denver police made 58 arrests related to street racing, according to data from Denver Police Department. That number nearly doubled in 2020, with 111 arrests. Data from the Pueblo Police Department was not immediately available.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
County agrees to buy Hedrick-Rhodes VFW post

Henderson County commissioners agreed on Monday night to buy the Hedrick-Rhodes VFW Post 5206 building at Five Points but delayed for now a tougher decision on a $4 million renovation and placed a condition that a parking problem be solved before closing.

All five commissioners said they supported saving the VFW post, once said to be the largest in North Carolina, as a way to honor veterans who served abroad and came home and those who gave all.

"I started to pull out some gory pictures my brother made while he was serving in Iraq to help remind all of us what these veterans of foreign wars have given to us in the community and to this country," said Commissioner Michael Edney, who has spearheaded the county's negotiations to buy the building. "They gave their all. I see this as an opportunity for us to give back to them while at the same time providing a resource for the entire community. I see this as something we have to do. It's just a matter of how we get there." A major renovation "is a separate issue" from buying the property. "We're not tied to that by what we do tonight."

Commissioner Rebecca McCall said: "There has been talk about, 'Well, VFW isn't as active as it was in the past when the building was built,' but there are other things that that building can be used for in addition to providing them a home." She was alarmed, she said, when she watched a show in which interviewers asked middle school students a question about World War II. One responded, "That was when we were with the Germans fighting against the Japanese, right?"

"We should not forget where we came from and how we got here and it's a responsibility of all of us to hand that down to those who follow," she said. "I actually see this building not only as a museum for housing the artifacts from the wars but also a place can take our children on field trips" and show them "what's made us who we are."

Chairman Bill Lapsley said that a new offer to purchase should:

Clarify the purchase price. The contract included a commitment for the county to pay the post's outstanding debt. The amount was not spelled out. "The county has been told that number is appoximately $10,000," he said. "I don't want this board to be surprised by some bill that may show up at the closing that we're not aware of."

Clarify the lease arrangement. The agreement "allows the VFW to continue to operate for an unspecified period of time under a new lease agreement," he said. The motion should stipulate that the county, and not the VFW, would decide what uses go in the building if there is a major renovation.

Delete reference to "negotiations" with the VFW over repairs and improvement. "I don't think the county should be in a position where another party would have control over whatever money is spent," he said. "I don't think we want to leave any question that VFW would have veto power over what this board decides it wants to spend."

Include a solution to the parking shortage. Talks are ongoing among officials with the city of Hendersonville, the School Board and the county on how to acquire enough land for parking. The parking lot in front of the post home is mostly owned by the School Board, not the VFW. "That is not clearly addressed in the contract and I think that's important to protect the county taxpayer that that be included in the agreement that this issue be worked out. If that is not included in an amended contract this board is in no better position than it was 2-3 weeks ago when the issue was brought up."

Mark Morris, a real estate agent who marketed the property for the VFW, said the purchase price of $35,000 would cover "the carrying cost to sell the property ... where they're not out of pocket."

Formed in 1946, the post is named for two Navy sailors who died aboard the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 

Paul H. Hedrick and Mark Alexander Rhodes. Soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who came home from World War II formed the new post and bought property at Five Points for the post home, which opened in 1948.

"The VFW was thriving before Covid," said Morris, who initially listed the property for more than $500,000 last summer. "They lost the ability to raise money. That's what brought a lot of this about. ... There is a 48-star flag that flew at Pearl Harbor in that building. There are photos of Pearl Harbor. The VFW is not trying to dictate how the building should be used. They want these items preseved for all the county. Their first and foremost goal is about preservation of the events that occurred. These people gave. They served in the active theater of war  that's what a VFW is. ... We all fade away but the history is there for generations."

Morris said the VFW is not looking for authority over the renovation process.

"It's a very simple agreement," he said. "They want a place to meet once a month and a place to occasionally hold a dance or a community event. Whatever political issues exist ... those can be overcome for the common good. ... The community in my opinion needs to give back and this is a way to do that."

Lapsley responded, "In no way whatsoever have I disparaged or mislabeled what the veterans of this country did for my freedom and my family's freedom."

In his motion to purchase the property, Edney included some though not all of Lapsley's proposed conditions. The motion, which passed unanimously, authorized the purchase at a price "not to exceed $36,000" and with the understanding that the county "will be the owner but will work in good faith with the VFW ... and seek their guidace and input in the renovation."

"The bottom line is it's the county's project with the taxpayers' money," he said, before stipulating that the county also will not close on the purchase "until the issue of parking has been addressed and rectified."

That bounces the issue back to the School Board and city and county officials, who are trying to untangle a park swap while addressing the parking need for a more robust use of the VFW. The Board of Commissioners on Feb. 1 rescinded its Aug. 19 vote that opened the way for School Board to deal Edwards Park for around half of the city's Berkeley Park. At their meeting a month ago, commissioners said they needed to reverse their earlier decision in order to potentially keep at least part of the Edwards Park land for VFW parking.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Cuomo believes he can fight his way out of this political crisis, allies say. Photo: Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images

In the past year, Andrew Cuomo has been floated as a replacement for Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, scored a reported multimillion-dollar book advance, won an Emmy for his COVID-briefings, and launched a legion of online fans for his just-the-facts style of dealing with the pandemic.

And now, his fate rests with 150 mostly unknown state lawmakers who represent tiny slices of New York in the State Assembly, where any possible impeachment proceeding would begin.

On Sunday, after Cuomo gave a defiant press conference in which he said not only that he wouldnt resign in the wake of a spiraling sexual-harassment scandal and a similarly spiraling nursing-home scandal but that to even ask him to do so would be anti-democratic, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie released a statement that said, It is time for the Governor to seriously consider whether he can effectively meet the needs of the people of New York.

The phrasing was a shade less direct than how Heasties counterpart in the State Senate, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, put it  For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign  and reflects not only Heasties position but that of the entire State Assembly, where Cuomos fate now rests.

Lawmakers in both bodies describe Heastie, despite being just 53 years old and in his perch for six years, as a politician of the old school, an institutionalist and a dealmaker who has been reluctant to get too far ahead of the Assembly Democrats he leads and reluctant to cause further chaos in the state as New York continues to recover from the pandemic and to distribute vaccines.

Carls feeling is that we are in the middle of budget negotiations, it is the biggest single thing we do every year, and we need to focus on the work, said one lawmaker, who like others contacted for this article requested anonymity to discuss the behind-closed-doors conversations within the caucus. We cant let whatever is happening with Cuomo get in the way of governing, not now.

Currently, the caucus is divided. There are a group of Democrats, mostly from communities of color, where Cuomo runs strong, who want State Attorney General Letitia James to continue her investigation and are pledging to withhold judgment until the investigation is complete.

We collectively request that all complaints involving sexual misconduct or otherwise be made with the Attorney General of New York State, a group of two dozen female Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter. We respectfully want to honor all situations simultaneously and believe the Attorney General is best equipped to do that.

Another group  a mix of progressives and moderate Democrats  has been ready to call for Cuomos removal for weeks, almost as soon as the nursing-home scandal broke. This group has been growing slowly but steadily. Whats the old thing about politics, that it is better to be feared than loved? said one lawmaker. Well, Cuomo was never loved and now the fear is gone.

And then there is a third group in the middle  including many members from suburban districts  that is under intense lobbying from members of the Cuomo administration. The intention of the lobbying is to buy time, telling lawmakers that there are no further revelations to come and that what has come out so far does not rise to the level of removal. People close to the governor say that he is simply trying to keep the Assembly from moving forward. If James is allowed to complete her investigation, it could allow Cuomo time to buck up his sagging approval ratings and to oversee a vaccine rollout and a gradual rollback of COVID restrictions that, his team thinks, could make New Yorkers forget about the allegations against him.

He thinks he can fight his way out of this, said one Cuomo ally.

At Cuomos first press conference last week to address the allegations, he deliberately attempted a move that Joe Biden first tried in 2019 when reports surfaced that he regularly invaded the personal space of women he interacted with on rope lines and at political events. Biden apologized and said it was in his nature to attempt to connect with people in that way and said that if social mores were changing, then he was committed to changing along with them. Cuomo too said he meant no harm by his talking with young aides about their sexual and romantic lives and that he too would change.

Ive learned an important lesson, Cuomo said, fighting back tears. Im sorry for whatever pain I caused anyone. I never intended it, and I will be the better for this experience.

The sense I got from speaking with members of the Assembly was that it appeared to be working. There is less enthusiasm there for an impeachment then there is in the Senate, which was reflected by Heasties statement as compared to Stewart-Cousins.

Lawmakers still fear retribution for speaking out against the governor, who suggested at a press conference on Saturday that if allegations against him get publicly aired, then perhaps the same should be true for them. Many Assembly Democrats I spoke with plainly said they do not like the governors bullying style, and wouldnt mind seeing him gone, but wonder about the precedent it would set to remove a sitting governor.

There are some of my colleagues who are loyal to the party, who see this as something cooked up by the Republicans, said one member of the Assembly who favors removal. But there is still just such a culture of fear around here. People care about their budget items and their pet projects, and nobody knows what happens when you cross Cuomo.

Many in Albany expect more revelations to follow, although so far none have arrived with the seriousness of the first two  both allegations that Cuomo made unwanted advances toward female staffers. That pattern has given some Cuomo allies hope that the governor has already weathered the worst of it. If a majority of Assembly members vote for removal, Cuomo would immediately be stripped of his powers while a trial was conducted in the State Senate, where the Democrats have generally been more willing to buck the governor. It would take a two-thirds vote there to convict, which would likely require roughly half of the Democratic caucus signing on. From there, a simple majority could prevent Cuomo from running for governor again, denying him the fourth term he has sought from his first run for governor nearly 20 years ago.

We are just not there yet, said another city-based lawmaker who favors removal. Im not sure when we get there, but we arent there yet.
Pandemic fatigue is gripping all of us and many of us are dealing with those feelings without having the right words to describe it.

2020 has been challenging for all of us and three months into 2021, things are not looking up in the most positive way. While we have vaccines now, the way we live continues to remain the same - stuck indoors with limited social life and exhaustive virtual interaction.

It's tough but we have found ways to cope with the new COVID reality.

However, talking in pure numbers, COVID is resurging in India. The Union Ministry of Health, in its latest data on the surge of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra which suggested that "COVID inappropriate behaviour" is one of the reasons of recent spike in new infections. The Centre added pandemic fatigue is also one of the reasons for surge in COVID infections.

"While the exact causes of surge are not known -- since laxity in COVID-19 behaviour is not specific to the state -- the possible factors are COVID-inappropriate behaviour due to lack of fear of disease, pandemic fatigue; miss outs and super spreaders; and enhanced aggregations due to recent gram panchayat elections, marriage season and opening of schools, crowded public transport, etc.," according to a report shared by the government.

bchd.org

What is pandemic fatigue?

Feelings of sadness, stress, anxiety and exhaustion are some signs of pandemic fatigue.

People have been wearing masks more than ever, staying at home, staying away from family and friends, have changed daily routines and adopted new normals when out in public.

And these public guidelines, issued in best interests, will be around for a long time before the world restores to normalcy.

How is pandemic fatigue impacting us?

Pandemic fatigue can occur when people get tired of these pandemic measures and become less likely to follow public health guidelines. A burnout can happen while adhering to such public health measures for prolonged periods of time.

How people experience pandemic fatigue can be varied but it often presents itself as feeling restless, irritable, lacking motivation, and difficulty concentrating on tasks.

One may notice themselves withdrawing from socialising and in terms of physical symptoms, changes in eating and sleep patterns become noticeable.

sctcc.edu

As the pandemic marches on, mental health has taken a strong hit.

The rapid, unexpected changes brought on by the pandemic have resulted in a series of losses, personal, social and financial. And loss is the greatest driver of depression.

While tackling pandemic fatigue is challenging, it is not impossible. Vaccines have given us hope, but it still doesn't change the fact that millions of people are still struggling in more than one way. The uncertainty still looms large and the sense of disillusionment is natural.

Listening to signs of exhaustion and other natural responses to stress is the first step in the right direction to tackle pandemic fatigue.




Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Staff volunteering to work extra shifts was helping, they said. Mr Olsons warning came after a senior emergency department physician spoke out about emergency departments overflowing with patients waiting to be seen. Dr Peter Allely wrote an exclusive piece for WAtoday, saying hospitals operating in dangerous ways was now the norm. There are not enough beds in our WA hospitals and EDs to accommodate all the sick and injured people who come to us for help every day, Dr Allely wrote.

Loading Other emergency department doctors backed up his warning, saying the staffing ratios accepted in major emergency departments were outrageous and would never be accepted in hospital wards. Mr Olson said management were trying to squeeze their budgets. The hospital executives are not doing nursing a service. Move out of the way to allow people in who are prepared to make decisions. That will be a bit of work, but it will deliver hundreds more positions for the future, Mr Olson said. He said after the COVID-19 shutdown, the government announced hospitals would catch up on elective surgery, but this was being pushed too hard.

They should have said we cant catch up as quickly as you would like, he said. He said nurses who were not involved in patient care bolstered the nursing ratio numbers. Executives are not brave enough to be looking after the patients and speak out, Mr Olsen said. People are going to die if they keep this up. A Health Department spokeswoman said health service providers monitored and managed staffing on a shift by shift basis to address shortages and ensure safe care.

With increased absenteeism and reduced access to agency staff this has sometimes meant nurses volunteering to work double-shifts or overtime or nurses from non-clinical areas or supplementary staff, for example, education going to the wards to assist, she said. There is pressure on beds across the system but the Department and health service providers are supporting nurses to deliver safe care. The spokeswoman said staff who called in sick were replaced and critical care areas were always prioritised. Executives are not brave enough to be looking after the patients and speak out. People are going to die if they keep this up. Mark Olson, Australian Nursing Federation Despite unseasonably high demand staffing has been safely managed by utilising casual staff and additional shifts by part-time staff, she said.

Premier Mark McGowan said were doing a lot of things to try and deal with the situation when pressed on ambulance ramping figures and bed block. He said enhanced cleaning of hospitals was impacting on waiting times and pointed to an additional 77 emergency department beds and a liaison officer in EDs working between St John Ambulance officers and the emergency rooms as measures being taken. He would increase bed capacity by 300 across the system if re-elected. On the weekend he announced a Labor government would expand the nursing graduates program to create 400 additional nurse placements over two years. Australian Medical Association WA president Andrew Miller said blaming cleaning and more mental health patients was just lies now. The hospitals are blocked because of a lack of beds, Dr Miller said.

Im seeing for the first time senior doctors that want to get out because the system is distressingly overcrowded and they are not giving the level of care they should be. Sometimes the reason more beds couldnt be opened was there were not enough nurses. And paramedics are sitting there watching people deteriorate in their ambulances, Dr Miller said. The bureacracy is good at shifting the blame. Everyone points at each other and says its a terrible problem  and we need another meeting. The AMA WA is calling on the state to make use of many more of the nurses graduating by committing to 500 additional nurses each year, rather than leaving them unemployed.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cairn Energy Plc on Tuesday said preparatory identification of assets belonging to the Indian government has begun in multiple countries. The company will go to court to seize the assets, if its arbitration award is not honoured. The company could also monetise the award, with the potential to transfer it to third-party funds.

It said the arbitration award, which stood at $1.7 billion ($1.2 billion plus interest currently totalling $490 million), was enforceable against India-owned assets in over 160 countries that have signed and ratified the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, the company said in a presentation after announcing results on Tuesday.

Cairn has already taken steps to have the award recognised in certain major jurisdictions in which Indian sovereign assets have been identified. We have to register the award in various countries before thinking of taking the next step, which would be to go to court with an application to seize the assets belonging to the Indian government, said a person close to the development.

Cairn said the company has identified items/assets that belong to the Indian government, should it need to take action to protect the interests of its shareholders who have been waiting seven years for clarity on this issue.

The asset could be pledged against recourse or non-recourse financing. It said direct discussions on settlement mechanisms with the Indian government were underway, even through diplomatic channels. The award, it said, was enforceable in more than 160 jurisdictions under the 1958 New York Convention.

Cairn said it was extremely confident that satisfaction of the award would be achieved  either by negotiated settlement or by enforcement against Indian assets (with potential financing and risk-sharing options available to accelerate access to cash recovered through enforcement).

However, neither the route to recovery is sufficiently well defined in terms of the timing nor the amount of expected settlement to provide the virtual certainty required under the auditing norms. The receivable under the award therefore, remains classified as a contingent asset at this time, said the company after its results.

Cairn, however, said it was engaged directly with the Indian government, following the unanimous arbitration decision under the UK-India Investment Treaty to award Cairn $1.2 billion plus interest. We have engaged with the Government of India regarding adherence to the ruling and are pursuing all avenues to protect our shareholders rights to the value of the award, said Simon Thomson, chief executive, Cairn Energy Plc, in a statement.

In the corporate outlook for 2021, it mentioned all necessary steps were being taken to ensure access to the value of the award. The tribunal ruled unanimously that India had breached its obligations to Cairn under the UK-India Bilateral Investment Treaty and it awarded to Cairn damages of $1.2 billion plus interest and costs, which immediately became payable. The total due at the end of the year was $1.7 billion.



Cairns engagement with the Government of India on its arbitration award will continue in parallel with pursuing options of enforcement and monetisation of the award. Among the risks to the companys finances, it listed the inability to promptly and fully secure or repatriate value from India.

On December 23, Cairn announced the Geneva tribunal had ruled in its favour a claim against the Indian government. The company quoted the tribunal ruling, saying the application to Cairn of the retrospective tax amendment introduced by the Indian government was grossly unfair, discriminatory and in breach of the fair and equitable treatment standard of the treaty.
[March 09, 2021] MetroNet Has Begun Construction of 100% Fiber Optic Network in Fayetteville, North Carolina

MetroNet began construction of its fiber infrastructure soon after announcing its partnership with Fayetteville to provide a 100 percent fiber optic network service to residents and businesses. Construction began in mid-February and marked the start of the company's two-year, $70 million investment in the community. "We have received a tremendous welcome from the Fayetteville community, and we're excited to bring the power of our 100 percent fiber optic network to homes and businesses throughout Fayetteville," said John Cinelli, MetroNet President. "We thank the city and economic development leaders of Fayetteville for making this possible." Construction began in Fayetteville and will be followed shortly by the towns of Hope Mills, Linden, Wade, Stedman, Godwin, Eastover, Falcon, Spring Lake, Vander and much of unincorporated Cumberland County, as well as portions of Hoke County, such as the communities of Raeford and Rockfish. Residents will receive communication by mail about the construction activity in their neighborhood 30 days prior to the start. MetroNet also provides additional messaging, such as yard signs, to let residents know when the temporary construction process is beginning in their neighborhood. MetroNet crews are marked by ID tags and branded vehicles. For more information on the status of construction in your area, please visit www.MetroNetinc.com/construction.



As construction continues throughout the Fayetteville area, customers may sign up for presale which will place them on the top of the list when installations are available in their area. Those interested in MetroNet services may visit www.MetroNetinc.com/signup to be notified when their address is available for installation and to sign up for presale. MetroNet will have a storefront located in Fayetteville that will serve as the command center for customer service and sales. Customers will be able to visit the store to speak with customer service representatives and sign up for services.

High-resolution photos, including examples of neighborhood markers and construction communication pieces available upon request. About MetroNet: MetroNet is a 100 percent Fiber Optic Company headquartered in Evansville, Indiana. The customer-focused company provides cutting-edge fiber optic communication services, including high-speed Fiber Internet, full-featured Fiber Phone (News - Alert) , and Fiber IPTV with a wide variety of programming. MetroNet started in 2005 with one fiber optic network in Greencastle, Indiana, and has since grown to serving and constructing networks in more than 100 communities across Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina. MetroNet is committed to bringing state-of- the-art telecommunication services to communities - services that are comparable or superior to those offered in large metropolitan areas. MetroNet has been named in the top 50 small and medium companies on Glassdoor and has been honored with a Glassdoor Employees' Choice Award recognizing MetroNet among the Best Places to Work in 2020. For more information visit www.MetroNetinc.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005161/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
New Delhi: A day after the hullabaloo around celebrating International Women's Day settled, the issue of safety and security of women has once again taken center stage. Even as the nation held seminars, gave bouquets to women, distributed gifts, prizes for women power but it did not change the status of women.

On Tuesday, Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary spoke about the struggles of women and how no woman can get her right until she first shows courage. The report is from Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur where a rape survivor broke her silence after 26 years to file an FIR against the perpetrators.

The incident took place in 1994 when the survivor was barely 12 years old. Two brothers Naqi Hasan, 25, and Guddu, 22, who lived in the neighborhood repeatedly raped her for a period of one year. She became pregnant, as she was too young to undergo abortion she had to give birth, but fearing slander the child was given up for adoption to another family.

The woman got married later at the age of 20 but somehow her husband got to know of her past and he filed for divorce. On the other hand, the victim's son who grew up in an adoptive family was sent back to his mother at the age of 11.

He kept asking for answers but his mother kept him in the dark, finally in 2020 the mother revealed the truth about the rape incident. The son pledged to fight against the injustice and prepared his mother for the fight. The woman lodged an FIR with the police for the rights of her son to determine who was the father of child.

However, it was not easy to get the case registered after 26 years. For six months her pleas were not heard and then eventually the Shahjahanpur district court acted on a plea and ordered for a case to be filed.

On February 12, 2021, the court ordered a case to be registered after which the FIR has filed on March 4.

The police has so far questioned one of the accused in the case. The second accused is yet to be questioned. After the woman's complaint, the DNA test of the son and both the accused will be conducted. So that it can be concluded who is the real father and the accused can be punished.

In this case, a DNA test can become the biggest basis. If the father-son relationship is established, then this case will proceed.

A case has been registered under Section 376 (2) of the Indian Penal Code under which the accused can be sentenced to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Now it remains to be seen whether the accused will be punished and what will be the quantum of punishment.

BAY CITY, MI - Communities in Bay County are seeing green as the first round of tax revenue payments stemming from recreational marijuana sales begin making their way into the books.

The Michigan Department of Treasury announced that it is starting to distribute nearly $10 million in funding to more than 100 municipalities and counties as a part of the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act. The payments are based on taxes imposed and collected on the sale of adult-use marijuana products in fiscal year 2020.

The revenue generated from marijuana taxes and fees is important to our local governments, State Treasurer Rachael Eubanks said. In this extraordinary time, our staff is working to get those payments to impacted municipalities and counties. Every dollar helps right now.

In total, 38 cities, seven villages, 21 townships and 38 counties began receiving payments the first week of March every licensed retail store and microbusiness within its jurisdiction. This means each eligible municipality and county will receive around $28,000 this time around for every licensed retail store or microbusiness, according to the Department of Treasury.

However, Bay County and its local governments blew past that average amount to higher levels.

Bay County received $420,019.80 worth of recreational marijuana tax payments, ranking second in the state for the county with the highest amount of collected payments. Washtenaw County came out on top with $616,029.04 in county marijuana tax revenue.

Its definitely welcome news and its badly needed revenue, said Bay County Executive Jim Barcia.

Barcia noted the county has no role in approving provisioning centers or dispensaries. However, the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act makes it so that a tax revenue allocation of 15% is set for disbursement to counties.

This is a little shot in the arm for rural counties, said Barcia.

As for the countys municipalities, Bay City received $84,003.96 a marijuana tax revenue payment. Bangor Township received $280,013.20 and Pinconning brought in $56,002.64 worth of revenue payments.

Bangor Township Supervisor Glenn Rowley explained that seeing the revenue come in was a way of seeing the rest of the story for the township. He said that Bangor once grappled with making the decision to opt into medical and then later recreational sales, weighing the pros and cons before ultimately opening its doors to this new type of commerce.

So this big rolling of the dice, was this worth it or not, said Rowley. I would say, hands down, it is worth it.

So far there are no set plans for what Bay County and its municipalities are planning to use the money for, but local leaders have been tossing around a few ideas.

Rowley said that Bangor has approximately 85% of its roads that need to be replaced and that this recent revenue payment would be a little band-aid on a huge cancer when it came to road repairs.

I have also two very old fire departments that are falling apart, he said, Ive got fire trucks that need attention greatly, Ive got six miles of cast iron water main that needs to be replaced, so Ive got no shortage of need for money or projects that need to be done.

Its not going to go as far as we would like, but its better than nothing, right? added Rowley.

Barcia said that the county has yet earmarked the money for anything in particular. However, he said he would hope to see it used to bolster economic development and recovery in Bay County.

It is my hope that the Bay County board consider using at least a portion of the funds for further economic development in the county, Barcia said.

Its important that we redouble our efforts on job creation and economic development to attract a younger workforce to Bay County as well keeping intact our younger generation here so that they dont move away for better opportunities elsewhere, as weve seen with a declining population, he added. We need to try to reverse that to any extent that we possibly can.

Barcia also suggested how this financial boost could possibly be used for area businesses that faced major hurdles during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our local businesses have struggled to stay afloat in the past year because of COVID restrictions, so this money may provide a possible lifeline to address the significant challenges our businesses have faced, said Barcia.

For the state of Michigans 2020 fiscal year, more than $31 million was collected in total from the 10% adult-use marijuana excise tax, according to the treasury. Combined with fees, there was a total of $45.7 million available for distribution to local municipalities.

Aside from the nearly $10 million in disbursements to municipalities and counties, around $11.6 million will be sent to the School Aid Fund for K-12 education and another $11.6 million to the Michigan Transportation Fund, upon appropriation, according to the Department of Treasury. The remaining $12.5 million amount will be used toward start-up and administrative costs, according to the department.

In total, more than $341 million in adult-use marijuana sales was reported for fiscal year 2020 to the Michigan Department of Treasury.

More from MLive

Big marijuana growing facility approved by Bay City Commission

Marijuana grower buys 5-acre industrial site in Bay Citys South End, plans to create 100 jobs

Jackson-based Rair opens new $1.5 million marijuana store in Bay City

8 things to know if you want to grow or sell marijuana in Saginaw

Salt mine and marijuana growers cause Bay City to consider utility deposits for large businesses
Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Put kids in cages? Do that yourself, and youll get 25 to life. Do that as Obama, Trump, and Biden, and you geta bye, condemnation, and a bye, respectively.

Originally built by Obama in 2014, controversial holding facilities housed whole families behind chain-link fencing as they awaited immigration hearings. Under Trump, kids were separated from their families and kept in those same inhumane cages, prompting protests leading to a rare policy reversal, except for unaccompanied minors. To little outcry, Biden (critical of Trumps cages during the recent campaign) has now perpetuated the practice, disingenuously insisting that its for the kids own safety during the COVID crisis. (Hardly social distancing!)

If only border cages were the sole threat to vulnerable kids. Some young migrants never make it to the relative safety of immigration facilities, being caged as sex-slaves and scarred for life. Far less abused, but often scarred in more subtle ways, are the kids who end up in lifes many other (invisible) cages.

Merely consider the kids separated from their parents through divorce. Dare repeat the mantra: The kids are doing well? Rarely is that completely true (the worst cases being caged in alcohol and drugs, unable to cope.) Even worse off are the kids whose parents (typically fathers) are missing in action, perhaps not even known. In the inner-city, particularly, kids inescapable social cages all too often end up being, not just cages, but cold, harsh prison cells.

Cages come in many disguises. Increasingly, they are Americas classrooms, in which the abuse comes via cynical indoctrination of a captive audience of innocents. When I wrote Sodoms Second Coming thirty years ago, the groundbreaking book being read to youngsters was Heather Has Two Mommies. Three decades on, kids are reading The GayBCs, in which B is for Bi; I for Intersex; N for Non-binary; P for Pan; and T for Trans. Immorality has its own depraved open-borders policy in which the only cages are for those who dare dissent.

Comes now the dismaying news that the nations largest Evangelical adoption and foster care agency (Bethany) will be offering its services to LGBT parents, with the love and compassion of Jesus to the many types of families who exist in our world today. Presumably, thats the same Jesus who said, It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble (Lk. 17:2).

Little surprise, the second coming of Sodom has landed squarely in the faith community, now willing to sacrifice innocent children on the altar of political correctness, caging them in perverted home environments. Loving parents they may be  perhaps more loving than many normal parents  but two daddies or two mommies is, well, contrary to nature. (If you have to tell em, you cant tell em!)

Pity that the King James Version has Jesus saying (archaically), suffer the little children to come unto me. The perversion being foisted on todays innocents is nothing less than child abuse, the suffering from which will drive a generation into the arms of anyone but Jesus.

Worried about your kids and grandkids? Now, more than ever, its time for bedtime stories in which B is for Bible; G for God; J for Jesus; L for love; and T for Truth. Only these crucial letters can protect our endangered kids from whatever abusive cages might await them.
U.S. President Joe Biden continues Donald Trumps regime change policy towards Venezuela. From yesterdays press briefing by the State Department:

QUESTION: Staying in Latin America, is it fair to say that the Biden administration is pursuing regime change in Venezuela? MR PRICE: It is fair to say that the Biden administration supports the democratic aspirations of the people of Venezuela. Our overriding goal is to support a peaceful democratic transition in Venezuela through free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections, and to help the Venezuelan people rebuild their lives and their country. We know at the root of much of the misery and the suffering of the people of Venezuela stands one individual, and we have been very clear that Nicolas Maduro is a dictator. His actions have not been in the best interests of the people of Venezuela. It hasnt just been the United States that has been saying that. It has been the United States and many of our closest partners both in the region and well beyond. QUESTION: So its basically  its basically a nicer way of saying Maduro must go? MR PRICE: We believe and we support the democratic aspirations of the people of Venezuela. That is why we are committed to supporting the people through humanitarian measures and also targeting regime officials and their cronies involved in human rights abuses and corruption. Yes.

The New York Times is, as usual, supportive of such illegal policies. It continues to disinform its readers about economic problems caused by these. Today it reports on a minor measure Biden took with regards to Venezuelans in the United States:

As many as 320,000 Venezuelans living in the United States were given an 18-month reprieve on Monday from the threat of being deported, as the Biden administration sought to highlight how dangerous that country has become under President Nicolas Maduro.

The fourth paragraph is supposed to describe Venezuelas current 'danger':

Venezuela is mired in one of the worlds worst humanitarian crises under Mr. Maduro, who, through a mix of corruption and neglect, oversaw the decay of the countrys oil infrastructure that had propped up its economy. The United Nations has estimated that up to 94 percent of Venezuelas population lives in poverty, with millions of people bereft of regular access to water, food and medicine.

Isnt there something missing in the above? Was the 'decay of the countrys oil infrastructure really caused by Maduro? Or did the U.S. have something to do with that?

Six paragraphs further down we learn what really is causing Venezuelas problems:

[O]ne of the officials who briefed reporters on Monday on condition that he not be identified said the Biden administration was reviewing whether to lift a raft of economic sanctions that experts believe have cost Venezuelas government has much as $31 billion since 2017. The official said that review would assess whether the economic pressure exacted against Mr. Maduro and his government was worth the risk of exacerbating the dire living conditions for Venezuelans.

So it was Maduros 'corruption and neglect plus the minor issues of $31 billion practically stolen by the U.S.

We can be sure that the outcome of the sanction review will be negative. If there will be any lifting of sanctions it will only be on the margins.

A similar pattern of NYT disinformation could be observed with regards to regime change in Brasil. As FAIR notes today:

The Brazilian Supreme Court on March 8 dismissed all charges against former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva made during the Lava Jato investigation, a little over a month after the investigation was officially ended. The termination came shortly after the Supreme Court admitted 6 terabytes of leaked Telegram chats between public prosecutors and judges as evidence in the case.

...

The Times rarely applied any scrutiny to the investigation until Lulas political imprisonment was imminent. Serious crimes committed by [judge] Moro and the taskforce, such as the 2016 wiretapping of Lulas defense teams law offices, were either glossed over or not mentioned at all. In article after article, the Times failed to share important information on the investigation. This helped normalize the 2016 coup and the removal of Lula from the 2018 presidential elections, which in turn opened the door for a neofascist/military takeover of Brazil.

The Times also failed to note the heavy U.S. involvement in the case:

Due to the Telegram leaks, everyone now knows Lula is innocent, but long before this, there was ample evidence of a political witch hunt. By ignoring or downplaying issues that raised doubts about Lava Jato, while giving the heros treatment to Sergio Moro, the Times became an active participant in this witch hunt.

...

Years of censorship by omission, one-sided reporting and lionizing far-right prosecutors as they worked closely with the FBI, helped to destroy the image of a political party that, among other things, moved 26 million people above the poverty line, was the world leader in greenhouse gas reduction, and implemented one of the most ambitious affirmative action programs in history.

But Lula is free and we are happy to hear that he feels well:

In a conversation recorded before the justices decision, but with the possibility it created already in mind, I talked with Lula about what he learned in prison, how he reads the rise of fascism around the world, what he thinks progressives must do to win national elections as he did, and whether he is ready for another go at the presidency. I say every day that I am 75 but I feel that I have the energy of a 30-year-old, he told me. And I am as horny as a 21-year-old, so I can say to you that Im alive, fighting for democracy.

There is more from Lula at this link.
Large protests took place yesterday in Myanmars major cities, including Yangon and Mandalay, and towns across the country, demanding an end to military rule. Shops, businesses, factories and government offices remained shut following a call for an extended nationwide work stoppage. Thousands joined the demonstrations despite bloody repression by the army and police over the past week that has claimed at least 60 lives.

Protesters take positions behind a makeshift barricade as armed riot policemen gather in Yangon, Myanmar, Monday, March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)

On Sunday night, security forces occupied at least 20 government universities, schools and hospitals, including in Yangon, Mandalay, Magway, Monywa and Ayeyarwady. According to the Irrawaddy, police and soldiers opened fire and used percussion grenades in a bid to intimidate people who had gathered outside a teaching hospital in the North Oakkalapa Township of Yangon to oppose its use by the military.

Under conditions of heavy censorship, including the detention of dozens of journalists since the February 1 coup, details of yesterdays strikes and protests are sketchy.

The Bangkok Post reported: From Monday morning, workers and other protesters marched in the streets of such major cities as Yangon and Mandalay, according to local media. Most banks remained closed even though Myanmars central bank had urged them to resume operations.

According to Nikkei Asia: Most banks and businesses [in Yangon] were closed on Monday and transport remained largely suspended as more companies, local and foreign, said they were halting their operations. Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, which handles significant cargo in and out of Yangon, said it had suspended all operations for at least a week until March 14.

France 24 reported that two protesters had been killed when security forces fired stun grenades, tear gas and live rounds in the northern town of Myitkyina. A witness told Reuters that the two had been shot in the head and died on the spot. A third person was killed during a protest in the town of Phyar Pon in the Irrawaddy Delta, according to local media.

France 24 cited witnesses in Yangon who reported that only a few small tea-shops were open Major shopping centres were closed and there was no work going on at factories. It also reported that protests in the southern town of Dawei took place under the protection of the Karen National Union, one of the countrys armed ethnic groups that have been engaged in long-running conflicts with the military.

A grouping of 18 trade union federations and workers associations issued a joint call on Sunday for an extended nationwide work stoppage to save our democracy. The unions covering industrial, agricultural, garment, transport, railway, mining and energy workers appealed to civic leaders and workers, union and non-union, to join the strikes.

To continue economic and business activities as usual, and to delay a general work-stoppage, will only benefit the military as they repress the energy of the Myanmar people. The time to take action in defense of our democracy is now, the statement declared. It called for an expansion of the widespread Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) to implement a full extended shutdown of the Myanmar economy.

The CDM, which began among government teachers, medical staff and civil servants, has impacted on the ability of the junta to operate. A Frontier Myanmar article published yesterday explained that although the CDM has come to encompass street protests and public boycotts of military-owned products, at its core is a strike by tens of thousands of public servants, which began among medics two days after the coup.

Across the country, doctors, nurses, teachers, railway workers and staff from a range of government ministries and enterprises have been refusing to go to work, in order to make it impossible for the new junta to govern. They have been joined by private sector employees in sectors such as banking and transport that are considered crucial to the regimes survival.

The article explained that the movement had been partly inspired by uprisings internationally, particular in Tunisia in 2010 and 2011. While difficult to gauge the overall extent of participation, a deputy director general at the Ministry of Electricity and Energy told Frontier Myanmar that between 50 and 90 percent of all staff across the ministrys 11 departments had joined the CDM, which may have contributed to a nationwide power cut on March 5.

The junta, which is desperate to end the rebellion among civil servants, issued another threat over the weekend to sack anyone who did not turn up to work on Monday. A physician told Frontier Myanmar: I dont care if I face action for my decision; Im ready to face the worst. The goal is to fight for the return of an elected government. We will continue with CDM until that happens.

The widespread stoppages reported yesterday were testimony to the determination of the working class to resist military rule in the face of increasingly brutal repression. Protesters are being shot and killed or injured in the streets, while the security forces conduct nightly raids and arrests of activists. On Sunday, a local official for the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD), Khin Maung Latt, died in police custody from injuries that strongly suggested that he had been severely tortured.

Workers and young people have displayed considerable courage in the face of heavily armed police and troops, as has been the case in the previous revolts against military rule. The fatal weaknesses of the past protest movements has been their political domination by the NLD and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who fears the threat posed by a mass movement of the working class to bourgeois rule more than she does the Burmese generals.

In 1988, a huge strike movement brought the military junta, which had ruled the country for decades, to its knees. Suu Kyi, hailed in the West as a democracy icon, played the crucial role allowing the military to suppress the working class. At the high point of the movement, Suu Kyi intervened to urge protesters to put their faith in the militarys promise of elections and not to lose their affection for the army. Her actions provided the military with a much-needed breathing space to prepare a savage crackdown in which thousands were killed. Having stabilised its rule, the military ignored the results of the 1990 election and arrested Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders.

For the past decade, after a US-engineered deal with the military, Suu Kyi and the NLD have functioned as the political front for the military. While nominally the NLD formed the government after the 2016 election, the military retained the levers of powerby stacking the parliament with its appointees and retaining control of key ministries including defence, the police and borders. Suu Kyi infamously defended the armys atrocities against the Muslim Rohingya minority.

Workers can place no faith in Suu Kyi and her NLD, which represent a rival faction of the bourgeoisie to the military, nor for that matter the trade unions, which, while opposed to the junta, are seeking to divert the rising tide of opposition into the arms of the NLD. The fight for genuine democratic rights is bound up with the struggle for the social rights of the working class, which confronts a deepening economic and social crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This requires the building of independent organisations of the working class and a fight for socialism in Myanmar and internationally.
New Delhi:

Two gentleman cadets of the Indian Military Academy (IMA) within a span of 48 hours died after being taken ill while participating in 10-kilometer run during their training session.

Dipak Sharma and Nabin Kumar Chhetri were among seven cadets who suffered from dehydration and were hospitalised after the exercise Pahla Kadam  a training session organised for first term cadets of the academy, the Army said.

Seven gentleman cadets had collapsed during a routine 10 kilometer run out of which five were admitted in Military Hospital at Dehradun. The condition of five cadets are said to be stable

Chettri died on Sunday morning due to multiple organ failure.

According to reports the cadets were at a training camp known as Pahla Kadam being conducted in the general area of Badshahi Bagh in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. This was the first camp for the cadets who had joined as direct entery recruits (after graduation) are taken to on joining the academy.

According to any Army statement, Seven cadets fell unwell due to dehydration during runback exercise. All cadets were administered first-aid by the medical officer present and evacuated with paramedic support to military hospital, Dehradun.

The statement further added that Sharma whose condition was critical was rushed to the nearest medical centre, Lehman Hospital at Vikashnagar. He died around 1:30 pm on August 18 and Chhetri on August 20 at 11:50 pm.
(@FahadShabbir)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will meet the press at the Great Hall of the People after the conclusion of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress on Thursday afternoon

BEIJING (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will meet the press at the Great Hall of the People after the conclusion of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress on Thursday afternoon.

Li will take questions from Chinese and foreign reporters via video link in consideration of epidemic prevention and control and public health protection.

The press conference will be broadcast live by the China Media Group and on xinhuanet.com.
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

BUTLER, Ala.  The son of a slain Alabama preacher has been arrested on a murder charge in the killing of his father and the attempted slaying of his mother, authorities said.

Shannon Xavier Pearson, 25, was arrested Monday by federal marshals in Plano, Texas, the Choctaw County Sheriffs Office said in a news release posted on social media. He was being held on a cash bond of $1 million in the shooting death of his father, the Rev. Tim Pearson.

Pearson also is charged with trying to kill his mother, Melony Pearson, who was seriously injured, the statement said.

Deputies were called about the shooting around midnight on Jan. 8. Melissa Breauna Hill, 18, surrendered to authorities on the day of the shooting and was charged with murder and attempted murder, authorities said. Her bail also was set at $1 million cash.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

An attorney representing Hill, Erica Kemmer, said she and her client were pleased Pearson had been charged. We have faith in the criminal justice system and the people of Alabama to ensure that justice is served in this matter, she said.

Court records werent yet available to show whether Pearson had a lawyer.

Pearsons father was pastor of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, located in Melvin near the Mississippi state line.
The EU's vaccine roll-out has hit another stumbling bloc today as Johnson & Johnson became the latest drug-maker to warn of supply issues just days before its jab is due to be approved for use in the bloc.

Johnson & Johnson is signed up to deliver 55million doses of its one-shot Covid vaccine to the EU by June, but an official in Brussels said the company is 'under stress' trying to fulfill the order.

It comes after AstraZeneca cut its delivery to the EU in the first quarter of this year, sparking an almighty row with Eurocrats. Supplies are set to increase from April, but Astra has again warned deliveries will be short of what was expected.

Pfizer has also cut supplies to the bloc, but pledged to make up for it with larger-than expected deliveries later this year.

That has left the EU desperately short on jabs and helming one of the slowest roll-outs in the world - with medical regulators starting the process of approving Russia's Sputnik V jab for use last week in an attempt to boost supplies.

But those efforts also ran into trouble this week after the boss of Europe's medical regulator likened the jab to 'a game of Russian roulette', sparking yet another row.

The EU's vaccine roll-out has been plagued by red tape and supply issues which has seen the bloc fall well behind the likes of the UK in the number of jabs dished out

Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine is due to be approved for use in the EU this week, has now become the latest drug-maker to warn of supply issues

Europe has given first doses of Covid vaccines to just six per cent of its population so far as opposed to 33 per cent in the UK.

Johnson & Johnson issued its warning to the EU last week, an official involved in the talks told the Reuters news agency, saying that issues with the supply of vaccine ingredients and equipment were behind the problem.

EU to vaccinate its own staff in private clinics EU staff at its Brussels HQ will be vaccinated in private clinics away from the rest of the Belgian population. The clinics will open on March 22 as Belgium rolls out jabs to those with underlying health conditions, having previously limited their use to frontline workers and the elderly, Politico said. Eurocrats will be given their jabs at the same time as the rest of the Belgian population, but at clinics reserved only for EU staff, an official said. The Commission previously estimated that nearly 10 percent of its Brussels-based staff - 2,000 out of 21,000 people - qualify in the vulnerable category, but are asking all workers to prove their health status before they can quality, the official added. Advertisement

The American firm stressed that hitting the target is not impossible, but urged officials to temper their expectations.

European regulators are due to grant approval to the jab on Thursday, making it the fourth to be approved for use on the continent alongside Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca and Moderna.

Officials had hoped to roll the jab out in April when Europe's mass vaccination programme is finally set to gather pace after months of delays.

It is unclear if the delivery shortfall would affect how soon the vaccine can be used. The EU has ordered 200million doses of J&J's vaccine in total.

Meanwhile Christa Wirthumer-Hoche, head of the European Medicines Agency's board, added to Europe's woes after sparking a row with the makers of Russia's Sputnik V jab - just days after her agency began the process of approving it.

Several EU countries - Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic among them - have granted emergency approval to the jab, effectively bypassing the EMA.

Ms Wirthumer-Hoche likened the process to 'playing a game of Russian roulette', while urging other EU countries to wait for her agency to sign off on the vaccine.

Her remark caused fury at The Gamaleya Center, maker of the Sputnik jab, which demanded an apology - saying she has no right to undermine confidence in their vaccine and that her remarks cast doubt on the EMA's impartiality.

'We demand a public apology from EMAs Christa Wirthumer-Hoche for her negative comments on EU states directly approving Sputnik V,' they tweeted.

'Her comments raise serious questions about possible political interference in the ongoing EMA review. Sputnik V is approved by 46 nations.

'The EMA did not allow such statements about any other vaccine. Such comments are inappropriate and undermine credibility of EMA and its review process. Vaccines and EMA should be above and beyond politics.

'Europeans deserve an unbiased review as was undertaken by 46 other countries.

Christa Wirthumer-Hoche, head of the European Medicines Agency board, has caused a row with Russian vaccine-makers

'After postponing Sputnik V review for months, EMA does not have the right to undermine credibility of 46 other regulators that reviewed all of the necessary data.'

Amid its scramble for jabs, the EU has also resorted to blocking shipments destined for other countries using export laws that were hastily approved in January amid its row with AstraZeneca.

Last week, Italy became the first to use the measures - with Brussels' approval - barring a shipment of 250,000 vaccines from leaving to Australia, a move that Canberra branded 'frustrating'.

And on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen - who was in charge of procuring Europe's vaccines - warned that the move was not 'a one-off'.

She said that AstraZeneca had delivered fewer than 10 per cent of the vaccines promised in the first quarter of the year, and while supplies were due to increase drastically from April, she added that second quarter orders will also fall short.

That is why Italy found it necessary to block the vaccine shipment, she suggested, while adding that the move could be used elsewhere.

The EU has received some 50million doses of vaccine to date, having approved three jabs - Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Moderna.

A fourth jab, made by Johnson & Johnson, is expected to be approved this week.

While supply bottlenecks have been partly responsible for the EU's delays, scaremongering around the AstraZeneca jab has also led to people refusing to take it, further delaying the process.

EU health officials are now embroiled in a row with makers of Russia's Sputnik vaccine after warning countries not to grant emergency approval

In its scramble for jabs the EU has resorted to blocking shipments bound for other countries, with Ursula von der Leyen warning the move is not a 'one off'

German ministers anonymously briefed the media that AstraZeneca's jab barely works in older people, with French President Emmanuel Macron calling it 'quasi-ineffective'.

Newspapers have also been awash with reports that the jab causes increased side-effects compared to Pfizer's jab as medical regulators in Germany, France and other countries rushed to restrict its use.

But as a slew of real-world data from Scotland showed the jab is effective in older people and is safe to use, European leaders have been forced to execute a series of embarrassing U-turns and have resorted to begging their people to take it.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Mail on Sunday that the EU was now 'scrabbling around to grab hold of anything they can get their hands on'.

'This vaccine debacle exposes what the EU is all about,' he said. 'It's an insular, protectionist organisation that actually believes it is the most important place on earth.

'They simply cannot accept that they have screwed up. First of all, they blame the British. Then they accuse Australia. Now they are going cap in hand to America and essentially saying, "You've got spare vaccines, give them to us." It's absolutely pathetic.'

The EU has turned its attention to Washington who it hopes will give them millions of spare doses of AstraZeneca, the Financial Times reported over the weekend.

Joe Biden and Ms von der Leyen spoke on phone call on Friday to discuss their joint efforts in the pandemic.

Following that conversation, Thierry Breton, the EU's internal market commissioner, was tasked with working with Jeffrey Zients, the US Covid tsar, on vaccine supply chains.

Brussels, which hopes for stronger ties with the White House with Biden in charge, is reliant upon the States for some of the raw materials needed to make jabs.
ALBANY  Attorneys for one of the women who have accused Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment said the investigation that will be handled by two private attorneys, including a former acting U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District, should include an examination of whether the governor's office violated laws or regulations in handling their client's complaint.

"It is important that this investigation isnt just centered around what Gov. Cuomo said and did," said Debra Katz, an attorney for Charlotte Bennett, a former aide to Cuomo who has accused him of trying to test her interest in having a relationship with him. "It must also focus on the culture of secrecy, abuse and fear that he fostered among his staff  frequently in violation of the very laws he signed to protect workers from sexual harassment. We look forward to cooperating with the investigators."

Those investigators, Joon H. Kim and Anne L. Clark, were announced Monday by state Attorney General Letitia James, who is coordinating the investigation under a referral she received from Cuomo two days after Bennett's claims were reported by the New York Times. Kim and Clark are both highly respected attorneys; Kim has a deep background in criminal investigations and Clark has extensive experience in sexual harassment cases. Their selection resonated through the Capitol, and many observers viewed it as a statement by the attorney general that the investigation of the allegations against Cuomo will be thorough.

Jessica Westerman, an attorney and associate of Katz, said the Executive Chamber's decision to handle Bennett's complaint "in-house" last year and not refer the matter to the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER) needs to be a focus of the probe.

Jill DeRosiers, who received the complaint from 25-year-old Bennett, and Beth Garvey, a top member of the governor's legal team, assigned the matter to Judith Mogul, a special counsel for the governor. There was no formal investigation, and it was resolved when Bennett "received the transfer she requested to a position in which she had expressed a long-standing interest, and was thoroughly debriefed on the facts which did not include a claim of physical contact or inappropriate sexual conduct."

"She was consulted regarding the resolution, and expressed satisfaction and appreciation for the way in which it was handled," Garvey added in a statement last week.

Caitlin Legacki, a spokeswoman for Bennett and her attorneys, said that Bennett was never provided guidance by Mogul or anyone else on the governor's staff about her legal rights to file a complaint with GOER, the state Division of Human Rights or the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The handling of the investigation by a legal team that provides advice to the governor also raises questions about the potential inherent conflict of interest in their decision to not notify GOER and instead resolve the case by transferring Bennett to a new job.

Westerman, one of Bennett's attorneys, said there were multiple problems with that process, which did not follow state law or the rules spelled out in the employee handbook covering the Executive Chamber.

"Its clear that they were legally obligated to refer the complaint to GOER, and so by failing to do so  regardless of whether they otherwise advised Charlotte of the options available to her  they violated their legal obligation to report the governors conduct to GOER," Westerman said. "Theres certainly a conflict of interest at play there where the very same person who would be advising the governor would also be the one investigating complaints against him."

Last year, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bennett reported that Cuomo had allegedly sexually harassed her  including asking about her sex life and her interest in having a relationship with an older man. Cuomo has since apologized if his actions offended Bennett as well as the four other women who have accused him of inappropriate conduct.

In December 2018, under an executive order signed by Cuomo, GOER became the office responsible for handling sexual harassment investigations, and is required to be notified of all complaints. That order, which followed expanded rules for sexual harassment allegations and responses, "transferred the responsibility for conducting investigations of all employment-related discrimination complaints to the Governors Office of Employee Relations ... (and) all such complaints of protected class employment-related discrimination will be investigated by GOER."

Under "sweeping" sexual harassment reforms that Cuomo's office announced in 2018, "sexual harassment includes unwelcome conduct which is either of a sexual nature, or which is directed at an individual because of that individuals sex ... (including) words, signs, jokes, pranks, intimidation or physical violence which are of a sexual nature, or which are directed at an individual because of that individuals sex."

That legislation also defined sexual harassment as "any unwanted verbal or physical advances, sexually explicit derogatory statements ... which cause the recipient discomfort or humiliation, or which interfere with the recipients job performance."

The governor, when asked last week whether he had taken legally mandated, annual sexual harassment training, said "the short answer is yes." But his office has declined to provide details on when the governor took the training.

Bennett, in an interview with CBS News last week, said she witnessed an assistant to Cuomo taking the harassment training for him, although the governor certified he had completed the online course. The assistant has denied Bennett's allegation.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASX:ASM) is progressing the Dubbo Project to become a key global supplier of specialty metals and rare earths.

Australian Strategic Materials signs MoU to locate first metals plant within the Ochang Foreign Investment Zone in South Korea

Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASX:ASM) (OTCMKTS:ASMMF) has signed a key MoU with the Chungcheongbuk-do (Chungbuk) Provincial Government and Cheongju-si City Government to locate its Korean Metals Plant (KMP) within the Ochang Foreign Investment Zone in South Korea.

The Chungbuk Provincial Government MoU covers the supply of utilities, administrative licences and permit procedures, including the Korean Standard Industrial Classification code for rare metals and rare earth metals.

This MoU covering the company's first metals plant also includes a government grant, in accordance with Foreign Investment Promotion Act.

The Korean Metals Plant will initially produce high-purity neodymium-iron-boron powder and titanium powder



Significant benefits

ASM managing director David Woodall said: "The MoU, along with the strong support from the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Chungbuk Provincial Government, provides ASM with confidence to build the metals plant in the Ochang Foreign Investment Zone.

"With key Korean manufacturing companies like LG Chemical, Samsung SDI, SK Hynix and Hyundai Mobis within close proximity, we are confident that building our first metal plant in this well-established industrial area will provide significant benefits."
[March 09, 2021]

Consumer Product Events Hosts the Spring Edition of Media & Merch: A (Virtual) Press Junket

MALIBU, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumer Product Events, matchmaker for products and press, will host the Spring edition of Media & Merch: A (Virtual) Press Junket on March 11-12, 2021. Since 2009, CPE has introduced their little black book of reporter contacts to PR agencies, in-house marketers and brands themselves as a service to help press who are looking for new and interesting products for reviews, roundups and gift guides.

The Spring edition products include:

Coup Champagne: Featuring personalized engraved bottles, Coup is the intersection of craft champagne, minimalist design, and irreverent messaging.

Ryan Tu| ryan@coupchampagne.com

It's A Yummy: DIY mini scarf knitting kit for activity on-the-go.

Jessica Meyrowitz | info@itsayummy.com

Jonathan Sprouts Skincare: The first organic fresh produce company to cross the aisles to skincare, creating the healthiest skin products from the highest quality of sprout seeds.

Liz Reilley| liz@jonathansprouts.com

Nanobebe: Breast-shaped, nutrient-preserving breast milk baby bottles that make feeding a breeze.

Ellie Barziv | e.barziv@nanobebe.com

Nixon's Light-Wave: The first solar-powered watch made from #tide ocean plastics.

Bill Bryne | bbyrne@remedypr.com







Oli & Tess: Fine jewelry featuring opals, turquoise and diamonds set in precious metals, designed to be passed down from generation to generation.

Polly Wheatley| polly@oliandtess.com

Oral-B iO: An innovative toothbrush featuring AI tracking technology and smart pressure sensor and to deliver superior oral health.

James Collard | james.collard@citizenrelations.com

Pillpanion: A reinvented, minimalist pill organizer to prevent mismanaged medication.

Evelyn Bernfeld | ev@pillpanion.com

Res Ipsa: Premium up-cycled, handmade goods inspired by the great cities of the world, made in Marrakech, Morocco and beyond.

Cole Crouch | cole@resipsausa.com

Showaflops: Water-friendly PPE footwear to wear from the Showa' to the street.

Hal Bernfeld | hal@showaflops.com

Style Union Home: Co-Founder of True Religion, Kym Gold, brings fashion to the home with her new ceramic homeware line. The Spring Collection introduces 'elevated organization' and personalized luxury pieces.

Macy Harrell | macy@bdpr.com

The Buggie Huggie: A shopping cart accessory tray that gives parents confidence to shop while helping keep their kids safe and entertained.

Meridith Wynne| meridith@tlkfusion.com

The JK Collection : Elite Beverly Hills fashion stylist and designer, Joe Katz presents his line of exclusive ties and bowties created from exquisite Italian fabrics.

Joe Katz | Joe@Josephkatz.com

About Media & Merch are the virtual press junkets presented by Consumer Product Events, the brainchild of product launch expert, Alyson Dutch. A PR matchmaker for products and press, CPE was established in 2009 to connect product marketers directly with the press who are looking to report about them. CPE is a sister company of Malibu-based Brown + Dutch Public Relations, Inc.

Press contact: Alyson Dutch, 310.317.1543, 304765@email4pr.com

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/consumer-product-events-hosts-the-spring-edition-of-media--merch-a-virtual-press-junket-301243225.html

SOURCE Consumer Product Events
Florida businesses would be protected from coronavirus lawsuits if they made a good effort to follow guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19 under a bill passed by the House on Friday.

The House also passed a bill that would make it a felony to profit off a pandemic by making false or misleading marketing claims about personal protective equipment or the availability or access to a vaccine.

The measures were the first two bills the House passed in the 60-day legislative session that began Tuesday. While the bill to fight fraud during a pandemic passed unanimously without debate, Republicans and Democrats were sharply divided on the bill to shield businesses from COVID-19 lawsuits.

Republicans said businesses are already suffering because of the pandemic and need the security of knowing that they dont have to worry about frivolous lawsuits. Democrats said people should not lose their access to courts if a business failed to protect employees or customers. They also said there is not a need for the bill because only a few dozen lawsuits have been filed  an argument Republicans rejected.

Right now its not politically correct to come after businesses that have suffered so much, said Republican Rep. Bob Rommel, who owns three restaurants. Trust me, it may be 50 lawsuits now, but if we dont do this it will be 50,000 lawsuits soon.

Rommel said small businesses could be ruined by a single lawsuit. The bill passed on a 83-31 vote.

In order for a lawsuit to move forward, a plaintiff would have to present a signed affidavit from a Florida physician saying there is a reasonable degree of certainty that the defendants actions caused the illness or death.

Democrats argued that doctors would not sign such an affidavit because its hard to pinpoint when someone contracted the disease.

For me this bill has a when pigs fly sort of quality to it, said Democratic Rep. Omari Hardy. You can file a COVID related tort claim, and you have the possibility of succeeding  when pigs fly, or when hell freezes over, or when doctors do things they know they cant do.

The bill is a priority for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and also has the support of Republican Senate President Wilton Simpson. Plaintiffs would have one year to file a claim.

A similar Senate bill has one more committee stop before reaching the full chamber.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics COVID-19 Florida
An eerie video showing a once-bustling shopping centre in Sydney gives a rare glimpse into the deserted mall left frozen in time for a decade.

The video, shot by an urban explorer, shows boxes of new clothes with tags still on stacked high in stores, while rows of dusty escalators stand still.

Glass from shop windows litters the mall's corridors as some walls are covered in graffiti.

The TikTok video is a far cry from the Saturday scenes where thousands of shoppers rushed to pick up bargains at the former Brands on Sale - Factory Outlet Centre in Campbelltown in Sydney's south west.

Despite being unused for ten years it still looks mostly untouched from the outside, the centre in August 2020

Many TikTok users shared their memories of the shopping centre, which closed in 2010 when it was placed into receivership.

'Woah I used to come here all the time', one commented.

'I loved this place, so chilled to shop at, last time I was there was like 2011', another wrote.

The four-storey, $65million shopping centre was opened on December 10, 2009 but within 12 months had gone into receivership after it struggled to fill long-term shop leases.

Campbelltown Motor Auctions still operate in the basement of the building and in 2019 plans were released to build six towers on the site of the centre.

Huge stacks of Belkin electronics products still in the boxes were left abandoned

The centre still has sale signs hanging in the hallways despite the shattered glass covering the floor and graffiti on the walls

In the video, some areas of the centre were in perfect condition and had been untouched as sale signs hung from the roof and boxes of shoes still had tags on.

Other areas showed large amounts of graffiti on the walls and glass doors, as displays and escalator panels were destroyed.

Some shops had been wrecked completely with holes in the walls and cabinets littered across the empty shop.

The centre had struggled to find shops to lease shopfronts from its opening in 2009 and was eventually left to abandonment.
[March 09, 2021] Atomwise Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021

Atomwise, a leader in using artificial intelligence (AI) for small-molecule drug discovery, today announced it has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021. Atomwise was recognized for its unmatched AI platform, AtomNet, as well as its growing pipeline and portfolio of partnerships and joint ventures tackling some of the most challenging targets in small molecule drug development. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005366/en/ Atomwise Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021 (Graphic: Business Wire) The list honors businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive, they thrived-making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's Most Innovative Companies list features 463 businesses from 29 countries. "The Atomwise team is honored for this recognition from Fast Company," said Dr. Abraham Heifets, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Atomwise. "Achievements like these are a testament to our team's hard work and dedication to addressing unmet needs for human disease." Atomwise's proprietary approach to identifying small molecules for challenging diseases has landed the startup market validation and recognition. With the addition of its robust internal R&D pipeline, the company has made headway to grow its portfolio. Additionally the company has made major traction with corporate partners that include top-tier pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Bayer, and emerging biotechnology companies in APAC like GC Pharma, Hansoh Pharmaceuticals and Bridge Biotherapeutics. The company recently unveiled its growing portfolio of emerging joint enture companies, with drug development programs spanning oncology, immunology, infectious disease, neuroscience and clotting disorders.



The company was also recognized for making notable traction in the area of infectious disease in a very short time. In 2020 the company was awarded a $2. 3M (News - Alert) grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the development of multiple global health programs to advance novel antimalarial and anti-tuberculosis small molecule therapies in collaboration with the foundation's global network. Earlier that same year, Atomwise announced fifteen research collaborations underway with leading global universities to discover novel broad-spectrum antivirals for COVID-19 and other coronaviruses, marking the company's ability to rapidly spin up multiple programs that tackle different disease mechanisms in parallel. The company also founded a joint venture, vAirus, to develop broad-spectrum antivirals against flaviviruses, a notorious family of viruses that include Zika virus, dengue fever, and West Nile virus. Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy. "In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley. To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multiday summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021. Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative. About Atomwise Atomwise is revolutionizing how drugs are discovered with AI. We invented the use of deep learning for structure-based drug discovery, today developing a pipeline of small-molecule drug candidates advancing into preclinical studies. Our AtomNet technology has been used to unlock more undruggable targets than any other AI drug discovery platform. We are tackling over 600 unique disease targets across 775 collaborations spanning more than 250 partners around the world. Our portfolio of joint ventures and partnerships with leading pharmaceutical, agrochemical, and emerging biotechnology companies represents a collective deal value approaching $7 billion. Atomwise has raised over $174 million from leading venture capital firms to advance our mission to make better medicines, faster. Learn more at atomwise.com or follow @AtomwiseInc. About Fast Company Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. Since 2011, Fast Company has received some of the most prestigious editorial and design accolades, including the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) National Magazine Award for "Magazine of the Year," Adweek's Hot List for "Hottest Business Publication," and six gold medals and 10 silver medals from the Society of Publication Designers. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta and the publisher is Amanda Smith. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005366/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
LOUISVILLE, Ky., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On Thursday, March 4th, the world's third largest African American Baptist organization, the National Baptist Convention of America International, Inc. (NBCA), installed the convention's 15th president, Dr. Samuel C. Tolbert, Jr. of Lake Charles, Louisiana for a second term.

In June 2014, President Tolbert was elected and installed in September 2014 to preside over the 3.5-million-members of the convention. Under President Tolbert's leadership, the convention relocated its headquarters to Louisville, Kentucky on the campus of Simmons College of Kentucky, an Historically Black College and University. During his first term, Dr. Tolbert made Simmons College the convention's official school, and has formed national partnerships with Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, Heritage Financial, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Blessed Communion, among many other accomplishments.

President Tolbert seeks to further the work from his past term and says, "Although this journey gets challenging, we must continue the mission and vision of NBCA. I am grateful that we are strategically postured to build capacity in our churches, both locally and globally. A priority continues to be building a bridge with our millennials and engaging them in mission work at home and abroad. In Louisville, I look forward to purchasing a facility near Simmons College of Kentucky to house our staff and partnership initiatives, as well as beginning construction on our NBCA Retreat Center."

During the virtual Installation Service, delegates approved the recommendations of 194 officers to serve in the various leadership roles within the convention. Also, this year NBCA announced two new staff positions that will be housed at the NBCA Headquarters in Louisville, KY. A list of the installed officers can be found on the National Baptist Convention of America website (www.nbcainc.com).

SOURCE National Baptist Convention of America International, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.nbcainc.com


Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
The New London woman charged with strangling to death her 4-year-old son had recently contacted the state Department of Children and Families about harm being done to the boy, the agency said.

Recently, according to a DCF statement on Tiffany Farrauto, we were contacted by the mother, who expressed concerns that an unknown party may have maltreated her son. Upon review, we provided the mother with information on resources in the community.

Farrauto, 33, is charged with murder in the death of her son on Sunday. She was being held on bonds of over $2 million after a court appearance Monday and is under a suicide watch. An evaluation has been ordered to determine her competency to stand trial.

The DCF also had contact with Farrauto in 2017. The issues, according to the agency, centered around allegations of substance use and supports needed to care for a newborn.

The department, along with community partners, provided assistance to the family while actively working with their extended networks of support, the agency said.

Farrauto has no criminal record, a bail commissioner told the court, but when asked where she had been living, Farrauto responded with a series of numbers and said she had been living in a squad car.

A judge ordered both a suicide watch and a mental health watch. Public defender Aimee Mahon said Farrauto has mental health issues.

On Sunday, officers were dispatched to the parking lot of 242 Nautilus Drive just before 6:30 a.m. after receiving a report of a woman damaging a vehicle with a baseball bat. While officers spoke with the vehicles owner, the woman, later identified as Farrauto, approached and told officers she had strangled her son, police have said. Police found the boy unresponsive in the home and he was pronounced dead at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital.

Asked for details on the agencys dealings with Farrauto, including whether case workers saw any indications of mental illness, agency spokesman Gary Kleeblatt said there would be no further comment on the contacts.

Story continues

Along with the entire New London community, the department is greatly saddened by the loss of this young boys life, the DCF said. In particular, our hearts go out to the childs family, friends and others whom he touched in his short time with them.

Tragedies such as this again reinforce the importance of outreach to family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues when there are concerns about a caregivers ability to safely parent their child, the DCF statement said.

A wide array of supports are available to families which can be accessed by contacting school personnel, pediatricians, faith-based organizations or other programs by dialing 211 to reach the United Way or by visiting their website: https://www.211ct.org/.

Jesse Leavenworth can be reached at jleavenworth@courant.com
SYDNEY, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pemba Capital Partners ("Pemba") is pleased to announce that it has entered an international growth partnership agreement with global healthtech company RxMx, a provider of specialty medicine management systems.

RxMx was established in 2013 by a team of doctors focused on modernizing and enhancing the effectiveness and safety of prescribing and monitoring specialty medicines. The Company has developed an ecosystem of apps and portals to connect patients, doctors, nurses, caregivers and manufacturers.

Its systems mitigate risk management by giving doctors access to real-time lab results for patients. The technology immediately alerts doctors when a lab result is out-of-range. Importantly, if a doctor does not respond to multiple alerts, the RxMx nursing team contacts the doctor directly. The nursing team also supports patients as they enroll in high-touch specialty medicine treatments. The combination of a nursing team and user-friendly SaaS solutions is achieving industry leading voluntary enrolment rates for doctors and patient adherence rates of almost 100%.

RxMx is based in Sydney and has expanded with offices in New York and Berlin. It works with many of the top ten pharma companies around the world. RxMx has been profitable since launch, growing organically into new markets with its pharmaceutical clients and is currently operating in multiple countries. RxMx has experienced strong revenue growth since 2017 of over 50% per annum and achieves high levels of recurring revenue (>75%).

Pemba has acquired a majority stake in the business alongside the leadership of the organization, CEO George Hunnewell and CCO David Gahan, as well as the founders of the company to assist them to drive committed expansion into more than a dozen countries in Europe and the Middle East through 2021 and then accelerate growth over the coming years.

With Pemba's backing, RxMx will continue to invest in building out its technology and scale operations. Leading Life Sciences consulting firm, Triangle Market Insights Group LLC, estimates that the combined market for specialty medicine patient support services, such as those provided by RxMx, is approximately USD $1.8billion pa across the US/EU5 and AU at present and projected to grow by more than 40% by 2030.

RxMx CEO George Hunnewell said: "We're thrilled to be working with a world-class investment firm who will bring new opportunities that we'll be able to leverage through this agreement. We look forward to working together to grow the company - there's an exciting new chapter ahead for RxMx."

Mark Summerhayes, Co-Managing Director at Pemba, said: "RxMx is Pemba's 20th technology investment in the last 5 years. As a clear global leader in patient monitoring SaaS for specialty medicine it's an exciting company to back. It's highly innovative and importantly, it has also established and fast-growing relationships with big pharma globally.

"The RxMx team was looking for a partner to help drive international expansion and Pemba brings deep tech investing experience, growth capital, M&A know-how and global networks to help to accelerate growth.

"We are all especially pleased to be involved in developing technologies that are enabling life changing therapies to be brought safely to patients with serious chronic diseases," Mr. Summerhayes said.

Tom Matthews, Partner at Pemba, added: "We identified RxMx as an opportunity to invest in a high growth pharma SaaS business that has successfully disrupted the traditional labor-based patient model, with industry leading voluntary enrolment rates and patient adherence rates of almost 100%."

"RxMx's platform is unique in that it optimizes outcomes for both the customer (pharma companies) and users (doctors and patients). We look forward to working with the RxMx team to help with organic and acquisition led growth across new therapies, geographies and service adjacencies," Mr. Matthews said.

About Pemba Capital Partners:

Pemba Capital Partners was established in 1998 and is a leading investor in small and mid-sized private businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Since inception the investment firm has specialised in partnering with the owners and managers of private businesses to help them accelerate growth. Pemba Capital Partners is independently owned by its Managing Directors and to date has completed over 200 investment transactions. Read more about Pemba Capital Partners at: pemba.com.au

About RxMx:

RxMx is a healthcare company with exceptional technology solutions and longstanding industry experience. RxMx was founded by doctors who refused to accept "business as usual" when prescribing new specialty medicines. RxMx built its business on the idea that by automating certain tasks, it could empower doctors and nurses to safely administer specialty medicines without increasing their burden, improving patient safety and patient care. Learn more at: rxmxcorp.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451921/RxMx_Pemba_Joint_Logo.jpg
The past four and a bit years have been a white-knuckled ride for former prime minister Tony Abbott observing Donald Trumps performance in the White House. After all, Abbott initially believed the presidential hopeful was uniquely under-qualified for the Oval Office ahead of the 2016 election. But that all changed during the term with Abbott eventually praising Trumps performance and ability to deliver on promises.

Tony Abbott Credit:Illustration: John Shakespeare

Much to the surprise of many  indeed, somewhat to my own surprise  I think hes been quite a success: his style sometimes grates, but hes been a very good president, the former PM told US conservatives in early 2020 at a Heritage Foundation event.

But it appears that even Abbott was underwhelmed by Trumps recklessness in the dying days of his presidency, including calling for his supporters to storm Washington DCs Capitol Hill in the riots, which ultimately left five people dead. In an interview to be released next week as part of a new online series produced by the right-aligned Institute of Public Affairs and conservative outlet The Spectator, the former MP doesnt mince his words on the former president.

He has not behaved well since the election  I suppose he was always going to be a sore loser [and] you dont have to like losing, but you have got to respect the peoples verdict, he said. And for all the things that might have looked a bit fishy on the [election] night, no court anywhere in the United States was convinced that there was anything fundamentally wrong.
SAGINAW, MI - A variant of the COVID-19 virus has been identified in Saginaw County.

The Saginaw County Health Department announced on Tuesday, March 9 that a 80-year-old woman was identified as having the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19 in Saginaw County. Her COVID-19 test was done on Feb. 18 at a local hospital, according to the health department, and was among samples randomly sent to the CDC for further testing and subtyping.

She is no longer hospitalized and would have been out of isolation as of Feb. 28, said the health department.

The B.1.1.7 variant is also known as the United Kingdom variant of the virus, which was also discovered in Tuscola County in March. The Tuscola County case was associated with the zip code 48723, with no other details being released.

According to the CDC, B.1.1.7 is a more highly transmissible variant of the virus and 437 cases of the variant have been reported in Michigan as of Tuesday, March 9.

The Saginaw County Health Department is urging individuals to continue to take the following precautions against COVID-19, especially as new variants of the virus become more prevalent, including the South African variant B.1.351  which was recently discovered in Jackson County.

Wash your hands. Wear your mask. Watch your distance.

Get vaccinated for COVID-19 when available and eligible.

Avoid large indoor gatherings.

Ventilate indoor spaces.

More from MLive

Coronavirus vaccination scam calls reported in Bay and Saginaw counties

Bay County scores $420K in marijuana sales tax revenue

United Kingdom variant of COVID-19 found in Tuscola County

Got the COVID-19 vaccine somewhere else? Remove your name from the registration list, says Bay County Health Department

Bay City resumes utility shutoffs for residential and commercial customers

Four major road construction projects planned to spruce up Bay Citys streets
Modern hospitals and antibiotic treatment alone did not create all the antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria we see today. Instead, selection pressures from before widespread use of antibiotics influenced some of them to develop, new research has discovered.

By using analytical and sequencing technology that has only been developed in recent years, scientists from Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Oslo and University of Cambridge have created an evolutionary timeline of the bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, which is a common bacterium that can cause antibiotic resistant infections in hospitals.

The results, published today (9th March 2021) in Nature Communications show that this bacterium has the ability to adapt very quickly to selection pressures, such as the use of chemicals in farming as well as the development of new medications, which have caused different strains of the same bacterium to be found in many places worldwide, from the majority of people's guts to many wild birds. As it is so widespread, the researchers suggest people should be screened for this type of bacteria when entering the hospital, in the same way they are for other superbugs, to help reduce the possibility of developing and spreading infection within healthcare.

Enterococcus faecalis is a common bacterium that, in most people, is found in the intestinal tract and doesn't cause harm to the host. However, if someone is immunocompromised and this bacterium gets into the bloodstream, it can cause a serious infection.

In hospitals, it is more common to find antibiotic resistant strains of E. faecalis and it was initially thought that the wide use of antibiotics and other antibacterial control measures in modern hospitals caused these strains to develop.

In a new study, scientists from Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Oslo and University of Cambridge analysed around 2000 samples of E. faecalis from 1936 to present day using blood stream isolates from patients and stool samples from animals and healthy humans.

By sequencing the genome (including chromosomes and plasmids) using technology from Oxford Nanopore, the team mapped the evolutionary journey of the bacterium and created a timeline of when and where different strains developed, including those nowadays found to be resistant to antibiotics. They found that antibiotic resistant strains developed earlier than previously thought, before the widespread use of antibiotics, and therefore it was not antibiotic use alone that caused these to emerge.

Researchers found that agricultural and early medical practices, such as the use of arsenic and mercury, influenced the evolution of some of the strains we see now. In addition to this, strains similar to the antibiotic resistant variants we see in hospitals now were found in wild birds. This shows how adaptable and flexible this species of bacterium is at evolving into new strains in the face of different adversity.

Professor Jukka Corander, co-lead author and Associate Faculty member at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "This is the first time we have been able to map out the full evolution of E. faecalis from samples up to 85 years old, which enables us to see the detailed effect of human lifestyles, agriculture and medicines on the development of different bacterial strains. Having the full timeline of evolutionary changes would not have been possible without analytical and sequencing techniques that can be found at the Sanger Institute."

Dr Anna Pontinen, co-lead author and post-doctoral fellow at University of Oslo, said: "Currently, when patients are admitted to hospital, they are swabbed for some antibiotic resistant bacteria and fungi and are isolated to ensure that infection rates are kept as low as possible. Thanks to this study, it is possible to scrutinize the diversity of E. faecalis and identify those that are more prone to spread within hospitals and thus could cause harm in immunocompromised people. We believe that it could be beneficial to also screen for E. faecalis on admission to hospitals."

Professor Julian Parkhill, co-author and Professor in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at University of Cambridge, said: "This research has discovered that these hospital-associated strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria are much older than we previously thought, and has highlighted their incredible metabolic flexibility combined with numerous mechanisms enhancing their survival under harsh conditions that has allowed them to spread widely across the globe."

###

Contact details:

Rachael Smith

Press Office

Wellcome Sanger Institute

Cambridge, CB10 1SA

Email: press.office@sanger.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

Publication:

Anna K. Pontinen, Janetta Top and Sergio Arredondo-Alonso, et al.(2021) Apparent nosocomial adaptation of Enterococcus faecalis predates the modern hospital era. Nature Communications. DOI: https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1038/ s41467-021-21749-5

Funding:

This research was funded by the Trond Mohn Foundation, the Joint Programming Initiative in Antimicrobial Resistance, the Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit, European Research Council, and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions.

Selected websites:

About the University of Cambridge

The mission of the University of Cambridge is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. To date, 110 affiliates of the University have won the Nobel Prize.

Founded in 1209, the University comprises 31 autonomous Colleges and 150 departments, faculties and institutions. Cambridge is a global university. Its 19,000 student body includes 3,700 international students from 120 countries. Cambridge researchers collaborate with colleagues worldwide, and the University has established larger-scale partnerships in Asia, Africa and America.

The University sits at the heart of the 'Cambridge cluster', which employs more than 61,000 people and has in excess of 15 billion in turnover generated annually by the 5,000 knowledge-intensive firms in and around the city. The city publishes 316 patents per 100,000 residents.

http://www. cam. ac. uk

The Wellcome Sanger Institute

The Wellcome Sanger Institute is a world leading genomics research centre. We undertake large-scale research that forms the foundations of knowledge in biology and medicine. We are open and collaborative; our data, results, tools and technologies are shared across the globe to advance science. Our ambition is vast - we take on projects that are not possible anywhere else. We use the power of genome sequencing to understand and harness the information in DNA. Funded by Wellcome, we have the freedom and support to push the boundaries of genomics. Our findings are used to improve health and to understand life on Earth. Find out more at http://www. sanger. ac. uk or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and on our Blog.

About Wellcome
President will commence his three-day visit to on Tuesday.

"The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, will visit from March 9 to 11, 2021," read a press release by the President's Secretariat.

On the evening of March 9, the President will leave for Chennai. On March 10, the President will visit Vellore to attend the 16th annual convocation of the Thiruvalluvar University. On March 11, the President will be present at the 41st annual convocation of Anna University in Chennai.

Earlier, President visited Madhya Pradesh for two days, i.e. on March 6-7. On March 6, 2021, the President inaugurated the All India State Judicial Academies Directors' Retreat at Jabalpur. The President later visited the Janjatiya Sammelan on March 7, organised by the Tribal Welfare Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh at Singrampur village in Damoh district.

Last month, he paid an official visit to the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the first time as the President of India.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(TNS) - Mar. 9The National Weather Service is warning of an early and long grass fire season in North Dakota in a weather briefing issued March 8."An early and active spring fire season is expected until spring green-up occurs," said the National Weather Service in a report issued March 8. "If drought conditions persist into summer, new season grasses may cure early leading to an earlier than average summer/fall fire season."For county emergency managers in the James River Basin, that means dealing with early grass fire dangers this spring rather than spring floods and inundated roads."I guess we're an equal opportunity county," said Charlie Russell, emergency manager for Dickey County. "We've got no snow, maybe a quarter of an inch of precipitation all winter."Russell said fire departments from Fullerton and Oakes battled a grass fire near Fullerton recently. That fire has been one of several reported over the region.For Stutsman County, the dry conditions prompted Jerry Bergquist, emergency manager and 911 coordinator, to remind the public of the county's burn ordinance that has been in place since 2017. The ordinance makes it a Class B misdemeanor to light a fire when the fire danger index is very high or extreme or the National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning.A Class B misdemeanor is punishable by 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine or both.The ordinance covers all of Stutsman County with the exception of Jamestown which has its own fire ordinance.Bergquist said fire danger is normal every spring from the time the snow melts until the soil warms enough for the grass to start growing and become green. This year, the snowmelt is early and there is little moisture to get the grass growing."Just my observations," he said. "But I'm not sure we'll see a green-up this year. The moisture keeps evaporating."Bergquist said in a press release the continued dry conditions may push the fire danger index into the very high or extreme category in the next few days. As of Monday, March 8, the fire danger index for Stutsman County and much of western North Dakota was classified as high.Dickey County also has a burn ordinance that went into effect March 2, Russell said. The Dickey County ordinance also bans open fires when the fire index is very high, extreme or a red flag warning has been issued. Violations are also considered a Class B misdemeanor.Russell said people are still allowed to burn when the fire danger is below the very high level."Call the local fire department before you light off," he said. "It beats running a bunch of fire trucks out for a controlled burn."LaMoure County does not have a burn ordinance at this time, said Kimberly Robbins, emergency manager.The LaMoure County Commission discussed a burn ordinance at its March 2 meeting but took no action, she said."They are waiting for input from the six fire chiefs," she said, referring to the heads of the six volunteer fire departments in the county. "That will be reviewed by the county commission for action on March 16."Residents are urged to take precautions by removing as much combustible material from around their home, outbuildings and propane tanks as possible, Russell said.___(c)2021 The Jamestown Sun (Jamestown, N.D.)Visit The Jamestown Sun (Jamestown, N.D.) at www.jamestownsun.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The lawmakers say they fear a "backdoor" deal with Germany.

House Republicans have sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requiring introducing new sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

"We write to you to express deep concerns about the Biden Administration's implementation plans for the Nord Stream 2 sanctions required under the Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act (PEESA), as amended by the Protecting Europe's Energy Security Clarification Act (PEESCA)," the letter says, as reported by the U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee.

It is noted open-source reporting has cited numerous entities suspected of being engaged in sanctionable activity related to the Russian malign Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.

Read alsoBy stocking up on antidote for Nord Stream 2 workers, Russia admits chemical threat  Lithuanian analyst"However, we have been informed that the State Department requires additional information on these entities before it can issue any further sanctions designations."

"Critical to our ability to conduct Congressional oversight and to ensure adherence to the spirit and letter of the law is a clearer understanding of the 'evidentiary threshold' the State Department is using when weighing additional sanctions designations under PEESA, as amended," reads the letter.

The lawmakers say they fear this discrepancy can only be explained by a desire to leave space for a "backdoor" deal with Germany.

"Given the shrinking window before the Nord Stream 2 pipeline's completion, we urge you to submit to Congress new sanctions designations as soon as the required information becomes available, rather than wait until May 17th, when the current 90-day reporting period ends and the next mandatory report to Congress is due," the letter says.

Nord Stream 2: Background

The Nord Stream 2 project envisages construction and operation of two gas pipeline branches with a total throughput capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from the coast of Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. It should connect Russia's Ust-Lug and Germany's Greifswald. This new pipeline bypassing Ukraine is to be built next to the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

The construction of the pipeline was expected to be completed before the end of 2019.

The pipeline will be 1,220 km long. The project is being implemented by Russia's Gazprom in alliance with a number of European companies. Ukraine stands against the construction of Nord Stream 2 as it will most likely lose its status of a gas transit country, while its potential revenue losses are estimated at US$3 billion annually. The project is also highly criticized by the U.S., Poland, and the Baltic States.

On December 9, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with expanded restrictions against the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

On December 11, 2020, the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline resumed.

The U.S. Senate approved the NDAA, which provides for new sanctions against Russia's Nord Stream 2.

On January 7, 2021, a fund was established in Germany to support the completion of the Nord Stream 2 project.

On January 13, 2021, the U.S. Department of State notified European companies involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 of the risk of having new sanctions imposed on them.

On February 22, 2021, the United States imposed new sanctions on the Russian FORTUNA vessel building Nord Stream 2.

As of February 23, 2021, eighteen European companies at once refused to complete the construction of Nord Stream 2 over the U.S. sanctions.

On March 4, 2021, the construction of Nord Stream 2 in Danish waters was extended by late September.

Reporting by UNIAN
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Aussie Teen Dies From Box Jellyfish Sting Off Coast of Queensland, Prompts Public Warning

An Aussie teen has passed away after being stung by a box jellyfishone of the worlds deadliest sea creaturesduring a fishing trip on Feb. 22.

The 17-year-old, from Bamaga in far north Queensland, encountered the deadly jellyfish at Pattersons Point in Cape York. He was intubated at the scene and flown by Royal Flying Doctors Service to Townsville Hospital, reports ABC.

He passed away from his injuries a week after being stung. Former mayor of the Northern Peninsula Area Regional Council (NPARC), Eddie Newman, called the incident a tragic, tragic accident.

Queenslands box jellyfish season is known as stinger season, and runs from October to May. Swimmers off the coast north of Gladstone are at particularly high risk.

A sign outside a five star hotel in Darwin, Australia, warns against swimming on fear of death. (LAWRENCE BARTLETT/AFP via Getty Images)

Detail of a poisonous box jellyfish in an aquarium (Dewald Kirsten/Shutterstock)

We cannot stress enough on how important it is to keep your children away from the water, NPARC wrote in a public warning to parents, having erected warning signs at swimming hotspots along the coast.

Authorities are preparing a report on the teens tragic death for the coroner.

Its the first fatality caused by box jellyfish sting since 2006.

Unfortunately, that fatality also occurred in Bamaga, renowned marine biologist and jellyfish expert Lisa-Ann Gershwin told ABC, adding that box jellyfish fatalities are avoidable if communities are adequately educated about the dangers and how to stay safe.

Box jellyfish lesions, caused by barbed tentacles, on a childs leg (DonyaHHI/Shutterstock)

In populated areas where there are stinger nets, people are constantly reminded about the presence of stingers, Gershwin explained, whereas in remote areas you dont have that constant reminder.

In memory of the teen, she reflected, we should start having that conversation.

A highly venomous species of box jellyfish, known as sea wasps (chironex fleckeri), are cube-shaped with long, barbed tentacles reaching up to 3 meters (approx. 10 feet) in length. When venom is injected into humans or animals, it can induce shock, paralysis, and even cardiac arrest, according to National Geographic.

A box jellyfish sting has enough potency to kill a swimmer before they can return to shore.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired Newsletter here: TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
NEW YORK, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

Citrin Cooperman is committed to fostering change in the day-to-day experiences and the career growth of women in the accounting profession. To continue building an environment that does not allow gender bias and inequality, we must #ChooseToChallenge the status quo, both inside and outside the workplace.

Every year, the firm celebrates International Women's Day (IWD) with a week-long campaign where employees across all regions of the firm show their support with photographs depicting the annual IWD theme. The 2021 IWD theme is #ChooseToChallenge and Citrin Cooperman employees are raising their hands to demonstrate their commitment to improving diversity and gender equality.

"We believe that the accounting profession must be committed to enhancing diversity and inclusion, particularly at the leadership level," said Citrin Cooperman CEO, Joel Cooperman. "Citrin Cooperman is committed to working with women to ensure that their voices are heard and their concerns are addressed which will help to better our firm, our profession, and our communities and provide for an improved work-life balance."

Citrin Cooperman believes that one of the ways in which it can help create a more inclusive world is by seeking out and celebrating women's achievements, which is why the continued advancement of women is one of the central tenets of the firm.

"Citrin Cooperman is proud to recognize International Women's Day and supports everything this day stands for," said Alan Badey, president of Citrin Cooperman. "We are committed to driving positive change by creating a more inclusive workplace environment and providing working women equal opportunities for career advancement."

A big part of the firm's strategy is the Citrin Cooperman Empowering Diversity and Gender Equality (CC EDGE) program, led by Partner Nichol Chiarella and Director Laura Crowley. The mission of CC EDGE is to develop a culture that enables each individual to create the career that they want, based on a safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace that provides for equal opportunity, fairness, and work-life flexibility. CC EDGE strives to create this culture by providing an environment that encourages teamwork and collaboration, combined with training and resources to develop employees' skills, so that they are empowered to be the best that they can be.

From challenge comes change, and Citrin Cooperman is committed to driving positive change by continuing to take action for gender parity and equality.

About Citrin Cooperman

Citrin Cooperman is among the largest, full-service assurance, tax, and business advisory firms in the United States, having steadily built its business serving a diverse and loyal clientele since 1979. Our daily mission is to help our clients "focus on what counts." Rooted in our core values, we provide a comprehensive, integrated business approach to traditional services, which includes proactive insights throughout the lifecycle of our clients wherever they do business, across the globe. Citrin Cooperman is an independent firm associated with Moore Global Network Limited. citrincooperman.com

Press Contact

Laura F. Kucera

212-697-1000

https://www.citrincooperman.com/

SOURCE Citrin Cooperman

Related Links

http://www.citrincooperman.com


This is an exciting time for us at Dixon Insurance. PCF has a differentiated value proposition that creates opportunity for us as agency owners and for our clientele, said Jed Dixon, CEO of Dixon Insurance.

PCF Insurance Services (PCF) is proud to announce the completion of an exciting new partnership with Dixon Insurance located in Fargo, North Dakota. PCFs investment in the partnership will enable Dixon Insurance to provide continued quality customer service and comprehensive trucking coverage for families, businesses, and employees in over 25 states.

Jed and Melissa Dixon will continue to lead all operations of Dixon Insurance while also becoming an owner and Partner at PCF Insurance Services. Jed and Melissa Dixon are recognized as innovative and strong leaders who achieve incredible success in continuing to build Dixon Insurance.

This partnership with Dixon Insurance is a great opportunity for us at PCF as we continue to strengthen our presence nationwide, said Peter Foy, chairman, CEO and founder of PCF Insurance Services. Dixon Insurance leads the trucking risk management space and we cant wait to work with them to see how they grow.

Dixon Insurance will continue to operate under its brand with best-in-class insurance offerings and customer service. Additionally, it will continue as a proud member of both the local and regional business community while providing the personal touch that each of their clients have come to know and appreciate.

This is an exciting time for us at Dixon Insurance. PCF has a differentiated value proposition that creates opportunity for us as agency owners and for our clientele, said Jed Dixon, CEO of Dixon Insurance.

Through PCFs partnership program, Dixon Insurance will have access to the diverse and exclusive products available only to PCF partners, as well as the support of industry-leading sales and marketing systems. Dixon Insurance will also be able to streamline its business functions by utilizing PCFs extensive infrastructure in its Salt Lake City based Shared Services Center and accessing its platform of resources and services, including human resources, IT, compliance, carrier relations, marketing and communications, and operational areas of support.

About Dixon Insurance

Headquartered in Fargo, ND, Dixon Insurance is a family-owned agency with a strong community-based brand. Dixon Insurance is a P&C focused agency that focuses on the trucking industry. Dixon Insurance has over 60 years of experience in providing quality service to their wide range of clientele. Additional information can be found at https://www.dixoninsurance.com/index.html.

About PCF

Founded in 1987 and headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA, PCF is a full-service insurance brokerage firm which provides complete risk management solutions with a broad array of property & casualty, life and health, employee benefits and workers' compensation insurance products. Due to its scale and growth, PCF is a top 30 broker in the United States by revenue. Additional information can be found at https://pcfinsuranceservices.com/.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
PetroNeft Resources PLC - Irish oil and gas exploration company operating in Russia - Production starts from the C-4 well on the Cheremshanskoye field, flowing naturally with production as the choke size has increased to 8 millimetres from 2 millimetres. Current flow rate from the well is 243 barrels of oil per day.

"Particularly as it closely follows the increase in our equity stake to 90 percent, we are delighted with the news from Cheremshanskoye. Early results from the initial well suggest that this well will perform at or above our expectations. This is a major achievement for the company bringing the Cheremshanskoye field in to production," says Chief Executive Officer David Sturt.

Current stock price: 3.40 pence, closed 13% higher on Tuesday

Year-to-date change: sharply higher from 0.65p

By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Rangers legend Ally McCoist has appealed to club fans here to postpone their celebrations to mark the club's first title win in a decade until its "safe".

On Sunday supporters gathered in the Shankill where it was reported flares and fireworks were set off after the Glasgow side won its first Scottish Premiership title in 10 years.

Read More

The PSNI yesterday described the scenes as "disappointing", insisting the gathering was "clearly" a breach of coronavirus rules and have launched an investigation.

Mr McCoist is Rangers' record goalscorer of all time, netting 355 goals in all competitions and managing the team between 2011-15. He urged supporters to wait until it was safe to come together.

He asked fans to be patient during an interview with BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme yesterday. "What I'm saying to the fans is that I sat in the house last night and had a glass of beer, and I toasted Steven [Gerrard] and I toasted the team," he said.

"I would just say to Rangers fans - keep our fingers crossed, we will be ready to celebrate at the correct time and we can hopefully all do it in our stadium very, very soon."

Meanwhile in Scotland, large numbers of supporters made their way to Ibrox Stadium and Glasgow's George Square to mark the achievement amid calls to celebrate at home.

First Scottish Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the crowds were "infuriating and disgraceful" and could delay the end of the Covid lockdown.

Fines were issued in Corby in Northamptonshire in England after about 200 fans gathered.

Police handed out three fines and said the organiser would be fined 10,000.

The PSNI has not commented on whether or not any fines or notices were issued in Belfast.
[March 09, 2021] ChargePoint and Polestar Team Up to Transform the Future of Vehicle Ownership

ChargePoint, a world leading electric vehicle (EV) charging network, and Polestar Cars, the electric automotive brand from Sweden, today announced the creation of a new charging partnership, streamlining mutual efforts to enable a seamless ownership experience for drivers of electric vehicles. The partnership debuts alongside the first product innovation from the brand collaboration: an embedded charging app for the Polestar 2 electric fastback. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005344/en/ The Polestar 2 charging at a Level 2 ChargePoint station at ChargePoint's headquarters in Campbell, California. The two companies are collaborating to improve the driver experience and debunk the charging myths which block mainstream adoption of electric cars. As a result of the partnership, they are enabling Polestar drivers to focus on the enjoyment of driving an electric car, specifically by making the charging experience even easier than the old way of fueling. The collaboration offers solutions to charge at home, work, around town or on trips, all accessed directly in the Polestar 2 infotainment system. "We are thrilled to bring our customers access to thousands of charging locations across America, matched with a premium home charger offering for the convenience of always leaving with a full battery," said Gregor Hembrough, Head of Polestar USA. "With many of our customers switching over directly from internal combustion, charging is a central component of our consumer education process and the overall customer experience. We know ChargePoint is the right partner for this critical need and the new app signals our intent to co-develop new technologies for the benefit of our customers." "The transition to electric is well underway and the future of mobility is proving to be more efficient, easy and connected than ever before, and our partnership with Polestar is an example of this shift," said Bill Loewenthal, Senior Vice President, Product, ChargePoint. "Not only does our partnership with Polestar provide drivers easy access to thousands of level 2 and DC fast places to charge across North America, the in-vehicle integration of the ChargePoint app brings our comprehensive charging ecosystem seamlessly into the in-vehicle experience. This partnership with Polestar is one of the first such integrations, and will serve as a blueprint for further collaborations between the two companies." Highlights of the Polestar and ChargePoint Partnership Include: New In-Car ChargePoint App for the Polestar 2 The new ChargePoint app for the Polestar 2 eliminates the need to pull out your smartphone, RFID card or other method to charge your EV. The Polestar 2 revolutionizes the in-car experience thanks to the world debut of Google's (News - Alert) Android Automotive Infotainment System (OS) and the collaboration between Polestar and ChargePoint takes this to the next level via seamless integration of the ChargePoint app. The ChargePoint app, available later this week in Google Play, embeds directly into the Polestar 2 infotainment system. The app provides an easy way for drivers to find and navigate to available stations, start a charging session from the vehicle and pay if required, all via the center screen in the Polestar 2.



Public Charging Benefits Access to North America's largest network ensures drivers will be able to charge wherever they go and whenever they need charging. ChargePoint's network offers a range of charging solutions, from level 2 to DC fast charging, at destinations where a driver tends to spend time during a normal day like at retail locations and workplaces, if they need a quick top up, or when taking a road trip.

Another key element of the partnership ensures that Polestar drivers will be able to access most of ChargePoint's more than 100,000 places to charge, and thousands of additional public charging spots through roaming agreements with other major charging networks in North America. Home Charging Benefits For those wanting the convenience of leaving home on a full charge, Polestar drivers will be able to order the top-rated ChargePoint Home Flex home charger alongside the purchase of any Polestar vehicle. As more than 80-percent of charging takes place at home and work, the seamless ordering process ensures that drivers are able to purchase and arrange for home installation of the Home Flex before they take delivery of their Polestar car. This e-commerce solution is enabled by the fact that a Polestar car can be purchased fully online, from the comfort of home. The ChargePoint Home Flex is one of the market's fastest, most flexible home chargers available with the ability to deliver up to 50 amps of current, which is adjustable to match to any home's electrical supply today and into the future. For more information, watch this video or visit https://www.chargepoint.com/polestar/. For images and other media information, visit polestar.com/press. About ChargePoint ChargePoint is creating the new fueling network to move all people and goods on electricity. Since 2007, ChargePoint has been committed to making it easy for businesses and drivers to go electric with one of the largest EV charging networks and most complete portfolio of charging solutions available today. ChargePoint's cloud subscription platform and software-defined charging hardware are designed to include options for every charging scenario from home and multifamily to workplace, parking, hospitality, retail and transport fleets of all types. Today, one ChargePoint account provides access to hundreds-of-thousands of places to charge in North America and Europe. To date, more than 88 million charging sessions have been delivered, with drivers plugging into the ChargePoint network approximately every two seconds. For more information, visit the ChargePoint pressroom, the ChargePoint Investor Relations site, or contact ChargePoint's North American or European press offices or Investor Relations. About Polestar Polestar is the independent Swedish premium electric performance car brand founded by Volvo Cars and Geely Holding. Established in 2017, Polestar enjoys specific technological and engineering synergies with Volvo Cars and benefits from significant economies of scale as a result. The company is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, and retails its vehicles in ten global markets across Europe and North America, and in China. Polestar produces two electric performance cars. The Polestar 1 is a low-volume electric performance hybrid GT with a carbon fiber body, 619 hp, 738 ft.-lb. and an electric-only range of 60 miles - the longest of any hybrid car in the world. The Polestar 2 electric performance fastback is the company's first fully electric, high volume car. Polestar 2 launched in 2020 with an all-wheel drive electric powertrain that produces 408 hp and 487 ft.-lb., with a maximum range of 233 miles (292 miles WLTP). In the future, the Polestar 3 electric performance SUV will join the portfolio, as well as the Precept - a design study vehicle released in 2020 that is slated for future production. Precept showcases the brand's future vision in terms of sustainability, digital technology and design. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005344/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WLFI)A heated argument between members of the Indiana House of Representatives now has the N-A-A-C-P demanding accountability and respect. News 18 captured the organization's annual conference.

Many people from local NAACP branches all over the U.S. are starting conversations on what they said is racial injustice happening within the chamber walls.

The topic stems from an incident between lawmakers on February 18th. Members of the Legislative Black Caucus claim that as they were speaking against a bill, they were booed and shut down by other members of the house.

"It was shocking to see our members behave like that," said Representative Robin Shackleford.

Shackleford was present that day. She said disagreement with the bill wasn't the issue.

"There was confrontation that pursued in the hallway between one of our members and one of their members," said Shackleford.

Representative Vernon Smith is a member of the Legislative Black Caucus. He said a member of the house followed him to the bathroom and continued to verbally provoke the matter.

"The bullying didn't bother me because when you have a message you know that's not going to be well received by all parties so the bullying didn't bother me. What bothered me was the effort to try and shut me up," said Smith.

NAACP leaders said the actions on February 18th have gone unpunished. That's the reason they said they are facing injustice. It's also the reason the organization is demanding the entire general assembly comply with implicit bias training.

"We are trying to pave the way for the future of our young people," said Smith. "If we deal with some of the issues today then it will not be their issues tomorrow."

The NAACP is also demanding that the speaker of the house and sergeant at arms control the action of their members.

"At one point I went up to the speaker and said we need to gain control of this chamber which it didn't happen," said Smith. "It just de-escalated and got worse."
DAVOS, Switzerland, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The AO Foundation and Rimasys are pleased to announce that they have entered a strategic partnership. Rimasys and AO have joined forces in their efforts to develop high-fidelity solutions to educate surgeons. Rimasys' technological capabilities and disruptive product portfolio complement the state-of-the-art expertise in orthopedics and trauma surgery that the AO has built with global impact over the past 60 years. The partnership focuses on advancing the technology used to train and engage practitioners worldwide in the surgical treatment of trauma and musculoskeletal disorders.

Going forward, the AO Foundation will be integrating Rimasys products and services in selected high-end surgical training formats globally and leverage Rimasys' dynamic innovation force especially around novel online education, their 3D virtual interaction platform and AI powered support tools for surgeons.

The partnership is built on successful past collaborations with the long-term perspective to create synergies and utilize strengths of both organizations leapfrogging innovation in a dynamic environment.

"Rimasys is without question one of the most innovative and dynamic players in the field of surgical training development. It has developed unique technological capabilities, to which it brings an unconventional solution-oriented mindset paired with fast-paced implementation. We are convinced that the partnership with Rimasys will help us drive innovation in our orthopedic research and development and benefit our global surgeon community activities. We are looking forward to working with Marc and his ambitious team of like-minded innovative spirits," says Robert McGuire, President of the AO Foundation.

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to work together with the AO Foundation and strongly believe that the partnership will help us in providing even better surgical training concepts to a broader audience worldwide. It will complement our continued independence and energetic start-up spirit and help to accelerate the global rollout of all our innovations - to ultimately improve patients' lives," adds Marc Ebinger, CEO and Co-Founder of Rimasys.

About Rimasys



Rimasys GmbH is a technology-driven health-tech start-up, founded as a university spin-off in 2016. Core of the Cologne based company are proprietary biomechanical algorithms describing injury mechanisms, utilized to generate lifelike fractured anatomical specimen with closed soft tissue mantle. Rimasys is focusing on enhancing surgical education and improving patient outcomes by advancing practical skill training and medical device development. Further innovation is focused on digital health, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. The team of 35 young and ambitious professionals is aiming to build a disruptive eco-system of solutions at high pace, enhancing surgeon education and interaction. For more information, visit: www.rimasys.com

About AO Foundation

The AO is a medically-guided, not-for-profit organization, a global network of surgeons, and the world's leading education, innovation, and research organization specializing in the surgical treatment of trauma and musculoskeletal disorders. We have a global network of over 215,000 health care professionals. Each year we offer over 830 educational events around the world, supported by nearly 9,000 faculty members and attended by over 58,000 participants. We have 20,000 surgeon members working in the fields of trauma, spine, craniomaxillofacial, veterinary, and reconstructive surgery. For more information, visit: www.aofoundation.org

For further questions, please contact:

AO Foundation

Olga Harrington, Head of Communications

communications@aofoundation.org

Rimasys GmbH

Marc Ebinger, CEO & Co-Founder

info@rimasys.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1450718/AO.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1450719/Rimasys.jpg
Amryt Pharma PLC - commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company - Signs a distribution agreement with Medison Pharma Canada to distribute Myalepta in Canada. This agreement completes the multi-regional distribution agreements with Medison, announced in February, to distribute Myalept and Lojuxta in Israel, and Juxtapid in Canada.

"Today's announcement represents continued progress as we grow our commercial assets and expand access to treatment for patients in existing and new territories. We are also pleased to extend our engagement with Medison and further benefit from their expertise in Canada and other territories," says Amryt Chief Executive Joe Wiley.

Current stock price: 196.75 pence

Year-to-date change: up 6.1%

By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Two special committees of Mexico's Lower House of Congress late on Monday approved a draft bill to decriminalize marijuana and sent it on to the full chamber, bringing it a step closer to creating one of the world's largest markets for the drug.

The bill, backed by the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, would mark a major shift in a country bedeviled for years by violence between feuding drug cartels.

The health and justice committees approved the bill, which easily passed the Senate in a vote in November and would create a huge new legal market for marijuana that companies are eager to tap.

The full chamber of the Lower House was scheduled to discuss the bill on Tuesday, two congressional sources told Reuters.

The bill would create the Mexican Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis, which will issue five types of licenses for the cultivation, transformation, sale, research and export or import of marijuana.

Only people 18 years and older, and with a permit, may grow, carry or consume marijuana and its derivatives, according to the bill, which Lopez Obrador's ruling MORENA party proposed. MORENA has a majority in both chambers of Congress.

Lopez Obrador has argued that decriminalizing cannabis and other narcotics could help combat Mexico's powerful drug cartels.

Colombian-Canadian Khiron Life Sciences, Canada's Canopy Growth and The Green Organic Dutchman, as well as Medical Marijuana, Inc. from California, are among the firms eyeing opportunities in Mexico.

Legalized cannabis could "dramatically transform the economic landscape" in Mexico by creating jobs and increasing tax revenues, said Medical Marijuana, Inc. chief executive Stuart Titus.

"Much of Mexico's cannabis has been black market and the resulting war on drugs has proven to be a huge failure. The right solution: legalize, tax and regulate this market," he said.

(Reporting by Diego Ore; Additional reporting by Sharay Angulo; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Sonya Hepinstall)
There was one narrative that wasn't featured in Russell T Davies' recent Channel 4 drama, It's a Sin, which documented the devastation wreaked by the HIV/AIDS crisis in the eighties - a woman with the virus.

UK HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust says that the search term 'Can women get AIDS?' soared following the five-part drama about a group of gay friends living - and dying - in London's Soho at the start of the outbreak.

The charity told FEMAIL that the idea that HIV is a disease that only affects gay men still lingers on despite Public Health England reporting that 28 per cent of new HIV diagnoses in 2019 were in women. Globally, there are more women living with HIV than men.

Scroll down for video

Russell T Davies' recent drama It's a Sin for Channel 4 has put HIV back in the spotlight...but no women with the virus featured in the 80s drama. Around a third of new cases diagnosed in the UK are amongst heterosexual women

Prior to 1996, a HIV diagnosis often meant an early death from an AIDS-related illness. However, the arrival of ART (anti-retroviral therapy), which suppresses the virus, has transformed what it means to have HIV - those on treatment can now expect to live as long a life as anyone else. On the right medication, a person who is HIV positive will not transmit the virus to sexual partners and can have HIV negative children.

Here, three women, all living with HIV contracted through unprotected sex, describe the shock of being diagnosed, how stigma still surrounds a positive status for many, and living well with the virus as they get older...

'It is still not easy for young women to be assertive and get a man to put a condom on...'

Silvia Petretti, 55, originally from Rome but living in Brixton, South London, was in her late 20s when she contracted HIV, she believes, from an ex boyfriend. She's now CEO of the charity Positively UK and has an undetectable viral load - meaning she can't pass on the virus - thanks to one 'massive' pill a day...

'I was diagnosed on February 2nd 1997 in Italy. I was living between Rome and London after finishing my degree and I had just returned from a holiday in Senegal. I contracted malaria and became very ill; and doctors soon became concerned that I wasn't recovering as well as they thought I should be and offered me a HIV test.'

Silvia had to wait three weeks for the results - current rapid HIV tests take around 20 minutes - and says when she arrived at the hospital for her results, she was simply handed a piece of paper by a doctor, who 'didn't look me in the eye'.

Silvia Petretti pictured around the time of her diagnosis with HIV; she contracted the disease, she believes, from unprotected sex with a former partner - and says the issue of broaching contraception is still difficult for many women

She says she fainted when she was told she was HIV positive because the diagnosis was so unexpected.

'I didn't think I had long to live and I thought I was going to die a horrible death because I'd seen the horrific images of people dying of AIDS.'

Traumatised by her diagnosis, Silvia says she didn't tell anyone for two years. Her mother had died when she was 20 and her father had advanced Alzheimer's but she says telling her older brother the news was a 'heartbreaking' experience, although she consoles that it did bring them 'closer together'.

A few months after her own diagnosis she found out that one of her ex boyfriends had died of a 'mysterious illness' and says she felt a 'crushing shame' about her own status.

'It was the late nineties, we were meant to be party girls, and confident but when you're in a bed with a man, they're not always co-operative when it comes to using condoms, it feels not like something I did, but like something I didn't do.'

'It's not always easy for a woman in her twenties to insist on a condom, and I don't think it's much easier now,' she adds.

Now 55, Silvia says she was initially devastated by her diagnosis and took two years to confide in people - but now lives well, and has recently come out of an eight-year relationship (Pictured with a portrait of her late mother)

I thought I was going to die a horrible death because I'd seen the horrific images of people dying of AIDS... Silvia Petretti, Positively UK CEO

Two years after her diagnosis, Silvia says she reached a turning point after her doctor at St George's Hospital in Tooting, London put her in touch with support services and she was given hope for the first time.

'I hadn't told anyone and I was crying all the time, nobody knew if the new treatments were going to work.

'I walked into a room full of women at the support group and I couldn't believe that all of these people had HIV, some had families, some had full-time jobs, I'd resigned myself to the fact I was going to die.'

HOW MANY WOMEN ARE LIVING WITH HIV? According to Public Health England, women made up 28 per cent of new HIV diagnoses in 2019 and around a third of people living with HIV in the UK are women. Globally, there are more women living with HIV than men. Charity Project Hope, which helps train medical staff overseas in the fight against HIV, says around 70 per cent of people living with the virus don't know they have it. In 2016, 1.8 million people around the world were newly infected, with almost two-thirds of new cases in Africa. Advertisement

By her late 30s, Silvia says she realised she wanted to be honest about being HIV positive. She is now CEO of the charity Positively UK, which works to help people living with HIV.

'The most powerful thing I could do to address stigma was to live without stigma myself and be open about my status. When people living with HIV are visible and heard, the stigma diminishes.'

Silvia, newly single after the recent end of an eight-year relationship, says it hasn't always been easy telling potential new partners about her status - and she finds herself 'waiting until the third date' to broach the subject.

She says a lot of women with HIV go through a phase of being 'grateful' in romantic relationships and that it's hard - but essential - to be open early on with a new partner.

And because it took most of her thirties to deal with her diagnosis, she didn't have children when she might have done.

'I didn't have children. When I felt like I was finally getting sorted and was ready to have them, I was already 40 years old.

'The HIV community is amazing though, I have met so many inspirational, resilient people.'

'Women are still left out of the HIV narrative - but I've never been ashamed of my diagnosis'

Fitness fanatic Becky Mitchell MBE, 46, from Bristol, was diagnosed at the age of 38 in August 2012, after a short relationship with a man she met at the gym. He was subsequently jailed for infecting her...

'I was a little sad that there were no women with HIV/AIDS portrayed in It's a Sin because women with the virus were around then as well - many had a horrific time too.

'Even now, everything is still geared towards gay men so it gives that deception that women can't contract it - people don't think it's going to happen to them.

'In 2012, I met someone at the gym, we became friends and started a relationship. It went on for a few months and we took precautions. I was in my late 30s, he was in his 40s and when he suggested we didn't need to use protection, I trusted him.'

Becky Mitchell, 46, who lives in Devon but grew up in Bristol, was awarded an MBE in 2020 for services to HIV awareness. She contracted the virus in August 2012 and lives a healthy life

Becky pictured at around the time of her diagnosis at the age of 38. She says HIV services are still 'geared towards gay men so it gives that deception that women can't contract it'

Shortly after Becky says she fell ill with a virus that 'didn't feel like a normal cold or flu' but doctors reassured her that she would be fine. Around the same time, she received a devastating text from her boyfriend's ex girlfriend saying he was HIV positive.

The hardest part was telling my mum, who died in 2017, I thought would be so disappointed in me. She wasn't, but she was absolutely heartbroken... Becky Mitchell MBE

'Her message came completely out of the blue and I just didn't think someone would lie about something that serious so I decided that I needed to go back to the doctor and get tested...but it was too late for me by then.'

The fitness fan, who was divorced before contracting the virus, says while she knew her illness was treatable, the enormity of the diagnosis still came as a huge shock.

Her ex was eventually jailed for infecting her; she was told that if he had taken his HIV medication properly, he wouldn't have passed on the virus. A previous girlfriend was also infected.

She says: 'I knew it wasn't going to kill me but I was aware that this would have massive implications on the rest of my life. The hardest part was having to tell my mum, who died in 2017, I thought would be so disappointed in me. She wasn't, but she was absolutely heartbroken.'

Nearly ten years after her diagnosis, Becky says she's fitter than many of her friends who aren't HIV positive

Positive...but there have been difficult times too, Becky says she thinks being diagnosed in her thirties meant she had the life experience to cope with it, adding: 'had I been diagnosed in 20s, I think it would have finished me off'

Nine years on, Becky says she's fitter than many of her friends without the virus.

'I have my dark days and it's hard to put on your game face, but I have more good days than bad. I have friends who still can't tell their families that they have HIV after many years and some people take the news as 'that's the end of my life.'

She says being diagnosed in her 30s meant she had more life experience to deal with it, saying 'had I been diagnosed in 20s, I think it would have finished me off'.

Becky now campaigns to raise awareness for early testing, saying her own early diagnosis - and her healthy lifestyle - mean she has fared better with the virus.

'It's a s*** diagnosis, but it's better to know as soon as you can. I've never been ashamed about my story and I hope that receiving an MBE from the Queen for the charity work I've done might help to stamp out some of the stigma.'

'I feared I wouldn't see my young daughter grow up'

Sue Hunter, 62, a former fashion retail manager from Worthing in Sussex, was diagnosed 15 years ago at the age of 47, when her daughter was just eight. The man who infected her - via unprotected sex - died two weeks after her diagnosis. She now works on a Terrence Higgins Trust programme, Positive Voices, educating teenagers about safer sex and encouraging early HIV testing...

Sue Hunter, 62, was infected with HIV at the age of 47 by a former partner who died of an AIDS-related illness shortly after her own diagnosis. Now a campaigner for better sex education and early testing, Sue says the heterosexual community needs to be better informed about HIV

'As a teenager, I remember the AIDS leaflets coming through the door and those television ads, which felt like a horror movie, but I always remember thinking, that will never happen to me because I'm not gay.

'I wasn't a naive person but I didn't know enough about HIV - I got the virus from having unprotected sex.

'I'd come out of a marriage and started a new relationship at 47 - we split up but remained friends and he came to tell me about his own status, thank goodness he did, he didn't have to.

'I was shocked and horrified and angry, telling him "how dare you bring HIV to my door?". I honestly thought it was a death sentence. I thought I wouldn't see my daughter grow up.'

Sue says the stigma still surrounding HIV still causes unnecessary suffering.

The one friend and one family member that she told at the time of her diagnosis in 2006 both thought she was going to die.

She had counselling after her diagnosis and didn't feel ready to tell her then eight-and-a-half-year-old daughter, now 23, until she was 14.

'I remember knocking on my daughter's bedroom door, she was 14, and I told her I'd been living with HIV for six years.

'Her first question was "are you going to die? mummy". She didn't tell anyone for two years, which created mental health problems for her.'

The former fashion manager pictured around the time of her diagnosis; she says it took six years of processing her status before she felt confident enough to tell her daughter, then 14, that she was HIV positive

Sue's own path to being honest about her condition was made easier, she says, by volunteering for HIV charities Terrence Higgins Trust and Positive Voices, saying: 'Educating others has empowered me to talk about my own status. Society can still make you feel like you've done something wrong.

I met a potential partner, we got on really well - we clicked. I told him I was HIV positive and he said: 'I value my health too much for a relationship with you'... Sue Hunter on the ignorance that still exists surrounding HIV

'There's still so much education needed. For example, people think HIV positive people can't have HIV negative children, which isn't true. In 2021, if you go onto the medication, within a matter of weeks, the virus in your body will be undetectable, that means you will not pass it on.'

Sue is currently in a relationship and has been married since her diagnosis but says she's experienced prejudice too.

'About four years ago, I met a potential partner, we got on really well - we clicked. He knew about all the work I'd done and I thought "what have I got to lose?", so I told him I was HIV positive.

'He paused and said: "I value my health too much for a relationship with you".'

She says: 'I was upset but I want to lead my life and feel comfortable. There has to be more voices about HIV in the heterosexual community because it can happen to any one of us.'
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
StartupWind Inc, and Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) announced their partnership today for StartupWind Global accelerator program that will help in accelerating the growth and expansion of the selected global startups in the North American market.

The selected startups will benefit from:



Up to $10,000 in saving in fees as StartupWind and TBDC are offering the Global Accelerator program for FREE for the inaugural cohort.

Connection to Silicon Valley mentors with a wide range of functional, industry and technological domain expertise.

35+ video-based entrepreneurship courses by StartupWind entrepreneurs updated with the ever-evolving business landscapes.

Potential of exposure to 400+ accredited investors on StartupWind platform.

World-class tools and frameworks provided by the StartupWind Innovation platform.

TBDC will screen and interview companies using TBDCs established due diligence process for Startup Visa and Soft-Landing Program and fast track eligible startups from StartupWinds Global Accelerator program for StartupWind Visa Program Canada.

The selected candidates for the Startup Visa program, will receive access to one-on-one mentor sessions via TBDCs mentors as TBDCs Program Clients, access to TBDCs networking events as and when such events shall from time to time be held; access to TBDCs investor network; use of the designated premises for the sole purpose of conducting the Program.

Neha Bahl, CEO at Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) said,

At TBDC we're helping grow the next wave of tech start-ups in Toronto. StartupWind platform, Global Accelerator coupled with TBDCs startup visa program provides a unique opportunity for global startups to expand their footprint and accelerate business growth.

Esha Chopra, Director Strategy and Marketing of Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) said,

We are excited about our partnership with StartupWind. The platforms global reach to over 25,000 innovators, best-in-class innovation tools and world-class entrepreneurship courses are synergistic to TBDCs startup programs and will help the growth of our selected startups.

Naren Patil, the Founder & CEO of StartupWind said,

Our Global Accelerator program is designed to bring Silicon Valley & Wall Street expertise to promising global start-ups. The intense structure of the program covers all aspects of the entrepreneurial journey and will help selected global startups accelerate their growth. Our accelerator program coupled with TBDC will open up a door to the large North American market for the promising global startups.

About StartupWind, Inc

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, StartupWind unveils a new way to connect, ideate, mentor, and scale startups and SMBs. StartupWind provides a comprehensive platform for startups and SMB entrepreneurs to scale their businesses and make an impact. StartupWind has been delivering an impact to about 25,000 users and 5,000 SMBs affiliated to over 100 universities across 100 countries in the world. It is helping universities and states to scale their tech startups and SMB economic development programs by delivering the AI-powered Innovation Platform that offers tools for ideation, customer discovery, business model canvas, business planning, competitions, mentoring, and learning management system.

Please visit http://www.startupwind.com for more information.

About Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC)

Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) offers support for launching, growing, and scaling start-ups. Their motto is to help grow the next wave of tech start-ups in Toronto through its Start-up Visa Program. TBDC is the first start-up incubator in Toronto. TBDC offers access to key resources such as business advisory support and a professional environment to establish your business. TBDC motivates entrepreneurial-minded individuals from diverse communities to develop their business plans and to effectively start up their companies through a variety of tailored programs. TBDC and its affiliate organizations provide advisory support to young student entrepreneurs, individuals currently receiving social assistance, and persons with disabilities.

Please visit http://www.tbdc.com for more information.
National political advisors have suggested the establishment of a national book-reading day on Confucius' birthday to further promote China's cultural construction.

April 23 marks the annual World Book and Copyright Day appointed by the UNESCO, commemorating the lives of a range of well-known writers, including Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Maurice Druon, and William Shakespeare.

But Lin Yang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and former editor-in-chief of China Fine Arts Publishing Group, said that the holiday currently lacks promotion of traditional Chinese cultural elements.

"While we can also organize nationwide reading activities during that time, they cannot be regarded as China's own 'National Reading Day' in the truest sense. Culture is the primary and most differentiated element. Foreign celebrations cannot replace our motherland's own. Therefore, to promote national reading for all, it is still necessary to establish China's own book-reading day with its own cultural connotations," Lin said.

Several of Lin's peers agreed. In a joint proposal raised by another national political advisor Zhu Yongxin and other CPPCC members, they called for the establishment of Sept. 28 as National Reading Day, the same day upon which the ancient Chinese sage Confucius was born.

In 2017, the State Council issued instructions on the implementation of the inheritance and development of Chinese excellent traditional culture.

Zhu Yongxin believed the instructions made comprehensive arrangements for the implementation of the project on Chinese traditional culture. "From an educational point of view, the promotion of Chinese excellent traditional culture requires a certain celebratory ceremony that pays tribute to tradition and needs a certain vehicle by which it is promoted."

"Confucius was the first thinker and educator compiling cultural classics and advocated reading and learning in Chinese history," Zhu said, pointing out that "Holding all kinds of reading activities in various forms on a National Reading Day that pays tribute to Confucius will help create a positive atmosphere for reading throughout society. It will also guide the people to develop their reading interests, habits, abilities, and continuously enhance ideological and moral quality as well as scientific and cultural quality, providing strong spiritual motivation and intellectual support for the realization of the two centenary goals and the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation."

This year marks Zhu's 18th consecutive year in pushing for the establishment of this day.

"The history of a person's spiritual development is his history of reading. The spiritual realm of a nation depends on the reading level of the nation. A school without reading can never have real education. Only a city full of books can become a beautiful spiritual home. Only by reading and writing together and living together can we have a common language, common values, and a common vision," the political advisor explained.

In order to establish a National Reading Day, Lin suggested that it is first necessary to study and explore the procedures and management practices of national days, and make them based on full research, and adapt them to the development of society and industries. He added that multi-party research should be conducted, and the feasibility of similar holidays in other countries can be used for reference.

A national reading survey conducted in 2019 showed that nearly 70% of Chinese people wanted the organization of additional reading activities. A draft ordinance to promote reading in China was published by the government in 2017. Released by the Legislative Affairs Office of China's State Council, the ordinance planned to take "reading for all" as a national strategy and encourage people to form better reading habits. In the document, it instructed governments at various levels to organize reading activities on significant cultural days such as Confucius' birthday and the World Book and Copyright Day, but a national reading day has yet to be officially proposed.
Courtesy Courtney Friedman

KSAT-12 weekend anchor Courtney Friedman is sharing some exciting news.



"Its a dream come true to announce to a community I love, that Im pregnant. My husband and I are thrilled to be expecting a little girl in July!" Friedman said in an online report.



The San Antonio TV personality told MySA she and her husband Clint found out they were expecting in early November.



"Ive always wanted to be a mom, so I am absolutely ecstatic. Im mainly just feeling excited and grateful, but of course there are always going to be worries," she told MySA. "Other pregnant women right now know those fears are amplified during a pandemic. Thats why I wanted to create a space where we can all talk about our concerns and get our questions answered."

READ MORE: Something in the water: San Antonio TV personalities saw 2020 'baby boom'



Friedman is using her platform at KSAT-12 to help other parents and parents-to-be to have a space to ask questions about pregnancy, infertility, and parenting during COVID-19. Some topics may even be turned into stories airing on air and online at ksat.com.



"We may not be able to find definitive answers to every single question, but well contact the experts and try our best," she said.



Friedman joins a slew of San Antonio TV personalities that expanded their family during the pandemic and is learning first-hand how COVID-19 has changed the experience for expecting moms.



"Every time I go to the doctor to hear my daughters heartbeat or see her on a sonogram, my husband cant be there. In the era of COVID were prepared for these protocols, but seeing him smile on Facetime instead of next to me holding my hand isnt what I always dreamed of," she said in her online report. "The bottom line is that this is tough, and we all need each other even more than usual right now."



But one thing COVID-19 hasn't changed is the excitement of being parents.



"Im looking forward to so much of motherhood, as hard as I know it will be. Who doesnt love sleep?? Im excited to see my husband become the best dad! This will also be the first grandchild for both of our parents, so its really just special to our whole family. We are really close with our families and we cant wait to be parents who support and love our daughter just as much."



As a mom myself who gave birth during the age of COVID-19 I want Courtney to know  you got this, mama!



Candice.Garcia@express-news.net | Twitter @_candicegarcia
Scarlett Moffatt appears to be back together with her boyfriend Scott Dobinson, just 24 hours after announcing they had split up.

The couple - who have been together for two years - were seen on Scarlett's Instagram on Monday night, cosying up on the sofa together watching the Oprah, Meghan and Harry interview.

Scarlett, 30, filmed Scott tenderly holding on to her leg as they watched the two-hour special, after which she filmed herself telling people to 'be kind' in light of the royal expose.

Back on? Scarlett Moffatt appears to be back together with her boyfriend Scott Dobinson, just 24 hours after announcing they had split up

Turning the camera on to Scott, he put his thumbs up in agreement.

MailOnline has contacted reps for comment.

Just 24 hours earlier, Scarlett revealed she and the police constable 'sadly' ended their romance over the weekend in a post on Sunday evening, which has since been deleted.

The couple - who recently moved into their new 'dream' home - had hinted at starting a family and wanting to adopt children just last month, and teamed up with Radio 1 to launch their joint podcast, Scarlett Moffatt Wants To Believe, in May 2020.

Alongside an image of the pair posing in their kitchen, the former Gogglebox star wrote: 'Unfortunately me and Scott are no longer together.

Spotted! The couple - who have been together for two years - were seen on Scarlett's Instagram on Monday night, cosying up on the sofa together watching the Oprah, Meghan and Harry interview

Changed your tune: Just 24 hours earlier, Scarlett revealed she and the police constable 'sadly' ended their romance over the weekend in a post on Sunday evening, which has since been deleted

Cosy night in: Turning the camera on to Scott, he put his thumbs up in agreement

'Nothing major has happened, its just one of those sad things. Im going to stay positive for the future and if this lockdown has taught me anything its to grab life by the horns as lifes far too short.'

On their break-up, an insider told The Sun: 'Scarlett is heartbroken that her relationship with Scott has come to an end. Theyve had a rough few weeks and lately its all become too much.

'Together they have decided to take time apart and Scarlett has told people it is over for good. Scott and Scarlett were very amicable, its just a shame.

On again, off again: The couple - who recently moved into their new 'dream' home - had hinted at starting a family and wanting to adopt children just last month

Business partners: They had teamed up with Radio 1 to launch their joint podcast, Scarlett Moffatt Wants To Believe, in May 2020

Updates: The pair purchased their abode last December, just a few weeks after selling her County Durham home for 400,000 (pictured)

'Everyone who knows them hope they can work it out as they make such a great couple.'

The Sun claimed that the former Queen of the Jungle removed Scott's Instagram account from their property profile, Our Bonnie Barn, and that they had also unfollowed each other on the platform.

But this is not the case at the time of writing, with all accounts re-followed.

The pair purchased their abode last December, 10 miles away from her County Durham home, which she sold for 400,000 only one week after putting it on the market.

Scarlett and Scott had been updating fans by documenting their renovations on social media.

'One day, maybe': In February, the reality star-turned-broadcaster revealed she would like to have kids with her then-beau

In February, the reality star-turned-broadcaster revealed she would like to have kids with her then-beau 'one day'.

The host took part in an Instagram Q&A when she was asked whether she had any plans of becoming a mother in the coming years.

She shared: 'One day maybe in a few years. However that may be. Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to adopt as I think every child deserves a loving home.'

The media personality also discussed plans of eloping to Las Vegas in a recent episode of their podcast, insisting: 'I've always, always wanted a massive wedding.

'I assume he's going to propose at some point': The media personality also discussed plans of eloping to Las Vegas in a recent episode of their podcast

Fate? In an exclusive interview with MailOnline earlier this year, the influencer lovingly declared 'they are meant to be together'

'Now I keep saying "let's go the Vegas." I'm not actually engaged yet, but I assume he's [Scott] going to do it at some point.'

The officer joined in the wedding chat, revealing: 'She's [Scarlett] full of hints.

'It went from "I've found this stately home, let's have this massive ceremony, get all this catering in, this is how I want my tables" to "we're going to Vegas, it's what I really want to do because it will be fun.'''

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline earlier this year, the influencer lovingly declared 'they are meant to be together' as she confessed to feeling used during relationships in the past.

Long-term: They started dating shortly after Scarlett made an emergency 999 call about a stranger outside her home in 2019

They started dating shortly after Scarlett made an emergency 999 call about a stranger outside her home in 2019.

The 'fit' constable arrived at her door which sparked conversation, but according to the brunette, they had known each other for several years.

The I'm A Celebrity star revealed they had been speaking on-and-off since she was 18, but the timing was never right due to work commitments.

Scarlett recalled: 'We would message on Facebook but then it would die off because we were both busy.

'But I think we were always meant to be together, which I know sounds really soppy and it makes me cringe to say,' she laughed. 'But I do honestly think we were always meant to be together.'

Before dating Scarlett, the Extra Camp star split from personal trainer Lee Wilkinson in April 2018, claiming he was unfaithful.

After parting ways, she took to social media to hit out at the 'cheating pathological liar' and posted a cryptic message referencing Henry VIII - who had six wives.

Scarlett said: 'Just always seem to choose cheating pathological liars... I just choose lying cheats it's a skill.'

'For anyone that needs this right now, I just want to say if somebody feels you're not enough for them then that isn't a reflection on you, that's a reflection on them... Unless you're Henry VIII, then one girl's normally enough.'

Despite her explosive claims, the Virtually Famous star sparked rumours of a reconciliation the following month when she hid her Facebook relationship status, after changing it to 'single'.

Old flame: Before dating Scarlett, the Extra Camp star split from personal trainer Lee Wilkinson in April 2018, claiming he was unfaithful

However, the two soon called it quits again after she reportedly dumped Lee when his ex-girlfriend of two years, Sam Irving, claimed he had sent her messages while he was still with Scarlett.

Her romance with Lee followed a long-term relationship with hairdresser Luke Crodden, who left her devastated when he broke up with her on her birthday in 2017.

She wrote on Facebook at the time: 'I'm gonna have to write it because I feel a bit awkward as I've done some interviews about him being in my book that aren't out for a while due to timings of the magazines ... but me and Luke have finished due to a number of different things.

'It was Luke's choice in the end but it's because we both just see each other in more of a friendly way than a romantic way.

'We both respect and love each other enough to know we need to call it a day and not be one of those couples that's off and on.'

The ex files: Her romance with Lee followed a long-term relationship with hairdresser Luke Crodden (pictured), who left her devastated when he broke up with her on her birthday in 2017

Scarlett's love life was put under the microscope when she branched out from Gogglebox to enter the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! jungle in 2016.

The Iain Stirlings CelebAbility captain was also at one point linked to Ant McPartlin, having landed a role on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, after impressing ITV bosses on I'm A Celeb.

These reports were never validated, however, and Ant has since found love with Anne Marie Corbett, following his divorce from make-up artist Lisa Armstrong.

MailOnline has contacted Scarlett's representatives for further comment.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Voters wait in line to cast their ballots on the final day of early voting for the 2020 presidential election in a file photo. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Iowa Governor Signs Bill to Limit Absentee and Early Voting, Close Polls Earlier

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Monday signed a bill to limit absentee voting, shorten early voting, and close the polls earlier on Election Day.

The Republican-backed law, SF 413, will shorten the states early voting period from 29 to 20 days. It also requires most mail ballots to be received by Election Day. Previously, they could arrive by noon on the Monday after the election, if they were postmarked. Voting sites must close at 8 p.m., an hour earlier than before under the law.

County auditors or other election officials are banned from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms under the new law. They would also face penalties of up to $10,000 if they do not enforce state election laws or disobey the guidelines from the secretary of state.

Under the law, county auditors are not permitted to set up satellite voting sites unless enough residents petition for one. Voters will be removed from active voting lists if they miss an election and dont report a change in address or register as a voter again.

The new law in Iowa also limits who can return a voters absentee ballot. Previously, anyone could do so on the voters behalf if they were asked to do so by the voter. Now, only the voter, their immediate family or household member, or caregiver, are permitted to return the ballot, whether in person or by mail.

Its our duty and responsibility to protect the integrity of every election, Reynolds said of the bill in a statement. This legislation strengthens uniformity by providing Iowas election officials with consistent parameters for Election Day, absentee voting, database maintenance, as well as a clear appeals process for local county auditors.

She added, All of these additional steps promote more transparency and accountability, giving Iowans even greater confidence to cast their ballot.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds addresses the virtual Republican National Convention on Aug. 25, 2020. (Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via Getty Images)

The law passed both chambers of the states legislature in February on party lines with all Republicans in favor and all Democrats against.

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Ross Wilburn in a statement said: We dont have to wait to get people registered to vote. We dont have to wait to have Democrats talking with their neighbors in rural and metropolitan areas in the state about how these harmful pieces of legislation are being forced through.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy group, lawmakers in 43 states are debating over 200 bills concerning ballot access. This comes after the presidential election in November 2020 which saw widespread allegations of voting irregularities and election fraud.

Heritage Action for America, a policy advocacy group, praised the passing of the new Iowa law.

By enacting this critical election integrity bill, Gov. Reynolds and the Iowa legislature have made Iowa one of the states leading the charge to secure our nations election, Executive Director Jessica Anderson said in a statement. After a year of unprecedented challenges to the integrity of our states electoral systems, elected officials in Iowa, Florida, Georgia, and other states are taking urgent and necessary steps to restore confidence in elections and secure the voting process.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in February proposed a bill to enact a number of restrictions on mail-in voting, including banning unsolicited mail-in ballots, and requiring that mail-in ballot requests must be made each election year.

Iowas law comes as the Georgia state Senate voted on Monday to pass an election reform bill that repeals no-excuse absentee voting and limits the eligibility of who can cast a mail-in ballot.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Joel Lion has condemned the decision of Ternopil City Council to name the city stadium after the Hero of Ukraine, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Roman Shukhevych.

"We strongly condemn the decision of Ternopil city council to name the City Stadium after the infamous Hauptman of the SS Schutzmannschaft 201 Roman Shukhevych and demand the immediate cancellation of this decision," the Ambassador wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

On March 5, a session of Ternopil City Council made a decision to name the city stadium as "Ternopil City Stadium named after Roman Shukhevych."
Japanese car producer Honda has confirmed plans to revamp its operations in Australia by turning its dealers into representatives, with all vehicle stocks to be held by the company and car prices fixed.

The change will come into force in July with the brand to have between 90 and 95 Honda Experience Centres and Satellite Service Centres across the country.

The majority of those centres will be owned and operated by existing Honda dealers, who will become Honda Representatives.

Honda says the agency-style arrangement will include a streamlined product line-up with a focus on its best selling models - the CR-V, HR-V and the Civic.

Honda says the agency-style arrangement will include a streamlined product line-up with a focus on its best selling models - the CR-V, HR-V and the Civic

It says customers will experience a simpler and more transparent buying experience that will reduce the stress sometimes associated with a new car purchase.

That includes consistent pricing, regardless of where a car is bought.

'Honda Australia's customer experience is already great, but the new model will make it even better,' Honda Australia Director Stephen Collins said.

'Our new model addresses the core challenges in our industry, and we look forward to writing our next chapter and engaging with our customers in a new way in 2021 and beyond, for a stronger Honda for years to come,'

The Australian Automotive Dealer Association said recently it was keeping an open mind on Honda's shift to an agency model.

Chief Executive James Voortman said many dealers were anxious about the change, including their inability to negotiate with customers on price.

The change will come into force in July with the brand to have between 90 and 95 Honda Experience Centres and Satellite Service Centres across the country

He said they were concerned about long-term customers potentially going elsewhere if there was no 'deal' on offer.

Mr Voortman said Mercedes Benz had also indicated it would shift to an agency model in 2022, and he expected other manufacturers to look at it as well.

Honda's sales dipped by almost 34 per cent in 2020 to just over 29,000 and the company said it expected the downward trend would continue until demand stabilised in the second half of 2021.

It forecast sales of about 1,650 a month from July and said 'chasing volume' was no longer the primary driver for the business.

It said sales would continue to be subject to other factors including product availability and market preferences.

The company plans to add new models to its line-up, including hybrid versions.
TEL AVIV, Israel, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cipia, formerly Eyesight Technologies, an AI computer vision in-cabin automotive solutions provider, today announced that the company was selected by a leading China-US OEM Joint Venture as the driver monitoring system (DMS) provider for 5 upcoming car models. Junjie, a leading Chinese Tier 1 supplier, will be working with Cipia to integrate the Driver Sense DMS into the new car models and create safer and better driving experiences.

The start of production (SOP) for the first models is expected for early 2022 and builds on Cipia's recent successes in the DMS market, securing the company's position as the leading DMS provider in the Chinese automotive marketplace.

Utilizing Cipia's proprietary computer vision and AI algorithms, the Driver Sense DMS monitors key features and actions of the driver in real-time to detect signs of distracted driving and drowsiness behind the wheel. The integration of Driver Sense enables OEMs to deliver customers a robust solution to issue life-saving alerts and avert potential accidents.

"With its current size and growth trajectory, the Chinese Market is one of the largest and most important automotive markets in the world." said David Tolub, CEO of Cipia. "These latest design wins are a testament to the trust we have built through our commitment to the Chinese market, and we look forward to working with Junjie and our OEM partner to provide our market leading driver monitoring solution."

"At Junjie our main commitment is providing the highest level of quality to our customers," said Mr. Liang Dong, GM of Junjie. "We are very pleased to have this in-depth cooperation with Cipia, using the core technological advantages of both parties to bring advanced DMS to market".

About Cipia

Cipia, formerly Eyesight Technologies, is a leading provider of intelligent sensing solutions that use edge-based computer vision and AI for safer and better mobility experiences. The company focuses on the automotive in-cabin environment, offering Driver Sense - driver monitoring system, Cabin Sense - occupancy monitoring systems and Fleet Sense - a driver monitoring and video telematics device for fleets. Over a decade of research and development stand behind the company's proprietary market-leading computer vision technology. Cipia is constantly pushing the boundaries of what intelligent sensing solutions can see and accomplish, for better and safer mobility.

Cipia Media Contact:

Lazer Cohen

[email protected]

347-753-8256

Cipia Company Contact:

Liat Rostock

[email protected]

SOURCE Cipia
Five individuals that were allegedly involved in riot-related crimes during a party turned riot in Boulder over the weekend have been identified by police.
Kanye West believes that he still has another shot with soon-to-be-ex-wife Kim Kardashian.

A few weeks after the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star filed for divorce, Hollywood Life's sources revealed how bad the "Jesus Is King" rapper wants his dream girl back.

The outlet's sources revealed that Kanye is hopeful he can save his marriage with the KKW Beauty mogul once she realizes what she's leaving behind.

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West Tensions

The former power couple has been experiencing some thick tensions in their marriage in the months that lead to their divorce.

In the past six years of their union, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have debunked divorce rumors, with the brunette bombshell trying to put on a united front with her husband each time those kinds of stories surfaced.

However, it was only in 2020 when numerous reports suggested that they live two separate lives after Kanye West lost the US Presidential Elections. By early 2021, reports claimed that the West's divorce was "imminent."

A few days after Valentine's Day, Kim Kardashian finally put the final nail in the coffin and filed for divorce, leaving the Grammy-winning musician with the reality of their failed marriage.

Kanye West Believes He Can Get Kim Kardashian Back

But it seems like the "Gold Digger" hitmaker is not giving up on saving his marriage with Kim Kardashian.

Insiders told Hollywood Life that he's even confident in what his future with the SKIMS creator will be because they "will always be family regardless of what happens in their marriage."

He also believes that he can get Kim Kardashian back because distance "makes the heart grow fonder."

The insider further shared shows the Yeezy creator feels about his divorce.

"There is so much strain thanks to so many obstacles with quarantine and both of them wanting to live in different parts of the country, to the kids and his overall health."

They continued, "He is realistic and knows that co-parenting is the way forward since Kim has had enough, but he feels it can be used as a breather to where distance will make the heart grow fonder, and she will realize what she is missing."

And it seems like the report could be true because, in the past few weeks, Kanye West continues to wear his wedding ring in public and with everyone knowing he was in the middle of a divorce.

It's unclear what Kim Kardashian actually feels about this, but it looks like she has moved on as she let go of her wedding and engagement bands and seems to be enjoying the single life.

READ MORE: Kanye West Takes Next Big Step in His Life Amid Kim Kardashian Divorce

See Now: Famous Actors Who Turned Down Iconic Movie Roles
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
That may change now. You could see glimpses of that change in the relationship Harry and Meghan already have with Winfrey. She is one of the few media figures on the planet who has enough public clout to help turn around the storm of negative headlines that have plagued Meghan and  as she disclosed in the interview  driven her to thoughts of suicide.
Tapping into women's huge potential is a win-win situation for their empowerment and inclusive global economic growth, IMF's Chief Economist has said as she warned that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to roll back years of hard-won economic and social gains for the community.

The top Indian-American economist made the comments in her keynote address on Monday at the Inaugural Dr Hansa Mehta Lecture which is named in the memory of the pioneering Indian reformer and educator.

We are meeting amidst a global health and economic crisis which threatens to roll back years of hard-won economic and social gains for women. Women have been affected disproportionately by the pandemic because they work predominantly in sectors such as restaurants and hospitality that have been hit hardest by the lockdowns, and as the main caregivers at home, they have had to drop out of the labour market as schools closed, Gopinath said.

The lecture was organised virtually by India's Permanent Mission to the UN and the United Nations Academic Impact on the occasion of Women's Day.

Mehta had served as the Indian delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights from 1947 to 1948 and is widely known for ensuring a more gender sensitive language in the landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

She is credited with making a significant change in the language of Article 1 of the UDHR by replacing the phrase All men are born free and equal to All human beings are born free and equal.

Gopinath pointed out that in developing countries, women are over-represented in the informal sector where they face lower pay, less job security and lower social protection. In these countries, girls have dropped out more from school to help in households and there is a disturbing fact that violence against women and girls has intensified since the outbreak of the pandemic.

As countries around the world struggle to grow their economies grappling with ageing populations, and buffeted by trade shocks, social unrest, weather-related disasters and now, the worst peacetime crisis in a century tapping into the huge potential of women is unambiguously a win-win for both women's empowerment and inclusive global economic growth, she said.

Even as the pandemic demonstrated excellent contributions of women as leaders, health professionals, first-responders and caregivers, it is concerning that women have been hit disproportionately hard by this crisis, Gopinath said, adding that much more needs to be done to achieve gender equality.

Elaborating on how gender equity can lead to inclusive and stronger global economic growth, she underscored that gender equity in the labour market can deliver significant gains to national income as she cited research that said if women were to participate in the labour force to the same extent as men, national income could increase significantly.

With female labour force participation falling in many countries during the pandemic, targeted policies such as hiring subsidies may be needed to swiftly bring about the reintegration of female workers into the labour force, she said.

Gopinath further stressed that better economic opportunities and equal pay for women not only lowers gender inequality but also lowers income inequality and women's empowerment enhances economic resilience.

The empowerment of women is an important channel by which we can obtain stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient growth, she said, noting that women globally account for less than 20 percent of board seats in banks and banking supervision agencies, and account for fewer than 2 per cent of bank CEOs.

This suggests tremendous room to achieve greater financial sector resilience while also increasing banking sector profitability, she said.

Gopinath called on governments to use fiscal policy to assist with the advancement of women in education, health, financial inclusion and economic empowerment.

Gender budgeting can ensure that tax and spending policies transparently and adequately include provisions for women's access to opportunity in education and the workplace, she said.

Well-designed workplace regulations that protect women under the law including parental leave policies that encourage greater parity between men and women, access to affordable childcare, equitable treatment of women in courts and protection against violence have all been shown to significantly raise women's participation in economic activity.

She also underlined that governments must take concrete actions to level the playing field for women.

In many regions of the world, a key obstacle to women's empowerment are outdated legal, regulatory and institutional impediments all of which are in the hands of governments to reform, she said.

Underscoring the role of the private sector, she said businesses can promote gender equity by ensuring equal pay for equal work.

Even where governmental regulations do not mandate it, firms can take the initiative to put in place work-life policies that support women's labour force attachment, Gopinath said.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti said that Mehta has left an indelible mark on the Indian Constitution and on the UDHR of the United Nations.

Quoting Swami Vivekananda, he said, there is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved.

"It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wing, Tirumurti added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
You may also like these stories:

This article was first published by Thai PBS World .

Harsh crackdowns on protests by the junta in Myanmar have been reported in border townships, such as Tachileik and Myawaddy, opposite Thailands Mae Sai and Mae Sot districts.

Four facilities in Kanchanaburi province, which shares a common border with Myanmar at the Three Pagoda Pass, can accommodate up to 2,000 refugees.

Seven areas in Mae Sot, Tha Song Yang, Mae Ramat and Phob Phra districts have been set aside as refugee camps.

Thailands Army Commander-in-Chief General Narongphan Chitkaewtae visited security units in Mae Hong Son and Tak provinces on Monday, to inspect their readiness to cope refugees from the worsening situation in the neighbouring country.

Thailand has prepared facilities in provinces bordering Myanmar to accommodate a possible influx of refugees, fleeing the brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military and police following the recent coup.

Anti-military regime protesters in Yangon's Kamayut Township react to being tear-gassed by riot police on Mar 1. / The Irrawaddy

Anti-military regime protesters in Yangon's Kamayut Township react to being tear-gassed by riot police on Mar 1. / The Irrawaddy

Myanmar Military Cracks Down on Journalists with Arrests and Lawsuits

For Myanmar Military, Rule No. 1 in Riot Control Is Shoot to Kill

Myanmar Diplomat in US Refuses to Work for Military Regime

At Least Nine Protesters Shot Dead in Three Cities in Myanmar

Another Bloody Day in Myanmar: At Least 28 Protesters Slain by Military

More Than 10 Myanmar Diplomats Refuse to Work for Military Regime

One More Killed as Myanmars Military Continues to Escalate Violence Against Protesters

With No Word for a Month, Families of Detained Senior NLD Figures Worry for Their Health

Myanmar Protesters Say an Attack on Chinas Pipelines Would Be Internal Affair

Can China be Myanmars Good Neighbor While Maintaining Its Non-interference Principle?

Myanmar Regime Claims Australian Adviser Tried to Flee with Financial Information

We do not encourage viewing this site in this width. Please increase the size of your window.
Names of at least half a dozen leaders, including Dhan Singh Rawat, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Satpal Maharaj, are doing the rounds to replace Trivendra Singh Rawat, who resigned as the chief minister of on Tuesday.

Though Trivendra Singh Rawat's substitute will be decided at a state legislature party meeting at the headquarters here on Wednesday under the watch of party vice-president and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, political circles are abuzz with speculations.

Sources said state minister Dhan Singh Rawat has emerged as a frontrunner to be the next chief minister. A man known for his polite ways, 48-year-old Dhan Singh, a resident of Paithani village in Pauri district, is said to be close to the outgoing chief minister. Singh became an MLA for the first time in 2017.

Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj is also being looked at as a prominent contender. A former Congress heavyweight, Maharaj joined the in 2014 after losing the race for chief ministership to Harish Rawat.

Maharaj is an MLA from Chaubattakhal in Pauri district. He is also a spiritual guru having admirers across the country. The 69-year-old had been a Congress MP from Pauri in the past.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank is another contender for the post. A former chief minister, Nishank is an MP from Haridwar. He was also a hill development minister in undivided Uttar Pradesh.

The name of Maharashtra Governor Bhagat SinghKoshyari is also doing the rounds. Koshyari had held the Uttarkhand chief minister's post briefly after Nityanand Swami. He has also represented the state both in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha.

Names of spokesperson Anil Baluni and former state BJP president Ajay Bhatt are also in circulation.

Baluni (50) is currently a Rajya Sabha member and his proximity with the central party leadership may help him get to the top office in the state.

Bhatt represents the Nainital constituency in the Lok Sabha. He had defeated former chief minister Harish Rawat in Nainital in the 2019 general elections.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
WEST CHESTER, Pa., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The legal profession is one of the least diverse professions in the United States. With LexScholars by AccessLex, its innovative diversity pipeline program, AccessLex Institute is aiming to change that.

Launched in 2020, LexScholars will provide more than 1,200 aspiring law students, over five years, with resources and guidance to pursue their goal of attending law school. By design, the program targets students who possess the potential for law school success but may be unlikely to gain admission due to unfavorable LSAT scores and/or undergraduate grades.

"The 'ideal' LexScholars participants have endured and are seeking to overcome multilayered disadvantages," Aaron N. Taylor, Executive Director of the AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence and the principal architect behind the LexScholars by AccessLex program has said. "And despite potential for success and a clear, demonstrated commitment to attending law school, they are unlikely to gain admission without targeted assistance."

LexScholars participants receive a free online Kaplan LSAT course, comprehensive law school admission counseling, and ongoing access to financial education and law school informational resources. This year, 250 participants who plan to seek Fall 2022 law admission will be selected. LexScholars openings are filled on a first come, first served basis; therefore, the earlier applicants submit all required materials, the better their chances of selection.

The overarching goal of the program is to help identify obstacles that law school applicants from underrepresented backgrounds face and, correspondingly, identify effective means of addressing those obstacles. As a condition of participation, LexScholars participants are required to complete monthly surveys detailing their experiences and outcomes during the law school admission process. AccessLex researchers will use this information to aid their progression, while also developing diversity pipeline models that will benefit legal education, the legal profession and society overall.

Law students from underrepresented backgrounds often become lawyers who represent underserved people and interests. The impact of this cannot be overstated as there are scores of people across the country who would benefit greatly from gaining access to highly trained attorneys and other public servants. And more to that point, a legal education offers training that is unmatched in its quality, portability and flexibility. That's to say, a law degree can be advantageous even for those who do not aspire to practice law. Individuals whose trajectories lead them to public policy, politics or education will see their career prospects bolstered by their legal education. And communities with increased numbers of educated, employed and civic-minded residents are stronger for that.

"LexScholars is premised on changing lives, communities and our society," Dr. Taylor added, "We are looking to invest in the hopes and dreams of aspiring law students now, while working to create better, more equitable systems for the future."

The LexScholars by AccessLex application opens on March 15. For more information, please visit: AccessLex.org/lexscholars.

About AccessLex Institute

AccessLex Institute is a nonprofit organization committed to helping talented, purpose-driven students find their path from aspiring lawyer to fulfilled professional. In partnership with its nearly 200 Member law schools, improving access and positively influencing legal education have been at the heart of the Company's mission since 1983. AccessLex Institute is headquartered in West Chester, PA, with a team of accredited financial education counselors based throughout the United States. Learn more at AccessLex.org.

Media Contact: Julie Solomon, [email protected]

SOURCE AccessLex Institute
- EQT has held its first closing for the EQT Infrastructure V fund, reaching approximately EUR 12.5 billion which corresponds to the communicated target fund size - EQT expects the fund to reach its hard cap of EUR 15 billion during 2021

- The EQT IX fund to reach its hard cap of EUR 15 billion

STOCKHOLM, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- EQT has held its first closing for the EQT Infrastructure V fund, reaching approximately EUR 12.5 billion, corresponding to the previously communicated target fund size. In light of strong support from both new and existing investors EQT currently expects EQT Infrastructure V to reach its hard cap of EUR 15 billion. However, the actual fund size remains dependent on the final outcome of the fundraising process. Active fundraising efforts are expected to be materially concluded in H1 2021.

As previously communicated, the EQT IX fundraising is materially concluded. The expectation is that the fund will have its final closing during Q2 2021, reaching its hard cap of EUR 15 billion.



EQT has also set the target size for the EQT Growth fund at EUR 2 billion. No hard cap has been set to date. The actual fund size is dependent on the outcome of the fundraising process and may ultimately be higher or lower than the target fund size.

EQT continues preparations for its thematic long-hold strategy and has decided that it will seek to charge management fees on net invested capital during the full term of any future fund within this strategy. This means that management fees will be charged only as and when investments are made by any such fund, i.e. fees ramping up over time as commitments are deployed. This represents a different revenue profile for fees generated within the thematic long-hold strategy as compared to most other EQT investment strategies. No target size of a potential fund has been set to date.



Contact

Olof Svensson, Head of Shareholder Relations, +46 72 989 09 15

Nina Nornholm, Head of Communications, +46 70 855 03 56

EQT Press Office, press@eqtpartners.com, +46 8 506 55 334



The information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell, nor a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security, and may not be used or relied upon in connection with any offer or solicitation. Any offer or solicitation in respect of any EQT fund will be made only through a confidential private placement memorandum and related documents which will be furnished to qualified investors on a confidential basis in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. The information contained herein is not for publication or distribution to persons in the United States of America. Any securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and may not be offered or sold without registration thereunder or pursuant to an available exemption therefrom. Any offering of securities to be made in the United States would have to be made by means of an offering document that would be obtainable from the issuer or its agents and would contain detailed information about the issuer of the securities and its management, as well as financial information. The securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration.

About EQT

EQT is a purpose-driven global investment organization with close to three decades of consistent investment performance across multiple geographies, sectors, and strategies. EQT has raised more than EUR 84 billion since inception and has as of 31 December 2020 more than EUR 52 billion in assets under management across 17 active funds within two business segments - Private Capital and Real Assets.

With its roots in the Wallenberg family's entrepreneurial mindset and philosophy of long-term ownership, EQT is guided by a set of strong values and a distinct corporate culture. EQT manages and advises funds and vehicles that invest across the world with the mission to future-proof companies, generate attractive returns and make a positive impact with everything EQT does.

The EQT AB Group comprises EQT AB (publ) and its direct and indirect subsidiaries, which include general partners and fund managers of EQT funds as well as entities advising EQT funds. EQT has offices in 17 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America with more than 700 employees.

More info: www.eqtgroup.com

Follow EQT on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram

THIS IS INFORMATION THAT EQT AB (PUBL) IS OBLIGED TO MAKE PUBLIC PURSUANT TO THE EU MARKET ABUSE REGULATION. THE INFORMATION WAS SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION, THROUGH THE AGENCY OF THE CONTACT PERSON SET OUT BELOW AT 17:35 CET ON 9 MARCH 2021.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/eqt/r/update-on-eqt-infrastructure-v-and-certain-other-initiatives,c3303370

The following files are available for download:
Met Eireann has issued a weather warning for all counties ahead of a bout of stormy weather heads towards Ireland and snow is also possible in parts with one of its forecasters saying cold weather could bring 'wintry' showers later this week.

The Status Yellow wind warning says it will become very windy from Wednesday afternoon through until Thursday morning.

The alert says southwest winds will veer westerly gust at 90 to 110km/h generally, higher at times on hills and coasts in the south and west with a risk of some wave overtopping.

The alert is valid from noon Wednesday to 7am Thursday, March 10 - 11. More below picture.

Picture: Forecast chart for 1800UTC Wednesday 10th March showing deep low to the NW of Ireland

The forecaster has also issued a commentary on what to expect through the week.

It says that after a quiet start to meteorological spring, conditions will turn much more unsettled this week with spells of wet and very windy weather on the way.

It says high pressure has brought largely dry and settled weather since the start of March, but as the jet stream moves over Ireland in the next few days this will steer a succession of Atlantic low-pressure systems towards us.

Met Eireann meteorologist, Paul Downes, said Monday was the last day of the settled weather with wet and windy weather expected through the rest of the week.

Rain and strong winds will push east across the country from Tuesday afternoon, becoming widespread by early evening. Further wet and very windy weather is expected on Wednesday as a deep low-pressure system tracks to the northwest of Ireland  bringing very strong south-westerly winds and spells of heavy rain through Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night.

During the early hours of Thursday, this low-pressure system will clear away from Ireland, introducing a colder and more unstable airmass. However, it will remain very windy into the weekend along with blustery showers, these possibly turning wintry over high ground,

Met Eireann forecast charts show that by Friday, March 12 a cooler polar maritime airmass will settle over the UK & Ireland.

Turning unsettled this week with areas of low pressure in the Atlantic moving towards Ireland bringing spells of wet and windy weather.



Keep and eye on our forecast https://t.co/RxE2EXt5Fq pic.twitter.com/OK9ypl6RY6  Met Eireann (@MetEireann) March 9, 2021

NATIONAL FORECAST ISSUED BY MET EIREANN ON MARCH 9 AT 8.53AM

TUESDAY: Cloudy today with rain moving in from the Atlantic to affect west Munster, Connacht and west Ulster this morning. Rain will extend eastwards to remaining counties this afternoon. Southerly winds increasing strong during the afternoon, reaching near gale force along coasts. Highest temperatures of 8 to 11 degrees.

Continuing wet and windy for the early parts of the night. Rain will clear eastwards overnight with a few showers following and limited clear spells. Strong southerly winds will ease light to moderate and veer westerly in the clearance of the rain. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 5 degrees, coldest in the north and northwest later in the night.

WEDNESDAY: Wet and windy tomorrow. Outbreaks of rain will quickly return to the west early in the morning, becoming widespread by midday with some heavy falls. Frequent heavy showers will follow later in the afternoon with occasional brighter breaks in the cloud. Strong and gusty southwest winds will develop during the afternoon, reaching near gale force in southern and western coastal counties. Highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees.

Very windy on Wednesday night, mainly across Munster and parts of Connacht and Leinster. Widespread showers and longer spells of rain with some heavy falls. Southwest winds will be strong to near gale force and gusty with some strong gusts in the southwest for a time. Lowest temperatures of 3 to 6 degrees. Winds will moderate overnight becoming fresh and gusty and westerly.

Thursday: Remaining quite windy with frequent blustery showers and sunny spells. Showers will be squally and heavy, some with hail and thunder. Wintry falls possible on hills. Highest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees with fresh and gusty westerly winds.

Heavy showers continuing overnight affecting most areas with hail and thunder possible, mixed with clear spells. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 5 degrees with fresh and gusty southwest winds.

Friday: Breezy with further showers, some showers will be heavy. Bright or sunny spells in the morning, becoming cloudier during the day. Highest temperatures of 6 to 9 degrees with moderate to fresh and gusty southwest breezes.

A spell of rain will move in from the west early on Friday night becoming windy again also. Rain will clear overnight followed by frequent showers. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 4 degrees with fresh to strong southwest winds, strongest in the southwest.

Saturday: A day of showers with occasional bright spells in a fresh westerly breeze, risk of showers being heavy, possibly wintry. Highest temperatures of 5 to 7 degrees. Becoming drier overnight and cold, with lowest temperatures in the low single digits bringing a risk of frost to some parts.

Sunday: Current indications suggest that it will remain breezy on Sunday with further rainfall, although it will be less cold with highest temperatures of 9 to 12 degrees during the day and no risk of frost at night.

Weather warning update. 



Status Yellow - Wind warning for Ireland.



Valid: 12:00 Wednesday 10/03/2021 to 07:00 Thursday 11/03/2021.



All current warnings can be viewed here https://t.co/l8JdKfwZt9https://t.co/7aDQTqTyEp pic.twitter.com/1eJKvLXvz7  Met Eireann (@MetEireann) March 9, 2021

Met Eireann advised that to get the most accurate and up to date 7-day, hourly forecast for your local area on the island of Ireland go to met.ie. It says the latest weather advisories and warnings for Ireland are on the Met Eireann warnings page.
The Caohai National Nature Reserve in southwest Chinas Guizhou province, a major winter base for migratory birds, is seeing improving ecology thanks to the efforts of a group of bird rangers.

Wang Mingyue, head of a patrol team that observes and protects birds in the wetland nature reserve located in the Yi, Hui and Miao autonomous county of Weining, Guizhou province, finds great pleasure in his work, though he and his fellow team members need to wake up very early in the morning and stay up late at night for work.

Besides patrolling around the nature reserve, bird rangers must learn to identify bird species and figure out their habits, according to Wang, who said that every time he spots strange birds, he takes photos of them and then asks experienced bird rangers later about the species they belong to. The man can now identify over 30 species of birds.

The bird rangers group in the nature reserve has evolved from a small team with less than 10 members to a large group with 60 members in seven teams, who are assigned to patrol different districts of the nature reserve. The significant increase in manpower has eased the pressure on each bird rangers.

Every day before daybreak, Wang and his colleagues begin a days work by setting up telescope on hillsides to observe the nature reserve and count the number of birds. The job is particularly tough in winter. When the biting wind blows over the hills, I feel like my face were cut open by a knife, Wang said.

As the sun rises, Wang and his colleagues start to patrol around the lake in the nature reserve. It takes them over two hours to complete a patrol round on foot.

Their feet are often buried in the thick bushes beside the lake, and their shoes and pants could soon get wet by dewdrops. Only half way through the patrol, their pants are already covered with grass seeds, according to Wang.

In addition to patrolling the nature reserve and protecting birds, these bird rangers also promote knowledge about bird protection among residents in neighboring villages, in a bid to improve their awareness of bird protection and get them involved in relevant efforts.

Bird rangers in the nature reserve receive phone calls about migratory birds from local villagers almost every day.

In January 2019, a villager called Wang, saying that he found an injured black-necked crane, a rare kind of bird, near the green house of his family. Wang and his colleagues went there immediately.

Finding that one of the legs of the crane was broken, Wang and his colleagues then took the bird to an aid station for treatment. After two months convalescence, the crane was released, Wang recalled.

Over 1,000 black-necked cranes migrate from the Ruoergai Wetland National Nature Reserve, southwest China's Sichuan province, southward to the Caohai National Nature Reserve every year. In 2019, the number exceeded 1,600.

According to Wang, he has forged a special bond with migratory birds over years of work. "When winter is about to come, I start to look forward to seeing them," he said.

Wang has once saved a black-necked crane. After curing the bird, I put a ring on its foot to indicate its identity, and I can see it overwinter in the nature reserve almost every year, he said excitedly, adding that it means that their efforts have paid off.

As black-necked cranes have difficulty searching for food in cold weather, these bird rangers often scatter corn kernels near their habitat and smash the ice with hammers so that they can access water.

According to statistics, there are more than 2,600 species of wildlife in the nature reserve, including 246 species of birds. Over 100,000 birds overwinter in the nature reserve every year.

In an effort to ensure migratory birds have enough food in winter, we allocated several hundred mu (100 mu equals about 6.67 hectares) of farmland and hired local residents to plant potatoes, carrots, sedge, and other plants on the land for migrant birds, said Kou Shaomi, an official with the management committee of the nature reserve.

Kou noted that the species and number of birds overwintering in the nature reserve have both increased continuously over the years, which has indicated improvement in the ecology of the nature reserve.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
BEARDSTOWN  A Browning woman has joined Beardstown Fire Department as a member of of the crew that runs toward a fire instead of away.

Tiffany Smith, 27, started as a volunteer with the Browning fire department before being hired full-time by the Beardstown department.

Smith, the mother of three boys  ages 2, 3 and 8  was trying to find a career path and had been in contact with Beardstown fire Chief Brian Becker when the opportunity arose. Two firefighters had left the fire department with an opening and Smith decided to go for it, she said.

Growing up, Smith had no idea that she would end up becoming a firefighter, she said. In high school she studied aviation; she went to college intending to pursue law enforcement.

Its not something I thought I would ever be, but this path seemed right and it fit who I was, she said of firefighting. And its the most self-fulfilling for myself, I feel like, and Im just going to run with it.

So far Smith has entry-level training. She has taken EMT classes and is heading to the fire academy soon for more training, including practice putting out fires and performing search-and-rescue.

Thats going to be my learning curve, she said. And theyre going to be able to whip me to shape.

Smith is preparing for both classroom courses and hands-on training.

Theres a lot of physical training that I have to do, Smith said. All the days that I was available to go train, I would, because I knew that was going to kick my butt.

Smith is ready for the job, Becker said, noting that shes used to dealing with stress as a former assistant manager at Walmart.

The physical training test takes about an hour and requires Smith to be able to bench press 58% of her body weight.

The test also requires that a 1.5-mile run be completed in under 16 minutes and 31 sit-up be done within 1 minute, among other goals, Becker said.

We do a physical demanding test, just to make sure they can do the job, he said.

Equipment was custom made for Smith because she is built differently, Becker said.

A lot of our guys are very large, very big men, and the gear we had to get her had to be custom fit, he said.

Gear aside, Smith fit the criteria for the job, Becker said.

She passed everything that needed to be done, met all the criteria, he said. You literally have to be a jack-of-all trades for this job.

Along with putting out fires, Smith and her fellow firefighters are responsible for daily operations at the fire station.

Beardstown has three ambulances and Virginia has two. Smith will take a driving test that will qualify her to drive the fire truck and then shell need to memorize all the streets in town and their location.

Firefighters work a 24-hour shift, followed by 48 hours off duty, Becker said.

While they sleep at the fire station during a shift, firefighters can be paged out any time of day or night.

We try in Beardstown to make sure there is no lapse in coverage, so theres always an ambulance ready, Becker said.

As Beardstowns first woman firefighter, Smith is following in the footsteps of retired firefighter Beth Kershaw, who was a captain with Jacksonville Fire Department when she retired a couple of years ago.

The Jacksonville department currently has no active women firefighters, Chief Doug Sills said.

Its a physically demanding job, Kershaw said.

Its also a competitive job, she said, noting the tests that are required every two years.

If thats the career you want, you have to be diligent, be ambitious, and take multiple tests, Kershaw said. Dont limit yourself, because opportunities wont present themselves that often.

Kershaws dad was a firefighter. Kershaw had experience with the dive team and EMS and was looking for a job when she saw an ad in the paper about a position to be a firefighter.

The men she worked alongside mightve had their doubts when she first started the job in 1992, she said, but they changed their thoughts with time.

As time went on, I think they came to accept it, Kershaw said. We all got along and (I) never had any problems with them.

There was no special treatment; she was treated just like one of the guys, she said.

I had to do everything they had to do, no exceptions, she said.

She wouldnt have wanted it any other way.

Its the best job in the world, Kershaw said. Helping people and coming to their aid, I just love the job.
The Governors Official Program is comprised of a wide range of constitutional and legal duties and ceremonial and community engagements. Each year, the Governor hosts thousands of visitors to Government House to take part in investiture and award ceremonies, Open Days, receptions and meetings, and travels widely throughout Queensland to support the activities of Patron groups. View a chronological record of the Governors daily program below.

On Monday, in the morning, at St Johns Cathedral, Brisbane City, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC and Mrs Kaye de Jersey attended the Commonwealth Day multi-faith event, and the Governor read the 2021 Commonwealth Day Message from Her Majesty The Queen.

In the afternoon, at Government House, His Excellency and Mrs de Jersey hosted a luncheon to commemorate Commonwealth Day 2021, and the Governor addressed guests and read the 2021 Commonwealth Day Message from Her Majesty The Queen.

Following, at Government House, His Excellency received the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the Honourable Curtis Pitt MP, accompanied by the Clerk of the Parliament, Mr Neil Laurie, Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr Michael Watkin, and Acting Committee Secretary, Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee, Ms Erin Jameson for the presentation of three Bills, including two Appropriation Bills, for Royal Assent.

Following, at Government House, His Excellency and Mrs de Jersey hosted an afternoon reception to celebrate International Women's Day, and the Governor addressed guests.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
Though Del. Stacey Plaskett has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2015, it wasnt until earlier this year that many Americans learned her name. In fact, many probably didnt realize that her job  serving as a Democratic delegate to the House from the U.S. Virgin Islands  even existed. Plaskett has limited voting power, but last month she rose to national recognition and acclaim while serving as one of the impeachment managers in former President Donald Trumps second impeachment trial.

In that role, Plaskett unveiled disturbing and previously unseen footage from the attack on the U.S. Capitol and made the case that Trump incited the insurrection. The effort ultimately failed, with only 57 senators voting to convict. In the meantime, Plasketts star has risen, with multiple profiles in national outlets asking Who is Stacey Plaskett?

Despite now representing the Virgin Islands, Plaskett was born and raised in Brooklyn and Plasketts father became a New York City police officer when there werent a lot of Black officers in the NYPD.

City & State caught up with Plaskett earlier this month to talk about impeachment, her work in the Bronx District Attorneys office and her unending New York pride. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Your parents are from St. Croix and you now represent the U.S. Virgin Islands, but you actually grew up in Brooklyn.

Yeah, I was born and raised in Brooklyn. Actually born physically across the bridge in Manhattan at Beth Israel hospital, but my parents lived in Brooklyn. And we lived there until I was about to go into high school when my parents moved to Queens. They still live in St. Albans now, in Queens.

What was your childhood like growing up in the city?

It was the 70s, so a very different New York than it is now. I grew up in Bushwick, we lived in Bushwick projects for a number of years. And then during the birth of Mitchell-Lama housing, we moved to Lindsay Park (a coop in Williamsburg). I was explaining this summer to my children the many, many games that we played growing up in the city, from stickball to Skelly. Just an amazing childhood. I went to school in Downtown Brooklyn, so I had to take the train every day to school and back. And just that experience of riding the trains with my mother in the morning and then becoming a latchkey kid. I think about it now, third grade, being on the train by yourself, thats almost unheard-of now. But it was very normal back then.

What does the community from the U.S. Virgin Islands in New York City look like now?

I think it's a really interesting story with Virgin Islanders in New York. Most of them came to the city in the 40s and 50s, early 40s, even 30s, because there was not a lot of work and opportunity. But initially, even before that, in the 20s, when Virgin Islanders would come to New York, we had an education system and a support system, like many other Caribbean people, that most African Americans were not afforded during that time. And so there was an opportunity for us when we came to New York, to really be thought leaders. And then in the 30s and 40s and 50s ... many of the people who came were older siblings and families who had to look for work. We didnt have an area where we all concentrated, like a Little Italy or a Little Korea or a Chinatown. We were pretty much spread out around the city. But we had social organizations that still exist.

How often do you get back to the city now?

Im a New Yorker, right? I think that my friends and my staff would tell you that I operate like a New Yorker in some ways. That New York personality is definitely there. I get back to the city often. My husband, who is not from New York, always kind of chuckles and says my demeanor changes if were driving into the city and we get over the Verrazano Bridge. He says I sit up a little, I look a little happier, I look a little brighter when we get to New York.

After law school, you went to work for the Bronx district attorney, who was Robert Johnson at the time.

I had several offers when I came out of law school. And interestingly, (Rep.) Jamie Raskin, who was the lead impeachment manager, was my professor in law school. And when I had three or four offers when I was coming out of law school, he was the person who said, You really should go and be a prosecutor. Take the offer in the Bronx DAs office. You're not going to make as much money as maybe (with) some of those other (offers), but thats your strength, along with the fact that that skill set will be invaluable.

District attorneys offices are undergoing major changes in New York City, as campaigns for those positions focus increasingly on criminal justice reform, racial inequities in the system and decarceration. What are your thoughts on that evolution?

I think that it's a really important discussion. One of the things I have to say that I noted about the Bronx DAs office when I was there, was that a lot of the people that he hired were people from the neighborhood. It was a large number of minority hiring that was done, a large number of people of color. And I think that that really had a great role in how we handled cases as district attorneys, as assistant district attorneys. I also think because of who we were and what we looked like and where we came from, we were more willing to do alternative sentencing, to recognize that maybe, sometimes, young people needed a break. We weren't so enamored with the stories that the police told us, and were willing to question them.

You later moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and now here you are representing the territory as a delegate. What is it like to be a delegate to the House, and yet be a nonvoting member?

I think that's a misnomer. Its a limited vote. We vote in committee, but when the Democrats have been in the majority, we vote on the floor, except for final passage. So there is some voting ability that members of the territories have, but it is definitely limited. It's frustrating to have legislation that deals with your constituents and you don't have a vote in that legislation in the final passage. That can be very frustrating. But I think what it means is that you just have to work a lot harder than other members to be noticed, and to make sure that you're not forgotten in the discussion by being a member of the territory. I don't have votes to get members to lobby me for, but what I have is my work ethic.

You certainly received recognition during the second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump earlier this year. During your presentation, you were the only Black woman in the Senate chamber, NPR reported. What was the significance of that to you, being one of the people leading impeachment proceedings?

I guess I'm still trying to figure out the significance of it. I do recall at one point when I was on the Senate floor and (Rep.) Joe Neguse (a Black Democrat from Colorado) was sitting next to me. I pointedly was like, Joe, do you recognize, it's two Black people sitting here, leading, speaking and fighting against the president in this trial? There was no Black female representation in the room, in the Senate chamber, when I was there. And so I did feel a sense of responsibility to present myself in a manner that really supported Black women and supported people of color. And definitely that also supported the territory and amplified who we were and what our abilities were on the Senate floor.

What are your thoughts looking back on how the impeachment proceedings went, knowing that conviction was maybe not anticipated?

Why would you say a conviction was not anticipated?

Perhaps unlikely? Would that be more fair?

I mean, people are always asking us, Well, you guys didn't think you were going to win? I think we went in there with the hope that we would, and the belief that it was, in fact, possible. Would there be some watershed moment like the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate, where Republican senators recognized that what had happened was so profound that they would have to vote against their president? We believed that the evidence was so overwhelming, that that was, in fact, a possibility. I think what was disappointing was that partisan politics and power has so taken over, that members were more interested in partisanship and in retaining their power and their seats, than they were in voting to convict the president. Even though a number of them approached me and told me that they believe that we made the case. And these were Republican senators who did not vote to convict.

Does that ever get less surprising or disappointing, to have someone tell you one thing off the floor and then vote the other way?

It doesnt cease to surprise, or disappoint or even infuriate me.
While the global pandemic has led to a lot of disruptions, hardships and life-changing transitions in everyones life, the impact has been especially a significant one on women professionals. Adgullys marquee Women Disruptors 2021 event turned the spotlight on Impact of Pandemic on Women in Marketing, Media and Communications.

Taking part in the discussions were:

Amit Gujral, Chief Marketing Officer, JK Tyre & Industries

Deepa Bhatia, General Manager, YouGov India

Meera Krishnan, Principal Consultant, Dua Consulting

Mona Jain, Chief Revenue Officer, ABP Network

Susan Josi, Managing Partner, Havas Life Sorento

Vaishali Sharma, Head - Marketing & Communications, Sony SAB & Sony Max Hindi Movie Cluster, Sony Pictures Networks India

Commencing the discussions, Amit Gujral noted how the pandemic period was also a celebration of the uniqueness of every woman leader, who embody infinite possibilities.

Deepa Bhatia here presented the findings of an industry-wide study commissioned by Adgully to find out how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted specifically women in MarCom. She pointed out that women in MarCom, as with women professionals in every sector, faced the double whammy of increased office work load as well as household responsibilities. But this did not deter them from taking up the challenge and they adapted well.

Women also appreciated the flexibility that came along with the pandemic, especially the Work From Home transition. Most women agreed that Work From Home will become a permanent phenomenon in the future  for a majority, but not for everyone.

Bhatia further added that a large majority of professionals believe that women make for better leaders than men during a crisis. Their ability to multitask and display empathy makes them more competent than men at handling such situations, and the COVID-19 crisis amply showcased this.

Gujral here remarked how corporate culture today has become more equitable and has led to appreciation of the leadership style of women.

Agreeing with this, Vaishali Sharma remarked how the pandemic saw a very interesting thing emerge, which is countries with women leaders seemed to have arrested the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, such as New Zealand and some other countries. What happened during the pandemic is that the higher appreciation of women as leaders, because at this time of uncertainty and a lot of stress and not knowing what the future holds, we saw a lot of women leaders rise up to the occasion and use the softer skills to motivate and aid the process of working in an environment which was really stressful, Sharma added.

Mona Jain, too, highlighted how the corporate culture has evolved and that women leaders now are being recognised, especially the way in which they have been able to balance the entire COVID-19 impact and successfully straddle between their work and corporate life.

Watch the complete conversation HERE.
SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Gavin Newsom is one step closer to being removed from office as the Recall Gavin Newsom Campaign nears two million signatures. Mike Netter, of RecallGavin2020.com announced on Sunday that he, his team, Team Joe Collins, and thousands of volunteers, have gathered 1.95 million signatures (he only needs 1.495 million). That was before the Sacramento Recall rally, sponsored by Joe Collins, on the steps of the State Capitol, where tens of thousands gathered to support the recall effort.

Joe Collins speaks at the Recall Gavin Newsom Rally

"This recall movement has mobilized democrats, republicans and independents to band together in a common voice to remove the Governor, that has failed small business and the people of California," said Joe Collins. "Our rally on Sunday proved that the people are behind making a change."

Speaking at the event were citizens impacted by the failed policies of the Governor of California. "What the State of California needs now is leadership and we cannot continue to rely on Governor Newsom to provide his vision of our future," said Angela Marsden of Pineapple Hill Grill and Saloon. "We must stand up for our rights to earn a living."

Many saw the viral video Ms. Marsden released in the wake of the Thanksgiving shutdown that forced her to furlough her employees while a movie company was allowed to cater a meal for 200 people in the very same parking lot deemed unsafe for her restaurant patrons. "Now this selective policy created in the wake of Covid-19 must be challenged and the people that have put their livelihoods on the line must be allowed to feed their families," Joe Collins continued, "It is just that simple. We have the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness granted to us by God and the Constitution."

The recall is in the final stretch. The signatures are pouring in at a rate of over a hundred thousand a week and the two million mark is just hours away. Once the signatures are verified, the recall will go to the voters and they will decide the fate of Governor Gavin Newsom.

"This is an historic time," said Political Consultant Brittani Daniels, "I am happy to be a part of this exciting time, where Californians exercise their Constitutional Rights."

Media Contact:

Brittani Daniels, MPP

[email protected] | 310-617-9974

SOURCE Joe Collins for Congress
Nearly 7 years after the explosion in West Bengal's Burdwan, as per an exclusive newsbreak by Republic Bangla, a sinister plot to unleash terrorism in Bengal was exposed. Rolling back in time, in August 2019, Bangladesh-based Jamaat-Ul-Mujahideen's (JMB) India head and other members were arrested in Bengaluru by the NIA. Among those arrested were Kausar alias Mohd. Jahidul Islam and Mustiffizur Rahman alias Tuhin. During NIA's interrogation, Jahidul Islam had confessed to his role in the Burdwan blast of 2014 and revealed that several of those involved in the incident had taken shelter across different locations in India. Despite Jahidul Islam's confession, as per the NIA, nearly no information has been obtained on the Bangladesh-based terror outfit and its modus operandi.

Republic Bangla has accessed five exclusive tapes on the operations of the JMB and its aim to carry out rampant terror strikes across West Bengal.

In October 2014, an explosion attack in the house of Hassan Choudhary in the Burdwan district of Bengal had led to the death of one person while several others sustained injuries. The case was investigated by the CID and later transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). After Jahidul Islam's arrest in Bengaluru and his subsequent confession, the JMB mastermind was sentenced to 29 years in prison. During the JMB India chief's arrest in Bengaluru, the NIA had recovered pistols, ammunition, metal cylinders, explosives, chemicals and secret training videos.

In the training videos accessed by Republic Bangla, Jahidul Islam alias Kausar can be seen training his recruits on how to carry out grenade attacks. In the tapes, the JMB mastermind is shown giving demonstrations on how to assemble a grenade and how to detonate it. Through the visuals, Kausar can be seen training recruits on how to throw/dislodge grenades at innocent individuals in Bengal to cause maximum damage.

"We will train on how to use a grenade against enemies, the multiple uses of grenade and how can we use a grenade in a battlefield," Kausar can be heard saying in the tapes.

In the tapes, another JMB terrorist identified as Nasrullah - accused in the Burdwan blast case - can be seen training recruits on detonating bombs. Nasrullah was arrested by the police in Dhaka, Bangladesh. An interrogation video of Nasrullah accessed by Republic Bangla shows his confession, where he admits that the terror group had been planning to carry out attacks in Assam. "We could not plan it. We did not think of the consequences and did not plan what to do if this happens. The organisation would have been strengthened," Nasrullah confesses in the tapes accessed.
A man is in critical condition after he was struck by a car while crossing the road last night.

Gardai are appealing for witnesses after the pedestrian was struck by a car on the Ballinacurra Road, Limerick.

Gardai report that at around 11.20pm, the man, aged in his twenties, was on the pedestrian crossing when the collision took place.

He was then removed to University Hospital Limerick, where he remains in a critical condition.

Local divisions are currently in place in Limerick, and a technical examination is now underway at the scene according to Gardai.

Gardai are also appealing for anyone who may have witnessed this collision or who were in the Ballinacurra or Childers Road area between 11.15-11.30pm - particularly any road users who may have camera footage - to contact them.

Anyone with information can contact Gardai in Roxboro on 061 214340, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any other Garda station.

As the car involved in this collision had come to the attention of Gardai, An Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission has also been notified.
Veteran Bollywood actor Anupam Kher received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the t Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital on Tuesday. Sharing a video of his inoculation, Anupam Kher thanked the doctors, medical staff, scientists, and the Government of India for making the vaccination possible.

In the video, before his inoculation, Anupam Kher can be seen chanting 'Om Namah Shivay', after which the nurse injects the COVID-19 vaccine in his arm. Taken aback by how quick and painless the process was, the Bollywood actor can be seen saying, "Veronica Ji it's done? That was fantastic! You're a magician, Jai ho!"

Got my #COVID19 first dose vaccination!! Thank you all the doctors, medical staff, scientist and Govt. Of India for making it possible. India Rocks. Jai Ho!  @PMOIndia @drharshvardhan pic.twitter.com/56dzuTflpO  Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) March 9, 2021

With the second phase of the vaccination (open to those above 60yrs or those above 45yrs with co-morbidities) commencing, several actors like Hema Malini, Johnny Lever, Paresh Rawal, Saif Ali Khan, Kamal Haasan, and Satish Shah have also received the vaccination shots.

Earlier in the day, several Bollywood personalities congratulated PM Modi Chief Economist of the International Monetary fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath lauded India for its vaccine diplomacy. Previously, Dr. Hotez, an internationally-recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development, said that India's COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy had 'rescued the world.'

Apart from vaccinating over 2 crore citizens, India has also been delivering the vaccines to numerous countries including neighboring and friendly nations under its 'Vaccine Maitri' program.

Phase 2 of COVID-19 vaccination in India kicked off on March 1. The vaccination program started at over 10,000 designated government facilities and 20,000 private hospitals and vaccination centres. The Union Ministry announced that the pricing for a COVID-19 vaccine dose has been capped at Rs 250 at private hospitals. Meanwhile, like the first phase, doses will be available free of cost at government centres with the Centre bearing the cost of the inoculation.

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Food & Wine has lauded a pair of Cleveland eateries, including them on a list of best bagel shops in the country.

The magazine included 40 bagel shops, covering places in 20 states and Washington, D.C. Not surprisingly, New York has 11 entries. Ohio has three.

Hat tips went out to Bialys Bagels in University Heights and Cleveland Bagel Co. in Cleveland.

For Bialys the magazine noted the history of the place, adding that owners Rachel and Sarah Gross have carried a tradition of making some of the best New York bagels west of the Allegheny. The everything (here, known as a Mish Mosh) and sesame especially arent just dead ringers for the original article  theyre often better.

The magazine says at either of Cleveland Bagel Co. locations, run by Dan Herbst and Geoff Hardman, you will find Bagels  made the classic way - no bull, nothing overly fancy, just good technique.

The Lox Bagel Shop in Columbus also is included.

Bialys is at 2267 Warrensville Center Road, University Heights. Cleveland Bagel Co. is at 7501 Carnegie Ave. and 4201 Detroit Ave. in Cleveland.

David Landsel describes the list fairly, saying Twenty years ago, such an exercise might have resulted in something mostly aimed at a New York audience; these days, youd be surprised. Im a native New Yorker, but if it isnt already clear, I dont believe the city deserves any kind of preferred status. Being blindly pro-New York does nobody any favors. I didnt consider geography, water sources, or any other hocus-pocus - good bagels are happening everywhere these days.

Heres the full list.

Previous coverage: We sat down with Herbst a few years ago - The Cleveland Bagel Co. expansion plans moving along  story, video

I am on cleveland.coms life and culture team and cover food, beer, wine and sports-related topics. If you want to see my stories, heres a directory on cleveland.com. Bill Wills of WTAM-1100 and I talk food and drink usually at 8:20 a.m. Thursday morning. And tune in at 8:05 a.m. Fridays for Beer with Bona and Much, Much More with Munch Bishop on 1350-AM The Gambler. Twitter: @mbona30.

Get a jumpstart on the weekend and sign up for Cleveland.coms weekly In the CLE email newsletter, your essential guide to the top things to in Greater Cleveland. It will arrive in your inbox on Friday mornings - an exclusive to-do list, focusing on the best of the weekend fun. Restaurants, music, movies, performing arts, family fun and more. Just click here to subscribe. All cleveland.com newsletters are free.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Security forces take part in a military drill to mark the eighth death anniversary of President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 5, 2021. (Matias Delacroix/AP Photo)

US Lets Venezuelans Stay Temporarily, Will Review Sanctions

WASHINGTONThe Biden administration said Monday it is offering temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who fled their countrys economic collapse and will review U.S. sanctions intended to isolate the South American nation.

Both measures mark a shift from U.S. policy toward Venezuela under former President Donald Trump.

President Joe Bidens administration announced it would grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans already in the United States, allowing an estimated 320,000 people to apply to legally live and work in the country for 18 months.

Trump issued an order deferring deportation for a smaller number of Venezuelans on his final day in office.

The Trump administration also significantly tightened U.S. economic sanctions on Venezuela, most notably on its crucial oil sector, to try and force regime leader Nicolas Maduro to give up power after an election in 2018 that the United States and more than 50 other countries consider fraudulent.

Venezuelan regime leader Nicolas Maduro makes a televised announcement at Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 26, 2020. (Jhonn Zerpa/Venezuelan Presidency/AFP via Getty Images)

U.S. sanctions, which began under former President Barack Obama, have increased economic pressure on the once prosperous country. Its economy was already suffering from mismanagement and the deterioration of its all-important oil industry.

In the last few years, the Venezuelan economy has been in free fall, with widespread shortages of food and medicine and frequent power outages. An estimated 5 million people have fled, mostly to neighboring countries such as Colombia, but many have settled in South Florida.

The Biden administration, like its predecessor, views Maduro as a dictator and wants him out of power. Our overriding goal is to support a peaceful democratic transition in Venezuela through free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

Any easing of sanctions would likely face opposition in Congress, but the granting of temporary protected status for Venezuelans has bipartisan support.

Venezuelan residents in Colombia protest against Nicolas Maduros government in Medellin, Colombia, on May 1, 2019. (David Estrada/Reuters)

Republicans in recent days had urged the Biden administration to formalize Trumps last-minute executive order that deferred deportation for 18 months for more than 145,000 Venezuelans who were at risk of being sent back to their homeland. Temporary protected status is a more formal status that cannot be as easily reversed.

Citizens of 10 countries, totaling about 400,000 people, are in the United States now with temporary protected status. The largest number come from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti, many with U.S. citizen children and spouses. The Trump administration had sought to phase out the program, arguing that it had effectively become permanent residency after repeated extensions.

People must show continued residency and pass a criminal background check to qualify for the status. Venezuelans must have arrived by Monday to be eligible.

Temporary protected status, which was created in 1990, grants citizens of eligible nations the ability to stay if they cant safely return to their home country because of natural disasters, armed conflicts or other factors. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Venezuela meets the criteria because the country is in turmoil and unable to protect its own citizens.

By Ben Fox
Elements of oral expression such as pitch, tone and intonation, highlight important parts of speech, and not only humans benefit. According to a study on the evolution of language published in the journal Cognition

Prosody is a branch of linguistics that analyses and formally represents the elements of oral expression such as pitch, tones and intonation. A study published in Cognition on 5 February shows that there are universal prosodic cues that help with learning in humans and in animals.

This study, published by Juan Manuel Toro, ICREA research professor and Paola Crespo-Bojorque, researchers of the Center for Brain and Cognition (CBC) of the UPF Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC), is part of the research into language evolution that is being conducted thanks to a European Research Council Starting Grant.

Some of the mechanisms we humans use to learn language are based on general principles we inherited from other species

The prosodic contour is universal

When we speak, we pronounce words more intensely at first and lengthen them slightly more at the end of the sentence. This is known as the prosodic contour. This contour is universal, in the sense that it not only defines the way in which speech occurs in humans, but also in birdsong and probably any other animal vocalization. "This occurs because the prosodic contour appears as a result of how humans and animals produce sounds by expelling air through the larynx", Toro and Crespo Bojorque explain.

And they add: "In our study, we showed that this prosodic contour facilitates the learning of words not only in humans but also in other animals (in our experiment, rats)".

Through various experiments, the researchers found that animals learned to recognize nonsense words when they had a natural prosodic contour. Conversely, they could not learn them when they had a flat or random contour.

Thus, the authors conclude that there are universal cues that facilitate learning, and both humans and other non-human animals benefit from them. In general terms, "this suggests that some of the mechanisms humans use to learn language are based on general principles we inherited from other species", the study researchers conclude.

###

Related work:
AN internal investigation into a complaint about a clergyman on the board of governors at a Co Down primary school is to be put on hold, the High Court heard on Tuesday.

The Rev Stanley Gamble secured the injunction as part of legal action linked to a dispute over planned relationships and sexuality education (RSE) at Killinchy Primary School.

His barrister argued it was wrong for three other governors who are witnesses to sit on a sub-committee set up to examine the disputed allegations.

Mr Justice Shaw granted the application to restrain any further disciplinary proceedings until the main hearing in June.

He said: Im satisfied there would be a proper basis for the court to hold and to stop the board of governors proceeding until the court has the opportunity to determine the matter.

The court heard that the complaint made by the schools principal, Chris Currie, related to events at a board meeting in January 2020.

At the time, it was announced that RSE lessons were being postponed amid concerns raised by some parents.

At the meeting where RSE was discussed, Rev Gamble was allegedly at times unwilling to listen and unusually hostile, the court was told.

He kept saying there was no policy, (but) the principal made the point there was no need for policy for RSE to be rolled out, one witness claimed.

Counsel for the clergyman, Alistair Fletcher, emphasised that his client denied the complaints made against him.

He questioned the fairness of the procedure undertaken to examine the claims.

Witnesses cannot also act as investigators and decision makers, Mr Fletcher submitted.

Its very difficult, nigh on impossible, to see how a fair hearing can be given to Rev Dr Gamble, Mr Fletcher submitted.

The barrister also claimed proper procedures were not followed and that an irrational approach had been adopted.

The whole process is tainted by apparent bias, he added.

Counsel for the board of governors responded that they had no alternative options due to the unusual circumstances.

Much as there may be a desire to try and reach a resolution that permits the reparation of relationships, they are hidebound by what is set out in this policy and procedures, he said.

Ordering the investigation to be put on hold until June, Mr Justice Shaw also raised the possibility of mediation in the intervening period.

Its something which the courts do smile upon and encourage, he said.

Its an avenue that everyone ought to consider afresh to see if there might be some way of resolving these unhappy matters.




A farmer on a tractor sprays his crop in north west New South Wales on May 05, 2020 in Dungowan, Australia. (Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

New South Wales Lifts Moratorium on GM Crops

New South Wales (NSW) is lifting its ban on genetically modified crops to deliver a multi-billion-dollar boost to its primary industry. Adopting the genetically modified (GM) technology is estimated by the government to deliver up to $4.8 billion in financial gains across New South Wales primary industries over the next ten years.

Announcing the NSW governments decision to end the 18-year moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops on July 1, NSW Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said on March 2, that the GM moratorium was enacted over twenty years ago to manage trade and marketing issues.

The potential agronomic and health benefits of future GM crops include everything from drought and disease resistance, to more efficient uptake of soil nutrients, increased yield and better weed control, Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said.

The reform is expected to boost production by almost 10 percent and save farmers up to 35 percent in costs. The decision also brings NSW in line with Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory and South Australia, with the only exception being Kangaroo Island.

This will be a key area of growth on our path to a $19 billion industry by 2023, Marshall said.

However, organic farming representatives say that this decision made by the NSW government will hurt its thriving industry.

Chairman of the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia, Tim Marshall, told The Guardian: We simply dont think that GM technology is necessary.

Tim Marshall added that organic farms will now face the problem of contamination from wind-blow seed and pollen of GM crops threatening their viability as organic growers.

If [GM technology] is going to be used, there needs to be some protection for organic farmers.

The Minister said there was a robust safety system in place, and all applications to grow modified crops would be assessed by the Commonwealth Gene Technology Regulator.

James Jackson, president of NSW Farmers, said in a media release that farmers who wish to cultivate GM crops should have the opportunity to make informed choices.

For farmers, its all about the right to choose, Jackson said.

Jackson also added that the NSW Farmers have confidence in the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator as an independent science-based regulator and faith that the office will balance the risks and benefits of different GM crops or applications.

He also stressed the importance of truth in labelling as a tool to create trust and acceptance between farmers and consumers.

GM crops have been growing in NSW despite the moratorium with the state government approving GM canola, cotton and safflower crops for commercial cultivation in 2008.
Using powerful laser pulses focused into a small crystal, entangled pairs of photons are created. These entangled photons are then sent to remote stations where measurements on them lead to random bits being created. Credit: Krister Shalm.

Recent advancements in the development of experimental Bell tests have enabled the implementation of a new type of device-independent random number generator. Remarkably, this new type of random number generators can be realized with malicious quantum devices, without requiring detailed models of the quantum devices used.

Researchers at the University of Colorado/NIST Boulder (CU/NIST Boulder) and the NTT Corporation in Japan have recently developed a protocol for random number generation that can be implemented on a variety of quantum systems. This protocol, presented in a paper published in Nature Physics, could pave the way towards the development of safer and more effective random number generators.

"We have been interested in trying to understand how to use quantum entanglement to build an entirely new class of random number generators that are, in some sense, the most secure sources of randomness that nature allows, as far as we know," Lynden Krister Shalm, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org.

In their previous studies, Shalm and his colleagues tried to leverage the non-local properties of quantum entanglement to generate random bits certified in a device-independent way. The security of their system depended primarily on the fact that hackers cannot send information faster than the speed of light.

"Our system differs from regular random number generators, which rely on either a physical process (e.g., radioactive decay) or mathematical algorithms," Shalm said.

In contrast with the system devised by Shalm and his colleagues, random number generators that are based on physical processes or mathematical algorithms need a number of extra assumptions to be met. To produce highly secure and certified random bits using entanglement, however, the system devised by Shalm and his colleagues must consume a great deal of randomness, which significantly impairs their system's efficiency.

"When I visited CU/NIST Boulder at the beginning of 2017, I was excited to learn that the experimental group led by Krister already had the ability to demonstrate device-independent randomness generation," Yanbao Zhang, another researcher involved in the study, told Phys.org. "As such an experiment consumes many random bits while generating only a small number of high-quality certified random bits, it is desirable to achieve device-independent randomness expansion, where more certified output bits are generated than the consumed input bits."

Shalm, Zhang and their colleagues devised a method that utilizes a small amount of seed randomness to generate more quantum-based certified random bits than those consumed by the random number generator. This is one of the primary features that sets their system apart from other random number generators.

"It is a bit like how a seed crystal can be used to grow a much larger structure," Shalm said. "We are able to output 24% more random bits than we input into the system."

In principle, the system devised by Shalm and his colleagues could be run in a way that would allow researchers to infinitely expand the input seed randomness. To achieve randomness expansion, the team at CU/NIST Boulder and NTT had to push their experimental systems to their current limits, as their technical requirements are incredibly demanding.

To expand the input seed randomness into more random bits certified in a device-independent way, the researchers had to make a clever use of these seed bits. Systems typically achieve this by running a special test on entangled particles, known as a 'loophole-free Bell test.'

"Instead of running this test, which consumes randomness, on all of the entangled photons we produce, we 'spot-check' some of the photons at random to make sure the system is behaving as expected," Shalm said. "It is similar to how a food inspector might select only a small but random sample of tomatoes for testing rather than testing every tomato in an incoming shipment. Our spot-checking protocol performs in a similar manner, but we have to take great care to make sure that the system to be spot-checked isn't being cheated."

In the context of the 'tomato' analogy provided by Shalm, if tomatoes were piled into boxes containing 2k tomatoes each, other spot-checking protocols developed in the past would require each tomato in a box to be selected randomly with a small probability. On the other hand, the protocol devised by Shalm, Zhang and their colleagues would only require one tomato in a box to be selected uniformly at random.

"To check a box of tomatoes, the usual protocol thus consumes 2k biased random bits while our protocol consumes only k uniformly random bits," Zhang said. "In practice, uniformly random bits rather than biased random bits are easily accessible from sources such as the NIST randomness beacon. Hence, our spot-checking protocol is experimentally more friendly."

The recent study by Shalm, Zhang and their colleagues could ultimately enable the experimental realization of infinite device-independent randomness expansion. Moreover, this study could aid the current understanding of the randomness of quantum mechanics and some of its fundamental limits.

"From a more practical point-of-view, our experiment is an example of proto-quantum networks where entangled particles are exchanged and operated on under stringent conditions to accomplish tasks not possible by any other classical (or local quantum) system," Shalm said. "These non-local quantum networks are fascinating from both a foundational and practical viewpoint."

In the future, the system developed by Shalm, Zhang and their colleagues could be used to develop compact and highly secure random number generators. Currently, device-independent generators are too complex to be implemented on compact devices or smart phones. To overcome this limitation, the researchers are currently trying to integrate their device-independent random number generator into public randomness beacons that output random bits at periodic intervals.

"This use of our system could serve any application that requires a random sample of various resources," Shalm said. "In this context, our random number generator could be used to select people for jury duty, for helping to randomly audit election systems, or even to help draw up congressional districts in a fair and non-partisan manner to combat gerrymandering. Using our system, we could also let quantum mechanics draw up our voting districts instead of politicians."

Shalm, Zhang and their colleagues were among the first to realize device-independent randomness expansion, a strong type of randomness expansion that classical systems cannot achieve. In the future, their work could inspire other teams to create similar protocols for regular quantum random number generators.

"We now are working to turn our random number generator into a fully-fledged service," Shalm said. "It is amazing to me that we can take something that has its origins in some of the earliest debates about the philosophical nature of quantum theory and turn it into a secure public service."

The experiment carried out by Shalm, Zhang and their colleagues spanned over the course of two weeks. In these two weeks, the researchers collected approximately 110 hours-worth of data. In their next studies, they would like to improve their system's efficiency, allowing it to realize device-independent randomness expansion within a few hours of experimental runtime.

"In addition, our current security analysis works in the presence of a classical hacker who holds arbitrary classical side information of the output randomness but does not share any entanglement with the quantum devices used," Zhang said. "In the future, we would like to enhance the security of the output random bits against the more powerful quantum hacker that is fully entangled with our quantum devices."

Explore further Using the unpredictable nature of quantum mechanics to generate truly random numbers

More information: Device-independent randomness expansion with entangled photons. Nature Physics(2021). Journal information: Nature Physics Device-independent randomness expansion with entangled photons.(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-01153-4

 2021 Science X Network
When Irans vaccination officially kicked off with a televised, glamorous ceremony in Tehran Feb. 9, promises were made about a phased and fair distribution starting with hospital first responders and followed by senior citizens. Under such a scheme, hospitals were allocated their very specific rations.

However, a report by Mizan News Agency run by Irans judiciary says in some cases connections have served the basis and allowed for many to receive vaccines meant for others at the moment. Uncles who were vaccinated without standing in the queue, the sarcastic headline said of those instances in which the jabs for individuals who fail to show up or refuse to get them are given to others who enjoy connections to hospital managers.

In an interview with the agency, Hossein Kermanpour, the public relations chief for Irans Medical Council, said he could not rule out such a possibility. He referenced the fact that those vaccines need to be kept at special freezing temperatures and thus have to be given to others or otherwise thrown away if the designated individual does not receive them. Yet he described the reported discrimination as an example of mismanagement that could leave individuals who truly deserve the doses with no vaccine.

Those reports, however, have not come as a surprise in a country that has seen over 60,000 of its people perish due to the pandemic. Steadily keeping the title of the worst-hit nation in the Middle East since the outbreak of the virus, Iranians have been pressing their government to launch and speed up vaccination. Amid their desperation, they have also debated reports that vaccines are prioritized for officials in a system where corruption has long been a chronic malady.

After the outbreak of the pandemic in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei went through a draconian set of personal protocols, turning all his typically crowded speech venues into empty halls. For over a year, Khamenei socially distanced himself from almost everyone and refused to receive even top government officials.

Still, since last month he has made more public appearances, including on Feb. 7 when, unlike his pandemic-era speeches that were solely televised, he was greeted by a large group of air force officers. Those events have only fueled speculations that the 81-year-old leader grabbed his share of the vaccine weeks before any rollout in his country. His office has neither rejected nor confirmed those speculations.

In a speech Jan. 8, Khamenei also openly banned imports of any vaccines developed in the United States and the United Kingdom, a message that outraged many Iranians right at a moment when they were campaigning for a speedy vaccine rollout.

Irans vaccination was introduced with the Russian Sputnik-V and has continued with other imported products from such countries as China. Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic is banking also significantly on its own vaccines. The entity in charge of the indigenous version is the Headquarters for Executing the Order of Imam Khomeini, a financial conglomerate controlled by the supreme leader.

In the latest update on the work in progress March 9, the centers officials expressed confidence that their vaccine, dubbed Iran Barakat, will bring along minimum side effects and be made available for public distribution by June.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New cement project set to begin in Ethiopia

09 March 2021

Lemi National Cement Industrial Complex, a new private industrial park, is set to be built in the Amhara region of Ethiopia by private investors, according to The Swazi Observer.



The US$2.2bn complex is expected to feature many different factories, including a 10,000tpd cement plant. Other factories to be built at the park include gypsum, board and glass manufacturing.



The new park is owned by East Africa Holdings, the group which also runs National Cement. Chinas West International Holding is also a project partner.



The cornerstone for the new project will be laid on Thursday by the President of Ethiopia, Sahle-work Zewde. Construction is expected to last between 5-7 years.

Published under
Syracuse, NY -- James Everson was finally supposed to find out the date for his murder trial on Tuesday, a year after the pandemic canceled his original day in court.

Instead, Everson was barred from attending his own court appearance -- even virtually -- after a security breach involving a cell phone and a since-fired healthcare worker.

RELATED: Healthcare worker fired after slipping phone to accused murderer at Onondaga County jail

Both Everson and the fired worker, Shannon Roach, now each face prison contraband charges, prosecutors said. Roach is accused of sneaking in a cell phone to Everson at the jail.

In explaining Eversons absence from his own court date, County Court Judge Thomas J. Miller first said only that there were security concerns involving Everson. He later confirmed that they were related to the contraband incident.

Its not the first time that Everson is accused of trying to meddle in his own court case: a judge has prohibited him from seeing key evidence in his own murder case due to allegations of witness intimidation and attempts to coordinate his story with a co-defendant.

Everson, 30, is accused of the July 13, 2019 murder of Jaymier Gillard, 18, near McKinley Park on the citys South Side. His co-defendant, Amir Bordies, 20, is also accused of murder in Gillards death.

County Court Judge Thomas J. Miller announced Tuesday that both men will stand trial June 1 -- nearly two years after the alleged crime.

For now, Miller refused to allow lawyers for either defendant to share evidence with their clients, citing prosecutors concerns. It appears that the judge will lift his order 30 to 45 days before trial.

Prosecutor Melinda McGunnigle said she would welcome the two defendants being placed in separate jails -- one downtown and one in Jamesville -- after allegations that the men were trying to coordinate their stories before trial.

An order keeping them in separate areas of the downtown jail wasnt stopping their efforts, she said.

That came after a lawyer for Bordies argued that his client was being penalized for Eversons alleged conduct. But McGunnigle maintained that both defendants were trying to intimidate witnesses and contact one another before trial.

Both men face a sentence of up to 25 years to life in prison, if convicted.

Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.
(Natural News) A 91-year-old amputee from Ohio nearly died after accidentally being given his second dose of Modernas Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine twice within just four hours.

Victor Smith, a resident of Hamilton, Ohio, which is a suburb located within the Cincinnati metropolitan area, received his first dose of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine at Fort Hamilton Hospital on Jan. 22. According to Smiths daughter, Dawn Smith-Theodore, Smith was extremely tired after receiving his first shot and that he experienced a fall.

After spending some time under observation at Fort Hamilton Hospital, he was transferred to Jamestowne Rehabilitation, a therapy facility just one mile away run by the nonprofit Community First Solutions. (Related: Texas doctor fired after administering 10 doses of coronavirus vaccine that were about to expire to family, acquaintances and strangers.)

While Smith was recovering at Jamestowne, the medical workers attending to him scheduled him to get his second dose of the Moderna vaccine at the Butler County Fairgrounds, also in Hamilton, on Feb. 25.

On the day of his second dose, healthcare workers brought him over to the fairgrounds where he got his shot, and he came back. The whole affair happened without much incident.

When he came back, I spoke to him. He was good, said his daughter. But the situation took a turn for the worse when he was given another dose of the Moderna vaccine just a few hours later.

And then at 3:45, I guess a city firefighter came in and said they have a shot for Victor, said Smith-Theodore. The nurse [asked] Victor Smith? and the firefighter said yes, so they gave him the room number and sent him to room 202, which is where my dad was.

Smith nearly died after two doses

After Smith received his second vaccine, he complained to his daughter about the incident. According to Smith-Theodore, either the first dose or the second one was meant for someone else named Victor with a different surname.

Moments after Smith received the second dose, he went into respiratory distress and Jamestowne rushed him to Fort Hamilton Hospital. When Smith-Theodore was informed of the situation, she had been led to believe that her fathers life was in danger.

On Facebook, Smith-Theodore posted a picture of her and her father, along with a message that explained what happened.

According to Smith-Theodore, after her father went into respiratory distress, Fort Hamilton Hospitals emergency department informed her that her father was dying.

Hold my dad in your thoughts and prayers He is hanging in there, but it has been a rocky road, wrote Smith-Theodore. Trying to find out the effects of receiving two vaccines in such a close timeframe  I just do not want this to happen to anyone else.

Smith-Theodore said that, when her father was admitted, his blood pressure was so low  86 over 47  that the doctors could not give him the medication that would have helped get rid of the fluid building up in his lungs.

I want to see that this doesnt happen to anybody else, she said.

Smith-Theodore, who lives in Calabasas in Southern California, was not allowed to fly over to Ohio to visit her father because she was not vaccinated. She heard from her father in a call on Mar. 1, where he only said two words to her.

So, I havent seen my dad in a year, she said.

Fortunately for Smith and his daughter, his condition improved after a week in distress.

Brandon Saurber, Director of Neighborhoods for Hamilton, along with Danielle Webb, Vice President of Marketing and Community Relations for Community First Solutions, released a joint statement to WLWT, NBCs affiliate station in Cincinnati, regarding Smiths condition after he was believed to be in the clear:

An incident occurred where a City of Hamilton resident inadvertently received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on the same day. The individual was a patient of Jamestowne Rehabilitation where all vaccinations are completed by outside parties who are trained and appropriately certified, in this case the City of Hamilton Fire Department. Jamestowne staff recognized the patients signs of distress and responded immediately. The patient was transported to the hospital and the family was promptly contacted. Both Jamestowne and the City of Hamilton Fire Department have begun investigations into the incident. Our thoughts are with the patient and his family as he continues his recovery.

Neither the city, Fort Hamilton Hospital nor Community First Solutions have released any information into how Smith could have received two vaccinations. As of press time, the investigation is ongoing.

Learn more about the dangers surrounding the coronavirus vaccines by reading the latest articles at Vaccines.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

WSET.com

Cincinnati.com

Newsweek.com
iStock/jtyler(LOS ANGELES) -- While the phrase "having a cow" usually means "freaking out," people across the country are finding out hugging one does exactly the opposite.

The Washington Post reports on one cow rescue sanctuary in Arizona that's letting pandemic-stressed people hug and cuddle their affectionate cows. For people like Renee Behinfar, it's just what the doctor ordered.

"It was really my first real hug of the year," the 43-year-old psychologist admitted to the paper about her experience at Aimees Farm Animal Sanctuary. Behinfar lives alone, and explained that when a 2,000-pound cow named Sammy cradled its massive head in the stressed psychiatrist's lap, she cried.

She enjoyed her experience so much that she bought a $75-an-hour session of cow cuddling at the sanctuary for her friend as a gift.

Aimees Farm Animal Sanctuary is home to 100 rescued animals, and owner Aimee Takaha says she's offered cow cuddling for five years. With the pandemic, business is booming, she noted, explaining she fields 20 calls a day about the experience.

They're booked up through July, but other such sanctuaries across the country are also offering the bovine bonding sessions.

Copyright  2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Complaints about child exploitation complaints and child abuse images spreading online have spiked since COVID-19 lockdowns, with an Australian law enforcement agency fielding almost 60 reports a day on average.

The Australian Federal Police charged 191 people with 1847 child abuse-related offences and rescued 89 children from harm in 2020.

A child sex offender has between 10,000 to 80,000 images and videos.

A child sex offender would typically have 1000 images in the early to mid-2000s, according to AFP data, a figure that had since grown to 10,000 to 80,000 images and videos.

The commander of the AFP Australian Centre to Counter Exploitation (ACCE) and Child Protection Operations, Hilda Sirec, said more children were being abused than ever before.
Fujitsu awarded contract to provide end-user computing and support for Defence ICT environment

News Facts: Fujitsu awarded three-year Australian Department of Defence contract to support field operations and exercises

Fujitsu will work with Defence and Defence industry partners KBR and Leidos as part of a $175 million program

Fujitsu will provide services including service desk functions, end-user and workstation support, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and email communications, collaboration tools, network infrastructure and network services management

Fujitsu and Defence industry partners will support approximately 70,000 users deployed domestically, regionally and globally.

CANBERRA, March 9, 2021 - Fujitsu today announced that it has signed a three-year contract with the Australian Department of Defence, working with Defence industry partners KBR and Leidos, to uplift and modernise Defences existing and planned future ICT environments. Fujitsu will provide services including service desk functions, end-user and workstation support, VoIP and email communications, collaboration tools, network infrastructure, and network services management across all Defence operations.

Defences deployed ICT network environments provide essential command, control, situational awareness, and allied/partner interoperability services for ADF personnel serving on deployed operations and exercises. This includes troops in the field, ships at sea, and joint headquarters and support bases deployed domestically, regionally and across the globe.

Key deliverables of the Defence contract include the continuous sustainment of in-service deployed ICT environments that are an essential part of Defences operational capability; centrally-governed security and accreditation and enterprise governance that will align deployed ICT with Defences wider networks; enhancing the capacity and skillsets of Defences ICT workforce; and building strategic partnerships that encourage performance and prioritises continuous improvement.

The Fujitsu contract with Defence is the result of a competitive tender, in which Fujitsu proved its ability to deliver capability and innovation to Defence with a strong customer focus. Fujitsu is proud to have been selected to co-design a comprehensive solution in close collaboration with the Chief Information Officer Group, the three services, Joint Capabilities Group, Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group. Fujitsu has more than 40 years of experience with providing technology services and solutions to Defence, including over a decade of supporting ADF deployments.

Graeme Beardsell, Chief Executive Officer, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand, said, Fujitsu is pleased to continue its longstanding relationship with the Department of Defence and to be working collaboratively with Defences industry partners KBR and Leidos. Where together we will deliver a comprehensive solution that will provide exceptional support to critical Defence operations. Through our strategic partnership with Defence, we look forward to provisioning surge capacity and enhancing skills with our ADF colleagues.

Fujitsus ongoing relationship with the Department of Defence is providing employment opportunities for Australians, with more than 1,400 cleared Fujitsu staff dedicated to delivering the technology and skills needed to support Australias defence capabilities.

Online resources Read the Fujitsu blog:

Follow Fujitsu on Twitter:

Follow us on LinkedIn:

Find Fujitsu on Facebook:

For regular news updates, bookmark the Fujitsu newsroom: Read the Fujitsu blog: http://blog.au.fujitsu.com Follow Fujitsu on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FujitsuAU Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fujitsu-australia-limited Find Fujitsu on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FujitsuAustraliaNewZealand For regular news updates, bookmark the Fujitsu newsroom: http://www.fujitsu.com/au/about/resources

About Fujitsu Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 130,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.9 trillion yen (US$35 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.

About Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand is a leading service provider of business, information technology and communications solutions. We partner with our customers to consult, design, build, operate and support business solutions. From strategic consulting to application and infrastructure solutions and services, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand have earned a reputation as the single supplier of choice for leading corporate and government organisations. Fujitsu Australia Limited and Fujitsu New Zealand Limited are wholly owned subsidiaries of Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702). See www.fujitsu.com/au.

Media Contact Communications team

Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand

Phone: +61 2 9776 4555

E-mail:marcomms@fujitsu.com Communications teamFujitsu Australia and New Zealand+61 2 9776 4555

All company or product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Information provided in this press release is accurate at time of publication and is subject to change without advance notice.
The Peoples Committee of Quang Tri Province in central Vietnam is seeking in-principle approval from Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc for the construction of Quang Tri Airport, while the fellow central province Thua Thien-Hue is proposing the expansion of its own Phu Bai Airport.

As per Quang Tris proposal, the new airdrome project will be led by the municipal Peoples Committee and funded by public-private partnership (PPP) sources.

PPP involves a cooperation deal signed between a public authority and a private party, in which the private party provides a public service for the project and assumes financial, technical, and operational risks.

Earlier on January 26, the Ministry of Transport approved the plan for Quang Tri Airport for 2030, which envisions the infrastructure as a domestic airport for both civil and military purposes.

According to the plan, Quang Tris namesake airdrome will span a lot of over 316 hectares in Gio Mai Commune, Gio Linh District.

The project is designed to achieve the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Aerodrome Reference Code 4C as well as level 2 in the Vietnamese militarys airport ranking system.

Based on the ICAO Aerodrome Reference Code, Quang Tri Airport will be able to handle code C airplanes, which includes the Airbus A321, on a runway of at least 1,200 meters long.

Quang Tri Airport is expected to welcome one million passengers and transport 3,100 tons of cargo each year.

The local government expects the new airdrome to serve as a driving force for the socio-economic development of the province.

Many private investors, including T&T and FLC Group, are picking up interests in the airport construction project, an insider source said.

Meanwhile, Thua Thien-Hue is also eyeing many upgrades, including the expansion of runways, taxiways, and amelioration and instrument landing systems for the local Phu Bai International Airport, as stated in an official proposal sent from the province's leader Phan Ngoc Tho to Vietnams Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh.

The expansion of Phu Bai Airport is deemed part of Thue Thien-Hues effort to solidify Phu Bais status as an international airport.

After undergoing several upgrades in 2013, Phu Bai Airport received a 2,700-meter-long, 45-meter wide runway, as well as a new terminal spanning 6,500 square meters, rendering it capable of handling new aircraft, including the Airbus A320 and A321.

Designed to welcome a maximum of 1.5 million passengers per year since its upgrade, Phu Bai Airport saw its yearly passenger count soar to nearly two million in 2019 and 2020.

Seeing the issue, the state-owned Airports Corporation of Vietnam, which manages 22 airports in the country, endorsed the construction of a new passenger terminal in Phu Bai, which is expected to be completed in 2021 and raise the airdromes passenger capacity to five million per year.

However, the plan was severely hindered for infrastructural incompatibility reasons, more specifically the inadequate runway length, which can impair operational capacity and safety standards of Phu Bai Airport.

According to the Thua Thien-Hue Peoples Committee, solutions to these issues, including the extension of runways and the upgrade of taxiways, were approved by the prime minister on December 29, 2020.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
New Delhi:

Bhartiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Tuesday addressed press conference after the Supreme Courts verdict by declaring instant triple talaq as unconstitutional and void.

Shah congratulated Muslim women on the historic judgement. He said that he appreciated the Supreme Courts judgement.

The Supreme Courts decision is a new beginning for Muslim women where they will be equal to men.

"This verdict is historic, it is not about anyone's win or loss. I welcome this on behalf of the party," said Amit Shah.

Shah said that the BJP is looking at SCs decision as a step towards new India.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
All non-management workers at Floyd County will be able to take up union membership. The guild encompasses artists, animators, IT workers, editors, systems engineers, background artists, layout artists, and more.

People familiar with the organizing efforts tell Cartoon Brew that, of the 150 eligible workers, around 100 have expressed interest, with more than 80 signing a request for representation. If management does not recognize the union, workers can petition the National Labor Relations Board. If more than 30% of affected employees do so, the board can arrange a vote at the studio on whether to join the union.

This union builds upon years of passionate organizing by Floyd County Production workers, said Margeaux McClelland, a 3d texture artist at the studio, in a statement. We are excited to work together as a collective to continue building a workplace where everyone receives their fair share and can thrive in a culture of mutual respect and transparency.

Adds illustrator Brenden Lewis, Our union will represent all workers at Floyd County Productions in order to ensure everyone receives fair compensation for their work, while also improving transparency around employee benefits and building a culture that reflects the values, diversity and strength of its workers.By giving us a true voice and seat at the table, we can start collaborating and negotiating for a more equitable workplace.

While the L.A. animation industry is represented by IATSEs The Animation Guild, Local 839, workers in the rest of the country are not currently unionized. The situation is similar in Canada, where staff at Titmouse Vancouver and Montreals Oasis Animation recently took groundbreaking steps toward unionization. Floyd County studio sources told Cartoon Brew that Titmouse Vancouvers vote to unionize gave a boost to their own ongoing efforts to do the same.

Cartoon Brews request for comment from Floyd County Productions was not answered.

Across all industries, Georgia is one of the least unionized states in the U.S.: only 4.6% of workers belonged to a union in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In California, the number was 16.2%.
Having enjoyed science and maths in secondary school near Edgeworthstown where she grew up, it seemed like a natural progression for Irish Water Engineer, Olive Marshall, to choose civil engineering as a career.

Since graduating from UCD, where she gained both an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters degree in Water Engineering, she has enjoyed an interesting and varied career.

Before joining Irish Water she worked with renowned engineering consultancy firms, Nicholas ODwyer Ltd. and JB Barry & Partners Ltd. working on water, wastewater and flood relief schemes.

Olive then joined Dublin City Council as Senior Executive Engineer where she worked on the City Centre Sewerage Scheme.

This project involved the construction of a very detailed hydraulic model of the Dublin City Centre network, a large scheme which assessed the hydraulic, structural and environmental deficiencies of the Dublin City Centre network.

Olive is currently Wastewater Regional Lead for the East and Midlands region and deals mainly with large wastewater infrastructure projects including the Upper Liffey Valley Sewage Scheme in Kildare, The Leixlip Transfer Pipeline and the Blanchardstown Regional Drainage Scheme.

Speaking about her role, Olive said No day is the same, there are always new challenges. You get to meet people daily from the project teams, to different sections of the business, to stakeholders and the public.

Its also fascinating to see, first-hand, large engineering works going from planning, design through to construction allowing development of an area while protection the environment. Also new and emerging technologies developing all the time for example can repair old Victorian pipelines at end of life using trenchless technologies which particularly useful in areas with a lot of traffic and services.

On why she thinks engineering is a great career choice, Olive commented, Engineering is a way of thinking, a way of problem solving. It is certainly hard work from the course through to the job, however, it is a very enjoyable and rewarding career.

Irish Water is delighted to promote Engineers Week again this year.

Irish Water staff from across the country are sharing stories about their varied careers in the water industry and highlighting the size and scale of the work in safeguarding Irelands water and wastewater infrastructure for the future.

For further information, please visit www.water.ie/engineersweek
A UUP councillor in Londonderry has apologised after making insensitive comments in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Derry City and Strabane councillor Derek Hussey made the comments at a special virtual council meeting on Monday evening discussing racism in the north-west.

During the meeting, the council had welcomed presentations by anti-racism groups across Northern Ireland  discussing the issue of racism, sectarianism and anti-semitism.

Speaking towards the end of the discussion, Mr Hussey made reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, remarking it was a very multicultural presentation and noted the meeting was addressing issues which go beyond Black Lives Matter.

He then went on to suggest the group were not fully inclusive.

I have always wondered in the back of my mind is it not time the BLM campaign became fully inclusive and changed to being an all-lives matter campaign, he said.

Speaking immediately after he made the comments, Sinn Feins Aileen Mellon said she wanted to associate herself with all the contributions except for the one before and expressed gratitude for the groups attending.

During the meeting, Lilian Seenoi-Barr from the anti-racism North-West Migrants Forum group told the councillors that the Derry City and Strabane area had seen the largest increase in racist incidents between January 2019 and December 2020.

She also added that in her view it was fair to say we are going backwards in relation to racist incidents in the city.

The councillors were told 66 racist incidents and 47 racist crimes were recorded in the local area in 2020.

Responding directly to Mr Husseys comments, Ms Seenoi-Barr called on him to explain his thoughts on the origins of the Black Lives Matter.

Of course all lives matter, but I would like the councillor to actually tell us if he knows of the injustices that have happened to black people and where the origins of Black Lives Matter started, she said.

If all lives matter it shouldn't feel uncomfortable when we say Black Lives Matter. If he can just respond if he knows where it started.

He did not wish to comment when approached by the Belfast Telegraph on Tuesday morning  instead directing inquiries to the Ulster Unionist Party press office.

In a statement released by the party, he said: I apologise for my comments which were insensitive. I was grateful for the opportunity to hear from those who presented and to expand my own understanding of racism in Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Unionist Party opposes all forms of racism and we want to see hate crime legislation strengthened in Northern Ireland as soon as possible."

Mr Hussey returned to the council in 2020 following a 15-month ban after an investigation from a standards watchdog in July 2020.

The councillor has three convictions for drink-driving offences and was banned from driving for five years in 2016.
PHILADELPHIA, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Global Premier Properties Fund (NYSE: AWP) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund, today announced that it will pay on March 31, 2021, a distribution of US $0.04 per share to all shareholders of record as of March 24, 2021 (ex-dividend date March 23, 2021). The Fund's distribution policy is to provide investors with a stable monthly distribution out of current income, supplemented by realized capital gains and, to the extent necessary, paid-in capital.

Aberdeen Asset Management Inc. At Aberdeen, asset management is our business. We only manage assets for clients, allowing us to focus solely on their needs and deliver independent, objective investment advice. We know global markets from the local level upwards, drawing on more than 1,900 staff, across 32 offices in 23 countries. Investment teams are based in the markets or regions where they invest, delivering local perspective in a global investment environment. (PRNewsFoto/Aberdeen Asset Management Inc.)

Under U.S. tax rules applicable to the Fund, the amount and character of distributable income for each fiscal year can be finally determined only as of the end of the Fund's fiscal year. However, under Section 19 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the "1940 Act") and related Rules, the Fund may be required to indicate to shareholders the source of certain distributions to shareholders.

The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the sources of the distribution for purposes of Section 19 of the 1940 Act and the Rules adopted thereunder. The table has been computed based on generally accepted accounting principles. The table includes estimated amounts and percentages for the distribution to be paid on March 31, 2021, as well as the estimated cumulative distributions declared fiscal year to date (11/01/2020  02/28/2021), from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short-term capital gains; net realized long-term capital gains; and return of capital. The estimated composition of the distributions may vary from month to month because the estimated composition may be impacted by future income, expenses and realized gains and losses on securities and currencies.



Estimated Amounts of Current Monthly Distribution per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Current Monthly Distribution per share (%) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share (%) Net Investment Income $0.0132 33% $0.0660 33% Net Realized Short-Term Capital Gains* - - - - Net Realized Long-Term Capital Gains - - - - Return of Capital $0.0268 67% $0.1340 67% Total (per common share) $0.0400 100% $0.2000 100%



*includes currency gains

The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income."

Story continues

Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of the Fund's current distributions or from the terms of the distribution policy (the "Distribution Policy").

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The final determination of the source of all distributions in 2021 will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The following table provides the Fund's total return performance based on net asset value (NAV) over various time periods compared to the Fund's annualized and cumulative distribution rates.

Average Annual Total Return on NAV for the 5 Year Period Ended 02/28/20211 9.71% Current Fiscal Period's Annualized Distribution Rate on NAV2 7.97% Fiscal Year to Date (11/01/2020 to 02/28/2021) Cumulative Total Return on NAV1 18.58% Cumulative Distribution Rate on NAV2 2.66%



1 Return data is net of all fund expenses and fees and assumes the reinvestment of all distributions reinvested at prices obtained under the Fund's dividend reinvestment plan. 2 Based on the Fund's NAV as of February 28, 2021.

While NAV performance may be indicative of the Fund's investment performance, it does not measure the value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund. The value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund is determined by the Fund's market price, which is based on the supply and demand for the Fund's shares in the open market.

Pursuant to an exemptive order granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 30, 2010, the Fund may distribute any long-term capital gains more frequently than the limits provided in Section 19(b) under the 1940 Act and Rule 19b-1 thereunder. Therefore, distributions paid by the Fund during the year may include net income, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains and/or a return of capital. Net income dividends and short-term capital gain dividends, while generally taxable at ordinary income rates, may be eligible, to the extent of qualified dividend income earned by the Fund, to be taxed at a lower rate not to exceed the maximum rate applicable to your long-term capital gains. Distributions made in any calendar year in excess of investment company taxable income and net capital gain are treated as taxable ordinary dividends to the extent of undistributed earnings and profits, and then as a return of capital that reduces the adjusted basis in the shares held. To the extent return of capital distributions exceed the adjusted basis in the shares held, capital gain is recognized with a holding period based on the period the shares have been held at the date such amount is received. Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the terms of the distribution policy. The final determination of the source of all distributions will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The payment of distributions in accordance with the Distribution Policy may result in a decrease in the Fund's net assets. A decrease in the Fund's net assets may cause an increase in the Fund's annual operating expense ratio and a decrease in the Fund's market price per share to the extent the market price correlates closely to the Fund's net asset value per share. The Distribution Policy may also negatively affect the Fund's investment activities to the extent that the Fund is required to hold larger cash positions than it typically would hold or to the extent that the Fund must liquidate securities that it would not have sold, for the purpose of paying the distribution. The Fund's Board of Directors has the right to amend, suspend or terminate the Distribution Policy at any time. The amendment, suspension or termination of the Distribution Policy may affect the Fund's market price per share. Investors should consult their tax advisor regarding federal, state and local tax considerations that may be applicable in their particular circumstances.

Circular 230 disclosure : To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the U.S. Treasury, we inform you that any U.S. tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.

In the United States, Aberdeen Standard Investments is the marketing name for the following affiliated, registered investment advisers: Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc., Aberdeen Asset Managers Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Ltd., Aberdeen Capital Management, LLC, Aberdeen Standard Investments ETFs Advisors LLC and Aberdeen Standard Alternative Funds Limited.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact Investor.Relations@aberdeenstandard.com

aberdeenawp.com

###

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aberdeen-global-premier-properties-fund-announces-record-date-and-payment-date-for-monthly-distribution-301243837.html

SOURCE Aberdeen Global Premier Properties Fund
Dakar, March 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Senegal's opposition leader Ousmane Sonko on Monday called for "much larger" anti-government protests in the West African state, but urged that they be peaceful.

He was speaking at a press conference in the capital Dakar, convened after days of deadly nationwide clashes sparked by his arrest last week.

A judge released Sonko from detention on Monday, but also charged him for rape, in a case which the opposition leader says is politically motivated.
Stock Market News

London Shares - Kingfisher shares jump on plans to launch B&Q stores in Saudi Arabia 09-03-2021 03:02



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.uk
Tom Hallberg covers a little bit of everything, from skiing to long-form feature stories. A Teton Valley, Idaho, transplant by way of Portland and Bend, Oregon, he spends his time outside work writing fiction, splitboarding and climbing.
Just a day after Samantha Armytage announced her resignation from Sunrise, Joe Hildebrand revealed his pick of who he thinks should replace her.

In an open editorial for News Corp on Tuesday, the 44-year-old former Studio 10 star claimed his former colleague, Sarah Harris, would be a perfect fit.

'It is worth noting that I have no capacity whatsoever to be objective in any assessment of television in general or morning TV in particular,' he wrote.

Weighing in: Just a day after Samantha Armytage (pictured) announced her resignation from Sunrise, Joe Hildebrand revealed his pick of who he thinks should replace her

Joe acknowledged that Channel Seven had no shortage of talent, listing Natalie Barr, Edwina Bartholomew and Monique Wright as obvious choices.

'But the dark horse is my dear friend Sarah Harris, who is in a unique position to bring both novelty and familiarity,' he continued.

Joe then used it as an opportunity to criticise his former employer after he sensationally quit Studio 10 in September after seven years on the program.

Favourite: In an open editorial for News Corp on Tuesday, Joe Hildebrand claimed his former colleague, Sarah Harris, would be a perfect fit. Pictured together

Plenty of options: Joe acknowledged that Channel Seven had no shortage of talent, listing Natalie Barr, Edwina Bartholomew and Monique Wright as obvious choices. Pictured, Samantha and co-host David Koch

He said that Network 10 could 'contractually stop' Sarah, 39, from jumping to Seven, but added it 'wouldn't be a great look for a network that prides itself on being nice'.

'The opportunity might even be convenient for them, given their primary goal for Studio 10 seems to be to cut costs while still meeting local content quotas,' he wrote.

In an open editorial for News Corp in September, Joe explained the 'boring' reason behind his decision to quit Studio 10.

'It is worth noting that I have no capacity whatsoever to be objective in any assessment of television in general or morning TV in particular,' he wrote

'The boring truth is the network just needed to cut costs and I quit rather than take on a lesser role,' he said at the time.

Meanwhile, Samantha, 44, announced her resignation live on air during Monday's episode of Sunrise, after hosting the top-rating breakfast show for eight years.

'The time has come for the sun to set on my time at Sunrise. I have always been brave and fearless in my career and this decision is no different,' she said.

'The dark horse is my dear friend Sarah Harris, who is in a unique position to bring both novelty and familiarity,' he said

She explained she was leaving of her own choosing, and was looking forward to life away from the spotlight after a 'bittersweet' year that included the death of her mother, Libby, and her marriage to businessman Richard Lavender.

Sam's last day on the show will be Thursday, but her $800,000-a-year contract with Seven expires at the end of the year.

She will take an 'extended' leave of absence until then, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has received five times as many enquiries about people speaking te reo maori on-air as in the last years period. Out of 27 enquiries, two of them became formal complaints against broadcasters.

As te reo maori is the official language of Aotearoa, the BSA made it clear that its not a breach of standards.

A complaint in early February claimed that using te reo is discriminatory towards non-maori. The individual felt that because the greetings were in te reo maori across multiple news and current affairs shows that it created an expectation that viewers should accept te reo.

Following Meghan and Harry's revelations on the British Royal Family's life, Queen Elizabeth was reportedly in crisis talks, Tuesday. With the admission of having suicidal thoughts, the racism inside the palace, and Harry's claims of heir-to-heir throne being trapped by tradition, the interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has been the most revealing and shocking since Princess Diana. Harry's mother had also dropped her own bombshell about the Royal Family in 1995.

The crisis meetings involving the Queen and senior members of the royal family took place immediately after Meghan and Harry's revelations in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. According to Daniel Relph, BBC's royal correspondent, Buckingham Palace stated that it does not want to rush about saying something regarding the interviews.

Meghan and Harry's Revelations about the 'Royal Life'

During the interview, the couple talked about Meghan's mental health during her time with the Royal Family. They also spoke about the media and had revelations about the other Royal Family members.

Meanwhile, Meghan's father, Thomas Markle, criticized the couple for the timing of the interview. He also said that the interview was over the top and that he doesn't believe that the Royal Family can be racist.

Meghan is the first member of the modern Royal Family to be of mixed race. The duchess revealed to Oprah that one of the lowest points of being a royal was when Harry was asked by one of the family members regarding the possible 'darkness' of their son Archie's skin when Meghan was still pregnant. Harry, however, clarified that neither the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh made the racist' comments.

Moreover, during the interview, the Duchess of Sussex also said that there was a point that the royal life was too heavy to bear that she "didn't want to be alive." Thus, she stepped forward and told the institution. However, she received no help, i reported via MSN.

According to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the Duchess's claims about racism and the lack of support for her mental health issues should be taken by the Royal Family seriously.

Meghan and Harry's revelations were watched by at least 11.1 million people in the UK when it was screened on IT on Monday. The interview was first aired in the U.S. by CBS.

Read also: Prince Harry Is Advised To Go Back Home To Say 'Goodbye' To Prince Philip Amid Hospitalization

World Leaders React to Meghan and Harry's Revelations

In a statement, U.S. President Joe Biden's spokeswoman said that the president praises anyone who has the courage to speak out about their mental health struggles. Also, Jen Psaki, press secretary of the White House, described the couple as private citizens who shared their stories and struggles.

On the other hand, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson refused to comment on the issue. He also added that the prime ministers' right thing to do when there are issues concerning the Royal Family is to say nothing.

Meanwhile, according to AFP via MSN, a guild of senior British newspaper journalists known as the Society of Editors rejected Meghan and Harry's revelations and accusations on Monday.

They stated that the Duke and Duchess's claims without concrete proof are not acceptable. They also insisted that while the press asks awkward and embarrassing questions, it is not racist.

Related article: Top 5 Biggest Bombshells Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Drop in Their Oprah Interview

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The city could still face a lawsuit from the state attorney general, Letitia James, whose office investigated the crisis in response to the Times series and found the city was chiefly responsible. Ms. James announced last year that unless the city bailed out cabdrivers, she would sue the city for $810 million and give it to drivers. Her office did not respond to a request for comment about whether the mayors plan answered her findings.

Taxi industry leaders have long denied wrongdoing, describing their tactics as normal business practices and noting that regulators approved their methods. They have blamed the industrys financial crisis exclusively on ride-hailing companies.

In recent years, competition from Uber, Lyft and other companies has reduced the amount of revenue that cabdrivers can make by driving. And in the last year, the pandemic has almost entirely devastated the industry, leading many drivers to stop working completely.

As of January, the latest month for which data is available, revenue for the industry was down 80 percent over the same month a year earlier. That was better than in the worst days of the pandemic in New York in March and April  but not by much.

Many drivers who own their cabs have gotten by because of the federal governments enhanced unemployment program, as well as assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program, neither of which will provide support on a long-term basis.

The new plan from City Hall, called the Taxi Medallion Owner-Driver Relief Fund, will provide up to $29,000 in no-interest loans to each of the estimated 3,000 drivers who purchased their own medallion. (Thousands of other drivers work for large fleets that control more than 5,000 other medallions.)

The citys plan is not nearly enough to bail out the drivers, who each owe about $500,000 in loans on average. But it is expected to be enough to allow drivers to strike deals with their lenders, many of which are eager to recoup as much debt as quickly as possible.
Citing unfair working conditions exacerbated by the pandemic, employees at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) are trying to unionize.

On Monday, MASS MoCA petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union election to join the Technical Office, and Professional Union, Local 2110 UAW, which represents cultural and administrative workers across New England and New York. Those petitioning include curators, art fabricators, educators, facilities and administrative staff and more.

According to staff members, issues that led toward the unionizing effort include job insecurity, inequitable conditions, low salaries, and layoffs. Multiple cultural organizations have seen workers seek to unionize for similar reasons, including Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, where workers voted to unionize with Local 2110 UAW last November.

The museum laid off about 120 of its 165 employees at the end of last March and reduced the hours of remaining staff

Maida Rosenstein, president of Local 2110 UAW, said staff at MASS MoCA has been seeing decisions made unilaterally by museum leadership and boards without any input by them, and that trend had only increased since the pandemic. There were also growing concerns about health and safety standards and the staff wanted protection and input on that.

I mean, people are in these jobs, because they really care about that. And they really love the work that they do, said Rosenstein. And they want to make this a better workplace, more sustainable, where people can stay in their positions and have some protection and more a more secure work life.

The museum addressed the organizing effort in a statement: We have received the petition for union representation and respect our employees legal right to organize. We are committed to working in good faith to ensure a positive and productive work culture, and are evaluating our next steps.

Jenny Wright, MASS MoCA's director of communications, said the museum would have no further comment.
Strategic Financial Solutions, a leading financial services firm that empowers Americans to live financially healthy lives, held its fifth annual Valentines Day fundraiser for the American Heart Association. The company typically raises money by providing carnations that its employee-owners can purchase and give to colleagues for Valentines Day. This year, the company went virtual and created unique Valentines Day cards for employee-owners to send digitally to show appreciation for their coworkers.

Strategic is so privileged to have a culture that values empathy and generosity toward others even in unprecedented times like we are in now, said Ryan Sasson, CEO of Strategic Financial Solutions. Heart disease affects millions each year, and by partnering with an organization like The American Heart Association, we can bring awareness to its mission and help people in our community live healthier lives. I continue to be amazed at how our incredible culture has grown while we have been remote for the past year. Im incredibly encouraged to see how we grow in 2021.

More than 500 Strategic Family members showed their support, which helped the company raise $2,750 for the American Heart Association.

I look forward to this event every year because it really reflects who we are at Strategic, said Kimberly Celic, Chief People Officer. Honoring and celebrating the people who are so important to us while also giving back to a worthy cause that helps so many Americans showcases who we are at Strategic.

The American Heart Association is a nonprofit organization that funds cardiovascular medical research, educates consumers on healthy living, and fosters appropriate cardiac care across the United States.

About Strategic Financial Solutions

Strategic Financial Solutions is a leading financial services company that provides comprehensive debt relief solutions for people in difficult financial situations. Through its personalized, tailored approach that includes debt consolidation loans and debt resolution programs, Strategic Financial Solutions has successfully resolved more than $1 billion in debt, and funded loans, for over 100,000 clients. Strategic Financial Solutions has been named one of the fastest-growing companies in New York City twice by Crains New York and has been recognized by INC. 500 as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. Strategic ranked 21st in the Best Companies to Work for in New York State program and is a Certified Great Place to Work. More information can be found at http://stratfs.com.

Contact:

Gary Foodim

CMO

Office: (212) 810-4544

Email: gfoodim@stratfs.com


A veteran prosecutor and an employment lawyer have been appointed by New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate allegations that Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed female aides, as the 63-year-old defies demands to resign.

Joon Kim, who was the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan for parts of 2017 and 2018, will join the employment lawyer Anne Clark in conducting the probe, the attorney general's office said.

James said the pair are 'independent, legal experts who have decades of experience conducting investigations and fighting to uphold the rule of law.'

The investigation is likely to take two months.

Anne Clark (left) and Joon Kim were named by Letitia James on Monday as inquiry leads

The investigation will include claims made by the women against Cuomo, as well as his administration's handling of such matters.

The team will have subpoena power in order to examine relevant documents, records and data relating to the case, and will conduct interviews and formal depositions.

They will have weekly reports for the state attorney general, and will produce a written final report which will include their findings; that report will be made available to the public.

The investigation will be outside of the Democratic attorney general's oversight.

Following that review, the attorney would release a public report.

The state senate oversight committee said that the investigation will likely take about two months.

James described Kim and Clark as highly respected professionals well suited to the task

She continued: 'There is no question that they both have the knowledge and background necessary to lead this investigation and provide New Yorkers with the answers they deserve.'

Joon Kim became the leader of the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan in 2017 after U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was fired by President Donald Trump.

Before then, Kim held various top posts in the office including deputy U.S. attorney and chief of the criminal division.

During those years, the office investigated Joseph Percoco, a longtime Cuomo friend and top aide who was ultimately sentenced to six years in prison for accepting more than $300,000 from companies that wanted to gain influence with the governor's administration.

Cuomo had once likened Percoco to a brother.

Clark is a New York City-based employment lawyer who has handled sexual harassment, disability discrimination and equal pay cases, among others.

Early in her career, she worked on employment law matters with what was then the National Organization for Womens Legal Defense and Education Fund; its now called Legal Momentum.

The governor on Wednesday said he will 'fully cooperate' with the investigation into the allegations and again apologized for his actions, adding that he 'fully supports a woman's right to come forward.'

'The facts will come out' in the attorney general's investigation, he said.

He emphasized that he 'never knew at the time' that he was making anyone feel uncomfortable.

The appointments came as New York politicians were privately debating whether to join calls for Cuomo to resign from office, or urge patience while the investigation is ongoing.

A group of 21 women in the state Assembly released a statement on Monday asking that James be given time to complete her probe.

The group included the the second-ranking Democrat in the Assembly, Majority Leader Crystal People-Stokes.

The assembly members began working on the statement Sunday night after the Senate's top leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, called on Cuomo to resign.

Andrew Cuomo, a three-term governor, was inspecting a vaccination site on Monday

Charlotte Bennett, 25, on Thursday night appeared on CBS to detail her accusations

Lindsey Boylan, 36, was the first woman to come forward and accuse Cuomo

Anna Ruch is the third former Cuomo employee to have accused him of sexual harassment

'We continue to support our Attorney General, the first woman, and the first African American woman to be elected to this position, as she launches this investigation,' it said.

'We request that she be allowed the appropriate time to complete her investigation rather than undermine her role and responsibility as the chief law enforcement officer of the state of New York.'

Assembly Democrats were caucusing Monday as legislators face increasing pressure to take a stance.

Cuomo, meanwhile, appeared with black clergy members on Monday at a vaccination site in New York City.

Cuomo, seen on Monday, is defying calls to resign and has apologized for 'misunderstandings'

The event was closed to reporters, but Cuomo said on Sunday he has no intention of resigning and believes he can continue to govern.

Several women, including three former members of Cuomo's staff, have accused him of making inappropriate comments about their appearance, asking questions about their sex life and, in some cases, giving them uncomfortable hugs or unwanted kisses.

The governor has denied touching anyone inappropriately, and said some of the allegations are false.

But he has acknowledged, and apologized for, engaging in 'banter' in the office that some women interpreted as flirting.

Cuomo has said he did not realize at the time that his actions were harmful.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, whose support would be vital for any effort to impeach Cuomo, stopped short of asking him to resign on Sunday, but said: 'I think it is time for the Governor to seriously consider whether he can effectively meet the needs of the people of New York.'

Separately, Cuomo is under fire for withholding data from the public and from state lawmakers on COVID-19 deaths among nursing home patients.

Critics say they suspect the statistics were withheld to protect the Democrat's image - a charge the governor has denied.

Assembly Republicans announced Monday that they intended to propose articles of impeachment against Cuomo, but the party is greatly outnumbered in both houses of the legislature and the proposal is a longshot to get a vote.

Assembly member Pat Fahy, who signed the letter from the 21 female lawmakers, said that she believes calls for a resignation or impeachment are undermining James' ability to investigate harassment allegations.

'We have somebody we presumably trust and we finally have a women, a woman of color as the chief law enforcement officer for the state,' Fahy said.

'Let's suddenly not undermine her.'

Another signer, Assembly member Alicia Hyndman, said she wants Cuomo to receive 'due process.'

'These calls I don't think should be tried out in the press,' she said.

'If the findings of the attorney general says that he is guilty of sexual harassment, at that point the governor should step down.'
In a study conducted shortly before COVID-19 vaccines became available in the U.S., more than two-thirds of nursing home and assisted living staff in Indiana indicated willingness to receive a vaccine immediately or in the future. The study was led by researchers from Regenstrief Institute, Indiana University and the State of Indiana. Vaccine uptake by front-line staff is important because it will help protect against serious illness and death for the high-risk people who receive care in these facilities.

The vaccines offer the opportunity to return to a more normal life within the nursing facility, but that cannot be achieved without staff being willing to take the vaccine. The rates of willingness found in this survey are a positive sign, and more staff may be amenable to the vaccines if they receive more education and outreach." Kathleen Unroe, M.D., MHA, Study Leader, Regenstrief Research Scientist, IU School of Medicine Associate Professor of Medicine and Geriatrician

Nursing home and assisted living facility staff were included in the first phase of vaccine distribution, so the Indiana State Department of Health sent an anonymous survey to staff in facilities across the state to gain an understanding of willingness to participate. More than 8,000 responded. 45 percent indicated they would be willing to take a vaccine as soon as it was available, and an additional 24 percent said they would take it at some point in the future.

Staff members were surveyed on their reasons for not wanting to receive a vaccine. The most common responses were:

Concern over side effects (70%)

Health concerns (34%)

Questions about effectiveness (20%)

Religious reasons (12%)

"We found significant differences in willingness to take a vaccine among staff sub-groups, for example older employees were more interested in getting it as soon as possible, whereas direct care clinical staff who deal directly with patients were less likely to report willingness to receive the vaccine in the first wave,"said Justin Blackburn, PhD, associate professor at Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI. "This information can help public health and facility leaders identify which groups may need education and outreach about the vaccines so that these efforts can successfully protect residents." Dr. Blackburn is also a program faculty with the Indiana University National Library of Medicine Public Health Informatics T15 program hosted by Regenstrief Institute and Fairbanks School of Public Health.

"Willingness of long-term care staff to receive a COVID-19 vaccine: A single state survey" has been published online ahead of print in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
A dam has overflowed in Hawaii with flooding from heavy rains destroying homes and sparking evacuations.

Residents were forced to evacuate on the island of Maui after the National Weather Service reported 13.2 inches of rain on the North Coast between 7am and 3pm on Monday.

The rains led to the cresting of the Kaupakalua dam in the island's northern region of Haiku, state emergency management officials said in a statement.

Evacuation centers have opened and two bridges have been destroyed in the torrent.

Terrifying footage has also emerged showing a driver getting caught in the flooding as he desperately tried to get to safety on the island.

Floodwaters sweep over Hana Highway near West Kuiaha Road in Haiku, Maui, Hawaii, on Monday

Six homes were heavily damaged or destroyed, according to Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino's office late Monday. He urged people to be vigilant amid evidence of landslides.

'Resources are being pushed into this area right now,' Victorino said during a live address on Facebook.

'Ladies and gentlemen, this is a real flooding situation we have not seen in a long time. In fact, some of the residents have told me that this is the worst they've seen in over 25 years,' he said.

The Maui Fire Department responded to more than a dozen calls for help from residents trapped by rising waters.

Terrifying footage shows a Tesla driver getting caught in the flooding as he desperately tried to get to safety on the island

About six homes were heavily damaged or destroyed, according to Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino's office late Monday

Shan Tsutsui, the chief operating officer of Mahi Pono, a co-owner of the dam, said water over-topped the reservoir but it hadn't failed.

'At this time, the over-topping of the dam has ceased. However, our crews are actively monitoring the situation and will continue monitoring the water levels until it returns to a safe level,' Tsutsui said in a statement.

He urged anyone who needed to shelter to go to evacuation centers that were set up at Hana High School and the Paia Community Center.

'If you have family and friends and you can get out of the area, that is probably preferable. But be careful if you see high water, turn around and go back,' Victorino said. 'Do not try to cross it at this time.'

Residents were forced to evacuate on the island of Maui after the National Weather Service reported 13.2 inches of rain

People who needed to shelter were sent to evacuation centers that were set up at Hana High School and the Paia Community Center

The Maui Fire Department responded to more than a dozen calls for help from residents trapped by rising waters

He also urged tourists to stay in their hotel rooms or other lodging and not go out Monday evening.

County spokesman Brian Perry said he didn't know how many people were downstream of Kaupakalua Dam, which is in the town of Haiku.

A state website says the earthen dam was built in 1885 and is 57 feet (17.4 meters) in height and 400 feet (122 meters) in length. It belongs to the East Maui Irrigation Company, which was created to divert water from streams to feed sugar plantation lands.

A heavily flooded road is seen near the breached Kaupakalua dam, in Haiku on Maui

The state regulates 132 dams across Hawaii, most of which were constructed as part of irrigation systems for the sugar cane industry

Mahi Pono, which grows a variety of crops on former sugar cane land, co-owns East Maui Irrigation with Alexander & Baldwin Inc., a commercial real estate developer with roots in the sugar industry.

The state regulates 132 dams across Hawaii, most of which were constructed as part of irrigation systems for the sugar cane industry.

Of these dams, 93% are classified as high hazard potential, which means a failure could result in significant loss of life or property, according to a 2019 infrastructure report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

A dam failure turned fatal in Hawaii in 2006, when seven people were killed after the Ka Loko dam on the island of Kauai collapsed and hundreds of gallons of water rushed downhill.
Credit: Ink Drop/Shutterstock

Google has announced plans to stop using tracking cookies on its Chrome browser by 2022, replacing them with a group profiling system in a move the company says will plot "a course towards a more privacy-friendly web."

The change is significant. Chrome commands some two-thirds of the web browser market. Third-party tracking cookies, meanwhile, underpin much of the targeted advertising industry. And, while Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari have already stopped supporting third-party cookies, Google is the first firm to produce replacement advertising support.

Rather than tracking and targeting you on an individual basis, Google's alternative groups you instead into a crowd of people with similar generalized interests. Google argues this grants users more privacy. This sits oddly with the reassurance to advertisers that the new technique is at least 95% as effective as individual targeting.

But beneath the gloss of Google's press releases, the shift from tracking to profiling raises a number of new privacy and discrimination concerns. Ostensibly a move to boost individual privacy, Chrome's new system ultimately looks set to benefit Google, handing the company yet another advantage over its beleaguered AdTech competitors.

Cookies to cohorts

The traditional web tracking and targeting method uses so-called cookies: small files stored by web browsers such as Chrome. Their original purpose was to retain informationsuch as the items you've added to online shopping carts, for examplebetween browsing sessions. This was seen as useful for consumers.

Nowadays, cookies mostly serve advertising interests. On Chrome, third parties use cookies to track you across the web, amassing enough data on your browsing habits to target you with highly specific adverts.

In recognition of how invasive this tracking has become, the EU's data protection laws class cookies as "online identifiers", subject to regulations that require websites to gain your consent before issuing cookies to your browser.

Google's new system for Chrome will abandon that. The browser will instead use your recent browsing history to generate your "cohort identity". That's currently achieved by using a "simhash", which in simple terms generates "magic numbers" to represent your interests before grouping you with those in possession of similar numbers.

Hidden within a cohort of a few thousand individuals, you'll then have adverts targeted at your cohort, rather than you as an individual. This is presented as a boost for privacy, as it moves away from the individualized tracking and targeting that made third-party cookies particularly invasive.

Towards Facebook's model

Conceptually, Google's proposed system isn't newit is a form of profiling, which enables an advertising model that Facebook has been using for some time. Targeting someone's cohort identity is just like creating a "Lookalike Audience" based on one individual, which is a service Facebook currently offers advertisers.

We should expect profiling to also create a number of different named cohorts, from which advertisers can create Custom Audiences with mixed interestssomething that Facebook also offers.

This is where profiling becomes problematic. In 2016, it was revealed that Facebook allowed housing advertisers to exclude users based on race. Even after Facebook made changes to its audience groupings, it was still possible for advertisers to discriminate based on sensitive interests held predominantly by minorities.

Profiling involves machine-learning algorithms and AI technologies which have repeatedly been shown to reinforce real-world bias. As such, Google's decision to sack key members of its AI ethics team just as Chrome is adopting a profiling advertising model appears particularly alarming.

Aside from the known harms and risks of profiling, it's unclear how Google's new model enhances individual privacy. For the system to work, Chrome must freely volunteer your cohort identity to any website you visit, whereas a third-party cookie doesn't reveal that volume of data to all websites.

The smaller cohorts get, meanwhile, the easier you'll be to spot within them. And you'd expect Google to favor smaller cohorts, seeing as larger cohorts naturally reduce the accuracy of targeted advertising. Overall, the change will introduce a number of new risks for privacy and discrimination. So why else might Google have chosen to scrap third-party cookies on Chrome?

Google's mixed motivations

One reason is regulation. The EU's new ePrivacy directive may well move to abolish the traditional use of tracking cookies within the EU anyway, with far-reaching consequences for other jurisdictions. So Google may simply be jumping before being pushed.

By restricting how third-party advertising services can use Chrome, Google may be set to benefit by stifling competition, too. An interest group for online advertisers has already asked the UK's competition watchdog to account for the Chrome change as part of its existing probe into Google's advertising practices. Google itself will retain ample tracking possibilities after the change, particularly when Chrome users are logged in to their Google accounts.

Google is the biggest beneficiary of Chrome's move from cookies to cohorts. Framed as a privacy boon, Google's new system only mildly restricts its traditional targeted advertising reach, while adding Facebook's profiling-based mode of advertising to its repertoire.

End users like you and I, meanwhile, are unlikely to notice any difference whatsoever. We'll still be watched and targeted based on our online activityonly now as part of a group, rather than an individual.

Explore further Google says Chrome cookie replacement plan making progress

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Biden administration said Monday it is offering temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who fled their countrys economic collapse and will review U.S. sanctions intended to isolate the South American nation.

Both measures mark a shift from U.S. policy toward Venezuela under President Donald Trump.

President Joe Bidens administration announced it would grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans already in the United States, allowing an estimated 320,000 people to apply to legally live and work in the country for 18 months.

The decision fulfills a promise that Biden made during the 2020 election campaign to give shelter to Venezuelans who left their homeland amid economic collapse, humanitarian crisis and political turmoil under President Nicholas Maduro.

Trump resisted repeated calls from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, primarily from South Florida, to grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans though he issued an order deferring deportation for a smaller number on his final day in office.

The Trump administration also significantly tightened U.S. economic sanctions on Venezuela, most notably on its crucial oil sector, to try and force Maduro to give up power after an election in 2018 that the United States and more than 50 other countries consider fraudulent.

A senior Biden administration official portrayed that as a failed strategy.

'The United States is in no rush to lift sanctions,' the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the policy. 'But we need to recognize here that unilateral sanctions over the last four years have not succeeded in achieving an electoral outcome in the country.'

Biden has granted temporary protected status (PTS) to 320,000 Venzuelans already in the US, permitting them to live and work in the country for 18 months

The decision fulfills a promise that Biden made during the 2020 election campaign to give shelter to Venezuelans who left their homeland amid economic collapse, humanitarian crisis and political turmoil under President Nicholas Maduro (left). Pictured right: Opposition students protest against the Government of Nicolas Maduro during Youth Day in Caracas

The Trump administration also significantly tightened U.S. economic sanctions on Venezuela, most notably on its crucial oil sector, to try and force Maduro to give up power after an election in 2018 that the United States and more than 50 other countries consider fraudulent.

A senior Biden administration official portrayed that as a failed strategy.

'The United States is in no rush to lift sanctions,' the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the policy. 'But we need to recognize here that unilateral sanctions over the last four years have not succeeded in achieving an electoral outcome in the country.'

U.S. sanctions, which began under President Barack Obama, have increased economic pressure on the once prosperous country. Its economy was already suffering from mismanagement and the deterioration of its all-important oil industry.

In the last few years, the Venezuelan economy has been in free fall, with widespread shortages of food and medicine and frequent power outages. An estimated 5 million people have fled, mostly to neighboring countries such as Colombia, but many have settled in South Florida.

The Biden official said the Maduro government has 'adapted' to the most punishing of the sanctions, against transactions with Venezuelas state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, and the U.S. needs to work with its allies on new strategies.

'Oil markets long ago have adapted to oil sanctions and that they are able to sustain themselves through illicit flows,' the official said. 'So, really we could keep on with unilateral sanctions and stay in this situation for who knows how long or we actually could start sitting down with the international community to see how we can actually exert coordinated pressure and set clear expectations for the way forward.'

Opposition protesters clash with police blocking their march in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, March 10

The Biden administration, like its predecessor, views Maduro as a 'dictator', wants him out of power, and recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president.

'Our overriding goal is to support a peaceful democratic transition in Venezuela through free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections,' State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

Any easing of sanctions would likely face opposition in Congress, but the granting of temporary protected status for Venezuelans has bipartisan support.

Republicans in recent days had urged the Biden administration to formalize Trumps last-minute executive order that deferred deportation for 18 months for more than 145,000 Venezuelans who were at risk of being sent back to their homeland. Temporary protected status is a more formal status that cannot be as easily reversed.

'By using the law to lift the threat of deportation and grant employment authorization, the Biden administration helps hundreds of thousands of families stay safe and earn a living without fear of being returned to Maduros dangerous and cruel regime,' said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat whose South Florida district is home to one of the largest Venezuelan communities in the U.S.

'Donald Trump had four years to do this, but the Republican Partys xenophobia got in the way of doing what is right.'

Opposition leader Juan Guaido (center) is recognized by the Biden Administration as interim president

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Venezuela meets the criteria because the country is 'in turmoil and unable to protect its own citizens (pictured: Security forces take part in a military drill to mark the eighth death anniversary of President Hugo Chavez on March 5)

Citizens of 10 countries, totaling about 400,000 people, are in the United States now with temporary protected status. The largest number come from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti, many with U.S. citizen children and spouses.

The Trump administration had sought to phase out the program, arguing that it had effectively become permanent residency after repeated extensions.

People must show continued residency and pass a criminal background check to qualify for the status. Venezuelans must have arrived by Monday to be eligible.

Venezuelans in the United States will have to show they have been residing in the country continuously as of March 8, 2021, to qualify for the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation.

If they meet the criteria, they will be given an 18-month reprieve to stay and can also obtain work permits.

Temporary protected status, which was created in 1990, grants citizens of eligible nations the ability to stay if they cant safely return to their home country because of natural disasters, armed conflicts or other factors.

Some 5.4 million Venezuelans have emigrated in recent years, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Venezuela meets the criteria because the country is 'in turmoil and unable to protect its own citizens.

'It is in times of extraordinary and temporary circumstances like these that the United States steps forward to support eligible Venezuelan nationals already present here, while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises,' Mayorkas said in announcing the measure.
developing creative capacity for the persons with disability by removing barriers in order to facilitate self-efficiency and mastery is necessary support to help them live full and productive lives Technology can help improve independent living for persons living with a disability, serve to open doors and provide access to opportunities and thereby make life easier and more normal for these affected people.

The emergence of digital technology has continued to improve accessibility for people by making their daily lives more comfortable and easier. As a critical enabler and disrupter, digital technology is transforming lives and empowering people across the world at a blistering pace.

Digital technology and innovation is accelerating change and inclusion by providing a platform for accessing and sharing information, and connecting people to a diverse range of products and services across local and international boundaries.

With the quick succession of new digital devices and applications, it is widely accepted that technology has the incredible potential for improving lives by helping citizens and organisations to participate in social and economic activities that are beneficial to them in diverse ways.

However, while technology is changing the world in astonishing ways, there are certain segments of the population that are facing barriers to reaping the full benefits of this ubiquitous development.

Persons living with disabilities (PLWDs), women and girls and rural dwellers, low income earners, and unemployed persons, are among segments of the population that experience exclusion from the digital transformation space.

An estimated one billion people experience some form of disability, with the majority of the worlds 650 million disabled people living in developing countries, and of these 80 per cent live in rural areas.

Nigerias president, Muhammadu Buhari on January 23, 2019, gave assent to the Discrimination Against Persons With Disability (Prohibition) Act. The Act prohibits all forms of discrimination against persons with disability. Violation of the law by an individual will attract a fine of N100,000 or a term of six months imprisonment and a fine of one million naira on corporate bodies.

According to the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, an estimated 7 per cent of household members above the age of five, as well as 9 per cent of those 60 years or older, experience some level of difficulty in at least one functional domain  seeing, hearing, communication, cognition, walking, or self-care.

 it can allow them to participate and enjoy the benefits of the digital society, with the same access to information as everyone else has. New technologies enable people with disabilities to act more independently from others and to also have the choice to connect with people around the world, whenever and however they wish.

Regardless of their disability, persons living with any form of disability are human too, and they have desires, talents, and skills. These people dont want to be dependent on others to do things for them. They want to be self-sufficient and to be able to live with a sense of mastery and dignity.

Persons with disability need opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills and vocation that will enable them not only actively participate in the family and community, but to also contribute to the society in a productive way.

As such, developing creative capacity for the persons with disability by removing barriers in order to facilitate self-efficiency and mastery is necessary support to help them live full and productive lives.

Technology can help improve independent living for persons living with a disability, serve to open doors and provide access to opportunities and thereby make life easier and more normal for these affected people.

Again, it can allow them to participate and enjoy the benefits of the digital society, with the same access to information as everyone else has. New technologies enable people with disabilities to act more independently from others and to also have the choice to connect with people around the world, whenever and however they wish.

But the lack of access to formal/non-formal education and digital literacy opportunities undermine the self-confidence, active participation and full integration of persons with disabilities in the society.

In acknowledgement of this reality, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) organised a training programme for 50 Persons Living with Disabilities (PLWDs) on IT Entrepreneurship held at the Enugu State Technology Hub and Youth Innovation Centre.

Speaking at the programme, Director-General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa, who disclosed that the agency had trained over 750 persons under the initiative, restated its readiness to develop the creative capacity of PLWDs to adopt and use digital technology to achieve social and economic empowerment for themselves, their communities and the country at large.

To effectively build the capacity of PLWDs, the government has to provide adequate funding for the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and NITDA to regularly organise such training programmes for the affected persons in all states of the federation.

Kashifu said nurturing entrepreneurship skills and creating the desired social and economic outcomes through the use of ICT among people with special needs is top on NITDAs agenda, noting that the aim of empowering persons with special needs is for them to acquire ICT skills, digital literacy and its applications to enjoy sustainable relationships with other people, locally and globally.

ADVERTISEMENT

He explained that the objective of the training is to build the capacities of PLWDs, make them employable and self-reliant in order to have effective economic independence in pursing their livelihoods. It will boost the digital literacy and proficiency of all the participants to efficiently participate in the fast-growing digital economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Similarly, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, whose vision birthed the initiative, expressed optimism that with access to adequate knowledge, skills and resources, PLWDs can become job employers (digital entrepreneurs), rather than job seekers.

To effectively build the capacity of PLWDs, the government has to provide adequate funding for the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and NITDA to regularly organise such training programmes for the affected persons in all states of the federation.

NITDA should liaise with states governments, private sector operators and ICT-focused civil society groups to address digital exclusion, since true innovation and disruption can only be sustained on partnerships that breed the genuine exchange of new ideas and actions from a diversity of stakeholders.

Having persons with and without disabilities collaborate on projects that improve the lives of the PLWDs and solves critical challenges in our environments, will promote inclusion and help everybody appreciate the talents and gifts that all persons/individuals bring with them.

By including people with special needs in the decision-making process, understanding and implementing their honest ideas will go a long way in helping them sustain their independence with skills, critical awareness and opportunities to positively impact their own lives, and the wellbeing of others, thereby creating a happier, inclusive, more connected and productive society.

Inyene Ibanga writes from Wuye District, Abuja.
The Chicago doctor showed him a .45 caliber bullet they pulled out of him, he told police. He had been shot three times  in the left hand, in-and-out of his right shoulder and in the right side of his neck. In all, he needed 67 stitches, two pins and a plate, charges show.
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of former AAP MLA & Punjab Ekta Party chief Sukhpal Singh Khaira and a few others on Tuesday (March 9).

The raid by the ED was in connection with a money-laundering case linked to narcotics trafficking and the creation of an alleged fake passport.

The searches are being carried out at Khaira's residence in Chandigarh, five other locations in Haryana and Punjab and two places in Delhi.

Khaira was a legislator of the Punjab Ekta Party, which he founded in 2019. He is an MLA from Bholath in Kapurthala district. The MLA was elected to the state Assembly in 2017 on an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket.

According to news agency PTI, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said the action is being carried out against the Punjab lawmaker and others under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is aimed at gathering more evidence to take forward the probe.

The team of ED sleuths were also carrying out searches at Sector 5 residence of Khaira in Chandigarh.

The investigation, under money-laundering charges, is related to alleged drugs trafficking and a fake passport case, they said.

A few accused who are being investigated in the case are lodged in jail, officials said

Live TV
Karnataka 'sex' tape case: Ramesh Jarkiholi says it was conspiracy, knew about CD 4 months ago

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Bengaluru, Mar 09: Caught in sex-for-job scandal, former Karnataka minister Ramesh Jarkiholi on Tuesday claimed that he is innocent and the sex CD was a conspiracy against him.

Jarkiholi claimed that 100 per cent the CD is fake and there is no truth in the tape. He further said that he is innocent and and that I have done nothing wrong.

Ramesh Jarkiholi also said that also said that he knew about the CD four months ago.

''Those who could not tolerate my rise in politics have done this. The conspiracy against me was hatched in two places of Bengaluru - Yeshwantpur and Hulimavu. One place is on the fourth floor and another on the fifth floor," Jarkiholi alleged.

Seeking a week's time citing security concerns, social activist Dinesh Kallahalli appeared before the police and later said he handed over whatever 'evidence' he possessed.

Kallahalli had earlier this week lodged a police complaint alleging that then Ramesh Jarkiholi sexually harassed a woman 'job aspirant', following which the BJP leader resigned from the cabinet.

Earlier, the activist had alleged that Jarkiholi had sexual relationship with a woman on the pretext of providing her a job in KPTCL. A sleaze tape was also released. The matter created headlines in national media and Jarkiholi even tendered his resignation from the state cabinet.

Sex CD case: SC stays criminal trial against Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel

The Minister sent his resignation to the Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa following the leaked videos and police complaint alleging sexual exploitation of a woman under the pretext of a giving her a job in a government organisation.

The development comes a day after purported video clips showing Jarkiholi getting intimate with an unidentified woman, were widely aired by Kannada news channels. "The allegations against me are far from the truth, it has to be investigated at the earliest.

Jarkiholi tendered his resignation after directions from the party high command. BJP National General Secretary in-charge of Karnataka Arun Singh is said to have communicated the party's decision to the state leadership, keeping in mind assembly polls in five states, also panchayat elections in the state.

Ranbir Kapoor tests positive for Covid-19, on medication and in quarantine | Oneindia News

The allegation, just ahead of the Budget session of the state legislature starting from Thursday had come as a huge embarrassment to B S Yediyurappa-led BJP government. There was also demand from the opposition Congress and JD(S) for his immediate resignation.

Ramesh Jarkiholi, a MLA from Gokak, who was earlier with Congress, was among the chief architects in causing the downfall of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government that eventually paved the way for the BJP to come to power.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 11:47 [IST]
West Virginia environmental authorities said Friday that they are investigating the cause of highly acidic water flowing from a former mine complex to waterways in northern Preston County.

Sediment and discharge 10 times as acidic as normal concentrations are entering the Muddy Creek and Cheat River, the Department of Environmental Protection said in a news release.

The flow of discharge from the T&T Mine Complex peaked at 6,200 gallons (23,470 liters) a minute on Thursday afternoon, then dropped to 3,500 gallons (13,248 liters) a minute, according to a news release.

The flow has to decrease to where we can shut off the valves that regulate the water out of the T&T mine, said agency spokesperson Terry Fletcher. This would cause water to build up in the mine and allow our staff time to make repairs at the manhole and better assess the situation.

The agency is considering the possibility that the highly acidic water leaked due to periodic roof collapses within the mine, but officials havent confirmed that theory. Recent heavy rainfall also likely contributed to the mine blowout, the news release said.

Similar incidents happened in 1994 and 1995, leading to upgrades in the water treatment system.

But Thursdays leak overwhelmed capabilities and an estimated 300 to 500 gallons (1,136 to 1,893 liters) per minute were not going into the treatment facility. A pipeline entering a manhole also ruptured.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Pollution Virginia Mining
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has urged party members to be circumspect with their utterances in order not to play into the hands of detractors waiting to exploit the current uneasy situation in the country.



This follows an emergency meeting of the Functional Executive Committee (FEC) of the Party, on March 4, to discuss recent developments relating to the work of the NDC Caucus in Parliament regarding the approval of the Presidents nominees for a number of ministerial positions.



A statement signed by Mr Kakra Essamuah, the Director of Communications, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said: "The FEC is of the considered view that whatever the disappointments and disagreements may be, especially from among the rank and file of the Party, care should be taken not to allow these to degenerate into unnecessary bickering at the expense of party discipline and cohesion".



"We are also of the view that urgent action is required to deal with the matter and consequently we have initiated a consultation process with the Partys Council of Elders in this regard. It is in our collective interestto address challenges facing the Caucus Leadership and the Backbench as a whole.



It said the task would be tackled expeditiously so as to preserve the unity, cohesion and resilience of the NDC parliamentary Caucus.



"We remain confident that the Party will emerge from this more united and focused.as the NDC pursues its vision of a more egalitarian and inclusive Ghana," the statement said.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Muranga Senator Irungu Kangata says his warning to Uhuru Kenyatta about Raila Odinga has come true, with the handshake between the president and the opposition leader now officially over.

They said the relationship between Uhuru and Raila was so strong, now look where they are, Kangata said on Sunday at a political event in Central Kenya.

The handshake is almost over. I can tell you because I have been in politics for a long time. Whenever a small argument or mistrust enters into a political relationship, it can never be repaired. So the handshake is officially over.

Kangata further attributed the collapse of the handshake to Raila Odinga saying the ODM leader cannot be trusted.

MPs and Senators warned Uhuru Kenyatta not to enter into any political partnership with Raila Odinga. He is not a trust-worthy politician.

He also lamented that politicians from Central Kenya warned President Kenyatta against working with Raila Odinga but were punished instead.

He(Uhuru) refused to heed our warning and the government started fighting us. Now he can see for himself.

If we dared followed handshake and fought Ruto, we would now be isolated, Kangata said.

The senator said it is only DP Ruto who has stood with President Uhuru since 2022 and who can be trusted, unlike Raila who can walk out on you at any time.

Kangata urged President Uhuru to join them in backing DP Ruto, adding that he still their leader and they respect him.
Los Angeles teachers have been warned to not share spring break vacation photos on social media, as their union continues to hold out on returning to in-person learning a year into the pandemic amid negotiations with the school district.

A leaked screenshot from a private Facebook group called UTLA FB Group - Members Only, which has about 5,700 members, displays a note that reads: 'Friendly reminder: If you are planning any trips for Spring Break, please keep it off of Social Media. It is hard to argue that it is unsafe for in-person instruction, if parents and the public see vacation photos and international travel.'

One of the group members wrote in the comments section: 'Amen.'

Another chimed in: 'or better yet, don't travel on spring break and set an example.'

A leaked screenshot from a private Facebook group called UTLA FB Group - Members Only displays a note that warns Los Angeles teachers to not share their vacation photos on social media amid the negotiations between the teachers union and the LA school district

UTLA said it is not responsible for and does not monitor the content of the private Facebook group that has 5,700 members

News of the warning post was first reported by Fox 11 on Monday, just three days after the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), which is the union that represents staff in the Los Angeles Unified School District - the second largest in the US after New York City - voted to reject what it described as an 'unsafe' return to the classroom unless certain demands are met.

For UTLA teachers to resume in-person instruction, the union is demanding that Los Angeles County be removed from the so-called 'purple tier,' which is the state's most restrictive set of COVID rules, returning staff must be fully vaccinated or have access to vaccine doses and coronavirus safety measures must be in place in the classrooms, including personal protection equipment, social distancing, ventilation and daily cleaning.

Some local parents were outraged to learn of the post warning teachers to keep their vacation snapshots out of the public eye.

'It was extremely frustrating, as a parent, to see [that], hey, vacations are planned as usual for teachers, just don't put it out in public because we need to negotiate. It's horrible,' Renee Bailey, who has two children in the district, told Fox 11. 'When I see that post, it tells me that community spread and the safety of the teachers isn't the real concern.'

UTLA issued a statement to Fox 11, distancing itself from the private Facebook group.

UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz (pictured) said on Friday that 91 per cent of the nearly 25,000 union voted to reject the return to the classroom

A demonstrator holding a sign takes part in a car caravan to demand for stronger COVID-19 safety measures and an end to 'educational racism' on February 20 in Los Angeles

A demonstrator holds a poster reading 'Listen to Science' during a protest to reopen schools organized by 'Open Los Angeles Schools Now!' at the Arthur E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, North West of Los Angeles on March 1

'We have a diverse membership and they are able to post their views on personal Facebook pages and in this Facebook group - however, UTLA does not monitor nor is responsible for the content,' it read. 'We do not want to discourage a robust dialogue for members in the public square of opinion.'

UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said on Friday that 91 per cent of the nearly 25,000 union voted to reject the return to the classroom.

The ballot that the teachers had voted on read: 'A YES vote means you agree with UTLAs leadership and will join your union brothers, sisters and siblings in organizing to resist a forced return to school sites until the three conditions for safety mentioned above have been met.

'A NO vote means you are willing to physically return to your school or place of work under unsafe conditions even if the infection rates are still in the Purple Tier without vaccinations, and without all of the safety conditions in place such as ppe, physical distancing, ventilation or daily cleaning.'

Myart-Cruz later said in a statement: 'This vote signals that in these most trying times, our members will not accept a rushed return that would endanger the safety of educators, students, and families.'

Myart-Cruz said the union's members will not accept a rushed return to the classroom

Gov Gavin Newsom on Friday signed into law a $6.6million school-reopening legislation

The vote was announced on the same day Gov Gavin Newsom signed into law a $6.6million school-reopening legislation, which offers financial incentives to districts that resume in-person instruction.

It has been reported that an agreement between the Los Angeles County School District and UTLA to resume in-person learning could be just days away.

'It is well overdue at this point,' LAUSD Board Vice President Nick Melvoin said. 'We have met the union at every turn. Our schools are safe.

LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner said the goal is to have pre-school, elementary school students and students with learning disabilities back in the classroom by mid-April, followed by middle and high school students by the end of the month.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
UPDATE: Biden signs coronavirus relief bill, clearing way for $1,400 stimulus payments

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Senates version of the third stimulus bill, called the American Rescue Plan, on Tuesday or Wednesday.

If its signed into law, people could start receiving stimulus payments in a few days.

Each person, if they meet income requirements, will get up to $1,400, plus payments for dependents.

The biggest changes in this bill compared to past stimulus payouts are how many people can count as a dependent, the amount of the payments and the income cutoffs. Unlike the past two plans, all dependents, regardless of age, are also eligible for the payments based on a familys income level. That will allow families to receive money for college students, for example, and older relatives who are claimed on their tax returns.

The plan, though, has a lower eligibility cap, meaning that higher income earners wont have the opportunity to collect partial payments.

Under this proposal, singles who have adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less and married couples who earn up to $150,000 are eligible for the full $1,400 each. They would also receive $1,400 for each dependent, no matter the age.

The Senate on Saturday changed the income eligibility cap from earlier versions of the legislation. Singles who earn under $80,000 and couples who earn under $160,000 would get partial payments, but payments are cut off completely for those who earn more.

Proposed Third Stimulus Payment Calculator What will your payment be? What is your 2019 or 2020 filing status? Single Married (Jointly) Head of Household What is your adjusted gross income? Use your most recent tax return - 2019 or 2020. How many dependents (regardless of age) did you claim on that tax return ? Calculate Under the plan your stimulus check amount would be about: Your income is above the cap, under this proposal you wouldn't qualify for a stimulus. Your inputs are private and will not be stored.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
County Fare: Neighbors go out on more than a limb to help longtime Lenox resident
Last week, Yountville Mayor John Dunbar, along with the Town Council, issued a proclamation about the triple murder that happened on March 9, 2018.

It appropriately honored the three women who were gunned down and the remarkable contributions they made. Specifically, it honored Dr. Jennifer Gray Golick, Executive Director Christine Loeber and Dr. Jennifer Gonzales Shushereba and the legacy of compassion, professionalism and commitment to serving others that is memorialized by the way they lived their professional and personal lives.

It also stated that, Pathway Home included programs and services that supported military veterans who struggled with mental and emotional challenges, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), among other clinical conditions.

Yet, when it described the gunman, there was no mention of the fact that he had been a patient at the facility before his forced departure or that there was knowledge of the threat he posed in advance. This was a missed opportunity, perhaps avoided due to pending lawsuits, because this tragedy might have been prevented and elected leaders need to address such an issue when people are paying attention to prevent future shootings.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The BJP on Tuesday targeted Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, for raising doubts on the 2008 encounter and asked them to apologise for it.

The comments came a day after Ariz Khan, an Indian Mujahideen terrorist, was convicted of killing Inspector Mahesh Chand Sharma in the gunfight in south Delhi's locality in September 2008.

Addressing a BJP press conference, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad quoted remarks by Opposition leaders, including Congress' Salman Khurshid and Digvijay Singh and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, to attack them. He also demanded an enquiry to find out the impact the campaign against Delhi Police had had on its morale.

"There was a conscious, deliberate and consistent attempt to cast serious doubt on the authenticity of the encounter to weaken the morale of Delhi Police and give clear support to terrorist and their design. Why? For pure vote bank politics," Prasad said.

Inspector Sharma of the Special Cell of Delhi Police was killed during the encounter, which took place a week after five serial blasts had hit the capital on September 13, 2008, killing at least 30 people and injuring over 100. Two terrorists were killed while two others fled.

After the encounter on September 19, 2008, protest rallies were organised against it by teachers and students of Jamia Millia Islamia University.

The Human Rights Commission(NHRC), which had conducted an inquiry in the case on the direction of the Delhi High Court, gave Delhi Police a clean chit.

However, several leaders of the Congress, which was in power at the Centre then, had voiced doubts on Delhi Police's claims and sought an enquiry even though the party leadership later distanced itself from their campaign.

The BJP, known for its tough line on the issue of security, has often used Khurshid's remarks that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was in tears looking at the pictures of the encounter.

Prasad also noted that Banerjee had described the encounter as "fake" and had sought a judicial probe, claiming that she will quit if proven wrong.

The Samajwadi Party, AAP's Arvind Kejriwal and the Left had echoed similar views, he said.

"Will these parties apologise? Will Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Benerjee apologise," he asked.

"Will the fight against terrorism be weakened because of vote bank politics," Prasad added, asserting that the court verdict has put a closure to the case and is a triumph of the country's judiciary and the police.

The Congress and other opposition parties had stood on the side of terrorists on the issue of national security, he alleged.

He said there was a campaign to vilify Delhi Police at the time.

Prasad said the convicted terrorist was responsible for the death of over 165 people in terror blasts across the country, adding that efforts to nab him received a fillip after the BJP came to power in 2014 and he was arrested from Nepal in 2018.

While terror attacks, including in Mumbai and several other cities, occurred during the UPA rule, the BJP government has given a free hand to security forces to undertake preemptive measures and also launch surgical strikes like the one in Balakot when terrorists hit India's interests, he said. PTI KR



http://ptinews.com/images/pti.jpg



We bring the World to you"Disclaimer : This e-mail message may contain proprietary, confidential or legally privileged information for the sole use of the person or entity to whom this message was originally addressed. Please delete this e-mail, if it is not meant for you.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two Northeast Pennsylvania counties have crossed a milestone in their campaign against COVID-19.

New state Department of Health data shows Lackawanna and Luzerne counties  the regions two most populous  have more than 10% of their estimated populations fully covered.

Lackawanna County leads with 28,483 people, or nearly 14%, of its estimated 209,674 population fully vaccinated. Thats the fourth highest in the state, according to an analysis of vaccination data. About 11% of Luzerne Countys population of more than 317,000 are fully inoculated, the 11th highest.

Lackawanna County Chief of Staff Brian Jeffers said providers have been using their limited supplies to give second doses to those who already received their first shot in January or February.

Health department distribution data shows that Lackawanna County received more than 24,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, primarily Modernas, over the last two weeks, but the data does not specify if those doses were intended for first or second shots.

Jeffers said the number county providers received for a first dose has been virtually zero in the last few weeks. Right now, 21,528 county residents are partially covered, according to the health department. Tens of thousands of other county residents, eligible or not, await their first dose.

Were happy with the progress but we still have a lot of work ahead of us, Jeffers said.

Of the 4,179,220 doses of COVID-19 vaccine allocated to Pennsylvania since they became available in December, nearly 3 million have been injected into arms, the health department said. The figures do not include federal facilities, which work directly with the federal government, or Philadelphia, which is its own jurisdiction.

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health reported Monday it had administered 406,905 doses, though that number includes those who live outside of Philadelphia as well.

Elsewhere in NEPA, about 9% of Wyoming County residents are fully vaccinated and roughly 8% of Wayne County and Susquehanna County have received both of their shots. In Monroe County, about 6% are inoculated while nearly 5% of Pike County residents have received both shots, according to an analysis.

The CDC said Monday those who are fully innoculated can gather indoors with other fully vaccinated people without needing a face mask. They can also gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household without masks, unless anyone present or anyone they live with has an increased risk of a severe illness from the coronavirus.

If a fully vaccinated person has been exposed to someone who has COVID-19, the CDC said they do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless they come down with symptoms. Those who live in a group setting and who are exposed to the virus should still keep their distance from others for 14 days and get a test, even if they dont feel sick.

Inoculated or not, people should still wear a mask while in public, the CDC said.

Its certainly optimistic and moving in the right direction but I dont think its the time to relax restrictions or let our guard down, said Joseph Hollander, CEO of Scranton Primary Health Care Center.
Boeing Co. logged more commercial jet orders than cancellations the first time in more than a year last month, and the 787 Dreamliner it builds in South Carolina notched its first new orders since early 2020.

But the delivery drought for the Dreamliner program continued in February, marking four months now that dozens of undelivered widebodies have sat waiting to be handed over to customers.

Boeing said March 9 that it sold 82 new aircraft last month offset by 51 cancellations, making February the first month since November 2019 that the company had a net positive order flow.

The planemaker also returned orders for 16 aircraft to its backlog, which now stands at 4,041.

Cancellations for the recently recertified 737 Max have been dragging down those totals, combined with falling demand during COVID-19 crisis.

Another 32 Max orders were canceled in February, but the program gained 25 orders, all from United Airlines.

The KC-46 military tanker program led with 27 orders.

This list also included four 787-10s  the largest Dreamliner model  that are going to unidentified customers. The last time Boeing reported a 787 sale was in March 2020 when Japanese carrier ANA bought a dozen of them.

But the Dreamliner program overall had more debookings than orders last month. Singapore Airlines canceled orders for 19 of the jets. The carrier converted some of those into an order for 11 new Boeing 777X models that are made in Washington state.

Bigger than the 787, the 777X is also a widebody designed for overseas routes. That category of aircraft is likely to see slower demand for a longer period as the airline industry waits for international travel to recover from the pandemic.

Earlier this year, Boeing announced that the debut of the twin-aisle jet was being pushed to late 2023, putting the program at greater risk of canceled orders.

The Dreamliner program could be facing cancellation concerns, too, because of delivery delays.

Sign up for our new business newsletter We're starting a weekly newsletter about the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina. Get ahead with us - it's free. Email

Sign Up!

Last month, John Plueger, CEO of Air Lease Corp., said that deliveries of some of the 787s it has on order have been pushed back for 12 months, the point at which the company and its customers have the right to cancel.

Plueger also said it was "difficult to see a definitive fix" to the 787 issues causing the delays.

As of this month, North Charleston is the only Boeing site that's making 787s. The local plant had been splitting the work with a factory in Everett, Wash., but the need to cut costs during the pandemic led the company to consolidate production in South Carolina.

The last Everett-made Dreamliner rolled off the assembly line Feb. 26, making the transition official.

For several months, 787s made on both coasts have been awaiting delivery as the company performs inspections and rework on the jets.

A production issue involving the inner fuselage skin was identified last year. Boeing said in December it had broadened the scope of those inspections.

The next month, CEO Dave Calhoun said the inspections were taking longer than expected and that the company had put off deliveries that month. He said he expected "few, if any" 787s would be handed over to customers in February.

Boeing's latest update shows the delivery drought continues.

A total of 22 aircraft were delivered in February. Of those, 18 were 737 Max jets picked up by carriers such as Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and United.

After a 20-month grounding that followed two deadly crashes, the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the Max to fly in November. Boeing has since handed over 66 of the jets to customers, including 39 in the first two months of this year.

Aside from the Max, deliveries of the 787 are supposed to make the biggest difference for Boeing's cash flow this year compared to 2020. While it's unclear when Dreamliner deliveries will resume, the company expects to unwind the majority of them by the end of the year.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has declared its readiness to take over power from the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2023. PDPs Nat...

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has declared its readiness to take over power from the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2023.

PDPs National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan said the former ruling party was ready to take over power through the ballot box in 2023.

Ologbondiyan made the declaration while appearing on Arise Television.

He said the challenges of banditry, kidnapping and terrorism are a clear indication that Nigeria needs to be rescued.

He said: Our party is the hope of Nigerians as we speak today. The acts of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping have subsumed our nation.

It shows clearly that Nigerians are thinking of who will rescue our nation.

The PDP is ready and prepared to take over the mantle of leadership through the ballot box in 2023.
The report highlights the health impact of French nuclear tests on local populations

France concealed the levels of radioactivity that French Polynesia was exposed to during French nuclear tests in the Pacific from 1966-1996, with almost the "entire population" of the overseas territory infected, a report said on Tuesday.

Online investigation site Disclose said it had over two years analysed some 2,000 pages of French military documents declassified in 2013 by the defence ministry concerning nuclear tests on the archipelago.

It worked alongside the British modelling and documentation firm Interprt as well as the Science and global security programme of the University of Princeton in the United States, it said.

For the Centaur test carried out in July 1974, "according to our calculations, based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately 110,000 people were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time," it said.

Using the modelling of toxic clouds to back up the findings, Disclose said it also showed how "French authorities have concealed the true impact of nuclear testing on the health of Polynesians for more than 50 years."

It said the investigation was able to reassess the thyroid exposure to radioactive doses of the inhabitants of the Gambier Islands, Tureia and Tahiti during the six nuclear tests considered to be the most contaminating in the history of French tests in the Pacific.

"Our estimates are between two and 10 times higher than those made by the French Atomic Energy Commission in 2006," Disclose said.

Disclose said its interpretation of existing data was different to that of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

For example, for an aerial nuclear test called Aldebaran carried out in 1966 on the Mururoa atoll, CEA scientists "considered that the local population only drank riverwater but not rainwater".

However, many inhabitants of this archipelago drank rainwater, according to the investigation.

It added the examination of data also showed that CEA estimates of radioactive soil deposits were under-estimated by more than 40 percent.

This CEA study served as the reference for the Compensation Committee for Victims of Nuclear Tests (CIVEN) for studying the files of victims of nuclear tests.

Up until now only 63 Polynesian civilians, excluding soldiers and contractors, have received compensation, according to the investigative media.

Explore further UN chief concerned nuclear 'coffin' leaking in Pacific

 2021 AFP
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Trendforce has posted its quarterly analysis and predictions of the smartphone market. According to analysts, Apple sold 77.6 million units during the Q4 2020 period, becoming the top-selling manufacturer ahead of Samsung.

Oppo and Xiaomi occupied the next two spots, followed by Huawei in fifth and vivo in sixth. For the October-December 2020 period, the market saw 364 million units moved, with the top six amounting to 307 million of them or 84% of the total market. Expectations for Q1 2021 are the decline to be around 6% on a quarterly basis but 25% more than the same period last year.

Apple had a strong holiday season thanks to introducing 5G models and adopting an aggressive price strategy, Trendforce stated. Of all the pushed units, 90% were from the latest iPhone 12 series, and expectations are the trend to remain strong, with predicted 54 million units once March is over.

Samsung saw a quarterly decline down to 67 million units in Q4 2020 with Apple's delayed iPhone 12 lineup release meaning its sales were concentrated in the last quarter. However, the Korean giant will likely get back to first place in Q1 2021 thanks to the newly launched Galaxy S21 lineup that will bring the total sales numbers to 62 million.

Oppo, Xiaomi, and vivo are the companies that are profiting from Huaweis troubles the most. These manufacturers, with respective sales of 50M, 47M, and 31.5M during Q4 2020, are expected to maintain an aggressive stance in the future but due to the shortage in the foundry industry, all three of them are unlikely to achieve big gains.

Speaking of Huawei, the company saw 34.5 million sales, a 21% quarterly decline. Expectations are there will be further reduction as the inventory of components is thinning out, unless the company somehow manages to escape its hostage situation in the trade war between the United States in China. Trendforce predicted Huawei is expected to experience a noticeable cutoff of material supplies, which undoubtedly will affect its sales.
CHICAGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Proteomics Market by Product (Spectroscopy, Chromatography, Electrophoresis, X-ray Crystallography), Reagent, Service (Core Proteomics, Bioinformatics), Application (Diagnostic, Drug Discovery), End User (Hospital, Labs, Biopharma) - Global Forecast to 2026", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Proteomics Market is valued at an estimated USD 25.9 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 55.9 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 16.6%.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Proteomics Market"

161  Tables

47  Figures

296  Pages

Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=731

An increase in the research activity, especially in the area of personalized medicine and drug discovery, is the primary growth driver for this market. In addition, the increasing R&D expenditure by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, increasing government funding, and technological advancements are also propelling the market growth.

The core proteomics services segment accounted for the largest share of the proteomics market, by product segment, in 2020

Based on service and software, the market is segmented into core proteomics services and bioinformatics software & services. In 2020, the core proteomics services segment accounted for the largest share of the global market. Core proteomics services form the basis of proteomics and are highly adopted at every stage of proteome analysis.

Clinical Diagnostics segment to register the largest share during the forecast period

Based on applications, the proteomics market is segmented into drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, and other applications. In 2020, the clinical diagnostics segment accounted for the largest share of the market. This can be attributed to the increased understanding of the relevance of investigating and understanding patterns of protein expression for disease diagnostics and drug development.

Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=731

North America is the largest regional market for proteomics market

The global market is segmented into North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. In 2020, North America accounted for the largest market share. This can be attributed to the increasing investments in the development of structure-based drug design, growing research in the field of omics, rising demand for high-quality research tools for data reproducibility, and increasing focus on developing personalized therapeutics. The presence of a large number of global players in this region is also supporting the growth of this market

The major players operating in proteomics market are Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (US), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (US), Merck KGaA (Germany), Agilent Technologies, Inc. (US), Bruker Corporation (US), Danaher Corporation (US), GE Healthcare (US), Luminex Corporation (US), PerkinElmer Inc. (US), Waters Corporation (US), Illumina, Inc. (US), Eurofins Scientific (Luxembourg), QIAGEN Bioinformatics (Netherlands), Creative Proteomics (US), Promega Corporation (US), Sengenics (Singapore), Biomax Informatics AG (Germany), MS Bioworks LLC (US), WuXi NextCODE (China), Fios Genomics Ltd. (UK), GENEWIZ (US), Biognosys AG (Switzerland), Bioproximity (Switzerland), MRM Proteomics Inc. (Canada), Integrated Proteomics Applications (US), Poochon Scientific, LLC (US), Proteome Factory AG (Germany), VProteomics (India), HORIBA, Ltd. (Japan), and Applied Biomics, Inc. (US).

Speak to Analyst: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=731

Browse Adjacent Markets: Biotechnology Market Research Reports & Consulting

Browse Related Reports:

Protein Crystallization & Crystallography Market by Technology (NMR, X-Ray Crystallography), Product & Service (Instrument (Liquid Handling (Automated)), Consumable (Reagent, Microplate) End User, and Region - Global Forecast to 2025

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/protein-crystallization-market-147057058.html

Genotyping Assay Market by Technology (PCR, Sequencing, Microarray, Electrophoresis, MALDI-TOF), Application (Pharmacogenomics, Diagnostic Research, Animal Genetics, Agricultural Biotechnology), and Product - Global Forecast to 2023

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/genotyping-market-249958595.html

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions.

Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model  GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.

MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.

Contact:

Mr. Aashish Mehra

MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road

Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: [email protected]

Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/proteomic-market.asp

Visit Our Web Site: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com

Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/proteomics.asp

SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
Marysville, CA (95901)

Today

Clear skies. Low around 60F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low around 60F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION OR DISSEMINATION DIRECTLY, OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES



TORONTO, March 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greenland Resources Inc. ("Greenland Resources" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Cannacord Genuity Corp., and PowerOne Capital Markets Ltd. as lead agents and co-bookrunners (the "Lead Agents"), on their own behalf and on behalf of a syndicate of agents including Haywood Securities Inc., to be determined by the Lead Agents (together with the Lead Agent, the "Agents") in connection with a best efforts, private placement of up to 20,000,000 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of C$0.35 per Unit (the "Offering Price") for gross proceeds of up to C$7,000,000 (the "Offering").

Greenland Chairman Dr. Ruben Shiffman noted: "The financing will help advance our world class Climax-type molybdenum project towards permitting and updating the feasibility study. This comes at the right time as we see the following events coalescing in favour of our project: Positive consensus views on demand for industrial metals; The World Bank recently named molybdenum as a critical mineral that will be used in all technologies in the upcoming green energy transition; EU initiative to secure through ERMA raw materials for the EU green energy transition; The EU currently use 25% of global molybdenum supply and has no production, and will be using more molybdenum in light of the European Green Deal initiative; Our project is capable of securing in and for the EU nearly 30% of their needs with very clean high-grade molybdenum for decades to come; China last year became a significant and unprecedent net importer of molybdenum adding uncertainty to the global supply; The EU steel industry now contributes to around 18% of the EU GDP and steel needs molybdenum; The project can significantly help Greenland in unemployment and taxes."

Each Unit will comprise one common share of the Company (a "Common Share") and one half of one Common Share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant shall be exercisable to acquire one Common Share (a "Warrant Share") at a price of C$0.60 per Warrant Share for a period of 24 months from the closing of the Offering. The Lead Agents will have an option (the "Agents' Option") to offer for sale up to an additional 3,000,000 Units at the Offering Price for additional gross proceeds of up to C$1,050,000; the Agents' Option is exercisable, in whole or in part, at any time up to 48 hours prior to the closing of the Offering. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for engineering feasibility work, permitting and for general working capital purposes.

The securities to be issued under the Offering will be offered by way of private placement in each of the provinces of Canada and such other jurisdictions as may be determined by the Company, in each case, pursuant to applicable exemptions from the prospectus requirements under applicable securities laws. Closing of the Offering (the "Closing") is anticipated to occur on or around March 26, 2021 and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. The Units to be issued under the Offering will have a hold period of four months and one day from Closing.

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and accordingly, may not be offered or sold within the United States except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

About Malmbjerg

The Malmbjerg project has a Climax-type pure molybdenum mineral deposit with a pit-constrained Measured and Indicated Resources of 247.1 million tonnes at 0.180% MoS 2 , for 587 million pounds of contained molybdenum metal (RPA, 2018). The project is located within the Company 100% owned exclusive mineral license MEL 2018/11 in east central Greenland; ~30 km from the coast and ~ 600 km NW of Iceland. The molybdenum species contained in the Malmbjerg ore body produce a clean molybdenite concentrate with very few deleterious elements, while the main processing component is water. Therefore, little to none contamination of the surrounding surface, hydrological environment and tailings storage is expected.

The Company has been working extensively along several world class engineering firms, with the intent to further improve project economics. On capex optimization, the Company proposed an innovative engineering concept for its open pit operation, where all the ore processing infrastructure and support structures will be constructed offshore and transported on barges to a natural deep draft harbor near the project site. Additionally, the Company is also analyzing pre-concentration technology aiming to reduce project capex and opex. On mineral resource optimization, the Company has been working with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) to better understand the effects of glacier ablation in potentially increasing the Malmbjerg mineral resource estimate. The conclusion is that the project is glacier ablation positive and many drill holes that showed significant mineralization that were drilled underneath the two glaciers that surround the deposit, are now exposed and added to the current mineral resource estimate. In addition, the Company commissioned GEUS on a future ablation study in Malmbjerg for 2028-2048. The results suggest that Malmbjerg may recede vertically approximately 30 metres further in the period exposing significant known mineable molybdenum mineralization in the years to come.

The Company recently concluded the pre-consultation period for the Terms of Reference of the Environmental Impact Assessment and Social Impact Assessment, two key documents required to obtain an exploitation license in Greenland and is working on the next steps. The Company intends to carry out field work in Greenland in the summer of 2021 to advance the Environmental Impact Assessment and Feasibility Study.

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Mr. Jim Steel BSc, MBA, P.Geo., a director of Greenland Resources and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure in this news release.

The mineral resource estimate was prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. (RPA) in Toronto, Canada with an effective date of November 22, 2018, in the NI 43-101 technical report entitled "Technical Report on the Mineral Resource Estimate for the Malmbjerg Deposit, Greenland" (the "Technical Report"). For additional information, including with respect to the key assumptions, parameters and methods used in respect of the mineral resource estimate, refer to the Technical Report, which is available in the Company's SEDAR profile.

About Greenland Resources Inc.

Greenland Resources is a Canadian reporting issuer regulated by the Ontario Securities Commission, focused on the development of its world class Climax type pure molybdenum deposit located in central east Greenland. The Malmbjerg molybdenum deposit has pit-constrained Measured and Indicated Resources of 247.1 million tonnes at 0.180% MoS 2 , for 587 million pounds of contained molybdenum metal.

For further information please contact:

Ruben Shiffman, PhD Executive Chairman, President Keith Minty, P.Eng, MBA Engineering and Project Management Jim Steel, P.Geo, MBA Exploration and Mining Geology Nauja Bianco, M.Pol.Sci. Public and Community Relations Gary Anstey Investor Relations Corporate office Suite 1410, 181 University Av. Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5H 3M7 Telephone +1 647 273 9913 Web www.greenlandresources.ca (http://www.greenlandresources.ca)

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Certain statements in this news release are forward-looking and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are within the meaning of the phrase 'forward-looking information' in the Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 51-102 - Continuous Disclosure Obligations. Forward-looking statements are not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", or "plan". Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Although these statements are based on information currently available to the Company, the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Risks, uncertainties and other factors involved with forward-looking information could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the anticipated size of the Offering, the Offering price, the anticipated closing date and the completion of the Offering, the anticipated use of the net proceeds from the Offering, the receipt of all necessary approvals, and the Company's intentions regarding its objectives, goals or future plans and statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: an inability to complete the Offering on the terms or on the timeline as announced or at all; and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has ordered flags lowered to half-mast on all public buildings and grounds on March 10, the one-year anniversary of the first cases of coronavirus in Michigan.

One year ago, our world changed forever as we confronted the greatest challenge of our generation, Whitmer said in a press release.

By lowering the flags to honor the one-year anniversary of the viruss confirmed presence in Michigan, we remember the nearly 16,000 sons and daughters, moms and dads, and neighbors and friends who passed away from COVID-19 in Michigan. As we honor their legacies, let us also take a moment to grieve together, and know that we are not alone in our mourning.

The first cases were diagnosed on March 10, 2020. Shortly afterward, Whitmer moved to close things like schools and restaurants, colleges voluntarily suspended in-person instruction, and for a time Michiganders were under a stay-at-home order, all designed to stop the spread of the virus.

As the year progressed, Michigan would see the disease prevalent at various levels, and various restrictions lifted, replaced and lifted again as the coronavirus wound its way through the state.

In late 2020, Michigan watched the trucks with the first vaccines roll out of Pfizers Portage manufacturing facility.

One year after our first confirmed case, we now have three safe and effective vaccines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Whitmer said.

I encourage all Michiganders to continue to practice social distancing and proper hygiene and get vaccinated once they are eligible because this is the most effective way to protect you, your family, and others from COVID-19. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and we will get through this pandemic together.

Those looking to mark the year-long pandemic at home are encouraged to lower any flags and also turn on the lights outside their homes from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesday.

More on MLive:

First Michigan case of South African COVID-19 variant identified in Jackson County boy

Michigan lists 166 new coronavirus outbreaks and 427 ongoing clusters in March 8 report

What you need to know about COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa and now in Michigan
As of March 9, 19,118 people received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Ukraine, according to data published on the Vaccination against COVID-19 portal of the Health Ministry.

As many as 1,171 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Ukraine over the past day. Of whom, 1,171 people were vaccinated with the first dose, fully vaccinated (received 2 doses) - 0 people, reads the report.

It is noted that 27 mobile immunization teams operate across the country to conduct vaccination.

On March 8, the highest number of vaccinations was carried out in Donetsk region - 294 injections. Since the start of vaccination campaign in Ukraine, the highest number of vaccinations was also recorded in Donetsk region  2,474.

On February 23, 500,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca (Covishield) vaccine, purchased at the expense of the state budget, were delivered to Ukraine.

On February 24, 2021, Ukraine launched a coronavirus vaccination campaign. Medical workers and military personnel were the first to get their shots of the Covishield vaccine, manufactured in India under the license of Oxford/AstraZeneca.

By March 31, the Health Ministry expects to receive another 1.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine. As part of the global COVAX initiative, the delivery of 117,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine is planned for early March.

According to Ukraines national vaccination plan, vaccination will be voluntary and will include five stages. Medical personnel working in hospitals designated for treatment of COVID-19 patients are among those offered the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as workers of mobile teams that carry out coronavirus vaccination.

iy
Dallas cop Bryan Riser (pictured) has been arrested on two counts of capital murder in two unconnected 2017 killings that weren't related to his police work, authorities said

A Dallas police officer who allegedly paid a hitman $10,000 to kill a male and female informant was under investigation for longer than authorities have previously acknowledged, sharpening questions about why he continued to patrol the city as his colleagues looked into whether he was involved in a 2017 killing.

After Bryan Riser was arrested on Thursday, former Dallas police Chief U. Renee Hall said he was 'first identified as a person of interest in 2019' and was kept on the job to avoid tipping him off to the investigation.

But in 2017, a Dallas police detective testified in court that Riser was the 'subject' of an investigation into the killing of 31-year-old Liza Saenz, according to a transcript of the proceeding.

A witness told police that he was paid $6,000 to kill Saenz. Her bullet-riddled body was pulled from the water in March.

Riser was charged last week with two counts of capital murder in the killings of Saenz and 61-year-old Albert Douglas.

According to a relative, Douglas, a father of two and a grandfather from southern Dallas, had been diagnosed with cancer at the time that he disappeared in February 2017, according to KXAS-TV.

Police identified the victims as Liza Saenz (left), whose body was pulled from water in Dallas on March 10, 2017, with several bullet wounds, and Albert Douglas (right), 61. A witness told police that he was instructed to kidnap and kill Saenz at the direction of Riser

Riser (pictured) allegedly paid a hitman $3,500 to kill Douglas, whose body was dumped in the Trinity River, according to police

According to authorities, the hitman who was paid $3,500 by Riser 'stopped, handcuffed then drove the complainant [Douglas] to 200 Santa Fe where he was shot and killed.'

Douglas' body was allegedly dumped into Trinity River, though it was never recovered, according to authorities.

'It was just mouth-dropping for me,' Douglas' cousin, Yolanda Thomas, said.

'I just don't get it. I'm still trying to figure out what's the connection.'

The 36-year-old is being held on a $5million bond and his attorney, Toby Shook, says he's innocent.

Riser was arrested in connection with two separate killings after a witness implicated him in August 2019, police Chief Eddie Garcia (pictured) said during a news conference

'The motive for these murders are unknown at this time,' Garcia said. Garcia said Riser (pictured) had a relationship with at least one of the victims, but he didn't go into detail

During the September 2017 court hearing, the detective also said that Saenz lived with Riser's father and that before her death she had been a witness in another murder case.

The testimony, which was first reported by the Dallas Morning News, came during a detention hearing in a federal drug case against Riser's father, Byron Riser.

Shook previously said Saenz lived with Byron Riser at one point.

The elder Riser pleaded guilty in 2018 to possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and was sentenced to five years in prison.

He's currently at a residential re-entry center in Texas on community supervision, Shook said.

Riser joined the department in 2008 and was working as a patrol officer before his arrest.

Last week, Police Chief Eddie Garcia told reporters that the deaths were related to Riser's off-duty conduct, not his police work, and that a witness told investigators that Riser had instructed him to kidnap and kill the two victims.

'We received information through a witness that implicated Riser in both murders,' Garcia said.
PARIS (Reuters) - No company in France has signed a contract with Russia to produce its COVID-19 Sputnik V vaccine, a spokesman for France's industry minister said on Tuesday, appearing to contradict the head of Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund.

"We have not identified a site which meets their requirements," the spokesman said. "As far as we're aware, no contract has been signed by a company in France to produce the Sputnik V vaccine."

Earlier, the head of Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund said his organisation had struck deals with production facilities in Italy, Spain, France and Germany to manufacture the Russian shot.

(Reporting by Matthias Blamont; Editing by Richard Lough and Alex Richardson)
It's been officially confirmed that Zac Efron's Netflix show Down To Earth is returning for a second season, which is currently being filmed in Australia.

And on Tuesday, the Hollywood star was joined by his girlfriend Vanessa Valladares and his TV producer brother Dylan to shoot the new series, in a remote setting some 100km southwest of Sydney.

The hunky actor, 33, flaunted his bulging biceps in a khaki T-shirt for the sun-drenched shoot, as he walked on set with his partner Vanessa, 25 - who is understood to be starring on the new season with him.

It's back! On Tuesday, Zac Efron was joined by his girlfriend Vanessa Valladares and his TV producer brother Dylan to shoot the second season of Down To Earth, in a remote setting some 100km south west of Sydney

Zac's younger brother Dylan, 29, is reprising his role as producer on the show, shortly after completing a mandatory 14-day quarantine after jetting in from the US.

The High School Musical actor will mainly star alongside wellness expert Darin Olien, as the duo search for healthy, sustainable ways to live on earth as well as embrace the local food, culture and customs of the country.

It appeared to be quite the casual shoot, with Vanessa donning a baggy beige T-shirt and jeans teamed with a pair of sneakers.

She wore minimal make-up on her face, and wore her choppy brunette bob in a casual wavy style as she spoke on the phone close to Zac.

Cute and casual: It appeared to be quite the casual shoot, with Vanessa Valladares donning a baggy beige T-shirt and jeans teamed with a pair of sneakers

Keeping it in the family: Zac's younger brother Dylan, 29 (left) is reprising his role as producer on the show, shortly after completing a mandatory 14-day quarantine after jetting in from the US

Hunky-dory: The muscular actor, 33, flaunted his bulging arm muscles in a khaki T-shirt for the filming session

What to expect: The High School Musical actor stars in the show with wellness expert Darin Olien as the duo search for healthy, sustainable ways to live on earth as well as embrace the local food, culture and customs of the country

It's back: Last season, the actor visited Iceland, France and Costa Rica - but this season will be undoubtedly different due to COVID-19 restrictions

Dylan looked equally as casual in a stone long-sleeved shirt and a pair of grey trousers.

Last season, Zac and Darin visited Iceland, France and Costa Rica - but this series will be undoubtedly different due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Zac confirmed the second season on Tuesday, sharing a picture of himself and Darin during a Welcome To Country ceremony lead by an Aboriginal Elder.

The pair both wore paint on their faces, while wearing a traditional red headband.

Cute: Vanessa wore minimal make-up on her face, and wore her choppy brunette bob in a casual wavy style

New project: It's understood that Vanessa will be making an appearance on the show alongside her beau

Exciting: Zac confirmed the second season would be returning to Netflix on Tuesday

We'll have what he's having! Zac was joined on-set by a very shirtless wellness expert Darin Olien, who starred with him on the first season

Return: On Tuesday, Zac shared a picture of himself and Darin during a Welcome To Country ceremony lead by an Aboriginal Elder, with paint on their faces while wearing a traditional red head band

'Here we go - Down to Earth season 2!' Zac wrote alongside the photos.

Last month, Dylan told Bro Bible he had planned a trip Down Under to help produce the second season of Zac's Netflix series.

'I'm going to be in Australia for the next couple of months. As soon as I get back, I'm ready to start doing Flow State season two,' he said, as he referred to his YouTube show.
Veteran actor Anupam Kher receives COVID-19 vaccine, thanks medical staff

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Mumbai, Mar 09: Veteran actor Anupam Kher on Tuesday said he has received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The 66-year-old actor took to Twitter and shared a video of him receiving the first jab of the vaccine.

"Got my #COVID-19 first dose vaccination! Thank you all the doctors, medical staff, scientist and Government of India for making it possible. India Rocks. Jai Ho," Kher tweeted, tagging the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

Coronavirus vaccination: BJP President JP Nadda receives first shot of COVID-19 vaccine

The actor, known for films like "Karma", "Khosla Ka Ghosla", "A Wednesday!" and "Special 26", did not disclose the name of the vaccine.

Last year, Kher's mother, Dulari, along with actor-brother Raju and his family had tested positive for COVID-19. The actor joins a list of Indian celebrities who have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine including, veteran actor-MP Hema Malini, Paresh Rawal, Satish Shah, Jeetendra, actor-politician Kamal Haasan, filmmaker Rakesh Roshan, and comedian Johnny Lever.

On March 1, the government launched the nationwide drive of getting everyone above 60 years of age (and those aged between 45-59 with co-morbidities) get vaccinated.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 19:14 [IST]
[Photo/Xinhua]

State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi answers questions about the country's foreign policy and external relations at a press conference on Sunday during the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

The press conference, which begins at 3 pm, is virtual at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in line with COVID-19 containment measures.

Here are some highlights:

On 'head-of-State diplomacy'

The biggest highlight in China's foreign relations has been "head-of-State diplomacy", Wang Yi said.

Through innovative "cloud diplomacy", President Xi Jinping has championed solidarity in the world's fight against COVID-19, and pointed the way forward for the international community to jointly fight the virus, Wang said.

On the COVID-19 pandemic

China will continue working with other countries in unremitting efforts to completely defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, Wang Yi said.

China has carried out its largest emergency humanitarian action since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, making contributions to the anti-coronavirus efforts of the world, Wang Yi said.

On China-Russia relations

In the face of the once-in-a-century pandemic, China and Russia have stood shoulder to shoulder and worked closely to combat "both the coronavirus and the political virus," Wang said.

China and Russia should be each other's strategic support, development opportunity, and global partner. This is both an experience gained from history and an imperative under the current circumstances, Wang said.

On the Belt and Road Initiative

China will jointly push ahead high-quality construction of the Belt and Road and make contributions to the early recovery of the world economy, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

On CPC leadership

Facts have proved that the leadership of the Communist Party of China is the biggest political advantage of Chinese diplomacy and that leadership will offer fundamental support for China's diplomatic agenda to keep securing more victories, Wang Yi said.

Wang said that China's diplomacy is a people-oriented diplomacy led by the CPC, and the Party set the direction for China's diplomatic agenda.

The original inspiration and mission of the CPC - to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation  determines the responsibility of China's diplomacy, he said.

On China-Africa relations

Helping African countries contain the COVID-19 pandemic and bring their economies back on track is the top priority of the China-Africa cooperation, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

China will always support developing countries, Wang Yi said.

China has started to provide COVID-19 vaccines to 35 African countries and the African Union Commission, Wang Yi said.

On 'patriots administering Hong Kong'

Any country in the world will take allegiance to the motherland as a basic political ethic that must be observed by public officials or those who run for public posts, and so does Hong Kong, he said.

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. One cannot talk about loving Hong Kong without loving its motherland, he said, adding that love for the country and for Hong Kong is completely consistent.

Hong Kong enjoyed no democracy during colonial rule. Since its return to the motherland 24 years ago, no one is more concerned about Hong Kong's democratic development and wishes Hong Kong to remain prosperous and stable than the central government, he said.

On China-US relations

China is ready to work with the United States to return bilateral relations to the right track of healthy and steady growth, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday.

It is not surprising that there is competition between China and the United States as their interests are intertwined, but the two sides should have healthy competition on the basis of fairness and equity, Wang said.

On Taiwan question

The two sides of the Taiwan Strait must be and will surely be reunified, which is the trend of history and the collective will of the entire Chinese nation, Wang said, adding the one-China principle is the political foundation of the China-US relationship, a red line that should not be crossed.

On the Taiwan question, there is no room for compromise or concession from the Chinese government, he said.

"We would hope to see a clear departure from the previous administration's dangerous practice of 'pushing the red line' and 'playing with fire', and we hope that the Taiwan question will be handled prudently and properly," Wang said.

China stresses UN's core status

The UN is not a club for big or rich countries. All countries enjoy equal sovereignty and no country is in a position to dictate international affairs, Wang said.

He also urged efforts to enhance the representativeness and say of developing countries in the UN to better reflect the common aspiration of most countries.

China, EU not systemic rivals

The China-Europe relationship is equal and open, and not targeting any third party or controlled by anyone else, Wang Yi said on Sunday.

China never intends to divide relations between Europe and the United States, Wang said, adding that the country is glad to see the European Union uphold multilateralism and remain devoted to coordination and cooperation among major countries.

China opposes 'vaccine nationalism'

China opposes "vaccine nationalism," rejects any "vaccine divide" or any attempt to politicize vaccine cooperation, Wang said.

More than 60 countries have authorized the use of Chinese vaccines.

China has provided and is providing COVID-19 vaccine aid free of charge to 69 developing countries in urgent need, while exporting vaccines to 43 countries.

On China-Arab relations

China will work with Arab states in solidarity, pursue common progress and make good preparations for a China-Arab States Summit, Wang Yi said on Sunday.

In the past year, relations between China and the Arab States have continued to make progress amid various challenges, Wang said, adding their joint fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has set a good example for international cooperation.

On multilateralism

Building small circles in the name of multilateralism is in fact "group politics," multilateralism with one's own interests taking precedence is still unilateral thinking, and "selective multilateralism" is not the right choice.

True multilateralism means openness and inclusiveness instead of closeness and exclusion. It means equal-footed consultation instead of supremacy over others, Wang said.

China's WTO accession

Wang said the past two decades have taught China four important lessons: We must stay committed to the fundamental policy of opening-up; we must stay committed to the principle of win-win cooperation; we must stay committed to the right direction of economic globalization; and we must stay committed to the central role of the WTO.

"China has injected energy into economic globalization, and facilitated the optimization of global industry chains and resources," he said.

On China-Japan relations

China and Japan should remain focused without being distracted by any single event to make the bilateral relations more mature and stable.

China and Japan should support each other in hosting the upcoming Olympic Games this year and next year.

China hopes the Japanese society would truly embrace an objective and rational perception of China, so as to solidify public support for long-term progress in China-Japan relations.

'Xinjiang genocide' claim a thorough lie

The so-called claim of genocide in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is preposterous, which is a rumor fabricated with ulterior motives and a thorough lie, Wang Yi said on Sunday.

Some western politicians chose to believe in the lies cooked up by a few instead of listening to the voice of 25 million Xinjiang residents of various ethnic groups, Wang said, adding that they chose to dance with the clumsy dramas by a few anti-China forces instead of acknowledging the progress in Xinjiang.

On China-ASEAN relations

Wang said that China stands ready to develop an even closer community with a shared future with ASEAN as the two sides celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral dialogue relations this year.

China will continue to prioritize efforts to meet vaccine demand from ASEAN and further consolidate mutual beneficial cooperation and see that China's new development paradigm is better align with the ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework, he said.

On new development stage

China in the new development stage is like an express train with greater driving force and load capacity. China welcomes all countries to get on board and move toward a future of shared prosperity.

On China-India relations

China and India need to help each other succeed instead of undercutting each other, and they should strengthen cooperation instead of harboring suspicion at each other.

On climate change

China welcomes US return to the Paris Agreement and expects that the United States will should its responsibility and make its due contribution.

On Iran nuclear deal

China urged the United States to demonstrate good faith and return to the Iran nuclear deal at an early date.

On Myanmar tensions

China stands ready to play a constructive role in easing the tensions in Myanmar, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Sunday.

The immediate priority for Myanmar is to prevent further bloodshed and conflict, and ease and cool down the situation as soon as possible.
DANBURY  Local providers are working with community groups to better reach vulnerable communities who may struggle to get access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Many of those folks have an established trust and relationship with people in the community, so we would want to leverage that trust, said Dawn Myles, vice president population health operations for Nuvance Health, a seven-hospital network that includes Danbury Hospital.

In Danbury, this means educating underserved communities about the vaccine, helping people schedule appointments, and planning pop-up clinics with these trusted groups or places  like a church, officials said.

The state wants at least 25 percent of available vaccine supply to go to residents from priority ZIP codes, including the 06810 ZIP code in Danbury. This is part of the effort to ensure vulnerable communities, especially people from racial minorities, get the vaccine.

It remains a challenge for the public to navigate the vaccine registration system, so one local nonprofit is signing up clients and residents personally.

Clients can call the Connecticut Institute for Communities, known as CIFC, which will register them for an appointment through its federally qualified health center. The organization has dedicated slots per day for targeted groups.

Its making it more convenient for them and getting them through the door, said Katie Curran, chief operating officer and general counsel.

Many of the organizations clients and some staff fit the demographics the state wants to attract, she said. On the day CIFCs early childhood education staff were vaccinated, 17 percent who got their dose were Hispanic, she said.

The organization has also attracted this demographic to its COVID testing site throughout the pandemic.

Its sort of a natural progression from what we already do and the services we provide, Curran said.

The clinic has vaccinated around 35 percent of patients from the priority zip codes on days when the organization has had scheduled appointments for patients, she said. This percentage is much lower when clinics are open to anyone registering through the federal vaccine system.

Clients may also fill out a form on CIFCs website with their information, and the organization schedules appointments for them or calls them if extra doses are available, Curran said.

Nuvance and the Community Health Center, a federally-qualified health with a location in Danbury, are collaborating with anti-poverty agencies, faith communities and the hospital clergy to identify patients.

Weve worked with other high-risk agencies in the community for them to give us patients that are having trouble getting in, so we can schedule them as walk-ins or pull them into open slots that we have, Myles said.

The Community Health Center is running the mass vaccination clinic that opened last Thursday at the Danbury Fair Mall, but Danbury Hospital plans to move its appointments there beginning March 19. Hospital employees are already working with health center staff and the National Guard to administer the doses.

Although the clinic is a drive-up, patients may walk up. That has been rare, however, said Amy Taylor, vice president of the Community Health Centers western region.

We want to accommodate people on foot, as well, because we dont want it to be limited to just people who have cars, she said.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who visited the site on Monday afternoon, said the outreach will help bridge the unacceptable disparities in health care in communities of color.

That is so absolutely critical to all of us because we are only as safe as the least safe, he said. In other words, this vaccine and its variants will spread and create new mutants and variants unless we make everybody safe and vaccinate everyone.

Educating and expanding on vaccines

Taylor said she expects the clinic at the mall to have vaccinated more than 1,000 people by the end of Monday, when almost 500 doses were distributed. The goal is to eventually vaccinate 1,000 people a day.

CIFC has been vaccinating patients at its 120 Main St. location, but plans to expand in a couple weeks to the former Danbury Medical Group building at 132 Main St.

This bigger site is in the heart of downtown, next to the COVID testing site and near a bus line, Curran said.

About 500 to 550 people are vaccinated each week, but the plan is to distribute more doses when the organization moves to the larger space, Curran said.

Providers hope to hold mobile and pop-up clinics, but the challenge is that the general public can sometimes sign up for these.

Were trying to figure out: how do we make sure that when we stand up pop-up events that they really are being attended by the people of highest need for that kind of approach, Myles said.

CIFC already held a pop-up clinic a couple weeks ago at the Super 8 Motel, where homeless individuals have been staying. About 95 first doses were distributed that day, Curran said.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine should make it easier for CIFC to hold mobile clinics because only one dose is required, Curran said.

The mall clinic largely distributes the Moderna vaccine, but patients who got their first dose of Pfizer at Danbury Hospital will be able to get their second dose of that type at the mall, Myles said.

The site may get Johnson & Johnson, but its unclear how much of this vaccine the state can expect, she said. Its likely that vaccine would go to local doctors offices, she said.

CIFC plans to hold educational forums to encourage people to get vaccinated, which was effective among staff, Curran said.

The organization has worked with United Way to present vaccine information specially for racial and ethnic demographics and plans to target families in the early education programs, where more than 90 percent of children are Hispanic, she said.

Its really finding people in the community from the community that have been vaccinated and can speak to their experience, Curran said.
John McCain kills the skinny repeal of the Affordable Care Act on July 27, 2017. Photo: AP/YouTube

Theres been a lot of justified talk about how the Biden COVID-19 stimulus bill that passed the Senate over the weekend represents one of the largest expansions of federal assistance to low-to-moderate-income families since, well, pick your precedent, from a list that includes FDRs New Deal and LBJs Great Society. The bills ultimate legacy, of course, will be determined later. Will its many temporary provisions (notably, boosts in the child tax credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit) be made permanent? And what will follow it as the Biden administrations next act, which will presumably address the broad outlines of the health-care system and anti-poverty programs?

But even at this preliminary stage of the 46th presidency, were seeing quite the turnaround from the social-policy trajectory of the 45th. Just 1,320 days ago, the Trump-and-congressional-Republican plan to partially repeal the Affordable Care Act and wreck Medicaid as weve known it ran aground on a series of Senate votes, culminating in a 49-51 vote on a skinny repeal of Obamacare after John McCains dramatic late-night thumbs-down decision. That this same body has now approved, by a 50-49 vote, a bill that Bernie Sanders called the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families in the modern history of this country shows how relatively small changes in the composition of Congress and a narrow Electoral College victory can have huge consequences.

The focus on Obamacare throughout the failed 2017 GOP effort to pass a budge- reconciliation bill (precisely what Congress is now in the process of doing) should not obscure the fact that the battle was yet another in a long series of GOP efforts to disable the social-safety net, among them the Reagan budget of 1981, the Gingrich budget of 1995, the Bush budgets of the early 2000s, and the Ryan budgets of the Obama years. While the ACAs private-health-insurance exchanges and individual mandate were indeed targets for the Trump administration and its congressional allies, it was Obamas expansion of Medicaid eligibility that most upset conservatives. Accordingly, the reversal of that expansion and an ultimate end to federal responsibility for Medicaid were the long-term goals of GOP repeal and replace bills from the House-passed American Health Care Act to the Cassidy-Graham bill that was the Senates final shot at health-care policy before Republicans shifted to tax cuts near the end of 2017.

The Trump administration continued to chip away at Medicaid services through regulations for the rest of its tenure, even as voters in five red states approved expansion of the program by ballot initiative. But there wasnt much question that the future of Obamacare, Medicaid, and the anti-poverty programs so often targeted by Paul Ryan would be determined by the outcome of the 2020 elections. Indeed, any period of extended Republican control of the White House and Congress would have very likely led the GOP back to their fondest fantasies: an assault on the middle class entitlements of Medicare (also a target of Obama-era Ryan budgets) and Social Security (last attempted by George W. Bush in 2005).

Its in that context that the significance of the American Rescue Plan and its sponsors should be assessed: in terms not just of what it contains, but of the very different path the country might be on had Republicans retained power last November. Even if the GOP claws back control of Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024, they will have to cope with the popularity of Bidens proposals and a more tightly woven safety net, whose unraveling will be that much more difficult. It could matter a lot.
In case COVID-19 cases spike again, Kimmy Myers, of Lebanon, didnt want to jeopardize her August 2021 wedding.

So to play it safe, she and her fiancee, Todd Haulman, rescheduled their nuptials. They are tying the knot later this month in front of about 60 friends and family members.

Not knowing what is going to happen down the road, and things might shut down again with the new strains, we decided to move it up, Myers said.

Planning a wedding is stressful enough. Throw in a global pandemic, and suddenly it has become more overwhelming. As the height of wedding season approaches, couples are juggling dates and guest lists, weighing food options and establishing socially distanced seating arrangements.

On top of it, central Pennsylvania wedding planners say its hard for couples to finalize plans without a timeframe for when the states mitigation restrictions will be lifted.

This comes following a tumultuous 2020 when, according to The Knot, more than 90% of weddings were impacted by the pandemic. The wedding site said a majority of couples moved forward with modified plans or postponed the big day, while about one out of every two couples, or about 47%, rescheduled a reception for this year.

When talking to brides and grooms tying the knot, KJ Weinstock said she is upfront about COVID-19 wedding restrictions.

They just understand no matter where the they go, things are going to be changing, said the co-owner of Stocks Manor in Upper Allen Township with her husband, Stephen Weinstock. This is the kind of world we are living in. We just dont know.

Stephanie Stence, owner of Premier Caterers in Camp Hill, said couples in the midst of planning have had to postpone or change venues to suit their plans and guest lists. Others are making adjustments to meal service, gravitating away from buffets to sit-down or family-style service, she said.

Stence stressed many couples are nervous about hosting weddings but also want to get on with their lives.

Can you imagine putting all that time and effort into planning your dream wedding? I feel so bad for some of these people who plan their wedding. Some plan two to three years in advance, she added.

Recently, Gov. Tom Wolf offered some relief when he relaxed rules for large gatherings, raising capacity to 15% for indoor events and 20% for outdoor, regardless of venue size. The administration also lifted out-of-state travel restrictions. Pennsylvania joins other states including New York, Ohio and Colorado where governors have announced more lenient rules for large gatherings.

While it was welcome news, those who plan events, an industry stretching from caterers to hotels and live music venues, say the increases barely make a dent. They stress the limits make it hard to plan and dont always make financial sense.

Folks are very hesitant to book a 150- to 200-person wedding or convention in the fall because there is no indication of when the next move will be or if they will be allowed to have it, said Joe Massaro, Hilton Harrisburg general manager.

The new numbers might help some planning events, he said, but for the most part groups are shying away from scheduling.

Before Wolfs recent announcement, Melissa Bova, vice president of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association, had indicated some brides and grooms were postponing weddings because they couldnt host more guests due to the occupancy restrictions. She said the association has met with the Wolf administration about possible next steps for the hospitality industry, from increasing gathering sizes for events to lifting occupancy levels for restaurants.

Steve Sanchez, president of the JDK Group Catering & Events in Camp Hill, said they have witnessed a recent surge in cancellations for events scheduled for April through June because no prior information was released about guest counts. He emphasized how advance notice is required when planning events such as weddings.

Sanchez noted 15% occupancy translates to only 60 guests at some larger indoor facilities.

This will lead to another three months of cancellations and lost work for our team members if these occupancy limits dont increase by the end of March, Sanchez said.

READ MORE:

For now, Stence said Premier continues to operate with safety protocols.

In the past, couples would visit the catering facility for food samplings to help with menu planning, something now offered for takeout. In addition, she said Premier is preparing to launch a micro wedding package for 20 guests to accommodate demand for smaller weddings.

At Stocks, Weinstock suggests couples stick to smaller weddings and arrange seating in pods determined by guests who live together. Buffet service, almost like a cafeteria line but fancier, is preferred, she said, adding servers place food on plates for guests and coffee and tea are provided at a bar.

Weinstock said she is encouraged moving forward. Many couples called after Jan. 1 to postpone weddings, but she said later in the month they received an uptick in bookings for dates later this year into 2022. She said she thinks people are feeling more hopeful as vaccines are administered and testing becomes easier due to availability of rapid COVID-19 tests.

Not that we are back to normal, but we know how to be cautious, she said.

As for Myers, she said on the day of the wedding hand sanitizer will be set out for guests and while masks will be suggested, she said they wont be sticklers about the rule, especially for photographs. She said a friend made special masks for the bridal party, including Mr. and Mrs. face coverings.

Her advice for others planning weddings? Dont let COVID-19 dictate your big day.

Dont stress about the pandemic more than your actual wedding, because if you stress more about COVID you will get nothing done, Myers said.
Melissa Caddick's father-in-law believes the conwoman may still be alive, saying there are too many unanswered questions to rule out her death.

Despite the finding of her decomposed foot in a rare Asics shoe 400km from her Sydney home, tax agent Rodo Koletti believes his daughter-in-law could still be alive.

He said the finding of her decomposed remains raised more questions than answers, telling the Daily Telegraph he suspected the conwoman could be in hiding.

Rodo Koletti believes his daughter in law could still be alive, and in hiding. Pictured: Melissa Caddick and her husband Anthony Koletti before she went missing on November 12

'There are still too many unanswered questions, how much of the foot was in the shoe? How was it severed from the rest of the body?' He questioned.

Mr Koletti cited the evidence found by an aquatic forensic expert Dr Paola Magni, who said barnacles and marine growth would have attached to the shoe in 15 days.

The shoe was found in pristine condition three months after Caddick went missing from her Dover Heights home in November last year.

'Why did the forensic scientist say that the shoe did not appear to be more deteriorated if it had been in the sea since November? Alive or dead, suicide or murder... who knows? The proof will come out eventually.'

Mr Koletti questioned how much of Caddick's decomposed foot was found in the rare Asic shoe (pictured) found 400km away from her home on Bournda Beach on February 21

Despite his wife expressing their condolences to the Caddick family, Mr Koletti wonders if it was premature.

'It's a very long and sad saga. We may never know what happened to Melissa and her family and victims may never get full closure.'

Mr Koletti has previously denied any involvement in the conwoman's financial fraud scheme after his signature was forged on several documents.

He broke his silence on 60 Minutes on Sunday night to clear his name of any wrongdoing in his daughter-in-law's theft of more than $25million of investors' funds.

Rodo Koletti (pictured) father of Anthony Koletti, revealed only part of his face to hide his identity, breaking his silence on 60 Minutes on Sunday night

'That is not my signature... if you see my signature, it's very distinctive, and that is not it. Not mine,' he said.

Mr Koletti, appearing with only part of his face shown to hide his identity, said he has been the target of defamation in the wake of Caddick's deception.

'I think the whole Melissa Caddick thing has taken on a life of its own,' he said.

'It would appear that some people have taken it upon themselves to throw assertions, fraudulent statements, lies... you know, defamation of all sorts against myself, my character and my profession, which is just what I could not stand for.

Mr Koletti, who believes his son is in denial, denied claims he killed Caddick or had any involvement in masterminding her financial fraud (Caddick with her husband Anthony Koletti)

Mr Koletti, who believes his son is in denial, denied claims he killed Caddick or had any involvement in masterminding her financial fraud.

He also said he didn't think his hairdresser son was capable of helping Caddick rip off her family and friends, who had invested their nest eggs in her business Maliver.

'Anthony's a damn good hairdresser, but I don't believe he has the capacity to know what a financial scheme is,' he said.

'When I spoke with him he certainly didn't [know of Caddick's fraudulence]. He believed everything she told him.'

Caddick's father in law was unwittingly implicated in Caddick's scheme by his signature being forged to verify bogus documents. Pictured with her husband Anthony

Mr Koletti revealed his son's marriage to Caddick had driven a wedge between the family, and had only seen the conwoman four or five times in eight years.

'It's very traumatic for him, he stopped seeing his family when they got together, it has divided us,' Rodo Kolleti told the Daily Telegraph.

The fraudster is suspected of fleecing $25million from 60 investors - who all fell for her sales pitch that she would make them huge returns - and splurging the money on designer clothing, jewellery and overseas trips.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mick Willing has told reporters foul play against Caddick was possible but suicide was more likely.
This Fraud Awareness Week, Gardai are warning the public about smishing/vishing/phishing scams in which criminals will try to fleece you out of your hard-earned cash.

In 2020, it is estimated that over 640,000 worth of crimes involving these scams were recorded, with 53,000 stolen in one case alone.

Of the 45 reported cases in February, 19 people under the age of 50 and 26 people over the age of 50 were targeted by scammers, with the oldest victim aged 88 years old.

Compared to the same period in 2019/2020, there were 13 cases - representing an 80% increase in reported crimes between 2019 and 2020.

Have you ever received a text (smishing), an email (vishing) or a phone call (phishing) allegedly from a reputable company or state agency asking you to click on a link?

- 'Phishing' is is a type of financial fraud where criminals defraud, dupe or mislead people by email. Phishing emails have risen in number and have got a lot more sophisticated.

- 'Vishing' is over the phone phishing where scammers will try to persuade people to share information by posing as bank staff or other financial service employees.

- 'Smishing' is SMS phishing where text messages are sent trying to encourage people to pay money out or click on suspicious links. Sometimes attackers try to get victims on the phone by sending a text message asking them to call a number, in order to persuade them further.

A Garda spokesperson said: "The most prevalent types are purporting to be from your bank, or other financial institution, where you are invited to click a link, which brings you to a cloned website, subsequently looking for your pin. They may also seek other personal data. Address, date of birth, pps numbers etc

"Brexit and the Covid 19 pandemic has added a new dimension also, the business model of the fraudster changes with the social environment.

"The increase in online shopping and deliveries has also created greater opportunities for the fraudster."

The Advice from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) is:

 Never click on a link of an unsolicited text

 Never give away personal data like PIN number, card numbers, passwords, one time codes

 Banks would never request a customer return a card to the bank in such circumstances

 Be very wary of cold calls  just because the number looks Irish does not mean it is  fraudsters use VOIP numbers

 If you are concerned hang up and ring your bank/service provider from a number advertised in the phone book or on your bill

 If you are expecting a delivery and receive such a text, be very careful. Contact the delivery service

Gardai would advise people not to respond to such texts, to make screenshots of the texts received and delete them and to report it to the bank or relevant company and local Garda station.
TORONTO and WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Sara Charney, Chair of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board, announces the shortlist for the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize:

Killer High: A History of War in Six Drugs by Peter Andreas

by Peter Andreas Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum

by Trade Wars are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace by Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis

by and Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World by Charles A. Kupchan

by War: How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan

"These five books tell powerful stories about war, democracy, and inequality, three of the biggest challenges of our rapidly changing world. All deeply researched and argued, they signal that the world that we are going towards is very different than the world we left behind," said Sara Charney, Chair of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board.

This year's shortlist was selected by Jury Chair Janice Gross Stein (Toronto) in collaboration with Jurors Cameron Abadi (Berlin), Her Excellency Mrs. Janice Charette (London), Francis J. Gavin (Washington), and Yascha Mounk (Washington).

The winner of the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize will be announced in mid-April and be celebrated during a virtual event, hosted by the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Foreign Policy magazine in early May.

The Lionel Gelber Prize Podcast Series will feature all five of this year's finalists in conversation with jury chair Janice Gross Stein. Listen to the full conversations on the Gelber Prize website or via your audio streaming platform beginning on March 16, 2021.

The Lionel Gelber Prize, a literary award for the world's best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues, was founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber. A cash prize of $15,000 is awarded to the winner. The award is presented annually in partnership with the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Foreign Policy magazine.

SOURCE The Lionel Gelber Prize
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Brussels, March 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :The European Union said Monday it was working to secure a big increase in Covid-19 vaccine supplies to improve its slow roll-out, as the United States denounced what it called a Russian disinformation campaign.

The urgency of the global vaccine push was underlined by Latin America hitting 700,000 pandemic deaths, and Italy alone announcing that its toll had topped 100,000.

Meanwhile, former EU member Britain reopened its schools as a tough lockdown and successful first-jabs programme brought daily infection numbers down 90 percent from two months ago.

Nearly a year after first describing Covid-19 as a pandemic, the World Health Organization complained on Monday that some authorities failed to listen to its earlier urgent warnings.

"One of the things we still need to understand is why some countries acted on those warnings, while others were slower to react," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference as the global death toll rose to at least 2.

59 million.

In Washington, the United States attacked what it called an ongoing Russian disinformation campaign against US-made Covid-19 vaccines.

The Global Engagement Center, a US government agency that monitors foreign propaganda, said that Russian intelligence was behind four online platforms involved.

"It is very clear that Russia is up to its old tricks, and in doing so is potentially putting people at risk by spreading disinformation about vaccines that we know to be saving lives every day," a State Department spokesman said.

Signs of economic revival in the US -- where vaccinated people can now mingle unmasked per the latest medical recommendation -- point to the world's wealthier countries aiming for a mid-year bounceback from the pandemic.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
UWs WIND to Host School-Based Health Education Miniseries

Two programs of the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND) at the University of Wyoming will host a school-based health education miniseries.

The UW ECHO in Student Health and the Wyoming Telehealth Network (WyTN) will present five virtual learning sessions that are designed to explore new ways to promote and improve students health.

The miniseries will provide a foundation in understanding how telehealth and school-based health centers can be used to support school professionals and increase students access to care and information. The series will examine a wide variety of approaches, including local, regional and national practices.

With nearly 2,000 centers nationwide, school-based health centers provide an innovative solution to rural health care. As a partnership between school districts and community health organizations, hospitals and/or local health departments, these health centers offer a full range of age-appropriate health care services for rural youth.

Exploring innovative ideas to improve health outcomes and supporting public health professionals are critical parts of the work we do in the UW ECHO and WyTN programs, says Canyon Hardesty, director of community education at WIND. This miniseries will allow a meaningful cross section of public health professionals, administrators, students and others to think deeply about how we can best meet the needs of todays students to increase overall health in our state.

UW ECHO sessions are as follows:

-- Wednesday, March 10, 3:45-5 p.m.: Building School-Based Health Partnerships. Kip Farnum, director of Student Support Services at Campbell County School District, and Holly Hink, a pediatric nurse practitioner at the Kid Clinic in Gillette, will share how they worked to create Wyomings first school-based health center.

-- Wednesday, April 7, 3:45-5 p.m.: Building a Statewide Approach. Matt McCullough, associate director of the Utah Telehealth Network, will share how Utah implemented school-based health programs, and he will discuss best practices for integrating programs across Wyoming.

-- Wednesday, April 21, 3:45-5 p.m.: National Best Practices in Providing Students with Accessibility to Quality Healthcare. Andrea Shore, vice president of programs at the School-Based Health Alliance in Washington, D.C., will continue the discussion of best practices around providing accessible and quality health care to students.

The WyTN webinar schedule is:

-- Wednesday, April 28, noon-1 p.m.: Serving Rural Areas in Innovative Ways. Shore will share her national expertise on school-based supports for students and building strong foundations for innovative solutions.

-- Wednesday, May 26, noon-1 p.m.: Increasing Broadband and Access for Improved Student Health Outcomes. McCullough will discuss improving broadband and access issues.

Participants may attend any or all sessions. To learn more about the sessions and to register, go to http://wyomingtelehealth.org/webinars/.

For more information about WIND and its programs, go to www.uwyo.edu/wind.

About UW ECHO Networks

UW ECHO networks provide ongoing support for educators, health care providers and families in a rural state where specialized knowledge is not always locally available. By removing these barriers to specialized knowledge, outcomes for students, patients and families are improved.

About the Wyoming Telehealth Network

The WyTN provides ongoing training and support in telehealth best practices for Wyoming health care professionals, including the process of enrolling providers in the telehealth network, issuing HIPAA-secure Zoom licenses, and providing technical support throughout the process.
Opposition leader Bobi Wine on Tuesday called on Ugandans to "rise up peacefully and unarmed" in protest against President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the East African country for nearly four decades.

The veteran leader won a sixth term in office in January with 58 percent of the vote. His main rival was Wine, who came second with 35 percent and decried the election as rigged.

The singer-turned-lawmaker refused to accept the result and challenged it in court, saying he won the day. But the 39-year-old later withdrew his petition, saying the judiciary was stacked in favour of Museveni.

Speaking at the headquarters of his National Unity Platform (NUP) in Kampala, Wine said the time had come for public demonstrations against Museveni, who took power in 1986 and has ruled ever since.

"I call upon you to rise up peacefully and unarmed to demonstrate against the regime that has oppressed us, exploited us and turned us into slaves in our own country," said Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi.

"We invite you to march to your respective district offices and seek answers," he said, without saying when the protests would take place.

Demonstrations against Wine's arrest in November during the election campaign were brutally dispersed by security forces and at least 54 people died.

Since the January 14 election, the opposition has alleged that security forces have been abducting their supporters.

Museveni and government officials initially denied these claims, but later admitted that citizens accusing of plotting against the state were being held by the military and other security agencies.

"We call upon all the citizens who feel oppressed, the women whose sons are missing, the Ugandans who voted and your results were shortchanged, all the oppressed Ugandans, come out and peacefully demonstrate against that impunity," Wine said.

The police pre-emptively declared Wine's call for protests illegal and warned "organisers of these unlawful demonstrations to desist from participating in any unlawful activities".

Story continues

"The police will not hesitate to arrest and charge in courts of law anyone, who will be found participating in these illegal activities," Uganda's police force said in a statement on Monday night.

Joint police and military patrols have blocked off several roads in Kampala and a police helicopter buzzed low over the NUP premises ahead of Wine's announcement on Tuesday.

moh/np/fb/ri
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
CHICAGO, IL / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Adolfo Garcia and David Goldberg of Goldstreet Partners team up to open a new restaurant in downtown Highland Park. The Summer Inn, located at 1850 N. 2nd Street, Highland Park, IL 60035, promises to bring new flavors and experiences to the North Shore in the historic downtown district of Highland Park, IL.

The Summer Inn will feature 6,038 square feet of indoor dining plus 1,355 square feet of expansive three-season outdoor patio space that showcases cozy fire pits, plants abound, and an amazing food and cocktail program.

Adolfo Garcia added, "The north shore has always been close to home for me. It's home to many of my good friends and I always felt the desire to develop something special. It's an honor to provide an experience to the community. I'm looking forward to serving the community this summer and showcasing something truly special for everyone."

David Goldberg commented, "I remember growing up in the 80s in Highland Park and it was the gem of the North Shore. The Downtown District of Highland Park needs a place like The Summer Inn which will bring new energy and life to my hometown! I am coming back to my roots. It's time to bring Highland Park back to the thriving city it was long ago in the 80s."

Goldstreet Partners continues to spearhead the roll out of hot brands nationwide as one of the top hospitality players in the country. They are constantly disrupting every city across the United States. This is merely a glimpse of what's to come where expanding brands and leasing space is just the tip of the iceberg. Those interested should stay tuned for more news and developments in the weeks and days ahead brought by David Goldberg and Goldstreet Partners.

Learn more about The Summer Inn by visiting their website at www.thesummerinn.com or follow them on Instagram @thesummerinn.

For more information about Goldstreet Partners, contact the company here:

Goldstreet Partners

David Goldberg

(847) 274-8504

info@goldstreetre.com

225 N Columbus Dr. Suite 100

Chicago, IL 60601

SOURCE: Goldstreet Partners

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634434/David-Goldberg-Adolfo-Garcia-Team-Up-to-Bring-the-Hottest-Restaurant-to-Ever-Hit-the-North-Shore-Coming-to-Downtown-Highland-Park-Early-Summer-2021
[March 09, 2021] DATA Communications Management Corp. Announces Senior Management Changes

DATA Communications Management Corp. (" DCM (News - Alert)" or the "Company")(TSX:DCM), a leading provider of marketing and business communications solutions to companies across North America, today announced the departures of Chris Lund, Chief Innovation Officer, Kevin Lund, Chief Brand Officer, Ralph Misale, Chief Operations Officer, and Edwina Fung, Senior Vice President, Finance, effective immediately. "Chris and Kevin helped steer our direction towards becoming a valued-added solutions provider over the past three years. Ralph led our operations team over the past year and a half, and helped our operations team navigate through ERP and then COVID. Edwina successfully led our ERP remediation efforts in 2019 and made valuable contributions across all our corporate functions in the past year and a half. We thank each of them for their contributions to DCM, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours," said Richard Kellam, President and CEO. The positions of Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Brand Officer, and SVP, Finance will not be replaced. An internal candidate will be announced for the role of VP, Operations in the near future. "As we accelerate our company's evolution into a leading marketing and business solutions provider, it's important we create the right organizational structure to empower our teams, drive change, and create opportunities fo growth within our strong internal talent pool," added Kellam. "While I've been with DCM for only a short period, I've had the opportunity to meet many talented people, across all functions and levels. In my experience, flat organizations have proven to be more agile, efficient and ultimately successful."



About DCM DCM is a communication solutions partner that adds value for major companies across North America by creating more meaningful connections with their customers. DCM pairs customer insights and thought leadership with cutting edge products, modular enabling technology and services to power its clients' go to market strategies. DCM helps its clients manage how their brands come to life, determine which channels are right for them, manage multimedia campaigns, deploy location specific and 1:1 marketing, execute custom loyalty programs, and fulfill their commercial printing needs all in one place.

DCM's extensive experience has positioned it as an expert at providing communication solutions across many verticals, including the financial, retail, healthcare, consumer health, energy, and not for profit sectors. As a result of its locations throughout Canada and in the United States (Chicago, Illinois), it is able to meet its clients' varying needs with scale, speed, and efficiency - no matter how large or complex the ask. DCM is able to deliver advanced data security, regulatory compliance, and bilingual communications, both in print and/or digital formats. Additional information relating to DATA Communications Management Corp. is available on www.datacm.com, and in the disclosure documents filed by DATA Communications Management Corp. on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309006017/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
"We are honored to be named to Fast Company 's 50 Most Innovative Companies in the world and recognized for our continued innovation during a year that brought numerous challenges to every industry," said Alvaro Luque, CEO and President of Avocados From Mexico . "At AFM, we've reinvented the way that produce is marketed in the U.S., creating a highly visible brand in a brandless category over the past seven years, on our way to become the most innovative produce company in the world."

AFM was further recognized for their achievements by taking home the number one spot in Fast Company's category for Most Innovative Branding. The category honors breakthrough brands that have "figured out their core identity and having fun from there," which is of utmost importance to AFM's marketing strategy. AFM joins brands including White Claw and Domino's, which have achieved number one in branding in years' past.

"As a package-less fruit, our innovative marketing strategies have taken the Mexican avocado from just another fruit in the produce aisle to Avocados From Mexico, one of the most recognized avocado brands on the market and the first-ever produce brand to be ranked number one in the branding category of this esteemed list," stated Luque.

Avocados From Mexico's innovation has been a driving force behind the brand's market penetration and impressive growth since its inception in 2013, selling ideas that increase avocado imports into the U.S. and leading several "industry firsts" for the produce category. From guacamole to avocado toast, the superfruit has become an American obsession with more than 2.5 billion pounds of avocados consumed yearly in the U.S., and Mexico supplying 80 percent of the country's avocados. Brand preference has also increased from 20% to more than 55% since 2013. The U.S. economy has benefitted from the fruits of AFM's labor, with the brand adding $6.5 billion in economic output during the 2019-20 growing season1.

While 2020 was a year like none before, Avocados From Mexico was up to the challenge. As the first-ever fresh produce brand to advertise during the Big Game, the brand also became the first to place an advertising asset on the blockchain as part of their 2020 Big Game campaign. The same month, AFM launched the world's first polished-casual restaurant focused entirely on avocados that also served as an innovation incubator to test inventive avocado uses.

As another testament of their innovation, AFM launched the only Avo University certified program in existence, a free education platform for industry professionals that builds avocado product knowledge and strategies to drive consumer demand. The brand also launched its first-ever in-store celebrity shopper program, complemented with a virtual consumer extension, which drove record-breaking avocado imports in the weeks leading up to the 2021 Big Game.

"Throughout the years, we have been very proud of the many accolades and recognitions received for the innovations that we have introduced into our industry, however, this one is different. This recognition is the most consequential and preeminent of all, as it doesn't award one project in particular, but instead recognizes our innovative culture as a company and the total product of AFM's contributions," said Ivonne Kinser, Head of Digital Marketing and eCommerce at Avocados From Mexico.

Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process. The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10 to celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021. Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.

About Avocados From Mexico

Avocados From Mexico (AFM) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mexican Hass Avocado Importers Association (MHAIA), formed for the purpose of advertising, promotion, public relations and research for all stakeholders of Avocados From Mexico. Under agreements, MHAIA and the Mexican Avocado Producers & Packers (APEAM) have combined resources to fund and manage AFM, with the intent to provide a focused, highly- effective and efficient marketing program in the United States. AFM is headquartered in Irving, Texas. For educational resources, recipes and more, visit www.avocadosfrommexico.com.

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

1 2020 UPDATE: THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF U.S. AVOCADO IMPORTS FROM MEXICO

CONTACT: Ana P. Ambrosi, Corporate Communications, Avocados From Mexico, 469-506-0244, [email protected]

SOURCE Avocados From Mexico

Related Links

http://www.avocadosfrommexico.com


MountainOne Bank Offering Assistance To Homebuyers

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  MountainOne Bank, with branches across Berkshire County and the South Shore, has been selected to participate in the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston's Housing Our Workforce (HOW) Program, which assists local homebuyers with down-payment.

Through HOW, the FHLBank of Boston provides $2.5 million in grants to participating financial institutions to assist homebuyers with the purchase of an owner-occupied primary residence. Income-eligible households can receive up to $10,000 in a one-to-one match of down payments made at the time of purchase, which is forgivable after five years from the date of loan closing. To be eligible, borrowers must be earning more than 80 percent and up to 120 percent of the area median income address of their new home, and must complete a homebuyer counseling program, and post-purchase counseling approved by MountainOne Bank. Loans are subject to credit approval.

"Many homeownership programs are designed to assist lower-income individuals and families. It is often challenging for those in a slightly higher income range to afford housing, particularly in communities where home prices are rising. With this program, a greater number of borrowers who are incredibly important to the economic well-being of our communities will be able to achieve homeownership," said Robert Fraser, MountainOne President & CEO.

MountainOne Bank is eligible to receive up to $100,000 in 2021 through HOW depending on availability of funds.
Tuesday, March 9, 2021

James DiEugenio writes in his book, Destiny Betrayed, that one of Clay Shaw's secretaries saw David Ferrie in his office. Here is what he wrote: (page 209)

Here is the underlying FBI document:

There is another version of this document with the second line of the second page in full

So, let me get this straight. A neighbor of the informant, who was a news cameraman, told the informant that Aura Lee, in front of various people, had said she had seen Ferrie go into Shaw's office several times. None of these people contacted Garrison's office with this important information. And, Aura Lee did not come forward herself.

So, was "Aura Lee" really Clay Shaw's secretary? We have the trial testimony of Miss Goldie Moore, who was actually Shaw's secretary for 19 years until he retired in 1965,

Miss Moore never saw Clay Shaw with Lee Harvey Oswald:

And, Miss Moore never saw David Ferrie at the International Trade Mart:

And Miss Moore also testified that she never heard Shaw use the pseudonym Bertrand.

So, now we know that "Aura Lee" was not Shaw's secretary - but, of course, she could have filled in during a holiday, no?

Donald Carpenter, in his magisterial biography of Clay Shaw, Man of a Million Fragments: the true story of Clay Shaw, identified the real Aura Lee - and her name is Aurelie Alost. And she worked for the Italian State Tourist Office, which was located in the International Trade Mart.

New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 22, 1958

Aurelie Alost left her job as manager of the Italian Tourist Office in 1963.

New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 29, 1963

Ms. Alost then went to work in one of the hospitals in New Orleans.

There was some communication between Shaw and Alost. Carpenter notes that in 1957 Shaw wrote a letter to Lee thanking her for her work on the United Fund drive. In 1960, Alost wrote Shaw a letter of thanks for "the courtesy he had shown to an out-of-town guest of her office." (page 212)

Alost never came forward with any information about David Ferrie, and no one has ever interviewed her. She probably had nothing to say. You'd never know any of the above information by just reading Destiny Betrayed.
An oil glut coupled with a virus-induced free-fall in global demand sent energy stocks spiraling a year ago. Now, as the world begins to recover from the pandemic, oil bulls who stayed the course are enjoying big returns.

The scarier it is as a business, the better the investment prospects are, said Josh Young, chief investment officer at Bison Interests LLC, referring to volatile periods in the money-management business such as last March.

Canadian oil producers were clobbered a year ago, with even blue-chip names such as Suncor Energy Inc. losing two-thirds of their value in a matter of weeks. But with improved Canadian oil pricing and reduced concerns around pipeline capacity, Bison has been redeploying capital away from U.S. shale and into shares of Canadian energy companies including Tamarack Valley Energy. The Houston-based fund has risen about 90 percent this year.

The OPEC+ decision last week to keep output largely unchanged along with an attack on the worlds largest crude terminal in Saudi Arabia briefly sent Brent oil futures above $71 a barrel early Monday. Futures in New York bounced between gains and losses on Tuesday, with West Texas Intermediate Crude around $65 a barrel.

REMARKABLE COMEBACK: Oil crosses $65 milestone, marking stunning recovery from historic bust

Investors are increasingly confident that any oversupply will be absorbed by soaring demand as more people are vaccinated and life slowly returns to normal.

The fear of peak demand is leading us to the reality of peak supply, said Eric Nuttall, senior portfolio manager of the Ninepoint Partners LP energy fund in Toronto, which has gained about 70% this year.

There was less planning involved in last years oversupply. Last March, coronavirus lockdowns began in western economies just as Saudi Arabia began flooding the market with oil in an all-out price war. Energy equities plummeted: At one point Canadas energy index was down 53% for the year. Its risen about 20 percent to start 2021.

Then in January, in one of his first acts as U.S. president, Joe Biden canceled the Keystone XL oil pipeline, the type of move that would normally be a major setback for the patch. But with construction under way on other pipelines, the Canadian portion of Enbridge Inc.s Line 3 online, and a drive for profitability through spending cuts, bulls have sent signals that this cycle may be different from its predecessors.

Nuttall, whose holdings include MEG Energy Corp. and NuVista Energy Ltd., says he thinks Canadian energy stocks have more upside versus those south of the border, where a new Biden administration is more hostile to fossil fuels. At the same time, Canadian pipeline capacity is improving despite the Keystone XL decision. Nuttall said that small- to mid-cap shares have aided his funds performance this year.

Generalist investors, who seek to own assets in a wide range of industries, have avoided oil and gas stocks because of price volatility over the last few years. Stabilizing prices could change that equation, Nuttall said, as margins increase and as other equities become overvalued.

Weve selectively added energy as energy companies cut spending amid rising demand, said David Picton, chief executive officer of Toronto-based Picton Mahoney Asset Management, which managed about C$8.9 billion ($7 billion) in client assets at end of February.

In an interview, Picton called those investments more of a trading call because hes not convinced that energy is a good long-term bet.
This item is available in full to subscribers.

Attention subscribers

We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.

If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.

If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.

Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
ROME, MAR 9 - Police on Tuesday executed a series of arrests and other forms of restrictive measures regarding people suspected of being involved in rioting and looting in Turin on the night of October 26, 2020. Around 40 shops in the city were looted after a protest against COVID-19 restrictions turned ugly. Many of the suspects are minors with criminal records. (ANSA).
US President Joe Biden will hold first-ever joint talks Friday with the leaders of Australia, India and Japan, boosting an emerging four-way alliance often cast as a bulwark against China.

It will be one of the first summits, albeit in virtual format, for Biden, who has vowed to revive US alliances in the wake of the disarray of Donald Trump's administration.

"That President Biden has made this one of his earliest multilateral engagements speaks to the importance that we place on close cooperation with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday.

Amid rising tensions with China, it will mark the first meeting at the leaders' level of the so-called "Quad."

Both Psaki and India, which earlier announced the participation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said that the talks would take up climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic -- two key priorities for Biden.

"The leaders will discuss regional and global issues of shared interest, and exchange views on practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region," the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement.

The talks, also involving Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, will touch as well on promoting maritime security and "ensuring safe, equitable and affordable vaccines" to fight Covid-19 in Asia, the Indian statement said.

- China's growing assertiveness -

Japan said that Suga spoke separately Thursday to Modi and voiced alarm about China's "unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and China Sea" as well as the status of rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that the Quad was well-equipped to deal with the world's "urgent challenges" but, asked about China, said, the format is "not about any single competitor."

Story continues

The summit follows talks on February 18 among the foreign ministers of the Quad when they pressed jointly for a restoration of democracy in Myanmar after the military ousted democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1.

US officials cast the meeting as a key way of exerting pressure as India and Japan enjoy closer relationships with Myanmar's military -- which has historically counted on China as its main source of support.

The Quad foreign ministers, however, were careful not to make an explicit mention of China which has voiced alarm at what it sees as an effort to gang up on its interests in Asia.

After Biden's election, Chinese state media had printed articles calling on India to end the Quad, seeing New Delhi as the most likely opponent.

But views have hardened in India after a pitched battle in the Himalayas last year killed at least 20 Indian troops. China has named four dead in confirmation that took half a year.

Australia has also shown growing willingness to participate in the Quad as relations deteriorate with Beijing, last year joining naval exercises with the three other nations off India's shores.

The Quad was launched in 2007 by Japan's then prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was alarmed at China's growing assertiveness around Asia.

Biden has pledged in general terms to continue his predecessor's hawkish line on China, including by pressing on human rights and territorial disputes.

But the Biden administration has promised what it considers a more productive approach that includes boosting ties with allies and finding limited areas for cooperation with Beijing such as climate change.

sct/jm


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions has submitted to the National Nuclear Security Administration conceptual plans to craft plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site, checking another box on the federal governments often-arcane project to-do list.

The hefty submission brings plutonium pit production  the forging of nuclear weapon cores  at the reservation south of Aiken one step closer to fruition but certainly does not guarantee it. Many more hurdles need clearing.

The design packet was transmitted early this year, according to Dave Olson, the executive vice president for NNSA capital projects at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. As proposed, pit production at SRS would mean significantly reworking the failed Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, a multibillion-dollar nuclear fuel plant.

Part of what we delivered to the Department of Energy in January was 4,500 documents, tens of thousands of pages of information for them to review and make a decision, Olson said March 5, along with a cost estimate and schedule for us to start doing the pit production.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has received Savannah River Nuclear Solutions bundle. According to Olson, its bound for a multi-month review and approval process that says we either accept it or we dont, or if we accept it, heres how wed like you to proceed to finish the design, start into buying equipment and construction.

A decision could be made within months, Olson noted at the First Friday breakfast put on by the Aiken Chamber of Commerce. But the timeline is hazy. And a new administration, Biden's, could pose new questions.

Federal law mandates the production of 80 pits per year by 2030  a serious challenge, as time is short, congressional support is crucial and the U.S. has for awhile lacked the means to craft the key warhead components. (An independent evaluation in 2019 found achieving 80 pits per year by 2030 nearly impossible.)

To satisfy the demand for pits, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Defense in May 2018, under Trump's watch, recommended jumpstarting production at two storied complexes: the Savannah River Site, near New Ellenton and Jackson, and Los Alamos National Lab, near Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

At the Savannah River Site, they jointly suggested, the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility would be renovated. We put together conceptual design for how to refurbish that building to make plutonium pits, Olson said last week.

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the top contractor at the site, already filed its plans concerning the transition and turnover of MOX.

The potential pit factory at SRS has been dubbed the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. The National Nuclear Security Administration in a November 2020 notice confirmed its pursuit of the facility, often shortened to SRPPF.
The iPhone 11 is known to be practically waterproof, thanks to its IP68 rating and this incident is proof of its impressive water resistance. The smartphone is rated to survive underwater at a depth of 6.5 meters for 30 minutes but it seems like the phone is capable of surviving for longer and at a greater depth. Two divers in British Columbia, Canada recently discovered a submerged iPhone 11 in Harrison Lake.

 Youtube_Aquatic-Monkey

The smartphone in question was found by married couple Clay and Heather Helkenberg who run a YouTube channel called Aquatic Monkey. The channel documents their efforts to clean up garbage from local lakes and in this instance, the couple recovered an iPhone 11. They took the phone home and found it working in almost perfect condition. After turning on the device, they removed the SIM card and used it on another phone to figure out the owners phone number. They then called the owner to find out that the smartphone was lost in the water for about six months.



As reported by CBC on the recovery He pulled out the SIM card, put it in another phone to figure out the phone number and got in touch with owner Fatemeh Ghodsi. Ghodsi, who lives in Vancouver, was confused and thought one of her friends might be playing a prank on her. But she was soon convinced and made the trip to Chilliwack to collect the phone, which amazingly still works.

 Youtube_Aquatic-Monkey

Being underwater is bound to damage the smartphone to some extent and in this case, only the speaker and the microphone were found to not be working. Apart from that, the phone was still working perfectly. Photos from the phone show that it was used in bumper boats right before it plunged to the depths of the lake.



I was in a situation where I kind of lost balance and dropped it in the water, she said, adding that park staff was convinced it would be impossible to find the phone in the water. Distressed and in tears, we went back to Vancouver just kind of hopeless, she said.

It is also worth noting that the phone did not corrode due to the fact that Harrison Lake is a freshwater lake. It is possible that seawater can corrode smartphones provided that it stays underwater for six months. This is not the first time the iPhone was found in working condition after being lost to the depths of a water body. Last year, an iPhone survived underwater in a river after it was discovered almost two months later.

Source: CBC
According to recent reports, the climate crisis drives the world's tropical regions to the limits of human livability. Increasing heat and humidity continuing to put most of the world's population in potentially lethal conditions.

Areas in the tropical band that spans either side of the equator face transforming into a new climate that will reach "the height of human adaptation" if policymakers struggle to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, according to the report.

Related Article: New Study Revealed: Earth is Losing Ice Faster than Anyone Anticipated

Perspiration

Humans' ability to control their body heat is determined by the temperature and humidity of the air around them. Our internal body temperature is nearly constant at 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit), while our skin is colder to allow heat to escape from the inner body. However, if the wet-bulb temperature - a combination of air temperature and humidity - rises above 35C, the body would be unable to cool itself, eventually resulting in death.

"Our bodies cannot cool off by evaporating sweat if it is too humid, which is why humidity is critical when considering livability in a hot place," said Yi Zhang, a Princeton University researcher who led the new report, which was published in Nature Geoscience. "Extremely high body core temperatures can be fatal."

The researchers used historical evidence and models to figure out how wet-bulb temperature extremes would change as the earth warms. They discovered that these extremes in the tropics rise at about the same rate as the tropical mean temperature.

Dire Consequences

This may have disastrous consequences for a large portion of mankind. Tropical countries currently house about 40% of the world's population, but due to the region's high proportion of young people, this proportion is expected to grow to 50% by 2050. The Princeton study focused on latitudes ranging from 20 degrees north, which runs through Mexico, Libya, and India, to 20 degrees south, which runs through Brazil, Madagascar, and Australia's northernmost regions.

Natural Body Heat

Natural body heat is regulated to maintain a daily temperature of 37 C (98.6 F).

The hypothalamus's thermostatic area, precisely the brain stem, is at the center of temperature control. Heat is conserved excessively as it becomes deranged, such as during infections, and the temperature will rise beyond the normal range.

Capacity to Endure Heat

The duration of time a person can keep up with the heat is mostly determined by humidity: the lower the humidity, the longer you can keep up. Adults can survive 3 to 4 minutes in a sauna at 230F and up to 10 minutes in a burning building - as long as they don't black out from the carbon monoxide. Children succumb to elevated atmospheric temperatures even more easily, for example, within a few minutes in a vehicle heated to 122F.

The body temperature rises to over 104F during a heat stroke. Acute overheating results in brain edema, which causes cramps, clouding of consciousness, headaches, and nausea. Heatstroke can result in long-term brain injury or even death in the most severe cases.

ALSO READ: Texas Power Crisis Can Happen Everywhere Because of Climate Change

For the climate and weather updates, don't forget to follow Nature World News!
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Dr. Gabriele Zanolini director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital tends to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more room for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain that has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert.

That history was repeating itself one year after Lombardy became the epicenter of Italy's pandemic was a sickening realization for Dr. Gabriele Zanolini, who runs the COVID-19 ward in the M. Mellini Hospital in the once-walled city that maintains its medieval circular street pattern.

"You know that there are patients in the emergency room, and you don't know where to put them," Zanolini told The Associated Press.

"This for me is anguish, not to be able to respond to people who need to be treated. The most difficult moment is to find ourselves again in a state of emergency, after so much time."

The U.K. variant surge has filled 90% of hospital beds in Brescia province, bordering both Veneto and Emilia-Romagna regions, as Italy crossed the grim threshold of 100,000 pandemic dead on Monday and marks the one-year anniversary Wednesday of Italy's draconian lockdown, the first in the West.

While Zanolini was able to offer a safety valve to hard-hit Bergamo during last spring's deadly surge, and to Milan and Varese in the fall, now he must ask hospitals elsewhere in the region to take virus patients he himself cannot admit.

Nurses work in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

New measures are again being considered in Rome to tamp down the increase in new cases attributed to virus variants, including also those identified in South Africa and Brazil. With the U.K. variant prevalent in Italy and racing from school age children and adolescents through families, Lombardy has again put all schools on distance learning, as have several regions in the south where the health care system is more fragile.

In this surge, patients in the Chiari hospital COVID-19 ward are increasingly family membershusbands and wives, fathers and sonsZanolini said. And unlike previous spikes, the average age has dropped, with many of the virus patients needing breathing aid between 45 and 55 years of age. "We have seen, however, that they respond well to treatment," Zanolini said of the younger patients, noting that mortality remains high among the elderly.

Despite months of renewed restrictions starting in October, Italy's death toll remains stubbornly highseveral hundred a day. It topped 100,000 this week, the second-highest in Europe after Britain.

Dr. Gabriele Zanolini director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital talks on his smartphone in the emergency COVID-19 in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. Italian on the doctor's phone reads: 'I love you, from your little girl Marina Ester. I trust my dad. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

A patient under treatment lies on a bed in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Doctors tend to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 ward at Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Dr. Gabriele Zanolini director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital tends to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Dr. Gabriele Zanolini, director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, checks protective equipment, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

A patient under treatment lies on a bed in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

A patient talks to doctors as he lies on his bed in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The UK variant surged has filled 90% of hospital beds in Brescia province as Italy crosses the grim threshold of 100,000 pandemic dead and marks the one-year anniversary Wednesday of Italy's draconian lockdown, the first in the West. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Doctors and nurses work in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The UK variant surged has filled 90% of hospital beds in Brescia province as Italy crosses the grim threshold of 100,000 pandemic dead and marks the one-year anniversary Wednesday of Italy's draconian lockdown, the first in the West. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Dr. Gabriele Zanolini, director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital wears protection equipment before entering the COVID-19 ICU, in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The UK variant surged has filled 90% of hospital beds in Brescia province as Italy crosses the grim threshold of 100,000 pandemic dead and marks the one-year anniversary Wednesday of Italy's draconian lockdown, the first in the West. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Nurses work in the COVID-19 ward at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Dr. Gabriele Zanolini director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital tends to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Nurses prepare to enter the ICU at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

A patient is visited in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Doctors tend to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 ward at Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Dr. Gabriele Zanolini director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital tends to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 in Chiari, northern Italy, Monday, March 8, 2021. The 160-bed hospital in the Po River Valley town of Chiari has no more beds for patients stricken with the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain, and which now has put hospitals in Italy's northern Brescia province on high alert. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Dr. Gabriele Zanolini, director of the main covid ward at Mellino Mellini hospital in Chiari, northern Italy arrives to enter the ICU, Monday, March 8, 2021. The UK variant surged has filled 90% of hospital beds in Brescia province as Italy crosses the grim threshold of 100,000 pandemic dead and marks the one-year anniversary Wednesday of Italy's draconian lockdown, the first in the West. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Italy's new premier, Mario Draghi, is focusing on vaccines to help the country emerge from pandemic, pledging in a video message this week to intensify the campaign significantly in the coming weeks.

"Everyone must do his part to contain this spread of this virus," Draghi said Tuesday. "But above all, the government must to its part. Rather, it must try to do more every day. The pandemic is not yet defeated."

The vaccine is the only way out, Zanolini concurs. He sees all around him that people have grown weary of the restrictions, and are getting relaxedtoo relaxedwith gatherings, distancing and masks.

"We are worried because we don't see an end. It seems like the tunnel is still very long," Zanolini said. "We find ourselves hit by another wave, and we are very tired."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Chahid El Hafed , March 09, 2021 (SPS) - The President of the Republic, Brahim Gali, said Tuesday, in his speech, by videoconference at the high-level meeting of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union that "the African Union is called upon to fulfill its responsibility to play an essential role with regard to this African issue."

To say that the Union should not play a leading role in this matter together with the United Nations is a statement contrary to historical truth and contradicts the responsibility of the African Union to uphold its principles and objectives, as the body that laid the foundations on which the 1991 UN / OAU joint settlement plan was based, Brahim Gali reaffirmed in its address.

Sahrawi President pointed out that the persistent Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and the continuous obstruction of international efforts forced the Saharawi people to take up arms, as a legitimate right protected by international conventions.

He underlined that SADR holds the Kingdom of Morocco fully responsible for this new escalation and the threat it represents to peace and stability in the region. SPS

125/090/TRA
100 years ago  1921

The regular monthly meeting of the Firemans Relief Association and the Shenandoah Fire Department was held on Tuesday evening in the rooms of the Phoenix Fire Company building.

75 years ago  1946

New Ringgold

The Rev. Harold Engle will preach at Friedens Church at 9:3 a.m. and Christ Church, McKeansburg, at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.

50 years ago  1971

MINERSVILLE  The sophomore class of Minersville Area High School, under the supervision of Herbert A. Spangler, presented an assembly program. A play, Computer Knows Best, was presented by Carol Rizzardi.

25 years ago  1996

On the surface, brewing beer might seem a simple exercise. The formula seems easy: Take any available cereal grain. Let sprout a tad. Dry. Boil in water with hops. Filter. Add yeast. Let stand for a few weeks. Filter again, and then toast your cleverly concocted brew. But creating a beer with a specific taste involves complex scientific knowledge and artistic flair. If brewing is an art, then N. Ray Norbert, brew master at D.G. Yuengling & Son for 36 years, is the Pottsville companys chief artisan. Beers, Norbert explains, are like cars: It can be a model T or a Cadillac. It has four wheels and a steering wheel, but everything in between is different.
Childrens author Norton Juster, widely praised for the wordplay in his clever and whimsical books for young readers, including the much-loved The Phantom Tollbooth, died on March 8 at his home in Northampton, Mass., following complications from a recent stroke. He was 91.

Juster was born June 2, 1929 in Brooklyn, N.Y. and grew up there, graduating from James Madison High School. He earned his B.A. in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1952, the same year he won a Fulbright fellowship to pursue graduate study in city planning at the University of Liverpools School of Architecture in England. Juster served in the U.S. Navy from 19541957, where his assignments in the Civil Engineering Corps included building airfields in Morocco and Newfoundland. Following his military service, Juster returned to New York and received a grant from the Ford Foundation to write a book about urban perceptions.

But instead of completing that project, he began writing a story inspired by his own childhood about a boy named Milo who didnt know what to do with himselfnot just sometimes, but always. Juster kept at it, writing in his off hours, while living in an apartment in a Brooklyn Heights brownstone. He showed early drafts of the tale to his friend and housemate, Jules Feiffer, a young Village Voice cartoonist who soon produced some sketches to illustrate the story. The project went on to be Justers first novel, The Phantom Tollbooth (Random House, 1961). The colorful backstory of Tollbooths inception is the subject of a 2013 documentary, The Phantom Tollbooth: Beyond Expectations, directed by Hannah Jayanti.

The book, which follows Milo as he drives his pedal car past the Tollbooth into the fantasy world known as the Lands Beyond, quickly became a bestseller. It has never gone out of print and has sold more than four million copies since its release. The Phantom Tollbooth was adapted as an animated film in 1970, and a musical adaptation premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center in 2007.

In addition to The Phantom Tollbooth, Juster wrote and illustrated The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (Random House,1963), which was adapted for film by MGM and renowned animator Chuck Jones and narrated by Robert Morley. It won the 1965 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. In 2017, it was adapted as a musical piece and performed at Carnegie Hall featuring John Lithgow as narrator.

Though he had made an auspicious debut in the childrens book world, Juster was simultaneously building his architecture career, having launched his own firm in 1960. During this very busy decade of the 1960s, he also taught environmental design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn alongside lifelong friend and fellow architect Earl Pope, and in 1964 Juster married graphic designer Jeanne Ray, with whom he welcomed a daughter.

In 1970 Juster and Pope embarked on a new phase of their professional lives by joining the founding faculty of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. With that change, Juster moved with his family to Buckland, Mass., where he and Pope continued their architectural work in the expanded firm, Juster Pope Frazier. The company is still in operation and its featured projects have included buildings on the campuses of Hampshire, Smith, and Amherst Colleges; buildings in Colonial Williamsburg; and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst. Carle was a friend of Justers and had illustrated Justers 1982 picture book Otter Nonsense (Philomel).

Juster retired from teaching in 1992 and from his architecture practice in 1996, though he continued writing. He wrote two picture books illustrated by Chris Raschka and inspired by his granddaughter: The Hello, Goodbye Window (Hyperion/Michael di Capua, 2005), for which Raschka won the 2006 Caldecott Medal, and a sequel, Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie (Scholastic/Michael di Capua, 2008). In 2010, Juster and Feiffer reunited for the picture book The Odious Ogre (Hyperion/Michael di Capua, 2010). At the time, Juster quipped, We realized it was such fun working together that we made a pact: we are prepared to do a new book every 50 years. The duo spoke with PW then about what it was like teaming up again.

Justers wife of 54 years, Jeanne, died in 2018. He is survived by his daughter Emily and granddaughter Tori, both of Amherst. A celebration of Justers life is being planned for a later date.

Justers friend and collaborator Jules Feiffer shared this remembrance: Throwing out my garbage one day in the sidewalk garbage can outside the apartment I had just moved into in a Hicks Street brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, I ran into Norton, a ground-floor tenant, who was also throwing out garbage, and we started exchanging wisecracks, which continued nonstop through our later collaborations, his marriage, my marriages, his move to teach at Amherst, and my move to the Upper West Side, and later, the Hamptons and my present little island. We would lose contact and then resume, months later. The wisecracks never improved or diminished. He was my oldest friend, I loved him and he pissed me off, and we managed to concoct a classic together. I miss him badly. Who knew?

Gail Hochman, Justers longtime literary agent, reminisced, What we all remember most was the twinkle in his eye. He would sit very placidly with the beginnings of a smile, and he would say something very straight that was actually very funny. Wordplay, a pun, a joke. The whole delivery made it really charming. I also remember having him come and do a school event at my kids school in Brooklyn. The kids were falling over each other to talk to him or ask a question or show him their diorama based on his book, all kinds of things. He did his presentation, answered some questions, and the whole event was still going on at full force when he suddenly takes a harmonica out of his pocket and plays a little song. And then he just continued the event answering questions and talking to the kids. It was like they were sitting there with a kind of god in their midst.

Author and childrens literature historian Leonard S. Marcus worked on an annotated edition of Justers most popular book. He offered these words as tribute: When asked what inspired him to write The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton liked to say that he wrote it to avoid having to think about another book for which the Ford Foundation had awarded him a grant. As 1950s Americans flocked to the suburbs in droves, it was to be an essay for teens on the rewards of urban living. The Foundations money had allowed him to quit his day job as an architect. But the research required for the project soon overwhelmed himin much the same way that Milo feels overwhelmed by his schoolwork and the world of facts. Norton, too, needed to escape to the Lands Beyond! He never got around to writing the Ford book, and as a result he lived in dread for years afterwardor so he saidthat the Foundation would come after him. While researching The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, I stopped by the Foundations library one day and was able to track down Nortons grant proposal on microfilm. When our APT was published, I dropped off a copy for the librarys collection. Norton laughed and said, Maybe now Im finally off the hook!

Author Suzanne Collins, a true Tollbooth devotee, who contributed a celebratory essay for a 50th-anniversary edition of the book, remembered her friend Juster this way: I first met Norton during elementary school in the brilliant pages of The Phantom Tollbooth, she recalled. Our assignment was to write a new chapter for Milo and Tock, which turned out to be my first and only piece of fan fiction. Thirty-five years later, as we became friends, I realized where all the humor, kindness, sharp commentary, and joyousness in the book came fromstraight from his heart. Mines breaking now, but its a comfort to know I will always be able to find the Whether Man on page 18. And that he will be there for generations to come.
The province has begun back-screening positive COVID-19 tests for the South African B.1.351 variant of concern.

Advertisement Advertise With Us

The province has begun back-screening positive COVID-19 tests for the South African B.1.351 variant of concern.

While the province began screening for the U.K. variant in early February, it only began screening for the variant first identified in South Africa later in the month.

"To ensure we have a better understanding of the impact of that variant in Manitoba, were screening samples from all tests to the beginning of February. This retrospective work is not the typical approach, but we wanted to ensure we had a good understanding of our variants situation here in Manitoba," Dr. Brent Roussin said at his Monday news conference.

"At this point, we dont anticipate that there are significant, immediate risks."

So far in the province, there have been six cases of the variant first identified in the U.K. confirmed in Manitoba, and three of the South African variant.

"Were still reviewing that data and any positive cases that we find of any of the variants, we follow up accordingly through public health," said Roussin.

All samples from positive tests that can be screened for the variant will be, but Roussin said some samples had very low viral loads and those cannot be screened.

"But every positive test that we can screen, were going to screen them all back to the beginning of February," he said.

Roussin explained it takes time to develop and validate the screening tool. The B.1.1.7 screening was developed first, with the B.1.351 screening developed later.

Asked about what benefit there is to screening positive samples that are more than a month old, Roussin said it was to understand the impact on the population.

"We know we found three of the confirmed cases, so far, of the B.1.351, so we want to go back to February to ensure we dont see a greater amount of transmission than what were seeing right now. From what we have, it doesnt appear to be a significant amount of transmission, but we wanted to be certain," he said.

Roussin also announced vaccine eligibility was expanded Monday to include individual aged 80 or older and First Nations people aged 60 or older.

The province, recognizing that spouses or other household members may become eligible at the same time, is allowing people to make an appointments for more than one person as long as all the individuals are eligible.

Appointments can currently be booked for vaccines in Winnipeg, Brandon, Thompson and Selkirk.

The appointment line was down for a while on Monday, however. Calls placed to the line, which was recently expanded to handle the vaccine being made available to the general population, werent going through.

On Feb. 24, the province announced the vaccine call centre, at 1-844-MAN-VACC (1-844-626-8222), had 2,000 lines, with more than 370 trained agents available to work them.

"We do know its possible the call centre will receive an overwhelming number of calls. We know Manitobans have been eager for this moment, and many of you are going to want to call right away," a provincial spokesperson said at the time.

The online booking self-serve tool was still in its pilot phase as of last week.

For now, the phone line is the only way to make appointments.

"Officials are aware of an issue with the phone lines at the #Manitoba #COVID19 vaccine call centre, and work is underway. As more information is available, updates will be provided," the province stated Monday on its Twitter feed, @MBGov.

The message also went out on the provinces Manitoba Government Facebook page.

By 6 p.m., the province had updated its social media to inform the public the phone line was once again up and running. The hours of operation are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

 mletourneau@brandonsun.com

 Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism.
The Pentagon has tapped more than 1,000 additional troops to help with the COVID-19 vaccination effort.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has authorized 10 more teams to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency in administering the vaccine at community centers nationwide, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Friday.

The Pentagon said about 6,235 active-duty service members, across 40 teams, have been tapped to support COVID-19 vaccination centers, though fewer than one-third of them have actually deployed so far.

Read Next: The Space Force Wants Opinions About Its Proposed Rank Insignia

There are now 17 teams, representing a little more than 2,200 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, deployed to California, New Jersey, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The service members on those teams can administer roughly 52,000 shots per day when operating at full capacity, according to Pentagon statistics.

About 444 more troops will deploy to Ohio and Georgia in the coming weeks, where they could provide about 12,000 vaccinations a day.

The largest teams, known as Type 1, are made up of 222 service members who can administer about 6,000 shots per day. The Type 2 teams have 139 members and can administer about 3,000 shots a day, and the smallest 25-person teams can provide about 250 shots daily.

The newly authorized teams are all Type 2.

FEMA has asked the Pentagon for up to 50 of the largest teams, and another 50 of the medium-sized teams.

In a follow-up statement to the press, the Pentagon said another 65 teams may support vaccination efforts in the future, as conditions allow.

A community vaccination center at California State University in Los Angeles last month became the first to be supported by military service members, when 222 soldiers began offering 6,000 daily vaccine shots.

The Army on Monday further detailed its COVID-19 response, and said that about 950 soldiers are now supporting vaccination centers in Illinois, New Jersey, Texas, California, Florida and St. Thomas.

That includes 222 soldiers from Fort Carson, Colorado, at the California State University site, 139 soldiers from Fort Riley, Kansas, supporting the center at Fair Park Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas, Texas, and 23 soldiers from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, supporting centers in Somerset and Paterson, New Jersey.

Another 222 from Fort Campbell are deployed to Chicago, and 139 from Fort Riley are supporting the center at Miami-Dade Community College in Florida, among others.

-- Stephen Losey can be reached at stephen.losey@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StephenLosey.

Related: COVID Travel Restrictions Now Lifted at Half of US Military Bases
(CNN)  It turns out getting beheaded doesn't mean automatic death for every animal.

Researchers discovered that two species of sea slugs, Elysia cf. marginata and Elysia atroviridis, can regrow their body after cutting off their own head, according to a study published Monday in Current Biology.

Some animals like these sacoglossan slugs, also known as sap-sucking sea slugs, can autotomize, which is when an animal sheds a body part voluntarily, said study author Sayaka Mitoh, doctoral student in the department of biological sciences at Nara Women's University in Japan.

She said the research team couldn't determine why the slugs shed vital body parts, but some animals do it to remove internal parasites that inhibit their reproduction, Mitoh said.

Five of the 15 laboratory-bred young Elysia cf. marginata slugs started to self-decapitate about 226 to 336 days after they hatched. They began feeding on algae within a few hours after losing their body parts and began to regenerate their heart within seven days. After 20 days, the slugs had regenerated their entire body.

Three of the 82 Elysia atroviridis slugs decapitated their bodies at the neck. Of those slugs, two of them regenerated their bodies within a week.

Not all the slugs were as lucky.

Older slugs -- the Elysia cf. marginata slugs who were hatched 480 to 520 days prior to self-decapitation -- did not feed and died within 10 days.

It might seem like a "silly" choice for the older slugs to sever their head from the body if they won't survive, Mitoh said, but the "old ones will die soon anyway and there may be a chance of surviving and regenerating a parasite-free body."

Mitoh isn't sure how the slugs can live without some of their vital organs, "but they can live without a heart probably because their heads are small" and can intake oxygen from their body's surface.

One of the slugs in the experiment was able to complete the regeneration process twice, but Mitoh said she also is not sure how the slug could do it.

The findings of the study were intriguing, said Angel Valdes, professor and department chair of biological sciences at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, who was not involved in the research.

"Other sacoglossan sea slugs can regenerate appendages or other parts of the body, but this is an extreme case," Valdes said.

The sea slugs he has studied in the past also autotomize parts of their bodies, but rarely vital organs.

More needs to be learned about this phenomenon, both about the species in the experiment and other animals, Mitoh said.

"We want to study whether other species of sacoglossans have this ability to study the evolutionary pattern and process of such extreme autotomy and regeneration," she said.

In addition to evolution, Valdes is also interested in going out into the field to see if he can repeat the results of the experiment.

"I am also curious about the molecular and physiological underlying mechanisms that allow the regeneration the body," Valdes said.

This story was first published on CNN.com These sea slugs can self-decapitate and grow a new body
So, too, the Democrats have become a cult  the cult of the precious, the woke; the guardians of what can be said and read and thought. Whether the offender is Lenny Bruce, or Mark Twain, or Mr. Bean, the woke, and the press and government in the service of the woke, will save us from the pain of exposure to that which upsets us. Even if what upsets us may be true, or have some merit or, God help us, humor. (Bruce would be canceled today, as would Mel Brooks and Peter Sellers.)
The proliferation of fintech services across Africa remains in full swing as investors remain bullish about the opportunities that abound in the sector. Today we behold another unicorn: African payments company Flutterwave announced that it has closed $170 million, valuing the company over $1 billion.

New York-based private investment firm Avenir Growth Capital and U.S. hedge fund and investment firm Tiger Global led the Series C round. New and existing investors who participated include DST Global, Early Capital Berrywood, Green Visor Capital, Greycroft Capital, Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, Worldpay FIS and 9yards Capital.

The Series C round comes a year after Flutterwave closed its $35 million Series B and $20 million Series A in 2018. In total, Flutterwave has raised $225 million and is one of the few African startups to have secured more than $200 million in funding.

Launched in 2016 as a Nigerian and U.S.-based payments company with offices in Lagos and San Francisco, Flutterwave helps businesses build customizable payments applications through its APIs.

When the company raised its Series B, we reported that Flutterwave had processed 107 million transactions worth $5.4 billion. Right now, those numbers have increased to over 140 million transactions worth more than $9 billion. The company, which also helps businesses outside Africa to expand their operations on the continent, has an impressive clientele of international companies, including Booking.com, Flywire and Uber.

Flutterwave says more than 290,000 businesses use its platform to carry out payments. And according to the company's statement, they can do so "in 150 currencies and multiple payment modes including local and international cards, mobile wallets, bank transfers, Barter by Flutterwave."

While its website shows an active presence in 11 African countries, Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola, also known as GB, told TechCrunch the company is live in 20 African countries with an infrastructure reach in over 33 countries on the continent.

Story continues

Last year was a pivotal one for the five-year-old company. Its second investment came just in time before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Africa, negatively impacting some businesses but not payments companies like Flutterwave.

Agboola says his company grew more than 100% in revenue within the past year due to the pandemic without giving specifics on numbers. It also contributed to its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 226% from 2018.

According to the CEO, this growth resulted from an increase in activities in "COVID beneficiary sectors" -- a term used by Flutterwave to describe sectors positively impacted by the pandemic. They include streaming, gaming, remittance and e-commerce, among others. Agboola adds that the company plans to ride on these sectors' growth and continue in that trajectory.

Besides, Flutterwave's response in introducing the Flutterwave Store for merchants during pandemic-induced lockdowns was instrumental as well. The product, which went live across 15 African countries, helps over 20,000 merchants to create storefronts and sell their products online.

Image Credits: Flutterwave

Flutterwave wants to become a global payments company, and the Series C investment helps to reach that goal. The company says it plans to use the funds to speed up customer acquisition in its present markets. It will also improve existing product offerings like Barter, where it has over 500,000 users, and introduce new offerings. One such is Flutterwave Mobile, which in the founder's words "will turn merchants' mobile devices into a point of sale, allowing them to accept payments and make sales."

In a statement, Agboola gives credit to the company's more than 300 staff, investors, customers and regulatory bodies like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for creating the backbone for Flutterwave's success.

For some, it would come off as strange that the CEO mentioned the last stakeholder given the unfavourable and questionable regulations it has recently placed on fintechs in Nigeria.

However, Agboola thinks the reverse is the case. He makes a bold statement by saying that under the current CBN governor's administration, the Central Bank has shown a consistent regulatory framework that has allowed fintechs like Flutterwave to thrive.

"Flutterwave, for instance, launched when the governor just came in. We got our license and scaled our business because of a favourable regime that allowed it to be possible. There are so many trailblazing innovations that we don't talk about a lot about Nigeria, like the BVN and the NIP system. Nigeria has consistently been at the forefront of payments innovation for over a decade, and it was all possible because of the forward-looking CBN policies," he said.

On exits, acquisitions and the billion-dollar club

One fintech company that has unquestionably championed payments in this time frame is Interswitch. The payments giant is currently worth $1 billion after Visa acquired a 20% stake in 2019, and Flutterwave joins the company as the only fintechs in Nigeria to have reached that valuation. This number increases to four in Africa when including publicly traded African e-commerce company Jumia and Egyptian payments company Fawry.

Flutterwave's $170 million mammoth raise and its billion-dollar valuation represent a landmark achievement for the African startup scene. While the aforementioned companies' valuations can't be disputed, there are question marks on whether some are startups and whether others are African companies.

Interswitch, for instance, was founded in 2002, which doesn't necessarily make it a startup despite still being private. Fawry was launched in 2007, but didn't become a billion-dollar company until 2020, a year after going public. Jumia, albeit public, reached unicorn status as a private company in 2016; however, there are varying opinions as to whether it is an African company or not.

Unlike the others, Flutterwave checks all the boxes of what a billion-dollar African startup should ideally look like -- founded by Africans in Africa while reaching a $1 billion valuation in fewer than 10 years.

Most stakeholders in Africa's tech ecosystem knew this would happen, but the timing expected was later rather than sooner. After raising $35 million in a Series B in 2020, who would have thought Flutterwave was going to raise almost five times that amount the following round and be valued at more than $1 billion the next year? Maybe just a few.

Well, these numbers rarely matter to Agboola, as I ask him what he thinks of Flutterwave's new growth metric. "I'll say valuation is both art and science. At some point, we were also the most valuable African company at YC, but it's not really a metric we're focused on at Flutterwave because they move up and down," he smiles. "Our key metrics have always been revenue, customer growth and retention."

Aptly said, but as the company continues to grow, questions around profitability and exit will become more frequent.

Paystack, another Nigerian payments company that is often compared to Flutterwave, got acquired by Stripe for more than $200 million last year. At the time, there were also rumours of Flutterwave taking the same route, but this Series C raise suggests that the company is not looking to exit at the moment. However, if the YC-backed company indeed does, it might be through an IPO.

"Like every other startup, we're thinking about ways to create exit tools for our investors. So, a listing is very much in our plans, but for now, we're focused on giving the best value to our customers," Agboola said.

In the course of the company's journey to this point, it has remained big on partnerships. In 2019, Flutterwave partnered with Visa to launch Barter and Alipay to offer digital payments between Africa and China. Then last year, the company announced a partnership with Worldpay FIS for payments in Africa.

Although Flutterwave has done this with bigger establishments, Agboola says the company will be looking to do the same with smaller companies, opening the doors to potential acquisitions.

"We believe in payments in partnership as you have to partner to scale. So, if in the course of making partnerships and scaling and we identify promising companies with a similar ethos and have our vision in mind, that is in making Africa a country, an acquisition isn't off the table," he said.

After capturing much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Agboola says Flutterwave's next plan is to go live in North Africa. There, it will likely face competition from a local leader, Fawry, but that doesn't matter. The African fintech market is large enough to accommodate multiple players.

That's one reason why it has also been a popular bet with investors. The sector, which is both local and international investors' top destination, attracted between 25% to 31% of the total VC funding last year from varying sources.

But from the information on their websites, this is the first time Flutterwave's lead investors -- Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global -- are backing an African fintech startup. For the former, Flutterwave represents the first African startup in its portfolio, but Tiger Global is known to have invested in Nigerian media company iROKOtv and South African e-commerce company, Takealot.

Via their partners -- Jamie Reynolds of Avenir Growth Capital and Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global, both firms said they're backing Flutterwave on its quest to build a global and world-class payments company.

Looking into the future, Agboola insists that the company's focus remains to support its 290,000 merchants and help them build global businesses.

"We look forward to increasing our investments across the continent and deepening the impact our platform has on lives and livelihoods as we take more businesses in Africa to the world, and at the same time continue to bring more of the world to Africa," he said.
On January 15, in the aftermath of the January 6 fascist attack on the US Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed retired Lt. General Russel Honore to lead an immediate review of security infrastructure, interagency processes and command and control. The mandate of the task forces was to determine what security failures enabled the pro-Trump insurrectionists to overrun the building and delay congressional certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election.

General Russel Honore speaks with former Vice President Dick Cheney aboard the USS Iwo Jima following Hurricane Katrina (Sept. 8, 2005 Credit: US Navy)

On Monday, Honore held three closed-door meetings with congressional leaders to discuss the findings and recommendations contained in the Task Force 1-6 Assessment, which was released that morning.

Among the members on the task force were the new Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Karen Gibson; retired Lt. Gen Jeff Buchanan, who oversaw the government response in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria; retired Maj. Gen. Errol Schwartz, former commander of the D.C. National Guard; and Major Gen. Linda Singh, the former head of the Maryland National Guard.

The recommendations listed in the 15-page report include:

Increasing the size of the Capitol Police force by 854 officers, nearly a third more than the current figure of 1,800. This includes new intelligence analysts, a dedicated Civil Defense Unit and additional bomb detection dogs.





More equipment, training and funding, including additional body-worn cameras and mounted horse units.





Mobile fencing to replace the current temporary fencing. The report calls for a fully integrated system of obstacles, cameras, sensors and alarms.





Enhanced screening procedures that require background checks for identification card holders.





Expanding the Dignitary Protection Service and offering police protection and home security protection in lawmakers districts.





Revising the Capitol Police Board to allow the Capitol Police chief to request external law enforcement and National Guard support without board approval during emergencies.

The report offers no explanation for the lack of security at the Capitol, despite repeated appeals by then-President Trump for his fascistic supporters in various militia organizations to come to D.C. on January 6 to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Bidens election victory.

It was known well in advance that thousands would descend on Washington D.C. that morning, including armed groups such as the Proud Boys, whom Trump had publicly instructed to stand back and stand by in the event his opponent was declared the winner of the November election.

Nevertheless, neither the Capitol Police, the Metro D.C. Police nor the military took any special measures, leaving Congress at the mercy of hundreds of Trump supporters who were able to storm the building with little resistance from the authorities.

The report compiled by Honore ignores congressional testimony by the commander of the D.C. National Guard that top Pentagon officials delayed giving him authorization to send troops to remove the far-right attackers for three hours and 19 minutes. It also ignores testimony by former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund that he pleaded to no avail with Department of Defense officials to send reinforcements.

The task force report can only be seen as part of a cover-up of a deliberate security stand-down ordered at the highest levels of the state, including the White House and the Pentagon. Nor does the report point to the complicity of the Republican Party in the conspiracy.

What took place on January 6 was an attempted coup against the US Constitution, carried out with the aim of overturning the 2020 election and maintaining Trump in power as a de facto dictator. The task force headed by Honore is part of an attempt, supported by the Biden administration and both big business parties, to conceal this basic fact from the American people.

The report promotes the diversionary claim voiced by police and FBI officials in the course of several congressional hearings over the past two weeks that the lack of security was the result of inadequate intelligence, a claim that is contradicted by the known facts. There was ample intelligence, including from FBI offices and the intelligence division of the Capitol Police itself, which warned days before January 6 that Congress itself would be the target of an attack by far-right Trump supporters.

Pelosi and the Democrats chose Honore to head the task force because he had been lionized by the media during the Hurricane Katrina disaster as the savior of New Orleans. Honore headed up the military relief effort after the massive flooding that destroyed large parts of the city and killed hundreds of people.

The silence of the task force report on the role of Trump-appointed Pentagon officials and Republican politicians stands in marked contrast to what Honore himself said in the aftermath of the coup attempt. In a January 8 interview with a Fox affiliate in New Orleans, he said, We knew they were coming. Everybody knew they were coming. Every law enforcement agency in D.C. called the Capitol and said, How many you want? Oh, we dont need no help. Thats why it was complicit, and people need to go to jail over that.

In other interviews, Honore pointed to the role of Trumpsters in the Capitol Police force, who allowed their buddies in the Capitol. He implicated then-Capitol Police Chief Sund in the coup, saying that he had never seen so much incompetence. He added, He should be fired. He should be fired for a total failure, along with the sergeant-at-arms in the Senate and the sergeant-at-arms in the House.

In a January 11 Twitter post, Honore denounced Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who jointly led the effort in the Senate to block authorization of the Electoral College vote. Writing of Hawley, he said, That little peace [sic] of shit with his @Yale law degree should be run out of DC and Disbarred ASAP.
Commodities trader Mercuria Energy Group struck a deal last summer to buy $US36 million ($46.6 million) of copper from a Turkish supplier. But when the cargoes started arriving in China, all they held were painted rocks.

The saga unfolds like a gangland thriller, with the Swiss trading house saying its been the victim of cargo fraud. Before its journey from a port near Istanbul to China even began, about 6000 tonnes of blister copper in more than 300 containers were switched with jagged paving stones, spray-painted to resemble the semi-refined metal.

About 6000 tonnes of blister copper in more than 300 containers were switched with jagged paving stones, spray-painted to resemble the semi-refined metal. Credit:Sinan Borovali/KYB Law Firm

The bizarre case highlights commodity traders vulnerability to fraud, even when security and inspection controls are in place. In 2014 and 2015, Mercuria took provisions to cover potential losses after metal contained in a warehouse in the Chinese port of Qingdao was seized by authorities as part of fraud investigation.

Turkish police took 13 people into custody in relation to the faux copper scheme. Mercuria, one of the five-biggest independent oil traders in the world, is seeking redress in both Turkish courts and a UK arbitration case against the copper supplier, Bietsan. Its also filed a formal criminal complaint with Turkish police and prosecutors alleging cargo substitution and insurance fraud, leaving the authorities to determine whos responsible.
Nova Royalty Corp ( ) (OTCQB: NVARF) CEO Alex Tsukernik tells Proactive the Vancouver-based group is aiming to build a leading royalty company focused on copper and nickel - commodities, which it says, are key to global society's transition to clean energy from fossil fuels. Tsukernik explains how copper is used in wind and solar energy and in electric vehicles (EVs), and nickel is used in turbines. Tsukernik talks about the group's latest royalty acquisition, and upcoming projects.
Additionally, blood donations are, separated into red blood cells which are for trauma situations. Then youve got plasma, which is for burn units and things like that, and then youve got the platelets for cancer patients. So, it gets separated and helps, Moritz said.
Hundreds of young Myanmar protesters who had been trapped by security forces in a district of Yangon overnight have been able to get out, activists said on Tuesday (March 9), after calls from Western powers and the United Nations for them to be allowed to leave.

Thousands of people defied a night-time curfew to take to the streets of Myanmar's main city in support of the youths in the Sanchaung district, where they had been holding a daily protest against the February 1 coup.

The army takeover and arrest of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi has plunged Myanmar into chaos. Security forces have killed over 60 protesters and detained more than 1,800 since then, an advocacy group said.

In Sanchaung, police firing guns and using stun grenades announced on Monday they would check houses for anyone from outside the district and would punish anyone caught hiding them.

Youth activist Shar Ya Mone said she had been in a building with about 15 to 20 others but had now been able to go home.

"There were many free car rides and people welcoming the protesters," Shar Ya Mone said by telephone, pledging to keep demonstrating "until the dictatorship ends."

Another protester posted on social media that they had been able to leave the area at around 5 a.m. after security forces pulled out.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had earlier called for "maximum restraint" and the safe release of all protesters without violence or arrests, a call echoed by the U.S. and British embassies in Myanmar.

An advocacy rights group said around 50 people had been arrested in Sanchaung after police searched houses, though checks were still being made.

A junta spokesman did not answer calls requesting comment. State television MRTV earlier said: "The governments patience has run out and while trying to minimise casualties in stopping riots, most people seek complete stability (and) are calling for more effective measures against riots."

Three protesters were killed in demonstrations in northern Myanmar and the Irrawaddy Delta on Monday, according to witnesses and local media.

Demonstrations have been held daily for more than a month to demand the release of Suu Kyi and respect for the election her National League for Democracy (NLD) party won last November.

The army took power citing fraud in the ballot - an accusation rejected by the electoral commission. It has promised another election, but without giving a date.

The military has brushed off condemnation of its actions, as it has in past periods of army rule when outbreaks of protest were bloodily repressed.

This time it is also under pressure from a civil disobedience movement that has crippled government business and from strikes at banks, factories and shops that shut much of Yangon on Monday.

In a diplomatic blow to the junta, Myanmar`s ambassador in Britain followed its U.N. representative in calling on Monday for the release of Suu Kyi - drawing praise from British foreign minister Dominic Raab.

Britain, the United States and some other Western countries have imposed limited sanctions on the junta.

The European Union is preparing to widen its sanctions to target army-run businesses, according to diplomats and two internal documents seen by Reuters.
Lawyer Gooi Soon Seng speaks to reporters at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya, Malaysia, after representing North Korean businessman Mun Chol Myong who is facing extradition to the United States, March 9, 2021.

A North Korean businessman in Malaysia on Tuesday lost his third and final attempt in the courts against being extradited to the United States to face money laundering charges, which stem from alleged violations of Washingtons sanctions on Pyongyang.

A three-judge Federal Court panel unanimously upheld a decision by the Kuala Lumpur High Court to deny Mun Chol Myongs appeal.

In October, the high court, in upholding a verdict by the lower Sessions Court, ruled that the government had met all legal requirements for sending Mun to the United States, and said that the American governments request to extradite him was not politically motivated as he alleged.

Having produced the grounds of judgment, we find no reason to disagree with his lordship. The appeal is therefore dismissed, the order of the high court is affirmed, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan of the Federal Court said in handing down the panels decision.

In considering this appeal we bear in mind that the application of this appeal stems from the extradition treaty entered into between the Malaysian government and the U.S. government, and that this extradition proceeding is not a trial as such, but the issue is whether there has been compliance with all the requirements for extradition, the court ruled after listening to arguments from the defense and prosecutors for an hour.

Afterwards, Muns lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, said the home minister had the final say on the businessmans extradition. As of late Tuesday, it was not clear when the North Korean would be extradited to the United States.

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman in Washington for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on Mun's extradition, while the Malaysian home minister did not immediately respond to an inquiry from BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Luxury goods

Mun, 55, was not in court on Tuesday because Malaysian law does not require the subject of a habeas corpus hearing to be present to determine whether the persons detention is lawful. His wife and daughter, however, were there with officials from the North Korean embassy.

Mun denied allegations by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that he had led a group of criminals who violated sanctions on North Korea by supplying luxury goods to his reclusive home country and by laundering money through front companies.

Mun, who lived in Malaysia for about a decade before his arrest, has been in Malaysian custody since May 14, 2019. He has been denied bail repeatedly because Malaysian courts consider him a flight risk.

In the courtroom on Tuesday, attorney Gooi argued that the charges against Mun were political, adding that his client was a pawn between Washington and Pyongyang.

It started with the sanctions by the U.S. on North Korea. The transaction is legal, but they had to use the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar has been weaponized by the U.S. government, Gooi argued. Without the sanctions, there wont be an offense. He is a victim caught in the eye of a political storm.

Mun is facing four U.S. charges of money laundering and two charges of conspiracy to launder money.

Gooi said the case had failed to satisfy the requirement of dual criminality necessary for extradition  specifically that the crime cited by the requesting country is also a crime in the originating country.

There is no crime of fraud under Malaysian law. The closest is cheating and cheating is not an extraterritorial offense in Malaysia, Gooi said, noting that Malaysia does not have a law that is equivalent to U.S. law on conspiracy that would require extradition.

If there is no offense, there is no case. He should not be remanded further, Gooi said.

In response, Deputy Public Prosecutor Dusuki Mokhtar argued that the offenses did not need to be exact under both criminal codes to satisfy requirements for extradition.

It does not need to be word-by-word exact per se; we do not need to furnish a mirrored charge. That is not a requirement of the law, not just in our country but also in other countries, Mokhtar told the court. It is very clear in this case that the offense is money laundering. It is very clear from the document we furnished.

Responding to Goois allegation that the charges were politically motivated, Mokhtar said the sanctions mentioned by Gooi was background information and not substantial to the case.

The U.S. is only pursuing criminal charges against an alleged criminal, nothing on the feud between two countries. This is not relevant to consider the feud between the two countries, he argued.
India has slammed UK parliamentarians for raking up a debate on farmers protest. The High Commission of India in London has issued a statement stating that UK parliamentarians have made false assertions and casted aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world, without any substantiation or facts.

India on Monday has slammed UK parliamentarians for raking up a discussion on the ongoing farmers protest and press freedom in India. Condemning the debate that took place on Monday evening inside British parliamentary premises, The High Commission of India in London has issued a statement stating that instead of a balanced debate, UK parliamentarians made false assertions and casted aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world, without any substantiation or facts.

Underlining how it would normally refrain from commenting on an internal discussion involving a small group, it becomes imperative to set the record straight when aspersions are cast by anyone on India, irrespective of their claims of friendship and love for India.

Held in response to a petition with over lakh signatories, Opposition Labour MP Virendra Sharma suggested that farmer bodies and the Indian government should be counselled to reach an agreement while Liberal democrat MP Layla Moran pointed out that the Indian government can be held accountable due to power of democracy,

In response to the discussion, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Minister Nigel Adams underlined that farm laws are Indias domestic matter. The latest developments have come to light as Indian authorities uncover the forces behind Republic Day violence and the toolkit, which was later mistakenly shared by Climate activist Greta Thunberg, leading to the arrest of Disha Ravi among several others.
Hyderabad, March 9 : Budget session of Telangana State Legislature will begin from March 15, according to a notofication on Tuesday.

Governor Tamili Sai Soundararajan has summoned both Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council to meet for the session at 11 a.m. on March 15.

The notifications summoning both the Houses were issued on Tuesday.

The Governor will address the joint session of the Legislature on the first day while the next day the Assembly will adjourn after paying tributes to the sitting legislators who passed away since the previous session.

The Assembly will take up a motion of thanks to the governor's address on March 17. The state budget for 2021-22 is likely to be presented the next day by Finance Minister T. Harish Rao.

The session is likely to continue for two weeks to discuss and pass the budget and complete other legislative business.

Last year, the Budget session began on March 6 but abruptly ended on March 16 due to surge in Covid cases.

In September, the monsoon session of the State Legislature had to be ended 12 days before schedule as few legislators, policemen, staff and journalists covering the session were found infected by Covid.

A special two-day session was held in October to amend Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Act.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 15:40:46|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Members of the Lebanese army are deployed on a road linking Tripoli with Beirut, Lebanon, March 8, 2021. Angry demonstrators blocked key roads across Lebanon Monday morning during a protest against the deteriorating economic and financial conditions in the country, local media reported. (Photo by Khaled/Xinhua)
Mr. Gertler had promised American officials that he would follow global anticorruption rules in exchange for the license that the Treasury Department granted him in January. But officials in Congo said freeing him from the sanctions would undermine efforts to fight corruption there and to help the new democratically elected president limit the continued influence of the countrys former leader, Joseph Kabila, an ally of Mr. Gertlers.

Restoring the sanctions enables Congolese and U.S. anticorruption efforts to get back on track, said John Prendergast, a co-founder of The Sentry, a nonprofit human rights group that was among more than a dozen that had called on the Biden administration to revoke the license. Dan Gertlers corrupt partnership with former President Joseph Kabila cost the D.R.C. dearly in terms of lost resources, lost services and, ultimately, lost lives.

In 2019, Mr. Gertler hired Mr. Dershowitz, who later served as a lawyer to Mr. Trump, as well as Louis Freeh, a former F.B.I. director, to work as a lobbyist to try to push Treasury to revoke the sanctions.

Mr. Gertler was issued the license after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin directed the acting head of the agencys Office of Foreign Assets Control to take the step, even though several Trump-era State Department officials in charge of United States relations with Africa told The New York Times that they had been unaware that such a move was about to be taken and that they opposed it.

After the issuance of the license became public, associates of Mr. Gertler said that part of the reason he had been granted special treatment was that he had played some undisclosed role in helping U.S. national security interests. Treasury officials and representatives for Mr. Gertler would not describe the specific nature of the assistance.

The same office at Treasury that had granted the license for Mr. Gertler in January revoked it on Monday, yet another sign of how unusual this series of events has been.

Activists in Congo who have been working for years to try to ensure that the wealth produced by mining minerals in the nation  which is one of the poorest in the world, even though it has some of the worlds most important mineral reserves  said they hoped the action would mean continued progress to combat corrupt deals that shortchanged people there.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Giovan Battista Basile, owner of Basile Winery, has been named the new president of the Consortium for the Protection of Montecuccos wines. The change in leadership of the board was decided on February 25, after the Management Board meeting, which welcomes Giorgio Patrizi of Tenuta Piani Rossi, Giampiero Pazzaglia of Collemassari, Claudio Vigni of Societa Agricola Maciarine and Marco Salustri of Azienda Salustri as new members. The following members were also reconfirmed: Patrizia Chiari of Tenuta LImpostino, Marco Innocenti of Peteglia, Daniele Rosellini of Agricola Campinuovi and Leonardo Sodi of Azienda Agricola Parmoleto.

Giovan Battista, originally from Naples, Italy, and raised in the Maremma region, moved to Cinigiano (Province of Grosseto) with his family in the late 90s, arriving in the heart of the Montecucco region right when the DOC denomination was being established. He decided to buy a vacant lot, starting from scratch with his new agricultural venture. This land now constitutes his organic vineyard. Giovanni, after finishing his education and obtaining a law degree, fell in love with this special land. He likes to describe his land as a wilderness yet to be discovered that can offer unique expressions in winemaking and experiences for tourism.

I am extremely pleased to be entrusted by the councilors, and I am enthusiastically taking on this responsibility for the denomination that I hold in my heart, said the new president. He continued, I am honored to inherit the important legacy left by Claudia Tipa, whom I thank for many reasons: first, for always believing in our Denomination of Origin; second, for helping it grow; third, for helping us introduce it all over the world; and, last but not least, for being a real beacon to all the producers. Our goals now are very clear and in line with those of her term. Our effort is going to strengthen the sense of collegiality and participation. The new council faces a difficult economic situation, in general, and for our industry in particular, which is heavily reliant on the on-premise sector that is waiting to restart after the vaccination campaign. The new board and I will carry out the new term with great care and attention, focusing on the retention of the domestic market and expansion in the US. Not only do we want to increase our visibility through traditional and digital PR activities, but also engage online with experts and international media, until we can be face to face with the public again.

Sustainability, a key element in the DOC and DOCG where almost 70% of production is organic, will be the main asset of the consortium. Another important asset is the uniqueness of the Sangiovese grape, the king of the denomination, characterized by its high quality and distinctive personality. Finally, we should mention the great value of Montecucco terroir and its logo. The president concluded by saying, These are the strengths that will allow us to consolidate the positive trends recorded in the past years and further strengthen our presence, starting in Italy and extending to the global market.

About the Montecucco Consortium (Consorzio Tutela Montecucco):

Founded in 2000 and representing 68 wine producers, the Montecucco Consortium is committed to the stewardship, protection, and promotion of the Montecucco wine denomination. The Consortium ensures high quality by a set of formal production guidelines for the entire winemaking process, from cultivation to bottling, including a strict traceability system that allows consumers to know the origin of the wine purchased. The Consortiums ability to provide day-in and day-out support to the local growers, assist in brand promotion, and focus on the quality of the end product have earned the organization the trust of numerous leading estates and to attract some of Italys most renowned producers. For more information visit consorziomontecucco.it
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

PUEBLO, Colo.  A Pueblo County jury has convicted a man of first-degree murder in the 2013 death of his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

Donthe (DON-tay) Lucas was found guilty Monday in the death of Kelsie Schelling, The Pueblo Chieftain reported. He received a mandatory sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.

The 21-year-old Schelling was last seen on Feb. 4, 2013, after driving to Pueblo from her home in Denver to talk to Lucas about her pregnancy. She is presumed to be dead but her body has not been found.

Camera surveillance footage and cell phone records suggested Lucas was the last person to be seen with Schelling before her disappearance, prosecutors said.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

Defense attorney Karl Tameler argued that evidence based on cell phone records and a lack of DNA evidence werent enough to find Lucas guilty.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the woman who was killed was named Kelsie, not Leslie.
The headquarters of Shinhan Financial Group / Courtesy of Shinhan Financial Group



By Anna J. Park



Shinhan Financial Group is attempting to raise more capital by issuing hybrid bonds worth 400 billion won ($353 million) later this month, following late last year's issuance of new stocks worth 1.15 trillion won. Market watchers see Shinhan's aggressive capital raising lately has to do with the financial giant's plan to add new businesses to the group's portfolio through mergers and acquisitions (M&As).



Shinhan's 4 billion won worth of AT-1 bonds  Additional Tier-1  could be further issued to up to 7 billion won at its maximum. The AT-1 bonds are called hybrid bonds or hybrid securities, as they combine characteristics of both bonds and equities in that they are a type of unsecured, perpetual bond that has no maturity date. Instead they have call options allowing banks to redeem them after a certain period. About 350 billion won of Shinhan's AT-1 bonds to be issued this time will have a five-year call option, while the remaining amount is slated to have a 10-year call option.



Shinhan made it clear that one of the key reasons behind the recent raising of capital is to find opportunities to strengthen the financial group's business portfolio.



"As was the case with the issuance of new stocks last year, the raising of capital with the issuance of AT-1 bonds is aimed to secure enough capital in order to strengthen the group's businesses," an official from Shinhan Financial Group said in a phone call with The Korea Times.



"While the group does have a specific plan about which companies or which sectors of businesses it hopes to add to its group portfolio, the newly raised capital will likely be used in catching opportunities in the M&A market to acquire companies or global business initiatives that would create synergy within the group."



The official also said that local media outlets speculate that Shinhan is looking for a non-life insurance company, as the group lacks a general insurance firm in its group portfolio, adding that nothing has been decided as of now. However, the official did not deny that they're closely watching for general insurance-related fintech companies to possibly acquire.



Since Chairman Cho Yong-byoung's leadership began in 2017, Shinhan Financial Group has focused on M&As, including the acquisition of Orange Life for 2.3 trillion won in 2019 and real estate trust firm Asia Trust for 160 billion won in 2018.




Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Florida manatees are dying at an alarming rate in the first two months of 2021, more than tripling the normal amount of fatalities seen during the same period over the last five years.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has posted in its preliminary manatee mortality statistics that from Jan. 1-Feb. 26, the state has recorded 403 manatee deaths, the majority of which have not had a necropsy to determine cause of death. Brevard County by far leads the way with 186 of those deaths.

The five-year average for the same time period is 129 manatee deaths.

The FWC said it was investigating the high mortality in the central and south Atlantic coastal regions of Florida. Most of the deaths are occurring in the Indian River Lagoon.

"Environmental conditions in portions of the Indian River Lagoon remain a concern," the FWC posted on its manatee program site. "Preliminary information indicates that a reduction in food availability is a contributing factor. We will continue with a comprehensive investigation and share information as it becomes available. The FWC has always done a rigorous and thorough job at investigating threats to manatees."

According to the St. Johns River Water Management District, a reduction in seagrass in the lagoon could be the primary cause. The district cites that since 2009, 58% of the seagrass has disappeared, mostly because of an increase in nutrients in the water that come from runoff into the lagoon.

"The decline didn't happen overnight. The stunning water views, the fishing and recreational opportunities that drew people to the area have resulted in the water quality conditions we see today," reads a statement from the district's executive director Ann Shortelle. "Too many nutrients, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, are entering the lagoon from overfertilized lawns, faulty sewage treatment and leaching from septic tanks."

Florida's manatee population gathers in warm-water regions such as the lagoon during the winter months, so FWC states that as the temperatures climb, and manatees migrate naturally away from Brevard and around the state, that their situation may improve.

"This dispersal should lead manatees to better habitats," FWC stated.

The state recorded 637 deaths across all 12 months of 2020, according to preliminary FWC data. That's a little higher than the five-year average of 578. More than 100 of the 2020 deaths, though, including 40 in Brevard,, came in December as well, feeding into the continued mortality seen in January and February. FWC recorded only 405 manatee deaths for the entire year in 2015.

Despite the deaths, FWC estimates the manatee population in the state to be around 7,000, which is much higher than its low 30 years ago.

In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's estimated population low of 1,267 manatees in 1991 has improved to the point that the manatee's status was changed in 2017 from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

FWC is continuing its manatee rescue program, though. If you see an injured or dead manatee, you can call the FWC's Wildlife Alert number at 1-888-404-3922 or #FWC on a cellphone.

Explore further More Florida manatees have been crushed by flood gates, contributing to a deadly year

(c) 2021 Los Angeles Times.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The will provide



electricity connection to every agricultural land at a lower rate in the state by the end of March next year, Energy Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav told legislative assembly on Tuesday.

Stating that it was Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's desire to provide power connection to farmers as they have to spend more on irrigation through traditional mode, Yadav said three lakh such connections have already been given so far.

Electricity under "Mukhya Mantri Krishi Vidyut Sambandh Yojana" is supplied at a very cheaper rate of 65 paisa per unit, the minister added.

The government has awarded tender to two companies for the purpose and instructed them to complete it by March 2022, Yadav said, adding that Rs 1329.61 crore will be spent in the next fiscal for the purpose.

The state government came out with the scheme as it is not possible to provide agri connection to every consumer because of the limited scope of the Centres "Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana", the minister said.

The minister was giving reply to the House debate on the budgetary demand of Rs Rs 8559.99 crore of his department for the 2021-22 fiscal which was passed by voice vote amid boycott by the entire opposition which was unsatisfied with the reply.

Stating that the government had in 2019 taken a decision to install "smart prepaid meter", Yadav said that 1,40,187 prepaid meters have been installed by February 2021 in different towns of the state.

"I am happy to announce that EESL in association with French company EDF will install 2.5 lakh prepaid meters in the next 18 months.

"The French company will provide maintenance for the next six years too," the minister said adding that installation of such meters would not only help in saving energy but will also prevent its misuse.

The state got two units of 110 MW each at Muzaffarpur and Barauni after it was bifurcated (in the year 2000), he said.

Highlighting the turnaround in the field of electricity, the minister said that the state is getting around 6000 MW of power supply daily at a subsidised rate.

The state government has earmarked Rs 6000 crore in 2021- 22 for giving subsidy on electricity to the consumers, he added.

Pitching for "one nation, one electricity tariff", Yadav said that the national average power rate is Rs 3.60 per unit while Bihar purchases it at a higher rate of Rs 4.12 per unit.

The minister sought the centres approval for Dagmara hydel project as the central government has made it mandatory to buy certain percentage of power from the renewable sources.

Had the Dagmara hydel project been functional, the state would have saved Rs 375 crore annually on this count, Yadav said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Researchers have reported findings from round nine of the REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission Study (REACT-1) that estimates community prevalence of infections with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in England.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is the agent responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that continues to threaten global public health and the worldwide economy.

Round nine of REACT-1 was carried out in England during February this year (2021), some four to seven weeks after the third national lockdown was implemented on 5th January.

Steven Riley from Imperial College London and colleagues say the results from round nine showed a significant decline in SARS-CoV-2 prevalence, compared with at the beginning of lockdown (round 8).

However, prevalence still remains high and the rate of decline slowed nationally during the most recent period assessed (13th to 23rd February). The study also indicated that prevalence has grown in certain parts of the country.

The team says continued adherence to social distancing and public health measures is needed to ensure infection rates fall to much lower levels.

This will help to ensure that the benefits of the vaccination roll-out program in England are fully realized, writes Riley and colleagues.

A pre-print version of the research paper is available on the medRxiv* server, while the article undergoes peer review.

England starts to exit third national lockdown

The prevalence of COVID-19 cases was high in most European countries at the beginning of 2021. A third national lockdown was introduced in England on 5th January 2021, when the seven-day rolling average number of cases was 95 per 100,000 people.

Prevalence of national swab-positivity for England estimated using a P-spline for all nine rounds with central 50% (dark grey) and 95% (light grey) posterior credible intervals. Shown here only for the period of round 8 to round 9. Unweighted observations (black dots) and 95% binomial confidence intervals (vertical lines) are also shown.

By 22nd February, this number had fallen to 18 per 100,000 and the seven-day average of daily hospital admissions had fallen from 3,592 to 949. More than 15 million people had also received at least one dose of either the PfizerBioNTech or OxfordAstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

England starts to exit the third national lockdown on 8th March 2021, beginning with the reopening of schools. Four additional steps will follow, separated by 5-week periods to enable the assessment of the impact each set of relaxations has had on the epidemic.

This roadmap for the gradual relaxation of lockdown will be accompanied by the ongoing roll-out of vaccination against a background of emerging novel variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Any surge in the prevalence of infections could threaten the smooth continuation of the roadmap.

A subsequent increase in community prevalence of infection could delay further relaxation of lockdown if vaccine uptake and efficacy are not sufficiently high to prevent increased pressure on healthcare services, writes Riley and colleagues.

What did the study involve?

REACT-1 study participants (aged 5 years and older) conduct a self-administered throat and nose swab for analysis by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and complete a questionnaire on demographics, health and lifestyle.

The PCR self-swab arm of (REACT-1) is designed to estimate the community prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection based on random cross-sections of the population.

Round nine was divided into round 9a, with swabs collected between the 4th and 12th February, and round 9b, with swabs collected between the 13th and 23rd February.

The results from these rounds were compared with those from round 8, where swabs were collected between the 6th and 22nd January.

Apparent percentage change in daily growth rate from round 9a to round 9b for London, calculated as round 9b prevalence divided by round 9a prevalence divided by the difference in the median round date (in days).

What did the study find?

Of 165,456 participants with a valid test result, 689 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Of 87,408 participants in round 9a, 388 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and of 78,047 participants in round 9b, 301 tested positive.

Overall, SARS-CoV-2 prevalence was 0.49%, representing a fall of more than two-thirds from a prevalence of 1.57% in round 8.

However, the rate of decline slowed from the 15 days estimated using data from the end of round 8 and the start of round 9, to an estimated 31 days based on data from round 9 alone.

The patterns of regional prevalence differed between rounds 8 and 9, when compared with patterns observed in rounds 9a and 9b.

Between rounds 8 and 9, prevalence dropped significantly in seven of nine regions, with smaller falls seen in Yorkshire and The Humber and in the North East.

However, between rounds 9a and 9b, while prevalence fell in the North East, the North West, East and South West, increases were seen in London, the South East, East Midlands and West Midlands.

Which population groups saw higher prevalence?

Prevalence fell by 50% or more across all age groups in round 9, compared with round 8.

In round 9b, the prevalence ranged from 0.21% among those aged 65 or older to 0.71% among those aged 13 to 17 years.

Prevalence in round 9 was highest (2.1%) among Pakistani participants, compared with 0.45% among white participants and 0.83% among black participants.

The results also showed that healthcare workers and care home workers were 48% more likely to test positive in round 8 and 37% more likely in round 9, compared with workers in other professions. The odds of infection were also higher across both rounds among those working in public transport, education, school, nurseries and childcare.

Continued vigilance is necessary

The researchers say that although the community prevalence of swab-positivity for SARS-CoV-2 has markedly declined between January and February 2021 during the lockdown in England, it still remains high.

Furthermore, the rate of decline has slowed in the most recent period, with a suggestion of pockets of growth, they write.

Continued vigilance is necessary to ensure that the evident gains achieved in lockdown are maintained as lockdown measures are eased over coming weeks, concludes the team.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Using the AWS Launch Wizard to Simplify Application Deployment, Part 2: Secret Names and More

After explaining how to use the AWS Launch Wizard to deploy a new Active Directory environment, Brien Posey shows you the rest of the process, beginning with the requirement to create a domain administrator secret name.

In the previous article, I began showing you the process for using the AWS Launch Wizard to deploy a new Active Directory environment. Now, I want to show you the rest of the process, beginning with the requirement to create a domain administrator secret name.

In AWS, a secret is essentially just a set of stored credentials. To create a secret, go to the list of services and select the Secrets Manager option. It's found in the Security, Identity and Compliance section. When the Secrets Manager opens, click on the Store a New Secret button. Select the Other Type of Secrets option, and then select the Plaintext tab, shown in Figure 1.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 1: Choose the Other Type of Secrets option.

Click Next, and you will be taken to the Name and Description screen. Here you will be prompted to enter a name for your secret. The name that you choose must begin with the word LaunchWizard.

Once you have given the secret a name, click Next and you will be taken to a screen that gives you the option of setting up automatic rotation. Choose whether or not you want to use automatic rotation, and click Next. You will now be taken to the review screen. Take a moment and look over the sample code to make sure that it appears to be correct. If all is well, click the Store button.

Now, go back to the Launch Wizard and click the Refresh button that appears just to the right of the Domain Administrator Secret Name drop down. You should now be able to select your secret, as shown in Figure 2. As you look at the figure, you will notice that there is a copy button in this section. Click the Copy button to copy the code to the clipboard.

Now, switch back over to the Secrets Manager and click on the secret that you just created. When the secret opens, click on the Edit Permissions button and then paste the code into the place provided, as shown in Figure 3. Be sure to click the Save button when you are done.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 2: CYou will need to copy the code in the blue box by clicking the Copy button.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 3: Paste the code into the Resource Permissions section.

Switch back over to the Launch Manager screen, and select the checkbox confirming that the secret has the required resource policy.

The remaining tasks on this screen include specifying your DNS server, choosing the key pair that will be used in the creation of the EC2 virtual machines and selecting the VPC that you want to use.

Step 3: Define Infrastructure Requirements

The third step in the process is to define the infrastructure requirements. This is the step where you size the application (in this case, Active Directory) based on your needs. As you can see in Figure 4, you can base the storage and compute requirements either on a specific instance type or on your infrastructure requirements. It's usually best to choose the Based on Infrastructure Requirements option since it allows you to specify the number of users that you need to support.

[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 4: You will need to tell the Launch Wizard whether to base the storage and compute resources on an instance type or on your infrastructure requirements.

As you enter your requirements, the console will display an estimated monthly cost for running your application. When you are done, click Next.

Step 4: Review and Deploy

At this point, you will see a summary screen outlining the proposed configuration and the estimated cost. Take some time to review this screen to make sure that all of the information is accurate. Assuming that everything looks good, click on the Deploy button to deploy your application. The AWS Launch Wizard will now begin creating EC2 virtual machine instances and any additional resources that may be required to support the application that you are deploying.
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, gave an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey to explain what drove them to walk away from their roles in the royal family.

Some of the most concerning revelations include the accusation the palace rejected Meghan after she asked for help over feeling suicidal, and that a senior member of the royal family fretted to Harry about how dark his child Archies skin would be.

On this episode of Please Explain, national editor Tory Maguire and Europe correspondent Bevan Shields discuss the future of the British monarchy.

Our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage.
In a bid to collect due tax from foreign service providers, Vietnamese authorities are requiring banks and payment intermediary service companies to withhold and pay tax from the accounts of e-commerce foreign contractors who do not register as a taxpayer in Vietnam, raising concerns over overload and risky transactions at local lenders.

The direction was set forth in a draft circular to guide the implementation of Decree 126, which provides guidance for the application of the Law on Tax Administration.

According to the draft circular, foreign service providers, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, must register as taxpaying entities, as well as filing and paying tax money for income derived from Vietnam.

When the foreign companies fail to fulfill their tax liability, banks would be allowed to pay on their behalf by deducting the due payments on the service providers accounts.

Last-resort measures

The General Department of Taxation encourages foreign e-commerce platforms to directly register, file, and pay tax to the Vietnamese taxman for the profit derived from the country, said a leader of the tax authority during a discussion with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

If direct taxpaying is not feasible, Google, Amazon, and Facebook, among other e-commerce firms, can authorize a tax agent or a representative office in Vietnam to fulfill the tax responsibility for them.

Forcing banks to withhold and pay tax on behalf of [foreign entities] is already our last resort, the official said.

The department will send a list with names and website addresses of overseas e-commerce platforms who did not register to pay tax in Vietnam, while banks need to identify the corresponding accounts.

The tax amount would be deducted from the firms accounts once Vietnamese individuals remit money for purchased goods and services to the firms through the banks, then submitted to the tax office on the tenth day of each month.

According to Le Hoang Tung, head accountant of state-run Vietcombank, the lender is ready to undertake tax payment responsibility on behalf of unregistered foreign firms.

The measures have been implemented by many foreign banks, he added.

Yet, Tung also raised concerns over the implementation plan: banks would not be able to pinpoint the identity and account of a foreign firm based off just a name and web address.

For example, in the case of over-the-counter transactions, banks can only track down the senders account but not the recipients.

On top of that, it would be hard to track down accounts of Google and Amazon as they dont open any at domestic lenders, Tung said.

Complicated and overloaded

In a discussion with Tuoi Tre, the deputy director of a major joint-stock bank in Ho Chi Minh City feared that customers would respond negatively to the tax maneuver, which would prompt the banks to provide extra explanations.

To add to the issue, banks would have to mobilize dedicated staffers for the task, not to mention miscalculation risks that might stem from the overwhelming workload and a plethora of tax regulations that differ on each category of goods and services.

Meanwhile, another tax responsibility, which requires banks to keep track of card remittances and payments of other forms that benefit foreign firms before reporting them to the tax office on a monthly basis, is also making banks concerned.

As Tung sees it, a bank in Vietnam has to process tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of transactions via cards and Internet banking per day, which makes the documenting and filtering of transfers based on criteria of foreign suppliers an extremely daunting task.

Meanwhile, a leader of a commercial bank in Hanoi suggested that banks need to be remunerated for their work in deducting and submitting tax on behalf of foreign entities, as the bankers are essentially doing tax collection work for the taxman.

With the exception of state-owned banks, it is clear that commercial joint-stock banks, payment intermediary service companies, and the Vietnam branches of foreign banks will not feel justified as they dont reap any benefit from the process, he said.

The formula to calculate and pay tax on behalf of foreign firms are one major concern with banks, as they are used to collecting tax using detailed information on collected entities, tax amounts, and fees, among others, from the tax offices notices.

On top of that, should banks convert foreign currency to Vietnamese dong based on the exchange rate, or should we keep the foreign currency in calculation? another bank leader questioned.

A Vietnamese Facebook user looks at an advertisement on the platform. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

Who shells out?

According to Nguyen Van Duoc, director of Trong Tin Accounting and Tax Consulting Co. Ltd., banks have the option to collect tax immediately with over-the-counter transactions, but the same thing cannot be said about transactions made on personal credit cards.

Duoc says, in theory, tax for e-commerce transactions will be filed by foreign firms, but paid by customers as they will have to pay net price, or price with tax included, for the services or products.

If the tax office requires tax money to be extracted from personal bank accounts, then the customers would be the one to file tax instead of foreign firms, Duong said.

In reality, many individuals and businesses in Vietnam have exploited this loophole to commit tax fraud by paying for Google and Facebook advertising services via personal credit cards, then falsely declaring the items in their tax returns.

Echoing Duocs ideas, Nguyen Duc Nghia, director of the Legal Advisory Center under the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Business Associations, recommended that the new regulations should also mention the minimum transaction value that qualifies for tax consideration, which will help control the operational cost for banks.

Official guidance

According to Luu Duc Huy, director of the Policy Department under the General Department of Taxation, banks will have to make conversions according to the exchange rate and then declare and pay tax according to Vietnamese currency.

The Ministry of Finance will also provide detailed guidance for banks to implement.

More specifically, one common general tax rate will be applied upon the value of cross-border transactions, instead of different tax rates for each category of goods.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohios casino and racino industry showed signs of rebounding in February, with gambling revenue up $5.3 million over January, but business still lagged where was a year ago.

Gambling revenue - the amount of money kept by the house after paying out winnings - totaled $158.7 million at Ohios 11 casinos and racinos last month, reports released Monday by the states casino control and lottery commissions showed.

Thats up from $153.4 million in January, but down from $171.4 million in Feburary 2020.

March will provide a better picture of whether the industry can return to the record pace it was on until coronavirus hit last year.

The facilities were closed from mid-March through mid-June under state order, and later were affected by overnight curfews that shuttered the round-the-clock operations for several hours each day. The last of the curfews was lifted by Gov. Mike DeWine on Feb. 11.

A bright spot last month was business at the JACK Thistledown Racino, where revenue of $13.6 million marked an 8.7% improvement over $12.5 million in February 2020.

Revenue totaled $19.2 million at MGM Northfield Park, the busiest racino in the state, but was down 15% from $22.5 million the same month a year ago.

At JACK Cleveland Casino downtown, revenue was $18.4 million, making it the busiest of Ohios four casinos, but it was down 1.9% from $18.7 million in February 2020.

The racinos, regulated by the Ohio Lottery Commission, are permitted to offer only chance-based slot machines, what the lottery calls video lottery terminals.

The casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo, under the regulation of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, are permitted to offer a wider range of slot machines, plus table games.

In calendar year 2020, business was down 26% overall. But monthly records were set in each month when there were not state-ordered closings or curfews.

Below are details for each Ohio casino and racino. Ohio casinos

Statewide Feb.. 2020 Feb. 2021 Revenue $75.9 million $67.6 million Table games $24.9 million $18.5 million Slots $50.9 million $49.2 million JACK Cleveland Casino Revenue $18.7 million $18.4 million Table games $8.8 million $7.9 million Slots $10.0 million $10.5 million Slots payout 92.3% 91.9% Hard Rock Cincinnati Revenue $19.9 million $14.3 million Table games $8.5 million $4.7 million Slots $11.4 million $9.6 million Slots payout 92.0% 91.8% Hollywood Toledo Revenue $17.1 million $17.5 million Table games $2.6 million $2.4 million Slots $14.5 million $15.1 million Slots payout 91.0% 91.5% Hollywood Columbus Revenue $20.2 million $17.5 million Table games $5.1 million $3.5 million Slots $15.1 million $14.1 million Slots payout 92.3% 92.4% Source: Ohio Casino Control Commission Ohio racinos Statewide Feb. 2020 Feb. 2021 Slots $95.5 million $91.0 million Pct. payout 90.8% 90.7% JACK Thistledown Racino Slots $12.5 million $13.6 million Pct. payout 90.6% 90.5% MGM Northfield Park Slots $22.5 million $19.2 million Pct. payout 91.0% 90.6% Hollywood Mahoning Valley Slots $11.1 million $11.1 million Pct. payout 90.2% 90.4% Eldorado Scioto Downs Slots $16.3 million $15.9 million Pct. payout 90.5% 90.6% Miami Valley Gaming Slots $16.1 million $13.5 million Pct. payout 91.3% 91.3% Belterra Park Slots $6.5 million $6.5 million Pct. payout 90.9% 90.3% Hollywood Dayton Slots $10.4 million $11.3 million Pct. payout 90.7% 89.9% Source: Ohio Lottery Commission Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner . Follow casino coverage at cleveland.com/casino.

Previous stories

A year of COVID-19 in Ohio, told through the numbers

Just when can Ohio expect a lifting of state-ordered coronavirus restrictions? Gov. DeWines goal shows he isnt rushing it

Ohio casino, racino revenue dips statewide in January amid coronavirus curfew, but up at JACK Thistledown Racino

Where things stand with JACK Cleveland Casino, Thistledown Racino after Dan Gilberts sale: Q&A with Chairman Matt Cullen

Dan Gilbert sells Cleveland casino interests; JACK Entertainment remains operator

Ohios casino, racino business dips 26% in 2020, a year of coronavirus disruptions; state out $165 million in taxes and fees
New Delhi, March 9 : The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Tuesday termed the Budget for the financial year 2021-22 presented by the Aam Aaadmi Party (AAP) government in New Delhi as disappointing and insignificant for the trader community.

The AAP government on Tuesday presented a proposed budget of Rs 69,000 crore for the financial year 2021-22 based on the theme of 'patriotism'.

According to CAIT, the Delhi Budget presented by Finance Minister Manish Sisodia is a disappointing document for Delhi's traders. This is because not a single word has been spoken in the Delhi budget related to trade and commerce.

Commenting over the Delhi Budget, CAIT National General Secretary, Pravin Khandelwal, said,"Delhi's budget is unfair. It reflects Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's negative attitude towards the trader community. We strongly condemn the Delhi Budget." Khandelwal said,"It is most unfortunate that at a time when Delhi's business is under great financial strain and is trying to overcome the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Delhi government has not allocated funds for the development of businesses in Delhi." "It is also surprising that not a single plan has been announced in the state budget for the business community nor have any policy measures been announced to streamline trade and commerce in Delhi," added the CAIT National General Secretary.

"No plan has been announced to set up a cyber hub in Delhi while Delhi's revenue is shifting to neighbouring cities such as Gurgaon and Noida." CAIT said,"Delhi is the largest centre of trade in the country and Delhi's revenue is largely dependent on trade. It was expected that the Kejriwal government would come up with something for traders but unfortunately it did not pay any attention to them in the state budget."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
via are airplanes flying across the studied forests with a sensor attached to them. Credit: Aircraft NERC, landscape Benjamin Blonder. Image processing Jani Narhi

In light of the United Nations (UN) declaration that 2021-2030 is the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration,

a group of scientists is voicing concerns about restoration in heavily fragmented landscapes under a hotter and drier future scenario.

Poor recovery of small fragments will end up costing management and wider society later down the line. Millions are invested in setting aside patches, but management is weak and costly.

Rainforests turn into oil palm plantations

The past 40 years in Southeast Asia have seen about 50% of lowland rainforests converted to oil palm and other plantations, and much of the remaining forest heavily logged.

Little is known about how fragmentation influences recovery and whether climate change will hamper restoration.

"Here, we use repeat airborne LiDAR surveys spanning the hot and dry 2015-16 El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to measure canopy height growth across 3,300 ha of regenerating tropical forests spanning a logging intensity gradient in Malaysian Borneo," says postdoctoral researcher Matheus Nunesfrom the University of Helsinki, lead author of the paper recently published in Nature Communications.

Repeat high-density airborne LiDAR across the human-modified forests of Borneo provided a unique perspective on the regrowth of forests during the 2015-2016 ENSO and the environmental controls on the canopy. Regeneration of logged forests was still positive during the hot and dry ENSO in Borneo, when the highest temperatures and the highest VPD exceeded 2.1 C and 140% the local long-term average during non-El Nino years. The results demonstrate that regenerating logged forests in this landscapewhich contain a high abundance of pioneer tree species with acquisitive traitscontinued to grow, despite the high temperatures and water demand in these logged forests.

However, the predictions revealed in the paper show that environmental controls were key to modulating regrowth at the landscape level.

Fragmentation effects increased exponentially with proximity to oil palm plantations, which is consistent with the long-term fragmentation effects that lead to tree mortality and lower productivity.

"Additionally, we demonstrate that the position of fragmented forests across the landscape was also a predictor of forest growth, with valleys and riparian forests showing higher canopy growth compared to those on hilltops during the El Nino," says Nunes.

Suggestions to the Roundtable for Sustainable Oil Palm

Oil palm companies that have joined the Roundtable for Sustainable Oil Palm are committed to the protection of high conservation value forests along rivers and on steep slopes within their estates.

"Our results suggest buffers have to be wide (at least 40 m on each side of the river) to ensure the interior of the strip retains a stable canopy height during droughts," says Nunes.

This is twice the width of what is currently required by law in Sabah, Malaysia. If designed and protected appropriately, riparian reserves in oil palm estates support regrowth with potential positive consequences for the global carbon cycleand for ecosystem function.

The results also demonstrate that small, fragmented patches of regenerating logged forests left on hilltops will be slow to recover due to lower water availability, particularly as El Nino events are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change. Fragmentation in these regenerating logged forests leads to consistent canopy loss within 110 m from oil palm plantations. These results suggest that small patches of logged forests on hilltops will not recover, reflecting the intertwined effects of fragmentation and climate.

More information: Matheus Henrique Nunes et al. Recovery of logged forest fragments in a human-modified tropical landscape during the 2015-16 El Nino, Nature Communications (2021). Journal information: Nature Communications Matheus Henrique Nunes et al. Recovery of logged forest fragments in a human-modified tropical landscape during the 2015-16 El Nino,(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20811-y
Yuhang Liu was 13 hours ahead of his classmates, but he couldnt keep up with them.

Yuhang Liu was 13 hours ahead of his classmates, but he couldnt keep up with them.

It was mid-October and Lius collection of empty energy drink cans in his bedroom  which, ever since he had flown home to Hong Kong during the initial COVID-19 lockdown in Winnipeg, had also turned into a lecture hall and library  had become a constant reminder of how sleep-deprived he was.

"It was like life-support in the middle of the night," recalls Liu, a third-year sociology student at the University of Winnipeg, about Monster Energys original pick-me-up.

From concerns of excessive screen-time to exam-monitoring software issues, post-secondary students have faced no shortage of challenges with remote learning over the last year.

For many international students learning from home, time zones have only caused further confusion.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Yuhang Liu, a third-year sociology international student at the University of Winnipeg, started his school year remote learning at home in Hong Kong, but he found the 14-hour time difference unmanageable so he returned to study in Winnipeg.

Liu admits he was overly optimistic about his ability to manage a full course load in a different time zone than his instructors when he planned his schedule; tuning into synchronous lectures at 2:30 a.m. Hong Kong time proved to be extremely difficult even for a self-described night owl.

As soon as Ottawa announced eligible international students would be exempt from a pandemic travel ban halfway through his fall term, the 20-year-old booked a trip back to Canadas Central time zone.

Since then, Canada has implemented new guidelines that require travellers to have a recent negative COVID-19 test upon entering the country, get tested upon arrival and quarantine in a hotel for three days until results are in, and then take another test on the tenth day of self-isolation.

Given the price tag of a return and uncertainty around in-person classes resuming, Kazi Ashique Mohammad remains in limbo  located in Bangladesh standard time, with a sleep schedule adjusted around Winnipeg time, 12 hours behind his family members schedules.

The University of Manitoba business student went home in early December when he learned his father had tested positive for COVID-19 and had to be hospitalized.

When this is all over and I look back at this moment, I will not hold any regret. I would just be proud of myself that I coped with the situation.  Kazi Ashique Mohammad

Mohammad took his remote exams in the middle of the night, which he said required willpower not to either fall asleep or cry of frustration. He set up three internet hotspots to ensure his poor internet connection didnt falter and affect the exam-proctoring software he was required to run.

"When this is all over and I look back at this moment, I will not hold any regret. I would just be proud of myself that I coped with the situation," said Mohammad, 22, during a call amid a study break around 3 a.m. in Dhaka.

International student hubs at both the U of W and U of M have reported time zones and internet connectivity as the top issues facing their populations doing coursework in other parts of the world this year. Even still, both schools have recorded overall increases in international enrolment  by 11 and six per cent, respectively.

Ashley Dunlop, director of international, immigrant and refugee student services at U of W, said she was pleasantly surprised by the increase, given the pandemic disruptions: "It speaks to how driven these students are to achieve their goals."

Asynchronous courses and compassionate grading are both in place to support students in different time zones, Dunlop added.

In Oman, which is 10 hours ahead of U of M time, Ishaanee Didwania starts her school day around 8:30 p.m. and goes to sleep around 2 a.m.

The 22-year-old student took as many early and asynchronous classes as possible this term. Daylight savings and Omans different weekends (Fridays and Saturdays) have proven challenging, she said, but shes now in a rhythm.

"I do sometimes feel Im missing out because Im missing out on live lectures and cant participate in discussion questions," she said from Oman, "but at least I can still get an education."

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie
[March 09, 2021] Abnormal Security Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021

Abnormal Security today announced its placement on Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021 for its breakthrough cloud-native email security platform that stops modern email attacks through behavioral data science. The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. Abnormal Security's innovative, data science approach to stopping the world's most sophisticated email attacks earned the company the No. 10 spot in the security category. Email has long been the primary communication channel for business and amidst the world's massive shift to remote and hybrid work, it also maintains its position as one of the most attractive attack vectors for threat actors. According to the FBI, Business Email Compromise (BEC) is the greatest single cause in financial losses due to cybercrime - more than $26B in lost revenue. BEC attacks are hyper-targeted, socially- engineered and text-based, often sent from compromised employee or vendor email accounts. Legacy secure email gateways (SEGs) miss BEC attacks because they lack the typical threat intelligence signals, such as bad reputation, suspicious links or malicious attachments. According to Abnormal Security research, more than 70 percent of business email cmpromise attacks were not initially blocked by SEG solutions.



Abnormal Security delivers a fundamentally different approach to stopping novel, sophisticated email attacks that were previously undetectable. Through one-click API integration with Microsoft (News - Alert) 365 and Google Workspace, the Abnormal platform uniquely leverages behavioral data science to profile and baseline good behavior to detect anomalies and compromised accounts, and stop targeted email attacks. The Abnormal AI threat detection engine models the identity of both employees and external senders, creates relationship graphs, and analyzes email content to effectively stop targeted socially-engineered attacks. "At Abnormal, we are using AI to reinvent email security and stop the costliest and most advanced email attacks," said Evan Reiser, CEO and co-founder of Abnormal Security. "Our API-based integration provides access to 10x more data than other solutions and makes our AI threat detection engine the most effective at recognizing abnormal behavior, which is more important than memorizing threat intelligence for stopping BEC attacks. Our inclusion on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies list is a tremendous honor that validates our commitment to helping our customers solve their most challenging cybersecurity threats."

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley. To learn more about the Abnormal Security Email Security Platform, please visit: https://abnormalsecurity.com/product/. About Abnormal Security Abnormal Security provides the leading cloud-native email security platform that leverages behavioral data science to stop modern email attacks. Unlike legacy email security solutions, the Abnormal Security platform uses an innovative AI-based approach that deeply understands the people, relationships and business processes to stop the most sophisticated cyber-attacks. Abnormal Security is based in San Francisco, CA (News - Alert) . More information is available at abnormalsecurity.com. About Fast Company Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005644/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
NORWOOD, Ohio  A 34-year-old man has died while saving his teenaged son from a house fire in southwest Ohio, according to reports.

Curtis Seed died in the early-morning fire Saturday, WLWT Channel 5 reports. Seeds son was seriously injured in the fire but has been moved out of the hospitals intensive care unit, Local 12 reports.

Its just  its going to be a hard thing, but their daddy died being a hero, saving his son, Jade Dean, Seeds girlfriend, tells Local 12. So I cant be anything more than grateful that if he had one dying wish it would be that his kids would be OK and taken care of and he saved his son.

Dean is expecting a child fathered by Seed, Local 12 reports. Seed also is survived by two sons.

WCPO Channel 9 reports the fire was reported at 3 a.m. Saturday. Firefighters were met outside the home by Seeds teen son, who told them his father was still inside the house. Norwood Fire Chief Thomas McCabe tells WCPO that firefighters tried to get into the house, but were pushed back by flames. A firefighter did suffer minor injuries, WCPO reports.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Its rough, Seeds brother, Chad Seed, tells Local 12. Hes my baby brother. Its been a privilege growing up with him.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Parchment, the industry leader in academic credentials management, announced it has launched Parchment Award - CLR Services, the first product that lets higher education institutions design, implement, and issue Comprehensive Learner Records (CLRs). Parchment CLR Services allows learners to better tell their story to employers in a secure, verifiable way, by expanding an institution's ability to share learner growth and capabilities developed in ways that a traditional transcript can't.

For years, one of the most active conversations about innovation in higher education has been around extending the traditional academic transcript to better convey the learning that happens both inside and outside of the classroom, as well as the skills and competencies developed through learning. Institutions have struggled with the fact that the traditional course and grade format does not have the ability to holistically represent a learner's education for self-reflection, to allow a learner to tell their own story, or for employers to understand workforce ready skills developed during a learner's academic career. In 2016, Elon University conducted a survey to employers and graduate school admissions officers to assess their perceptions of a visual transcript that they had launched the year before. 81.7 percent of respondents said that the visual transcript was easy to understand, 78.9 percent indicated that it painted a different picture of the applicant, and 80.9 percent indicated that it differentiated an Elon applicant from other applicants. At a time where the relevance of higher education is being challenged, CLRs can show the true value of the skills a learner attains during their time at an institution.

In the fall of 2019, Parchment launched a CLR Services Charter Member program to build a CLR technology with leaders in higher education who had prioritized improving learner success through innovating a new credential that the institution can stand behind with the same level of integrity as the traditional transcript. The Charter Members represent a diverse set of student populations, and are made up of the following institutions:

Elon University

Loma Linda University

Penn Foster College

Temple University

University of Maryland Global Campus

This technology is the core of Parchment's CLR Services and allows learners to showcase their in and out of classroom learning, co-curricular engagements, skills, and competencies, while leveraging Parchment's expertise in allowing learners to access, manage, and share their digital credentials.

"Ideally, we wanted our CLR to tell a story that exemplifies our learners' success, illuminates their interests, and fully reflects their cumulative college experience," Bhavesh Bambhrolia, University Registrar at Temple University said.

Parchment Award - CLR Services was built to fit the diverse needs of academic institutions in a consistent way, by aligning institutional data into four types of standardized modules:

Co-curricular records which validate activities, programs, and learning experiences that compliment the learner curriculum

which validate activities, programs, and learning experiences that compliment the learner curriculum Experiential records that certify experiences and accomplishments outside the classroom

that certify experiences and accomplishments outside the classroom Competency records that translate courses and credits into market-relevant skills

that translate courses and credits into market-relevant skills Program data which documents learners progress through their academic curriculum

Parchment CLR Services create beautiful visual transcripts which simplify and contextualize these kinds of data for learners, employers, graduate schools, and other stakeholders.

"Our CLR Services modules offer consistency across institutions so that a learner's accomplishments can be easily interpreted by receiving employers, institutions, and state agencies," said Jason Weaver, VP of Product at Parchment. "Our Charter Member program ensured that we were building a product that not only fit a broad set of institutions' goals, but also would meet the needs of their learners and employers."

As part of the Parchment Award platform, CLRs can be issued on the same easy-to-use interface as their transcripts, diplomas, digital badges, and other learner credentials. Additionally, Parchment Award lets learners store, view, and share their CLRs in their Parchment Learner Profile as well as order verified copies of their credentials for digital and paper delivery.

"Working with Parchment on CLRs was a natural fit for us," said Insiya Bream, Assistant Vice President, Data & Systems, University of Maryland Global Campus. "Our students can now see all of their transcripts, diplomas, and CLRs in one place and that student experience is important to us."

"When students are asked about their academic and co-curricular experiences from a potential employer, CLRs allow them to relay the details of how those experiences transition into skill sets in the workforce," Dr. Rodney Parks, University Registrar, Assistant Vice President and Assistant Professor, Elon University said. "It is fundamental to helping students tell their story in a way that employers can understand and that they have the ability to be successful. Parchment is helping us do that."

Parchment and AACRAO are hosting a webinar on March 11, 2021 at 9am PT/11 am CT/12 pm ET that showcases how institutions are implementing CLRs through Parchment CLR Services today. For more information or to register for this event, visit the AACRAO Webinars page .

Parchment CLR Services is available today. For more information, please visit parchment.com/products/CLRServices .

About Parchment

Parchment believes credentials matter in the lifelong journey of a learner. Offering the most comprehensive academic credential management system, Parchment helps learners, academic institutions and employers request, verify and share transcripts, diplomas, and other credentials in simple and secure ways. Our platform has helped millions of learners, 2,490 districts, 1,690 university registrar offices, 10 state education agencies, and 7,325 receivers (including university admissions offices, background check companies, employers, college application services, OPMs, and certification and licensing boards) exchange more than 100 million transcripts, diplomas, certificates and other credentials globally. Founded in 2003, Parchment is headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ, with offices in California and Illinois. We help turn credentials into opportunities. Follow Parchment on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

SOURCE Parchment

Related Links

https://www.parchment.com


DUBLIN, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Ship Building and Repairing Global Market Report 2021: COVID-19 Impact and Recovery to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report provides strategists, marketers and senior management with the critical information they need to assess the global ship building and repairing market as it emerges from the COVID-19 shut down.

The global ship building and repairing market is expected to grow from $178.14 billion in 2020 to $190.47 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.9%. The growth is mainly due to the companies rearranging their operations and recovering from the COVID-19 impact, which had earlier led to restrictive containment measures involving social distancing, remote working, and the closure of commercial activities that resulted in operational challenges. The market is expected to reach $225.64 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 4%.



Reasons to Purchase

Gain a truly global perspective with the most comprehensive report available on this market covering 50+ geographies.

Understand how the market is being affected by the coronavirus and how it is likely to emerge and grow as the impact of the virus abates.

Create regional and country strategies on the basis of local data and analysis.

Identify growth segments for investment.

Outperform competitors using forecast data and the drivers and trends shaping the market.

Understand customers based on the latest market research findings.

Benchmark performance against key competitors.

Utilize the relationships between key data sets for superior strategizing.

Suitable for supporting your internal and external presentations with reliable high quality data and analysis

Description:



Where is the largest and fastest growing market for the ship building and repairing? How does the market relate to the overall economy, demography and other similar markets? What forces will shape the market going forward? The Ship Building and Repairing market global report answers all these questions and many more.



The report covers market characteristics, size and growth, segmentation, regional and country breakdowns, competitive landscape, market shares, trends and strategies for this market. It traces the market's historic and forecast market growth by geography. It places the market within the context of the wider ship building and repairing market, and compares it with other markets.

The market characteristics section of the report defines and explains the market.

The market size section gives the market size ($b) covering both the historic growth of the market, the impact of the COVID-19 virus and forecasting its recovery.

Market segmentations break down market into sub markets.

The regional and country breakdowns section gives an analysis of the market in each geography and the size of the market by geography and compares their historic and forecast growth. It covers the impact and recovery trajectory of COVID-19 for all regions, key developed countries and major emerging markets.

Competitive landscape gives a description of the competitive nature of the market, market shares, and a description of the leading companies. Key financial deals which have shaped the market in recent years are identified.

The trends and strategies section analyses the shape of the market as it emerges from the crisis and suggests how companies can grow as the market recovers.

The ship building and repairing market section of the report gives context. It compares the ship building and repairing market with other segments of the ship and boat building and repairing market by size and growth, historic and forecast. It analyses GDP proportion, expenditure per capita, ship building and repairing indicators comparison.

Major companies in the ship building and repairing market include Hyundai Heavy Industries; Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd; Samsung Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.



The ship building and repairing market consists of sales of ships and ship building and repairing services and related services by entities (organizations, sole traders and partnerships) that operate shipyards. Shipyards are fixed facilities with drydocks and fabrication equipment capable of building a ship, defined as watercraft typically suitable or intended for other than personal or recreational use. The activities of shipyards include the construction of ships, their repair, conversion and alteration, the production of prefabricated ship and barge sections, and specialized services, such as ship scaling. The ship building and repairing market is segmented into ship building and ship repairing.



Asia Pacific was the largest region in the global ship building and repairing market, accounting for 52% of the market in 2020. Western Europe was the second largest region accounting for 19% of the global ship building and repairing market. Africa was the smallest region in the global ship building and repairing market.



Shipbuilding companies around the world are increasingly using green shipbuilding technologies to comply with environmental rules and regulations. Technologies being used for shipbuilding include ships with no ballast systems that block organisms entering the ship and eliminate the need for sterilization equipment, sulphur scrubber systems, waste heat recovery systems, speed nozzles, exhaust gas recirculation systems, advanced rudder and propeller systems, fuel and solar cell propulsion systems and use of LNG fuels for propulsion and auxiliary engines. Ships built using these technologies have significant energy savings and low carbon emissions. For instance, Peace Boat, a Japanese non-profit NGO has entered into an agreement with Finnish shipbuilding company Arctech Helsinki Shipyard for the construction of Ecoship, the world's greenest cruise vessel. Dean Shipyards Group is also coordinating a green LeanShips project aimed at creating fewer polluting vessels.



The outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has acted as a massive restraint on the ship building and repairing market in 2020 as supply chains were disrupted due to trade restrictions and consumption declined due to lockdowns imposed by governments globally. COVID 19 is an infectious disease with flu-like symptoms including fever, cough, and difficulty in breathing. The virus was first identified in 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province of the People's Republic of China and spread globally including Western Europe, North America and Asia. Transportation manufacturers depend heavily on supply of parts and components from different countries across the globe. As many governments restricted the movement of goods across countries, manufacturers had to halt production due to lack of parts and components. Also, sales of new automobiles decreased significantly due to decline in consumer demand as many countries impose lockdowns. The outbreak is expected to continue to have a negative impact on businesses throughout 2020 and into 2021. However, it is expected that the ship building and repairing market will recover from the shock across the forecast period as it is a 'black swan' event and not related to ongoing or fundamental weaknesses in the market or the global economy.



The ship building and repairing market is aided by stable economic growth forecasted in many developed and developing countries. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the global GDP growth will be 3.3% in 2020 and 3.4% in 2021. Recovering commodity prices, after a significant decline in the historic period is further expected to aid the market growth. Developed economies are also expected to register stable growth during the forecast period. Additionally, emerging markets are expected to continue to grow slightly faster than the developed markets in the forecast period. Stable economic growth is expected to increase investments in the end user markets, thereby driving the market during forecast period.



Key Topics Covered:



1. Executive Summary



2. Report Structure



3. Ship Building and Repairing Market Characteristics

3.1. Market Definition

3.2. Key Segmentations



4. Ship Building and Repairing Market Product Analysis

4.1. Leading Products/ Services

4.2. Key Features and Differentiators

4.3. Development Products



5. Ship Building and Repairing Market Supply Chain

5.1. Supply Chain

5.2. Distribution

5.3. End Customers



6. Ship Building and Repairing Market Customer Information

6.1. Customer Preferences

6.2. End Use Market Size and Growth



7. Ship Building and Repairing Market Trends and Strategies



8. Impact of COVID-19 on Ship Building and Repairing



9. Ship Building and Repairing Market Size and Growth

9.1. Market Size

9.2. Historic Market Growth, Value ($ Billion)

9.2.1. Drivers of the Market

9.2.2. Restraints on the Market

9.3. Forecast Market Growth, Value ($ Billion)

9.3.1. Drivers of the Market

9.3.2. Restraints on the Market



10. Ship Building and Repairing Market Regional Analysis

10.1. Global Ship Building and Repairing Market, 2020, by Region, Value ($ Billion)

10.2. Global Ship Building and Repairing Market, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F, Historic and Forecast, by Region

10.3. Global Ship Building and Repairing Market, Growth and Market Share Comparison, by Region



11. Ship Building and Repairing Market Segmentation

11.1. Global Ship Building and Repairing Market, Segmentation by Type

12. Ship Building and Repairing Market Metrics

12.1. Ship Building and Repairing Market Size, Percentage of GDP, 2015-2025, Global

12.2. Per Capita Average Ship Building and Repairing Market Expenditure, 2015-2025, Global



13. Asia-Pacific Ship Building and Repairing Market

14. Western Europe Ship Building and Repairing Market



15. Eastern Europe Ship Building and Repairing Market



16. North America Ship Building and Repairing Market



17. South America Ship Building and Repairing Market



18. Middle East Ship Building and Repairing Market



19. Africa Ship Building and Repairing Market

20. Ship Building and Repairing Market Competitive Landscape

20.1. Competitive Market Overview

20.2. Market Shares

20.3. Company Profiles

20.3.1. Hyundai Heavy Industries

20.3.1.1. Company Overview

20.3.1.2. Products and Services

20.3.1.3. Strategy

20.3.1.4. Financial Performance

20.3.2. Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd

20.3.2.1. Company Overview

20.3.2.2. Products and Services

20.3.2.3. Strategy

20.3.2.4. Financial Performance

20.3.3. Samsung Heavy Industries

20.3.3.1. Company Overview

20.3.3.2. Products and Services

20.3.3.3. Strategy

20.3.3.4. Financial Performance

20.3.4. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

20.3.4.1. Company Overview

20.3.4.2. Products and Services

20.3.4.3. Strategy

20.3.4.4. Financial Performance



21. Key Mergers and Acquisitions in the Ship Building and Repairing Market



22. Market Background: Ship and Boat Building and Repairing Market

22.1. Ship and Boat Building and Repairing Market Characteristics

22.2. Ship and Boat Building and Repairing Market Historic and Forecast, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F Growth, by Segment, Value ($ Billion), Global

22.3. Global Ship and Boat Building and Repairing Market, 2020, by Region, Value ($ Billion)

22.4. Global Ship and Boat Building and Repairing Market, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F, Historic and Forecast, by Region

22.5. Global Ship and Boat Building and Repairing Market, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F, Segmentation by Type, Value ($ Billion)



23. Recommendations

23.1. Global Ship Building and Repairing Market in 2025 - Growth Countries

23.2. Global Ship Building and Repairing Market in 2025 - Growth Segments

23.3. Global Ship Building and Repairing Market in 2025 - Growth Strategies



24. Appendix

24.1. NAICS Definitions of Industry Covered in this Report

24.2. Abbreviations

24.3. Currencies

24.4. Research Inquiries

24.5. About the Publisher



25. Copyright and Disclaimer



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qg24g8

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com






The unification ministry on Tuesday announced finalized guidelines on a legislated ban on sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea in an effort to ensure better interpretation of the law.







The amendment to the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act, set to take effect later this month, has raised concerns that it could hurt freedom of expression and undercut efforts to send information into the reclusive North.







Concerns have also been raised that the law could prohibit the sending of leaflets or other items to the North from a third country, such as China, which the ministry has denied.







"To clarify the definition, the guidelines announced today serve to stipulate that the law applies to cases in which items are sent from South Korea to North Korea," a ministry official said.







"That is from the southern side of the military demarcation line to the northern side, and the law does not apply to cases in which items are sent to the North from a third country," the official added.







The ministry finalized the guidelines after receiving public opinions since it was drafted in January.







The law prohibits the launching of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, with violators subject to a maximum prison term of three years or a fine of 30 million won (US$27,400). (Yonhap)


VMware Evolves Developer and AI-Ready Infrastructure to Advance Digital Business

VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today announced portfolio updates to help customers modernize their applications and infrastructure. The new releases of vSphere 7 and vSAN 7 will help IT teams support new and existing applications with infrastructure that is developer and AI-ready; scales without compromise; boosts infrastructure and data security; and simplifies operations.

"Infrastructure owners are racing to support exciting new containerized applications, such as advanced AI workloads, without compromising security," said Lee Caswell, vice president, marketing, Cloud Platform Business Unit, VMware. "VMware is helping vSphere admins expand their influence beyond traditional virtualized applications to new enterprise AI environments through our partnership with NVIDIA, to high-capacity HCI use cases with HCI Mesh from vSAN, and to security-sensitive containerized workloads that can benefit from the SEV-ES security feature in AMD (News - Alert) EPYC processors. These new capabilities allow infrastructure to seamlessly meet the rapid pace of application change."

Delivering Developer- and AI-Ready Infrastructure to Advance Digital Business

Today, VMware is announcing the next step in the collaboration with NVIDIA to deliver an AI-Ready Enterprise platform (read partnership announcement from VMworld 2020) that combines the industry-leading compute virtualization software of VMware vSphere and the innovation of NVIDIA AI Enterprise suite. Updates to the AI-Ready Enterprise platform include:

NVIDIA has exclusively certified the new VMware vSphere 7 Update 2 release for NVIDIA AI Enterprise suite, a cloud-native collection of optimized AI applications and frameworks, for an end-to-end AI solution;

vSphere 7 Update 2 introduces support for the NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs in NVIDIA-Certified Systems TM . This, with NVIDIA AI Enterprise, enables customers to fold-in an end-to-end AI solution with confidence on their existing enterprise virtualization platform, instead of running AI projects in separate unmanageable IT silos; and,

. This, with NVIDIA AI Enterprise, enables customers to fold-in an end-to-end AI solution with confidence on their existing enterprise virtualization platform, instead of running AI projects in separate unmanageable IT silos; and, Customers are also able to incorporate the latest generation of NVIDIA GPUs into their virtual environment and take advantage of features like Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) allowing GPU cycles to be shared across multiple users; vSphere vMotion to provide live migration for non-disruptive operations; and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) for automatic initial workload placement to avoid performance bottlenecks.

"NVIDIA AI Enterprise is a software suite optimized, certified and supported on VMware vSphere that enables customers to rapidly deploy, manage and scale AI in production with confidence," said Justin Boitano, vice president and general manager of Enterprise and Edge Computing, NVIDIA. "Through NVIDIA's collaboration with VMware, IT professionals can now support business teams with the industry's most trusted AI tools across their hybrid cloud infrastructure."

"AI plays an increasingly important role in the data-driven services Optum provides for United Healthcare," said Justin Potuznik Sr. Principal Engineer, Optum Technology. "With NVIDIA's AI Enterprise software and infrastructure running on our VMware vSphere environment, we'll be able to power our modern application workloads and efficiently deploy AI at enterprise scale."

In September 2020, VMware introduced vSphere with Tanzu to deliver Kubernetes to the fingertips of millions of IT admins across the globe. Today's update delivers a faster, more scalable and secure application experience by including VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials as part of vSphere with Tanzu. This provides customers with VMware supported L4 load balancing for Kubernetes clusters with Kubernetes native automation and seamless upgrade path to the full capabilities of the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Enterprise Edition. To help customers stay current with Kubernetes, vSphere with Tanzu includes a refreshed Supervisor with the Kubernetes 1.19 release featuring critical enhancements to simplify upgrades and leads to more predictability and stability overall. Customers can purchase any of the VMware Tanzu editions as an add-on to vSphere entitling them to run Kubernetes as part of their vSphere environment.

In February 2021, VMware announced the general availability of Cloudian HyperStore and MinIO Object Storage on the vSAN Data Persistence platform. This allows customers to efficiently deploy and consume S3-compatible object stores for their AI/ML and cloud native applications right from the ubiquitous hybrid cloud platform of VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu.

Scale with Greater Efficiency with Enhanced HCI Mesh

With more than 30,000 customers, VMware vSAN reduces the cost and complexity of traditional storage and provides the simplest path to the hybrid cloud. Today, vSAN 7 Update 2 delivers enhanced HCI Mesh, which builds upon the unique software-based approach for disaggregation of compute and storage resources initially released in vSAN 7 Update 1. This new release addresses a broader set of customer use cases, particularly for customers looking to increase resource efficiency beyond their existing vSAN environment. It enables compute clusters, or non-HCI clusters, to remotely use storage from a vSAN cluster within the data center, allowing customers to scale compute and storage independently to meet dynamic application needs while still benefiting from the operational simplicity of VMware HCI. The initial release of HCI Mesh enabled multiple independent vSAN clusters to share capacity within the data center, which enables utilization of excess resources, provides HCI management simplicity at scale, and allows flexible scaling of vSAN storage.







vSAN 7 Update 2 also introduces new capabilities to better support various physical topologies. This includes integrated DRS awareness of stretched cluster configurations for more consistent performance in failback as well as vSAN file services support for stretched clusters and 2-node clusters.

"Sufficient data capacity and performance scaling are critical to ensuring smooth aircraft operation during the production process," said Pavel Struhar, CIO of Aircraft Industries. "VMware vSphere and vSAN offer efficient data storage for all key production systems and provide us with the data security we require. In addition, HCI Mesh allows us to scale across VMware environments with greater flexibility of operation and to respond flexibly and quickly to growing performance requirements."

In addition, VMware continues to deliver capabilities that drive better performance of vSAN, including vSAN over Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) and enhancement to RAID 5/6 erasure coding that improve CPU utilization and app performance for certain workloads.

"Amway uses vSAN 7 to provide storage in diverse and demanding environments including our VDI and Oracle RAC clusters," said Jason Montgomery, Sr. Systems Engineer, Amway Corp. "vSAN and vSphere underly this entire HCI environment. We anticipate that this Amway Private Cloud 2.0 platform will update to vSAN 7 Update 2 in the March/April timeframe and we look forward to exploring how vSAN over RDMA and other new capabilities can be used to enhance performance and resource utilization."

Boosting Infrastructure and Data Security

To help improve the overall security posture for container-based applications, vSphere 7 Update 2 introduces Confidential Containers for vSphere Pods on AMD EPYC processor based servers using Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State (SEV-ES). For traditional VM environments, vSphere 7 Update 2 now includes vSphere Native Key Provider, which delivers basic key management server (KMS) capabilities making it much easier for customers to enable encryption and advanced security features out of the box. Additionally, vSphere 7 Update 2 includes FIPS validation of VMware vCenter Server services as well as updated vSphere Product Audit Guides to make it easier for customers to meet regulatory requirements and complete audits.

"We use vSphere 7 to provide compute infrastructure to a group of users in a Manchester [UK] city center office and the install experience on our new hardware was seamless," said Steve Lester, Senior Technical Engineer at Co-op, one of the world's largest consumer co-operatives. "In previous versions, I've had to run some pretty large VMs and it gave us sufficient capacity for all our operational needs in our insurance business. It's comforting to know the scale you can go to, should you need to. Beyond scale, we're intrigued by the out of the box encryption and advanced security features in the latest vSphere release."

In addition, vSAN 7 Update 2 includes FIPS 140-2 validation of the cryptographic module for data-in-transit encryption to meet strict government requirements.

Simplified Customer Operations

New VMware vSphere 7 Update 2 and VMware vSAN 7 Update 2 features and enhancements enable customers to simplify their operations. The latest vSphere Lifecycle Manager now supports desired image seeding as well as lifecycle management of vSphere with Tanzu clusters. This includes updating vSphere with Tanzu (including the NSX-T networking and Kubernetes layers) in a non-disruptive fashion. The lifecycle manager also introduces support for select Hitachi (News - Alert) Vantara UCP servers. This latest vSphere release also introduces ESXi suspend to memory, to reduce upgrade times and maintenance windows. Moreover, vSphere High Availability is now persistent memory (PMEM)-aware-further improving availability for PMEM-based workloads such as SAP (News - Alert) HANA.

Additionally, vSAN 7 Update 2 now supports vSphere Proactive High Availability, where the application state and any potential data stored can be proactively migrated to another host, helping to avoid data loss on degraded hardware and offering better availability for workloads. The new release now includes enhanced data durability that results in less downtime and data loss for unplanned outages such as multiple disk failures. vSAN 7 Update 2 also provides customers with more powerful tools to rapidly identify root causes of issues and ways to remediate.

Supporting Partner Quotes

"Dell Technologies is focused on helping customers harness the power of AI by providing solutions that make it easier to adopt and use," said Caitlin Gordon, vice president, product management, Dell Technologies Infrastructure Solutions. "Today's news certifying NVIDIA AI Enterprise with VMware vSphere supports our efforts with both companies to provide NVIDIA A100-powered Dell systems that enable customers to benefit from AI anywhere, with continuous insights at scale, to help reach their business goals."

"Hitachi Vantara seeks out new scale-out architectures that increases the pace of innovation and drives operational efficiency," said Colin Gallagher, Vice President, Product Marketing, Hitachi Vantara. "We're excited about the announcement on VMware HCI Mesh and vSphere Lifecycle Manager support for Hitachi Vantara Unified Compute Platform HC and Unified Compute Platform RS solutions, which will allow our customers to deliver infrastructure resources that be dynamically scaled and easily lifecycle managed."

HPE: "With the rise of AI deployments, infrastructure is the workhorse to power these applications. HPE offers a range of trusted infrastructure solutions to optimize applications that require the performance and scale to support data and image-intensive needs that come with AI and machine learning capabilities," said Krista Satterthwaite, vice president and general manager, Mainstream Compute, Compute Business Group, HPE. "By collaborating with VMware and NVIDIA, we are combining our high-performing server platforms with certified NVIDIA AI Enterprise software for VMware vSphere, to allow customers to power next-generation AI solutions and unlock deeper insights to solve some of the world's greatest challenges.

"Today's announcements set the stage for increased enterprise adoption of both AI applications and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI)," said Kamran Amini, Vice President and General Manager of Server, Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure, Lenovo (News - Alert) . "We're able to help customers accelerate their AI initiatives with NVIDIA's AI Enterprise software suite and vSphere 7 Update 2 on Lenovo's portfolio of AI-Ready ThinkSystem servers from the edge to the data center. Additionally, the enhancements to VMware HCI Mesh running on the Lenovo ThinkAgile VX portfolio enable customers to get more out of their storage and compute investments. Together with VMware, Lenovo is poised to help enterprises modernize their applications and infrastructure."

Product Availability

VMware vSphere 7 Update 2 and VMware vSAN 7 Update 2 are available today.

Additional Resources

About VMware

VMware software powers the world's complex digital infrastructure. The company's cloud, app modernization, networking, security, and digital workspace offerings help customers deliver any application on any cloud across any device. Headquartered in Palo Alto (News - Alert) , California, VMware is committed to being a force for good, from its breakthrough technology innovations to its global impact. For more information, please visit https://www.vmware.com/company.html.

VMware, vSphere, vSAN, NSX, Tanzu, vCenter, and ESXi are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions.

This article may contain hyperlinks to non-VMware websites that are created and maintained by third parties who are solely responsible for the content on such websites.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005358/en/
New Delhi, March 9 : While attention may be focussed on the protagonists in the upcoming assembly elections in five states, it is the cameo actors who may be emerging as the X-factor to decide the results.

WEST BENGAL

Yashwant Deshmukh, Founder C Voter said the X factor in West Bengal will be the entry of influential cleric Abbas Siddiqui's new party, the Indian Secular Front -- into the electoral fray.

Deshmukh said if the alliance gets successful in poaching on the Muslim votes of Mamata Banerjee it can ruin her prospects of retaining the state. If the Muslim religious leader and his party gets successful in poaching on the Muslim votes of Mamta Banerjee it can ruin her prospects of retaining the state. Also, if the entry of ISF into the electoral battle leads to polarisation of Hindu voters, it can significantly benefit the BJP, he added.

As per the C Voter - Times Now survey findings for 2021 assembly polls, West Bengal is expected to observe a keen contest in the upcoming Assembly elections.

The survey shows that incumbent chief minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to score a hat trick as her party is expected to get 42.2% votes. According to survey findings, BJP can make significant inroads in the state in the upcoming Assembly polls. The saffron party has been campaigning aggressively in the state and it is likely to secure 37.5.0% votes.

Notably, the entry of a Muslim front -- comprising the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the influential cleric Abbas Siddiqui's new party, the Indian Secular Front -- into the electoral fray can spell trouble for the Trinamool Congress.

If the alliance gets successful in poaching on the Muslim votes of Mamata Banerjee it can ruin her prospects of retaining the state.

Also, if the entry of ISF into the electoral battle leads to polarisation of Hindu voters, it can significantly benefit the BJP.

ASSAM

Deshmukh said the X factor in Assam is AIUDF contesting elections in alliance with the Congress. While this coalition is likely to get substantial lead in Lower Assam, where there is a significant Muslim population it can lead to Hindu polarisation in favour of BJP in Upper Assam and the party is likely to have a sizable lead in this region, he added.

The CVoter-Times Now survey data indicates a tough contest in Assam in the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state.

As per the survey data, while NDA is likely to corner 42.9% vote share, UPA can secure 40.7% of the votes that will be polled in the Assembly elections.

A regional analysis of potential vote shares indicates a polarized election, the survey data shows Congress -AIUDF combine having a clear lead in Lower Assam, where there is a significant Minority population.

With minority vote gravitating towards Congress-AIUDF alliance, Upper Assam is expected to witness polarisation of Hindu votes, benefiting the BJP and the party is likely to have a sizable lead in this region.

Bodoland is expected to have an interesting contest, if BJP manages that, the party is likely to retain the state. Notably, the absence of Congress stalwart Tarun Gogoi is helping BJP.

TAMIL NADU

This will be the first Assembly election in the state after the death of political stalwarts of Tamil Nadu -- J. Jayalalitha and M. Karunanidhi.

Deshmukh said the DMK has the advantage of grooming MK Stalin, the political heir of M. Karunanidhi, groomed by his late father for 15 years; Stalin has successfully filled the leadership vacuum to a large extent after the demise of DMK patriarch in 2018.

Deshmukh said no such succession has taken place in AIADMK. Political successors of Jayalalitha have struggled to step into Jayalalitha's shoes. This leadership crisis in AIADMK could be a decisive factor in the electoral results going in favour of DMK, he added.

Deshmukh said for the DMK-Congress alliance, this time Stalin adopted an aggressive stand in the seat sharing formula with its coalition partner. Stalin has agreed to give just 25 seats to the Congress, much according to its political weight in the state politics. In 2016, Congress had got 41 seats in the seat sharing formula. It seems that DMK has learned from the Rashtriya Janata Dal's experience in Bihar A combination of 10 year anti-incumbency and absence of a charismatic successor to J. Jayalalitha is leading to a electoral setback for the ruling AIADMK. Historically Tamil Nadu has alternated between DMK and AIADMK, however in 2016 it bucked the trend and re-elected AIADMK. The surprise win heralded a generational change in the state's politics as both parties lost their top leadership between 2016-21.

In addition to leadership troubles AIADMK is also hobbled by dissension within ranks and loss of allies. The Sasikala faction and AMMK going away will dent AIADMK's electoral prospects.

The survey found that the BJP has been an insignificant player in Tamil Nadu and the scenario is likely to continue for this electoral cycle. The party may notch a respectable vote share but it is overall likely to remain a marginal player in the state polity.

Tamil Nadu is unlikely to repeat electoral history by introducing new actors into the mix. Film actor Rajinikanth has been a non-starter in state politics. He never got more than 5% of approval rating in Tamil Nadu politics. Another film star Kamal Haasan is also likely to remain an insignificant political player in the state.

Notably, smaller parties remain irrelevant in Tamil Nadu politics till they join either of the two main alliances in the state. Therefore a surprise performance from unaligned smaller parties is unlikely, as per the survey.

KERALA

Deshmukh said a notable trend is regarding the shift of Christian votes. The left front in Kerala has made a smart move of bringing Kerala Congress (M) in the alliance as the party has a significant base among the Christian voters in the state. KC(M) joining forces with the Left Front has benefitted the alliance and it was evident in the recently held local body elections. Importantly, swing of Christian voters towards LDF will be a key factor if the alliance returns to power in the state.

Kerala is all set to reelect the ruling LDF and thus buck the trend of defeating the incumbent every electoral cycle. According to the data the electoral race is tight and by no means one sided. Despite a close race LDF has an edge due to the Chief Minister's popularity and changes to the social coalitions underlying both primary alliances.

Incumbent Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan enjoys high popularity ratings due to a perceived deft handling of Covid-19 pandemic. According to the data, voters consider his performance as one that met their expectations during an unprecedented crisis. This is imparting a much needed electoral edge to the LDF that is locked in a tight race with Congress led UDF.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic the Chief Minister and his ruling alliance had a negative net approval rating. This was well reflected in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections tally as the coalition managed to win just 1 of Lok Sabha seats in the state. Chief Minister Vijayan turned the crisis into an opportunity in addition to some deft political positioning.

In terms of underlying social coalitions of both major alliances there are notable trends. Hindu voters are migrating towards the BJP. The key however is to understand the source of this migration. Earlier, whenever there was a rise in the vote share of BJP it was mainly because of Hindu voters of Congress moving to the saffron party. Interestingly, now, this swing of Hindu voters in favour of BJP is taking place from the CPI(M) block.

The survey found that Rahul Gandhi's southern gambit is getting lost in translation. His shift of base was meant to herald a change in strategy for the Congress. The aim was to crystallize Congress's perceived advantage in South India and rally the electorate along the North-South divide. Instead of getting the advantage, Gandhi's move to contest Lok Sabha elections from Wayanad has branded Congress as a pro Muslim party and led to anti-Muslim polarisation in the state. Local and national media assessed that Rahul decided to contest from Wayanad because the constituency has a significant Muslim voters. This branding of Congress as pro Muslim party has been one of the major factors for the shift in Christian voters to the LDF camp.

As for BJP, the party has been unable to take off in Kerala. BJP has not been able to emerge as an alternative in the state. Public perception is that BJP has not been to secure the winnable social coalition yet.

PUDUCHERRY

Congress is likely to lose its southern toehold of Puducherry due to anti-incumbency. The sentiment is attributable to unpopularity of the government and the Chief Minister in particular.

Deshmukh said the outgoing Chief Minister V. Narayanaswamy's popularity is lower than the ones of other outgoing Chief Ministers at the end of their respective terms. Clearly, the collapse of his government has not generated any sympathy for him. On the contrary the government's collapse may be the result of astute politicians reading the tea leaves.

Deshmukh said conventionally observers have believed that Tamil Nadhu and Puducherry elections are correlated i.e. the same parties or alliances win both in an electoral cycle. However this conventional wisdom stood belied in last assembly elections when AIADMK under the leadership of Jayalalitha won in Tamil Nadu and the Congress formed the government in Puducherry. Therefore it would be erroneous to assume that DMK and its partners winning Tamil Nadu would ensure a similar electoral outcome in Puducherry.

A loss for Congress does not automatically translate into a decisive win for some other formation. As things stand AIADMK, BJP and All All-India NR Congress are yet to strike a coherent alliance. There is confusion and complete silence in the camp as far as alliance formation is concerned and this can hurt its prospects to garner a majority in the electoral results. Confusion over alliance formation persists as there is no concrete announcement on the issue.

If BJP, AIADMK and All-India NR Congress contest separately there will be a vertical split in the vote share, Congress-DMK combine will return to power. The data therefore indicates that upcoming assembly polls will be a battle of alliances. The alliance with better coordination, ground level cohesion and agility may win the day.

On the other hand, it is expected that the Congress and DMK will soon finalise the alliance and announce the seat sharing formula, however, if they contest elections separately, it will be a cakewalk for the BJP-AIADMK- All-India NR Congress combine, provided the camp strikes an alliance.

Notably, Puducherry is the only Assembly that Congress has been holding on among the five states going to polls, if the party loses elections here, it will carry a strong political message for the party and its leadership. Rahul Gandhi did not visit Puducherry even once during five years of Congress rule here. On the other hand, top BJP leaders have been regularly visiting Puducherry every year.

(Sanjeev Sharma can be reached at sanjeev.s@ians.in)

-- Syndicated from IANS
Serial reality star Keira Maguire has changed up her looks ahead of the launch of her own beauty brand.

The 34-year-old, who has appeared on The Bachelor, Bachelor in Paradise and I'm a Celebrity, has swapped her signature blonde locks for a chocolate brown hairstyle.

She showed off her glamorous transformation on Monday while announcing her new skincare business, Skyn Collective.

New hair, who dis? The Bachelor's Keira Maguire debuted her glamorous transformation while announcing the launch of her own beauty brand on Monday

'I'm very excited to let you know that I am launching my own beauty brand,' she said.

'It's called Skyn Collective. It's pretty much going to be a site where you can purchase all of my favourite skin products and tools.'

The website will officially launch at the end of March.

Keira, who rose to fame on Richie Strahan's season of The Bachelor in 2016, had debuted her fresh haircut and dye job last week.

Before and after: The 34-year-old, who has appeared on The Bachelor, Bachelor in Paradise and I'm a Celebrity, has swapped her signature blonde locks for a chocolate brown hairstyle

Posting to Instagram, Keira revealed her striking new look, and tagged Melbourne-based hairdresser Nicole Igou-Texeira of Edwards and Co.

Her new look was a hit with followers, with I'm a Celebrity host Julia Morris writing: 'We just need to check out everything you are doing because you are amazing.'

Keira was previously known for her platinum blonde hair.

New look: Keira has spent more than $35,000 transforming her appearance over the years, getting a nose job, breast implants and porcelain veneers

While she has mixed it up when it comes to the length of her 'do in the past, she has rarely experimented with the colour.

Keira has spent more than $35,000 transforming her appearance over the years, getting a nose job, breast implants and porcelain veneers.

She also regularly gets Botox and dermal filler.
A recent interview you may have heard about revealed that the British monarchy is a toxic den of backbiting and racism. And who would doubt it? There is nothing easier to believe than that an institution created to be the physical embodiment of classism is awash in inhumanity. Where the public response to this humdrum revelation has gone astray is in the widespread conviction that we should make the monarchy better. Not at all. You cannot turn a bottle of poison into a refreshing drink, no matter how much sugar you pour into it.

A just and proper response to what we have learned would be for the entire United Kingdom to come together, join hands in a great circle around the institution of the monarchy and burn it to the ground, while singing Sweet Caroline, to maintain a positive spirit. Then the members of the royal family can sweep up the ashes and deposit them neatly in the bin, a ceremonial beginning to a new life of working for a living.

The existence of a monarchy is an admission that a government cant, or doesnt care to, solve peoples problems. Instead, it offers spectacle. It has always been easier to elevate one family to a fairy-tale life of luxury than to do the dreary work of elevating every single family to a decent standard of living. The common people fund the lifestyle of a tiny, exalted and thoroughly unworthy elite, rather than the other way around. Any nation that still has a monarchy in 2021 is proving itself to have a mortifying lack of revolutionary gumption.
In 2020, courts across the country upheld the principle that every judicial miscarriage must be corrected, changing original rulings of 1,818 criminal cases after retrials, according to the annual work report of China's top court.

The report was submitted by the Supreme People's Court to the ongoing fourth session of 13th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, for deliberation, on Monday.

The report took a high-profile case involving Zhang Yuhuan as an example.

Zhang, a native of Jiangxi province, had his name cleared in August after the Jiangxi High People's Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence for his intentional homicide conviction after a retrial. Before that, he had been detained for about 27 years.

According to the report, a total of 1,040 people were announced not guilty last year as evidence in their cases could not prove their convictions.

To guarantee defendants' legitimate rights in trials, courts nationwide also offered lawyer-related services 122,000 times last year, the report says.

Additionally, 414,000 defendants with minor offenses were given non-custodial punishments, and 12,000 others were exempt from criminal penalties, according to the report.




George Clooney first gained recognition with an array of guest starring roles on television beginning in the late 1970s, and in horror films in the early 1980s.

But it was his portrayal as Dr. Doug Ross on the hit medical drama series, ER, from 1994 to 1999, that shot him to stardom and set up his wildly successful movie career.

And now, some 22 years after he left the show to focus on his movie career, the two-time Oscar winner revealed his wife Amal just started watching episodes of ER recently, and that his character's reputation as a ladies man has gotten him 'in a lot of trouble.'

New ER fan: George Clooney revealed that his wife Amal has been watching episodes of his hit show ER recently

Clooney opened up about his television career during Monday's episode of the podcast SmartLess with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett.

During their casual conversation he admitted he had done seven television series and 13 pilots during his early career as an actor.

That led to Arnett's disclosure that his ex-wife, Amy Poehler, 'is an absolute ER junkie', and that they watched every episode every night.

'So I got to know you {Clooney} very well on your ER,' he added.

Breakthrough: Clooney shot to stardom during his six season run on ER (1994-1999); the acclaimed actor and director is seen during an episode with co-star Anthony Edwards

The Syriana star shared how he was perfectly content on staying with ER for many years, while pointing out its massive popularity.

'We were getting something like 42 million people to watch the show, and those are numbers that are just unheard of when we had 150 channels,' he said of the series' ratings.

'My wife is watching them now and it's getting me in a lot of trouble,' the 59-year-old said of Amal, 43, before sharing about his character's ladies man reputation.

'I'd forgotten about all of the terrible things I was doing -- picking up on women and all those things.'

When Bateman said it would be funny if Amal started to get starstruck with her husband based on the appeal of Dr. Ross, Clooney said, 'Yeah, that's not my wife,' which got a big laugh from the three hosts.

Love story: Clooney also shared about why he waited until Amal to settle down into the family life: 'The truth was -- I met this amazing woman and she took my breath away'

The hosts followed up by asking Clooney why he hadn't settled down into the family life with a wife and children until Amal.

'The truth was -- I met this amazing woman and she took my breath away. And she was brilliant, funny and beautiful and kind. I was sort of swept off my feet,' he confessed.

'We got engaged after a few months and got married within the first year that we met. That surprised me more than anybody else in the world, and everyone else was pretty surprise.'

He went on to talk about the joys of being a parent to his three-and-a-half-year-old twins -- son Alexander and daughter Ella -- with Amal.

The couple got married in September 2014 in Italy, and was attended by a slew of high-profile people including Matt Damon and wife Luciana, Clooney's business partner Rande Gerber and his wife Cindy Crawford, Ellen Barkin, John Krasinski and wife Emily Blunt, Bono, Anna Wintour, and Bill Murray.
When Hazzards husband, the biographer Francis Steegmuller, remarked that no one should have to read The Transit of Venus for the first time, he might have been referring to its cunning foreshadowing. There is an unnamed dead body on the first page; shortly after, we learn Ted Tice will eventually take his own life. Hazzard seeds clues throughout, along with a trap for the inattentive reader, as she once put it.

Image Shirley Hazzard Credit... Nancy Crampton

Here we feel Hazzards design upon us, her challenge  to read with an intensity matching her prose. Did it ever rain in fiction  really properly rain  before The Transit of Venus? Has the mud streamed in that particularly vivid way, has a character stuffed his sopping cap into his waterlogged pockets, squelched indoors and stood, horribly aware of the smell of his wet socks, the way Ted Tice does, watching his cheap suitcase leak its orange dye all over the floor?

The pleasure this writing affords  its plushness, patient description, etherizing beauty  does not stem from its closeness to life, however. The pleasure Hazzard wants to convey is novelistic and bound up in the act and fact of reading. Hence her love for coincidences, for tellingly significant names (of course, anyone named Hazzard must be granted lenience on this score), for referring to characters by their full names, for patterns. The transit of Venus occurs in pairs; the novel is full of them  two sisters, two ill sons, even two significant watches and two umbrellas. The desire to label Hazzard as a writer concerned with intimacy is strange; she relishes handling her characters as characters, drawing our attention to the way she marches them across the chessboard, repeatedly depicting them as looking out of or being seen through windows, as if to remind us that we too are seeing them through a frame.

The novel is threaded with quotations, scraps of poems. When placid Grace recalls a fleeting flirtation with her sons doctor, the happiness of their afternoons as they pored over the X-rays, she says, It was like Paolo and Francesca. Only when I read the book for the second time (naturally) did the richness of this reference strike me. Paolo and Francesca are the adulterers in Dantes Inferno; they fall in love while reading a love story together about another pair of adulterers  Lancelot and Guinevere. Its a detail that could be relished on its own for its pleasing symmetries, but Hazzard is always leading us further. Pace Joan Didion, its not merely that we tell ourselves stories in order to live; Hazzard shows us that we tell ourselves other peoples stories in order to form our own. She was fond of quoting a line from her friend Graham Greene, that our lives are more influenced by books than people. It is out of books, he wrote in Travels With My Aunt, that one learns about love and pain at second hand.
Prominent Melbourne lawyer Peter Bartlett said he was thanked by the Prime Ministers office for advising Attorney-General Christian Porter over his defence of a rape allegation and told his colleagues the federal government was one of their law firms biggest clients.

The firm, MinterEllison, is divided after its chief executive Annette Kimmitt sent an email last Wednesday to more than 2000 staff suggesting the firm had erred in taking on Mr Porter as a client, saying it had triggered hurt for her and apologising for causing hurt to staff.

MinterEllison chief executive Annette Kimmitt. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Mr Bartlett hit back in an email to staff the same day defending his position, citing the Prime Ministers offices phone call and saying of Scott Morrison and Mr Porter: These are the leaders of one of the firms largest clients.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have confirmed that MinterEllison is working on $93 million of government contracts, and one source within the firm said on condition of anonymity that some in the firm feared the handling of the controversy could threaten the lucrative relationship with the government.
(Natural News) Australias Family Responsibilities Commission found that children in Queensland skipped school to gamble with money from welfare checks.

In its annual report for the year 2019 to 2020, which was tabled in Queenslands parliament last month, the commission said that indigenous children in Aurukun in the states north engaged in gambling circles, sometimes with the encouragement of adults. Others also conducted their own gambling activities using large sums of money in the pot.

The commission attributed the rise in child gambling to restricted activity and movements due to the coronavirus pandemic, on top of an increase in welfare payments.

Lockdowns worsen child gambling

Family Responsibilities Commission (FRC) Commissioner Tammy Williams raised concerns about gambling to the commissions board after hearing reports in June last year.

Gambling was impacting school attendance and some children who did turn up to class were struggling with having had very little sleep, Williams said.

She noted that since the pandemic began, the government increased the money it poured into communities on welfare, which ultimately led to an increased number of gambling activities as well as parties and drinking sprees.

These issues have been exacerbated by the fact that the community has been locked down and isolated since March, leading to heightened tensions, Williams added. (Related: LA health official slams youths for getting coronavirus tests as an excuse to socialize.)

A working group convened to address the issue but FRC had a limited ability to act due to a disconnect between gambling and the agency notices received by the commission, according to the report.

The Australian government typically resolves such issues through the program Conditional Income Management (CIM), which controls up to 90 percent of a persons fortnightly welfare checks to prevent funds from being spent on alcohol and gambling.

CIM remains a flexible tool used by commissioners to improve the welfare of children by encouraging families to ensure basic household needs are met and to encourage consistency in school attendance, the report said.

Local commissioners issued 104 CIM orders in Aurukun from July 2019 to June 2020, while a total of 219 CIM orders were issued across the communities of Coen, Doomadgee, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge on top of Aurukun during the same period.

Impact of pandemic restrictions on children

The pandemic has had a devastating impact on childrens well-being. In December last year, NBC News gathered data on a range of child welfare metrics to assess the pandemics effect since the government closed nearly every school in the United States.

The data showed that while drug and alcohol use, as well as juvenile arrests, went down, children had a difficult time acclimating to the pandemic in several other areas. Compared to last year, mental health-related emergency room visits rose by 31 percent among children aged 12 and above and 24 percent among children aged 5 to 11.

More children also starved as an estimated 17 million kids were in danger of not having enough to eat. Thats an increase of over six million hungry children compared to before the pandemic.

Reports also showed that children struggled to adjust to remote learning or classroom set-ups where they are required to wear a face mask and sit behind plastic shields. According to a report from the NWEA, a nonprofit group that focuses on education research, the average student in grades 3 to 8 who took a math assessment last fall scored five to 10 percentile points behind students who took the same test last year.

Meanwhile, classrooms were unusually empty as quarantines and infections affected attendance in face-to-face schools and online instruction. A handful of districts reported that the number of students who missed at least 10 percent of class more than doubled, while around three million students were not in school at all.

Learn more about the effects of the coronavirus restrictions on children at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

NBCNews.com
One of the joys of tourists coming to the ancient town of Hoi An in the central province of Quang Nam is to ride a buffalo and learn to farm.

These special tours have helped farmers earn hundreds of dollars.

In Hoi An, buffalo raising is a job that earns a high income, especially when tourism companies work with farmers to bring buffalos on tours.

When a delegation visits, farmers bring their buffalo to the field to guide visitors to experience buffalo riding/walking, plowing, growing rice, and other activities.

Mr. Tran Van Khoa, Managing Director of Jack Tran Tours Company, said the idea of using buffalo in tourism started in 2010. At that time, there were a lot of buffalos in Hoi An, but people only associated it with the fields, which didnt make enough income.

Growing up in the old town with my childhood spent on buffalo's back, it urged me to do something to help people develop their economy. Seeing that tourists enjoy the buffalo, I went to meet everyone in town personally to share with them this idea," Khoa said.

"At first, not many people had faith in the idea that buffalos can be used tourism. But now, they have helped them make fortunes," Khoa said.

According to Mr. Khoa, the buffalos are selected based on a strong and healthy body, gentle face, and capability of plowing. The ones with lazy eyes, speckled tails, and unhealthy physiques will be excluded.

The buffalos are also trained to get used to the scent of perfumes and sunscreen, or when visitors come close and ride on their backs.

The buffalo is close to people and smart, so it is not difficult to train them. It is important to love and take care of them like a family member and especially not overwork the buffalo. The buffalo tour in Hoi An has dozens of households participating with more than 100 buffalos," Mr. Khoa shared.

Lives change thanks to the buffalos

Mr. Le Van Nhien, 54, from Hoi An said that in the past, his income from farm work was just barely enough to cover the basics. However, since the introduction of buffalos in tourism, life has changed dramatically. With four buffalos serving tourists, Mr. Nhien earns more than VND15 million (US$650) per month.

According to Mr. Nhien, one of the joys of European and American tourists when coming to Hoi An is to ride a buffalo to walk on the rice fields in the suburbs, or to plow and harrow with a buffalo. They also have farming experiences.

Some even return to Hoi An many times just to join buffalo riding. Thanks to that, our farmers have a high income and a much better life than before, said Mr. Nhien.

Not only Mr. Nhien, but many families in Hoi An have created high incomes. There are even people who are willing to pay companies to join hands to create this special tour.

However, for nearly a year, due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, there have been no foreign visitors. With no income from tourism, villagers still maintain their buffalo herds to plow and train and wait for the return of service.

According to Mr. Tran Van Khoa, before the time of the epidemic, hundreds of tourists rode buffalos walking in the rice fields, or practiced being a farmer.

"Although there are no customers, we are still taking good care of the buffalo, waiting for the Covid-19 epidemic to end. 19 to make dollar money back," Mr. Khoa shared.

Images of buffalos and rice fields are familiar to Vietnamese people The people of Hoi An made money by bringing buffalos to tourists before the Covid-19 epidemic broke out. Photo January 2020







Foreign visitors are instructed by local people how to plow their fields. Photo taken in January 2020

Foreign visitors ride buffalos, take photos. This is a special tour for visitors to Hoi An. Photo taken in January 2020

Mr. Tran Van Khoa (left corner) and Mr. Nhien besides a buffalo. Mr. Nhien takes care of the buffalo and waits for customers to return. Photo taken in January 2021

Visitors experience watering a field, harvesting rice. Photo taken in January 2020

Ho Giap

Perfumed buffaloes and other strange possessions Buffaloes in Hoi An do not work on farms, but are made-up and perfumed to bring good fortune for their owners. They are just one example of a number of strange possessions of local Vietnamese.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese speaks at a news conference after a tour of the Kwinana Nickel Refinery on March 4, 2021 in Kwinana, Australia. (Richard Wainwright-Pool/Getty Images)

Australian Labor Party to Compel Companies to Reveal Gender Pay Gap If Elected

Large business could be forced to publicly reveal gender pay gaps in a proposal pitched by Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese.

Announcing the policy on March 7, Albanese said that the opposition would lead a national push to help close the gender pay gap, if they win government at the next election.

The pitch forms part of the oppositions four-point plan to address the pay gap between men and women in Australia, which stands at 13.4 percent or $242 per week for full-time employees, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

A Labor Government will lead a national push to help close the gender pay gap. Heres how. pic.twitter.com/ZSlUxbGCHd  Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) March 7, 2021

Speaking to reporters on International Womens Day, Albanese explained that the oppositions first step towards this goal would be to force all companies with 250 employees or more to report their gender pay gap, noting that the plan would also cover managerial and non-managerial positions.

Pay secrecy clauses would also be banned, meaning employees would not be obligated to keep their pay rates private.

I think most Australians would find it extraordinary that there are clauses that prohibit people from saying what their working conditions are, Albanese told reporters on Monday.

What that does, the secrecy clauses, is provide a handbrake so there cant be a comparison to see whether women and men doing exactly the same work, are paid exactly the same amount.

Albanese would also like to see the Fair Work Commission have the power to order pay increases for low paid, female-dominated industries.

However, business leaders warn the plan does not address wider societal issues and could, in fact, result in the alienation of other employee groups.

Jennifer Westacott, CEO of the Business Council of Australia, said gender pay discrepancies were issues related to the community and not just businesses.

A disclosure regime isnt going to create wholesale cultural change, particularly one that only targets some employers, she told The Australian.

These are society-wide, structural challenges that mean women are more likely to enter low-paying jobs in low-paying industriesa disclosure regime cant fix that, Westacott said.

Currently, companies with over 100 staff are required to report details around their gender pay gap to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), but the data is not publicised.

Further, according to ABS statistics provided by the WGEA, the gender pay gap in Australia has been decreasing under the Liberal government since it came into power in 2013, from the highs of 18.5 percent in November 2014, to the current average of 13.4 percent.

Australian gender pay gap data (Screenshot)

Sam Kennard, CEO of Kennards Storage, agreed with Westacott saying affirmative policies aimed at assisting one group of people, would in fact, lead to discrimination against other groups.

Therell be regulations that favour particular interest groups, so that one particular identity is diminished and another one rises, he told The Epoch Times.

Frankly, we (Kennards Storage) completely ignore someones background. We just take the best candidate at the time for the job, irrespective of their race, their religion, their sex, or their age.

Attempts to engineer equality in the workplace are part of a wider trend currently sweeping corporations and businesses globally.

Employees at work (Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/GettyImages)

Owners or executives strive to address perceived social justice issues through workplace policy, including gender equality and climate change.

For example, last year Big Four bank ANZ, vowed to end investment in thermal mines and power stations by 2030 in response to climate change.

While in 2019, retail billionaire Gerry Harvey made headlines when he said the struggles of legacy department store brands David Jones and Myers was due to boardroom executives being more concerned with quotas and ticking the boxes than providing an actual retail experience.

The recently published book, The Dictatorship of Woke Capital, details how the roots of wokeism in the corporate arena, are partly grounded in the works of early Marxists, Antonio Gramsci, Gyorgy Lukacs, and the Frankfurt School.

All of whom promoted theories grounded in the Marxist concept of class struggleessentially the idea that society is segmented into different classes and that the classes are constantly involved in a fight to obtain the most of societies resources.

A point Kennard believes is inherent in the current push for affirmative action on all social justice issues.

They unify a particular disenfranchised group, or create the perception of disenfranchisement, and ultimately attack capitalism and Western civilisation, and try and tear it down, Kennard said.
In January 2021, the general counsel of Coca Cola sent a letter to the law firms that represent it. The letter demanded, among other things, that these firms commit that at least 30% of each of billed associate and partner time will be from diverse attorneys, and of such amounts at least half will be from Black attorneys.

To enforce this demand, Cokes general counsel warned that failure to comply on a given new legal engagement over two quarterly reviews will result in a non-refundable 30% reduction in the fees payable for such New Matter going forward until the commitment is met and, continued failure may result in your firm no longer being considered for. . .work. Meeting Cokes diversity requirements will also be a significant factor in determining. . .inclusion and ongoing status on [Cokes soon-to-be -released] panel of preferred firms.

Except in very limited circumstances, it is illegal for an employer to make hiring, staffing, and assignment decisions based on race. It is also illegal for a company to require its contractors to do so. If a company demanded that law firms staff its matters with only White attorneys, no one would deny the illegality of the mandate.

What is Cokes basis for imposing quotas on its law firms? The general counsels letter expresses alarm over the color of the new partner headshots he sees on law firms websites. He claims that at the rate things are going, the representation of Black equity partners at law firms wont reach parity with Black representation in the U.S. population until 2391.

But racial quotas cant be justified based on a gap between the percentage of Blacks among law firm partners and the percentage of Blacks in the general population. Law firm partners arent selected from the general population, they are selected, by and large, from the population of law firm associates, partners at other firms, and high-ranking lawyers at corporations.

Black representation in that population is way below such representation in the general population.

Law firm associates arent selected from the general population, either. Big law firms choose their associates mostly from the pool of graduates with good grades from good law schools. Black representation in that population is less than Black representation in the general population.

In fact, according to the ABAs 2019 report, Blacks make up only 5 percent of Americans licensed to practice law. Yet, Coke demands that Blacks account for 15 percent of billable hours on its work. In other words, it is demanding that law firms deploy Blacks in wildly disproportionate numbers under any non-frivolous legal analysis.

Its also worth noting that Black representation even in the general U.S. population is less than 15 percent. Yet, Coke has set its requirement for Black representation on its matters (in terms of hours billed) at 15 percent.

Cokes demand that 30 percent of billable hours go to diverse lawyers is also curious. The general counsels letter does not provide any indication  even a frivolous one  that racial/ethnic groups other than Blacks are underrepresented at the law firms it uses.

Before firms lawfully should even think about making hiring, staffing, and assignment decisions based on race or ethnicity  and before their clients can lawfully demand this  there must be clear evidence of past racial discrimination by law firms. Under a 1979 Supreme Court decision, United Steelworkers v. Weber, discrimination can be justified to eliminate manifest racial imbalances in traditionally segregated job categories where the plan is a temporary measure [and] it is not intended to maintain racial balance, but simply to eliminate a manifest racial imbalance. An absence of any reference to or showing of past or present discrimination in the [relevant] industry is fatal to a racially discriminatory program. Schurr v. Resorts Intl Hotel, Inc., 196 F.3d 486, 497 (3rd Cir. 1999). [Note: The original version of this post mistakenly attributed the language of the preceding sentence to the Supreme Court.]

Cokes letter cites no past or present discrimination in the legal industry. It does not point to any manifest imbalances in Black representation at the law firms it utilizes. And it does not tie its discriminatory program to any reasonable measure of imbalance.

Nor, of course, does Coke suggest that it has a history of selecting law firms in a racially discriminatory manner.

Finally, Cokes letter does not describe a temporary measure. The letter describes a quota regime of indefinite duration.

In fact, it promises a quota regime that will become more onerous over time. Law firms will be expected to increase the percentage of hours billed by Blacks and diverse lawyers as a whole to 25 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

Coke has brazenly announced that it is basing contracting decisions on race. Based on race, it will decide which firms to continue doing business with and how much the firms will be paid. Coke will pay firms that make race-based assignment decisions more for the same work than firms that dont discriminate in this manner.

Coke has made it clear that its decision to rely on race is unmoored to findings of discrimination, past or present. It has done so by setting its racial quotas at a levels that do not measure discrimination.

Accordingly, Coke is vulnerable to being sued for racial discrimination. So are the individuals at the company who are behind its discriminatory policy. They can be held personally liable under Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Coke can take comfort from the fact that no law firm is likely to sue the company or its officers. Similarly, no lawyer at one of these firms is likely to challenge Cokes practice.

However, I invite anyone with knowledge about how Cokes policy is being implemented at law firms and/or the effects of that implementation to email us at Power Line. Requests for anonymity will be honored.
DALLAS (AP)  Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, claiming the Republican used his office to retaliate against it for banning the account of former President Donald Trump following the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Days after the deadly January insurrection, Paxton announced an investigation into Twitter and four other major technology companies for what he called the seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the President. The attorney general's office demanded that the companies produce a variety of records related to their content moderation policies and troves of internal communications.

Twitter responded Monday with a federal lawsuit alleging Paxton is seeking to punish it for taking Trump's account offline  a decision the social media company says is protected free speech. It asks a judge to declare the decision to be under the ambit of the First Amendment and to, in essence, halt Paxton's investigation.

Paxton made clear that he will use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees, lawyers for the company wrote in the suit filed in a Northern California court.

Spokespersons for Paxton's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening.

Twitters counterpunch comes as states, in addition to federal lawmakers and governments outside the U.S., are cracking down on tech companies they see as having amassed too much power in the past decade. This includes antitrust and anti-monopoly regulation, internet privacy laws as well as attempts to regulate how platforms like Twitter, Facebook and others moderate their sites.

In December, Paxton led 10 Republican attorneys general in suing Google for allegedly running an illegal digital-advertising monopoly in cahoots with Facebook.

GOP politicians in roughly two dozen states have also introduced bills that would allow for civil lawsuits against platforms for what they call the censorship of posts. Almost always, this means what they view as the censorship of conservative or Christian religious viewpoints.

While there is no evidence that tech companies are biased against conservatives, the narrative has been popular with Republicans since before President Trump was elected and only grew louder throughout his term. Trump getting banned for life from Twitter and suspended temporarily from Facebook after inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riots only reinforced it.

In launching his investigation, Paxton cited the First Amendment when he says tech companies banishment of Trump chills free speech and wholly silences those who disagree with them.

However, Twitter  as well as the other companies Paxton targeted, including Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon  is a private firm, so the First Amendment does not apply to its decisions on what material to allow on its services. Unlike the government, Twitter is allowed to silence people. The company had long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviors. But after five people were killed at the Capitol riot, the company said Trump's tweets amounted to glorification of violence while plans were circulating online for future armed protests around the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

Twitter's suit comes as Paxton is facing other legal challenges, including an FBI investigation into claims that he used his office to benefit a wealthy donor.

He is also awaiting trial on unrelated securities fraud charges dating back to 2015. Paxton pleaded not guilty and the case has been stalled for years over legal challenges.

___

Ortutay reported from Oakland, California.
health minister taken to hospital with suspected infection on Tuesday

Australia's health minister has been admitted to hospital with a suspected infection just hours after Victorian Premier Dan Andrews was placed in intensive care after a horror fall.

Greg Hunt is being kept overnight for observation and is being administered antibiotics and fluid by hospital staff.

Hunt's condition is not believed to be related to the Covid-19 vaccine.

Along with Department of Health secretary Brendan Murphy, Hunt was among the first to receive the AstraZeneca vaccination at a Melbourne clinic on Sunday.

Federal Minister for Health Greg Hunt was hospitalised on Tuesday with a suspected infection

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews was also hospitalised after breaking several ribs and damaging his spine after slipping on wet stairs while getting ready for work on Tuesday

'He is being kept overnight for observation and is being administered antibiotics and fluid,' a statement from Mr Hunt's office said.

'The minister is expected to make a full recovery.'

He served as the nation's Federal Health Minister through the coronavirus pandemic, having stepped into the position back in 2017.

Hunt is the third Morrison government minister to go on leave in recent weeks, with Attorney-General Christian Porter and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds also on leave at the moment for medical reasons.

Porter said last week he would take a short period of leave to assess his mental health on the advice of his doctor. He has denied accusations of a historical rape allegation when he was a teenager.

Senator Reynolds said on Sunday she was re-assessed recently by her cardiologist for a pre-existing medical condition.

She has also been under heavy criticism for her handling of a rape allegation flagged by former staffer Brittany Higgins in Canberra.

Earlier on Tuesday, Daniel Andrews was also hospitalised after breaking several ribs and damaging his spine after slipping on wet stairs while getting ready for work.

The Victorian Premier's office initially said the fall on Tuesday morning was 'concerning' but the leader had not suffered any head injuries.

His office later confirmed the accident happened in accommodation the Andrews family were staying at in Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne's CBD, where they had been enjoying the long weekend.

'A CT scan has revealed several broken ribs and vertebrae damage, and subsequent medical advice has recommended I remain in intensive care for the next few days,' Andrews said.

James Merlino will serve as Acting Premier in Victoria until Andrews recovers.
Strategic District Scale Property Currently Being Explored by Northern Vertex Ely Gold Retains 2% NSR on J & M Lode Claim

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Ely Gold Royalties Inc. (TSXV: ELY) (OTCQX: ELYGF) ("Ely Gold") is pleased to announce that through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Nevada Select Royalty Inc, it has completed a Sale Agreement with Northern Vertex Mining Corp ("Northern Vertex" formerly Eclipse Gold Mining Corporation) whereby Northern Vertex has purchased one lode mining claim (the "J & M Claim") within their Hercules Gold Property ( "Hercules" or the "Property") located in the Walker Lane Trend, Nevada. Eclipse Gold Mining merged with Northern Vertex Mining Corp effective February 12, 2021.

Ely Gold had previously purchased the J & M Claim from a third party for US$20,000 and sold it to Northern Vertex for the same amount with Ely Gold retaining a 2.00% Net Smelter Royalty ("NSR").

Hercules Gold Property

Northern Vertex is exploring the district-scale Hercules Gold Property which is located approximately a one hour drive from Reno and has all the characteristics of a large, low-sulphidation epithermal gold system.

Ely Gold's strategic claim is located between the West Cliffs and Hercules structural zones (see Figure 1) of Hercules. Both zones are east dipping and south plunging with potential for additional mineralization down dip on the faults and veins exposed at surface within these zones. The West Cliffs structural zone is the most continuous zone of alteration in the project area and potential for additional mineralization exists to the east of this zone. The J & M Lode claim is located in an area of post mineral cover with the potential for a southwestern extension to the Hercules structural zone to exist beneath the cover as well as deeper mineralization associated with the down dip extension of the West Cliffs zone. Mineralization in both zones plunges southward and possibly indicates an additional structural intersection zone in the vicinity of the J & M claim.

Jerry Baughman, President of Nevada Select commented, "We are very pleased to add Northern Vertex to our list of experienced counter-parties exploring our Nevada asset portfolio. This transaction is a testament to our ability to make third-party property purchases due to our long-standing relationships throughout Nevada."

Gold mineralization in both the West Cliffs and Hercules zones primarily occurs as banded and brecciated quartz veins indicating multiple episodes of faulting and hydrothermal activity related to gold deposition. Stockwork zones and strongly silicified rocks occur adjacent to the high-angle quartz veins and host disseminated gold mineralization as well. Low angle zones of gold mineralization occur between the high angle veins and structures indicating additional mineralization potential to the east and west of the outcropping high angle veins and structures.

Reverse circulation (RC) drilling at West Cliffs returned 74.68 meters of 0.54ppm gold and 4.78 ppm silver. At Hercules, RC drilling returned 89.92 meters of 0.65 ppm gold and 12.51ppm silver 1.

1.MDA Amended Technical Report Lyon County, Nevada at the following link:

https://eclipsegoldmining.com/site/assets/files/1497/eclipse-43101.pdf

Qualified Person

Stephen Kenwood, P. Geo, is director of the Company and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Kenwood has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release.

About Ely Gold Royalties Inc.

Ely Gold Royalties Inc. is a Nevada focused gold royalty company. Its current portfolio includes royalties at Jerritt Canyon, Goldstrike and Marigold, three of Nevada's largest gold mines, as well as the Fenelon mine in Quebec, operated by Wallbridge Mining. The Company continues to actively seek opportunities to purchase producing or near-term producing royalties. Ely Gold also generates development royalties through property sales on projects that are located at or near producing mines. Management believes that due to the Company's ability to locate and purchase third-party royalties, its strategy of organically creating royalties and its gold focus, Ely Gold offers shareholders a favourable leverage to gold prices and low-cost access to long-term gold royalties in safe mining jurisdictions.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Signed "Trey Wasser"

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

trey@elygoldinc.com

972-803-3087

Joanne Jobin, Investor Relations Officer

jjobin@elygoldinc.com

647 964 0292

FORWARD-LOOKING CAUTIONS: This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including, but not limited to, statements regarding completion of the Transaction. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include the Company's inability to control whether the buy-down right will ever be exercised, and whether the right of first refusal will ever be triggered, uncertainty as to whether any mining will occur on the property covered by the Probe Royalty such that the Company will receive any payment therefrom, and the general risks and uncertainties relating to the mineral exploration, development and production business. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effect.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts

responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FIGURE #1





To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4181/76551_67ceece9449ce95f_001full.jpg

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76551
WEST ALTON  Fire destroyed a West Alton home around noon Monday.

Firefighters from the Missouri fire districts of Rivers Pointe, Spanish Lake, Black Jack and Orchard Farms battled the fire which appeared to have been started when a wind swept fire reached a pile of logs and branches, then spread to dead grass and a house.

The residence was gutted by the fire, with smoke visible from Alton. No injuries were reported.

Illinois firefighters also were kept busy Monday battling brush, grass and bush fires in Alton, East Alton, Rosewood Heights and Worden, among other locations. Brisk breezes were cited as contributing to a number of the fires.

Several vacant houses have burned in West Alton, which never fully recovered from the devastating 2019 flooding that left the entire community underwater. Many of the houses there have been deemed unsafe for habitation and are unoccupied.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 21:47:59|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China's capability to implement its development plans and achieve its goals is impressive, a Bangladeshi scholar has said.

Rounaq Jahan, a distinguished fellow of the Bangladesh-based think-tank Center for Policy Dialogue, made the remarks as a key event on China's political calendar, the annual sessions of the country's top legislature and political advisory body, known as the "two sessions," is taking place in Beijing.

"I was very impressed by all the goals China is setting for the country," she said, adding that "what is even more impressive about China is its capacity" to implement the plans and achieve the goals.

With regards to China's tremendous success in poverty alleviation, the scholar said she was heartened by the news that all of the 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages have been removed from the poverty list.

Speaking highly of China's strategies and actions to eliminate poverty, Jahan said it was a difficult task for China to extend its fight against poverty to every corner of the country.

As for education, the scholar said "I would like to be kept informed about how China is going to ensure fairness in education."

The lack of fairness in education creates inequality in a society, she added.

China will build a high-quality education system by deepening educational reforms, according to the draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for national economic and social development and the long-range objectives through the year 2035.

Jahan said she is interested in the measures China will take in this regard. Enditem
Did it occur to any of the leftist politicians boostering for the 'Defund the Police' far-left trope that they might just be left holding the bag?

Seems not. And sure enough, it's slowly starting to dawn on them that were played for fools.

Because in the wake of the media-vaunted 'defund police' movement, every last blue city in America kowtowing to this has, surprise, found itself in the middle of a crime wave. Crime-plagued blue cities are now becoming unliveable, and citizens who form their tax bases are fleeing, That presents some problems for these pols. Caracas-ization is not for the faint of heart. But remaining fools, they don't exactly know what to do about it.

Crime in New York City is out of control, so Chirlaine McCray, the scandal-plagued wife of far-left Mayor Bill de Blasio, is now offering a bizarre new solution to resolve the problem: Every citizen his own policeman.

According to the Daily Wire:

The wife of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wants citizens to personally physically intervene to stop violent crimes, nine months after she convinced her husband to get aboard the defund the police movement by redirecting money from police to youth initiatives and social services.

Here are her initial tweets:

Here is her five-point plan of action:

And apparently, since she was getting flak (notice how few 'likes' and retweets she got, as well as the angry comments, which drew hundreds of 'likes'), she put up this disclaimer pinned tweet apparently to cover her tracks:

Many angry commentators, most of whom appeared to be New Yorkers, pointed out that a citizen in New York was actually killed last week trying to do what Chirlaine urged.

More still suggested that maybe a trained professional, with academy certification, and appropriated equipment, wearing blue, might be the ticket.

Lastly, most said her suggestions were ridiculous, brimming with political hypocrisy. Hadn't McCray been one of the loudest wokester voices in New York demanding the defunding of the police? Hadn't her bizarre daughter been arrested one or more times in a crowd that was throwing things at police, squalling loudly for their defunding?

Having loudly demanded that police be defunded over the summer in part of a leftist lunacy maneuver amid rioting in cities that was called off after it started affecting Joe Biden's poll numbers, McCray is now telling citizens that instead of having police, they can do their own policing. Never mind all that primo cash they pay as taxpayers for police protection.

Now they are to do it themselves -- as if citizens were just as protected as police in doing such jobs surrounding violent criminals in their acts, just as skilled at mediating the many cases of mentally ill people on the streets with violent tendencies, and just as adept at handling unpredictable hairtrigger situations involving hidden knives and guns, which in red cities are normally handled by trained police personnel.

Some cities, such as Minneapolis and Portland, whose leftist leaders also got on that 'defund' bandwagon, have quietly stepped up recruiting after demonizing their police and driving them to retire at their desks. They're hearing from angry citizens, as are the officials in New York. But instead of increasing police protection, New York's big idea from the Camp de Blasio is to get citizens to do it themselves.

Maybe they're trying to save money for their cronies. In Chirlaine's case, that wouldn't be a surprise. But the chickens have come home to roost in this, and they've obviously been played for fools.

Chirlaine and Co. seem to be endorsing wokester consultant claptrap about "conflict de-escalation" or something of that sort, but New Yorkers, based on those reply tweets to her tweet strings know it's nonsense.

Do it yourself. And anyone who thinks this can't be flipped to vigilantism in a rough place like New York is an idiot. If this becomes conventional wisdom, and the police remain retired at their desks, watch for that to come of this, too. Mafias emerge in places where civic protection that looks out for all people and enforces just one law for all is absent.

Not surprisingly, it's minority communties in New York which are being hit hardest by this crime wave that's come of New York's diverting funds to social workers and disbanding New York's famed plainclothes units. Asian Americans, as she's mentioned, are open targets, assaulted and robbed and even murdered now with impunity. But don't dismiss the black communities of New York -- they too have been hit hardest by this leftist call in the name of supporting the criminal-American community, to defund police. Police calls are highest in those neighborhoods based on the crime that's there. Now, the police are gone, so citizens are being urged to talk the criminals in the act out of their crimes.

The wokesters may like it, but everyone else knows that it's going to get people killed. Crime is exploding in New York now. Calling on people to stop their own muggers and rapists is just going to lead to more carnage.

Image: Twitter screen shot
In what might seem like a rude shock for Bharatiya Janata Party, two surveys predicted that the saffron party might not beat the ruling in West Bengal.

A poll, conducted by TimesNow-CVoter, predicted the ruling could get around 154 of the states 294 seats, six more than the majority mark of 147 while the could secure 107 seats, a massive gain from its current tally of three, the opinion poll said. The Left-Congress-led alliance could get around 33 seats.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) recently released its list of candidates who will contest from 291 seats out of the 294 Assembly seats in West Bengal, with its chief and state CM contesting from Nandigram. released a list of 57 candidates who will mostly be fighting in the first and second phase of West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021. Congress, which is contesting the Bengal Assembly Elections with the Left, has announced a list of 13 candidates so far.

Meanwhile, the ABP-CNX survey said the ruling s likely to get 154-164 seats while is likely to win 102-112 seats.

According to the survey TMC is likely to get 41.53% votes while BJP is likely to garner approximately 34% of the votes.

At least 415 companies of central forces will be deployed by the ECI for the first phase of polling on March 27 in West Bengal. Polls will be conducted in the state in eight phases and counting is scheduled for May 2.





West Bengal Chief Minister on Monday slammed Prime Minister for "spreading lies and canards" against the TMC government, and said voters, this time, would witness 'Didi versus BJP' fight in all 294 constituencies of the poll-bound state.

Taking a dig at Modi over inclusion of his picture in COVID-19 vaccination certificates, she said the "day wasn't far when the country will be named after him".

Asserting that she will return to power for the third consecutive time in Bengal, the feisty TMC boss said, "The fight is between me and the BJP in all 294 seats."
Chip-maker has collaborated with on Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programme in the US, to tackle the final frontier in which is computing on fully encrypted data without access to decryption keys.

The aim is to develop an accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), said in a statement late on Monday.

"Fully homomorphic encryption remains the holy grail in the quest to keep data secure while in use. Despite strong advances in trusted execution environments and other confidential computing technologies to protect data while at rest and in transit, data is unencrypted during computation, opening the possibility of potential attacks at this stage," explained Rosario Cammarota, principal engineer, Labs, and principal investigator, DARPA DPRIVE programme.

is the key cloud ecosystem and homomorphic encryption partner leading the commercial adoption of the technology once developed by testing it in its cloud offerings, including Azure and the Microsoft JEDI cloud, with the US government.

Fully homomorphic encryption enables users to compute on always-encrypted data, or cryptograms. The data never needs to be decrypted, reducing the potential for cyberthreats.

"We are pleased to bring our expertise in cloud computing and homomorphic encryption to the DARPA DPRIVE programme, collaborating with Intel to advance this transformative technology when ready into commercial usages that will help our customers," said Dr William Chappell, CTO, Azure Global, and vice president, Mission Systems, Microsoft.

The multi-year DARPA DPRIVE programme will span several phases starting with the design, development and verification of foundational IP blocks that will be integrated into a system-on-chip and a full software stack.

Intel said it will also continue to invest in ongoing academic research in the field.

--IANS

na/
Clackamas County sheriffs detectives are investigating the suspicious death last week of a Milwaukie businessman who owned a chain of pawn shops, held a marijuana producer license and had been befriended by a federal prosecutor who sent him to prison in the 1990s on a drug-related crime.

Jimmy A. Pearson, 63, was found dead in his home last Wednesday morning, the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office said Monday.

Sheriffs officials released no details of what may have happened. They said only that the crime appears to be an isolated incident and that they do not believe there is a larger danger to the general public.

One of Pearsons employees, worried about why he hadnt been to work, found his body, the officials said in a statement.

An autopsy by the Oregon State Medical Examiners Office determined Pearson died from homicidal violence.

Pearson, 63, was found dead in his riverfront home last week.

Sgt. Marcus Mendoza, a spokesman for the Sheriffs Office, did not respond to an email asking why the agency delayed the release of basic information about a homicide investigation.

The Sheriffs Office confirmed the investigation into Pearsons death after The Oregonian/OregonLive pressed for information about the case.

The Sheriffs Office statement said Pearson lived alone at 1711 S.E. Oak Shore Lane in Milwaukie. County records show he purchased the spacious riverfront property in 2015 for $1.2 million.

Oregon Secretary of State business records show Pearson owns A1 Hawk. The company website says the business operates two pawn shops in Portland and another in Gladstone.

Oregon Liquor Control Commission records show Pearson had an active marijuana producer license for a property in Clackamas County. He submitted an application for a retail license as well but did not complete the process, commission spokesman Mark Pettinger said Monday.

In the early 1990s, Pearson went to federal prison for selling marijuana, court records show.

He went on to become good friends with the federal prosecutor on his case. John Haub, a retired assistant U.S. attorney, said Pearson paid a steep price for his criminal convictions. Federal court records show he was sentenced to 46 months in prison. Haub said Pearson also forfeited property as part of the case.

He said Pearson accepted responsibility and emerged from prison ready to be a productive citizen. He knew he had done wrong and he stood up to accept it, Haub said.

When Pearson wanted to open a pawn shop in Gladstone, Haub attested to Pearsons character with local police. I found him to be a very honorable man, Haub said.

Haub invited Pearson to speak at his retirement in 2017. I thought his comments were some of the most genuine and heartfelt, Haub said. I very much appreciated him.

Kenneth Bauman, another retired federal prosecutor who got to know Pearson through the years, said he was proud of Pearson for making a success out of his life.

Pearson was divorced, doted on his pit bull, Ruby, and loved Las Vegas, he said.

Bauman helped Pearson with his marijuana license applications. I never billed Jimmy for anything I did for him and I did a lot, he said.

Pearson often offered Bauman gifts and dinner out at restaurants, but he always declined, Bauman said.

He is just so lovable and so kind-hearted, Bauman said.

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie
She's notoriously private about her personal life.

And Mary-Kate Olsen made sure to keep a low profile while running errands around New York on Monday.

The freshly-divorced fashion designer, 34, draped her petite figure in a giant black jacket and she chatted on the phone during her outing.

Flying solo: Mary-Kate Olsen looked inconspicuous while running errands around New York City on Monday, seen carrying an important-looking notebook under her arm

New flame? Mary-Kate's solo outing comes just weeks after the star was seen enjoying a dinner with Brightwire CEO John Cooper and a group of friends at the upscale eatery Estiatorio Milos last month

Adding to the incognito affect, she tosses on a knit beanie, little round sunglasses and a medical face mask which hid almost all of her famous face.

It looked like the former child star was taking care of business, seen clutching onto a black notebook.

Mary-Kate's solo outing comes just weeks after the star was seen enjoying a dinner with Brightwire CEO John Cooper and a group of friends at the upscale eatery Estiatorio Milos last month.

The star seemed happy with her company, seen smiling as she sipped on a glass of white wine and caught up with pals which Cooper sat beside her.

Cooper co-founded the news analysis agency Brightwire, which provides real-time English-language summaries of events breaking around the world, in 2011.

Last month, Olsen's divorce was granted, nine months after their five-year marriage came to an end.

The former couple's settlement was signed off by a judge at the New York Supreme Court on Monday, January 25, US Weekly first reported.

The French banker, 51 - the half-brother of Nicolas Sarkozy, the former President of France - agreed a divorce settlement during a virtual hearing on January 13.

Talk talk: The freshly-divorced fashion designer, 34, draped her petite figure in a giant black jacket and she chatted on the phone during her outing

Michael Mosberg, attorney for father-of-two Sarkozy, told the New York Supreme Court at that earlier hearing 'the deal is now done'.

Nancy Chemtob, who represents Olsen, said that 'all issues are resolved' but no details were given to the court.

Olsen, who runs her fashion line The Row with twin sister Ashley Olsen, reportedly has an 'ironclad prenup' meaning her fortune estimated to be around $250m is safe whatever happens during the split from Sarkozy.

During the hearing earlier this month Mosberg told the judge: 'As of this morning we reached a final agreement. We just need to revise that agreement and get it to you'.

It's over: Last month, Olsen's divorce from Olivier Sarkozy was granted, nine months after their five-year marriage came to an end (pictured in 2016)

Judge Sattler asked Chemtob if that was correct and she said: 'We've been working very hard and we do have a settlement and will be able to get it signed...all issues are resolved.'

The judge, who had given both parties numerous adjournments on the case, said, 'I hope that's the case'.

But she added: 'Until I see the proof I'm going to hold your feet to the fire a bit.'

She said: 'I do trust and believe this is happening however I'm going to keep control of the case to make sure this gets done and we get them divorced.'

New Delhi, March 9 : Union Law Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday demanded a proper inquiry into the impact of sustained political campaign following the Batla House encounter on the morale of Delhi Police fighting terror threats.

A day after a Delhi court convicted an Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Arij Khan in Batla House encouter, Prasad said, "The BJP demands today that a proper inquiry be made to find out what was the impact on morale of Delhi Police in its fight against terrorism because of this sustained political campaign by vested political interest purely for vote bank politics." Addressing a press conference a day after the court verdict, Prasad asked why the Congress, Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee Didi and all those who questioned the Batla House encounter have turned silent.

"The Batla House encounter was made a national issue by Congress, Trinamool, Samajwadi Party, BSP, and other political parties. What does it mean? Will the fight for terrorism be weakened in this way for votes," Prasad said.

"Today when a terrorist has been convicted based on more than 100 testimonies, scientific and medical evidence by the judicial process of the country will all these parties apologize in front of the people of the country," he said.

Prasad asked will Sonia Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee apologize for misleading the entire nation over the Batla House encounter.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Communist Tactics to Force Self-Censorship Sweeping America

News Analysis

While many Americans worry about ever-increasing censorship, those responsible for it have managed to amplify its effects by creating a climate of self-censorship.

Due to the psychological mechanisms of self-censorship, a single account blocked, a single video deleted, or a book banned can result in a broad chilling of speech. Important policy debates dont occur, news story ideas arent pitched to editors, and books arent accepted for publishing, or written to begin with.

In some cases, it appears the censors employ the psychological tricks on purpose, achieving maximum suppression with minimal responsibility. These methods arent newin fact, they have long been employed by totalitarian regimes.

The principle of self-censorship is that people, just to be on the safe side, refrain from saying even things that arent outright banned by some applicable rules.

An example is the effect of the Johnson Amendment, a law that prohibits tax-exempt nonprofits, including religious organizations, from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Even though the law doesnt prohibit discussion of political topics and stands virtually unenforced, opponents have long argued that pastors have avoided political topics in their sermons just to be sure they cant be accused of running afoul of the law.

Here are a number of methods used to enhance self-censorship.

Vague Rules

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the worlds most notorious censor of free speech, has for decades used the method of making its policies intentionally vague. During its past political campaigns, for example, the central leadership would issue a decree that rightists and counterrevolutionaries were to be punished. The next lower rung of Party officials wouldnt be told what exactly makes one a rightist or a counterrevolutionary and perhaps not even what the punishment should be. No official, however, would want to be seen as too lenientthat would carry the risk of being labeled oneself. As such, each successive level of bureaucracy would intensify its interpretation of the policy, leading to ever more extreme results. In some periods, the hysteria went far beyond self-censorship, as even refraining from political speech wasnt enough.

During the Cultural Revolution,  people couldnt buy food in canteens if they didnt recite a quotation or make a greeting to Mao [Zedong]. When shopping, riding the bus, or even making a phone call, one had to recite one of Maos quotations, even if it was totally irrelevant. In these rituals of worship, people were either fanatical or cynical, the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party states.

In contemporary China, dissidents are often targeted for subverting the state or spreading rumors. The regime has proven that virtually any political statement can be subsumed under one of these charges.

The method appears to now be in play in contemporary America.

Amazon recently updated its policies to ban books that contain hate speech, without explaining what it considers as such. Since Amazon controls more than 80 percent of the book retail market, publishers are left to guess whether a book may get the hate speech label and thus be much less profitable to publish.

Roger Kimball, the publisher of Encounter Books and an Epoch Times contributor, said he so far hasnt considered avoiding titles that may be targeted by Amazon, but he called it a very worrisome harbinger.

It is possible that other publishers will do that, he told The Epoch Times. Certainly, I think that the atmosphere for opinion is much narrower now than it was in the past.

He gave the example of Simon & Schuster, a publishing powerhouse that recently canceled its publishing of the book of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) due to Hawleys questioning the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

If publishers bow to Amazon, authors may go even further, altogether avoiding topics that may spook the publishers.

Other tech platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter usually provide some definition of hate speech and other content rules, but have acknowledged that they intentionally keep at least part of their policies secret to prevent people from circumventing them. The effect is that users try to guess the boundaries of censorship themselves.

Those who invested great efforts to build their online followings are likely to adopt especially stringent self-censorship, as they have the most to lose. YouTube, for example, bans any content that says the 2020 election result was affected by fraud. The policy seems relatively clear, yet it appears to have nudged YouTube personalities to avoid the topic of election integrity altogether, just to be on the safe side.

Perception of Random Targeting

Another method to induce self-censorship is selective enforcement. During the CCPs past political campaigns, it would pick targets for persecution seemingly at random. Even the targets wouldnt necessarily know what exactly had brought the Partys wrath upon them. In response, people would scramble to make sense of the situation, drawing red lines of self-censorship based on guesswork.

Elements of this method can be seen in various settings in the West.

When Amazon recently banned a book that criticizes transgender ideology, published by Encounter Books in 2018, it didnt explain why. Instead, Amazon quietly updated its book policies on hate speech. It then left it to the public to connect the dots and label the book as hate speech themselves.

Similarly, other tech platforms commonly refuse to comment on specific cases of censorship or even tell the accused what exactly they did wrong.

This method can also work through changes and exceptions to the rules. The CCP has been notorious for constantly changing its policies. Allies of the revolution of yesterday found themselves enemies of the Party today, but could expect to be called upon to cooperate with the Party tomorrow. Hence came the saying, Party policy is like the moon, it changes every 15 days. People have found themselves in a position of constantly trying to figure out how to be in alignment with what the Party is currently saying and even anticipating what the Party might say next and preemptively avoid saying anything that might be deemed problematic in the future.

The tech platforms of today openly acknowledge that their content policies are a work in progress. Over the years, new rules have been repeatedly added and are usually applied retrospectively. Thus, content that was acceptable yesterday may get banned and removed today. More restrictions can be expected tomorrow, or the companies may reverse themselves on some issues.

Rules can also be bent for political convenience. Facebook, for example, considers verbal attacks on people based on their race, sex, or sexual proclivities to be hate speech. But its contracted moderators were informed in 2018 that for a period of time, attacks on straight white males would be exempted as long as they were intended to raise awareness for Pride/LGBTQ, an internal memo said.

Guilt by Denial

Another method is using denial or resistance as evidence of guilt.

In current progressive ideologies, denying that one is racist or has white privilege counts as a confirmation of the charges. In fact, any resistance to the ideology and its labels is often labeled as white fragility or internalized oppression and thus illegitimate. Leaving no room for rightful criticism, the ideology discourages debate. Rather than deal with the grief of being pejoratively labeled, many keep their objections to themselves.

Jodi Shaw, a former student support coordinator at Smith College, an elite womens college, recently left her job over what she described as a dehumanizing environment.

In 2018, the liberal arts institution put in place a number of initiatives to fight systemic racism at the school. Yet the efforts didnt sit right with her, Shaw told The Epoch Times in a phone call.

She was instructed to treat people differently based on their race and sex, which in practice meant projecting onto people ones own stereotypes, she said.

She said it felt fake.

Theres a script for white people and a script for people who arent white. And it felt like you kind of had to stay on the script, she said.

It was clear to her that there was no room for disagreement or even doubt.

You just cannot talk about it out loud, she said. You cant express your doubt out loud.

A staunch liberal, she tried to get along with the program, telling herself its just being done to help.

When the doubts persevered, she even questioned her own morality.

Does that mean Im racist? she asked herself.

I think a lot of people on the left have this issue where they feel a little confused. They feel like something doesnt feel right, but Im not supposed to think that somethings not right, she said.

The staffers in her department were true believers, she said, but she talked to seven or eight people from other departments who privately shared her concerns.

Whispers, you know, in hallways and stuff, alone, theyre like, Yeah, this is just like, somethings really messed up about this, she said.

Ultimately, she concluded that there was no inner racist talking, it was her conscience, and the ideology was just messing with her psyche.

Its how this ideology works. It gets into your head, and I think its damaging, she said.

Guilt by Association

Another way to impose self-censorship is extending blame beyond the target to anybody even tenuously associated with it.

Totalitarian regimes have long used this tactic, punishing family, friends, colleagues, supervisors, and other associates of dissidents.

Examples of guilt by association are common today. Media, universities, and other institutions willing to host speakers from another political camp are criticized for giving a platform to hate or some other pejorative. Anybody uttering a word of support for one of the censored figures can expect to be targeted next.

When Shaw started to talk about her concerns publicly, she found that the Smith staffers who privately agreed with her suddenly became unavailable.

The fear of guilt by association is so terrifying that peoplethey wont even text me, she said.

That not only induces self-censorship in ones circle but also further isolates the target.

You get isolated, and youre not able to talk it through with somebody else and determine that, yes, indeed theres something wrong, Shaw said.

Kari Lake, former news anchor at Fox 10 in Arizona, faced criticism for merely setting up an account on alternative social media sites Parler and Gab. The critics argued that she was guilty by association, since Parler and Gab had been labeled as a favorite platform of Nazis.

While the attacks never made Lake question her beliefs, it did prompt her to self-censor, she told The Epoch Times in a phone call.

I actually find myself not posting stories that are just factual because Im like: Oh, just posting that, even though its true, might anger some people. It might just get the left mad and I dont want to, you know, kick the hornets nest, she said.

Its been especially disheartening for Lake to see censorship endorsed by many fellow journalists.

Theyre just fine with it, and it saddens me, she said.

Shed like to see more diversity of viewpoints among journalists, estimating that most in the profession lean left. Even the few conservative ones she knows are very, very closeted about it.

The people I know might even act or pitch stories that might appear left-leaning to kind of show people, look, Im not conservative, she said.

A few weeks ago, Lake quit her job.

I realized, well, Im part of that. Im part of this system. Im part of the media, and if I dont like it and I cant do anything to change it, then I need to get out, she said.

Solution

Censorship in America is peculiar in its form as its largely not the doing of the government. Its not even necessarily the result of government pressure, though that now seems to be underway as well. Rather, its based on actors both in and out of government across the American society aligning with an ideology thats totalitarian at its root.

Its unlikely that Americans can rely on somebody pushing against the ideology from the top. In fact, the ideology appears to now be endorsed by a majority of the government.

Yet it may be that government measures wouldnt offer a solution as long as a significant share of the population still subscribes to the ideology or is willing to go along with it.

As Judge Learned Hand said in his 1944 speech The Spirit of Liberty:

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.

It appears Americans stand is now to rekindle that spark of liberty in the hearts of their peers.


Borsa Italiana non ha responsabilita per il contenuto del sito a cui sta per accedere e non ha responsabilita per le informazioni contenute.

Accedendo a questo link, Borsa Italiana non intende sollecitare acquisti o offerte in alcun paese da parte di nessuno.

Sarai automaticamente diretto al link in cinque secondi.
Blame continued pandemic precautions, humiliating Super Bowl defeat or a worsening economic outlook amid the rise of American scarcity . . . Either way, the locals are restless and ready to fight according to local head shrinkers.



Read more . . .
Charges against a Florida, man arrested after a fatal crash in Paterson two years ago have been upgraded by indictment from death-by-auto to first-degree aggravated manslaughter, authorities said Monday.

Alvin Mootoo, 49, of Orlando, was arrested following the Jan. 2, 2019 crash that killed 31-year-old Jorge Alberto Pena Mesa, who was standing near a parked car talking to the driver when he was struck, police said at the time.

The drivers of two other cars were hospitalized with minor injuries, according to the Passaic County Prosecutors Office.

Investigators allege Mootoo blew through a stop sign at the intersection of 18th Avenue and East 24th Street, causing the crash.

In addition to manslaughter, a Passaic County Grand Jury indicted Mootoo on first-degree death by auto while driving intoxicated near a school, third-degree strict liability vehicular homicide, assault by auto and refusal to submit to a blood or breath test near school property.

If convicted on the manslaughter charge, Mootoo faces 15 to 30 years in state prison , the prosecutors office said. The death by auto charges carry a possible prison sentence of 10 to 20 years, according to the prosecutors office.

A Superior Court judge placed Mootoo on pretrial release after the crash. He is expected to remain free at least until his arraignment, which is scheduled for March 29, the prosecutors office said.

Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call investigators at 1-877-370-PCPO or email tips@passaiccountynj.org.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / 79 Resources Ltd. (CSE:SNR) ("79 Resources " or the "Company") is pleased to welcome Mr. Mitchell E. Lavery, P.Geo to its Advisory Board.

Mr. Lavery has over forty-five years' experience in exploration and development of mineral projects with a number of major and junior mining companies. Mr. Lavery has been involved in the discovery of massive sulfide and gold deposits in Ontario, gold and lithium in Quebec, and uranium in Saskatchewan. He has worked across North America, South America, in West Africa and Western Europe.

"I am very pleased to join the 79 Resources Ltd. team as a consultant and advisor initially looking at and evaluating the newly acquired Lac Saint Simon property just to the north of the world class Nemaska Lithium deposit in the James Bay Region of northern Quebec. I will also be identifying and evaluating new Lithium opportunities around the world," said Mr. Lavery.

Mr. Lavery was instrumental in the discovery and initial evaluation of the Bell Creek Gold Mine in Timmins, Ontario; the development and operation of the Joubie Gold Mine, Val-d'Or, Quebec; and the acquisition and development of the Quebec Lithium property, Lacorne, Quebec. He is the President, and a director of Seahawk Gold Corp. and is a Qualified Person under NI-43-101 regulations. He is a member of l'Ordre des geologues du Quebec, CIM Harricana and a 40+ year member of the PDAC.

Steven Feldman, CEO and Director commented, "On behalf of the 79 Resources Board and Management, we are very pleased to welcome Mr. Lavery to our Advisory Board. His extensive experience will be an asset to 79 Resources as we continue in our endeavours to build and expand our mineral project portfolio."

The Company further announces it has set 80,000 options for Mr. Lavery at $0.16 for a period of 2 years in accordance with the Company's stock option plan.

About 79 Resources Ltd.

79 Resources is a recently formed junior mining exploration company. Its objective is to acquire, explore and develop precious and base metal properties of merit.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Steven Feldman"

Steven Feldman Director

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Tel. 1-604-683-3995

Toll Free. 1-888-845-4770

Neither the Canadian Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. These forward -looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in our filings with SEDAR in Canada (available at WWW.SEDAR.COM).

SOURCE: 79 Resources Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634202/79-Resources-Ltd-Welcomes-Mitchell-Lavery-PGeo-to-Its-Advisory-Board
Drug developers advance milestone treatments for chronic and progressive conditions affecting millions of patients worldwide, including Alzheimer's, psoriasis, prostate cancer and congestive heart failure

Report also features snapshot of the fast-emerging field of COVID-19 vaccines granted emergency use authorizations and conditional approvals

LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CLVT), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today announced the launch of its annual "Drugs to Watch" list, identifying drugs entering the market or launching key indications in 2021 which are predicted to achieve blockbuster status by 2025.

Beyond the unprecedented achievements of the industry's response to COVID-19, drug developers have advanced milestone treatments for conditions affecting millions of patients worldwide. This year's Drugs to Watch list and corresponding analyses focus on treatments for chronic, progressive and often debilitating diseases and conditions, including Alzheimer's, prostate cancer and congestive heart failure.

Despite a challenging year, biopharma companies managed to produce highly-effective vaccines and treatments aimed at preventing SARS-CoV-2. This year's Drugs to Watch report also features a snapshot of the fast-emerging field of COVID-19 vaccines which analyzes vaccines that were granted emergency use authorizations/conditional approvals as of February 10, 2021. Learnings from some of the adjustments the industry made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic will likely shape biopharma R&D and commercialization well beyond the immediate crisis, including: faster clinical trials, a surge in investment, increased collaboration and more remote care and consultation.

Among new drugs and biologics that have either won approval or are on the cusp of doing so, Clarivate has identified four treatments that are likely to achieve blockbuster status, delivering annual sales of more than $1 billion, within five years. The 2021 Drugs to Watch include:

Aducanumab, developed by Biogen and Eisai - a potential game changer in the fight to build a pharmacopeia against Alzheimer's disease, which affects an estimated 50 million patients worldwide. If approved, aducanumab would be the first disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer's disease and could unlock a monumental opportunity to radically change patient care and transform the market. In addition, demand for treatment could be enormous, potentially even decreasing willingness to forgo this treatment for an investigational drug in future clinical trials.

- a potential game changer in the fight to build a pharmacopeia against Alzheimer's disease, which affects an estimated 50 million patients worldwide. If approved, aducanumab would be the first disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer's disease and could unlock a monumental opportunity to radically change patient care and transform the market. In addition, demand for treatment could be enormous, potentially even decreasing willingness to forgo this treatment for an investigational drug in future clinical trials. Bimekizumab, developed by UCB - offers significantly fewer side effects to patients with psoriasis, a condition affecting an estimated 2-3% of the global population, and a host of other autoimmune diseases. While bimekizumab is a late-class entrant providing incremental improvement over existing treatment options, it is expected to have best-in-class efficacy and fewer serious side effects.

- offers significantly fewer side effects to patients with psoriasis, a condition affecting an estimated 2-3% of the global population, and a host of other autoimmune diseases. While bimekizumab is a late-class entrant providing incremental improvement over existing treatment options, it is expected to have best-in-class efficacy and fewer serious side effects. Relugolix, developed by Takeda - one of the first of a new class of treatments, with an oral formulation to address prostate cancer, the second-most-common malignancy afflicting men, as well as endometriosis and uterine fibroids, painful conditions affecting millions of women. Its potential use for three indications increases its chances of success. The oral formulation provides advantages over the injectable GnRH agonist competitors, including convenience and better management of side effects.

- one of the first of a new class of treatments, with an oral formulation to address prostate cancer, the second-most-common malignancy afflicting men, as well as endometriosis and uterine fibroids, painful conditions affecting millions of women. Its potential use for three indications increases its chances of success. The oral formulation provides advantages over the injectable GnRH agonist competitors, including convenience and better management of side effects. Vericiguat, developed by Bayer and Merck - an innovative heart failure treatment and the first indicated specifically for high-risk, chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), a particularly at-risk population. Vericiguat's novel mechanism of action should result in its acceptance as an add-on therapy to existing treatments. It will likely find its niche among high-risk HFrEF patients, become a welcome addition to the treatment armamentarium and expand their treatment options.

Mike Ward, Global Head of Thought Leadership, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Clarivate, said: "In the last five years we have seen an increase in approvals of innovative medicines at a rate more than double what it was a decade ago. A number of drivers have aligned to achieve this improvement, including greater insight into the biological roots of diseases, oncology research benefiting from the routine introduction of biomarkers to better target therapies, the emergence of gene and cell therapies and efforts by regulatory agencies to introduce processes to accelerate medicine assessment."

Clarivate leverages proprietary data and insights from Cortellis Competitive Intelligence, Disease Landscape & Forecast, and Drug Timeline & Success Rates as well as 1000s of data points from within its wider intelligence cloud to produce the annual list of potential drugs for inclusion --from drugs that advanced to phase II trials or beyond in 2021. Each drug was researched and evaluated in its individual context by interrogating annual filings, drug pipelines, clinical trials, patents, chemistry, deals, regulatory status and more. Therapy area experts across a wide range of markets examined the various disease landscapes from all angles, reviewed the pricing strategies and explored the science underpinning the new medicines.

There is a high level of expectation of commercial success for each of the drugs featured in this year's list, with some expected to tout improved safety vs. alternative therapies, while others will seek to highlight novel mechanisms of action. In addition to driving future innovation, these treatments have the potential to advance human health, redefine standards of care in their categories and save or improve patient lives.

Clarivate is committed to comprehensively supporting customers across the entire drug, device and medical technology lifecycles to advance human health. The new annual report further demonstrates how the combined expertise, data and technologies of Clarivate and Decision Resources Group (DRG), acquired by Clarivate in 2020, enable customers to make informed evidence-based decisions, boost clinical and commercial success, and bolster a robust, integrated platform of life science intelligence solutions from pre-clinical and clinical offerings.

The full Drugs to Watch report is freely available online here.

Join the conversation on Twitter: @clarivate drugstowatch2021

The 2021 Clarivate Drugs to Watch List:

Methodology for the Clarivate Drugs to Watch 2021 Report

Data for this list were compiled from Cortellis Competitive Intelligence, Disease Landscape & Forecast, and Drug Timeline & Success Rates. Cortellis Competitive Intelligence includes the broadest and deepest range of sources of intelligence across the R&D lifecycle, including annual filings, drug pipelines, clinical trials, patents, chemistry, deals, conferences and company announcements. Disease Landscape & Forecast provides comprehensive market intelligence and actionable insights across 180+ indications to help optimize long-term disease strategies. Drug Timeline & Success Rates is an analytic tool that applies statistical modeling and machine learning to reliably and accurately forecast drug development milestones, timelines and probability of success. Drugs in phase 2 or phase 3 trials, at pre-registration or registration stage, or already launched early in 2021 were selected for analysis; drugs launched prior to 2021 were excluded. The dataset was then filtered for drugs that had total forecast sales of $1 billion or more in 2025. This filtering process produced a list of drugs which was then manually reviewed by our in-house experts and consultants to determine whether these products were likely to go to market in 2021, based on factors such as the company's expected approval or launch dates. Following this manual review, four drugs to watch for 2021 were determined. Each drug was subsequently researched and evaluated in its individual context, including clinical trial results, regulatory status, the market for each drug (including analysis of competitor drugs) and regulatory designations (e.g., Orphan Drug, Priority Review). Data extraction - January 21, 2021. Our Drugs to Watch 2021 Report is based Clarivate's current expectations based on existing data, but actual results derived from the drugs identified in the Report may differ significantly.

About Clarivate

Clarivate is a global leader in providing solutions to accelerate the lifecycle of innovation. Our bold mission is to help customers solve some of the world's most complex problems by providing actionable information and insights that reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing inventions in the areas of science and intellectual property. We help customers discover, protect and commercialize their inventions using our trusted subscription and technology-based solutions coupled with deep domain expertise. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.

Media Contact

Catherine Daniel

media.enquiries@clarivate.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1452287/Clarivate_Plc___2021_Drugs_to_Watch_Table.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1159266/Clarivate_Analytics.jpg
Iran has criticized comments made by a top Iranian politician concerning Syria and Iraq, writes Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed reservations about statements made by the Secretary of Irans Expediency Council, Mohsen Rezaee, on Syria and Iraqs refund to Iran.

This is the second time in 72 hours in which the Iranian Foreign Ministry insists on distancing the official stance from the statements made by Rezaee during an interview with the Financial Times.

Rezaee was slammed by Iranian officials, who considered that his statements serve his intention to run for the presidential elections in June.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iranian officials are free to express their ideas, but those personal opinions should not be regarded as the countrys official state policy.

Iranian polity is vibrant and officials express diverse opinions. But those opinions should not be confused with state policy, he said in a tweet on Friday.

Iran will soon present a constructive plan of action, Zarif said.

As Irans Foreign Minister and chief nuclear negotiator, I will shortly present our concrete plan of action, through proper diplomatic channels, Zarif added.

This incident is not the first of its kind.

The special adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and former head of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Yahya Rahim Safavi, stated in September that Iran will seek a refund of its payments in Syria and Iraq.

Regarding Syria, Safavi asserted, we signed contracts with the Syrians in exchange for things, noting that the Russians benefit from Syria more than Iran does.

Weve received cash dollars every time we helped the Iraqis, he added.

Since 2012, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has spent at least 16 billion dollars in support of its regional arms.

Iran rejects to provide official figures regarding its human and financial losses in Syria and Iraq.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Options Technology, today announced it has achieved VMware Cloud Verified status.

The Cloud Verified designation indicates that a provider offers the complete VMware-based software defined data center infrastructure delivered as a service. VMware Cloud Verified partner services enable customers to achieve unmatched levels of consistency, performance and interoperability for both traditional or containerized enterprise applications and the confidence that the service is based on the most advanced VMware cloud technologies.

Options' President and CEO Danny Moore, said, "With thousands of VMs under management globally, achieving this status aligns to the efforts and achievements of our core Cloud solutions. This partnership milestone is a pivotal step in our mission to transform financial sector technology as we enable our clients to expand their cloud strategies. We have dedicated significant resources to achieve this accolade, with employees attaining over 30 VMware certifications demonstrating the deepest expertise to ensure an industry-leading experience to benefit our clients. We're excited to share this achievement as it further strengthens us as a global leader of best in class technology solutions."

"Partners that are VMware Cloud Verified provide organizations with complete and advanced VMware Cloud technologies, along with interoperability across clouds for greater advantage for their customers' businesses," said Jim Aluotto, director, Cloud Provider Business, Americas Region. "Cloud Verified services delivered by VMware Cloud Providers can provide the efficiency, agility, and reliability inherent in cloud computing. We look forward to supporting Options as it empowers organizations with a simple and flexible path to the cloud."

VMware's global network of more than 4,500 VMware Cloud Providers leverage VMware's consistent cloud infrastructure to offer a wide array of services in over 120 countries, provide geographic and industry specialization, and help customers meet complex regulatory requirements.

VMware, VMware Cloud, VMware Cloud Verified and VMware Cloud Provider are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions.

About Options (www.options-it.com):

Options Technology are the No. 1 provider of IT infrastructure to global Capital Markets firms, supporting their operations and ecosystems.

Founded in 1993, the firm began life as a hedge fund technology services provider. Today, the company provides high-performance managed trading infrastructure and cloud-enabled managed services to over 200 firms globally, providing an agile, scalable platform in an Investment Bank grade Cybersecurity wrapper.

Options clients include the leading global investment banks, hedge funds, funds of funds, proprietary trading firms, market makers, broker/dealers, private equity houses and exchanges. With offices in 8 key cities; New York, Toronto, Chicago, London, Belfast, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand, Options are well placed to service their customers both on-site and remotely.

In 2019, Options secured a significant growth investment from Abry Partners, a Boston-based sector-focused private equity firm. This investment has enabled Options to considerably accelerate its growth strategy to invest further in its technology platform and expand its reach in key financial centres globally.

Options has been named among the UK's leading growth companies in the 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 and 2017 Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200 league table.

For more on Options, please visit www.options-it.com, follow us on Twitter at @Options_IT and visit our LinkedIn page.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005788/en/

Contacts:

Options Press Contact: Page McLaughlin

Email: page.mclaughlin@options-it.com
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Global Barite Market Research Report - Forecast to 2022 - Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast up to 2022.

Barite Market  Market Overview

Global barite market witnessed strong growth from oil and gas exploration industry owing to its usage to suppress the high formation of liquid and prevent blowouts. Rising pressure on energy sector to meet global demand of growing transportation and petrochemical industry has result in rising oil and gas production which in turn will have positive impact on barite market. In addition, barite is used for application as weighing agent and to increase density of fluid to control pressure in shale reserves. Thus, blooming oil shale production will subsequently drive the demand of barite in U.S. market.

Get a Free Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2035

Barite is widely used in application such as textile, paints and coatings and paper making among others. This mineral is used in sodium hydroxide production which is extensively used in refining sugar and in paints as white pigments. Moreover, increasing automotive production coupled with rise in residential and commercial projects also positively influence the barite market growth. Barite is also used in production of barium carbonate which in turn used in manufacturing LED glass. Growing LED glass consumption in television and laptops is expected to augment the barite market growth over the forecast period. Barite is non-magnetic in nature which makes it ideal choice for drilling hole. Hence, alternative to barite such as celestite, iron ore and synthetic hematite does not hold any major impact in drilling mud industry.

Barite is broadly segmented according to grade as grade 3.9, grade 4.0, grade 4.1, grade 4.2 and grade above 4.3. Grade with high specific gravity represents superior quality compared to lower specific gravity. Higher grade obtained from deeper earth crust holds higher prices, which in turn impede the market growth over the forecast period. However, lower grade barite from 3.9 to 4.2 is gaining traction in oil and gas industry owing to optimum production of shale gas coupled with shift in trend towards unconventional energy source thereby, will have positive impact on barite market in coming years.

Barite are largely consumed in Asia Pacific region owing to robust end use industry growth, favourable government policies and low labor cost. China is leading country owing to large availability of shale reserve to meet growing demand of barite in automotive and construction industry. Furthermore, rapid industrialization has led to strong growth in paints and coating industry which is likely to propel barite market growth. North America is second largest market due to rise in shale gas production in U.S. and development in infrastructure activities leading to growth in paints and coatings industry. U.S. is major market and exhibits growth potential in coming years. Europe to register significant growth. Germany and UK are leading countries in European regions on account of large automotive hub. Automotive refinishes and restoration is driving huge demand of paints and coatings which in turn drives the demand for barite market. Moreover, Brazil is anticipated to witnessed high demand of barite on account of increase in expenditure on interior of residential projects which is anticipated to further drive the paints and coatings industry.

Key Players:

Desku Group Inc. (United States), Halliburton Company (Unites States), Excalibar Minerals LLC (United States), P & S Barite Mining Co. Ltd. (Thailand), Ashapura Minechem Ltd. (India), Anglo Pacific Minerals (United Kingdom), CIMBAR Performance Minerals (United States), New Riverside Ochre Company, Inc (United States), Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation Limited (India) and Mil-Spec Industries Corporation (United States) among others are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the Global Barite Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.

Barite Market  Competitive Analysis

Barite market is fragmented market with tier 1 and tier 2 companies dominating the overall market. The major players are adopting key strategy like partnerships and agreements in order to reduce gap between supplier and manufacturer of barite. Apart from that, various key strategies adopted by key players are expansion and acquisition. Advancement in technology and increasing presence of significant players has positively impact the growth of barite market. Moreover, companies are expanding their production facility to meet global demand and obtain competitive advantage in the market.

Industry/ Innovation/ Related News:

April 2017 Nigeria barite sector are entering new era of development by targeting strategic minerals and metals of development including barite, limestone, iron and bitumen along with offering tax break to mining companies. This project got initiative after World Bank approved credit line of USD 150 Million to increase the mining sector in Nigerian economy. This would open new lucrative opportunity to market players.

June 2017 Honey Badger Exploration Inc. signed an agreement to acquire assets located in Quebec. The deal includes acquisition of three properties including the Upton Property, the Saint-Fabien Property, and the Kamouraska Property. Total of 642 hectors are acquired for zinc and barite mining. This would strengthen companies position by opening new opportunity to investors as well as raise capital for advanced new projects.

February 2016 Schlumberger got approval of barite mining at Duntanlich near Aberfeldy in Perthshire. The Duntanlich site is economically known as barite deposit in UK. The company plans to mine around 120,000 tons of mineral each year to make self sufficient for over next 50 years. This would strengthen companies position as barite is key ingredient of drilling mud industry.

Browse Related Report @

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aviation-fuel-market-worldwide-share-growth-emerging-trend-size-share-business-analysis-future-scope-and-forecast-to-2025-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aircraft-design-and-engineering-market-worldwide-analysis-industry-demand-size-share-emerging-audience-business-growth-and-forecast-to-2025-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aircraft-de-icing-market-is-expected-to-register-a-592-cagr-during-the-forecast-period-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/superhydrophobic-coating-market-key-players-consumption-status-industry-analysis-and-opportunity-assessment-2023-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/plastic-additives-market-growth-drivers-impact-analysis-market-opportunities-by-2023-2021-01-19
This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact The Chanute Tribune office at 620-431-4100 if you have any questions
The JD(S) on Tuesday announced the list of four candidates for the April 6 Assembly polls in

State JD(S) President Mathew T Thomas is among the candidates whom the party has fielded and he will be contesting from Thiruvalla assembly seat.

The other three are Dr Neela Lohithadassa Nadar from Kovalam, K Krishnan Kutty from Chittur, and Jose Thettayil from Ankamali.

In a letter to Thomas, JD(S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda said as the national president of the party he has approved the candidates contesting for the coming assembly elections on the party symbol "A Lady Farmer carrying Paddy on her Head".

"Kindly permit them to contest in their respective Assembly Constituencies.I will send them the required 'A' and 'B' Forms to file their nominations well in time," the former Prime Minister said.

The JD(S) is a constituent of Keralas ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) coalition, and had won three out of five seats it had contested in the 2016 assembly polls.
She's no stranger to turning heads, whether it's on-screen or in her stunning social media snaps.

And Lucy Watson commanded attention once again as she posed for a racy bedroom image on Instagram on Tuesday.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 30, caught the eye in white lingerie by Renue The Label, her new sustainable underwear brand.

Working it: Lucy Watson commanded attention once again as she posed for a racy bedroom image in her underwear brand Renue The Label on Instagram on Tuesday

Showcasing her toned figure, the Creature Jewellery founder stunned in the two-piece, which featured a bralet and matching briefs.

The entrepreneur styled her new set with a flowy shirt and a selection of gold rings, while her tresses were worn loose.

The businesswoman recently hit out at trolls after she received a barrage of abuse for enjoying a festive trip abroad during the coronavirus pandemic.

In her element: The former Made In Chelsea star, 30, is no stranger to turning heads, whether it's on-screen or in her stunning social media snaps

Lucy insisted she followed 'all necessary precautions' and flew out to Barbados with fiance James Dunmore before Boris Johnson plunged London into Tier 4.

The influencer said she would not accept people 'taking out their frustration on me' in the message.

In a lengthy post uploaded to her stories, Lucy wrote at the time: 'I understand people are angry, upset and frustrated at the moment. These are unpredictable and unfortunate times, with disappointment around every corner.

'However, I will not accept anyone taking out their frustration on me, be it during a pandemic or not.

'Hateful comments will be deleted and always have been, regardless of their relation to Covid. I want my feed to be a positive place, and although some people feel like I've broken the rules, I have not.

'I left London pre tier 4 and followed all necessary precautions in Barbados. I was and am still negative for Covid. I've 3 tests in the last 3 weeks.

Clarification: The brunette recently insisted she followed 'all necessary precautions' and flew out to Barbados with fiance James Dunmore before Boris Johnson plunged London into Tier 4

'This was not a last minute trip booked just to escape the U.K. This was a trip that had been booked for nearly a year, James's family spend half their time in Barbados and we go there every other Christmas.

'Regardless of the above, I truly hope I have not offended anyone, that is never my intention. Please take care of yourself and your mental health. We will get through this.'

The media personality flew out with fiance James, her sister Tiffany and dad Clive just before Tier 4 restrictions were imposed. At the time London was in Tier 3, with residents advised not to take holidays abroad.

The brunette became engaged to her boyfriend of five years James in September last year after he popped the question during a romantic getaway in Greece.
Drawing a human operator's attention to a meaningful change is the simplest objective for an alarm. However, from a systems-management perspective, this characterization is overly simple. Alarm system objectives need to move beyond an approach tied to responding to single alarms and instead focus on enhancing an operator's (e.g., nurse, pilot) understanding of the monitored system (e.g., patient, airplane). Credit: Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology (2021). DOI: 10.2345/0899-8205-55.1.29

Hospital alarms play an important role in patient monitoring, but false alarms and multiple alarms going off at the same time can be challenging to manageleading to alarm fatigue among nurses. New research from The Ohio State University School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences found the health care industry can improve hospital alarm design by borrowing from lessons learned by the aviation industry.

The paper, published in the journal Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology titled "Lessons from the Glass Cockpit for Innovation in Alarm Systems to Support Cognitive Work," introduces three objectives for hospital alarms that focus on alerting the appropriate clinical team member, prioritizing alarms so the most pressing health issue is addressed first and providing direction on how to manage the patient's health issue.

"Alarms are used to attract attention, but we believe alarms can also support awareness, prioritization, and decision making," said Emily Patterson, lead author and associate professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. "We aim to provide an approach to hospital alarms that goes beyond notifications and focuses on helping nurses have a better understanding of their patients."

To draw lessons from aviation, the research team conducted a series of meetings among engineers with expertise in alarm design in health care, aviation, nuclear power generation, and military command and control domains. They identified differences in alarm design and use, highlighted common alarm problems and established objectives for alarm systems that support their users. The team determined clinical alarm systems are unnecessarily complex compared to aviation, and that both industries share core safety objectives and challenges.

"We took into consideration the key difference between these two industriesairplanes are assumed to be in good condition and alarms rare while hospital patients may be unstable making alarms more commonplace," Patterson said. "Both industries require the pilot or nurse to take action to address the issue indicated by the alarm, but clinical teams have more alarms across multiple patients making it difficult to effectively address each one."

Despite their differences, both industry alarm systems trigger false notifications. Multiple alarms going off at the same time may make it hard to discern which alarm requires a rapid response. Other challenges include alarms that require a quick response may be buried by alarms that aren't as pressing, repetitive alarms and some alarms are sent to multiple people, making it unclear who is responsible to address the alarm. These can result in alarms being ignored or missed, potentially putting the patient's health in jeopardy.

"Our recommendation is for medical device manufacturers to redesign alarms into integrated systems that link clinical events and inform the action nurses should take," Patterson said. "Notifications for issues such as dead batteries and patient requests for water or for assistance to go to the bathroom could be routed to other clinical staff, allowing nurses to focus on patient care."

Explore further Most ICU patient alarms not clinically accurate or relevant

More information: Randall J. Mumaw et al. Lessons from the Glass Cockpit: Innovation in Alarm Systems to Support Cognitive Work, Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology (2021). Randall J. Mumaw et al. Lessons from the Glass Cockpit: Innovation in Alarm Systems to Support Cognitive Work,(2021). DOI: 10.2345/0899-8205-55.1.29
PHILIPSBURG (DCOMM):---The Vaccination Management Team (VMT), has decided in consultation with the Netherlands to continue with the next priority risk group. The first group consisted of healthcare workers with direct client contact, and the second group of all persons 60 years or older.

Within these groups over 2000 people have received the first dose already and will return for their second dose as of next week.

The earlier start with priority group 3 is good news because it will allow the Ministry of Publication Health, Social Development and Labour (Ministry VSA)/VMT to scale up the vaccination progress. And time is precious since the aim is to complete the vaccination campaign before the start of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season.

As the term ''underlying health conditions'' is quite vague, you can compare it with the eligibility to receive the yearly flu vaccine. Eligible are persons with the following conditions: diabetes, lung diseases such as asthma, COPD, lung cancer, heart conditions such as angina, rhythm problems or a history of a heart attack, kidney problems, disorders that affect your immune system, being morbidly overweight (a Body Mass Index of over 40) or having a neurological disorder (such as Parkinsons or ALS) with breathing difficulties.

People who have these underlying conditions are at higher risk of contracting severe COVID-19. The COVID-19 vaccine provides protection against this and is thus especially important for the people within this priority risk group. Those who registered with these underlying health conditions can now expect an invitation. When you do receive the confirmation, don't forget to confirm your appointment by clicking the link that is included in the invitation email.

Ministry VSA/VMT encourages everyone to register for the vaccine, even if the priority risk group that you fall under is not yet being invited for the vaccine. As the registration numbers increase, the sooner the vaccine can be offered who registered. If you have a friend, parent, neighbor, or relative that might be struggling, please offer to help with registering, transportation, comfort, or providing information. If you need help or information, you can also call CPS at 914 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The online registration form is currently available in Spanish and Creole and can be found via this link: https://forms.sintmaartengov.org/form.aspx?v=OGtn05kNmb

The paper-based COVID Vaccine Registration Form can be picked up at several locations, including Collective Prevention Services (CPS) at the Vineyard Office Park Building in Philipsburg, the Division of Labor Affairs at the Simpson Bay Public Service Center in Simpson Bay, Doctors offices, the Government Administration Building, and select pharmacies.

St. Maarten protected together.
A homeless BBC TV star took her own life after years battling a tragic combination of mental health issues and chronic substance abuse, a coroner said.

Paige Greenaway, 23, who appeared in the BBC docuseries Love And Drugs On The Street, was found hanged at her Brighton home on February 9 last year following an argument with her partner.

The inquest was halted October last year when her mother claimed her daughter's death was not a straightforward suicide..

But the resumed inquest at Hove heard boyfriend Joe Holloway had been cleared of any involvement by a new Sussex Police investigation.

DS Chris Lane told the hearing the new investigation had been ordered by the chief constable and detectives from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team and found no evidence of foul play in her death.

Paige Greenaway, 23, (pictured) was found hanged at her Brighton home on February 9 last year following an argument with her partner

The tragic mother-of-two had lived on the streets of Brighton for seven years.

She had moved to a rented bedsit before her death and was fighting to maintain contact with her children, the inquest heard.

Ms Greenaway stole viewers hearts when she appeared in the BBC series in 2017, aged 21, and showed how she slept in a graveyard.

Her mother Edell, 47, said her daughter's appearance in Love And Drugs On The Street had given her the confidence to pull her socks up.

She had plans to get her life in order and hoped to start a business with her mother this year. Edell said her daughter had wanted to join the navy and go to college.

Ms Greenaway pictured on BBC series 'Love And Drugs On The Street'

Police forced entry to the flat after friends reported their concerns.

At an earlier hearing, the inquest was told Joe Holloway contacted police when he could not reach Ms Greenaway on Sunday, February 9, 2020.

He had received a message from her the day before saying she intended to take her own life.

'I want him to know he should not feel guilty he did not go back or ask for somebody else to go into the house.

'It still would have been too late,' Senior Coroner for Brighton and Hove Veronica Hamilton-Deeley said.

At an earlier hearing, the inquest was told Joe Holloway contacted police when he could not reach Ms Greenaway on Sunday, February 9, 2020. Ms Greenaway pictured on the BBC show

She described Ms Greenaway as an extraordinary young woman who had taken her life in response to the volatile nature of her relationship and the tragic combination of circumstances.

'There were so many things she had to learn to live with, quite frankly, I don't know how she managed as well as she did and how she managed to impress people as she did.

'She shone out as somebody who was chosen to appear in a serious television programme.

'She had friends, warmth and personality and that weapon which can help overcome all odds and that's a sense of humour.

'She was an extraordinary woman but in the end that double edged sword of impulsivity proved to be her undoing,' Mrs Hamilton-Deeley said.

Senior Coroner for Brighton and Hove Veronica Hamilton-Deeley ruled that Ms Greenaway's death was suicide by hanging

Community Psychiatric Nurse, Laura Murphy, told the inquest it had been a privilege to work with Ms Greenaway.

'There was a chance of stabilisation. Every time I met with her, she understood herself very well.

'It was other people she had difficulty understanding. Often with the chaos outside, we would struggle to hang onto the things we talked about,' Ms Murphy said.

'She was keen to start afresh and thought it would give her peace and she was very much looking forward to that.

'It's a privilege to work with people like Paige. She had a great sense of humour and was exceptionally motivated. I would have liked to have worked with her longer.'

Ms Greenaway was born with a condition called Triple X syndrome which can lead to learning difficulties, emotional immaturity, impulsivity and difficult to manage behaviour, the court heard.

Following her death, mother Edell said: 'Paige really pulled up her socks and came back with a fight.

'She was so excited to see what would happen next and had planned to move back home.

'But it was like she was fighting a never ending battle with her own demons as well.'

Ms Greenaway lived on the streets following a deterioration in her mental health and clashes with her mother.

'I'm a runaway child,' she told the BBC.

The coroner recorded a conclusion of suicide by hanging.

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details
If past natural disasters have taught us anything about their effects on pregnant women and developing babies, it is to pay close attention, for the added stress will surely have an impact on them. Amanda Venta, associate professor of psychology at the University of Houston, is sounding that alarm as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic in a newly released study published in Child Psychiatry & Human Development.

"There is strong evidence to suggest that the coronavirus pandemic will affect mothers and infants through immune pathways that, in previous research, have been shown to link stress and social isolation during the pre- and post-natal periods with deficits in maternal mental health and infant well-being and development across developmental stages," reports Venta.

Research is clear about the link between the mind and body and maternal stress having toxic inflammatory effects on both mothers and infants.

"A pregnant mom's immune system translates to her baby, so when she releases inflammatory cytokines, which can be in response to stress, those get passed to the baby both before birth and through breast milk," said Venta. "When we see elevated inflammatory cytokines in babies, we know there is increased risk for later developmental problems."

One of the studies Venta used in her summary was "Project Ice Storm," which examined effects of in utero exposure to varying levels of prenatal maternal stress resulting from the 1998 Quebec ice storm, which left millions of people without electricity for up to 40 days. Follow-ups with children until the age of 19 showed significant effects on temperament, behavior, motor development, physical development, IQ, attention and language development.

And though there is no current data yet linking mothers' stress during the COVID-19 pandemic to infant outcomes, now is the time to start taking stock, according to Venta.

"We know that when moms are socially isolated it increases stress. We need to do something from a research standpoint, and we need to do things differently clinically. When moms are supported by their partner, family and friends, or even their doctor, those kinds of social relationships can reduce inflammation," said Venta, who speaks from the trenches. She is five months pregnant and her Ob/Gyn has yet to ask if she is isolated, stressed, or feels supported-- questions that are currently far outside the standard of prenatal care.

The report concludes that research on the psychological and biological cascades of stress and social isolation on mothers and infants is needed immediately and recommends specific areas for future research:

Assess infant developmental and maternal mental health outcomes during COVID-19 and in the aftermath

Examine mechanisms of resilience and risk

Pilot interventions for immediate use

"We must move quickly to understand the risk of long-term adversity for these families and, relatedly, identify protective factors that can be leveraged to mitigate the catastrophe of adverse outcomes for this birth cohort," said Venta.

###
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 22:11:28|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Aerial photo taken on March 4, 2021 shows a view of the Shapotou water control project in Zhongwei, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The Ningxia section of the Yellow River runs 397 kilometers. During the past years, Ningxia has been promoting the ecological development. Currently, over 500,000 mu (about 33,333 hectares) wetland has been recovered in Ningxia, with the total wetland area covering 3.1 million mu (about 206,667 hectares). The local forest coverage rate has increased from 11.4 percent in 2010 to 15.2 percent in 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Peng)




North Korea's official newspaper on Tuesday carried contribution pieces by officials in the Cabinet and economic sectors holding themselves accountable for the lack of progress in economic development.







The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party, carried a contribution piece in a newly added section written by Jo Yong-dok, department director of the Cabinet, criticizing the lack of cooperation between industries.







"Production was hindered by the lack of cooperation among major economic sectors, including the metal, electricity, coal and transportation industries," Jo said.







"The responsibility for this lack of cooperation and connection between economic sectors lies with the Cabinet officials," he added.







Other officials working in the coal and thermal power industries also contributed articles in the paper, denouncing themselves for making unrealistic decisions and carrying out their tasks as a formality.







Choe Yong-il, a senior official at the Sunchon Area Youth Coal Mining Complex, said in a contribution that he had made an "embarrassing" mistake of setting unrealistic goals and overestimating the company's mining capacity.







The paper highlighted officials' self-criticism in an apparent bid to call for more efforts to carry out policy goals put forth during January's party congress in the face of global sanctions and the fallout of the country's prolonged fight against the global pandemic.







At the congress, leader Kim Jong-un admitted to a failure in his previous economic development plan and disclosed a new development scheme with a focus on "self-reliance."







He also slammed officials for showing "passive and self-protecting tendencies" in setting this year's goals and urged for increased production of iron, steel and chemical fertilizer. (Yonhap)


Essays in the book give a sense of Ms. Esss rarefied position in the space where philosophical inquiry meets the cool-kid avant-garde. One, by Thurston Moore of the band Sonic Youth, recalls Ms. Esss enthusiastic presence in the audience when his band auditioned at CBGBs. Another, by the Buddhist teacher Guy Armstrong, argues that we all inhabit different realities because we all perceive reality differently.

As Ms. Ess herself put it: I dont take pictures of the world to represent the world. For me the world is already a representation of something that cant be photographed.

Barbara Eileen Schwartz was born in Brooklyn on April 4, 1944. She was the eldest of three daughters of Philip George Schwartz, the owner of a small trucking company, and Sally Schwartz, an office manager and bookkeeper. Her father played piano and guitar. He had also worked as a commercial designer before World War II, and there were always art books around the house.

After a childhood that she remembered as happy  despite the occasionally fraught pictures of domestic life that appeared in her work  she attended high school in Peekskill, N.Y. She went on to graduate from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a degree in literature and philosophy.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 05:58:32|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

QUITO, March 9 (Xinhua) -- A total of 68,244 people in Ecuador have received the first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 so far during "phase zero" of the country's vaccination plan, which started on Jan. 21, Public Health Minister Rodolfo Farfan said on Tuesday.

"The vaccination plan is progressing ... Phase zero has been completed among frontline personnel, doctors, nurses, other health personnel and in nursing homes," Farfan told local television.

The minister added that this week, phase 1 of the vaccination plan will begin, with the goal of immunizing 2 million people within priority groups, such as police forces, teachers, firefighters and vulnerable populations.

"We plan to complete phase 1 by April 30, with 2 million people vaccinated, and to begin phase 2 (mass vaccination of the population), which is already being planned," he said.

For phase 2, Ecuador's health ministry aims to vaccinate up to 160,000 people per day to reach the target of immunizing between 60-70 percent of the population, or more than 9 million people.

The vaccination plan includes a third and final phase, where people who could not be vaccinated in the previous phases, will be inoculated.

According to the ministry's daily report, Ecuador had 295,114 COVID-19 cases and 11,285 deaths as of Tuesday.

The South American country has also recorded another 4,784 "probable deaths" from COVID-19, though these have yet to be confirmed. Enditem


The Baihe Volunteer Group of the China Volunteer Association takes a picture with the veterans it serves. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In honor of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the China Volunteer Association's Baihe Volunteer Group organized a ceremony to give gift packages to 100 veterans from Jilin, according to local media reports.

The ceremony was held on March 5 at the innovation base for demobilized soldiers in Jilin, a province in Northeast China.

The average age of the 100 veterans in the ceremony was over 91, with most of them having become communists before 1949  the year the People's Republic of China was founded.

The ceremony was supported by companies, organizations and people from all walks of life: Changchun Merchants Guild of Garments donated 100 military uniforms worth 20,000 yuan ($3,000), Yanbianshanbao Tech Co donated 100 boxes of pain killers, and the China Social Welfare Foundation donated packages worth 60,000 yuan, which included handmade cotton quilts, towels, toothbrushes and other life necessities.

Veterans Song Enbo and Wang Wenzhi attended the ceremony and delivered speeches on behalf of the 100 veterans. They donated paper cuttings made by the veterans to the Baihe Volunteer Group to express their gratitude.



Veteran representatives deliver speeches during the ceremony. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In the future, the volunteer group plans to invite veterans to hit the stage and sing hymns to celebrate the founding of the Party, according to Li Guimei, the group's leader.

So far, Baihe Volunteer Group has been committed to serving Jilin's veterans for seven years  since 2014.



Veteran representatives donate their self-made paper cuttings to the Baihe Volunteer Group. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Washington, March 9 : As NASA aims to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024, the agency is looking to the US universities for lunar-focused research to bring about advancements in onsite resource utilisation and sustainable power solutions.

The US space agency on Monday said that it has selected six project proposals under its first-ever Lunar Surface Technology Research (LuSTR) solicitation.

"Our inaugural LuSTR opportunity targeted two technology areas within NASA's Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative that are essential to the agency's Artemis program, which will land the first woman and next man on the Moon," Walt Engelund, Deputy Associate Administrator for programmes in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) said in a statement.

"The systems developed by the US universities could make future exploration more accessible, robust, and exciting." Through LuSTR, NASA selected three university-led proposals to research innovative ways to identify resources, like water, on the Moon, and inventive designs for extraction and utilisation equipment.

The University of Texas in El Paso will research an advanced thermal mining approach that could release, trap, and transport water vapour found on the Moon, NASA said.

Washington University in St. Louis will build a rover-mounted drill to quantify the 3D distribution of water at the Moon's South Pole.

Michigan Technological University in Houghton will adapt a heated percussive cone penetrometer -- an engineering instrument regularly used on Earth -- to characterise the strength of lunar soil, or regolith.

Understanding a lunar region's regolith strength could inform methods of excavating water and building structures using local materials.

Complementing this research, three other university teams will mature next-generation energy storage and power distribution technologies.

The projects could help power in-situ resource utilisation operations and other robust infrastructure on the Moon.

The University of California in Santa Barbara will research wireless power transfer feasibility from a base station to multiple distant assets on the Moon.

Vanderbilt University in Nashville will look into using silicon carbide power components for lunar surface applications.

The Ohio State University in Columbus will explore flexible energy distribution between multiple, different power grids -- that may use solar, radioisotope, and battery sources -- that could be deployed on the lunar surface to support the Artemis programme, NASA said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Pope Francis was on Sunday visiting areas of northern Iraq once held by Islamic State militants.

Why it matters: This is the first-ever papal trip to Iraq. The purpose of Francis' four-day visit is largely intended to reassure the country's Christian minority, who were violently persecuted by ISIS, which controlled the region from 2014-2017.

The big picture: On the third day of his historic trip to Iraq, which is heavily featured in the Old Testament, the pope met at the the city of Erbil's airport Sunday with Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, and Masrour Barzani, the region's prime minister.

The pontiff then flew by helicopter to the former ISIS stronghold of Mosul, where he led a prayer "amidst the ruins and along with the people of Iraq, for all the victims of war in the country and throughout the Middle East," per the Vatican News.

On Saturday, he met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the head of the Shiite Islam religious establishment in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq, where he denounced extremism in the country and pushed for peace.

What they're saying: "We believers cannot be silent when terrorism abuses religion," the pope said Satuerday. "Dark clouds of terrorism, war and violence have gathered over this country. All its ethnic and religious communities have suffered."

"From this place, where faith was born, from the land of our father Abraham, let us affirm that God is merciful and that the greatest blasphemy is to profane his name by hating our brothers and sisters," he continued. "Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion"

Al-Sistani, in a statement issued by his office after the meeting, maintained that Christians should "live like all Iraqis, in security and peace and with full constitutional rights," noting the role that the religious authority plays in protecting them, and others who have also suffered injustice and harm in the events of past years."

The Vatican said Francis expressed thanks to al-Sistani for having "raised his voice in defense of the weakest and most persecuted" amid violence in Iraqs recent history, adding the meeting "underlined the importance of collaboration" between religions.

Of note: The Washington Post reported some challenges were "evident" during his visit Saturday: "At the interreligious event occurring in the founding land of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, no Jews were present onstage."

In photos:

Pope Francis rides in a golf cart at the ruins of the Syriac Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception on March 7. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

Iraqis dressed in traditional outfits greet Pope Francis upon his arrival at Erbil airport, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, on March 7. Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images

Iraqis gather in the ruins of the Syriac Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception (al-Tahira-l-Kubra), in the northern city of Mosul, ahead of the Pope's visit, on March 7. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

A giant billboard bears portraits of Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Baghdad on March 3. Photo: Sabah Arar/AFP via Getty Images

Pope Francis arrives at the Baghdad International Airport on March 5 on the first papal visit to Iraq. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi welcomes Pope Francis at Baghdad International Airport's VIP Lounge, on March 5. Photo: Ayman Henna/AFP via Getty Images

Iraqi President Barham Salih welcomes Pope Francis with an honor guard at Baghdad's Presidential Palace March 5. Photo: Ameer Al Mohammedaw/picture alliance via Getty Images

Pope Francis is welcomed by Iraqi President Barham Salih at the presidential palace in Baghdad on March 5. Photo: Sabah Arar/AFP via Getty Images

Muslim clerics listen as Pope Francis speaks at the presidential palace in Baghdad's Green Zone, on March 5. Photo: Ayman Henna/AFP via Getty Images

Pope Francis delivers a sermon at the Syriac Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad at the start of the first ever papal visit to Iraq on March 5. Photo: Ayman Henna/AFP via Getty Images

Ignatius Joseph III Yunan, Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syriacs applauds as Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad Ephrem Yousif Abba Mansoor presents Pope Francis with an ornamental candlestick gift after his sermon March 5. Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images

Pope Francis is received at the House of Abraham in the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq's Dhi Qar province, on March 6. Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images

Pope Francis speaks with Iraqi religious figures during an interfaith service at the House of Abraham in the ancient city of Ur, on March 6. Photo: Ayman Henna/AFP via Getty Images

Pope Francis is pictured before his speech at the House of Abraham in the ancient city of Ur, on March 6. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

Go deeper: Pope Francis' itinerary

Editor's note: This article has been updated with additional details of the pope's trip and more photos.





TOKYO, Mar 9, 2021 - (JCN Newswire) - 1. OverviewFugaku is Japan's supercomputer that has been developed as a core system for the innovative High-Performance Computing Infrastructure (HPCI) promoted by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).In 2014, RIKEN and Fujitsu began joint development of Fugaku and completed delivery of all racks in May 2020. Since then, they have developed and optimized the user environment in preparation for the commencement of shared use.In the meantime, Fugaku has claimed the world's top spot for two consecutive terms in June and November 2020 in four categories on the major high-performance computer rankings: the TOP500, HPCG, HPL-AI, as well as the Graph 500, and has been used on a trial basis under the "Program for Promoting Research on the Supercomputer Fugaku", "research projects aimed to combat COVID-19", etc. since April 2020. In these trials, two projects, "Study on Large-Scale Numerical Fluid Simulation" and "Largest Ever Meteorological Calculation" have already been selected as the ACM Gordon Bell Prize finalists. In addition, research on "Prediction and Countermeasures for Infection by Virus Contaminated Droplet in Indoor Environment" has led to changes in people's lifestyles, and Fugaku is already making steady progress toward becoming a key technological platform for science and for building Society 5.0.RIKEN and Fujitsu will continue to cooperate to ensure stable operation of Fugaku while contributing to the resolution of social issues and the acceleration of leading-edge research through the development of the world's best operation technology, the enhancement of the user environment, and the development and provision of various supercomputing technologies.In addition, RIST, which is the Registered Institution for Facilities Use Promotion, has selected 74 projects for public use and industrial use in FY 2021 through an open call for proposals so that the "Program for Promoting Research on the Supercomputer Fugaku" can be continued, and a wide range of researchers, etc. can immediately start full-scale use after the beginning of shared use of Fugaku. Currently, RIST is calling for proposals in several categories, and researchers who are interested are invited to apply.2. Use of Fugaku and future developmentFugaku has won four supercomputer titles for the second consecutive period in the world's major high-performance computing rankings and is making full use of its outstanding potential to solve urgent social and scientific problems. With its outstanding computational power, Fugaku will play an important role in building Society 5.0, the Super Smart Society, through the following technologies.SimulationFugaku boasts up to 100 times the application performance of the K computer, allowing for simulations of "high resolution" "long duration" "large-scale" and "multiple case". It is expected to have various impacts ranging from solving familiar social problems to helping improve understanding of fundamental science.AI (artificial intelligence), data scienceThe next generation of deep learning-based AI is computationally intensive and will require large-scale supercomputing resources. Fugaku's CPU possesses high performance in "convolution operations," which are central to deep learning, and is connected by a network with superior communication performance, and it will be leveraged for AI and data science research.Fusion of simulation and AI/data scienceFugaku makes it possible to combine simulation with AI and data science at the highest level in the world. For instance, AI can be used to search for parameters necessary for simulation and to extrapolate simulation results. Conversely, simulation can generate a large number of data for AI to learn.The application of these methods with Fugaku will offer the following anticipated outcomes:- Acceleration of new drug development by performing high-speed, high-precision drug discovery simulation- Early detection of diseases and advancement of preventive medicine through medical big data analysis and biological simulations- Accurate prediction of tornadoes and heavy rain through weather big data analysis- Simulation of earthquake, tsunami, and evacuation routes at the meter-level-Development of low-cost organic solar batteries and high-efficiency solar batteries, artificial photosynthesis, high-efficiency fuel cells and storage batteries, and extraction of methane from methane hydrate- Development of low rare earth permanent magnet for generators and electric vehicles- Accelerating the creation of new devices and materials to for next-generation industries- Dramatic reductions in development time and costs by partially replacing the actual testing of airplanes and automobiles- Increased insight into fundamental questions of science, such as when and how matter was created in the universeAbout FujitsuFujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 130,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.9 trillion yen (US$35 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.Source: Fujitsu LtdCopyright 2021 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
There are no records of crucial meetings between Nicola Sturgeon and lawyers about the court challenge brought by Alex Salmond, Scottish ministers have claimed.

Ms Sturgeon's deputy John Swinney has confirmed to a Holyrood committee that minutes cannot be found of discussions on two key dates.

The admission risks fuelling the furious row threatening to tear the SNP and Scottish government apart - with Ms Sturgeon denying that she misled Parliament over the handling of complaints against Mr Salmond.

According to evidence provided to the committee of inquiry, Ms Sturgeon and Leslie Evans, Scotland's most senior civil servant, held meetings with external legal advisers on November 2 and November 13 2018 about a judicial review brought by Mr Salmond.

Nicola Sturgeon's deputy John Swinney has confirmed to a Holyrood committee that minutes cannot be found of discussions on two key dates

Mr Salmond (pictured) made a series of allegations about the handling of complaints against him during a dramatic committee hearing last month

Ms Sturgeon is facing claims that she pushed on with the case despite being advised that the Scottish government was going to lose.

Mr Salmond was awarded more than 500,000 after the government conceded the following January, and was later cleared in a trial over harassment complaints.

MSPs have demanded the release of official records of the meetings, but Mr Swinney insisted the Government has 'not identified any record of minutes having been prepared or previously held'.

He added: 'Officials have identified a small number of contemporaneous email exchanges referencing these meetings.

'This includes exchanges following the meeting on 2 November and emails ahead of the meeting on 13 November 2018, attended by the First Minister and Permanent Secretary.

'These exchanges make clear that the focus of the meetings was on discussing and agreeing with external counsel adjustments to the pleadings for the judicial review. '

Mr Swinney said the Government would 'urgently' make checks on court orders and data compliance and then try to publish the email exchanges 'as soon as possible this week'.

The committee is meeting today to discuss the legal advice, and whether it has sufficient information for its report.

A motion of no confidence in the Deputy First Minister is expected to be debated in the parliament this week.

When Mr Swinney first confirmed on Friday that no minutes could be found for the November meetings, Scottish Conservative MSP Donald Cameron said: 'I've acted as counsel for the Scottish Government. At consultations, everyone takes notes.

'It is inconceivable these minutes don't exist.'

The Government's lawyers had already warned ministers of difficulties with the case prior to the meetings, with papers showing on September 26 2018 senior and junior counsel advised of a 'real risk that the court may be persuaded' by a legal challenge 'attacking various aspects of the investigation process'.

A motion of no confidence in Deputy First Minister Mr Swinney is expected to be debated in the Holyrood parliament this week

By December 17, however, Roddy Dunlop QC and Solicitor Advocate Christine O'Neill said they were 'firmly of the view that at least one of the challenges mounted by the petitioner (Mr Salmond) will be successful'.

They added that 'we simply wish all concerned  and we include the First Minister in this  to be absolutely certain that they wish us to plough on regardless' with the defence of the case.

The Scottish Government conceded the case in January 2019, with the Court of Session ruling it had acted 'unlawfully' in its handling of the complaints.

Holyrood's Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints had also asked Mr Swinney about any external legal advice received after the Lord Advocate wrote on December 31 2018 about conceding the case.

Mr Swinney said that although there had been 'extensive engagement between counsel and Scottish Government lawyers' in early January 2019, there were no formal written notes.
A coalition of British pension funds has written to Rio Tinto raising concerns about its proposed giant copper project on sacred Native American land and telling the miner it must appoint board and management personnel with the credentials to strengthen indigenous engagement.

As Rio seeks to improve First Nations ties after blowing up ancient Aboriginal rock shelters last year, the group of 82 public sector funds that manages $545 billion said it had met with San Carlos Apache representatives opposed to Rio Tinto and BHPs joint copper project in Arizona and wanted to see Rio make changes globally.

The development of the land has long being fought against by the San Carlos Apache tribe. Credit:AP

Local Authority Pension Fund Forum chair Doug McMurdo has privately escalated concerns about the project to Rio and the joint venture, Resolution Copper, noting troubling patterns of mining companies failing to incorporate community voices adequately into their decision-making.

Councillor McMurdo said his members wanted to see improved First Nations engagement across Rios operations  not just in Australia  supported by meaningful leadership changes at top levels.
A look at some of the major movers in London on Tuesday

( ) advanced 11% to 89.68p on the back of well-received full-year results.

The shopping centres owner was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, with net rental income slumping to 34.1mln from 49.3mln the year before.

We are encouraged by how quickly our centres rebounded following the easing of restrictions at various points last year. In some cases our centres went from trading 30 per cent of stores to 96 per cent of stores in 48 hours, a testament to the relevance of our centres and retailers and the quality and adaptability of our teams, the property companys chief executive, Lawrence Hutchings, said.

2.40pm: Anglesey Mining lifted by Labrador PEA news

( ) shot up 31% to 6.69p on encouraging news from Labrador Iron Mines Holdings, in which it holds a 12% stake.

Labrador Iron Mines Holdings (LIMH) has released the details of a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of its 52%-owned Houston Project in Canada.

The PEA suggests a production time frame of 12 years after an 18-month construction period. Iron ore production would amount to about 2mln tonnes per annum of 62% iron lump and sinter direct shipping ore. The initial capital cost including contingency is forecast at US$65mln.

1.45pm: Barry Reynolds increases his shareholding in Mineral & Financial

( ) jumped 20% to 10.83p as existing shareholder Barry Reynolds increased his stake.

Reynolds now has just over 35mln shares, equivalent to a holding of 4.27% of the investment companys issued share capital.

Previously, Reynoldss notifiable shareholding was 3%.

12.50pm: Hemogenyx higher after financial controller ups his stake

PLC ( ) was 13% firmer at 6.65p after its financial controller, Andrew Wright, made a show of support.

Wright bought 94,882 shares at an average price of 6.03p, taking his beneficial interest in the company up to 1.63mln shares, representing around 0.36% of the company issued ordinary share capital.

11.55am: Kanabo bags another supply agreement

( ) jumped 24% to 22.9p after it secured a second supply agreement for its VapePod medicinal cannabis inhalation device.

Under a new contract, Polish cannabis cultivation group PharmaCann will supply cartridges of medicinal cannabis-based on Kanabo's proprietary formulation for the VapePod device.

Up to 36,000 cartridges per month will be filled and prepared at PharmaCanns facility in North Macedonia as part of the new agreement, Kanabo said.

11.00am: surges after Argo Blockchain's investment in investee company

PLC ( ) leaps 12% to 16.5p after it drew attention to Argo Blockchain's plans to invest in Pluto Digital Assets, in which Pires has a stake.

The investment company focused on next-generation technology observed that Argo announced yesterday it plans to invest 7.3mln into Pluto, thereby maintaining its stake of around 25%.

Piress holding of 32.52mln Pluto shares is equivalent to around a 6.4% stake. Pires has warrants that if exercised would increase its holding by 24mln shares.

10.05am: Westmount Energy higher after starting gun is fired at the Canje block

( ) hardened 15% to 13.35p ahead of the expected start of operations tomorrow for the next well at the Canje block, offshore Guyana.

The company noted an announcement by Guyanas Maritime Administration Department, that the Stena Carron drillship will begin drilling operations at the Jabillo-1 well site on 10 March.

Jabillo will be the second of three exploration wells scheduled for the Exxon-led Canje block this year. It is described as a 1bn barrel prospect, in the Late Cretaceous basin fan system.

( ), the fund management firm that used to be part of ( ), got the thumbs-up from the market for its 2020 results.

The shares rose 5.6% to 216.5p after the company, in its first full year as an independent company, saw assets under management and administration (AUMA) rise 4% to 367.2bn.

Adjusted operating profit before tax of 788mln, down from 1.15bn the year before, was described by chief executive John Foley as a good outcome given that, as an independent company, we incurred head office and debt interest costs for the first full year.

This morning weve published our Full Year 2020 Financial Results which demonstrate a strong and resilient performance. You can read our full announcement here: https://t.co/VNEj37DlHI pic.twitter.com/QujyyQRxgC  (@mandgplc) March 9, 2021

Elsewhere in the financial sector, investors were not so forgiving of Group PLC ( ), which saw its shares slide 3.3% to 253.8p following its full-year results.

The inter-dealer broker saw revenue in 2020 dip by 2% to 1.79bn from 1.83bn in 2019, while adjusted profit before tax slipped 3% to 223mln from 230mln.

The first two months of 2021 saw revenue per trading day running marginally higher than in the first two months of 2020 but the company said first-quarter revenues could still be down year-on-year as March 2020 was a bumper month.

Proactive news headlines

( ) ( ) said it has completed a fundraising that it says will allow it to complete a follow-on investment in Pluto Digital Assets as well as pursue strategic opportunities in crypto mining, capital investment, decentralised finance (DeFi) and Web 3.0 initiatives, and general working capital purposes.

( ) said Australia's Therapeutics Goods Administration has approved its drug Feraccru to treat iron deficiency with or without anaemia in adults.

Diagnostics specialist genedrive plc ( ) said it has inked a deal with a US military contracting specialist that will distribute its BioPlex range, which provide rapid tests for threats from pathogens.

( ) said its Venn Life Sciences business has won a contract to support a phase I clinical study.

( ) has been awarded a contract worth a minimum of US$960,000 by a customer that wants to use Kromeks technology in a new radiation technology product.

( ) said it has invested US$200,000 into a seed funding round at Automata Network alongside trading firm Alameda Research and other investors such as IOSG Ventures, Divergence Ventures and Block, for a yet-to-be-determined amount of Automata (ATA) tokens.

( ) said its portfolio company AquaInSilico, in which it owns a 29% stake, will receive a US$250,000 grant as an Ocean Innovator through the United Nations Development Programmes Ocean Innovation Challenge.

( ), the biotech backer, saw a sharp increase in its net asset value (NAV) per share in 2020. The companys NAV stood at 328mln at the end of December, up from 202mln a year earlier. The company also announced it has founded a new 49%-owned portfolio company, Twelve Bio, that is a spin-out from the Foundation Centre for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen and is developing novel engineered Cas12a nucleases for therapeutic gene editing.

( ) said it has signed a new contract for Paddington Bear with the Black Watch Museum in Perth, Scotland.

( ) announced it has received an eighth positive test result confirming that its graphene nanoplatelets are not absorbed through human skin. This is vital for the use of graphene in textile markets where customers have to be certain of the safety of the apparel they produce and market, the company said.

( )( ) has completed the first 26 drill holes of the La India starter pit infill drilling programme.

La India is Condors flagship gold project in Nicaragua.

( ) said further infill drilling results were "outstanding" at its Havieron project in Australia.

Westmount Energy Limited ( ) told investors it is expecting that operations for Jabillo-1, the next well at the Canje block, offshore Guyana, will start tomorrow.

( ) has signed a Master Services Agreement with Synergy Consulting to provide financial and transaction advisory services in regard to the integrated 300MW coal fired Ncondezi power project and coal mine in Tete, Mozambique.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd (LON:COPL, CSE:XOP) has raised 14mln through a share placing with the proceeds earmarked for its new North American assets, which are being acquired in the Atomic Oil & Gas deal (due to close next week).

( ) has received warrant exercise notices to subscribe for 4,000,000 new ordinary shares in the company at an exercise price of 10p per ordinary share for total gross proceeds of 400,000. Chief executive Russell Fryer said: "It is encouraging to see further support from our shareholders endorsing the confidence they have in the Company's strategy to identify and acquire brownfield mining opportunities in the strategic metals sector. We continue to consider a number of operators or near-term production operators within the natural resources development and production sector in the continent of Africa, with a number of targets having been identified with preliminary discussions continuing."

( ) said it has secured a put option financing agreement with US investment manager LDA Capital. The cannabidiol (CBD) group said the agreement will allow it to access up to 35mln over a 36-month period as well as retain the optionality to control the timing and amount of capital draws, which it said will guarantee operational flexibility for the group as it looked to further expand its international footprint.

( ) in a statement noted that it has agreed, at the request of borrower Proger Managers & Partners, to postpone the Loan reimbursement until 19 March  it also noted that as of the maturity date, February 25, the due reimbursement was 14.85mln.

( ) notified that its interim results for the six months ended 31 January 2021 are scheduled for 24 March.

AFC Energy ( ) told investors that it has appointed FTI Consulting as its retained public relations and financial communications adviser.
404

  

              
Representative Image

Tripoli [Libya], March 9 (ANI/Xinhua): The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday said that 100 illegal migrants have been rescued off the Libyan coast over the past week.

These migrants were intercepted at sea and returned to Libya on March 2-8, said IOM.

A total of 4,129 illegal migrants, including 293 women and 224 children, have been rescued and returned to Libya so far this year, it said.

The organization also noted that 34 illegal migrants have died and 160 others have gone missing on the Central Mediterranean route so far this year.

According to IOM, 323 migrants died and 417 others went missing on the Central Mediterranean route in 2020, while 11,891 illegal migrants were rescued and returned to Libya.

Due to the insecurity and chaos in the North African nation following the fall of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Africans, chose to cross the Mediterranean from Libya towards Europe.

Many illegal migrants were either rescued at sea or arrested by the authorities, and detained inside overcrowded reception centers in Libya, despite repeated international calls for closing those centers. (ANI/Xinhua)
(Newser)  No apology, but a pledge to take the claims seriously. Buckingham Palace has responded to allegations of racism from Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, reports the BBC. "The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning," says the statement. "Whilst some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately." The statement says the royal family "is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan," adding that the couple and son Archie "will always be much loved family members," per the Guardian.

story continues below

The palace had been under pressure to respond, particularly after Markle told Oprah Winfrey about "concerns and conversations" within the family about how dark Archie's skin might be, given that Markle has a Black mother. Markle also said she felt suicidal at times but that her requests for help with her mental health were ignored. Harry, for his part, complained that his family failed to defend Markle when she was the subject of racist attacks in the tabloids. (The interview has led to a reckoning on racism in Britain.)
Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved family members, Buckingham Palace said at the end of the statement.

For some people, the interview, first aired in the United States on Sunday evening by CBS, offered a damning indictment of the royal family at a time when addressing racial inequality has commanded global attention. To others, it amounted to a slanted assault on an iconic British institution, with its beloved head, the queen, in the twilight of her reign and her husband in the hospital.

Amid news media reports of a palace in turmoil, with the queen demanding more time to craft a response, there was no shortage of voices from across the political spectrum. Mental health advocates, racial equality activists and even some members of Meghans family weighed in, notably her estranged father, Thomas Markle, who gave an interview to ITVs Mr. Morgan, one of his daughters fiercest critics.

Speaking from his home in Rosarito, Mexico, Mr. Markle said the interview was the first time in four years that he had heard Meghans voice and that he had never met Harry or Archie. The two fell out after he spoke to the British tabloid press about her and, for health reasons, did not attend her wedding.

Ive never stopped loving my daughter, he said. He said he had apologized but never heard back from the couple. She has pretty much ghosted all of her family, he said.

Mr. Markle said that he did not think the royal family was racist and that the comment on skin color could have just been a dumb question from somebody. He was giving interviews, he said, in an attempt to re-establish contact.

When they decide to talk to me, Ill stop talking to the press, he said.

Later in the show, Mr. Morgan stormed off the set after his co-host, Alex Beresford, took him to task for continuing to trash Meghan.
The appellate decision echoes the original ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly. He dismissed the suit, citing similar reasons, though he had called it undisputed that some members of Madigans political organization worked to put the two additional candidates on the ballot and wrote that the evidence supports a reasonable inference that Madigan authorized or at least was aware of the recruitment effort.
MELBOURNE, Australia, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- One industry that has been severely affected by prolonged and snap lockdowns is Australia's florists. Local Melbourne flower shops, such as Amazing Graze Flowers, have been forced to discard blooms they could have otherwise sold.

Flower Delivery in Melbourne

While other industries have also been affected, the florist industry, in particular, is a slave to the nature of its product. Once flowers have been cut, they have a short shelf-life where they either need to be sold or discarded. Lockdowns have put Amazing Graze Flowers and many florists into a less-than-desirable situation as they were forced to get rid of stock ordered in anticipation of flower delivery in Melbourne.

The halt of events and weddings also had repercussions for local florists, reducing one of their most profitable revenue streams for close to a year. Now that gatherings are permitted, there are those who are making big orders again. However, local florists say that many have decreased their budget for flowers, opting to have a scaled-back version of the event they'd once imagined.

On the other end of the industry, flower farms have been unable to supply florists with their usual order quantity. Valentine's Day, in particular, was difficult this year as orders for flower delivery Melbourne-wide came flooding in while local businesses were unable to meet the high demand for long-stemmed red roses. Greg Neil of Australian Roses told ABC News he estimated more than a 40% drop in the number of roses that he would be able to supply to local florists.

In addition, Chinese New Year coincided with Valentine's Day this year - two holidays that call for large orders of red flowers online Melbourne-wide and beyond. With fewer crops planted this year and fewer overseas shipments coming to Australia, old-school romantics were encouraged to opt for less-traditional choices.

Despite all of this, many flower shops like Amazing Graze Flowers have made it into the new year. They will continue to depend on locals to turn to bouquets and arrangements to celebrate everything from birthdays and weddings to housewarmings.

3 Rose St, Essendon

Victoria, 3040

+61 (03) 9374 2929

Related Images

flower-delivery-in-melbourne.png

Flower Delivery in Melbourne

Flower Delivery in Melbourne

Related Links

Flower Delivery in Melbourne

Flower Delivery Melbourne

SOURCE Amazing Graze Flowers
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

MILAN  Russia has signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Italy, the first contract in the European Union, the Italian Russian Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday.

The deal was signed with Adienne Srl, the Italian subsidiary of a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company, and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Production of a planned 10 million doses this year is set to launch in July.

The innovative production process will help create new jobs and allow Italy to control the entire production of the compound, the chamber said in a statement. Financial terms were not released.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

Sputnik V has not yet been approved for use in the EU, but the bodys regulator, the European Medicines Agency, or EMA, started a rolling review of the vaccine last week.

Russian authorities are working on 20 similar collaborations in Europe and the Sputnik V vaccine has been registered in 45 nations worldwide, the chamber said.

The EU has been criticized for its slow vaccine rollout and some EU nations have decided not to wait for the EMAs approval. Hungary became the first EU country to authorize Sputnik V for use last month while Slovakia announced a deal last week to acquire 2 million Sputnik V doses and received the first shipment of 200,000 doses.

Frances government has had regular exchanges about Sputnik V, but the country now doesnt have a production site available that would meet the necessary requests so no contract has been signed so far to produce the vaccine in France, according to a French Industry Ministry official.

The official reiterated Frances position that the government isnt choosing vaccines because of their country of origin, but based on whether they are effective and safe and approved by the EMA.

Russian President Vladimir Putin began a dialogue about the Sputnik V vaccine with French President Emmanuel Macron in autumn, and Paris sent a delegation of experts to Russia to conduct talks about the vaccine and advise how to handle discussions with the World Health Organization and the EMA, according to a French official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.

Despite skepticism about Russias hasty introduction of the vaccine, which was rolled out before it had completed late-stage trials, the vaccine appears to be safe and effective. According to a study published in the Lancet, Sputnik V is 91% effective and appears to prevent inoculated individuals from becoming severely ill with COVID-19, although its still unclear if the vaccine can prevent the spread of the disease.

With a global shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, some experts say boosting the use of vaccines made by China and Russia could offer a quicker way to increase the global supply. Others note that Russias push to export its vaccine around the world may be driven by political interests.

An EMA official has warned European nations against issuing national emergency clearance of Sputnik V.

Christa Wirthumer-Hoche, the chair of the EMAs management board and the head of the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency, said on Austrian television that EU members approving Russian and Chinese vaccines via emergency national procedures is partly comparable with Russian roulette, citing the need to first examine data on the quality, safety and effectiveness of the shots.

Citizens have a right to get really safe and effective medicinal products, Wirthumer-Hoche added. We can have Sputnik V on the market here in the future if we have examined the corresponding data.

Wirthumer-Hoches remarks elicited outrage in Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called them inappropriate, and developers of the vaccine demanded a public apology from the official, saying that her comments raise serious questions about possible political interference in the ongoing EMA review.

EMA did not allow such statements about any other vaccine. Such comments are inappropriate and undermine credibility of EMA and its review process. Vaccines and EMA should be above and beyond politics, Sputnik Vs official Twitter account said Tuesday.

An EMA spokesperson told The Associated Press in written comments that the agency will assess Sputnik Vs compliance with the usual EU standards and any recommendation will be based on the strength of the scientific evidence on the vaccines safety, quality and efficacy, and nothing else.

The EU commission does not now have plans for the collective purchase of Sputnik doses, relying instead on deals already made with other vaccine manufacturers. But it has made clear that member states are entitled to reach separate agreements as long as they dont compete with the commissions advance purchases of 2 billion vaccine doses.

Italys health minister, Roberto Speranza, has indicated he is open to introducing the Russia-developed vaccine in Italy, as long as it has regulatory approval. Italys new premier, Mario Draghi, has pledged to accelerate the vaccination campaign to dampen the spread of new variants that have again put Italys health system under pressure. So far, just 2.85% of Italys population has been fully vaccinated.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled the vaccine and markets it abroad has said the production of Sputnik V will span several countries, including India, South Korea, Brazil, China, Turkey, as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan and possibly Iran.

Kazakhstan manufactured 90,000 doses of the vaccine last month but there are few indications any large amounts of the vaccine have been produced outside of Russia so far.

___

Daria Litvinova reported from Moscow. Angela Charlton and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Samuel Petrequin in Brussels, and Geir Moulson in Berlin, contributed to this report.

___

Follow APs pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
[March 09, 2021] Google's Neha Pattan Joins SaaS Awards and Cloud Awards Judging Panels

NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Business software 'Oscars,' the SaaS Awards, welcomes Google senior engineer Neha Pattan to the judging panel this week. As a senior staff software engineer at Google, Neha leads a team of over forty engineers, developing innovative Cloud technology solutions for businesses. Neha has over a decade's experience working in software and a master's degree in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Cloud & SaaS Awards Head of Operations James Williams said: "As a volunteer judge, Neha will bring a wealth of experience to the panels of both our SaaS Awards and Cloud Awards programs. "To have Neha on board as we open the 2021 SaaS Awards for entries will add a fresh perspective from a truly incomparable expert working with one of the biggest names in the technology sector. "Already an ambassador for promoting excellence in the Cloud, Neha will have a pivotal role in assessing the productivity category in the SaaS Awards, and will oversee adjudication of the broader SaaS category in the Cloud Awards at the end of this year." Neha said: "I am thrilled to have the opportunity to assess some of the cutting-edge innovations employed by SaaS Awards and Cloud Awards entrants." The SaaS Awards program promotes business software solutions across a range of industries, and is currently accepting submissions with a May 21 deadline: https://www.cloud-awards.com/software-as-a-service-awards.



SaaS Awards Categories: Best SaaS for Small Business / SMEs

Best Enterprise-Level SaaS Product

Best SaaS Product for Nonprofits or Education

Best SaaS for Productivity

Best SaaS for E-Commerce/E-Shops

Best SaaS for Web or App Development

Best SaaS for Business Accounting or Finance

Best SaaS for Management Accounting and Budgeting

Best SaaS for HR

Best SaaS for Recruitment

Best SaaS for Shipping, Inventory or Vehicle Logistics

Best SaaS for Ticketing or Event Management

Best SaaS for Business Management

Best SaaS for Catering and Hospitality

Best SaaS for CSR or Sustainability

Best SaaS for Agriculture & Farming

Best SaaS for Media & Publishing

Best SaaS for Healthcare

Best SaaS for Digital Marketing

Best SaaS for Financial Services

Best SaaS for E-Learning

Bespoke SaaS Solution of the Year

Best UX/UI/Design in a SaaS Product

Best SaaS for Sales and Marketing

Best SaaS for PR, Brand Management or Stakeholder Engagement

Best SaaS for Customer Services / CRM

Best SaaS for Business Intelligence or Analytics

Best SaaS for Supply Chain / Warehouse Management

Best SaaS for Project Management, Workflow Automation or PLM

Best SaaS for ERP / MRP

Best Data-Driven SaaS Product

Best SaaS Newcomer

Best Security Innovation in a SaaS Product

Best SaaS Innovation in the Internet of Things (IoT)

Best SaaS for Energy & Utilities

Best SaaS for Health & Safety or Risk Management

Best SaaS for Learning Management or Training

Best SaaS for Communication, Collaboration or Conferencing

Best SaaS for Product Analytics

Best Accessibility Innovation in SaaS Media Contact:

James Williams

(212) 574-8117

304571@email4pr.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/googles-neha-pattan-joins-saas-awards-and-cloud-awards-judging-panels-301243219.html SOURCE The SaaS Awards

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The fall into insolvency of London-based Greensill Capital provides an object lesson in how hype overcomes judgment.

The spread-out structure, with a registered office in Queensland, headquarters in London and ownership of a bank in Germany makes for regulatory chaos.

The most recent accounts, filed at Companies House on January 31, 2020, pose more questions than they answer.

The spread-out structure of Greensill Capital , with a registered office in Queensland, headquarters in London and ownership of a bank in Germany makes for regulatory chaos

Strip away the extravagant rhetoric about a unique group with a vision to make working capital faster, cheaper and easier and there are a number of red flags.

In a year when revenues shot up and operating profits declined, the sums owed to other group companies climbed to 159million from 21million. Management fees charged to group-related enterprises rocketed.

The company received a loan of 8million from a key employee (since repaid) and the rewards to top bosses rocketed to 11million from 1.4million.

A note to the accounts says this was for the outstanding performance of the business. Creditors may question that.

The supplier invoice arrangements which provided 90 per cent of the revenues in 2019 were from just five clients, a figure which dropped to 70 per cent in 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The customers included Sanjeev Guptas steel empire; a West Virginia mining firm, Bluestone Resources; and Vodafone. The general objective of financial groups is to have as broad a client base as is possible to spread the risk.

This doesnt seem to have been part of proprietor Lex Greensills model.

In spite of some fragile foundations, he was able to parlay some great political connections in Downing Street into attracting blue-chip connections.

Credit Suisse had snapped up some $10billion of repackaged Greensill supplier invoices and transferred them into insured investment funds. Japans Softbank injected $1.25billion of funds into the enterprise.

All of this may sound very familiar. Greensill inhabited the strange world of shadow banking occupied by GE Capital, which almost brought Americas biggest industrial group down in the financial crisis.

Rolling up supplier credits into structured, insured securities was part of the poison at the core of the 2007-9 financial crisis.

And the creation of a financial enterprise, where regulation is split among different jurisdictions, was a feature of past banking meltdowns, including BCCI and Barings in the distant past and in the financial crisis.

Mark Carney, as the former chairman of Financial Stability Board, sought to eliminate regulatory arbitrage with common standards.

Many of the new players in finance fall outside traditional models. Having failed so catastrophically with Wirecard, the German financial regulator BaFin has gone in hard with its probe into Greensills German bank.

The European Central Bank is taking an interest in banking exposures to Greensill.

Here on Lex Greensills adopted home territory in London, enforcers look to be caught in the headlights.

The Financial Conduct Authority is passing the buck to Mirabella, a financial hosting group, which has a devolved regulatory role. It does a similar supervisory job to Link for the Woodford empire.

The Bank of England is in the nothing to do with us, guv camp. That looks careless given that the Greensill implosion is causing ripples through finance, industry and government. Financial stability, a core Bank responsibility, is at stake. It is as if Lex has stunned all the UK regulators into submission with kryptonite.

Thats not a good image for the City as it goes more global.

Life story

When insurance repairer Ron Sandler took on the emergency role of chairman of insurer Phoenix in 2009, he had the unenviable task of sorting out the closed life and pensions group which had been loaded up with debt and had an uncertain future after destabilising private equity ownership.

Since then, Phoenix has lived up its name as a default buyer of discarded life enterprises.

Over time it has rid itself of debt, deployed technology and improved the fund management, and is now spewing out cash, piling up profits of 1.2billion in the last financial year.

The group, which can trace its origins back to the foundation of Pearl Life company in 1864, has swelled into the UKs largest long-term savings and pensions firm.

It continues to expand, buying ReAssure, the UK arm of Swiss Re, last year. It is looking to the future by marketing new life and pensions policies under the heritage Standard Life brand. In an income famine, the forward dividend yield of 6.48 per cent is enticing.
Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier?

Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop.

Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News

Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time.

Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up!

Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.
Washington, March 9 : The US government will grant temporary protected status (TPS) to Venezuelans already living in America for a period of for 18 months until September 2022.

In an official statement issued on Monday, the Department of Home Security (DHS) said the new designation enables "Venezuelan nationals (and individuals without nationality who last resided in Venezuela) currently residing in the US to file initial applications for TPS, so long as they meet eligibility requirements".

"This designation is due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Venezuela that prevent nationals from returning safely, including a complex humanitarian crisis marked by widespread hunger and malnutrition, a growing influence and presence of non-state armed groups, repression, and a crumbling infrastructure," the statement said.

According to the DHS, a TPS can be extended to a country with conditions that fall into one, or more, of the three statutory bases for designation -- ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or extraordinary and temporary conditions.

The Department said that only individuals who can demonstrate continuous residence in the US as of March 8, 2021 are eligible for the TPS.

"The living conditions in Venezuela reveal a country in turmoil, unable to protect its own citizens," Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas was quoted as saying in the statement.

"It is in times of extraordinary and temporary circumstances like these that the US steps forward to support eligible Venezuelan nationals already present here, while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises," Mayorkas added.

Over 300,000 individuals are estimated to be eligible to apply for TPS.
Female carpenter paves career path in male-dominated industry

Female carpenter paves career path in male-dominated industry

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

CONTACT: Camara Lewis, 517-930-4928

Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights CONTACT: Jen McKernan

313-618-5022

Women in Construction Week raises awareness of the high-demand career opportunities, celebrates women as a viable component of the construction industry

LANSING, Mich.- A third-year union carpenter apprentice, Karmyn Valentine, 40 of Pompeii, Michigan, took a passion for forestry, residential masonry and furniture making, and turned it into a career in a good-paying, high-demand Professional Trade.

"Initially, carpentry was just sort of a hobby for me but with training, I was able to turn my hobby into a career," Karmyn Valentine, union carpenter apprentice said. "After getting into a nationally recognized building trades program, I fell in love with carpentry. And it turns out, I'm really good at it."

Gov. Whitmer has called to lower both the gender parity and skills gap, and March 7-13, 2021 as Women in Construction Week in Michigan, aims to do just that by highlighting Professional Trade career opportunities and recognizing women as a valuable asset to the construction industry, capable of succeeding in a male-dominated industry.

"This Women in Construction Week, I want to reaffirm my administration's commitment to pursuing equity and expanding opportunity for women in the workplace," said Governor Whitmer. "There are so many incredible women building critical infrastructure including roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools statewide. We will continue our efforts to close the gender parity and skills gap in construction and empower women across every industry in Michigan."

Women however, only account for roughly 9% of the construction industry, a virtually untapped source of high-demand, good-paying jobs. Despite being a male-dominated industry, the gender pay gap is much narrower. Women in the U.S. on average make 81% of what men make, compared to 99.1% in construction fields.

"I would encourage more women to get involved in some sort of a pre-apprenticeship program like ones offered through Women in Skilled Trades in Lansing," Valentine said. "An apprenticeship will help give women some skills before they get to the job site - investing in their own education is a priority to be successful."

Highlighting the state's vast pipeline of opportunities is a focus of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO), which aims to put skilled talent in more than 530,000 Professional Trades careers expected to be available by 2028.

"We want women to know they have a place in the Professional Trades," LEO Acting Director Susan Corbin said. "We are working to create opportunities that prioritize equity for all, and careers in construction is a great example of an industry where women can thrive alongside their male counterparts."

Women in the industry help solve real-world problems businesses face in supporting their bottom line, ultimately allowing Michigan to remain competitive.

"Women in Construction Week highlights the incredible women who are working all over the state to build the hospitals we need, the schools our kids attend and the office buildings where we work," Tom Lutz, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights said. "We are committed to growing the number of women in the industry through apprenticeship readiness programs and partnerships with community organizations. We hope more women take advantage of opportunities in the skilled trades like our apprenticeship program, which will pay you to learn the skills you need to build the world we live in."

Construction jobs in Michigan are expected to grow 6.1%, and increase to 180,000 positions by 2028, according to the Michigan Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives.

"People in general see that women have the ability to do the job and want to do it," Valentine said. "Employers are looking for people who can do the work, have experience or the willingness to learn - it's not gender specific."

"You don't have to fit into a certain box to work in construction - you can be a petite woman like myself," she adds.

For more information about careers with Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, text FUTURE to 855-424-2562 or visit hammer9.com.

For more information on Women in Construction week, visit NAWIC.org.

View the Women in Construction week video to learn about the industry.

Women looking to find their high-wage career in construction or other Professional Trades can get started at Going-PRO.com.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Press Release

March 9, 2021 MANIFESTATION OF SENATOR RISA HONTIVEROS ON RED-TAGGING Mr. President, wala na sana akong intensyon na mag-intervene sa committee report ni Sen. Ping sa usapin ng red tagging at ng dulong kaliwa. Sen Ping and I - while we agree on many things - have some differing perspectives on the State's counter-insurgency agenda. Ngunit, hindi ko po mapalagpas ang nangyari noong weekend. Nine activists were found dead during the raids on March 7 conducted jointly by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Ito ay dalawang araw lang ang nakakalipas matapos sabihin ng Presidente, "I've told the military and the police, that if they find themselves in an armed encounter with the communist rebels, kill them, make sure you really kill them, and finish them off if they are alive." Ano po ba ang nais mangyari ng ating Presidente sa ating kapulisan at militar, state assassins? I have spoken against the killing of the AFP by police forces in Jolo. I called for an investigation of the PDEA-PNP shootout in Commonwealth. Hindi pwedeng hindi ako magsalita rin sa karahasan laban sa mga aktibista. Mr. President, almost all the labor leaders in Davao City affiliated with SENTRO, a partner federation of my party Akbayan, were red tagged. In a meeting called by a Barangay Chairman with Coca-Cola workers, SENTRO and its labor organizers were identified as legal fronts of the NPA. Sabi ni General Parlade, sa article nila sa Manila Times, "if you are not guilty, chill ka Lang." These people are NOT guilty, Mr. President. The people killed over the weekend were all non-combatants. Ano po ba ito, dragnet na halong kalamay nalang lahat? Sabi sa Committee Report ng good Chairperson, there are legal recourses available in our current laws for those red-tagged. How do they avail of these recourses if they are dead, Mr. President? How do they hold the State to account if they are felled by the State? For the record at salamat po, Mr. President.
Former President Donald Trump has earlier asked the Supreme Court to hear his case against the Wisconsin Elections Commission. It was the last of the three cases challenging his loss in the November presidential election.

According to Fox News, the Supreme Court on Monday denied Trump's appeal challenging thousands of absentee ballots filed in Wisconsin. The high court rejected Trump's request without commenting on the order.

In his appeal, Trump alleged that Wisconsin election officials had violated the state law by using "unauthorized, illegal absentee voting drop boxes." He further claimed that the officials allowed poll workers to correct absentee ballot witness certificates.

"The narrow window in which legal disputes may be resolved following a presidential election weighs heavily in favor of applying the 'capable of repetition' doctrine to resolve issues capable of reoccurring," Trump said in his Feb. 9 brief as Fox News reported.

The brief added that non-legislative state actors might be encouraged to make even more last-minute changes to state election laws in future presidential elections.

The Supreme Court has disagreed with the said position, resulting in the rejection of Trump's appeal to hear the case. The high court's decision came weeks after it denied some other election challenges, which include the Pennsylvania state court ruling on the extension of the deadline for accepting absentee ballots.

Trump's Legal Hurdles For an Election Win

Trump and his campaign team have a record of unsuccessful legal challenges hurled to overturn the presidential election results in some states won by President Joe Biden.

The lawsuits all argued that the states and counties violated election results. Republicans filed lawsuits in local, state, and federal courts in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, which were all states that Biden won.

Republicans have also filed direct appeals to the Supreme Court that were all rejected, Business Insider reported.

Trump and his allied lawmakers have received 42 losses in the election cases they filed: three losses in Supreme Court, 13 in Pennsylvania, four in Nevada, five in Georgia, five in Michigan, four in Arizona, seven in Wisconsin, and one in New Mexico.

Before 2021, Trump has vowed to push forward with legal challenges contesting the presidential election results.

"We keep going and we're going to continue to move forward," Trump said in The Federalist report. Trump added that they had filed several lawsuits challenging the election results. He maintained that the November presidential election was rigged.

READ MORE: Can Trump Win Through Legal Challenge of Election Verdict?

Biden's Presidency

Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on Jan. 20, together with Kamala Harris as his Vice President.

Prior to Biden's inauguration, Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, which left five people dead and shook the groundwork of American democracy.

Months after the attack, law enforcement authorities are still wary of another possible attack that might take place at the U.S. Capitol. Some followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory believed that Trump was cheated out of his second term.

Capitol Police earlier said they had obtained information that showed a possible plot to breach the Capitol on Mar. 4, when some QAnon followers and supporters of Trump predict that he will be inaugurated for a new presidential term, AFP News reported.

READ NEXT: Trump Campaign's Voter Fraud Hotline Flooded by Prank Calls

WATCH: Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump Campaign Election Fraud Lawsuit - From ABC News






Since the release of Aldi's new Hot Cross Bun flavoured Gin Liqueur on February 24, shoppers around Australia have revealed how they enjoy the unique spirit.

On Facebook several customers said they have been enjoying the liqueur neat over ice, but others suggested serving it with ginger ale and a slice of orange for added spice.

The limited-edition product by UK brand Manchester Drinks Co is described as a 'sensational spicy gin, infused with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and gingers flavours'.

The limited-edition product by UK brand Manchester Drinks Co is described as a 'sensational spicy gin, infused with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and gingers flavours'

While enjoying the beverage on the rocks, the flavours replicate the taste of a delicious Easter hot cross bun.

Other refreshing options could include mixing the gin with sparkling wine, tonic or sparkling water with fresh citrus to form a seltzer drink.

The adults-only product is available to purchase in a 500mL bottle for only $19.99.

On Facebook several customers said they have been enjoying the liqueur neat over ice, but others suggested serving it with ginger ale and a slice of orange for added spice

'We are proud of the quality and affordable products we bring customers, but also the innovative and unique range we can offer Australians - and the Hot Cross Bun Gin Liqueur is no exception,' Aldi Australia shopping expert Nicole Higgins said.

'Crafted with the traditional spices found in your favourite Easter treat, simply mix with soda, sparkling wine or serve on the rocks.'

In addition to the flavoured tipple, Aldi will release two varieties of premium Hot Cross Buns as part of its Easter range.

Earlier this month, another shopper praised a similar hot cross bun gin by Echuca Distillery in Victoria

Earlier this month, another shopper praised a similar hot cross bun gin by Echuca Distillery in Victoria.

'Forget Aldi, we've discovered a Hot Cross Bun gin made locally,' the page titled The Melbourne Kid wrote online.

The locally distilled product is priced at $33 for a 500mL bottle and customers will receive free shipping when spending $50 or more.
Microsoft has completed its $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media.

The deal was approved by regulators in the United States and Europe earlier this week, paving the way for Microsoft to officially welcome Bethesda and other developers including id Software, Arkane and MachineGames into the Xbox Game Studios fold.

Microsoft said its first order of business will be to add "additional Bethesda games" to the Xbox Game Pass library later this week, although it didn't specify which titles will be added to the subscription service.

Notably, it also revealed that some new Bethesda titles will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players, and called the deal "the next step in building an industry-leading first party studios team."

Xbox chief Phil Spencer said the company would empower Bethesda to "continue making games the way it always has," and explained the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls developer "understands the potential of Xbox Game Pass."

"At every step building toward this moment, Ive been inspired and motivated by the creativity, insight, and community-first approach of the talented people at Bethesda," continued Spencer. "Our goal is to give these teams the best foundation for doing their greatest work and to learn from them as we continue to build Xbox into an inclusive platform for all players."
PHOENIX, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Honeywell (NYSE: HON) has won a 4-year IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity) contract for new production and spare T55-GA-714A engines that power the U.S. Army's CH-47 Chinook helicopters. This $476 million contract award will ensure that the U.S. Army's Chinook fleet has spare engines to support future missions and available engines for Boeing's Philadelphia Production Line through 2024 to serve the U.S. Army and foreign partner nations' new aircraft requirements. The engines will be assembled and tested at Honeywell's production facility at the company's Aerospace global headquarters in Phoenix.

"Supporting the U.S. Army Chinook Program is a bedrock principle for Honeywell Aerospace," said Steven Williams, vice president of Defense Aftermarket, Honeywell Aerospace. "Our mission is manufacturing, maintaining, and modernizing T55 engines for the critical heavy-lift mission, and we take this mission seriously. We are very proud to continue our strong relationship with PEO Aviation, the U.S. Army and our warfighter."

Securing this engine production contract follows a milestone year for the T55 engine. In 2020, Honeywell won a competitive repair and overhaul contract for the T55. In addition, Honeywell completed a new, world-class engine repair and overhaul facility in Phoenix. That move allows the repair and overhaul work on the T55-GA-714A engine to be fulfilled in the same location as new engine production. The T55 center of excellence provides for a shared workforce, facilities, and engineering resources between both engine lines and delivers up to 20 engines per month to the U.S. Army, foreign military and commercial customers.

Also in 2020, Honeywell entered into a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army to demonstrate and fly its upgraded T55-GA-714C engine on the heavy-lift, twin-engine CH-47F Chinook helicopter. The new 6,000-horsepower engine is 23% more powerful and consumes 9% less fuel than the current T55. New modifications also make the next-generation T55 easier to maintain with lower operating costs and increased readiness for the warfighter. Work is ongoing now in phase 1 of the program, and ground and flight demonstrations are expected to begin in 2022. The new 714C variant of the T55 is designed to be affordably incorporated into the 714A as an upgrade kit during overhaul at Honeywell's R&O Center of Excellence or at the Army's Corpus Christi Army Depot.

As a world leader in heavy lift, the CH-47F Chinook helicopter is used by the U.S. Army to support domestic and foreign operations by hauling troops and cargo all over the world. Since 1961, Honeywell has improved the horsepower of the T55 engine by 133%. Each improvement has decreased the engine's fuel consumption and lowered the maintenance burden to increase aircraft readiness.

About Honeywell

Honeywell Aerospace products and services are found on virtually every commercial, defense and space aircraft. The Aerospace business unit builds aircraft engines, cockpit and cabin electronics, wireless connectivity systems, mechanical components and more. Its hardware and software solutions create more fuel-efficient aircraft, more direct and on-time flights and safer skies and airports. For more information, visit www.honeywell.com or follow us at @Honeywell_Aero.

Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 technology company that delivers industry-specific solutions that include aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help aircraft, buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywell.com/newsroom.

Contacts:

Media

Adam Kress

(602) 760-6252

[email protected]

SOURCE Honeywell

Related Links

http://www.honeywell.com


Researchers have identified genes in peach's wild relatives and local domesticated varieties that could improve the resistance of domesticated peach to many pressures imposed by climate change

ITHACA, N.Y. -- A Boyce Thompson Institute-led team has identified genes enabling peaches and their wild relatives to tolerate stressful conditions -- findings that could help the domesticated peach adapt to climate change.

The study, co-led by Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) faculty member Zhangjun Fei, examined the genomes of peach's wild relatives and landraces -- varieties that have adapted over a long time to specific local conditions -- from seven regions in China. They identified genes responsible for peach's tolerance to multiple environmental factors, including cold, drought and ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation levels at high altitudes.

"Our study provides many candidate genes, showing how peach has adapted to all kinds of environmental stresses and stimuli," said Fei, who is also an adjunct professor in Cornell University's School of Integrative Plant Science. "Breeders can use this information to develop more resilient domesticated peach trees that cope better with temperature extremes, drought and other harsh, changing conditions imposed by climate change."

The research is described in a paper published March 9 in the journal Genome Research, with authors from BTI, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, and the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology in Barcelona. Lirong Wang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, co-led the work with Fei.

Over the past decades, climate change has made many food crops less productive, highlighting an urgent need to make them more resistant to climate stressors. Many studies have identified the genes that enable rice, soybean and other food crops to adapt to their local environments. But few studies have looked at major fruit crops like the domesticated peach (Prunus persica), which has an annual global yield of 24.5 million tons.

Many of domesticated peach's adaptation genes have been lost as humans bred the plant to focus on flavor, sweetness and other traits. However, peach's wild relatives and landraces harbor great genetic diversity that could provide resources for improving the resilience of their domesticated cousin.

Cold, dry and mile-high adaptations

The researchers gathered 263 peach wild relatives and landraces -- 218 from the National Peach Germplasm Repository of China and 45 from the Tibetan Plateau. The team then conducted genome-wide environmental association studies on the samples, and identified more than 2,700 spots in the genome that are linked to 51 environmental factors affecting the local climates of those regions.

For example, peaches from a region with extremely low winter temperatures had a genetic variation in the histidine phosphotransfer protein AHP5, suggesting the variant gave the peach tree the ability to resist cold. The team confirmed this idea by showing levels of the protein increased when the plants were subjected to low temperatures.

Plants from a very arid region harbored variants in multiple genes in the abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis pathway that regulates drought stress responses, and in 12 genes on pathways that regulate starch and sugar metabolism. Further experimentation showed that in response to drought stress, ABA induced higher levels of a sucrose-producing enzyme, thereby explaining why fruit from the peach trees in this region have consistently higher sugar contents than fruit from less arid regions.

"When a fruiting plant like peach is growing under a stressful condition like drought, its fruit gets sweeter," Fei said. "In this study, we have found the direct genetic link between drought and the sugar content of peach."

In the peach trees from the Tibetan Plateau, the team identified a variant in chalcone synthase 2 associated with tolerance to the intense UV-B radiation of that high-altitude region. The variant increased the production of the purple-colored flavonoid anthocyanin in the plant's new shoots, protecting them from UV-B radiation damage.

"Overall, the genetic information we found could help people breed peach trees that grow in many different and harsh environments, expanding peach's geographic range to new regions," Fei said. "Breeders could develop cultivars that thrive on otherwise unused land, bolstering the local economy and bringing more good food to local markets."

Spring forward

Climate change has also affected many temperate flowering and fruiting species, including peach, by causing them to bloom earlier. The team analyzed 89 peach samples spanning three decades (1983-2011) from one region in China, and found that bloom dates had advanced by about 10 days over that period. They also identified a potential genetic explanation for this advance: a variation in a circadian clock gene, LNK1, which is up-regulated by warm temperatures and highly expressed during blooming.

"This finding could eventually let breeders control the bloom date of their trees, so that the peach crop is ready for harvest when the grower and the market are ready," Fei said.

###
Beijing urged to build hydropower plant in Tibet

China's plans for a giant hydropower project on the river, known in Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangbo, have stirred fears in India it could disrupt downstream river flows. Photo: AFP

China should aim to begin construction of a controversial hydropower project on the Brahmaputra river within the year, a senior Tibetan Communist Party official said in comments published on Monday.



Comprehensive planning and environmental impact assessments for the project should be completed as soon as possible, Che Dalha, chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, said in a delegation briefing issued by China's parliament.



Tibet should "strive to launch construction within this year," he said.



China's plans for a giant hydropower project on the river, known in Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangbo, have stirred fears in India it could disrupt downstream river flows, worsen water shortages and even cause flash floods.



The river flows for about 2,900 km through Tibet, India and Bangladesh into the Bay of Bengal.



The "Yarlung Tsangbo downstream hydropower base" was listed in China's new five-year plan last week as one of the country's major energy development projects for the 2021-2025 period.



China could build up to 60 gigawatts (GW) of generation capacity on the river, state media have reported, which would make it the world's biggest hydropower project, overtaking China's 22.5 GW Three Gorges Dam.



A Chinese diplomat said late last year the project was at a "preliminary planning and demonstration" stage.



India is considering plans to build its own dam on the river to increase its water storage capacity and counteract the impact of the Chinese project, an official said last year.



According to Tibet's five-year plan proposals published in January, the region aims to "research and promote" the project and begin related engineering work as soon as possible. (Reuters)
I love Cork. I love everything about it. I admire the swagger and its energy and most of all the attitude of Corkians.

Cork as we know is known as the Rebel County, a name given to it by King Henry Vll for their futile attempt at a rebellion in 1491.

Cork has a population of 200,000 and is about twice the size of Derry. Its the third largest city in Ireland and Derry as we know is the 4th.

Corkonians have a confidence and a spring in their step. Cork does have a rivalry with Dublin particularly in sport but in many ways, Cork has always taken its own path.

What I mean by that is that Cork tries to be Cork. It doesn't try to emulate Dublin or clone what Dublin has.

Don't get me wrong, there is always the rivalry to get their fair share of funding from government but Cork has its own plans and ambitions.

Its planning department for example is the slickest in Ireland and light years ahead of other cities.

It's probably not by accident that Cork is one of the most beautiful cities in Ireland.

When it comes to ambition Cork probably tops that category as well. In 2017 it launched a plan to almost double the size of the cIty area. The plan which still has to get Dail approval will see the geographical area of the city increase by 85%.

Then in October 2020, Cork Council approved plans for a 140m development at the old Port of Cork that will include Ireland's tallest building. The Tower at Customs House Quay will be 140m high or 34 stories in height and will house a 241-bed 5-star hotel.

So why all this talk about Cork?

Well, it really is a tale of two cities.

Both Cork and Derry share a rivalry with Dublin and Belfast. Cork, however, does seem to be fairing a lot better than Derry.

Derry recently announced the City Deal of 250m, which is absolutely fantastic.

Compare this, however, with Cork which as I said earlier is doubling its city size and is currently enjoying a 1bn investment boom in offices, hotels and apartments.

On top of this there is another 1bn planned investment for Cork's sprawling docklands. That's a whopping 2bn in a city about twice the size of Derry. We are doing well but Cork is flying.

So, what do I think we are doing wrong?

I think we actually need to take a leaf out of the Cork playbook.

I think Derry needs to be bolder and get back that swagger which people like Paddy Bogside had. Paddy's motto was always 'it's better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission'.

Paddy and many like him were pioneers. They led from the front and had deep self-belief. There were many like Paddy in Derry and this part of Ireland was known for getting things done.

Dont get me wrong, we still have some great local champions in Derry but their ideas often get drowned out.

We need these people to be heard and involved a lot more if we are to meet the true potential of this city.

And when it comes to branding Derry like Cork, we shouldn't be afraid to buck the trend and step out of its comfort zone. Derry is different and shouldn't strive to be a mini-Belfast.

I'm tired of people seeing what Belfast has and thinking 'we need that in Derry'.

No, we don't, and people responsible for economic policy planning in the city need to realise that trying to transplant something here because it works in Belfast doesn't mean it will be successful.

Belfast is bigger and has two airports with routes throughout the UK and EU and two huge universities.

It also has the largest FE college in NI. Certain things will work in Belfast because it has the scale to support it. It's a bigger, better connected city than Derry and will always attract more FDI than Derry because it's also within 90 minutes travel time to Dublin.

We need to get over that and develop our own niche and clear brand.

If the sum of our economic planning is let's do that because Belfast has it, then as Private James Frazer would say in Dad's Army 'We are doomed'.

I've seen so many examples of this blinkered approach to economic planning in the last 20 years and we really have wasted a lot of time chasing other cities economic success stories without focusing on our own unique success stories.

Cork doesn't mimic or try to clone what Dublin does. It has the confidence to set its own agenda. We need to do the same.

And the good news for Derry and Donegal is that we do have a great story to tell. Derry and Donegal are different.

They both compliment each other and post-Covid we really need to work closer together to brand the region as one destination for work and tourism. If we are told by others that we can't then we should plough on and do it.

The other big positive in the region is the fact we have some of the best and most innovative small businesses in Ireland.

The only negative is we dont do enough to champion them. For the last 15 years we have basically put the development and attraction of digital/creative businesses and most recently Fintech top of our agenda.

Of course, these businesses are important but we really need a balanced approach to economic policy. Quite often many other fantastic examples of local entrepreneurs which are 'less glamorous' businesses, don't get the focus they deserve.

My point is we need to champion our local talent more often and celebrate their success. The reality is we need to encourage them and hopefully others because a growing city need a growing business class.

What strikes me about Cork is the visibility of more local small locally owned shops/cafes in the centre. Again, we need to examine how they seem to have more success than us in that area.

Another couple of areas I have touched upon that Derry needs to improve on is planning.

Cork seems miles ahead in terms of city planning and particularly in how it seems to tackle empty or derelict buildings.

There is no silver bullet solution to this but at least they seem to be tackling it head on.

Derry needs to look at how Cork and others deal with this, as derelict crumbling buildings within the city centre really don't help us attract tourists or jobs.

Our planning process within Derry needs to be a lot quicker and consistent.

So, let's push on with the City Deal and use this as the catalyst to attract another 500m to the city.

As I said, Derry needs to create its own niche.

Bologna in Italy is known as 'la Rosa' (the Red).

Cork we know has its own unique identity so Derry should probably build on the Legenderry brand and stand out or develop something else.

Economically we were once the shirt capital of the world for almost 100 years. At that same time, Belfast was a world-beating shipbuilding giant.

A lot has happened since we both lost those crowns but our economic planning model needs to focus on our strengths and not clone whatever Belfast does.

Lastly and I've already said it, but let's start by putting our local business talent front and centre and across every sector.

If we don't champion our local talent no one else will.
Danny Smyth has been stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Danny Smyth has been stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

On the one side, the Winnipeg Police Service chief is facing mounting public pressure to reinvent policing in the city in the wake of a global reform campaign.

On the other, Smyth is struggling to placate increasingly frustrated and angry rank-and-file officers, who believe he has failed to protect them against a wave of anti-police sentiment.

Even though there has only ever been a sliver of breathing room between these two intractable constituencies, Smyth has somehow managed to avoid being crushed.

That was, until the events of last week.

In the course of 72 hours  March 3-5  Smyth found himself confronted by an unprecedented campaign by the Winnipeg Police Association (the union that represents more than 1,800 officers and civilian support staff) to force him to step down.

The origins of the dispute had been percolating for months, if not years. However, a collision of somewhat disconnected events seems to have pushed things to the breaking point.

On Feb. 21, a 43-year-old constable died by suicide. The constable's family published an obituary suggesting public criticism of policing, sparked by local and global protests against systemic racism in police culture, had pushed him to take his own life.

Smyth became the subject of criticism among many officers for not reaching out directly to the family. (Although he has not explained the delay, Smyth is renowned for being emotionally reserved to the point of appearing indifferent.)

WPA president Maurice Sabourin said Smyth did not meet with the constable's family until March 3  a period of 10 days  when the chief had a private meeting with them in his office at the downtown police headquarters.

Meanwhile, with resentment brewing on that front, Smyth issued a forceful internal memo March 1  announcing an internal investigation to find the author of two false memos circulated to all rank-and-file officers.

The fakes were designed to look like the notices Smyth regularly sends out, but contained irreverent and sarcastic language about officers who had been accused of using excessive force. "This person (who authored the phony memos) has no place in our organization," Smyth wrote.

It was too much for the WPA.

There is little doubt Smyth is losing his grip on the leadership of the WPS.

Sabourin penned his own memo, which claimed the service was suffering from a morale crisis "tied to growing concerns over the leadership of our current chief of police."

In media interviews, Sabourin went even further, suggesting the relationship between officers and the WPS chief was beyond salvage.

To no doubt ratchet up the pressure, the WPA is commissioning an updated health and wellness survey with its members. On Wednesday, Sabourin will meet with Curtis Griffiths, a criminologist at the University of British Columbia, who is being retained to conduct the survey.

Griffiths is well-versed in the culture of the WPS. In 2013, he did both an operational review and a health and wellness survey of its officers that revealed alarming levels of depression and substance abuse among Winnipeg police.

It's unknown at this point whether the WPA on its own can exert enough pressure to get Smyth to step down, or to force city council into making the decision for him.

However, there is little doubt Smyth is losing his grip on the leadership of the WPS.

Smyth declined an interview request, but it should be noted he does occupy a precarious position in the ongoing public debate about police culture.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Chief Danny Smyth is struggling to placate increasingly frustrated and angry rank-and-file officers, who believe he has failed to protect them against a wave of anti-police sentiment.

Smyth has, for example, publicly acknowledged systemic racism exists in the service. He has also been quick to own up to wrongdoing by officers accused of using excessive force.

While these are important things to say at a time of great social unrest, they have no doubt earned Smyth few friends in the ranks of the WPS.

Is there is a middle ground where Smyth could have acknowledged the problems with police culture without alienating a majority officers serving under him? This is where Smyth's reserved leadership style, in general, and his failure to reach out to the family of the fallen police officer, in particular, comes into play.

Dishing out tough love is one of the tasks assigned to a police chief. But to do that effectively, the chief must have already earned the trust of the people they lead. Underlying this current dispute with the WPA is some pretty clear evidence Smyth is suffering from a trust deficit.

It may not be enough to get Smyth to step down.

However, it should be enough for city council to take a long look at the relationship between the police chief and WPS officers  and figure out whether there's anything left to save.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
ALBANY  A sixth woman has leveled allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, accusing him of touching her without consent late last year during an encounter at the governor's mansion, the Times Union has confirmed.

The alleged incident took place after the woman, a member of the governor's Executive Chamber staff, had been summoned to the mansion to assist the governor with a work-related matter. The woman's supervisors recently became aware of the allegation and alerted the governor's counsel of it on Monday.

An official close to the matter on Tuesday confirmed to the Times Union that the new allegation had been made, although Cuomo, during a news conference hours later, denied knowledge of it.

Latest news: Latest allegation against Cuomo is now a police matter

New details: Female aide said Cuomo aggressively groped her at Executive Mansion

In response to detailed questions about the handling of the woman's allegations by the governor's office, Beth Garvey, acting counsel to the governor, said: "All allegations that we learn of directly or indirectly are going promptly to the investigators appointed by the attorney general."

Cuomo, in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, did not deny touching women, but repeated his statement from last week that if he did, it was not "inappropriate."

"First, Im not aware of any other claim," he said. "As I said last week, this is very simple: I never touched anyone inappropriately.  I never made any inappropriate advances ... (and) no one ever told me at the time that I made them feel uncomfortable. Obviously, there are people who said after the fact they felt uncomfortable."

The woman has not filed a formal complaint with the governor's office.

New details: Assembly GOP asks feds to investigate Mario Cuomo Bridge construction

More: Structural problems on the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge were covered up

Her allegations were reported to the governor's counsel by other employees in the Executive Chamber. The information also was relayed by the governor's office to the attorney general's office, which is coordinating an investigation into multiple allegations of sexual harassment that have been made against the governor.

The sixth woman could not be reached for comment.

The investigation being coordinated by the attorney general's office is being handled by two private attorneys: Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District in Manhattan, and Anne L. Clark, who specializes in labor law and sexual harassment cases.

Last week, Cuomo said he "now understand(s) that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable. It was unintentional and I truly and deeply apologize for it. I feel awful about it and, frankly, I am embarrassed by it."

The governor, apparently in response to earlier accusations made by another aide, Lindsey Boylan, that he had kissed her in his Manhattan office, also said: "I want you to know this from me directly, I never touched anyone inappropriately."

Aides to the governor on Tuesday said the governor stands by his statement that he never touched anyone inappropriately.

The new allegations by the sixth woman potentially undermine that statement by Cuomo, and are certain to intensify the pressure that many lawmakers  including fellow Democrats  are putting on him to resign. They include state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who on Sunday said Cuomo should step down due to a series of scandals, and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, who stopped short of telling Cuomo to resign but questioned whether he can remain an effective leader.

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who would take over the position if Cuomo is impeached, on Tuesday issued a statement regarding the appointment of the independent investigators, saying, "I am confident everyones voice will be heard and taken seriously. I trust the inquiry to be completed as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible. New Yorkers should be confident that through this process they will soon learn the facts."

"The latest allegation by a current employee of the Executive Chamber highlights a disturbing pattern of predatory pattern behavior by Gov. Cuomo, not to mention a pattern of lies and broken public trust," state Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt, a Republican, said in a statement after the new allegations were published online by the Times Union. "Just last week, the governor claimed he had never inappropriately touched anyone  but yet the brave and courageous account of the sixth accuser says he did just that, only months ago."

Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat who has been a member of the Assembly for more than 50 years, issued a statement on Twitter Tuesday  just hours after the new allegation was reported  in which he joined the multitude of lawmakers calling for Cuomo to step down.

"Multiple and growing credible allegations of sexual harassment and recent reports detailing the cover-up of the true COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes are extremely disturbing and make it clear that Gov. Cuomo is no longer the right governor for New York," Gottfried said. "It is clear that it is best for New York for Gov. Cuomo to resign."

The intensifying calls for his resignation followed the initial allegations made by three women  Boylan as well as Charlotte Bennett and Anna Ruch, who did not work for Cuomo but told the New York Times that the governor grabbed her and attempted to kiss her at a 2019 wedding of one of his senior aides.

Bennett told the New York Times that Cuomo, during an encounter in his Capitol office last June, talked about being lonely during the pandemic and that he had missed being able to hug someone. She said that Cuomo never tried to touch her.

Over the weekend, in stories published by the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, two more women came forward and described what they characterized as inappropriate behavior by Cuomo, including one who worked with the governor more than two decades ago at the U.S. Housing and Urban Development agency.

Jessica Westerman, an attorney for the law firm representing Bennett  along with her associate Debra Katz  on Monday told the Times Union that the Executive Chamber's decision last year to handle Bennett's complaint "in-house" and not refer the matter to the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER) needs to be a focus of the ongoing probe.

In that case, Jill DeRosiers, fielded the complaint from 25-year-old Bennett, and Garvey, a top member of the governor's legal team, assigned the matter to Judith Mogul, a special counsel for the governor. There was apparently no formal investigation, and it was resolved when Bennett "received the transfer she requested to a position in which she had expressed a long-standing interest, and was thoroughly debriefed on the facts which did not include a claim of physical contact or inappropriate sexual conduct."

"She was consulted regarding the resolution, and expressed satisfaction and appreciation for the way in which it was handled," Garvey added in a statement last week.

There's more to the story Our writers share more about the topics they cover in our newsletters and podcasts. Capitol Confidential newsletter: Wake up to the latest in New York state politics. Sign up here. Capitol Confidential podcast: Get an inside look at the personalities and politics behind state government. Listen here.

The handling of the investigation by a legal team that provides advice to the governor also raises questions about the potential inherent conflict of interest in their decision to not notify GOER and instead resolve the case by transferring Bennett to a new job.

Westerman said there were multiple problems with that process, which she said did not follow state law or the rules spelled out in the employee handbook covering the Executive Chamber.

"Its clear that they were legally obligated to refer the complaint to GOER, and so by failing to do so  regardless of whether they otherwise advised Charlotte of the options available to her  they violated their legal obligation to report the governors conduct to GOER," Westerman said.

In December 2018, under an executive order signed by Cuomo, GOER became the office responsible for handling sexual harassment investigations, and is required to be notified of all complaints. That order, which followed expanded rules for sexual harassment allegations and responses, "transferred the responsibility for conducting investigations of all employment-related discrimination complaints to the Governors Office of Employee Relations ... (and) all such complaints of protected class employment-related discrimination will be investigated by GOER."

The governor, when asked last week whether he had taken legally mandated, annual sexual harassment training, said "the short answer is yes." But his office has declined to provide details on when the governor took the training.

Bennett, in an interview with CBS News last week, said she witnessed an assistant to Cuomo taking the harassment training for him, although the governor certified he had completed the online course. The assistant has denied Bennett's allegation.
Chubb announced it has appointed Peter Kelaher as country president for Australia and New Zealand. In his new role, Kelaher, who is currently senior vice president and head of Property and Casualty (P/C) for Australia and New Zealand, will have executive operating responsibility for the companys general insurance business, including commercial P/C, traditional and specialty personal lines and accident and health insurance.

He will oversee all facets of the business including strategy, product and business development, underwriting and service operations, and profit and loss performance. The appointment is effective immediately.

Kelaher will report to Paul McNamee, senior vice president, Chubb Group, and regional president of Asia Pacific. He succeeds Jarrod Hill, who is leaving the company.

Kelaher has 20 years of insurance industry experience. He joined the company in 2008 as a financial lines underwriter and was promoted to product manager for directors and officers. He was named to lead the P/C business for Australia and New Zealand in 2016. Kelaher has a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree in International Business from the University of Technology Sydney.

Chubb has operated in the Australia/New Zealand market for more than 100 years. With seven branches and more than 800 staff, the company offers a range of commercial and consumer coverages to a broad client base, including many of the largest companies. Chubb also serves affluent and high net worth individuals and families with high-value personal lines protection. In addition, the company provides individuals with travel and personal accident insurance.

Source: Chubb

Topics Australia Chubb
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Mar. 9WASHINGTON  The National Guard said Monday the head of the U.S. Army has ordered a preliminary inquiry into claims that bad food was served to troops providing security at the U.S. Capitol.

Acting Secretary of the Army John E. Whitley on March 3 directed Maj. Gen. William Walker, commander of the District of Columbia National Guard, to conduct the preliminary inquiry concerning "allegations of the inadequate provision of food" for the service members, according to a spokesman for the Joint Task Force at the Capitol.

"We will not discuss the details of the ongoing inquiry," said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Robert Carver.

The purposes of a preliminary inquiry under Army regulations could include ascertaining the scope of the problem, identifying and interviewing witnesses, and determining whether a more extensive investigation is warranted, Carver said.

The guard has said at least 50 troops were sickened with gastrointestinal illness after complaints that they were served undercooked or poor quality food by a military contractor.

None of those sickened have been hospitalized due to illness from the food since the Capitol security mission began Jan. 6; however, some have been treated at hospitals, a guard spokesman said.

Nearly 1,000 Michigan troops are among 5,200 serving at the Capitol to help local and federal law enforcement with security in the wake of the deadly attack on the building on Jan. 6.

Dozens of them have complained since mid-February about the food they were served, ranging from undercooked meat to poor food quality to a lack of vegetarian options.

Lawmakers in Washington and Lansing, in addition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have called on the National Guard to void the $11.4 million food service contract with Sardi's Catering in College Park, Maryland  the vendor providing meals to the troops three times a day. They want the military to pay the troops a per diem for their meals.

The National Guard Bureau has said it's is continuing with the current food service contract and the vendor  a position the Pentagon press secretary reiterated Monday.

Story continues

The guard has maintained that the problem is not systemic and limited to a fraction of over 1.2 million meals served since Jan. 6.

Sardi's has defended its food service and claims that none of the cases of reported gastrointestinal illness among soldiers have been linked to the company.

National Guard inspectors are visiting the vendor's facilities and kitchens to conduct spot checks and ensure safe and sanitary food preparation and packaging in compliance with federal regulations, the company said.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer visited Washington and lunched with members of the Michigan guard Friday. She said afterward that the troops told her their catered meals had improved but not by much, calling the situation "unacceptable."

"We have been raising this to the highest levels of the military for quite a while, and I'm told it's marginally better but not a lot. It's very disappointing," Whitmer told The Detroit News.

Whitmer called Whitley about the food on Feb. 18 after the complaints first started.

"I think we owe it to our guards women and men to treat them well and with respect when they're doing such important work, so it is something that I'm very concerned about."

Whitmer said this week she has no intention of agreeing to extend the Michigan troop's deployment in Washington when it ends March 12.

mburke@detroitnews.com
The transition to remote work has certainly been a mixed bag for credit union employees. Not commuting has been great, yet, for many, working out of a cramped apartment or balancing working with kids at home has been not so great. Sentiment towards working from home varies widely.

When it comes time to return to the office, its the benefits of working from home that will stand out in contrast. The freedom to move about and to choose your working environment, to isolate when working on a focused task or to join your partner or roommate in conversations and hop on Zoom when you want to be around others. Its also the comfortable temperature, the workspace tailored to the type of work youre doing, and the ability to escape from distractions.

Over the past year workplaces have stayed the same, but peoples exposure to working from home has changed their expectations.

Yet for forward-thinking credit unions, this is more of an opportunity than a liability. The sudden and long-term transition to remote work has been a research experiment into how employees work best and how their work activities can be supported by a physical space.

For credit unions looking to take advantage of this situation, now is the time to capture aspects of the working from home experience and bring them to life in the office. If you can develop an understanding of how your employees can be supported both in their wellbeing and in their workplace activities, you can deliver a working environment that closes this gap between expectations and reality.

One powerful tool that can help you accomplish this is the concept of Activity Based Working (ABW). This is a workplace design philosophy built around understanding the various activities that your employees perform throughout the day and creating workspaces that support them.

For example, some people work from a single workstation all day and need that workstation to be comfortable. They may also benefit more from break rooms and areas to walk around, as well as the ability to set boundaries and avoid distraction when they need to focus. On the other end of the spectrum, a highly mobile worker might not even need a workstation and would work best moving between collaborative spaces, focused spaces, and meeting rooms throughout the day. Its all about choice and the balance between we spaces and me spaces. Understanding the makeup of your workforce and how they work best can go a long way towards creating a supportive environment that combines the benefits of an office with the highlights of working from home.

We believe that while remote work will be an enduring trend, the future is a hybrid workplace where the office remains the core of credit unions working culture while many choose to work from home for part of the week. The transition back to the office may be jarring to many, but through developing a better understanding of your employees and how they work you have an opportunity to come out of the pandemic supporting them better than before.

Weve recently explored these topics in depth with our recent whitepaper A Study of Credit Union Workplaces and the Future of Work and an accompanying webinar with Erik Anderson, Microsofts Director of Workplace Intelligence, both of which you can access here.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Beshear Urges Lawmakers to 'Be Bold' With Budget

By The Associated Press

FRANKFORT - Gov. Andy Beshear is urging Kentucky's Republican lawmakers to go bold in crafting a budget.Beshear said Monday that the money is available to strengthen the state's competitiveness as the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. His pitch came as top lawmakers started a final push toward putting together a one-year spending plan to present to the GOP-dominated legislature.Budget negotiators met Monday and are to resume public discussions Tuesday.Meanwhile, another infusion of federal aid is expected to flow to Kentucky as part of the COVID-19 aid package that congressional Democrats are poised to send to President Joe Biden.
Advertisement

These captivating century-old photographs show Russia in colour in the last days of the old Tsarist empire which was soon to vanish in the fire and fury of the Russian Revolution.

Taken in the early 20th century, the pictures were the work of Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, a chemist who pioneered a method of producing colour photographs and was commissioned to document the empire for Tsar Nicholas II.

But the collection would soon take on a more poignant significance as one of the last testimonies to the old imperial Russia before the traumas of Stalinist terror and Nazi invasion that scarred the following decades.

His photos include glimpses of traditional life in remote corners of the empire, with portraits of nomadic people dressed in extravagant headgear sitting in their sturdy yurts and carrying grain and cotton on their camels.

But there are also signs of modernity, with new railways stretching out from Moscow and St Petersburg across the continent as Russia sought to catch up to its industrialised rival powers.

As Tsarist Russia was torn to shreds by the revolutions of 1917 and the emperor and his family were brutally murdered, Prokudin-Gorsky himself would flee to Norway and Britain before finally landing in France. His collection found its way to the US Library of Congress, which now has 2,607 of the fascinating images.

Building a railway: This group of men wearing hats, buttoned jackets and overcoats were involved in the construction of a narrow-gauge railway in the far north of Russia, leading from the town of Kem to the port village of Kem-Pristan, now known as Rabocheostrovsk. The building of the railways helped to industrialise Russia's economy after its defeat in the mid-19th century Crimean War had exposed the country's shortcomings compared to the rapidly modernising powers of Western Europe such as Britain and France. Russia's rapid railway-building also alarmed its rival powers in the lead-up to World War I

Camel transport: This picture shows a Turkmen man and his camel, who is likely destined to travel in a so-called camel caravan transporting sacks of grain or cotton around Central Asia. This traditional means of transporting food, water and other goods remained widely used even once railways started to stretch across Russia's vast empire. The region has been inhabited by ethnic Turkmens for centuries but there was little political unity until Tsarist Russia annexed the area in 1881. Turkmenistan would remain under Moscow's rule until the break-up of the Soviet Union led to its independence in 1991

'Little Russia': This woman is sitting on a wooden seat in what is now Ukraine, and likely lived as a peasant who raised cattle or grew crops such as rye, wheat, oats, and barley in the farmland of Eastern Europe. Over the centuries parts of Ukraine found themselves at various times living under the rule of Russian rulers or the Habsburg emperors who reigned from Vienna, but by the 19th century Moscow was seeking to tighten its control by banning the imports of Ukrainian-language books. Russia referred to the area under its control as Little Russia, a term which has more recently been adopted by pro-Russian dissenters

Sitting outdoors: A group of eleven adults and children wearing colourful outfits with extravagant headwear sit on a rug outside their yurt, likely in what is now one of the Central Asian republics including Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. As nomadic peoples such as these came into the orbit of Tsarist Russia, they came under pressure to abandon their portable yurts in favour of a more settled lifestyle in towns and cities. Those struggles for control would continue into the Soviet era, which saw a famine in Kazakhstan during the early 1930s that laid waste to traditional nomadic communities

At work: A group of labourers wearing khaki uniforms stand in front of a chain-link fence, with sacks and bales piled up behind them. Also beyond the fence, behind the red structure on the left, are the remains of an old brick fortification built near Bayramaly in what is now Turkmenistan, in the Central Asian region where much of the empire's cotton came from. The are thought to contain cotton seed cake, which is the solid substance left over and often fed to animals after oil is extracted

Ruler: The bearded emir of Bukhara, Alim Khan, poses for a portrait wearing a vivid ocean-blue cloak, a turban and high-heeled shoes while holding a sword in his hand. The portrait was taken in 1911 shortly after the Emir came to power in the city-state, now in Uzbekistan, where he reigned as an absolute monarch until Soviet forces took control of the emirate in 1920. While the Emir fled to Afghanistan, where he died in 1944, there was further turmoil in Bukhara as it was first established as its own Soviet republic before subsequently becoming part of the Uzbek republic that would eventually achieve independence

Baling machine: This picture was taken near Kondopoga along the route of the Murmansk Railroad, which was built in Russia's far north between 1914 and 1917 - likely making this one of the pictures taken by Prokudin-Gorsky during World War I. In this area, relatively close to the border with Finland, a wooden machine had been set up for stacking hay into bales. Three men in caps are poised to operate it while a bearded man wearing a hat and another man in a military-like uniform supervise the operation. Behind the machine are a group of village children, including girls covering their heads in white scarves

Prison cell: In this picture, a visitor appears to be squatting at the entrance of a prison cell while the inmates look out from behind their primitive bars. There are remnants of snow and ice by the walls and the men are huddled up in warm clothing, while the guard is carrying a rifle and wearing a Russian-style uniform with a sheepskin hat and padded tunic. The prison is known as a 'zindan', a term derived from Persian, and is thought to have taken in Bukhara - see above - in what is now Uzbekistan. People might have been locked up for failing to repay their debts, or sometimes kept in solitary confinement

Textiles: Four well-dressed relatives sit on a carpet in front of a backdrop of textiles, in a picture taken inside a nomadic yurt present-day Turkmenistan. The people in this picture are believed to be members of the Teke tribe, who were gradually absorbed into Russia's orbit around this time, with some even serving in cavalry regiments in Russia's armed forces. The family's young son is seated in the centre of this picture, with his young wife to the left and likely his mother on the right

Cooking rice: Two men wearing traditional robes and tall sheepskin hats stand by a row of what are thought to be cooking receptacles, where iron containers could be placed and used to cook rice. One of the men has a dagger under his belt, while the other is standing up close to an irrigation canal which would have been used to water the fields in present-day Turkmenistan. At the back of the picture, on the right, is another of the portable circular yurts where many people lived

Train station: This picture shows a platform and station building in Farab, in what is now Turkmenistan, where the railways arrived in the late 19th-century as Moscow sought to cement its influence in far-flung Central Asia. Farab lies on one of these routes, the Trans-Caspian Railway, which follows a similar route to part of the ancient Silk - a trading route which for centuries linked the Eastern and Western worlds and which was travelled by Marco Polo in the journeys that led to his famous stories. The railway's more famous cousin, the 6,000-mile Trans-Siberian route from Moscow to Vladivostok, was completed in 1904

At the Winter Palace: This is another ruler of a far-flung part of Central Asia, although in this image he has travelled to St Petersburg and the Winter Palace that was the home of the Russian Tsars. This is thought to be Isfandiyar, ruler of what was known as the Khanate of Khiva, which was later brought under Soviet rule. St Petersburg was meanwhile renamed Petrograd at the start of World War I because the old name sounded too German. The name was then changed again to Leningrad after the Bolshevik leader's death in 1924. The name St Petersburg was finally restored after the break-up of the USSR
In a piece for the Belfast Telegraph on May 5, 2018, I noted: "The DUP also needs to abandon its present fixation with what Arlene Foster describes as a troublesome Irish government. Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney aren't responsible for the present crisis. Their recent input into our local politics has been caused by two outcomes, neither of which they provoked: the failure of the DUP and SF to cut a deal (to restore the Executive) and the UK's decision to leave the EU. Both of those issues have a direct impact on the Irish government, so it would be quite remarkable if they didn't raise their concerns."

Simon Coveney has been Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs since June 2017. He was appointed by Varadkar and kept in place when Micheal Martin became Taoiseach last year. In Irish politics he is held in fairly high regard and generally viewed as a safe pair of hands - "the sort of guy," as one Fine Gael TD put it to me in the summer of 2017, "who was reckoned to have the temperament required to deal with unionists right now."

The right now was a reference to Brexit and to the DUP's confidence and supply arrangement with the Conservative government, negotiations for which began five days before Coveney's appointment.

The relationship between Irish Ministers of Foreign Affairs and unionism had tended to be reasonably good post-1998, primarily because there was a clear sense of having the same end goals in mind when it came to the Good Friday Agreement (even though the DUP never fully endorsed it) and a functioning Assembly.

Unionists weren't overly bothered about any unity threats from the Irish and maintained a very civil, although sometimes quite discreet, relationship with the key players.

Crucially, successive Irish governments also maintained dialogue with loyalist paramilitarism, doing what they could to understand its concerns, as well as offering help with the process of transformation to entirely peaceful and democratic structures. Indeed, a number of loyalists told me they had a better relationship with Irish governments and ministers than with the NIO.

But the Brexit result upended the dynamics, particularly for the Irish side, which suddenly and unexpectedly found itself siding with the EU against the UK.

It also found itself coming under enormous pressure from nationalism in Northern Ireland, which looked to the Irish government to protect rights and a multiplicity of political/constitutional identities which it believed were dependent on membership of the EU. And, of course, Brexit also raised huge problems about the location of a new UK/RoI border and the impact it would have on both the Good Friday Agreement and North-South relationships.

This was the problem which Coveney inherited in June 2017. Worse, there were no precedents he could look to for possible solutions, because this was something entirely new.

It didn't help that the DUP - still smarting from the loss of a unionist majority in the March 2017 Assembly election - had opted for a new form of uber-unionism with the ERG wing of the Conservative party and more or less opted out of dialogue with anyone else.

That's why I noted my concerns in the May 2018 piece for the Belfast Telegraph. At a moment when unionism, and not just the DUP, needed to be improving the dialogue and relationship with the Irish government and with Coveney in particular, they seemed to be drifting further and further apart.

The assessment of loyalism was particularly damning. This is what Jim Wilson, a former member of the Red Hand Commando and now in the Loyalist Communities Council, told me in an interview in November 2019: "Bertie Ahern worked tirelessly with us and put the hand of friendship out to many of us in the loyalist community. Indeed, we got to the point where we almost trusted him more than our own government representatives. But under Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney things have changed. When we have met them - three times now - we may as well have talked to the wall. They didn't heed what we said. They could have helped loyalism and unionism over May's backstop and given us a breathing space, a bit of time if you like: but they didn't bother. They had no interest in helping us. They slapped us in the face and undermined 20 years of hard work."

All of unionism now shares the same view of Coveney. Arlene Foster accused him of "ignoring unionist concerns and hoping they'll just go away." Steve Aiken said he had shown, "gravity-defying levels of arrogance and hypocrisy." Jim Allister complained he was "trashing east-west relationships ... with barely disguised triumphalism and bombastic belligerence." And the Orange Order has given its support to a united unionist response to dump the protocol.

So the chances of a rapprochement between unionism and Coveney seem remote.

But to be honest, this is what happens when former partners - the UK and the Republic in this case - are forced to choose a side. Each will prioritise and protect its own interests.

Coveney is not just negotiating on behalf of the Irish government, either. He needs EU approval, which limits his room for manoeuvre.

Unionism, meanwhile, is just as cross with Johnson as it is with Coveney, but can't risk a complete falling out with the PM at this point.

I'm not sure there's anyone from the Irish side - even Bertie Ahern - who could easily repair the relationship with unionists.

This is, ultimately, a battle between the EU and the UK and I'm not persuaded either of them cares all that much for Ulster unionism.

An opportunity for unionism and the Irish government to work better together was missed during 2017-19. Both sides are to blame, albeit for different reasons.
Where were you a year ago this Saturday?

Ive been asking myself the question for a few months now, and not so much in the literal sense, because I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing Friday, March 13, 2020.

But where were you in the figurative sense, as in, Am I OK with who I am?

Getting married? Divorced? Starting a new job? Quitting one? Children  yes or no?

These are momentous times. Check yourself. Deep breath. Go.

We left for Virginia about 6 p.m. Central Standard that day, hellbent on an out-and-back trip to retrieve our son, who called a day before.

We have to be off campus in 72 hours, dad.

Daughters No. 1 and 2 were already on their way back home from New Orleans to keep watch over house, pets and Daughter No. 3, while mom and dad rocketed through the night 13 hours to Shenandoah.

It took about two hours to help yank everything from the dorm room, while parents from a dozen different states milled around outside in 40-degree temperatures and persistent drizzle.

Isnt this just about the best way to catch the it? one of us asked.

A few days later, as I reported on the virus encroaching into south Louisiana, it was upon our family. Maybe it came from the whirlwind road trip. Maybe it came from across the lake, where only a couple weeks earlier, Mardi Gras brought visitors and revelers together for a Carnival with consequences.

Three of the kids had symptoms that were mild. They shook it in 48 hours. The fourth struggled for a few weeks, felt much better, but tested positive for a month, even though asymptomatic. Mom ran fever for a week, lost her sense of smell. They quarantined for a few weeks, but not at home.

Not having contracted the virus, I stayed back to care for the cats. I was on the phone and computer 16 hours a day covering strange news as it began to break around us. I was 'hyper-connected' with people, but dont think I saw another person for nearly a month.

St. Tammany top stories in your inbox A weekly guide to the biggest news in St. Tammany. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Thats when 2020 gets a little hazy and the days blend into one.

I hunkered. I masked. I lathered my hands, wrists and forearms in sanitizer. I bathed twice a day and never wore the same clothes twice, even though no one was coming near me or was I getting close to anyone.

I caught it in early July. I'm pretty sure how, but its not worth repeating here. Had fever for a week, 101 was the high, and it never broke.

On the eighth day, my lungs began to burn. There was no phlegm to dislodge, only a tightness in my chest that grew increasingly worse for eight more days. I double-dosed on guaifenesin and choked back more C, D, zinc and Tylenol than any doctor could possibly recommend. Who knew you could drink silver?

I was afraid, though I wasn't about to say so.

Fifteen days after the first symptoms began, they vanished. There was no hospital, no doctor, no COVID hotline. I was isolated, but I hadnt missed a day of work. I was better, and for a couple months, Im sure I never felt more alive. I was bulletproof, ready to tackle anything.

Then October came and though I felt freed, the world still was shackled. The virus began another wave across the country and emergency order continued. Getting into a department store or a public building was like getting into Fort Knox  you either didnt or you were debriefed in the process. I wasn't afraid to climb into a plane in mid-December, but the empty seats told me many of you felt differently.

The new year dawned in much the same way 2020 ended. The cultural touchstones that define us were postponed yet again or altered to an extent they became hardly recognizable. Many families were still not able to be together, as they spent holidays protecting not only their elderly and sick, but ours too. There was political upheaval and a general disconnect that told us the madness hadnt ended quite yet.

As we approach the anniversary of emergency order to slow a pandemics spread, consider the numbers and say what you will of this novel coronavirus  2.6 million deaths worldwide, among them more than 520,000 Americans and 9,000 Louisianians. Many of them were older people, or infirmed people. But they were people. Our people  500 St. Tammany Parish residents among them.

And still, we recover  117 million cases worldwide, 29 million Americans, nearly a half-million in our state alone.

And the virus isn't done. That's reality.

A year ago, most of us were in fear. We were waiting to see what COVID-19 could do to us physically, but also what it could do to us emotionally. How would we survive the collective psyche scarred with detachment, loss and grief?

This March 13 brings a different kind of waiting, and with it hope that the worst is behind us. The vaccine is by no means a panacea, but it appears to be our best path to normalcy. Its a chance to put an international crisis behind us  never to forget, but to heal.
Multiple current and past employees of the tech company claimed to have been sent away by the human resources department.

After they experienced racist behavior and sexual harassment on the job, several employees of Google sought assistance from the human resources department. According to a new report, instead of investigating the allegations, HR directed the victims to take time, citing their own mental health as reasoning.

Read More: Black college students say Googles pipeline program was disorganized

NBC News found at least 10 employees have claimed to have been mistreated after they consulted human resources after coworkers made comments on their skin tone or hair or had sexual advances made toward them. According to the report, when employees contacted the department about retaliation against protesting sexual assault or advocating for equal pay for Black and non-Black employees, they were also met with a similar response.

Google logo on one of the buildings situated in Googleplex, the companys main campus in Silicon Valley. (Photo: Adobe Stock)

The employees both current and former were directed to seek therapy or take medical leave to address their mental health despite not being the colleague at fault.

Going on leave is so normalized. I can think of 10 people that I know of in the last year that have gone on mental health leave because of the way they were treated, said a former Google employee.

They spoke to the news outlet under the condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to speak of their work. According to the outlet, the person, a minority, took a medical leave last year after multiple unproductive conversations with human resources.

Another former employee claimed a similar experience. Benjamin Cruz, a Mexican-American, shared his story with NBC News. While employed as an instructional designer in Googles Cloud division, they allegedly had a colleague comment on how dark their skin is. Cruz claimed to have gone to HR for a resolution and was told they should assume good intent, behind the persons racially motivated words.

Story continues

Cruz asked for the company to look deeper into the incident and was pushed to take a medical leave for their mental health.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK  JANUARY 25: The Manhattan Google headquarters is seen on January 25, 2021 in New York City. Google announced today that it will be opening up select Google facilities to serve as mass vaccination sites open to anyone eligible to receive the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine. They will also commit to using more than $150 million dollars to promote vaccine education. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

NBC reported the entire ordeal impacted Cruzs professional growth with the company, where they were ultimately forced to quit.

After I made that complaint, my work started getting pushed out from under me, but my team acted like everything was fine. I wanted to find help, Cruz said according to the report. When the medical leave was recommended to me, it was like an automatic process.

Read More: Two CBS TV executives placed on leave following racism allegations

theGrio reported Google faced backlash and issued an apology in December 2020 after the termination of Dr. Timnit Gebru. More than 2,000 employees signed an open letter that called her firing research censorship and a retaliatory firing, according to the report. While employed Gebru co-led Googles Ethical Artificial Intelligence.

Googles chief executive Sundar Pichai issued an apology and said, Ive heard the reaction to Dr. Gebrus departure loud and clear: it seeded doubts and led some in our community to question their place at Google.

Still, she claimed to have been portrayed as a stereotype in emails to employee.

Dont paint me as an angry Black woman for whom you need de-escalation strategies for. This thread is just the beginning of the toxicity I dealt with since before I even joined Google and I havent said anything specific yet., she tweeted.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Google AI Research Scientist Timnit Gebru speaks onstage during Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center on September 7, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch)

According to NBC News, like the aforementioned current and former employees, Gebru was also directed to seek therapy after calling out problematic behavior when her messages discussing how women were treated by Google were forwarded to human resources.

Theyre like, Well, if theres something wrong with you, here are all these therapy resources. said Gebru to the news outlet And I would respond that no amount of support system is going to get rid of Googles hostile work environment. I have friends. I go dancing. I have hobbies and therapy already.

After she was fired, the company held a forum for employees to discuss racism, however, attendees informed NBC News the event spent most of the time explaining themselves and their side of the story behind her termination.

A good 20 minutes of the call was just them discrediting her. This was a clear way of showing you that this is what could happen to you if you speak up, one Google employee said according to the report.

People were sharing really brilliant reflections on how painful Dr. Gebrus firing was for them. And the therapist was just repeating it back saying, Yes, yes, I hear you, said another Google amployee added. It was this pattern. Their real concerns were dismissed as feelings.

Have you subscribed to theGrios Dear Culture podcast? Download our newest episodes now!

TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku. Download theGrio.com today!

The post Google employees who filed racism complaints told to seek therapy: report appeared first on TheGrio.
Mr. Rosenbaums group has sued several states and school systems in recent years, most prominently the Detroit public schools, for failing to provide students with a basic education guaranteed under the Constitution. The law firm also sued the state of California last year for failing to offer a sound, basic education via remote learning.

In the Detroit case, a federal court found last year that the district had been so negligent toward the educational needs of students that children had been deprived of access to literacy. The court then declared that public school students had a constitutional right to an adequate education. The plaintiffs later reached a settlement with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan to fund more literacy programs in the Detroit public schools.

The New York suit highlights the lack of nonwhite teachers relative to the student population, which is nearly 70 percent Black and Latino, and the disproportionately high suspension rates for nonwhite students compared with their white classmates.

But it focuses mainly on the issue that has thrust New Yorks divided school district into the national spotlight: the sorting of students as young as 4 years old for selective classes. New York is more reliant on academic prerequisites like test scores, grades and attendance to place students in public schools than any other school district in America.

The citys gifted and talented classes for elementary school students are about 75 percent white and Asian-American, and there are relatively few gifted programs located in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. White students, who make up just 15 percent of the overall district, are starkly overrepresented in selective middle and high schools.

About 40 percent of the citys middle schools use academic screens like grades and test scores to determine which students to admit, and many high schools, including elite schools like Stuyvesant High School, sort students by ability or require students to take a high-stakes admissions exam for entry.

In 2019, roughly three-quarters of Black and Latino students went to schools that had student populations that were less than 10 percent white, and over a third of white students attended schools with mostly white populations, according to data collected by the City Council.
Protesters led by an opposition alliance attempted to block one of the entrances to the country's parliament in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, on March 9. Opposition supporters say the legislature should only meet to achieve one goal -- the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Tim Fischer/Midland Reporter-Telegram

After last years Jersey Mikes Day of Giving was canceled due to coronavirus lockdown, this years will be bigger than ever. On March 31, Jersey Mikes Subs will give 100 percent of purchases to the West Texas Food Bank. Both Midland and Odessa Jersey Mikes locations will give every dollar in sales, not just the profit, to the West Texas Food Bank, according to a press release.

This is part of Jersey Mikes 11th annual nationwide Day of Giving. During the Day of Giving, Jersey Mikes locations will be offering free delivery through the Jersey Mikes app. Jersey Mikes hopes to raise a record breaking $8 million nationwide for local charities during the Month of Giving in March. Since 2011, Jersey Mikes Month of Giving has raised more than $32 million for local charities.
At least 98 Irish companies and organisations have been compromised by the global Microsoft email system hack, security experts say.

The hack is now known to have affected tens of thousands of organisations worldwide, including the European Banking Authority.

The cyber security and data protection firm BH Consulting says that it is aware of 98 businesses in Ireland that look to have been compromised using the vulnerability.

The companys CEO, Brian Honan, said that his firm has seen a list of 98 Irish organisations which have been infected with a web shell, which allows hackers to gain remote access to the victim organisation over the web.

The concern is that the attackers could use these web shells to further compromise the companies and install ransomware on their network, said Mr Honan.

Whether or not the attackers have gone further is as yet unknown and through [the Irish Reporting and Information Security Service] IrissCert we will be trying to contact the victims to alert them to check their systems.

Some industry data compilations estimate that 30pc of Irish servers may be vulnerable to the IT security exploit, which is caused by gaps in the technology that lets Microsoft customers get access to their work email over the internet,

Microsoft Ireland, which oversees the companys European business, declined to comment specifically on the Irish organisations affected but urged companies to make sure they implement its emergency software patches.

We are working closely with the [US agency] CISA, other government agencies and security companies to ensure we are providing the best possible guidance and mitigation for our customers, said a company spokesperson. The best protection is to apply updates as soon as possible across all impacted systems. Impacted customers should contact our support teams for additional help and resources."

The company declined to say whether it has informed the Irish Data Protection Commissioner about its email vulnerabilities.

However, it said that companies using entirely cloud-based email systems were unaffected.

Its had a huge reach and there have been organisations in Ireland, both in the private and the public sector, that have been impacted, said Conor Flynn, chief executive of Isas, a Dublin-based IT security firm. It has been quite significant.

A spokesperson for the Data Protection Commissioner declined to say whether Microsoft had informed it of the breach.

According to the IT security expert Brian Krebs, the hackers left an easy-to-use password-protected hacking tool called a web shell in infiltrated organisations, allowing them to return at a later date to get administrative access to the victims computer servers.

Microsoft and US authorities have blamed the initial wave of attacks on a Chinese government-backed actor. A Chinese government spokesman said the country was not behind the intrusions.

What started as a controlled attack late last year against a few classic espionage targets grew last month to a widespread campaign. More attacks are expected from other hackers as the code used to take control of the mail servers spreads.

All of those affected appear to run Web versions of email client Outlook and host them on their own machines, instead of relying on cloud providers.

On Monday, the European Banking Authority said it had been targeted by hackers, although no data had been obtained and it was redoubling efforts to shield itself.

The European Unions banking regulator, which gathers and stores swathes of sensitive data about banks and their lending, said it believed the cyber attack had struck only its email servers.

Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill during a visit to a coronavirus vaccination centre at the Ulster Hospital (Liam McBurney/PA)

Northern Irelands deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill has said she fell asleep during the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The blistering broadcast dominated media on Tuesday, the day after it was broadcast in the UK.

It included a claim by Meghan that a fellow royal was worried about how dark their son Archies skin tone might be before he was born.

The Sinn Fein vice president said it was not for her to comment on it, but added that any suggestion of racism anywhere should be called out.

Look, its not for me to comment.

I think that some of the commentary around racism, racism should be called out in any form wherever it is seen, so thats the only thing I would say on it, she said during a visit to a coronavirus vaccination centre at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald.

Speaking on the same visit, First Minister Arlene Foster insisted that she had not watched the interview.

She also made clear she would not be watching it in the future either.

I think its incredibly sad for Her Majesty the Queen to have had to listen to all of that, she said.

Expand Close Prince Harry and Meghan Markle meet wellwishers during a walkabout in Belfast after a visit to the Crown Bar in the city centre (Joe Giddens/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Prince Harry and Meghan Markle meet wellwishers during a walkabout in Belfast after a visit to the Crown Bar in the city centre (Joe Giddens/PA)

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made their first official visit to Northern Ireland in 2018 shortly before their wedding.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The global fertilizer catalyst market size is expected to reach USD 3.3 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 2.4% from 2021 to 2027. The market is expected to be driven by the growing application in the production of fertilizers and the need for improving process efficiencies.

Key suggestions from the report:

The nickel-based product segment is expected to expand at the fastest CAGR of 2.2%, in terms of volume, from 2021 to 2027 due to its application as a substitute for iron-based products and the increasing demand for fertilizers

The rhodium-based product segment is expected to witness considerable growth in the years to come owing to the growing demand for rhodium-based catalysts in hydrogenation reactions

The urea production process segment is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period owing to the growing demand for urea-based fertilizers

In the Asia Pacific region, India is anticipated to exhibit the fastest growth rate of 2.6%, in terms of volume, from 2021 to 2027 owing to the rising demand for nitrogenous fertilizers

In October 2019 , Albemarle Corporation and ExxonMobil together created a platform called "Galexia" for the refining industry to provide a transformative hydroprocessing suite of catalysts and service solutions. This platform is aimed at enhancing the company's business operations in order to cater to the customers' demand in an effective manner

Read 121 page research report with ToC on "Fertilizer Catalyst Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Iron Based, Nickel Based), By Process (Haber-Bosch Process, Urea Production), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2021 - 2027" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/fertilizer-catalyst-market

The demand for ammonia and hydrogen gas in the agricultural and industrial sectors is rising, thereby positively impacting the market growth. Moreover, favorable regulations and subsidies offered by the government have led to an increase in the adoption of catalysts. Nickel-based catalyst is the most significant product in the market space on account of its high efficiency. They are used in the Ostwald process of ammonia production. North America and the Asia Pacific collectively are anticipated to be the key markets for nickel-based catalysts worldwide. The demand for nickel-based catalysts is anticipated to grow on the account of their affordability and the ability to eliminate methane from the process.

Canada, South Africa, and Russia are likely to emerge as the major manufacturing locations for fertilizer catalysts due to the availability of raw materials. These countries are marked with the presence of large volumes of precious metal deposits. The major advantage associated with these countries is the availability of raw materials. Raw material procurement cost is the major cost incurred by a large number of catalyst manufacturers. The countries are also major exporters of fertilizers globally owing to the access to raw materials and the presence of large manufacturing facilities.

Grand View Research has segmented the global fertilizer catalyst market on the basis of product, process, and region:

Fertilizer Catalyst Product Outlook (Volume, Kilotons; Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

Iron-based



Vanadium based



Platinum-based



Rhodium based



Nickel-based



Palladium based



Ruthenium based



Zinc based



Cobalt-based



Molybdenum based



Chromium-based



Copper Chromite

Fertilizer Catalyst Process Outlook (Volume, Kilotons; Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

Haber-Bosch Process



Contact Process



Nitric Acid Production



Potassium Fertilizer Production



Urea Production

Fertilizer Catalyst Regional Outlook (Volume, Kilotons; Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

North America



U.S.





Canada





Mexico



Europe



U.K.





Germany





France





Spain





Italy



Asia Pacific



Japan





China





India





South Korea



Central & South America



Brazil





Argentina



MEA



South Africa





Saudi Arabia

List of Key Players of Fertilizer Catalyst Market

Sud-Chemie India Pvt. Ltd.

Thyssenkrupp AG

BASF SE

LKAB Minerals AB

Albemarle Corporation

Unicat Catalyst Technologies, Inc.

Clariant AG

Johnson Matthey

Haldor Topsoe

Quality Magnetite

Find more research reports on Agrochemicals & Fertilizers Industry, by Grand View Research:

Nitrogenous Fertilizer Market - The growing popularity of commercial agriculture across the globe is expected to drive the market for nitrogenous fertilizers over the forecast period. The agriculture industry has been witnessing a rise in the demand for nitrogenous fertilizers to provide proper nutrition to the food crops, thereby increasing their yield.

Chromium Market - Increasing demand from the stainless steel industry for various end-use markets such as automotive, aerospace, defense, marine, building and construction, and electronics is expected to be the key growth factor. In addition, significant demand from Asia Pacific is anticipated to fuel the market over the forecast period.

is anticipated to fuel the market over the forecast period. Ammonium Sulfate Market - The growing consumption of nitrogen-based fertilizers to increase crop yield on account of the rising demand for food is likely to drive the product demand. The key factor driving the global market is the consumption of the product as a soil fertilizer as the chemical contains nitrogen and sulfur. It is mainly used for reducing the acidity in alkaline soils as they have a high pH level.

Gain access to Grand View Compass, our BI enabled intuitive market research database of 10,000+ reports

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.

Contact:

Sherry James

Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc.

Phone: 1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com

Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com

Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 03:01:19|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street to the House of Commons in London, Britain, on March 3, 2021. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

"We do accept, of course, there will be increased risk of transmission, that's inevitable," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a press briefing at Downing Street. But he added that "the greater risk is keeping children out of school longer."

LONDON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday that the increased risk of coronavirus transmission is "inevitable" as schools reopened and millions of children returned to classrooms across England.

"We do accept, of course, there will be increased risk of transmission, that's inevitable," Johnson said at a press briefing at Downing Street. But he added that "the greater risk is keeping children out of school longer."

On Feb. 22, Johnson announced his long-anticipated "roadmap" exiting the lockdown. The reopening of schools in England on Monday is the first part of the four-step plan, which Johnson said was designed to be "cautious but irreversible."

Under the guidance, two people are allowed for recreation in an outdoor public space such as a park, which means they would be allowed to sit down for a coffee, drink or picnic. England is expected to see all legal social restrictions being removed from June 21.

Johnson said the British government can take the first step of easing lockdown with "confidence" because a third of the entire British population has now been vaccinated.

"At all times, we will be driven by the data," he added.

Joining Johnson at the press briefing, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Jenny Harries acknowledged the impact of opening schools on the virus transmission.

"We do expect there to be an impact on R, but education is of critical public health importance," she said, referring to the coronavirus reproduction number.

People are seen at an NHS COVID-19 vaccination center in London, Britain, on March 4, 2021. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

More than 22.3 million people in Britain have been given the first jab of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest official figures.

Still, Johnson urged continued vigilance with the public as infections remain high.

"With the number of patients being admitted to hospital with COVID still eight times higher than the lows of last summer, it's more vital than ever to follow the rules."

Another 4,712 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,223,232, according to official figures released Monday.

The country also reported another 65 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 124,566. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.

A man wearing a face mask walks along Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, on Feb. 17, 2021. (Xinhua/Han Yan)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, March 9, announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh for relatives of Kolkata fire victims. Taking to Twitter, PM Modi condoled the deaths of those who lost their lives in the fire that broke out in the 13-storied Eastern Railway office building in Kolkata's strand road on Monday. He also announced a relief of Rs 50,000 to people seriously injured in the incident.

"PM Narendra Modi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each from PMNRF for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the tragic fire in Kolkata. Rs 50,00 would be given to those seriously injured," the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) tweeted on Tuesday morning.





PM @narendramodi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh each from PMNRF for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the tragic fire in Kolkata. Rs. 50,000 would be given to those seriously injured.  PMO India (@PMOIndia) March 9, 2021

PM Modi also expressed his condolences in another tweet. "Saddened by the loss of lives due to the fire tragedy in Kolkata. In this hour of sadness, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover at the earliest," he posted.

Saddened by the loss of lives due to the fire tragedy in Kolkata. In this hour of sadness, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover at the earliest.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 9, 2021

Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said a high-level inquiry team comprising four principal heads of Railway departments has been ordered to find out the cause of the fire. "Sincere condolences to the families of the 9 brave deceased including 4 firefighters, 2 Railways personnel and an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police (ASI) who have been fighting the fire at the Eastern Railways Strand road office in Kolkata," Goyal tweeted.

The Union Minister added that railway officials, including the General Manager, are present at the site and are working in tandem with the state government to provide all possible assistance and ensure the safety of all concerned.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited the site earlier and announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh and government jobs to one member of the deceased person's family.

Also read: HUL challenges beauty stereotypes, decides to drop 'normal' from ads, personal care products

Also read: Illegal Indian immigrants in US hold $15.5 billion in spending power
This item is available in full to subscribers.

Attention subscribers

We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.

If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.

If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.

Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier?

Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop.

Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News

Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time.

Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up!

Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA) sent a letter to Governor John Bel Edwards urging him to fully reopen Louisianas economy and cease all state-level COVID-19 mandates.

The letter reads, in part, I respectfully request that you officially end all state-level COVID-19 restrictions. Infection rates are down. We cannot delay restoration of freedoms. Our people cannot make it under continued restrictions. The Trump Administrations Operation Warp Speed has been an amazing success. Several FDA-approved vaccines have been developed and made available to the public. We have begun to see several other states end their mandates, including our neighbors Texas and Mississippi. Louisiana already struggles to compete against Texas pro-business laws. If you continue to mandate that businesses may only operate at a limited capacity, we will continue to lose residents and economic drivers to our western neighbors.

Read the full letter here.
Matt Hancock today hailed the permanent closure of four of England's Nightingale Hospitals as an 'important moment in the nation's Covid recovery.

The Health Secretary said the combined success of the vaccine roll-out and 'everybody's commitment to stick by the rules' meant there was little need to keep the emergency facilities open.

Britain has seen dramatic declines in Covid hospitalisations and deaths thanks to the highly effective jabs and the strict lockdown, with the number of infected patients in hospitals plummeting from 40,000 in January to fewer than 10,000 now.

The Nightingales, which ministers threw more than 500million at, were set up in every region of the country during the first wave in case NHS wards were overloaded with patients with the disease.

Despite the fact they stood empty for the majority of the pandemic and only treated a handful of patients due to staffing issues, Mr Hancock claimed the hospitals had played a 'critical role'.

In a video posted on his Twitter account, he boasted the facilities were 'monuments to this nation's ability to get things done fast when it really matters'.

Four out of the seven hospitals - in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate - will shut their doors permanently in April. The three remaining Nightingales in Exeter, London and Sunderland, will be kept either as extra NHS capacity for routine work or as Covid vaccine centres.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock is pictured at the opening of London's 4,000-bed Nightingale Hospital in April

Mr Hancock added: 'In this pandemic our nation has had to rise to some very significant challenges, and one of those challenges has been making sure that there's the NHS capacity we need.

'Our NHS Nightingale hospitals are monuments to this nation's ability to get things done fast when it really matters.

'Built in just a matter of days, they gave us the confidence that the NHS would fulfill its timeless promise to always be there for you, to care for you and your family.

The London Nightingale Hospital had already started to be dismantled before the end of 2020 and will now be used for the Covid vaccination programme

Sunderland's Nightingale Hospital will remain open as a vaccination clinic

The Harrogate Nightingale will be closed for good by the end of March, reverting to its former use as a convention centre

A TIMELINE OF THE NIGHTINGALE HOSPITALS NHS Nightingale Hospital London Announced: March 24

Opened: April 3 (by Prince Charles)

Closed: May 15

What now? Open for vaccinations NHS Nightingale Hospital Birmingham Announced: March 27

Opened: April 16 (by Prince William)

Down to standby: May 5

What now? Closing for good NHS Nightingale Hospital North West Announced: March 27

Opened: April 17 (by Duchess of Cornwall)

Closed: June 5

What now? Closing for good NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and the Humber Announced: April 3

Opened: April 21 (by Captain Tom Moore)

Radiology outpatient clinic: June 4

What now? Closing for good NHS Nightingale Hospital North East Announced: April 10

Opened: May 5 (by Matt Hancock)

What now? Open for vaccines NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol Announced: April 3

Opened: April 27 (by Matt Hancock & Prince Edward)

Down to standby: July 6

What next? Closing for good NHS Nightingale Hospital Exeter Announced: April 10

Opened in standby: July 8

First Covid patients: November 26

What next? Open for local NHS Advertisement

'The Nightingale hospitals played a critical role, and now thanks to the combined effort of the vaccination programme, and everybody's commitment to stick by the rules, there are fewer than 10,000 people in hospitals across the UK.

'That's down from a peak of almost 40,000 only seven weeks ago. Because of this progress, today we're able to take an important step.

'We're now in a position to stand down our Nightingale hospitals. This is an important moment in our national recovery and I want to thank all of those who've been involved in this incredible project.'

The closure of the Nightingales marks a step-change in Britain's future with the coronavirus, suggesting health chiefs are now confident in the NHS's ability to cope.

As the vaccination programme steams ahead  almost 22.4million people have had a jab protecting them from severe illness  the ratio of infections to hospital admissions should shrink to a fraction of its previous size.

Although scientists are convinced there will be a third wave of infections when lockdown lifts, experts and ministers hope the jabs will, for most people, reduce the virus to a simple cold or a sniffle.

NHS England confirmed the hospitals would close and a spokesperson said: 'Since the very early days of the pandemic the Nightingale hospitals have been on hand as the ultimate insurance policy in case existing hospital capacity was overwhelmed.

'But as we have learned more about coronavirus, and how to successfully treat Covid, existing hospitals have adapted to significantly surge critical care capacity and even in the winter wave  which saw more than 100,000 patients with the virus admitted in a single month  there were beds available across the country.

'Thank you to the many NHS staff and partners who worked so hard to set the Nightingales up so swiftly and of course the public who followed the guidance on controlling the spread of the virus and helped to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed.'

When the four Nightingales have closed, the one in Exeter, in a large unit on an industrial estate, will remain open as a diagnostic centre for the local NHS.

The Sunderland and London hospitals  built in conference centres  will remain open as vaccination clinics for the Covid-19 jab rollout.

Nearly 30,000 NHS staff have registered for anxiety and insomnia therapy since the start of the pandemic Nearly 30,000 NHS workers have registered for anxiety or insomnia therapy since the start of the pandemic, data revealed today. NHS staff across the country have been been left seeking treatment due to the toll on their mental health caused by an increased workload due to Covid. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy programmes used to treat anxiety and insomnia, such as Sleepio and Daylight, saw a 300 per cent increase in registrations following the first week of last March's lockdown. They also saw a spike in January, when England went into a third national lockdown. Siobhan, an NHS nurse advisor from Dorset, said the increased stress she been under during the pandemic has caused her to miss more sleep than she ever has before. She said: 'I've been a longstanding sufferer of poor sleep for almost 10 years, nothing I tried had ever worked for me. 'Then with the added stress of a pandemic I found my completely sleepless nights were at an all-time high and it was beginning to affect me far more than it had done previously in my life. 'Each day felt like a struggle and my mood was also low.' She added: 'I needed a tool at my disposal which let me tackle the problem rather than masking it, Sleepio does just that.' Steve Lee, head of Health and Wellbeing at NHS England and NHS Improvement said: 'Throughout the pandemic we have provided our NHS people with a comprehensive support package that best meets their diverse needs, including resources such as access to a range of mental health apps.' Advertisement

The Harrogate hospital will be used by the local NHS while it is dismantled and turned back into a convention centre.

In Bristol, the hospital will be reverted back to an exhibition centre at the University of the West of England (UWE).

Birmingham and Manchester's centres were also inner-city conference centres  the NEC and G-MEX, respectively.

The Nightingales were controversial because they were so lightly used by Covid-19 patients during the worst of the pandemic.

By the end of 2020, just 249 Covid patients had been admitted to them.

Ministers splashed the cash on seven Nightingales amid fears hospitals would be overwhelmed by Covid during the darkest days of the spring.

And 19 temporary field hospitals were built in Wales, while Scotland and Wales opened one each at further expense to public funds.

But after they were mothballed in December it emerged health bosses had already started stripping the flagship Nightingale in London of its 4,000 beds, ventilators and even signs directing ambulances to wards. Photos from inside the hospital revealed it was virtually deserted, with wards emptied of beds, chairs stacked on top of each other in storage and no ambulances outside.

Pressuring NHS bosses to keep the hospitals open, a Covid-19 adviser to the British Medical Association called on them to use the emergency units for the 'purpose for which it was built'.

'As far as I am aware the Nightingale hospital in Exeter is the only one being used for Covid patients - the purpose for which it was built,' said Dr David Strain, who is also a hospital consultant in Exeter.

'They are the less sick patients - we don't have the staff to run two intensive care units in the main hospital and the Nightingale.'

Many Nightingales have stood empty for months, despite ministers hailing them as a 'solution' to the Covid crisis when they were first opened to huge fan-fare.

Sunderland's make-shift facility, which wasn't used at all during the pandemic, remains closed.

London's  which was opened by Prince Charles  was dismantled, with unused beds sent to other struggling hospitals across the capital.

Others were re-purposed to treat non-Covid patients to take the pressure off main hospitals, with some tipped to become vaccination centres.

Manchester's was open for 'non-Covid care', while locations in Bristol and Harrogate operated as 'specialist diagnostics centres' or for local medics.

Only Exeter's Nightingale was being used to treat Covid-19 patients over Christmas, with figures showing there were 28 people on its wards on December 23.
Coming down hard on those calling her an outsider in Nandigram, Chief Minister said on Tuesday for them people "coming from Gujarat" are insiders.

Addressing booth-level TMC workers a day ahead of filing her nomination for the seat, Banerjee said people who had "sold their souls to outsiders from Gujarat" are insulting the Nandigram movement by playing the communal card.

Banerjee is pitted against her former confidante Suvendu Adhikari, who joined the BJP some time ago, in the high-profile seat.

Without naming Adhikari even once, Banerjee said she had made up her mind to contest either from the Singur or Nandigram--the two cradles of anti-land acquisition movement-- that catapulted her to power in 2011.

She said she decided to contest from Nandigram because of overwhelming response of the people.

"I have heard some people are calling me an outsider in Nandigram. I am amazed. I was born and brought up in the neighbouring Birbhum district, and the person who is calling me an outsider was also not born here. Today I have become an outsider, and those coming from Gujarat have become insiders in Bengal," she said.

Adhikari has often called himself "bhoomiputra" (son of the soil) while seeking to get back at the TMC supremo who has been targeting the BJP with the "party of outsiders" barb.

Accusing Adhikari of trying to incite communal passions, Banerjee said,"Those who have sold their souls to the outsiders are insulting the Nandigram land acquisition movement by playing the communal card."



"Some people are talking about 70:30 ratio (of Hindu- Muslim population). Those doing that are insulting the sacred Nandigram movement which people of both communities fought together. People of Nandigram will make BJP 'April fool' on April 1 when polling is held," she asserted.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Healthy Boost is a well-known juice bar company that is launching an initiative to bring affordable natural and organic meats and produce to urban areas.

Covid has exposed the unequal health conditions in our inner-city environments, which is largely due to the lack of healthy eating options and Healthy Boost aims to fix this divide.

Healthy Boost Is Bringing Health & Wealth to Inner City Communities

We are launching a nationwide Supermarket Acquisition campaign converting privately owned supermarkets to Healthy Boost Bargain Barns, the co-operatives purchasing power will be able to compete in pricing with big box stores like Walmart and Kmart, passing these savings on to inner-city communities. We will keep the regular grocery options while adding on an extra variety of Natural and Organic meats & produce.

Community Benefits:

Access to affordable Natural and Organic Meats and produce

1st time homeowner down payment grants, we intend to give an eligible community family a Home Down Payment Grant once a year

Community Co-operative Ownership, we will offer ownership shares to the residents of the community the Healthy Boost Bargain Barn is located in

is located in Nutritional Education, each location will have a nutritional assistance desk with a licensed nutritionist answering questions and suggesting foods to assist with elements like diabetes and high blood pressure

We will inspire community customer loyalty because they if they shop at a Healthy Boost Bargain Barn in benefits their community.

To find out when we will be bringing a Healthy Boost Bargain Barn to your area and making a 1st time Homeowners Down Payment Grant Available in your community as well as investment opportunities please follow us on social media.

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/HealthyBoost.life/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/healthyboost_life/

http://healthyboost.life/

Media Contact:

Alisa Fields

1-800-420-6120

[email protected]

SOURCE Healthy Boost Inc.

Related Links

http://healthyboost.life/


-Funding will accelerate development for proprietary treatment for peanut allergy

-Company to provide corporate update at upcoming Global Life Sciences investor conference

Cambridge Allergy Ltd ("Camallergy" or "the Company"), a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to providing innovative, patient-centric treatments for life-threatening food allergies, today announced it has been awarded 1.1M funding under the Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst Award program administered by Innovate UK, the United Kingdom's research and innovation agency.

The 1.1M in non-dilutive funding will be used to accelerate the Company's peanut allergy immunotherapy, CA002, for planned Phase 3 clinical trials. The project commences in the first quarter of 2021, and as part of the project's success, the Company intends to file its investigation new drug application with the FDA and submit a clinical trials application to the MHRA and EMA.

"This innovation award is further testament to Camallergy's leadership and capabilities in the field of peanut allergy immunotherapy," said Dr Sarah Oakley-Mudge, Director of Clinical Development. "With the only cGMP-certified manufacturing facility in Europe dedicated to producing peanut allergy immunotherapy for human use we believe we are well positioned to utilize this award to accelerate the development of CA002 into Phase 3 trials and towards commercialization".

H.C. Wainwright Global Life Sciences Conference, March 9-10, 2021

Baxter Phillips III, Chief Executive Officer of Camallergy, will present at the virtual H.C. Wainwright Global Life Sciences Conference taking place March 9-10, 2021. The video webcast presentation will be available for viewing on demand beginning Tuesday, March 9, 2021, at 7:00 AM ET for those registered for the conference.

In addition to the presentation, management will be available to participate in virtual one-on-one meetings with qualified members of the investor community who are registered to attend the conference. For more information about the event, please visit the conference website: https://hcwevents.com/globalconference/.

About Camallergy

Camallergy (Cambridge Allergy Ltd) is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to providing innovative, patient-centric treatments to address the millions of patients suffering worldwide from food allergies. Camallergy's lead product, CA002, is a second-generation novel oral immunotherapy for the treatment of peanut allergy designed to offer "bite-proof" protection to patients within 14 weeks of therapy. The Company's unique intellectual property and treatment regimen are based on the clinical work initiated at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Cambridge, UK. For more information, visit www.camallergy.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005982/en/

Contacts:

Barry Saint, Chief Financial Officer

barry.saint@camallergy.com
Arizonas House of Representatives voted for House Bill 2810 last month by an overwhelming 572 margin. The legislation would reform and improve upon the states civil asset-forfeiture regime, and it now awaits judgment in the state Senate, where a version of it was already unanimously approved last year.

Whereas Democrats in Congress are determined to push a faulty, polarizing police-reform bill that would render American streets less safe and turn the idea of equal justice under the law on its head, Arizonas lawmakers have shown that the two parties can come together to address real problems in the criminal-justice system.

To understand the way that civil asset forfeiture works in this country is to be shocked by it. Law-enforcement agencies, if they have probable cause to believe that property  be it cash, a vehicle, or anything else  has any connection to a crime, can seize it. Then they need only charge the property, not its owner, with such a connection in order to keep it. Property owners are not entitled to representation in such cases and are forced to sink money into proving they had no knowledge of their propertys connection to a crime. Oftentimes, those legal costs exceed the worth of the property forfeited.

Putting an end to this practice should be an easily agreed-upon priority when it comes to criminal-justice reform. The civil asset-forfeiture process in Arizona and many other states around the country assumes an owners culpability without asking the state to prove it, replacing a pillar of the American legal system  innocent until proven guilty  with its opposite. This injustice may be obscured by the fact that owners themselves are not charged with a crime, but their guilt is nevertheless an assumption that must be overcome for them to recoup their property. Moreover, the incentive structure is a pernicious one: Law-enforcement officers are provided with motivation to be overzealous in pursuing civil asset forfeiture, since police departments are allowed to supplement their budgets with the property they seize, while property owners have motivation to cede their property without putting up a fight, given the burden of proof they must meet and the substantial legal costs they might incur by pursuing the matter.

Story continues

House Bill 2810 takes important steps toward making civil asset forfeiture more fair. Its key reform is one that is of not only practical, but principled importance: It forbids authorities from initiating forfeiture proceedings before securing a criminal conviction against the propertys owner for the crime to which the property is alleged to be connected. Quite rightly, this would put the horse back before the cart. Wrongdoing would need to be proven for a punishment to be doled out.

This is a change that should be made on not only a state-by-state basis, but at the federal level as well. Representatives Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) and Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) in the House and Senator Rand Paul in the Senate have traditionally led the congressional charge on civil asset-forfeiture reform, introducing the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act every Congress, though they have yet to do so during this term. Ive written before about what that bill would do right:

It would raise the evidentiary standards that the government needs to meet to the clear and convincing level. It would place the burden of proof on the government to show a property owners knowledge of criminal activity rather than asking property owners to make the case for their innocence. It would guarantee property owners the right to legal representation. Perhaps most important, it would end equitable sharing, incentivizing police departments to stop spending their time pursuing frivolous forfeiture claims. The acts changes to the reporting structure are also important. The Justice Department does not currently provide a public breakdown of how much of their annual seizures are criminal, administrative, and civil forfeiture, respectively. The FAIR Act would mandate such a breakdown.

By forcing the government to prove property owners had knowledge of the crime committed the FAIR Act would, appropriately, shift the burden of proof. It would also remove the incentive problems discussed earlier by guaranteeing property owners legal representation and ending what is known as equitable sharing. As it stands, many local police departments intentionally involve federal authorities in asset-forfeiture cases and then allow those authorities to make seizures. In so doing, they guarantee that less-stringent federal regulations, rather than state ones, apply to the case in question, and can still reap some of the profits for themselves through the Department of Justices Equitable Sharing Program. Getting rid of the program, as the FAIR Act aims to, would take away the remaining incentive for local law-enforcement agencies to pursue and profit off of seizures.

Federal legislators should take their cues from the way House Bill 2810 has been approved  on a bipartisan basis, with virtually no opposition. Its success proves that lawmakers can still come together to spurn special interests and pass common-sense legislation. But it and other state-level bills like it can only do so much to solve the problem without federal action. Its time for Congress to step up to the plate.

More from National Review
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Postal services provider TTPost yesterday shut its branches in Port of Spain and San Fernando after dozens of people rushed to collect senior citizen pension and public assistance grants and would not adhere to physical distancing rules.

Eventually, police were called to disperse the crowds.

Several elderly people at the St Vincent Street branch in Port of Spain complained about not being able to collect their pension cheques because other unruly ones refused to socially distance and abide by the law amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stella Griffith, 68, of Diego Martin, said she was adhering to rules of social distancing, but there were other people who came for their public assistance and disability grants and were refusing to listen.
Manitoba public health officials warned Monday of a possible COVID-19 exposure at a Ukrainian Catholic church in Winnipeg  a rare move by the province since code red restrictions were imposed four months ago.

Manitoba public health officials warned Monday of a possible COVID-19 exposure at a Ukrainian Catholic church in Winnipeg  a rare move by the province since code red restrictions were imposed four months ago.

The exposure on March 4 was at St. Andrew's Ukrainian Catholic Church, at 160 Euclid Ave. in Point Douglas, between 11 a.m. and 12:45 p.m.

Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitobas chief public health officer, said Monday there were around 40 close contacts associated with the exposure, adding all those at high risk have been contacted.

The exposure occurred during a two-hour funeral visitation for Rev. Emil Kardasinec, a longtime parishioner of the church, before he served as a priest in parishes in and around The Pas and Neepawa, the Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Winnipeg confirmed Monday.

Metropolitan Lawrence Huculak said people came through briefly to pay their respects, then left the building before the private 1 p.m. funeral.

He said all safety protocols were followed, with a volunteer asking health questions and taking names before allowing people to enter. Less than 10 people were allowed inside at one time, and everyone was required to wear a mask and maintain two-metre social distancing.

Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitobas chief public health officer, said Monday there were approximately 40 close contacts linked to an exposure during a two-hour funeral visitation at St. Andrew's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Winnipeg. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press files)

But the archbishop questioned why this possible exposure was publicized by provincial health authorities. He also wondered if no other possible exposures occurred in the previous four months or if they were just not announced.

"In this case, by issuing this letter, is it just trying to show churches are not a safe place?" asked Huculak.

The name of the source of the possible exposure was not provided to Huculak and the church was not issued any fines, he said.

The priest of St. Andrews parish declined to comment.

Since COVID-19 began to spread rapidly across Manitoba in the fall, most provincial-exposure notices have involved transit routes, with outbreaks at schools or child-care facilities occasionally listed. The province publicly tracks outbreaks at hospitals and other health-care facilities.

The last time a business or church was listed as the site of a possible exposure was Nov. 13, according to public notices posted online by the province. That was just a day after code-red restrictions were implemented across Manitoba.

A provincial spokesperson said exposure notifications slowed down in the last few months because many public spaces were closed.

Winnipeg epidemiologist Cynthia Carr agreed the province's "significant shutdown" played a role in fewer exposure notices.

"So many of these businesses or opportunities to congregate actually werent operating," she said.

Carr noted as Manitoba relaxes lockdown restrictions and allows more people to gather, the risk of public spread will slowly increase.

"Its not blaming anybody  we have to remember that were most infectious in the two days prior to showing symptoms"  Cynthia Carr, epidemiologist

Exposure notifications can be helpful, she said  as long as enough information is provided.

"What you dont want is to name a business or location and theres no specific information," Carr said. "You have to know on what day, at what time. You have to know what the likelihood is that you have actually had contact to the point that you might be at risk."

Stigmatizing businesses or churches isnt the point of exposure notices, Carr said.

"Its not blaming anybody  we have to remember that were most infectious in the two days prior to showing symptoms," she said.

The impetus remains, she said, for the public to wear masks, social distance and follow the fundamentals as much as possible.

Roussin acknowledged it may be hard for grieving families to maintain their distance at funerals which still see high rates of transmission in Manitoba and abroad.

"This is challenging enough as it is, it's going to be challenging enough during a pandemic, but now add to that you have to follow these restrictions," he said. "But they are there to protect the health of the public as we see a lot of transmission."

 with files from Brenda Suderman

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers
Its tonneau shape is wiser, smoother and strongly inspired by diving and seventies spirit. Its shape, very much inspired by the female divers of the 1970s, blends the aesthetic codes of that period of freedom with the constraints of an operational watch. It adapts to all situations without denying its origins...



With a little something original that takes us back to a time when scuba diving was considered a dangerous sport reserved for an elite and some military divers. In this the WRV follows the path imagined by its predecessor the WRX: instinct, initial design, feedback and final design.

WRV ELECTRIC  RALF TECH

Equipping the majority of special forces units in France and beyond, the WRV is a safe and efficient tool. Used by professional divers and skippers all over the world, it is synonymous with know-how and reliability.



As the environments in which WRVs evolve become more and more demanding, a new generation has been in preparation for several years.

The next generation

Always in search of new challenges, RALF TECH has been pursuing since 2019 an intensive campaign of deep sea trials in collaboration with the French Navy in order to test new technical solutions, both in terms of robustness and watertightness.



At the same time, RALF TECH has also been working for several years with its partners on the declination of the famous Hybrid movement in order to give it an unequalled autonomy.



On March 2021, after 2 years of development and experimentation in natural environment, RALF TECH launches a new generation of WRV combining technical modifications and new finishes. These WRV are, among other things, equipped with a new "Electric" movement, new "Sandwich" dials and an innovative encapsulation system guaranteeing a real waterproofness up to 300 certified meters.

Unchanged design

A good recipe can be improved, but its basis must remain the same. Based on this premise, the aesthetic perception of the WRV should remain unchanged. A successful gamble with its distinctive semi-cushioned shape and its strong taut lines inspiring confidence and power. The WRV remains recognizable and acknowledged.

WRV ELECTRIC  RALF TECH

100% new dials

The new WRV Electric now has new sandwich type dials. Composed of two thicknesses they allow to apply a large quantity of SuperLuminova on a disc placed under the main dial. Thanks to this stencil technique, readability is excellent by day and visibility is exceptional at night. This novelty also adds relief to the dials which gives them a style without equivalent.

A 100% new movement

After the WRX released in October 2020, its time for the new WRV to switch to electricity ! Developed in Switzerland for our house, this new movement works according to a system of micro hybridization. The RTE001 movement reduces the number of moving parts and simplifies the quartz power supply as much as possible. It therefore combines precision, reliability and energy savings. Its autonomy can go up to 100,000 hours, i.e. almost 12 years, whereas most movements offer a power reserve of 40 hours for automatic movements and about 2 years for traditional quartz.

A 100% new waterproofing system

Another change is that the new WRVs now have a case back with a new "encapsulation" system. This innovation allows the watch back to be sealed to the case, guaranteeing optimal water-resistance. In order to secure the maintenance of WRV watches, only RALF TECH has the specific tool to open and close the case back of new models, thus guaranteeing, revision after revision, the original water-resistance of WRV watches.

A minimal maintenance program

Since the majority of WRV users are professionals, the idea was to make their lives easier. Often absent, evolving in degraded conditions, their watch must remain a powerful and safe tool. Thanks to the new movement and our novel waterproofing system, minimal maintenance is required for these latest generation WRV watches. A visit every 10 years will allow us to check the watch's energy system, change all the seals and re-capsulate the watch, thus ensuring the peace of mind of WRV users for the next 10 years.

Spectacular technical features!

Thickest scratch-resistant sapphire crystal on the market (for a standard watch) with a thickness of 3.5mm, 8mm thick case band at strategic points, large straps held by antitearing threaded rods, Ceramfine bezels for the most extreme, water resistance guaranteed up to 300 meters for certain finishes, the WRV are intrinsically highperformance tools.

WRV ELECTRIC  RALF TECH

Operating in a range of use from -10 to +55 their resistance to shock and vibration is exceptional. With 12 years of power reserve, their autonomy reaches record levels. Their dials make them ultra legible. These technical characteristics validated by sea trials are the sum of all RALF TECH's know-how.



Assembled in France (in Morteau, French Jura mountains), complementing the Automatic and Chronograph Automatic versions, the new WRV should logically become the essential reference for "Tool Watches" for adventure professionals, whether military or civilian. Their performance and design should finally appeal to alternative watchmaking enthusiasts. The new WRV will be available in 6 different finishes, 3 of which will be available immediately upon launch.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) The Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Center (BMC) has opened a new cell laboratory to study and grow live viruses with the aim of developing new vaccines and treatments, including against COVID-19, local media reported on Tuesday.

The laboratory was designed following all safety precautions to allow working with dangerous biological agents up to biosafety level three. Hermetically sealed research rooms ensure that viruses are contained inside the facility, while strict security measures make sure only authorized personnel has access to hazardous substances, the media said.

"Third group infectious agents are viruses and bacteria against which there may be some medicines, but which are very dangerous to human health and whose wider distribution we certainly would not want to allow. We need special rooms to work with such viruses," Nils Rostoks, BMC director, was quoted as saying by the LSM news portal.

In the near future, the new research facility will focus on studying mutations in the COVID-19 virus as part of Latvia's ongoing efforts to help foreign partners with the development of more effective coronavirus vaccines, the news portal stated.

"Opening such a laboratory in Latvia is a big step for research, studying both parts of viruses and viruses themselves, cultivating them. In the long run, it will allow Latvia to test and develop drugs such as vaccines and treatments," Dmitrijs Stepanovs, deputy state secretary in Latvian Ministry of education and Science was quoted as saying by the news.

Researchers will be able to use the laboratory to work not only with coronavirus and its variants but also with other agents in the same risk group, which include microbes that can cause serious and potentially lethal disease via inhalation. BSL-3 labs are most commonly used for the research of tuberculosis, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, yellow fever, the and others.
As Kleina tells his story, one notices he is well practiced in telling it. He reads a statement about his photography from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute that he likes: These photographs ... are some of the first color photographs that the world saw of Dr. King. Mr. Kleina captured one of the most violent missions Dr. King undertook, and it wasnt in the deep South.
(Natural News) Attorney Lin Wood has released an interview with a whistleblower [pdf here] who operated for years within part of the apparatus connected to Deep State surveillance. While the focus is upon the activity of Rod Rosenstein and even Mike Pence as it relates to the Trump administration, there is part of the interview that connects to a much deeper aspect. The testimonial connects a larger story if you know what to extract.

(Article by Sundance republished from TheConservativeTreehouse.com)

While I am still reviewing the overall content, within the first few pages of the interview this segment jumps out  BIG TIME:

The whistle-blower is describing his activity in Baltimore, Maryland, while working with then U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. At first review this part seems attributed only to attest the validity of the whistle-blower himself. However, read carefully what he just stated while reminding yourself of the issue encountered by former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson.

Most people have forgotten that Sharyl Attkissons story originated with some unknown entity planting classified material on her laptop, which she discovered and then independently had reviewed by forensic auditors. Attkissons computer audit identified government intrusion into her computer system, which not coincidentally is exactly what the whistleblower is outlining in this segment of the testimonial. Stay with me

You might also remember that later on early 2020- someone provided Attkisson with details and a tip about the intrusion. That information then led to Ms. Attkisson refiling the lawsuit and, this is the important part. Attkisson named Rod Rosenstein and Shawn Henry, a former FBI official in her follow-up lawsuit. Shawn Henry was the former head of the FBI DC field office, who also became the head of Crowdstrike, a contracted intelligence gathering operation for the government and a politically connected data security and forensic company.

With the information from the Lin Wood whistle-blower, it appears the activity he is admitting to undertaking is in direct alignment with the computer intrusion and illegal compromise that Attkisson narrowly avoided. All of the participants, and the identified corrupt activity, now merge.

The Lin Wood whistle-blower outlines how the Deep State was conducting electronic surveillance on political interests in order to compromise people. Shawn Henry was the head of Crowstrike, a known FBI contractor with access to the NSA database as outlined in the 2016 admissions by NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. The database was compromised by FBI contractors conducting political surveillance.

Both the Lin Wood whistle-blower and the tipster to Sharyl Attkisson are noting that Rod Rosenstein was one of the organizers of the operations from his role as U.S. Attorney in Maryland. Now all of the compromises are pictured, and all of the motives behind all of these players starts to make a lot more sense.

Here is the Lin Wood whistleblower testimony:

.

Now overlay: (1) what we previously know about the NSA database exploits; and (2) Sharyl Attkissons computer intrusion:

A very interesting development appeared early in 2020 amid the ongoing effort of former CBS investigative journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, to resolve the issue of who spied on her, planted spyware and infiltrated her computer systems for illegal surveillance. [Attkisson website here]

According to a 2020 court filing [Source Here] a person who was engaged in the wrongful activity has come forward to provide Ms. Attkisson with details about the operation. As a result of those whistle-blower revelations Attkisson is able to name specific individuals who were running the operation:

Former DOJ Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is named as the person who was in charge of the operation; and the former head of the FBI DC field office, Shawn Henry is also outlined.

Mr. Henry is the head of Crowdstrike, a contractor for the government and a politically connected data security and forensic company. Those who have followed the aspects related to the FBI use of the NSA database to illegally monitor U.S. persons; and those who followed the DNC cover story of Russia hacking; will be familiar with Crowdstrike.

According to the updated lawsuit (full pdf below) Rod Rosenstein, as the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, was in charge of the Obama 2011 and 2012 operation to monitor journalists specific to Ms. Attkissons reporting on Fast-n-Furious and Benghazi.

What I find additionally interesting is the overall timeline in the bigger picture.

In the April 2017 release from FISC Judge Rosemary Collyer outlining the abuses of the FISA-702 process by FBI contractors, where the NSA database was being use for unlawful surveillance of U.S. persons, Collyer specifically noted the findings of her review of the period from November 16 to May 17 (85% non compliant rate) was likely to have been happening since 2012. [Go Deep]

The IRS Scandal where the DOJ was creating a list of U.S. persons for political targeting, and requested CD ROMs of tax filings, was the lead-up to the 2012 exploitation of the NSA database. [The Secret Research Project] So theres a larger picture of government surveillance under the Obama administration that becomes more clear.

Political spying 1.0 was actually the weaponization of the IRS. This is where the term Secret Research Project originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:

The IRS sent the FBI 21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)

Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when theres a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012.

This is the same time-frame when DNI James Clapper falsely denied to congress about the U.S. government -through the NSA- collecting metadata on all U.S. electronic communication. This is the same time-frame where CIA Director John Brennan was monitoring the computer networks of congressional intelligence oversight staff.

When you overlay the new information from the Attkisson lawsuit, what emerges is the picture of an intentional effort by the Obama administration to weaponize the ability to collect electronic information on domestic political opposition. Its one long continuum.

Read more at: TheConservativeTreehouse.com and Surveillance.news.
MASON CITY, Iowa - A Mason City teen was arrested Monday after he allegedly stole an SUV from a business.

Garret Nelson, 18, is facing a second-degree theft charge after authorities said he stole an SUV from behind Great Clips in Mason City.

Mason City police were advised the GMC Yukon was stolen between 10 a.m. and noon on Monday, and a short time later authorities were informed that a man was throwing away items from the vehicle at a rest area.

An Iowa State Trooper located the vehicle on I-35 just south of B-20 before a traffic stop was initiated. Nelson told authorities he had stolen the vehicle at 10 a.m, according to court documents.

He is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $5,000 bond.
The award jury mentioned that Dr Soundararajan was selected for the award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to society, and for being an ardent advocate of women's rights, gender parity, and womens equality.  DC Image/S. Surender Reddy

Hyderabad: Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan was on Monday conferred with the Top-20 Global Women of Excellence-2021 award through virtual mode from Illinois in the United States of America.

She accepted the award from the Puducherry Raj Nivas and stated that she was humbled and immensely honoured by the recognition.

In her acceptance speech, the Governor stated that the award would double her responsibility to intensify her work towards the gender equality and women empowerment. I dedicate this honour to millions of women who toil day in and day out and help their family, society, and the countries," she said.

Dr Soundararajan thanked the Multi Ethnic Advisory Task Force, headed by US Congressman Danny K. Davis, for bestowing her with the honour.

The award jury, comprising members of the Multi Ethnic Advisory Task Force and the Multi Ethnic Coalition, mentioned that Dr Soundararajan was selected for the award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to society, and for being an ardent advocate of women's rights, gender parity, and womens equality.

Dr Soundararajan called for sustained efforts to create a gender equal world and promote the role of women in decision-making at all levels from local to global arena.
GODFREY  In the last weekend of February, Evangelical School in Godfrey lost someone near and dear to the studentsand facultys hearts.

On Feb. 20, Ruth Pranaitis, a teacher for Evangelical School, died at Alton Memorial Hospital. For more than 25 years Pranaitis taught pre-school, kindergarten and second grade at the school. She retired in 2019.

In Pranaitis honor, Evangelical School plans to offer a scholarship to incoming kindergarten students to cover a portion of the yearly tuition.

Fellow teacher Kay Helfrich knew Pranaitis as a teacher and a friend for 20 years.

She had this child-like innocence, Helfrich said. She enjoyed learning new things.

Helfrich said that one of her first memories of Ruth was when they were having lunch together. Pranaitis told a story about whenever her and her daughters would make popcorn, they would take the lid off the popcorn popper and try to catch the popcorn in their mouths.

I laughed out loud as I thought, What a cool mom, Helfrich said.

Evangelical School Principal Maria Baahlman said Pranaitis was a mentor to her, helping her when she was starting as a teacher before becoming principal.

I would often seek her out when I had a question about something or when I needed help finding resources, Baahlman said.

Helfrich said Pranaitis was a huge Disney fan who always tried to incorporate that love into her teaching, even making it the theme of her lessons.

She brought the wonderful world of Disney into her classroom. Helfrich said.

Helfrich said that Pranaitis would use a wand in her classroom and take her students to worlds of wonder and excitement and adventure.

Helfrich recalled that one of Pranaitis students could not pronounce her name, so he would call her Mrs. Princess. Pranaitis would never correct him, Helfrich said.

Helfrich said students and district parents were devastated by the news of Pranaitis death.

We had been praying for her because we knew she was in the hospital, Helfrich said. But we thought she was getting better. So it was a shock.

On the day of Pranaitis visitation, Evangelical School students attended classes dressed in Disney apparel in her memory.

She was a big part of our school and a big part of our legacy, Helfrich said.
Photo: (Photo : 16 Reasons Why Parents Are Becoming Family Nurse Practitioners)

Across the United States, the demand for family nurse practitioners is growing by the day. Becoming a family nurse practitioner is open to everybody with a range of online nursing programs available that you can use to get your BSN before moving on to advanced study. Many registered nurses are signing up to study to become a family nurse practitioner due to the fact that they care about their patients and want to enjoy a career that allows them more autonomy and responsibility when it comes to improving patient care.

Family nurse practitioners are helping to fill the gap left by the national shortage of primary care physicians. They often work in clinic settings and provide similar care to what you would expect from a general practitioner. If you are a family-oriented person who likes the idea of a career that allows you to help others and use your time for good, here are just some of the main reasons to think about pursuing this career.

Career Autonomy

Many family nurse practitioners benefit from more autonomy and freedom when it comes to their career. Due to their high level of education, unlike registered nurses, they can often work alone or in partnership with a primary care doctor. The growth of family nurse practitioners in the healthcare profession is currently very high, allowing new family nurse practitioners more career freedom thanks to the demand. Whether you would like to choose to work in a hospital, in a doctor's office, a retail clinic, or even start your own private practice, the options are endless when you choose this career.

More Responsibility

Whether you are already working as a registered nurse or looking to get your BSN, working as a family nurse practitioner in the future allows for much more responsibility in your career. In most states, family nurse practitioners are permitted to diagnose patients, prescribe medication, and refer patients for treatment in a similar way to a primary care physician. If you like the idea of this kind of work but would struggle to go through years of medical school, becoming a family nurse practitioner is an excellent alternative with various online degree programs that you can take to increase your knowledge and skills while working as a registered nurse at the same time.

Higher Salary

Compared to working as a registered nurse, family nurse practitioners have the opportunity to earn a much higher salary. And, the career progression does not stop at this level; there are opportunities for family nurse practitioners to study even further and advance their careers in several different ways. You can progress into a more specialized area of nursing or increase your education with a doctor of nursing practice degree, allowing you to become a nurse educator and earn a generous salary guiding and mentoring the next generation of nurses.

Choice of Workplace Setting

Family nurse practitioners can fill a huge range of roles. If you want to work with families to provide excellent healthcare, you can choose from a huge range of different settings to work in. Nurse practitioners are needed in hospitals, and they are often the professional of choice to head up the ever-growing number of retail clinics around the US. These clinics are often found in supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Target and allow customers to get quick healthcare advance and support compared to booking an appointment with a primary care physician. Family nurse practitioners can be found working in pharmacies, within the community, and in specialist clinics. Many family nurse practitioners choose to work with the general population, but some decide to focus on a certain patient demographic, such as women's health.

High Demand

There's no denying the high demand for good family nurse practitioners. Wherever you go in the country, you are likely to find work once you have qualified in this advanced level of nursing. Family nurse practitioners are often hired to replace primary care physicians and fill the gap created by the national shortage; they are in especially high demand in rural areas, although it's easy to find work in cities and urban areas too. If you are considering traveling for work, you certainly won't find it hard to find work as a family nurse practitioner in any state as long as you have passed the relevant state exam for the job.

Fit the Work Around Your Family Life

Since nurses are in incredibly high demand at all hours of the day, working as a nurse and a family nurse practitioner offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to your working hours. Nurses will often have the chance to choose the shifts that they would prefer to do, allowing you to easily line up your work schedule with your family's schedule. Rather than being confined to working strict hours, nurses can choose to work night shifts, morning shifts, or regular day shifts depending on what suits their schedule best. As a family nurse practitioner, you will enjoy even more freedom when it comes to your working hours, since family nurse practitioners have the opportunity to start their own clinics and become their own boss.

Training Options

If you're considering pursuing a career in nursing and want to eventually work as a family nurse practitioner, it has never been easier to get to where you want to be in your career. There is a wide range of options available when it comes to study and training. If you are currently working in an entirely different career, changing your career to nursing has now become easier thanks to the range of online degree options available, that can easily be fit around full-time work elsewhere. If you already have a degree in another subject, Marymount University offers accelerated nursing programs online that allow you to get your BSN and meet the entry requirements for family nurse practitioner programs even sooner. Once you have qualified and gained experience as a registered nurse, there are tons of advanced degree options to choose from online that are designed to fit around a busy nursing career.

Work with People

Unlike several other options when it comes to nursing career progression, the fact that you get to continue working directly with patients is a main benefit for many nurses who go on to become a family nurse practitioner. As a family nurse practitioner, the work that you do will have even more of an impact on your patients and you may often be the first point of call for patients who are in need of treatment.

Have an Impact on Healthcare

Family nurse practitioners don't just provide direct care to their patients; they are also very often active in improving healthcare services and acting as vocal advocates for their patients when it comes to healthcare policy. Working as a family nurse practitioner gives you more opportunities than ever before to make your voice heard and stand up for your patients in any situation. You may be influential in helping communities work together and support the creation of improved healthcare facilities that are a better fit for your patients. You may also have the chance to get involved in politics to influence changes to healthcare legislation based on your patients' needs.

Fast-Paced Work

Just like working as a registered nurse, no two days in the career of a family nurse practitioner are the same. While there are different settings to work in that might not be as exciting as working in the ER, family nurse practitioners get to enjoy a huge range of different situations on a day-to-day basis and will work with different people from all walks of life throughout the day. Even when working in a more relaxed setting such as a clinic or doctor's office, you will enjoy interesting work with a range of patients of all ages who need your help for various different things.

Make a Difference

Working as a family nurse practitioner allows you to make a difference in the world by having a positive impact on individual lives every single day. As a family nurse practitioner, you will not only be working with patients to provide treatment and care, but also providing education to all on improving health. You will play a key role in health education and support your patients to make better decisions for their health and well-being, improving the health of communities as a whole.

Take on Leadership Roles

Aside from working on the front line of healthcare in hospitals and clinics, family nurse practitioners are often excellent candidates for leadership roles within the healthcare industry. If you are interested in leading teams and are the type of person who inspires others, this could be the perfect career opportunity for you. Experienced and passionate healthcare professionals are often needed to step up as leaders in a wide range of extended healthcare fields including patient education, public health, academia, healthcare research and more, and family nurse practitioners are often the ideal leader to have due to their combined knowledge and experience of working first-hand with patients.

It's Interesting Work

Not only does working as a family nurse practitioner allow you to enjoy a fast-paced job where you can make a huge difference, but it's also very interesting. In this line of work, you're always going to be faced with somebody new to meet or something new to learn; it is highly mentally stimulating and there's very little risk of finding yourself bored.

Play a Role in Accessible Healthcare

Family nurse practitioners are currently the healthcare professionals that are having the most impact on a lot of communities. Due to the authority granted to them by most states to diagnose patients and prescribe treatment, family nurse practitioners can offer more cost-effective healthcare services to a large percentage of the population. Just over 70% of family nurse practitioners in the US are currently delivering primary care, meaning that you can join a rapidly-growing career that is helping to make affordable, quality healthcare more accessible to everybody.

Challenge Yourself

If you are looking for a new challenge with a great reward, becoming a family nurse practitioner could be the ideal choice. Studying to become a family nurse practitioner is certainly not a quick or easy process, especially if you are starting from the beginning with getting your BSN. From the moment you enroll in a nursing program, becoming a family nurse practitioner is a huge intellectual challenge that pushes you to continue learning and solve the often-complex problems that you will face on a daily basis. And, you don't stop learning once you get into this career; family nurse practitioners need to be committed to consistently updating their knowledge and skills in line with the ever-evolving world of healthcare.

Get a Great Return on Investment

While going to college and getting an advanced nursing degree is certainly not cheap, the good news is that there is an excellent return on investment to be had. Family nurse practitioners can earn upwards of $100k per year, often doubling the salary of a licensed practical nurse. In fact, the role of a family nurse practitioner has been named as one of the best-paying career options for women right now. The demand for nurse practitioners also means that you might not have to invest as much as you think; many healthcare employers are willing to foot the bill for BSN and FNP degree programs in order to help meet the need.

Along with the generous salary, family nurse practitioners can also often enjoy a range of career benefits including generous insurance packages for themselves and their families. And it's not all about the financial return on investment either. With so many options for career progression, making a real difference to the healthcare industry and providing meaningful care to patients every day, the work is undeniably hugely rewarding in every single way.

If you are a family-oriented person, a career working with families to improve their health and wellbeing could be the perfect choice for you.
New Delhi: Though banking activities on mobile and internet will remain uninterupted, several bank branches will remain closed on account of holidays and the upcoming proposed strike by banking associations in March.

Bank unions have called for a two-day strike starting March 15, to protest against the proposed privatisation of banks.

Banks will be closed for two-day strike on March 15 (Monday) and March 16 (Tuesday), while the previous two days March 13 is a second saturday while March 14 is a Sunday. Thus, to sum it up, banks will remain closed for four days in a row.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has mentioned some days when the banking operations will remain closed in the month of March 2021.

However, it must be noted that the bank holidays vary in various states as well not observed by all the banking companies. Banking holidays also depend on the festivals being observed in specific states or notification of specific occasions in those states.

In total, banks would be closed for 5 days. Reserve Bank of India places its Holidays under three brackets --Holiday under Negotiable Instruments Act; Holiday under Negotiable Instruments Act and Real Time Gross Settlement Holiday; and Banks Closing of Accounts. Meanwhile, considering two second saturdays and 4 sunday weekly offs, the total number of days when bank will be closed amounts to 11.

Here is an elaborate list of bank holidays falling in the month of March 2021. Check out the list.

Chapchar Kut: March 5

Mahashivratri (Maha Vad-13): March 11

Bihar Divas: March 22

Holi (Second Day) - Dhuleti/Yaosang 2nd Day: March 29

Holi: March 30

Holidays of the mentioned days will be observed in various regions according to the state declared holidays, however for the gazetted holidays, banks will be closed all over the country.

Live TV

#mute

If you keep a track of these holidays, you would be able to plan bank transaction activities in a better way. For long weekends, you can even plan your holidays well.
New Delhi: A total of 42 terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed have been banned by the government for their involvement in various acts of terrorism, which is largely been sponsored from across the border, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy also said that 635 terrorists were killed by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir between 2018 and 2020, while 115 civilians lost their lives to terror violence in the Union Territory during the period.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Investigators arrested a man Monday who is suspected of causing an explosion that ripped through a recreational vehicle in Northeast Portland over the weekend, police said.

Jake Swingle, 24, was taken into custody and has been charged with arson, manufacturing a destructive device, possession of a destructive device and unlawful use of a weapon, police said in a statement.

Investigators believe Swingle placed a pipe bomb in the rear of an occupied RV on Saturday. The bomb destroyed the RV, breaking the rear bumper of the vehicle in half.

The Multnomah County District Attorneys Office said in a statement that Swingle and the owner of the RV had been in an ongoing conflict  and that the owner told investigators he had seen Swingle in the area of the RV just before the explosion.

Prosecutors did not specify what the conflict was about or how Swingle and the RV owner knew each other.

Portland Fire & Rescue was dispatched to the 3800 block of Northeast 141st Drive scene about 8:41 a.m. Saturday on reports of a trailer on fire. Firefighters found smoke coming from inside the RV but no flames.

The initial investigation indicated a blast had occurred outside the RV and that it came from an explosive device. Police said no one was injured.

On Sunday, someone gave police a video associated with Swingles home address that referenced a bomb-making factory, according to the district attorneys office.

After watching the video and talking with the RV owner, investigators served search warrants in Northeast Portland and Vancouver on Monday, and Swingle was arrested, police said.

Police didnt say if either of the locations were Swingles residence, whether the explosion was intentional or what kind of destructive devices he was accused of manufacturing.

-- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale

--Jayati Ramakrishnan; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; 503-221-4320; @JRamakrishnanOR
Aspen, CO (81611)

Today

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 43F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 43F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Vanita Gupta, President Joe Biden's nominee for the Justice Department's No. 3 post, expressed regret on Tuesday for her 'harsh rhetoric' in online posts while saying she does not favor defunding the police amid sharp Republican attacks.

Gupta, who is nominated to the Number Three post at DOJ, addressed Republican concerns at the top of her remarks.

'To the other members who I understand have these concerns, I understand why you have them. I take them seriously,' she said.

Vanita Gupta, speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine her nomination to be Associate Attorney General, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 9, 2021, in Washington

'I regret the harsh rhetoric that I have used at times in the last several years. I perhaps I think the rhetoric has gotten quite harsh over the last several years, and I have fallen prey to it, and I, I wish I could take it back, I can't.'

She spoke during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into Biden's nominations of Gupta as associate attorney general and Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general, the department's No. 2 job. Biden's fellow Democrats on the committee voiced support for both nominees, but Republicans attacked Gupta.

She faced repeated fire from Republicans who claimed she wanted to defund police  something she repeatedly denied. Gupta said she her prior statements were about focusing on the nation's prison system at large, and says police should not be forced to handle mental health and other services that have been cut.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the panel's top Republican, read aloud past posts from Gupta's Twitter feed in which she assailed Republicans. He accused Gupta of 'strident liberal advocacy' and excessive partisanship, reflecting opposition to her Senate confirmation from some Republicans and conservative activists.

'Her Twitter feed has painted Republicans with a broad brush, describing the Republican National Convention as three nights of 'racism, xenophobia and outrageous lies,'' Grassley said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused Gupta of having 'demonstrated an intolerance for and hostility to anyone that disagrees with her far-Left political positions.' He accused the Obama Justice Department of being politicized, although Democrats have called out President Trump for calling for some of his political opponents to be jailed

Gupta denied support for defunding police

Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, the committee chairman, called Republicans hypocritical for criticizing her, noting they 'sat by silently while there was no Senate-confirmed associate attorney general for nearly three years' under Trump.

Gupta pledged to work with law enforcement and with Republicans if confirmed.

'I regret the harsh rhetoric that I have used in the past at times in the last several years,' Gupta said. 'I wish I could take it back.'

Republican Senator Mike Lee sought to paint Gupta as a hypocrite, noting she previously urged the Senate to reject an apology by one of Republican former President Donald Trump's judicial nominees who had written racially insensitive comments while in college.

'You told him that his apology was too late and too self-interested,' Lee said. 'Is that something that we ought to apply to you?'

'I am a believer in second chances, and redemption,' Gupta replied. 'And I would ask for that.'

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted Gupta at the hearing, and on his own Twitter account.

'President Biden's pick for Associate Attorney General, Vanita Gupta, the number three position at the DOJ has demonstrated an intolerance for and hostility to anyone that disagrees with her far-Left political positions,' he wrote.

Gupta was subjected to an online ad that sought to mischaracterize her record on capitol punishment. It claimed she 'led a group that wants to reduce punishments on white supremacists, even terrorists' when in fact she had called for stopping capital punishment generally.

If confirmed, Gupta would oversee the department's civil and civil rights divisions, as well as antitrust, environmental, grant-making and community policing matters. Gupta served as acting assistant attorney general of the department's Civil Rights Division under Democratic former President Barack Obama, overseeing high-profile investigations into systemic abuses by police departments in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the committee chairman, called Republicans hypocritical for criticizing her, noting they 'sat by silently while there was no Senate-confirmed associate attorney general for nearly three years' under Trump.

One conservative group, the Judicial Crisis Network, recently starting running a television ad incorrectly claiming Gupta told Reuters in a article last June she supports defunding police, a statement she did not make.

'I do not support defunding the police,' Gupta told the committee.

Durbin called the group's attacks on Gupta 'sad and pitiful' and accused it of 'patently false claims.'

Republicans questioned Gupta on her views on racism after she said it 'remains very much a live problem in America today.' Republicans tried to portray her as flip-flopping on policy positions, pointing to past comments on decriminalizing drugs and eliminating the qualified immunity legal doctrine that has shielded some police officers accused of misconduct from liability.

Questioned by Republican Senator John Cornyn, Gupta said her prior statements opposing qualified immunity came in her capacity as head of a civil rights group.

'I don't come in supporting it - elimination - one way or another,' Gupta added, saying her duty would be to follow Biden's lead on policy and engaging with interested parties on the topic.

Biden's nominee for Office of Management and Budget director, Neera Tanden, withdrew from consideration last week after facing criticism for previous social media posts blasting lawmakers. Tanden had tried to delete some of the posts.

Monaco, expected to face a smoother confirmation process than Gupta, is a former prosecutor who also served as Obama's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser.

If confirmed, Monaco would help oversee the department's investigation into the deadly Jan. 6 rampage at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, an event she called 'an attack that cut to our country's core.'

Monaco pledged that she would provide ample resources to Special Counsel John Durham, named by former Attorney General William Barr to investigate Obama-era officials for their probe into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

The committee previously approved Biden's attorney general nominee, Merrick Garland. The Senate is expected to confirm him as soon as Wednesday.
Sun-drenched beaches, packed crowds, and no COVID-19 restrictions in place. Galveston spring breakers, prepare for a slightly different experience this March in Galveston Island.

As spring break 2021 kicks off this weekend in Galveston Island, so does the official lifting of the Texas mask mandate and the order to open to 100 percent capacity, according to Governor Greg Abbott's order.

NEW COVID-19 VARIANTS: Expert weighs on 3 new COVID-19 variants now emerging in Houston

Removing the mask mandate and relaxing capacity requirements as Spring Break approaches poses a dire risk for spiking infection rates in the Houston area, says Memorial Hermann CEO Dr. David Callender.

"It's a powder keg waiting to happen," Callender told Chron. "One of the most difficult in terms of controlling transmission is the high rate of asympotomatic spread among young people. Many are asymotomatic. They dont know that the individuals around them have the disease. There will be a lot of people in close contact who are raising voices. We want people to understand that these are high-risk situations. Continue to wear a mask."

In previous years, Galveston has welcomed more than 300,000 people for spring break, according to Galveston Island Convention and Visitor Bureau Michael Woody.

"We're surveying all of our industry partners right now to get a better feel for what they are going to be asking visitors to do," Woody told ABC-13. "But I think the best course is to bring your mask along."

Galveston County authorities say that they are prepared for the big surge of crowds descending upon Galveston Island. Sheriff Henry Trochesset stated that he's ramping up to keep safety protocols in place.

"We're expecting large spring break crowds. We've increased deputies, especially on the Peninsula. We have a substation that we opened up," Trochesset told Chron. "Even since COVID-19, the Peninsula never really slowed down."

Trochesset reiterated the need to respect property owners' rights if they require customers to wear masks in their private business.

"If you're requiring a mask in a business, it's up to them. They own the business," Trochesset said. "On the beach, on the peninsula'No shoes, no shirt, no service.' If they want to extend it to masks, that's their business."

Trochesset urged all Texas spring breakers to stay safe and respectful if you venture over to the island.

"Please be courteous and please stay safe. We do expect large crowds," Trochesset said. "Don't drink and drive, and enjoy themselves."
Sandwiched between the North Circular Road and the Browning, Jones & Morris plumbing depot, Brent Terrace is, in every sense, a world apart from the gated celebrity estates of sunny Montecito, California.

It was here that we found the Prince of Wales back in public yesterday, adopting the time-honoured strategy of royalty in times of trouble: show, not tell.

He had come to show support for a North London church  serving 50 nationalities  which is operating as a makeshift vaccine centre for ethnic minorities. And he had nothing to tell . . . except warm words of support for his hosts.

We are all immensely proud of the role black-majority churches play, he told them, and it is of course a profound sorrow to me to know that black communities have been hit particularly hard by this pernicious virus.

The fact that his was one of the only white faces at an overwhelmingly black and Asian engagement had nothing to do with the racial debate triggered by this weeks broadside from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales visits Jesus House church to see an NHS vaccine pop-up clinic in action on March 9, 2021 in London. He had come to show support for a North London church  serving 50 nationalities  which is operating as a makeshift vaccine centre for ethnic minorities. And he had nothing to tell . . . except warm words of support for his hosts

The Prince had been due here long before anyone knew anything about the couples two-hour blaba-thon with Oprah Winfrey.

When a TV reporter tried to lob in a whaddyathink? question, the Prince emitted an indecipherable noise from behind his surgical mask and kept moving.

As a slow but steady trickle of 150 people came and went, though, they were not the only ones who could feel a shot in the arm. So could the Prince. For it was clear that the Sussexes most incendiary accusation this week  alleging racism by an unnamed member of the Royal Family  had made no discernible impact whatsoever on this almost entirely non-white crowd.

Not a single one of those to whom I spoke had altered their views on the monarchy since Monday night. Yes, some had sympathy for Harry and Meghan. But more voiced concern for the Queen. As for republicans? Well, I simply couldnt find one.

This was not some slick PR stunt hastily arranged at the last minute (or curated as the Sussexes might say). Rather, this was the heir to the throne simply sticking to the diary. This was the nuts-and-bolts daily work of monarchy: recognising public service, thanking, bringing people together.

The last of these has been a bit tricky of late thanks to the pandemic but there was still a decent crowd here at Jesus House. It is a modern glass-fronted church on the edge of an industrial estate and would normally boast up to 3,000 worshippers.

Though worship is currently online, the place is still busy both with jabs and a food bank (the Prince had brought some supplies from Highgrove).

He was here to support the national campaign to boost jab rates among vaccine-hesitant communities. The vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, was delighted to be here, watching the Prince administering pats on backs.

Chatting to healthcare worker Caroline Olodimeji, 67, he talked of her family back in Nigeria, which the Prince last visited in 2018. Do give them my kind regards, he told her.

There was plenty of medical banter with staff. I try to do a first aid refresher each year, the Prince revealed, adding: The important thing to remember is the recovery position.

Pictured: Britain's Prince Charles, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Chief Executive of the National Health Service in England Sir Simon Steven are pictured during a visit at the Skipton House to meet NHS and MOD staff involved in the vaccine rollout

No one mentioned the Sussexes long list of complaints, while the nearest the Prince got to self-indulgent introspection was reminding his hosts that he had actually spent his 59th birthday at this very same church.

He was here to meet black community leaders in 2007. He also had a speech to a socially distanced audience of both jabbers and jabbed. Recalling his previous visit, he said: I learnt that wonderful acronym PUSH, Pray Until Something Happens.

We need your witness and your work as we seek to bring this pandemic to an end and please be assured I will certainly be PUSHING with you! In fact, this was more of a princely display of the old Churchillian mantra of KBO (keep b*******g on).

Afterwards, I conducted a straw poll among those going in and out. I asked them, specifically, about the Sussexes allegation of racist remarks by an unnamed member of the Royal Family.

Our community has been talking about it and a lot of us have respect for institutions like the monarchy, said Yemi Odu, 58, a GP. I dont think you make accusations like that on television. Get them off your chest but do it in private as a family. Prince Charles and the monarchy do a good job  if they didnt, this country would kick them out.

Well never know what was really said and they should have dealt with this privately, said Aaqil Hashim, 22, a teaching assistant from Neasden. The Queen has spent 70 years building up the Commonwealth and were trying to get the country vaccinated. This just takes the spotlight away from all that.

PhD student, Mariam Marzook, 24, agreed, adding that while there were plenty of Meghan fans among her peer group at University College London, they are Kate fans, too. She added: We dont need to take sides in this. This should have been done in private.

Pictured: The Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan and Harry, that aired on Monday night in the UK. The Oprah interview has given the world very little idea of the underlying point of a royal existence, beyond being photographed a lot and having a miserable time

I feel very sorry for Meghan and Harry and its sad they had to leave the country, said Tumini Iyeuwa, 55, an administrator from Bushey. I agree with them that there are undertones of racism in the UK. But that shouldnt bring down the monarchy. Its like big red buses  its part of what the UK is all about.

As we try to digest this weeks heaving buffet of umbrage served up from the Montecito sofa, it is easy to overlook what was not in the two-hour show. Though the Sussexes had previously talked a lot about service and duty, they didnt seem to dwell on that.

As a result, the Oprah interview has given the world very little idea of the underlying point of a royal existence, beyond being photographed a lot and having a miserable time.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was simply what the Royal Family does all year round.

Most of it goes unnoticed. There would certainly not have been a pack of Press waiting for Prince Charles outside Jesus House yesterday had it not been his first public outing since Oprah.

But the point is that the Prince would have been there regardless. And then, from here, he went on to do the same thing in South London. Hell be at it again today and tomorrow.

Perhaps the most deluded remark in Monday nights interview was when Prince Harry sneered that his father and the rest of the family were trapped, adding: Ive tried to educate them.

Watching the longest-serving heir to the throne in British history in action yesterday, it was not hard to identify which one is the master  and which the apprentice in need of education.
American adults without a college degree have experienced greater reductions in life expectancy when compared to their more-educated counterparts, USC and Princeton researchers have found.

The study reveals that after nearly a century of declining mortality up to the late 1990s, the progress continued into the 21st century for more-educated Americans but stalled for the population as a whole and reversed for the two-thirds of Americans who do not have a college degree.

The study appeared Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers examined overall mortality in the United States using records spanning from 1990 to 2018. Assuming that mortality rates at each age remained constant at their level in each year, they then calculated how long a 25-year-old could expect to live up until the age of 75.

The age range (25-75 years old) coincides with increasing "deaths of despair" in the United States from the opioid epidemic, alcohol and suicide, as well as a slowing of progress on deaths from cardiovascular disease.

Study authors Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton, who have previously documented the toll of deaths of despair on Americans, said their latest findings demonstrated the increasing influence of educational attainment on a person's health and economic security in the U.S.

"The United States has this increasingly sharp societal division between people who have a college degree and those who don't," said Deaton, Presidential Professor of Economics at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Distinguished Fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs, Emeritus, at Princeton. "If you don't have a four-year degree, not only have your wages been falling for 50 years but our study shows your adult life expectancy is also decreasing."

"America is the richest large country in the world, with frontier medical technology, yet we still see large declines for Americans without a four-year degree, even prior to the arrival of COVID-19," said study author Anne Case, the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Emeritus, at Princeton University. "Without a four-year college diploma, it is increasingly difficult to build a meaningful and successful life in the United States."

The researchers found that although the adult life expectancy gap widened between those with and without a college degree, it narrowed based on race. By 2018, the adult life expectancy of Black Americans with a bachelor's degree -- who in the past had a lower adult life expectancy than whites without a degree -- was closer to whites with a college degree than to Black Americans without a degree. This is in stark contrast with the larger racial divides of the 1990s.

Analysis of death certificates shows link between education level and mortality

The study was based on death certificates in the National Vital Statistical System, which includes records of 48.9 million deaths of people aged 25 to 84 between 1990 and 2018 -- before the COVID-19 pandemic. The data indicate age, sex, race, ethnicity, education and year of death.

Case and Deaton constructed a time series with a summary of each year's mortality rates in adulthood from ages 25 to 75. Like life expectancy at birth, their measure is what's known as a "period measure," or a summary of mortality rates between ages 25 and 75 in a given year. To calculate mortality rates, they drew on population data from the American Community Survey and the Current Population Surveys.

When looking at race, regardless of education, the researchers found some nuances. Hispanics at age 25 were closer to living another 50 years than whites. In turn, whites were closer to living another 50 years than Blacks. Overall, Blacks and Hispanics made greater gains in life expectancy than whites. However, between 2010 and 2013, progress on life expectancy stopped for all races.

The researchers said that people with some college do better than those with only a high school degree. However, the gap is much wider between those with and without a four-year degree. According to the study, by 2018, American adults with a bachelor's degree could expect to live another 48.2 years out of a possible 50, compared with 45.1 years for those without a college degree.

Case and Deaton said in addition to deaths of despair, contributing factors to reduced life expectancy include obesity, smoking and cardiovascular disease, along with a shrinking pool of high-quality jobs.

"Good jobs have become increasingly rare for workers without a college diploma, many of whom have lost their jobs to globalization and automation and for whom the cost of employer-provided health care has increasingly priced them out of the high-quality labor market," said Deaton. "There has been a real loss of the pillars of working-class life, and it has contributed to this decline in adult life expectancy."

The study's data predate the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. Other studies -- including a recent study by USC and Princeton scientists -- have calculated pandemic-related life expectancy declines by race and ethnicity.

Case and Deaton predict the pandemic will only exacerbate the education divide in life expectancy. They point to the fact that those without a bachelor's degree are more likely to work in sectors where they may face a greater risk of exposure than those with college degrees who are more likely to be able to work at home.

In their book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, Case and Deaton documented the deaths of despair -- a devastating epidemic that preceded COVID-19, taking the lives of 158,000 Americans in 2018 and contributing to the first three-year drop in U.S. life expectancy since the Spanish flu. They explored the struggles that have primarily affected those without a college degree, which led them to suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses and premature death.

###

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging with support through a grant to the National Bureau of Economic Research (award no. R01AG053396).

The authors will discuss their findings in an event on March 16th. Contact USC Media Relations for more details.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Part of the Ohio Department of Healths centralized vaccine signup is live, although not all the promised features were working Monday morning.

At gettheshot.coronavirus.ohio.gov, Ohioans can learn if theyre eligible for a vaccine and see places near their homes to get it.

The $3.6 million website, developed Accenture, is also supposed to let Ohioans book an appointment.

But that feature, as of Monday morning, was not fully up. An Ohio Department of Health spokeswoman said as of Monday morning, there were more than 14,500 appointments available to book directly within the tool.

However, in many instances, people are given hyperlinks to vaccine provider websites to deal with registration on their own.

A spokesman for Gov. Mike DeWine said more details about the system will be announced at a 2 p.m. coronavirus briefing.

To watch the briefing, visit the Ohio Channels website.

During DeWines coronavirus briefing later Tuesday, he said he expects vaccine signups to get better each day. The Ohio Department of Health has told all of the states over 1,200 vaccine providers they must migrate their systems to the states site.

Im told for example some of the hospitals its going to be another 10 days before they can do that, DeWine said.

DeWine said that there will be a competitive advantage to those vaccine providers that participate in the state vaccine signup.

On Thursday, Ohio entered new phases of coronavirus vaccine eligibility. People over age 60, as well as Ohioans with Type I diabetes, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and recent bone marrow transplant recipients now qualify. Pregnant women are also eligible.

A handful of workforce sectors are also now eligible, including law enforcement officers, correction officers, firefighters, childcare workers and people in funeral services.

This covers 900,000 people.

More coverage:

Ohio is developing a $3.6 million centralized coronavirus vaccine signup system. Here are the details

School funding reform is back in the Ohio General Assembly as lawmakers look at the state budget

In addition to Cleveland, Ohio will get 15 more mass vaccination sites. Here is the list.

Gov. Mike DeWine provides a benchmark for removal of coronavirus public health orders

LGBTQ nondiscrimination bill is back in the Ohio General Assembly for the 10th time
The Government is committed to finding a way to allow Justice Minister Helen McEntee to take maternity leave without having to resign, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said yesterday.

Ms McEntee has announced she will take six months leave when her baby, due in May, is born. However, there is currently no provision for a politician to take maternity leave.

We are committed to facilitating Helen McEntee to take maternity leave and not to resign, said Mr Martin. I do believe we can accommodate Helen. Were going to facilitate that through a range of mechanisms.

He said the minister taking maternity leave would be a catalyst for wider change.

The Taoiseach hopes a Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality, which is due to make its recommendations in the coming months, may make recommendations around politicians taking maternity leave.

He was speaking to broadcaster and journalist Dearbhail McDonald, as part of a Women for Election International Womens Day event on women in politics. The independent charity provides training and support for women considering election.

Read More

When asked to comment on reports concerning social media hate towards female politicians, Mr Martin said it worried him.

I worry deeply about it. Social media is having a very destructive impact on politics and on decision making, he said. Impact on individuals is very oppressive, particularly online, and to throw in the abuse that is going on is very, very detrimental to our body politic.

He said the abuse was a deterrent to those looking to stay in politics which can be very damaging in terms of false stories which can affect psychological well-being.

He also said that the riots in the US, which saw the violent storming of Capitol Hill and five people die, could happen in Ireland. Of course it could, it could easily happen anywhere at this stage, he said.

If you read a misleading narrative on an ongoing basis, people will get a different, wrong perception of an individual in the public life and then could go to harm them.

Mr Martin said half of all members in Dail Eireann and the Seanad could be women by 2030.

We need more women in politics, he said. Women bring in different perspective and different politics.
New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO's Delhi West office worked on last weekend to settle all pending claims of women subscribers marking International Women Day on Monday.

Women officials were supported by their male counterparts in this exercise, said Uttam Prakash Regional Provident Fund Commissioner Delhi west. All social security claims of women were processed or settled to celebrate International Women's Day.

Talking to PTI, Prakash said that "100 per cent claims of Women processed to celebrate International Women's Day at EPFO Delhi West."

The women officials at the EPFO Delhi West office located in Dwarka, took a unique challenge to celebrate International Women's day.

This was in line of the theme for this year's International Women's Day is #ChooseToChallenge. Women enthusiastically chose the challenge to liquidate all women claims.

Thus, no claim of a women worker remained waiting for processing beyond 24 hours.

To meet this challenge, the office worked on the weekend processing more than 10,000 claims including some 4,000 women claims, he informed.

This was an example of women-led initiative enthusiastically supported by their male counterparts.

This event was celebrated through a Facebook live programme attended by Neelam Sanghi, Additional Central Provident Commissioner (HQ) heading the Customers Services Division of EPFO and Neha Vyas, Senior Environment Specialist at The World Bank.

Speaking on the occasion, Neelam Sanghi said that it is a unique idea of EPFO Delhi West to celebrate by disposing all PF claims of women today (Monday).

The celebration is a well-earned event of team spirit and the resolve of the women to lead.

Vyas said that relevance of social protection has gained momentum during Covid times. Social security financing is high on the agenda of global institutions including the World Bank.

The role of EPFO during Covid times has been widely appreciated and the efficiency here is a challenge to the private sector which is normally believed to be more efficient.

Prakash said that in the true spirit of what our Prime Minister says, "it is time for women to led development and not mere women development."

Live TV

#mute

The women at Delhi West have truly led by example. Equally notable is the helping hand of all men who smilingly came forward to achieve this unique feat, he added.
By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party intends to keep using former President Donald Trump's name in fundraising pitches and other materials, a lawyer for the party said on Monday, despite a cease-and-desist letter from Trump last week.

The letter sent by lawyers for Trump on Friday to the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Campaign and National Republican Senate Campaign had ramped up tension between the two camps as Trump seeks to preserve his political viability post-election.

A Trump adviser said on Saturday that Trump was sensitive to the use of his name and likeness for branding purposes and was irked the three groups have supported Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats in voting to impeach him over the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

In a response letter, the Republican National Committee said that Trump "reaffirmed" to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel over the weekend that he approves of the party's current use of his name, wrote Justin Riemer, the RNC's top lawyer.

The party also argued it had "every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech."

The letter indicated Trump would participate in the party's donor retreat scheduled for next month in Palm Beach, Florida, which is home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

But in a statement late on Monday, Trump declared: "No more money for RINOS," the acronym for the pejorative term "Republicans in Name Only."

"They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base  they will never lead us to Greatness," Trump said before urging supporters to donate to his own super PAC.

In an effort separate from the Republican Party, Trump is using his Save America super PAC to raise money in part to help handpicked Republican candidates in the 2022 congressional elections. Some of them are expected to challenge Republican incumbents whom Trump considers disloyal.

Still, Trump has committed to helping Republicans try to win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in the 2022 elections that will be an early referendum on the leadership of Democratic President Joe Biden.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
(Newser)  The Republican National Committee's reply to former President Trump? Nope. The RNC responded to the cease-and-desist letter it received from Trump's attorneys by asserting, in its own reply letter, it has the right to use Trump's name and likeness in its fundraising appeals, and that it has no plans to stop doing so, Politico reports. Trump's lawyers sent similar letters to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, neither of which have yet publicly responded. Trump and the RNC have worked closely together on fundraising in the past, but Trump wants to use the 2022 elections to retaliate against Republicans who he thinks were disloyal to him, and has spoken out against his supporters donating to "RINOs" (Republicans In Name Only), CBS News reports.

story continues below

Recent RNC fundraising appeals have included lines like "DEFEND President Trump's America First policies" and "defend President Trumps legacy." In its response to the cease-and-desist, the RNC says Trump and RNC chair Ronna McDaniel "enjoy a close relationship, and we understand that President Trump reaffirmed to her over the weekend that he approves of the RNCs current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for our upcoming donor retreat event at Palm Beach at which we look forward to him participating." Some senior Republicans have speculated the cease-and-desist was not driven by Trump himself but rather those surrounding him. Trump has, however, recently said there's "only one way" his supporters should be donating money, and that's by giving directly to him. (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
The good times continued on Monday as Kimberley Garner let her hair down during a sunshine break in Anguilla.

The swimwear designer recently flew to the Caribbean island from her second home in Miami, and has wasted no time in documenting her stay with a string of Instagram posts.

Taking to the social media platform while relaxing at the luxurious Malliouhana Auberge resort, Kimberley, 30, caught the eye in a neon pink bikini from her own range.

Don't mind me: The good times continued on Monday as Kimberley Garner let her hair down during a sunshine break in Anguilla

While international travel is currently prohibited from her native Britain, the former Made In Chelsea star has been able to fly without restriction after basing herself at her second home on the Florida coast.

Kimberley has been in Miami with her boyfriend since December, after spending Christmas in Barbados.

But it hasn't all been carefree partying as she took to Instagram to defend herself from backlash over her international travel.

Living the high life: The swimwear designer recently flew to the Caribbean island from her second home in Miami, and has wasted no time in documenting her stay with a string of Instagram posts

Come fly with me: While international travel is currently prohibited from Britain, the former Made In Chelsea star has been able to fly without restriction after basing herself in Florida

The TV star said she jetted out of the UK on December 14  a week before London moved into Tier 4  to 'check on my apartment'.

She explained: 'I bought my place here this time two years ago. It was a massive achievement, still really can't believe it sometimes. I run a business - I'm not an influencer.

'I am here, but I am very very strict still. I see people in Tulum and all over going to parties and it doesn't feel right to me.

Important issue: The TV star said she jetted out of the UK on December 14  a week before London moved into Tier 4  to 'check on my apartment'

Here we go: Lockdown was a distant memory as Kimberley soaked up the sun on Monday

'I haven't been out to any parties and turned down invites from friends as feel it's just not right to be in a crowd - it's not OK at the moment.

'I'm really lucky to be in the sun and outdoors, and am valuing that totally, but not going to live normally as it's not a normal world at the moment.

'I really think and feel for everyone home at the moment, it really sucks, please be brave, please be kind to each other.'
Responding to the outages felt across banking and e-commerce services, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has put on hold implementation of its regulations to curb unsolicited commercial communication. Users failed to receive text messages including one time passwords for online transactions , and banks attributed the glitches to Trais new regulations which came into effect on Monday.

The regulator has now given service providers another week to adhere to the norms, though banks and payment gateway firms said on Tuesday that 60-70 per cent of their messages were delivered to customers.

regulations were introduced in 2018 and a framework was put in place to protect customers from fraud and phishing. Under these regulations, companies which send messages are registered and the messages are verified by using a block chain-based solution. Text messages from unregistered sender IDs or headers are blocked.

While banks complained of faulty implementation, telecom industry sources said banks had not created a proper template for their text messages despite repeated communication.

On Tuesday, regulators stepped in to ease the stress.

Even as put the regulation on hold, the Reserve Bank of India is examining the matter as well, it is learnt. "Besides monetary penalty, there would also be reputational consequences for banks," a public sector banker said.

In a statement, said, It has been observed some of the principal entities have not fulfilled the requirements as envisaged in Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018. As a result, their SMSes were getting dropped after implementation of the scrubbing of SMSes by telecom service providers. In order to protect the interest of consumers, it has been decided that the scrubbing of SMSes by TSPs shall be suspended temporarily for seven days. It added that a weeks time is being given to enable principle entities to register the template of their text messages so that customers dont face further inconvenience.

Scrubbing refers to a verification process followed by for sending text messages.





According to an executive of the Indian Banking Association (IBA), most banks have registered with and submitted their templates for sending commercial messages to customers. "Banks are supposed to stick to templates. But what happened was that there was some difference in templates shared with telecom companies and text messages banks wanted to send to their customers. As a result, messages are not being delivered as they are not according to the approved templates. So its a technical glitch and most bankers are working on it (like customization of template). Now everybody will conform with the template," he said.

Pointing out that the situation was better now, the official explained that when the regulations came into effect Monday morning, many SMS providers and banks did not have their templates registered. Also, because of messages getting stuck, the network clogged up. On Monday, the success rate of sending SMSes was at zero for some

Ratan Kesh, EVP & Head-Retail Operations & Service, Axis Bank, said, "The industry is working with several communication aggregators to get this in action smoothly. Some of the aggregators serving the industry were not prepared, resulting in disruption in the early hours on Monday.

"We faced some intermittent issues related to OTP-based transactions yesterday. They got resolved and we are back to near normal today," said sources close to HDFC Bank.

Executives from payment security firms said the implementation could have been better managed.

Suresh Rajagopalan, CEO, Wibmo Inc, a and payment security firm, said that once registration was done by payment service providers (PSPs), time-sensitive alerts should have been validated with banks again through test transactions. Such a validation would have helped in matching the content and spotting anomalies, he explained.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, and the co-chairs of the House Biofuels Caucus introduced two new pieces of legislation to increase access to biofuels and recognize the environmental benefits.

Davis and Rep. Cindy Axne of Iowa led introduction of the Renewable Fuels Infrastructure Investment and Market Expansion Act, which would expand access to higher blends of biofuels. Rep. Dusty Johnson of Alabama was the lead sponsor of the Adopt GREET Act, which will direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update its greenhouse gas modeling for ethanol and biodiesel.

Davis said the bills build off the successful USDA Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program, and the Adopt GREET Act will ensure federal regulators at the EPA take into account how biofuels lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Our bipartisan legislation will provide much-needed support to the biofuels industry, Davis said.

The Renewable Fuel Infrastructure Investment and Market Expansion Act would authorize $500 million over 5 years for infrastructure grants for fuel retailers and direct the EPA Administrator to finalize a proposed rule to repeal E15 labeling requirements warning drivers about E15s potential impact on cars, which may confuse and deter drivers from using E15, a blend of gasoline with 15 percent ethanol. The bill would also direct the EPA Administrator to finalize provisions from the same proposed rule to allow certain existing Underground Storage Tanks (UST) to store higher blends of ethanol.

The Adopt GREET Act would require the EPA to update its greenhouse gas modeling for ethanol and biodiesel by requiring the EPA to adopt the Argonne National Labs Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) Model for both fuels. EPA would then be required to update its modeling every five years or report to Congress to affirm its modeling is current or otherwise explain why no updates were made.

Both pieces of legislation are supported by the National Corn Growers Association, the Renewable Fuels Association, the American Coalition for Ethanol, Growth Energy, and POET.

While electric vehicles (EVs) continue to dominate the headlines, experts conclude EVs alone will fail to reach President Bidens goal of net-zero emissions in the U.S. by 2050, and that increased use of biofuels will be required to help address the emissions gap, said said Brian Jennings, CEO of American Coalition for Ethanol. A recent study by Harvard validates what ACE has been saying for years; todays corn ethanol is nearly 50 percent cleaner than gasoline. This vital legislation with both bicameral and bipartisan backing would ensure infrastructure parity for biofuels and EVs and help ethanol continue to be part of the solution to climate change.
COLUMBUS, OhioOhios beleaguered unemployment benefits system has recently signed contracts worth a combined $12.7 million with three companies to help fight fraud and process claims more quickly.

The agreements with IBM, Experian and LexisNexis come as the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services continues to face unprecedented demands placed on it by the year-long coronavirus crisis, including a record number of jobless claims and a massive wave of fraudulent filings.

IBM will be paid $2.1 million to provide a suite of artificial-intelligence products, including a self-service adjudication program, for both traditional unemployment benefits and federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, according to ODJFS spokesman Tom Betti. We are confident this will speed up processing time of legitimate pending claims, Betti stated in an email.

The other two companies, Experian and LexisNexis, have signed contracts worth $8.6 million and $2 million, respectively, to help ODJFS better detect and prevent fraud, according to Betti. Ohio, like other states, has been swamped with hundreds of thousands of fraudulent jobless claims, resulting in more than $330 million in federal benefits alone being paid by the state last year.

Experian will work with traditional unemployment claims, while LexisNexis will assist with PUA filings, Betti stated. However, Betti declined to provide more specifics about the nature of the companies work with ODJFS, stating, we do not want criminals to know what Ohio is doing to combat fraud.

The IBM and Experian contracts were competitively bid, while the LexisNexis contract was not, Betti stated.

ODJFS is also negotiating additional contracts with large data firms to help clear a backlog of 1.25 million pending jobless benefits cases, according to Jeff Ficke, whos leading a public-private partnership team set up by Gov. Mike DeWine to help the states unemployment system.

Read more Ohio politics and government stories:

Rep. Jim Jordan climbs aboard the Free Britney Spears bandwagon in questioning conservatorships

Ohio utility regulators may probe FirstEnergy over $4M payment to former top official, other questionable costs

FirstEnergy Corp. names new CEO

Ohio AG Dave Yost asks U.S. Supreme Court to defend ban on abortion providers receiving family-planning funds

Read Gov. Mike DeWines proclamation of a day of remembrance of those who died of the coronavirus
A scene from "Voice of Silence" / Courtesy of Acemaker Movieworks





By Park Han-sol







Five Korean films were invited to this year's Glasgow Film Festival in Scotland, one of the leading annual cinematic events, as part of its "Country Focus  South Korea" program.







Held from Feb. 24 to March 7, the festival screened Woo Min-ho's political thriller, "The Man Standing Next," Hong Eui-jeong's debut feature, "Voice of Silence," Choi Jae-hoon's period action film, "The Swordsman," Shim Chan-yang's music drama, "Da Capo," and Lim Jung-eun's black-and-white drama, "Our Midnight."







"Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-winning triumph, Parasite, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the glories of South Korean cinema," the festival organizers said on their website, introducing the Country Focus program. "The selection captures the diversity and range of work from a country whose films deserve to be much better known and appreciated. Jeulgyeo (Enjoy)!"







Meanwhile, the opening film of the 17th Glasgow Film Festival was Lee Isaac Chung's Golden Globe-winning "Minari," as part of its online UK premiere. Earning five stars as an "uncontrived, authentic" cinematic piece in a BBC review, the film is set to hit theaters in the UK and Ireland, March 19.







A scene from "Minari" / Courtesy of Pancinema





The festival also hosted an event last Friday in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Centre UK, inviting directors Woo ("The Man Standing Next") and Hong ("Voice of Silence") as speakers to share the stories behind their productions for local film industry personnel.







Mentioning the dynamic changes taking place within the Korean film industry after the success of "Parasite," Woo expressed hope for its future, stating, "After the film's feat achieved at the Academy Awards last year, I'm looking forward to seeing more works, like Hong's 'Voice of Silence,' that are much more original, fresh and challenging."







Hong added, "I was initially experiencing difficulties with my film being an ambiguous piece in terms of its genre, but I realized that there is less and less need to convince others of the movie simply based on such classifications."


Supreme court to examine if gold smuggling can be termed as 'terrorist activity'

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Mar 09: The Supreme Court has agreed to examine a question whether the offence of gold smuggling can be termed as "terrorist activity" under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

A bench of Justices RF Nariman and BR Gavai issued notice to Centre and National Investigating Agency (NIA) on a plea against an order of Rajasthan High Court, which had declined to quash the FIR registered by the probe agency under the offences of UAPA.

"Issue notice", the bench said in its order passed on Monday. The petitioner, Mohammad Aslam, who was caught smuggling over 1.5kg gold at Jaipur International Airport has sought stay of arrest, investigation and proceedings in the FIR lodged by the NIA under provisions of UAPA.

Cong urges Amit Shah to reveal details of 'mysterious death' in gold smuggling case

The plea filed by advocate Aditya Jain said that after the case was transferred to NIA, it registered an FIR on the ground that the smuggling of the gold by Aslam was done with the intent to threaten the economic security and damaging the monetary stability of India.

Aslam contended that the second FIR registered by NIA after the first one lodged by the custom officials, was arbitrary and no prima facie case of economic terrorism was made out against him as alleged.

"The petitioner was not found to be connected with any terrorist or any extremist group and his background was not suspicious at all," his plea said.

Aslam claimed that he worked as labourer on contract in Saudi Arabia since May 2018 but during the outbreak of Coronavirus, he had lost his job.

"During this time of distress, one person named Lal Mohammad contacted present petitioner and influenced him to deliver some amount of gold to an unknown person in Jaipur and in lieu of that he promised to book a return ticket to Jaipur and offered Rs. 10,000. Since the present petitioner was unemployed and desperate for money, he fell into the trap of Lal Mohammad and agreed to his offer," the plea said.

Aslam said that NIA has nothing on record that the smuggled gold was to fund terrorism and section 15 of the UAPA specifically states that whoever does any act with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the economic security of India commits a terrorism act.

"The FIR is baseless on this ground and deserves to be quashed as the NIA could not show any such intent of the petitioner. Moreover any such act would not alone attract the offence under UAPA. The smuggling of gold should have been dealt under the corresponding provision of the Customs Act and not UAPA," his plea said.

He said that the NIA has registered the FIR on mere suspicion that the proceeds of gold smuggled might be used for financing terrorism in India.

"Even, if the petitioner had funded for smuggling of gold, it would not amount to any offence under the UAPA because an act done with the intention to cause damage to the economic security of India alone would attract the offence under UAPA," he said.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 20:06 [IST]
The European Commission has approved Latvian government plans to grant up to 39.7m (US$47m) for the recapitalization of the state-owned parent company of Riga International Airport. The measures were approved under the EUs state aid temporary framework.

The European Commissions executive vice-president, Margrethe Vestager, who is in charge of competition policy, said, Airports are among the companies that have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus outbreak. With this measure, Latvia will contribute up to 39.7m to reinforce Riga International Airports equity and support the company face the economic effects of the outbreak.

') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write(' ') } // --> ') } else if (width >= 425) { console.log ('largescreen'); document.write('') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write('') } // -->

At the same time, the state aid will come with strings attached to limit undue distortions of competition. We continue working closely with member states to ensure that national support measures can be put in place in a coordinated and effective way, in line with EU rules.

Riga International Airport is fully owned by the Latvian state and has suffered substantial losses due to the coronavirus outbreak; the financial situation of the company continues to deteriorate. As a result, the airport says it currently risks not being able to maintain its viability. The Latvian government notified the Commission, under the temporary framework, and instigated recapitalization measures comprising a 35.2m (US$41.8m) capital injection and a 4.5m (US$5.3m) waived dividend payment for the 2019 financial year.

The Commission concluded that the recapitalization measures are necessary, appropriate and proportionate to remedy a serious disturbance in the economy of a member state. It therefore allowed for the improvement of the financial position and liquidity of the airport, while maintaining the necessary safeguards to limit competition distortions.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A woman has been charged with the murder of an elderly Melbourne man violently bashed while home alone.

Danielle Birchall was arrested on Tuesday morning over the death of 87-year-old Kon Kritikos after an attack at his Coburg property on November 11.

Mr Kritikos died from his injuries on November 24, with police saying they were close to cracking the case last month.

The 45-year-old Kurunjang woman was interviewed by detectives on Tuesday and later charged with one count of murder.

Birchall's case was briefly mentioned before Melbourne Magistrates Court and is next scheduled to return to court on July 27.
The Native Womens Association of Canada announced Monday it is organizing a Summit of the Americas on Violence Against Indigenous Women.

Advertisement Advertise With Us

The Native Womens Association of Canada announced Monday it is organizing a Summit of the Americas on Violence Against Indigenous Women.

The two-day virtual event, scheduled for March 29 and 30, is expected to draw hundreds of people from North and South America who have expressed their desire to put a stop to the ongoing crisis, according to the associations news release.

Participants are expected to share their ideas about ways to keep Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people safe, and to bring perpetrators to justice.

"Grassroots Indigenous women and girls from across the Americas will come together with Indigenous women leaders, representatives from both the Organization of American States and the United Nations, family survivors and corporate and government leaders to discuss the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and what needs to be done," stated Lynne Groulx, the associations chief executive officer.

"An outcome document will be presented to governments and UN officials."

The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day and will feature discussions on the impacts of the violence, best practices for countering it and key lessons that have been learned.

"On International Womens Day, Indigenous women stand proudly resilient and determined to be silent no more," Groulx said.

In a separate communication, president Lorraine Whitman stated the association assessed the year gone by as relates to Indigenous women  not only in Canada, but also around the world.

The assessment included looking at positive strides in levelling the advantages distributed across genders, as well as whether there has been progress made on human rights, justice, economic stability and basic security.

"Looking back at the past year under the shadow of COVID-19, I believe there have been few strides forward in any of these areas, for Indigenous and non-Indigenous women alike. In fact, we know the pandemic made things worse for the First Nations, Metis and Inuit women of Canada," Whitman stated.

A survey commissioned by the association last spring found that Indigenous women  already victims of genocide, as stated in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women  are at increased risk of violence because of the pandemic.

"The supports they rely upon have been cut off and many are forced to isolate with abusive family members," Whitman said.

Another consequence of the pandemic is that it blocked the advancement of Indigenous womens equality.

"We had hoped for the release, in June 2020, of a National Action Plan to respond to the 231 Calls for Justice of the national inquirys final report. The government says COVID-19 is at least partly to blame for the fact that the plan did not materialize," Whitman said.

On a positive note, the association is at work with the federal government and other Indigenous organizations to draft the plan. Whitman is hopeful it will be tabled in June.

"One thing we can say about COVID-19 is that it is a great leveller, an equalizer, in a world filled with inequality. It threatens all members of society  men, women, Indigenous, non-Indigenous  without regard to race or sex. All of us, in every part of the world, have had to come together to fight it," she said.

"But that rather unfortunate bit of equality is about to change."

Whitman said that even as Canadians complain about the amount of time it is taking to get COVID-19 vaccines into arms, there are Indigenous women in other countries who are being told they will have to wait two or three years before they can get their shot.

"I am calling upon world leaders to ensure that the vaccines are distributed everywhere as quickly as possible, not just for the sake of equality  though that should be a significant motivation  but because this disease will only be contained when the possibility of immunity is available to all," said Whitman.

Whitman asked herself: what has occurred to advance the cause of women since March 8, 2020?

"My focus will always be on the status of Indigenous women in particular. And, despite the pandemic, I have sensed over the past year a real and growing desire on their part to come together and tackle problems like the violence that is directed against us. That is especially true of Indigenous women across the Americas," she said.

"The problem of violence is, at last, well recognized in Canada thanks to the advocacy of (the association) and other Indigenous groups. Now our sisters abroad need us to stand up for them and to find ways to keep them safe, just as we are looking for ways to keep Indigenous women safe in Canada. We need to support each other."

Whitman said that while it is not possible to be there physically for Indigenous women beyond Canadas border, "we can be there in our hearts, our spirit, and our prayers  and in our advocacy for a more equal future for us all."

More information will be available about the summit at nwac.ca

 mletourneau@brandonsun.com

 Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism.
Texas is a year away from its March primary elections and there is already plenty of chatter that Gov. Greg Abbott could face his first challenge from the right after only token opposition in his past two campaigns. Here are some of the names that keep coming up.

Former State Sen. Don Huffines

The Dallas native has been a frequent critics of Abbotts during the pandemic, calling him King Abbott for his handling of the pandemic at one Austin rally in January and traveling to San Antonio on Saturday to speak at a rally commemorating the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo. Asked if hes considering taking on Abbott, Huffines said: Absolutely. Im always keeping my options open.

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller

Miller was elected in 2014 to Agriculture Commissioner, a post former Gov. Rick Perry held before becoming lieutenant governor, then governor. Miller inserted himself in the conversation when he was the only statewide elected official to attend a protest outside of the Governors Mansion in October calling on Abbott to reopen the Texas economy. Quite frankly, governor, your cure is worse than the disease, he said.

IN-DEPTH: Gov. Abbotts order to reopen Texas fuels primary foes who say hes too slow

Shelley Luther

The salon owner from Dallas become a national voice against COVID-19 restrictions after she went to jail for violating Abbotts executive order that had required salons to close. Abbott withdrew the threat of jail time from future executive orders, but Luther has since become a vocal critic of his. On social media shes been encouraging a primary against Abbott and has said his moves to reopen the state are too little too late.

Republican Party of Texas Chairman Allen West

Since becoming the party chairman last summer, West has shown no hesitation in criticizing Abbotts actions. The former Florida Congressman and Tea Party leader was at the rally in October in front of the Governors Mansion calling on Abbott to re-open more of the state. And in September the party passed a resolution demanding Abbott Open Texas NOW. Last week, West tweeted that he was glad Gov. Abbott is following the example of Gov.@RonDeSantisFL who had reopened Florida six months earlier.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

The Houston-area Republican has two things most other GOP challengers wouldnt have against Abbott: statewide name recognition and an ability to raise money. Patrick has said hes focused on running for a third term as lieutentant governor. I remain honored to serve as Lt. Governor and look forward to running for re-election, Patrick said in January.

Land Commissioner George P. Bush

Bush, the grandson of the late President George H.W. Bush, has been the Texas land commissioner since 2014, but his political advisers have made it clear he sees a future run for higher office. While he wouldnt challenge current Gov. Abbott or Lt. Gov. Patrick, if an opening presents itself he would absolutely consider serving Texans in a higher role, a top adviser to Bush told the National Review in 2019. But Bush this time might be more interested in taking on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. In October, the Texas Tribune reported supporters of Bush were encouraging him to run for Attorney General in 2022.

jeremy.wallace@chron.com
Two Former Rangers Wanted to Combine the Best Parts of the AK-47 and AR-15. This is What They Created

Two Rangers finally may have settled the debate between fans of the AK-47 and adherents of the AR-15.

Joe Stenzel and Jared Potter, veterans of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, met while serving in the Army. During their deployments to Afghanistan, they noticed the shortcomings of each platform.

After leaving the military, they decided that addressing those shortcomings might be the best post-military career for both of them, and it may help create manufacturing jobs in the United States.

The result is an upgraded version of the AK-47 rifle, the AK-21. Its the first aluminum platform AK to hit the market, and its as reliable in the field as the AK -- but has the user-friendly features and manufacturability of the AR-15 family.

With some of the rifle's aspects still patent-pending, Stenzel Industries has only released CAD images of the weapon. (Stenzel Industries)

Theres always been a debate about which gun performs better, said Potter, now CEO of Stenzel Industries. But we realized there were things about the AK that could be improved upon.

The AK rifle isnt as ergonomically friendly as the AR family, and its not as easily modified, Potter said. During their deployments in Afghanistan, he and Stenzel saw a huge need for a weapon that had those ergonomic and modular features while using AK magazines.

Stenzel Industries AK-21 can do that, Potter said.

What weve created is a platform that is as modular, as compact and has the speed of an AR-15, but if you get into a situation where you need to pick up an enemy magazine, you can do that, he said.

Jared Potter during a deployment to Afghanistan. (Courtesy of Jared Potter)

Maintaining the reliability of the AK model required retooling the methods of building one. Potter said producing an AK model is very labor intensive, estimating it takes around 40 hours to produce a single weapon. But that process guarantees the famous reliability of the weapon.

There's really nothing that you can improve on the AR, other than making the parts, Potter said. Making them cheaper to manufacture or making more high-quality parts. We tooled it down to the basics and built our platform around that.

Joe Stenzel, co-founder of Stenzel Industries and the creator of the AK-21, designed the rifles parts so that they were easier and cheaper to manufacture. Parts for the AK-21 dont require a firearm-specific machine shop, which means they can manufacture the parts anywhere in the country.

Joe Stenzel during a deployment to Afghanistan. (Courtesy of Jared Potter)

With our design, it's a simple milling of aluminum, which is easier on machines and tooling, Potter said. With how simplistic we've made the design, we can also do high quantities. Making it out of aluminum cuts down on cost and on the weight carried by a soldier, while cutting down on waste and the time spent producing them.

The AK-21 includes features conceived and incorporated by the two Army Rangers in combat:

Billet aluminum receiver: The world's first billet aluminum AK receiver provides a lighter design and cost-effective manufacture.

Short-stroke piston system: This keeps the breaching area and internals of the platform significantly cleaner than the traditional AK.

Last-round bolt hold open feature: Similar to the AR-15, after the last round in the magazine is ejected, the bolt locks to the rear and stays locked open until the bolt is released.

Ambidextrous bolt release: Similar to some AR-15s, the AK-21 has a bolt release on both sides of the platform, putting the weapon back into service faster.

Left side non-reciprocating charging handle: The charging handle on the correct side of the platform.

Ambidextrous fire selector: The AK-21 utilizes a SAW249-style fire/safe selector.

Ambidextrous magazine release.

Multi-caliber interchangeability: The design allows for multiple calibers to be used by changing out the bolt and barrel.

Potter knows from experience that the AR and AK platform are great weapons systems, but having a reliable, ergonomic weapon that can fire the 7.62 round is something that the military and other federal agencies will have a need for today and into the future.

Stenzel Industries AK-21 is made in Elk River, Minnesota, and will be available on the civilian market. The retail cost for one of these rifles will be $3,999 but it is available for preorder now.

To learn more about Americas AK, visit the Stenzel Industries website.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

Want to Know More About Veteran Jobs?

Be sure to get the latest news about post-military careers as well as critical info about veteran jobs and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox.
Its truly been an all-company effort to achieve what we do every day, and its thanks to our smart and hardworking employees that weve been able to continue our mission of getting solar done, Ben Catt, CEO of Pine Gate Renewables

Pine Gate Renewables has been named to Fast Companys prestigious annual list of the Worlds Most Innovative Companies for 2021, ranking #6 in the Energy category.

The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive, they thrivedmaking an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This years MIC list features 463 businesses from 29 countries.

Were ecstatic about being recognized by Fast Company for our work in the renewable space. Its truly been an all-company effort to achieve what we do every day, and its thanks to our smart and hardworking employees that weve been able to continue our mission of getting solar done, said Ben Catt, CEO of Pine Gate Renewables. Its so rewarding to know that Pine Gate is making a difference to expand the footprint of renewable energy in the U.S.

Over the course of the past year, Pine Gate has launched unique solar projects across the country. Those include:



In July, Pine Gate announced a new partnership with Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors and Birch Creek Development for the 112-MW utility-scale Harts Mill Solar project in Edgecombe County, NC. Kayne Andersons $118.5M financing of this project marked its first solar investment supplying the PJM interconnection grid.

The 101MW Bowman Solar Project in Orangeburg County, SC, is Pine Gates 17th project in the state, and one of the largest solar energy developments statewide. Construction on the 849,840-panel project began in the second quarter of 2019 and now generates enough energy to power approximately 14,413 homes annually.

Pine Gate Renewables continued its work with Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P. to bring more than 500MW of renewable energy projects to the state of Michigan. Pine Gate completed development for 14 new solar projects in eight counties across the state. The first wave of projects produce approximately 40MW of clean energy -- enough to power approximately 7,600 homes annually.

Pine Gate was awarded a 20-year power purchase agreement under Duke Energys Competitive Procurement of Renewable Energy (CPRE) program for the 108MW Trent River solar project located near Pollocksville, NC, which is currently under construction and is expected to go online in the summer of 2021.

Fast Companys editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The Worlds Most Innovative Companies is Fast Companys signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.

In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity and creativity in the face of crisis, said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multiday summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021.

Fast Companys Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at http://www.fastcompany.com.

About Pine Gate Renewables

Pine Gate Renewables is a fully-integrated utility-scale solar development company headquartered in Asheville, NC. As a leader in the industry, Pine Gate focuses on forging partnerships to expand its renewable energy footprint nationwide. Its mission is to provide renewable power for local communities across the country through project development, financing, construction and environmental preservation. Awarded the gold medal in the energy category for Inc.s Best in Business 2020 list and named #6 on Inc. 500s list of Fastest Growing Energy Companies in 2018, Pine Gate Renewables is blazing a trail to Get Solar Done. For more information, visit http://www.pgrenewables.com.

# # #
CHENGDU, China, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- News provided by China Report:

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced that all remaining poor rural residents, totaling 5.51 million in early 2020, were lifted from poverty by the end of last year, as were all of the country's remaining 52 poor counties, when delivering the Report on the Work of the Government on March 5. Sichuan Province in southwest China, once a major battlefield for poverty eradication, contributed significantly to the achievement.

Of the total 183 county-level regions in Sichuan, 161 were plagued by poverty, and 45 of them struggled in extreme poverty. Last year, 6.25 million poor people in 11,501 villages of 88 impoverished counties rose above poverty.

Abuluoha, once "the poorest corner in China," was among the 11,501 villages. In Yi language, "abuluoha" means "a deep valley in the mountain" or "an off-limit place." It is nestled in a valley along the Jinsha River in Butuo County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. The geological location made the village once inaccessible by modern means of transportation. Villagers had to climb over the mountains and cliffs or use ziplines to cross rivers to see the outside world.

Changes came in 2019 when Sichuan vowed to make all villages accessible with paved roads by the end of the year. In June, engineering vehicles arrived in Abuluoha.

Construction of the merely 3.8-km-long road to the village was a daunting challenge as most of it was close to steep cliffs. Apart from leading experts, Sichuan managed to make the Mil Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter come to help. "We were astonished to see an excavator walking out of the belly of an aircraft," recalled a villager who was only 20 meters away from where the helicopter landed.

The completion of the road a year later marked that all administrative villages in Sichuan were accessible by motor vehicles. Thanks to the road, local residents bade farewell to poverty, with their incomes growing exponentially.

Ending poverty is not the finishing line, but marks a new start. On February 25, China unveiled the new national administration for rural vitalization to replace former State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. Behind the reshuffle is the historic shift of China's focus on rural wok. Sichuan has already made moves to vitalize the rural areas.

Industrial prosperity is key to China's rural vitalization strategy. As an agriculture-based province, Sichuan started from accelerating the pace of agricultural modernization. So far, Liangshan has planned to build 118 modern agricultural industrial parks to provide jobs to more than 80 percent of former impoverished households.

Farmers in Sichuan's Dayi County now do farm work on "cloud." Zhu Lisha, a local farmer, said all the work can be finished on her mobile phone. By clicking an app icon, she gets into a map of her farmland. The app features four sections, namely agricultural means of production, farm work, harvest and finance. "You can place an order on the phone and have a special team to do the job," Zhu said, adding that it is even unnecessary to go to the farmland to get the work done.

Another part of Sichuan's rural vitalization strategies is digital countryside construction. In 2020, Tibetan heartthrob Ding Zhen went viral online, making his hometown Litang County in Garze rise to fame overnight. Hanfan Village in Litang used to face serious desertification. In 2016, the village started to combine environmental restoration with tourism development on a trial basis by planting drought-resistant flower species on a land measuring 53.3 hectares in area. Beside the ocean of flowers, a 13.3-hectare prairie-themed resort was built. While preserving the ecology, the flower farm and prairie-themed resort brought tourism incomes to local residents.

In the future, Sichuan's focal efforts in vitalizing the rural areas will include advancing reforms of the collective property rights system, boosting new-type rural collective economy, exploring sustainable sources for farmers' incomes, promoting cooperation in agriculture, further modernizing the industrial and supply chains of agricultural industrial parks, expanding the use of new technologies and equipment in agriculture, and improving the environment in rural areas.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1452619/image.jpg
The Guinness Book of World Records is, at worst, a collection of strange accomplishments or feats that no one really asked for, let alone imagined possible. Think of more or less off-putting stuff like the deepest insertion of a finger in a nose, most lit candles put out by a single fart, the largest rat litter, that kind of thing. At best, its a celebration of the highest achievements in all fields, whether its art, the auto-moto industry , film, or sports.This particular world record is nothing short of impressive, both because it exists and it hasnt been beaten since it was set in 1995. Its the record for the worlds smallest motorized car, which happens to be a 1936 Toyota AA sedan, a.k.a. the first Toyota passenger car in the world. This isnt actually a Toyota product, though it is related to the carmaker in a way. It was created by a Toyota affiliate, Japans biggest auto parts manufacturer, Nippondenso, or Denso.Creating the worlds smallest car that runs might seem, at first, a waste of time if you dont plan on mass producing it. In reality, it was an exercise in craftsmanship, a display of skill. Denso was looking to showcase its ultra-precise machining and semiconductor capabilities, and it chose the smallest platform to do so. At the same time, it was meant to herald in an era in which micro-machines could be used in manufacturing, medicine and even the military.For a car this small, the Toyota AA microcar took four years to become a reality. A team of 20 people worked on it, which makes sense if you consider its made of 24 individual parts, some of them no bigger than a speck of dust. The car is 4.785 mm (0.188 inches) long, 1.730 mm (0.068 inches) wide and 1.736 mm (0.068 inches) high. It is the size of a grain of rice, as you can see in the two videos at the bottom of the page, including a brief appearance on Tim Allens comedy Home Improvement (where it got fake-crushed by Allens knee after he dropped it).Small as it is, the microcar has most of the stuff youd expect on its life-size counterpart, including wheels and tires, with the Denso inscribed on the hubcaps in microscopic letters, axles, headlights, and taillights. The bumper, Guinness says, is 50 microns thick, half the width of a human hair). The motor comprises five parts, and its coil is 1 mm (0.039 inches) in diameter.Hows this for incredible detailing and precision?Perhaps the most impressive part of the project is that the microcar actually runs . A tiny blip of alternating current through the wires on top puts the tiny motor in motion, and it takes the Toyota microcar to a dizzying speed of 0.018 kph (0.011 mph). "Look at this baby go!" as Tim Allen puts it.Jokes aside, this is an incredible feat of engineering and the undeniable product of a team of very talented people with dreams and dedication to match. A natural fit for a month-long celebration of Toyota.
Highlights Slovenia signed the Convention founding the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on 21 July 2010, thereby pledging its full dedication to achieving the Organisations fundamental aims. In March 1996, Slovenia applied for OECD membership. The OECD Council at Ministerial level adopted a resolution on 16 May 2007 to open discussions with Slovenia for its membership of the Organisation. On 30 November 2007, the OECD Council approved the 'roadmap to accession' for Slovenia for Slovenia, as well as four other prospective new members. On 10 May 2010, OECD countries issued an invitation to Slovenia to become a member of the OECD. Slovenia signed an Accession Agreement on 1 June 2010. What does the permanent delegation do?

Like all 32 member countries, the Slovenian government maintains a permanent delegation to the OECD, composed of an ambassador and diplomats. As a member of the Council, Slovenia's ambassador, in consultation with his peers, agrees the programme of work which is described in the annual report and establishes the volume of the annual budget, contributions being assessed according to the relative size of each countrys economy. Members of the Slovenian Delegation monitor the work of the OECDs various committees. Delegations thus play a vital communication role in providing liaison between the OECD Secretariat and national authorities. They represent their governments positions in multilateral negotiations, indicate areas in which their governments seek OECD expertise and endeavour to help disseminate OECD recommendations in their respective countries. In doing so, they ensure that there is a good fit between OECD work and the issues of concern in their country.

Samuel Zbogar, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs speaking to the press in Paris on 21 January 2010 after the signature of the OECD's Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Agreement. Transcript of Minister Zbogar's address to the OECD Council

PM Modi inaugurates Maitri Setu between Tripura & B'desh, launches key infrastructure projects

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Agartala, Mar 09: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated the 'Maitri Setu' between India and Bangladesh -- a bridge built over the Feni river. The construction was taken up by the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited at a project cost of 133 Crore rupees. The 1.9 Kilometres long bridge joins Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh. The Prime Minister also launched infrastructure projects in Tripura.

Speaking on the occasion, Modi said, Maitri Setu will not only boost the production of various bamboo products but will also widen the pineapple and agarbatti business in Agartala.

He said, with the opening of the Feni Bridge, Agartala will become the first Indian city closest to an International Sea Port.

West Bengal elections 2021: Mamata Banerjee slams PM Modi, says 'One day country will be named after PM Modi

Modi said, during his visit to Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and he together laid the foundation stone of the bridge connecting Tripura directly with Bangladesh.

The Prime Minister said Tripura had received three thousand 500 crore rupees between 2009-2014 from the Central Government for development projects and it has received 12 thousand crore rupees between 2014 to 2019. He said, the farmers and poor families of Tripura are getting the benefit of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi and Ayushman Bharat Yojana. Around 80 thousand families are benefitted from pucca houses in the state. The Prime Minister said, Tripura is one of the six states where new technology is being used in building houses. He said Tripura's connectivity infrastructure has steadily improved over the past three years. Mr Modi said, better connectivity in Tripura is not only enhancing the lives of its citizens but also helping in the trade.

On the third anniversary of the BJP-IPFT government in Tripura, Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a token of gift to the people of the state inaugurated and laid foundation stones of several projects including the India-Bangladesh 'Maitri Setu' through video conference today.

The Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of NH-208 connecting the Unakoti district headquarters at Kailashahar with the Khowai district headquarters. It will provide an alternative route to the NH-44. The 80 Km NH 208 project has been taken up by the National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited with a project cost of Rs 1,078 crore.

The PM also laid the foundation stone for setting up an Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Sabroom. It will help ease the movement of goods and passengers between the two countries, provide new market opportunities for products of North-East states and assist seamless movement of passengers to and from India and Bangladesh. The project will be constructed by the Land Port Authority of India with an estimated cost of Rs 232 crore.

Meanwhile Mr. Modi along with his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Maitri Bridge at Sabroom which is built over the Feni river connecting Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh. On the occasion, the PM also inaugurated 40 thousand 9 hundred 78 houses constructed under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban).

Addressing the gathering arranged at Swami Vivekananda Stadium here in Agartala through video conference, the Prime Minister congratulated the BJP in State Government for completing its three years successfully. Mr. Modi said with the coming of the new government, the state has progressed in every term of development.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

He said the connectivity projects will definitely enhance ease of living for people of Tripura and the state will act as a connecting center in bringing a new development phase for the whole northeast region.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 14:10 [IST]
Australians will be asked to accept a new risk framework that opens the economy as millions of people are vaccinated against the coronavirus, ending an era of state border closures, shutdowns and sudden social controls.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is urging states and territories to accept a new outlook that puts a priority on the economic recovery, declaring the risk has changed since the tough restrictions of last year.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison: The 2020 response to COVID-19 must be different in 2021. Why? Because the risk has changed. Credit: Janie Barrett

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is also pushing for an end to the embarrassment of state border closures, while Victorias acting Premier, James Merlino, said the goal depended on the speed of the vaccine rollout.

The federal approach emphasises the strength of the economic recovery and means key industries such as travel and tourism will have to wait for further assistance rather than gaining immediate help to replace the $101 billion JobKeeper scheme when it stops at the end of this month.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! This is your last free article before you will be asked to subscribe.

Already have a paid subscription? Sign in
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
[March 09, 2021] ADoH SCIENTIFIC Teams With Closing the Gap in Healthcare To Launch Vaccine-Focused Public Health Partnership for Black Communities in the Carolinas

CHARLESTON, S.C., March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new study by ADoH SCIENTIFIC , a Charleston-based mental and behavioral health analytic assessment company, has found that Black Americans are significantly less likely to get a Covid-19 vaccination, and vaccine hesitancy is particularly prevalent in South Carolina and the Southeast. The growing body of data from ADoH SCIENTIFIC will be used by a consortium of South Carolina-based community organizations, including SCDHEC and Closing the Gap in Healthcare , to inform a public health education campaign called I Got It! in communities where vaccine hesitancy remains prevalent

The February 2021 ADoH Affective Health Pulse study, which surveyed a representative sample of 396 adults across five Southeastern States  South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee - found that only 19.3% of Black respondents in the Southeast said they were very likely to receive a Covid-19 vaccination, compared to 28.5% in a similar national survey conducted in January. By contrast, 50.7% of White respondents in the Southeast study, and 50.6% in the National study, said they were very likely to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. The study collected data via ADoH SCIENTIFICs Digital Affect Mirror technology, which uses adjustable-graphic images to quantify emotional states and other feelings. Ever since the Tuskegee experiments, Black communities have harbored a certain, justified suspicion of public health authorities, said Dr. Thaddeus John Bell, MD, CEO and Founder of Closing the Gap in Health Care, a Charleston-based non-profit organization that provides health education for African Americans and other underserved populations. Anything that helps us better understand peoples emotions and attitudes in the Black community will help us engage people, from the neighborhood businesses to the churches. Dr. Kylon Jerome Middleton, Senior Pastor at Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Charleston County Councilman - District 6, will also participate in the initiative along with other community leaders. The COVID-19 crisis is hurting all our communities, but not equally. It is more important now than ever that we clearly communicate the importance of taking the COVID-19 vaccine to comunities of color across the United States, but particularly in Black communities in South Carolina and the Southeast, Dr. Middleton said. ADoH SCIENTIFICs data shows that the Black communitys attitudes toward vaccination are hesitant at best. Now is the time to partner with and empower trusted voices in the Black community, including faith leaders, Black healthcare professionals and others, to amplify the message of being vaccinated and to minimize fear and doubt surrounding vaccination in an effort to build trust and save lives.



The ADoH Digital Affect Mirror technology used in the Pulse study allows for accurate, granular data collection for populations mental, emotional and behavioral health states at unprecedented scale, free from the biases and shortcomings of other psychological survey methods. The February 2021 survey is the second in a series of planned studies by ADoH SCIENTIFIC intended to track the national and state mental health levels along with vaccination attitudes over time in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fear is clearly a major driver of vaccine hesitancy, and not the only one, said Dr. Brian Sullivan, PsyD, ADoH SCIENTIFICs Chief Science Officer. Its critically important to understand the variety and intensities of feelings driving this hesitancy.

Among the findings from the February study: While 28.5% of African Americans in the National Sample responded very likely to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, only 19.3% of African Americans in the Southeastern Sample responded very likely.

19.5% of African Americans in the National Sample responded very unlikely to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, while 22.8% of African Americans in the Southeastern Sample responded very unlikely.

White respondents reported largely positive emotional responses to the prospect of vaccination, while Black respondents reported largely negative emotions.

Part of getting over this horrible pandemic is going to depend on understanding vaccine hesitancy and educating reluctant populations on the safety and efficacy of the current vaccine program, said Al Fasola Jr, Co-founder and CEO of ADoH SCIENTIFIC, LLC. The data from our ADoH Affective Health Pulse suggests that South Carolina and other states in the Southeast will face particular challenges overcoming vaccine hesitancy, and we hope our work within the community can help educate the public on these lifesaving medical interventions. The analytic insights from the recent Southeast study will be used to develop a multi-tier community outreach campaign targeted to Black South Carolinians called I GOT IT!, according to Tony Clark, Director of Community Outreach and Development at Closing the Gap in Healthcare. Our I GOT IT! campaign will harness the emotional insights from the Pulse study to dispel historical myths, engage the Black community, calm fears and inspire vaccine uptake, Clark said. We are currently working with SCDHEC and other organizations who care and want to be part of saving lives and reducing healthcare cost burdens. We are always looking for others to join this important mission. About ADoH SCIENTIFIC, LLC

ADoH SCIENTIFIC is a new data-driven mental and behavioral health analytic assessment company based in Charleston, SC. Using the companys patented ADoH Digital Affect Mirror technology, ADoH SCIENTIFIC allows mental and behavioral healthcare providers, insurers, employers and patients to more accurately track and predict outcomes according to their mental and emotional states, providing a much-needed tool for understanding whole-person wellness. For more information, visit adohscientific.com

On Twitter: @ADoH_SCIENTIFIC About Closing the Gap in Healthcare

Closing the Gap in Healthcares mission is to decrease health disparities and increase the health literacy of African Americans and the underserved communities throughout the Carolinas. The organization accomplishes this by providing health education programs that promote wellness and healthy lifestyles and hopes to increase the number of African American health providers in the state of South Carolina. A long-term strategic partnership has now been developed with ADoH SCIENTIFIC, LLC to bring new analytic insights on emotions, feelings and behavioral health of African Americans to the forefront to better inform our outreach and engagement to reduce all health disparities. For more information, visit: http://closingthegapinhealthcare.org Media Contact:

Hugh Moore

Broadsheet Communications

202-471-0661

hugh@broadsheetcomms.com A graph accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/56975fe5-ab99-4924-9a2c-6048c3e62602



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Spring is the best time of the year to visit Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces where travelers stroll in pine forests, explore local culture and enjoy the cold breeze there.

A view of Bien Ho Lake.  Photos: Nhan Tam

The first destination we visited was the old pine forest which is 20 kilometers from Pleiku City. Locals named a path lined by hundred-year-old pine trees in the forest in Nghia Hung Commune Love Street because of its romantic setting. Strolling on the one-kilometer street in the warm spring sunshine and taking some photos with these ancient trees were the first great experiences to gain.

On the left of the street is a vast tea hill that used to be part of the first tea plantation in the French colonial time. We walked on the tea hill with bare foot and picked young tea buds, totally immersing ourselves in nature.

We then walked to Buu Minh Pagoda at the end of the Love Street. In fact, the religious complex surrounded by tea and coffee fields is the first of its kind in Gia Lai Province.

On the second day, we travelled to Mang Den Town in Kon Tum Province, which is 1,200 meters above sea level. The town is home to Dak Ke, also known as Toong Ro Poong Lake covering around three hectares. The big lake is associated with a legend of seven lakes and three cascades in Mang Den.

Given the all-year-round cool weather, Mang Den can be called a land of agricultural products. E Ban Farm in Mang Canh Commune behind Pa Sy Cascade is a place where travelers may witness how these products are planted and harvested. Moreover, the 30-hectare farm features mesmerizing scenery as it is sandwiched between two hills adjacent to a primary forest.

On the following day, we visited Bien Ho, a.k.a. TNung Lake. We travelers were enchanted by the crystal clear water giving charming views along a path leading to Bien Ho. We fully enjoyed the poetic beauty of Bien Ho when standing on stone steps at the end of the path. Since the statue of Avalokiteshvara was built in 2018 there, more and more tourists who are pilgrims have visited this destination.

Charnel house at Kep Village.

Aside from the greenery spaces, local culture is one of the highlights in the two Central Highlands provinces. Our tour guide told us that to know more about the culture and rituals of ethnic groups, visitors should spend time in local charnel houses. During this leg of the trip, we visited Kep Villages charnel houses. There, we were impressed by many statues of persons with sorrowful face, pregnant women, moms carrying children on their backs, and the like. Jrai ethnic people believe that death is not the end, but the start of a new life. Thats why the charnel house has such statues symbolizing the new life.

The year of the death and the year of the corpses removal are inscribed on the charnel house. During nine years before a charnel house is removed, family members of the dead person would visit the charnel house, prepare daily meals to worship him or her and keep the charnel house clean. Every month, they have to worship the deceased person and have a drink with him or her at the grave hut.

Apart from this unique cultural custom, Yaly hydropower plant and the Wooden Church were also worth an exploration.

Wooden Church in Kon Tum Province.



The Wooden Church, a.k.a. the Kon Tum Cathedral, in Kon Tum Province was built in 1913. It is a wooden structure whose architecture mixes Roman style with that of Ba Na ethnic group. It took us a half day to take picture as every corner of the church has their own beauty.

Meanwhile, Yaly hydropower plant by the Sesan River is the biggest one in the Central Highlands region. The way leading to the hydropower plant offered fantastic views of mountain ranges stretching to the horizon. The main entrance of the plant opened up a wonderful panorama of a large reservoir as well as the Sesan River beneath.

It was such an interesting experience when traveling in the 600-meter tunnel passing through a mountain, which is in fact part of a modern hydropower plant. The underground tunnel is home to four giant generators and a ventilation system operating round the clock.

Then, we decided to finish this trip by traveling to the peak of Ham Rong Mountain. Unfortunately, we could not reach the peak because entering the mountainous area there was not permitted. SGT

Gia Lai province: Land of beautiful untouched nature Gia Lai province is an ideal destination for travelers wanting to explore the wild nature and the unique culture of the Central Highlands ethnic groups who are known for their gong space.

Buu Minh pagoda  Where ancient meets modern Located in the central highlands province of Gia Lai, Buu Minh pagoda has become a popular destination among visitors.
New Orleans police say a 3-year-old girl who was first thought to have been injured by gunfire while out for a walk with her father actually shot herself accidentally with a gun she found at home.

Officers arrested the girl's father, Barry Frelix, 41, on Tuesday, and booked him with second-degree cruelty to a juvenile, obstruction of justice and illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

The shooting occurred Feb. 25. Frelix reported to authorities that he and his daughter were walking in the 6000 block of Downman Road just before 11 p.m. when he overheard gunshots, according to authorities.

Frelix took her to the hospital in a private vehicle. The 3-year-old suffered a gunshot wound to her hand as well as a second graze wound, NOPD said. She is expected to recover.

But detectives investigating the shooting later determined that Frelix had not been honest about what happened to his daughter. They believe the girl found a firearm inside her residence which discharged, injuring her, according to police.

Frelix was being held Tuesday without bond at Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans.
Union bosses have admitted their concerns about coronavirus testing capacity in schools were wrong after pupils returned to classrooms across England yesterday.

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, had expressed concerns about how mass on-site testing would work with the Government's 'big bang' reopening.

But last night she said the return to schools appeared to have 'gone very, very calmly' and the use of rapid lateral flow tests seemed to be 'going well'.

She said that 'maybe this is one occasion where Gavin Williamson is right and I am wrong'.

Pupils returned to classrooms across England yesterday as part of the Government's 'big bang' reopening of schools

Union bosses said 'maybe this is one occasion where Gavin Williamson is right' after a row over Covid testing capacity

Pupils at primary and secondary schools in England began their return yesterday with the Government banking on mass-testing to ensure a safe reopening.

Secondary school pupils are being asked to take three voluntary Covid-19 tests on-site and one at home over the first fortnight.

They will then be sent home-testing kits to use twice-weekly. Primary school children are not being asked to carry out Covid-19 tests.

Some unions had previously called for home testing kits to be supplied in order to avoid schools being turned into 'field hospitals'.

Ms Bousted was asked during an interview on Times Radio what she had picked up about how the first day back had gone.

She said: 'Very good news, actually. The reports we are getting is that it has gone very, very calmly.

'The children are delighted to be back, the teachers are really pleased to see them.

'The lateral flow testing to be going well in schools and seems to be going very calmly.

'And the new thing in secondary schools is mask wearing, generally that appears to be going well as well.'

Told that she and other union bosses had previously expressed concerns about testing capacity in schools, Ms Bousted said: 'I think that school leaders have done a fantastic job in enabling that to happen.

'They haven't been helped by government but as so often during this pandemic, they stepped into the void, they have found the personnel to do it, they have found the space to do it and they are just making it happen.

'I suspect also that because they were doing, in secondary schools, the lateral flow testing when they were open for a smaller group of pupils, they got some experience in doing it.'

Times Radio host John Pienaar suggested that perhaps Ms Bousted had been wrong on testing and Education Secretary Mr Williamson had been right.

She said: 'Maybe I was... but maybe this is one occasion where Gavin Williamson is right and I am wrong. As you know John, if I am wrong I'll always admit it.'

She added: 'In this particular instance I thought that the testing was going to cause far more difficulties than it has done.

'The people I credit for that though are the school leaders and the admin teams who are just making it happen.'

Her comments came as a survey suggested that more than half of secondary schools and colleges in England had seen nearly all their students opt-in for voluntary on-site coronavirus tests as they returned to class.

A snap poll conducted by the Association of School and College Leaders of more than 700 secondary school and college leaders, found 54 per cent reported a take-up of between 90 per cent and 100 per cent for rapid Covid-19 tests.

Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) have seen a take-up of between 80 per cent and 89 per cent while take-up was below 60 per cent in only six per cent of schools.
Right on Times does not disclose any partnership with Epoch, nor do the two websites share a unique digital identifier. But when it launched in October, its articles were posted on social media by Epoch employees. Right on Times also had a prominent ad campaign on Epoch properties, and it included many articles from Epoch properties on its service. Those actions led disinformation researchers, including those at the Global Disinformation Index, to conclude there was coordination.

Epoch Times said that Right on Times was one of its advertisers, and that Youmaker was an independent business partner. Sagebook, the company said, was being phased out. (The Sagebook site was no longer accessible as of last week.)

The premise of your article is incorrect, the company said in an email. The Epoch Times does not deal in conspiracy theories. We pride ourselves on rigorous, fact-based reporting, which has attracted a large and rapidly growing audience.

The largest media brand run by the Epoch Media Group remains The Epoch Times, which regularly publishes pro-Trump misinformation. In the past year, articles from The Epoch Times garnered 123.7 million likes and shares on social media, according to the social media analysis tool Buzzsumo. It has tens of millions of social media followers and has become a true rival of successful conservative outlets like The Daily Caller and Breitbart News. It now has dozens of international versions.

In 2019 and 2020, Facebook alleged links between The Epoch Times and brands including The BL and Truth Media, saying they were all part of the Falun Gong orbit. The brands operated hundreds of accounts that automatically published posts on Facebook at a rapid clip about conservative ideology and the 2020 election, as well as misinformation about the coronavirus. Eventually, Facebook ruled that many of those accounts violated its coordinated inauthentic behavior policies. The company removed them in two separate takedowns.

We have clarified repeatedly that The Epoch Times has no relationship with The BL and Truth Media, Epoch Media said.

Epoch began to make use of the alternative social media platforms, like Sagebook and Youmaker, in late 2020. Youmaker draws about 1.5 million unique visitors per month, according to data from the website analytics company SimilarWeb. Sagebook attracted 38,000 monthly visitors and Right on Times sees 15,000, according to SimilarWeb data.
Military delegates leave after China's rubber-stamp legislatures conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 8, 2021. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

The End of Chongqings Six Tigers and Their Ambitions

Chongqing, the most important city in southwestern China, is the fourth municipality directly under the Central Government of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.

Since CCP leader Xi Jinping started his anti-corruption campaign against political opponents, six tigers have been sacked in Chongqing. Tigers refers to corrupt officials at the vice-provincial (ministerial) level and above.

Deng Huilin, the former deputy mayor and director of public security of Chongqing, is the latest.

Chongqings six tigers were all promoted and reinstated while being corrupt. Deng is an excellent and typical example. He was handpicked by Xi after two Chongqing municipal party secretaries and three public security directors were down. Sure enough, in making their way to the top, these communist officials have a common path. Deng has been corrupt since 24 years ago as a vice director of a budget and finance office.

Lets take a brief look at the six tigers in Chongqing.

Bo Xilai

Bo Xilai was once a candidate for CCP leader over Xi Jinping. Bo failed because he was too ostentatious, while Xi won for his seemingly simple and low-key personality.

Bo had displayed his ambition when he was the mayor of Dalian, northeast of China. He built a Xinghai Square twice the size of Tiananmen Square. In the center of the square, he built a Chinese Huabiao, a column that symbolizes imperial authority, taller than the one on Tiananmen Square. He also cast his own footprints in bronze on the edge of the square.

Bo worked hard to reach his goal. He paved his way through then CCP dictator Jiang Zemin. In the 1999 centennial celebration of Dalian, Bo went to Beijing to invite Jiang and his family to Dalian for 10 days and celebrated Jiangs birthday on Aug. 17.

After that, Bos career took off. At the 17th National Congress in Nov. 2007, he became a member of the Politburo and served as secretary of the Chongqing municipal party committee.

Disgraced former Politburo member Bo Xilai attends the closing session of the National Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 13, 2012. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

Bos goal was the Standing Committee of the Politburo at the 18th National Congress in 2012. In Chongqing, Bo started a campaign of sing the red [song], defeat the dark [underworld] and vowed that he and his family would never engage in corruption.

However, his imperial dream was broken on Feb. 6, 2012 when Wang Lijun, the former police chief and deputy mayor of Chongqing tried to defect to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu. On March 15, Bo was arrested while attending a meeting of the National Peoples Congress in Beijing.

On Sept. 22, 2013, Bo was sentenced to life imprisonment for bribery, corruption, and abuse of power. Currently, Bo is serving his sentence in Qincheng Prison, Beijing.

Sun Zhengcai

At the 18th National Congress in Nov. 2012, Sun Zhengcai and Hu Chunhua were both picked as members of the Politburo. Sun and Hu became the only two born in the 1960s of the 25 Politburo members. Ordinarily, Sun and Hu could be promoted to the Standing Committee of the Politburo at the 19th National Congress. Among them, one could be a candidate for prime minister and the other for general secretary. Soon after the 18th National Congress, Sun also served as secretary of the Chongqing municipal party committee.

Sun also had his imperial ambitions. According to Caixin Weekly, Liu Fengzhou, Suns longtime mistress, had a Taoist fortune-telling based on Suns date of birth. She was told that Sun had a destiny of a higher ranking and thus invited a set of imperial robes to give to Sun. A person close to Sun said that an empty room in Suns house was specifically designated for the robes. Sun would worship the robe whenever he was at home.

So what is the meaning of imperial robes? Theyre only for the emperor!

Since Sun became a member of the Politburo, Xis tiger hunt has gunned down numerous big tigers between 2013 and June 2017, such as Zhou Yongkang, former member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Political and Legal Committee, Xu Caihou, former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Guo Boxiong, former director of the General Office. Sun should have behaved after so many high officials being sacked.

Prior to the 19th National Congress, Sun was investigated on suspicion of serious violation of discipline on July 24, 2017.

On May 8, 2018, Sun was sentenced to life imprisonment by Tianjin First Intermediate Court for accepting bribes of more than 170 million yuan ($26.25 million).

Wang Lijun

Wang Lijun was Bos hardcore confidant in Liaoning province. After Bo came to power in Chongqing and struck hard at the underworld, Wang was his significant aide.

However, in January 2012, Bo and Wang turned against each other over a murder case.

On Nov. 15, 2011, Bos wife Gu Kailai killed the British businessman Neil Heywood. It was said that Heywood died of cyanide poisoning. Gu went to Wang and talked about the incident. Wang quietly recorded the conversation. He told Gu to relax as if nothing happened.

As the deputy mayor and police chief of Chongqing, Wang had his subordinates handle the case. As a result, Heywood was found to have died of over-drinking and his body was cremated without forensic examination.

Gu became restless because of the killing. The conflict between Gu and Wang intensified over time. On Jan. 28, 2012, Wang told Bo that Gu was suspected of murdering Heywood. The next day, Bo slapped Wangs face in front of Wangs subordinates. Fearing revenge, on Feb. 6 Wang fled to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, near Chongqing.

The United States refused to provide asylum to Wang and turned him in to the CCP on Feb. 7.

On Sept. 24, 2012, Wang was sentenced to 15 years in jail on the charges of defection, abuse of power, and bribe-taking.

He Ting

He Ting is a crony of Zhou Yongkang, former member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Political and Legal Committee.

Well-known reporter Jiang Weiping once revealed that after Wangs defection in early 2012, Zhou recommended He to act as the new police chief and deputy mayor of Chongqing. It was to cover up the shady happenings in Chongqing.

On Oct. 9, 2017, Xis anti-graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), announced that He had been expelled from the party, removed from his post, and retired early.

According to the CCDI notice, He wasted public money, abused his power for his personal gain, engaged in superstitious activities in seeking promotions, accepted bribes, and violated proceedings of judicial activities.

Deng Huilin

In July 2017, Deng Huilin was transferred to Chongqing from Beijing and served as secretary of the party committee of the Public Security Bureau. In August, he became the police chief. In January 2018, he concurrently served as the deputy mayor of Chongqing.

In June 2020, Deng was investigated on suspected violation of discipline and law. On Jan. 4, 2021 Deng was expelled from the party and his post.

On Feb. 23, at a special warning education meeting for the main leading cadres of Chongqing at the Party School of the Municipal Party Committee, Chen Miner, secretary of the Chongqing municipal party committee, listed Dengs political crimes of manipulation, greed, corruption, and collusion by engaging in money, sex and power deals.

Zhu Mingguo

From 2001 to 2006, Zhu Mingguo was the police chief of Chongqing.

On Nov. 28, 2014, Zhu was investigated on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law. On Nov. 11, 2016, Zhu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes of more than 141 million yuan ($21.7 million) and owning another 91 million yuan ($14 million) from unknown sources.

According to Chinese reports, in just one of his mansions, investigators found a large amount of gold and banknotes that took more than 10 vehicles to load. Zhu also owned 14 fake passports, six of which were for women, and eight work passports for traveling to and from Hong Kong and Macau. According to insiders, Zhu had nine children with different women and the CCDI also stated one of his crimes was a serious violation of the family planning policy.

After being arrested, Zhu once said: I have been the No. 1 man for 35 years. My experience is that if the No. 1 man speaks, basically no one opposes it.  After you open Pandoras Box for the first time, for example, if you get 100,000 for the first time, then you will receive 100,000 again, and then 1 million, and so on. The 1 million and 10 million will only differ by a zero. After this step, without external control or organizational intervention, its not easy to stop by yourself.

Zhu spoke the truth about the communist regime. The corrupt organization itself is at the root of the entire corrupt officialdom. The demise of the CCP is just a matter of time.

Wang Youqun graduated with a Ph.D. in law from the Renmin University of China. He once worked as a copywriter for Wei Jianxing (1931-2015), a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee from 1997 to 2002.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
New Delhi, March 9 : Ed-tech platform Vedantu on Tuesday said it aims to hire 2,500 employees in the next three months across the board, like product, technology, academics and business, to make deeper inroads into smaller towns and cities.

Currently, the company employs 6,000 people and the strength will grow to 8,500 after the expansion.

According to the company, the new hires will be at entry and mid-level from India's premium B-schools and engineering institutes.

"With the boom in online learning adoption, we aim to hire highly driven and inspired individuals who can become a part of the Vedantu mission. We are further expanding our presence in tier 2 and 3 markets," said Vamsi Krishna, CEO, and Co-Founder, Vedantu.

The e-learning platform last month acquired Instasolv, a doubt-solving app for students from Class 6 to 12 for science, mathematics, IITJEE and NEET, for an undisclosed sum.

According to the company, the acquisition will enhance its doubt-solving and reinforce presence in tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.

This was Vedantu's first acquisition in an EdTech company to strengthen its focus in the instant doubt-solving space.

Last year, Vedantu invested $2 million as part of a pre-series A funding in Instasolv.

Vedantu has witnessed six to seven times growth with 75 million hours of classes delivered across its platform last year as millions stayed home.

The number of students attending Live classes on the platform grew to 6.3 million across the K-12 category and competitive exams such as JEE and NEET, the company informed.
[March 09, 2021] CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF Begins Trading on the TSX with World's Lowest Management Fee of any Bitcoin ETF

CI Global Asset Management ("CI GAM") announced that the CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF ("BTCX" or the "ETF") begins trading today on the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") under the tickers BTCX.B and BTCX.U. BTCX's management fee of just 0.40% represents the lowest management fee of any bitcoin ETF in the world today. "As market validation of cryptocurrencies continues to accelerate, we are offering investors a secure and lower-cost way to participate in the bitcoin market," said Kurt MacAlpine, Chief Executive Officer of CI Financial Corp., the parent company of CI GAM. "We believe that the CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF will be investors' preferred means of holding and trading bitcoin because it offers the lowest management fee of any bitcoin fund on the market and is backed by the diverse and extensive management capabilities of both CI GAM, one of Canada's leading investment managers, and Galaxy Digital, a world leader in digital asset fund management." BTCX is designed to provide investors with a convenient way to gain exposure to bitcoin through an institutional-quality fund platform. BTCX invests directly in bitcoin with its holdings priced using the Bloomberg (News - Alert) Galaxy Bitcoin Index (the "BTC"), which is designed to measure the performance of a single bitcoin traded in U.S. dollars. The BTC index is owned and administered by Bloomberg Index Services Ltd. BTCX.B will trade in Canadian dollars (unhedged) and BCTX.U will trade in U.S. dollars. CI GAM is the manager of the ETF and Galaxy Digital Capital Management LP ("GDAM") serves as the bitcoin sub-advisor for the ETF. As sub-advisor, GDAM executes bitcoin trading on behalf of the ETF. GDAM is the Asset Management arm of Galaxy Digital, a diversified financial services firm dedicated to the digital asset and blockchain technology sector. The GDAM team has deep institutional experience managing third-party capital across traditional and alternative asset classes, strong relationships with institutional service providers and counterparties, and exceptional connectivity throughout the blockchain and digital assets ecosystem. "Bitcoin adoption has hit a tipping point and investors don't want to sit on the sidelines," said Mike Novogratz, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Galaxy Digital. "The CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF offers investors the most affordable way to gain exposure to bitcoin of any exchange-traded product on the market. As we continue our work to institutionalize the digital assets sector, CI and Galaxy are aligned in our commitment to drive innovation in product development and portfolio solutions for investors seeking exposure to this increasingly in-demand asset class." CI GAM is building on its leadership in digital currencies, having launched the CI Galaxy Bitcoin Fund (TSX: BTCG) in December 2020, which it intends to merge into the ETF, and has obtained a rceipt for the preliminary prospectus of CI Galaxy Ethereum ETF (the "Ether ETF"), which, once approved, is expected to be the first ETF in the world to invest directly in Ether, the cryptocurrency built on the Ethereum blockchain. CI GAM has also filed and obtained receipts for the preliminary prospectuses of CI Bitcoin and CI Ether Funds, which are mutual fund versions with the same investment objectives as BTCX and the Ether ETF, respectively.



Benefits of the CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF include: Lowest management fee of 0.40%

A streamlined means of accessing bitcoin

Storage of bitcoin in a segregated cold storage system, protected in accordance with industry-leading protocol

Leveraging the experience of GDAM's veteran portfolio management team to execute the purchase and sale of bitcoin

Ability to conveniently trade units correspondent to real-time changes in value

Can be held in registered plans like TFSA and RRSP. More information is available at ci.com/bitcoin.

About Galaxy Digital Galaxy Digital Capital Management LP is an affiliate of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. (TSX: GLXY) ("Galaxy Digital"). Galaxy Digital is a diversified financial services and investment management company in the digital asset, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology sector, and currently operates four distinct business lines, which include: Trading, Asset Management, Principal Investments and Investment Banking. Galaxy Digital's CEO and Founder is Michael Novogratz. Galaxy Digital is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Chicago, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands (registered office) and New Jersey. Additional information about Galaxy Digital's businesses and products is available on www.galaxydigital.io. About CI Global Asset Management CI Global Asset Management is one of Canada's largest investment management companies. It offers a wide range of investment products and services and is on the Web at www.ci.com. CI GAM is a subsidiary of CI Financial Corp. (TSX: CIX, NYSE: CIXX), an independent company offering global asset management and wealth management advisory services with approximately C$231.8 billion in total assets as at January 31, 2021. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with an investment in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Please read the prospectus before investing. Important information about the ETF is contained in its prospectus. ETFs are not guaranteed; their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. You will usually pay brokerage fees to your dealer if you purchase or sell units of an ETF on recognized Canadian exchanges. If the units are purchased or sold on these Canadian exchanges, investors may pay more than the current net asset value when buying units of the ETF and may receive less than the current net asset value when selling them. This communication is provided as a general source of information and should not be considered personal, legal, accounting, tax or investment advice, or construed as an endorsement or recommendation of any entity or security discussed. Individuals should seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding any particular investment. Investors should consult their professional advisors prior to implementing any changes to their investment strategies. Certain statements in this document are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements ("FLS") are statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or that include words such as "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," or "estimate," or other similar expressions. Statements that look forward in time or include anything other than historical information are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results, actions or events could differ materially from those set forth in the FLS. FLS are not guarantees of future performance and are by their nature based on numerous assumptions. Although the FLS contained herein are based upon what CI Global Asset Management believes to be reasonable assumptions, CI Global Asset Management cannot assure that actual results will be consistent with these FLS. The reader is cautioned to consider the FLS carefully and not to place undue reliance on FLS. Unless required by applicable law, it is not undertaken, and specifically disclaimed that there is any intention or obligation to update or revise FLS, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. CI Global Asset Management is a registered business name of CI Investments Inc. CI Investments Inc. 2021. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005349/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
United States Senator Bill Hagerty on Monday announced new internship opportunities for students to serve in his Washington, D.C. and Tennessee offices for the summer.

I am pleased to offer Tennessee students this educational opportunity to take part in and learn about the legislative branch of government, Senator Hagerty said. This internship will offer students a first-hand experience on the inner workings of a U.S. Senate office, not only here in Washington as I work to advance important legislation and policies, but also back home in my Tennessee offices as my staff travels the state meeting with citizens.

Anyone interested in learning more about this opportunity can visit Senator Hagertys website for more information. Qualified candidates should be a high school graduate, at least 18 years of age by the time the internship begins, have a strong work ethic, organizational and communication skills, and a positive attitude. Students pursuing post-high school education in any disciplinary field are encouraged to apply.

The summer internship program is carried out in two sessions. The first session runs from May 10-June 18. The second session runs from June 21-July 30.

The internship application can also be accessed here. Positions are limited. Deadline to apply is April 15.
Ghazipur, March 9 : Apart from intensifying the agitation at Delhi's borders, farmers are now trying to strengthen the stir against the Union farm laws on social media platforms as well.

To achieve this, a blueprint has been prepared at the Ghazipur border. This is aimed at strengthening the stir on the social media and to take the message regarding the agitation to the people.

This plan of the stir going digital was discussed on Tuesday at the protest site, while a list has also been prepared in addition to the items required for such work and whether outsiders and professionals should be entrusted with the responsibility of going digital was also discussed.

In addition to monitoring by social media managers, video editors, digital content, a list of important people for programming, boosting, etc. has also been prepared. Apart from this, some technical items were also discussed.

Efforts are also being made at the border as to what content should be uploaded so that it can be put across to as many people as possible at the right time and the farmers' agitation could be strengthened further.

Dharmendra Malik, the media in-charge of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) gave information on making the farmers' stir vocal on digital platforms, "Lakhs of people reached the protest site and shared their mobile numbers. How does one circulate official information to those who want to connect directly with BKU spokesperson Rakesh Tikait? Digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube would be used in which a person would be free to use the social media platforms of their choice, and would get all the information about the stir through that medium." "Apart from this, it was also discussed in this meeting about how to link the various media platforms at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders," Malik further said.

Will people be hired for running the farmers' agitation digitally? In response to this, Malik says,"All these persons would be hired as volunteers. We do not have the requisite money and we do not accept donations. Whatever protest is going on is run by the people. If the media platform is strengthened, it will be done by the public or sons of farmers." Farmers have been protesting against the various newly enacted Union farm laws since 26 November, 2020, at various borders of the national Capital.
The Porsche driver accused of filming a dying police officer in the moments after a fatal Eastern Freeway crash wants to resolve charges laid against him over a separate incident in which he allegedly threatened to kill a woman and put a noose around her neck.

Richard Pusey, 42, was charged with speeding, conduct endangering serious injury, possessing a drug of dependence and outraging public decency over allegations he used his phone to film Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor as she lay dying following the freeway crash on April 22 last year.

Richard Pusey.

Leading Senior Constable Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King and constables Glen Humphris and Josh Prestney were killed in the incident.

Mr Pusey faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning over allegations he threatened to kill a woman and put a noose around her neck in Fitzroy on December 27.
Courtesy Jamie Gold

En espanol | It's been a year since the coronavirus swept across the world, people went into quarantine, offices went dark and the world shut down. As COVID-19 vaccines roll out, many say the promise of some normalcy gives them the mental strength to hold out a bit longer  even if they don't yet have access to a shot.

Avid hiker Jamie Gold, 60, is busily training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, a trip she's already postponed once. While she hasn't gotten the vaccine, she is hopeful she'll get it in time to make her momentous trek in December. The possibility of that trip provides something exciting to anticipate.

"I'm trying to patiently wait and stay as safe as possible, she says.

Gold is not alone in her feelings. Even those who have not yet received the vaccine are making a mental shift for the first time in a year. They're planning reunions with friends and family, booking travel, and anticipating the cautious resumption of daily activities. There's a feeling that an end of some sort is in sight as they wait their turn for a dose.

During the pandemic, many people have felt as though the goalposts have been getting moved backwards over and over again, with little hope of returning to some semblance of normal life, says Summer Thompson, a family psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner. The vaccine is an infusion of optimism.
Women of Yao ethnic group perform during a Yao ethnic dance competition held to celebrate International Women's Day in Jiangyong County, Yongzhou City, central China's Hunan Province, March 7, 2021. (Photo by Tian Rurui/Guangming Picture)

3

1

[ Editor: SRQ ]
2021-03-09

Maeci

Today, Minister Di Maio is on a mission to the Republic of Cyprus. On the agenda:

- Meeting with the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades

- Meeting with the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides

- Press statements

- Meeting with the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations and Head of UNFICYP, Elizabeth Spehar
A delegation from the Syrian Democratic Council has discussed the Syrian war on a visit to Cairo, writes North Press.

On Sunday, officials from the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) visited Amr Moussa, former Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, in the Egyptian capital Cairo to review several issues. Foremost among them was the model of the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES), and ways to solve the Syrian war.

The SDC website stated that the officials Sihanouk Dibo and Leila Moussa visited Amr Moussa in Cairo.

The SDC added that the model of the AANES and the Turkish threats were discussed during the visit.

The visit focused on the vision of the SDC to solve the Syrian crisis according to the AANES model that safeguards the unity of Syria and the integrity of its territory.

The current visit is not the first of its kind; rather, it was preceded by several visits, the most prominent of which was in October 2019.

The SDC pointed out that the delegation noted the role of the Arab League in resolving the Syrian crisis and the participation of the SDC in the Syrian political solution.

Last year, the SDC held meetings with Russian officials and Western countries, most notably the United States, and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Peoples Will Party.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Addressing the media here on Monday, Owaisi termed Yogis comment on secularism vahiyat (obnoxious) and said this was an insult to the Constitution, our founding fathers and all those members of the Constituent Assembly. (Photo: Twitter @aimim_national)

Hyderabad: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi has hit back at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for the latters statement on secularism that it prevented India from gaining world recognition.

Addressing the media here on Monday, Owaisi termed Yogis comment on secularism vahiyat (obnoxious) and said this was an insult to the Constitution, our founding fathers and all those members of the Constituent Assembly.

Owaisi asked the CM: Petrol, diesel and LPG prices have gone up, jobs are not provided and women are upset. Is it all because the country practised secularism? He asked whether freedom of thought guaranteed in the preamble of the Constitution did not reflect secularism. I ask whether Articles 14, 19, 22, 25, 26, 29 and 30 do not reflect secular ideas and values?

"You are doing Bhumi Pooja in the name of secularism. You being a prime minister or chief minister perform Bhoomi Pooja, are you doing this for upkeep of secularism? Does the government have any religion? India has no religion, it never will. India believes in all religions, it even respects those who do not follow any religion. We say the majority of the people here are secular, that's why India is secular."

The MIM chief said the Sangh Parivar speaks of secularism with a forked tongue. It was never ready to recognise the diversity of India. On odd days, they say India is secular because the majority of Indians are secular. On even days, they say that secularism has prevented our traditions from winning global recognition.

Owaisi said the Sangh Parivar hailed the Constitution where it suited them to gain power. When they got power, their real face emerged. Now the chief minister of UP says that secularism is itself a threat to progress and claims that India is not getting its rightful place in the world because of secularism.
Blog Archive Apr 2010 (22) May 2010 (25) Jun 2010 (8) Jul 2010 (12) Aug 2010 (18) Sep 2010 (19) Oct 2010 (29) Nov 2010 (30) Dec 2010 (18) Jan 2011 (13) Feb 2011 (21) Mar 2011 (23) Apr 2011 (19) May 2011 (31) Jun 2011 (36) Jul 2011 (46) Aug 2011 (26) Sep 2011 (12) Oct 2011 (15) Nov 2011 (17) Dec 2011 (7) Jan 2012 (18) Feb 2012 (4) Mar 2012 (12) Apr 2012 (18) May 2012 (10) Jun 2012 (21) Jul 2012 (8) Aug 2012 (15) Sep 2012 (7) Oct 2012 (17) Nov 2012 (20) Dec 2012 (10) Jan 2013 (58) Feb 2013 (59) Mar 2013 (60) Apr 2013 (98) May 2013 (135) Jun 2013 (204) Jul 2013 (293) Aug 2013 (351) Sep 2013 (363) Oct 2013 (348) Nov 2013 (374) Dec 2013 (442) Jan 2014 (547) Feb 2014 (476) Mar 2014 (526) Apr 2014 (527) May 2014 (469) Jun 2014 (408) Jul 2014 (472) Aug 2014 (522) Sep 2014 (443) Oct 2014 (472) Nov 2014 (497) Dec 2014 (536) Jan 2015 (539) Feb 2015 (520) Mar 2015 (582) Apr 2015 (658) May 2015 (679) Jun 2015 (673) Jul 2015 (728) Aug 2015 (803) Sep 2015 (923) Oct 2015 (924) Nov 2015 (802) Dec 2015 (791) Jan 2016 (782) Feb 2016 (835) Mar 2016 (929) Apr 2016 (866) May 2016 (947) Jun 2016 (1044) Jul 2016 (882) Aug 2016 (1035) Sep 2016 (967) Oct 2016 (918) Nov 2016 (854) Dec 2016 (885) Jan 2017 (881) Feb 2017 (777) Mar 2017 (897) Apr 2017 (872) May 2017 (851) Jun 2017 (851) Jul 2017 (971) Aug 2017 (1040) Sep 2017 (998) Oct 2017 (1144) Nov 2017 (1046) Dec 2017 (838) Jan 2018 (873) Feb 2018 (769) Mar 2018 (885) Apr 2018 (809) May 2018 (827) Jun 2018 (820) Jul 2018 (840) Aug 2018 (854) Sep 2018 (844) Oct 2018 (852) Nov 2018 (870) Dec 2018 (912) Jan 2019 (919) Feb 2019 (827) Mar 2019 (957) Apr 2019 (913) May 2019 (1007) Jun 2019 (935) Jul 2019 (950) Aug 2019 (936) Sep 2019 (910) Oct 2019 (920) Nov 2019 (874) Dec 2019 (908) Jan 2020 (942) Feb 2020 (849) Mar 2020 (898) Apr 2020 (848) May 2020 (822) Jun 2020 (789) Jul 2020 (819) Aug 2020 (858) Sep 2020 (841) Oct 2020 (873) Nov 2020 (812) Dec 2020 (780) Jan 2021 (765) Feb 2021 (716) Mar 2021 (819) Apr 2021 (805) May 2021 (815) Jun 2021 (29)
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 21:41:33|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIRUT, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Tuesday that Lebanon adheres to its rights for compensation over environmental and economic damage caused by a recent oil spill that reached Lebanon's shores.

Aoun's remarks came during his meeting at Baabda Palace with Najat Rochdi, UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon.

Aoun handed Rochdi a copy of the initial report prepared by Lebanon on the damage caused by the spill, after a field and aerial survey that was conducted for Lebanese waters.

"Lebanon will not give up on its rights for compensation, especially that the country is still suffering from the repercussions of the oil spill which resulted from the Israeli bombing in July 2006," Aoun said.

The Israeli air forces bombed in 2006 a thermal power station in southern Lebanon's Jiyeh, causing fuel spill which resulted in an oil slick covering 170 km of coastline. Enditem
[Read more on Teen Vogue editor resigning]

A group of Teen Vogue staff members raised concerns on Monday over decade-old racist tweets by their new editor in chief, Alexi McCammond.

Ms. McCammond, 27, a political reporter for Axios and a contributor for MSNBC and NBC, was named the top editor of the Conde Nast publication on Friday. Over the weekend, offensive tweets she had sent as a teenager in 2011 were recirculated on social media.

The tweets were originally uncovered in 2019, and Ms. McCammond apologized for them at the time, saying: I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended. I have since deleted those tweets as they do not reflect my views or who I am today.

In a note posted to Twitter on Monday night, a group of more than 20 Teen Vogue staff members said they had written a letter to Conde Nast management condemning Ms. McCammonds past racist and homophobic tweets.
Missing Paducah Teen Located

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - A missing juvenile has been found.The Paducah Police Department on Wednesday said Rochauna Welch has been located and is in good health.The 15-year-old was reported missing on Tuesday.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
According to Amazons latest financial disclosures, the giant international conglomerate recorded unprecedented profits and revenue in the last three months of 2020, as the pandemic sent its sales soaring, and the company continued expanding its operations around the globe.

In these disclosures, made available last month, Amazon reported a fourth-quarter profit of $7.2 billion, more than double what was expected by analysts. This raised its 2020 full-year profits to $21.3 billion, the highest level in company history. This compared to $17.4 billion in 2019 and $13.2 billion in 2018.

For hundreds of millions of people, the coronavirus pandemic has been an extreme hardship and an economic disaster, punctuated by funerals of loved ones and other tragedies. But for the corporate-financial oligarchy in control of giant corporations like Amazon, it has been a cash bonanza like nothing they have ever seen before.

In this Thursday April 16, 2020 file photo, The Amazon logo is seen in Douai, northern France. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler, File)

Amazon posted $125.6 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, up 44 percent from the same quarter the previous year. While Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing arm, accounted for 63 percent of 2020 profits, Amazons retail operations made up the vast majority of its sales, which totaled $386 billion last year.

This is the same company that viciously canceled its measly $2 per hour coronavirus hazard pay for workers at the end of May of last year. The huge profits now revealed to have been raked in by the company vindicate the sentiments of workers at the time, including one worker who told the World Socialist Web Site, They can more than afford to let us keep it permanently.

Indeed, to put Amazons profits in perspective, dividing the $21.3 billion in full-year earnings from 2020 by the global workforce comes out to over $16,000 per worker. In other words, the company could have written a check for $16,000 last year to each and every one of its 1.3 million Amazon employees worldwideand still would have had money to spare.

This money reflects the real value of the labor of essential workers at Amazon, who risk their lives to provide critical services during the pandemic, ensuring the delivery of goods as workers and families quarantine themselves to try to limit the spread of the deadly virus. This money was extracted from workers through capitalist relations of production and has accumulated in the bank accounts of the oligarchs and Wall Street funds that own and control the conglomerate.

Notwithstanding the mounting and explosive anger among its giant workforce, the company continues to enjoy an extraordinarily high market capitalization, with stock prices currently at $2,951.95. While this number has dipped somewhat since last month, it still gives the international conglomerate a total market capitalization of around $1.5 trillion. The rise in share prices last year added $70 billion to the private fortunes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, already one of the richest people on the planet.

Amazons profits soared into the stratosphere in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the US, accompanied by mass unemployment and general economic devastation. Its profits piled up as demands from Amazon workers intensified for safer working conditions, sane work speeds, livable wages and prompt information on coronavirus infections in their workplaces.

Like the murderous policy of a safe reopening of schools, Amazon covered up its refusal to slow or stop operations behind minimal and cosmetic safety procedures, such as requiring workers to wear masks. The company also refused to promptly disclose information indicating how many workers have become infected, in an effort to lull workers into a false sense of security.

By last October, the company revealed that, by its internal count, there had been 19,816 presumed or confirmed COVID infections among its frontline workers at warehouses and Whole Foods locations in the US alone.

Given the poor record of testing and tracing within the US since the start of the pandemic, with some public health experts estimating that the true level of community spread to be as much as 10 times the number of confirmed cases, the number of infections at Amazon warehouses given by the company is no doubt substantially lower than reality.

Amazons workers largely remained at their stations throughout the pandemic, being subjected to frantic speedups to meet the demand for home delivery of internet purchases. In conversations with WSWS reporters, Amazon workers reported that social distancing measures are arbitrarily and inconsistently enforced, when they are enforced at all, due to the nature of warehouse work.

This exploitation has led to repeated tragedies. On March 1, 48-year-old Paul Vilscek jumped to his death at the LAS7 fulfillment center in Las Vegas while his co-workers watched in horror. On January 8, 38-year-old Poushawn Brown died suddenly of unexplained causes after working as a coronavirus tester at the DDC3 warehouse in Springfield, Virginia.

Awash in cash, Amazon is now expanding its operations in other areas of the economy. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday, the cargo airline Air Transport Services Group reported that Amazon had purchased a minority stake in the company. Amazon already owns a minority stake in the only other major cargo airline used by Amazon, Atlas Air, and is developing its own air service called Amazon Air.

The conglomerate has extended its reach into consumer products, streaming video and music, prescriptions and telehealth, books and e-books, smart devices and voice assistants, cloud computing services, groceries and other logistics operations, among others. In the last two years, it has increasingly invested in its own delivery operations by aggressively expanding its network of fulfillment and sorting centers, delivery stations and other facilities.

Amazons sprawling influence also extends to robotics, electric vehicle companies such as Rivian, autonomous vehicle startups like Aurora Partners and delivery robots called Amazon Scout that are being tested in Southern California and could be rolled out elsewhere in the near future. Amazon Kuiper is creating a satellite network capable of delivering high-speed internet.

Additionally, it serves as the e-commerce platform for over 2.5 million third-party vendors selling millions of items. With so many interests across crucial sectors of the economy, Amazon has faced growing criticism over its monopolistic behaviors. But politicians in North America, Europe and India, while occasionally offering various denunciations of the company, have not taken any significant actions to counter Amazons meteoric growth or its exploitative practices.

Amazon warehouses have been found to have twice the rate of serious injuries per 100 employees compared to the industry average. A major factor in these injuries is managements fanatical insistence on speed, with workers in some cases expected to perform a task every six to nine seconds. Like the number of officially reported cases of the coronavirus, the tally of reported injuries is surely an undercount.

Earlier this year, Amazon agreed to pay a $61.7 million settlement to the Federal Trade Commission over claims it withheld tips from its Flex delivery drivers, who are categorized as independent contractors and deliver for Prime Now and Amazon Fresh. Starting in 2016, the company had been taking its drivers tips to pay a portion of their delivery rates, and only halted this practice after becoming aware that the FTC was investigating the matter.

In light of Amazons giant revenues and expanding operations, the settlement is such an insignificant sum that it will not leave so much as a dent in the companys annual profits or future plans.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Minaurum Gold Inc. (TSXV: MGG) (OTCQX: MMRGF) ("Minaurum") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement with ASR Resources Corp. ("ASR"), pursuant to which ASR can earn an 80% interest in Minaurum's Adelita copper-gold project in Sonora, Mexico. ASR can earn its interest by issuing shares totaling 16% of its post-IPO shares outstanding, making cash payments totaling $75,000 and incurring $3M in work expenditures over 5 years. Minaurum's 20% retained interest will be carried until ASR carries out a total of $4.75M in work expenditures along with completing both a mineral resource calculation in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and a Preliminary Economic Assessment.

ASR is a private company founded by Emerging Markets Capital, a Hong Kong based merchant bank responsible for founding and financing Reyna Silver and is a significant shareholder of Cassiar Gold.

"This agreement continues Minaurum's strategy of unlocking the value of its non-core holdings as it continues to focus on and advance the Alamos silver project", stated Darrell Rader, President and CEO of Minaurum. "Along with the recently announced Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. agreement on the Taviche project, we anticipate completing additional agreements where Minaurum receives an immediate payout in the form of cash and shares while retaining a direct interest in the ongoing exploration and development of the project."

Under the terms of the option agreement, ASR must raise a minimum of CAD$4M and go public on the TSXV or CSE via an RTO/IPO. ASR has 12 months from signing the definitive agreement to complete a listing, with a CAD$100,000 penalty if the deadline is exceeded. If ASR fails to go public after 18 months, ASR will return the project to Minaurum in good standing.

The Adelita Project

Adelita is a copper-gold project hosting both skarn and porphyry mineralization located adjacent to Pan American Silver's past-producing Alamo Dorado Silver mine. A total of 5,965 m of diamond drilling has occurred at Adelita resulting in the discovery of several zones of high-grade copper mineralization. (see Minaurum News Releases dated May 3, 2012; May 31, 2012; October 6, 2010). Highlights include:

16.2 metres of 1.97% Cu, 0.84 g/t Au, 73 g/t Ag (CGDD-10-001)

0.84 g/t Au, 73 g/t Ag (CGDD-10-001) 47.6 metres of 0.98% Cu, 0.46 g/t Au, 46 g/t Ag (CGDD-10-002)

0.46 g/t Au, 46 g/t Ag (CGDD-10-002) 105.2 metres of 1.03% Cu , 0.43 g/t Au, 36 g/t Ag (CGDD-12-009)

, 0.43 g/t Au, 36 g/t Ag (CGDD-12-009) 201.4 metres of 0.52% Cu, 0.15 g/t Au, 13 g/t Ag (CGDD-12-012)

For more information on the Adelita Copper-Gold Project: www.minaurum.com/projects/adelita

For more information on ASR Resources Corp. Contact: Jorge Ramiro Monroy jr@emarcap.com

Minaurum Gold Inc. (TSXV: MGG) (OTCQX: MMRGF) (FSE: 78M) is a Mexico-focused explorer concentrating on the high-grade Alamos Silver Project in southern Sonora. With a property portfolio encompassing multiple additional district-scale projects, Minaurum is managed by one of the strongest technical and finance teams operating in Mexico. Minaurum's goal is to continue its founders' legacy of creating shareholder value by making district-scale mineral discoveries and executing accretive mining transactions. For more information, please visit our website at www.minaurum.com and our YouTube Minaurum Video Channel.

Darrell A. Rader

President and CEO

For more information, please contact:

Sunny Pannu - Investor Relations Manager

(778) 330 0994 or via email at pannu@minaurum.com

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

2300 - 1177 West Hastings Street Telephone

Vancouver, BC V6E 2K3

Telephone 778 330-0994

www.minaurum.com

info@minaurum.com

Stephen R. Maynard, Vice President of Exploration of Minaurum and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 has approved the disclosure in this News Release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. "Forward-looking information" includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Generally, but not always, forward-looking information and statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or the negative connotation thereof or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" or the negative connotation thereof.

In making the forward-looking information in this release, Minaurum has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on Minaurum's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Minaurum. Although Minaurum considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking information in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking information.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Minaurum does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76127
Although labor leaders, local union activists and national progressive politicians uniformly support an Amazon union in Alabama, that feeling does not reflect the mood inside the warehouse itself. With less than a month to go in the union vote, the 5,800-worker warehouse is split among supporters of the union, strong dissenters and an apathetic center that is growing sick of the national attention.

Outside the plant  where some workers clock 12-hour shifts  union activists and journalists are likely to experience a string of exasperated rejections when asking to speak with employees. Some workers wear Vote No pins, while others talk of anti-union literature in the common areas and bathrooms. And on social media, employees post about longing for March 29, when the election will conclude.

Amazon has aggressively countered the unionization effort, highlighting the companys benefit package and its $15 minimum wage, as well as the job growth it has prompted in an economically stagnant area of the South.

Last week, in a media round table of anti-union warehouse workers hosted by Amazon, some said that Mr. Bidens message had been unnecessary, and that they did not feel intimidated by the company. A spokeswoman for Amazon declined to directly comment on the presidents remarks.

I know the president weighed in, said J.C. Thompson, a process assistant at the warehouse. And I cant imagine the pressure our leadership is feeling because theres a few people  a minority  who are disgruntled.

Carla Johnson, an employee in the warehouse, said she was voting not to unionize.

I can speak for myself, she said. I dont need someone from the outside coming in and saying this or that.

The range of opinions hinted at why Mr. Bidens message was so calibrated  supporting the workers right to a fair election but not supporting the union itself. And some observers, including employees at the Amazon warehouse, believe the presidents words will have little bearing on the outcome of the union vote.
Dehradun, March 9 : Beleaguered Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, who came back to Dehradun on Tuesday, is expected to make an important announcement this evening, sources close to the CM office said.

"Most probably CM is going to address a press conference where he may make an important announcement," a source said.

Earlier, Rawat met BJP President J.P. Nadda hours after a crucial meeting of Home Minister Amit Shah with the party chief at New Delhi on Sunday evening amid a serious discontent from a section of the state BJP MLAs and MPs, who are bitterly opposed to the Chief Minister's style of functioning.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A home under construction last month in the Bent Grass area northeast of Colorado Springs illustrates the furious pace of building in El Paso County. In February, the Pikes Peak Regional Department issued 515 permits for the construction of single-family detached homes in the county, the most for any month in almost 16 years.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- TrialJectory ("the Company"), an artificial intelligence-powered digital health platform that empowers cancer patients to find advanced treatment options and enables the pharmaceutical industry to effectively design and recruit for clinical trials, announced today that it has experienced 500 percent year-over-year growth in new patient users, with approximately 3,000 new patients signing up each month. Over the same period, TrialJectory experienced a significant increase in strategic collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations (CROs). To support the Company's current and expected growth, TrialJectory recently completed a Series A financing round, led by Contour Venture Partners, with equal participation from Rho Ventures. Connecticut Innovations and TIA Ventures also participated in the $5 million round. To date, TrialJectory has raised approximately $8 million in total.

"The demand from cancer patients for increased access to information and participation in clinical trials started before the pandemic. COVID-19 has elevated patient empowerment from a trend to a permanent movement," said Tzvia Bader, TrialJectory CEO and co-founder. "The technology's real power is that we can provide personalized treatment option lists in minutes. Our AI and machine learning solution, along with the data that we collect over time, help us to not only match patients with clinical trials but also provide insights on existing treatments for cancer patients. More patients will turn to TrialJectory as their trusted partner to ensure they receive the most appropriate, effective treatment options available. At the same time, the pharmaceutical industry has begun to understand the importance of patient insights and is partnering with TrialJectory to gain access to information that allows them to improve the overall clinical trial development process, including trial design, patient recruitment and, ultimately, trial outcomes."

Powered by its proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning platform, TrialJectory mimics the mind of an oncologist, but at an elevated level, efficiently sifting through vast amounts of information that an individual doctor or patient would be unable to accomplish on his or her own. The platform uses AI to curate, structure and personalize massive quantities of data produced by cancer research every day and makes the experience of being matched to the right clinical trial fast, accurate and patient-friendly. Once patients have been matched to a clinical trial, they are connected with trial specialists who support the patients' needs from beginning to end as they apply, enroll and participate in the study. Currently, TrialJectory has tens of thousands (and growing) of highly engaged patients using its platform, supporting 12 cancer indications that cover more than 60 percent of all cancer types.

"Cancer patients are shifting the way they consider their own care. They are becoming more empowered, more self-driven and more assertive in exploring treatments," added Krystyna Kowalczyk, OncoBay President and CEO. "This change in the patient dynamic makes it an ideal time to leverage tools like TrialJectory. Although we are in the early days of our collaboration, OncoBay is working together with TrialJectory to help us improve our recruitment and enrollment process by eliminating patients' barriers to entry, creating diversity and bringing trials into the community setting. The underlying power of TrialJectory's technology is its ability to effectively identify patients' needs and democratize the clinical trial process."

"In a very short period of time, TrialJectory has successfully positioned itself as the go-to resource for cancer patients and the pharmaceutical industry. Through its proprietary technology, for the first time ever, TrialJectory has harnessed the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to make sense of the massive and disparate amount of data surrounding cancer research, delivering insightful and actionable information for both sides of the cancer equation," concluded Bob Greene, Contour Venture Partners co-founder. "We remain committed to TrialJectory and expect the Company to play a significant role in reducing drug development costs and allowing drugs to come to the market sooner for the millions of cancer patients in need."

About TrialJectory

TrialJectory is a patient-first digital health company with a mission to democratize access to advanced cancer treatment. Recognized by TIME as one of " The 100 Best Inventions of 2020 ," TrialJectory uses artificial intelligence (AI) to empower patients to own their cancer journey and analyzes its global patient community's real-world data to empower cancer patients to make the most informed decisions about their care. For more information, please visit www.trialjectory.com , and follow the Company on Facebook , LinkedIn and Twitter .

SOURCE TrialJectory
You are the owner of this article.
March 9, 2021

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,

I am pleased to announce that following an extensive national search, Dr. Cynthia B. Dillard has been appointed Dean of Seattle Universitys College of Education. Dr. Dillard will be joining us from the University of Georgia, where she currently serves as the Mary Frances Early Professor in Teacher Education.

Dr. Dillard brings to Seattle U and the College of Education a wealth of experience as a proven leader. She has served in a number of key academic posts in higher education, including, among others, Chair of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia and Associate Dean for Equity and Diversity at The Ohio State University.

A distinguished scholar, Dr. Dillards scholarship has included research on intersections of race, culture, gender and spirituality, particularly in the context of teaching and education. She has authored or edited four books, with the most current, The spirit of our work: Black women teachers (re)member, to be published by Beacon Press later this year. In addition, Dr. Dillard has written a multitude of articles, book chapters and other scholarly pieces, while frequently presenting as a keynote speaker or panelist at national conferences. She has received more than a dozen awards and recognitions, including the 2019 Taylor & Francis Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Educational Studies Association (AESA).

Dr. Dillards belief in the transformative power of education so clearly evident in her work as an accomplished teacher-scholar is matched by her commitment to serving others and making an impact in communities near and far. As president and founder of Give. Build. Share., Dr. Dillard has led an effort to build schools in rural areas of Ghana, giving students educational opportunities that previously were not available.

In joining our university, Dr. Dillard returns to a part of the world with which she is quite familiar, having earned a bachelors degree from Central Washington University and masters and doctoral degrees from Washington State University. She asked that I share with you the following:

I am thrilled to be selected as the next Dean of the College of Education at Seattle University. It will be my privilege to work in community with the exceptional students, staff and faculty at SU. Guided by the strong Jesuit commitments of social justice and service that are foundational to this university, I look forward to working diligently to address our most pressing challenges in educationin Seattle, across the nation and the world.

Dr. Dillards current responsibilities require that she remain in her role with the University of Georgia through January of next year. She will officially begin with us as Dean on Feb. 1, 2022. In the meantime, Dr. Paulette Kidder has graciously agreed to stay on as Interim Dean and we are grateful to her for continuing to serve our university in this important way.

Finally, I want to thank our search committee, whose names are listed below, for so excellently carrying out its work and bringing to us a leader of such an exceptional caliber. I know you join me in giving a warm and enthusiastic welcome to Dr. Cynthia Dillard.

Sincerely,

Stephen V. Sundborg, S.J.

President

College of Education Dean Search Committee

Charisse Cowan-Pitre, Co-ChairProfessor, Teacher Education, College of Education

David Powers, Co-ChairDean, College of Arts & Sciences

Michelle ClementsVice President, Human Resources

Mary GrahamAssociate Professor, Counseling Program

Trish HenleySpecial Assistant to the Provost, Graduate Education and Associate Dean, College of New & Continuing Studies

Julie KangDirector, Professional and Continuing Education

Kent KothDirector, Center for Community Engagement

J.R. LorcaAssistant Principal, Dearborn Park Elementary School and COE Alumnus

Shane PisaniProgram Director, Undergraduate Teacher Education

Colette TaylorDepartment Chair, Leadership and Professional Studies and Program Director, Educational and Organizational Learning and Leadership Doctoral Program

Colin WatrinDoctoral Student, Educational and Organizational Learning and Leadership and Associate Director, Admission and Student Affairs, SU School of Law

Erica YamamuraAssociate Professor and Program Director, Student Development Administration Program

* Special thanks to Heather Reis Fike (Executive Coordinator, College of Arts & Sciences Deans Office) and Eunice MacGill (Executive Coordinator, College of Education Deans Office).
[March 09, 2021] Scoro Raises $16 Million in Series B Funding To Invest In Its End-to-End Work Management Software

Scoro, an award-winning work management software for professional service businesses, has closed a $16.4 million Series B funding round led by Kennet Partners. Additional investors include Columbia Lake Partners, Inventure, Livonia Partners and Tera Ventures. The investment will fuel continued global expansion and is supported by new French and Spanish versions of the software. "Even before Covid-19 hit, most professional service businesses used as many as a dozen different platforms daily," said Scoro's Founder and CEO, Fred Krieger. "However, teams now realise that constantly switching between tools harms productivity and results in lost data and duplicated work. In many ways, these tools became weapons of mass distraction. We're proud to have the support of Kennet Partners and other investors as we help businesses identify and remove these weapons of mass distraction with our end-to-end work management software." Scoro's most recent product launch has been a modernization of the Gantt chart, which had not evolved since its creation at the turn of the 19th Century. With the new funding, Scoro will continue to create innovative tools which enable professional service businesses to improve their productivity and profitability. "The dramatic disruption to working practices caused by Covid-19 should give us pause for thought, challenge our assumptions, and encourage us to think about what the new normal should be," said Dave Kellogg, a highly experienced SaaS (News - Alert) advisor and new addition to Scoro's Board of Directors. "The evolution of the workplace will be supported by platforms such as Scoro which enable staff to communicate and collaborate effectively, flexibly and without distraction." Kennet Partners' Managing Director Hillel Zidel also joins the Board of Directors, alongside Dave Kellogg. Martin Fincham continues to lead the Board of Directors as Scoro's Chairman.



"It is a privilege to chair such a high calibre Board and very reassuring to be supported on our scale-up journey by some of Europe's top B2B SaaS investors," added Martin Fincham. "Scoro is a great example of the type of high-growth, founder-led B2B SaaS company we love to invest in at Kennet," said Hillel Zidel. "Clients get a lot of value out of Scoro and I'm very excited to support the company in its international expansion at a time when so many businesses are looking for productivity gains."

Scoro now joins an elite group of start-ups founded in Estonia that have raised more than $20 million in venture capital. Estonia is the world leader in creating technology unicorns per capita, with successes including Skype (News - Alert) , Transferwise, Bolt and Pipedrive. To learn more about Scoro's end-to-end work management software and how it helps professional service businesses boost productivity and profitability, visit www.scoro.com. ##### ENDS ##### About Scoro Scoro is an award-winning work management software platform for collaborative teams in the professional services and creative industries. Thousands of teams in more than 60 countries trust Scoro to increase their margins, save them time and accelerate data-driven decision making. Unlike traditional single-use solutions, Scoro is scalable across an entire business - from projects and sales through to billing and reporting. Founded in 2013 by Fred Krieger, Scoro is headquartered in London, with additional offices in Tallinn and New York. Scoro has been listed in Deloitte's (News - Alert) Technology Fast 50 list and the Inc. 5000 list. For more information, visit www.scoro.com. About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in high-growth companies in Europe and North America. With offices in London and Silicon Valley, the firm supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $900 million in funds under management. For more information, visit www.kennet.com. About Columbia Lake Partners

Columbia Lake Partners is an experienced team of investors providing investment for growing technology companies across Europe. Columbia Lake Partners' portfolio has extended investment of more than 300 million to over 100 companies. For more information, visit www.clpgrowth.com. About Inventure

Inventure is one of the most experienced Nordic venture funds that specializes in helping its portfolio companies with talent and expansion. Since 2005, the team has been in venture with over 70 companies ranging from deep tech to consumer internet brands, including Wolt, Detectify, Blueprint Genetics, and Swappie. For more information, visit www.inventure.vc. About Livonia Partners

Livonia Partners is a private equity and growth capital firm which invests in companies with a strong growth potential, providing investments in the range of 10 million to 20 million. For more information, visit www.livoniapartners.com. About Tera Ventures

Founded in 2016, Tera Ventures is an international investment firm which enables disruptive technology companies to scale into global leaders. For more information, visit www.tera.vc. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005457/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The medical team of the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases receiving vaccines stored in a cold chain and rigorously monitored to ensure safety and quality

The first injections will be given to priority groups who fulfill key positions at frontline work and are constantly in contact with the disease, including medical staff treating COVID-19 patients, tracers, and testers, people working in isolation zones, COVID-19 community groups, all levels of staff of the Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention, as well as police and national defence forces in virus-affected localities.

According to Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, apart from the three first places in Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Duong province, vaccination will be held in 13 provinces, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Duong, Quang Ninh, Haiphong, Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Hung Yen, Hoa Binh, Gia Lai, Binh Duong, Dien Bien, and Ha Giang.

The COVID-19 vaccine used in this first round of injection is the AstraZeneca vaccine, one of three that has been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for use in emergencies. This vaccine is used in more than 50 countries and regions.

COVID-19 injection at the Kim Thanh district medical centre in Hai Duong province

Each person over 18 years of age will be given two doses of the vaccine, the second one 12 weeks after the first one was administered, with a dose of 0.5ml, intramuscularly.

Currently, due to the limited global supply of vaccines, the Ministry of Health is actively negotiating to import vaccines from different sources to expand vaccination as soon as possible.

Immediately after arriving in Vietnam, the vaccine will be quickly distributed to vaccination stations in accordance with the Government's Resolution No.21/NQ-CP dated February 26, with the aim of averting the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time, the ministry is also urgently promoting research, testing, and production of vaccines in the country to ensure an autonomous, sustainable source of COVID-19 vaccines.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is 76 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19 infection after the first injection and 81 per cent after the second injection, and hospitalisation by COVID-19 has not been reported among those vaccinated.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are at a significantly increased risk of contracting COVID-19 than women without the condition, new research led by the University of Birmingham has revealed.

Researchers are now calling for healthcare policy to specifically encourage women with PCOS to adhere to COVID-19 infection control measures while the global pandemic continues.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common condition affecting around one in 10 women in the UK. The three main symptoms are irregular periods, high levels of 'male' hormones which may cause physical signs such as excess facial or body hair, and a cystic appearance on an ultrasound or MRI scan of the ovaries which is caused by follicles becoming increasingly fluid filled as they fail to develop and release an egg normally to be ready for fertilization within a women's menstrual cycle.

Women with PCOS have an increased risk of cardiometabolic disease, such as type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and high blood pressure, all of which have been identified as risk factors for COVID-19.

To investigate whether the increased metabolic risk in PCOS translates into an increased risk of COVID-19 infection, the team carried out a population-based closed cohort study in the UK during the first wave of the pandemic between January and July 2020.

Using UK GP patient records, the study included 21,292 women with PCOS and 78,310 female 'controls' without PCOS matched for age and general practice location.

Results revealed a 51% increased risk of contracting COVID-19 in women with PCOS, compared to those of the same age and background of those without PCOS.

A 26% increased susceptibility to COVID-19 infection in the PCOS cohort persistedeven after adjustment for individual cardio-metabolic risk factors known to cluster within PCOS, which have recently been directly linked to increased COVID-19 susceptibility, including obesity, impaired glucose regulation and hypertension.

The research, published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, showed that incidence of COVID-19 in women with PCOS was almost twice the rate than in women without PCOS (18.1 cases per 1,000 person years in women with PCOS, compared to 11.9 cases per 1,000 person years in women without PCOS).

First author Anuradhaa Subramanian, of the University of Birmingham, said: "Given the high prevalence of PCOS, these findings need to be considered when designing public health policy and advice as our understanding of COVID-19 evolves."

Joint senior author Dr. Krish Nirantharakumar, of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, said that COVID-19 shielding strategies for women with PCOS should also carefully consider the need to protect mental health.

"The risk of mental health problems including low self-esteem, anxiety and depression is significantly higher in women with PCOS, and advice on strict adherence to social distancing needs to be tempered by the associated risk of exacerbating these underlying problems," he adds.

Co-author Dr. Michael O'Reilly, of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, explains: "Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, women with PCOS consistently report fragmented care, delayed diagnosis and a perception of poor clinician understanding of their condition.

"Women suffering from this condition may fear, with some degree of justification, that an enhanced risk of COVID-19 infection will further compromise timely access to healthcare and serve to increase the sense of disenfranchisement currently experienced by many patients."

Joint senior author Professor Wiebke Arlt, Director of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research, said: "The pandemic has already dramatically altered our current healthcare delivery models, and although the increased rollout of virtual consultations and methods of delivering remote healthcare have been commendable, for many patients with PCOS these will not be an appropriate substitute for the traditional clinician-patient live consultation."

Professor Arlt, who leads DAISy-PCOSa large Wellcome Trust-funded research program on metabolic health and 'male' hormones in women with PCOSadds: "Women with PCOS have recently been highlighted as an overlooked and potentially high risk population for contracting COVID-19.

"However, our study does not provide information on the risk of a severe course of the COVID-19 infection or on the risk of COVID-19 related long-term complications of COVID-19 and further research is required."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Anuradhaa Subramanian et al, Increased COVID-19 infections in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a population-based study, European Journal of Endocrinology (2021). Journal information: European Journal of Endocrinology Anuradhaa Subramanian et al, Increased COVID-19 infections in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a population-based study,(2021). DOI: 10.1530/EJE-20-1163
Commissioners, Vaux discuss shortage in affordable housing

Codington County commissioners and Mark Vaux, new executive director of the Watertown Development Company, discussed issues Tuesday.
Donald Trump said Monday that he won't support giving money to moderate Republican candidates as he ups civil war with the GOP after demanding three biggest fundraising groups stop using his name to solicit donors.

'No more money for RINOS,' the former president demanded in a Monday evening statement from his Save America political action committee.

RINOS is a negative term given from within the Republican Party to those lawmakers they deem are 'Republicans in Name Only'  meaning they either regularly break with GOP ranks or, in some cases, just refers to anti-Trump Republicans.

'They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting basethey will never lead us to Greatness,' he continued of so-called RINOS, urging support for his PAC by saying: 'Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com. We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!'

Trump has been causing a further chasm within the GOP by using his time out of office to throw his support behind certain candidates and lawmakers while bashing others as traitors to the Republican Party.

On Friday, the former president's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to three of the GOP's biggest fundraising arms demanding they stop using his name and likeness to fundraise.

Donald Trump sent out a statement Monday evening demanding 'no more money for RINOS' as he further causes a chasm within the GOP between the moderates and pro-Trump far-righters

The Republican National Committee said Monday it will not comply.

Instead, the group insisted the former president is actually OK with them fundraising off his name.

Chief Counsel for the RNC Justin Riemer asserted in a letter Monday afternoon that the committee 'has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech, and it will continue to do so in pursuit of these common goals.'

On Friday, Trump's team sent requests to the RNC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee  three of the largest GOP fundraising arms  to stop invoking his name in correspondence to donors.

The letter demanded the groups 'immediately cease and desist the unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trump's name, image, and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion, and/or issue speech.'

In the letter Monday to Trump attorney Alex Cannon, Riemer highlighted the former president's 'close relationship' with RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel when detailing they would not comply.

'[W]e understand that President Trump reaffirmed to her over the weekend that he approves of the RNC's current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for our upcoming donor retreat event at Palm Beach at which we look forward to him participating,' he wrote.

The RNC is holding part of its spring donor retreat at Trump's Mar-a-Lago private club, a Monday report revealed even after news broke of the cease and desist demand.

Trump will speak at the April retreat in a sign there is no love lost between him and the RNC.

The Republican National Committee says it won't stop using former President Donald Trump's name and likeness in fundraising efforts, claiming they are protected by the First Amendment to do so because he is a public figure

A lawyer for the RNC touted Trump's 'close relationship' with Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, saying: '[W]e understand that President Trump reaffirmed to her over the weekend that he approves of the RNC's current use of his name in fundraising and other materials'

RNC Chief Counsel for Justin Riemer responded to the cease and desist demand

All three GOP groups have used the former president's coattails to try and bolster fundraising efforts, including in recent emails asking donors to help 'defend President Trump's legacy.'

On Friday, the RNC had sent out two emails asking supporters to donate in order to add their name to a 'thank you' card for Trump. The umbrella group supports GOP candidates across the country.

It is now clear yet how the NRCC or NRSC plan to respond to the cease and desist letter.

Some Republicans speculate that the demand was not directly driven by Trump, but instead those in his circle.

The former president, however, has a history of sensitivity toward people making money using his name. Notably, the then-president's campaign scolded in 2019 David Bossie, a long time informal adviser, amid allegations he used Trump's name to raise money for an outside group in which he was involved.

Upon revealing details of the cease and desist last week, a Trump advisor said: 'President Trump remains committed to the Republican Party and electing America First conservatives , but that doesn't give anyone - friend or foe - permission to use his likeness without explicit approval.'

The legal warning followed reports that Trump, who made a fortune licensing his personal brand, is furious his name is being used to help raise funds in support of Republicans who voted to impeach him last month.

Fears of a GOP civil war were sparked after Trump vowed revenge on the 17 Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach or convict him earlier this year on a charge of inciting insurrection.

Trump called all out by name during keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month.

'Get rid of them all!' he rallied the staunchly pro-Trump crowd.

The RNC will pay Trump to use Mar-a-Lago (pictured), the ex-president's oceanfront resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where he's been living since January 20

Trump (pictured in New York on Sunday) ordered the top three GOP fundraisers to stop using his name and likeness in donation drives

Rep. Tom Emmer chairs the RNCC, another group target with cease-and-desist letters

Politico reported Friday, the day the cease and desist letter was sent, that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has asked Trump not to go after the 10 House Republicans who voted in favor of advancing his second impeachment in January.

The ex-president's threat will likely lead to a series of MAGA-versus-moderate GOP primaries, and could cost McCarthy the chance to retake the House, which historically is in his grasp.

On Thursday Trump signaled that he's going to go forward with the so-called GOP civil war, as he issued another statement from Mar-a-Lago blasting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Trump accused McConnell of blowing two elections in Georgia that cost Republicans the Senate majority.

The two incumbent Republican candidates, Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, lost their run-off races on January 5 as Trump was attacking Georgia's state election officials and sending out a confused message to potential GOP voters on whether their votes would actually count.

Many GOP strategists blamed the losses on Trump's refusal to concede the presidential election.

McConnell had given Trump breathing room to air out his election grievances in the run-up to the run-offs, as he pushed the then-president to campaign for Perdue and Loeffler.

In his statement, Trump slammed McConnell for yielding to his caucus and supporting $600 checks for Americans, rather than the $2,000 Trump backed late in negotiations of the December COVID stimulus bill  and ripped a Senate GOP group for its Georgia effort.

'Even more stupidly, the National Republican Senatorial Committee spent millions of dollars on ineffective TV ads starring Mitch McConnell, the most unpopular politician in the country, who only won in Kentucky because President Trump endorsed him. He would have lost badly without this endorsement,' Trump claimed.

Last month during his CPAC speech, Trump mentioned every Republican lawmaker by name who voted to impeach or convict him

At CPAC, Trump also went after McConnell - and every senator who voted for his conviction.

'The Democrats don't have grandstanders like Mitt Romney, Little Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey. And in the House, Tom Rice, South Carolina, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Newhouse, Anthony Gonzalez, that's another beauty. Fred Upton, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Peter Meijer, John Katko, David Valadao and of course, the warmonger, the person that loves seeing our troops fighting, Liz Cheney. How about that?' Trump said.

The ex-president floated that the only reason why McConnell still had a job was because of the Trump endorsement.

'My endorsement of Mitch McConnell, at his request ... brought him from one point down to 20 points up and he won his race,' Trump said.

Prior to McCarthy getting involved, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top Trump ally, warned of the risks of a civil war in the party, and like McCarthy, flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump.

'Mitch McConnell working with Donald Trump did a hell of a job. They are now at each other's throat. I'm more worried about 2022 than I've ever been. I don't want to eat our own,' Graham cautioned.
7 day print subscribers enjoy unlimited access to yakimaherald.com

Enter the LAST NAME and the 7 DIGIT phone number on your print subscription account to connect your print subscription to your yakimaherald.com account.
Ireland's defamation laws raise concerns surrounding the ability of the press to expose corruption, the European Commissioner for Justice has told a Dail committee.

Didier Reynders, the former deputy prime minister of Belgium and an ex-foreign minister, said he wanted to underline this in the context of a review of defamation legislation now underway.

It will be an important task for the parliament to see if it's possible to have an evolution about that, he said, referring to criticisms from some in Ireland about the ability of the press to expose corruption in full compliance with defamation law in this country.

Former Justice Minister Michael McDowell, a senior counsel and senator, said he had started reform of defamation law in the early 2000s and agreed with the Commissioner that Irish defamation law is a little bit suffocating of investigative journalism.

I think that there is scope for further reform, he said. I had proposed, for instance, that the presumption that charges against an individual are false should be reversed  and people who want to sue in our courts should undertake the onus of proving that what is said about them is actually false.

Read More

But Mr McDowell said there had been pushback from "my then partners in Government  Fianna Fail  on that issue, and it never appeared in the legislation.

I think that could be changed, because I think it is important that the law should permit the media to engage in reasonable and fair commentary on matters of public importance, he said,

This was particularly important in relation to the discharge of Governmental functions, and other important people within the community, without the threat of very expensive litigation, he said. So I think there is room for improvement there.

Commissioner Reynders said: I would like to underline the fact that the frequent use and high cost of defamation cases (in Ireland) raise concerns.

He said the European Commission was also concerned about hate speech on social media, and it would try to go further on the extension of the Eurocrime list, having already targeted terrorist propaganda online. Rapid removal of offensive material was a key aim.

Members states and the Commission were also concerned about disinformation, he said. We dont want to leave that in the hands of the big companies organising social media, he said, suggesting it could come under a Digital Services Act.

The pandemic had seen an increase in criminality on the web, he said, and the European Commission was working on whether artificial intelligence could be used to detect hate speech, child exploitation and even harassment.

Brussels was satisfied in relation to media pluralism, constitutional guarantees and solid regulatory structures in Ireland, he said.

He noted there is a political culture in Ireland that avoids intervention in the editorial content of media outlets, and prevents conflicts of interest in terms of media ownership.

The media regulator updated information on media ownership on an annual basis, and this was to be welcomed because transparency is an important element, he said.

Read More




Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
As fate would have it, the second coming has been canceled because FCA and PSA have other priorities under the Stellantis umbrella. More specifically, Automotive News reports that existing brands take priority in this part of the world. The question is, what took them so long to admit that Peugeot isnt meant for the U.S. market and never will be under Stellantis?Alfa Romeo, which returned to the U.S. with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' help when the late Sergio Marchionne was leading the Italo-American automaker, is one of the brands that need attention. Dwindling sales, poor reliability, and a limited range of models have prompted the board of directors at Stellantis to change the local head honcho of the brand with the previous president and chief executive officer of PSA North America.Larry Dominique will develop Alfa Romeo in the United States from here on in. Under his leadership, the Italian marque will introduce two new crossovers to attract new customers. A mid-sized utility vehicle and the production version of the Tonale Concept are most likely the culprits.Now lets analyze the French automaker's lineup in Europe for a second. The mid-sized UV and Tonale-based crossover have two counterparts in the guise of the 3008 and 5008, which means that Alfa Romeo and Peugeot would have clashed with similar products in the most competitive market for SUVs.The Sochaux-based manufacturer already has a strong presence back home in the European Union, and lest we forget, Peugeot thrives in China thanks to a joint venture with Dongfeng Motor. Given these circumstances, its crystal clear why the higher-ups at Stellantis decided against the return.As for other brands that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has to revitalize with help from Groupe PSA, Chrysler and Lancia definitely need their attention. Ram is also worth mentioning because the truck-only brand still hasnt launched a mid-sized pickup truck as the successor to the Dodge Dakota and therefore lacks a product in this highly-competitive and lucrative market.
New Delhi: The first ever Quad summit between India, Japan, Australia and US leaders' will take place virtually on Friday (March 12) marking a significant geopolitical moment.

For the summit Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian PM Scott Morrison, Japan's PM Yoshihide Suga and US President Joseph R Biden will participate.

In a statement, India's Ministry of External Affairs said, "The Leaders will discuss regional and global issues of shared interest, and exchange views on practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region".

"The Summit will provide an opportunity to exchange views on contemporary challenges such as resilient supply chains, emerging and critical technologies, maritime security, and climate change," it said.

The COVID-19 vaccine will be a key focus, with leaders discussing ongoing efforts to combat the pandemic and explore opportunities for collaboration in ensuring safe, equitable and affordable vaccines in the Indo-Pacific region, the release mentioned.

So far, three foreign ministers' level conversations have taken place, two of them physical meetings -- one in New York in 2019, another in Tokyo last year and one telephonic conversation just last month.

Last month's telephonic conversation between the four foreign ministers -- US State Secretary Blinken, Japan FM Motegi Toshimitsu, Australian FM Marise Payne and EAM Dr S Jaishankar saw key focus being on Myanmar.

Last week, Australian PM Scott Morrison confirming plans of the meet said, "I am looking forward to that first gathering of quad leaders. It will be the first-ever gathering of quad leaders. I already had bilateral discussions with Narendra Modi and Yoshihide Suga, the PM of Japan and PM of India."

He said that such meets would become a feature of the Indo Pacific engagement but it will not have a big bureaucracy, with a big secretariat. "It will be four leaders, four countries working together constructively for the peace, prosperity, and stability of the Indo pacific," he said.

The Quad is seen very suspiciously by China which it has termed as "Asian Nato" something that has been dismissed by the grouping.

The dialogue was first initiated in 2007 by the then Japanese PM Shinzo Abe but lost support only to re-emerge in 2017 when leaders of the grouping had met. Last year saw Australia being invited to Malabar exercises which saw all four Quad countries coming under one umbrella for naval exercises in the Indian ocean.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Quad plus meetings happened at the foreign secretary-level to exchange best practices.
What comes to mind when there is a toxic chemical release? The most obvious responses involve evacuation or shelter in place of the people in the path of the plume. To predict the path, area, and severity of a plume impact, you need a dispersion model. The basic information required to initiate a dispersion model is weather data, identification of the chemical, and the rate of the chemical release. However, the Achille' heel of this information is the release rate specification: "How big is the hole?" SAFER Systems has developed and patented a unique scheme for estimating the release rate. The algorithm to implement the scheme is called Advanced Back Calculation (ABC). The idea basically involves reverse engineering a dispersion model. While we usually input the release rate to the dispersion model and obtain the concentration field for the plume-impacted area, in ABC we utilize the concentration field data to estimate the release rate.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Dove Joyner, a long-time teacher of various grade levels who, driven by her passion for helping children, formed a nonprofit organization, African American Family Institute, has completed her new book A Sharecroppers Daughter: Memoires: a gripping and potent account of how African American stories can provide crucial historical context for understanding American culture.

Published by Page Publishing, Dove Joyners stirring tale shines a light on the life of the authors African American family during the 1950s to the 1990s, which pulls back the curtain, exposing, at least in part, what has created the United States as it stands today. At a time when the United States grapples with controversial, hot-button issues such as gun control, violence between citizens, and giving reparations to the descendants of former slaves, stories like the authors book, in coordination with established historical commentaries, are significant for understanding the role that race plays in society.

It is well known that ones environment growing up impacts the molding and shaping of their life, allowing people to see the root causes for the social issues that face society on a daily basis. Every seed planted into ripe soil and nurtured will yield a harvest of its own kind such as delicious peaches, delightful berries, or, most importantly, love. The same is true with negative impacts to the human mind and soul, whether it be child molestation, hatred, or evil of any kind, unless that soul seeks a higher power, faith in God, to alter that established pathway.

In overcoming childhood abuse, poverty, and pitfalls of many types, the author of this groundbreaking book pushed back against the oppressive forces that pulled her downward, refusing to give up, always reassuring herself that she will persevere. The authors inspiring story is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit to overcome adversity, affirmatively proving that with Gods help, Where there is a will, there is a way, and thereby, all things are possible.

Readers who wish to experience this potent work can purchase A Sharecroppers Daughter: Memoires at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Pakistani women are at the forefront with the Kashmiri women leadership in their just struggle for achieving the right to self determination in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions, said Chairperson of Peace & Culture Organisation Ms.Mushaal Hussain Malik

RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Mar, 2021 ):Pakistani women are at the forefront with the Kashmiri women leadership in their just struggle for achieving the right to self determination in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions, said Chairperson of Peace & Culture Organisation Ms.Mushaal Hussain Malik.

Speaking at a seminar titled 'Women in Leadership' held to commemorate "International Women's Day" at Fatima Jinnah Women University, she highlighted the current situation in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). She informed, that unfortunately, humiliation of women has been used as an instrument of war by Indian security forces in the IIOJK. She urged upon the international community to take appropriate measures to provide help to the Kashmiri women. Thousands of Kashmiri women have been widowed or their husbands have been missing for their sin of having a dream of free land. The children have been orphaned by the Indian forces or living lives in fear of never seeing them again. She urged the student to stand with Kashmiri women to support their struggle for their rights of self-determination.

In her welcome note, Vice Chancellor of Fatima Jinnah Women University Dr.

Saima Hamid highlighted the history and significance of the International Women's Day. She said the world has made unprecedented advances, but no country could achieve gender equality without the sound investment and strategic planning in women development.

Regional Operation Head First Women Bank Ms.Rozina Raja said this seminar was an effort to celebrate the tremendous abilities of women around the world in shaping an equal future for all of us and especially the way they fought and recovered from the COVID 19.

Pakistani women bring diversity of thoughts, experience and behaviour in the country which are a critical component of corporate success, she added.

Abdullah Mehmood, Additional Deputy Commissioner, said that economic empowerment is the real empowerment and freedom and women should get education to be independent in real terms. He was of the view that women should come forward in every field of life. He further informed about the new initiative of multi sectoral policy taken by the Punjab government in ensuring the women participation in leadership and decision making.
A divorced father-of-one who moved from the US to live on one of the UK's most remote islands has admitted he struggles with loneliness but can't face relocating back across the pond.

American-born Tommy Hyndman, now 57, moved with his wife Liz and son Henry from New York to live in a 500-a-year cottage on Fair Isle, near the Shetland Islands, in 2006.

But when his marriage fell apart in 2015, he was left alone on the remote land, which has just 55 inhabitants. Around that time he welcomed Ben Fogle for an episode of New Lives in the Wild.

Five years on, Ben Fogle returns to Fair Isle for the Channel 5 show, airing tonight at 9pm, to see how Tommy is getting on.

Still single, he tells Fogle he feels lonely following a string of failed relationships, having hoped he'd move on quickly following his divorce.

Tommy also reveals he's inherited a house back in the US, and could potentially move home, but struggles with the idea of leaving Fair Isle for good - despite the fact he hasn't even had a hug since his son left home for university.

American-born Tommy Hyndman, now 57, moved with his wife Liz and son Henry from New York to live in a cottage on Fair Isle, near the Shetland Islands, in 2006. Ben Fogle, who visited Tommy for the first time in 2015, returns to Fair Isle to see how the father-of-one is doing for a new episode of New Lives in the Wild, airing tonight at 9pm

Speaking about his love life, Tommy tells Ben dating on Fair Isle poses certain challenges, adding: 'I did have a couple of relationships of various success. But I'm still single.

'One woman moved here with her two children and they were here for six months. It was very nice... Fair isle adds a lot of difficulties to any relationships. It's all very difficult.'

The latest episode was filmed in the summer, during the coronavirus pandemic, and Tommy admitted living on an island of 55 inhabitants has made the feelings of loneliness worse.

'It's funny because when you were here five years ago, you made a big deal about me being single. I didn't really get it. I didn't think it'd take long. I thought you were going on about nothing,' Tommy told Ben.

'I haven't had a hug since my boy left for university, that's the way of the world at the moment.'

Ben says he feels for Tommy, and while he acknowledges that returning to the island is a joyful occasion, he sees Tommy's life is tinged with sadness.

Tommy has had a number of relationships after his divorce, but admits life on the island can be lonely. He has inherited a house in the US, his homeland, but is struggling to leave Fair Isle

The father-of-one moved to the island with his ex-wife Liz, right, and their son Henry in 2006. The couple divorced in 2015

Ben is happy to see Tommy again, but admits he feels sad for the divorced father-of-one, who finds in difficult to date on Fair Isle

Change could be on the horizon for Tommy, who's just inherited a house back home in the US, but the father-of-one is finding it difficult to make up his mind about leaving Fair Isle.

'There's a lot of variables and life is pretty unsure right now,' Tommy tells Ben. 'I could really go on another adventure in life, but I'm not really sure when or when the opportunity will open itself.

'Inheriting the other house has really made me reassess where and what I want to be and it's at a time where Henry is gone and I no longer need to be here 100 per cent of the time.

Tommy tells Ben inheriting the house in the US put his life into perspective, but he doesn't know if he is ready to leave the island

'The thing about leaving Fair Isle is, if I leave Fair Isle, someone else would move into the house and I don't think they'll be dumb enough to let it go.

'So you better really know that you wanna leave and I don't know that. To leave and to give it up is a really hard thing. Committing to things at the moment seems very difficult because everything else seems so uncertain.'

Five years ago Tommy shared his quirky lifestyle with Ben for the first time. Ironically, it was originally his ex-wife who wanted to move 3,000 miles across the Atlantic.

She'd heard on American public radio that the National Trust was looking for new tenants for a cottage on the remote Scottish island.

Happy-go-lucky Tommy, who runs a B&B on Fair Isle, admits he has not been hugged since his son left for university

'My wife was really excited about it and I remember my response was a little unsupportive,' Tommy said at the time of Ben's first visit.

Tommy and his family lived in Saratoga Springs in New York State. He ran a successful hat-making company, with his creations sold in department stores across America.

'We were paying our mortgages, driving our cars, doing our jobs - we were just making money and paying it back out,' Tommy reflects.

After winning the residency with the proposal of turning the house into a B&B and bringing his hat-making skills to Scotland, in 2006 Tommy and his family sold their cars and furniture and rented out their house to make the move.

For nearly 10 years they lived happily together running the B&B on Fair Isle, but their marriage hit the rocks and they divorced in 2015, with Liz and Henry moving to Shetland, the archipelago of which Fair Isle is the most southerly island.

Tommy said people felt they had to leave their lives behind to live on Fair Isle, but that the island actually offered a lot (pictured)

'Fair Isle didn't cause the dissolution,' Tommy clarified. 'It was 23 years we were together and that's a successful relationship.'

As a newly divorced man, Tommy had been optimistic about finding a new partner, but had to admit to Ben the island had 'plenty of birds but not a lot of women'.

With rent costing him only 500 per year, Tommy managed to get 75 per night per room from guests, but he looked after them well. With one small shop only open every other day and re-stocked just once a week, Tommy relied on his land for a lot of produce.

He had chickens for meat and eggs, went fishing for fresh sea food - including hearty lobsters - and grew his own vegetables.

He also exchanged labour for produce - helping shear some sheep in exchange for some lamb for his freezer.

This all also helped keep costs down, but his priciest outgoing was heating his 300-year-old guesthouse with coal and oil, which cost him 150 per month - more than his heating bill in the US.

In 2015, he told Ben: 'I'm as much a Fair Islander now than I'll ever be. I didn't come here to get away, I came to immerse myself in nature. I'm living my dream; it may be somebody else's nightmare but it's my dream.'

Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 5.
A resolution to add Tennessees Right to Work law to the state constitution was given final approval from the Tennessee Senate on Monday night. After three readings on the floor of the Senate, the measure received over the two thirds supermajority vote required to pass. Senate Joint Resolution 2, sponsored by State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), fulfills the second required passage of this measure by the legislature. In June 2020, Senate Joint Resolution 648, sponsored by Senator Kelsey, overwhelmingly passed the General Assembly, which was the first step to enshrine the law to the Tennessee Constitution.

The measure will be carried by Rep. Chris Todd (R-Jackson) in the House and must now receive approval from the House of Representatives before it is sent to voters on the ballot. The amendment would become part of the state constitution if adopted by a majority vote in the 2022 governors election.

This amendment will guarantee future generations of Tennessee workers their right to work regardless of whether they choose to join a union, said Senator Kelsey. I am pleased this has passed its final hurdle in the Senate and look forward to its passage in the House.

Tennessees Right to Work statute has been state law since 1947. It provides workers cannot be hired or fired based on their membership in, affiliation with, resignation from, or refusal to join or affiliate with any labor union or employee organization. When introduced in 1947, supporters of the bill argued that it would be of great advantage to the average member of organized labor. It also protects the rights of those who choose not to join a union.

Tennessee workers want to make their own choices in the workplace and this amendment will forever seal that right, said Senator Paul Bailey (R-Sparta), a co-sponsor of the legislation. It also sends a strong message that Tennessee will continue to foster a business-friendly climate into the future for locating high quality jobs. There is no better place than our State Constitution to ensure that Tennessee remains a right to work state.



Twenty-seven other states have Right to Work laws, and nine of those have passed constitutional amendments, including neighboring states Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. The Alabama amendment passed most recently in 2016. Another neighbor, Virginia, has considered repealing its Right to Work statute. A constitutional amendment in Tennessee would offer greater protection for workers against such repeal efforts.

Tennessees Right to Work laws have been critical to producing the economic growth our state has experienced over the last decade, said Lt. Governor McNally, a co-sponsor of the measure. I appreciate everything Senator Kelsey has done to support the right to work in Tennessee.

Tennessee has been and will remain a Right to Work state, said Speaker Cameron Sexton. Solidifying this essential concept through this amendment will engrain this key principle of Tennessee business into our constitution. This will strengthen our economic standing, support our current and future workforces, and also ensure this state remains open for business.

The resolution has also gained support from prominent Tennessee business leaders.

Rhetoric from national candidates against state right to work laws has caught the attention of small businesses across Tennessee, said Jim Brown, Tennessee state director for NFIB. In neighboring Virginia there was recently an effort to repeal its right to work law adopted in 1947, and in Indiana a judge ruled in 2013 that its right to work law was unconstitutional. Tennesseans simply prefer choices over mandates. For these reasons, NFIB strongly supports SJR 2, which will strengthen a key element that has made Tennessee an attractive state for businesses and workers.

The Tennessee Chamber and our business community has remained strongly supportive of our status as a Right to Work state which is a key component establishing the Volunteer state as friendly to business, said Bradley Jackson, president and CEO of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Embedding Right to Work permanently in our constitution sends a strong message moving forward that Tennessee is and always will be ready for business.



Beacon Impact, the advocacy partner of the Beacon Center of Tennessee also supports the resolution.

While Right to Work has been the long-standing public policy of Tennessee, it is increasingly under attack, said Justin Owen, CEO of Beacon Impact. It is imperative that we protect the fundamental right of Tennessee workers to decide whether or not to pay union dues for generations to come, and the best way to do that is to recognize this right in our state constitution.

Tennessee AFL-CIO President Billy Dycus said, "We are disappointed but unfortunately not surprised by the Tennessee Senate's final approval of SJR 0002 this afternoon. With today's vote, 24 senators said 'yes' to keeping wages low, making workplaces more dangerous, and setting a dangerous precedent of amending the Tennessee Constitution to cater to a political agenda. The Republican supermajority made its priorities abundantly clear once again: it is pro-business and anti-worker.

"Our fight against this political power-grab is far from over. We now turn our attention to the House, which will begin hearing this harmful push to enshrine Tennessee's Right to Work law in the state constitution on Wednesday. Together with our members, affiliates, and community allies throughout the state, we will continue to make our voices heard loud and clear in opposition to this legislation.

"In its 150-year history, the state constitution has only been amended nine times. This is a sacred process that should not be taken lightly. It appears, however, that the majority of our legislators do not agree. Tennesseans are suffering and need real solutions to real problems, not a never-ending partisan crusade that is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Working families are undoubtedly the ones who will continue to suffer the most if this law is put on a pedestal. We renew our call asking Tennessee lawmakers to reject this blatant show of support for corporate special interests as it continues on its legislative journey."

There is also strong public support for the resolution, said officials. An October 2019 Beacon Center survey reported that 68 percent of Tennesseans favor the Right to Work policy, while 13 percent are opposed, and 19 percent remain undecided.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - IAMGOLD Corporation (TSX: IMG) (NYSE: IAG) ("IAMGOLD" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Daniella Dimitrov to the role of Chief Financial Officer, effective March 29, 2021. Ms. Dimitrov is a highly accomplished and respected executive, with extensive leadership experience in both the capital markets and mining industries. Ms. Dimitrov succeeds Carol Banducci, who retires on March 31, 2021 following a successful 14-year career with IAMGOLD.

"I am very pleased to welcome Daniella to the IAMGOLD team. She brings a wealth of mining industry and financial and capital markets experience to her new role, which will support the Company's targeted transformation to a lower cost, more geographically balanced, million-ounce producer of gold," said Gordon Stothart, President and CEO of IAMGOLD.

Ms. Dimitrov joins IAMGOLD from Sprott Capital Partners ("Sprott"), where she is Partner, Investment Banking. Prior to Sprott, she served as President and CEO and as CFO of Orvana Minerals, as Executive Vice Chair of Baffinland Iron, as COO of Dundee Securities, and in various corporate development roles in mining and financial services. Ms. Dimitrov also brings 15+ years of governance experience with the Canadian Securities Administrators, Ontario's Mining Advisory Group and several mining companies. She holds a Global Executive M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management and Schulich School of Business as well as a law degree from the University of Windsor. Ms. Dimitrov was chosen as one of the Top 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining for 2016 and speaks frequently on various topics including capital management, talent management and ESG.

Mr. Stothart continued, "I would also like to thank Carol for her partnership over the years, through many challenges, triumphs and market cycles. She leaves the Company in a healthy financial position, fully funded for the construction of the Cote Gold Project and the future transformation of IAMGOLD. We will miss her dedication and perspective, and I sincerely wish her all the best in her well-deserved retirement."

Carol Banducci joined IAMGOLD in July 2007, providing strategic direction and leadership to the finance, information technology and investor relations teams over the course of her tenure with the Company.

About IAMGOLD

IAMGOLD is a mid-tier mining company with three gold mines on three continents, including the Essakane mine in Burkina Faso, the Rosebel mine in Suriname, and the Westwood mine in Canada. A solid base of strategic assets is complemented by the Cote Gold construction project in Canada, the Boto Gold development project in Senegal, as well as greenfield and brownfield exploration projects in various countries located in West Africa and the Americas. IAMGOLD aims to become a million-ounce gold producer as it executes on its growth strategy, including bringing Cote Gold, its fourth mine, online.

IAMGOLD is committed to maintaining its culture of accountable mining through high standards of Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") practices and employs approximately 5,000 people. IAMGOLD's commitment is to Zero Harm, in every aspect of its business. IAMGOLD is one of the companies on the JSI index.

IAMGOLD is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (trading symbol "IMG") and the New York Stock Exchange (trading symbol "IAG").

For further information please contact :

Indi Gopinathan, VP, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, IAMGOLD Corporation

Tel: (416) 360-4743 Mobile: (416) 388-6883

Philip Rabenok, Senior Analyst, Investor Relations, IAMGOLD Corporation

Tel: (416) 933-5783 Mobile: (647) 967-9942

Toll-free: 1-888-464-9999 info@iamgold.com

Please note:

This entire news release may be accessed via fax, e-mail, IAMGOLD's website at www.iamgold.com and through Newsfile's website at www.newsfilecorp.com. All material information on IAMGOLD can be found at www.sedar.com or at www.sec.gov.

Si vous desirez obtenir la version francaise de ce communique, veuillez consulter le www.iamgold.com/French/accueil/default.aspx.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76529
English Lithuanian





On the initiative and following the resolution of the Board of Panevezio statybos trestas AB, the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of Panevezio statybos trestas AB (address of registered office P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys, company code 147732969) is convened on 9 April 2021.

The place of the meeting - the meeting room of Panevezio statybos trestas AB at P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys.

The beginning of the meeting  at 10:00 (registration shall start at 09:30).

The record day of the meeting shall be 1 April 2021 (only the persons who at the end of the record day of the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders shall be on the shareholder list of the company, or the persons who are a proxy for them, or the persons with whom an agreement on transfer of voting rights has been concluded, shall have the right to participate and vote at the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders).

The meeting agenda:

Withdrawal of the Board members. Election of the Board members.

The company shall not provide possibilities to participate and vote at the meeting using any means of electronic communications.

Draft resolutions on the items of the agenda, any documents to be presented to the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders and any information related to realisation of the shareholders rights shall be published on the website of the company at www.pst.lt under the menu item Investor Relations not later than 21 days before the meeting date. The shareholders shall also be granted access to the information thereof at the secretarys office at the registered office of the company (P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys) from 7:30 till 16:30. Telephone number for inquiries: (+370 45) 505 508.

The shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all votes may propose additional items to be included in the agenda and present a draft resolution of the meeting for each proposed additional agenda item or, in case no resolution is to be adopted, give an explanation. Any proposals for additional items of the agenda shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail.

The proposals in writing shall be delivered to the secretarys office or sent by registered mail to the following address: Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT-35173, Panevezys. The proposals by e-mail shall be sent to the following e-mail address: pst@pst.lt.

Any proposals for additional items of the agenda shall be presented before 16:00 on 26 March 2021. In the event new items are added to the meeting agenda, not later than 10 days before the meeting date the company shall inform about the additions thereof using the same means as were used for convening the meeting.

The shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all votes may propose new draft resolutions on the items that are on or to be included in the agenda, additional candidates for the members of the company bodies and the audit company. The proposals thereof may be presented in writing or by e-mail.

The proposals in writing before 8:00 on 9 April 2020 may be delivered (on work days) to secretarys office or sent by registered mail to Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT-35173, Panevezys. The proposals presented in writing shall be discussed during the meeting provided they have been received at the company before 8:00 on the meeting day (9 April 2021). Any proposals in writing may be presented during the meeting after the chairman of the meeting reads the agenda out but not later than the meeting starts working on the agenda items.

Any proposals to be delivered by e-mail are to be sent to pst@pst.lt. The proposals received to the e-mail address thereof before 8:00 on 9 April 2021 shall be discussed during the meeting.

The shareholders shall be entitled to present their questions related to the agenda items to the company in advance. The questions may be sent by the shareholders by e-mail to pst@pst.lt not later than 3 working days before the meeting date. The company shall answer the questions thereof by e-mail before the meeting. The company shall not deliver the answer to any question of the shareholders in person provided the relevant information is published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt.

When registering for participation at the meeting, the shareholders or their proxies shall present a document which is a proof of their personal identity. The proxies to the shareholders shall present their proxies certified following the prescribed procedure. The proxy issued by a legal person shall be certified by a Notary Public. The proxy issued in a foreign country shall be translated into Lithuanian and legalised following the procedure prescribed by law. The proxy may be given the authority by more than one shareholder and vote in a different manner based on the instructions given by each shareholder. The company has no special form for the proxy.

The shareholder may, using the means of electronic communications, authorize some other natural or legal person to participate and vote at the meeting on behalf of the shareholder. Such proxy shall require no certification by a Notary Public. The proxy issued by the means of electronic communications shall be certified by the electronic signature of the shareholder created using any safe electronic signature software and attested by the qualified certificate valid in the Republic of Lithuania. Both the proxy and the notification shall be in writing. The shareholder shall notify the company about the proxy issued by the means of electronic communications by e-mail to pst@pst.lt not later than 16:00 on the last working day before the meeting date. The electronic signature shall be affixed on the proxy and notification but not on the letter sent by e-mail. When sending the notification to the company, the shareholder shall refer to the internet address to be used for the purpose of free downloading of electronic signature verification software. In case the shares hold by the shareholder are kept on a few securities accounts, the shareholder may authorise a separate proxy to participate and vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders in accordance with the rights carried by the shares kept in each securities account. In that case, any instructions given by the shareholder shall be valid only for one General Meeting of Shareholders.

The shareholder who holds the shares of the company acquired in his name, however for the interests of other persons, before voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders shall disclose to the company the identity of the end client, the number of voting shares and the content of given voting instructions or any other explanation related to participation and voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders agreed with the client. The shareholder may vote in a different manner using one part of his shares carrying votes and the other part of shares carrying votes.

A shareholder or his proxy may vote in advance in writing by filling in the general ballot paper. Not later than 21 days before the meeting date the form of the general ballot paper shall be published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt under the menu item Investor Relations. In case a shareholder submits a written request, not later than 10 days before the meeting date the company shall send a general ballot paper by registered mail or deliver it in person against signature of receipt. The filled in general ballot paper shall be signed by the shareholder or his proxy. In case the general ballot paper is signed by the proxy, the document validating the voting right shall be attached to it. The filled in general ballot paper with the attached documents (if required) shall be delivered by registered mail to the secretarys office at Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT- 35173, Panevezys not later than the last working day before the meeting date.

The following information and documents shall be published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt under the menu item Investor Relations throughout the entire period starting not later than 21 days before the meeting date:

- notice of convening the meeting;

- total number of company shares and number of voting shares on the date of convening the meeting;

- draft resolutions on the items of the agenda and other documents to be presented to the meeting;

- form of general ballot paper.

Egidijus Urbonas

Managing Director

Panevezio statybos trestas AB

Information

Phone: (+370 45) 505 503
The Red Brick Cafe at Shop 1, 215 Mont Albert Road has sold for $775,000 on a sharp 3.5 per cent yield, Gorman Commercials Dean Alexander said. Moorabbin On the market for just eight days, a brick industrial unit at 7B Roper Street has fetched $600,000 plus GST. The property, operated as a bar and function centre for several years, sold through Rounds Real Estates Colin Rounds. Kensington In a gated industrial estate, a 300-square-metre building at 2 McLellan Drive sold through Gorman Commercials Dean Alexander for $940,000. Occupied by a short-term tenant, it returns $36,508 per annum and sold on a sharp 3.8 per cent yield.

Mulgrave An industrial facility at 14/35 Dunlop Road has sold through Colliers Harry Larwill and Andrew Chrapot for $1.25 million to purchaser V5 Units Pty Ltd. Hampton Shopping strips remain popular with buyers. Nichols Crowders Andrew Pannam negotiated the sale prior to auction of 2/521 Hampton Street for $820,000 on a yield of 4.63 per cent. The property is occupied by long-term tenant Philips Sleep Services. Hawthorn East

A house at 388 Riversdale Road, occupied by a psychologist for over 20 years, sold for $1.5 million. Nine offers were submitted. A local medical specialist purchased it at a building rate of $12,500 per square metre, Gorman Commercials Andrew Prowse and Stephen Gorman said. LEASES Moonee Ponds Tattoo removalists Removery have leased a 145-square-metre space located at 40 Hall Street in Caydon Property Groups Mason SQ. CBREs Jason Orenbuch negotiated the lease at rent around $370 per square metre net. Removery operates multiple sites in Australian, Canada and the US. Campbellfield

ASX-listed Coventry Group has signed up at 8/1880 Hume Highway. Colliers Corey Vraca and Mitch Purcell said the tenant was attracted to the 600-square-metre showroom warehouse on a main road, which leased for $55,000 per annum net. Mordialloc A skincare clinic is the newest addition to Shop 2 at 532 Main Street. Fitzroys Tom Fisher negotiated a five-year lease for the 82-square-metre space at $35,000 per annum net. The ground floor shop is part of a multi-level mixed-use development anchored by a 1500-square-metre Aldi. A skincare clinic is the newest addition to Shop 2 at 532 Main Street. Credit: Dandenong South

E-commerce groups continue to drive leasing activity with Funtastic Group committing to a new distribution centre at 935 Taylors Road. In a deal facilitated by Colliers James Stott and Gordon Code, Funtastic signed a 1.5-year lease over 5582 square metres. Face rents are understood to be around $90 per square metre in the area. MOVERS Loading Kosta Filinis, Gareth Jackson, and Alex Andrews will join Cushman & Wakefields industrial sales and leasing team. All were with Savills previously. Alex Moffatt has also joined the industrial team after moving from CBRE, while Chris Meehan will join Cushman & Wakefields office leasing team. Mr Meehan was formerly at Colliers International. Trent Preece has joined Knight Frank as head of institutional sales. He was formerly with Colliers International.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 23:18:14|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

PHNOM PENH, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia is ready to join other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member states to assist Myanmar on its path to normalcy, said a foreign ministry's statement on Tuesday.

"As a friend and a member of the ASEAN Community, Cambodia, like all other ASEAN member states and community at large, is closely following the situation in Myanmar and is saddened by the ongoing escalation of violence that has caused loss of lives," the statement said.

While respecting the core principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states, Cambodia has supported the ASEAN chairman's statement on the developments in Myanmar issued on Feb. 1, and the chair's statement on the Informal ASEAN Ministerial Meeting issued on March 2, to support a peaceful solution to the current crisis in Myanmar, it said.

"Cambodia is ready to join other ASEAN member states to assist Myanmar on her path to normalcy in any role and in any format that are in line with ASEAN principles-in our ASEAN Way-and that are agreeable to all," the statement said.

"In this spirit, Cambodia also supports the good offices of the Chairman of ASEAN and the Secretary-General of ASEAN in a positive, peaceful and constructive manner," it added. Enditem
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Here's what you need to know: Tuesday, March 9
A phrase commonly found in news articles about self defense with a firearm is "legally registered". It is a bizarre phrase, because the requirement to register guns is quite rare in the United States. In an article published on 21 February, 2021, concerning an incident in Pennsylvania, bold added:

"Because if he was getting into my house, I probably would have done the same thing if I had a gun," neighbor Robert Gonzalez said. "I'm just going to do things a lot safer, look out for myself. Make sure whoever comes, got a look, look at his face, see what's going on. You know, probably scope him." Police say the gun the woman used was legally registered.

Readers of the article would be surprised to know, registration of firearms is illegal in Pennsylvania:

 6111.4. Registration of firearms. Notwithstanding any section of this chapter to the contrary, nothing in this chapter shall be construed to allow any government or law enforcement agency or any agent thereof to create, maintain or operate any registry of firearm ownership within this Commonwealth. For the purposes of this section only, the term "firearm" shall include any weapon that is designed to or may readily be converted to expel any projectile by the action of an explosive or the frame or receiver of any such weapon.

After 90 years of intense push for gun registration by Progressives, starting with the FDR administration, only two states require registration of all guns. According to the strong proponent of restrictions on gun ownership, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the two states are California and Hawaii. .....
Graves of people who had recently died due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are seen at the cemetery of Nembro, near Bergamo, (Photo : REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo/File Photo)

Italy's coronavirus death toll passed the 100,000 mark on Monday and Prime Minister Mario Draghi warned that the situation was worsening again with a jump in hospitalisations.



Italy is the seventh country in the world to reach the bleak milestone, following the United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, Russia and Britain.



Advertisement

The health ministry said 318 new deaths from the disease had been recorded in the past 24 hours bringing the total tally since the epidemic hit the country 13 months ago to 100,103. It took nine months for Italy to register its first 50,000 deaths, and just 3-1/2 months to double it.



Infections rose 23% last week by comparison with the week before and health officials have warned that the country faces a fresh surge of cases as a more contagious variant of the disease, first detected in Britain, gains ground.



Draghi acknowledged that the situation was deteriorating, but said his government was going to "significantly step up" its vaccination campaign.



"The pandemic is not yet over, but with the acceleration of the vaccine plan, a way out is not far off," he said in his first public address since taking office last month.



Like other European Union countries, Italy's vaccination campaign has got off to a slow start, hit in part by delivery delays from drug manufacturers.



As of Monday morning, 5.42 million shots had been carried out, with 1.65 million of Italy's 60-million-strong population having received the recommended two doses. The government is considering switching tactics to give priority to first doses rather than stockpile second doses.



The health ministry said there had been 687 new hospital admissions over the past 24 hours, up from 443 on Sunday. The total number of intensive care patients increased by 95, to 2,700.



Italy was the first Western country to be hit by COVID-19 and went into lockdown last March to slow its advance. New cases fell sharply during the summer, but a second wave slammed the country in the autumn.



After subsiding in January, infections have been pushing up again, and authorities said on Friday that the average reproduction number had risen to 1.06 - the first time it had moved above the threshold of 1 for seven weeks. An "R" number above 1 indicates infections will grow at an exponential rate.



Data released on Friday suggested the toll might be higher still. Statistics bureau ISTAT said there were 100,525 excess deaths in Italy last year compared with the 2015-2019 average, more than the 75,891 deaths officially linked to coronavirus in 2020.


It follows the acquisition of the El Romeral gas-to-power project earlier this month

( ) has raised 750,000 in a share placing with the proceeds earmarked to support gas projects in Spain and Italy.

It is issuing 50mln new shares priced at 1.5p each and participating investors will also receive share warrants (one warrant per two placing shares, lasting 2 years, and exercisable at 3p each).

Proceeds will primarily be used at the El Romeral gas-to-power project in southern Spain, Prospex said, along with the Podere Gallina licence onshore Italy where first gas from the Selva field is expected later in 2021.

Prospex completed the acquisition of a 49.9% interest in El Romeral earlier this month. It comprises three gas wells and an 8.1 megawatt power station.

With the acquisition of the El Romeral gas and power project complete and the appointment of a new government in Italy, which has the potential to speed up the final approval process for the development of the Selva gas field, the funds raised will enable us to move quickly at both projects, said chairman Bill Smith.

He added: the acquisition of El Romeral and the development of Selva could see Prospex exit 2021 with an annualised net production run rate equivalent to 7,500,000 scm [standard cubic meter] per day. At current gas prices, this equates to annualised revenues several times greater than our historic annual corporate costs.

We anticipate this level of production would propel Prospex into a position whereby the significant revenues and cashflow generated will enable us to pursue the additional low risk exploration and development opportunities that have been identified across both assets to grow production and revenues further.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
A 13-year-old girl is in detention after Lawrence County officials say she stabbed a woman and two children in the Speake community Tuesday.

She faces three first-degree assault charges, and a first degree arson charge.

The incident happened near the 6000 block of County Road 203. Deputies responding found a 53-year-old woman with stab wounds, along with an 8-year-old and an 18-month-old. Investigators say she also attempted to set fires using paper and a cigarette butt.

The girl is related to the victims in the incident, officials said.

Lawrence County Sheriff Max Sanders said the two children were transported by medical helicopter to Childrens Hospital in Birmingham. The woman was transported to Huntsville Hospital.

The 18-month-olds injuries were considered life-threatening. The 8-year-olds injury was serious but the child is in stable condition. The woman has been treated and released.
West Virginias Joe Manchin, the lord high overseer and supreme chieftain of the United States Senate, has been dropping hints lately about how hed potentially be willing to reform the filibuster, mostly under the guise of explaining to his constituents how hes actually trying to protect it. Right now, Democrats control the Senate, but theyre stuck passing bills on party-line votes via the budget reconciliation processtherefore limiting what their legislation can dobecause of the chambers resting assumption that any bill that doesnt have the support of 60 senators will be blocked via filibuster. Manchin, a moderate in a deep-red state, has said hes not in favor of scrapping the filibuster, which would allow Democrats to pursue a host of legislative ambitions like voting rights and immigration reform.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

On Sunday, however, Manchin suggested hed be open to bringing back the talking filibuster, which would require lawmakers to actually get up and give speeches if they wanted to stop legislation. If you want to make it a little bit more painful, make him stand there and talk, Im willing to look at any way we can. But Im not willing to take away the involvement of the minority, Manchin said on NBCs Meet the Press. He repeated much the same on Fox News, where he explained that it really should be painful and weve made it more comfortable over the years.

Now, in an interview with Politico, Manchin appears to have gotten even more specific about the changes hed be willing to entertainand it bodes poorly for the GOPs obstruction plans. Specifically, the piece says, Manchin thinks either the majority needs to come up with 60 votes to overcome a filibuster or the minority to come up with 41 votes to sustain it. Its a short, passing paraphrase in an article that is ostensibly about how Democrats dont have the votes to actually change the filibuster. But when considered in the context of Manchins comments over the weekend, its potentially a big deal. The senator has now said that on top of requiring the minority to actually talk during a filibuster, hed be open to requiring that they keep 41 votes on the floor in order to maintain their blockade. No matter what, that would be a massive time suck for opposition lawmakers, which would make filibustering more logistically difficult. But once youve made the rule change, it also opens up the potential for old-timey hardball tactics like running the Senate 24/7 until the opposing side just drops.

Anyway, these are all just maybes and hints coming from a man whose colleagues genuinely seem to find him inscrutable. And the effectiveness of any proposed filibuster reform is going to depend heavily on the details. But mercifully, Manchin seems to be bending in the direction of reforming the Senates most frustrating conventionand, you know, actually doing some more legislating.
DUBLIN, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Nephrology Devices Market (2020-2025) by Device Type, End User And Geography, Impact of Covid-19, Ansoff Analysis, Infogence Competitive Quadrant" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Nephrology Devices Market is estimated to be USD 13 Bn in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 17.6 Bn by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 6.3 %.

The study of Nephrology deals with the functions and diseases related to the kidney and its treatment. Similarly, nephrological devices are used for the treatment of Chronic Kidney Diseases (CKD) like renal failure, interstitial nephritis, etc. As per the Global Burden of Disease, around 1.2 million people died of CKD in 2017. With a higher occurrence of CKD, more and more patients are opting for renal replacement therapies, which involve extensive use of nephrological devices. With the increasing amount of renal disorders, the demand for nephrological devices has been on the rise.

These devices are well-defined for the treatment of nephrological disorders. With the rapid technological advancements, there have been extensive innovations in the market for nephrological devices. The market is fragmented due to the presence of several sub-segments within the market. However, several companies are competing in the market by developing the specifications of the technology, and advancing the applications of the treatment, implementing profitable strategies.

With the growing prevalence of renal disorders coupled with the rising geriatric population, the growth for nephrological devices is expected to be positive. However, the high cost associated with these devices hinders the growth of the market. On the other hand, a rise in awareness about the advantages associated with nephrology devices such as reduced treatment and recovery time is expected to provide remunerative opportunities for market expansion during the forecast period.

Market Dynamics

Drivers

Rising Geriatric Population

The Surge in Healthcare Expenditure

The Rise in the Prevalence of Renal Disorders

Restraints

High Cost Associated with the Devices

Opportunities

High Growth Potential in Developing Economies

Innovation in Nephrology Devices

Rising Awareness about the Benefits of Nephrological Devices

Segments Covered



By Device Type, the Dialysis Instrument is estimated to account for the fastest-growing segment during the forecast year. This is attributable to an increase in the number of patients requiring hemodialysis, thus leading to a direct demand for such machines, especially in the developing nations.



By Geography, North America is anticipated to have the largest market share during the forecast period. It is attributed to factors such as a high rise in the aging population with increased exposure to nephrological disorders. Also, the easy accessibility to the nephrological devices in the US has further boosted the growth of this market.



Company Profiles



Some of the companies covered in this report are Baxter International, C.R.Bard, Fresenius Medical Care, Nikkiso Co. Ltd, Dornier Medtech, Asahi Kasei Corporation, DaVita, Nipro Corporation, Cantel Medical Corporation, and B. Braun Melsungen AG.



Competitive Quadrant



The report includes Competitive Quadrant, a proprietary tool to analyze and evaluate the position of companies based on their Industry Position score and Market Performance score. The tool uses various factors for categorizing the players into four categories. Some of these factors considered for analysis are financial performance over the last 3 years, growth strategies, innovation score, new product launches, investments, growth in market share, etc.



Lions: Represents companies with a strong foothold in the market, with the highest market share, large investments in technologies, new products.

Bulls: Companies that are medium in size competing with their USPs, growing companies with proven market share.

Rabbits: Small companies but growing rapidly, constantly improving their offerings in the market.

Tortoise: Companies which are slow in growth, having a long legacy, and stable or negative in performance.



Why Buy this report?

The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the Global Nephrology Devices Market. - The report includes in-depth qualitative analysis, verifiable data from authentic sources, and projections about market size. The projections are calculated using proven research methodologies.

The report has been compiled through extensive primary and secondary research. The primary research is done through interviews, surveys, and observation of renowned personnel in the industry.

The report includes in-depth market analysis using Porter's 5 force model and the Ansoff Matrix. The impact of Covid-19 on the market is also featured in the report.

The report also contains a competitive analysis using a Competitive Quadrant, a Proprietary competitive positioning tool.

Report Highlights:

A complete analysis of the market including parent industry

Important market dynamics and trends

Market segmentation

Historical, current, and projected size of the market based on value and volume

Market shares and strategies of key players

Recommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the market

Key Topics Covered:



1 Report Description

1.1 Study Objectives

1.2 Market Definition

1.3 Currency

1.4 Years Considered

1.5 Language

1.6 Key Shareholders



2 Research Methodology

2.1 Research Process

2.2 Data Collection and Validation

2.2.1 Secondary Research

2.2.2 Primary Research

2.3 Market Size Estimation

2.4 Assumptions of the Study

2.5 Limitations of the Study



3 Executive Summary



4 Market Overview

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Market Dynamics

4.2.1 Drivers

4.2.2 Restraints

4.2.3 Opportunities

4.3 Trends



5 Market Analysis

5.1 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5.2 Impact of COVID-19

5.3 Ansoff Matrix Analysis



6 Global Nephrology Devices Market, By Device Type

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Lithotripter

6.3 Dialysis Instrument

6.4 Haemodialysis Water Treatment Systems

6.5 Dialysis Catheter

6.6 Other Device Types



7 Global Nephrology Devices Market, By end user

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Hospitals

7.3 Ambulatory Surgery Centers

7.4 Home

7.5 Others



8 Global Nephrology Devices Market, By Geography

8.1 Introduction

8.2 North America

8.2.1 US

8.2.2 Canada

8.2.3 Mexico

8.3 South America

8.3.1 Brazil

8.3.2 Argentina



8.4 Europe

8.4.1 UK

8.4.2 France

8.4.3 Germany

8.4.4 Italy

8.4.5 Rest of Europe



8.5 Asia-Pacific

8.5.1 China

8.5.2 Japan

8.5.3 India

8.5.4 Australia

8.5.5 Rest of APAC

8.6 Middle East and Africa



9 Competitive Landscape

9.1 Competitive Quadrant

9.2 Market Share Analysis

9.3 Competitive Scenario

9.3.1 Mergers & Acquisitions

9.3.2 Agreements, Collaborations, & Partnerships

9.3.3 New Product Launches & Enhancements

9.3.4 Investments & Fundings



10 Company Profiles

10.1 Nikkiso Co., Ltd.

10.2 Baxter International Inc.

10.3 Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA

10.4 Dornier MedTech

10.5 Asahi Kasei Corporation

10.6 Nipro Corporation

10.7 DaVita

10.8 Cantel Medical Corporation

10.9 B. Braun Melsungen AG

10.10 C.R.Bard, Inc.

10.11 Boston Scientific Corporation

10.12 Cook Medical

10.13 Siemens Healthineers

10.14 Medtronic plc

10.15 Medline Industries, Inc.

10.16 STORZ Medical AG



11 Appendix

11.1 Questionnaire

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/l3ujh6

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Lome, Togo (PANA) - The international community expressed its support for Mali's quest for political stability and peace, following the August coup, at the second meeting of the Transition Support Group in Mali, held on Monday in the Togolese capital
Photo: (Photo : Karolina Grabowska from Pexels)

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, people are struggling with their finances. Some parents lost their jobs, and others had to juggle balancing their finances.

Through it all, the government paved a way to stimulate the economy through stimulus checks.

Last year, two checks were released. One of these checks served as assistance to parents of 2020 babies. Whether these babies were born or adopted from January 1 to December 31, 2020, then the parents are eligible for a stimulus check of $1100.

FIND OUT MORE: Family Finances: Ways to Avoid Mistakes of Young Parents

How to claim missing stimulus checks for 2020 babies

1. File the 2020 tax return.

According to CNET, this is the simplest way to recover any missing stimulus checks is by filing the 2020 tax return.

When the 2020 return is filed, the IRS can use one's information so that they can process your stimulus benefits.

Through this, parents can get the money by a refund recovery credit.

2. Try to trace the payment

If due to an IRS error, the better way to look for the check is through a payment trace.

However, if the missing check is for a new dependent, then a Recovery Rebate Credit might be the way to go. This step is also a great way to address discrepancies between how much money you are still owed and how much you receive.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Late Stimulus Checks? 5 Questions Parents Usually Ask

Why were stimulus checks for parents of 2020 babies delayed?

According to a report from CBS 42, the extra cash for parents of 2020 babies may have been missed out because the Treasury and IRS used the 2019 returns.

For the automatic payments, the calculation did not include the babies born or adopted in 2020, which is why the checks were delayed.

ALSO READ: Single Parents Struggle More Due to the Pandemic

A third stimulus check is on the way

Aside from the stimulus checks for parents of 2020 babies, new stimulus money is on the way. The details of this are still being ironed in Congress.

This grant is part of the American Rescue Plan  President Joe Biden's relief package amounting to $1.9 trillion. The third check would grant parents a maximum of 1400 US dollars for every qualifying dependent. The Senate has yet to confirm other details of this third check.

How to spend the stimulus checks

First thing's first: do not feel bad if you had to spend the money for bills or bulk up your emergency fund.

If parents are financially stable, they could use the money to invest on behalf of their children. One thing that they could do is to save the money as part of children's college funds  think about long-term investments that would benefit the child.

There could be a number of ways on how parents can spend the money. But whatever way, it should be something that would benefit the entire family.

READ MORE: Keeping Tabs: How to Manage Family Finances
Gardai are urging the public to be aware of investment fraud scams with a 120% increase in such scams during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Common investment scams may include lucrative investment opportunities such as shares, bonds, cryptocurrencies, rare metals, overseas land investments or alternative energy

"Unfortunately such scams are becoming more prevalent, particularly during the pandemic due to increased online traffic and targeting of the general public by criminals using ever increasingly sophisticated means," say gardai.

What is investment fraud?

An investment fraud scam is a fraud where criminals pose as investment managers, promise quick and high rates of return, and simply steal your money. The fraudster uses various investment schemes such as in rare metals, overseas property, and alternative energy schemes such as carbon credits and forestry. Promises are made of fast, enormous returns, once in a lifetime opportunities and can be seen to be endorsed by reputable business people or celebrities but this is without their knowledge

How to identify an investment fraud?

Nearly all recent crimes involve virtual assets such as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Many people online are responding to pop-up adds, following advice received via social media or they seek out investment advice on the internet and follow links to company sites which appear to be professional. Quite often these fraudulent sites are hosted well beyond the EU or are companies registered in unregulated jurisdictions.

There is a huge element of aggressive, hard selling associated with investments frauds. Professional charts and graphs are used to show how much money the victim will make.

Once the victim is duped into a fraudulent investment, there are many means by which the criminal can steal funds from the victims account  including via remote access to the victims computer, receipt of personal information, bank accounts and photographic identification. False investments are made on behalf of the victim while the criminal transfers and steals the money.

Losses start at 1,000, the majority are in excess of 40,000, representing a persons life savings or pension lump sum.

"During Covid-19 times, we have seen a nearly 120% increase in this type of crime," said Chief Superintendent Pat Lordan.

"We know that this crime is underreported as victims will often be embarrassed or ashamed at having been caught out. One case involved a retired professional from the Midlands who lost his entire pension and savings of nearly quarter of a million euro. Our advice is simple, dont respond to unsolicited approaches, be wary of wild claims, and never ever let anyone have remote access to your computer. "

How to avoid Investment Fraud scams?

 If it is too good to be true, it probably is

 Do your own research and be wary of wild claims

o Always seek independent financial and legal advice before making any investments

o Check the various registers on the Central Bank of Irelands website

o Use regulated investment firms where possible (Virtual assets are not currently regulated in Ireland)

 Do not respond to unsolicited approaches or cold-calls

 Dont click on links for websites that you dont know

 Never ever disclose your bank account passwords or codes

 Never allow anyone remote access to your computer.

Further information on investment and other fraud types can be found on www.garda.ieand www.fraudSMART.ie
Mullen Lintas has recently won the creative mandate for Nature's Essence, a skincare and haircare brand backed by Samara Capital. Following the win, Mullen Lintas Mumbai has conceived a campaign speaking directly to consumers, a first for the brand that operates predominantly in the B2B space.

Nature's Essence has an omni-channel presence with a network spanning 150,000+ retailers, 60,000+ salons, and leading e-commerce platforms in India. While B2B is a stronghold that the brand enjoys in the skin, hair and personal care segments, this campaign propels the brand into a wider orbit by establishing a direct connection with its consumers via mass communication.

Talking about its maiden campaign, Mr. Amit Chopra, CEO Esme Consumer Pvt. Ltd. said: " For more than 20 years, Nature's essence has helped women discover their real beauty through its range of Facial Kits, Gels, Creams and Face washes. Our first campaign, "Hello Beautiful", encourages every woman to discover their inner beauty by embracing the best that nature and technology has to offer "

The new campaign is part of the revamped brand strategy, crafted by Futurebrands, which imagines beauty & skincare in a fresh new avatar.

Conceptualised by Mullen Lintas, the brands debut film follows a young woman carrying out her morning skincare routine as she goes about speaking over the phone, with her new self revealed towards the end of the film. The campaign film illustrates how one can come face-to-face with their natural inner beauty with some help from Nature's Essence. The unique take on beauty supported with cute and charming demeanour adds to the relatability of the film and shines a spotlight on the wide range of products that the brand offers.

Commenting on the campaign idea, Garima Khandelwal and Azazul Haque, CCOs at Mullen Lintas said: "Natures Essence's range of beauty products for everyday skincare make you meet your new beautiful skin, as though you meet yourself for the first time. We won the business with the strategy of making beauty a conversation with self, talking to the new confident audience that is not seeking or cares for external validation or admiration for her newfound beauty, but making herself her biggest fan and admirer."

The integrated campaign is already live across online and other mediums.
Transformative is the word Huw Jones uses to describe the recent 11mln fundraising by ( ).

It allows us to accelerate some substantial work now, the companys CEO says.

So, what was it the new investors liked about Evgen; what did they see that the wider market didnt?

Well, its the same thing that persuaded Jones to join the company last October: SFX-01.

For those unfamiliar with the Evgen story, SFX-01 is the companys lead compound that has potential applications in cancers, inflammation and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), including COVID ARDS.

It is derived from sulforaphane, a compound from nature that Evgen has converted into a fully synthetic, patented drug.

Massively biologically active

In Sulforadex, the companys core technology, Evgen has found a method for synthesising and stabilising the naturally occurring compound to a pharmaceutical standard.

And the group's lead product, SFX-01, is a patented composition of synthetic sulforaphane and alpha-cyclodextrin.

In our hands, its a drug that is massively biologically active, says Jones.

The injection of funds will allow Evgen to improve the manufacturing process around SFX-01 to refine and rescale output.

This allows us now to really take it to the pharmaceutical level rather than the prototype formulation, which everybody starts with, says Jones.

With a financial runway out to mid-2023, there will be enough in the coffers to fund an ambitious programme, including further work on SFX-01s potential use in treating metastatic breast cancer and glioma (brain cancer).

On the latter, pre-clinical work will continue before a possible move onto human trials, depending on the data.

Significant landmark

An ambition (and a potential significant landmark/catalyst for the business) will be the filing of an investigational new drug application (IND) in the US for SFX-01, though medical indication for the drug hasnt been decided.

Evgen is also planning to make two key senior hires to support these ambitious plans  a chief business officer and chief scientific and medical officer.

Their job will be to build on the significant progress already made to date in cancers, COVID and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

The company has successfully completed a phase IIa trial of SFX-01 in women with oestrogen-positive (ER+) metastatic breast cancer.

Strong early signs of efficacy

Data from this trial provided strong early signs of efficacy in this hard-to-treat patient group with the compound either halting the tumour growth or, in some cases, significantly reducing it.

Preclinical work is now being carried out with Manchester University to assess the possible impact of its discovery in patients that have become resistant to CDK4/6 inhibitor drugs such as the blockbuster Ibrance.

If successful, this evaluation would pave the way for a second phase II trial.

In cancer, SFX-01 has been shown to halt or even shrink tumours. The drug candidate also stimulates, or upregulates, the Nrf2 pathway, which is part of the natural human defence against inflammatory and oxidative stress that occurs during severe viral infection.

With this in mind, Evgen has embarked on a phase II/III clinical trial to assess the potential efficacy of SFX-01 in patients with acute respiratory problems, the majority of whom are likely to have been infected by coronavirus.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome

Specifically, researchers will investigate whether SFX-01 can reduce the severity or prevent the onset of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in pneumonia patients.

Even before the pandemic, there were 190,000 ARDS cases a year in the US. It has a very poor prognosis and few effective treatment options.

Analysts expect top-line results from the research, which is being carried out by scientists from Dundee University and funded by the medical charity Life Arc, towards the end of the year.

A total of 109 people have been recruited to the randomised STAR trial. In collaboration with Dundee we also want to take [an early] peek at the efficacy data, says Jones.

SFX-01 appears to be the gift that keeps on giving if the results from pre-clinical models of glioma and glioblastoma are anything to go by. Jones called the results compelling and it is easy to see why.

Lab work carried out in collaboration with the University of LAquila in Abruzzo, Italy, showed tumour shrinkage and significantly extended survival times.

Encouraging signs

SFX-01 was also found to substantially increase the therapeutic effect of radiotherapy in these models.

While research is currently at the very preliminary stage, it does at least point to a future method of combatting this form of brain cancer, which has a poor prognosis.

Jones says Evgen is likely to follow the initial research being carried out by the collaboration partner with a phase II clinical trial.

It's not a very crowded space either in terms of the pipeline or products in the market, which consists of radiotherapy and one chemotherapy drug, he explains.

So, in terms of indication selection, we couldn't be in a better place particularly given the power of the data we've got, and the unmet clinical need.

What comes through clearly from the foregoing  and a point spotted by the new investors joining the Evgen register  is the company is not some binary life-sciences one-trick pony.

Each area or drug indication for SFX-01 represents a value inflexion point that could deliver significant upfront and milestone payments as well as royalties on sales of a commercial product.

Analysts and investors refer to a company in this position as having multiple shots on goal  the idea being the more shots a life sciences business has the more likely it is to score a drug success.

Sleeper in the Evgen portfolio

A sleeper in the Evgen portfolio is its deal with entrepreneur Jim Mellons Juvenescence, which has licensed the non-pharmaceutical/nutraceutical rights to the Sulforadex platform.

The tie-up is worth around US$10.5mln in milestone payments and future royalties to Evgen.

FinnCap, the companys broker, has assessed the nascent potential of Evgen and come up with a 29p a share valuation (using a risk-adjusted discounted cash flow calculation)  some 20p more than the current share price.

Analyst Mark Brewer describes Evgen as not without risk but adds that multiple shots on goal provide investors substantial upside potential, given the number of opportunities that exist for monetising SFX-01 and Sulforadex.
The Guardian

The potential consequences of the origins of the virus are shattering  if they can be proved My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters There was a time when the Covid pandemic seemed to confirm so many of our assumptions. It cast down the people we regarded as villains. It raised up those we thought were heroes. It prospered people who could shift easily to working from home even as it problematized the lives of those Trump voters living in the old economy. Like all plagues, Covid often felt like the hand of God on earth, scourging the people for their sins against higher learning and visibly sorting the righteous from the unmasked wicked. Respect science, admonished our yard signs. And lo!, Covid came and forced us to do so, elevating our scientists to the highest seats of social authority, from where they banned assembly, commerce, and all the rest. We cast blame so innocently in those days. We scolded at will. We knew who was right and we shook our heads to behold those in the wrong playing in their swimming pools and on the beach. It made perfect sense to us that Donald Trump, a politician we despised, could not grasp the situation, that he suggested people inject bleach, and that he was personally responsible for more than one super-spreading event. Reality itself punished leaders like him who refused to bow to expertise. The prestige news media even figured out a way to blame the worst death tolls on a system of organized ignorance they called populism. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a cult out of the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general But these days the consensus doesnt consense quite as well as it used to. Now the media is filled with disturbing stories suggesting that Covid might have come  not from populism at all, but from a laboratory screw-up in Wuhan, China. You can feel the moral convulsions beginning as the question sets in: What if science itself is in some way culpable for all this? * I am no expert on epidemics. Like everyone else I know, I spent the pandemic doing as I was told. A few months ago I even tried to talk a Fox News viewer out of believing in the lab-leak theory of Covids origins. The reason I did that is because the newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-leak theory wasnt true, that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-on-fire ratings from the fact-checkers, and because (despite all my cynicism) I am the sort who has always trusted the mainstream news media. My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month; a few weeks later everyone from Doctor Fauci to President Biden is acknowledging that the lab-accident hypothesis might have some merit. We dont know the real answer yet, and we probably will never know, but this is the moment to anticipate what such a finding might ultimately mean. What if this crazy story turns out to be true? The answer is that this is the kind of thing that could obliterate the faith of millions. The last global disaster, the financial crisis of 2008, smashed peoples trust in the institutions of capitalism, in the myths of free trade and the New Economy, and eventually in the elites who ran both American political parties. In the years since (and for complicated reasons), liberal leaders have labored to remake themselves into defenders of professional rectitude and established legitimacy in nearly every field. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a sort of cult out of science, expertise, the university system, executive-branch norms, the intelligence community, the State Department, NGOs, the legacy news media, and the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general. Now here we are in the waning days of Disastrous Global Crisis #2. Covid is of course worse by many orders of magnitude than the mortgage meltdown  it has killed millions and ruined lives and disrupted the world economy far more extensively. Should it turn out that scientists and experts and NGOs, etc. are villains rather than heroes of this story, we may very well see the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism go up in a fireball of public anger. Consider the details of the story as we have learned them in the last few weeks:  Lab leaks happen. They arent the result of conspiracies: a lab accident is an accident, as Nathan Robinson points out; they happen all the time, in this country and in others, and people die from them.  There is evidence that the lab in question, which studies bat coronaviruses, may have been conducting what is called gain of function research, a dangerous innovation in which diseases are deliberately made more virulent. By the way, right-wingers didnt dream up gain of function: all the cool virologists have been doing it (in this country and in others) even as the squares have been warning against it for years.  There are strong hints that some of the bat-virus research at the Wuhan lab was funded in part by the American national-medical establishment  which is to say, the lab-leak hypothesis doesnt implicate China alone.  There seem to have been astonishing conflicts of interest among the people assigned to get to the bottom of it all, and (as we know from Enron and the housing bubble) conflicts of interest are always what trip up the well-credentialed professionals whom liberals insist we must all heed, honor, and obey.  The news media, in its zealous policing of the boundaries of the permissible, insisted that Russiagate was ever so true but that the lab-leak hypothesis was false false false, and woe unto anyone who dared disagree. Reporters gulped down whatever line was most flattering to the experts they were quoting and then insisted that it was 100% right and absolutely incontrovertible  that anything else was only unhinged Trumpist folly, that democracy dies when unbelievers get to speak, and so on.  The social media monopolies actually censored posts about the lab-leak hypothesis. Of course they did! Because were at war with misinformation, you know, and people need to be brought back to the true and correct faith  as agreed upon by experts. * Let us pray, now, for science, intoned a New York Times columnist back at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. The title of his article laid down the foundational faith of Trump-era liberalism: Coronavirus is What You Get When You Ignore Science. Ten months later, at the end of a scary article about the history of gain of function research and its possible role in the still ongoing Covid pandemic, Nicholson Baker wrote as follows: This may be the great scientific meta-experiment of the 21st century. Could a world full of scientists do all kinds of reckless recombinant things with viral diseases for many years and successfully avoid a serious outbreak? The hypothesis was that, yes, it was doable. The risk was worth taking. There would be no pandemic. Except there was. If it does indeed turn out that the lab-leak hypothesis is the right explanation for how it began  that the common people of the world have been forced into a real-life lab experiment, at tremendous cost  there is a moral earthquake on the way. Because if the hypothesis is right, it will soon start to dawn on people that our mistake was not insufficient reverence for scientists, or inadequate respect for expertise, or not enough censorship on Facebook. It was a failure to think critically about all of the above, to understand that there is no such thing as absolute expertise. Think of all the disasters of recent years: economic neoliberalism, destructive trade policies, the Iraq War, the housing bubble, banks that are too big to fail, mortgage-backed securities, the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016  all of these disasters brought to you by the total, self-assured unanimity of the highly educated people who are supposed to know what theyre doing, plus the total complacency of the highly educated people who are supposed to be supervising them. Then again, maybe I am wrong to roll out all this speculation. Maybe the lab-leak hypothesis will be convincingly disproven. I certainly hope it is. But even if it inches closer to being confirmed, we can guess what the next turn of the narrative will be. It was a perfect storm, the experts will say. Who coulda known? And besides (they will say), the origins of the pandemic dont matter any more. Go back to sleep. Thomas Frank is a Guardian US columnist. He is the author, most recently, of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Paul Sancya / Associated Press

Gov. Gavin Newsom has another powerful politician in his corner after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Monday urged Californians to oppose the recall effort seeking to oust the Democratic governor.

Sanders was the second high-profile figure as of Monday to support Newsom after the White House last month said President Biden clearly opposes any effort to recall the governor. The Vermont senator on Twitter said that right-wing Republicans are behind the effort to recall Newsom for the crime of telling people to wear masks and for listening to scientists during COVID.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
A task force charged with making recommendations to boost congressional security after a deadly Jan. 6 pro-Trump mob assault on Capitol Hill has proposed establishing a permanent military presence ready to go at a moment's notice in Washington, D.C.

The security review, led by retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who ran military relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina, recommended establishing a permanent National Guard quick reaction force, or QRF, for all of D.C.

A QRF is a standard military security element meant to provide swift reinforcements.

Read Next: The Military Is Resuming the Diversity Training That Trump Banned

"This could be done by mobilizing military police from Guard elements across the U.S. on rotations of three to six months," the task force's report states. "Another option would be to create a QRF that permanently resides within the D.C. Guard by reestablishing a military police battalion and staffing it with active Guard reserve troops who live in or near the city year-round, perpetually on active duty."

The proposal notes that military forces should be a supplement to a law enforcement QRF. Establishing a permanent National Guard presence could be a costly measure for the military, especially if states must continue to rotate troops and equipment in and out. Basic Allowance for Housing for an Army specialist, the most common rank in the force, is $2,520 per month in the D.C. area without dependents. That is on top of standard pay.

National Guard troops also must maintain civilian jobs, which could be a challenge. Guard troops would have to stay activated under federal orders for legal protections from employer retaliation.

Troops, if serving under Title 32 federal orders under a presidential emergency declaration, would also accrue benefits under the Department of Veterans Affairs, such as qualifying for the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The VA spends an average of $17,400 per GI Bill beneficiary, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Under the current law, the president would have to declare a constant state of emergency for Guard troops to accrue federal benefits.

Immediately after the mob stormed the Capitol, 26,000 Guard troops from around the country were mobilized. About 5,200 remain on the Capitol security mission. Five people died during the siege, including Capitol Hill police officer Brian Sicknick.

The recommendations come a week after the commander of the D.C. National Guard testified that unusual restrictions by the Pentagon during the Trump administration hindered his ability to quickly deploy troops as the mob assaulted Capitol Hill.

Maj. Gen. William Walker told members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs that he could have begun sending Guard members to support D.C. law enforcement, under siege by a rioting crowd, hours earlier but was hampered by a strict Pentagon approval process, indecisive leadership and sluggish communication.

To combat the slow military response, the task force report makes an unprecedented request to give the commander for the D.C. Guard the authority to deploy troops without the president's permission under extreme circumstances -- something that could raise significant questions on the integrity of civilian control of the military.

"We recommend  the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard shall retain 'emergency authority' ... in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances when necessary 'to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and proper order,'" the report states.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

Related: Guard Members Who Deployed for the Inauguration Are Getting a Brand-New Award
More and more Americans are rolling up their sleeves to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, but the percentage of those who say they wont do has held steady, according to a poll released Monday.

Almost one-quarter of Americans in the Monmouth University Poll, 24%, said they would not receive a vaccine. Thats the same percentage as in the Monmouth survey released in February, after President Joe Biden took office.

That includes 36% of Republicans, though thats down from 42% last month. Democrats dropped to 6% from 10% but independents refusing to be jabbed increased to 31% from 25%.

Partisanship has always been the main dividing line on the pandemic, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. A new challenge for the Biden administration is the possibility of more independents joining Republicans in becoming vaccine skeptics.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

In New Jersey, more than 2.5 million residents have been vaccinated, Gov. Phil Murphy said at his coronavirus press briefing on Monday.

As the number of coronavirus-related deaths climbed past 525,000, just 21% of Americans said they expect the U.S. to return to normal by the summer, down from 29% in the February poll. Another 40% said it would take until the end of the year, as compared with 39% in the earlier survey.

Another 27% said it would take even longer than that, compared with 24% in February, and 9% saying the country would never return to normal, compared with 6% in the earlier survey.

Most Americans feel that normal is still many months away and perhaps a little farther down the road than initially hoped for during Bidens first days in office, Murray said.

Biden continued to get high marks for handling the pandemic, with 57% saying he was doing a good job and 31% saying he was doing a bad job. In the February survey, his ratings were 58% positive and 23% negative.

The poll of 802 U.S. adults was conducted Feb. 25-March 1 and had a margin of error of +/-3.5 percentage points.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Sign up here to get the latest stories on COVID in New Jersey, straight to your inbox.
KYODO NEWS - Mar 9, 2021 - 18:10 | All, Japan, Coronavirus

Japan will allow hospitals to administer Pfizer Inc.'s COVID-19 vaccine using insulin syringes, which can extract seven shots per vial rather than the five possible with the type of syringe the government has procured, health minister Norihisa Tamura said Tuesday.

The move comes as the country's vaccine rollout grapples with a supply shortage owing to production delays at Pfizer's factory in Belgium and export controls by the European Union.

Taro Kono, minister in charge of the country's vaccination efforts, said the government will look into procuring insulin syringes "if there is a surplus" and it does not affect supply for diabetes patients.

Last week, Uji-Tokushukai Medical Center in Kyoto Prefecture, western Japan, said it had found that insulin syringes, which do not have as much dead space meaning less fluid is left in the needle after a shot, could be used to extract seven shots of the Pfizer vaccine per vial.

Insulin syringes are designed for subcutaneous injections rather than the intramuscular injections necessary for COVID-19 vaccines, and therefore have shorter needles. This means they may not work for some people, for example those with more fat on their arms.

The government's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, said it would be up to hospitals to ensure the vaccines are administered properly, and that the government does not plan to actively advocate the use of insulin syringes.

Since launching its vaccination program in mid-February, Japan has used six-shot syringes on an initial group of 40,000 health care workers and switched to the more widely available five-shot syringes to inoculate other medical staff totaling 4.8 million.

The country has a supply agreement with Pfizer for 144 million doses, enough for more than half its population, within this year. Other vaccines developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna Inc. are under review by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for fast-track approval.

The health ministry last week approved a low dead space syringe developed by Terumo Corp. that can also yield seven shots per vial of the Pfizer vaccine but has a longer needle, with production ready to begin as early as the end of this month.

The medical equipment maker expects to manufacture 20 million of the syringes, which were designed using know-how from the 2009 swine flu pandemic, in the fiscal year beginning in April, according to a company official.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has called vaccines the "decisive factor" in bringing COVID-19 under control in Japan, with the economy languishing under restrictions on dining out and less than five months to go until this summer's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

But Kato called on the public to continue taking precautions against COVID-19 even after getting vaccinated including wearing masks, adding the health ministry will update its guidelines as needed.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday people who have been fully vaccinated can meet with each other indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing.

Those fully vaccinated can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household without masks, unless any of those people or anyone they live with is at severe risk if they catch COVID-19, according to the CDC.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, children's hospitals across the United States have seen signification reductions in the number of children being treated for common pediatric illnesses like asthma and pneumonia, according to a new multicenter study led by Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.

Researchers at Children's Hospital found that 42% fewer children were being seen and hospitalized at 44 children's hospital across the U.S. for both respiratory and non-respiratory illnesses, with the most significant reduction seen in children under age 12. Hospitals saw a decline in the number of children seen or hospitalized for respiratory illness by 62%, while there was 38% reduction for non-respiratory illnesses.

The trend, they believe, is likely linked to public health measures instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic -- masking, social distancing and handwashing -- as well as reduced school and extracurricular activities among children and adolescents.

The study, "The COVID-19 Pandemic and Changes in Healthcare Utilization for Pediatric Respiratory and Non-Respiratory Illnesses in the United States," published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

"We found substantial decreases in health care encounters for respiratory and non-respiratory illnesses at children's hospitals across the U.S. The declines were larger for respiratory than non-respiratory illnesses," said lead study author James Antoon, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Pediatrics in the Hospital Medicine Program at Children's Hospital.

"This likely reflects reduced transmission of common respiratory pathogens resulting from pandemic response measures. For example, we found striking reductions in ED visits and hospitalizations for common pediatric illnesses such as asthma, pneumonia and influenza. Respiratory illnesses are the most common cause of ED visits and hospitalizations in children," Antoon added.

The large multicenter study evaluated emergency department visits and hospitalizations for respiratory and non-respiratory illness at 44 U.S. children's hospitals during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Using data reported to the Pediatric Health Information System database maintained by the Children's Hospital Association, researchers looked at children ages 2 months to 18 years who had been discharged from an ED or inpatient setting with a non-surgical diagnosis between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, comparing encounter volumes in 2020 with average volumes for 2017-19.

During the study period when COVID was widespread (May-September), researchers found the overall reductions for ED visits/hospitalizations for each respiratory illness across all age groups varied by type: asthma-related encounters dropped by 76%; pneumonia dropped by 81%; croup by 84%; influenza by 87%; and bronchiolitis by 91%.

When comparing age groups, the study found that adolescents had smaller reductions in both respiratory and non-respiratory illnesses compared to younger children.

"The changes in health care visits varied by age," Antoon said. "Adolescents had smaller reductions in both respiratory and non-respiratory illnesses compared to younger children, and their rates of respiratory illnesses increased at the end of the study period. Our findings suggest that the adolescent population is an important target for community-based prevention efforts to limit the spread of future respiratory illnesses."

Researchers say that further study is needed to continue to understand the reasons why fewer children went to the ED or had to be hospitalized and to evaluate if families sought treatment in alternative care settings such as telehealth visits.

###

Other Vanderbilt researchers involved in the study include Derek Williams, MD, MPH, associate professor of Pediatrics and chief of the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, and Carlos Grijalva, MD, MPH, associate professor of Health Policy.
After Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that he would lift Texas mask mandate, H-E-B initially said it would urge customers to continue wearing masks in stores while requiring employees and vendors to do so.

Within hours, customers worried about the spread of COVID-19 bombarded the San Antonio-based companys policy on social media.

Some vowed to take their business elsewhere. Some complained that H-E-B hadnt enforced mask-wearing to begin with.

You let me down this time, one Twitter user groused to the grocer.

THE DOCKET: True crime, legal buzz, courtroom news and more. Delivered to your inbox.

I am surprisingly devastated that @HEB, which has basically been Texass ONE beacon of efficiency, good grace, and hope during this nightmare year, will no longer require customers to wear masks, another wrote. Really didnt need that one beacon of hope to go dark.

Other H-E-B shoppers pleaded with the grocer to reverse its decision.

As the criticism mounted, the company posted a new statement on its website Friday. Signs calling on customers to wear masks will remain in place. H-E-B employees will offer masks to any customer not wearing one.

While statewide policy has changed, our store protocol has not, the company said. Mask use at our stores will remain. ... We will continue to expect shoppers to wear masks while in our stores. Additionally, we will still require all our partners and vendors to wear masks while at work.

Abbotts order goes into effect Wednesday.

The difference between H-E-Bs first and second statement on mask-wearing appeared to be in tone, not substance. The company traded one verb for another; it would expect  instead of urge  shoppers to wear face coverings.

But will H-E-B remove customers who refuse to wear masks in its stores? Spokeswoman Dya Campos didnt directly answer the question.

Nothing is changing at H-E-B, she said. We will continue to approach masks as we have these past few months. We expect our customers to wear masks.

Campos declined to make an executive available for an interview Monday. But H-E-B President Scott McClelland told Hearst Newspapers that customers who come in without a mask will be asked to put one on or offered one.

If at that point they refuse to put a mask on and they become belligerent about it, then we are not going to escalate because of concerns about employees and other customers safety, he said.

H-E-B is the dominant grocer in the San Antonio area, claiming a market share of 60 percent, according to the industry publication Shelby Report in 2019. The company has 22,000 employees in Bexar and surrounding counties  out of a total of more than 100,000 across Texas  and operates more than 50 stores in the region.

In South Texas, there are few institutions with as much cultural cachet as H-E-B. The company boasts strong customer loyalty, built around its prices and products and ties to the communities in which it operates.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the retailer has won praise for its preparedness.

The backlash over its mask policy is a rare fracture between the company and its customers.

H-E-B and other retailers  and their employees  are caught between Texans who want to finally ditch mask requirements and health officials guidance that masks are key to restraining COVID-19 infection rates. Abbotts decision to lift the mask mandate has put grocery stores on the front lines of the culture war over mask-wearing.

Retailers are caught between a rock and a hard place, said Venky Shankar, research director for Texas A&M Universitys Center for Retailing Studies. They have to do a balancing act.

If companies dont require masks, they could endanger the health of their customers and workers, who are not yet eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Texas despite their exposure to waves of shoppers.

For national chains, if they make an exception to Texas, theyll have to make exceptions in many states, and theyll come under pressure, Shankar said.

If retailers do require masks, they must decide how to enforce their decision without a state mandate to point to  and risk angering patrons.

Indeed, employees face the possibility of confrontations with irate customers who refuse to wear masks. The Retail Industry Leaders Association called Abbotts decision to lift the mask mandate a mistake, in part because it puts the onus of enforcing rules on store workers.

Going backwards on safety measures will unfairly put retail employees back in the role of enforcing guidelines still recommended by the CDC and other public health advocates, said Jason Brewer, the groups executive vice president of communications and state affairs.

Kroger, Target, Aldi and Sprouts Farmers Market said last week that they will continue requiring customers and employees to wear masks in Texas stores. Walmart did not respond to questions about its mask policy, but its website says face coverings are required.

However, its unclear whether the retailers will ask customers who arent wearing masks to leave their stores. The companies sidestepped the question Monday.

When asked about Costcos policies last week, a spokesperson directed a reporter to a November statement by CEO Craig Jelinek and a page on the companys website indicating masks remain a requirement.

Entry to Costco will only be granted to those wearing a face mask or face shield, Jelinek said.

H-E-B wasnt the only retailer facing barbs over its mask decision last week. Albertsons Cos., which operates Albertsons, Tom Thumb, Randalls and other brands, initially said it would encourage customers to wear masks. But the company said Friday that it will require masks for shoppers as well as employees and vendors.

While we know that mask requirements have been controversial and polarizing across some of our operating areas, we also know that masks in combination with social distancing and proper cleaning and sanitization can work to prevent the spread of the virus, Albertsons said. Although the state mandate will be lifted effective March 10, 2021, our front-line associates have not had full access to the vaccine.

madison.iszler@express-news.net
Meteors falling on Earth isnt a new phenomenon, but every time a meteor enters into the earths atmosphere and falls on the surface, it sparks interest and curiosity among astronomers and space enthusiasts alike. Last weekend, an apricot-sized meteorite fell into Earth and landed somewhere in France. The space rock, which is estimated to weigh 150 gm, was captured plunging through the atmosphere. Heres more about the event.

Where did the Meteorite fall in France?

According to a report in The Guardian, the stunning video which features the plunging meteorite was captured by the cameras at an astronomy education facility in Mauroux. It landed at exactly 10:43 OM on Saturday near Aiguillon, which is about 100km (62 miles) from Bordeaux. The report in the Guardian mentions that the site is part of the Vigie-Ciel (Sky Watch). Vigie-Ciel is a project of around 100 cameras in the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network (FRIPON). It aims to detect and collect the meteorites that fall in France each year. In an interview with The Guardian, Mickael Wilmart, a scientist frim A Ciel Ouvert astronomy education association said that Meteorites are relics of our solar systems creation. He also revealed that whats special about this meteorite is that its contents have not been altered by Earths environment. Therefore, it can provide valuable information.

The catch here is that this meteorite is so minuscule that it has still not been found. A search has ensued in real life as well as on social media. Posters have been put up in areas where the meteorite is most likely to be found. However, Professor

Wilmart expressed that chances of success are slim because it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Large asteroid to fly by Earth on March 21

In another interesting development in space, NASA recently revealed that Asteroid 2001 F032, popularly known to be the largest known asteroid, is now going to fly past Earth. Because of this, a number of people have been curious to know more about this Asteroid. According to NASA, the size of the asteroid is approximately 0.767 to 1.714 kilometres in diameter. It is approaching our solar system and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has stated that the March 21st asteroid is potentially hazardous. The space organisation has also identified the March 21 asteroid as a 'Near-Earth Object'. 231937 or 2001 FO32 asteroids total size can also be compared to the size of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, USA.
Gogoro Eeyo

Ultra-Short Travel Fork for Gravel

FSA Flowtron 27.2 Dropper Post

Response Handlebar Plug Repair Tool

This urban e-commuter is strange and sleek. Made by Gogoro, a Taiwanese company that primarily makes electric scooters, the Eeyo is powered by what the company calls it Smartwheel, which incorporates a motor, battery, and sensors into a disc on the rear wheel. The bike is controlled by a smartphone or Apple Watch app and has an auto-locking feature that locks the rear wheel to impede theft.Suntours GVX 700C ultra-short travel fork was on display as an option for gravel riders who want a bit of suspension with a minimal weight and efficiency penalty. Like dropper posts on XC bikes and disc brakes on road bikes, this fork is an example of mountain bike technology becoming less prohibitively heavy, even for gram counters. It has 32mm stanchions and is available with 40mm, 50mm, or 60mm of travel.Similarly, FSA has introduced a 27.2 mm option for its Flowtron dropper post, meaning that it is compatible with many drop bar bikes. The post has two options for lever style: one that is meant for flat MTB bars and one that is designed for gravel or cyclocross drop bars. Its likely that we will see more 27.2 dropper posts on the market in coming years. The drop bar version is part of FSA's new AGX product line, which includes handlebars, wheels, and other products for gravel bikes that blur the lines between mountain and road technology.Taiwanese company Response has introduced yet another nifty repair solution to the market. This tire plug is reminiscent of the Genuine Innovations' bacon plugs, but the tool doubles as a handlebar plug.
A chronic gambler who stole over 15,000 in social welfare payments while using his brother's name has received a fully suspended sentence.

Bernard Norton (49) simultaneously claimed Jobseekers Allowance validly in his own name and falsely in his brother's name over a two-year period.

He has previously been convicted for stealing over 200,000 from his employer between 2001 and 2002 and for stealing approximately 35,000 from another employer in 2016.

Norton of Newrath View, Kells, Co Meath pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to six sample counts of theft at Killinard Post Office, Tallaght, Dublin, on dates between November 25, 2013 and June 30, 2015.

He also pleaded guilty to deception at the same address on dates between November 19, 2013 and June 30, 2016.

Garda Francis Hoban told Aideen Collard BL, prosecuting, that during the period between 2013 and 2015, Norton was validly claiming Jobseekers Allowance in his own name.

Gda Hoban said Norton was simultaneously also claiming Jobseekers Allowance in the name of Robert Norton, his brother, and receiving this money himself. The total amount he stole in the period was 15,854.70.

The payments to Robert Norton were ceased in 2015 after the Department of Social Protection was notified by the accused that Robert had become employed in the UK. The real Robert Norton had in fact been working in the UK during the entire period.

The fraud came to light when Norton made an application for a Public Services Card. A photograph of Norton taken during this application was matched to a photograph taken of Robert Norton years earlier.

In interview with gardai, Norton said that he had been minding his brother's apartment and used documents he found there, including a birth certificate and a bank statement, to perpetrate the deception.

Norton was charged in 2014 for the embezzlement of over 200,000 between 2001 and 2002 from a financial institution which has since gone bankrupt. He forged a number of cheques by including his own name and also forged loan applications.

The court heard that he spent this money in gambling shops. He received a community service order for these offences.

Another situation came to light in 2016 in which Norton had taken approximately 35,000 from another employer. He would contact businesses who purchased furniture from this company, tell them the company had changed bank accounts and then give his own details.

Norton received a two-year prison sentence for this offence.

Gda Hoban said Norton was a chronic gambler who is the primary carer for his five children. He said Norton has repaid approximately 4,000 and he has not come to Garda attention since his release from custody.

Gda Hoban agreed with Laurence Masterson BL, defending, that his client had stopped the thefts and deception before they came to light. He agreed that Norton his undergoing counselling for his gambling addiction. Gda Hogan agreed the core issue in the case is the accused's gambling addiction.

Mr Masterson said his client was a model prisoner while serving a term of imprisonment for the 2016 offence. He said his client helped to set up a gambler's anonymous group in a prison that did not have one.

Counsel said his client is a success story of the prison service. He asked the court whether a further term of imprisonment would actually add more to his rehabilitation or undermine it.

He said his client is currently employed in the telecommunications sector and while his job is to sell his company's products, he has no access directly or indirectly to cash or to the accounts.

Counsel said his client has 1,200 in court which can be repaid and has undertaken to make repayments of 350 a month. He said his client will have access to a pension fund when he turns 50 and will be able to repay the balance of the sum by the end of January 2022.

Judge Melanie Greally said Norton has a history of offending in a dishonest manner on two previous occasions and has completed a prison sentence for offences that post-dated these offences.

Judge Greally said the accused was a very hands-on father due to his wife's employment demands as a midwife. She said she took into account genuine remorse and his efforts to rehabilitate.

She sentenced Norton to two years imprisonment, but suspended the sentence in full on strict conditions including that he pay back the full sum within a two-year period.
By Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Ted Hui has arrived in Australia where his family will settle after the Australian government provided an exemption to its closed border policy and assistance with flights, he said on Tuesday.

A former Democratic party lawmaker, Hui left Hong Kong late last year after facing criminal charges over the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

His arrival in Australia comes as 47 pro-democracy activists have been charged in Hong Kong with conspiracy to commit subversion under a new national security law, because they participated in an unofficial primary last July to select the strongest candidates for a legislative council election.

Hui, a member of the legislative council since 2016, was preselected to represent Hong Kong island for the election.

He said it had been painful to watch in the past week as his close colleagues were jailed after being denied bail in marathon hearings in the subversion case.

"As a participant in the primary election and a winner, I see it as a ridiculous act and unreasonable for the regime to put any accusation on us when it was totally peaceful," he told Reuters in a telephone interview. He is undergoing a 14-day mandatory quarantine after arriving in Australia on Monday.

"It is only because it is against Beijing's will that people are thrown into jail."

Hui said he had decided to move to Australia from Britain, where he has spent the past three months, to spread the international reach of the pro-democracy activists.

"I feel more responsible now as an exile to tell the world how ridiculous it is," he said.

Hui said during the interview that the coronavirus pandemic was stable in Australia, and he would be able to undertake face-to-face lobbying work.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday announcing his move, Hui said that Australia and New Zealand are important members of the Five Eye intelligence sharing group that also includes the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, which have endorsed the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

Story continues

"I hope that my lobbying work will make the two countries tougher against China, have stronger support and actions towards the freedom of Hong Kong," he said in the post.

As part of his lobbying, Hui told Reuters he would also seek more flexible visas for Hong Kong people seeking to come to Australia.

Hui said he was grateful to the Australian government for granting a visa and a place on a repatriation flight from London. He said he did not intend to apply for political asylum.

Australia's home affairs office said it did not comment on individual cases.

Jane Poon, a representative of pro-democracy community group Australia Hong Kong Link, said Hui's arrival would encourage Australia's large Hong Kong community.

"He would be able to contribute a lot in lobbying work, especially as Australia has been a main battlefield against the (Chinese Communist Party)," Poon told Reuters.

Hong Kong police ordered HSBC to freeze Hui's bank accounts in December after he said he would go into exile in Britain to continue his pro-democracy activities.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
But Ive lost a son to mental illness, Foulkes said. Do you see the quandary there? I would throw my life down for my daughter and theyre saying the same to me. But Im on the parent side of it. You never get over the loss of a child. Every parent who loses a child will feel survivor guilt no matter how theyve passed  I shouldnt have let them go on that trip. I shouldnt have bought them that car.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Health workers in Severo Ochoa hospital in the Madrid district of Leganes in December. Bernat Armangue / AP

The coronavirus incidence continues to fall in Spain, but it is doing so at a slower rate. According to the latest report from the central Health Ministry, which was released on Monday evening and covers Friday to Sunday, the 14-day cumulative number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants now stands at 142.24, having been falling since February 12, when it peaked at 899.9 during the third wave of the health crisis. The fall from Friday to Monday was just seven points, compared to more than 18 points one week ago.

Health Minister Carolina Darias had already warned on Monday morning that the fall in the key indicator would be less pronounced than it had been previously. Whats more, in Andalusia, the Canary Islands and the North African city of Melilla it has actually risen compared to Friday. The Canaries have in fact seen a rising curve for a week now. Fernando Simon, the director of the Health Ministrys Coordination Center for Health Alerts (CCAES), said on Monday that these upticks will be regular, albeit not permanent.

The Health Ministry reported 11,958 new cases on Monday, the lowest number for that day of the week since July

In total, 11,958 new coronavirus infections were reported on Monday. This is the lowest figure for that day of the week since July of last year. On January 25, the data point came in as high as 94,000. The total number of confirmed infections in Spain since the pandemic began is now 3,160,970.

Simon drew attention last night to the low positivity rate in the latest report: just 5.63% of coronavirus tests came back positive, according to Mondays data.

The governments chief epidemiologist admitted that this progress has led to regions such as Castilla y Leon relaxing some of its Covid-19 restrictions, but he warned that the data do not permit for any great easing of measures. He recommended that individuals exercise caution, by continuing to wear masks, observing social distancing and avoiding groups or crowds.

Speaking on Monday morning on the Cadena SER radio network, Health Minister Carolina Darias reminded listeners that the objective is to reach an incidence of 25  only the Extremadura region has managed to get as low as 50 so far. She added that she hopes that there will be a consensus at the next Inter-Territorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS), which brings together the countrys health chiefs and the central ministry, to agree on measures that will be mandatory for all regions. So far, the Madrid government is the only one to reject the perimetral lockdowns of the countrys regions that have been agreed on a preliminary basis for Easter week.

Just 5.63% of coronavirus tests came back positive, according to Mondays data

The good progress in general of the pandemic is still not being fully reflected in the number of fatalities. Mondays report added 298 Covid-19 deaths to the total, which is the lowest Monday figure since January 4. But the seven-day number is as high as 1,827, the maximum since last Tuesday. In total, 71,436 official Covid deaths have been recorded by the Spanish government.

Elsewhere, there is good news in terms of the fall in the occupation of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. The rate is now 24.27%, which is below the 25% considered to be maximum risk according to the ministry. Only the North African city of Ceuta is above 40%, with a rate of 52%. This parameter is also falling slowly, but this is normal because many of the Covid-19 patients who end up in the ICU stay there for a long time. The seven-day fall is just over 10%, the lowest for two weeks. The use of general hospital beds is also falling, and currently stands at 7.81%. A week ago that figure was 9.36%.

English version by Simon Hunter.
STAMFORD  Stamford Healths COVID-19 clinic is already doling out between 700 and 900 doses primarily of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine on weekdays. On weekends, that number climbs as high as 1,200, according to Stamford Health officials.

But the shared goal of the hospital, the city and legislature is to continue increasing that capacity and get more shots in arms. That ramping up in distribution will be, in part, supported by federal aid from the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that would send direct aid to individuals, cities and states.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., was a proponent of the bill, which passed the Senate this weekend and is awaiting approval from the House of Representatives and ratification from President Joseph R. Biden. Both of those approvals could happen this week, Murphy said Tuesday morning, on a tour of Stamford Healths vaccination clinic, where he was joined by Mayor David Martin, Stamford Health Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Bailey and Chief of Infectious Disease Michael Parry, among other hospital staff.

Obviously, the issues right now are simply supply, Murphy said, standing outside of Stamford Hospitals Wheeler Building, a formerly decommissioned part of the hospital complex that was re-purposed during the pandemic. We need to produce more vaccine. Stamford has the ability to distribute more. We need to get more into the city and into the state.

According to Murphy, the bill includes funding for increased vaccine production and distribution, as well as money for existing clinics to expand as more doses become available. The total amount of vaccine in Connecticut, Murphy said, would likely be greatly increased by April. And Parry said the hospital and city, which have partnered in the distribution of the vaccine, are looking to open a second, more capacious facility in Stamfords South End.

But for now, Parry said the Wheeler Building has served its purpose as a vaccination hub in the city.

Patients enter the building through a tented-off section near the hospitals Emergency Department. Theyre checked-in on the first floor, then go to the second floor, the south side of which is a designated vaccination area, Parry said. After receiving a dose, patients then move to the north side of the building, where they are observed for a brief period and appointments for a second shot are scheduled.

Generally, Parry said, people are in and out within 30 minutes.

It really is a very logical flow, Parry said.

The same is true for teachers, for whom the city, hospital and public school district have organized large clinics, the first of which was held over the weekend. Additional educator clinics are scheduled for weekends through the end of the month, in an attempt to get all teachers and school staff at least their first dose of the vaccine by March 31. According to Martin, the city is on pace to hit that target.

In order to keep up with demand  especially since March 1, when educators and residents over age 55 became eligible  Bailey said the hospital had hired more than 200 people to staff the clinic, which operates seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Murphy was visiting to thank the hospital staff that enabled the clinic to function, as well as to discuss the American Rescue Plan Act, which he said would have a direct impact of Connecticut and Stamford residents.

The plan would extend the Paycheck Protection Program Loan, potentially helping hundreds of small businesses in Stamford, Murphy said. It would enable low-income families with kids to qualify for an extended child-tax credit and would expand unemployment benefit programs. Stamford Schools will receive millions from the bill to aid in reopening. And, it includes an additional $1,400 rescue check for individuals making under $75,000 a year, which Murphy said could start being distributed in the next two weeks.

The economic assistance in this bill is especially important in a high-cost part of the country like Fairfield County, Murphy said.

In total, Stamford is expected to receive just shy of $50 million in aid from the legislation  a crucially important boost for the city, Martin said.

I believe that the city of Stamfords economic recovery will be very strong in large part to the American Rescue Plan, Martin said. Not only the aid but the certainty of the aid which is now coming to fruition. And yes, its helping with a lot of people at the low end of the economic spectrum, but its also helping with the schools and the city and how weve struggled through this pandemic, both from the health side as well as from an economic side.

justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586




South Korea on Tuesday launched a new committee with business groups from chip and display industries aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, in line with the country's vision to go fully carbon neutral by 2050.







Under the ties with the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association and the Korea Display Industry Association, along with local businesses, the committee will make joint efforts to develop environment-friendly technologies to reduce emissions, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.







The semiconductor industry, the backbone of Asia's No. 4 economy, accounted for 2.35 percent of the nation's total emissions of greenhouse gases in 2018. That of the display segment came to 1.94 percent.







"Around 70 percent of the greenhouse gases produced by the chip and display industries were produced indirectly by consuming electricity," the ministry said in a statement, hinting it is crucial for their production lines to improve energy efficiency.







The government said it plans to spare no efforts to support the companies, hinting it will come up with more tax benefits for those that more greatly reduce their carbon footprints.







Last year, South Korea declared it plans to accelerate the reduction of reliance on coal as it nurtures eco-friendly industries and builds up the low-carbon economic structure in a bid to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.







Carbon neutrality has emerged as part of the global agenda for fighting climate change since the Paris climate accord went into effect in 2016. (Yonhap)


As thousands of children surge to the U.S.-Mexico border each week, President Joe Biden must wrestle with a familiar conundrum.

On the one hand, every administration claims that the hard-knuckled immigration enforcement agency that runs the border fiefdom  U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP  isnt cut out to run a day care center. Hence, the overcrowded cells, freezing cement floors, cold bologna, lack of clean water, flimsy sheets of Mylar used as blankets, etc.

So, the question remains: Why does CBP maintain control over minors in the first place? Once the agency takes custody of a child, it acts in loco parentis (in place of the parent) and becomes the childs guardian. If CBP isnt up to the task, it ought to step back.

This is especially true in those grotesque cases where border guards allegedly snatch children from their parents or guardians.

Government officials were right the first time. CBP doesnt have the training or skill set to run a day care. So these children need to be removed from CBP custody as soon as possible. Neither former President Donald Trump nor former President Barack Obama did that effectively. Instead, they stuffed kids into cages  or, as the media euphemistically calls them during Democratic administrations, migrant child facilities or child detention centers.

Biden started to make the same mistake during his first few weeks in office, and he got hammered by immigrant advocates who have seen this horror movie before.

Even the dialogue is the same. Conservatives on talk radio  a mostly white cohort that is dependably wrong when discussing refugees and immigrants  can say crisis all they want. We all know theyre not nearly as worried about secure borders as they are changing demographics.

Americans cant declare a crisis every time people freak out over the prospect of seeing taco trucks on every corner. Otherwise, as the United States marches toward its destiny of becoming a majority nonwhite country by 2040, Americans are going to be living in a constant state of crisis.

Besides, a crisis  like power outages in Texas or wildfires in California  usually comes with an end date. Migration is a recurring phenomenon.

On second thought, maybe those trucks on street corners will be selling papusas. The thousands of would-be refugees showing up unannounced (as refugees tend to do) to ask for asylum may be passing through Mexico, but that doesnt make them Mexican. If previous waves in 2014 and 2019 are any indication, most of our unannounced guests hail from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently appeared in the White House briefing room to declare that this isnt a crisis.

We are challenged at the border, Mayorkas acknowledged to reporters. It is a stressful challenge. That is why, quite frankly, we are working as hard as we are, not only in addressing the urgency of the challenge, but also in building the capacity to manage it and to meet our humanitarian aspirations and execution of the presidents vision.

And, pray tell, just what is President Bidens vision? No one seems to know. Although Biden doesnt seem to like it much when  on immigration policy  he is compared to either the last president or the one before that.

So what does Biden think the United States should do when thousands of people show up unannounced, whether they come as refugees fleeing violence or economic migrants looking for a square deal?

That is still the whole point of America, right? It must be. It says so right there in the brochure.

Talk radio host Ben Shapiro likes to tell liberals: Facts dont care about your feelings.

I like that. Now, heres my message to conservatives  and other nativists: The beautiful tradition of the United States being a safe haven that offers second chances to the desperate doesnt care about your fears.

Bidens vision for the border appears to be coming into focus. According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration is converting its immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into Ellis-Island-style rapid-processing hubs that will screen migrant parents and children with a goal of releasing them into the United States within 72 hours.

Now were talking. Biden may yet overcome the odds and deliver a decent policy for the U.S.-Mexico border. All he has to do is ask himself: What did Obama and Trump do? Then do the opposite.

ruben@rubennavarrette.com
As part of the International Women's Day, United States President Joe Biden announced the nomination of two women generals for promotion to four-star posts. The President hailed the two nominees as outstanding and eminently qualified warriors and patriots.

Biden Nominates Two Women Generals for Promotion

Based on the remarks of Biden from the White House, the President nominated Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson of the Army to be the commander of the United States Southern Command. He also nominated Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost of the Air Force to be the United States Transportation Command head.

According to Washington Post, Biden also shared during the event wherein he was joined not only by Van Ovost and Richardson but also Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, that once the female generals are confirmed, they will become the second and third women in the history of the U.S. armed forces to lead combatant commands.

Biden also emphasized that each of the women has led in their careers while demonstrating incomparable skill, integrity, and duty to America at every step they made. Biden also added that they helped push open the doors of opportunity for women in the military, blazing the trail a little wider and brighter for all proud women following in their path by looking at them as an example.

Biden added that since it is International Women's Day, people need to see and recognize these women's accomplishments who broke the barriers previously set. The United States military has 11 commands, which are all led by four-star generals.

Read Also: US Faces New Cyberattack, Biden Administration Prepares To Strike Back Against Its Major Adversary

Last month, a report came out that the Pentagon had decided on Van Ovost and Richardson's nomination as early as last year. However, based on The New York Times report, the announcement was delayed until after the November Presidential election because Mark T. Esper, the former defense secretary, feared that then-president Donald Trump would not approve the nominations of the women generals because of their gender.

Esper also shared to the news outlet last month that the female generals were chosen due to their performance, proving that they were the best officers for the jobs. He did not want the two female generals' promotions derailed because someone in the Trump administration saw that he recommended them or think that the DOD was playing some politics.

He added that it was not the case. Esper emphasized that they were the best qualified, which is why they are doing the right thing.

Van Ovost is the commander of Air Mobility Command, and Richardson is the commander-general of the United States Army North. Once the Senate confirms the two women generals' nominations, Richardson and Van Ovost will join Air Force General Lori Robinson as the former commander of US Northern Command. Robinson, who served from 2016 to 2018, is the first woman to serve as a combatant commander since its establishment in 1986, AFP reported via MSN.

Related Article: Philippine Forces Face Backlash for 'Activist Killings'

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE: BIG) today announced it will be participating in the BofA Securities 2021 Consumer and Retail Technology Conference, which will be a virtual event this year.

Bruce Thorn, President and CEO of Big Lots, Jonathan Ramsden, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial & Administrative Officer, and Jack Pestello, Executive Vice President, Chief Merchandising Officer, are scheduled to participate in a fireside chat on Thursday, March 11, 2021 which will be broadcast live beginning at approximately 4:30 PM Eastern Time. A webcast will be available through the Investor Relations section of the company's website at https://www.biglots.com/corporate/investors/.

If you are unable to join the live webcast, an archive will be available at https://www.biglots.com/corporate/investors/ within 24 hours after conclusion of live event, and will remain available through midnight June 9, 2021.

About Big Lots, Inc.

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE: BIG) is a neighborhood discount retailer operating 1,410 stores in 47 states, as well as a best-in-class ecommerce platform with expanded capabilities via BOPIS, curbside pickup, Instacart, and PICKUP with same day delivery. The company's product assortment is focused on home essentials: Furniture, Seasonal, Soft Home, Food, Consumables, Hard Home, and Electronics, Toys & Accessories. Big Lots' mission is to help people Live BIG and Save Lots. The company strives to be the BIG difference for a better life by delivering unmatched value to customers through surprise and delight, being a "best place to work" culture for associates, rewarding shareholders with consistent growth and top-tier returns, as well as doing good in local communities. For more information about the company, visit www.biglots.com.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and such statements are intended to qualify for the protection of the safe harbor provided by the Act. The words "anticipate," "estimate," "approximate," "expect," "objective," "goal," "project," "intend," "plan," "believe," "will," "should," "may," "target," "forecast," "guidance," "outlook" and similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements. Similarly, descriptions of objectives, strategies, plans, goals or targets are also forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements relate to the expectations of management as to future occurrences and trends, including statements expressing optimism or pessimism about future operating results or events and projected sales, earnings, capital expenditures and business strategy. Forward-looking statements are based upon a number of assumptions concerning future conditions that may ultimately prove to be inaccurate. Forward-looking statements are and will be based upon management's then-current views and assumptions regarding future events and operating performance and are applicable only as of the dates of such statements. Although the company believes the expectations expressed in forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions within the bounds of knowledge, forward-looking statements, by their nature, involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, any one or a combination of which could materially affect business, financial condition, results of operations or liquidity.

Forward-looking statements that the company makes herein and in other reports and releases are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those discussed in such forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, developments related to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, current economic and credit conditions, the cost of goods, the inability to successfully execute strategic initiatives, competitive pressures, economic pressures on customers and the company, the availability of brand name closeout merchandise, trade restrictions, freight costs, the risks discussed in the Risk Factors section of the company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, and other factors discussed from time to time in other filings with the SEC, including Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. This release should be read in conjunction with such filings, and you should consider all of these risks, uncertainties and other factors carefully in evaluating forward-looking statements.

You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date thereof. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. You are advised, however, to consult any further disclosures the company makes on related subjects in public announcements and SEC filings.

SOURCE Big Lots, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.biglots.com


Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina stresses on strengthening connectivity with India through 'Maitri Setu'

International

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Dhaka, Mar 09: Inter-regional trade is far-below its potential in South Asia and political boundaries should not become physical barriers, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Tuesday, as she stressed on strengthening connectivity with India through the historic "Maitri Setu" connecting the two countries.

Prime Minister Hasina on Tuesday virtually inaugurated the 1.9-km "Maitri Setu" (Friendship Bridge) over Feni river along with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, connecting Tripura and Ramgarh in Bangladesh.

PM Modi inaugurates Maitri Setu between Tripura & B'desh, launches key infrastructure projects

"It's my immense pleasure to inaugurate the Maitri Setu today, together with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi," she said.

"We are in a region that has remained conservative in opening up and where inter-regional trade is far below its potential. I believe political boundaries should not become physical barriers to trade," Hasina said.

Terming it as a historic moment, Hasina said, "We're creating a new era in South Asia through providing connectivity to India. I think the Maitri Setu will not only create connectivity between our two countries, but will also play a significant role in business-trade and economic development."

TN elections 2021: Will target anyone who is an 'enemy' to people, says Kamal Haasan

The bridge is a testimony to the Bangladesh government's continued commitment to support neighbouring India in strengthening connectivity in the region, particularly for the North-East of India, Hasina said during the inauguration of the bridge.

"The Feni Maitri Setu is expected to significantly improve the socio-economic condition of the people of Tripura and surrounding North Eastern states of India. We hope it will also contribute towards improving the livelihoods of those living on the Bangladesh side of the bridge," she was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune.

Noting that Bangladesh's growth trajectory, along with its geographic location, makes it an extremely attractive neighbour in South Asia, Hasina said that the country being one of the leaders in the global textile industry, it has become a favoured destination for foreign investment.

The "Maitri Setu" is important to the business community of India's northeastern region for using the Chattogram seaport, bdnews 24 reported. The Government of Bangladesh has extended all necessary support to the Indian side for the construction of the bridge. Ten years later, today, the bridge is a reality, Hasina said.

Hasina said that the bridge will also help Bangladesh to trade more easily not only with India, but also with Nepal and Bhutan as well. Terming the bridge as a "trading lifeline" for the northeastern states of India, she said that Bangladesh has already opened the path for the use of Chattogram and Mongla ports for the movement of goods to and from India, according to the report.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 21:56 [IST]

By Li Xuanliang and Mei Shixiong

BEIJING, March 9 -- During this year's two sessions, deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC) and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) from the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force (PAPF), brought lots of opinions and suggestions based on their practical work and shared their concerns on the national defense and military development.

"In recent years, China has achieved major progress in information-based military development, laying a solid foundation for the new journey of national defense and military modernization," said He Lei, former deputy head and distinguished chief expert of the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS). "To fulfill the goal of basically achieving national defense and military modernization by 2035, we must comprehensively promote the modernization of military theories, army organization, military personnel, and weapons and equipment."

Yin Hao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and senior researcher at the AMS Institute of System Engineering, noted that the military information network is a key infrastructure for the Chinese military to achieve mechanized, information-based, intelligent integrated development and secure victory in future warfare. He added that the military must take advantage of the important opportunities brought by technological development and gain the upper hand in developing information networks, so as to make contributions to building an intelligent military system.

Wang Haijiang, commander of the PLA Tibet Military Command, held that the Chinese military must on high alert to the security situations in neighboring regions and enhance its deterring and combat capabilities, pushing military modernization to a deeper and higher level through war preparedness.

"The upgrading of weapons and military equipment set higher requirements for military personnel's knowledge and capability," said Xi Chaofeng, deputy commander of a combat support battalion assigned to an air defense brigade under the PLA 82nd Group Army. Since last year, Xi has visited several training grounds and deepened his awareness of the urgent need for new-type military personnel. He noted that with the accelerated transformation of the PLA Army, the artillery, air defense force and other branches of his Group Army have carried out equipment information module upgrading. "Without stable human resources support, it would be hard for us to catch up with the pace of transformation."

Wang Wenquan, Political Commissar of the PLA Joint Logistic Support Force, said that we should give priority to key projects regarding national defense and military development in military expenditures, focusing on key sectors and key links to avoid repetitive construction.

"Our military belongs to the people, so our national defense involves all Chinese people," said Feng Yi, Political Commissar of the Hunan Provincial Military Command. Focusing on realizing the goals of developing a prosperous country and a strong military at the same time, we must accelerate the coordinated, balanced and inclusive development of economy and national defense, to improve the capacity to build an integrated national strategic system.
JURONG WEST, Singapore, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- How long have you been curating for the Wovensouls Textile Art Gallery and how did you get into this niche business?



First, I'd like to say that Wovensouls is less of a business for me and more of a passion that was born out of collecting heirlooms. About 25 years ago, I acquired a beautiful heirloom not knowing what it was. In the brief conversation that followed with the dealer, I learnt about the cultural background of that textile and I was hooked to this category of art. Over the years the collection grew and about 15 years ago, the Wovensouls gallery was born.



What is the profile of your clients who decorate with antique textiles?



The textile lovers who've come along to the gallery have been from all walks of life. We have had prominent interior designers, art-savvy museum curators, wealthy Hollywood film producers, well-traveled foreign ambassadors as well as individuals decorating their own homes buying textiles from us. The common factor is the desire to be surrounded by beauty that also has a soulful cultural history.



Why is decorating with textile arts becoming popular now?



Art appeals to each one of us in a unique way, so I do not know the answer to this. Maybe it is because textiles remind us of our grandmothers who themselves created some textile art  maybe the textiles transport us to the good old days of bonded families and close-knit communities. Or maybe it is that in an ever-homogenizing factory-served world, people look for pieces with a strong character to express their own identity. Antique textiles offer just that - a dignified elegant work of art with soul. As people are more exposed to cultures far away and more options are available to them through the internet, when people create their sanctuaries - at home or at work - antique textiles are being used more often.



Most people would find it hard to figure out what to do with a piece of antique embroidery of weaving. Do you offer any home styling guidance?



Yes  given that antique textile arts have grown in popularity only recently, we do not see enough examples outside niche-media around us to inspire us. So we offer online decor consulting services. We recommend textile artworks and offer ideas on framing or showcasing and create photoshopped displays using photos that clients send in.



Can everyone afford decorating with antique textiles?



Well, because antique textile artworks are one-of-a-kind, one would imagine that they are unaffordable. But that isn't true for all - some cost less than $100.



What would you say to people who've never considered antique textiles as art for decor?



Antique textiles are not merely art  they have captured a vanished craft and they have captured the passage of time. Having such irreplaceable artworks as decor in one's home creates an experience of beauty that satisfies more than just the vision. So to those who've not enjoyed an antique textile yet, I'd say it's time to check out to a textile art gallery to experience one for yourself!

___

Jaina Mishra lives in Singapore and her antique textile collection is on sale on wovensouls.com

Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12861178

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE WOVENSOULS

Related Links

https://wovensouls.com


KiKi Layne says she was 'drawn' to the role of Princess Meeka in Coming 2 America because of her 'strength and integrity.'

The rising star, 29, looked regal as ever, rocking Givenchy and Michael Kors as she talked about the part in the Eddie Murphy comedy for L'Officiel's latest digital cover.

'Just getting to play an African princess was already amazing,' the Ohio native shared.

'But Meeka also has so much strength and integrity. She gets to kick some a**. Just representing another strong Black woman on screen, representing Black royalty and beauty and excellenceI was so drawn to that.'

Connection: KiKi Layne said she was 'drawn' to her character in Coming 2 America because of her 'strength and integrity' while talking to L'Officiel for their latest cover

In Coming 2 America, KiKi plays King Akeem's (Murphy) only child, who is being groomed to take her father's throne.

But things are fall into disarray when Akeem discovers he has a long-lost son living in America, forcing the royal family of Zamunda to reconsider their kingdom's old-school traditions favoring male heirs.

Joining the Coming 2 America cast was meaningful for the DePaul University-trained talent, who revealed the 1988 original was her eldest brother's all-time favorite film.

'My family has their own very personal connection to the original film,' she explained. 'They're just so excited. They don't even know what to do with themselves.'

Amazing: 'Just getting to play an African princess was already amazing,' the Ohio native shared

Haute looks: The rising star, 29, looked regal as ever, rocking Givenchy and Michael Kors as she talked about the part in the Eddie Murphy comedy

Drawn: 'Just representing another strong Black woman on screen, representing Black royalty and beauty and excellenceI was so drawn to that' KiKi said

Though Coming 2 America is a surely a dream-role for the star, she admitted she's had to work hard to not get boxed in by 'stereotypes and assumptions.'

'When I had representation meetings I made it clear. "Y'all are not just going to send me out for the stuff that's just for the black girl. I will not accept that," she remembered telling her agents after her breakout role in 2016's Moonlight.

'I've been intentional about not being put into a box and about representing Black women and creators in Hollywood. I love breaking out of the stereotypes and assumptions of what type of stories it makes sense for a Black body to be seen in.'

Those decisions helped lead her to her role in the action blockbuster The Old Guard opposite Charlize Theron, who she credited with 'paving the way in terms of representation for women in the action genre.'

Limitless: Though Coming 2 America is a surely a dream-role for the star, she admitted she's had to work hard to not get boxed in by 'stereotypes and assumptions'

Beyond stereotypes: 'When I had representation meetings I made it clear. "Y'all are not just going to send me out for the stuff that's just for the black girl. I will not accept that," she remembered telling her agents

Next, KiKi will flirty with psychological thriller genre in the Olivia Wilde-directed feature Don't Worry Darling with stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles.

And she's about to start shooting the horror Ring Shout, Kasi Lemmons' television adaptation of P. Djeli Clark's novella, which follows the life of Maryse Boudreaux, a young woman tasked with fighting 'Ku Klux' demons using her magic sword.

KiKi's turn as Princess Meeka can be seen in Coming 2 America, which is now available to stream on Amazon Prime.
Catalonia's former regional president Carles Puigdemont says he will appeal the European Parliament's decision to remove his political immunity. He is wanted for sedition over the organisation of a banned separatist referendum in 2017. For the Spanish government, it is welcome news, opening the path to demanding his extradition.

Video Transcript

ALL: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

[SINGING IN SPANISH]

CARLES PUIGDEMONT: Obviously, my colleagues and myself as usual-- we will be at the disposal of Belgian judge of course. But on the other hand, we will present our request against European-- the decision of the European Parliament in front of the European Court of Justice. And now some--

ARANCHA GONZALEZ LAYA: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
Three Venezuelan men pleaded guilty to helping organize an ill-conceived invasion last year to remove President Nicolas Maduro.

In Fridays hearing before a Colombian court, the men acknowledged their role alongside Jordan Goudreau, a former American Green Beret and Iraq war veteran, in organizing a ragtag army of a few dozen Venezuelan military deserters intent on overthrowing Venezuelas socialist leadership. Plans included raiding military installations as well as the presidential palace.

I apologize to the Colombian government, one of the men, Maj. Juvenal Sequea, told a judge in Bogota on Friday as he and two others accepted lighter charges of providing advice and logistical support to illegal armed groups. I accept responsibility for my actions but want people to understand that this is all the result of the consequences of what we Venezuelans are living through.

The so-called Operation Gideon  or the Bay of Piglets, as the bloody fiasco came to be known  ended in disaster, with six insurgents dead and two of Goudreaus former Special Forces buddies behind bars in Caracas. But the plot really never stood a chance of succeeding against Maduros loyal and heavily armed military after having been thoroughly infiltrated months earlier.

Sequea and his co-defendant Capt. Juven Sequea is the older brothers of the confessed commander of the failed May 3 incursion, Capt. Antonio Sequea, who is jailed in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. The third person pleading guilty, Rayder Ruso, is a civilian who has long sought Maduros armed overthrow.

The single crime to which the men pleaded guilty is punishable from 6 to 10 years in prison. But under Colombian law they can be released on parole or placed under house arrest if sentenced to lesser than 8 years, meaning the men are likely to be freed in exchange for cooperation. Previously the men, who have been jailed since their arrest six months ago, had been charged with providing military training to illegal armed groups, a more serious offence punishable by up to 30 years in jail.

A fourth defendant in the Colombian investigation, Yacsy Alvarez, has repeatedly professed her innocence and accused Colombian authorities of being in constant contact with the plots ringleader, retired Venezuelan Army Gen. Cliver Alcala. But she faces an additional charge of arms trafficking for allegedly helping smuggle weapons to the volunteer army.

Alvarez served as Goudreaus translator during his visits to Colombia and the two opened an affiliate of his small Florida security firm Silvercorp, in mid-2019. It listed its address at an upscale hotel in Barranquilla, according to Colombian public records.

She also flew with Goudreau and the two other former Green Berets  Luke Denman and Airan Berry  to Barranquilla aboard a Cessna jet belonging to her boss, businessman Franklin Duran, who has a long history of deal-making with the Venezuelan government. At the time, Alvarez was living in the Caribbean coastal city and working as a director in a unit of Durans auto lubricants company.

According to the plea agreement read by prosecutors in court, the Colombian investigation was prompted by the March 23, 2020 seizure of a cache of 26 assault rifles and tactical equipment it was later revealed were dispatched by Alvarez and destined for the rebels in the desert-like La Guajira peninsula that Colombia shares with Venezuela.

The man coordinating the clandestine effort, Alcala, took responsibility for the weapons hours before turning himself in on March 26 to face U.S. drug charges.

Alcala, who is now awaiting trial in New York, said the weapons belonged to the Venezuelan people. He also lashed out against opposition leader Juan Guaido, accusing him of betraying a contract he had signed with American advisers to remove Maduro.

The U.S. has denied any direct role in the attempted raid just as Venezuelas opposition has taken distance from Goudreau, despite having previously signed with him an agreement to conduct a snatch and grab operation inside Venezuela.

Other than a $50,000 payment for expenses the opposition never paid Silvercorp and Goudreau last year sued one of Guaidos aides, Miami-based political analyst J.J. Rendon, for breach of contract.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
No significant damage is being reported from Raoul Island following a 8.1 magnitude earthquake which triggered a tsunami warning in New Zealand.

A tsunami warning was issued just before 9am Friday, advising people in coastal regions to evacuate to higher ground.

The warning was cancelled later in the afternoon.

On Saturday, a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion flew over Raoul Island, which is in the Kermadec region where the earthquake hit, allowing crew to check for damage from Fridays earthquake.

They saw landslips and water discolouration but no significant damage to equipment or structures.

The Royal New Zealand Navy ship HMNZS Canterbury has left for Raoul Island with MetService and GNS Science staff aboard to carry out essential tasks, including maintenance of critical weather and tsunami warning systems this week.

Maritime Component Commander Commodore Mat Williams says the re-supply mission, which left on Monday, was delayed a week and scaled back after Auckland went into COVID-19 alert level three.

The mission was now going ahead over the next week to carry out critical re-supply and maintenance tasks, he says.

Fridays earthquakes and tsunami warnings were a reminder of how important these early warning systems are.

We will continue to monitor the situation in the Kermadec Islands, including consulting with our colleagues in GNS Science.

Commodore Williams said a BLAKE Expedition, comprising young people and teachers scheduled to go on the ship, was cancelled following the change in alert levels.

The trip was to have been the first major resupply mission since March 2020 when Department of Conservation staff left the island.

Instead, small teams from MetService and GNS will undertake critical tasks only and return with the ship to New Zealand.

A Navy Seasprite helicopter and a Royal New Zealand Air Force NH90 helicopter will fly staff, equipment and provisions to shore.

A RNZAF P-3K2 Orion flew over Raoul Island on Saturday, allowing crew to check for damage from Fridays earthquake. They saw landslips and water discolouration but no significant damage to equipment or structures.

GNS Science Remote Infrastructure Operations Coordinator Kris OBrien says GeoNet technicians would carry out critical repairs to GNS equipment and attempt to improve power systems.

Raoul Islands strategic location makes it one of New Zealands most integral sites for monitoring earthquakes and tsunami. The two tsunami gauges located on Raoul will give us information about any tsunami caused by an earthquake and act as an early warning system.

Royal New Zealand Navy ship HMNZS Canterbury with Raoul Island in the background, taken during the re-supply mission in 2018.

Steve Knowles, MetServices Network Observations Manager, says MetService staff will carry out routine maintenance work on the automatic weather station and replace a 60-year-old weather balloon launching facility.

It will improve safety for Raoul Island Department of Conversation staff who launch meteorological balloons on behalf of MetService. The balloon data contributes to global weather models and adds another layer of data to help in the tracking of tropical cyclones.

MetServices Raoul Island Automatic Weather Station, which measures atmospheric pressure, rain fall, solar radiation, bright sunshine hours, temperature, wind speed and direction, will also be checked and serviced to ensure continued trouble-free operation and transmission of data back to our Wellington HQ.

Two meteorological buoys recovered from Northland beaches will also be redeployed en route.

The free-drifting buys provide atmospheric pressure, sea surface temperature and ocean current data.
Markets are expecting weak UK data for Friday with a January GDP decline of around 5% and ING also expects a sharp drop in manufacturing output.

Markets remain optimistic over a recovery and Pound Sterling resilience in the face of weak data would signal that currency optimism remains intact.

Pound losses or a quick reversal of gains would suggest that the UK recovery has been priced in.

January UK GDP forecast to decline 5%

The UK monthly GDP data is scheduled for release at the end of this week and there will be a big impact from the coronavirus lockdown measures.

ING notes; Fridays UK GDP data is unlikely to be pretty. The imposition of a new strict nationwide lockdown at the start of January will inevitably see a sharp fall in monthly output as a range of consumer services sectors were shuttered.

The bank expects a monthly contraction of around 5% which is line with market expectations. The NIESR released its estimate last month with expectations of 5.3% decline to give a 11.5% annual decline.

Trade volumes and manufacturing output slide

As well as coronavirus restrictions, there will also be an impact of Brexit on the UK data releases.

There will have been a decline in manufacturing output for the month, especially with important trade friction.

French data shows a 20% decline in imports from the UK in January as trade frictions were introduced. German data also recorded a 30% annual decline in exports to the UK.

ING also looks at data on car production, together with the PMI data and other business confidence surveys from the ONS; We think this implies we could see a 3-4% fall in Januarys UK manufacturing output, though in practice this may prove to be an overestimate.

Consensus forecasts are for a decline of around 1.0% on the month.

Above: UK shipping volumes chart

The bank notes that there has been some improvement since early January with a recovery in cargo/tanker visits to the UK.

Nevertheless, it also notes that, according to the ONS, 10-20% of exporting manufacturers have still been consistently reporting that they havent been able to export.

ING adds; That suggests that 'teething issues' only tell part of the story, and many firms are still grappling with the new (permanent) changes that have arisen as a result of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).

Political tensions will maintain trade friction

Political tensions between the UK and EU remain high, with particular stresses over the Northern Ireland protocol.

The direct impact of Northern Ireland on the UK economy will be limited, but there will be potentially important ramifications.

ING notes; If nothing else, it's hard to see the UK and EU agreeing to steps that would reduce some of the bureaucratic burden on firms in the longer-term.

This will increase the risk that output losses are permanent rather than transitory.

The manufacturing sector is likely to recover gradually, but there will be strong pressure for the UK government to add to incentives provided by the changes to tax allowances for investment.
Hudson, NY (12534)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable.
New guidance from the federal government allowing vaccinated people to gather more freely could mean an end to some of the isolation felt by millions during the pandemic is close at hand. Its also means those working from home may be able to see the inside of an office unmasked a bit sooner, without having to constantly assess their distance from coworkers.

Some experts said the CDCs latest guidelines, released Monday, arent a blank check to do away with pandemic precautions altogether however, and businesses are still determining how and when it is safe to have workers, vaccinated or not, set foot in offices again.

I dont think this should be a license to extrapolate this to the workplaces or to other kinds of gatherings, said Dr. John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley infectious disease specialist, referring to news reports on the guidance.

The guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people who are vaccinated can visit each other indoors and unmasked and even see other unvaccinated people in some cases.

Swartzberg said while the CDC pronouncement means small group gatherings are safer, other factors like the amount of virus circulating in a community have to be taken into account.

Prioritize whats really critical for you now, when it comes to in-person activities, Swartzberg said.

Despite the new guidance, with most Bay Area counties still in the restrictive red or purple tiers, most nonessential offices still arent able to open.

For some companies that have continued in-person work throughout the pandemic, the guidance is a hopeful sign but not a reason to rush their entire workforce back to the office.

Our current philosophy is that well maintain social distancing and mask wearing for the immediate future, said Brad Minnis, vice president of environment, health safety and security at Juniper Networks, a Sunnyvale company that builds hardware and software for computer and communications networks.

Minnis said a small percentage of the companys employees have been working in its Sunnyvale labs throughout the pandemic designated as essential workers. That number could increase as more vaccines become available, he said.

For now the company plans to keep mask wearing and social distancing rules in place until at least June. Minnis said even once employees are vaccinated and can safely work together again, tracking and storing information about who has been vaccinated raises legal and medical privacy concerns the company is still working out.

Generally employers can require employees to get the vaccine and provide proof said Todd Goffman, general counsel at international hiring firm Globalization Partners, in an email. If a company keeps a copy of a vaccination card for example, that would have to be kept separate from an employees personnel file and shared with only those having a need to know, Goffman said.

Other businesses, like expense software company Expensify, would be glad to reopen offices to vaccinated employees without masking and social distancing, but cant take action until vaccines become more widespread.

Were going to open up the offices to anyone who can be there safely, said CEO David Barrett. Were eager to open offices as soon as possible, he said, adding that most of his employees did not have access to the vaccine yet, however, and couldnt take advantage of the loosened restrictions.

Opening offices to vaccinated people was also a way to encourage vaccinations since it would mean those who have received the shots have more freedom when it comes to where to work.

Plenty of companies forced to go mostly remote during the pandemic plan to stay that way going forward, despite evolving guidance.

Last month Salesforce, San Franciscos largest privacy employer, said it will allow remote or flexible work schedules for most employees. Other Bay Area tech companies, including Twitter, Pinterest, Dropbox and Yelp, have announced similar arrangements that will extend beyond the pandemic raising the question of whether many idled offices will be repopulated anytime soon.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice
Nine people were rescued Saturday after several of them spent a harrowing night stuck in the freezing snow Friday near Plaskett Meadows in western Glenn County, officials reported.

Seven individuals told the Glenn County Search and Rescue team that they had been stranded since 2 p.m. the previous day without food or water, according to a Facebook post by the team.

The first vehicle became stuck Friday, prompting those stranded to call an acquaintance for assistance in their rescue. The second vehicle then also got stuck in the snow.

Two more individuals were added to the rescue teams list when a third vehicle that had also been called to help ended up getting stuck Saturday, resulting in a total of nine people in need of rescue.

In addition, three people from the original two stranded vehicles tried to walk out, further complicating the rescue, the team said.

These people walked for five and a half hours," Sgt. Jon Owens, of the Glenn County Sheriff's Office, told KRCR. They split off from their group to head back down to the valley. At that point when I parked there and watched the ATVs take off, it was 31 degrees. They're walking in the snow for five and a half hours and they have no food, they have no water.

This was the rescue teams third snow rescue last week.

We hope by posting this incident that it reminds everyone that winter mountain travel can be extremely dangerous even to large 4 Wheel Drive vehicles, reads the rescue teams Facebook post. We also want to press the importance of staying together and at the area you are stuck at once emergency personnel have been notified.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 00:27:38|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

NICOSIA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Israel and Cyprus on Tuesday reached an understanding over gas reserves straddling their maritime border in a development hailed as a "breakthrough" by Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, the English newspaper Cyprus Mail reported in an online story.

Cyprus' Minister of Energy Natasa Pilides said she and Steinitz, during his brief visit to Cyprus, had agreed upon a framework to resolve the issue, and guidelines would be passed on to the companies involved in the project, the newspaper said.

The agreement caps nine years of negotiations between the two sides on production sharing at a gas field, which straddles the marine Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of Cyprus and Israel.

The agreement initiates direct negotiations between the companies that operate the Cypriot Aphrodite gas field and the neighboring Israeli Yishai field on how to develop a gas reservoir.

The Aphrodite field was discovered in 2011 and Cyprus reached an agreement with Egypt to send the gas from the reservoir via an undersea pipeline to the Idku liquefaction plant.

Cyprus and Israel agreed on the demarcation of their respective EEZs more than ten years ago, but have been unable to agree on the sharing of joint gas reserves across their marine borders.

The Aphrodite gas field has an estimated capacity of 4.5 trillion cubic feet. Around ten percent of the deposit is within Israel's Yishai field. Israel had objected to the development of the Aphrodite field before the agreement was reached. Enditem
Hard on the heels of South Africas similar announcement, Nigerias National Broadcasting Commission now says that the countrys Digital Switch Over (DSO) project will be completed by middle of 2022 when the country will fully transit from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting.

Speaking at the weekend, the acting director-general of the commission, Professor Armstrong Idachaba, noted that funding from federal government and the recent establishment of a ministerial task force should speed the process up.

According to Nigerias Vanguard newspaper, the pilot programme actually launched as long ago as 2016 in Jos, Plateau State, followed by Abuja, Kwara, Kaduna, and Enugu, halting in Osogbo in February 2018.

After what appears to be a three-year break, blamed in part on a lack of political will and financial constraints, the launch will now resume in the countrys big cities, notably Lagos, with a completion date of the middle of 2022.

While this will may be good news for television broadcasters and viewers in Nigeria, there is an increasing need in other industries for spectrum, more of which will become available after the switchover, potentially benefiting a number of players, including suppliers of mobile communications services.

Readers will remember that in February a similar announcement was made in South Africa, where the countrys president Cyril Ramaphosa said that he expected the province-by-province process to start this March and be completed by the end of March 2022.

Like Nigeria and a number of other countries in Africa, South Africa missed the original deadline set by the International Telecommunication Union for completion of the switchover process, meant to happen in June 2015.
Balakrishna also celebrated the International Women Day in Hindupur by cutting a cake in the presence of a large number of women.  Twitter

ANANTAPUR: Film star and Hindupur MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna faced an embarrassing situation when a large number of YSRC cadres obstructed his vehicle from moving ahead at Mothukapalle in Hindupur municipality, which he is visiting for the second time.

Ruling party workers contended that a repeat road show by actor-turned-MLA could not be permitted as per rules.

Balakrishna has been making hectic efforts to retain Hindupur for the Telugu Desam Party by touring all wards and main streets of municipality as part of his campaign.

TDP is stronger in rural than urban areas. On this basis, YSRC leadership is focusing on defeating the opposition party in Hindupur municipality. Their aim is to further demoralise TD workers after former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu lost his home turf Kuppam in the recent gram panchayat polls. They feel Balakrishna losing Hindupur municipality was drive another nail in TDs coffin.

Already, several leaders, including former MLA Pamisetty Ranganayakulu, have quit Telugu Desam and joined YSRC, which is expected to impact TD in various wards including Muddireddypalle.

Before Ranganayakulu, another former MLA Abdul Ghani too quit Telugu Desam and joined the ruling party. Balakrishna is thus campaigning alone for TDs victory from the municipality of Hindupur, which his father and TD founder N. T. Rama Rao had won thrice.

After YSRC cadres obstructed the actor MLAs vehicle contending he could not campaign for the second time, police had to intervene as both ruling and opposition party workers were present in large numbers, which could have led to clashes.

Police used mild force to disburse both the groups from the spot.

Balakrishna also celebrated the International Women Day in Hindupur by cutting a cake in the presence of a large number of women, who all tried to feed the cake to the film star. Organisers at the cake-cutting event took care to ensure that a situation did not repeat again when the MLA slapped a photographer for taking too many close-up shots.
It should be really good news. Minor whiplash payouts, which make up 80pc of motor claims, are set to be more than halved.

Judges have approved guidelines which will slash awards for personal injuries. I guess this is good news for anyone saddled with exorbitant insurance costs?

But insurers have shown signs they will drag their heels on reducing premiums.

So how long will people have to wait before they see any benefits?

That is not clear. The guidelines only relate to new cases which have yet to be assessed by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board.

The PIAB process takes just under eight months on average, while it takes around three and a half years to resolve a claim where the injured party goes to the courts, having rejected a PIAB assessment.

In the meantime, cases before the courts will continue to operate under the old Book of Quantum, which allows much higher awards.

Asked by broadcaster Pat Kenny when premium decreases would start, Insurance Ireland chief executive Moyagh Murdock did not offer a specific timeline. It is going to take time before we start to see the benefit coming through the court system, she said.

Surely insurers could cut premiums now if they wanted?

There will be lots of pressure on insurers to change their pricing to reflect the different claims environment coming down the road.

The question is will they do that, or will they insist on waiting until cases under the new guidelines have been dealt with by judges.

I heard lawyers describe the award cuts as savage. Just how savage are they?

The cuts are not as severe as insurance costs campaigners would have liked.

But they are still significant. For example, a minor neck injury can attract up to 15,700 where the claimant is substantially recovered, and up to 19,400 where a substantial recovery is expected. This will reduce to between 500 and 3,000 where it takes six months to recover, to between 3,000 and 6,000 where it takes a year, and to between 6,000 and 12,000 where it takes two years.

What about injuries other than whiplash?

A minor nose fracture will be cut from between 18,000 and 22,100 to between 500 and 3,000. A minor hand injury attracting an award of up to 21,700 will be cut to between 1,000 and 12,000.

A minor knee injury commanding an award of up to 14,800 will now attract between 500 and 12,000, depending on the quickness of the recovery.

A moderate elbow injury currently attracts awards between 22,000 and 60,900. This will reduce to between 17,000 and 40,000.

A simple femur fracture attracting an award of between 27,700 and 59,100 will be reduced to between 12,000 and 20,000.

Judges value their independence. How rigidly will they stick to the new guidelines?

The Judicial Council says the guidelines are there to provide greater certainty. If a judge decides to make an award outside the allowed brackets they will have to clearly identify the facts upon which they have relied.
Boris Johnson has finally watched the Harry and Meghan interview, Downing Street revealed today - but his spokesman refused to say what he thought of it.

No10 tried to dodge questions about the bombshell allegations from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex yesterday by saying the PM had not seen the programme.

At a press conference last night, Mr Johnson then flatly refused to take sides, merely stating his 'admiration' for the Queen.

The premier's spokesman disclosed this afternoon that Mr Johnson has now watched the Oprah Winfrey interview, which aired in full on ITV last night.

'He did but you have the PM's words from the press conference last night and I won't be adding any further to what he said,' he said.

The spokesman refused to be drawn whether Mr Johnson agreed with climate minister Lord Goldsmith's tweet that Harry was 'blowing up his family'.

Asked if the minister was speaking for the Government, the spokesman said: 'All I can do is echo what the Prime Minister said in the press conference last night.'

No10 also dodged questions on the White House's response to the interview, whether it may affect the UK's reputation around the world, and whether the nation has a duty of care to the monarchy.

At a press conference last night, Boris Johnson flatly refused to take sides in the Royal row, merely stating his 'admiration' for the Queen

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have insisted their interview with Oprah Winfrey would be the 'last word' on them quitting as senior royals

Climate minister Lord Goldsmith - a close ally of Carrie Symonds - waded into the raging controversy yesterday, tweeting that 'Harry is blowing up his family'

Mr Johnson did his best to duck the row over the extraordinary Harry and Meghan interview last night, despite Labour demanding a Palace probe into claims of racism.

The PM batted away questions about his views on the dramatic intervention by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as he hosted a No10 press conference.

Mr Johnson said he had the 'highest admiration' for the Queen and the 'unifying role' she played for the UK and Commonwealth.

But he added: 'I've spent a long time not commenting on Royal Family matters and I don't intend to depart from that today.'

Pushed again for his opinion, Mr Johnson said: 'I really think that when it comes to matters to do with the royal family, the right thing for prime ministers to say is nothing and nothing is the thing that I propose to say today about that particular matter.'

However, climate minister Lord Goldsmith - a close ally of Carrie Symonds - did wade into the raging controversy, tweeting that 'Harry is blowing up his family'.

'What Meghan wants, Meghan gets,' the peer added in an apparent reference to a remark the Prince reputedly made about his wife.

In contrast to Mr Johnson, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the allegations made by the Duchess must be taken seriously.
Four years ago, a local financial institution came to my school to give a one-hour financial literacy workshop. The banker walked in and started droning on: Im from the local bank. Today, well learn about budgeting, saving, and investing Most of my friends dozed off or started talking to each other. Some were even playing on their phones under the table. Before the banker left, he placed some flyers on the table that prompted students to open checking accounts  we can all imagine how effective that was.

Now picture this: you have a student in your community that knows your credit union inside and out. The student adores your organization and believes in your mission. The student spreads the word of your credit union across campus: organizing engaging school events, mentioning it to friends at parties, posting about it on social media. Other students begin to take notice. They are intrigued: So these credit unions are nonprofit? And they have all these benefits? That sounds too good to be true. They ask the student for more information and they are directed to you!

Brand Ambassadors are no new concept, yet they are continuously overlooked by credit unions. Lululemon, Red Bull and Bumble have all invested heavily in building out student ambassador programs, and guess what  these are the kinds of brands that college students all talk about, understand and recognize!

What?

A Brand Ambassador is an individual who works closely with an organization and acts as a representative and advocate. For credit unions, its someone who truly believes in your mission and they want to spread the word. In return, they get rewarded in some form (membership benefits, cash prizes, merch you name it).

Why?

Based on our recent survey at Duke University, a whopping 76% of students dont even know what a credit union is. Establishing brand ambassadors for your credit union could be the key to bridging this gap. By having a student that can relay the mission of your credit union to their friends and peers in a way that is familiar, relatable and authentic, will help to reduce uncertainty around the function of credit unions and, ultimately, direct a wave of younger customers towards your credit union.

How?

The best place to start is to see if there are any students that already use your service. For instance, here at Zogo, we have built a network of student ambassadors by reaching out directly to students that already use and love our financial literacy app. Having students that already engage with and believe in your product can be a great starting point. Devise an incentivized program, reach out to them directly, brainstorm with them and make them feel like part of the team.

Dont know where to start? Not to worry. Here at Zogo, we work with over 75 credit unions nationwide to help them engage with the younger generations through our gamified financial literacy app and our network of student ambassadors. In just one year, we have amassed over 100,000 Gen Z users from across the United States. Having a product on hand that is both interactive and engaging to younger generations can be the first step towards getting students familiar with your organization and establishing a successful brand ambassador program.

Visit www.zogofinance.com to meet with one of our Gen Z specialists and see how we can help your credit union tap into the future generations.
IWG, the world's largest office space provider, has unveiled losses of more than 620million for last year, but has said it's expecting strong growth once Covid restrictions are eased as 'hybrid working' becomes the norm.

The group's finance boss said it has already seen an 'unprecedented' rise in new deals with companies looking for 'hybrid working' solutions, where staff work partly in the office and partly from home.

It comes just a day after the company, formerly known as Regus, struck its biggest deal to date with Japanese telecoms group NTT to give its 300,000 employees around the world access to IWG's office network.

Working shift: Companies are increasingly looking for 'hybrid working' solutions, where staff work partly from the office and partly from home, IWG said

It follows another big deal in January with Standard Chartered, which gives the bank's 95,000 employees access to 3,500 IWG offices around the world for a trial period of 12 months.

This will give them the option to work in more convenient locations closer to home while benefiting from office facilities.

'We are signing membership deals that are multiple times larger than any previous deals in the Group's history,' chief financial officer Eric Hageman said.

'The quality and scale of these deals is demonstrably generating greater momentum in the evident shift to hybrid working solutions, which we are uniquely positioned to support.'

But despite the upbeat outlook, IWG posted a loss of 620.1million last year, compared with a profits of 118.5million in 2019.

As fewer firms rented its spaces, revenues fell 5.3 per cent to 2.5billion, with IWG also incurring 379.5million in pandemic-related costs and 322million in costs for shutting down some of its underperforming office spaces.

Chief executive Mark Dixon said 2020 was a 'challenging' year, when the office space market underwent 'a decade of evolution in just 12 months' as office workers suddenly found themselves working from home.

Chief executive Mark Dixon said the office space market underwent 'a decade of evolution in just 12 months' in 2020

'Something's happening and it is a change to the way that companies and people work,' he told the BBC's Today programme, adding that working from home some of the time will become 'the new norm'.

But Dixon said he expects strong demand for hybrid working solutions once the pandemic restrictions are eased.

'We anticipate a massive surge in growth when we eventually emerge from the unprecedented downturn that the COVID-19 pandemic has created.'

A raft of big companies have recently announced that workers will not come back to work full-time in offices.

Yesterday, BP told 25,000 office-based staff around the world that they will be expected to work from home for two days per week as part of a post-pandemic shift to flexible working.

Last month, HSBC announced plans to slash office space by 40 per cent, while Lloyds Banking Group said it planned to reduce its office space by 20 per cent over the next two years.

Shares in IWG were down 4.3 per cent to 364.80p towards market close on Tuesday.
Zelensky says it's impossible to constantly postpone efforts to resolve the pressing issue.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is ready to hold separate meetings with each of the leaders of the Normandy Four (Germany, France, Russia) if the summit keeps being postponed.

"In any case, a Normandy summit is being prepared. It should take place. I will tell you on my own behalf, and I said this to our Western partners  if there is no meeting in the Normandy format, I will find a format where I meet with each of the Normandy Four leaders," he said at the all-Ukrainian forum "Ukraine 30. Culture, media, tourism" in Kyiv, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

Read alsoRussian-led forces in Donbas preparing for escalation, rights activists warnZelensky says it is impossible to constantly postpone the solution to such an important issue.

Normandy format: Background

The Normandy Four is a format of talks in a quadripartite format, involving Ukraine, Germany, France, and Russia, where issues of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine are discussed.

The name of the format comes from a summit of the four leaders, which first took place in Benouville, Normandy region, northwestern France, on June 6, 2014.

The latest summit of the Normandy Four leaders was held in Paris in December 2019.

Reporting by UNIAN
A community assessment by the American Heart Association with stakeholder focus groups identified blood pressure and tobacco prevention in teens as key priorities in Hamilton County.



The American Heart Association, a voluntary health organization devoted to a world of longer, healthier lives, is addressing these issues and inviting everyone to live fierce for better well-being and health. Live Fierce is the Associations new mission concept that binds the power of the organizations brand with its comprehensive impact.



By boldly addressing the health issues impacting Hamilton County, we are coming together around the Live Fierce mindset to help embolden all those who call the Tennessee Valley home to make health a priority, said Dr. Christopher LeSar, president of the American Heart Association board of directors. We are working to create sustainable policy, system and environmental changes to ensure equitable health for everyone in our community.



In support of the American Heart Associations work, The Vascular Institute of Chattanoogas physicians Dr. Chris LeSar, Dr. Dan Krcelic, Dr. William Harris and Dr. Elizabeth Hartmann have extended their Live Fierce: Life is Why sponsorship into 2024. Projects related to the sponsorship will focus on improving blood pressure management throughout the Tennessee Valley, while also bringing additional awareness to Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD), which is a key indicator of cardiovascular disease risk.



Through local initiatives the Association is taking steps to help raise awareness of heart disease and stroke, and address and mitigate the root causes of health care disparities. Tobacco prevention is also an important area of emphasis; many teens are unaware of the dangers or vaping or smoking.



By focusing on those we serve, we can channel heartfelt intensity into advocating, motivating and educating people so they are empowered to live longer, healthier lives, said Emily Niespodziany, executive director of the American Heart Association. Without our sponsors like Vascular Institute of Chattanooga, this work would not be possible. Our passionate volunteers and sponsors are key to us building a healthier Chattanooga together.



To learn more about programs, events and volunteer opportunities, visit heart.org/Chattanooga.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

As much as a year's worth of past academic progress made by disadvantaged children in the Global South may have been wiped out by school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have calculated.

The research, by academics from the University of Cambridge and RTI International, attempts to quantify the scale of learning loss that children from poor and marginalized communities in the Global South may have experienced, and the extent to which home support and access to learning resources could ameliorate it. While it is known that the education of these children has suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, it is much harder to measure exactly how much their academic progress has been impeded while schools have been closed.

The researchers used data from Ghana to model the likely impact of closures for children in remote and deprived parts of that country. They found that on average, 66% of the learning gains made in foundational numeracy during the academic year are lost during three months out of school. The outcome is, however, far worse for children without adequate home learning resources or support.

The authors suggest these findings provide a glimpse of a much wider pattern of learning loss that is being experienced by millions of disadvantaged children around the world.

Co-author Professor Ricardo Sabates, from the REAL Centre in the University's Faculty of Education, said: "Despite teachers' best efforts, we know school closures have held up, or reversed, the progress of millions of children. This study is one approach to estimate how much learning could have been lost, and how much worse this may have been for children from disadvantaged settings."

"These figures represent an estimate of learning loss for children who spent 3 to 4 months out of school. We expect that as schools remained closed for longer, losses could be higher. We also acknowledge the important support that many families and communities provided with supplementary learning, which may have in turn limited the potential loss overall."

The study built on earlier research that highlighted the significant learning losses that occur when certain groups of children in developing countries move from one academic year to the next, particularly those who change language of instruction, and disadvantaged girls.

The researchers used data charting the progress of more than 1,100 students on Ghana's Complementary Basic Education (CBE) program between 2016 and 2018. This program supports children aged eight to 14 who would not normally attend school, providing them with education in their own language and at flexible times. On completion, students are encouraged to enroll at a local government school, but the start of that school year occurs after a three-month gap, during which they receive no education.

The researchers compared participants' scores in foundational maths tests at four stages: when they started the CBE, when they finished, when they joined a government school, and after their first year in government school. They also accessed data about how much home learning support the students hadfor example, whether they had books at home, or could seek help from an adult when struggling with homework.

During the CBE program, the students' test scores improved, on average, by 27 percentage points. When they were tested again after the three-month gap, however, their scores had reduced by an average of 18 percentage points. Two-thirds of the gains these students had made during the previous academic year were therefore lost while they were out of school. The researchers argue that this is an upper estimate of the expected scale of loss during an equivalent period of school closures due to COVID-19. Fortunately, during the pandemic community efforts to enhance learning may have mitigated this effect for some children.

In spite of this, they also found that the basic learning loss was compounded among children who lacked support to study at home. For example:

Children without access to reading and learning resources at home (such as books) experienced a learning loss above 80%.

Children who said that they never asked adults in their household for help experienced a learning loss of around 85%.

Encouragingly, the study showed that in the first year of formal education, students not only recouped their learning loss, but improved, while the attainment gap between more and less advantaged students narrowed.

In many countries, however, it is becoming clear that many disadvantaged studentsespecially marginalized groups such as disabled children and many girlsare not returning to school. Therefore, the researchers suggest supporting access to diverse forms of education for students from less-advantaged backgrounds. There is evidence to show that community-based programs, for example, can enhance a range of learning skills for these children. "Learning at home and in communities has to be reimagined if rapid gains are to be achieved as we continue to face the COVID-19 situation," the authors say.

The pattern of learning loss charted in Ghana may also apply far beyond the Global South. "This is an international challenge," said co-author Emma Carter, also from the REAL Centre. "In Europe and the US, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds will similarly be experiencing severe learning loss. The levels of attainment may differ between countries, but it is highly likely that the pattern of loss remains."

The evaluation data used in the study was commissioned and funded by FCDO Ghana. The research is published in the International Journal of Educational Development.

Explore further Mandatory remote teaching could reduce inequality during the pandemic  but delivering it will be difficult

More information: Ricardo Sabates et al, Using educational transitions to estimate learning loss due to COVID-19 school closures: The case of Complementary Basic Education in Ghana, International Journal of Educational Development (2021). Ricardo Sabates et al, Using educational transitions to estimate learning loss due to COVID-19 school closures: The case of Complementary Basic Education in Ghana,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2021.102377
Dropbox announced today that it plans to acquire DocSend for $165 million. The company helps customers share and track documents by sending a secure link instead of an attachment.

"We're announcing that we're acquiring DocSend to help us deliver an even broader set of tools for remote work, and DocSend helps customers securely manage and share their business-critical documents, backed by powerful engagement analytics," Dropbox CEO Drew Houston told me.

When combined with the electronic signature capability of HelloSign, which Dropbox acquired in 2019, the acquisition gives the company an end-to-end document-sharing workflow it had been missing. "Dropbox, DocSend and HelloSign will be able to offer a full suite of self-serve products to help our millions of customers manage the entire critical document workflows and give more control over all aspects of that," Houston explained.

Houston and DocSend co-founder and CEO Russ Heddleston have known each for other years, and have an established relationship. In fact, Heddleston worked for Dropbox as a summer in intern in 2010. He even ran the idea for the company by Houston prior to launching in 2013, who gave it his seal of approval, and the two companies have been partners for some time.

"We've just been following the thread of external sending, which has just kind of evolved and opened up into all these different workflows. And it's just really interesting that by just being laser-focused on that we've been able to create a really differentiated product that users love a ton," Heddleston said.

Those workflows include creative, sales, client services or startups using DocSend to deliver proposals or pitch decks and track engagement. In fact, among the earliest use cases for the company was helping startups track engagement with their pitch decks at VC firms.

The company raised a modest amount of the money along the way, just $15.3 million, according to Crunchbase, but Heddleston says that he wanted to build a company that was self-sufficient and raising more VC dollars was never a priority or necessity. "We had [VCs] chase us to give us more money all the time, and what we would tell our employees is that we don't keep count based on money raised or headcount. It's just about building a great company," he said.

Story continues

That builder's attitude was one of the things that attracted Houston to the company. "We're big believers in the model of product growth and capital efficiency, and building really intuitive products that are viral, and that's a lot of what what attracted us to DocSend," Houston said. While DocSend has 17,000 customers, Houston says the acquisition gives the company the opportunity to get in front of a much larger customer base as part of Dropbox.

It's worth noting that Box offers a similar secure document-sharing capability enabling users to share a link instead of using an attachment. It recently bought e-signature startup SignRequest for $55 million with an eye toward building more complex document workflows similar to what Dropbox now has with HelloSign and DocSend. PandaDoc is another competitor in this space.

Both Dropbox and DocSend participated in the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield, with Houston debuting Dropbox in 2008 at the TechCrunch 50, the original name of the event. Meanwhile, DocSend participated in 2014 at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City.

DocSend's approximately 50 employees will be joining Dropbox when the deal closes, which should happen soon, subject to standard regulatory oversight.
Gov. Gavin Newsoms coronavirus lockdowns made California one of three states with the nations highest jumps in joblessness. Those pandemic policies are now the subject of a fierce national debate with the Golden States per capita rate of COVID cases similar to Floridas, which imposed much lighter restrictions and began aggressively reopening last fall.

While jobless claims skyrocketed across the country last year, the California agency charged with doling out unemployment insurance botched its job of getting federal checks into the hands of eligible workers. State officials estimate that nearly a quarter of the $122 billion in federal payments was squandered, fraudulently sent to scammers, while more than a million deserving recipients have been left hanging for months without relief.

Over the last few months, a state audit and a Sacramento district attorneys investigation have turned up an array of disturbing findings  the states Employment Development Department paid some $400 million in an estimated 35,000 unemployment claims to prisoners, including some big-name inmates. Inmates who made the claims include Scott Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his wife, Laci Peterson, while she was eight months pregnant, and Cary Stayner, who murdered four women near Yosemite Park in 1999. One person was able to scam more than $200,000 using the name of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

With the yearly IRS tax filing deadline looming next month, theres an alarming new element to the scandal: Many Californians who had their identifies stolen in these payment schemes are now facing federal tax bills for money they never received in part because the state failed to follow recommendations to stop using Social Security numbers in correspondence and because the EDD skipped withholding taxes in the interest of getting the money out more quickly.

If new estimates prove to be true that some $31 billion in federal taxpayer funds were lost to fraud, it will be the biggest financial scandal in state history, and at least some of the most egregious aspects of it could have been easily avoided. Unlike at least 35 other states, California lacks the technology to cross-check its state prisoner rolls against unemployment claims.

The massive unemployment mess has already given Newsoms critics powerful ammunition for his recall, which organizers say they are confident will take place after reaching 1.95 million signatures on their petition. Thats far more than the 1.5 million to qualify by next weeks deadline and trigger a special election, a comfortable cushion for the 20% of signatures expected to be thrown out as unverifiable.

I think there will be a rolling impact on the recall -- because federal funds are involved, there should be pressure on the Biden administration to launch an investigation at the Justice Department, Anne Dunsmore, the campaign manager for Rescue California, one of two main groups organizing the recall, said in an interview. This is the kind of story where we just say Newsoms our best asset.

Californias embarrassing loss of taxpayer dollars is set to hit the national spotlight and a new level of intense scrutiny. Despite the fraud scandal at the state agency, President Biden nominated the California Labor & Workforce Development Agencys secretary, Julie Su, to become the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Senate is poised to take up her nomination early next week, K Street sources familiar with the timing told RealClearPolitics. An aide on the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee said Republicans are planning to grill Su over the failures in her current role and whether she can be trusted to oversee a much larger agency based on these failures.

Newsom so far has avoided the controversy over Bidens decision to tap Su, who was a highly regarded worker-rights advocate before taking on the top state labor role in 2019.

Julie Su embodies the spirit of California, Newsom said in a statement reacting to the Biden nomination. Her commitment to empowering working people and creating opportunity for every community to thrive is exactly why she is the best choice to serve our nations next deputy secretary of Labor role.

The embattled governor didnt address the tens of billions of dollars lost in EDD fraud, which took place under Sus watch and which state officials are still trying to rein in. Newsoms office didnt respond to a RealClearPolitics request for comment.

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus pushed hard for Sus nomination to the top Labor post, but Biden chose her instead for the No. 2 position, possibly in part because the fraud scandal could become a distraction in winning confirmation to lead the agency. Its been a rough year for many states labor department officials. Those running unemployment agencies in at least eight states, including Florida, Hawaii and Nevada, have resigned or been fired amid fraud schemes during the pandemic. In late October, Californias EDD director, Sharon Hilliard, retired amid the still-developing firestorm.

No one could have planned for the avalanche of unemployment insurance claims during the pandemic. But the fraud in California, which has accounted for 18.4% of the federal jobless benefit claims despite making up only 11.8% of the nations labor force, took place at a much larger scale than in anywhere else. The state auditors report found some of the fraud could have been avoided if administrators had followed reforms recommended a decade ago. The state had implemented a fraud-detection system but reportedly shut it off in 2016 when the federal grant paying for the $2 million per year program ran out.

The state agency also has struggled to hold on to its own work force. It has hired about 4,900 new employees since the pandemic hit but has lost 1,600 in the same time period over frustration with the overwhelming case load and the slow, bungled response.

"There is no sugar-coating the reality: California did not have sufficient security measures in place to prevent this level of fraud," Su said in late January.

California Democratic lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as Sens. Feinstein and Alex Padilla, have tried to shift blame for the fraud by calling for more help from the federal government to combat it. In late January, the trio urged Biden to establish a federal task force to combat organized criminal unemployment benefits fraud.

But Republicans place the blame squarely on the Newsom administration. California Senate Minority Leader Scott Wilk called Sus possible promotion to the No. 2 spot at the U.S. Labor Department a prime example of the Peter Principle. The management concept, developed by Laurence Peter and explained in his 1969 book of the same name, maintains that people in hierarchies tend to win promotions until they reach a level where they are no longer competent.

Its interesting to me because youve got somebody getting promoted up to their level of incompetence, he said. It makes absolutely no sense to me except as [former California Gov.] Jerry Brown once told me, the No. 1 value in politics is loyalty and competence is No. 2, Wilk told RCP. (Wilk also noted that has not signed the petition to recall Newsom and passed on a chance to become an honorary chair of the effort because he considers himself an institutionalist who prefers regular elections.)

While the pandemic is to blame for the flood of jobless claims, Wilk said the state auditor had recommended changes and reforms to the system in 2011 and again in 2016, while Newsom was serving as lieutenant governor. Wilk also recalled that in 2014 Newsom authored the book Citizenville, which called for a complete technology overhaul of how government handles information.

So he came in the tech governor, and its been an abject failure, Wilk charged.

It also doesnt help that at the time of Sus nomination, Republicans were already incensed over another Labor Department appointment that doesnt require Senate confirmation. President Biden tapped Suzi LeVine as his interim assistant secretary of the Employment and Training Administration, the agency charged with administering the unemployment insurance benefits, along with job training and worker dislocation programs.

The promotion came even though LeVine, Washington states Employment Security Department commissioner, which oversees the states unemployment insurance system, among other programs, has been under fire locally for failing to prevent hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fraudulent unemployment claims, along with a months-long backlog in getting checks to legitimate recipients. LeVine, a former top executive at Expedia, was a prolific fundraiser for the Obama-Biden 2008 campaign and became ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein during the Obama administration.

Both appointments have sparked sharp rebukes from Republicans and the business community. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, along with the 10 other members of the California GOP delegation, in early February wrote to Su and Newsom that California had the resources to combat fraud and failed for months to heed federal officials warnings about the potential.

Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse and two other members of the Washington state GOP delegation sent a similar letter to Biden about LeVine.

Ms. LeVines dismal track record at the helm of the Washington State Employment Security Department and gross mismanagement of state taxpayer dollars is extremely concerning considering this new position puts her in charge of over $9 billion in taxpayer funds, they wrote.

Back in December, when Su was one of several candidates under consideration for the top Labor post, the California Business and Industrial Alliance took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal blasting her possible nomination and highlighting the EDD fraud headlines. When Biden named her to the deputy role, the Los Angeles Times editorial board questioned whether Su is ready for Bidens team after the states unemployment system collapsed under her watch and as she still struggles to deal with the baggage.

While Senate Democrats razor-thin majority can muscle Su to confirmation, its Newsom who could pay a higher price for the unemployment meltdown, critics argue.

The EDD scandal could be a very real burden for Newsom  it could be effectively used by even non-GOP challengers, should he face any, said Rob Stutzman, who served as deputy chief of staff for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the winner of the last California governor recall effort, when he replaced Gray Davis in 2003. Its a simple scandal for voters to comprehend, and it generates incredulous responses from voters across ideological spectrums.

Newsoms response to the scandal  at EDD has not met the level of outrage felt by voters, he told RCP. He inherited EDD, but hes been running it for two years and hadnt taken measures to fix it.

At a recent oversight committee hearing in California, Democratic lawmakers were some the harshest critics after state Auditor Elaine Howle testified that the EDD had been aware of key operational issues  an inefficient claim filing process, a lack of qualified staff, and poor call management for nearly 10 years, but the department failed to address the problems.

Last weeks state audits paint a picture as clear as day, said Democratic Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, who chairs the Accountability & Administrative Review Committee. EDD has been mismanaged and unprepared from the very beginning. And working Californians are the ones who have suffered the consequences.

Sus Senate hearing next week will give both Republicans and Democrats a high-profile springboard to hammer Newsom over the rampant fraud, Stutzman and others predict.

Its not clear the Biden team has fully calculated how embarrassing this scandal of incompetence is for Su, Stutzman said. He added that it could also become a stumbling block for Ann OLeary, Newsoms chief of staff, who is reportedly under White House consideration to replace Neera Tanden as the Office of Management and Budget nominee.

On a local level, Democrats in swing California districts are already trying to hold Newsom and his administration accountable for the unemployment failure. Petrie-Norris won reelection for her Orange County seat by less than 2,500 votes and will face the same challenger again in 2022.

I think youre going to start seeing people who won by slim margins trying to distance themselves even more from this sinking ship, Dunsmore said of the Newsom administration.
Riders facing poverty pay and dangerous work form global network to highlight Deliveroo's exploitative business model to investors.

LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Deliveroo and its early investors expect to raise billions from an imminent IPO on the London Stock Exchange, but the riders who make their service possible are crying foul. Riders say Deliveroo's predatory business model means workers shoulder significant risks, including low pay rates, dangerous working conditions and unfair deactivations.

A global network of Deliveroo riders is warning potential investors of growing legal, regulatory, and reputational risks, urging them not to back the company until it improves rider safety, conditions and pay. Today riders published a letter to Deliveroo CEO Will Shu calling on the company to stop treating riders like second-class citizens.

Deliveroo profits have soared during the pandemic, with its riders delivering takeaways and groceries to millions of people across 12 countries. Shu reportedly stands to see his stake in the company grow to up to $910 million with the IPO. "Instead of affording riders the rights they deserve, Deliveroo has been putting even more pressure on them," says Stephen Cotton, General Secretary of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), which is supporting the riders' network. "While competitors like JustEat are changing their ways, Deliveroo has left the riders feeding our cities struggling to feed their own families."

Deliveroo is the most protested platform in the world according to the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest, which records reported instances of protest by gig workers. Riders have reported their accounts being deactivated without explanation, having to meet unrealistic and dangerous delivery targets, and, amid a global pandemic, a lack of adequate health and safety measures. "This sits alongside continued attempts by Deliveroo to shirk responsibility for job security, minimum wages and social security protections by misclassifying riders as self-employed contractors," says Cotton.

Despite attempts by Deliveroo and other gig economy companies to misclassify riders, courts  including the Supreme Courts in the United Kingdom and France  are increasingly recognising direct employment relationships.

Last month, a Dutch court ruled that Deliveroo misclassified its workers as independent contractors to avoid responsibility for holiday, sick pay and other employment entitlements. Spanish courts earlier came to a similar conclusion. These landmark rulings highlight a growing recognition of the legal and regulatory obligations on app-based companies.

"Deliveroo cynically uses the language of flexibility as a fig-leaf for shirking their responsibilities to employees," says Felipe Diez Prat, member of Spanish union UGT and former Deliveroo rider. "Deliveroo's IPO is significant because it speaks to a future in which companies are rewarded for driving down pay for workers."

Without its riders, Deliveroo wouldn't be the global brand it is today, says Deliveroo rider Jeremy Wick, a member of the CGT in Bordeaux. "Investors and consumers must tell Deliveroo to do right by the riders who makes its business viable. Be a responsible business: protect the health and safety of riders and give them fair and transparent pay."

The ITF is supporting the #Rights4Riders network as part of its commitment to amplify organising by platform workers. In November, the ITF launched 10 gig economy employer principles, which provide an outline for ending exploitation in the gig economy.

Riders are available for comment. To arrange, contact Dalila Mahdawi: media@itf.org.uk

SOURCE International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)
The Federal Government is making changes to the renewable energy target scheme, but questions remain about how it will operate into the future. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)

NSWs Net Zero Plan May Benefit China

The New South Wales (NSW) state government has declared it will spend $750 million on the Net Zero Plan for greenhouse gas emissions as part of an $11.6 billion investment over the next 10 years.

Announcing the plan, along with the new Net Zero Industry and Innovation Program, on Monday, the NSW Minister for Energy and Environment Matt Kean said that the program is part of the governments overall plan to reduce emissions by 35 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero by 2050.

Matt Kean, NSW Minister for Energy and Environment, looks on ahead of the opening of the national trail walk at the Royal National Park on September 14, 2019, in Bundeena, Australia. (Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

This program will improve our environment, our economy and the lives of families in NSW, Kean said. As technology advances and industry experience grows, the cost of low emissions technologies will fall, he added.

The plan also promises to support the state economic growth promising to create over 2,400 jobs and save households $40 a year on electricity bills.

However, Federal MP Craig Kelly expressed concern over the plan.

Kelly is concerned the program could inadvertently support China-based companies selling solar panels, wind-turbine components, and batteries, placing Australia at a direct economic disadvantage with China.

Member for Hughes Craig Kelly looks on during the opening of House of Representatives at Parliament House on February 03, 2021, in Canberra, Australia. (Sam Mooy/Getty Images)

Its a forced mandate that forces us to buy more solar panels, and of course, more than 90 percent of imported solar panels come from China, Kelly told The Epoch Times in a phone interview.It forces us to rely upon large batteries which come from China, more wind turbine parts, all of which come from China.

The net result will be a wealth transfer out of Australia to the Communist Party of China, Kelly added.

Additionally, Kelly criticised the large $750 million expenditure, of which $195 million will go to research developing technology for sectors that are deemed hard-to-abateessentially those that have no low-emission alternatives due to specific industrial processes, such as high-temperature heating, that rely on fossil fuels.

What happens if it doesnt work? Kelly said.

Kelly also scrutinised Kean and the plan for not being transparent with their models and analysis, as no data has been released to support their target figures, such as their goal to save households $40 a year.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
EQS Group-News: Nordea Bank Abp / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

Nordea Bank Abp: Flagging notification



09.03.2021 / 09:40





Nordea Bank Abp: Flagging notification in accordance with Chapter 9, Section 10 of the Securities Markets Act



Nordea Bank Abp

Stock exchange release - Major shareholder announcements

9 March 2021 at 9.45 EET



Nordea Bank Abp has on 8 March 2021 received a notification under Chapter 9, Section 5 of the Securities Markets Act, according to which BlackRock, Inc.'s indirect shareholding of Nordea Bank Abp's shares and voting rights has fallen below the threshold of 5 per cent on 5 March 2021. According to the notification, the total number of Nordea Bank Abp's shares and voting rights held directly by BlackRock, Inc. and its funds was 4.89 per cent on 5 March 2021.



The total number of shares and voting rights in Nordea Bank Abp is 4,049,951,919.



Total positions of BlackRock, Inc. and its funds:

% of shares and voting rights

(total of A) % of shares and voting rights through financial instruments

(total of B) Total of both in % (A + B) Resulting situation on the date on which threshold was crossed or reached 4.89% 0.14% 5.03% Position of previous notification (if applicable) 5.04% 0.14% 5.18%



Notified details of the resulting situation on the date on which the threshold was crossed or reached:



A: Shares and voting rights

Class/type of

shares

ISIN code (if possible) Number of shares and voting rights % of shares and voting rights Direct

(SMA 9:5) Indirect

(SMA 9:6 and 9:7) Direct

(SMA 9:5) Indirect

(SMA 9:6 and 9:7) FI4000297767 198,234,776 4.89% SUBTOTAL A 198,234,776 4.89%



B: Financial instruments according to SMA 9:6a

Type of financial instrument Expiration

date Exercise/

Conversion period Physical or cash settlement Number of shares and voting rights % of shares and voting rights American

Depository

Receipt (US65558R1095) N/A N/A Physical 1,292,834 0.03% Securities Lent N/A N/A Physical 3,212,108 0.07% CFD N/A N/A Cash 1,207,398 0.02% SUBTOTAL B 5,712,340 0.14%



The controlled undertakings through which the shares, voting rights and financial instruments are effectively held:

Name % of shares and voting rights % of shares and voting rights through financial instruments Total of both BlackRock Japan Co., Ltd. Below 5% BlackRock Investment Management, LLC Below 5% BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited Below 5% BlackRock Investment Management (Australia) Limited Below 5% BlackRock International Limited Below 5% BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, National Association Below 5% BlackRock Fund Advisors Below 5% BlackRock Financial Management, Inc. Below 5% BlackRock Asset Management North Asia Limited Below 5% BlackRock Asset Management Deutschland AG Below 5% BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited Below 5% BlackRock Advisors, LLC Below 5% BlackRock Advisors (UK) Limited Below 5% BlackRock (Singapore) Limited Below 5% BlackRock (Netherlands) B.V. Below 5% Aperio Holdings, LLC Below 5%



For further information:

Matti Ahokas, Head of Investor Relations, +358 9 53008011

Group Communication, +358104168023 or press@nordea.com



The information provided in this stock exchange release was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, at 9.45 EET on 9 March 2021.

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com.
Bye-bye, Bangor. So long, Sheboygan.

Those cities in Maine and Wisconsin, respectively, are two of 144 that the federal government is proposing to downgrade from the metropolitan statistical area designation, and it could be more than just a matter of semantics. Officials in some of the affected cities worry that the change could have adverse implications for federal funding and economic development.

Under the new proposal, a metro area would have to have at least 100,000 people in its core city to count as an MSA, double the 50,000-person threshold that has been in place for the past 70 years. Cities formerly designated as metros with core populations between 50,000 and 100,000 people, like Bismarck and Sheboygan, would be changed to micropolitan statistical areas instead.

A committee of representatives from federal statistical agencies recently made the recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget, saying its purely for statistical purposes and not to be used for funding formulas. As a practical matter, however, that is how its often used.

Several housing, transportation and Medicare reimbursement programs are tied to communities being metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, so the designation change concerns some city officials.

In Corvallis, Oregon, the state designates certain funding sources to metropolitan statistical areas and any change to the citys status could create a ripple effect, particularly when it comes to transportation funding, said Patrick Rollens, a spokesman for the city that is home to Oregon State University.

I wont lie. We would be dismayed to see our MSA designation go away. We arent a suburb of any other, larger city in the area, so this is very much part of our communitys identity, Rollens said in an email. Losing the designation would also have potentially adverse impacts on recruitment for local businesses, as well as Oregon State University.

If the proposal is approved, it could be the first step toward federal programs adjusting their population thresholds when it comes to distributing money to communities, leading to funding losses for the former metro areas, said Ben Ehreth, community development director for Bismarck.

It wont change any formulas ... but we see this as a first step leading down that path, Ehreth said. We anticipate that this might be that first domino to drop.

Rural communities are concerned that more micropolitan areas would increase competition for federal funding targeting rural areas. The change would downgrade more than a third of the current 392 MSAs.

Statisticians say the change in designations has been a long time coming, given that the U.S. population has more than doubled since 1950. Back then, about half of U.S. residents lived in metros; now, 86% do.

Back in the 1950s, the population it took to create a metro area is different than it would be to create a metro area in 2020, said Rob Santos, president of the American Statistical Association.

Nancy Potok, a former chief statistician of the Office of Management and Budget who helped develop the new recommendations, acknowledged that officials in some cities will be upset with the changes because they believe it could hurt efforts to lure jobs or companies to their communities.

There are winners and losers when you change these designations, Potok said. A typical complaint comes from economic development when you are trying to attract investments. You want to say you are part of a dynamic MSA. Theres a perception associated with it. If your area gets dumped out of an MSA, then you feel disadvantaged.

Officials in some cities said they needed to research the impact of the change. Others were surprised to find their metro was on the list in the first place.

Perhaps they made a mistake, Brian Wheeler, director of communications for the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, said in an email.

While the city of Cape Girardeau, which is on the list, has a resident population north of 40,000 people, as a regional hub for southeastern Missouri, it can have a daytime population of more than 100,000 people, said Alex McElroy, executive director of the Southeast Metropolitan Planning Organization.

It kind of seems misleading, McElroy said of the designation change.

In a letter to the federal budget office, the mayor of Opelika, Alabama, urged that the proposal be dropped.

The risk to vital services within our community, our state and the millions of impacted Americans across this country far outweigh any limited statistical value that might be gained from this proposal, Mayor Gary Fuller said.

In a separate proposal, the U.S. Census Bureau is considering a change to the definition of an urban area. The proposal made public last month would use housing instead of people for distinguishing urban from rural. An area will be considered urban if it has 385 housing units per square mile, roughly the equivalent of 1,000 people per square mile, under the new proposal. The current standard is 500 people per square mile.

The Census Bureau says the changes are needed to comply with new privacy requirements that aim to prevent people from being identified through publicly released data and it offers a more direct measure of density.

Some demographers arent sold on the idea of changing the definition of a metro area.

It seems like everything is ad hoc, rather than having been determined by serious research, said Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire. The definitions have been relatively stable since 1950. All of the sudden, they change these, and at least in my mind, there isnt a compelling research-based process that has driven this decision.

In Corvallis, Rollens joked that he was intrigued by the possibility of the city becoming a micropolitan area, suggesting the community could benefit from thinking small.

We enjoy our small-batch craft beers and locally grown produce here in Corvallis, so I have no doubt that we would find a creative way to market our region if we ended up with a micropolitan designation, Rollens said.
7 day print subscribers enjoy unlimited access to yakimaherald.com

Enter the LAST NAME and the 7 DIGIT phone number on your print subscription account to connect your print subscription to your yakimaherald.com account.
Both Ministers in charge of heritage in Ireland have condemned the lighting of illegal wildfires in the Slieve Blooms and in Wicklow Mountains national park last weekend.

The fire in Laois destroyed 200 hectares of native wildlife near Ballyfin and took 35 firefighters to put it out over 24 hours.

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh OBrien and Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform Malcolm Noonan both spoke out against the deliberate lighting of the fires.

They say that the fires damaged protected habitats and species, put communities and private property at risk and placed an unnecessary additional burden on the emergency services.

Minister OBrien said, wildfires do not occur naturally in Ireland".

"The main cause of such conflagrations is thought to be the deliberate starting of fires without concern for the emergency services, the local wildlife, habitat, communities or even private property close by.

Minister Noonan said that both fires have destroyed important upland habitat and displaced and potentially killed local wildlife at a critical time of year for many species.

"Both of these sites are Special Areas of Conservation and among the most precious places in Ireland for nature. Indeed, the Slieve Blooms SAC is home to a thriving population of hen harriers and other rare bird species, all nesting this time of year. Setting these fires is absolutely criminal and an all-too-frequent tragedy.

The setting of these fires is irresponsible and reckless and shows a disregard not only for nature, but also for people  the communities who live in these areas and have to breathe in the smoke, the individuals and families whose property is put at risk, and of course for our emergency services. In the midst of a pandemic it is incredible that our emergency services are put in a position whereby their resources are pulled in this direction, Minister Noonan said.

Section 40 of the Wildlife Acts 1976, as amended, prohibits the cutting, grubbing, burning or destruction of vegetation, with certain strict exemptions, from 1 March to 31 August.

Minister Noonan said that a full investigation has begun.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service in my Department will examine our own drone footage, drone footage from the Civil Defence and Copernicus satellite data to investigate and fully assess the damage caused by these fires. In the last week, NPWS has deployed increased fire patrols at our sites and remains in close liaison with both the Gardai and the Fire Services. These patrols have targeted known fire high risk areas. Where appropriate, cross compliance is pursued with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. My staff are committed to finding solutions to these fires and I call on all stakeholders including the local communities to work with us to find a way forward.

Minister OBrien thanked the local fire services and all who helped to battle the fires.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation for the Fire Service, National Parks and Wildlife Service staff and the Civil Defence who work tirelessly and selflessly to battle these fires year in and year out. It is incumbent on all of us as custodians of nature and the land to work together to find solutions to avoid this happening in the future. If anyone has any information about the fires in Wicklow or Laois, please contact your local NPWS office or the Gardai.
Please disable your ad blocker, and refresh the page to view this content.
Blair, Nebraska, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BLAIR, Nebraska, March XX, 2021 -- Great Plains Communications (GPC), a growing Midwestern telecommunications provider with an expanding, privately-owned 13,500+-mile fiber network reaching 11 states, today announced Matt Porterfield has been appointed to the position of Vice President of Corporate Development. In this new role, Porterfield will be responsible for identifying growth opportunities including potential new markets and future merger and acquisition prospects. Porterfield will work closely with the GPC Executive team including CEO, Todd Foje.

This is a new position the company has added to meet aggressive growth goals and expand our fiber footprint strategically, said Todd Foje, CEO of Great Plains Communications. Matts expertise and strong career history of successfully growing companies in the industry make him a great fit. We are looking forward to working closely with Matt in his new role and extending our network into new markets to serve the needs of more customers.

Bandwidth demand continues to rise, creating opportunity throughout the nation, said Porterfield. GPC is dedicated to expanding our presence to provide vital fiber-driven services to new areas while increasing revenue and capturing new market share for the company. In my new position, I will be analyzing markets and making tactical recommendations to grow the company effectively while meeting the increasing needs of our customers.

Porterfield has an extensive track record in telecommunications leadership roles. He was the founder and President of InterCarrier Networks, which became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Great Plains Communications in August of 2019. Prior to joining InterCarrier Networks, Porterfield was the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for LightCore, a regional fiber carrier headquartered in St. Louis serving the central United States. Before joining LightCore, he held the position of Vice President of Strategic Sales at New Edge Networks, a national provider of carrier IP wide area networks.

Porterfield will be based out of St. Louis, Missouri.

About Great Plains Communications

Great Plains Communications is one of the largest privately-owned telecommunications providers in the Midwest. Headquartered in Nebraska, they have over a century of experience providing business, wholesale and residential customers with forward-thinking, fiber-based technology services including Ethernet, Internet, video, hosted and voice solutions across an 11-state footprint. The company also takes pride in its progressive approach to accommodating the unique needs of all regional and national telecommunications carriers, LECs, ISPs, wireless carriers and other service providers, utilizing superior engineering and custom-build strategies. At the core of its service offering is an extensive 13,500-mile regional fiber network, including long-haul and metro networks that span the state of Nebraska, extending into Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota and Wyoming. The network offers community access rings, last-mile and middle-mile solutions, all fully supported by the Companys 24x7x365 Network Operations Center. For more information, visit https://www.gpcom.com/.
After Ishaqzaade and Namaste England, Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra will be reuniting for the third time for Dibakar Banerjee's Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar. The makers have unveiled a brand new trailer of the film today (March 9, 2021).

The 1.46 minute video gives us a sneak-peek into Sandeep (Parineeti Chopra) and Pinky's characters (Arjun Kapoor). Sandeep, a corporate executive, is on the run and seeks help from a corrupt cop Pinky. The duo run away to Nepal with the cops searching them all over. Interestingly, Pinky has been hired to kill Sandeep. Further, the twist in the end of the trailer leaves you by surprise.

Watch the trailer.

Talking about the violent on-screen relationship that Arjun and Parineeti shared in the film, director Dibakar Banerjee shared, "It was Arjun vs Parineeti on the sets of Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar for most of the days. They have done the typical romantic films together where there's what we call in Bollywood 'choreography'. Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar wasn't choreographed. We rehearsed the basic moves and then just went for it."

He further said, "Male violence against the woman is something we all know pretty well in the subcontinent. It's also used often to gloat and used as prurient male-gaze click-baits while promoting a film. We wanted the violence between them to be real which meant that they really had to hit each other which became a big problem because they are old buddies and the fact that Arjun is really very gentle."

Dibakar said that Arjun was committed to bring the animosity alive on screen and Parineeti dived deep into the character to ensure that the violence, though excruciating for her body, was necessary. The talented director says, "He's double Pari's size and has hands like sledgehammers. By the time the shooting ended, we stopped counting the bruises on Pari. So did she. But I love the shot where she slaps Arjun back. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that one," the filmmaker was quoted as saying.

Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar is slated to hit the theatrical screens on March 19, 2021.

ALSO READ: 5 Things From Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar Trailer That Makes It An Awaited Release

ALSO READ: Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar Trailer: Arjun Kapoor- Parineeti Chopra's Film Promises To Be A Thrill Ride
Greece will deliver 50 tons of animal feed to the Togo-flagged ElBeik, which has been stuck at sea for nearly three months in the Mediterranean carrying hundreds of cattle rejected by their buyers amid fears of disease, government sources said on Tuesday.

The vessel is expected to sail for Spain once the food transfer is completed in the late evening, an agriculture ministry official told Reuters.

Spain's government could not confirm it was expecting the return of the Elbeik, which left the Spanish port of Tarragona in December carrying nearly 1,800 cattle for sale in Turkey.

Turkish authorities rejected the animals and another shipment of 800 Spanish cattle aboard the Lebanon-flagged Karim Allah over concerns they had bovine bluetongue virus, turning the vessels into international pariahs. Since then various countries have refused them entry even to replenish animal feed.

A Greek shipping ministry official told Reuters the Elbeik was not allowed to dock at any Greek port but it had received fuel off the island of Crete in recent days.

The vessel is currently moored off the port of Kalamata, in the southern Peloponnese peninsula, where authorities are expected to deliver food for its crew and the cattle in the coming hours.

"We are in the process of transferring the supplies for the animals and for human consumption, for the crew, to the vessel. The operation is still in progress," a regional official said.

After the Karim Allah returned to Spain on Feb. 25 a team of government veterinarians deemed the animals unfit for transport and ordered them to be slaughtered. But the vets' report did not say if the cattle tested positive for bluetongue, which causes lameness and haemorrhaging among cattle but does not affect humans.

The Spanish government said in February that all the animals on both ships left Spain with the necessary medical certificates.
Maharashtra Congress MLA Amin Patel on Monday (March 8) demanded that the title of Alia Bhatt-starrer film, Gangubai Kathiawadi be changed. He claimed that the title maligns the name of Kathiawad city. Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the film follows Gangubai, one of the most powerful, loved and respected madams from Kamathipura.

The film set in Mumbai during the 1960s, is all set to capture the life of the sex workers in Kamathipura. The film is based on one of the chapters of noted author Hussain Zaidi's book Mafia Queens of Mumbai. Alia Bhatt will be seen playing the mafia queen Gangubai, who bows neither to any pimp nor to any politician.

MLA Amin Patel, who represents the Mumbadevi constituency in south Mumbai, told the state Assembly that Kamathipura area has undergone changes. "It is not the same like it was in 1950s. Women there are excelling in different professions. The film's title also maligns the name of Kathiawad city. The name of the film should be changed," he added.

Patel urged the ally state government led by Shiv Sena to intervene in the matter. This is not the first time politicians have opposed film titles and demanded changes. Earlier, titles of films like Padmaavat, Judgemental Hai Kya, Laxmii and others have also been changed.

Notably, the film is also making headlines as director and producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali has tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, Alia Bhatt who has been busy promoting the film has quarantined herself and also undergone a COVID-19 test.

Indian Express quoted a source as saying, "SLB has tested positive for COVID-19, and he is under self-quarantine, Alia too has quarantined herself since SLB and Ranbir (her beau Ranbir Kapoor) both have tested positive. Everybody who has come in contact with Sanjay have taken the test."

Gangubai Kathiawadi is all set to release in theatres on July 30, 2021.

ALSO READ: Gangubai Kathiawadi Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali Tests Positive For COVID-19; Alia Bhatt In Quarantine

ALSO READ: Gangubai Kathiawadi: Alia Bhatt To Lend Her Voice For A Song, Sanjay Leela Bhansali To Compose It
On Monday, the Biden Administration announced that an estimated 320,000 Venezuelans who left their home country would be granted temporary protected status, enabling them to remain and work in the United States legally.

Biden to offer immigration lifeline to Venezuelans

According to a senior administration official who demanded anonymity, Venezuelans' acceptance into the program will obtain conditional immigrant status for 18 months. They'll have to register over the next 180 days, pay a fee, show they've previously lived in the US, and pass a background check, Bloomberg via MSN reported.

The transition fulfills a campaign pledge made by President Joe Biden. It is meant to signal a step away from President Donald Trump's administration, which deported Venezuelans for years while condemning President Nicolas Maduro's leftist government. Democrats claimed that Trump's tough immigration policy showed a lack of concern for Venezuelans, who have faced a harsh humanitarian crisis since the country's economy crashed.

Biden's approach, as per the administration sources, would put further emphasis on Maduro. The administration has said that it is updating the Trump administration's sanctions to isolate Venezuela's government and that it would seek to increase foreign pressure on Maduro's regime.

In the coming days and weeks, the White House intends to study policy decisions made by former President Donald Trump, CBS News reported. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are reportedly 5.4 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants worldwide.

Read also: Will Illegal Immigrants Receive Third Stimulus Check?

Biden faces problems from surge migrants

Thousands of migrant children are backed up in US processing centers along the Mexican border, part of an increase of immigration from Central Americans fleeing hardship and crime that threatens President Biden's efforts to establish a more humanitarian solution to those seeking entry into the US.

The federal immigration service records collected by The New York Times say that the number of migrant children in custody at the border has soared in the last two weeks to more than 3,250. Many of them are being kept in jail-like conditions for longer than the three days permitted by law.

The government faces two challenges: the number of minors crossing the border and what to do with them until they are detained. The children are expected to be moved to shelters operated by the Health and Human Services Department under the legislation. Still, due to the pandemic, the shelters could only hold a limited number of children until last week.

The rising number of unaccompanied minors is just one aspect of an emerging border crisis. In January, border agents met a migrant at the border 78,000 times, more than twice the average from a year earlier and more than every January in the last decade.

According to people familiar with the agency's new numbers, immigration officials are due to report this week that there were nearly 100,000 apprehensions in February, including encounters at port entries. Since March 1, border agents have arrested an additional 19,000 migrants, both adults, and children.

The scenario resembles the huge surge of migrant children that flooded detention facilities in 2014, just before President Donald J. Trump's crackdown. Biden, a vice president at the time, visited Guatemala seven years ago and announced that "the present situation is untenable and unsustainable."

The President has advocated reforming the country's decades-old immigration system by making it simpler for asylum seekers and migrants, widening legal routes for migrant workers, expanding family-based immigration options, and significantly reducing the possibility of mass deportation. According to his State Department, foreigners rejected after January 20, 2020, under Trump's travel ban, can apply for a visa without paying extra fees.

However, his approach - to reopen the country's borders to vulnerable children in what he hopes will be an accommodating alternative to Trump's construction of legal and physical barriers - is already threatened by the grim realities of migration trends that have roiled the world for years. Migrants are again fleeing poverty, violence, and the destruction left by hurricanes and turning north into the United States, sensing a shift in tone and approach.

Read also: Biden on Infrastructure: Can He Accomplish What the Two Former Presidents Failed to Finish?

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
COLUMBIA  A federal judge said March 8 that she would decide "shortly" on whether to grant a longer block of South Carolina's abortion ban, saying she first needs to determine whether the governor and state House speaker should be allowed to intervene in the case.

While U.S. District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis decides whether to grant a preliminary injunction blocking the law, her restraining order that temporarily suspended the ban in February and was extended on March 5 remains in effect until March 19.

The preliminary injunction would provide a more lasting halt to the ban than the temporary restraining order, which was granted one day after Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill into law.

McMaster and House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Hartsville, recently filed requests to intervene and make their own arguments supporting the law in addition to South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who is representing the state in the case.

If Lewis decides that McMaster and Lucas are allowed to intervene, she said she should first need to review their arguments before issuing her ruling on the preliminary injunction.

Though Lewis did not immediately rule on the preliminary injunction, she continued to express skepticism about the law's constitutionality.

"I don't believe there's been any change in the law in the last two weeks that would change the situation," Lewis said.

The South Carolina law would prohibit abortions after a fetal or embryonic "heartbeat" is detected, which typically occurs around 6 to 8 weeks into a pregnancy. Most abortions in the state are conducted after six weeks of pregnancy, and opponents of the ban note that many women may not even realize they are pregnant by that point.

If Lewis grants the preliminary injunction, as expected, it will kickstart what is likely to become a years-long legal process.

Supporters of the abortion ban say their ultimate goal is to get the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case and reverse or substantially amend their precedent that women have a constitutional right to abortion access before a fetus is viable outside the womb.

A fetus is generally not considered viable outside of the womb until around 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood immediately filed the lawsuit hours before McMaster signed the bill into law. Wilson said he believes the law is constitutional and "deserves a vigorous defense to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary."

Close to a dozen other conservative states have recently passed similar bills, all of which have been held up in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court has still not decided whether to consider a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Sign up for updates! Get the latest political news from The Post and Courier in your inbox. Email

Sign Up!

If Lewis grants the preliminary injunction, Wilson could either appeal to the higher Fourth Circuit or proceed to more extensive arguments in Lewis' courtroom.

In addition to disputes about the constitutionality of the ban, arguments on March 8 centered around "severability"  whether other parts of the new South Carolina law could remain in effect if the ban is struck down.

That includes a section of the bill the requires physicians to conduct an ultrasound and let the pregnant woman know she is allowed to view it before performing an abortion.

Julie Murray, an attorney representing Planned Parenthood, argued that the rest of the law is inextricably linked to the section that bans abortions after six weeks and that the judge should strike down the entire law.

"It's not for this court to do the Legislature's job of crafting legislation that complies with the Constitution," Murray said.

Deputy Solicitor General Emory Smith, arguing in court on behalf of Wilson and South Carolina's Thirteenth Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins, countered that those other sections of the law could be upheld as constitutional separate from the ban and so should remain in place.

Lewis indicated that she sided with Planned Parenthood on that dispute, saying the ultrasound requirement is "not independent of the abortion ban" and she could not see how those two parts of the bill are not "inextricably linked."

Asked after the hearing about Lewis' questions and comments that seemed to suggest she did not buy his arguments, Smith said he would not predict an outcome in the case.

"All I'll say is that we made the arguments, developed them based upon our filings in court and made them as best as we could," Smith said. "We believe that they're sound, but it's in the judge's hands now and up to her to decide how she wants to rule."

Three local solicitors were initially named as defendants in the lawsuit because they represent the cities that have the only three abortion clinics in the state: Wilkins of Greenville, Fifth Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson of Columbia and Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson of Charleston.

Gipson announced in court last month that he would not be opposing the preliminary injunction and would not defend the abortion ban. He recently entered into an agreement with Planned Parenthood not to investigate or prosecute any abortions that happen while the court cases continue.

Smith revealed on March 8 that Solicitor Wilson has not yet taken a position on the case and may soon enter into a similar agreement with Planned Parenthood.

Malissa Burnette, another attorney representing Planned Parenthood, said after the hearing that she has no problem with Lewis' decision to take some more time to rule on the preliminary injunction and expects an order will come sometime this week.

"She is very thorough," Burnette said. "I respect her taking it under advisement and I know that she will study everything. Everybody had a chance to have their say."
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Tom Williams/Getty

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) did not buy or sell any stocks in his first 13 months as a congressman. That changed in March 2020, when he made half a dozen buys as the largest economic relief package in history was written and debated.

Five of those purchases came in the three days between March 25 and 27, as the Senate and House voted on the CARES Act and former President Trump signed it into law. Crenshaw, who supported the bill, did not initially disclose the transactions, in violation of the STOCK Act, a law that requires members of Congress to tell the public when they engage in securities trades. Months later he amended his records to reflect the purchases.

The trades, which are listed only in a range of values, add up to a maximum of $120,000, and do not compare in size or volume to the kinds of headline-grabbing transactions executed ahead of the pandemic by Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. They only appeared in December, when Crenshaw amended his annual report, originally submitted in August.

Youre referencing financial disclosures that use a range to report stock purchases, and youre choosing the upper end of the range to come up with that $120,000 figure, Justin Discigil, Crenshaws communications director, told the Daily Beast in an email. The real number is around $30,000 at most, Discigil said, and in no way were his purchases unethical or related to official business.

The timing, however, along with Crenshaws own trading history and connections to the industry, raises questions about why he made the purchases and failed, twice, to disclose them.

Members of Congress should not be actively trading securities in the middle of a crisis. It shows that when the market crashes, that person is thinking about themselves and using the volatility to their own advantage, said Ben Edwards, a securities law expert and professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Las Vegas Nevada. We all have a limited amount of attention, and if youve got [an] eye on your stock portfolio, then youre not giving that crisis or the American people the full attention they demand.

Story continues

Crenshaw, elected in 2018, had never traded individual stocks in office until that crisis struck, according to public records. Then, when global markets crashed on March 12, Crenshaw bought between $1,001 and $15,000 in Amazon. Two weeks later, while Congress voted on the CARES Act, Crenshaw bought stocks valued at the same price range in Southwest, Boeing, energy infrastructure manfacturer SPX, and Kinder Morgan, a Texas-based company specializing in pipeline construction. He also bought into an index fund tied to the performance of the S&P 500.

While its unclear why Crenshaw did not initially disclose the transactions, they came as an increasing number of high-profile lawmakers were getting snared in an insider-trading scandal. Except for the Amazon purchase, all of Crenshaws transactions came a week after ProPublica reported that Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) had sold up to $1.72 million on the heels of private coronavirus briefings. On March 20, The Daily Beast reported that Loeffler and her husband had sold off seven figures worth of stock following her first confidential briefings on the pandemic. Scrutiny soon fell on trades executed by Sens. David Perdue (R-GA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and John Hoeven (R-ND), spurring investigations by the Justice Department, the Senate Ethics Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission. None of the lawmakers faced criminal charges. Perdue and Loeffler lost their re-election bids to Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock in runoff elections this January.

In response to the scandal, the Campaign Legal Center analyzed all congressional stock trades made between Feb. 2 and April 8, finding that a dozen senators made a combined 127 transactions in the timeframe, and 37 House members made at least 1,358 transactions.

Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw Dunks on Newly Elected QAnon Queen, Marjorie Taylor Greene

Crenshaws name did not make it into those media reports, however, because he hadnt disclosed his purchases. The STOCK Act, a 2012 law intended to deter federal elected officials from trading on inside knowledge, requires congress to post all transactions within 45 days. Not only did Crenshaw fail to disclose the transactions at the time, he didnt include them in his annual disclosure, filed in August. And while that filing shows that Crenshaw holds the new assets, the form also requires members to list the transactions, including the dates, which Crenshaw left blank. They only appeared when the Lone Star Republican filed an amended annual report in December.

Crenshaws spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the Harvard alum and former Navy SEAL had filed that amendment to fix clerical issues in his report like making sure dates were correct.

At the time of the transactions, congress was scrambling to put together the CARES Act, a monumental emergency relief package that cost more than $2 trillion, and which Crenshaw supported. The Republican-led Senate approved the bill on March 25, the day Crenshaw bought stock in SPX and the S&P 500 fund. The package passed the House the next day, when Crenshaw scooped up Southwest and Kinder Morgan, and was signed into law by Trump on March 27, the day that Crenshaw acquired his stake Boeing.

At the time, Crenshaw sat on the House committees for Budget and Homeland Security. Boeing in particular lobbied heavily, and successfully, for a piece of the CARES Act, asking at first for $60 billion and later hoping to receive a $17 billion slice that lawmakers set aside for businesses critical to maintaining national security. The nonpartisan Institute on Tax and Economic Policy said at the time that it was generally understood that the bills authors want much, if not all, of this $17 billion to go to a single company: Boeing. But in late April, the manufacturer passed on the deal, opting instead to raise $25 billion in private investment thanks to moves that the Federal Reserve made independently of the CARES Act. The day that Crenshaw bought Boeing, markets snapped their brief positive burst, and the company led the boards that day in losses. His investment has now grown more than 38%. Boeings employee PAC gave $3,000 to Crenshaws 2020 campaign.

All of Crenshaws purchases have shown returns, with the biggest yields from Boeing, Amazon and Southwest Airlines. Amazon bounced up from about $1,820 a share on March 12 to $2,979 today, and Southwest Airlines rose from around $41 to a little over $60.

Its not hard to see that airlines would be among the hardest-hit stocks in a global pandemic that restricted air travel, Edwards said. So the short-term is that theyre going to get hammered, but in the long term, the sky is going to be busy again. That calculation includes the likelihood that the federal government would pitch in to keep the industry aloft, and in mid-April the airlines got their $25 billion bailout.

Edwards said that while the limited available information makes it impossible to know why Crenshaw and other officials make specific trades, new reforms introduced in response to the trading scandal would make such transactions impossible.

Some of the proposals for limiting stock purchases would really cut back on activity like this. For instance, Senator Warrens plan would prohibit buying and selling individual stocks, and just allowing members to track markets through index funds, he said. Another proposal is to require lawmakers to disclose their trading plans in advance, which executives of publicly traded companies already do. That would reduce the likelihood or suspicion that theyre using private information or their own legislative powers to their advantage.

Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast in November that lawmakers in the publics trust shouldnt risk even the appearance of having a personal financial stake in their government work.

"It is nearly impossible to make decisions affecting an industry and then receive a personal financial benefit without appearing to have a conflict of interest," Payne said. "Even if officials rely on financial advisors to make trading decisions on their behalf, the perception of conflicts of interest remains, because the public does not know if there are winks and nods prompting the trades."

Last week, Business Insider reported that Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), an advocate for transparency, had failed to disclose dozens of stock transactions over the course of 2020. Malinowski, who like Perdue  but unlike Crenshaw  claims that a third-party financial adviser independently executes his trades, said that his time in the barrell sharpened his appetite for reform.

This does reinforce my view that members of Congress should not be invested in the stock market or, if they are, they should not have any visibility into the stocks they own, Malinowski later told NJ.com. Inevitably, even if the decisions are made by an investment firm with no input from the member of Congress, there can be this perception of influence because what we do in Congress affects every aspect of the economy.

Crenshaw doesnt own many individual stocks, currently. Beyond the trades in March, he only holds shares in Starbucks, Alphabet  Googles parent company  and a small stake in Schlumberger, a global oilfield services provider primarily based in Europe, with a branch in Houston. The energy-dependent metropolis also hosts Kinder Morgan, but the offices of both companies are located just outside the lines of Crenshaws gerrymandered district.

The trades intersect with Crenshaws government work, specifically in energy. The oil and gas industry contributed a total $453,247 to his 2020 re-election efforts, and was his largest industry patron in terms of PAC donations. And while this may not have posed a direct conflict of interest last year, that may no longer be the case: On Jan. 21, House Republican leadership took Crenshaw off of his Homeland Security and Budget committee assignments and moved him to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here

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.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
The US slams China over its newly proposed veto powers on Hong Kong's selection of lawmakers and politicians terms the move as a 'direct attack' on the territory's autonomy.

The United States has called out Chinas moves to change the electoral process and termed it to be a direct attack on the countrys autonomy and its democratic processes stating that Washington is working to take a galvanizing collective action against Chinas abuses.

While interacting with the media, State Department spokesperson Ned Price stated that the proposed measures are a direct attack on Hong Kongs autonomy, Hong Kongs freedom, and the Democratic processes. he further said that the move violated Hong Kongs basic law structure that took effect in 1997 when Britain handed over the financial hub to China.

The US slammed Chinas continued assaults on democratic institutions in Hong Kong and Washington is working towards rallying allies and partners to stand united and speak in one voice against Chinas abuses against minority Muslims in the Xianjing province and the repressive measures taken by China against the people of Hong Kong.

Also Read:

Talking about the implementation of these measures, Ned price said that these measures would drastically undermine Hong Kongs democratic institutions and they run directly counter to the basic laws clear acknowledgment that Hong Kong elections would further progress towards universal suffrage. he also added that the United States stands together with the people of Hong Kong who are seeking nothing more than universal rights, which they are owed.

Also Read:
Supermarket spend in Northern Ireland grew by 14.8% in the 52 weeks leading up to February 21, new figures have revealed.

Kantar, the retail analyst, said that while NI consumers are making 20 fewer trips to the supermarket since the pandemic began, basket and trolley sizes have grown.

German retailer Lidl saw the biggest sales rise out of the four leading supermarkets here. Its sales rose by 21.7% over the period.

The retailer, which has 41 stores here, upped its store count with the launch of a new store at Hillview Retail Park in Belfast last month, which is part of its plan to have 50 NI stores by the end of this decade.

The second best performing retailer for growing sales was Sainsbury's, which claimed an increase in sales of 14.2%. Shoppers picked up more in store, boosting its overall sales by 78.7m.

"It was very a similar picture at Asda, where customers increased their trip size by more than at any other retailer, up 28.1%, and total sales rose by 10.6%," said Emer Healy, retail analyst at Kantar.

Tesco, which has the biggest supermarket share here at 35.1%, saw its sales rise by 12.7%.

Meanwhile symbol groups, including brands like Spar, Vivo and the Musgrave Group, which owns Centra and SuperValu, saw sales rise by 27.2% as lockdowns encouraged people to shop locally.

Their rise comes as symbol retailer SuperValu, part of the Musgrave retail and wholesale group, celebrates 25 years in Northern Ireland.

The chain now operates 37 stores across Northern Ireland, from its first store on Belfast's Kings Road, to the most recent addition, Wilson's SuperValu on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

Ms Healy said: "Growth in the Northern Irish grocery market accelerated to 14.8% in the 52 weeks ending 21 February 2021. Over the shorter-term sales grew by 12.7% in the latest 12 weeks.

"As we approach a full year since the start of restrictions in Northern Ireland, lockdowns have meant shoppers have made 20 fewer trips to the supermarket in the past 12 months. They have needed to pick up extra items when they do visit and volume sales have increased by 18.6% compared with the previous year, picking up two additional items per trip on average.

"Tesco maintained its position as Northern Ireland's biggest grocer with 35.1% of the market this period. Shoppers continued to pick up more per trip, increasing basket sizes by 22% and adding an extra 240m to Tesco's overall sales.

"Lidl achieved the strongest growth among all the retailers at 21.7% with an additional 43m spent in store this period."

Ms Healy said social restrictions have seen shoppers indulge more at home which gave rise to a boost in alcohol sales of 34%, while confectionery sales rose 18.9% .
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.




A staggering 96% of Americans have a cell phone, while 81% own a smartphone, according to Pew Research. Internet usage is increasingly mobile, with a fifth of Americans now using smartphones as their primary means of online access.

As mobile devices have grown in popularity, many services and even the internet itself have evolved to accommodate them. We shop on our phones, we take and share photos, we bank, we send messages, and we use a wide variety of apps and games. Our phones hold some of our most intimate secrets and sensitive data, so its wise to take some simple precautions to ensure your mobile devices arent compromised by cybercriminals.

1) Use Login Protection

Mobile devices always have a secure login option. Most modern smartphones use biometric security, enabling you to unlock your device with your fingerprint or your face. Older devices use passcodes or PINs. Despite these measures being available, many people leave their phones unlocked. As many as 52% of people surveyed by Kaspersky Labs admitted that they dont password-protect their mobile devices.

Think of all the things a thief could access if they got a hold of your smartphone. Failing to set up a password or PIN is like leaving your front door unlocked. Always set up login protection.

2) Be Wary of Public Wi-Fi

With free internet access at cafes, restaurants, airports, hotels, and in many other public spaces most of us are used to connecting wherever we happen to be. But public Wi-Fi hotspots may not be what they appear to be. Any enterprising cybercriminal can set up an access point near a cafe or from a parking lot and give it the venues name. If you connect, then all the information you send will be routed through the hackers own hotspot.

You could fall victim to a man-in-the-middle attack or be redirected to a fraudulent website designed to steal your login credentials. Never access sensitive data or web services using a public Wi-Fi connection. Verify URLs and look for secure HTTPS/TLS connections with the lock icon in your browser.

3) Consider The Apps You Use

While Google and Apple have stepped up their security and routinely scan the apps in their app stores, there are still occasions when malware sneaks in. Even legitimate apps will often collect data about you that you may not want to share. Third-party app stores often contain malware, and jailbreaking or side-loading can bypass your mobile device manufacturers security measures.

A malicious app could potentially give control of your phone to a cybercriminal and allow them to access everything. Get rid of any apps you dont need, consider the app developer, and always question the permissions that the app is asking for.

4) Be Vigilant For Phishing Scams

Because of the way we use mobile devices, the risk of phishing is heightened. A text or email may come in when were distracted and busy, which may be enough to lead us to tap on a link without thinking. Innocuous-looking links in text messages, social media messages, or emails can trigger malware downloads and give hackers access to your photos, banking information, and more.

Always consider the sender and even when you recognize the name look closely to make sure the address or number is correct. Never tap on links in unsolicited emails or messages.

5) Spyware Is A Real Threat

There are lots of spyware or stalkerware apps out there that track your location and potentially even spy on your messaging and other activity on your phone. Usually, these kinds of apps have to be physically installed by someone, but remote installation is possible in certain circumstances. Leave an unlocked phone unattended and a bad actor can install spyware on it in a matter of minutes.

Always use login protection and never share your passcode or PIN with anyone. Be aware of the possibility of phishing scams. You should also be careful not to use work devices for personal reasons, as employers can legally snoop on anything thats done on a device they own.

6) Employ Free Security Measures

Aside from login protection, most mobile device manufacturers offer some form of tracking, and sometimes even remote controls, for lost or stolen smartphones. Take the time to check what free security measures are on offer and to set them up. Make sure you have a secure record of any login details you might require for these services should your phone go missing. Its also a smart idea to regularly back up any precious files, such as photos and videos.

Keep in mind that additional security services will be rendered useless unless you use a passcode or PIN to prevent any thief from gaining easy access.

Its relatively easy to secure your mobile devices and it wont cost you anything, but it could save you a lot of trouble.

About the Author



Stu Sjouwerman is founder and CEO of KnowBe4, developer of security awareness training and simulated phishing platforms, with over 35,000 customers and more than 25 million users. He was co-founder of Sunbelt Software, the anti-malware software company acquired in 2010. Stu is the author of four books, his latest being Cyberheist: The Biggest Financial Threat Facing American Businesses. He can be reached at ssjouwerman@knowbe4.com.
"This solution is one of many efforts combining the expertise of SAS and Microsoft to turn data into intelligence and solve our customers' toughest challenges  together," said Bryan Harris, SAS Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. "There is nothing more rewarding than using our advanced analytics and cloud capabilities to help our customers reduce devastating impacts of natural disasters and take care of the people in our communities."

The Fast Company Most Innovative Companies list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive; they thrived  making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole.

Transforming emergency preparedness and protecting citizens

Like many other areas, the Town of Cary suffers from flooding after heavy rains, especially during the yearly Atlantic hurricane season. Cary traditionally relied on citizens to share alerts with the town when floods occurred, and town staff would manually process requests and dispatch appropriate personnel to respond to the issues. To modernize its approach and improve flood prediction, Cary turned to SAS and Microsoft.

Cary strategically installed water level sensors along its stream basin and rain gauges at several town facilities. By using SAS Analytics for IoT and Azure IoT services, staff can now visualize flooding events in real time. Cary is also able to generate and deploy predictive models and monitor the life cycle of these models over time. The town can better identify anomalies, such as rising water, through the integration of weather forecasting data and real-time sensor data, measuring water and rain levels to deliver advanced warnings and predictions of flooding events, both in Cary and in surrounding municipalities.

"We knew we needed a scalable solution to get us from reactive to proactive and ultimately predictive," said Nicole Raimundo Coughlin, Chief Information Officer for the Town of Cary. "This combined solution from SAS and Microsoft helps us reach that predictability, allowing us to organize and act on high volumes of diverse IoT data to protect not just the Town of Cary, but many municipalities, including local businesses and citizens downstream. This solution allows us to send the right people at the right time to get the right information out to save time, money  and ultimately lives."

Shaping the future of AI and analytics in the cloud

This award-winning IoT solution marks early success of the SAS cloud partnership with Microsoft announced in 2020. The extensive technology and go-to-market strategic partnership enables customers to easily run their SAS workloads in the cloud, expanding their business solutions and unlocking critical value from their digital transformation initiatives.

Hear SAS CEO Jim Goodnight and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discuss the partnership and the close integration between Azure and the SAS Viya analytics platform at sas.com/Microsoft.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in analytics. Through innovative software and services, SAS empowers and inspires customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries.  indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright  2021 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

Editorial Contact:

Shannon Heath

[email protected]

919-531-2676

sas.com/news

SOURCE SAS

Related Links

http://www.sas.com


Transaction in Own Shares

Posted by Publisher Internet

Griffin Mining Limited  https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/griffin-mining-ltd/ ?announces that on 8 March 2021 it purchased 47,500 ordinary shares of $0.01 each (\Ordinary Shares\) on the London Stock Exchange through Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited, in accordance with the terms of its share buy-back programme (the ?Buy-back?) announced on 25 February 2021 (the ?Programme?). The purchased shares will be held in treasury.

Date of purchase:???????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 8 March 2021

Aggregate number of ordinary shares purchased:? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?47,500

Lowest price paid per share (pence per share):? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?128

Highest price paid per share (pence per share):? ??????????????????????????????????? 132

Volume weighted average price paid per share (pence per share):? ? ? ? ? ? 128

The total number of ordinary shares of the Company (including treasury shares) following the purchase is 174,492,894. The Company now holds 627,500 shares in treasury. The total voting rights of the Company following the purchase is 173,865,394.

The total voting rights figure (173,865,394) may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in Griffin Mining Limited under the FCA\-\-s Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

In accordance with Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (the Market Abuse Regulation), the schedules below contain a summary of and detailed information about the purchases made by the Company\-\-s broker, Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited on behalf of the Company.

Further information

Griffin Mining Limited??????????????????????????????????????????? Telephone: +44(0)20 7629 7772

Mladen Ninkov ? Chairman????????????????????????????

Roger Goodwin ? Finance Director

Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited?????????????????????????????? Telephone: +44 (0)20 7886 2500

John Prior

Joanna Langley

Berenberg? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Telephone: +44(0)20 3207 7800

Matthew Armitt

Jennifer Wyllie

Deltir Elezi

Swiss Resource Capital AG??????????????????????????????????? www.resource-capital.ch

Jochen Staiger? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?info@resource-capital.ch

Griffin Mining Limited?s shares are quoted on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange (symbol GFM).

The Company?s news releases are available on the Company?s web site: www.griffinmining.com
on Tuesday accused Trinamool



Congress of doing politics over dead bodies and disasters as in the New Koilaghat complex fire with an eye on votes and having little concern for peoples' sentiments and emotions.

spokesman Shamik Bhattacharya said Railways cannot be blamed for the fire which claimed nine lives on Monday.

He termed as "unfortunate" the comments by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee putting the blame of the devastating blaze on the Railways.

Bhattacharya told reporters that is doing "great injustice" to film icon Mithun Chakraborty with baseless allegations that he was forced to join at gun point.

Bhattacharya said " is doing cheap politics over the bodies of nine persons who perished in the fire in New Koilaghat complex to discredit the BJP-led government at the Centre".

"We also know the modernisation of fire brigade had been delayed in the state by the government. Also modern equipment was not purchased which threw lives of fire brigade personnel and the common man to danger.

"But we(BJP) refrain from doing politics on this issue," he said.

Asserting that unlike in Bengal where the government and TMC party are entwined, BJP does not imply the union government in Delhi and vice versa, the BJP leader said.

Film icon Mithun Chakraborty has been subjected to dishonour by TMC leaders ever since he joined BJP at the Brigade Ground meeting, Bhattacharya said adding "Some of those leaders are also stating BJP put a gun to Mithunda's head to force him to join the party."



"This is not only untrue, but it is an insult and dishonour to a personality like Mithun Chakraborty. Can't he (Chakraborty) have his own, individual opinion? He as an individual, has the right to be associated with the party he likes and with the social campaign he wants to undertake," he said.

Bhattacharya said such insinuations against Chakraborty are in fact an affront to the Bengali pride as it insults scores of fans of the 'Disco Dancer' (a role the actor had essayed in a film with the same name) who had always rushed to the aid of his home state whenever asked.

The BJP leader also alleged that TMC is preparing a list of elderly voters in every booth to ask them not to go to the polling station on the day of voting, while the EC has set the guideline that voters above the age of 80 with co-morbidity should be asked whether they can go to the polling station on the day.

"The TMC is mandatorily asking elderly voters not to go to the polling station and is compiling their list. We have got this information and informed the administration to take steps," he claimed.

Taking a dig at the grand alliance of the Left Front, Congress and Indian Secular Front in the state, Bhattacharya said while it had asserted that it will prevent BJP from coming to power in the coming assembly elections, it is yet to announce the name of alliance candidate for the Nandigram seat.

Banerjee will contest from the seat, where BJP has pitted Suvendu Adhikari against her.

Bhattacharya cautioned against the Congress and LF's attempt to "indulge forces like Abbas Siddiqui (ISF chief) who wants to take Bengal back to the situation that existed in 1946".

He said, "BJP will come to power and prevent any bid to communalise the situation and polarise the state.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New York, 9 March 2021  The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today announced the nine winners of the 2020 Ocean Innovation Challenge (OIC). OIC is a unique mechanism launched by UNDP, with support from Sweden and Norway, in January 2020 to accelerate progress on the Ocean SDG 14 by identifying, financing, and mentoring innovative approaches to ocean and coastal restoration and protection that sustain livelihoods and advance the blue economy.

Our ocean faces unprecedented threats to the ecosystem goods and services it provides to humanity, from climate regulation to food security to coastal tourism. Despite some progress, many ocean challenges, from nutrient pollution to illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing to ocean acidification, continue to worsen.

The nine winning innovations cover a diverse range of technical, policy and regulatory approaches to reducing marine pollution such as using benign organic substitutes for plastics products, introduction of extended producer responsibility regulations to reduce plastics pollution, and sustainably harvested seaweed as a substitute for synthetic fertilizer.

The first OIC global Call for Proposals focused on marine pollution (SDG 14.1), received over 600 concept proposals from a wide range of stakeholders including NGO, private sector, UN, academia and others.

UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner congratulated the 2020 Ocean Innovators: Humanity depends upon the ocean for a wide range of ecosystem services including the millions of jobs and livelihoods provided by ocean sectors such as fisheries and coastal tourism. But progress on several SDG 14 targets, such as marine pollution and overfishing, remains insufficient, underscoring the need to step up our efforts considerably. I am very pleased to learn of the first cohort of UNDP Ocean Innovators and wish them every success in delivering tangible and scalable solutions to ocean sustainability challenges.

United Nations Special Envoy for the Oceans, Peter Thomson, expressed his strong support for the 2020 Innovators: Covering 70% of the planets surface the oceans health is vital to us all. SDG14, the ocean goal, is one of the most ambitious of the 17 SDGs, and the world clearly needs to accelerate progress on SDG14. Initiatives like UNDPs Ocean Innovation Challenge provide opportunities for organizations with great ideas for ocean protection and restoration to bring game-changing approaches to fruition. My congratulations to each of the 2020 Ocean Innovators and I look forward to learning of their progress.

Second Call for Proposals

The Ocean Innovation Challenge also announced that its second Call for Proposals, on sustainable fisheries and aquaculture focusing on SDG targets 14.4, 14.7 and 14.b, officially opens today. These targets call for ending overfishing and IUU fishing, increasing the economic benefits to SIDS and LDCs from marine resources, and enhancing small scale fishers access to fisheries resources and markets. Eligible organizations are invited to submit proposals by the closing date of May 9.

The OIC is generously funded via contributions from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).

### ### ###

UNDP is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. Working with our broad network of experts and partners in 170 countries, we help nations to build integrated, lasting solutions for people and planet.

Learn more at undp.org or follow at @UNDP.


Alleged Taraba kidnap kingpin, Hamisu Bala (aka Wadume) and his co-defendants will, on May 8, open their defence in the terrorism charges preferred against them at the Federal High Court, Abuja.

The Federal Government arraigned Wadume and his co-defendants on June 8, 2020 on amended 13 counts of terrorism, kidnapping and other related offences.

The others are, Aliyu Dadje (a police Inspector), Auwalu Bala (aka Omo Razor), Uba Bala (aka Uba Delu) Bashir Waziri (aka Baba Runs), Zubairu Abdullahi (aka Basho) and Rayyanu Abdul.

Last prosecution witness closes testimony

At the resumed hearing of the case on Tuesday, the prosecution, led by Shuiabu Labaran, called its sixth and final witness, Ben Anthony, a police investigator.

Mr Anthony , who was led in evidence by Yetunde Cole, a lawyer in the prosecution team, told the court that he was part of a team that recovered four AK-47 rifles from Wadumes brother Uba Bala at Ibi in Taraba.

He said, While at Ibi (Taraba State) we got information that Wadume called his brother Uba and asked him to remove the guns from where he kept them.

We left Ibi for Ubas house and immediately he sighted us at the front of his house, he attempted to run but we followed him and arrested him.

We then asked him where the guns were and he took us to an uncompleted building and showed us where he kept the guns.

He gave us a hoe and cutlass to dig the place and I dug it myself and brought out a sack that contained four AK-47 rifles, Mr Anthony told the court.

Under cross examination, Mr Anthony said the guns were released by the court to the police for safe keeping.

He also told the court that he did not have evidence of the call Wadume made to his brother, Uba, asking him to remove the guns from where he kept them.

At this point, Mr Labaran informed the court that the prosecution had closed its case as Mr Anthony was its last witness.

Counsel for Wadume, Dikko Ishaku, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, along with other defence lawyers, asked for a date to open their clients defence.

Y. Dangana, counsel for the third defendant, however, told the court that his client would not be opening his defence but would rather file a no-case submission.

The trial judge, Binta Nyako, told all defendants who intended to file no case submission to do so within 21 days.

Ms Nyako adjourned the matter till May 18 for defendants to open their defence or file no-case submission.

Charges

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, had originally filed 16 counts of terrorism, murder, kidnapping and illegal arms running against Wadume and the others.

They were accused of conspiring to commit felony, to wit: acts of terrorism, by attacking and kidnapping one Usman Garba, aka Mayo, at his filling station in Takum, thereby committing an offence contrary to Section 17 of the Terrorism (Prevention) Amendment Act 2013.

ADVERTISEMENT

They were also accused of possessing six AK-47 rifles and dealing in prohibited firearms contrary to Section 27 (1)(a)(I) and (1)(b)(iii) of the Firearms Act 2004.

Some soldiers led by Tijjani Balarabe, a captain, were also named in the charges filed by the police.

But the Attorney-General of the Federation, (AGF) Abubakar Malami, on taking over the case from the police on June 3, removed the soldiers names from the charges.

Soldiers connection

Wadume was first arrested in Ibi, Taraba State, by members of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the IGP office on August 6, 2019 but was said to have been freed from police custody by the Balarabe-led troops.

Police officers who appeared as witnesses in the case said the troops attached to the 93 Battalion in Takum, Taraba State, shot at the policemen conveying the prime suspect to Abuja shortly after he was arrested in Ibi, Taraba State on August 6, 2019.

The police said three of its men and two civilians were killed while five others were wounded in the attack by the soldiers.

(NAN)
ADVERTISEMENT

Nigerian stocks slipped back into the doldrums on Monday, falling by N371.331 billion or 1.80 per cent in its biggest single-day retreat in one month that wiped out Mondays weak rebound.

Sale requests dominated activity in the market, supported by a rise in volume by three fifths, as pressure on the shares of MTN Nigeria and the big five banks (First Bank Holdings, UBA, GTB, Access and Zenith) weighed on total equity value.

But the bulk of the days loss rested mostly on MTN and tier one lender UBA, whose declaration of a N9.6 billion drop in total dividend for 2020, ruffled investors feathers and triggered a decline of N98.617 million in its share value.

The consumer goods index bucked the depreciation trend across the five sectorial as it was the only advancer, climbing up 0.39 per cent to 530.04 per cent.

A negative market breadth was recorded as 26 losers emerged against 14 gainers.

The all-share index slipped 709.72 points to 38,686.85 points and market capitalisation to N20.241 trillion at the end of trade. Year to date, the index is down by 3.93 per cent.

TOP FIVE GAINERS

Champion Breweries led gainers, growing 9.78 per cent to close at N2.02. Neimeth gained 9.71 per cent to close at N1.92. Cutix rose by 8.84 per cent to N1.97. Dangote Sugar leapt to N18.25, notching up 7.99 per cent in the process. NASCON completed the top 5, climbing up by 7.69 per cent to N14.

TOP FIVE LOSERS

Zenith topped led laggards, dropping by 12.65 per cent to close at N21.75 after its share price was adjusted for dividend payment. UBA tapered by 10 per cent to end at N10. ETERNA tumbled to N5.13, losing 10 per cent. Caverton dipped to N1.80, recording 9.55 per cent loss. NNFM closed at N5.70, trading down by 9.52 per cent.

TOP FIVE TRADES

545.915 million shares worth N20.241 billion were traded in 5,307 deals.

UBA was the most traded stock with 123.272 million of its shares worth N887.626 million traded in 518 deals. 58.036 million units of Mutual Benefits shares priced at N23.185 million exchanged hands in 30 transactions. FBN Holdings had 48.939 million shares valued at N352.081 million traded in 282 deals. Access Bank traded 42.744 million shares estimated at N324.215 million in 359 transactions. Zenith Bank traded 35.766 million shares valued at N776.358 million in 608 deals.
A group of 26 children are being checked for injuries and two people are fighting for life after a packed school bus collided with a 4WD.

The two motorists crashed at an intersection near Wolvi, one hour drive south-west of Noosa Heads, at around 3.45pm on Tuesday afternoon.

Two men were airlifted to hospital after the accident, having been stuck in their ute for at least one hour after the accident.

26 school kids are being checked for injuries and two people are fighting for their life after a bus head-on collided with a 4WD

The two motorists crashed at an intersection near Wolvi, one hour drive south-west of Noosa Heads at around 3.45pm on Tuesday afternoon

The two injured men were still in the car at 5.10pm, reported the Daily Telegraph.

One in his 20s is being treated for critical injuries to the chest and leg and the other man, in his 60s, is in a critical condition with injuries to the chest, abdominal and legs.

Six children on the bus suffered minor injuries and the female bus driver, in her 40s, suffered leg injuries and was taken to hospital but is in a stable condition.

Parents have been collecting students from the accident site.

Two men were airlifted to hospital after the accident, having been stuck in their ute for at least one hour after the accident (Stock)

Pictured: The road where the accident occurred in Wolvi, near Gympie which is an hour drive north-west from Noosa Heads, QLD

The bus driver was hailed as 'heroic' after a witness said she saved 26 children before a collision between her vehicle and a 4WD.

'There's nothing she could have done to avoid him,' a witness said.

The driver prevented the accident by swerving to the side and pulling into an embankment before locking the wheel.

When the bus stopped, children escaped it by breaking the glass at the back of the vehicle because they could not leave the front.

Queensland Police told Daily Mail Australia investigations were ongoing.
EDWARDSVILLE  An Alton man already serving for state and federal child sexual assault and pornography charges pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child, and was sentenced to 34 years in prison on Monday.

Travis Varble, 44, was set to go to trial on multiple felony counts on March 22 when he agreed to plead guilty to one count of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child. Circuit Judge Kyle Napp oversaw the proceedings.

This plea ensures Varble will be incarcerated into his 80s, said Madison County States Attorney Tom Haine in a written statement. It also prevents the further victimization of the minor in this matter, ensuring that she does not have to come into court to testify or present evidence of her graphic sexual assaults to the public.

Truth in sentencing means Varble must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence.

Varble is currently serving a 17-year sentence for predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and aggravated criminal sexual abuse stemming from a 2015 case.

The sentences will be served consecutively. Once Varble completes both sentences, he will face a mandatory supervised released period from three years to natural life.

He is also currently serving a federal sentence for child pornography charges stemming from this investigation.

The charges in this case, and the 2015 case, involve the same 8-year-old victim. An investigation involving Homeland Security Investigations and the Alton Police Department revealed the additional charges brought forth in this Indictment.

I commend the hard work of Assistant States Attorneys Alison Foley and Kathleen Nolan of the Childrens Justice Division, whose collaboration with the Alton Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations, as well as the victim and her family, secured this plea and conviction.

Varble came to the attention of federal prosecutors when law enforcement officials in Auburn, Alabama, conducting an unrelated investigation discovered a recorded video containing child pornography. The perpetrator and child victim depicted in the video were unidentified, so officers forwarded the evidence to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in an effort to identify the victim and/or assailant depicted in the video.

Homeland Security Investigations, investigated the video recovered in Alabama and found evidence suggesting that the sexual abuse may have taken place in southern Illinois. HSI investigators in St. Louis were assigned and determined that the perpetrator was Varble, in Alton.

The investigation also discovered a second video of Varble sexually abusing the same child. HSI learned that Varble live streamed his sexual abuse while the exploitation occurred, and that others viewing the live stream recorded the abuse and further distributed the recorded videos on the internet.

During the investigation, agents learned that Varble had been separately prosecuted in Madison County for sexually abusing same victim. Varble was sentenced to a 17-year prison sentence in Danville Correctional Center for predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim under 13 and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13 in the state court prosecution.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Washington:

India is emerging as a very important regional strategic partner for the US that can help modernise Afghanistan both politically and economically, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday.

Tillerson's remarks came after President Donald Trump unveiled the US strategy in Afghanistan which included expanded authorities to target terrorists.

"India is emerging as a very important regional strategic partner with the United States, and has played an important role supporting the Afghan government and in particular supporting their economy", Tillerson told reporters.

He also praised India's role in Afghanistan.

"India has provided development assistance. They've provided economic assistance. They are hosting an important economic conference in India this next week. All of that is important to stabilising Afghanistan as a nation", he said.

Read more: White House placed on lockdown for suspicious package investigation

"Get their economy functioning, stabilise the country so that they can provide more opportunities to their citizens. These are all elements of what will lead to stability and ultimately a peace agreement", he said.

Responding to a question, the Secretary of State sought the help of India in changing Pakistan's behaviour.

"It is important that Pakistan begin to think about its ability to contain these groups as well. It's why, though, we take a regional approach. The US alone is not going to change this dynamic with Pakistan", he said.

"India and Pakistan, they have their own issues that they have to continue to work through. But I think there are areas where perhaps even India can take some steps, a rapprochementon issues with Pakistan to improve the stability within Pakistan and remove some of the reasons why they deal with these unstable elements inside their own country", Tillerson said.

Read more: 83 Nigerian children deployed as 'human bombs' since January: UNICEF

According to the Secretary of State, other regional players have strong interest in Pakistan.

"China has strong interest in Pakistan. Having a stable, secure future Pakistan is in a lot of our interests. They area nuclear power. We have concerns about their weapons, the security of their weapons. There are many areas in which we believe we should be having very productive dialogue that serves both of our interests and regional interests as well", Tillerson said.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Santa Fe Public Schools superintendent Veronica Garcias storied career in education has taken her through all levels of the field in New Mexico. That career now approaches its final chapter  at least for now.

The superintendent on Monday announced she plans to retire from her position June 30, capping off two stints covering eight years as superintendent at SFPS and 48 years in the education field as a whole.

Garcia said Monday her decision was multi-faceted, but described the past year as extremely challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemics disruption of in-person learning.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

This last year has been like two for me, she said. As I look at my personal circumstances, where things are, it just seems like now was a good time.

Her current contract, which pays $195,570 per year, is set to expire June 30, 2023.

Garcia, now 70, was serving as executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children when she was hired in 2016 to lead the district for a second time.

She previously served as SFPS superintendent from 1999 to 2002. She left that job when then-Gov. Bill Richardson appointed her the first secretary of education for New Mexico, a position she held until Richardson left office in 2010.

Garcia was hired back in 2016 to serve as SFPS superintendent on an interim basis, but the school board soon invited her to stay on a permanent basis.

The district, with an enrollment of about 12,000 students, at that time was addressing long-standing issues surrounding equity and disparity between schools. Some school board members introduced a plan in 2019 to close three school sites due to aging buildings and low enrollment.

The board, in the end, narrowly rejected the plan.

She also helped the district navigate a period of lean budgets and spending cuts.

Garcias tenure also saw the renewal of two voter-approved education technology notes, a property tax that provides revenue for technology upgrades.

But her greatest challenge may have been guiding the district through the pandemic that, until recently, had forced thousands of students to learn remotely, something thats also put district revenue at risk.

Santa Fes school board will hold a special meeting Thursday to discuss a timeline for selecting a new superintendent, including an executive session about possible candidates.

Garcia said it will be up to the board to determine who replaces her, but that there are several people within the district she believes are qualified to take over.

I do feel that we have a cadre of leaders that could step up to the plate, she said. I would hope that they will continue to build on the momentum and the positive trajectory that were on.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Migrants receive food as they wait for news at the border, in Tijuana, Mexico, on Feb. 19, 2021. (Gregory Bull/AP Photo)

DHS Seeks Volunteers to Assist With Overwhelming Surge at Southern Border

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking volunteers from among its agencies to assist in dealing with an overwhelming migrant surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the Biden administration continues to deny that theres a crisis.

Today, I activated the Volunteer Force to support Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as they face a surge in migration along the Southwest Border, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an email to employees on March 8, obtained by several news outlets.

You have likely seen the news about the overwhelming numbers of migrants seeking access to this country along the Southwest Border, Mayorkas said.

President Biden and I are committed to ensuring our Nation has a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system while continuing to balance all of the other critical DHS missions.

DHS volunteers, in a non-law enforcement capacity, will work to carry out tasks such as assisting in control rooms, doing housekeeping, preparing meals, doing supply and prescription medicine runs, and managing property, Fox News reported.

Mayorkas said in his email that in 2019, under the Trump administration, more than 900 volunteers had been deployed to support their CBP colleagues during a similar migration surge.

Please consider joining the Volunteer Force to again provide needed humanitarian support along the Southwest Border and relief for our CBP colleagues, Mayorkas wrote.

I also realize these are uncertain times and being away from home may be concerning. But today your colleagues need assistance carrying out their mission to help others, and DHS is going to support you while deployed, he said. Your health and wellbeing will remain priorities.

Alien migrants climb the banks of the Rio Grande River into the United States as smugglers on rafts prepare to return to Mexico in Penitas, Texas, on March 5, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Illegal Crossings Spike

The number of illegal crossings at the southern border has steadily risen since October 2020. The number of encounters at the southwest border between October 2020 and January was 296,259, an increase from 164,932 in the year-earlier period, according to data from the CBP, representing a 79.6 percent increase.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Joe Biden has signed a flurry of executive orders that dismantled the Trump administrations border security measures.

On his first day in office, Biden signed executive orders and issued memos to temporarily suspend deportations of illegal aliens, reverse former President Donald Trumps ban on travel from terror-prone countries, halt border wall construction, stop adding people to the Trump-era 2019 Remain in Mexico program, preserve and fortify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and release a sweeping immigration package to Congress that includes amnesty for millions of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.

The attorneys general of Arizona and Texas have sued Biden over a memo from the administration that ordered a freeze on the majority of deportations for 100 days. A federal judge temporarily blocked the order on Jan. 26.

President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on March 5, 2021. (Al Drago-Pool/Getty Images)

The Biden administrations proposal to legalize about 11 million illegal aliens living in the United Statessomething he vowed during his campaignwas formally introduced by Democrats in Congress last month.

Situation Unstable

After visiting the CBP facility in Edinburg, Texas, at the southern border over the weekend, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) described the situation as unstable. He noted that the areas he toured have been seeing a huge spike in migrants, with more than 6,000 apprehended at just one station.

On March 6, Texas began an operation to counter the growing crisis, activating and deploying National Guard troops and other law enforcement officers to the border to combat drug and human smuggling.

Biden hasnt yet acknowledged the crisis or announced any concrete plans to address the growing numbers of illegal crossings. When asked by a reporter this week whether theres a crisis at the border, Biden replied, No, well be able to handle it.

The White House and the DHS didnt immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

Janita Kan and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Below is Piers Morgan's full column about Harry and Meghan's interview.

Sickening.

Shameful.

Self-pitying.

Salacious.

Scandalous.

Sanctimonious.

Spectacularly self-serving.

Those were just my initial thoughts after ten minutes of the Oprah whine-athon with Meghan and Harry, and while restricting myself to only using words beginning with the letter 's'.

By the time I'd finished the whole two-hour orgy of pious, self-indulgent, score-settling twaddle, the steam was erupting out of my ears like an exploding geyser, and my lexicon of rageful epithets extended to the full range of the alphabet.

Never have I watched a more repulsively disingenuous interview.

Nor one more horrendously hypocritical or contradictory.

They moaned about the terrible pain of their royal titles but were also outraged their son Archie wasn't allowed to be a Prince.

They told of their constant trauma from nasty newspaper stories, but repeatedly insisted they never read any of them.

They claimed they were forced to sign gazillion-dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify because Prince Charles cut off their allowance, despite Harry inheriting millions from his late mother Princess Diana and having his entire life bankrolled by the Royal Family.

And so, it went nauseatingly on.

In the middle of a pandemic that has already taken over 2.5 million lives, a staggeringly rich and entitled couple living in a $14 million sun-kissed California mansion wanted us all to know that THEY are the real victims around here.

Meghan even compared her former life living in a palace to the crippling freedom-robbing existence of coronavirus lockdowns, which must have sounded so empathetic to large families living at the top of tower blocks with three kids they're trying to home-school and no job to pay for food.

'I couldn't even meet my friends for lunch!' wailed the Duchess of Delusion, who flew to New York for a $500,000 baby shower with all her new-found celebrity pals, then flew back to London like any good eco-warrior on George Clooney's carbon footprint guzzling private jet.

But amid all the relatively trivial gossipy stuff emerged some incredibly damaging bombshells deliberately detonated to do maximum damage to the British Royal Family and the Monarchy.

First, Meghan claimed to have been left suicidal by the pressure of being a Princess and had her requests for help rejected by the cold, heartless Palace.

We weren't told who did the rejecting, or why she couldn't seek her own therapy or treatment if that's what she felt she needed. After all, her husband has spent years talking about mental health and has close connections with all the major mental health charities.

Instead, we're left to believe the Palace spurned a pregnant suicidal woman in her hour of desperate need.

But that wasn't even the most explosive revelation.

No, that came when Meghan told Oprah that a member of the Royal Family had queried what colour her baby would be during a conversation with Harry.

In fact, she said there were several conversations, whereas he said there was only one.

But neither of them would name the offending Royal.

Harry said he would never reveal the name.

So, we're now left to view all the Royals as racists.

Nor were we given any details of exactly what was said, or in what context it was said.

Would an older senior Royal innocently asking Harry what skin colour his baby might have, given that Meghan's mother is black and her father white, constitute racism?

It would if there was any derogatory tone to the question, or any suggestion that it would be a problem how dark the child's skin was. But we don't know the answers to those vital questions, because having let off the racism bomb, the Sussexes won't say any more.

I find that cowardly.

And the racism charge got worse.

Meghan followed up by asserting, without providing any evidence, that the Royal Family decided to change the rules specifically to prevent her son Archie from being a Prince, because of his skin colour.

Again, no name was given for the appalling racist at the Palace responsible for such a disgusting discriminatory decision.

But, as Meghan and Harry both know, the only person who has final say over titles is the Queen.

So, in making this astonishing unproven claim, they're effectively branding Her Majesty, Harry's grandmother, a racist.

It's hard to think of a more disgraceful slur to make against a woman who has devoted her whole life to the service of her country and the Commonwealth.

The Queen is not a racist and has never been a racist.

To even suggest that she might be is disgusting.

But to do so at a time when her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip has spent the past few weeks lying seriously ill in hospital is worse than that, it's contemptible.

Nothing that Meghan Markle said in this interview surprised me.

From the moment Oprah announced her scoop, I predicted to anyone who asked me that Meghan would aggressively play the mental health and race cards to deflect from any criticism of herself and her own behaviour or accountability.

I also cynically suspect it's the reason why she chose to do such a sensational interview when she's five months pregnant. Why would any woman do that after suffering a miscarriage last year, knowing the obvious controversy, media attention, and stress it would provoke? The answer, I fear, is that she thought the pregnancy would afford her another layer of protection against the inevitable furore and criticism that would result from her trashing the Royal Family.

Having had personal experience, on a very small scale, of Meghan Markle's ruthlessness when dispensing of anyone in her life that's ceased to be of use to her, it was no great shock to see her lighting a gigantic bonfire that will surely cause irreparable damage to her husband's family.

After all, she's torched all her own family, along with her ex-husband and most of her old friends.

This was the acting performance of her life, with every word, every facial expression carefully planned and choreographed.

In fact, it it's not late, someone should nominate it for the Oscars.

I mean, this is a woman who was photographed on the railings of Buckingham Palace as a starry-eyed teenager but now wants us to believe she knew nothing about the Royals and never once Googled her handsome Prince when they met.

Given these are both obvious lies, why should we believe anything that comes out of her mouth?

'Nobody told me how to curtsy or sing the British national anthem,' wailed a 39-year-old woman, married to someone who can probably help with both.

But make no mistake, this interview will be a triumph for Meghan in America. Her narrative of a poor, vulnerable, unsuspecting bi-racial woman thrown to the wolves by a white, racist Royal Family and racist British press is already being heralded as 'courageous' and 'brave' and 'iconic' across the United States.

She's got exactly what she wants: her homeland feeling sorry for her.

And woe betide anyone who criticises Meghan, for you will be instantly lambasted as a 'racist bully' towards a woman who stands accused of subjecting her own young female Palace staff to horrendous bullying.

But what about Prince Harry, and his own homeland of Great Britain?

How on earth could he allow his wife to take down his family like this on TV, and attack and belittle the very institution held so dear by his grandmother?

He even let her chuck his brother William's wife Kate - a woman who has never once said a bad word about Meghan in public - under the bus by saying she made her cry in a row over kids' wedding dresses.

That 'space', which is how Harry framed his current fractured relationship with William, will now be the size of 1000 Grand Canyons.

And then Harry gleefully joined in the Sopranos-style whacking too, revealing incredibly intimate secrets about his father Prince Charles of the type that he would scream in fury over if they'd been revealed by the tabloid press.

He claimed Charles stopped taking his calls last January after he and Meghan quit their country and the Royal Family and cut off his massive financial allowance too. And Harry's still furious with his Dad, apparently, for letting him down.

Yet, what has Charles done wrong exactly, other than try to deal with his headstrong younger son's constant self-pitying hunger for drama?

He bankrolled Harry and Meghan for years, and even stepped in to walk her down the aisle when her father pulled out after suffering a heart attack and was disowned by his daughter (where were Oprah 'nothing's off limits' Winfrey questions about that?) - yet they now pay him back with this open back-stabbing treachery.

Harry disloyally says Charles and William are 'trapped' in the institution of the Monarchy because they are the heirs to the throne.

'They don't get to leave, and I have huge compassion for that,' he claimed.

Oh please.

He and Meghan bang on endlessly about their compassion yet show the complete opposite to their own families.

If Charles or William wanted to leave, they could do exactly what Harry's done, and what Edward VIII did when he abdicated the throne.

Any royal can 'leave'.

But only Edward and Harry actually did it, both coincidentally after falling in love with American women.

The only difference is that Edward and Wallis Simpson never spoke badly in public about the Royal Family or trashed the Monarchy.

Within hours of the Oprah interview airing, the hashtag #AbolishTheMonarchy was trending on Twitter.

That's the effect that Meghan and Harry's accusations have had with their shockingly poisonous allegations.

Ms Markle won't care about the damage she's done to an institution she clearly reviles.

But Harry should.

The fact he's so willingly taken part in such a despicable public attack on the Royal Family  HIS family - and the Monarchy is utterly shameful.

And to have caused so much extra hurt to his 94-year-old grandmother the Queen at a time when her husband lies seriously ill in hospital, is just appalling.

When it comes to mental health and having a heart, it appears Meghan and Harry only care about themselves.
[March 08, 2021] Kia teases EV6, its first dedicated EV

- First EV to use Kia's dedicated EV platform (E-GMP) and Kia's new EV nomenclature

- Distinctive silhouette displays sharp lines and high-tech details

- Kia reveals new naming strategy for upcoming dedicated battery electric vehicles SEOUL, South Korea, March 8, 2021 /CNW/ -- Kia Corporation has revealed the first official images of the EV6  its first dedicated battery electric vehicle (BEV) built on the company's new EV platform (Electric-Global Modular Platform, or E-GMP). Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8859751-kia-teases-ev6-first-dedicated-ev/ EV6 is also the first of Kia's next-generation BEVs to be developed under a new design philosophy that embodies Kia's shifting focus towards electrification. "EV6 is the embodiment of both our brand purpose, 'Movement that inspires', and our new design philosophy. It has been designed to inspire every journey by offering an instinctive and natural experience that improves the daily lives of our customers, and provide user ownership that is simple, intuitive and integrated," said Karim Habib, Senior Vice President and Head of Kia Global Design Center. "Our aim is o design the physical experience of our brand and to create bold, original and inventive electric vehicles."



Kia's new naming strategy for upcoming dedicated BEVs

As part of the company's brand transition, Kia's new dedicated battery electric vehicles will be named according to a new naming strategy. The new approach brings simplicity and consistency to Kia's EV nomenclature across all global markets. All of Kia's new dedicated BEVs will start with the prefix 'EV' which makes it easy for consumers to understand which of Kia's products are fully electric. This is followed by a number which corresponds to the car's position in the line-up.

Designed and engineered to embody Kia's new brand slogan, 'Movement that inspires', EV6 will make its world premiere during the first quarter of 2021. For more information, visit the Kia Global Media Center at www.kianewscenter.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kia-teases-ev6-its-first-dedicated-ev-301242640.html SOURCE Kia Corporation

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]

LIVONIA, Mich., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- AMI Strategies, an industry leader in enterprise expense and mobility management, has been awarded a vendor contract in the state of Michigan's MiDEAL Extended Purchasing Program. This allows Michigan cities, townships, villages, counties, school districts, universities, colleges and nonprofit hospitals to buy goods and services from state contracts.

MiDEAL

"Connecting and collaborating with Michigan-based business has been a part of our DNA since we started our company 30 years ago," said Jane Sydlowski, founder and CEO of AMI Strategies. "We're delighted to be able to engage with more members of the Michigan community, and we look forward to working within the more streamlined framework for contracting that MiDEAL provides."

As a MiDEAL vendor, the state has already established its contract with AMI Strategies and pre-negotiated terms and conditions. As a result, MiDEAL members can partner with AMI Strategies without first conducting an RFP  saving valuable time and resources and reducing the administrative burden of seeking out new vendor relationships.

Available under the under the invoice auditing software section of the MiDEAL vendor list (contract number 200000000358), AMI's temNOW platform gives MiDEAL members:

Clear inventory - visibility into each piece of a businesses' telephony (fixed and mobile) inventory

Paperless workflow - invoices & contracts are converted into a digital format that's organized and searchable

Automated auditing - all of the pieces of a company's bills are automated to optimize spend & find hidden savings

Cost savings - proven to identify up to 30% savings on annual technology spend

For more information about AMI Strategies and MiDEAL, visit amistrategies.com/ami-strategies-mideal/

About AMI Strategies

Headquartered in Michigan for over 29 years, AMI Strategies partners with clients to drive optimal business results by managing their technical, financial, and operational processes and data for their technology estate. With a drive for innovating for future trends, our skilled team focuses on listening first, learning and documenting processes, and ultimately building applications to generate the most efficient workflow possible. Serving Clients in every continent, AMI offers a suite of global solutions for Expense Management (TEM) and Managed Mobility Service (Helpdesk, Self-help Portal, Order and Procurement) which encompasses full management and integration of invoices, assets, and orders. AMI is a diversity supplier and Women Owned Business Enterprise - WBE (Certification Number: W070241).

Contact:

Jon Dezelsky

AMI Strategies

[email protected]

720-800-2965

SOURCE AMI Strategies
I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here will return to Australia 'if possible', after the pandemic drove the show to be filmed in Wales last year.

ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall confirmed that bosses are hoping the show will return to the jungle as that is how the show is 'meant to be'.

Speaking as the network published its group annual results, she said: 'If we can go back to Australia  and this show is meant to be in Australia  then thats what well do. We have a very good plan if not, as we have already done it once (in the castle).

Will they be back? I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here will return to Australia 'if possible', after the pandemic drove the show to be filmed in Wales last year (hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly pictured)

Prior to the confirmation, hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly sparked claims that this year's series will be returning to Wales last month.

The presenting duo said they'd be 'very happy' to remain in the UK for filming when the series returns later this year, joking they 'wouldn't miss the jet lag'.

Last year's I'm A Celebrity was relocated to Gwrych Castle in Wales after plans to record the usual show in Australia became impossible due to COVID.

Speaking to Digital Spy magazine, Ant said: 'If during coronavirus we have to stay put and do it in Wales again, I'd be very happy.

Chatting away: ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall confirmed that bosses are hoping the show will return to the jungle as that is how the show is 'meant to be' (pictured in 2018)

'We were very welcomed in Wales. There were cardboard cut-outs of me and Dec in the butcher's, and the local school did a tribute. We'd happily go back there. We'd miss the sunshine, mind.'

Dec added that he 'wouldn't be disappointed' if filming was once again taking place in Wales later this year, adding: 'The people in Wales were lovely...

'They made us feel very welcome. I had a lovely time. I will miss the sunshine, but I will not miss the jet lag of coming back from Australia.'

Changes: Last year's I'm A Celebrity was relocated to Gwrych Castle in Wales after plans to record the usual show in Australia became impossible during the COVID-19 pandemic

Last year's I'm A Celebrity saw author Giovanna Fletcher crowned series champion after 12 celebrities moved into the derelict Gwrych Castle.

It was reported last month that ITV bosses had already secured use of the castle for another series if the Covid crisis prevented a return to Australia.

A source told The Sun: 'Ultimately they are at the mercy of COVID-19 restrictions. Formally an agreement is in place for the use of Gwrych Castle this year. Should the show need to be held there again it has all got the green light.'

Next series? The presenting duo said they'd be 'very happy' to remain in the UK for filming when the series returns later this year

ITV hired the 19th century castle for six weeks in 2020, costing 1million, after Covid-19 ruled out the usual setting in Australia. The network also announced an extreme Covid Management Plan to ensure the series ran smoothly.

This included the celebrities being tested every three days and crew members wearing proximity buzzers, masks and getting temperature checks on arrival.

The celebrities also had to isolate for two weeks ahead of their arrival. The new venue was warmly received by viewers, with some even calling for the show to make Wales its new permanent home.
Tony Petelos, Jefferson Countys first county manager and chief executive officer, announced Tuesday that he plans to retire later this year.

He was appointed to the newly created job on Oct. 1, 2011, just a month before Jefferson County declared bankruptcy, one of the largest municipal bankruptcies in U.S. history as it faced an overall debt of $4.2 billion.

Petelos, 67, helped oversee the countys rebound, as it refinanced sewer bonds and raised sewer rates to exit bankruptcy.

Petelos previously served as a state legislator and mayor of Hoover.

Helping shape and mold the role of the County Manager in Jefferson County has been one of the most satisfying jobs of my entire career, Petelos said. While I enjoyed serving in the legislature, DHR, and as a two-term Mayor of Hoover -- Jefferson County had some serious challenges. I can retire, knowing that I had a hand in turning the County around, and it is on the most solid financial footing.

Petelos was elected to the House of Representatives in 1986 and was re-elected twice, serving until 1997.

Gov. Fob James appointed him as commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources in 1997 and he was re-appointed by Gov. Don Siegelman. The Department of Human Resources was under a federal consent decree when Petelos took over that position. He worked on a plan that helped the department be released from the consent decree.

Petelos was elected mayor of Hoover in 2004 and re-elected in 2008 with no opposition.

Petelos also helped guide Jefferson County out of a longstanding consent decree last year.

In December, a federal judge lifted a 1982 consent decree against Jefferson County aimed at preventing discrimination in its hiring practices.

The new leadership we have in place is top notch and extremely diverse, Petelos said. Im not usually one to say Im proud, but Im proud of what Jefferson County is today.

Petelos is also a cancer survivor, after being diagnosed in 2014 with stage two bladder cancer. He underwent numerous treatments and was declared cancer-free at the end of 2015. He said at the time it changed his outlook on life, allowing him to not get bogged down in the little things.

We need to put that to the side and realize that something can hit you one day or instantly and life is gone, he said. Every day is a blessing.
The has agreed to examine a question whether the offence of smuggling can be termed as terrorist activity under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and B R Gavai issued notice to Centre and Investigating Agency (NIA) on a plea against an order of Rajasthan High Court, which had declined to quash the FIR registered by the probe agency under the offences of UAPA.

"Issue notice", the bench said in its order passed on Monday.

The petitioner, Mohammad Aslam, who was caught smuggling over 1.5kg at Jaipur International Airport has sought stay of arrest, investigation and proceedings in the FIR lodged by the NIA under provisions of UAPA.

The plea filed by advocate Aditya Jain said that after the case was transferred to NIA, it registered an FIR on the ground that the smuggling of the by Aslam was done with the intent to threaten the economic security and damaging the monetary stability of India.

Aslam contended that the second FIR registered by NIA after the first one lodged by the custom officials, was arbitrary and no prima facie case of economic was made out against him as alleged.

The petitioner was not found to be connected with any terrorist or any extremist group and his background was not suspicious at all, his plea said.

Aslam claimed that he worked as labourer on contract in Saudi Arabia since May 2018 but during the outbreak of Coronavirus, he had lost his job.

During this time of distress, one person named Lal Mohammad contacted present petitioner and influenced him to deliver some amount of gold to an unknown person in Jaipur and in lieu of that he promised to book a return ticket to Jaipur and offered Rs. 10,000. Since the present petitioner was unemployed and desperate for money, he fell into the trap of Lal Mohammad and agreed to his offer, the plea said.

Aslam said that NIA has nothing on record that the smuggled gold was to fund and section 15 of the UAPA specifically states that whoever does any act with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the economic security of India commits a act.

The FIR is baseless on this ground and deserves to be quashed as the NIA could not show any such intent of the petitioner. Moreover any such act would not alone attract the offence under UAPA. The smuggling of gold should have been dealt under the corresponding provision of the Customs Act and not UAPA, his plea said.

He said that the NIA has registered the FIR on mere suspicion that the proceeds of gold smuggled might be used for financing terrorism in India.

Even, if the petitioner had funded for smuggling of gold, it would not amount to any offence under the UAPA because an act done with the intention to cause damage to the economic security of India alone would attract the offence under UAPA, he said.

Aslam contended that second FIR by NIA cannot be lodged on the same facts and grounds on which the initial case was lodged under Customs Act.

On July 3, last year, officials of customs department seized more than 18.56 kg gold bars at Jaipur International Airport and arrested ten persons including Aslam, who was allegedly carrying 1515.70 grams of Gold and had arrived from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.

On July 5, Aslam and nine others were produced before the court and sent to 14-days judicial custody in the case lodged by Customs department.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Victoria has recorded no new local coronavirus cases for the 12th day in a row and none in hotel quarantine.

There are now six active cases remaining across the state. More than 16,000 tests were completed in the past 24 hours.

The state also recorded no new internationally acquired cases on Wednesday after recording one case a day on Monday and Tuesday, both of which remain in hotel quarantine.

Australians aged under 70 are being urged to get their flu shot as soon as it is available but older people should wait until after they receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks, amid warnings influenza could make a comeback this year.
Thirteen years on from the banking collapse of 2008  with some 40bn in taxpayers money gone down the pan  and yet we still have no real concept of governance.

Irelands largest and most venerable stockbroking firm, Davy, has been fined a record 4.1m for its failures to supervise its senior staff engaged in positions of trust.

It emerged that 16 Davy staff paid 5.58m for bonds that the company had been contracted to sell at the highest-possible value. Trouble is, nobody told the seller about Davy personnel being involved on both sides.

It is hard to exaggerate the fallout for the company and its 700 staff  not all of whom are on stellar salaries with share-dealing opportunities. But the overall image of this country, which continues to try to develop its banking and money dealing sector, is also huge. International investors are entitled to ask how effective the checks and controls really are.

Today we expect to hear from the Central Bank people, who investigated the case and handed out the all-time record fine. They are due to come before the Oireachtas Finance Committee chaired by the tenacious parliamentarian, John McGuinness of Fianna Fail. Despite the record fine, and the opprobrium heaped upon the firm, there is a real sense that this one is really just beginning. We note that this incident dates from 2014. So, this is hardly the swiftest of justice.

Read More

For another we are still left asking: how did this happen? We are told the firm had ethical procedures to ensure probity. But the 16 senior people involved, blithely bypassed these procedures.

Then we need to know what roles these 16 actually had. In fact, we are entitled to know who all of them are. Mr McGuinness has already spelled out these questions. He has also invited the firms representatives to come before his committee. But they have delivered an evasive reply about the need to balance accountability against individuals rights.

Mr McGuinness is also asking how many other such cases are likely to have occurred. Is this an isolated incident  and if it is, how can we be assured of that?

The Finance Committee will also ask if there is any breach of criminal law in question. Mr McGuinness told this writer his committee will be asking whether An Garda Siochana and/or the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement have a role.

Another pressing question here also is: what kind of follow-through can we expect from Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath and the Government generally? After all, Davy continues to do a heck of a lot of financial business for the State.

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), which began its existence managing the national debt and now has a diverse range of other functions for Government, withdrew Davys authorisation to act as a primary dealer of Irish Government bonds.

The NTMA said its board reached its decision based on its assessment of the very serious findings relating to the firm that were made by the Central Bank of Ireland last week and following engagement with investors in Irish Government debt over recent days. The decision came as the agency is set to raise 1.5bn in loans for the Government later this week.

We are told that the Central Bank, having finally dealt with the firm of Davy, may now move on to the individuals concerned. This prospect may well of itself restrict candid answers to some of the questions we have posed.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Jaipur, March 9 : Is former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje planning to float her own party? Speculations are rife as Raje during her two-day long religious yatra in the eastern belt of the desert state continued praising her mother late Vijayaraje Scindia and herself but refrained from talking about the policies introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Further, the presence of Independent MLA Omprakash Hudla, and MLA Rajendra Guda, who contested polls on Bahujan Samaj Party's ticket and then joined Congress, at her yatra have caused raised eyebrows.

Discussions are on in political corridors about whether Raje is gearing up to float her own party.

A parallel organisation "Team Vasundhara Raje" has already been active on social media over the last few months and announcements of district president and state-level office bearers were also being made from time to time.

This team was active in preparing for their "Queen's" birthday too, which was celebrated on Monday. A huge gathering was seen in Bharatpur on this occasion which included former MLAs and MPs. Also, around 15 MLAs-MPs marked their presence at the birthday bash.

This "show of strength" came on the back of BJP National President J.P. Nadda's visit to Jaipur a few days before the yatra.

Nadda's visit was marked by a call for self analysis for all BJP leaders to assess how they have been contributing to the party.

However, Raje openly ignored the message of party leadership.

At a time, when the Jodhpur MP and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is burning midnight oil in Bengal strategising the party's chances for the crucial Assembly polls there starting March 27 to April 29; Leader of Opposition and his deputy Gulabchangd Kataria and Rajendra Rathore are handling the ongoing Assembly sessions and other BJP team members are preparing for upcoming bypolls on four seats of Rajasthan, Raje has been promoting her own yatra and has been busy promoting her brand name and value.

Throughout the yatra, Raje did not even speak on BJP policies but continued praising herself and her mother, said a BJP worker talking to IANS adding that it seemed she was openly challenging the central leadership by flouting what they said.

While Kataria and Rathore have been criticising Gehlot government for the spike in crime rate in the state and other burning issues in the Assembly, Raje has been seen openly praising Gehlot and his government at different places.

She has been maintaining a studied distance from the Assembly and when she is there, she is never seen raising any significant issue, said another worker.

Sources from BJP said that she and her team dented party's votebank during panchayat and local municipal bodies elections and even recently, there were plans to instigate in-fight when senior MLAs shot a letter to party president alleging that they were not allowed to speak in Assembly.

All these issues have cropped up at a time when state organisation general secretary Chandrashekhar is in Bengal, union minister Arjunram Meghwal is in Puducherry and state president Satish Poonia is busy taking tours for bypolls scheduled on four assembly seats, they added.

So it makes it all the more evident that she seems to have plans of her own and hence is busy promoting 'Brand Raje', said a BJP worker.

BJP State president Satish Poonia said that it was up to the central leadership to decide on the matter. "I shall continue to work on the principles set by the party for the benefit of the party."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Duchess of Cambridge wore a set of 85 earrings from Meghan Markle's favourite brand Missoma during an appearance hours after her sister-in-law claimed the two women had a tearful confrontation days before the royal wedding.

Kate Middleton, 38, spoke with rower Jasmine Harrison, 21, during a video call which was released yesterday to mark International Women's Day.

The mother-of-three, who has now returned to London having spent lockdown with her husband Prince William, 38, and their children, George, seven, Charlotte, six, and Louis, two, in Anmer Hall in Norfolk, selected a pair of drop earrings from London-based jewellery brand Missoma.

The brand, which is a favourite of Kate's sister-in-law Meghan, 39, describes the earrings online as featuring 'a heart-based healing crystal that radiates love, compassion and all-around good vibes' suspended from a 'texture gold vermeil hoop.'

The Duchess of Cambridge, 39, wore a set of 85 earrings from Meghan Markle 's favourite brand Missoma during an appearance hours after her sister-in-law claimed the two women had a tearful confrontation days before the royal wedding

The 85 earrings from Missoma are part of the brand's gemstone collection and feature a spiked hoop

The mother-of-three kept her make up natural for the occasion and wore her hair in a bouncy blow dry, occasionally tucking her hair behind her ear to reveal the stunning set.

The earrings, which are for sale online for 85, are part of the company's Gemstone collection and are bejewelled with the rhodochrosite stone.

The pyramid hoops are described as 'using the power of precious stones, placing the highest quality hand-cut stones into our specially designed and unique shapes and cuts.'

It's not the first time the Duchess has been spotted wearing a piece by the popular brand.

Hours before Kate's video was released, the Duchess of Sussex claimed Kate made her cry days after a clash in the run-up to the royal wedding

She opted to wear the earrings during a visit to businesses in London, as well as donning the Gold Zenyu Chandelier Hoops during her tour of Pakistan in November 2019.

Meanwhile sister-in-law Meghan has long been a fan of the brand and was first spotted wearing jewellery in a resurfaced post from her now inactive Instagram account.

As well as Meghan Markle Missoma has countless other famous fans, ranging from model Gigi Hadid to actress Margot Robbie - who wears their coin necklaces.

The brand was created by Marisa Hordern, who started it from her kitchen table, after sourcing gemstones from Hong Kong, Thailand, India and the US.

The brand is a favourite of Kate's sister-in-law Meghan Markle, who has worn the jewellery several times over the last few years (pictured, wearing a bracelet from Missoma)

In 2018, the company was named fourth on the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 list. Speaking to Harpars Bazaar in March she said about her celebrity clientele: 'It is generally good for the brand (when someone famous wears the jewellery) but we dont really see spikes as such.

'It tends to just show how versatile the pieces are in terms of who wears it and how it can be worn. For example, Margot Robbie has been seen wearing it surfing and on the red carpet.

'It's also great to see cross-generational support like recently when Kaia Gerber and Cindy Crawford both wore it  I loved that, it reminded me of how I started the business, with my mother around the kitchen table.'

The video of the Duchess' call was released after it was revealed Meghan claimed in her interview with Oprah Winfrey she experienced more negativity towards her than the Duchess of Cambridge because of the colour of her skin.

The Duchess of Cambridge with Princess Charlotte and other bridesmaids arriving at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan in May 2018

In the explosive interview, Meghan also spoke of her relationship with Kate, and claimed Kate made her cry when the two clashed at a bridesmaids fitting shortly before she married Prince Harry, 36.

Reports of the bitter feud between the duchesses first emerged in November 2018, when sources claimed Meghan had been left displeased with the 'stressful' fitting.

The Duchess of Sussex also insisted that she has now forgiven Kate Middleton and said she bought her flowers to apologise about the incident.

The infamous row with Prince William's wife made headlines around the world after a supposed falling out over dresses for the flower girls.

The Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex in the Royal Box on Centre Court at Wimbledon in July 2019

Accounts differ as to whether the cause of the row was a disagreement on whether the bridesmaids should wear tights - Meghan reportedly believed they should not - or whether it stemmed from Princess Charlotte's dress not fitting.

Meghan was also asked about a memorable joint-outing to Wimbledon in July 2019, where the pair put on a united front and were pictured laughing together.

During the interview she appeared to cast doubt on the authenticity of that seemingly affable appearance, saying: 'Nothing is what it looks like'.

EasyPark Group is backed by private equity firms Verdane Capital and Vitruvian Partners and currently operates in 2,200 cities across 20 countries throughout Europe and Australia. This acquisition brings together the leaders in Europe and North America to share technology and accelerate global expansion.

"Over the past 12 years, ParkMobile has emerged as the technology leader in North America for contactless parking and mobility payments," says Jon Ziglar, CEO of ParkMobile. "Joining forces with EasyPark Group will enable us to continue this momentum into the future and opens up an array of new global growth opportunities."

"We are pleased to welcome the ParkMobile team to EasyPark Group," says Johan Birgersson, CEO of EasyPark Group. "This acquisition is strategically important to accelerate our long-term growth and innovation capabilities across the globe."

ParkMobile has been part of BMW and Daimler's mobility joint venture PARK NOW Group since March 2019. The PARK NOW Group European brands are also part of this acquisition. That includes PARK NOW, RingGo, Parkmobile Europe, and Park-line. The intended acquisition of PARK NOW Group from the shareholders of BMW Group and Daimler Mobility is subject to prior approval by relevant authorities. The parties have agreed not to disclose the terms of the transaction.

About ParkMobile

ParkMobile, LLC provides smart parking and mobility solutions in North America, using a contactless approach to help millions of people easily find, reserve, and pay for parking on their mobile devices. The company's technology is used in thousands of locations across the country, including 8 of the top 10 cities as well as college campuses, airports, and stadiums. People can use ParkMobile solutions to quickly pay for on-street and off-street parking without having to use a meter or kiosk. Additionally, ParkMobile offers parking reservations at stadium venues for concerts and sporting events. Reservations are also available in metro area garages, allowing people to drive into the city without having to worry about finding parking. ParkMobile has been named to the Inc. 5000, Deloitte Fast 500, the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Top Workplaces, and the Technology Association of Georgia's Most Innovative Companies. For more information, visit ParkMobile.io or @ParkMobile on Twitter.

About Easypark Group

EasyPark is a leading, fast-growing parking tech company that helps drivers find and manage parking and charge their electrical vehicle. Our unique and cutting-edge technology also helps businesses, cities, parking operators and property owners with administration, planning, and data driven management in over 2,200 cities across 20 countries. We make urban life easier, one parking spot at a time. Visit https://www.easyparkgroup.com/ to find out more. EasyPark Group is owned by Verdane Capital and Vitruvian Partners.

ParkMobile Contact:

Jeff Perkins, CMO

[email protected]

(678) 801-8855

EasyPark Group Contact:

Louise Ekman, Head of Group PR

[email protected]

+46 70 5222 117

Follow EasyPark Group in our newsroom: www.easyparkgroup.com/news

SOURCE ParkMobile
In a Feb. 25 press conference, Libyas newly designated Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah failed to name his Cabinet members as expected. Instead, he said he has submitted his criteria for selecting the individual ministers to the House of Representatives to get its approval. He might follow this strategy to avoid any controversy releasing the names before he presents his draft of the Government of National Unity to parliament for a vote of confidence.

Forming a unity government in a divided Libya is a challenge. Dbeibah said his team received 3,000 nominations for ministerial jobs  an average of 100 nominees for each portfolio in a Cabinet of 30 ministries.

Dbeibah, however, was not elected by popular vote. He was elected by a 75-member group known as the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum. The forum itself was handpicked by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya.

Even before taking office, Dbeibah is already facing a serious challenge as reports of vote buying involving the forum gain more traction.

A UN panel of experts on Libya is expected to name three forum members who sold their votes to Dbeibah. The bribery scandal emerged Nov. 23 when the then head of the UN mission, Stephanie Williams, made her opening remarks of the forum session.

Al-Monitor spoke with a Tripoli-based forum member, who wishes to remain anonymous, who confirmed that money was paid and that he personally spoke with Williams about it.

Another Europe-based forum member, speaking anonymously, told Al-Monitor, I know one [forum] member who received $150,000 in return for voting for Dbeibah.

A third forum member, based in Cairo, who also wants to remain anonymous, told Al-Monitor that three forum members were paid between $120,000 and $150,000. But he denied that Dbeibah made the payments himself, saying someone from his extended family did.

Zahra Langhi, a prominent forum member from Benghazi, confirmed the alleged bribes during an Al-Hadath TV interview Feb. 28. Langhi was one of 56 forum members who on Nov. 19 signed an open letter to UN chief Antonio Guterres urging him to take action. The issue of bribery has tainted the forum and the incoming Government of National Unity since it involves the prime minister-designate himself, casting a shadow on the parliaments session for a vote of confidence on the new government.

The divided Libyan parliament ended its first session today, March 8, in Sirte, east of Tripoli, without voting on the new Government of National Unity. Legislators will resume debate tomorrow, but it is doubtful that a vote will take place. In any case, The Libyan Political Dialogue Forum roadmap gives lawmakers 21 days starting today to either pass or reject the government. If it fails to approve it then, the roadmap dictates the issue be decided by the forum.

Parliament member Aguila Saleh lost the forum elections in February so he is bent on undermining the process, said his former political ally, parliament member Abobaker Baera, in a TV interview.

There are many questions on whether the bribery scandal could derail the entire process, thus annulling everything the forum managed to achieve. Such a possibility will affect Dbeibah and the entire Presidential Council elected with him Feb. 5 in Geneva.

Langhi proposed earlier elections as a way out of the mess, while warning that any cover-up will have serious consequences.

The Tripoli-based source does not agree. He said the House of Representatives vote of confidence on the new government is a minor procedural issue since the forum has the last word. Indeed, paragraph three of Article 4 of the road map adopted by the forum states that if parliament fails to approve the government formation, the matter shall be decided by the forum. Since Libya is still without a constitution, the forum unanimously approved the road map as a tailored interim constitution specific for the interim Government of National Unity. The document will become void when elections take place in December.

Another thorny issue is that the majority of Dbeibahs list won in the Feb. 5 vote. He and his joint list for Presidential Council got 39 votes  five more than the second runner-up list, which included Saleh. Such a slim majority could be further eroded if the upcoming UN report implicates three individuals for accepting cash to vote for Dbeibah. Such development could mean the losers list is likely to ask for a second vote. However, the Cairo-based source thinks this wont happen as the forum has the power to decide how to proceed he said, citing the road map.

All three sources, however, do not offer any alternative to get out of this potentially explosive legal issue. They, however, referred again to the road map that gives the forum the chance to meet and decide on what to do.

Should Dbeibahs Government of National Unity survive all this and win the House of Representatives confidence, the question would be on whether it could deliver what is expected of it in less than eight months; assuming it will take office early next month.

Priorities set by the forums road map are complicated, require time and are hard to tackle. The most difficult challenges are the armed militias, security concerns and the presence of foreign forces in the country. Russian mercenaries, supporting Khalifa Hifter and his Libyan National Army, are still entrenched in and around the Sirte-Jufra frontline. Syrian mercenaries, supporting the Government of National Accord, meanwhile, remain in and around Tripoli. Neither the Government of National Accord nor the Libyan National Army have announced a deadline for the withdrawal of their foreign supporters.

The deadline for their departure, set by the Oct. 23 cease-fire agreement, has already passed. The Government of National Accord-Libyan National Army joint 5+5 military commission agreed that all foreigners should have left Libya by Jan. 23, 2021.

The new Government of National Unity will face a more difficult situation with the armed militias in Tripoli. These militias, with Turkish military help and Syrian mercenaries, played a decisive role in defending Tripoli against the Libyan National Armys April 2019 attack on Tripoli. Instead, the Libyan National Army was defeated and driven back to Sirte, in central Libya.

Ali al-Saeedi, a member of parliament from the southern region, does not think disarmament and departure of foreign fighters are achievable objectives before the Dec. 24 elections. He told Al-Monitor, Another way has to be found to organize elections without any interference from either [party].

One such way is suggested by Ibrahim Fituri, a law professor at Benghazi University. He said both militias and foreign fighters could be ordered not to leave their barracks during the election period. By keeping them confined to certain places, Fituri believes this will offer a certain degree of security. However, as unrealistic as that is, it seems a plausible idea in a country where arms are abundant.

While the countrys election commission repeatedly said it is ready for elections and has the needed resources to run successful polls across Libya, it cannot do much without strong government support.

Another top priority for the Government of National Unity, should it assume power, is launching national reconciliation to heal the wounds of the last decade. Libyans have never been as divided along tribal and regional lines as they are now.

The Libyan National Armys offensive against Tripoli divided families, displaced hundreds of people, and destroyed hundreds of homes in the southern part of the region. The largest displaced community comes from Tarhouna, some 75 kilometers (47 miles) south of Tripoli. Out of an estimated population of 80,000 people, perhaps half of them are displaced.

Tarhouna is also the site of dozens of mass graves of people who opposed the al-Kani militia, which controlled the city before it was driven out in June 2020. The militia initially allied itself with the Government of National Accord before switching to fight alongside the Libyan National Army in 2019.

The Government of National Unity will also face an angry and dissatisfied public due to daily problems such as power cuts, lack of money in the banks, explosive prices and the COVID-19 pandemic. Libya has yet to receive a single shot of vaccine.

Uniting the divided state institutions is another hurdle facing the Government of National Unity. The country has been under two governments since the 2014 elections. While the Government of National Accord is recognized by the UN as the only government, the rival government in al-Bayda in the east does control large swaths of the country, particularly in the eastern and southern regions. Bringing these two governments under one prime minister is an immensely difficult job, said Saeedi.

Fituri suggests what he describes as a simple magical idea, by keeping the government ministries in al-Bayda as branches for ministries in Tripoli. He cites the fact that Libya under Col. Moammar Gadhafi had a similar arrangement.

Unity, security, fighting the pandemic and organizing elections in a few months are indeed formidable challenges but we have no alternative, Saeedi said.
COLUMBIA  As Chester County eyes a "once-in-a-generation" $400 million economic development deal expected to bring nearly 500 jobs, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster urges lawmakers to pass legislation to make it happen.

The county, an hour north of Columbia, has given initial approvals for tax incentives to California-based E&J Gallo Winery, a deal known by code-name "Project Magma," but South Carolina's liquor laws could hold the company back from making all of the investments it has planned.

That's why lawmakers, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, have filed a bill that would attract and benefit wineries in South Carolina. The bill is co-sponsored by powerful Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, and now receives a further boost from the governor.

"South Carolina has a reputation as a state where world-class brands establish operations and thrive," McMaster said in his letter to lawmakers March 9. "That reputation was earned, in large part, because of a pro-business climate resulting from thoughtful legislative deliberation which balances the interests of our diverse constituencies with the opportunities stemming from robust economic development."

In the letter, McMaster praised Gallo "as a well-respected, family owned company with products that are distributed across the globe."

"This investment by Gallo will transform the community and contribute greatly to South Carolinas economic prosperity," he wrote.

A Gallo spokeswoman did not respond to questions sent by The Post and Courier.

The major change contained in the legislation would allow wineries, breweries and distilleries to open up to four satellite tasting and sales locations. Under current law, samples and retail sales for those businesses are limited to where the beverages are produced.

Gallo representatives told lawmakers during a legislative hearing that the tasting rooms it wants to open would be small, about 800 square feet, with a capacity for 30 to 50 people. They said the deal with Chester County hinged on being allowed to open these locations, and they're up against a deadline for the purchase of the proposed 630-acre tract in Fort Lawn, which is west of Lancaster.

The law change would come with an investment requirement tailored directly to the wine giant.

The provision requires a $400 million minimum investment and at least 300 new jobs to be eligible for what it calls a "manufacturers satellite certificate." The company also must pay an annual $5,000 fee per location.

Sign up for our new business newsletter We're starting a weekly newsletter about the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina. Get ahead with us - it's free. Email

Sign Up!

"I look forward to signing this bill into law and welcoming Gallo to South Carolina," McMaster said.

But wholesalers and retailers of alcoholic beverages are pushing back against the change, and other lawmakers have some concerns about making major revisions to existing liquor laws to suit one company.

"We certainly want Chester County to get a winery," said Sen. Sandy Senn, R-Charleston, who was confident that a compromise between manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers can be reached.

But she also worries about Gallo being able to undercut smaller retailers on price if it is allowed to operate retail establishments beyond the winery itself.

Gallo is a major player, controlling more than 30 percent of the U.S. wine market, Karl Storchmann, New York University economist and American Association of Wine Economists executive director, told Wine Enthusiast magazine. Its major brands include Barefoot, Apothic, Dark Horse, Arbor Mist and Mark West. Gallo is also in the low-cost hard-liquor business, with brands like Amsterdam Vodka and E&J Brandy.

Senn said it's likely, once an exception is made, other major alcohol producers in the state, such as Firefly Distillery in the Lowcountry or White Claw-maker Mark Anthony Brewing in the Midlands, will want to follow suit.

Democratic Sen. Dick Harpootlian said he shares Senn's concerns for retailers.

The Columbia lawmaker also has a reputation for targeting establishments in the Capital City's FivePoints entertainment district that do not comply with the state's legal requirement of primarily being in the business of serving food. He questions whether satellite tasting rooms would meet constitutional muster.

The full details of Gallo's proposed deal with Chester County are still unknown.

The Post and Courier requested the text version of a resolution about the tax breaks, which was discussed during the open session of a public meeting in February. The county required the newspaper to file a Freedom of Information Act request, which it said was forwarded to legal counsel Feb. 26.

The company would also likely be eligible for state tax credits for jobs created at a rate of $25,000 per position annually, up to five years.
New Delhi, March 9 : A total of 6,76,074 Indians gave up their citizenship and took citizenship of other countries between 2015 and 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs told Parliament on Tuesday.

In 2015, a total of 1,41, 656 Indians gave up their citizenship with some increased number registered next year with 1,44, 942 following the same track.

The number of such people was 1,27,905 in 2017 followed by 1,25, 130 in 2018 and 1,36, 441 in 2019.

Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai shared the details through a written reply in the Lok Sabha while answering an unstarred question asked by Congress MP from Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu, Karti P. Chidambaram.

Rai also said that a total of 1,24, 99395 Indians are living in foreign countries.

The Minister, in his reply, also cleared that the information was available with the Ministry of External Affairs.

On the question "whether there has been an increase in the number of people seeking Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card", Rai said a total of 36,99,476 foreigners registered as OCI cardholders from 2005 to 2020.

As per the data, 289 foreigners were registered as OCI cardholders in 2005. In 2006, there was a sudden spike with 86,321 foreigners registered as OCI cardholders. The number was 1,12,401 in 2007; 1,58,805 in 2008; 1,69,794 in 2009; 2,14, 414 in 2010; 2,62, 647 in 2011; 2,34,826 in 2012; and 2,53,345 in 2013.

The number of OCI cardholders reached 2,20,407 in 2014 when the Narendra Modi government came to power. There was a steep hike in 2015 with 3,16, 331 OCI cardholders followed by 4,03, 900 in 2016; 4,05, 522 in 2017; 3,39,513 in 2018 and 3,29,352 in 2019.

A total of 1,91,609 foreigners registered as OCI cardholders in 2020, which faced lockdown for months due to Covid-19 pandemic.

OCI is a form of permanent residency available to people of Indian origin and their spouses which allows them to live and work in India indefinitely. Despite the name, OCI status is not citizenship and does not grant the right to vote in Indian elections or hold public office.

Asked whether the government is considering any proposal for dual citizenship, the Minister said, "No Sir".
The Anzac Day march in Sydneys CBD will be capped at 5000 after RSL NSW reached an agreement with the NSW government and police to increase the number of attendees, and an exemption was granted by Health Minister Brad Hazzard.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on Twitter on Tuesday, said: This is a welcome step in the right direction so that more people can pay their respects.

Last year, the state government approved a 500-person veterans march for 2021, whereby participants were required to register interest online due to coronavirus restrictions.

RSL NSW said on Tuesday it had received only 200 registrations to walk in the march so far.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey that after being cut off financially by the royal family he supported his new life in California with his inheritance from Princess Diana.

I have what my mum left me and without that we wouldnt have been able to do this, he said of his and Meghan Markles move to the United States.

Its like she saw it coming and shes been with us through this whole process.

The revelation left many viewers wondering how much Harrys mother had left him after her death at the age of 36.

Follow Meghan and Harry Oprah interview live: Latest news and updates

Diana left an estate of 21m, but more than 8m was paid in inheritance tax, leaving 12,966,022, according to the Press Association.

It was split equally between William and younger brother Harry, who were aged 15 and 12 when Diana died in a Paris car crash in 1997.

The money was invested by royal advisers, which saw its value rise to around 20m by the time her sons reached the age when they could access it.

Changes agreed to the will in December 1997 meant that, upon reaching 25, William and Harry were entitled to the whole of the income of their share.

But before the age of 25, income could be paid at the trustees discretion.

The estate trustees could pay capital to William and Harry at any time, but when they turned 30 they were able to ask for their full share of capital.

Dianas estate consisted of stocks and shares, jewellery, her multi-million pound divorce settlement from Charles, and her clothing and personal items.

William and Harrys great-grandmother, the Queen Mother, also reportedly left them around 14m to split between them.

Meghan reportedly entered her marriage with around $5m in earnings from her acting career and particularly her role in Suits.

Last September it was announced that the couple had signed a reported multi-million dollar deal with Netflix to produce exclusive content such as documentaries, docu-series, feature films, scripted shows and childrens programming.

And months later they also inked a deal with Spotify to create podcast content.
The much-anticipated agri-environmental scheme to be launched this year will not be a successor to REPS, Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue has said.

He also confirmed to the Farming Independent that further details on the number of farmers who will be involved in the pilot and the maximum payment they can receive will be made known in the next few weeks.

The Minister said the scheme, which had been dubbed the 'new REPS' or 'REPS 2' by leading politicians, including the Taoiseach and Tanaiste, forms the centrepiece a 79m increase in funding for farm supports secured in the Budget.

"This pilot is a results-based programme aimed at rewarding farmers for carrying out environmental measures on their farm and rewarding those farmers who are already positively contributing to climate and biodiversity, he said.

This is not the new, long-term successor to REPS, AEOS, or GLAS. This is an altogether new programme. This is a two-year pilot initiative aimed at those farmers who are not in GLAS. It allows us along with farmers and advisers to road-test some new measures, some of which could be part of the next big agri-environmental programme.

"This pilot is not the final destination but is the start of a journey.

Farm organisations have been heavily critical of plans for the scheme in recent weeks, with IFA President Tim Cullinan saying that despite all the hype, no budget has yet been confirmed for the scheme.

"Drawing comparisons with the original Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) that was first introduced in the 90s will look like complete spin if the Minister doesnt deliver a serious scheme, he said.

Plans for the scheme has also drawn criticism from within Fianna Fail with Barry Cowen warning he expects it not to deliver any bold or challenging measures to specifically bolster beef farming.

Speaking to the Farming Independent the Laois-Offaly TD said he is nervous that the new scheme will just be more of the same.

You would have hoped that it might have looked at the beef sector specifically and sought to offer a way in which they can add value to their product to separate them from the bigger dairy farmer and prove that there is a role for the smaller producer.

There is marginal land that wouldnt be conducive to dairying that needs to be managed but those farmers need a break too.

There is an opportunity there that I dont think is being grasped with the new environmental scheme. I think its just going to be more of the same rather than anything bold or challenging.
People have faith in Gandhis, Congress united under Sonia: Ashok Gehlot

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Jaipur, Mar 09: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday said the Congress is "united" and "vibrant" under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and called Rahul Gandhi the only national opposition leader raising a voice against the Narendra Modi government.

Gehlot's statement appears to have been triggered by the cover story and an editorial in a news magazine, which argued that the Gandhis are now "isolated".

Tamil Nadu assembly polls 2021: Vijayakanth-led DMDK quits AIADMK-BJP alliance

The CM said some people have a "misconception" that the family has been isolated in public life, he said. People across society have faith in them and in their leadership qualities, he added.

He said that because of this faith in the Gandhis the rank and file of the Congress across the country are standing firm with them, and the family will never be "isolated".

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Gehlot said the Congress under the leadership of party president Sonia Gandhi is "united, vibrant and strong enough to take on any challenges". He said former party president Rahul Gandhi is the only national opposition leader who is raising a voice against the NDA government on issues related to common people.

"Demonstrated and continuous commitment is the defining hallmark of leadership. And there is no match for his commitment and dedication towards the nation. We have a vibrant opposition, what we need is a vibrant and free press," Gehlot said.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 18:12 [IST]
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The Guardian

The potential consequences of the origins of the virus are shattering  if they can be proved My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters There was a time when the Covid pandemic seemed to confirm so many of our assumptions. It cast down the people we regarded as villains. It raised up those we thought were heroes. It prospered people who could shift easily to working from home even as it problematized the lives of those Trump voters living in the old economy. Like all plagues, Covid often felt like the hand of God on earth, scourging the people for their sins against higher learning and visibly sorting the righteous from the unmasked wicked. Respect science, admonished our yard signs. And lo!, Covid came and forced us to do so, elevating our scientists to the highest seats of social authority, from where they banned assembly, commerce, and all the rest. We cast blame so innocently in those days. We scolded at will. We knew who was right and we shook our heads to behold those in the wrong playing in their swimming pools and on the beach. It made perfect sense to us that Donald Trump, a politician we despised, could not grasp the situation, that he suggested people inject bleach, and that he was personally responsible for more than one super-spreading event. Reality itself punished leaders like him who refused to bow to expertise. The prestige news media even figured out a way to blame the worst death tolls on a system of organized ignorance they called populism. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a cult out of the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general But these days the consensus doesnt consense quite as well as it used to. Now the media is filled with disturbing stories suggesting that Covid might have come  not from populism at all, but from a laboratory screw-up in Wuhan, China. You can feel the moral convulsions beginning as the question sets in: What if science itself is in some way culpable for all this? * I am no expert on epidemics. Like everyone else I know, I spent the pandemic doing as I was told. A few months ago I even tried to talk a Fox News viewer out of believing in the lab-leak theory of Covids origins. The reason I did that is because the newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-leak theory wasnt true, that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-on-fire ratings from the fact-checkers, and because (despite all my cynicism) I am the sort who has always trusted the mainstream news media. My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month; a few weeks later everyone from Doctor Fauci to President Biden is acknowledging that the lab-accident hypothesis might have some merit. We dont know the real answer yet, and we probably will never know, but this is the moment to anticipate what such a finding might ultimately mean. What if this crazy story turns out to be true? The answer is that this is the kind of thing that could obliterate the faith of millions. The last global disaster, the financial crisis of 2008, smashed peoples trust in the institutions of capitalism, in the myths of free trade and the New Economy, and eventually in the elites who ran both American political parties. In the years since (and for complicated reasons), liberal leaders have labored to remake themselves into defenders of professional rectitude and established legitimacy in nearly every field. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a sort of cult out of science, expertise, the university system, executive-branch norms, the intelligence community, the State Department, NGOs, the legacy news media, and the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general. Now here we are in the waning days of Disastrous Global Crisis #2. Covid is of course worse by many orders of magnitude than the mortgage meltdown  it has killed millions and ruined lives and disrupted the world economy far more extensively. Should it turn out that scientists and experts and NGOs, etc. are villains rather than heroes of this story, we may very well see the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism go up in a fireball of public anger. Consider the details of the story as we have learned them in the last few weeks:  Lab leaks happen. They arent the result of conspiracies: a lab accident is an accident, as Nathan Robinson points out; they happen all the time, in this country and in others, and people die from them.  There is evidence that the lab in question, which studies bat coronaviruses, may have been conducting what is called gain of function research, a dangerous innovation in which diseases are deliberately made more virulent. By the way, right-wingers didnt dream up gain of function: all the cool virologists have been doing it (in this country and in others) even as the squares have been warning against it for years.  There are strong hints that some of the bat-virus research at the Wuhan lab was funded in part by the American national-medical establishment  which is to say, the lab-leak hypothesis doesnt implicate China alone.  There seem to have been astonishing conflicts of interest among the people assigned to get to the bottom of it all, and (as we know from Enron and the housing bubble) conflicts of interest are always what trip up the well-credentialed professionals whom liberals insist we must all heed, honor, and obey.  The news media, in its zealous policing of the boundaries of the permissible, insisted that Russiagate was ever so true but that the lab-leak hypothesis was false false false, and woe unto anyone who dared disagree. Reporters gulped down whatever line was most flattering to the experts they were quoting and then insisted that it was 100% right and absolutely incontrovertible  that anything else was only unhinged Trumpist folly, that democracy dies when unbelievers get to speak, and so on.  The social media monopolies actually censored posts about the lab-leak hypothesis. Of course they did! Because were at war with misinformation, you know, and people need to be brought back to the true and correct faith  as agreed upon by experts. * Let us pray, now, for science, intoned a New York Times columnist back at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. The title of his article laid down the foundational faith of Trump-era liberalism: Coronavirus is What You Get When You Ignore Science. Ten months later, at the end of a scary article about the history of gain of function research and its possible role in the still ongoing Covid pandemic, Nicholson Baker wrote as follows: This may be the great scientific meta-experiment of the 21st century. Could a world full of scientists do all kinds of reckless recombinant things with viral diseases for many years and successfully avoid a serious outbreak? The hypothesis was that, yes, it was doable. The risk was worth taking. There would be no pandemic. Except there was. If it does indeed turn out that the lab-leak hypothesis is the right explanation for how it began  that the common people of the world have been forced into a real-life lab experiment, at tremendous cost  there is a moral earthquake on the way. Because if the hypothesis is right, it will soon start to dawn on people that our mistake was not insufficient reverence for scientists, or inadequate respect for expertise, or not enough censorship on Facebook. It was a failure to think critically about all of the above, to understand that there is no such thing as absolute expertise. Think of all the disasters of recent years: economic neoliberalism, destructive trade policies, the Iraq War, the housing bubble, banks that are too big to fail, mortgage-backed securities, the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016  all of these disasters brought to you by the total, self-assured unanimity of the highly educated people who are supposed to know what theyre doing, plus the total complacency of the highly educated people who are supposed to be supervising them. Then again, maybe I am wrong to roll out all this speculation. Maybe the lab-leak hypothesis will be convincingly disproven. I certainly hope it is. But even if it inches closer to being confirmed, we can guess what the next turn of the narrative will be. It was a perfect storm, the experts will say. Who coulda known? And besides (they will say), the origins of the pandemic dont matter any more. Go back to sleep. Thomas Frank is a Guardian US columnist. He is the author, most recently, of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
Some of the most strident activists in Kansas City continue their challenges against law enforcement following a controversial decision.



Accordingly and in fairness, here's the activist response to criticism of an armed protest that blocked Ward Parkway and concluded in front of the home of the elected official . . .

"(Jackson County Prosecutor) Jean Peters Baker decided to try to mislead the public regarding the protest that happened yesterday.

"This is for you Jean Peters Baker: Your framing of the event, you didn't even bother to attend, is entirely disingenuous. Carrying firearms is legal to do at a protest but you can continue to infer it was threatening. The person you claim vandalized a car was hit by that car & the KCPD arrested the victim.

"Your statement here is also inaccurate but as to be expected by the local media they will simply repeat what you have said instead of look into it further to any degree . . . "You are the prosecuting attorney for the county. You alone had the responsibility to protect the public and you have failed at your duty. You CHOSE to use Prosecutorial Discretion because you are either afraid of the KCPD personally or are afraid of losing a case. Or both."



Check the statement in full.



Moreover . . .

SPRING HASN'T EVEN STARTED AND TEMPERS OF KANSAS CITY URBAN CORE LEADERSHIP HAVE STARTED TO FLARE!!!

For KCMO this debate is important to witness the 2020 election cycle really didn't settle continued local debate over the governance of law enforcement.



You decide . . .


A robber has been jailed for three years and nine months for his crime against two tourists near the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

Paul Heaney (37) and Gareth Mallon (39), who had a realistic imitation firearm, robbed an Italian student of 60 and attempted to rob his teacher before fleeing the scene.

The court heard the case attracted some media attention and featured on the Liveline show on RTE radio.

Heaney, who was not armed during the offence, attended voluntarily at a garda station a few days later. Mallon was sentenced to four years imprisonment for his role last December.

Heaney, of Michael Mallin House, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbery and attempted robbery at Longs Place on October 21, 2019. He has 51 previous convictions, including convictions for robbery and attempted robbery.

Passing sentence on Monday, Judge Elma Sheahan said she does not see a difference between Heaney and his co-accused. She said this was a joint enterprise with both playing similar roles.

Judge Sheahan noted the troubling and challenging upbringing Heaney experienced in his youth. She accepted he has made efforts to rehabilitate, remain free of illicit substances and reduce his methadone intake.

She sentenced Heaney to four and a half years imprisonment, but suspended the final nine months on strict conditions.

At a previous sentencing hearing, Garda Cormac O'Donnell told Grainne O'Neill BL, prosecuting, that a group of 30 students in their late teens and their teachers had just left the Guinness Storehouse.

A student at the back of the group was approached by a man, Mallon, who pointed a gun at his legs and said softly money, money, money. The second man, Heaney, was unarmed and had a tissue over his face.

The student handed over 60 and the man then pointed the gun at one of the teachers who screamed. Another teacher came to her aid and the two robbers ran off.

A woman nearby videoed the robbery on her mobile phone. Heaney presented himself to gardai a few days later.

Gda O'Donnell agreed with Fiona Murphy SC, defending, that Heaney placed himself at the scene with the person who produced the gun. He agreed Heaney played a lessor role but said it had been a joint enterprise.

Heaney told gardai he had not been involved in planning the robbery.

Ms Murphy said Heaney had expressed remorse and regretted his involvement in the offence. She said he had been on his way to get tablets when he bumped into the other individual involved.

She said he had a difficult early life and had fallen into a cycle of going into custody, doing well, being released and falling 'off the wagon', then reoffending in a life marred by drug use. She said he is clean of drugs at present and anxious to engage with rehabilitation.
BEIJING, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Autohome Inc. (NYSE: ATHM) (the "Company"), the leading online destination for automobile consumers in China, today announced the pricing of the global offering of 30,291,200 shares (the "Offer Shares") which comprises an international offering and a Hong Kong public offering.

The final offer prices for both the international offering and the Hong Kong public offering (the "Offer Price") has been set at HK$176.30 per share. The Offer Price translates to approximately US$91 per American depositary share ("ADS") (based on an exchange rate of HK$7.7642 to US$1.00), each representing four shares of the Company. The Company has set the Offer Price by taking into consideration, among other factors, the closing price of the ADSs on the NYSE on March 8, 2021 (the latest trading day before the Price Determination Date). Subject to approval from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the Offer Shares are expected to begin trading on the Main Board of the SEHK on March 15, 2021 under the stock code "2518".

In connection with the Global Offering, the Company has granted the international underwriters an over-allotment option, exercisable at any time from the Listing Date to Thursday, April 8, 2021, being the 30th day after the last day for lodging applications under the Hong Kong public offering, to require the Company to allot and issue up to 4,544,000 additional shares. The gross proceeds to the Company from the Global Offering, before deducting underwriting fees and the offering expenses, are expected to be approximately HK$3,560 million if the over-allotment option is not exercised or approximately HK$4,361 billion if the over-allotment option is exercised in full.

The Company plans to use the net proceeds from the Offering for the following purposes: approximately 30% for investing in its technology and product development; approximately 30% for incubating new business; approximately 30% for enhancing its domestic and overseas presence and developing an automotive ecosystem; and approximately 10% for general corporate purposes.

China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Limited, Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. and Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Limited are the Joint Sponsors, the Joint Representatives, the Joint Global Coordinators, the Joint Bookrunners and the Joint Lead Managers for the proposed Offering.

The price of the Offer Shares of the Company may be stabilized in accordance with the Securities and Futures (Price Stabilization) Rules. The details of the intended stabilization and how it will be regulated under the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Chapter 571 of the laws of Hong Kong) have been contained in the prospectus of the Company dated 4 March 2021.

The International Offering is being made only by means of a preliminary prospectus supplement dated 2 March 2021 and the accompanying prospectus included in an automatic shelf registration statement on Form F-3 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on 2 March 2021, which automatically became effective upon filing. A final prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to and describing the terms of the Global Offering will be filed with the SEC and made available on the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. Copies of the final prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to the Offering may also be obtained, when available, by contacting China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Limited, Email: [email protected], Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C., Email: [email protected], or Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Limited, Email: [email protected].

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer or an invitation to buy any securities, nor shall there be any offer or sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction. This press release does not constitute a prospectus (including as defined under the laws of Hong Kong) and potential investors should read the prospectus of the Company for detailed information about the Company and the proposed offering, before deciding whether or not to invest in the Company. This press release has not been reviewed or approved by the SEHK or the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong.

About Autohome Inc.

Autohome Inc. (NYSE: ATHM) is a leading online destination for automobile consumers in China. Its mission is to enhance the car-buying and ownership experience for auto consumers in China. Autohome provides original generated content, professionally generated content, user-generated content, and AI-generated content, a comprehensive automobile library, and extensive automobile listing information to automobile consumers, covering the entire car purchase and ownership cycle. The ability to reach a large and engaged user base of automobile consumers has made Autohome a preferred platform for automakers and dealers to conduct their advertising campaigns. Further, the Company's dealer subscription and advertising services allow dealers to market their inventory and services through Autohome's platform, extending the reach of their physical showrooms to potentially millions of internet users in China and generating sales leads for them. The Company offers sales leads, data analysis, and marketing services to assist automakers and dealers with improving their efficiency and facilitating transactions. Autohome operates its "Autohome Mall," a full-service online transaction platform, to facilitate transactions for automakers and dealers. Further, through its websites and mobile applications, it also provides other value-added services, including auto financing, auto insurance, used car transactions, and aftermarket services. For further information, please visit www.autohome.com.cn.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking" statements pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S.Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Among other things, Autohome's description of the proposed offering in this announcement contain forward-looking statements. Autohome may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Autohome's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: Autohome's goals and strategies; Autohome's future business development, results of operations and financial condition; the expected growth of the online automobile advertising market in China; Autohome's ability to attract and retain users and advertisers and further enhance its brand recognition; Autohome's expectations regarding demand for and market acceptance of its products and services; competition in the online automobile advertising industry; fluctuations in general economic and business conditions in China and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Autohome's filings with the SEC and the prospectus registered in Hong Kong. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of this press release, and Autohome does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Tel: (86) 10 5985 7483

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Autohome Inc.
Figure showing prosodic contours used in the experimental part of the study. Credit: Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona

Prosody is a branch of linguistics that analyses and formally represents the elements of oral expression such as pitch, tones and intonation. A study published in Cognition on 5 February shows that there are universal prosodic cues that help with learning in humans and in animals.

This study, published by Juan Manuel Toro, ICREA research professor and Paola Crespo-Bojorque, researchers of the Center for Brain and Cognition (CBC) of the UPF Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC), is part of the research into language evolution that is being conducted thanks to a European Research Council Starting Grant.

Some of the mechanisms we humans use to learn language are based on general principles we inherited from other species.

The prosodic contour is universal

When we speak, we pronounce words more intensely at first and lengthen them slightly more at the end of the sentence. This is known as the prosodic contour. This contour is universal, in the sense that it not only defines the way in which speech occurs in humans, but also in birdsong and probably any other animal vocalization. "This occurs because the prosodic contour appears as a result of how humans and animals produce sounds by expelling air through the larynx," Toro and Crespo Bojorque explain.

And they add: "In our study, we showed that this prosodic contour facilitates the learning of words not only in humans but also in other animals (in our experiment, rats)."

Through various experiments, the researchers found that animals learned to recognize nonsense words when they had a natural prosodic contour. Conversely, they could not learn them when they had a flat or random contour.

Thus, the authors conclude that there are universal cues that facilitate learning, and both humans and other non-human animals benefit from them. In general terms, "this suggests that some of the mechanisms humans use to learn language are based on general principles we inherited from other species," the study researchers conclude.

Explore further Zebra finches are sensitive to emotional cues in human speech

More information: Juan M. Toro et al, Arc-shaped pitch contours facilitate item recognition in non-human animals, Cognition (2021). Journal information: Cognition Juan M. Toro et al, Arc-shaped pitch contours facilitate item recognition in non-human animals,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104614

Provided by Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.

Anne Margulies has managed some massive budgets in her career, both in her current role as CIO of Harvard University and as CIO for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before that. Yet, as she prepared to join her first public company board in 2018, this CIO Hall of Fame member also signed up for a six-week, Harvard Business School online course in business finance.

Anne Margulies

Ive managed very large budgets. I can do math, says Margulies, but I wanted to transfer that knowledge from fund accounting to corporate accounting. Immersing herself in a rigorous, strategic-level finance course was only part of Margulies' personal board readiness plan, which included a ton of homework, additional reading and research. I really wanted to become a good board member.

When she joined the board of Henry Schein, Inc., a $10 billion global provider of dental and medical supplies, Margulies was impressed by the extent of the companys own onboarding education for its new directors. That process involved everything from tours of company facilities to tutoring sessions with outside experts in corporate governance.

[ Shape up your resume for the CIO role with our 6 best practices and 7 strong CIO resume examples. | Sign up for our newsletters for tips and trends in IT employment. ]

The culture club
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.
China's higher vocational education institutions provided scholarships totaling 20.4 billion yuan ($3.13 billion) to seven groups of students, including registered poor students during the recent eight years, said a report on targeted poverty alleviation by China's higher vocational schools.

A total of 4.2 billion yuan of tuition fees were exempted for these groups of students, and 92.15 percent of poor students have been employed, according to the report.

Besides, free education was offered for over 90 percent of students in vocational high schools, and China's state student-aid covered around 40 percent of current students.

In the past eight years, technical experts from China's higher vocational education institutions made 76,000 trips to impoverished regions, where they developed 8,421 featured industrial projects and introduced 4,323 industrial projects, increasing local industrial income by a total of over 4.5 billion yuan.

At present, over 70 percent of students studying at China's higher vocational schools come from rural regions. Millions of families have realized their common dream of having a college student thanks to vocational education.

"A handicraft co-designed by me was sent to foreign guests as a gift," said Luo Linhua, a woman from the mountainous areas in Qiannan Buyi-Miao Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province who graduated from Guizhou Forerunner College.

Nine years ago, when the college went to Luo's hometown for recruitment, there was not even a table at Luo's home, and the kettles had to be put on the ground. Today, after graduation, Luo landed a job in China's capital Beijing.

China's higher vocational schools sent 364,000 junior college graduates of medical majors to impoverished areas as a way to alleviate the lack of medical resources there. They also carried out health trainings for 506,000 people and trained 355,000 medical workers in impoverished regions. Besides, they proactively volunteered to go to poor regions to give medical consultation and donate medicines.

They sent 21,000 junior college graduates of environmental protection majors to impoverished areas, offered training courses on ecological civilization for 221,000 people, and provided 2,859 items of technical support in ecological and environmental protection.

In addition, higher vocational schools cultivated 95,000 art and cultural professionals for impoverished regions, launched free performances and volunteer services that covered 828,000 people in these region, and helped them establish 5,857 local rules and regulations.

Pairing assistance by higher vocational education institutions also played a major role in targeted poverty alleviation in poor regions. According to the report, higher vocational schools dispatched 22,000 personnel to work in 9,586 impoverished regions, lifting 576,000 people out of poverty. In addition, they offered pairing assistance for 9,359 schools in poor areas, helped establish 6,646 majors in these areas, and trained 584,000 teachers there.
She lost one stone after overhauling lifestyle in lockdown.

And Amber Gill showed off her incredible figure in a sizzling mirror selfie which she uploaded on Instagram on Monday to mark International Women's Day.

The Love Island star, 23, posed up a storm in a plunging nude brown lingerie set which showed off her physique to perfection.

Stunning: Amber Gill showed off her incredible figure in a sizzling mirror selfie which she uploaded on Instagram on Monday to mark International Women's Day

The halterneck bra highlighted Amber's ample cleavage while the high-waisted thong bottoms accentuated her toned stomach.

She complemented the lingerie set with gold touches of jewellery and accentuated her natural beauty with a minimal make-up look.

Amber captioned the post: 'Happy International Womens Day I just love us.'

Toned: The Love Island star, 23, previously flaunted her taut midriff in the two piece as she posed for the camera, and drew attention to her ample assets in a low-cut bra

It comes after the television personality admitted she was proud of her body as she said her stretch marks 'add character' and are 'signs of growth'.

Sharing a picture of herself a simple black bra with a pair of matching briefs, Amber wrote: 'Stretch marks are the signs of GROWTH.

'Who's already signed up to the 30 day flexx challenge? I can't wait for us all to work out and build our [peaches] together.'

Wow! It comes after the television personality admitted she was proud of her body as she said her stretch marks 'add character' and are 'signs of growth'

She added: '[I get so many Q's about stretch marks and what I use to fade them or get rid of them, the answer is I don't I quite enjoy mine they add to my character.

'But they have naturally faded over the years.'

Amber was keen to flaunt her toned physique earlier in the day as she took to Instagram to pose in a tiny brown triangle bikini top and pink tracksuit bottoms as she joked: 'What's the point in getting these results and not showing you!'

It came after Amber ended her relationship with Rory after being told by MailOnline that he was jailed for four years in 2017 for beating up two doormen, leaving one in hospital.

Amber and Rory, 29, were pictured together during a holiday in Thailand last January, where she was captured on Instagram stories with her legs on him and he had his hand on her thigh.

A friend of Amber's told MailOnline how the pair were in the early stages of a relationship but she's now split with Rory after hearing about his convictions.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Now that race and ethnic (or sexual) identities are being emphasized by media, the academy, and the entertainment industry as the most important possible thing to know about a person  a suicidal practice in a diverse democracy  the inevitable corollary is appearing. Products are being offered to the public based on the racial, ethic, or even sexual identity group of the owners of the company that produced them.

This is visible, for example, on the shelves of Giant supermarkets in the Washington, D.C. area.



Via Facebook.

The owners of the chain, Giant Food of Maryland, LLC, a $5.6-billion-a-year subsidiary of European retailing colossus Ahold Delhaize, seem pretty proud of themselves. The trade publication Supermarket News featured the program late last year:

Giant Food is rolling out updated shelf labels that enable shoppers to identify products from minority-owned businesses. Plans call for all Giant supermarkets to post the new shelf labels starting in January, the Landover, Md.-based regional grocer said yesterday. The labels will inform customers about items from companies that are women-, Black-, Asian-Indian-, Hispanic-, LGBT-, Asian-Pacific- or veteran-owned.

It doesn't seem to bother anyone at the company or the trade publication that this is an invitation to boycott products that don't come from the preferred groups. We've seen this sort of thinking before  in Nazi Germany.



Photo via Yadvashem.org.

Clarice Feldman emailed me about this:

There seems to be a well-organized plan to promote black owned businesses  something seen here at Giant, but I also saw on my online grocer Fresh Direct. It's kinda like the Nazi campaign to dissuade shoppers from buying from Jewish owned businesses  in this case, white owned businesses discriminating against suppliers that are not minority owned.

Clarice wrote to Giant and got this reply:

Hello Clarice, Thank you for taking the time to contact us. At Giant Food, we value our stakeholders' diversity  associates, customers, and vendors  as one of our greatest strengths. We are committed to fostering and maintaining an open and inclusive environment where all are welcome in our stores and organization. At Giant Food, we are committed to making it easier for customers to identify product attributes that are important to them by fostering a diverse and inclusive network of suppliers that reflects the unique backgrounds and experiences of our Giant family, our customers, and our communities. The new shelf labels are just one example of Giant's commitment to giving customers the tools they need to quickly identify products with characteristics that are important to them. In 2017, Giant rolled out the HowGood rating system which identifies products based on factors ranging from ingredient sourcing to labor practices. In 2018, Giant also launched Guiding Stars, the nutrition navigation program that takes the guesswork out of nutrition by decoding product labels into one clear rating. The new shelf labels initiative comes as part of Giant's supplier diversity efforts in developing strong relationships with businesses that offer quality products, excellent customer service and competitive prices to shoppers. We continually work towards providing a better, safer, more inclusive, and convenient work and shopping experience for all our stakeholders. Again, thank you for taking the time to contact Giant Food. Sincerely, Adam S

Specialist, Customer Care

So, if you are a heterosexual white male, and you own a company that makes products sold in supermarkets, this practice identified you the same way that the Jude sign in Nazi Germany identified stores to boycott. And Giant, Ahold Delhaize, and Supermarket News are all fine with it.

As one Facebook commenter put it:

Could anything be better designed to get us at each other's throats? To return us to the xenophobia and tribalism woven into our animal natures that civilization takes generations upon generations to mitigate?

The answer is no.
JACKSON, MI - Jackson Public Schools will soon offer more in-person classes, citing students struggles with hybrid learning as a motivating factor to get them more face-to-face time with teachers.

JPS will offer in-person classes four days a week, starting March 15, after after a 5-2 Jackson School Board vote at its Monday, March 8 meeting. JPS currently offers in-person classes two days a week in a hybrid format.

In this new plan, students also can remain in virtual learning for the rest of the school year, while participating in live learning with students in in-person classes.

Forty-two percent of JPS students are struggling to learn in the hybrid model, Superintendent Jeff Beal said, later citing a high rate of failing grades among students at Jackson High School and the Middle School at Parkside as an indication of the limitations of hybrid and remote learning.

I look at the failures, or the E-list if you will, by staff member. I see the numbers - they are striking in some cases, Beal said.

These are good teachers. They go out of their way to help our students, but learning virtually does not suit every home - it does not suit every child. It does not create an equitable opportunity for all of our students.

Recent Jackson High School data shows there are 1,267 failing grades, or Es, among the approximately 7,200 class periods - a failure rate of about 17.6.%. The failing rate is higher at Parkside - 23.9% - where there are 1,365 failing grades out of a possible 5,700 class periods.

The challenge for that is, how many students are failing multiple classes or all of their classes? Beal said. We are especially seeing freshmen struggling in comparison to last years numbers.

At the elementary level, Beal said some classes show more than 50% of students are learning at more than a year below grade level.

Trustee Erin White said hes witnessed the struggles of virtual learning in his own household and wonders how long-term learning in a remote format will impact the achievement gap.

My first-grader, on a personal note, hes not proficient right now, White said. Were doing everything we can do, but were not trained teachers.

Board Vice President Libby Brown and Trustee Kesha Hamilton, who both voted against the plan, said they didnt think moving students to more in-person classes with three months left in the school year was worth the risks associated with bringing more people into school buildings.

Hamilton, who said shes currently dealing with a COVID-19 issue in her own family, said she understands students desire to be in person for classes, but the district should remain diligent in preventing the spread of the virus.

I personally am not comfortable with the idea of us bringing them back and a child who is asymptomatic going home infecting a family member who could die, Hamilton said. As much as I want them here for their academics, were not changing the course of events in their academic progress in the next three months.

Board Treasurer Cheryl Simonetti disagrees with the sentiment that a shift to more in-person learning would not have an impact on students ability to recover from pandemic learning loss, citing the failure rates as her reason for voting for more face-to-face instruction.

The data doesnt lie, she said. I dont know how anyone can say that weve made it through this far, so lets just continue for three more months, because we havent made it through this far. Kids are failing.

Teachers understand the potential pitfalls of students being in virtual learning for an extended period of time, said Geoffrey Lowes, president of the Jackson Education Association teachers union, while still expressing concern over the move for more in-person classes.

I just do wonder if March is still a little bit too early to move to a four-day week, Lowes said.

With more students in the classroom, shifting to four days a week of in-person classes could require some shuffling of class schedules or moving classes to larger spaces within school buildings to maintain reasonable social distancing, Beal said.

If we combined the cohorts A and B students together, there are some classrooms and teaching assignments that would have a difficult time enabling students to social distance because of the numbers in their room, Beal said.

Since returning from the state-mandated pause of in-person learning for high school students, JPS has seen fewer COVID-19 cases and quarantines among school staff and students, Beal said.

JPS COVID-19 dashboard shows there are seven active student cases of COVID-19, while 18 students are quarantining, as of March 8. There is one current case of the coronavirus among staff, while three staff members are quarantining.

For the month of February, we had virtually no staff that were positive and less than five students that were positive, Beal said. All the data suggests we are ready or capable of pivoting forward to (more in-person instruction).

After starting the academic year under a hybrid learning format, JPS had seen complications staying in the format as COVID-19 cases were identified among staff and students. An increase in local COVID-19 cases prompted JPS to extend the suspension of in-person classes for all grades through the holiday break.

Since returning to the hybrid format in early January, however, Beal said things have been looking up. The district and Jackson County educators also have had success in getting vaccination appointments since theyve become available.

Jackson County saw its new COVID-19 cases per 1 million residents drop from 175 from Feb. 23 to March 1 to 153 cases per 1 million from March 2-8.

At least 82% of all JPS staff have been vaccinated, including 87% of teachers, 95% of administrators and 92% of secretaries, Beal said.

JPS has been healthier since returning from our virtual stint than weve been almost at any time since the beginning of the pandemic, he said.

READ MORE:

Jackson Public Schools extends virtual learning through holiday break

This Michigan school is deploying Wi-Fi buses to families without internet

Visiting chef ready to challenge students palates with taste of Japan at Jackson High
NSU swim coach Monanian moving on after four seasons

Monanian moves on to Purdue after accepting an assistant position at their program.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Westbridge Energy Corporation (TSXV:WEB.H) ("Westbridge" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement dated March 4, 2021 (the "Business Combination Agreement") setting out the terms of a proposed business combination (the "Transaction") with Georgetown Solar Inc. ("Georgetown"), an arm's length company incorporated under the Business Corporations Act (Alberta). It is intended that the Transaction will result in the reactivation of the Company pursuant to the regulations of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"), and the listing of the common shares of Westbridge on Tier 1 or 2 of the TSXV.

Georgetown is a privately-held company focused on the development of large scale utility solar PV projects. Georgetown is currently in the process of assessment for development of the solar property known as the Georgetown project, which is comprised of approximately 710 acres located in Vulcan County, Alberta (the "Georgetown Project"). To date, Georgetown has conducted fieldwork, wetland delineation and classification and engineering assessments with respect to the Georgetown Project, with a view to the development of the project to "ready to build" status and divestiture. Upon completion of the Transaction, it is the intention of the parties that Westbridge will focus primarily upon the further assessment and development of the Georgetown Project, while seeking additional solar project development opportunities to enhance the overall value of the Company.

"On behalf of the board, we are extremely excited to have found such an impressive partner in Georgetown, led by Stefano Romanin and his team of global developers of utility-scale solar photovoltaic projects." Said Scott M. Kelly, Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Company. "Westbridge has always been driven to define opportunity and deliver value in the evolving energy sector. Today, we take an important step towards a future of growth, innovation, and market leadership by bringing our loyal shareholders into ESG and renewable energy".

Stefano Romanin, Chief Executive Officer of Georgetown said, "We are excited to have the opportunity to join Westbridge and continue to grow our solar development business with a new strategic partner. This transaction will strengthen our market position and open up new opportunities for expansion in the Canadian and USA markets".

Transaction Structure

The Transaction will be structured as a three-cornered amalgamation pursuant to which Georgetown will amalgamate with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Westbridge and Westbridge will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Georgetown from the shareholders of Georgetown in exchange for the issuance of an aggregate of 20,000,000 common shares of Westbridge (each, a "Westbridge Share") to such shareholders (being calculated based on a ratio of 2,000 Westbridge Shares for each one share of Georgetown outstanding).

The Transaction remains subject to the receipt of all applicable regulatory and third party approvals, including the approval of the TSXV, and the satisfaction of other closing conditions set forth in the Business Combination Agreement. An aggregate of 1,200,000 Westbridge Shares are issuable to Invictus Investments Ltd. (the "Finder") in connection with the Transaction.

The Transaction will constitute a change of business for the Company, as Westbridge was previously a resource issuer and upon completion of the Transaction, proposes to focus on solar project development opportunities. The Transaction is not expected to be subject to the approval of shareholders of Westbridge, on the basis that (i) shareholder approval is not required for a three-cornered amalgamation under applicable corporate law; and (ii) the Transaction is not a "related party transaction" and no other circumstances exist which may compromise the independence of the Company or other interested parties with respect to the Transaction; (iii) the Company is listed on the NEX board of the TSXV and is without active operations; and (iv) the Company is not and will not be subject to a cease trade order and will not otherwise be suspended from trading on completion of the Transaction. The Company proposes to apply for a waiver from the sponsorship requirements of the TSXV in connection with the Transaction.

Concurrent Financings

As a condition of the closing of the Transaction, Westbridge shall complete a best efforts private placement (the "Private Placement") of subscription receipts ("Subscription Receipts") at a price of $0.125 per Subscription Receipt (or such other price as may be agreed by the parties) to raise minimum aggregate gross proceeds of $2,500,000. Each Subscription Receipt will automatically convert immediately prior to the closing of the Transaction, for no additional consideration, into one unit (a "Westbridge Unit") comprised of one Westbridge Share and one-half of one share purchase warrant (each whole such share purchase warrant, a "Westbridge Warrant"). Each Westbridge Warrant shall entitle the holder thereof to purchase one additional Westbridge Share at an exercise price of $0.20 for a period of two years from the date of issuance of the Westbridge Warrants, provided that in the event that, at any time following the date which is four months and a day following the closing of the Private Placement, the closing price of the Westbridge Shares is equal to or exceeds $0.35 per share for any 10 trading days within any 30-trading day period (which, for greater certainty, includes any period prior to the closing of the Transaction), Westbridge may accelerate the expiry date of the outstanding Westbridge Warrants by providing 10 days' notice pursuant to the dissemination of a press release announcing such accelerated expiry date.

The gross proceeds of the Private Placement will be deposited in escrow at closing of the Private Placement with a mutually acceptable escrow agent and released to Westbridge immediately prior to the closing of the Transaction, provided that if the closing is not completed on or prior to June 30, 2021 (or such other date as may be agreed upon by the parties), the Subscription Receipts will be cancelled and the escrowed proceeds shall be returned to the purchasers thereof. In connection with the Private Placement, Westbridge may pay finder's fees and/or issue broker warrants to qualified registrants, in amounts and upon terms yet to be determined.

In addition, as a condition to the closing of the Transaction, Georgetown will issue convertible debentures in the aggregate principal amount of $350,000 which shall, as of closing of the Transaction, be automatically converted into Westbridge Units at a deemed price of $0.125 per Westbridge Unit (the "Debenture Financing").

Following the completion of the Transaction, the net proceeds from the Private Placement are anticipated to be principally used to further assess and develop the Georgetown Project, and for general working capital purposes. While Westbridge intends to spend the funds available to it as stated above, there may be circumstances where for sound business reasons a reallocation of funds may be necessary.

Capitalization

It is currently anticipated that immediately following the completion of the Transaction (assuming $2,500,000 is raised pursuant to the Private Placement), there will be approximately 63,044,154 Westbridge Shares outstanding, of which the current shareholders of the Company will hold 18,932,154 Westbridge Shares (or approximately 30.0%), shareholders of Georgetown will hold 20,000,000 Westbridge Shares (or approximately 31.7%), purchasers in the Private Placement will hold 20,000,000 Westbridge Shares (or approximately 31.7%), purchasers of Convertible Debentures will hold 2,912,000 Westbridge Shares (or approximately 4.6%) and the Finder will hold 1,200,000 Westbridge Shares (or approximately 1.9%). In addition, it is currently anticipated that there will be approximately 15,492,431 convertible securities of Westbridge outstanding upon closing of the Transaction (inclusive of 11,456,000 Westbridge Warrants, assuming the Private Placement is completed to raise aggregate gross proceeds of $2,500,000, the conversion of the Convertible Debentures into Westbridge Units, and that no broker warrants are issued in connection with the Private Placement), each entitling the holder to acquire one additional Westbridge Share in accordance with the respective terms thereof.

The securities of Westbridge issuable to the holders of Convertible Debentures and shareholders of Georgetown shall be subject to the following voluntary hold periods:

the securities comprising the WEB Units issuable upon conversion of the Convertible Debentures shall be subject to a hold period expiring concurrently with the expiry of the statutory hold period applicable to the Subscription Receipts pursuant to National Instrument 45-106; and the Westbridge Shares issued to shareholders of Georgetown will be subject to a hold period expiring on the date that is six months following the closing of the Transaction with respect to 50% of such Westbridge Shares, and 12 months following the closing of the Transaction with respect to the remaining 50% of such Westbridge Shares.

No new control person of the Company will be created as a result of the Transaction.

Proposed Management and Board of Directors

Upon completion of the Transaction, it is anticipated that the persons identified below will serve as directors and officers of Westbridge:

Stefano Romanin, Chief Executive Officer and Director - Stefano is an experienced investor in the private equity and energy sector, with a track record of deals in excess of $2 billion including wind, solar, biomass and energy from waste. Most recently, Stefano was the founder and CEO of a solar PV platform with assets of 1.45GW globally that was successfully sold to a large institutional investor. He was the director and owner of one of the largest energy from waste projects in the UK and he worked alongside investors to develop and build $1bn of solar PV assets across Europe and North America. Previously, he worked in JP Morgan's private equity team, focusing on direct and secondary investments, creating a dedicated platform for secondary PE investments. Stefano studied at Stanford University, Grenoble Graduate School of Business and University of Milan and holds a MSc in International Business (1st Class honours).

Phillip Stubbs, Chief Financial Officer - Philip is a qualified Chartered Accountant. His strong financial background derives from years long experience at Deloitte, as well as serving as finance director at an alternative investment manager, specialized in real estate, infrastructure and renewable energy, with a focus on the structuring, funding and exit of investments that provided strong returns to investors. He has a BSc in Physics from the University of Bristol (1st Class honours) and is an associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Margaret McKenna, Director - Margaret (Maggie) is a lawyer by training with a background in general corporate law and commercial litigation. In previous roles, Maggie has acted as i as general counsel and corporate secretary of a private remediation technology start-up company with Canadian and U.S. operations and served as in-house counsel for a multinational real estate investment and development company. Maggie has a BA from Indiana University and a JD from John Marshall Law School. She was admitted to the Illinois State Bar and the Law Society of Alberta.

Paul Larkin, Director - Paul brings in excess of 40 years of experience in corporate finance and capital markets to the Company. He is currently President of New Dawn, an investment and financial consulting firm providing administration and financial advisory services to a number of private and public companies. From 1972 to 1984, Paul held various corporate finance positions in the Canadian Banking system. Paul currently serves as a director and member of the audit committee of several public companies and, in such roles, has had experience with the review and understanding of the accounting principles relevant to public companies and interpreting and assessing the financial statements of public companies.

Marcus Yang, Director - Marcus is an experienced corporate financier and qualified Chartered Professional Accountant of Ontario & Canada. He also holds a Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment Level 3 Certificate and FCA (UK) approved person with CF30 functions. Marcus has over twenty years of banking and corporate finance experience gained from global financial and banking institutions. He has work experiences from KPMG and Deloitte as well as extensive banking experience from GE Capital and The Royal Bank of Scotland in London, UK. Most recently, he was a member of a London based, independent investment firm, Channel Capital Advisors, advising and arranging structured credit products for their global investors. He is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Canada) with a BA in Economics and Accounting.

Selected Financial Information of Georgetown

The following selected financial information is taken from the financial statements of Georgetown for the fiscal period ended November 30, 2020: (i) total assets of $34,891; (ii) total liabilities of $55,801; and (iii) shareholders' equity of $(20,982). For the period from incorporation on October 7, 2020 to November 30, 2020, Georgetown reported a loss and comprehensive loss of $21,982.

Readers are cautioned that the above figures have not been audited and are based on calculations prepared by management. Actual results may differ from those reported in this press release once these figures have been audited.

Conditions to Completion

Completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions including, but not limited to, TSXV approval. The Transaction cannot close until all required regulatory approvals are is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.

Completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, TSXV acceptance and if applicable, disinterested shareholder approval. Where applicable, the Transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all. Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the management information circular or filing statement to be prepared in connection with the Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of Westbridge Energy Corporation should be considered highly speculative. The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed Transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Scott Kelly

CEO

Westbridge Energy Corporation

604-687-7767

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements about the Company's expectations regarding the proposed Transaction of the Company and the Private Placement which are forward-looking in nature and, as a result, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them as actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include general business, economic, competitive and social uncertainties; and the delay or failure to receive all applicable regulatory and third party approvals, and availability of financing. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, except as required by law.

SOURCE: Westbridge Energy Corporation

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634444/Westbridge-Announces-Business-Combination-with-Georgetown-Solar
Burma Another NLD Member Dies While Detained by Myanmar Junta Forces

Ko Zaw Myat Lin, in charge of Suu Vocational Institute in Shwe Pyi Thar Township, has died while under military detention. (Photo: facebook)

Another National League for Democracy (NLD) member has died while under detention by Myanmars military regime.

Ko Zaw Myat Lin, who was in charge of Suu Vocational Institute in Shwe Pyi Thar Township of Yangon region, was arrested by security officers during a raid on the institute late Monday night.

His family was informed of his death Tuesday afternoon by township police when they asked his wife to identify his body at Mingaladon military hospital.

During the raid at vocational institute, three students and three local residents were arrested. Computers, vehicles, phones and money at the school were confiscated, according to Ko Min Wai, a teacher volunteering at the school. The school has offered free training courses on computers, language, and mechanics to young people in Shwe Pyi Thar.

Ko Min Wai said that, according to the deceaseds wife, Ko Zaw Myat Lin suffered a large wound to the abdomen. The military claimed Ko Zaw Myat Lin was injured by a pointed object when he climbed over a fence while attempting to escape arrest.

It is not possible, Ko Min Wai said. I cant bear this. How could they do this to an unarmed civilian? Even I was in tears after I heard of this shocking death.

The military declined to hand over the body and asked the family to come back on Wednesday morning for the funeral, he said.

Ko Zaw Myat Lin leaves behind his wife and a son.

On Sunday, U Khin Maung Latt, a NLD ward chairman in Pabedan Township, Yangon, reportedly died after being tortured, hours after he was taken from his home by soldiers and police.

You may also like these stories:

Japan urges Myanmar Regime to Stop Violence and Free Detained Leaders

Fear is the Glue That Holds Myanmars Military Together

Thailand Ready to Accommodate Refugees From Myanmar Fleeing the Violent Unrest
A year ago this month, major publications across the United States partially or completely lowered their paywalls. The idea was that information about the outbreak of covid-19 had life-saving potential, and so it should be available to everyone, not just to subscribersa fraction of news readers who tend to be the wealthiest and most highly-educated. Lowering paywalls was ethically sound. But it now raises important questions for media outlets: How long can they afford to keep their journalism free? And how will they determine which reporting is essential to the public?

Journalism is, at its core, a public service, Joy Mayer, the director of Trusting News, a research and training project that promotes journalistic credibility, said. But for any newsroom with a paywall, There is always going to be tension between financial sustainability and the desire to offer that service in a way that is accessible to everyone. Motives inevitably clash. From a strictly business perspective, youd want to put the most crucial content behind the paywall, Simon Owens, an independent tech and media journalist, argued. But he also offered a different perspective: There could be some public relations and brand-building benefits to lowering your paywall for service journalism, in that it may make your readership more likely to want to support your work.

That seemed to happen for The Atlantic, which received early praise for removing its paywall on coronavirus stories. Choosing to make vital coverage of the pandemic available for free to everyone was easy because it is so clearly the right thing to do, Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantics executive editor, told me. Last year, the magazine saw an increase of nearly four-hundred-thousand new subscribers. But as the months went by, the coronavirus proved not to have been the only subject requiring intense service-journalism: police brutality, Black Lives Matter protests, and the presidential election all carried life-or-death stakes. Across the journalism industry, the ambiguity over which stories constituted public service stirred confusion and distrust among readers. And recently, even pandemic stories have been paywalled; a recent visit to The Atlantic showed that some articles were free, others not.

What Im noticing now is anger on the part of readers when they hit a paywall on a covid story, Mayer said. Im seeing comments along the lines of: I thought you were going to make these stories free, I guess youre just greedy. The average news consumer tends not to know much about the business of news, she pointed outand why would they? Journalists are not present in the comments to correct the record, describe why they need community support, and explain how subscriptions factor into their ability to stay in business and pay their staff.

At The Wall Street Journal, editors took a holistic approach: they made the papers first guide to the coronavirus, What We Know, free for public view. Originally published last February, the guide was updated daily as reporters learned more about the outbreak. The Journal also lifted its paywall on other coverageduring and after the presidential election, for example, and following Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Florence. We think there are many topics of public service, Louise Story, the chief news strategist at the Journal, told me. On covid, we free up the stories that are about public safety. We really approach this on a case-by-case basis.

The willingness to remove barriers may cast doubt on the common presumption that paywalls are an unfortunate necessity in journalism, an essential public good that is expensive to produce. And paywalls do not affect all readers the same way. As Current Affairs pointed out last August, The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free; many left-leaning publications that thoroughly research and fact-check their articles paywall their journalism, while right-wing media disseminates conspiracies and racism to anyone wholl click. Only about sixteen percent of news-readers in the United States pay for subscriptions, which means that everyone else is locked out of knowledge, and likely to encounter a disproportionate amount of far-right fodder, often strewn with misinformation. We cant continue to talk about the lack of news literacy and misinformation while also denying access to the very people that we should be educating, Arionne Nettles, a journalism lecturer at Northwestern Universitys Medill School, told me. Whether we want to or not, we are going to have to work harder at teaching our audiences what we want them to understand.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

That the pandemic forced outlets to rethink their obligations to make vital coverage available provides some reason for optimism. I think that what weve seen, and will hopefully see more of, is a mixed-model approach where some premium content is under a paywall and content that is a public service is free, Nettles said. We can and should encourage people who can afford it to invest in paid subscriptions or memberships, but we cant expect everyone to be in that category. When we do so, we are only serving people who have the means to support us, and I just dont believe that thats our charge.

Of course, many non-profit news organizations have always thought in these terms. Soraya Membreno, the publisher of Bitch Media, a non-profit feminist magazine, argues that a sense of responsibility to readers can drive readership. While we stand by the conviction that good journalism is worth paying for and supporting those who are able to do so, it isnt a move thats ever really felt in line with Bitchs work or our relationship to our community, she said. As a non-profit outlet, our mission is to guide and encourage our readers to employ a feminist lens on the media and pop culture that we consume in our everyday lives. If we believed that feminism was for everyone, we couldnt then create hoops for people to jump through to get to it.

ICYMI: How to cover vaccine hesitancy

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Mary Retta is the education columnist at Teen Vogue and a freelance writer for Vice, The Nation, Bitch Media, and other outlets. You can see more of her work on Twitter @mary__retta.
New Delhi: Television actress Shweta Tiwari sent out a powerful message on International Women's Day for her daughter Palak Tiwari. The actress urged her daughter and other women to speak out against any form of violence.

Taking to Instagram, Shweta Tiwari encouraged women to take action against domestic violence and opened up about her own battle with domestic violence.

I know a lot of women around me are victims of domestic violence, who are quiet against it because they are scared that if they take a step, what will happen to their kids? Your kids are learning from you every day. If you stay quiet, your kids will learn to remain silent. They will accept domestic violence. If you take a step, your kids will become stronger and understand the difference between right and wrong.

They still criticise me for taking a step against domestic violence. But whatever I did, made my daughter sensible, intelligent and strong. I want to tell my daughter, I am always with you at every step, but you need to fight your own battles, Shweta said, addressing her daughter.

Captioning the video, she wrote, Dear Daughter: On this Womens Day, I wish you all the strength, courage and integrity for you to fight your lifes battles. I hope my experiences and right actions become a guidepost as you navigate through lifes obstacles.

To all the women out there: Dont carry on silently when you are undergoing domestic abuse. Speak up, at least for your daughters sake, so that she doesnt learn to remain silent when, God forbid, her lifes ship hits the rocks, she added.

Palak is Shwetas daughter from her first husband Raja Chaudhary. The TV actress had accused her husband of domestic violence and the duo got divorced in 2007. Shweta has a son with her second husband Abhinav Kohli. Shweta parted ways with her second husband and had filed a domestic violence case against him in 2019.
KYODO NEWS - Mar 9, 2021 - 23:46 | All, World, Coronavirus

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Tuesday affirmed the growing importance of working together to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific region in phone talks, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.

The leaders agreed to step up cooperation bilaterally as well as with the United States and Australia, the ministry said. The countries make up the so-called Quad, a group of major democracies that have been strengthening security ties as a counter to China's increasing influence in the region

During the 40-minute conversation, the ministry said Suga expressed concern about China's "unilateral attempts to change the status quo" in the East and South China seas, as well as the situation in Hong Kong and the far-western region of Xinjiang, where human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur minority have been widely reported.

Speaking over the phone for the first time since September last year, the leaders also shared "grave concerns" over the situation in Myanmar, where dozens of protesters against last month's military coup have been killed by security forces, the ministry said.

According to Japanese government sources, the leaders of the Quad, -- Suga, Modi, U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison -- plan to hold their first-ever teleconference as early as later this week, at which they are expected to discuss China, the fair distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and climate change.
Lucknow, March 9 : For the second consecutive year, examinations up to Class 8 will not be held in Uttar Pradesh government-run schools.

Due to the pandemic conditions, the state government has decided to promote students till Class 8 to the next class without examination. Their assessment will be done on the basis of performance throughout the academic session.

Last year, in 2020, students up to Class 8 were also promoted without examinations, on the basis of internal assessment.

Schools, thereafter, were closed for the next tens due to Covid 19 pandemic.

Studies have been affected for almost the entire academic session and online classes were started from July last year.

Children from economically weaker sections who study in government schools could not take the online classes.

Class from 6 to 8 reopened from February 10 and classes from 1 to 5 began from March 1.

Additional Chief Secretary, Education, Renuka Kumar, said, "We are running a 100 day 'Prerna Gyanotsav' programme for children up to class 8. The students will be assessed on this and promoted to the next class."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has listened to the forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and presented an ambitious budget for the year 2021-22 which makes for a modest economic outcome in the next 12 months.

Looking further ahead, the Chancellor suggests that the public sector deficit will be reducing but it remains a formidable sum.

Indeed, his forecasts for the scale of borrowing in the next three to five years are on a scale that until 2020-21 would have seemed irresponsibly large. However borrowing is expected to gradually reduce.

The underplayed theme of the budget for 2021-22 is that Government borrowing remains very large and, for fear of causing too large a fall in economic activity, the Chancellor has argued that to sustain the economy he has justified a continuation of the surge in borrowing legitimately launched in 2020.

As was to be expected, reducing borrowing in the circumstances of 2021 would have been unpopular and the rationale for continued high levels of borrowing therefore makes considerable sense.

Repaying even a part of the over 300bn borrowed in 2020 is a huge challenge. Since the need for extra spending has not yet ended, borrowing to provide further relief whether for furlough funds, extra business lending, or supplementary income support to people who have seen incomes sharply reduced is an acceptable political judgment.

The Budget has delivered an unusual mixture of reliefs from pandemic problems as well as a mixture of tax changes containing early and immediate easements along with the commitment to raise corporation tax to 25% (from today's 19%) in two years' time.

The freezing of personal allowances before taxpayers pay income tax, or pay at the higher rate, is a neat way of avoiding criticism of a breach of an election 'no change' commitment.

For Northern Ireland, the Budget can be interpreted as fair, if not verging on the side of being better than expected.

The Barnett consequentials alongside the receipt of the Treasury financed pandemic easements seems marginally favourable.

There is an emerging dichotomy. The UK Budget arithmetic implies that the private sector of the economy will recover strongly during 2021. That recovery justifies the Treasury forecast that the public sector should be supportive for some months before special public sector spending can be restrained.

Hence the Budget announcement that the furlough scheme will end halfway through the year, the extra relief for Universal Credit can be reversed and several of the other special schemes can be phased out or ended.

The critical assumption, affecting Northern Ireland, is whether the recovery in the private sector will be as strong here as across the rest of the UK.

That assumption may not be merited.

More than ever, economic progress could be affected by fear of political instability.

With the Brexit agreement now in place, the expectation was that settled business conditions and the new EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement would allow gradual adjustments to the new market conditions.

The divergent interpretations of how the Northern Ireland Protocol is being implemented is an unhelpful disrupting factor just when so many businesses have been hoping for some certainty about any adjustments that are necessary.

In the next few months businesses will be responding to the investment incentives built into the budget conditions.

The forthcoming increase in corporation taxation and the unusual exceptional tax incentive to bring forward potential investment plans will produce an early boost to company development plans.

The special allowance based on investment spending is exceptionally large and would have tested EU rules on State Aid if the UK had still been part of the EU.

This combination of fiscal changes should be a critical factor for businesses in NI encouraging them to take the advantage of the 'best of both worlds' positioning as part of the UK economy and with continuing easy access to the EU markets of 27 other countries.

The UK budget is structured to anticipate much reduced disruption caused by the pandemic and an easing of lockdown restrictions.

Later in 2021, that change should be followed by a re-opening of many closed businesses and an increase level of employment.

The impact of that recovery remains uncertain.

Within the UK the economic recovery will leave a seriously changed business landscape. Many businesses, particularly in retailing and hospitality, will continue to cope with major changes in consumer activity.

The search for a 'levelling-up' outcome cannot be confidently asserted. Northern Ireland, as ever challenged by its peripheral location and, now, challenged by the uncertain outcome of the protocol, may face a more restrained economic recovery.

This is a direct challenge to the local institutions.

The NI Executive must play an active role ensuring political stability and be prepared to adjust and adapt the devolved arrangements to enhance economic progress.
Its 14 degrees outside and threatening to dip toward freezing inside. You dont have any winter-weather-ready blankets or clothes in the house, and youre worried about your three kids and your older mother. Your house uses electric heat, and the powers outpossibly for several more days. You light a fire in your rarely used fireplace, huddle in front of it, and go to sleep. You barely survived the house fire. In the hospital, you learn that all three of your children and your mother died in your house the night before.

Advertisement

Its snowing outside your home for the first time. Your two school-age children have never seen snow before. But after they play outside, you all head back into your trailer, and reality sets in. The power is out, and you dont have any heat. The temperature is well below freezing outside. You huddle together with your family in one room and put your two kids in a bed together for warmth. The next day, you discover your 11-year-old child unresponsive lying next to his brother, dead. Youre later told that it was most likely hypothermia.

Advertisement

Advertisement

It can be terribly difficult to stay safe without basic infrastructure. When youre facing uncertain risk, action and inaction can both lead to disaster, particularly in the form of unforeseen secondary risks, like house fires or hypothermia. Academic researchers call these cascading impacts. Broken traffic lights and inoperable gas pumps make transit difficult; down cell towers and internet outages make communication difficult if not impossible; inoperable municipal water pumps can slow or stop the flow of tap water, and hampered water treatment facilities jeopardize the integrity of the water that is available, to name just a few impacts.

Advertisement

Epidemiological research shows that blackouts and their cascading impacts can increase overall mortality rates by 25 percent, after the 2003 North American blackout, to as much as 122 percent, after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. These deaths are often attributed to secondary system failures, including illness from untreated or contaminated public water sources, spoiled food, or carbon monoxide from improperly used cooking or power generating equipment.

Blackouts also make it more difficult to access emergency services when they are needed. After Hurricane Maria, for example, 9 percent of rural households in Puerto Rico were unable to reach 911 operators by telephone. Residents who rely on home medical equipment are particularly at risk when emergency services are inaccessible.

Advertisement

In 2020, electric utilities and grid regulatory agencies reported 383 electric emergency incidents and disturbances. (Reporting is required for emergency disturbances that meet certain thresholds. Generally, that includes major physical or cyberthreats, as well as actual disruptions to generation or distribution that are over about 100 MW or affect approximately 17,000 U.S. homes.) The risk of power outage events is growing due to a constellation of factors, including climate change, disinvestment, a quickly changing mix of supply from fossil fuels to renewables, and grid security vulnerabilities from things like cyberattacks. Recent events in Texas in February, New York City last summer, and California during both of the past two summers, and during numerous recent Atlantic storms, have rightfully received headlines. But the incident-by-incident approach to the coverage can obscure the fact that emergency electric incidents are on the rise in the U.S., surpassing 75 per year for the first time in 2004 and setting an all-time record last year.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Climate change in particular is threatening U.S. electric grid reliability. More extreme weather (both heat waves and cold snaps) increase demand. Extreme heat also reduces the efficiency of electrical transmission and distribution and causes power lines to sag, sometimes dangerously so, and warmer waterways reduce the efficacy of water-cooled thermal power plants. Extreme cold, for its part, can also cause serious problems with unprepared equipment, affecting fuel extraction and transport as well as primary generation and transmission, as we just saw in Texas. Changing precipitation patterns, including more extreme riverine flooding and droughts, pose additional challenges for water-cooled thermal and water-turbine hydro power generators.

Advertisement

Besides climate change, the grid is also a difficult management problem, creating its own risks. Unlike water, food, or other essentials, electricity cannot be usefully stockpiled on the scale required for widespread use during emergencies. Notwithstanding some marginal exceptions, by and large, electricity must be used at the same rate it is created. It takes less than one second for an electron generated at the Hoover Dam to reach a lightbulb in Los Angeles. In a real-time system this sensitive, it is a tall order to coordinate changes in generation or transmission along one part of the grid with generation and load in other parts of the grid. Considering the incredible challenge, the U.S. grid is actually surprisingly dependable, achieving 98 percent reliability over 7,300 generating stations, 250 million kilometers of transmission lines, and nearly 150 million total customers.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Despite the relative success of our grid, management institutions are not well positioned to meet new and growing risks. The current electric grid developed over much of the 20th century in a typical American fashionloosely coordinated, lightly regulated, business-driven. The U.S. electric grid is controlled by dozens of independent investor-owned utility companies and a confusing constellation of public and private, local, regional, and continental regulatory organizations including the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a nonprofit; the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a federal agency; and dozens of independent regional transmission organizations and independent system operators. Each of these organizations has a different role, some prescriptive and some observational, with varying degrees of statutory power, for different parts of the grid. This somewhat chaotic management landscape makes it difficult to modernize or harden the entire U.S. grid. The Obama administration spent years trying to implement a national smart grid, with little to show for it.

Advertisement

The decentralized nature of our electric grid and its management also makes it difficult to identify which parts of the system are most at risk during different potential stressor events like heat waves, winter storms, or wildfires. Grid operators follow industry standard practices for prioritizing power to their customers, but these standards are set by private professional organizations, not public regulators. Because most utilities are privately owned (and even publicly owned utilities often rely on private transmission systems), there is no way to know for sure who is more or less likely to lose power.

Advertisement

Advertisement

We have passed a murky but definitive threshold after which we became absolutely, hopelessly, and without exception reliant on electrical power.

In this environment, its all too possible for latent inequities in our society to manifest in electrical reliability. In fact, preliminary evidence from researchers at Arizona State University, in addition to anecdotal news reporting, suggests that inequitable patterns may very well exist. (Disclosure: ASU is a partner with Slate and New America in Future Tense; I work for ASU and was involved with this research as a Ph.D. student.)

Advertisement

We know that the risk of electrical blackouts is increasing, yet, as Texas showed us, many public officials and community residents still arent prepared for large blackouts. One reason for this may be that in the grand scheme of things, weve only lived in an electrified world for a very short while. In 1925, half of Americans still didnt have electrical power in their homes. But once it arrived, it was very reliable. Between 1950, when most U.S. households were electrified, and 2000, large-scale blackouts were relatively uncommon. Where and when they did occur, our society still had one foot in the preelectric era. More households had alternative sources of heating, cooking, or potable water, and included older residents who still knew how to get by in a preelectric world.

Advertisement

Advertisement

However, in the 21st century, our society passed a murky but definitive threshold after which we became absolutely, hopelessly, and without exception reliant on electrical power. And unlike in 1950, there is very nearly no one among us, born in the United States, who has any experience living in a preelectric world. When was the last time you saw a hand drill in someones garage? Do you know how to use a washboard?

The disconnect between our perception of the innate reliability of the electric grid and the reality of its new and precarious nature may help explain why were often caught off guard by large power outages, and unsure how to handle them when they do occur. As the risk of large-scale power outages like the one we saw in Texas increases, we need to stop being caught by surprise and start planning for how we will prepare and adapt.

Advertisement

Electric grid operators are already working to harden the North American electric grid to make it less likely to fail. Recent events in Texas will increase this motivation. However, there may be predictable winners and losers from a more reliable grid if equity concerns are not considered while grid hardening is planned. Utility companies and public regulators including elected officials should consider ensuring that efforts to increase grid reliability prioritize the most at-risk neighborhoods and populations, including families with small children, the elderly, and the working poor, who often do not have the resources to recover from a prolonged outage.

Advertisement

State and local elected officials, emergency managers, and utility operators should consult with research partners, including federal and professional organizations like the American Society of Civil Engineers and public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to identify the critical systems most likely to be affected by widespread or prolonged power failure, such as home heating or cooling, food storage, water treatment, telecommunications, and fuel pumps, and to prepare those systems for possible losses of power. Most importantly, officials need to do a better job communicating these risksand best practices for copingto the public before power disasters occur.

Were still a long way from a next-generation electric grid. In the meantime, we need to be ready for a new normal where we can expect to lose power at any time, potentially for days, as our grid continues to flex under pressure from a changing natural and institutional environment.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
The US has proposed a 'transnational peace government of Afghanistan' which will be formed once the Afghan Peace agreement is signed.

A draft peace agreement has been proposed by the US to kickstart the peace talks in Afghanistan which predict the formation of a transnational government with the Taliban and include certain provisions related o terror activities in Afghan. the US proposal has stated that a transnational peace government of Afghanistan shall be formed once the peace agreement is signed and the formation will continue to exist until it further transfers power to a permanent government, following the adoption of a new constitution and national elections.

The draft called- Afghan Peace Agreement is the second key document presented by Joe Bidens administration to push the peace process in Afghanistan. the US Secretary of state, Anthony Blinken had also written a letter to President Ashraf Ghani on the next steps that the USA envisioned.

Three major elements in the draft agreement are- (i)guiding principles for a new constitution and a new state structure; (ii) terms for a transnational government and; (iii) terms for a permanent ceasefire. the draft also includes options for power sharing to ease a settlement.

Also Read:

The letter by Anthony Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani included four points- asking the UN to summon a meeting of India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, and the US to discuss a unified approach on Afghanistan, asking Turkey to call a meeting of the Taliban and the Afghan side, getting the Afghan side and Taliban to fasten up discussions over a settlement and a plan to diminish violence in the region.

Although there were no official statements from India, people familiar with the recent developments stated that New Delhi will continue to back up the Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-controlled process. India holds the position that Afghan soil shouldnt be used for terror activities.

Also Read:
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A young woman has vanished from Sydney's eastern suburbs after she was last spotted early on Sunday morning.

Police are now seeking assistance from the public in an attempt to locate Nicole De Souza, 27.

She was last seen leaving an address on Houston Road, in Kensington, about 9am on Sunday.

Nicole De Souza was last seen leaving a home in Kensington, in Sydney's east, about 9am on Sunday

Police as well as her family and friends have expressed concerns for Ms De Souza's welfare

After she failed to return home, officers from Eastern Beaches Police Area Command were notified of her disappearance on Monday.

Officers then commenced inquiries into her current whereabouts, which remain unknown at this stage.

Police as well as her family and friends have expressed concerns for De Souza's welfare.

She is described as being of South American appearance, with a slim build, medium length dark coloured hair and brown eyes.

Police urge anyone with information about her current whereabouts to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hosted by Karyn Craven (founder of Burning Torch), Lucy Woodward, Faryal Ganjehei, Amy Eldon Turtletaub, Kate Finnerty, Wendy Selwyn and Hayden Bixby, 100% of the event proceeds will go to the children of the Cura Orphanage in Kenya. These funds will specifically benefit the children's educational journey and vocational training as they begin the transition to adulthood.

"In the past years I have had the pleasure of attending several Safari Nights, held at an Iconic recording studio in Los Angeles. The evenings were always magical filled with music, joy and the spirit of generosity. Even though this event looks a little different this year, the children of Cura still need our help and we are so excited to welcome people from all over the world to connect, share and enjoy life, together. Virtually, our reach is boundless," said Craven.

Joe Sumner interviews on-the-ground expert Hayden Bixby to find out why Cura orphanage is such a special place. Bixby details the history of the orphanage, the philosophy behind it and what's to come in the future. The interview will be available on March 9, 2021at anchor.fm/joe-sumner and will air on amazingradio.us on March 10, 2021.

"Cura is a place where HOPE has a place to GROW"

In 2006, Cura committed to providing a loving home for 50 Orphans who came to them with pressing medical and emotional needs. In the intervening years, the children's needs have changed, so the response has expanded beyond basic care and into medical, agricultural and educational projects that benefit the entire community. Cura remains committed to the young people who have grown up in their community and they continue to celebrate the wisdom of the local leaders who have helped them to be a force for positive change within the community. By 2010 the community needed a secondary school to provide education for all of its children. It was then that the Creative Visions team, led by Amy Eldon Turteltaub and Hayden Bixby, sprang into action to raise funds and develop partnerships that led to the construction, finalized in 2012.

Cura is committed to providing the best education for each student to support their transition to independent young-adult life for at least one year after graduation.

Quick Links + Notes:

LINK for additional Information and assets of donations.

for additional Information and assets of donations. The Virtual Auction will take place March 12 th & 13 th on https://www.burningtorchinc.com.

& 13 on 100% of all proceeds will be donated to Cura Orphanage in Kenya - https://www.curaorphanage.org/

- Sponsored by Burning Torch, LA based Luxury Lifestyle brand.

For Press Inquiries contact:

Katie Hurley

The GM agency

714-642-8065

www.thegmagency.com

[email protected]

SOURCE Burning Torch
Postal services provider TTPost yesterday shut its branches in Port of Spain and San Fernando after dozens of people rushed to collect senior citizen pension and public assistance grants and would not adhere to physical distancing rules.

Eventually, police were called to disperse the crowds.

Several elderly people at the St Vincent Street branch in Port of Spain complained about not being able to collect their pension cheques because other unruly ones refused to socially distance and abide by the law amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stella Griffith, 68, of Diego Martin, said she was adhering to rules of social distancing, but there were other people who came for their public assistance and disability grants and were refusing to listen.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Press Release

March 9, 2021 Senate Commends Seven TOYM Awardees The Senate on Tuesday adopted a resolution commending the seven awardees of The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) of the Philippines for their excellence and significant contributions to the welfare of the country. Senate Resolution No. (SRN) 621, introduced by Sen. Nancy Binay, was adopted taking into consideration SRNs 624 and 670 of Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto and Sen. Sonny Angara, respectively. Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III led other senators in congratulating the outstanding 2020 TOYM awardees, namely David Lopez Almirol for science, technology, and engineering; Lesley Jeanne Yu Cordero for political and social sciences; Edgar Tolentino Elago for community development in education; George Ilagan Royeca for business entrepreneurship in pioneering Industries; Raymond Francis Rapal Sarmiento for medicine; Mayor Victor Ma. Regis "Vico" Nubla Sotto for government service; and Capt. Ron Tendido Villarosa Jr. for community development in military service. "The Senate commends and lauds this year's seven TOYM Awardees for their excellence and steadfast constancy in their crafts, and in transforming communities and creating positive change," the resolution stated. Binay, in her sponsorship speech, said the works of the 2020 TOYM awardees is a reassurance that there are many who are willing to do the difficult and the uncomfortable-- to disrupt what has been taken for granted in the name of true public service. "I urge my colleagues, not just us lawmakers, but all of government--let us work together in creating an environment that allows us to replicate and scale up the innovations of our awardees and other changemakers," she added. Recto in his speech said the "amazing works" of the seven awardees have restored his faith in the future of the country. "I believe that what they did during the past year, when civilization was brought to its knees by a virus invisible to the eye, was a key factor in their selection. And rightly so, because if you notice the disciplines they excelled at, these are the very ones which have allowed us to survive the harrowing days and give us hope for a bright future," Recto said. Angara in his sponsorship speech said the seven awardees serve as a reminder that even amidst "very trying" times, there are people capable of outstanding feats and it is important the society recognize their exemplary achievements. "In my view the youth of our awardees is merely circumstantial, incidental even to the core themes of the stories of our awardees which are human perseverance, human compassion, and human ingenuity and foresight," Angara added. The TOYM awards is an annual project organized and presented by the Junior Chamber International - Philippines otherwise known as the Philippine Jaycees, the Gerry Roxas Foundation, Inc. and the TOYM Foundation since 1959.
President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that the authorities don't consider implementing any lockdown measures for Easter, and the state of alert will be extended this week.

He added that the circulation restrictions during the night could come into force earlier, at 22:00 instead of 23:00, as they currently are.

"The state of alert will be extended this week, due to the relatively high number of illness, and the restrictions that are in force will be kept, and the circulation at night time, which is now restricted starting at 23:00, will be restricted earlier, probably starting at 22:00," the head of state said at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace.At the same time, he said that the state of emergency is not taken into consideration for the Easter holidays."I can tell you very clearly, dear Romanians, we don't consider a lockdown for Easter," Iohannis also said.He warned about the high number of SARS-CoV-2 infections."I want to draw the attention that, however, the figures of the past week on the COVID-19 pandemic evolution are concerning. The growing trend is obvious and we receive messages from all areas that the pressure on the ICUs wars is increasingly higher," the President added.The head of state urged Romanians to observe the sanitary norms in force."My dear, let us not waste what has been conquered so far through the vaccination campaign, which is going very well (...). So that until summer we have a very good vaccination level. Nonetheless, until then we must be careful not to drown on the shoreline," Iohannis underscored.In respect to the vaccination campaign, he brought to mind that over one million people got vaccinated against COVID-19 in Romania and said that "the number of administered doses increases from one day to another, the number of vaccination centres increases from one week to another."
Springfield-born costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who took home an Academy Award for designing clothes for the leaders of Wakanada in Black Panther, is being hailed for her work dressing the royalty of another fictitious African nation, Zamunda, in the Eddie Murphy comedy sequel Coming 2 America.

The New York Times opined Carter, one of the all-time great costume designers, could take home another Oscar for her work: The art of Coming 2 America resides most fully in the costumes, which are at once travesties of globalist modern style and inspired tributes to it.

A review posted on RogerEbert.com states, Under her masterful guidance, everyone in Coming 2 America looks spectacular, from the soon to be king, Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy), to the rose petal-throwing women once again led by Garcelle Beauvais. The results are hypnotic; you cant take your eyes off the screen lest you miss some majestic pattern or a finely crafted angle of fabric rising in the air with true fierceness. Fashionistas rejoice, because as we say in my old neighborhood, Ruth E. Carter put her foot in it when she designed these outfits.

Carter told The Hollywood Reporter she opted to modernize the opulent creations from the 1988 original, noting, We know a lot more than we did 30 years ago about Africa and needed to be a little more sophisticated in Zamunda. I came up with a Zamundan story, while sharing the beauty and pageantry the first film offered.

Paul Bates as Oha, Jermaine Fowler as Lavelle and Leslie Jones as Jermaine's mother in "Coming 2 America." (Amazon Studios)Amazon Studios

I wanted to stay in the world of comedy, make it very colorful and keep people happy and laughing, Carter said. At times it was hard and felt like maybe I went too far over the top. Once the actors got into it, they carried it so well and made it okay to be daring and think outside the box. The actors took it to a higher frequency of humor, and I thought, what was I worried about?!

Carter previously worked with Murphy and director Craig Brewer on Dolemite Is My Name.

I think they were very much like, Ruth knows her stuff. Ive worked with him a lot. They were focused on getting the funny going, they were doing their part, and they didnt want to tell me how to get Zamunda together, Carter told Forbes. They just look in the mirror and know when they feel right, and I look in the same mirror and I know when it feels right, so together, we collaborate in that way.

Carter, who has created the look for characters in more than 45 movies, is a Springfield Technical High School graduate and StageWest apprentice.

She was was elected to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prestigious board of governors in 2019. That same year, Carter received a career achievement honor from her peers at the 21st annual Costume Designers Guild Awards.

Carter recently received a star of the Walk of Fame for costume design.

Springfield-born costume designer Ruth E. Carter arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Related content:
Mumbai, March 9 : Actress Raveena Tandon will soon be seen in the multilingual film "KGF 2", and she says she has always loved doing films from other states, especially the southern part of India, which are rich in content.

"KGF 2", which stars Kannada actor Yash in the lead, will release in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Hindi.

Raveena has earlier been part of the Tamil film "Sadhu" (1994) and the Telugu film "Akasa Veedhilo" (2001) among others, and she talks about her love for pan-India films.

"I have always enjoyed movies from South and enjoyed doing them. I love doing cinema from other states too. I do think that the South has always been very rich, technically as well as content wise and I have always enjoyed doing my Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada films," she tells IANS.

"I am looking forward to doing much more work in Kannada cinema, in south cinema and cinema from pan India. It's great to reach audiences of our country through this medium," she adds.

In "KGF 2", the actress will be seen essaying grey shades as Ramika Sen, a politician in power.

"I started making this shift (to grey shades) with 'Aks' and 'Satta' where my character was naive but eventually learnt the ropes. I never shied away because really there is so much to explore. People are afraid of being stereotyped but it never bothered me. Everyone has shared of white, grey and black in them as a human. No one is completely white. You just have to channel what is within you. It is a great thing to do. Especially with OTT platforms coming in, there is so much to do and explore," says the actress, who will make her OTT debut with "Aranyak".
The family of reggae star Bunny Wailer is asking his legion of fans worldwide to participate in a virtual candlelight vigil to celebrate the life of the legendary music icon on March 11th during a special Tan A Yu Yard nine-night.

Its a prayer for Bunny Wailers peaceful ascension. We are asking all and sundry to light a white candle, it could be a tea light candle or any white candle of your choosing and pray for Jah B as he traverses to higher ascension into the unknowable world, Maxine Stowe told DancehallMag.

He is now in conscious form and radiating a peaceful light free from the denseness of human form. So with this transformation, we assist in his travel with our own light and prayers. May he be received well. As Above So Below.

In the meantime, Bunny Wailers fans can take pics and tag it to the Bunny Wailer IG page.

Nine-Nights, also known as Dead Yard, is a funerary tradition practiced in the Caribbean. It is an extended wake that lasts for several days, with roots in African religious tradition. During this time, friends and family come together to the home of the deceased and share their condolences and memories while singing hymns and eating food together.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a stop to all gatherings of over 10 people and Prime Minister Andrew Holness has placed a ban on funerals and burials for two weeks beginning March 7 through the 22.

The number of total confirmed cases has almost doubled in the first two months of the year in Jamaica. It has risen around fourfold in Cuba, eightfold in Barbados and around tenfold in St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, according to Oxford Universitys Our World in Data database.

Jamaica should start receiving its 124,800 doses via the COVAX facility this month, and 1.8 million via the African Medical Supply Platform from April. The island nation received a donation from India of 50,000 vaccine doses recently.

Bunny Wailer died on March 2. The legendary icon, whose real name was Neville Livingston, had an illustrious career that spanned at least seven decades. He was the last surviving member of the original Wailers that included Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.

After leaving the Wailers in 1974 after the one true Wailers tour of England and the United States, Bunny embarked on a solo recording career that established him as one of the most compelling voices in reggae. Wailer launched his own label, Solomonic, in the early 70s, and his 1976 solo debut, Blackheart Man  considered one of reggaes magnus opuses  set the stage for other masterpieces, such as his next two albums, Protest and Struggle which featured strong Pan African themes.

He is best known internationally for the singles, Pass it On, This Train, I Gotta Keep on Moving, and Fighting Against Conviction. He also wrote and produced Marcia Griffiths pop hit, Electric Boogie.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
WOBURN, Mass., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Eirion Therapeutics, Inc., an aesthetic dermatology company headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts, announced a deal with Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology Ltd. ("Haohai") that will result in a $32 million Series A Preferred Stock investment into Eirion along with exclusive licenses that will be for all of Eirion's products for the territory of China in exchange for an upfront payment in the amount of $8 million. The deal is structured in segments over the next approximately 18 months. Haohai is a leading Chinese aesthetic medicine company headquartered in Shanghai and is publicly traded on the Hong Kong (6826.HK) and Shanghai (688366.SS) stock exchanges.

"This transaction allows Haohai to bring Eirion's very innovative product candidates into China. As a leading aesthetic company with products ranging from dermal fillers to electro-optic equipment in China, Eirion's highly complementary products have the potential to catapult Haohai to becoming a dominant player in Chinese aesthetic field," said Haohai's Chairman Dr. Yongtai Hou.

Haohai is investing $31 million and a US investor is co-investing $1 million in Eirion that in aggregate will obtain a minority stake in the company. Eirion has been funded previously through approximately $11 million of convertible notes which will convert into Series A Preferred Stock in connection with Haohai's investment.

"We are thrilled to partner with Haohai, an established aesthetics leader in China, a country poised to become the largest aesthetic market in the world. Together, we look forward to accelerating innovation in the global marketplace," commented Jon Edelson, MD, Eirion's Chairman, CEO, and President.

The companies have signed two product licenses that have the potential in aggregate to provide Eirion approximately $43 million in development fees, $444 million in sales milestones, with product royalty rates ranging from high single digits to the low twenties. One license is for Eirion's neuromodulator-based product candidates, ET-01 (topical) and AI-09 (injectable) for aesthetic indications; and a second license is for Eirion's small molecule product candidates, ET-02 (topical) and ET-03 (oral), which are intended for the treatment of hair loss and hair greying. Under the terms of the licenses, the products will be manufactured in the US by Eirion and developed and commercialized by Haohai in China.

"My work as a clinical advisor and investigator with the Eirion team has given me a front row seat to see the Eirion team's commitment to scientific rigor and the aesthetic dermatology space. This transaction gives Eirion an even greater platform and set of resources to realize and expand the opportunities that they have identified," stated Kenneth Beer, MD. Dr. Beer is a noted clinical investigator and dermatologist in private practice in Florida.

Eirion's Technology

Eirion has invented a proprietary approach to topical neuromodulator treatment: before the application of the topical neuromodulator, the skin will be pre-conditioned by a device that will create temporary micropores that aide in the absorption of the neuromodulator into the skin. The topical neuromodulator itself employs a patented nanoemulsion delivery system. The treatment in total is intended to avoid the pain and potential bleeding, bruising and needle misplacement that can associated with the current hypodermic needle administration used for all commercial neuromodulators today.

Eirion's Clinical Product

Eirion's lead product ET-01 is a Phase 2 topical neuromodulator product candidate being developed for the treatment of lateral canthal lines (Crow's Feet wrinkles) and primary axillary hyperhidrosis (excessive underarm sweating). In its Phase 2 clinical trials to date using its drug-device combination, Eirion has observed the potential for ET-01 to treat wrinkles, with results that are statistically significant, showing improvements measured at muscular contraction when the Crow's Feet wrinkles appear at their worst on the face. Eirion has also observed promising effects and duration of effects of a single application of ET-01 in the physician's office when compared to the effects of a single injection observed in published studies of a commercially available neuromodulator. Eirion plans to begin a Phase 2b study this year to further study the efficacy and safety of ET-01.

Eirion's Pre-Clinical Products

Eirion is developing a next generation ready-to-use liquid injectable neuromodulator product called AI-09 for the treatment of glabellar (frown) lines. Eventually, AI-09 may be developed for other aesthetic and medical indications. AI-09 will be provided as a ready-to-use, liquid formulation, which contrasts favorably to currently commercialized neuromodulator products that all require reconstitution with saline in the physician's office before use. As well, in contrast to current injectable products, AI-09 does not contain human albumin, which carries a risk of disease transmission. Both ET-01 and AI-09 have been shown to be stable at room temperature for at least 3 months, which is also an advantage over current products that require shipping to and storage at the physician's office in frozen conditions. Eirion plans to file an IND for AI-09 later this year.

Eirion's pre-clinical product candidates ET-02 and ET-03, which contain the same small molecule, employ a brand-new mechanism of action which corrects an aging defect in the hair follicle stem cells that Eirion has discovered causes androgenic alopecia (hair loss) and hair greying. Eirion believes that ET-02 and ET-03 can either prevent the defect from occurring or reverse the defect which would result in either new hair growth in those who have lost hair or the return of hair color for those how have turned grey. Eirion believes our product candidates are the first potential pharmaceutical treatments in development for hair greying.

In controlled non-clinical studies of human scalp tissue affected by androgenic alopecia, ET-02 demonstrated approximately twice the hair growth compared to a control treatment over approximately 4 months, which was statistically significant, and amounted to approximately three times the hair growth per centimeter over that which was observed in minoxidil clinical trials that were 12 months in duration. Eirion plans to launch its first clinical trial of ET-02 next year.

About Eirion Therapeutics, Inc.

Eirion Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately held, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that is developing next-generation prescription products for aesthetic dermatology. Eirion currently has a rich pipeline of products focusing on treatments for wrinkles, primary axillary hyperhidrosis, androgenic alopecia, and hair greying. In the future, Eirion plans to also pursue additional indications that address other major unmet clinical needs for physicians and their patients. At the 2020 Fall Clinical Dermatology conference, Eirion competed in, and then won, the business "shark tank" contest called the Skin Health Innovation Competition. For more information, please go to www.eirionthera.com.

About Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology, Ltd.

Haohai Biological Technology is a leading company in China focusing on the research and development, manufacturing and sales of biomedical materials. Haohai strategically targets the fast-growing therapeutic areas including medical aesthetics, ophthalmology, wound care, orthopedics, and hemostasis. Haohai's dermal filler products include Hyalumatrix, Matrifill and Janlane. Haohai is traded on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges.

For Press Inquiries Contact:

Megan Driscoll

EvolveMKD

646.285.7165

[email protected]

SOURCE Eirion Therapeutics, Inc.
This semester, we asked students in our international debt class what they would say if either the French or the Haitian governments came to them today, asking for advice on whether Haiti had a viable legal claim arising from these 1825 events.

Surprisingly, the literature on odious debt pays fairly little attention to this episode. Perhaps this because the doctrine of odious debt was developed with a view towards borrowing by a despot who is subsequently overthrown. Must the populace repay money borrowed to oppress it? Thus, when Haiti does show up in the odious debt literature, the question typically involves debts incurred by the despotic Duvalier regimes. The Independence Debt, by contrast was incurred in the context of a colony escaping the control of an imperial power, and the modern odious debt literature generally ignores this context. We discuss this in a recent Clauses and Controversies podcast with the wonderful Gregoire Mallard, that should be out soon.

The Haitian Independence Debt of 1825 is perhaps the most odious in the history of sovereign debt. France agreed to grant recognition to the Haitian state in exchange for a massive indemnity payment, ostensibly intended to compensate French plantation owners for losses suffered during Haitian revolution. With French gunboats lurking in port and offshore, the French imposed a massive and unpayable debt burden equal to roughly 5 times the annual French budget.

It is easy to imagine barriers to such a claim (e.g., the difficulty of establishing jurisdiction, the statute of limitations). We wondered if students would take the easy route and simply concede that these barriers are insurmountable. (Who could blame them, given the exhaustion of learning on Zoom?) To our delight, while students took these barriers seriously, they worked very hard to articulate viable legal claims that Haiti might bring notwithstanding the passage of time.

Five of the student groups have posted their drafts on ssrn.com, and we recommend them to anyone interested in this topic. We are biased, but we think each paper advances, in some important way, the discussion of the legal viability of a claim against France. Each also resulted from a lot of work, which was compressed into about a month and a half. So were super proud of their effort and the resulting product.

Here are links to the papers that have been posted so far. More may be coming.

Leila Hatem, Clare Holtzman & Zach Pollack (Unjust Enrichment in the ICJ as a Path to Recovery For Haiti: Why the Independence Indemnity Was Invalid Under International Law). Link here.

Mandy Boltax, Thomas Boulger & Tyler Miller (The Haitian Independence Debt: A Case For Restitution). Link here.

Kathy Fernandez, Kristen Casey & Nikoleta Nikova (Frances Overdue Debt to Haiti). Link here.

Austin Hart (The Haitian Independence Debt: A Memorandum to the Haitian Government). Link here.

Ruby Wang (An Uphill Battle: Restitution for the Haitian Independence Debt). Link here.

For inspiration, we owe a debt to our wonderful and brilliant legal historian friend, Julia Rudolph, who came on our podcast to do an episode laying down the basics. And we also owe Ira Kurzban, Brian Concannon, and Jacqueline Charles for giving us background on Haitis past attempts to obtain some measure of recovery. (Julias podcast is available here and Jacquelines is available here.)
Health board data shows how Covid hospital admissions have dropped in North Wales since second wave peak

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Mar 9th, 2021

New data has shown how Covid hospital admissions have dipped sharply in North Wales since the peak of the second wave.

Coronavirus cases have been reducing across the region over the last two months after the amount of patients going into hospital with the virus reached its highest point in mid-January.

Graphs published by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board ahead of an upcoming meeting show the number of community cases and admissions were at their worst in the north east for most of the period.

But this has now levelled out with most areas in a similar position.





As can be seen below, the decline in cases within the community has been most notable in places like Wrexham, which at one stage was the worst in Wales in terms of infection rates.

Counties further west started relatively low and remained so for most of the time, despite Anglesey and Gwynedd, witnessing increases more recently.

A hospital outbreak occurred during late February at Ysbyty Gwynedd, which has resulted in an increase in inpatients with Covid-19 in late February and early March and the suspension of planned operations.

The health board said a range of outbreak interventions have been put in place and are being closely monitored.

In line with the reduction in admissions due to Covid-19, pressure upon critical care facilities has decreased slightly, although is still said to be very busy.

There are currently 12 patients being look after across the three critical care units, who are receiving enhanced treatment due to the virus.

Writing in a report to board members, the health boards new chief executive Jo Whitehead said: The past two months has seen the NHS in Wales and across the UK under extreme pressure as it responds to increased COVID-19 infection rates.

This has been no different in BCUHB, however since reaching a peak in mid-January 2021, rates of occupancy of COVID-19 patients in our critical care beds have gradually decreased.

This has enabled a gradual de-escalation in Wrexham Maelor Hospital and Ysbyty Glan Clwyd as COVID-19 levels reduce with the reopening of some closed wards in acute and community hospitals following the closure of outbreaks.

Unfortunately, an outbreak within Ysbyty Gwynedd in late February has led to the temporarily suspension of some elective surgery, which will be reviewed on 8 March.

The area team are maintaining escalated capacity in community hospitals to support and Wrexham Maelor Hospital have restarted essential surgery and some day-case surgery.

A further report on the health boards ongoing response to COVID-19 pressures is included on the Public Board agenda.

I would like to thank all staff at BCUHB for their ongoing work to keep our communities and colleagues safe during this period of extreme operational pressure.

The board papers show that as of Monday, the health board had administered over 270,000 Covid-19 vaccines in North Wales, using both the Pfizer vaccine and AstraZeneca vaccine.

The figure includes 43,000 second doses of the vaccine.

A reduction in supplies did materialise as expected in mid-February but is now anticipated to increase.

The health board reached the first milestone of the national vaccination plan on time in February.

It is now working on vaccinating priority groups five to nine, which mostly includes those aged between 50 to 69, by mid-April.

The health board has pledged that no-one will be left behind under the immunisation programme.

It said: Do not worry if you think you have been missed. We will always vaccinate anyone whose priority group has been called but for whatever reason they have not received an invitation or could not attend.

Simply contact us on 03000 840004. Alongside, we have a proactive search process being followed to target hard-to-reach populations or those we may not know about.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Gigantic jet spied from black hole in early universe

Astronomers have discovered evidence for an extraordinarily long jet of particles coming from a supermassive black hole in the early universe, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

If confirmed, it would be the most distant supermassive black hole with a jet detected in X-rays. Coming from a galaxy about 12.7 billion light-years from Earth, the jet may help explain how the biggest black holes formed at a very early time in the universe's history.

The source of the jet is a quasar - a rapidly growing supermassive black hole - named PSO J352.4034-15.3373 (PJ352-15 for short), which sits at the center of a young galaxy. It is one of the two most powerful quasars detected in radio waves in the first billion years after the big bang, and is about a billion times more massive than the Sun.

How were supermassive black holes able to grow so quickly to reach such an enormous mass in this early epoch of the universe? This is one of the key questions in astronomy today.

Despite their powerful gravity and fearsome reputation, black holes do not inevitably pull in everything that approaches close to them. Material orbiting around a black hole in a disk needs to lose speed and energy before it can fall farther inwards to cross the so-called event horizon, the point of no return. Magnetic fields can cause a braking effect on the disk as they power a jet, which is one key way for material in the disk to lose energy and, therefore, enhance the rate of growth of black holes.

"If a playground merry-go-round is moving too fast, it's hard for a child to move towards the center, so someone or something needs to slow the ride down," said Thomas Connor of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, who led the study. "Around supermassive black holes, we think jets can take enough energy away so material can fall inward and the black hole can grow."

Astronomers needed to observe PJ352-15 for a total of three days using the sharp vision of Chandra to detect evidence for the X-ray jet. X-ray emission was detected about 160,000 light-years away from the quasar along the same direction as much shorter jets previously seen in radio waves by the Very Long Baseline Array. By comparison, the entire Milky Way spans about 100,000 light-years.

PJ352-15 breaks a couple of different astronomical records. First, the longest jet previously observed from the first billion years after the big bang was only about 5,000 light-years in length, corresponding to the radio observations of PJ352-15. Second, PJ352-15 is about 300 million light-years farther away than the most distant X-ray jet recorded before it..

"The length of this jet is significant because it means that the supermassive black hole powering it has been growing for a considerable period of time," said co-author Eduardo Banados of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany. "This result underscores how X-ray studies of distant quasars provide a critical way to study the growth of the most distant supermassive black holes."

The light detected from this jet was emitted when the universe was only 0.98 billion years old, less than a tenth of its present age. At this point, the intensity of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the big bang was much greater than it is today.

As the electrons in the jet fly away from the black hole at close to the speed of light, they move through and collide with photons making up the cosmic microwave background radiation, boosting the energy of the photons up into the X-ray range to be detected by Chandra. In this scenario, the X-rays are significantly boosted in brightness compared to radio waves. This agrees with the observation that the large X-ray jet feature has no associated radio emission.

"Our result shows that X-ray observations can be one of the best ways to study quasars with jets in the early Universe," said co-author Daniel Stern, also of JPL. "Or to put it another way, X-ray observations in the future may be the key to unlocking the secrets of our cosmic past."

###

A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. The other co-authors of the paper are Chris Carilli (NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico); Andrew Fabian (University of Cambridge, UK); Emmanuel Momjian (NRAO); Sofia Rojas-Ruiz (MPIA); Roberto Decarli (INAF, Bologna, Italy); Emanuele Paolo Farina (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching, Germany); Chiara Mazzucchelli (ESO, Chile); Hannah P. Earnshaw (Caltech, Pasadena, California).

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

This story has been published on: 2021-03-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
OLD BRIDGE, N.J., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Calvary Old Bridge will be hosting an informational session with Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey on Sunday, March 28 at 6pm to raise awareness of New Jersey State legislation impacting education. The gathering is a call to action to get the word out to families regarding public school curriculum that infringes on the Constitutional rights of parents and students to freedom of conscience. Shawn Hyland, Executive Director of Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey, will be discussing changes in public school curriculum that conflict with the religious convictions of many families.

The goal of the gathering is to inform parents and mobilize the community to get involved in school curriculum issues and work to remedy the state legislature's violation of constitutional and religious rights, taking back control of their child's education. Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey will be informing parents of proposed New Jersey State legislation that aims to protect parental rights. In particular, Shawn Hyland will be discussing Assembly Bill 3000 and Senate Bill 3002 which provides that public school parents who object to learning materials or activity that a parent considers harmful may receive a voucher from the school district to enroll the student in a non-public school. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and learn how to get involved.

Lloyd Pulley, Senior Pastor of Calvary Old Bridge stated, "Parents need to know what their children are being taught in public schools (really government schools). Biblically, parents are responsible for their children, and historically, public schools reflected the values of a community. An unprecedented radical leftist agenda now seeks to negate parental choice. Parents need to learn what options they have in how their children are being educated."

Calvary Old Bridge is a non-denominational Christian church located in Old Bridge that is committed to equipping families with a biblical worldview whether in their Christian school, home education group or in the public school setting.

All are welcome to attend the meeting on March 28. To learn more and to register visit ccob.org.

Debbie Biskey

Communications Manager, Calvary Old Bridge

www.ccob.org

[email protected]

732-679-9222

SOURCE Calvary Old Bridge

Related Links

http://www.ccob.org


Elon Musk is getting into the Texas power market, with previously unrevealed construction of a gigantic battery connected to an ailing electric grid that nearly collapsed last month. The move marks Tesla Inc.s first major foray into the epicenter of the U.S. energy economy.

A Tesla subsidiary registered as Gambit Energy Storage LLC is quietly building a more than 100 megawatt energy storage project in Angleton, Texas, a town roughly 40 miles south of Houston. A battery that size could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day. Workers at the site kept equipment under cover and discouraged onlookers, but a Tesla logo could be seen on a workers hard hat and public documents helped confirm the companys role.

Property records on file with Brazoria County show Gambit shares the same address as a Tesla facility near the companys auto plant in Fremont, California. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lists Gambit as a Tesla subsidiary. Executives from Tesla did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Shares of Tesla rose 2.9% to $614.99 as of 9:45 a.m. in New York. The stock has fallen for the past four days and is down about 12% so far this year.

As winter storms pummeled Texas in February and left millions without power for days, Musk took to Twitter to mock the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot, the nonprofit group that manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million customers. Not earning that R, he wrote. Musk, 49, recently moved to Texas and his various companies are expanding operations in the state.

The battery-storage system being built by Teslas Gambit subsidiary is registered with Ercot. Warren Lasher, senior director of system planning at Ercot, said the project has a proposed commercial operation date of June 1. The site is adjacent to a Texas-New Mexico Power substation.

While Tesla is known for its sleek, battery-powered electric vehicles, its always been more than a car company: its official mission is to accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy. Utility-scale batteries are needed to store the electricity produced by wind and solar, but they can also become lucrative opportunities. By storing excess electricity when prices and demand are low, battery owners can sell it back to the grid when prices are high.

Tesla has spent years expanding into residential energy technology. Back in March 2015, Musk unveiled a home battery product, dubbed the Powerwall, with a splashy event at its design studio near Los Angeles. Scores of utility and energy executives attended. A year later Tesla acquired SolarCity, the solar-panel installer founded by Musk and his cousins. Musk then hawked a solar roof that has gone through several iterations without becoming a strong contender in the market.

But the companys product lineup already reaches beyond the home and into the electrical grid. The Tesla Powerpack and even larger Megapack were designed with utility customers in mind. Teslas battery project in South Australia, launched in 2017, is adjacent to a wind farm and can store surplus electricity generated on gusty nights for daytime demand. At 100 megawatts, it was the largest battery project in the world at its launch.

While Teslas focus on energy often takes a back seat to the increasingly competitive business of manufacturing and selling electric cars, Musk and his executive team continue to highlight energy as a key part of their growth. I think long-term Tesla Energy will be roughly the same size as Tesla Automotive, Musk said during an earnings call in July 2020. The energy business is collectively bigger than the automotive business.

Teslas battery packs are connected to Southern California Edisons Mira Loma substation, located east of Los Angeles. The 20 megawatt system, which has been online since December 2016, supports grid operation during peak hours and helps the utility make the most of its renewable resources. In the San Francisco Bay Area, PG&E Corp. and Tesla are constructing a 182.5 megawatt system at an electric substation in Moss Landing that should be operational by August.

Tesla Energy could represent up to 30% of the companys total revenue by the 2030s, up from roughly 6% today, according to analyst Alexander Potter of Piper Sandler. His research has highlighted the potential for Autobidder, a software platform Tesla designed for utilities. Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn has described Autobidder as an autonomous energy market participation system that does high-frequency trading. Potter has a $1,200 price target on Tesla stock, the highest on Wall Street.

Teslas energy storage business on a percentage basis is growing faster than their car business, and its only going to accelerate, said Daniel Finn-Foley, head of energy storage at Wood MacKenzie Power and Renewables. They are absolutely respected as a player, and they are competing aggressively on price.

Musks empire has numerous branches in Texas, and with the billionaires recent relocation from California, the Lone Star state now appears set to become the center of his universe. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, is building and testing Starship, a new rocket and spacecraft designed to take humans to Mars, at a facility in Boca Chica on the southern tip of the Gulf Coast. Another rocket-testing facility is located in McGregor, near Waco.

SpaceX has posted engineering positions in Austin for a new, state of the art manufacturing facility for Starlink, a space-based high speed Internet service. Tesla is also building a new factory in East Austin for its forthcoming Cybertruck, an electric pickup. Gigafactory Texas, as the facility is known, will create 5,000 mid-level manufacturing jobs and is supposed to produce the first vehicles by the end of this year.

Musks focus on Texas comes as the dominant U.S. energy hubwith its abundant natural gas, oil, solar and wind resourcesis being transformed by the surging growth of renewables. For more than a century the Texas grid has transported power from large plants to customers over miles of transmission lines. The recent storms have highlighted just how fragile that legacy system is in the era of climate change. With the build out of giant batteries like those made by Teslas Gambit project and others, the states power grid could be remade around distributed generation that may prove more resilient.

About 2,100 megawatts of battery storage and 37,000 megawatts of solar and wind are in advanced stages of connecting to Ercots grid. Its not only stunning but the financing is already in place, Jigar Shah said on March 2, a day before the clean-energy pioneer was named as director of the U.S. Energy Departments loan finance office.

The Gambit project was originally developed by San Francisco-based Plus Power, a privately held renewables company that has battery operations in several states. Scott Albert, the former city manager of Angleton, said it was obvious that Plus Power was working with Tesla. A project summary available on the citys website features images of Teslas utility-scale battery products, and some of Plus Powers principal staffers previously worked at Tesla. (Plus Power confirmed its sale of the project to an undisclosed party and declined further comment.)

The Gambit project is not hard to find in Angleton, a small town of roughly 3,000 people in the middle of the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge. But people on the construction site appear to have instructions to avoid drawing attention or answering questions from passersby. A photographer who attempted to observe from the front gate was told by a worker that it was a secretive project. White sheets obscured what appeared to be Teslas modular Megapacks.

In Texas, Albert said, its common for developers in real estate or energy to begin projects with several potential partners or purchasers waiting in the wings. It made sense to him that the project ended up with the states biggest billionaire. Elon Musk has a lot of activity in Texas right now, said Albert. It wouldnt surprise me if Musk is thinking about starting his own power company.
Several people with connections to North Texas and Denton County have been arrested in connection to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Statement by Amb Byrne Nason at Arria Meeting on Inclusion of Women in UN-Led Peace Processes

Statement

Dear friends, a chairde,

Failte romhaibh, welcome to this Open Arria Formula meeting on the auspicious date of International Womens Day.

Ireland is delighted to co-host this meeting with Mexico, our fellow co-chair of the Informal Experts Group on Women, Peace and Security. Along with our ten additional co-sponsors  Estonia, France, Kenya, Niger, Norway, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Viet Nam - I believe we might be setting a new record!

The strong interest in todays discussion among Council Members is heartening. We stand together in this call to action to ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in UN-led peace processes.

25 years ago, in 1996, before Security Council Resolution 1325 was adopted, a group of determined women in Northern Ireland came together to contest elections to decide who could participate in peace negotiations. This cross-community, anti-sectarian coalition secured two seats and went on to participate in the talks, playing a key role as honest brokers and securing provisions in the Good Friday Agreement on issues like victims rights and reconciliation. Through their trusted position in the community, they were crucial in winning public support to approve the peace agreement in a referendum. One of those women, Bronagh Hinds, is with us today.

For Ireland, the WPS agenda is personal. We witnessed at first hand the powerful impact of womens meaningful participation in peace negotiations.

The participation of women in peacebuilding is not naive idealism. Gender equality is not an aspiration reserved for peaceful countries, somehow too difficult or inconvenient for countries in conflict. The evidence shows that womens participation in peace processes leads to better outcomes in the substance and quality of peace agreements, as well as their durability.

Yet, sadly, real participation has not been the norm.

Yes, there have been some bright spots  in Liberia and Colombia to name a few.

But we need to be honest with ourselves and with each other. Two decades on from the adoption of Resolution 1325, the participation of women in peace negotiations remains unacceptably low, and that includes negotiations facilitated by the United Nations.

It is worth reminding ourselves just why the WPS agenda is so important. It offers nothing less than the tools to transform peacebuilding and achieve sustainable peace. Instead of relying on the instigators of conflict to create peace, the participation of women disrupts the status quo that begot the conflict in the first place by establishing an inclusive vision of peace.

By failing to achieve the promise of 1325, we are depriving ourselves of the means to achieve peace.

When something is not working, we need to change how we do it.

At todays meeting, our hope is to show our strong support as Member States for the United Nations to insist on the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in peace and political processes it leads or co-leads. We want to give concrete political impetus to the UN in making this a requirement.

The UN exerts a special moral authority. For those of us smaller Member States in particular, it incarnates our hopes for peace. In order to be a guardian of peace in our world, the ideal of equality  in particular gender equality  must permeate all areas of the UNs work.

That is why our focus today is on the role of the United Nations in leading the way on womens participation. If the United Nations does not insist on this, what hope have we that other actors will do so?

We acknowledge that there are deeply embedded structural barriers impeding womens participation, and that the UN is working in some of the most difficult contexts for peace. We will soon hear from Special Envoy Pedersen regarding Syria and from Rasha Jarhum regarding Yemen.

We 100% support and commend the efforts of USG DiCarlo, Special Envoy Pedersen and their colleagues to push through on this and to advance the participation of women. What we want to make clear today is that you have our backing to press harder. It is not easy to insist on womens participation in these contexts. But we believe that it is necessary, and it is overdue. Not to do so seems to be an unforgivable missed opportunity.

As I said earlier in another meeting earlier today, Women are not asking permission to be at the table. We are demanding to be at the table. Participation is our right. Tokenism will not satisfy that right: we need direct, substantive inclusion of diverse women so that they can influence the course and outcome of negotiations.

I hope you will join us in this call to action. We look forward to hearing from you this afternoon.

With that, I give the floor to my esteemed colleague, Ambassador de la Fuente.

 Previous Item | Next Item 
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

AURORA, Colo.  A portion of a highway in a Denver suburb was temporarily shut down after hundreds of street racers and cruisers formed a gridlock over the weekend, highlighting a growing concern over street racing, police said.

The Aurora Police Department reported that up to 800 drivers were racing and cruising between a 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) stretch on Interstate 225 around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, The Sentinel reported.

It is likely the group will continue engaging in street racing in various areas tonight, the department said in a post on Twitter. Officers continue to try to manage the situation.

No details of tickets or arrests were made available on Monday. No injuries were reported.

City officials said last month they would consider establishing strict regulations against street racing after an increase in the high-speed activity in the last year.

It has been difficult for police to respond to illegal speed contests across the region, authorities said.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

These groups and organizations are large and becoming more sophisticated. They are brazen, and they are emboldened with their actions. They are utilizing social media sites and live feeds to promote their illegal street racing, Police Traffic Lt. Mike Hanifin said. Law enforcement in general in the metro area and along the Front Range  are severely outnumbered and at a significant disadvantage.

Councilmembers and authorities have considered introducing a measure that would allow police to seize vehicles engaged in street racing. No such measure has been introduced yet. Currently, penalties include trespassing, reckless driving or careless driving charges, none of which deter racers, Hanifin said.

When we are able to stop people, when they dont run from us, we issue a summons and they plead guilty  they dont even argue, he said. They just pay the fine because its not a deterrent for them.

Racers can also be charged with misdemeanor citations for exhibition of a speed contest, which can carry up to a year in jail and fines up to $1,000. It is unclear how many citations were issued in Aurora last year.
Self-catering hosts across Northern Ireland are hoping to benefit from record staycation demand once again this summer.

The Executive published its long-awaited document for helping Northern Ireland ease out of lockdown restrictions last week.

Unlike the rest of the UK, the plan does not include any specific dates, instead using various factors of health data to judge the progress of the virus.

Domestic trips are still not permitted and Stormont ministers have repeatedly declined to give any holiday advice despite reports of a surge in bookings in England after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his road map out of lockdown.

With tougher travelling quarantine rules caused by new virus variants, tourism chiefs here are banking on holidaymakers pouring what they spend every year on foreign trips back into the NI holiday scene as caravan and camp sites and country cottages see bookings start to rise.

Jenny Hanna from The Green Holiday Cottages in Kilkeel said the 2021 season is beginning to look much more positive.

"We have had a lot more bookings coming in over the weekend but people are still anxious about what happens if there's another lockdown," Ms Hanna said.

"Things are starting to head in the right direction and from talking to other accommodation providers in the area, they are also getting a lot more enquiries.

"We are seeing a lot of repeat bookings from England, which is quite good for us," she added.

Like many in the industry, the real frustration when it comes to planning for this summer is the absence of dates from Stormont.

Ms Hanna added: "We are also a wedding venue so the couples booked in are totally fed up and really wanting us to give them answers, which unfortunately we just don't have." Elsewhere Nicola Neill, owner of The Harbour self-catering apartment and Blackrock B&B in Portrush, has been reluctant to take any bookings before May.

"With the lighter nights and milder weather, people are definitely wanting something to look forward to," she said.

"Last summer was incredibly busy for us with lots of Londoners and Scottish visitors coming over alongside those travelling up from the Republic.

"There's still a lot of business coming in from across England for later this year," she added.

Online booking platform Airbnb has said while it's gearing up for a significant travel rebound post-lockdown, it's still too early to predict how the business would fare this year. But for Airbnb operators like Vanessa Hutchins from Ramore View in Portrush, it's already an improving picture.

"Our calendar has been fully booked up for some time and we do have a lot of returning business this year from across Northern Ireland," Mrs Hutchins said.

Samantha Corr from Tourism NI is optimistic that people across Northern Ireland will enjoy a staycation this summer, with research showing that many are already planning ahead for May to September.

She said: "Last year we saw people rediscover the beauty and variety of accommodation and experiences here on their doorstep, and we know that visitors are also showing a greater interest in a simpler way of travel.

"Our scenery and outdoor activities are resonating well with the domestic market, but flexibility is key to encouraging bookings," Ms Corr added.
The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE showed a high ability to neutralize strains first detected in Brazil, the UK and South Africa, according to a new study.



In lab experiments, the shot demonstrated roughly equivalent levels of neutralizing activity against the Brazil and UK strains compared with a version of the virus from early last year. It also showed robust but lower activity against the South Africa variant, according to a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine.



While the research needs to be validated with real-world data, it offers another reason for optimism that the Covid vaccines are generally performing well against variants of the virus.



The research was supported by Pfizer and BioNTech and performed by scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.



The study tested serum samples taken from people either two or four weeks after they had received their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot. That was pitted against viruses that had been engineered to have mutations from the three virus lineages.

While vaccine developers including BioNTech are already working on new versions of their shots to combat mutant strains, the current generation of Covid shots are already showing some encouraging results against the variants.



The vaccine from AstraZeneca Plc provides protection against the Brazil variant, Reuters reported, citing the countrys Fiocruz biomedical institute.



The strain first found in South Africa, however, has at times been tougher to target. The country switched to using Johnson & Johnson shots last month for its initial inoculations after a small study showed the AstraZeneca shots had little impact on mild infections caused by the variant.
[March 09, 2021] IDEMIA Brings Mobile ID Technology to Delaware

RESTON, Va., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- IDEMIA today launched the new Delaware Mobile ID in partnership with the Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV). IDEMIA today launched the new Delaware Mobile ID in partnership with the Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The Delaware Mobile ID app will allow Delaware's 800,000+ licensed drivers and ID cardholders to use their smartphones to manage their identity like never before. Mobile ID is also a significant step forward in the fight against identity theft due to several security features. Specifically, it requires users to capture and upload their physical ID as well as a live selfie to compare against the individual's file with the DMV. After approval, users unlock the app using their face or fingerprint, ensuring only they can access their ID. In addition to safeguards to open the app, Mobile ID offers privacy control options that allow the user to verify they are of legal age to rent a car or purchase alcohol, while hiding unnecessary information such as the user's address. Businesses and organizations will also benefit from Mobile ID technology. The app allows them to erify necessary information with confidence since it only displays the most up-to-date version and status provided by the DMV.



"IDEMIA is proud to work with Delaware to bring a secure identification option to the fingertips of its citizens," said Matt Thompson, senior vice president, Civil and Mobile ID of IDEMIA. "This technology is a look into the future of identity solutions, and Delaware is a trailblazer as one of the first states to roll out this technology." Delaware is the second state to roll out IDEMIA's Mobile ID technology, joining Oklahoma. The technology will soon be available in other states, as well.

To learn more about where you can use Delaware's Mobile ID, please visit www.dmv.de.gov/mobileID. To download the app, please visit the App Store or Google Play Store. About IDEMIA

IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, provides a trusted environment enabling citizens and consumers alike to perform their daily critical activities (such as pay, connect and travel), in the physical as well as digital space. Securing our identity has become mission critical in the world we live in today. By standing for Augmented Identity, an identity that ensures privacy and trust and guarantees secure, authenticated and verifiable transactions, we reinvent the way we think, produce, use and protect one of our greatest assets  our identity  whether for individuals or for objects, whenever and wherever security matters. We provide Augmented Identity for international clients from Financial, Telecom, Identity, Public Security and IoT sectors. With close to 15,000 employees around the world, IDEMIA serves clients in 180 countries. For more information, visit www.idemia.com and follow @IDEMIAGroup on Twitter. Contact:

Richie Roesner

(630)525-1921

richard.roesner@hkstrategies.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/idemia-brings-mobile-id-technology-to-delaware-301243350.html SOURCE IDEMIA

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 20:37:36|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently extended congratulations to Chinese President Xi Jinping on the occasion of the announcement of China's successful efforts in the fight against extreme poverty.

"I wish to extend my most sincere congratulations to your Government and to you personally," Guterres said.

Noting this moment is a notable accomplishment and a significant contribution towards realizing a better and more prosperous world, as envisioned by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the secretary-general said, "I commend you for your vision and leadership."

"This extraordinary result is a reason for hope and inspiration to the entire community of nations," he said.

"It shows the importance of political commitment at all levels of government and policy stability to improve the conditions of the poorest and most vulnerable," the UN chief said.

"It also underscores the opportunity of development models that are innovation-driven, green, open and which work to deliver for all," he added.

Guterres expressed confidence that "China will continue to make progress in its efforts to leave no one behind." Enditem
National Guard soldiers stand guard behind a security fence near the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 4, 2021. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)

50 National Guard Troops Treated for Gastrointestinal Complaints Amid Rash of Bad Food

Approximately 50 National Guard personnel were treated for gastrointestinal issues after eating what was described as poorly prepared food, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday.

Six of that set were treated at outpatient military facilities while the others received care at an aid station, John Kirby told reporters at a briefing.

Some of the 5,100 troops who remain on duty at the U.S. Capitol complained of undercooked food, including raw meat. The Michigan National Guard called the reports, which included photographs, very concerning, and top officials from the state communicated their dismay to top defense officials.

According to a report, over a dozen service members were hospitalized after consuming the food.

A National Guard spokesman told The Epoch Times last week that there did appear to be some poorly prepared meals but said no cases of foodborne illness had been reported.

Kirby said Monday that no Guard members have been hospitalized due to foodborne illness.

He also said he recently met with Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard, and that leaders are making sure guardsmen deployed in Washington get healthy meals.

The leaders are taking very seriously the need to make sure that the troops have safe and nutritious food, Kirby said. Theres routine inspections. He himself goes down there multiple times a week to eat with the National Guardsmento eat what theyre eating.

Contractors provide food to the troops. Officials said the vendor facilities were inspected multiple times, with no substantial issues found, and that they observe the deliveries of the meals, take pictures of the food, and inquire with soldiers regarding whats being served.

The food issues prompted a bipartisan group of lawmakers to call for per diems for the troops, as well as retroactive payment for members who bought meals because of worries about sanitation.

Troops were surged to Washington in January following the U.S. Capitol breach and thousands remain in the city despite objections from a number of legislators.

U.S. Capitol Police acting Chief Yogananda Pittman asked the Pentagon last week to extend the Guard support beyond March 12.

The USCP is extremely grateful for the Department of Defense and the National Guard support provided since January 6th. We understand the Guard has a tremendous service need back home responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency said in a statement, adding that threats to members of Congress are up 93 percent in the first two months of this year when compared to last year.

Pentagon officials havent yet said whether theyll grant the request.
[March 09, 2021] Conifer Health Announces Multi-Year Contract Extension with NorthShore University HealthSystem

Conifer Health Solutions, a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corporation (NYSE: THC), announced today a multi-year contract extension with NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore). Building on a relationship of more than 20 years, Conifer will continue to provide physician revenue cycle services to NorthShore through 2024. Conifer's comprehensive accounts receivable (AR) services, coupled with enhanced revenue cycle performance insights, equips NorthShore with valuable data for optimizing systems and processes. This high-touch support is designed to accelerate cash collections and drive operational efficiencies. "Over the many years of our relationship, Conifer continuously demonstrates its expertise as a service provider and its support as a strategic partner," said Debbie Kirkorsky, NorthShore's senior vice president of physician revenue cycle. "The team has proven its value to our strong performance time and time again through their extensive revenue cycle knowledge, insightful analytics and innovative leadership." In addition to continuing services, the extended contract included the integration of Swedish Hospital (formerly Swedish Covenant Health) which joined the NorthShore system in January 2020. Conifer's supporting role in the integration and transition of Swedish Hospital's physician revenue cycle to the new operating environment successfuly concluded late last year.



"We are extremely proud of all we have accomplished with NorthShore over the past two decades and look forward to many more successful years to come," said Matthew Bayley, M.D., Conifer's chief commercial operations officer. About Conifer Health Solutions

Conifer Health Solutions, LLC, a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corporation, brings 35 years of healthcare industry expertise to help health systems and physician practices address their most pressing revenue cycle challenges. The company offers tech-enabled end-to-end and point solution revenue cycle services that enhance the patient experience, drive operational efficiency and improve financial outcomes. Annually, Conifer Health manages 17+ million unique patient interactions, more than $25 billion in net patient revenue and $22.6+ billion in medically managed spend. Conifer Health also provides value-based care services focused on population health management and financial management services for more than five million lives. For more information, visit ConiferHealth.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005714/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Royal Dutch Shell's petrol station. (Representative Image/File Photo)

HAGUE, NETHERLANDS: Shell Egypt and one of its affiliates have signed an agreement with a consortium made up of subsidiaries of Cheiron Petroleum Corporation and Cairn Energy PLC to acquire Shells upstream assets in Egypts Western Desert for a base consideration of $646 million and additional payments of up to $280 million between 2021 and 2024, contingent on the oil price and the results of further exploration.

The transaction is expected to complete in the second half of 2021.

The package of assets consists of Shell Egypts interest in 13 onshore concessions and the companys share in Badr El-Din Petroleum Company (BAPETCO).

Todays announcement is consistent with Shells efforts to shift our upstream portfolio to one that is more focused, resilient and competitive, said Wael Sawan, Shells upstream director.

The deal will deliver value to Shell and to Egypt. It will enable Shell to concentrate on its offshore exploration and integrated value chain in Egypt, including seven new blocks in the Nile Delta, West Mediterranean and Red Sea. It will help Egypt maximize the potential of its onshore assets through new investment, helping secure energy and revenue for years to come.

 Worldofchemicals News
Massachusetts Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier jumped on a Zoom conference with Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito on her phone, panning the camera to the businesses on the corner of Tyler Street and Woodlawn Avenue.

The storefront where the Pittsfield Democrats grandfather, George Nesbit, ran his market is now home to La Fogata, a Colombian restaurant run by a former student of Farley-Bouvier. Theres a pizzeria, an autoglass shop and, farther down the road, the Berkshire Innovation Center that opened in early 2020 before the pandemic hit.

Then Farley-Bouvier turned her phone to show a barren tract of land, which Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer likened to the surface of the moon. MassDevelopment CEO and President Dan Rivera had just announced an $880,000 grant for that land within the William Stanley Business Park, known as Site 9.

I loved the rendition that was done with green space and buildings, Farley-Bouvier said Tuesday morning, but as the mayor said before, moonscape is a really, really great way to put it.

Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, a Pittsfield Democrat, shows Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito what Site 9 at the William Stanley Business Park and surrounding businesses look like. Farley-Bouvier joined the MassDevelopment awards virtual event from her phone.Screenshot

Pittsfield was one of 10 communities to receive grants under the Site Readiness Program, totaling nearly $3.2 million, said Rivera, whose agency administers the grants. The Pittsfield Economic Development Authority received its grant to cover engineering and design costs, as well as to crush existing pavement on the 16.5-acre site.

The grant covers the cost to complete a design, an environmental permit and bid-ready documents for the construction of an internal site roadway, utilities and stormwater facilities, Rivera said. When completed, the site should accommodate 202,000 square feet of industrial use and office space.

With this funding, well be able to complete a scope of work thats critical to initiating the sites redevelopment, making it more attractive for private sector development, including industrial, manufacturing, warehouse, commercial and retail office space, Tyer said.

Pttsfield also received $64,000 to address environmental issues at Site 9 under the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund, also administered by MassDevelopment. Rivera said the Brownfields award for Pittsfield is another great example of how multiple state tools can work hand-in-hand to advance economic development at a parcel.

MassDevelopment administers the site readiness program grants as part of its efforts to attract companies to former industrial sites and other project-ready lands, according to the MassDevelopment website. Over the past four years, the program awarded roughly $10.4 million to 48 projects in Massachusetts.

The more opportunities we have to put existing property back to work is less property we need to green space into something else, the Republican governor said on the Zoom call Tuesday morning. I think sometimes that gets lost in the translation on this.

Rivera announced nine other grants:
An Afghan criminal gang has deflated and buried dinghies on French beaches before charging migrants 2,000 each to get to the UK.

An alleged network is thought to have been buying the second-hand boats online and then hiding them near Calais.

Each boat could carry between 10 and 15 migrants, who would be charged between 2,500 and 3,000 euros each to get to the UK, officers believe.

It comes as 10 children were rescued in the English Channel after spending several hours trying to reach the UK.

They were among 33 people on an 8m boat as French authorities revealed they intercepted at least 61 people trying to make the dangerous crossing on Tuesday.

An alleged network is thought to have been buying the second-hand boats online and then hiding them near Calais. Pictured: Migrants today

French police swooped on the alleged criminal gang and arrested 10 people in the Yvelines region of France, west of Paris.

Eight have been charged following an investigation into the network, it was announced on Tuesday.

On Monday, at least 115 people succeeded in reaching UK shores, the highest daily figure for 2021 so far.

The arrests in France follow months of investigation into what the UK's National Crime Agency says was an Afghan criminal gang involved in Channel crossings.

Each boat could carry between 10 and 15 migrants, who would be charged between 2,500 and 3,000 euros each to get to the UK, officers believe. Pictured: Migrants today

Officers from the NCA and French illegal immigration unit Ocriest, working together as part of the Anglo-French Joint Intelligence Cell (JIC), launched an investigation into the network in November.

Members of the alleged gang were put under surveillance and agencies from both sides of the Channel worked to link the group to boats that had arrived in the UK.

Eight people have been charged by a French magistrate with facilitating illegal immigration, the NCA announced on Tuesday.

The group is suspected of having been involved in at least six attempt to cross the Channel, three of which were thwarted by the French authorities.

On Monday, at least 115 people succeeded in reaching UK shores, the highest daily figure for 2021 so far. Pictured: The Channel today

Miles Bonfield, head of organised immigration crime operations for the NCA said: 'Operations like these demonstrate the benefits of us working closely with our French counterparts.

'These people smuggling networks are callous and show no care for the safety of the people they transport, putting them in small dinghies that are unfit for this type of crossing.

'Working with our law enforcement partners in France and elsewhere we are determined to do all we can to disrupt and dismantle these networks, who are putting lives at risk.'
The saga of South African regulator ICASA and the release of more spectrum to operators has taken another twist, with ICASA now planning to appeal a recent court order halting a forthcoming spectrum auction.

Reuters reports that this ruling could be a setback for the two big names among the countrys mobile operators, MTN and Vodacom, which are seeking to expand 4G capacity and to roll out 5G technology.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has described the spectrum auction as an important economic lever for the countrys growth, may also be disappointed. This auction is seen as a potential boost to the economy, attracting new investment in the sector and creating jobs.

The order is apparently in place pending a hearing on contentions raised by operator Telkom and broadcaster e.tv. The court order further delays a process expected to begin this month.

Chairman of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) Keabetswe Modimoeng said the regulator was dismayed by the courts decision but remained resolute that the licensing process would due course be finalised.

However, the regulator also has issues with MTN. ICASAs decision to grant the first bidding rights for 5G-capable 3.5GHz spectrum to smaller operators is being challenged in the High Court by MTN  and ICASA is challenging MTN's appeal.

Last October ICASA said it would invite mobile operators to apply to bid for spectrum for 4G and next generation 5G networks from 2 October. Though there hasnt been a specific date set, the auctions were expected to take place by the end of March.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Advertisement

Mexico was gripped by protest on International Women's Day as thousands of female demonstrators took to the streets and denounced a president who has refused to drop a candidate accused of rape.

Demonstrators battled police with rocks, bottles, spray paint and flaming aerosol cans in Mexico City's vast central plaza after anti-riot barricades were covered in posters, flowers and the names of female murder victims.

'Together we are the fire, burn everything,' said one banner held by the protesters, some of whom angrily kicked at a fence during clashes that left 62 police and 19 civilians injured.

Authorities estimated there would be almost 100 women's marches in cities and towns throughout Mexico, while some local and state authorities designated squads of female officers to provide security at the marches.

Mexican leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sought to deflect criticism by boasting about the number of women in his cabinet, but during the same press conference he referred to one reporter as 'sweetheart'.

Battle in the streets: A posse of riot police brandish their shields as they face off with demonstrators during an International Women's Day march in Mexico City which ended with dozens of people injured

A demonstrator throws burning gasoline at wall of police shields which had been put up to close a breach in the barricades

The president is also under fire for refusing to break with his party's candidate for governor of the state of Guerrero, Felix Salgado, who has been accused of rape by two women although not charged.

Lopez Obrador says the issue should be left up to voters and accused right-wing opponents of playing politics with the claims, which Salgado denies.

Two women clash with police officers on the other side of a fence in front of Mexico's National Palace, after barricades were covered in posters, flowers and the names of female murder victims

One masked protester brandishes a baton in front of the National Palace (left) while another woman gestures during Monday's protests (right) which Mexico's leader sought to deflect by talking about the number of women in his cabinet

A protester takes cover after tear gas was sprayed near a fence protecting the National Palace during the Mexico City rally

Demonstrators attack a barricade with a hammer after barriers were put up in Mexico City's central plaza, ostensibly to protect historic monuments from being defaced

Demonstrators throw rocks at the National Palace during the march to commemorate International Women's Day

Women start a fire in front of the National Palace as they stage an International Women's Day protests in which Mexican leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador came under fire for standing by a candidate accused of rape

Women's names are written on a barricade as a masked demonstrator uses a flaming spray can to attack police on Monday

A leftist who touts his long record of social struggle and says 'the poor come first,' the president is also a social conservative who leaves abortion largely to state legislation and says the family is the centre of society.

'He should start really fighting, but for the women of Mexico,' said marcher Ana De la Toba, a 39-year old Mexico City lawyer.

Ahead of the Mexico City protests, the government had put up steel barricades in front of the National Palace where Lopez Obrador lives and works.

The president said the barriers were meant to protect buildings and monuments that had been painted with graffiti in previous feminist demonstrations, drawing further ire from protesters.

'Why do they want clean monuments, in a country awash in blood?' the marchers chanted.

Lopez Obrador also accused his conservative opponents of 'disguising' themselves as feminists and 'infiltrating all the movements to create provocations'.

The president said two women had been found with gasoline bombs at a workshop in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood, saying, 'I am sure... they were put up to this.'

Some marchers smashed windows at a city-centre hotel while others damaged centuries-old tilingon a landmark building with hammers.

Other protesters battled police in the main square with rocks, bottles, metal poles, spray paint and streams of flame from lit aerosol cans.

Sixty-two officers and 19 civilians were injured during the incidents, said Marcela Figueroa, an official of the city's police agency.

A woman waves a feminist flag as demonstrators attempt to storm the National Palace during a march to commemorate International Women's Day

Paramedics in red attempt to separate demonstrators clashing with the police at a breach on a barricade protecting the National Palace

Demonstrators are engulfed with fire retardant after being sprayed by the police with a fire extinguisher at a barricade protecting the National Palace

Thousands of women also marched in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which has seen a wave of femicide that has claimed on average one life per day so far this year.

'We want to be free, alive and without fear,' said posters carried by the demonstrators.

Clashes broke out in Chile, as police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters who painted the slogan 'They are killing us' on an esplanade in central Santiago.

Elsewhere, than 100 activists wearing purple gathered outside a prosecutor's office in Honduras to demand justice for nurse Keyla Martinez, 26, who died in police custody last month.

'Here, the life of the woman is worth nothing,' said Maria Julia Avila, 49. Honduras' human rights watchdog says 4,769 women were murdered in the country between 2010 and 2020.

In Europe, several thousand demonstrators massed in Barcelona for a socially distanced march, wearing purple masks and carrying posters with slogans such as: 'No means no' and 'The real pandemic is machismo.'

Madrid banned gatherings over the virus, but a few dozen women gathered nevertheless.

In Hungary, where it is traditional to buy flowers for women on this day, flower shops were granted an exemption from a fresh two-week coronavirus lockdown.

And in France, where one woman is killed every three days by their partner or ex-partner, according to 2019 government figures, tens of thousands marched in major cities to call for stronger police action against femicide.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA: A woman raises her fist during a demonstration outside the Congress where protesters denounced violence against women and transgender people

MADRID, SPAIN: Some female activists turned out at the Puerta del Sol despite official efforts to restrict demonstrations because of the coronavirus pandemic

PARIS, FRANCE: A sign on the back of a truck declares a 'feminist strike' as people gather in the French capital on International Women's Day

BERLIN, GERMANY: Women's rights activists stand under the storied Brandenburg Gate as they hold a protest organised by the Alliance of International Feminists

ROME, ITALY: Women wearing purple attend a protest on International Women's Day in the Italian capital on Monday

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM: People gather outside Brussels Central station to protest against sexism and violence against women

In Turkey, several hundred Muslim Uighur women protested near China's walled-off consulate in Istanbul, calling for the closure of mass-incarceration camps in the Xinjiang region.

'Rape is a crime against humanity,' read one poster, referring to a BBC report alleging systemic rape and forced sterilization in the camps - charges China denies.

Thousands marched elsewhere in Istanbul and Ankara, many of them angered by a recent viral video purporting to show an attack on a woman by her ex-husband in front of their five-year-old child in the country's north.

'We're not scared, we won't be silent and we won't bow down,' some posters read.

Hundreds gathered in the Algerian capital to protest against a family code that governs family and property relations, and which many view as demeaning to women.

Nearly 2,000 people gathered in Kiev to demand that Ukraine ratify the Istanbul Convention against domestic abuse.

And in Myanmar, where the military seized power last month, women stood on the frontline of anti-coup protests in the commercial capital Yangon.

Police and soldiers there have killed more than 50 people and arrested nearly 1,800 in an increasingly brutal crackdown on demonstrators.

'Generally, leadership seems to be for men only,' said 33-year-old protester Cora. 'In this uprising, women came out in the streets and led the protests.'

MEXICO CITY: Women attack Mexico's Revolution Monument on a day of protest aimed partly at Mexican leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a socially conservative leftist

Women attack a wooden wall protecting a Mexico City monument. Authorities estimated there would be almost 100 women's marches in cities and towns throughout Mexico

Women attack a wooden wall protecting Mexico's Revolution Monument during the protests in the Mexican capital on Monday

A woman with the words 'Not one less' written on her chest in Spanish joins the International Women's Day march on Monday

Paramedics leave the area after women demonstrators are allowed to leave the scene after they broke through a barricade and smashed the lobby of the Mexico City Hilton hotel

People protest around Mexico's presidential palace with banners on the ground reading 'No more impunity,' 'No aggressor in power,' 'See you at the polls'

Demonstrators clash with the police at a breach on a barricade which was put up to shield the National Palace on Monday

Demonstrators open a breach on a police shield wall during the protests on Monday which ended with dozens injured

A demonstrator throws fire with a spray can at police officers who were gathered on the other side of this barricade
LANSING, MI  The Michigan Senate has adopted a non-binding resolution urging state wildlife officials to organize a hunting and trapping season for Upper Peninsula gray wolves this year now that the animals are no longer protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Senate Resolution 15 passed Tuesday, March 9 along a party-line vote, with all 20 seated Republicans supporting the resolution. It advanced last month from the natural resources committee chaired by Sen. Ed McBroom, who represents the western U.P. in Lansing and sponsored the resolution with co-chair Jon Bumstead, R-Newaygo.

The resolution doesnt force the state to hold a hunt but pushes the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) to organize one this year despite the DNRs intention to delay any decisions until 2022 while it updates a management plan and solicits feedback.

McBroom gave an impassioned floor speech before the vote, arguing that DNR and NRC should not wait to update the 2015 wolf management plan before allowing a hunting season, which he called a humane tool to manage the population.

Democrat Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, criticized the effort, citing studies that suggest hunting can disrupt pack dynamics and potentially lead to greater livestock predation.

Scientists have established that wolves self-regulate their population, only letting certain pack members breed depending on habitat and food availability, said Polehanki, an apparent nod to analysis of wolves and natural food webs at Yellowstone National Park published a few years ago.

She went on to cite a study of Michigan wolves that suggested killing them to protect livestock on one farm actually increased future wolf predation on their neighbors livestock, and called trapping inhumane because traps and snares can leave animals struggling and suffering for hours before they either slowly die or escape through self-amputation.

Polehanki argued that Michiganders are opposed to wolf hunting and trapping, citing past voter rejection of hunting seasons on statewide ballot measures.

McBroom jeered Polehankis comments, calling them misinformation about packs controlling their own populations and such  as if any of that was any different than any other piece of wildlife that somehow manages its own population through nature.

Boy, nature sure is very kind  starvation, disease other means that are just far more cruel than any hunting ever has been for animals and wildlife, he said.

The facts are that nature itself  natural progression  is extinction. Millions of species of extinction over history, not all caused by humans. In fact, the majority not caused by humans, McBroom said. Were here. Theyre here. Management of wildlife and the nature around us is essential to maintaining the ecological balance that we desire. And we as humans desire certain things  more fish, more deer than would naturally occur otherwise.

The full chamber adoption follows a hearing chaired by McBroom on Feb. 24 in which hunt supporters from the U.P. questioned official population estimates, claimed that a hunt is necessary because people are illegally poaching wolves anyway and argued that wolves, coupled with severe winters, are causing a decline in the U.P. deer herd.

The committee hearing did not feature testimony from state officials or experts. Opponents criticized the resolution as lacking in a basis in science, arguing data shows livestock predations by wolves are minimal, as are conflicts with humans.

Absent federal protection, state law allows the use of lethal force against wolves now to prevent them from killing dogs or livestock. While federally listed, wolves previously could only be legally killed in defense of human life in Michigan.

It isnt clear whether the Michigan House will take up the resolution or when the vote would take place if the other chamber does. The Michigan DNR reiterated its position on a hunt in response to Tuesdays resolution adoption.

The administration rarely takes positions on legislative resolutions and we do not have a comment on this one, said DNR spokesperson John Pepin.

We have previously stated there are several things that should happen before a potential wolf hunt should be considered, including updating the states Wolf Management Plan, including conducting a new wolf public attitude survey, consultation with Native American tribes and gaining an indication that federal delisting of gray wolves has become a more settled question. Over the past several years, the listing status of wolves has changed frequently. Since taking effect Jan. 4, two lawsuits have been filed against the action, Pepin said via email.

The DNR moved last month to revive a wolf management advisory council, which will include members from conservation, hunting and fishing, agricultural and animal advocacy groups and tribal government.

If Michigan were to hold another wolf hunt, it would be the states second ever. Michigan previously organized a hunt in 2013 while wolves were temporarily delisted.

Wolves officially came off the endangered list for the lower 48 states on Jan. 4. However, that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision was put under review by President Joe Biden last month and environmental groups have already filed several lawsuits to challenge the delisting.

In Wisconsin, pro-hunting groups successfully forced the DNR there to hold a February hunt this year. It took about three days for hunters to kill about 216 wolves, far exceeding the state quota and prompting an early end to a one-week hunt.

The Wisconsin hunt has spurred renewed calls for federal re-listing. The potential for re-listing under Biden was cited in court by those advocating to expedite a hunt.

Wolves were wiped out across most of the U.S. by the 1930s under government-sponsored poisoning and trapping campaigns. A remnant population in the western Great Lakes region has expanded to about 4,400 animals across Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin since wolves were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1973.

The DNR estimates Michigans population to be holding stable in recent years at roughly 700 wolves spread among 143 packs.

Related stories:

Hunt supporters argue wolves need population control

Republicans push to open season on wolves

DNR calls first Michigan wolf hunt a success

Michigan voters reject wolf hunting laws

Endangered or not? Scientists, lawmakers debate wolves
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged not to politicize the issue of protecting the rights of national minorities, the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) reports.

It is reported that Kuleba made the corresponding statement during a telephone conversation with the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov.

"Dmytro Kuleba assured that Ukraine considers the diversity of national minorities as its peculiarity and national wealth, intends to continue to give priority attention to the preservation and development of the national identity of minorities in accordance with its international commitments," the statement released on Tuesday said.

The minister said that the topic of protecting the rights of national minorities should not be a subject of politicization. The Commissioner agreed with this approach of the minister, the need to depoliticize and prevent an excessive international context in the issue of national minorities.

In addition, Kuleba announced the development of new legislation in the field of national minorities by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which should meet modern international standards in this area. At the same time, he assured that Ukraine "will not allow any foreign state to influence its content in any way."

"The goal is for representatives of national minorities to be able to maintain and develop their identity 100% and at the same time be 100% citizens of Ukraine," Kuleba said.

The Foreign Minister also expressed confidence that the recently appointed Kairat Abdrakhmanov would be able to improve the effectiveness of the OSCE's response to serious challenges in the field of respecting the rights of national minorities, in particular in Crimea temporarily occupied by Russia and certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
(Newser)  A Michigan State Police trooper who left a K-9 on an unarmed suspect for almost four minutes as the man begged for mercy is facing a felony charge. Graphic dashcam footage from the Nov. 13 arrest shows the German shepherd placing the suspect in a hold and appearing to bite him several times as Trooper Parker Surbrook shouts orders, the New York Times reports. After the man yells, "Please sir, he's on my face," Surbrook replies, "I don't care." A police report on the incident states that the driver, who crashed into a tree after speeding away from a traffic stop, was hospitalized with a hip injury from the crash and was also treated for multiple bite wounds. Surbrook, who was suspended without pay and removed from the canine unit, faces a charge of felonious assault.

story continues below

The police report states that the driver told investigators he was bitten in the "head, left shoulder blade area, left arm bicep and forearm, left side rib area, left and right side of his pelvic bone area, genitals, and the top of the thighs," per MLive. A gun was recovered from the man's passenger. The police report states that it is standard to leave a K-9 on a suspect until a second suspect is in custody, but the dog remained on the driver for almost two minutes after the passenger was handcuffed. Col. Joseph Gasper, director of the Michigan State Police, said in a statement that Surbrook's actions did not meet the standards of conduct for troopers or the guidelines for dog handlers. The trooper's "disregard of the drivers pleas for help" was "totally unacceptable," Gasper said. (Read more K-9 stories.)
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Wine.com, the nation's leading online retailer, hosted its eleventh annual Industry Growth Summit for its worldwide wine and spirits suppliers and wholesalers. Over 1,100 registrants from 10 countries logged into Zoom to discuss Wine.com's explosive growth during 2020 and make plans for 2021.

In their presentations, the Wine.com management team reported that revenue grew 119%, to over $300 million during 2020. Highlights included:

Customers of all generations  Millennials and younger (of legal drinking age) grew to represent 39% of Wine.com customers last year, with Gen-X at 30%, Baby Boomers 26%, and older 5%.

Virtual Experiences  Working with wineries and producers eager to showcase their wines and tell their stories, Wine.com launched Virtual Wine.com Experiences in April. Consumers can buy the wine in advance and tune in via zoom or YouTube to listen and taste along side winery visionaries and renowned celebrities. The company hosted over 50 events with more than 100,000 households viewing.

Picked by Wine.com  Offering a completely personalized wine club, Wine.com launched Picked by Wine.com in the fall of last year. The customized subscription service puts real wine experts in charge of hand picking wines for customers based on their preferences and palate.

Michael Osborn, Wine.com Founder and Executive Vice President, shared how producers, importers and wholesalers can partner with Wine.com to improve the consumer experience with selection and discovery. "Our customers continue to show an insatiable demand for discovering interesting Wine & Spirits," said Osborn, adding that more than 50,000 selections were purchased last year by their customers.

Attendees also heard an update from Ray Johnson, Executive Director of Sonoma State University's Wine Business Institute and a presentation from Danelle Kosmal VP of NielsenIQ Beverage Alcohol Practice and Danny Brager, industry consultant and former Senior Vice-President of NielsenIQ Beverage Alcohol Practice. Brager stated, "Ecommerce is here to stay. Wine.com continues to grow, meeting consumers needs for selection and discovery."

The event concluded with Wine.com presenting its two annual Exemplary Supplier of the Year awards to the family winery, Schug Carneros Estates, and the wine & spirits portfolio, Taub Family Selections. Its annual Extreme Service Award, presented to an individual, was given to Sales Representative Mike Solarsh from Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits of New York. Mr. Solarsh raised the bar in communication between Wine.com and its suppliers.

"We are incredibly honored to receive this recognition from the Wine.com team, who have shown tremendous leadership and ingenuity in rising to meet the vastly increased consumer demand in the Ecommerce space over the past 12 months," said Marc D. Taub, President & CEO of Palm Bay International and Taub Family Selections. "It was a truly collaborative effort within our organization, and together with theirs, that enabled us to pivot and embrace the opportunity that Wine.com presented us as a national partner. We are excited to take that momentum and support to the next level and could not be more bullish on Wine.com; the future is incredibly bright."

Suppliers interested in working with Wine.com should contact [email protected]

ABOUT WINE.COM

Wine.com offers selection, guidance and convenience not found in stores  helping customers discover the incredible world of wine with confidence. Live chat sommeliers provide friendly advice and customers receive unlimited shipping all year by joining StewardShip. Wine.com was recently named Wine Enthusiast's Retailer of the Year. For more information, visit the company's website at www.wine.com or download its app in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that relate to management's plans and objectives for future operations, business prospects, and other matters. Any forward-looking statement made in this press release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Wine.com undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. Actual events or results may differ materially from those described herein due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Wine.com cautions that these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of Wine.com's control and could cause future events or results to be materially different from those stated or implied in this press release, or to not occur at all. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Wine.com

Related Links

http://www.wine.com


WASHINGTON - A man linked by prosecutors to the Oath Keepers and Republican strategist Roger Stone was arrested Monday in New York and charged with criminal involvement in the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Roberto Minuta, 36, of Texas is accused of obstructing the formal counting of presidential election votes, trespassing and attempting to cover up his crimes. He was ordered released on a $125,000 bond over the objections of federal prosecutors.

"I think it is not a stretch to think Mr. Minuta, if called upon to do so, would participate in an armed rebellion yet again even on pretrial release," Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Gianforti said in court. His recent statements to law enforcement "represent a lack of remorse and an ongoing allegiance to the ideology" behind the assault on the Capitol.

Gianforti said Minuta came to the Capitol dressed in gear identifying him as a member of the militant right-wing Oath Keepers group - citing a video in which he appears with Stone that morning. Federal prosecutors have said members of the Oath Keepers conspired to storm the Capitol to prevent President Joe Biden from taking office.

Minuta was carrying a firearm and pepper or bear spray on Jan. 6, according to prosecutors; he was also armed when he was arrested Saturday at his tattoo parlor in New York. After his arrest, he questioned why antifa and Black Lives Matter adherents were not being targeted instead, Gianforti said.

The Justice Department and the FBI are investigating whether Stone and other high-profile right-wing figures played a role in the insurrection by promoting false claims that the election victory was stolen from President Donald Trump. Stone, a longtime Trump friend and adviser, was involved in some events on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 and says they were peaceful protests. While investigators are interested in how the rioters became radicalized, they caution that criminal charges against Stone and others who spread misinformation are a distant prospect given case law on incitement and free speech.

Stone did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has publicly distanced himself from the violence and criticized it, saying that there is no evidence that he had knowledge of the attack and that any implication otherwise is "guilt by association." In an interview with the Tennessee Star last month, Stone said he had hired private security and did not know any of the men around him that day.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes has said he gave no direction or signals to members to storm the Capitol.

In a charging document, prosecutors note that Minuta was made a "lifetime Oath Keeper" last year after pledging to open his New York tattoo parlor in defiance of restrictions related to the novel coronavirus.

According to prosecutors, on Jan. 6, Minuta "aggressively taunted and berated law enforcement officers guarding the Capitol" outside and inside the building. After the riot, Gianforti said, Minuta tried to conceal his involvement by ditching his cellphone and canceling his Verizon plan. His Facebook account was also deleted, but Gianforti said it was not clear whether he took it down himself.

Minuta's court-appointed lawyer, Benjamin Gold, described Minuta as a husband, father and exemplary member of the community who held charity fundraisers and served as an active member of his New Jersey church before a recent move to Texas. A pastor from the church wrote a letter advocating for his release, as did a state court judge related to Minuta. Minuta might use $45,000 worth of silver bars, described in court as an investment for his children, to secure his bond.

"If he was evading arrest like the government did suggest, he would not have gone to work," Gold said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Krause granted Minuta's bid for release, requiring him to surrender all 10 of his registered weapons. He will be allowed to fly to New York for business.

Isaac Sturgeon, 32, of Dillon, Mont., also appeared in federal court in New York on Monday on charges related to the Capitol riot after being deported from Kenya and arrested on his return to John F. Kennedy Airport.

Sturgeon, who is charged with seven counts including assaulting police with a metal police barricade, flew to Africa on Jan. 24, one day after paying cash for a one-way ticket after texting others to ask whether he was wanted, prosecutors said in arguing he posed a flight risk. Sturgeon traveled from the District of Columbia to Florida and the Virgin Islands immediately after Jan. 6, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said.

Sturgeon had planned to stay in Kenya until April, McGrath said.

Sturgeon told the court that he traveled frequently, adding, "I wasn't trying to flee."

A U.S. magistrate ordered Sturgeon released to Montana with location monitoring on $250,000 bond, secured by a $90,000 plot of land he owns and commitments by his parents and family friends.

In D.C. federal court, a judge declined to release Jacob Chansley, drawing on an interview the self-described "QAnon Shaman" gave to CBS's "60 Minutes Plus" last week. In the interview, Chansley blamed Trump for what happened on Jan. 6 but said he did not regret his loyalty to the former president. His mother, who lives with him in Arizona, told CBS that Biden's election was fraudulent.

"If the defendant truly believes that the only reason he participated in an assault on the U.S. Capitol was to comply with President Trump's orders, this shows the defendant's inability (or refusal) to exercise his independent judgment and conform his behavior to the law," Judge Royce Lamberth wrote.
STAMFORD  A Connecticut woman is suing Uber over a 2019 incident in which police say she was raped by one of the companys drivers while she was passed out drunk in the back of his car.

The woman, who is not named in the lawsuit, claims the alleged rape happened, in part, due to Ubers negligence.

The company, the suit says, markets its services specifically as a safe means for intoxicated people to get home after a night of drinking. But they do so without providing any meaningful protection against sexual assault by their drivers, the suit claims.

Ubers entire business model is structured around convincing people to get into strangers cars, said attorney Maxwell Barrand, of DiScala & DiScala, who represents the woman. So theyve grown into a $75-billion industry by expanding their driver base as quickly as they possibly can, and what we are now investigating  and intend to get through discovery  is how much of that money is actually invested into keeping their riders safe.

In the complaint, Barrand wrote that by failing to adequately screen their drivers, monitor trips in progress for unexpected stops, and offer a panic button feature either in the car or on the app, Uber failed to ensure the safety of his client.

This rape, and the resulting damages to the life and person of the plaintiff, are due to the wanton and reckless conduct of defendant Uber, Barrand wrote in the complaint.

Barrand said in the lawsuit that his client has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, fearfulness of strangers, anxiety, pain and more as a result of the incident.

The woman is seeking more than $15,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, as well as coverage for attorney fees and other relief.

Uber representatives did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court in Stamford on Jan. 22, also names the former Uber driver, Nour Awad, as a defendant in the case.

Awad was arrested in July 2019 and charged with second-degree sexual assault of a physically helpless person. He has since pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Attorney Bob Gulash, who represents Awad in his criminal case, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

According to police, Awad picked the woman up around 1 a.m. on Feb. 9, 2019, from downtown Stamford where she had spent the night out drinking with friends.

Police said the woman was very intoxicated when she entered the car outside a Bedford Street bar and passed out as Awad began to drive her home to Darien.

But police said Awad only got as far as the 1000 block of Hope Street in Springdale where he pulled into a back parking lot and raped the passed-out woman.

Police said when the woman awoke, she fought off Awad, got out of the car and called a friend, who picked her up.

After his arrest, ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft said they banned Awad from their platforms.

The Connecticut lawsuit is the latest complaint filed against Uber over sexual assault and abuse accusations against its drivers.

According to a report released by Uber in 2019, the company received 5,981 allegations of serious sexual assault in the U.S. in 2017 and 2018. The claims range from unwanted touching and kissing to rape.

In 2019, a Milford woman filed a similar lawsuit against Uber after she was allegedly groped by her driver in November 2018. In the lawsuit, she also accused the company of failing to have any devices in the car that could have prevented the assault such as a panic button.

The lawsuit is still awaiting trial at Milford Superior Court. The driver accused of the incident, Wael Salem, was granted accelerated rehabilitation on charges of fourth-degree sexual assault and third-degree assault in 2018.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 07:32:44|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government would grant temporary protected status (TPS) to Venezuelans already staying in the United States, U.S. senior administration officials said on Monday.

A senior official told reporters in a briefing call that Venezuelans who demonstrate their continuous residence in the United States as of March 8 are qualified for TPS designation for 18 months.

The official noted over 300,000 individuals are estimated to be eligible to apply for TPS, adding that the designation is "due to the extraordinary temporary conditions in Venezuela ... it is not safe for Venezuelans to return."

Another senior administration official said in the briefing that the Joe Biden administration is "in no rush" to lift sanctions on Venezuela that inherited from the previous administration. But the official admitted that U.S. unilateral sanctions over the last four years had not succeeded.

The United States has been pursuing a policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation against the Nicolas Maduro government to support opposition leader Juan Guaido. Enditem
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 888 chipset in December, and now a popular tipster suggests the San Diego company is already well underway with testing its next-gen most premium platform. It has model number SM8450 and a code name Waipio, after the Waipio Valley in Hawaii.

According to WinFuture, the new chip could bring some camera innovations, since a new imaging module called Leica1 is part of the SoC.

According to the leakster, this platform will be manufactured by Samsung. What is more interesting is the partnership with Leica - the company has so far partnered with Huawei but it mightve decided to move from that relationship and join hands with Qualcomm, bringing camera innovations to every phone with a Snapdragon chipset.

Roland Quandt, the person behind WinFuture, also claimed on Twitter there is a Qualcomm SM8325 in the works. It is a derivative of the SM8350 (the current Snapdragon 888) but the major difference is the lack of an integrated 5G modem.

There is also a third chipset that is already available to partners for testing - its model-number is SM7325 and will have one powerful core at 2.7GHz. Three more will be for performance at 2.4GHz, the final four sticking to 1.8 GHz. It will support up to 16GB RAM, but developers will have access only to a chip, coupled with 12GB, which will likely be its far more popular use case.

Via 1 (in German)  Via 2
Violinist Yang In-mo performs during a press conference held at ODE Port, Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of Credia

By Park Ji-won







Poster for his recital "The Genetics of Strings" / Courtesy of Credia

Violinist Yang In-mo, who won the Paganini International Violin Competition in 2015, released his second album, "The Genetics of Strings," Tuesday. The album contains his reinterpretations of a variety of repertoire for string instruments.







"After the Paganini album, I wanted to find my own path and pursue original ideas. I found out that strings have always been right next to me as I always have some string lines in my hands and decided to explore them further. I realized that the history of strings is about varying 'tension'  Through this album, I wanted to find some stories of strings which cover a long range of history," Yang said during a press conference held at ODE Port, Seoul, Tuesday.







The Deutsche Grammophon album includes 11 pieces played on various string instruments such as violin, viola, and harpsichord. Starting with his own composition, "Inspiration from Hildegard von Bingen," the album includes many collaborative works with other musicians, including violist Richard Yongjae O'Neil, soprano Im Sun-hae and harpsichord player Clemens Flick. It lists the repertoire in chronological order. To mark the release of his album, Yang is also set to hold a recital with the same title "The Genetics of Strings" at Seoul Arts Center on March 13.







The 26-year-old violinist has been called "Inmonini" by his fans; a portmanteau of Yang In-mo and Paganini.







"When recording Arcangelo Corelli's 'Sonata in D minor 'La Follia,' I set the instruments and the environment similar to a Baroque style, which was very new to me. I didn't follow the score of Corelli, introducing varied vibrato styles, ornaments and impromptus."







Yang stressed that the coronavirus pandemic made him think about the meaning of audiences and realized that many people want to hear classical music. He said his job is to make classical music more approachable to audiences.







"The question of who I would play for constantly popped up in my mind. But through Instagram messages and other channels, I realized that many people in the audience still want to listen to classical music  I think my job is to show what classical music means and how to listen to it. I find classical music to be both irresistible, cool and enjoyable anywhere. It is also not a genre or remnant of a past era, but a form of lifestyle. I can sense classical traits in an Armani shirt and even in relations between rhythm and lyrics in hip-hop music. I am going to look for 'classical' in many things and rewrite the definition of classical music."


The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) has recorded more than 100 violations of the ceasefire in Donbas from the evening of March 5 to the evening of March 7, according to the website of the international organization.

"The Mission recorded 106 violations of the ceasefire in Donetsk region [...] and 12 violations of the ceasefire in Luhansk region," the international organization said in a daily report for March 8.

It is reported that during the previous reporting period (February 26-28), some 59 such violations were recorded in Donetsk region, and 46 violations in Luhansk region.

An SMM long-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was lost near government-controlled Romanivka, Donetsk region. During the flight the UAV experienced a dual GPS technical failure.

The Mission continued monitoring the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske and continued following up on the situation of civilians, including at three entry-exit checkpoints and their corresponding checkpoints of the armed formations in Luhansk region.

The Mission's freedom of movement continued to be restricted.

As noted in the OSCE, following agreements reached at the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on July 22, 2020 regarding additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire, from 00:01 on July 27, 2020 until the end of the reporting period, the SMM has so far recorded at least 11,000 violations of the ceasefire in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including 3,927 explosions, 1,416 projectiles in flight, 116 muzzle flames, 62 illumination flares, as well as at least 5,932 bursts and shots.
A French schoolgirl admits lying that unfortunately led to the death of her teacher last year. After spreading false claims that caused her teacher to get beheaded, a french schoolgirl has admitted to her lies.

In October, shortly after he showed his class cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, Samuel Paty was beheaded in broad daylight, just outside of the school he taught.

French Schoolgirl Admits Lying

The identity of the 13-year-old french schoolgirl who spread the false claims that caused his demise is still being considered confidential. The girl's claims about Samuel Paty last year sparked an online campaign against the teacher, and now, she admitted that she was not in class during that day.

The death of Paty shocked the whole of France and even prompted an outpouring of support, marches, and memorial ceremonies around the country.

According to the BBC, the french schoolgirl who spread the false claims initially told her father that Samuel Paty asked the Muslim students to exit the classroom since he was showing the cartoon during his free speech and blasphemy class.

However, the girl has now admitted that she did not even see the cartoons since she was not in class that day. She also added that it was another girl from her class who showed her the cartoons.

In a statement, the girl's lawyer, Mbeko Tabula, said that the 13-year-old felt trapped in the situation since her classmates requested her to be a spokesperson for the class.

Before Samuel Paty's death, the girl's father filed a complaint against the now-deceased teacher to the school and started a campaign on social media based on the events narrated by his daughter. He also identified the school Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris, and Paty in his post, The Guardian reported.

Shortly after the murder of Paty, prosecutors stated that his killing had a "direct causal link" to the online campaign that was started against him.

Paty's killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, 18 years old, died after being shot by the police shortly after the attack.

Read also: Meghan and Harry's Revelations Sends Royal Family in Crisis

Schoolgirl Admits Lying Sparks Anger

The lawyer for the deceased teacher expressed her anger over the false claims that were spread on social media, leading to Samuel Paty's death.

According to Yahoo! News, Virginie Le Roy, the lawyer for Paty's family, told RTL radio that everything in the investigation showed the girl lied. Le Roy also added that she was very skeptical of the girl's version of the events wherein she claimed that she was acting as a spokesperson for her classmates.

It has been found out that the online campaign started by the father of the french schoolgirl who spread the false claims were all based on distorted accounts.

Based on reports, since he was teaching free speech and blasphemy in the previous years, Samuel Paty had done a similar lesson. He also previously warned his students that he was showing a depiction of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad and asked his students who might be offended to simply close their eyes.

In addition, Le Roy also said that the girl's family knew the truth behind the girl's absence on the day of the lesson and the real reason for her suspension. Thus, she said that the father believing his daughter's lies was "really weak."

In the Islamic faith, depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, such as cartoons, are considered taboo and a high form of blasphemy by Muslims.

Related article: Minneapolis Shootings Leave 1 Dead, 2 Injured

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The European Parliament has voted to lift the immunity of Carles Puigdemont, a former premier of Spains Catalonia region, who led an illegal attempt to secede from Spain in 2017.

In a vote held on Monday but made public on Tuesday, 400 European lawmakers supported lifting Puigdemonts parliamentary immunity, while 248 voted against and 45 abstained.

There were very similar votes in connection with Antoni Comin and Clara Ponsati, two Puigdemont aides who fled Spain with him following an unauthorized referendum on independence held on October 1, 2017.

The decisions could lead to a reopening of extradition claims against all three MEPs, who are wanted by the Spanish justice system in connection with the illegal referendum and breakaway bid.

Other former members of Puigdemonts Cabinet who stayed in Spain were tried and found guilty of sedition and misuse of public funds, and are serving prison sentences in Catalan jails.

The next legal moves will now be in the hands of courts in Belgium (in the case of Puigdemont and Comin) and the UK (in the case of Ponsati, who fled to Scotland, although lately she has been residing in Belgium).

Legal procedures that were started when Spains Supreme Court issued European arrest warrants were later placed on hold in early 2020, when the Catalan politicians became members of the EU Parliament and gained immunity.

In January, the Belgian courts refused to extradite another former member of Puigdemonts cabinet, Lluis Puig, but because he lacked parliamentary immunity, the legal process was not halted.

EU Court of Justice

Puigdemont, Comin and Ponsati said they will take their case to the EU Court of Justice, alleging irregularities in the procedure against them in the EU Parliament. A couple of weeks ago, Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena  in charge of the investigation into the breakaway attempt  also took steps to make a request for a preliminary ruling from the European court.

The vote in the EU Parliament ran along expected lines. The conservative, socialist and liberal groups, which represent 61% of the chamber with 432 lawmakers out of 705, supported lifting the immunity, although there were some cracks among the two latter groups. And a majority of the green and leftist legislators voted against.

The European vote also showcased the divisions among the two political groups that make up Spains coalition government: members of the Socialist Party (PSOE) voted to lift the immunity, while those from Unidas Podemos voted against.

Catalonia recently held a regional election in which separatist parties collectively secured a majority of votes, although the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) was the single most-voted force.

English version by Susana Urra.
Max Q is a weekly newsletter from TechCrunch all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Mondays in your inbox.

Sometimes even the biggest successes look like failures on video. That's the theme of this week, because the biggest news by far was SpaceX's test launch of its latest Starship prototype in South Texas.

It looked fake -- but the fireball proved it wasn't

SpaceX's test flight was a launch of the 10th Starship prototype, to a height of around 32,000 feet, at which point it used its Raptor engines to flip into a flop maneuver and then fall back to Earth in a roughly horizontal orientation, before re-lighting its engines very near the ground and flipping back vertical for a soft landing. All of which actually happened as described, for the first time, causing many TC readers to suggest it was an elaborate CG fake.

It wasn't -- after SpaceX cameras cut away, but while others were luckily still filming, the SN10 prototype met the same fiery end as the last two SpaceX rockets that did the high-flying act. The explosion that totally destroyed the rocket happened a few minutes after it sat stationary post-landing, and while it maybe didn't provide the best optics, the real takeaway is that SpaceX proved the crazy landing maneuver Starship will use for reusability actually works in real-world conditions.

Starlink's UT antenna for residential customers.

SpaceX kinda needs the Starship to start working more and more often, because the big new rocket has a lot of work to do. As the space company continues to launch its Starlink satellites, including 60 more this past week, it really wants to be launching up to 400 at a time using Starship's generous cargo compartment. And there are humans waiting in the wings for a Starship ride, too: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who bought out an entire Starship mission for a trip around the moon and back in 2023, has opened applications for eight other passengers who will join him -- at his expense.

Story continues

The SPAC man closes out his personal stake

Chamath Palihapitiya, the chairman of Virgin Galactic, has sold his entire personal stake in the company after ushering it into the public markets last year via a SPAC merger with his Social Capital Hedosophia. Palihapitiya still retains a 6.2% ownership stake via that vehicle, in partnership with Ian Osborne, but his own independent holdings are now at zero.

Chamath Palihapitiya

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Palihapitiya says he "remains as dedicated as ever to Virgin Galactic's team, mission and prospects," and that the only reason he liquidated his position was to provide funds for a climate-focused investment he'll be taking the lid off soon. Public market investors seem not to have retained the same confidence, however, with price down consistently since news of the chairman's sale came out last week.

Early Stage

Early Stage is the premier how-to event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. Youll hear firsthand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. Well cover every aspect of company building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, product-market fit, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built-in  theres ample time included for audience questions and discussion.
Legislative leaders have reached a deal on a bill that will freeze the unemployment insurance tax rate and extend tax relief on forgiven loans to small businesses in efforts to help Massachusetts businesses and their employees work through the COVID-19 pandemic.

House and Senate leaders said in a statement Monday they agreed to freeze the unemployment insurance tax rate for 2021 and 2022 and adjust the state tax code on income taxes so small businesses in Massachusetts with forgiven Paycheck Protection Program loans can get the same type of tax relief thats available to corporations with those forgiven loans.

Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano signed off on the statement, as well as Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz. They did not make available a copy of the bill they referenced.

Other provisions of the deal include tax relief to unemployed workers whose income falls below 200% of the poverty line, waived penalties for missed tax payments on 2020 unemployment benefits, mandated paid leave for employees testing positive for COVID-19 or who need time off to get the vaccine and reimbursements for employers providing paid time off.

This agreement strikes a balance to ensure that businesses can continue to move forward while protecting those working hard to keep the economy going, legislative leaders said in the statement. Time is of the essence to bring this much needed relief to businesses and employees, and so we will act expeditiously to get this comprehensive bill to the governors desk.

Hours earlier, Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr joined a call organized by conservative think tank MassFiscal to promote changes to the unemployment insurance rate and the tax code for forgiven PPP loans. The Gloucester Republican said the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are still reviewing the specifics of the agreement, but it signals the opening of a major window of opportunity to provide needed tools to confront these challenges.

For months, business leaders have raised concerns about the expected rise in unemployment insurance. Employers are expected to see the rates increase from $539 per employee on average to $866 per employee. The bill would freeze the unemployment insurance rate schedule for 2021 and 2022 and and authorize state borrowing.

The states UI trust fund has been depleted since the start of the pandemic, falling to more than $2 billion in the red at the end of 2020. The Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation said in a bulletin issued last week that borrowing would likely be unavoidable and that doing so now gives the state time to make a deal that is cost effective for the state trust fund and employers.

The Raise Up Massachusetts Coalition, a group of faith-based institutions, labor unions and community groups, praised the plan to push for paid leave protections for workers but has not yet seen the bill. The coalition plans to review the bill to see if it meets members demands for at least 5 days, or 40 hours, of paid sick leave time.

Ensuring that frontline workers can afford to stay home if they have symptoms or have been exposed to COVID-19 will be critical to preventing additional surges and finally ending the pandemic, said Peter MacKinnon, president of SEIU Local 509.

The proposed tax relief for small business owners with forgiven PPP loans has gained moment over the past week. Citing the pandemics impact on small businesses, legislators from Democratic Sen. Eric Lesser of Longmeadow to Republican Rep. Marc Lombardo of Billerica have backed passing a bill that would let small business owners avoid claiming forgiven PPP loans on their gross income tax.

The $900 billion stimulus bill Congress passed in December allows corporations with forgiven PPP loans to exclude those funds from their gross income, but they can still claim deductions on the expenses they paid for with PPP funds, tax experts say. The end result is a double benefit for businesses, at least in states that conform to the federal tax code.

From a baseline where people dont normally get to deduct expenses they dont pay, this is a double tax benefit, said Adam B. Thimmesch, a professor of at Nebraska College of Law who analyzes federal and state taxes across the U.S.

Massachusetts conforms to the federal tax code when it comes to corporations, but not when it comes to personal income taxes. Some companies, particularly small businesses, file business taxes through personal income taxes because they are pass-through entities.

But Massachusetts lawmakers can do one of two things: They can opt out of the federal corporate code, or they can pass a law conforming to the federal income tax code so both large and small businesses get the so-called double benefit, Thimmesch said.

The issues with conforming to the federal tax code in this case, he said, is the potential impact on struggling businesses that did not get a PPP loan.

If you were a company that didnt get PPP funds, youre going to pay state income tax on all of your income, Timmesch said. You both didnt get federal assistance and you have to pay state income tax on all of your income, whereas a PPP recipient is getting federal assistance and getting to take advantage of a deduction for an expense they didnt pay.

For weeks, business owners have called on lawmakers to help address the differences between the federal and state tax codes.

I think they were just thinking, weve got to survive and take whatever opportunities we can get, Michlewitz said during last weeks budget hearing as Administration & Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan testified.

Following Mondays announcement, Michlewitzs office did not respond to questions about the potential double benefit small and large businesses could be getting from forgiven PPP loans.

On Monday morning, Republican lawmakers on a call with MassFiscal called for swift passage of a bill that would freeze the unemployment insurance rate and offer relief to businesses with forgiven PPP loans.

Our small businesses and workers across the commonwealth, they need us. Theyre in a tough position because the government put them in a tough position, Lombardo said, referring to the closure of non-essential businesses at the start of the pandemic and other restrictions the state has imposed since.

I represent a lot of these small business owners who are watching much larger corporations receive these PPP loans that were designed to be tax free as tax free and in Massachusetts here the small businesses are getting hit, said Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Sutton Republican. Taking care of this now, as soon as possible, as expeditiously as possible, is really important.

Peter D. Enrich, professor of law emeritus at Northeastern University School of Law, said changing the state tax code for personal income taxes to conform with the federal tax code means businesses would get a double benefit. Enrich, who serves on the board of left-leaning think tank MassBudget, said the state would lose out on more than $150 million as more businesses claim deductions for expenses they didnt pay.

It simply is not true that without legislation people are going to be taxed on their forgiven PPP loans, Enrich said. That is simply a confused narrative that has been exploited by lobbyists for the business community.
Members against it, including District 3 board member Dick Barr, said the timing is bad, and many of his constituents are struggling. District 5 board member Judy Martini called this the worst time to consider a tax increase, and suggested the county spend less on state road projects, which she said has been 20% of all projects done. Barr represents Lindenhurst and Round Lake Heights, as well as portions of Round Lake Beach and Lake Villa. Martinis area includes Fox Lake, Ingleside, Lakemoor and Volo.
The United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that fully vaccinated Americans can return to some sense of normalcy.



Those who have received the required jabs can visit with other vaccinated people and some unvaccinated people, according to the new guidelines.



People are considered protected two weeks after they take the final dose of their vaccine, the CDC said.



Over 30 million Americans have been fully vaccinated thus far.



Health officials announced the new safety guidelines at Mondays White House coronavirus task force briefing.



The recommendations say fully vaccinated Americans can:



Meet indoors with other fully vaccinated people without masks or social distancing

Meet indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household, if they are at low risk for severe illness from the virus

Skip testing or quarantine when exposed to Covid-19, unless symptoms appear.

But they should continue to:



Avoid non-essential travel and large crowds

Continue to wear face coverings and maintain social distancing in public

The CDC said there was still a risk vaccinated people could spread the disease to the unvaccinated, as data on this remains sparse. The new guidelines in particular call for mask wearing and distancing from those who are unvaccinated and may be at an elevated risk of serious Covid-related complications.



CDC senior adviser Andy Slavitt told reporters: Weve begun to describe what a world looks like as we move beyond Covid-19. As more and more people get vaccinated the list of activities will continue to grow.



The US has seen a recent uptick in the number of inoculations per day. Over 90 million vaccines have been administered to date.

The approval of a third vaccine, Johnson & Johnsons single-dose jab, to join the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech versions, has also helped boost supply.



But health officials warn that Covid-19 is still a serious concern.

Over 90% of the population still has not been vaccinated, CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky said.



Our responsibility is to make sure in the context of 60,000 new cases a day, that we protect those who are vulnerable.

The US has reported over 29 million virus cases and 525,000 deaths.



Dr Walensky added that the guidance would continue to be updated as more people get vaccinated and science and evidence expands.



Mr Slavitt said it was a very hopeful morning but with continued warning signs for the future.



Missed opportunity

However, Dr Leana Wen, a public health expert and the former Baltimore health commissioner, told the Associated Press the new guidance was far too cautious.



Dr Wen said the CDC was missing a major opportunity to tie vaccination status with reopening guidance.

By coming out with such limited guidance, they are missing the window to influence state and national policy.

More than 20 travel and aviation groups wrote to the White House on Monday calling for a temporary health documentation system to boost travel.



The group said it opposed making vaccination a requirement for domestic or international travel.

Later on Monday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden would deliver his first primetime address this Thursday to mark one year under Covid-19 lockdown measures.



Last week, Mr Biden said the US would have enough coronavirus vaccines for every adult by the end of May.









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
The father of a girl who died from hyponatraemia has welcomed a High Court ruling allowing an investigation into how Northern Irelands chief scientific adviser carried out a review into the nine-year-olds care.

Alan Roberts said he was grateful for the ruling, while the General Medical Council (GMC) said its probe would resume.

Chief scientific adviser Professor Ian Young lost a legal challenge to block his regulatory body from investigating serious criticisms of his work.

He has been accused of misleading a coroner investigating the death of Claire Roberts. She died from hyponatraemia caused by fluid mismanagement at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in 1996.

She was one of five children whose deaths were probed by an inquiry which criticised the health service for a culture of defensiveness and secrecy and described her death as preventable.

Read More

The inquiry report accused Prof Young, who was not involved in Claires care but carried out an independent review of her treatment for the Belfast Trust, of misleading the coroner at an inquest into her death in 2006.

Expand Close Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Ian Young / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Ian Young

The chair also found that Prof Young, who is currently on leave from his post on health grounds, shifted from his initial independent role to one of protecting the hospitals and its doctors and did not tell Claires parents about failings in her treatment.

In January, Prof Young went to the Royal Courts of Justice in London to challenge a decision by the GMC to investigate the allegations made by the Hyponatraemia Inquiry. But in a ruling on Tuesday morning, Mr Justice Holgate dismissed the bid.

Alan Roberts, Claires dad, said: Prof Young has failed in his attempt through the judicial review process at the Royal Courts of Justice to block and stop the GMC as the independent regulatory body from carrying out its statutory legal duty.

We are grateful to Mr Justice Holgate for reaching a judgment that the GMC can, in the public interest, proceed with its investigation into the very serious allegations against Prof Young.

Read More

Responding to the ruling, Prof Youngs legal representative said her client was disappointed with the outcome and denied misleading the coroner or Claires parents about the cause of her death.

She added: In February 2018, Prof Young self-referred to the GMC following the publication of the report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia Related Deaths in January 2018.

Following a consideration of the issues, the GMC decided to close the matter, with no adverse findings against Prof Young.

An internal review led to a reversal of that decision, and subsequently to Prof Young, on advice from his legal team, bringing this challenge.

Prof Young is disappointed with the outcome. In reaching his decision, the judge explicitly stated that it is not his role to express any conclusion about the merits of findings which have been made by others or the allegations against Prof Young, and that the judgment should not be treated as if it does.

Prof Young continues to acknowledge the ongoing suffering of Mr and Mrs Roberts and their family in relation to Claires death in 1996 and subsequent events. He has apologised previously if any of his actions have inadvertently contributed to their distress, and would like to do so again.

Prof Young had no involvement in Claires care or that of the other children whose deaths were investigated by the Hyponatraemia Inquiry.

He reviewed Claires records at the request of the Belfast Trust in 2004 and concluded that hyponatraemia may have played a role in her death.

He recommended that her death should be referred to the coroner and met with Claires parents at that time to explain this to them.

Expand Close Prof Young allegedly gave misleading evidence to an inquest (Press Eye/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Prof Young allegedly gave misleading evidence to an inquest (Press Eye/PA)

Prof Young attended the Inquest into Claires death as a trust witness in 2006 where he stated that hyponatraemia contributed to her death, along with other factors.

The coroner asked two independent experts from outside Northern Ireland to review Claires case and to attend the inquest as witnesses. At this time, Prof Young informed the coroner both in writing and verbally that he agreed with the views expressed by the coroners experts regarding the care provided and the cause of Claires death.

Furthermore, he agreed with the coroner at the inquest that Claires case should be discussed with the Hyponatraemia Inquiry.

Throughout these events, Prof Young believes that he has acted with integrity, to the best of his ability, to give clear and honest opinions which reflected his knowledge and understanding of the evidence at the time.

In particular, he denies completely any suggestion that he sought to mislead the coroner or Claires parents in any way.

Indeed, he believes that the record is clear that on every possible occasion he has sought and supported further independent external scrutiny of Claires care.

The GMC welcomed the courts findings. A spokeswoman said: We are pleased the court has decided that our decision to investigate in this case was lawful and will now continue.

This is a difficult time for all concerned and our thoughts remain with those families who lost children to hyponatraemia in Northern Ireland.

As in any case, we will look at all the evidence before making a decision.

The Department of Health was for comment.
Bengaluru, March 9 : Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa has announced a slew of projects to improve health infrastructure as well as cultural and business parks in Bengaluru as part of his Rs 7,795 crore allocated on Monday in his state budget.

Yediyurappa also announced to establish 100 acre theme park under public private partnership in Hesaraghatta to provide information and training with permanent exhibition and demonstration of native livestock and breeds of sheep/goats and poultry.

Hesarghatta is located 30 km from Bengaluru, and it is considered to be a grassland that was notified by the British in the gazette along with other grasslands of Bengaluru like Malleshwaram, Hebbal and Yeshwantpur.

The controversial project is figuring in the budget for the last 15 years, while the environmentalists are fighting to protect this last remaining grassland around Bengaluru.

The Bengaluru civic body will establish 57 new primary health centres in as many wards at an estimated cost of Rs 10 crore where outpatient and diagnostic services will be provided.

"These PHCs will be known as Janarogya Centres to provide primary health care," he said.

Yediyurappa said that a new multi-speciality hospital would be established in north Bengaluru to provide modern and specialist medical services to poor and migrant workers in the city.

He added that the Institute of Gastroenterology Sciences and Organ Transplant, one of the first institutes for organ transplantation in the country established in Victoria Hospital, will be equipped with 120 beds and equipment at Rs 28 crore which will be operationalised this fiscal.

The Chief Minister said that a 50-bed capacity sub centre will come up at the K.C. General Hospital for Rs 20 crore to reduce pressure on Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology.

In a bid to showcase Karnataka's rich culture, Yediyurappa said that the government has proposed to establish Experience Bengaluru Centre on the land belonging to Mysore Lamps in Malleswaram.

He added that Rs 2 crore had been set aside for conducting weekend literary and cultural programmes, Chitra Santhe, art and sculpture exhibitions and folk programmes at Mallathahalli Kala Grama (Mallathahalli Art Village).

Apart from this the Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure development Corporation (KSIIDC) will set up Bengaluru Signature Business Park of international standards near Kempegowda International Airport at an estimated cost of Rs 168 crore.

The Chief Minister said that the work on the second terminal taken up at an estimated Rs 4,751 crore is likely to be completed this year. "This will increase the maximum annual passenger capacity of KIA to six crore," he said.

He also added that the second runway at the KIA had already been completed at a cost of Rs 2,708 crore.
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The National Police broke up a party in a house in the Capuchinos district of Malaga on Sunday. As a result of the action, 27 people have been reported for allegedly failing to comply with the health measures imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as social distancing or the mandatory use of masks.

The events took place at 1.25 am  during the curfew - when the National Police learned of the party.

Four teams of officers found a private party in a rental property where, in addition to the residents, some thirty people who were not living together had gathered, far exceeding the maximum allowed in a closed space.

Those attending the party, mostly of French and Belgian nationalities, were drinking alcohol, did not wear masks and did not respect social distancing measures according to the force.

Police broke up the party and have reported 27 people for flouting the anti-Covid measures.
HLRBO HLRBO CEO Heath Schubert said, One of the biggest challenges we have had is hunters just want to call and talk to the landowner directly, but landowners do not want to list their phone numbers. Direct Contact is our solution to that pervasive challenge.

HLRBO continues to make the process of renting a hunting lease as simple as possible by improving its website and investing in new partnerships.

The newest feature HLRBO is rolling out is called Direct Contact, and it allows hunters to call or text landowners directly while allowing landowners to keep their phone numbers private.

HLRBO CEO Heath Schubert said, One of the biggest challenges we have had is hunters just want to call and talk to the landowner directly, but landowners do not want to list their phone numbers. Direct Contact is our solution to that pervasive challenge.

Easing the burden of communication between hunter and landowner is the latest reason HLRBO is North Americas premier hunting lease network, as the company continues on its mission to offer an all-in-one platform connecting hunters and landowners.

HLRBO is also excited to announce two new partnerships just in time for the spring season. The first is with Merk Farms Hunting, which is one of the largest and most active lease management companies in Kentucky and Indiana. They company also acquires and manages hunting leases in Tennessee, Illinois, and Ohio.

Merk Farms Hunting Owner Stephen Ruckman said, Finding new hunting land is a very difficult process. We have about 10 years of experience in the Region and while we may not have exactly what you are looking for we will more than likely be the one to find it.

HLRBO is also partnering with the American Hunting Lease Association to offer hunting leasing liability insurance and making them their preferred partner. The American Hunting Lease Association has been committed to creating opportunities for hunters and landowners by developing the tools and resources they need to safely and successfully gain/grant access to private land.

These new partnerships and the new communication feature are two more ways HLRBO continues to be the premier online hunting lease network where finding leases nationwide and communicating with landowners has never been easier.

HLRBO lists hunting leases by private landowners, corporate landowners, game farms, and hunting clubs. Find out more at http://www.hlrbo.com

###

About HLRBO

HLRBO is the premier online hunting lease network. HLRBOS mission is to be the first stop for hunters searching for a place to hunt. To fulfill that mission HLRBO provides listing options for private land owners, hunting businesses, hunting guides, and public land. HLRBO provides the flexibility for land owners and businesses to set their pricing and availability based on a traditional year lease, a monthly rental, weekly rental, daily rental, and even by hunting season. This makes it easier than ever for hunters to find the hunting opportunity they are searching for while giving land owners and businesses the flexibility they desire.

About Merk Farms Hunting

Merk Farms Hunting was founded in 2007 as a semi-guided outfitting service on a mix of family and lease land in Southern Indiana. Today, the company is the fastest growing hunting lease management company in the U..S., with a footprint of more than 40,000 acres across four states with more being added all of the time. Merk Farms Hunting is proud to provide a wide range of services to hunters and landowners including land leasing, property/lease maintenance and management, private land finding services and more.

About The American Hunting Lease Association

Since 2010, the American Hunting Lease Association has been committed to creating opportunities for hunters and landowners by developing the tools and resources they need to safely and successfully gain/grant access to private land. The organization provides liability programs for private hunt clubs, guides, and outfitters, and landowners to make it possible for hunters to enjoy the great sport of hunting, while providing landowners with security, confidence, and peace of mind.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 20:52:43|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

MANILA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Tuesday that it has generally endorsed a new country partnership strategy (CPS) for China for the 2021-2025 period to support government efforts to achieve high-quality, green development.

The ADB said its operations in China will focus on three interrelated strategic priorities -- environmentally sustainable development, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and an aging society and health security.

"ADB is targeting areas where it can add value through innovative demonstration projects that generate regional public goods, knowledge, and best practices for replication," ADB's Country Director for China Yolanda Fernandez Lommen said in a statement.

"Close cooperation between sovereign and non-sovereign operations will be at the core of this approach, and synergies between ADB's operational and knowledge departments will be used to help develop solutions to complex issues," she added.

The ADB proposes total lending commitments in the country of 7.0 billion U.S. dollars to 7.5 billion U.S. dollars for 2021-2025 for sovereign operations, compared with 9.0 billion U.S. dollars in 2016-2020, with an expected declining trend towards the end of the CPS.

The ADB said nonsovereign operations will remain stable at about 450 million U.S. dollars per year.

According to the bank, China's rapid growth has also given rise to new development challenges, including social inequality, environmental degradation and pollution, a rapidly aging society, and health security concerns.

The ADB said the CPS recognizes that these and other challenges need to be addressed by strengthened social and economic institutions and will guide ADB engagement with China to close the gaps in key institutions and steadily approach graduation from ADB's assistance.

According to the ADB, the CPS is aligned with key government development priorities under China's upcoming 14th five-year plan.

These include an emphasis on natural resource management to combat climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem damage, low-carbon development, social inclusion in the context of population aging, and regional health security, the ADB said. Enditem
This approval is a key step forward in the development of the company's iSTRYM digital therapeutics platform

VANCOUVER, BC, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Mind Cure Health Inc. (CSE: MCUR) (OTCQB: MCURF) (FRA: 6MH) ("MINDCURE" or the "Company") a leader in advanced proprietary technology for psychedelic therapy, is pleased to announce that it has received unconditional ethics approval from Veritas IRB for its integration protocol research study. This study will serve to inform the development of the company's digital therapeutics platform, iSTRYM, and how it is built out to best serve therapists, patients and the entire psychedelics industry.

"This is a monumental milestone for MINDCURE and our digital therapeutics strategy," said Kelsey Ramsden, President & CEO, MINDCURE. "As we build out iSTRYM to be the largest data repository of psychedelic experiences, we are ensuring that its development is rooted in research proof and a deep understanding of the systems and protocols provided during psychedelic therapy. This ethics approval from Veritas signifies both the scientific validation of this study, as well as the importance we place on building trust and integrity with both therapists and patients."

"The impact of psychedelics is so vast that even subtle variations in approaches to integration can create a dramatic impact on a client's trajectory," said Dr. Mitch Earleywine, Professor of Psychology at The University at Albany, State University of New York and sub-investigator on this study for MINDCURE. "This work is bound to uncover important contributors to the best psychedelic-assisted therapy outcomes. Formal integration research is in its infancy, and traditional approaches haven't lasted for centuries by accident. An intriguing experience is great, of course, but altering someone's whole perspective can create gains that will continue to add to quality-of-life year after year." Dr. Earleywine is also known for last year's commentary underscoring the dire need for work like this study that appeared in Journal of Psychedelic Studies.1

Veritas Independent Research Board (IRB) is the first and only Canadian-owned and accredited central IRB. Known as a leader in research ethics, Veritas IRB has long been the research ethics board of choice for Canadian governmental departments, academic hospitals, regional hospitals, private research centers and non-governmental agencies conducting human research. Since its inception in 1996, its board has been dedicated to ensuring that its processes respect participants' rights and that its services are delivered according to the highest standards of ethical and clinical practice.2

_________________________ 1 Earleywine, M., & De Leo, J. (2020). Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for depression: How dire is the need? How could we do it?. Journal of Psychedelic Studies. 2 https://www.veritasirb.com/about-us.html

About Mind Cure Health (MINDCURE) Inc.



MINDCURE exists as a response to the current mental health crisis and urgent calls for effective treatments. MINDCURE believes in the need to reinvent the mental health care model for patients and practitioners to allow psychedelics to advance into common and accepted care.

MINDCURE is focused on identifying and developing pathways and products that ease suffering, increase productivity, and enhance mental health. MINDCURE is interested in exploring diverse therapeutic areas beyond psychiatry, including digital therapeutics, neuro-supports, and psychedelics, all to improve mental health.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Kelsey Ramsden, President & CEO

Phone: 1-888-593-8995

Forward-Looking Information



Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws (also known as forward-looking statements). Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, and may cause actual results, performance or achievements or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements or industry results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward-looking information generally can be identified by the use of terms and phrases such as "anticipate", "believe", "could", "estimate", "expect", "feel", "intend", "may", "plan", "predict", "project", "subject to", "will", "would", and similar terms and phrases, including references to assumptions. Some of the specific forward-looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: MINDCURE's psychedelic integration protocol research study informing the company's development of iSTRYM; iSTRYM potentially becoming the largest data repository of psychedelic experiences; this study uncovering important contributors to the best psychedelic-assisted therapy outcomes; and that altering someone's experience with psychedelics can create gains that will add quality of life year after year.

Forward-looking information is based on a number of key expectations and assumptions made by MINDCURE, including, without limitation: the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the Canadian economy and MINDCURE's business, and the extent and duration of such impact; no change to laws or regulations that negatively affect MINDCURE's business; there will be a demand for MINDCURE's products in the future; no unanticipated expenses or costs arise; MINDCURE will be able to continue to identify products that make them ideal candidates for providing solutions for treating mental health; that the functional mushroom industry will continue to grow; this integration protocol research study will inform MINDCURE for the development of its iSTRYM platform; and MINDCURE will be able to operate its business as planned. Although the forward-looking information contained in this news release is based upon what MINDCURE believes to be reasonable assumptions, it cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with such information.

Forward-looking information is provided for the purpose of presenting information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. Forward-looking information involves significant risks and uncertainties and should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results as actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking information. Those risks and uncertainties include, among other things, risks related to: the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Canadian economy, MINDCURE's industry and MINDCURE's business, which may negatively impact, and may continue to negatively impact, MINDCURE and may materially adversely affect MINDCURE's investments, results of operations, financial condition, and MINDCURE's ability to obtain additional equity or debt financing, and satisfy its financial obligations; general economic conditions; future growth potential; competition for mental health and wellness investments; this integration protocol research study may not inform MINDCURE for development of its iSTRYM platform; and changes in legislation or regulations. Management believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information contained herein are based upon reasonable assumptions and information currently available; however, management can give no assurance that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking information. Additional information on the risk factors that could affect MINDCURE can be found under "Risk Factors" in MINDCURE's final prospectus which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

The forward-looking information contained herein is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. Forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to MINDCURE. The forward-looking information is stated as of the date of this news release and MINDCURE assumes no obligation to update or revise such information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as may be required by applicable law.

The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release and the CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Mind Cure Health Inc.
Judy Havlak, writing at the Carolina Journal reports:

A coal miners son. A powerful attorney. A defeated surgeon. Two college sweethearts.

All of them became caught up in a powerful system known as Certificate of Need. Certificate of Need laws give the state control of medical resources. Twenty-five people, an advisory board appointed by the governor, oversee the supply of hospital beds, medical equipment, and a host of other resources.

In theory, the system is supposed to guard patients access to health care.

But the system offers a wealth of opportunities to crush unwanted competition and hamstring smaller doctors practices. Under CON laws, incumbent providers can take their competitors to court and force them to bleed money for months, years, or even decades.

It may be easy to praise the system on the record. But those who criticize it do so quietly, and they fear retribution. Many declined to publish their names in this story or to speak on the record.

Its human nature, so I shouldnt be surprised, but I have clients who think its unconstitutional, its terrible, its an unfair restraint on trade, said a CON attorney. But once they get it, CON is great, its saving money, its good for the people. Its incredible the metamorphosis they undergo.

THE FIGHTER

Dr. Jay Singleton sometimes says hes not the right man for the job.

Singleton is the son of coal miners. He spent his childhood crisscrossing Appalachia in a trailer, always in search of another dying non-union mine. The good old days of mining were just a memory, and, more and more, the only thing left was strip mining, tearing the tops off mountains.

Singleton is now the champion of those who would wage a war against the wealthiest hospital systems in North Carolina and against the state itself. Singleton is suing to overthrow the CON regime. His constitutional challenge will decide the future of health care as North Carolinians know it.

Singleton isnt polished. He tries not to come off as intense, but his face always reddens when hes debating lawmakers or lobbyists. All of his in-laws know about CON laws.

But Singleton prides himself on his quips. He jokes that his siblings used to sit around for hours and make fun of each other. They were so poor there wasnt much else to do.

Growing up, one day I asked my mom, who was really frustrated, probably for about a billion reasons, and she was crying, Singleton said. She told me it was because we were poor. And I was thinking, how can I not be poor?

That question put Singleton on course to become an eye surgeon and to clash with CON laws in New Bern. He cant even perform a five-minute cataract surgery on his patients without admitting them to a hospitals surgery center  and saddling them with a bill for thousands of dollars.

Singleton has seen patients go blind because they couldnt afford hospital prices.

You do see things that you dont think are right, Singleton said. It doesnt make hospitals solvent. It makes them rich.

FIRST BLOOD

Dr. Gajendra Singh is a soft-spoken, meticulously polite surgeon who tried to treat poor patients. He paid the price. Singh began the fight Singleton carries on.

Singh watched his patients being crushed by medical bills or catching cancer too late. One man put off getting an MRI for more than a year. What he found was worse than any medical bill.

So, I saw it, Singh told WFDD. He had a cancer spread everywhere. And that was a Stage 4 cancer. And I felt guilty. Like you know, that as a society we had failed him.

Singh founded his own imaging center in Forsyth County a year later, and sued to overthrow the CON regime. He is something of a legend now, at least in pockets of the medical community.

Singh saved his patients thousands of dollars. Some drove for hours; some came from other states. Some came because of mysterious pain, and others because these were the only scans they could afford.

Singh, man, gotta hand it to him. But he bit off a lot, Singleton said. He went after the MRIs, the Shangri La, the temple.

But Singhs practice collapsed under the stress inflicted by CON laws and the COVID-19 pandemic. His patients have lost their access to affordable medical scans, and Singh has stopped talking to the press.

Trailblazers are usually found dead on the trail, Singleton said. You want to be the second guy, the third guy. Not the first guy.

HOSTAGE

For Dr. Richard Bruch, it would have been easier if his hospital had just burned down.

The McPherson Hospital was so old that its elevator dated to 1926, and modern hospital beds couldnt fit inside. Patients avoided the dated facility, and the Durham hospital faced closure.

Where others saw decay, Bruch saw opportunity.

A group of doctors wanted to restore the hospitals legacy and build a state-0f-the-art facility for patients. But unless disaster ruined the current property, moving to a new building would require a new CON.

And the state said no.

Bruch applied three times in a row, dropping $50,000 each time  but the state denied the need for a better hospital each time. Duke Health blocked Bruchs applications, complaining that a newer, 18-bed hospital would unfairly compete with Dukes 335-bed behemoth in Durham. The CON process cost Bruch four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the early 2000s.

North Carolina is held hostage by those who have CONs already, said Bruch.

This wasnt Bruchs first brush with CON laws, and it wouldnt be his last. The system once forced him to pay a competitor thousands of dollars.

In the early 2000s, Bruchs Triangle Orthopedics was running enough MRI scans to qualify for its own MRI scanner. But the company that rented him a mobile MRI didnt want to lose his business  and all it had to do was appeal under the CON system to prevent that from happening.

Bruch says he settled and ponied up $100,000 to the rental company.

They wanted to make certain that they got their money, Bruch said.

HOOPS ON FIRE

Dr. Bruce Schroeder is lucky in his marriage.

Schroeder is a gutsy New Yorker, his wife an organized pediatrician. The two of them graduated college together, survived medical school together, built a breast imaging center together, and conquered the CON system together.

Ive jumped through all the hoops, and the hoops were on fire, Schroeder said.

The Schroeders hoped they could dodge the CON process in Greenville. They couldnt afford to waste months waiting instead of working, all the while spending a fortune they didnt have.

But advances in medicine outpaced their plans when 3D mammograms hit the market. If they spent more than $500,000, they couldnt escape the CON process.

My wife and I looked at each other and said, holy crap, we have to get a CON, Schroeder said. We couldnt spend a nickel without crossing that ridiculous threshold. I mean, we couldnt buy a pencil. If things break, wed be dead in the water.

They still couldnt afford to hire a lawyer. Instead, they spent months working on their application, night after night, drawing up bus schedules and gathering data. Neither of them knew anything about law or the CON process, but they were learning fast.

I always vote for the underdog, especially when its me, Schroeder said. We said this is the worst term weve ever written.

There was nothing they could do if their competitors decided to take them to court. But after what seemed like the longest month of their married lives, they got lucky and won their first CON.

Holy crap, that was a nice bottle of champagne, Schroeder said. All CONs are adversarial. Youre always trying to eat someone elses lunch when youre competing with them.

HIGH STAKES

The hospital couldnt afford to lose this court battle.

Desperate for a CON, the Presbyterian Hospital had gambled millions. It built a new hospital in Huntersville before finalizing its CON permission  and now the hospitals future depended on attorney Noah Huffstetler.

That should tell you how gutsy my client was, Huffstetler said.

It was up to Huffstetler to make sure the hospital didnt lose more than $48 million. Huffstetler would have to defeat a rivals lawsuit at the N.C. State Supreme Court.

My client said, We cant afford to lose this. And it was like, thanks, Huffstetler said. I have never been under more pressure to win a case than that.

In a triumph of verbal acrobatics, Huffstetler likened his clients case to building permits, and the judges actually bought his argument in 2005. His hospital was safe.

But its rival had never risked much. The incumbent only stood to lose a $50,000 bond  what other lawyers call chump change in the world of health care.

WEAPONIZED

These two doctors have the ultimate movers regret.

The Bone and Joint Surgery Clinics old MRI scanner broke when it changed offices, and its doctors decided to buy a modern replacement for their patients in Raleigh. That was a mistake.

The CON system gave UNC Health the opportunity to drag surgeons Dr. Paul Burroughs and Dr. Gary Fleischer into court. UNC Rexs Wake Radiology complained that a newer machine was not replacement equipment for the broken MRI in 2018, according to court documents.

It didnt make sense, Burroughs said. We werent going to go out and buy an antique machine to replace it with.

Things got worse when Burroughs asked to use their new MRI to its full potential in 2019.

The state agreed; Wake Radiology sued again. Theyve been stuck in court since.

From that point on, weve been having to pay legal fees to stay in business, Fleischer said. Theres no end. They can keep appealing, and the appeal can be appealed. It just never ends.

CON laws originally aimed to prevent doctors from splurging on expensive equipment without using it. The irony isnt lost on the two surgeons.

The process is twisted. It can be weaponized, Burroughs said.

BLINDSIDED

One provider in Monroe has a CON for eye surgery. Dr. Ivan Mac doesnt.

In theory, this means patients access to health care is safeguarded. In practice, it means that Mac has to ask his patients to pay more for 10-minute eye surgery.

Mac has to admit his patients into the hospital-owned surgery center, which charges them higher fees. In other cities, doctors can use their own surgery centers, but Mac says hes been told that it would be a waste of his time to apply for a CON.

The playing field is not exactly level, Mac said. As soon as you apply, youre in litigation. Instant litigation.

Ophthalmologist Dr. Terry Forrest believes CON laws are hurting rural providers. His Goldsboro practice lost millions during the pandemic, but he was at a disadvantage even before the coronavirus hit. Under the CON system, he fights against a price disadvantage, and he also struggles to recruit doctors.

No one whos got an IQ above room temperature wants to move to a city where theyre not in control of their patients care, Forrest said. My patients are going to get a bill from the hospital, too? They hear that, and theyre not interested.

Forrest saw a woman go blind in the last month because she was afraid of the copays and didnt want to seek care.

Our politicians dont care. They dont want to make the people with the money upset, Forrest said. They really just dont care, as long as they have good policies for them and their families.

THE COUNCIL

Even former council members cant agree on whether the CON process is driven by data or swayed by politics.

The 25-member State Health Coordinating Council is dominated by hospital systems, which control at least 10 seats. Two business advocates, two elected lawmakers, and one insurer are tasked with representing small and large businesses.

The critics accuse the state of playing politics with patients access to health care. They point to studies showing that CON states have fewer rural hospitals.

Its very political. You can look at the council, see whos there, and whose interests theyre protecting, said a former council member who feared retribution. Reality is, theres an oligopoly. Theres a few big medical centers. They have all the money and all the clout.

CONs supporters say the council protects the state from a destructive medical arms race. They warn that rural hospitals will close if exposed to uncontrolled competition.

When hospitals had to shut down electives, rural hospitals really struggled, said Cody Hand, lobbyist for the N.C. Healthcare Association. Without the CON laws, those hospitals couldnt make it financially. . Our fear is that, without CON, someone could come in and easily pick those profitable services off.

Another former council member believes CON laws have created monopolies. He supports parts of CON, but its process forced him to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on CONs legal battles.

If they keep filing lawsuits, they can delay that competitor from coming in, and theyll make up the legal fees, the former council member said. Thats been a nasty battle, theres still bad blood between the two parties. The scars are still there.

He believes there has to be a legal recourse for providers. But he also acknowledged the dangers of the current system.

Its crazy, crazy stuff, he said. The small guys, the hospital can beat them down.

CON reform is notoriously difficult to move in the legislature. But the N.C. Healthcare Association does support reforming the litigation that dogs the CON process, Hand said.

Hand said he wouldnt oppose raising the bond  or the $50,000 competitors must stake to sue over CONs  to create a good faith scenario. But he rejected any repeal efforts.

Its a burden on my members as well, Hand said. But [repeal] for us is a baby with the bathwater issue.

Singleton is less charmed. If he heard Hands comment, he would likely accuse him of drowning the baby.

In the face of CON, you find out who the true predators are, Singleton said. Small hospitals have to fear our larger hospitals, kind of like fish.

Source: Certificate of Need CON: A tangled web of bureaucracy, clout, and backroom deals - Carolina Journal - Carolina Journal
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
ABOUT THE SERIES

With its "Lives Lost" series, The Gazette has been remembering those whose lives were cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the impact of the pandemic is felt in other ways, too. With "Lives Left Behind," The Gazette is profiling those who have lost not their lives but their livelihoods, who have been forced to put their dreams on hold or struggled to keep their businesses afloat as the coronavirus keeps its grip on the world. (If you know of a business that is in danger of closing, or has closed, because of COVID, email bill.radford@gazette.com.)
Beirut: Lebanons President told the army and security forces on Monday to clear roadblocks after a week of protests over a collapsing economy and paralysed government, but the army chief warned that troops should not get sucked into the political deadlock.

President Michel Aoun issued the call to open up the roads across the country after a meeting with top officials while the armys top commander held a separate meeting with military leaders at which he stressed the right to peaceful protest.

Army chief General Joseph Aoun also berated Lebanons sectarian-based politicians for their handling of the crisis, warning of an unstable security situation.

The officer also is suffering and is hungry, to the officials I say, where are you going? What are you waiting for? What are you planning to do? he said in a statement, urging them to find long-lasting solutions to stop the countrys financial meltdown.
Russian women have been urged to avenge cheating boyfriends by informing the army - so they can be conscripted.

An extraordinary video by a recruitment officer uses International Women's Day to persuade them to snitch on former partners who betrayed or upset them - and are dodging military service.

Colonel Yury Khromov, 63, told them to supply the army with the identities and social media accounts of their erring exes.

The extraordinary video by a recruitment officer uses International Women's Day to persuade them to snitch on former partners who betrayed or upset them - and are dodging military service

Colonel Yury Khromov, 63, (pictured) told them to supply the army with the identities and social media accounts of their erring exes

About 263,000 Russian men aged between 18 and 27 are drafted each year, but many seek to evade the call-up amid complaints of widespread bullying.

The colonel, from Leningrad region military commissariat, told young women on the video: 'May you always be surrounded by true defenders, not only of the motherland, but of you as well.

'And now allow me to give you a little present.'

Men who betrayed them would be conscripted, he promised.

'Give us the social media accounts of your exes, and we will conscript them,' he said.

'Remember a true man must serve in the military.'

The offer by Colonel Khromov (left) was embraced by women. Some 263,000 Russian men aged between 18 and 27 are drafted each year, but many seek to evade the call-up amid complaints of widespread bullying

One woman gave her ex's details and urged the army to post him to Antarctica.

Another wrote: 'Take my ex to the army, finally make a real man of him.'

Men now face a one-year period serving in the Russian army.

Women are not conscripted but do serve in the Russian military, and paraded dressed in make-up for a 'Make-up under Camouflage' tournament marking International Women's Day.

Fifty female soldiers threw grenades, fired Kalashnikov rifles and crawled under barbed wire while also under orders to highlight their 'beauty' in a pageant in Yaroslavl, with the Ministry of Defence releasing pictures.

Colonel Yury Khromov (right), from Leningrad region military commissariat, told young women on the video: 'May you always be surrounded by true defenders, not only of the motherland, but of you as well'

'The ladies applied all manner of camouflage paint to their faces - stars, flags and bright colours among them,' stated one report.

They traversed a fire assault strip, where the soldiers threw grenades, crawled under barbed wire and carried out emergency medical assistance procedures, reported rbth.com.

'There was a big puddle there, with ice underneath. I got a nice bath,' said servicewoman Oksana Sukhorukova.

The women faced an intellectual test and were required to cook in field conditions.

The annual event has taken place since 2016.
Assistant Professor Dr. Wei Wei, left, and Bioinformatics Scientists Dr. Xiaowei Yan are pictured at Institute for Systems Biology in 2019. (Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures) "This approach will be useful in identifying circulating tumor cells from patients with a wide variety of cancers, independent of epithelial traits.  Wei Wei, PhD, ISB Assistant Professor

Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) is the most prevalent form of lung cancer, accounting for more than 80 percent of all lung cancer cases. Despite the aggressive nature of NSCLC, circulating tumor cells that lead to metastases often go undetected in the blood compared to breast, prostate, colorectal, and other cancers.

Now, scientists have developed a novel method to better detect the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) that are a telltale sign of metastases. The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

ISB and a collaborative team of researchers looked at hexokinase-2, or HK2, a key enzyme in glucose metabolism. A set of previous reports from our collaborator Dr. Herschman (co-author of the paper) and others revealed that cancer cells often rely on HK2 to elevate glucose metabolism to fuel their uncontrolled growth, making this enzyme a desirable target for testing, said ISB Assistant Professor Dr. Wei Wei, the lead corresponding author of the paper.

Conventional CTC detection methods, as exemplified by the FDA-cleared CellSearch system, normally rely on the use of a family of proteins called cytokeratins (CKs) that are typically found in epithelial tissues. As roughly 90 percent of human cancers arise in epithelial tissues and express CKs, these methods work very well in many major cancer types. However, their performance in NSCLC is suboptimal, despite the highly aggressive nature of NSCLC, which represents a long-standing puzzle in this field.

The researchers addressed this challenge to achieve a greater spectrum for CTC detection through exploiting a common feature of a wide range of cancer cells  elevated glucose consumption driven by the high level of HK2. The use of HK2 as a biomarker allowed them to develop metabolic activity-based methods for the identification of a novel CTC population without CK expression that was normally overlooked by conventional methods. This CK-negative CTC population was a prevalent subtype in 50 percent of NSCLC patients analyzed and was the only subtype in one-third of them, although all these patients were bearing CK-positive primary tumors, indicating that these tumor cells transitioned to CK-negative after detaching from the primary sites and shedding into the bloodstream in these NSCLC patients.

Sequencing analysis revealed metastasis and drug-resistance molecular signatures associated with CK-negative CTCs. Consistently, patients with prevalent CK-negative CTCs in blood were having poorer therapy response, shorter progression-free survival, and a higher chance for metastasis. Interestingly, the researchers found that patients with the EGFRL858R mutation  a common mutation of NSCLC treated by EGFR inhibitors  are more likely to have CK-negative CTCs circulating in their blood, which partially explains a long-standing clinical observation, namely the suboptimal therapeutic efficacy of first-line EGFR inhibitors in EGFRL858R-mutant tumors.

The use of HK2 as a tumor cell marker permits us to reveal a novel circulating tumor cell population which is not accessible with and is normally overlooked by current epithelial marker-based CTC detection methods, Wei said. Moreover, this approach can be exploited to anticipate NSCLC patient therapy response before they undergo cancer therapy, and more generally, it will be useful in identifying CTCs from patients with a wide variety of cancers, independent of epithelial traits.

Dr. Weis group at ISB, Dr. Qihui Shis group at Fudan University, Dr. Shun Lus group at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Dr. Harvey Herschmans group at the University of California Los Angeles contributed to this work.

About ISB

Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is a collaborative and cross-disciplinary non-profit biomedical research organization based in Seattle. We focus on some of the most pressing issues in human health, including aging, brain health, cancer, COVID-19, sepsis, as well as many infectious diseases. Our science is translational, and we champion sound scientific research that results in real-world clinical impacts. ISB is an affiliate of Providence, one of the largest not-for-profit health care systems in the United States. Follow us online at http://www.isbscience.org, and on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Press Release

March 8, 2021 Villanueva: Women are key to success against the pandemic Senator Joel Villanueva today stressed the key role that women play in defeating the pandemic, saying that female leadership would make it impossible not to emerge victorious against the most serious health crisis gripping the Philippines and the rest of the world. In a speech sponsoring Senate Resolution No. 673 commemorating International Women's Day, Villanueva said women now have decisive roles in determining the fate of the country and it was time to acknowledge that. "If women are with us every step of the way, we cannot lose our way," Villanueva said in his sponsorship speech. "If the status of women in society continues to rise, our country will, too," he said. "And as long as there are women who continue to lead the fight against the pandemic, it is impossible for the people not to be victorious," Villanueva added. To illustrate the barriers that had been breached by women empowerment, Villanueva recalled his days at the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) as the agency's head. "I can say that in various trades dominated by highly-skilled male workers, women are successfully breaking the barriers," Villanueva said. "In fact, more than 50 percent of technical-vocational graduates are women and they have proven that by taking courses more popular among men, they can also excel in them," said Villanueva, who chairs the Senate committee on labor. "Many Filipino women are now making a decent and stable living as welders, drivers, automotive mechanics," he said. But equality between men and women is not just a recent phenomenon, Villanueva said. He said even God, during the Creation, created men and women as equal beings. "Mankind would not be complete if there were only women or if there were only men," Villanueva said. "Mankind is women and men. Equal and the same, neither is ahead," he said. Villanueva said he takes pride in helping craft key legislation for women, among them the groundbreaking Magna Carta for Women and the Work-From-Home Act, which allows women to perform their dual tasks as a pillar of the home and as a worker. The law would eventually play a big role in guiding arrangements for remote work during the pandemic. Noting that this year's celebration of International Women's Day has the theme "Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World", Villanueva said it celebrates the "tremendous efforts by women around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic." "We believe that we need to always involve views and opinions of women in crafting our laws and their implementation in all aspects at every step of our pandemic response and recovery," Villanueva said.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Myanmar forces trapped protesters in the country's biggest city, Yangon, overnight on Monday.

Hundreds of young protesters were blocked by security forces from leaving the neighbourhood, San Chaung.

Thousands then poured onto the streets in support of those trapped, despite a night time curfew.

Flashes of light from police firing guns and stun grenades lit up the night.

On Tuesday, activists told Reuters the trapped protesters were finally able to leave, after calls from western powers and the UN for their release.

The military takeover and arrest of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi has plunged Myanmar into chaos.

Over 60 protesters have been killed and nearly 2,000 people detained, according to a local advocacy group.

Determined to continue their crackdown, five media companies in Myanmar were stripped of their licenses, according to state TV.

The independent outlets include Myanmar Now, Democratic Voice of Burma, Mizzima, 7-Day and Khit Thit Media.

All of them had been covering the anti-coup protests. Meanwhile at least 29 journalists have also been arrested.

Video Transcript

[GUN SHOTS]

[SCREAMS]

- Myanmar forces trapped protesters in the country's biggest city, Yangon, overnight on Monday. Hundreds of young protesters were blocked by security forces from leaving the neighborhood, San Chaung. Thousands then poured onto the streets in support of those trapped, despite a night time curfew.

[GUN FIRE]

Flashes of light from police firing guns and stun grenades lit up the night. On Tuesday, activists told Reuters the trapped protesters were finally able to leave, after calls from Western powers and the UN for their release.

[GUN SHOT]

The military takeover and arrest of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi has plunged Myanmar into chaos. Over 60 protesters have been killed and nearly 2,000 people detained, according to a local advocacy group. Determined to continue their crackdown, five media companies in Myanmar were stripped of their licenses, according to state TV on Monday.

The independent outlets include Myanmar Now, Democratic Voice of Burma, Mizza, 7-Day, Khit Thit Media. All of them had been covering the anti-coup protests. Meanwhile, at least 29 journalists have been arrested.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Juvenile Macular Degeneration Market China and India contribute to the growth of the market. On the other hand, the Middle East & Africa hold the least share of the market due to the low prevalence of macular degeneration in the region and limited availability of funds and availability of medical facilities. The Middle East has a huge share for the Juvenile Macular Degeneration Market due to the presence of well-developed countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia. However, due to the presence of a huge opportunity for the development of the market, Africa region is expecting a healthy growth in near future. Global Juvenile Macular Degeneration (Stargardt Disease) market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.2% during the forecast period 2017-2023.

Sample Report: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4935

Key Players in Global Juvenile Macular Degeneration Market Acucela Inc. (U.S.), Alkeus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (U.S.), Astellas Pharma Inc. (Japan), ProQR Therapeutics NV (Netherland), Sanofi (France), Bayer HealthCare (Germany), F. Hoffmann-La Roche (Switzerland), Copernicus Therapeutics Inc. (U.S.), Grupo Ferrer Internacional SA (U.S.), Iris Pharma (U.S.), Nemus Bioscience Inc (U.S.), Ophthotech Corp (U.S.), Iconic Therapeutics (U.S.), Adverum Biotechnologies (U.S.), PanOptica (U.S.), RXi Pharmaceuticals (U.S.), Neurotech Pharmaceuticals (U.S.)

The European juvenile macular degeneration market accounted for 32.7% market share in 2016. In Europe, Germany, the U.K, and France are the largest contributors to the market owing to the availability of funds for research, and extensive research and development activities in ophthalmology. The development of novel therapies and other treatment options for juvenile macular degeneration also fuel the growth of the market. The Middle East & Africa exhibit steady but positive growth owing to low technology penetration in developing regions of Africa, and increasing demand for diagnostics services in developing regions. In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates accounts for the largest market share for macular degeneration.

READ MORE @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/juvenile-macular-degeneration-market-4935

About Us: Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

Prior to the Senate, Duckworth served two terms in the U.S. House. She lost her initial bid for Congress in 2006 and went on to become director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, then an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in President Barack Obamas administration.
You are the owner of this article.
Ballia : March 9 (IANS) Action has been initiated against two sub-inspectors and three constables in Ballia district for having links with liquor smugglers.

This comes three days after action was taken against 22 policemen in Chandauli for similar reasons.

According to the government spokesman, senior officials had got intelligence inputs of a nexus between local policemen and smugglers for transporting liquor in bordering Bihar, which is a dry state.

Following this, strict vigil was maintained, and this led to the seizure of two big liquor consignments in Ballia by a special team after which policemen posted at Haldi and Dubahar police stations came on radar of Superintendent of Police (SP) Vipin Tada.

Tada ordered the attachment of sub-inspector Suryanath Yadav and constables Satish Yadav and Abhishek Yadav of Haldi police station, and sub-inspector Surjit Singh and constable Shiv Mangal Singh Yadav of the Dubahar police station to police lines.

According to SP Ballia, "On getting inputs, I sent special teams without informing Haldi and Dubahar police stations. The teams raided two locations and seized 765 boxes of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) stocked for smuggling to Bihar and arrested the smugglers on Monday." The role of outpost in-charges and some constables seemed suspicious, and a deputy SP has been assigned the probe. Five policemen have been attached with police lines to ensure fair investigation, the SP added.

"Role of more policemen is also under scanner. Our move of sharing phone numbers of senior police officials with the public has started yielding results as we are getting inputs and information easily," said Vipin Tada.

Earlier, the surveillance cell and Alinagar policemen seized a truck and a car carrying 1,750 litre of IMFL of some brands in 190 boxes in Chandauli.

SP Chandauli Amit Kumar said on Monday, "We arrested three men from Haryana and recovered liquor worth Rs 20 lakh being smuggled to Bihar. A sticker 'On Army Duty' was pasted on the truck and liquor was being illegally transported on documents of animal fodder." Chandauli SP Amit Kumar had swung into action after an audio clip of a conversation between a constable of Khandwa police station and smuggler went viral in which the policeman was taking guarantee for the safe passage of liquor consignments to Bihar.

The action started yielding results as several liquor consignments were recovered in Chandauli between Saturday and Monday.

Only on March 6, police had caught three smugglers trying to cross the border on foot and motorcycles with small liquor consignments.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A coalition of political groups in Oyo State has accused Governor Seyi Makinde of planning to defect from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The coalition, which consists of Oyo Solidarity Front (OSF), Oyo Progressives Resolute (OPR) and Oyo Sustainable Development Movement (OSDM), made the accusation in a communique made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday.

The communique was signed by Johnson Olooto, Shina Alubankudi, Waheed Olanrewaju, Sunday Olododo, Ibrahim Arikewusola and Daud Arapaja, the chairmen and secretaries of the groups respectively.

The coalition said the governors attempts would be resisted by all concerned parties in Oyo APC.

He has been rejected by his party and its leadership in the South West and he is looking for a soft landing, he should move further than the APC. He has always claimed to be popular, the group said.

He should stake his popularity in any of the other political parties in the country, not in APC where he has elevated his attack on party leadership to a state policy.

They noted in the communique that the governor could not be trusted because he betrayed all those who worked for him to emerge as governor.

Was it not the same Gov. Makinde that said there was Corona Virus in APC at one of his partys rallies? Was he not the same governor who harassed members of the progressives in the State and has continued to do so?

So why does he think it is the same party that should offer him a soft landing?

The coalition said that anyone who cannot be trusted would find it difficult to get a berth in APC.

They accused Mr Makinde of abandoning political structures and leaders who helped him into power.

All the people that helped him to power are no longer with him. Former Gov. Ayodele Fayose was the person that handed over the PDP flag to him as party flag bearer, today he is at loggerheads with his benefactor.

His antics have left his party more divided and many have deserted him. He would be an albatross on the neck of APC in Oyo State and we will resist his attempt at joining our party.

APC luring Makinde

In reaction to the allegations, Mr Makinde, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Taiwo Adisa, said he is not surprised that APC is luring Mr Makinde due to the unprecedented achievements the governor has recorded in a very short time.

As a close watcher of the GSM magic, so to say, one cannot be surprised that the APC in Oyo State is really envious of the great attainments of Governor Makinde. Every sector you turn to, he has something positive to show.

However, rather than claim that Makinde wants to defect to the APC, the truth the APC elements should tell the world is that their party is attempting to lure the performing governor in order to avert a woeful performance against him in 2023.

Contrary to the claims of the APC members that the governor has been soft against criticisms by its members, Governor Makinde has not bothered to respond to their baseless criticisms in recent times but has chosen to remain focused on service delivery.

We also completely reject the claims that his desire to join the APC informed the soft approach to the farmers/herders crisis.

ADVERTISEMENT

Rather, the governor has remained on the side of the law and has always insisted that criminals, whichever tribe they belong, are our enemies and they must be fished out without undue ethnic profiling.

So, the best thing the APC could come up with right now is to imagine a Makinde as a standard-bearer so he could serve as a surreptitious redemption for the years of locust the party had inflicted on the people.
Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) have refused to give any assurance on Jet Airways' slots issue, in an affidavit to NCLT.

In a joint affidavit to the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and MoCA stated that "slots allocated to the corporate debtor are not the asset of the corporate debtor and, hence, no mandatory directions in respect of the allocations/reallocation of slots may be issued by the tribunal for the mandatory compliance of the same by the DGCA/MoCA".

However, any request of the resolution applicant (Jet Airways) for allocation of slots would be considered as per the existing policy and procedure, it added.

On the slots of the grounded airline prior to the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), the affidavit stated that "allocation of traffic rights for such international air transport services among the airlines is made following due process..."



It added that these rights emanate from bilateral air service agreements and memorandum of understandings signed between India and respective foreign country on the principles of reciprocity and balance of benefits.

Thus, these rights cannot be owned by any airline but are national assets and scarce resource of the country, which have to be utilised with due care ensuring their optimal use at all times, in the interest of the nation, it noted.

"Thus, no airline can own these rights, nor can it claim the same as a matter of rights. The traffic rights are not the assets of the airline and, therefore, can't be part of insolvency proceedings," it added.

It said allocating slots to revived would not be an issue in view of upgradation of existing airports and construction of greenfeild (new) airports such as Jewar in Uttar Pradesh, Mopa in Goa and Navi Mumbai in the next few years, which will directly contribute to availability of additional slots.

"This capacity creation through new airports and expansion of capacity at existing airports will be helpful in allocating fair number of slots to resolution applicant (Kalrock-Jalan) by the competent authority," it added.

on Tuesday requested the tribunal for permission to file an affidavit in response to DGCA/ MoCA affidavit.

Next hearing on is scheduled during the third week of March, by which time resolution applicant will file his affidavit and detail its position.

In January, the tribunal had issued a notice to and MoCA to clear their stance on Jet's slots.

The ministry has temporarily given most of the slots of the Jet Airways to other domestic airlines after it ceased all operations in April 2019.

Ashish Chhawchharia, the resolution professional of the grounded airline, had told the bench that "slots are a vital part of the plan and it is important that and MoCA submit their stance on the same".

In September 2020, during a hearing, representatives of DGCA and MoCA said the slots were allocated temporarily to other airlines.

In October 2020, the committee of creditors (CoC) of Jet Airways had approved the resolution plan submitted by the consortium of the UK's Kalrock Capital and the UAE-based entrepreneur Murari Lal Jalan, under the insolvency resolution process.

The plan was approved after the conclusion of the e-voting on the proposal.

The carrier, which was admitted to the NCLT in June 2019, owes more than Rs 8,000 crore to banks, with public sector lenders having significant exposure.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga on Tuesday held talks for 40 minutes with key focus on Quad, a grouping of 4 countries--India, Japan, Australia and United states. The talks between the 2 leaders come, just days before first ever Quad leaders' summit is expected to take place.

Taking to Twitter, PM Modi wrote, "Had a fruitful conversation with PM Suga Yoshihide on the progress of India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership. We exchanged views on contemporary global challenges and agreed to further enhance our cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region."

Had a fruitful conversation with PM Suga Yoshihide on the progress of India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership.

We exchanged views on contemporary global challenges and agreed to further enhance our cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. @sugawitter  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 9, 2021

The statement released by India readout emphasized that their engagement with like-minded countries such as Australia and the US in the form of Quad "holds value" and "agreed that these useful discussions must continue."

The Japanese read out also spoke on similar lines. It said, two leaders shared the "recognition" that cooperation towards "realizing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific" is becoming "increasingly important and to this end" and shared the view to "steadily advance both Japan-India bilateral cooperation and Japan-Australia-India-U.S. quadrilateral cooperation."

So far, three foreign ministers' level conversations have taken place, two of them physical meetings--one in New York in 2019, another in Tokyo last year and one telephonic conversation just last month. The grouping is seen suspiciously by Beijing, even terming it "Asian Nato".

During the talks, discussion was also on the Mumbai Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project or the bullet train which PM Modi said is a "shining example of India-Japan bilateral strategic partnership and expressed his commitment to its successful implementation."

Japan PM is expected to visit India for the annual India Japan summit. The summit has been postponed 2 times in last 2 years.

The Japanese readout pointed that during the talks, Prime Minister Suga expressed "serious concerns" regarding "unilateral attempts" to change the status quo in the East and South China Sea, Chinas Coast Guard Law and the situation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Importantly, both leaders discussed the situation in Myanmar also, a key global issue. The country saw a coup in February and since then visuals of violent crackdown have emerged, sparking international concerns.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
AquaInSilico will receive US$250,000 as part of a two-year project to help protect and conserve the coastal marine environment around the Cape Verde archipelago in West Africa

( ) said its portfolio company AquaInSilico, in which it owns a 29% stake, will receive a US$250,000 grant as an Ocean Innovator through the United Nations Development Programmes Ocean Innovation Challenge.

The intellectual property investor said the two-year project, which will help protect and conserve the coastal marine environment around the Cape Verde archipelago in West Africa, will see AquaInSilico use its digital tools to design and implement improvements to wastewater treatment plants on the islands to reduce the amount of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, entering the sea, and to improve the quality of water provided to Cape Verde's population.

Frontier said the selection of AquaInSilico for the UN programme represented an important validation of its technology, which uses a mathematically modelled biological approach to improve phosphorus removal based on deep understanding and controlling the operating variables that result from biological and chemical processes, often allowing it to detect problems before they can be diagnosed by humans.

"We are delighted AquaInSilico is involved in this important United Nations Development Programme to conserve the marine environment around Cape Verde. The grant award represents a strong validation of the company's technology and the progress it has made, Frontier IP chief executive Neil Crabb said in a statement.

Frontier shares were up 0.2% at 68.1p in early trading on Tuesday.




A group of 14 women in Beijing is challenging themselves and the wider Beijing community to help level the playfield by raising funds to help educate girls in rural China.

One group hosted a movie night on March 7 with all proceeds going to the Educating Girls in Rural China (EGRC) program, a restaurant is donating part proceeds from a drink on its menu and a baking business is offering 15 percent of all sales between March 8 and 26, to list a few.

The women call their initiative #ChoosetoChallengeBeijing, inspired by the #ChooseToChallenge theme of International Women's Day (IWD) 2021.

"The idea is that people will get involved in the community and do it in the name of the charity to raise awareness about the charity and raise funds for the EGRC program," said Delisa McPherson, a British educator who has called Beijing home for over five years. The fundraiser, which was officially launched on social media at midnight on Sunday, is her idea.

The beneficiary of the #ChoosetoChallengeBeijing campaign, EGRC is dedicated to helping girls and young women in western China access high school and university education as a vehicle out of poverty.

Fundraising your way

While it is not uncommon for people to put on activities to celebrate IWD, #ChoosetoChallengeBeijing has pushed the envelope even further by making their activity monthlong instead of a day. Also, in the spirit of empowerment, participants get to choose how they raise funds.

"The group is asking people to do whatever they want (to raise funds)," McPherson said.

So far, the feedback has been positive. Regular people are organizing activities with their friends and family, and groups and businesses are also getting involved.

According to the organizer, no activity is too big or too small. The aim is to empower both the fundraiser and the recipient. One of the organizers, Maria Renee Cruz, is hosting a brunch at her home and a women's talk to raise funds for the challenge.

"About 20 businesses have come on board so far," McPherson told CGTN Digital on Monday. "All the businesses have the EGRC logo on what they are doing and a special QR code for direct payment."

Ending the cycle of poverty through education

Founded 16 years ago and registered both in China and Canada, EGRC had sponsored 1,400 female students as of February 2021 and boasts a student graduation rate of 99 percent.

Also, 100 percent of its university graduates have found jobs, with 50 percent gainfully employed in their home provinces. All the associated families have also been lifted out of poverty.

"In remote rural areas, most female students do not have the opportunity to enter high school because of poverty, gender bias and traditional customs, which affects the education and development of the next generation," Zhang Nan, director of program development in Beijing, told CGTN.

"Educational development of female students is one of the most important interventions to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty," she said.

Almost 100 percent of the EGRC sponsorship to support girls in high school and university comes from donations, which is why support from activities like #ChoosetoChallengeBeijing are so helpful.

"Fundraising is even harder than before because of COVID-19," she said. "Our sponsorship is not just one year. Every girl selected into our program, we will sponsor them to finish three years of high school or four to five years of university education."

According to McPherson, this is a part of why #ChoosetoChallengeBeijing chose EGRC as its beneficiary.

"It is directly linked to challenging the lack of opportunity in rural China," she said. "The charity does that by actioning. They, through helping the girls, are not just helping them; they are helping their families."

"They are helping to give women in rural China the same opportunities that IWD is asking the world to challenge, equal access to education."

Why a day to celebrate women is important

For McPherson, "International Women's Day is important because it is a celebration of us being who we are, and that's women, and it is an opportunity for us to remind the world that gender equality is still yet to be achieved worldwide."

"It is also an opportunity to celebrate how far we have come as well and potentially where we're trying to get to," she said. "It is a chance for reflection. It's a chance for celebration, and it is a chance to hope for a better future."
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The Biden administration has offered the Taliban a power-sharing deal in Afghanistan in the latest effort to bring America's longest-running war to an end.

Defense Secretary Antony Blinken has urged both Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to come together and negotiate terms as a matter of 'urgency', laying out a road map to peace.

Blinken's proposals include a ceasefire, Taliban withdrawal from Pakistan, a caretaker 'peace government' and the election of a single national government.

He asked both sides to come to Turkey to start talks 'within the coming weeks' and warned that all options - including a full troop withdrawal currently scheduled for May 1 - remain on the table.

The Taliban has been offered a power-sharing peace deal with the Afghan government by Biden's administration if it is willing to lay down arms (file image)

The Biden administration's position was revealed in a three-page letter and eight-page peace proposal sent by Blinken and which were leaked to Afghanistan's TOLO News at the weekend.

The draft, which has not been confirmed by the White House, was obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

The document outlines the terms of a cease-fire and its enforcement, calls for the protection of the rights of women, children and minorities and envisions a truth and reconciliation commission aimed at healing 42 years of conflict.

The Taliban received the draft and were reviewing it, spokesman Mohammad Naeem said.

There was no immediate comment from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the draft proposal or a sternly worded letter from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In the letter, Blinken said Washington wanted to see progress on peace talks and mentioned the draft peace agreement, which calls for a new, inclusive government - which Ghani has resisted.

In recent speeches, Ghani has said no interim government would be formed 'as long as I am alive'.

But Blinken was uncompromising in his letter, which was released by Afghanistan's TOLO TV.

'I am making this clear to you so that you understand the urgency of my tone regarding collective work,' he wrote.

In the letter, Blinken said a May 1 deadline for a final withdrawal of U.S. troops - stipulated in a Taliban-U.S. deal last year - is still on the table.

Defense Secretary Antony Blinken (left) wrote to the Taliban at the weekend laying out Joe Biden's position, saying all options including a May 1 troop withdrawal remain on the table

Even with America's $4billion in aid to Afghanistan's National Security Forces, a U.S. withdrawal could mean quick territorial gains for the Taliban.

Ghani's first vice president, Amrullah Saleh, said the president had received the letter and was unmoved by its contents.

He said Ghani was not ready to embrace the secretary of state's accelerated pace toward a settlement.

'We are neither concerned about the letter nor has it changed our position,' Saleh said.

He thanked the U.S. for its sacrifices and financial assistance over the past 20 years but said the Afghan government won't succumb to dictation.

'We will make peace with dignity, but never . . .an imposed peace,' he said at a ceremony on the anniversary of the death of a former defense minister.

Ghani has been accused by his political opponents of trying to cling to power.

Fawzia Koofi, one of only four women at the negotiation table in Doha, warned against haste and a May 1 withdrawal of U.S. troops, saying it would cause chaos.

She confirmed that all sides had received the U.S.-crafted draft agreement.

'One thing that is important is that Afghan ownership and Afghan leadership must be respected,' she said in a phone interview from Doha.

'The process should not be rushed.'

Blinken's letter proposes a revised plan for a 90-day reduction in violence that would prevent the start of a spring offensive by the Taliban and would be followed by a permanent cease-fire laid out in the draft peace agreement.

Both sides would stop fighting within hours of the agreement being signed, according to the draft.

The Taliban would remove all its military and military structures from neighboring countries - a reference to Pakistan, where the leadership currently resides.

The draft agreement also calls for an independent commission to oversee cease-fire violations.

The preamble of the U.S. document says the draft peace agreement is intended to jump-start negotiations.

Biden is continuing efforts begun by the Trump administration to bring America's longest-running war to an end, despite rising violence in the country (pictured, a bomb blast in Helmand last week that tried to kill chief of the National Directorate of Security)

'It sets forth principles for governance, security, and rule of law and presents options for power sharing that could help the two sides reach a political settlement that ends the war,' it says.

The preamble portrayed the draft as a compilation of 'ideas and priorities' of Afghans on all sides of the political spectrum.

The draft lays out an ambitious road map that protects universal rights, guarantees elections, demands transparency and a fight against corruption and illicit drugs.

It demands guarantees of non-interference from Afghanistan's neighbors and guarantees from Afghanistan that the country won't be used to attack or interfere with another.

It proposes the establishment of a 'peace government' that would oversee the writing of a new constitution and elections held immediately afterward.

The new constitution is to protect the rights gained in the last 20 years since the toppling of the Taliban.

According to the draft, the peace government would include separate, but equal branches, including the judiciary, and executive branch.

The draft also said there will be one national government, no parallel governments and no parallel security forces, which would mean an end to Taliban fighters and the many militias loyal to warlords holding sway in Kabul.

It promises to protect Islamic values and while an independent judiciary would have the ultimate authority, the High Council for Islamic Jurisprudence would have an advisory role.

'The new peace plan offers a chance for a cease-fire, it offers a chance to bring the Taliban from the battlefield to the talks table to discuss thorny issues of religion and its role in (the state),' without giving them all the power, said Torek Farhadi, former Afghan government adviser.

'Afghanistan is bordering on a failed state status and is sure to enter the category immediately after the withdrawal of the foreign forces absent a better political arrangement,' he said, ' That is the reality of Afghanistan.'
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 21:34:07|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China and Russia on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on jointly building an international scientific research station on the moon, said the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

According to the MoU, space authorities of China and Russia will enhance their cooperation through the project, open the station to all interested countries and international partners, and strengthen scientific research exchanges, to promote the peaceful exploration and use of space by humankind.

Under the framework of the project, China and Russia will carry out close cooperation in the planning, demonstration, design, development, implementation and operation of the project, including promoting the project to the international space community.

The station will be focused on multidisciplinary scientific research activities on the lunar surface or in lunar orbit, including lunar exploration and utilization, moon-based observation, basic science experiments and technology verification, said the CNSA. Enditem
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Post-stabilisation notice

March 9, 2021

Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW)

 5 billion RegS benchmark due 2026

Post-Stabilisation Notice

Commerzbank (contact: Daniela Olt-Farrelly; telephone: +49 69 136-20) hereby gives notice that no stabilisation (within the meaning of Article 3.2 (d) of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU Regulation 596/2014) was undertaken by the Stabilising Managers named below in relation to the offer of the following securities.

Issuer: KfW Guarantor (if any): Federal Republic of Germany ISIN: DE000A3H3E76 Aggregate nominal amount:  5,000,000,000 Description: 0% due 15th June 2026, payment date 9th March 2021 Stabilisation Coordinator:

Stabilisation Managers: Commerzbank AG

Barclays Bank

BNP Paribas

Goldman Sachs Bank

This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction.

This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.
Feature Article

MEDIA ADVISORY: News conference

First health checks of SuperCam on Mars

DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory

SuperCam sits on the top of the mast of NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed on the surface of Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. At a news conference on March 10, scientists and engineers will report on the first data from the instrument. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., March 9, 2021 -- Los Alamos National Laboratory and France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) will hold an online press conference on Wednesday, March 10, to assess the health of SuperCam, the rock-zapping laser that was developed under the auspices of the two institutions and is now on board the NASA Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars.

WHEN: Wednesday, March 10, 2021, 9 a.m. Pacific/10 a.m. Mountain/12 noon Eastern (briefing in English)

WHERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DAhLuUnDwE

WHO: Jean-Yves Le Gall, CNES President

Roger Wiens, Los Alamos National Laboratory SuperCam Principal Investigator

Ann Ollila, Los Alamos National Laboratory Scientist

Naomi Murdoch, ISAE-SUPAERO Professor

Scott Robinson, Los Alamos National Laboratory SuperCam Instrument Manager
The golden Trump statue at CPAC made Trumps gold-plated toilet at Trump Tower look like the Golden Calf of Exodus. It looks like it was modeled after some shaggy-haired troll. I have never seen anything more hideous. And worse, it was made in China.

But its a fitting tribute to a president who incited a ragtag mob of deplorables to attack our Capitol. Yes, Hillary Clinton had it right when she labeled Trumps rabid, right-wing extremists as deplorables.

What else would you call a bunch of riotous thugs who fell hook, line and sinker for Trumps Big Lie? It only got them arrested and incarcerated. Their so-called leader then abandoned them. Hollywood couldnt write a better sitcom than what weve been watching.

Bob Fried

Allentown
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
The president says he wants to "hear conclusions" following a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group scheduled for March 10.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the number of armed provocations in Donbas has increased after sanctions were imposed against MP from the Opposition Platform - For Life Party Viktor Medvedchuk.

During the all-Ukrainian forum "Ukraine 30. Culture, media, tourism" in Kyiv, the president was asked whether the sanctions imposed by Ukraine against Vladimir Putin's ally, MP Viktor Medvedchuk, as well as a number of pro-Russian TV channels, had affected negotiations on Donbas settlement.

"Has it had any influence? It's hard to say, but we understand there are, indeed, consequences. We are aware the number of provocations at the front line has increased. I wouldn't wish to draw parallels with this, but we see this is happening simultaneously," Zelensky said.

Read alsoZelensky says ready to meet each Normandy Four leader separately if summit further postponedThe president added he wants to "hear the conclusions" after a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas scheduled for March 10.

Sanctions on Viktor Medvedchuk

On February 19, 2021, the NSDC made a decision to impose sanctions against 19 legal entities and eight individuals. In particular, sanctions shall be applied to Viktor Medvedchuk and his wife Oksana Marchenko. Sanctions are imposed on all their property and assets.

According to NSDC secretary Oleksiy Danilov, the SBU is investigating a case under the article "financing of terrorism," and the latest sanctions were applied to Medvedchuk, Marchenko, and other persons precisely in connection with the said probe.

The NSDC also made a decision to nationalize part of the Samara - Western Direction fuel pipeline, now owned by Prykarpatzahidtrans.

Reporting by UNIAN
Apple is the most valuable company in the world, and that is about its $2 trillion in the stock market but earlier trends show that the Cupertino giant dipped in stocks along with other "Big Tech." Apple is joined by Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft in the recent trends that show a loss in profit and performance in the market.

Stocks and their trends are expected to go up and down, especially if the company is laying low or is not generating any buzz among the public and its investors. The changing trends of investments and money are expected to spontaneously drop, but it would take a lot for the company to regain its losses, especially in the COVID-19 era.

Apple went below its $2 trillion valuations and closed right below it on the recent trading day, resulting in major losses of the company. The investors are said to be shifting their focus from technology, which was initially generating the largest buzz in the past months, to other figures in the market to grow their investments among other industries.

Read Also: Rare Move: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Takes $1 Billion Bite Of Apple Shares

Apple Loses $2 Trillion Valuation, Soon Expected to Rise

According to Apple Insider, the Cupertino giant's stock has dipped more than four percent in the recent market investment review, in which the company lost its status in holding its spot at $2 trillion. Now, Apple is valued at around $1.96 billion, which is almost a $40 billion loss for the company and a massive amount of money.

The total decline of Apple's shares is down by 4.17 percent and is only at $116.36 per stock in the stock market and the company's valuation. Investors pulling out several stocks, assets, and investment shares from the company during downtime is common in the industry, and trends are expected to dip during these times.

Apple is currently lying low, mainly because its plans to release its next batch of devices and technological advances would not be around until the summer, particularly in Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). However, there were initial rumors that the company is planning to release by the last week of March.

Big Tech Also Faces Market Decline

According to several experts, this is normal for big techs to lose some and then gaining more as it makes a comeback with its innovations and new products in the market. Moreover, Apple is not the only "big tech" company that is facing this trend and market loss as competitors are also observing the same decline from its investors.

AAPL down 4.17%

GOOG down 4.27%

FB down 3.39%

MSFT down 1.82%

AMZN down 1.62%

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon are also facing the trend, with its valuation slowly dipping by several percentages, but is a big hit on its total value as a company.

Related Article: Apple Reaches New Heights... and Then Crash

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Isaiah Alonzo

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
New Delhi, March 9 : The Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the second straight day on Tuesday after the opposition again pressed their demand for a discussion on fuel price hike, which was rejected by the chair.

Congress deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma, objected to the government's move to take up bills, saying, "This House has a tradition that until the pending matters are resolved, no government business can be undertaken." Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad then requested the opposition to allow a discussion on the Arbitration Bill, but the Leader of Opposition, Mallikarjun Kharge, insisted that the issue is important since it concerns the common people, as everyone is affected due to the rise in the prices of auto fuel and LPG cylinders.

He said the prices of essential commodities have gone up due to the hike in diesel prices.

The House was earlier adjourned for the second time on Tuesday till 2 p.m. after the opposition created an uproar when the chair refused to allow a discussion on fuel price hike.

The opposition members resorted to sloganeering, but the chair maintained that they would get ample opportunity to discuss the issue later.

The House continued with the Question Hour for some time when it met at 12 noon, but due to continued pandemonium, it was adjourned till 2 p.m.

Earlier, the Rajya Sabha chair had rejected the suspension of business notice given for the second consecutive day by the opposition over fuel price hike under Rule 267.

Oil marketing companies (OMC) kept fuel prices unchanged for the tenth consecutive day across the four metros on Tuesday. In the national capital, petrol was selling for Rs 91.17 per litre.

Similarly, in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the fuel was priced at Rs 97.57, Rs 93.11 and Rs 91.35 per litre, respectively.
BURBANK, CA, March 9, 2021  Disney+ has surpassed 100 million global paid subscribers in just 16 months since its launch, Bob Chapek, Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), announced today during the Companys virtual Annual Meeting of Shareholders.The enormous success of Disney+ which has now surpassed 100 million subscribershas inspired us to be even more ambitious, and to significantly increase our investment in the development of high-quality content, Mr. Chapek said. In fact, we set a target of 100+ new titles per year, and this includes Disney Animation, Disney Live Action, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. Our direct-to-consumer business is the Companys top priority, and our robust pipeline of content will continue to fuel its growth.Disney+ launched in the U.S. on November 12, 2019, and has rolled out rapidly across Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Latin America, and most recently, Singapore.
Singapore Airlines will be the first carrier in the world to pilot the coronavirus digital travel pass. (Photo: straitstimes.com)

Singapore  Singapore Airlines said on March 8 that next week, it will use a coronavirus digital travel pass in a trial.

This is the first airline to pilot the scheme as the pandemic-hit sector is seeking to recover.

The app, developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), will store information on passengers' health, including whether they have had virus tests or vaccines, to streamline travel as borders reopen.

Singapore's flag carrier said it would offer travellers heading from the city-state to London between March 15 and 28 the chance to participate in the pilot if they have a phone operating on the iOS system.

Participants in the pilot scheme need to take pre-departure COVID-19 tests, and will be able to view their results and whether they are confirmed to fly on the app.

They will need to show their confirmed status in the app to check-in staff before their flight.

Several other airlines, including Air New Zealand and Emirates, have signed up to trial the app.

The coronavirus has plunged the aviation industry into its worst-ever crisis, costing airlines an estimated 510 billion USD in lost sales last year.
Actor politician Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam has finalised a seat sharing pact with two of its allies for the April 6 Assembly polls. (Image credit : Twitter)

Chennai: Actor politician Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam has finalised a seat sharing pact with two of its allies for the April 6 Assembly polls and it is set to contest from 154 segments out of the 234 constituencies.

MNM inked an agreement with actor-politician Sarathkumar's All India Samathuva Makhal Katchi and Indiya Jananayaka Katchi to jointly fight the polls.

According to the understanding reached here late last night, AISMK and IJK would contest from 40 seats each.

The primary goal was to contest polls in alliance with a "promise for change and emerge victorious to form the government," the agreement said.

The parties have committed to the common goal of transforming Tamil Nadu by fulfilling the long pending aspirations of the people, the pact said.
Students participate in school online at STAR Eco Station Tutoring & Enrichment Center in Culver City, Calif., on Sept. 10, 2020. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

School Reopening Bill Draws Strong Reactions in Orange County

A $6.6 billion school reopening initiative launched by Gov. Gavin Newsom was met with mixed reactions in Orange County, where parents are divided on the prospect of full-time, in-classroom studies.

I think they should open immediately, Orange County resident Jim Puro told The Epoch Times. Were creating a generation of kids that are going to be dysfunctional because of their not being socially adapted to other kids.

Californias governor signed into law March 5 a $6.6 billion bill that allocates $2 billion in educational funds for elementary schools to reopen, from kindergarten through second grade.

Only counties with significant reductions in transmission rates among the broader community will receive a funding incentive to reopen for higher grades. Schools arent required to participate in the program, but receive a financial incentive for doing so.

In Orange County, most school districts are offering hybrid and distance learning options for young students. Parents can opt to keep their children home and participate virtually, or send their children to school for a few hours a day. In-classroom studies for hybrid students are supplemented with home assignments.

Things are different in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where schools remain closed. As of March 8, the district was working with its teachers union over efforts to resume in-person classes. However, the union wants in-person instruction delayed until employees are vaccinated and COVID-19 case rates drop.

Lance Izumi, senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute, said its unclear whether the new bill will have any effect on school boards decision to reopen.

Even though theres this pot of money, the state is not actually requiring that the schools reopen. Its really up to the school boards and the unions, Izumi told The Epoch Times, adding that theres a very open question as to whether these schools are going to open on any kind of wide-spread scale here in California or not.

The bill doesnt include funding for students beyond Grade 2, and Izumi said a lack-of-support for older students could exacerbate the challenges teens are facing.

I think that one of the problems youre going to see is that a lot of the kids who are suffering the most, especially with mental issues and social issuessuch as kids in middle school, in high schooltheyre really kind of left out of this deal, for the most part, Izumi said.

With these increased rates of depression, eating disorders and other mental health issues that teenagers are going through, are not really going to be addressed by  this bill, because most of the middle and high schools are probably still going to let be left closed.

Newsom has defended the bill, saying in a statement that its meant to help the youngest and the most vulnerable students.

The state is committed to creating safe learning environments for students and safe workplaces for educators as we build on months of progress to accelerate the pace of school reopenings across California, Newsom said.

Mixed Feelings

In Orange County, parents such as Marilyn Palomino said its too soon for schools to reopen.

Palomino said her son, who is a teacher in the Orange Unified School District, caught the COVID-19 virus on the job.

My son got COVID right before winter break; and the only place he could have gotten it really was at the school because its in-person, Palomino said, adding that she doesnt believe schools have the funding to keep classrooms safe.

I really think the schools are hurting because to implement a clean, healthy environment for everyonethe kids and the staffit takes more money than they had.

Evette Carsten agreed and said she didnt think it was safe for schools to reopen until all teachers were vaccinated.

I dont think theyre ready, Carsten said. The teachers all need to be vaccinated. It needs to be a safe place for the children and teachers, and the parents bring them to and from school.

Others, such as Bob McCann of Huntington Beach, want to see schools reopen after witnessing the harmful effects of distance learning.

I know that the scores have gone down since of the pandemic, that theyre just not as high as what they had been in the homeschooling, and the Zoom schooling really drains a person  and six to eight hours a day on zoom is just as not beneficial to the teachers, not beneficial to the students, McCann said.

McCann is optimistic that with teachers getting vaccinated at the current rate, schools should reopen.

What is going on now with the teachers getting all vaccinated and all, I think that is really a plus and Id like to see the schools reopen, he said.

[Vaccination] is put being pushed really heavily now in California, so Im thinking within the next two or three weeks, everybody should be vaccinatedall these teachers and everything.

Ralph Bostic of Huntington Beach said kids need to get back to school immediately.

They should never have been shut down. This is crazy. These kids are losing a year of their life, Bostic said.

Ive got seven grandkids.  Ive got one daughter who has four kids [and] lives in Mission Viejo. She had to quit her job because the kids couldnt go to school. Shes got one kid that has learning disabilities. She spends all her days with her, working with her, and theyre underwater financially. Its unbelievable.
Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Yu, who was honored by the U.S. as an International Woman of Courage (IWOC) on , remained incommunicado on after failing to attend an online award ceremony, amid fears that she and her husband Bao Longjun are being held by state security police.



Repeated calls to Wang's cell phone and to that of her husband and fellow rights lawyer Bao Longjun rang unanswered.



A friend of Wang's who asked to remain anonymous said her "disappearance" was likely linked to her involvement in a legal case in the southern province of Guangdong.



"She is working on a case, and the state security police asked her to postpone working on it for a couple of days so they could take her to Wuhan on [enforced] 'vacation'," the friend said, adding that the couple haven't been in contact with family or friends since noon on .



"I'm a bit worried that the state security police will take advantage of this opportunity, and that they will remain incommunicado even after the sensitive dates have passed," the friend said.



Wang and Bao had been assisting in the case of Niu Tengyu, who is currently serving a 14-year jail term for allegedly posting a photo of Xi Mingze, daughter of ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping, to meme site Zhina Wiki, an act that was later blamed by police on Niu's Vulgar Wiki.



The lawyers' "disappearance" comes after they spoke to RFA about detailed allegations of torture made by Niu, relating to his interrogation at the hands of police starting in .



Complaint in Guangzhou

Bao told RFA's Cantonese Service on that the lawyers were filing a complaint with the authorities in Guangzhou about Niu's treatment.



"According to [Niu], while he was being held in Foshan city in late 2019 and , he was hung up and stripped and insulted by a man named Chen," Bao said. "[Chen] also used a lighter to burn his private parts."



"He also took photos of him as a joke, calling him Vulgar Niu Tengyu," he said.



Bao said he had filed complaints on and 3, but that he had run into delays and obfuscation on the part of the authorities.



After months in detention, Niu Tengyu was handed a 14-year jail term on Dec. 30, 2020 by the Maonan District People's Court in Guangdong's Maoming city, which found him guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," "violating others' privacy" and "running an illegal business."



Niu's mother told RFA she was shocked at the new reports of her son's humiliation at the hands of police.



"It's inconceivable that they would do this to a youth of 20," she said. "This is a miscarriage of justice ... it's totally shameless."



Wu Lebao, who is currently studying in Australia, said Niu's torture was directly linked to the involvement of a close family member of Xi Jinping.



'Persecuted, tortured, and sentenced'

He said there were reports that 23 young people detained around the same time in connection with the Vulgar Wiki case had also been tortured and mistreated in detention.



"These young people were persecuted, tortured, and sentenced because of the doxxing of Xi Mingze," Wu said.



"As the daughter of the supreme leader, Xi Mingze can go through normal legal channels if her rights have been violated," he said.



An overseas-based editor of Zhina Wiki, who gave only a nickname, Mr. L, has already admitted that he was responsible for posting Xi Mingze's photo.



"The Maoming police never caught anyone who actually committed a crime: they just rounded up a bunch of random people linked to Vulgar Wiki," Mr. L told RFA on .



"Whichever way you look at it, this has been a huge miscarriage of justice."



Wang Yu's lawyer's license was revoked on Nov. 30, 2020. She said at the time that the move was likely linked to her support for fellow rights attorney Yu Wensheng, who is currently serving a prison sentence for "incitement to subvert state power."



"She was already very courageous even before the crackdown [on rights attorneys and activists]," Yu's wife Xu Yan told RFA on . "After she was sent back home from detention, she carried on taking [rights] cases."



"She has carried on with that work, even though her license was revoked," Xu said.



Reported by Xue Xiaoshan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Yitong Wu and Chingman for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in Intensive Care After a Serious Fall

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been placed in intensive care in hospital after falling on wet stairs while getting ready for work on Tuesday.

The premier issued a statement via his office in the afternoon, giving details about the fall and his current condition.

Early this morning, I was admitted to hospital after slipping and falling on wet and slippery stairs, Andrews said. A CT scan has revealed several broken ribs and vertebrae damage, and subsequent medical advice has recommended I remain in intensive care for the next few days.

Cath, the kids and I are extremely grateful to the Ambulance Victoria paramedics who showed such care and kindness to our family this morning, as we are to the clinicians who have taken care of me today, said the premier.

Our warm and sincere thanks go to the many family members, friends, colleagues and Victorians who have sent messages of love and support throughout the day.

Deputy Premier James Merlino will takeover Andrews duties while he recovers.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews looks on during the media at the daily briefing on August 03, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is under stage 4 lockdown. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

Michael OBrien, the Victorian Opposition Leader wished Andrews well in a post on Twitter.

Hope its not serious, OBrien said. Wishing Daniel a speedy recovery.

Hope its not serious. Wishing Daniel a speedy recovery. https://t.co/yEUSpb0EJo  Michael O'Brien (@michaelobrienmp) March 8, 2021

Andrews had been on leave since the afternoon of March. 5, and was scheduled to return to work today to launch an indigenous reconciliation inquiry, which will investigate the remaining effects of colonization on Victorias indigenous community, The Age reported.

Demonstrators attend a Black Lives Matter protest to express solidarity with US protestors in Melbourne on June 6, 2020. (Con Chronis/AFP via Getty Images)

A Truth and Justice Commission, which is modelled on Nelson Mandelas commission in post-apartheid South Africa as well as those in New Zealand and Canada will have the power to compel witnesses and make recommendations as a royal commission. It will also seek potential reparations to Indigenous people for past injustices, according to The Age.
Institute of Directors India recognizes corporate excellence

PUNE, India and SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Persistent Systems (BSE: PERSISTENT) (NSE: PERSISTENT) has been honored with the Golden Peacock Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance 2020 in a national category (IT Sector).

The annual Golden Peacock Awards, created by the Institute of Directors (IOD), India in 1991, are now regarded as a benchmark of corporate excellence worldwide. The competition was created to raise overall performance standards and recognize the achievements of the best performing organizations. Golden Peacock Awards are awarded under various business and sub-sectors.

This year, the Institute of Directors received over 204 submissions out of which 87 were shortlisted for final selection through a three-tier assessment process by independent assessors and finally by a grand jury of Indian business luminaries. The Honourable Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah, former Chief Justice of India and former Chairman, National Human Rights Commission of India and National Commission for Constitution of India Reforms, was the Chairman of the Golden Peacock Awards Jury.

"Persistent Systems is one of the fastest growing organizations in the IT sector today. Being a public listed company on BSE and NSE, it adopts special measures to bring transparency and accountability to its governance. The chairman of the board also conducts session for the directors and newly appointed directors at regular intervals to share current and global business scenarios. Persistent also has a one-of-a-kind stakeholders relationship committee to communicate with all key stakeholders and through its foundation has supported numerous programs related to education, health, community development and relief for natural calamities. Kudos to them."

Quote from Manoj K. Raut, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Institute of Directors

"It is an honour to be recognized for excellence in corporate governance, by such a prestigious organization as the IOD India. We strive at Persistent to be the best at everything we do, so this is an important validation of our efforts to create a world class, global company."

Quote from Dr. Anand Deshpande, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, Persistent Systems

About Persistent Systems



With 12,000+ employees around the world, Persistent Systems (BSE: PERSISTENT) (NSE: PERSISTENT) is a global solutions leader delivering digital business acceleration, enterprise modernization and next-generation product engineering.



www.persistent.com

Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements



For risks and uncertainties relating to forward-looking statements, please visit: persistent.com/FLCS



Media Contacts:

Emma Handler

Persistent Systems (Global)

+1-617-633-1635

emma_handler@persistent.com

Saviera Barretto

Archetype

+91-84249-17719

saviera.barretto@archetype.co



Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1022385/Persistent_Systems_Logo.jpg
Led to Bulger's body being found on railway line and later conviction of Venables and Thompson

A Liverpool dad has revealed how his 'instinct' led to a tip-off that helped catch the killers of James Bulger.

Alex Radnor-Boulton, 70, from Bootle near Liverpool, explained how a hunch of his gave detectives an unexpected lead in the case.

He says his 'intuition' led to the discovery of 'breakthrough' CCTV evidence that helped track the path of killers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson as they walked the two-year-old boy to his death on a railway line.

The 70-year-old, who would have been 43 at the time, worked for an electric company and spent a lot of his days in the area around the Bootle Strand shopping centre from where young James was abducted from his mother by Venables and Thompson.

In a bid to help the case, Alex used his in-depth knowledge of the surrounding streets to work out where the boys had gone and told people with security cameras to check their footage.

His quick-thinking led to one company spotting the boys in their car park which helped police track down James' body and later identify to the two killers.

Venables and Thompson were convicted of killed James and were jailed until they 18 when they were given new identities and released on lifelong licence.

Alex Radnor-Boulton (pictured), 70, from Bootle, explained how he used intuition to trace path taken by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables as they abducted James Bulger from a Bottle shopping centre in 1993.

When he first heard the news about James being missing and as appeals were made across the city to help find the toddler, Alex said it 'resonated' with him as he had two young sons himself, who at the time were around five and eight years old.

'When they came on the television and radio looking for help, I was out of my mind,' said Alex.

He added: 'It resonated with me - it could have been one of my lads, if you're out shopping and young ones disappear for a second your heart sinks, so I felt for his mum.'

Because of his work with local businesses, including the Triad Building on Stanley Road, Alex knew the area 'intimately' and after work one day he found himself instinctively following the route the boys could have gone.

He said: 'I was the contracting manager on the Triad Building, so the Strand was intimate to me and I knew if he was coming out that exit, if they're going up there they'd want to get off Stanley Road straight away and turn up Park Street, and then the other road was just intuition.'

Two-year-old James Bulger was abducted from the Strand shopping centre in Bootle by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 10, in February 1993

Thompson and Venables (pictured) were 11 when they faced a 17-day trial at Preston Crown Court in November 1993, and became the youngest murder defendants in the UK in over 100 years

He added: 'I think everyone was on one, because there was a sighting of two young lads, but we all assumed they were teenagers from the Strand CCTV, we thought it was older lads.

'But the cameras in the Strand were so grainy you couldn't give the age.'

Alex said he knew the only way out of the Strand from the directon they were heading was Park Street, and from there onward the rest was 'intuition.'

He said: 'I don't know what it was but I went further up, I worked for AMEX as subcontractors, and as I drove up to their offices, I looked up and there were two huge white cameras, and I thought god, I wonder.'

After spotting the cameras Alex, who knew the workers at AMEX, told them they ought to check the footage and see if there was anything police could use.

The original grainy CCTV footage from a Mothercare store which show Venables holding James Bulger's hand as they walk out of the shopping centre. Robert Thompson is seen walking in front

CCTV from AMEX car park had in fact captured Thompson and Venables, both 10 at the time, with James.

Detectives have now revealed that the AMEX CCTV footage 'changed everything' and was a breakthrough that helped catch the killers.

Jim Fitzsimmons, a Merseyside police detective working on the case, said: 'We got a call from the proprietor of a business called AMEX, he'd got CCTV from his car park, a very grainy image of three youngsters.

'We could see the difference in Thompson and Venables, and we realised they were much smaller than they'd looked on the shopping centre images.

'That really changed everything. We decided that we include suspects who were a lot younger.

'So when a friend of the Venables family noticed paint on Jon's coat, we'd already opened our minds to the possibility these boys could be as young as 10.'

Three days later, Alex said he received a phone call from the manager at AMEX who told him what they found.

He said: 'He rang me and said "Alex I've got them, the two young lads with the kid on my camera, they're walking up towards Breeze hill".

Detectives have now revealed that the AMEX CCTV footage that Alex helped to track down 'changed everything' and was a breakthrough that helped catch the killers

'About three days later he rang me back and he said "pat yourself on the back they've found him".

'He said "they've done something to the kid, police won't tell me nothing but pat yourself on the back because without you coming into your premises we wouldn't have thought of it".'

Alex said he still isn't sure what made him follow the specific route that led him past AMEX and to notice the camera.

He said: 'I don't know what made me drive up Park Street on that day, but after I did it went back to my office and when I got the news they were on the camera I said please let them find them.

'(By) Some intuition I just thought I wonder if the kids might have walked up here.'

Questioned by police, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables denied being near the Strand shopping centre at the time of the crime.

However their fingerprints were discovered at the Bradford and Bingley building society, after the shop manager said he'd seen them playing at the window.

The images from AMEX also captured the boys, with James, walking towards Breeze Hill and the site where the two-year-old's body was found.

Venables and Thompson were tried as adults for the abduction and murder of James because they were over 10 - which is legally deemed to be the age of criminal responsibility.

They were both found guilty on November, 24 1993, making them the youngest people convicted of murder in English history.

Both were given new identities and have been given anonymity.
The European Parliament on Tuesday lifted the immunity of former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and two allies wanted by Spain following Catalonia's attempt to gain independence in 2017

Brussels, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :The European Parliament on Tuesday lifted the immunity of former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and two allies wanted by Spain following Catalonia's attempt to gain independence in 2017.

The MEPs, who have been in self-imposed exile, now risk being sent back to Spain to face trial and potentially imprisonment over the organisation of a banned separatist referendum in 2017.

The trio -- Puigdemont and former Catalan health and education ministers Clara Ponsati and Toni Comin -- immediately blamed the move on "political persecution" by Spain, which wants to try them for sedition.

The immunity of Puigdemont, the former regional president of Catalonia, was lifted by 400 votes to 248, while those of Comin and Ponsati were removed by 404 votes to 247, the parliament said.

Judicial authorities will now be able to consider extradition requests by Spain's supreme court, though in the meantime the trio can continue to perform their duties as MEPs.

Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said the vote proved that "the European Parliament cannot be used to shield parliamentarians from appearing in front of national courts" for a breach of national law.

The vote also showed "respect for the Spanish justice system" and ensured that disputes in Catalonia are solved in Spain and not at the EU level.

The three MEPs have already announced that they will take the case to the EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice.

Puigdemont, who has been living in Belgium to escape a Spanish arrest warrant, called the vote "a sad day for the European Parliament", saying it was "a clear case of political persecution".

"We have lost our immunity but the European Parliament has lost something more: European democracy," he added.

- 'Spanish Armada' - Comin is also in Belgium and subject to a European arrest warrant, while Ponsati worked as a university lecturer in Scotland and faces an extradition claim there.

In the Brussels press conference alongside Puigdemont and Comin, Ponsati said the vote was carried by an "Armada" of Spanish MEPs.

"But we will see in the future how strong they are," she said.

All three were elected as MEPs in 2019, meaning they enjoyed immunity from prosecution.

Last year, Madrid asked the parliament to strip them of that privilege, but a vote was delayed by the coronavirus crisis.

Fighting the extradition became a cause celebre among European politicians with similar regional claims, including in Scotland and Flanders in Belgium.

Spain accuses Puigdemont and Comin of sedition and embezzlement, and Ponsati of sedition.

Their defence argues the cases have procedural flaws and lack evidence and that the three are victims of a political witch hunt.

The 2017 Catalan independence referendum stoked major tensions between the Spanish government and the leaders of the region of 7.5 million people, which includes Barcelona.

Support for independence has risen sharply over the past decade, but the bitterness of the debate has diminished since Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez came to power in Madrid in 2018.
New Delhi:

A terrorist was killed on Tuesday in an encounter with security forces in Handwara area of north Kashmirs Kupwara district, an Army official said.



Security forces launched a cordon and search operation at Hongnikote in Haphruda forest area of Handwara, 85 kms from here, following information about presence of militants there, the official said.



He said during searches, the terrorists opened fire on security forces who retaliated, triggering a gunbattle.



The official said one terrorist has been killed so far and the operation was still in progress.

(With inputs from PTI)

Also read | Encounter breaks out between security forces, terrorists in Kupwara; 2 terrorists trapped

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
A nurse is about to be injected a Covid-19 vaccine shot produced by AstraZeneca at the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases, March 8, 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Thu Anh.

Dr Du Le Thanh Xuan of the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases' intensive care unit became the first person to be vaccinated against Covid-19 at her hospital.

On Monday morning Xuan, who's still studying, took a day off from classes for her shot, and was accompanied by her husband, also a doctor at the same hospital.

Xuan, 28, said she still could not believe her luck at getting the vaccination so soon.

"My contribution to the Covid-19 fight is minor compared to my colleagues'. I would like to thank my teachers and co-workers who allowed me to get the first shot."

On Monday Vietnam began its largest vaccination campaign in history, seeking to immunize its almost 100 million population against Covid-19.

Since morning that day vaccine doses were distributed within cold chains to hospitals, medical centers and other Covid treatment facilities in 13 cities and provinces that have seen recent outbreaks.

Those prioritized include frontline workers like doctors, nurses and contact tracers.

Nguyen Thi Thu Xuong, 53, a veteran of 21 years at the hospitals infection department D, said she was a bit worried about the quality of the vaccine she was about to get after reading about deaths following the AstraZeneca vaccine shots. At least eight people in South Korea and one in Austria have died after receiving their Covid-19 AstraZeneca shots earlier this month, Reuters reported. South Korea has yet to find any connection between the recent deaths and the coronavirus vaccine, while Austria has suspended inoculation with the batch of AstraZeneca vaccine involved as a precaution, noting that no causal relationship has been found.

But she reassures herself saying she has no serious underlying conditions and nothing unusual showed up during her screening, she said.

Tran Thi Dong Vien, 50, deputy head of the department, said she was not worried since from her long experience of vaccination programs she knew side effects should not be a cause for concern.

As a doctor who regularly comes into contact with Covid patients, she faces a high risk of infection and so might be one of the first to be vaccinated.

At Hanois National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Pham Nguyet Quyen of the social work department, who has already got her shot, said: "I was not worried because the vaccine has already been approved by the Ministry of Health and so is safe. There could be side effects, but they will pale in comparison with the benefits."

Dang Hong Hai, head of the general planning department and one of the first to be vaccinated, said he was grateful and the vaccination was essential. Having worked in the field for several years, he too had no concern about safety.

He said vaccination has proven to be effective in preventing infectious diseases, and vaccines have become much safer over the years, and the one produced by AstraZeneca has been approved by many nations around the world.

"I, for one, feel assured and believe in the vaccine."

To be eligible for the vaccination, everyone has to pass through a stringent screening process to find out their allergy history and underlying conditions and sign a form of consent. Following the shots, they are to be monitored at the site for around 30 minutes and sent home if there are no abnormal symptoms.

Most report only a little pain at the site of the injection, and no one has experienced fever, headache or dizziness.

Vien from HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases said: "It is good that we work in a hospital. If there is any problem, it will be taken care of immediately."

Nguyen Van Kinh of the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, also among the first to be vaccinated on Monday morning, said medical workers account for around 10 percent of all Covid cases globally.

Vietnam has fortunately recorded no deaths of medical workers despite multiple outbreaks, itself a victory, he said.

Speaking about the AstraZeneca vaccine, Kinh said its quality and effectiveness have been thoroughly evaluated though like any other drug or biological product it could still have side effects. The most severe could involve anaphylactic shock, he said.

However, all vaccination facilities must be prepared to handle all issues coming their way, he added.

According to AstraZeneca, a single shot of its vaccine has an efficacy of 67 percent, and two increases it to 81 percent or more, and the shots are likely to protect people for around six months depending on their physiology.

Nguyen Van Vinh Chau, director of the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said, "The shots are a reminder that we must fulfill our duty as the frontline fighters against the coronavirus."
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Kerala: Deep sea fishing row: Latin Church slams govt officials for lapses

March 09,2021 | Source: The News Minute

The Latin Church in Kerala has lashed out at the state government over the scrapped deal with US-based EMCC International for deep sea fishing and research, stating that the Fisheries and Industries Departments made serious mistakes and that they would have to take responsibility for the issue, instead of blaming bureaucrats. Bishop Joseph Kariyil of the Cochin Diocese said that he didnt believe that the Chief Minister was kept in the loop and that the actions of departments concerned were condemnable. The bishop was speaking to the media after a meeting of the Kerala Regional Catholic Council (KRLCC) in Kochi on Sunday. "The CM might have relied on the departments to act responsibly. However it was not for them to sign the pact without studying the issues properly," the bishop said, the Times of India reported. The controversy relates to two Memorandum of Understandings signed with EMCC International India, one by the Kerala Shipping Inland Navigation Corporation Limited (KSINC) and one by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation Limited (KSIDC). The one by KSIDC was signed in February 2020 while the one with KSINC was signed in February 2021.



The controversy over Keralas deep sea fishing contract with US firm



The EMCC International, according to the MoUs, will invest Rs 5,324 crore in fisheries research and development for upgrading and promoting the deep sea fishing industry in Kerala. The government cancelled the MoUs signed with KSINC after the opposition raised allegations of corruption in the deals and also highlighted the concerns of the fishing community, who have warned that foreign trawlers would impact fishermen and lead to unscientific deep fishing that could adversely affect the environment. "The evidence in my possession or in the hands of opposition leader (Ramesh Chennithala) is a private matter and it's up to us to decide on when to bring it out. The deal was something that affects everyone, so why didn't (the government) furnish proof and clear their names, instead of kicking the ball to the opposition's court, demanding evidence from them," media reports quoted the bishop as saying. The KRLCC meanwhile passed a resolution, stating that it maintains its equal stance and not back any particular political party or front for the upcoming Kerala Assembly polls, scheduled to be held on April 6.
[March 09, 2021] Amica Insurance Selects the One Inc Digital Payments Platform

FOLSOM, Calif., March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One Inc, a digital payments platform provider for the insurance industry, is pleased to announce Amica Insurance (Amica) has selected the One Inc Digital Payments Platform to provide both inbound and outbound digital payments as part of an overall effort to create a modern customer experience.

Headquartered in Lincoln, Rhode Island, Amica is the oldest mutual auto insurer in the country. The company also offers home, life, marine and umbrella insurance, as well as annuities. We chose One Inc for a number of reasons, but their insurance industry expertise and ability to help us deliver an optimized customer experience were leading factors, said Matthew Cubellis, accounting operations manager for Amica. Well now be able to seamlessly integrate across our ecosystem, allowing us to offer expansive payment methods, while also rolling out broader proactive policyholder communication capabilities. The ability to digitize our more challenging insurance claim use-cases will allow us to not only reduce cycle times and expense, but also allow us to significantly improve our insureds experience. Working with One Inc, Amicas enhanced digital payment capabilities will help to create a frictionless customer experience by leveraging a single virtual wallet for premium payment and claim disbursements and lowering compliance burden. Additionally, the selection of One Inc supports Amicas goal to drive adoption of digital payments to lower operational costs nd reduce the inefficiencies associated with receiving and disbursing paper checks.



Amica also appreciated One Incs strong partnership and integration history with Guidewire, demonstrated by the availability of out-of-the-box capabilities and validated accelerators. The integrations reduce implementation time, effort, and cost, while also reducing overall risk and providing speed-to-market. Amica was looking to create an end-to-end digital experience for their policyholders from the time they pay their premium to the moment they need a claim payment, said Christopher W. Ewing, founder and CEO of One Inc. With the One Inc Digital Payments Platform, Amica will now have the strength of the POWER OF ONE  a cohesive, seamless experience for both inbound and outbound payments, as well as expanded digital payment options that improve choice, security and speed. We are pleased to be a part of this project and very excited to add Amica to our growing list of insurance customers.

The relationship between Amica and One Inc will enable Amica to not only execute on its digital strategy, but also achieve its mission to always put the customer first. About One Inc

One Inc is modernizing the insurance industry through a unified and frictionless payment experience. Focusing only on the insurance industry, One Inc helps carriers transform their operations by reducing costs, increasing security, and optimizing customer experience. The comprehensive end-to-end digital payments platform provides expanded payment options, multi-channel digital communications, and rapid digital claim payment, even for the most complex insurance use cases. As one of the fastest growing digital payments platforms in the insurance industry, One Inc manages billions of dollars per year in premiums and claims payments. For more information, please visit www.oneinc.com About Amica Insurance (Amica)

Amica is the longest-standing mutual insurer of automobiles in the U.S. A direct writer, Amica also offers home, life, marine and umbrella insurance, as well as annuities. Founded on principles of outstanding service, Amica creates peace of mind and builds enduring relationships with its customers. That mission is shared and supported by thousands of employees across the country. For more information, please visit Amica.com. Media Contact:

Jennifer Overhulse

St. Nick Media Services

jen@stnickmedia.com

859-803-6597



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
It was nobodys fault really. Happens all the time. Except these times are different. There is no room for error and mistakes are not to be forgiven, but punished.

A man turned into the aisle at the supermarket pushing a full trolley. It had one of those dodgy wheels that squeaked and dragged his load one way despite his best efforts to go the other.

He accidentally nudged another cart, equally laden, coming the other way. Though he tried to reverse and mumbled something like a light-hearted apology from behind his mask, the other shopper was having none of it.

Instead this mother with a toddler onboard battered her way through, scraping along the side of the mans trolley so violently that I almost expected sparks to fly. As in literally.

In ordinary times one would have waited for the other to manoeuvre and then, as they passed, perhaps acknowledge their negotiated passage. Smile maybe. Even offer a salutation.

But there is nothing ordinary about this new normal, of course.

Every second person is permanently cranky or at least feels they have the right to be.

Not hard to know why. Covid has been with us a year now and we are beyond exhausted. That we know already.

The shift since Christmas though is as depressing as it is fascinating. Because it isnt just the virus that really consumes us anymore  as if that werent enough  but we have taken to turning on each other.

This pandemic is in our heads now. We have allowed panic take up squatters right in this most important of sanctums.

Anyone who watched The Terror on RTE  now being rolled out on BBC2  will know how the most debilitating fear of all is, as Roosevelt put it, fear itself.

This creepy nautical drama brilliantly recreates the doomed voyage in search of the Northwest Passage through the Arctic in the 1840s.

Two ships, the Erebus and Terror, are trapped in the terrifying grip of iced-up seas, but it is an irrational fear of something indefinable that gnaws at the crews and ultimately drives them to division and delirium.

A stand-off over a shopping trolley hardly amounts to much in itself, but a more telling example cropped up just a week ago.

The idiot students in UL who threw a party deserved to be admonished and taken to task. But that wasnt enough for the crankies who wanted them expelled, their futures turned upside down. Vengeance for the sake of it. Meanness.

People seem embittered, quick to anger and eager to find someone to persecute.

The vaccinations cant come quick enough. Then we might begin tolerating and forgiving each other again. If we can remember how.

The silver screens magic cant come soon enough

Its a question I often ask myself and its my favourite daydream: what will I do first when this virus is banished to bad memory? Go to the pub, book a restaurant, follow the sun?

None of those actually. I want to sit in a cinema. In the dark. I want to be transported to a world of make-believe. Growing up in Cork, the old 2,000-seater Savoy was my theatre of dreams. There were other picture houses, of course, but this one was built in cinemas golden age.

It wasnt just a warehouse in a shopping mall churning out franchises, but a portal that sent you off on adventures. Its not that they dont make great movies like The Magnificent Seven or Where Eagles Dare anymore, its more that they dont create the auditoriums worthy of them.

Still, the memory remains faithful. Lights down, magic up. Cant wait.
Don't even think about tearing down or re-purposing Houston's cherished River Oaks Theatre, protesters loudly stated over the weekend.

If you were driving down Houston's Gray Street on Sunday, you couldn't miss a sea of demonstrators donning "Rocky Horror" costumes in their fight to save the iconic theater.

"Houston history is NOT for sale," protesters chanted. Drivers honked in response.

More than 100 demonstrators lined the street in front of River Oaks Theatre to stop the 1939 art-deco theatre from going the way of so many Houston landmarksTexas treasures "re-purposed" or torn down to become massive parking lots or condos.

'ROT' THREATENED: Houston iconic venue faces risk of closure again

River Oaks Theatre faces threat of closure with the end of lease looming this month. Landmark Theatres has failed to come to an agreement with Weingarten, the real group that owns the property, at this juncture.

"We were closed for 6 months due to the pandemic with no revenue," Landmark Theatre representative Jeff Smith told Chron. "We had some rent issues and we want to renew our lease and want work with Weingarten in any way we can, but they have not been willing to negotiate with us thus far."

Known among locals as Houston's home of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," the River Oaks Theatre has been the defining space for independent film in the city for more than 80 years.

"River Oaks Theatre has always been a place where movie magic exists at its most esoteric. God knows what will be lost if it becomes a parking lot, Trader Joe's or worse," Artists for Artists founder Amber Slaughter wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. "Write your Mayor...Get loud! Remind those in power why places like this are sacred to our community."

Slaughter asked all those who love River Oaks Theatre to write about their fondest memories at ROT and email them to Houston leaders, including Mayor Turner (mayor@houstontx.gov) and Landmark Theatre representatives (landmark.theatres.publicity@gmail.com).

"Boyhood" director Richard Linklater once said sharing a cinematic masterpiece in a theatre like River Oaks was unlike any other.

"You have those great experiences with movies, and its the place, its the community around you, or even if it was a sparsely attended movie, its remembering the whole experience of watching it in a theatre," Linklater told Sight & Sound. "Ask people about their top movie-going experiences and no ones going to say 'Oh, that afternoon I sat on this side of my couch'We're communal beings."

Chron.com reached out to Weingarten Realty to get their response about renewing the lease of River Oaks Theatre.

"We love the (ROT) theatre being there. Its been a great part of the shopping center," Weingarten's Chief Operating Officer Johnny Hendrix. "It's unfortunate that whether it's COVID-19 or current business circumstances, that they are not able to operate a sustainable business model. They haven't paid rent to us for over a year. It's unlikely that they will remain at the location."

Hendrix said that he was open to meeting with Landmark Theatres to discuss the fate of River Oaks Theatre.

"I'm aware that people love that River Oaks Theatre, and I wish the current circumstances weren't so," said Hendrix, "They cannot pay anything that is reasonable towards rent. They haven't paid any rent in a year. Landmark Theatre is a business. They are not a charity. They're welcome to call me, and I'll be happy to talk with them. We would welcome having a discussion with River Oaks Theatre."
Chennai, March 9 : The All India NR Congress (AINR Congress) headed by former Puducherry Chief Minister N. Rangaswamy has entered into a seat-sharing agreement with the BJP and the AIADMK combine for the April 6 Assembly elections in the Union Territory.

As per the agreement, AINR Congress will contest 16 seats while the BJP-AIADMK combine will contest 14 seats in the 30-member Assembly. Rangaswamy will be the Chief Minister if the combine is voted to power.

It may be noted that Congress Chief Minister V. Narayanaswamy had resigned last month after several party MLAs, including senior minister A. Namasivayam and Congress working president A.K.D. Arumukham, had quit the party and joined the BJP.

With Rangaswamy leading the front, the AINR Congress, BJP and AIADMK combine has increased their strength but there are undercurrents with Namasivayam also reportedly eyeing the CM's post. The picture will be clear only after a few days.

The DMK-Congress combine had contested the last Assembly elections in 21 and 9 seats, respectively, winning a total of 17 (15+2) seats to rule the state, defeating the AINR Congress. AIADMK, which went solo in the last Assembly elections, had managed four seats while the BJP had drawn a blank.

BJP state president Swaminathan told IANS, "We have signed an electoral pact with the AINR Congress, which will contest 16 seats while our combine will fight 14 seats in the 30-member House." Leaders of the BJP and the AINR Congress were skeptical of the alliance getting through, but sources told IANS that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had directly intervened in this as Rangaswamy is a powerful leader who can swing the elections in his favour.
A 21-year-old woman whose body was found buried in a shallow grave in South Australia's Flinders Ranges has been identified as Jasmeen Kaur.

Ms Kaur was last seen about 10pm on Friday at the Southern Cross Homes at Plympton North in Adelaide before being reported missing the following day.

Detectives found her body buried in a grave at Moralana Creek, 40km north of Hawker, on Monday.

A 21-year-old woman who was found buried in a shallow grave in South Australia's Flinders Ranges has been identified as Jasmeen Kaur

Detectives found her body buried in a grave at Moralana Creek, 40km north of Hawker, on Monday

Her 20-year-old boyfriend was charged with murder and failing to report a death. He allegedly led detectives to the shallow grave.

Police allege Ms Kaur's partner denied having any involvement in her death despite knowing where her body was.

The man, whose identity has been suppressed under court orders, appeared via video link in the Port Augusta Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

Police prosecutor Wendy Priestley said the murder investigation was 'in its relative infancy'.

'We're not exactly sure where crime scenes might be involved,' she told the court, The Daily Telegraph reported.

'The defendant had travelled from Adelaide to the location, north of Hawker, where the body was located.

'En route, he must necessarily have stopped at a service station or toilets somewhere along the way and the investigation is crucial.'

The man, who is in Australia on a student visa, will reappear in court in December.
Syrian academic Hassan Abbas will be greatly missed for his contributions to Arabic culture and language, writes Wael Sawah for The Syrian Observer.

There is no right time for death, but it sometimes comes at the worst and most inopportune of times, bringing about nothing but tragedy.

Hassan Abbas is gone.

He left at a time when we, the Syrians, desperately needed him and left behind many pressing issues that need to be addressed and resolved.

I will miss three facets of Hassan Abbas. The first is the intellectual and academic critic who has never been stingy in sharing his knowledge with others. Academically, Hassan taught non-Arab generations the Arabic language and Arab culture at the Institute for French Studies, instilling in them a love and attachment to Syria. I met dozens of people in Europe who studied under him, who loved and respected him and still held him in high regard. He penned a large number of books on criticism, the last of which was published just days before his departure, The Body in the Novel of the Syrian War. In his criticism, he tackled the text from strange, bold, and revolutionary angles.

He used the French Institute as a platform, turning it into a lecture hall for educational activities for Syrians. He also founded the Film Club and the Cultural Forum. Hassan believed that it was essential to structure the idea of citizenship and the rebuilding of civil society, as the cornerstone of building democracy. There is no democracy without the principle of citizenship and without a civil society that monitors the work of governments, parties, and politicians and corrects their mistakes as they occur.

I will miss Hassan, the unrelenting activist. I will miss his determination. Since his return from Paris, he engaged in civic activity to spread the importance of the idea of citizenship among Syrians, and at the turn of the millennium, ninety-nine Syrian intellectuals paved the way for other intellectuals and politicians to work publicly, by signing what would be known in contemporary Syrian history as the Manifesto of the Ninety-Nine. Hassan was one of four who oversaw the collection of signatures, at a time when the Internet was not in use in Syria, meaning that he had to move from one cafe to another and go from door to door to collect the signature of this writer or that director.

After the start of the Arab Spring, Hassan was like a machine that did not catch a break, trying to investigate the possibility of transferring the movement to Syria. On Feb. 5, 2011, we were about a hundred men and women walking in the funeral of late film director, Omar Amiralay, when Hassan approached me and said, You know, this could be the entire Syrian opposition? After we lowered Omar into the ground, Hassan threw in a small flag of pre-Baath Syria, which would quickly become the flag and symbol of the Syrian revolution. Hassan participated in most of the protests in Damascus with other intellectuals. In one of the demonstrations, he was severely beaten by an intelligence officer, who broke his leg, before shouting at him sarcastically, Run, doctor, run! Do you not know how to run?

In early 2012, Hassan undertook one of his most important civil-political activities; establishing the Syrian League for Citizenship. We, his closest friends and comrades, participated in the founding. Among us was Sabah al-Hallaq, the late Maha Jadid  who passed away just a few months before Hassan  lawyer Wissam Jalahej, yours truly, and others who are still in Syria, whose names I fail to remember. The League for Citizenship was a revolution within a revolution. It worked on different and overlapping levels, training Syrians and contributing to raising awareness in areas such as citizenship, gender, equality, human rights, and transitional justice. The League published several book series in the aforementioned fields, which allowed Hassan to incorporate knowledge into daily activity.

The one I will miss most, though, is Hassan the friend, Hassan whom I, and all of his companions, used to turn to, day and night, if we needed anything, if we got anxious, or felt overwhelmed. Hassan left us one week before the tenth anniversary of the Syrian revolution, in which he played a distinguished role, a star-studded role characterized by wisdom, level-headedness, and a rejection of extremism and militarism. He is gone now, and we are in desperate need of his sensibility, his composed, knowledgeable discourse, and his ability to contain and control delinquency in all of its forms.

Hassan, an Alawite, married a Sunni woman, revolted against the sectarian dictatorship, stood against Islamization, militarism, and empty slogans, and tried to harness the power of knowledge for the sake of the revolution, and thus pave the way for a knowledge revolution, which we desperately need.

Goodbye, Hassan Abbas.
Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy star in Coming 2 America. Photo: Quantrell D. Colbert/Paramount Pictures

Thirty-three years have passed since the release of Coming to America  its as old as Rihanna, Zac Efron, Blake Lively, and Kendrick Lamar  so making a sequel would seem a tricky bit of business, requiring a high-wire act of satisfying fans of the original while bringing in younger viewers who might not know the earlier film at all.

The makers of Coming 2 America try to do both simultaneously, inserting the new character of Lavelle, the bastard prince (Jermaine Fowler), to provide an under-30 protagonist, as in such legacyquels as Creed and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But returning screenwriters Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield (and new collaborators Kenya Barris and Justin Kanew) also go hard for the superfans, stuffing the picture with not only flashbacks to the original, but copious callbacks to its gags  bits that, as Bilge Ebiri puts it, will make literally zero sense to anyone who hasnt seen the first film fairly recently. So if you havent, heres your cheat sheet.

Same Skeleton, New Skin

Ebiri notes that it doesnt feel like the filmmakers wrote a new script so much as they just  rewrote the old script, and hes not wrong; in terms of beat-for-beat replication, were getting into Hangover Part II territory here:

 The film again opens by pushing past the iconic Paramount mountain to reveal the African nation of Zamunda behind it, the camera gliding and rolling through the fields and valleys as we hear a version of Mbube, the original version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

 We land on the palace of Zamunda, where three rose bearers hurry to attend to the royal offspring  but this time, rather than Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy), its his three daughters.

 They then hurry to their parents, Akeem and Lisa (Shari Headley), to wish them a happy anniversary. It is our anniversary, he exclaims happily, echoing his line reading of It is my birthday in the original films opening.

 Shortly thereafter, Akeem engages in a spirited round of stick-fighting  this time with his daughters rather than Semmi (Arsenio Hall).

 After Akeem (now King Akeem) and Semmi decide to journey to Queens, we again hear the title song as they fly in  but sung by John Legend. (Legend reappears in the end credits to sing Ohas 1988 showstopper Shes Your Queen.)

 In one of the major structural deviations, the big palace song-and-dance number shows up around the 40-minute mark rather than early on. (Also, Paula Abdul didnt choreograph this one.)

 But that sequence sets up the replication of the original films central romantic conflict: Just like his father, Lavelle dodges a politically expedient arranged marriage with a neighboring princess to pursue his genuine attraction to a more common girl, Mirembe (Nomzamo Mbatha).

 And once again, the furious king follows his son back to Queens to track him down and put a stop to this foolishness  but of course, when his son explains that he has to follow his heart, he understands.

 The first film ended with a memorable (pre-Marvel!) post-credits scene of Saul (the elderly Jewish barbershop kibitzer, played by Murphy under layers of makeup) telling his favorite joke. So we get an after-credits scene with Saul here as well, alongside Halls new secondary character, Baba the witch doctor.

.

But they dont just copy the structure of the first film; several lines of dialogue are repeated, often verbatim. To wit:

 Defend yourself, you sweat from a baboons balls: said by Semmi to Akeem in their sparring session in the first film, and to General Izzi (Wesley Snipes) during the big fight in this one.

 Izzis sister Imani (Vanessa Bell Calloway) is still jumping on one leg and barking like a dog, as Akeem commanded her to at the beginning of the first film. And when his son meets General Izzis daughter (Teyana Taylor), they have the conversation Akeem and Imani did: What do you like? Whatever you like, etc.

 When King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones) comes to Queens in the first film, Saul rubs his lion-skin sash and exclaims, This is beautiful, what is that, velvet? The last line of Coming 2 America is Saul asking Baba, of his robes, Hey, what is this, velvet?

.

Occasionally, however, the writers go to the trouble of not just quoting themselves, but adding and/or winking at their original ideas:

 When Akeem is told that his illegitimate son was conceived during his journey to Queens, he protests that this is impossible: I did not sow my royal oats, he insists, referencing his fathers original, cheerful instructions for the trip.

 At the beginning of that conversation in the first film, as he and his father take a stroll, he greets a baby elephant with a warm, Hello, Babar. In the new film, he introduces his son to a large, majestic elephant as Babar, the magnificent! Ive known him since he was a little elephant. (As the original line was a wink at the childrens book series, this one kind of feels like a hat on a hat.)

 In the first film, Akeem hails a cab by stepping into the street, putting up his hand, and commanding, HALT! He tries the same trick here  but stops a rideshare driver, who explains that he has to hail him via the app.

 At the end of the big stick fight, Akeems daughter Meeka (KiKi Layne) puts General Izzi on his back in the exact same way her father cut down Semmi  and director Craig Brewer even replicates original director John Landiss framing of the action.

 When Akeem and Semmi return to Queens, theyre surprised by how much the gentrified neighborhood has cleaned up  except for the untouched MY-T-Sharp barbershop. And you can even spot a Soul Glo poster in the background inside.

 The original film got plenty of comic mileage out of Akeems employer, McDowells, which was completely different from McDonalds, according to its owner (John Amos). Theyve got the Big Mac  Ive got the Big Mick, he insisted. Weve both got two all-beef patties, sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions. But they use a sesame-seed bun  my buns have no seeds. In the new film, with a McDowells franchise opening in Zamunda, he has more differences to explain. Theyve got Egg McMuffins  weve got Egg McStuffins! he says. The McFlurbly is nothing like the McFlurry! We put the toppings on the bottom!

 In a reference to that no seeds line, when Akeem and Semmi first return to Queens, their limousine parks under an advertisement for McDonalds, HOME OF THE REAL BIG MAC, with an arrow pointing to a picture of the burger and the caption, with seeds.

.

Coming to America isnt the only film frequently referenced in Coming 2 America. When The Lion King was released in 1994, it felt as if its casting department was filled with Coming to America fans; not only did James Earl Jones provide the voice of King Mufasa, but Madge Sinclair, who co-starred as his Queen Aoleon in America, voiced Mufasas Queen Sarabi. And so, in Coming 2 America, Murphy & Co. return the favor.

 During King Jaffe Joffers pre-death funeral celebration, a cameo-ing Morgan Freeman refers to him (correctly!) as the inspiration for Mufasa.

 That presentation also includes the tableau of a child being held aloft, the key image of The Lion Kings opening scene and ad campaign.

 One of the few new characters, the aforementioned Baba the witch doctor, seems awfully similar to The Lion Kings Rafiki.

 When Akeem charges into the barbershop looking for his son, Clarence the barber (also Murphy) cheerfully greets him as Mufasa!

 And in one more wink at James Earl Joness extensive body of work, a promo bumper for Zamunda News Network features Jones intoning, This is ZNN  just as he did for CNN for years.

.

 Coming to America itself featured a clever reference to another, earlier movie  a moment in which Akeem hands an envelope of money to a pair of homeless men sleeping under the Brooklyn Bridge. Those men are then revealed as Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche), the rich, racist businessmen left destitute at the end of Murphy and Landiss previous collaboration, Trading Places. That donation apparently worked out well for them; in the new film, Lavelle applies for a job at the revitalized Duke & Duke, interviewing with Calvin Duke (Colin Jost), Randolphs grandson.

 In the playful behind-the-scenes footage seen during the end credits, Jermaine Fowler sing-songs, I got the whiskers, they from a lion, prompting Murphy to object, Thats my thing!  as Fowler is paying homage to the We got some ice cream song from Eddie Murphy: Delirious.

 This one is a bit more of a stretch, but as Murphy sits on his throne in his royal garb, listening to a performance of Princes Gett Off, this viewer was suddenly reminded of when he did the exact same thing for the Purple Ones old rival Michael Jackson in the video for Remember the Time.

.

 Few sequels have reunited their original casts as thoroughly as Coming 2 America; just about everyone is back but Eriq La Salle, Samuel L. Jackson, and Cuba Gooding Jr. Aside from Murphy, Hall, Headley, Amos, Calloway, and James Earl Jones, we have encores from Paul Bates, Clint Smith, Louie Anderson, and even Garcelle Beauvais, promoted from Rose Bearer in the first film to Rose Bearer Priestess in this one.

 But its also something of a follow-up to Murphys last starring vehicle, Dolemite Is My Name, reuniting the star with that films director (Brewer) and his co-star Snipes. And in that post-credits scene, Saul recites Signifying Monkey, one of Rudy Ray Dolemite Moores most famous routines.

 And, since Murphy broke through on Saturday Night Live, its a bit of an SNL alumni show as well, featuring supporting roles and cameos by Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, and Jost; co-writers Blaustein and Sheffield also got their starts on the show, writing sketches and desk pieces for Murphy before penning the scripts to Coming to America, Boomerang, The Nutty Professor, and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.

.

 When Lavelle is getting to know Mirembe, the subject of movies comes up. He scoffs at her love for American cinema: What do we have besides superhero shit, remakes, and sequels to old movies nobody asked for? And she concurs with the latter point: This is true about sequels. If something is good, why ruin it? Nothing like a movie that makes the case against itself!

 Okay, maybe its not ha-ha funny, but its worth noting that the opening credits include the line Based on Characters Created by Eddie Murphy, but the closing credits include a Special Thanks to the Estate of Art Buchwald, and, well, thats a whole other story.
New Delhi:

PM Narendra Modi on Tuesday addressed more than 200 youth CEOs and Start ups summit at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra in Delhi.

Prime Minister said they are always thinking about where the nation will reach through their work. He said every citizen must have a feeling that this country belongs to him and he has to work for the country. He said a citizen must have a feeling that he wants to add something towards growth.

The prime minister said, "Every person wanted India to be free but Gandhi ji did something unique. He made every person feel he or she is working for the nation."

Modi said that in a similar spirit as what Mahatma Gandhi did for the freedom struggle, people also need to make India's development a mass movement.

When we work together, we can solve several problems the country faces: PM Narendra Modi pic.twitter.com/XegQH8sIhT  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

Modi said," We can solve several problems if we work together." The prime minister asked young CEOs that should think what they can do more about the poorest of the poor.

#WATCH: PM Narendra Modi addresses CEOs and Start ups at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra. https://t.co/G8WBOaKb4O  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

"As industry leaders, think what more you can do for the poorest of the poor," he said. Modi said that there should be no question of compromising on the quality of their product.

Also Read | Champions of Change event: Important to integrate the strengths of society with our systems: PM Modi

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Jurnee Smollett is reuniting with her Lovecraft Country creator Misha Green for a high-octane action-thriller entitled Fuel for Amazon.

Amazon is in talks for the project, seemingly emerging victorious in a competitive bidding situation, according to Deadline.

The action movie will put a fresh spin on a type of character typically portrayed by male actors, with Smollett playing a getaway driver.

Reunited: Jurnee Smollett is reuniting with her Lovecraft Country creator Misha Green for a high-octane action-thriller entitled Fuel for Amazon.

Fuel is described as, 'an action-packed female empowerment story that will subvert the relationship between cars and masculinity.'

Smollett will portray a getaway driver who is coerced into working for a crime lord, breaking all of the rules she had put in place for herself.

Kat Wood (Arthur & Merlin) will be writing the screenplay, with both Smollett and Green serving as executive producers.

Driver: Smollett will portray a getaway driver who is coerced into working for a crime lord, breaking all of the rules she had put in place for herself

This is the third project that Smollett and Green will work together on, following Lovecraft Country and the WGN America series Underground, which Green created and executive produced.

Wood has set up a number big projects lately, including Envoy and Genus with producer Amy Pascal, Diplomatic Courier with Skydance and Ruby with 87North and Amazon.

Green is attached to write and make her feature directorial debut on a new Tomb Raider movie, with Alicia Vikander returning as Lara Croft.

Projects: This is the third project that Smollett and Green will work together on, following Lovecraft Country and the WGN America series Underground, which Green created and executive produced

Green also wrote and will produce The Mother, which Netflix picked up in a competitive bidding situation.

She is also producing Cleopatra Jones for Warner Bros. and The Gilded Ones for Makeready.

Smollett is also coming off playing Dinah Lance, a.k.a. Black Canary, in Warner Bros.' Birds of Prey, one of the last movies to hit theaters before COVID-19.

Birds: Smollett is also coming off playing Dinah Lance, a.k.a. Black Canary, in Warner Bros.' Birds of Prey, one of the last movies to hit theaters before COVID-19

Smollett will next be seen on the big screen in Escape From Spiderhead, from director Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy).

The story is set in the near future, where convicts are offered the chance to shorten their sentences by volunteering for medical experiments.

The story follows one convict who is given a drug that is capable of generating feelings of love, as he starts to question his true emotions.
YEREVAN, MARCH 9, ARMENPRESS. Armenia and Cuba expressed readiness to strengthen partnership and bolster political dialogue.

In a phone call, Armenian FM Ara Aivazian and his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla attached importance to deepening of cooperation also in international organizations.

Aivazian and Parilla exchanged ideas over integration processes, namely over prospects of cooperation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)  of which Armenia is a member of and Cuba an observer.

In this regard, minister Aivazian attached importance to the expansion of the geographic boundaries of the EEUs foreign economic relations. Ministers Ara Aivazian and Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla expressed conviction that the status of an observer state will enable Cuba to more effectively cooperate with EEU members, namely in industry, healthcare, energy, transport and agriculture, the Armenian foreign ministry said in a readout.

International and regional agenda items were also discussed.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.Australias central bank maintained its policy settings as it prepares to decide on extending its yield target and quantitative easing programs, with a Covid-19 lockdown complicating the outlook.The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate and three-year yield target at 0.10% in Sydney on Tuesday, as expected. It will make a decision in July on whether to extend the yield target and undertake further quantitative easing. A weeklong shutdown in the nations second-largest city adds a layer of uncertainty to the outlook.Despite the strong recovery in the economy and jobs, inflation and wage pressures are subdued, Governor Philip Lowe said. The board is committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment in Australia and inflation consistent with the target.The Australian dollar edged lower, trading at 77.41 U.S. cents at 2:53 p.m. in Sydney from 77.62 cents just before the release.The case for Lowe to maintain the April 2024 bond as the target maturity had been strengthening amid strong hiring, sentiment and investment plans. This was reinforced by the government keeping open the fiscal spigot in the May budget as it joins the RBA in seeking to drive down unemployment to revive wages growth and inflation.Progress in reducing unemployment has been faster than expected, Lowe said in his statement. There are reports of labor shortages in some parts of the economy.Risks AheadYet the RBA may be encouraged to err on the side of caution if Melbournes outbreak worsens and extend both of its bond programs to keep maximum support for the economy.An important ongoing source of uncertainty is the possibility of significant outbreaks of the virus, although this should diminish as more of the population is vaccinated, Lowe said. The board continues to place a high priority on a return to full employment.Globally, central banks are beginning to edge away from emergency monetary settings. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets last week in presenting projections of its official cash rate rising in the second half of next year.Back in Australia, economists predicted ahead of data Wednesday that gross domestic product rose 1.5% in the first three months of the year from the prior quarter, and advanced 0.6% from a year earlier.Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, in testimony to a parliamentary panel earlier today, said partial data showed around 56,000 workers had lost their jobs in the four weeks following the end of the governments JobKeeper wage subsidy that expired March 28.He said strong employment data and forward indicators continue to give us confidence that the labor market has the underlying strength to absorb workers transitioning off the JobKeeper payment.End of Australias $68 Billion Job-Saving Stimulus Tests EconomyLowe estimates Australias jobless rate will need to fall to close to 4% before driving economy-wide pay increases. It stood at 5.5% in April.The governor expects wages growth will need to increase at a pace faster than 3% -- more than double the current rate -- for inflation to return sustainably to the central banks 2-3% target.Lowe reiterated that this is unlikely to be until 2024 at the earliest.(Updates with further comments from governor throughout text.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
New Delhi:

Indias logic on road construction by China in Doklam on the border posed a threat to New Delhi was ridiculous and vicious, said Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

The ministry also said that there will be utter chaos if Chinese troops entered India on pretext that Indian border infrastructure posed a threat to Beijing.

IANS quoting Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying wrote, The Indian side illegally crossed the boundary on the excuse of ... Chinese road building. The reason is ridiculous, vicious and facts are clear."

The IANS further writes, "You may think about it. If we tolerate India's ridiculous logic, then anyone who dislikes the activity at his neighbour's home can break into its neighbour's house. Does that mean when China thinks that large-scale construction of infrastructure at the border area of India is posing a threat, it can enter Indian territory? Wouldn't that be utter chaos?"

Also Read| Doklam standoff: Flag meeting remains inconclusive between India, China



Indian and Chinese troops have been locked since June in a stand-off at Doklam in the Sikkim section of the Bhutan-China border.

The lock between the nations begun after Indian troops stopped Chinese troops from building a road in Doklam.

Also Read|Doklam standoff: India pushes more troops along China border in Sikkim, Arunachal; caution level increased



Bhutan protested against Chinese road building in Doklam claiming the area to be their territory. India backs Bhutans claim and sees a construction of road by China in the area as a threat in the region.

While, China claims Doklam part to be part of Chinese territory since ancient times.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Amid speculation over the change of leadership in Uttarakhand, Chief Minister Triverdra Singh Rawat is expected to resign on Tuesday, as per sources. Rawat is expected to announce his resignation at a press conference that he will hold later in the day, following which he will go to the Governor's residence to formally tender his resignation.

As per sources, the political crisis in the state was triggered when the Aam Aadmi Party sensed a political opportunity there and reached out to a senior minister in the Uttarakhand government, offering him to be the CM face. Following this, when the BJP sensed trouble, a churn for leadership had already begun. Trivendra Singh Rawat was called to Delhi and shown an internal survey demonstrating his dropping leadership graph which he was allegedly unable to explain to the party's satisfaction. As per sources, he's been asked to transition smoothly. There are said to be two names in the race to replace him.

Rawat late on Monday met BJP president JP Nadda at the latter's residence in New Delhi. Top central BJP leaders have also met to discuss the developments. Last week, BJP Uttarakhand held an emergency core group meeting which was attended by observer Raman Singh, Dushyant Gautam, Rawat, Ajay Bhatt, Naresh Bansal, Mala Rajya Laxmi, and others.

BJP's top observers had been rushed to the state, with some MLAs purportedly unhappy and their dissatisfaction allegedly having something to do with Rawat's 'working style.' Amid this, the Budget session of the assembly had been cut-short abruptly. Rawat had also met the senior BJP leaders who had arrived in Dehradun.

Uttarakhand's history of sitting CMs being replaced

Since the formation of the hilly state from Uttar Pradesh in 2000, both BJP and Congress which have ruled the state have often changed their CMs, resulting in their electoral loss in the next election. Nityanand Swami, who was the state's first CM was replaced with Bhagat Singh Koshyari in 2002. On coming to power, Congress chose Narayan Dutt Tiwari - who completed his full term. In 2007, 2009, and 2011, BJP had two CMs Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri and Ramesh Pokhriyal. Similarly, after the 2013 Kedarnath flash-floods, Congress replaced CM Vijay Bahuguna with Harish Rawat culminating in its loss in 2017. Uttarakhand is set to go to the polls again in 2022.
Youth in Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley in Distance Learning In a time of great uncertainty, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley has offered young people a much-needed sense of stability and constant support, said Renee Parsons, President and Executive Creative Director of PXG Apparel.

Longtime supporters of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley (BGCAZ), The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to support ongoing Club operations. The grant comes at a critical time as BGCAZ has had to expand programming during this time of COVID to continue its mission of helping youth and teens develop the skills and resiliency needed to successfully navigate childhood and reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible members of the community.

Despite challenges brought on by the pandemic, the Boys & Girls Club has continued to put children first and provide a safe and supportive environment for families in our community, said Bob Parsons, Founder & CEO of PXG.

Funding from this grant will help ensure that BGCAZ is able to deliver high-quality programming and increase staff capacity for the thousands of youth served in the Clubs. During an average year, BGCAZ serves more than 16,000 youth and teen Club members and provides more than 500,000 healthy meals and snacks. Throughout the pandemic, the Clubs have been operating at approximately 250 percent of average hours and supporting thousands of families.

Last March, when COVID-19 hit Arizona, BGCAZ immediately expanded our operations and pivoted programs to provide extended childcare to healthcare and essential employees around the Valley, said Marcia Mintz, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley. This gift from The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation comes at a critical juncture where we are continuing to serve those who need us most and preparing for a new normal in our operations. We are investing in additional academic support programs, technology and staff training.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley have remained open for youth in Valley communities not only for afterschool care, but also for aid in distance learning. By providing Distance Learning Labs at 18 Clubs across the Valley, and offering extended Club hours from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, BGCAZ was able to serve up to 2,500 students  ages 5 to 18 years old  while also maintaining the CDCs COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

In a time of great uncertainty, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley has offered young people a much-needed sense of stability and constant support, said Renee Parsons, President and Executive Creative Director of PXG Apparel. The Clubs have stepped up to help families navigate things like distance learning and adapt to the new world we are all facing.

In addition to increased operating hours, expenses for other resources and safety protocols in the Clubs increased just as quickly. These expenses included reducing student-to-staff ratios to follow social distancing guidelines, providing two nutritious meals and snacks per day, PPE, additional program supplies, and, of course, janitorial and IT support. Most importantly, these additional costs were not borne by families who are also struggling. BGCAZ was committed to keep program fees consistent and affordable.

The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation is a longtime supporter of BGCAZ. Over the years, The Foundation has invested a combined $8+ million to the organization including numerous academic scholarships, live auction items and other donations. The pandemic remains uncertain, but this gift will help BGCAZ continue to best serve those who need Clubs most.

BGCAZ provides educational and recreational programming designed to help youth reach their full potential. A large focus is placed on academic achievement, personal development and leadership, resulting in higher than average graduation rates among Club members. To learn more about BGCAZ, and its impact on the community, please visit bgcaz.org.

About Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley

Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley offers affordable after-school and summer programs for 17,000+ young people in grades K-12. At Clubs across the Valley, BGCAZ provides award-winning programs designed to change the lives of young people. For nearly 75 years, BGCAZ has been creating equity and opportunity for youth through academic, social, and workforce opportunities. We help young people make healthy decisions and focus on social and emotional development to build resilient young adults. Most importantly, we work to develop strong character and leadership skills by creating positive connections to caring adults and their community. For more information: visit bgcaz.org.

About The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation

The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation offers support to nonprofit organizations successfully working to empower, educate, nurture and nourish people during what is often the darkest time of their lives. Founded in 2012 by philanthropists and business leaders Bob and Renee Parsons to provide hope and life-changing assistance to the countrys most vulnerable populations, The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation offers critical funding at critical times to those in need. The Foundations giving is driven by the core belief that all people  regardless of race, religion, roots, economic status, sexual orientation or gender identity  deserve access to quality healthcare, education and a safe place to call home. Follow @WeDealInHope on social media or visit TBRPF.org, to learn more about partner organizations and the important work being done in the community.
Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance sits in the front row during a news conference on June 26, 2020 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Sajjan Called to Testify Again in Commons Probe of Forces Misconduct Claims

OTTAWAThe Trudeau government and Opposition Conservatives marked International Womens Day on Monday by trading barbs and accusations over reported threats against a senior naval officer who brought forward an allegation of misconduct against Canadas defence chief.

The bitter back-and-forth came as members of the House of Commons defence committee agreed to invite a bevy of new witnesses to testify in an expanded probe of the Liberals handling of allegations against the militarys top brass.

The list of new witnesses includes top Liberal officials as well as two former aides in the previous Conservative government. It also includes Lt.-Cmdr. Raymond Trotter, who reportedly flagged an allegation of misconduct by chief of the defence staff Admiral Art McDonald last month.

Global News has reported Trotter subsequently received two threatening phone calls from blocked numbers, one from a person claiming to be a military officer and the other from someone who identified themselves as a senior member of the Canadian government.

The callers allegedly warned Trotter against co-operating with the Commons defence committees investigation, and that his military career would be over if he did.

In response, Conservative defence critic James Bezan and fellow Tories Pierre Paul-Hus and Leona Alleslev released a statement Monday accusing the government of having undertaken a co-ordinated campaign to threaten and silence a sexual misconduct whistleblower.

This is more evidence that Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government have gone to great lengths to coverup allegations of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, added the statement.

Threatening a member of the Canadian Armed Forces to secure their silence is a clear and concerning abuse of power. The lengths that the Liberal government will go to in order to hide the truth from Canadians is appalling.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjans office fired back a few hours later.

Not only was the ministers office not aware of the identity of the caller prior to media reports, any insinuation that our government made threatening comments is utterly false, Sajjans spokesman, Todd Lane, said in a statement.

This baseless accusation from the Conservative party harms confidence in the processes that exist to help those who come forward with complaints of misconduct. This reckless insinuation only serves to create doubt for those who step forward and those considering it.

Both Lane and the Department of National Defence also released a brief timeline for when the allegation against McDonald was received and how it was handled, saying the first call from a third party came in Feb. 4.

That call went to a switchboard operator and was soon referred to the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, according to the Defence Department, which launched an investigation without McDonalds knowledge.

When the switchboard received a complaint of misconduct, it was immediately relayed to an official in the Department of National Defence, Lane said. At no time did any staff in the office of the minister speak with the caller.

The Defence Department added that McDonald only became aware of the investigation Feb. 24, when case-specific information was disclosed. McDonald temporarily stepped aside that same day, with Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre taking over as acting defence chief.

The CFNIS would not say Monday whether it is investigating the alleged threats against Trotter.

Following the report about Trotter, members of the Commons defence committee voted Monday to summon him for questions.

The reason it needs to be a summons is hes a person that is still in the chain of command, Bezan said.

According to reports ? hes already faced intimidation and threats that his career is over. So we want to make sure that he feels free to appear without fear of reprimand. And the only way we can ensure that he can appear is to summon him through a subpoena.

Committee members also agreed to invite Sajjan back to clarify what opposition members say are contradictions between his testimony and that of former military ombudsman Gary Walbourne.

Walbourne told the committee last week he first raised an allegation of sexual misconduct against then-chief of the defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance to the minister in March 2018.

The committee is also inviting Zita Astravas, who was Sajjans chief of staff at the time, and Elder Marques, who was a senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to explain when they became aware of the allegations against Vance and what they did about them.

Committee members will also look into how Vance was selected to serve as chief of the defence staff in 2015, with invitations to be extended to Harpers former chief of staff Ray Novak and then-defence minister Jason Kenneys top aide at the time.

Global News has reported allegations Vance had an ongoing relationship with a subordinate that started more than a decade ago and continued after he was named chief of the defence staff, at which time he promised to root sexual misconduct from the Armed Forces.

Global has also reported on allegations about Vance sending the email to a much younger female officer in 2012, suggesting they go to a clothing-optional resort.

Vance has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Canadian Press and the allegations against him have not been independently verified. Global News has reported that Vance has denied any wrongdoing.

The CFNIS has confirmed that it opened an investigation in 2015 into Vances conduct while he was serving in Italy the previous year, but that it did not meet the elements of the offence to lay charges.

Military police have since opened an investigation into the allegations reported by Global. Sajjan has also promised a separate investigation, but it has yet to be launched.

By Lee Berthiaume
Catholic Archbishop says Johnson & Johnson vaccine with abortion ties can be taken if others unavailable

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

An archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church has said that the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be taken, despite its ties to abortion, if other vaccines are unavailable.

Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, released a statement last Thursday regarding the ethical concerns over the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, also called the Janssen vaccine.

Jackels explained that if Catholics are given the option, they should take either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, as the Janssen vaccine has stronger ties to the use of cells from an aborted baby.

Johnson and Johnson used cell lines from the fetal tissue of an aborted baby in the production of its vaccine, whereas Pfizer and Moderna used them only for lab testing, explained the archbishop.

Its a subtle distinction. All three companies used those ethically compromised cell lines; its just that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, because they made only limited use, are further removed from the evil of abortion than is the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

Jackels noted, however, that if there is no choice in vaccines, it is morally acceptable for them to use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the serious health risk of the coronavirus.

The common good of protecting the public health against a contagious and potentially deadly virus takes precedence over any reservations Catholics might have about being treated with any of the available vaccines, he continued.

Last month, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans released a statement labeling the Johnson & Johnson vaccine morally compromised due to its ties to aborted cells.

 the two vaccines currently available from Pfizer and Moderna do not rely on cell lines from abortions in the manufacturing process and therefore can be morally acceptable for Catholics as the connection to abortion is extremely remote, stated the Archdiocese.

We advise that if the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is available, Catholics should choose to receive either of those vaccines rather than to receive the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of its extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines.

Some, including those involved in the pro-life movement, have expressed concerns over the ethics of taking a vaccine for the coronavirus developed from the use of cells from aborted babies.

For example, the AstraZeneca vaccine was developed in part through growing a modified virus in cells taken from embryonic kidney tissue that derived from an abortion performed decades ago.

Further, the Moderna vaccine was developed by using the HEK-293T cell line, which traced its origins to a baby aborted in the Netherlands in the 1970s.

Last December, in response to these issues, the Catholic Churchs Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement saying that it was morally acceptable for Catholics to take these vaccines, even if their development involved using aborted fetal cells.
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
A first-floor room inside the Belmont Towers apartment complex in Worcester is normally reserved for Bingo. On Monday, it was transformed into a COVID-19 vaccination clinic.

For organizers, the space represented a finish line. While those receiving the vaccine on Monday still need another dose, planning for Monday and the subsequent visit took months to coordinate.

I cant tell you how many town halls weve done, Commissioner of Worcester Health and Human Services Dr. Mattie Castiel said. ... We have gone out [into the community] for people to understand.

Castiel said the mobile clinic at 40 Belmont St. was expected to administer about 120 first doses of the Moderna vaccine on Monday.

The outreach began, she said, in September when she received the first dose of Pfizers vaccine as part of clinical trials.

We did the Pfizer trial in September so people could see this vaccine is OK, Castiel said. We had no problem. Im still alive. Im here. We wanted people to know this is whats going to happen, they would still be good, that everything would be fine.

Shortly after 9 a.m. vaccinations began at Belmont Towers. Luz Gonzalez, a resident in Belmont Tower, caught the attention of Castiel, a good friend. The two laughed and conversed in Spanish until Castiel returned to a table in the back of the room where she filled syringes with the vaccine.

Luz Gonzalez received the first dose of a COVID vaccine Monday at the Belmont Towers apartment complex in Worcester.

I wasnt [nervous]. Im relaxed, Gonzalez said. I watch the news and every day I check the process.

As Gonzalez chatted with Castiel after receiving her first dose of the vaccine, she sat in her motorized wheelchair in the monitoring area.

For Gonzalez and residents in similar situations, logging online and finding an appointment before traveling to that appointment for a vaccine was unlikely if not impossible.

Theyre not going to go to mass vaccination sites, Castiel said. Thats not culturally appropriate. They dont have a trust in our health care system or government system. Were able to say this is where you are, this is where well bring it to you.

Residents of low-income or public housing communities are eligible to receive the vaccine.

According to Don Prescott, the vice president of Training and Development, the Belmont Towers represents the second to last senior housing facility where the city has conducted a vaccine clinic. Pleasant Towers at 275 Pleasant St. is next, he said.

So far, Prescott said, about 60% of the residents at the locations have agreed to receive the vaccine. That number doesnt include residents who received it at other vaccination sites or through their doctors.

Teams within the Worcester Housing Authority reach out to residents directly and create appointments for those interested in the vaccine. Theyre reminded days in advance. On the day of the clinic, staff escorts them from their home to the clinic.

Its seamless, Prescott said. They love it.

The Moderna COVID vaccine was administered on Monday to residents living in the Belmont Towers apartment complex in Worcester.

Through the public housing clinics so far, Castiel said, about half the residents who received vaccines were Latinx.

Its huge to be able to do this, Castiel said. And were going to continue to do this throughout the community.

People of color have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic around the country and within Worcester.

According to data from the fall, while Worcesters population is 21% Latinx residents, people in that community have represented 38% of positive COVID-19 cases. Worcesters Black community has represented 22% of coronavirus cases but is only 13% of the population.

This is truly our goal - to get the most who have been affected by COVID - to be able to get them vaccinated, Castiel said.

Gregory Caldwell walked down from his home wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt and sandals. Within 10 minutes, he checked in, received the vaccine and sat in the monitoring area.

It was definitely a whole lot easier and I wonder if everybody thats in Mass Housing is going to have this opportunity; if they do, thats great, Caldwell said. I wish it was the Johnson & Johnson one-time shot but I am more than pleased to be here and very thankful.

Caldwell said he can travel to a super vaccination site if it was necessary, but many of his neighbors cant - highlighting the importance of clinics like the one conduct at Belmont Towers.

A lot of people are a little more elderly than I am, Caldwell said. This is a perfect way to do it for the residents that live here.

Related Content:
H2Pro, a startup founded in Israel in 2019, has raised US$22 million in a funding round from clean energy funds backed by Bill Gates, among others, in order to scale up green hydrogen production, Bloomberg reports.

H2Pro aims to enable affordable green hydrogen production at scale, it says, through the use of a proprietary method for producing green hydrogen by splitting water that is over 95 percent efficient, safe, and cost-competitive with fossil-fuel hydrogen. The companys E-TAC technology with 95 percent efficiency is more efficient than alkaline and Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) water electrolysis with an energy efficiency of around 70 percent, according to H2Pro. The start-up also estimates that its membrane-free technology would be easy to scale and thus reduce capital expenditures (capex) by half compared to traditional electrolyzers.

H2Pros technology splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, but hydrogen and oxygen are generated separately in different steps, unlike in conventional electrolysis.

The company told Bloomberg that it could produce green hydrogen for $1 per kilogram by the second half of this decade, much more ambitious than current analyst estimates, which do not see this low a cost for clean hydrogen by 2050. BloombergNEF estimates that in 2019, a kilogram of green hydrogen cost between $2.50 and $6.80.

H2Pro, in which Hyundai Motor has also invested, is the latest company aiming to scale up green hydrogen production and make it cheaper.

Last week, Danish catalyst manufacturer Haldor Topsoe said it planned to build a large-scale facility to manufacture electrolyzers that would be used for green hydrogen production and potentially reduce the cost of green hydrogen by 20 percent.

Hydrogen, especially green hydrogen, has become the latest fad among energy companies, including Big Oil, who see potential in developing and investing in technologies to produce green hydrogen.

French supermajor Total looks to become a large producer of clean hydrogen one day, chairman and chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said at an event last month, while BP, Shell, and Eni are also developing green hydrogen projects.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
SANTA ANA, Calif., March, 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Regional Center of Orange County (RCOC) honored nine individuals and organizations at its 24th annual Spotlight Awards Monday, March 8. Guest-hosted by Emmy Award-winning reporter Michele Gile of CBS2/KCAL9, the event took place virtually through streaming media (for the second time, due to the COVID pandemic), with more than 200 participants welcomed by Nancy Bargmann, Director of the Department of Developmental Services for the State of California, and introduced by RCOC Board Chair Chip Wright.

RCOC created the Spotlight Awards in 1997 to honor those in Orange County who have advanced the quality of life for people with developmental disabilities.

2020 Regional Center of Orange County Spotlight Award Recipients:

About Regional Center of Orange County: Regional Center of Orange County is the private, nonprofit organization contracted by the State of California to coordinate lifelong services and supports for more than 22,000 Orange County residents with developmental disabilities and their families. The Regional Center is the first stop for those seeking to obtain local services and supports to help them live safely and with dignity in the community. Developmental disabilities include intellectual disabilities, autism, epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Learn more at www.rcocdd.com.

SOURCE Regional Center of Orange County
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aleph Holding, global partner to the world's biggest digital media players, has announced today that it closed a private placement funding round. Through its complementary suite of digital media service companies - including Httpool , Internet Media Services , Wise.Blue and Social Snack - Aleph provides leading digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat access to new geographies and under-served markets, while helping advertisers maximize the value of their investments, through proprietary technology. Prior to this raise, 87% of Aleph's stock was held by its founders, additionally Sony Pictures Television holds a minority stake.

The Company achieved double digit growth during 2020, reaching $475M in sales with presence in over 60 markets globally. In 2021, Aleph is on track to generate $1 billion in sales with an expanded footprint reaching 75 markets supported by the additional capital raised. Citi served as financial advisor to Aleph.

Aleph partners with companies such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Spotify, Snapchat, Warner Music, Twitch and EA, and boasts a range of exclusive partnerships across Asia, Latin America and Europe. The Aleph business model is built on a unique combination of local market knowledge, trusted relationships with advertisers, and innovative technology - such as Aleph's proprietary digital advertising optimization platform, Wise.Blue .

"As a founder, you have to believe you add something unique to your industry. With the Aleph family of brands, we have," comments Gaston Taratuta, CEO of Aleph. "Aleph sits at the heart of digital media and creates connections that others cannot. We enable global platforms to grow by using our vast infrastructure, proprietary technology and local knowledge to provide access to new markets. At the same time, our expertise helps businesses and brands achieve greater value from their advertising investments.

"Backed by this capital raise, we have a clear path to accelerate these connections in new markets, developing SMB through our proprietary technology and through acquisitions - as we expect to soon announce additional transactions that will significantly increase our global reach. Over the coming months, the Company will be working with its advisors in preparation to further scale and consider accessing additional sources of funding in the capital markets."

Digital media is proving robust in the face of global disruption:

Leading digital platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Twitter have posted high double-digit revenue growth in 2020

Aleph has grown revenues from its top digital platform partners by 190% over the last twelve months

New Aleph clients have grown 26% and the company is now serving over 10,000 advertisers globally

Aleph Holding

[email protected]

About Aleph Holding

Aleph is the global digital media partner, connecting businesses & brands to the leading digital players in over 60 markets worldwide. Our services create greater value for all parties within the digital media industry.

Through the Aleph family of companies, we use our global infrastructure and scale to cover the last mile in digital media. We help advertisers maximize their investment to support the growth of their brand, while helping the biggest digital media players to access new and under-served markets.

www.alephholding.com

SOURCE Aleph Holding

Related Links

http://www.alephholding.com


A rider of the Kremlin Equestrian School gives tulips to a woman in Moscow, Russia on March 8, 2021. (Xinhua/Evgeny Sinitsyn) Image Source: IANS News

United Nations, March 9 : The latest data published UN Women, an entity of the world body working for the empowerment of women, shows that women's rights and leadership are under threat, even more due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Current projections show that gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years. This year's International Women's Day rings the alarm on rising threats to gender equality and highlights the need to build back better for a more gender-equal future, Xinhua news agency quoted UN Women as saying in a statement on Monday.

"We must remember 2021 as a global inflection point on gender equality, a year when women's rights and leadership accelerated irreversibly. The Generation Equality Forum will be a catalyst for lasting change.

"A more equal world will be a different world. More inclusive decisions will be made, different voices heard, and different solutions created," UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was quoted as saying in the statement.

The Generation Equality Forum is a civil society-centred, global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France.

Kicking-off in Mexico City on March 29-31, and culminating in Paris in June, the forum will secure a set of concrete, ambitious, and transformative commitments to achieve immediate and irreversible progress toward gender equality.

The landmark effort will bring together governments, corporations and change to define and announce ambitious investments and policies.

This International Women's Day comes at a moment where evidence is growing that the pandemic is having a disproportionate and severe impact on women's rights, from their role as frontline healthcare workers often without adequate protection, to the loss of jobs as the informal economy shrinks, and the alarming spike in domestic violence and unpaid care burden, according to the UN Women statement.

Major facts are that only three countries globally have 50 per cent or more women in Parliament, and the same amount have no women in Parliament at all; women under 30 years make up less than 1 per cent of parliamentarians globally; and women parliamentarians reported in one survey that they experienced nearly twice as much exposure to torture, ill treatment and acts of violence compared to men.

Research shows that when women are in power, overlooked policy issues, such as ending violence against women, childcare services and healthcare get more attention; there is often less government corruption and political parties are more likely to work together.

For example, in Liberia during her first term as President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf introduced a specialised court to prosecute violence against women; Norway's former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and current German Chancellor Angela Merkel, both strengthened family leave provisions and increased funding for early childhood education.

The Generation Equality Forum's Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership has developed plans to achieve gender parity in executive and legislative positions in 50 countries by 2026.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Women's Union Officials and members gather at a meeting against South Korea and North Korean defectors, outside Sinchon Museum, in North Korea, in this picture supplied by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 10, 2020.

Yearly celebrations of International Womens Day in North Korea are awakening women to the concept of womens rights, some to the point where they question the legitimacy of North Korean society itself, sources told RFA.

Today is a holiday where women who struggle all year round to make a living are treated to a meal by men. This morning I had a meal that my husband prepared and received socks as a gift, a resident of North Pyongan province, in the countrys northwest, told RFAs Korean Service Monday.

For women, 3.8 Womens Day is emerging as a more meaningful holiday than the Day of the Sun, she said, referring to national founder Kim Il Sungs birth anniversary, widely considered to be the most important holiday on the North Korean calendar.

In years past, North Korean women would simply declare their freedom from men to have a day to themselves with other women, but with each passing year, the relative power of women in the home increases.

In most families, men are forced to work in government-appointed jobs that pay far too low to support a family, so it is their wives who must run a family business to make ends meet.

The source said that Womens Day commemorates how women established local marketplaces as a means to support their families after the countrys economy collapsed in the mid-1990s and government salaries were no longer enough to support families.

It was women who pulled the country out of the Arduous March famine and saved their families, she said, referring to the 1994-1998 North Korean famine that killed millions, as much as 10 percent of the population by some estimates.

Women are now taking on more leadership roles in the family. Not only have we been working hard to feed our families, we are also taking over our husbands party contributions, she said.

Men must pay two percent of their monthly salaries, or 5,000 won [U.S. $0.63], whichever is greater, as a loyalty fund to the party.

Though Korean culture is widely considered to be steeped in deep-rooted patriarchal practices and ideologies, the source said this is no longer the case in North Korea.

The patriarchy has collapsed, and even the prestige of being a core party member has been diminished, as it is the women who are in charge of the family economy, said the source.

The source said that the authorities are alarmed that women are gaining too much influence.

This is why they designated the Socialist Womens Union of Korea as an ideological education organization. They want to transform the ideology of women, and the intensity of womens education and mobilization is increasing every year, the source said.

This year for 3.8 Womens Day, the Central Committee [of the Korean Workers Party] held a plenary meeting for the Socialist Womens Union on the 4th and demanded that the womens union organizations turn their fight against anti-socialist and non-socialist values into a public project. This will stop women from valuing money more than the partys ideology, she said.

Another source, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA Monday that 3.8 Womens Day celebrations were canceled there this year because of the coronavirus.

We cant just do nothing this womens holiday, which is only once a year, said the second source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

Close friends are instead gathering together to celebrate 3.8 Womens Day, sharing their worries of these difficult times, the second source said.

The second source said in previous years, women did not understand the significance of the holiday.

Last year we all said the holiday was just for us to enjoy freedom from men, and we considered it a day to go have fun dancing. But this is different now. Women are starting to awaken to the current situation in the world. Now we gather on 3.8 Womens Day to discuss our history, said the second source.

We learned that the history of the day began when women in the U.S. began to fight for their rights, calling for improved working conditions and the elimination of discrimination against women, the second source said.

The second source said that by learning about the history of the day, women are starting to question certain male-centric features of North Korean society.

When the authorities bind housewives to an organization called the Socialist Womens Union and force ideological education and unpaid labor on them, we wonder if that is a violation of womens rights, said the second source.

Women are raising their voices, saying that the propaganda of the authorities is forcing women to fulfill their moral obligations and responsibilities in their homes and in society as mothers, wives, daughters-in-law. Controlling women in this way is a sort of triple exploitation of women, and a violation of human rights.

Forced celebrations

Also Monday, several North Korean women in their 20s who were dispatched to China to earn foreign currency were forced by their handlers to celebrate the day by dancing and singing at restaurants, a local source who requested anonymity for security reasons said.

Whenever events are organized by the authorities on national holidays it is strictly controlled and you can only perform a few designated songs and dances, the third source said.

But when North Korean women go on picnics with their close friends, they can dance however they want They play foreign songs on amplifiers and men and women together spend Womens Day dancing disco style!

Reported by Hyemin Son for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
New Delhi, March 9 : The Supreme Court has agreed to examine a query if smuggling of gold could be termed as a terrorist activity under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

A bench of Justices R.F. Nariman and B.R. Gavai sought response from the Centre and National Investigating Agency (NIA) on a plea challenging the Rajasthan High Court order.

The High Court had refused to quash the FIR registered by the probe agency under the offences of UAPA.

Mohammad Aslam, the petitioner in the matter, was caught at Jaipur International Airport for smuggling over 1.5 Kg gold. Aslam has moved the top court, through advocate Aditya Jain, seeking stay of investigation and the proceedings connected with FIR, which was registered by NIA under provisions of UAPA.

"Issue notice", said the top court in its order.

The plea has contested NIA's registration of an FIR citing that the gold was smuggled with the intent to threaten the economic security and also attacking the monetary stability of the country. Initially, the customs officials registered an FIR, later the NIA registered a second FIR after the case was transferred to it. The petitioner has argued NIA's allegations of economic terrorism are arbitrary. The petitioner contended he lost his job in Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a labourer, during the Covid pandemic.

"The FIR is baseless on this ground and deserves to be quashed as the NIA could not show any such intent of the petitioner. Moreover, any such act would not alone attract the offence under UAPA. The smuggling of gold should have been dealt under the corresponding provision of the Customs Act and not UAPA", his plea said.

Aslam claimed a person identified as Lal Mohammad influenced him to deliver some amount of gold to an unknown person in Jaipur and in lieu of that he promised to book a return ticket to Jaipur and offered Rs. 10,000.

The petitioner claimed he was trapped by Lal Mohammad.

He argued that there is nothing on record to show gold smuggling is connected with funding terrorism. Aslam insisted he had no connection with any terrorist or any extremist group.
The United States stands in support of the people of Burma as they continue to protest the February 1 military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Burma, said State Department Spokesperson Ned Price:

We stand with the people of Burma and support their right to assemble peacefully, including their right to protest peacefully in support of the democratically elected government, and the right to the freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information both online and offline.

The United States has strongly condemned the February 1 coup and continued to demand the restoration to power of the democratically elected government, the release of all those detained, and the cessation of attacks on journalists, activists and other civil society members. We have called for maximum restraint and made clear to the military junta that violence against the people is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. The United States has galvanized a broad coalition of partners and allies to press the military to reverse its actions. On February 11 the United States sanctioned 10 current and former military officials involved in the coup and three Burmese extractives companies owned or controlled by the military.

Furthermore, the United States is reviewing U.S. assistance that benefits the Burmese Government. However, the United States is continuing our strong support for the people of Burma and humanitarian assistance, health care, civil society, and other programs that benefit the people of Burma.

In response to the coup, USAID was immediately redirecting approximately $42.4 million of assistance away from work that would have benefited the Government of Burma. These funds will be redirected toward activities that support the people of Burma by helping support civil societys capacity to guard democracy, bolstering independent media and promoting peace and reconciliation in violence-affected regions. The United States will also continue to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to Rohingya and other vulnerable populations. The United States will not waver in support for the people of Burma and their aspirations for democracy, freedom, and prosperity.

That is our priority, said spokesperson Price, standing with the people of Burma together with our likeminded allies, our likeminded partners, leaving no doubt for the people of Burma as they continue to voice their aspirations for a return to democracy and take to the streets.
Narvar helped retailers maintain operations while many stores were inaccessible, supporting a healthier retail ecosystem Tweet this

"We're honored to have been named a World's Most Innovative Company for a second time by Fast Company," said Amit Sharma, Founder & CEO of Narvar. "I'm proud of our team's agility to adapt to the ever-changing business environment. At Narvar, we'll continue to foster this culture of innovation and provide the most engaging customer experience for the customers we serve around the world."

The pandemic accelerated the shift to online shopping by 5 years in just 6 months , as well as hastening contraction of the physical store footprint. Retailers had to revisit their short- and long-term strategies to fit this new landscape and, in many cases, prioritize their digital transformation efforts. Narvar helped retailers maintain operations during a period when many stores were inaccessible by expanding its platform with timely new features that will continue to be valuable for years to come.

Consumers benefit from a familiar, easy-to-use experience across many retailers. They get clear proactive communication that gives them peace of mind throughout the customer journey even during extended shipment times, printerless and contactless methods to make returns and exchanges safe and convenient, and faster refunds without having to go to the store. Brands stay competitive in an increasingly high-stakes game, supporting a healthier retail ecosystem and preserving more choices for the consumer beyond the handful of dominant players. Learn more about the impact these innovations had for retailers like Levi's.

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 & 10. This virtual, multi-day summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021.

Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here , as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.

ABOUT NARVAR

Narvar is an intelligent customer experience platform that helps commerce companies simplify the everyday lives of consumers. Serving over 800+retailers globally including Sephora, Patagonia, Levi's, Bose, Warby Parker, Home Depot, LVMH, and L'Oreal, Narvar ensures every touchpoint along the consumer purchase journey engages consumers and enables emotional connectionsfrom pre-purchase to in-store experiences and beyond. With customizable customer messaging and tailored interfaces driven by unparalleled data intelligence, Narvar empowers commerce brands to turn every touchpoint into an opportunity. For more information, visit narvar.com .

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

SOURCE Narvar

Related Links

http://www.corp.narvar.com


.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

LONDON  Buckingham Palace said Tuesday that allegations of racism made earlier this week by Prince Harry and Meghan were concerning and would be addressed privately by the royal family.

The comments, made in a statement issued on behalf Queen Elizabeth II, are the first from the palace since the two-hour television interview with Meghan and Harry rocked the royal family. Meghan, who is biracial, said the palace had failed to help her when she had suicidal thoughts and that an unidentified member of the royal family had raised concerns about the color of her babys skin when she was pregnant with her son, Archie.

The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan, the palace said. The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

The interview, conducted by Oprah Winfrey and which aired Sunday night in the U.S. and a day later in Britain, has divided people around the world. While many say the allegations demonstrate the need for change inside a palace that hasnt kept pace with the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, others have criticized Harry and Meghan for dropping their bombshell while Harrys 99-year-old grandfather, Prince Philip, remains hospitalized in London after a heart procedure.

Anna Whitelock, a professor of history and director of the Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London, said the palaces brief message was an effort to quiet the controversy.

Its not very long, but its very precise and it has a clear intent  and that is to close this down as a family matter; to make clear that this is clearly a family in crisis, that theres family issues to sort out, but to separate this very clearly from any criticism or discussion about the institution of monarchy itself, she told The Associated Press. And I think time will tell whether thats a distinction that the public will accept.

While the palace often tries to stay above controversy by remaining silent and riding out the storm, the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs charges proved so damaging that the family was forced to respond.

The response was likely delayed by the queens struggle to balance her sometimes-conflicting roles as monarch and grandmother, said Angela Levin, author of Harry, a Biography of a Prince, before the statement was released. During past crises, the 94-year-old monarch has usually come down on the side of the 1,000-year-old institution she has led since 1952.

The queen has a motto: Never complain, never explain, Levin told the AP. And shes stuck with this for decades. But I think in this climate and 2021, everything goes everywhere. Theres so much social media that in this instance, she really cant not say anything.

Harry and Meghan married in May 2018 in a ceremony at Windsor Castle that ended with a ride around the town in a horse-drawn carriage. In the early days of their marriage, the couple were seen as the fresh young face of the monarchy for an increasingly multicultural nation.

But the story quickly turned sour. The couple stepped away from royal duties last year and moved to California, saying they wanted to escape racist coverage and unwanted intrusions on their privacy by the British media.

During the interview, Meghan described feeling so isolated and miserable inside the royal family that she had suicidal thoughts, yet when she asked for mental health assistance from the palaces human resources staff, she was told they couldnt help because she wasnt a paid employee. She also said Harry told her there were concerns and conversations about how dark Archies skin would be.

Winfrey later said Harry told her off camera that the family member wasnt Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Philip, sparking a flurry of speculation about who it could be.

Harry also revealed that the stresses the couple endured had ruptured relations with his father, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his brother, Prince William, illuminating the depth of the family divisions that led the couple to step away from royal duties and move to California last year.

But the most explosive issue was race. The royal family has tried to address that head on, although the rest of the discussion is likely to take place in private, Whitelock said.

Im sure there will be a lot of soul searching within the royal family, but this is going to be very much behind closed doors and were not going to see dramatic statements, dramatic changes, she said. This is going to be about a family who are going to have to look at themselves and reflect on whats happened and what needs to happen and what needs to change.

___

Follow all stories on Prince Harry and Meghans interview at https://apnews.com/PrinceHarry

___

This story has been corrected to show that the name of center is Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy, not Centre for the Study of the History of the Monarchy.
UNESCO has been an important tool to build peace through education, science and culture, especially through its world heritage listings of cultural and natural sites. But in recent years, it has been in the news for controversies, which resulted in the withdrawal of the US and Israel from the cultural body of the UN, Ceyhun Osmanli, a former MP and analyst on international relations and political economy, writes for EU Today.

The US called for fundamental reform of UNESCO, while Israel accused the organisation of distorting history. One of such controversies is now taking stage in the South Caucasus, where UNESCO became the scene of diplomatic flare-ups after the recent ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. Although being internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and its seven adjoining provinces was occupied by Armenia for 30 years. Following heavy fighting that erupted in late September last year, the trilateral ceasefire signed among Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia on 10 November 2020 put a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh back under Azerbaijans control. However, it was hard for Azerbaijanis to recognise the cities and districts when they managed to liberate them from Armenian occupation a few months ago.

Mosques, holy sites and other historical monuments had either been turned into pigsties and cattle shelters in most of these cities or were completely destroyed by Armenians. Even ancient Christian churches, such as Gtich church, which belongs to the ancient Christian state of Caucasian Albania were found vandalised and smeared with graffiti.

Following the Nagorno-Karabakh war in the 1990s, the Azerbaijani side had claimed that the Azerbaijani heritage, such as mosques, monuments, museums, art galleries, libraries, musical schools and theatres were neglected and even destroyed under Armenian occupation. This was especially the case in the town of Aghdam, which laid in ruins. During a visit in 2014, the British writer George Mitchell referred to Aghdam as a ghost town and the Hiroshima of the Caucasus after being witness to the cultural destruction in the region during a visit in 2014. Nevertheless, Azerbaijans repeated calls for an international fact-finding mission for the preservation of cultural heritage in the occupied territories were ignored by the international community for 30 years and no UNESCO mission was employed to Nagorno-Karabakh due to Armenian opposition so far.

It is surprising that UNESCO recently remembered its mission to protect cultural heritage in its Member States in line with the 1954 Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. Thus, in its press release of 20 November 2020, it proposed, to carry out an independent mission of experts to draw a preliminary inventory of significant cultural properties in response to Armenian calls.

Consequently, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on UNESCO not to politicise the protection of cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh while reminding its duty of impartiality. It should be noted that no UNESCO mission ever materialised in any part of the world since the 1954 Convention despite many reports of destruction and vandalism.

While Armenians burned the houses, unsealed the crosses of churches and took away the bells of monasteries, placing mines on the lands around historical and cultural monuments and leaving Nagorno-Karabakh with valuable heritage, such as famous traditional carpets, after the ceasefire; Azerbaijani authorities vowed to protect the cultural and religious heritage in the territory, emphasising the countrys record as a secular and multicultural country.

Azerbaijan has restored dozens of churches, including the Armenian, Lutheran and Russian Orthodox churches in Baku, and numerous synagogues within Azerbaijan, while also providing support for the restoration of churches in France, the Vatican, Russia, Hungary and elsewhere.

Azerbaijan is a country with a long history of religious tolerance. Although more than 90% of the population is Muslim, both Sunni and majority Shia live and pray together, and religious minorities feel accepted and appreciated. For instance, the Red Village in Guba is one of the largest all-Jewish towns outside of Israel and Jews can walk down the street with a kippah without facing any discrimination or hatred in Azerbaijan. This is in sheer contrast with many European countries, such as Francehome to UNESCO headquarters, where recent public debate once again focused on the restriction of religious symbols in public places.

It is unclear why UNESCO would take sides and apply double standards when it comes to the protection of cultural heritage. Does it view one cultural and religious heritage above the other? Is it under the influence of a particular diaspora? Does it fear reputational risks generated by aggressive social media campaigns? Whatever the reason, the recent attempts of UNESCO seem to be futile. The international body shall restore its credibility as an unbiased and independent actor in the global scene if it is serious about fulfilling its mission as a protector of cultures. Otherwise, it risks becoming the centre of more controversies in the future.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Jimmy McGovern's Moving On (BBC1)

Rating:

Would I Lie to You? (BBC1)

Rating:

What an appropriate day to choose to air a drama about a man who walks out on his family and leaves them to clear up his mess. Years later, when it suits him, he thinks he can simply stroll back in.

Beeb bosses will say that, as the series of daily playlets Jimmy McGoverns Moving On (BBC1) returned, they always planned to open with this episode.

Still, with hours to go before Prince Harry justified his reasons for stepping back from the Royal Family, in ITVs headline-grabbing Oprah interview, the parallels were there to be drawn.

Appropriate: What an appropriate day to choose to air a drama about a man who walks out on his family and leaves them to clear up his mess

Mark Womack played Ian, who abandoned wife Lucy (Marie Critchley) when their son Ben was just nine, leaving a note to say he couldnt cope any more.

The couple were traumatised by the loss of their daughter, Susan, from leukaemia, and for the next 20 years Lucy believed her husband had killed himself.

But on the day of Bens wedding, Lucy is staggered to spot Ian, sitting by himself on a pew at the back of the church. You werent meant to see me, he says. As hes half an hour early and the only bloke in the church, he might have been stretching the truth here.

Ian is slightly aggrieved that anyone could misunderstand his goodbye note so badly. He never wanted to desert his family  he just needed to get his head together by flying west and making a new life in a city on a distant shore . . . in this case, Belfast.

This puts Lucy in an impossible position. Its her sons wedding, not the time to vent her fury at this self-pitying runaway. All she can do is seethe, while Ian paints himself as the real victim in this family break-up. Remind you of anyone?

Parallels: With hours to go before Prince Harry justified his reasons for stepping back from the Royal Family, in ITVs headline-grabbing Oprah interview, the parallels were there to be drawn

These short stories paint their characters in broad brushstrokes, sometimes with soap-opera dialogue and imagery. Ian tells his ex-wife: I never stopped loving you, you know, despite everything. Later, when he tries to make his peace with Ben (Nico Mirallegro), the two end up brawling and rolling on Susans grave.

The tale moved too fast to allow much space for subtlety. Instead, the three main actors shifted quickly through the emotional gears, accelerating from humour to anger before swerving into grief.

Bens best man got arrested, the bride rolled up pregnant, Lucys contempt for her cowardly ex began to thaw and Ian ended up in a hospice with terminal cancer. You dont need to spend 32 million, as some people have been known to do, to have a wedding to remember.

And to the happiness of bean-counters at New Broadcasting House, you dont have to spend a fortune to make the funniest show on television. All you need is three exceptionally witty comics with a natural rapport.

Presenter Rob Brydon and team captain David Mitchell, both clever and quick enough to dominate most panel games, make no effort to hide their admiration for Lee Macks lightning ad libs on Would I Lie To You? (BBC1). When one contestant turned to Rob and snapped, No! No!, Lee (also a team captain) butted in to accuse her of saying it like youre trying to get a dog off a sofa.

Thats a glorious image, delivered with perfect timing, and it cant possibly be scripted.

Presenter Rob Brydon and team captain David Mitchell, both clever and quick enough to dominate most panel games, make no effort to hide their admiration for Lee Macks lightning ad libs on Would I Lie To You?

Later, Lee had Rob weeping with laughter, just by imitating his accent  something hes done a hundred times before. It never stops being hilarious.

Neither does Bob Mortimer, who this time was claiming: I once plucked a seagull out of the sky with my bare hands.

And these were just the out-takes, the moments that didnt make the main edit. Sheer joy.
Alliance Defending Freedom to purchase Prison Fellowship's 11.3-acre headquarters

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent conservative nonprofit legal organization, is in the process of purchasing the Virginia-based headquarters of the global evangelical prison ministry Prison Fellowship.

Founded by Chuck Colson, the worlds largest Christian ministry for prisoners, moved into the 11.3-acre Lansdowne, Virginia property in 2005, after having outgrown its previous headquarters in Reston, Virginia.

The decision to sell the property in the Washington, D.C. suburbs was due in large part to the ministry work increasingly becoming virtual or on location at prisons, according to a statement.

ADF President and CEO Michael Farris told The Christian Post in an interview Monday that his organization signed a letter of intent as of last week and is going through closing now on the property.

Weve been renting in the area for a couple of years now, and our growth is so explosive that we were looking at getting a long-term place to grow, where were not going from one rental to another, Farris said.

This opportunity became available. With the legacy of the building, it is especially wonderful, but just the building itself was perfect for our needs. And so, were really excited to pursue it.

Farris also told CP that his organization and Prison Fellowship had worked on multiple projects together, with the group offering legal advice to Prison Fellowship via ADF Ministry Alliance.

James Ackerman, president and CEO of Prison Fellowship since 2016, told CP that his ministry was in the process of finalizing certain contingencies and inspections but expected to close the transaction by the end of June.

According to Ackerman, Prison Fellowship decided to sell the property more than a year ago but held off on doing so due to the poor market caused by the recent economic downturn.

Farris had been interested in the property for some time, noted Ackerman, with the ADF head telling them a couple of months ago that he was still interested in acquiring the land.

Ackerman also told CP that the sale was not tied to any financial problems, explaining that Prison Fellowship has had a steady stream of income, even during the coronavirus pandemic.

Our revenue has grown year over year for the last three years. From everything I can see today, were going to see revenue grow again this year, said Ackerman.

The pandemic has not impacted us financially. We have not had to lay off a single person or furlough any employees. Weve been super busy, and we carry no debt. We have zero debt on the balance sheet.

Prison Fellowship plans to remain on the property as renters for at least the next couple of years, moving its personnel from the third floor of the building to the second.

Over the last five years, Prison Fellowship became an increasingly virtual organization with more employees operating closer to its in-prison work. According to Ackerman, over two-thirds of the organizations staff worked from home before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The Board of Prison Fellowship and the senior management team are thrilled Alliance Defending Freedom will operate on the same property and buildings our founder, the late Charles Colson, dedicated to the Lord, Ackerman said in a statement.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, is dedicated to defending religious freedom and free speech in court. The organization, founded in 1993, has won nearly a dozen Supreme Court cases since 2011.

The Lansdowne campus will be an expansion of ADFs existing offices.

In a statement, Farris described Prison Fellowships late founder Chuck Colson as a  strong advocate for freedom of conscience and religion.

As a drafter of the Manhattan Declaration, he defended the very principles that we defend today, Farris explained. With the purchase of this new property, we carry on his legacy and begin a new and exciting chapter in ADFs 28 years of ministry as the worlds largest legal advocacy organization committed to protecting religious freedom, sanctity of life, freedom of speech, and parental rights.
Whitley Striebers bestselling 1987 book Communion: A True Story, his account of his traumatic experiences at the hands of beings he called the visitors, catapulted him into international fame.

In the nearly three and a half decades since that books publication, he has remained a major figure in in public discussions of UFO phenomena through subsequent books, his website Unknown Country and his podcast Dreamland.

In recent years, though, since the death of his wife, Anne, in 2015, Striebers writing has turned to overtly spiritual themes, such as his book The Afterlife Revolution, which was concerned with communication with the deceased.

That continues with the publication of his book, Jesus: A New Vision (Walker & Colier, $17.95).

Strieber, a San Antonio native who was raised a Roman Catholic and attended Central Catholic High School, said his thinking about Jesus actually began when he was young.

I had an interest in the ancient world, particularly the ancient Roman world, going back to my childhood, and I was enamored with the classical ancient writers, he said. I had learned Latin in high school, and in college I studied Greek. When I read the Gospels in Greek, I realized they were actually among the most subtle documents written by anybody in the ancient world  period.

Strieber said he and his wife shared a strong interest in the Gospels.

We kind of teamed up and over the years and spent a great deal of time talking about what happened, and the mystery of it all, he said.

His interest in the gospels  and Jesus took a new turn in 1987 when he and Anne attended a meeting in New York about research into the Shroud of Turin.

Previously, I had viewed the gospels as apocryphal, but I began to realize that something else was going on, he said.

Decades of research followed, he said, eventually leading him to new insights into key elements of the story of Jesus, from the miracles to the resurrection.

My book is not an anti-Christian book at all, he said. It is quite the opposite in that in it I try to go beyond where we are now where we have fallen into this assumption that Jesus is somehow separate from us. We are emphasizing his divinity much more than his humanity.

I believe we need to do the opposite and see him first as a human being and secondly as a divinity, so we can embrace his presence in our own humanity. This is the main theme of my book.

In Jesus: A New Vision, Strieber takes the reader through a sequential approach to understanding Jesus as a human being, exploring the various interpretations of his identity  as the son of a humble carpenter, as heir to the throne of Judah, as an initiate into spiritual mysteries and even as a husband  found in both canonical and apocryphal gospels.

He explores the childhood of Jesus in the highly controversial Infancy Gospel of Thomas, rejected as heretical, Strieber writes, because it portrayed the young Jesus as something of a monster. He adds that it is a profoundly human document  fiction or not  about a very extraordinary childs very difficult coming of age.

His discussion of Jesus domestic life also touches on the Gospel of Mary from the Nag Hammadi Library. Strieber examines an anomaly in the text of a famous passage referring to Mary Magdalene: Jesus kissed her on the  The word following the is missing from all extant copies.

That passage demonstrates that Jesus was willing to be seen as a husband, Strieber said, because in those times a Jewish man would not kiss any woman who was not his wife.

Strieber relies on the Gospel of Thomas, also apocryphal, to demonstrate that, in his opinion, Jesus was undoubtedly the greatest teacher to have ever lived.

In the gospel, Jesus is shown contradicting himself, even saying to his disciples, Dont pray! he said. But that was because the gospel is clearly about Jesus saying to his disciples, You must find your faith within yourself.

There is much more in the book relating to the conversion of Paul and the Passion of Jesus.

Strieber likens the spiritual and social challenges of our time, such as the pandemic and climate change, to those experienced by people during the decline of the Roman Empire, which led the Romans to turn from their old gods to Jesus as a deity.

Our situation today exactly parallels that of Rome, he said, and we will go through what the Romans did.

Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Striebers book is his focus  in great detail  on the Shroud of Turin, which he interprets as proof of the resurrection of Jesus.

What the book is about, he said, is finding the energy that Jesus expressed when he walked out of that tomb as a being of light in ourselves.

Now we might not be able to walk out of a tomb in a new form, but if we live by love, compassion and humility, and really find our way in our lives to express the Beatitudes, then we will die into the goodness that is discussed in the Gospel of Mary and is deeply embedded in the teachings of Jesus. The resurrection is part of us all.

Ed Conroy is a freelance writer in San Antonio.
High notes

For the past 20 years, the New Milford Area Rotary has participated in the Dictionary Project.

The club provides dictionaries to third graders in Susquehanna County schools. Barbara Hill has been involved in the project since its inception.

This year students at Mountain View, Montrose, Blue Ridge, Susquehanna Community, Faith Mountain Christian and Elk Lake have received a total of 385 dictionaries. Because of COVID-19, in-person presentations by the Rotary have not been permitted. However, teachers in each district helped provide the donated dictionaries to their students.

At Mountain View, students in Melissa Wasko, Jen Riley and Josh Carpenters classes were among the students who received the dictionaries.

Giving persistsDespite the difficulties caused by the pandemic, which has made it hard for local organizations to meet on a regular basis, a local chapter of the Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees continues to serve the local community.

Through the efforts of Barb Spinelli and her committee, a teacher from each of four local school districts received a grant to help a project in their school.

Cheryl Gunther, and her helpers Karen Gravel, Pat Kandrovy and Sally Urmanec, helped make Thanksgiving a little happier for three local families by providing food baskets.

Ellen and Bob Keefer delivered bags of gifts for a family of five in the Delaware Valley School District to Brandie Woodley, the school nurse.

Monique Lautenschlager has spread cheer throughout the year to many of the organizations shut-ins and nursing home residents as well as members who have been hospitalized.

PASR members have also supported their local food pantries and toy drives.

The Wayne/Pike Chapter of PASR is made up of retired school personnel from the Delaware Valley, Wallenpaupack Area, Wayne Highlands and Western Wayne school districts. They devote time to helping the schools and the community. New members are always welcome.
Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription.

Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service.
[March 09, 2021] Owlet Bolsters Growth Opportunity by Appointing 25-year healthcare veteran coming from Philips as New Healthcare General Manager

Owlet Baby Care Inc. ("Owlet" or the "Company"), the connected nursery ecosystem that delivers data-driven technology to modern parenting, is pleased to announce that it has appointed Jim Fidacaro as Healthcare General Manager. The appointment of Fidacaro further strengthens Owlet's leadership team expansion as the company continues to disrupt and transform the connected nursery ecosystem of the future. Fidacaro comes to Owlet as the Healthcare General Manager with 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry and a deep background in digital healthcare and medical devices. Prior to joining Owlet, Fidacaro drove Philips' strategic roadmap for Healthcare Informatics (News - Alert) and marketing operations for Connect Care, following roles as Vice President, Marketing and Business Development at ImaCor, and C.E.O. of Synsei Medical, an early-stage wearable maternal and baby digital healthcare company, and an executive at Mindray, as Dean of the Technology Research Institute. Fidacaro's innovation expertise extends to his as a holder of numerous U.S. patents and several design awards. "I met the Owlet team in their early stages, as I was leading other digital healthcare platforms, and was very impressed with how they live their mission to empower modern parenting worldwide with the right insights at the right time," says Jim Fidacaro, new Healthcare General Manager at Owlet. "Today, more than 1.5 million parents have put their trust in the Owlet brand, helping them monitor over 850,000 babies with over four-trillion heartbeats tracked. I am honored to join the Owlet family, a team that I believe has a data set that could revolutionize healthcare in pediatrics, and to accelerate the digital telehealth ecosystem and Artificial Intelligence from parents to babies." Owlet expects Fidacaro's healthcare experience to help catapult the brand forward as Owlet seeks to position itself as a leader in data-driven insights on infant health and telehealth. As an example of the potential power of Owlet's data set, a recent study reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at the Cleveland Clinic and published in The Journal of Pediatrics found the cumulative incidence of irregular heartbeat among infants using the Owlet Smart Sock to be significantly higher than rates reported in prior studies. "I couldn't be more confident in the future of Owlet with the addition of Jim to help us expand Owlet as a connected nursery ecosystem with the potential to enable data-driven telehealth at home," said Kurt Workman, CEO and founder of Owlet. "We believe the Cleveland Clinic study is indicative of the types of meaningful insights that we can observe from our products, and we are thrilled to be able to leverage Jim's deep knowledge of the healthcare industry and innovation in healthcare products as we continue our growth trajectory. Our goal is to bring modern parents increased transparency and education about their children through our new and forthcoming product and software services. Every parent deserves to feel empowered during the journey of parenthood, and I know bringing Jim on board will help get us closer to reaching even more parents globally." For more information about Owlet Baby Care, please visit https://owletcare.com/. About Owlet Baby Care Owlet Baby Care was founded by a team of parents in 2012. Owlet's mission is to empower parents with the right information at the right time, to give them more peace of mind, and help them find more joy in the journey of parenting. Owlet's digital parenting platform aims to give parents real-time data and insights to help parents feel more calm and confident. Owlet believes that every parent deserves peace of mind and the opportunity to feel their well-rested best. Owlet also believes that every child deserves to live a long, happy, and healthy life, and is working to develop products to help facilitate that belief. Additional Information and Where to Find It In February, Owlet entered into a definitive merger agreement in February with Sandbridge Acquisition Corporation (NYSE: SBG) ("Sandbridge"), a special purpose acquisition company. Sandbridge intends to file with the SEC (News - Alert) a RegistrationStatement on Form S-4, which will include a proxy statement/prospectus, that will be both the proxy statement to be distributed to holders of Sandbridge's Class A common stock in connection with its solicitation of proxies for the vote by Sandbridge's stockholders with respect to the business combination and other matters as may be described in the registration statement, as well as the prospectus relating to the offer and sale of certain securities to be issued in the business combination. After the registration statement is declared effective, Sandbridge will mail a definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant documents to its stockholders. This press release does not contain all the information that should be considered concerning the proposed business combination and is not intended to form the basis of any investment decision or any other decision in respect of the proposed business combination. Sandbridge's stockholders and other interested persons are advised to read, when available, the preliminary proxy statement/prospectus included in the registration statement and the amendments thereto and the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other documents filed in connection with the proposed business combination, as these materials will contain important information about the Company, Sandbridge and the proposed business combination. When available, the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials for the proposed business combination will be mailed to stockholders of Sandbridge as of a record date to be established for voting on the proposed business combination. Stockholders of Sandbridge will also be able to obtain copies of the preliminary proxy statement, the definitive proxy statement and other documents filed with the SEC, without charge, once available, at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov, or by directing a written request to: Sandbridge Acquisition Corp., 1999 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 2088, Los Angeles, California 90067.



Participants in the Solicitation Sandbridge and its directors and executive officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from Sandbridge's stockholders with respect to the proposed business combination. The names of those directors and executive officers and a description of their interests in Sandbridge is contained in Sandbridge's final prospectus dated September 14, 2020 relating to its initial public offering and in subsequent filings with the SEC, which are available free of charge at the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. To the extent such holdings of Sandbridge's securities may have changed since that time, such changes have been or will be reflected on Statements of Changes in Beneficial Ownership on Form 4 filed with the SEC. Additional information regarding the interests of such participants will be contained in the proxy statement/prospectus for the proposed business combination when available.

Owlet and its directors and executive officers may also be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the stockholders of Sandbridge in connection with the proposed business combination. A list of the names of such directors and executive officers and information regarding their interests in the proposed business combination will be included in the proxy statement/prospectus for the proposed business combination when available. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements, estimates, targets, and projections in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or Sandbridge's or Owlet's future financial or operating performance. For example, statements regarding the expected future operating and financial performance and market opportunities of Owlet are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may", "should", "expect", "intend", "will", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "predict", "potential" or "continue", or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based upon estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Sandbridge and its management, and Owlet and its management, as the case may be, are inherently uncertain. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to: the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could give rise to the termination of any definitive agreements with respect to the proposed business combination; the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against Sandbridge, Owlet, the combined company or others following the announcement of the proposed business combination and any definitive agreements with respect thereto; the inability to complete the proposed business combination due to the failure to obtain approval of the stockholders of Sandbridge or to satisfy other conditions to closing, including the satisfaction of the minimum trust account amount following any redemptions; changes to the proposed structure or terms of the business combination that may be required or appropriate as a result of applicable laws or regulations or in response to market reaction to the announcement of the transaction; the ability to meet stock exchange listing standards at or following the consummation of the proposed business combination; the risk that the proposed business combination disrupts current plans and operations of Owlet as a result of the announcement and consummation of the proposed business combination, and as a result of the post-transaction company being a publicly listed issuer; the ability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the proposed business combination, which may be affected by, among other things, competition, the regulatory pathway for Owlet products and responses from regulators, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and similar regulators outside of the United States, the ability of the combined company to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain Owlet's management and key employees; costs related to the proposed business combination, including costs associated with the post-transaction company being a publicly listed issuer; changes in applicable laws or regulations; the possibility that Owlet or the combined company may be adversely affected by other economic, business, regulatory and/or competitive factors; Owlet's estimates of expenses and profitability; the evolution of the markets in which Owlet competes; the ability of Owlet to implement its strategic initiatives and continue to innovate its existing products; the ability of Owlet to defend its intellectual property and satisfy regulatory requirements; the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on Owlet's business; the limited operating history of Owlet; and other risks and uncertainties set forth in the section entitled "Risk Factors" and "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in Sandbridge's final prospectus dated September 14, 2020 relating to its initial public offering, and other risks and uncertainties indicated from time to time in the definitive proxy statement to be delivered to Sandbridge's stockholders and the related registration statement on Form S-4, including those set forth under "Risk Factors" therein, and other documents to be filed with the SEC by Sandbridge. Nothing in this press release should be regarded as a representation by any person that the forward-looking statements set forth herein will be achieved or that any of the contemplated results of such forward-looking statements will be achieved. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Neither Sandbridge nor Owlet undertakes any duty to update these forward-looking statements. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309006068/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
ALPHARETTA, Ga., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Stonebranch, a leading provider of service orchestration and automation solutions, is pleased to announce that Peter Baljet has joined the company as Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Baljet serves on Stonebranch's executive leadership team and leads the management, development and expansion of the company's software products and platforms.

Mr. Baljet has more than 25 years of executive leadership experience in the technology industry, focused in the areas of enterprise software solutions and services. He has held leadership positions in product development, technology strategy, product management, operations and consulting services.

Giuseppe Damiani, Stonebranch CEO, said, "We are thrilled to welcome Peter to the Stonebranch executive leadership team. The breadth and depth of Peter's experienceespecially his visionary work in developing cloud-based productswill be especially valuable to our many customers who are transforming their IT environments to include more cloud applications and infrastructure."

Peter Baljet commented, "This is an exciting time to join the Stonebranch team. Growth is strong, we have a great customer base, and our products are differentiated and highly competitive. I'm looking forward to applying my experience in developing cloud-based products to work for Stonebranch customers. As organizations move along the transition to hybrid IT environments that link on-premises and cloud-based applications and infrastructure, Stonebranch is uniquely positioned to help with that journey. Our experience with automating and orchestrating legacy on-prem IT systems, combined with our market-leading cloud capabilities, will increasingly provide our customers with never-before-seen levels of transparency and control across enterprise on-prem, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments."

Prior to Stonebranch, Mr. Baljet served as Vice President of Cloud Architecture, Engineering and Operations for Deloitte Consulting. Mr. Baljet established and grew Deloitte's global cloud innovation organization, where he led the development and operations of products based on cloud technologies, including SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.

Mr. Baljet also served as Vice President, Product Development, for SAP Labs LLC, where he led global product engineering and operations for SAP's flagship enterprise manufacturing products. Prior to SAP, Mr. Baljet served in Technology and Operations leadership positions at Visiprise, where he was responsible for technology and product strategy, growth and management of distributed product development teams, and consulting and customer support operations.

About Stonebranch

Stonebranch builds IT orchestration and automation solutions that transform business IT environments from simple IT task automation into sophisticated, real-time business service automation. No matter the degree of automation, the Stonebranch platform is simple, modern and secure. Using the Stonebranch Universal Automation Platform, enterprises can seamlessly orchestrate workloads and data across technology ecosystems and silos. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with points of contact and support throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, Stonebranch serves some of the world's largest financial, manufacturing, healthcare, travel, transportation, energy and technology institutions.

Media contact:

Scott Davis

[email protected]

SOURCE Stonebranch
The Guardian

The potential consequences of the origins of the virus are shattering  if they can be proved My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters There was a time when the Covid pandemic seemed to confirm so many of our assumptions. It cast down the people we regarded as villains. It raised up those we thought were heroes. It prospered people who could shift easily to working from home even as it problematized the lives of those Trump voters living in the old economy. Like all plagues, Covid often felt like the hand of God on earth, scourging the people for their sins against higher learning and visibly sorting the righteous from the unmasked wicked. Respect science, admonished our yard signs. And lo!, Covid came and forced us to do so, elevating our scientists to the highest seats of social authority, from where they banned assembly, commerce, and all the rest. We cast blame so innocently in those days. We scolded at will. We knew who was right and we shook our heads to behold those in the wrong playing in their swimming pools and on the beach. It made perfect sense to us that Donald Trump, a politician we despised, could not grasp the situation, that he suggested people inject bleach, and that he was personally responsible for more than one super-spreading event. Reality itself punished leaders like him who refused to bow to expertise. The prestige news media even figured out a way to blame the worst death tolls on a system of organized ignorance they called populism. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a cult out of the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general But these days the consensus doesnt consense quite as well as it used to. Now the media is filled with disturbing stories suggesting that Covid might have come  not from populism at all, but from a laboratory screw-up in Wuhan, China. You can feel the moral convulsions beginning as the question sets in: What if science itself is in some way culpable for all this? * I am no expert on epidemics. Like everyone else I know, I spent the pandemic doing as I was told. A few months ago I even tried to talk a Fox News viewer out of believing in the lab-leak theory of Covids origins. The reason I did that is because the newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-leak theory wasnt true, that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-on-fire ratings from the fact-checkers, and because (despite all my cynicism) I am the sort who has always trusted the mainstream news media. My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month; a few weeks later everyone from Doctor Fauci to President Biden is acknowledging that the lab-accident hypothesis might have some merit. We dont know the real answer yet, and we probably will never know, but this is the moment to anticipate what such a finding might ultimately mean. What if this crazy story turns out to be true? The answer is that this is the kind of thing that could obliterate the faith of millions. The last global disaster, the financial crisis of 2008, smashed peoples trust in the institutions of capitalism, in the myths of free trade and the New Economy, and eventually in the elites who ran both American political parties. In the years since (and for complicated reasons), liberal leaders have labored to remake themselves into defenders of professional rectitude and established legitimacy in nearly every field. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a sort of cult out of science, expertise, the university system, executive-branch norms, the intelligence community, the State Department, NGOs, the legacy news media, and the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general. Now here we are in the waning days of Disastrous Global Crisis #2. Covid is of course worse by many orders of magnitude than the mortgage meltdown  it has killed millions and ruined lives and disrupted the world economy far more extensively. Should it turn out that scientists and experts and NGOs, etc. are villains rather than heroes of this story, we may very well see the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism go up in a fireball of public anger. Consider the details of the story as we have learned them in the last few weeks:  Lab leaks happen. They arent the result of conspiracies: a lab accident is an accident, as Nathan Robinson points out; they happen all the time, in this country and in others, and people die from them.  There is evidence that the lab in question, which studies bat coronaviruses, may have been conducting what is called gain of function research, a dangerous innovation in which diseases are deliberately made more virulent. By the way, right-wingers didnt dream up gain of function: all the cool virologists have been doing it (in this country and in others) even as the squares have been warning against it for years.  There are strong hints that some of the bat-virus research at the Wuhan lab was funded in part by the American national-medical establishment  which is to say, the lab-leak hypothesis doesnt implicate China alone.  There seem to have been astonishing conflicts of interest among the people assigned to get to the bottom of it all, and (as we know from Enron and the housing bubble) conflicts of interest are always what trip up the well-credentialed professionals whom liberals insist we must all heed, honor, and obey.  The news media, in its zealous policing of the boundaries of the permissible, insisted that Russiagate was ever so true but that the lab-leak hypothesis was false false false, and woe unto anyone who dared disagree. Reporters gulped down whatever line was most flattering to the experts they were quoting and then insisted that it was 100% right and absolutely incontrovertible  that anything else was only unhinged Trumpist folly, that democracy dies when unbelievers get to speak, and so on.  The social media monopolies actually censored posts about the lab-leak hypothesis. Of course they did! Because were at war with misinformation, you know, and people need to be brought back to the true and correct faith  as agreed upon by experts. * Let us pray, now, for science, intoned a New York Times columnist back at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. The title of his article laid down the foundational faith of Trump-era liberalism: Coronavirus is What You Get When You Ignore Science. Ten months later, at the end of a scary article about the history of gain of function research and its possible role in the still ongoing Covid pandemic, Nicholson Baker wrote as follows: This may be the great scientific meta-experiment of the 21st century. Could a world full of scientists do all kinds of reckless recombinant things with viral diseases for many years and successfully avoid a serious outbreak? The hypothesis was that, yes, it was doable. The risk was worth taking. There would be no pandemic. Except there was. If it does indeed turn out that the lab-leak hypothesis is the right explanation for how it began  that the common people of the world have been forced into a real-life lab experiment, at tremendous cost  there is a moral earthquake on the way. Because if the hypothesis is right, it will soon start to dawn on people that our mistake was not insufficient reverence for scientists, or inadequate respect for expertise, or not enough censorship on Facebook. It was a failure to think critically about all of the above, to understand that there is no such thing as absolute expertise. Think of all the disasters of recent years: economic neoliberalism, destructive trade policies, the Iraq War, the housing bubble, banks that are too big to fail, mortgage-backed securities, the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016  all of these disasters brought to you by the total, self-assured unanimity of the highly educated people who are supposed to know what theyre doing, plus the total complacency of the highly educated people who are supposed to be supervising them. Then again, maybe I am wrong to roll out all this speculation. Maybe the lab-leak hypothesis will be convincingly disproven. I certainly hope it is. But even if it inches closer to being confirmed, we can guess what the next turn of the narrative will be. It was a perfect storm, the experts will say. Who coulda known? And besides (they will say), the origins of the pandemic dont matter any more. Go back to sleep. Thomas Frank is a Guardian US columnist. He is the author, most recently, of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.

[March 09, 2021] Equitable Holdings Appoints Robin M. Raju Chief Financial Officer

Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH), the financial services holding company comprised of Equitable and AllianceBernstein, today announced the appointment of Robin M. Raju to Chief Financial Officer, effective April 1, pending approval from the Equitable Holdings Board of Directors. Raju will report to Mark Pearson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Equitable Holdings, and continue to serve on the company's Management Committee. "Robin has been at the core of our pivotal moments as an independent organization, helping to grow our business, manage our capital and enhance our risk framework. I have every confidence that, as CFO, Robin will continue to actively shape our organization, driving value for our clients and shareholders," said Mark Pearson. "At Equitable, we know the decisions we make today impact not only our organization but also the financial well-being of the millions of Americans we proudly serve. Robin's technical expertise, strategic vision and proven track record will help ensure Equitable delivers on its promises for generations to come." As the current Head of Individual Retirement, Raju brings deep industry experience to the role, having led the development of innovative, economically sound solutions which help clients navigate market uncertainty and achieve their financial goals. A 17-year veteran of the company, Raju has held numerous positions in the finance organization, including Treasurer of Equitable Holdings and CFO for the company's retirement, protection and wealth management businesses. In this capacity, Raju led the preparation for Equitable Holdings' successful IPO in May of 2018. He also spearheaded Equitale Holdings' landmark reinsurance transaction with Venerable which, upon closing, will significantly de-risk the company's balance sheet, unlock meaningful economic value and accelerate capital return for shareholders.



Raju succeeds Anders Malmstrom, who after nine years with the company has decided to return to his home country of Switzerland to be closer to his family. Pearson added, "I would like to thank Anders for his many contributions over the last decade. We would not be the strong and resilient organization we are today without his leadership." Malmstrom will remain CFO through March 31 to support the transition. The company also announced the following appointments of tenured leaders within the organization, demonstrating its commitment to talent mobility:

Steve Scanlon, current Head of Group Retirement for Equitable, has been appointed Head of the company's Individual Retirement business, which represents c. 60% of Equitable Holdings' earnings. Equitable* is a leading variable annuity provider i with $117 billion in account value from 900,000 policies, providing income in retirement and protection for clients.

with $117 billion in account value from 900,000 policies, providing income in retirement and protection for clients. Jessica Baehr, current Head of Investor Relations, has been appointed Head of Group Retirement. Equitable is the leading 403(b) retirement plan provider in the K-12 educators market by contributions, assets under management and participants, proudly serving more than 800,000 educators.ii Equitable also provides 457 plans for local governments and municipalities, and 401(k) solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. Today, the company is entrusted with more than $42 billion in account value from one million clients. About Equitable Holdings:

Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) is a financial services holding company comprised of two complementary and well-established principal franchises, Equitable and AllianceBernstein. Founded in 1859, Equitable provides advice, protection and retirement strategies to individuals, families and small businesses. AllianceBernstein is a global investment management firm that offers high-quality research and diversified investment services to institutional investors, individuals and private wealth clients in major world markets. Equitable Holdings has approximately 12,000 employees and financial professionals, $809 billion in assets under management (as of 12/31/2020) and more than five million client relationships globally. iSecure Retirement Institute U.S. Individual Annuities Sales Survey, Q3 2020

iiLIMRA Not-for-Profit Retirement Market Report, Q3 2020 Unless otherwise noted, all numbers referenced are current as of 12/31/2020. *This reference applies exclusively to Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company (Equitable Financial) (NY, NY), which issues variable annuity products. Equitable is the brand name of the retirement and protection subsidiaries of Equitable Holdings, Inc., including Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company (NY, NY), Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company of America, an AZ stock company with main administrative headquarters in Jersey City, NJ, and Equitable Distributors, LLC. Equitable Advisors is the brand name of Equitable Advisors, LLC (member FINRA, SIPC) (Equitable Financial Advisors in MI and TN). The 1859 founding reference applies exclusively to Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005998/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Fidelity Bank Ghana has launched the Fidelity Young Entrepreneurs Fund (FYEF) to support existing businesses and startups of young entrepreneurs with financial and non-financial resources to harness social impact potential, build capacity and guide youth-related businesses to grow and scale up their businesses.



The Fidelity Young Entrepreneurs Fund is a project which will provide both financial and non-financial support to enable youth-related businesses to survive and thrive. The focus of this fund is on businesses that are solving a problem in society, employing climate-smart adaptation or mitigation climate change processes in their activities and those that are easily scalable. Fidelity Bank, together with its partners will provide training programmes and up to GHC200, 000 in financial support to strengthen and grow selected businesses.



Some of the businesses being supported by the Fidelity Bank Young Entrepreneurs Fund (FYEF) are Sue Shimmers, a jewelry manufacturer; Pure and Just Farms, an agro-processing company; Giant Gas, a gas supplier; Giddins Innove, a leather goods and shoe manufacturer; Leather on Call, a leather goods and shoe manufacturer; Agrokings, an agribusiness company; and Neat Eco Feeds, an animal feed manufacturer.



Speaking on the Fidelity Young Entrepreneur's Fund, Julian Opuni, Managing Director (MD) of Fidelity Bank said, The initiative underscores our commitment to empowering young entrepreneurs and businesses to be the catalyst for social and economic development in Ghana.



Mr. Opuni disclosed that this initiative is targeted at businesses that fall into any one of the three categories listed below.

1. Companies that have been in operation for at least two years and have demonstrated a steady flow of revenue/sales and profit.



2. Businesses in their first stage of operations that are primarily funded or equipped with personal investments or assets of the founders/promoters and that have been in operation for at least six months.



3. Businesses operated by women or that have at least 60% female ownership.



According to the Director of Commercial & SME Banking at Fidelity Bank, Linus Kumi, Fidelity Bank recognizes the difficulties that young entrepreneurs face in growing their businesses and it is important that we take a different approach that enables these young people to achieve personal and economic empowerment.



Mr. Kumi expressed gratitude to FYEFs strategic partners-Growth Mosaic, Innohub and HOPin Academy for contributing to building the capacity of these SMEs to enable them to positively impact the economy. The Bank has over the years contributed to the development of entrepreneurs in the areas of fashion, technology, food services, agriculture, agro-processing, health services, transportation, water sanitation and hygiene, he added.



Another initiative of Fidelity Bank Ghana that seeks to support young entrepreneurs is the Orange Corners Innovation Fund, which was launched in 2019 in partnership with the Kingdom of the Netherlands and executed by MDF West Africa. The Orange Corners Innovation Fund is to, among other things, increase access to affordable credit for young entrepreneurs, promote growth and contribute to the sustainability of a young entrepreneur ecosystem by leveraging on strategic partnerships.



Fidelitys support of young entrepreneurs forms part of the Banks Together Were More brand promise that viewssuccess as a collaborative effort among key stakeholders working together towards a greater good. In this instance, Fidelity has proven that by working together with entrepreneurs, they can help them realise their business dreams which ultimately contributes to the economic growth of our nation.

Source: peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
PC maker on Tuesday announced partnership with non-profit organisation TechnoServe where it will invest Rs 25 lakh to train 100 students to build a career in the information technology sector.

As part of the initiative in partnership with TechnoServe, 150 students will be trained in technical job roles like manufacturing and electronics in Puducherry.

will provide two months of on-the-job paid training to a select number of students enrolled in the programme at Lenovo's Puducherry manufacturing plant, the company said in a statement.

"We are happy to be associated with non-profits like TechnoServe where we focus on skill training programmes in the IT/ITeS sector for women from marginalised communities. We believe that technology have the capability and the responsibility to stress diversity and inclusion," Lenovo India CEO and MD Rahul Agarwal said in the statement.

He added that Lenovo has empowered 47 per cent women from the disadvantaged communities across India through its philanthropic initiatives.

The selected students under the programme will have to undergo 120 hours of training over a 2.5-month period, which includes online training, one-on-one career counselling, assignment completion, workshops with industry experts, and employee volunteering engagements.

According to Lenovo, 75 per cent of the students enrolling in campus-to-corporate (C2C) careers programme get a confirmed placement after their training and certification.

"Technology can and should be a positive catalyst for change and evolution. Lenovo is channelling this capability to build a smarter future, where everyone thrives, together," Agarwal said.

Earlier, Lenovo India invested around Rs 7 crore in the Lenovo and Motorola Skills Academy programme.

"We have trained over 13,000 students through our C2C programme so far, 70 per cent of whom are women.

"Apart from training students in 21st century life-skills for the workplace, we also help them to upgrade their technical skills, leading to a 75 per cent placement rate in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and NCR," Technoserve Managing Director Punit Gupta said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(ANSAmed) - MADRID, 09 MAR - Five migrants died during a sea crossing aboard a boat heading to the Canary Islands, said Spanish emergency services cited by EFE news agency. Spanish coastal authorities rescued the boat on Monday evening about 250 km south of the island of Gran Canaria.



They found 49 people aboard, one of whom was dead.



Once at port, survivors said four other migrants had died previously during the crossing, which had lasted days.



The specialised collective Caminando Fronteras estimated that the migrants may have departed from Mauritania last Thursday.



Many of the survivors appeared exhausted once they reached Gran Canaria.



With these five deaths, the 2021 migrant death toll on the route from Africa to the Canary Islands now stands at 16. (ANSAmed).


We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
New Delhi: Actress Ananya Panday celebrated International Women's Day on Monday (March 8) by acknowledging the 'boss women' in her life and sharing a powerful message on self-love with her fans.

The 'Student of the year 2' star shared a beautiful picture with her dadi (paternal grandmother) and nani (maternal grandmother) along with this caption, "the epitome of grace, beauty, perseverance, humour, badass energy and boss woman vibes my Dadi and Nani - happy Womens day to my best and happy Womens day to all the lovely ladies out there - you are so very special and everything you need is right inside of you I love you guys u rock".

In the first picture, Ananya can be seen holding her Dadi's hand, who is lying down in bed. In the second picture, the actress is on a video call with her Nani (maternal grandmother).

Ananya Panday's mother Bhavana Pandey and her friend and co-star in 'Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives' Neelam Kothari sent heart emojis in the comment section below.

On the work front, Ananya would next be seen in Liger along with Vijay Deverakonda. The movie will be released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. The actress will also be seen in director Shakun Batra's untitled drama film which also features Deepika Padukone and Siddhant Chaturvedi.


Maybe, Im starting to think, what happened in the 1980s needs to stay in the 1980s.

At a time in which all thats 80s is apparently new again, the comedy sequel Coming 2 America has arrived as the latest in the recent trend of decades-later sequels to beloved comedies.

And by now, weve got a pretty good idea of what to expect, thanks to the rash of recent rehashes that have come before it, from 2016s failed Ghostbusters reboot and Pee-Wees Big Holiday to last years Bill and Ted Face the Music.

It goes a little something like this:

First, there will be a warm rush of nostalgia.

Then there will be a slow realization that the original was much, much better.

Finally, theres a dawning disappointment, accompanied by the question: Wait, did we really need this movie?

And perhaps: Who took my Bartles & Jaymes?

That was the case with those previously mentioned films, and its the case with the eagerly awaited but sadly forgettable Coming 2 America, which arrived March 5 on Amazon Prime Video with all the lack of imagination that title suggests.

To be fair, its not without its occasional silly charm, but it also does absolutely nothing to build on the movie that came before it  or to come even close to measuring up to it.

As for that original 1988 Coming to America, it still holds up reasonably well, with its story of a noble and pampered African prince who, eschewing an arranged marriage, seeks true love in (where else?) Queens, New York. Directed by comedy guru John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places), it was sweet and silly and, at the time of its release, a worthy showcase for Eddie Murphy when he was at the peak of his comedic powers.

It also had the distinction of being culturally groundbreaking, featuring a nearly all-Black cast (Louie Anderson being the sole exception) and going on to become 1988s second-highest-grossing comedy. As a bonus, it served to celebrate the African continent as a paradise rather than a place of unending famine and war  and doing so long before The Lion King or Black Panther did it.

Fast-forward 33 years, and we get the limp and entirely unambitious Coming to America 2. Directed by Craig Brewer  who, having helmed 2011s Footloose remake, is no stranger to pointless rehashing of 1980s cinema  its a paint-by-numbers exercise that is content simply to go through the motions, existing as little more than nostalgia for nostalgias sake.

The cast is mostly intact from the original, highlighted by Murphy and co-star Arsenio Hall, who both again appear in makeup for multiple roles. Also back, albeit briefly, are Anderson, James Earl Jones, John Amos and Shari Headley.

The major difference this time is that theres nothing groundbreaking, nothing memorable and nothing really all that funny about it. It flips the script on the fish-out-of-water story from the first film, as Murphy and Halls characters head back to Queens to retrieve the illegitimate son  and heir to the throne  Murphys character never knew he had.

Hes played by Jermaine Fowler (Superior Donuts), and hes an energetic bright spot, along with a raft of amusing supporting performances from the likes of Tracy Morgan, Leslie Jones and Wesley Snipes.

(Less impressive is a wasted cameo from Morgan Freeman, who is given nothing to do but simply be Morgan Freeman.)

And, before you ask, no, theres no sign of Samuel L. Jackson, who, in an early-career performance, played an armed criminal in the first film. Unlike everybody else in the cast, he apparently had better things to do.

It could be worse, I suppose. Murphy has gone on record saying it took the production three tries before finally getting a script that felt worthwhile.

One shudders at the thought of what condition the first two were in.

If theres a knock on the first Coming to America, its that its two-hour running time often felt a touch padded.

But thats better than the entirely forgettable Coming 2 America, which is pretty much all padding.

Mike Scott can be reached at moviegoermike@gmail.com.

****************

COMING 2 AMERICA

1.5 stars, out of 4

SNAPSHOT: Eddie Murphy reprises his role from the 1988 comedy Coming to America, playing the pampered prince of an African kingdom who heads to New York in search of the adult son he never knew he had.

CAST: Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones, Wesley Snipes, Tracy Morgan, Kiki Layne, Shari Headley, James Earl Jones.

DIRECTOR: Craig Brewer.

RATED: PG-13, for crude and sexual content, language and drug content.

RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 50 minutes.

WHEN AND WHERE: Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Intelligent.com, a trusted resource for online degree rankings and higher education planning, has announced the Top 43 Master's in Liberal Arts Degree Programs for 2021. The comprehensive research guide is based on an assessment of 163 accredited colleges and universities in the nation. Each program is evaluated based on curriculum quality, graduation rate, reputation, and post-graduate employment.

The 2021 rankings are calculated through a unique scoring system which includes student engagement, potential return on investment and leading third party evaluations. Intelligent.com analyzed 163 schools, on a scale of 0 to 100, with only 43 making it to the final list. The methodology also uses an algorithm which collects and analyzes multiple rankings into one score to easily compare each school.

Students who pursue any one of these programs can expect to gain employment much quicker in comparison to candidates without a degree. In addition to accessibility and cost, the steady job growth in this market is one of the many reasons Intelligent.com researched and ranked the Top Master's in Liberal Arts Degree Programs. To access the complete ranking, please visit: https://www.intelligent.com/best-masters-in-liberal-arts-degree-programs/

2021 Master's in Liberal Arts Degree Programs featured on Intelligent.com (in alphabetical order):

Albertus Magnus College

Arizona State University

Arkansas Tech University

Auburn University, Montgomery

Clayton State University

Coastal Carolina University

Dallas Baptist University

DePaul University

East Tennessee State University

Fort Hays State University

Georgetown University

Henderson State University

Johns Hopkins University

Kent State University

Lake Forest College

Louisiana State University

McDaniel College

Middle Tennessee State University

Ramapo College of New Jersey

Rutgers University, Camden

Saint Johns University

Stanford University

State University of New York College, Brockport

State University of New York, Empire State College

State University of New York, Stony Brook

Stony Brook University, New York

Temple University

Texas Christian University

The New School

Thomas Edison State University

Tulane University

University of Delaware

University Of Illinois, Springfield

University of Memphis

University of Michigan-Flint

University of Missouri, Kansas City

UNC Greensboro

University Of North Carolina, Wilmington

University of Pennsylvania

University of Richmond

University of Southern Indiana

University of Toledo

Vanderbilt University

About Intelligent.com

Intelligent.com provides unbiased research to help students make informed decisions about higher education programs. The website offers curated guides which include the best degree programs as well as information about financial aid, internships and even study strategies. With comprehensive, user-friendly guides and hundreds of program rankings, Intelligent.com is a trusted source among students and prospective students. To learn more, please visit https://www.intelligent.com/.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky made changes to the composition of the Coordination Council for solving problems in urban planning, excluding Head of the Executive Committee of the National Reforms Council of Ukraine Mikheil Saakashvili, and appointed Giorgi Tskhakaia to be expert on the committee.

The head of state signed relevant decree No. 87/2021 on March 4, according to the presidential website.

Earlier, the president appointed Olena Shuliak as head of the Coordination Council. Head of the Coordination Center for ensuring interaction with the Cabinet of Ministers Volodymyr Kladiyev has been appointed its secretary.
TUESDAY PUZZLE  There is a Bob Newhart standup routine from 1960 in which he played a beleaguered driving instructor trying to guide a new student through a lesson. (Heads up: The sketch is outdated  as one from 60 years ago is wont to be  and includes the stereotype that women are bad drivers.) During this lesson, he discovers that the student driver has some unique ideas about how to stop the car, one of which includes throwing it into reverse.

I am not suggesting that method as advice on how to drive, mind you, but I couldnt help thinking about it while I solved Simon Marottes debut crossword.

As always, thats a hint and hopefully not a spoiler. Welcome to the club, Mr. Marotte.

P.S. Mr. Marotte is 16 years old. This doesnt even faze me anymore. Daniel Larsen made his debut at age 13. If you need me, Ill just be sitting here, swigging from a bottle of Geritol.

Tricky Clues

47A. The phrase HAD NO HOPE is a debut entry.

57A. A TENTACLE on an octopus, for example, would hold little suckers.
The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) has so far apprehended 357 people comprising 12 Chartered Accountants (CA), an advocate, and a company secretary (CS) in the ongoing countrywide drive against fake GST (Goods and Services Tax) invoice frauds since mid-November 2020.

The detained people include fake entities operators and end beneficiaries who collude with these scamsters operating businesses of fake invoices.

Revenue department sources said two more CAs were arrested in the first week of March for running fake GST invoice scams through fictitious companies.

Also Read: GST collection rises 7% to Rs 1.13 lakh crore in February

The CGST (Central Goods and Services Tax) Delhi Zone arrested mastermind Naresh Dhondhiyal of M/s Vertilink Media Solutions Pvt Ltd along with CA Devender Kumar Goyal. Another CA Vishal Ahuja was apprehended by CGST Mumbai Zone for running a fake invoice racket.

Revenue department sources further stated that GST intelligence and CGST authorities have booked around 3,500 cases against 10,400 fake GSTIN firms unearthed, as yet.

Out of the 357 arrested thus far, at least four people have been booked under COFEPOSA (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act).

Also Read: FY21 GST revenue inches close to FY20 collection despite Covid disruptions

The authorities have also retrieved around Rs 1,125 crore from these fraudsters. The GST authorities have been employing deep data analytics, overall data-sharing, and AI & ML along with BIFA and NETRA tools to uncover fake input tax credit (ITC) availment and utilisation frauds through fake invoicing and bogus firms.

The CGST and DGGI authorities are enabled with suitable tech-tools in the GST ecosystem to detect layer-by-layer activities of these fake firms and their networking to identify the scamsters with particular inputs to take concrete actions and undertake probes against them.

As per the sources, out of the 357 people arrested so far, 141 are masterminds, 122 proprietors, 49 directors/managing directors, 20 partners, 5 CEOs/CFOs/CMDs, 12 Cas, 4 accountants, and one each of advocate, broker, CS, and GST practitioner.
Late Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare Tribute Walkathon

On Sunday March 7, 2021, PNG students from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia organised a 7km Walkathon to commemorate the colourful life of the founding father of Papua New Guinea, Late Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare.

They were joined by other students from other universities in Brisbane and few families here in Brisbane. Towards the end of the walk there were reflections and tributary talks from students and family friends.

The tributes and memoirs are summarised in the following words:

Currently when the Nation of Papua New Guinea is mourning the death of the Late Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare, the UQPNGSA and fellow scholars from institutions around Brisbane share the sorrow and grief with our people. We may be far from home, but our thoughts are with our beloved country, Papua New Guinea and its people. Late Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare was a legendary leader with a unique and distinctive character.

Given his non-partisan style of leadership, coupled with resiliency he stood tall against political polarisation and social aggression to unite a nation of a thousand tribes. A leader who was visionary and unmatched for his time. His activeness in politics until very recently is a testimony of his relentless and sheer determination.

To Papua New Guineans who have been educated from different layers of education and for those of us pursuing formal education overseas and even back in PNG, we are part of who Grand Chief Somare was. He had a dream that one day Papua New Guinea would be filled with professionals from every sectors and industries. Hence, let us emulate the values that our founding father stood and believed for. Let us all continue to live as a united PNG and together seek, social justice, political freedom and economic independence.

At this Juncture, we offer our sincere and heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathy to Lady Veronica and Children; Bertha, Arthur, Sana, Michael Jnr and Dulicana.

May we find peace and strength as we reflect on the life of the father of our nation and continue to share his dreams of unity and prosperity.





Source : (UQPNGSA)

Next :
Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a digital self-test that trains users to assess news items, images and videos presented on social media. The self-test has also been evaluated in a scientific study, which confirmed the researchers' hypothesis that the tool genuinely improved the students' ability to apply critical thinking to digital sources.

The new tool and the scientific review of it are part of the News Evaluator project to investigate new methods of enhancing young people's capacity for critical awareness of digital sources, a key component of digital literacy.

"As research leader in the project, I'm surprised how complicated it is to develop this type of tool against misleading information - one that's usable on a large scale. Obviously, critically assessing digital sources is complicated. We've been working on various designs and tests, with major experiments in school settings, for years. Now we've finally got a tool that evidently works. The effect is clearly positive and now we launch the self-test on our News Evaluator website http://www. newsevaluator. com , so that all anyone can test themselves for free," says Thomas Nygren, associate professor at Uppsala University.

The tool is structured in a way that allows students to work with it, online, on their own. They get to see news articles in a social-media format, with pictures or videos, and the task is to determine how credible they are. Is there really wood pulp in Parmesan cheese, for instance?

"The aim is for the students to get better at uncovering what isn't true, but also improve their understanding of what may be true even if it seems unlikely at first," Nygren says.

As user support, the tool contains guidance. Students can follow how a professional would have gone about investigating the authenticity of the statements or images - by opening a new window and doing a separate search alongside the test, or doing a reverse image search, for example. The students are encouraged to learn "lateral reading" (verifying what you read by double checking news). After solving the tasks, the students get feedback on their performance.

When the tool was tested with just over 200 students' help, it proved to have had a beneficial effect on their ability to assess sources critically. Students who had received guidance and feedback from the tool showed distinctly better results than those who had not been given this support. The tool also turned out to provide better results in terms of the above-mentioned ability than other, comparable initiatives that require teacher participation and more time.

Apart from practical tips such as opening a new search tab, doing reverse image searches and not always choosing the search result at the top of the hit page (but, rather, the one that comes from a source you recognise), Nygren has a general piece of advice that can help us all become more critically aware in the digital world:

"Make sure you keep up to date with information and news from trustworthy sources with credible practices of fact-checking, such as the national TV news programmes or an established daily newspaper. It's difficult and arduous being critical about sources all the time."

###

The News Evaluator project is a collaboration among the Swedish non-profit organisation Public & Science (Vetenskap & Allmanhet, VA), Uppsala University and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. It is funded by Vinnova (Sweden's innovation agency) and Uppsala University.
A motorcycle pin is seen on the shirt of Charlotte Charles, the mother of British teen Harry Dunn who was killed in a car crash on his motorcycle, during an interview in the Manhattan borough of New York City, N.Y., on Oct.15, 2019. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

Civil Claim by Harry Dunns Family May Go Ahead in US, Judge Rules

Harry Dunns family can make a civil claim for damages against the teenagers alleged killer Anne Sacoolas and her husband, a U.S. District Court has ruled.

U.S. District Court of Virginia Judge Thomas Ellis on March 3 ruled to allow the claim against Sacoolas and a claim of vicarious liability against her husband, which, under the state law, means he could be liable for Dunns death by allowing his wife to use the car involved in the fatal accident.

The case could still be settled out of court. If no settlement is reached, the next step is deposition, where Sacoolas and her husband would have to give their accounts of the event.

Radd Seiger, spokesman for the Dunn family, said that common sense has prevailed.

Harrys family are very pleased at the ruling today and that their claims have been allowed to proceed in full, he told the Press Association news agency.

They are also pleased that Mr Sacoolas will also have to be deposed so that they can learn the full account of what happened on the night Harry died.

Sacoolas, 43, was allegedly driving on the wrong side of the road in her SUV in August 2019 when she collided with 19-year-old Dunn on his motorcycle near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, where her husband was working.

Three weeks later, Sacoolas and her husband left the UK to return to the United States, claiming diplomatic immunity. She was later charged with death by dangerous driving, but her lawyer said she would not return voluntarily to face trial. An extradition request made by the UK government to both the Trump and Biden administrations failed.

The Dunn family then filed a civil claim in Virginia for damages against Sacoolas, which was allowed to move forward on Feb. 17.

During the dismissal hearing on Feb. 3, it was discovered that Sacoolas, like her husband, was also possibly working for U.S. intelligence services and left due to issues of security. If that had been known at the time, her diplomatic immunity may have been waived.

In the Feb. 17 ruling, Ellis said, While it is commendable that Defendant Anne Sacoolas admits that she was negligent and that her negligence caused Harry Dunns death, this does not equate acceptance of responsibility.

Full acceptance of responsibility entails facing those harmed by her negligence and taking responsibility for her acts where they occurred, in the United Kingdom.

The maximum sentence for death by dangerous driving in the UK is 14 years.

On March 3, during Prime Ministers Questions, South Northamptonshire MP Andrea Leadsom asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson whether he would try to persuade President Biden to deliver justice for Harry.

Johnson said that he sympathised deeply with his family.

Its a case that we continue to raise at the highest level, he said, noting Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had raised the case only just now with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Pope Francis visits Iraqi Christian town overrun by ISIS: Death never has the 'last word'

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Pope Francis visited the ruins of Mosul and a Christian community damaged by the Islamic State during the third day of his historic visit to Iraq Sunday. The day earlier, the pontiff visited the birthplace of Abraham, met with a prominent Shia cleric and gave a sermon in Baghdad.

How cruel it is that this country, the cradle of civilization, should have been afflicted by so barbarous a blow, with ancient places of worship destroyed, the 84-year-old pope said Sunday, according to Reuters, as he met with Muslim and Christian residents in a destroyed portion of Mosul Sunday.

Pope Francis flew into Mosul by helicopter and saw the ruins of homes and churches in a part of a town that used to thrive before the Islamic States takeover in 2014. Thousands were killed and millions were displaced by the brutal terror group. The Islamic State was accused of genocide against religious minorities and occupied Mosul from 2014 to 2017.

In addition to visiting Mosul, Pope Francis also met with Christians in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh, which was destroyed by the Islamic State but efforts have been made to help restore the town. The church itself was also damaged by the extremist group.

How much has been torn down! How much needs to be rebuilt! Our gathering here today shows that terrorism and death never have the last word, Pope Francis said. The last word belongs to God and to his Son, the conqueror of sin and death. Even amid the ravages of terrorism and war, we can see, with the eyes of faith, the triumph of life over death.

The night before, Francis spoke on the Beatitudes, part of Jesus Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, in a packed Chaldean cathedral in Baghdad. He said the blessed are not the wealthy, powerful or famous, but the poor, those who mourn, the persecuted.

Love is our strength, the source of strength for those of our brothers and sisters who here too have suffered prejudice, indignities, mistreatment and persecutions for the name of Jesus,the pope said, according to a transcript posted by the Vatican.

Such inequality, which has increased in our time, is unacceptable, he said, adding that the lowliest may be pardoned in mercy, but the mighty will be mightily tested.

The more powerful are subjected to rigorous scrutiny, while the least are Gods privileged ones.

He also explained that adversity confronts us with two temptations: to run away or to fight.

He then referred to Jesus disciples in Gethsemane, who fled while Peter drew his sword.

Yet neither flight nor the sword achieved anything, the pope contended.

On Saturday afternoon, Pope Francis met with a prominent Iraqi Shia leader on the second day of his historic trip, the first by a Pope to Iraq. He also visited the ancient city of Ur, where Abraham was believed to have been born.

The leader of the Catholic Church met with Iraqs top Shiite cleric in the holy city of Najaf, after which the Shia-majority country declared March 6 as National Day of Tolerance and Coexistence.

The pontiff met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a spiritual authority for Shiite Muslims in Iraq and other countries who is renowned for his promotion of peace.

Vatican News reports that the pontiff and the grand ayatollah were able to share perspectives and draw attention to the importance of friendship, mutual respect and dialogue, so that all people, no matter their ethnic, cultural or religious tradition, may live together in brotherhood and peace.

Earlier during the day, Francis attended an interfaith meeting in the ancient city of Ur, urging Iraqs Muslims, Christians and people from other faith communities to end their historic animosities and work together for peace and unity.

According to the Bible, Abraham, to whom Jews, Christians and Muslims trace their origin, was born in Ur.

This blessed place brings us back to our origins, to the sources of Gods work, to the birth of our religions, he said, according to the text of his remarks obtained by the Catholic News Agency.

Here, where Abraham our father lived, we seem to have returned home. It was here that Abraham heard Gods call; it was from here that he set out on a journey that would change history. We are the fruits of that call and that journey.

He added that the greatest blasphemy was hating our brothers and sisters.

Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion, he stressed. We believers cannot be silent when terrorism abuses religion; indeed, we are called unambiguously to dispel all misunderstandings.

While Pope Francis has described his first travel to Iraq as a pilgrimage of peace, some radical militant groups have reportedly opposed his visit, which they say amounts to Western interference, according to BBC.

On the first day of his visit on Friday, the pope brought focus on the countrys dwindling Christian population that suffered mass killings by the Islamic State terror group and a mass exodus.

The age-old presence of Christians in this land, and their contributions to the life of the nation, constitute a rich heritage that they wish to continue to place at the service of all, said Francis after arriving in Baghdad, addressing Iraqi President Barham Salih and other officials and diplomats at the Presidential Palace on Friday.

May there be an end to acts of violence and extremism, factions and intolerance! May room be made for all those citizens who seek to cooperate in building up this country through dialogue and through frank, sincere and constructive discussion.

Pope Francis declared that it is essential to ensure the participation of all political, social and religious groups and to guarantee the fundamental rights of all citizens.

May no one be considered a second-class citizen, he told the authorities.

There were about 1.5 million Christians in Iraq in 2003, and the number has reduced to roughly 250,000, according to estimates.

Even after the defeat of the Islamic State in December 2017, many of Iraqs Christians havent found their homeland livable. They have either not returned home or continued to leave the country.
Shoppers are rushing to Big W to buy an oversized women's hoodie priced at a mere $40.

Mum Ammy, who has a keen eye for bargains, noticed the product on Australian shelves and shared the news to a popular Facebook group.

'Not really a markdown but I guess it is cheaper than an Oodie. Plenty of stock left for those that are looking for a cheaper alternative,' she captioned the social media post.

The affordable Big W product (pictured) is made with a soft, fluffy interior and a fleecy exterior for the ultimate comfort

The Oodie was popular throughout 2020 as it's a blanket that can be worn as a hoodie, but prices start at $129.

To compare, the Big W hoodie features an all-over print of Sesame Street's Cookie Monster character.

The affordable product is made with a soft, fluffy interior and a fleecy exterior for the ultimate comfort.

Ammy said the Big W buy is a suitable alternative to the Oodie blanket hoodie, which is priced at $129

Complete with a snug rib-knit finish on the cuffs and a pouch pocket at the front, the hoodie will likely be an essential winter staple.

Ammy said she bought the one-sized hoodie for her children to wear around the house.

The buy can be purchased online and from Big W store locations if stock hasn't sold out prior.

Complete with a snug rib-knit finish on the cuffs and a pouch pocket, the hoodie will likely be an essential winter staple

After sharing the product recommendation on Facebook, other customers seemed eager to grab the bargain buy.

'Oh my god I need this for my birthday, I'm in love,' one woman wrote.

'I have one, it's amazing for anyone who wants to know,' another confirmed.

A third added: 'Wow thanks! Just bought two! One for myself and one for my daughter!'

While the product is affordable compared to the Oodie, some shoppers claim the Big W alternative 'does not wash well'.
Prominent Melbourne lawyer Peter Bartlett said he was thanked by the Prime Ministers office for advising Attorney-General Christian Porter over his defence of a rape allegation and told his colleagues the federal government was one of their law firms biggest clients.

The firm, MinterEllison, is divided after its chief executive Annette Kimmitt sent an email last Wednesday to more than 2000 staff suggesting the firm had erred in taking on Mr Porter as a client, saying it had triggered hurt for her and apologising for causing hurt to staff.

MinterEllison chief executive Annette Kimmitt. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Mr Bartlett hit back in an email to staff the same day defending his position, citing the Prime Ministers offices phone call and saying of Scott Morrison and Mr Porter: These are the leaders of one of the firms largest clients.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have confirmed that MinterEllison is working on $93 million of government contracts, and one source within the firm said on condition of anonymity that some in the firm feared the handling of the controversy could threaten the lucrative relationship with the government.
People wait in line to get tested for COVID-19 at a testing clinic in Montreal, on March 7, 2021. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Quebec to Go Against Advice From National Vaccine Panel and Give AstraZeneca to 65+

MONTREALQuebec said Monday it will administer the newly approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to seniors, despite Canadas national vaccine expert panel recommending against its use for people over the age of 65.

The provinces vaccine expert committee is recommending that all approved vaccines be used immediately to prevent deaths and hospitalizations, the Health Department said in a news release, adding that the AstraZeneca vaccine provides more flexibility in immunization efforts, especially for priority groups aged 70 to 79.

The newly approved vaccine has numerous advantages, the Health Department said, including the fact it doesnt need to be kept frozen and can be used up to 48 hours after a vial is opened. Its use will also be favoured for (patients) where mobile vaccination is an optimal strategy to reach themat home, for example.

Canadas National Advisory Committee on Immunization has said the AstraZeneca vaccine is not recommended for people aged 65 years and over because of insufficient data on its efficacy in older people, despite its approval by Health Canada for adults of all ages.

There are no concerns that the vaccine is unsafe for use, but the NACI panel said the vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are preferred for people 65 years old and above due to suggested superior efficacy.

Quebecs immunization committee, however, recommended that in a scenario of limited vaccine availability, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should be given to the highest priority groups, while it said AstraZeneca could be offered to those that come slightly lower on the list.

The AstraZeneca vaccine should not be routinely offered to people who present a very high risk of disease, complications and/or who would not respond well to any vaccine, including residents in (long-term care) and (private seniors homes), people with immunosuppression and the most exposed health workers, according to the committees report released Monday.

The report said the overall efficacy rate of the AstraZeneca vaccine was 62.5 percent. Its efficacy was estimated at 43 percent for those aged 65 years and over, but very imprecise given the low number of participants in this group. The efficacy seemed very high, however, when it came to preventing severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths, the report said.

Meanwhile, Quebec on Monday eased COVID-19 restrictions in five regions, including the capital, permitting residents to return to the gym and restaurant dining rooms for the first time in months.

The government also pushed back the nighttime curfew from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in Quebec City, Chaudiere-Appalaches, Estrie, Mauricie and Centre-du-Quebec, which were downgraded from red to orange under the provinces pandemic-alert system.

Premier Francois Legault has opted to maintain restrictions in Montreal and the surrounding regions because public health authorities fear a novel coronavirus variant will soon cause regional case numbers and hospitalizations to rise again.

Francois Meunier, vice-president of public affairs for Quebecs restaurant industry group, Association Restauration Quebec, said the reopening of restaurants in orange zones has given people hope of being able to start living again a little.

He said demand appeared strong, with lines forming outside breakfast restaurants in Quebec City Monday morning. Meunier said many of his groups members have been scrambling to hire staff, adding that some wont open for a few more days.

He said capacity limits and the curfew will make it very difficult for restaurants to turn a profit, but he said most want to open anyway. Right now, the goal isnt so much profitability, he said in an interview Monday.

The goal is improving the mental health of restaurant owners, he said, adding that full closure is something that is no longer possible, no longer livable.

Meunier says restaurants have a strict set of rules to follow, including mandatory reservations, collecting clients contact information, checking addresses to ensure customers arent from red zones, and limiting tables to a maximum of two adults and their minor children.

He noted that about half the provinces restaurants remain closed because they are located in red zones, such as Montreal.

On Monday, the province reported 579 new COVID-19 cases and nine deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, none of which occurred in the past 24 hours. Hospitalizations remained relatively stabledown by two, to 590while the number of intensive care patients rose by one, to 108.

Health Minister Christian Dube has said the province will step up the pace of vaccinations this week as more regions join Montreal in opening mass immunization clinics to the general public.

Dube said Monday on Twitter Quebec would receive over 213,000 vaccine doses this week, including 113,000 of Oxford-AstraZeneca.

By Morgan Lowrie
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 07:35:39|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ROME, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Italy raised the age limit for use of the coronavirus vaccine from British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on Monday, following similar moves from France and Germany in recent days.

When it was first released, research showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine -- unlike the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine or the vaccine from Moderna, the other two vaccines approved for use in Italy and other European Union states -- was recommended only for those under the age of 65.

The World Health Organization has said in early February that the vaccine appeared to be safe even when given to older people. But countries were slow to follow the WHO's advice.

With distribution problems with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, countries have, however, started to reconsider their stance, with national health authorities testing the safety of the vaccine on the elderly.

Both France and Germany have given the greenlight last week for using the AstraZeneca vaccine on those aged 65 or older, followed by Italy's decision on Monday. According to news reports, the Public Health Agency of Sweden recommended the same move though the change has not yet been adopted.

Outside of Europe, Canada continued to prohibit the AstraZeneca vaccines from being used on those over the age of 65.

Italy and the AstraZeneca vaccine made headlines last week when Italy blocked a shipment of more than 250,000 doses of the vaccine to Australia based on charges that the company failed to honor its distribution contract in Italy. The company said it would still reach its target of distributing 4.2 million doses in Italy before the end of this month.

Some 261 candidate vaccines are now being developed worldwide -- 79 of them in clinical trials -- including in Germany, Italy, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Enditem


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the opening of the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Only States Can Prevent America From Becoming a Socialist Totalitarian Nation

Commentary

Democrats have two years to transform America into a socialist totalitarian state. With their control of the presidency, Congress, and their stranglehold on the Supreme Courtthrough threats to pack the courtthey also know they can achieve their sinister plot.

Even if weak-kneed congressional Republicans came together, which is highly doubtful, they cant stop their colleagues across the aisle. Worse, H.R. 1, a bill that sanctions the election reforms that led to allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential contest and adds the District of Columbia to our list of states, is ready to be passed, ensuring that Democrats will never lose another election.

The only way to stop this train is to stay true to the Constitution, and only the states can do so.

The Ninth and 10th amendments to the Constitution give states the powers not specifically granted to the federal government. While the Ninth guarantees states rights, the 10th disallows future federal interference in state law. Thus, states have the power to counter the smothering interference by the federal government in the following areas: Bidens executive orders, education, immigration, suppression and/or cancellation of free speech, and election law.

Bidens Executive Orders

Oklahoma and North Dakota have taken steps to block Bidens executive orders. The Oklahoma House enacted a law granting the states attorney general and state legislature the authority to review the presidents executive orders to determine their constitutionality. If the attorney general decides not to take action on an executive order, the legislature can declare it unconstitutional with a majority vote. North Dakota has a similar law.

As Daniel Horowitz, senior editor of TheBlaze, has observed, This bill is probably the single most direct and effective way of countering federal power-grabs. State legislatures could block Bidens mask mandate, transgender agenda in school sports, and racially biased orders in finance and commerce, and many others.

Education

Since 1967, the federal government has encroached on states rights in education. That year, the Department of Education, with support from foundations, stealthily applied scientific social engineering into public schools nationwide. Teachers were instructed to get students to think a certain way about what they were learning, a precursor to indoctrination. Other programs followed, culminating in President Barack Obamas Common Core initiative, under which schools couldnt get large sums of federal funds unless they adopted the program.

Consequently, teachers unions across the country have taken control of education. With COVID-19 school lockdowns, some states will have denied productive, in-person education for more than a year. Unions emphasize teachersnot studentsrights and their instruction demonizes American history and caters to the weakest students under a murky collage of white supremacy, victimhood, multi-genders, and misrepresented equality.

Meanwhile, the quality of education continues to sink.

States need to fight back on this broken, federally supported unionized cabal. Theyagain not the fedshave the constitutional authority and responsibility to maintain and operate their own public school systems, set and regulate the curricula, and approve teaching methods and instructional materials.

Immigration

Five years ago, Texas reported that 952 criminal aliens were arrested on homicide charges and 176,000 criminal aliens were jailed for 472,000 crimes between 2011 and 2015. Whose fault was that? The federal government or the state government? The state government.

According to the Constitution, the federal government has responsibility for matters of naturalization, and thats it. Thomas Jefferson unequivocally stated that states retained jurisdiction and authority over all other immigration matters. Authors of the 14th Amendment solidified this point, claiming that states could refuse entry to aliens and their right to acquire property in the states. Nonetheless, the federal government has persistently encroached on states rights in this field as state governments acquiesced.

When Alabama passed a stringent immigration law, though, the court upheld that the state had the right to check the immigration status of those they suspect may be illegal entrants; require all businesses to use E-Verify; and require all school students to present birth certificates to determine the legal status of their parents.

If states restricted immigration in their states, illegal immigration would either subside or gravitate to sanctuary Democrat-led states.

Suppression of Free Speech/Cancellation

Congressional Democrats sanction the fascist speech suppression and cancellation policies of Big Tech companies. To stop these fascist policies, states must take action.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has moved against these companies. He has introduced legislation that will check the growing power and influence of big tech and let Floridians reclaim their privacy. And he has suggested fines of $100,000 per day for deplatforming political candidates. Under this new policy, citizens of the Sunshine State would be able to bring charges against these companies for privacy violations, and the Florida AG can bring cases against tech companies under the Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

In a similar move, an Idaho internet provider said it would block Facebook and Twitter from its Wi-Fi service for some customers due to claims of censorship.

Big Tech companies brazenly boast about their power to play judge and jury, knowing full well that the Washington Swamp has their backs. Only states can reverse corporate suppression and cancellation.

Election Fraud

If H.R. 1 passes, the alleged election fraud of the 2020 election will pervade every future election. As Michael Dorstewitz titled his article in Newsmax on this subject, Under Democrats new voting bill, all 50 states become California. What does this mean? Republicans would never win another election.

The Constitution states that state legislatures have the power to set election laws for their states, period. Not courts, governors, or secretaries of state. State legislatures. Dont look to the Congress or Supreme Court to set things straight. States must enact laws that guarantee accurate voting machines, eliminate massive mail-in voting, especially without signature verification, and stress in-person voting.

H.R. 1 has to be stopped and only state legislatures can do it.

These five areas all fall within the purview of the states. The new Democrat socialist government wants to usurp these authorities because they have no regard for the Constitution and know that they couldnt make these changes if they adhered to the sacred document.

The question is: Will the states do the right thing and take back their constitutional power or continue to relinquish it to the federal government?

Robert A. Taft served as deputy assistant secretary for international operations in the U.S. Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration and subsequently served as president and CEO of the World Trade Centers Association of Florida. He has also served as a U.S. negotiator in the Middle East, worked with the United Nations, and been a consultant to the U.S. Defense Department. He taught international business at Georgetown University and the University of Central Florida, and is the author of five books, including Growing Your Business Globally.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Washington, March 9, 2021--A comprehensive meta-analysis of prior research has found, overall, that children ages 1 to 8 were less likely to understand picture books when they read the digital, versus print, version. However, when digital picture books contain the right enhancements that reinforce the story content, they outperform their print counterparts. The results were published today in Review of Educational Research, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.

Authors Natalia Kucirkova at the University of Stavanger in Norway and The Open University in the United Kingdom, and May Irene Furenes and Adriana G. Bus at the University of Stavanger, analyzed the results of 39 studies that included a total 1,812 children between the ages of 1 and 8. For their analysis, the authors compared children's story comprehension and vocabulary learning when they read a book on paper versus on screen, and assessed the effects of story-related enhancements in digital books, the presence of a dictionary, and the role of adult support. The bulk of the studies were carried out between 2010 and 2019, and for the greater the part, in the last four years of that time span.

"The wide availability of digital reading options and the rich tradition of children's print books beg the question of which reading format is better suited for young readers' learning," said Kucirkova, a professor of early childhood development at the University of Stavanger and The Open University. "We found that when the print and digital versions of a book are practically the same and differ only in the voice-over or highlighted print as additional features in the digital book, then print outperforms digital."

The authors found that the digital device itself and sometimes digital enhancements that are not aligned with the story content--such as a dictionary--interfere with children's story comprehension.

When digital enhancements are designed to increase children's ability to make sense of the narrative--for instance, by prompting children's background knowledge to understand the story or providing additional explanations of story events--digital books not only outweigh the negative effects of the digital device but also outperform print books on children's story comprehension.

"Our overall findings may reflect the rather low quality of enhancements in the digital books available for young children," said Kucirkova. "Many digitized versions of picture books are inferior to the print version, yet young children widely use them."

With a few exceptions, the commercially published digital books in the studies did not include storytelling techniques that adults provide during book sharing, for example attracting children's attention to the main story elements and focusing their attention on the chain of story events.

"If we want to support all children, we need to understand the impact of digital books and make them of higher quality," said Kucirkova. "Digital books are low-cost to access and thus more readily available to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Furthermore, we can customize digital books to a child's level of learning by including interactive features responsive to the child."

"For reasons that need to be clarified by additional research, our meta-analysis shows that children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to be distracted from story content on digital books by their interactive features and by the reading devices themselves," said Bus, a professor at the University of Stavanger. "As a result, these children are experiencing the most difficulty comprehending digital picture books."

"Makers of children's digital books need to be careful about the enhancements they make, and educators and parents need to choose carefully which digital books young children read," said Kucirkova. "Internationally, it is important to promote the production of exemplary prototypes including text in a range of languages and provide incentives to publishers, authors, designers, and illustrators to change the status quo."

The authors found that digital books may be more effective than print books for enhancing children's vocabulary if the digital books use a dictionary that defines infrequently used words and expressions. However, digital dictionary features hinder children's ability to understand the story they are reading, indicating that focusing attention on word meanings distracts children's attention from the story content.

"This is further evidence that digital book designers need to exercise caution with seemingly small and popular additions that may be helpful for isolated outcomes such as vocabulary learning but hinder the reading session overall," Kucirkova said.

###

This study was supported by a grant from the Research Council of Norway.

Study citation: Furenes, M. I., Kucirkova, N., & Bus, A. G. (2021). A comparison of children's reading on paper versus screen: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research. Prepublished March 9, 2021.

https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 3102/ 0034654321998074

About AERA

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Find AERA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
privatisation: Employee consortium, out of race

The (AI) employees consortium and Kolkata-based businessman have not qualified for the second round of the sale process for the national carrier. This leaves Tata Sons as the only entity that has confirmed its participation in the bidding process. While media reports said SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh is also in the reckoning, Business Standard couldnt verify this claim. Read more

India ready to appeal Cairn's $1.2 billion arbitration award this week

A day after British oil firm pressed for honouring the over $1.4-billion international award on a tax dispute, finance ministry officials said New Delhi was preparing to appeal at The Hague this week. The Union government has finalised the grounds for appeal against the award and is in the final leg of discussions with the Dutch counsels, according to officials. Based on the appeal, India will apply for a stay on the enforcement of the award at a lower Dutch court. Read more

eyes air cargo market, in talks with Airbus for freighters

IndiGo, the countrys largest airline, is in talks with Airbus to finalise a deal to acquire up to five A321 converted freighters amid a burgeoning air cargo market. People aware of the development said that while the airline would test the market with five freighters, it might acquire more in the future depending on their performance. Read more

India's retail sector to add 25 million new jobs by FY30, says report

With the domestic retail sector largely being successful in navigating the Covid crisis by accelerating digital adoption, it can add more than 25 million new jobs by FY30, of which the hybrid model of online and offline model will account for 50 per cent of these new roles, says a report. According to the Nasscom and Technopak survey, in FY20 alone the retail segment accounted for 8 per cent to the total workforce with more than 35 million employees. Read more

Ahead of Assembly polls, oil hold back price hike in March

Government-controlled oil-marketing (OMCs) have held back petrol and diesel price revisions for a week and are expected to continue doing so, ostensibly owing to political reasons. It appears that the Centre has informally conveyed to the three major OMCs to not revise for the time being, two people in the government said. This informal directive follows the talks between the Centre and states on cutting taxes and bringing the auto fuels under the good service tax regime not fetching the desired results, so far. Read more

suitors face additional capital rider; RBI board meet on March 19

Suitors for Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC Bank) may have to infuse additional capital of nearly Rs 750 crore so that the payout per depositor is more than the Rs 5 lakh sum assured by the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC). Read more

Defence Budget: Military gets 28% less budget than it projected

Given the ongoing 10 month-long confrontation with intruders from Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in Ladakh, the military was hopeful in the run-up to the Budget that the government would meet its budgetary projections for the coming financial year (2021-22). It came as a jolt on Budget day, therefore, when the three services were allocated only Rs 3.24 trillion  28 per cent less than their budgetary projections of Rs 4.49 trillion. Read more

Flurry of IPOs: sounds alert on threat of technical glitches

The harrowing experience of the recent technical glitch suffered by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) still fresh in mind, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sounded an alarm about the bunching up of initial public offerings (IPOs) this month. The market regulator has asked intermediaries to ensure there are no system glitches while processing IPO applications, and to stagger the offerings as much as possible, said people in the know. Read more
General Assignment Reporter

Chris Mays is a general assignment reporter for the Brattleboro Reformer. He has been with New England Newspapers Inc. since 2012.
More 'reports' it seems is the only result from the endless hours of talking.

Any time you chat to beef farmers around the country, youll hear a myriad of problems facing the sector.

But chatting to a number of them this week, it appears confidence is at an all-time low. For all the success of the dairy sector in recent years, beef farming remains the dominant enterprise in this country.

Many of the farmers I spoke to believe that of late, this fact has been neglected by policymakers, state bodies and indeed farm organisations.

For many, there is a strong sense of a lack of representation for their sector at the top table.

The Beef Taskforce was meant to address this problem and give farmers a voice. It meets again today, but for what at this point, Im not sure.

Set up originally on the back of farmer protests in the summer of 2019, it has failed to deliver anything tangible for beef farmers.

Read More

Some cite the bonuses for out-of-spec cattle conceded to by the factories, but they were agreed to before the Taskforce met.

More reports it seems is the only result from the endless hours of talking.

Farmers are starting to get weary of it.

A classic Irish solution to an Irish problem: lets call all the stakeholders together and produce a report.

And its not just in the beef sector this happens. Last week there was not one but two reports on the floundering forestry sector, all coming after a 2019 report failed to deliver on its agenda to make the sector fit for purpose.

Perhaps the onus needs to move away from the actual reports for a while to the implementation process, or lack thereof.

What will happen to last weeks report by the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture?

It will probably be read by a few before its put on a shelf to gather dust, which is a pity as it has a number of good recommendations.

But it seems unlikely theyll be taken on board by anyone?





Crux

And that, unfortunately, is the crux of the matter: reports are published as a way of saying here, we did something to address the situation. But without actions, theyre worthless.

Much like the Taskforce, the Oireachtas Committee is in danger of being perceived by farmers as nothing more than a talking shop.

For too long, Ministers, Department officials and industry figures turn up to these hearings, take a grilling for a few hours and then go home, and nothing changes.

This wont wash for much longer  its time for action.
A Russian model has been arrested on suspicion of causing serious head injuries to her grandmother, 81, a respected medical professor.

Irina Vasilyeva, 25, has been detained and faces up to eight years in jail if convicted.

Dr Alevtina Bogdanova, an eminent respiratory specialist in St Petersburg, is in hospital fighting for her life after the alleged attack.

Russian model Irina Vasilyeva has been arrested on suspicion of causing serious head injuries to her grandmother, 81, a respected medical professor

Dr Alevtina Bogdanova, an eminent respiratory specialist in St Petersburg, is in hospital fighting for her life after the alleged attack

Reports say the 'intoxicated' model had asked her grandmother for money - and the professor had refused.

The model then struck the academic who fell, sustaining an eye injury, an internal head wound, and a fracture at the base of her skull, it is alleged.

'It has been established that the citizen (Irina Vasilyeva) , being intoxicated, during the conflict, inflicted several blows to the head of her grandmother with her hands,' said a police spokesperson.

Vasilyeva confessed to striking Dr Bogdanova, said police.

A grevious bodily harm criminal case was opened .

Reports say the 'intoxicated' model (pictured) had asked her grandmother for money - and the professor had refused

The model then struck the academic who fell, sustaining an eye injury, an internal head wound, and a fracture at the base of her skull, it is alleged

Irina Vasilyeva, 25, has been detained and faces up to eight years in jail if convicted over the alleged attack on her grandmother (pictured)

Sources say the model had been out of work during the pandemic, and was short of money, said the local media.

She had sought cash from her grandmother to buy alcohol on the public holiday marking International Women's Day, it was alleged

Police sources cited by Fontanka said that Vasilyeva had problems with alcohol.

Dr Bogdanova is the author of more than 150 scientific publications and has been a professor since 1993.

Sources say the model had been out of work during the pandemic, and was short of money

A video showed the handcuffed woman being escorted to a court hearing.

The press office of Kalininsky district court reported: 'Vasilyeva and her lawyer objected (to detention), pointing out that the accused did not intend to hide, has a registered address, is a citizen of the Russian Federation, admitted her guilt, (and) works.'

She pleaded for house arrest rather than to be remanded in custody.

'But the court denied this.'
Chinas carbon emissions market is set to expand 30 times over the next ten years, reaching $25 billion by 2030, Bloomberg reports, citing an analysis by Citi.

The Chinese national ETS [emissions trading system] as currently rolled out should play a limited role in reducing emissions at first, Citi analyst Tracy Liao said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

We expect a series of developments to transform Chinas ETS into the worlds largest effective carbon trading scheme and a key building block of the countrys 2030 peak emissions commitment.

China launched its carbon trading market last month. Initially, it will only cover its power industry, but it will still be a sizeable market: the country has about two thousand power generation facilities, which account for almost a third of its total emissions. Later on, the system will be expanded to include other heavily polluting industries such as steel production, petrochemicals, and cement production.

Beijing is also being careful with the new market that, like the European ETS, aims to encourage polluters to reduce their carbon footprint. The plan envisages certain carbon allowances, but these have yet to be auctioned off on the newly created market. The authorities have said it will happen at a future appropriate time.

According to Citis analysts, this year Beijing will allocate emission allowances totaling 200 million tons. As regards the price of carbon, the bank has forecast it will initially be set at $4 per ton, to be raised to $25 per ton by 2030. Meanwhile, the allowances will be raised to 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide by that year.

These carbon-trading policies could undermine Chinas competitive edge as the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.

If policies are stringent enough, this could precipitate the shifting of supply chains of emission-intensive industries from China to other countries that do not face the same regulatory costs, Liao said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
MP welcomes major progress by UK Government over step-free disability access at Ruabon railway station

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Mar 9th, 2021

Clwyd South MP Simon Baynes has welcomed major progress by the UK Government on the future development of step-free disability access at Ruabon Railway Station.

Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps MP, has now said that Ruabon Station will be progressing to the next stage of the Access for All programme. This next stage of design will allow the Department for Transport to establish any risks and the anticipated final costs associated with the project.

Campaigners have long been calling for installation of lifts to help people with mobility issues move between platforms, but the station has missed out twice on funding for the improvements  despite funding once even being announced.

Current access to the north bound Chester platform at the station is only possible by a footbridge with long flights of stairs on both platforms, with all passengers having to negotiate over 50 steps on this footbridge. From 2002 to 2017, footfall increased by 220% among those entering and exiting the station and the addition of a new development 360 houses and a hotel in Ruabon is also expected to bring additional footfall and demand for the station. Ruabon Station is also the rail and bus gateway access for Llangollen and the World Heritage site at Pontcysyllte.





The UK Government is responsible for the infrastructure of the railways in Wales, and Simon Baynes MP has been making the case for step-free access to the UK Government during Questions in the Chamber of the House of Commons and in meetings with Ministers in the Department for Transport, the Treasury and the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales.

The MP also highlighted a range of stakeholders involved in Ruabon Station including Wrexham Council, Network Rail, the Welsh government, Ruabon Community Council, Friends of Ruabon and the Chester Shrewsbury Rail Partnership.

Transport Secretary, Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP, said: Simon Baynes has been championing the cause of constituents who need step-free access at Ruabon station, and Im delighted we can now progress work to the next stage. This shows the value of having strong Conservative voices in North Wales.

Our railway should be easily available to all, not just the able-bodied, and we must press ahead with projects to make stations accessible.

Commenting, Simon Baynes MP said: It is very good news for residents in Ruabon and the wider community in Clwyd South and Wrexham that the UK Government has said today that Ruabon Station will be progressing to the next stage of the Access for All programme.

This is something Ive been campaigning for both locally in Clwyd South and in Parliament since day one of becoming an MP, and before that as a candidate, and it shows the commitment of the UK government to Clwyd South and North Wales.

Many representatives, organisations and residents in Ruabon have been campaigning for step-free access at Ruabon Station for several years and I am very pleased to see this important progress to the next stage of design.

This would not have been possible without the help and support of County Cllr David Bithell (Environment and Transport Lead at Wrexham Council), Darren Williams (Chief Environment and Technical Officer at Wrexham Council), County Cllr Joan Lowe (the local County Councillor for Penycae and Ruabon South), Sheila Dee (Community Rail Officer of the Chester Shrewsbury Rail Partnership), the team at Network Rail, the Welsh government, Ruabon Community Council and the Friends of Ruabon who have all worked so hard to get to this crucial stage.

This project is needed to make sure all passengers can access the jobs and leisure opportunities that will make our community an even greater place to live and work.
JMC Projects (India) has signed an agreement with Fahi Dhiriulhun Corporation (FDC), a state-owned company of the Government of the Republic of the Maldives, for the design, finance and construction of 2,000 social housing units in Hulhumale Island of Maldives.

The total value for this project is estimated to be around USD 137 Million (~Rs.1,000 crore) and is planned to be financed via a loan from multilateral funding agency.

The financial closure of the project is expected to conclude soon and construction on the project will commence after the financial closure .

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
IT&E and Turbidite's Guam subsidiary have announced a joint venture to develop a data center on Guam.

Turbidite is backed by New World Development, a leading Hong Kong and China property conglomerate, according to the joint venture's announcement on Businesswire.

This marks the first in a series of key initiatives by Turbidite as the company continues to progressively roll out edge data centers in strategic locations across the Asia Pacific region, the joint venture announced.

Over the past year, there has been an increase in connectivity requirements through Guam, which is the lowest latency point of U.S. soil to the growing economies of Asia Pacific, Bill Barney, chief executive officer of Turbidite, stated through the Businesswire announcement. Increasingly, tech companies are looking for highly connected and secure carrier-neutral data centers to store their edge nodes. Turbidite Guam will build a central IX for inbound cables destined for Asia.

Jon Hjembo, director of Data Center Research, Telegeography, stated, across (the) Asia Pacific, booming demand for lower latency access to content now coincides with increasing geopolitical concerns about overreliance on traditional hubs. As international operators look toward the network frontier, the race is on to build distributed and intermeshed interconnection nodes across the region.

We forecast the demand on the Trans-Pacific route will increase eightfold between 2021 and 2027. To meet these requirements, numerous new cable systems are being planned, Hjembo added.

Jim Beighley, CEO of Prospector Pacific, parent of IT&E, stated, We look forward to teaming up with Turbidite to build this long-awaited new facility in Guam. Upon completion, Turbidite Guam will be a main anchor point to release the bottleneck we are currently experiencing in this market, enabling us to provide added value to our existing and prospective customers.

Design and planning are underway to convert an IT&E building into a 3 MW Tier III+ data center with future expansion to 10 MW capacity.

The new facility will feature open Meet-Me rooms with fiber-on-demand to all current and future cable landing stations in Guam, the joint venture stated on Businesswire.

Turbidite Guam will provide comprehensive value-added services to support multinational corporations, large internet companies and other hyperscalers who wish to establish or enhance footprints in the Asia Pacific region, the joint venture stated. The new facility is expected to be operational in 2022.
PHILADELPHIA, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The India Fund, Inc. (NYSE: IFN) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund, today announced that it will pay on March 31, 2021, a distribution of US$0.58 per share to all shareholders of record as of March 24, 2021 (ex-dividend date March 23, 2021).

The Fund's distribution policy (the "Distribution Policy") is to pay quarterly distributions at an annual rate, set once a year, that is a percentage of the average daily NAV for the previous three months as of the month-end prior to declaration. In February 2021, the Board determined the rolling distribution rate to continue to be 10% for the 12-month period commencing with the distribution payable in March 2021. The Distribution Policy is subject to regular review by the Board. The Distribution Policy seeks to provide investors with a stable quarterly distribution out of current income, supplemented by realized capital gains and, to the extent necessary, paid-in capital.

Under U.S. tax rules applicable to the Fund, the amount and character of distributable income for each fiscal year can be finally determined only as of the end of the Fund's fiscal year. However, under Section 19 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the "1940 Act") and related Rules, the Fund may be required to indicate to shareholders the source of certain distributions to shareholders.

The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the sources of the distribution for purposes of Section 19 of the 1940 Act and the Rules adopted thereunder. The table has been computed based on generally accepted accounting principles. The table includes estimated amounts and percentages for the distribution to be paid on March 31, 2021 as well as the estimated cumulative distributions declared fiscal year to date (01/01/2021 - 02/28/2021), from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short-term capital gains; net realized long-term capital gains; and return of capital. The estimated composition of the distributions may vary from quarter to quarter because the estimated composition may be impacted by future income, expenses and realized gains and losses on securities and currencies.



Estimated Amounts of Current Quarterly Distribution per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Current Quarterly Distribution per share (%) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share (%) Net Investment Income - - - - Net Realized Short-Term Capital Gains* $0.0406 7% $0.0406 7% Net Realized Long-Term Capital Gains $0.1334 23% $0.1334 23% Return of Capital $0.4060 70% $0.4060 70% Total (per common share) $0.5800 100% $0.5800 100%



*includes currency gains

The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income."

Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of the Fund's current distributions or from the terms of the Distribution Policy.

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The final determination of the source of all distributions in 2021 will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The following table provides the Fund's total return performance based on net asset value (NAV) over various time periods compared to the Fund's annualized and cumulative distribution rates.

Average Annual Total Return on NAV for the 5 Year Period Ending 02/28/20211 13.12% Current Fiscal Period's Annualized Distribution Rate on NAV2 N/A* Fiscal Year to Date (01/01/2021 to 02/28/2021) Cumulative Total Return on NAV1 0.04% Cumulative Distribution Rate on NAV2 N/A*



1 Return data is net of all fund expenses and fees and assumes the reinvestment of all distributions reinvested at prices obtained under the Fund's dividend reinvestment plan. 2 Based on the Fund's NAV as of February 28, 2021. *The Fund's fiscal period to date is 1/1/2021 to 2/28/2021 and there were no distributions in this period.

While NAV performance may be indicative of the Fund's investment performance, it does not measure the value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund. The value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund is determined by the Fund's market price, which is based on the supply and demand for the Fund's shares in the open market.

Pursuant to an exemptive order granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 30, 2010, the Fund may distribute any long-term capital gains more frequently than the limits provided in Section 19(b) under the 1940 Act and Rule 19b-1 thereunder. Therefore, distributions paid by the Fund during the year may include net income, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains and/or a return of capital. Net income dividends and short-term capital gain dividends, while generally taxable at ordinary income rates, may be eligible, to the extent of qualified dividend income earned by the Fund, to be taxed at a lower rate not to exceed the maximum rate applicable to your long-term capital gains. Distributions made in any calendar year in excess of investment company taxable income and net capital gain are treated as taxable ordinary dividends to the extent of undistributed earnings and profits, and then as a return of capital that reduces the adjusted basis in the shares held. To the extent return of capital distributions exceed the adjusted basis in the shares held, capital gain is recognized with a holding period based on the period the shares have been held at the date such amount is received. Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the terms of the distribution policy. The final determination of the source of all distributions will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The payment of distributions in accordance with the Distribution Policy may result in a decrease in the Fund's net assets. A decrease in the Fund's net assets may cause an increase in the Fund's annual operating expense ratio and a decrease in the Fund's market price per share to the extent the market price correlates closely to the Fund's net asset value per share. The Distribution Policy may also negatively affect the Fund's investment activities to the extent that the Fund is required to hold larger cash positions than it typically would hold or to the extent that the Fund must liquidate securities that it would not have sold, for the purpose of paying the distribution. The Fund's Board of Directors has the right to amend, suspend or terminate the Distribution Policy at any time. The amendment, suspension or termination of the Distribution Policy may affect the Fund's market price per share. Investors should consult their tax advisor regarding federal, state and local tax considerations that may be applicable in their particular circumstances.

Circular 230 disclosure : To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the U.S. Treasury, we inform you that any U.S. tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.

In the United States, Aberdeen Standard Investments is the marketing name for the following affiliated, registered investment advisers: Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc., Aberdeen Asset Managers Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Ltd., Aberdeen Capital Management, LLC, Aberdeen Standard Investments ETFs Advisors LLC and Aberdeen Standard Alternative Funds Limited.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeenifn.com

###

SOURCE The India Fund, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.aberdeenifn.com/


Monday, March 8, 2021

Outmigration from Venezuela has been on the rise as conditions have deteriorated there. Consequently, the following announcement today from the Department of Homeland Security was not a surprise.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas is designating Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months, until September 2022. This new designation of TPS for Venezuela enables Venezuelan nationals (and individuals without nationality who last resided in Venezuela) currently residing in the United States to file initial applications for TPS, so long as they meet eligibility requirements.

This designation is due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Venezuela that prevent nationals from returning safely, including a complex humanitarian crisis marked by widespread hunger and malnutrition, a growing influence and presence of non-state armed groups, repression, and a crumbling infrastructure. TPS can be extended to a country with conditions that fall into one, or more, of the three statutory bases for designation: ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or extraordinary and temporary conditions.

The living conditions in Venezuela reveal a country in turmoil, unable to protect its own citizens, said Secretary Mayorkas. It is in times of extraordinary and temporary circumstances like these that the United States steps forward to support eligible Venezuelan nationals already present here, while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises.

Only individuals who can demonstrate continuous residence in the United States as of March 8, 2021 are eligible for TPS under Venezuelas designation. For their own health and safety, individuals should not believe smugglers or others claiming the border is now open. Due to the pandemic, travel and admission restrictions at the border remain in place.

Individuals desiring TPS must file an application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services within the 180-day registration period. They may also apply for Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) and for travel authorization. All individuals applying for TPS undergo security and background checks as part of determining eligibility. More details about the eligibility criteria to submit an initial TPS application and apply for an EAD can be found in the Federal Register Notice (FRN).

The FRN also provides information about Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Venezuelan nationals and how individuals may apply for DED-related EADs, based on the January 19, 2021, presidential memorandum establishing DED for Venezuelan nationals for 18 months, through July 20, 2022. Individuals who apply for and receive TPS and who are also covered by DED do not need to apply for Employment Authorization Documentations under both programs. USCIS encourages individuals who believe they are eligible for TPS to apply during the initial registration period announced in the FRN, even if they are also covered by DED, in case they cannot qualify for TPS late initial filing after DED has expired.

KJ

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/03/secretary-mayorkas-designates-venezuela-for-temporary-protected-status-for-18-months.html
Zelensky says Ukraine is at the forefront of the fight against propaganda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Center for Countering Disinformation will be launched in the near future.

"Further tasks of the government and public are to understand the threats to information security and find ways to counter them today. Today Ukraine is at the forefront, in particular, at the forefront of the fight against propaganda," Zelensky said, addressing an all-Ukrainian forum "Ukraine 30. Culture, media, tourism" in Kyiv Tuesday, March 9, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

Read alsoFacebook blocks Russian articles spreading false claim of "Ukrainian nationalists' arrest"Zelensky recalled his initiative before the UN to create a Center for Countering Disinformation in Ukraine.

"It will be launched in the near future and should become an international hub for countering disinformation and tackling propaganda throughout the world," the president said.

However, according to Zelensky, not a single Center would be able to alone cope with the "multibillion-dollar budget, in particular, that of the Kremlin."

Background

On September 23, 2020, during a speech at the general debate of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to initiate the creation in Kyiv of the headquarters of an international office to counter disinformation and propaganda.

Reporting by UNIAN
The head of the "Cultural Relic Hospital" at the Palace Museum told China.org.cn that their experts are currently evaluating more than 800 artifacts from the museum's collection, which are due to be displayed at the opening exhibition of the Hong Kong Palace Museum next year.

Song Jirong is a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and head of the Cultural Relic Hospital at the Palace Museum in Beijing. She explained that experts have spent the past few years assessing exhibits that could be delivered to Hong Kong.

"The relic doctors' use high-tech equipment such as CT scanners and infrared spectroscopy to conduct thorough examinations," Song said. "If there are any minor issues, we will try to adopt conservation treatments. Relics in poor health, however, may not be sent to Hong Kong immediately. As such, the final list of items to be sent hasn't yet been determined."

However, she was confident that they could find a solution due to the large range of precious artifacts in the Palace Museum: "If one item isn't in good enough health, we can choose a similar one from the collection that is."

Song promised that Hong Kong compatriots will be able to enjoy the most exquisite cultural relics from Beijing, which can also help tell historical stories. In this way, the exhibition hall can serve as a history and arts classroom for young people.

"We also plan to use some modern digital technology in the interactive exhibition to let Hong Kong residents get up-close to the artifacts," she added.

The political advisor explained that cultural relics are divided into two kinds: organic, including paintings, calligraphy and textiles, and inorganic, such as porcelain, jade and bronze.

"Organic cultural relics are very fragile and are easily affected by temperature, humidity and light. Therefore, the precious organic relics cannot be exhibited in Hong Kong for more than three months, after which they must be returned to the warehouse to 'sleep.' We've set up a special environment for the storage of various cultural relics in a targeted manner. That is the best kind of maintenance," she explained.

At the end of 2019, the Palace Museum worked with the Hong Kong Science Museum to hold an exhibition titled "Unlocking the Secrets: The Science of Conservation at The Palace Museum," displaying more than 100 priceless artifacts. Some of these items may also be exhibited in the Hong Kong Palace Museum once it opens in 2022.

The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Palace Museum signed a cooperation deal in June 2017 to build the Hong Kong Palace Museum, with construction beginning in April 2019. The main structure of the building in the West Kowloon Cultural District was completed in November 2020. Slated for final completion in mid-2022, the museum will feature a total of 7,800 square meters of exhibition space.

The Hong Kong Palace Museum will have a professional conservation team to ensure that the artifacts are kept in good condition. In addition, the Palace Museum will also regularly dispatch experts to carry out inspections and examinations, Song revealed.

According to Song, the Palace Museum has the world's largest cultural relic hospital, which was established in 2016 with 23 analysis and testing rooms, 16 restoration studios, and more than 170 "cultural relic doctors." Meanwhile, traditional techniques for mounting, restoring and copying ancient paintings and calligraphy, restoring and copying bronze ware, and restoring ancient clocks have been listed as national intangible cultural heritages.

"Every year, we get a lot of young people coming from Hong Kong and Macao to intern at the Palace Museum, some of whom work in the Cultural Relic Hospital," Song said. "There, they have the opportunity to assist the conservators in their work and learn how to use some of the equipment."
ROME, MAR 9 - The Russian Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine is to be made in Italy, the first European Union country to do so, the Italo-Russian Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday. "An agreement has been signed by the Russian government fund and the ADIENNE Pharma&Biotech company for the production of the Sputnik V vaccine in Italy," it said. It said the managing director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, had confirmed an accord had been reached with ADIENNE Pharma&Biotech "sealing the first European contract for the local production of the vaccine". Sputnik production in Italy will start in July, it said. The chamber of commerce said Sputnik's "innovative production process" would help create new jobs and enable Italy to control the whole process of production. This will enable the production of some 10 million doses in Italy by the end of the year, it said. The accord had been reached by talks between Italian and Russian firms helped by the Italian embassy in Russia, the chamber said. Chamber Chairman Vincenzo Trani said "Italian firms are strategic, they have unique capacity and competencies on the European scene and are able to face the market with flexibility and speed". He said the accord was "historic". Trani said it showed "the healthy state of relations between our two countries and underscores how Italian companies know how to see beyond political polemics". Sputnik V is a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. A recent published in The Lancet indicated 91.6% efficacy without unusual side effects. Emergency mass-distribution of the vaccine began in December 2020 in multiple countries including Russia, Argentina, Belarus, Hungary, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates. As of March 2021, forty-five countries have granted Sputnik V emergency use authorization, while over a billion doses of the vaccine were ordered for immediate distribution globally. (ANSA).
Ahead of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) head of states meet, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier today. The conversation lasted for forty minutes.

The two leaders shared the recognition that cooperation towards realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific is becoming increasingly important and to this end, shared the view to steadily advance both Japan-India bilateral cooperation and Japan-Australia-India-US quadrilateral cooperation, according to a press release of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of

"The two leaders also exchanged views on the regional situation. In this context, Prime Minister Suga expressed serious concerns regarding unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Sea, China's Coast Guard Law and the situation in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)," the release said.

It said Prime Minister Suga also asked for understanding and cooperation toward the early resolution of the abductions issue by North Korea.

"Furthermore, the two leaders confirmed that they have grave concerns over the situation in Myanmar and they would closely work together in this vein," the release said.

The two leaders exchanged views on Japan-India relations and concurred that they would continue their effort to materialize the "Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership" through cooperation in areas such as security and defence, economic relationship including digital fields and people-to-people exchanges.

The two leaders also welcomed the progress on the high-speed rail project and the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation on specified skilled workers.

members plan to host their first summit later this month.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Private equity group TPG is in exclusive talks to buy McLaren's hi-tech headquarters in Surrey.

The sale could value the 124-acre site at around 180million, according to reports.

The Formula One-team owner and supercar maker has been desperate to seal a 'sale-and-leaseback' deal for months after the pandemic pummelled its finances.

Formula One-team owner and supercar maker McLaren has been desperate to seal a 'sale-and-leaseback' deal on its Surrey HQ (pictured) for months after Covid pummelled its finances

The arrangement will allow McLaren to carry on using the site while raising valuable cash to help tide it over.

McLaren, which is owned by a group led by Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat Holding Company, has secured hundreds of millions of pounds from existing backers over the last year, secured a loan from the Bahraini government, cut jobs, and is selling a minority stake in its racing division.

The main building at McLaren Technology Centre was designed by renowned architect Norman Foster and was short-listed for the Stirling Prize.

In 2011 the company added a second building, the McLaren Production Centre.

McLaren has counted many of F1's biggest names on its team over the years, including Lewis Hamilton and Ayrton Senna  and its latest star is 21-year-old Lando Norris.
A San Antonio physician has agreed to pay a $350,000 civil settlement in response to allegations that he violated the Controlled Substances Act and False Claims Act, the Department of Justice said in a news release.

According to the news release, Dr. Hugo A Rojas  a primary care physician and owner of two local practices  is accused of pre-signing prescriptions to 13 patients for controlled substances while he was traveling out of the state. He is also accused of issuing prescriptions to six patients prior to examining them and giving out another 18 prescriptions to patients who were not seen by a doctor, the news release said.

The second round of the government's 40 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund has opened for applications.

Grants of up to 2 million each are now available to help the UK create and retain jobs while restoring nature and tackling climate change.

Projects must contribute to nature conservation and restoration, and nature-based solutions with a particular focus on climate change mitigation.

Almost 40 million was awarded to 68 projects during the fund's first round in November 2020.

The projects will also support conservation work and help to improve education about the environment.

Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said: "In the first round, we awarded grants across a broad variety of environmental projects, ranging from planting trees and restoring peatlands.

"I encourage more organisations to apply so we can continue to make a real difference."

For grants of over 250,000, applicants must submit an expression of interest by 22 March and if successful will be invited to submit a full application.

The deadline for applications under 250,000 is 14 April.

The fund will be delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England, the Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Gandhinagar, March 10 : The Gujarat government has said that an ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakh was being provided to the families of four out of the ten doctors, who had succumbed to the coronavirus last year.

However, according to the Indian Medical Association (IMA), around 59 doctors in Gujarat lost their lives due to the coronavirus while on duty between January last year till first week of February.

Replying to a question put up by the Congress legislator, Vajesing Panada from Dahod, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel who also holds the health portfolio, informed the House that the global pandemic had claimed lives of 10 doctors while in the line of duty.

Patel informed that according to the provisions an aid of Rs 50 lakh each was provided to four doctors while for the remaining six doctors, the proposals for the compensation has been pending with the Centre whereas two doctors had not served in the line of duty as per the PradhanMantri Garib Kalyan scheme and so their proposals had not provided insurance to them.

However, disagreeing with this IMA, Gujarat chapter deferred. "Around 59 doctors have succumbed to the Covid. Of course, not all of them were serving with the public healthcare set ups, but as far as the deaths are concerned we have lost 59 valuable lives," said Devendra Patel, President of the IMA Gujarat chapter.

"Time and again, we have put the proposals regarding this to the state as well as the central government but always we have had the same reply that your proposals are forwarded to the concerned departments," said Chandresh Jardosh, former president of IMA Gujarat.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has committed $100,000 to fund the newly established Lincoln Institute 75 Fellowship for Ethics and Equity in Public Administration. The fellowship will support select new students earning a Master in Public Administration (MPA) at Claremont Lincoln University (CLU), a non-profit online graduate university that focuses on a socially conscious education. A key goal of the fellowship program is to empower a diverse group of aspiring leaders with the critical skills and knowledge needed to enact ethical, equitable, and inclusive policies and practices.

"We created this fellowship in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to help realize our commitment to advanced practice in public policy," said George W. "Mac" McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. "We are inspired by the passion of our future leaders, and believe an MPA degree from Claremont Lincoln University will empower them to effectively address challenges such as social inequity, fiscal stress, and climate change in their communities."

The fellowship is designed specifically for underrepresented working professionals. Ideal candidates are in entry- and mid-level roles in the public and non-profit sectors, or in mission-oriented roles in the private sector, and looking to earn a graduate degree while working full time. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and CLU strongly encourage candidates from groups that are underrepresented with respect to race, ethnicity, gender identity, disabled status, and veteran status to apply.

"We look forward to welcoming the first cohort of Lincoln Institute 75 Fellows for Ethics and Equity," said Lynn Priddy, strategic advisor and board member for CLU. "We are fully aligned with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's mission and have designed our MPA program alongside the Institute to give students the tools they need to achieve equitable, cross-sector solutions to complex social, economic, and environmental problems."

MPA students at CLU will have access to innovative resources, a faculty made up of leading scholars and practitioners, and a cohort of peers looking to address pressing issues in an engaging online learning community. Students will also have opportunities to build their networks and learn from land policy experts and practitioners who are devising creative solutions to challenges such as the housing crisis, inequality of opportunity, municipal fiscal stress, and climate change. The MPA degree culminates in an immersive capstone experience guided by mentors dedicated to each student.

The deadline to apply for the fellowship is April 2, 2021. An independent review panel will evaluate eligible applications and select the finalists. The first Lincoln Institute 75 Fellows for Ethics and Equity will begin the CLU MPA program on April 26, 2021. Students can complete the degree program in as little as 13 months. The application can be accessed at www.claremontlincoln.edu/lincolninstitute75 .

About Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy seeks to improve quality of life through the effective use, taxation, and stewardship of land. A nonprofit private operating foundation whose origins date to 1946, the Lincoln Institute researches and recommends creative approaches to land as a solution to economic, social, and environmental challenges. Through education, training, publications, and events, we integrate theory and practice to inform public policy decisions worldwide.

About Claremont Lincoln University

Claremont Lincoln University (CLU) is a non-profit institution offering affordable online master's degrees rooted in a socially conscious education. CLU's mission is to equip students with 21st Century leadership skills for engaging in solutions that improve the world for the benefit of all. CLU is regionally accredited by the highly regarded WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), which ensures institutions meet strict standards and fulfill their missions in service to their students and the public good. Master's degree programs at CLU focus on civic engagement , ethics , healthcare administration , higher education , human resources , organizational leadership, management , professional studies, public administration , social impact, and sustainability leadership.

SOURCE Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Related Links

http://www.lincolninst.edu


New Delhi: Trivendra Singh Rawat, the eighth Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, resigned from the top post on Tuesday (March 9). He remained in office for about four years starting from March 2017.

Rawat, who was a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member from 1979 to 2002, had played a key role in the formation of the state of Uttarakhand.

Born on December 20, 1960, in the village of Khairasain in Pauri Garhwal district, Rawat was the youngest child in the family. His father Pratap Singh Rawat served in Garhwal Rifles. He studied in a school built of mud and thatch in his native village.



He holds a master's degree in journalism from Birla Campus in Srinagar affiliated with the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University.

Rawat had a keen interest in social work from a very young age. Six years after joining RSS, he became the pracharak of the right-wing organisation for the Dehradun region. He, subsequently, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He was actively involved in the Uttarakhand movement, demanding a separate state to be carved out of Uttar Pradesh. He even went to jail on several occasions for the cause.

In 2000, the longstanding demand of the natives for statehood was finally realised. Following this, he was elevated to the post of president of BJP's state unit.

In 2002, he was elected from Doiwala constituency in the assembly elections. He retained his seat in the 2007 elections. He was then made the minister of agriculture in the state government.

Rawat had a setback in 2014 when he lost the bypoll from Doiwala seat, which was vacated by former chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal.

Rawat, who was made party in-charge of Jharkhand in 2014, played a crucial role in helping BJP win the assembly elections in the state.

However, when the state went to polls three years later, he won the constituency for the third time. This time he was made the chief minister of the state.

Live TV
The State Fire Marshals Office on Tuesday announced several arrests made in multiple cases over the past few days, including cases in Opelousas and Lafayette.

Navin Sam, 24, of Lafayette, was arrested Sunday on one count of simple arson for setting an ex-girlfriends vehicle on fire in front of her home located in the 500 block of Nicholas Street in Breaux Bridge. An additional suspect, a juvenile, was also arrested in this case.

Jonathan Senegal, 43, of Opelousas, was arrested Friday on one count of simple arson for setting fire to the home he was renting located in the 400 block of Homer Richard Road in Opelousas. The fire occurred on the afternoon of March 3.

Jimmy Tim Terrell White, 49, of Many, was arrested Saturday on one count of simple arson for setting fire to an ex-girlfriends home in June 2020. The home was located in the 2700 block of Highway 474 in Florien and no one was injured in the fire.

Wesley Lankford, 61, of Bogalusa, was arrested Sunday on one count of negligent arson for setting fire to a shed which spread to a nearby home with seven people inside, including a 1-week-old baby. The home was located in the 1800 block of Avenue G in Bogalusa. All occupants were able to escape safely.
In a day of dramatic developments, Chief Minister (CM) resigned and the (BJP) announced it had convened a meeting of the legislature party on Wednesday morning to elect a new CM. While Rawat would like his man, Dhan Singh Rawat, to succeed him, there are a host of candidates for the job, including former CM and Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, party leader Anil Baluni, state Cabinet minister Satpal Maharaj, BJP General Secretary Suresh Bhatt, and Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar Member of Parliament (MP) Ajay Bhatt, as senior leaders say all options are open.

Rawats exit is both humiliating for him and unusual: humiliating because till earlier in the week, he was at the states new capital, Gairsain, where he had convened a meeting of the Assembly; and he was in the middle of putting final touches to plans to celebrate four years of the BJPs rule in the state due on March 18. On Tuesday morning, he had to requisition the government chopper to fly down from Gairsain, hurriedly adjourn the Assembly session, and hand in his resignation to Governor B R Maurya, following directions from the party high command. Moreover, just days ago, the party leadership appeared to have issued a vote of confidence in his leadership: state unit in-charge Dushyant Gautam had refuted the reports of leadership change and had said there is no reason to replace Rawat.

The BJP has a problem of plenty in It won a landslide victory in the 2017 Assembly election, the first such victory for any party since 2000 when the state was formed. Because of its massive tally (57 out of the 70-member Assembly), the party had no need for help from the Independents or smaller parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal associated with the creation of the state and a group which had always acted as a pressure group. Despite that, Rawat faced the axe. It suggests the problem of dissidence has not gone away despite brute majority of the party. In the 2017 election, the BJP got a vote share of 46.5 per cent, beating the Opposition Congress hollow and stopping it short at just 11 per cent. All those who had crossed over from the Congress to the BJP ahead of the Assembly election, retained their seats.

But over the years, Rawats stewardship of the government has had its share of critics. Among them was disgruntled former CM and MP General B C Khanduri, and the independent-minded B S Koshyari, who even as Governor of Maharashtra, took a deep and keen interest in the of Uttarakhand. Khanduri has been vocal in criticising some decisions of the state government, including the decision to permit a private distillery in Devprayag. Rawat, on the other hand, strongly supported it, saying the company which is setting up the plant would produce only export-quality liquor and that the unit is 40 km away from the confluence of the rivers.

The unit will provide employment, he said publicly. Equally publicly, Khanduri said the move to site a distillery in Devprayag was suicidal for Uttarakhand and that the state was not suited for a distillery. BJP leader and MP Ajay Bhatt said the decision to produce liquor at Devprayag was very wrong.

Rawat may have had some inkling of things in store, for days ago, he distributed 17 key positions in different boards, councils and corporations, and let it be known an expansion of the Cabinet could not be ruled out. But because of the huge number of Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), dissidents came to Delhi to complain that even MLAs who had won eight terms in the Assembly had not been made ministers.

Most state observers are asking themselves if Rawat will go quiet into the night if his man does not replace him.
The Chronicle

A homeless man died Monday after being doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire last week in East Oakland, authorities said.

The man, whose name has not yet been released, died at about 4 p.m. Monday, Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson said.
Where would we be without COPMOBA?
TUV leader Jim Allister has warned Northern Ireland will be tied to EU policy on medicines from 2022, leaving it aligned with the bloc on matters such as the rollout of vaccinations.

Under the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol, medicines for Great Britain and Northern Ireland are regulated under different regimes but overseen by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Mr Allister said the matter was of particular concern given issues the EU was having in sourcing Covid vaccines, with the UK ahead in the number of people having a first dose and Northern Ireland ahead of the Republic.

In a response to an Assembly question, Health Minister Robin Swann told Mr Allister that Northern Ireland was only part of the UKs vaccine rollout because of a grace period on medicines stipulated by the protocol.

The UK Government and the EU Commission agreed a 12-month period to allow industry time to prepare for the regulatory and supply chain changes that will be required to comply with the protocol by January 1, 2022, he added.

A long-term approach was also sought to ensure no barriers to the movement of medicines into Northern Ireland.

Mr Allister said but for the grace period, we would be tied to the failed and failing EU policy on vaccination.

The success of the UK vaccination programme is a telling reminder of just what the benefits of Brexit are to a liberated United Kingdom, he added.

Freedom from bureaucracy and Brussels red tape meant the UK was able to lead the world in protecting its citizens.

This answer from minister Swann is a stark warning that the dangers of the sea border to Northern Ireland are not just constitutional.

Gone are the days when people used to argue that the protocol would result in us having the best of both worlds.

We now need to face up to the fact that the protocol would be, if fully operational as it is set to be next year, quite literally bad for your health.

It comes after Boris Johnson told Taoiseach Micheal Martin the UK was not in a position to give surplus vaccines to Ireland.

Mr Martin said the Prime Minister told him his first priority was people living in the UK.

Public health expert Dr Gabriel Scally said the EU supply chain for vaccines was extraordinarily disappointing, with delivery dates changing 20 times in the past two months.

Belfast-born Dr Scally added: You cant run a proper vaccination programme (under those conditions). The UK has ordered 407m doses. At the rate the UK is going, they will be through the population pretty quickly.

I would be talking to Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock about accessing some of the UKs supply. Even if it isnt available today, there will be a substantial surplus in the next few months.
New Delhi, March 10 : The Ministry of Rural Development has informed in Lok Sabha that it has developed 31,660 km of road construction till December 2020 in four states and two union territories ,that fall in the country's northern part.

The construction was done against the sanctioned 37,451 km, the ministry added.

"A total of 37,451 km road length has been sanctioned under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY, out of which, 31,660 km road length has been completed in the remote and border areas of north Indian states/union territories," said Narendra Tomar, minister of rural development in parliament today.

Tomar was answering a query posed by his own party member, Kishan Kapoor, who is a Member of Parliament (MP) from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh.

He had also queried about the details of road construction in border and remote areas of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab till December, 2020.

As per the Tomar's reply through a data, it was revealed that the ministry had constructed around 8,128 km of road in three states/UTs till December last year.

The length of roads constructed in Jammu & Kashmir region given in the minister's reply was 6,013 km, while it said that around 636 km of roads were constructed in Himachal Pradesh. Meanwhile, the length recorded in Punjab was 1,478 km, as stated in Tomar's reply.
The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) says there is the adequate generating capacity to meet electric power demand in Ghana.

The assurance follows a total power shutdown in Ghana on Sunday, March 7, 2021, at 2:10pm.



Power was restored at about 5pm same day in some areas with intermittent outages in many areas in the night.



GRIDCo in a statement on Monday morning, March 8, 2021, explained that Sundays nationwide power shutdown was due to a technical fault that affected one of its major transmission lines between Prestea in the Western Region and Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.



Read also: GRIDCo explains Sunday's nationwide power shutdown



The situation, the company explained, led to overload on other adjacent transmission lines, leading to a sequence of trips and an eventual power system shutdown in Ghana.



GRIDCo in a the statement assured that there is adequate generating capacity to meet demand in the country.



The statement also added that all relevant stakeholders in the power sector value chain will also continue to work to ensure consistency of supply to Ghanaians.





Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Smoke from local wildfires can affect the health of Colorado residents, in addition to smoke from fires in forests as far away as California and the Pacific Northwest.

Researchers at Colorado State University, curious about the health effects from smoke from large wildfires across the Western United States, analyzed six years of hospitalization data and death records for the cities along the Front Range, which reaches deep into central Colorado from southern Wyoming.

They found that wildfire smoke was associated with increased hospitalizations for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and some cardiovascular health outcomes. They also discovered that wildfire smoke was associated with deaths from asthma and cardiovascular disease, but that there was a difference in the effects of smoke from local fires and that from distant ones.

Long-range smoke was associated with expected increases in hospitalizations and increased risk of death from cardiovascular outcomes.

But when the research team separated out health effects of smoke from local wildfires in early summer 2012 from long-range smoke from late summer 2012 and summer 2015, they found that local wildfires were associated with meaningful decreases in hospitalizations, especially for asthma.

The study, "Differential Cardiopulmonary Health Impacts of Local and Long?Range Transport of Wildfire Smoke," was recently published in GeoHealth, a journal from the American Geophysical Union.

Residents protect themselves from local fires

Sheryl Magzamen, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at CSU, said the team believes that evacuation efforts and related media coverage of local wildfires may have helped protect residents from adverse health effects of smoke exposure as well as direct impacts of the fires.

"There's a lack of communication about smoke from distant wildfires," said Magzamen. "Generally when there are local fires, there are advisories in the news that are associated with evacuations and local fire conditions. Due to the presence of the fire, people take measures to protect themselves. This could be why we see this lower risk of health effects from smoke associated with local fires."

Researchers described the long-range wildfire smoke as resembling fog, which is what Magzamen said she noticed in Fort Collins in August 2015. At the time, she was collaborating on a project with Jeff Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science.

"I thought it was weird to see fog on that day," she explained. "Jeff said, 'That's actually smoke.' We all took a step back."

Smoke changes with age

Pierce, a co-author on this study, said researchers don't really know how harmful smoke is as it gets older, or becomes long-range smoke.

"In Fort Collins, about half the time we had smoke in late August or September 2020, this was smoke from the Cameron Peak Fire," he explained. "This smoke was only a couple hours old when it got here. At other times, we were getting smoke from California, and the smoke from the Cameron Peak Fire was either going over our heads or further south."

The Cameron Peak Fire was reported on Aug. 13, 2020, and burned into October, consuming 208,913 acres on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in Larimer and Jackson Counties and Rocky Mountain National Park. It was the first wildfire in Colorado history to burn more than 200,000 acres.

The average person would not notice a difference in wildfire smoke, Pierce said.

"If the smoke is even two days old, things happen chemically, which changes the smoke a lot," he explained. "If it didn't smell like wood burning, it was long-range smoke from California."

Magzamen said that the team is working to better understand these chemical changes.

"As the small particles found in wildfire smoke age, they can cause more oxidative stress and more respiratory health effects," she said. "But wildfire smoke itself is a mixture of particles and gases. Teasing apart the effects of all the components of smoke and what happens to the mixture across space and time - and how those changes impact health - is an enormous scientific challenge."

Better air quality monitoring

Magzamen said the gap in understanding the source of wildfire smoke is because it historically has been measured by land-based sensors, which are primarily located in large urban areas and sparsely located in other regions, even along the Front Range.

"Even over the last five years, our air quality monitoring networks have been enhanced with new technologies and better measurements of real-time smoke effects," she said.

CSU researchers are now collaborating with local government officials on messaging related to the different types of wildfire smoke, with a specific aim to reach the most vulnerable populations. This includes caretakers of young children, people experiencing homelessness and others who can't shelter safely in place during wildfire season.

"We want people to be smoke-aware," she said. "On the Front Range, we have wildfire smoke every summer. We may not get Cameron Peak-size type of fires every year, but we are downwind for pretty much the entire Western United States," she said. "It's critical that we keep people healthy and safe."

###

Additional co-authors on this study include Ryan Gan and Jingyang Liu (CSU Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences); Katelyn O'Dell, Research Scientist Bonne Ford and Associate Professor Emily Fischer (CSU Department of Atmospheric Science); Kevin Berg and Kurt Bol (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) and Assistant Professor Ander Wilson (CSU Department of Statistics).
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 14:08:23|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

by Peerzada Arshad Hamid

NEW DELHI, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Nine people including five firefighters and a policeman were killed in a devastating fire in an office building of railways in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, officials said Tuesday.

The fire broke out Monday evening inside the Eastern Railways Strand road office in Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal. The building houses railway ticketing offices.

According to officials, seven bodies were found in an elevator, and two others in another one.

"Nearly all the bodies were lying inside the elevator. They had used the elevator to climb up. As the floor was on fire and it was hot, the moment the elevator door opened, they got charred," Sujit Bose, state fire minister told media.

Preliminary investigations suggested the victims appeared to have suffocated and been burnt to death inside the lift.

A statement issued by India's federal railway minister Piyush Goyal said he salutes the bravery of three railway personnel and those who laid down their lives to stop the fire.

The federal railway minister has ordered a high-level probe to ascertain the cause of the fire.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed grief over the incident and prayed for speedy recovery of the injured.

Officials said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited the spot on Monday evening after the accident happened.

The fire broke out at 6:30 p.m. local time on Monday inside the 13th floor, following which at least 25 fire engines were rushed to the spot to contain the blaze.

Officials said it took nearly 11 hours to bring the fire under control and the firefighting operations were underway until 5:00 a.m. local time on Tuesday.

Chances of fire in Indian buildings are usually high as people often ignore safety standards vis-a-vis fire. Enditem
NEWAYGO, MI  A search warrant executed Monday evening at a Newaygo home led to the discovery of multiple explosive devices that police said they detonated safely overnight.

Multiple nearby residents said on Facebook they could feel their homes shake during the explosions and some, that lived in the area of South Spruce Avenue between 94th and 96th streets, were told they could not be at home by police.

Investigators executed a search warrant around 5:30 p.m. March 8 at the Newaygo home pursuant to an investigation that began after a homemade explosive was detonated at Newaygo High School Monday. Police did not release the exact location of the home and who owned the home.

Related: High school student accidentally ignited homemade bomb, injuring 6, police say

Five students and a teacher were all injured as the result of the initial explosion that went off at 8:42 a.m. in a classroom at the school, the Michigan State Police confirmed Monday.

The explosion is said to be have been caused by a 16-year-old student who accidentally detonated a homemade explosive he brought to the school, according to Michigan State Police. That student was hospitalized with severe injuries, which have not been disclosed at this time.

The injuries to the other students and teacher were minor, police said.

Following the explosion, students were immediately evacuated from the school and district administrators soon after made the call to send students home for the day.

What was first called a firework in one of two since-deleted Facebook posts by Newaygo Public Schools Superintendent Peg Mathis, and then later a bomb by the state police, has led to much confusion over what happened, a parent of two students at the school told MLive.

Mathis said Monday in the initial Facebook post that a student lit a firework in a classroom and it was not an attack or designed to be anything malicious, but a serious lack of judgement.

In the second, she tells people that it is helpful to refrain from making comments about the intentions of the student or the situation. I have shared FACTS. ... This was not somebody planting an explosive device in order to hurt other students. Those directly involved with the situation determined that was not the intent.

Newaygos police chief told 9&10 News on Monday that he believed the intention was not to harm people.

It was an isolated incident and not intended to hurt people we do not believe, its under investigation, so we have new facts coming in, but it was not something they intended to have happened, Police Chief Georgia Andres said in the 9&10 News report.

According to tweets by the Michigan State Police, the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms responded to the school Monday to assist with identifying the explosive materials involved. The type of materials used in the explosive have not been disclosed by police as of early Tuesday.

Investigators executed a search warrant early Monday evening at a Newaygo residence pursuant to the investigation. Over the course of the night more explosives were located and safely detonated by the Michigan State Police Bomb Squad, police said Tuesday morning.

Also on MLive:

Grand Rapids Public Schools lowers graduation requirements during pandemic

Whitmer signals vetoes likely on parts of COVID-19 relief plan that limit executive powers

Michigans Naz Hillmon named Big Ten Player of the Year
Vietnam will receive four million more COVID-19 vaccine doses in March and April, World Health Organization representative to Vietnam Kidong Park said on Monday.

This will help the country expand its mass inoculation, Park added.

The vaccine shots will be provided via the COVAX scheme co-led by WHO.

Vietnam has announced that it will obtain 150 million vaccine doses for the whole population this year, including 30 million through the COVAX scheme, 30 million through AstraZeneca, and the rest through negotiations with U.S. and other producers.

The country will continue vaccinating people in Hanoi and Gia Lai Province on Tuesday.

It began vaccinations on Monday in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hai Duong Province, which is the largest national hotbed now.

A total of 377 medical workers and contact tracing staff in the three places were immunized with AstraZeneca shots on the day, the health ministry said, adding that no serious side effects have been recorded so far.

The government has said it will inoculate people in 13 provinces and cities where hundreds of cases were recorded in a recent wave, as well as other priority groups, including frontline workers, diplomats, military and police officers, and teachers.

The country received its first-ever shipment of 117,600 AstraZeneca shots on February 24.

Eight hundred and ninety-three local cases have been reported in the 13 provinces and cities since January 27, when Vietnam was struck by the new wave of domestic infections after nearly two months.

Hai Duong alone accounts for 709 cases, while Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have confirmed 35 and 36 patients, respectively.

Vietnam has recorded 2,524 coronavirus cases as of Tuesday morning, including 1,586 community infections and 35 virus-related deaths, according to the Ministry of Healths data.

A total of 1,920 patients have recovered from the respiratory disease.

The dead had suffered from comorbid medical problems, including 31 in Da Nang, three in Quang Nam Province, and one in Quang Tri Province.

Infection rates have greatly decelerated since the middle of last month.

The health ministry gives a coronavirus update at 6:00 am and 6:00 pm daily.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
NSU swim coach Monanian moving on after four seasons

Monanian moves on to Purdue after accepting an assistant position at their program.
KYODO NEWS - Mar 10, 2021 - 20:50 | All, World

The leaders of Japan, the United States, Australia and India will hold a virtual meeting Friday in what will be the first summit among members of the Quad, with expectations for them to affirm cooperation in distributing COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries.

People familiar with the matter said Wednesday the leaders plan to announce financial support to boost production capacity for vaccines in India, seen as part of efforts to counter China's growing influence, which has been offering free shots to countries in Southeast Asia and Africa.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his counterparts will discuss issues including efforts to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific region, measures against COVID-19, and climate change, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference.

Kato, the government's top spokesman, said the meeting was set at the request of U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration has described dealing with China as "the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century."

"That President Biden has made this one of his earliest multilateral engagements speaks to the importance we place on close cooperation with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a press conference Tuesday.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also slated to participate in the meeting.

While China has expressed concerns over the Quad, portraying it as an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization seeking to undermine its legitimate rise, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price stressed the collaboration is "not about any single competitor" or challenge.

The Quad, formally known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, originally arose in 2004 in response to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. The framework has been revitalized in recent years, with increasing focus on advancing the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific and concepts such as freedom of navigation.

China is involved in a number of territorial disputes in the South and East China seas, including over the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands.

"This is an entity forged and formed because we share common interests," Price said. "Maritime security is, of course, an important one, but our shared interests go well beyond that."

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs said in a press release that the leaders will exchange views on areas of cooperation toward maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific while exploring opportunities for collaboration in ensuring safe, equitable and affordable COVID-19 vaccines in the region.

The summit will also provide an opportunity to exchange views on challenges regarding supply chains, emerging and critical technologies, maritime security and climate change, it said.

The announcement of the meeting comes after the foreign ministers of the four countries held a phone conference last month, the first such talks since Biden took office on Jan. 20.

During the call, the ministers agreed to "strongly" oppose unilateral and forceful attempts by China to alter the status quo in the East and South China seas, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

They also discussed the situation in Myanmar following last month's military coup as well as other regional issues such as North Korea.
The Polish-based Belarusian opposition news outlet Nexta has published an investigative film about Alyaksandr Lukashenka's "luxurious life."

The film -- titled Lukashenka. Goldmine. -- was published on YouTube on March 8.

The investigative material focuses on Lukashenka's personal expenses and what it describes as Lukashenka's villas, expensive cars, and gifts he allegedly uses for his own personal needs.

The report says Lukashenka has been offering "protection" to corrupt Belarusian and foreign business people. It mentions, in particular, a luxurious residential compound in Krasnoselskoye near Minsk, which Nexta says is a gift from Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriyev to Lukashenka in exchange for "protection."

According to the moderator, the film was based on the testimony of several anonymous sources, including a man presented in the film as a former employee of Lukashenkas administration. Nexta also obtained documents it says back up the claims.

Stsyapan Putsila, the founder of Nexta, told Current Time on March 9 that the documents were not presented in the film at the request of those who provided them. Putsila said that Lukashenka's name was not in any of the obtained documents, adding that Lukashenkas automobiles, which alone are worth more than 4 million euros ($4.75 million) and include a Maybach and a Rolls-Royce, are officially registered in other names.

Lukashenka, who has been in power since 1994, has said that his "only palace" is a tiny house of less than 60 square meters where he was raised by his mother.

"I did not steal anything from my state, did not take anything," Lukashenka said last week after reports of the film's imminent release were published.

Lukashenka has amended the constitution several times during his authoritarian rule that brought Belarus the unwanted moniker "Europe's last dictatorship."

Crisis In Belarus Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country's legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.

In August 2020, he was officially pronounced the winner of a presidential election for the sixth time, a development that triggered unprecedented mass protests across the country.

Thousands of Belarusians, including dozens of journalists covering the protests, have been detained by the authorities, some handed prison terms, and hundreds beaten in detention and on the streets.

Several protesters have died in the violence, and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some detainees.

On September 23, 2020, Lukashenka held an inauguration ceremony behind closed doors amid public protests, but many EU countries, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada refused to recognize him as Belarus's legitimate president.

The European Union imposed three sets of sanctions against Belarusian authorities, including Lukashenka, over the rigged presidential poll and ongoing violence and police brutality against peaceful protesters.
Deputy Prosecutor General Gunduz Mamedov signed an information message to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the facts of violations of international humanitarian law by representatives of the Russian occupation administrations in Luhansk region.

"The appeal contains information about the facts of the systematic use of the Russian Federation and illegal armed formations under its control of indiscriminate weapons, the consequences of which are unpredictable, and the shelling of civilian objects. It is about artillery shelling of hospitals, residential buildings, gas, water and electricity supply facilities, that is the infrastructure that is not used for military purposes, and, therefore, its shelling is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions of 1949," the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) said.

Mamedov emphasized that the Prosecutor's Office, together with human rights activists, conducted an analysis and collected evidence, which prove the systematic nature of criminal actions against residents of Luhansk region and civilian infrastructure.

"The regional prosecutor's offices in Donbas have introduced a register of victims of the armed conflict, which makes it possible to provide an appropriate legal assessment of the actions of representatives of the occupation administrations, determine the amount of losses and restore the rights of victims. In criminal proceedings in relation to crimes related to the armed conflict, more than 4,200 victims have been identified, of which more than 90% are individuals. Some 328 civilians were injured, and 197 died as a result of enemy shelling," he said.

The report to the ICC was prepared by Luhansk Regional Prosecutor's Office together with Luhansk Regional Human Rights Center Alternative and representatives of the Department for Crimes Committed during Armed Conflict, as well as the Prosecutor General's Office on the basis of monitoring visits of human rights activists to the zone of armed conflict, interviews with victims and materials of criminal proceedings.

In total, the report contains information about 34 facts of indiscriminate shelling. The results of these actions were numerous damage to water pipelines, hydraulic structures, industrial buildings and equipment, interruptions in water supply and power supply in the villages of Novotoshkivske, Vovchoiarivka, Loskutivka, Pidlisne, Toshkivka, Svitlychne, and the cities of Hirske, Zolotoe and Popasna with a total population of more than 40,000 people.

It is noted that since 2014, more than 7,000 damaged and destroyed infrastructure facilities have been recorded in Luhansk region. Over the past year, 655 attacks have been documented from the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk region, as a result of which 22 civilian infrastructure objects were damaged, three civilians were injured and one was killed.
Rep. David Valadao ranked immigration and water as his top two legislative priorities during a brief online chat Monday in which he emphasized
Zhong Yetang, a post-95s girl from east China's Zhejiang province, has made exquisite costumes of the country's 56 ethnic groups and displayed them in a video she made herself to showcase the charm of Chinese clothing culture to more people.

Photo shows Zhong Yetang in traditional Chinese costume. (Photo/Yangtse.com)

It took Zhong two years to design and create the stunning attire of Chinas ethnic groups after she returned to the country from the U.S., where she got her bachelor's degree at the University of California, Berkeley and her master's degree at the Johns Hopkins University.

To make the ethnic costumes more authentic, Zhong not only referred to historical documents on each ethnic group, but also sought advice on dress-making craftsmanship from intangible cultural heritage inheritors, as some traditional cloth-making techniques and fabrics are Chinas intangible cultural heritage items.

After designing the clothes, she entrusted the job of producing them to a local garment factory. The last item was completed in mid-January this year.

Photo shows Zhong Yetang in a video clip about Chinese food culture. (Photo/Yangtse.com)

Zhong was most impressed by the difficulty involved in making fish skin clothes of the Hezhe people, one of the smallest ethnic minority groups in China.

"After peeling the fish skin off, Hezhe people used to dye it with different colors using a special processing technique," said Zhong. However, she eventually employed alternative fabrics to make Hezhe clothes, as fish skin is gradually being replaced by silk and cloth and there arent many people left who know how to make clothes with fish skin.

Photo shows Zhong's graduation photo. (Photo/Yangtse.com)

"I didn't expect that it would be so time-consuming and so difficult," said the young woman, who came up with the idea of filming the collection of the 56 ethnic groups gorgeous costumes in early 2019.

Zhong said that while studying abroad, she found that her foreign classmates were very interested in Chinese culture, such as the twelve Chinese zodiac signs, and asked her what Chinese zodiac signs corresponded with the year they were born.

This experience motivated her to design ethnic Chinese costumes and spread traditional Chinese culture through videos. "I want to fully explore traditional Chinese culture with my limited capacity in order to let more and more people better understand Chinese traditional culture and China," Zhong said.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  High school seniors who are struggling to fulfill their graduation requirements because of the pandemic will get a boost from Grand Rapids Public Schools this year.

The district has lowered its graduation requirements for the class of 2021 to help seniors graduate on time. Students now only need 18 credit hours to graduate, down from the 22 credits usually required by GRPS.

The Grand Rapids Board of Education unanimously approved the temporary graduation amendment at a special board meeting Monday, March 8.

Superintendent Leadriane Roby said the change is necessary because students have not received the same amount of instruction time this year as they would have during a traditional school year.

GRPS conducted online-only classes for the first six months of the 2020-21 school year. The district launched a hybrid option with some in-person learning in January, but roughly one-third of GRPS families have remained in fully remote learning.

Were requesting that those who (meet the 18 credits hours) be allowed to graduate from GRPS, due to the continued conditions related to navigating school, and some of the barriers that our young people have faced during the pandemic, Roby said before the board voted unanimously to approve the motion.

The change in requirements will help around 150 students graduate this year, said Rodney Lewis, executive director of high school support. GRPS has a graduating class of approximately 650 students this year.

It is very important that we get the kids in the class of 2021 across the stage so that they will have a diploma that they can take to a college or university this fall, Lewis said.

With 18 credit hours, Grand Rapids high school seniors will still meet the state of Michigans graduation standards.

Michigan Merit Curriculum graduation standards require students to complete the following 18 credits during high school: four English credits, four math credits, three science credits, three social studies credits, one physical education/health credit, one fine arts credit and two world language credits.

GRPS requires students to acquire an additional four credits in elective classes during high school, bringing the total required credits for graduation to 22.

Mondays amendment will also allow seniors to graduate even if they didnt take the Michigan Merit Examination last spring. Students are required to take the exam during the spring of junior year in order to graduate. However, the exam was canceled in spring 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lewis said the change in graduation requirements will not impact scholarships or students progress in the districts theme schools like Grand Rapids Montessori High or City High.

Grand Rapids isnt the only West Michigan school district to lower its graduation requirements. Wyoming Public Schools also lowered its credit requirements down to 18 for the class of 2020-21 during a Feb. 8 board meeting.

To help you navigate this complicated school year, were pleased to offer you a simpler way to get all of your education news: Our new Michigan Schools: Education in the COVID Era newsletter delivered right to your inbox. To receive this newsletter, simply click here to sign up.

More on MLive:

Michigan teachers take to TikTok, meeting students where they already are

Michigans career tech programs holding their own despite the pandemic hurdle to hands-on learning

Not wearing a mask properly could result in technical fouls for high school basketball players
Police in southeastern Pennsylvania have called off the three-day search for a 29-year-old woman who went missing in a state park on Saturday.

Nicole Elizabeth Ebaugh, 29, of New Freedom, Pennsylvania was last seen on Saturday near Heritage Rail Trail County Park in Springfield Township, according to the Pennsylvania State Police.

Investigators said that they do not suspect foul play in Ebaugh's disappearance.

Witnesses reported seeing Ebaugh at the Glatfelters Station Road Parking Area sometime between 10:45am and 12:45pm.

Her car, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, was found in the parking lot after her family reported her missing.

Nicole Elizabeth Ebaugh, 29, of New Freedom, Pennsylvania was last seen on Saturday near Heritage Rail Trail County Park in Springfield Township, according to the Pennsylvania State Police.

Ebaugh is 5ft4in tall white woman with a thin build and light-brown shoulder-length hair. She was last seen wearing a black-and-white checkered jacket and dark pants with white striping on the side

Since her disappearance on Saturday, authorities and volunteers have scoured the half-mile radius around Glatfelters Station Road Parking Area, where her car was found

Some 150 volunteers have aided the search. The image above shows dogs sniffing for clues on Monday

Since her disappearance, the PSP launched a search with the aid of other local agencies including the South-Central PA Search and Rescue, the Seven Valley Fire Department, and the Search and Rescue Dogs of PA

Since her disappearance, the PSP launched a search with the aid of other local agencies including the South-Central PA Search and Rescue, the Seven Valley Fire Department, and the Search and Rescue Dogs of PA.

Officials combed the half-mile radius around Glatfelter Station on horseback, helicopter, and on foot with the help of some 150 volunteers, some of whom brought dogs, according to WHP-TV.

As of Tuesday, they have been unable to locate her. Authorities decided to call off the search while investigators looked for clues that could shed light on her disappearance.

The initial investigation revealed that her disappearance was not suspicious/criminal in nature at this time, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Kevin Kochka told the York Daily Record on Tuesday.

Pennsylvania State Police is asking anyone with information about Ebaugh's whereabouts to contact authorities

Witnesses reported seeing Ebaugh at the Glatfelters Station Road Parking Area sometime between 10:45am and 12:45pm. Her car, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, was found in the parking lot after her family reported her missing on Saturday

Obviously there is more in our investigation that we know however because it is an ongoing investigation we can not disclose.

We are continuing our investigation and are following the leads that we have developed.

Kochka added: At the end of the day, we have a missing 29 year old and the family, community, and investigators are very worried.

The Pennsylvania State Police, York criminal investigations unit, continue to work around the clock and are utilizing all resources available to help locate Ebaugh. ... As possible leads develop, future searches will be conducted.

Ebaugh is 5ft4in tall white woman with a thin build and light-brown shoulder-length hair.

She was last seen wearing a black-and-white checkered jacket and dark pants with white striping on the side.

We want to bring closure to the family in some shape, form or fashion, the best we can, said Kurtis Timmer, head of the South-Central PA Search and Rescue Team.

We want to make sure that we do the best that we can to bring that person home.

Anyone who may have information regarding Ebaughs whereabouts or has surveillance images of the Trail is asked to contact PSP York at 717-428-1011 immediately.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - Vaccine eligibility is expanding in Minnesota as Gov. Walz says the state has reached its goal of vaccinating 70% of seniors.

Walz has said Minnesota is ahead of schedule and will continue to move full steam ahead. However, the Blue Moon Ballroom in Rochester is hoping that means lifting restrictions placed on event centers.

Owner Fred Gommels says he's asking for event locations to be open to at least 50% capacity. Right now they're at a maximum capacity of 25% with no more than 50 people.

He explained, "We should be able to have a minimum of 50% capacity. Our capacity is 250, 268 literally. So, we should be able to have at least 125 people in our wedding receptions, even right now, along with the masks, sanitizer and distancing protocols."

Gommels says it's time to allow wedding parties and other celebrations to plan ahead after an uncertain year.

He added, "We expect there to be some openings and loosening of the restrictions very soon. Common sense just tells you it should happen because the virus is being contained as a result of all the vaccinations."

The event center says clients are getting creative right now by inviting multiple groups of 50 people to celebrations but limiting each group's time to fit the current restrictions.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Bereaved sister raises thousands for Isle of Man Air Ambulance

A local woman will walk the Island's coastline to raise money for her late brother.

Emma Blackburn and her friend Maddie will walk 160km to raise money for Isle of Man Air Ambulance.

Her brother William was once a pilot for the ambulance and fulfilled his dream of flying whilst helping people.

Emma said: "My last challenge was in 2017 climbing Kilimanjaro. At the time William posted my pictures on his social media saying - "couldn't be prouder of my sister right now". I think it's time for a new challenge to make him proud."

She has raised more than 5000 ahead of the fundraiser next month. You can donate here.
A Kilkenny woman is using her 24 years of experience with the force to manage the challenges faced by a Tipperary garda district.

Acting Garda Superintendent Ciara Lee is from Tullogher in Kilkenny. She is responsible for the Tipperary Town Garda District, which includes villages such as Bansha, Cappawhite, Emily and Golden.

She previously worked as a waitress in a four-star hotel in London for four years before following her sisters footsteps and joining An Garda Siochana.

It was some change [going from being a waitress to a garda], but I got great experience in customer service, diversity and dealing with people from all walks of life in London, which has really stood to me, she says.

After completing her training at the Garda College, Superintendent Lee was stationed in Coolock in North Dublin, which came as a culture shock.

Coming from the countryside, I was initially taken aback by the difficult situations and the families I worked with. That this is how things were for some people, compared to my innocent childhood, she says.

She then served in Midleton and Cobh in County Cork, before representing the force on the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a crime advisor.

Upon her return, she specialised in the investigation of sexual crimes. Working overseas in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a particularly proud moment for me, she says.

And cases where we successfully prosecuted sex offenders in the Central Criminal Court for vulnerable women and young girls that needed a voice or who were afraid to come forward and make complaints because they felt nobody would believe them. Just seeing them get justice and closure [was very important to me], she says.

She returned to Tipperary to provide training to students and probationers at the Garda College in 2014, before being stationed at Tipperary Town Garda Station in 2019.

She adds that it has been difficult the past year balancing routine garda duties with the challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, but that gardai are committed to making a positive difference in the local community.
Ben Domingue. Credit: Graduate School of Education

A study by researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) provides new evidence about the pandemic's impact on learning among students in the earliest grades, showing distinct changes in the growth of basic reading skills during different time periods over the past year.

Results from a reading assessment given to first- through fourth-graders nationwide show that the students' development of oral reading fluencythe ability to quickly and accurately read aloudlargely stopped in spring 2020 after the abrupt school closures brought on by COVID-19. Gains in these skills were stronger in fall 2020, but not enough to recoup the loss students experienced in the spring.

"It seems that these students, in general, didn't develop any reading skills during the springgrowth stalled when schooling was interrupted and remained stagnant through the summer," said Ben Domingue, an assistant professor at Stanford GSE and first author on the study, which was released by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a nonpartisan research network housed at Stanford.

"It picked up in the fall, which is a testament to the work that educators did in preparing for the new school year and their creativity in coming up with ways to teach," Domingue said. "But that growth was not robust enough to make up for the gaps from the spring."

Second- and third-graders were most affected, the study found. Overall, students' reading fluency in second and third grade is now approximately 30 percent behind what would be expected in a typical year.

Reading fluency is fundamental for academic development more broadly, the researchers said, because problems with this skill can interfere with students' ability to learn other subjects as they make their way through later grades.

"Reading is kind of a gateway to the development of academic skills across all disciplines," said Domingue. "It's a key that opens all of the doors. If a kid can't read effectively by third grade or so, they're unlikely to be able to access content in their other courses."

Measuring periodically, not annually

The new study differs from previous research on COVID-19 learning loss in that students' skills were measured periodically throughout the year, making it possible to assess growth at different stages of the pandemic.

"Most studies on learning loss so far have looked at fall-to-fall changes to show how students have been affected by COVID," said Domingue. "But just measuring the cumulative effect doesn't help us understand what was going on between those two time points. There were a lot of changes in what school looked like during different periods between those two points, and it seemed likely there would be some differences in the patterns of learning."

The study's focus on students in early elementary grades also distinguishes it from others on learning growth and loss, which typically look at the impact on students in grades 3 through 8the ages most often included in annual standardized exams and other routine assessments.

A fundamental skill

The findings were based on data generated by an oral assessment measuring reading fluency in more than 100 school districts nationwide. The reading assessment used in the study takes only a few minutes, and though normally administered in a classroom, it was also conducted remotely during the pandemic. Students were recorded while reading aloud from a device, and their score was based on a combination of human transcription and speech recognition.

The researchers examined trends in the students' long-run growth back to 2018, observing fairly steady growth until the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. The trajectory flattened at that point and remained flat throughout the summer, indicating that children's reading abilities had stopped. "It was flat in an absolute sense, not just relative to years past," said Domingue.

Growth resumed in the fall at levels similar to what the researchers saw before the pandemic. But those gains weren't enough to make up for the ground lost earlier in the year.

The researchers also observed inequitable impact: Students in historically lower-achieving districts (based on data from the Stanford Education Data Archive) developed reading skills at a slower rate than those in higher-achieving ones. Schools that typically score low on annual standardized tests often serve a greater share of low-income and minority studentspopulations disproportionately affected by the pandemic in ways that impinge on their readiness to learn, including lack of access to computers, reliable internet access or a parent at home.

"It's quite likely that lower-achieving schools are dealing with a whole battery of problems that educators in more affluent districts aren't facing," said Domingue. "But there was still growth. The teachers were probably moving heaven and earth to help their kids learn to read, and it's reflected in the gains. But it's important to recognize the differential impact on students."

The researchers also found that about 10 percent of students who were tested before the pandemic were not observed in fall 2020. It's not clear why they were missing, but the researchers suggest that if these students had trouble accessing the assessment remotely, they may be less engaged with school overall and could be falling even further behind than students who were tested.

Next steps

The researchers caution that, while their analysis provides important evidence on learning loss in the early grades, it doesn't include information about whether students attended school in person, remotely or in some hybrid form.

They also note that their findings should not be applied to other academic subjects, largely because of the focus on reading in the early grades and the likelihood that it was a centerpiece of many schools' instruction for the fall of 2020.

While the full extent of COVID-19's impact on learning won't be clear for months or even years, this study provides evidence thatafter the initial shock of the pandemic educators found ways to teach and assess young students' reading skills. And even in the midst of continued uncertainty and disruption, these students were able to achieve gains in the fall similar to pre-pandemic times.

"We can build on this research by identifying practices that accelerate learning for students who've fallen behind, and by making sure schools have the resources they need," said Heather Hough, executive director of PACE and coauthor of the study. "These findings are worrisome, but they do not need to be catastrophic."

Explore further Measuring COVID learning loss

More information: Changing Patterns of Growth in Oral Reading Fluency During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Changing Patterns of Growth in Oral Reading Fluency During the COVID-19 Pandemic: edpolicyinca.org/publications/  ng-covid-19-pandemic
A second man has been arrested in relation to an ongoing investigation into the fraudulent claiming of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

Gardai arrested a 35-year-old man today in the Midleton area of Cork, after previously arresting a man in his forties in December in relation to the same investigation.

In June of 2020, An Garda Siochana issued a warning to the public in relation to a phishing email pretending to be from the courts service where individuals were told they had been selected for jury service.

To date, 73 people responded to this email and provided personal data. This email sought personal information, which included their PPSN, name, address, date of birth and mothers maiden name.

These details were then used to apply online and claim the Covid payment of 350 per person, weekly. This resulted in over 187,000 being paid out.

The man arrested today is currently detained at Cobh Garda Station in Cork under the provisions of Section 50 Criminal Justice Act of 2007 and he can be detained for up to seven days.

The first man arrested in December was detained under the Provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act of 1984 at Midleton Garda station.
Kansas Department of Labor Plans Call Center Expansion to Support Failed Unemployment System

The Kansas Department of Labor will now be expanding its call center to help handle the large number of jobless claims brought on by the pandemic.

Governor Laura Kelly officially announced that the state would finally be upgrading the legacy computer system that the state has used for decades, which has been the major source of blame for the majority of current issues. The Department Of Labor believes that the call center will help the state catch up on the backup of pending jobless claims. Governor Kelly has secured $37.5 million to go directly toward upgrading the systems.

Fraud has become a big issue for the KDOL, with a recent legislative audit discovering that offshore identity theft is preventing thousands of citizens from claiming their benefits. In fact, federal investigators have claimed that more than 50,000 cases of fraud have been reported in 2020. The legislative audit estimates that up to $600 million in funds were hijacked due to fraud. This has resulted in many Kansans going weeks or months without support.

We understand the extraordinary frustration claimants are experiencing trying to get through to our customer service representatives, and we are continuing to bring on new staff to address the historic volume of callers, said Amber Shultz, acting Kansas Secretary of Labor.

Starting Wednesday, The KDOL will be hiring more than 500 additional customer service agents to handle unemployment benefit cases. The call center will also have extended hours; Representatives will now be available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and from 1-5 p.m. on Sundays. Weekly hours will also be extended, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Now that Microsoft's ZeniMax acquisition has received the all clear from regulators, Xbox is reportedly gearing up to provide more details about what the deal means for its Game Pass customers. Specifically, it's going to reveal in a video presentation on Thursday that numerous Bethesda games are heading to the subscription service soon, according to sources who spoke to VentureBeat.

It will also emphasize that any future and contractually eligible titles from the broader ZeniMax roster  which also includes game studios id and Arkane  will be available on Game Pass at launch. Together, the video game holding company's eye-watering lineup includes Bethesda's iconic series The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, id's Doom and Quake and Arkane's Dishonored and Prey.

What's currently unclear is if Microsoft will put to rest the question of exclusivity. Xbox chief Phil Spencer previously told Bloomberg that it's honoring Bethesdas deal with Sony to release Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo as PlayStation 5 exclusives for a limited period. Meanwhile, the company also plans to bring upcoming Bethesda titles like Starfield to Xbox, Windows PCs and Game Pass, while taking a case-by-case" approach to releases on other consoles. Other hotly anticipated Bethesda titles include The Elder Scrolls 6 and a new Indiana Jones game.

VentureBeat adds that talks between Xbox and Bethesda are ongoing, with plans to announce the video presentation in the coming days. The companies are also reportedly planning to host separate E3 showcases this summer that will be held back-to-back. By then, Microsoft should have sealed its ZeniMax acquisition.
A Canadian woman sent a multi-question quiz to all of her dating app matches, asking them to answer a list of very specific questions about Taylor Swift songs, Cheetos, and Mario Kart.

Kennedy clearly thought it would be funny to send the unique compatibility quiz to her matches  and based on her TikTok views, which have soared above half a million, plenty of other people think her plan was quite funny, too.

The young woman had over 100 responses to her lighthearted 11-question 'perfect judge of character' quiz, which covered topics like favorite books, Zodiac signs, and guesses as to who killed JonBenet Ramsey.

Funny stuff: A Canadian woman named Kennedy shared a compatibility quiz with her dating app matches

They're into it! The young woman had over 100 responses to her 11-question quiz

Starting off strong: Her first question was for the person's name  with options being 'Matt' or 'Other' and an opportunity to elaborate

Surprisingly, Kennedy actually found plenty of people, both male and female, to take her quiz  possibly out of curiosity or quarantine boredom.

'I made a Google Form to send to all my dating app matches and it got 100 responses,' she says.

The quiz begins with the intro: 'This quiz will tell me everything I need to know about you. Remember, there ARE wrong answers. Thanks for participating!'

The first question on the quiz asks, 'What is your name?'

Interestingly enough, if is a multiple choice question, with the first choice being 'Matt' and the second choice being 'Other' with a line to elaborate.

'Here's a chance to make me laugh and get a bonus point,' she says.

The second question in her quiz reads: 'What is your main in Smash Bros/Mario Kart.'

Kennedy says the answer here sets the tone for the rest of the quiz  and anyone who chooses 'DDD' is going to leave her with a 'sour taste in my mouth for the rest of your answers.'

The second question in her quiz reads: 'What is your main in Smash Bros/Mario Kart.' Kennedy says the answer here sets the tone for the rest of the quiz

I Knew You Were Trouble! Question number three is: 'What is your fave Taylor Swift song?'

Evermore: Some ruled themselves out by insulting Swift, of whom Kennedy is clearly a fan, while others listed their favorites

In a follow-up video going over some of the responses, she notes that the answers gave her a peek at their personalities  like the person who responded 'fox' in all lower case is 'toxic but probably hot.

Question number three is: 'What is your fave Taylor Swift song?'

'This question establishes that I am a Swiftie,' Kennedy said. 'And also if you say something like "none" I'm literally not reading any of the rest of your answers and you're out. Deal breaker.'

Some people did, in fact, answer 'none,' while others had even nastier replies like 'I think she's a weird s****t person'  which should have clued them in to their incompatibility with Kennedy.

Others said their favorites included 'My Tears Ricochet,' 'Wildest Dreams,' and 'Bad Blood.'

One even shared her three favorites, prompting Kennedy to say she is 'already in love with her.'

Snack time! Question number four asks participants if they choose crunchy Cheetos, puffy Cheetos, neither, or other

'I'm not saying preferring puffy Cheetos is wrong, I'm just saying it's not very trustworthy,' said Kennedy

Tragic: The fifth question asks respondents to share who they think killed JonBenet Ramsey, a six-year-old beauty queen who was killed in 1996

'It's fine if you don't know who JonBenet is, that's acceptable, because then I came rant to you about it for 45 minutes a day. But the correct answer is [her brother] Burke,' she said

Her sixth query is for favorite book, with Kennedy explaining: 'If you say Harry Potter, I'm gonna assume you haven't read a book since you were a kid'

Question number four asks participants if they choose crunchy Cheetos, puffy Cheetos, neither, or other.

'I'm not saying preferring puffy Cheetos is wrong, I'm just saying it's not very trustworthy,' says Kennedy.

Most of her responses came in for crunchy Cheetos, though she said the 'correct secret option was Jalapeno Cheddar.'

The fifth question asks respondents to share who they think killed JonBenet Ramsey, a six-year-old beauty queen who was killed in 1996.

'It's fine if you don't know who JonBenet is, that's acceptable, because then I came rant to you about it for 45 minutes a day. But the correct answer is [her brother] Burke, you will look really good if you know the case already,' she says .

Her sixth query is for favorite book, with Kennedy explaining: 'If you say Harry Potter, I'm gonna assume you haven't read a book since you were a kid. If you say "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," I'm literally blocking you.'

Reasons: She also asks people why they matched with her, with answers including 'her looks,' 'her personality,' 'extreme desperation,' or 'other'

Clever: Some of the 'other' responses came from people who liked her quiz

Several said the TV character they were most like included Chandler from 'Friends,' Jeff Winger from 'Community,' Marshall from 'How I Met Your Mother,' and Dexter from 'Dexter'

Quizzed up! She asked for participants' Zodiac signs, whether they like olives, and if they have any final thoughts

Fun: When she was done, she filed everyone into spreadsheets, highlighting ones she planned to unmatch and ones she thought she'd fall in love with

She also asks people why they matched with her, with answers including 'her looks,' 'her personality,' 'extreme desperation,' or 'other.'

'You better be clicking the first two boxes no matter what,' Kennedy said.

She asks for participants' Zodiac signs, whether they like olives, and what TV character best describes them, adding: 'You better not say Joey from "Friends"!'

Several actually said Chandler from 'Friends,' while others offered up Jeff Winger from 'Community,' Marshall from 'How I Met Your Mother,' and Dexter from 'Dexter.'

When she was done, she filed everyone into spreadsheets, highlighting ones she planned to unmatch and ones she thought she'd fall in love with.

Kennedy may also find a few soulmates in her TikTok comments, with other users sharing their emphatic agreement with some of her opinions.
New York Farm Bureau David Fisher expressed frustration that farmworkers have been excluded again.

"The CDC recommends that food and agricultural workers be eligible for their own safety and that of our food system," Fisher said. "It is time to do what is right and prioritize the essential workers who help ensure New Yorkers have food on their tables."

Along with additional groups who are eligible for the vaccine, Cuomo said that nearly all vaccination sites  county-run clinics, federally qualified health centers and state-run mass vaccination clinics  will be allowed to vaccinate anyone who is eligible.

Early on in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, the state placed limits on who could be vaccinated at certain clinics. County-run sites, for example, could vaccinate eligible workers but not older residents. Pharmacies were tasked with vaccinating older residents.

That policy has evolved over time. It was recently announced that county sites could vaccinate older residents.

Cuomo noted that there will be one exception. While other sites can vaccinate anyone, pharmacies will be limited to people age 60 and older and teachers.
Kolkata, March 9 : After the announcement of her party's candidates list, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday held her first mega rally in East Midnapore's Nandigram where the feisty West Bengal chief minister brought alive old memories of the Nandigram anti-land acquisition protests.

"Bhulte Pari Sobar Naam, Bhulbo Nako Nandigram (I can forget everyone's name but I will never forget Nandigram)...When I had first visited Nandigram, there was no MLA. I looked at these faces and decided to contest from here. I had my home constituency and it was Bhawanipore. There was no problem and the effort would have been less for me. But still I chose Nandigram as I could see your love and enthusiasm," Banerjee said.

Earlier, Banerjee had dubbed Nandigram as "lucky" for her. "I will contest from Nandigram. It is my lucky place," Banerjee had declared at a rally in Nandigram in January this year. Quite naturally, the Nandigram assembly seat turned out to be the centre of attraction for voters in Bengal ahead of the high-octane political battle this year as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had also fielded Mamata's ex-confidante Suvendu Adhikari in that seat.

Nandigram is a stronghold of newly-inducted BJP leader Adhikari who had been elected from the high-profile seat in 2016 and became a minister in the Mamata Banerjee-led state cabinet. Adhikari had joined the saffron brigade in December last year. The rebel Trinamool leader had claimed earlier he would defeat Banerjee by more than 50,000 votes in Nandigram.

At Tuesday's rally, Banerjee criticised BJP's campaign strategy as the saffron camp is calling her "an outsider" in Nandigram. "I am a daughter of Bengal. But now I have become an outsider? And people coming to Bengal from other states like Delhi and Rajasthan have suddenly become insiders?" the TMC chief said, without naming Suvendu Adhikari.

Banerjee also launched a scathing attack on the BJP on Hindutva grounds and chanted 'Chandipath' after that. The Chandipath is one of the most ancient and complete systems of mantra worship of the divine mother goddess in the Hindu tradition. It comes from chapters 81 to 93 of the Markandeya Purana that is known as one of the greatest spiritual treasures of Hindu spirituality.

"Don't try to teach me what is Hindutva. I also come from a Hindu family...If you don't want me in Nandigram, I shall go away. And if you think I am a daughter of Nandigram, I will file my nomination tomorrow to contest from Nandigram," Banerjee said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
On Sunday, The Crown star Gillian Anderson addressed Alec Baldwin shading her 'switching' British-American accent, which lead him to delete his Twitter account last Wednesday.

'It's so not a newsworthy item,' the bidialectal 52-year-old told ET. 'But I'm sad that it's caused him so much distress.'

Gillian was born in Chicago, but she's lived in London since 2002 after growing up there from ages 2-11.

Controversy: On Sunday, The Crown star Gillian Anderson addressed Alec Baldwin shading her 'switching' British-American accent, which lead him to delete his Twitter account last Wednesday

The bidialectal 52-year-old told ET: 'It's so not a newsworthy item, but I'm sad that it's caused him so much distress'

'A couple people texted to say that something was going on,' Anderson recalled.

'I didn't pay any attention to it because it's just something that I live. I grew up between two countries and so depending on who is in my ear is which direction my accent goes. So I'm so used to it that it's kind of old news for me.'

The hot-tempered 62-year-old had been attempting to make light of his second wife Hillary 'Hilaria' Thomas' Spanish scandal.

The 37-year-old culture vulture - who just welcomed their sixth child via surrogate - was born and raised in Boston despite her prior claim she was born and raised in Majorca.

Back and forth: Gillian was born in Chicago, but she's lived in London since 2002 after growing up there from ages 2-11

Anderson said: 'It's just something that I live. I grew up between two countries and so depending on who is in my ear is which direction my accent goes. So I'm so used to it that it's kind of old news for me'

Projection: The hot-tempered 62-year-old had been attempting to make light of his second wife Hillary 'Hilaria' Thomas' Spanish scandal (pictured last Wednesday)

March 1 family portrait: The 37-year-old culture vulture - who just welcomed their sixth child via surrogate - was born and raised in Boston despite her prior claim she was born and raised in Majorca

The DePaul University grad looked glam in a 'fantastically chic' black satin Dior suit and jewels with her hair and make-up applied by Czech local Adriana Bartosova.

Gillian is an awards season frontrunner for her spot-on portrayal of the late UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of the royal Netflix drama.

Anderson received best supporting actress trophies at the 26th Critics' Choice Awards on Sunday as well as the 78th Golden Globe Awards on February 28.

The Sex Education star will next compete for the outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series trophy at the 27th Screen Actors Guild Awards, which air April 4 on TNT/TBS.

Sophisticated: The DePaul University grad looked glam in a 'fantastically chic' black satin Dior suit and jewels with her hair and make-up applied by Czech local Adriana Bartosova

Transformed: Gillian is an awards season frontrunner for her spot-on portrayal of the late UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of the royal Netflix drama

Crowded mantel: Anderson received best supporting actress trophies at the 26th Critics' Choice Awards on Sunday (L) as well as the 78th Golden Globe Awards on February 28 (R)

Gillian faces heavy competition against her own Crown castmates Olivia Colman and Emma Corrin as well as Ozark duo Julia Garner and Laura Linney.

'Getting up there in front of that room whether, that room is the Golden Globe room or the SAG room or whatever it is, is unbelievably intimidating,' Anderson explained.

'It's intense! So, you know, to be able to sit in a hotel room and sit on a sofa and be alone and not see the hundreds of people, or maybe thousands of people who may be watching, is kind of a cool gig.'

The entire Crown cast will also compete for the coveted outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series trophy, which is SAG's equivalent of best picture.
EBID, the regional development bank for the ECOWAS sub-region (Economic Community of West African States), and ODDO BHF AG, the Franco-German financial services group with a longstanding track record and expertise in ECA financing, signed a framework agreement. Dr. George Donkor, President of EBID, and Florian Witt, Head of International & Corporate Banking at ODDO BHF, sealed this new partnership between ODDO BHF and EBID via video conference.



The framework agreement consists of an uncommitted credit line of 40 million provided by ODDO BHF AG to EBID under which individual loan agreements can be concluded. Its scope is flexible as it is designed for project-related transactions throughout the ECOWAS region, which include supplies from Europe officially supported by export credit agencies (ECAs) like Atradius of the Netherlands, Bpifrance Assurance Export of France or Euler Hermes of Germany.



This cooperation between EBID and ODDO BHF AG is an important contribution to promoting the development of various industrial sectors in the ECOWAS region. It aims to further strengthen the prospects for small and medium scale enterprises and industries to enable them to contribute to the growing economy and generate employment. Both financing partners are already in advanced discussions on various projects in areas such as renewable energy, agribusiness and pharmaceutical production.



During the official signing ceremony, Dr. George Donkor, President of EBID, stated, "The credit facility illustrates the commitment of the two institutions to the region's transformation agenda through sustainable support to the vital sector of agribusiness."



Florian Witt, Head of International & Corporate Banking at ODDO BHF, reiterated: "ODDO BHF AG, with its International Banking Division and its strong focus on Africa, has been supporting the West African region for many years and is very much looking forward to working with the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development."

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
The driver of a four wheel drive vehicle that struck a six year old Melbourne boy on Tuesday night used false licence plates and also lied to police.

The incident happened at 8.30pm when the boy got out of a parked car on Brush Road at Epping and was hit by a white Nissan Patrol SUV with large mounted spotlights and licence plates DCA86E.

The boy was taken to hospital with minor injuries but recovered.

Actual photo of the white 4WD Nissan Patrol that struck a six year old boy in Melbourne's north on Tuesday night. The driver spoke to police but was later found to have provided a false name and address and had false plates on the vehicle

The driver stopped and spoke to Victorian police, who later released a statement saying the man, aged in his late 20s, had provided false details and his vehicle's plates belonged to another car.

'Greensborough Highway Patrol members are appealing for witnesses after a 6-year-old boy was struck by a vehicle in Epping on Tuesday night,' the Victorian police statement said.

'The male driver was perceived to be Caucasian in appearance, in his late 20s, with scruffy hair and a short beard.'

'Checks have since revealed the registration plates attached to the Nissan Patrol at the time of the incident belong to a different vehicle.'

'Enquiries have also revealed the personal details provided at the scene by the driver of the Nissan Patrol were incorrect.'

Police are appealing for witnesses and confidential statements in relation to the accident on Tuesday evening and the late 20s driver, who had 'scruffy hair and a short beard'

Victoria police released an image of the front of the actual vehicle which hit the boy.

They also asked members of the public who 'recognised this vehicle, witnessed the collision or who has dashcam footage from nearby' to contact Crimestoppers.

Members of the public can also make a 'confidential report', police said.
Some messages that were on display during beef factory blockades 2019

Initial findings of a Beef Taskforce report shows that farmers receive 80pc of revenue generated from Irish beef sales, Meat Industry Ireland (MII) has stated.

Speaking after the eighth meeting of the taskforce, the meat processor representative entity contended that false claims made during the 2019 blockages have been exposed based on the preliminary results of a Grant Thornton evaluation which were presented to stakeholders yesterday.

MII went on to say it supports the appointment of a National Food Ombudsman, adding that the need for current procurement specifications is driven by market and customer demand.

On the findings of the Government-commissioned report, Cormac Healy senior director for MII said: We welcome the Grant Thornton exercise as it provides independent expert confirmation that farmers receive 80pc of the sales revenue processors generate from the sale of beef.

We hope that the sector can now move on and instead work together to address the challenges we face from issues like Brexit, climate change and EU Trade deals.

MII members also welcome the appointment of a food ombudsman to act as an honest broker in addressing concerns in future through dialogue rather than factory blockades.

The report was commissioned in the aftermath of what MII described as the autumn 2019 illegal blockades, which MII said crippled the industry for almost eight weeks and seriously undermined the sectors reputation with international customers.

During those blockades, false assertions were made and prominently circulated that farmers only get 2 for every 10 spent on beef by a consumer.

Grant Thorntons findings provide independent third-party evidence that farmers receive 80pc of the revenue that processors generate in the market, the statement continued.

MII also called for an acceleration of plans to appoint a food ombudsman that was a commitment in the Programme for Government, adding that its members are committed to working with an ombudsman in addressing the type of issues that have given rise to contested claims in recent years.

Mr Healy added: The industry continues to deliver market price returns to producers that are at or above the export benchmark price (introduced as part of the Beef Sector Agreement) which reflects the cattle prices paid in our key export markets.

In 2020, despite the major market disruption caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the Bord Bia reported Irish prime cattle price was 356c/kg (VAT excl.) and the export benchmark price was 355c/kg.

These prices were paid even though we export 90pc of our beef and face the additional costs of getting to market, which have been further inflated since Brexit.

In terms of current market developments, MII said increased sales through retail have helped but not enough to offset the collapse in sales through restaurants and foodservice.

Farm organisations, however, had a drastically different take on the initial findings of the Grant Thornton report with many questioning the effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder taskforce altogether.

'Pretending'

There is no point in pretending that the Beef Taskforce is achieving the kind of significant progress or breakthrough needed to bolster beef farm incomes, it has been stated.

Speaking after todays eighth taskforce meeting, ICMSA president Pat McCormack did not mince his words on the roundtable engagement with the sectors stakeholders.

Mr McCormack told the Farming Independent: We always try and engage constructively, but theres no point in pretending that were any closer to the kind of meaningful changes that need to be made, and could be made, with the right commitment.

"For example, proposals around reviewing the quality-payment system grid  which weve been calling for since the day after the grid was introduced.

"That review should be concentrated on two things: remedying the year-on-year losses inflicted on farmers by the grid since it was introduced, and identifying already obvious consumer trends in beef consumption and pulling back from those in terms of processing and producing beef.

"Any review has to look down the line five years and not just at the here and now, he said.

A commitment that the long-awaited appointment of the National Food Ombudsman will possess enforcement powers is another redline for farmers.

"No-one has any faith in vague recommendations or reports at this stage, the ICMSA leader said.

Price gap

Similar views were subsequently shared by other farm organisations with IFA demanding urgent action on the establishment of office of the ombudsman; and ICSA demanding that the taskforce must get to the bottom of recent beef price cuts.

The associations were also highly critical of draft reports by Grant Thornton on the value of Irish beef throughout the chain.

IFA president Tim Cullinan said: The commitment from Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue to provide more powers to the office in primary legislation is welcome and important.

The lack of regulatory and oversight powers to bring full transparency to the beef supply chain was very evident at todays meeting.

"Grant Thornton informed the taskforce that it doesnt have the authority to access the information needed to provide a detailed appraisal of the value of Irish beef from the farm to the consumer.

"The minister must now come forward with the primary legislation that allows the office of the ombudsman to provide this information.

ICSA Beef Committee chairman Edmund Graham insisted that the management of the main beef processors should be asked to attend the next meeting of the taskforce to explain the price cut in February and this was agreed.

I believe that imports of beef have aided and abetted the factories in cutting price and I want full information about just exactly what is going on. The Department said that information should be available in the coming weeks, Mr Graham said.

Todays taskforce meeting also saw a presentation from Bord Bia which, according to ICSA, showed that Irish price is falling far behind the equivalent prices in the UK and continental Europe.

"The gap between the Irish composite price and the EU composite price has now worsened by 14c/kg.

"Irish beef price should have improved to reflect increased value of sterling relative to the euro since Christmas. Sterling is 6pc stronger since Christmas, but there is no sign of this in the beef price here, said Mr Graham.

Meanwhile, Macra na Feirmes president Thomas Duffy also stated that large questions remain for farmers on the future of the beef industry.

"The recent cuts to beef prices for winter finishers is clearly not justified when looking at the Bord Bia price tracker. The question of market preference for bull beef remains virtually unanswered in the latest report by Grant Thornton.

"Under 16-month grass-fed Irish beef bulls are essential to both meet climate ambitions and to protect the Irish suckler sector. Consumer preference is often blamed, but there is little evidence of this in the report, he said.

Explanation

In his opening address to the taskforce Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue urged Meat Industry Ireland to improve communications with farmers on price changes.

"Obviously, prices will be subject to market volatility and this is outside our control to a large extent, but there are elements where certainty can be provided.

"The meat industry needs to be aware that changing these parameters abruptly is very disruptive for farmer suppliers.

"I would like to see the industry communicating more effectively with farmer suppliers, and providing more certainty and continuity in relation to these issues."

Following severe disappointment expressed by farmer representatives on beef prices over the last month, and unhappiness with the explanation provided by Meat Industry Ireland (MII) at the forum, taskforce chairman Michael Dowling asked MII to convey this message clearly to their members.

The minister also acknowledged work that has been done to date on progressing the implementation of the actions under the Beef Sector Agreement 2019.

Three market transparency studies commissioned by the Department are expected to be completed soon, while the minister also said the new office of the National Food Ombudsman will be established later this year  and will have a specific remit in relation to price reporting and analysis.

Teagasc also presented on a scoping exercise carried out in relation to a cuts-based pricing concept, this presentation is said to have been received with interest by taskforce members.


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
AUSTIN  As Gov. Greg Abbott races to reopen all businesses and end mask mandates this week, it hasnt been fast enough to defuse escalating political pressure from fellow Republicans who see Texas lagging behind other states in dropping COVID-19 restrictions.

For months, Abbott has taken barbs from conservatives who have held up Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a measuring stick to show Texas is reopening too slowly, fueling talk that Abbott will face something hes never seen: a real primary battle.

We are glad Governor Abbott is following the example of Governor Ron DeSantis of FL & Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota & opening up Texas, Texas Republican Party Chairman Allen West said last week on his social media accounts after Abbott announced that all businesses would be allowed to reopen to 100 percent this week.

That came days after DeSantis blew Abbott away in an early 2024 presidential primary test ballot at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla. Asked who their top choice would be if Donald Trump doesnt run, 43 percent in the straw poll picked DeSantis. Noem finished second with 11 percent. Abbott was the choice of less than 1 percent, finishing 21st among 22 potential candidates.

Gov. Greg Abbotts primary history 2018: Gov. Abbott wins 90 percent of the vote in the primary. 2014: Abbott wins 91.5 percent of the primary vote. 2010: Attorney General Abbott has no primary opponent. 2006: Attorney General Abbott has no primary opponent. 2002: No primary opponent as Abbott wins post. 1998: No primary opponent in Texas Supreme Court race. 1996: No primary opponent in Texas Supreme Court race. See More Collapse

RELATED: Lawmakers seek firmer limits on Gov. Abbott's emergency power

And then there was January when DeSantis himself was in Austin, less than a mile from the governors mansion, touting how he kept his state open despite criticism from the media.

Florida is open, said DeSantis, a guest at the Texas Public Policy Foundation at a time businesses in the region were barred from operating at more than 50 percent. No restriction and mandates from the state of Florida whatsoever. We trust individuals.

DeSantis lifted Floridas restrictions in September  a full six months before Abbott made his move in Lubbock last week.

Greg Abbott certainly is no Ron DeSantis, former state Sen. Don Huffines, a Republican, said Saturday while standing in front of the Alamo to mark the 185th anniversary of that battle.

Huffines said between Abbotts handling of the mass statewide power outages and his pandemic response, it is long past time for someone to challenge Abbott in a GOP primary.

Theres a lot of issues that are going to be discussed in a primary, and those are just two of them, Huffines said just before delivering a speech before almost 300 people in which he decried governments taking away peoples liberties.

Huffines isnt ready to declare for the race but said hes keeping his options open.

Democrats decry rushed reopening

Huffines is far from being alone in the GOP ranks in promoting a challenge to Abbott as he seeks his third term as governor.

After Abbott, 63, made his announcement to reopen last week, Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther slammed the governor on Fox News for what she said was a purely political move to lower the heat hes taking from Republicans.

I think its too little, too late, honestly, said Luther who was jailed early last year after violating Abbotts initial executive order that forced all hair salons to close. Though she was charged with contempt of court, Abbott cited her case as he changed his order to prevent the possibility of jail for those who violated his statewide mask order.

Former state Rep. Jonathan Stickland also took to social media to join current members of the Texas Freedom Caucus in criticizing Abbott for reopening too slowly.

Texans deserve better, youve got to go. #FireAbbott #2022Primary, Stickland wrote.

Democrats say they have no doubt that Abbott is moving the reopen too quickly to stave off those voices on the right.

Theres no question hes worried about a primary challenge, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said.

But in television interviews last week, Abbott brushed off questions that his decision was political. It was driven by data that shows vaccinations climbing and hospitalizations on the decline, he said.

All the numbers are going in the right direction, Abbott said during an interview on KPRC (Channel 2) in Houston last week.

In his last two campaigns for governor, Abbott has faced only token primary opposition from underfunded challengers. He won each race with more than 90 percent of the Republican vote.

Before that, Abbott won three terms as state attorney general but never once had a primary challenge. And even before that, he won two Texas Supreme Court races without any GOP opposition in either race.

While Abbott hasnt faced a serious primary in his career, Were not going to take anything for granted, said Dave Carney, Abbotts political strategist.

More popular than Perry with GOP

The Republican with likely the best chance of taking on Abbott successfully has already declared hes not seeking the post.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in January headed off any talk he could seek the governors mansion in 2022.

I remain honored to serve as lieutenant governor and look forward to running for re-election, Patrick said in January.

But does that all mean Abbott is vulnerable in a primary?

RELATED: Six potential challengers to Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2022 Republican primary

Not likely, said Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas.

He said their polling shows Abbott remains popular with Republican voters, despite the criticism hes been getting. Abbotts approval ratings with GOP voters in Texas stand at 79 percent, though that survey was taken before the winter storms that left millions of Texans without water and electricity.

I dont see signs of any Abbott vulnerability here, Henson said.

Abbotts polling is well ahead of where former Gov. Rick Perry was as he prepped for his third campaign for governor. In February 2009, Perry had a 62 percent approval rating among Republicans and would face a primary from former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson a year later. Perry carried the primary with 51 percent of the vote in winning his third and final term in office.

And then there is fundraising. Abbott has been a prolific fundraiser, with more than $38 million as he heads into his re-election. Veteran Republican strategists say any GOP challenger would have to get started soon to have any hope of raising enough money to make Abbott sweat.

Henson said that while he sees Abbott as a big favorite to win his primary, the governor faces challenges that Perry did not.

One thing Rick Perry didnt have to deal with was every dissenting Republican having a platform to amplify their discontent, Henson said. The guys with pitchforks have better platforms these days.

All authority rests with the governor

Republican dissension against Abbott has been building within the activist ranks of the GOP for a year. In the summer, at least eight county Republican executive committees censured Abbott for his handling of the pandemic.

In October, Abbotts critics held a Free Texas rally outside the governors mansion that included pointed jabs from West, Huffines and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

Quite frankly, governor, your cure is worse than the disease, Miller said that day.

Coincidentally, its DeSantis who shows how an upstart candidate can overcome long odds to become governor.

When DeSantis first announced his campaign in 2018, he was barely known out of his Jacksonville-area congressional district and was facing Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who already had raised over $23 million. But seven months later, DeSantis won the primary and would eke out a narrow win in the general election.

Huffines said hes no stranger to tough races. In 2014, he defeated an incumbent Republican to win his Texas Senate seat, which he lost four years later to Democrat Nathan Johnson. He said whether its him or someone else who takes on Abbott, the governor is going to have to answer questions about why he didnt reopen sooner and why he shut down so much of it to begin with.

How the state responded is 100 percent up to Abbott, said Huffines, 62. All the authority rests with the governor.

jeremy.wallace@chron.com

twitter.com/jeremyswallace
We started Envoy Ventures to prove that combining highly accomplished brand-building and digital experience consultants with early-stage investment and operating principles we can make businesses go further, faster. said Kevin Bauer, CEO of Envoy.

Envoy, an end-to-end digital consultancy that accelerates growth through connected customer experiences, today announced the launch of Envoy Ventures, the companys investment arm dedicated to helping brands take full advantage of the opportunities todays accelerated digital economy offers. Through its initial $10 million fund, Envoy Ventures has already invested in three companies including Kapsul connected air conditioners, Kopari beauty, and Violux UV-C light cleaning.

There is an emerging model for early-stage investing in todays digital economy, an environment where native consumer-driven digital trends are only accelerating following the impact of the pandemic. Envoy Ventures aims to take it a step further, partnering with pioneers to build the brands and experiences of the future, and empowering them to ride the new wave of digital opportunity, said Kevin Bauer, CEO of Envoy. We started Envoy Ventures to prove that combining highly accomplished brand-building and digital experience consultants with early-stage investment and operating principles we can make businesses go further, faster.

From 2009-2019, the e-commerce market grew a steady 10%. Then the pandemic hit and e-commerce growth accelerated over 25%, in just three months. This explosive growth and dependency on e-commerce has created an unparalleled opportunity for direct-to-consumer brands, while also demanding these brands navigate go-to-market strategies faster than ever before. Envoy Ventures, in partnership with Innovate Partners, a leading investment firm focused on early and growth stage venture capital, is helping brands navigate the global digital economy with accelerated capital and services to keep up with the pace of e-commerce proliferation. The Envoy Ventures management team includes Kevin Bauer, CEO of Envoy and Bob Allison, managing partner and founder, Innovate Partners. Bauer and Allison are also joined by operating partners Russ and Ryan Rommelfanger and Michael Bennett, co-founders of Envoy.

Kevin has a diverse background spanning over twenty-five years as an executive, entrepreneur, investor and investment banker and has worked on more than forty transactions with an aggregate value in excess of $5 billion. Bob brings more than two decades of private equity and venture investment experience with a focus in technology, health and wellness and consumer-based companies. In total, his team has led more than 20 investments for companies including Jabra (acquired by GN), Ultimate Ears (acquired by Logitech), Ocean Minded (acquired by Crocs), ExpensAble Software (acquired by Insperity) and Emisense (acquired by Coors).

The pandemic quickly altered primary ways consumers engage with one another and their surroundings, increasing individual expectations for reliable and easily accessible UV-C light cleaning solutions to sanitize everyday items like phones and keys, said Sean Clottu, CEO of Violux. We recognized this as an opportunity to help people feel secure about the items they handle on a daily basis and wanted to build a cleaning device they can rely on. Through the combination of Envoy and Envoy Ventures, their team is helping us accelerate the right business model to turn our vision into a reality, providing strategic guidance on everything from brand strategy, digital product design, to development of our digital commerce platform and growth acceleration.

Envoy Ventures leverages the strength and diversity of Envoys +100 person digital consultancy to provide the tools and digitally-native business models to successfully launch and build digital and DTC brands and their associated customer experiences. Through its unique blend of industry expertise and capital, the investment firm helps companies across CPG, health and wellness, consumer electronics and sustainability spaces create attention grabbing platforms, and build one-on-one relationships and experiences through a digital-first approach.

To learn more about Envoy Ventures and how the company is using its operating experience to support brands and experiences of the future, visit https://www.envoy.ventures.

Supporting Quotes

The pandemic has accelerated the next phase of the digital era with barriers of entry across industries lower than ever. Its a pivotal time for brands to lean into the ripple effects of these economic changes, placing a larger focus on creating digital experiences that separate, distinguish and drive a sustainable advantage, said Bob Allison, managing partner and founder, Innovate Partners. I believe Envoy Ventures and our significant and active ecosystem, can empower brands to do just that and more, unlocking opportunities and elevating their vision in ways that dont just mirror market trends but that can disrupt the industry.

For years, people have relied on traditional brands for their home air conditioning needs. However, until recently theres been few innovations when it comes to the products people have to choose from, said Kurt Swanson, CEO Kapsul. We wanted to revamp a 100 year old idea to create a product thats not just beautiful in appearance but meets the evolving needs of todays consumer by eliminating the complexities associated with buying, installing and operating traditional window-based air conditioners. Through the combination of Envoy and Envoy Ventures, their team played a critical role in helping us elevate our idea, by supporting us through every stage of our launch process - from brand positioning, mobile application development to support smart device controls, to designing our website and commerce platforms.

About Envoy

Envoy is an end-to-end digital consultancy that helps organizations accelerate growth through connected customer experiences. Trusted by iconic brands and tomorrows category leaders, Envoys multidisciplinary team of strategists, designers, and technologists deliver unprecedented levels of impact through brand building, ecommerce and digital products. Headquartered in Irvine, California with offices in San Diego and Chicago, Envoy transforms experiences for clients such as T-Mobile, VIZIO, Arlo, Nike and Diageo. To learn more visit Envoys website and follow the team on LinkedIn.
Singapore , March 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- South East Asias first insured Bitcoin fund, BCMG Genesis Bitcoin Fund-I (BGBF-I), has officially launched to address the growing global interest from institutional and corporate investors. This Bitcoin-only fund offers insurance coverage and underwriting for Public Offering Security Insurance (POSI), adding an extra security level to its clients investments. The fund is regulated in Labuan, Malaysia.



Bitcoin has become the most sought-after investment opportunity today and is undergoing a parabolic growth phase fueled by interest from large corporations in the US leveraging this leading digital asset as part of their Asset and Treasury Management. In anticipation of similar interest from Asia, BGBF-I was set up to provide access to Asian accredited investors and large corporates. Bitcoin has fast become a new asset class and with a diminishing supply the intrinsic value of the asset has grown remarkably in recent years.

BGBF-I is a secure, insured and regulated platform where investors can get exposure to the Digital Assets industry. Investors get to benefit from our expertise in the financial, technical and security aspects of Bitcoin investments, as well as enter this class with a peace of mind without any challenges or risk in directly handling the Digital Asset said Fund Manager, Subbu Vempati.

The fund will be deployed in the Digital Assets industry through our involvement with market makers and liquidity providers as well as in the fast-growing industry of Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

BGBF-I is supported by an ecosystem of stakeholders and collaborators with a strong Asian presence. The fund is administered by the dynamic best-practice provider of regulatory compliance and professional services, Alpha Calibration, and audited by Hong Kong-based auditing firm HLB Hodgson. Labuan based IBH Investment Bank serves as the main Fund Advisor to BGBF-I.

IBH Investment Bank is well positioned for wealth management in niche markets such as blockchain. Our strategic partnership with BGBF-I will focus on corporate and financial advisory as well as support our mission to gain a competitive advantage and positioning in Asian Investment banking operations. We are looking forward to successful cooperation, said Dato Howard Choo, Fund Advisor, Managing Director and CEO of IBH Investment Bank.

The BGBF-I leverages an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered blockchain-based platform provided by the worlds first fully insured crypto exchange CGCX.io. The exchange has a highly complex and unique infrastructure that protects assets against cyber-attacks and hacks. With security in mind other measures include having all investment subscription contracts held in custody with regulated banks. All investors must go through mandatory Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) screenings. BGBF-I is committed to continuously evaluate security developments to lead with industry best practices.

All investments are made with a target of generating attractive yield in a regular manner.

Interested accredited investors can learn more about BGBF-I on the official website: www.bgbf1.com

About BGBF-I

BCMG Genesis Bitcoin Fund-I (BGBF-I) is South East Asias first insured Bitcoin fund regulated in Labuan, Malaysia. BGBF-I was founded to utilize the most established crypto asset in the world, Bitcoin, and leverage on its progress and adoption. With robust security and insurance coverage the fund offers investors a new level of security for Bitcoin investments.

About Alpha Calibration

Alpha Calibration is a Hong Kong based dynamic best practice provider of regulatory compliance and other professional services to financial institutions. The company offers pragmatic solutions enabled by a unique combination of buy and sell side experience within investment banking, and legal operations. Asset management and brokerage firms, hedge funds and insurance intermediaries are amongst their clients. Official Website: www.alphacalibration.com

About BCMG Limited

BCMG Limited is a Malaysia based advisory firm that leverages on the latest technology to improve the business of innovative ideas and implement them in the most effective manner. The firm, which has offices in Singapore, Mauritius and the UAE, prides itself with a stellar team of experts from different sectors including Finance, Real Estate, Emerging Technology and Compliance, offering advisory in Next-Gen Technology Advisory, with a niche focus on innovative Capital Financing Models. BCMG Limited has provided advisory for FinTech & DeFi, Private Equity & Venture Capital, Emerging Technology and much more. Official website: www.bcmgltd.com

About IBH Investment Bank

IBH Investment Bank, is a Labuan licensed bank owned by its Bank Holding Company IBH Capital. IBH Investment Bank is known for wealth management within a niche market of blockchain, gold and Forex with strategic partners in local and global transactions. The bank also offers consultancy and advisory services related to corporate and investment matters. With more than 10 years of serving clients, the banks mission is to be a Blockchain Investment Bank with a strong franchise that excels in niche activities. Official website: www.ibhinvestmentbank.com

About CGCX.io

Founded in 2017, Calfin Global Crypto Exchange, CGCX.io set out to offer a highly sophisticated cryptocurrency exchange for a seamless and secure crypto trading experience. Unlike most exchanges that offer only cryptocurrency trading, CGCX.io caters to the larger blockchain community by providing four services under a single platform. CGCX.io is the worlds first fully insured crypto exchange. Official website: www.cgcx.io

For the original news story, please visit https://www.prdistribution.com/news/south-east-asia-s-first-insured-bitcoin-fund-launched-to-meet-the-growing-institutional-interest-in-digital-assets-2.html
OLD SAYBROOK  The Torrington emergency medical technician accused of using Molotov cocktails to set fires at emergency services facilities across Connecticut, including Roxbury, last month is returning to the state Tuesday to face charges, according to police.

Officers with the Old Saybrook Police Department went to Northumberland County Jail in Coal Township, Pa, on Tuesday morning to pick up Richard White, a 37-year-old EMT from Torrington, officials said.

Police Chief Michael A. Spera said White will be charged with third-degree arson and third-degree burglary. He will be held on $150,000 bond and appear Wednesday in state Superior Court in Middletown.

Today is the first step in Connecticut holding Richard White accountable for his crimes against public safety, Spera said. Any person who seeks to do harm to those responsible for saving human lives is a danger to society.

Authorities said White allegedly set four fires on Feb. 27 that damaged a Roxbury home and emergency services facilities in Old Saybrook, Meriden and Roxbury. Hours before the fires, officials said White got into a fight with a fellow Hunters Ambulance employee after being placed on administrative leave in a disciplinary hearing in Meriden.

White fled the state after the fires, police said. He was taken into custody in Pennsylvania that night about 230 miles from Roxbury. He was held since his arrest as a fugitive from justice in Pennsylvania, police said.

On Tuesday evening, Meriden police said White had been charged with first-degree criminal attempt to commit arson, manufacturing of bombs, second-degree breach of peace and criminal michief.

The charges stem from an attempted arson at the Hunters Ambulance base on Main Street, Meriden police said in a Facebook post. White is being held on $250,000 bond, according to Meriden police.

WTNH reported White was taken to Old Saybrook Police Department on Tuesday. His vehicle was also taken to the department, the TV station reported.

The warrant held by Old Saybrook officers stems from one of the Feb. 27 incidents that targeted a Hunters Ambulance facility on Boston Post Road in Old Saybrook, according to police.

Spera said White illegally entered the facility where he lit and threw a Molotov cocktail that started a fire.

White is also the subject of a warrant held by Meriden police, Spera said, charging him with criminal attempt at first-degree arson and manufacturing of bombs.

Arrest warrants are pending with other law enforcement agencies in Connecticut.

Old Saybrook police also served a search-and-seizure warrant to take possession of Whites vehicle, which Spera said he used to flee the state the night of the incidents. The warrant also allowed police to seize Whites clothing and other items, Spera said.
Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle

Mahila, San Franciscos first restaurant to focus on Malaysias mamak cuisine, is permanently closing due to failed negotiations with the landlord, according to chef and owner Azalina Eusope. Its last day is Saturday.

The Noe Valley spot opened in 2019 as Eusopes second and most ambitious restaurant following Azalinas in the Market in the Twitter building, which shut down earlier in the pandemic. While Azalinas sold casual Malaysian classics like laksa, a lemongrass noodle soup, primarily for takeout, Mahila specialized in the cuisine of Muslim Indians thats often associated with Malaysias bustling street food scene  and brought it to a sophisticated, sit-down setting.
The Biden administration notified the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it will no longer defend a government policy seeking to impose new limits on the admission of immigrants considered likely to become overly dependent on government benefits.

The Department of Homeland Security announced in 2019 that it would expand the definition of "public charge" to be applied to people who could be denied immigration because of a concern that they would primarily depend on the government for their income.

In the past, the designation was largely based on an assessment that an immigrant would be dependent upon cash benefits. But the Trump administration proposed to broaden the definition to include noncash benefits, such as Medicaid, supplemental nutrition and federal housing assistance.

Anyone likely to require that broader range of help for more than 12 months in any three-year period would be swept into the expanded definition.

The federal government has long had authority to refuse admission of immigrants who were likely to become public charges, but the term has never been formally defined.

The Trump policy proposed to fill that void, adding noncash benefits and such factors as age, financial resources, employment history, education and health, arguing that the expansion would reinforce "the ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, ensuring that immigrants are able to support themselves and become successful here in America."

In response to a series of lawsuits, lower courts were divided on whether the revised rule violated federal law, but its enforcement was eventually blocked, so the Trump administration appealed. The Supreme Court agreed in late February to consider the issue.

But on Tuesday, the Justice Department notified the court that the Biden administration agreed with the local governments challenging the policy that the cases should be dismissed.

President Joe Biden signaled his intent to change the policy in February, signing an executive order that ordered federal agencies to review the Trump rule.
The Type 13 is considered by experts as the first "true Bugatti " car. It was first produced in 1910 at the new facility in Molsheim, which was part of the German Empire at the time.The car was an evolution of Ettore Bugattis first prototype, the Type 10 he built in his basement between 1908 and 1909 while he was chief engineer at Deutz Gasmotoren Fabrik in Cologne, Germany.The company built five Type 13s in 1910 and entered one in the French Grand Prix held at Le Mans one year later. Although it looked more like a toy car when compared to the competition, the nimble little race car took second place after seven grueling hours of racing.Legend has it that when the First World War broke out, Ettore took two completed Type 13s with him to Milan while the other three were disassembled, and their parts were buried near the Molsheim factory.After the war ended, Bugatti returned to the Alsace region, which was now part of France, unearthed the parts, and worked relentlessly to optimize the model.He mainly concentrated on the engine, which initially had a 1.35-liter displacement, increasing it slightly in 1919 and adding a vertical shaft and a four-valve cylinder headone of the first of this type ever built.The car also featured white alloy crankshaft bearings and pistons, a highly efficient fuel pump, and an additional pump that dosed oil onto certain engine components to reduce friction further. Bugatti also added a lightweight and easy-to-shift four-speed transmission that enabled the driver to change gears a lot faster.In 1921, the Italian-born engineer increased the cylinder bore to 68 mm (2.6 inches), which expanded the displacement to a little under 1.5 liters.Production car aside, he also worked on a racing version, building several units which featured increased compression ratio and carburetor flow rate, a magnetic dual ignition system with two spark plugs per combustion chamber, and ball bearings for the camshaft.That year, he entered the new race cars into the Grand Prix for Voiturettes in Brescia, and all of them finished in the top four places, giving birth to a legendary race car which from that day on was called Type 13 "Brescia."Although they were smaller and seemed more fragile than the competition, the 1,080-pound (490-kg) Brescias were capable of reaching a top speed of 93 mph (150 kph). That velocity was only achieved by much larger race cars of the era.Due to their lightweight construction and excellent handling, the Type 13 Brescias obliterated the competition in the following years, becoming the most sought-after race cars of the period. Their success transformed Bugatti from a small company into one of the most successful carmakers of the 1920s.The Type 13 was manufactured in Molsheim until 1926, with Bugatti selling around 2,000 units in total. This model laid the groundwork for the Type 35 , a model that would later become one of the most successful race cars of all time, recording over 2,000 victories in various races across the globe.
[March 09, 2021] Ontracks Three-Peats Its IBM Platinum Business Partner Status In 2021

EDMONTON, AB, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ontracks, the leading IBM Maximo consulting firm in North America, is pleased to announce that it has achieved the distinguished IBM Platinum Business Partner status for the third straight year. Earning the highest tier within the PartnerWorld program, Platinum Business Partners consistently demonstrate proven capabilities and expertise in IBM technologies to help their clients succeed in their digital transformation. Ontracks was the first Maximo-focused IBM Partner headquartered in North America to hold the Platinum level, and the first to hold the title three years running. This achievement comes as a direct result of demonstrating ongoing sales success, attaining expert solution competencies, and maintaining the highest levels of customer satisfaction. "It speaks volumes that the Ontracks team was able to perform and grow during such a unique year,"stated Craig Mackenzie, Principal Consultant at Ontracks. "Despite the pressures of COVID-19, and the challenges of working remotely, Ontracks was able to adjust quickly to deliver value to our customers and generate growth in revenue, team members and our overall customer base. We would like to thank those customers for their confidence in us, and IBM, who have seen fit to bestow this honor to us."



Ontracks has been an IBM Business Partner for well over a decade and has also achieved multiple competencies and certifications since its founding in 2007. As an IBM Maximo-focused organization, Ontracks encourages education not only for its clients but also fosters a learning environment for their employees across North America. About Ontracks

Ontracks is a leading implementer of IBM's Enterprise Asset Management product Maximo and an operational improvement firm, working with clients around the world to improve their operational performance. Ontracks focuses on delivering enterprise implementations and helping clients realize tangible and sustainable operational improvements. Media Contact: Kat Pullen

970.658.0304

304681@email4pr.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ontracks-three-peats-its-ibm-platinum-business-partner-status-in-2021-301243295.html SOURCE Ontracks EAM, LTD

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The man described as a gentle soul arrived in black body armor. Accessorized to the hilt with tactical gear obtained in an unbridled shopping spree, he bore both a 12-gauge shotgun and an AR-type rifle. He was loaded with high-caliber ammunition designed to pierce Kevlar, shoot through walls, and create devastating wound cavities in the bodies of big game animals like elk and wild boar.

He knew that this place, which until two weeks prior he had called home, was a secure facility. So, with deadly premeditation, he contrived a plan to pay an innocent-seeming visit 24 hours earlier and leave propped open a neglected basement door.

The hand the 36-year old had been dealt in life was neither fair nor encouraging. His birth family had been plagued by mental illness, unable to care for him long term. In combat tours in Afghanistan he had served with distinction. Still, he had been exposed overseas to the stuff of nightmares, leaving him wired and sleepless, with an unshakable fear of sniper-fire.

But the grievances compelling him now were not directly related to the causes of his PTSD.
Good morning, North State. Here's what you need to know to start your day on March 9.

Governor picks Dodger Stadium for State of State address

Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to deliver his third state of the state address tonight. The Governor is expected to highlight essential and frontline workers in his speech, which many call one of the most important of his political career, due to the current recall attempt. The address will take place at Dodger Stadium at 6 p.m. tonight. Action News Now will have a livestream on our website.

Paradise Council to discuss new fire station, overhead poles

The Paradise Town Council is set to discuss the future of a new fire station. The town wants to purchase the plot of land is currently owned by the Church of Christ in Paradise. A staff report said the property would cost about $200,000. Money from the general fund would be used to buy this land. Also at that meeting, the council will consider adopting an ordinance that would require all future overhead poles to be put underground. If the ordinance passes, all new utility poles would be banned beginning this July. The poles would have to be taken down no longer than Nov. 8, 2025.

Butte County looking to move out of purple tier after Tuesday's meeting

Butte County is moving closer to the red tier of coronavirus restrictions. A shift to the red tier would see restaurants open indoor dining at 25% capacity. To make the final decision, state officials look at case rate, positivity rate, and equity measures. The Butte County health director will also review the metrics today during the county supervisor's meeting.

Butte County leaders set to discuss possible needle ban, PG&E settlement funds

The Butte County board of supervisors will also consider a $500,000 grant to the city of Chico, to help homeless people in that city. Supervisors will take up that discussion today. A board vote is also set for whether to ban needle distribution programs county-wide.

Jury selection begins in Derek Chauvin's trial in the death of George Floyd

Jury selection has begun in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death. Derek Chauvin faces second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Floyd's death last May. The process of picking a jury has started, even though state prosecutors have asked an appellate court to halt proceedings until their effort to add a third-degree murder charge is resolved. At least three weeks have been set aside for jury selection, and no one expects it to be easy.

House gears up for vote on Biden's Covid relief plan

The House of Representatives could take a final vote on coronavirus relief today or tomorrow morning. So far, with no republicans supporting the nearly two-trillion-dollar plan. if the relief bill is approved, the white house spokesperson said families could see $1,400 payments by the end of the month.
They seemingly confirmed their relationship was back on last month as they reunited in Florida looking very happy together.

But Clare Crawley, 39, and Dale Moss, 32, have 'ruled out a long-term future together' according to a new report.

The TV stars, who met on season 16 of The Bachelorette, split suddenly in January after getting engaged after a whirlwind romance.

No future: Clare Crawley and Dale Moss are not back together and Clare is 'trying to move on' a source said on Tuesday

Then on February 22 they were seen kissing, hugging and holding hands on a beach in Miami, seemingly showing the world they were together again, but stopping short of confirming their relationship status.

'At this point in time, Clare and Dale aren't getting back together,' a source close to Clare told E! News Tuesday.

'They want to be friends and do want to see each other but don't think they have a long-term future together. Clare is trying to move on but she is still in contact with Dale.'

A week before their beach date the duo were spotted enjoying drinks at Nokomo's Sunset Hut.

PDA: On February 22 they were seen kissing, hugging and holding hands on a beach in Miami, seemingly showing the world they were together again

'At this point in time, Clare and Dale aren't getting back together,' a source close to Clare told E! News Tuesday.

A separate insider told E! that Clare had gone to visit Dale after a lot of convincing from the former athlete.

'Dale had regret over everything that happened between him and Clare and has been reaching out to her recently,

'She finally caved and decided to answer his calls and talk it out with him.'

'She's been trying to move on but it's been very hard. She wanted to see him in person so she flew to Florida to be with him.' a source said of the reunion.

'She's been trying to move on but it's been very hard. She wanted to see him in person so she flew to Florida to be with him.' a source said of the reunion last month

Love at first sight: Clare starred on The Bachelorette season 16 last year but left after a couple of weeks after deciding that Dale was her future husband

When Dale announced the split in January, Clare, a hairstylist from Sacramento, had reportedly been 'blindsided'.

Despite Dale saying the statement was 'mutual,' Clare claimed she only learned he would be announcing the devastating news after he posted it.

'I wanted share with you all that Clare and I have decided to go our separate ways,' he wrote in a since-deleted message. 'We appreciate the love and support we've received from so many people, but this is the healthiest decision for both of us at this time.

'We strongly believe in leading with love and always remaining true to oneself - something our families have taught and instilled in us throughout our lives. We only hope the best things for one another.'

The end: When Dale announced the split in January, Clare, a hairstylist from Sacramento, had reportedly been 'blindsided'

Hours later rumors emerged that Clare thought Dale had been cheating on her throughout their engagement.

'Our relationship was not perfect, but I can say that I was genuinely invested with all of my heart,' Clare said in her own statement after the split.

'I may not have all the answers, but I do know thisI will continue to show up, stand by my word and be committed to love.'

Clare instantly thought Dale was her future husband when she first met him on the most recent season of The Bachelorette.

The couple did ultimately wind up getting engaged, and Clare even left the show early in order to be with him, paving the path for Tayshia Adams to step in her place as The Bachelorette.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

The global dairy market reached a value of US $ 718.9 Billion in 2019. As consumption of milk and other dairy products provide calcium, protein, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and vitamin A, B12 and D to the human body, their sales are boosting around the world. Some of the other growth inducing factors include unrelenting population growth, inflating income levels, rising health consciousness among consumers and the burgeoning food and beverage (F&B) sector.

Get a PDF sample of global dairy market report : https://www.imarcgroup.com/global-dairy-market/requestsample

In this blog we are discussing about top dairy companies in the world. These are top companies in the global dairy market.

Nestle

Fonterra

FrieslandCampina

Arla Foods

Danone

Lactalis

Dairy Farmers of America

Dean Foods

DMK

Explore full dairy market report with table of contents : https://www.imarcgroup.com/global-dairy-market

About Us

IMARC Group is a leading market research company that offers management strategy and market research worldwide. We partner with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their businesses. IMARC's information products include major market, scientific, economic and technological developments for business leaders in pharmaceutical, industrial, and high technology organizations. Market forecasts and industry analysis for biotechnology, advanced materials, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, travel and tourism, nanotechnology and novel processing methods are at the top of the company's expertise.



Contact US:

IMARC Group

30 N Gould St, Ste R

Sheridan, WY 82801, USA

USA: + 1-631-791-1145
Suspicion of irregularities in the state marred the last election in Georgia. One of these is absentee voting that was questioned by the Trump campaign.

This year Georgia lawmakers proposed 20 bills that were meant to amend how votes will be cast. The Senate passed legislation 29-20 today that prevented no-excuse absentee voting during the election process. It was a move forward in voting reform, reported MSN.

Inclusions in the new bill make it hard for voters to opt not to vote in person, like in last elections, where vote harvesting was implied. Voters in Georgia will not be able to avail of absentee voting easily. The process was full of inconsistencies, leading to the loss of election integrity.

Voters need to prove they have a physical disability or if they need to look after a disabled person. Other valid excuses are religious obligations, having a job that needs doing, or more than 65 years old, or is part of the military which can get an absentee ballot. But more verification is required, like proper IDs, to make sure the person requesting it is legit.

Reports by the Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) said that some of the table amendments would be opposed to what Republicans sponsored 15-days ago. The Democrat is objecting to these reforms they claim has been done since their approval. Grumbling over the DEMS changes, it says it was part of a bill in 2005 that opted for no-excuse absentee voting with no excuse or IDs.

Also read: Ben Carson Reacts Positively to Possibility of Trump's Presidential Come Back in 2024

The absentee voting will include those who cannot make it to polling day because of jobs or health problems preventing appearances. Critics call it a chance for voter fraud or a voter's forcing to cast his vote unwillingly. Democrats and their supporters deny it happens, but the 2020 elections are proof of that.

An audit done in Georgia by the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office in one county alleged there was no fraud. The 15,000 ballots that were counted and reviewed were confirmed without monkey business.

One big question is whether election integrity was solid in Biden's win or did Trump lose to an elaborate system to stop a second term. He was besieged by the media and the left, who challenged his claims' validity through his tenure.

Georgia Public Broadcasting verified that Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican Party chairman David Shafer were for no-excuse absentee voting. Now, Shafer pulled back his support of it after the severe irregularities. Kemp was mentioned in his support of photo ID requirements, is reserving judgment on how the amendments will help in voter reform, said the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Republicans were outmaneuvered by the Democrats, making it easy to deny Trump's win and deny damaging election integrity. Democrats want absentee voting allegedly to set up the midterms in their favor, but the GOP would have none of it. According to the Brennan Center, if no excuse for absentee voting was entirely accepted, other states are moving to change their electoral system.

Related article: Lone Democrat Explains Vote Against Bill Expanding Americans' Access to the Ballot Box

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Im lucky that during lockdown I can walk straight out my front door and go for walk up a nice, quiet country lane. On the day Im writing this, the weather isnt great, but I was amazed the difference a few roadside trees can make.

Sections along the lane where there are trees in the roadside hedges are so much more sheltered, with less rain and wind. I can now fully appreciate why animals (and crops) enjoy such shelter.

And that is the point my colleague Kevin OConnell made in a recent video: trees can add so much to farm hedges.

The video was produced at Ballyhaise College in Co Cavan, which is situated on an estate of 220 hectares of grass and woodlands.

They can offer a wide range of land-based courses in agriculture including dairying, sheep, beef, mechanisation, pigs and poultry as well as forestry.

They can build important topics like sustainability, environment, biodiversity and habitat into their training programmes.

This should give the young farmers ideas how to incorporate those important elements into their own farms.

Kevin made the point that it is of critical importance to connect hedgerows with the woodlands on the college farm.

Read More

This will provide an ecologically rich network across an intensely farmed landscape, allowing flora and fauna to travel from one side to the other.

Wild plants such as bluebells or wood anemones will not be able to spread across a large field.

Or can you imagine a small chaffinch trying to fly across a large field without any protection? Im sure a hungry sparrowhawk may have other ideas But where hedgerows are interconnected with woodlands, it provides that all-important landscape interconnectivity.

Growing timber in hedges

It is not only about biodiversity either. While maximising ecological value, you can also grow quality timber with appropriate management within hedgerows.

When Ballyhaise College plant new hedgerows, they add top-quality trees such as wild cherry at the same time.

As the hedge grows up over time, it will provide a stock-proof barrier, shelter and an improved microclimate to animals and crops.

It will also grow top-quality hardwood timber.

Hedgerow trees need intensive and careful management. For instance, when the hedge is being trimmed, tie a large coloured piece of plastic around the trees so that they can be easily seen and avoided.

Hedgerow trees also need regular pruning to produce a long length of straight sawlog and knot-free timber.

Formative shaping and high pruning can be done in summer and winter dependent on the species but must be avoided at all costs during spring and autumn.

Hedgerow and tree function

Also consider carefully the role you wish the hedge to play. Are you looking for a stock-proof barrier, or to maximise biodiversity value or to provide shelter?

Yes, most hedges are multi-purpose but sometimes you may wish to focus on a particular objective.

Roadside hedges for instance  along internal or external roadways  need to be regularly trimmed back to ensure safety of road users.

The same is true for hedges planted close to farm structures, such as sheds, yards, cattle crushes or various types of machinery.

Farm safety comes first  always.

Read More

However, where hedges do not obstruct road users or do not overhang the cattle crush, it is a good idea to mix in a wider variety of other hedgerow species such as spindle, guelder rose and hazel.

Management can also be less intensive: allow the hedge and hedgerow trees to grow up taller and broader at the base.

This management and species choice will make the hedge less stock-proof but adds greatly to biodiversity value.

Caring for special trees

Sometimes the focus is on the preservation of special, rare trees that also have great biodiversity value. A good example in Ireland is wych elm.

After a highly lethal and virulent strain of the Dutch elm disease was introduced into Europe in 1967, most elm trees were killed over the next 20 years or so.

It is important to try to preserve our few surviving specimens.

Field corners

Field corners are often awkward to farm and as a result are under-utilised.

However, they make excellent locations to place small but valuable woodlands. They dont affect road safety while benefitting the surrounding agricultural land.

Expand Close Opportunity: Field corners are often under-utilised but make excellent woodland locations / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Opportunity: Field corners are often under-utilised but make excellent woodland locations

It is important to ensure that such small woods are connected into the existing hedgerow network on the farm to maximise environmental (and economic) benefits.

Rejuvenating hedges

Not all hedges need to be planted. Sometimes, existing farm hedges that are maybe a little worse for wear can be rejuvenated.

A couple of years ago, Ballyhaise College cut back to ground level an old blackthorn hedge, planted up the gaps with a variety of plants such as hazel, guelder rose and spindle.

The hedge was then allowed to regrow for a number of years. It is now managed by breasting it every couple of years to maintain an A-shape  tall and narrow at the top while much broader at the bottom.

This approach maximises shelter, biodiversity value and makes it stock-proof.

Take-home message

Kevins conclusion is very clear: Trees and hedgerows bring many benefits to any farm. Benefits include shelter, biodiversity, improvement in microclimate, carbon sequestration and landscape value.

Watch this video

If you want to hear principal John Kelly and Kevin OConnell talk about their approach to tree and hedge management at Ballyhaise College, then watch this video: youtu.be/QxOgwUGEgHA.

www.youtube.com/teagascforestryvideos also has videos on a wide range of forestry-related topics.

Steven Meyen is a Teagasc forestry advisor based in Ballybofey; steven.meyen@teagasc.ie
Cheng Shouzhen is seen wearing a wig to cover her white hair at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, March 2, 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, Cheng Shouzhen led more than 130 team members from the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University to offer medical aid. After two months of fighting the epidemic, her hair turned gray. After returning from Wuhan and taking a short rest, Cheng Shouzhen joined the Chinese medical expert team assisting Serbia and continued fighting in Serbia for 40 days. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua/Deng Hua) In this combo photo, the left part taken by Xinhua photographer Deng Hua on March 4, 2021 shows Lin Liyi at a workshop in Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. (GAC Group) in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province; and the right part shows Lin Liyi posing for a photo during her trip to southwest China's Guizhou Province, Dec. 27, 2020. In 10 years, Lin Liyi has turned herself from an ordinary assembly worker to become the first female all-around champion in Honda's assembly skills competition in the global final assembly field. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua) Lin Liyi works at a workshop in Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. (GAC Group) in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, March 4, 2021. In 10 years, Lin Liyi has turned herself from an ordinary assembly worker to become the first female all-around champion in Honda's assembly skills competition in the global final assembly field. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua/Deng Hua) Photo taken on March 3, 2020 shows Cheng Shouzhen wearing protective equipment during her anti-epidemic work in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, Cheng Shouzhen led more than 130 team members from the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University to offer medical aid. After two months of fighting the epidemic, her hair turned gray. After returning from Wuhan and taking a short rest, Cheng Shouzhen joined the Chinese medical expert team assisting Serbia and continued fighting in Serbia for 40 days. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua) In this combo photo, the left part taken by Xinhua photographer Deng Hua on March 3, 2021 shows Guan Yanping standing at a hospital in Jinwan District of Zhuhai City, south China's Guangdong Province; and the right part shows Guan on her way to see villagers in Bingzhongluo Township in Lisu Autonomous Prefecture of Nujiang, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Sept. 11, 2019. In 2017, Guan Yanping left Zhuhai of south China's Guangdong Province to work as an aiding doctor in Nujiang of southwest China's Yunnan Province. In the past few years, she has trekked over 500 times on the steep, narrow mountain paths to treat the local villagers. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua) Guan Yanping (front) and her colleagues walk on a bridge in Bingzhongluo Township in Lisu Autonomous Prefecture of Nujiang, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 12, 2019. In 10 years, Lin Liyi has turned herself from an ordinary assembly worker to become the first female all-around champion in Honda's assembly skills competition in the global final assembly field. In the past few years, she has trekked over 500 times on the steep, narrow mountain paths to treat the local villagers. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua) Guan Yanping (R) pays a family visit in Sanban Village of Jinwan District of Zhuhai City, south China's Guangdong Province, March 3, 2021. In 2017, Guan Yanping left Zhuhai of south China's Guangdong Province to work as an aiding doctor in Nujiang of southwest China's Yunnan Province. In the past few years, she has trekked over 500 times on the steep, narrow mountain paths to treat the local villagers. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua/Deng Hua) Lin Liyi works at a workshop in Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. (GAC Group) in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, March 4, 2021. In 10 years, Lin Liyi has turned herself from an ordinary assembly worker to become the first female all-around champion in Honda's assembly skills competition in the global final assembly field. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua/Deng Hua) Guan Yanping (L) provides free medical service for a kid in Gongshan County in Lisu Autonomous Prefecture of Nujiang, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Oct. 25, 2019. In 2017, Guan Yanping left Zhuhai of south China's Guangdong Province to work as an aiding doctor in Nujiang of southwest China's Yunnan Province. In the past few years, she has trekked over 500 times on the steep, narrow mountain paths to treat the local villagers. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua) In this combo photo, the left part taken by Xinhua photographer Deng Hua on March 2, 2021 shows Cheng Shouzhen wearing a wig to cover her white hair posing for a photo at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province; and the right part shows Cheng coming back from Wuhan after offering medical aid there on April 17, 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, Cheng Shouzhen led more than 130 team members from the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University to offer medical aid. After two months of fighting the epidemic, her hair turned gray. After returning from Wuhan and taking a short rest, Cheng Shouzhen joined the Chinese medical expert team assisting Serbia and continued fighting in Serbia for 40 days. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua) Chinese expert medical team member Cheng Shouzhen (1st L) delivers brochures on COVID-19 epidemic prevention to the medical staff of a nursing center in Belgrade, Serbia, May 12, 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, Cheng Shouzhen led more than 130 team members from the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University to offer medical aid. After two months of fighting the epidemic, her hair turned gray. After returning from Wuhan and taking a short rest, Cheng Shouzhen joined the Chinese medical expert team assisting Serbia and continued fighting in Serbia for 40 days. March 8 marks the International Women's Day, which is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Women in all walks of life are playing an increasingly important role in society. (Xinhua)
Press Release

9 March 2021

Premier Inn, the UK's largest hotel business, is readying itself for summer with five new seaside locations set to open this spring / summer. Together the hotels add 545 bedrooms to Premier Inn's expanding network in popular coastal and leisure locations across the UK.

Advertisements

A new 100-bedroom Premier Inn at Sandown Seafront on the Isle of Wight kicks off the run of seaside openings from Friday (26th February), with new Premier Inn hotels at Scarborough, Bournemouth, Blackpool, and Thurso opening their doors in a phased way during spring and early summer.

The new openings, which are a mixture of freehold and leasehold developments, continue the strategic expansion of Premier Inn into popular leisure and seaside locations across the country where the business has been working hard to grow its presence in recent years.

Alex Flach, UK Development Director at Whitbread, said:

"Nearly half of all Premier Inn customers stay with us on leisure breaks every year. Our leisure guests are a crucial part of our business and we have been steadily expanding our network in popular leisure and seaside locations to meet existing demand from our guests and caterer for the growing trend for UK breaks and staycations.

"The five new Premier Inn hotels we are opening at coastal locations this spring / summer are part of our ongoing strategy of investing in high-quality locations where we are confident of strong, long-term demand for our affordable bedrooms. They mark the start of a busy year for new Premier Inn hotel openings and we are continuing to seek new acquisition opportunities to grow and improve our network in select locations across the UK and Ireland."

In total, the five new hotels are expected to create approximately 130 new jobs when fully occupied, with recruitment focused in the immediate area around the hotels.

Whitbread, Premier Inn's parent company, is continuing to grow and innovate its hotel business in the UK, Ireland and Germany where it has a combined network of more than 90,000 Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn bedrooms open and in its secured development pipeline.

The five new seaside and coastal and seaside locations opening across the UK are:

Premier Inn Sandown Esplanade, Isle of Wight - 100 bedrooms and Cookhouse & Pub

Premier Inn Scarborough North Bay - 105 bedrooms

Premier Inn Bournemouth West Cliff - 105 bedrooms

Premier Inn Blackpool North Pier - 150 bedrooms and Cookhouse & Pub restaurant

Premier Inn Thurso - 85 bedrooms and the most northerly Premier Inn in the UK on opening

Full details of Premier Inn's current site requirements in leisure, seaside and urban locations across the UK and Ireland is available at www.whitbread.co.uk/property-and-suppliers.
Along with the fun usually comes some jail time for several Bike Week goers. With the thousands of people in attendance there is typically a wave of crime that comes with it. Crimes such as assault, battery, theft, road rage and indecent exposure are typical.

Central Florida Bonding announces their newest blog post that discusses common crimes committed during Bike Week. Hadi Khouri, owner of Central Florida Bonding, states, Every year motorcycle enthusiasts from around the globe make the pilgrimage to Daytona Beach, Florida for Bike Week. This year marks the 80th year of this annual week-long event. Along with the fun usually comes some jail time for several Bike Week goers. With the thousands of people in attendance there is typically a wave of crime that comes with it. Crimes such as assault, battery, theft, road rage and indecent exposure are typical. We launched this new blog to educate people about the many crimes we see take place during Bike Week. Over the years we have bailed many from the Volusia County Jail. We are just a phone call away and our bail bondsmen will walk defendants through the bail bond process. All they need to do is call us at 407-841-3646 to get started. We keep it easy. Central Florida Bondings newest blog lists common crimes that can happen during Bike Week.

A sample of these crimes include:



Assault

Battery

DUI

Drug crimes such as possession, distributing, and trafficking

Destruction of property

To read the full article, visit online at https://cfborlando.com/bike-week-arrests/

Central Florida Bonding provides bail bonds for clients facing numerous charges including assault, battery, drug trafficking, drug paraphernalia, DUI, domestic violence, theft, soliciting, breaking and entering, alcohol related charges, and more. To start the bail bond process, defendants or their loved ones are encouraged to call 407-841-3646. Their bail bond agents are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days of the year to assist with the bail bond process.

Central Flolrida Bonding has been serving Central Florida since 1979. Khouri adds, All of our bail bond agents are experienced and knowledgeable. We have been in business a long time and know the ins and outs of both the criminal justice system as well as the bail bonding process. Being in jail can be a scary experience. Rely on Central Florida Bonding to make the process quick and as painless as possible. The bail bond agents at Central Florida Bonding are able to explain the bail bond process, assist with paperwork, and answer questions regarding the criminal justice system all while lending an empathetic ear.

Central Florida Bonding is located in the Cox Plaza at 2911 39th Street, Suite 300, in Orlando, Florida. This bail bond agency serves all of Central Florida including Volusia, Seminole, Orange, Lake, Osceola, and Brevard counties. They are licensed to post bonds across the state of Florida and across the United States with affiliated agencies.

For more information about Central Florida Bonding, visit online at https://cfborlando.com/. To learn more about how bail bonds work or how Central Florida Bonding can quickly bail somebody from jail, call 407-841-3646.

The entire staff at Central Florida Bonding hopes Bike Week 2021 attendees have a fun and safe week.
The purpose of the Student Government Association is to be the voice of the student body here at Missouri Western State University. The Student Government Association serves as a model government through the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.

Nathan Scott is the current president for the SGA.

I didn't have full intention to run again unless I did the work that justified me for another term," Scott said. "I think that as president and with the great team that I've had, we've done a lot of great work for the students and we've done a lot of things that are beneficial.

Scott explained that there are still a lot of goals and much too accomplish, but there has also been a lot that has been accomplished over the past year.

New and upgraded spaces are important for students, this will get us engaged in having a fun exciting campus for student life, Scott said. We need to rebuild and grow past where we were before and that's going to take someone who works really hard to do that.

The SGA is a great place to learn leadership skills and boost resumes right here at the university. Scott explained the timeline of the upcoming election.

There is an official election calendar policy, primary campaign is March 1-11, primary election is March 10 and 11 and then general election is March 31 through April 1.

Chief Justice and Election Commissioner Josiah Schmedding is the person to contact for more information about SGA elections.

Students declare their candidacy either for President, Vice President or for Senate on the SGA website and submit themselves to the election process, Scmedding said. The election process is currently underway under the calendar approved by the Senate.

The goal of the SGA is to work hard for the students and accomplish goals that are made in campaigns.

I'd really like to see more students get involved in student government, Schemdding said. "While SGA does not run the school, it has a lot of ability to advocate for students' issues in a much more rigorous manner when more students are invested.

Sophomore Madison Brady is an athlete at Missouri Western who is potentially interested in the SGA.

I don't know anything about the student government association but I was part of the national honor society and student council in high school, Brady said. I play lacrosse here at Missouri Western and was taught that its important to be involved in activities at an early age.

Students do not have to join SGA to get involved. Giving feedback by speaking to representatives or at meetings helps inform SGA about problems that students are having. Scott went on to explain that student involvement is more important now than ever.

This past year has been challenging. I think that Missouri Western is on the right track even with the news of being in a deficit as a university, Scott said. "Students should get involved in SGA because it gives you a lot of opportunities to grow and succeed.

Students need to look towards the future and electing the right leadership in the student government will help ensure it's a good future.
TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V): GRG

Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE): G6A

OTCQB Venture Market (OTCQB): GARWF

VANCOUVER, BC, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Golden Arrow Resources Corporation (TSXV: GRG) (FSE: G6A) (OTCQB: GARWF), ("Golden Arrow" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Definitive Agreement (the "Agreement") to option its Caballos Copper-Gold Project ("Caballos" or the "Project") to Hanaq Argentina S.A. ("Hanaq"). Hanaq is a mineral exploration company with precious, base and strategic metal projects throughout Argentina. The agreement gives Hanaq the opportunity to earn a 70% interest in Caballos by spending US$4 million on exploration at the Project over six years.

"Caballos is one of several copper-focused projects within our more than 180,000-hectare portfolio in Argentina that has demonstrated potential from preliminary geological work. With the recent strength in the copper market, we have redoubled our efforts to secure qualified and committed partners such as Hanaq to advance these exploration projects. This allows us to build value at those properties while freeing our team to concentrate on our core-focus precious metal projects in Argentina and Paraguay and on copper assets that we believe we can advance faster and more efficiently, such as our Rosales copper project in Chile," commented Joseph Grosso, Golden Arrow's Executive Chairman, President and CEO.

Golden Arrow Key Copper Projects

Rosales - The Company's 100% held Rosales copper project is located less than 90 kilometres from the mining centre of Copiapo in Region III, Chile . The region is prolific for mining, with multiple copper and gold mining projects nearby, including the Margarita Mine, an underground copper mining operation adjacent to the Rosales properties. [ Golden Arrow cautions that proximity to a producing mine does not indicate that mineralization will occur in sufficient quantity or grade on Golden Arrow's property that would result in an economic extraction scenario.] Golden Arrow's first phase exploration program is underway at Rosales, and a new detailed geophysical survey is being commissioned to map structures related to mineralization and aid in the delineation of drill targets.

In addition to the Caballos project, Golden Arrow has an Argentina copper portfolio that includes multiple projects in geologic districts that host world-class copper and gold deposits. Highlights of the portfolio include:

Mogote  Mogote is adjacent to the Filo del Sol gold project property owned by Filo Mining and has seen limited drilling on its multiple porphyry and epithermal targets.

Don Bosco  Don Bosco has several copper, gold and silver targets, and is in the same sedimentary belt as the Gualcamayo gold mine owned by Mineros S.A.

[Golden Arrow cautions that proximity to a producing mine does not indicate that mineralization will occur in sufficient quantity or grade on Golden Arrow's property that would result in an economic extraction scenario.]

The Mogote and Don Bosco projects, and others, are available for joint venture.

For additional details on the Company's main projects, please visit the website www.goldenarrowresources.com.

About the Caballos Copper-Gold Project, San Juan Province, Argentina

The Caballos Copper-Gold Project covers over 12,000 hectares along the Chilean border in the Andean Cordillera of La Rioja Province, Argentina. The property is in a prospective porphyry copper-gold and epithermal gold-silver district at the intersection between the south end of the Maricunga Copper-Gold Belt with the northern extent of the El Indio Gold-Silver Belt. Elevations at Caballos range from 4,000m to 4,500m above sea level. A paved highway and good gravel roads allow ready access to the eastern part of the property and work can be conducted for 7 to 8 months of the year. The nearest small community is 100km away.

An initial multi-discipline exploration program led to the discovery of a copper-gold porphyry target, including a magnetic core, measuring 300m x 800m. Outcrop sampling on the margin of the magnetic core zone encountered 12 metres averaging 2.4% copper within an 18 metre continuous chip sample. The coincidence of magnetic high, chargeability high, elevated gold and copper geochemistry and classic porphyry alteration combines to present a compelling copper gold porphyry drill target. (For additional details on the project and exploration results, please refer to the original news releases filed on SEDAR.)

Caballos Option Agreement Details

The Agreement was executed by Golden Arrow's wholly-owned subsidiary, Desarrollo de Recursos S.A. ("DDR"). In order to earn a 70% interest in the Project, Hanaq has guaranteed a minimum US$0.5 million in expenditures on exploration within two years, followed by US$3.5 million in exploration expenditures within six years of the Agreement date. After completion of the option earn-in, a joint venture company comprised of 70% Hanaq and 30% DDR will advance the Project on a pro rata basis, with provisions for dilution.

Qualified Persons

The results of the Company's exploration program have been reviewed, verified (including sampling, analytical and test data) and compiled by the Company's geological staff under the supervision of Brian McEwen, P.Geol., VP Exploration and Development to the Company. Mr. McEwen is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the contents of the news release.

About Golden Arrow:

Golden Arrow Resources Corporation is a mining exploration company with a successful track record of creating value by making precious and base metal discoveries and advancing them into exceptional deposits. The Company is well leveraged to the price of gold, having monetized its Chinchillas silver discovery into a significant holding in precious metals producer SSR Mining Inc.

Golden Arrow is actively exploring a portfolio that includes a new epithermal gold project in Argentina, a districtscale frontier gold opportunity in Paraguay, a base-metal project in the heart of a leading mining district in Chile and more than 180,000 hectares of properties in Argentina.

The Company is a member of the Grosso Group, a resource management group that has pioneered exploration in Argentina since 1993.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Joseph Grosso"



_______________________________

Mr. Joseph Grosso,

Executive Chairman, President and CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including, without limitation, statements about the Company's plans for its mineral properties; the Company's business strategy, plans and outlooks; the future financial or operating performance of the Company; and future exploration and operating plans are forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements and, even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things: the impact of COVID-19; risks and uncertainties related to the ability to obtain, amend, or maintain licenses, permits, or surface rights; risks associated with technical difficulties in connection with mining activities; and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Readers are encouraged to refer to the Company's public disclosure documents for a more detailed discussion of factors that may impact expected future results. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, unless required pursuant to applicable laws.

SOURCE Golden Arrow Resources Corporation
WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden on Monday directed the Education Department to review a regulation governing how colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual assault, with an eye toward unraveling a new system put into place by Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

The DeVos regulation released in May spells out due process rights for those accused of harassment or assault, and the former secretary saw it as one of her most significant achievements. But it came under sharp attack from Democrats, women's groups and others, and as a candidate, Biden signaled that he would replace it.

It's not clear, though, how he will go about doing so. Unraveling a regulation that is already in place may require a second complex rulemaking process.

Biden signed an executive order directing the Education Department to evaluate whether the DeVos regulation is "consistent with the policies" of the Biden administration. That's a first step toward a fresh policy.

It also directed the agency to review other regulations, orders, guidances and policies to see whether they are consistent with the administration's policy to "guarantee education free from sexual violence."

Also on Monday, Biden signed an executive order establishing a new White House Gender Policy Council charged with developing a government-wide strategy for advancing gender equity and equality. It will focus on domestic and foreign policy, including examining the burden the coronavirus pandemic has put on women in particular, officials said.

The orders were released on International Women's Day. Biden marked the day at an event announcing the nomination of two female generals as four-star combatant commanders. On Twitter, he said the day was meant to "celebrate the achievements, contributions, and progress of women and girls - and recommit ourselves to the cause of equity and equality for women around the world."

As a candidate, Biden said he would revive Obama-era guidance to schools on how to investigate sexual harassment and assault under the federal civil rights law known as Title IX. That guidance did not carry the force of law, and DeVos rescinded itin 2017.

The DeVos regulation mandated a judicial-like process in which the accused has the right to a live hearing and to cross-examine accusers, providing what supporters see as much-needed due process protections. Opponents said it would allow assailants and schools to escape responsibility and discourage victims from coming forward.

Opponents of the DeVos rule welcomed the Biden action.

"Students should be guaranteed a safe education, protected from sexual harassment and assault," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. "This is the first step toward reversing the outrageous policies carried out by Secretary DeVos."

But others fear the rights of the accused will be diminished.

"The right to due process is bigger than partisan politics - it is a cornerstone of American democracy," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the top Republican on the House Education Committee. "By overturning these stakeholder-vetted, court-supported rules, key protections for victims and the due process rights of the accused would be jeopardized."

A White House official declined to say how the Biden administration would address issues of due process.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with the notion that everybody involved, accused or accuser . . . should have a fair and full process," said Jennifer Klein, co-chair of the White House Gender Policy Council and a former adviser to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. "That's exactly what the policy of this administration is. And the secretary of education will look at the regulation with that in mind."

The gender council will also be co-chaired by Julissa Reynoso, chief of staff to first lady Jill Biden. The council, with a dedicated staff of four, is meant to span the administration with an eye toward "full participation of all people," regardless of gender, said an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity at a background briefing before the announcement.

A similar office that existed in the Obama administration was called the White House Council on Women and Girls. The Biden version was renamed to refer to gender, partly to signal that issues of transgender people would be included, the official said.

Gender discrimination can happen to "people of all genders," the official said. "There will be a focus on women and girls, but the choice of the name of the council is really intentional."

Issues the council plans to address include sexual harassment, workforce issues, family caregiving, gender-based violence and gender equity globally.

"President Biden knows that we need a government-wide focus uplifting the rights of all women and girls," Reynoso said.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Sofia Richie is in great shape as she works out every day while in lockdown at her father Lionel Richie's mansion.

And the 22-year-old model has been sharing with her fans just how incredible she looks these days as she tries on bikinis. On Tuesday the friend of Paris Hilton shared a bikini pinup image in black and white taken in her dad's back yard photographer friend Adrian Martin.

This comes the day after her ex Scott Disick was seen in a KUWTK teaser asking his ex Kourtney Kardashian to marry him.

Bikini babe: Sofia Richie is in great shape as she works out every day while in lockdown at her father Lionel Richie's mansion. And the 22-year-old model has been sharing with her fans just how incredible she looks these days as she tries on bikinis

Scott looks at Kourtney during an outdoor meal and says he will marry her right then and there. The move is off considering he is dating Amelia Hamlin and she is with Travis Barker.

Meanwhile, Richie is doing her own thing theses days, like posing for pinup photos.

In her new snap, the looker had a small waistline and toned arms as she looked straight into the camera. Her blonde hair was worn down in soft waves and she had on minimal makeup.

And the Los Angeles native also wore layered of gold jewelry - multiple chain necklaces with a round pendant and stacks of bracelets.

Thanks Martin! On Tuesday the friend of Paris Hilton shared a bikini pinup image in black and white taken in her dad's back yard photographer friend Adrian Martin

Before that, the star was seen in a color photo in the same backyard; and she used the same photographer.

Richie had on a black bandeau top under a beige jacket as she added small briefs with her hair back.

She had on the same gold jewelry as in the other photo as she glanced at a book. Sofia was barefoot as she showed off a black pedicure.

Life in a swimsuit: Before that, the star was seen in a color photo in the same backyard; and she used the same photographer. Richie had on a black bandeau top under a beige jacket as she added small briefs with her hair back

Last month Sofia said she was 'still single.'

The model has recently been spotted on a series of dates with the billionaire shipping heir Gil Ofer, but according to a source close to the blonde beauty, she remains a single woman.

Speaking to E! News, the insider explained: 'Sofia is currently single despite her rendezvous in Miami.

'She's been seeing a few people and is truly having fun right now. She doesn't want to be tied down in a relationship and is keeping her options open. She's been going on dates with a few people and her friends have been trying to set her up.'

Sofia has been enjoying her time with Gil but their situation remains 'casual'.

He moved on: Her ex Scott Disick is now dating Lisa Rinna's daughter Amelia Hamlin; seen in Miami in mid February

The source added: 'Sofia has been hanging out with Gil Ofer while vacationing in Miami, but it's been casual.

'They've gone on a few dates and she likes him but she truly doesn't want anything serious. Gil and Sofia met through mutual friends and have known each other for awhile now.'

The romance rumours emerged shortly after Sofia suggested she'd outgrown her relationship with Scott, 37.

The model recently wrote a cryptic post about love on her Instagram Stories.

She has the same job as Sofia: Like Richie, Amelia models bikinis and lingerie

Sofia said: 'Sometimes we outgrow people we used to know and become different people. When this growth happens, some take our changes personally. Not because they have anything against us but because they do not recognize the person that we are now (sic)'

Sofia - who started dating Scott back in 2017 - also suggested that she's changed significantly over recent years.

She wrote: 'You're not responsible for people's assumptions about you. You're also not obliged to remain the person people remember you to be.'

Meanwhile, Disick and Amelia Gray Hamlin went Instagram official in February

The reality TV star and the 19-year-old actress have been linked since last year, when they were spotted at Kendall Jenner's Halloween party together and Scott has finally confirmed the romance with some pictures on his Instagram.

His other ex: Scott's former partner, with whom he has three kids, is now dating again

He shared one unsmiling picture of them both with the caption, 'why so serious' before adding a happier image and writing 'just kiddin'.

The pictures - showing Scott's newly dyed blonde hair - were taken during a romantic date night in Miami, Florida, where the pair have been enjoying a loved-up vacation.

Scott split from longtime girlfriend Richie last summer and he is said to be smitten with Amelia.

Her new man: The KUWTK star is dating Travis Barker; seen here talking to Drew Barrymore on Monday

A source, who spotted Scott and Amelia on the beach in Miami, told E! News: 'They seemed to be having a very relaxing time. They looked very much in love. They were really chill and relaxed with a couple friends.'

Meanwhile, it was previously claimed that Amelia's parents, 'Real Housewives' star Lisa Rinna and actor Harry Hamlin were not supportive of her romance with Scott.

An insider said: 'Harry and Lisa were sad to see Amelia and Mercer Wiederhorn split because they loved Mercer. He was like family, but they understand. They believe [the romance with Scott] is just a phase.'

Scott's other ex Kourtney and her new beau Travis Barker have made their relationship Instagram official in February.

The 41-year-old reality star shared a photo on social media showing her hand intertwined with the Blink-182 drummer's.

What? In a teaser for the next episode of KUWTK, Scott asks Kourtney to marry him even though he is dating Hamlin

Although she didn't post a caption on the snap, Travis commented with a black heart emoji.

Her Poosh lifestyle brand referenced on of the rock band's hit tracks as they commented: 'We're feeling this'.

Kourtney's friend Addison Rae simply wrote: 'THIS.'

Meanwhile, her family are said to be pleased to see the reality star dating the punk rock drummer.

The insider recently said: 'Kourtney's family is super supportive of the relationship and loves Travis.

She is not so sure: Kourtney has told Scott they are not a fit because he has not worked on himself enough

'He has been a family friend for such a long time and Kourtney has been single for a while, so they're all very happy for her and think this is the healthiest relationship that she could be in.'

Last month, a source claimed that Travis, 45, is 'smitten' with Kourtney.

The drummer and the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star are 'officially a couple', and he's been in love with Kourtney for some time.

The source said: 'Kourtney and Travis are officially a couple. They have been close friends for years and have been dating for a couple of months. Travis is very smitten with Kourtney and has been for a while.'

The celebrity duo sparked rumours after they both posted social media snaps from Kris Jenner's Palm Springs home.

Flashback: Single Sofia shared this image with her best pal; the image was taken last year

The romance is Kourtney's first major relationship since she split from Younes Bendjima in 2018, having separated from Disick - the father of her children Mason, 11, Penelope, eight, and six-year-old Reign - six years ago.

And it's said Scott 'couldn't be happier' with his ex's new romance.

A source revealed: 'Scott has been around Travis on several occasions and thinks he's a great guy. He's really happy for Kourtney and is not surprised they are dating. Kourtney has spent a lot of time with Travis and it's not shocking to him that they developed a romantic relationship.

'She hasn't dated someone in a while and Scott wants her to be happy. Kourtney and Scott are in a great place and they have come to terms that they are strictly friends and co-parents. There's no romance there and he couldn't be happier that she's moved on. As long as the kids are in a healthy situation and Kourtney's in a good place, then Scott is happy for them.'
Members of Hillel at University of Georgia and the UGA Black Student Union came together to host the Racial Justice Shabbat on March 26, discussing their experiences as minorities on campus and what they can do to become better allies for underrepresented communities.
Kerrville, TX (78028)

Today

Partly to mostly cloudy with widely scattered showers or thunderstorms possible overnight. Low 64F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy with widely scattered showers or thunderstorms possible overnight. Low 64F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.
Gardai have seized a haul of cannabis herb worth a whopping 220,000 and 18,000 in cash in a raid in north Dublin.

The seizure was made during a search of a house in the Charlestown area of Finglas this morning.

Shortly before 10am, Garda units from Finglas Station and Blanchardstown District raided the property after as part of ongoing investigations in to the sale and distribution of drugs in North Dublin Region.

They discovered a large quantity of cannabis herb with an estimated value of 220,000 along with 18,000 in cash.

Read More

A number of other items linked to drugs distribution were also seized including bags, weighing scales, cutting knives and documentation.

Two women aged in their 20s were arrested at the scene and taken to Finglas Garda Station where they are currently detained under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996. They can be held for up to seven days.

Investigations are ongoing.
The beauty and personal-care company Unilever said on Tuesday that it would no longer use the word normal on its products or in its advertising, after a study revealed that it makes most people feel excluded.

Unilever, a company based in London that owns Dove, Axe, Sunsilk and Vaseline, among other personal-care brands, also said it would not digitally alter the body shape, size or skin color of models in its advertising as part of its Positive Beauty initiative, according to a news release. And the company promised to increase the number of ads featuring underrepresented people, without specifying which groups.

An aim of these steps and others, Unilever said, was to better challenge narrow beauty ideals.

The advertising changes came after the company commissioned a 10,000-person study across nine countries, including Brazil, China, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The study found that 56 percent of participants thought that the beauty industry could make people feel excluded, and that as many as seven in 10 people agreed that the word normal on products and in advertising had negative effects. Eight in 10 people agreed among participants age 18 to 35.
It was once an iconic tourist destination for thousands of Australian travellers, but life in Bali following Covid is anything but a holiday.

Before the global pandemic hit last year the island paradise was a celebrated rite of passage for Aussies of all ages, enticed by cheap beers, great shopping and endless beaches.

These days Bali, which had just one million visitors last year compared to 6.28 million in 2019, is a barren wasteland, with empty hotels and the usually chaotic Denpasar Airport resembling a ghost town.

A documentary from ABC's Foreign Correspondent program has revealed how the iconic getaway destination is a shadow of its former self, with many locals fearing it will never recover.

Bali's world class beaches used to lure in scores of eager tourists from all parts of the globe

The international airport in Denpasar was bustling with tourists before the global pandemic

With an estimated 80 per cent of Bali's economy reliant on tourists, the pandemic has forced locals to accept the grim realisation that the 'glory days' of yesteryear are now just a distant memory.

Foreign tourists are still barred from entering the island due to Covid, with the domino effect seeing many locals returning to their villages or trying their hand at other manual roles such as farming seaweed.

'Walking through the international airport, a place I have been to many times in my life, is just quite surreal,' Foreign Correspondent journalist Matt Davis said in the confronting documentary.

'It is normally bustling with international tourists but now is so quiet I can hear the air conditioner that's the only sound.'

Davis added the moment many countries across the globe imposed mandatory lockdowns, the number of visitors to one of Indonesia's favourite islands quickly dropped to zero.

And once the tourism was stopped dead in its tracks, the popular party venue was left reeling.

Bali has endured a significant reduction in tourists previously, with a notable example following the Kuta terrorist attack in 2002 which claimed 88 Australian lives.

But the immense difficulty surrounding how to adapt to life during a global pandemic has left many local businesses in ruins.

A decade ago, Ceningan and Nusa Lembongan islands, away from the mainland, saw tourists eagerly flock in droves on a daily basis.

Now the famous international airport resembles a ghost town, with no tourism due to Covid

The popular Kuta beach is now only used by locals, with tourists banned from entering Bali

At the time, it wasn't unusual to see up to 20 boats each day, with tourists lapping up the plethora of waterside villas and luxury restaurants.

Fast forward to 2021 and just two boats now run each day from the mainland.

Pontoons catering for guests, which used to be full, now lie abandoned in the ocean, with some even submerged.

In terms of statistics, Indonesia's Covid-19 outbreak is confronting, with over 37,000 deaths and 1.3 million confirmed cases.

For an island that needs tourists to continually thrive, Bali is floundering. Sadly, it could be permanent.
LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Tego Cyber Inc. (OTCQB:TGCB), an emerging developer of proactive cyber threat intelligence applications, is pleased to announce that the Company's common shares have commences trading on the OTCQB Venture Marketplace (OTCQB) under the symbol 'TGCB' effective March 9, 2021. Price quote and disclosure information can be found at:

www.otcmarkets.com/stock/TGCB

The OTCQB Venture is the premier marketplace for entrepreneurial and development stage U.S. and international companies that are committed to providing a high-quality trading and information experience for their US investors. To be eligible, companies must be current in their financial reporting, pass a minimum bid price test, and undergo an annual company verification and management certification process. The OTCQB Venture quality standards provide a strong baseline of transparency, as well as the technology and regulation to improve the information and trading experience for investors.

The Company would also like to announce that it has submitted an application for its common shares to become eligible for electronic clearing and settlement through the Depository Trust Company ("DTC"). DTC is a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. Securities that are eligible to be electronically cleared and settled through the DTC are considered "DTC eligible." This electronic method of clearing securities speeds up the receipt of stock and cash, and thus accelerates the settlement process for investors.

Shannon Wilkinson, CEO of the Company, states "the Company is excited for the future and believes that the quoting of the common shares on the OTCQB will provide existing shareholders with liquidity and transparency while the Company pursues the roll out of its threat intelligence application." Wilkinson further stated, "What is even more exciting for us is that we received this great news on International Women's Day. As a woman-led tech company- I can't help but be grateful for the female pioneers who have forged the way for women like myself, who lead by example, and who motivate and inspire other women. The culture of women-supporting-women is something I am proud of and proud to participate in."

In addition to receiving the news that the Company's common shares had been approved for trading on the OTCQB on International Women's Day, Shannon was featured on the cover of CIO Views as a Top Businesswoman of 2021. Read the article here, Bridging the Gap of Gender Diversity with Cybersecurity.

About OTC Markets Group Inc.

OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market and the Pink Open Market for 11,800+ U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN, they connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. OTC Markets Group enables investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors. To learn more about how they create better informed and more efficient markets visit www.otcmarkets.com.

About Tego Cyber Inc.

Tego Cyber Inc (OTCQB:TGCB) trades on the OTCQB Venture Market for early stage and developing U.S. and international companies. Companies are current in their reporting and undergo an annual verification and management certification process. Investors can find Real-Time quotes and market information for the company on www.otcmarkets.com/stock/TGCB/overview

Tego Cyber Inc. (the Company) was created to capitalize on the emerging cyber threat intelligence market. The Company has developed a cyber threat intelligence application that integrates with top end security platforms to gather, analyze, then proactively identify threats to an enterprise network. The Tego Threat Intelligence Platform (TTIP) takes in vetted and curated threat data and after utilizing a proprietary process, the platform compiles, analyzes, and then delivers that data to an enterprise network in a format that is timely, informative, and relevant. The threat data provides additional context including specific details needed to identify and counteract threats so that security teams can spend less time searching for disparate information. The first version of the TTIP will integrate with the widely accepted SPLUNK platform to provide real-time threat intelligence to macro enterprises using the SPLUNK architecture. The Company plans on developing future versions of the TTIP for integration with other established SIEM systems and platforms including: Elastic, IBM Rada, AT&T Alien Vault, Exabeam and LogRhythm.

Forward-Looking Statements

The statements contained in this press release, those which are not purely historical or which depend upon future events, may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Statements regarding the Company's expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future constitute forward-looking statements. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements because of various factors. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based on information available to the Company on the date hereof and the Company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement. Prospective investors should also consult the risks factors described from time to time in the Company's Reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K and Annual Reports to Shareholders.

Contact:

Tego Cyber Inc.

8565 S Eastern Avenue, Suite 150

Las Vegas, Nevada

USA 89123

Tel: 855-939-0100

Email: info@tegocyber.com

Web: tegocyber.com

Facebook: facebook.com/tegocyber

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/tegocyber

Twitter: twitter.com/tegocyber

Investor Relations:

Tel: 855-939-0100 Ext 705

Email: investor@tegocyber.com

SOURCE: Tego Cyber Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634197/Common-Shares-of-Tego-Cyber-Inc-Now-Quoted-on-OTCQB
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, joins the Jiangsu delegation in deliberation at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, capital of China, March 7, 2021. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

BEIJING, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese leaders Sunday attended deliberations at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature.

The leaders -- Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng -- are all members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

Premier Li Keqiang joined the Jiangsu delegation in deliberation. Noting that the country will still face risks and challenges in its development this year, he expressed the hope for Jiangsu to better play its role as a province with strong economic performance in cementing the foundation for national economic stability and recovery and in promoting high-quality development.

While joining the Gansu delegation for deliberation, Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, called for efforts to consolidate the achievements made in eradicating poverty and advance the rural vitalization strategy.

Wang Yang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, urged efforts to resolutely deter any attempt seeking "Taiwan independence" and interference by external forces and stressed advancing the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations when attending deliberation with lawmakers from Taiwan.

While participating in the deliberation of the Yunnan delegation, Wang Huning, a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, underscored the importance of deepening the education on ethnic unity and progress, enhancing the capacity of ethnic minority areas to achieve self-development, and building robust, stable and prosperous border areas.

Zhao Leji, secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, demanded continuous efforts to improve the conduct and guide Party members to pass on the glorious traditions and fine conduct of the Party when joining in the deliberation with deputies from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Vice Premier Han Zheng called on the lawmakers from Hong Kong and Macao to fully support the legislative exercises of the NPC and its standing committee to improve the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and resolutely support chief executives and governments of the SARs in administering the regions in accordance with the law, making new contributions to the sound and sustained implementation of "one country, two systems."
China is mulling improving the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)  but critics say it's a plan to eliminate opposition forces in the city.



This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005793/en/





Why are improvements imperative?



"To remedy the situation, it is important to take necessary steps to improve the electoral system and remove existing institutional deficiencies and risks to ensure the administration of Hong Kong by Hong Kong people with patriots as the main body," Wang said.

Alex Fan, founding president of the International Youth Legal Exchange Federation in Hong Kong, told CGTN that "allowing non-patriots or even people endangering national security to participate in the election will put the 'One Country, Two Systems' in peril."

What can be improved?

According to the draft decision, the focus of the improvements will be on the reform and greater empowerment of the city's Election Committee.

"Hong Kong's chief executive will continue to be elected by the Election Committee. The committee will also elect a relatively large share of Legislative Council (LegCo) members and directly participate in the nomination of all LegCo candidates," Wang said, adding that the revisions to be made may be limited to Annex I and Annex II to the Basic Law, without revising the main body of the Basic Law.

How will it be carried out?

A two-step approach, namely, "decision plus amendment," has been put forward. The NPC, China's top legislature, first makes a decision on improving the electoral system of the HKSAR and authorizes its Standing Committee to amend. Then the NPC Standing Committee amends the Annex I and Annex II to the Basic Law of the HKSAR.

After the amendment at the state level is completed, the HKSAR will amend relevant local laws accordingly.

In consideration of the complexity of Hong Kong's election-related local laws, experts believe the process will take some time but will be completed before elections in Hong Kong in the second half of the year.

What would the improvements mean?

Li Huan, an associate research fellow at the Hong Kong and Macao Research Center, rejected concerns that the non-establishment camp in Hong Kong would have no room to participate in politics after the amendment, saying the decision "does not aim to serve the pro-establishment camp or to restrict the non-establishment camp."

"It depends on how one understands the non-establishment camp. People from the non-establishment camp are not necessarily unpatriotic or those who don't love Hong Kong," Li told CGTN.

This echoed the words of Xia Baolong, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, who has said the emphasis on "patriots governing Hong Kong" is not meant to erase all differences.

Liu Zhaojia, the vice chairman of the National Hong Kong and Macao Research Association, added: "Pro-establishment candidates can also rest easy. They must put in real efforts to solve Hong Kong's social and livelihood problems in order to gain a better political future."

The Liaison Office of the HKSAR voiced support for improving the electoral system, stating "it is the only way for Hong Kong society to end political disputes, refocus on development and protect the long-term prosperity and stability."

The HKSAR delegation to the Two Sessions said the proposed improvements would not make any change to "One Country, Two Systems," but would strengthen the principle, as well as put an end to the political chaos in Hong Kong and allow local society to focus on economic development, people's livelihood and the SAR's integration into the overall development of the country.

No one cares more about Hong Kong's democracy and continued prosperity and stability than the Central Government of China, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated on Sunday, adding that Hong Kong's shift from chaos to stability serves the interests of all parties.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-08/Improving-Hong-Kong-s-electoral-system-What-s-at-stake--YstxU8LeKs/index.html

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005793/en/
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The 2021 WhatsOnStage Awards will stream on Sunday, March 14, at 2pm ET. Tickets are available now, and you can get them here.

This year, TheaterMania's sibling site across the pond will not honor individual productions, but will celebrate 21 "Angels" nominated by audiences for their love and care during the ongoing pandemic. These "Angels" will be announced by hosts Jodie Prenger and Tom Read Wilson during the show, and they will be honored with a night of live theater when shows return.

The streaming event will feature performances from all kinds of musicals that were cut short during 2020, along with brand-new shows hoping to open in 2021. The lineup for the Awards is as follows:

 Cedric Neal will perform "Gotta Start Somewhere" from Back to the Future: the Musical, which is gearing up for an eagerly anticipated West End opening at the Adelphi Theatre after its Manchester run was disrupted by the pandemic.

 Ivano Turco will perform "Only You, Lonely You" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's brand-new West End musical Cinderella, opening at the Gillian Lynne Theatre.

 Blake Patrick Anderson, Cleve September, Danielle Fiamanya, Frances Mayli, Grace Mouat, Jodie Steele, Jordan Luke Gage, Layton Williams, Matt Croke, Millie O'Connell and Sophie Isaacs will perform "Let The Sunshine In" from Hair. The outdoor revival of the show played on a jetty outside the Turbine Theatre last year and will be returning for performances at The London Palladium and on tour later in 2021.

 Stage star Siubhan Harrison will perform "Head Over Feet" from Jagged Little Pill, which was nominated for 15 Tony Awards this year.

 Emma Kingston will perform "I Can Do Better Than That" from The Last Five Years after appearing in a socially distanced outdoor revival of Jason Robert Brown's musical at the Minack Theatre.

 Danielle Fiamanya and Matt Croke will perform "Crazy Rolling" from Moulin Rouge! Fiamanya recently appeared in Curve's The Color Purple virtual production, while Croke performed another number from Moulin Rouge! on The Voice UK earlier this year, earning public acclaim.

 Alexia Khadime and Christine Allado will perform "When You Believe" from The Prince of Egypt, which had its gargantuan West End production at the Dominion Theatre temporarily halted by the pandemic last year, but is now set to return.

 Dom Hartley-Harris and Alex Thomas-Smith will perform "I'll Cover You" from Rent, returning to the roles of Collins and Angel after a smash-hit run at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester was cut short by the pandemic.

 Jamie Muscato will perform "Something's Coming" from West Side Story, having led the show when it was mounted at Curve Leicester in winter 2019.

 Oscar Conlon-Morrey and Amy Hart will make appearances to highlight some of the work being done by the theatre community on and off the stage.
Leading airline and business groups on Monday called on the Biden administration to issue vaccine passports and pushed back against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for urging fully vaccinated Americans to avoid travel - despite 5.6 million Americans already taking to the skies ahead of Spring Break.

Airlines For America, an industry group, said in a statement that being on a plane poses a low risk of contracting the virus due to filtered air and mandated mask wearing.

Meanwhile, the so-called vaccine passports would let travelers show they've been inoculated against COVID-19 - but airlines fear that a hodgepodge of documents from different states would cause confusion, so they're calling on the federal government to come up with a plan.

The industry's push for opening the skies for travel came as thousands of people already have taken off for Spring Break, with pictures of revelers on the beach populating social media.

The comments also came in response to CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky, who said during a White House briefing on Monday that fully vaccinated people should avoid 'non-essential travel', especially as Spring Break approaches.

Walensky and other health experts are concerned that spring break travel will lead to an surge in infections at a time when the US is finally starting to see a significant decline in cases.

'Every time there's a surge in travel, we have a surge in cases in this country,' Walensky said.

Scroll down for video

The airline industry on Monday called on the Biden administration to issue vaccine passports and pushed back against the CDC for urging vaccinated Americans to avoid travel despite 5.6 million Americans taking to the skies ahead of Spring Break (pictured in Miami)

CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing on Monday that fully vaccinated people should avoid 'non-essential travel', especially as spring break approaches. Spring breakers are seen enjoying warm Miami weather over the weekend

But the Airlines For America challenged Walensky's remarks and said that being on a plane poses a low risk of contracting the virus due to filtered air and mandated mask wearing. 'We remain confident that this layered approach significantly reduces risk,' the group said

Walensky noted that many variants of COVID-19 now spreading in the US started in other countries. Still, she held out the possibility that with more data the CDC might soon approve of travel by vaccinated people.

'We remain in the midst of a serious pandemic and still over 90 per cent of our population is not fully vaccinated, though we are working hard to get there,' Walensky said.

'Therefore, everyone, whether vaccinated or not, should continue to avoid medium and large-sized gatherings as well as non-essential travel,' she said.

'And when in public spaces should continue to wear a well-fitted mask, physically distance and follow other public health measures to protect themselves and others,' Walensky added.

And while health experts may be worried, some Americans don't seem to be that bothered by their warnings.

Over the past five days, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported screening 5.6 million travelers in the US.

On March 4 and 5, a little over 1.1 million people were screened at US airports with an additional 991,000 reported on March 6.

And while health experts may be worried, some Americans don't seem to be that bothered by their warnings. Over the past five days, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported screening 5.6 million travelers (pictured in Virginia) in the US

Mississippians were seen partying at bars and restaurants on Friday after the state's governor lifted COVID-19 restrictions on March 3

Oxford, home of Ole Miss, saw people out in full force, eating at restaurants and shopping at stores like the coronavirus pandemic was a distant memory - rather than a virus that has killed more than half a million people

Wyoming will remove statewide mask mandate on March 16 Wyoming Gov Mark Gordon said on Monday that the state will remove its mask requirement and allow bars, restaurants, theaters and gyms to resume normal operations on March 16. 'I thank the people of Wyoming for their commitment to keeping one another safe throughout this pandemic,' Gordon said. 'I ask all Wyoming citizens to continue to take personal responsibility for their actions and stay diligent as we look ahead to the warmer months and to the safe resumption of our traditional spring and summer activities.' Wyoming has seen a declining number of active COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, according to state officials. The state has recorded more than 46,000 infections and 682 deaths. Advertisement

Sunday saw nearly 1.3 million travelers being screened, which marked the highest figure since January 3.

And on Monday, the TSA screened an addition 1.1 million passengers.

In addition to airline travel, hundreds of spring breakers were seen soaking up some sun in Florida over the weekend.

Bikini-clad college students flooded onto beaches and crammed into bars in Miami and Fort Lauderdale to kick of their vacation.

Mississippians were seen partying at bars and restaurants after the state's governor lifted COVID-19 restrictions on March 3.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Mississippi without a mask in sight on Friday night.

Oxford, home of Ole Miss, saw people out in full force, eating at restaurants and shopping at stores like the coronavirus pandemic was a distant memory - rather than a virus that has killed more than half a million people.

Similar sights are expected in Texas this week after Gov Gregg Abbott said the state will be lifting restrictions beginning on Wednesday despite the fact that over 42,000 in Texas have died of COVID-19.

On March 16, Wyoming Gov Mark Gordon plans to reopen the state fully.

Gordon said Monday that the state will remove its mask requirement and allow bars, restaurants, theaters and gyms to resume normal operations next week.

Walensky's remarks came on the same day the CDC issued new guidelines for fully vaccinated people.

Without face masks, fully vaccinated people can meet other vaccinated people and visit unvaccinated people in a single household who are at low risk for severe disease.

Currently, 31.5 million Americans have been fully vaccinated by Johnson & Johnsons single-dose vaccine or the two-dose series from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

On average, providers are administering about 2.1 million doses per day.

About 31.5 million Americans - or about 9.2 per cent of the US population - have been fully vaccinated

More than 29 million cases of the virus have been reported since the start of the pandemic last year

Officials say a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine, either two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shot or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson jab.

Meanwhile, various groups and countries are working on developing the so-called vaccine passports aimed at allowing more travel. The passports would let travelers show they have been tested and vaccinated for COVID-19.

But airlines fear that a smattering of regional credentials will cause confusion and none will be widely accepted.

'It is crucial to establish uniform guidance' and 'the US must be a leader in this development,' more than two dozen groups said in a letter Monday to White House coronavirus-response coordinator Jeff Zients.

However, the groups said that vaccination should not be a requirement for domestic or international travel.

On March 8, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released guidelines on what fully vaccinated American can and cannot do. Officials say a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine, either two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shot or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson jab. WHAT YOU CAN DO ONCE YOU'RE FULLY VACCINATED Visit other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or practicing social distancing

Visit unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for severe COVID-19 indoors without wearing masks or practicing social distancing

Not quarantine or get tested if exposed to an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient WHAT YOU STILL CAN'T DO AFTER GETTING YOUR FINAL DOSE Wear masks and practice social distancing in public

Wear masks and practice social distancing when visiting unvaccinated people at high risk for severe COVID-19

When meeting with vaccinated people from multiple households practice safety measures like masking and social distancing

Avoid medium- and large-sized in-person gatherings

Avoid traveling

Get tested if experiencing COVID-19 symptoms Advertisement

The groups include the main US and international airline trade organizations, airline labor unions and the US Chamber of Commerce. The White House did not immediately comment.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations' aviation arm are working on the type of information to include in a credential.

The airline industry groups are particularly interested in having the CDC take a leading role, believing that would increase certainty that information in the credentials is legitimate.

Airlines have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Despite a partial recovery, US airlines are still losing $150million a day, according to the Airlines for America trade group.

In the US, the number of people going through airports remains down nearly 60 per cent so far this year compared to 2019, the last normal, pre-pandemic year.

Most of those people are flying within the United States.

Airlines are counting on widespread vaccinations to boost travel, and for vaccine passports to give a boost to highly lucrative international flying.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Meghan Markle's former Suits co-star has criticised the Sussexes for staging an interview while the world is in the 'throes of death'.

Wendell Pierce, who worked with the Duchess for four years in his role as her character's father, said the broadcast was 'insignificant' as COVID-19 death tolls continued to rise.

The 57-year-old told radio station LBC: 'Today 3,000 people are going to die in America from COVID. A couple of hundred people are going to die, even this hour, in the UK.'

Pierce claimed the bombshell interview with Oprah evoked Shakespeare's phrase 'full of sound and fury signifying nothing'.

The actor, who said he had not spoken to the Duchess since 2019, added: 'It was quite insensitive and offensive that we are all complicit in this sort of palace gossip in the midst of so much death. I think it is insignificant.'

Asked who he included in this criticism, he said 'everyone' including Oprah, US network CBS, ITV, Prince Harry and Meghan, and the Palace.

As of Tuesday evening, more than 525,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, while 125,000 Britons have succumbed to the disease.

Meghan Markle's former Suits co-star criticised the Sussexes yesterday for staging an interview while the world is in the 'throes of death'

Wendell Pierce (pictured), who worked with Meghan for four years in his role as her character's father, said the broadcast was 'insignificant' as Covid death tolls continued to rise

Elsewhere during his LBC interview, Pierce stated that the monarchy should not get involved 'in this sort of conversation' and instead 'focus on the throes of death that we're in'.

The actor -who previously appeared in the Emmy-winning HBO drama The Wire - revealed he and Meghan had not talked much about race as they filmed Suits, despite the topic featuring in their roles.

He said: 'We didn't have long discussions about it, besides what was in the script and what was happening in our personal lives.'

Several of Meghan's other Suits co-stars, including Patrick J. Adams and Abigail Spencer, publicly defended the Duchess last week amid claims she 'bullied' staffers while living in the UK.

The show's executive producer, Silver Tree, and its creator, Aaron Korsh, also took to Twitter to praise the actress.

However, none of those stars have followed up by posting supportive messages to Twitter in the wake of Meghan's interview with Oprah.

Despite praising the former actress in the past, Pierce criticised Prince Harry and Meghan (pictured) for the interview, saying it evoked Shakespeare's phrase 'full of sound and fury signifying nothing'

The Queen broke her silence on the interview on Tuesday, saying in a statement that 'while some recollections may vary' the 'whole family is saddened' to hear of the couple's 'challenging few years'.

Her Majesty said an alleged racist comment made about what colour the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's baby Archie would be was 'concerning' and will be 'addressed by the family privately'.

The monarch will reportedly speak to senior royals - including Charles, Camilla, William and Kate - behind closed doors over the couple's allegations.

Her statement added that Harry and Meghan - using their names rather than titles - and their son 'will always be much loved family members'.

It is understood the Queen waited until Tuesday to comment on the devastating interview with Oprah Winfrey so Britons had the chance to watch it first - but 'the Firm' is not expected to make any further comments.

Buckingham Palace released a statement on behalf of the Queen on Tuesday

Her Majesty said an alleged racist comment made about what colour the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's baby Archie would be was 'concerning' and will be 'addressed by the family privately'. The monarch will reportedly speak to senior royals - including Charles, Camilla, William and Kate - behind closed doors over the couple's allegations

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Meghan's estranged father Thomas denied his daughter's claims to Oprah that he had 'betrayed' her before branding his son-in-law Harry as 'snotty'.

Mr Markle told Good Morning Britain that he's apologised '100 times' for doing a deal with a paparazzi photographer before the Royal Wedding in 2018 and urged the couple to see him with Archie now they only live '70 miles away' from his Mexico home.

He said: 'We all make mistakes - but I've never played naked pool or dressed like Hitler like Harry did'.

And in a further attack on Harry, Mr Markle said that his daughter's admission she was suicidal while living in the UK reflected badly on his son-on-law.

He said: 'It really did upset me, like I said, it would have been easy for her to reach out to me, any of the rest of her family, who she claims she doesn't know. But the other thing is that I would think that she could turn to her husband.' When noted she did speak to Harry, Mr Markle said Meghan's husband Harry had 'obviously not supported her that well'.

He added: 'The biggest problem here is she's pretty much ghosted all of her family'.

Thomas Markle has had his say on Meghan and Harry's Oprah interview to defend himself and the Royal Family, who he says aren't racist, before laying into Harry claiming he had failed to properly support his daughter

Meghan Markle's father appeared on Good Morning Britain after his daughter accused him of 'betraying' her in her bombshell Oprah interview

The 76-year-old also denied the Royal Family - or Britain - is racist, saying if it is true an unnamed royal asked about how 'dark' Archie's skin would be, it was probably just a 'dumb question', before calling Meghan and Harry's claims 'bulls**t'.

Mr Markle, who has watched the entire two-hour CBS interview, said he was 'upset' when he saw his youngest daughter tell Oprah that royal life was so stressful she was suicidal and 'couldn't be left alone' - but then said Meghan's husband Harry had 'obviously not supported her that well'.

During the interview with Oprah, Meghan said she could not fathom hurting her son Archie in the way her own father 'betrayed' her, admitting she 'found it hard to reconcile' with Thomas. She said: 'I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can't imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child'.

Mr Markle said that while he did let her down, she had 'let me down too' by cutting him off after heart surgery almost three years ago. He said: 'The bottom line is she didn't lose me, she made a statement saying she lost me, she didn't lose me, I would've always been there for her, I'm there for her now if she wants me'. He added: 'We all make mistakes - but I've never played naked pool or dressed like Hitler like Harry did'.

Mr Markle was referencing Harry's decision to wear a Nazi uniform to a party when he was 20 and seven years later in 2012 the prince was photographed wearing nothing but a necklace with a naked female playmate hiding behind him having just played a game of strip pool in his VIP Las Vegas hotel suite.

The fallout from Sunday night's bombshell interview with Oprah (pictured) is continuing into its third day
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Kyaw Zwar Minn, Myanmar's ambassador to the United Kingdom, on Monday called for the release of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, and said that the current crisis in his native country should be resolved with diplomatic efforts.

In a statement, Minn said that he discussed the situation in Myanmar after the military takeover with UK Minister of State for Asia Nigel Adams and UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during a meeting last week.

"We request the release of State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint," the ambassador said.

The ambassador added that diplomacy is "the only response" to the current "impasse".

In addition, the diplomat said that Myanmar's embassy in London will remain open and continue to provide assistance to the citizens of Myanmar living in the UK.

Meanwhile, Raab said that he spoke with Kyaw Zwar Minn on Monday and welcomed his call for the release of detained politicians in Myanmar.

"Earlier today I spoke to Myanmar Ambassador Kyaw Zwar Minn. I praised his courage and patriotism in standing up for what is right. We join his call for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, and for a return to democratic rule," Raab tweeted.

The military toppled the Southeast Asian nation's elected government on February 1 and launched a massive crackdown on anti-coup protesters, shutting down the internet and arresting hundreds of people, including the state counselor and the president. The crackdown on protesters left more than 50 people dead.
Boris Johnson has told the Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin that Britain will not send coronavirus vaccines to Ireland until people in the UK have had the jab.

Mr Martin said Mr Johnson had made clear to him that the UK is not currently in a position to send any of its vaccine supply to Ireland.

The Irish PM said Mr Johnson's first priority is to vaccinate people living in the UK.

It comes as Britain's vaccine roll-out continues to proceed at pace while Ireland is struggling to meet its own targets following a number of delivery issues.

There are question marks over whether the Irish government will be able to meet its ambition of rolling out one million vaccines per month from April.

As an EU member state, Ireland's vaccination drive is being steered by Brussels, with the bloc having experienced supply issues.

Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin said Boris Johnson had made clear to him that the UK is not currently in a position to send any of its vaccine supply to Ireland

The UK's coronavirus vaccine roll-out continues at pace but Ireland is struggling to meet its targets

EU leaders have faced fierce criticism over the pace of the bloc's roll-out and accusations that they were too slow to finalise deals with vaccine manufacturers.

Irish government data up to March 6 showed that just over 500,000 vaccines have been administered while in England more than 20million vaccinations have now taken place.

Mr Martin said he was 'disappointed' with some of the issues relating to the vaccine supply.

Speaking today Mr Martin said: 'The British Prime Minister has made it clear to me that obviously his first priority is to vaccinate his people.

'It would be helpful to Ireland if the situation arose, but right now he has to concentrate on vaccinating his own people.

'Until then he won't be in a position to give vaccines to anybody and he has made that point to me, which I thought was fairly obvious at the outset.'

Asked about the supply, Mr Martin said: 'We are disappointed with quarter one in terms of the issues, but in terms of protecting the most vulnerable, we have made progress on that and the impact of the vaccines is very positive.

'We have seen that in terms of healthcare workers, hospitals and in nursing homes in particular, and now out in the community in the over-80s. That is good news.

'We have very good vaccines that are giving protection to people as well.'

Mr Martin's comments came as Paul Reid, the director general of Ireland's Health Service Executive, voiced his frustration over vaccine supply lines, with the country's first quarter target now reduced to 1.1 million from an initial 1.7 million.

Mr Reid said: 'Our first quarter has been an experience of high levels of frustration on supply issues, to be frank, from the HSE's perspective.

'Certainly Pfizer has been more stable, but we did have one change to their supply line. Moderna of late, unstable, and certainly AstraZeneca being unstable.

'It has been a very frustrating quarter overall for supply lines.'

Mr Reid noted it had been an EU-wide issue and that a 'higher level of predictability' was anticipated in quarter two.

The HSE remains hopeful that supply issues will ease in quarter two, with 3.8 million doses targeted.

That figure includes 600,000 of the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is still subject to approval by the European Medicines Agency.
With around 2,000 exhibitors from international markets anticipated, Cosmopack and Cosmoprof Asia 2021 will, for this year only, be held under one roof at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). This one-time consolidation of both events will feature a hybrid format, running a parallel digital platform available for all stakeholders unable to travel to Hong Kong. The digital tools will allow for online connection between all companies and professionals visiting the fair district, therefore optimising new business opportunities and enhancing the capacity for global networking.

BolognaFiere and Informa Markets, the exhibition organisers, are proud to transform the iconic fair as it celebrates its quarter century into a truly inclusive and global event by pivoting to the new hybrid format. In addition, consolidating Cosmopack and Cosmoprof Asia (typically held at Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) and AsiaWorld-Expo (AWE)), under the single roof of HKCEC means in-person buyers will maximize their time by sourcing from 13 product sectors all in one venue.

Product sectors include Cosmoprof Asia's finished products categories of Cosmetics & Toiletries, Beauty Salon, Nails, Natural & Organic, Hair and the new areas "Clean and Hygiene" and "Beauty & Retail Tech". Meanwhile, Cosmopack Asia will host suppliers from Ingredients & Lab, Contract Manufacturing, Primary & Secondary Packaging, Prestige Pack & OEM, Print & Label, Machinery & Equipment.

Capturing Asia-Pacific's beauty market

Cosmoprof Asia has long been a vital industry benchmark for stakeholders worldwide interested in developments in the Asia-Pacific. Asia-Pacific is the second largest beauty market in the world after Europe, and it was the first region to restart after the pandemic breakdown, as highlighted recently by the latest annual report by McKinsey & Company. Being held in Hong Kong, the perfect business hub and an international finance centre, the exhibition is the "gateway" for the main markets in the region.

In China, a unique example globally, beauty sales increased in the first half of 2020 thanks to Chinese consumers spending more on the domestic market. Generally speaking, China's economy is projected to grow by 8 to 10% between 2019 and 2021; at the same time, the remarkable development of e-commerce in South-East Asia  above all Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines  is expected to offer fresh new opportunities to international players.

Cosmoprof Asia is more than ever one of the fundamental meeting events for the Cosmoprof international community this year, thanks to its hybrid format," declared Antonio Bruzzone, General Manager of BolognaFiere and Director of Cosmoprof Asia. "We are focusing on offering seamless digital connections for virtual attendees while guaranteeing total safety for in-person visitors keen to experience Cosmoprof Asia "as normal". Opening up the exhibition to an even wider global audience enhances the business opportunities and networking capacity for all. Cosmoprof Asia 2021 makes it easy for global beauty industry players to focus their investment in Asia-Pacific, where the strongest driving economies in the world are currently located."

"We look forward to delivering an even better Cosmoprof Asia in 2021, with the hybrid format opening up the event to an unprecedented audience worldwide, thanks to the combination of digital and face-to-face visitors. We are proud to be pivoting to this exciting new format while celebrating the momentous 25th anniversary of Cosmoprof Asia," said David Bondi, Senior Vice President  Asia of Informa Markets and Director of Cosmoprof Asia Ltd. "At the same time, we are excited to share our year-round, on-going calendar of digital opportunities designed to maximise the engagement of global buyers and suppliers. We look forward to greeting you all, online and in-person, at Cosmoprof Asia 2021."

For further information, please visit www.cosmoprof-asia.com

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Download the high-resolution images at this link: http://bit.ly/2PJHbEV

ABOUT THE ORGANISERS: Cosmoprof Asia is organised by Cosmoprof Asia Ltd, a joint-venture company between BolognaFiere Group and Informa Markets Asia Ltd. ABOUT BOLOGNAFIERE GROUP (www.bolognafiere.it) BolognaFiere Group is the world's leading trade show organiser in cosmetics, fashion, architecture, building, art and culture. The Group has more than 80 international exhibitions within its portfolio, notably Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna, the most important meeting point in the world for beauty professionals, established in 1967 and held in Bologna, Italy. For the 2019 edition, Cosmoprof registered more than 265.000 attendees from 150 countries in the world, with an increase by 10% of foreign professionals, and 3,033 exhibitors from 70 countries. The Cosmoprof platform extends throughout the entire world, with its events in Bologna, Las Vegas, Mumbai, and Hong Kong, China (with Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna, Cosmoprof North America, Cosmoprof India, and Cosmoprof Asia). Recently the fifth exhibition of the network has been announced: Cosmoprof CBE ASEAN, in Thailand, will focus on the cosmetic industry in South-East Asia. In 2020, South China Beauty Expo, a new show in Shenzhen, China was held in July. The Cosmoprof platform will reinforce its influence in Europe with the Beauty Forum format, thanks to the acquisition of the German group Health and Beauty, in South America, thanks to the collaboration with Beauty Fair -Feira Internacional De Beleza Profissional, and in Asia. ABOUT INFORMA MARKETS (www.informamarkets.com) Informa Markets Beauty has an extensive network powered by B2B events across 11 cities in Asia (Bangkok, Chengdu, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Mumbai, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tokyo), the world's fastest growing markets. By further expanding its strength, the Beauty Portfolio now includes a new B2B event in Miami 2022 will serve THE AMERICAS, North, South America and Caribbean Islands Region. Informa Markets creates platforms for industries and specialist markets to trade, innovate and grow. We provide marketplace participants around the globe with opportunities to engage, experience and do business through face-to-face exhibitions, targeted digital services and actionable data solutions. We connect buyers and sellers across more than a dozen global verticals, including Pharmaceuticals, Food, Medical Technology and Infrastructure. As the world's leading market-making company, we bring a diverse range of specialist markets to life, unlocking opportunities and helping them to thrive 365 days of the year. For more information, please visit www.informamarkets.com.

SOURCE Cosmoprof Asia

Related Links

http://www.informamarkets.com/


If youre a T-Mobile subscriber, youll soon be automatically enrolled in a program that will see your online and device usage data sold to advertisers. In a privacy policy update spotted by The Wall Street Journal, the carrier said it would start sharing that information with marketing agencies starting April 26th unless customers opt out. Weve heard many say they prefer more relevant ads so were defaulting to this setting, a spokesperson for T-Mobile told the WSJ. The new policy will include everyone who came over to T-Mobile through the carriers 2020 merger with Sprint. Thats notable because Sprint previously allowed its customers to opt into sharing their data with advertisers.

T-Mobiles decision to enroll as many of its customers as possible in a program that sells their data to advertisers runs counter to what weve seen from tech giants like Google and Apple recently. It was only earlier this month the former said it would stop selling ads that rely on a persons browsing history, and not build any cross app tracking tools in the future. Apple, meanwhile, will soon require developers to explicitly obtain a persons permission before they track them across websites and applications. Its even a step beyond the data collection AT&T and Verizon (Engadgets parent company) currently run. While both carriers automatically enroll their subscribers in programs that pool them into shared interest groups, as an AT&T or Verizon customer, you dont have to go out of your way to prevent your wireless provider from sharing more detailed information on you.

You can opt out of the advertising program by opening the T-Mobile app on your phone, tapping the More tab and then going into the Advertising & Analytics section. Switch the toggle next to the Use my data to make ads more relevant to me option to off.
Press secretary of the President of Ukraine Yulia Mendel does not see anynthing negative in the fact that telephone talks between Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden have not yet taken place, since the U.S. President has not yet had time to form his entire administration.

"There is anything negative about the fact that until the telephone talks between Zelensky and Biden have not yet taken place [...] For some reason, no one pays attention to the fact that Joe Biden did not form his administration. That is, there were not even many people there to contact. For example, I contacted the press service [of Biden]. I said 'we are here'. 'It is great that we contacted, let's stay in touch'. But if half of the people there are still not appointed [...]" she said in an interview with Olesia Batsman posted on YouTube on Monday evening, March 8.

She also recalled that "only a month and a half has passed since Biden's inauguration."

"Joe Biden has a penchant for efficiency, like Volodymyr Zelensky. It is good to talk, but to have an action, we need to prepare a platform for this. I think we will have very effective and strong negotiations, and this is not just about the call," Mendel said.

"Contacts between Ukraine and the United States are constantly taking place at a certain level, a lot of work is being done both between diplomats and between different services, there was an exchange of letters from the presidents," she said.

Mendel also added that "an invitation to the U.S. President to visit Ukraine in honor of the 30th anniversary of independence has been sent. This visit is expected, but now it is too early to talk about it."
Kazakhstan has inoculated more than 33,000 of its citizens with the first dose of Russian-made Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, the Kazakh Health Ministry said on Tuesda

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) Kazakhstan has inoculated more than 33,000 of its citizens with the first dose of Russian-made Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, the Kazakh Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

"The number of vaccinated with the first dose - 33729 people, with the second dose - 15856", the ministry reported.

In early February, Kazakhstan launched the country's vaccination campaign using Russia's Sputnik V vaccine with priority given to the medical workers. The shipment of the Russian vaccine produced by the Karaganda pharmaceutical complex to regions started at the end of last month. In early March, Kazakhstan began to use Sputnik V for the vaccination of teachers and law enforcement officers. In the second quarter of this year the country plans to use QazCovid-in, the Kazakh vaccine, which is currently undergoing the third phase of clinical trials.
A Palestinian laborer who works in Israel gives the thumbs up after receiving his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a coronavirus vaccination center set up at the Gilboa checkpoint crossing between Israel and the West Bank city of Jenin, Monday, March 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israel's leaders Monday celebrated the country's 5 millionth coronavirus vaccination on the same day the government began vaccinating Palestinian laborers who work in the country. The time lag has drawn international criticism and highlighted global disparities.

There was no indication the two events were coordinated, but their split-screen quality offered a stark contrast between Israel's world-leading vaccination blitz and the plight of 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Progress in places like Israel, the United States and Britain has heightened concerns among human rights advocates of driving a wider gap between wealthy countries and those that can't afford pricey vaccination programs.

Until Monday, the Palestinian Authority, which administers autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had received enough doses for only 6,000 people.

Israel has inoculated more than half its population of 9.3 million and pushed ahead Monday with the reopening of more of its economy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing re-election this month, promised to vaccinate the entire adult population by the end of April, which he said would mean "we are out of the corona crisis."

He appeared at a press conference in Tel Aviv with Janet Lavi-Azulay, an Israeli woman who became the 5 millionth person in Israel to be vaccinated. In all, Israel has vaccinated roughly 80% of its adult population, giving decision makers enough confidence to begin reopening stores, restaurants, health clubs and music clubs in recent days. Many of these amenities are available only to those who can prove they have been vaccinated or have recovered from the virus.

A Palestinian laborer who works in Israel receives his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a coronavirus vaccination center set up at the Gilboa checkpoint crossing between Israel and the West Bank city of Jenin, Monday, March. 8, 2021 Monday, March 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

About 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast, Anwar Muhammad Awarin got his jab and showed a text on his cell phone certifying the inoculation. For him and other Palestinian workers, it was less about celebrating and more about survival.

"I got the vaccine so I can work," said Awarin, who received his inoculation at the Meitar checkpoint in the West Bank. "If you don't get the vaccine, you don't get the permit. So, I got the permit and my health as well."

According to COGAT, the Israeli defense agency that orchestrated the vaccine campaign, the workers are not required to be vaccinated in order to keep their entry permits at the current time. But many laborers said their Israeli employers have pressured them to be vaccinated, and there were widespread concerns they could lose their jobs if they do not get inoculated.

A Palestinian laborer who works in Israel receives his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a coronavirus vaccination center set up at the Meitar checkpoint crossing between Israel and the West Bank, south of the West Bank town of Hebron, Monday, March. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Awarin was one of some 6,000 Palestinian laborers who received their first doses of the Moderna vaccine from paramedics from the Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom.

The vaccination drive was postponed by one day. More vaccination sites for Palestinian workers were expected to open this week.

About 100,000 Palestinian laborers from the West Bank work in Israel and its settlements, which are widely seen internationally as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, the head of COGAT, said in a statement that Israelis and Palestinians "live in the same epidemiological space" and that it was a shared interest to vaccinate Palestinians.

Israel has won international plaudits for moving quickly to vaccinate its population. But it has come under criticism from U.N. officials, human rights groups and medical experts for not sharing more of its stockpile with the Palestinians.

A Palestinian worker receives the Moderna coronavirus vaccine at the Hashmonim checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel, near the Israeli West Bank settlement of Nili, Monday, March 8, 2021. After delays, Israel started vaccinating Palestinians who work inside the country and its West Bank settlements on Monday, more than two months after launching an immunization blitz of its own population. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Human rights groups and many Palestinians say that as an occupying power, Israel is responsible for providing vaccines to the Palestinians. Israel says that under interim peace accords reached in the 1990s, it does not have any such obligation.

Israeli officials have said the priority is vaccinating Israel's own population first, while the Palestinian Authority has said it will obtain its own vaccines through the World Health Organization and other sources. Israel has vaccinated its own Arab population.

To date, the PA has acquired enough vaccine doses for only 6,000 people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are home to nearly 5 million Palestinians. It received 2,000 doses from Israel and acquired another 10,000 doses of a Russian-made vaccine. Each person is given in two doses to be fully vaccinated.

A Palestinian laborer who works in Israel receives his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a coronavirus vaccination center set up at the Meitar checkpoint crossing between Israel and the West Bank, south of the West Bank town of Hebron, Monday, March. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, speaks to journalists after meeting the Israeli citizen, who is the 5 millionth person to be vaccinated in Israel, at a ceremony in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, March 8, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Pool via AP)

Palestinian workers wait behind a security gate for the Moderna coronavirus vaccine at the Hashmonim checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel, near the Israeli West Bank settlement of Nili, Monday, March 8, 2021. After delays, Israel started vaccinating Palestinians who work inside the country and its West Bank settlements on Monday, more than two months after launching an immunization blitz of its own population. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, center, meet the Israeli citizen, center, who is the 5 millionth person to be vaccinated in Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, March 8, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Pool via AP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, center, meet the Israeli citizen who is the 5 millionth person to be vaccinated in Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, March 8, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Pool via AP)

Israel has administered over 8.7 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to its population of 9.3 million. Over 3.7 million Israelismore than 40%have received both of the doses required for maximum immunity.

Netanyahu also announced plans to share surplus vaccines with far-flung allies in Africa, Europe and Latin America, but the decision has been frozen by legal questions. Last Thursday, Netanyahu met with leaders of Denmark and Austria and said the three nations would join forces in the fight against COVID-19 with an investment in research and roll-out of vaccines.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Abu Dhabi Airports, in partnership with Pure Health and Tamouh Healthcare, has launched the regions first PCR testing laboratory within an airport.



The new state of the art RT-PCR lab offers fast Covid-19 testing within the Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) to facilitate the resumption of air travel and assist with quarantine tracking procedures.



Designed to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of travellers and staff at Abu Dhabi International Airport, the new Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) testing process is free for arriving passengers and is one of the fastest in the world, with results available in approximately 90 minutes and the capacity to test more than 20,000 travellers and staff per day.



Shareef Hashim Al Hashmi, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Airports, said: Through partnering with Pure Health and Tamouh Healthcare, Abu Dhabi International Airport is now able to offer travellers state-of-the-art rapid testing services delivered by a dedicated laboratory facility. The introduction of the RT-PCR Covid-19 testing is a milestone achievement in our ongoing efforts to facilitate the safe resumption of international air travel and support the recovery of the aviation industry.



The fact that this is the first airport in the region to contain its own dedicated PCR testing laboratory is testament to our commitment at Abu Dhabi Airports to continuously innovate and look for new ways to deliver a safe, smooth and seamless travel experience for all our passengers. The new fast testing facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport, developed in partnership with many of our stakeholders, will not only enable passengers to confidently travel to Abu Dhabi, but significantly enhance the efficiency of our operations while supporting global efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19, added Al Hashmi.



All passengers arriving at Abu Dhabi International Airport through both terminals 1 and 3 will be tested at the AUH PCR testing facility. Results of the Covid-19 tests will be shared by SMS and WhatsApp, as well as being available on the Alhosn mobile application. Passengers who receive a negative PCR test and are from the list of green countries, outlined by the government of Abu Dhabi, will not have to self-isolate. Those not from the list of green countries will have to self-isolate for a period of ten days, and will require a quarantine wristband fitted at the PCR testing tent attached to the airport.



Participants in the National Vaccination Programme and Phase III clinical trials who have an identification mark (letter E or golden star) on Al Hosn app are exempted from self-quarantine procedures. Passengers transiting through the airport will not be tested prior to departing for their final destinations.



The lab, being developed and operated by Pure Health - the regions largest laboratory operator - and the healthcare and passenger facility, being developed by UAE-based Tamouh Healthcare, will provide results in approximately 90 minutes and will have the capacity to test more than 20,000 travellers per day. The 4,000-sq-m facility will operate around the clock with up to 190 staff.



The launch of fast Covid-19 testing services follows Abu Dhabi Airports introduction of a comprehensive range of health and safety measures at Abu Dhabi International Airport, including a specially trained team of Wellness Ambassadors equipped to support passengers by answering common questions relating to keeping healthy during travel, encouraging social distancing, and providing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).



In addition, the airport has deployed touch-less elevator technology, SterixEco Gates sterilisation tunnels, thermal scanning cameras, as well cameras with facial recognition capabilities that alert staff if passengers or visitors to the airport are displaying symptoms of Covid-19 or not wearing facemasks.  TradeArabia News Service
Uber Elevate Co-Founders Joining Archers Advisory Board

Archer's eVTOL Aircraft.

Rendering of Archer's upcoming all-electric eVTOL aircraft, to be unveiled in 2021.

Rendering of Archer's upcoming all-electric eVTOL aircraft, to be unveiled in 2021.

Archer, a leader in the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) space commercializing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, has announced its commitment to Miami as a flagship launch market by 2024.





Archer will work with the city of Miami to address some of Southern Floridas mobility challenges, offering people a new option to travel in and around dense cities in a fast, safe, sustainable, and cost-effective manner.





Archer also announced that two of the Uber Elevate co-founders, Nikhil Goel and Mark Moore, will be joining Archers advisory board. Goel and Moore co-authored the industry-famed Elevate white paper on aerial ridesharing and spent four years advancing the UAM space to pave the way for the future of transportation.

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- California-based Archer , a company designing and developing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL), today announced its commitment to launching an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) network in Miami by 2024. Archer is excited to explore the potential for UAM to address some of Southern Floridas mobility challenges and provide a new option for people to travel more freely in and around dense metropolitan areas.

Archers UAM platform will move people throughout cities in a fast, safe, sustainable, and cost-effective manner. The fully electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft is expected to travel distances of up to 60 miles at 150 mph using technology available today, transforming how people approach everyday life, work, and adventure, while benefiting the environment and working towards a future zero-emissions world. Archers recently announced merger with Atlas Crest Investment Corporation (NYSE: ACIC) and a $1bn commercial order from United Airlines, which is subject to Uniteds business and operating requirements, values the company at $3.8 billion and puts Archer in prime position to integrate UAM as part of cities future transportation networks.



Cities across America are looking for solutions to traffic and mobility challenges. Our collaboration with Miami will bring quick, safe, affordable everyday flight to Southern Florida, said Adam Goldstein, co-Founder and co-CEO of Archer. Launching an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) network in Florida is particularly exciting for Brett and I personally as graduates of the University of Florida. We named Archer after our first eVTOL R&D lab, based just off Archer Road in Gainesville, FL, so making an impact on Floridas transportation issues will be a great full circle moment for us."

Story continues

By giving passengers greater flexibility to explore the world around them, were bringing adventure to their fingertips, whether theyre commuting to work, or visiting a nearby city or state park, said Brett Adcock, co-Founder and co-CEO of Archer. He added, Archer will develop a UAM network in Miami to support eVTOL aircraft, and create a service with a price equivalent to rideshare services on the market today. Fundamental to our success, and indeed the success of the entire eVTOL industry, is the support of progressive leaders like Mayor Suarez in supporting innovative new modes of transportation.



We know that infrastructure and transportation solutions in Southern Florida must change over the next decade to curb carbon emissions, decrease traffic, and create the multimodal transportation networks of the future, said Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami. The City of Miami is dedicated to collaborating with Archer to build one of Americas first UAM networks and work towards overcoming the geographical challenges of our water-locked areas currently only accessible via congested roadways. We couldnt be more excited to be aligning with such a leading force in the eVTOL industry.

Archer also announced this week that two of Uber Elevates co-founders, Nikhil Goel and Mark Moore, will be joining Archers advisory board. Goel and Moore co-authored the industry-famed Elevate white paper on aerial ridesharing and spent four years advancing the UAM space to pave the way for the future of transportation. Their addition further legitimizes Archer as a leader in the eVTOL industry, offering another layer of deep industry experience.

We have assembled a team of leading industry talent at Archer, and were excited to add Uber Elevates founders, Nikhil Goel and Mark Moore to our advisory board, said Goldstein.

Archer is dedicated to reshaping urban air mobility throughout the world and advancing the benefits of sustainable air travel. This is an undertaking that will require a tremendous amount of effort, and Nikhil and Mark will bring an unparalleled perspective as some of the first-movers in the industry, added Adcock.

Archer has one of the best designed aircraft that Ive seen, both for aerial ride-sharing and cargo applications. Its competitively positioned for superior manufacturability and rapid certification, added Mark Moore. Their engineering team has developed a compelling eVTOL thats tightly aligned with the necessary requirements for optimum network performance and economics.



About Archer



Archers mission is to advance the benefits of sustainable air mobility. Archers goal is to move people throughout the world's cities in a quick, safe, sustainable, and cost-effective manner. Archer is designing and developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for use in Urban Air Mobility that can carry passengers for 60 miles at speeds of up to 150 mph while producing minimal noise. Archer's team is based in Palo Alto, CA. To learn more, visit www.archer.com



For Media

Louise Bristow

Archer

C: 818 398 8091

louise@flyarcher.com

archer@launchsquad.com



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d84b4fa2-b8e2-4e18-8b64-6981b7487507








(Newser)  The case against Breonna Taylor's boyfriend has been dismissed by a judgepermanently. Charges cannot be refiled against Kenneth Walker, who was initially charged with shooting and wounding a Louisville police officer during the incident at Taylor's apartment last year that started with a no-knock warrant and ended with police shooting Taylor dead, CBS News reports. While the charges against Walker were dropped last May, that was "without prejudice," meaning he could be charged again. Prosecutors made the move to drop them "with prejudice" last week, and a judge on Monday granted the motion.

story continues below

"After the worst year of [Walker's] life, prosecutors have finally acknowledged that he did nothing wrong and acted in self-defense," Walker's attorney said last week. "He looks forward to continuing the fight to hold the real wrongdoers accountable for the harm that they've caused. Both he, individually, and our community, as a whole, cannot begin the process of healing until that happens." Walker still faces a lawsuit from Jonathan Mattingly, the officer he is accused of shooting, the New York Post reports. Walker has maintained he believed the police were intruders when he shot, CNN reports. (Read more Breonna Taylor stories.)
[March 09, 2021] A Case Study In Web Accessibility By ETTE

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Empowerment through Technology and Education (ETTE), an IT managed services provider, is proud to announce the relaunch of womensmemorial.org. It meets governmental standards of accessibility that will allow the veterans the Military Women's Memorial (MWM) serves and the general public to safely access the website. ETTE crafted a case study with the MWM (formerly known as the Women in Military Service Association, or WIMSA), that walks through the process of bringing their re-launched website into compliance. If interested in following this journey, please download the Case Study here. MWM and ETTE understand that accessibility is a compromise that must be upheld and maintained, as such, corrections and improvements are always on our mind as websites evolve and feedback is provided by users and experts alike. According to the CDC, the United States is home to 85 million people with an array of physical and cognitive impairmentsfrom veterans suffering from PTSD to the visually challenged. This has led to a painful and signiicant digital divide. Websites may unintentionally cause migraines and seizures, or simply prove unnavigable. Accessibility is the practice of making websites usable by as many people as possible thus decreasing that gap between those who are able and unable to access important websites, such as yours.



ETTE now provides technical assistance to clients with accessibility issues. Additionally, ETTE provides best practices on managing an effective I.T. Accessibility program and assists clients in understanding how to define accessibility requirements under Section 508 and WCAG 2.1. While only the federal government is mandated to follow the Section 508 policies and laws, at ETTE we operate under the inclusive idea that everyone should be compliant.

Should you choose to be proactive in creating accessible and vibrantly compliant websites, ETTE is available to work with your organization. You may signup to get a free accessibility audit here; or take a free class we offer on Accessibility here. About ETTE

https://ettebiz.com Founded in 2002, ETTE is a minority-owned business providing IT technical support and consulting services to businesses throughout the Washington, D.C. area. During the last two decades, ETTE has grown into a leading IT solutions provider. About Military Women's Memorial

https://womensmemorial.org The Military Women's Memorial is the leading memorial and education center honoring women's contributions and serves as the only historical repository of relevant artifacts used to educate and inspire through innovative and interactive exhibitions. Contact: pr@ette.biz View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/a-case-study-in-web-accessibility-by-ette-301243517.html SOURCE ETTE Inc

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
NFU Scotland has told the government to prioritise the paperwork and physical inspections associated with agri-food trade to the EU that has resulted in delay and losses.

The union has written to Lord Frost, the UK's chief Brexit negotiator, urging a simplification of the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) border controls.

Currently, the controls require lengthy specialist paperwork and frequent physical inspections on products of animal or plant origin.

Agri-food exporting businesses have warned that the cost and time currently levied by these compliance requirements present a severe hindrance to trade.

A major failure of the trade deal with the EU from the perspective of Scottish agriculture is around seed potatoes.

In an annex to the Lord Frost letter, NFU Scotland points out that failure by the UK and the EU to agree equivalence on seed potatoes has had 'immediate and grave consequences'.

As an EU Member State, Britain exported around 30,000 tonnes of seed potatoes, worth 13.5m, to Europe each year and the majority of these were high-health stocks grown in Scotland.

But NFU Scotland warns that the seed potato trade has now come to a complete halt.

The union's president Martin Kennedy said: Many of the export difficulties being experienced stem from the compliance needs associated with export health certificates and customs declarations.

"The extra cost and time levied by these compliance requirements present a new, and possibly permanent, hindrance to trade unless rectified."

He said immediate priority must be given to streamlining these forms and processes through digitisation as 'an absolute minimum'.

As the EU and the UK have the same SPS rules in place, agreements on equivalence and the mutual recognition of each others rules must be accepted to ease the flow of these goods.

Only when either partner makes a change to those SPS rules should it be necessary to require an export health certificate or customs declaration, Mr Kennedy said.

Specifically, on seed potatoes, this an issue which is particularly damaging to the high value, high health sector in Scotland due to the loss of these lucrative EU markets.

"We welcomed the rapid action of Defra in applying for equivalence in January. However, it is hugely disappointing that the EU Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food has continued to block the application on what NFU Scotland considers to be increasingly spurious grounds."

We will continue to work with all governments and stakeholders on seeking a resolution to the loss of these vital seed potato markets."
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
New Delhi:

Aiming to curtail power theft in the state, the Uttar Pradesh government has come out with stern measures against people indulging in such offence.

The state government has decided to slap the National Security Act (NSA) and Goondas Act against those obstructing electricity department officials from discharging their duties in checking power thefts.

On the other hand, the government will award those who give information about such thefts.

State Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma asserted that honest customers suffer because of power theft and the government is committed to eliminate this menace.

The energy minister said, National Security Act and Goondas Act will be slapped on those obstructing officials from discharging their duties while curbing electricity theft. Power theft is a national crime. We are in the process of setting up 75 bijli thane (power police stations) for this.

Under the stringent NSA, a person can be detained without bail or trial and the authorities need not disclose the grounds of detention if they believe the detainee can act in a way that poses a threat to the security of the state/country or the maintenance of public order.

The Goondas Act aims at a year-long preventive detention of habitual offenders. According to the law, a goonda is a person who, either by himself or as a member or leader of a gang, habitually commits or attempts to commit or abets the commission of offences.

Also Read: UP govt announces to shut down liquor shops close to school, temple

Meanwhile, in a bid to ensure adequate availability of electricity by minimising the line losses, the state Cabinet has given approval to the Protsahan Yojana (encouragement scheme).

In this regard, provisions have been made that a person informing about power theft will be given 10 per cent of the compounding fee (realised from a person indulging in power theft) as protsaahan (encouragement). Similarly, 10 per cent of the compounding fee will also be given to the enforcement team, the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet said in an official statement. (With PTI Inputs)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Inventor of the Tampliner Among Top-ranked in the Design Category

UK-based period-care B-Corp, Callaly has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005498/en/

Callaly, the period-care B Corp which invented the tampliner, has been recognised as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2021 (Photo: Business Wire)

The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive, they thrived-making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. The MIC list showcases businesses from 29 countries and Callaly was ranked at number 10 in the Design category.

Thang Vo-Ta, co-founder and CEO of Callaly said: "I couldn't be more proud on behalf of the whole Callaly team for this recognition. From day one at Callaly our mission has been to make the lives of people with periods better and we have consistently lived up to this promise through our innovations and commitments to quality, sustainability and campaigning.

"Despite global challenges, this year has seen us reach some incredible milestones, from securing FDA clearance and exporting across Europe, to seeing our tampliner, the first design upgrade to the tampon in 80 years, named one of TIME's Best Inventions of the 2020.

"As a UK startup, to be recognised in Fast Company's list alongside such incredible company is testament to the hard work and dedication from everyone here at Callaly and all those who helped us on our journey to-date."

Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9and 10. Thang Vo-Ta, co-founder of Callaly will speak alongside other business leaders including the CEOs of Pfizer, Snap, Honeywell and Lululemon at this virtual summit which will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021.

Fast Company'sMost Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is FCMostInnovative.

An image of the Tampliner can be found here.

ABOUT CALLALY

British based Callaly is a certified B Corp- a for-profit company that's committed to using business as a force for good. There are over 3,500 certified B Corps in the world including Patagonia, Allbirds, Natura, and Unilever's Ben Jerry's. Every decision Callaly makes, no matter how small, is taken with an eye on the wider global impact. Callaly donates at least 1% of sales to charities supporting women children.

Callaly offers a range of high quality period care products managed through its ISO9001 based Quality Management System including award-winning Tampliners, pantyliners, day pads, night pads and tampons- all in a range of different absorbencies. All the products are made with 100% organic cotton and are free from dioxins, perfumes, and pesticides. The Earth-friendly products are all wrapped in sustainable packaging.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005498/en/

Contacts:

For further information, images or interview enquiries please contact:

Nicole Green at Catch

E: nicole@catchcomms.co

T: +44 (0)7977 402 219



Ariana Dening at Callaly

E: adening@calla.ly

T: +44 (0)7950 251 225
A Palestinian labourer who works within Israel or its settlements in the occupied West Bank, is vaccinated at an Israeli facility at Shaar Efraim crossing from Israel to the West Bank. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad

After delays, Israel started vaccinating Palestinians who work inside the country and its West Bank settlements yesterday, more than two months after launching an immunization blitz of its own population.

Palestinian labourers who crossed into Israel at several West Bank checkpoints received their first doses of the Moderna vaccine from Magen David Adom paramedics. The vaccination drive orchestrated by COGAT, Israels military agency co-ordinating government operations in the West Bank, had been beset by postponements.

Some 100,000 Palestinian labourers from the West Bank work in Israel and its settlements, which are widely seen internationally as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Major General Kamil Abu Rukun, the head of COGAT, said in a statement in Arabic that Israelis and Palestinians live in the same epidemiological space and that it was a shared interest to vaccinate Palestinians.

Israel has administered over 8.7 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to its population of 9.3 million. Over 3.7 million Israelis have received two doses of the vaccine. But until yesterday, Israel had provided few vaccines for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a move that has underscored global disparities and drawn international criticism.

Human rights groups and many Palestinians say that as an occupying power, Israel is responsible for providing vaccines to the Palestinians. Israel says that under interim peace accords reached in the 1990s, it does not have any such obligation. Israeli officials have said the priority is vaccinating Israels own population first, while the Palestinian Authority (PA) has said it will obtain its own vaccines through a World Health Organisation partnership with humanitarian organisations known as COVAX.

To date, the PA has acquired enough vaccine doses for only 6,000 people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are home to nearly five million Palestinians. It received 2,000 doses from Israel and acquired another 10,000 doses of a Russian-made vaccine. Each is given in two doses. Israel had also announced plans to share surplus vaccines with far-flung allies in Africa, Europe and Latin America, but the decision was frozen by legal questions.

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with leaders of Denmark and Austria and said the three nations would join forces in the fight against Covid-19 with an investment in research and roll-out of vaccines.
Subscriber content preview

BAR HARBOR, Maine (AP)  Maine's Republican senator is working with a Democratic colleague to try to restore native plants in America's national parks.

Sen. Susan Collins has introduced the legislation along with Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington. Collins said the proposal would create a pilot program at the National Park Service designed to support the use of native plants.





. . .
Smoke and dust rise near buildings from air strikes launched by Saudi-led coalition on Sanaa, (Photo : REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah)

Saudi Arabia fared far better on Sunday, when it escaped missile and drone attacks on its oil heartland with no serious damage, than 18 months ago when strikes forced it to temporarily shut its industry down.



Military experts say that is partly down to better preparation. But the kingdom still remains more vulnerable to drones and low-flying cruise missiles than to high-flying ballistic missiles it was able to shoot down this week.



Advertisement

A Sept. 2019 strike hit two key plants with cruise missile and drones. This time, Riyadh said it foiled the attack, with no property loss.



Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which is battling a Saudi-led coalition, claimed responsibility for Sunday's strike at an oil storage yard at Ras Tanura, site of a refinery and the world's biggest offshore oil loading facility, and a residential compound in Dhahran used by oil giant Saudi Aramco.



The two sites in the Eastern Province are located just a few km from the Aramco facilities targeted in 2019. Riyadh blamed that attack on Iran, a charge Tehran denies.



"It looks like the Saudis have been working hard to fill in the gaps, including with the Patriot deployment at Ras Tanura, which now appears to have paid off," said Jeremy Binnie, Middle East and Africa Editor of Janes Defence Weekly, referring to a U.S.-made long-range surface-to-air missile system.



Binnie said U.S. military reinforcements at Prince Sultan Air Base after the 2019 attacks had helped free Saudi assets to be moved elsewhere, and France and Britain had also provided radars to help track low-flying threats such as drones.



The Patriot system is designed mainly for high-altitude ballistic missile attacks, which the kingdom has often had to deal with since intervening at the head of a coalition in Yemen six years ago.



But Saudi Arabia remains vulnerable due to its size, evolving threats and human error, the experts said.



Low-flying cruise missiles and drones, which are much smaller targets, may not be picked up in time by ground-based radar. Intercepting drones with Patriots is also extremely expensive, with each missile costing around $3 million.



"The Saudis are not badly equipped," said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at London-based IISS think tank.



"There are a range of things to use against UAVs and ballistic missiles," he said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. "They have used them successfully and they are getting better at it, but you are never, ever going to be 100% successful."



The Houthis said on Sunday they had launched a Zulfiqar missile, which has a range of some 700 km, and ten armed drones at the eastern cities of Ras Tanura and Dammam. They fired seven Badr missiles and four drones at the southern cities of Asir and Jazan, their military spokesman said.



The movement recently stepped up cross-border attacks in a conflict widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, locked in a decades-old rivalry for regional influence.



While the attacks did not result in any oil production outages, they underscored "just how dangerous the security environment remains in the region nearly 18 months after the September 14, 2019" strikes, said Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, in a research note.



Saudi Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said on Al Arabiya television channel on Monday that the kingdom was capable of protecting its economic facilities.



"Saudi Arabia has a great deterrent force against any threat, regardless of its source," he said.


Donald Trumps allies have hit out at Meghan Markle over her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview after she once said she would move to Canada if he won the White House.

And the ex-president said last year that he was not a fan of Meghan after she and Harry encouraged Americans to vote in the US presidential election he lost to Joe Biden.

Now Mr Trumps biggest online cheerleaders have been quick to take shots at Meghan.

Heres the question Oprah should have asked Harry & Meghan: isnt the whole point of the Royal Family that its *not* about you but about your country? Its about service to the UK and the Commonwealth, tweeted former White House senior adviser Stephen Miller.

During President Trumps head of state visit to the UK, I had the privilege of getting to meet several members of the Royal Family. They were unfailingly gracious & deeply committed to preserving the traditions and heritage of the UK.

Follow Trump and Biden news live: Ex-presidents policy threatening wild birds to be revoked

And Mr Trumps former lawyer Jenna Ellis, who represented him in his attempts to overturn the election results, also attacked Meghan.

Meghan not knowing what she was getting into marrying Prince Harry is evangelicals for Biden not knowing what they were getting into voting Democrat. No one believes you, she tweeted.

Right-wing political activist Jack Posobiec also took a shot at Meghan, tweeting: A lot of people fell for Meghan Markles latest publicity stunt.

And Charlie Kirk added: RT if you couldnt care less about what the royal family has to say on Oprah.

Mr Trump and Meghan have a history of taking shots at each other, going back to 2016 when she first spoke about her feelings towards him during an appearance on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.

Its really the moment I go, We film Suits in Toronto and I might just stay in Canada, she said

Yes, of course, Trump is divisive, think about female voters alone, right - I think it was in 2012 the Republican Party lost the female vote by 12 points - that is a huge number, and with as misogynistic as Trump is, and so vocal about it, thats a huge chunk of it.

Asked about those comments in 2019, Mr Trump said No, I didnt know she was nasty.

During Mr Trumps state visit, Meghan did not attend the Buckingham Palace lunch for him as she was on maternity leave, and Harry reportedly avoided him and talked to Ivanka Trump.

Mr Trump later denied that and said that it was OK for her to be nasty to me - its not good for me to be nasty to her.

In January 2020, Harry then told a Greta Thunberg impersonator on a prank call that Mr Trump had blood on his hands for his support of the US coal industry.

Mr Trump refused to comment on that but said that the US would not pay for the couples security if they moved to California.

And after Meghan and Harrys joint TV appearance in September 2020 to encourage Americans to go to the polls, Mr Trump hit out at Meghan.

Im not a fan of hers. And I would say this  and she probably has heard that  but I wish a lot of luck to Harry, because hes going to need it.
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters.

HARRISBURG  In early February, more than a month into Pennsylvanias rocky vaccine rollout, state officials were once again facing questions about missing data on race and ethnicity.

The Department of Health had failed to enforce its order requiring providers to collect and submit the information, crucial to understanding if shots were being equitably distributed. UPMC  one of the states biggest health systems  admitted it wasnt doing so at the time.

Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam vowed to take action, warning providers that their vaccine allocations could be reduced or suspended if they failed to follow the order.

It is essential that in the process of getting vaccine doses administered as quickly as possible, we are still able to collect vital data in terms of the number of doses administered and who is getting them, Beam said. We also need to collect race and ethnicity data to ensure that vulnerable communities and communities of color are being vaccinated.

Time and again  from testing to reporting confirmed cases, and now vaccine administration  Pennsylvania health authorities have taken a reactive approach to collecting race and ethnicity data, rather than ensuring and enforcing collection from the start.

As a consequence, public officials from the state on down have been left to make crucial decisions along the way  such as where to site a clinic, where to send more testing, and where to send more personnel  without a complete picture of how the pandemic is affecting all people.

In the first six, critical months of the pandemic, the Department of Health struggled to improve its own employees collection of race data during case investigations. Between April and September, state employees went from collecting the information in just 40% of case investigations to roughly 62%, according to reports obtained by Spotlight PA.

Some local and county health departments in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, averaged an over 70% success rate during that entire time period, while York City managed to improve its collection from 15.5% in April to 72% a few months later.

Data are similarly lacking for testing, which, like vaccine distribution, is primarily in the hands of outside providers. A recent report the department is required to submit to the legislature showed race data were unknown for around 39% of positive tests since the start of the pandemic.

And while the Department of Health requires providers to submit this information  and has the power to punish those that dont  officials have not issued any penalties or fines.

 READ MORE: Confronted with significant flaws in coronavirus data, Pa. corrections officials concede its unacceptable

Race and ethnicity data are key to informing vaccine outreach efforts to communities disproportionately affected by the virus, local health officials told Spotlight PA. Black Pennsylvanians have died at a higher rate from COVID-19 than white ones, according to an analysis of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from APM Research Lab.

Its important to be as accurate as you can because that helps us to do targeted outreach and education to populations that may need to get more education about either the testing or the results, said Barbara Kovacs, director of the York City Bureau of Health.

State officials have promised an equitable approach to vaccine distribution, even though data that could illuminate who is most at-risk for contracting the coronavirus are still incomplete.

In February, the state entered into an $11.6 million contract with Boston Consulting Group to handle, among other things, data management and smart vaccine allocation, according to a statement of work.

Consultant teams, some of which are paid a minimum of $110,000 each week, are tasked with developing criteria and a process to score vaccine providers based on elements including equity considerations so the department can make its weekly allocation decisions. The group is also tasked with ensuring equity is considered in all communications materials.

Work on vaccine hesitancy and creating demand within communities that could benefit the most is not planned to start until March 21.

This is not only a public relations issue, Boston Consulting Group wrote in the document. It is a very real health equity issue.

Geographic disparities

Pennsylvania began publicly releasing race and ethnicity data on coronavirus cases and deaths in mid-April, weeks after other states and municipalities.

What it revealed: Black Pennsylvanians at the time accounted for a disproportionate number of coronavirus cases across the state, though drawing strong conclusions was impossible because data were missing for almost two-thirds of cases.

But a data quality report from that time compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of Health  and obtained by Spotlight PA through a Right-to-Know request  shows that some local and county public health workers were able to gather this information in twice or three times as many cases as the states case investigators.

Thats a trend that continued through October, the last time the state ran the report.

 READ MORE: Gaps in Pa.s coronavirus testing procedures led to systemic failure to collect critical data

Just six of the states 67 counties, as well as four local municipalities, have their own health departments. According to state data, around 54% of Pennsylvanias population is not covered by one of those agencies.

The data quality reports split the Department of Healths work into six regions, and case investigators in some areas had better success over the six-month period examined by Spotlight PA. While workers in the northwest and north-central parts of the state collected race data in at least 76% of cases in September, workers in the southeast region did so in just 50% of cases.

That mirrors the experiences of county departments in the Philadelphia region. Departments in Bucks and Chester Counties collected race data in 39% and 46% of cases during that same month, respectively, while Montgomery County managed to do so in 57% of cases.

Philadelphia was not included in the state reports, and the citys own information shows race data are missing in a quarter of cases.

While the reports provided a valuable look at which areas of the state were struggling to collect race data  something not available publicly  the department stopped running them in October. They were unnecessary and redundant since increased case counts during the fall spike were making it difficult to investigate all cases in a timely manner, said Health Department spokesperson Barry Ciccocioppo.

Ciccocioppo said that the states case investigators can contact only so many people who test positive, and that some people are simply not willing to give this information.

While balancing the case investigation and duties of collecting the case demographics, the case may only be willing to stay on the line for a given amount of time not giving the public health professional the opportunity to ask for this information, Ciccocioppo said.

Testing data also remain an issue for the state, though one not directly in its control, as the vast majority of testing is done by outside providers like hospitals, pharmacies, and labs.

Race data are listed as unknown for close to 40% of those who have tested positive, a recent report from the Health Department to state lawmakers showed. And for the vast majority of positive cases  almost 70%  ethnicity information is not known.

Health Department officials alerted those administering COVID-19 tests of the need to collect race and ethnicity data  as well as other patient information like address and date of birth  last April. Still, for a significant period of time, doctors were not filling out demographic data on the lab submission forms, which we require them to do, Ciccocioppo said.

The department has stressed education, not penalties, to make improvements, Ciccocioppo said, pointing to a new online training on collecting demographic data.

As a result, positive cases with race reported are now more than 60%, up from just 40% in spring 2020, Ciccocioppo said. We also are able to report that positive cases with ethnicity reported are now more than 45%, up from just 30% in fall 2020.

Still, a December alert sent by the department to providers  once again asking them to submit race and ethnicity data  shows progress has been slow.

Among almost 5 million COVID-related reports submitted by labs and providers to [a state system] in the past 90 days, 42% were missing patient race, and 76% were missing ethnicity information, the alert stated. This information is necessary to understand health disparities across the commonwealth and to guide resource needs and allocation.

 READ MORE: Pa.s failure to mandate quicker death reporting before the coronavirus fueled wild data fluctuations, mistrust

Looking local

As the state struggled last year, some county and local departments managed to collect demographic data in significantly more cases.

Health department officials in these areas told Spotlight PA that they dedicated additional staff resources to contact tracing and data collection efforts and followed up on missing information during case investigations.

Allegheny County averaged a 79% completion rate for race data from April to September, and a 65% completion rate for ethnicity data. The rest of the southwest region, overseen by the state, reported an average 52% completion rate for race data from April to September and 45% for ethnicity.

Completion rates were even better in Erie County, where an average of 93% of cases included complete race data from April to September and an average of 75% of cases each month included ethnicity data.

And in York City, an average of 54% of case investigations completed between April and September included information on the contacts race. York improved dramatically in its collection of demographic information over the period: In April, public health workers there collected race data for only around 16% of cases there, state reports show, increasing to 72% by September.

We did work really hard to get that information, said Kovacs, of York City. Like their counterparts at local health departments elsewhere in the state, York officials had to get strategic to collect demographic information not captured during coronavirus testing.

Erie added close to 60 staff members to work on contact tracing and trained contact tracers and case investigators to better collect demographic information, said Laura Luther, health equity supervisor at the Erie County Health Department. The enhanced data were used to identify communities that would benefit from expanded testing.

Its incredibly important for us, pandemic or not, to make any decision data-driven, Luther said. For us to do any work we really want to ensure that the work is needed and really identify the data thats available out there. Were trying to collect and create that data ourselves to make sure that what were doing is actually what the community has identified.

The Allegheny County Health Department started cross-referencing coronavirus case information with data already housed in a countywide system that streamlines information about people enrolled in county services, including aging resources, mental health and housing services, and public schools. If a person was included in that database, the county Health Department was able to add any missing demographic information to its coronavirus test data.

In York, having staff members who could communicate with Spanish-speaking callers was critical, Kovacs said. Between 35% and 40% of York residents speak Spanish, she said.

Still, there are challenges to this work.

Its hard to collect information, Kovacs said. When we do our call we ask people to self-identify what race and ethnicity they are. Some are willing to share, some arent. So we do have those unknowns, but I dont think its a hard thing to ask people. Sometimes they dont want to divulge that because they dont trust us.

Former Spotlight PA reporter Aneri Pattani contributed to this article.

100% ESSENTIAL: Spotlight PA relies on funding from foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results. Become a member today at spotlightpa.org/donate.
1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
"Recognition of our bariatric program as a Blue Distinction Center reaffirms our ongoing commitment to delivering outstanding comprehensive weight loss care to our patients," said Thomas J. Senker, FACHE, president of MedStar Montgomery Medical Center.

MedStar Health, today announced MedStar Montgomery Medical Center has been recognized as a Blue Distinction Center for Bariatric Surgery by CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst), part of CareFirsts Blue Distinction Specialty Care program. MedStar Montgomery earned the distinction as a nationally designated healthcare facility for its commitment to delivering high quality patient safety and better health outcomes.

To receive a Blue Distinction Centers for Bariatric Surgery designation, a healthcare facility must demonstrate success in meeting patient safety measures as well as bariatric-specific quality measures, including complication and readmission rate for laparoscopic procedures in sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass, and adjustable gastric band. Blue Distinction Centers are named based on objective measures that were developed with input from the medical community and leading accreditation and quality organizations.

MedStar Montgomery Medical Center is proud to be recognized by CareFirst for meeting the rigorous Blue Distinction Center quality selection criteria for bariatric surgery set by the Blue Distinction Specialty Care program. MedStar Montgomery provides patients valuable pre-surgery education, weight loss strategies customized for patients, accessible team of professionals and recovery supportall aimed to help individuals meet their individual health and wellness goals.

We are proud of our ability to help patients regain their health and establish a path toward healthy living that benefits not only themselves, but their entire family, said Thomas J. Senker, FACHE, president of MedStar Montgomery Medical Center. Recognition of our bariatric program as a Blue Distinction Center reaffirms our ongoing commitment to delivering outstanding comprehensive weight loss care to our patients.

Research shows that, compared to other healthcare facilities, those designated as Blue Distinction Centers demonstrate better quality and improved outcomes for patients.

Bariatric surgeries are among the most common elective surgeries in the U.S., with more than 252,000 bariatric surgeries performed in 2018 based on a report from the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). Furthermore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that nearly 42.7 percent of U.S. adults and 18.5 percent of youth are obese and are impacted by obesity-related health conditions. With obesity reaching epidemic levels among U.S. adults, a significant opportunity exists to improve quality care for bariatric surgeries within the national healthcare system.

The annual healthcare spend on obesity and obesity-related conditions expected is expected to rise by 2030, if the rate of obesity in the U.S. continues to climb. Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for severely obese patients because it allows for substantial, sustained weight loss, which leads to, improves, or resolves obesity-related co-morbidities like type 2 diabetes. On average, healthcare costs were reduced by 29 percent within five years following bariatric surgery, due to the reduction or elimination of obesity-related conditions, based on findings by ASMBS.

For more information about MedStar Montgomerys bariatric services visit https://www.medstarmontgomery.org/our-services/bariatric-surgery/services/bariatric-surgery-program/. For more information about the program and for a complete listing of designated facilities, visit http://www.bcbs.com/bluedistinction.

About MedStar Montgomery Medical Center and MedStar Health

MedStar Montgomery Medical Center is a not-for-profit, acute care community hospital serving Montgomery County, Maryland. For 100 years, MedStar Montgomery has served as a medical care provider and community health resource offering high-quality, personalized care. MedStar Montgomery provides a broad range of healthcare specialties, advanced technologies, and treatments not traditionally found at community hospitalsincluding cutting-edge care in obstetrics, orthopedics, breast health, and oncology. MedStar Health is the region's largest non-profit and most trusted integrated healthcare delivery system, giving patients access to the latest in modern medicine and medical technology within a community hospital setting.

About CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield

In its 83nd year of service, CareFirst, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is a not-for-profit health care company which, through its affiliates and subsidiaries, offers a comprehensive portfolio of health insurance products and administrative services to 3.3 million individuals and groups in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia. In 2019, CareFirst invested $43 million to improve overall health, and increase the accessibility, affordability, safety and quality of healthcare throughout its market areas. To learn more about CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, visit our website at http://www.carefirst.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

About the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is a national federation of 36 independent, community-based and locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies that collectively provide health care coverage for one in three Americans. BCBSA provides health care insights through The Health of America Report series and the national BCBS Health IndexSM. For more information on BCBSA and its member companies, please visit bcbs.com. We also encourage you to connect with us on Facebook, check out our videos on YouTube, follow us on Twitter and check out our blog.

About Blue Distinction Centers

Blue Distinction Centers (BDC) met overall quality measures, developed with input from the medical community. A Local Blue Plan may require additional criteria for providers located in its own service area; for details, contact your Local Blue Plan. Blue Distinction Centers+ (BDC+) also met cost measures that address consumers need for affordable healthcare. Each providers cost of care is evaluated using data from its Local Blue Plan. Providers in CA, ID, NY, PA, and WA may lie in two Local Blue Plans areas, resulting in two evaluations for cost of care; and their own Local Blue Plans decide whether one or both cost of care evaluation(s) must meet BDC+ national criteria. National criteria for BDC and BDC+ are displayed on http://www.bcbs.com. Individual outcomes may vary. For details on a providers in-network status or your own policys coverage, contact your Local Blue Plan and ask your provider before making an appointment. Neither Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association nor any Blue Plans are responsible for noncovered charges or other losses or damages resulting from Blue Distinction or other provider finder information or care received from Blue Distinction or other providers.


Hontiveros mulls incentives for private companies assisting law enforcement on OSAEC cases

Senator Risa Hontiveros has considered granting incentives to private companies assisting law enforcement in clamping down on online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC).

"We need companies to be proactive in the fight against OSAEC. Providing incentives may be the most effective way to ensure this. May karampatang parusa pa rin kung hindi sila susunod sa batas," Hontiveros said.

The senator recently filed Senate Bill No. 2068, otherwise known as the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Law, which also imposes penalties on private companies that do not comply with their obligations under the bill.

"Both incentives and penalties can encourage more synergy between private companies and government agencies. Pwedeng mapaigting ang partisipasyon ng mga pribadong kumpanya kung hindi lang parusa ang prinepresenta sa kanila," Hontiveros said.

Under the filed bill, Internet Service Providers that do not give notice of exploitation on their services will suffer a penalty of P2 million but not more than P5 million. Social media networks that are not compliant with the requirements will suffer a penalty of P10 million, while banks, money services, and other financial intermediaries not fulfilling their reportorial obligation shall suffer the penalty as provided under the law.

"The private sectors' products are the main channels through which exploitation occurs. Kung magkakaroon ng mas take-charge attitude ang mga kumpanya dahil sa incentives, then we should study this possibility. Laking tulong ito sa mga opisyal natin. When it comes to a crime as stealthy and as technical as OSAEC, our law enforcement agencies need all the help they can get," Hontiveros concluded.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Meghan McCain of The View is iconic and has made a name for herself for voicing her opinions on the ABC talk show. For a conservative voice like hers, its not easy to have a contrasting viewpoint on the panel as she debates the Hot Topics. The panel continued to talk about the aftermath of the Meghan Markle bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey. However, McCain took the conversation elsewhere and left Whoopi Goldberg completely bewildered.

Whoopi Goldberg and Meghan McCain | ABC News/Frame Grab via Getty Images / Heidi Gutman/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

Meghan McCain likens herself to Meghan Markle

The View did not miss a beat on Mondays episode when they reacted to the interview the Duchess of Sussex gave to Oprah. McCain sympathized with the former Suits star in the mental toll it takes reading about oneself in the tabloids.

It will do a number on your mental health like you cant believe, she said of reading gossip in the media about herself. It will make you feel isolated [and] it will make you feel paranoid. And I think its a specific way that women are abused in the media.

Although McCain expressed that she was not comparing her experience to that of Meghan Markles, she did come from a point of understanding the feeling. McCain explained that she never contemplated suicide as Markle expressed during the interview.

I was not, Ive never been in a place where Ive contemplated suicide, thank God, she added. But I do think when youre in places () and youre not protected, and people are trafficking in gossip with the intention to make you look bad and hurt your reputation, I can see how they felt like there was no other option for them and their family to put them in a safe space, specifically when she was pregnant.

RELATED: The View: Meghan McCain Claps Back at Twitter Troll Memes About Her Hair

Meghan McCain goes on anti-monarchy rant

Over the years, McCain has expressed she doesnt like to talk about the British Royal Family. On Tuesdays episode of The View, the ladies covered Piers Morgans walk off the set of Good Morning Britain after being called out for slamming Meghan Markles interview. McCain completely went off-topic and went on a rant against the British monarchs and expressing her patriotism for the United States of America.

My ancestors fought in the American Revolution, she said. When I was growing up, my brothers and sister and I would pretend to be George Washington and the Continental Army crossing the Delaware River when we would be in the creek. I named my daughter Liberty, I enjoy going to Mount Vernon to visit the homeplace of our founding fathers, I did not want to defend the monarchy. Im a red-blooded 100% American who celebrates freedom [in] anyway I can. Being put in a position where Im supposed to defend the monarchy is uncomfortable.

McCain then said she talk to very good friends who live in the UK that say theres a generational divide about the monarchy. However, she closed off her rant by encouraging all Americans to visit Mount Vernon and see why monarchies are stupid.

The American experiment is the way to go, she continued. If we have two American women, Megan Markel and Oprah Winfrey, who are single-handedly finishing what George Washington and our revolutionary counterparts did. Im all for it.

RELATED: RHOA Star Kandi Burruss Gives Shoutout To Meghan McCain After The View Praise

Whoopi Goldbergs reaction is priceless

However, it was what happened after McCains rant what everyone is talking about on social media. Following McCains speech, Goldberg came up on screen and she couldnt hide her facial expression upon listening to her co-host.

Many viewers at home felt the same way and made the EGOT legend a meme with her priceless reaction.

Whoopi is us every time Meghan McCain opens her mouth. pic.twitter.com/QrAcNH8HHV  POPDUST (@Popdust) March 9, 2021

The memes for Goldberg came pouring in.

wow Meghan McCain and Whoopi Goldberg were wild on #TheView pic.twitter.com/iHOsI07qQm  Millennial Grandma s Denali (@MillennialGran7) March 9, 2021

Goldbergs reaction shot will surely be getting used on social media years to come.

The New Whoopi meme of her shutting down foolish co-host Meghan McCain. #TheView pic.twitter.com/j7rc4DjIAj  Chantay Berry (@iamchanteezy) March 9, 2021

The View airs weekday mornings at 11 a.m. ET and 10 a.m. CT/PT on ABC.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Black Tusk Resources Inc. ("Black Tusk" or the "Company) (CNSX:TUSK)(OTC PINK:BTKRF)(FSE:0NB) is pleased to announce that the company is currently mobilizing the Forage Val d'Or diamond drill to its Lorrain Property located near Lorrainville in the western Abitibi region of Quebec. The Lorrain claims cover 2,208.4 hectares in 38 contiguous claims. The claims were staked to encompass a magnetic high feature that is related to an ultramafic rock unit historically documented to host platinum group elements (PGE) mineralization, as well as copper, nickel, silver and cobalt.

The Lorrain property was originally staked to cover the Guimond-Church mineral showing. This mineral showing is reported to consist of disseminated pyrite, magnetite and chromite (Cr) with nickel (Ni) in altered ultramafic rocks. Drill core sampling returned up to 0.48% Cr and 0.27% Ni (GM 02994). The Black Tusk geological team interpreted the potential for platinum group elements (PGE) associated with this showing and targeted the area for staking.

Research of the available database indicated that a number of historic drill holes were completed on the property. Review of drill logs and assay results revealed that hole LA-01-06 returned significant values of platinum and palladium, along with copper, silver, and nickel (from report GM60923).

Drill hole LA-01-06 was reported to be located at 626357 East and 5244310 North (UTM Nad 83 Zone 17N), and was drilled at an azimuth of 340 and dip of -65.

Drill core sample results from drill hole LA-01-06 as shown in report GM60923

(Previously reported October 19, 2020)

From m To m Length* Pt_ppb Pd _ppb Ag_ppm Cu_pct Ni_pct 64.8 66 1.2 337 170 1.6 0.19 0.15 66 67.5 1.5 129 58 1.4 0.15 0.09 67.5 69 1.5 141 76 1.3 0.16 0.11 69 70.5 1.5 44 24 0.6 0.06 0.03 70.5 72 1.5 125 77 1.2 0.14 0.11 72 72.8 0.8 128 80 1.2 0.10 0.13 76.9 78 1.1 113 102 1.6 0.20 0.20 78.5 80 1.5 210 110 1.6 0.19 0.48 80 81.5 1.5 240 244 3.1 0.80 0.58 81.5 83 1.5 204 214 2.9 0.71 0.65 84.5 97.7 13.2 457 433 3 0.59 0.60 Including 92 96.5 4.5 732 595 2.1 0.66 0.78 Including 93.5 95 1.5 1020 790 3 0.67 1.08

*Reported length of intercepts may not reflect the true intercept widths, which requires further drilling and interpretation to calculate.

Drill hole LA-01-06 was drilled into a regionally mapped elongate north-south trending peridotite-gabbro body. The intercept tabled above contains pyrite, pyrrhotite, and chalcopyrite ranging from 3 to 25 percent of the core, as logged in 2001. The reader is warned that historic drill results are yet to be verified by Black Tusk.

The initial drilling by Black Tusk is designed to verify the 2001 drill hole LA-01-06 and to sample mineralization for the full suite of PGE elements (platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd), iridium (Ir), osmium (Os), rhodium (Rh) and ruthenium (Ru )) , as well as the other metals of interest. Drill holes are also planned to test the extent of the mineralization, for a total of approximately 500 metres over three to four holes in this early stage campaign.

Black Tusk is looking forward to diamond drill testing the historically reported significant interval of multi-element mineralization. If initial drilling is successful, the company anticipates continuing with step out drill holes to further test and expand upon the mineralized zone. The magnetic high feature offers kilometres of potential targeting.

Snapshot of metal prices as reported by Metals Daily and Kitco (March 8, 2021)

Metal PRICE* IRIDIUM USD/OZ 5,500.00 RHODIUM USD/OZ 29,200.00 RUTHENIUM USD/OZ 365.00 PLATINUM USD/OZ 1,150.00 PALLADIUM USD/OZ 2,324.00

**Copper 4.09/lb

**Nickel 7.75/lb

*price quotes from https://www.metalsdaily.com/live-prices/pgms/

**http://www.kitcometals.com/

Perry Grunenberg, PGeo, a qualified person as that term is defined under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release. Mr. Grunenberg is also a director of the company.

Cautionary Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on assumptions as of that date. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations; they are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to exploration and development; the ability of the Company to obtain additional financing; the Company's limited operating history; the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations; fluctuations in the prices of commodities; operating hazards and risks; competition and other risks and uncertainties, including those described in the Company's Prospectus dated September 8, 2017 available on www.sedar.com. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions, and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions, and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

Richard Penn

CEO

(778) 384-8923

Lorrain claims overlying regional geology, with drill hole locations and mineral showing indicated.

Lorrain claims overlying elongate regional magnetic high, with drill hole locations and mineral showing indicated.

SOURCE: Black Tusk Resources Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634174/Black-Tusk-Mobilizing-Diamond-Drill-to-the-Lorrain-Property-Quebec
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Women are more likely to report worse side effects after receiving COVID-19 vaccines then men are, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data reveal.

Last month, officials looked at nearly 7,000 reactions reported to the agency's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

They found that nearly 80 percent of the reactions were reported wby women, making them four-time more likely to report a side effect than men.

This held true whether they were receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine - and is despite the fact that women are less likely to fall severly ill from COVID-19 than men are.

Of 7,000 reactions reported to the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System between December 2020 and January 2021, 5,505 reactions (far left, blue), or 78.7% were in women while 1,408 reactions (far left, yellow), or 20.1%, were in men

Some researchers theorize that the differences could due to biology, with women mounting stronger immune responses that trigger reactions while others say it could be behavioral with women more likely to report adverse reactions than men. Pictured: A nurse administers a dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a site at Loyola Marymount University, March 8

For the report, published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the agency looked reports sent to VAERS between December 14, 2020 and January 13, 2021.

During this period, the first and second doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the first dose of Moderna vaccine were being administered.

Over the course of a month, there were 13,794,904 vaccine doses administered, and 6,994 reports of adverse events that were submitted to VAERS.

Of those reports, 5,505 participants, or 78.7 percent were female while 1,408 vaccine receivers, or 20.1 percent, were male.

This was despite the fact only 61.2 percent of women received the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine.

What's more, nearly all reports of life-threatening allergic reactions called anaphylaxis have occurred in women.

Of at least 31 people who suffered anaphylaxis after getting the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, 29 of them were women.

'I am not at all surprised,' Dr Sabra Klein, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Times.

'This sex difference is completely consistent with past reports of other vaccines.'

So why are there differences between the sexes?

Some say it's biological. Researchers have found that male patients had poor production of certain types of immune cells that kill the virus and fight off inflammation.

However, women's immune systems had a robust response that did not decrease with age as seen in men.

These differences 'suggest a biological effect, possibly associated with reproductive hormones,' Julianne Gee, a medical officer in the CDC's Immunization Safety Office, told The Times.

It may also explain why men are more likely to suffer severe cases of coronavirus or die of the disease.

Others also believe the size of the dose could play a role because women absorb and metabolize drugs differently than men do.

However, one expert, believes it could be a difference in behavior.

Dr Rosemary Morgan, an international health researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The Times it could be that women are more likely to report side effects than men are.

Although there is no specific study on this topic, there is research that has found men are less likely to see doctors than women, and this behavior may extend to side effects, Morgan said.
Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.
DUBLIN, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global 5G Base Station Market Outlook 2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global 5G base station market is anticipated to grow by a CAGR of around 32% over the forecast period, i.e., 2020-2028 and is estimated to cross market valuation of USD 177,000 Million by 2028.

The increase in demand for high-speed data with low latency is boosting the demand for 5G networks around the world. Additionally, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has greatly impacted the businesses globally and with major shift related to work-from-home scenario requiring high-speed and uninterrupted connectivity, the demand for high-speed services has been increased.

Moreover, this has furthered the demand for 5G base stations, driving telecom operators to invest highly in these fixed-point infrastructures needed for wireless communications and networking across various companies. Based on market segmentation, the global market is bifurcated by area into rural and urban areas. On the back of growing rate of urban population and digitalization, the urban area segment is estimated to witness highest growth throughout the forecast period.



The global 5G base stations market is segmented on the basis of 5 major regions comprising North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. Among these regions, the market in Asia Pacific is estimated to attain highest market value on the back of increasing investments in enabling networking and smart devices with 5G connectivity.

The second highest stand is estimated to be held by the market in Europe, which is estimated to garner market value of around USD 1761 by the end of 2020. The growth of the 5G base station market in Europe can be attributed to the rising advancements and investments related to the expansion of 5G network offering enhanced network coverage to the consumers.



Some of the key market leaders associated with the global 5G base station market are Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., ZTE Corporation, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Nokia Corporation, Samsung, NEC Corporation, Alpha Networks Inc., Airspan Networks, CommScope, Motorola Solutions, Inc. and others.



Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction



2. Research Methodology



3. Executive Summary - Global 5G Base Station Market



4. Analysis on the Telecom Industry Outlook



5. Analysis on the Evolution of Mobile Communication



6. Analysis of Market Dynamics

6.1. Drivers

6.2. Restraints/Challenges

6.3. Opportunities

6.4. Trends



7. Global 5G Base Station Market Outlook

7.1. Market Size and forecast, 2019-2028F

By Value (USD Million)

By Volume (Thousand Units)

7.2. Global 5G Base Station Market Segmentation, 2019-2028F

By Component

Remote Radio Unit (RRU), 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Small Cells, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Macro Cells, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Baseband Processing Unit (BBU), 2019-2028f (USD Million)

MIMO Antenna, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Fiber Optic Cable, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Other Components, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

By Core Network Technology

SND, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

NFV, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

By Area

Rural, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Urban, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

By 5G Base Station Type

Fixed Station, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Control Station, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Temporary Base, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

Other Station Types, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

By Frequency Band

Less than 2.5 GHz, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

2.5 GHz - 8 GHz, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

8 GHz - 25 GHz, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

More than 25 GHz, 2019-2028f (USD Million)

By End-Use Application

Telecommunication Companies, 2019-2028f (USD Million & Thousand Units)

Cloud and Data Center, 2019-2028f (USD Million & Thousand Units)

Memory & Storage, and Security Companies, 2019-2028f (USD Million & Thousand Units)

Companies Mentioned

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

ZTE Corporation

Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson

Nokia Corporation

Samsung

NEC Corporation

Alpha Networks Inc.

Airspan Networks

CommScope

Motorola Solutions Inc.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/hg68dj

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
(Alliance News) - BP PLC late Tuesday said Lightsource BP will supply renewable energy to 88 of its service stations across New South Wales, Australia.

The move comes as a result of a power purchase agreement with Snowy Hydro which owns, operates and maintains the Snowy Scheme and is the fourth largest energy retailer in the Australian National Electricity Market.

BP said the PPA will enable the construction of a 107 mega watt peak solar farm in West Wyalong, New South Wales. Snowy Hydro will purchase electricity generated from the solar farm through a 15-year agreement PPA.

"Powering these BP sites using renewable energy is a demonstration of our strategy in action and is another step towards our ambition to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner and to help the world to get to net zero," said Frederic Baudry, president of BP Australia and SVP fuels & low carbon solutions, Asia Pacific.

BP shares closed 1.1% lower at 315.25 pence in London Tuesday.

By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Chennai: Actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth-led Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) quits AIADMK-BJP alliance a month before Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. Without elaborating on the reason for this drift, DMDK leader said that the decision was taken over non-allocation of expected seats or constituencies for the upcoming state polls.

The political temperature of the state is rising as it witnesses numerous political rallies. Few days back, Union home minister Amit Shah, while launching BJPs door-to-door campaign at Suchindram in Kanyakumari district, exuded confidence that the AIADMK-BJP alliance would form the next government in Tamil Nadu.

The assembly elections for 234 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu will be conducted in one phase on April 6. The counting of votes is slated for May 2.

Meanwhile, the opposition, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has finalised seat sharing deal with its allies. The DMK will be fighting the upcoming state assembly elections with Congress, CPI, CPI (M), MDMK, VCK, IUML and MMK.

Live TV
From Kitty Reeds initial inspiration in the mid-1980s to the present, LFC has played an essential role in the personal and professional development of thousands of Fredericks best and brightest." - Rick Weldon, Frederick County Chamber of Commerce

Through a partnership with Hood Colleges doctoral program, the 2021-22 Leadership Frederick County program will feature embedded leadership masterclasses, marking the first time in the programs history that graduate-level leadership instruction has been incorporated into the curriculum.

From Kitty Reeds initial inspiration in the mid-1980s to the present, LFC has played an essential role in the personal and professional development of thousands of Fredericks best and brightest. From the corporate boardroom to the service counter, leaders of all ages, races and socioeconomic backgrounds have gained an expanded insight into the invisible connections, precious heritage and critical challenges facing Frederick County. Each of these leaders brought with them unique insights and ideas, and this accumulation of experience is now hard at work in the public, private and nonprofit sectors addressing our diverse and ever-changing needs. LFCs systems approach to building community leaders is the perfect recipe for our long-term success. After decades of successful programming, were excited to bring forth a new and exciting collaboration with Hood College. Well work with Hood to develop a robust leadership curriculum pulling from their graduate school educators and classes. Our ultimate goal is to supplement the outstanding experiential learning with formal instruction in community leadership, said Rick Weldon, president and CEO.

As both an LFC alum and a Hood College employee, I am excited about the new partnership between the Chamber and the Colleges doctoral program. Launched in 2016 as the only doctoral program in Frederick County, it prepares leaders and transforms communities. What better way to fulfill that mission than by partnering with Frederick Countys leaders, added Laurie Ward, LFC class of 2019 and vice president for marketing and communication at Hood.

In addition to the enhanced curriculum, the Chamber has also announced the appointment of Jennifer Gerlock as the programs new executive director. Gerlock, a 2015 graduate of LFC, assumes the role formerly held by Weldon since 2014.

Im pleased to announce that Jennifer Gerlock, the vice president of marketing and communication for the Chamber, will also be assuming the role of executive director of Leadership Frederick County beginning with the 2021-22 class. Jennifer is a graduate of the LFC program and has been a critical partner the last few years to not only develop collateral but also assist in the continuation of content delivery during the pandemic. Her creativity, passion and own leadership journey suggest shell be the perfect fit for this important role, commented Weldon.

Weldon will continue to be directly involved in many aspects of Leadership Frederick County, including opening and closing retreats, as well as the formulation and delivery of the government day curriculum.

Leadership Frederick County has been training emerging and existing leaders in the Frederick County community for 33 years, graduating more than 1,500 leaders to date.

The nine-month experiential program offers an intensive and up-close look at the issues and opportunities facing the region. LFC introduces leaders to the realities, opportunities and challenges of Frederick Countys civic and business communities and gives participants the opportunity to experience the power of working with other community leaders and organizations to influence positive growth and advancement of the region. The class meets monthly from August to May with program days focused on facets of the community such as history, agriculture, economic development, health and human services, and government.

Leadership Frederick County is now accepting applications for the 2021-22 cohort. To enroll or learn more, visit LeadershipFrederickCounty.com.

About the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce

The Frederick County Chamber of Commerce serves as the voice of business and provides strategic leadership and engagement in building the future of business and the community through information, collaboration, advocacy and services on behalf of the employers in our community. Members include small businesses, corporations, associations, nonprofits and individual professionals. Since 1912 the Chamber has worked diligently with local government, education, private industry and a host of other agencies and organizations to improve the business environment and promote Frederick County as a premier community in which to live, work and do business.

About Hood College

Hood College is an independent, liberal arts college, with 30+ bachelors degrees, four pre-professional programs, 19 masters degrees, two doctorates and 11 post-baccalaureate certificates. Located in historic Frederick, near Washington, D.C., Baltimore and the I-270 technology corridor, Hood gives students access to countless internships and research opportunities.
FOLSOM, NJ, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Media Contact: Dominick DiRocco

(609) 561-9000 ext. 4262

ddirocco@sjindustries.com

Investor Contact: Dan Fidell

(609) 561-9000 ext. 7027

dfidell@sjindustries.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SJI Women Making History As Presidents of Both of SJIs Utilities

FOLSOM, NJ, March 9, 2021  SJI (NYSE: SJI) is not only celebrating Womens History Month but is making history of its own with two dynamic women now the top executives at both utility companies, South Jersey Gas and Elizabethtown Gas.

In July 2020, SJI named Melissa Orsen president and COO of South Jersey Gas, having served as SVP at SJI since 2018, and in December 2018, Christie McMullen was named president and COO of Elizabethtown Gas. In their roles, Orsen and McMullen lead the overall utility operations of South Jersey Gas and Elizabethtown Gas, respectively, focusing on the utilities unwavering commitment to safety, developing opportunities for growth, ensuring cost-effective operations, and delivering exceptional customer service.

Placing these two experienced female executives in the top positions of its utility companies follows a trend of hiring and advancing women into leadership roles at SJI. Since 2019, 49 percent of all new hires at SJI are females and women hold 39 percent of our leadership positions. SJI fosters an environment that supports female employees career development, including the support of an employee resource group called the Womens Leadership Initiative.

At SJI, we have 1,100 ambitious employees who work hard toward our goal to provide safe, reliable, affordable clean energy for a better today and tomorrow. I look forward to advancing our workforce through career development programs and training opportunities while also showcasing our talent at all levels across the organization, said Orsen SVP, SJI and president and COO, South Jersey Gas.

Since studying engineering in college, Ive always embraced the challenge of working in male-dominated industries. My personal goal has been to make positive impacts on the businesses where I work, the employees that surround me and the communities we serve. With new green technologies emerging, this is an exciting time to work in the energy field, and I hope to guide others, especially women, as they work on solutions for a better tomorrow, said McMullen, president and COO, Elizabethtown Gas.

About Melissa Orsen

Before Orsen was appointed SVP, SJI and president and COO of South Jersey Gas, she joined SJI in 2018 as Senior Vice President, General Counsel. Since that time, she has helped lead the organization through a dynamic energy landscape, both at the state and federal levels, guided by over fifteen years of regulatory agency and leadership experience. Previously, she served as the CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, where she directed more than $1 billion in economic development activities.

About Christie McMullen

Christie McMullen is an industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience in utility operations, construction, distribution and engineering. Before her appointment as president and COO of Elizabethtown Gas, McMullen served as vice president of gas distribution at Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE). McMullen earned her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland and a Master of Business Administration and Management from Loyola University Maryland.

For more information about SJI and its subsidiaries, please visit sjindustries.com.

About SJI

SJI (NYSE: SJI), an energy services holding company based in Folsom, NJ, delivers energy services to its customers through three primary subsidiaries. SJI Utilities, SJIs regulated natural gas utility business, delivers safe, reliable, affordable natural gas to approximately 700,000 South Jersey Gas and Elizabethtown Gas customers in New Jersey. SJIs non-utility businesses within South Jersey Energy Solutions promote efficiency, clean technology and renewable energy by providing customized wholesale commodity marketing and fuel management services; and developing, owning and operating on-site energy production facilities. SJI Midstream houses the companys interest in the PennEast Pipeline Project. For more information about SJI and its subsidiaries, please visit sjindustries.com.

###
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
UC researchers discover how two genes cooperate to cause cancer growth and can target treatments to stop it from happening

Cooperation is generally a good thing -- working together to reach a goal.

But in the case of cancer, it can be detrimental. University of Cincinnati researchers have discovered that cooperation between two key genes drive cancer growth, spread and treatment resistance in one particularly aggressive type of breast cancer.

The good news is, though, with this knowledge, they can continue to aim their targeted treatments at these genes, singularly and together, to stop breast cancer in its tracks.

This study is published in the March 9 online edition of the journal Cell Reports.

"According to the American Cancer Society's estimate, over 280,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women in 2021," explains Xiaoting Zhang, PhD, professor and Thomas Boat Endowed Chair in UC's Department of Cancer Biology, director of the Breast Cancer Research Program and member of the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center, who led this research. "Like many other cancers, breast cancer cells are fueled by mutations and overproduction of 'driver' genes, which lead the process of cancer development."

He says one of these genes, called HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2), accounts for about 20% of all human breast cancer cases, and while there are some therapies to target it, unwanted side effects and treatment resistance often occur in patients, causing relapse.

"There are about a dozen additional genes, including one called MED1, located within the same chromosomal region where HER2 and other genes are multiplied in breast cancer, but it's not known whether any of these genes are simply 'passenger' genes, and let HER2 to do the driving, or actually collaborate with the gene to play significant roles in the development, spread and treatment resistance of this type of breast cancer."

To investigate this, the team created an animal model with an overproduction of both genes, HER2 and MED1, in the mammary gland.

This helped researchers discover the key role MED1 played in helping HER2 promote breast tumor growth, spread and treatment resistance. They found that the genes could in fact work with each other to further speed up their production and activities, which in turn promotes rapid cell multiplication, movement and invasion to spread cancer and cause treatment resistance.

Zhang adds that previous research has shown that MED1 has a role in treatment resistance in another type of breast cancer, ER+ (estrogen receptor positive). This UC study established MED1 as a key driver in the development and treatment resistance of two major kinds of breast cancer.

"Our findings suggest that targeting MED1, alone and in combination with current therapies, could be an effective treatment strategy for nearly 90% of breast cancer patients in clinics and combat treatment resistance to two widely used breast cancer therapies," Zhang says.

Zhang and his team have already developed a treatment targeting MED1 specifically in tumors, using RNA nanotechnology similar to that used for the COVID-19 vaccines, and have observed positive outcomes. This technology is currently patent pending.

Creating foundations for future research, careers

Yongguang Yang, PhD, first author on this study and a research associate in Zhang's lab, says the work he's done on studying the roles of these genes in cancer and treatment resistance is eye-opening and takes a true "teamwork" approach.

"Working together as a team is very important in this process, as collaborations with the basic cancer biology researchers, clinical teams and physicians ensure our access to their unique insights and firsthand clinical experience, data and samples," he says. "These findings are exciting and relate very closely to how this cancer impacts people. This new animal model we created has a wide range of future applications and will allow us to continue to study basic molecular mechanisms of this type of breast cancer to find and test new therapies."

"It was very exciting to be able to not only conduct my graduate studies on something so innovative and impactful as identifying new ways that breast cancers function, but also to develop potential applications for the future of cancer treatment," adds co-author, Marissa Leonard, PhD, a recent doctoral graduate of the cancer and cell biology program at UC. "One or the other is often seen in research labs, but doing both is something I would consider a rare opportunity."

"The scientific experience, knowledge and writing skills I gained from Dr. Zhang's lab and our graduate program at UC have greatly broadened my horizons and allowed me to familiarize myself with a wide range of scientific concepts," says Leonard, who is now a medical writer. "These broad, laboratory-based skill sets bode well for many different career paths, too, whether that includes continued research, medical writing, regulatory science, patent law, teaching or others."

###

Authors and collaborators of this study also include UC breast oncologists Elyse Lower, MD, and Mahmoud Charif, MD; pathologist Jiang Wang, MD, PhD; cancer biology researcher Jun-Lin Guan, PhD, and his lab members Syn Yeo, PhD, and Mingang Hao, PhD; Zhenhua Luo, PhD, of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; and Gregory Bick, PhD, and Chunmiao Cai, PhD, from Zhang's laboratory.

This research was supported by the National Cancer Institute (R01CA197865 and R01CA229869), Ohio Cancer Research Seed Grant, University of Cincinnati Cancer Center and Ride Cincinnati Awards. Researchers cite no conflict of interest.
Steven Spurrier, who died Tuesday morning at age 79, was an unlikely champion for California wines. In 1976, the British wine merchant was running a shop in Paris that specialized in the great wines of France  Burgundy, Bordeaux  when he visited Napa Valley, at the time considered a podunk farming town.

But Spurrier sensed that those California farmers were making some extraordinary wines, so he organized a tasting back in Paris to show them off to the French wine trade. That event, which would be canonized as the Judgment of Paris, is widely considered the turning point for California, and indeed American, wine  the moment when it entered the worlds stage.

Spurrier died at home at Bride Valley, the wine estate in Dorset, England where he had spent his later years. The family did not disclose the cause of death.

Any epithet to describe Spurriers career is incomplete. He was a wine merchant, educator and critic. He farmed grapes and made wine. He formed a publishing house devoted to wine books. And though he was as well versed as anyone alive in the classic wines of Europe, he was a perennial champion of the underdog. At any sparsely attended tasting of the most obscure, nascent wine region, Steven would be there, wrote British wine critic Jancis Robinson in her remembrance of Spurrier.

Courtesy of Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher

By chance and circumstance rather than by design, Steven introduced wine to people of all ages, genders, races and orientations, thoroughly democratizing wine for the world, Simon McMurtrie, who co-founded the Academie du Vin Library with Spurrier, told The Chronicle. For him, it wasnt Old versus New World, but instead all the world of wine for everyone.

Spurrier was born in 1941 and attended the London School of Economics. He wrote in his autobiography, A Life in Wine, that his love for wine was ignited at age 13 by a taste of 1908 Cockburns Port. In his twenties, he began working for a wine importer in London. With his wife, Bella, whom he married in 1964, he moved to Paris, and the couple bought a wine shop called the Cave de la Madeleine. Soon, they opened a wine school next door, called LAcademie du Vin.

A young American expat, Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher, recalled meeting Spurrier outside his shop in 1971 as he unloaded boxes of wine from his station wagon. He had driven in the middle of the night to Beaujolais to acquire the regions famous nouveau wines that are released the third Thursday in November.

I will be forever grateful to Steven Spurrier, the handsome Englishman I met by chance, Gastaud-Gallagher wrote in an email on Tuesday. What do I remember best about Steven? His perfect manners, natural elegance, kindness and generosity, and especially his enthusiasm, great sense of humor and wonderful stories.

Spurrier always credited Gastaud-Gallagher with coming up with the idea of the Judgment of Paris tasting. Patricia being American had been trying to hold a tasting of American wines each July 4th, Spurrier told The Chronicle in 2018. The problem was that whatever wines that were available, even from her friends in the Embassy, werent worth the effort.

Josh Edelson / Special to The Chronicle 2018

So they decided they had to go to California to see what wines might not be available yet in France. They discovered wines from then-unknown producers like Chateau Montelena, Stags Leap Wine Cellars, Ridge Vineyards, Mayacamas Vineyards, Heitz Cellar and Freemark Abbey Winery. For the 1976 bicentennial, they invited some of Frances most distinguished wine tasters to a blind tasting in Paris, pitting French Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays against these American efforts. The top-scoring wines were both American, Chateau Montelenas Chardonnay and Stags Leaps Cabernet. A Time magazine reporter, George Taber, happened to be there and chronicled the event. Instantly, history was made.

The French judges were, by all accounts, mortified, especially Odette Kahn, the editor of a prestigious French wine magazine. She was the first person to realize right away what impact the results would have, Spurrier said in 2018. She had put a California wine top in both white and red on her scorecard, so insisted she have them back and I refused. She never spoke to me again and wrote an article in (her magazine) to say that the tasting had been rigged which was of course not true.

Bottle Shock

The Paris tasting was a Copernican moment, said Stags Leap founder Warren Winiarski. While the impact on his winery was particularly powerful, he believes the more important effect was that it shifted the paradigm by which wines were evaluated. Suddenly, it was possible that wines from uncelebrated corners of the globe might be worthy of consideration alongside the classics.

It changed the character of how people approached wines, Winiarski continued. Winemakers aspirations were lifted now that the artificial hierarchy had been taken apart. I think the world of wine changed then.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

In the 2008 film Bottle Shock, a semi-fictionalized account of the Judgment of Paris, Alan Rickman plays the character of Spurrier and portrays him as a European snob, reluctantly charmed by the hick winemakers of Calistoga  a temperament that the real Spurrier did not share. For someone who achieved so much, he acted with such extreme modesty and politesse that there was always a danger of his not being accorded his due, Robinson wrote. Winiarski called him a very giving, gentle friend.

He opened a series of other wine businesses, some short-lived, throughout the rest of his career, including wine schools in India, Italy, Japan and Canada. In 2019, he founded the Academie du Vin Library, a publishing imprint, which has revived classic wine texts like Michael Broadbents 1968 Wine Tasting as well as published new works, including Spurriers own books. He wrote more than 300 columns for Decanter, the leading British wine magazine.

After decades of championing winemakers throughout the world, Spurrier became one himself. In 2008 he and Bella planted the Bride Valley vineyard, which has earned a strong reputation for its sparkling wines.

In 2016, on the Judgment of Paris 40th anniversary, Spurrier was honored by the U.S. Congress for the role he played in elevating American wine. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi presented him with a signed and sealed document saying that Congress had approved a resolution honoring the Judgment of Paris historical significance. I was also given an American flag, neatly folded and boxed, which I was told had been flying above the Capitol dome of Congress for two days in my honour! Spurrier wrote in A Life in Wine.

He is survived by his wife, Bella, and children Christian and Kate.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Whether a child is growing up in Downtown Albuquerque, the rugged hills north of Santa Fe, or the vast lands of the Zuni Pueblo, access to the outdoors and adventures in the natural world can be a transformative experience that shapes them for a lifetime. Far too often, children in lower-income communities, Indigenous youths and children of color face structural barriers to accessing the outdoors. Thats what the creation of the Outdoor Equity Fund a couple of years back sought to alleviate.

Now there is a chance to double down on the commitments made by our state leaders, including a one-time financial investment to get the program where it needs to be and meet the goals of getting youths across our state outside to enjoy the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health benefits. I know youths are depending on this investment, because I work with a program that has received funding from this initiative.

The Zuni Youth Enrichment Project, or ZYEP, is utilizing outdoor recreation to help Zuni youths connect to their culture, learn important lessons about leadership, and take on pressing challenges their community is facing. The Zuni people have a long and successful history of water conservation, but issues surrounding water are becoming more and more prominent due to climate change. With support from Outdoor Equity Fund, ZYEP is taking a recreational focus to water to explore how climate change is affecting regional and state-wide water sources, how those consequences are leading to the loss of Zuni water access and what that means for Zuni culture and resource management. Outdoor recreation itself is a powerful connection point for these topics and it is often expensive to access, especially for rural tribal communities like Zuni.

The Outdoor Equity Fund is special because its investing in an area often overlooked. By doing so, they are increasing the access Zuni youths have to outdoor recreation that emphasizes one of their communitys most valuable assets, water. If the Outdoor Equity Fund can have this kind of positive impact in Zuni, then other tribes and pueblos across the state with similar strengths and barriers would benefit from this funding as well.

Final budget decisions will be made (as the Legislature winds down) and must include a commitment from representatives across the state to appropriate their own budget money to fund programs in the Division of Outdoor Recreation. I urge them to get behind creative efforts to add resources to the Outdoor Equity Fund and the Great New Mexico Trails Package.

The Great NM Trails Package would allow New Mexico to match federal dollars for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and create 150-plus miles of new trails in 23 counties. This money is crucial so rural communities can recover from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

An investment in outdoor equity is more than just about getting people outdoors. An investment in outdoor equity is an investment in youths and families of all backgrounds across the state. The young people of today are the leaders of tomorrow, and programs like ZYEP are making it their mission to invest and develop their leaders as they step into roles that benefit their community now and in the future. The Outdoor Equity Fund partnership with ZYEP and other tribal groups will broaden youth platforms to advocate for the environment and its resources that directly affect their culture and their sovereignty.

Tahlia Natachu is youth development coordinator for the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project.
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday (March 9) extended the interim protection from arrest to the two accused in the Greta Thunberg toolkit case, Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk till March 15.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana adjourned the matter at the request of the defence counsels.

The counsels sought more time to study the filed by the Delhi Police in connection with the case.

The judged then directed the police to not take any coercive action against the two accused until the next hearing on March 15.

Jacob and Muluk have been booked on charges of sedition along with climate activist Disha Ravi. The Delhi police have accused the three of being involved in the creation of the toolkits to guide farmers to carry out protests.

Last month, Disha Ravi was granted bail in the case. The judge had pointed to "scanty and sketchy evidence on record".

Live TV
H2 back to growth with better underlying momentum

Press release

Amsterdam, 9 March 2021

Key items1

Pure-play focus and powerful portfolio drove record In-Home organic sales growth of 9.1% in FY 20

Total organic sales growth accelerated from -1.1% in H1 to 0.7% in H2, with In-Home at 9.8% and Away-from-Home at -29.8% due to new lockdowns in Q4

Progress across all sustainability commitments, with notable increase in share of third-party certified/verified coffee; 87% of packaging designed to be reusable, recyclable or compostable

Organic adjusted EBIT growth of 6.2% to EUR 1,278 million in FY 20

Free cash flow of EUR 877 million, after one-off tax and IPO payments of EUR 277 million

Leverage improved to 3.2x, from 4.2x at the end of FY 19

Proposal to pay a total cash dividend of EUR 0.70 per share in two equal instalments

FY 21 outlook: organic sales growth of 3 to 5%, with a catch-up on the marketing investment level, will result in a low single-digit organic increase in adjusted EBIT

A message from Fabien Simon, CEO of JDE Peet's

"In an unprecedented year, JDE Peet's employees and partners worked tirelessly to serve our loved coffee and tea brands to consumers across the six continents. I would like to thank the teams who rallied together, supported communities with initiatives across 30 countries, while ensuring the health and safety of our employees.

JDE Peet's delivered a strong performance in 2020, demonstrating once again the resilience of the category we participate in, as well as the strengths and agility of our capabilities built over the last 268 years. As the world's largest coffee and tea pure player, we have become more relevant than ever before. We are evolving our portfolio and channel capabilities towards the fastest growing and more premium In-Home propositions through our unique set of global and local brands. Our strategic choices and investments supported a record In-Home organic growth of 9.1% in 2020, with increasing momentum in the second part of the year on sales growth, pricing and in-market performance.

We improved our leverage, and reduced net debt by another EUR 462 million in the second half of 2020. Our confidence in sustained strong free cash flow generation enables us to propose a cash dividend of EUR 0.70 per share.

2021 is expected to be another uncertain year and the long-lasting impacts of the pandemic are unclear and will need to be assessed, in particular the implications for the Away-from-Home channel. We therefore consider it appropriate to adjust our medium- to long-term targets. We are very confident of our growth opportunities to support 3 to 5% organic sales growth and mid-single-digit organic adjusted EBIT growth with quality margins, further deleveraging, and funding inorganic growth from our strong cash flow generation. These medium- to long-term targets point to the 2021 outlook of organic sales growth of 3 to 5%, combined with a low single-digit organic increase in adjusted EBIT, delivered in a quality way, with A&P trending back towards the FY 19 level."





Corporate Responsibility

JDE Peet's' Corporate Responsibility strategy is built on three pillars: Common Grounds, addressing the priority issues in our supply chain; Minimised Footprint, aimed at reducing our environmental impact; and Connected People, engaging our employees and our communities.

In 2020, we made good progress on our Corporate Responsibility Programme. Under our Common Grounds programme, we increased the share of responsibly sourced coffee, and significantly increased the number of smallholders we reach through our collaborative programmes, despite the pandemic. In 2020, 87% of our primary and secondary packaging was either reusable, recyclable or compostable, while 33% of our packaging came from recycled materials, which is restricted by current regulations limiting the use of recycled content within packaging which is in direct food contact. We successfully relaunched our leading Senseo brand, with an industry-first compostable coffee pad containing 100% certified coffee and low-environmental impact appliances to create a truly sustainable offering for our consumers. Most recently, we partnered with Nestle in the UK to launch Podback, enabling consumers to return our Tassimo T-discs and L'OR coffee capsules more easily through a variety of methods.

Outlook 2021

While uncertainty remains regarding the future implications COVID-19 may have on global markets, we believe that vaccination programmes around the world will lead to a gradual lifting of lockdown measures in the course of 2021.

Within this context, we expect organic sales growth of 3 to 5% in FY 21, assuming a moderate recovery in Away-from-Home. To fully capture the growth opportunities we see in the coming years, we will step up our investments for growth in 2021, notably in marketing and innovation support. With these investments in growth, we expect organic adjusted EBIT growth to be in the low single-digit range in FY 21.

We remain committed to reducing our leverage to below 3x net debt to adjusted EBITDA.

Medium- to Long-Term Targets

Following the unprecedented developments related to the COVID pandemic and the long-lasting changes the company expects they will have on consumer behaviour, the company has reviewed its strategy in recent months.

While management has concluded that the company's strategy will not be subject to any material changes, we are further encouraged by the future growth opportunities the team has identified. Consistent with JDE Peet's commitment to focus on the quality and sustainability of its organic sales growth and profitability, the company has decided to link its profitability target more closely to its organic sales growth target.

As a result, the company targets for the medium- to long-term to deliver organic sales growth of 3 to 5% and mid-single-digit organic adjusted EBIT growth with quality margins. In addition, the company continues to target a Free Cash Flow conversion of approximately 70%.

More information about the company's strategy and future growth opportunities will be shared with institutional investors and equity research analysts during a virtual Strategic Update meeting on Thursday 31 March 2021.

Dividend

JDE Peet's' Board proposes to pay a dividend of EUR 0.70 per share in cash related to FY 20. The dividend will be paid in two instalments of EUR 0.35 each. The first payment date will be on Friday 16 July 2021, with the ex-dividend date on Monday 12 July 2021 and the record date on Tuesday 13 July 2021. The second payment date will be on Friday 28 January 2022, with the ex-dividend date on Monday 24 January 2022 and the record date on Tuesday 25 January 2022. The dividend proposal is subject to approval by the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on Thursday 17 June 2021.

Financial Review Full-Year 2020

in EUR m FY 20 FY 19 Organic Reported (unless otherwise stated) change change Sales 6,651 6,945 -0.2 % -4.2 % Adjusted EBIT 1,278 1,255 6.2 % 1.9 % Underlying profit for the period 787 801 - - Underlying EPS1,2 (EUR) 1.57 - - - Reported EPS (EUR) 0.80 - - - 1 Underlying earnings (per share) excludes all adjusting items (net of tax) 2 Based on a pro-forma average number of shares of 499,709,030

In FY 20, total sales decreased by 0.2% on an organic basis. Our In-Home businesses delivered record-high organic sales growth of 9.1% as lockdown measures shifted a significant part of Away-from-Home consumption to In-Home. The Away-from-Home activities showed a relatively stable organic sales performance in H2 versus H1, despite a wave of new lockdown measures in Q4, resulting in a full-year organic sales decline of -30.0%.

Total organic sales growth reflects a volume/mix effect of -1.0% and 0.8% in price. Changes in scope and other changes decreased sales by 0.4% while foreign exchange had a negative impact of 3.6%. Total reported sales decreased by 4.2% to EUR 6,651 million.

Adjusted EBIT increased organically by 6.2% to EUR 1,278 million driven by strong double-digit growth in all three CPG segments and Peet's, partially offset by a decline in the Away-from-Home businesses. Including the effects of foreign exchange and scope changes, adjusted EBIT increased by 1.9%.

Underlying profit - excluding non-recurring items - decreased by 1.7% to EUR 787 million as a higher operating profit was offset by greater adjusted net financial expenses.

Free cash flow of EUR 877 million included EUR 84 million of payments related to the IPO and EUR 193 million of future tax payments brought forward.

Net leverage improved to 3.2x net debt to adjusted EBITDA from 4.2x at the end of FY 19. We continue to make significant progress on our deleveraging priority and we are well positioned to reduce our leverage to below 3x. On 11 November 2020, Fitch assigned an investment grade rating to JDE Peet's underscoring our operating strength, strong financial discipline, and continued progress on deleveraging.

Our liquidity position remains strong, with total liquidity of EUR 1,064 million consisting of a cash position of EUR 389 million and available committed RCF facilities of EUR 675 million.





1This press release contains certain non-IFRS financial measures and ratios, which are not recognised measures of financial performance or liquidity under IFRS. For a reconciliation of these non-IFRS financial measures to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures, see page 7 of this press release.

For the full and original version of the press release click here

For the presentation click here

Conference call & audio webcast

Fabien SimonRelationswebsite.

Enquiries

Media

Michael Orr

Media@JDEPeets.com

+31 20 558 1600

Investors & Analysts

Robin Jansen

IR@JDEPeets.com

+31 6 159 44 569

About JDE Peet's

JDE Peet's is the world's largest pure-play coffee and tea company by revenue and served approximately 4,500 cups of coffee or tea every second in 2020. JDE Peet's unleashes the possibilities of coffee and tea in more than 100 developed and emerging markets through a portfolio of over 50 brands that collectively cover the entire category landscape led by household names such as L'OR, Peet's, Jacobs, Senseo, Tassimo, Douwe Egberts, OldTown, Super, Pickwick and Moccona. In 2020, JDE Peet's generated total sales of EUR 6.7 billion and employed a global workforce of more than 19,000 employees. Read more about our journey towards a coffee and tea for every cup at www.JDEPeets.com .



Important Information

Market Abuse Regulation

This press release contains information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation.

Presentation

The condensed consolidated unaudited financial statements of JDE Peet's N.V. (the Company) and its consolidated subsidiaries (the Group) are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union (IFRS). In preparing the financial information in these materials, except as otherwise described, the same accounting principles are applied as in the consolidated special purpose financial statements of the Group as of, and for, the year ended 31 December 2019 and the related notes thereto. All figures in these materials are unaudited. In preparing the financial information included in these materials, most numerical figures are presented in millions of euro. Certain figures in these materials, including financial data, have been rounded. In tables, negative amounts are shown in parentheses. Otherwise, negative amounts are shown by "-" or "negative" before the amount.

Forward-looking Statements

These materials contain forward-looking statements as defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 concerning the financial condition, results of operations and businesses of the Group. These forward-looking statements and other statements contained in these materials regarding matters that are not historical facts involve predictions. No assurance can be given that such future results will be achieved. Actual events or results may differ materially as a result of risks and uncertainties facing the Group. Such risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to vary materially from the future results indicated, expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. There are a number of factors that could affect the Group's future operations and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements including (without limitation): (a) competitive pressures and changes in consumer trends and preferences as well as consumer perceptions of its brands; (b) fluctuations in the cost of green coffee, including premium Arabica coffee beans, tea or other commodities, and its ability to secure an adequate supply of quality or sustainable coffee and tea; (c) global and regional economic and financial conditions, as well as political and business conditions or other developments; (d) interruption in the Group's manufacturing and distribution facilities; (e) its ability to successfully innovate, develop and launch new products and product extensions and on effectively marketing its existing products; (f) actual or alleged non-compliance with applicable laws or regulations and any legal claims or government investigations in respect of the Group's businesses; (g) difficulties associated with successfully completing acquisitions and integrating acquired businesses; (h) the loss of senior management and other key personnel; and (i) changes in applicable environmental laws or regulations. The forward-looking statements contained in these materials speak only as of the date of these materials. The Group is not under any obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of these materials or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. The Group cannot give any assurance that forward-looking statements will prove correct and investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Further details of potential risks and uncertainties affecting the Group are described in the Company's filings with the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Stichting Autoriteit Financiele Markten).

Market and Industry Data

All references to industry forecasts, industry statistics, market data and market share in these materials comprise estimates compiled by analysts, competitors, industry professionals and organisations, of publicly available information or of the Group's own assessment of its markets and sales. Rankings are based on revenue, unless otherwise stated.
The NFU has called on Red Tractor to end the 'hypocrisy' in the arable sector as growers raise concerns over the requirements they are expected to meet compared with foreign imports.

Red Tractor - the UKs largest assurance scheme - announced in January that it was consulting the industry on significant changes to its standards.

The consultation looked at how Red Tractor's standards can remain fit for purpose and kept in line with current best practice.

The call for responses ended on Friday 5 March and proposed changes should be rolled out in November this year.

As part of its response, the NFU has highlighted how in some sectors an imbalance existed between the production standards expected of UK farmers compared with those required of foreign imports.

For British growers to sell their grain, merchants require it to meet Red Tractor standards, but whilst imported grains come with assurances as to their food safety, there is no guarantee that they have been produced to the same standards as Red Tractor hold their members to.

Some producers say this puts them at a disadvantage when their grain regularly goes into products where it is mixed together with imported grain.

NFU Deputy President Stuart Roberts said growers were concerned that the high standards delivered domestically were undermined by imports competing in the same market.

"This hypocrisy weakens the integrity of standards and burdens farmers with extra cost," Mr Roberts explained.

"There needs to be more transparency about what standards the supply chains are asking for and whether these can be matched by imported product."

David Walston, an arable farmer near Cambridge, said he felt cornered by the greater production standards expected of him than imported wheat.

He said buyers insisted on farm level assurance from UK produce, but were happy to buy imported grain that was assured only from the merchant onwards.

This means that UK farmers must comply with all of the Red Tractor rules and paperwork  and the costs that entails  whereas imported grain only has quality and safety samples taken," Mr Walston said.

This unfairly burdens UK farmers with the costs of Red Tractor assurance, without paying us a premium for jumping through all those hoops.

It is clear there is no premium for Red Tractor on the supermarket shelf - because products which co-mix UK and imported wheat cannot display the Red Tractor logo - and buyers certainly do not pay us a premium if they are not getting any more from the consumer.

Mr Walston said he believed the solution should be for growers to able to produce grain to the legal and environmental standards that the government set out.

"It should meet the food safety standards that imported wheat does, but it should not necessarily have to be farm assured," he added.

"I cannot see why we should not be able to produce to the same standards that millers are already using to buy imported wheat.

As part of its response to the consultation, the NFU said that while it held the above concerns, Red Tractor's standards continued to be the 'bedrock of UK agriculture'.

Mr Roberts said: "There is strong support for Red Tractors original purpose of assuring the public that food is safe, produced with care to high standards of environmental protection and animal welfare and is fully traceable back to UK farms.

Continued support for the Red Tractor assurance scheme will be crucial not just at home but, as new trade deals are developed, it will also help to bolster Brand Britain as we take British food to new, global markets."

The NFU held more than 75 meetings across the UK during the consultation, engaging with around 3,000 farmers and growers.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Wormholes play a key role in many science fiction filmsoften as a shortcut between two distant points in space. In physics, however, these tunnels in spacetime have remained purely hypothetical. An international team led by Dr. Jose Luis Blazquez-Salcedo of the University of Oldenburg has now presented a new theoretical model in the science journal Physical Review Letters that makes microscopic wormholes seem less far-fetched than in previous theories.

Wormholes, like black holes, appear in the equations of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, published in 1916. An important postulate of Einstein's theory is that the universe has four dimensionsthree spatial dimensions and time as the fourth dimension. Together they form what is known as spacetime, and spacetime can be stretched and curved by massive objects such as stars, much as a rubber sheet would be curved by a metal ball sinking into it.

The curvature of spacetime determines the way objects like spaceships and planets, but also light, move within it. "In theory, spacetime could also be bent and curved without massive objects," says Blazquez-Salcedo, who has since transferred to the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain. In this scenario, a wormhole would be an extremely curved region in spacetime that resembles two interconnected funnels and connects two distant points in space, like a tunnel. "From a mathematical perspective such a shortcut would be possible, but no one has ever observed a real wormhole," the physicist explains.

Moreover, such a wormhole would be unstable. If for example a spaceship were to fly into one, it would instantly collapse into a black holean object in which matter disappears, never to be seen again. The connection it provided to other places in the universe would be cut off. Previous models suggest that the only way to keep the wormhole open is with an exotic form of matter that has a negative mass, or in other words weighs less than nothing, and which only exists in theory. However, Blazquez-Salcedo and his colleagues Dr. Christian Knoll from the University of Oldenburg and Eugen Radu from the Universidade de Aveiro in Portugal demonstrate in their model that wormholes could also be traversable without such matter.

The researchers chose a comparatively simple "semiclassical" approach. They combined elements of relativity theory with elements of quantum theory and classic electrodynamics theory. In their model they consider certain elementary particles such as electrons and their electric charge as the matter that is to pass through the wormhole. As a mathematical description, they chose the Dirac equation, a formula that describes the probability density function of a particle according to quantum theory and relativity as a so-called Dirac field.

As the physicists report in their study, it is the inclusion of the Dirac field into their model that permits the existence of a wormhole traversable by matter, provided that the ratio between the electric charge and the mass of the wormhole exceeds a certain limit. In addition to matter, signalsfor example electromagnetic wavescould also traverse the tiny tunnels in spacetime. The microscopic wormholes postulated by the team would probably not be suitable for interstellar travel. Moreover, the model would have to be further refined to find out whether such unusual structures could actually exist. "We think that wormholes can also exist in a complete model," says Blazquez-Salcedo.

Explore further Wormholes may be lurking in the universeand new studies are proposing ways of finding them

More information: Jose Luis Blazquez-Salcedo et al, Traversable Wormholes in Einstein-Dirac-Maxwell Theory, Physical Review Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.101102 Journal information: Physical Review Letters Jose Luis Blazquez-Salcedo et al, Traversable Wormholes in Einstein-Dirac-Maxwell Theory,(2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.101102

Provided by University of Oldenburg
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin holds pictures of former internment camp detainees while speaking during a news conference in Beijing, Feb. 23, 2021, in this still image taken from video.

A group of global parliamentarians marked International Womens Day Monday by calling on governments to hold China to account for abuses against minority women in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), amid reports of systematic sexual abuse in detention and violations of reproductive rights.

Lawmakers from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) issued a statement Monday recognizing the plight of women in the region, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps since early 2017.

Today these women are experiencing a brutal, state-sponsored persecution, the lawmakers said in a video posted to Twitter.

There is mounting evidence that hundreds of thousands of minority women in Xinjiang have been subjected to forced sterilizations and forced abortions  Those who refuse face imprisonment in Xinjiangs vast prison camp network.

In addition to restrictive family planning policies in the region, former detainees have given testimony that women in the camps have endured sexual abuse and torture, including situations in which men pay guards to rape women held there.

Experts say that taken together, such abuses could amount to genocide and crimes against humanity, as group of judges in the U.K. said in a legal opinion last month. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has labeled Chinas policies in the region as such, while parliaments in Canada and the Netherlands recently adopted non-binding resolutions carrying similar designations.

The perpetrators of these abuses cannot continue with impunity, Mondays statement said.

We as parliamentarians from across the globe call on our governments to take urgent action to hold the Chinese government to account  We must pursue all domestic and international avenues for legal investigations into the alleged crimes against humanity and genocide taking place in the region.

Speaking to RFAs Uyghur Service, Rahima Mahmut, IPAC advisor on Uyghurs, called this years International Womens Day a day of mourning for Uyghur women.

The mass sterilization of Uyghur women, forced abortion of Uyghur children, and gang rape of Uyghur women  prove beyond reasonable doubt that Uyghur women are facing the most brutal campaign of persecution from the Chinese government, she said.

Thats why we launched the campaign today to raise global awareness of Chinas crimes against humanity committed against the Uyghur women and to urge governments to take action.

Open letter by diaspora activists

Mondays call by IPAC came as a group of female Uyghur activists in the diaspora issued an open letter to raise awareness of the rights violations perpetrated by authorities on women in the XUAR.

Uyghur and Turkic women are currently facing some of the most egregious crimes carried out by Chinese State actors, including arbitrary detention, torture, rape, forced sterilization and abortion, the letter said.

In addition to these crimes, the activists said, Uyghur and Turkic women are forced to marry Han Chinese men, while mothers are forcibly separated from the

Zumrat Dawut at her home in Virginia, in an undated photo. RFA

ir children, who are often placed in state-run orphanages.

They said that for most Uyghur women whose husbands are detained, a government program that has seen Communist Party cadres move into Uyghur homes to monitor and supervise the family creates a humiliating environment where women are subject to sexual abuse.

Women from the XUAR who have shared their experiences of systematic sexual violence in the internment camps are now being targeted by a Chinese government campaign to slander them through personal, sexist attacks on their character, the activists said.

The most intrinsic rights of Uyghur and Turkic women in East Turkistan are being violated on a daily basis, the letter said, using the name preferred by Uyghurs for their homeland.

The Chinese government has effectively taken control over their body, labor rights and family lives.

The activists said that in addition to the growing outcry from the international community over rights abuses in the XUAR, women from across the globe should help to advocate for their counterparts in the region.

On the occasion of the 2021 International Womens Day, we call on international womens institutions as well as our feminist allies from across the world to speak out against the CCPs brutal repression of Uyghur and Turkic women, the letter said.

Tursunay Ziyawudun in an undated photo. RFA

Crucial role in fight

Ahead of International Womens Day, three of the women activists who signed Mondays open letter spoke with RFA about their experiences as former detainees in the XUAR and how they have come to assume central roles in the fight to hold China accountable.

On March 1, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attacked the character of Tursunay Ziyawudun, who recently testified to the BBC about systematic rape in the camp system, and of other Uyghur women survivors who have spoken out about Chinas treatment in recent years.

Wangs statements attracted a great amount of criticism on social media, including from Sophie Richardson, China Director for Human Rights Watch, who tweeted: Taking control of narrative, or confirming racist misogyny as #China state policy? Perhaps no difference.

Ziyawudun, who came to the U.S. to seek refuge and medical treatment in September 2020 with the help of the U.S. government, told RFA that International Womens Day sadly reminds her of the terror-filled camps in the XUAR, as it was on March 8 in 2018 that she was detained in the system for the first time.

I think that no Uyghur woman will be able to be part of Womens Day until the oppression in our homeland stops, she said.

All the Uyghurs in the worldthe women like us who are experiencing oppression in the homelandI will not stop until they are truly free.

Zumrat Dawut, who came to the United States with her family via Pakistan in 2019, has testified about her experience in the Xinjiang camps, where she was subjected to forced sterilization. Through the many interviews and testimonies she has given, she has provided news outlets and human rights organizations with strong evidence of the Chinese governments genocidal policies.

Dawut became a direct target of China as a result of her testimony over the past two years but has continued speaking out, doing what she can to expose Chinas repressive policies and actions.

I am not one bit saddened over the insults the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs [spokesperson] made against me as he held my photograph in his hands. Quite the opposite, Ive grown stronger from them, she said.

I know that my work and my activism for my people, my oppressed peoplefor my Uyghurs, who are experiencing genocideis having an impact, she said.

Because the evidence in our hands is strong, we have been able to convince the international community. And so, because of this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs  [it] has been a heavy blow for them, they cant sit still. Were very happy about this.

Mihrigul Tursun in Washington, in an undated photo. RFA

Proud to be a Uyghur woman

Recently, the Chinese government also produced a short documentary film titled Mihrigul Tursuns Story, which directly challenges the many testimonies given by Mihrigul Tursun since her arrival to the U.S. in Fall 2018. The video features Tursuns parents, police officers, and doctors, all speaking against her, and attempts to portray every testimony the former detainee has given as false.

All I can say is that China has lied from the very start, and theyre still lying now  Theyre such a big and powerful country, and theyre doing this to try to silence a person, she said.

If you want to know what Im feeling after seeing this [video], I know that I cant stop speaking.

Tursun said that what she needs more than ever, as she faces Chinese pressure and the depression associated with her own personal trauma, is the support and encouragement of her fellow Uyghurs.

Even if they cant come forward themselves, if they cant do this themselves, we need them to say, Theyre doing the right thing, these women are doing good things, she said.

Happy Womens Day to all the Uyghur sisters, women, and mothers before us who have fought for our people and our homeland. The saying Women move the cradle with one hand and with the other, the world is true. I am proud to be a Uyghur woman.

Reported by Nuriman Abdurashid and Gulchera Hoja for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff and Elise Anderson. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
The imprint of Vietnamese female leaders in the past years has made great contributions to the local economy. According to a report from the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Vietnam has witnessed a significant growth of businesses run by women across the country. By the end of September 2019, 24 per cent of the total number of businesses nationwide are owned by women, the highest percentage of women-led businesses in Southeast Asia.

This year, the International Women's Day (IWD) is themed "Choose to Challenge" by calling out gender bias and inequality while choosing to celebrate the achievements of women. Being the essential asset for the growth of Vietnamese products in the global stage, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) run by women have gradually proven their competitive edges, especially with the blossoming of cross-border e-commerce websites.

Choose to Challenge

Though more women have joined the industry in the past few years, there are still many challenges that they have to face, like to overcome gender stereotypes and the expectations of work-family balance from society. In addition, the consequences of COVID-19 have pushed their enterprises on the verge of financial and inventory crisis due to social distancing, which leads to the temporary business suspension as well as the decrease in demand from both domestic customers and international tourists.

Phung Minh Thuy, deputy business director and co-founder of HMGpop

Entrepreneurship has never been easy, especially for women, Phung Minh Thuy, deputy business director and co-founder of HMGpop shared. Thuy believes that female leaders have to manage their time effectively to maintain the balance between work and family, to not only meet the expectations of their customers, partners, and the internal team but also take good care of their families at the same time.

Despite the challenges, Thuy acknowledges the unique strengths that each woman has to thrive in their own field. With delicacy and flexibility in communication, detail-oriented work ethics, and sensibility to better understand the market, females have the advantages when it comes to working in the competitive business industry," she shared.

HMGpop Products

Bring authentic Vietnam product to the world

By that industry, Thuy refers to cross-border e-commerce. Businesses can capture the trend of consumers behaviour transforming from offline to online, to not only succeed in their current marketplace but also in international online stores worldwide.

Starting with an architecture enterprise, Thuy and her husband gained their first business lessons through several failures. In 2012, when the real estate industry suffered a downfall, Thuy decided to invest in designing and manufacturing 3D pop-up cards and promoting them on several e-commerce websites. Realising the potential growth of pop-up cards as in many cultures that give prominence to the gifting custom, she decided to choose Amazon as the channel to introduce her products to global customers.

To get HMGpop to become Amazons Choice, I have spent some time to get familiar with how to manage a business on Amazon, such as how to optimise the product listings, Thuy shared. As a result, HMGpops products have gained overwhelming support from global customers and maintained its top position in the Card category on Amazon with the transaction record of up to 1,300 orders per day. From 2019 to 2020, the business also witnessed an impressive growth of 100 per cent on the Amazon store, and revenue from Amazon accounts for 30 per cent of the companys total revenue.

Tran Hanh Thu, CEO of Tanisa

Another aspiring brand that featured in the remarkable female-owned Amazon businesses is Tanisa  A Tay Ninh Specialty and rice product manufacturer and exporter. From the viewpoint of Tran Hanh Thu, CEO of Tanisa, Vietnamese food, with its unique taste along with other health benefits, has always been loved worldwide. However, these products did not manage to make a mark in the world like Japanese Sushi or Korean Kimchi. Moreover, Vietnamese products are even sold as products from other Asian countries. This has become the key motivation for Thu to strive towards her aspiration of exporting "Made in Vietnam" products with authentic Vietnamese values to the global customers.

According to Thu, Though B2B export can help increased revenue, these channels do not ensure that SMEs like Tanisa can achieve their branding goals. Meanwhile, Amazon has not only enabled us to promote Tanisa products as 100 per cent 'Made in Vietnam but also has created a flat world  far different from traditional selling methods, where Tanisa products can reach international customers directly from the manufacturers in Vietnam. So far, my experience has been absolutely pleasant!

Tanisa products

Sharpen the thought and capture the opportunity

HMGpop and Tanisa are the two representatives in the large community of successful female-owned enterprises on Amazon. As the leading e-commerce companies, with 20 online stores worldwide and over 185 fulfillment centres across the world, female sellers are contributing a lot on Amazon, according to a recent poll, 42 per cent of businesses selling in Amazons store worldwide are female-owned.

Amazon continues the effort of helping Vietnamese businesses, including female-owned businesses, to start a global business. In December 2020, Vietnamese language support was launched in order to better support local sellers in starting and maintaining their digital business competitiveness by sharing resources in the local language and connecting them with the broader seller community.

In 2020, Amazon launched more than 250 tools and services to help sellers manage and grow their businesses. Among all these services and tools, Amazon has offered to sellers in the past years, many find Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) helpful. With this service, sellers can store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centres all over the world, where Amazon picks, packs, delivers, and provides customer service for these products. Therefore, sellers can concentrate on conducting customer insight research and enhancing their business strategies to generate more revenue.

With the strengths and convenience to help launch a global business, Amazon is considered a promising land where Vietnamese SMEs are empowered to grow in their specific field, regardless of whether they are run by males or females. Equal opportunity in the business industry is like having the same starting point. To thrive and become the leader, you should consider choosing products with highly competitive advantages, Thuy shared.

Amazon Global Selling helps businesses from anywhere in the world to launch a global business, reaching Amazon customers around the world and building international brands. Through sellers on Amazon online stores, sellers of different types and sizes can now sell to 300+ million worldwide active customer accounts, including 150+ million Prime customers in overseas Amazon marketplaces and millions of institutional buyers in the USA, Europe and Japan. Learn more at services.amazon.vn or visit facebook.com/banhangamazon for the latest news.
The crisis-ridden atmosphere surrounding New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has deepened in recent days, with top Democrats at the state level abandoning him after new accusations of sexual misconduct were publicized over the weekend. Cuomo has so far defied calls for his resignation and cited his winning majority votes in three separate gubernatorial elections as reason to stay on.

Mayor Bill de Blasio right, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, holding a news conference in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen, File)

Despite the furious media campaign, spearheaded by the New York Times and joined by the Washington Post and more traditionally right-wing outlets like the Wall Street Journal, there is a distinct lack of substance in the allegations brought forward so farand the campaign becomes less rather than more believable as women come forward to complain that Cuomo once kissed their hand or was guilty of a minor impropriety more than 20 years ago.

The two top Democrats in the bicameral State Legislature have directly or indirectly called on Cuomo to resign. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said: We need to govern without daily distraction. For the good of the state, Governor Cuomo must resign. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did not go as far, but did issue a statement that it is time for the Governor to seriously consider whether he can effectively meet the needs of the people of New York.

They join US Representative Kathleen Rice, the first and so far only member of New Yorks congressional delegation to call on Cuomo to resign, as well as a growing number of state lawmakers.

Cuomo has refused to resign, reportedly telling Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins on March 7 that he would need to be impeached to be removed from office. Later that day, he said at a news conference that it would be anti-democratic to be forced out of office. They dont override the peoples will, they dont get to override the elections, he said.

Significantly, the six state legislators (two senators and four assembly members) affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have issued a statement declaring, In light of the recent accounts of sexual harassment against Governor Cuomo  [i]mpeachment proceedings are the appropriate avenue for us to pursue as legislators to hold the Governor accountable for his many abuses of power and remove him from office.

The statement, signed by State Senator Julia Salazar, State Senator Jabari Brisport, Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani and other socialists in office, focused on the unproven sexual harassment allegations, although it does include a mention of the far more significant scandal, involving the transfer of COVID-19 patients from hospitals to nursing homes, and its cover-up.

The DSA, a pseudo-left faction of the Democratic Party, thus finds itself aligned with Republicans in supporting the impeachment of a thrice-elected governor on the basis of allegations of inappropriate comments and the like. No criminal sexual behavior has been alleged, and the latest allegations, even by the standards of #MeToo witch-hunts, are absurdly trivial.

On March 6, two more former aides accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior. Karen Hinton, who had been a press aide to Cuomo while he was the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, said that he gave her a hug that went on for too long in a hotel room 21 years ago.

Ana Liss, who worked for Cuomo from 2013 to 2015, said that Cuomo touched her lower back at an event in 2014 while posing for a photo. (The Wall Street Journal published a photo of that incriminating photo, which Liss keeps, framed.) Cuomo allegedly also asked her about her dating life and kissed her hand once.

These allegations add nothing to the three previous accusations. In late February and the first days of March, Lindsey Boylan, a former aide and current candidate for Manhattan borough president; Charlotte Bennett, a former aide; and Anna Ruch, a Biden campaign worker, accused Cuomo of inappropriate comments or advances.

Cuomo has specifically denied inappropriately touching anyoneand Hintons claim has been strongly denied by a Cuomo spokesman who called her a known antagonist of the governors due to her time working for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasiobut he has semi-apologized for his comments that made women uncomfortable.

Now 63, Cuomo was married to Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, for 15 years. The marriage ended in divorce in 2005. They have three children, all now adults.

That Cuomo was an abrasive and vicious boss, even by the standards of American capitalism, has been widely reported. It would be preposterous to claim that the sexually provocative remarks and conduct alleged, even if true, rise to the level of a criminal offense.

The investigation, particularly by the Times, seems out of all proportion, and it is spreading, with the Washington Post writing that it reached out to more than 150 former and current Cuomo staffers and mostly got stories about the governors temper.

With all Republicans and about a dozen Democrats indicating their support for impeachment or resignation, there are still not enough lawmakersfor nowto impeach, must less convict, Cuomo.

The New York Daily News reported that a group of 23 Democrats serving in the chamber, all women, released a statement saying they believe Attorney General Letitia James investigation of the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo should be allowed to play out, which may take months.

An investigation commissioned by Attorney General Jamesindependent from the governors office, but sparked by the whipped-up sex scandalhas only just named its lead lawyers.

The media coverage of the concocted sex scandal has largely drowned out the real scandal of the Cuomo administration, which is the 15,000 dead nursing home residents killed by a preventable disease while Cuomo delayed lockdowns and seeded the nursing homes with sick residents, then worked to cover up their deaths and give the nursing homes legal immunity.

There was only one Democrat calling for Cuomos impeachment over the nursing home scandal, and the Republican effort was mainly for show, since the Republicans hardly want a real exposure of how capitalist politicians paved the way for mass death in the COVID-19 crisis. In the meantime, more evidence has been coming to light, albeit without the blaring headlines of the sex charges.

On March 4, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported that top Cuomo aides significantly rewrote a July 2020 Department of Health (DOH) report on deaths of nursing home residents in the state to exclude out-of-facility deaths and thereby lower the death toll by approximately a third.

This means that the cover-up of nursing home deaths preceded the letter from the Trump administration requesting information on the states nursing home deaths, which had been cited by Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa as the reason for stonewalling the state legislature for months.

In a move that began in response to the nursing homes scandal and accelerated with the sex scandal, the state legislature voted Friday to revoke Cuomos pandemic-related emergency powers early. Cuomo said he would sign the bill into law rather than vetoing it, an indication of his weakened political position.

It is not yet clear to what end (or ends) the sex scandal is being whipped up by the Times and the media more broadly, along with significant sections of the Democratic Party. The relatively slow pace of school and business reopening in New York may well be a factor.

The ruling class often uses the cover of a sex scandal to sort out its internal differences without involving the population or revealing more substantive criminality, as a thoroughgoing investigation of the nursing homes scandal may yet do. Workers must oppose Cuomo not with scandal-mongering, but with the methods of class struggle.
Since the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, authorities have been on high alert for domestic extremism groups. In fact, a new Pentagon report reveals how these domestic extremism groups pose a "serious threat" to the U.S. military, forcing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of the Biden administration to call for a stand down.

Calling it a "major readiness issue," Sec. Austin said that no matter how small the number of extremists and white supremacists there are in the military, they can still have a "big impact," CBN News reported.

The Biden administration and Sec. Austin is concerned that these domestic terrorist groups are either "actively [recruiting] military members" or "joining the military themselves to gain combat experience." Sec. Austin called upon all the men and women who wear the uniform of a soldier, no matter what department in the U.S. military, to re-internalize the oath they took and report any incidents of extremism within the military.

He also called upon all commanders and supervisors to take the time for a "stand down" that will allow them to actively discuss extremism in all ranks.

ABC News reported that according to Sec. Austin, "99.9% of our troops embrace those values and are focused on the right things and are doing the right things each and every day." He added that military leaders are already actively holding "really in-depth conversations with their troops on values, on the oath that we took, on the importance of unit cohesion."

This new directive from the Defense Secretary of the Biden administration has earned criticism from retired U.S. Marines Corps Lt. Colonel Oliver North who believes that the move to fight extremism in the military is a "witch hunt."

The retired marine raised, in an interview with CBN News, concerns about the Biden administration's policies on U.S. military, which recently went through some controversial changes after President Biden reversed former President Trump's orders regarding transgender volunteers.

Lt. Col. North said that issues of loyalty have long been in the military, as during World War II, volunteers were often asked if they aligned themselves with the communist party or even the Nazis.

He also shared that the Biden administration's new policies are concerning because the military's expression of "I've got your back" is not just "some kind of sentiment," but an actual "pledge" of loyalty. He shared that while it's important to ensure there is loyalty in the ranks, it's also concerning that the Biden administration's new policies on the U.S. military, especially in the current culture, seems like a "witch hunt" that is about "policing a soldier's thoughts, ideas, values, and beliefs."

North emphasized that this "witch hunt" against what the Biden administration calls "extremism" could be targeted against those who might say or do something against transgender soldiers in the military - even if their assertions or convictions are logical and true.

"My question is, if those of us who believe in, for example, traditional marriage, or don't want to be serving with people who are gonna make you less ready, like for example, someone who's had a sex change operation can't be deployable. Are you still allowed to say things like that in our military? Or is that the kind of thing we're now gonna keep banned as part of this witch hunt? That's my concern."

The retired Marine also indicated that while Defense secretary Austin's words might "sound like the right kind of thing, the problem is when you start going after someone's politics, or for example, their moral behavior."

He explained that transgender personnel can't be deployed overseas and can't go into combat. The Biden administration's policy on transgenders in the armed forces, however, will be mandatory - despite the transgender soldier's non-deployable status as a result of a sex change.

"So if you stand up and say that, or a chaplain says something about the way people behave in marriage out of the Bible, is that gonna be banned? Is that the kind of thing that's gonna be deemed to be disloyal?" he raised.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- S&P Global Ratings believes transition finance, including issuance, could contribute up to $1 trillion per year to the economy as companies in hard-to-abate sectors, which were previously absent from the sustainable debt market, raise capital and use the proceeds for activities that help them reduce their carbon footprint.

According to our new report "Transition Finance: Finding A Path To Carbon Neutrality Via The Capital Markets," published today, as the transition to a net-zero economy gains traction we believe new sectors and issuers will enter the market, expanding the pool of investable sustainable financing and allowing investors to diversify their contribution to sustainability objectives.

"It has become clear that issuer and investor appetite for financing climate response and other environmental objectives is strong and accelerating, but achieving the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement and 2050 climate-neutrality goals will require significant capital investment in new processes and technologies that enable the decarbonization of high-carbon industries," said sustainable finance analyst Lori Shapiro.

Transition finance provides a potential solution by enabling the largest carbon-emitting industries and companies to raise capital and use the proceeds for activities that help them reduce their carbon footprint.

"We expect transition finance will extend beyond the use-of-proceeds bond model to include sustainability-linked and other financial products, helping companies and countries scale up capital allocation to meet their net-zero emissions commitments," Ms. Shapiro said.

We expect to see the transition label taking on a much wider scope and being used across various sectors and activities, ranging from entities making efficiency improvements to potential overhauls of entire business models. Ultimately, we believe the transition label will expand across a range of financial products that help scale up capital allocation for companies and countries able to demonstrate rigorous and achievable climate transition strategies. The challenge remains how this can be done quickly and efficiently while avoiding key downside risks, including green- or transition-washing.

This report does not constitute a rating action.

The report is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect at www.capitaliq.com. If you are not a RatingsDirect subscriber, you may purchase a copy of the report by calling (1) 212-438-7280 or sending an e-mail to [email protected]. Ratings information can also be found on S&P Global Ratings' public website by using the Ratings search box located in the left column at www.standardandpoors.com. Members of the media may request a copy of this report by contacting the media representative provided.

Copyright  2021 by Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC. All rights reserved.

No content (including ratings, credit-related analyses and data, valuations, model, software or other application or output therefrom) or any part thereof (Content) may be modified, reverse engineered, reproduced or distributed in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC or its affiliates (collectively, S&P). The Content shall not be used for any unlawful or unauthorized purposes. S&P and any third-party providers, as well as their directors, officers, shareholders, employees or agents (collectively S&P Parties) do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or availability of the Content. S&P Parties are not responsible for any errors or omissions (negligent or otherwise), regardless of the cause, for the results obtained from the use of the Content, or for the security or maintenance of any data input by the user. The Content is provided on an "as is" basis. S&P PARTIES DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR USE, FREEDOM FROM BUGS, SOFTWARE ERRORS OR DEFECTS, THAT THE CONTENT'S FUNCTIONING WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR THAT THE CONTENT WILL OPERATE WITH ANY SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE CONFIGURATION. In no event shall S&P Parties be liable to any party for any direct, indirect, incidental, exemplary, compensatory, punitive, special or consequential damages, costs, expenses, legal fees, or losses (including, without limitation, lost income or lost profits and opportunity costs or losses caused by negligence) in connection with any use of the Content even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

Credit-related and other analyses, including ratings, and statements in the Content are statements of opinion as of the date they are expressed and not statements of fact. S&P's opinions, analyses and rating acknowledgment decisions (described below) are not recommendations to purchase, hold, or sell any securities or to make any investment decisions, and do not address the suitability of any security. S&P assumes no obligation to update the Content following publication in any form or format. The Content should not be relied on and is not a substitute for the skill, judgment and experience of the user, its management, employees, advisors and/or clients when making investment and other business decisions. S&P does not act as a fiduciary or an investment advisor except where registered as such. While S&P has obtained information from sources it believes to be reliable, S&P does not perform an audit and undertakes no duty of due diligence or independent verification of any information it receives. Rating-related publications may be published for a variety of reasons that are not necessarily dependent on action by rating committees, including, but not limited to, the publication of a periodic update on a credit rating and related analyses.

To the extent that regulatory authorities allow a rating agency to acknowledge in one jurisdiction a rating issued in another jurisdiction for certain regulatory purposes, S&P reserves the right to assign, withdraw or suspend such acknowledgment at any time and in its sole discretion. S&P Parties disclaim any duty whatsoever arising out of the assignment, withdrawal or suspension of an acknowledgment as well as any liability for any damage alleged to have been suffered on account thereof.

S&P keeps certain activities of its business units separate from each other in order to preserve the independence and objectivity of their respective activities. As a result, certain business units of S&P may have information that is not available to other S&P business units. S&P has established policies and procedures to maintain the confidentiality of certain non-public information received in connection with each analytical process.

S&P may receive compensation for its ratings and certain analyses, normally from issuers or underwriters of securities or from obligors. S&P reserves the right to disseminate its opinions and analyses. S&P's public ratings and analyses are made available on its Web sites, www.standardandpoors.com (free of charge), and www.ratingsdirect.com (subscription), and may be distributed through other means, including via S&P publications and third-party redistributors. Additional information about our ratings fees is available at www.standardandpoors.com/usratingsfees.

STANDARD & POOR'S, S&P and RATINGSDIRECT are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC.

SOURCE S&P Global Ratings
In late November, an urgent email popped up in the inbox of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices, one of the worlds largest syringe makers.

It was from UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children, and it was desperately seeking syringes. Not just any would do. These syringes must be smaller than usual. They had to break if used a second time, to prevent spreading disease through accidental recycling.

Workers at the Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices factory in Ballabgarh, India Credit:Rebecca Conway/The New York Times

Most important, UNICEF needed them in vast quantities. Now.

I thought, No issues, said Rajiv Nath, the companys managing director, who has sunk millions of dollars into preparing his syringe factories for the vaccination onslaught. We could deliver it possibly faster than anybody else.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
In India, the Plus Fitness motto is going to be, Working towards a Healthier India.

Indians learnt to pay attention to their health during COVID-19 pandemic and most of them became serious about physical fitness particularly. This meant good news for gym owners across the country and even the international fitness brands like Plus Fitness paid attention to this changing trend. This award-winning Australian fitness franchise now intends to make people healthier and its plan is to continue its opening spree with a new gym every 21 days. In India, the Plus Fitness motto is going to be, Working towards a Healthier India.

A New Gym Every 21 Days

Currently, Plus Fitness has more than 300 franchises worldwide and since 1996, when it was established, the company has continued to attract franchise partners, 40% of whom are multiple club-owners. The main features of this franchise are effective to support staff training, turnkey set up, extensive backups and gym software solutions. These features make this Australian fitness brand and gym chain an attractive and efficient business option. Plus Fitness members receive high-end gym services at affordable prices and the space is equipped with world-class facilities, including high-quality commercial gym equipment. The members also enjoy facilities like Infra-red saunas, which is included in the membership cost.

Doing Better Business In Fitness

Mr Siraj Lalani, Master Franchisee for Plus Fitness 24/7, explains his association with the world-class fitness brand, saying, If recent researches are to be believed, there are six million active fitness enthusiasts in India spending around $400 annually on fitness services; thus, skyrocketing the Indian fitness industry to a whopping $2.6 billion market size. With Plus Fitness, Mr Lalani intends to claim that space with a combination of high-quality, affordable & accessible ways to stay healthy for Indians.

Mr Lalani further says, The burgeoning awareness on health & fitness, gym culture, personalized fitness training programmes, & rise in personal disposable income has been some of the market drivers in this segment. The fitness industry is growing as consumers have become more aware of their health & the benefits of exercising. Health and Fitness is where you should invest and Plus Fitness is the Brand for your Investment.

Franchise Fact:

 Area: 2,500  4,000 sq. ft

 Investment to the tune of 85 lakhs - 1.5 Cr.

 R.O.I. - 33%

 Breakeven - 2.5 years

A World-Class Experience

Plus Fitness offers global membership to its clients, which is valid across more than 300 clubs all over the world. Members also receive 100% cashback offer when they use the facility for 250 days a year. Other highlights of this chain are its competitive prices and a gym facility of global standards. Mr Lalani is confident that all this is really enticing for the Indian public.

Mr Faiz Sopariwala, Business Development Head, speaks about the brands India plans, as he mentions, We have hit the ground running in 2021. We have two gyms under fit-out and 3 more in the pipeline, which would be opened between April and June 2021. We are well-established in Western India but now we are aiming at creating a network of more than 50 Plus Fitness 24/7 clubs across the country. We are willing to invest more than Rs 75 crores by 2025, into expanding this franchise network.

For more information, you can visit their website.

Prominent business publications like Forbes India, Hindustan Times, The Indian Saga, Your Story, and Mid-Day have covered Plus Fitness gyms for its successful run so far.

Whether you want to join this brand to shed weight or gain a business, Plus Fitness is a great way to start now!

Disclaimer: No Deccan Chronicle journalist was involved in creating this content. The group also takes no responsibility for this content.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Plainview-Hale County Health Department will host two vaccine clinics at the Ollie Liner Center next week.

The Health Department has received an allotment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from the Department of State Health Services. These vaccines will be provided to individuals who meet Phase 1A or Phase 1B guidelines.

The clinics are set for Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Thursday from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Appointments are required to receive a vaccine.

Those interested in scheduling an appointments visit the online appointment portal at www.plainviewtx.org or call the Health Department at (806)291-1201. The portal and phone line will open Monday at 10 a.m.

Both the online portal and phone line will close when all appointments are booked.

Its noted that vaccine supplies are limited. Appointment slots for the two most recent clinics have filled up within about 30 minutes of registration opening.

Those eligible to receive vaccine doses include people who meet Phase 1A and 1B guidelines. These individuals include: frontline healthcare workers, residents of long-term care facilities, people 65 years old and older and people who are 18 and older who have a chronic health condition that could put them at risk of a more severe COVID-19 illness. Those chronic illnesses include: cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, down syndrome, heart conditions, organ transplantation, obesity, pregnancy, sickle cell disease and Type 2 diabetes.

The DSHS also approved a new group of workers this week  pre-primary, primary and secondary workers and daycare staff. These individuals can include educators, staff members, bus drivers and people who function as at-home daycare operators.

The Health Department will host another clinic on Wednesday for those that need their second vaccination doses and who attended the clinic in February. Those individuals will be contacted to confirm appointment details.

Volunteers are being sought to help with the clinics, especially those who speak Spanish. Retired nurses, medical professionals or those that would like to assist with paperwork are asked to contact the Health Department at 293-1359.
| By Jena Frick

Tyler McKenzie joined the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) CURE Scholars Program in 2015 as a sixth-grade student ready to learn and take on new challenges. Now, McKenzie is an 11th-grade student at Green Street Academy with plans to pursue a career as a neurosurgeon.

CURE has given me a lot of experiences and opportunities to learn and meet professionals involved in the medical field, so I feel ready for what comes next, he said.

On Feb. 27, McKenzie and the rest of the scholars in his cohort officially entered the last leg of the CURE Program with the launch of the Career Navigator Program. This final piece of the pipeline is specifically geared toward 11th- and 12th-grade students as they fill out college applications, apply for scholarships, and make professional connections to help them secure internships and other educational opportunities.

The UMB CURE Scholars and their mentors split into groups for a slam poetry activity. This community-building activity was part of the virtual launch of the Career Navigators Program, the last leg of the STEM pipeline in the CURE Program.

Today is a milestone for us, Gia Grier McGinnis, DrPH, MS, the executive director of the CURE Scholars Program, said during the launch event. These scholars have been with us since they were in sixth grade, and that's quite an accomplishment. Year after year, they have continued to make a renewed investment in themselves and in their futures.

The mission of the UMB CURE Scholars Program is to prepare West Baltimore students for careers in the health sciences and cancer research. This groundbreaking program was the first of its kind to introduce a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) pipeline as early as sixth grade. When the scholars reached high school, the program expanded by adding a high school component called CURE Connections (C2), which is geared toward ninth- and 10th-grade students. Now that the Cohort One scholars are in 11th grade and on the verge of applying to colleges, the CURE Program has expanded once again with the Career Navigator Program.

The reason why this last piece of the program is so important is because our scholars come from underrepresented, minority communities, and many of them are going to be the first in their families to pursue higher education, said Martina Efeyini, MS, the college and readiness coordinator and AmeriCorps Vista volunteer for the CURE Program.

Efeyini and her colleague, Ivan Lamas-Sanchez, MA, program manager for student scholar success, worked together to plan a launch event to welcome the scholars and mentors to the Career Navigator Program.

Due to COVID-19 safety regulations, the scholars held the launch of the new program virtually over Zoom. The launch began with a keynote address from Ryan Richardson, PhD, a biomedical engineer who is completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Richardson is also an American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellow, which is a nationally competitive fellowship. He is a member of AAAS Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) Affinity group, which is what connected him with the CURE Program. He talked to the scholars about his academic and professional experiences and impressed upon them that everyones path to success is different.

The lesson I learned is that life is an unexpected journey, he told the scholars. The way to get to a career in science might look different for a lot of different people, and no matter what your journey looks like, you shouldn't forget to have fun along the way.

After the keynote address, the scholars and mentors split into breakout rooms to participate in a poetry slam workshop led by Joseph Green, a spoken word artist and speaker. Efeyini thought this would be a great way for the scholars to feel connected, not just to each other, but also to their mentors.

I was trying to figure out a way where we can make the launch feel exciting, especially in a virtual space, said Efeyini. During the pandemic, were all going through a lot of difficult things and a lot of trauma. As scientists and very right-brained individuals, we often dont talk about our feelings and we dont share intimate and vulnerable things. A poetry slam is very intimate, and this will hopefully help to introduce a sense of culture and community bonding and really show what the heart of the CURE Program is.

In small groups, the scholars and mentors were given a list of words. From those words, they selected 15 of them to arrange into a poem that described their shared experiences. At the end, each group had a chance to present their poems.

It was cool getting to talk and share about my experiences, said McKenzie. It felt a little bit shaky here and there, but then we all got together. It's funny because I wasnt expecting it to be a good experience, but I loved it.

This was also a great experience for the mentors, some of whom are just joining the program this year as a Career Navigator mentor. In this new mentorship role, the mentors will be participating in a virtual speaker series to help the scholars learn more about different STEM career fields and opportunities.

This mentorship role will also open up doors to summer internship opportunities for the scholars. The summer between their junior and senior year of high school is the most important, as this is the last opportunity for the scholars to add a professional internship to their resumes before applying to colleges in the fall.

We are looking to the mentors to help the scholars complete their journey, said Grier McGinnis. The scholars will have to make several life-changing decisions in a very short time frame, so we'll be looking to our Career Navigator mentors to help them process all the different options they'll have, as well as share with them the importance of why they need to start building a professional network.

The mentors and CURE staff will also be helping the scholars build individual portfolios of their work and what they have learned over the last five and a half years. This includes all of their research posters, STEM projects, and awards and accolades they have received.

We want our scholars to feel prepared and excited about their collegiate experience, said Lamas-Sanchez. I think the biggest thing that I want them to take away from this is that there's always going to be people who are willing and ready to help.

If youre interested in becoming a mentor for the Career Navigator Program, you can submit your application here.
A female swimmer has suffered leg injuries after being bitten by a crocodile during a swim on an isolated island in Australia's Northern Territory.

The 23-year-old was swimming at a lagoon at remote Vanderlin Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria when a saltwater crocodile surprised and attacked her.

She was bitten several times and had to be taken off the island and taken 80km to the mainland for emergency treatment.

A 23-year old woman was lucky to survive after being bitten several times by a saltwater crocodile at isolated Vanderlin Island in the Northern Territory

Vanderlin Island, where the young woman was bitten by a crocodile, is an estimated 800km south east of Darwin and believed to be home to only one family

'The incident occurred at around 3pm on Sunday afternoon but was only reported to Police yesterday,' Northern Territory Police watch commander Siiri-Kai Tennosaar told nine.com.au.

'The female was transported to Borroloola clinic and treated for multiple puncture wounds and scratches to her lower right leg.'

She has since been discharged from the clinic.

Vanderlin Island is about 800km south-east of Darwin and has only one family living there.

'The incident serves as a timely reminder to be vigilant around waterways and to avoid entering areas where crocodiles may be present,' Mr Tennosaar said.
New Delhi: The auspicious festival of Maha Shivratri is on March 11, this year. The pan-India festival is also widely celebrated by Indians settled abroad. The day marks the celebration of Lord Shiva and Mata Parvati's marriage. Devotees throng temples in huge numbers and offer their prayers.

In some parts of the country such as in Jammu and Kashmir, Maha Shivratri begins a day prior. This year, Kashmiri Pandits will celebrate it on March 10 and the festivity continues for days. The day is called Herath amongst the Kashmiri Pandit community.

Our country is home to various traditions and cultures and therefore, respecting each one of them, festivals hold greater significance for all. Celebrations and rituals may differ as you move from north to south or east to west, but the spirit with which is revered is the same.

Maha Shivratri 2021 Puja Timings and Muhurat:

Maha Shivaratri on Thursday, March 11, 2021

Nishita Kaal Puja Time - 00:06 to 00:55, Mar 12

Duration - 00 Hours 48 Mins

On 12th Mar, Shivaratri Parana Time - 06:34 to 15:02

Ratri First Prahar Puja Time - 18:27 to 21:29

Ratri Second Prahar Puja Time - 21:29 to 00:31, Mar 12

Ratri Third Prahar Puja Time - 00:31 to 03:32, Mar 12

Ratri Fourth Prahar Puja Time - 03:32 to 06:34, Mar 12

Chaturdashi Tithi Begins - 14:39 on Mar 11, 2021

Chaturdashi Tithi Ends - 15:02 on Mar 12, 2021

(as per drikpanchang.com)

Maha Shivratri Puja Vidhi:

- Take a bath before doing Puja or visiting a temple.

- Purify home and puja area by sprinkling Gangajal.

- Light a brass or an earthen lamp.

- Sit down with your eyes closed and invite Lord Shiva to accept your offerings. (You or your family priest can do the Pran Pratishthan by invoking the God in your idol).

- Now, do Abhishek with water on Shiv Linga or Shivas Moorti. Chant OM or OM - Namah Shivaya while doing the Abhishek.

- Then do Abhishek with Milk, Dahi, followed by Honey, Ghee (clarified butter) and water again.

- Use a fresh piece of cloth to gently wipe the Shiv Linga or Idol.

- Use the sacred ash (Vibhuti) or bhasm and make a Tripundra on the Lords Forehead or on the Shiv Linga. (The Tripundra is the three famous horizontal mark).

- Put a Chandan tika in the centre of the horizontal line in the middle. And then add kumkum teeka. Add Bel or Vilva leaves and flowers.

- Light incense sticks and dhoop.

- Then offer fruits and dry fruits to God.

- Then chant the Shiva Chalisa or the 108 names of Lord Shiva or any simple Shiva Mantra.

- Meditate for a while.

- Conclude the Puja by singing the Shiva Aarti.

- Pray to Goddess Parvati as Shakti and Lord Shiva - seeking blessings of Shivashakti.

(The Puja Vidhi may differ from region-to-region)

Some devotees observe fast on the day and some keep it on the day prior to the puja.

Bhole Shankar and Devi Parvati's blessings are sought by all and what better day than the celebration of Maha Shivratri.

Here's wishing everyone a very happy Maha Shivratri!
New Mesa business lawyer, Scott F. Gibson joins Denton Peterson Dunn, PLLC. Mr. Gibson has performed specialized research into transforming the way lawyers approach legal dilemmas in order to help clients avoid certain situations before they arise.

As a local Mesa business law office that handles a wide range of business matters and disputes, Denton Peterson Dunn, PLLC. proudly welcomes Scott F. Gibson. Mr. Gibson has over 35 years of experience helping businesses protect themselves from the threat of disloyal employees and unfair competition.

He delivers first rate legal services through his unique position in the law, a position that is built on a blend of skills cultivated through his courtroom experience and a deep understanding of the legal theories implicated by unfair competition. Due to his singular experience in this area, he is able to effectively help clients protect their intangible business interests.

Additionally, Mr. Gibson holds two advanced legal degrees in the most cutting-edge areas of the law: Biotechnology and Genomics (LLM from the Sandra Day OConnor College of Law at Arizona State University) and Litigation Management (LLM from Baylor Law). Along with his studies in Litigation Management, he has performed specialized research into transforming the way lawyers approach legal dilemmas in order to help clients avoid certain situations before they arise.

In addition to being a student of the law, Mr. Gibson has taught a course in Trade Secrets and Restrictive Covenants at the Sandra Day OConnor College of Law since 2008. He regularly and frequently dedicates his time to writing, speaking, and teaching trial skills, intellectual property, and employment law with a high focus on trade secrets and restrictive covenants. Mr. Gibson is a welcome asset to the team at Denton Peterson Dunn, PLLC.

About Denton Peterson Dunn, PLLC.

Denton Peterson Dunn, PLLC. is a local Arizona business law office that has a team of skilled business and corporate law attorneys who have served the greater Phoenix area since 1995. Their practice areas include business and corporate law, employment law, negotiation and mediation, real estate law, franchise law, and more.

Denton Peterson Dunn, PLLC.

1930 N. Arboleda, Suite 200

Mesa, AZ 85213

Office: 480-325-9900

Email: service@dentonpeterson.com

Website: http://arizonabusinesslawyeraz.com
CEDAR CITY, Utah, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CBC Mortgage Agency (CBCMA), a nationally chartered housing finance agency and a leading source of down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, has named Tai Christensen its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) Officer for 2021. In her new role, Christensen will lead an effort to promote a culture of inclusion for employees of all races, ethnicities, and gender identities.

Christensen began her real estate finance career more than 14 years ago as a mortgage processor. She joined CBCMA in 2018 and has served in her role as director of government affairs since 2019, a position she will maintain alongside her new role.

"We are very pleased that Tai will lead our DEI efforts," said CBCMA President Miki Adams. "As our director of government affairs, Tai has been an outstanding advocate in supporting down payment assistance for a spectrum of borrowers, particularly minorities and those in underserved communities. We have no doubt that she will excel at helping CBCMA elevate its vision of inclusive excellence."

CBCMA recognizes that a culture of inclusivity is built on diverse perspectives, and this starts at the very top. As DEI officer, Christensen, together with the company's DEI committee, will leverage best practices and resources to promote a culture of inclusion for all employees and business partners alike, regardless of racial, ethnic and gender identity.

"I truly want to help our employees understand the value behind the diversity of our team," said Christensen. "By sharing our unique life journeys with each other, we'll be able to create a more unified and harmonious work family. In addition, I want to help create an environment where educating our employees about diversity is celebrated."

About CBC Mortgage Agency

Founded in 2013, CBC Mortgage Agency is a nationally chartered housing finance agency. As a leading source of down payment assistance, the company helps low-to-moderate income consumers, often in minority neighborhoods, achieve the dream of homeownership. CBCMA, which was recognized as one of the Top 25 Companies in Mortgage & Servicing by MReport, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cedar Band Corp., a federally chartered tribal corporation founded by the Cedar Band of Paiute Indians. More information can be found at chenoafund.org.

Press Contact:

Sam Garcia, Publicist

Strategic Vantage Marketing & Public Relations

214.762.4457 | [email protected]

SOURCE CBC Mortgage Agency

Related Links

https://chenoafund.org/


Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
SUV

This particular Land Cruiser of the FJ variety spent most of its life down in Venezuela, doing God-knows-what. Sometime in the recent past, a local shop got hold of it and, for about two years, subjected it to a restoration process.Repainted, reupholstered, and with refreshed suspension, brakes, exhaust, and electrical system, the Land Cruiser then made its way across the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, reaching North America in September last year. It is now listed on Hemmings , awaiting its first American master.The FJ40 shows 57,000 miles (92,000 km) of use on the odometer, all covered courtesy of the stock 4.2-liter inline-six engine tied to a four-speed manual transmission. At the time when Toyota fitted the powertrain under the hood, it was rated at 135 horsepower and 210 lb-ft (284 Nm) of torque, and probably most of that output is still there.Thewas fitted with a few new pieces of hardware, including a new carburetor, a new water pump, and a replacement exhaust system. For a touch of extra comfort for the passengers, an air conditioning system was fitted in there.At the time of writing, there are about three days left in the auction process, and the highest sum someone is willing to offer for it is $30,500. It's not clear if that meets the reserve, but the Land Cruiser obviously stirred enough passion in American buyers, as a total of 22 bids have been placed for it so far.
[March 08, 2021] ROSEN, GLOBAL INVESTOR COUNSEL, Encourages MultiPlan Corporation f/k/a Churchill Capital Corp. III Investors With Large Losses to Secure Counsel Before Important Deadline - MPLN, MPLN.WS, CCXX, CCXX.WS, CCXX.U

Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of MultiPlan Corporation f/k/a Churchill Capital Corp. III (NYSE: MPLN, MPLN.WS, CCXX, CCXX.WS, CCXX.U): (i) between July 12, 2020 and November 10, 2020, inclusive (the "Class Period"); and (ii) all holders of Churchill III Class A common stock entitled to vote on Churchill III's merger with and acquisition of Polaris Parent Corp. and its consolidated subsidiaries (collectively, "MultiPlan"), which merger was consummated in October 2020 (the "Merger") of the important April 26, 2021 lead plaintiff deadline. SO WHAT: If you purchased MultiPlan securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the MultiPlan class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-1983.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than April 26, 2021. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience or resources. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 3 each year since 2013 and has recoered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020 founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.



DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) MultiPlan was losing tens of millions of dollars in sales and revenues to Naviguard, a competitor created by one of MultiPlan's largest customers, UnitedHealthcare, which threatened up to 35% of the Company's sales and 80% of its levered cash flows by 2022; (2) sales and revenue declines in the quarters leading up to the Merger were not due to "idiosyncratic" customer behaviors as represented, but rather due to a fundamental deterioration in demand for MultiPlan's services and increased competition, as payors developed competing services and sought alternatives to eliminating excessive healthcare costs; (3) MultiPlan was facing significant pricing pressures for its services and had been forced to materially reduce its take rate in the lead up to the Merger by insurers, who had expressed dissatisfaction with the price and quality of MultiPlan's services and balanced billing practices, causing the Company's to cut its take rate by up to half in some cases; (4) as a result of the foregoing, MultiPlan was set to continue to suffer from revenues and earnings declines, increased competition and deteriorating pricing dynamics following the Merger; (5) as a result of the foregoing, MultiPlan was forced to seek continued revenue growth and to improve its competitive positioning through pricey acquisitions, including through the purchase of HST for $140 million at a premium price from a former MultiPlan executive only one month after the Merger; and (6) as a result of the foregoing, Churchill III investors had grossly overpaid for the acquisition of MultiPlan in the Merger, and MultiPlan's business was worth far less than represented to investors. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the MultiPlan class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-1983.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.

No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn (News - Alert) : https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter (News - Alert) : https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook (News - Alert) : https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005941/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Twenty-five will always be a memorable birthday for Gil Tighe.

The Portland resident set out Friday for the Oregon coast with their partner, hoping to celebrate the milestone a day early.

By the end of the celebration, Tighe was in the hospital after falling 100 feet off a cliff. After a challenging rescue and a helicopter ride to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, Tighe is happy to be alive and telling the story.

Tighe said the couple arrived at Hug Point, a state recreation site just south of Cannon Beach, in the afternoon. The two hung out on the beach, ate cake and took pictures.

Around 4 p.m., the pair decided to explore. From previous visits, they knew of an area at Hug Point that, at low tide, allows hikers to get to the other side of the cove.

The tide was too high to access it, but the couple found what appeared to be some human-made trails through the grass that looked as if they might lead to the same place. Tighe went first because the trails looked a little slippery.

For the first few feet, Tighe was holding on to a wall along the trail for support. But a few steps in, Tighe suddenly lost footing and started slipping. Tighe skidded on dirt and rocks for about 10 feet, trying to stop before a sudden drop.

I dont even remember the fall itself. It kind of felt like I was having a dream, Tighe said. Even waking up on the rocks, covered in blood, I still felt like I was having a dream.

Tighe said paramedics estimated the cliff was about 100 feet high. After regaining consciousness at the bottom of the cliff, Tighe heard their partner yelling that they had called 911.

Without glasses, lost in the fall, Tighe couldnt see the extent of their injuries but immediately realized one of their arms was broken.

While waiting for paramedics, Tighe crawled around the rocks and eventually found their cellphone, which had service. Tighe called their partner, who relayed information as rescue crews arrived.

Its the most millennial thing ever, Tighe said with a laugh. I just fell a thousand feet and Im wondering where my phone is.

The rescue itself was tough, Tighe said.

It took rescue crews from the Seaside Fire Department several minutes to find a way down the cliff. Once they arrived, they gave Tighe basic first aid and strapped them to a stretcher. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter arrived to help, but it took about 25 minutes to get into a position to hoist Tighe up and onto the helicopter.

I was so certain I was going to die, Tighe said. The paramedics kept telling me to stay awake and talk to them.

The helicopter flew Tighe to Astoria, then transferred them to a helicopter ambulance for the trip to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.

Tighe was discharged Sunday and has several weeks of recovery ahead with a broken right arm and a fractured left elbow, eye orbit and ribs.

I didnt break any teeth, no brain damage, no damage to my spine, Tighe said. I feel so fortunate that I walked out with my life and no permanent damage.

Tighe thanked the paramedics, rescue crews and hospital staff.

This time last year, Tighe said, their birthday landed just days before the world moved into coronavirus lockdown. Tighe wondered how to make this birthday as notable.

It now represents something remarkable.

A quarter century old and I learned to defy death, Tighe said. Id say falling off a cliff and surviving is a lot more memorable than a party.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR
President Joe Biden, according to Greta Thunberg, is not doing enough to fight climate change.

The Swedish climate activist, who encouraged her social media fans to vote for Biden in 2020, said that the president's new climate plans are incompatible with attempts to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius, a key global warming goal set by the Paris climate conference.

Related Article: Biden First Day: POTUS Commits to 'Global Climate Initiative' as US Rejoins Paris Climate Accords

"I'd also want you to handle the climate crisis as though it were a crisis." She replied that they have stated that this is an existential threat but that Biden is not treating it.

"They are simply treating the climate crisis as a political problem, among others, and treating it as a crisis is the first step, " she added.

MSNBC Interview

In an interview with MSNBC on March 8, Thunberg was asked how she rated Biden's climate change policies so far.

She said," "You shouldn't take that from me; I'm just a child, so I don't have the authority to assign grades in that manner. "It doesn't matter what I think about this. "Instead, look at the evidence to see if his plans are consistent with perseverance and staying below 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius, and you'll see that, no, they aren't nearly enough in accordance with the evidence.

"I understand how tough it is, and to be frank, I wouldn't want to be a politician right now-I can't imagine how difficult it would be. But all I ask is that he handles the climate crisis as well."

Biden's Works

On January 27, Biden issued an executive order detailing his administration's climate priorities. It outlines initiatives such as achieving a net-zero carbon economy by 2050 and a pollution-free energy market by 2035 in the United States.

However, according to NBC News, the president has come under fire from organized labor activists because his environmental plans include phasing out polluting sectors.

According to Robert Pollin, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, "Working as a pipelayer or a coal miner wasn't always a good career. They grew into decent employment as a result of decades of planning."

Related Article: Biden To Overhaul Offices to Promote Environmental Justice

Costs of Sustainable Energy

According to the study, wind and solar will not be able to expand quickly enough to offset coal and gas if they are both required to have fair worker compensation and union pay.

Thunberg vs Critics

Thunberg also told MSNBC that she finds it "hilarious" when world leaders attack her, including former President Donald Trump.

She said, "You must be able to laugh at these situations, as they are hysterical! The fact that such influential figures are pursuing you proves that you are making an impression. If you weren't a challenge to them, they wouldn't do it, so take it as a compliment."

In December 2019, Trump tweeted that Thunberg has an "anger management crisis" and told her to "chill."

So ridiculous. Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Donald, Chill! https://t.co/4RNVBqRYBA  Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) November 5, 2020

In September of that year, he also tweeted sarcastically: "She seems to be a cheerful young lady looking forward to a bright and promising future. It's wonderful to see!" As Trump left the White House after losing to Biden in January, Thunberg retorted with a similar remark.

ALSO READ: Greta Thunberg Strikes Again: End the Madness of Fossil Industry

For more news update about Climate Change and similar topics, don't forget to follow Nature World News!
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Signature gathering has been approved by the Department of Elections in the effort to recall controversial San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Recall committee spokesman and lead proponent Richie Greenberg submitted the final required documents to the San Francisco Department of Elections Wednesday March 3rd 2021. After review, John Arntz, department Director, gave written approval Thursday March 4th to start the official signature gathering.

"This recall effort is the first of its kind in our city and the nation," explains Greenberg. "Law-abiding, fed-up citizens are pushing back against activist District Attorneys who've gone too far and are destroying our cities. In Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago, New Orleans, we also see similar stories of public defenders with little to no prosecutor experience being elected DA, and once sworn-in, they summarily dismantle the criminal justice system. People are dying, our streets are dangerous, our homes are targets, business owners close shop and flee due to an unworkable environment. San Francisco is united in its desire to move on from the failure of Mr. Boudin's experiment."

The Committee Supporting the Recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin is leading the recall effort, with website at www.RecallChesaBoudin.org . Donations are accepted on the site. Signature gathering and petition download is expected to begin Friday March 12th.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Richie Greenberg, recall Committee Spokesman and lead recall Proponent

Email: [email protected]

Office: 415-349-0106

SOURCE Committee Supporting Recall of DA Chesa Boudin

Related Links

https://recallchesaboudin.org


Vietnam needs to create favorable conditions for Viet dragons and foreign eagles to join the "tango dance" that brings benefits to both sides, according to VIetnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) chair Vu Tien Loc.







Loc, speaking at a workshop some days ago in Hanoi, said he wants to call Vietnams enterprises Viet dragons instead of domestic eagles.

Eagle is the word used by Vietnamese experts to refer to large powerful enterprises and investors.

Vietnamese people are the children of the Fairy and the Dragon, Loc explained.

Stressing the important role of the private sector, Loc said private enterprises are the star of hope of the country. They are Viet dragons bearing a Vietnamese identity.

He said that unreasonable views do not truly reflect the position and role of private enterprises. Foreign investments are always appreciated, no matter what their scale and technologies are. Meanwhile, the presence of Vietnamese enterprises is underestimated.

Loc related a story about the US semiconductor industry, led by private enterprises. When the industry was in the danger of becoming uncompetitive with the Japanese semiconductor industry, the US government then placed orders with US businesses to support them.

It helped businesses make investments in technology to improve competitiveness. The solutions successfully helped the countrys industry cement its position.

According to Loc, Vietnam has 6.2 million private businesses, not only 800,000 as reported, if counting in 5.4 million business households, which, by nature, are businesses but have no business registration. As such, Vietnam has 24 businesses per every 1,000 people.

Tran Dinh Thien, former director of the Vietnam Economics Institute, said Vietnam not only needs to prepare nests for foreign eagles but Vietnamese eagles as well.

He said that foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) which make up 20-22 percent of GDP only, but account for up to 70 percent of total export turnover. FIEs can enjoy the most commercial benefits from Vietnams integration efforts.

He believes that it is necessary to change the Vietnamese business development approach. Vietnam needs to rely on domestic strength and economic resources, considering the private sector an important driving force for economic development.

Vietnams private businesses attract 85 percent of the labor force and make up 43 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the figures are just 29 percent for state-owned enterprises and 18 percent for FIEs.

The presence of private enterprises in the business fields where the State held the monopoly in the past, such as aviation, has made the market more competitive, bringing benefits to consumers, said Nguyen Thi Luyen from the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM).

Vietnams private businesses attract 85 percent of the labor force and make up 43 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the figures are just 29 percent for state-owned enterprises and 18 percent for FIEs.

However, the private sector is still at a disadvantage in comparison with other sectors in terms of accessing important resources such as labor, market, business rights and information.



Commenting about the strength of Vietnams businesses, Loc said Vietnam is not inferior to other countries in number of enterprises, but in quality.

Vietnam lacks large powerful corporations. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the quality of enterprises and give support to form up large companies.

We need policies aiming to improve the quality of enterprises rather than increase the number of enterprises, he said.

What large enterprises need are reasonable institutional regime, and safe, transparent and favorable business environment.

Preparing nests for domestic eagles means creating a business environment where domestic enterprises feel equality and respect, he said.

Pham Chi Lan, a respected economist, attributed the gaps between private enterprises and the enterprises belonging to state and foreign-invested economic sector to the lack of a leveling playing field for all economic sectors.

Studies by some institutions have found that the majority of small businesses dont want to grow into big businesses, which shows the low confidence of the private sector.

Pervasive, excessive, unjustified and unfair incentives offered to FIEs and crony businesses must be removed, Lan said.

Pham Dinh Doan, president of Phu Thai Thuc, said in preparing nest for eagles and creating an ecosystem for them, the state needs to plan the development of every business field well. The state acts as chief project manager to assign tasks to large corporations, ministries, branches and localities. This avoids the wasteful use of resources.

Meanwhile, Huong Tran Kieu Dung, vice president of FLC, commented that there was no need to set specific policies for large corporations, but to set general preferential policies for business fields the state wants to encourage investment, especially tourism.

Duy Anh

Share of female management in FDI highest among Vietnam economic sectors The number of Vietnamese women accounts for half of the labor force but less than one-fourth of overall management roles.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  Major power distributor Meralco has reduced electricity rates for the second straight month in March.

In a statement, the company said power rates for this month will be decreased by 0.3598 per kilowatt-hour to 8.3195 per kWh, meaning households consuming 200 kWh may expect a decrease of around 72 in their total bill. This is the lowest rate since August 2017, it added.

Meralco will start implementing the Distribution Rate True-Up refund this month, which is the primary reason for this months rate reduction, the company noted.

This is after the Energy Regulatory Commission provisionally approved in April the firms proposal to refund around 13.9 billion in 24 months or until this is fully returned to customers.

The amount also represents the difference between the Actual Weighted Average Tariff and the ERC-approved Interim Average Rate for distribution-related charges for the period July 2015 to November 2020, Meralco said.

This implies a refund rate of 0.2761 per kWh for residential customers that will appear as Dist True-Up in customer bills.

The latest rate still includes the regulatory-approved adjustments for pass-through charges from January 2017 to December 2019.

On December 29, 2020, the ERC directed Meralco to refund over-recoveries in transmission and other charges over a period of three months and to collect an under-recovery in the generation rate for 24 months.

The company started implementing ERC-approved adjustments in January this year. This is a net refund of around 0.1150 per kWh from January to March 2021 for residential customers.

Meralco also ascribed the reduction to the higher share of supply from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, which registered the lowest charge among suppliers. Its share was up 11.7% this March from 7.1% in February, while charges remained stable at 2.4609 per kWh.

This also offset increased costs from Power Supply Agreements and Independent Power Producers of 0.0175 per kWh and 0.1338 per kWh, respectively, which was driven by depreciation of the peso and lower average plant dispatch.

The power distributor also noted that transmission charge for residential customers increased 0.0022 per kWh, while taxes and other charges had a net decrease of P.0456 per kWh.

Meanwhile, Larry Fernandez, head of utility economics of Meralco, said in a briefing that the country has enough energy reserves for safe storage of COVID-19 vaccines.

Reserve levels have been more than adequate, he said in a briefing. We are seeing some peeking up of demand but still at levels that can be covered by existing capacity.

He noted that in the past weeks, reserve levels have been more than 1,000 megawatts, which is more than enough to ensure adequate supply of electricity as the government implements is vaccination program in the coming months.

Meralco Chief Commercial Officer Ferdinand Geluz also assured that they have been coordinating with the Health department to inspect and ensure that locations are geared up.
Warning: Jersey's financial regulator has slammed Neil Woodford's (pictured) plans for a fund management firm

Jersey's financial regulator has criticised an attempt by Neil Woodford to rebuild his career from the island.

Martin Moloney, director-general of the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC), slammed the fallen fund manager's plans for a Jersey-based fund management firm, saying the island cannot be used as a 'back door' to dodge UK regulators.

His warning came after 61-year-old Woodford announced his comeback last month, revealing he was setting up WCM Partners, to be based in Jersey with offices in a Buckinghamshire mansion.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Moloney said: 'Anyone who gets off the plane thinking that Jersey is a soft touch has wasted the price of the ticket.

'Jersey is not the place to come if you are trying to get around UK regulation, or any other regulation for that matter.'

Woodford's proposed return to fund management sparked fury among his former customers, who lost more than 1billion when his flagship Equity Income Fund was suspended and his entire business empire, Woodford Investment Management, imploded in 2019.
Meghan Markle's estranged father on Tuesday suggested that his daughter exaggerated racism in the British royal family during her interview with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey

London (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Meghan Markle's estranged father on Tuesday suggested that his daughter exaggerated racism in the British royal family during her interview with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey.

Thomas Markle told ITV the couple's two-hour chat with Winfrey was "way over the top" and suggested a royal family member could have asked a "dumb question" about her future baby's skin colour.

The 76-year-old Emmy-winning former lighting director was interviewed from his home in Mexico by one of Meghan's most vehement critics, the former tabloid newspaper editor Piers Morgan.

"They (Harry and Meghan) went way over the top with these stories with Oprah and should have waited, considering the Queen's age and Philip's age," he said of the CBS show broadcast on Sunday.

Harry's grandmother Queen Elizabeth II is 94 and her husband Prince Philip is 99 and currently in hospital recovering from a heart operation.

He played down Meghan and Harry's comments that an unnamed royal family member had asked how dark her baby's skin would be.

"This whole thing about colour and how dark the baby is, is bullshit," said Markle, who is white while Meghan's mother is black.

"I'm guessing and hoping that it's just a dumb question from somebody. I don't think the British royal family are racist." At the same time, he said he was upset by his daughter's account of feeling suicidal after joining the royal family in 2018.

"Had I known she had psychological problems, I would have been there for her," he said.

But he claimed that Meghan had "pretty much ghosted" her family in the US and "she really had no one to reach out to".

Thomas Markle separated from Meghan's mother Doria Ragland when the duchess was young.

Raglan was at her wedding at Windsor Castle and has had tea with the queen but she dropped contact with her father soon after her wedding.

Thomas Markle declined to attend after he took part in staged paparazzi photos. He also cited forthcoming heart surgery.

"They didn't care if I died," he claimed, while saying he wanted to see Meghan, Harry and his grandson Archie, who are now living in California after quitting the royal frontline last year.

Meghan won a legal victory in February against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday newspaper after it printed a private letter from her provided by her father.

He said he released part of the letter because Meghan's friends were telling "lies" about him.

US magazine People cited Meghan's friends as saying she wrote she loved her father and was heartbroken by his behaviour.

The part he did not release was "horrible", he said. "The word love was never written by her for me."Meghan told Winfrey in the interview that she had tried to protect both her parents before the wedding but felt "betrayal" when she found out he was cooperating with newspapers.

"I'm just trying to decide if I'm comfortable even talking about that," she added.
SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Panoply , a cloud data platform that makes it easy to sync, store and access business data, has introduced a special offer for Chartio customers who need to migrate their data to a new platform following Chartio's acquisition by Atlassian. Panoply will provide qualified Chartio users a two-month free trial so they can experience the ease of powering business intelligence tools with data from sources across their company.

The free two-month offer is available through March 31, 2021 and will give Chartio users a chance to experience how Panoply provides an easy, no-code approach to integrating data including files, databases, and APIs. Panoply's ETL automates data pipelines with built-in connections to all popular cloud services, file systems, and databases including, Salesforce, Postgres, MySQL, Google Analytics, and Zendesk. Panoply's DBA-free data warehousing allows Chartio users to store their data and populate their new BI tool with analysis-ready tables in just a few clicks.

"Any organization that relies on business intelligence understands the challenges when data feeds are disrupted," said Paul Friesen, Panoply CEO. "Migrating data is disruptive and costly, so maintaining ongoing access to data sources for BI is essential. That's why we are offering Chartio customers a risk-free, no-commitment opportunity to experience the power of Panoply. Panoply is an easy-to-use option to integrate data sources so users can make the transition to a new BI tool as seamless as possible."

Panoply's low-code approach to data management provides visibility into business performance, making it easy to create powerful, customized reports that deliver deeper insights. While migrating to a new business intelligence platform is a complex task that requires time and resources, it also presents an opportunity to purge unused reports and update outdated BI dashboards. Bringing on a consolidated storage solution like Panoply also centralizes access to data assets to provide a single source of truth.

For more information about the free trial for Chartio customers, visit https://blog.panoply.io/chartio-migration-panoply-offer .

About Panoply

Founded in 2015, Panoply offers data warehousing and code-free data integration that helps businesses unlock business intelligence without the pain of complex pipeline management or time consuming data warehouse configuration. The company's best-in-class data analytics automates ETL processes and data warehouse setup to simplify the discovery of crucial insights that drive business growth. Panoply's no-code integrations make it easy to connect data sources such as MySQL, Postgres, MongoDB, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Zendesk, and Google Analytics, as well BI and analytics tools, enabling analysis in minutes without development overhead.

For more information visit www.panoply.io .

SOURCE Panoply

Related Links

www.panoply.io


Yes, no matter what

Yes, but it depends on variety

No, for medical reasons, uncertainty

No, principle

Vote

View Results
Oprah Winfrey pulled off what has become a rare television event: the tell-all interview that turns into a cultural moment. On Sunday, an audience of more than 17 million watched bombshell revelations tumble out of the mouths of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry as they described their lives under the palace gaze in a two-hour CBS special that rivaled any of the royal dramas on the Netflix series The Crown.

Social-media discussion of the show has continued since the credits rolled, leaving many people who missed it wondering where they could stream it. For the next 30 days, the special will be available on CBS.com and the CBS app. But after that, it will not have a home on any streaming platform.

Thats because, from the start of negotiations, Ms. Winfreys company, Harpo Productions, the owner of the program, envisioned the special as something suited to a big broadcast network, three people with knowledge of the deal said. Harpo did not even attempt to sell the streaming rights to Netflix or Paramount+, the streaming platform owned by CBSs parent company, ViacomCBS, the people said.

Harpos old-school strategy of avoiding subscription-video-on-demand services came about partly because of the complications presented by Ms. Winfreys deal to make programs for Apples streaming platform, AppleTV+, the people said. Ms. Winfreys AppleTV+ deal includes an interview series, The Oprah Conversation, which has featured Barack Obama, Dolly Parton and Mariah Carey. Another wrinkle was the roughly $100 million production deal that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry struck last year with Netflix, the people said.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
The autonomous-car artificial intelligence from Alphabet Inc.s Waymo avoided or mitigated crashes in most of a set of virtually recreated fatal accidents, according to a white paper the company published Monday.

The simulations were based on 72 fatal crashes that occurred between 2008 and 2017 in Chandler, Arizona, where Waymo currently operates a small-scale autonomous ride-hail service based on its Driver sensors and software. That included 20 incidents involving a pedestrian or cyclist.

We believe we have an opportunity to improve road safety by replacing the human driver with the Waymo Driver, Trent Victor, Waymos director of safety research and best practices, said in a blog post. This study helps validate that belief.

The Driver system failed to avoid or mitigate simulated accidents only when the autonomous car was struck from behind, according to the study. While the paper isnt an independent assessment, this is the first time an autonomous startup has shared data showing how its system might perform in real-world fatal crashes, Waymo said in a blog post.

Waymo says it published the study for the benefit of the public, rather than regulators specifically. However, the company said in October it wanted to revive discussions around shared industry safety standards and legislative support for self-driving technology. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also recognized simulation as a key tool in developing autonomous technology.

The Google parents self-driving unit is one of a number of well-funded companies racing to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology and pitching safety as a key benefit. General Motors Co.s Cruise and Amazon.com Inc.s Zoox are also working on robotaxi fleets using their own proprietary autonomous cars and conducting hundreds of thousands of miles of testing on public roads each year. But Waymo is seen as a front-runner, in part because of the small pilot services it already operates in Arizona.

Waymo conceded in the white paper that simulating human-induced collisions isnt inherently proof that autonomous vehicles are ready to handle all of the things that could possibly cause an accident. In particular, the paper cited the potential for human drivers to misinterpret the actions of an autonomous car or react differently in a potential crash situation with an AV than in one with a human-driven car.

The simulations tested Waymos technology as both the initiator of an accident and, where two cars had been involved, the responder, or car that was hit.

In truth, the technology didnt do much out of the ordinary. In 52 situations where Waymos technology was put in the role of the original initiator of the crash, it avoided a collision entirely by simply following the rules of the road: yielding appropriately to traffic, observing traffic signals and obeying the speed limit.

In one case, the human in the real-world crash had run a red light. In the simulation, the Waymo Driver didnt.

Transparency is critical to foster trust with the public in light of a few cases where capabilities were exaggerated, BloombergNEF analyst Alejandro Zamorano-Cadavid said. These hindsight tests are a good piece for evaluating the Waymo Driver, and it will be good to see other companies publish results on how their systems performed on the same situations.

About the photo: The hubcap of a Jaguar I-Pace with Waymo autonomous electric vehicle (EV) is seen during an event in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Waymo is teaming up with Jaguar Land Rover on autonomous vehicles, its second major automaker partnership and a big boost for the nascent technology that has come under scrutiny recently. Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
South Africa's economy recorded its first annual contraction in 11 years in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic but rebounded in the last two quarters, official data showed Tuesday

Pretoria, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :South Africa's economy recorded its first annual contraction in 11 years in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic but rebounded in the last two quarters, official data showed Tuesday.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 7.0 percent in 2020 compared with a 0.2-percent expansion a year earlier, statistics agency StatSA said in a statement.

The drop was "primarily led by decreases in manufacturing, trade, catering and accommodation," it said.

It was the first annual contraction since 2009, when GDP fell by 1.5 percent.

But the economy -- already in recession when it was hit by the virus -- showed signs of resilience despite Covid-19 restrictions, and grew by 1.5 percent in the final quarter of 2020, with annualised growth of 6.3 percent.

The GDP growth between October and December was driven mainly by a boom in the manufacturing and trade sectors, said StatSA.

That extended a recovery that began in the third quarter -- when South Africa posted quarter-on-quarter growth of 13.5 percent -- after the pandemic handed Africa's second-largest economy a record slump.

In annualised terms, the statistics agency's preferred measure, third-quarter growth reached 66.1 percent, after falling back by 51.7 percent between April and June.

The economy picked up pace in the third quarter when containment measures were loosened as infection numbers fell.

A resurgence of infection fuelled by a more contagious variant of the coronavirus meant a reimposing of some restrictions but industries put up a brave face.

Sectors such as the hospitality and tourism industries were hardest hit as a night-time curfew and alcohol ban forced restaurants to close early.

The government imposed a strict lockdown in late March to stymie the rising virus cases, but it also stifled the economic outlook.

Analysts forecast the country will perform better in 2021.

"High frequency data suggests that a strong recovery is underway this year," said South Africa's North-West University business professor Raymond Parsons, suggesting growth could rebound by as much as three percent in 2021.

Economic recovery is expected to pick up and business operations normalise as vaccine distributions gather momentum.
7 day print subscribers enjoy unlimited access to yakimaherald.com

Enter the LAST NAME and the 7 DIGIT phone number on your print subscription account to connect your print subscription to your yakimaherald.com account.
Going forward, the AO Foundation will be integrating Rimasys products and services in selected high-end surgical training formats globally and leverage Rimasys' dynamic innovation force especially around novel online education, their 3D virtual interaction platform and AI powered support tools for surgeons.

The partnership is built on successful past collaborations with the long-term perspective to create synergies and utilize strengths of both organizations leapfrogging innovation in a dynamic environment.

"Rimasys is without question one of the most innovative and dynamic players in the field of surgical training development. It has developed unique technological capabilities, to which it brings an unconventional solution-oriented mindset paired with fast-paced implementation. We are convinced that the partnership with Rimasys will help us drive innovation in our orthopedic research and development and benefit our global surgeon community activities. We are looking forward to working with Marc and his ambitious team of like-minded innovative spirits," says Robert McGuire, President of the AO Foundation.

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to work together with the AO Foundation and strongly believe that the partnership will help us in providing even better surgical training concepts to a broader audience worldwide. It will complement our continued independence and energetic start-up spirit and help to accelerate the global rollout of all our innovations - to ultimately improve patients' lives," adds Marc Ebinger, CEO and Co-Founder of Rimasys.

About Rimasys



Rimasys GmbH is a technology-driven health-tech start-up, founded as a university spin-off in 2016. Core of the Cologne based company are proprietary biomechanical algorithms describing injury mechanisms, utilized to generate lifelike fractured anatomical specimen with closed soft tissue mantle. Rimasys is focusing on enhancing surgical education and improving patient outcomes by advancing practical skill training and medical device development. Further innovation is focused on digital health, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. The team of 35 young and ambitious professionals is aiming to build a disruptive eco-system of solutions at high pace, enhancing surgeon education and interaction. For more information, visit: www.rimasys.com

About AO Foundation

The AO is a medically-guided, not-for-profit organization, a global network of surgeons, and the world's leading education, innovation, and research organization specializing in the surgical treatment of trauma and musculoskeletal disorders. We have a global network of over 215,000 health care professionals. Each year we offer over 830 educational events around the world, supported by nearly 9,000 faculty members and attended by over 58,000 participants. We have 20,000 surgeon members working in the fields of trauma, spine, craniomaxillofacial, veterinary, and reconstructive surgery. For more information, visit: www.aofoundation.org

For further questions, please contact:

AO Foundation

Olga Harrington, Head of Communications

[email protected]

Rimasys GmbH

Marc Ebinger, CEO & Co-Founder

[email protected]

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1450718/AO.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1450719/Rimasys.jpg

SOURCE AO Foundation
Start asking questions, especially about a case like this one, and word traveled like an electric pulse across the grid of streets and alleys of Canaryville and Bridgeport. Through the family networks. Through the churches. Through the brick taverns and corner stores. Sherlock had been amazed how quickly he had gotten to the point at which he would call someone about the case and the person on the line would say someone already had told them Sherlock was poking around. Within days. Probably hours. So by now the information relay had almost certainly made it even here, to the town where the man Sherlock was watching now lived. This man had picked up and left Canaryville and Bridgeport for good long ago.
Intelligent.com, a trusted resource for online degree rankings and higher education planning, has announced the Top 50 Master's in Management Degree Programs for 2021. The comprehensive research guide is based on an assessment of 159 accredited colleges and universities in the nation. Each program is evaluated based on curriculum quality, graduation rate, reputation, and post-graduate employment.

The 2021 rankings are calculated through a unique scoring system which includes student engagement, potential return on investment and leading third party evaluations. Intelligent.com analyzed 159 schools, on a scale of 0 to 100, with only 50 making it to the final list. The methodology also uses an algorithm which collects and analyzes multiple rankings into one score to easily compare each school.

Students who pursue any one of these programs can expect to gain employment much quicker in comparison to candidates without a degree. In addition to accessibility and cost, the steady job growth in this market is one of the many reasons Intelligent.com researched and ranked the Top Master's in Management Degree Programs. To access the complete ranking, please visit: https://www.intelligent.com/best-masters-in-management-degree-programs/

2021 Master's in Management Degree Programs featured on Intelligent.com (in alphabetical order):

Arizona State University

Azusa Pacific University

Boston University

California Baptist University, Online

Dallas Baptist University

DePaul University

Duke University

Fordham University

George Mason University

George Washington University

Georgetown University

Greenville University

Harvard University

Hope International University

Lehigh University

Loyola Marymount University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Messiah College

Michigan State University

Minot State University

New Jersey Institute of Technology

New York University

Northeastern University

Northwestern University

Pennsylvania State University

Pepperdine University

Rochester Institute of Technology

Rutgers University

Saint Vincent College

Southern Methodist University

Southwestern College

Stevens Institute of Technology

Texas A & M University, College Station

Texas A&M University, Commerce

Tulane University

University of Alabama

University of Alaska, Fairbanks

University of Florida

University of Houston-Downtown

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Miami

University of Michigan

University of Notre Dame

University of Saint Francis

University of Southern California

University of Texas, Dallas

University of Virginia

Wake Forest University

Webster University

Yale University

About Intelligent.com

Intelligent.com provides unbiased research to help students make informed decisions about higher education programs. The website offers curated guides which include the best degree programs as well as information about financial aid, internships and even study strategies. With comprehensive, user-friendly guides and hundreds of program rankings, Intelligent.com is a trusted source among students and prospective students. To learn more, please visit https://www.intelligent.com/.
The airline industry is pushing back against new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that fully vaccinated people should still avoid travel.

In a new statement, industry group Airlines For America insists being on board a plane poses a low risk of coronavirus infection because of heavily filtered air and federally mandated mask wearing. 'We remain confident that this layered approach significantly reduces risk,' the group said.

The statement comes after the CDC said those who are vaccinated can meet with others who are vaccinated and even low-risk people who aren't vaccinated but should still avoid travel.

'Every time there's a surge in travel, we have a surge in cases in this country,' said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during Monday's White House coronavirus response briefing.

As the CDC worked to prepare guidance for people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the possibility of changing travel recommendations was discussed but there was never a lot of momentum behind adjusting it right now, two federal health officials familiar with the discussion tell CNN.

Health experts remain concerned that spring break travel will lead to an uptick in coronavirus infection rates.

It appears more people are already starting to travel.

The Transportation Security Administration says it screened almost 1.3 million at airports on Sunday, the highest figure since January 3 holiday travel. The TSA screened nearly a million or more than a million people every day since Thursday, meaning 4.5 million people flew over four days.

This is the second pandemic-related disagreement between the airline industry and the new Biden administration.

The transportation industry pushed back hard earlier this year when the CDC was considering requiring that domestic air travelers get tested for coronavirus at the start of their trip. The White House met with airline CEOs, and the idea fell apart.

An airline industry source tells CNN that it is urging the CDC to publicly release the criteria it will use to adjust travel guidance.
President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House, on March 2, 2021. (Doug Mills/Pool/Getty Images)

Biden Mulls Funding Infrastructure Plan With Tax Increases, Corporate Tax-Cut Rollbacks, New Fees

President Joe Biden is considering tax increases, new fees, and a corporate tax rollback to pay for an infrastructure plan thats now taking shape, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki and a California Democrat familiar with the discussions on the matter.

Biden floated a $2 trillion infrastructure bill while campaigning, although his administration has so far declined to specify a price tag. In remarks to Axios on HBO on March 8, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) suggested the package could cost as much as $4 trillion, adding that he would oppose taking on more debt to fund such a proposal but would instead insist on tax hikes.

Manchin told the outlet that he supports a range of tax increases, including repealing a lot of President Donald Trumps tax cuts and raising the corporate tax rate to at least 25 percent from the current 21 percent.

At a March 8 press briefing at the White House, Psaki was asked about Manchins insistence that any big infrastructure package should be paid for rather than taking on more debt, whether Biden supports this view, and if he sees corporate tax increases as one way to do that.

Psaki responded by saying that Biden generally supports increases in taxes but we dont have a bill or a package yet, so we can have that conversation once we get there.

One of the items that he spoke about in his Build Back Better agenda was making sure that people paid their fair sharewhether its highest income or rolling back some of the corporate tax cuts, Psaki said. So, certainly, those are policies that he supports.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) confirmed that Biden is considering boosting taxes as a way to pay for the infrastructure plan. Garamendi attended a March 4 meeting at the White House, where the president and a number of bipartisan lawmakers discussed the bill.

He told the Sacramento Bee that the ideas considered at the meeting included raising the excise tax on fuel, which he said hasnt been raised in 20 years; some form of a user fee for electric vehicles on highways since their owners arent subject to fuel taxes; and a carbon tax.

He did not provide more specifics on the proposed taxes, nor on the overall cost of the package.

No price tag right now, because were going at this from the bottom up, Garamendi told the outlet. Well say, whats the cost of broadband, whats the cost of repairing bridges? and go from there.

In an interview with the news outlet Cheddar on March 8, Garamendi said the idea of a carbon tax was met with a favorable response from one of the Republicans at the March 4 meeting, fueling his optimism that the legislation could be shaped in bipartisan fashion.

Were talking about funding mechanisms. One of them, in a direct way that would reduce emissions, thats the carbon tax, to be used fully for infrastructurewell, maybe, he said.

Or maybe partly refunded. Theres another issue out there, 100 percent refundable carbon tax on transportation fuels. Now weve got things we can talk about, so lets get on with it, he added.

At a White House press briefing the day after Bidens infrastructure meeting, Psaki didnt provide more specifics on the discussions, but said that rolling back tax cuts may be on the menu.

I dont have any more details. We dont even have a package that is being proposed at this point, and when we get to that point Im sure well have this discussion, Psaki said at a briefing on March 5. Obviously, the President has talked in the past about different revenue raisers, whether its rolling back certain tax cuts, but were just not at that point in the internal policy discussions right now.

In his interview on Axios, Manchin also said that hell block Bidens infrastructure bill unless more effort is made to include Republican voices.

Asked about Manchins comments, Psaki suggested that the West Virginia senator will likely come through in the end.

Senator Manchin and Senator Sanders and a range of Democrats in between just voted to support a $1.9 trillion package that is the most progressive piece of legislation in history, she said. So I would say we feel pretty good about that.

She added that Biden is optimistic the infrastructure plan will win bipartisan backing.

The president believes that there is a path forward on a range of issues where theres been a history of bipartisan support, including infrastructure, she said.

Infrastructure improvements are not a Democratic issue, theyre not a moderate issue, a progressive issue, a conservative issue. The American people want their roads, rails, and bridges to be reformed. He feels theres a path forward, she said.

Psaki said that, at this point, theres no bill thats being considered. Hes having discussions to hear ideas, hear good ideas from members of both parties. And once we have a bill, were happy to have the discussion on how we move it forward.

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and one of the participants in last weeks infrastructure meeting at the White House, said the plan must be bipartisan and that a funding mechanism is needed.

It cannot be a my way or the highway approach, Graves said, referring to previous Democratic legislation. A highway bill cannot grow into a multitrillion-dollar catch-all bill, or it will lose Republican support.

During his presidential campaign, Biden pledged to invest $2 trillion in fixing highways, bridges, and airports; building climate-resilient homes; wiring cities for broadband internet; and encouraging the manufacturing of fuel-efficient cars and installing electric vehicle charging stations.
Combining core-shell construction with an alloying effect to boost the catalytic performance of palladium in ethanol oxidation reactions

Researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Nanjing Normal University recently reported a strategy for boosting the electrocatalytic performance of palladium (Pd) in ethanol oxidation reaction, the key anodic reaction of direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs), offering a rational concept for finely engineering the surface of electrocatalysts used in high-efficiency energy conversion devices and beyond.

DEFCs, with ethanol as fuel, have the advantage of high energy density, low toxicity and easy operation. However, the lack of active and robust electrocatalysts for anodic ethanol oxidation impedes the pace of commercialization.

Typically, Au@Pd nanoparticles with a core-shell construction have higher activity and stability during ethanol electro-oxidation than do Pd particles alone. Unfortunately, the larger lattice spacing of Au creates tensile strain in thin Pd shells, which endangers their catalytic performance by strengthening the absorption of poisonous reaction intermediates on their surfaces.

"A rational design that fully takes advantage of core-shell architectures and simultaneously inhibits the lattice tensile effect in Pd shells induced by Au cores would definitely be favorable for further improving their performance in the electro-oxidation of ethanol molecules," said Prof. YANG Jun from IPE, the corresponding author of the study.

The researchers demonstrated this concept by coupling alloying effects with core-shell construction to optimize the surfaces of Pd shells in order to achieve high-efficiency ethanol electro-oxidation.

The scientists alloyed Fe atoms into thin Pd shells to compensate for their lattice expansion. Electrochemical evaluations show that the core-shell Au@FePd nanoparticles prepared this way exhibit the highest mass activity and specific activity for catalyzing ethanol electro-oxidation ever observed in an alkaline medium.

"Next, we are going to optimize a number of parameters, e.g., the size of the core, the thickness of the alloy shell, and the composition of transition metals in alloy shells," said Prof. YANG. In this way, the researchers hope to create more electrocatalysts with higher efficiency and lower cost in order to propel the development of direct alcohol fuel cells.
New Delhi, March 9 : The Rajya Sabha Chairman rejected the suspension of business notice on the second consecutive day given by the opposition on fuel price hike under rule 267.

The notices were given by Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, Satish Chandra Mishra of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Tiruchi Siva of the DMK and Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena.

The Chair continued with the zero hour amid sloganeering by the opposition members. Deputy Chairman Harivansh said, "The chairman ruling can't be reopened." To this DMK Members T.Siva raised point of order, "that zero hour can be only raised when House is in order." BJP member Bhupinder Yadav objected to this saying that under rule 258 the ruling given by chairman is binding on all." The opposition members resorted to sloganeering on the fuel price hike and the House was adjourned till 12.

Oil marketing companies (OMC) kept fuel prices unchanged for the tenth consecutive day across the four metros. In the national capital, petrol was sold for Rs 91.17 per litre.

Similarly, in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the fuel was priced at Rs 97.57, Rs 93.11 and Rs 91.35 per litre, respectively.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
BJP likely to meet on Wednesday to pick Trivendra Singh Rawat's replacement

From Pracharak to CM: A look at Trivendra Rawat's journey

Tirath Singh Rawat sworn in as new CM of Uttarakhand

Rs 198.64 crore given to sugar mills to make payment to farmers: Uttarakhand government

Coronavirus a living organism which has a right to live, says Trivendra Singh Rawat

Uttarakhand Crisis: CM Trivendra Rawat submits resignation to Governor

India

pti-Deepika S

New Delhi Mar 09: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has submitted his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya on Tuesday with the BJP mulling a change of leadership in Uttarakhand. State minister Dhan Singh Rawat has emerged as a frontrunner to replace Trivenrdra Singh Rawat as chief minister.

Uttarakahnd Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat resigns, who will take charge? | Oneindia News

Reportedly, the party may also bring in a deputy chief minister, who will be from the Kumaon region. Pushkar Singh Dhami is likely to be deputy chief minister.

The central BJP leadership recently sent two observers, party vice president Raman Singh and general secretary Dushayant Kumar Gautam, to the state to get feedback from party's core group in the state amid report of discontent against the chief minister.

However, senior party leaders discounted the possibility of any leadership change in the state while acknowledging that a section of Uttarakhand leaders may have issues with the chief minister.

BJP MP Ajay Bhatt, a senior party leader from the state, told PTI that "all is well" in the state and added that the two central leaders had visited Uttarakhand regarding preparations for the three-day state BJP executive meeting from March 12 and the Rawat government''s fourth anniversary on March 18.

Gautam had also spoken on similar lines on Sunday.

The state BJP on Monday said there has been no formal announcement about any meeting of the legislature party in Uttarakhand on Tuesday.

"As far as my knowledge goes, no formal announcement has been made yet about any state legislature party meeting here tomorrow," state BJP Chief Spokesman Munna Singh Chauhan told PTI in Dehradun.

However, when asked whether a major change was in the offing as the sudden turn of events on the political front in Uttarakhand indicated, Chauhan briefly said, "Let us see."

He said the chief minister would return to Dehradun at noon on Tuesday.

A section of state leaders are reportedly miffed with Rawat''s leadership and are of the view that the party''s electoral prospects under him may not be very bright.

The party may also go for a cabinet reshuffle in the state, sources said.

Rawat was named the chief ministerial candidate by the BJP after it stormed to power in 2017, winning 57 of 70 seats in the state assembly.
Patna, March 10 : The DSP of Patna's Beur central jail has been suspended by the jail IG on the recommendation of the district magistrate on Tuesday.

A team of police and civil administration officials headed by Patna DM Chandrashekher Singh had raided the Beur jail on March 3, recovering a number of mobile phones, chargers and a red dairy. The role of DSP Sanjay Kumar was found to be suspicious.

Kumar, despite being informed about the raid, had reached the jail premises half-an-hour late.

"We had issued a showcause notice to Sanjay Kumar for negligence. His reply was not satisfactory. Hence, we recommended the jail IG for his suspension," Singh said.

Mithilesh Mishra, the jail IG, also confirmed the development and said that the Beur jail DSP has been suspended with immediate effect.

Following the suspension of Kumar, Ramanuj Singh, the current DSP of Supaul district jail, has been given the additional charge of Beur jail.
German exports unexpectedly rose in January, buoyed by robust trade with China in a positive start to the year for manufacturers in Europe's largest economy. Seasonally adjusted exports increased 1.4pc on the month after an upwardly revised increase of 0.4pc in December, the Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday.

Imports fell 4.7pc after showing no change in the prior month, an upward revision.

A Reuters poll had pointed to a 1.2pc drop in exports and a 0.5pc fall in imports. January's 1.4pc increase in exports far surpassed even the most optimistic forecast.

The trade surplus grew to 22.2bn. On the year, exports to China rose by 3.1pc. Exports to other European Union countries fell 6pc on the year, those to the UK dropped 29pc and those to the United States decreased by 6.2pc.

Thomas Gitzel, chief economist at VP Bank, described the overall rise in exports as "an extremely positive surprise" and expected further growth.

"Net exports will thus be able to partially offset losses in private consumption in the economy as a whole - but not completely. On balance, the German economy will shrink in the first quarter," he said.

Most economists expect the economy to shrink in the first three months of the year, before rebounding in the second.

On Monday, official data showed industrial output fell in January as winter weather slowed construction and semiconductor shortages held back production in the car industry.

However, German automotive parts maker Continental said earlier on Tuesday it expected 2021 sales and profit margin to grow despite expected additional costs due to chip shortages.

Recent German data has painted a picture of a two-speed economy in which export-oriented manufacturers are doing well while domestically driven services are suffering under lockdown measures imposed in early November and tightened in mid-December to contain a second wave of coronavirus infections.
China in Focus (March 8): Beijing Pushes Biden to Reverse Trump Policy

Chinas top diplomat issues a warning to the White House. He instructs President Joe Biden to reverse Trump-era support for Taiwan and not to overstep in what China deems its domestic affairs.

A new brides family is torn apart, just after her special day. Her husband and their friends are being detained by Chinese authorities in Hong Kong over their involvement in pro-democracy activism.

A company-wide layoff notice marks the end for a major Chinese microchip maker, even after the Chinese regime poured billions of funding dollars into it in attempt to fight U.S. technology sanctions.

The Chinese regimes economic data isnt adding up. Officials reported a boost this year, but the numbers show the opposite.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more first-hand news from China.

For more news and videos, please visit our website and Twitter.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Of all the Murcielagos produced, 20 were customized in partnership with the Versace brand, starting in 2008. That alone would make these cars very rare, but the fact that only eight of these 20 were ever made available for customers makes them even more so.The Murcielago LP 640 Versace was offered in either black or white, with a two-tone leather interior, custom finishes by Versace, and Versace decals. Matching Versace luggage, Versace driving shoes and gloves, and a matching watch from Versaces Precious Items department were also included in the original deal. Whether theyre part of this offer is not known.This particular Murcielago Versace is the eighth of the 20 produced, as attested by a numbered plaque, and one of the 12 made in left-hand drive. Offered through Bob Forstner out of London, UK, it presents itself in impeccable condition, having had just one owner who clearly took great care of it.With just 10,000 km (6,214 miles) on the clock, this example bears the well-known Versace logothe Medusa headon the body and signature meandros on the doors. The black and white leather interior is also trimmed with the Greek pattern that is synonymous with the fashion house . All said, considering other Versace custom cars , this one could be described as more subdued and decidedly more stylish.Power comes from a 6.5-liter V12 engine making 680 horsepower with aftermarket parts. The owner opted for the Reventon wheel package.The original listing makes no mention of the price, but it does say this: the car is from 2008, but was registered in 2012 as a one-of-one. This should give you an idea of what to expect if you plan on calling for inquiries. James Edition also has the Forstner listing, with an asking price of nearly $700,000, which is more than three times what other Murcielago Versaces have changed hands for in recent years.




Like Rome, online businesses aren't built in a day. It takes a lot of dedicated time and effort to get your business up and running. Fortunately, WordPress makes getting started easier.

WordPress is a great platform for your online business because of its user-friendly interface, templates, business-oriented plugins, and customization options. In this article, we'll look at how you can get your online business up and running using WordPress features.

Setting Up Your Website

Before you begin designing your website, you need to purchase a domain name and a hosting plan. Fortunately, many hosting plans include a domain name in their packages. However, when selecting a hosting plan, you must choose one that specializes in WordPress sites. For example, Green Geeks offers a WordPress specific hosting package that includes specialized WordPress support, 1-click WordPress installation, LS Cache for WordPress plugin, and automatic updates to your WordPress core and plugins to keep your WordPress website secure. Additionally, you need to research your host carefully. The web host you choose will affect how your site is viewed on the internet. Therefore, the cheapest plan is not always the best option. When choosing a web host, you should consider the host's uptime, page load speed, and customer support.

Whether your hosting plan comes with a domain name or whether you have to purchase it separately, choosing your domain name is crucial. Your domain name will identify your business to potential clients. Therefore it needs to represent what you do and be easy to remember. A good domain name will create awareness and attract customers, whereas a poor name could hurt your business's credibility. So think carefully before choosing a name.

Designing Your Site

Your website acts as your storefront for your online business. So designing it appropriately is crucial. Luckily, with WordPress, you don't need to be a web developer to create a professional-looking site.

Depending on your business, you will either use your site to sell products or advertise a service. Therefore your site needs to be user-friendly and make it easy for users to take the steps to conversion. To this end, you will need an appropriate template and suitable plugins.

WordPress offers a variety of free and premium themes. All themes are customizable, so you can ensure your website accurately reflects your brand with its colors, logos, and fonts. However, when choosing your theme, make sure to choose one that's mobile responsive. The majority of internet users access the web via their phones, so it's crucial that your site is easily viewable on mobile devices.

Likewise, WordPress offers plugins to do just about everything. First and foremost, you will want to install a security plugin and a backup plugin. You should also consider using an SEO plugin to help increase your visibility on search engines. If you're running an eCommerce store, you will want to install the WooCommerce plugin.

Promoting Your Business

Once your site is up and running, it's time to get people to your site. WordPress makes this easy by offering social networking plugins so you can build a social media presence. They also make it simple to connect your site to Facebook Ads Manager with a pixel plugin. The Facebook pixel enables you to track how effective your Facebook Ads are at getting people to your site, as well as what actions users take once they land on your site.

In addition to a social media presence, you should also have a search engine presence. You can work on your SEO with plugins like Yoast SEO, and you might also consider buying search result ads. These ads appear at the top of the search engine results page and can greatly increase the traffic to your site.

Another great way to promote your site is with email marketing. WordPress integrates with several email marketing platforms, including MailChimp and Hubspot. Email is a great way to stay in contact with visitors to your site and remind them about your great products or services.

Summary

When starting an online business with WordPress, you need to take three crucial steps:

You need to set up your site with a web host and domain name.

You need to design your site to present your business in the best possible way.

You need to promote your business.

Fortunately, WordPress makes it easy to set up, design, and promote your business, thanks to their templates, plugins, and integrations.
For more than 100 years, International Womens Day has been celebrated by honoring the achievements of women globally.

But this year, because of lost jobs and increased burdens of care at home, women have fared worse economically than men.

According to data from the International Labour Organization, a United Nations agency, globally women have suffered more job losses related to the pandemic than men. About 5% of women in 2020 lost work, which could mean losing a job or experiencing reduced hours, compared with 3.9% of men.

"Every time something happens in the world, women are hit with twice the violence, Anchia Mulima, coordinator of Lemusica, an organization supporting women and girls in Mozambique, told VOA.

Throughout the pandemic, the United Nations has highlighted the disparities between how women have been affected by the crisis compared with men.

Gender inequalities have increased dramatically in the past year, as women bear the brunt of school closures and working from home, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

According to U.N. Women, 58% of employed women globally work in informal employment, or jobs without much regulation and often without taxes or benefits. Women are also more likely to work in industries hardest hit by the pandemic, such as hospitality and child care.

In the United States, Black and Latinx women faced more layoffs in 2020 and have seen slower gains in recent months than their white counterparts.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 8.9% of Black women and 8.5% of Latinx women were unemployed in February  compared with 5.2% of white women.

It's easy for us to make general sweeping statements of COVID-19 is affecting women in the workplace, but it's affecting different groups of women disproportionately, Minda Harts, an author and advocate for Black women in the workplace, told VOA.

Hospitality, leisure  some of those industries have a very high concentration of Black and brown women. And so in 2020, we realized that a lot of those industries were heavily affected, Harts said.

Even as women around the world have faced economic challenges, higher unemployment, and the burden of child care as schools close, they have found ways to use their skills and inspire others.

Nubia Rocio Gaona Cardenas, a farmer in Colombia, said it broke her heart to see mothers struggling to feed their children in the capital of Bogota. She and her son had an idea.

My son told me, Mom, let's do something productive. Some YouTube channels  dont teach anything, let's teach them how to farm, or teach them something. Lets give them hope, Cardenas told VOA.

Their channel on YouTube, which they launched in April 2020, now has more than 700,000 followers.

Across the globe, women working as tailors and seamstresses answered the surge in demand for face masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

We believe that women are strong and can make a change. We too have abilities and can work alongside men, Niga Mohammed, an Iraqi tailor, told VOA.

With so much work shifted to remote employees, Harts sees an opportunity for industries to diversify their workforce.

I do believe there will be a lot more opportunities for Black and brown women to work at the high-tech companies, to work at the Fortune 500 companies from rural places that they might live, or from certain areas where they just don't have the capacity to up and move to a big city, she said.

But as numbers from the BLS indicate from the past few months, those changes may be slow to arrive.

This year, the theme of International Womens Day is Choose to Challenge.

A challenged world is an alert world. And from challenge comes change, according to the International Womens Day website.

For many women around the world amid the pandemic, the immediate challenge may be staying afloat economically.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9) Senators are considering filing a bill that would channel the funds raised from pork imports as direct aid to local hog farmers, as they opposed the plan of the Department of Agriculture to import tons of meat subject to ultra-cheap duties.

The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food and Agrarian Reform on Tuesday rejected anew the DAs request to raise the minimum access volume to 400,000 metric tons of pork imports, even though hog farmers claim that the deficit is only between 150,000-200,000 MT. Instead, senators backed calls to craft a bill similar to the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) that would channel the tariff collections on pork imports to assistance to hog farmers.

"'Yung tariff coming from the importation will be used to help them be competitive na finally, magiging tayong [we can be] self-sufficient in our supply," panel chair Senator Cynthia Villar said, initially calling it a Livestock Competitiveness Enhancement Fund.

"Kapag binagsak natin ang tariff tapos in-increase natin ang importation, wala na rin tayong income to help them (hog raisers) and patay na rin sila  'yun ang iniiwasan natin," she also said.

[Translation: If we bring down the tariff and increase the importation, we won't have income to help (hog raisers) and they will die  that's what we're avoiding]."

RCEF sets aside 10 billion yearly until 2024 to assist farmers losing out from the flood of cheaper imported rice under the Rice Tariffication Law. The money is drawn from the duties collected from rice traders.

Parang hindi justifiable yung increase in MAV (minimum access volume)... Ang basa ko dito talagang kikita yung importer even with the tariffs," Villar said.

[Translation: It seems the increase in MAV is not justifiable... What I see here is that the importers can earn a lot even with the tariffs.]

Villar also noted a report from the National Bureau of Investigation, saying that there seems to be a move to present an artificial shortage to justify the demand for cheap imports.

The DA wants to cut the 30-40% tariff on pork imports above 54,000 MT to just between 5-20%. The measure is pending before President Rodrigo Duterte, although Villar said the Chief Executive cannot act on the order until after March 25 when Congress is on recess.

A group of hog raisers, which has ventured into pork imports since last year after its members were forced to cull their pigs due to the local African Swine Fever outbreak, said they are already making good money even if they pay the 40% tariff.

"There is no need for DA or NEDA to reduce tariffs," Edwin Chen, president of the Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines, told lawmakers. "If you do reduce tariffs, we will incur irreparable damage to the local pork producers and we will just give windfall profits to the importers.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan added that no importer sells at a loss even at the 40% out-quota tariff, so bringing the rate down would only fatten up these traders pockets by as much as 31 billion.

The committee also supported Pangilinan's request to file a resolution urging the DA to declare a state of emergency in Luzon due to the ASF, which would allow the government to tap more funds to intervene and extend support to hog producers.

The DA said 40 provinces nationwide have been infected with ASF, which forced backyard and commercial hog raisers to kill their pigs to stop the spread of the disease  limiting local supply in the process.
Kia Corporation has revealed the first official images of the EV6  its first dedicated battery electric vehicle (BEV) built on the companys new EV platform (Electric-Global Modular Platform, or E-GMP).

EV6 is also the first of Kias next-generation BEVs to be developed under a new design philosophy that embodies Kias shifting focus towards electrification.

EV6 is the embodiment of both our brand purpose, Movement that inspires, and our new design philosophy. It has been designed to inspire every journey by offering an instinctive and natural experience that improves the daily lives of our customers, and provide user ownership that is simple, intuitive and integrated, said Karim Habib, Senior Vice President and Head of Kia Global Design Centre. Our aim is to design the physical experience of our brand and to create bold, original and inventive electric vehicles.

As part of the companys brand transition, Kias new dedicated battery electric vehicles will be named according to a new naming strategy. The new approach brings simplicity and consistency to Kias EV nomenclature across all global markets.

All of Kias new dedicated BEVs will start with the prefix EV which makes it easy for consumers to understand which of Kias products are fully electric. This is followed by a number which corresponds to the cars position in the line-up.

Designed and engineered to embody Kias new brand slogan, Movement that inspires, EV6 will make its world premiere during the first quarter of 2021. -- Tradearabia News Service
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  The Philippines will finally sign on Wednesday, March 10, a supply agreement with US drugmaker Novavax for its COVID-19 vaccine doses.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in his briefing on Tuesday that the deal covers 30 million Covovax vaccine doses for the country.

"Pipirmahan na rin bukas, ika-10 ng Marso ang supply agreement with Novavax, 30 million po iyan," Roque said.

[Translation: The Philippines will sign tomorrow, March 10, the supply agreement with Novavax, that's 30 million doses.]

Roque added that they cannot yet disclose how much will be spent for the procurement of the vaccines until the deal is signed.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. and other members of the vaccine expert panel are scheduled to fly to India on Tuesday to secure the deal and appeal for the deployment of Covovax doses this second quarter.

Novavax is based in the US but its Covovax vaccines are manufactured at the Serum Institute of India.

Galvez earlier told CNN Philippines' The Source that the government was willing to shell out more funds if it means getting the coronavirus vaccines earlier.

READ: In India trip, Galvez to appeal for early 2nd quarter deployment of Novavax COVID-19 vaccines

Meanwhile, Roque also bared that the government has already signed the purchase order for 1 million doses from China's Sinovac Biotech, and the supply agreement for 13 million doses from another American drugmaker Moderna Inc. which would add to the Philippines' COVID-19 vaccine supply. Another agreement involving 7 million Moderna doses for the private sector is also underway.

RELATED: Philippines, Moderna reach supply deal for 13 million COVID-19 doses

Meanwhile, the supply agreement for the single-dose vaccine of US-based Johnson & Johnson is already in progress, Roque added.

So far, the country is on its second week of roll-out after receiving 600,000 Sinovac doses and 525,600 doses from British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca.

Citing March 7 data from the Health Department, Roque added that more than 35,000 healthcare workers, the first in the government's priority list, already received their first shot. Meanwhile, more than 460,000 total vials from both manufacturers have been distributed nationwide.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State has warned against the use of public funds by the Ekiti State Government to fund the provision of enclosed grazing/ranching for herdsmen in the state.

A resurgence of the issue of herdsmen and farmers clashes followed the killing of two farmers by suspected herders last week in the state.

After the incident last week, Governor Kayode Fayemi visited the families of the murdered farmers, vowing to put an end to the continued killings of farmers.

During the visit, the governor had promised to provide create alternative grazing for herdsmen as a way to stop the senseless carnage and bloody clashes between the farmers and the herders.

In consonance with the recent Akure peace meeting and joint communique issued between Southwest Governors and the Miyetti Allah, open/night grazing and underage herding remain banned in Ekiti State, Mr Fayemi had said.

The state is also making alternative arrangements for enclosed grazing/ranching under the National Livestock Transformation Plan in the state.

Similarly, in line with Mr Presidents recent directive, anyone armed with automatic weapons found in Ekiti forests will be considered a dangerous criminal and treated accordingly by security operatives.

But the PDP said such a plan was ill-advised.

The partys state Publicity Secretary, Raphael Adeyanju, said such a move would only be welcomed if the ranches were not funded by the government.

The attention of Ekiti Chapter of the PDP has been drawn to the plan of the Fayemis administration to create ranches for herders in Ekiti State, a statement he signed on Tuesday, noted.

We can describe this as a welcome development as long as no government fund is expended on a private business.

We in the PDP regard cow rearing as lucrative business. Apart from the Fulanis, many indigenes of Ekiti also engage in the business, they should be encouraged to engage in modern ranching.

We are however opposed to Fayemis attempt to play politics with Ekiti destiny because of his inordinate ambition.

He has no right to cede any portion of Ekiti land to appease some troublesome elements of the society.

Although the state government had denounced the killing, the reaction remained a usual refrain after such attacks and killings in the state.

Besides the anti-open grazing law established by the last administration, the present administration has not put any effort to either implement the law or review it for effective administration.
New Delhi:

A woman on Monday committed suicide by jumping from second floor of DB mall in Bhopal. The name of woman is Renu Mittal. She is daughter of former chief medical officer of Chirayu Medical College Prahlad Das Agarwal.

Renu got badly injured after jumping from the mall. Renu was rushed to the hospital immediately where she succumbed to injuries.

It is being said that Renu committed suicide because of family tensions. MP Nagar police station is doing investigation in the matter.

Renus husbands name is Sanjay Mittal. Sanjay is textile trader in Bhopal.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
London, UK -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/09/2021 -- The beginning of the month brought the news that the UK Government are planning to extend the Northern Ireland grace period relating to border checks on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) goods, both of which were due to come to an end after March 2021. Logistics UK's Policy Manager for Northern Ireland stated, "Extending the current grace periods for the movement of SPS goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland is vital to protect supply chains." This decision means that businesses will not face significant red tape come April. After a year of continuous disruptions to the supply chain and logistics sector, brought on by both the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit, this news offered as a welcome relief to many agri-food businesses.



Since 2008, DSJ Global's team of diligent professionals have worked arduously to establish an impressive network of one million mid-to-senior industry experts who provide the firm with both local and international market knowledge. This is essential as it actively aids and supports DSJ Global's mission to provide long-lasting effective recruiting solutions for the supply chain, logistics and technical operations industries. As a preferred partner of the award-winning Phaidon International Group, DSJ Global are the chosen recruitment partner for 71 world-leading enterprises. DSJ Global deliver permanent, contract and multi-hire recruiting solutions to aid the recruitment industries number one challenge: talent. The company partners with businesses of all sizes, from agile start-ups to corporate heavyweights, providing applicants with a diverse range of organisations and career defining job prospects. To guarantee optimal, reliable, and swift recruitment solutions for both candidates and clients, the consultants at the firm undergo frequent training in state-of-the-art recruiting technologies and strategies.



There are a variety of vacancies available for a number of specialisms which include, logistics, technical operations, supply chain and procurement. As industry leaders, DSJ Global are able to connect their clients with great businesses to suit all types of career aspirations. Positions currently available through the firm include: Global Procurement Manager  Indirects, Head of Procurement Processes & Digital, UK Director of Operations, Packing Regional Sourcing Leader, Production Manager, Customer Success and Supply Chain Manager, R&D Procurement  Associate Director, and Supply Chain Engineering Project Manager. With the support and guidance of DSJ Global's friendly advisors, there are endless opportunities for career advancement within specialist fields.



"Like many sectors, 2020 marked a defining moment for recruitment. Challenged by uncertainty, but unwavering in our commitment to our clients, we enter 2021 with a sense of duty to clients and candidates", commented Luis Rolim, Global Marketing Director at DSJ Global. He went onto say, "as we reflect on the challenges of virtually securing and retaining talent, we're inspired by a team who have demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt and continue to help all our clients secure top talent on a global scale."



To find out more information about logistics and technical operations recruiters UK visit



https://www.dsjglobal.co.uk.



For any media enquiries please contact Gary Elliott at Iconic Digital  020 7100 0726.



For all other enquiries please contact DSJ Global UK: +44 (0) 20 3758 8800.



For more information about DSJ Global services, please go to https://www.dsjglobal.co.uk.



About DSJ Global UK

DSJ Global UK offers specialist and insightful support to organisations and candidates who expect more from the recruitment process. The firm is committed to making connections between businesses and talent that offer both the opportunity to thrive.
Puigdemont says 'we'll appeal to CJEU, sad day for EP' 'This is a case of political persecution'

(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, MARCH 9 - Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Carles Puigdemont said Tuesday during a press conference "today is a sad day for the European Parliament", after the EP in Brussels voted to revoke his parliamentary immunity as well as that of two Catalan separatist MEP colleagues, adding "we have lost our immunity but the European Parliament has lost much more".



"This is a case of political persecution," Puigdemont said.



"We will file an appeal with the Court of Justice of the European Union," he said.



"We are at the disposal of the Belgian judicial authorities".(ANSAmed).




Kylie Moore-Gilbert has revealed she nearly escaped a hellhole Iranian jail before tasting freedom for 20 minutes, only to be captured and thrown into solitary confinement.

The Australian academic was released in November last year after spending 804 days in various prisons across Iran on trumped-up spying charges.

Dr Moore-Gilbert, who was in Iran to attend a seminar on Shia Islamic studies, was arrested by Islamic Revolutionary Guards as she prepared to board her flight back to Melbourne in September 2018.

While locked up in Iran's notorious Evin prison, which she says made her go 'completely insane', Dr Moore-Gilbert decided to make her daring escape.

'I'd seen a way to scale the wall and climb up on the roof of the facility, and one day I was just like, "You know what? I'm going to do it. I have nothing to lose",' she told Melissa Doyle in a bombshell Sky News interview on Tuesday night.

The Australian academic was released in November after spending 804 days in various hellhole prisons on trumped-up spying charges

Dr Moore-Gilbert said that while locked up in the Middle East, Mr Hodorov eventually stopped telling her he loved her over the phone

'There were spikes on part of the wall, so I just took some socks with me and put them over my hands and then grabbed onto them, hoping they weren't too sharp.

'It was pretty effective. I climbed the wall, got up on the roof, disappeared from view and walked all the way to the end of the complex and could see over the wall of the prison.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she could have climbed down from the roof from a nearby a tree and made it to a river crossing, but was spooked by the idea of being out in the open in a residential neighbourhood.

'Where would I have gone? What would I have done? I didn't speak the language. I was in a prison uniform. Without somebody on the outside to help me or pick me up in a car, I don't know what I would have done,' she said.

'I didn't have any money and if they caught me (outside the walls) it would've been really serious.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she contemplated escaping for 20 minutes - the time it took the prison guards to find her.

'I was sort of free to walk around on the roof for quite some time. It was a beautiful day, blue sky. I just kind of basked in the sun and I yelled stuff from the roof to entertain my roommates,' she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she contemplated escaping for 20 minutes - the time it took the prison guards to find her

'I was screaming 'Azadi! Azadi! Freedom!'

Guards eventually made their way up to the roof from a neighbouring building, where they asked what her demands were.

She said she was thrown into solitary confinement which is 'essentially a black hole'.

'It's psychological torture. It's a two-by-two-metre box. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. By the end of it (I was) a crazy lady. My emotional state was just so volatile. I was basically having a prolonged anxiety attack,' she said.

'I was never physically tortured with the things you think about like pulling fingernails or being electrocuted - that never happened to me - but I was beaten up once and forcibly injected with a syringe of tranquilliser against my will.'

After being released and touching down in Melbourne in November last year, Dr Moore-Gilbert was taken to hotel quarantine.

It was there that Dr Moore-Gilbert's mother told her that her husband, Ruslan Hodorov, was having an affair with Dr Kylie Baxter, her university colleague and PhD supervisor.

'I knew that it [the marriage] wasn't in the same state that it was when I left. I knew that there was a problem at least 12 months before I came home,' she said.

'My mother told me when I arrived in hotel quarantine. She found out the day before from a third person, a third party ... My family found out and called [him], and he confirmed it.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert was in hotel quarantine in Melbourne when her mother informed her of her husband's alleged affair

British-Australian academic Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert (pictured left) split from her husband after allegedly discovering he had had an affair with colleague Dr Kylie Baxter while she was behind bars

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she became suspicious when her Russian-Israeli husband hadn't contacted her after touching down in Australia.

'He hasn't even called to say "I'm happy you're free", so I said you have to tell me mum it's obvious somethings up - I'm strong I can handle it,' she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said that while locked up in the Middle East, Mr Hodorov eventually stopped saying 'I love you' during phone calls.

'I was upset and disappointed he was not supporting me to the extent that I hoped he would,' she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she became suspicious when her Russian-Israeli husband hadn't contacted her after touching down in Australia

'I understand something had shifted for him and for me too. I didn't necessarily think that our marriage was over, but I was thinking to myself based on that maybe I didn't want to stay with him, so it wasn't necessarily a surprise that my marriage came to an end.

'He never told my family, or told me, that he wanted to leave me. He maintained the deception right up until the end.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert said Dr Baxter liaised between the University of Melbourne and her family and husband during her time behind bars.

'The nature of it given my closeness to both of them was very disappointing for me. In a way it has been harder for me to process and come to terms with that then it has been with what happened to me in Iran,' she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert admitted her husband 'suffered a lot at the beginning' of her arrest and was 'quite vulnerable'.

'I don't know what happened, I don't want to know, I don't want to dwell on it. I just want to move on,' she said.

'I honestly wish him all the best, he's not an evil person, she's not an evil person. I hope they are happy together and hope we can all just move on with our lives.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert, an Islamic studies scholar, was freed last November in a prisoner swap deal after spending 804 days in jail on trumped-up spying charges

Dr Moore-Gilbert admitted her husband 'suffered a lot at the beginning' of her arrest and was 'quite vulnerable'

Before her September 2018 arrest, Dr Moore-Gilbert and Mr Hodorov had just bought a house in Melbourne's east after marrying in 2017 in a Jewish ceremony.

Both Mr Hodorov and Dr Baxter pushed for Dr Moore-Gilbert's release after her arrest for espionage in September 2018.

Dr Moore-Gilbert and Dr Baxter are both experts in Middle East studies at the University of Melbourne.

The couple married a few months before she left their Melbourne home on her study trip to Iran.

They met a decade earlier when she visited Israel, where Mr Hodorov lived after emigrating from Russia with his family.
Her beaming smile says it all. For Pam Harrison, seeing her daughter Nicky Clough after so long clearly means so much.

Similar emotional reunions took place across the country yesterday as care homes reopened to visitors.

Just like Miss Clough and Mrs Harrison, who lives at Alexander House care home in London, relatives were finally able to hold the hands of their loved-ones as indoor visits resumed after a year of draconian restrictions.

Kay Fossett, 66, broke down as she visited her mother, Sylvia Newsom, 86, for the first time since December.

Pam Harrison's joy is clear to see as her daughter Nicky Clough pays her a visit in her carehome

Its nice to see one another and be next to each other, she said. Just to be able to feel close. Today is the best day.

Mrs Fossett, from Croydon, south London, was able to visit Mrs Newsom, who has Alzheimers, at her care home in nearby Sutton.

But as a result of Covid restrictions and an outbreak over winter, she has only been able to see her mother in a pod with a screen between them.

New guidance allows visits without a screen if those coming into homes test negative for Covid and wear PPE.

It follows a major Daily Mail campaign against visiting bans that have torn families apart.

But campaigners say some care home groups are ignoring the new rules and refusing to let people in until the national vaccine rollout is complete.

Relatives groups want the guidance to be given legal backing to stop this postcode lottery.

Diane Mayhew, of Rights for Residents, said that while many homes had agreed to let residents have 30-minute visits, some refused to let relatives be caregivers.

She added: Its a very mixed picture. Once again its a postcode lottery as to whether the home is following the new guidance.

Weve been inundated with emails and calls from distraught relatives whove been told by managers that they refuse to designate relatives as essential family caregivers.

Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, said the balance of risk has started to slowly shift thanks to the vaccine rollout

These people who live in care homes are living on borrowed time already. We wont stop fighting until this is turned into law.

It is thought that some providers refused visitors because they want the Government to underwrite the risk of outsiders bringing Covid into their homes, claiming their insurance did not cover them.

Visits are not permitted in care homes with outbreaks, although numbers have declined.

Some 91 per cent of older care home residents in England have had a first dose of the vaccine, and 71 per cent of staff.

Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, said the balance of risk has started to slowly shift thanks to the vaccine programme.

She said the visits signalled the start of a brighter summer, adding: This is an important step forward for reuniting residents with loved-ones  but we all want to go further and are committed to allowing more visits with fewer restrictions.
Over the last 25 years, even minor interactions between immigrants and the criminal legal system have become a pipeline for deportation. In its March 4 decision on Pereida v. Wilkinson, the Supreme Courts conservative majority tightened the screws, making it more difficult for immigration judges to consider the hardship that families face when their loved ones are deported. The losers in this case are not only immigrants facing deportation for criminal contact and their families. Everyone loses when community members are deported.

Advertisement

Clemente Pereida, the immigrant at the center of the case, came to the United States from Mexico 26 years ago. He had no path to legal status and remained undocumented, though he worked in construction and cleaning, paid his taxes, and raised three children. In 2009, the federal government placed him in deportation proceedings, but he applied for cancellation of removal based on the exceptional and extremely unusual hardship that deportation would inflict on his youngest child, a U.S. citizen.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Subscribe to the Slatest newsletter A daily email update of the stories you need to read right now. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

Then Pereidas desire to support his family financially ran headlong into the criminal legal system. In 2010, he pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor of attempted criminal impersonation in Nebraska. The underlying criminal charge was commonplacethe use of a fake Social Security number to work as a janitor. For this offense, Nebraska punished him with a $100 fine.

Advertisement

The immigration consequences, under the Supreme Courts new decision, are far worse. Immigrants who are convicted for a crime involving moral turpitudea sweeping Jim Crowera term that has never been defined in immigration laware prohibited from contesting their deportation. Courts have interpreted moral turpitude to include certain fraud offenses. An immigrant with such a conviction on their record cannot avoid removal even if they demonstrate that getting deported would impose an extreme hardship on a U.S. citizen child. The Nebraska criminal impersonation statute covers some offenses that involve fraud and some that do not. Pereidas conviction was ambiguous; the record did not specify whether he was convicted under one of the subsections of the statute involving fraud. The question for the Supreme Court was whether, in the face of that ambiguity, Pereida had necessarily been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude and was thus barred from canceling his removal from the country.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Justice Neil Gorsuchs majority opinion claimed that the question turned on who, exactly, shouldered the burden of proof. He held that the burden was on Pereida to prove that he had not been convicted under a moral turpitude section of the statute. Justice Stephen Breyer took the better, and more historically accurate, approach. He wrote that courts have, in the past, taken a categorical approach to deciding whether an offense qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude. This approach requires courts to analyze the criminal statute, not the underlying offense. Put simply, courts look at the words of the law, not the facts of the case, to see if the crime in question involves moral turpitude. If the law is ambiguousthat is, if that offense doesnt clearly involve moral turpitudecourts must assume it does not, and side with the immigrant.

Advertisement

As we wrote in an amicus brief on behalf of immigration law professors, the categorical approach was first adopted over a century ago and has been regularly applied in cases where the immigrant bore the burden of challenging their exclusion from the U.S. It was championed by the venerable Judge Learned Hand, who concluded that the minimum conduct of an offense is the touchstone. Courts, as well as immigration authorities, continued to apply the categorical approach for decades. There is every reason to think that Congress understood this history when it wrote the requirements for canceling a deportation.

Advertisement

The majoritys sharp departure from this history will have its most draconian consequences for those whose convictions are minor or decades-old. Here, the devil is in the missing details. As amicus briefs from immigrant defense and criminal defense organizations explained, there is little incentive for prosecutors to determine every detail of an offense, such as the underlying facts or precise subsection of the criminal statute at issue, if it has no impact on the outcome of the prosecution. The state is usually just interested in securing a conviction, and the defendant is rarely able to anticipate what detail will prove important in separate immigration proceedings that may happen decades later. This leaves immigrants powerless to prove, under Pereida, that their ambiguous convictions are not bars to relief. The courts opinion blithely suggests that this is a policy concern for Congress to address. But that has the analysis backward. Congress had no way of anticipating that the current Supreme Court would jettison 100 years of case law on how to treat criminal conviction bars irrespective of burden in immigration law.

Advertisement

Pereida will no doubt raise many questions for courts as to its scope and limitations. But it should also raise questions for Congress as it debates immigration policies that would protect people from deportation and finally offer a meaningful and inclusive path to citizenship. Congress should bear in mind that any statute it writes will be interpreted by the new Supreme Court majority for years to come. The only real remedy is to avoid categorical bars to relief and allow cases to be evaluated on the merits.

With that in mind, Congress should carefully consider whether its proposals will keep families like the Pereidas whole. Immigrant rights groups who fought hard for the recent reintroduction of the Dream and Promise Act, for example, expressed dismay at its inclusion of criminal bars that will disproportionately block Black and Latinx immigrants from its protections. Even as our country has begun to reckon with the racial bias and disparities of the criminal legal system, we heap on the punishment of deportation without a second thought. Racism fueled the initial enactment of criminal grounds of exclusion and deportation. The continuing and expansive reliance on criminal records to decide who deserves family unity and protection from deportation continues to harm Black and Latinx communities today.

Advertisement

There is no hint of this larger context of racial justice in the majority decision in Pereida. Nor is there any acknowledgment of the horrifying disproportionality of separating Pereida from his wife and three children over a conviction deemed worthy of nothing more than a $100 fine. There is no recognition of the self-inflicted wound: that, based on a criminal conviction, federal immigration officials choose to exact an extreme and exceptionally unusual hardship on an American family. As Congress debates new paths to citizenship, it should keep the Pereida family at the forefront of their minds, and break from policies that further criminalize communities of color.
This picture, taken on Feb. 27, 2021, shows the abandoned building of the old Fukushima First Bible Baptist Church inside the exclusion zone in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture  an area declared a no-go zone after the 2011 nuclear disaster. AFP-Yonhap



The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant in Japan has not left any statistically detectable damage on the population, according to a new report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).



The nuclear radiation from the accident has not increased the risk for cancer beyond normal, according to the report which was published on Tuesday, ahead of the ten-year anniversary of the catastrophe.



The scientists found that a rise in thyroid cancer among children in the last decade was not related to increased radiation, but due to more thorough analyses that had led to more cases being reported.



In other areas and countries without higher radioactive exposure better monitoring had also led to increased numbers of thyroid cancer, UNSCEAR said.



On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by a strong earthquake and a tsunami that killed around 18,500 people in total. The natural catastrophe also led to a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima atomic power plant, and the resulting radiation forced 160,000 residents to flee.



It was the worst nuclear catastrophe since the 1986 accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine.



"It is a catastrophe, but it is not a radiation catastrophe," radiation biologist Anna Friedl, who represents UNSCEAR in Germany, told dpa.



Compared to Chernobyl, in Fukushima fewer radioactive substances were released and largely settled in the sea instead of on land. The Japanese population also consumed fewer contaminated foods, Friedl said.



UNSCEAR however said that despite the report's findings, it does not mean that there is no cancer risk from the the accident at all.



Among around 170 rescue workers who were exposed to very high radiation two to three additional cancer cases were expected.



UNSCEAR said other factors such as stress, heart problems and other illnesses came about as a consequence of the evacuation.



The general risk for cancer in Japan lies at 35 percent. (dpa)


The Guardian

The potential consequences of the origins of the virus are shattering  if they can be proved My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters There was a time when the Covid pandemic seemed to confirm so many of our assumptions. It cast down the people we regarded as villains. It raised up those we thought were heroes. It prospered people who could shift easily to working from home even as it problematized the lives of those Trump voters living in the old economy. Like all plagues, Covid often felt like the hand of God on earth, scourging the people for their sins against higher learning and visibly sorting the righteous from the unmasked wicked. Respect science, admonished our yard signs. And lo!, Covid came and forced us to do so, elevating our scientists to the highest seats of social authority, from where they banned assembly, commerce, and all the rest. We cast blame so innocently in those days. We scolded at will. We knew who was right and we shook our heads to behold those in the wrong playing in their swimming pools and on the beach. It made perfect sense to us that Donald Trump, a politician we despised, could not grasp the situation, that he suggested people inject bleach, and that he was personally responsible for more than one super-spreading event. Reality itself punished leaders like him who refused to bow to expertise. The prestige news media even figured out a way to blame the worst death tolls on a system of organized ignorance they called populism. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a cult out of the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general But these days the consensus doesnt consense quite as well as it used to. Now the media is filled with disturbing stories suggesting that Covid might have come  not from populism at all, but from a laboratory screw-up in Wuhan, China. You can feel the moral convulsions beginning as the question sets in: What if science itself is in some way culpable for all this? * I am no expert on epidemics. Like everyone else I know, I spent the pandemic doing as I was told. A few months ago I even tried to talk a Fox News viewer out of believing in the lab-leak theory of Covids origins. The reason I did that is because the newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-leak theory wasnt true, that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-on-fire ratings from the fact-checkers, and because (despite all my cynicism) I am the sort who has always trusted the mainstream news media. My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month; a few weeks later everyone from Doctor Fauci to President Biden is acknowledging that the lab-accident hypothesis might have some merit. We dont know the real answer yet, and we probably will never know, but this is the moment to anticipate what such a finding might ultimately mean. What if this crazy story turns out to be true? The answer is that this is the kind of thing that could obliterate the faith of millions. The last global disaster, the financial crisis of 2008, smashed peoples trust in the institutions of capitalism, in the myths of free trade and the New Economy, and eventually in the elites who ran both American political parties. In the years since (and for complicated reasons), liberal leaders have labored to remake themselves into defenders of professional rectitude and established legitimacy in nearly every field. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a sort of cult out of science, expertise, the university system, executive-branch norms, the intelligence community, the State Department, NGOs, the legacy news media, and the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general. Now here we are in the waning days of Disastrous Global Crisis #2. Covid is of course worse by many orders of magnitude than the mortgage meltdown  it has killed millions and ruined lives and disrupted the world economy far more extensively. Should it turn out that scientists and experts and NGOs, etc. are villains rather than heroes of this story, we may very well see the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism go up in a fireball of public anger. Consider the details of the story as we have learned them in the last few weeks:  Lab leaks happen. They arent the result of conspiracies: a lab accident is an accident, as Nathan Robinson points out; they happen all the time, in this country and in others, and people die from them.  There is evidence that the lab in question, which studies bat coronaviruses, may have been conducting what is called gain of function research, a dangerous innovation in which diseases are deliberately made more virulent. By the way, right-wingers didnt dream up gain of function: all the cool virologists have been doing it (in this country and in others) even as the squares have been warning against it for years.  There are strong hints that some of the bat-virus research at the Wuhan lab was funded in part by the American national-medical establishment  which is to say, the lab-leak hypothesis doesnt implicate China alone.  There seem to have been astonishing conflicts of interest among the people assigned to get to the bottom of it all, and (as we know from Enron and the housing bubble) conflicts of interest are always what trip up the well-credentialed professionals whom liberals insist we must all heed, honor, and obey.  The news media, in its zealous policing of the boundaries of the permissible, insisted that Russiagate was ever so true but that the lab-leak hypothesis was false false false, and woe unto anyone who dared disagree. Reporters gulped down whatever line was most flattering to the experts they were quoting and then insisted that it was 100% right and absolutely incontrovertible  that anything else was only unhinged Trumpist folly, that democracy dies when unbelievers get to speak, and so on.  The social media monopolies actually censored posts about the lab-leak hypothesis. Of course they did! Because were at war with misinformation, you know, and people need to be brought back to the true and correct faith  as agreed upon by experts. * Let us pray, now, for science, intoned a New York Times columnist back at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. The title of his article laid down the foundational faith of Trump-era liberalism: Coronavirus is What You Get When You Ignore Science. Ten months later, at the end of a scary article about the history of gain of function research and its possible role in the still ongoing Covid pandemic, Nicholson Baker wrote as follows: This may be the great scientific meta-experiment of the 21st century. Could a world full of scientists do all kinds of reckless recombinant things with viral diseases for many years and successfully avoid a serious outbreak? The hypothesis was that, yes, it was doable. The risk was worth taking. There would be no pandemic. Except there was. If it does indeed turn out that the lab-leak hypothesis is the right explanation for how it began  that the common people of the world have been forced into a real-life lab experiment, at tremendous cost  there is a moral earthquake on the way. Because if the hypothesis is right, it will soon start to dawn on people that our mistake was not insufficient reverence for scientists, or inadequate respect for expertise, or not enough censorship on Facebook. It was a failure to think critically about all of the above, to understand that there is no such thing as absolute expertise. Think of all the disasters of recent years: economic neoliberalism, destructive trade policies, the Iraq War, the housing bubble, banks that are too big to fail, mortgage-backed securities, the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016  all of these disasters brought to you by the total, self-assured unanimity of the highly educated people who are supposed to know what theyre doing, plus the total complacency of the highly educated people who are supposed to be supervising them. Then again, maybe I am wrong to roll out all this speculation. Maybe the lab-leak hypothesis will be convincingly disproven. I certainly hope it is. But even if it inches closer to being confirmed, we can guess what the next turn of the narrative will be. It was a perfect storm, the experts will say. Who coulda known? And besides (they will say), the origins of the pandemic dont matter any more. Go back to sleep. Thomas Frank is a Guardian US columnist. He is the author, most recently, of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
Red Bull is talking to companies about partnering up now that the energy drink-owned outfit has full control of its own engine in Formula 1.

After years of complaining about customer engine suppliers, Red Bull has agreed with the departing Honda that it will take over the Japanese marque's engine operations from 2022.

"When Honda said they would withdraw, we were forced to go as a customer again," top Red Bull official Dr Helmut Marko told Servus TV.

"But we agreed that we didn't want to do it that way, and that it wasn't our philosophy either. So we had to find another solution."

Marko said Red Bull Powertrains is now being established at the team's Milton Keynes headquarters.

"The equipment we have there is such that we can not only take care of maintenance, but also develop a new engine that will be simpler than the previous ones. We are practically self-sufficient," he said.

"We are speaking to companies about possible partnerships, but nothing is fixed yet."

As for Honda's final year in Formula 1, Marko says the Japanese have produced a "completely new engine for 2021", which is "a real work of art".

"Improvements in some areas means we should be closer to Mercedes," he added.

Max Verstappen has already briefly tried the new RB16B, and he will give the car its full test debut later this week in Bahrain.

The Dutchman said he can feel the Honda improvements, but also the effect of the aerodynamic rule changes to the floor.

"You really feel those changes," said Verstappen. "The floor is different and so the car behaves differently on the track."

(GMM)
New Delhi, March 9 : President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grief over the loss of lives due to the fire tragedy in Kolkata.

Nine persons were killed after a massive fire engulfed a building in city Strand Road on Monday evening.

In a tweet, the President Ram Nath Kovind said, "Pained beyond words by the extremely tragic fire accident at a building in Kolkata. My deep sympathy and condolences for the bereaved families. I wish for the speedy recovery of the injured." Prime Minister Narendra Modi also took to Twitter and said, "Saddened by the loss of lives due to the fire tragedy in Kolkata. In this hour of sadness, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover at the earliest." Among the dead are four firemen, a police officer, a Railways officer, and a security person. Five of the nine bodies were found in an elevator on the 12th floor of the building in central Kolkata's Strand Road where the fire broke out on Monday evening. The victims appeared to have suffocated and burnt to death inside the lift.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal also expressed grief over the incident and ordered a high-level probe to ascertain the cause of the fire.

Taking to Twitter, he said, "Sincere condolences to the families of the 9 brave deceased including the 4 firefighters, 2 Railways personnel and an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police (ASI) who have been fighting the fire at the Eastern Railways Strand road office in Kolkata."
" I want each product of VGreen to be a bold mark to honour my countrys flavourful and fruitful agriculture and farming as well as showcase the richness and beauty of Vietnamese nature."

As a fan of natural friendly and healthy lifestyle and cuisine, Tran Thanh Viet found her love for healthy beverages thanks to a trip to a French wine farm and exploring the impacts of wine on the health and beauty of women. The passion and desire for creating healthy beverages from fully planted-in-Vietnam natural ingredients urged Viet to turn her dream and mission into reality, and so VGreen was born.

It sounds abstract, but the mission of a woman is very simple. Firstly, I can do the work I love and make me confident and proud of. When we women feel confident and happy, we will become more and more beautiful, and even younger than our own age. With what I have done in my mission with VGreen since 2006, I feel happier and younger with the natural non-alcohol products my team creates for our beautiful clients, said Viet.

According to Viet, we need to love ourselves and take care of our body and soul more carefully through the food we eat, beverages we drink, air we breathe, and the living spaces we stay and work in every day. If we take care of ourselves properly, age cannot become a reason to hinder the wonderful opportunities that life offers.

Those concerns have become the driving force to help her break her limits and bring her beauty maintenance know-how to share with everyone, especially women who want to lose weight. Viet is trying her utmost to help overweight women control their weight and improve their health by eating and drinking healthy using particular ingredients instead of fast medicines.

Her zero-degree ginger beer to help the body fight cancer and support weight loss; Kombucha fermented tea to detox the body and strengthen resistance; and pink collagen tea with anti-ageing and skin beauty effects are VGreens outstanding beverages that have received good responses from female clients.

In the near future, Viet hopes to build VGreen as a reputable healthy beverage brand with a Vietnamese identity in the international market.

I love Vietnam and I love my countrys tropical fruits and herbals. I want each product of VGreen to be a bold mark to honour my countrys flavourful and fruitful agriculture and farming as well as showcase the richness and beauty of Vietnamese nature, Viet explained.

With the motto of bringing a balanced, harmonious life between humanity and nature, VGreen products not only help to change the health index and help women maintain beauty, but also carry the message of environmental protection such as not using chemical preservatives or additives, and using environmentally-friendly materials for all beverage accessories.
- E-learning curriculum, Teacher Institute and new facilities enable countrywide access to ecology education

- Distance learning online module now available to educators, students and families to help address COVID-19 learning gap

- National initiative reinforces a shared commitment to environmental and sustainability education

SACO, Maine, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- At a time when many students have turned to online learning at home, The Ecology School, a pioneer and leader in environmental education, is teaming up with Nestle Waters North America (NWNA) and its Poland Spring brand (Poland Spring) to provide new ways to teach and learn about ecology. Together, Poland Spring and The Ecology School are providing students with top-of-the-line, virtually accessible resources, offering a new educational institution to train ecology education leaders nationwide and developing a sustainable learning facility in the Northeast.

The Ecology School is scaling their mission of inspiring stewardship of and connection to the natural world through nature-based lessons about ecology, conservation, farming and sustainability. Thanks in part to the more than $2.3 million in support over a three-year period from Poland Spring, together they have developed:

EcologyOnline sponsored by Poland Spring  , an e-learning curriculum available online for all students;

Teacher Institute for Watershed Science and Conservation, sponsored by Poland Spring  , an experiential professional development program for teachers across the country;

Poland Spring Education and Dining Commons, a recently constructed environmentally sustainable facility to foster educational experiences.

"Now more than ever, there's a need for virtual education and training that motivates people to get outside and explore the nature in their own backyards. These expanded programs help make environmental education more accessible today, and in the future," said Drew Dumsch, president/CEO and co-founder, The Ecology School. "Growing a national community of environmental stewards is a critical step in our mission to reset the future of people and our planet."

Story continues

"Bolstering The Ecology School's mission to bring about a more sustainable future is part of our long-standing commitment to environmental education," said Tara Carraro, Executive Vice President & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Nestle Waters North America. "Through our Poland Spring brand, we're taking a multi-faceted approach to help expand the scale of The Ecology School so that its impact goes beyond Maine and their innovative curriculum and approach is accessible to educators, parents and students from coast-to-coast. Through our giving pillars of Water, Packaging, Health, and Climate, we will continue to support organizations that share our passion to help create the next generation of water stewards."

When it comes to hands-on learning, COVID-19 has created additional challenges. Health precautions have forced many students to turn to online learning, limiting outdoor activities and opportunities. According to a recent survey by The Harris Poll, 73% of parents are concerned their child or children are losing knowledge due to virtual learning, and 69% of parents are concerned their child or children aren't getting enough exercise or time outside during the pandemic. To help ensure that students are able to advance their learning in healthy and productive ways, The Ecology School's new, virtual learning resources aim to get children and families outside to engage with nature and the environment.

As a proactive means to address the increasing learning gap for children, Poland Spring brand and The Ecology School are providing three new online and in-person approaches for teaching and learning about ecology.

EcologyOnline. The new online e-learning platform, EcologyOnline sponsored by Poland Spring, provides five learning modules as a curriculum designed by experts at The Ecology School and its educatiosnal partners. Each module contains an educational skit, at least three outdoor-focused activities, and action steps for real world application. Unlike most e-learning programs, EcologyOnline invites students to get out from behind the computer and take their learning outdoors, no matter their learning environment. The curriculum's online deployment paired with outside activities is focused on inclusivity across rural, urban and suburban areas. EcologyOnline is now available through EcologyOnline.org.

The Teacher Institute for Watershed Science and Conservation, sponsored by Poland Spring, has been created for the sole purpose of recruiting and training more environmental stewards and educators. Starting in August 2021, the institute will welcome K-8 teachers from across the country to The Ecology School's River Bend Farm campus in Maine for a four-day, hands-on educational program. Poland Spring is collaborating with The Ecology School to help ensure the program is available to teachers from communities where NWNA operates. Through a variety of outdoor-focused learning sessions, teachers will learn more about how to adopt more sustainable practices and how to inspire the next generation to participate in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. Over the course of three years, the program projects to enroll over 280 teachers in the institute. A key component of the program is its ability to provide financial aid to ensure that more teachers are able to join. Additionally, the Teacher Institute for Watershed Science and Conservation will provide teachers with 15 hours towards Continuing Education Units through the University of Southern Maine, an accredited university. Applicants can learn more or apply here.

The Poland Spring Education and Dining Commons, named one of the most sustainable buildings in the Northeast was constructed to help create a campus that models conservation-in-action with 200 rooftop solar panels, kitchen equipment that is 20% more efficient, LED lighting, skylights and composite wooden beams instead of steel. The 7,000 square-foot building features one of the few large-scale combustion-less, net-positive commercial production kitchens worldwide. The facility also uses sustainable processes like composting, water reclamation and waste reduction. Additionally, The Ecology School anticipates growing 100% of the produce served at meals through its onsite agroecology farm by 2025. The building also uses local Maine products such as Forest Stewardship Council certified Maine white pine boards. Poland Spring and The Ecology School will continue to work together to help ensure the Poland Spring Education and Dining Commons continues to set a standard in sustainable facilities.

Poland Spring and The Ecology School have a nearly 20-year relationship, during which they've worked together to help educate Mainers. With the help of these new programs, their local efforts will now be expanded to students and teachers across the country.

About The Ecology School

The Ecology School is a nonprofit ecology education center that transforms how people think about nature and the environment. Through joyful, hands-on, experiential programming students of all ages learn to become stewards of the environment as they explore local forests, coastal ecosystems, and food systems. Since 1998, The Ecology School has hosted more than 187,000 students and teachers from across the country, educating about the environment and our collective impact on the planet. In 2019, The Ecology School broke ground on its new campus at River Bend Farm in Saco, Maine. Learn more at TheEcologySchool.org

About Nestle Waters North America

Nestle Waters North America offers an unrivaled portfolio of bottled water brands for healthy hydration, including Poland Spring Brand 100% Natural Spring Water , Nestle Splash and Nestle Pure Life . The company also owns and operates ReadyRefresh , a customizable water and beverage delivery service.

Based in Stamford, Connecticut with approximately 7,000 associates in the United States, we manage natural resources for long-term sustainability, and we conserve more than 18,000 acres of natural watershed area. We currently source water for our six regional spring water brands from 38 active springs throughout the United States. We are also committed to creating shared value and being a good neighbor in the more than 120 communities where we operate in the U.S. For more information, visit us at https://www.nestle-watersna.com/en follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook: @NestleWatersNA.

(PRNewsfoto/Nestle Waters North America)

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-ecology-school-and-poland-spring-brand-launch-national-programs-to-expand-ecology-learning-301242907.html

SOURCE Nestle Waters North America
INDIANAPOLIS  The Indiana Department of Health announced Monday that 12,384 people have received a free COVID-19 vaccine at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including 4,169 who were vaccinated on Sunday. The clinic continues through Monday night. All appointments are booked.

As of Monday, 1,113,856 first doses of vaccine have been administered in Indiana, and 703,808 individuals are fully vaccinated.



Additional vaccination clinics are planned for March 12-13 at Ivy Tech Community College in Sellersburg and March 26-27 at the University of Notre Dame. All appointments are full at Ivy Tech, but limited appointments remain at Notre Dame. A clinic also is being planned in Gary for the weekend of March 20. Details will be announced when they are finalized.

Indiana COVID-19 Dashboard & Map

To find testing sites around the state, click here.

Appointments for these clinics must be scheduled in advance, and individuals must show proof of residency and eligibility upon arrival. Hoosiers age 50 and older, along with healthcare workers, long-term care residents and first responders who are regularly called to the scene of an emergency to render medical assistance, are now eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

To schedule, visit https://ourshot.in.gov or call 211.

As of Monday, 667,736 Hoosiers have been diagnosed with COVID-19, an increase of 480 from the previous day. A total of 12,315 Hoosiers are confirmed to have died from COVID-19, an increase of five from the previous day. Another 429 probable deaths have been reported based on clinical diagnoses in patients for whom no positive test is on record.

To date, 3,153,395 unique individuals have been tested in Indiana, up from 3,150,418 on Sunday. A total of 8,255,253 tests, including repeat tests for unique individuals, have been reported to the state Department of Health since Feb. 26, 2020.

The state and its partners are adding more locations for you to get vaccinated including select Meijer, Kroger, & Walmart pharmacies across the state.

Vigo Countys three Kroger locations are included.

All locations will show up on the state's vaccination website.

It's important to note Meijer and Kroger will have their own appointment sign-up areas on their websites.
A top American commander on Tuesday told lawmakers that the current state of US-India relations presents a historic opportunity to deepen bilateral defence ties and solidify what he described as the defining partnership of the 21st century'.

The US and Indian navies are now securely sharing information, and India has substantially increased its acquisition of US defence equipment, Admiral Philips Davidson, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee here during a Congressional hearing.

The United States strongly supports India's establishment of an information fusion centre focusing on maritime domain awareness, which will improve maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region and Bay of Bengal, he said.

The two countries, he said, concluded several agreements, including the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in 2018, which has greatly enhanced information sharing and interoperability.

The Industrial Security Annex (ISA), signed in December 2019 allows for the transfer of technologies in support of defence production while the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) allows sharing of unclassified geospatial information. The two countries also signed in October 2020 an agreement on Navy-to-Navy Information Sharing.

"Defence sales are at an all-time high with India operating US-sourced platforms such as P-8s, C-130Js, C-17s, AH-64s, CH-47s, Precision Guided-Excalibur Munitions, and M777 howitzers," he told lawmakers adding that in February, India agreed to acquire Apache and MH-60R multi-mission helicopters worth USD3.1 billion and is considering other US systems.

USINDOPACOM defines the security relationship with India as a strategic imperative, Davidson said.

"We expect substantial progress on interoperability and information sharing, service-level and joint military-to-military cooperation and exercises like TIGER TRIUMPH and MALABAR, and an increase in quadrilateral collaboration between India, Australia, Japan, and the United States as the relationship continues to mature, he said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading digital payment platform, Wirex, has launched its hotly-anticipated multicurrency Mastercard debit card in the UK and EEA, as well as its new rewards programme, X-tras, across the globe. After reaching 75,000 people on the waitlist for the new card, these new features will help to make crypto more accessible to everyone.

With nearly 3.5 million customers, the London-based fintech company made headlines in July 2020, after becoming Mastercard's first crypto-native principal member. Building on this partnership, the new Mastercard debit card will make users' lives borderless by enabling them to spend up to 18 crypto and traditional currencies in real-time. Mastercard principal membership enables Wirex to issue payment cards directly to consumers, making it easier for people to buy, hold and exchange multiple traditional and cryptocurrencies. Consumers can instantly convert their cryptocurrencies into traditional fiat currency, which can be spent everywhere Mastercard is accepted around the world.

The card will solidify Wirex's vision of making the digital economy accessible to everyone. Its features include real-time point-of-sale conversion, exclusive interbank and OTC exchange rates, free international ATM withdrawals, zero monthly fees and free fiat-to-fiat exchanges.

Mastercard UK & Ireland's Head of Fintech, Edoardo Volta, explained that, "The cryptocurrency market continues to mature, and Mastercard is driving it forward, creating safe and secure experiences for consumers and businesses in today's digital economy. Our work with Wirex is another example of how we are empowering consumers with more choice and peace of mind in the way they shop and pay."

The new multicurrency Wirex card is just one of Wirex's many new releases this year. Wirex X-tras, an upgrade of the company's rewards scheme, has also recently launched. Through an innovative new subscription model, customers can access X-tras including up to 2% Cryptoback on any in-store or online purchases made with their Wirex card and, for a limited time only, up to 12% Savings Bonus on their WXT account balance.*

Pavel Matveev, Co-Founder and CEO of Wirex, stated that "it's been Wirex's aim to continue developing a next-generation product that will bring crypto further into the mainstream, and the launch of the debit card and X-tras rewards scheme will make this a reality. The huge range of benefits that come with it will appeal to everyone from crypto-enthusiasts to frequent travelers and the financially-savvy, and will be a great alternative to traditional banks."

From today, Wirex users in the UK and EEA region can order the new Wirex debit card from the website, whilst the X-tras rewards programme will be available to customers globally in-app. For a limited time, Premium and Elite subscribers can access up to 4% and 12% Savings Bonus on their WXT account balance. Full details can be found at: wirexapp.com

*T&Cs apply - up to 12% Savings Bonus will be available to Elite subscribers and up to 4% to for Premium subscribers for the first 3 months of their plan, available for a limited time, after which they can earn up to 6% and 2% respectively.

About Wirex

Wirex is a worldwide digital payment platform and regulated institution that has forged new rules in the digital payments space. In 2015, the firm developed the world's first crypto-enabled payment card that gives users the ability to seamlessly spend crypto and traditional currencies in real life.

Wirex was created in 2014 by CEOs and co-founders Pavel Matveev and Dmitry Lazarichev, who identified the need to open up the esoteric world of cryptocurrencies and make digital money accessible for everyone. With the core aim of making it as easy as possible to use digital assets in everyday life, Wirex provides a trusted and cost-effective service for crypto and traditional currency transactions by incorporating the next generation of payments infrastructure integrated with cryptocurrency blockchains

With nearly 3.5 million customers across 130 countries, the company offers secure accounts that allow customers to easily store, buy and exchange multiple currencies instantly at the best live rates on one centralised mobile app. Quick and simple crypto transfer options are available, as well as the freedom to spend 150+ traditional and cryptocurrencies in more than 61 million locations around the world using the Wirex card.

Wirex continues to develop the product in line with market developments, whilst adhering to regional regulations and securing appropriate licensing where it exists. A proven industry pioneer, Wirex launched their own native utility token, WXT, and introduced the world's first crypto reward programme, Cryptoback, which earns cardholders up to 2% back in WXT for every transaction they make.

Wirex is based in London, with offices in Singapore, Kyiv, Tokyo, Toronto, Dallas, Dublin and Atlanta. With over $5bn worth of transactions processed already and rapid expansion into new territories, including the US and Japan, Wirex is uniquely placed to support and promote the mass adoption of a cashless society through creative solutions.

About the New Wirex Card

The new Wirex card is a multicurrency Mastercard debit card available to customers in the UK and EEA region. The new card transforms an already cutting-edge Wirex product and card that holds 13 currencies, significantly improving and adding many features to make it even easier to spend multiple currencies at any time.

It is linked to 10 traditional and 8 crypto secure accounts in the Wirex app, allowing Wirex cardholders to seamlessly buy, hold, exchange and spend multiple traditional and cryptocurrencies in day-to-day life. State-of-the-art technology enables users to automatically utilise these currencies with the contactless debit card, without the need to manually exchange into traditional currency or offboard, at over 61 million locations around the world.

Mastercard principal membership enables Wirex to issue payment cards directly to consumers, making it easier for people to buy, hold and exchange into multiple traditional and cryptocurrencies. Consumers can instantly convert their cryptocurrencies into traditional fiat currency, which can be spent everywhere Mastercard is accepted around the world.

Features such as up to 2% of Cryptoback rewards, the best in-market rates, and low-to-no fees ensure that the new Wirex card will make the digital economy more accessible than ever. Free international ATM withdrawals allow the card to be used as normal in any country, whilst zero FX fees will save users up to 3% compared to the competition.

Key features of the new Wirex card include:

Multicurrency travel card

Ability to buy, hold, exchange and spend 8 digital and 10 traditional currencies, with real-time conversion at point-of-sale

Available in 31 countries

Low-to-no commission on crypto purchases

No monthly fee

Free International ATM Withdrawals, with high limits

Cryptoback rewards

Best in-market rates

Free express card delivery

Automatically activated accounts

In-app live chat support

Immediate cascading to a different currency in a prespecified order in case of low funds

In-app currency exchange rates

Fast instant transfers to your contacts

About the X-tras Rewards Programme

The new X-tras rewards programme will give customers the option to choose from three versatile pricing plans. They will be able to unlock a range of benefits, including unlimited, instant Cryptoback rewards, Savings Bonuses and the chance to earn free WXT by introducing friends and family to Wirex.

Flexible price plans to suit every circumstance, broken into Standard, Premium and Elite

Up to 2% Cryptoback rewards for all in-store and online purchases, and 6% Savings Bonus on their WXT account balance annually

For a limited time, Premium and Elite subscribers can access up to 4% and 12% Savings Bonus for the first 3 months of their plan

Ability to share your unique referral link with friends and family and earn up to $10 in WXT if they join Wirex

| wirexapp.com | wirexapp.com/press |

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451520/Wirex_Card.jpg
Company Expands Sustainable Offering Based on Rapid Growth of Business in First Year Post-Launch

NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Chargeurs*PCC Fashion Technologies, the world's largest apparel interlinings manufacturer, today announced a new brand identity-Sustainable 360TM-for its permanent line of interlinings launched just over a year ago as the Sustainable 50 collection. The new name marks the collection's evolution into a stand-alone brand and reflects Chargeurs' full-circle commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The company also announced that Sustainable 360 will include innovative new performance interlinings and linings, such as those made with Lainiere Performance Silver for antimicrobial and anti-odor protection.

The Sustainable 360 product line is the first complete collection of both interlinings and inner components such as shoulder pads, canvas chest pieces, and undercollar felt made with eco-responsible materials, including BCI cotton, GRS-certified recycled polyester, hemp and recycled plastics. Since its launch, the collection has seen widespread adoption by leading brands that include Adidas, Claudie Pierlot, J. Crew, Macy's, Madewell, PVH, Target and Uniqlo. Banana Republic Men's, Columbia and Itochu are among the Chargeurs*PCC customers that have committed to creating whole ranges using Sustainable 360 interlinings exclusively in their products.

"Our sustainable collection has seen phenomenal growth since launching a year ago and based on that success, we designed the new Sustainable 360 brand identity to identify this as a permanent collection and more clearly convey to the market the breadth and benefits of our offering," said Audrey Petit, Managing Director of Chargeurs*PCC Fashion Technologies. "The name better illustrates what sets us apart from our competition-our complete commitment to corporate social responsibility, which goes far beyond just using recycled and sustainable materials."

Chargeurs*PCC has rolled out a series of innovations since initially launching its sustainable interlining collection, including manufacturing a line of circular-knit interlining products using an innovative, process patented by partner mill Weemeet that requires no water. The company is also creating coatings for products using recycled polyvinyl butyral (PVB), which is commonly used as a safety layer inside auto and building glass and then landfilled. At launch, the Chargeurs*PCC sustainable collection offered 50 items, but the range has now expanded to include more than 250 articles. In addition, the company can now sustainably manufacture any base material in its catalog of thousands of products, including nylon, polyester and cotton.

"Our brand is committed to producing clothing with as close to 100% sustainable materials as possible," said Tim Reid, Head of Brand at State of Matter, owned by Itochu Prominent. "The Sustainable 360 line allows us to source high-quality, sustainable inner components backed by a complete CSR program. Chargeurs*PCC's full-circle commitment is right in line with our mission to lead the industry into new best practices in sustainability."

Chargeurs*PCC is holistically committed to sustainability and is the only supplier in its market segment to have both signed the UN Global Compact and perform Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) on its facilities as well as those of suppliers, which covers all aspects of responsible business practice across Sedex's four pillars of labor, health and safety, environment, and business ethics.

In late 2020, Chargeurs Group received its first sustainability-linked Euro private placement loan. The 100 million bond underlines the deep commitment of the Group to Corporate Social Responsability and will enable the Group to deploy its investment strategy and roll out the Leap Forward 2025 program.

ABOUT CHARGEURS*PCC FASHION TECHNOLOGIES

Chargeurs*PCC Fashion Technologies provides end-to-end solutions for the world's leading fashion apparel brands by designing interlining, a technical fabric used to help garments retain their shape and structure. Its parent company, Chargeurs, is based in France and serves clients in more than 90 countries. Chargeurs has over 2,000 employees across 45 countries on five continents.

Contact:

Thomas Vogel

tvogel@chargeurs-pcc.com

Phone: +49 151 5036 8485

Media contact:

Alissa Heumann

Berns Communications Group

aheumann@bcg-pr.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451720/Logo_Chargeurs_PCC_Logo.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451721/Sustainable_360_Logo_Press_Release_Logo.jpg
RUEIL-MALMAISON, France, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Infor today announced that Aquitaine Hospitality, a brand of the hotel group Aquitaine Promotion, is expanding its deployment of Infor HMS (Hospitality Management Solution), the business solution dedicated specifically to the tourism, hotel and restaurant industries. The project, which began in 2016 with the implementation of Infor HMS at the Apparthotel Teneo Talence Espeleta, has gradually been extended to other properties, including the group's brand new modern accommodation concept: "Live Hotels."

To learn more about Infor HMS: https://www.infor.com/products/hms

Founded in 2000, Aquitaine Promotion group has organized its activities around three divisions devoted to real estate, restaurants, and hotel management. The group has 130 employees and owns 16 establishments (hotel residences, student residences, hotels and restaurants), two of which will be inaugurated this summer.

Aquitaine Hospitality strategically chose the Infor HMS solution to create more efficient, flexible and scalable management of operations associated with the various professions in the hotel industry. It is continually seeking to modernize practices and to invest in a solution capable of adapting to business requirements, brand and positioning specificities, and critical forecasting analysis models. This is particularly important in the context of current systemic crises but also with future resilience in mind.

"During our research, the Infor solution quickly became the option most attractive to us," said Damien Varigas, Aquitaine Promotion group's sales director. "Infor HMS responded to various requirements expressed by our teams and managers over the past few years. This is for both ergonomics and functional richness, particularly in terms of analytics, where we had real shortcomings."

The Infor HMS solution installed in SaaS mode supports Aquitaine Hospitality's natural growth evolution and operational excellence. Partnership with Infor helps to enhance the organisation's new concept of a lively, animated and collaborative hotel, integrated into the economic and social fabric of Bordeaux: Live Hotels. "This is a contemporary hotel concept that could not be envisaged without a high-performance technological platform capable of freeing us from constraints. This is particularly the case at reception, where we wanted to be completely dematerialized. We can achieve this thanks to mobile applications included in the Infor HMS solution," Varigas said.

"The relationship we have with Aquitaine Hospitality is in line with Infor's industry logic, which continues to invest in research and the provision of innovative technologies and functionalities. This is adapted to all types and sizes of independent hotels brands or hotel groups," said Christophe Rigault, Infor director of hospitality for southern Europe. "We are pleased to bring these key functionalities to Aquitaine Hospitality. Typically in times of crisis, Infor solutions like Infor HMS allow local players with a strong identity to be resilient and efficient without ever sacrificing the quality of services offered to their customers."

Infor has been a true technology partner to hospitality industry professionals for more than 20 years. Today, the company has more than 20,000 customers in the industry, including nine of the world's top 10 hotel brands. Infor partners with small individual hotels as well as large hotel groups to help them manage their operations with greater efficiency, specifically front- and back-office property management, revenue management, and sales and restaurant management. To learn more about Infor's offerings for the hotel, hospitality and restaurant industry, visit https://www.infor.com/en-sg/industries/hospitality.

About Aquitaine Hospitality

Aquitaine Hospitality is a brand of the Aquitaine Promotion group, a family-owned group founded in 2000 that develops quality real estate operations through its various specialized subsidiaries. Aquitaine Hospitality brings together all the hotel, student residence and apart-hotel management activities of the Aquitaine Promotion group. Aquitaine Hospitality is constantly reflecting on accommodation and housing solutions. Its teams are attentive to the market and constantly monitoring new concepts to integrate and to develop its brands, taking into account the latest innovations and new customer expectations. For more information: https://aquitainepromotion.fr/hospitality/

About Infor

Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. Providing mission-critical enterprise applications to 67,000 customers in more than 175 countries, Infor software is designed to deliver more value and less risk, with more sustainable operational advantages. We empower our 17,000 employees to leverage their deep industry expertise and use data-driven insights to create, learn and adapt quickly to solve emerging business and industry challenges. Infor is committed to providing our customers with modern tools to transform their business and accelerate their own path to innovation. To learn more, please visit www.infor.com .

For more information:

Richard Moore

Infor PR, EMEA

[email protected]

+447976111243

SOURCE Infor

Related Links

www.infor.com


Directed by Kevin Macdonald; written by M.B. Traven, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani; based on the book by Mohamedou Ould Salahi

The Mauritanian, directed by Kevin Macdonald, is based on the 2015 memoir Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Salahi, held for 14 years without charge in the American militarys Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention camp.

Scripted by M.B. Traven, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, the film powerfully exposes the reality of Americas war on terror. It lays bare the systematic criminality, including the use of illegal detention, torture and murder, of the Bush and Obama administrations, the US military, the CIA and other agencies.

Through the individual nightmare of Salahis decade-and-a-half ordeal, one comes to understand more deeply and viscerally the volcanic eruption of American imperialist violence with which humanity has come face to face.

Tahar Rahim in The Mauritanian

The events chronicled in The Mauritanian were set immediately into motion by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It should be clearer today than it was two decades ago that the Bush administration took advantage of the outrage produced by 9/11 to launch long-prepared, long-term invasions and occupations of Central Asia and the Middle East.

The September 2001 events also served as the occasion for a frontal assault on democratic rights in the US, including the passage of the 2001 Patriot Act, the proliferation of unchecked spying, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, torture and military tribunals associated with Guantanamo and CIA black sites, along with the militarization of police agencies and the persecution of Muslims and immigrants.

Mohamedou Ould Salahi, an innocent individual, was tragically caught up in this global maelstrom.

Justifying its conduct on the basis of the September 18, 2001 joint resolution of Congress authorizing President George W. Bush to use force against those who planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government, writes Salahi in Guantanamo Diary, started a secret operation aimed at kidnapping, detaining, torturing, or killing terrorist suspects, an operation that has no legal basis. I was the victim of such an operation, though I had done no such thing and have never been part of any such crimes.

Jodie Foster in The Mauritanian

Salahi was born in the northwest African nation of Mauritania in 1970. An exceptional student, he received a scholarship to study engineering in Duisburg, Germany in 1988. In 1991, he traveled from Germany to Afghanistan to join the mujahedin movement, swearing allegiance to Al Qaeda. After the central government fell, he returned to Germany and claimed he had no further involvement with Al Qaeda. He later spent time in Montreal working as an electrical engineer.

Salahi was subsequently detained and interrogated by the authorities of various countriesCanada, Mauritania, the United States and Senegalbut each time he was released for lack of evidence against him. However, in November 2001, he was asked to voluntarily report to a police station in Nouakchott, Mauritania for questioning, which he did.

The movie opens at this point, as a title explains, two months after 9/11. Mohamedou (Tahar Rahim) is picked up by the Mauritanian authorities because the Americans want to talk to you. He quickly deletes the contacts in his cell phone and says goodbye to his mother, who is grasping her Muslim prayer beads. He will never see her again.

In his book, Salahi writes: As to my arrest, it was sort of like political drug-dealing: the FBI asked the U.S. president to intervene and have me arrested; in turn George W. Bush asked the vanishing Mauritanian president for a favor; on receiving the U.S. presidents request, his Mauritanian colleague moved his police forces to arrest me. What happened to Salahi in his first years of imprisonment we only learn about later.

The Mauritanian

In 2005, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, criminal defense lawyer Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) is asked to inquire into Mohamedous situation. He has been accused of being one of the Al Qaeda masterminds behind 9/11, allegedly having fielded a call from Osama bin Ladens cell phone. Detained for several years, he still has not been charged with anything.

Hollander explains to her law firm that Im defending habeas corpus, which Bush and [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld are gleefully dismantling.  The US government is holding upwards of 700 prisoners in Guantanamo. We dont know who they are, the charges against them, and when or if, theyll ever appear before a judge. For support, she enlists the help of novice Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley), and they subsequently fly to Cuba to meet Mohamedou.

Simultaneously, Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose close friend died in the 9/11 attacks, is asked to prosecute the case and ensure Salahi gets the death penalty.

When Nancy and Teri meet Mohamedou, he explains that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And because of this they kidnapped me from my home, imprisoned me in Jordan for five months, then a military base in Afghanistanwhich was like living in a toilet, by the wayand then brought me here, with a bag on my head and chains around my body.  They think they can do it because I am an Arab and my country is weakand I am stupid.

The Mauritanian (directed by Kevin Macdonald)

Its like hes on some screwed-up round the world cruise, quips Teri. When the attorneys file a lawsuit against the US government, Rumsfeld and Bush, they receive 20,000 pages in redacted material. Confronted by a journalist from the Wall Street Journal who suggests she is a terrorist lawyer, Nancy responds: When I defended someone charged with rape, no one thought I was a rapist  But when its someone accused of terrorismwell, people like you think thats different.

In one affecting sequence, an emotional Mohamedou recites a Muslim prayer from his cell. Other voices further down the grim, dank corridor chime in.

Hollander, one tough cookie, loses her temper with Mohamedou when he questions her determination: The wardens at eight separate penitentiaries send me Christmas cards, okay?  Im down three marriages and I was on the wrong side of every one of them. I was a bad mother to my only son.  Because Im here, Im always here. This is my life. So dont question my commitment to your case.

The Mauritanian contains chilling scenes of torture, inflicted on Mohamedou at Guantanamo by US military intelligence in 2003 and 2004, crimes for which each and every participant and those who authorized them should be indicted and imprisoned.

Mohamedous US captors, pursuant to a special interrogation plan personally approved by Rumsfeld, do their barbaric worst. Their methods include long-term isolation, mock executions, sleep deprivation, excruciating stress positions, combined with various physical, psychological and sexual humiliations. The torturers threaten to rape his mother, keep him in a freezer and douse him with cold water, blast his ears with rock music, threaten to kill him and repeatedly beat him.

Humiliation, sexual harassment, fear, and starvation was the order of the day until around 10 p.m. Interrogators made sure that I had no clue about the time, but nobody is perfect; their watches always revealed it. I would be using this mistake later, when they put me in dark isolation. (Guantanamo Diary)

In Macdonalds movie, Hollander and prosecutor Couch finally have the opportunity to read the descriptions and transcripts of Salahis brutal tribulations. When a military colleague argues that Mohamedou has signed multiple confessions, Couch responds: He spent seventy days in special projects, tortured. Nothing he said will be admissible 

His torturers, Couch goes on, threatened to have Salahis mother shipped to Gitmo to be raped by other detainees. And its all documented, its systemic, OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] approved. Rumsfelds signature is on the top-sheet. The whole wells poisoned.  Whats been done here is reprehensible.

Couch adamantly avows that Im not going to do this. Its against the Constitution. Its against my principles as a Christian. Im not doing it. He is called a traitor and resigns from the case.

Later, when Nancy meets Couch, she remarks, You know, I think I figured out why they built the camp down there. We were both wrong. It wasnt the detainees they wanted to keep out of the courts, it was the jailers. My clients not a suspect, hes a witness.

Eventually Mohamedou has his day in court.

On October 16, 2016, 5,445 days after he drove himself to Mauritanias national police for questioning and was forcibly disappeared, Mohamedou was released from Guantanamo and flown home to Nouakchott, Mauritania.

The Mauritanians postscript informs us that on March 22, 2010, Salahi won his case. Nonetheless, the Obama administration appealed and Salahi was returned to custody for another seven years. Mohamedous mother died in 2013 never having seen her son since his arrest. Nancy Hollanders clients include one of the men still held in Guantanamo, and whistle-blower Chelsea Manning.

Neither the CIA, the Department of Defense, nor any other government agency has admitted responsibility or offered any apology for the abuse that occurred at Guantanamo. Of the 779 prisoners who have been held at Guantanamo, eight have been convicted of a crime, with three of those convictions overturned on appeal.

In this exceptional film, the cast was involved from the beginning, and enthusiastic to have the story told, director Macdonald explained in an interview. Rahim delivers an outstanding performance, bringing to life the resilience, fundamental optimism, sharp (and often necessarily dark) sense of humor and deep humanity of Mohamedou Salahi.

Explains Macdonald: He [Rahim] gave everything to it, and he suffered for it. He wore real chains, his legs were bleeding, and he insisted on not eating for three weeks. He would just eat one egg white day, so I was genuinely very worried. 

The filmmaker refers to the charming video clip at the films conclusion when the real Mohamedou sings along with Bob Dylans The Man In Me from The Big Lebowski, which, explains the director, is his favorite movie.

Foster and Cumberbatch add their tremendous skills and sincerity to the project. Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler captures the claustrophobic horror of the detention center hellhole even as guards or torturers surf in the Caribbean only a short distance away.

In an interview with Forbes, the filmmaker talked about Barack Obama not closing Guantanamoone of his election promises. Most of the people in Guantanamothe vast majoritywere just farmers. They were people sold down the river by somebody they thought was a friend who accused them of being al-Qaida for $50,000 or $100,000. I think something like 80 percent of the people sent to Guantanamo were basically just victims of that.

This is a terrible story, courageously and honestly told. Macdonald has an interesting filmography, but The Mauritanian elevates his stature enormously. This is a work, as it were, on the right side of history. All those involved deserve to be congratulated. If the film is given the opportunity to attract an audience, it will have a measurable impact on public opinion. It will contribute to the general disgust and horror with which Americas crisis-ridden, murderous rulers are viewed by increasingly wide layers of the US and global population. Along the way, The Mauritanian serves as a healthy antidote to the torture apologetics of such lying, miserable films as Kathryn Bigelows Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

In the final analysis, the war on terror, initiated by the invasion of Afghanistan, like the criminal war against Iraq, was not about terrorism, but rather part of Washingtons drive for global hegemony and, specifically, US dominance over two major oil- and gas-producing regions on the planet, the Caspian Basin and the Middle East.

What have nearly two decades of direct US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq wrought? Millions of deaths and millions more driven from their homes, creating the largest refugee crisis in history as the pandemic rages.

In Guantanamo, Mohamedou Salahi spent many sleepless nights, shivering in my shackles, eating countless tasteless MREs [ready-to-eat meals], and listening to Oh say can you see, by the dawns early light in an endless, repeating loop. Through The Mauritanian, Salahi, who has no hoods, barbed wire or shackles, no army or gang of torturers, now tells his side of the story.
It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
"Colorado Governor Jared Polis supports all Colorado students in their efforts to pursue a path beyond high school," said Dr. Angie Paccione, executive director of CDHE. "This is a culmination of that support, giving our students greater access to an affordable postsecondary education or training experience. We're pleased to see so many students applying for this state aid and we encourage more students to take advantage of the program."

Powering the CASFA Solution

Regent Education's Access software-as-a-service capability powers the CASFA solution. Regent Access enables financial aid awards for ASSET and undocumented students by providing an intuitive, web-based application with an interview format, personalized skip logic, integrated help, and Spanish translations. The CASFA has improved operational efficiency through data files that are exported automatically by the Department and available for importing into each participating institution's financial aid system in a format that matches the one used by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Colorado also became the first statewide Regent Access client to provide individual campuses with the ability to provide direct support to students applying to their institutions, further personalizing and easing students' financial aid journeys.

"Regent Education is proud to provide a financial aid automation solution that eases the application and awarding processes for these students. We are especially excited about the alignment of our mission  to empower aspiring students and the institutions who serve them  with the Department's commitment to providing open doors to education for its undocumented students. Regent was pleased to work alongside Colorado's financial aid and technical teams to expand the solution with state-specific enhancements and deliver the most functionally rich implementation of Regent Access to date," said Jim Hermens, CEO of Regent Education.

Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow (ASSET)

In 2019, the Colorado General Assembly passed HB19-1196, Financial Aid For Students With In-state Tuition, which allows state-funded financial aid to be awarded to students who do not have lawful immigration status but have resided in the state for at least three years before graduating from a Colorado high school or passing a high school equivalency exam and were admitted to a participating college within 12 months of graduating high school. These students are called ASSET students after Senate Bill 13-033, Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow.

About the Colorado Department of Higher Education

The Department of Higher Education works with the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, to support students, advocate, and develop policies to maximize higher education opportunities for all. The Department believes that all Coloradans should have education beyond high school to pursue their dreams and improve our communities. Read the CDHE master plan Colorado Rises. Visit https://highered.colorado.gov/ for more information.

About Regent Education

Regent Education is a leading provider of SaaS solutions that simplify the financial aid process for higher education institutions offering traditional and nontraditional enrollment models. Regent offers a suite of solutions encompassing the automation of financial aid management, verification processes, student financial planning, and state financial aid applications. Regent's financial aid management solutions offer institutions an unprecedented ability to automate the financial aid process to increase efficiency, mitigate compliance risks, expand enrollment, improve the student experience, and enhance financial management and financial aid lifecycle visibility. For more information, visit https://regenteducation.com/.

Contact



Regent Education

Diane Eves, Marketing Director

(301) 662-5592 or [email protected]

SOURCE Regent Education

Related Links

http://regenteducation.com


The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the State Transport Corporation (STC), Nana Akomea has made a shocking revelation about the losses that the State Transport Corporation has made since the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.



Coronavirus has struck all countries including Ghana and for the past year, the disease has infected thousands of Ghanaians and claimed hundreds of lives.



According to the Ghana Health Service, Ghana's current active case count stands at 4,866 with 373 new cases.



The country has recorded 86, 465 confirmed cases with 80,952 recoveries/discharge and 647 deaths.



The disease has negatively impacted companies just as much as it has affected economies and one of the companies is the STC.



Speaking on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" programme, Nana Akomea disclosed that the ravages of Coronavirus have caused the State Transport Corporation to lose millions of revenue.



He noted that since March last year till date, the company has lost 40 percent of its revenue amounting to over Ghc 2 million monthly.



"When the borders were closed because of COVID, we lose 2.2/3 million every month," he said.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer indicated Monday that she will not sign parts of the Republican-led Legislatures $4.2 billion pandemic relief bill that are tied to limitations on her executive powers.

One part of the Republican plan that passed the Legislature last week ties $840 million in federal school aid to a measure that would shift authority on closing schools and sporting events from the state to local health departments. Another ties $370 million in coronavirus testing funds to a proposal that would limit state public health orders to 28 days.

She called the power-limiting provisions in the relief plan nonsensical during a March 8 interview with MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle.

The Trump administration signed relief dollars before the change in administration in Washington, D.C., Whitmer said. Weve got $5 billion thats been allocated to Michigan, and the Legislature, which is Republican-controlled, is trying to hold those dollars back in trying to push me to relinquish executive powers Ive used to save lives.

They know thats never going to happen, and its just really sad, because weve got to deploy these dollars to get our kids safely back in school, to help small businesses that have been struggling, to help people that have been struggling, to build out our vaccine rollout... For our Legislature to play this dangerous game with resources we desperately need is really disappointing.

The three House bills that account for the $4.2 billion in relief spending are on Whitmers desk. Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, which would limit MDHHS orders to 28 days, still needs approval in the House. Whitmer vetoed a similar bill last session.

Read more: Michigan Republicans back $4.2B COVID-19 spending plan tying certain funding to limits on administrations authority

The Whitmer administration is in the process of reviewing the relief plan, said spokesman Bobby Leedy over the weekend.

Rep. Thomas Albert, R-Lowell, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, fired back at Whitmers comment on nonsensical proposals by calling her COVID-19 policies just that.

What is truly nonsensical is how Gov. Whitmer has handled much of the states response during this pandemic, he said in a statement, pointing to confidentiality agreements with former MDHHS director Robert Gordon, her strategy with nursing homes and more. The governors pandemic measures are not based on science  they are calculated to maintain her self-appointed power. The resulting economic devastation is crippling our state. It is time for her to change course and listen to what the people of Michigan are saying  enough is enough.

Should Whitmer veto only the funding tied to those proposals, more than $1.2 billion in federal funds would be removed from the pandemic relief plan. If she signs the rest of the plan, there would be $3 billion in mostly federal funds allocated to vaccination efforts, returning schools to in-person learning, food and rental assistance and relief for small businesses.

This plan responsibly and effectively puts billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 funding to use meeting our states most critical needs  getting more people the lifesaving vaccines, increasing testing and supporting our struggling families and job providers, Senate Appropriations Chair Jim Stamas, R-Midland, said in a statement last week.

Whitmer earlier this year issued her own $5.6 billion proposal for spending the funds, and Democrats have largely adhered to support of that plan. Whitmers plan contained some elements that Senate and House Republicans have argued arent immediately pertinent to coping with the pandemic, such as $225 million in grants for job creation initiatives and $5 million to boost security infrastructure at the Michigan State Capitol.

The Republican plan never had buy-in from Whitmer.

Read more from MLive:

COVID-19 aid, confidentiality agreements, guns and LGBT rights: The week in Michigan politics

Michigan House clears $4.2B COVID-19 spending plan, ties some funds to limits on health departments authority

Michigan Senate approves $1.9 billion for vaccine distribution, direct care worker payments, school aid

Whitmer vetoes bills that would limit public health orders and repeal governors emergency powers
Emails sent to a private account of Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk from one of her ministers, including one discussing the appointment of a director-general, have been declared party political and will not be made public.

Using private emails accounts for government business was banned in 2018.

Ms Palaszczuk has been pressured to release correspondence from her two personal email accounts  stacia1@bigpond.com and apbounce11@gmail.com  after the corruption watchdog said some emails might be considered public records.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the four emails had been examined by the Crime and Corruption Commission and they found no impropriety, nothing of interest whatsoever in any of them. Credit:Matt Dennien

The State Archivist kept four emails, three received and one sent by Ms Palaszczuk in 2015 and 2016, after determining they were public records that were required to be retained.
A major new study which aims to assess the impact of the current pandemic on the cultural and creative industries globally will be launched. This was announced by Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism  Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), inaugurating Culture Summit 2021.

This study will be conducted by DCT Abu Dhabi in collaboration with Unesco. The announcement was made alongside Audrey Azoulay, Director General of Unesco during the opening remarks of Culture Summit 2021, which launched its first virtual edition today, exploring the theme The Cultural Economy and the Economy of Culture.

Al Mubarak said: For any nation and society to blossom, it is imperative that art and culture are front of mind of its policy- and decision makers. The cultural and creative industries were one of the hardest hit during this pandemic. As part of our ongoing efforts to promote, support and invest in the cultural and creative industries, not just here in Abu Dhabi, but globally, we are proud to be partnering with Unesco to launch a new global study aiming to assess the impact of Covid-19 on this sector and the social and economic consequences of these impacts on a global level.

Azoulay said: To act in response to the crisis, we first need to understand it, to measure it. This is an essential step, a first step, because in many respects, the scope of the crisis makes it difficult to quantify. That is why we decided to launch with the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi, a global study on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the cultural economy. I am delighted to be joining HE Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, the Departments Chairman, to officially announce the study.

Culture Summit, a three-day event, which commenced yesterday and runs until March 10, will convene more than 100 global experts from fields such as design, heritage, media, public policy, and technology participating in a series of keynote speeches, panel discussions, conversations, case studies, artist talks, performances, film screenings. The summits activities are aligned with the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development 2021.

Discussions will explore the post-Covid sector recovery and transformation, envisioning a new system that is more resilient and adaptable to ongoing crises. It will also focus on the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development 2021, with the aim to showcase how the creative economy can advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals in education, economy, innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequality, and sustainable cities and communities. -- Tradearabia News Service
The Naked City podcast will take a journey into the dark depths of the Australian criminal underworld. In this series, you will hear recordings of some of Australias most dangerous criminals, all of whom have been remarkably frank in their recollections.

A murder investigation begins at the source and works its way out in growing circles. This is because it is an established fact that you are most likely to be killed by someone close to you.

When Jane Thurgood-Dove was murdered in front of her three children in the driveway of their Muriel Street, Niddrie, home in November 1997, her husband Mark was told he would be treated as a suspect until proven otherwise. He co-operated fully and the police quickly moved to the next ring.
404

  

              
New Delhi/Chandigarh, March 9 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday carried out searches at eight locations linked to Punjab Ekta Party MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira in Chandigarh, Punjab and also at the property of his son-in-law in Delhi in connection with drugs money laundering and fake passport racket case, officials said.

An ED official related to the probe told IANS, "Searches are going on since morning on several premises linked to Khaira in Punjab and Chandigarh." The official said that searches were going on at five locations in Punjab, one in Chandigarh and two locations in Delhi.

He said that ED's officials also carried out searches at the residence of Khaira's son-in-law Inder Veer Johal here in Delhi.

Sharing the details of the case, the ED official said that the drugs case was registered in Punjab's Fazilka after 1,800 grams of heroin, 24 gold biscuits, two weapons and some live cartridges, some Pakistani SIM cards were recovered. In that case, which was registered by the Punjab Police, conviction has already happened.

The official said that Khaira was associated with some of the convicted in this drugs case, and that was the reason why the financial probe agency carried out searches at his premises.

Sharing the details of the fake passport racket case, the officer said that in this case also Khaira has been associated with the people named in the case.

When asked about the role of Khaira's son-in-law, the officer said, "He used to help his father-in-law in money laundering through his company which works in the field of Wi-Fi systems." The team of ED sleuths were also carrying out searches at Sector 5 residence of Khaira in Chandigarh. At the time of the raid Khaira was present in the house along with his lawyer son.

Khaira is a legislator from Bholath and former Leader of Opposition.

The official said that the agency was looking after the property papers as well as banking transactions of Khaira.

However, Khaira denied any wrongdoing. His counsel blamed the raid for supporting the ongoing farmers' agitation.

Senior advocate R.S. Bains, who reached Khaira's residence, told the media that the raid was conducted to target those supporting the ongoing farmers' agitation against three new agricultural laws.

On March 8, Khaira supported the farmers by tweeting, "Our women farmers are our strength. They are sitting in the protest alongside men from last three months as well. They also know that how these laws will affect their lives. Their presence in the protest give us double power." In 2019, Khaira floated a new regional political outfit, the Punjabi Ekta Party, and vowed to give a clean alternative to the people of the state.

Khaira had resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party citing the 'dictatorial' attitude of party chief Arvind Kejriwal.
New Delhi, March 9 : Tightening the aviation safety checks, the civil aviation regulator has instructed all airlines to increase the pre-flight breath-analyser tests on 25 per cent of all pilots and cabin crew operations domestic flights.

Accordingly, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued the directive to airlines and other aircraft operators to increase the pre-flight breath-analyser tests from the present 10 to 25 per cent.

In a conversation with IANS, Arun Kumar, Director General of DGCA, said: "After protracted legal battles, we have been able to impose these measures. It is completely safe since the crew is anyways subjected to a RT-PCR test before the operation." "This move will enable strict adherence of safety norms and act as a deterrence." As per the order, every aviation personnel reporting for duty is required to submit an undertaking stating that he or she is not under the influence of alcohol.

Besides, the undertaking ascertains that the personnel has not consumed alcohol or psychoactive substances in the last 12 hours from the time of reporting for duty.

In case of violation, the crew's licence can be suspended for a period of three years.

The regulator had suspended the provisions for mandatory BA tests for pilots and cabin crew due to the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.

However, the provision was restored back in September 2020 but only on 10 per cent of air crew members operating domestic flights.

Furthermore, Kumar cited that the current norm will be reviewed periodically and it might be expanded in the future.

"We will further review the situation in a few months. If the situation demands, we might increase testing requirements to 50 per cent and ultimately to 100 per cent." In addition, Kumar said that more safety audits of airlines will be conducted in the coming period.

"Safety audits are an ongoing process. Now that the Covid situation seems to be coming under control, we will be carrying out more and more safety checks on the airlines," he said.

India's domestic air traffic has been on an upswing lately with more flight capacity being added by airlines.

(Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in) -IANS

rv/sn/ash
Hudson, NY (12534)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable.
Two fishermen plucked from the Firth of Thames after their boat sank are thankful for the efforts of two Waikato police officers who came to their rescue, and for quality lifejackets.

Thrown into the swells off the Firth of Thames after his boat capsized, Zak Grammer gripped his cellphone making a frantic emergency call.

He spent minutes on the line relaying his location before the phone went dead.

Clinging to a nearby chilly bin, all he and mate Jordan Ishigaki could do was wait in the choppy seas as darkness closed in.

It was some quick-thinking and resourceful actions of two eastern Waikato constables, who enlisted the help of a local boatie to retrieve them from the ocean, that helped save their lives that night.

Zak, 34, and Jordan, 27, had headed out from Te Mata in Zaks 5m boat around 4.45pm on Wednesday, February 10.

The report was good and the Firth was flat as a pancake, says Zak.

The pair arrived at the mussel barges around 5.30pm fishing for snapper, when the wind picked up.

It shows how quickly things can turn, says Zak. By then it was getting choppier, so we packed it in and were coming across the Firth when the wind picked up.

Within 20 minutes, the pair realised they could be in trouble.

All of a sudden the engine cut out and a wave came straight over the top  that was half the boat. We started bailing out when the second wave came, really quickly.

The nose of the boat went up, tossing Jordan into the sea. Zak was pulled under the canopy and popped up to find his boat three quarters under water.

Both in the ocean, they popped their lifejackets and scrambled to grab the nearby chilly bin.

Constables Jordan Crowe and Ben Mason enlisted the help of another boatie to retrieve the pair from the ocean.

Still holding his cellphone, Zak was able to click the power button on his iPhone sending an SOS call to the operator.

There was a moment of doubt where I thought I said the wrong location.

Then the phone cut out.

It was pretty rough by now  we were bobbing up and down, says Zak.

With the sun setting, the pair held onto the chilly bin, thankful for their lifejackets.

It was choppy, the wind was cold and we were both starting to shiver a bit.

Acting Sergeant Leon Balvert was in Paeroa when he received the call reporting the pair in trouble in the water.

We had a call from comms reporting that a boat had sunk in the Firth of Thames. It was initially reported to be from around Pipiroa but we couldnt get an exact location, so comms pinged the cellphone and got a more accurate location off from Waikawau.

While Coastguard were notified, Polices Eagle was dispatched from Auckland. Eagle Helicopter Tactical Flight Officer, Acting Sergeant Mark Jamieson, says the crew began a search starting at the last known position using the last of the daylight.

We located the boat floating just below the surface pretty quickly - then some flotsam from the boat, and then finally the lifejacketed-pair floating in the ocean clinging to a chilly bin.

With darkness closing in and a rescue vessel still to arrive at the scene, conditions were getting more complicated, he said. Pressure was on to get the men out of the water before the helicopter had to refuel.

Responding from Thames under priority were Constables Jordan Crowe and Ben Mason.

As they travelled the Pacific Coast Road, they couldn't see a single boat in the sea.

They arrived at Waikawau boat ramp to find a lone vehicle and empty boat trailer. A quick query on the registration showed it was a match.

We were running blind  their phone had died and it was quickly getting dark, Leon said.

At the boat ramp, Jason Bithell and his partner had just motored in on their 5-metre aluminum and were heading home when they encountered the constables.

Acting Sergeant Leon Balvert, Jordan Ishigaki, Jason Bithell (back), Zak Grammer and Constable Jordan Crowe.

Having found out Eagle had located the pair, and knowing time was imperative, the constables asked Bithell if he would relaunch his boat. He agreed and together the trio headed out in the windy and choppy conditions to where Eagle was circling.

Zak and Jordan could see the lights from shore, and chopper overhead. They had been in the water for about an hour-and-a-half when the constables arrived and pulled them to safety.

We were cold, and a bit shaken. Definitely relieved, says Zak.

It was a bumpy ride back for all five as they navigated the swells in darkness.

The pair were wrapped in police rain jackets and given blankets before being checked over by St John onshore and driven back to Paeroa by police.

It was great instincts by the constables  they realised we needed to get out there and get them  they were resourceful and brave, says Leon.

Zak said it showed the importance of having good quality lifejackets, with reflectors and a whistle, and wearing them at all times on the water as things can happen fast. And having a phone or form of communication in a watertight case.

That was two things that saved us," says Zak. "For the amount it costs for the value of your life, it's worth it.

He thanked the constables and Jason Bithell for their lifesaving efforts.

Thank you to New Zealand Police - It was some quick-thinking in getting that guy to get out there and get us.

-Police Ten One Magazine.
Hudson, NY (12534)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable.
Tiberio and his team have put together an integrated value chain that accelerates the move online in a matter of hours, not months. DeliverAI clients can be up and selling within three days, quickly finding new revenue channels to replace physical walk-ins that have been lost due to the pandemic.

"DeliverAI is a story of entrepreneurial resilience as much as it is one of innovation. Over the past few months, we've been hearing sombre stories of businesses suffering as an unprecedented pandemic cuts them off from physical customers. For us, it's not just about creating something powerfully unique, but also saving industries and jobs. We genuinely want to help those brave entrepreneurs who've built businesses from scratch and have often sunk their lives into them," said Tiberio.

DeliverAI operates as a Software As a Service (SaaS) solution, but crucially does not end there. The DeliverAI team are intent on creating a full ecosystem around the software with a network of partners that includes local banks, telecom providers, delivery fleets and logistics experts. The team also offers access to web and app developers, fulfilment partners and payment gateways.

"DeliverAI is more a service than a software. We're disrupting the old pattern of complex integrations and expensive software requiring extensive configuration. The bottom line is to get goods to customers, and money into business bank accounts, as fast as possible to mitigate the pain SMEs are feeling," Tiberio explained.

The solution is omnichannel  hyper-accelerating a pivot to online selling across multiple social and messaging channels, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

"SMEs have tight budgets these days, but that doesn't mean they can do without quality. We're offering high-quality products that match the biggest e-commerce players in the market, and putting them directly in the hands of SMEs. We also support them throughout their journey, with aftersales support, troubleshooting and anything else they might require  from AI-enriched customer relationship management to streamlined last-mile delivery," said Tiberio.

Importantly, SME clients get collect and keep their own customer data, creating long-lasting relationships with them that increase the lifetime value of their customers. Other points of differentiation include AI-enabled consumer analytics that suggest activations and initiatives, and powerful insights to tailor outreach campaigns. The platform also unlocks deep insights to optimise business decisions by deciphering consumer behaviour.

Even when COVID-19 is no longer a pressing concern, Tiberio sees DeliverAI accelerate much-needed digital transformations for SMEs across the region. "SMEs represent over 70% of the region's GDP, for example, but only 4% of these SMEs in the Mena region have a plan for digital transformation. They need attention, support and easy-to-follow digital roadmaps given their importance as the main driver of economic growth," he concluded.

Raffaele Tiberio, +971553396929

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1452595/DeliverAI_CEO.jpg

SOURCE DeliverAI
Ukraine, Japan approve health certificates for milk, dairy exports from Ukraine

Japan is one of Ukraine's largest trade partners.

Reporting by UNIAN

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter
Despite the fact that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's one-year term as head of the African Union ended in 2020, Cairo's cooperation with African countries is growing as a fundemental pillar of Egypt's foreign policy. On March 4, Sisi received Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo in Ittihadia Helioplis Palace, where they discussed economic, military and security cooperation.

On Feb. 20, Sisi received a call from Embalo, who stressed his country's keenness to strengthen bilateral relations in various fields. According to an Egyptian presidency's statement, the two presidents agreed to work on improving trade exchange and developing the capabilities of Guinea-Bissau cadres to lay the foundations of state institutions and face the security challenges in the region.

A few days before that phone call, on Feb. 17, Egypt's ambassador to Conakry Tamer al-Meligy met with Embalo to express Egypt's keenness to transfer its expertise to African countries, including Guinea-Bissau, with the ultimate aim to achieve high growth rates across the continent, improve living conditions and promote prosperity.

Prior to this meeting, Embalo visited Istanbul Jan. 30, where he held a closed-door meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish and international newspapers did not reveal any details about the agenda of the meeting. Yet several Turkish newspapers considered it a sign of rapprochement between Turkey and West African countries, led by Guinea-Bissau.

Rashad Abdo, head of the Economic Research Forum, told Al-Monitor that in recent years, Egypt opened up to major economic countries after Sisi attended the G-7 summit in 2019, and the G-20 summits in 2017 and 2019, noting that Cairo succeeded in developing strong partnerships with prominent entities such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

He said that Egypt's openness to those countries and prominent entities can attract international investments and aid to Africa in general, and Guinea-Bissau in particular, to finance the latter's needs in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its needs in investments to develop infrastructure.

Alone, he explained, Turkey cannot develop the infrastructure in those countries, nor will it be able to attract the investments of major economic powers to African countries, like Egypt does, given the tension between Turkey and several of those economic powers, namely France, which also has a strong influence in West Africa.

Abdo said that Egypts leadership for the African efforts to establish an African Continental Free Trade Area which will offer opportunities for Guinea-Bissau to increase exports to other African countries  paves the way for Egyptian influence to outweigh the Turkish influence in Conakry.

Noha Nofal, director of Regional Trade Agreements at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, announced in an official statement Feb. 23 that 54 out of 55 African countries, including Egypt and Guinea-Bissau, have signed the African Continental Free Trade Area, which will soon enter into force after it was delayed in July 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Fajr Abdul Fattah, a retired professor of international econom from the Institute of African Studies, told Al-Monitor that Guinea-Bissau represents a promising market for Egyptian products and that the Egyptian authorities should pay attention to it. The Sisi administration realizes the importance of the African continent, regardless of any competition between Egyptian and Turkish influence, especially since Turkey's influence there will likely be minimal compared to the influence of some European countries such as France, which has the largest economic influence in West Africa, he explained.

Abdul Fattah said that although there are about 381 million people in West African countries  which make up 31% of the 1.216 billion total population of Africa  Egypt's exports to these countries do not exceed 7% of its total exports for the entire continent, as Nofal said in her statements, which means that these countries, including Guinea-Bissau, represent an opportunity that has not yet been exploited by Egypt.

The total trade exchange between Egypt and Guinea-Bissau in 2019 amounted to about 1.1 million Egyptian pounds ($71,000), only $7,000 of which were Egyptian exports, according to TradeMap, which specializes in monitoring trade exchange between countries. Guinea-Bissau is thus one of the countries with the lowest trade exchange rate with Egypt.

Zakaria Othman, a former researcher at the Arab and African Research Center, told Al-Monitor that the most important aspect of the talks between Embalo and Sisi was the need to transfer Egyptian expertise to Guinea-Bissau cadres to face security challenges, in light of Egypts interest in fighting terrorism before it regains ground in Arab and African countries, as happened in Syria, Iraq and Nigeria.

Othman noted that Guinea-Bissau, through its Atlantic coasts, might play a prominent role in cutting off the supply lines of terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and Boko Haram in West and Central Africa, and it could also prevent the infiltration of terrorists across its borders to Senegal, from which Boko Haram operatives move to Mauritania and Mali to form the most dangerous potential terrorist hotspots at the moment.

The authorities of Guinea-Bissau thwarted many smuggling operations that were carried out for the benefit of al-Qaeda, most notably in 2019, when the authorities seized nearly 2 tons of cocaine before they moved from the coasts of Guinea-Bissau to the coasts of North Africa. The Guinean intelligence said at the time that the drugs shipment was coming from Colombia to be sold and distributed to al-Qaeda in North Africa and West Africa.

Meanwhile, in his March 2 statement, Saudi Arabia's minister of state for African Affairs Ahmed Kattan accused Turkey of using rapprochement with African countries to support terrorist organizations there in a way that serves its interests and the interests of Iran.
Frankfort, KY (40601)

Today

Thundershowers following a period of rain early. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 71F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. Low 62F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Brian Baker - Senior Cloud Solutions Consultant for RapidScale I am very excited to join RapidScale and help grow our business here in North Carolina. The marketplace is yearning for a cloud computing service provider that partners with companies to increase IT productivity, improve security and empower remote workforce efficiency.

RapidScale, a Cox Business company, focused on delivering managed cloud solutions to the mid-market and small enterprise, welcomes Brian Baker to the team as a senior cloud solutions consultant for Raleigh, North Carolina. Reporting to Director of Sales, East Andrew Laughter, Baker is dedicated to executing on the companys go-to-market and sales strategy within the region.

When RapidScale expanded its headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, our local office grew from a handful of employees to over 100 in just two years. The area is rich with top talent and were thrilled to add Brian to our roster, said Bob Buchanan, executive vice president, sales for RapidScale. Today, there are numerous business use cases for cloud computing with widespread market demand. There is a healthy appetite to move to the cloud, but many organizations lack the time, internal resources, or knowledge to ensure success. Thats where we come in. Im looking forward to teaming with Brian as we aggressively expand our regional strategy to serve customers as they launch their cloud journey.

Baker has spent his entire career in the technology sector within North Carolina. Before joining the RapidScale team, he held several sales and business development leadership positions. Baker served as vice president of business development, southeast for Sentinel Data Centers and during his tenure, Sentinel was acquired by CyrusOne for $490M. Additionally, he served as vice president of sales at Hosted Solutions, where he defined the company's sales strategy and grew company revenue from $9M to $49M in less than four years, which led to an acquisition by ABRY Partners for $144M.

Brian has a very distinguished career in IT. We are thrilled to have an industry vet and technology expert serving customers in a region where cloud services are in high demand, said Laughter. Our clients will benefit from his extensive expertise and strategic technology partnership when it comes to finding the right cloud solution for their businesses.

In 2010, Baker was awarded the prestigious 40 Under 40 award from the Triangle Business Journal, in recognition of his business accomplishments and community involvement. He held a seat on the board of directors for the North Carolina Technology Association and previously served as president of the North Carolina chapter of AFCOM. His renowned reputation of driving tremendous profit to his sales organizations demonstrates his ability to successfully acquire and gain the trust of his clients.

I am very excited to join RapidScale and help grow our business here in North Carolina. The marketplace is yearning for a cloud computing service provider that partners with companies to increase IT productivity, improve security and empower remote workforce efficiency, said Baker. RapidScale has established itself as an industry-leading provider with an excellent technology platform and a first-class team whose collaborative approach to technology will be well received by the community.

About RapidScale

Flexible enough for the SMB and powerful enough for the enterprise, RapidScale, a Cox Business company, is a global managed cloud services provider helping organizations increase IT productivity, improve security, and empowering remote workforces. Some organizations partner with RapidScale to manage portions of their IT, while others offload it all. Through our global network of data centers and our 24/7/365 high-touch support team, we obsess over creating an exceptional IT experience through a human approach to managed cloud. For more information on RapidScale, visit http://www.rapidscale.net.

Cox Communications owns Cox Business and is a facilities-based provider of voice, video, and data solutions for commercial customers. More information about Cox Communications, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, is available at http://www.cox.com.

About Cox Business

The commercial division of Cox Communications, Cox Business provides voice, data, and video services for more than 355,000 small and regional businesses nationwide, including health care providers; K12 and higher education; financial institutions; and federal, state, and local government organizations. The organization also serves most of the top-tier wireless and wireline telecommunications carriers in the U.S. through its wholesale division. For more information, please visit http://www.coxbusiness.com.

Media Contact

Nikki Salazar

nikki.salazar@rapidscale.net
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Targets and measures aimed at further improving people's well-being have been unveiled in China's latest government work report and draft development blueprint, revealing the country's pursuit of common prosperity.



At the annual sessions of the top legislature and the top political advisory body, deputies deliberated the 2021 government work report and the draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for national economic and social development and the long-range objectives through the year 2035.

The draft outline aims to improve the well-being of the people by boosting employment, actively responding to an aging population, and raising the average life expectancy by one year in the next five years. The per capita disposable income will also keep pace with GDP growth.

Employment a priority

While containing COVID-19, the Chinese government has encouraged the resumption of work and production to boost employment and people's well-being.

The country reduced the burden on market entities by more than 2.6 trillion yuan (about 401 billion U.S. dollars) last year, including 1.7 trillion yuan in social insurance premium cuts and exemptions, the government work report read.

"It is with the government support that my business has survived," said Du Dungang, chairman of a snack company based in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province.

Du's company mainly exports its products but met with operational difficulties early last year when orders worth 11 million yuan were canceled due to the pandemic. The company was on the brink of bankruptcy when it received a bank loan of 10 million yuan with the government's help. It then managed to sell its stock to the domestic market.

The survival of the business has kept more than 30 workers employed. Even in the toughest time when it suspended operations, the company managed to make its payroll.

"They are all my old pals and have to support their families," Du said.

China saw 11.86 million urban jobs added in 2020, and the year-end surveyed urban unemployment rate dropped to 5.2 percent. Another 11 million urban jobs will likely be added in 2021, according to the report.

More income, more consumption

Despite the epidemic, China has successfully eradicated absolute poverty -- a historic feat for the world's most populous nation.

The government work report said China would set a five-year transition period to consolidate and expand its achievements in poverty alleviation and continue to promote rural vitalization.

In a drive to boost consumption at county and township levels, China will promote e-commerce and express delivery services to cover rural areas in 2021, the report said.

The five-year plan draft outline promised to use multiple channels to add income to the low-income group and expand the size of the middle-income group, among other measures to optimize the income distribution structure.

Xu Xiaoying, a migrant worker from east China's Jiangxi Province, said she was glad to learn that the country will take actions to include migrant workers in the middle-income group.

"The wages of migrant workers are relatively low, and higher income will not only improve our living standards but also help stimulate consumption," she said.

Better healthcare, better education

According to the government work report, government subsidies for basic medical insurance for rural and non-working urban residents will increase by an average of 30 yuan per person this year. Subsidies for basic public health services will also increase. More medicines for chronic and common illnesses and high-priced medical consumables will be covered by bulk government purchases to lighten the burden on patients.

"Improved healthcare is necessary as high medical bills could drag a family into poverty," said Wang Yan, a bus driver and lawmaker from north China's Tianjin Municipality.

In the next five years, China will build a high-quality education system by deepening educational reforms. The average number of years of schooling among the working-age population will rise to 11.3, the draft outline said.

The basic old-age insurance coverage will reach 95 percent by 2025 from 91 percent in 2020, it said.

Other aspects addressing people's well-being include renovations of old urban communities, more kindergartens, and an increased number of doctors.

John Ross, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies under Renmin University of China, said the increasing income and more complex needs will significantly enrich the lives of the Chinese people.

"By 2035, the well-being of the people will reach a new level," he said.
TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) -- One Tupelo Housing Development stopped on Monday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of the project.

Housing developments Hancock Estates and King Pines had a ribbon-cutting at the offices on (the newly renamed) Ida B. Wells Street.

Mayor Jason Shelton and others cutting the ceremonial ribbon on Monday. Photo taken 03-08-21.

The Hancock Estates sign by the road. Photo taken 03-09-21. The Hancock Estates sign by the road. Photo taken 03-09-21. Mayor Jason Shelton and others cutting the ceremonial ribbon on Monday. Photo taken 03-08-21.

Several people spoke about the impact they said this new affordable community is making for people living in Tupelo.

76 new families moved into new homes built in Hancock Estates and King Pines communities in midtown Tupelo.

Brandi Ryland is the property manager for Hancock Estates, and she said she got to interact with some of the people who live there.

"They're grateful to be able to have a place that they can actually call their own."

She said these houses are very positive for the community.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony lasted around half an hour, with singing, applause, speaking, and finally, the big moment when the ceremony concluded with a countdown from 10 and the ribbon-cutting.

Willie Jennings of the city council said most of the 78 homes are in his ward. He explained a dilapidated apartment complex used to stand on the property.

The city bought the land and demolished the complex, then sold it to Hancock Estates and King Pines who built the communities up into what they are.

"A lot of them were calling me, said it was unbearable with the conditions they were living in. Now they're living in good, affordable houses," Jennings said. "We have another two phases similar to this in the near future, and I want to be a part of that."

Councilwoman Nettie Davis said these homes are a great thing for the city of Tupelo and the people who live there.

"Owning your own home is the American Dream, and I just feel that is has really captivated the community," Davis said. "Everybody seems very proud to be in their own home."

A couple of people at the ceremony said that all the houses are already full. They said there are now more than 200 families on a waiting list in case someone moves out.

The two developments are rental properties consisting of two and three-bedroom homes. The property owners will give tenants a chance to purchase the property after renting for 15 years.

One man explained that the house should cost the buyer about $60,000 - $70,000.

He added all people have to pay in that first 15 years is the rent. Workers keep the homes updated and maintained.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
South Africa: Business support crucial to save jobs: President Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa says every effort must be made to support local businesses that were severely affected by COVID-19 in a bid to save jobs and create new ones.

We have to save existing jobs and stimulate the economy for new ones to be created, President Ramaphosa said on Tuesday at the 9th annual Proudly South African Buy Local Summit & Expo.

Held virtually under the theme, Localisation as a driver of Economic Growth, President Ramaphosa said supporting the Buy Local movement must, as a necessity, encompass investing in quality, sustaining local businesses, and keeping jobs at home.

We have to step up our efforts not just to get locals to buy local, but to improve the entry of our goods, products and services into export markets as well.

As government, as State-owned enterprises, as businesses, as individuals and as leaders, we need to set an example, President Ramaphosa said.

President Ramaphosa said companies with long histories and deep footprints in the domestic market have been badly affected by the pandemic. Many companies have had to downscale and others have been forced to close.

The President said with the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, the work of Proudly South African has taken on even greater significance.

Given the global economic climate, we can anticipate decreased demand for our goods, products and services, even from our traditional export markets.

President Ramaphosa said there is an express undertaking to increase local procurement over the next five years.

Apart from its own procurement commitments, government is working to lower the barriers to entry to make it easier to establish and grow a business in South Africa.

To support existing manufacturers, we are enforcing measures to stop the illegal importation of goods, which weaken our local market.

President Ramaphosa said government is working to identify localisation champions to help drive import replacement programmes across various industries and for specific projects.

If local procurement is to be at the scale and impact we envisage, we have to deepen our collaboration.

Through legislation, we have designated 27 sectors for local procurement by the public sector. Proudly South African is playing an important role in monitoring compliance with these designations.

It is clear that even in the public sector, we still have some distance to travel to ensure effective compliance.

President Ramaphosa encouraged every South African to make a conscious decision to buy local goods.

Our message must be that wherever you may be in the country, be Proudly South African. Wear local, travel local, eat local, watch local content, read local authors, support local music, and use local raw materials in your businesses.

It grows our economy, creates jobs, broadens markets and creates numerous opportunities for business expansion.

Master plans deepen localisation

President Ramaphosa welcomed the fact that the various master plans that have been concluded in different industries are paying off. These are in the automotive industry, clothing, textiles, footwear and leather industry, poultry industry and the sugar industry.

Other master plans in their final stages are for the furniture and plastics industries. These plans work to ensure that the respective value chains are localised for the benefit of the South African economy and the creation of jobs.

The plans include significant investment commitments from both government and stakeholders to drive up productivity and employment, the President said.

The automotive master plan aims to double the amount of job opportunities by increasing the level of local content in vehicles assembled in South Africa from 39% to 60%.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2021-03-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
The Winnipeg Transit Master Plan proposes to create a network of six rapid transit corridors and redraw most existing local bus routes over the next 25 years.

The Winnipeg Transit Master Plan proposes to create a network of six rapid transit corridors and redraw most existing local bus routes over the next 25 years.

That entire plan could cost up to $1.5 billion, according to early price estimates, should council approve it.

CITY OF WINNIPEG Winnipeg Transit Master Plan 2021

A new proposal calls for the city to seek federal and provincial funding under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program to support the first six capital projects within the plan, which would cost a combined $539 million.

While the provincial government recently lobbied the federal government to transfer money earmarked for Winnipeg Transit under that program to fund unspecified "green projects" throughout Manitoba, Transit is banking on the cash to make its vision a reality.

"Were obviously pinning our hopes on getting that funding from the federal government and the provincial government because its really key to improving the system in the way that we think is needed," said Bjorn Radstrom, Winnipeg Transits manager of service development.

The price would include between $600 million and $1 billion for rapid transit infrastructure, which would link corridors to form three rapid transit lines that extend throughout the city, one of which includes the Southwest Transitway.

If approved, funding from the two senior governments would cover 69 per cent of the cost for the first set of projects, which include a $17.3-million radio and intelligent transportation system replacement, a $200.1-million North Garage replacement, a $280.4-million investment in zero emission buses, a $7-million design for rapid transit downtown corridors, a $20.4-million primary transit network infrastructure project and a $13.8-million wheelchair securements retrofit. The city would cover the remaining 31 per cent.

While many funding and final design details have yet to be worked out, Radstrom said the investment would make transit a practical transportation option for far more Winnipeggers.

"In the new transit network, almost three times as many homes in Winnipeg will be within a 500-metre walk of all-day, frequent transit service (than the current one)," he said.

CITY OF WINNIPEG Winnipeg Transit Master Plan propsed rapid transit network.

Winnipeggers can expect plenty of changes to meet that goal.

"Every single route that exists outside of Southwest Winnipeg will be replaced with something new. Were redrawing the whole network from scratch," said Radstrom, stating the plan would create a more grid-like system.

While the city has previously noted that much of its future rapid transit expansion will take place on existing streets, instead of dedicated corridors, Radstrom said the new plan does require plenty of downtown construction.

For rapid transit, a downtown "mobility hub" at Union Station would be built where all six corridors and three lines would intersect.

The rapid transit lines would also link up to smaller neighbourhood routes, creating a more integrated system.

CITY OF WINNIPEG Winnipeg Transit Master Plan showing proposed rapid transit lines.

Council will soon be asked to seek funding for the first six projects. A city staff report says the federal government wrote to the city in February, stating it "will always remain a committed partner in supporting transit expansion."

On Monday, Manitoba Central Services Minister Reg Helwer said it would be premature for him to comment on the master plan until city council has had a chance to consider it.

"Should council decide to advance it, well go through our analysis and make recommendations to Treasury Board  the province doesnt proactively respond to the mayor of the City of Winnipeg on his wishes," Helwer told reporters at the Manitoba legislature.

 with files from Larry Kusch

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
(Natural News) Anyone caught spreading misleading information about Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines on Twitter will be given five chances to stop before being forever banned from the social media platform, the company recently announced.

A new strike system will reportedly keep track of the number of times a Twitter user says something bad about Chinese virus vaccines. Each time the punishment will increase until eventually that user is struck from the platform for good.

This is Twitters way of ensuring that as many people as possible are misled into taking an experimental gene therapy vaccine that will forever alter their DNA through genetic engineering and reprogramming.

Similar to Facebooks anti-misinformation advertising banners and Instagrams fact check overlays, Twitter is doing its part to keep a lid on all offensive information that might lead a person to skip getting the jab due to concerns about safety and efficacy.

Both human and automated review systems will begin the rollout, which will initially focus on English language content. Eventually, the system will go global, preventing the spread of anything other than positive news about Wuhan flu shots.

According to Twitter, the company is relying on the following five categories to identify false or misleading information about Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines:

 Misinformation about the nature of the virus

 Misinformation about the efficacy of treatments and preventive measures

 Misinformation about regulations, restrictions and exemptions in association with health advisories

 Misinformation about the prevalence of the virus and the risk of infection or death

 Misleading affiliations (for example, claiming to be a doctor or public health official)

As for Twitters punishment guidelines for the different number of strikes, The Verge reported that:

 One strike means no account-level action

 Two strikes mean a 12-hour account lock

 Three strikes mean another 12-hour account lock

 Four strikes mean a seven-day account lock

 Five or more strikes mean permanent suspension

Twitter loves censorship unless Twitter itself is being censored

Twitter holds the position that censorship is always good unless Twitter itself is the subject of censorship.

Jack Dorsey and his team were jumping for joy at the chance to censor President Donald Trump in the lead-up to the 2020 election. When the nation of Uganda banned Twitter from interfering in its own election, however, Twitter cried foul as if this was a basic human rights violation.

When it comes to trying to protect people against dangerous vaccines like the ones for the Wuhan flu, Twitter has no interest in protecting free speech. Any attempt at exercising the First Amendment on Twitter will be quickly squelched in the name of stopping misinformation.

At the bottom of offensive tweets that question the safety or effectiveness of China virus vaccines, Twitter will now affix the following hyperlink label:

This Tweet is misleading. Find out why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people.

Twitter does not want anyone to know that many are dying from the jabs. These deaths apparently are not occurring because Twitter considers any information about them to be misleading.

Twitter also disapproves of factual information about quantum dot tattoos and other mark of the beast components that are being added to these experimental gene therapy injections.

Strange. The CDC should have used up its five strokes some time ago. Does the CDC still have an account? a commenter at Breitbart News jokingly asked. Does Fauci still have an account? He blew past five statements of misinformation a long time ago.

Twitter is now the ministry of truth since they consider everything outside the government to be misleading,' wrote another.

You can read more stories like this one at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

Science.news

TheVerge.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
Chandigarh: Women, children and senior citizens in Punjab can now simply call up `181 to report any case of crime, harassment or domestic violence with complete ease, with Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh launching his governments unique SAANJH Shakti initiative.

The Chief Minister had on Monday virtually launched Punjab Polices SAANJH Shakti Help Desks in all the 382 Police Stations of the state and SAANJH Shakti Helpline 181, exclusively for Women, Children and Senior Citizens, as part of a slew of initiatives to mark the International Womens Day.

Captain Amarinder Singh

These initiatives will help women, children and senior citizens in sharing their concerns and grievances with the police in a confidential and conducive environment, said the Chief Minister, lauding the Punjab Police, led by DGP Dinkar Gupta, for the exemplary project to empower and protect the vulnerable sections of the society.

DGP Gupta later said that of the total 382 helpdesks, 266 are functioning from SAANJH Kendras separate standalone buildings located in close vicinity to the Police Stations, while the remaining 116 help desks have been set up in the Police Stations as SAANJH Kendra buildings have not been constructed so far.

Dinkar Gupta

The SAANJH Kendras have also got new design and furnishing to provide visitors comfortable seating and privacy, while they interact with Punjab Police Mahila Mittar (PPMM) or Woman Police Friend posted in these centres to assist the women, children and senior citizens in dealing with their complaints, recording their statements and preparing the action taken reports.

Each Helpdesk will have two women PPMMs, who will get the statement recorded and provide a Unique Identification Number to the complainant for reference. Every complaint will be monitored by ADGP Community Affairs Division and Women & Child Affairs, and the complainants will also be provided with the facility to track the progress of their complaints.

Giving details of the 181 helpline, the DGP said it will be linked with all the help desks for providing dignified access to support services and legal action. Besides reporting domestic violence, eve teasing or harassment etc to the police on this helpline, the complainant can also report cybercrime, including morphing of pictures, creation of fake profiles of women, or cyber stalking and other forms of harassment on social media, internet or email, which cases will be referred to the State Cyber Crime cell for further investigation.

Punjab Police

The DGP said the police officials stationed at 181 helpline will call up offenders and warn them of legal consequences, and if such harassment does not stop, legal action shall be initiated after feedback from the complainant. The calls will be heard by predominantly by women operators trained in soft skills and the identity of the caller will be kept confidential. People can also give tip-offs on drug smuggling/peddling on this helpline, he added.

Gupta reiterated the commitment of the Punjab Police to ensure a conducive environment for women, children and senior citizens so that they wont hesitate to report any crime.
Eight hundred migrants from Central America were allowed to enter the U.S. Border, as Mexican Migration Officials shut down a border camp that used to house the said migrants. Surprisingly, the border authorities permitted the migrants to enter the vicinity of the United States, whether they are COVID-19 positive or not.

New York Post mentioned local officials, saying that the immigrants who reached nearby Brownsville, Texas have a growing number of COVID-infected migrants. They also noted that there is no action being done with regards to the quarantine they should undergo.

ALSO READ: Honduran Woman Gives Birth on Mexico-U.S. Border Bridge

Migrants with COVID-19

Fox News noted that the current administration has denied the uptick in migrants crossings go hand in hand with a crisis, but the significant increase of the number of asylum seekers is threatening to overwhelm border officials and crowd different housing facilities the administration has established.

New York Post noted that the recent 800 Central Americans released due to a border camp closure are still not confirmed or counted on the latest COVID-19 positive results, yet they might add to the growing figure. Felipe Romero, a spokesman from Brownsville noted that 185 migrants tested positive for COVID-19 at the Brownsville Central Bus Station, the area's COVID-19 testing venue for the migrants entering the border of the United States.

Border Report mentioned United States Representative Henry Cuellar's statement last month that 108 migrants from Brownsville were released despite COVID-19 positive results. Cuellar also noted that the release of these COVID-positive migrants put the community of Southern Texas, volunteers, and border agent at high risk of contracting the virus.

As recently reported, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has opened the state 100 percent, allowing the operations of business establishments and lifting the face mask mandate. The governor, however, gave liberty to businesses to still implement safety protocols if they want.

Border Camps Closing Aftermath

New York Post mentioned that the camp situated in Matamoros, Mexico closed following the termination of the previous administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy, which is intended for the Central Americans.

Border Report mentioned Romero, saying that they let the migrants know that they are guided by CDC's guidelines and reiterate the importance of isolation and quarantine. "I want to make clear that we can't contain them. We can't stop them."

On the other hand, the recent reformation in the immigration policy of the current administration continues to receive backlash from the Republicans. New York Post added that the GOP says Biden has sparked a crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border through the message that migrants will be welcomed into the country, despite the call of White House to migrants that they should wait due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Romero added that Brownsville, Texas had recorded 1,553 migrants who undergone a test for COVID-19 as of January 26.

RELATED ARTICLE: 11 Iranian Migrants Caught Illegally Crossing the U.S.-Mexico Border

WATCH: Caravan of Central American migrants heads toward US border - from DW News
BUSAN, South Korea, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- With a peninsular geography, the Korean landmass is situated close to the sea. The oceans, thus, play an indispensable in communication, travel, trade, and surveillance between Korea and the rest of the world. Maneuvering these tides, however, can be challenging and requires immense skill and technical expertise. This is why the National Korea Maritime and Ocean University (KMOU) aims to train young and talented individuals in maritime operations.

Korea Maritime and Ocean University, a state-of-the-art institute, provides excellent training in maritime operations and development Some of the eminent figures from the field of maritime and ocean sciences are Kitack Lim (Secretary-General, International Maritime Organization) and Seonghyeok Moon (Minister of Oceans and Fisheries) are faculty at KMOU.

Although it was established in 1945, the university dates back to 1919, when the Jinhae Marine Officer School was first established. It was further developed over the next few years by the visionary Dr. Lee Si-Hyeong into what, today, is one of the top maritime institutes. Since then, the university has grown by leaps and bounds. Over the past six decades, the university has successfully educated several maritime personnel, driving Korea to become a major country specializing in the field of marine transportation.

The university is located in Yeongdo-gu in Busan, with the entire campus situated on a picturesque island. The campus is equipped with advanced infrastructure that can enable candidates gain first-hand experience in maritime transportation, navigation science, marine engineering, coast guard studies, shipping management, ocean science, marine information technology, and offshore plant management, along with 1 year of practical experience. In this way, the program accustoms students to operations, execution, and design and development of high-end technologies and devices required on board.

As part of the course, students acquire skills like independent thinking, adaptability, and leadership qualities, which can help them sail them through unpredictable situations that the seas may hold. Considering the ocean dynamics, it is of utmost importance to first understand the seas and gauge them before venturing into them. To this end, the university helps students look beyond the horizon, overcome inhibitions, and visualize Korea as the future global maritime hub.

Not just this, the faculty at KMOU comprises eminent figures from the field of maritime and ocean sciences who are experts in cutting-edge marine technology, such as Kitack Lim (Secretary-General, International Maritime Organization) and Seonghyeok moon (Minister of Oceans and Fisheries).

In fact, various members of the faculty have been instrumental in driving sustainable marine research. For example, recently, a team led by Dr Jun Kang (Associate Professor at the Division of Marine Engineering at KMOU) reported strategies to overcome the limitations of carbon-based anode materials for sodium-ion batteries, which in turn could lead to "greener" electric propulsion ships and alleviate the environmental crisis. These findings were even featured on the cover pages of Carbon and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces! Similarly, in another study published in Chemical Engineering Journal, Dr. Myoung-Jin Kim (Professor of Environmental Engineering at KMOU) came up with a method to convert carbon dioxide into a useful industrial product using just costless seawater.

Thus, with these stalwarts, the institute continues to develop and strengthen resources that can advance the fields of marine engineering and transportation.

Prof. Deok-Hee Do, President of KMOU, says, "With the advent of the fourth Industrial Revolution, taking pride in one's history alone is not sufficient anymore. KMOU is mandated to create new values befitting the new era and foster flexible and dynamic talent equipped to cope with all future challenges."

The Korean marine industry indeed awaits a bright future, shaped by the efforts of this prestigious university.

Reference:

KMOU web site: https://www.kmou.ac.kr/english/main.do

Media contact:

Sun Young Yoo

[email protected]

+82 51 410 5442

SOURCE National Korea Maritime and Ocean University
Peter Weirs plans will need support from the Executive (Liam McBurney/PA)

Stormonts Education Minister has tabled proposals to accelerate the return of children to classes in Northern Ireland.

Peter Weir wants all primary school children to be in classes by March 22 and all secondary school children back at school after the Easter holidays on April 12.

The PA news agency understands the proposals are in a paper circulated to Executive colleagues ahead of Thursdays meeting of the powersharing administration.

It is unclear whether any of the proposals will be approved by the Executive.

Stormont health advisers have previously stressed the need to stagger the resumption of face-to-face learning to provide sufficient time to analyse the impact of each phase on Covid-19 infection rates in the community.

Thousands of P1-P3 pupils returned to classes for the first time since December on Monday. Pre-school and nursery children also returned.

Expand Close Peter Weir during a visit to Springfield Primary School in Belfast on Monday (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Peter Weir during a visit to Springfield Primary School in Belfast on Monday (Liam McBurney/PA)

Under Stormonts current phased plan for school return, the next pupils to resume face-to-face learning are secondary school pupils in key exam years, year groups 12-14, on March 22.

The P1-P3, nursery and pre-school children are supposed to resume remote learning in that week to minimise the impact on community infection rates of the secondary school return.

No date has yet been confirmed for the return of the wider school population.

Mr Weir wants to cancel the plan to bring young children back out of classes on March 22.

He also wants all other primary school pupils  P4 to P7s  to get back into a classroom on that date.

Mr Weir is proposing that the remaining cohort of children  secondary school years 8 to 11  would return to class after the Easter holidays on Monday April 12.

On a visit to a primary school in Belfast on Monday, Mr Weir gave a strong indication of what his paper to Executive ministers would contain.

While theres been lots of great work thats being done by remote learning by schools, lots of great work, tireless work being done by parents, you know theres no substitute for children being directly in school themselves on a face-to-face basis, he said.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
WASHINGTON  President Bidens $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill will fulfill one of his central campaign promises, to fill the holes in the Affordable Care Act and make health insurance affordable for more than a million middle-class Americans who could not afford insurance under the original law.

The bill, which will most likely go to the House for a final vote on Wednesday, includes a significant, albeit temporary, expansion of subsidies for health insurance purchased under the act. Under the changes, the signature domestic achievement of the Obama administration will reach middle-income families who have been discouraged from buying health plans on the federal marketplace because they come with high premiums and little or no help from the government.

The changes will last only for two years. But for some, they will be considerable: The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a 64-year-old earning $58,000 would see monthly payments decline from $1,075 under current law to $412 because the federal government would take up much of the cost. The rescue plan also includes rich new incentives to entice the few holdout states  including Texas, Georgia and Florida  to finally expand Medicaid to those with too much money to qualify for the federal health program for the poor, but too little to afford private coverage.

For people that are eligible but not buying insurance its a financial issue, and so upping the subsidies is going to make the price point come down, said Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy expert and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who advised Mr. Biden during his transition. The bill, he said, would make a big dent in the number of the uninsured.
By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused Facebook on Monday of violating citizens' rights by blocking some media outlets' content in the latest standoff between a government and Big Tech.

Communications watchdog Roskomnadzor at the weekend threatened Facebook with a minimum 1 million rouble ($13,433) fine and demanded it restore access to content posted by TASS news agency, RBC business daily and Vzglyad newspaper.

It said Facebook blocked posts pertaining to Russia's detention of alleged supporters of a Ukrainian far-right group.

"I think this is unacceptable. It violates our national legislation," said Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of Russia's parliament and a member of President Vladimir Putin's United Russia ruling party.

In a statement, Volodin said Facebook had violated basic rights to disseminate and receive information, and legislation would be proposed to preserve Russia's "digital sovereignty."

In response to a request for comment, a Facebook representative said on Tuesday: "None of this content was removed through our enforcement."

Like other nations, including Australia in a high-profile dispute with Facebook and India in a spat with Twitter, Russia has in recent months taken steps to regulate and curb the power of big social media companies.

Bills passed in December allow Russia to impose large fines on platforms that do not delete banned content and to restrict access to U.S. social media companies if they are deemed to discriminate against Russian media.

"They operate in our environment but at the same time they often don't obey any Russian laws," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA news agency on Monday.

($1 = 74.3400 roubles)

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Jonathan Oatis)
OTTAWA - Members of Parliament zipped through two votes in 30 minutes Monday as they began using new technology allowing them to cast votes with their mobile devices.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks and is projected onto large screens as he takes part in the COVID-19 Pandemic Committee in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 27, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA - Members of Parliament zipped through two votes in 30 minutes Monday as they began using new technology allowing them to cast votes with their mobile devices.

The voting app is the latest adaptation of the parliamentary process to allow MPs to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.It comes nearly a year since Parliament shut its doors as part of the national lockdown to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.The Commons remained fully closed for nearly a month before the parties were able to agree on a path forward that would keep people safe and ensure government was still working.Now, the House of Commons sits in a hybrid format that allows most MPs to participate via video conference while only a small number are physically present in the chamber.

Until Monday, MPs not in the chamber were using video conferencing to cast votes, a cumbersome process that took up to an hour for each vote.

With the new mobile app, MPs are given 10 minutes in which to vote via smart phones, with their votes registered live online as they come in.

Monday's debut went off with only a few hitches -- a handful of MPs reported that they were unable to vote.

But with one exception, they were all allowed to vote subsequently. Speaker Anthony Rota said he'll look into the exception to ensure it doesn't happen again.

"This solution offers the House another secure and reliable way to conduct its business over the next few months, despite the constraints of the pandemic," Rota told the Commons after the votes.

"One day soon, I hope we will all be able to get together again in person in this chamber to continue our work on behalf of our fellow citizens."

Rota expressed his "profound gratitude" to Commons staff who have worked "tirelessly to ensure that ourselves can work for our constituents."

"We could not have done this without them."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2021.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9)  The provision of financial assistance to address the recent higher unemployment figures is off the table for now, Malacanang said on Tuesday.

Hindi pa po kasama sa mga opsyon ang pamimigay ng ayuda, said Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque during a briefing on the governments response to the latest increase in the number of jobless Filipinos.

[Translation: The distribution of cash aid is not yet included in [the governments] options.]

This morning, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported 4 million Filipinos were unable to find work this January, slightly up from the 3.8 million recorded three months prior. However, the unemployment rate still stands at 8.7%.

What the government shall be doing is further reopening the economy gradually and safely, along with easing restrictions on ages allowed to go out in public and increasing public transport, said the spokesman.

Roque likewise cited the economic teams three-pronged strategy in ushering economic growth and creating jobs. This involves opening the economy once more without sacrificing public health and safety; implementation of the governments recovery package, which includes measures like Bayanihan 1 and 2 along with the 2020 and 2021 national budgets; and rollout of vaccines nationwide.

Sabi naman po ng Pangulo, magsimula lang ang pagbabakuna at ma-convince lang siyang marami-rami nang nababakunahan, talagang tuluyan na niyang bubuksan ang ekonomiya, said the official. Pagbubukas po talaga ng ekonomiya ang solusyon para magkaroon po ng mas maraming trabaho sa ating lipunan.

[Translation: The President did say he will push through with reopening the economy once vaccination begins and hes convinced a considerable amount of people already got inoculated. Reopening the economy is really the solution to make jobs more available in our society.]

Meanwhile, labor group Defend Jobs Philippines slammed the national government for not prioritizing the distribution of aid to workers and those seeking jobs during the pandemic.

The group's spokesperson Christian Lloyd Magsoy questioned what happened to the trillions worth of money the government borrowed for the country's economic stimulus, vaccine procurement, and aid to displaced workers and informal sector members.

"As of December 2020, the country's national debt reached around 10-trillion for the economic stimulus and buying vaccines. That's equivalent to 90,000 debt for each Filipino. The government should explain this," Magsoy told CNN Philippines' The Final Word.

The Philippine economy remains in recession as it contracted by another 8.3% in the last quarter of 2020, bringing full-year growth to -9.5%. This is the worst recorded plunge since the PSA began collecting data on annual growth rates in 1946.
The Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the second straight day on Tuesday after the opposition again pressed their demand for a discussion on fuel price hike, which was rejected by the chair.

Congress deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma, objected to the government's move to take up bills, saying, "This House has a tradition that until the pending matters are resolved, no government business can be undertaken."

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad then requested the opposition to allow a discussion on the Arbitration Bill, but the Leader of Opposition, Mallikarjun Kharge, insisted that the issue is important since it concerns the common people, as everyone is affected due to the rise in the prices of auto fuel and LPG cylinders.

He said the prices of essential commodities have gone up due to the hike in diesel prices.

The House was earlier adjourned for the second time on Tuesday till 2 p.m. after the opposition created an uproar when the chair refused to allow a discussion on fuel price hike.

The opposition members resorted to sloganeering, but the chair maintained that they would get ample opportunity to discuss the issue later.

The House continued with the Question Hour for some time when it met at 12 noon, but due to continued pandemonium, it was adjourned till 2 p.m.

Earlier, the Rajya Sabha chair had rejected the suspension of business notice given for the second consecutive day by the opposition over fuel price hike under Rule 267.

Oil marketing companies (OMC) kept fuel prices unchanged for the tenth consecutive day across the four metros on Tuesday. In the national capital, petrol was selling for Rs 91.17 per litre.

Similarly, in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the fuel was priced at Rs 97.57, Rs 93.11 and Rs 91.35 per litre, respectively.
"My paintings here express nature. For me, feminine means nature, because Mother Earth combines strength, tenderness, movement, change and patience," said Reham el-Adl, an abstract painter, on Saturday during the opening ceremony of an exhibition held in downtown Cairo to mark International Women's Day (IWD).

Entitled "Mu'anath" (Feminine), the exhibition held ahead of IWD is organized by Art D'Egypte, a renowned Egyptian platform of art and heritage, and features the unique works of 20 talented painters, photographers and sculptors.

The event will last until the beginning of April, according to Nadine Abdel-Ghaffar, founder of Art D'Egypte.

"As the Egyptian government supports the empowerment of women, we try to support the empowerment of women through art, for art is a soft power, just like women," the lady said.

Displayed in several rooms, the art works of the participating 13 female and seven male artists include oil and acrylic paintings, photographic prints and copper, iron and stainless steel sculptures.

On one of the walls, Alia el-Goan, a 25-year-old photographer who was born in California and raised in Cairo, displayed six photos of a tree, which she said symbolizes the freedom, fruitfulness, care and shelter of women.

"On the IWD, I encourage all women to express themselves, talk about their social problems and never be silenced, for women have the right to have their voice heard," the photographer told Xinhua.

Dozens of distinguished guests attended the exhibition's opening reception, including Egyptian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, former Egyptian Investment Minister Sahar Nasr and the ambassadors of the United States, France, Ireland and Colombia.

"As Chairman Mao said, women hold up half the sky," said Ireland's Ambassador to Egypt Sean O'Regan, referring to late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, while expressing his support for the political, economic and social empowerment of women.

"It is a fact that when women are involved in decision-making, you get better decisions, and when women are involved in peacemaking, you get better peace processes and agreements," the Irish ambassador said.

Colombia's Ambassador to Egypt Ana Milena Munoz de Gaviria noted that the vice president of Colombia is a woman and in line with Colombian law requiring that 50 percent of the cabinet to be women, "yet we need to work more on the empowerment of women at the low-income level."

UN Women, a United Nations body dedicated to gender equality and women's empowerment, said that the theme of this year's IWD is "Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world."

"International Women's Day this year comes at a difficult time for the world and for gender equality, but at a perfect moment to fight for transformative action and to salute women and young people for their relentless drive for gender equality and human rights," Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, said in a statement on Monday.

In an interview with Xinhua on the eve of the IWD, Nehad Abol El-Komsan, chairwoman of the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, said Egypt has made plenty of progress regarding the political and economic empowerment of women, adding that women constitute 25 percent of the government and parliament, with "women holding key posts in the state and in the private sector too." However, "the social empowerment of women is still lacking and needs more efforts to be achieved," she said.

She noted that Egyptian women have become braver in reporting violence and harassment.

"I tell women on their international day to speak up, express themselves freely and let no one oppress or blackmail them under any justification."
Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday presented a Rs 69,000 crore Budget for 2021-22 in the Assembly, and said it was themed on "patriotism". (Twitter) Image Source: IANS News

Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday presented a Rs 69,000 crore Budget for 2021-22 in the Assembly, and said it was themed on "patriotism". (Twitter) Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, March 9 : Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday presented a Rs 69,000 crore Budget for 2021-22 in the Assembly, and said it was themed on "patriotism".

Calling it a 'Deshbhakti' Budget, Sisodia said the AAP government has planned to hoist over 500 flags across the national capital much like the one at the central park, Connaught Place.

"Sisodia added, "As we are going to celebrate the 75th anniversary of our Independence Day on August 15, 2022, the Delhi government has started a 75-weeklong Deshbhakti programmes across the city." To continue its education system and make world-class facilities, the Delhi Government has allocated Rs 16,377 crore, which will be one fourth of the total Budget.

A provision of Rs 1,550 crore for the development of unauthorised colonies has been made.

To develop the housing units for the poor in the city, a total of Rs 5,328 crore has been allocated for the Awas Vikas Yojna.

The Delhi government has made a provision of Rs 2,074 crore for the Yamuna cleaning project.

For the health department, it has allocated Rs 9,934 crore with several new proposed development plans.

For the transport department, the government will provide Rs 9,394 crore.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and the states university presidents discussed stronger hazing laws in a call on Tuesday, following the death of a 20-year-old student at Bowling Green State University.

DeWine discussed Stone Foltzs death during a Monday coronavirus briefing, saying Ohio needs to resolve to be a hazing-free state. Stone died in a suspected alcohol-related hazing incident at an off-campus Pi Kappa Alpha house, according to multiple reports. Pi Kappa Alpha is commonly called PIKE.

We have immediately placed this chapter on administrative suspension and advised its leaders to cooperate fully with University administration and local law enforcement, a statement from the national Pi Kappa Alpha organizations reads. As more details are confirmed, we will also pursue permanent suspension of Delta Beta Chapter as well as expulsion of all chapter members from the International Fraternity.

DeWine also expressed support on Monday for legislation that would expand the definition of hazing and impose stronger penalties. State Sen. Stephanie Kunze told the Columbus Dispatch that a new version of a bill that expired in a Senate committee last year could be on its way this week. University presidents expressed unanimous support for stricter penalties on the call, Kent State President Todd Diacon said on Tuesday.

Last years bill was called Collins Law after Collin Wiant, who died at Ohio University as a result of fraternity hazing. Wiant died after ingesting nitrous oxide, and three were convicted in connection with his death. Wiants family worked with Kunze on the bill, which would have expanded the definition of hazing to include forced consumption of drugs and alcohol, and increased the criminal penalties for hazing. The bill also included more restrictions on K-12 bullying, which Kunze told the Dispatch would not be in this iteration of the bill.

Kunze will announce legislation in a Wednesday morning press conference, along with State Sen. Theresa Gavarone, Wiants mother, Kathleen, and Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn.

University leaders did not discuss specifics of the legislation on the call on Tuesday, but discussed the bill and also presidents responsibility as leaders in preventing hazing incidents. Diacon said there are about 11 or 12 other states that have this kind of legislation.

Diacon said typically Kent State tries to combat the culture that results in hazing through education. That includes summer orientation and the universitys first-year experience course. The university also works with fraternity and sorority leaders on preventing hazing.

The call did not outline any further practices or share initiatives to address hazing, but Diacon said he suspects in the future that university presidents will have that conversation.

Stronger legislation counteracting hazing is one more exceptionally important tool in our toolbelt for addressing this issue, but its not the panacea, he said. It is a behavior. Its a behavior thats reflected in a history and a culture. So those have to be addressed through consistent education and interactions.


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Twice in February 2021, military convoys were spotted crossing in from Russia through the Izvarino checkpoint in the night hours.

Enemy forces in the temporarily occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are preparing for the aggravation of hostilities in the warzone.

That's according to the East Human Rights Group whose experts have for the past two weeks studied the situation in the said area.

Activists found that convoys with diesel fuel had been passing through the Dolzhansk and Malynivka checkpoints in the evening and night hours, which is one of the indicators suggesting logistical preparation for combat action.

A number of other facts also could testify to the plans of Russian-controlled forces.

Last Sunday, at one of the city markets Russian soldiers were stocking up on foodstuffs. Locals noted their new, freshly ironed uniforms, lack of insignia, and a peculiar accent not typical for Russian speakers in Ukraine.

Also, non-stop drills are being held at local training grounds.

The so-called "Union of Donbas Volunteers" organization has been lately recruiting men from Russia to the ranks of Kremlin's proxy forces to fight on the territory of Ukraine. Calls to boost draft efforts have been sent to all branches of the Organization.

Read alsoOSCE SMM records 47 violations in DonbasThroughout February 2021, commanders of the so-called "People's Militia of the 'LPR'" underwent training sessions on coordination with other types of forces in combat.

Along the Alchevsk-Stakhanov-Pervomaisk route, timber was delivered to strengthen fortified positions on the front line.

Twice in February 2021, in the night hours, military convoys were spotted crossing in from Russia through the Izvarino checkpoint.

Reporting by UNIAN
International Gas Union President Joe Kang today called for a sustainable and achievable energy transition.

today called for a sustainable and achievable energy transition. Electricity, natural gas, hydrogen, and the necessary infrastructure will be needed to help individual countries meet the UN Sustainable Development and Paris Goals.

Continued calls for electricity-only pathways to Paris targets is a setup for failure on both Paris and the Sustainable Development Goals.

BARCELONA, Spain, March 9, 2021 /CNW/ - In a statement titled A Clean, Secure, and Affordable Energy Future requires Electricity, Gas, and Infrastructure, the IGU President writes that global debate about climate change and the role of energy was at a critical juncture. He is calling for an achievable, sustainable energy future, using "electrons, molecules and necessary infrastructure."

Professor Kang's comments follow last week's CERAWeek 2021 virtual conference where heads of state, ministers and senior government officials, academia, NGO's, energy industry and thought leaders shared their views on the energy and climate future.

A concern that emerged throughout the discussions is that the world is not on a path to meet the Paris Accord ambition of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees C.

There is recognition that different nations face different challenges and have different means to achieve a pathway toward Paris. For billions of people in the developing world - with low CO2 per capita and low access to energy - there is no greater challenge than achieving affordable, secure and clean supply energy. In richer nations - with high CO2 per capita - resources and infrastructure are in place to accelerate decarbonisation.

"No justice will be served if achieving the Paris targets involves actions that stymie economic growth and prosperity, or that deny billions of people access to much-needed affordable energy and clean cooking fuels," Professor Kang said.

"The International Gas Union calls on decision-makers to accept that a clean, secure, and affordable energy future requires electrons, molecules, and infrastructure. Let energy industry innovators compete to see how best this can be achieved.

About the International Gas Union
The Pennsylvania and Delaware chapter of The Nature Conservancy has closed on a land deal to expand its existing Cove Mountain Preserve in Perry County, creating a 14-mile stretch of protected land along Blue Mountain, which also is known as the Kittatinny Ridge.

The purchase expands the preserve from 353 to 1,411 acres and connects it to Pennsylvania Game Commission state game lands.

An additional 213 acres will be transferred to the commission in the near future, according to the conservancy.

Thanks to the support of generous donors and partners, we are not only protecting Cove Mountain. We are stitching together a climate-resilient corridor in Pennsylvanias Kittatinny Ridge. This network of protected habitat will help nature migrate and persevere in the face of climate change, said Jennifer Morris, CEO of the conservancy.

Projects like this exemplify the cutting-edge science and impactful conservation efforts needed to protect nature today and into the future.

The purchased property had been managed for timber production for the past 60 years but will undergo a comprehensive forest assessment to determine management needs focused on conditions such as forest health, climate resilience and wildlife habitat.

A separate plan will be developed for expanding recreational opportunities that the conservancy said will directly engage the local community to address issues like access points and infrastructure needs.

In expanding our Cove Mountain Preserve, weve helped to ensure this chain of forests along Pennsylvanias Kittatinny Ridge will remain connected, healthy, and more climate resilient into the future, said Lori Brennan, executive director of TNC in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Its an incredible opportunity to simultaneously protect critical wildlife habitat, clean water for the Susquehanna River and an iconic Pennsylvania viewshed while expanding local recreation and tourism opportunities just outside of Harrisburg.

According to the conservancy, the Kittatinny Ridge is among the most important natural landscapes in the U.S., providing a critical corridor of forests for migratory birds and birds-of-prey.

It has been designated a Conservation Landscape by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

As temperatures rise due to climate change, the protected corridor will become even more important for plant and animal species that need to move farther north or to higher elevations to survive.

Protected lands providing outdoor recreation opportunities like the Cove Mountain Preserve are also critical to the local economy, as they help to bring in tourist dollars. A 2019 report found that outdoor recreation brought nearly $60 million in annual revenue to Perry County, and that demand was outpacing the ability of local businesses to meet it.

The conservancy believes the expanded preserve will provide new opportunities for hiking, hunting, birding and other activities, and will protect the southern viewshed from Peters Mountain; a view thats particularly popular with both local hikers and thru-hikers traveling on the Appalachian Trail.

The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization dedicated to science-guided conservation of the lands and waters on which all life depends.
Culture Minister Bogdan Gheorghiu said on Tuesday that the George Enescu Festival is a symbolic event for the international world of music and stressed that the 2021 edition must be "truly memorable", according to AGERPRES.

"This year, the George Enescu International Festival celebrat4es 140 years since the birth of the great composer, which is why the 2021 edition must be truly memorable. As you know, Romania's Government is the producer of the festival and the George Enescu international contest, through the Culture Ministry and its organiser, ARTEXIM," Gheorghiu told the press conference devoted to announcing the event.

Gheorghiu gave guarantees that the festival would have ensure the necessary funds for organising it "at the highest standards" and brought to mind that the Culture Ministry allotted 5.82 percent from the 2021 budget, namely 52 million lei, to organising this edition of the George Enescu International Festival.

"Each edition of the George Enescu International Festival is a celebration of music, bringing together the best artists of Romania and worldwide. The efforts made by the organisers each year have materialised so that this event has become today a symbol for the international world of music. The George Enescu Festival and International Contest have earned a strategic place, showing that they can take their mission further, in spite of the pandemic, and be a source of spiritual development for us all. They continued to promoted the music and personality of George Enescu, authentic culture and support young artists in Romania and abroad," the minister said.

Gheorghiu also said that the event could not take place last year due to the pandemic restrictions.

"Nonetheless, between March 18 and July 1, the public had access online, on the official website where there was created another kind of George Enescu International Festival, because it provided free access to all to quality classical music. A number of 29 concerts could be accessed both by Romanians and the international public. We must be aware that the organisation of this Great Festival, a true country brand for Romania, depends on the epidemiological development and the population's vaccination rate. In context, I hail the participation in the conference of Mr. Presidential Adviser Sergiu Nistor and Mr. Col. Dr. Valeriu Gheorghita. Their presence sends a strong message about the interinstitutional collaboration which the Enescu Festival needs to unfold in safety conditions. It is a message for all institutions which, one way or another, will be called to contribute to this year's edition," Bogdan Gheorghiu said.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert was in mandatory hotel quarantine when she learned of her husband's alleged affair with her colleague after spending more than two years locked up in Iran.

The Australian academic was released in November last year after spending 804 days in various hellhole prisons in Iran on trumped-up spying charges. She has always maintained her innocence.

After being released and touching down in Melbourne, Dr Moore-Gilbert was taken to hotel quarantine where her mother revealed her husband, Ruslan Hodorov, was having an affair with Dr Kylie Baxter, her university colleague and PhD supervisor.

'I knew that it [the marriage] wasn't in the same state that it was when I left. I knew that there was a problem at least 12 months before I came home,' she told Melissa Doyle in a bombshell Sky News tell-all on Tuesday night.

'My mother told me when I arrived in hotel quarantine. She found out the day before from a third person, a third party ... My family found out and called [him], and he confirmed it.'

The Australian academic was released in November after spending 804 days in various hellhole prisons on trumped-up spying charges

Dr Moore-Gilbert was in hotel quarantine in Melbourne when her mother informed her of her husband's alleged affair

British-Australian academic Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert (pictured left) split from her husband after allegedly discovering he had had an affair with colleague Dr Kylie Baxter while she was behind bars

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she became suspicious when her Russian-Israeli husband hadn't contacted her after touching down in Australia.

'He hasn't even called to say 'I'm happy you're free', so I said you have to tell me mum it's obvious somethings up - I'm strong I can handle it,' she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said that while locked up in the Middle East, Mr Hodorov eventually stopped saying 'I love you' during phone calls.

'I was upset and disappointed he was not supporting me to the extent that I hoped he would,' she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she became suspicious when her Russian-Israeli husband hadn't contacted her after touching down in Australia

'I understand something had shifted for him and for me too. I didn't necessarily think that our marriage was over, but I was thinking to myself based on that maybe I didn't want to stay with him, so it wasn't necessarily a surprise that my marriage came to an end.

'He never told my family, or told me, that he wanted to leave me. He maintained the deception right up until the end.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert said Dr Baxter liaised between the University of Melbourne and her family and husband during her time behind bars.

'The nature of it given my closeness to both of them was very disappointing for me. In a way it has been harder for me to process and come to terms with that then it has been with what happened to me in Iran,' she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert admitted her husband 'suffered a lot at the beginning' of her arrest and was 'quite vulnerable'.

'I don't know what happened, I don't want to know, I don't want to dwell on it. I just want to move on,' she said.

'I honestly wish him all the best, he's not an evil person, she's not an evil person. I hope they are happy together and hope we can all just move on with our lives.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert, an Islamic studies scholar, was freed last November in a prisoner swap deal after spending 804 days in jail on trumped-up spying charges

Dr Moore-Gilbert said that while locked up in the Middle East, Mr Hodorov eventually stopped telling her he loved her over the phone

Dr Moore-Gilbert admitted her husband 'suffered a lot at the beginning' of her arrest and was 'quite vulnerable'

Before her September 2018 arrest, Dr Moore-Gilbert and Mr Hodorov had just bought a house in Melbourne's east after marrying in 2017 in a Jewish ceremony.

Both Mr Hodorov and Dr Baxter pushed for Dr Moore-Gilbert's release after her arrest for espionage in September 2018.

Dr Moore-Gilbert and Dr Baxter are both experts in Middle East studies at the University of Melbourne.

The couple married a few months before she left their Melbourne home on her study trip to Iran.

They met a decade earlier when she visited Israel, where Mr Hodorov lived after emigrating from Russia with his family.

Later in the bombshell interview, Dr Moore-Gilbert revealed she went 'completely insane' when she was first kept in solitary confinement.

She was locked up in solitary confinement in a windowless, two-by-two metre cell, with noise and lights blaring 24/7

'I was never physically tortured with the things you think about like pulling fingernails or being electrocuted - that never happened to me - but I was beaten up once and forcibly injected with a syringe of tranquilliser against my will and that was in early 2020,' she said.

She was locked up in solitary confinement in a windowless, two-by-two metre cell, with noise and lights blaring 24/7.

'I would say I felt physical pain from the psychological trauma I had in that room. It is a two-by-two metre box  there is no toilet, there is no television,' she said.

'I felt if I have to endure another day of this  you know if I could I would just kill myself. But of course I never tried and I never took that step.

'It's psychological torture. You go completely insane. It is so damaging.'
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Anti-government protests leaders Panupong Jadnok (left), Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul (center) and Jatupat Boonpattararaksa receive flowers from supporters, before hearing a court order on whether they are to stand trial for royal defamation, outside the public prosecutors office in Bangkok, March 8, 2021.

Three more activists are now in jail in Thailand pending trial for alleged royal defamation, after a judge on Monday indicted 18 people on various charges stemming from pro-democracy protests, but granted bail to most of them.

A criminal court denied bail for Panusaya Rung Sithijirawattanakul, Panupong Mike Jadnok and Jatupat Pai Boonpattararaksa, who face charges under the so-called Lese-Majeste law in connection with a demonstration in Bangkok last September, the court said in a press release.

Of the three, Jatupat had been sentenced to 2 years in prison in August 2018, for the same violation of Thailands strict royal defamation law. However, King Maha Vajiralongkorn had pardoned Jatupat on the eve of his official coronation in May 2019.

In regard to bail requests for the 18 suspects, the court did not approve bail for Panusaya, Panupong and Jatupat  suspects 1 to 3  because of the severity of their charges and [because] there are reasons to believe that, if released, they would repeat the same actions or cause harm one way or another, the court said in a statement.

The remaining 15 were not charged under Lese-Majeste but indicted for other offenses including sedition or organizing illegal gatherings. They were released after each paid 35,000 baht (U.S. $1,135) to post bail, the court said.

The court will hold hearings on March 15 and 29, respectively, to prepare for the trial and examine evidence in the cases against the 18 activists, said Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), an NGO that assists pro-democracy protesters.

In September, Panusaya had led thousands of protesters who submitted a letter to the royal palace in Bangkok, calling on King Maha Vajiralongkorn to agree to reform the monarchy.

That protest was one of numerous anti-government protests that began in July 2020, with activists demanding that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha  a former army chief and architect of the 2014 military coup  resign, that the constitution be rewritten, and the monarchy be reformed.

Mondays arrests followed the jailing of four activists last month, also on charges of violating Lese-Majeste, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years per count.

Arnon Nampa, Parit Penguin Chiwarak, Patiwat Saraiyam and Somyot Pruksakasemsuk were indicted on charges of royal defamation on Feb. 9 and are in jail pending their trial.

TLHR estimates that at least 63 people have been charged since Nov. 24, 2020, with committing royal defamation.

In November, Prime Minister Prayuth warned that he might resort to enforcing the royal defamation law as a measure against ongoing protests. The king had earlier advised the PM to show mercy and not enforce the legislation.

From July 2020 until March 3, about 382 activists have been charged with a variety of offenses related to the pro-democracy protests, said Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

Before she appeared in court for Mondays ruling, Panusaya, a student at Thammasat University, said some people would have to sacrifice for these causes but the fight for change would go on.

In the end, someone will go to jail but those outside will keep fighting. Victory can be achieved without us, Panusaya told reporters.

Separately, police on Saturday detained and pressed charges on 16 members of WEVO  the security guard group for demonstrators  for their involvement in protests on that day. All but one of them were released on Monday after they each paid 45,000 baht (U.S. $1,460) in bail.

All have come out, all have learned, we are not afraid that the fight will stop. The next generation will take over the burden from us, Panusaya said on Monday.
With the different Covid-19 strains on the loose, infection rates are going up all over resulting in fresh lockdowns in several parts of the world.

Reuters

Recent report highlighted the effect caused by the new UK strain in the US, with the new cases of COVID-19 skyrocketing, and 10 percent of the cases belonging to the UK B.1.1.7. strain.



Amidst this, the only hope we have is with the vaccines that have already been rolling out to senior citizens and people with comorbidities, but many continue to fear that the vaccine might not be enough to safeguard them against the newer UK B.1.1.7 strain that is currently wreaking havoc.



However, today BioNTech and Pfizer have revealed (in a letter sent to the New England Journal of Medicine) that their vaccine variant has shown high ability to take down the COVID-19 strain detected in Brazil, the UK and South Africa.

Reported first by Bloomberg, this is based on a new study conducted by Pfizer and BioNTech. The research was sponsored by Pfizer and BioNTech and conducted by scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.

In the study, scientists compared serum samples taken from people either two or four weeks after reception of the second shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine with the virus mutations.

Getty Images

Scientists, based on this study, regarded the aforementioned shot roughly equivalent in terms of levels of neutralising activity against Brazil and the UK strains.

Against the South African strain, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine showed robust but lower activity against it. However, it is important to note that these tests were conducted in a lab and the validation of real-world data still remains.



Surprisingly, this isnt the only vaccine thats effective against the newer strains of SARS CoV-2. A few weeks ago, vaccine maker AstraZeneca announced that the vaccine was effective against the UK B.1.1.7 strain as well as the Brazil variant.
WE are now reading that the Minister of Sport has come out with a statement regarding our participation in the Tokyo Olympics.

As with the usual run-of-the-mill political type, the statement vacillates, kicks the can down the road and seeks to avoid the issue. Let us be clear on what the situation is regarding these Olympics.
Digital.com, a leading independent review website for small business online tools, products, and services, has announced the best digital marketing firms in Denver. The top companies were selected based on multiple service lines, size of the firm, and industry focus.

Experts at Digital.com examined companies that can deliver core benefits along with supplementary services, such as graphic design or website development. The guide also features large agencies that have the resources to execute robust marketing campaigns as well as smaller firms that offer personalized services. The final list prioritized firms that focus on a variety of industries from local retailers to brick-and-mortar businesses.

The guide features some of the most trusted digital marketing agencies in Denver, says Christelle Feniza, Communications Manager of Digital.com. This resource is particularly helpful for small businesses that require a broad range of services and industry expertise.

Researchers at Digital.com conducted a 40-hour assessment of over 60 companies across the city. To access the complete list of best digital marketing companies in Denver, please visit https://digital.com/digital-marketing-companies/denver/.

15 Best Digital Marketing Companies in Denver



ABOUT DIGITAL.COM

Digital.com reviews and compares the best products, services, and software for running or growing a small business website or online shop. The platform collects twitter comments and uses sentiment analysis to score companies and their products. Digital.com was founded in 2015 and formerly known as Review Squirrel. To learn more, visit https://digital.com/.
A sixth woman has accused New York Governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment during an incident in his home last year - as one of his previous accusers claimed his office was 'toxic, retaliatory and hostile'.

The female aide claimed Cuomo touched her inappropriately during an encounter at his executive mansion last year when she had been summoned for work, the Times Union reports.

The staffer has not been named and no other details of the alleged incident were immediately available. The complaint was reportedly made by other staffers in Cuomo's Executive Chamber.

His office was made aware of the allegation over the weekend and reported it to the attorney general's office, which is charge of the probe into the allegations made by five other women.

'All allegations that we learn of directly or indirectly are going promptly to the investigators appointed by the attorney general,' Cuomo's acting counsel Beth Garvey said following the sixth allegation.

Cuomo, during a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, said he hadn't been made aware of the sixth allegation.

He doubled down on comments he made last week, saying: 'I never touched anyone inappropriately.'

The female aide claimed New York Gov Andrew Cuomo touched her inappropriately during an encounter at his executive mansion last year when she had been summoned for work

The complaint was reportedly made by other staffers in the Executive Chamber. The staffer has claimed Cuomo touched her inappropriately at his executive mansion in Albany last year

The latest allegation against Cuomo brings the total to six accusers.

Two more former aides came forward over the weekend to accuse the Democrat of sexual misconduct.

Ana Liss, 35, said that when she worked as a policy aide to the governor between 2013 and 2015, Cuomo called her 'sweetheart,' once kissed her hand and asked personal questions, including whether she had a boyfriend. She said he sometimes greeted her with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.

Liss, who never made a formal complaint about the governor's behavior, said she initially thought of Cuomo's behavior as harmless, but it grew to bother her and felt it was patronizing.

In an interview with WROC on Monday, Liss said she wasn't sure if her interactions with Cuomo were sexual harassment but did describe it as inappropriate.

'For me there was one occasion where I was asked if I had a boyfriend by the governor. Those interactions I thought at the time were harmless flirtations, and 'that's how he is'. Other women went along with it and reacted kindly and bashfully to that kind of treatment. What really did me in, in state government, was the broader work environment which was hostile,' she said.

'It was toxic, retaliatory, hostile. There was screaming, there was name calling. There was a sense of fear in the air that you could say or do the wrong thing at any moment and you could lose your job.'

She said her allegations were not identical to Cuomo's first accusers but believes it establishes a patter of behavior.

'There were other women who were subject to much more explicit treatment than I was,' she said.

'I'm not claiming sexual harassment per se, I'm just saying that it wasn't a safe space for young women to work or women in general. There are women that didn't fit the archetype or the stereotype that were mocked and demoted. Like I said, it was a really retaliatory place to work.'

Ana Liss, 35, said that when she worked as a policy aide to the governor between 2013 and 2015, Cuomo called her 'sweetheart,' once kissed her hand and asked personal questions, including whether she had a boyfriend

Karen Hinton, 62, spoke to the Washington Post on Saturday about about an incident in which Cuomo allegedly summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000.

Hinton said that she tried to pull away from Cuomo but that he allegedly pulled her back and held her before she backed away and escaped the room.

The governor's office quickly denied that the incident in the hotel room ever took place.

Peter Ajemian, Cuomo's director of communications, told the Post that Hinton is a 'known antagonist of the Governor's who is attempting to take advantage of this moment to score cheap points with made up allegations from 21 years ago'.

'All women have the right to come forward and tell their story - however, it's also the responsibility of the press to consider self-motivation. This is reckless.'

Cuomo's workplace conduct has been under intense scrutiny in recent days as several women have publicly told of feeling sexually harassed, or at least made to feel demeaned and uncomfortable by the Democrat.

Ana Liss, 35, (pictured left) previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015 but claims he subjected her to sexual misconduct during her time in his administration. Karen Hinton (right) claims the governor summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000 before she managed to escape

Charlotte Bennett, 25, worked as an aide for Cuomo. She claims he sexually harassed her and left her 'terrified'

Anna Ruch, 33, (left) claimed Cuomo behaved inappropriately at a Manhattan wedding in September 2019. Lindsey Boylan, 36, (right) claims Cuomo commented on her appearance inappropriately, kissed her without her consent and went out of his way to touch her on her lower back, arms and leg

Former adviser Lindsey Boylan, 36, said he made inappropriate comments on her appearance, once kissed her on the lips at the end of a meeting and suggested a game of strip poker as they sat with other aides on a jet flight.

Another former aide, Charlotte Bennett, 25, said Cuomo asked if she ever had sex with older men and made other comments she interpreted as gauging her interest in an affair.

Anna Ruch, 33, who did not work for the state, described Cuomo putting his hands on her face and asking if he could kiss her after they met at a wedding.

In a news conference last week, Cuomo denied ever touching anyone inappropriately but apologized for behaving in a way that he now realized had upset women he worked with.

He said he'd made jokes and asked personal questions in an attempt to be playful and frequently greeted people with hugs and kisses, as his father, Mario Cuomo, had done when he was governor.

'I understand sensitivities have changed. Behavior has changed,' Cuomo said. 'I get it and I'm going to learn from it.'

The state's attorney general has hired an outside law firm to investigate the sexual harassment allegations.

She has appointed Joon Kim, who was the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for parts of 2017 and 2018, and employment lawyer Anne Clark to conduct the probe.
The Chattanooga Mocs volleyball team battled close in all three sets, but ultimately dropped a 3-0 (25-23, 25-21, 25-23) match at The Citadel in Southern Conference action on Monday evening inside the McAlister Field House.



Following the loss, Chattanooga falls to 5-9 overall and 3-9 in SoCon play. The Citadel improves to 5-10 and 3-7 in league action.

The two teams opened the match by trading the first 22 points, tying 11-11, before The Citadel ran with the next seven points to extend out to an 18-11 edge.

Chattanooga answered with an emphatic run, scoring 12 of the next 18, to climb within one, 24-23. A UTC service error on the proceeding point ended the early comeback bid, 25-23.After a back-and-forth start to the set, The Citadel broke away from an 8-7 lead with an 11-5 run to pull ahead at a sizeable 19-12 margin. UTC pulled within three late at 24-21 after rolling on a 7-1 run, but a Bulldog kill ended the set at 25-21.The Citadel raced out to a 10-2 lead in the second set before Chattanooga responded with 15 of the next 24 points to pull within two at 19-17. The home team chipped away to lead 24-20 before three-straight points from UTC brought things to a point. A Chattanooga attacking error on the Bulldogs set point clinched a 25-23 decision and the 3-0 sweep.Maia Rackel (Signal Mountain, Tenn.) led the team with 11 kills while MacKenzie Saitta (Elkhorn, Neb.) followed with 10 at a team-best .360% attacking percentage. Mikaela Gauthreaux (Johns Creek, Ga.) added six in the defeat.Rackel and Sarah Flynn (Alpharetta, Ga.) each led the team with three block assists while Gauthreaux and Kate Neill (Plymouth, Minn.) each recorded two assists. UTC was out-blocked as a team 7.0-5.0.Emma Perkins (Rossville, Tenn.) made her first career start as libero and recorded a career-high 18 digs and four assists. Brenna Everingham (Noblesville, Ind.) and Makenzie Jordan (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) each added seven digs to aid the defense. In addition, Jordan posted a career-high three aces from the service line on Monday.Sophia Bossong (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) completed the assist-dig double-double with 23 assists and 10 digs. She also added to the teams six aces with one.Chattanooga (5-9, 3-9 SoCon) enters its BYE slot on the schedule next weekend and will return to action in two weeks on March 21 and 22 to host Samford in its final home matches of the 2020-21 season.
A behmi tree (Prunus mira), which is a wild relative of the domesticated peach, grows in its native habitat next to a glacier on the Tibetan Plateau. Credit: Yong Li, from Zhengzhou Fruit Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

A Boyce Thompson Institute-led team has identified genes enabling peaches and their wild relatives to tolerate stressful conditionsfindings that could help the domesticated peach adapt to climate change.

The study, co-led by Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) faculty member Zhangjun Fei, examined the genomes of peach's wild relatives and landracesvarieties that have adapted over a long time to specific local conditionsfrom seven regions in China. They identified genes responsible for peach's tolerance to multiple environmental factors, including cold, drought and ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation levels at high altitudes.

"Our study provides many candidate genes, showing how peach has adapted to all kinds of environmental stresses and stimuli," said Fei, who is also an adjunct professor in Cornell University's School of Integrative Plant Science. "Breeders can use this information to develop more resilient domesticated peach trees that cope better with temperature extremes, drought and other harsh, changing conditions imposed by climate change."

The research is described in a paper published March 9 in the journal Genome Research, with authors from BTI, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, and the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology in Barcelona. Lirong Wang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, co-led the work with Fei.

Over the past decades, climate change has made many food crops less productive, highlighting an urgent need to make them more resistant to climate stressors. Many studies have identified the genes that enable rice, soybean and other food crops to adapt to their local environments. But few studies have looked at major fruit crops like the domesticated peach (Prunus persica), which has an annual global yield of 24.5 million tons.

Many of domesticated peach's adaptation genes have been lost as humans bred the plant to focus on flavor, sweetness and other traits. However, peach's wild relatives and landraces harbor great genetic diversity that could provide resources for improving the resilience of their domesticated cousin.

Cold, dry and mile-high adaptations

The researchers gathered 263 peach wild relatives and landraces218 from the National Peach Germplasm Repository of China and 45 from the Tibetan Plateau. The team then conducted genome-wide environmental association studies on the samples, and identified more than 2,700 spots in the genome that are linked to 51 environmental factors affecting the local climates of those regions.

For example, peaches from a region with extremely low winter temperatures had a genetic variation in the histidine phosphotransfer protein AHP5, suggesting the variant gave the peach tree the ability to resist cold. The team confirmed this idea by showing levels of the protein increased when the plants were subjected to low temperatures.

Plants from a very arid region harbored variants in multiple genes in the abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis pathway that regulates drought stress responses, and in 12 genes on pathways that regulate starch and sugar metabolism. Further experimentation showed that in response to drought stress, ABA induced higher levels of a sucrose-producing enzyme, thereby explaining why fruit from the peach trees in this region have consistently higher sugar contents than fruit from less arid regions.

"When a fruiting plant like peach is growing under a stressful condition like drought, its fruit gets sweeter," Fei said. "In this study, we have found the direct genetic link between drought and the sugar content of peach."

In the peach trees from the Tibetan Plateau, the team identified a variant in chalcone synthase 2 associated with tolerance to the intense UV-B radiation of that high-altitude region. The variant increased the production of the purple-colored flavonoid anthocyanin in the plant's new shoots, protecting them from UV-B radiation damage.

"Overall, the genetic information we found could help people breed peach trees that grow in many different and harsh environments, expanding peach's geographic range to new regions," Fei said. "Breeders could develop cultivars that thrive on otherwise unused land, bolstering the local economy and bringing more good food to local markets."

Spring forward

Climate change has also affected many temperate flowering and fruiting species, including peach, by causing them to bloom earlier. The team analyzed 89 peach samples spanning three decades (1983-2011) from one region in China, and found that bloom dates had advanced by about 10 days over that period. They also identified a potential genetic explanation for this advance: a variation in a circadian clock gene, LNK1, which is up-regulated by warm temperatures and highly expressed during blooming.

"This finding could eventually let breeders control the bloom date of their trees, so that the peach crop is ready for harvest when the grower and the market are ready," Fei said.

Explore further Salmonella outbreak linked to peaches has now sickened 78 people

More information: Yong Li et al, Genomic analyses provide insights into peach local adaptation and responses to climate change, Genome Research, DOI: 10.1101/gr.261032.120 Journal information: Genome Research Yong Li et al, Genomic analyses provide insights into peach local adaptation and responses to climate change,
(Newser)  An expert in military antiquities summoned to appraise the items in a French family's collection turned to a modern toola database of missing artifactsafter seeing the pieces. The appraiser then called the police: Two pieces of 16th-century Italian armor in the collection had been stolen from the Louvre in 1983. The ceremonial helmet and breastplate are now back at the museum, the BBC reports. The Louvre hasn't revealed, or doesn't know, much about the theft or where the items have been. They were taken from a showcase overnight, and the Bordeaux family said they were inherited. Police are investigating. "I was certain we would see them reappear one day," said the museum's chief curator of heritage artworks, adding, "But I could never have imagined that it would work out so wellthat they would be in France and still together."

story continues below

The pieces, thought to have been made in Milan between 1560 and 1580, were donated to the Louvre in 1922 by the Rothschild family. Museums often try to avoid a lot of publicity about thefts, fearing they'd reveal a shortcoming in their security or give thieves an idea, per the New York Times. They also fear they could be pushing the thieves to destroy or dismantle the pieces rather than be caught. "But researchers in the last couple of decades have been saying, Look, guys, you're not going to get anything back if people dont know it's missing,'" an art crime expert said. "So museums are rather reluctantly publicizing thefts more, which has resulted in a lot more recovery of things." Overall, little stolen art is ever located, though about 40% of pieces taken from museums is returnedpartly because the loot is recognizable. Pieces taken from museum storage often aren't missed for years. (Read more The Louvre stories.)
Tallinn, March 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Estonia will go into partial lockdown this week, the Baltic state's prime minister said Tuesday, after its per-capita coronavirus infection rate rose to the second highest in the world.

Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said the measures were required as the healthcare system was struggling, adding that they would be in place for at least a month.

"We haven't yet learned to live with the virus in a way that would allow us to continue our daily life in the safest way possible," Kallas, who is currently self-isolating, said ahead of a government meeting on Tuesday that is set to formally approve the measures.

The new restrictions will stay in effect at least until April 11 and the government will decide whether to extend depending on the situation in hospitals.

Under the new measures, all schools will be shut down and parents will be asked to send their children to kindergartens only if absolutely necessary.

Only shops selling basic necessities will stay open, and restaurants will only offer takeaway service.

Church services will only be allowed outdoors with a maximum of 10 people attending.

People will be allowed out of their homes but must maintain social distancing of at least two metres.

Estonia has seen an infection rate of 1,337 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days -- the second highest level in the world after fellow EU member the Czech Republic, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

The country also has one of the highest mortality rates worldwide among its population of 1.3 million.

The healthcare system is currently at stage 2 emergency and preparing to go into the highest level of stage 3, allowing hospitals that are running out of beds and staff to cut down on non-urgent treatment.
NASA has shared new images of its Perseverance rover as it was performing checks on its robotic arm - with the barren orange-hued landscape of Mars in the background.

The pictures were shared through the 'RAW images' feed on the NASA Perseverance website, which showcases every grab from every camera on the SUV-sized rover.

First shared on Monday, they were taken using the navigation cameras (Navcam) which are located high on the mast to aid in driving across the Martian soil.

Perseverance has been on the surface of Mars since its '7 minutes of terror' landing on February 18 in the Jezero crater - where it will search for signs of ancient life.

NASA shared new images of its Perseverance rover as it was performing checks on its robotic arm - with the barren orange-hued landscape of Mars in the background

The pictures were shared through the 'RAW images' feed on the NASA Perseverance website, which showcases every grab from every camera on the SUV-sized rover

NASA PERSEVERANCE: A SEARCH FOR ANCENT LIFE NASA's mission will search for signs of ancient life on on the Red Planet. Named Perseverance, the main car-sized rover will explore an ancient river delta within the Jezero Crater. This was once filled with a 1,600ft deep lake and may have been flooded multiple times when Mars was warm. It is believed the region hosted microbial life some 3.5 to 3.9 billion years ago and the rover will examine soil samples to hunt for proof. Perseverance landed inside the crater on February 18 and will also collect samples of the soil to return to Earth. A second mission will fly to the planet and return the samples, perhaps by the later 2020s in partnership with the European Space Agency. Advertisement

Perseverance is one of two NASA rovers currently operating on the Red Planet, joining Curiosity which has been trundling along Gale crater since August 2012.

The new rover is equipped with many more cameras than its older brother, including science cameras capable of taking 4K and even 3D images of the Red Planet.

The new images were taken by the high up navigation cameras that NASA will use to guide the rover across the rock-strewn surface of the Jezero crater.

The rover regularly performs checks of its tools. including the robotic arm, which will help it search for signs of ancient microbial life.

The 7-foot-long robotic arm on Perseverance can move a lot like a human arm, according to NASA as it has 'shoulder', 'elbow' and 'wrist' joints.

'The arm lets the rover work as a human geologist would: by holding and using science tools with its 'hand' or turret,' the space agency explained.

The rover's own 'hand tools' extract cores from rocks, takes microscopic images and analyses the elemental composition and mineral makeup of Martian rocks and soil.

There is a turret at the end of the arm that acts like a hand - it carries scientific cameras and mineral chemical analysers which will be used to study the past habitability of Mars and choose the most scientifically valuable samples to gather.

NASA has named Perseverance's landing site 'Octavia E. Bulter Landing' after the Hugo award winning science fiction author Octavia E Butler

The latest pictures were taken as the rover began to flex its robotic arm and checking out a range of tools to ensure they are ready to go.

'Over the next few weeks, I'll be focused on finishing health checks of arm instruments, and then dropping off the helicopter so it can get ready for its demo flight,' NASA tweeted in the voice of Perseverance.

Perseverance made its dramatic descent to the Martian surface on February 18, touching down in Jezero crater where it will hunt for signs of past life.

First shared on Monday, they were taken using the navigation cameras (Navcam) which are located high on the mast to aid in driving across the Martian soil

NASA has named Perseverance's landing site 'Octavia E. Bulter Landing' after the Hugo award winning science fiction author Octavia E Butler.

Butler was one of the best known African-American women writing science fiction, penning novels like Kindred, Dawn and Parable of the Sower.

A multi-award winning author, she won the Hugo and Nebula awards and in 1995 became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Genius grant.

Perseverance has been on the surface of Mars since its '7 minutes of terror' landing on February 18 in the Jezero crater - where it will search for signs of ancient life

NASA PERSEVERANCE CAMERAS There are 23 cameras mounted to the Perseverance rover including: Nine engineering cameras, seven science cameras and seven for entry, descent and landing. The engineering cameras give detailed information in colour about the terrain the rover has to cross. They measure the ground for safe driving, check out the status of hardware and support sample gathering. There are Hazcams for hazard detection and Navcams for navigation. Science cameras record in more detail and can even capture 3D images. The Mastcam-Z on a 2 metre arm has a zoom feature for focusing on distant objects and can film video. The Supercam fires a laser at mineral targets beyond the reach of the rovers arm to analysed the chemical composition of the rock. Advertisement

So far the Perseverance has driven 230 feet in search of a safe area to drop off the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity - that will be give a higher view of the Martian surface.

NASA said it will test the Ingenuity helicopter brought along with Perseverance after it determines where to deploy it.

'We're not on a specific path at this time, since we still need to figure out where we're going to do it,' said deputy mission manager Robert Hogg.

'We hope to get the whole helicopter thing done before spring is over.'

On March 2, or Sol 12, NASA deployed the rover's 7-foot robotic arm for the first time, flexing its five joints over the course of two hours.

Hogg said confirmation the arm worked 'made my day,' and that the agency have continued testing and moving it since then ahead of the start of science work.

'That's the main tool the science team will use to do close-up examination of the geologic features of Jezero Crater, and then we'll drill and sample the ones they find the most interesting. '

The $2.2.billion rover touched down on the Martian surface February 18 following a 239-million-mile journey.

Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth US spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, starting in the 1970s.

It completed the final approach with a 'jetpack' powered by eight rocket thrusters which slowed the craft down from 190 miles per hour to a mere 1.7 miles per hour while also steering the lander.
In celebration of International Womens Day, and to mark the rollout of the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) Guarantee for Growth program, the African Development Bank and the African Guarantee Fund are showcasing the first beneficiaries of the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program  an innovation aiming to unlock up to $3 billion in loans to women-led small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).

The beneficiaries are taking part in an online panel event, co-organized by AFAWA and the African Guarantee Fund on Monday 8 March. Under the theme, Women entrepreneurs: key drivers of economic growth, the virtual session centers on how the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program works with financial institutions to address the financial and non-financial needs of African women entrepreneurs, by offering access to finance, providing technical assistance and create an enabling environment to promote policy changes and regulatory reforms.

The African Development Bank has mobilized its resources, and the support of its global partners, in what is to date, our most ambitious effort ever to change the landscape on access to finance for African women entrepreneurs, said Vanessa Moungar, the Banks Director for Women, Gender and Civil Society.

The first participants in the program include; Catherine Mumbua Wanjoya, the founder of a company manufacturing biodegradable and affordable sanitary towels, and waste incinerators; Terry Mungai, the CEO of a beauty and hair care franchise institution; Mbuaya Kalenga Mdhy, who heads a semi-industrial sewing company; and hotelier Bijour Esther Monga Ilunga Kazadi.

The AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program targets financial institutions to increase their appetite to lend to women who are known to be better payers, and who reinvest up to 90% of their income in the education, health and nutrition of their family and community.

The program de-risks women entrepreneurs and enhances financial institutions appetite in lending to SMEs. Supported by the Group of Seven (G7) countries as well as the Netherlands and Sweden, the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program is implemented in collaboration with the African Guarantee Fund, which works to facilitate access to finance for SMEs in Africa.

We have realized when talking to financial institutions that they dont see AFAWA as a favor that we are doing to women. It is a huge business opportunity to tap into a customer segment that has not been explored before, said Jules Ngankam, CEO of the African Guarantee Fund.

Esther Dassanou, Manager of AFAWA said financial institutions in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda are signing on to the program, and that the program could be a game changer across the continent.

The AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program is different and innovative from what is on the market, in the sense that it tackles all the major challenges that women entrepreneurs face in accessing financing and growing their business at the same time, Dassanou added.

Partager et informez vous aussi......

0 shares Share

Tweet

LinkedIn
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/-- Planet Green Holdings Corp. (the "Company") (NYSE American: PLAG) announced today that on March 9, 2021, the Company has entered into a Share Exchange Agreement with Jilin Chuangyuan Chemical Co., Ltd. ("Target") and each shareholder of the Target (collectively "Sellers"). Pursuant to the Share Exchange Agreement, the Company will acquire 75% of outstanding equity interests of the Target, a company that researches, develops and manufactures formaldehyde, urea formaldehyde adhesive, methylal and clean fuel products and sells such products in China.

Pursuant to the Share Exchange Agreement, the company will issue 3,300,000 shares of common stock of the Company to the Sellers in exchange for the transfer of 75% of the equity interest of the Target. The transaction is subject to closing conditions that are customary for transactions of this type.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "estimate", "plan", "outlook", and "project" and other similar expressions that indicate future events or trends or are not statements of historical matters. These statements are based on our management's current expectations and beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions concerning future events.

Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many of which are outside of our control and all of which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date, and we do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements can be found in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available, free of charge, on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov .

For more information please contact: Ms. Lili Hu Chief Financial Officer Phone: 718 799 0380 Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Planet Green Holdings Corp.

Related Links

http://www.planetgreenholdings.com/


Australia has vaccinated 100,000 people a few weeks into the vaccination roll out, as more than half a million doses of both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have arrived in Australia.

Speaking at the Therapeutic Goods Administration headquarters on Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said 149,000 doses of Pfizer arrived in Australia on Tuesday, following a further 414,000 AstraZeneca vaccines that arrived on Sunday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison during visited the Therapeutic Goods Administration headquarters on Wednesday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Yesterday we went past the mark where 100,000 of those have been jabbed into the arms of Australians, and Im pleased to say a quarter of those vaccines have been administered to the most vulnerable of Australians, in aged care facilities and those with disabilities, he said.

So the vaccination program is under way. Its sure. Its steady. Its safe. Its well planned. And its overseen by the best medical experts in the world.
Britains royal family was plunged into crisis Monday, a day after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, known popularly as Harry and Meghan, said in an interview that a royal had raised concerns about the color of son Archies skin and that the child would not be made a prince.

So, we have in tandem the conversation of, you won't be given security. He wont be given security. He's not going to be given a title. And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born, Meghan told media mogul Oprah Winfrey in the interview broadcast Sunday evening on U.S. television network CBS.

Meghan is the biracial child of a black mother and white father.

Questioned about the allegations later in the interview, Prince Harry said the conversation had taken place early in his and Meghans relationship. They did not name the person who made the comment.

That conversation I'm never going to share. But at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked, the 36-year-old prince said. But that was right at the beginning when (Meghan) wasn't going to get security, when members of my family were suggesting that she carries on acting because there's not enough money to pay for her and all that sort of stuff. Like, there were some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard.

Buckingham Palace has yet to respond to the allegations. It is currently conducting an investigation into allegations that Meghan bullied members of her staff, an accusation she denies.

Harry and Meghan stepped back from their duties in March 2020 after struggling with royal life and moved to California.

Meghan said Queen Elizabeth had always been wonderful to her. The 39-year-old told Winfrey that she had struggled with what the couple saw as racist attacks in the media. Meghan also said she had regularly suffered suicidal thoughts while pregnant but had received no support.

It was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected, but they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family. But they weren't willing to tell the truth, to protect me and my husband, Meghan said.

Harry described how the couple had been cut off financially from the royal family. He said his father, Prince Charles, the future king, had refused to take his calls.

I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father before he stopped taking my calls and then said, Can you put this all in writing what your plan is? Harry said.

British analyst Richard Fitzwilliams said the extent of Harry and Meghans broken relationship with the royal family has been laid bare.

They feel angry and bitter. This is an ultimate act of revenge, because its unclear precisely how the palace will respond to it. However, you cannot do nothing when allegations of this sort are made. And most particularly, the allegation of racism  that will be absolutely toxic. But this is, I would emphasize, only one side of the question, Fitzwilliams told VOA.

Critics said Winfrey should have questioned Meghans behavior more closely.

This is a woman who seems to make a habit of falling out with people. But none of Meghan's real behavior was questioned. It was an absolute exercise in torching the House of Windsor, and I came away with a very distasteful taste in my mouth, royal biographer Anna Pasternak told BBC News.

The revelations will be painful for Queen Elizabeth, Fitzwilliams said.

What they paint is a portrait of isolation, and the palace is portrayed (as) a form of prison. This is extremely destructive, and I dont think it will play out happily in any way at all. The queen, at nearly 95, will be deeply hurt by it. Its worthwhile remembering Prince Philip (the queens husband) at 99 is recovering from a procedure to treat a preexisting heart condition.

Divided public

The interview is proving divisive among the British public.

As a Black woman, she (Meghan) didn't get it very easy within the royal family, and the newspapers weren't exactly friendly about it, either, said Karen Louise, a 39-year-old photographer from London.

Seventy-five-year-old London resident Elaine Naylor criticized the couples decision to go ahead with the interview.

I think they've done the wrong thing. And I'm sorry, really, because I don't think they've done themselves any good at all, Naylor said.

The royal couple visited South Africa in 2019, a country with which Harry has forged a lifelong bond. Residents of Johannesburg Monday offered support for Meghan.

As soon as they got married, you know, the British tabloids just started attacking her. From the word, 'go,' they started attacking her. So, I think there is racism playing a part, said Johannesburg resident Timmy Mathebula.

Problem for Britain

The acrimony of Harry and Meghans separation from the royal family sits in stark contrast to the hopes of their marriage in 2018, Fitzwilliams said.

Harry and Meghan were going to be the couple who would modernize the monarchy, reach out to young people  particularly persons of color, and especially in the Commonwealth. It was a fantastic idea, and she was so articulate, too. But this does not represent anything resembling the reality with the resentment behind this interview.

The accusations could impact Britains image abroad.

I think Britain perhaps has got a problem here, because younger people, persons of color, you will find perhaps different views.  It will be interesting to see the polls. But this is terribly destructive, Fitzwilliams told VOA.

Harry also revealed he and Meghan are expecting a girl.

To have any child, any one or two, would be amazing. But to have a boy, then a girl. What else can you ask for? he said.

But the interview will be remembered most for the couples allegations made against the royal family as the world awaits its response.


As the country hits the one-year mark of the arrival of COVID-19, auto insurance industry trends are beginning to show a return to the pre-pandemic baseline, which will further intensify the ongoing customer acquisition war.

As consumers hunkered down under stay-at-home orders last spring, with their mobility limited and their bank accounts braced for financial uncertainties, they embarked on a flurry of auto insurance shopping activity. According to J.D. Powers new real-time shopping tracker  Loyalty Indicator and Shopping Trends (LIST)  shopping activity surged as high as near 20% in the early part of the pandemic, as customers looked to cut expenses.

But in the months since, shopping has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Consumer shopping activity is largely following population migration trends southward, creating a new challenge for regional-based carriers particularly in the Northeast and Midwest.

Whats behind the slowdown? Its likely a combination of factors that include consumers becoming more bullish about their financial outlook, coupled with customers awaiting indicators of normal after making policy changes last year. Its an encouraging sign for an industry that has historically enjoyed high retention rates. But with customer shopping patterns stabilizing at the national level, acquisition battles will increasingly shift to the states.

Battleground States

To that end, there continues to be a strong rise in overall shopping in select markets across the country. Looking at shopping activity by region confirms that the South and Southwest are becoming key battleground regions. This is an indication that consumer shopping activity is largely following population migration trends southward, (with the exception of states like Michigan which experienced a spike due to a change in PIP laws last year), creating a new challenge for regional-based carriers particularly in the Northeast and Midwest.

How each carrier is positioned across these key geographical markets may provide an indication of future movements across the property/casualty insurer leaderboard. Overall, during the last three months, GEICO has captured the most quote activity in 18 states, followed closely by market share leader State Farm (16), Progressive (7), and Allstate (3).

However, when examining acquisition patterns within each state, a more complex story begins to emerge.

Consider the battleground state of Texas, where market leadership is separated by less than two points among the top four auto insurance carriers. Based on shopping patterns over the last three months, Allstate has moved to the front of the pack, capturing nearly 28% of all quote volume during that period. Allstate has performed particularly well in select metro areas such as metro Dallas  Fort Worth area, where its share is even higher. Capturing the Lone Star State would be a key pick-up for Allstate given the states market size and growing population trends.

Moving further West and Southwest, there is what appears to be an impressive trend for GEICO. The East coast-based insurance giant is continuing to gain ground out West  namely in California, Arizona and Nevada. The gains that GEICO has made within the state of California have been significant, outpacing the nearest competitor by nearly 3% in quotes over the past 90 days.

GEICO is also seeing gains in select Southeastern markets. Georgia, which has been a stronghold for State Farm in years past, sees GEICO experiencing outsized growth within the state. Over the last 90 days, GEICO has captured nearly a quarter of all quote volume in a state where State Farm controls nearly one-third of total auto premiums.

Carriers will have to get aggressive about ramping up local market intelligence to remain competitive.

Lastly, an examination of Progressives performance shows strong gains in markets experiencing higher shopping activity, such as #2 in Florida and #1 in Michigan. Michigans shopping holiday remains above historical averages, but seems to be returning to more normal levels after skyrocketing last year due to a combination of factors brought on by the pandemic and, more notably, a change in the states personal injury protection laws. State Farm and Progressive are engaged in a tight battle for the top spot, after an early surge by Progressive.

As national shopping activity stabilizes in 2021, it sets the stage of another big pivot for insurers to local markets in their battle for customer courtship. With the major disruptions of the pandemic likely in the rearview mirror, carriers will have to get aggressive about ramping up local market intelligence to remain competitive, while retaining the policyholders they may have acquired during 2020s switching frenzy. It could make this year a landmark event in the battle for auto insurance supremacy.

Topics Auto
(R) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (L) (D-N.Y.) speak at a press conference marking the one-year anniversary of the House passing H.R. 1, the "For the People Act," in Washington on March 10, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

H.R. 1 Would Create Such Chaos We Would Need a Constitutional Amendment to Fix It

Commentary

H.R. 1the bill for federal takeover of elections that just passed the House of Representativesis a constitutional nightmare. If the Senate approves it, we almost certainly will need a constitutional amendment to clean up the mess.

This has happened before: In 1970, we had to enact the 26th Amendment to cure congressionally caused voting chaos. This time, though, the situation would be even worse.

H.R. 1 is one of those massive bills (in this case, 791 pages) that no one reads in their entirety until people try to apply them. Then, everyone throws up their hands aghast, shouting, What were they thinking when they passed this thing?

The answer, of course, is that they (those who passed it) werent thinking about much of anythingat least not about anything defensible.

This essay will outline just a few of the constitutional problems in H.R. 1. You can bet there are more where they came from.

H.R. 1 purports to change many, many aspects of federal elections. Others have summarized those aspects in detail. Among them:

Requiring states to set up independent redistricting commissions to draw congressional districts. (Note the quotation marks: independent commissions dont stop politics; they just hide politics from public view.)

Institutionalizing permanently the mail-in ballot irregularities we just went through in the 2020 presidential election.

Imposing restrictions on campaign contributions and free speech.

Enfranchising felons.

Subsidizing with federal money the voter registration of Democratic Party constituencies, such as college students.

Preventing states from using traditional methods of ensuring election integrity and voter privacy.

Many have argued that H.R. 1 is entirely unconstitutional because it federalizes election administration. But the truth is much more complicated. H.R. 1 contains some sections that are perfectly constitutionaleven if not well advised. But they are intertwined with provisions that are clearly (or arguably) unconstitutional. This intertwining would take decades of litigation to unravel.

H.R. 1 cites at least three constitutional clauses to support it. One is the guarantee clause (Article IV, Section 4), by which the United States guarantees each state a republican form of government. But H.R. 1 has nothing to do with the guarantee clause. In the Constitution, the phrase republican form means (pdf) a government that follows the rule of law, is ultimately grounded in all or in some portion of the citizenry, and has no king.

Republics have never adopted any particular voting rules. Historically, in fact, limited and unequal suffrage has been the norm for republics.

H.R. 1 also cites Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. This grants Congress authority to enforce certain legal standards (such as equal protection of the laws) against state governments. But the Supreme Court tells us that Congress may not use Section 5 as an excuse to massively rewrite state law or change the federal-state balance. The Court emphasizes that Section 5 is only remedial, not substantive. It adds that a law passed under Section 5 must be congruent and proportional to the problem it purports to address.

H.R. 1 recites alleged disparities among groups in voting and says the bill is designed to address them. But such disparities, without other evidence, dont prove unconstitutional discrimination. More importantly, H.R. 1s solutions go far beyond anything needed to remedy them. In other words, the bill isnt congruent and proportional. Rather, its a federal sledgehammer purportedly fashioned to kill a gnat, but really made to bash the rest of us.

The third constitutional provision cited by H.R. 1 is the elections clause (which is more accurately called the times, places, and manner clause). In the Constitution, this is Article I, Section 4, Clause 1. H.R. 1s reliance on the elections clause is somewhat better grounded than its reliance on the guarantee clause or the 14th Amendment. The elections clause reads as follows:

The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.

Essentially, the elections clause gives Congress power to override state laws on such mechanics as 1. the time of election, 2. polling places, 3. registration rules, 4. percentages required for victory, 5. the nature of the ballot, and 6. congressional districting. The elections clause can at least partially support some of H.R. 1s rules. An example is the mandate that states use mail-in ballotsa mandate that would be stupid, but probably constitutional for congressional elections.

But beyond that, there are many problems with using the elections clause to support H.R. 1. For one thing, that clause applies only to congressional elections. It grants no power over presidential elections. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that state legislatures have almost complete control over presidential elections. Indeed, the court reaffirmed the classic case on the subject just last year. So H.R. 1s pretense of regulating presidential elections is just thata pretense.

Nor can the bills mail-in ballot rules apply to state elections. If the mail-in mandate is valid as to congressional elections, states still could use traditional ballots for all the other electoral contests.

Heres still another elections clause problem: If Congress wished to erect an independent commission to draw congressional districts, it probably could do so. But instead, H.R. 1 orders the states to erect such commissions. This violates a well-settled Supreme Court rule called the noncommandeering doctrine, which generally forbids the federal government from ordering states to adopt, or not adopt, measures. In particular, Congress cant direct the states to change their own governmental structures. Yet, H.R. 1 purports to direct the states to do just that.

H.R. 1 also seeks to impose campaign finance regulations. In recent years, the courts have assumed that campaign finance is within the Manner of Holding Elections. But the issue has never been litigated squarely. And as the author of a widely cited research study (pdf) of the elections clause, I can report that 1. it does not authorize campaign regulations, and 2. its history instructs us to interpret it narrowly.

So if the Senate passes H.R. 1, campaign finance lawsuits also will long endure.

If H.R. 1 becomes law, we will have two choices: We can suffer years, and perhaps decades, of election confusion, litigation, and likely corruption. Or we can adopt a constitutional amendment to straighten things out.

Because Congress is unlikely to propose such an amendment unless it extends congressional reform even further, the only way to obtain one would be to call a convention of the states to propose it. For several reasons, holding a convention of the states would be a very good idea. But we shouldnt have to confuse and corrupt our elections to bring about a convention.

Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor, is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute. He is the author of widely-cited articles on the Elections Clause and the Guarantee Clause. The first was relied on by Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2010 case and the second by Justice (then Judge) Neil Gorsuch in a 2014 case.
EV

People close to the matter, including analysts with access to the supply chain and even partners Apple has previously discussed with, have all leaked information that indicates the Apple Car is being developed as we speak, and it should be here by 2024 or 2025 Given Apples financial power, as well as its resources and marketing engine, many have described a potential Apple Car as a major threat to the classic automotive industry. Some industry experts even forecasted the Cupertino-based tech giant would end up eating up substantial market share with itsBut as far as BMW is concerned, the competition is a wonderful thing. These are the words of BMWs Chief Financial Officer Nicolas Peter, who discussed the potential arrival of an Apple Car in a recent interview with Bloomberg It helps motivate the others, he continued, explaining that eventually, Apple investing in a car is something that could help the entire industry move forward.The Apple Car project, internally referred to as Project Titan, has already reached the point when the iPhone maker is now seeking a partner to manufacture the vehicle. Earlier this year, its been rumored Apple was in advanced talks with Hyundai and Kia for the production of the Apple Car. Still, negotiations have eventually been dropped when the South Korean firm eventually spilled the beans on the project.At this point, Apple is still looking for a traditional carmaker to handle the production of its EV, and its believed the company is considering several big names , including Renault, Magna, and others. It was even rumored that Apple could partner with BMW for the production of the Apple Car, but given Nicolas Peter's recent comments, theres a good chance such a collaboration is pretty much impossible right now.
At least 54 restaurants and bars have permanently closed their doors in Manhattan's East Village since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, making it the neighborhood hardest hit by the lockdown and business restrictions.

According to the New York-based restaurant recommendation site The Infatuation, which has been tracking closures since March 2020, the number of dining and drinking establishments that have been shuttered in the East Village is more than double than in the West Village, which was second hardest hit neighborhood in the city with 21 closures.

An additional 19 eateries closed on the Lower East Side, followed by 15 each in Williamsburg and Staten Island, 14 on the Upper West Side, 13 in Midtown Manhattan, and 11 in Chinatown.

The coronavirus pandemic, lockdown and restrictions have decimated East Village's dining scene, causing at least 54 eateries to close, including Jules Bistro and Big Gay Ice Cream

The beloved candy and soda shop Gem Spa, which opened in the 1920s, went out of business in May 2020

East Village has been hit the hardest by the pandemic, in part due to its reliance on its hard-partying patrons who could no longer go out late at night and spent money on alcohol

Those familiar with the East Village's once-vibrant dining scene and nightlife argue that neighborhood businesses have found themselves on the ropes during the pandemic because the vast majority of their patrons were people in their 20s who tended to go out late at night to eat and drink - something they could not longer do during lockdown, reported New York Post.

NYC RESTAURANT CLOSURES BY NEIGHBORHOOD: East Village: 54 West Village: 21 Lower East Side: 19 Williamsburg: 15 Staten Island: 15 Upper West Side: 14 Midtown: 13 Chinatown: 11 Upper East Side: 10 Murray Hill: 6 SoHo: 6 FiDi: 6 Source: The Infatuation Advertisement

A ban on indoor dining had been in place on and off for nearly a year, before Gov Andrew Cuomo in February allowed guests back inside at 25 capacity.

In November, Cuomo imposed a 10pm curfew for New York City bars and restaurants, which was extended last month to 11pm.

'Liquor is a vital part of the East Villages restaurant business and it has been crushed by the curfew,' restaurateur Stratis Morfogen told the Post.

Morfogen went on to say that while in most places food accounts for 75 per cent of the business and alcohol for 25 per cent, in East Village, which is filled with college-age people, the opposite is true.

Over the past year, some of East Village's most beloved mainstays have gone out of business, having been unable to make ends meet during the lockdown, including The Mermaid Inn, Jules Bistro, the celebrated candy and soda shop Gem Spa, which had been around since the 1920s and possibly originated the egg cream soda craze, the original Coyote Ugly, which inspired the eponymous 2001 movie, and dozens of other beloved neighborhood hangouts.

Elsewhere in the city, other storied establishments have fallen victim to the pandemic, including the legendary 21 Club and Esca in Midtown, Uncle Boons in Nolita, Bubby's in the Meatpacking District and China Chalet in FiDi.

West Village has seen at least 21 businesses fail, among them Gotham Bar and Grill

Mission Chinese Food is one of at least 19 bars and eateries that have gone out of business on the Lower East Side

Maison Premiere shuttered in Williamsburg, along with 14 other establishments

The avalanche of closures has been blamed in part on high rents, coupled with dramatically lower revenues, and urban flight, with large numbers of people relocating to the suburbs, or other states.

But with spring just around the corner, there have been some hopeful signs for economic recovery, with new bars and restaurants opening all over the city, including in the East Village, which is now home to Puerto Rican coffee roaster 787 Coffee, Hub Thai and Davidovich Bakery.
Fraud involving digital cryptocurrency such as Bitcoins are becoming more common in investment fraud scams according to Gardai who are highlighting the dangers of such frauds.

The dangers of falling prey to investment scammer was flagged on day one of the Garda Fraud Awareness Week which began on March 8.

"Unfortunately, such scams are becoming more prevalent, particularly during the pandemic due to increased online traffic and targeting of the general public by criminals using ever increasingly sophisticated means.

"An investment fraud scam is a fraud where criminals pose as investment managers, promise quick and high rates of return, and simply steal your money. The fraudster uses various investment schemes such as in rare metals, overseas property, and alternative energy schemes such as carbon credits and forestry. Promises are made of fast, enormous returns, once in a lifetime opportunities and can be seen to be endorsed by reputable business people or celebrities but this is without their knowledge," say gardai

Gardai have the following tips on how to avoid being the victim of an investment fraud scam?

 If it is too good to be true, it probably is

 Do your own research and be wary of wild claims

o Always seek independent financial and legal advice before making any investments

o Check the various registers on the Central Bank of Irelands website

o Use regulated investment firms where possible (Virtual assets are not currently regulated in Ireland)

 Do not respond to unsolicited approaches or cold-calls

 Dont click on links for websites that you dont know

 NEVER EVER disclose your bank account passwords or codes

 NEVER allow anyone remote access to your computer

Further information on investment and other fraud types can be found on www.garda.in and www.fraudSMART.ie

Inspector Steven Meighan of the Garda National Economic Fraud Bureau discusses below:
The United Arab Emirates foreign minister called for international cooperation with the government of Syrias President Bashar al-Assad after years of isolation imposed as a result of Damascus conduct in the countrys decadelong civil war.

Speaking alongside Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Dubai today, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan called for joint action with Syrias government and private sector, as well as Syrias restoration to the Arab League, in order to help the war-wracked country return to normal.

Nahyan further said the continuing United States-led campaign to isolate the Assad regime, in particular new sanctions under the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, make the matter difficult.

We have expressed our opinion frankly to the US, he said.

Why it matters: The foreign ministers remarks go against the grain of an international effort led by the United States to economically and politically isolate the Assad regime.

The campaign of US sanctions has been built on well-documented and extensive war crimes committed by the Assad regime against the Syrian people over the last decade.

Militarily backed by Russia and Iran, Assad has retaken control of roughly two-thirds of Syria from rebel factions and Islamist jihadists. But thanks to the war and the continuing US-led international pressure campaign, Assad has inherited a shell of a state in which some 80% of the population lives below the poverty line.

US officials rallied their partners and allies in 2017 to withhold reconstruction aid for Syria destined for areas under Assads control.

Despite close ties with the United States, the United Arab Emirates has emerged in recent years as a reluctant participant in Washingtons policy toward Assad. Abu Dhabi reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018 for the first time since the Arab League suspended Syria in 2011.

US officials have threatened sanctions on those who do business with the Syrian government, which is controlled by Assads family and inner circle.

Officials in Washington have insisted that sanctions on Syria will not be relieved until the Assad dictatorship agrees to free and fair elections as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 2254.

Former US Syria envoy James Jeffrey has described the policy in strategic terms, saying it was his job to ensure Russias gambit on the Mediterranean turns into a quagmire.

Whats next: The UAE and Russia see the US policy as a dead end and are keen to invest in rebuilding Syria.

But the threat of sanctions looms large for the Gulf state, which is counting on the Biden administration to unfreeze an unprecedented proposed sale of 50 highly advanced F-35 fighter jets and armed drones offered by the Trump administration.

Lavrov was also set to discuss Libya, Yemen and Israel, as well as a wide range of economic sectors, such as power generation, industry, agriculture, infrastructure and peaceful use of space with Emirati officials, according to state-run Tass News Agency.

The Russian foreign minister heads to Saudi Arabia and Qatar later this week.

Know more: Sebastian Castelier argues that even amid progress toward detente with Qatar, economic competition within the Gulf Cooperation Council is heating up as the COVID-19 pandemic has set back Gulf economies.
Lt. Gov. Gilchrist and "Tiger" the snowplow visit Fair Plain East Elementary students in Benton Harbor

Nick Schirripa, MDOT Office of Communications, 269-208-7829 Transportation

March 8, 2021 -- Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist visited Roxane Gilbert's fifth grade class at Fair Plain East Elementary Monday morning to share the snowplow "Tiger" with the students who named it as part of the Michigan Department of Transportation's (MDOT) #NameMISnowplow program. A video news release of the visit is available on MDOT's YouTube channel.

When MDOT in January asked the public to suggest names for the department's 332 plows, it was Gilbert's students in the Benton Harbor school who offered the school mascot, Tiger, as the first moniker attached to any MDOT plow.

On Monday, the class got to meet the new Tiger, one of the operators who drives the snowplow, the lieutenant governor, and other MDOT employees during a school visit. During the visit, the students had a chance to sit in the plow, learn how it works, and even learn about other jobs within the transportation department.

"It is awesome. The kids were super excited about it. I had them teach me some things about how the snowplow works," Gilchrist said. "I just think the exposure the department is giving the children about the types of careers and the people, the professionals, that take care of them, take care of the community every day, this kind of connection and relationship, it's really beautiful."

Gilchrist praised MDOT maintenance workers who keep state highways open and operating through adverse weather and even a pandemic to keep motorists safe and the state's economy functioning.

"Thank you. This has literally kept the state of Michigan going," he said. "I am so thankful and proud and humbled to serve alongside these professionals."

Gilbert said her students were excited when they were asked to select names for a plow, but she understands the relationship goes deeper than a fun name on a machine. She said it helps humanize one of the most important groups of people in MDOT and the jobs they do, maintenance workers, highlighting the importance of their safety and the vital work they perform every day for Michigan families and visitors.

"I want to thank MDOT especially because without them we wouldn't be able to travel," Gilbert said. "They're out there working very hard, long hours, time away from their family, to sacrifice for us to be with our family at all times."
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Had Trump remained president, his legacy would have included making true peace in the Middle East. This would have encompassed Sunni Arab nations laying down arms as to Israel, while Iran would have been rendered inconsequential  and, perhaps, the beleaguered Iranian people might have been able to eject the mullahs. With Biden, though, Obama pulls the strings, which means wooing the mullahs, being hostile to Israel, and denigrating the Saudis. Nevertheless, some amazing Saudi outreach to Israel means that Trump's Middle East peace plans still matter.

Trump's genius in terms of the Middle East was to ignore the Palestinians into oblivion. Instead of pandering to their extreme demands  all of which were meant to block peace while they continued to their Iran-sponsored efforts to destroy Israel  he took things off the table. Suddenly, there was a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, and the U.S. recognized Israel's control over the Golan Heights.

In 2020, despite the Wuhan virus, Trump went into overdrive sidelining the Palestinians. Resisting the same old push for a global Middle East peace that magically gave the unreasonable Palestinians everything they demanded, Trump brokered deals between Israel and individual Sunni Arab nations. These nations have no love for the Palestinians, who are seen as troublemakers, and view Israel as a valuable trading partner and a useful ally against Iran's continuous aggression against Sunnis as well as against Jews.

So it was that, in quick order, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain both entered in "Abraham Accords" with Israel, normalizing relationships between these Muslim nations and the Jewish state. At the same time, the Saudis began cleaning anti-Semitism out of their textbooks, while Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani, who served as chairman of Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology, said he supported recognizing Israel.

All of this could have come tumbling down with Trump's departure from Washington. As Osama bin Laden noted, Arabs like a strong horse  and the open hostility that Biden is showing to Israel (for he's staffing his administration with anti-Semites) could have made them view Israel as a weak horse. That hasn't happened, though.

Part of the continued goodwill toward Israel undoubtedly flows from the fact that another Biden initiative is to woo the Iranians again. Just like his boss, Obama, Biden doesn't care that the Iranians still chant, "Death to America"; export terrorism that kills Americans as well as innocents around the globe; are well on their way to a nuclear weapon; and are open about their desire to exterminate Israel. Obama wants a deal with Iran, so Biden will sign one.

Given that Iran's hostility extends to fellow Muslims who are Sunni, rather than Shia, Biden's efforts to fund the mullahs threatens the Sunni Arab nations. This too makes friendship with Israel a good bet. As the ancient saying goes, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

And that gets us to Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration has been extremely hostile to the Saudis. First, Joe refused to deal with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying, slowly, gently, and steadily, to bring Saudi Arabia into the 20th (not a typo) century. Instead, he insists on dealing with King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, who, at 85, is a spent force.

The Biden administration has also raised again Jamal Khashoggi, claiming that bin Salman ordered his murder, which bin Salman denies. Khashoggi, incidentally, was a truly vile, hate-filled Middle Eastern troublemaker.

No wonder, then, that Saudi Arabia is looking to strengthen its ties with Israel:

Saudi Twitter users have recently been pushing a new line of thought that plays up the importance of Muslims praying towards the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, while downplaying the importance of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Israel National News(INN) reported Sunday. The controversial campaign appears to be designed to push the message emphasizing the importance of the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina as the holy places of Islam, and to eliminate the importance of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount for Muslims, thereby decreasing any Islamic authority the Palestinians have over the site. [snip] According to the report, the Saudi campaign is in response to the Palestinian insults online and chants against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia heard at at demonstrations at the Temple Mount after prayers on Fridays. The Saudis have quietly supported the recent Abraham Accords the established peace between four Arab countries and Israel, and that has infuriated the Palestinians. The reaction of the Saudis is to emphasize that the Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem is simply a mosque like all mosques, but the direction of prayer for all Muslims no matter where they are on the planet is only towards to the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

With trends like this, it looks as if Trump will still leave as his legacy a true peace in the Middle East, despite Biden's best efforts to destroy it.

Image: Trump meets with Prince Mohammed bin Salman. YouTube screen grab.
Nearly nine months after they were first tasked with evaluating the law enforcement response to the protests in June 2020, the Huntsville Police Citizens Advisory Council (HPCAC) said it's nearing the end of its task at hand.

The 10-member organization was tasked, via a Huntsville City Council resolution, to create a comprehensive review of how Huntsville Police interacted with the protests, before, during and after the events.



The Citizens Coalition for Criminal Justice Reform endorsed the placement of this digital billboard along University Drive. The sign calls for a dialogue with Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle to "talk police and prison reform." (Courtesy: Angela Curry) The Citizens Coalition for Criminal Justice Reform endorsed the placement of this digital billboard along University Drive. The sign calls for a dialogue with Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle to "talk police and prison reform." (Courtesy: Angela Curry)

The protests came about in response to the killing of George Floyd in late May, along with other lethal violence against people of color, like Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

David Little, one of the members, said that as of now, they are finishing up interviews, following up on earlier document requests and beginning to outline their review.

"We hope to have it completed in March, but we are also committed to a thorough, usable and readable document," Little said.

During protests on June 1, tear gas was deployed to disperse those gathered at the steps of the Madison County Courthouse. Both the number of protesters and the number of law enforcement significantly increased during the June 3 protest, during which Huntsville Police and the Madison County Sheriff's Office used a combination of tear gas and rubber bullets to force protesters to leave the area near the Madison County Courthouse.

On June 4, Huntsville Police Chief Mark McMurray held a press conference along with then Madison Police Chief David Jernigan and Madison County Sheriff Kevin Turner.

During those remarks, he argued that their agencies, along with troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) were working off intelligence that "disrupters" were coming in from out of state and that those they were worried about were not affiliated with the Madison County NAACP, but were "anarchists."

Many who participated in protests on June 1 and June 3 dispute those claims.

On June 18, Chief McMurray spent more than two and a half hours giving a special presentation from the department's perspective on how they approached the protests during the week of June 1.

"This information we received caused us to make some very hard decisions, some very difficult decisions, but they had to be made to protect the citizens of Huntsville and the city," Chief McMurray said.

Protesters who gathered outside city hall that evening watched a livestream of Chief McMurray's comments and balked at some of the chief's statements.

"If they're saying that they were justified to shoot tear gas into a peaceful crowd, they're lying," one man told WAAY 31 News at the time.

The HPCAC was asked via city council resolution on June 25, 2020, to create a report analyzing the full spectrum of how the protests calling for police reform were handled.

On July 29, Chief McMurray gave a State of the Huntsville Police Department that lasted about two hours and 47 minutes.

That was followed up by the issuance of a letter from Chief McMurray and 73-page document that addressed a series of 28 topics. It ranged in areas from citizens arrests to hiring practices to protocols around officer-involved shootings.

"We recognize this is but one step in the process. We must continue routine dialogue through every available means, including websites, social media, town hall meetings, direct meeting with concerned citizens/organizations, and the wide-variety of community relations programs in place within each precinct," Chief McMurray stated in the letter.

In a response, the Citizens Coalition for Criminal Justice Reform (CCCJR) stated that the release of the document was a good step, but that it didn't go far enough.

"The written response lacks measurable steps or a clear timeline, demonstrating the need for a cross-section of community voices at the table to better develop Huntsville's vision for community policing. The CCCJRs goal is to create broader community involvement that will lead to more robust solutions," the organization said.

Over the next several weeks, several community members continued to speak out during the public comment sections of city council meetings, asking for more transparency and accountability from the police department. Some also called for the resignation of Chief McMurray from the police department.

As the process of evaluating the June protests continued for the HPCAC, the group was granted city funds to hire independent counsel from the Birmingham firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White, LLC and public hearings were scheduled for August 12 and August 28.

A listening session for organizations, like the CCCJR and others, was held on September 17. At that hearing, those groups were able to bring in audio-visual presentations to offer to the HPCAC.

Throughout the process, community activists have called for meetings with Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle to discuss police reforms, separate from the HPCAC evaluation. Mayor Battle replied on multiple occasions that he will take a meeting with groups like CCCJR once the HPCAC had completed its work.

However, organizers with the CCCJR like Angela Curry have continued to press for meetings with the Battle administration. They recently put up electronic billboards along University Drive with a message directed to the mayor specifically.

"'Mayor Battle, Make. It. Stop' Let's talk police and prison reform. Bridge the Justice Gap," the sign reads. The sign was paid for by Black Lives Matter Grassroots and endorsed by CCCJR.

Curry said they are also preparing to begin an on-air marketing campaign to raise awareness of our area's need for police reform. She said commercials are expected to start airing in either late March or early April.

As for the timeline of the review of the protests, HPCAC member David Little previous told WAAY 31 that the process is slow moving, in part because they want to be thorough and methodical in their work and there was a copious amount of raw material to review. The organization also operates on a volunteer basis.

During a wide-ranging conversation for a podcast called "Speaking Truth to Power," Huntsville City Council Member Devyn Keith said on Sunday he expects the city council to issue a statement on the HPCAC in about 45 days.
Danske Bank announced last month that pre-tax profits for 2020 had been devastated by the pandemic, falling by over 80% to 13.1m.

Danske Bank has agreed a 50m funding package with the social housing provider Irwell Valley Homes.

The deal with see the bank support the delivery of new homes over the next five years.

Irwell Valley Homes is a not-for-profit housing association that provides houses and services for more than 16,000 people across Greater Manchester.

Danskes funding will help it deliver a further 1,260 homes for rent, plus supported housing.

Around 260 of the houses are already on site or have received planning approval, with a further 1,000 in the pipeline.

Irwell Valley will also use the funding to improve and expand its existing stock in estates such as Sale West in Trafford, where work on 79 homes has begun.

Helen Nicholson, executive director of finance and governance at Irwell Valley Homes, said: It has never been more important for people to have a safe, decent home. The demand for affordable housing continues to rise.

We are delighted to have secured this funding to deliver our key goal of building more homes to meet the growing needs of the communities we serve.

Importantly, the terms agreed with Danske Bank will enable us to carry out fire remedial work on our existing sites over the next few years.

Danske Bank has been flexible and easy to work with and we have built a good relationship.

Danske said it was seeking new opportunities in the rest of the UK in a small number of sectors, including social housing.

Mark Canning, head of its corporate relationship team, added: We are delighted to have been able to provide this funding to Irwell Valley Homes. We look forward to seeing the associations development programme taking shape over the next few years.

Danske Bank has been the lead provider of finance to the social housing sector in Northern Ireland for many years.

We are delighted to start 2021 with a significant transaction in England. As part of our strategic growth plans, we will be more active in helping the sector across the rest of the UK.

The bank announced last month that pre-tax profits for 2020 had been devastated by the pandemic, falling by over 80% to 13.1m.




Connor Swindells, Jack OConnell, Alfie Allen and Dominic West will star in the new TV series from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.

Sex Education actor Swindells will play eccentric young officer David Stirling in the BBCs SAS: Rogue Heroes, an adaptation of Ben Macintyres best-selling book offering a dramatised account of how the SAS was formed during the Second World War.

Skins star OConnell will play Paddy Mayne, while Game Of Thrones actor Allen will appear as Jock Lewes.

The Wire star Dominic West will play Lieutenant Colonel Wrangel Clarke.

Expand Close Dominic West (Matt Crossick/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Dominic West (Matt Crossick/PA)

The series, set in Cairo in 1941, will also star Kingsman actress Sofia Boutella, Industrys Amir El Masry and Carnival Row actor Theo Barklem-Biggs.

The show meets Stirling while he is in hospital after a training exercise went wrong.

Convinced that traditional commando units do not work, he creates a radical plan that flies in the face of all accepted rules of modern warfare and fights for permission to recruit the toughest, boldest and brightest soldiers for a small undercover unit that will create mayhem behind enemy lines.

Expand Close Alfie Allen (Ian West/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Alfie Allen (Ian West/PA)

Swindells said: I feel tremendously honoured to be joining this series with such a talented group of people.

Portraying such an interesting man is incredibly exciting and I feel very lucky to be able to do so. Its going to be an amazing ride.

Knight, who is also responsible for the TV series Taboo and the recent adaptation of A Christmas Carol, as well as movies Locke and Serenity, said: Im really excited to be gathering together the very best of a new generation of British and international talent to tell this remarkable story.

Expand Close Jack OConnell (Ian West/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Jack OConnell (Ian West/PA)

The people who are depicted and who did such extraordinary things were young, in their 20s, and we have made a conscious decision to cast people of the same age.

We enter this project with a spirit of adventure and believe our young and talented actors will do justice to this period of history.

The six-part series will be made for BBC One by production company Kudos, which is responsible for Spooks, Broadchurch, and Humans.

It will be directed by The Serpents Tom Shankland.

Piers Wenger, director of BBC Drama, said: Combining a fascinating, little-known story with all the intelligence and swagger that Steven Knights writing is known for, SAS: Rogue Heroes will be like nothing weve seen before.

Its no surprise that a cast of such high calibre have signed up to bring these bold, brilliant and thoroughly entertaining characters to the screen.
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Khaled Salem, who looking to unseat Chuck Schumer in the upcoming 2022 US Senate races, today sent a clear message to the international Arabic community. Khaled implores Turkish, Iranian and Arab Gulf State citizens to be mindful of the almost complete lack of respect and harsh judgment from their leaders regarding decent human rights standards in their countries. The premise of his concern stems from these brutal regimes having almost complete control of their citizens' speech and actionsand the almost assured retribution of these governments against their own peoples.

U.S. Senate Candidate Khaled Salem U.S. Senate Candidate Khaled Salem

"Those who trust in the economic system or politics of Turkey are in denial of what is really happening there," said Khaled Salem. "The existing Turkish regime is an unconstitutional system entirely controlled by President Erdogan and his party. Foreign investment and the Turkish economy will inevitably continue to suffer and collapse if subsequent presidents follow Erdogan's lead. Arab countries and the EU are opposed to the existing system, while the US and Russian continue their present alliances with a Turkey that keeps its thumb on the necks of its people."

Mr. Salem continued, "I implore the Iranian people to change their system and stand up to the power hungry few ruling Iran, who so easily eliminate anyone that speaks up or tries to shed light on the truth. Iranians are controlled by fear and are constantly silenced by intimidation and religious mandates, preventing positive global interaction. In addition, I believe that the princes and Kings of the Arabian Gulf States should be held accountable by their inhabitants. It is time to recognize human rights atrocities and send fair warning, especially to Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, that killing one's own subjects is more in the spotlight than ever. The world is watching."

Khaled is asking the United States Department of State to start, as soon as possible, to make the place of birth optional on U.S. passports to protect dual citizens abroad from discrimination in most international Airports around the world.

Other key policy positions from Mr. Salem include:

Free university education for American students.

Tourist visas to the US must require travel medical insurance for entry.

Laws and procedures to reduce domestic violence nationwide.

A reduction in U.S. military activity and presence in the Middle East .

A policy that requires these regions pay for American military services.

The establishment of a home loan program for middle class single parents.

Salem is running in the next general election, scheduled for November 8, 2022. Thirty-four of the Senate's 100 seats are being contested in these elections.

For more information, visit https://www.khaled2022forcongress.com/

https://www.americanhumanrights.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaBldfu_ma0

[email protected]/

twitter.com/KhaledYork

Contact:

U.S. Senate Candidate Khaled Salem U.S. Senate Candidate Khaled Salem

1518 348 6868

[email protected]

SOURCE U.S. Senate Candidate Khaled Salem

Related Links

https://www.khaled2022forcongress.com/


A year after opening up about their 'great' co-parenting arrangement, Southern Charm star Kathryn Dennis has temporarily lost custody of the two children she shares with her ex Thomas Ravenel.

Ravenel's attorney confirmed to People that the former reality star had temporarily regained primary custody of their children Kensie, six, and Saint, four, and that Dennis, 29, will now be having supervised, daytime weekend visits with them.

Ravenel, 58, will be moving to Aiken, South Carolina with them, however the reason behind their custody arrangement change remains a mystery due to the sealed court documents.

New arrangement: Southern Charm star Kathryn Dennis has temporarily lost custody of the two children she shares with her ex Thomas Ravenel

Ravenel filed to request his ex have supervised visitation on October 23, 2020, and on February 25, 2021 the temporary custody order was filled, according to Page Six.

In a statement given to People, Ravenel's lawyer confirmed the new custody deal but declined to disclose the circumstances that led to the change.

'I can confirm the information released last week that Ms. Dennis currently has weekend, daytime supervised visitation with the parties' minor children and that Mr. Ravenel plans to relocate with the children to Aiken, South Carolina this summer,' Ravenel's attorney said.

'Due to the sensitive nature of the issues involved, all documents in this case have been sealed, meaning the public cannot access them, and neither Mr. Ravenel, Ms. Dennis, nor their respective attorneys are permitted to release them to third parties,' the statement continued.

Custody battle: The reason behind the new arrangement remains a mystery due to the sealed court documents

'As such, and in keeping with the spirit of the protective order, I will not go into detail regarding the circumstances that necessitated the changes to the parties' custodial arrangement.'

Dennis and Ravenel previously shared joint custody of their children, and the arrangement worked well for the exes, according to the Southern Charm star.

'We actually have a great coparenting relationship,' she told Us Weekly in November 2019.

'It's good for him, it's good for me. We're moving forward, which is the first time I've said that in a long time and it feels good.'

That was then: The couple first began dating in 2013 before splitting up for good in 2016

Better terms? Back in November, Dennis said they had come to a co-parenting arrangement that worked for both of them

The positive words strikes a contrast to their otherwise ugly custody battle, with Ravenel accusing Dennis of being addicted to prescription medications and marijuana, among other allegations. Dennis has denied the accusations.

Ravenel and Dennis first began dating in 2013 before splitting up for good in 2016.

Nowadays they both have moved on romantically.

Ravenel has since welcomed another child, a baby boy named Jonathan Jackson, with Heather Mascoe. The couple subsequently became engaged.

Meanwhile, Dennis has begun a relationship with Chleb Ravenell.

Moving on: Ravenel has since welcomed another child with his fiance, Heather Mascoe

(Natural News) A new study has found that people who are obese should be prioritized for Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines.

This study was conducted by researchers from the World Obesity Federation (WOF), an international organization dedicated to supporting efforts to reduce, prevent and treat obesity. The researchers found that around 2.2 million of the over 2.5 million COVID-19 deaths reported around the world by the end of February occurred in countries where more than half of the population is classified as overweight.

The researchers wanted countries with high rates of obesity to recognize that obesity is a disease in its own right and a risk factor for other detrimental health conditions, including significantly worsening the outcomes of a COVID-19 infection.

The WOF batted for the obese people to be classified as a priority group for COVID-19 vaccinations, along with the elderly and healthcare and other essential workers. The federation also asked public health officials to find better treatment for obesity and monitor its connection to the coronavirus. (Related: Huge new study finds that obesity is the single biggest chronic factor in hospitalizations for COVID-19 in NYC, which explains why America is getting hit HARD.)

Reducing one major risk factor, overweight, would have resulted in far less stress on health services and reduced the need to protect those services from being overwhelmed, wrote the federation in the foreword of its report.

We were shocked to see such a high correlation between a countrys proportion of overweight adults and its deaths from COVID-19, Dr. Tim Lobstein, the reports author, told the Guardian. We now know that an overweight population is the next pandemic waiting to happen.

Multiple studies have indicated that obesity could put a person more at risk of experiencing a severe case of COVID-19, including one study published in the British Medical Journal. This study analyzed over 5,000 people hospitalized in New York City during the early months of the outbreak in the United States. The researchers of this study found a strong link between obesity and hospital admission.

It is notable that one of the chronic conditions strongly associated with critical illness was obesity, wrote the researchers. Obesity is well recognized to be a pro-inflammatory condition.

Obese people divided over whether to accept their priority group status

Places across the United States are already putting obesity as a condition that warrants putting a person in a COVID-19 vaccine priority group.

When Philadelphia opened up its online portal for the citys residents to pre-register for the vaccine in early January, the site put up a list of chronic conditions that could mark a person as a priority for getting a vaccine. These conditions included cancer, heart disease, kidney failure, sickle cell disease and obesity.

Amanda Silberling, writing for Business Insider, noted on her pre-registration application that her body mass index (BMI) was over 30. As a result, I was placed in the coveted priority group 1C,' she wrote.

While Silberlings BMI may be above normal, she has always considered herself to be relatively healthy.

Its better than a coin flip, noted Dr. Michelle Ogunwole, health disparities researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Obesity does increase your risk of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and a host of other issues. But there are some people who have obesity, but dont have any other medical problems.

When I discovered my priority group, I couldnt help but feel unsettled that Id get the vaccine sooner than 64-year-olds deemed normal by BMI, or immunocompromised people whose conditions arent considered a priority, wrote Silberling.

The writer found this situation to be unfair. Her friend, Julia Metraux, a 23-year-old health journalist with a rare form of systemic vasculitis, was unable to get herself into a priority group for the coronavirus vaccine despite the fact that if she were infected with the virus, she could suffer serious complications.

[The CDC is] not going to look at my type of autoimmune disorder, because its rare, said Metraux. Its frustrating.

Since 42.4 percent of American adults are obese, does prioritizing such a large portion of the population defeat the purpose of a priority group in the first place? asked Silberling.

While Silberling is grappling with the moral dilemma of being prioritized over people with worse health conditions that are out of their control, other people with obesity believe being given priority status is a good thing.

Ive been getting discriminated against my whole life because of my weight, said Meredith, an obese woman from California who spoke with U.S. News & World Report under the condition of anonymity.

You know what? Screw it, she said. The medical community owes me. The objective is to get herd immunity. Why are we worried about the order?

Learn more about the correlation between obesity and the coronavirus by reading the latest articles at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

BusinessInsider.com

USNews.com
Debra Johnston of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices GA Properties is a Luxury Collection Specialist and Chairman's Circle Diamond member who was just recently recognized by Variety Magazine for her real estate success.

ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / March 8, 2021 / Top luxury Atlanta realtor, Debra Johnston, was recently selected to be in Variety's 2021 Showbiz Real Estate Elite Report. This distinguished list highlights the top luxury agents in California, New York, Miami and has now added Atlanta and Nashville to the list for the 2021 lineup. To be named to this prestigious list among world-class realtors is recognition of being the best of the best in the market represented. With over 60 million in listings, including 3 trophy listings, Johnston is prepped to dominate the Atlanta real estate market once again in 2021.

Johnston has worked closely with buyers and sellers to successfully close exceptional luxury properties for over 17 years. Through innovative marketing initiatives resulting in national press exposure for her sellers' listings, Johnston has effectively marketed to buyers of luxury properties. Through her extensive knowledge of the Atlanta real estate market, she propitiously matches the buyers she represents with the perfect homes. Johnston continues to raise the bar for the level of expertise and professionalism Atlanta buyers and sellers expect, which has subsequently brought her great success with 80 Million sold in combined sales in the last two consecutive years.

"Congratulations to Debra Johnston on this well-deserved recognition," said Dan Forsman, President and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Georgia Properties. "Her innovative marketing strategies and work ethic have always made her a huge asset to her clients and our company. I could not be prouder of her accomplishments."

Debra Johnston comments on what factors differentiate her as a top luxury realtor in the Atlanta market: "I am dedicated and determined to give my listings the marketing they deserve to generate massive exposure on a variety of platforms to attract the right buyer for the property. I achieve this through exceptional photography and videography, Matterport 3D tours, virtual tours with stats to show weekly activity, and my YouTube Channel of Luxury Properties. Additionally, as the Exclusive Atlanta Agent, all my properties get exposure via national and international press releases reaching over 90 million on acclaimed media, social media influence reaching over 2 million accounts per month, and regular Features on The Pinnacle List and Haute Residence. My comprehensive and innovative marketing approach is unmatched."

To learn more about Variety's Showbiz Real Estate Elite Report, please visit https://variety.com/lists/showbiz-real-estate-elite-report-2021/debra-johnston/.

About Debra Johnston:

Debra Johnston is one of Atlanta's top luxury agents with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Georgia Properties and is a current Chairman Circle Diamond Member for the past 4 consecutive years. She is also the #1 individual agent in the Buckhead Office of Berkshire Hathaway for the past seven consecutive years. She continues to surpass client expectations as demonstrated in her sales volume performance for over 17 years in Atlanta's luxury market serving her extensive clientele network.

Debra uniquely differentiates herself as a leader utilizing her proprietary cutting-edge marketing strategy to get her listings mass exposure through this distinctive and unique complementary blend of press-marketing, search engine optimization, and technology coupled with superb video production and photography. The result is maximum exposure for her client's homes by featuring them on high-authority channels like Yahoo Finance, Reuters, Bloomberg, FOX, ABC, NBC, and more. Debra is also an exclusive partner with The Pinnacle List and the exclusive Atlanta agent for Haute Residence magazine. These partnerships result in her clients' properties being regularly showcased in both selective print and online features. She is known as a Luxury Agent social media influencer by utilizing her YouTube channel with viral luxury real estate videos that engage with millions, her genuine enthusiasm for luxury real estate, and for her professionalism and confidentiality providing top customer service. With over sixteen years of experience in the luxury market, Debra is a leader in Atlanta's luxury real estate field and consistently delivers uncompromising professionalism and ultimately a positive experience for her clients. Debra continues to surpass the luxury real estate competition in Atlanta while delivering exceptional service each and every time.

To find out more about the opportunity to own one of Atlanta's premier luxury properties or to find your next home, please view Debra Johnston's website at https://debraajohnston.com or her YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/Debrajvideos.

Debra Johnston - Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices GA Properties

Your Dreams | My Mission

Address: 3500 Lenox Road NE #300, Atlanta, Georgia 30326, United States

Contact Name: Debra Johnston

Website: https://www.debraajohnston.com

Email: debra.johnston@bhhsgeorgia.com

Phone: (404) 312-1959

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Debrajvideos

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debrajohnstonrealtor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamdebrajohnston_luxuryrealtor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debrajohnston

SOURCE: Debra Johnston - Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices GA Properties

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634190/Top-Luxury-Atlanta-Realtor-Debra-Johnston-Named-to-Variety-Magazines-Showbiz-Real-Estate-Elite-Report-2021
Overnight reports from Jacksonville police:

 A man pulled a gun out of the water while fishing Monday along Woods Lane.

The man told police he was magnet fishing about 5:50 p.m. when he found the firearm. Magnet fishing involves using a strong magnet on a fishing line to look for metal objects in water.

Authorities retrieved the gun.
Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co. Ltd. (600989.SH) plans to build Chinas biggest maker of a key material used to produce medical goods, eying the booming global market for face masks despite concerns over regulation and the projects big price tag.

The aggressive plan will see the Yinchuan-based chemical products specialist shell out an estimated 67.3 billion yuan ($10.3 billion) to build a coal-to-olefin complex in the neighboring coal hub of Inner Mongolia with annual capacity of 4 million tons of olefin, according to a Monday filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

That addition would equal more than a third of Chinas current total capacity for the chemical, which is a key ingredient for plastics packaging and medical goods.

With several new olefin projects coming online, Baofengs production of chemicals surged last year, fueling a 21.59% increase in its 2020 profit to 4.6 billion yuan, it said in an earnings update on Friday.

The massive new project reflects Baofengs optimistic outlook on future demand for olefin, a spokesman told Caixin, adding the companys coal-to-olefin business profit margin is about 40%, well above the industry average.

Baofeng said its concurrent engagement in coal mining can ensure sufficient supply of the raw material and reduce the new projects logistics costs. The complex will also have supporting production facilities for methanol, another key ingredient in olefin production, with annual output of 11 million tons.

Chinas consumption of chemicals in the olefin chain has climbed significantly in recent years. It consumed nearly 35 million tons of polyethylene, a product containing olefin, in 2019, up from less than 20 million tons in 2015, according to Huachuang Securities. Another product made using olefin, polypropylene, also saw domestic consumption rise more than 6% year-on-year to more than 25 million tons in 2019.

Chinas demand for those two chemicals is expected to increase by over 5% annually over the next five years, according to data analysis firm IHS Markit.

The local economic planner in the Inner Mongolian city of Ordos, where the project will be located, has included the plan on its list of key construction projects, which has also gotten the green light from the provincial planner, the latest filing said. Such approval by regional and even national economic planners is usually required for projects of such large scale, and helps to ensure they can get the funding they need.

Ningxia Baofeng added that the provincial planner wants the project to finish construction in 2023. But it also warned that changing government policies could affect the projects progress, and added the plan still requires approval from the nations environmental regulator.

Inner Mongolia has imposed a slew of restrictions on the addition of power-guzzling projects in the region as it rushes to meet central government targets for controlling energy consumption over the next five years. A draft plan released by the provincial government on Feb. 25 suggests such restrictions could include a ban on new high energy consuming projects, including coking coal, steel and electrolytic aluminum.

The Baofeng spokesman said the companys ability to get financing hasnt been affected by the recent tightening of Inner Mongolias energy consumption policy.

An industry insider told Caixin a bigger issue that could weigh on the massive new project could be the huge financing required. Baofeng said in the filing it will pay 30% of the 62.5 billion yuan required for construction of the project using its cash. It will obtain the rest  some 43.75 billion yuan  via loans.

Founded in 2005, the privately-owned chemical producer had 38.1 billion yuan in total assets by the end of 2020. Baofeng said it has retained credit lines totaling 50 billion yuan from Bank of Communications Co. Ltd. and the Inner Mongolia branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and the investment will be made in phases.

The company had 12.27 billion yuan in total debt at the end of last years third quarter, representing a 23.5% increase from the end of 2019, according to its latest quarterly report. The high leverage ratio for the new project means banks will need to be cautious and closely follow industry condition when advancing the necessary funds to Baofeng, the industry insider told Caixin.

Contact reporter Lu Yutong (yutonglu@caixin.com) and editor Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)

Download our app to receive breaking news alerts and read the news on the go.

Follow the Chinese markets in real time with Caixin Globals new stock database.
Korea Federation of Banks Chairman Kim Gwang-soo speaks during an online press conference at its headquarters in Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of Korea Federation of Banks



By Lee Min-hyung



The head of a federation representing the interests of Korean banks said lenders have grown fearful of "unilateral" punishment by financial regulators, which has apparently heightened uncertainties for top management. Korea Federation of Banks (KFB) Chairman Kim Gwang-soo said Tuesday that the punitive measures were aimed at chastising bank chiefs who fail to maintain control over their businesses, but the rationale used by regulators remains unclear.



The comments centered on a recent decision by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) to deliver harsh sanctions on Woori Financial Group Chairman Son Tae-seung and Shinhan Bank CEO Jin Ok-dong over their involvement in attracting customers to invest in a soured fund.



The FSS took issue with the failure of the bank chiefs to maintain close watch over what investment products they sell. But most banks expressed concerns about a lack of logic in the punitive measures, while many blamed the financial watchdog of trying to shift all of the blame on top bank officials.



"We consider such disciplinary measures as being negative, as under that logic, bank leaders should control every single act committed by their employees to avoid possible sanctions, which is impossible," Kim told reporters in an online press conference.



"Disciplinary measures should be made based on relevant and predictable legal standards, and banks and regulators should also enhance communication, preventing unilateral sanctions. Banks will then be able to strive to achieve autonomous management," he said.



Kim also warned of the estimated effects of tech companies' aggressive inroads into the financial industry.



"The rapid rise of big tech firms raises concerns that banks may fall victim to reverse discrimination from existing regulations," he said.



Traditional commercial lenders  such as KB, Shinhan, Woori and Hana  are crying foul, saying watchdogs should impose a similar level of regulations on tech companies when they expand into the financial sector.



"My view is that big tech and fintech firms should never be exempt from financial laws here," he said. "Tighter regulatory standards should be established particularly for big tech firms to engage in fair sales activities because their influence is ever-growing."



Kim took office as the leader of the bank federation about three months ago. As this year's top priority, he pledged to keep supporting banking groups so they can help the virus-hit economy achieve a major rebound.


I've been closely monitoring how different Android device-makers do with post-sales software support for something like 97 years now, I think  and every year around this time, I brace myself for a brutal discovery.

Here's the thing: Six months after a major operating system's release, most phones should be running that current software. I feel like that's a pretty obvious-seeming and uncontroversial statement to make.

And yet, every year around this time, I start crunching the numbers (and also crunching some crackers, as all that number-crunching can really make a fella famished)  and you know what I find? Almost inevitably, a shockingly large portion of the top-tier, top-dollar Android phones in the land are either still stuck on 18-month-old software or just recently got the update they should have gotten six months earlier.

The last couple cycles, at least, we saw some manner of relative progress and improvement with Android upgrade delivery times, even if the overall results were still pretty dismal. So I had hoped that this year would continue that general trajectory and show us at a minimum some more modest change in the right direction.

Um, yeah  so much for that.

[Get level-headed knowledge in your inbox with JR's Android Intelligence newsletter. Tips, insights, and other tasty treats await!]

If there's one trend that shines through the data this year, it's the same one we've seen pretty consistently over time: Android device-makers, on the whole, just aren't very good at getting out software updates in a reasonably timely and reliable manner  even when it comes to their highest-paying customers. Companies can try to spin the story any way they want, but data doesn't lie. And this year's numbers speak volumes.

Now that we're six full months past the launch of Android 11, it's time to step back and look at who's making upgrades a priority and who's treating 'em as an afterthought. Get ready for some data-driven wake-up calls.

(Want the full nitty-gritty on how these grades were calculated? You can find a detailed breakdown of the formula and every element taken into account at the very end of this article.)

Google

Length of time for upgrade to reach current flagship: 0 days (60/60 points)

0 days (60/60 points) Length of time for upgrade to reach previous-gen flagship: 0 days (30/30 points)

0 days (30/30 points) Communication: Excellent (10/10 points)

The one bit of unambiguously good news with this year's Android upgrade cycle is also probably the least surprising. Google does a consistently commendable job of getting current Android software into the hands of the people who purchase its self-made Pixel products, with near-instant rollouts for all current devices and no real cause for complaint.

That hasn't always been the case, entirely. This is actually just the third year that Google has received a 100% score in this analysis. Up until the Android 9 rollout, in 2018, the company had always either faltered slightly with its previous-gen flagship rollout or had some points docked for leaving certain models of its phones hanging longer than others and then failing to communicate anything about their progress.

With Android 11, though, it's a completely clean slate and a shining example of how Android upgrades ought to be handled. Google announced Android 11, following its seven-month development preview period, and then started rolling the software out to its then-current-gen Pixel 4 flagship and its then-previous-gen Pixel 3 model  along with its three-year-old Pixel 2 phone and all of its midrange Pixel "a" devices, no less  on the very same day.

(For the purposes of this analysis, by the way, it's the start of a rollout  to a flagship phone model in the U.S.  that counts, as you can read about in more detail here.)

And while Google's usual "rolling out in waves" asterisk applied to a certain degree, with some Pixel owners not receiving the software on that very first day, Android 11 made its way to all supported Pixel devices within a reasonable amount of time and without the need for any extra communication beyond the company's initial announcement. And sure, we could argue that Google has a unique advantage in that it's both the manufacturer of the devices and the maker of the software  but guess what? That's part of the Pixel package. And as a person purchasing a phone, the only thing that really matters is the experience you receive.

As usual, the results tell you all there is to know: Google's phones are without question the most reliable way to receive ongoing updates in a timely manner on Android. It's the only company that makes an overt guarantee about that, and it's absolutely the only one that delivers on it.

Samsung

Length of time for upgrade to reach current flagships: 91 days (47/60 points)

91 days (47/60 points) Length of time for upgrade to reach previous-gen flagships: 136 days (21/30 points)

136 days (21/30 points) Communication: Poor (0/10 points)

We hear a lot of buzz about how Samsung is absolutely killing it with upgrades as of late. And you know what? To the company's credit, it has been doing better than usual  relative to its own past performance. Heck, it's even in second place this year, though that says more about the rest of the ecosystem than about Samsung itself. But when you assess the company's level of support with a standard, consistent scale, you see that Sammy isn't exactly knocking it out of the park.

This year, in fact, Samsung did about the same as what it managed last year  with some very slight improvements in delivery times but not enough to move the needle on its overall score. (Since Samsung has thus far treated its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note phones as co-flagships, incidentally, I look at the delivery time to both devices and then average those figures to achieve a single score.)

And when you look back further into Android upgrade history, you realize all that's happened over these last couple years is that Samsung has returned to the level of mediocrity it was achieving six years ago, with 2014's Android 5.0 Lollipop rollout. The company had a rough run of horrifically bad years after that  so, yes, it has been doing better than those really rough years as of late. And it has been servicing more phones than ever and actually getting updates out to even its non-flagship phones within this initial six-month period. That's certainly something.

But you can't grade a company only relative to its own past letdowns and the low bar it's established for itself. And the number of different phone models Samsung has to juggle shouldn't be a factor for us, as people who pay for and use the devices. Again, regardless of any circumstances within the company you're purchasing a phone from, all that ultimately matters is the experience that you, as the customer, receive.

And on that note, as usual, Samsung has made no effort whatsoever to communicate with its customers about its upgrade process or what can be expected along the way in this Android upgrade cycle.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Samsung can  and should  do better. Particularly for a company of its size and with its immense financial and engineering-related resources, delivering updates to people three to five months late (even now, with the benefits of Google's recent Project Treble Android upgrade processing improvements in place) comes down to one thing and one thing only: priorities.

OnePlus

Length of time for upgrade to reach current flagships: 33 days (55/60 points)

33 days (55/60 points) Length of time for upgrade to reach previous-gen flagship: Still waiting (0/30 points)

Still waiting (0/30 points) Communication: Mediocre (5/10 points)

After a solid three-year streak of holding the second-place spot and steadily increasing its performance with Android upgrades, OnePlus has fallen hard with its Android 11 rollout. The company actually did pretty well with its current flagship phones, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro, but it completely dropped the ball with its previous-gen flagship  the OnePlus 7T, which still hasn't gotten the update as of this writing  and that was enough to bring down its score considerably.

Also not helping is the fact that OnePlus never does a heck of a lot in terms of communication with customers about its progress. The first official peep from the company came in January, when it posted a message in its forums noting that it had run into a "data decryption issue" with the OnePlus 7T phone and consequently was running later than it had anticipated with that device's Android 11 delivery. That four-months-late acknowledgment is better than nothing, of course  and it's the reason the company got a five-point communication score instead of a flat zero  but it isn't even close to enough.

I can only hope that this stumble was a genuine fluke and that OnePlus will get back on track with Android 12 later this year. After seeing the company go from a 65% D score with Android 8 to a 74% C with Android 9 and then a pretty-darn-good 85% B with Android 10, it'd be a real shame to see subpar scores become its norm again.

NEXT PAGE: The Hall of Shame "F" club  and a few important footnotes

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine held a presentation of the elements of the Crimean Charter, which is planned to be adopted following the Crimean Platform summit, for the ambassadors of foreign states in Ukraine and is waiting for their proposals, what else should be included in this document, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Emine Dzhaparova said.

"We are now at the stage of consultations, we have developed elements of the Crimean Charter, what we consider necessary to be included in this final document. Last week we had the first round of consultations, several dozen ambassadors were invited to the Foreign Ministry, where we presented them with the elements of this Charter," Dzhaparova said at the opening of the exhibition "Loyalty to Oneself is not a Crime" at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

"In fact, now we expect from them not only feedback on our elements, but also proposals of the countries on what to include in this Charter, because we believe that this is a joint document which should include proposals of those countries that have an active position to protect the interests of Ukraine and prevent the legitimization of the status of temporary occupation," she said.

According to the deputy minister, consultations are being conducted with dozens of countries and each country can outline the level of its complicity in the Crimean platform.

"Turkey supported the initiative to create a Crimean platform. This is recorded in a joint statement by Presidents Erdogan and Zelensky following President Zelensky's visit to Turkey a few months ago, and, in fact, Turkey, together with our partners, is actively involved in the work on the final document of the summit," Dzhaparova said.
Dehradun, March 9 : Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat is expected to resign Tuesday evening and hand over his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya, a source close to the CM said.

With speculation doing rounds in Uttarakhand political circle about his replacement, Rawat was expected to meet the Governor after his scheduled address to the media in Dehradun.

Uttarakhand BJP vice president Devendra Bhasin earlier said that the Chief Minister is scheduled to address a press conference and will likely make a crucial statement on political speculation going on in the state.

Bhasin further stated that he heard that Uttarakhand BJP chief Banshidhar Bhagat has called a meeting of legislative party at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

"I am not aware about the agenda of the legislative party but a meeting has been called tomorrow," Bhasin said.

Another BJP leader from Uttarakhand said that speculations were rife in Dehradun that Rawat may announce his resignation in the press conference and later submit it to the Governor.

"After his meeting with central leadership yesterday in the national capital, it seems that BJP leadership has informed Rawat about possible change of leadership in the Uttarakhand government. Now he might step down from the office," he said.

On Monday evening, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief J.P. Nadda, National General Secretary (Organisation) B.L. Santosh discussed the political development in the hill state.

BJP National General Secretary and state in-charge, Dushyant Gautam was part of discussion. Meeting was called after several MLAs questioned Rawat's style of functioning.

"Bureaucracy is getting more powerful and voices of elected representatives are unheard," said a party member from Uttarakhand.

On Saturday, the BJP leadership sent former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Gautam as observers to meet state leaders and get a feedback. "Both the leaders met the members of the core committee and took their opinion. Report was submitted to BJP leadership," said a party insider.

It is learnt that the report mentioned that it will be difficult for the party to win the next year state assembly polls with Rawat as the face of BJP.

In 2017, Rawat was made Chief Minister after BJP won in Uttarakhand.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Born in Venezuela, but raised in an Arabic family, Usama decided to leave everything behind and move to Los Angeles with one ambitious dream: start his own clothing line. Fast forward to 6 years later, after facing many challenges like financial problems, homophobia and racism, Usama Ishtay is now an established fashion brand trusted by A-List Celebrities and Hollywood Stylists. Usamas career changed forever after dressing his first celebrity - the 
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.

A look at some of the major movers in London on Tuesday

( ) advanced 11% to 89.68p on the back of well-received full-year results.

The shopping centres owner was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, with net rental income slumping to 34.1mln from 49.3mln the year before.

We are encouraged by how quickly our centres rebounded following the easing of restrictions at various points last year. In some cases our centres went from trading 30 per cent of stores to 96 per cent of stores in 48 hours, a testament to the relevance of our centres and retailers and the quality and adaptability of our teams, the property companys chief executive, Lawrence Hutchings, said.

2.40pm: Anglesey Mining lifted by Labrador PEA news

( ) shot up 31% to 6.69p on encouraging news from Labrador Iron Mines Holdings, in which it holds a 12% stake.

Labrador Iron Mines Holdings (LIMH) has released the details of a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of its 52%-owned Houston Project in Canada.

The PEA suggests a production time frame of 12 years after an 18-month construction period. Iron ore production would amount to about 2mln tonnes per annum of 62% iron lump and sinter direct shipping ore. The initial capital cost including contingency is forecast at US$65mln.

1.45pm: Barry Reynolds increases his shareholding in Mineral & Financial

( ) jumped 20% to 10.83p as existing shareholder Barry Reynolds increased his stake.

Reynolds now has just over 35mln shares, equivalent to a holding of 4.27% of the investment companys issued share capital.

Previously, Reynoldss notifiable shareholding was 3%.

12.50pm: Hemogenyx higher after financial controller ups his stake

PLC ( ) was 13% firmer at 6.65p after its financial controller, Andrew Wright, made a show of support.

Wright bought 94,882 shares at an average price of 6.03p, taking his beneficial interest in the company up to 1.63mln shares, representing around 0.36% of the company issued ordinary share capital.

11.55am: Kanabo bags another supply agreement

( ) jumped 24% to 22.9p after it secured a second supply agreement for its VapePod medicinal cannabis inhalation device.

Under a new contract, Polish cannabis cultivation group PharmaCann will supply cartridges of medicinal cannabis-based on Kanabo's proprietary formulation for the VapePod device.

Up to 36,000 cartridges per month will be filled and prepared at PharmaCanns facility in North Macedonia as part of the new agreement, Kanabo said.

11.00am: surges after Argo Blockchain's investment in investee company

PLC ( ) leaps 12% to 16.5p after it drew attention to Argo Blockchain's plans to invest in Pluto Digital Assets, in which Pires has a stake.

The investment company focused on next-generation technology observed that Argo announced yesterday it plans to invest 7.3mln into Pluto, thereby maintaining its stake of around 25%.

Piress holding of 32.52mln Pluto shares is equivalent to around a 6.4% stake. Pires has warrants that if exercised would increase its holding by 24mln shares.

10.05am: Westmount Energy higher after starting gun is fired at the Canje block

( ) hardened 15% to 13.35p ahead of the expected start of operations tomorrow for the next well at the Canje block, offshore Guyana.

The company noted an announcement by Guyanas Maritime Administration Department, that the Stena Carron drillship will begin drilling operations at the Jabillo-1 well site on 10 March.

Jabillo will be the second of three exploration wells scheduled for the Exxon-led Canje block this year. It is described as a 1bn barrel prospect, in the Late Cretaceous basin fan system.

( ), the fund management firm that used to be part of ( ), got the thumbs-up from the market for its 2020 results.

The shares rose 5.6% to 216.5p after the company, in its first full year as an independent company, saw assets under management and administration (AUMA) rise 4% to 367.2bn.

Adjusted operating profit before tax of 788mln, down from 1.15bn the year before, was described by chief executive John Foley as a good outcome given that, as an independent company, we incurred head office and debt interest costs for the first full year.

This morning weve published our Full Year 2020 Financial Results which demonstrate a strong and resilient performance. You can read our full announcement here: https://t.co/VNEj37DlHI pic.twitter.com/QujyyQRxgC  (@mandgplc) March 9, 2021

Elsewhere in the financial sector, investors were not so forgiving of Group PLC ( ), which saw its shares slide 3.3% to 253.8p following its full-year results.

The inter-dealer broker saw revenue in 2020 dip by 2% to 1.79bn from 1.83bn in 2019, while adjusted profit before tax slipped 3% to 223mln from 230mln.

The first two months of 2021 saw revenue per trading day running marginally higher than in the first two months of 2020 but the company said first-quarter revenues could still be down year-on-year as March 2020 was a bumper month.

Proactive news headlines

( ) ( ) said it has completed a fundraising that it says will allow it to complete a follow-on investment in Pluto Digital Assets as well as pursue strategic opportunities in crypto mining, capital investment, decentralised finance (DeFi) and Web 3.0 initiatives, and general working capital purposes.

( ) said Australia's Therapeutics Goods Administration has approved its drug Feraccru to treat iron deficiency with or without anaemia in adults.

Diagnostics specialist genedrive plc ( ) said it has inked a deal with a US military contracting specialist that will distribute its BioPlex range, which provide rapid tests for threats from pathogens.

( ) said its Venn Life Sciences business has won a contract to support a phase I clinical study.

( ) has been awarded a contract worth a minimum of US$960,000 by a customer that wants to use Kromeks technology in a new radiation technology product.

( ) said it has invested US$200,000 into a seed funding round at Automata Network alongside trading firm Alameda Research and other investors such as IOSG Ventures, Divergence Ventures and Block, for a yet-to-be-determined amount of Automata (ATA) tokens.

( ) said its portfolio company AquaInSilico, in which it owns a 29% stake, will receive a US$250,000 grant as an Ocean Innovator through the United Nations Development Programmes Ocean Innovation Challenge.

( ), the biotech backer, saw a sharp increase in its net asset value (NAV) per share in 2020. The companys NAV stood at 328mln at the end of December, up from 202mln a year earlier. The company also announced it has founded a new 49%-owned portfolio company, Twelve Bio, that is a spin-out from the Foundation Centre for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen and is developing novel engineered Cas12a nucleases for therapeutic gene editing.

( ) said it has signed a new contract for Paddington Bear with the Black Watch Museum in Perth, Scotland.

( ) announced it has received an eighth positive test result confirming that its graphene nanoplatelets are not absorbed through human skin. This is vital for the use of graphene in textile markets where customers have to be certain of the safety of the apparel they produce and market, the company said.

( )( ) has completed the first 26 drill holes of the La India starter pit infill drilling programme.

La India is Condors flagship gold project in Nicaragua.

( ) said further infill drilling results were "outstanding" at its Havieron project in Australia.

Westmount Energy Limited ( ) told investors it is expecting that operations for Jabillo-1, the next well at the Canje block, offshore Guyana, will start tomorrow.

( ) has signed a Master Services Agreement with Synergy Consulting to provide financial and transaction advisory services in regard to the integrated 300MW coal fired Ncondezi power project and coal mine in Tete, Mozambique.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd (LON:COPL, CSE:XOP) has raised 14mln through a share placing with the proceeds earmarked for its new North American assets, which are being acquired in the Atomic Oil & Gas deal (due to close next week).

( ) has received warrant exercise notices to subscribe for 4,000,000 new ordinary shares in the company at an exercise price of 10p per ordinary share for total gross proceeds of 400,000. Chief executive Russell Fryer said: "It is encouraging to see further support from our shareholders endorsing the confidence they have in the Company's strategy to identify and acquire brownfield mining opportunities in the strategic metals sector. We continue to consider a number of operators or near-term production operators within the natural resources development and production sector in the continent of Africa, with a number of targets having been identified with preliminary discussions continuing."

( ) said it has secured a put option financing agreement with US investment manager LDA Capital. The cannabidiol (CBD) group said the agreement will allow it to access up to 35mln over a 36-month period as well as retain the optionality to control the timing and amount of capital draws, which it said will guarantee operational flexibility for the group as it looked to further expand its international footprint.

( ) in a statement noted that it has agreed, at the request of borrower Proger Managers & Partners, to postpone the Loan reimbursement until 19 March  it also noted that as of the maturity date, February 25, the due reimbursement was 14.85mln.

( ) notified that its interim results for the six months ended 31 January 2021 are scheduled for 24 March.

AFC Energy ( ) told investors that it has appointed FTI Consulting as its retained public relations and financial communications adviser.
She's long been associated with her long blonde tresses.

But Roxy Jacenko totally transformed herself on Tuesday, debuting her stunning new brunette locks in an Instagram post.

The 41-year-old businesswoman and socialite revealed it was the first time she had gone with her natural shade since she was 18 years old.

A new start: Roxy Jacenko changed things up on Tuesday, debuting her stunning new brunette locks in an Instagram post

In the mirror selfie, Roxy showed off her shoulder length bob - and her personalised 'ROXY' iPhone case.

The SAS Australia star captioned the post, 'Went to work blonde came home as my 18 year old self - a natural brunette! Thank you @michaelkellycolourist - killed it.'

The Stan ambassador has meanwhile put her luxurious $840,000 boat up for sale.

Last Wednesday, the mother-of-two shared a photo of the 2006 Riva Aquariva 33 to Instagram.

Bye bye blonde: The 41-year-old businesswoman and socialite revealed it was the first time she had gone with her natural shade since she was 18 years old. Seen here in 2018

On the market: Jacenko has put her luxurious $840,000 boat up for sale. On Wednesday, she shared a photo of the 2006 Riva Aquariva 33 to Instagram

'It's the cult boat for the worldwide collectors and it could be yours next,' she captioned the post.

According to Boat Sales, the craft retails for $841,500, however its resale value in Australia is unknown.

The Italian-style luxurious yacht features wooden finishes with navy-blue accents and leather interior seating, as well as a discreet toilet.

The Riva Aquariva 33 also has a wet bar, refrigerator and an electronically activated canopy.

It could be yours: 'It's the cult boat for the worldwide collectors and it could be yours next,' Roxy captioned the post

Roxy received the luxurious boat as a Christmas gift from her mother Doreen back in 2019.

At the time, the entrepreneur shared a photo of her new boat to Instagram.

'Thanks Mummy. Who needs a model when you can have it in the flesh yewwwwww,' she captioned the post, alongside a Christmas tree and love heart emojis.

Earlier this year, Doreen reportedly purchased a $5million cottage in Sydney's Vaucluse.

That's generous! Roxy received the luxurious boat as a Christmas gift from her mother Doreen back in 2019

The former rag trader bought the property, which is located just one street away from the Roxy's home, in December.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Doreen is planning a knockdown-rebuild and has enlisted the help of designer Blainey North to create a new luxurious home.

The cottage features five spacious bedrooms, three bathrooms and living spaces for entertaining.
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
Ghana and the UK have signed a new trade agreement worth 1.2bn ($1.6bn) that will allow free access and tariff reductions for certain goods between the countries.



Before Brexit, the UK was automatically part of any trade deal the European Union had negotiated with another country.



In its negotiations to leave the EU, the UK government managed to roll over most of the third-country trade deals it had as part of the union, but that did not include Ghana's - meaning importers faced tariffs and extra paperwork.



For example, in January a shipment of bananas arriving into Portsmouth from Ghana was charged a tariff of 17,500.



This meant the UK was no longer a profitable market for Ghanaian banana producers.



But now Ghanaian products including bananas, tinned tuna and cocoa will benefit from tariff-free access to the UK.



The UK's exports, including machinery, electronics and chemical products, will also benefit from a reduction in import duty taxes.



"This deal secures tariff-free access for products that British shoppers love - and supports jobs in Ghana - paving the way for further economic growth as we build back better from Covid-19," said Ranil Jayawardena, the UK's minister for international trade.



Ghanas largest exports to the UK include mineral fuels and oil, preparations of fish, fruit, cocoa and cocoa preparations, a statement from the UK government website noted.



Its top imports from the UK include textiles, machinery and mechanical appliances, and chemical products.









We have just signed a trade deal with Ghana, building on a trade relationship worth 1.2bn 



The agreement secures certainty for business, supports jobs in both nations, and sets the stage for closer trading ties in the years to come.



Trade = Jobs@AlanKyerematen pic.twitter.com/51ZlYFeM8e

 Liz Truss (@trussliz) March 2, 2021

Source: BBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
SAN DIEGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Stellar Solar, a San Diego-based solar installer founded in 1998 with over 12,000 residential solar and commercial solar customers, has hired Albert Quiros and Bryan Stevenson as a Senior Energy Consultants to keep pace with their growing demand for residential and commercial solar installations and battery storage.

Albert Quiros and Bryan Stevenson bring a combined 15 years of solar experience with some of Stellar Solar's most respected competitors including Renova Energy, Baker Electric Home Energy, HES Solar, and ASI Hastings.

Stellar Solar Energy Consultant Albert Quiros Stellar Solar Energy Consultant Bryan Stevenson

Albert described his decision to join Stellar Solar after admiring their brand for years. "During my time with several Stellar competitors, I came up against them on a regular basis. Their longevity, educational approach to selling solar, and high number of customer referral sales always caught my attention. Being consistently voted San Diego's Best Solar Company in the Union Tribune Readers Poll and overwhelmingly positive Yelp reviews were big factors as well." Bryan had similar feedback on Stellar Solar adding, "Through the highs and lows of the solar business in San Diego, Stellar Solar's brand and reputation has continued to shine through in the quality of their team, workmanship, and integrity. Given their current explosion in both residential and commercial solar and battery storage, they needed someone who could hit the ground running and I was in a perfect position to do just that. The opportunity to join a regional legacy brand like Stellar Solar created the perfect situation me to take my career to the next level."

Stellar Solar sales managers Dave Gersz and Zac Dowell, who have been with Stellar Solar since 2008 and have sold over 1,000 systems each, issued a joint statement on the new hires: "Albert and Bryan could have chosen any solar installer in San Diego to work for and we are thrilled they selected Stellar Solar. Their track records as top performers who have succeeded with an educational approach to presenting solar clearly validated them. With the increase in our residential solar and battery storage demand due in part to the combination of the 26% Federal Tax Credit and historically low finance rates, we needed solar professionals that could step in and produce results immediately. Both Albert and Bryan fit that description perfectly, we are excited to have them on the Stellar team."

For more information on by Stellar Solar, call 866-787-6527 or visit www.stellarsolar.net.

About Stellar Solar

Stellar Solar is a leading Southern California residential and commercial PV solar and battery storage design and installation company, based in San Diego. Since 1998 they have installed over 12,000 systems throughout Southern California including notable commercial installations on The Salk Institute, US Foods, Cedars Sinai Hospital and more. Readers of the Union Tribune have voted them best solar panel company again in 2020 marking the third year in a row and eighth time in 10 years winning the award. Their 5 Star Reviews on Yelp, A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and high customer ratings on Angie's list are further testament to their standing as the leading solar provider to homes, businesses, nonprofits and faith based organizations in San Diego County. Learn more at www.stellarsolar.net

Media Contact:

David Boylan

858.395.6905

[email protected]

SOURCE Stellar Solar

Related Links

http://www.stellarsolar.net


The hellish situation in the Kara Tepe refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos is increasingly driving refugee children and adults to commit suicide. Three weeks ago, the attempted suicide of a heavily pregnant woman from Afghanistan evoked shock and horror across the globe.

On February 21, a Sunday, the 26-year-old refugee brought her three small children to safety and then set herself on fire in her tent. The fire was extinguished in time by other camp residents and the pregnant woman was saved. She was taken to hospital in the islands capital Mytilini with severe burn injuries to her hands, feet and head.

Her tragic act of desperation is a damning indictment of the Greek government led by the right-wing ND (Nea Dimokratia) and the European Union (EU), which together bear responsibility for the death of hundreds of thousands of refugees. But instead of this gang of criminals, it is the victim who is now in the dock facing punishment.

Refugees between their tents after a rain storm at Kara Tepe camp on 14 October 2020 (AP Photo/Panagiotis Balaskas)

The exhausted and desperate woman, who is eight months pregnant, was interrogated by the Greek judiciary while still in her hospital bed. She faces charges for alleged arson and destruction of public property.

Teresa Volakaki, one of her two lawyers, described the authorities brutal treatment of her client to the Guardian: Although she was in a lot of pain from her burns and found it difficult to speak, the testimony in Mytilene lasted for around two and a half hours.

It was clear she was stressed and having difficulty remembering but the prosecutor took a very strict line and ruled she will now face criminal charges, trial and not be able to travel abroad.

With her attempted suicide, the young woman was reacting to the inhuman conditions and sense of hopelessness which prevail in the Kara Tepe tent camp, where she had been staying for 14 months with her husband and three small children. The camp is located on a former military site directly by the sea. Thousands of refugees were forced to move there last autumn when their previous slum camp in Moria went up in flames.

Prior to her suicide attempt, her family had finally been recognised to be in need of protection and was due to be flown to Germany with other refugees. The woman then learnt she would be denied departure due to her impending birth.

When she was told she could not travel, her grief and disappointment was so great she attempted suicide, declared Nikos Triantafyllos, an investigating magistrate who conducted the initial interviews. The prospect of a family move to Germany was her only ray of hope, she told investigators. She had hoped to leave before giving birth. The unhygienic conditions in the camp were unbearable for pregnant women and young mothers, and she preferred to die rather than bring another child into the camp, she told prosecutors, according to Der Spiegel.

She had first looked for a rope or other ways of committing suicide, but then in her distress decided to set herself on fire. All the familys belongings went up in flames. The fire did not spread to other tents, however, and no one else was harmed or endangered. The young mother, who has since been released from hospital, remains in a poor mental state, her lawyers stress. They are calling for her acquittal, and a lifting of all restrictive conditions so she can leave for Germany with her family.

This latest suicide attempt is particularly shocking but comes as no surprise. For months, doctors, psychologists and aid organisations have been warning of the dramatic increase in depression, suicidal thoughts and other health consequences resulting from the traumatic and miserable conditions in Kara Tepe.

Around 7,000 refugeesmainly familieslive among rubbish and mud. For the last few weeks, they have been struggling against freezing cold, rain, storms and even snow, without sufficient electricity and heating. Most recently, soil samples have shown that the former military training area has elevated levels of lead. The aid organisation Human Rights Watch has warned of the danger of lead poisoning, especially for the around 2,500 children who play outside daily on the bare ground and in the mud, and are exposed to the pollutants. The Greek government, however, has dismissed all of these accusations.

The child psychologist Katrin Glatz-Brubakk, who works for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Lesbos, spoke in an interview with the German paper Neues Deutschland one week ago about the psychological suffering in the camp: Nightmares, difficulty concentrating, extremely low frustration tolerance, aggressiveness and panic attacks. Some children withdraw almost completely from the world. They no longer play, some have hardly spoken a word for eight months. Others are so apathetic that they no longer eat and need to be fed. They are so listless they dont even go to the toilet themselves.

On Lesbos alone, MSF treated 50 children and young people with suicidal thoughts or attempts at suicide last year. The youngest among them was an eight-year-old girl who tried to hang herself, Glatz-Brubakk said. This year we have already treated three children after suicide attempts. Among them is a 13-year-old boy from Afghanistan who has made a number of suicide attempts. He has swallowed pills, he has run into the sea to drown himself, has tried to jump in front of a moving car and has cut himself with broken glass and razor blades.

The people in the camp are worse off now than they were in Moria, she says. They are demoralised. Meanwhile many are giving up hope that life will ever get better. Many have run out of any reserves. They are just breaking down.

Glatz-Brubakk quite rightly blames EU policies for the refugees plight: The conditions in the camp are not the result of a natural disaster. For over five years, I and many others have been repeatedly drawing attention to this disgraceful situation, for which Europe bears responsibility. Political decision-makers then promise us that things will get betterbut the opposite is the case! It is not only the camp residents who are disappointed and angry. I am too. Europe is watching these people slowly perish.

Disease and deadly dangers are also part of everyday life in other refugee shelters. A week ago, a fire broke out in the refugee shelter of Thiva, northwest of Athens, and a seven-year-old boy died. He was living in a container with his family from Iran. According to witnesses, it took the fire brigade over an hour to get to the site, where they were met by angry refugees.

Meanwhile, the Greek government, in close cooperation with the EU, is preparing the construction of a new refugee detention centre on Lesbos, which will replace all the previous camps on the island and is located next to a rubbish dump in the Vastria region. Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis said in a letter to the mayor of Mytilini 10 days ago that the Closed Controlled Island Facility (KEDN) would open no later than November. It is to be equipped with NATO-type double military fences and advanced security systems and will include a so-called pre-departure detention centre where offenders, refugees with deportation notices and new arrivals will be held for the first few days.

Thousands of refugees who have been granted asylum in Greece are now at risk of homelessness as temporary shelters close. The EU-funded Filoxenia programme had provided accommodation in hotels and limited assistance for refugees but is now being shut down. Many have already been evicted, among them families and children.

At the same time, illegal deportations continue to take place on the Mediterranean Sea. In the so-called pushbacks, refugees are forced to leave Greece for Turkey. The Norwegian non-governmental organisation Aegean Boat Report regularly informs about such pushbacks. According to its latest weekly report, 11 boats with 453 people were stopped or pushed back between February 22 and 28.

Aegean Boat Report describes an incident on February 17, when 13 refugees, including five children, arrived by boat on the coast of Lesbos in the evening. Following advice from the aid organisation, they went to the Megala Therma refugee camp to seek shelter during the cold night. Upon arrival, they received warm blankets from the other residents, but were then taken away by police under the pretext they were to be tested for COVID-19. Instead, the officers took them to a white container, where other men in unmarked uniforms and carrying batons loaded them into vans and drove them to a port. At the port they forced the refugees onto a boat, took them out to sea for about half an hour and abandoned them on a life raft, without life jackets. The panicked refugees were finally rescued by the Turkish coast guard.

Numerous accounts from research and aid organisations make clear that the EU border protection agency Frontex is both directly and indirectly involved in pushbacks. Along with the regime of concentration camps and prisons where refugees vegetate and commit suicide, the illegal deportations at Europes borders are part of the systematic criminal policy of the EU directed against millions of people forced to flee after their home countries have been bombed, destroyed and plundered.
China Offers to Vaccinate Olympians Against COVID-19

The Chinese foreign affairs minister has offered to vaccinate all Olympians who will participate in the Beijing Winter Olympic game next year, despite the deaths of Hongkongers who received a China-made COVID-19 vaccine.

Vaccine diplomacy is one of the main agendas that the Chinese regime has pursued in the past months. However, the efficacy and safety of China-made vaccines is questioned even by Chinese doctors.

The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry Wang Yi spoke about Chinas vaccine diplomacy at a March 7 press conference during the Two Sessions meetingthe regimes most important annual conference.

He said that China has exported COVID-19 vaccines to 43 countries and donated to 69 developing countries. He also said China donated vaccines to United Nations peacekeepers and would like to supply vaccines to the athletes who will participate in the Olympic games.

Wang said that China has 17 types of vaccines that are undergoing trials now. Three of them were approved by the Chinese regime for emergency use, two types from Sinopharm and CoronaVac from Sinovac.

An exhibition of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (Vero Cell) inactivated vaccines developed by Wuhan Biological Products Institute, subsidiary of Sinopharm Groups China National Biotec Group (CNBG), during the Second World Health Expo that was held in Wuhan, China on Nov. 13, 2020. (Getty Images)

Hong Kong Deaths

The majority of vaccines that Hongkongers have received are supplied by Chinese manufacturer Sinovac.

On the early morning of March 8, a 71-year-old Hong Kong manwho hadnt had any health issues when he received the Sinovac-made CoronaVac vaccine on March 3died after receiving emergency treatment in a hospital for about an hour. It was the third death after CoronaVac vaccinations in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong authorities didnt link their deaths to the vaccination.

On March 9, the Hong Kong Health Department announced that a 51-year-old man suffered a heart attack and was in critical condition at an intensive care unit (ICU) in a hospital.

He received the CoronaVac vaccine on March 3 and had a history of diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. On March 6, he started coughing up sputum and feeling shortness of breath.

He is the third patient to need ICU treatment after being vaccinated in Hong Kong.

Hong Kongs Secretary for Civil Service Patrick Nip Tak-kuen said on a radio show on the morning of March 9 that the ongoing serious adverse effects to the China-made COVID-19 vaccines seen in recent days caused fewer people to be willing to vaccinate in the city.

Nip said that only 72 percent of people who made an appointment received their vaccines on March 8, which is much lower than before and represents peoples concerns about the vaccines safety. He said in the early period of the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme, which was started on Feb. 22, over 90 percent of people who made appointments received the vaccines.

Vials of the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by Chinas Sinovac Biotech, are displayed in Bangkok, Thailand on Feb. 24, 2021. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images)

Debate in Peru

China-made vaccines triggered a hot discussion in Peru about their effectiveness after one scientist revealed the efficacy rate was lower than the 50 percent threshold set by the World Health Organization for regulatory approval.

Peru is using the two vaccines developed by Sinopharm.

On March 7, a Peruvian scientist, the former heard of the National Institute of Health Ernesto Bustamante told El Comercio that he received a complete copy of the clinical trials report on Sinopharm vaccines prepared by the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) before he first revealed the data to the public on March 5.

The report said the efficacy of Sinopharms Wuhan-made vaccine is 33.3 percent, and Sinopharms Beijing-made vaccine is 11.5 percent, Bustamante said. I am a professional that helps people understand technical matters. There was no intent to alarm anyone, much less boycott a vaccination plan.

In Peru, there are two groups debating the issue. One supports Bustamante and the other is against.

On March 6, the Peruvian Health Ministry published a statement in which it said Sinopharm told the ministry that their COVID-19 vaccine reached 79.34 percent effectiveness in its last clinical trials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), without noting if the vaccine was the Wuhan or Beijing version.

This was the official response to Bustamantes March 5 speech on Willax Television.

The ministry hasnt released data on Sinopharm vaccine trials in Peru, but asked people not to believe in rumors.

Before the debate intensified in Peru, Brazils state-funded Butantan Institute released data on Jan. 12 that showed the CoronaVacs efficacy in the countrys last-stage clinical trials was 50.4 percent, just enough to pass the 50 percent threshold set by the World Health Organization for regulatory approval.

The U.S.-developed vaccines have higher efficacy, with Pfizer-BioNTech at 95 percent and Moderna at 94.1 percent.
Fans have poked fun at the Royal Family Instagram account after Prince Charles' title was incorrectly spelt as 'Prince of Wakes' in a new Instagram story.

The social media profile tasked with sharing official photos and videos of the Queen and her family posted about the Prince of Wales' appearance at the Jesus House church near Brent Cross in London, this morning.

'The Prince of Wakes has been @JesusHouseUK today to visit their pop-up vaccine centre,' the caption said, wrongly referring to Prince Charles, 72, as 'the Prince of Wakes' instead of 'the Prince of Wales'.

It comes after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's bombshell Oprah interview sent shock waves around the world yesterday as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Firm.

Prince Charles' title was incorrectly spelt as 'Prince of Wakes' in a new Instagram story on the Royal Family's account (pictured)

The mistake, which was shared by the Royal Family this afternoon, has been ridiculed online, with one person (above) joking: 'Prince of Wakes seems like quite a demotion'

The mistake, which was shared by the Royal Family this afternoon, has been ridiculed online, with one person joking: 'Prince of Wakes seems like quite a demotion'.

It came as Prince Charles smiled but stayed silent as he was quizzed about Meghan and Harry's bombshell interview on the first official engagement by a royal since it aired - as he told a nurse 'I can imagine how exhausting it is' as she described her work handing out vaccines.

The Prince of Wales, who is said to be 'absolutely devastated' at Harry's claims he cut him off, put on a brave face as he spoke to medics, clerics and patients at Jesus House church near Brent Cross in London, following the deluge of personal attacks in front of a TV audience of 28million in the UK and US alone.

Meghan and Harry accused an unnamed Royal Family member of racism, suggesting the relative had asked 'how dark' their baby would be; said they had been driven out of Britain, in part, by racism; and accused the Palace machinery of failing to support a 'suicidal' Meghan.

Harry revealed an astonishing rift with his father, saying his family had cut him off financially while suggesting the Queen had been badly advised and had cancelled a meeting scheduled at Sandringham.

The social media account tasked with sharing official photos and videos of the Queen and her family posted about the Prince of Wales' (pictured today) appearance at the Jesus House church near Brent Cross in London, this morning

Prince Charles wore a face mask as he toured Jesus House in Brent Cross, meeting NHS and church staff working on the vaccination pop-up clinic as well as community members due to receive their jab

Meghan also accused her sister-in-law Kate of making her cry; suggested senior royals plotted to ensure Archie would never have a title or adequate security; and said officials had failed to stand up for the couple against 'racist' commentary, while lying to protect other royals.

At Jesus House church today, one parishioner, who only gave her first name, Grace, highlighted that Charles had visited a 'black church', adding: 'All that effort and someone turns around and says there's racism, I don't believe that'.

Harry - through comments to Oprah - has ruled out the Queen and Prince Philip as having made the comments about Archie but left other royals under suspicion.

Charles is said to be 'deeply' concerned over the racism claims, with a source saying: 'It goes against everything the Prince of Wales believes in. He believes diversity is the strength of our society.'

This morning's visit is understood to have been in the palace diary for some time, although the royals may have had a suspicion about what could be discussed in the Oprah interview in advance of it airing.

It comes after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's bombshell Oprah interview (pictured) sent shock waves around the world yesterday as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Firm

Charles seemed at ease as he chatted with people waiting for their vaccinations, including one woman who said she was from Nigeria.

The prince - who previously visited the church in 2007 - replied: 'Oh fantastic, yes, I've been there. Lots of different ethnic groups. Do give them my kind regards next time you speak to them.'

As Charles left the church, a reporter asked, 'Sir, what did you think of the interview?', and after turning to see who had called out, he smiled and carried on walking.

In the Oprah interview, Charles was personally referenced by Prince Harry, who said he felt 'really let down' by his father after he allegedly refused to answer his calls during his time in Canada.

Harry also claimed his family had cut him off financially and suggested the Queen had been badly advised and had cancelled a meeting scheduled at Sandringham.

Discussing his father, Harry said: 'I feel really let down because he's been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like. I will always love him, but there's a lot of hurt that's happened. And I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.'

A source close to the heir to the throne told the Telegraph that Charles will be left 'absolutely devastated' by what his youngest son had said about him.

Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace was under increasing pressure today to comment on Harry and Meghan's claims - after the Queen it said to have refused to sign off a statement prepared by aides yesterday.
At the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Spring of 2020, New York City became the epicenter of the nation. Approximately a year later, New York City continues to have some of the highest rates in the country. The biggest hotspots for COVID-19 in New York City include communities in the South Bronx, north and southeast Queens and an especially large portion of Staten Island.

With nearly 10,000 positive COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people, Staten Island currently has the highest infection rate per capita out of the five boroughs. While Staten Island is the least populated borough, making up only 5% of the citys population, in December of 2020, Staten Island managed to make up 25% of COVID-19 deaths. Many attribute these alarmingly high rates to the prevalence of anti-mask groups on Staten Island, with the spike in November and December rates largely due to the election rallies for the former administration.

However, the poor trends for Staten Island are only continuing two months into the new year, leaving many wondering what could also be contributing to the way Staten Island is being ravaged by COVID-19, specifically the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods located on the North Shore.

While the political culture is certainly a driving factor of these rates, there may also be other factors to consider. Staten Island is the only borough in New York City without a public hospital. There are only two hospitals on Staten Island, both of which are private. This leaves many residents at a disadvantage because public hospitals provide more financially equitable options for those with limited income and those who are undocumented. Staten Island residents are also geographically disadvantaged due to longer average commute times to get to the hospitals.

The lack of public hospitals also prevents Staten Island from being included in many of the COVID-19 plans to increase hospital capacities as well, putting residents at an even greater disadvantage. In early April, when the city first announced its decision to increase medical staff, as well as intensive care unit beds, Staten Island was not included because the plan only applied to public hospitals. Staten Island was left out once again when the city first sent military medical personnel to city hospitals. Staten Island hospitals health care workers were also excluded from an $8.2 million fundraising effort by city hospitals because only public hospitals were included.

Some believe that the city is finally beginning to recognize the needs of neighborhoods most impacted by COVID-19 when it announced that two new mass vaccinations sites would be opened on Staten Island, especially since the first mass vaccination site will open on the North Shore, where predominantly Black and Latino communities are located. However, many residents are concerned about why it took a global pandemic for New York City to realize how insufficient our health care system really is, particularly in certain boroughs.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not where concern should end for the needs of Staten Island residents. The Borough Presidents office has identified high levels of heart disease, chronic respiratory disease, obesity and diabetes as significant problems as well. It is clear that there needs to be more efforts made to address the health care access disparities that have significant effects on borough residents.

Some suggestions to decrease the health care obstacles on Staten Island involve the creation of a city-run hospital on the North Shore of Staten Island where the residents who are most impacted by health and income inequalities reside, the creation of an initiative designed to increase more preventative health care practices in all health care facilities in the borough, and the establishment of community-based health education that targets neighborhoods with the poorest health outcomes in order to positively influence health choices.

Even though it is due to such unfortunate circumstances, perhaps this pandemic is the wake-up call that New York City needs in order to increase its efforts to build a more equitable public infrastructure that will better serve its most neglected communities, and, in turn, all of the citys residents.

Its time to build! After all is said and done, the clarion call is that it is time for the development of a public hospital in the borough of Staten Island.

(Folashade Fakoya, a test and trace coordinator for the National Black Leadership Commission on Health, lives in Eltingville.)
Irelands position as the global epicentre for aircraft leasing looks set to be cemented with a mega-merger between two of the top players in the sector  Dublin-based AerCap and Gecas.

If sealed, the $30bn (25bn) deal will create by far the single biggest jet lessor in the world with a fleet of as many as 2,000 aircraft.

That will eclipse nearest rivals such as Dublin-headquartered Avolon, which has an owned and managed fleet of 572 aircraft and 270 jets on order. SMBC Aviation, also based in Dublin, has 429 owned and managed aircraft. US-based Air Lease has 413.

AerCap is headed by chief executive Gus Kelly, while Gecas  which has a major operation in Shannon  is headed by Greg Conlon.

The future of Gecas has been the subject of speculation for a number of years as its owner, GE, weighed options including breaking itself up.

While the aircraft leasing sector has endured a tumultuous year due to the Covid pandemic, its leaders believe the crisis will accelerate a trend towards airlines leasing more of their aircraft rather than owning them.

More than half the worlds leased aircraft are already managed out of Ireland.

A deal between AerCap and Gecas would be the most ambitious expansion yet under Mr Kellys stewardship of the Dublin-based lessor.

In 2013, he struck a deal to buy the firms then largest rival, Los Angeles-based International Lease Finance in the wake of the financial crisis.

Read More

It would also mark the latest move by GE boss Larry Culp to offload businesses and reduce debt, after taking over the reins at the struggling conglomerate in 2018.

However, if a deal goes ahead, its sheer size could attract attention from antitrust regulators as AerCap and Gecas are already each roughly twice as big in fleet terms as Avolon.

The structure of any deal to acquire Gecas was not immediately clear but several industry sources predicted it would include a similar stock structure that saw lessor ILFCs insurance owner AIG become a shareholder in the new AerCap.

Vertical Research Partners analyst Rob Stallard described the venture that will result if AerCap and Gecas ink a deal as the mother of all leasing companies.

Both Gecas and AerCap have their roots in Irelands Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA), the aircraft leasing company that was founded by Tony Ryan. GPA became an incubator for the sector, with many of the top executives in the leasing sector having worked at the firm.

Battered by the impact of the first Gulf War, GPA failed in 1992 to carry off a stock market flotation. GE came to the rescue the following year, buying the business and creating the foundations for Gecas. Subsequent deals saw AerCap predecessor AerFi emerge from GPA.

A tie-up between AerCap and Gecas will also bring Mr Kelly full circle in his career.

After he graduated from UCD in the 1990s, he worked for accountancy firm KPMG. He was despatched to GPA to work on its audit. He did eight-hour shifts photocopying aircraft leases. GPA later poached him from KPMG.

Additional reporting: Reuters
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
The European Union is a reliable partner and we are supporting Armenia, Wiktorin told RFE/RLs Armenian Service. But we are also ready for greater involvement in the conflicts resolution.

This has to be discussed with the two relevant countries, she said, referring to Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Wiktorin did not specify just how the EU could assist in Karabakh peace efforts more than four months after a Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war.

She said that the EUs special representative for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, tried see what we can do to support those efforts when he visited Yerevan and met with Armenian officials late last month.

The diplomat stressed that the EU continues to strongly support the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. We are in a continuing dialogue with them. We need a common approach, she said.

Klaar said during his trip that the EU will continue to work with Russia for a Karabakh peace despite its mounting tensions with Moscow. He praised the Russians for brokering the ceasefire.

The deployment of the [Russian] peacekeeping forces has helped to bring security and that is to be welcomed, added the envoy.

Klaar travelled to the Armenian capital ahead of the entry into force on March 1 of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed by the EU and Armenia in November 2017.

Wiktorin said that the CEPA upgraded Armenias relationship with the 27-nation bloc and will broaden the scope of our cooperation.

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / FALCON GOLD CORP. (TSX-V:FG), (GR:3FA), (OTC PINK:FGLDF); ("Falcon" or the "Company") is pleased to report the TSX Venture Exchange has accepted and approved the purchase of the Gaspard Gold Claims located in central BC.

In addition, Falcon wishes to amend its February 3rd, 2021 announcement of the Gaspard Gold Claims agreement. Falcon had the technical content of the news release reviewed by William Yeoman, P. Geo., where Mr. Yeoman was also the Gaspard vendor. Dr. Daniel Rubiolo, P. Geo, has agreed to act as the Qualified Person for this restated news release.

The Acquisition Agreement

To acquire 100% interest in the Gaspard Gold Claims, the Company shall pay to the Vendor as follows:

i. $15,000 within fifteen (15) days of the Effective Date where the Effective date occurs within 5 days following regulatory approval of the acquisition;

ii. 200,000 common shares in the Company within fifteen (15) days of the Effective Date; and,

iii. 200,000 warrants at $0.20 per share for a 2-year term within fifteen (15) days of the Effective Date.

Falcon has further committed to complete $34,000 in exploration expenditures on the property during the 2021 field season. In addition, the vendor will retain a two percent (2%) on Net Smelter Returns royalty ("NSR") on the Property. Falcon may at any time purchase 1% of the NSR for $1,500,000.

All the Falcon shares and share purchase warrants issued will be subject to a 4 month hold from the date of issuance.

The Property

The Gaspard Property comprises 3 mineral claims, covering 3,955 hectares ("ha") in the Clinton Mining District of central British Columbia. The Property has year-round, all-season road access with a good network of active logging roads. The City of Williams Lake located 60 kilometers ("km") northeast of the Property is a regional supply centre for mining, logging and ranching.

The SBGB forms a northwest trending belt of Eocene-age, volcaniclastic and sedimentary rocks more than 430 km long and up to 24 km wide extending to the north east from town of Princeton. The volcanic units are dominated by dacitic to rhyolitic volcaniclastic rocks, breccias and domes that are well known to host significant gold occurrences. The volcanic sequence observed on the Gaspard Gold Claims includes a low-dipping dacitic flow unit overlain by a central volcaniclastic rhyolitic unit capped by basalts. The Property is located immediately east of the northernmost mapped limit of the Spences Bridge Group, in an area that is presented on regional BC geological maps as unnamed Eocene-age, intermediate to felsic volcaniclastic rocks bearing remarkable similarity to the Spences Bridge Group.

The closest gold deposit to the Property is located approximately 26 km to the south and is the Blackdome gold mine project. The Blackdome reportedly has resources of 144,500 tonnes ("t") Indicated grading 11.29 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold and 50.01 g/t silver, and 90,600 t Inferred grading 8.79 g/t gold and 18.61 g/t silver (as currently reported by Tempus Resources Ltd.) The Blackdome mineralization is characterized as volcanic- hosted epithermal gold and silver class and may represent the target-type for the Gaspard Gold Claims.

The Gaspard Gold Claims are mostly covered by unconsolidated glacial deposits with only about 3% outcrop exposures. Historical work has included both stream sediment sampling and soil sampling in the northern part of the claims group that successfully discovered gold geochemical anomalies. Discovery Consultants Ltd. was hired during the 1990 field season to collect eleven (11) heavy mineral stream sediment samples. This survey covered four creek drainages on the current Gaspard 3 claim from the base to headwaters. A follow-up survey consisting of 212 "B-Horizon" soil geochemistry samples was also completed. Anomalous grades of the stream sediment samples returned from 94 ppb Au to 5,910 ppb Au within 4 adjacent streams, defining a continuous gold anomaly over an upstream distance of 1.8 kilometers. Anomalous B-Horizon soil samples assayed by standard fire assay ranged up to 1127 ppb Au and confirmed the findings of the stream sediment survey. In combination, the gold anomaly defined gold anomaly is defined over a surface area of 1800 m x 1200 m and much of the claims to the south east remain to be tested.

Next Steps for the Gaspard Gold Claims

In an internal report by the vendor, the next recommended steps include an initial high-resolution helicopter-borne magnetic survey to provide further definition over the claims area, including 320 kilometers of flight lines, with a flight line spacing of 150m along East-West oriented flight lines, with N-S oriented tie-lines. The E-W oriented flight lines are optimal for the delineation of both northeast and northwest trending structures. Also, a further 60 regular and 60 heavy mineral stream sediment samples are required over the areas of deep overburden cover across the remaining Gaspard Property. In addition, more prospecting, mapping and sampling of the brecciated rhyolite with quartz vein stockwork is needed to determine the source (or sources) of the gold stream and soil anomalies. The same report suggested that these next steps would require a budget of approximately $250,000 and should result in well-defined gold mineralization drill targets.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Daniel Rubiolo, P.Geo., who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

About Falcon Gold Corp., the Central Canada Gold Mine Project, and Jack Lake Trend

Falcon is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on generating, acquiring, and exploring opportunities in the Americas. Falcon's flagship project, the Central Canada Gold Mine, is approximately 20 km south east of Agnico Eagle's Hammond Reef Gold Deposit which has Measured & Indicated estimated resources of 208 million tonnes containing 4.5 million ounces of gold. The Hammond Reef gold property lies on the Hammond fault which is a splay off of the Quetico Fault Zone ("QFZ") and may be the control for the gold deposit. The Central Gold property lies on a similar major splay of the QFZ.

*History of Central Canada gold mine includes;

1901 to 1907 - Shaft constructed to a depth of 12m and 27 oz of gold from 18 tons using a stamp mill.

1930 to 1934 - Central Canada Mines Ltd. installed a 75 ton per day gold mill. Development work included 1,829 m of drilling and a vertical shaft to a depth of 45 m with about 42 m of crosscuts and drifts on the 100-foot level. In December, 1934 the mine had reportedly outlined approximately 230,000 ounces of gold with an average grade of 9.9 g/t Au.

1935 - With the on-going financial crisis of the Great Depression, the Central Canada Mines was unable to fund operations and the mine ceased operations.

1965 - Anjamin Mines completed diamond drilling and in hole S2 returned a 2 ft section of 37.0 g/t Au and hole S3 assayed 44.0 g/t Au across 7 ft.

1985 - Interquest Resources Corp. drilled 13 diamond holes totaling 1,840m in which a 3.8 ft intersection showed 30.0 g/t Au.

2010 to 2012 - TerraX Minerals Inc. conducted programs that included line cutting, geological surveys and 363 m of drilling.

*Historical results reported for the Central Canada Gold Mine project for the period from 1901 to 2012 are recognized as historical in nature only. Previously reported results are considered encouraging and demonstrate the need for additional follow-up gold exploration programs on the property.

July 2020 to December 2020- Falcon Gold Corp. completed its inaugural 17-hole program totaling 2,942.5m of core. In addition, the Company acquired by staking an additional 7,477 ha of mineral claims consisting of 369 units immediately south and northwest of Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.'s Hammond Reef property.

The Company also holds 4 additional projects. The Camping Lake Gold property in the world-renowned Red Lake mining camp; a 49% interest in the Burton Gold property with Iamgold near Sudbury Ontario; the Spitfire-Sunny Boy Gold Claims near Merritt, B.C.; and most recently, the Springpole West Property near Red Lake, Ontario.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Falcon Gold Corp. "Karim Rayani" Karim Rayani

Chief Executive Officer, Director

Telephone: (604) 716-0551

Email: info@falcongold.ca

Cautionary Language and Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, etc. Forward looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Falcon Gold Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634397/Falcon-Reports-Regulatory-Acceptance-of-Purchase-of-Gaspard-Gold-Claims-Corrects-Qualified-Person
Eastin Grand Saigon is once again ready to welcome guests

This week, the hotel will undergo a complete deep clean, disinfection, and sanitisation process so that it can be ready to welcome business and leisure guests from March 8. The meeting rooms and multi-purpose ballroom will also be available to host meetings, events, and weddings.

Conveniently located between the airport and city centre, the Eastin Grand Hotel Saigon Business Centre offers a range of wedding and event facilities. The Grand Ballroom is the largest banquet hall with 338 square metres of multi-functional space capable of accommodating 460 guests for cocktails. The Saigon Business Centre also offers two multi-purpose meeting rooms as well as three executive boardrooms with built-in LCD screens that are ideal for weddings. The air-conditioned rooms are equipped with a cloakroom and foyer-area perfect for pre-event cocktails.
[March 09, 2021] Recce Pharmaceuticals Dual Lists on Frankfurt Stock Exchange

Shares now trading on major German Trading Exchanges

Shares trade under code: R9Q

No related capital raising - trade of existing securities with trade volume to increase on Australian Stock Exchange (ASX)

Expected to broaden institutional and retail investor base across EU, in-line with increasing activity in the region SYDNEY, Australia, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recce Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:RCE) (Company), the Company developing new classes of synthetic anti-infectives is pleased to announce the Companys shares are now Dual Listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE).

Trading commenced Monday, March 8 at 8:00 a.m. (CET) under the code R9Q. The dual listing sees trading of the Companys securities on German Trading Exchanges: Frankfurt, Tradegate, Munich, Stuttgart and Gettex. The dual listing was possible without many of the primary listing procedures, seeing a widening of investor reach with minimal cost. There is no associated capital raising due to the Companys strong existing financial position and sees no issuance of new securities due to the Company being listed and market-makable via the ASX. Dr. John Prendergast, Chairman of Recce Pharmaceuticals Ltd said, Dual-listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is a wonderful new chapter in our global strategy. As the third largest stock exchange in the world, it sees the connection of EU biotech and overseas capital with the Companys new classes of synthetic anti-Infectives development program. r. Stefan Muller, CEO of DGWA, said, DGWA are thrilled to be working with Recce in Europe. Investor interest in quality biotechnology companies is significant and increasing with the global anti-infective market expected to grow at a compound rate of over 30% to 2030 and anticipate this German listing will provide EU investors an opportunity to participate in that growth. We are confident Recce will be warmly welcomed among the European investment community and look forward to supporting their activity in the region over the time ahead.



About Recce Pharmaceuticals Ltd

Recce Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX: RCE) is pioneering the development and commercialisation of New Classes of Synthetic Anti-Infectives designed to address the urgent global health problems of antibiotic resistant superbugs and emerging viral pathogens.

Recces anti-infective pipeline is unique and comprised of broad-spectrum synthetic polymer antibiotics RECCE 327, RECCE 435, and RECCE 529 for viral infections with unique mechanisms of action against hyper-mutation on bacteria and viruses, respectively. Patented lead candidate RECCE 327 has been developed for the treatment of blood infections and sepsis derived from E. coli and S. aureus bacteria  including their superbug forms. Recces new antibiotic compound, RECCE 435, has been formulated for oral use. The FDA has awarded RECCE 327 Qualified Infectious Disease Product designation under the Generating Antibiotic Initiatives Now (GAIN) Act  labelling it for Fast Track Designation, plus 10 years of market exclusivity post approval. Recce wholly owns its automated manufacturing, ready to support first-in-human clinical trials. Recces anti-infective pipeline seeks to exploit the unique capabilities of RECCE technologies targeting synergistic, unmet medical needs. Corporate Contact

James Graham

Recce Pharmaceuticals Ltd

+61 (02) 8075 4585

James.graham@recce.com.au Media and Investor Relations (AU)

Andrew Geddes

CityPR

+61 (02) 9267 4511

ageddes@citypublicrelations.com.au Media and Investor Relations (USA)

Meredith Sosulski, Ph.D.

LifeSci Communications

+1 929 469 3851

msosulski@lifescicomms.com



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Microgrid Leader Secures Additional Miners to Keep Pace with Energy Expansion Tweet this

Zach Bradford, CleanSpark's Chief Executive Officer stated, "We are excited about our growing production capacity as we push towards our goal of reaching 1.3 EH/s by the end of summer 2021. We are also eager to add renewable energy resources to our existing mining facilities later this year. In addition to increasing on the hash rate at our Atlanta facilities we are analyzing opportunities to further expand to additional locations that would be supported by clean energy."

CleanSpark's goal is to operate the lowest-energy-cost Bitcoin mining facilities at scale in the nation. The Company will work to accomplish this not only by securing advantageous power purchase agreements, but also by leveraging its patented microgrid energy solutions.

About CleanSpark:

CleanSpark, Inc., a Nevada corporation, is in the business of providing advanced software, controls and technology solutions to solve modern energy challenges. CleanSpark has a suite of software solutions that provides end-to-end microgrid energy modeling, energy market communications, and energy management solutions. CleanSpark's offerings consist of intelligent energy monitoring and controls, intelligent microgrid design software, middleware communications protocols for the energy industry, energy system engineering, custom hardware solutions, microgrid installation and implementation services, traditional data center services and software consulting services.

The Company and its subsidiaries also own and operate a fleet of Bitcoin miners at its facilities outside of Atlanta, Georgia, currently capable of producing an estimated 315 PH/s in hash rate capacity.

For more information about the Company, please visit the Company's website at https://ir.cleanspark.com/.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the Company's plans and expectations for expansion of its bitcoin mining operations (including as to increases in hash rates and utilization of low-cost energy sources) and other statement regarding the expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions and strategies of the Company. The Company has tried to identify these forward-looking statements by using words such as "expect," "target," "anticipate," "believe," "could," "should," "estimate," "intend," "may," "will," "plan," "goal" and similar terms and phrases, but such words, terms and phrases are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. Actual results, performance and achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors, , including, without limitation: delays in equipment delivery, the value of Bitcoin, the successful deployment of energy solutions for bitcoin applications, the fitness of the Company's energy hardware, software and other solutions for this particular application or market, the expectations of future revenue growth may not be realized, ongoing demand for the Company's software products and related services, the impact of global pandemics (including COVID-19) on the demand for our products and services; and other risks described in the Company's prior press releases and in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent filings with the SEC. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to revise or update this press release (including any forward-looking statements contained herein) to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

Contact - Investor Relations:

CleanSpark, Inc.

Investor Relations

(801)-244-4405

SOURCE CleanSpark, Inc.

Related Links

https://ir.cleanspark.com/


Developments in global border control technologies are providing innovative ways to address issues relating to migration, asylum-seeking and the introduction of illegal goods into countries.

But while governments and national security can benefit from this, advanced surveillance technology creates risks for the misuse of personal data and the violation of human rights.

Technology at the border

One of US President Joe Bidens first actions was to introduce a bill that prioritises smart border controls, as part of a commitment to restore humanity and American values to our immigration system.

These controls will supplement existing resources at the border with Mexico. They will include technology and infrastructure developed to enhance the screening of incoming asylum seekers and prevent the arrival of narcotics.

According to Biden, cameras, sensors, large-scale x-ray machines and fixed towers will all be used. This likely entails the use of infrared cameras, motion sensors, facial recognition, biometric data, aerial drones and radar.

Under the Trump administration, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) partnered with controversial data analytics firm Palantir to link tip-offs from police and citizens with other databases, in a bid to arrest undocumented people.

Similarly, from 2016 to 2019, Hungary, Latvia and Greece piloted an automated lie-detection test funded by the European Unions research and innovation funding program, Horizon 2020.

The iBorderCtrl test analysed the facial micro-gestures of travellers crossing international borders at three undisclosed airports, with the aim of determining whether travellers were lying about the purpose of their trip.

Avatars questioned travellers about themselves and their trip while webcams scanned face and eye movements.

Europes border and coastguard agency Frontex has also been investing in border control technology for several years. Since last year, Frontex has operated unmanned drones to detect asylum-seekers attempting to enter various European states.

While Australia has been slower to implement enhanced surveillance at maritime borders, in 2018 the federal government announced it would spend A$7 billion on six long-range unmanned drones to monitor Australian waters. These arent expected to be operational until at least 2023.

Automated border control systems, however, have been used since 2007. SmartGates at many international airports use facial recognition to verify travellers identities against data stored in biometric passports.

Last year, the Department of Human Services implemented the Enterprise Biometric Identification Services. The system was reportedly rolled out to meet an expected surge in demand for visa applications and citizenship.

It combines authentication technology with biometrics to match the faces and fingerprints of people who wish to travel to Australia.

Misuse of data

Governments may promise, as the Biden administration does, that technology will only serve legitimate agency purposes. But data misuse by governments is well documented.

Between 2014 and 2017 in the US, ICE used facial recognition to mine state drivers licence databases to detect illegal immigrants.

Refugees in various countries, including Kenya and Ethiopia, have had their biometric data collected for years.

In 2017, Bangladeshi Industry Minister Amir Hossain Amu said the government was collecting biometric data from Rohingya people in the country to keep record of them and send them back to their own place.

Data misuse can also happen when questionable science is involved. For instance, emotion recognition algorithms used in unproven lie-detection tests are highly problematic.

The way people communicate varies widely across cultures and situations. Someones ability to answer a question at a border could be affected by trauma, their personality, the way the question is framed or the perceived intentions of the interviewer.

Shutterstock

Technologies such as iBorderCtrl undermine the rights of migrants, asylum-seekers and all international travellers. They could be used to refuse entry or detain travellers based on race or ethnicity.

Racial profiling at borders isnt uncommon. It came to light again when New South Wales MP Mehreen Faruqi experienced it at a US airport in 2016.

The Pakistani-born Greens member told The Guardian she was detained at an airport for more than an hour, after immigration staff took her fingerprint, asked her where she was originally from and how she got an Australian passport.

Facial recognition technology has already been found to be capable of bias against people of colour. Enlisting this at airports and maritime borders  where human rights have historically been undermined on the basis of race  could be disastrous.

Fighting back

The good news is many people are now speaking out against how border control technologies can impact migrants, refugees and other travellers.

In February, the European Court of Justice heard a case brought by digital rights activist and German politician Patrick Breyer.

Breyer is seeking the release of documents on the ethical evaluation, legal admissibility, marketing and test results of iBorderCtrl. He is concerned the EU is being secretive about a scientifically highly controversial project funded by taxpayer money.

In Australia, the Digital Rights Watch is the main organisation that scrutinises surveillance practices.

Of particular concern is the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018. This gives the Australian Border Force extensive powers to search devices carried by people travelling internationally.

Last year the government recommended the legislation be amended so agencies cant authorise the detention of travellers whose devices are searched by the border force.

However, without an Australia bill of rights, which would prevent laws that infringed privacy rights, the potential for data misuse will persist.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Alaska has sued 21 businesses involved in the poultry industry, claiming the businesses operated a cartel and illegally inflated the price of most chicken sold in the state.

The Alaska Department of Law filed a consumer-protection lawsuit late last month in state court seeking more than $1 billion from the nations largest poultry producers, distributors and pricers, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The lawsuit also asks for damages, restitution, attorney fees and costs.

The lawsuit involves broiler chickens, which account for 98% of all chicken sold in the U.S.

Maria Bahr, an assistant attorney general and department spokeswoman, said the state alleges a cartel of corporations engaged in an illegal conspiracy to restrain production and manipulate pricing to artificially inflate the price of broiler chicken throughout the United States, including Alaska.

The lawsuit is one of many that have been filed since 2016, when the largest chicken producers in the country were accused of working together to cut supply and drive up chicken prices.

The producers collectively responded in 2017 to one lawsuit, calling it a conspiracy theory and arguing price fluctuations could be attributed to other causes, including the Great Recession.

Tyson Foods, the nations largest meat supplier, agreed in January to pay more than $200 million to settle one class-action lawsuit.

Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said at the time in an email that the company does not admit liability as part of the settlements. Mickelson declined to comment on why Tyson settled when other chicken producers have not.

Bahr said the state has hired two law firms to help with the lawsuit, Nix Patterson LLP and Fosler Law Inc.

According to the states contract with those firms signed by former Attorney General-designee Ed Sniffen late last year, the firms will advance all costs of investigation and litigation and will be reimbursed only if the state wins an award by settlement or trial. The companies would receive 20% of that award in addition to having their costs reimbursed.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Alaska
While Connecticut has reported its first death associated with the highly contagious UK variant of the coronavirus, officials remain confident the vaccine will offer ample protection.

A state Department of Public health official said Tuesday the person was between the ages of 30 and 40, but could not disclose any other information, including where the person lived or if they had traveled before becoming ill. The official said the person was among 81 confirmed Connecticut cases associated with what is known as the B.1.1.7 variant of the virus.

The variant, viewed earlier this year as a threat that could dramatically drive up COVID-19 infections, was found in 15 new Connecticut cases between Jan. 29 and Feb. 17, state officials said. The cases involved people age 15 to 59.

It was discovered in people living in towns in western, central and southern Connecticut, according to DPH.

On Tuesday, the Connecticut daily positivity rate jumped to 3.56 percent  the highest its been since Feb. 23 when it was 3.92 percent. Hospitalizations also increased on Tuesday with 13 more patients, bumping the statewide total to 401. There were also 14 more COVID-related deaths, bringing the total to 7,739 fatalities.

As reports of the UK variant picked up earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned it could become the predominate strain across the country.

CDC reported Sunday there were more than 3,000 cases involving the UK variant across 49 states, the majority of them in Florida, California and Michigan.

Speaking to the CDCs prediction, Gov. Ned Lamonts Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe said the state was on that path to seeing this variant as the predominate strain.

We are meeting regularly with the team at the Yale School of Public Health. They are doing a lot of sequencing and modeling around that. They indicated we are on that path in Connecticut, as we are around most of the country, Geballe said.

However, Lamont on Monday said the recent increase does not represent an exponential growth in new infections as once anticipated when the variant first arrived in the United States.

Right now, I think the vaccine is staying ahead of the variant and thats slowing its increase, Lamont said. And, by the way, the vaccine works against the variant.

The variant, research shows, is up to 90 percent more contagious than the common strain of COVID-19 that is circulating across the country.

Surveillance of the variant is limited because identifying it requires genetic sequencing of collected specimens  a time-consuming process. The first case of the UK variant in Connecticut was identified in early January.

Dr. Richard Martinello, medical director for infection prevention at Yale New Haven Heath, said there are several concerns about the UK variant. In addition to spreading more readily than the common strains, the variant also appears to cause more severe illness for those who contract it, he said.

However, Martinello said, the vaccines seems to work about as well with the UK variant.

Vaccine makers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have expressed confidence that inoculations provide protection against the variants circulating across the country.

Johnson & Johnson, which received FDA approval for its vaccine on Feb. 27, said data showed its single-dose inoculation had success against strains, including the UK variant.

We believe the Johnson & Johnson single-shot COVID-19 vaccine is a critical tool for fighting this global pandemic, particularly as it shows protection across countries with different variants, Dr. Paul Stoffels, the companys chief science officer, said in a statement when the vaccine was approved.

State officials also said Monday that a second case of the South African variant of the virus has been identified.

DPH determined the individual, who is between the age of 15 and 25 and was tested in early February, had recently traveled to Massachusetts. The variant is also believed to be more infectious than the common strain of COVID-19.

Cases attributed to the South African variant, known as B.1.351, remain low nationwide. According to the CDC, 81 cases have been confirmed across the country as of this week.

Martinello noted the vaccine might not work as well against the South African variant, but said it is still highly effective in preventing severe illness.

The best thing that all can do is to get vaccinated as soon as vaccine becomes available to them, Martinello said.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 21:37:34|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

LONDON, March 9 (Xinhua) -- England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said Tuesday that "big blocks of risk are being taken" as the country's coronavirus lockdown is being eased.

"If you open up too fast, a lot more people die," Whitty told a group of British lawmakers. "If we unlock too quickly we would get a substantial surge whilst a lot of people are not protected."

According to the modelling data considered by British government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), at least a further 30,000 coronavirus deaths could occur in the coming months, even under the most optimistic set of assumptions.

"If people think this is all over -- I would encourage them to look to continental Europe...where a lot of countries are going back into rates going up and having to close things down again having not been in that situation before," Whitty said.

In a further warning, Whitty said: "I think it's very easy to forget quite how quickly things can turn bad if you don't keep a very very close eye on it."

"If you start shunting things forward you will get these higher peaks," he said.

On Feb. 22, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his long-anticipated "roadmap" exiting the lockdown. The reopening of schools in England on Monday was the first part of the four-step plan, which Johnson said was designed to be "cautious but irreversible".

Under the guidance, two people are allowed for recreation in an outdoor public space such as a park, which means they would be allowed to sit down for a coffee, drink or picnic. England is expected to see all legal social restrictions being removed from June 21.

Another 4,712 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,223,232, according to official figures released Monday.

The country also reported another 65 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain stood at 124,566. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines. Enditem
Current Affairs

I visited Blue Hills on a regular basis in 1971-2 when I went to visit the clinics there. I used to fly in on Air Caicos Piper Aztec flights, usually piloted by Berkeley Barron.



Back then Blue Hills was not developed in any significant way apart from the airstrip and some basic roads. There was a crayfish tail packing plant with the majority of the fishermen being Haitian.



There had recently been a hurricane so there were many derelict, unoccupied, houses. I thing a number of people had departed for the Bahamas so the resident population was small.



There were three clinics on the island, two could be reached by road but one . when I first visited, required a truck to take us from the airport to a dock where we boarded a boat to take us some way before we then had to walk to the clinic.



Apart from the packing plant the only other substantial structure was the newly built Third Turtle Inn.



History is a very flexible subject and interpreted very much in line with the opinion of the observer which was illustrated by the two recent articles about Fritz Luddington.



As an outside observer there did not seem to be any significant investment in Blue Hills by Belongers before the Fritz group and it is unreal to expect people to invest without some reward for the risk they were prepared to take.



The Luddington group were fortunate that their investment was good but it could have gone belly up. The lesson of Blue Hills is relevant even today as investment in the islands is very dependent on foreign capital, combined with integrity and trust in the institutions of the Turks and Caicos Islands or the tourism and finance industry may follow in the footsteps of the cotton, sugar and sisal industries of the past.



I am not suggesting any name for the Providenciales airport but some suggestions put forward by your correspondent who seems to be unaware of the background to proposed candidates who, although noteworthy, would not be worthy of being commemorated in the naming of an international airport.






Montgomery County is working to get the recently available one dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine that county officials said would help with getting more rural residents vaccinated.

Jason Millsaps, executive director of the countys Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, told county commissioners Tuesday the Lone Star Family Health Clinic recently requested about 2,500 of the single dose vaccines from the state.

It sat idle, so they pulled that down and put a request in for the Moderna vaccine and it was filled immediately, Millsaps said.

Millsaps said there is a large demand for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to the ease of getting more people vaccinated, especially those in outlying communities. He noted the county is going to continue to pursue getting the single dose vaccine.

We are going to be asking the state for Johnson & Johnson allocations so we can push as many thousands through who are eligible and can be done with one dose, Millsaps said.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared a Johnson & Johnson shot Feb. 27, according to the Associated Press. The FDA said J&Js vaccine offers strong protection against what matters most: serious illness, hospitalizations and death. One dose was 85 percent protective against the most severe COVID-19 illness, in a massive study that spanned three continents  protection that remained strong even in countries such as South Africa, where the variants of most concern are spreading.

In Montgomery County, Millsaps said about 112,000 residents have received vaccinations with 44,000 of those fully vaccinated.

Vaccinations will continue next week at Woodforest Stadium where the county is consolidating its vaccination efforts. The vaccinations are administered via appointments and Millsaps said the site will push to vaccinate about 6,000 people a day.

County health officials confirmed 179 new COVID-19 cases but again, noted a 264 drop in active cases. Total cases is now 46,713 with 2,364 of those active.

The county added two more COVID-related deaths as a Conroe man and a Conroe woman, both in their 60s, died. Both were hospitalized when they died with other health conditions.

Total hospitalizations remained at 135 Tuesday. To date 23,631 people have recovered.

The Montgomery County COVID-19 wait list is available at https://coronavirus-response-moco.hub.arcgis.com/pages/vaccinations. Those 65 and older without internet access can join by calling 936-523-3916.

Call the Montgomery County COVID-19 Call Center at 936-523-3916 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday for questions about the virus and vaccines.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
Government publishes long-term exit from COVID pandemic

The Manx Government has released a framework for the Island's long term approach to COVID-19.

The document outlines three key stages (Preparation, Transition and Release) that the Council of Ministers expects to move through as the vaccine rollout increases the Islands defences, and the UKs threat profile decreases.

It also confirms the longer term plan to pivot from the current Elimination strategy, to one of Mitigation, at which point it is hoped that Island life can resume free from mitigations including border restrictions.

Underpinning this are a set of objectives to support the decision process over the coming months.

The approach currently anticipates that there will be no major changes to the Islands border position before the end of April 2021, due to the ongoing high threat presented by the UK and that the Islands own defences are still building. The aim by the end of the initial Preparation phase is to be able to move to Border Level 3, which would allow friends and family (who would need to be protected by similar testing and isolation controls to those currently returning residents) to visit the Island.



The document outlines five key vaccination programme milestones that are expected over the next few months:

Priority One groups first dosage  currently expected by the end of April

Adult Population first dosage  currently expected by the end of May

Priority One Groups second dosage complete  currently expected by the end of June

Completion of the Adult Population  currently expected by the end of July

Completion of the Entire population currently expected to be the end of September (subject to evidence of efficacy and safety in those aged 16 and younger, and MHRA approval)

The framework also provides some more visibility for the Islands Tourism and Travel sector, as it provides an indicative date for Phase Three  Release to start from the end of August 2021. This is the latest point that Government currently expects to be in a position to remove all residual restrictions, once the adult population have been offered full dosage of the vaccination and the UK threat is much lower.

Importantly it commits to regular reviews and providing an updated outlook on a regular basis. The document is the starting point of broader discussions and engagement as the knowledge develops, our defences build and hopefully as the overall threat declines, ultimately stabilising to the point where it can be manageable on a long term basis.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle MHK commented: All of our current focus is quite rightly on the immediate situation and the elimination of the virus in our community so that we can once again enjoy Island life free of restrictions. We cannot however ignore the longer term and if anything, the current pressures are a reminder that we cannot sustain this strategy for the long term. Over the last couple of months much work has been going on to produce this longer term approach document.

There is so much that is changing around us, particularly around our knowledge of the virus and the effectiveness and availability of the vaccines and each passing day changes our position, making us stronger. The publication of this approach signifies out tentative first steps in imagining what the rest of this year might look like.

This is in no way a plan and even with the best will in the world at this point it is impossible to set a framework in stone  the approach may change, and the dates almost certainly will. This is a working document, and we hope to hone this approach in line with feedback from that the Manx public and our business sectors. Our response to Coronavirus has always been a fine balance across the complex areas of our society, economy and health service, and we have always taken Manx decisions for our Manx situation. Going forward, we will continue to listen to the information coming from around the world and as well as what our people, our businesses and our society think as we approach major decisions.

We also know that it is important to provide clarity to our residents, and our business sector as best we can  in particular those that are impacted by ongoing border controls. It is important to note that while the document does outline draft dates, there may be opportunity for us to speed up this timeline and we will continue to assess and monitor the position.

The Exit Framework can be viewed online at www.gov.im/coronavirus
Tuesday, March 9, 2021

By Shelby Logan (March 9, 2021)

On International Women's Day this Monday, gender justice activists worldwide were able to celebrate a long-awaited victory. In February, for the first time in history, the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted an individual for forced pregnancy as a war crime. The Court, in a landmark verdict, found Dominic Ongwen of Uganda, a former commander in the militaristic anti-government group Lords Resistance Army, guilty of 61 charges, including the widest range of sexual crimes ever brought before the ICC.

Ongwens conviction on charges including sexual-based violence, forced pregnancy, and outrages upon personal dignity committed against women, is a necessary move forward for the ICC: After decades of advocacy, the international community is holding individuals accountable for sexual crimes against women during conflict.

Although sexual and gender-based crimes have always been part of conflict, international criminal proceedings during the 20th century omitted them from charges beginning with the Nuremberg Tribunal, which specifically excluded sexual crimes against women from its charter. It wasn't until 2002, the year the International Criminal Court was inaugurated, that sexual crimes against women as elements of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes were enumerated in international criminal proceedings. Yet, even if prosecutors initially charged a defendant with sexual crimes, the charges were usually dismissed later to prioritize charges for mass killings.

A major shift occurred in 2014, when the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC released the Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes. Prosecutors began to introduce more charges for gender-based crimes but still failed to convict. On behalf of victims, gender-justice advocates began writing shadow reports pushing the Office of the Prosecutor to commit to charges and follow through with prosecution. As Ongwens personal story is also tragiche was one of many young children who have been forced to join the Lords Resistance Armythe ICC found him guilty only for crimes committed after it considered him a fully responsible adult. His conviction marks a first crucial step in accountability for sexual and gender-based war crimes and a turning point.

Yet, as the gender-justice community celebrates the result in the Ongwen case, it is clear that more change is needed in world courts. Even in Ongwens case, only charges against women-identifying persons were included. Several charges of sexual violence committed against men were left off the docket. While sexual violence against transgender and male-identifying persons is often underreported, the Ongwen decision as well as events unfolding in China and Myanmar, may provide ground for more inclusivity in prosecuting sexual-based crimes.

Advocates have a crucial window of opportunity to advance jurisprudence on sexual and gender-based violence crimes. Combined with the latest Strategic Plan for the ICC Office of the Prosecutor, which seeks to address the underreporting of sexual and gender-based crimes, and the recent Ongwen ruling, the priority of gender justice at the ICC has been pushed to the forefront.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/reproductive_rights/2021/03/the-iccs-ongwen-decision-is-a-leap-forward-in-accountability-for-gender-based-crimes-.html
Pope Francis at the Franso Hariri stadium in Erbil, where he celebrated Holy Mass with Iraqi faithful on Sunday (AFP or licensors)

The Higher Committee of Human Fraternity hails Pope Francis just-concluded Apostolic Journey to Iraq as a crucial moment for promoting tolerance, inclusiveness and human fraternity.

By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ

Pope Francis historic Apostolic Journey to Iraq is an important moment for the world and a true promotion of the values advocated by the document on human fraternity, affirmed the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity in a statement.

The Higher Committee noted that during his four-day trip to the Middle Eastern nation, Pope Francis visited a number of Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Erbil and Mosul. The Pope also attended a meeting for interfaith dialogue in Ur and, in a speech there, emphasized the importance of promoting human fraternity and called on believers to revive the values of human fraternity.

Popes visit fosters peace, cultural dialogue

Pope Francis aims to promote cultural dialogue and a culture of convergence and inclusiveness so that everyone in our society can enjoy peace in his life regardless of his race, culture or religion, said Cardinal Miguel Ayuso Guixot.

The Cardinal accompanied the Pope on his visit to Iraq, and is President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and a member of the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity.

Prof. Mohamed al-Mahrasawi, President of the Al-Azhar University and member of the Higher Committee, said that Pope Francis visit provided healing for the wounds of the Iraqi people after years of wars and destruction.

He said it would act as a call for tolerance and convergence on the values of citizenship and coexistence between all Iraqis and all peoples of the region. The professor added tolerance is the best response to the calls for hatred and extremism that took the lives of many and displaced millions of innocent people.

Principles of human fraternity

Praising the results of the papal visit to Iraq, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism, also a member of the Higher Committee, emphasized that the Popes keenness to complete the visit reflects his belief in the need to apply the principles of human fraternity.

The visit, he noted, is a practical application of the fraternity document and an example of what human fraternity can achieve in the face of calls for division, hatred and extremism.

For his part, the Secretary-General of the Higher Committee, Judge Mohamed Abdelsalam, stressed that the Popes presence in Iraq brought to light the religious and cultural diversity in Iraq and the region. It also showed how this diversity could be a way for achieving peace and cohesion among communities.

He further highlighted that the visit carried a powerful message that the whole world should support victims of war and extremism and not abandon them under any circumstances.

Judge Abdelsalam also said the Higher Committee will prepare a study on the results of the Popes visit, and will depend on it in its future plans and programs, to the benefit of all Iraqis.
What would a truly progressive city look like? A city that pays more than lip service to issues that directly affect low-income residents, seniors, marginalized communities and others whom neoliberal policies have seemingly left behind?

Meghan Joy, an assistant professor of political science, argues that urban studies, and particularly urban political scientists, should re-assess the concept of the progressive city. The once-widely embraced notion fell out of favour over the past several decades as local politicians embraced neoliberal policies that she says prioritized wealth generation over liveability and accessibility for all city residents. In a new paper recently published in Urban Affairs Review, Joy and co-author Ronald K. Vogel of Ryerson University, lay out a policy agenda for urban policy thinkers who believe it may be time to shift the thinking around how cities are run and for whose benefit.

"The neoliberal urban model has had time to prove whether it works for all the people in a city," Joy says. "It is clear that it does not, especially for vulnerable people or those living on low incomes."

Policy problems and progressive solutions

Joy believes many cities are at a point of crisis, especially in four key areas: housing, employment, transportation and climate change. The authors do not address issues of policing in this paper, though they do acknowledge that rethinking current approaches to crime and enforcement is essential to a progressive city policy agenda.

In their agenda, Joy and Vogel identify each area's major problem and offer progressive solutions.

They write that affordable housing often depends on incentives offered to developers who in turn wind up building more homes for residents of moderate rather than low income. Joy and Vogel point to creative solutions employed by cities as disparate as Vienna and Hong Kong: governments either own large amounts of housing stock directly or back non-market-driven developers to ensure low-income earners are not pushed out of their city.

Deindustrialization has had a major effect on the nature of employment in many cities, as well as their overall finances. Neoliberal policies have led to a surge in the service economy, but wage inequality and job precarity have led to increasing poverty and a squeezing of the middle class. The authors believe city governments should spend more on hiring employees to provide public services and rely more on in-house talent rather than contracting out to for-profit consultants.

Neoliberalism's effects on transportation include chronic underfunding and underservicing of areas that need public transit the most. The issue is closely tied to housing, with homes conveniently located near transit access points often priced well beyond the means of low-income earners. The authors call for the implementation of social equity transit planning to better serve disadvantaged communities, including subsidies and expanded access.

Finally, climate change has increased the probability and severity of natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, winter storms and tornadoes, which often require mass evacuations or emergency assistance. Many low-income residents lack the ability to get out of harm's way even with advance warning and often lack relocation options. Joy and Vogel want to see options other than those relying on market forces and entrepreneurialism and push for policies that reduce the overall carbon footprint.

Grassroots movements growing

Joy does believe that grassroots resistance to neoliberalism is growing in cities and there is evidence of movements increasingly pushing on the levers of municipal power.

"We are certainly seeing a groundswell of movement building, especially with Black Lives Matter and the call to defund the police, and around COVID-19 and housing," she says.

"There is more visibility around the question of who we are thinking about when we make urban policy and who benefits in the city. We need to think about how to translate this movement building into an urban policy agenda."

###
St Marys Island, Udupi (Karnataka) for Volcanic Rock Formations

Image: @quriouscase

What makes St Marys Island so special is its numerous volcanic rock formations that go back around 60 million years. The hexagonal and polygonal rock formations were formed when dense viscid basaltic lava cooled down and took various interesting shapes. They are today known as Columnar Basaltic Lava, and the natural phenomena resemble the work of an expert sculptor and give an impression these structures are man-made. The crystal-clear green sea, the cleanliness of the beach, the flat hexagonal rocks where one can rest and relax, and the exquisite beauty of this island, make it a destination not to be missed for those seeking a unique experience.

Also see: Classic experiences for your bucket list
Jupilles: Four French oaks that have been standing for hundreds of years in a once-royal forest now have a sacred destiny. Felled on Wednesday AEDT in the Loire regions Forest of Berce, they have been selected to reconstruct Notre Dame cathedrals fallen spire.

The 93-metre-high spire, made of wood and clad in lead, became the most potent symbol of the April 2019 blaze when it was seen engulfed in flames, collapsing dramatically into the inferno.

A forest worker measures an oak in the Forest of Berce in the Loire region. Credit:AP

Last July amid a public outcry, French President Emmanuel Macron ended speculation that the 19th century peak designed by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc could be rebuilt in a modern style. He announced it would be rebuilt exactly as it was before. And that began a nationwide tree hunt, culminating in a painstaking selection in January and February of this year.

Some 1000 oaks in more than 200 French forests, both private and public, were chosen to make the frame of the cathedral transept and spire  destined to be admired on the Paris skyline for potentially hundreds of years.
Many private universities outside Seoul opened their new semester last week amid an unprecedented shortage of students.

Some 162 second- and third-tier universities in the provinces failed to fill their student quotas during regular admissions season that ended on Feb. 19. This was partly because just 493,000 students took the university entrance exam last year, a record low, with the result that an estimated 10,000 places remain unfilled, mostly at provincial universities that are nobody's first choice.

According to a tally of admissions numbers at 92 private universities nationwide by private crammer Haneul Education, they sought to recruit 11,879 more students, but only 1,983 applied.

Woosuk University in Wanju, North Jeolla Province was one of them, and it took desperate steps, offering to admit freshmen without submitting entrance exam scores and guaranteeing admission to all applicants. But it still fell short of 270 students.

A Woosuk University staffer said, "We came up with all kinds of ideas to recruit more students, but they were largely ineffective. We don't know what to do because applications are only going to drop further."
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Thomas Ryll of the Vancouver area had been getting his prescriptions delivered by mail. Since the pandemic though, Ryll said, he orders pretty much everything to be delivered.

My mantra, he said, has been, Lie on the couch, order the item and they put it on the porch in a couple days. Why should I drive somewhere to get it?

Usually, he said, he receives what he orders promptly. But in February, his prescription for a low-dose blood pressure medication from the pharmacy 2 miles from his house traveled 3,600 miles, through three states before arriving at his house 10 days later.

On Feb. 18, according to Rylls account of events, he refilled a prescription with the Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center pharmacy not far from his house.

The prescription was sent out early the next morning.

When it didnt arrive after nearly a week, Ryll said, I called the pharmacy. A technician checked the tracking data and reported that the USPS had shipped the order from Portland to California. Sacramento, specifically.

Tracking data showed the package went to Portland. Then Eugene. Then Sacramento. Then Eugene again. Then, on Feb. 23, it arrived in Portland again.

From there, the package was sent back to Eugene and then again, back to Sacramento. Quickly, it was sent back to Eugene and then back up to Portland.

So close. But not close enough, because on Feb. 26 the medicine arrived for a third and final time in Sacramento.

One more time, Rylls medication traveled up I-5, making stops in Eugene and Portland before arriving, finally, on his doorstep on March 1.

After looking at the tracking notices, Ernie Swanson, a spokesperson for USPS, said he couldnt say with certainty what caused the package to take such a long strange trip.

Without seeing the parcel in question it is very difficult to explain how something like this could happen, he said. It is likely there was a problem with the address, possibly with the ZIP code, since it got missent to Sacramento.

Ryll said he wasnt concerned about his health during the ordeal, really, even though he was out of his medicine when he ordered the refill.

When I finally checked with the pharmacy, they immediately offered an emergency refill of at least part of the prescription, he said. I dont think I will drop dead right away, was my response.

He said he learned later that they got the refill authorized anyway, just in case.

They did the right thing all the way around, he said, and I wasnt in any danger of anything besides irritation mixed with amusement.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker
Chloe Zhao attends the Drive-In Premiere of "Nomadland" hosted by Fox Searchlight and The Telluride Film Festival at Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on Sep. 11, 2020. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Award-Winning Film Censored by Chinese Media After Directors Past Comments Unearthed: There Are Lies Everywhere

U.S. road film Nomadland topped the prizes at the 26th Critics Choice Awards on March 7, paving its way for the 2021 Oscars. However, hashtags of the film vanished on Chinese social media platforms.

Days after its Beijing-born director, Chloe Zhao (also known as Zhao Ting), won the Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards on March 1, her past comments were exposed online by netizens, miring the history-making moment into controversy in China.

It goes back to when I was a teenager in China, being in a place where there are lies everywhere, she told Filmmaker Magazine during an interview in 2013, explaining her sudden departure to England for study at the age of 15, to figure out what is real.

This led to Nomadland becoming subject to strict censorship in China.

On Weibo, Chinas equivalent of Twitter, the search result for Nomadland in Chinese turns out nothing.

On March 5, Chinese netizens found the official movie posters and release date for the film were wiped off Douban, a Chinese social networking site.

The film premiered and won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 11, 2020. It was scheduled to be released in China on April 23, according to Chinese state media.

Pride of China to Traitor

Zhao is the second woman and the first Asian woman to win the Golden Globe Awards.

The first female winner of the prize in 1984, Barbra Streisand, posted a tweet congratulating Zhao on March 1.

Zhao was initially a highly complimented Chinese director by Chinese state media. The Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, praised Zhao as the pride of China in one headline.

Zhaos stepmother, Chinese comedian Song Dandan also wrote on Weibo: You are the legend of our family. I believe your story will also inspire countless Chinese children.

But after netizens in mainland China unearthed her criticism of China made eight years ago and reacted angrily, media coverage quickly turned.

Weibo users called her a China insulter, traitor, two-faced, and some called for a boycott of Nomadland.

But one Weibo netizen questioned: Im very curious about how the words insult and China are defined by netizens.

Is it a completely nonsensical insult, or is it a well-documented criticism? Insulting this land? Or insulting all the people of this country? Or insulting the ruling political party of this country? Or insulting the government of this country? he wrote.

Chinese authorities have not confirmed whether Nomadland will be released in China.
A 37-year-old man has been charged with a Section 13 terrorism offence following a police search and arrest operation in Co Antrim on Monday.

He is due to appear at Limavady Magistrates Court sitting in Ballymena on Wednesday.



As is normal procedure all charges will be reviewed by the PPS.

The investigation by the Paramilitary Crime Task Force was in relation to the criminal activities of the North Antrim UDA and involved a significant search and arrest operation in Bushmills.
SOUTH HADLEY  A community group recently formed to urge Mount Holyoke College President Sonya Stephens to keep Gorse Childrens Center open will celebrate International Womens Day on Monday with a protest march from the center, to the colleges main gate, beginning at 5 p.m.

The March 8 protest is being organized by Gorse Action Group, a coalition of about 240 parents, college students, faculty and staff.

They formed Feb. 27, when the college said the Gorse would close in June.

However, Stephens quickly reversed the decision  saying last week it would remain open for another year, while she forms a committee to study the matter.

We are working with College governance stakeholders to finalize a timeline for further study, deliberations and recommendations related to on-campus childcare programs, the college said in a statement Monday. The process will include opportunities for community involvement.

In her previous statement, Stephens did not make a commitment to keep the Center open beyond 2022  which prompted the Gorse Action Group [GAG] to stage another protest Monday at the South Hadley campus.

In a letter to the president on Saturday, one of the GAG organizers thanked Stephens for dropping the plan to close the center in June, but also reiterated a need to permanently keep it open.

The GAG is asking for a seat at the table when any future decisions about Gorse are made.

The letter, written by parent Allie Lepper, also questioned one of the original premises the college had used to justify the closure  when they announced the now-shelved plan to close Gorse last month had to do with equity.

The letter to Stephens says in part: As you know, this is not the first time the Center has faced risk of closing, and despite our sincere gratitude for the Colleges implementation of this interim solution, its actions over the last week have left families deeply shaken and distrustful. Much of the community distress is due to the Colleges proffered justification for closure in the name of equity, Lepper wrote on behalf of the group.

Indeed, while the College has front-lined equity as the primary factor influencing its decisions about the Center, other benefits the College offers to its employees that disproportionately benefit a select few (i.e., tuition waiver and mortgage subsidy) remain safely intact. It is disappointing that women repeatedly need to justify the essentiality of this Center in the face of budget cuts, Lepper wrote.

Contacted on Monday, a parent, Andrea Fernandes, whose two-year old has attended the childrens center since the child was 3 months old, thanked the college for not shuttering the facility in June as had been planned.

Fernandes also said the GAG, which she played a large role organizing, would continue the advocacy to keep Gorse open permanently.

We now have a full working committee, she said, referring to the Gorse Action Group.

This community organizing is how weve been successful, so far, she said.

Gorse Action Group is really to make not just Mount Holyoke College aware, but the larger community [aware of] just how crucial high-quality early education and child care is  especially for working mothers.

Right now, Ferndandes said, the college is offering us a band aid approach.

A petition the group forwarded to Stephens has about 1,600 signatures. In addition to area parents, signers included Mount Holyoke students, staff and faculty.

This is a developing story; more information will be published as it become available.

Contact Jim Russell at NewsTips123@gmail.com

Related:
Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - The Stock Day Podcast welcomed Solar Integrated Roofing Corp. (OTC Pink: SIRC) ("the Company), an integrated, single-source solar power and roofing systems installation company specializing in commercial and residential properties in the Southern California market. CEO of the Company, Dave Massey joined Stock Day host, Everett Jolly.

Jolly began the interview by asking about the Company's background and current projects. "We had a vision about putting solar on every roof," shared Massey. "We found a way to do marketing where we could sell roofing and solar with a low interest loan, which was less than an electric bill," he continued. "We decided to go public and it's been quite the journey," said Massey, adding that the Company's revenues have continued to grow since they became a public company in 2016.

"Our core business is roofing and solar, but we also do EV charging systems. We're looking to get into HVAC systems, and anything in the energy sector is part of what we're looking at," explained Massey.

Jolly then noted that the Company is currently trading on the Pink Sheets, and asked about their auditing and uplisting progress. "We're very confident that we will have the audit done by next week," said Massey. "The Form-10 is completed and ready-to-go," he added. "We're looking to uplist late next week or early the following week."

The conversation then turned to a recent announcement released by the Company detailing an LOI to acquire Cornerstone Construction. "We're pretty confident that we'll get the deal done by the end of the month," said Massey. He then elaborated on the value Cornerstone Construction brings to the Company, especially in regards to their Founder, Hunter Ballew, as well as strategic market locations.

"Do you have any other acquisitions on the horizon moving forward?", asked Jolly. "Last week we announced an EV charging systems company right here in Southern California. We're working diligently with them and we have a binding LOI in place. It might take a couple weeks, but it's a great sector to be in and both parties are very excited to close."

Jolly then asked about the potential of the EV industry moving forward. "There's 41 electric vehicles coming to the market in 2021, so I think there's definitely a paradigm shift coming in that direction," said Massey. "As far as the market share, I feel that SIRC in the next few years could very easily have $30 to $40 million in revenues from the EV charging market in various formats."

"What does the 2022 fiscal year look like and what do you expect?", asked Jolly. "We recently just closed Enerev, which was another big acquisition," said Massey. "Just with Enerev revenue on the books, we're looking to do about $40 million for SIRC," he shared, adding that Cornerstone Construction is expected to generate around $30 million in revenue. "I'm very confident that by early summer we will have a run-rate of over $100 million."

To close the interview, Massey elaborated on the investment potential of the Company, especially considering their low market cap as they continue to move further into the energy sector. "We're trying to get away from being a roofing and solar company, and more into being an energy company," said Massey. He also elaborated on the quality and value of the Company's team, as well as their strategic acquisitions. "We have a tremendous team that has a lot of enthusiasm and we're all working very hard to make this company something amazing."

To hear Dave Massey's entire interview, follow the link to the podcast here: https://audioboom.com/posts/7818425-solar-integrated-roofing-corp-discusses-the-potential-of-the-energy-sector-with-the-stock-day-po.

Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of "Stock Day," and Stock Day Media encourages listeners to visit the Company's message board at https://investorshangout.com/.

About Solar Integrated Roofing Corp.

Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation (OTC Pink: SIRC), is an integrated, single-source solar power and roofing systems installation company specializing in commercial and residential properties in the Southern California market. The Company's broad array of solutions include sales and installation of solar energy systems, battery backup and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to roofing, HVAC and related electrical contracting work. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.solarintegratedroofing.com.

Forward-Looking Statements



Any statements made in this press release which are not historical facts contain certain forward-looking statements; as such term is defined in the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995, concerning potential developments affecting the business, prospects, financial condition and other aspects of the company to which this release pertains. The actual results of the specific items described in this release, and the company's operations generally, may differ materially from what is projected in such forward-looking statements. Although such statements are based upon the best judgments of management of the company as of the date of this release, significant deviations in magnitude, timing and other factors may result from business risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, the company's dependence on third parties, general market and economic conditions, technical factors, the availability of outside capital, receipt of revenues and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the company. The company disclaims any obligation to update the information contained in any forward-looking statement. This press release shall not be deemed a general solicitation.

Investor Relations Contact:



Lucas A. Zimmerman

Senior Vice President

MZ North America

Main: 949-259-4987

SIRC@mzgroup.us

www.mzgroup.us

About The "Stock Day" Podcast

Founded in 2013, Stock Day is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Stock Day provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. The Stock Day Podcast is the number one radio show of its kind in America.

SOURCE:

Stock Day Media

(602) 821-1102

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76560
WAtoday has offered each leader of the two major parties the chance to put their views in an opinion piece in the final week of the state election. You can read Opposition Leader Zak Kirkups here.

This is the most important state election in living memory.

In a world going through a global pandemic and economic uncertainty, the question for every Western Australian is simple: who do you trust to guide our state for the next four years?

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Credit:Peter de Kruijff

My WA Labor governments record is clear:
The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Spatial, a global manufacturing leader in aviation training equipment, has recently announced its relocation to a bigger facility in RAKEZ.

The newly acquired 12,775 sq m land is 73% larger than its previous location, in which the company is set to increase its production capacity by more than 50% and to serve its global customer base, including blue-chip airlines such as Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and British Airways. The new facility will be fully operational by the end of Q1 2021, a statement said.

We take pride in servicing global aviation leaders from our base in Ras Al Khaimah; specifically, in RAKEZ. The transport of our goods in and out of the facility has been made quick, easy and cost-effective; and the accommodating team at RAKEZ made our expansion decision an easier one, said Marc Van den Broucque, Managing Director, Spatial.

With this new expansion, we are well placed to satisfy the increase in demand for our products, which has persisted through the pandemic, as well as to cater for future expansion. We are optimistic to what the future holds for Spatial, and we are certain, we are on track to hold a larger market share within the aviation training industry, he added.

Commenting on the expansion, Ramy Jallad, Group CEO of RAKEZ said: We are thrilled to witness this phase of development for Spatial. For over a decade, their products have been supplied to some of the worlds biggest aviation brands, all manufactured from their facility here at RAKEZ. The decision to increase their space is the natural next step to the companys ambitious plan to double their production capacity.

At RAKEZ, we have taken it as a mandate to facilitate the growth of all our valued clients. Our efforts are geared towards offering an environment thats easy to do business in, second-to-none services, seamless processes, and state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure, to support our ever-growing multinational business community, he added.TradeArabia News Service
As Richard Trumka stepped out of the Oval Office last month after meeting with President Biden and a group of his fellow labor leaders, he had an unfamiliar feeling.

He got it, Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said of Biden.

Many times you go into meetings like that and you have to start with the basics about why collective bargaining is important, and then you get to the end, and they still really dont get it, Trumka, whose organization represents the largest federation of labor unions in the United States, said in a phone interview today. None of that was necessary with him. He already had that going in. So we talked about solutions.

As the Biden administration kicks into gear, it is putting organized labor at the heart of its push to rebuild the economy to a greater degree than any president  Democrat or Republican  in well over half a century.

The administration has indicated that a sweeping infrastructure bill is likely to be its next major focus, after Biden signs the $1.9 trillion relief package that appears on its way to passage in Congress. The president has repeatedly said that good-paying union jobs will be at the core of his infrastructure plan, a commitment that he reiterated during his meeting with labor leaders last month. He has also thrown his support behind the PRO Act, which would represent the most comprehensive piece of federal labor reform in a century.
(Natural News) The relentless campaign to demonize supporters of President Trump entered the realm of self-parody this past week, with warnings that the US Capitol and democracy itself were in danger on March 4 because QAnon saw that date as the real inauguration day. It was all balderdash, a PsyOp aimed at delegitimizing support for Trump or questioning the integrity of the presidential election.

(Article by Tyler Durden republished from ZeroHedge.com)

Even the Washington Post admitted there was nothing to it, calling the reports a mirage.

At the Capitol, a March 4 threat from militant Trump supporters proves a mirage https://t.co/pHUgunuHEN  The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 4, 2021

This is too kind, for mirages are genuine phenomena, a product of the physics of light. This bogus warning was entirely the product of human intentions, not the result of impersonal natural forces. And it amounted to the worst sort of propaganda, intended to demonize a group based on lies, by fanning the flames of panic.

But Speaker Pelosi eagerly cancelled voting Thursday because of the bogus threat. This freed up Representative Al Green, a Democrat from the Houston area, to undertake a stunt of surpassing stupidity that was taken with deadpan seriousness by much of the media. The DC insider publication, The Hill, bought into the stunt:

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) is sending a message to QAnon and right-wing extremist threats by sitting on the Capitol steps on Thursday, the date authorities warned militia groups were potentially planning another breach of the building. I want to make a statement to let people know, those who would threaten those of us who cherish this freedom that we have here that we refuse to allow those threats to negate our freedom, he told The Hill.

Green himself touted his bravery

I love my country and believe that freedom is not free. Others have made great sacrifices for the freedoms I enjoy. I refuse to surrender our nations Capitol to those who would abridge my freedom. Hence, as a matter of personal principle, I will be in the Capitol complex today.  Congressman Al Green (@RepAlGreen) March 4, 2021

And a heroic-looking picture of him went out to social media:

The only problem is that Rep. Green was sitting behind a large protective cordon, including National Guard troops and fencing, facing no danger, even if the phony insurrection reports had been true.

Ninety percent plus of the population will never see the broader picture. The propagandists control what most people see, and are all too effective in their theatrics.

Tucker Carlson called them out in his introductory segment Friday. Its worth watching here.

Read more at: ZeroHedge.com and Propaganda.news.
California State Sen. Connie Leyva, regarding the California bill that would protect employees who discuss discrimination or other difficulties based on race, ethnicity, age, disability and religion. Many tech companies require their employees to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, which legally bar the employee from talking about things that happen at the company. ( NPR  March 6, 2021)
VICTORIA - Health authorities across British Columbia announced locations for COVID-19 vaccine centres Sunday, the day before some of the province's oldest residents could start booking appointments to get their first shots.

A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is shown at a UHN COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Toronto on Thursday, January 7, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

VICTORIA - Health authorities across British Columbia announced locations for COVID-19 vaccine centres Sunday, the day before some of the province's oldest residents could start booking appointments to get their first shots.

Vaccine call centres are set to open Monday morning to make COVID-19 vaccine appointments for people 90 and older, and Indigenous people 65 or older, as well as those who identify as Indigenous elders.

Island Health officials said Sunday 19 community sites across Vancouver Island have been identified to administer COVID-19 vaccines and 25 community sites in the Vancouver Coastal Health region will be used as clinic locations.

The Interior, Northern and Fraser health authorities say they will confirm vaccination sites with people when they book a COVID-19 appointment.

"We recognize that there's lots of people that are eager to call in and get going (Monday), so just another reminder that please, unless you are in that category of over 90 or Indigenous over 65 or you identify as an elder, please don't call next week so we can get through this important population,'" said Victoria Schmid, Island Health's pandemic planner.

"Your turn will come," she said at a news conference Sunday. "We just need everyone to be patient right now."

People can contact their health authority and book appointments for themselves or their spouse, and family members or friends are permitted to schedule an appointment on someone else's behalf, Schmid said.

People will be asked to provide the person's first and last name, date of birth, postal code and personal health number and will be asked for an email address or text number to confirm the COVID-19 vaccine appointment, she said..

People born in 1936 or earlier can start calling for appointments on March 15 and those born in 1941 or earlier can start scheduling their shots on March 22.

Schmid said she expected the appointments to last about 30 minutes, which includes a 15-minute waiting period following the administration of the vaccine.

She suggested people wear short sleeves to make it easier to give the vaccine and not to forget a mask.

A support person to can accompany people to the vaccine clinic, she said.

Schmid said sites for the community clinics were chosen for their accessibility and comfort and familiarity for Indigenous people.

"Ease of access was really important to us," she said. "We really tried to keep a travel time to no more than 15 minutes within urban areas. We want to make sure these sites are accessible for individuals with mobility challenges."

Immunization clinics will also be held at Indigenous friendship centres in Victoria, Port Alberni and Port Hardy, Schmid said.

Vancouver Coastal Health said in a news release its clinics will be located cross Metro Vancouver and the Squamish and Whistler areas and the Sunshine Coast. The clinics will be held at community, friendship, senior and cultural centres and other regional sites.

The health authorities plan to have B.C.'s population of elderly people, ranging in age from 80 to more than 90 years and Indigenous people 65 and older and elders, vaccinated against COVID-19 by April 12, Schmid said.

She said a person 90 years and older who calls next week for a COVID-19 vaccination will get their appointment within one week.

"They have a week to register for the following week's vaccination appointment," said Schmid. "After that, we're going to move to register those over 85 and then moving down the week after to those over 80."

Island Health's Dr. Mike Benusic said he's optimistic about the vaccination rollout.

"The announcements we're giving right now provide me with such a sense of hope," he said. "The fact is right now we have 25 times the number of people vaccinated within Island Health than people who have had COVID-19 within Island Health, and we're only going to see that number sky rocket in the next few weeks and months."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2021.
[March 09, 2021] Vecna Robotics Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021

Vecna Robotics, the autonomous mobile robot (AMR) and workflow orchestration company, today announced it has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021. Vecna Robotics is ranked as the 4th most innovative company in the logistics category worldwide. Read about the company's inclusion on the list here. The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive, they thrived-making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's MIC list features 463 businesses from 29 countries. "We are pleased to be honored with so many other impressive and impactful global organizations. It's a testament to the outstanding team here and their tireless efforts to drive innovation in support of our customers and people from all walks of life around the world," said Daniel Theobald, founder and CEO, Vecna Robotics. "The challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic have brought the need for more flexibility and resilience in our supply chains into sharp focus. We are proud to provide manufacturers, shippers and retailers the ability to automate with confidence, getting goods where they need to go quickly and efficiently while keeping people safe. This recognition from Fast Company acknowledges that we continue to deliver on this promise every day." Where most robotics companies create hardware and software specific to one task, Vecna Robotics takes a holistic approach by tackling the hardest problems in supply chain workflow and using automation and continuous learning to solve them. This mission led to the development ofPivotal, the world's first multi-agent continuous learning orchestration engine.



Pivotal does three things: automates any piece of material handling equipment, orchestrates robots and people across multiple use cases and from multiple vendors, and provides a continuous learning platform for ongoing productivity gains. The solution provides warehouses with system-wide orchestration, unifying and seamlessly allocating tasks between humans, robots and equipment to increase efficiency and productivity. This has helped to increase productivity at some customer sites by 116% and decrease non-value-added travel by up to 80%. By pairing AMRs and Pivotal, the solution empowers human workers to pursue more fulfilling and less dangerous, repetitive work. "In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process. The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy. Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here: https://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2021 ABOUT FAST (News - Alert) COMPANY Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com. About Vecna Robotics Vecna Robotics is the autonomous mobile robot (AMR) and workflow orchestration company that helps distribution, warehousing, and manufacturing organizations streamline their materials handling and logistics operations. Pivotal, the company's proprietary orchestration engine, integrates with existing warehouse management systems for a coordinated approach that maximizes throughput, operational efficiency, and human and robot collaboration. Vecna Robotics' robots are backed with 24/7 US-based live support and proactive monitoring for an industry-leading 99%+ uptime. For more information, visit www.vecnarobotics.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005770/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Energy efficiency is imperative to meeting Vietnam's sustainability targets

The World Bank, acting on behalf of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), has signed a $11.3 million grant with the State Bank of Vietnam to support the development of a commercial financing market for industrial energy efficiency investments. The total financing support from GCF also includes a $75 million guarantee.

$8.3 million from the grant will be used to build capacities for the private sector to identify, appraise, and execute energy efficiency projects. It will also provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Industry and Trade and relevant authorities to strengthen policy frameworks and regulations and create an enabling environment to accelerate the energy efficiency market in Vietnam.

The remaining grant funds and the guarantee will be used to establish a risk sharing facility to provide partial credit guarantees to support local banks who may risk potential defaults on loans for energy efficiency projects. By reducing lending risks, the facility is expected to mobilise around $250 million of commercial financing to be provided to industrial enterprises and energy service companies at competitive terms and with low collateral requirements.

Scaling up energy efficiency is the single best and lowest cost option to achieve multiple goals at once: meeting energy demand, preventing pollution, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also increasing industry competitiveness, said Carolyn Turk, country director for Vietnam. Against the context of limited public financing for energy, the risk sharing facility is an innovative financial instrument to crowd in private sector investment financing for a greater uptake of industry-wide energy efficiency measures.

The grant and guarantee are executed under the Vietnam Scaling up Energy Efficiency Project which aims to support Vietnam in achieving energy efficiency targets set out in the Green Growth Strategy as well as emission reduction objectives pledged under the National Determined Contributions. As a country whose level of energy intensity and emission intensity is among the highest in the region, Vietnam is actively embarking on the green energy transition and decarbonisation pathway.

The World Banks Low Carbon Study estimates that Vietnam could save up to 11GW of new generation capacity by 2030 if comprehensive demand-side energy efficiency investments are carried out. The energy efficiency investment need for key industries in Vietnam was estimated at around $3.6 billion.
Rural areas across the country faced challenging development problems  which were key drivers in the past two presidential election cycles  long before the COVID-19 pandemic exposed them further.

As cases mounted and schools and businesses closed, it became more obvious that many rural areas lacked the digital infrastructure that is the foundation of modern economies. The problems were particularly acute in terms of health care, education and sustainable jobs, all of which came to rely more heavily on high-speed broadband access that has yet to reach many rural areas.

Rep. Matt Cartwright, the Moosic Democrat who is chairman of an House appropriations subcommittee dealing with commerce and technology, and 20-term Republican Rep. Hal Rogers of rural Kentucky, have introduced the Transforming Hiring in Rural Industries and Vital Economies Act, THRIVE.

The bill would direct more federal funds to universal broadband access, and would steer more federal money to improve rural health care access, strengthen rural schools and provide assistance to rural small businesses.

It also would re-establish, by law, the White House Rural Council, which President Barack Obama created in 2012 to coordinate an array of rural programs operated under different federal agencies, but which President Donald Trump disbanded in 2017.

Cartwright has asked the agriculture secretary to reinstate the council by executive action pending the legislation. He should comply.

Before it was killed, the council oversaw the expansion of rural broadband, expansion of online services for rural schools, telemedicine expansion and high-speed broadband deployment, using a $2 billion grant from the Federal Communications Commission.

Congress should approve the bipartisan effort to end the technological and related economic disparities that face rural communities nationwide.
Highlights:

Four more drill holes with high-grade cores within lower-grade lenses.

Drill intercepts between 2.12% to 3.33% CuEq (1) across true widths between 4.8m to 8.0m.

Best result of 3.33% CuEq (1) over 4.8m true width at 26m below bedrock surface in hole CP-20-47.

Results continue to support a case for small-scale, high-grade, direct-shipping mining project to generate near-term cash-flow.

Assays pending on three more holes.

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Stratabound Minerals Corp. (TSXV: SB) (OTC Pink: SBMIF) ("Stratabound" or the "Company") reports it has received assay results on five more drill holes completed on its Captain Copper/Cobalt/Gold/Silver Deposit in addition to the six new holes reported previously on February 25, 2021. The zone projects to the bedrock contact lying between 6-9m below surface. One hole was drilled beyond the strike extent of mineralization and was not sampled.

Results reported in this release are detailed in Figures 1 and 2, and in Table 1 below. Drill holes CP-20-40 and CP-20-47 which intercepted 2.67% CuEq(1) over 8.0m true width and 3.33% CuEq(1) over 4.8m true width respectively occur approximately 110m directly up-dip of historic hole CP-08-13 which intercepted 5.53% CuEq(1) over 7.3m true width (Figure 1.) Drill holes CP-20-45 and CP-20-46 were drilled on approximate 45m projected extensions of past drill results at opposite ends of known strike limits. Neither of the holes intercepted significant mineralization.

Mr. R. Kim Tyler, President and CEO of the Company commented, "The results reported today continue to confirm continuous high-grade copper-cobalt-gold-silver mineralization across tight-spaced 10m-wide sections along approximately 120 metres of strike and across an average true width of 8m.. As noted in the previous release, the Captain Deposit's high grades, road access, close proximity to a rail head, and the deep-water port at Belledune near Bathurst, New Brunswick make for a very attractive direct-ship cash-generating opportunity."

The Captain Deposit is open at depth below the deepest intersection to date at 360m vertical depth of 5.46% Cu, 0.093% Co, 0.30 g/t Au and 30.5 g/t Ag for a 12.20% CuEq (1) over 2m down-hole in hole CP-09-23 .

As noted in the previous press release, the Company is investigating the opportunity for a small-scale, high-grade, direct-shipping mining project to generate near-term cash-flow. The Captain Deposit is strategically located 100km by road to the deep-water port of Belledune near Bathurst, New Brunswick and 40km by road to the nearest railroad.





(1) CuEq% based on CuEq%= ((Cu lb/t*US$3.75.lb) +(Co lbs/t*US$20/lb) +(Au g/t*0.03215*US$1,750/oz) +(g/t Ag*0.03215*US$25/oz))/US$3.75/lb Cu insitu value and does not account for metallurgical, refining or other losses.

Table 1



To view an enhanced version of Table 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4064/76567_strata-orig.JPG





Figure 1. Section 070N: All widths posted are true widths.



To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4064/76567_0a922fb9a4ae4a3d_003full.jpg











Figure 2. Recent and historic drill results within 20m of surface. All widths posted are true widths



To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4064/76567_0a922fb9a4ae4a3d_004full.jpg

About the Captain Deposit

The Captain Deposit hosts an NI 43-101 Measured and Indicated Resource totaling 448,000 tonnes averaging 1.75% Cu, 0.046% Co, and 0.30 g/t Au for a 2.2% CuEq%(1), plus an inferred resource of 162,000 tonnes averaging 1.47% Cu, 0.04% Co and 0.24 g/t Au for a 1.87% CuEq%(1), ("Technical Report on an Updated Mineral Resource Estimate, Stratabound Minerals Corp. Captain Cu-Co Deposit"; Mercator Geological Services Limited, Dec. 8, 2010). The Deposit is located along the "Brunswick Horizon", within a 20km radius and the same stratigraphic contact that hosts the world-class Glencore Brunswick No.12 and No.6 mines with past production totaling an aggregate 149.4 million tons of 8.72% zinc, 3.3% lead, 0.35% copper and 99 g/t silver,(2) (Figure 3.) The Captain is a volcanic massive sulphide, or VMS-type deposit, similar to the above described deposits.(2) (source: Government of New Brunswick DNR Mineral Occurrence Database).

Drilling on the Captain Deposit now totals 10,452m over 53 holes across 120m of strike and is open beyond the deepest intersection to date at 359m yielding 1.12% Cu over a down-hole length of 19.5m including a 2m interval of 5.46% Cu, 0.093% Co, 0.30 g/t Au and 30.5 g/t Ag in hole CP-09-23.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control

The core samples referenced in this press release were marked and cut by diamond saw whereby half the sample was bagged and hand-delivered by Stratabound personnel to a secure carrier and transported to the Activation Laboratories (Actlabs) preparation lab in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The remaining half-core is stored at the Madran core facility in Madran, NB.

Actlabs prepared the samples by crushing to 80% less than 10 mesh. A riffle split of 250 grams was then taken and pulverized to a 95% passing 200 mesh pulp sub-sample. The pulps were then shipped by Actlabs to its Ancaster, Ontario laboratory for copper, cobalt, gold and multi-element analyses. A 4-acid near-total digestion ICP-MS 42-element analysis was performed on all samples and a duplicate 4-acid digestion ICP-OES procedure performed where values exceeded 350ppm for cobalt and 5,000ppm for copper in the original digestion. Gold was determined separately by the 1A2 standard fire assay procedure with an atomic absorption (AA) finish on a 30-gram sub-sample taken from the 250-gram split. If the gold result exceeded 5 g/t a duplicate sample was processed by method 1A3-30.

Actlabs uses a procedure of standards, blanks and duplicates inserted into the sample stream results. Actlabs is an independent internationally recognized and ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited chemical analysis company.

In addition to the quality assurance and quality control program performed by Actlabs, Stratabound personnel insert lab-certified standards and field blanks into the sample stream, as well as sample duplicates, at the rate of one QA/QC sample for every 7 core samples.

About Stratabound Minerals Corp.

Stratabound Minerals Corp. is a fully-funded Canadian exploration and development company focused on gold exploration at its flagship Golden Culvert Project, Yukon Territory and its McIntyre Brook Project, New Brunswick, Canada. The Company also holds a significant land position that hosts three base metals deposits in the Bathurst base metals camp of New Brunswick featuring the Captain Copper-Cobalt-Gold Deposit that hosts an NI 43-101 Measured and Indicated Resource.

Mr. R. Kim Tyler, P.Geo., President and CEO of Stratabound, and a "Qualified Person" for the purpose of NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the contents of this news release.

For more information please visit the company's website at www.stratabound.ca or contact: R. Kim Tyler, President and CEO 416-915-4157 info@stratabound.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

WARNING: The Company relies upon litigation protection for "forward looking" statements. The information in this release may contain forward-looking information under applicable securities laws. This forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking information. Factors that may cause actual results to vary materially include, but are not limited to, inaccurate assumptions concerning the exploration for and development of mineral deposits, currency fluctuations, unanticipated operational or technical difficulties, changes in laws or regulations, failure to obtain regulatory, exchange or shareholder approval, the risks of obtaining necessary licenses and permits, changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets and the inability to raise additional financing. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information. The Company does not assume the obligation to revise or update this forward-looking information after the date of this release or to revise such information to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76567
Wawa convenience stores had a planned and phased roll out for the JOCKO GO energy drinks.

Wawa decided to move ahead of that plan will launch the energy drinks across its chain, according to Origin USA.

The energizing nootropic formula combines cognitive support with clean energy and boasts less caffeine for a healthier alternative than what has traditionally led the category in convenience stores, Origin USA said in a news release.

JOCKO GO comes in six flavors and is keto-friendly, low-calorie, sweetened with monk fruit, lightly carbonated and has 95 mg of caffeine and a blend of nootropics and clean energy provides fuel without the jitters or the crash.

The last thing I wanted on a mission was to be overstimulated by something loaded in caffeine and sugars, stated Jocko Willink, retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer, host of the Jocko Podcast, and co-founder for whom the brand is named.

Jocko Fuel CEO Pete Roberts said, Todays consumers read labels, want clean energy for their active lifestyles, and need healthy choices on-the-go, said Roberts. Now, they can get that winning combination with JOCKO GO at Wawa across the US.

Current flavors are Dak Savage, cherry vanilla flavor, named after Medal of Honor Recipient, Dakota Meyer; the signature Jocko Pomr sweet tea and lemonade flavor; Sour Apple Sniper, named after J.P. Dinnell, a former sniper from Jockos famed Task Unit Bruiser; Afterburner Orange, named after retired U.S. Marine Corps officer and former TOPGUN Instructor Pilot, Dave Burke; Tropic Thunder, a pineapple coconut flavor; and Citrus Psycho, a lemon-lime flavor.

READ MORE
Astronomers have discovered evidence for an extraordinarily long jet of particles coming from a supermassive black hole in the early universe, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

If confirmed, it would be the most distant supermassive black hole with a jet detected in X-rays. Coming from a galaxy about 12.7 billion light-years from Earth, the jet may help explain how the biggest black holes formed at a very early time in the universe's history.

The source of the jet is a quasar - a rapidly growing supermassive black hole - named PSO J352.4034-15.3373 (PJ352-15 for short), which sits at the center of a young galaxy. It is one of the two most powerful quasars detected in radio waves in the first billion years after the big bang, and is about a billion times more massive than the Sun.

How were supermassive black holes able to grow so quickly to reach such an enormous mass in this early epoch of the universe? This is one of the key questions in astronomy today.

Despite their powerful gravity and fearsome reputation, black holes do not inevitably pull in everything that approaches close to them. Material orbiting around a black hole in a disk needs to lose speed and energy before it can fall farther inwards to cross the so-called event horizon, the point of no return. Magnetic fields can cause a braking effect on the disk as they power a jet, which is one key way for material in the disk to lose energy and, therefore, enhance the rate of growth of black holes.

"If a playground merry-go-round is moving too fast, it's hard for a child to move towards the center, so someone or something needs to slow the ride down," said Thomas Connor of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, who led the study. "Around supermassive black holes, we think jets can take enough energy away so material can fall inward and the black hole can grow."

Astronomers needed to observe PJ352-15 for a total of three days using the sharp vision of Chandra to detect evidence for the X-ray jet. X-ray emission was detected about 160,000 light-years away from the quasar along the same direction as much shorter jets previously seen in radio waves by the Very Long Baseline Array. By comparison, the entire Milky Way spans about 100,000 light-years.

PJ352-15 breaks a couple of different astronomical records. First, the longest jet previously observed from the first billion years after the big bang was only about 5,000 light-years in length, corresponding to the radio observations of PJ352-15. Second, PJ352-15 is about 300 million light-years farther away than the most distant X-ray jet recorded before it..

"The length of this jet is significant because it means that the supermassive black hole powering it has been growing for a considerable period of time," said co-author Eduardo Banados of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany. "This result underscores how X-ray studies of distant quasars provide a critical way to study the growth of the most distant supermassive black holes."

The light detected from this jet was emitted when the universe was only 0.98 billion years old, less than a tenth of its present age. At this point, the intensity of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the big bang was much greater than it is today.

As the electrons in the jet fly away from the black hole at close to the speed of light, they move through and collide with photons making up the cosmic microwave background radiation, boosting the energy of the photons up into the X-ray range to be detected by Chandra. In this scenario, the X-rays are significantly boosted in brightness compared to radio waves. This agrees with the observation that the large X-ray jet feature has no associated radio emission.

"Our result shows that X-ray observations can be one of the best ways to study quasars with jets in the early Universe," said co-author Daniel Stern, also of JPL. "Or to put it another way, X-ray observations in the future may be the key to unlocking the secrets of our cosmic past."

###

A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. The other co-authors of the paper are Chris Carilli (NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico); Andrew Fabian (University of Cambridge, UK); Emmanuel Momjian (NRAO); Sofia Rojas-Ruiz (MPIA); Roberto Decarli (INAF, Bologna, Italy); Emanuele Paolo Farina (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching, Germany); Chiara Mazzucchelli (ESO, Chile); Hannah P. Earnshaw (Caltech, Pasadena, California).

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
EDWARDSVILLE  Multiple home invasion charges against a second suspect in three separate incidents last year were unsealed Monday.

Michael A. Foots, 28, of Florissant, Missouri, was charged Jan. 27 with three separate counts of home invasion, all Class X felonies. The charges were sealed until March 8, when the suspect was taken into custody.

The case was presented by the Alton Police Department.

The previous week, charges against a Mt. Vernon man in the three cases were unsealed.

Ronnie D. Jackson, 25, of Mt. Vernon, was also charged with home invasion, all Class X felonies, in the incidents.

According to court documents, on Oct. 1 Foots and Jackson allegedly entered a home in the 2700 block of Powhatton Street and struck a woman in the head with a firearm.

On Nov. 3, court documents show the two entered a home in the 3200 block of Oakwood and threatened two residents with a firearm; and entered a home in the 900 block of Tremont Street and struck a resident in the head with a firearm.

Bail for both has been set at $300,000 each.

Felony charges filed March 8 by the Madison County States Attorneys Office include:

 Randall L. Kinsey, 44, of Granite City, was charged with unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, a Class 2 felony. The case was presented by the Madison County Sheriffs Department. According to court documents, on March 5 Kinsey, who has a 1998 unlawful possession of weapons by a felon conviction out of Fayette County, allegedly was found to be in possession a camouflage stun device. Bail was set at $30,000.

 Charles M. Johnson, 27, of St. Louis, was charged with aggravated unlawful use of weapons, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Alton Police Department. On March 7 Johnson allegedly was found to be in possession of a loaded Glock handgun without a valid concealed carry license. Bail was set at $20,000.

 Thomas M. Eisele, 42, of Ferguson, Missouri, was charged with offenses relating to motor vehicles, a Class 2 felony. The case was presented by the East Alton Police Department. On March 5 Eisele allegedly was found to be in possession of a stolen 2016 Yamaha motorcycle. Bail was set at $40,000.

 Melvin S. Surratt, 35, of Cottage Hills, was charged with offenses relating to motor vehicles, a Class 2 felony; and unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Metro East Auto Theft Task Force. On March 5 Surratt allegedly was found to be in possession of a 2005 Honda Rebel motorcycle, and less than five grams of methamphetamine. Bail was set at $50,000.

 William E. Lightfoot II, 35, of Roxana, was charged with burglary, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Alton Police Department. On March 6 Lightfoot allegedly entered a 2007 Dodge Ram in the 100 block of W. Broadway, Alton, to commit theft. Bail was set at $20,000.

 Terrence D. Gleason, 50, of St. Louis, was charged with retail theft over $300, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Madison County Sheriffs Department. On March 5 Gleason allegedly took a comforter, backpack and hover boards valued at more than $300 from the Godfrey Walmart, 6660 Godfrey Road. Bail was set at $3,000.

 Chela J. Edwards, 36, listed as homeless out of Alton, was charged with retail theft under $300 (second subsequent offense), a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Granite City Police Department. On March 6 Edwards allegedly took batteries, candy and other merchandise valued at less than $300 from the Granite City Walmart, 379 W. Pontoon Road. It was noted she had a 2015 conviction for theft out of Madison County. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Christopher M. Delano, 39, of Belleville, was charged with criminal damage to property over $500, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Alton Police Department. On March 7 Delano allegedly caused more than $500 damage to a 2011 ford bus owned by the William Bedell Achievement Center. Bail was set at $25,000.
HEIDELBERG, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Caizcoin sets itself apart with a mission to connect innovative financial solutions with humanity and values-allowing everyone to fairly participate in the modern financial world.

Caizcoin is a decentralized financial solution and cryptocurrency which allows fast and cost-efficient international money transfers. It is the first form of this contemporary advancement to be certified as an official Islamic blockchain and cryptocurrency. Caizcoin, approved as compliant with Islamic financial law by Islamic scholars, symbolizes the opening of the global cryptocurrency market to Muslims for the first time.

Founded in Germany, Caizcoin has brought together a team of global, dynamic leaders in business, technology, and finance. The skilled group was hand-picked to work in tandem with international scholars, economists, and finance experts to guide them, thus ensuring Islamic values are infused into every aspect of Caizcoin's finished product.

It was imperative to these professionals that Caizcoin follow guidelines from within the Islamic faith which align with moral utilization of the technology. By staying within the binding principles of Islamic law, Caizcoin tokens will be used altruistically by collaborating with organizations and institutions to enable Waqf and Zakat donations.

Caizcoin is built on its own decentralized blockchain, making it infinitely more secure to its users. This dedicated blockchain guarantees faster, anonymous transactions, ledger accountability, and unmatched growth potential. The secure payment system, E-wallet, will control transactions in order to make the cryptocurrency secure for every investor.

Caizcoin encourages global usage as a currency by offering a modern digital financial solution and API for third-party integrations. Worldwide investors to Caizcoin will be exempt from fees until a certain ratio of withdrawal and will enjoy instant transfer of funds secured by blockchain technology. All vendors and partners within the network must adhere to the values and standards represented by Caizcoin.

The owners of Caizcoin are excited to announce that the private sale of the world's first truly global cryptocurrency is already underway and available to all.

Social Links:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/caizcoin_official?igshid=27b4h6gjobvh

Twitter: https://twitter.com/caizcoin_'s=11

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Caizcoin-100282385356919/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.de/caizcoin/

Telegram: https://t.me/caizcoin_official

Media Contact:

Brand: Caizcoin

Contact: Cumhur Nadir, PR Manager

Telephone: +4969222260970

E-mail: salam@caizcoin.com

Website: https://caizcoin.com

SOURCE: Caizcoin

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634283/Caizcoin-Approved-as-a-Viable-Currency-for-All
Eighty-Eight years ago, Americans found themselves adrift upon a sea of uncertainty, facing a tidal wave of challenges that threatened to sink the ship of state. Like the pandemic today, this was a global crisis, though not one of viral origins, but one rooted in the economic catastrophe of the stock market crash on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. The Great Depression wreaked havoc all over the world. Here in the United States, the devastating effects were felt from Wall Street to Salina Street.

On November 8, 1932, the American people elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Governor of New York, in the hopes that a new captain could bring them into a safe harbor. Nearly four years after The Crash, as Central New Yorkers gathered around their radios on the afternoon of March 4, 1933 to listen to the newly elected President deliver his inaugural address, the United States banking sector was again on the brink of collapse after years of so-called runs on the banks. This referred to the increasingly common practice of fearful depositors across the country removing their funds en masse, leaving many banks unable to satisfy the volume of withdrawals, as the institutions did not have the necessary funds on hand. This, in turn, led to thousands of bank failures across the country.

The problem became even more severe in the month prior to the inauguration. Finally, with a new administration set to take the helm at noon, leaders across the country acted. That day, in New York, the nations banking center, Governor Herbert Lehman, Roosevelts successor, proclaimed a two-day banking moratorium. States across the country followed Gov. Lehmans lead.

- The Syracuse Trust Company main branch office, circa 1935. This building is no longer extant. STC had a second branch on South Salina Street that still stands. Courtesy of the Onondaga Historical AssociationCourtesy of the Onondaga Histori

A measure of cautious optimism surrounding the new administration was on display in Central New York as Inauguration Day loomed. The March 4 edition of the Syracuse Herald reported that shopping districts downtown were thronged over the weekend. This was a welcome development that demonstrated the expectation of some decisive and positive action from Roosevelt. William T. McCaffrey, President of Syracuses Lincoln National Bank & Trust, told the Herald that he and his fellow bank presidents expected a strong statement from the new President that would quiet the unnecessary fears of the people.

McCaffreys prediction proved prescient. Shortly after noon, the new President addressed an anxious nation with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. Roosevelt reassured his countrymen, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. He excoriated the unscrupulous money changers, the men of high finance, this generation of self-seekers, whom the American people blamed for the economic calamities of the previous administration. They have no vision, said this wealthy scion of New Yorks patrician banking elite, and when there is no vision the people perish. His, however, was a bold vision. The new President declared that the nation asks for action, and action now! As such, he was prepared to wield broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great asif we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe. Roosevelt assured the millions listening that the people of the United States have not failed and promised to act on their mandate for direct, vigorous action.

On March 6, Roosevelt did just that, declaring a national bank holiday, which shut down the nations banks for a week. This was a welcome bit of news for banks in Central New York. The Clearing House Associations of both Rochester and Syracuse welcomed the extra time to allow for their member institutions to shift resources accordingly. According to press accounts, the most pressing concern for most local banks and their customers was the meeting of payroll accounts.

Roosevelt took to the airwaves again on the evening of March 12, to inform folks in Central New York and across the country that new legislation would guarantee their deposits through the proposed Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and that the banks would re-open the next day (FDR signed the Banking Act in June). The days of the bank runs' were over. Instilled with a new confidence, Americans began depositing their hoarded cash once again, shoring up the nations banking system.

- This is an interior shot of the lobby in the Onondaga County Savings Bank in Downtown Syracuse taken after its renovation in 1931. Courtesy of the Onondaga Historical AssociationCourtesy of the Onondaga Histori

The citizens of Syracuse had to wait until the next day, Tuesday, March 14th, to resume their banking activities. Six local banks were authorized to re-open, McCaffreys Lincoln National Bank, The Merchants National Bank, First Trust and Deposit Co., Syracuse Trust Co., the Onondaga County Savings Bank, and the Syracuse Savings Bank.

The re-opening of the banks was not the only great news greeting Syracusans when they read their newspapers that morning. Directly under the main headline, was more welcome news that undoubtedly made most people even happier. By the end of that momentous and stressful week, Congress was set to legalize the manufacture and sale of beer, ending thirteen years of Prohibition. The American people could certainly have used a drink.
People can begin filing their taxes as soon as they receive all necessary documentation required by the IRS. The deadline to pay any taxes owed is April 15.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Market Research Future Published a Half Cooked Research Global Sulfuric Acid Market Research Report - Forecast to 2022 - Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast up to 2022.

Sulfuric Acid Market  Market Overview

Sulfuric acid is a mineral acid and is one of the largest volume industrial chemical produced across the globe. Fertilizer production, especially phosphate fertilizer from wet-process sulphuric acid, is the major end use market fort sulfuric acid. The major application area of sulphuric acid covers fertilizers, chemical manufacturing, refinery, textile, pulp & paper manufacturing, metal processing and others.

Agricultural economies holds the greater importance in this market, as fertilizer production considered as a key focused area for the consumption of sulpfuric acid. Increasing demand for fertilizer to attain the higher agriculture yield had a significant impact on this market over the past few years and set its uplifted usage in the coming years. China, alone acquired almost half of the global market in terms of sulphuric acid production resulting into domination of Asia Pacific over the global market. In addition to this, fertilizer consumption of India represents massive number on account of presence of large agriculture base and is driving the demand for sulphuric acid. Apart from the, automotive industry expected to provide higher gains to key industry players in this market during the forecast period. This is due to use of sulfuric acid in the automotive batteries which has triggered automotive application of sulfuric acid. However, volatility in the raw material prices and growing consumption of phosphate based fertilizer limited the growth scope of this market.

Free Sample of This Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2037

Sulfuric Acid Market- Competitive Landscape

Global Sulfuric Acid market is highly concentrated as well fairly competitive in nature. The key industry participants operating in this market are Agrium, Akzo Nobel, Bayer, BP, Chevron, Cytec Industries, Dupont, Evonik Industries, Honeywell and Solvay. The major companies in this market are seen adopting collective market strategies to such as mergers, acquisition and joint-ventures in order to consolidate their product portfolio and to strengthen their market presence. Several production capacity expansion has also witnessed across the various developed markets to strengthen market penetration into emerging markets and exploit untapped markets. The overall effect of market competition observed in global sulphuric acid market is observed as high and is expected to get even higher due consistent increase in the production activities.

Industry/ Innovation/ Related News:

May 18, 2017- Yidu Xingfa Chemical and DuPont tied in an agreement for an engineering and technology license for a 3,600 Mtpd MECS MAX3 sulfuric acid plant. The collective effort has taken to build one of the largest sulfuric acid plant in China in order to cater the ongoing demand. Xingfa is expanding its existing site, located in the Hubei province near Yichang city, with the aim of roughly doubling the phosphate fertilizer capacity. The new MECS MAX3 sulfuric acid plant will process 1.2 MMtpy of sulfuric acid, as well as support the production of an additional 400,000 tonnes/yr of phosphoric acid, 400,000 tonnes/yr DAP and 35,000 tonnes/yr of potassium phosphate monobasic. The overall expansion activity expected gain market effectiveness while bridging the demand supply gap of sulfuric acid.

October 10, 2017- Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd and Jordanian Phosphate Mines Company has formed joint venture to build largest sulfuric acid plant in India. The agreement has undertaken by investing overall amount of USD 860 million. The plant will come as a huge relief to Indias agricultural sector requirements in view of meagre availability of phosphates in India. Phosphoric acid produced at the plant will be exported to the Kandla port in Gujarat from Jordans Aqaba port, which is close to the location of the plant.

November, 2017- Leading chemical industry player BASF has launched new sulfuric acid catalyst. BASF has introduced the new sulphuric acid catalyst O4115 Quattro into the market. The new, cesium-based catalyst is unique due to its geometrical shape  a combination of four strands  leading to a 30 percent greater catalytic surface area compared to conventional sulphuric acid catalysts. The newly launched catalyst has 30 % greater catalytic surface area and helps to improve performance during the sulfuric acid production.

August 31, 2016- Jacobs Engineering Group Inc, Acquires BAYQIK Sulfuric Acid Converter Technology from Bayer AG. The company has acquired patented technology from Bayer AG, under the term of agreement the overall technology shift includes transfer of relevant Bayer technical, commercial and market information to Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. BAYQIK technology enables more efficient conversion of process gas with high sulphur dioxide concentrations. Therefore, it altogether expected to provide growth offerings in the Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. growth offering.

Browse Related Reports @

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/drone-transponder-market-is-projected-to-account-for-usd-2998-million-by-2024-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/counter-uas-market-is-projected-to-account-for-usd-22351-million-by-2024-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aerospace-3d-printing-market-size-growth-latest-application-share-recent-trends-and-better-investment-opportunities-by-forecast-to-2026-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/airborne-satcom-market-size-growth-latest-application-share-recent-trends-and-better-investment-opportunities-by-forecast-to-2026-2021-01-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/weapon-mounts-market-size-growth-latest-application-share-recent-trends-and-better-investment-opportunities-by-forecast-to-2026-2021-01-19
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
WhatsApp is reportedly dropping its support for certain iPhones that are still running on the iOS 9. This means that despite the WhatsApp user base getting smaller ever since their new policy update got criticized, the app could be looking at phasing out support for other users on an earlier iOS version.

The app is still currently supporting Android 4.0.3 and above.

WhatsApp Stops Supporting iOS 9 and Below

The announcement was noted by the WhatsApp tracker WABetaInfo, and it detailed that the new version 2.21.50 of WhatsApp beta will no longer support devices that are still running on either the iOS 9 or other older iOS. WhatsApp still hasn't updated nor changed its official FAQ page as of the moment, but it is still expected to be updated when the final new version of the app rolls out for public use.

The story was reported by News18. The development means the iPhone 4 as well as the iPhone 4s will be losing support for the popular messaging app. Moreover, the iPhone 5 will be the oldest iPhone model that will be able to run WhatsApp. The iPhone 5 was reportedly updated until iOS 10.3.

WhatsApp on Android

When it comes to the Android side of things, WhatsApp is supported on other Android smartphones that are running on the Android 4.0.3 or other newer OS. Aside from both Android and iOS, WhatsApp also reportedly runs on KaiOS, which is actually used on a number of different phones that include the Jio Phone as well as the Jio Phone 2.

In another development, WhatsApp is also reportedly planning to release a more improved version of its supposed Archived Chats, according to WABetaInfo. This particular feature is currently still under development. However, sources noted to WABetaInfo that WhatsApp is now preparing some UI improvements for the said Archived Chats cell. This will only be visible if the user has any particular chats within their archive.

Read Also: WhatsApp Requires Users to Share Data With Facebook, Newest Privacy Policy Reveals

WhatsApp Privacy Policy Update

All of the notifications from the Archived Chats will also reportedly be muted. This means that users won't be able to know when they receive messages on the archived chats. Sources also reportedly told WABetaInfo that this particular feature will just be optional.

WhatsApp, which is still fighting what's known to be a huge boycott against its very own update private policy, recently reminded its users regarding the updated policy that is coming into effect during the start of May 15.

The new updated privacy policy has been moved several times due to the backlash it received, with a number of users actually turning to other apps like Signal and Telegram. Although WhatsApp defends itself saying the info would be good for the small businesses, users are still shifting left and right.

WhatsApp Messenger beta 2.21.50 drops the support for iOS 9.



The FAQ hasn't been updated yet. https://t.co/3bpOuq0jvp https://t.co/QMM7AkVY7U  WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) March 5, 2021

Related Article: WhatsApp Hit By Privacy Concerns, Time to Move to Telegram?
As Gov. Gavin Newsom grapples with COVID-19 and a possible recall election, and Attorney General Xavier Becerra prepares to head to Washington, three district attorneys are accusing both men of undermining the states death penalty law and want to intervene in a federal case, with the hopes of speeding up future executions.

And the American Civil Liberties Union wants a state court to tell the DAs to mind their own business.

The district attorneys, including San Mateo Countys Steve Wagstaffe, are trying to usurp the role of the governor and the attorney general in overseeing Californias laws, including its death penalty law, the ACLU said in a filing Friday with the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. The filing quoted a 1975 ruling by the state Supreme Court that said local prosecutors have the powers assigned to them by law, not a roving commission to do justice in cases they have already prosecuted.

But the district attorneys say Newsom and Becerra are the ones flouting the law. The prosecutors did not directly challenge Newsoms March 2019 order halting executions in California  though one court filing questioned whether the governor truly believed in the legality of his moratorium  but said he and Becerra had abandoned their duty to defend the voter-approved death penalty law.

The governor and attorney general are colluding with lawyers for Death Row prisoners to eviscerate the rule of law in California, Wagstaffe, Michael Hestrin of Riverside County and Jason Anderson of San Bernardino County told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considering whether to allow the district attorneys to intervene in a long-running lawsuit over the states execution procedures.

The district attorneys noted that Newsom not only declared a moratorium on executions but also shut down the death chamber at San Quentin and withdrew the states proposed procedures for lethal injections. They also said Becerra, whose office defends death sentences on appeal, has not fought the suit by the condemned inmates.

Becerra, meanwhile, is preparing to leave office if the U.S. Senate confirms his nomination by President Biden as Health and Human Services secretary. Newsom, who would appoint Becerras successor, is up for re-election next year but could be on the ballot sooner if Republicans collect enough signatures to put a recall vote on the ballot, energized by the governors appearance at a party in a Yountville restaurant last November, in violation of his own COVID-19 guidelines.

The suit dates from 2006, when California last executed a prisoner, and was filed in federal court under the constitutional right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment. Federal judges have ruled since then that the states injection procedures, equipment and staff training created an undue risk of a prolonged and agonizing death.

Of the states 706 condemned inmates, at least 25 have lost all appeals of their convictions and sentences and would face execution if the procedures won judicial approval. Five of those inmates are from the three counties represented by the district attorneys, including Andrew Jack Sully, a former Millbrae policeman convicted of six murders related to drugs and prostitution in 1983, and Robert Fairbank, who tortured and fatally stabbed a San Francisco State University student in San Mateo in 1985.

After Newsoms moratorium, inmates dismissed their suit but agreed with Becerras office that they could reinstate the case if the moratorium ended and would not face execution until the legal issues were resolved. That is the agreement the district attorneys want to undo.

They first sought to enter the federal court case in 2018 but were rejected by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg of San Francisco, who said it was up to the governor and attorney general, not local prosecutors, to represent the state on death penalty issues.

The prosecutors, who have sought execution dates in their cases, argue that they were given an expanded role in the legal process by Proposition 66, a 2016 ballot measure aimed at speeding up executions by changing court procedures and limiting appeals. Ninth Circuit Judge Laurence VanDyke appeared to agree, at least in part, at a hearing in September.

It seems like Prop. 66 gave you the ability to prod them if you dont think theyre moving, VanDyke told a lawyer for the three district attorneys. He said there seems to be a disconnect between what the (Newsom) administration wants and what the district attorneys want.

But it wasnt clear whether VanDyke and the other panel members, Judges William Fletcher and Danielle Hunsaker, intended to allow the prosecutors to intervene in the case. The ACLU, meanwhile, has told the state appeals court that California law bars the district attorneys from any role in the statewide case, under a 1975 state Supreme Court ruling.

The Legislature has not authorized the DAs intervention in statewide civil rights litigation concerning the constitutionality of the manner of execution, attorneys for the ACLU and civil rights groups told the court. Only the attorney general is authorized to represent the interests of the state in this case.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
Seattle Homicide Rate Increased Sharply in 2020 Amid Protests, Police Defunding

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) investigated 50 homicides last year, the most homicides in the city in 26 years.

This was an increase of 61 percent compared to the 31 cases in 2019. Law enforcement personnel cited issues such as ongoing protests as well as officials actively limiting police power.

Data from local police also shows that homicides across the country rose by 36 percent in 2020 compared to a year before.

Obviously, the pandemic, the political climate, the civil unrest adds to that, Jim Fuda, law enforcement director of Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound, told The Epoch Times. You cannot blame police for that.

Fuda started serving at the King County Sheriffs Office in 1973 at the age of 21, making him the youngest deputy sheriff in the office at the time.

Jim Fuda, law enforcement director of Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound. (Photo courtesy of Jim Fuda)

Police union head Mike Solan told The Epoch Times, I think it is a result of the energy around defunding police.

Solan is the president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, representing more than 1,300 police officers in the area.

From Model Agency to Defunding Target

In 2016, a federal judge cited the SPD as a national training model of police reform. Fifty agencies in the nation were called on to learn from the SPDs practices and policies.

Recently, however, the SPD became a target for defunding. In August 2020, the Seattle City Council approved cuts of around 12 percent to the SPD budget.

A memo to the Seattle City Council states that the police department experienced extreme staffing shortages for more than 220 days in 2020.

Fuda expressed concern about the defunding.

It increases crime and increases the fear of crime, he said.

He said defunding leads to fewer police officers on the streets. On top of that, 240 officers have already left the police department, the most in the history of the Seattle police force.

So there are fewer officers to respond to other than Priority 1 calls, or theyre slower to Priority 1 calls, because there simply isnt the manpower to respond to all this going on in the city, he said.

Priority 1 calls are for life-threatening emergencies.

The number of priority status days, or days when at least one precinct was in a status when officers could only handle Priority 1 and 2 calls, showed a large increase in 2019 and 2020. The new memo states, The 2020 level of priority call handling (in days) represents a 97% increase from 2018 and a 176% increase from 2017.

(Seattle Police Department)

(Seattle Police Department)

High Homicide Rate in Capitol Hill

According to King Countys Prosecuting Attorneys Office (PAO), Seattles Capitol Hill was among the areas with the most homicides in 2020. Capitol Hill is where the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) was created, and it was where members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter held extended protests during the summer.

The CHAZ was also known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP).

Fuda said city officials allowed the CHOP area to be taken over and become a no-cop zone.

And you saw the homicides and assaults and rapes that happened through the summer just on Capitol Hill alone, he said.

The Epoch Times previously spoke to the former CHOP organizer named Rooks, who said CHOP aimed to defund police by 50 percent, establish a no-cop zone like CHAZ, and get all protesters released without charges.

In June 2020, the SPD was forced to abandon its east precinct that was located in the area. Police couldnt access the protest area for the majority of the time during the occupation.

According to police data, Capitol Hills crime rate was almost double the national average. Violent crime was 16 percent more than the national average, and people in the Capitol Hill area had a 1 in 14 chance of becoming a victim of a crime.

A scene from the protests at Seattles Capitol Hill in June 2020. (Echo Liu/The Epoch Times)

Impact on Public Safety

During a certain period in 2020, when calling 911 in Seattle, one would hear: This is 911; can you call back later? Seattle doesnt have enough officers to handle your call right now.

Solan said defunding police hurts not only police, but also public safety.

Its a breakdown in society, and for me, this is very concerning, he said. The citys panicking, and they realize that there would be an incredible void of police coverage.

More evidence of that is officers fleeing the city for areas where they feel valued by their elected officials, where they can actually serve and fulfill the role of service, Solan said.

Mike Solan, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. (Echo Liu/The Epoch Times)

For many years, Seattle has been ranked among the top cities as best place to live in the United States. Solan described Seattle as a beautiful place filled with great people.

And yet, it seems like radical activism has now taken a significant route in Seattle, which I believe is circumventing the reasonable communitys voice and impacting our public safety, [which] will eventually lead to a significant rise in crime in Seattle.

Its also to decriminalize most crimes that I feel impacts public safety in such a profound way, said Solan. We have people in power to almost make it easier to commit crime and not be held accountable for it.

Minneapolis was the first city to defund police, but it has since gone back on defunding measures. Solan criticized the Seattle City Councils lack of support for the SPD after Minneapolis altered its course to increase a $7 million fund for police.

U.S. District Judge James Robart warned earlier that if the Seattle council continues with defunding action that undermines public safety, strong court action may intervene.

Lisa Herbold, a Seattle City Council member and public safety chair, argued last week in an op-ed that the city council cant be held responsible for limiting local police capacity.

Solan said, Shes indeed wrong in her position, and hopefully the electorate can hold her accountable.

Herbolds office declined a request for comment by The Epoch Times. Other Seattle City Council members didnt respond immediately to a request for comment by NTD Television, a sister company of The Epoch Times.

Solan said that most people feel safe at home right now, but [as] we continue down this path of not holding people accountable for their criminal actions, then crime will visit peoples doorstep sooner rather than later. And thats not alarmist; thats a reality.

Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly represented what the priority status days chart was about. The chart depicts the days when at least one precinct was in a status where officers could only handle Priority 1 and 2 calls. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
March 09, 2021





Ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of employees have transitioned to remote work as companies comply with government-issued health protocols. For many organizations, this meant setting up processes and systems that allow employees to carry on with their responsibilities at home. This required using appropriate technology that can help businesses get the most value from remote work. If you are managing a team of work-from-home employees, here's a guide to help you achieve greater productivity and communication using the right tools.







1. Develop training modules

If your employees are not used to working out of office, you will need to train them how to use tools such as Zoom, Asana, and Basecamp. You might also want to develop custom project management software, so you will need to create walkthroughs and tutorials for that as well. At the end of the day, the key to a successful transition lies in how well you educate your employees about the tools that will benefit your organization as the remote persists.

2. Highlight data security

Cyber threats are becoming more apparent as companies digitize their workflows and employees to access sensitive files from their homes. When you have numerous employees working outside of company premises, the risk of data leakage, sabotage, and theft becomes greater. Its important to make sure your organization acknowledges all security factors. This would require the use of tools that analyze traffic and detect suspicious behavior at the app level. It also helps to set up protocols for authorizing remote access as well as setup failsafe measures in case of breaches.

3. Improve your enterprise infrastructure

Even as your employees work from home, you will still need to invest in maintaining and enhancing your network infrastructure. Then again, what are the advantages of improving your wireless system and upgrading your data centers in the middle of this crisis? The simple answer is that you need to accommodate higher volumes of data coming from different sources. You also need to secure your business from costly virus and malware infection. You might want to allow certain members of your IT team to work in-house in order to keep all your systems up and running, upgrade security features, as well as improve connectivity for employees who are working within company premises.

4. Invest in cloud-based solutions

If your business has yet to deploy a strategy for utilizing the cloud, its the perfect time to do so. There has been a mass exodus towards scalable cloud services that enable companies to increase efficiency and security. Software-as-a-service like Google Drive and Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) have proven to be integral in managing remote employees and accelerating workflows. Adopting these platforms as part of your remote operations should help you stay resilient throughout (and even beyond) the pandemic.

Business continuity is possible even during a time of crisis. You need to understand the tools that add value to remote work and implement a strategy that maximizes the cost of transitioning to this new setup.
Newark Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte held back tears as she unvield a lot filled with seven converted shipping containers to house 24 residents without addresses for a 90-day pilot program.

We have been able to do what felt like the impossible in establishing a beautiful, dignified, safe sleeping village rooted in love for our most vulnerable residents, said Hoyte on Monday as she and other officials announced the opening of the site.

The city-owned lot on Newark Street has sat vacant for years, but on Monday it was dubbed Newark Hope Village. City officials hope it will serve as a springboard for some of the most at-risk people identified by the city to go from being the most likely to die from homelessness to securing permanent housing.

Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte talks about the new village that will house people who are homeless in converted shipping containers. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

[This is] part of a larger plan to rid the City of Newark of folks who have to live in the streets because theres no place for them to go, said Mayor Ras Baraka, because the shelters may not be safe or adequate or because they really feel like they dont want to be in these places. This is why this becomes very important today.

The facility consists of seven shipping containers with 20 dorm-style rooms that feature a bunk bed, a heater and a small dresser. Two structures on site have shower rooms.

The site has the capability to house up to 40 people since there are bunk beds in each room. The shelter will also be used for those displaced by fires or flooding. Some space will also be allocated for those in need of shelter during cold weather Code Blue Alerts.

There will be separate containers with a full bathroom at Newark Hope Village. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

Residents at the village will receive vouchers from the Newark Housing Authority once their stay is complete so they can secure permanent housing, city officials said. The site will also remain after the pilot program ends, but more funding will be needed to keep it running.

The project cost $900,000 and was paid with federal CARES Act funds, Cold Blue grants and city dollars, Newark officials said. The pandemic has made shelters with individual rooms more necessary, and the city has used federal grant dollars to place hundreds in hotels to stop the spread of the virus.

Beds have also decreased at traditional shelters during the pandemic, which is due in part to extreme cold weather this winter and economic hardships brought on by the coronavirus.

Mayor Ras J. Baraka talks about how the village will help the homeless community. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

Newark Hope Village was designed by a California-based nonprofit called Homes 4 the Homeless and built to code with Custom Containers 915, a company out of Texas. Homes 4 the Homeless Vice President Mike Loganbill said he and his team spent a month in Newark to build the project, which saw numerous slow-downs due to snowy weather and the coronavirus.

Our mission is really to provide as low-cost housing as possible so that money can go to where its really needed: in supportive services  wrapped around services  to really help the people who need it, said Loganbill.

United Community Corporation will provide supportive services for those living at the site. Many who will stay at the village are people who frequent the Penn Station corridor, city officials said.

People should not be sleeping on the street, said United Community Corporation Executive Director Craig Mainor. People should not be sleeping on benches and trying to find where the next meal is coming.

The converted containers at Newark Hope Village can house up to two people. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

Newark Working Kitchens, which pays restaurants to make meals for those most in need, will serve lunch to the residents each day of the program. Other partners also helped launch the site included Project for Empty Space, Rorschach Collective, Project My Brothers Keeper, and UCC YouthBuild.

Forme Newark Chief Operating Officer Natasha Rogers also helped secure funding for the project during her tenure.

Im a little teary-eyed, said Rogers. This was such a huge collaboration.

The project also received some praise from at least one activist, Munirah Bomani, who has long been critical of the citys response to homelessness. But she says she still wants elected officials to do more.

Finally, the millions of dollars allocated towards homeless prevention is being put to good use under the leadership of (Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte), said Bomani.

There will be 24 residents housed in Newark Hope Village. Mayor Ras J. Baraka, City Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte, Mike Loganbill, VP and COO of Homes 4 the Homeless and Craig Mainor, Executive Director of United Community Corporation, will announce the launch of Newark Hope Village, an innovative sheltering program that uses shipping containers to house residents at-risk or without addresses. Monday, March 8, 2021. Newark, N.J. USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media) Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media

Newark Hope Village is just one of several initiatives the city has launched in the past year to address homelessness. The city plans to open a homeless shelter at the site of a former school and pledged $2 million to developers to build 100 units of permanent housing for people who are homeless.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
Mumbai, March 9 : Healthy buying in financials and insurance companies fuelled the upmove in India's benchmark equity indices on Tuesday.

The two stock markets ended on a positive note as FIIs pumped into Rs 2,801.87 crore in the Indian markets.

Globally, stocks steadied on Tuesday, supported by a decline in US and European bond yields.

The US 10-year 'Treasury Bond' yields eased to 1.5472 per cent.

Among sectors banking, IT were the main gainers while metals, media, realty fell the most.

Consequently, the S&P BSE Sensex rose by 584.41 points, or 1.16 per cent, to 51,025.48 points from the previous close of 50,441.07.

The NSE Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 15,098.40, up by 142.20 points, or 0.95 per cent, from its previous close.

"Nifty has remained in the 14,920-15,120 band for the past two days seeing alternate up-down moves in this band," said Deepak Jasani- Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

"A sustained breach of this band could result in a fresh move in that direction. Advance decline ratio has again fallen suggesting some nervousness among market participants." According to Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services: "In a volatile day, the Indian market ended with minor positivity amid mixed global cues." "Barring private banks, IT and consumer stocks, all other sectors were most impacted. Fall in US bond yields and stronger US equity futures aided Asian markets to recover from earlier losses." In addition, S. Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP Securities said: "Markets slipped into the red on sustained selling in metal stocks and profit booking in oil and gas stocks but bounced back sharply in late afternoon trade as Crisil sounded out an optimistic GDP forecast for the coming fiscal." "The broader markets witnessed sustained buying interest in leading private sector banks and private life insurers."
Saudi Aramco has claimed the title of the Middle Easts most valuable brand for the second consecutive year, with a brand value of $37.5 billion.

Last years Brand Finance Middle East ranking saw the new arrival of the oil & gas behemoth, following the top oil exporters recording-breaking IPO.

The brand maintains a considerable lead over the rest of the ranking, despite it losing 20% of its brand value this year.

As with other oil & gas brands globally, Aramco has suffered major dents to its profits in the first half of last year as it negotiated reduced demand and lower oil prices, which turned negative in April of last year. As the global economy starts to pick up and return to some level of normality, the brand will be hoping this uptick will be reflected in its profits.

For national oil companies (NOCs), like Aramco, economic contribution to national wealth is paramount to their mandate. To ensure this economic contribution is sustainable, NOCs must increasingly venture into new sources of energy for the world after oil. Aramco has made substantial strides towards building a sustainable future and is focusing on utilising technology and embracing digitisation to reduce CO2 emissions and create next-generation materials.

Sitting in second in the overall ranking, is fellow oil & gas brand, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). Adnoc has managed to successfully shelter its brand value during an incredibly challenging year for its industry, with only a 6% brand value loss to $10.8 billion, making it the most resilient of all National Oil Companies (NOC) globally.

Adnocs transformation since 2016 has taken the brand from strength to strength. Under the astute leadership of Managing Director and Group CEO Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Adnoc has evolved into a trusted global player with one brand and one strategic vision at its core.

It has attracted some of the worlds leading institutional investors as partners across its business and has raised more than $64 billion through such transactions since the start of its transformation.

Due to Adnocs competitive advantage in cost and carbon efficiency per barrel of oil produced, it is a likely contender to be the last barrel standing in the ongoing transition to a low carbon economy.

Adnoc is actively investing in diversifying its portfolio beyond raw commodity exports with recently announced efforts in hydrogen, ammonia and other value-add Downstream products  part of the brands longstanding commitment to future proofing its economic contributions to the UAE and maintaining a legacy of environmental stewardship. To date, the Group has invested in a number of measures to reduce its carbon footprint, notably through a significant expansion of carbon, capture and storage (CCS) technology across its business.

Adnoc once again is set to raise the profile of Abu Dhabi and the GCC through the launch of the highly anticipated futures exchange for Murban crude.

This year, the Brand Finance Middle East ranking has been expanded to include 100 brands for the first time, with nine Middle Eastern nations brands featuring from: Saudi Arabia; the UAE; Qatar; Kuwait; Oman; Bahrain; Jordan; Lebanon; and Iraq. Saudi Arabian brands are the most represented with 45 featuring and account for 56% of the total brand value in the ranking, the UAE sits in second with 25 brands featuring with its brand accounting for 36%, and Qatar in third with its 12 brands accounting for 11% of the total brand value.

Andrew Campbell, Managing Director, Brand Finance Middle East, commented: The Middle East is home to some of the worlds leading brands and each of these are supporting the regions rise on the global stage. It is not surprising that the six oil & gas brands in the Brand Finance Middle East 100 ranking account for 38% of the total brand value, making it the most valuable sector, with banking and telecoms following in second and third, respectively. As we are witnessing nations across the region focus on diversification  including Saudi Arabias Vision 2030, the UAE Vision 2021, Qatars National Vision 2030, and Kuwaits Vision 2035  no doubt we will be seeing the rise of other sectors in the coming years to rival the traditional oil & gas brands dominance. -- Tradearabia News Service
307 Shares Share

Its Wednesday at 3:27 p.m.

I was just in the kitchen cutting potatoes for a belated birthday dinner which, ironically, will be happening very early this evening. I noticed a missed text on my phone and decided to call back, as was requested. It was from a member of a network of licensed physicians as they are looking for Massachusetts physicians credentialed to certify for medical cannabis. I am one of them.

The woman on the other end of the phone couldnt have been nicer. Right off the bat, I told her my concern about card-mills, and she, a founding member of the company, immediately assured me that this isnt one. Great! I said, Id love to learn more.

According to the contact, her company educates their patients about the endocannabinoid system (the neurology and biology of cannabis and the body), has them fill out the appropriate paperwork, and tells them how cannabis will benefit their conditions. All thats left for the physician to do, she said, is to meet the patient via telemedicine so they feel theyve had a personal experience and to certify them for medical cannabis.

This sounded quite similar to the information Ive heard from prospecting card-mills in the past. I asked one of my tried and true questions: So, what happens if I dont think the patient should be treated with medical cannabis?

Well, the way the compensation plan works is this: We dont bill a patient unless they receive a medical cannabis card. And, since were not collecting money from them, the doctor doesnt get paid.

Again, this sounded just like the card-mills that seem to be proliferating. So, let me get this straight. If you come to see me for what you think is a broken ankle and I tell you its just sprained, I shouldnt be compensated?

Its just the way the way the compensation works.

And, if you have diabetes and you want me to give you one medication, but I feel you would be better treated with another, I wouldnt be compensated?

At this point, I could tell she was becoming very frustrated with me.

Look, I said, this is the very definition of a card-mill, and its giving those of us who truly believe that cannabis is an effective medication a really bad name.

Well, she said, Cannabis is safe, so its OK.

It is true that, when taken under the care of a physician, modest doses of cannabis can be safely used for the treatment of many illnesses and symptoms. Included in this list are pain associated with cancer, nausea, and insomnia, to name a few. Yet, it was at this moment that my mind went to the potential side effects that can occur with any medication. Do card-mills educate patients about the potential risk of subarachnoid hemorrhage in cannabis users? Do their docs mention CBD and its interaction with medications such as Coumadin? Who talks with them about the possibility of increased anxiety that can occur with too much THC? Pseudomonas pneumonia in immunocompromised people? Erectile dysfunction? Benzene inhalation? Do card-mills instruct patients about dosing? Routes of administration? More often than not, information is learned from the bud-tender at the dispensary trained in sales and not in medicine.

Is cannabis safer than many pharmaceuticals? Yes.

Is it so safe that anyone should dispense it to anyone? No.

Of course, people want medical cannabis cards. In Massachusetts, those with medical cannabis cards receive a 20 percent discount in the form of tax-free pot. Therefore, one would think the state would crack down on card-mills to obtain this revenue if not simply to ensure the safety of patients. Instead, card-mills incentivize physicians to hand out cards as if they were mints  pun definitely intended.

And, isnt this how the opioid crisis started? Arent the card-mills actually contributing to cannabis use disorder? Yes, thats a thing! And its something that those of us who take this medicine seriously educate about while making sure that our patients use is appropriate. We are also committed to being available to our patients and seeing them more frequently than the annual 15-minute visit of the card mill. Shouldnt that be the standard with all psycho-active and potentially addicting medications?

Dont real patients deserve real patient care?

Jill Becker is a physician and can be reached at her self-titled site, Jill Becker, MD.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.

Latin America

Puerto Rican electrical workers union calls one-day strike over government energy contract

On March 3, the Electrical and Irrigation Workers Union (Utier) of Puerto Rico announced a 24-hour strike to begin at 10 PM, March 8. The purpose of the stoppage will be two-fold: to hold a protest at the Capitol and to publicly attend a presentation outside the Chamber of Representatives as part of the investigation of the contract between the administration of Governor Pedro Pierluisi and the Electrical Energy Authority (AEE) with LUMA Energy.

Union president Angel Figueroa Jaramillo stated that the strike was called so that all the AEE workers, represented by Utier, can see the presentation that the Alliance of Active and Retired Employees will put on this coming Tuesday where we will expose the truth of the contract with LUMA Energy and the government of Pedro Pierluisi that has already cost us more than $80 million, raises rates, eliminates the collective contract, the retirement system, employment stability and the guarantee of all acquired rights.

Pierluisi, a member of former governor Ricardo Rosellos New Progressive Party, has faced allegations of conflict of interest, nepotism and corruption throughout his political career. He was first declared governor by Rosello when the latter resigned in 2019. The Supreme Court ruled Pierluisis accession to the governorship as unconstitutional and he was ordered removed in August 2019. When he ran for governor in 2020, he won with 32.9 percent of all votes among six candidates.

Mexican medical workers protest lack of vaccine

Nurses, doctors and other medical personnel in Tlalpan, the largest of Mexico Citys 16 boroughs, protested March 2 against the lack of COVID-19 vaccine. The protesters chanted, We want vaccines! and alleged that only doctors and residents, not nurses and other health workers, have been vaccinated.

The demonstrators carried picket signs saying, We demand the anti-COVID-19 vaccine for all health personnel! and We do not refuse to work; we want safety! Vaccinations now! The demonstrators called for equity and transparency in the distribution of the vaccine.

Although the National Institute of Rehabilitation, where they work, is not specifically for treatment of COVID-19, the protesting workers say that they have encountered cases and attended to those patients. The doctors said they will continue to treat patients, but they demand to be vaccinated.

Police were sent to the protest site, but they only redirected traffic, which had been impeded by the protest.

Bermudian quarry workers implement sick-out strike against management policies

About 60 workers at a government quarry in Bermuda returned to work March 2 after three days of calling in sick. Though reporting on the action was not specific, other than to say that the workers were accusing management of not following the collective agreement, one worker told reporters that a manager, whom he did not name, wants to be down there dictating and running the place like its his business.

The sickout took place a day after about 100 workers downed their tools and demanded to talk to the Minister of Public Works. On the second day, Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) and Public Works officials met to discuss the workers concerns. When they left the meeting, one BIU official announced that things went smoothly and we came up with a win/win solution without revealing any details.

According to the Royal Gazette, the union official, Arnold Smith, declined to comment on claims made last week by the public works ministry that the union did not approve of the industrial action.

Haitian hospital workers strike over killing of pediatrician

Workers at several hospital centers in Port-au-Prince, Haiti went on strike March 3 to protest the murder of a popular pediatrician during a failed kidnapping attempt. Ernest Pady was shot in the head on February 28 as a group of criminals attempted to kidnap him as he was leaving a clinic in the capital.

Violence, including kidnappings and assassinations, is a regular occurrence in Haiti, and has increased with the deepening of the political crisis of the government of Jovenel Moise. On February 7, claiming that there were coup plans against him, Moise announced his intention to remain in power until February 2022, a year beyond his term.

Protests have been met with violence by police, the military and gangs. Moises goal in the meantime is to eliminate any obstacles to his plans to tighten his dictatorial grip. The Biden administration has voiced its support for Moise while at the same time deporting planeloads of Haitians who had fled the violence.

Dominican Republic: Former municipal workers protest for unpaid benefits

Several dozen former employees of the Municipality of Santo Domingo Este held a protest March 5 to demand benefits owed them. The protesters were let go nearly a year ago, and despite having processed their claims with the Public Administration Ministry, they have not received the legally required money.

The protesters warned that they will continue their protests until they receive what is due them for their years of service.

Jamaican airlift workers strike for overdue pay

Airlift workers in Kingston, Jamaicas Norman Manley International Airport began a strike March 5 to demand the payment of their wages, which are in arrears since December. The workers say that a change in management has brought on worsened conditions, and the National Workers Union (NWU) claims that it has been unsuccessful in getting a response from Airlift Handlers United, the employer.

The NWU says that it supports the action by the workers, but that Airlift Handlers management has refused to declare ownership of the staff. Workers have expressed disappointment with the NWU bureaucrats, with one worker telling reporters that he is not sure if they are on the side of management or that of the workers.

Protesters in Paraguay demand more decisive government response to pandemic

Protests broke out March 5 in Asuncion, Paraguays capital, over the governments wretched mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which as of that date had resulted in nearly 166,000 cases and almost 3,300 deaths in the nation of seven million.

Angry demonstrators assembled at the Congress Building, chanted and carried signs with slogans saying, Corruption out, Not one more victim! and Corruption kills! Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters, some of whom threw rocks, burned barricades and broke down barriers.

Health Minister Julio Mazzoleni, who has been harshly criticized by health care workers, their unions, and families of victims for not providing adequate protections for health workers, and for Paraguays less than 0.1 percent vaccination rate, submitted his resignation on the same day.

However, their rage was not limited to one official. They have also demanded the resignation of President Mario Abdo Benitez. One protester told Al Jazeera, There have to be clear signs of change. Weve had a year already with excuses, that were going to have a working group, personnel, supplies, medications, reagents, and they didnt arrive!

United States

Medical tech workers strike Eastern Oregon hospital over wages

Medical tech workers at the St. Charles Health System in Bend, Oregon walked off the job March 4 to secure wage increases and to oppose managements demand for an open shop. The 156 members of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) have been negotiating for 18 months to obtain their first contract while management broke off negotiations back in December leading workers to vote by a 94 percent margin to strike.

Frank DeWolf, a catheterization lab technologist told the Bulletin, Our salary is lower than our counterparts in Western Oregon. Our salaries are lower across the board. The OFNHP has charged that an ultrasound technician in Portland can make $10 to $15 an hour more than one at St. Charles.

Hospital management has hired strikebreakers, but pickets report surgeons are refusing to work with replacement workers. The St. Charles strike comes on the heels of a $21 million loss for the hospital in 2020 and a $4.9 million loss in January, despite receiving $52 million overall in CARES Act funding.

Pennsylvania public workers strike concludes with paltry settlement

The South Whitehall, Pennsylvania Township public works department strike came to an end March 1 after 29 members of Teamsters Local 773 voted by a narrow margin to accept the new offer from the board. Workers struck February 4 demanding increased health care and pension contributions.

According to press reports, the final agreement left health care issues unchanged from the old contract and offered a wage settlement containing a 2 percent increase in the first two years of a four-year agreement and 2.5 percent increases in each year of the third and fourth years.

The strike was punctuated by union and township appearances before a Lehigh County court where a judge ultimately granted the township an injunction based on its claim that the strike represented a clear and present danger or threat to the health, safety or welfare of the public. The judge gave the township board the power to recall a set of workers back to their jobs.

Canada

Canada Post covered up COVID outbreak at Toronto area facility

The Canada Post Corporation did not report an outbreak at its Mississauga Gateway sorting plant to federal authorities as required by law. An outbreak in the facility, which employs 4,500 workers was first detected on January 5. By the end of the month over 300 postal workers had been infected. One postal worker died from the virus. Peel Region, where the sorting plant is located, has been one of the hardest hit regions in the country regarding virus spread.

Yet Canada Post, a Crown Corporation, did not notify the federal Employment ministry when first becoming aware of the outbreak nor did management file any evidence of an investigation of the hazardous occurrence. Both actions are required by the Canada Labour Code.

Even as cases were spiking by mid-January, management did not begin virus testing for all employees. Rather, testing and quarantine measures were undertaken for only one shift in the sprawling plant under the order of the regional health authority. Mandatory testing of all employees was not undertaken until January 29. Testing ended on February 7 with those workers under temporary precautionary quarantine returning to work in the ensuing days as infections began to wane.

Yet throughout the entire outbreak, sorting operations continued at the complex. No attempt was made by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to safeguard the health and safety of its membership at Gateway through the organization of a work stoppage in the face of a rapidly spreading virus in the plant.
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.
The PSNI has warned action will be taken after hundreds of Rangers fans gathered on the Shankill Road in Belfast to celebrate the clubs Scottish Premiership title win.

Supporters thronged the area despite a ban on public gatherings under coronavirus restrictions to celebrate the Glasgow side being crowned champions.

Sunday nights events included a cavalcade of cars waving flags and a fireworks display.

There were reports that sectarian songs were also belted out, and a social media post showed fighting among several fans.

Police described events as disappointing and said appropriate enforcement action will now be taken.

The scenes reignited the row over the funeral of veteran republican Bobby Storey, which was attended by senior Sinn Fein figures and saw thousands of people lining the streets of west Belfast in tribute.

DUP MLA Jim Wells told Radio Ulsters Nolan Show: I think last night was an outpouring of enthusiasm.

I think people, when they settle down this morning, will realise that it was not wise to do.

But I can understand why it happened.

He then went on to claim: I just hope and pray that it has not led to any infection, because up to now the unionist population had the moral high ground on this issue.

We obeyed the rules, we cancelled the Twelfth, we cancelled all sorts of celebrations, band parades etc, and we were obeying the rules.

Meanwhile, the nationalists  not just at the Bobby Storey funeral but at a whole host of other republican events  had totally ignored the regulations.

His comments echoed remarks made by DUP Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots, who was asked to apologise last October after claiming Covid was more common in nationalist areas than in unionist ones. At the time the Department of Health said the virus was a threat to everyone, regardless of their background.

On Monday prominent loyalist community worker Jim Wilson cited the Storey funeral as he robustly defended his own presence on the Shankill Road on Sunday night.

I have a valid right to make a choice and I made a choice to go and support my team and do it in a way that I thought was responsible, he told the Nolan Show.

He insisted he had been in his own household bubble during the celebrations.

He then pointed to the attendance of senior Sinn Fein figures, including Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill, at Mr Storeys funeral as an example of those alleged to have breached Covid regulations despite urging the public to adhere to them.

Talk about the law-makers and the law-breakers, he told Nolan.

And tell me what has happened to them?

You tell me that Sinn Fein laid the law down in this country and then went out and broke it.

And the police did not do anything about it.

So before you criticise my people, remember that.

The PSNI conducted a probe into the Storey funeral with 24 people being interviewed, including Mrs ONeill, and a file has been submitted to the Public Prosecution Service.

First Minister Arlene Foster on Monday praised Rangers for its title success but urged fans to stick to the health regulations.

PSNI Superintendent Nigel Henry described Sundays scenes disappointing.

He added: An investigation is under way, and appropriate enforcement action will be taken in relation to breaches of the regulations.

Sinn Fein MP Paul Maskey said any sectarian chanting also needed to be probed by the PSNI, insisting that he will be raising questions with the police.
With just under two weeks until the next Marvel Studios TV series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier debuts, four new character posters have been unveiled.

The posters feature new looks at The Falcon (Anthony Mackie), The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp) and the villainous Baron Zemo (Daniel Bruhl).

The six-episode series, which is set after the events of Avengers: Endgame, debuts Friday, March 19 on Disney Plus.

New poster: With just under two weeks until the next Marvel Studios TV series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier debuts, four new character posters have been unveiled

The series was first announced back in August 2019 at Disney's D23 Convention in Anaheim, California.

The show follows Sam Wilson a.k.a. The Falcon and Bucky Barnes a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, both of whom have a connection to the original Captain America (Chris Evans) at different points in their lives.

The show follows both of these characters - who have each carried the Captain America mantle in the Marvel Comics - as they, 'team up on a global adventure that tests their abilities - and their patience.'

Bucky: The show follows Sam Wilson a.k.a. The Falcon and Bucky Barnes a.k.a. The Winter Soldier (above), both of whom have a connection to the original Captain America (Chris Evans) at different points in their lives

The Falcon, Winter Soldier and Agent 13 characters all made their debut in the 2014 Marvel Studios hit Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The villainous Baron Zemo debuted in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, though it's unclear what his mission is this time around.

They will be joined by new characters John Walker (Wyatt Russell), who in the Marvel Comics would ultimately become a new hero named U.S. Agent, and Sarah Wilson (Adepero Oduye), Sam's sister.

Debut: The Falcon, Winter Soldier and Agent 13 characters all made their debut in the 2014 Marvel Studios hit Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Malcolm Spellman (Empire) serves as the head writer for the six-episode series, with Kari Skogland directing each episode.

After The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Marvel will debut the highly-anticipated Loki, starring Tom Hiddleston, on June 11.

While no dates have been given, Marvel will also release What If?, Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye on Disney Plus later this year.

Bad Baron: The villainous Baron Zemo debuted in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, though it's unclear what his mission is this time around

Marvel has several other shows in various stages of development, which will also all debut on Disney Plus in the coming years.

Slated for release in 2022 is Moon Knight, She-Hulk and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which are all currently in pre-production.

The studio also has Ironheart, Secret Invasion, Armor Wars and an untitled series set in Black Panther's home country Wakanda in development.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Pennsylvania has distributed its three-millionth dose of COVID-19 vaccine as coronavirus cases have settled into a steady pace following weeks of decline from the winter peak.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health announced the vaccination milestone (which does not include Philadelphias separate allotment) with Tuesdays daily update, which also logged 2,975 new cases and 40 deaths statewide.

Pennsylvania now totals 953,136 cases since the pandemic reached the state a year ago, with a COVID-19 death toll of 24,396.

That includes 58,946 cases and 1,434 deaths in the Lehigh Valley. Lehigh and Northampton counties combined for 159 new cases and one reported death in the last day.

(Cant see the map? Click here.)

Meanwhile, vaccination efforts continue across the state. Teachers are first in line for the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine starting this week. Others are getting the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. At least 3 million doses had been distributed through Monday, the health department reported  2 million first-doses and 981,000 boosters.

Locally, Lehigh Valley Health Network announced plans for its largest COVID-19 mass-vaccination clinic to date, where it expects to vaccinate up to 3,600 people with their first dose of the Pfizer shot.

The drive-through clinic will be held 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday at Dorney Park, by appointment only. Appointments can be scheduled first-come-first-serve through the MyLVHN online portal or by calling 833-584-6283.

The clinic is only for those who qualify under Phase 1A of Pennsylvanias vaccine distribution plan. The phase focuses on health care workers, seniors and people with high-risk health conditions. Supply has been the biggest issue with getting people vaccinated.

(Cant see the chart? Click here.)

As vaccination efforts continue, cases continue to mount, though more slowly than they have in recent months.

For the last two weeks, Pennsylvanias case rate has settled between 2,400 and 2,700 cases a day, based on seven-day averages. Thats far below the 10,000-plus daily cases in mid-December, but still above the first peak last April.

(Cant see the chart? Click here.)

Hospitalizations have held between 1,500 and 1,600 for the last five days. The rate of reported deaths continues to fall: An average of 42 deaths were reported daily as of Tuesday, down from 56 deaths a day a week ago.

The health department estimates 91% of Pennsylvania coronavirus patients have so far recovered, meaning they have survived at least 30 days since their first positive test.

(Cant see the map of vaccine providers? Click here.)

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
BRIDGEPORT  A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Veterans Administration to pay more than $9 million to a Manchester man after finding he was the victim of medical malpractice at the Veterans Affairs medical center where he had gone for hernia surgery.

Following a four-day civil trial, U.S. District Court Judge Victor Bolden ruled Monday that doctors at the West Haven VA violated their standard of care in their treatment of Eric March. He awarded the Navy veteran and his wife, Dina March, a total of $9.47 million in economic and compensatory damages.

This is a veteran who had entrusted his care to the doctors at the VA and it is clear to me something went terribly wrong during the surgery, said Marchs lawyer, Kathleen Nastri of the Bridgeport law firm Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder.

Thomas Carson, spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office which defended the VA in the case, said they are reviewing the judges decision but had no other comment.

March, who has two children and previously worked at a solar panel company, sued the veterans administration in federal court in 2017. The trial took place in October and final arguments were in January.

According to the lawsuit, in June 2015, March was admitted to the West Haven VA hospital for a laparoscopic hernia repair procedure. In the days following his discharge from the hospital March complained of pain and a fever.

He went to another hospital where a CT scan determined he had a perforated abdomen, the suit states. On further investigation, doctor discovered that Marchs bowels had leaked out of the perforation in his abdomen and he had a severe infection, the suit states.

During testimony at trial, Marchs VA doctors disagreed on which one of them had inspected Marchs abdomen following the procedure.

Nastri said as a result of the damage done to March, he has no muscles in his core and his condition is worsening.

The Manchester community rallied around the March family, raising nearly $1,500 for them through a GoFundMe site.
New York City public high school students to return to classroom on March 22, mayor says

Public high schools in New York City will welcome students back for in-person instruction on March 22, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday, the latest step by the United States largest school system to open classrooms shuttered due to COVID-19.
DENVER, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Rocky Mountain Industrials Inc. (RMI), Colorado's next generation infrastructure company, announced today a $12,189,000 construction financing for its 620-acre Rocky Mountain Rail Park, located in Adams County.

The closing of this transaction coincides with construction of the south parcel where their 83-acre, Fortune 500 tenant will reside.

"We have commenced the construction process for the first phase of our Rail Park serving the Front Range," said Brian Fallin, CEO of RMI. "We are seeing the benefit of being unique in the marketplace with an array of rail served industrial components. Rocky Mountain Rail Park is a fortress asset with significant advantages for our partners and customers."

The construction path begins with Rail Park's southern property and follows a phased approach to the Union Pacific rail-served northern properties. Both rail and non-rail served sites are available throughout construction in 2021.

RMI is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

About RMI

Rocky Mountain Industrials Inc. is a materials infrastructure and distribution organization strategically positioned to serve the Mountain West.

Media Contact

The Rose Group

Elana Weiss

[email protected]

SOURCE Rocky Mountain Industrials Inc.
From left to right, Men For Change's Will Ross, Second Mile's Sheena Abraham, Fort Bend County Precinct 2 Commissioner Grady Prestage, Second Mile's Sara White and Men For Change's Will Willis hold up a giant check. Men For Change donated $1,000 to Second Mile. (Photo by Landan Kuhlmann)
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

As the fight against COVID-19 continues, scientists have turned to an unlikely source for a potentially effective treatment: tiny antibodies naturally generated by llamas.

While the world has welcomed the news of multiple vaccines against COVID-19, the search for effective treatments for those who contract the virus is ongoing. Now scientists are looking to what might seem to be an unlikely source: the South American llama.

Researchers are using the ultrabright X-rays of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory, to help turn naturally generated llama antibodies into potentially effective therapies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Antibodies are the immune system's natural defense against infection, and when extracted from blood, they can be used to design treatments and vaccines.

"Llamas generate these nanobodies naturally in high yields, and they fit into the pockets on the surface of proteins that larger-size antibodies can't access." says Jason McLellan, The University of Texas at Austin.

"We have received more than 50 llama antibodies with several proteins of SARS-CoV-2," said Andrzej Joachimiak, director of the Structural Biology Center (SBC) at the APS and co-director of the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Diseases. (Researchers at the APS do not work with the live virus, but with crystals grown from simulated proteins.) These antibodies are part of ongoing collaborations with several partners, including researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), Joachimiak said, and will be analyzed using the APS to see if they combat the virus's infectivity.

While it may seem surprising that scientists are turning to llamas, there's a very good reason for it.

Llamas belong to a group of mammals called camelids, a group that also includes camels and alpacas. Thanks to a quirk of nature, camelids produce a unique type of antibody against disease. These antibodies, often referred to as nanobodies, are about half the size of the antibodies produced by humans. They're also remarkably stable and easy for scientists to manipulate.

This genetic quirk, which causes camelids such as llamas to produce these smaller antibodies with single protein chains, was discovered by accident in the late 1980s by scientists in Belgium. Since then, scientists have worked with camelid nanobodies to create treatments against several diseases with great success. Their small size allows them to bind to areas of viral proteins that larger antibodies cannot fit into, blocking those proteins from connecting with cells.

"Llamas generate these nanobodies naturally in high yields, and they fit into the pockets on the surface of proteins that larger-size antibodies can't access," said Jason McLellan, an associate professor at The University of Texas at Austin.

McLellan has years of experience working with camelid nanobodies. He and his graduate student Daniel Wrapp, along with Xavier Saelens' group in Belgium, have isolated nanobodies that have proven effective against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and two coronaviruses: severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

When the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was released in January of 2020, McLellan, Wrapp and Saelens worked quickly to test whether any of the antibodies that they had previously isolated against the original SARS-CoV (taken from a Belgian llama named Winter) could also bind and neutralize SARS-CoV-2. They discovered that one of these nanobodies, which they had characterized using the SBC beamlines at the APS, might be effective against SARS-CoV-2. McLellan said this nanobodycalled VHH72is now under development as a treatment for COVID-19. He and Wrapp received a 2020 Golden Goose Award for this research.

McLellan will tell you that while his results were good, his hopes were a little higher.

"We were seeking one potent antibody that neutralized all coronaviruses," he said. "We immunized Winter hoping to elicit that one nanobody. And maybe we elicited it, but we didn't isolate it."

Isolating these tiny nanobodies is tricky, since the body generates an enormous number of them and only a small fraction is intended to fight a particular virus. That's exactly the problem that Yi Shi, professor of cell biology at the University of Pittsburgh, is trying to fix.

In a paper published in Science, Shi and his colleagues unveiled a new advanced mass spectroscopy method of analyzing those nanobodies from samples of llama blood. The result, according to Shi and research assistant Yufei Xiang (the paper's lead author), is a large set of nanobodies that bind well to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

"This is thousands of times better than the current technology, specifically in its selecting properties," Shi said. "We want nanobodies that bind tightly to SARS-CoV-2, and with this method we can get a drug-quality nanobody that is up to 10,000 times more potent."

As with McLellan's research, Shi's experiment began with a llama, this one named Wally because he resembles (and therefore shares a name with) his black Labrador. The team immunized Wally against SARS-CoV-2, waiting two months for nanobodies to be generated, and then Xiang used their new method to analyze the nanobodies, identify and quantify them. They ended up with 10 million nanobody sequences.

These nanobodies can sit at room temperature for six weeks, and are small enough that they can be aerosolized, meaning therapeutics designed from them can be inhaled directly to the lungs instead of moving through the bloodstream. To confirm the nanobodies' effectiveness, Cheng Zhang, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, determined structures of the nanobodies bound to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and National Cancer Institute Structural Biology Facility (GM/CA) at the APS.

"With this method we can discover thousands of distinct, ultrahigh-affinity nanobodies for specific antigen binding," Shi said. "These nanobodies may or may not provide a treatment for COVID-19, but the technology used to isolate them will be important in the future."

Most recently, a team of scientists led by the University of Bonn in Germany reported newly discovered nanobodies that bind to SARS-CoV-2 and may prevent what is called "mutational escape." That's the ability of a virus to avoid immune responses by mutating, and a treatment that prevents the virus from doing so would guard against reinfection.

This research team combined several nanobodies into molecules that attack different parts of the virus simultaneously, helping to prevent virus mutations from reducing therapeutic effectiveness. These nanobodies were taken from a llama and an alpaca immunized against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and out of several million candidates they ended up with four molecules that proved to be effective.

Ian Wilson, professor of structural biology at the Scripps Research Institute in California, led the team that conducted X-ray diffraction studies at GM/CA at the APS to determine structures of these molecules bound to the virus.

"From crystal structures determined from data collected at APS and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), we were able to identify the binding sites of the nanobodies on the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain," Wilson said. "The X-ray structural information, combined with cryo-electron microscopy data, was used to help design even more potent multivalent antibodies to prevent COVID-19 infection. The X-ray structural work was greatly facilitated by immediate access to the APS."

Only time (and further tests) will tell whether the various nanobodies will translate into effective treatments against COVID-19. But if they do, we'll have the lovable llama to thank for it.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Yufei Xiang et al, Versatile and multivalent nanobodies efficiently neutralize SARS-CoV-2, Science (2020). Journal information: Science Yufei Xiang et al, Versatile and multivalent nanobodies efficiently neutralize SARS-CoV-2,(2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.abe4747
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Tokyo, March 9 : A senior Japanese bureaucrat has been transferred from his position after the Communications Ministry confirmed that he had been wined and dined by telecom giant NTT, according to informed sources.

Yasuhiko Taniwaki, who previously served as Vice Minister for Policy Coordination at the Ministry, was found to have accepted lavish meals on three occasions between September 2018 and July 2020 to the tune of 107,000 yen ($985), Xinhua news agency quoted the sources as saying on Monday.

Central government officials under Japan's National Public Service Ethics Law are prohibited from receiving personal favours from official associates or stakeholders.

Under the law, meals paid for by official associates or stakeholders and costing upwards of 10,000 yen must be declared by central government officials beforehand.

It was found that Taniwaki, who was ousted from his position and transferred to the Minister's Secretariat, paid only 5,000 yen in total for the lavish meals.

The Ministry, following a probe, also found that Eiji Makiguchi, head of its Global Strategy Bureau, had a meal worth 51,000 yen in June 2020, paid for predominantly by NTT, which is regulated by the Communications Ministry.

Other attendees at the dinner held at a private members club in Tokyo included NTT President Jun Sawada and Makiko Yamada, a former high-ranking bureaucrat at the Ministry in charge of international affairs.

She recently served as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's press officer until she resigned recently after the wine-and-dine scandal came to light.

Along with a number of other senior bureaucrats, Taniwaki has already been reprimanded by the Ministry for accepting expensive dinners from executives, including the Prime Minister's eldest son.

The scandal was first reported by a weekly magazine and came on the heels a previous breach of the ethics law and involving Taniwaki, who had played an instrumental role in helping Suga achieve his goal of lowering mobile phone tariffs.

"It is extremely regrettable that acts that are suspected to be violations have been confirmed again," Ryota Takeda, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister, told a press briefing on Monday.
Supervisor Candidates Share Approaches to Orange Countys Top Issues

Orange Countys next supervisor will be elected March 9, ending a hotly-contested campaign to fill the Board of Supervisors vacant District 2 seat.

Candidates include: former state senator John Moorlach, Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley, Fountain Valley Mayor Michael Vo, Newport Beach Councilmember Kevin Muldoon, and tax attorney Janet Rappaport.

As voters prepare to make their voices heard, The Epoch Times is recapping candidates views on a range of topics, including homelessness, crime, and the ongoing pandemic.

Foley could not be reached by The Epoch Times for comment.

On Homelessness

Moorlach: I would like to pick up where I left off. I will bring my state experience and work with Projects Homekey and Roomkey. I will encourage the use of the Orange County Housing Finance Trust created by AB 448, legislation that I co-authored. I will also work with the Commission to End Homelessness, the county, the nonprofits, 2-1-1 and now CalOptima and Be Well/Mind OC, to address this crisis.

Vo: I believe there is a role for the county to play when it comes to homelessness. That role is providing a hand-up, not a hand-out. If we proactively work with municipalities, surrounding agencies, and non-profit organizations we should be able to assist those who want help with the resources they needsuch as temporary housing, job placement, and navigation towards permanent housing. In our effort to reduce homelessness and help those in need, we cannot sacrifice safety.

I am not supportive of permanent housing or encampments. The unfortunate fact is, many of those suffering from homelessness do not want to be helpedthese individuals should be returned to their respective homes.

Muldoon: We need to deal with the core issue of substance abuse and mental health that affect a large portion of the homeless population. By working with all stakeholders, including non-profits and mental health professionals, we must work to find practical solutions that not only provide temporary relief, but long term solutions.

Rappaport: The county has a role to play, providing coordination, communication and funding. We must not look at outdated solutions. My approach is not simply about a capital investment.

We need to understand our homeless constituencies and different needsWith cities and community groups, updated information about todays homeless will guide us to the needs and associated financial cost of helping each of these constituencies.

On Infrastructure

Moorlach: I believe the county and [Orange County Transportation Authority] have done a good job of focusing on lanes, versus trains. The Measure M sales tax has been allocated in a responsible manner. For the widening of the San Diego Freeway through the Second District, I would be opposed to converting current existing and added carpool lanes into toll or congestion pricing lanes.

Vo: First and foremost, we need to assess the countys infrastructure. By doing so, we can properly identify the infrastructure that needs to be improved, which should be our primary focus before building new infrastructure. Once current infrastructure is improved, we should work with partner agencies to determine additional infrastructure that must be built out of necessity to improve traffic on Orange Countys roads.

Muldoon: Orange County has always been on the forefront of thoughtful infrastructure planning. I would seek to continue leading the way on delivering transportation infrastructure that works for our community.

Rappaport: On a local level and wherever we can, I would advocate carving out safe bikeways as people are moving more and more to bicycles, electric bicycles and trying to use this mode of transportation for commuting. Orange County is a dangerous proposition if you are a bicyclist of any kind, children, adults or visitors, all attracted to the nice weather and beautiful scenery of our county but very few safe places to ride.

We should be looking at making all these changes now for the future so that we can emphasize our transportation friendly, tourist friendly, bike friendly environment in Orange County.

On the Pandemic

Moorlach: My number one priority will be responding to the COVID crisis by ensuring vaccines are available and distributed in a fair and fast process for all those who want and need them. I will also continue to fight to recover funding for the business community. As state senator, I helped provide $500 million from the state budget for COVID relief, and will continue to advocate for Orange Countys fair share.

Vo: As supervisor, one of my primary objectives will be to reopen our local economies and small businesses nownot tomorrow or when the state gives us permissionbut now. I will also work with the [Orange County District] of Education to advocate for the immediate reopening of all Orange County schools. Our livelihoods and our childrens education depends on our actions. The best course of action we can take is to reopen and let our economy flourish once again.

As one of the largest counties in America, we must do more to provide relief for struggling businesses and residents. I believe we have ample resources to do so in a financially conservative manner.

Muldoon: As a councilman I worked to help deliver over $2.1 million in COVID-19 grants to small businesses in our community. At the county level, I will continue to assist our businesses, including ensuring that the Orange County Health Care Agency works with businesses and relevant stakeholders to safely reopen our economy.

Rappaport: What is important for Orange County residents is ensuring that we have strong relationships with federal and state partners to be able to access all available funds to support our communities and economy while Orange County contends with controlling this virus, and mitigating the damage caused by this pandemic.

Bickering between state, federal and local politicians has created gridlock and has cost the residents of Orange County. We need to focus on the residents who have lost jobs, struggling in their businesses, and going to bed hungry. The focus needs to be on getting support to those populations in need with every single federal or state dollar available to us.

On Public Safety

Moorlach: Public trust and respect for law enforcement is essential for us to be free and safe.

I oppose defunding public safety. But, I am also cognizant of the fact that increasing defined benefit pension plan contributions are crowding out services. Consequently, this may mean reductions in staffing. I will do my best to ensure the sheriffs department is properly funded with the equipment, tools and training needed to perform its duties.

Vo: I am a strong supporter of robust public safety and law enforcement. As mayor of Fountain Valley, I ensured our public safety efforts were always fully funded. I even added 13 police officers and 2 firefighters to improve public safety. As calls to defund our police continue, I will stand strong in my defense of law enforcement. My number one priority is the safety of our communities. In order to improve public safety, I will listen to the expertise of the Sheriff and Fire Chief and ensure the Departments are fully funded. I will also fight against the unlawful release of felons into our community, prevent high density housing in neighborhoods, and advocate for strong restrictions against sober living homes in neighborhoods.

Muldoon: I have a record of supporting law enforcement. We must fully fund public safety and ensure that law enforcement personnel have the equipment and training they need to keep our neighborhoods safe.

Rappaport: The sounty should focus on programs that work with a view to expanding these programs and concepts to other aspects of our juvenile population (and possibly adult) to prevent a pathway to the criminal system.

The juvenile detention alternative intervention program has successfully moved juveniles with drug or mental from the criminal detention system and into supported programs in education. This program, in place for approximately 10 years, appears to be successful in saving young people from a criminal pathway as well as saving the County money.

Looking at programs focused on intervention and preventing adults from ending up in the criminal systems, it might be possible to increase those successes and serve a wider population with additional funding from the County. The Collaborative Courts (established by the Superior Court) aided by the Collaborative Court Foundation is an example of an existing community organization with a record of success in moving populations with mental health and other issues away from the criminal system.

Prison populations needing support services (mental health, alcohol abuse) might be directed into Collaborative Courts Foundation type programs or others which have the possibility of redirecting persons pathway from criminal activity. If we keep persons with noncriminal issues away from prison, there is a higher likelihood that they will not pursue a criminal path in the future.

KYODO NEWS - Mar 9, 2021 - 22:25 | World, Japan, All

Japan has referred to Myanmar's military-appointed top diplomat as "foreign minister," despite a backlash on social media for doing so, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.

The ministry attaches importance to maintaining ties given Japan's connections to Myanmar's military government, but the Japanese move is largely interpreted by Myanmar citizens as endorsing military rule following last month's coup.

In a statement posted on Facebook on Monday night, the Japanese Embassy in Yangon said that at a meeting in the capital Naypyitaw earlier in the day, Ambassador Ichiro Maruyama conveyed Japan's position on Myanmar's situation to "Foreign Minister U Wanna Maung Lwin."

The statement, written in Burmese, English and Japanese, said the envoy urged a halt to violence against civilians and an immediate release of those detained, including ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The statement has drawn over 7,000 comments on Facebook. "Wunna Maung Lwin isn't our foreign minister," one user commented. "No one recognizes him" as foreign minister, commented another. Others pleaded not to use the title to refer to him.

At a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi called Wunna Maung Lwin "Myanmar's new foreign minister" before saying Maruyama had used the term as well.

Since the coup, Japan has been increasing pressure on Myanmar's military government.

"It's not a question of whether we recognize it or not," the ministry official said of the legitimacy of the military government, adding that if Japan recognizes it, the country "would not make strong calls" for the release of detained leaders, such as Suu Kyi.

Japan is referring to Wunna Maung Lwin as foreign minister "to make sure we can get our message across (to the military government) and see our demands realized," the official added.

At an informal foreign ministers meeting of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations on March 2, Indonesia and Singapore distanced themselves from Myanmar's military government by refraining from referring to Wunna Maung Lwin as "foreign minister," according to an ASEAN diplomatic source.

Related coverage:

Thousands protest in defiance of curfew in Myanmar's Yangon

3 protesters shot dead in Myanmar as workers stage general strike

FOCUS: Wary Japan firms looking out for signs of risk in Myanmar chaos
As a software technology leader in process manufacturing, Andreas Eschbach has been accepted as a member of the Forbes Technology Council - an Invitation-Only Community for World-Class CIOs, CTOs and Technology Executives

BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / Global software developer eschbach today announced that Founder and CEO Andreas Eschbach has been accepted into the Forbes Technology Council. Eschbach is the creator of Shiftconnector, a digital manufacturing solution for the pharmaceutical, chemical and food manufacturing sectors.

CEO Andreas Eschbach, Forbes Technology Council's Newest Member

Andreas was vetted and nominated by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of his experience, which includes leadership roles in digital transformation initiatives for chemical and pharmaceutical production processes for customers worldwide. Eschbach's Shiftconnector solution empowers shift-to-shift communication by connecting human intelligence to manufacturing data, resulting in better collaboration and improved plant performance for global manufacturers in the process industry. Forbes' criteria for acceptance includes not only a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics but also personal and professional achievements and honors.

"We are pleased to welcome Andreas Eschbach into the community," said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes the Forbes Technology Council. "The Forbes Councils' mission is to bring together recognized leaders in their industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and achieve a greater impact on the business world."

As a new member of this Council, Andreas will connect and collaborate with other renown leaders and experts in their field via a private forum. Additionally, the invitation will mean working with a professional editorial team to share his expert insights in original business articles on Forbes.com, as well as contribute to Q&A panels alongside his peers and other industry experts.

"I am thrilled to join the Forbes Technology Council as a contributing member. I see this as a testament to how well the Shiftconnector platform helps manufacturers cope with the challenges of our time:a relentless pandemic, shifting regulatory mandates, an aging workforce, as well as the transition to a digital future," said Andreas Eschbach, the Founder and CEO of Eschbach and the creator of Shiftconnector platform. The connection with the Forbes Technology Council will serve to expand Shiftconnector's scope and ability to address process manufacturing industry issues on a broad scale.

About Forbes Councils

Forbes Councils is a collective of invitation-only communities created in partnership with Forbes and the expert community builders who founded Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). In Forbes Councils, exceptional business owners and leaders come together with the people and resources that can help them thrive. For more information about Forbes Technology Council, visit forbestechcouncil.com. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.

About eschbach and Shiftconnector

With U.S. operations in Boston and headquartered in Germany, eschbach develops software for plant process management. Shiftconnector provides a new level of team communication to ensure safety and improve plant effectiveness. The award-winning solution is trusted worldwide by leading manufacturing companies such as DuPont, BASF and Roche. For more information visit eschbach.com.

Media Contact

Dawn Fontaine

Ripple Effect Communications

dawn@rippleeffectpr.com

617-536-8887

SOURCE: eschbach

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634263/eschbach-CEO-Accepted-into-Forbes-Technology-Council
The Federal High Court in Abuja has summoned the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, and the Governor of Central Bank (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to testify in the ongoing trial of the chairperson of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina.

Also summoned to appear in court for the case are, a former acting chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, and human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

The judge, Okon Abang, in a series of subpoenas separately addressed to the individuals, ordered them to appear in court on March 9, 10, and 11, 2021 to give evidence.

Mr Abang signed the subpoenas on March 8 following applications by Mr Maina, who is being prosecuted for laundering over N2billion in pension funds.

At least 13 subpoenas were issued by the judge summoning the named persons and officials to appear in court at the instance of Mr Maina.

Others summoned by the court through separate subpoenas are, M. Mustapha of Zenith Bank Abuja, Hassan Salihu of ICPC, G.T. Idriss also of ICPC, Mohammed Wakil, a retired commissioner of police and Kenneth Amabem.

The rest are, Kennedy Uzoka, Group Managing Director of United Bank for Africa (UBA), Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, Managing Director, Fidelity Bank, Ibrahim Kaigama of NIPSS, Jos, and the Director of Compliance, CBN.

You are commanded in the name of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to attend before this court at Court 6, on March 9, 10, and 11, 2021 at 9 O Clock in the forenoon and so from day to day till above case is tried, to give evidence on behalf of the first defendant, a copy of one of the subpoenas seen by PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday read.

Mr Maina is the first defendant in the case in which he is being prosecuted by the EFCC alongside his firm, Common Input Property & Investment.

How CBN, Malami, Magu, Falana, ICPC featured

His first defence witness, Ngozika Ihuoma, had while testifying last week, mentioned the names of the individuals and officials on whom the subpoenas have been issued.

For instance, Mr Ihuoma, had claimed Mr Maina met with Mr Malami and the National Security Adviser (NSA) in Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE), in 2016.

He said after the meeting, Mr Maina gave Mr Malami and the NSA an intelligence report that led to the recovery of N1.3 trillion.

He also testified that the PRTT under Mr Mainas watch recovered N282 billion that was warehoused at the CBN.

He also said N74 billion allegedly recovered by the PTRT was used in funding the 2012 budget.

The first defence witness also said Mr Maina gave an intelligence report to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) about a plan to siphon N35 billion from the Head of Service Pension Office.

He said the commission questioned the former HoS, Winifred Oyo-Ita and five other management committee members.

He added that in March 2013, Mr Maina also gave an intelligence report to the then Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and EFCC leading to the mop-up of N15 billion from Customs, Immigration, Prison Pension Office (CIPO).

Talking about the EFCC and Mr Magu, the witness claimed that the Mr Maina-led PRTT recovered about 222 sets of property valued at N1.63 trillion and handed them over to the anti-graft agency.

ADVERTISEMENT

He claimed the commission and Mr Magu mismanaged the assets by sharing some of them to cronies.

He added that a renowned lawyer acquired one of the sets of property located at No 42, Gana Street, Maitama, Abuja while the property was still subject to litigation.

Mr Ihuoma said the property worth N6billion was acquired by the lawyer at undervalued price of N1billion.

Mr Falana said in a statement that he was the one being referred to as the renowned lawyer but denied buying the property.

PREMIUM TIMES also reported that under cross-examination by EFCCs prosecuting counsel, Mohammed Abubakar, on March 5, Mr Ihuoma said he had not produced any document to back the claims.

The subpoenaed witnesses are expected to appear in court to testify on the issues in respect of which their names were mentioned by the witness.

But it is not clear if the individuals had been served with the subpoenas as none of them was present in court on Tuesday which was the first of the three days the court scheduled for them to appear.

Im not paid to testify for Maina

Meanwhile, Mr Ihuoma, said on Tuesday that he was not paid to testify in Mr Mainas defence.

Mr Ihuoma ,who said he was a management consultant, claimed that his firm, Crincad & Cari Nigeria Ltd, was engaged by the Mr Maina-led PRTT for consultancy services.

I was not paid money to come and testify in court, he said while fielding questions under continued cross-examination by the prosecutor, Mr Abubakar.

He admitted on November 6, 2017, he appeared on an AIT programme, Focus Nigeria where he said he would accompany Mr Maina if invited by the Senate or the EFCC.

He ,however, said he did not volunteer a statement when Mr Maina was arrested by the EFCC because he was not invited by the commission.

When asked if it was true that while he was engaging in image laundering for Mr Maina, Mr Maina was in money laundering.

No, I dont know him being involved in money laundering. If I knew I would not have been laundering his image as a person, the witness said.

He was discharged after the prosecutor ended the cross-examination on Tuesday.

The judge, Mr Abang , adjourned till Wednesday.
An unemployed Oxford graduate is taking his parents to court in an effort to force them to provide him with a lifelong maintenance grant.

Faiz Siddiqui, 41, claims he is entirely dependent on his wealthy parents, who are based in Dubai, and is entitled to claim maintenance from them as a 'vulnerable' grown-up child due to his health issues.

Mr Siddiqui, who worked for a series of law firms after graduating from university, argues that denying him the money would be in violation of his human rights.

The case come just three years after Mr Siddiqui, who tried to sue Oxford University over his failure to get a first-class degree, had his 1million compensation thrown out by the High Court.

The Oxford graduate, who has been unemployed since 2011, currently lives rent-free at a 1million flat that is owned by his mother Rakshanda, 69, and father Javed, 71, near Hyde Park in central London.

Faiz Siddiqui (pictured in 2017), 41, claims he is entirely dependent on his wealthy parents and is suing them in an effort to receive a maintenance grant for life

The wealthy parents have been providing their son with more than 400-a-week and also help him with his bills.

However the parents now want to reduce their funding after a row with their son who they claim is 'difficult, demanding and pertinacious'.

Mr Siddiqui's case has now been sent to the Court of Appeal after it was rejected by a family court judge last year.

The family's lawyer, Justin Warshaw QC, told The Sun: 'These long-suffering parents have their own view of what is suitable provision for their ''difficult, demanding and pertinacious'' son.'

The unique case come after Mr Siddiqui tried to sue his former university for 'appallingly bad' teaching that cost him a top degree and a lucrative legal career.

The Oxford graduate had claimed 'boring' tuition and staff being on extended sabbatical leave had meant he only received a 2:1 instead of the first-class degree he had wanted.

He maintained this cost him a place on a law course at a top US Ivy League university, such as Yale or Harvard, and denied him the high-flying legal career he had coveted.

Mr Siddiqui and his barrister Roger Mallalieu had valued his loss of earnings claim against the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, at 1million.

However in 2018 Mr Siddiqui's claim was thrown out of court and he was told by a High Court judge the tuition he received at Brasenose College was of a 'perfectly adequate standard'.

Mr Justice Foskett ruled Mr Siddiqui's 'inadequate preparation' and 'lack of academic discipline' towards his degree were the reasons he under performed in his June 2000 exams.

He added a 'severe episode of hay fever' may also have contributed to Mr Siddiqui's failure to get the grade he wanted.

In 2018, Mr Siddiqui, who studied at Brasenose College (pictured), Oxford, tried to sue his former university

The judge also rejected claims Mr Siddiqui's personal tutor at Brasenose had failed to alert exam authorities that he was suffering from 'insomnia, depression and anxiety' when he sat a paper.

While expressing 'sympathy and understanding' for Mr Siddiqui's intermittent bouts of severe depression, Mr Justice Foskett said there was no evidence he was suffering from mental health problems when he took his final exams.

Meanwhile Oxford University accepted there were fewer teaching staff during the autumn term in 1999 but denied teaching was 'inadequate'.

Following the landmark trial, Mr Justice Foskett said: 'Whilst it cannot be said that some aspect of a person's education  inadequately delivered  can never be the cause of that person's failure to achieve some otherwise attainable objective, the hurdles in establishing a claim for compensation based upon that inadequate delivery are great and often insurmountable.

'In this case, I have not been satisfied that the delivery of one particular feature of the claimant's undergraduate degree course was inadequate or, in any event, that it had the consequences claimed for it.'

He added: 'That said, in the present climate, some 17 years on from the material events in this case, when students are incurring substantial debts to pursue their university education, the quality of the education delivered will undoubtedly come under even greater scrutiny than it did in the past.

'There may be some rare cases where some claim for compensation for the inadequacy of the tuition provided may succeed, but it is hardly the ideal way of achieving redress.'
Member of the Georgian Parliament and a former leader of the European Georgia opposition party Elene Khoshtaria has created a new political force Droa (It's Time).

"State propaganda is constantly trying to convince us that corruption, poverty, hopelessness and occupation are our natural state and destiny. Of course, this is not true and we need to change this with our efforts, consistency and clear plan. It is time to show the government that we see what is happening and we will not tolerate it," Agenda.ge cited her as saying.

According to her, Parliament represents 96 people gathered in to praise one man - Georgia's former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Khoshtaria took high posts under the United National Movement government and became MP from the party back in 2016.

However, in 2017 she joined the European Georgia party and was nominated for Tbilisi mayor by the party the same year.

European Georgia received five seats in parliament per the results of October 31 parliamentary elections.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
PITTSBURGH, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- VIQTORY has announced that SportClips Chairman and Founder Gordon Logan will be the keynote speaker at its next Virtual Career Expo (VCE) on March 24. Logan is an Air Force Veteran and recipient of the 2015 Vetrepreneur of the Year award.

The March 24 VCE will be held from 12 - 4 PM EDT, and will focus on military veterans and military spouses who are looking for a career in the skilled trades.

The G.I. Jobs Virtual Career Expo is a monthly virtual hiring event, which draws hundreds of quality candidates from the military community who are looking for their next career or educational opportunity, and connects them with companies, schools, and business franchises that want to recruit and hire from the military.

Candidates use text or video-based chats to connect with recruiters from the attending companies and schools.

Companies, schools, or franchises that are interested in reserving a booth at the March 24th VCE can find more information at www.viqtory.com/gijobs-virtual-job-fairs .

Transitioning service members, veterans, and military spouses who are interested in attending as candidates can register at www.gijobs.com/virtual-career-expo .

About Viqtory

Founded on the belief that veterans are better off for their service, Viqtory is the leading marketing firm connecting the military community to civilian opportunity. Its hundreds of clients include Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies and colleges who use Viqtory's marketing products to promote their employment, education and entrepreneurship opportunities to the nation's military community of veterans, military spouses, and transitioning service members.

Viqtory is a VA and NaVOBA certified service-disabled, veteran-owned small business founded in 2001 by three Navy veterans. Viqtory's media brands include G.I. Jobs, Military Spouse, and Military Friendly, among others. Viqtory offers digital and print advertising in its own media as well as managed programmatic advertising, which enables it to reach its audience on virtually any platform and any device, at the precise location and at the right time. The company also offers companies and colleges strategic consulting on their military recruiting programs.

SOURCE G.I. Jobs; Viqtory

Related Links

viqtory.com


Digitale will file a complaint against iPhone maker with data privacy watchdog CNIL on Tuesday over alleged breaches of European Union rules, France's leading startup lobby said in a statement.

In the seven-page complaint seen by Reuters, the lobby, which represents the bulk of France's digital entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, alleges Apple's latest operating software, iOS 14, does not comply with EU privacy requirements.

Digitale argues that while iPhone owners are asked whether they are ready to allow installed mobile apps to gather a key identifier used to define campaign ads and send targeted ads, default settings allow to carry its own targeted ad campaigns without clearly asking iPhone users for their prior consent.

Under EU data privacy rules, all organisations must ask visitors online if they agree to have some of their data collected via trackers or other tools.

The same rules also provide the right to anyone to ask for information on the purposes of such data collection and how they are collected.

The lobby also alleges that Apple's tracking functionality allows it to share the data it collects with affiliated without telling users ahead.

"It's a startup version of David versus Goliath, but we are determined," Digitale CEO Nicolas Brien in a statement.

"The allegations in the complaint are patently false and will be seen for what they are, a poor attempt by those who track users to distract from their own actions and mislead regulators and policymakers," said in a written statement.

The complaint by France Digitale follows similar litigation against Apple filed by French online advertising lobbies with the antitrust authority last October.

It also comes after complaints filed by Austrian advocacy group Noyb with data protection watchdogs in Germany and Spain alleging that Apple's tracking tool illegally enabled the U.S. tech giant to store users' data without their consent.

Apple also rebutted those claims.

(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; editing by Christian Lowe and Jason Neely)
Beginning in 2014 and continuing to the present day, an increasing number of children from northern Central American countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) and Mexico, fleeing violence and poverty in their countries, have arrived and been apprehended at the U.S. border. Many of these children are unaccompanied or became so upon separation from a parent or another adult.

NEPC is releasing today a policy brief addressing the education of these unaccompanied immigrant children (UICs), including their experiences prior to, during, and after apprehension at the border. The (Mis)Treatment and (Non)Education of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children in the United States is authored by University of Houston assistant professor Ruth M. Lopez.

Upon arrival, these children are expected to navigate everything from a complicated immigration legal system to overcrowded detention centers, abuse, and anti-immigrant sentiments. Considering this sociopolitical context, Professor Lopez examines what the available research tells us about UICs educational experiences in detention, in shelters or foster case, and in public schools. It also considers legal requirements as well as research about how schools and districts can support these children in asset-based and equity-centered ways. Using the theoretical frameworks of Critical Race Theory and Latino Critical Race Theory, she examines the ways UICs are framed, the legal and historical contexts that impact their lived reality, and their recent experience as immigrants to the United States. In the brief Lopez shares the following:

Before migration and in their interactions with various federal agencies, UICs often face traumatic experiences, including prolonged separation from their families. After navigating a complicated immigration system, where they may not receive proper services such as education, health, or legal support, UICs have the right to attend public schools once placed with a sponsor. However, the transition to schooling is not seamless and can present other unique obstacles that affect learning conditions.

Humanitarian and legal offenses toward UICs predated the Trump administration, but Trumps immigration policies, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated these injustices. This legacy leaves the new administrationand otherswith much to do to alleviate the trauma suffered by UICs and to ensure that they receive necessary educational and coordinated supports. To this end, Professor Lopez concludes her brief with recommendations for national-level policymakers, district and school leaders, and researchers.

Find The (Mis)Treatment and (Non)Education of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children in the United States, by Ruth M. Lopez, at:

http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/immigrant-children

This policy brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org).

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: https://nepc.colorado.edu
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday disposed of the last of three cases brought to the justices by former President Donald Trump challenging his election loss, bringing a muted end to his futile quest in the courts to hold onto power.

The court without comment rejected Trump's appeal challenging thousands of absentee ballots filed in Wisconsin, an election battleground that the Republican businessman-turned-politician lost to Democrat Joe Biden by more than 20,000 votes. Biden became president on Jan. 20.

It was the last of three petitions filed at the Supreme Court near the end of Trump's presidency that the justices declined to take up. The court on Feb. 22 turned away Trump's other two appeals - a second Wisconsin challenge and one relating to voting in Pennsylvania, another pivotal state Trump lost. Lower courts previously had ruled against Trump in those three cases.

It already was clear that the high court, which includes three justices appointed by Trump, had no intention to intervene in the cases and others filed by his allies because it did not act before Congress on Jan. 6 certified Biden's victory. That formal certification was interrupted when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.

In the Wisconsin case, Trump sued two days after the state had certified its election results. He challenged several Wisconsin election policies including one allowing the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both a federal judge and the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claims, noting in part that Trump had waited too long to sue.

Courts around the country rejected the cases brought by Trump and his allies, sometimes in colorful terms. A judge put it this way in November in rejecting a Trump challenge in Pennsylvania: "This claim, like Frankenstein's Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together."

Trump has made - and continues to make - false claims that the Nov. 3 presidential election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud and irregularities. Republicans are now seizing on those same unsubstantiated allegations in an effort to impose new voting restrictions in numerous states.

The Supreme Court on Monday also turned away another election-related case filed by Trump ally Lin Wood, who had asked the justices to block the Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections in Georgia. The court never acted on the request and Democrats won both races, giving them narrow control of the Senate.
Lawyers representing Jeffrey Epstein's victims have criticized Buckingham Palace's investigation into claims of bullying leveled at Meghan Markle - claiming it is an attempt to distract from Prince Andrew.

Gloria Allread, who represents 20 of the disgraced financier's accusers, asked why Andrew has not been 'stripped of the royal titles that he enjoys' or why the Royals have not 'made a public statement condemning' him.

By contrast, Buckingham Palace said it was 'very concerned' by the bullying accusations made by former royal staff against Meghan as it launched an investigation into those claims last week.

Lawyer Lisa Bloom, who also represents Epstein victims, told DailyMail.com in a statement: 'Prince Andrew has long been accused of sexual misconduct toward a teenaged girl, and there is no question that he befriended prolific predator Jeffrey Epstein, even flying out to visit him in person after Epstein was released from jail.

'Where is Buckingham Palace's condemnation of that behavior? Where is its investigation of him? Investigating Meghan Markle only for far more minor complaints proves her point: that she has been singled out for unfair special treatment.'

Prince Andrew - the Queen's second son - was forced to step back as a senior royal after his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview about his friendship with convicted sex offender Epstein.

In the interview, the duke denied an alleged sexual encounter with Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked by Epstein, saying he had no recollection of meeting her and had been at a pizza restaurant instead.

But he still holds a number of military titles, unlike Harry who saw his removed when he stepped back as a working member of the Royal family.

Gloria Allread, who represents 20 of the disgraced financier's accusers, asked why Andrew has not been 'stripped of the royal titles that he enjoys' or why the Royals have not 'made a public statement condemning' him. Allred is pictured left at federal court for a hearing in the Jeffrey Epstein case in 2019

Prince Andrew, left - the Queen's second son - was forced to step back as a senior royal after his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview about his friendship with sex offender Epstein, right

In a statement to the DailyMail.com Allred said: 'Why does Buckingham Palace not conduct an investigation and make a public statement condemning Prince Andrew for failing to provide what is requested to those who are seeking the whole truth and justice for the victims of crimes against children?

'Why has Prince Andrew not been stripped of the royal titles that he enjoys, as has been the case for Meghan and Harry? He has certainly not brought dignity and respect to his work as a royal.'

Allred is campaigning for Andrew to speak with US criminal investigators over his ties to Epstein, who committed suicide in his prison cell in 2019.

She told The Guardian: 'Allegations about him [Andrew] are far worse than the allegations about Meghan Markle. Prince Andrew was a working royal when he became a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, who was a sexual predator.'

Buckingham Palace said it was 'very concerned' by the bullying accusations made by former royal staff against Meghan, pictured with Harry, as it launched an investigation into those claims last week

Allred added: 'The investigation into Meghan Markle is a distraction, and it appears hypocritical under the circumstances. I have to wonder if it reflects a calculated decision to take the focus off of Prince Andrew.

'It is long overdue for the palace to change its priorities and announce that it is conducting its own investigation of Prince Andrew.

'In addition, it should immediately issue a statement condemning Prince Andrew for failing to provide full in-person cooperation in the ongoing criminal investigation by the United States justice department.'

Past and present employees have been invited by the Palace to speak in confidence about their experiences of working for the Duchess.

The investigation is believed to be centered around a trip the Sussexes made to Australia in 2018. The Duchess and her aides were said to have had a series of bust ups during the 16-day visit.

Allred hired this yellow school bus to drive along The Mall towards Buckingham Palace, London. she has been critical of the Duke for not speaking with the FBI about Epstein

The duke, left, has denied an alleged sexual encounter with Virginia Giuffre, center, who claims she was trafficked by Epstein, saying he had no recollection of meeting her and had been at a Pizza Hut in Woking instead. Ghislaine Maxwell, right, is charged with child sex trafficking charges over her links to Jeffrey Epstein

Allegations against Meghan were first reported by the Times which said Jason Knauf, the Sussexes' then communications secretary, made a bullying complaint in October 2018 in an apparent attempt to force Buckingham Palace to protect staff.

Meghan's spokesman said: 'The duchess is saddened by this latest attack on her character, particularly as someone who has been the target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma.

'She is determined to continue her work building compassion around the world and will keep striving to set an example for doing what is right and doing what is good.'

In an interview with Oprah this week Meghan described feeling so isolated and miserable inside the royal family that she had had suicidal thoughts, yet when she asked for mental health help from the palace's human resources staff she was told she was not an employee.

Allegations against Meghan were first reported by the Times which said Jason Knauf, the Sussexes' then communications secretary, made a bullying complaint in October 2018 in an apparent attempt to force Buckingham Palace to protect staff. She is pictured with husband Harry and their son Archie

She also said a member of the family had expressed 'concerns' to Harry about the color of her unborn childs skin.

Winfrey later said Harry told her off camera that the family member was not Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Philip, sparking a flurry of speculation about who it could be.

Harry also revealed the stresses the couple endured had ruptured relations with his father, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his brother, Prince William, illuminating the depth of the family divisions that led the couple to step away from royal duties and move to California last year.

So far there has been silence from the palace about the interview.
Adduci: We will prioritize issues based on our community values and guiding principles, and will address all of them head-on with transparency and efficiency. First, we will ensure safety and health for all by enabling collaboration and using data-driven metrics and technology to address COVID-19 recovery for our residents and businesses. Second, we will stabilize property taxes by reducing costs and increasing revenue. We will also use enhanced data and technology to deliver services more efficiently, resulting in anticipated reduced labor and equipment costs. My experience and leadership in the Illinois Municipal League is crucial to ensure that we use best practices in our village and have access to the latest information and funding sources. Third, we will strengthen our quality of life for all by advancing our aging initiatives/policies, carrying out our affordable housing plan, supporting the Dominican University [diversity and inclusion] partnership and the internal diversity, equity and inclusion advisory group and supporting the sustainability commissions action plan to stem climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Asked how hes been impacted by the pandemic, Branson Eubanks had a surprising answer: From my standpoint, this has been nothing but positive.

He quickly clarified that he is aware that COVID-19 has killed millions of people and caused suffering around the globe, but says that for him and his family it has had some real benefits.

Chief among them is the fact that he has fallen in love with the remote work lifestyle.

Working from home has just completely changed my life, Eubanks said.

Now that Ive been here, and Ive seen what a positive thing it is  for me, personally, I cant go back to, You need to come into the office.  I want to work from home for the rest of my life.

Eubanks, an electrical engineer for Alabama Power, said he has worked from home since the pandemic began, and has enjoyed the freedom to work on his laptop from his backyard or from the passenger seat en route to a campsite for the weekend.

The 37-year-old speaks effusively about how he feels more fulfilled because he is able to see his wife and four young children throughout the day, and says he has gained a better understanding of how precious that family time is.

Im able to be with my family every day, Eubanks said. My wife works from home and she would send me Snapchats throughout the day and I was watching the important moments in my familys life on Snapchat. And now I get to wake up every day and spend every waking moment with the five people I love the most in the world.

He also said he saves time and gas money by avoiding the 80-minute roundtrip commute from his familys home in Springville to his office in Birmingham.

Though the Eubankses and their kids have avoided contracting coronavirus, the pair did spend time in the hospital in October, when his wife gave birth to their fourth child. It was a surreal experience, Eubanks said, but COVID protocols werent too onerous, and it was actually somewhat of a relief to not even have the option of inviting guests to meet the baby in the hospital.

Im very antisocial by nature. I really wish I didnt have to interact with other people that much, he said. So being someone who doesnt like to go into large groups of other people  like going to the grocery store  this is a social anxiety persons paradise.

This is part of a series of stories by AL.com to reflect on the 1-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic reaching Alabama. Each day leading up to March 13 we will elevate the voices of those impacted.
Court orders pastor to remain in jail until May trial for violating COVID-19 restrictions

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A church pastor arrested last month and charged with violating COVID-19 rules on maximum gathering capacity will remain behind bars until the trial begins in early May, a Canadian judge has ruled.

The Edmonton Court of Queens Bench Justice Peter Michalyshyn ruled Friday that Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church must remain in jail until his trial, scheduled to take place from May 3 to May 5, in Alberta Provincial Court in Stony Plain.

Pastor Coates was detained at the Edmonton Remand Centre on Feb. 16. He has refused to agree to bail conditions that he does not attend or conduct services at GraceLife Church unless they comply with government guidelines requiring capacity limits and social distancing.

Lawyers at the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which represents Coates and GraceLife Church, argue that the bail conditions and health orders violate his Charter freedoms of conscience, religion, expression, association and peaceful assembly.

However, the judge ruled there were no legal errors in last months decision to release Coates on the condition he complies with public health rules.

Beliefs and convictions, without more, do not overcome those valid and enforceable laws, Michalyshyn was quoted as saying by The Edmonton Journal. He added that the pastor and his congregation hold to a strong and literal interpretation of holy scriptures that demands that they meet in person and keep faces uncovered.

JCCF plans to file an appeal to the Alberta Court of Queens Bench to seek Coates release before his trial date.

A trial set eight weeks down the road was too long for an innocent Pastor to be in jail, JCCF President John Carpay said in a statement. Pastor Coates is a peaceful Christian minister. He should never have been required to violate his conscience and effectively stop pastoring his church as a condition to be released.

Carpay contends that the arrest is a violation of Pastor Coates Charter rights and freedoms.

Charter freedoms do not disappear because the government declares regular church services to be outlawed while allowing hundreds of people to fill their local Walmarts, Carpay said.

According to The Edmonton Journal, GraceLife Church has been holding in-person services in his absence.

The pastors lawyer, James Kitchen, told the newspaper that his client is a law-abiding man. But the latter prevails when the law and his clients interpretation of Scripture conflict.

Coates stated in an affidavit that the health orders directly contravene the authority of the local church, and the supreme authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The pastor held services for three consecutive weeks after the church was ordered to close at the end of January for reportedly violating restrictions on maximum gathering capacity and not following physical distancing, CTV News Edmonton reported at the time.

Police initially arrested Coates after he held services for a second time but later released him after serving an undertaking with conditions.

Police and health officials attended a service and found that the pastor continued to defy his release conditions, and he was charged a second time.

Observations were made that the pastor was not complying with his undertaking release conditions, and the church was not in compliance with the public health order, reads a statement released by Parkland County Police.

The pastor turned himself in to the police on Feb. 16. He faces two counts of violating the Public Health Act and charged for failing to comply with his undertaking condition.

"We've been consistent in our approach of escalated levels of enforcement with this pastor, and we were hopeful to resolve this issue in a different manner," Inspector Mike Lokken said in a statement. "The Pastor's actions, and the subsequent effects those actions could have on the health and safety of citizens, dictated our response in this situation."

GraceLife Church explained in a statement on its website that when the pandemic first started, the church shifted to livestream and abided by most of the new government guidelines for our gatherings.

But after the first public health emergency ended, the church returned to normal gatherings last June.

We did so recognizing COVID-19 was much less severe than the government had initially projected, the church statement reads. This sentiment was reflected in the assessment of the premier of Alberta, who deliberately referred to COVID-19 as influenza multiple times in a speech announcing the end of the first declared public health emergency.
WASHINGTON  Thousands of migrant children are backed up in United States detention facilities along the border with Mexico, part of a surge of immigration from Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence that could overwhelm President Bidens attempt to create a more humane approach to those seeking entry into the country.

The number of migrant children in custody along the border has tripled in the past two weeks to more than 3,250, according to federal immigration agency documents obtained by The New York Times, and many of them are being held in jail-like facilities for longer than the three days allowed by law.

The problem for the administration is both the number of children crossing the border and what to do with them once they are in custody. Under the law, the children are supposed to be moved to shelters run by the Health and Human Services Department, but because of the pandemic the shelters until last week were limiting how many children they could accommodate.

The growing number of unaccompanied children is just one element of an escalating problem at the border. Border agents encountered a migrant at the border about 78,000 times in January  more than double the rate at the same time a year ago and higher than in any January in a decade.
Daniel Andrews is in intensive care after breaking several ribs and damaging his spine after slipping on wet stairs while getting ready for work.

The Victorian Premier's office initially said the fall on Tuesday morning was 'concerning' but the leader had not suffered any head injuries.

But a statement from Mr Andrews that afternoon revealed a series of horrific injuries uncovered by a CT scan - leaving him in hospital in intensive care for several more days.

His office later confirmed the accident happened in accommodation the family were staying at in Mornington Peninsula, where they had been enjoying the long weekend.

Mr Andrews had been due to attend a press conference on Tuesday morning and would have travelled from the holiday home.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews during a press conference in February. He has been taken to hospital after a fall while getting ready in the morning on Tuesday

A statement from Mr Andrews on Tuesday revealed a series of horrific injuries uncovered by a CT scan (pictured)

'A CT scan has revealed several broke ribs and vertebrae damage, and subsequent medical advice has recommended I remain in intensive care for the next few days,' Mr Andrews said.

He added that his wife Catherine and their three children Grace, Noah and Joseph were grateful to paramedics who 'showed such care and kindness to our family this morning'.

The state leader thanked friends and colleagues who sent messages of support throughout the day, and hopes to provide another update later this week.

'James Merlino will serve as Acting Premier while I recover over the next few days. For now, we'd like to ask that our family's privacy is respected,' he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, a spokesman said Mr Andrews was taken to hospital for x-rays as a precautionary measure.

Mr Merlino later said he expected Mr Andrews would soon be 'back on his feet'.

Pictured: Mr Andrews and his wife Catherine. Mr Andrews said his wife and children were grateful to paramedics for supporting his family after the fall

Victorian Liberal leader Michael O'Brien was among the first to wish the premier well on social media.

'Hope its not serious. Wishing Daniel a speedy recovery,' he wrote.

The hashtag #GetBetterDan also started trending on Twitter throughout the afternoon, as hundreds of Australians used social media to with the Victorian leader a speedy recovery.

'Falling over whilst getting ready for work doesnt even register on the medical scale of weird injuries or illness. Hope Dan is ok,' one user wrote.

'The sooner youre okay, the quicker we can all #GetOnTheBeers to celebrate,' another said, alluding to a song by Australian band Mashed N Kutcher comprising a range of comments made by Mr Andrews during Covid press conferences.

Someone else used the opportunity to share their own mishaps at home.

'I tripped over my dog late 2019 and needed micro surgery on my hand. This happens to adults all the time. Hope Dan is alright,' they wrote.

Earlier on Tuesday, a spokesman said Mr Andrews was taken to hospital for x-rays as a precautionary measure. Pictured: Mr Andrews and his wife Catherine

The state Labor government had been scheduled to announce an inquiry into Indigenous disadvantage on Tuesday.

Mr Merlino will take over the premier's duties on Tuesday for a press conference in Healesville, north-east of Melbourne.

'I know around the cabinet table and in private discussions how passionate he is about this day and this announcement,' Mr Merlino said.

'It would have only been a trip to the hospital that would have kept him away.'

Victorian Liberal leader Michael O'Brien was among the first to wish the premier well on social media

Mr Andrews was set to announce the first-of-its-kind inquiry to probe how Western colonisation of Australia continues to affect Victoria's Indigenous community.

Named the 'Truth and Justice Commission', the inquiry could lead to reparations being paid by the government to Victoria's Aboriginal population.

Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe had praised the announcement as 'historic' and called for the commission to represent all 38 Aboriginal nations in the state, The Age reported.

'When the colonisers invaded, there was a war on these lands  a war that hasnt ended. But we wont achieve peace without truth,' she said.

The commission will report after the November 2022 state election.
BAGHDAD, Iraq  After Pope Francis returned from his first international trip since the coronavirus pandemic began, where he visited different ethnicities and religious groups in Iraq, he tweeted, Iraq will always remain in my heart. He asked the Iraqi people to work together, united for a future of peace and prosperity that leaves no one behind and discriminates against no one.

US President Joe Biden issued a statement on the pope's visit, saying, I congratulate the government and people of Iraq for the care and planning that went into organizing this monumental visit, and continue to admire Pope Francis for his commitment to promoting religious tolerance.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi used this occasion to deliver a message to the nation. He asked all Iraqi parties and groups to use this opportunity for unity, peace and cooperation.

Iraq has a real opportunity to restore its historic role in the region and in the world, Kadhimi said March 9, calling the popes visit a historic milestone for Iraq.

The papal visit was very beneficial in terms of returning Iraq to the international spotlight and unveiling its rich culture and ancient history to the world.

Iraqis, regardless of their ethnicity and religion, responded well to the visit. Even the militias with anti-Western rhetoric and propaganda did not lose the opportunity to use the popes visit to their advantage by proclaiming themselves to be the defenders of Christians in the face of the Islamic State.

The pope's message has reached all over the world, while he is wandering with a heart full of hope in the beloved cities of Iraq. Our people's message reached all the peoples of the earth, Kadhimi said.

By visiting Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the pope not only connected and created a link between Shiites and Christians but also brought the Sunnis to the table. In an interview with iNews, prominent Sunni cleric Amer al-Bayati said on live television, Sistani is the pyramid (umbrella) of all Muslims in Iraq and our spiritual father figure; therefore, the pope visited Sistani as if he visited all Muslims.

In line with the popes visit, Kadhimi asked rival parties and groups to put their differences behind them and invest in the opportunity to work together toward a stable and prosperous Iraq.

We call  all the different political forces, popular and youth protesters, and opponents of the government to the table of responsible dialogue in front of our people and history, Kadhimi said. We call on our forces and political parties to give priority to the interests of the country.

Kadhimi had already opened a dialogue with the protestors, leading to emptying the streets peacefully and voluntarily.

He asked all parties to work for the success of the early elections and give people the opportunity for hope and confidence in the state and in the democratic system.

He addressed the government opposition, including the militias in particular, saying, My dear opponents, I invite you, in all sincerity, to an open and frank dialogue with the government on the basis of the country's interests, security and sovereignty, and on the basis of preserving the security of Iraq, supporting the state and the rule of law.

Also, in an attempt to raise attention for a permanent solution to the long-disputed Kurdistan issue, Kadhimi demanded a genuine, deep national dialogue at all official, party and popular levels, to reach the framework for a final agreement on the relationship between the central government and the Kurdistan Region.

Kadhimi has actively used diplomacy in the office to bring all disputed parties to the table and negotiate a deal that benefits everyone. Now on the international level, he asked Iraqs neighboring countries to do the same and play a positive role in the reconstruction and future of Iraq. He also initiated a strategic dialogue with the international coalition to create the environment and timeline for the removal of all combat troops from Iraq soil, within the framework of agreed-upon technical and timing mechanisms, while preserving the best relations with the coalition countries. He reaffirmed Iraqs sovereignty and refused to let it be a field for external conflicts.

Iraq has successfully worked with the United States to reduce the number of US troops present, while simultaneously expanding its relationship with the United States regarding the economy, education and other areas. It has also negotiated both with Iran and the United States to reduce their tensions and conflict inside the country.

Kadhimi also mentioned the importance of restoring Iraqs external relations and its regional and international role as a peacekeeper, and he encouraged the international community to invest in and support Iraqs economic reform project to turn it into the economic powerhouse it once was in the region.

At the end of his speech, Kadhimi  on behalf of Iraq  thanked Pope Francis for his prayers and for making the effort to visit Iraq during the pandemic and with all of Iraq's security risks posed by the militias. He also thanked the people and all who contributed to organizing the pontiffs Iraq visit.
UTICA, N.Y.  Cree | Wolfspeed is holding a virtual hiring event on Monday, so people looking for jobs can get more information about available positions and meet some of the team leaders.

Cree is looking to hire engineers, technicians, analysts and others at the manufacturing site that is currently under construction in Marcy.

The event will begin at 5 p.m.

To register, click here.

For more information on the company, visit: cree.com.
The death has occurred of Declan Reid

Moorefield Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin / Athy, Kildare



Declan Reid late of Moorefield Drive, Neilstown, Clondalkin. Predeceased by his mother Patricia. He will be sadly missed by his son Aaron, his partner Fiona, his father Paul, sister Roisin extended family, neighbours and friends.

Due to government advice regarding public gatherings, a private funeral Mass will take place for family (maximum 10 persons). Those who would have liked to attend, but due to current restrictions cannot, please leave a personal message in the 'Condolences' section below.

Declans funeral cortege will pass along the Carlow Road, Emily Square and Leinster Street, Athy, at approximately at 9.20am on Wednesday morning (10th March). People are welcome to stand along the route with Social Distancing being observed at all times. Funeral Mass can be viewed by clicking on the following link on Wednesday at 11am.

https://churchmedia.tv/camera/st-peter-apostle-church

The death has occurred of Derek KIELY

Orchard Park, The Curragh, Kildare / Ballyfermot, Dublin



KIELY Derek (Orchard Park, The Curragh, Co. Kildare and late of Ballyfermot, Dublin) - 6th March 2021 (peacefully) at Tallaght Hospital. Derek, husband of the late Antoinette; sadly missed by his children Sarah, Darren and Katie, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, extended family, relatives and friends.

May Derek Rest in Peace

A private Funeral Mass will take place due to Government advice and HSE restrictions on public gatherings. Removal from Anderson & Leahy's Funeral Home, Newbridge, on Wednesday to arrive at St. Brigids Church, The Curragh for 12pm Mass. Dereks funeral can be lived streamed on St. Brigid's Church, The Curragh, Facebook page. Burial afterwards in St. Conleths Cemetery, Newbridge.

Those who would have liked to attend but due to current restrictions cannot, can leave their condolences below.

The death has occurred of Micheal PIERCE

Cuan Mhuire, Athy, Kildare / Castleisland, Kerry



PIERCE Micheal (Cuan Mhuire, Athy, Co. Kildare and late of Killarney Road, Castleisland, Co. Kerry) - 5th March 2021 (peacefully) in the wonderful care of the nurses and staff of Naas Hospital. Predeceased by his sister Mary O'Domhnaill. Deeply regretted by his sisters Joan (Kelliher), Eileen (Riordan), Kathleen (Curtin), brother-in-law Dr. Padraig O'Domhnaill, nephews and nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces, Sr. Consilio and the Cuan Mhuire Community, extended family, relatives and friends.

May Micheal Rest in Peace

A private Funeral Mass will take place due to Government advice and HSE restrictions on public gatherings. Removal from Anderson & Leahy's Funeral Home, Newbridge on Tuesday to arrive at St. Conleths Parish Church for 12pm Mass. Funeral afterwards to Mount Jerome Crematorium. Micheals funeral will be livestreamed on www.newbridgeparish.ie and can also be viewed from the crematorium at 2.15pm on www.vimeo.com/event/139693

A funeral mass will be held at a later date in Castleisland, Co. Kerry and Micheal will be buried with his parents in Ballyheigue, Co. Kerry.

Those who would have liked to attend but due to current restrictions cannot, can leave their condolences below.

The death has occurred of Aine Rigney

Celbridge, Kildare / Dundrum, Dublin / Churchtown, Dublin



Rigney, Aine  8th March 2021 (Late of Celbridge and formerly of Churchtown / Dundrum) Peacefully surrounded by her loving family after a long illness bravely borne. Beloved mother to her cherished daughter, Seana. Sadly missed by her loving daughter, sister Siobhan, brothers Michael and David, sisters in law, brother in law, aunts, uncle, nieces, nephews, extended family and friends.

May her gentle soul rest in peace.

In accordance with government guidelines, Aine's Funeral will take place privately. Those who would like to attend but due to current restrictions cannot, or unable to, may view the Funeral Service online at 3pm on Wednesday 10th March 2021, using the link https://vimeo.com/event/139693.

A message of condolence for her family can be left using the following link http://www.masseybrosfuneralhomes.com/funeral-notices/. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired to the Irish Cancer Society.

All enquiries to Massey Bros Funerals, 177 Crumlin Road on 01-4541666

The death has occurred of Elizabeth CAHOON (nee Morrissey)

Ballaghmoon, Carlow / Kildare



Elizabeth Cahoon, nee Morrissey, late of Ballaghmoon, Co Kildare, passed away, peacefully, on March 6th, 2021. She will be sadly missed by her loving sisters Josephine (Carlow) and Kathleen (Co. Down) and her extended family, relatives and friends.

May Elizabeth Rest In Peace







Funeral Arrangements Later

The death has occurred of Patricia (Patty) Dunne (nee Blaney)

Kilcullen, Kildare



Patricia (Patty) Dunne (nee Blaney), Hilside, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, who died 6th March 2021 at Naas Hospital. Deeply regretted by her loving husband John, daughter Linda, son-in-law Willie, sisters Angela and May, sisters-in-law nieces, nephews, extended family, relatives and friends.

Funeral private. Please feel free to leave a message in the condolence page below.

May Patty Rest In Peace

The death has occurred of Frederick Hack

Balkinstown, Nurney, Kildare



Peacefully, at his home. Sadly missed by his stepfather Noel, extended family, relatives, neighbours and friends.

May Frederick Rest in Peace

Due to current government guidelines regarding public gatherings, a private family funeral will take place. Those who would have liked to attend the funeral, but due to current restrictions cannot, please feel free to leave a message in the condolence page below.

Removal on Tuesday morning for funeral service in Mount Jerome Crematorium, Harold's Cross at 11.30am.

Frederick's cremation service will be available to view from 11.30am at the following link https://vimeo.com/event/153499
SAN VINCENZO, MAR 9 - The mayor of the southern Tuscan coastal town of San Vincenzo was arrested for suspected corruption on Tuesday. Alessandro Bandini was arrested along with two businessmen from the Livorno area. The first citizen was placed under house arrest. The probe is into bid rigging for municipal contracts, police said. Two local construction businessmen are also implicated. In all, some 23 people have been placed under investigation, including a former mayor and two current town councillors. The two Livorno-area businessmen allegedly paid bribes to get contracts, police said. (ANSA).
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) told a parliamentary panel that the estimated manufacturing capacity of the COVID-19 vaccine Covishield is 70-100 million doses per month. While the indigenously developed Covaxin has a planned production capacity of 150 million doses per year. On Monday, the report was tabled in the Rajya Sabha.

With the respect to the two approved vaccines, the panel desired to know the status of the current vaccine production and also how soon could these vaccines be made available to the non-priority population.

"The inactivated vaccine candidate, COVAXIN, developed jointly by Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has a planned production capacity of 150 million doses per year", said DBT reported PTI.

"The estimated manufacturing capacity of the non-replicating viral vector vaccine, COVISHIELD, by the Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd, is about 70-100 million doses per month,' the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) told the panel, reported PTI.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change further urged DBT to explore deeper into developing a cure for certain rare diseases, for which the country is dependent on imports and patients have to shell out an exorbitant amount of money for the cost and their excise/import duty.

Thirty other vaccines against coronavirus are at different stages of the trial.

Bharat Biotech & ICMR Assure Covaxin's Efficacy

On March 3, at the interim efficacy data of phase-3 trials of Covaxin, Bharat Biotech Ltd (BBL) chief Dr. Krishna Ella assured that the vaccine was evaluated by the Drug Safety Monitoring board. BBL said that its COVID-19 vaccine - Covaxin - a Whole Virion Inactivated Corona Virus Vaccine has shown an interim clinical efficacy of 81% in its Phase 3 trials. The phase 3 trial is the largest ever trial conducted in India and Covaxin has been granted permission for restricted use in an emergency situation by the DGCI on January 3.

PM Modi Gets 1st Covaxin Jab

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first one to receive the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi, as the second phase of the inoculation drive kick-started in India on March 1. PM Modi was administered Bharat BioTech's Covaxin jab by Sister P Niveda, from Puducherry, according to ANI.

Took my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at AIIMS.



Remarkable how our doctors and scientists have worked in quick time to strengthen the global fight against COVID-19.



I appeal to all those who are eligible to take the vaccine. Together, let us make India COVID-19 free! pic.twitter.com/5z5cvAoMrv  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 1, 2021

(With PTI Inputs)
1. Roads. The citys roads are a mess. Significant resources are needed to fix them.

2. Public safety. The crime rate is too high. Police pay and resources come first.

3. More city programs. The city must invest more in city programs and services.

4. Comprehensive plan. The city needs to focus on rebuilding and rebranding.

5. Cut city spending. City officials must get serious about trimming the budget.

Vote

View Results
Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

To be totally candid, it was hard for me to believe the headline was real. Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden: We feel used and betrayed.

Seriously? They feel used and betrayed because the pro-abortion president they helped put in office did exactly what he said he would do? They feel used and betrayed because he carried out his campaign promises? They feel used and betrayed because he stayed true to the Democratic Platform?

I could understand feeling embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated at their extreme naivety. But used and betrayed?

Joe Biden made it absolutely clear that he was running as a pro-abortion president. His running mate, Kamala Harris, was even more extreme in her positions. Yet, somehow, these evangelicals, some of them high quality Christian leaders, actually believed that Biden would moderate his position if he was elected.

Talk about being self-deceived. Talk about being used and then spit out. And talk about being complicit in deepening Americas blood guilt.

During the campaign, I challenged these leaders, saying that there was no way they could call themselves pro-life and yet vote for Joe Biden.

After all, on July 6, 2019, the New York Times ran the headline, Joe Biden Denounces Hyde Amendment, Reversing His Position.

And the Democratic platform plainly states, We will repeal the Hyde Amendment, and protect and codify Roe v. Wade.

Yet when the presidents COVID-relief package was put forward without reinforcing the Hyde Amendment, these Biden-supporting evangelicals were shocked: We feel used and betrayed and have no intention of simply watching these kinds of efforts happen from the sidelines. We call on President Biden to honor his commitment to us and immediately demand that the House of Representatives apply the Hyde language to the American Relief Package.

Please. This is willful ignorance.

Candidate Biden made himself perfectly clear, and these Christian leaders should have known what was coming. As their homepage announced during the campaign (and in all caps): AS PRO-LIFE EVANGELICALS, WE DISAGREE WITH VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN AND THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM ON THE ISSUE OF ABORTION. BUT WE BELIEVE A BIBLICALLY SHAPED COMMITMENT TO THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE COMPELS US TO A CONSISTENT ETHIC OF LIFE THAT AFFIRMS THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE FROM BEGINNING TO END.

My brothers and sisters, you knew this was coming. The president promised it. The platform spelled it out. And the vast majority of those who voted for Biden-Harris wanted them to carry these things out.

That means that the Democratic leaders you worked with, the leaders who assured you things would be different, simply duped you, plain and simple.

Ironically, for all of President Trumps failings, he did what no other recent president has done, namely, kept his promises to evangelicals and kept his door wide open to them. In fact, to my understanding, a key reason he kept so many of those promises was because of the influence of the evangelical leaders who frequently had his ear. They helped him to do the right thing.

Now, sadly, these pro-Biden evangelicals have said, As pro-life leaders in the evangelical community, we publicly supported President Biden's candidacy with the understanding that there would be engagement [with] us on the issue of abortion and particularly the Hyde Amendment. The Biden team wanted to talk to us during the campaign to gain our support, and we gave it on the condition there would be active dialogue and common ground solutions on the issue of abortion. There has been no dialogue since the campaign.

Surprise, surprise. And in this case, I dont mind saying that we told you so in advance. These are grave matters indeed, and thats why our warnings were grave as well.

Had you simply stated that, in conscience, you could not vote for Trump and were voting for a third party candidate, I would have respected that. Had you simply emphasized the need for Christians to engage in pro-life work on the grassroots level, I would have added my amen.

But how could you vote for Biden in the hope that he would reverse (or, at least, moderate) his position? To repeat: that is willful ignorance, in some cases, driven by overt hostility towards Trump. It would be similar to an evangelical Christian who supported illegal immigration voting for Trump in the hope that he would change his position.

At a townhall meeting one month before the elections, candidate Biden said that should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the only thing, the only responsible response to that would be to pass legislation making Roe the law of the land. That's what I would do.

As for Vice President Harris, she is the most radically pro-abortion person ever to sit in the White House. And yet, with full knowledge of who she was, you helped empower her, to the point of being one heartbeat away from the presidency. What on earth made you feel her administration would suddenly change?

One of the leaders of this coalition, Richard Mouw, wrote, Right now we feel like the best thing that we can advocate is not to lose the restrictions that we already have, and we felt betrayed. Furthermore, they did not give us a heads up on this, there was no sense of accountability to evangelicals and Catholics who took a lot of risks in saying publicly that they were going to vote for Mr. Biden.

To repeat: yes, you got used, big time, tragically so. And this only highlights why calling yourselves Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden was oxymoronic from the start.

Mouw continued, I don't understand where he's going with this... why he would be so open now about wanting to dump the Hyde Amendment language which for many of us was a boundary that we don't want to cross.

Really, words fail here. You dont understand where hes going? With all respect, Prof. Mouw, hes going exactly where he said he would be going in order to get the support of his party. To the radical left.

The Hyde Amendment language was a boundary you didnt want to cross? By voting for Biden, you crossed that boundary. In fact, you helped push the whole nation across that boundary. And, quite likely, things will only get worse from here under this current administration, although we fervently pray that it will not be so.

At this point, I would encourage you to: 1) Ask Gods forgiveness for helping empower this radical, pro-abortion agenda. 2) Reach out to pro-Trump evangelicals and Catholics to rebuild bridges and find common ground. (Yes, that rebuilding has to go both ways. Humility is required from all.) 3) And then, as one, to unite in transcending the political parties and, once and for all, turn this nation to embrace the sanctity of life.

Let the sense of shame and betrayal you are feeling turning into life-giving repentance.
We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
Actor Trevor Peacock, who played Jim Trott on The Vicar of Dibley, has died at the age of 89.

His death was confirmed to the Press Association by his agent.

A statement from Peacocks family read: Trevor Peacock, actor, writer and songwriter, died aged 89 on the morning of 8 Mar from a dementia-related illness.

As Jim on the The Vicar of Dibley, Peacock was best known for the characters idiosyncratic stammer, which saw him repeat the word no over and over again before finishing a sentence.

Dawn French, who portrayed the vicar at the centre of the BBC sitcom, led tributes to Peacock on Twitter, sharing a photograph of the pair along with the caption: Night Trev. I love you.

Read more: Vicar of Dibley viewers in tears over Dawn Frenchs emotional tribute to Emma Chambers

Peacock, who was born in Edmonton, London, had a long career in film, television and theatre, with credits including the films Hamlet (1990), Fred Claus (2007) and Quartet (2012).

On stage, he worked regularly with Manchesters Royal Exchange theatre, and starred in productions of Waiting for Godot, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and The Merry Wives of Windsor, among many others.

Peacock was also a talented songwriter, writing a number of hits for the pop act The Vernons Girls, as well as the lyrics for a musical titled Passion Flower Hotel.

His final acting role was an appearance in a 2015 Vicar of Dibley special in aid of Comic Relief.

Peacock is the fifth major cast member from The Vicar of Dibley to die in recent years.

Roger Lloyd-Pack, who portrayed farmer Owen Newitt, died in 2014, followed by the death of actor Liz Smith (who played amateur cook Letitia Cropley) in 2016, and the deaths of Emma Chambers (Alice) and John Bluthal (Frank) in 2018.
In the five years following the beginning of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in 2014, census places that have had BLM protests experience have had approximately 300 fewer deaths, according to new research by Travis Campbell, an economist at University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

What he says the figures dont answer is why. That research is still to be done, and he hopes and plans to have a role in it.

There is room for more research. Whats driving this? Campbell asked rhetorically this week.

Campbell found a benchmark 16.8% average reduction of lethal use-of-force due to BLM protests, a number that is, he writes, remarkably stable. He puts credence into three possibilities.

One is that the protests have influenced policing to where body cameras, community policing and a higher level of accountability is attached.

He cited other possible factors that may be less appealing - for one, a reduction in trust between the police and the community, which results in less cooperation and reporting of overall crime to police. Fatalities that did not involve police were found to rise after protests, Campbell said.

A third factor could be the Ferguson Effect, which refers to the 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri, that brought national attention to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Speaking of the Ferguson Effect, Campbell said the protests have increased scrutiny of police, which can hurt police morale. That can lead to less policing - police working less, even if there is a rise in crime.

Toussaint Losier agreed that Campbells study has value, while endorsing further research.

Losier, an Assistant Professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said a five-year window is a good start, but short-term for measuring movements in history.

I think of the Vietnam-era effect, where the anti-war protests of the 1960s and 1970s had a later effect of making policymakers less willing to engage in large-scale military conflicts. It will also be important to see the impact of the latest round of protests, which we saw last summer, where protests escalated over a short period of time and the dynamics of protest were changing, Losier said.

Black Lives Matter protests were associated with a reduction in police officer-involved fatalities. While reduced police-related fatalities is a very desirable effect, it is important to understand the factors that contributed to this effect, Campbell said.

Campbells study was distinctively non-judgmental, with findings identifying a significant drop in the use of lethal force by police - but with it, a possible deterioration of trust and communication between law enforcement officers and the communities served by them.

In analyzing the study, Losier called interaction between police and civilians, as well as reactions within police departments, a mixed bag that calls for more study. He said in some cases, engagement between police and the community increases with more law enforcement visibility, while other situations might cause police to take a step back.

Campbell approached his study with an open mind.

I didnt know what to expect. You hear people all the time say it doesnt make any difference (about protests.) Others say it can even increase use of force if it creates antagonism between police and the community, he said.

Losier said that even though a five-year study of recent events is relatively brief in historical terms, Campbells findings begin to answer important questions while bringing others to the forefront.

What is the purpose of a protest? This gets to a question being asked by all sides, Losier said.

This (study) offers the suggestion that protests have consequences for change (that) the people on the street are seeking.

Losier compared the potential longer-term impact of BLM protests to the anti-lynching movements of the early 20th Century, which led to changes in public opinion and local policy, notably in the South.

Campbell found the gap in police-related fatalities between places with and without protests has widened over the years, and is most prominent when protests are large or frequent.

The payoff for protesting is substantial. Every five of the 1,654 protests in the sample correspond with approximately one less person killed by the police over the following years. The police killed one less person for every 4,000 participants, Campbell said.

Campbell presented his findings in Black Lives Matters Effect on Police Lethal Use-of-Force  an early, non-peer-reviewed version of which is available online via SSRN. He has made the data supporting the findings public.
With other models following in the same footsteps (such as the equally controversial BMW iX or the upcoming i4, to a lesser degree) we probably have to get used to seeing the ugly snot more often from now on. Perhaps this is just a phase, though, as it was the case with the Bangle era Anyways, that doesnt mean BMW is in a hurry to provide new controversy material to its naysayers, judging by the release schedule of the M3 and M4 duo. After all, weve known U.S. pricing from day one, and its only now that its UK subsidiary has made the quotation public.While the M3 kicks off from below the $70k threshold in America, British fans are exclusively treated to the M3 and M4 in top Competition flavor, starting from 74,755 and 76,055, respectively. Thats around $104k and more than $105k, at the current exchange rates.We know very well that many factors are involved when dealing with different markets, but its still a bit shocking to realize the 2021 M3 Competition and M4 Competition can be had in the U.S. for MSRPs of $72,800 and $74,700, respectively (plus the $995 surcharge).UK fans can take solace in knowing the duo will arrive sporting the mighty 3.0-liter six cylinder in-line engine with M TwinPower Turbo technology thats good for 510 PS (503 hp) and a family of new exterior colors. Those include the Sao Paulo Yellow, Skyscraper Grey, and (our favorite) Isle of Man Green shades.Is it enough to compensate for the questionable design choices? We really dont know, but at least we can announce that grippier M xDrive choices will also become available this summer. Meanwhile, RWD model sales kick off this very weekend, starting March 13th.
Russia's Foreign Ministry plans to hold a conference in Moscow on March 18 to discuss Afghanistan, the TASS news agency reported, without providing any details on participants.



The March 9 announcement came amid Western media reports of a U.S.-drafted peace plan for the war-wracked country that calls for the current government in Kabul to be replaced with an interim administration until a new constitution is created and elections held. A joint commission would monitor a cease-fire, Reuters reported.

The Associated Press said the plan outlines the terms of the cease-fire and its enforcement, calls for the protection of the rights of women, children, and minorities, and envisions a truth and reconciliation commission aimed at healing decades of conflict.

The State Department did not confirm the contents of any plan as reported by Reuters and the Associated Press. Spokesman Ned Price said it is too early to say how Afghan peace talks were going but that Washington believes progress is possible.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and TASS


New Delhi:

After the merger of both AIADMK factions-O Panneerselvam and E Palaniswami camps- in Tamil Nadu, a political crisis erupted on Tuesday in the state when 19 MLAs came out in support of TTV Dhinakaran (relative of jailed party general secretary V K Sasikala) and met governor C Vidyasagar Rao. The MLAs said that they have lost their confidence in Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswami.

Thanga Tamil Selvan, AIADMK MLA, told media that they have no confidence in Tamil Nadu chief minister and conveyed the same to the Governor.

Around 10-15 MLAs have sent to a resort in Pududcherry. P.Vetriivel, MLA of Dinakaran-Sasikala camp said there priority is party. He said, govtmay come and go but we have to safeguard party.

We(Dinakaran supporting 19 MLAs) have no confidence in TN CM, want a trust vote.Conveyed this to Governor: Thanga Tamil Selvan,AIADMK MLA pic.twitter.com/7AUlnIkf2X  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

When asked that MLAs have been sent to Puducherry, Vetriivel said, What is the problem? Let them go to Pondicherry.

What is the problem? Let them go to Pondicherry!: P.Vetriivel,Dinakaran-Sasikala camp on question of MLAs being moved to a Puducherry resort pic.twitter.com/Wc2B0XWVCb  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

TTV Dhinakaran has sacked party MP Vaithilingam after the latter had said that Sasikala will be removed from the party.

TTV Dinkaran sacks AIADMK MP Vaithilingam, he had yesterday said that #Sasikala will be removed from the party (file pic) pic.twitter.com/B1sQsR5qmt  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

On the other hand, DMK leader MK Stalin wrote a letter to Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao requesting him to direct Edappadi K Palaniswami to prove his majority in the assembly immediately.

My information is that 3 more #AIADMK MLAs have also withdrawn support,that makes it 22 MLAs in total.We demand a trust vote:MK Stalin pic.twitter.com/tbGJwhKS6f  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017

While talking to media, Satalin said, My information is that 3 more AIADMK MLAs have also withdrawn support, that makes it 22 MLAs in total. We demand a trust vote.

Also Read | AIADMK merger announced: PM Modi congratulates Palaniswami & Panneerselvam, assures all support for growth of TN

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
As the dust from that neutron bomb of an interview begins to settle, and the full extent of the fallout becomes clear, it seems Megxit has become even more divisive than Brexit.

To her many (predominantly young) fans, 'Meghan's truth' is gospel, a heartbreaking tale of loneliness and victimisation.

They are grateful to her  and Prince Harry  for 'sharing' their ordeal, and angry with the perpetrators of their suffering: the British Press, the Royal Family, her family, old people, anyone who even dares question their actions, let alone voice the smallest bit of criticism.

To others, myself included, what they have done is morally and ethically contemptible.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their two-hour interview with Oprah Winfrey

Not content with turning their backs on the House of Windsor and the Queen at perhaps her greatest hour of need, they have decided to thoroughly trash the place on their way out.

They have declared open warfare on Prince Charles, Prince William and their respective wives, knowing full well that those they accuse cannot  and almost certainly will not  speak their own respective 'truths', to borrow from the canon.

This is not Harry and Meghan 'finding freedom'. It's them finding scapegoats, someone else to blame for all their misjudgments  and exacting a bitter revenge into the bargain.

It is a prolonged and thoroughly egocentric exercise in two people throwing their toys out of their gilded pram at a time when so many are struggling in circumstances far more traumatic than theirs.

But perhaps the most shocking element about this whole saga is the way they have taken one of the most explosive and emotive issues of our time  race  and weaponised it to devastating effect.

The accusation of racism  intimating that a member of the family 'raised concerns' about the colour of Archie's skin  is simply incendiary.

Especially since the accusation itself is so vague and seems calculated to do so much damage without actually giving any real context or sense of how, when and in what spirit the alleged remark was made.

Being accused of racism in 2021 is almost one of the worst things that can happen to anyone.

In this case, it is almost as toxic as the allegations hanging over Harry's uncle Prince Andrew  and appallingly damaging in the eyes of the younger generation and, in particular, America, where Harry and Meghan were clearly aiming to find favour with this interview.

Yet what the couple conveniently failed to mention to Oprah was the moment in 2009 when Prince Harry himself was caught up in an imbroglio over race.

This was after video footage had emerged in which he called a fellow cadet at Sandhurst a 'Pxxx' and another a 'raghead'.

So objectionable were his remarks  which came after revelations of his proclivity for dressing up as a Nazi  that Clarence House issued a fulsome apology.

Yet what the couple conveniently failed to mention to Oprah was the moment in 2009 when Prince Harry himself was caught up in an imbroglio over race

'Prince Harry fully understands how offensive this term can be, and is extremely sorry for any offence his words might cause.

'However, on this occasion three years ago, Prince Harry used the term without any malice and as a nickname about a highly popular member of his platoon.

'There is no question that Prince Harry was in any way seeking to insult his friend. Prince Harry used the term 'raghead' to mean Taliban or Iraqi insurgent.'

In other words, he didn't really mean it. It was just a bit of barracks banter. And maybe it was. Maybe the soldiers concerned didn't mind at all; or maybe they did but couldn't really say very much because, well, you know  it's Prince Harry.

Point is, Harry more than anyone should know how these things can be misinterpreted. How certain things can be said 'without malice'. These are human interactions. Complex, clumsy, messy and occasionally inappropriate.

If it could happen to Harry  albeit admittedly in his 'pre-woke' days, before Meghan showed him the way  then could it not also happen to whichever member of the Royal Family it turns out to be who allegedly voiced their 'concern' about Archie?

Maybe it really was an act of blinkered, bigoted racism, the final straw that drove the couple to flee for America (although if you think Britain has a problem, the U.S. is arguably worse).

Maybe it was just a bit of a crass, clumsy joke that came across really badly, an attempt to 'reach out', as Harry and Meghan like to say. Or maybe it was just a mistake, a moment of insensitivity that was quickly regretted.

What's certain is that the couple have chosen to interpret it in the most negative way possible, and then use it  as they seem to have used so much of their brief experience as a royal couple  to take maximum offence in order to cast themselves, yet again, as victims of a bigoted, sclerotic system that had it in for them from the start.

And, in so doing, they have turned the ire of their fans  and, as far as I can see, most of the West Coast of America  on the Queen and the Royal Family, provoked a raging debate around the monarchy and race which is, quite honestly, bordering on the psychotic.

But the worst part is this: there is not a head of state today, or at any time, who has done more to foster love and understanding between people of different races and cultures than the Queen, with Prince Philip (still in hospital, lest we forget) by her side.

The Commonwealth of Nations is her life's work, her undoubted passion, one thing above all others that she truly cares about.

When Meghan joined the Royal Family, she and Harry were given plum roles within that institution. Rightly, it was felt that to have a woman of colour representing the Commonwealth would be a great joy and delight.

Meghan Markle told Winfrey that the Royal Family had tried to smear and silence her

Indeed, Meghan mentioned the Commonwealth at some length in the Oprah interview, explaining how important it was for the people she met on her tours with Harry to have someone like her there, someone with whom they could identify.

The great tragedy of Harry and Meghan is that they had the chance, through their work as royals, to really bring about a difference. Meghan especially, precisely because of her background, could have been a true inspiration.

To not only reject that opportunity, but to seek to tarnish the reputation of the Royal Family in this way, knowing precisely the anger and division it would cause, is an act of malice I simply cannot understand.

The Palace's response today was a model of restrained elegance. 'The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan,' it said, adding: 'The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.

'Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much-loved family members.'

Or in the words of Meghan's new best friend, Michelle Obama, when they go low, the Queen goes high.
WASHINGTON, D.C (WTHI) - The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the latest COVID relief plan as soon as tomorrow. If approved, it will head to President Bidens desk for his signature.

The $1.9 trillion dollar COVID-19 relief plan includes the much-anticipated stimulus checks. Americans making under $75,000 annually would receive a stimulus check of $1400. This is $200 more than the first stimulus check.

Additionally, the almost $2 trillion dollar bill is aimed to help those who are unemployed and provides more funding for education.

"This is a mechanism to get money into the hands of families with young children and to concentrate even more money on the unemployed." Dr. Robert Guell, Economic Professor at Indiana State University, said.

After a long process and with some modifications, the Senate passed a version of the bill over the weekend. The final vote was a split partisan vote of 50-49.

Some local residents expressed their concerns off-camera with News 10, claiming they were not fans of this new stimulus bill. Many critics are concerned because the bill will add to the United States ongoing national debt problem. Currently, the nation has a national debt of $28 trillion dollars. However, others believe this plan will help the community and overall economy for the better.

"I am all for the COVID relief bill, Kevin Hull, a local resident said. "I think it is a good thing. It shouldve been passed a long time ago."

The bill now has to go back to the House of Representatives and if passed, it will be signed into law.
Cybersecurity

Pentagon issues cyber tasking order in response to Exchange hack

The Pentagon has ordered its agencies and commands to take actions "in line" with the emergency directive recently issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in response to vulnerabilities found in Microsoft's Exchange software.

"Joint Force Headquarters - DODIN coordinated with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and then issued a Cyber Tasking Order in line with CISA's emergency directive to all DOD agencies and commands directing them to take actions necessary to protect DoD networks and IT systems," Russell Goemaere, a Pentagon spokesman, told FCW Tuesday.

Goemaere added the Defense Department is also coordinating with the National Security Agency on further steps to protect its networks.

Goemaere did not say what actions the order included, but CISA's March 3 emergency directive instructed federal agencies to either disconnect or update Microsoft Exchange software running on premise as well as conduct forensic analysis for indicators of compromise. CISA's authority extends only to civilian agencies, placing the Pentagon outside of its purview.

The zero-day exploits discovered in Microsoft's product has prompted the White House, the National Security Council and CISA to aggressively push a public message urging U.S. organizations to not only update their systems, but check for compromise.

"I would just take this opportunity to encourage any attendees at this panel, please do urgently look at guidance that my agency, CISA, has put out to mitigate this vulnerability. It is an urgent national risk and I think reflects the fact that, big or small, all organizations face significant cybersecurity risks," Eric Goldstein, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, said Tuesday during a panel hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Greg Touhill, a former Air Force brigadier general and the first federal chief information security officer, said that while CISA's authority may not include the Pentagon, the remediations necessary for military networks are not necessarily unique from civilian ones.

About the Author Justin Katz covers cybersecurity for FCW. Previously he covered the Navy and Marine Corps for Inside Defense, focusing on weapons, vehicle acquisition and congressional oversight of the Pentagon. Prior to reporting for Inside Defense, Katz covered community news in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. areas. Connect with him on Twitter at @JustinSKatz.



"One of the frustrations that's out there is the fact that we do have separate lines of authorities for dot gov and then dot mil," he said. "If CISA puts something out, DOD takes a look at it. They may amplify it, they may ignore it, or they may help inform better documents coming out of CISA, but at this point, there are two distinct management teams."
New Delhi: In an unprecedented development, India on Tuesday summoned UK's High Commissioner to Delhi Alex Ellis to lodge a strong protest after a discussion in UK Parliament over India's new farm laws. The meeting took place in the House of Commons Westminster hall in response to an e-petition campaign.

In a rare summoning by India's Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla, the UK High Commissioner was handed over a demarche or diplomatic note of protests over "unwarranted and tendentious discussion" on "agricultural reforms" in India in the British Parliament.

The readout by India's Ministry of External Affairs said that the Foreign Secretary "made clear" that this "represented a gross interference in the politics of another democratic country" advising that British MPs should "refrain from practising vote bank politics by misrepresenting events, especially in relation to another fellow democracy."

The strongly-worded statement comes even as the Indian high commission in London, just hours before had slammed the "one-sided discussion" of UK MPs calling out the "false assertions - without substantiation or facts - were made, casting aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world and its institutions."

This is not the first time such developments have happened. In the past also, Westminster Hall has witnessed similar discussions.

The discussion saw several MPs speaking against India, which included Pakistan origin UK MP Khalid Mahmood, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, who said, "imagine our collective pain when we see scenes of tear gas and water cannon and brute force being used against farmer".

Jeremy Corbyn, who was the leader of the Labor Party till last year, highlighted the "unprecedented nature" of protest which is the biggest ever "industrial dispute".

The British Govt had strongly defended the Indian govt during the discussion with the UK govt's Minister of State for Asia, Nigel Adams, pointing out that "India's agriculture reforms are India's internal matter."

India and UK have seen high-level engagement, with UK PM Boris Johnson expected to visit India and Indian PM Narendra Modi to visit UK for the G7 summit later this year.
An engineer checks the area of the HCMC's metro line No.1 where a supporting pad for beams used to drop, November 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

HCMCs metro line No.1 investor has agreed that an independent consultant investigates why a supporting pad for beams fell off from its position.

The investor, HCMC Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR), made the decision after failing to figure out why one of the Elastomeric Laminated Bearings pads had fallen out from its position between two beams on the lines elevated section last October.

These pads are made from high purity elastomers that encapsulate layered internal steel reinforcing plates and are designed for use in bridge and building constructions for beam support.

The faulty pad was on the elevated section of the line, which runs 19.7 km (12.24 miles) from Ben Thanh Market in District 1 to Suoi Tien theme park in District 9.

The incident, which happened in October, was detected after cracks were seen on a section in Thu Duc District, now part of the newly established Thu Duc City.

Soon after, the contractor, a consortium comprising Vietnams Civil Engineering Construction Corporation No. 6 (Cienco 6) and Japan's Sumitomo Corporation, said they had fixed the issue, yet made no mention of how the pad had fallen and how it would affect the life and safety of the project.

The investor then decided to inspect the entire project, which was around 80 percent complete then.

For its part, the contractor said that the Covid-19 pandemic had not allowed it to bring foreign experts into Vietnam to carry out inspections. The contractor suggested having an independent consultant do the investigation.

While the MAUR has now agreed to this proposal, the identity of consultants has not been revealed.

It is known that the contractor has brought in two experts, one Japanese and the other South Korean, to HCMC; and that there is a French expert who is yet to arrive.

The investor had found last December that pads lighter than specified in approved designs have been used for supporting beams in the metro line. It said the EB1 and EB4 pads on the metro lines elevated section weigh 117 kilos, which is nine kilos lighter than the design approved five years ago.

Both the pads were imported from South Korea, and around half of the pads used in the metro line No.1 are sourced there.

In January, the State Council for Pre-Acceptance Test of Construction Works concluded that the fault lay with the contractor. Since the project is still under construction and yet to be transferred back to the investor, the council decided that it will "respect all explanations of the contractor for the fault as well as its suggestions to handle the situation."

The metro route No.1 will have 14 stations  11 on elevated sections and three underground.

Its construction is expected to cost VND43.7 trillion ($1.89 billion) in total.

It has been reported that work on the much-delayed project, which began in August 2012, is around 83 percent complete now.

The city had hoped to begin commercial operations by the end of this year, but the investor said in February that the service would be delayed yet again and can only commence next year.

HCMC plans to build eight metro lines running a total of 220 km.
Ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin (right) is charged with the murder of George Floyd. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images; Ramsey County Sheriff's Office via AP

Two men and a woman have been selected to serve on the jury of Derek Chauvin's trial.

Attorneys for the state and defense dismissed more than 20 potential jurors on Tuesday.

Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

After a full day questioning perspective jurors in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, only three people have been chosen to serve on the case.

The first juror, a chemist in his 30s, lives in Minneapolis and is engaged to be married.

The man, who is white, described himself as a "pretty logical person" and said he has generally favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement as he believed all lives matter equally. He said he doesn't believe that the Blue Lives Matter counter viewpoint is necessary.

The man also said he had never seen the viral Facebook video depicting George Floyd's death, but has seen a still photo.

The second juror selected to serve is a woman from northern Minnesota who said she was "super excited" to receive her summons because she is fascinated by the court process.

She described herself as a "go with the flow, open minded person." She saw the video of Floyd's death once, and said it gave her a somewhat negative opinion of Chauvin, but that she could be proven wrong when presented with complete evidence.

The woman said she has an uncle in law enforcement, but that it wouldn't have an impact on how she decides.

As for Black Lives Matter, she said she supports the idea behind the movement, but believes it has been turned into a marketing campaign used by companies to get people to buy products. She feels the same about the pro-cop counter-movement.

The third juror, a man who works as a financial auditor, described himself as "honest, straightforward, and easy to talk to."

He responded that he had a somewhat negative belief of Chauvin because he was involved in a death, but he would base his findings in the case only on the evidence of the trial.

Story continues

He supports Black Lives Matter in general, but said he disagrees with the actions of some members of the organization. He said he has an unfavorable opinion of Blue Lives Matter.

It's going to be difficult to find jurors who don't already have an opinion of the case

Chauvin, who sat in the Minneapolis courtroom on Tuesday in a light grey suit, is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the killing of Floyd.

Widely circulated video from the scene showed Chauvin, a white officer, pinning Floyd's neck with his knee for nearly nine minutes as the Black man begged for help. Floyd's death sparked international outrage and reignited the anti-police brutality movement.

Because of the high profile nature, it's unlikely that any jurors in the pool are unaware of the Chauvin case.

Instead, attorneys for Chauvin and the state are left to assess whether perspective jurors will be able to put their preconceived opinions aside and base their decisions solely on the evidence presented to them in the courtroom.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill is asking for a jury of 12, with two alternates.

Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, and Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank asked potential jurors about the extent of their exposure to the case, as well as to elaborate on questions they answered in the questionnaire that was sent to them beforehand.

Those questions touched on their thoughts about the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements, how they solve conflict in their own lives, and whether safety concerns about how they will be treated after the trial would sway their findings.

Between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. CT, more than 20 people in the jury pool were dismissed.

Cahill expects opening statements for the trial on March 29, with the case lasting up to a month.

Read the original article on Insider
Aerosol simulations show how airborne particles containing SARS-CoV-2 spread within a music classroom and how to use portable HEPA air purifiers to reduce their spread

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 -- The University of Minnesota School of Music was concerned about one-on-one teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and wondered if it should supplement its ventilation system with portable HEPA air purifiers.

So, school officials reached out to Suo Yang, a professor within the College of Science and Engineering, and his team to figure it out. In Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, Yang and the researchers describe their work to predict how virus particles spread within a music classroom.

"The airborne transmission of COVID-19 through droplets or droplet nuclei can be modeled as a typical particle-laden flow, and simulation work needs to accurately capture the movement of particles within the turbulent flow environment," said Yang. "Particle deposition onto the walls and other surfaces also needs to be captured accurately, and we wanted to explore whether particles are trapped in some recirculation zones, ventilated out, or removed by an air purifier."

Their simulations suggest that a HEPA air purifier should be placed directly in front of the person or instrument expelling aerosols and located away from other people who are to be protected within the room.

The researchers' goal was a ventilation rate of 288 cubic meters per hour, per World Health Organization guidelines, for each person within the room. To their knowledge, this is the most comprehensive investigation of using HEPA air purifiers to combat COVID-19.

"The key thing is that while portable purifiers can be very helpful, their placement is critical," said Yang.

It is absolutely critical to not spread aerosols further by inducing a very dispersive flow, according to Sai Ranjeet Narayanan, a graduate research assistant working with Yang.

One big surprise for the researchers was that portable HEPA air purifiers reduce in-air aerosols so much faster than just ventilation -- offering orders of magnitude higher aerosol removal compared to not using a purifier.

If the flow rate of the HVAC system is known, this work can serve as a guideline for the size and number of portable purifiers needed, as well as where to place them.

"Our work also provides a guideline for how long of a break between classes is necessary to ensure the safety of the next class, which is about 25 minutes for this case," said Yang.

"And it provides an analytic function, found to be a linear function, to make predictions for the aerosol removal, deposition, or suspension rate in almost any scenario: breathing, speaking, singing, coughing, sneezing, different wind instruments, with and without masks."

In the future, "we plan to model larger domains with more people, such as bands, orchestras, or any group gathering," Narayanan said. "And we may also compare the performance of different types of purifiers."

###

The article "Airborne transmission of virus-laden aerosols inside a music classroom: Effects of portable purifiers and aerosol injection rates" is authored by Sai Ranjeet Narayanan and Suo Yang. It will appear in Physics of Fluids on March 9, 2021 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0042474). After that date, it can be accessed at https:/ / aip. scitation. org/ doi/ 10. 1063/ 5. 0042474 .

ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Selena Gomez has a new Spanish-language EP entitled Revelacion coming out this week.

And on Tuesday the 28-year-old Texas native's April cover for Vogue magazine came out to promote the collection of songs that range from the up-tempo Baila Conmigo to the catchy Selfish Love.

In her wide-ranging interview the ex-girlfriend of Justin Bieber talked about her recent bipolar diagnosis and how she copes with it, why she wants to shake her Disney image and prove she has a lot to bring to a movie, and what she did to deal with her anxiety and pain over lockdown from COVID-19.

She looks better than ever: Selena Gomez has a new Spanish-language EP, entitled Revelacion. And this week the 28-year-old Texas native has landed on the cover of Vogue to promote her new collection of songs

And she touched on her time in rehab. 'I knew I couldn't go on unless I learned to listen to my body and mind when I really needed help,' she began, adding late-night anxiety was an issue.

'And then I start thinking about my personal life, and I'm like, What am I doing with my life? and it becomes this spiral,' added the star; this is the most she would touch on about her ex Bieber. In 2018 he shocked fans when he wed Hailey Bieber after splitting from Selena months earlier.

Gomez was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder and she touched on that too: 'Once the information was there, it was less scary,' she said.

One way she stays healthy is by stepping away from social media.

'I woke up one morning and looked at Instagram, like every other person, and I was done,' she shared. 'I was tired of reading horrible things. I was tired of seeing other people's lives. After that decision, it was instant freedom. My life in front of me was my life, and I was present, and I could not have been more happy about it.' But Selena maintains her posts are done by her and not a manager.

Cover gal: In her wide-ranging interview the ex-girlfriend of Justin Bieber talked about her recent bipolar diagnosis and how she copes with it, why she wants to shake her Disney image and prove she has a lot to bring to a movie, and what she did to deal with her anxiety and pain over lockdown from COVID-19

Selena does not appear to be dating anyone at the moment but she seems to have hope for romance in the future, she told writer Jia.

'I cant meet someone and know if they like me for me,' she shared about how her fame complicates dating.

'To be honest, I just want to start over. I want everything to be brand-new. I want someone to love me like Im brand-new,' she said of her fame.

The beauty, who was photographed by Nadine Ijewere, also talked about how lockdown has been hard for her.

Isolation: The beauty, who was photographed by Nadine Ijewere, also talked about how lockdown has been hard for her

'I watch CNN, but I try not to do it too much, because I'm empathetic to the point that I'll cry at anything. I cried a lot during quarantine, just for the pain of everyone else,' she said.

And she said she felt the Trump administration was responsible for 'so many pointless deaths.'

As far as Black Lives Matter protests she said: 'I thought, Who am I to talk? Am I going to post a picture and say, This is important? No, I need to learn; I need to figure out people's pain.'

She turned over her Instagram account to Kimberle Crenshaw and Alicia Garza, and also interviewed Stacey Abrams for the digital organization She Se Puede.

Building the hype: Gomez unveiled the track listing for her upcoming Spanish-language EP, entitled Revelacion, as well as a new article of album art

'My first engagement with Selena was revelatory: She expressed an honest disengagement with traditional politics while also showing a hunger for solving real, painful problems,' said Abrams. 'In that, she embodied the most powerful voterone who comes to participation because she knows better is both possible and her right.'

And Gomez also discussed her acting career: 'I haven't even touched the surface of what I want to do. I can't wait for the moment when a director can see that I'm capable of doing something that no one's ever seen.'

As far as being a Disney kid she shared: 'That was my job in a wayto be perfect. You're considered a figure kids look up to, and they take that seriously there.'

A new look: She has already released a music video to go with her album; seen here from Baila Conmigo

Gomez added, 'I think I spent so many years just trying to say the right thing to people for the sake of keeping myself sane... I'm just such a people-pleaser.'

But she hopes Hollywood sees her as more.

'I still live with this haunting feeling that people still view me as this Disney girl,' Gomez added.

She is currently shooting Only Murders In The Building with Steve Martin and Martin Short.

Last week Gomez unveiled the track listing for her upcoming EP Revelacion and a new article of album art.

The songwriter first teased a Spanish-language project in 2011 but made little reference to the idea over the next few years.

On January 14, the performer released the single De Una Vez, which seemingly confirmed suspicions that she was following through with her past statement.

That same day, a music video for the song premiered on Gomez's official YouTube account and received critical praise for its visuals.

Further speculation regarding the project was raised when murals featuring various song titles were installed in the coastal Mexican town of Sayulita.

The upcoming release will be comprised of seven songs, three of which include features from artists Rauw Alejandro, Myke Towers and DJ Snake. Revelacion is set to be released on March 12.
Indian-American Maju Varghese, who previously served as a key member of the Biden campaign and the inaugural committee, was on Tuesday formally appointed as Director of the Military Office.

As the WHMO Director, Varghese will oversee all military operations aboard Air Force One on Presidential missions worldwide.

The Military Office (WHMO) is a department within the Office that provides military support for White House functions, including food service, presidential transportation, medical support, emergency medical services and hospitality services.

Varghese, who is in his early forties, was one of the four members of the presidential inaugural committee, which organised the activities surrounding the swearing-in of President and Vice President Kamala Harris on January 20.

He previously served as the chief operating officer of the Biden campaign during the 2020 presidential election, overseeing the campaign's day-to-day operations and leading it through an unprecedented shift to remote working.

Varghese was born in the US to parents who immigrated from Thiruvalla, Kerala. He has a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherts.

He earlier served in the White House under president Barack Obama in various roles, including as the assistant to the president for management and administration and deputy director of advance. He has also worked as the chief operating officer at The Hub Project and as a senior advisor at the law firm Dentons.

As the assistant to the President for management and administration from July 2015 to January 2017, Varghese was responsible for day-to-day operations of the White House complex including oversight of White House budget, personnel, facilities, tours and major events.

As special assistant to the President and deputy director of advance from June 2014 to July 2015, he served as the head of the US delegation for pre-advance visits around the world composed of White House staff, National Security staff, the White House Military Office and the United States Secret Service.

Varghese is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the Maurice A. Dean School of Law at Hofstra University.

President Biden and Vice President Harris on Tuesday announced the appointments of additional White House staff who will serve in the Office of Administration, White House Counsel's Office, Office of Legislative Affairs, Office of Management and Administration, White House Military Office, Office of Presidential Correspondence, and Speechwriting.

The new staff bring a breadth of exceptional talent, diverse experience, and steadfast dedication to the White House and will play key roles supporting the Biden-Harris Administration's commitment to tackling the crises facing the country and building back better, a media release said on Tuesday.

Faisal Amin has been appointed as Deputy Director of Management and Administration and the Office of Administration; Dan Jacobson as General Counsel for the Office of Administration; Dana Rosenzweig as Deputy Director of Management and Administration for Operations; Alicia O'Brien as Senior Counsel; and Jonathan Black as Special Assistant to the President and Senate Legislative Affairs Liaison.

Elizabeth Jurinka has been appointed as as Special Assistant to the President and Senate Legislative Affairs Liaison; Chad Metzler as Special Assistant to the President and Senate Legislative Affairs Liaison; Jim Secreto as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Confirmations; Eva Kemp as Director of Presidential Correspondence; Amber Macdonald as Senior Presidential Speechwriter and Jeff Nussbaum as Senior Presidential Speechwriter.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi, March 10 : The Special Cell of Delhi police have arrested three men and seized 10 kg of heroin worth Rs 40 crore from them, officials said.

Several mobile handsets and several SIM cards used in the illegal drug trafficking activities have also been recovered.

The three accused were identified as Uday Patel, Kapil Kumar and Ram Naresh Yadav.

This drug cartel was known to be operated by Jameer, Furkan and Kallu who are lodged in Beru Jail, Patna.

Members of this cartel were identified and their activities were kept under discreet surveillance.

"The trend revealed during recent arrests shows that the Golden Triangle area (Lhasa, Thailand and Myanmar) via North Eastern states started showing its presence on the drug map of the Indian subcontinent," said Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, DCP Special Cell.

One of the accused Uday Patel was arrested by DRI in a NDPS Act case in the year 2018 and lodged in Beur Jail, Patna where he met with Jameer, Furkan and Kallu, who were already lodged in jail in a NDPS Act case.

He started taking supply of heroin from them and further supplied the same in various places of Delhi/NCR and UP, Haryana.
The High Commission of India in London has condemned a debate among some British lawmakers on an e-petition over the right of peaceful protests and freedom of the press in India amid the ongoing farmers' stir against three laws on agricultural reform. The Commission damned the debate, held on Monday evening inside the British parliamentary premises, as "false assertions" in a "distinctly one-sided discussion".

"We deeply regret that rather than a balanced debate, false assertions -- without substantiation or facts -- were made, casting aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world and its institutions," the commission said in a statement after the Monday evening debate on an e-petition.

The debate was held in response to an e-petition which had crossed the 100,000-signature threshold, required for it to be approved by the House of Commons Petitions Committee. The Indian High Commission made its displeasure known despite the British government earlier reiterating that the three New Delhi laws on agricultural reform were a "domestic matter".

The British government also underlined India's importance, saying "India and the UK together work as a force for good in the UN Security Council and bilateral cooperation between the two countries helps fix many global problems".

In its statement, the Indian mission also pointed out that foreign media, including British media, had been present and witnessed the events surrounding the farmers' protests in India first-hand and therefore any "question of lack of freedom of the media in India does not arise".

It lamented that a false narrative over farmers' protest was sought to be developed even though "the High Commission of India has been, over a period of time, taking care to inform all concerned about the issues raised in the petition." The High Commission said it was compelled to react to the lawmakers' debate due to the apprehensions cast on India.

"The High Commission of India would normally refrain from commenting on an internal discussion involving a small group of Honourable Parliamentarians in a limited quorum," the statement said. "However, when aspersions are cast on India by anyone, irrespective of their claims of friendship and love for India or domestic political compulsions, there is a need to set the record straight," it added.

The statement followed a group of around dozen cross-party British MPs debating issues around the alleged "use of force" against protesters opposed to agricultural reforms in India and journalists being targeted while covering the protests.

As the British government minister deputed to respond to the debate, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Minister Nigel Adams said the close UK-India relationship did not hinder the UK in any way from raising difficult issues with India, even as he reiterated the government line that agricultural reforms are a "domestic matter" for India.

"This is a time of great ambition for the UK's relationship with India. Both governments are working to advance shared priorities across trade and investment, health, sustainability and climate change and defence and security," said Adams.

"We are also working with India as a force for good in the UN Security Council and as one of the Prime Minister's [Boris Johnson] guest countries at the G7 summit later this year in June. This cooperation will help us fix global problems and it will strengthen prosperity and wellbeing in India and the UK," he said.

"However, whilst this is an exciting time for the UK-India partnership, it does not hinder us from raising difficult issues," the minister said, adding that "candid discussions" on a range of issues will form part of Boris Johnson's planned visit to India in the coming months.

While the minister acknowledged the "alarm and uncertainty" the farmers' protests and their coverage in India had caused among British communities with family ties in India, he expressed hope that the ongoing dialogue between the Indian government and farmers' unions will have positive results.

Virendra Sharma, the Opposition Labour MP for Ealing Southall in west London with a large Punjabi diaspora, sought to counsel both the Indian government and agitating farmers to reach an agreement over the issue. "Both sides need to step back and recognise the need to come to an agreement I hope the (British) government will commit to helping that cause and offer British skills in negotiation and compromise to help both sides to bring this issue to a close," he said.

The debate, held in a hybrid form with some MPs participating via videolink in a room at Portcullis House in London, related to the e-petition entitled "Urge the Indian Government to ensure the safety of protesters & press freedom".

"We have only been able to hold the government to account today [Monday] thanks to the power of democracy. A petition started by Liberal Democrat Councillor, Gurch Singh, and signed by over 100,000 people, has forced the government to stop hiding on this important issue," said Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat MP and spokesperson for foreign affairs.

From the ruling Conservative Party backbenches, Theresa Villiers noted that agricultural reform is an issue that has proved difficult across the world over the years and pointed out that the new agricultural laws in India had been postponed to allow for greater "consultation and discussion".

"I understand that protesting farmers feel insecure about their future, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has repeatedly said that a core purpose of the reforms is to make farming more profitable, to raise the incomes of people who work in farming and to promote investment in agriculture to increase yields," she said.

"I hear the concerns expressed about the response to the protests, but when thousands and thousands of people are involved in demonstrations and encampments lasting months and months, no policing response can altogether avoid controversial episodes," she said.

Farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several Delhi border points, including Tikri, Singhu and Ghazipur, since November 28, demanding a complete repeal of the three farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

The government has denied allegations that it was trying to put an end to the MSP and the mandi system.

Also read: SEBI reforms Unique Client Code, PAN framework
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Less than a month after Los Alamos National Laboratory announced it would open an office in downtown Santa Fe to accommodate 75 workers, the lab said Monday that it is signing leases with two neighboring properties in another part of town to house 500 more employees.

The two buildings  Ark Plaza and Pollon Plaza  stand side by side on a hill near St. Michaels Drive and Pacheco Street, next to a Smiths grocery store. Both are two-story buildings of more than 39,000 square feet. A news release says the buildings will allow the lab to provide more room for offices, meeting rooms and co-work space.

The buildings were previously leased by state government and have been unoccupied for about two years.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

The leases are for 10 years. The lab says no hazardous work will take place in the buildings being leased. Instead, human resources, procurement, finance and information technology administrative offices will be located at the sites.

The buildings will house current lab employees, but the lab says it plans to hire 1,200 new employees during the current fiscal year.

While LANL conducts scientific research in a wide range of industries, it is best known for developing the atomic bomb, and its work continues to focus on expanding the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

Last month, LANL said it would be moving into a 28,000-square-foot building on Guadalupe Street in downtown Santa Fe that was home to the tech firm Descartes Labs. Employees will move into that building when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, the news release says, while the buildings on Pacheco Street wont open until this fall.

This is the largest job relocation initiative in Santa Fes history, LANL Director Thom Mason said in a statement. He added that the lab welcomes the opportunity to make a positive economic impact on Santa Fe and be a good employer.

Having two major office buildings fully occupied promises to strengthen the Santa Fe economy and anchor the St. Michaels commercial corridor, said Bridget Dixson, president and CEO of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is pleased to welcome the laboratory to the business community.

But not everyone is happy about LANL moving into Santa Fe.

Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, said in a statement that LANLs move into Santa Fe is a precursor for more expansion as the lab works to increase production of plutonium pits, the triggering device in nuclear warheads.

These leases are the first time since World War II that Santa Fe was home to a large prime contractor for nuclear weapons, he said. I think we can expect one or more additional leases in Santa Fe, Rio Arriba or Sandoval counties, unless the Biden administration wises up. This is a Trump program, designed to deliver plutonium pits on an emergency, surge basis.
US to continue helping Taiwan in developing its defense capabilities

Washington, Mar 8 (UNI) The United States will continue to support Taiwan in the development of it's self-defense capabilities despite objections by the People's Republic of China's(PRC), White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday.

Addressing that daily media briefing Psaki said "Our position on Taiwan remains clear. We will stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security and values. And in the Indo-Pacific region we maintain our long-standing commitments... We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability. So our position remains the same,"

PRC's foreign minister Wang Yi had on Sunday urged the new US "to fully understand the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue" and abandon "dangerous practices of crossing the line and playing with fire.
Lady Gaga and Adam Driver vanished into character in a first-look image of their upcoming murder biopic House Of Gucci.

Gaga, 34, posted the throwback chic snap of herself and Adam posing against a snowy Alpine setting as the then happily married Gucci couple.

Adam plays onetime brand chief Maurizio Gucci and Gaga plays his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani who was convicted of ordering his 1995 murder by a hit man.

'Signore e Signora Gucci': Lady Gaga and Adam Driver vanished into character in a first-look image of their upcoming murder biopic House Of Gucci

Gaga, who frequently expresses pride in her Italian heritage, captioned: 'Signore e Signora Gucci #HouseOfGucci.'

Legendary director Ridley Scott whose movies include Alien and Gladiator is at the helm of the biopic which will feature Patrizia's trial.

Patrizia married Maurizio in 1972 but based on the clothing choices of Gaga's first look image it appears to show their life a bit later in the marriage.

The couple lived a sensational jet-setting lifestyle amid a social circle that included Jacqueline Onassis who also lent her luster to Gucci's clothes.

The way they were: Adam plays onetime brand chief Maurizio Gucci and Gaga plays his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani who was convicted of ordering his 1995 murder by a hit man

Patrizia gave Mauricio two daughters - Alessandra and Allegra - but he dumped her for another woman in 1985 and the divorce became official in 1991.

In a Guardian profile a few years ago Patrizia discussed their marital problems and pointed to his poor skill at running the company after his father Rodolfo died.

Gruppo Gucci hemorrhaged money under Maurizio who eventually sold it to the Bahrain-based company Investcorp in 1993.

'I was angry with Maurizio about many, many things at that time. But above all, this. Losing the family business. It was stupid. It was a failure,' said Patrizia in 2016.

'Black Widow': Although she had a hit man dispatch Maurizio in 1995 she was not arrested until the beginning of 1997; she is pictured attending his funeral in Milan

'I was filled with rage, but there was nothing I could do,' she confessed before adding softly: 'He shouldnt have done that to me.'

Although she had a hit man dispatch Maurizio, the grandson of the brand's founder Guccio Gucci, in 1995 she was not arrested until the beginning of 1997.

When a reporter asked her why she used an assassin instead of doing the job herself she joked: 'My eyesight is not so good. I didn't want to miss.'

The 'Black Widow's' trial became a media circus and she was convicted in 1998, serving 18 years before being paroled in 2016.

Out and about: The 'Black Widow's' trial became a media circus and she was convicted of the murder in 1998, serving 18 years before being paroled in 2016; she is pictured in 2018 in Milan

She had been offered parole a half-decade prior but turned it down because of the expectation that she would find employment.

'Ive never worked in my life and I dont intend to start now,' Patrizia reportedly informed her lawyer at the time.

Roberto Bentivegna adapted the script of the film from Saray Gay Forden's book The House Of Gucci: A Sensational Story Of Murder, Madness, Glamour And Greed.

Production reportedly started in Rome last month and the movie is scheduled to be released this November 24 the day before Thanksgiving.

Close but no cigar: Gaga recently got a best actress Oscar nod for Bradley Cooper's remake of A Star Is Burn which she is pictured on the red carpet for at the Venice Film Festival

Gaga and Adam are both coming off recent Oscar nominations for acting, though they both have yet to win in that category.

He got a best actor nomination last year for Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story and a best supporting actor nod the previous year for Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman.

Gaga was nominated for best actress for Bradley Cooper's 2018 remake of A Star Is Born and although she did not win that prize she got best original song for Shallow.

In 2019 Patrizia herself was asked about Ridley's film by RAI and said she was unhappy that her daughters would have to relive 'the situation of their father.'
A new type of CAR T-cell therapy more than triples the expected length of remission for multiple myeloma patients who have relapsed several times, according to an international clinical trial with UT Southwestern as the lead enrolling site.

Results of the trial, published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, were significantly better than those seen with other therapies available to heavily relapsed and refractory myeloma patients who had already received the three main classes of treatment. Nearly three-quarters of the patients had at least a partial response to the therapy. About a third achieved a complete remission, with the disappearance of all traces of cancer.

Median time without the disease worsening was 8.8 months with this new treatment, but Larry D. Anderson Jr., M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of internal medicine and co-first author of the journal article, points out that patients who received the trial's maximum dose of engineered T-cells experienced longer remissions, bringing the average to more than 12 months. Previously, similar patients treated with currently available therapies following multiple relapses have only had an average of three to four months of remission before their disease returned.

"We have patients that are over two years out from their single infusion of CAR T-cells and still in remission despite having no other treatment options when they were enrolled in this trial," says Anderson, a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center who cares exclusively for patients with plasma cell disorders, mostly myeloma patients. "The results mark a true breakthrough with unprecedented depth and duration of remissions from what we hope will be the first cellular therapy option to become available for myeloma patients. Even though we don't yet know if some of these patients may be cured, and many relapse within one to two years, it can at least buy many patients time until other treatment options become available. Most patients also have good quality of life with relatively low risk of severe CAR T-cell-related side effects."

Multiple myeloma, the second most common blood cancer, is a cancer of plasma cells, a white blood cell important in the immune system. The disease's attack on bone marrow puts patients at risk of life-threatening infections. It is diagnosed in more than 32,000 people a year, and African Americans are twice as likely as the general population to be diagnosed with this disease.

Three main classes of treatment are available now for multiple myeloma: drugs called proteasome inhibitors, drugs to modulate the immune system, and antibody treatments. Among more than a dozen new therapies for myeloma approved by the Food and Drug Administration over the past decade, most offer only a few months of remission for patients with multiple relapses. Until now, most treatments induce responses in only a third of patients, and complete remissions are rare.

The phase 2 trial involved 128 patients, ages 18 and older, who previously had been given regimens from the three main classes of treatment. The patients received a median of six previous antimyeloma regimens; 120 formerly had undergone stem cell transplantation.

The clinical trial included nine sites in the U.S., one in Canada, and 10 sites in five European countries. Several patients traveled from as far away as Michigan and Minnesota to UT Southwestern's Dallas campus to be part of the trial.

Study participants had their T-cells engineered to target a molecule called B-cell maturation antigen, or BCMA, which is only found in plasma cells and myeloma cells. This new T-cell therapy for myeloma patients is called idecabtagene vicleucel, or ide-cel. It is also known as bb2121.

The infusions of the engineered cells started a two-week hospitalization period during which doctors watched for possible side effects such as anemia; neutropenia, a drop in a type of white blood cells; and thrombocytopenia, a drop in blood platelets. Although low blood counts were common, they were manageable, and other severe side effects were uncommon.

One of the nice things we saw in this study was that the rates of severe CAR T-cell-related toxicities - called neurotoxicity and cytokine release syndrome - were very low in multiple myeloma compared to what we have seen with lymphoma CAR T-cell infusions. The majority of people had some side effects, but most were low level and manageable, and I would say this therapy is often much better tolerated than a stem cell transplant, which most of these patients had already gone through." Larry D. Anderson Jr., M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Co-First Author

Pioneered in the late 1980s, CAR T-cell therapy is a promising and still emerging treatment for blood cancers. CAR, which stands for chimeric antigen receptor, takes part of its name from the chimera, the mythical animal with the tail of a serpent and head of a lion. In modern medicine's version of the chimera, the head is an antibody, and the tail is a T-cell receptor. CAR T-cell therapy involves harvesting a patient's own T-cells by withdrawing blood, reengineering them in a lab to have this cancer-fighting chimera, and then growing hundreds of millions of them to put back into the patient by infusion.

CAR T-cell therapy is currently approved for use only in lymphoma and leukemia. Several different CAR T-cell treatments for myeloma are in clinical trials, but this CAR T-cell treatment is the first to complete and publish data from an FDA registration trial. Based on these results, the pharmaceutical companies Bristol Myers Squibb and bluebird bio are seeking FDA approval of ide-cel as a standard therapy for relapsed myeloma with a decision expected by the end of March.

The trial was funded by bluebird bio and Celgene, a Bristol Myers Squibb company. Anderson is a consultant who serves on an advisory board for Celgene and has other consulting activities disclosed in the manuscript.
A woman who was shot in the leg during a violent robbery at the swanky Beverly Hills Il Pastaio restaurant has opened up about the 'chaotic' ordeal and says it felt like someone had strapped a firecracker to her.

Amanda Shawhan was injured last week when a bullet grazed her left calf after three men stormed the Italian restaurant and stole a man's $500,000 Richard Mille watch.

The men started shooting when the man, since identified as jewelry dealer Shay Belhassen, initially refused to hand over his watch.

Footage from the scene showed Shawhan on the phone as she was being carted off by first responders after the shooting.

'It was absolutely chaotic,' Shawhan told CBSLA on Monday.

Amanda Shawhan was injured last week when a bullet grazed her left calf after three men stormed the Il Pastaio restaurant in Beverly Hills and stole a man's $500,000 Richard Mille watch

'Imagine someone tying a firecracker to your leg and then setting it off.'

Shawhan described being traumatized by the violent ordeal and said she hoped the suspects would turn themselves in.

'Obviously, everyone that was at the restaurant, their lives are permanently altered for having this experience,' she said.

Her attorney, Joseph Low, isn't sure yet if his client will pursue legal action as a result of the ordeal.

He said he is investigating what can be done to stop the influx of crime in the area.

'Beverly Hills has become the new hunting ground for those who are looking for a quick snatch. It can get violent, and it can get deadly, and it needs to be fixed,' he said.

Surveillance video from outside the restaurant captured the moment terrified diners ran for their lives last week when the suspects stormed in.

Footage from the scene showed Shawhan on the phone as she was being carted off by first responders after the shooting

Shawhan described being traumatized by the violent ordeal and said she hoped the suspects would turn themselves in

Police said Shawhan was treated by Beverly Hills Fire Department Paramedics at the scene before being transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries

Witnesses say the thieves arrived at the restaurant and approached a man who was wearing the exorbitantly expensive Richard Mille watch.

The thieves stole a $500,00 Richard Mille watch (like the one shown above)

When he refused to hand it over to them, they started shooting and Shawhan caught a bullet to the lower leg.

The thieves then started fleeing.

The video, filmed from a nearby store, showed one suspect tumbling out of the covered outdoor dining area, while another was wrestled to the ground before eventually being able to flee.

Diners could be seen running in all directions as the shots were fired.

It isn't yet clear if the thieves knew who to target or if the man with the expensive watch was randomly selected once they arrived.

Police said Shawhan was treated by Beverly Hills Fire Department Paramedics at the scene before being transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

A second victim was also injured and treated at the scene.

The video, filmed from a nearby store, shows a man (top left) tumbling out of the covered outdoor dining area at the swanky eatery
Harris County on Tuesday revealed a $1.4 billion shortfall in funding for flood control projects under the bond program voters approved in 2018, a massive miscalculation that threatens to cause construction delays and cost taxpayers more than expected.

Budget Officer David Berry told Commissioners Court that projected funding from state and federal partners, which was supposed to supplement the $2.5 billion investment by county taxpayers, has not materialized. As a result, the county has committed to doing more work than it currently can afford to do.

The hope after Hurricane Harvey that federal and state partners would really be focused on Harris County, where we saw the worst damage, has not altogether turned out to be true, Berry said.

Berry said the county believes it can secure an additional $100 to $500 million from the state and federal governments, but that still leaves a substantial gap.

Projects in several watersheds are close to fully funded, though planned improvements in three  Halls Bayou, Greens Bayou and the San Jacinto River  have less than half the necessary dollars. Harris County Flood Control District Executive Director Russ Poppe said no projects will be delayed so long as the funding gap is closed by the end of this year.

The bond program currently is projected to be completed around 2028. The flood control district has spent money to design some projects in anticipation of receiving matching funds to begin construction.

The court on Tuesday unanimously approved a motion directing the Harris County Flood Control District to develop a plan to secure more funds by June 30. Berry offered several potential solutions, including using some toll road funds or raising the flood control district property tax rate.

Harris County voters overwhelmingly approved the $2.5 billion bond program in August 2018. Then-County Judge Ed Emmett and flood control district leaders said by making a down payment on better flood protection, voters could expect state and federal partners to invest an additional $2 billion or so in the plan. So far, that has turned out to be only partially accurate.

Poppe said the shortfall dates back to early 2018, when Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act. The measure provided a collective $66 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Housing and Urban Development and FEMA to help the country recover from the previous years destructive storm season, which included hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

Harris County and the city of Houston in 2019 received $1 billion each from HUD to repair and rebuild Harvey-damaged homes; the county received an additional $225 million from FEMA for buyouts.

Poppe said the county planned on receiving an additional $1 billion from HUD for flood control projects.

The logic was  the federal government can get a level of protection on that investment they just made, Poppe said.

That funding flowed from Washington through the state General Land Office, however, which decided instead to ask Texas cities and counties to apply for individual grants. Poppe said his office has made $900 million in requests, which he hoped would be decided later in the spring.

Emmett said he made clear to voters in 2018 that matching funds were not guaranteed. He said instead of expressing frustration with flood control district leaders for appropriation decisions beyond their control, Commissioners Court should focus its effort on ensuring the existing funds are spent.

We said $900 million is set aside for federal matching funds, Emmett said. If those dont come through, theres no reason why the county cant go ahead and spend it.

Hidalgo told the Chronicle she agreed that Commissioners Court is ultimately responsible for the bond program and said she supported hiring Berry as budget director last year so he would tackle complex issues, instead of just kicking the can down the road.

Its becoming clearer and clearer that additional sources of funding will be necessary, Hidalgo said. We are pursuing that, as well, while continuing to push our state and federal partners to do their part.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said the massive investment local taxpayer money was supposed to correct historic inequities in flood protection. He was particularly piqued that the Halls and Greens watersheds, where many poor residents live, were among the least-funded.

Poppe did not say how many potential projects may be need to be scaled down. Most projects already are underway. The flood control district plans to give a comprehensive update on the bond program to Commissioners Court at its March 30 meeting.

Since before the flood control bond passed in 2018, Commissioners Court members generally have agreed that future bonds would be necessary, since the flood control district pegs the full cost of protecting the county against 100-year storms at more than $30 billion.

Ellis said voters likely would reject future proposals if they feel they were tricked into supporting the first one.

A bond issue will never pass for this county again if we have blood on our hands, Ellis said. We gave those people hope; a clear expectation that we would not let chasing state and federal money dictate what we do.

Precinct 3s Tom Ramsey agreed, arguing the county must complete all 181 projects and keep its word to voters.

What we committed to do  what we said at those 22 bond meetings, that is what were going to do, Ramsey said. If we need a Plan B, lets talk about it.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who took office five months after the bond passed, said the local government once again is scrambling to fix a dilemma that should have been anticipated.

She compared the flood bond to her predecessors plan to renovate the Astrodome, which she views as an unambitious, underfunded solution to a grand problem. And she implored Berry and Poppe to get to work quickly on a better plan.

Im glad that Dave, youre thinking about this strategically, Hidalgo said. But this is not just a budget issue. This is a strategic thinking issue. And Russ, your strategic thinking needs to be up real quick.

zach.despart@chron.com
The Executive Office has refused to rule out the reopening of coffee shops before all pupils have returned to school - despite its pledge that children are the priority as Northern Ireland moves out of lockdown.

Last week, the Executive published its five-stage lockdown exit strategy, which reveals that a full return to classroom teaching for schools is scheduled to happen by the end of step three, known as the Gradual Easing phase.

However, the document states that it will be possible to go for a meal with a friend to a coffee shop, host a small barbecue in a garden with one other household, or play a round of golf by the end of the second stage, known as the Cautious First Steps phase.

The Executive has said restrictions in different sections can be eased at different times, but when asked whether it plans to keep in place current restrictions until all pupils are back in school and the impact on the R number has been assessed, a spokeswoman did not give a firm guarantee.

She said: "The Executive has prioritised the education and well-being of young people and aims to return all students to school as soon as possible after the Easter holidays, subject to levels of community transmission.

"As outlined in the pathway out of restrictions, progress through the phases will be based on a range of evidence and will seek to balance benefits with the potential impact on the transmission of the virus. This means we may be in different phases across the nine pathways at any given time."

Public health physician Professor Gabriel Scally, a member of independent SAGE advisory group, said allowing more people to mix will result in a rise in community transmission and could hinder plans for all schools to reopen. He said: "The current position is ridiculous - the first priority should be children going back to school safely but that simply isn't the case at the moment.

"The Executive should be giving a clear commitment on this issue. It is either a priority or it isn't, and if churches or coffee shops reopening are more important, then they should come out and say that.

"As soon as people begin to mix again, the infection rate will begin to increase. We should be getting all children back to school safely and assessing the effect on the rate of infection before we move on to opening up other sectors.

"We used to think that the virus spread in droplets but we now know it is aerosol spread so it hangs in the air and you get a build up in enclosed spaces.

"Secondly, we are dealing with a variant that is much more infectious than when we came out of lockdown the first time, so I don't think it is accurate to say that coffee shops are particularly low risk."

Professor Helen Dolk, a professor of epidemiology and health research who is also a member of the Independent Scientific Advocacy Group, said: "I think there is general agreement that children are special and an absolute priority. So I would like to see an explicit commitment in the roadmap that there will never again be a situation like last Halloween that schools are closed while shops or cafes are open.

"Closing schools is the last resort when other measures are insufficient, and is only worthwhile to reduce transmission if there are no alternative indoor contact venues. If we want our children in school, the health service to recover, and the domestic economy to pick up, then this year we need to be strict about quarantine for international travel, while we let the vaccination program kick in here and globally. It is not a pick and mix situation - all measures combining together is what controls the virus."

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: It is the ministers preference to have all pupils in school as soon as practicably possible, but this has to be balanced against the public health position. The advice that the Executive has received from the medical and scientific experts is that this should be done cautiously and slowly.

The department has provided detailed guidance to schools on Covid management, which is based on the latest public health advice and is updated regularly.
Lucknow, March 9 : The attack on BJP MP Kaushal Kishore's son, Ayush, in Lucknow on March 2, has taken yet another twist after Ayush, who has been absconding ever since, has released a video message on Tuesday in which he has said that he was 'honey-trapped' by his 'wife' Ankita.

Ayush apologised to his parents for his misadventures and said that he would soon surrender before the police.

Denying the charge that he had staged the attack on himself, Ayush said that he had not done any such thing.

"The attack on me on the night of March 2 was an attempt to kill me. I am prepared to answer all questions of the police," said Ayush.

He said that he had met Ankita seven months ago and fell in love with her. He married her against the wishes of his parents.

Ayush said that he emotionally blackmailed his father by sitting on the railway track and threatening to commit suicide.

He said that "girls like Ankita honeytrap boys from well-to-do families". He alleged that Ankita has had several marriages before.

"She had earlier married one Pradeep Singh. All was well till I kept spending money on her and her family, but trouble began when I ran out of money," he said.

Meanwhile, as soon as the video went viral on Tuesday morning, a police team reached Ankita's residence Mandiaon where she is being interrogated.

Ayush was shot at on the night of March 2 and his brother-in-law Adarsh was arrested by the police after he was seen in the CCTV footage.

He had fired on Ayush's directions.

Ayush had left the hospital after getting first aid and has been absconding ever since.

The BJP MP had disowned his son saying that he had no relations with Ayush since he got married.
Tear gas and fire extinguisher gas surround demonstrators as they run away from police during a protest against the military in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 8, 2021. Photo by Reuters.

Experts are calling for greater international engagement with the ongoing Myanmar junta-people standoff, saying the resultant socio-economic disruption will inflict long term damage.

Nicholas Coppel, former Australian ambassador to Myanmar, said the people of Myanmar as well as the military seem to be very firm in their respective positions and there is no conversation between the two. The situation might get worse the longer it remains unresolved. The situation has been continuing for six weeks now; and there's no resolution in sight.

"In terms of the future, we can see that the situation in Myanmar is very much like a standoff, and that will continue for quite some time until there is a possible change in personalities in the military brass or something like that," Coppel told VnExpress International.

Myanmar is experiencing political instability after its army seized power and detained government leader Aung San Suu Kyi and much of her party leadership last month. More than 70 people have been killed in widespread protests against the militarys seizure of power.

Mahn Win Khaing Than, an acting vice-president appointed by representatives of Myanmars ousted lawmakers, the Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, addressed the public via Facebook, saying, "This is the darkest moment of the nation and the moment that the dawn is close." He is in hiding along with most senior officials from the ruling National League for Democracy Party, Reuters reported.

Coppel said it was difficult to predict what will happen next as the situation remains in flux. He welcomed the statement issued by the President of the United Nations Security Council on Myanmar, saying it showed that the council was deeply concerned about the developments in the country.

"The democratic processes (mentioned in the statement) include elections, even though they didn't use that word," he said.
IF you have absolutely no urgent or emergency need to be outdoors today, then remain at home.

Should you take a chance and decide to tempt fate, then it may most likely result in you being stopped and questioned by police officers and members of the Defence Force, or even find yourself charged and taken before a court.


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
An Indigenous elder has called for historical injustices to be properly addressed as Victoria confirmed an Australian-first inquiry  to be known as the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission  into the wrongs committed against Aboriginal people.

In the Wemba Wemba language Yoo-rrook means truth and, as revealed in The Age on Tuesday, the commission will investigate two centuries of colonisation and oppression in the state.

Wurundjeri and Woiwurrung elder Aunty Joy Wandin Murphy, First Peoples Assembly co-chair Geraldine Atkinson, Deputy Premier James Merlino, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Gabrielle Williams and assembly co-chair Marcus Stewart at the announcement of the commission on Tuesday. Credit:Simon Schluter

Speaking at the announcement of the commission at Coranderrk, near Healesville, Wurundjeri and Woiwurrung elder Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin asked the people of Victoria to please hear our voices in the pursuit of equality and justice.

Without an investigation, she said, governments could not begin to meaningfully address the systemic issues that have stacked the odds against Aboriginal people.
New Delhi, March 9 : In yet another fillip to the Make in India and domestic manufacturing dream of the Indian government, Apple said on Tuesday that its flagship and environment-friendly iPhone 12 smartphone will soon be produced in India for the local customers.

The news comes at a time when the iPhone 12 series has received stupendous response in the country.

"We are proud to be starting production of iPhone 12 in India for our local customers," Apple told IANS in a statement.

"Apple is dedicated to making the best products and services in the world to delight our customers," the company added.

Despite arriving in October, the iPhone 12 contributed significantly towards the rise of Apple in the festive quarter (October-December period) in the country, according to market intelligence firm CyberMedia Research (CMR).

Apple registered over 60 per cent growth (on-year) in its India business in the full year 2020 while for the festive quarter, the growth was an impressive 100 per cent (YoY) and iPhone 12 contributed significantly towards it.

"With its recent market gains in India, Apple is positioned for aggressive growth in the upcoming quarters. The local assembly of iPhone 12 in India will give a further fillip to Apple's prospects," said Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, told IANS.

Riding on the stellar performance of iPhone 11, XR and then iPhone 12, Apple for the first time doubled its smartphone market share in India to nearly 4 per cent in the festive quarter last year.

Apple started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017 with iPhone SE. Today, Apple manufactures some of its most advanced iPhones in India including XR, iPhone 11, and now iPhone 12.

According to Navkendar Singh, Research Director, Client Devices and IPDS, IDC India, Apple had a very good 2020 for iPhone shipments, having almost doubled it over 2019.

"Now with plans to manufacture iPhone 12 in India, this will certainly help Apple in continuing last year's momentum in 2021 as well," Singh told IANS.

For the first time, iPhone 12 models utilise 100 per cent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, including the new camera, Taptic Engine, and MagSafe, as well as Apple's MagSafe accessories.

Apple's suppliers in India are now utilising solar and wind energy for their needs.

iPhone 12 comes with 5G technology, features the fastest A14 Bionic chip, edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR displays, advanced computational photography and a sophisticated flat-edge design with Ceramic Shield front cover, offering four times better drop performance.

"Apple continues its stellar run in the India smartphone market, gaining strength on the back of increased local manufacturing and strong marketing initiatives. The company continues to gain on its enduring aspirational appeal," Ram said.

-- Syndicated from IANS
For full access, please log in, register your subscription or subscribe.

Try for 99 a month for two months, cancel or pause anytime.
MEXICO CITY  Hundreds of women marched on Mexicos seat of government Monday, some carrying their children, others blowtorches, bats and hammers, prepared for a confrontation they hoped would force the country to tackle rampant violence against women.

The International Womens Day protest was fueled by anger at President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has backed a politician accused by several women of rape in a country that suffers some of the worlds worst rates of gender violence. Despite a rift within the governing party over the issue, Mr. Lopez Obrador has supported the politician ahead of June elections.

As the protesters gathered around the national palace  Mr. Lopez Obradors residence and the seat of government  their ire was focused on a metal fence that had been erected to protect the building from being overrun. Women wearing black balaclavas pulled down parts of the barricade as the police fired volleys of flash-bang grenades into the crowd, causing several small stampedes.

At least 62 police and 19 civilians were injured by late Monday evening, according to Mexico Citys security branch.
The United States of America was founded in part to break away from taxation without representation (to put it in a shallow fashion, anyway).

The discussion of taxes hasnt exactly dissipated since the late 1700s, though. This is more so exacerbated by the difference in tax rates between each state, which can of course range from the extremely high to the very low.

For Pennsylvanians, the Keystone State errs on the extremely high end of the spectrum. In fact, a recent study found that Pennsylvania ranks among the top five states with the highest tax rates in the whole country.

Conducted and published by WalletHub, the study ranks Pennsylvanian at number 48 on a list of all 50 states plus Washington D.C. with the lowest tax rates (so if the study was flipped and focused on the states with the highest taxes, thats how Pennsylvania ranks upon the top five). The states that join Pennsylvania with tax rates that would have allowed King George III to recover from several French and Indian Wars would be Kansas (number 47); New York (number 49); Connecticut (number 50) and Illinois (number 51).

On the other hand, the states with the lowest tax rates (and thus the true rebels) are Wyoming (number five); Nevada (number four); Montana (number three); Delaware (number two); and Alaska (number one).

In order to come to these conclusions, WalletHub took a look at four types of taxation: real-estate tax; vehicle property tax; income tax; and sales and excise tax. From there they were able to average out which state landed where on the final tax rate list.

The study also found other interesting tidbits that related to a states high or low tax rate. For example, the study found that red states on average tax lower than blue states. Additionally, those states that tax highly on items such as gas or cigarettes tended to accumulate higher total averages.

Lets just hope those pesky British dont get any ideas from Americas discussions of tax rates, lest they see an opportunity to once again resume control.
Derek Brumby/iStockBY: QUINN SCANLAN, ABC NEWS

(ATLANTA)  Overcoming universal Democratic opposition, Republicans in the Georgia Senate on Monday narrowly passed a sweeping elections omnibus bill that would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting, which was enacted by Republicans in 2005, just months after a record number of Georgians opted to cast ballots this way in the 2020 presidential election.

Four Republicans did not vote on the bill, which was approved 29-20.

The legislation, SB 241, would also change the absentee ballot verification process. Instead of using the subjective signature match process, voters would be required to include their driver's license or state ID card number when applying for and returning an absentee ballot. Voters without these forms of identification would have to submit a photocopy of another form of accepted ID, as well as provide the last four digits of their Social Security number and their date of birth.

Several Democrats spoke in opposition to the bill and urged lawmakers to vote against it.

"SB 241 creates unnecessary barriers and burdens on voters. It disproportionately impacts racial minorities, the elderly, those that live in rural Georgia, disabled and students," said Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan. "The motivations are really suspect because it's introduced immediately after voters of color dramatically increase their use of absentee voting this past year.

Multiple Black Democratic lawmakers said they took personal offense to the piece of legislation, hearkening back to the Jim Crow-era and Black Americans' fight not just to earn the right to vote, but to eliminate barriers put in place to curtail it.

"This is not about the process. This is about suppressing the vote of the same group of people, especially me and people who look like me, and I take it personally. I am here in this chamber because of the Voting Rights Act," state Sen. Gail Davenport said. "Some good-hearted legislators want to please a former selfish, racist leader and his followers. Well, I tell you today, don't do it.

The omnibus bill was one of dozens of pieces of legislation on the agenda for the state Senate to consider Monday, which is "Crossover Day" for the Georgia General Assembly. Bills that fail to advance through one chamber by this day are unlikely to become law this legislative session. About one third of the bills on the Senate's agenda for "Crossover Day" addressed election law.

Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, the president of the Senate, did not preside over the body as SB 241 was debated because he doesn't support the bill.

"Lt. Governor Duncan has been crystal clear that he does not support the rollback of no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia, which currently is included in SB 241. He staunchly opposes that provision," Macy McFall, Duncan's deputy chief of staff and communications director, told ABC News.

According to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, as of Feb. 19, more than 250 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 43 states. The organization described these bills as "grounded in a rash of baseless and racist allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities."

Without evidence, former President Donald Trump claimed for months leading up to and following the general election that the presidential contest was "rigged," specifically targeting mail-in voting, falsely claiming it led to widespread fraud.

Georgia Democrats labeled Republican-sponsored legislation limiting voting as "voter suppression bills," claiming they offer solutions for problems that don't exist and will be challenged, and potentially invalidated, in court.

"This bill amounts to walking into your house, seeing a sink full of dirty dishes, loads of laundry to be done, a lawn to be mowed, a refrigerator that's empty, and then deciding that instead of getting to any of that, you're gonna go to the hardware store and start building a deck -- a deck you don't need," said state Sen. Sonya Halpern. "The house is on fire, and you all are building a deck."

But Republicans argued the bills' purposes are to reduce costs, ease county election officials' workload, bolster election security and restore faith in Georgia's elections.

"The two and a half million voters who voted in November who are Republican, who maybe have concerns ... they have a right to have their voice heard in this capitol," said Republican Sen. Jason Anavitarte, speaking in support of SB 241. "I'm sure, you know, I'll get more more tweets from LeBron James and other folks about how I'm suppressing votes, but at the end of the day, every vote should count in this state, and I pray over every single one of us as we move forward through this process ... that we find a way to make sure all Georgians trust the process."

Responding to Democrats' assertion that the bills are unnecessary, Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, a Republican, went section-by-section explaining the reason each provision of SB 241 is necessary, and at one point, falsely claimed that the bill he co-sponsored "is not preventing anyone from voting by mail-in absentee," despite section six of the bill outlining the seven specific reasons a voter can be eligible to request a mail ballot.

When closing the debate, Dugan conceded there wasn't widespread fraud, but said, "To say that no adjustments need to be made to address some of the issues that we see coming forward in the state is inaccurate. You don't wait until you have wholesale issues before you try to meet the need. You do it beforehand."

Republican lawmakers' focus on election law follows bruising defeats for the state party in the 2020 election cycle, which the Republican secretary of state has repeatedly defended as secure, accurate and devoid of mass fraud.

"A defeated president to try to take his country down with him by spreading lies about voter fraud ... these lies are now stated as excuses for bills we are voting on today, bills that take voting options away and make it harder to vote," state Sen. Sally Harrell, a Democrat, said Monday, before the bills were taken up.

She added, "But lies can backfire ... these people, when they get mad -- they get organized."

Copyright  2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Experts discuss solutions to promote private sector development (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Private enterprises do not need money but institutional support to enjoy a stable and safe business environment, bringing them equality and respect.

Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), made the statement at a recent conference held in the northern province of Quang Ninh.

Creating a transparent and equal investment environment among business sectors is always an important issue when discussing the disadvantages of the private sector, especially in accessing important resources such as the labour market, business rights and information.

After more than three years of implementation of Resolution 10, private businesses have become more protected. At the same time, there is also a better playing field for the sector when participating in economic fields. The private firms therefore have contributed to the economy as they attract about 85 percent of the countrys total workforce while contribution to GDP is always over 43 percent. Meanwhile, the contribution to GDP of the State economic sector and foreign direct investment (FDI) sector are 29 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

However, Loc said that domestic companies in many localities are not as highly appreciated as foreign firms despite creating value and jobs.

Many private businesses also said that when localities called for FDI, they commit to provide site clearance and are ready to be fined if they fail to meet the schedule as foreign investors often have high requirements. However, for domestic enterprises with even larger size than foreign companies, there is no such commitment, he added.

The chairman added that the private economic sector in Vietnam has not only 8,000 businesses, but over 6 million, including business households. The first priority should be improving their quality, scale, efficiency and competitiveness not quantity. The entrepreneurs desire is to have an environment for domestic businesses for their self-refinance and development.

Sharing the idea, Tran Dinh Thien, former director of the Vietnam Economics Institute, said the FDI sector contributes 20 per cent of GDP but accounts for 70 per cent of the total import-export turnover. This could be an issue as FDI firms could enjoy most trade benefits from the countrys efforts in international integration.

Vietnams approach to business development must be revised. We need to rely on domestic capacity, based on domestic economic forces and consider the private economy as an important driving force. Private enterprises must be Vietnamese enterprises. If we follow the spirit of the Party and consider the private economy as an important driving force, the economy will grow even more, he said.

By studying economic development in some countries, we realise that the large corporations of South Korea account for about 50-60 per cent of GDP. If Vietnam could build such businesses, they could lead strong economic development, being the wings for Vietnam to take off, said Vu Thanh Thang, Vice Chairman of Bkav Group.

He also proposed to choose outstanding enterprises with good competitiveness in technology; creating an environment for businesses to boom, in which capital, human resources, markets and policies are particularly important. Once there are products with a high localisation rate, the Government needs to create a springboard for this product to be popular and strongly developed in Vietnam before reaching the global market.

Pham Dinh Doan, chairman of Phu Thai Group agreed, saying that there is a large proportion of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam, but a lack of leading enterprises. The reason is that many units cannot be transparent and share their business activities, and it is difficult to accompany development.

The Government needs to have a coherent plan for businesses to thrive in the next five to 20 years. In particular, there should be a policy to limit the number of units participating in some professions to avoid wasting resources, he said.

Huong Tran Kieu Dung, vice chairwoman of FLC Group, said in addition to construction planning, infrastructure and human resources, the prerequisite factor to attract eagles as well as promote the strong development of investors is the behaviour and interaction between local authorities and businesses.

If businesses receive a sincere welcome from the local government, they will feel sympathetic and secure when making investment. Investors always want to invest in a locality in the long term. Therefore, businesses are interested in how the investment process will be handled by the locality. This depends on the transparency in the direction of each province, Dung said.
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- A long-lasting, successful relationship between scientists at the MBL Ecosystems Center and the citizen-led Buzzards Bay Coalition has garnered a long-term record of water quality in the busy bay that lies west of Woods Hole. That record has already returned tremendous value and last week, it was published in Scientific Data, a Nature journal.

"We hope getting this data out will encourage scientists to use it to test new hypotheses and develop new insights into Bay health," said Rachel Jakuba, science director of the Buzzards Bay Coalition and lead author of the journal article.

Since 1992, a large and dedicated team of citizen volunteers, dubbed Baywatchers, has been collecting water samples from more than 200 sites along the coast of Buzzards Bay. The samples have been analyzed at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) since 2008 under the direction of Chris Neill, a former MBL scientist who is now at Woodwell Climate Research Center, and MBL Senior Research Assistant Richard McHorney. The goal is to document the effects of nitrogen pollution in the Bay, including low oxygen levels that threaten marine life, in order to inform policies to improve Bay health.

"Baywatchers data directly influence policy by documenting impaired waters, making the public aware of long-term water quality trends, and importantly, documenting how water quality improves when communities upgrade water infrastructure, like fixing antiquated wastewater treatment plants," said Neill. "They also show the Bay's waters are warming rapidly."

The main sources of nitrogen pollution in the 430-square-mile Bay are private septic systems and underperforming wastewater treatment plants. Collaborations such as the MBL-Buzzards Bay Coalition's are essential to move science toward societal solutions.

"Scientists can provide information on the causes and consequences of excess nitrogen loading and suggest alternatives, while citizens groups can push for action and help bring together citizens, regulators, and policy makers to achieve a solution," said MBL Ecosystems Director Anne Giblin. Giblin and MBL Senior Scientist Ivan Valiela were among a group of scientists who helped the Coalition formulate and establish the Baywatchers program in the early 1990s.

Baywatchers data have been used to identify nearly 30 bodies of water around the Bay that do not meet federal standards under the Clean Water Act, evaluate wastewater discharge permits, support the development of targets for reduction of nitrogen pollution, and develop strategies for reaching those goals. And the Baywatchers program itself elevates public awareness and generates support for actions to control nutrient pollution and improve water quality.

"With a program like Baywatchers, every one of those citizen volunteers not only collects samples, they go out and talk to their friends about the nitrogen issue. That is a huge public education benefit. By making sure those volunteers are well educated in the scientific facts, you get this tremendous informal education program going," Giblin said.

Baywatchers is one of the largest and longest-running water quality monitoring programs in the country, and its dataset on water quality in Buzzards Bay keeps growing.

"Over the past 30 years, the Coalition has prioritized our commitment to comprehensive water quality monitoring above all else - placing sound science at the core of our work and successes in restoring and protecting the Bay. It is a function that continues to develop as we expand the density of our monitoring stations, parameters measured, methods for collection, and scientific collaborations. Making our entire dataset available through peer-reviewed publication is an important step and I'm indebted to the many scientists, citizens, and funders who got us to this milestone," said Mark Rasmussen, president of the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

###

The Baywatchers Monitoring Program has been funded by the Buzzards Bay Coalition primarily through contributions from the organization's members and private foundations, legislative support from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery - exploring fundamental biology, understanding marine biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.
authorities cordoned off part of the commercial capital of on Monday night while searching for student protesters, drawing condemnation as crowds defied a curfew to resist the crackdown.

Embassies of the US, UK, Canada, Germany and others sent tweets late on Monday warning that security forces had surrounded a group of young people in the Sanchaung neighborhood of People in surrounding areas swarmed the streets as videos of the situation spread on social media.

Meanwhile, an official from adeposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) died in custody after he was arrested early on Tuesday, a former parliamentarian said, the second party figure to die in detention in two days as protesters challenged last month's military coup in the streets.

By midnight, there were no reports of deaths from the standoff, the Associated Press reported. Security forces chased crowds, fired stun grenades and harassed residents watching from their windows, it said. has regularly shut down the internet in the early-morning hours, making it difficult to get information.

Residents said security forces used sound bombs, slingshots, tear gas shells and fired warning shots to disperse several hundred peaceful protesters in the Sanchaung area.

They blocked all the four main roads so these protesters had nowhere to go but to run into nearby apartments and hide inside the apartments with the support of house owners, said Zaw Moe Aung, a resident. They were raising their voices very peacefully, chanting to release detained leaders and immediately end the military dictatorship.

The troops, who stayed in the neighborhood late into the night, also threatened to enter home and buildings to search for the demonstrators, according to Myo Win Maung, who witnessed the scenes but eventually left after locals and people from other neighborhoods poured into the streets to protect the protesters.

Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy issued a statement in support of the protesters and decried the violence against them. We warn against such efforts which must end soonest, the statement said.

The Embassy is very concerned about reports of many young people being trapped in Sanchaung and other parts of Yangon, the German Embassy in Yangon said. We urgently appeal to the security forces to abstain from the use of force and detentions against residents and others, and to let all peaceful protesters return to their homes immediately.

Overnight, police arrested about 50 people who had been cornered by security forces in a district of Myanmar's main city Yangon, a rights group said. But hundreds managed to escape the encirclement after crowds of demonstrators rallied in their support in defiance of a night-time curfew.

Western powers and the United Nations had called on the military to allow the youths to leave the area in safety.

Myanmar has been in crisis since the army ousted Suu Kyi's elected government in a coup on Feb. 1, detained her and other NLD officials, and set up a ruling junta of generals.

Daily protests against the coup are being staged across the country and security forces have cracked down harshly. More than 60 protesters have been killed and more than 1,800 detained, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), an advocacy group, has said.

The NLD's Zaw Myat Linn died in custody on Tuesday after he was arrested in Yangon around 1:30 a.m., said Ba Myo Thein, a member of the dissolved upper house of parliament.

"He's been participating continuously in the protests," Ba Myo Thein said. "Now, the relatives are trying to retrieve the body at the Military Hospital."

Neither the military nor the police responded to calls for comment.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Business networking is moving into the digital age, and with Mobicard, if you have a cell phone, you'll always be able to connect to professionals around you.

Mobicard is a digital business card platform and it entered the marketplace to revolutionize networking, giving sales professionals the ability to share and contact information while on the go. Not only does Mobicard provide a new way of storing and sending your information, but it also provides real-time alerts when your contact information is activated.

"The use of cell phones has changed the way we interact and socialize, and we at Mobicard believe the cell phone should change the way we network," said Joshua Sodaitis, Chairman and CEO at MobiCard. "Capitalizing on the increasing use of smartphones will not only benefit businesses, but also the professionals who will be able to expand their network seamlessly and efficiently."

Mobicard is compatible with both iOS and Android systems and provides efficient targeting for your sales team. With the click of a button, your contact information will be sent to contacts, growing your network and ultimately your bottom line. With 96 percent of Americans using some type of cell phone, and 81 percent of those with smartphones, the potential reach for your sales team is limitless.

About MobiCard

MobiCard has created a game-changer in the networking arena thanks to its exclusive and revolutionary customizable digital business card platform. This flexible and robust application, makes exchanging contact information virtually a seamless experience. There's no limit to the creativity and ingenuity this app can provide for businesses and professionals alike as it provides an innovative networking solution that'll disrupt the traditional paper business card business.

Media Contact:

Ledora Brown

813-352-1612 (Direct)

[email protected]

www.Newswire.com

SOURCE Mobicard
New Jersey state Supreme Court Justice Jaynee LaVecchia announced Monday she plans to retire from the bench by the end of August, giving Gov. Phil Murphy an opportunity to add another justice to the high court as a first-term Democrat.

LaVecchia, 66, was nominated to the court by former Republican Gov. Christie Whitman and was sworn in February 2000. Shes the courts sole independent justice, though Republicans and Democrats sparred during former Gov. Chris Christies tenure on whether LaVecchia was considered a conservative or liberal pick to the court.

Shell step down four years before the states mandatory retirement age for state Supreme Court justices.

It has been a privilege to hold the position of an associate justice for these more than 21 years, LaVecchia said in a statement Monday.

But after spending almost my entire professional career  more than 40 years  in public service in various legal and policy positions within the Executive Branch and then the Supreme Court, I have decided after much reflection that it is time for a change, she said.

The retiring justice said she would assess what new professional opportunities may lie ahead after spending some time to rest.

I would like to have more flexibility in my personal life, she said in her statement. Most of all, I want the flexibility to be able to enjoy more time with my family.

Murphy, in a statement, lauded the longest-serving female justice in state history for her independence and integrity.

Justice LaVecchia approached the job with fidelity to the law and our Constitution, authoring a number of notable opinions on issues as varied as school funding and the right to privacy, Murphy said. I wish Justice LaVecchia all the best in her next life chapters and thank her for nearly four decades of service to the people of New Jersey. Her legacy will influence our legal system for generations to come.

In June, Murphy nominated Fabiana Pierre-Louis to the state Supreme Court. Pierre-Louis, a 40-year-old former South Jersey attorney, is the first Black woman to serve in addition to only being the third Black justice to serve on the state Supreme Court.

She replaced Walter Wally Timpone, who joined the states highest court in 2016. Timpone, a Democrat, was appointed by Christie and was approaching his 70th birthday when he announced his retirement. New Jersey justices and judges must retire at 70, under state law.

LaVecchia worked as the states commissioner of Banking and Insurance for two years when Whitman nominated her to the court in early 2000. She was the director of the Division of Law within the Department of Law and Public Safety prior to that and also served as deputy chief counsel to former GOP Gov. Tom Kean.

The states seven-member Supreme Court has three Republicans  all nominated by Christie  and three Democrats, one nominated by Murphy, one by former Gov. Jon Corzine and the third by former Gov. Jim McGreevey.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com.
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.
The Department of Education has hit back at claims special schools in Northern Ireland have been abandoned.

The Children's Commissioner, Koulla Yiasouma, said last week that politicians are failing schools, with uncertainty continuing over Covid testing and the vaccination of teachers.

Confirming a testing pilot scheme is underway in five SEN schools, a Department spokesperson said: "The timetable for full rollout has been restructured due to issues in relation to the delivery of the kits which are due to arrive with special schools in the next few days.

"The rollout of wider testing on a phased basis will begin on March 15."

The Ministers for Health and Education announced a policy to deliver the vaccination to staff on February 1, targeting those supporting children and young people with the most complex additional healthcare needs. "The Education Authority (EA) has been provided with a list of identified children," the spokesperson said.

"EA has written to the special schools that the identified children attend, asking them to identify staff who are regularly involved in support. EA will then liaise with the Public Health Agency who will arrange a booking slot at a vaccination centre for the staff identified."
Oprah, Meghan and Harry drew a sizable audience Sunday night, making for an old-style prime-time television moment in the age of on-demand viewing.

Oprah Winfreys explosive two-hour interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, who had largely kept their silence after announcing last year that they would give up their duties as members of Britains royal family, attracted 17.1 million viewers on CBS on Sunday night, according to preliminary Nielsen figures.

The number of viewers climbed as the show went on. It drew 16.9 million in the first hour and 17.3 in the second, Nielsen reported. That audience is about twice the size of the viewership for the prime-time ratings winner in a given week.

In a time when Netflix and other streaming platforms dominate viewing habits, the ratings for Oprah With Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special were strong  but they did not come close to the figures of similar prime-time exclusives from past decades. And the number of viewers fell short of the 22 million who watched a similarly ballyhooed interview in 2018, a 60 Minutes episode in which Stephanie Clifford (also known as Stormy Daniels) told Anderson Cooper about her past affair with Donald Trump.

Winfreys special came in the wake of days of anticipatory coverage hinting at what the couple might reveal about their experiences with the royal family and their decision to leave the palace behind.

Markle did not hold back during the interview, telling Winfrey that she had contemplated suicide while living as a royal. She also blamed Britains first family for not providing her with sufficient protection from the ferocious tabloid press and described racism within the royal family, saying that, during her pregnancy, there had been concerns and conversations about how dark the skin color of her child would be. Harry revealed a strained relationship with his father, Prince Charles, and brother, Prince William.

The high level of interest in a special on a big broadcast network was something of a throwback to a moment when prime-time television interviews, jampacked with commercials, became a gathering spot for a mass audience.

The big get interview is a TV genre unto itself, in which a famous anchor or host elbows out rivals to land an exclusive sit-down with a newsworthy subject. It is also a genre past its heyday. Along with Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, Winfrey, an interviewer extraordinaire who started her TV career in the 1970s, was a major player when the competition for such shows was at its height.

In 1993, Winfreys prime-time interview of Michael Jackson at his Neverland Ranch, broadcast by ABC, attracted an audience of at least 62 million. Six years later, also on ABC, Walters sat down with Monica Lewinsky for a two-hour special that drew 48.5 million.

Since then, the rise of digital media and its infinite screen-time options have cut deeply into the might of the big broadcasters. As the viewing audience fractured, opportunities for must-see prime-time interviews became vanishingly rare. Even the biggest one-on-ones of recent years have lacked the drawing power of the specials from two decades ago and more. The audience of 17.1 million for Winfreys interview of Markle and her husband matched the number of viewers who tuned in when Caitlyn Jenner revealed that she was transgender to Sawyer on a 2015 episode of ABCs 20/20.

The Sunday night special was unusual in that it was not overseen by a network news division. Winfreys company, Harpo Productions, produced it, and CBS paid at least $7 million to license the show, according to a person with knowledge of the arrangement. (The Wall Street Journal previously reported the figure.) The deal was also a gamble: It was taped after the network had bought the rights, according to two people with knowledge of how the show was made.

During the interview, Winfrey said she had been trying to land the exclusive with the couple for about three years.

CBS emerged the winning bidder despite Winfreys rocky experience at 60 Minutes, where she was a special contributor in 2017 and 2018. In a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Winfrey revealed that the shows producers had criticized her delivery, saying she had too much emotion in her voice, even when she said her own name. (Winfrey has maintained a connection to the network through her good friend Gayle King, an anchor of CBS This Morning, and she appeared on that show Monday.)

Further complicating CBSs attempt to get the big get was the thicket of media companies surrounding Winfrey and the former royal couple. Winfrey has her own cable network, OWN, and is a major part of the streaming platform AppleTV+. Recent episodes of Apples The Oprah Conversation have featured her interviews of Barack Obama, Dolly Parton and Mariah Carey.

The duke and duchess, for their part, signed a multiyear deal with Netflix last year to make documentaries and other shows. They also signed on to make podcasts for Spotify and released the first installment Dec. 29. It included guest appearances by Elton John, Tyler Perry and other celebrities, as well as the first public utterance from their son, Archie.

The pact between CBS and Harpo Productions was largely focused on TV rights. The interview ran live on ViacomCBSs newly rebranded streaming service, Paramount+; but at least for now it will not be available on Paramount+ for on-demand viewing. Instead, the special will be available on CBS.com and the CBS app for 30 days, a CBS spokesman said.

Originally slotted for 90 minutes, it ended up a two-hour show. Before the broadcast, CBS released teaser clips, and British tabloids that have been unfriendly to Markle shot back with anonymously sourced items on her apparent misdeeds.

The estimate of 17.1 million viewers will only grow after Nielsen tabulates some viewers who streamed the special, as well as out-of-home viewing.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Iowas Move Away from Foster Care Emblematic of National Trend

As federal law changes child welfare approach, Iowa judges are enthusiastic

In the fall of 2019, Judge Williams Owens came to an important realization: In child welfare cases, he had focused too much on protecting children from physical harm at home, leading him to remove them from their families.

He hadnt thought enough about the emotional harm caused by family separation, about options to improve their safety while keeping them at home.

He pondered this matter one day as he was driving from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, two hours back to Ottumwa. He had attended a lecture in Cedar Rapids by child welfare expert Amelia Franck Meyer and it started him on this train of thought.

Franck Meyers lecture had set Judge Linnea Marie Nelson Nicol of West Union, Iowa, on that same train of thought.

Nicol had come away from it with the understanding that removing children from their families creates a primal wound that no social services can fix.

It really makes you consider, have we done everythingabsolutely everything we can doto avoid removals? Nicol said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

That was the genesis of a pilot program called Four Questions, Seven Judges in Iowas judicial branch.

Five other judges joined Nicol and Owens in their endeavor and determined they would ask four key questions to each social worker who came into their courts looking to remove children from their families.

The questions are: (1) What can we do to remove the danger instead of the child? (2) Can someone the child or family knows move into the home to remove the danger? (3) Can the caregiver and the child go live with a relative or fictive kin? (4) Could the child move temporarily to live with a relative or fictive kin?

The pilot worked in parallel with another new program in the states Department of Human Services (DHS) which sought to give parents more of a say in child welfare cases before they reach the courtroom. The new approach has helped reduce Iowas child removal rate from 5.8 percent to 3.6 percent per thousand from March 2019 to January 2021.

These programs are part of a burgeoning national trend.

In 2018, former President Donald Trump signed the Family First Prevention Services Act into law to divert money from foster care toward services that keep children safely at home; those include helping parents with mental health, substance abuse, and parenting skills.

Family First was implemented in Iowa mid-2020 (the 2018 Act allows time for gradual implementation up to October 2021), so the two programs already in place set the state on this path ahead of time.

Iowa Chief Justice Susan Christensen said in her Condition of Judiciary address at the beginning of this year, My first priority is to ensure that Iowa stands out among all the other states in implementing Family First.

She highlighted the Four Questions, Seven Judges program and talked of improving legal services and addiction help for parents.

Franck Meyer, whose lecture inspired the judges in Iowa and who has guided U.S. agencies on decreasing child removals, has worked in child welfare for 30 years.

She told The Epoch Times that she saw children in foster care grow up to have children who also ended up in foster care. I knew no matter how well I did with them [in group homes,] what they really needed was their family, she said.

Our culture wants to punish those peopleif you dont take care of your kids, you deserve punishmentnot help.  And what we are just learning the really hard way is whether or not you think people deserve that help, they need that help because its what the children need most.

Amelia Franck Meyers child welfare organization, Alia, holds a presentation on approaches that keep families together. (Courtesy of Amelia Franck Meyer)

Judges Questioning Social Workers

In Iowa, as in other states that receive federal money for children in foster care, judges must sign off before the most drastic intervention for child welfare can occurremoving children from their parents.

That happens when a judge decides there is imminent danger at home, such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, or major neglect.

Since the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, judges have had the oversight responsibility for child welfare agencies: they determine whether social workers have made reasonable efforts to keep the children home. If a judge finds reasonable efforts have not been made in a case, the agency will lose its federal money for that case.

Former judge and juvenile law consultant Leonard Edwards told The Epoch Times, We know that judges asking the right questions at the first hearing are going to get some success in having the child out of placement and with a parent.

He cited a pilot project similar to Iowas led by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Courts in 2009. Judges in three U.S. cities (Omaha, Nebraska; Portland, Oregon; and Santa Clara, California) used a template of questions to successfully lower child removal rates.

But not all juvenile judges are able to question the social workers adequately, Edwards said.

Sometimes its too many cases on the calendar and they dont have time to do something like that; sometimes they figure that the social workers already asked those questions; and sometimes they havent been trained to do that.

Training sessions for judges set by social agencies will help judges learn more about social work and make better reasonable efforts judgments, Edwards said.

In the case of judges Owens and Nicol, they attended Franck Meyers training sponsored by Iowas DHS. Franck Meyer helped them develop their template of four questions.

Judge Williams Owens, one of the judges part of the Four Questions, Seven Judges pilot program in Iowa. (Courtesy of Williams Owens)

Judge Linnea Marie Nelson Nicol, one of the judges part of the Four Questions, Seven Judges pilot program in Iowa. (Courtesy of Linnea Marie Nelson Nicol)

Amelia Franck Meyer, founder and CEO of Alia child welfare organization. (Courtesy of Amelia Franck Meyer)

Between December 2019 to March 2020, the seven judges part of the pilot program received 83 removal requests and granted 44. Among the 44 removals, well over half were being placed with relatives or fictive kin instead of in foster care.

By comparison, a review of cases in the four months preceding the pilot show the seven judges had approved 99 removals.

Owens gave an example of how the four questions helps him to think more about ways to keep children at home.

Once he received a removal request for eight children whose mother used methamphetamine; the youngest was a baby, born with meth in his system. The father of the newborn also used meth.

There is almost no way those eight kids could have been placed with the same relative, or in the same foster home; we would have to split them up. Owens said to himself, What can we do to minimize their trauma?

He felt it was best to keep the children together at home, but he needed to find someone who could move into the home and ensure the safety of the children.

Owens decided on the mothers ex-husband, who lived in the same community and was known to have a good co-parenting relationship with the mother.

That sort of sounds like a wild example, having an ex-husband move back. But the fact is, that it worked for the kids, Owens said. He said his job is to make court decisions in the best interest of the children.

Nicol also thinks the four questions have helped her, especially when a social workers call comes in the middle of the night and theres little time for planning or careful consideration.

With the four questions, it seems clearer to me now [when]  I have to remove, because we have done everything we can do to not remove.

Social Workers Taking Risks, Trusting Families

Lori Frick, the eastern district manager of Iowas DHS, has led an effort in her 10-county district to get parents more involved in child welfare cases with the same goal of keeping children at home.

Her experiment was adopted statewide in July 2020 and is now part of her departments implementation of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act.

Traditionally, social workers in her district would have a key meeting with parents after the children were already removed from the family. Frick wanted that meeting to take place before removal, and for parents to play a bigger role in it.

The meeting was redesigned with help from Franck Meyer and is now called the Child Safety Conference. It was also supported by Janee Harvey, the administrator of the Adult, Children, and Family Services Division for Iowas DHS.

In those meetings with families, we say to them, Listen, we are not here to take your child from your home. Were here to figure out with you, how can we safely keep your kid at home with you? Frick told The Epoch Times. And if for some reason that cant happen, how can we safely keep your kid with somebody that your kid already knows, rather than putting him into stranger foster care?

Some social workers were immediately ready to get on board. They told Frick, This is great. This is what I came into social work to do, is to truly help families be together. Others were a little skeptical and said, Yeah, but what if something bad happens?

Those risks weigh heavily on the hearts of social workers, Frick said, because they could find themselves in the media spotlight, lose their jobs, and feel serious guilt and regret if a child they let stay at home is hurt.

The mentality of not taking any risks was also encouraged by former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, who urged social workers to err on the side of removing the children following public outcry over the death of 2-year-old Shelby Duis at home in 2010.

Before Duiss death, neighbors and daycare workers had filed multiple reports with the DHS, but the Department did not remove the child from the home.

When you ask social workers and supervisors to put families first, you are really asking them to take risks, and those risks sometimes are very difficult for them to take on, Frick said.

To help foment change, Frick and six other district leaders stepped in. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder with social workers at the meetings with parents and they shared the risks of the decision-making.

[The social workers] had this sense of comfort knowing that there was another person that had their back, and its OK to take risks, Frick said. Once they realized they werent on an island all by themselves making decisions, they really started to come through.

Over the pilot period of October 2018 to December 2019, Fricks district handled the cases of 222 children; 95 percent were either kept at home or placed with someone familiar after the Child Safety Conference.

After the six-month follow-up meeting, about 74 percent of them remained where they were, which was higher than the state average of 52 percent at the time.

According to a survey with parents who have participated in the child safety meetings, four out of five felt they were heard and had a voice, and about half said the meetings helped them. One parent wrote in the survey, Points were valid and understood. I knew what my expectations were.

When asked what the Department of Human Services could have done better, one parent wrote, Listen to me, [and] not look at my background and judge me based on that.
Last year the British Academy of Film and Television came under fire for its lack of diversity, with not one actor of colour nominated and female directors ignored.

The criticism prompted BAFTA to introduce changes to its film ceremony, including increasing the nominations for director, actor and actresses from five to six, in a bid to expand the range of films celebrated.

The result is a hugely diverse nominations list, with four of the six nominees in each of the acting categories coming from ethnic minority backgrounds; a total of 16 contenders. These include Daniel Kaluuya and Dominique Fishback for Judas and the Black Messiah, Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) and Bukky Bakray, who gets a nod in the EE Rising Star category.

Read More Four of the nominated directors are women, while three are also nominated for best film not in the English language category. Chadwick Boseman received a posthumous Bafta nomination for his performance as an ambitious trumpeter in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. As well as serving up such a diverse list of nominees, this year the British Academy is going it alone, breaking rank with other awards ceremonies like the Golden Globes and Oscars. For a ceremony that has traditionally followed the lead of its American counterparts, this is a bold and welcome move, as the academy recognises its own identity. There is also strong support for home-grown films, which has been low-key in recent years as it looked to the big American cinema releases. There are a few predicted big names in the mix, including Sir Anthony Hopkins for The Father and Frances McDormand for Nomadland. But while the list celebrates inclusivity, there are some notable Hollywood favourites left off including Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, Viola Davis and Olivia Colman. Sacha Baron Cohen misses out too for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and The Trial of the Chicago 7, though the latter gets nods for best film, editing and original screenplay, while Maria Bakalova is nominated for best supporting actress for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Nomadland and coming-of-age drama Rocks lead the nominations, with seven each. Leading the charge for the Irish is crime drama Calm With Horses with four nods; Niamh Algar for best supporting actress, Barry Keoghan, best supporting actor, outstanding British film and casting. The movie, which was shot on location in Cos Galway and Clare, is based on a novella by Irish writer Colin Barrett and was executively produced by Hunger and Shame star, Michael Fassbender. Wolkwakers, from Kilkennys Cartoon Saloon and Luxembourg Melusine Productions, is shortlisted for best animated film. Algar and Keoghan face tough competition in their respective categories but Keoghan, who won an IFTA for The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Algar, who put in stunning performances in Shane Meadows The Virtues and US series Raised By Wolves, are two of Irelands best young actors and either, or both, could triumph at the awards.




Former Olympic boxer Adam Nolan has said the move to ban foreign spectators from this year's games in Tokyo will be a huge blow to athletes.

While a formal decision has yet to be announced, the Japanese government announced on Tuesday that the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead this summer.

But foreign visitors and spectators will not be allowed to attend due to the ongoing risk posed by Covid-19 and the emergence of highly transmissible variants of the virus around the globe, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Mr Nolan, (33), who qualified for the 2012 London Olympics, said competing at the event was not only the thrill of a lifetime, but having the support of his family and friends and a massive contingent of Irish supporters was the icing on the cake.

"What an Olympics to be at, he told the Irish Independent.

"When I boxed in London the amount of support from Ireland was unbelievable. I had loads of family and friends there, I was so lucky, he said.

News of the ban on foreign spectators at this years Olympics will not only be a huge disappointment to the family and friends of competitors but to the athletes themselves, he said.

"Its a massive blow. To get to the Olympics is the Holy Grail for any athlete, he said.

"You want your family and friends there to cheer you on.

I couldnt imagine what it would have been like to walk out of the ExCel arena with no one there shouting you on, it would have been surreal.

"It would be an anti-climax not to have people screaming you on. The atmosphere that the fans create, its like a cauldron. When you have people there egging you on, sometimes thats all it takes to get you over the line.

Laurie Mannix, a lifelong friend of former Irish Olympic swimmer Fiona Doyle, who competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro agreed.

"Its such a huge achievement for an athlete to qualify, she said.

"To achieve one of the biggest goals of their career and to not have family and friends to support them would be hugely disappointing.

Families make huge sacrifices to support the athlete.

Having been on that journey and not be there at the pinnacle would be hard, she said.

Ms Mannix flew to Rio along with Ms Doyles parents, grandparents, siblings and an aunt.

Ironically because of the outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus at the time, Ms Doyles twin sister Eimear and her two other sisters decided the risk was too great and they decided not to attend.

While Ms Doyle has since retired from competition as she pursues a career in medicine, Ms Mannix said the memory of the event will last a lifetime for all of those involved.

"To be able to meet up with parents, siblings and supporters (outside the Olympic Village) is a huge part of it, she said.

"Having been a spectator was such a fabulous experience, its great to be able to shout them on.

"Its a huge part of the Olympics and this year will be an Olympics like no other and well be the poorer for it, she said.

But given the global pandemic, the decision not to allow international spectators isnt surprising, she added.

"Its understandable from a public health perspective, she said.

"Whats worse would have been to have it cancelled completely, she added.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
THE continued delay for a school campus development in Carrigtwohill has ensured the community is now at boiling point.

Planning permission was granted in July 2020, but no progress had been made with the tender since which has angered Mary OBrien, the secretary of the Carrigtwohill Community College Parents Association.

We are extremely disappointed and frustrated by the delay in the tender process. We need answers and we need to get this project started. We need the Minister to stand up, give us clarity and dates, she said.

Considerable delays have impacted the Carrigtwohill school campus development which will cater for Carrigtwohill Community College and two primary schools. The campus was initially promised to be completed by 2019.

Carrigtwohill Community College, which opened with 43 students in 2016, is currently occupying a former office block and prefabs. Ms OBrien said the community is very frustrated at the lack of progress.

We were initially told that the tender would be going out before the end of 2020. We were subsequently told it would be the first quarter of 2021.

"We understand there is a process, but there is currently no movement. We are being stonewalled. The lack of communication is very disappointing. We need a definite date.

Everything is ready to go. We are not looking for any special treatment. We are struggling to meet the growing demand for school places. We do not have the capacity for the children at present. Students are going to Midleton and Glanmire as Carrigtwohill Community College cant take any more students. The town is growing massively. There is a new estate being built in Carrigtwohill and 4,000 houses being zoned, she added.

A Department of Education spokesperson told The Echo: The Carrigtwohill schools campus is being delivered under the Departments Design and Build programme.

The Department is currently in the process of establishing a framework of design and build contractors. It is anticipated that the Carrigtwohill campus will proceed to tender in Quarter 2 of 2021.

Cork East TD Sean Sherlock said: The same excuses and delays are just not good enough."
Greta Thunberg has told Joe Biden to 'treat the climate crisis like a crisis' and accused him of not doing nearly enough to follow the Paris agreements.

The 18-year-old Swede sparred publicly with Donald Trump and even endorsed Biden ahead of the election in a rare party political tweet, saying the battle for the White House went the 'above and beyond all that.'

But despite the US returning to the Paris climate accord and a flurry of executive orders, Thunberg attacked Biden for failing to reduce green house gas emissions to limit global warming to the 2 degrees Celsius set out in the treaty.

Speaking to MSNBC, Thunberg was asked about her decision to urge people to go out and vote for Biden and how she felt about that today.

Thunberg was speaking to MSNBC when she savaged Biden for not doing enough to address the 'climate crisis'

Biden pictured at the White House on Monday during an event to promote to women as elite, four-star generals. As well as rejoining the Paris treaty, Biden appointed John Kerry as climate tsar and cancelled the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

'Well, you shouldn't take that from me, I'm just a teenager, so I'm not - I don't have the mandate to sort of give grades like that. My opinions on this doesn't matter,' Thunberg said.

'You should rather look at the science and whether his policies are in line with the Paris agreements and to stay below 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius, and then you can clearly see that, no, it's not nearly enough in line with the science. That's not me saying, that's just black and white, looking at the facts.'

As well as rejoining the Paris treaty, Biden appointed John Kerry as climate tsar and cancelled the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

He has also called a halt to oil and gas drilling at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, two national monuments in Utah, and the Arctic national wildlife refuge wilderness.

In his inauguration speech Biden mentioned that America needed to respond to a 'climate in crisis.'

He has previously warned that the phenomenon poses the 'greatest threat' to the United States.

But Thunberg said she was disappointed so far.

She told MSNBC: 'I would just like you to basically just treat the climate crisis like a crisis. They have said themselves that this is an existential threat and they better treat it accordingly - which they are not.

'They are just treating the climate crisis as it was a political topic, among other topics and, yeah, treat it as a crisis, that's the No. 1 step.'

When asked what she would advise Biden to do in terms of policy, Thunberg replied that she would not do that because 'it wouldn't be democratic.'

Instead, she said it is better to inform the public and persuade people that climate change is a crisis.

Thunberg has been on the world stage since 2018, when she started skipping school to protest outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm.

Her 'School Strike for Climate' and 'Fridays for Future' grew into a global youth movement which has helped inspire political change in climate policy.
ADVERTISEMENT

The Lagos State High Court in Ikeja, on Tuesday, sentenced Raymond Akanolu, a former General Manager, Dangote Industries Limited, to seven years imprisonment for $32,000 insurance fraud.

A statement by the spokesperson for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Wilson Uwujaren, said Mr Akanolu was convicted and jailed along with Mojisola Aladejobi and Balogun Alaba.

It stated that the defendants were arraigned before the trial judge, S.S. Ogunsanya, on two counts of conspiracy and attempt to obtain money by false pretence to the tune of $32,000.

They had pleaded not guilty to the charges, thereby necessitating a full trial.

The prosecuting counsel, S.O.Daji and Babatunde Sonoiki, called witnesses and tendered documents that were admitted in evidence by the court.

The court in the judgment delivered on Tuesday found the defendants guilty of the offences and sentenced them to seven years imprisonment each on both counts.

EFCC stated that the defendants sometime in October, 2014, in Lagos conspired among themselves to defraud Dangote Industries Limited of the sum of $32,000 (Thirty Two Thousand United State Dollars) by inflating the premium for the renewal of insurance policy cover for its Hawker Aircraft with registration No. 5N-DGN.

The offence is contrary to section 323 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, No. 11 of 2011, EFCC added.
POTTSVILLE  Schuylkill Countys Democratic and Republican committees naturally had different takeaways from their recent meetings, but they do agree on one point: counting of mail-in ballots should begin before polls close.

I dont see a problem with that, Schuylkill County Republican Committee Chairman Howard D. Merrick Jr. said in discussing his partys Thursday meeting, as long as there is strict security to prevent results from being released early.

In fact, Merrick said the county practice of counting all ballots election night is good and should be practiced elsewhere, especially in Philadelphia, a heavily Democratic city where Republicans believe there is significant voter fraud.

Tell Philadelphia: Get it done, he said.

Urging the Legislature to allow mail-in-ballots to be counted early to prevent late election results was part of a seven-point resolution approved by unanimous consent by the Schuylkill County Democratic Committee at its annual convention on Feb. 21, according to Todd Zimmerman, secretary.

The resolution was born from Pennsylvanias role as a battleground state and the overall extensive discussion about the 2020 election, the Democrats said.

State legislators are considering possible changes to election laws that will allow pre-canvassing of mail-in votes before the polls close at 8 p.m.

However, the state House of Representatives is holding election oversight hearings that are scheduled to last until May 5, fewer than two weeks before the May 18 primary.

Schuylkill County Election Bureau Director Albert L. Gricoski has said he thinks having more time to count votes on Election Day is a good thing.

Candidates, endorsements

Merrick said the GOP has not yet found anyone to run against District Attorney Michael A. OPake, but it does have a candidate in each of the other two row office races.

Acting Controller Sharyn Yackenchick will run under the GOP banner in the fall and Ringtown police Patrolman Doug Litwhiler is circulating petitions to take on incumbent Sheriff Joseph G. Groody, whom the Democrats have endorsed for reelection.

Yackenchick is running for a two-year tenure to finish the term of Christy Joy, who resigned to enter private business.

Merrick said the committee does not traditionally endorse candidates until the deadline for filing petitions to seek office, which is Tuesday. That was the reason there were no endorsements at the meeting, he said.

In our bylaws, we cannot endorse until after the petitions are closed, Merrick said.

Four judicial candidates, Judges Charles M. Miller, James P. Goodman and Christina E. Hale, and Christopher W. Hobbs, spoke at the meeting, Merrick said.

Miller and Goodman are running separately in the Nov. 2 general election for retention. In a retention election, the incumbent judge has no opponent and voters decide yes or no on whether to keep the judge on the bench.

Hale, having been appointed to replace the retired Judge John E. Domalakes, and Hobbs are running for 10-year terms to replace Domalakes or Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin, who decided not to run for retention after having served 30 years.

The Democrats endorsed the retention of Goodman and Miller, and endorsed Jim Conville and Julie Werdt for common pleas judges.

Democrats also endorsed OPake for reelection and David Plachko for Magistrate District 21-3-01, Anthony Kilker for Magistrate District 21-3-05 and an open primary for Todd Selgrade, Scott Taylor and Tony Urban for Magistrate District 21-2-01.

Toomey reaction

The most notable action at the GOP meeting was the committees decision to censure U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, a Lehigh County Republican, for his vote to convict former President Donald J. Trump in his second impeachment trial.

Toomey was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump for alleged insurrection in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump was acquitted because the 57-43 vote, 57 voting guilty, did not reach the two-thirds majority necessary.

Merrick did not disclose further details of the censure vote, saying it is in the past. He said virtually every Republican agrees that the Jan 6 riot was wrong, although he noted that Democrats have not been nearly as quick to condemn the rioting during the summer in many American cities after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The election is over. Joe Biden is the president, he said. Its time to move on.

County Democrats also discussed the trial and praised Toomey and fellow U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. for their votes to convict Donald Trump for imperiling our representative democracy. They were critical of the falsehoods and misrepresentations about our election spread by former President Donald Trump and his supporters, including Congressman Dan Meuser and State Senator Dave Argall.

Merrick sharply disagreed with those criticisms, saying they are strictly political and that Democrats made similar unrelenting attacks for four years against Trump.

The county Democrats resolution also called on the county to make sure the election bureau is adequately staffed in all future elections; and said they advocate peaceful protests, strongly condemn the Jan. 6 attack and commend the law enforcement agencies that protected our democracy that day.
The National Green Tribunal has held that Vedanta's mining plant in Dharbandora area in Goa cannot operate without obtaining Environment Clearance (EC). A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said the recommencement of the plant in 2019 can only be done after obtaining EC.

"Accordingly, we hold that the application is maintainable and requirement of prior EC for operating the plants in question by Respondent no. 4 (Vedanta) is attracted. The Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Goa State Pollution Control Board may take further remedial action in accordance with this finding to enforce the rule of law," the bench said.

The tribunal said the plant has recommenced in the year 2019, such recommencement is required to be after the grant of EC even if the plant was initially started prior to the year 2006.

"More so, the initial location of the plant at a time when EC was not required was different. It is clear from the record that such location changed in the year 2012 i.e. after September 14, 2006. Since working of the plant prior to 2019 is not in issue, we are only considering the issue of recommencement in the year 2019.

"Such recommencement in our view required EC. The contention that when the plant was initially set up in the year 1997, the requirement of notification was not applicable is not sufficient to hold that EC is not required even after the plant started at a different location," the bench said.

On the issue of maintainability of the plea challenging operation of the plant, the bench said the mere fact that there is a prayer for quashing Consent To Operate (CTO) does not render the application not maintainable

"The tribunal cannot avoid responsibility in dealing with the matter where direct violation of specific statutory obligation is pointed out. Violation alleged in the present case is of serious nature of not having requisite EC, which is crucial regulatory the requirement under a statutory notification.

"This cannot be ignored nor any commercial establishment committed to rule of law can oppose this being done," the bench said.

The NGT was hearing a plea filed by NGO Goa Foundation Question challenging operation of Vedanta plant located at Codli Village in Dharbandora on former mining lease without requisite Environment Clearance (EC) as per EIA Notification only on the strength of Consent to Operate granted by the Goa State PCB in 2019.

According to the applicant, after the judgment of the Supreme Court in Goa Foundation vs. Sesa Sterlite Ltd. & Ors, mining operations were halted leading to the closure of the beneficiation plants in question. The same subsequently commenced, after the CTO dated September 19, 2019, granted by the state pollution control board for the process of 2.1 million tonnes of ore per annum, without requisite EC.

It said the mere fact that initially the plants were set up at the time the EIA notification did not exist will not matter.

Also read: COVID-19 fallout: Over 10,000 firms voluntarily shut operations during Apr 2020-Feb 2021, says govt

Also read: Mahindra Logistics appoints Anish Shah as Chairman
TAIZHOU, China, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- At 19:20 on March 4, 2021 (Beijing time), the results of the 2021 EFQM Global Award were announced. Yangtze River Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. from China was on the list, which represents that its quality management level has been aligned with that of world-class companies, and has won praises from the world for "Made in China".

Yangtze River Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. Won the 2021 EFQM Global Award

"Applying for the EFQM Global Award is a fusion of Chinese culture and European culture, a bridge connecting Chinese quality and European quality, and a mutual learning between Chinese management model and EFQM model. We will continue to promote the application of the EFQM model to serve the health of all mankind," Mr. Xu Jingren, chairman of Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group, said.

A total of 12 organizations around the world have won the 2021 EFQM Global Award, and 2,200 people from 94 countries participated in the ceremony online. This is the first pharmaceutical company in the world to win the award after the promotion and implementation of the new EFQM model in 2019. Its CEO, Li Sen, attended online and addressed on behalf of the company.

The EFQM Global Award is one of the three major quality awards in the world, and is as famous as the Baldrige National Quality Award and the Deming Prize. In 1991, it was initiated by the Vice-President of the European Commission, Martin Bengeman, jointly initiated by the European Commission, the European Organization for Quality (EOQ) and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), and awarded once a year. It is for every high-performance organization in the world, focusing on the recognition of performance excellence companies and helping all applicants pursue excellence. The EFQM Global Award uses the EFQM model to systematically evaluate the applicants. EFQM organized a survey and research of nearly 2,000 change experts, held 24 internal seminars, and had face-to-face exchanges with leaders of more than 60 different organizations. A core team composed of experts from different industries and academia was formed to define a new version of the EFQM model, which was transformed from an assessment tool into an important management framework and methodology, including three aspects (direction, execution, and results), seven criteria, and 30 sub-standards, paying more attention to ecosystem, circular economy, transformation and sustainable development.

Story continues

Yangtze River Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. has participated in the training and introduced the new EFQM model since April 2020, then submitted the EFQM Global Award application in November and successfully passed the document review. In January this year, an assessment team of 8 experts from different countries conducted an on-site assessment of the company. Affected by COVID-19, this assessment was conducted by a combination of site visit and online interviews. In the 5-day on-site assessment, in addition to the opening meeting, closing meeting and 4 mirror meetings, the assessors held 34 interviews for employees at all levels of the company, proposed 552 interview topics and interviewed 277 employees regarding the development and implementation of strategies, challenges and opportunities, organizational culture, changes, ecosystem and interactions with stakeholders. The assessment team pointed out in the feedback report that Yangtze River Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. has established a distinctive development concept, and its quality culture of "Manufacture Medicines for Parents, Manufacture Medicines for Relatives" and the corporate mission of "Commit for Better, Dedicate for Caring All" have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and provide many best practices for industry development. The assessment team unanimously affirmed the company's management strengths in six aspects: quality risk control mode and quality culture, value creation, customer engagement, leading its ecosystem, leading in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, and strong business performance.

In the context of the signing of the China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), it is of special significance to apply for this award. In the future, Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group will continue to benchmark advanced international management concepts, strengthen international exchanges and learning, and promote high-quality and sustainable development of the company.

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yangtze-river-pharmaceutical-group-co-ltd-won-the-2021-efqm-global-award-301242881.html

SOURCE Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group
Married At First Sight Australia's risque 'intimacy week' episode was the show's raciest ever - but it was no match for Oprah's interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in Monday night's ratings.

The explosive tell-all, which aired on Channel Ten, attracted 1,366,000 viewers in Australian capital cities alone.

Combined with regional ratings, it absolutely dominated Monday night with 1,783,000 viewers, leaving MAFS in the dust.

Sex doesn't sell! Married At First Sight Australia's risque 'intimacy week' episode was the show's raciest ever - but it was no match for Oprah's interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry (left) in Monday night's ratings. Pictured right: MAFS' Booka Nile and Brett Helling

Despite bringing in sultry sexologist Alessandra Rampolla to initiate erotic interactions between the couples, the newly aired episode of Married At First Sight drew just 804,000 in the five city metro ratings.

MAFS slid a little past one million with regional viewers added - but still came in third, behind Seven News at second, with 1,581,000.

In the United States, the bombshell interview was watched by 17.1 million viewers on CBS.

Killer ratings: The explosive tell-all, which aired on Channel Ten, attracted 1,366,000 viewers in Australian capital cities alone. Combined with regional ratings, it absolutely dominated Sunday night with 1,783,000 viewers, leaving MAFS in the dust

Murdered! Despite bringing in sultry sexologist Alessandra Rampolla to initiate erotic interactions between the couples, the newly aired episode of Married At First Sight drew just 804,000 in the five city metro ratings. Pictured: Booka Nile

Channel Nine hedged their bets on the risque contents of their 'intimacy week' episode which saw newlyweds Booka Nile and Brett Helling encouraged to explore their racy sides.

During the episode, Booka sucks her moaning groom's finger before placing him in pink handcuffs and walking out wearing racy black lace lingerie.

She then playfully instructed Brett to 'go to bed' in a Russian accent, before admitting she had enjoyed tying up previous partners, leaving them with 'no control'.

Suck it up: Channel Nine hedged their bets on the risque contents of their 'intimacy week' episode which saw newlyweds Booka Nile and Brett Helling encouraged to explore their racy sides. During the episode, Booka sucks her moaning groom's finger

Oh dear! She then placed him in pink handcuffs and walked out wearing racy black lace lingerie, before revealing she liked to 'dominate' her lovers

The episode wasn't entirely a hit with the viewers who did watch - when newlyweds Belinda Vickers and Patrick Dwyer had their first intimacy training session, those watching at home called the exchanges a 'car crash' and 'cringe'.

The pair were advised to gaze into each other's eyes for several minutes straight, while standing close and holding hands, to spend 10 minutes kissing, and have a 'melted hug', which saw them press their bodies against each other.

The smooching session proved too much for Patrick, who compared the length of the effort to cooking chicken.

'That's a long time. Like, 10 minutes is a long time to just make out. You can cook chicken in 10 minutes, so it's a long time,' he said.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) crossed an important milestone on Monday, when it demonstrated an Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system that will allow submarines to operate for up to two weeks without having to surface to recharge its batteries.

The (AIP) plant was operated in endurance mode and maximum power mode as per the user requirements. The system is being developed by Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL) of DRDO, announced the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Tuesday.

Since NMRLs is expected to operationally field its indigenous AIP only by 2023-24, this will come too late to power the six new submarines that the navy is tendering in a Rs 45,000-crore programme called Project 75-I.

Instead, the six Project-75I submarines will be powered by AIP systems that the foreign vendor must offer. The DRDOs AIP system, once ready, will from 2024-25 onward, be retrofitted into six Scorpene submarines that are being built in India under Project 75, say naval sources.

Legacy, diesel-electric submarines can operate silently underwater for up to 48 hours, but they must surface after that to run a generator to recharge their batteries. When they surface, diesel-electric submarines become vulnerable to detection by enemy radar, which easily detects submarine masts or snorkels protruding out of the water. This vulnerability is reduced by powering a submarine with an AIP system, which allows for underwater operations for up to two weeks. However, submarines fitted with AIP must still surface every fortnight for battery charging. In that sense, they are not as difficult to detect as nuclear-powered subs, which can stay submerged indefinitely.

AIP has a force multiplier effect on the lethality of a diesel-electric submarine as it raises the submerged endurance of the boat, several-fold. Fuel cell-based AIP has merits in performance compared to other technologies, said the MoD.

Fuel cell technology-based AIP generates power through the reverse electrolysis of oxygen and hydrogen. In this process, the two elements chemically combine, thereby generating electricity to charge the submarines batteries. This process does not need air, but requires storage of highly inflammable hydrogen on board. This is not true of the DRDOs AIP system, which relies on the innovative Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell technology.

This process is more rugged, tolerant of fuel impurities, offers longer life and efficiency, and is much safer, since it does not require hazardous Hydrogen to be stored on board.

While there are different types of AIP systems being pursued internationally, fuel cell-based AIP of NMRL is unique as the hydrogen is generated onboard. The technology has been successfully developed (by NMRL), with the support of industry partners Larsen & Toubro and Thermax. It has now reached the stage of maturity for fitment into target vessels, said the MoD.

Having tested its AIP on a land-based prototype (LBP), the will now evolve this into a marinised AIP system, which can fit into an actual submarine and operate underwater in live conditions.

The other type of AIP in service is a relatively untried, French system called Module d'Energie Sous-Marine Autonome (MESMA). The navy had the option to fit the MESMA AIP systems into the six Scorpene submarines that were contracted in 2005 under Project 75.

However, sceptical about MESMA, the navy decided to put its faith in a conventional diesel-electric system for the Project 75 submarines. Once the developed an indigenous AIP, that would be fitted onto the Scorpenes submarines.
DUBAI (Reuters) - U.S. sanctions imposed on the government of President Bashar al-Assad, known as the Ceasar Act, is complicating the return of Syria to the Arab fold, the UAE's Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed said on Tuesday.

The return of Syria to the Arab League is in the interest of Syria and other countries of the region, he told a told a joint news conference in Abu Dhabi, with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Catherine Evans)
The bullet-riddled van of slain Calbayog city Mayor Ronaldo Aquino is seen in Catbalogan, in the central Philippines, March 8, 2021.

A mayor in the central Philippines and his two aides were slain in what authorities alleged was a mis-encounter with police that also left at least two officers dead, officials said on Tuesday.

Police were on a routine patrol in Calbayog city on Monday when the security detail of Mayor Ronaldo Aquino fired upon them, according to an incident report by the police seen by BenarNews.

They had suspicions and opened fire, on the police, regional police commander Brig. Gen. Ronaldo de Jesus told reporters, referring to the mayors security detail.

Our forces just retaliated.

The violence resulted in the death of police Captain Joselito Tabanda and one of his deputies, and the wounding of another officer, according to the incident report.

The state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA) said three policemen were killed in the violence.

The incident also resulted in the death of Hon. Ronaldo Portares Aquino, city mayor of Calbayog city and two others, including his driver, the incident report said.

Aquino, who was with the Philippine opposition, was on his way to attend a family gathering when the shootings occurred, the police said.

Videos of the incident shared on social media showed the mayors bullet-riddled van and panicked residents scrambling away.

A colleague and friend of Aquino, House of Representatives member Edgar Mary Sarmiento, said the attack on the Calbayog city mayor appeared to have been well planned.

He urged the justice department to investigate the incident because he believed the local police had been compromised.

It is painful for me that theyre saying it was a shootout. It is clear according to witnesses that the mayor's vehicle was shot first, Sarmiento told a Manila radio station.

Those who carried out the ambush, it is painful to say  but they were in uniform, they were members of the police, he said.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will investigate the incident that resulted in the deaths of Aquino and others, Department of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told PNA on Tuesday.

The case will be referred to the NBI for the simple reason that the other party is the Philippine National Police, Guevarra said.

Mondays alleged mis-encounter incident was the second such one involving the police since June 2020, when nine officers were jailed for their alleged role in the killing of four army intelligence specialists in the troubled south.

The officers were dismissed from the service, but were set free in January on a technicality. A manhunt is underway for them.

Killings related to political rivalries are common in the Philippines, especially in the provinces.

Four of Mayor Aquinos supporters were slain during the 2019 mid-term polls, and at least one other mayor of Calbayog, Reynaldo Uy, was slain in 2011 while he was in office.

Vice President Leni Robredo, a leader of the opposition, lamented Aquinos death and said the public appeared to have become desensitized by the numerous killings in the country under the Duterte administration.

It should not be treated as normal that mayors, community organizers, lawyers, judges, journalists, children, and even victims of the drug trade are outright murdered in our streets or in their homes, Robredo said Tuesday.

We must connect the dots between these gruesome deaths and see the web that enables and emboldens these killings - impunity, the normalization and incitement of violence, and the kill, kill, kill rhetoric coming from the highest offices.

Over the weekend, police and military forces killed nine people in separate raids in areas around Manila that, according to officials, targeted suspected communist rebels or communist sympathizers.

Those slain during the Sunday raids were vocal critics of the Duterte administration, human rights groups alleged.

The countrys national human rights commission is investigating the case.

On Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights office said it was appalled by the arbitrary killing of the nine activists. It said it was informed by the government that the killings were a result of legitimate operations.

The U.N. rights commissioner, in a report in June last year, said there was a serious lack of due process in police operations, and near total impunity for the use of lethal force by the police and the military, spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.

We urge the police to take urgent measures to prevent the use of excessive force resulting in loss of lives during law enforcement operations, Shamdasani said.

We also call on the government and members of the security forces to refrain from rhetoric that may lead to violations, and instead make public commitments to uphold human rights and the rule of law.

Jeoffrey Maitem contributed reporting from Cotabato City, Philippines.
BEIJING, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from Beijing Review written by Li Xiaoyang:

China will raise the percentage of permanent urban residents to 65 percent of the population by 2025 from some 60 percent in 2020.

The government work report delivered at this year's session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, on March 5 said China will move faster to grant permanent urban residency to people who move to cities from rural areas.

This population flow from rural to urban areas, where the industries are more developed, is accelerating economic progress, Yao Yang, Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, told Beijing Review, adding that over the past decades, 14 percent of the economic growth can be attributed to urbanization.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said earlier this year that the target set in 2014 of turning 100 million people from rural areas into urban residents by 2020 had been accomplished.

Cities with a population of less than 3 million had removed barriers for rural residents to apply for urban household registration, which gives them greater access to local public services. Most of the bigger ones also eased restrictions for incoming groups including migrant workers with stable jobs and college students from rural areas.

Many city clusters have seen mushrooming development and population. According to Hu Zucai, deputy head of the NDRC, the urbanization drive has created 19 city clusters, where over 75 percent of the entire urban population live. These clusters contribute more than 80 percent of the GDP.

The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and long-range objectives through 2035 to be adopted at this year's NPC session will outline new goals for urban growth.

According to the proposed document, the growth of major metropolitan areas and city clusters, especially the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle in southwest China, will be spurred on. Regional development gaps will be narrowed by providing support for the northeastern, central and western regions and improving the transfer payment system, which ensures transfer of funds from the Central Government to local governments. Major cities and city clusters will play a greater role in empowering their neighboring regions.

The plan also envisions addressing pollution, better designing urban spaces, protecting historical heritage, and renovating old communities. Water and sewage systems in urban areas will be improved. Risk control will be enhanced, the housing market reined in, and the urban household registration system eased further.

However, Hu said problems including the relatively low quality of life of rural residents settling down in cities, uneven regional development, and insufficient urban governance capacity call for more targeted efforts.

To make cities real home to rural migrants, public education and housing have to be improved. The group should also be given skills training for industries with a high labor demand, such as smart manufacturing and household services, to improve their income and purchasing power.

"China needs to build more cities with international competitiveness. Its development has relied on a few major cities for a long time," Yin Zhi, a researcher with the Institute for China Sustainable Urbanization, Tsinghua University, told Beijing Review. "It led to traffic congestion, high housing prices and pollution in large cities, leaving many small and medium-sized cities insufficiently developed."

Hu's proposal therefore is to develop county-level economies and improve inter-city transportation.The growth of smart cities is envisioned through the use of new technologies including 5G and artificial intelligence, which will improve physical infrastructure and the digital platforms for urban management.

In the next phase, the government needs to encourage two-way personnel flow between urban and rural areas. Due to the employment pressure in cities, some rural residents may choose to return to their hometowns. The working skills they have acquired can make them key contributors to local development.

"As new urbanization advances, more personnel, funds and other resources will flow to rural areas, which will improve resource allocation across the country," Yin said.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1452517/People_jog_Xiamen_Fujian_Province_southeast_China__PHOTO_BY_WANG.jpg
From left, Margaret Canning, Belfast Telegraph Business Editor, and Mark Crimmins, head of Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland

The Belfast Telegraph Business Awards 2021 in partnership with Ulster Bank is launched today as we mark the 20th anniversary of celebrating the highest achievers in the world of business.

Throughout two decades we've had a continuous run of honouring businesses and their people - and 2021, which follows the most difficult year business has ever had due to the coronavirus pandemic, is no different.

And 2021 also marks the fifth year of our partnership with title sponsor Ulster Bank.

The bank is supporting an all new-category of the Special Recognition Award for Climate Action.

We are honouring achievement across 14 categories in total, including innovation, management and leadership, marketing and corporate social responsibility.

Kenton Hilman, Head of Corporate and Property, Ulster Bank, said: "The Belfast Telegraph Business Awards in partnership with Ulster Bank will this year recognise companies that have overcome challenges, demonstrated resilience, and have been innovating to succeed.

"Whatever your size or sector, the awards provide a platform for you to tell your story and to have your achievements showcased.

Expand Close Winner: Tina McKenzie, CEO Staffline Recruitment Ireland, took home the special Lifetime Achievement Award last year / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Winner: Tina McKenzie, CEO Staffline Recruitment Ireland, took home the special Lifetime Achievement Award last year

"As businesses and the economy seek to recover and thrive into the future, this is more important than ever.

"So, I would encourage all businesses to enter the awards, including our new category this year which will recognise companies demonstrating outstanding commitment to implementing sustainable business practice to combat climate change."

Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life Editor-in-Chief Eoin Brannigan said: "We are delighted to launch the 2021 Belfast Telegraph Business Awards, in partnership with Ulster Bank.

"Businesses across NI have had an extremely challenging year and we feel it's never been more important to recognise and celebrate their hard work and successes in light of the obstacles they've had to negotiate over the last 12 months.

"We are grateful to Ulster Bank for its continued support as we enter the fifth year of our partnership and I'd also like to thank all our category sponsors.

"It's also great to be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Belfast Telegraph Business Awards."

The panel of judges this year is again chaired by Professor Mark Durkin of the Ulster University Business School.

He is joined on the judging panel by Professor Ian McConnell of business advisory firm PwC, Dr David Paulson of Queen's University, Roger Pollen of the Federation of Small Businesses, Kirsty McManus of the Insitute of Directors, Professor Neil Gibson of EY, Kenton Hilman of Ulster Bank, Ann McGregor of the NI Chamber of Commerce, Claire McKee, partner at Clarendon Executive and Neil Logan, partner at Wilson Nesbitt.

The Special Recognition Award for Climate Action will recognise a company which has demonstrated outstanding commitment to implementing sustainable business practice.

The category is open to any business operating in Northern Ireland regardless of size.

To support the application, a company must:

Show evidence of how you integrate sustainable business practices within your activities and operations.

Describe what steps you have taken to combat climate change.

Highlight any innovations introduced to support your sustainable business strategy.

Outline any challenges that have been overcome.

Identify any benefits to staff or customers as a result of your sustainable business practice.

To enter the awards, go to http://belfasttelegraph.co.uk/businessawards/enter


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
A senior executive at broadcaster ITV has spoken to presenter Piers Morgan about his criticism of Meghan, the wife of Prince Harry, the chief executive of the company said on Tuesday.

Morgan, a former CNN presenter, has long criticised the couple, saying they have damaged the royal family and sought publicity on their own terms, without the scrutiny that comes with the job.

ITV Chief Executive Carolyn McCall told reporters that Kevin Lygo had spoken to Morgan in recent days about his comments. She said ITV has many voices, was committed to supporting mental health and that the company could not control what he said on Twitter.

ITV has many voices and we try and represent many voices on ITV every day, she said. Its not about one opinion.

Read More

This morning Good Morning Britain presenter Morgan stormed off set during a discussion about the Duchess of Sussex with his colleague, Alex Beresford.

On Monday morning, Morgan delivered a scathing review of Harry and Meghans bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey which had aired overnight in the US and has since been broadcast in the UK.

The ITV programme hosts scathing comments on Monday drew criticism from mental health charity Mind.

The charity criticised Morgan and said it was disappointed and concerned by his comments after Meghan said she had had suicidal thoughts.

It added: Its vital that, when people reach out for support or share their experiences of ill mental health, they are treated with dignity, respect and empathy.

Morgan returned to set after stalking off for a lengthy conversation with Beresford and co-host Susanna Reid.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-10 00:08:16|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

KATHMANDU, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Nepali Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali has praised China's support to Nepal to fight COVID-19 including its provision of vaccine as the Himalayan country is running a second phase of vaccination drive.

On March 1, Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi said the Chinese government has decided to increase grant assistance of COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal.

On Feb. 17, Nepal's drug regulator -- Department of Drug Administration -- granted approval to the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd, under Sinopharm, for emergency use in Nepal.

"We are very grateful to China for providing vaccines. I believe the vaccine provided by China will help Nepal to overcome COVID-19," Gyawali said in an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday. "Earlier, China had provided medical supplies to Nepal."

Praising China's efforts to forge international cooperation to fight the pandemic by supplying masks, personal protective equipment, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machines, among others, to the world in the early months of the pandemic, Minister Gyawali criticized attempts to politicize the pandemic.

"Some countries tried to do politics even with COVID-19 with prejudice. What all the countries must have understood is that COVID-19 is the global problem. It didn't care about political colors or (national) boundaries," said the Nepali foreign minister.

He also recalled the meeting with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in virtual meetings along with leaders of other nations where they discussed cooperation to fight the pandemic.

Gyawali also hailed cooperation between Nepal and China under the framework of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The two countries had signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the BRI in May 2017.

During the second Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation held in Beijing in 2019, a framework of trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network was also included in the BRI.

"We lost a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe that we will implement the selected project under the BRI rapidly. This will help both countries to enhance connectivity. We will be connected by railway, road, ports, and air transportation and there will also be economic connectivity along the border," he said.

Gyawali also congratulated the Chinese government, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people for the success in eradicating extreme poverty.

On Feb. 25, the Chinese government said absolute poverty has been eradicated in the world's most populous country, home to over 1.4 billion people after years of efforts.

Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty. Combined with poverty-reduction results since the late 1970s, China is responsible for over 70 percent of the global reduction in poverty over the period.

"This is a great achievement for China that within just 40 years of fighting against poverty. The country has been able to overcome poverty. No other country has been able to do this yet. We should give credit to the Communist Party of China for this great achievement," said Gyawali.

"We are very happy for China (for this achievement). And, we also want to learn from China. Sharing experience (of China) will be important for us. Although the situations of two countries are different, we can always learn from China."

Nepal is one of the world's poorest countries, but a UN body has recommended Nepal for graduation from the least developed country status to a developing country with a preparatory period of five years. Enditem.
A Commerce Secretary level meeting between and was held in Dhaka on Monday in which the two sides decided to expeditiously move forward on the feasibility study on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

According to a statement released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the delegation was led by Md. Jafar Uddin and the Indian delegation was led by Anup Wadhawan.

"Extensive discussions were held on a variety of issues of mutual interest such as streamlining Certificate of Origin procedures, regional connectivity initiatives, anti-dumping duty on Jute products, harmonization of standards, removal of port restrictions, trade infrastructure-related issues, India- CEOs' Forum, sharing of trade data, upgradation of border trading infrastructure. Both sides decided to expeditiously move forward on the feasibility study on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)," the statement read.

During his visit, Wadhawan called on Commerce Minister of Bangladesh Tipu Munshi and Private Industry and Investment Advisor to Prime Minister of Bangladesh Salman F Rahman.

The President of Indian Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce (IBCCI) along with his board members called on the Commerce Secretary and discussed ways to further enhance the bilateral trade.

Earlier, a meeting of the Joint Working Groups (JWG) on Trade between the Commerce Ministries of both the countries was held on 16-17 February through video conference. The meeting had held detailed technical discussion on issues of mutual interest in trade and commerce.

According to statement, itt was agreed that the next meetings of the Commerce Secretaries and the JWG will be held in India, at mutually convenient dates.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - Edison Cobalt Corp (TSXV: EDDY) ("Edison Cobalt" or the "Company") is pleased to announce Nathan Rotstein, has been appointed chief executive officer and a director of the Company, effective immediately.

Mr. Rotstein brings to the Company over 45 years of experience in the financial markets. He has consulted with numerous companies in the energy metals sectors including but not limited to cobalt, manganese, graphite and lithium. Nathan also has an extensive global network comprising of international funds and high net worth individuals.

Nathan Rotstein incoming CEO comments, "I gave a lot of thought to stepping into the CEO role for Edison Cobalt. With the current Climate Change movement, I want to be part of the solution in carbon reduction. Energy metals exploits the EV revolution currently taking place. Electrification is the future. The difference is that with an electric motor, very little energy is wasted, whereas combustion is by nature a highly inefficient process where much energy is lost along the way. Therefore, it's the gas-powered vehicle that needs more energy."

Mr. Rotstein is replacing Mr. Neil Pettigrew as chief executive officer of the Company. Edison would like to thank Mr. Pettigrew for his numerous contributions as its CEO and he will continue to serve as a director of the Company.

Finally, the Company announces it is granting 4,000,000 incentive stock options to certain officers, directors, consultants, and employees of the Company to purchase up to a total of 4,000,000 common shares of the Company at a price of $0.15 per common share for a period of five (5) years.

The stock options are subject to the terms of the Company's stock option plan and regulatory approval.

About Edison Cobalt Corp.

Edison Cobalt Corp. is a Canadian-based junior mining exploration company focused on the procurement, exploration and development of cobalt, lithium and other energy metals. Edison Cobalt Corp.'s acquisition strategy focuses on acquiring affordable, cost-effective and highly regarded mineral properties in areas with proven geological potential. The Company is looking to build a portfolio of quality assets capable of supplying critical materials to the battery industry. The Company intends to capitalize on and have its shareholders benefit from the renewed interest in the battery metals space.

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

"James Richardson"

James Richardson

Chief Financial Officer, Director

For more information please contact:

Tel: (416) 526-3217

Email: info@edisoncobalt.com

Website: www.edisoncobalt.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76490
San Francisco, March 9 : At least five different hacking groups, including one from China, are currently attacking vulnerabilities in Microsoft's email servers -- described by the US government as "widespread domestic and international exploitation" that may affect hundreds of thousands of victims globally.

While Microsoft has already revealed that a Chinese government-linked hacking group known as Hafnium is targeting its on-premises 'Exchange Server' software, the MIT Technology Review now reports that at least "four other distinct hacking groups are now attacking critical flaws in Microsoft's email software".

"There are at least five different clusters of activity that appear to be exploiting the vulnerabilities," Katie Nickels, who leads an intelligence team at cybersecurity firm Red Canary that is investigating the cyber-attack, was quoted as saying in the report.

"The challenge is that this is all so murky and there is so much overlap. What we've seen is that from when Microsoft published about Hafnium, it has expanded beyond just Hafnium. We've seen activity that looks different from tactics, techniques and procedures from what they reported on," Nickels warned.

Microsoft said that the company is "working closely with CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), other government agencies, and security companies to ensure we are providing the best possible guidance and mitigation for our customers".

White House press secretary Jen Psaki had said last week that they are concerned that "there is a large number of victims who are working with our partners to understand the scope of this".

"Network owners also need to consider whether they have already been compromised and should immediately take appropriate steps," Psaki had said while briefing the media.

According to KrebsOnSecurity, at least 30,000 organisations across the US, including government and commercial firms, have been hacked by China-based threat actors who used Microsoft's Exchange Server software to enter their networks.

The China-based espionage group allegedly exploited four vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server email software.

The vulnerabilities allowed the hackers to gain access to email accounts, and also gave them the ability to install malware, according to Microsoft, which reported about the China-based threat actors but did not reveal the scale at which tens of thousands of organisations have been hit.

The Exchange Server is primarily used by business customers.

Microsoft has released several security updates to fix the vulnerabilities, advising its customers to install those immediately.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi, March 10 : The Centre has set an outlay of Rs 3,490 crore for the development of fishing harbours and fish landing centres.

The duration kept for the work is till year 2025, Giriraj Singh, Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, informed the Parliament on Tuesday.

"The Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Government of India under Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) envisages substantial investments to the tune of Rs 3490 crore for development of fishing harbours and fish landing centres during the period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25," the Minister responded to a query.

The query was raised by SinghaAs own party members. Dr Jyanta Kumar Roy, Member of parliament (MP) from Jalpaiguri, West Bengal and Vinod Kumar Sonkar, MP from Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh.

The answer to the queries posed further noted that in the budget 2021-22, development of 5 Major Fishing Harbours namely Kochi, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Paradip, and Petuaghat has been announced as hubs of economic activities.

"Besides, development of inland fishing harbours and fish-landing centres along the banks of rivers and waterways has also been announced in the budget," the answer tated.

The Minister also informed the parliament that under the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund(FIDF), concessional finance is provided to the state governments/UTs to undertake development of fishing harbours and fish landing centres.

"Till date, 14 fishing harbour projects worth of Rs 3451.32 crore have been approved under FIDF," he added.
NEW DELHI : China has raised the issue of Indian curbs on cross-border foreign investments and the ban on 200 Chinese apps at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

China expressed deep concern" over the restrictions on opportunistic takeover of Indian companies after the outbreak of the covid pandemic, terming them to be inconsistent with multilateral trade rules and cautioning that they may affect business interests on both sides. The comments were made during a discussion on Indias trade policy at the WTO.

We would express our deep concern on the recent revised FDI policy, namely Review of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current covid-19 pandemic, which applies to countries sharing land borders with India, or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country. Such measure is not consistent with WTO non-discrimination principle and will surely affect business interests both of India and these countries," China said.

Indias 7th Trade Policy Review report was released in January at the WTO, but the minutes of the discussions were made public only last week.

View Full Image India put FDI curbs in April after Peoples Bank of China raised its stake in HDFC from 0.8% to 1.01% via open-market purchases. (Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint)

India took the decision to put the FDI restrictions in April after the Peoples Bank of China raised its stake in the countrys largest mortgage lender, Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd, from 0.8% to 1.01% through open-market purchases in the March quarter. The move led to concerns that Indias most-valued companies could be susceptible to hostile takeovers as their market value had taken a severe hit because of covid-related uncertainties.

China said it acknowledges Indias efforts to enhance competitiveness in manufacturing and services sectors through Make In India and Digital India initiatives but remains concerned that some of the measures are not consistent with WTO principles. Indias commitments, such as the tariffs on some ICT (information and communications technology) products, exceed the bound tariffs notified by India, it said.

We are also concerned with the application of national security to the normal trade, which led to more than 200 Chinese apps (being) banned in India. These measures have caused negative consequences for the supply chain and local consumers as well," it added.

Jayant Dasgupta, a former Indian trade ambassador to the WTO, said Indias decisions do not violate WTO principles as there is no agreement on investment at the trade body. Non-discrimination at WTO is in relation to goods and services only. Indias decision may be discriminatory but not WTO- inconsistent. There is a clear security threat from China and India is free to make any such domestic policy decision. The US has also stopped investment by Huawei on security grounds," he added.

India introduced trade and non-trade barriers against China following a border clash in June that left 20 Indian soldiers dead. Recently China said it lost four its men.

In July, India imposed import restrictions on colour television sets to encourage local manufacturing and check imports from China.

India also restricted Chinese companies from participating in Indian public procurement bids without approval from competent authorities, citing defence and national security concerns.

Indian officials have signalled no immediate relief on the restrictions on Chinese investments.

An email query sent to the commerce ministry did not elicit any response till the time of going to press.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
Passion Capital, one of the UKs first early-stage VCs, is to crowd-fund the final stage of its latest 45 million fund ($62.5m), Passion Capital Fund III. TechCrunch understands this is the first time retail investors have been invited to become LPs in a VC fund, at least in Europe.

Passion says it will use the Seedrs platform, which is normally used by startups themselves for crowd-equity funding campaigns. The move is a highly unusual one for a VC, where LPs are normally drawn from Pension funds and family offices, rather than the person on the street.

Seedrs was previously used by the Seedcamp venture accelerator in the UK to allow its founders to participate in a fund-raise, but this was allocated privately. Whats different about Passions move is that almost anyone will be able to become an LP in their new fund, albeit even a very small one.

A 350,000 allocation will be made available to the public. The offer may well prove tantalizing to retail investors as their single investment would be applied across a range of startups rather than through the direct single company investment traditionally made via Seedrs.

Any investors who self-certifies as 'high net worth' or 'sophisticated' will be able to invest in the fund. Passion Capitals portfolio of 83 tech investments is worth an estimated 5 billion and includes Monzo, GoCardless, Butternut Box, Adzuna, and Marshmallow.

Passion says it has already made 11 new investments from Fund III, which investors via the Seedrs platform will automatically become a part of, with a further 15-20 new investments planned.

Eileen Burbidge, Passion Capital partner said in a statement: Investment into a private venture fund is usually reserved for institutions. We are throwing our doors open to a much wider range of investors in this unique collaboration with Seedrs as we look to diversify our investor base and increase access for investors who might be interested in partnering with us.

Story continues

Jeff Kelisky, CEO at Seedrs, added: This is a very innovative collaboration for both the venture capital and the equity crowdfunding space It presents our community with another avenue to participate in SME equity finance that delivers additional investment opportunities and the potential for exceptional returns, beyond the direct investment campaigns we also run.

Speaking to me in an interview, Burbidge added: Wed been seeing what's been happening in the States, with Angellist Rolling Funds and then the SEC expanding the definition of qualified investors, and, basically, this democratization of retail investors finally getting access to venture funds and to GPs. Its, kindve, breaking down these age-old dynamics of where institutional investors pick and choose these age-old fund managers, and the whole notion that venture has been this elite, inaccessible asset class for retail investors.

Burbidge said she talked to Angellist about doing something similar in Europe and realized it wasnt legally possible right now, so she asked Seedrs, who confirmed they could do it.

We closed the fund first in August 2019, it was 25 million, then August 2020 with another 20, so 45 million, which is the same size as our second fund. And during the pandemic. But, she says, after dealing with their LPs, they eventually found they had a 350,000 allocation left over, so this became the germination of the crowdfunding idea.

I thought, we've got 350,000 left, why don't we crowd-fund it. This whole movement of letting retail investors get access to venture funds and invest - to get that exposure to a whole portfolio- I just think is a really good thing. I think it's great for everyone involved. Obviously, as long as they're educated and they know that capital is at risk and it's not pensioners putting their last savings in, and those usual kinds of warnings about crowdfunding. But I love the idea of people getting exposure to tech, and not having to do 150,000 as a minimum check.

Although Burbidge declined to comment further on the subject, there is of course the implication that this allocation could be increased, if the crowd-funding takes off.

She added: There's not a retail investor in the world who wouldn't want access to the latest Sequoia fund, or the Accel fund right or Andreessen Horowitz funds we think it's great to give retail investors exposure to a portfolio. I think it'd be great if more funds did it.

Burbidge believes actions like Passion's will "increase the diversity of the LP base. It increases inclusion and gives people more access. It just creates more participation and breaks down the old barriers. We'll have the Seedrs platform for Q and As. It is going to be up to us how much we want to engage with that community, the same as Monzo does with its crowdfunded investors. Monzo holds a public event every year for all of its crowdfund investors. I would love to do an event it'd be great to meet people who have invested in this fashion."
County library to unveil story walk project in Vanderbilt

The Otsego County Library is hosting a ceremony Saturday to formally open the latest story walk project.
It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
Prince Harry and his wife Meghans bombshell allegations about the royal family in a TV interview were sad and disappointing but will not harm the monarchy in the long term.

That was the consensus among some of Victorias staunchest royal supporters following the tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which Meghan said there were concerns within the royal family about how dark their baby Archies skin would be.

Constitutional monarchist Jason Ronald at home with a portrait of the Queen. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Meghan told Winfrey she had contemplated suicide and was refused mental health help, and Harry accused his family of failing to support Meghan amid racist media coverage in Britain.

Jason Ronald, national chairman of the Royal Over-Seas League, said the interview was all a bit sad but, like Princess Dianas revelations to journalist Martin Bashir in 1995, it would not change anything.
RA'ANANA, Israel, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovytec , a developer of medical devices that address emergency and routine respiratory and cardiac care, announced today that it has signed a distribution agreement with Atlantic Diving Supply Inc. (ADS), a supplier of tactical and operational equipment, apparel and logistical services to the United States Department of Defense and other federal agencies. The agreement centers around Inovytec's Ventway Sparrow Robust, a MIL STD robust and portable advanced ventilator.

"ADS is always looking for pioneering solutions to meet customer demand," said Stephen Hicks, Category Manager-Operational Medicine/Education and Simulation at ADS. "The Ventway Sparrow Robust allows for hospital level care even in complicated, far-forward combat environments. We presented the ventilator to a number of officials before closing this deal and the overwhelming impression was that this was a tool that could change military medicine."

The ventilator features airworthiness approvals (rotary and fixed wing), night vision compatibility, and is operational up to 25,000 feet. It is already in use by the Israeli and Swedish military forces.

"Our agreement with ADS is part of our goal to become a long-term medical supplier for the defense industry," said Udi Kantor, Co-Founder and CEO of Inovytec. "We were looking for a significant partner with extensive experience in the field and we have found just that. Ultimately, we hope that the ventilators lighten the heavy burden that rests with combat medics and helps ensure the highest standards of medical care anytime and anywhere."

"Inovytec is excited to partner with a major player in the American defense sector," said Ronit Steiner, VP Sales & Marketing at Inovytec. "ADS will help us make an impact on the American defense sector and that will ensure a long-term foot hold in this important sector.

The Ventway Sparrow line of ventilators was granted FDA 510(k) clearance at the end of January 2021 after holding emergency FDA EUA clearance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

About Inovytec

Inovytec, founded in 2011, is a medical device company that develops cutting-edge medical devices with a focus on routine and emergency respiratory and cardiac failures. Inovytec's products are designed to increase the chances of survival of critical medical victims through the improvement of first treatment even in harsh environments. Each device addresses the critical moments of care, from the first minutes after a medical event, to patient transfers and stabilization in hospitals. SALI creates a virtual hospital environment in the field and allows passers-by to act as first responders during emergencies. The Ventway Sparrow family of portable, robust, high-performance ventilators are designed for in-hospital transport, emergency services, military medics, and homecare environments. LUBO can open the upper airway during non-invasive ventilation, CPR, and first-line treatment for trauma patients. Leading hospitals, emergency organizations, militaries, and smart cities around the world have implemented these solutions.

Media Contact:

Avi Bieler

Finn Partners

[email protected]

+972-54-941-5432

SOURCE Inovytec
Personalized 3D printed models created from cardiac imaging data, mainly from cardiac CT images have been increasingly used in cardiovascular disease, primarily in the preoperative planning and simulation of complex surgical procedures, as well as medical education. 3D printed models are proved to be highly accurate in replicating normal anatomy and cardiac pathology with reported differences less than 0.5 mm between 3D printed models and original sources images.

Further to these applications, a new research direction of utilizing 3D printed models is to study the optimal CT scanning protocols in cardiovascular disease with the aim of reducing radiation dose while preserving diagnostic image quality. To achieve this goal, an appropriate printing material is essential to ensure that the printed models possess elasticity and flexibility similar to normal tissue properties.

Zhonghua Sun, a John Curtin Distinguished Professor and medical imaging researcher from Curtin University, Australia has been in search of suitable 3D printing materials to print realistic models, and more importantly, to print cardiovascular models with similar tissue properties to replicate heart and aortic arteries.

Prof. Sun's research interests lie in 3D image visualization and diagnosis; 3D printing, virtual reality and artificial intelligence in medical applications, specifically in the cardiovascular disease. In his recent work, published in Current Medical Imaging, Prof. Sun and his team presents research findings for printing the aorta models with printing materials having similar CT attenuation to that of normal aortic wall on both pre- and post-contrast CT scans.

This study further advances the current applications of 3D printing in cardiovascular disease to another level by presenting evidence that 3D printed personalized aorta models can be used to study optimal CT protocols, in addition to the value that 3D printed aorta models serve as a useful tool for pre-surgical planning and simulation of endovascular repair of aortic disease.

In his latest article, Prof Sun and his team reported findings on how the identified materials can be used to print realistic aorta models. They first created a 25-mm long type B aortic dissection model from CT images, then printed 4 models with use of two materials, namely Agilus from Stratasys and Visijet CE-NT from 3D Systems.

These materials are soft and can be mixed with another material such as photopolymer resin to create a range of products with different elastic properties. These 4 aortic models consisted of two Agilus models printed with A40 and A50, representing two different degrees of hardness, another two Visijet models printed with Visijet CE-NT with different hardness, A30 and A70. The Visijet CE-NT A30 has a tensile strength between 0.2 and 0.4 which is close to the aging arteries, while Agilus A40 and A50 have a tensile strength of 0.5 to 1.5. The 4 aorta models were scanned on a 192-slice CT scanner with the standard aorta CTA protocol, and the scans were performed with and without use of contrast medium to measure CT attenuation at true lumen, false lumen, intimal flap and two junction areas between the true and false lumens.

Results showed that Agilus models had higher CT attenuation than Visijet CE-NT models on non-contrast CT images, with Agilus A50 having an average CT attenuation similar to that of original CT images. On contrast images, only Visijet CE-NT A30 produced CT attenuation similar to that of original images, while the remaining models printed with other materials resulted in significantly higher CT attenuation than that of original images. This study shows that Visijet CE-NT A30 is considered an appropriate material to print aortic dissection model due to its similar elasticity to the normal aorta.

Aorta CT angiography (CTA) is currently the reference method in preoperative assessment of aortic aneurysm and dissection. Further, CTA is commonly used to follow-up patients treated with endovascular stent grafts. Therefore, regular CTA follow-ups of these patients at 3, 6 and 12 months, yearly thereafter contribute to cumulative radiation dose, which raises serious concerns due to radiation-induced malignancy. Dose optimization is clinically important to these patients receiving multiple CT scans.

3D printed aortic models with Visijet CE-NT material give the appearance of translucent light yellow allowing its use for education purpose, in addition to its reported value in guiding complex aortic surgery or endovascular aortic repair. Printing aortic dissection models is very challenging compared to other cardiovascular models due to very thin membranous structure of the intimal flap." Zhonghua Sun, a John Curtin Distinguished Professor and Medical Imaging Researcher, Curtin University, Australia

The CTA images used in this study represented nice anatomical structures including intimal flap which were segmented and printed without any difficulty. This confirms the importance of quality of source images to guarantee printing high-quality models.

Prof. Sun's team is continuing to work on printing more anatomical structures including ribs, thoracic vertebrae, soft tissues, lungs and heart which allows for simulation of more realistic environment. "The phantom should be improved to mimic the in vivo circumstance and this allows for investigation of optimal aorta CT scanning protocols for detection of aortic dissection," says Prof. Sun.
KLaunch Managed Text Solutions Business is all about relationships, and personalizing brand interactions through the convenience and immediacy of text messaging provides stronger conversion rates which ultimately translate into stronger brand loyalty and increased sales. Josh Ross, CEO, KLaunch

KLaunch is excited to announce our partnership with YourHome1Source, and the newly announced Your Home SuperStore featuring kathy ireland Home," said Josh Ross, Co-Founder and CEO of KLaunch. Our managed immersive text solutions will exponentially amplify the digital and personalized experience for these brands and their consumers, Ross continued. Business is all about relationships, and personalizing brand interactions through the convenience and immediacy of text messaging provides stronger conversion rates which ultimately translate into stronger brand loyalty and increased sales.

"We are delighted to announce our new partnership with KLaunch. We are continuously exploring the most cutting-edge and newest technology to bring to our customers, to make their shopping experience more time efficient and enjoyable. KLaunch is a great way for us to interact with our customers via text, expose them to our wonderful products and get to know them even better" says Kathy Ireland, Chair, CEO and Chief Designer of kathy ireland Worldwide.

"Interaction with today's mobile consumer is the key to transacting. That's why KLaunch technology is so powerful. It takes managed text and AI engagement to the next level for mobile shoppers. KLaunch engages people IMMEDIATELY with text images, videos, and product offers on smart devices. This is text interaction as never experienced before. KLaunch technology increases conversions. It exceeds the effectiveness of email campaigns and other ad placements. It quickly matches consumer needs with solutions, and in the palm of one's hand. Now that's a game-changer. Congratulations to CEO, Josh Ross and the team at KLaunch on their developments. We're thrilled and honored to partner with KLaunch.", says Sean Stockell, Publisher of YourHome1Source.

About KLaunch https://klaunch.io/

KLaunch, a subsidiary of the global communication software company, Kerauno, is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. KLaunch provides turn-key managed text solutions that deliver tangible outcomes through experiential, personalized, and immersive text messaging campaigns. KLaunch builds valuable relationships through fully managed text engagement services and text messaging optimization (TMO) for B2B and B2C companies, government agencies, and non-profits. The firm uses proprietary communication practices, methodologies, the science of words, data and AI bot technology proven to build relationships and increase revenue. For more information visit klaunch.io or text KLaunch to 55433.

ABOUT YOURHOME1SOURCE https://www.yourhome1source.com/

YourHome1Source (YH1S.com), Americas Resource on Homeownership is a leading online resource for home buyers and homeowners covering many home-related topics including home buying, building, remodeling, furnishing & decor, home loans, insurance, home inspections, home security, smart-home technology and more. Visitors find tips, emerging product announcements, savings opportunities and home project solutions, and can view hundreds of home product videos on Your Home TV. Other resources include home plan and resource books, home valuation tool, home budget worksheet, mortgage calculator, photo galleries, checklists on home loans, buying, selling, building and access to free credit reports, credit scores and ways to protect personal identity and financial information.

About kathy ireland Worldwide (kiWW): https://www.kathyireland.com/

kiWW is listed as one of the most powerful brands in the world by License Global Magazine. Kathy Ireland is named one of the 19 most influential women in licensing by License Global magazine and according to Fairchild Publications, Kathy Ireland is one of the 50 most influential people in fashion. Furniture Today names Kathy one of the most influential leaders in the furniture industry. Kathy graces the cover of Forbes Magazine twice nationally and twice globally (2012, 2016). kiWW is responsible for billions of dollars in retail sales. kiWW is the recipient of multiple awards including several Good Housekeeping Seals. Among kiWW companies is historic making firsts. Ms. Ireland's artist management clients have included Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Jackson, Vanessa Williams, 7-time Grammy Award winners Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr., whose new album, Blackbird: Lennon-McCartney Icons is among America's best-selling presale albums, according to iTunes. The record will be released April 30th, and is on kiWW's own label, EE1 / BMG, making Ireland one of the few women in history to own an independent and successful recording company.

Kathy and kiWW support many non-profits including: YWCA Greater Los Angeles for which she is an Ambassador, Dream Foundation, Providence Educational Foundation, 911 for Kids/AEFK, Hardwire International and the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital. Kathy is International Youth Chair for the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. Kathy is named an Ambassador for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.


Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
SHURO-OBOD, Tajikistan -- Villagers in southern Tajikistan along the border with war-torn Afghanistan have been told they should be prepared "to take up arms" if militants try to enter the region.

Local authorities in the Tajik district of Shamsiddin Shohin have held meetings with residents -- including army reservists and hunters -- to discuss the situation, Governor Pochokhon Zarifzoda says.

"In coordination with the police and intelligence departments, we've registered all hunters who live in the border areas. They will have to take up arms to defend our country. In fact, all of us will have to take up weapons if the situation dictates," Zarifzoda said in an official meeting on March 6.

Similar warnings are being issued in other Tajik districts near the mountainous border, which is marked by the Panj River.

Authorities, however, have not provided any details about their plans to train the men who they say could be given weapons to help defend the border.

It comes as fighting between the Afghan National Army and the Taliban and other insurgent groups has intensified in areas close to Tajikistan in recent months. Adding to concerns in Dushanbe, Afghan officials have warned that there are many Tajik nationals fighting with the militants.

In very rocky, mountainous terrain of brush and cliffs, much of the 112-kilometer border between Shamsiddin Shohin and northeastern Afghanistan is considered one of the most difficult parts of the frontier for Tajik border troops to control.

As in many Tajik border villages, people in Shamsiddin Shohin are used to hearing the sound of gunfire coming from Afghanistan and even fear being struck by a stray bullet or artillery shell.

Two weeks ago, several bullets and shells fired from Afghanistan landed in the backyards of two residential houses and a school in the nearby village of Ruzvai in the Darvoz district.

Tajik villagers narrowly missed being hit by gunfire from an exchange between Afghan government forces and the Taliban during a night of fighting on February 24 in Afghanistan's Nusai (Darwaz) district.

The following day, Nusai Governor Zainalabedin told RFE/RL there had been at least two Tajik citizens among the militants killed in the clashes. He identified them as Muhammad Yunus and Huzaifa.

It's unlikely the names will provide any clues for Tajik authorities as many Central Asian militants who fight abroad usually get new nicknames, which are often Arabic-style.

Zainalabedin called on Dushanbe to cooperate in the fight against the militants and Tajik nationals who the governor described as affiliates of the Taliban and the Islamic State group.

Afghan officials put the number of Tajik militants fighting in Afghanistan at around 200, but it's not possible to verify that number.

Border Reinforcement

Dushanbe has long been concerned about the concentration of militants -- including insurgents from Central Asia -- in Afghanistan near the 1,360-kilometer border the countries share.

In December, Tajikistan deployed additional troops along the border after reports emerged that a group of Tajik militants had helped the Taliban overrun an Afghan district several days before.

Some 10 minutes of footage on social media purportedly showed Tajik insurgents fighting against Afghan forces in Maymay, which borders Tajikistan.

The video showed several fighters killing men in Afghan National Army uniforms and civilian clothes while setting a building on fire. Some of the insurgents can be heard speaking a distinct Persian dialect that is spoken in Tajikistan.

RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the video, which Afghan politician Latif Pedram said depicted a militant attack on Maymay in November 2020.

Pedram, a native of the area, also published a list of names he described as insurgents from Tajikistan who took part in the Maymay raid.

Within days, security services in Tajikistan identified at least 15 Tajik citizens who appeared on the video or had their names included in the lists and statements shared by Afghan officials in connection with the Maymay fighting.

Afghan officials say the Tajik insurgents who took part in that raid belong to Jamaat Ansarullah, a militant group founded in Afghanistan by Tajik national Amriddin Tabarov in 2010. Tabarov was killed by Afghan forces in July 2015.

Written by Farangis Najibullah with reporting by RFE/RL's Tajik Service
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 17:56:18|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BANGKOK, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Thailand on Tuesday confirmed 60 cases of coronavirus infection, mostly domestic, according to a report of the Center for the COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).

Of Tuesday's total cases, 43 were domestic infections while 17 others referred to imported cases, the CCSA report said.

Those domestic cases included 38 in Samut Sakhon, southwest of Bangkok, and three in Pathum Thani, north of Bangkok, the report says.

Thailand has so far confirmed 26,501 cases of infection, 23,623 of which were reported as domestic while 2,878 others referred to those who had returned from abroad and tested positive in this country.

So far, 25,851 patients have fully recovered and been released from hospitals while 565 others are currently hospitalized and 85 fatalities have been reported. Enditem
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Even as the CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman has her investments in well-known tech companies such as Disney, Dropbox, HP and Quilbi

7. Dagmar Dolby $5.5B, Dolby Laboratories

Widow to Ray Dolby, the founder of Dolby Laboratories, she inherited nearly half the company.

8. Judy Faulkner $5.5B health IT

Faulkner is the CEO and founder of Epic Systems, a major healthcare software. This system is used worldwide by a majority of hospitals to hold the medical records of their patients.

9. Margot Birmingham Perot $4.1B computer services/real estate

Perot is the widow of the late H. Ross Perot, Sr. The Perot Systems, which she inherited, is an information technology service provider utilized in health care, manufacturing, banking, government, insurance, and other organizations. They specialize in digitizing and automating the company's records.

10. Melissa Ma $3.6B Internet Search

Melissa Ma is one of the founders of Asia Alternatives Management, a private equity firm. This is also a solutions platform tasked with managing a company's portfolios for funds, buyouts, and its growth.

Read Also: Viral TikTok Video of Woman Confronting Anti-Masker and Her Daughter Draws Mixed Reactions

Special Mention: Powerful Women Tech CEOs in the United States

Lori J. Ryerkerk, Chairman, CEO, and President, Celanese

Ryerkerk is the CEO of the technology and materials firm Celanese. The company operates 6 research centers and 25 plants worldwide. The company is also the leading producer of acetic acid while developing fuel and industrial materials for technology.

Lisa Su, President and CEO, AMD

The semiconductor company AMD has been producing high-quality graphical processing units that let them compete in the market against the likes of Nvidia and Intel. Even before joining the company, Lisa had several roles in the semiconductor industry, including Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, and Texas Instruments.

Mary Barra, Chairman, and CEO, General Motors

CEO Mary Barra is the first female CEO of the major automotive company General Motors and a long-term employee of theirs. They make a trend for the automotive companies becoming increasingly technological, with GM testing on public roads these autonomous vehicles.

These women make it a point to prove that gender does not limit your success in any industry out there!

Related Article: Top 10 women tech CEOs in the United States

This article is owned by Tech Times.

Written by Czarina Grace Del Valle
MIAMI--In the Florida Straits at night, and under a new moon is the preference for spawning mahi-mahi, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

These new details on the daily life of the highly sought-after migratory fish can help better manage their populations and provide scientists with new information to understand the impacts to the animal from changing environmental conditions.

To uncover these important details about the behaviors of mahi-mahi, or dolphinfish, the research team tagged captive spawning fish located at the UM Experimental Hatchery to build predictive spawning models and then used the models with data collected from mahi-mahi tagged in the wild. The study is the first to use acceleration data from remotely transmitting pop-up satellite tags to predict the spawning habitat of a wild marine fish. The UM Experimental Hatchery is the only place in the country where spawning mahi-mahi are kept in captivity.

To build the predictive models, the research team tagged five spawning mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) at the UM Hatchery and waited overnight to record the timing of when they spawned. In total, 40 individual spawning events were tracked in captivity. Then, they paired the acceleration data collected from the tags with the exact time of spawning to estimate when the animals would spawn in the wild.

To test the models' capability to estimate where and when the fish spawned in the wild, the researchers tagged 17 wild mahi-mahi off the coast of Miami and two in the Gulf of Mexico.

From an analysis of the satellite tag data, the researchers found that wild mahi-mahi spawn at night, primarily during a new moon at depths greater than they would normally be. The Florida Straits appeared to be an important spawning habitat for mahi-mahi, although the models suggest that some limited spawning takes place further north.

They found that mahi-mahi typically go deeper in the water column at night and are more surface oriented during the day. However, the phase of the moon had an effect on their nighttime depth distribution with a full moon bringing mahi-mahi closer to the surface at night.

They also found that mahi-mahi use behavioral thermoregulation to stay between a relatively narrow temperature window of about 27-28 degrees Celsius (80 - 82 degrees Fahrenheit). When surface waters are warmer, they move deeper and swim northward with the Gulf Stream to regulate their temperature, while fish tagged in cooler months stayed primarily in surface waters and migrated east and west between Florida and the Bahamas, rather than swimming north. They were also found to be the most active at cooler temperatures and in warm waters during a full moon at night.

"Mahi-mahi are highly sought after by recreational and commercial fisheries and are economically important," said Lela Schlenker, an alumna of the UM Rosenstiel school and lead author of the study. "It is critical to understand their migrations and the frequency, timing, and location of where they reproduce as well as how changing environmental conditions--like warmer oceans--might affect them to manage their populations sustainably now and in the future."

The team also found from the satellite tag data that the wild mahi-mahi travel long distances--up to 107 kilometers (66 miles) per day and dive to depths of 250 meters (820 feet).

"Together these findings suggest that as climate change continues to warm ocean waters, mahi-mahi will likely continue to shift northward and deeper throughout their migrations," said Martin Grosell," professor and chair of the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology at the UM Rosenstiel School. "This is important for recreational and commercial landings of mahi-mahi and the ecology of pelagic ecosystems. A fruitful collaboration between scientists from three departments at the Rosenstiel School, as well as colleagues from University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and access to healthy spawning mahi-mahi in captivity revealed new information about these valuable fish," said Grosell.

###

The study, titled "Remote predictions of mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) spawning in the open ocean using summarized accelerometry data," was published March 9, 2021 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. The coauthors include: John Stieglitz, Ronald Hoenig, Rachael Heuer, Daniel Benetti, Claire Paris and Martin Grosell from the UM Rosenstiel School; UM Rosenstiel alumnas Lela S. Schlenker and Christina Pasparakis and former UM postdoctoral researchers Robin Faillettaz and Georgina Cox. Chi Hin Lam, Large Pelagics Research Center, School for the Environment, University of Massachusetts, Boston. The study was funded by GoMRI (grant # SA-1520) to the RECOVER consortium.

The "European Construction Composites Market 2020-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The European construction composites market is anticipated to showcase a considerable growth rate during the forecast period.

The growing demand for construction composites from several European countries including the UK, France, Germany, and Spain for various construction applications is a key factor driving the regional market growth. In Europe, Germany is known to be the major manufacturer of construction composites.

According to the Budget 2020 introduced in March 2020, by the end of the parliament, public sector net investment will be triple the average over the last 40 years in real terms. In total, around $816.6 billion of gross capital investment will be provided for roads, railways, communications, schools, hospitals, and power networks across the UK by 2024-25. Considerable investment in the construction sector is expected to augment the demand for construction composites.

The improving economic conditions in Europe along with the shifting of investments from an international to an intercontinental arena and the increasing interest of private equity firms in the construction industry are some other factors that are contributing towards the growth of the regional market.

The presence of key market players in the region is again contributing to the growth of the construction composites market in Europe. The major players contributing to the European construction composites market include Arkema S.A., Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., BASF SE, Reichhold LLC, Koninklijke DSM N.V., and others. The key players in the market focus more on new product development and launches, partnerships and collaborations, geographical expansions, and innovative technological upgradations.

The construction composites market is segmented based on fiber type, resin type, and end-user:

Based on fiber type, the market is segmented into carbon fiber, glass fiber, and other types. Carbon fiber is expected to hold considerable market share based on fiber type owing to high strength and low weight. However, the adoption of carbon-free composites in European countries may restrain the growth of this market segment.

Based on the resin type, the construction composites market is segmented into thermoplastic resin and thermosetting resin.

Based on end-user, the market is segmented into residential, commercial industrial.

This report covers:

A comprehensive research methodology of the European construction composites market.

A detailed and extensive market overview with key analyst insights.

An exhaustive analysis of macro and micro factors influencing the market guided by key recommendations.

Analysis of regional regulations and other government policies impacting the European construction composites market.

Insights about market determinants which are stimulating the European construction composites market.

Detailed and extensive market segments with regional distribution of forecasted revenues.

Profiles and recent developments of market players.

Key Topics Covered

1. Report Summary

1.1. Research Methods and Tools

1.2. Market Breakdown

1.2.1. By Segments

2. Market Overview and Insights

2.1. Scope of the Report

2.2. Analyst Insight Current Market Trends

2.2.1. Key Findings

2.2.2. Recommendations

2.2.3. Conclusion

2.3. Rules Regulations

3. Competitive Landscape

3.1. Company Share Analysis

3.2. Key Strategy Analysis

3.3. Key Company Analysis

3.3.1.1. Overview

3.3.1.2. Financial Analysis

3.3.1.3. SWOT Analysis

3.3.1.4. Recent Developments

4. Market Determinants

4.1 Motivators

4.2 Restraints

4.3 Opportunities

5. Market Segmentation

5.1. European Construction Composites Market by Fiber Type

5.1.1. Carbon Fiber

5.1.2. Glass Fiber

5.1.3. Natural Fiber

5.2. European Construction Composites Market by Resin Type

5.2.1. Polyester

5.2.2. Vinyl Ester

5.2.3. Polyethylene

5.2.4. Polypropylene

5.3. European Construction Composites Market by End-User

5.3.1. Residential

5.3.2. Commercial

5.3.3. Industrial

6. Regional Analysis

6.1. European

6.1.1. UK

6.1.2. Germany

6.1.3. Italy

6.1.4. Spain

6.1.5. France

6.1.6. Rest of European

7. Company Profiles

7.1. Allnex Netherlands B.V.

7.2. AOC, LLC

7.3. Arkema S.A.

7.4. Ashland Global Holdings Inc.

7.5. BASF SE

7.6. CIECH S.A.

7.7. Crystic Resins India Pvt. Ltd.

7.8. DuPont de Nemours, Inc.

7.9. Eternal Materials Co., Ltd.

7.10. Evonik Industries, Inc.

7.11. INEOS AG

7.12. Koninklijke DSM N.V.

7.13. OrgiChemie FZ LLC

7.14. PolyntSpA

7.15. Qualipoly Chemical Corp.

7.16. Reichhold LLC

7.17. The Dow Chemical Co.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ju8m2q

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005694/en/

Contacts:

ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
Gab, the social network popular with right-wing online commentators, was taken offline as the result of another hack, following the breach reported last week.

On its Twitter account, the site said that it had taken down the site to investigate a security vulnerability, and claimed that it was being randomed and threatened by criminal hackers.

Users attempting to access the right-wing site were met with an internal error message, as recorded by The Daily Beast, however the site is now activated again.

It appears that the breach was caused by a hacker called cApTaIn JaXpArO - a reference to the Pirates of the Caribbean character Captain Jack Sparrow. Verified accounts on Gab were apparently compromised with a message from the hacker posted on their feeds.

Dear Andrew [Torba], one message apparently read, referencing the CEO of Gab, if you value transparency so much why do you keep lying to your despicable users?

It continues: This website has been fully compromised last week. 35M public posts and 3M private posts. 50K emails and 7K passwords. 831 verification documents in a reference to the GabLeaks hack which saw more than 70GB of data taken from the social media site.

The hack contained public posts and profiles, private group messages, user passwords, and group passwords saved by Gab. It does not contain any photos or videos uploaded to the site.

Gab users, your leaked verification documents ... are not even worth 8 Bitcoins to them. They do not care about you or their 18,000 pro users. Dont worry about it.

The social media site did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.

Gabs status as a home for users banned from other social media sites was highlighted in 2018, when the Pittsburgh shooter was found to have posted antisemitic comments on the platform shortly before killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue.

At the time, PayPal cancelled the companys account, GoDaddy dropped its domain name, and it was removed from Google and Apples app stores.

Gab is an American business run by law-abiding American citizens that cant get a business checking account, cant process credit and debit cards online, and cant access basic online services run by tech monopolies, the company tweeted yesterday.

Gab is not the only platform used by the far-right to fall victim of a breach; Parler had data scraped by researchers following the Capitol Hill insurrection attempt in January, with users GPS information recorded and used to identify criminals.
UPDATE March 9, 5:59 p.m. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved $5 per hour hazard pay for grocery and drug store employees, Supervisor Matt Haney announced on Twitter on Tuesday.

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)  San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday could approve an emergency ordinance to raise wages by $5 per hour for some grocery and retail workers as the COVID-19 pandemic endures.

Under the emergency ordinance, authored by Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton, retail and grocery store locations with pharmacies would be temporarily required to pay workers an extra $5 during the pandemic.

The ordinance is likely to pass, as seven other supervisors have signed on to cosponsor it, including supervisors Myrna Melgar, Gordon Mar, Hillary Ronen, Ahsha Safai, Dean Preston, Connie Chan and Matt Haney.

Walton said the ordinance is a follow up to a resolution passed by supervisors in January, urging large chain grocery stores to raise hourly wages for employees during the pandemic as a way to further support workers who have provided food and other essentials.

Other California cities have already enacted a similar $5 wage increase for grocery store workers, including Oakland, Santa Clara, San Leandro, Berkeley and Long Beach.

The Sacramento-based California Grocers Association has said wage hikes for grocery store workers could have harmful impacts, potentially resulting in lost jobs or hours for workers and higher food prices at smaller stores. Last month, the association filed separate lawsuits against the cities of Oakland and San Leandro, alleging the mandated hazard pay raises are unlawful.

Copyright  2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
SEATTLE, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A coalition of funders is announcing a new, pooled fund that will drive investments to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)-led and -rooted organizations, coalitions, and movements as a pathway for inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Fund for Inclusive Recovery aims to raise $50 million over the next five years.

Coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the launch of the COVID-19 Response Fund , which deployed more than $30 million to communities and organizations disproportionately affected by the pandemic, the creation of the Fund for Inclusive Recovery aims to bring the region together to address the widening inequities placed on BIPOC community members. The COVID-19 Response Fund galvanized thousands of donors and supported 375 grantees working across critical issues such as emergency financial assistance, childcare, mental health, food assistance, and more. The widening inequities in Greater Seattle threaten the region's overall growth. By investing in the most vulnerable communities, the Fund will foster shared prosperity and inclusive recovery that benefits everyone.

"It's clear that COVID-19 and the economic slowdown have disproportionately impacted Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and immigrant people across King County and the Puget Sound, and the experience of the past year only exacerbated the inequities that have faced these communities for decades," said Tableau President and CEO Adam Selipsky. "Seattle has been Tableau's home for the past 17 years. We're proud to be a part of the Fund for Inclusive Recovery and help chart a more inclusive course for the region's post-pandemic future." Tableau, through Tableau Foundation, has made a five-year commitment totaling more than $1 million to the Fund.

"This is a defining moment for our region, and for philanthropy, which has both a responsibility and an opportunity to do things differently. The inequity in our community has been laid bare for all of us to see and we must rebuild with equity as our guiding principle," said Tricia Raikes, co-founder of the Raikes Foundation, an early supporter of the Fund. "For too long, those who have been the least well served by our systems of care  from schools to housing, healthcare, justice, and beyond  have been denied the power to change them. We must ensure the voices of those most impacted by COVID and by racial injustice are guiding the work that we do to ensure we are the inclusive, resilient, and broadly prosperous community we can be."

The Fund is being led by a Community Advisory Group, consisting of a diverse cross-section group of leaders from communities most impacted, reflecting a range of perspectives and strategic expertise from across the region. This group will provide strategic guidance into program priorities and processes, as well as the Fund's approach to impact assessment and accountability measures, ensuring that the Fund invests critical philanthropic dollars in the best way possible to reach our goal of a more equitable region.

The Fund for Inclusive Recovery is also rooted in research conducted in partnership with The Bridgespan Group, who worked closely with the COVID-19 Response Fund Community Advisory Group to prioritize areas for short-term investment and long-term, systemic change. The striking and intensifying racial disparities in health, well-being, and economic security are all underscored in the report and in data collected by outside entities.

The US Census Bureau reported that, by late October of 2020, Black and Hispanic households in Washington State had much less confidence than white households that they could afford rent. King County's own data revealed that COVID-19-related deaths, hospitalizations, and cases have been significantly higher in many BIPOC communities than among white people. To learn more about the impact of COVID-19 on BIPOC communities in King County, we invite you to read the research we recently released in partnership with The Bridgespan Group linked here.

Housed at Seattle Foundation, the Fund for Inclusive Recovery brings together cross-sector partners to collectively tackle challenges and create meaningful impact in the Greater Seattle region. Early contributors include the following (alphabetical order): Norm and Lisa Bontje, The Butler Community Foundation, Deloitte LLP, Delta Dental of Washington, DOWL, Orion and Jackie Hindawi, The Raikes Foundation, The Seattle Mariners, Tableau Foundation, and Umpqua Bank, with $7.7 million and counting raised so far.

To learn more about the Fund for Inclusive Recovery, visit www.seattlefoundation.org/inclusiverecovery.

ADDITIONAL QUOTES ABOUT THE FUND FOR INCLUSIVE RECOVERY:

Several individual philanthropists have also made significant early gifts to the Fund. These include Tanium CEO Orion Hindawi and his wife, Jackie, who recently relocated to Seattle from the Bay Area. "As we settle into our new home, our family is extremely grateful for the opportunity to coordinate with Seattle Foundation to make a quick investment during this critical time," stated Hindawi. "We are hopeful that the Fund's focus on impact-ready investments to those most affected by the pandemic will drive both short-term and systemic change in the Seattle community."

"Resources can be transformational for our communities, if we can ensure that we're leading it, and we're guiding how it's done," said Sili Savusa, Executive Director of the White Center Community Development Association and Community Advisory Group member. "We need funding that's bold, guided by the wisdom of leadership of BIPOC communities that we know is already in place. The Fund for Inclusive Recovery is our chance to show what impact can look like if we do this work together."

"The COVID-19 pandemic made our region's disparities impossible to ignore. This is a critical moment for our community, and it's important we continue coming together to support those closest to the solutions. Inclusive recovery will require us all to reimagine a different future for Seattle, one that centers on those most impacted by the effects of COVID-19," said Tony Mestres, President & CEO of Seattle Foundation.

ABOUT SEATTLE FOUNDATION

Seattle Foundation ignites powerful, rewarding philanthropy to make Greater Seattle a stronger, more vibrant community for all. As a community foundation, it works to advance equity, shared prosperity, and belonging throughout the region while strengthening the impact of the philanthropists it serves. Founded in 1946 and with more than $1.1 billion in assets, the Foundation pursues its mission with a combination of deep community insight, civic leadership, philanthropic advising, and judicious financial stewardship. Read more at www.seattlefoundation.org .

FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES

For media inquiries, please reach out to Malia Mackey at [email protected] or 206.734.0053 (mobile).

SOURCE Seattle Foundation

Related Links

http://www.seattlefoundation.org/inclusiverecovery


Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 9) - The country has so far administered around 44,000 doses of anti-coronavirus vaccine since the rollout started, said vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, Jr.

Kung makikita natin ang ating global vaccination, meron na tayong 300 million plus. At ngayon po, tumaas po ang ating daily rate na 7 million. And then nakakatuwa po ay nakasama na po ang Pilipinas sa numero at meron na po tayong more or less 44,000 doses na na-administer, said Galvez on Monday night.

[Translation: If we look at our global vaccination, we already have 300 million plus. Right now, our daily rate has increased to 7 million. And then, Im glad to report that the Philippines is now included in the number, we already have more or less 44,000 doses that were administered.]

The country has so far received a total of 1,125,600 doses of the Sinovac and AstraZeneca brands, which were donations from China and a number of European nations.

Galvez said that 120 countries around the world have already administered vaccines.

Some 20 million doses of vaccines from different sources are also slated to arrive in the country from April to June, according to Galvez.

He said the expected shipments will come from the British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, the US-based Novavax, Chinas Sinovac, and the World-Health Organization-led COVAX facility.

Nakikita po natin baka humigit po tayo ng mga ano, mga 20 million po ang ating makukuha between the April, May, and June, Galvez said.

[Translation: Were anticipating that well receive around 20 million in the months of April, May and June.]

Of these vaccines, 2.6 million AstraZeneca doses were procured by the private sector. Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion earlier said half of this will be used by businesses, while the other half will be donated to the government for the inoculation of frontliners.

Increased confidence in Sinovac

Sinovacs CoronaVac was the first vaccine to arrive in the country, courtesy of the Chinese government. The vaccine rollout started in six public hospitals in Metro Manila, with the first shot being administered at the Philippine General Hospital.

Galvez said that more Filipinos are now confident to get inoculated with the Chinese vaccine as hospital officials were seen being vaccinated with the said brand.

Nung nagkaroon tayo ng vaccination ng ating mga direktor ng mga hospital, tumaas ang kanilang level ng confidence, he said.

[Translation: When our hospital directors were vaccinated, their level of confidence has increased.]

Halos araw-araw, maraming nagre-request ng vaccine. Ibig sabihin po nito Mr. President ay tumataas na yung kagustuhan ng ating mga kababayan na magkaroon ng bakuna, added Galvez.

[Translation: Almost every day, we are receiving requests for vaccine. This only means, Mr. President, that more Filipinos are now confident to get vaccinated.]
Members of the Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden coalition has expressed their deep concern for the new COVID relief bill, which not only excludes the Hyde Amendment, but further supports abortion providers through funding.

According to CBN News, the coalition feels "betrayed" by the Biden administration after the newly passed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act or HR. 1319 was passed by the Democratic-controlled House.

The COVID relief bill is a series of relief measures that were enacted back in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. Back then, the Republican-controlled Senate and former President Trump ensured that the 2020 legislation "included protections against federal funding of abortion," Kentucky Today reported.

In contrast, the new COVID relief bill that was approved by the House does not include the Hyde Amendment safeguards, meaning that about $414 billion or more in federal funds will most likely be allotted to "elective abortions or health insurance that covers elective abortions."

"As pro-life leaders in the evangelical community, we publicly supported President Biden's candidacy with the understanding that there would be engagement with us on the issue of abortion and particularly the Hyde Amendment," a statement from the Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden coalition read.

"The Biden team wanted to talk to us during the campaign to gain our support, and we gave it on the condition there would be active dialogue and common ground solutions on the issue of abortion. There has been no dialogue since the campaign."

Dr. Richard Mouw, President Emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary and spokesman for the coalition of pro-life evangelicals who supported Biden explained that the group is pushing for "some restrictions" for legal abortion and to not lose the existing restrictions already being applied.

He said that the group feels "betrayed" especially when "there was no sense of accountability to evangelicals and Catholics who took a lot of risks in saying publicly that they were going to vote for Mr. Biden."

Mouw was critical of President Biden's silence on the exclusion of the Hyde Amendment in the COVID relief bill. He said that the group of pro-life evangelicals who supported Biden were upset that there was no "heads up" about the exclusion of the Hyde Amendment in the COVID relief bill which Mouw says is "a boundary that we don't want to cross." Mouw is convinced that there is an "extreme wing within the Democratic Party is really determining the agenda."

The pro-life evangelicals who supported Biden aren't the only ones who are criticizing the COVID relief bill with the exclusion of Hyde Amendment. According to WMC 5, Mississippi Republican Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker both decried the Senate's decision to exclude the Hyde Amendment in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act or HR. 1319. Sen. Wicker opposed the legislation, calling the COVID relief bill a measure that is "full of unnecessary spending that will overheat the economy at a time when infections are dropping nationwide."

Sen. Wicker pointed out that the COVID relief bill with the exclusion of the Hyde Amendment is highly questionable because less than 10% of the budget would actually go to "immediate COVID-19 needs." He expressed his strong opposition to the legislation, which did not earn any "yes" votes from any Republican senator.

Meanwhile, Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines took to Twitter to express his disgust over the exclusion of Hyde Amendment in the COVID relief bill, which is also being targeted by the pro-life evangelicals who supported Biden.

Sen. Daines tweeted that the exclusion of Hyde Amendment in the COVID relief bill is "shameful," saying that "Senate Democrats voted to allow billions of taxpayer dollars to be used to fund abortions. They voted against applying a 44 year protection called the Hyde amendment-one that was included in all five previous bipartisan COVID packages."
President Donald Trump walks off stage after an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 28, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Trump Builds Leverage for Overhaul of GOP With Fundraising Gambit

Former President Donald Trump over the past two weeks laid the foundation for exerting financial leverage over the Republican Party apparatus by instructing supporters to donate solely to his campaign website and political action committee, while demanding that the Republican National Committee (RNC) and its congressional chamber affiliates stop using his name and likeness to raise funds.

The stratagem is all but sure to split a substantial chunk of donations from the GOP and allow Trump to divert money from the RNC that could otherwise end up bankrolling the campaigns of the Republicans he is looking to oust. Given the presidents immense popularity among Republican voters, the RNC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) face the dire prospect of raising funds with the handicap of being unable to use the name of the man who reigns supreme over the Republican Party due to his ability to energize the base and pull in a mass of small donors.

He could cripple them doing this. They will have to rely on larger donors that cannot give unlimited sums of money, Rich Baris, the director of Big Data Poll, told The Epoch Times.

And that low-dollar base that drove Trumps fundraising when he had a committee joint with the RNC  itll probably take some time, but most of them will get the message, and theyll give to Trumps PAC instead.

The RNC on March 8 brushed aside Trumps cease-and-desist letter, arguing in a letter obtained by The Epoch Times that its within the organizations First Amendment rights to use the name of a public figure to raise funds.

The move prompted a fiery statement from Trump again instructing supporters to donate to his website and political action committee (PAC) rather than the RNC.

No more money for RINOS, Trump said in a statement, using an acronym for Republicans in Name Only. They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting basethey will never lead us to Greatness. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com. We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!

The RNCs letter, written by chief counsel Justin Riemer, states that Trump and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel enjoy a close relationship, alleging that the former president over the weekend reaffirmed to her that he approves of the RNCs current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for an upcoming donor retreat event in Palm Beach, Florida, in which Trump is slated to participate.

The RNC has not sent any fundraising requests in President Trumps name or used his image since before he left office, nor would it do so without his prior approval, Riemer wrote.

Trump had made the initial appeal to supporters to donate only to his PAC, during a highly anticipated speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 28. The address marked Trumps first public appearance after leaving the White House. The excommunication of his social media profiles by the Silicon Valley giants amplified the silence and suspense ahead of the speech.

As a testament to Trumps appeal, the speech was viewed by 5.7 million people on Fox News, breaking the networks all-time Sunday viewership record. More than 30 million people have watched the speech online, according to streaming data from VFT Solutions.

Trump made the fundraising remarks during the portion of the CPAC speech devoted to election integrity. He expressed doubts over the legitimacy of President Joe Bidens 2020 victory. The choice of context is notable because the RNC appears to have left Trump to vie for himself in the aftermath of the Nov. 3 election. Neither the RNC nor the NRSC nor the NRCC was a party to any of the election lawsuits Trump filed. McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman, has not gone on record to affirm Trumps doubts about the election.

Michael Johns, co-founder of the National Tea Party movement, told The Epoch Times: You look at the election integrity issues of 2020 and ask who is responsible for maintaining that integrity, and it would have to fall back on the RNC, which raised about $900 million this last election cycle and appears not to have been sufficiently involved, before the election, during the election, or after the election in contesting it.

Its incredible to me that weve had to rely on an American entrepreneur who owns a pillow company and on a very bright trade adviser  to take up the arguments that you would think, logically, would be made by the RNC, Johns added, referring to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Peter Navarro, Trumps director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

A week after the CPAC speech, a Trump adviser confirmed to The Epoch Times that the president sent cease-and-desist letters demanding that the RNC, the NRSC, and the NRCC stop using his name and likeness. Calls placed to the three committees went unanswered.

As of the morning of March 7, the NRCC was still using Trumps name in its standard messaging for new email list registrations. The home page of the NRSC advertised Trump T-shirts from its online shop.

Setting up a war chest of his own will allow Trump to spend money against Republican incumbents who would otherwise receive the backing of the RNC. That includes Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is the only Republican senator running for reelection in 2022 of the seven who voted to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial, which concluded with the Senate acquitting Trump. The former president issued a statement on March 6 vowing to campaign against Murkowski, who is serving her third term.

There is no precedent in modern politics of the RNC backing a primary challenger against a Republican incumbent, according to Johns, the National Tea Party movement co-founder. Johns said the RNC hasnt been meaningfully aligned with Trumps Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda and, over the past four years, has often backed primary opponents against pro-MAGA candidates. As a result, the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump would have been running for reelection with money the RNC raised using the presidents name.

He ran to overhaul and save the country, but also to overhaul and save the Republican Party that was not addressing some of the core issues of the time, like China, trade, immigration, in a forceful enough way, and was relying on professional consultants, had become very insular, was not engaged in building the party out in much of a populist way, Johns said.

Four years later, that largely continues to be the case. The party operations, the party leadership are not completely Trump-driven. And it only makes sense that if the donor intent is to support President Trumps 2024 candidacy, potentially, or whether its to support candidates that are Trump-aligned in 2022, that you would donate through his vehicles directly and not to the party, which is going to continue to back, for instance, these 10 House members who voted for his impeachment, he said. The presidents initiatives are sensible, and perhaps even overdue.

Aside from Murkowski, five establishment GOP senators will not run for reelection in 2022, including two who voted to convict Trump during the Senate trial, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). The retirements, coupled with Trumps fundraising stratagem, open the field for Trump to fundamentally reshape the Senate by backing candidates aligned with his America First platform.

Trump will also be able to invest in the primary challenge against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who issued a scathing statement against him before voting in favor of impeaching him.

Jason Meister, a member of the Trump advisory board, told The Epoch Times: This keeps him in control. They need to work through him if they want to raise money off of him. I dont see why anyone would think they could continue to ride his coattails without his approval. Not to mention that many candidates that these organizations support arent America First candidates.

Trump needs his supporters flush with cash so that when its time to raise money for America First candidates and the America First agenda, they have the resources. Theres only so many times you can go to the same well.

In another sign of Trumps expanding ascendancy over the Republican Party, the RNC has moved a portion of its spring donor retreat to Mar-a-Lago, according to a Republican attending the event. Mar-a-Lago is Trumps exclusive club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
ATLANTA, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- UC Asset LP (OTCQX: UCASU) hails a Wall Street Journal article released over the weekend, which echoes UCASU's innovative business strategy to disrupt real estate industry.

This WSJ article, titled "How Remote Work is Reshaping America's Urban Geography", focused on the emerge of "Zoom Town" across the country, which are smaller cities and communities turned into hubs for "mobile professionals", i.e., the new generation of workforce who are working remotely a significant part of the time.

The article's statement that "Remote work severs the age-old connection between where people live and where they work" confirms the vision of UCASU's management. Larry Wu, founder of UC Asset, claims that "this is exactly the concept which we have been promoting for months."

The WSJ article goes on to state: "For most of history, people literally worked where they lived, on farms and in ground-floor workshops, or at most a short walk away. With the advent of subways, commuter trains and the automobile, the distance between home and the workplace expandedthe rise of remote work changes that equation."

UCASU's new business model, namely SHOC (standing for "Shared Home-Office Community"), is based on exactly the same trend. According to UCASU's business plan, SHOC is a revolutionary concept of futuristic community, which will combine residential and commercial spaces, and bring back the lifestyle that human beings have always enjoyed till the industrial age, i.e., to live where they work.

"Communities in which people live where they work, is more efficient, more environmental, probably more productive, and, more human." Says Wu.

In the initial phase, SHOC will replace a large part of conventional hotels. SHOC properties will be built as residential houses with each bedroom designed as an individual business lodge equipped with office capabilities. The home-office focused spaces will be rented out to business travelers as an alternative to conventional hotels, selling on platforms such as Airbnb,VRBO or through corporate partnerships.

According to the WSJ report, as much as a quarter of the 160-million-strong U.S. labor force is expected to stay fully remote in the long term, and many more are likely to work remotely a significant part of the time. "When people work remotely, they will travel differently. Conventional hotels will not be able to meet the challenges of next generation business travelers who are so-called mobile professionals." Declares Wu, "Conventional hotels will be taken over by technology driven shared-accommodation spaces like SHOC, similar to that conventional taxi businesses have been taken over by shared-ride companies like Uber and Lyft."

From investors' point of view, SHOC (Share-Home Office Community) is a systemic approach to property value-adding investment. It will add cash income on top of the value gain of house renovation and will likely improve the total ROI to remarkably higher than market average. "In real estate, you can only make so much if you simply buy and hold. But if you also have a successful business model to run those properties, you are on the path to create the next McDonald, which is a real estate empire built on a successful business model." Wu elaborates.

"Last month, major travel media Skift.com featured us in its front-page story. Now Wall Street Journal story echoes our position." Says Christal Jordan, Investor Relations director of UC Asset, "We feel very encouraged that our vision is shared among more and more industry leaders."

The entire article from Wall Street Journal can be viewed at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-remote-work-is-reshaping-americas-urban-geography-11614960100

About UC Asset:

UC Asset LP is a limited partnership formed for the purpose of investing in real estate for development and redevelopment, concentrating in metropolitan areas of Atlanta, GA. For more information about UC Asset, please visit: www.ucasset.com

Disclaimer:

This News Release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to differ materially from any these statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any those forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by the federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements after the date of this News Release. None of such forward-looking statements should be regarded as a representation by us or any other person that the objectives and plans set forth in this News Release will be achieved or be executed.

For More Information Contact:

Christal Jordan | Investor Relations Director, UC Asset LP

[email protected] | +1 678-499-0297

SOURCE UC Asset LP

Related Links

http://www.ucasset.com


Experts suggest taking a mental reset to cope with the stress of COVID. But Kathryn Yarborough has a simpler strategy. Instead of trying to overhaul your mind, try taking one minute a day to focus on one task.

Take a breath, come back and say, whats the most important task that I need to get done today? said Yarborough.

For Yarborough, a wife and mother of two sons, that strategy led her to think of a new way to help the people around her. Shed spent most of her career directing nonprofit organizations. In St. Louis, she assisted with fundraising programs for the Ronald McDonald House before going on to lead the Muscular Dystrophy Association as executive director. When she and her family moved back to Birmingham, she spent more than four years as the director of development for UAB before stepping away to spend more time at home when her husband started to travel more for work.

Last year, as organizations cancelled social events in an effort to stop the spread of COVID, she knew it would be hard to find alternative ways to raise money during the public health crisis.

Like so many people looking to relieve stress during the pandemic, she started baking and channeling her creative energy. Her pastry of choice: Macarons.

After receiving rave reviews from friends and family, she started selling boxes of the sweet meringue confections. She named the business Patricia Irenes, an ode to her grandmothers.

Some days, Yarborough had cookies left over. So she decided to put her fundraising skills to use. On social media, shed ask if customers were willing to donate money for the extra treats. At the end of the day, shed post the amount of money raised and a screenshot of where she sent the donation. Soon, a monthly trend evolved into a way to donate more than $2,000 to schools and hospitals.

As social events start to slowly reappear on the calendar, Yarborough hopes people keep the future of charities and non-profits in mind or find a way to provide a small act of service.

Im looking on the real positive side of things, said Yarborough. But it could be a really good thing for every individual to take one minute to think about one positive thing that they could have changed during the times that everything kind of slowed down.

This is part of a series of stories by AL.com to reflect on the 1-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic reaching Alabama. Each day leading up to March 13 we will elevate the voices of those impacted.
BRUSSELS, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A major research project to shape regulation and policy on chemical safety without the use of animal testing has been launched with the aid of 19.3M funding from the European Commission under H2020 program. Led by the University of Birmingham and involving 15 European and US organisations, PrecisionTox aims to protect human health from the toxic effects of chemicals found in people's homes, food and the environment.



The Precision Toxicology consortium will use genetics, genomics, metabolomics and the study of evolution to investigate the toxicity of hundreds of chemicals and explore how they disrupt the biological processes that are fundamental to health. Combined with law, these approaches will open up a new field of precision toxicology that will transform approaches to chemical safety management in the same way that precision medicine is informing healthcare. In particular, it is expected that precision toxicology will be instrumental in shaping policy and regulation of this field.



Crucially, the research will be carried out without using mammalian animal testing, focusing instead on non-sentient organisms such as fruit flies, water fleas, round worms and embryos of zebrafish and frogs.



The small size and fast development of these organisms allow chemical testing to be done rapidly. And because the genomes of all these organisms are decoded along with human genomes, many of these measurements are expected to reveal genetic and metabolic pathways shared with humans. Once these are understood, it will be possible to measure the effects of chemicals in non-sentient organisms and use that information to predict the likely effects in humans.



John Colbourne, of the University of Birmingham, leads PrecisionTox. He says: "Because humans share many genes with these organisms by evolution, we can use them to map the genetic and metabolic pathways that are also important for human health. This shared biology will help us understand how these genetic connections and interactions can be affected by chemicals in the environment  and that will help us better protect the health of all animals, including humans."



By using non-sentient organisms, PrecisionTox is participating in a global effort to replace current animal experiments with more reliable tests to assess the health risks of chemicals worldwide.



The methods developed by the consortium will enable harmful chemicals to be classified as carcinogens, hormonal disrupters, neurotoxins and other disease-causing agents using reliable molecular toxicity measurements. This will offer a faster and cheaper alternative to animal testing that will help industry to design safer chemicals and also provide biomarkers of toxicity to detect and control harmful chemicals that are already in the environment.



Richard Fuller who founded Pure Earth and coauthored the 2017 Lancet Commission report on health and pollution, welcomes the project. He says: "Pollution accounts for one in nine deaths world-wide, yet there have been too few major initiatives to fingerprint the offending chemicals until now."

SOURCE Altertox SRL

Related Links

http://altertox.be


Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Outside of the regular annual events film festivals around the World have been trying to fill in the gaps with programming to offset the closures of regional cinemas.

Our friends at Tallinn Black Nights (POFF) in Estonia have such a challenge, facing cinema chain closures this month due to the pandemic. They started with a kick-off event which will screen five films of the Women's Nights Film Festival. Every month, POFF's online cinema will be displaying a new selection of films from previous festival editions.

"Due to the pandemic, we screened a large part of our programme online during last year's POFF and it turned out to be very popular. For the first time, those who live far from the cities Tallinn and Tartu had the opportunity to take part in the festival and this is what really inspired us," said the festival director Tiina Lokk. With the news that Estonia's cinemas will close down once again in March due to the coronavirus, the online cinema will be the festival's effort to keep the tradition of showing and watching great films alive. "Our film selection represents a so-called second view, different from other known and daily used streaming platforms, capturing the world's cinematography in its thematic, genre and style diversity," she added. FNE

The series will continue with films from the programme of the Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival. Joining the program today are Mexican youth film 50 or Two Whales Meet on the Beach, Dinner in America from Adam Carter Rehmeier and Brazilian black comedy The Club of Angels from Angelo Defanti. Canadian horror thriller Red Letter Day from director Cameron Macgowan is also in the mix. Russian sci-fi film Ajavalvurid (The Time Guardians) from Alexy Telnov was not mentioned in the article but it is also on the player today as well.
Premium Service Brands, the leader in home services franchising and parent company of 360 Painting, Maid Right, Renew Crew, Kitchen Wise, Handyman Pro, Rubbish Works and ProLift Garage Doors, is expanding its franchise development and executive teams with the addition of Lydia OLeary, vice president of franchise development for Rubbish Works & Renew Crew, Mike Oberholtzer, vice president of franchise development for Handyman Pro and Russell Kruse, chief legal officer for Premium Service Brands.

Lydia OLeary

OLeary came to Premium Service Brands in December of 2020 with in-depth experience in the home services and franchise development segment, including roles with the 200-unit residential cleaning franchise Cleaning Authority and the 137-unit pest maintenance franchise Mosquito Squad. That is where she met Premium Service Brands chief development officer Iric Wexler, who told her about the exciting opportunity that Premium Service Brands was offering franchisees and asked her to join the development team.

What I love about Premium Service Brands is that we offer essential services  all of our brands have been up in sales despite the pandemic, said OLeary. Deciding to pursue business ownership is a major decision for someone to make in their life and it's important to me to be a part of a franchisor that has their franchisees' best interest in mind. I know that as soon as someone signs on with one of our brands, they will receive the best support from our operations and leadership team, as well as ample growth opportunities. Because Ive seen family and friends achieve success with the right franchise, I am passionate about helping people decide if business ownership is right for them. I know both Rubbish Works and Renew Crew offer prospective franchisees the opportunity to achieve financial freedom and control their own destiny.

Mike Oberholtzer

Oberholtzer came to Premium Service Brands in February with almost two decades of experience in franchise development, all in various service industries with companies such as AAMCO, Midas, and H&R Block. He will be heading up development efforts for Handyman Pro. After meeting Wexler during a franchise expo nearly 15 years ago, the two stayed in touch and became long-time associates. When Wexler became CDO at Premium Service Brands, he knew Oberholtzers skill set would be an asset to the Handyman Pro team.

I did a lot of research and due diligence on my own to make sure this was the right opportunity  I wanted to champion a brand that I would franchise with myself, said Oberholtzer. What I found at Handyman Pro and PSB was a consistent message of support, a proven model and a much needed business that is bridging the trust gap in home services. The investment range is very attractive, the business model is turnkey, and the multi-brand parent company allows franchisees to scale their portfolio. Plus, we have a group of really smart and sophisticated franchisees that can share best practices and help the brand expand the right way. At the end of the day, I knew Handyman Pro was a franchise I could believe in and one I could grow.

Russell Kruse

Kruse, who joins the Premium Service Brands team as chief legal officer, comes from a background in business litigation, where he has represented multiple Fortune 500 companies and has been a partner with several boutique business law firms. Over the past several years, Kruse served as outside counsel for Premium Service Brands, handling litigation and transactional matters. After gradually taking on a larger role, Kruse recently joined the Premium Service Brands team to spearhead the reorganization of the legal department. As a member of the executive leadership team, Kruse will be handling ongoing contract and legal compliance support for the franchise and business operations.

Everyone that I have met at Premium Service Brands has a real passion for what they do, said Kruse. They truly focus on constantly improving service for their franchise partners and promoting methodical and smart plans for growth. While serving as outside counsel, I worked on select issues, but now I will be able to see all of the gaps between the processes and add value in any way I can. As we are bringing on talented individuals in leadership positions, my hope is to be a driving force in keeping every team integrated as we continue to grow.

These new hires come at an exciting time as Premium Service Brands closes out 2020 with a 35% increase in year-over-year revenue and 75 new territories signed in North America. In addition, the company recently rolled out its new Own the Home Program to offer prospective franchisees an incentive to sign with multiple Premium Service Brands concepts. The program streamlines the process of multi-brand ownership and positions owners for vertical growth from day one. This multi-brand roster allows a franchise owner to build and leverage community relationships within a single market by offering multiple services that meet customers' ongoing home-services needs.

If a candidate starts with one Premium Service Brands concept, they have the unique opportunity to easily and efficiently add on another of our other brands, said OLeary. Once they understand the business model, they can utilize that experience and infrastructure to be successful with multi-brand ownership and dominate their market in the home services industry instead of trying to manage several concepts across several different markets.

Looking ahead, Wexler is confident in the experience and talent the new hires will bring to the Premium Service Brands leadership team. Lydia, Mike and Russell all share an incredible enthusiasm for our brands, and this will help us bring much-needed home services to new communities across the country, he said.

Now, Premium Service Brands is ready to continue its momentum in 2021 and beyond. We want to maintain the steady performance we've held throughout the year and apply it to the future to continue growth and create something that is revolutionary in the franchising space, said CEO Paul Flick. Hiring these seasoned leaders will help support that growth as we continue to find qualified prospects to join the Premium Service Brands family.

ABOUT PREMIUM SERVICE BRANDS:

Headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia, Premium Service Brands (PSB) is the leader in home services franchise opportunities. Recently acquiring Renew Crew in January 2020 and Rubbish Works in November 2020, the other brands under the PSB umbrella include 360 Painting, ProLift Garage Doors, Handyman Pro, Maid Right and Kitchen Wise. These home improvement industry brands provide franchisees with comprehensive training and support for every step while viewing customer service as a way of life by also giving back to local communities through their nonprofit, Kids-Lift. Supporting kids and their families is crucial to PSBs personal values to brighten and care for their communities. More on franchising opportunities at: https://www.premiumservicebrands.com/
Africa Teen Geeks has partnered with the University of Johannesburg, Northcliff Rotary Club and Unicef to celebrate this special day. The objective is to foster growth and ignite passion in our kids for mathematics, not only as a subject but also as a tool to solve problems and establish innovative ideas.This aligns with Africa Teen Geeks mission of inspiring and creating a pipeline of student who excel and are passionate about STEM to ensure that South Africa and Africa as a whole produces future scientists, Mathematicians and tech innovators and entrepreneurs, said Lindiwe Matlali, the founder and CEO Africa Teen Geeks.The Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics (DMAM) joins the world in celebrating the International Day of Mathematics on the 14th of March 2021. We are delighted to share how mathematics has changed and influenced global policies on the current Covid-19 pandemic. Mathematics emerges in all spheres of life and it is the language of economic development, predictions, peace and stability and social cohesion. It shapes the human mindset and defines order. Join us in celebrating the beauty of Mathematics" -The event also includes a poster competition where learners can create a poster that shows one way to make the world a little bit better using mathematics. Competition is open to grade eight  grade 12 learners. Learners can create a poster digitally by using a drawing program or draw it on paper and then scan it or take a photo. Submit one JPG, PNG or PDF file to az.ca.ju@uwkuhcolaa by 17 March 2021. The winner to be announced during the online programme on 20 March 2021. Prizes to be won!Unicef is committed to improving outcomes in science-based subjects, such as mathematics, for all learners, especially girls. Mathematics provides not only foundational but also critical functional skills and opportunities for children as they develop and transition into their working lives. Growing up with these attributes, children will themselves create a more equal and inclusive workforce that provides relevant skills. The Covid-19 pandemic and the related vaccine development has again highlighted why science based subjects are so important in helping to build a better world for all, said Christine Muhigana, Unicef South Africa representative."The Rotary Club of Northcliff (District 9400) is proud to be associated with the International Day of Mathematics. Maths is incredibly important in our lives and, without realising it, we use mathematical concepts, as well as the skills we learn from doing math problems every day. We welcome your participation and trust that you will gain valuable insights from this programme."-Date: 20 March 2021Venue: UJ Campus (virtual - details to be sent after registration)Time: 10am-12pm




Haiti - Social : The woman, the cement of living together By Evans Paul





As part of the 36th Edition of the International Women's Day, the former Prime Minister Evans Paul under President Martelly (Jan. 16, 2015-Feb. 26, 2016) sent us a note entitled "The woman, the cement of living together" that we invite you to read.



"Women, the glue of living together" by Evans Paul

"Following the International Women's Year of 1975, International Women's Rights Day is adopted by the United Nations on March 8, 1977.



This day is the consecration of long years of women's struggles for the recognition and respect of their political and social rights.



164 years ago, on March 8, 1857, women garment workers demonstrated in New York City, United States, demanding the same wages as men for equal work.



53 years later, on February 28, 1909, at the call of the Socialist Party of America, the United States celebrated "National Women's Day."



The following year, in August 1910, on a proposal from the German citizen Clara Zetkin, at the second international conference of socialist women, the idea of an 'International Women's Day' was adopted by a hundred women. coming from 17 countries, gathered in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.



Russia in 1921, was the first country to formalize this event, which became a public holiday, but not non-working until 1965.



This celebration will remain confined to the countries of the Soviet socialist bloc for a long time, until the end of the 1960s.



It was finally in 1977 that the United Nations made this important day dedicated to women's rights universal.



In Haiti, from Cecile Fatiman in 1791 to Bois-Caiman, passing by Marie Jeanne to Crete-a-Pierrot in 1802, to our brave "Madam Sara and militants" of today, on all levels, Haitian women, form the pillar of our society. This, even in politics where she is relatively discreet at the front of the scene, the Haitian woman represents a significant asset.



At this crucial moment in national life, the involvement of women at the highest level of debates is essential.



Thanks to her particular sensitivity, the woman is endowed with a remarkable capacity for conciliation allowing her to work for this lasting agreement which the Haitian nation for too long torn apart so much needs nowadays.



May the forty-fourth anniversary of the celebration of International Women's Rights Day, this Monday, March 8, 2021, be for avant-garde Haitian women, the opportunity for a decisive breakthrough, capable of helping to reconcile the antagonisms that make Haiti and the Haitian people unhappy.



Far from nurturing harmful conflictual rivalries between men and women, World Women's Day pleads for gender harmonization through respect for women on the one hand and the encouragement of their socio-political integration on the other.



The bet of a Haitian society that is fairer and much more oriented towards progress, peace and prosperity will prove to be durably plausible, by genuinely involving women in the major projects of the present and the future of the country.



Because, it is necessary to stop all the forms of sexist discrimination, to build one with the other, the society of justice and tolerance, to which we aspire, knowing that the "Woman is the cement of living together".



Evans Paul



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Your browser does not support the video tag.
Minister of National Defence Nicolae Ciuca received on Tuesday, at the Ministry of National Defence's headquarters, his counterpart from the Republic of Turkey, Hulusi Akar, during his official visit to Romania.

According to a release from the Ministry of National Defence (MApN), the meeting, rescheduled from 2020 in the context of the restrictive measures imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, had a comprehensive agenda and included topics related to the security situation at international and regional level, allied efforts to consolidate NATO's deterrence and defence position, with focus on the eastern flank, as well as issues on the EU-Turkey agenda.

At the beginning of the meeting, Minister Ciuca presented a message of condolences to his counterpart for the losses suffered by the Turkish Army last week, following the crash of a helicopter.At the same time, according to the quoted source, the Romanian minister underlined the importance of Turkey's consistent participation in the staffing of multinational structures in Romania, especially in positions within the South-East Multinational Corps Command (HQ MNC-SE), and appreciated both the significant role of the Turkish Army in NATO operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo and in the EU missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the presence of this important allied state in various regional initiatives.A distinct point on the agenda of the meeting was the bilateral cooperation in the field of defence, highlighting the importance and interest of the sides to strengthen this relationship under the Joint Declaration of Strategic Partnership, signed by Romania and Turkey a decade ago.In this context, the importance of the cooperation of the armed forces of Romania and Turkey for the consolidation of security in the Black Sea region was reiterated and the participation of the Turkish military staff in the NATO exercises organized in Romania was appreciated."This year we will have a substantial participation of Turkish land units in NATO exercises that will take place in Romania. So, for us, one decade after the signing of the Joint Declaration of the Strategic Partnership, the Turkish Army remains a key-ally in the Black Sea region," concluded Minister Ciuca, according to the release.The meeting between the two ministers was attended by the Chief of the Defense Staff, Lieutenant General Daniel Petrescu, and the Secretary of State for Defence Policy, Planning and International Relations, Simona Cojocaru.The program of the activity in Romania of the Turkish Minister of National Defence, Hulusi Akar, also included a visit to the Command of the South-East Multinational Division, a meeting with the HQ MNC-SE command team and a wreath-laying ceremony at the Turkish Heroes Cemetery in Bucharest.
PHILADELPHIA, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement is being issued by Berger Montague PC regarding the Contant v. Bank of America Settlement.

What is this About?

This is a reminder that the deadline to file a claim is March 19, 2021 in the Indirect Foreign Currency Overcharge Settlement. The lawsuit claims that certain banks, including Citigroup, MUFG Bank, Standard Chartered, Societe Generale, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, RBC, RBS, and UBS (the "Defendants") conspired to fix foreign currency ("FX") instrument prices, causing people to be overcharged when purchasing an FX Instrument from an individual or entity and that individual or entity transacted in an FX Instrument directly with a Defendant or one of Defendants' alleged co-conspirators.

What are the benefits?

The only way to receive money from the Settlement is to file a claim which you must do by March 19, 2021. The exact amount of the class member benefit will depend on their transaction volume of FX Instrument purchases, but in certain instances it could be more than $10,000. There is a discount applied for purchases after December 31, 2013, or a de minimis award. For complete details of the Settlement payout, visit: FXIndirectAntitrustSettlement.com, and read the Plan of Allocation.

Who is a Class Member?

You may be eligible if: (1) you purchased an FX Instrument from an individual or entity from December 1, 2007 through July 17, 2020, and that individual or entity, in turn, transacted in an FX Instrument directly with a Defendant or alleged co-conspirator; and (2) you lived in NY, AZ, CA, FL, IL, MA, MN, or NC at the time of the transaction.

This is only a summary. For more information, including the Settlement Agreements, Plan of Allocation, and instructions on filing a claim visit FXIndirectAntitrustSettlement.com or call 1-844-245-3777.

SOURCE Berger Montague PC
(Reuters) - Hundreds of young Myanmar protesters who had been trapped by security forces in the Sanchaung district of Yangon have been able to leave the area, activists said on Tuesday.

Youth activist Shar Ya Mone said by telephone she had been in a building with about 15 to 20 others, but had now been able to go home. Another protester posted on social media that they had been able to leave the area at around 5 A.M. after security forces left two hours earlier.

(Reporting by Reuters staff, Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
Photo: (Photo : Buy Online: Here's Why You Should Consider Online Shopping for Mattresses )

Over the past few years, people have turned into online shopping to purchase their needs. With the way the web continues to improve, it has become an avenue for people to shop at reasonable and affordable prices.

As it happens, buying online has changed people's preferences to the feeling of wanting to see the product in front of them before actually buying it because of the convenience and fast service online shopping could offer. People have become easily attracted to the way online shops provide their services.

From clothing, home decorations, pet accessories, and more, online shops have it all for you- even huge mattresses. So, if you are feeling worried about whether buying mattresses online or in a physical store is better, read down below as we dive into what mattress you should get and the benefits of online shopping for a mattress.

What mattress should I get?

Ideally, opt for a mattress that you'll find happiness in. A mattress that could bring comfort and less hassle for you to transport. One of the top options of customers is to get a mattress in a box.

A mattress in a box, or commonly known as a "bed in a box," is referred to as a mattress that has been compressed with the use of heavy machinery for it to fit into a box. But do not worry; from being compressed, it decompresses as soon as the package is opened, which allows it to go back to its original form.

A mattress in a box creates more storage space and allows the transport of the item faster. This is why people consider it the best option in getting a mattress. The best mattress in a box is available in a lot of stores. To have a more profound sense of what a mattress in a box is, visit News Week for more information.

What benefits do I get from buying a mattress online?

The mattress satisfaction that's bought online and in stores is almost similar.

Unbelievable, right? People usually assume that purchasing online is too risky compared to buying in physical showrooms. The urge to get mattresses tried before purchasing makes some people doubt the quality of products sold online. But, online shopping allows customers to see reviews of products and make them a well-educated consumer.

Mattresses that are being sold online are also tested and do not decrease the mattresses' quality. And online buyers tend to be as satisfied as people who got a chance to lie down on some mattresses in showrooms. But of course, in purchasing, make sure you also know the materials used to assess its features fully and if that mattress is what you opt to buy.

Showroom mattresses could be different from what will be delivered to you.

There could be instances when the sample mattresses you laid on showrooms do not feel the same as the mattresses delivered to you. A probable reason behind this could be that showroom mattresses tend to be laid in by many other people before you and could have been damaged unknowingly.

Picture many people who already walked past it, tried it, and even laid on it before you did. Some stores will offer you a considerable discount if you get the sample display mattresses, especially if it's the last stock that they have. Thus, online purchasing of mattresses saves you from this experience. Through this, you may get a new mattress that came straight from the warehouse.

It keeps you away from distractions.

Online shopping allows their customers to enjoy staying in the comfort of their homes while they browse. There will be no traffic, less hassle, and more "me time" to enjoy after you place your order. All you had to do is choose, place your order, then wait for it to be delivered right to your doorstep. You are making your shopping experience very easy for you!

On the contrary, physical shopping could pose a lot of distractions. There might be kids that suddenly throw a tantrum, salespeople that take a long time advertising a specific product, other customers that are so loud, too bright lights and loud background noises. You don't have to go through all these distractions if you could buy the same item at home.

There's no one pressuring you into buying.

While it's true that it is a salesperson's job to sell and inform customers about products they are selling, there are just some that put a lot of pressure on customers to hurry and get it now.

Don't get it wrong; not all salespeople are bad. Some genuinely care for their customers. But some people tell you that you will not be able to find a more comfortable mattress than the ones they are selling or those that tell you that they have no stocks left. This makes customers feel that they must buy it now, or else they might lose the chance of having one of the most bought mattresses ever.

It is a way for these employees to meet their quota daily and get a commission from it in a broader sense. Thus, buying online allows you to choose a mattress without hearing side comments from anyone unless you asked for it from friends or relatives.

Takeaway

Online shopping creates an avenue for customers to experience shopping in a better way. It's easier, faster, and preferred by many. Also, a mattress is not something that you buy daily, so it is just right that you get the right one for you, even if it's online.

Do not forget that as we shop online, we should also be responsible shoppers and be well-educated. Thus, the information stated above hopes to give a broader sense of why online shopping is good for purchasing mattresses.
The Mumbai Police has seized Charas worth Rs 2.80 crore from a Nepalese national at Borivali in the suburbs of the financial capital on Tuesday.

The breakthrough was made by the Anti-Narcotics Cells Kandivali unit, according to Inspector Satish Taware.

Acting on a tip-off that a member of a Nepalese gang would be coming to the Borivali suburbs to sell charas near the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the ANC laid a trap and arrested him with 14 kg of Charas.

The accused, who has been identified as Prabej Mahamjan Ansari, 23, from Bara district of south-central Nepal, has been arrested under the NDPS Act.
Cape Cods first large-scale coronavirus vaccination site opens its doors Tuesday to administer hundreds of shots in the coming days.

The regional immunization location is scheduled to open at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable and give out 1,200 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week, the Cape Cod Times reported. Six-hundred shots will be administered Tuesday and 600 more Thursday.

Vaccination appointments at the site opened last week on the states booking portal, maimmunizations.org, according to the Times.

The site at Cape Cod Community College is one of nearly a dozen regional immunization locations announced by Republican Gov. Charlie Bakers administration last month. Most of the states eight super vaccination sites are located in Eastern Massachusetts, but none are on the Cape.

The regional collaborative in Barnstable County, known as the Cape Cod Regional Vaccine Consortium, is being led by Cape Cod Healthcare. The large-scale vaccination site is currently working to expand outreach to vulnerable populations, officials noted.

Cape Cod Healthcare is administering vaccines to our highest risk eligible residents across Cape Cod, the health care provider said in a statement. Currently, this is accomplished by our team directly calling patients that have been previously identified by the consortium or within our health system records.

WHDH reported State Sen. Julian Cyr, who represents much of the Cape and Islands, believes the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is profoundly encouraging development and a crucial tool in helping immunize the regions most vulnerable and hard-to-reach residents.

We now have a third and crucial tool in our vaccination tool kit, Cyr said, according to the news outlet.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 05:24:15|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Exclusion of women in decisions that affect their lives is bad governance and should not be allowed, the UN Women chief said on Monday, International Women's Day.

"The exclusion of women from decisions that affect their lives is bad corporate governance. It should not be allowed. This is why at this point in 2021, when we are at a crossroads, we have to bring this to an end," Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, said at an event celebrating the efforts of women and girls to shape a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

She pointed to their underrepresentation in key institutions and emphasized that the recovery from the pandemic "will not be adequate and inclusive if it does not include women in decisions that affect their lives."

The UN Women chief highlighted the upcoming session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) as both an opportunity and a responsibility of women leaders "to call for the representation of women in all decision-making bodies."

Recalling last year's 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, when heads of states lamented the underrepresentation of women in their countries, she upheld that the CSW, which will open next Monday, can address this along with continuing gender inequality -- both of which will help in COVID-19 recovery and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

"This is an opportunity that cannot be missed," Mlambo-Ngcuka said. Enditem
When it comes to microelectronics, there is one chemical element like no other: silicon, the workhorse of the transistor technology that drives our information society. The countless electronic devices we use in everyday life are a testament to how today very high volumes of silicon-based components can be produced at very low cost. It seems natural, then, to use silicon also in other areas where the properties of semiconductors -- as silicon is one -- are exploited technologically, and to explore ways to integrate different functionalities. Of particular interest in this context are diode lasers, such as those employed in barcode scanners or laser pointers, which are typically based on gallium arsenide (GaAs). Unfortunately though, the physical processes that create light in GaAs do not work so well in silicon. It therefore remains an outstanding, and long-standing, goal to find an alternative route to realizing a 'laser on silicon'.

Writing today in Applied Physics Letters, an international team led by Professors Giacomo Scalari and Jerome Faist from the Institute for Quantum Electronics present an important step towards such a device. They report electroluminescence -- electrical light generation -- from a semiconductor structure based on silicon-germanium (SiGe), a material that is compatible with standard fabrication processes used for silicon devices. Moreover, the emission they observed is in the terahertz frequency band, which sits between those of microwave electronics and infrared optics, and is of high current interest with a view to a variety of applications.

Make silicon shine

The main reason why silicon cannot be used directly for building a laser following to the GaAs template has to do with the different nature of their band gaps, which is direct in the latter but indirect in the former. In a nutshell, in GaAs electrons recombine with holes across the bandgap producing light; in silicon, they produce heat. Laser action in silicon therefore requires another path. And exploring a fresh approach is what ETH doctoral researcher David Stark and his colleagues are doing. They work towards a silicon-based quantum cascade laser (QCL). QCLs achieve light emission not by electron-hole recombination across the bandgap, but by letting electrons tunnel through repeated stacks of precisely engineered semiconductor structures, during which process photons are emitted.

The QCL paradigm has been demonstrated in a number of materials -- for the first time in 1994 by a team including Jerome Faist, then working at Bell Laboratories in the US -- but never in silicon-based ones, despite promising predictions. Turning these predictions into reality is the focus of an interdisciplinary project funded by the European Commission, bringing together a team of leading experts in growing highest-quality semiconductor materials (at the Universita Roma Tre), characterising them (at the Leibniz-Institut fur innovative Mikroelektronik in Frankfurt an der Oder) and fabricating them into devices (at the University of Glasgow). The ETH group of Scalari and Faist is responsible for performing the measurements on the devices, but also for the design of the laser, with numerical and theoretical support from partners in the company nextnano in Munich and at the Universities of Pisa and Rome.

From electroluminescence to lasing

With this bundled knowledge and expertise, the team designed and built devices with a unit structure made of SiGe and pure germanium (Ge), less than 100 nanometres in height, which repeats 51 times. From these heterostructures, fabricated with essentially atomically precision, Stark and co-workers detected electroluminescence, as predicted, with the spectral features of the emerging light agreeing well with calculations. Further confidence that the devices work as intended came from a comparison with a GaAs-based structure that was fabricated with identical device geometry. Whereas the emission from the Ge/SiGe structure is still significantly lower than for its GaAs-based counterpart, these results clearly signal that the team is on the right track. The next step will be now to assemble similar Ge/SiGe structures according to a laser design that the team developed. The ultimate goal is to reach room-temperature operation of a silicon-based QCL.

Such an achievement would be significant in several respects. Not only would it, at long last, realize a laser on a silicon substrate, thereby bringing a boost to silicon photonics. The emission of the structure created by Stark et al. is in the terahertz region, for which currently compact light sources are widely missing. Silicon-based QCLs, with their potential versatility and reduced fabrication cost, could be a boon for the large-scale use of terahertz radiation in existing and new fields of application, from medical imaging to wireless communication.

###
COLONIE  The Capital Region Chamber will honor six Capital Region women who have distinguished themselves in their careers and in service to the community during its 30th annual "Women of Excellence" awards program on May 21.

The hybrid event will be live streamed and except for sponsors and recipients, attendees will be able to celebrate with the recipients virtually.
More than half of Louisianas adult population will soon qualify to receive the coronavirus vaccine after state leaders expanded eligibility to adults who are overweight and obese.

Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the changes that took effect Tuesday include people with a broad range of chronic health problems that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, including being overweight or obese.

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index, or BMI, of over 30 and is calculated using a persons body weight relative to their height, while also factoring gender. A person who is overweight has a BMI between 25 and under 30.

For example, a man who is 5 feet 7 inches and weighs around 191 pounds would have a BMI of around 30. A person of the same height who weighs around 160 to 190 pounds would be considered overweight.

This calculator from the CDC can help you understand your BMI.

Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Louisiana has one of the highest rates of obesity in the county. Roughly 36% of adults in Louisiana are obese, and a similar percentage of adults are overweight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Being above a normal weight puts elevates the risk of severe COVID-19, medical experts have said. Those people are also at a higher risk of other chronic health conditions linked to worsened outcomes from the disease, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and kidney problems.

People over 55 years old who were overweight became eligible for the vaccine last month, and the new guidelines would give access to Louisianans as young as 16 in some cases.

The vaccine made by Pfizer is the only shot approved for people as young as 16 years old, while the vaccines made by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson can only be given to adults.

More than 1.6 million people in Louisiana have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest state Department of Health data.
SHREVEPORT, La. and BATON ROUGE, La., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- March of Dimes , the leader in the fight for the health of all moms and babies, and longtime partner, Healthy Blue's affiliated Foundation, are working together to tackle America's maternal and infant health crisis. As both organizations continue to address health inequity across the country, the partnership in Louisiana aims to address the racial disparities and social determinants of health that have disproportionately impacted Black mothers.

The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) recently reported that racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. have worsened over the past two decades. In order to achieve the Healthy People 2030 goals for Pregnancy and Childbirth, maternity care systems need to address disparities that threaten maternal and infant health. Researchers have identified implicit bias among health care providers as a potential contributor to these disparities. In response to these findings, March of Dimes developed Breaking Through Implicit Bias in Maternal Healthcare training, in collaboration with Quality Interactions, to improve patient-provider communications and treatment decisions, contributing to improved quality of care at a critical intervention point. The course provides an overview of implicit bias, its impact on the maternal infant health crisis, the history of structural racism in the United States, and strategies for providers to both mitigate racial bias in maternity care and commit to a culture of equity. The American Hospital Association recognizes the value of this important training program and the potential benefits of its use by healthcare providers across the country to better identify and remedy implicit bias. Ochsner Medical Center in Shreveport and Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge have been selected as local health equity partners to implement this important work.

"The U.S. is in the midst of a maternal and infant health crisis, which is particularly devastating to women and babies of color. Data shows that the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations in the world for childbirth," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, Chief Medical and Health Officer, Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Scientific Officer at March of Dimes. "Roughly every 12 hours, a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes, and the CDC reports that 60% are preventable. Programs like these, supported by Healthy Blue's affiliated Foundation, are invaluable in making a positive impact for moms and babies."

Over the past decade, Healthy Blue's affiliated Foundation and their parent company's foundation have contributed close to $8 million to support March of Dimes programs aimed at reducing premature birth that have reached more than 50,000 pregnant women across the country. These programs have had a significant impact with only 7.3% of participants in group prenatal care delivering prematurely, compared to a national average of 10%.

"As a leader in supporting women's health, Healthy Blue is committed to improving maternal and infant health outcomes in Louisiana," said Dexter Trivett, Healthy Blue Chief Operating Officer. "Healthy Blue and its affiliated Foundation continue to address health inequities in our healthcare system by providing solutions that help close gaps in care, better support our members and improve outcomes."

About March of Dimes

March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, lead programs and provide education and advocacy so that every baby can have the best possible start. Building on a successful 80-year legacy of impact and innovation, we empower every mom and every family. Visit marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org for more information. Visit shareyourstory.org for comfort and support. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter .

About Anthem Foundation

The Anthem Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Anthem, Inc. and through charitable contributions and programs, the Foundation promotes the organization's commitment to improving lives and communities. Through strategic partnerships and programs, the Foundation addresses the social drivers that will help create a healthier generation of Americans in communities that Anthem, Inc. and its affiliated health plans serve. The Foundation focuses its funding on critical initiatives that make up its Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets: maternal health, diabetes prevention, cancer prevention, heart health and healthy, active lifestyles, behavioral health efforts and programs that benefit people with disabilities. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Dollars for Dollars program which provides a 100 percent match of associates' donations, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Anthem Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at https://medium.com/anthemfoundation .

About Healthy Blue

Healthy Blue is a managed healthcare provider that has been serving the state since 2012, and currently serves the state's Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion and LaCHIP programs. Healthy Blue recognizes the challenges low-income and underserved individuals face, and tailors its programs such that health plan members are assured care that is not only accessible, but also accountable, comprehensive, integrated and patient-centered. Healthy Blue provides ongoing community relations and outreach to encourage members to become active participants in their healthcare. Also, through health education programs, members are empowered to choose and sustain healthy lifestyles. To learn more about Healthy Blue, visit www.myhealthybluela.com .

SOURCE March of Dimes Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marchofdimes.org


I was once fired by an employer because they did not like the way that I tweeted.

They had no problem with the way that other people at this same enterprise tweeted, they just didnt like my own flavor of rhetorical panache. They never actually came out and said it was the subject matter of my tweeting, or my style, that got me a date with the guillotine. They simply said, we told you to stop tweeting, you wouldnt, and so we are letting you go.

Im always fascinated when somebody else gets into hot water because of her online presence. I have written extensively about Donald Trumps effective banishment from Twitter and talked about the grownups who went after Nick Sandman, the kid who can now go to any college he wants because of that defamation case against The Washington Post et al.

Ive covered the cases of the sidelining of professors who challenged the norm, and the firing of actresses, like Disneys Gina Carano, who posted memes about opening up the economy and was branded a racist and an anti-Semite.

Its an epidemic, a pandemic really, and its scary. My usual point is that we all need to fight back against the silencing, and it doesnt matter which side is being silenced, although lets be honest: The left is much more adept at pushing the mute button on people like me and my fellow conservatives than weve been at shushing them.

Now, thats starting to change. President Bidens choice for Office of Management and Budget head, Neera Tanden, has gotten a little taste of what happens when your Twitter history aint exactly history. Tanden, who was previously the head of the Center for American Progress, has spent a lot of time on social media hating on conservatives. While she has also put some liberals like Bernie Sanders in her cross hairs, most of her vitriol has been reserved for people who think like me.

For example, when Roy Moore was running for the Senate from Alabama, Tanden referenced accusations of child molestation against him with this tweet: The Republican Party is gleefully supporting an alleged child molester. And everyone who gives money to the RNC is doing the same. Regardless of how you feel about Moore, who was never even charged with a crime, calling people who supported his candidacy allies of a pedophile is pretty far over the line.

She has also called Mitch McConnell Voldemort, and suggested that a vampire had more heart that Ted Cruz. This was before his Cancun vacation, so she cant use that as an excuse. She also accused Susan Collins, who voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh, criminally ignorant, and said that her terrible treatment of Dr. Ford should haunt Collins for the rest of her days.

That last tweet was sent at a time when Collins was getting death threats phoned into her office.

I have had that same thing said to me, by readers. Anyone who adds fuel to that fire does not deserve to be in any position of authority.

So you might be saying, but Christine, I thought your whole point was that people shouldnt be punished for their comments. And I would reply: Yes, but.

I have no problem saying that people should be held responsible for their words, as long as we are all held to the same standards. And we are so clearly not.

Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. Conservative teachers are fired. Conservative actresses are fired. Conservative writers are fired.

But people on the left keep tweeting along, with little consequence. Sure, there are some high-profile examples like Kathy Griffin and  give me a minute  um  OK, well theres Kathy Griffin, who lost some gigs because of her comments. But the number of liberals who have been held accountable for their words pales in comparison to the number of conservatives, mostly social conservatives, who have been deactivated.

For that reason, Im not weeping about Neera. She deserves whats shes getting, and she knows she deserves it because she deleted over a thousand tweets in anticipation of her confirmation hearing.

So for all of those who were disgusted with the tweets of one Donald J. Orange Man, karma, apparently, is a female.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist. She can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
Posted Monday, March 8, 2021 9:21 pm

At a March 1 study session, Battle Ground City Council greeted the newest member of the Battle Ground Police Department. At the session, Police Chief Mike Fort introduced K9 Charlie along with his partner and handler, Officer Clint Fraser.

At only 18 months old, Charlie is the youngest member of the department, a release from the city noted, adding that the K9 has a nose for police work. Charlie and Fraser recently completed 16 weeks of training and earned state certification for both patrol and narcotics detection work.

Charlie is a German Shepherd that was born in the Czech Republic, the release stated. He spent his younger months in Alabama before relocating to Battle Ground.

Charlie is a great dog and we love training and working together, Fraser said in the release. He is even-keeled, knows when its time to go to work, and gets the job done.

Fraser has served with the Battle Ground Police Department for 15 years, the release stated. Dogs have always been part of his life and one of his professional goals was to serve with a K9 partner.

According to the release, Charlies primary job is to search and find. He assists officers by searching for and locating evidence and suspects with his superior sense of smell. When not on patrol, K9 teams love to engage with the community at events and in schools. Charlie and Officer Fraser look forward to maintaining that tradition as health protocols allow.

Battle Grounds K9 program was paused after the retirement of K9 Luca in November of 2019. In keeping its promise to the community, city council adopted a 2021 budget with additional police department funding to maintain and support programs and services, including the K9 program. Support for the program also came from Vancouver Police Department Master K9 handlers who provided training for Battle Grounds team at no cost.

I am so happy to introduce our new K9 Team, Fort said. We heard how much the community values the program for its police work and for the opportunities to engage with the community.
More than 3.7 million New York residents have received at least one vaccine dose, and nearly 1.9 million are fully vaccinated, according to New York State Department of Health. That means 9.4% of the state is fully vaccinated so far.

The state is getting more weekly doses, and as a result, more state-run and county-run vaccination sites are opening.

This past weekend, vaccine sites were set up at Sangertown Square and Turning Stone Resort Casino in Oneida County, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo just announced a mass vaccination site will be opening at SUNY Oneonta.

Oneida, Herkimer and Otsego counties are all reporting initial dose vaccination rates over 21%, with 78,910 residents receiving at least the first vaccine shot so far.

See the full statistics from the NYSDOH below:

Oneida County

29,213 people with completed vaccine series

52,642 people with at least one vaccine dosep

22.9% of population with at least one vaccine dose

County officials reporting 29%, counting only those 18 and older in total population.

229,577 total county population

Herkimer County

7,217 people with completed vaccine series

13,038 people with at least one vaccine dose

21.1% of population with at least one vaccine dose

61,833 total county population

Otsego County
It appears that the Centre has informally conveyed to the three major OMCs to not revise fuel prices for the time being, two people in the government said. This informal directive follows the talks between the Centre and states on cutting taxes and bringing the auto fuels under the good service tax regime not fetching the desired results, so far. Despite some states reducing taxes on ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
Failed US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was blasted today after wading into the Harry and Meghan royal spat with a blast at the UK establishment and press.

The ex-senator and former First Lady claimed the 'cruelty' showed to the Duchess of Sussex was 'outrageous' and has slammed the Royals for failing to support a 'young woman who was just trying to live her life'.

Ms Clinton, who lost the US presidential race to Donald Trump in 2016, made the comments during a live event with the Washington Post last night, the day after the Sussex's explosive interview with Oprah was first broadcast.

'I found it so heart-rending to watch,' Clinton said, adding that she had met the pair before, as well as Harry's mother, the late Princess Diana.

Clinton then said it was 'heartbreaking' to watch the 'incredibly accomplished' Markle 'not be fully embraced' by both the 'permanent bureaucracy that surrounds the Royal family' and the UK press.

The former presidential hopeful said she too is no stranger to facing off with the British press, adding: 'I've had my time in the box with the British tabloids, as anybody who is in the public eye has had, and their cruelty in going after Meghan was just outrageous.

'The fact she did not get more support that the reaction was, you know, 'let's just paper it over and pretend it didn't happen or it will go away, just keep your head down'well, this young woman was not going to keep her head down.

'You know, this is 2021 and she wanted to live her life, she wanted to be fully engaged and she had every right to hope for that,' Clinton added.

But Tory MP Lee Anderson branded the US politician 'unhelpful' after she followed president Joe Biden in wading into the furore.

'There are always two sides to every story. It is just sad that our most famous family are fighting it out in the media,' the Ashfield MP told MailOnline.

'Hillary Clinton is a fine one to talk about scandals if you want to dig back into their past. This is something that probably goes down a lot better in America than it does in our country.

'I think our country has got a lot of affection even for Harry still, but the affection is mostly for our Queen and it is terrible what she is going through.'

And former minister Steve Brine suggested Joe Biden should also not have weighed in to the enormous row. The Winchester MP told Times Radio: 'I'm not a government minister. I don't blame government ministers for one moment for staying out of this. This is not their battle.

'I think President Biden should take a leaf out of that book as well, for the record. This is not their battle. Why on earth should they weigh into it?'

Scroll down for video

The former Secretary of State made the comments during a live event with the Washington Post on Monday, a day after the couple's interview with Oprah aired on CBS

Meghan said she found Royal life so difficult that she suffered mental health issues and even struggled with suicidal thoughts

But Tory MP Lee Anderson branded the US politician 'unhelpful' after she followed president Joe Biden in wading into the furore.

Hillary Clinton says cruelty of British tabloids in going after Meghan [Markle] was just outrageous. pic.twitter.com/yuM5pxVI9D  The Recount (@therecount) March 8, 2021

During their two hour sit-down with Oprah on Sunday, Harry and Meghan lifted the lid on life inside the British Monarchy, claiming they were isolated from vital support structures while being vilified in the press.

Meghan said she found Royal life so difficult that she suffered mental health issues and even struggled with suicidal thoughts when she was pregnant with baby Archie.

'I just didn't want to be alive anymore,' she told Winfrey. 'And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.'

Meghan said she tried to seek help including inpatient care, but was rebuffed by a senior royal because 'wouldn't be good for the institution.'

The Duchess of Sussex also revealed that someone in the royal orbit had a conversation with Harry about the color of Archie's skin before he was born.

There were 'concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born,' Meghan told Oprah. 'There are several conversations ... Potentially and what that would mean or look like.'

When pressed by Oprah, Meghan refused to identify specifically who had raised the concern, insisting doing so would be 'incredibly damaging' for the Windsors.

Mr Anderson said: 'Our Royal Family is respected the world over. They are the envy of the world.

'When you become a Royal, you become a member of that family. And with all those extra rights you get there are extra responsibilities.

'One of those is you become a public servant and you live the way of a Royal.'

He said the couple should have dealt with any grievances in public rather than a high-profile TV interview.

'Here is a classic family dispute  a family at war with each other. It is very sad to see part of the family airing their grievances in public. It should be done in private,' he said.

'That is disappointing. And I speak as a big fan of Prince Harry. I think he is great, he has been great for the Royal Family, he has brought that human touch

'But that aside whatever family you are if you have a dispute with members of your family you should do it in private.'

Mr Anderson said the 'brilliant' Queen had a husband in hospital and it must have 'taken her hard'.

'Leave our Queen alone,' he said.

Clinton credited the couple for 'standing up for themselves' and urged the Royal family - and other similar institutions - to strive to be more accepting and forward thinking (pictured: Then-President Bill Clinton talks with the Queen as Hillary and daughter Chelsea watch on)

Meghan said she found Royal life so difficult that she suffered mental health issues and even struggled with suicidal thoughts when she was pregnant with baby Archie (seen right). There were also concerns from someone in the Royal orbit about how 'dark' Archie would be, they said

Speaking to the couple's experience, Clinton said: 'I just think that every institution ... has got to make more space and acceptance for young people coming up, particularly young women, who should not be forced into a mold that is no longer relevant, not only for them but for our society.'

The 73-year-old continued that she found in incredibly difficult to watch Prince Harry and Meghan recount the hardships they claim to have endured.

'It was heartbreaking to see the two of them sitting there having to describe how difficult it was to be accepted, to be integrated, not just into the royal family as they described, but more painfully into the larger society's whose narrative is driven by tabloids that are living in the past,' she said.

'I just hope that there will be some serious, thoughtful consideration in all of the institutions, not just in response to what Meghan and Harry were talking about, but literally across all of our societies,' Clinton added. 'Why do we make it so hard to incorporate diversity, to celebrate it, to be proud of it?'

In summation, Clinton commended the Sussexs for 'standing up for themselves and their young children', and reiterated her calls for the Royal family to 'be more dynamic and forward-looking than they currently are.'

Clinton said she believes every institution 'has got to make more space and acceptance for young people coming up, particularly young women' (Clinton is pictured with Queen Elizabeth II and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy during a reception for the G20 summit in 2009)

Clinton wasn't the only government figure to comment on Meghan Markle's purported struggles, with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also wading in on the matter Monday.

'For anyone to come forward and speak about their own struggles with mental health and tell their own personal story  that takes courage,' Psaki said during a daily press briefing.

She went on to explain that President Joe Biden supports speaking openly about mental health and investing in such 'areas,' which he is 'committed to [doing] in the future.'

Psaki then said that she wouldn't further comment on Meghan and Harry's interview.

'We aren't going to provide additional commentary from here on behalf of the president or others, given these are private citizens sharing their own story and their own struggles,' she said.

'Let me just reiterate that we have a strong and abiding relationship with the British people and a special partnership with the government of the United Kingdom on a range of issues, and that will continue.'

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Harry and Meghan's blockbuster interview with Oprah Winfrey and Monday's press briefing

Prince Harry (left) sits with Dr. Jill Biden (right), who was then the second lady, at an Invictus Games event in 2014

The Biden White House's response was far friendlier than President Donald Trump's previous assessments of the Duchess of Sussex.

In late September, Trump had been asked by DailyMail.com about the royal couple's unprecedented decision to weigh into the U.S. election, interpreted by many as an endorsement of his rival, Biden.

'I'm not a fan of hers,' he said of Meghan.

'I would say this - and she has probably has heard that - I wish a lot of luck to Harry because he's going to need it,' Trump said.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Positions of the mutations identified in the new SA variant shown in red on the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (PDB: 7a94). N-terminal domain and receptor binding domain of the spike are shown in shades of blue and green respectively. The remaining part of the spike protein and human ACE2 receptor are in grey and black, respectively. Credit: Godzik lab, UC Riverside.

Variants of the coronavirus are appearing in different parts of the world, many of them spreading with alarming speed. One contagious variant is the South African, or SA, variant, identified by an international team of researchers, including biomedical scientists from the University of California, Riverside.

"The new COVID-19 variants are the next new frontier," said Adam Godzik, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UC Riverside School of Medicine and a member of the research team that made the discovery. "Of these, the SA and Brazil strains are most worrying. They have mutations that make them resistant to antibodies we generate with existing vaccines. It is commonly believed we are in a tight race: Unless we vaccinate people quickly and squash the pandemic, new variants would dominate to the point that all our COVID-19 vaccines would be ineffective."

Godzik and Arghavan Alisoltani-Dehkordi, a postdoctoral researcher who joined his lab two years ago, helped characterize the new SA variant by providing its spike protein structure using computer simulations.

Study results appear today in Nature.

Alisoltani-Dehkordi, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cape Town in South Africa before she joined UCR, mentioned that research teams at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and the University of Cape Town discovered the new lineageor variantof SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from samples collected between Oct. 15 and Nov. 25, 2020, in three South African provinces. By early November, this variant rapidly became the dominant variant in samples from two provinces.

"Each SARS-CoV-2 variant has specific mutations defining it," Alisoltani-Dehkordi said. "Professor Godzik and I used computer modeling to suggest possible structural and functional consequences of spike protein mutations in the SA lineage. Our analysis, confirmed also by several other research groups, shows that some of the mutations potentially result in a higher transmissibility of the virus and a weaker immune response."

The SA variant has been detected in at least 40 countries, including the United States.

"This variant is probably spreading in areas where it has not been sequenced and is, therefore, not identifiable," Godzik said. "In the U.S., sequencing is still a slow process. In many parts of the country, including Riverside, we have no information whatsoever about variants."

Initial research on the SA variant suggested it could be resistant to antibodies, which could reduce the efficacy of vaccines.

"That's when it received a high level of interest," Godzik said. "Subsequent research confirmed it is resistant to vaccines and is spreading. South Africa is doing a good job, however, at controlling the variant through quarantining and other measures."

All the newly emerged SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, and California show common mutational signatures. But each of these variants also has a unique set of mutations. For example, the SA and Brazil variants have two unique mutations on spike proteins K417N and E484K, respectively.

"Our preliminary findings indicate that some of the spike mutations may be associated with increased transmissibility of the SA variant," Alisoltani-Dehkordi said. "The full significance of spike and other genome mutations in this new lineage, however, is yet to be determined. It needs to be stressed that we do not have enough evidence confirming the higher disease progression, severity, or mortality rate associated with the SA lineage compared to other lineages. But the high transmissibility and unusual divergence of the SA lineage and other recently emerged lineages compared to the wild type creates a high demand for the systematic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 strains and early detection of variants before they turn into outbreaks."

Godzik explained there is no single COVID-19 virus. Instead, a population of viruses exists that constantly evolve. Variants, which also evolve, acquire mutations and could undergo viral escape at any time.

"It is hard to say there is only one SA variant," he said. "One way to understand this is to imagine that this variant is the major branch of a tree, which has many smaller branches. Some of these smaller ones may grow faster than others and assume more importance. This dynamic process is hard to predict."

Godzik predicts COVID-19 will be a constant presence in our lives, much like the flu.

"It takes six months to develop a flu vaccine," he said. "Models predict the evolution of the flu virus and vaccines are produced before the variants show up. If the predictions are good, the vaccines work. If they miss, a heavy flu season follows. This is how COVID-19 will likely behave. A lot of effort will be invested in predicting what will happen the following year, vaccines would then be updated, and people will need to get a booster shot."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Houriiyah Tegally et al. Emergence of a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern with mutations in spike glycoprotein, Nature (2021). Journal information: Nature Houriiyah Tegally et al. Emergence of a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern with mutations in spike glycoprotein,(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03402-9
CLAIM: A viral WhatsApp post entitled Below is the purported kite being flown by the Federal Government  Nigerian Economic Restructuring Bill 2021 outlines that Nigeria will be made up of 42 states with seven per each of her constituent geo-political zone.

VERDICT: Checks and confirmation by Dubawa showed there is no such bill from the Federal Government as widely circulated. It was only a proposal from an author, Ayo Akinfe in one of his columns.

Full text

A viral WhatsApp post which has been forwarded/shared many times as indicated by the instant messaging application, entitled Below is the purported kite being flown by the Federal Government  Nigerian Economic Restructuring Bill 2021, claims that Nigeria will be made up of 42 states with seven per each of her constituent geo-political zone.

The post which bears the author as Ayo Akinfe on his website, said: [1] Nigeria will be made up of 42 states, with seven per each of her constituent geo-political zone. These shall be:

South-south

[1] Bayelsa State  Yenagoa

[2] Western Ijaw State  Patani

[3] Rivers State  Port Harcourt

[4] Cross River State  Calabar

[5] Akwa Ibom State  Uyo

[6] Edo State  Benin

[7] Delta State  Warri

Northeast

[1] Mambilla State  Gashaka

[2] Taraba State  Jalingo

[3] Adamawa State  Yola

ADVERTISEMENT

[4] Borno State  Maiduguri

[5] Yobe State  Damaturu

[6] Bauchi State  Bauchi

[7] Gombe State  Gombe

Southeast

[1] Anioma State  Asaba

[2] Orashi State  Omoku

[3] Anambra State  Awka

[4] Imo State  Owerri

[5] Enugu State  Enugu

[6] Abia State  Umuahia

[7] Ebonyi State  Abakaliki

North-Central

[1] Abuja State  Abuja

[2] Gurara State  Kafanchan

[3] Benue State  Makurdi

[4] Plateau State  Jos

[5] Nasarawa State  Lafia

[6] Kogi State  Lokoja

[7] Niger State  Minna

Southwest

[1] Kwara State  Ilorin

[2] Oyo State  Ibadan

[3] Ogun State  Abeokuta

[4] Lagos State  Ikeja

[5] Ondo  Akure

[6] Ekiti  Ado-Ekiti

[7] Osun  Oshogbo

Northwest

[1] Sokoto State  Sokoto

[2] Kebbi State  Birnin Kebbi

[3] Kaduna State  Kaduna

[4] Katsina State  Katsina

[5] Kano State  Kano

[6] Jigawa State  Dutse

[7] Zamfara State  Gusua

The post which has also been shared on other social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, has generated mixed reactions. Many have debated and deliberated over the post but yet there is nothing as such.

Meanwhile, one @shawnfendi on Twitter shared the post and it had over 100 engagements. Also, @JustSociety4all with over 13,000 followers, shared the post on her timeline.

READ ALSO:

According to afrobarometer.org, Nigeria is a federation of 36 states and 1 Federal Capital Territory. Each of the 36 states is a semi-autonomous political unit that shares powers with the Federal Government as enumerated under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

From 1960 to 1966, Nigeria operated on the basis of Northern region, Western region, Eastern region, and the Mid-Western region.

The creation of states began in 1967 with General Yakubu Gowon coming to power via a coup detat. He dissolved the regions and created twelve states out of them.

Map of Nigeria

Verification

In verifying the authenticity of the post, our correspondent searched through the internet to find a traceable background link to the post, but no credible media outlet has reported any news about the purported bill.

A twitter account owned by Ayo Akinfe (@AyoAkinfe), where the story was shared after it was posted on its website, created more clarification about the post.

While responding to enquiries from our correspondent via his Twitter Direct message, on the purported bill which bears his name, he said, it was Just a proposal from me.

I intend to publish a collection of all my thoughts in a book, he added.

Akinfe who authored the piece said he writes 10-point columns every day on his website.

However, the London-based journalist said Ignore all those wayo people attributing it to the government.

Dubawa also reached out to the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu. In Garbas reaction, he described the report as unknown and asked that the presidency be left out of it since it was not a draft bill from the presidency.

Conclusion

The trending piece which has been attributed to the federal government is FALSE.

The author, Ayo Akinfe, clarified to Dubawa that he wrote the piece as a proposal in his column; hence, the Nigerian Economic Restructuring Bill 2021 is not a purported kite being flown by the Federal Government as widely circulated on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
London: The Indian High Commission has taken a strong note of what it called a distinctly one-sided discussion among a group of UK lawmakers in a Westminster Committee Room in response to an e-petition campaign on the Indian farmers ongoing protest against Centre's three farm laws.

High Commission of India has been, over a period of time, taking care to inform all concerned about the issues raised in the petition. We deeply regret that rather than a balanced debate, false assertions - without substantiation or facts - were made, casting aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world and its institutions, it said in a press release.

Al issues raised are the remit of well-established independent democratic institutions in India for addressing the same. It is also a matter of concern that, once again, comments were made to mislead the British Indian community, raising doubts about treatment of minorities in India, alleged human rights violations in Kashmir etc, the Indian High Commission said in the press release.

Foreign media, including the British media, are present in India and have witnessed the events under discussion first-hand. The question of lack of freedom of the media in India does not arise, the statement added.

The Indian High Commission further said that it would normally refrain from commenting on an internal discussion involving a small group of UK Parliamentarians in a limited quorum.

However, when aspersions are cast on India by anyone, irrespective of their claims of friendship and love for India or domestic political compulsions, there is a need to set the record straight, it added.

The debate was held in response to an e-petition that had crossed the 100,000-signature threshold, required for it to be approved by the House of Commons Petitions Committee.

The statement followed a group of around dozen cross-party British MPs debating issues around the alleged 'use of force' against protesters opposed to agricultural reforms in India and journalists being targeted while covering the protests.

As the British government minister deputed to respond to the debate, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Minister Nigel Adams said the close UK-India relationship did not hinder the UK in any way from raising difficult issues with India, even as he reiterated the government line that agricultural reforms are a "domestic matter" for India.

Virendra Sharma, the Opposition Labour MP for Ealing Southall in west London with a large Punjabi diaspora, sought to counsel both the Indian government and agitating farmers to reach an agreement over the issue.

Farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several Delhi border points, including Tikri, Singhu and Ghazipur, since November 28, demanding a complete repeal of the three farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

The government has denied allegations that it was trying to put an end to the MSP and the mandi system.

Live TV
Hanaq Argentina SA will have the opportunity to earn a 70% interest in Caballos by spending US$4 million on exploration at the project over six years

In addition to the Caballos project, Golden Arrow has an Argentina copper portfolio that includes multiple projects in geologic districts that host world-class copper and gold deposits, the company said

Golden Arrow Resources Corporation ( ) (FRA:G6A) ( ) announced a definitive agreement Tuesday to option its Caballos copper-gold project to Hanaq Argentina SA, an explorer with metal projects throughout the country.

The agreement gives Hanaq the opportunity to earn a 70% interest in Caballos by spending US$4 million on exploration at the project over six years, the company said. At that point, a joint venture between the companies would advance the project on a pro rata basis.

"Caballos is one of several copper-focused projects within our more than 180,000-hectare portfolio in Argentina that has demonstrated potential from preliminary geological work, Golden Arrow CEO Joseph Grosso said in a statement.

The Caballos Copper-Gold Project covers more than 12,000 hectares along the Chilean border in the Andean Cordillera of La Rioja Province, Argentina. The property is in a prospective porphyry copper-gold and epithermal gold-silver district at the intersection between the south end of the Maricunga Copper-Gold Belt with the northern extent of the El Indio Gold-Silver Belt, the company said.

An initial multidisciplinary exploration program led to the discovery of a copper-gold porphyry target, including a magnetic core, measuring 300 meters by 800 meters. Outcrop sampling on the margin of the magnetic core zone encountered 12 meters averaging 2.4% copper within an 18 metre continuous chip sample, the company said.

With the recent strength in the copper market, we have redoubled our efforts to secure qualified and committed partners such as Hanaq to advance these exploration projects, Grosso said. This allows us to build value at those properties while freeing our team to concentrate on our core-focus precious metal projects in Argentina and Paraguay and on copper assets that we believe we can advance faster and more efficiently, such as our Rosales copper project in Chile,"

Golden Arrow's 100%-held Rosales copper project is located less than 90 kilometres from the mining center of Copiapo in Region III, Chile. The region is prolific for mining, with multiple copper and gold mining projects nearby, including the Margarita Mine, an underground copper mining operation adjacent to the Rosales properties, the company said.

The companys first phase exploration program is underway at Rosales, and a new detailed geophysical survey is being commissioned to map structures related to mineralization and aid in the delineation of drill targets.

In addition to the Caballos project, Golden Arrow has an Argentina copper portfolio that includes multiple projects in geologic districts that host world-class copper and gold deposits, the company said.

Highlights of its portfolio include:

Mogote  adjacent to the Filo del Sol gold project property owned by Filo Mining and has seen limited drilling on its multiple porphyry and epithermal targets.

Don Bosco  several copper, gold and silver targets and is in the same sedimentary belt as the Gualcamayo gold mine owned by Mineros SA

Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel
A Derry woman has been warned she faces the prospect of going to jail after she admitted an air rage incident over a face mask.

Sarah McGuire was due to go on trial at Antrim Magistrates Court, but following last minute discussions between the defence and prosecution, she confessed to all bar two of the charges against her.

Defence counsel Sean Doherty confirmed that McGuire (39), from Tyrconnell Street in Derry, was entering guilty pleas to charges of common assault; behaving in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner towards a member of aircraft crew; and refusing to obey the lawful command of an aircraft commander on October 18 last year.

At an earlier hearing McGuire, who attended court in person, admitted using disorderly behaviour at Belfast International Airport arising from the same incident.

Following her admissions on Monday, the prosecution asked Deputy District Judge Ann Marshall to formally have charges of being drunk on a plane and common assault "left on the books".

The facts have yet to be fully opened but it is understood the charges follow an incident on a Belfast to Edinburgh easyJet flight which led to McGuire being escorted off. In a video recorded by a fellow passenger on the flight, McGuire is seen being escorted off the plane which was still grounded, and is seen not wearing a mask.

She repeatedly coughs and shouts out: "Everybody dies, you know that? If it's from corona or not, everybody dies."

Applying for sentencing to be adjourned to allow for the preparation of a pre-sentence probation report, Mr Doherty said the offences were committed against a backdrop of "difficult and traumatic circumstances" which he was sure would be "fully outlined" in the probation report.

He confirmed that McGuire was also in breach of a previously suspended jail sentence for offences of assaulting police and causing criminal damage, adding that "she has been fully advised that, clearly, her liberty is very much in doubt".

Adjourning passing sentence to April 20, Ms Marshall freed McGuire on continuing bail. The judge warned her that "going to custody is a very real possibility".
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.
ALBANY  Pandemic-battered New Yorkers owe $1.14 billion in unpaid gas and electric bills, suggesting that the statewide moratorium on cut-offs will likely have to continue for the foreseeable future.

Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic and attendant job losses mean the state will likely have to adjust how it assists low-income New Yorkers with keeping their heat and lights on going forward.

The depth of financial distress currently affecting more than a million residential energy consumers and uncounted numbers of water and telecommunications consumers is a strong argument that the moratorium must continue and that all stakeholders must arrive at a solution to provide some form of rate relief, said Richard Berkley, executive director of the Public Utility Law Project of New York.

Berkley and others participated Tuesday in a web-based workshop from the state Public Service Department regarding rate relief for consumers in need.

That need has hit a new peak in recent memory. The $1.14 billion in arrears, that is unpaid utility charges that are more than 60 days old, is the highest on recent record, dating to 2005, according to Public Utility Law Project data.

The Project, or PULP, educates consumers about their rights regarding utilities and advocates for low-income families that may struggle with their gas, electric or other utility bills.

The $1.14 billion amount owed, as of December, is up 62% since February 2020.

The number of residential accounts in arrears has risen 28 percent since February 2020 to December 2020 with approximately 1.4 million accounts in arrears.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the height of the pandemic imposed a moratorium on unhooking utility customers for unpaid bills amid the pandemic. That moratorium is scheduled to expire March 28 but is likely to be extended, as has happened several times over the last year.

Additionally,Cuomo has put language in his proposed 2021-22 budget that would keep disconnect moratoriums in effect as long as a state of emergency, such as the one for the pandemic, remains in place.

Utility companies such as National Grid, which delivers electricity and natural gas to much of the Capital Region and other parts of the state, are keeping track of the unpaid bills and realize that some may be written off  and worked into the overall rate base, if the state approves their periodic rate increases.

Company spokesman Patrick Stella said its too early to tell how that might impact National Grid as a whole.

If the regulators agree with our forecast, we spread out the uncollected debt costs across the entire customer base, Stella said. If incorrectly forecast or not approved, National Grid shareholders would have to bear those costs. And any of these actions could result in rating agencies downgrading our credit rating, which would affect our ability to raise capital at the lowest possible costs.

There are some bright spots. The recent $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill being moved forward by President Joe Biden appears to keep in place the comparatively generous allocation of about $406 million in HEAP or Home Energy Assistance Program funding for New York. That longstanding program helps low-income New Yorkers pay their heat bills.

We are a heavy HEAP area of the country. We have a lot of low-income households, said Andrew Byrk, who helps oversee the program for the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

The economic impact is going to continue beyond people getting ill, added Deanne Grimaldi, spokeswoman for the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern NY.

More for you Business Cuomo signs moratorium on utility shutoffs
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Lucknow: A court in Uttar Pradesh's Jaunpur district has awarded capital punishment to a man, who raped an 11-year-old girl last year, a senior official said here on Tuesday.

The special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Jaunpur sentenced Bal Govind to death on Monday for raping the girl in August 2020, Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi said in a statement issued here.

Rape

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on the convict.

Govind had abducted the girl and later raped her in a village in Madiyahu area.

An FIR in this regard was registered by the girl's father.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday appointed a former federal prosecutor and an employment lawyer to investigate allegations that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed female aides.

Joon Kim was the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan for parts of 2017 and 2018. He'll join the employment lawyer Anne Clark in conducting the probe.

James said the pair are independent, legal experts who have decades of experience conducting investigations and fighting to uphold the rule of law.

The appointments came as New York lawmakers were privately debating whether to join calls for Cuomo to resign from office, or urge patience while the investigation is ongoing.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
The Guardian

The potential consequences of the origins of the virus are shattering  if they can be proved My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters There was a time when the Covid pandemic seemed to confirm so many of our assumptions. It cast down the people we regarded as villains. It raised up those we thought were heroes. It prospered people who could shift easily to working from home even as it problematized the lives of those Trump voters living in the old economy. Like all plagues, Covid often felt like the hand of God on earth, scourging the people for their sins against higher learning and visibly sorting the righteous from the unmasked wicked. Respect science, admonished our yard signs. And lo!, Covid came and forced us to do so, elevating our scientists to the highest seats of social authority, from where they banned assembly, commerce, and all the rest. We cast blame so innocently in those days. We scolded at will. We knew who was right and we shook our heads to behold those in the wrong playing in their swimming pools and on the beach. It made perfect sense to us that Donald Trump, a politician we despised, could not grasp the situation, that he suggested people inject bleach, and that he was personally responsible for more than one super-spreading event. Reality itself punished leaders like him who refused to bow to expertise. The prestige news media even figured out a way to blame the worst death tolls on a system of organized ignorance they called populism. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a cult out of the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general But these days the consensus doesnt consense quite as well as it used to. Now the media is filled with disturbing stories suggesting that Covid might have come  not from populism at all, but from a laboratory screw-up in Wuhan, China. You can feel the moral convulsions beginning as the question sets in: What if science itself is in some way culpable for all this? * I am no expert on epidemics. Like everyone else I know, I spent the pandemic doing as I was told. A few months ago I even tried to talk a Fox News viewer out of believing in the lab-leak theory of Covids origins. The reason I did that is because the newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-leak theory wasnt true, that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-on-fire ratings from the fact-checkers, and because (despite all my cynicism) I am the sort who has always trusted the mainstream news media. My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month; a few weeks later everyone from Doctor Fauci to President Biden is acknowledging that the lab-accident hypothesis might have some merit. We dont know the real answer yet, and we probably will never know, but this is the moment to anticipate what such a finding might ultimately mean. What if this crazy story turns out to be true? The answer is that this is the kind of thing that could obliterate the faith of millions. The last global disaster, the financial crisis of 2008, smashed peoples trust in the institutions of capitalism, in the myths of free trade and the New Economy, and eventually in the elites who ran both American political parties. In the years since (and for complicated reasons), liberal leaders have labored to remake themselves into defenders of professional rectitude and established legitimacy in nearly every field. In reaction to the fool Trump, liberalism made a sort of cult out of science, expertise, the university system, executive-branch norms, the intelligence community, the State Department, NGOs, the legacy news media, and the hierarchy of credentialed achievement in general. Now here we are in the waning days of Disastrous Global Crisis #2. Covid is of course worse by many orders of magnitude than the mortgage meltdown  it has killed millions and ruined lives and disrupted the world economy far more extensively. Should it turn out that scientists and experts and NGOs, etc. are villains rather than heroes of this story, we may very well see the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism go up in a fireball of public anger. Consider the details of the story as we have learned them in the last few weeks:  Lab leaks happen. They arent the result of conspiracies: a lab accident is an accident, as Nathan Robinson points out; they happen all the time, in this country and in others, and people die from them.  There is evidence that the lab in question, which studies bat coronaviruses, may have been conducting what is called gain of function research, a dangerous innovation in which diseases are deliberately made more virulent. By the way, right-wingers didnt dream up gain of function: all the cool virologists have been doing it (in this country and in others) even as the squares have been warning against it for years.  There are strong hints that some of the bat-virus research at the Wuhan lab was funded in part by the American national-medical establishment  which is to say, the lab-leak hypothesis doesnt implicate China alone.  There seem to have been astonishing conflicts of interest among the people assigned to get to the bottom of it all, and (as we know from Enron and the housing bubble) conflicts of interest are always what trip up the well-credentialed professionals whom liberals insist we must all heed, honor, and obey.  The news media, in its zealous policing of the boundaries of the permissible, insisted that Russiagate was ever so true but that the lab-leak hypothesis was false false false, and woe unto anyone who dared disagree. Reporters gulped down whatever line was most flattering to the experts they were quoting and then insisted that it was 100% right and absolutely incontrovertible  that anything else was only unhinged Trumpist folly, that democracy dies when unbelievers get to speak, and so on.  The social media monopolies actually censored posts about the lab-leak hypothesis. Of course they did! Because were at war with misinformation, you know, and people need to be brought back to the true and correct faith  as agreed upon by experts. * Let us pray, now, for science, intoned a New York Times columnist back at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. The title of his article laid down the foundational faith of Trump-era liberalism: Coronavirus is What You Get When You Ignore Science. Ten months later, at the end of a scary article about the history of gain of function research and its possible role in the still ongoing Covid pandemic, Nicholson Baker wrote as follows: This may be the great scientific meta-experiment of the 21st century. Could a world full of scientists do all kinds of reckless recombinant things with viral diseases for many years and successfully avoid a serious outbreak? The hypothesis was that, yes, it was doable. The risk was worth taking. There would be no pandemic. Except there was. If it does indeed turn out that the lab-leak hypothesis is the right explanation for how it began  that the common people of the world have been forced into a real-life lab experiment, at tremendous cost  there is a moral earthquake on the way. Because if the hypothesis is right, it will soon start to dawn on people that our mistake was not insufficient reverence for scientists, or inadequate respect for expertise, or not enough censorship on Facebook. It was a failure to think critically about all of the above, to understand that there is no such thing as absolute expertise. Think of all the disasters of recent years: economic neoliberalism, destructive trade policies, the Iraq War, the housing bubble, banks that are too big to fail, mortgage-backed securities, the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016  all of these disasters brought to you by the total, self-assured unanimity of the highly educated people who are supposed to know what theyre doing, plus the total complacency of the highly educated people who are supposed to be supervising them. Then again, maybe I am wrong to roll out all this speculation. Maybe the lab-leak hypothesis will be convincingly disproven. I certainly hope it is. But even if it inches closer to being confirmed, we can guess what the next turn of the narrative will be. It was a perfect storm, the experts will say. Who coulda known? And besides (they will say), the origins of the pandemic dont matter any more. Go back to sleep. Thomas Frank is a Guardian US columnist. He is the author, most recently, of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
SALEM, Ore.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded Oregon more than $110 million in federal funding to help establish and maintain coronavirus vaccination sites throughout the state.

The FEMA funding totals $110,082,859 for costs that come from "emergency activities," including labor, contract services, security, refrigeration, supplies, equipment, and facility rentals.

"I am extremely pleased that Oregon will receive these critical funds from FEMA as we continue our efforts to ramp up vaccinations across the state," Governor Kate Brown said in a statement. "These emergency funds bring some welcome financial relief and will help ensure the cost of vaccinating Oregonians will not be a barrier to our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic."

The funding comes through FEMA's Public Assistance Grant Program, which reimburses communities for disaster response and recovery. Brown's office said that the funding goes directly to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, which distributes the money to local governments, tribes, and state agencies that incur costs from vaccine roll-out.

"I want to thank our partners at FEMA for streamlining the public assistance grant process," Brown concluded. "The expedited funding will help the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Office of Emergency Management provide vaccine access to Oregonians and support local vaccination efforts across the state."

While this influx of funding goes to the state for distribution, some localities in Oregon have received direct grants from FEMA. The federal agency announced in February that it would offer nearly $4.5 million to Josephine County for vaccination efforts.
Image via Getty/Victor J. Blue

Robert Burck, popularly known as the Times Square performer Naked Cowboy, was arrested Saturday in Florida during Daytona Beachs annual Bike Week, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Dayton Beach police claim Burck was dressed in his usual Naked Cowboy attire of white briefs, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, and a guitar when they saw attendees gather around him for a picture as he stood about 10 feet away from a shop in the area. Authorities approached him when they noticed people were placing money inside the soundhole of his guitar.

Burck was charged with resisting a police officer without violence for pulling away from a cop, instead of following their orders. He was also cited for panhandling.

Photos released by the police show that the headstock of Burcks guitar was broken. Authorities argue that the damage occurred when he was resisting arrest. Footage from his arrest was posted on YouTube and shows a small crowd gathered around as a handcuffed Naked Cowboy leans on a patrol car.

According to body cam footage from the incident, Burck pleaded with the officers, telling them, I dont need money, Im already successful. I will never take their money again, I promise you.

The Naked Cowboy states on his Facebook page that this was his 21st time attending Daytona Beachs Bike Week, but this one almost certainly had to be the least enjoyable of them all. Jail records show Burck was released on Sunday.

Related Articles

More Complex

Sign up for the Complex Newsletter for breaking news, events, and unique stories.

Follow Complex on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok
Chief Minister on Tuesday announced his resignation to governor Baby Rani Maurya. The move comes amid speculations in the state political circles about an imminent change of guard. Rawat submitted his resignation at Raj Bhawan after his arrival from Delhi, where he met BJP's central leadership.



"The party gave me a golden opportunity to serve this state for four years. I had never thought that I would get such an opportunity. The party has now decided that the opportunity to serve as CM should be given to someone else now," said Rawat in Dehradun after meeting governor.



BJP legislature party meeting is scheduled to be held at 10 am tomorrow at the party office, he said.

"While accepting his resignation, I have asked him to be the acting CM till a new CM is appointed and takes charge," said Governor Baby Rani Maurya.

Before proceeding to the Raj Bhawan, Rawat was closeted with his close associates at the chief minister's residence including Cabinet minister Madan Kaushik and state minister Dhan Singh Rawat, who has emerged as a frontrunner to succeed him.

On Monday evening, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief J.P. Nadda, National General Secretary (Organisation) B.L. Santosh discussed the political development in the hill state.

BJP National General Secretary and state in-charge, Dushyant Gautam was part of discussion. Meeting was called after several MLAs questioned Rawat's style of functioning.

"Bureaucracy is getting more powerful and voices of elected representatives are unheard," said a party member from Uttarakhand, IANS reported.

On Saturday, the BJP leadership sent former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Gautam as observers to meet state leaders and get a feedback. "Both the leaders met the members of the core committee and took their opinion. Report was submitted to BJP leadership," said a party insider.

It is learnt that the report mentioned that it will be difficult for the party to win the next year state assembly polls with Rawat as the face of BJP.

In 2017, Rawat was made Chief Minister after BJP won in

"Even the BJP's central leadership has admitted that its present government in the state could not do much. No matter who they bring now they will not come back to power in 2022," said former Uttarakhand CM and Congress leader Harish Rawat.
COMMENTARY

IT sales become more dynamic as government buying evolves

The governments approach to IT modernization varies by agency, and takes into account a host of criteria on how to best upgrade critical systems and invest in new services. What used to be a standard transaction must now take into account portability and weight of PCs for remote work, the strength of built-in cybersecurity software, and many other internal and external considerations. To tailor these solutions to each buyer, sales strategies have had to evolve into the digital age as well.

Companies that want to compete in this changing environment need a personalized approach to sales, even against the backdrop of a pandemic that has made in-person meetings nearly impossible. That might seem like a major hurdle for a sales strategy requiring deeper connections and communications, but in the end, I believe the pandemic has actually offered IT sales experts the chance to transform by forcing us to rethink the way we do business.

A shift toward outcomes-oriented solutions

In the past, government organizations often told technology companies exactly what they wanted and how many of each device they needed. Whenever a routine hardware or software upgrade was required, the quickest course of action was to move to the latest model with little consideration for how different groups may have varying technology needs.

Today, that approach has changed at a high level. Many agencies have learned that they can lean on the collective expertise of their technology partners. Instead of a sale starting with a transaction for a predetermined number of units, many now start with the agency describing a problem that needs to be solved.

That shift changes the sales dynamic significantly. Instead of focusing on selling specific products, we now focus on selling solutions that incorporate our products and technologies along the way. Every aspect of this more collaborative approach, from the best way to handle the logistics of delivering inventory across a large number of sites to the most efficient way to synchronize new devices, offers a new touchpoint in the relationship between IT sales and government customers.

Often the result is a more competitive bid for the technology company and the ability to stretch budget further on the governments end, which means were more efficient with taxpayer dollars. Thats a win for suppliers, channel partners, the government and the general public.

Personalizing sales in a remote world

To make these types of relationships successful, salespeople have to get back to one of the most important basics of the job: listening closely to customers. We have to put ourselves in their shoes, try to empathize with their situation and fully understand their problem. That approach requires that we talk to more peoplenot just those in charge of purchasing decisions.

Prior to the pandemic, this shift could easily mean more travel and more on-site meetings than ever before. When the pandemic hit, however, video calls became a critical currency for customer relationships. And the surprising benefit was that removing travel actually opened up the ability to meet with more people on any given day and to speak with them more often over the course of weeks or months.

For the federal government, however, there is one caveat to the benefits of video calls. Many agencies security protocols do not allow devices to go on video. Members of my team working around these constrainsts are certainly looking forward to reconnecting with their customers in person once its safe, but in the meantime, theyve benefitted from being more intentional about having frequent check-ins with customers as theyve naviagated massive remote work transitions in the past year.

Advantages for the sales force

For the past 20 years, Ive traveled every week for work. This past year has meant that instead of spending eight hours flying back from the West Coast or Europe, I can more productively use that time on new work projects, improve my work-life balance and still build really personal connections with customers and colleagues virtually.

With these advantages in mind, HP has recently hired a small cohort of virtual sales representatives whose sole remit will be to engage with customers remotelyeven after the pandemic. I expect well see more and more of this in the months to come as technology companies and customers realize that a different approach to how its always been done can be highly effective.

From the way we interact to how and what we sell, the transformation is only just beginning. While the pandemic has certainly been challenging, the innovations weve relied upon will change sales for decades to come.

Use the online HTML table generator for free to create the perfect spreadsheets for your website!
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

He felt so good about getting his first COVID-19 vaccine that he shared that joy by passing out dollar bills to others at the shot clinic held at the University of New Mexico Pit.

Thoroughly enjoyed the smiles I got in return, reader John wrote. Ive never seen a better run mass operation and a happier bunch of people.

Reader Bill, though, could not completely share that joy. Hes received the first of his two vaccines, but his partner is still waiting for hers.

A wife or husband gets called for a vaccine shot but then their partner is not called, he wrote. This creates more than guilt, it really creates agony.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

He wrote a poem about that. A sampling:

Torpor sets in,

while you wait for your covid vaccine shot.

And wait and wait and wait

and go to the State health department page

and get told to WAIT!

Dozens of similar responses to my column last Wednesday, in which I wrote about receiving my first vaccine, offered a look at this divergence of opinion between the agony and the ecstasy, the haves and the havent yets.

Many of you decried the randomness of the vaccine rollout, while others praised the smoothness of the process. Many felt helpless and unheard, while others felt hopeful and unified.

Im so proud of how our state is doing, wrote an ebullient Jennifer, who received her first shot at a clinic at Expo New Mexico. It was the most organized event ever and the staff was wonderful, kind and helpful. I have a month-old granddaughter that I want to see grow up.

But Johns experience held at a big box store clinic caused big headaches. The line for the vaccine, he said, stretched around the store and into the parking lot that frigid February afternoon. Some prescient folks brought lawn chairs. It took him an hour and 45 minutes  standing  to make it inside.

The joy of getting vaccinated was lost in the unanticipated long line and cold weather, he wrote.

I heard from Jackie, a senior citizen who just moved to Albuquerque from Texas with her husband, but before they left they received their first vaccine, the Moderna brand, and were having difficulty finding a local clinic that could provide them with their second Moderna dose in time.

Looks like were off to Texas again, she said.

Several said they also had made the trek to Texas, hearing that clinics in Amarillo and Lubbock offered shots to anybody who showed up no matter where they came from.

The good part is that they are welcoming essentially anyone who wants a vaccine, Linda wrote. For me it was worth the drive.

Several people were unhappy that they had yet to receive an alert despite registering in December.

It doesnt seem fair that even if you registered within the first few days you still have to wait months when you are in a group that is being called, Vicki opined. And I know people who are not in one of the top groups who are getting called.

Yet Alfredo, who lives in Roswell, said he waited to register so that older people could have first dibs on vaccines but decided to register recently because a third brand of vaccine, this one from Johnson and Johnson, has increased the supply.

A minute after I registered I had a text and an email, he wrote. Three minutes later I had an appointment. I will be going to it shortly.

And for those who are wondering, I am 63 but I was still eligible for the vaccine because of a pre-existing condition and my caretaker status for two of my adult sons, both who are also eligible for the vaccine because of their disabilities and one who also has a pre-existing medical condition.

And then there was Anne, who derided the part of my column in which I say the vaccines side effects for me included a sore arm and a sense of hope.

Hope  a wish for things to change/get better  is a bit too closely connected to fantasy for me, she wrote. Hope wont produce more vaccine, or distribute it, or get it into the arms of people who are ready, willing and able to receive it. Production, distribution and administration require a robust, reliable public health infrastructure, not hope.

Anne also warned the vaccine wont magically return life back to normal. On that she is correct. Getting enough people vaccinated is a game changer, to be sure. But its just one step, albeit a huge one, toward normalcy. The need for masks, distancing and hand-washing wont disappear with a couple of shots to the arm.

But after nearly a year living under this virus gloom, a vaccine does offer relief, joy and, yes, hope.

When I got my event code for the neighborhood Walgreens last week, I felt like I had won the Powerball, Julie wrote.

Laurie put it this way: Im getting my first shot tomorrow while my more needy husband sits and waits for that winning lottery ticket disguised as a little ole text message. Patience is something we have gotten pretty good at.

New Mexico is also pretty good at doling out doses of vaccine, despite the seeming randomness of it all. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, New Mexico is tops in terms of administering the highest percentage of COVID-19 vaccines it has received.

New Mexico is about to receive more. Last week, Journal colleague Colleen Heild reported that more than 17,000 doses of the newly approved Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine were expected to arrive in New Mexico, marking a near 30% increase in the states recent weekly allocation.

Also, the states seven-day average number of cases was the lowest its been since early October. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 had also declined.

In Wednesdays column, I mentioned several people who I fretted had not received a vaccine. But theres good news there, too. Mike, who has cancer, received his first vaccine this week. Sheila, who said she felt forgotten, got her first shot this week by learning from a friend about a shot clinic she was eligible for. Even my 96-year-old aunt received her first vaccine this week.

Sorry, Anne, but there is reason to hope. And Im going to.

UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg.
UK MP Iain Duncan Smith

London [UK], March 10 (ANI): Former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions of the United Kingdom Iain Duncan Smith has called for "much tougher action" to combat human rights abuses in China as Beijing continues to impose severe crackdowns on Uyghurs and the citizens of Hong Kong.

According to EU Political Report, Duncan Smith, speaking from the UK on Monday to a zoom conference hosted by EU Today at the Brussels Press Club, said, "In the House of Commons we are engaged in a big effort to link any future trade deals with severe human rights abuses, in this case, genocide, and we are trying to shift the UK government's position on this."

He added, "China is a big problem facing the free world but one that the free world has fudged. This has a lot to do with reality - many businesses have rushed to China to take advantage of a lower cost base in China to produce their goods. This includes the supply of PPE in the health crisis."

Duncan Smith stated that The West has "quietly forgotten" the disadvantages of trade deals with China because there is no balance in these trade deals" pointing out that Germany has a huge dependence on China for its car parts and, remember, to meet carbon neutral status the biggest battery producer is China "so our dependence on China is likely to grow."

The former UK Secretary said that China has "strategically and very cleverly" ensured that much of the free world is dependent on them but "we see the most appalling human rights abuses in China against Christians, Falun Gong who have been brutalised, 500,000 Tibetans in forced labour camps. The worst case is the brutalisation of Uyghurs which amounts to genocide."

He further went on to slam the European Union to "rush the deal" with China saying that the move must have been discussed with the Biden administration and London.

"Uyghurs have been terrorised and separated from their families and are in camps while western businesses still sadly are using products from these labour camps.... No other country would have got away with this but we are so desperate not to upset China. This also includes Hong Kong which is a huge issue for the UK because agreements between the UK and HK been trashed," he said

Story continues

"The EU has now decided on an economic arrangement with China which has been rushed through. This is a great shame and it should have been discussed first with Joe Biden and the UK because there is a cost to these trade deals," Duncan Smith added.

EU Political Report reported that the Magnitsky sanctions were first applied by the United States in 2016, with similar sanctions applied by the UK in 2020, and is legislation enabling the EU to target people or entities for human rights violations and abuses coming in December of that year.

The sanctions have led to travel bans and asset freezes being imposed on abusers from Russia, North Korea and Saudi Arabia, amongst others. In July 2020 the US sanctioned senior Chinese Communist Party official and Commissar Sun Jinlong for "serious abuses targeting Uyghurs".

Duncan Smith said, "China is a big problem but it also has huge potential and we do want to deal with it but there is a rules-based order and China cannot be allowed to desecrate human rights. We must get China to sign up to this. I hope the EU is listening because we need to change our relationship with China. The European Parliament thankfully seems to be taking a different view on this new trade deal and that is good because this threatening and bullying behaviour of China cannot be tolerated."

On the subject of why it was so hard for some to accept the charge of genocide against China, the UK Member of Parliament said, "The idea that this can be used to describe events in another country must be proven beyond doubt and the evidence must be strong. In the UN, China's allies could also block such a move. This is the basic problem."

"The reason why genocide cannot be found is that it is a huge allegation to make. It is the single worst crime one could imagine. To do it would upset China dramatically and they would retaliate, so the free world is divided on this. The whole thing is a mess."

China has long denied claims of genocide or mistreatment of the Uyghur people, and most recently the country's foreign minister addressed those accusations in a press conference Sunday.

"The so-called existence of genocide in Xinjiang is absurd. It is a complete lie fabricated with ulterior motives," Wang Yi said as reported by The Hill, adding that supposed "anti-China forces" were attempting to "undermine the security and stability of Xinjiang and hinder China's development and growth."

China has been rebuked globally for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.

Beijing, on the other hand, has vehemently denied that it is engaged in human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang while reports from journalists, NGOs and former detainees have surfaced, highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's brutal crackdown on the ethnic community,

Meanwhile, China imposed the draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong last year. The law criminalises secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces and carries with it strict prison terms. It came into effect from July 1. Since then, a number of former pro-democracy lawmakers have been arrested. (ANI)
Technology giant Samsung Electronics has launched the 2021 edition of its TV Media Challenge for Ghanaian journalists, bloggers and tech lovers to express their passionate views and opinions of appreciation about the brands premium televisions QLED and Frame TVs.



The Challenge is opened to all journalists and bloggers across media channels  Print, Online, TV, Radio and Social Media. Journalists are expected to do at least two published feature stories about Samsungs 2020 QLED TV and Frame TV.



At a media briefing to launch the competition, Mr. Benjamin Afrifa, Product Manager at Samsung Electronics, said Samsung will continue to redefine the world of Televisions as it is the worlds No.1 TV brand, leading the industry with the highest market share for 15 straight years.



Mr. Afrifa took the media through some key features of QLED and Frame TVs that one can enjoy in areas of advanced technology, outstanding design, AI technologies, innovative services, and easy access to the best quality content among others.



The deadline for submission of published stories is March 19, 2021. The best three journalists will be awarded with Samsungs premium TVs.



Samsung has over the years organized similar competitions for the media across its product portfolios as a way of letting journalists understand, experience and live the Samsung brand.



Throughout the history of TVs, Samsung has continually developed new technologies as well as enhanced viewing experience and peoples lifestyle. Samsung has led the global TV market trend with developing the world 1st including SMART TV and Curved TV.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Yue Yuewei]

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua)  The fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, convened its second plenary meeting Monday.

Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders  Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan  attended the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Nearly 2,900 national lawmakers heard and reviewed the work reports of the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).

Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, delivered the work report of the committee to the meeting.

In the past year, the NPC Standing Committee has effectively performed the duties and functions as the state organ of power, offering legal guarantee for advancing the implementation of major work plans, tackling major risks and challenges and safeguarding national security, Li said in the report.

Since last year's NPC annual session, the NPC Standing Committee has adopted nine laws, including the Law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and revised 13 laws, including the National Flag Law and the National Emblem Law, said the top legislator.

The NPC Standing Committee has strengthened the implementation of the Constitution, stepped up legislation in key areas and conducted oversight of legal compliance and work performance in accordance with the law, according to Li.

The main tasks for the coming year include working to ensure greater observance of the Constitution and enhance constitutionality reviews and strengthening legislative work in key areas, emerging areas and areas relating to external affairs, he said.

Chief Justice Zhou Qiang delivered the SPC work report. The SPC accepted 39,347 cases in total and concluded 35,773 cases in 2020.

Summarizing the top court's work in 2020, Zhou said it safeguarded national security and social stability, actively contributed to high-quality development, protected people's legitimate rights and interests and deepened reform.

For 2021 and beyond, Zhou vowed to strengthen impartial administration of justice, deepen reform, and fully leverage the courts' trial function.

Procurator-General Zhang Jun delivered the SPP work report. Prosecutors across the country handled over 3 million cases over the past year, down 19.4 percent from last year, according to the report.

In 2021, prosecutors should work to provide strong legal guarantee for a good start in the drive to fully build a modern socialist country, Zhang said.

Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, delivers a work report of the 13th NPC Standing Committee at the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th NPC at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Liu Bin]

Wang Chen presides over the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhang Ling]

Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), delivers a work report of the SPC at the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Liu Bin]

Zhang Jun, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), delivers a work report of the SPP at the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Liu Bin]

The second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Ding Lin]

The second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Wang Yuguo]

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) attend the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th NPC at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Yan Yan]

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) attend the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th NPC at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhang Ling]

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) attend the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th NPC at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Wang Yuguo]

The second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Liu Bin]

The second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhang Ling]

The second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Wang Yuguo]

The second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Cao Can]

Members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) sit in on the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) as non-voting participants at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 8, 2021. [Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai]

(Source: Xinhua)
Authorities are asking for the publics help in locating a suspect in a New Jersey killing who is also a person of interest in a quadruple homicide in New Mexico.

Sean Lannon, 47, of Grants, New Mexico, is considered armed and dangerous and is wanted for questioning in a killing in East Greenwich Township on Monday, the Gloucester County Prosecutors Office announced.

UPDATE (March 10): Suspect in 5 killings captured by police in Missouri

Lannon is originally from the East Greenwich area and knew the victim in Mondays killing, according to prosecutors office Chief of Detectives Tom Gilbert. Gilbert described the victim as an adult male, but declined to release additional details Tuesday.

Lannon is described as white, 5 feet 9 inches tall, 140-165 pounds, balding, with blue eyes. He may be driving a blue, 2018 Honda CR-V with New Jersey registration U71JXG.

He was possibly last seen on Monday at around 3 p.m. near the Walter Rand Transportation Center in Camden. The U.S. Marshals Service also announced a $5,000.00 reward for information leading to Lannons arrest.

Anyone with information about Sean Lannons whereabouts is asked to contact prosecutors office Sgt. John Petroski at 856-498-6238 or jpetroski@co.gloucester.nj.us. Anonymous tips may be sent to tips@co.gloucester.nj.us.

Information about the New Mexico killings was not included in the prosecutors announcement, but law enforcement officials there have released some information.

A foul odor led police to four bodies found in a parked vehicle at an airport in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Friday, according to news reports. Police identified the victims as Jennifer Lannon, 39, Matthew Miller, 21, Jesten Mata, 40, and Randal Apostalon, 60.

In a statement Tuesday, the Albuquerque Police Department confirmed Sean Lannon is a person of interest in the Friday slayings.

APD is currently working with multiple agencies on this investigation. Lannon is also currently wanted out of New Jersey for questioning in another investigation, the department said.

Three of the victims were reported missing in January from Grants, New Mexico, a small town about 78 miles west of Albuquerque.

Police in Grants said last month that Jennifer Lannon and Mata were wanted for questioning in Millers disappearance. On Feb. 26, police said Daniel Lemos, 45, was wanted for questioning in the disappearances of Jennifer Lannon, Miller and Mata.

Lemos was described as armed and dangerous.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/JPL/T. Connor; Optical: Gemini/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Infrared: W.M. Keck Observatory; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Astronomers have discovered evidence for an extraordinarily long jet of particles from a supermassive black hole in the early Universe, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

If confirmed, it would be the most distant supermassive black hole with a jet detected in X-rays, coming from a galaxy about 12.7 billion light years from Earth. It may help explain how the biggest black holes formed at a very early time in the Universe's history.

The source of the jet is a quasara rapidly growing supermassive black holenamed PSO J352.4034-15.3373 (PJ352-15 for short), which sits at the center of a young galaxy. It is one of the two most powerful quasars detected in radio waves in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and is about a billion times more massive than the Sun.

How are supermassive black holes able to grow so quickly to reach such an enormous mass in this early epoch of the Universe? This is one of the key questions in astronomy today.

Despite their powerful gravity and fearsome reputation, black holes do not inevitably pull in everything that approaches close to them. Material orbiting around a black hole in a disk needs to lose speed and energy before it can fall farther inwards to cross the so-called event horizon, the point of no return. Magnetic fields can cause a braking effect on the disk as they power a jet, which is one key way for material in the disk to lose energy and, therefore, enhance the rate of growth of black holes.

"If a playground merry-go-round is moving too fast, it's hard for a child to move towards the center, so someone or something needs to slow the ride down," said Thomas Connor of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., who led the study. "Around supermassive black holes, we think jets can take enough energy away so material can fall inward and the black hole can grow."

Credit: Chandra X-ray Center

Astronomers needed to observe PJ352-15 for a total of three days using the sharp vision of Chandra to detect evidence for the X-ray jet. X-ray emission was detected about 160,000 light years away from the quasar along the same direction as much shorter jets seen in radio waves. By comparison, the entire Milky Way spans about 100,000 light years.

PJ352-15 breaks a couple of different astronomical records. First, the longest jet previously observed from the first billion years after the Big Bang was only about 5,000 light years in length, corresponding to the radio observations of PJ352-15. Second, PJ352-15 is about 300 million light years farther away than the most distant X-ray jet recorded before it.

"The length of this jet is significant because it means that the supermassive black hole powering it has been growing for a considerable period of time," said co-author Eduardo Banados of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany. "This result underscores how X-ray studies of distant quasars provide a critical way to study the growth of the most distant supermassive black holes."

The light detected from this jet was emitted when the Universe was only 0.98 billion years old, less than a tenth of its present age. At this point, the intensity of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) left over from the Big Bang was much greater than it is today.

As the electrons in the jet fly away from the black hole at close to the speed of light, they move through and collide with photons making up the CMB radiation, boosting the energy of the photons up into the X-ray range to be detected by Chandra. In this scenario, the X-rays are significantly boosted in brightness compared to radio waves. This agrees with the observation that the large X-ray jet feature has no associated radio emission.

"Our result shows that X-ray observations can be one of the best ways to study quasars with jets in the early Universe," said co-author Daniel Stern, also of JPL. "Or to put it another way, X-ray observations in the future may be the key to unlocking the secrets of our cosmic past."

A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Explore further Most distant quasar with powerful radio jets discovered

More information: Thomas Connor et al, Enhanced X-ray Emission from the Most Radio-Powerful Quasar in the Universe's First Billion Years, arXiv:2103.03879v1 [astro-ph.GA],

arxiv.org/abs/2103.03879 Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Thomas Connor et al, Enhanced X-ray Emission from the Most Radio-Powerful Quasar in the Universe's First Billion Years, arXiv:2103.03879v1 [astro-ph.GA],
Brasserie Benelux opening in Saratoga this month

A European restaurant called Brasserie Benelux is in the final weeks of development at 390 Broadway in Saratoga Springs, former home to Braeburn Tavern, The Crown Grill and Brindisis Restaurant.

An opening in late March is projected.

The owner is Armand VanderStigchel, a chef who has written books including Wings Across America, Adirondack Cookbook and Adirondack Cuisine. The latter was also a five-part series on the Plattsburgh PBS affiliate. VanderStigchel said he has consulted at restaurants in New York City, but this is his first involvement locally and first venture as a proprietor. He said he recently moved to Saratoga and has had a second home in Queensbury for 20 years.

The son of Dutch parents, VanderStigchel was born in Chicago and as a child moved to Europe with his family, going on to live there for 15 years.

Benelux refers to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and Brasserie Benelux will feature fare from those countries as well as from Germany, Austria and France and Scandinavian nations. Signature dishes will includes moules frites; wiener schnitzel with spaetzle, cucumber salad and lingonberries; jagerschnitzel with mushroom sauce; the Belgian beef stew known as carbonnade flamande; and what VanderStigchel described as the most delicious Swedish meatballs, from a 40-year-old recipe from Sweden with sour cream and lingonberries.

Initial service will be for dinner on Wednesday, lunch and dinner Thursday through Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday.

The website, beneluxny.com, has been established but is presently empty.

Head chefs leave New World 8 months after starting

Hannah and Zachary Welton, married chefs who moved cross-country during the pandemic last summer to run the kitchen at New World Bistro Bar in Albany following the departure of its celebrated founding chef, Ric Orlando, have resigned.

They could not come to agreement on terms and timing of the restaurants reopening with owners Scott Meyer and Annette Nanes, both sides tell me.

Nanes said she is conducting a search for a new head chef and hopes to reopen the restaurant in mid- to late April. After being one of the regions best-known restaurants since its 2009 founding, New World had a tumultuous past year, even considering the pandemic: trying takeout service for a few days at the very beginning of the shutdown last March, closing, reopening for takeout in May, closing in June when it parted ways with Orlando, hiring the Weltons in July, reopening in August for indoor and outdoor dining and takeout, reverting to takeout-only in early November, closing during the pandemic resurgence in mid-January of this year, and now without kitchen leadership again for the second time in nine months.

Turkish-Mediterranean spot opens in downtown Albany

The Spinning Gyro, which bills itself as a Turkish Mediterranean restaurant, opened last week at 38 S. Pearl St. in downtown Albany, a location across from the Times Union Center that most recently was home for a couple of years to a Greek restaurant called The Taverna.

The Spinnings Gyros menu includes gyro wraps and platters, salads, spreads, sides and a few desserts.

Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Thursday, until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, closed Sunday. Call 518-227-7783 to order for free in-house delivery, within 10 miles and for a $15 minimum, or order through Grubhub.

Compiled by Steve Barnes. Items to be submitted for publication should be emailed to sbarnes@timesunion.com. Visit , blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping
Australian life is slowly beginning to return to normal with cafes and bars once again welcoming customers, workers returning to the city, and a booming property market.

A video uploaded to TikTok on Sunday, which has been liked nearly 680,000 people, shows scenes from the nation's largest city, Sydney, including locals enjoying a rooftop bar, a picnic on the foreshore, and crowded beaches.

New South Wales has just passed 51 days in a row of zero locally-acquired Covid cases with other states enjoying similarly impressive figures - prompting borders to reopen between states and domestic travel to ramp up.

Patrons from March 17 can stand up when drinking at indoor venues. Pictured are diners at a Sydney bar on February 12

The property council wants to bring in a Friday 4pm finish rule and free public transport to encourage workers back into the city for the tradition of Friday drinks (pictured: The Wolf Windsor pub in Melbourne after as lockdown lifted)

A packed Coogee Beach in Sydney (pictured) just before Australia Day in January 2021

Workers are returning to the CBDs of Sydney and Melbourne (pictured) as Covid case numbers remain low

Some people commenting on the video praised Australia for halting the spread of Covid, while others expressed their frustrations their own countries had not employed similarly strict rules.

'Who would've thought that staying inside and closing the borders would stop the spread,' one person said.

'Cool. Once again watching other countries take care of their people,' another person said.

'Wish we were an island country, that could shut down all travel outside with snap of our fingers,' added a third.

Victoria, which endured a second wave of the virus with hundreds on cases daily in mid-2020, employed some of the harshest lockdown rules in the world.

People were not allowed to leave their houses except for essential reasons, private and public gatherings were prohibited, and a night curfew was introduced.

On Tuesday, the state reached 11 consecutive days without a single locally-acquired coronavirus case.

Pub patrons enjoy a drink on a hot day at Coogee Beach (pictured) in January

A packed auction in Queensland (pictured) as Covid restrictions are eased

Western Australia, meanwhile, recorded no new community cases - and two new cases in hotel quarantine on Tuesday.

Queensland, which just celebrated 2million Covid tests completed also recorded no cases other than five in hotel quarantine.

South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory were all virus-free.

The country's vaccine rollout has also begun as doctors iron out complicated logistics and ask for patience as they prepare to give millions of Australians the coronavirus vaccine.

Though some workers are returning to the city, office staff levels are still a fraction of what they were in 2019 (pictured: workers in the Melbourne CBD in February)

The rollout is at government-run hubs across the nation which provide the free vaccines to frontline health staff and hotel quarantine workers, along with aged and disability care residents and employees.

General practitioners will be part of the expanded rollout from March 22, when older and vulnerable Australians will be able to get the virus jab from their local doctor.

The staggered rollout is expected to eventually include more than 4000 clinics.

Deputy chair of the Australian GP Alliance Mukesh Haikerwal says doctors are preparing to have all hands on deck, while they wait for more information from officials.

Gayathry Vellangalloor Srinivasan, an Environmental Services Supervisor, is watched by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian (left), NSW Chief Medical Health Officer Kerry Chant (second right) and NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard (right) as she receives the states first Pfizer vaccination at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Vaccination Hub in Sydney on February 22

Crowds once again in the Melbourne CBD wear masks as a precaution (pictured) against spreading coronavirus

'We will do it, we will have to work after hours, we will have to work weekends. We're prepared to do the work, we always have,' Dr Haikerwal told ABC radio on Monday.

'But we have got to be supported.'

The vaccines are free and voluntary for Australians, with GPs to get $55 if patients get their two doses from the same clinic.

The largest immunisation program in the nation's history has fuelled hopes state border closures and snap lockdowns could be relegated to history.

As of Sunday, more than 81,000 Australians had been vaccinated, but the number is below the federal government's target.

While most border closures have been lifted, allowing Australians to travel between states, some remnants remain in place.

Victorians are still unable to travel to Western Australia without adhering to two weeks of mandatory quarantine, however, WA is allowing travel from other states.

Restrictions are also being lifted across the country in line with low case numbers.

In NSW, gatherings of 50 people are allowed at private residences, gyms can once again offer classes for up to 50 people, and dancing is allowed at functions.

A brief return to Stage Four lockdowns in Victoria at the end of February successfully kept a small outbreak of the virus in check - with restrictions quickly eased after a few days.

Bondi Beach (pictured) packed with revellers at the peak of summer in Australia as lockdown rules were eased

Australia property market is booming with auctions once again packed (pictured)

The Queensland government is running a raffle to help support struggling tourism operators in the state's far north.

In NSW residents can use the state government's hospitality voucher scheme, designed to boost the pandemic-hit hospitality industry.

From Monday an additional 700 businesses in Bega Valley, the northern beaches and Sydney CBD will take part in the second pilot of Dine & Discover NSW.

The scheme gives residents four $25 vouchers to be spent in local businesses and cultural venues.

The statewide rollout of the program is expected to begin in March.

The $500 million scheme was the centrepiece of the NSW government's November budget in a bid to get more people spending.

In South Australia, A second round of accommodation vouchers designed to help the tourism sector during the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a $19 million boost.

From Monday, those in Queensland can go into the draw for one of 15,000 travel vouchers, each worth up to $200.

Winners will get a 50 per cent discount on travel experiences such as reef and rainforest tours in a bid to boost business for far north Queensland operators, who are heavily dependent on international travellers who can't currently come to Australia.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the far north had borne the brunt of the Covid-19 ban on overseas travellers, and that's why it was first cab off the rank for the 'holiday dollars draw'.

Shoppers in Melbourne (pictured) in January 2021 which has eased their tough restrictions
We know our drapery hardware sets are a customer favorite, and we are very happy to be able to provide this option to our website visitors again.

Drapery Rods Direct, an online retailer of Kirsch Drapery Hardware has re-released its 1 3/8 wood, 2 wood, and 1  designer metals drapery hardware sets on the website. A new set featuring the Kirsch 1 Wrought Iron Collection has been added to the site as well. When purchasing a set from the company website, one will receive all basic drapery hardware including a pole, finials, brackets, and rings.

We know our drapery hardware sets are a customer favorite, and we are very happy to be able to provide this option to our website visitors again, states Drapery Rods Direct representative. We encourage anyone looking to buy new curtain rods and hardware to shop our Sets.

Originally, to purchase drapery hardware customers had to visit separate website pages to select the hardware they needed. While knowing which hardware was needed could be confusing for first time customers, all hardware is now found on one page with the Sets. After a website visitor selects the type of set they want to shop, the page quickly walks them through the rest of the process. All drapery hardware components are the same color and fit together perfectly.

The 1  and 2 Wood Trends Sets feature a charming and elegant style while the Designer Metals Set offers a more modern and sophisticated look. The new Wrought Iron Set can be used to create a bold and timeless design.

The Wood Trends Sets feature 12 finial choices and 9 different finishes including black, white, estate oak, and an unfinished option that can be painted to your specific color choice. The Designer Metals Set offers 17 unique finial choices and 8 finish options including black, antique silver, bronzes, and nickels. The Wrought Iron Set includes 11 different finial choices in black, rust, iron oxide, antique pewter, and iron gold color options.

Our team is excited to make buying Kirsch drapery hardware easier for our customers. No other company in the market has anything like our Sets.

In addition to making the curtain rod buying process easier, the company also has an online Help Center where customers can ask questions online. Available 9am-5pm EST Monday through Friday, consumers can contact the Drapery Rods Direct customer service representatives at customerservice@draperyrodsdirect.com or 800.251.5009

To learn more about Drapery Rods Direct, you can visit their website at https://www.draperyrodsdirect.com/
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
CargoAi, a SaaS application offering air cargo digital solutions, is launching a Board of Advisors formed of talented experts who represent the diverse views and perspectives of the airfreight industry.

This advisory body is tasked with reflecting on the industrys digital transformation and actively steering CargoAi in developing value-added solutions for the cargo community. The board will meet quarterly, with the first remote meeting taking place in April.

The Board of Advisors is currently formed of four members, who will soon be joined by other experts. The current members are:

 Markus Flacke - Reknown industry expert, former Managing Director of CHAMP Cargosystems

 Liana Coyne - Director at Coyne Airways

 Cyril Dumon - CEO Asia-Pacific at Bollore Logistics

 Ricardo Pilon - Chief Cargo Transformation Officer at Millennium Aviation & Vice-President, Consulting Solutions at Aviation Strategies International

CargoAi is one of the most visionary and innovative companies in the market. The team has a clear understanding of cargo, and ambitions to connect a variety of actors to more than just an ebooking platform, but one that provides actionable information and intelligence, explained Liana Coyne.

Pilon said: With a diverse and dynamic team, I am excited to see how inclusive the CargoAi team is and how this focus on people and relationships will help further cement sustainable growth in cargo transportation and logistics, underpinned by planned offerings, future-wise services and incremental propositions around market access and commercial optimization.

Helping to reflect on and model the future of air cargo through digital is a really exciting project, and thats why I agreed to join the CargoAi Board of Advisors. Were at a crossroads  at the beginning of an unprecedented transformation in air cargos processes, explained Dumon.

The team is incredible  every member brings unique experience and expertise. What won me over was the humbleness of CargoAis approach and the desire to take part in a major project  digitalizing air cargo through the human touch, added Flacke.

Our goal is to advocate for and positively disrupt our beloved airfreight industry with a very pragmatic and humble approach. Its a real honour for us to welcome airfreight veterans and aviation enthusiasts to the Board and were looking forward to a very close cooperation as we continue to develop our product offering and look to generate value for the industry, said Petot, CEO of CargoAi.

Expertise, excellence and a pioneering spirit were the key skills CargoAi looked for when putting together its Board of Advisors  a simple approach designed to obtain opinions and advice from outside figures who represent the air cargo sector and its needs. - TradeArabia News Service
Photonic lab at Skoltech. Credit: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology

Researchers at Skoltech and their colleagues proposed a photonic device from two optical resonators with liquid crystals inside them to study optical properties of this system that can be useful for future generations of optoelectronic and spinoptronic devices. The paper was published in the journal Physical Review B.

The simplest kind of optical resonator consists of two mirrors directly opposite each other, "squeezing" light between them. When you stand inside a mirror resonator, you see infinite copies of yourself in the mirrors; when a liquid crystalthe kind in your computer and smartphone screenis placed into a much smaller and a bit more complex resonator, interesting things tend to happen. Since the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules can be changed by applying an electric current, researchers were able to control various characteristics of light propagation inside the resonator and, in some sense, simulate the operation of electronic devices that are widely used in our lives using photons.

"One of the main trends in physics now is the transition from electronic to photonic computing systems, since the latter are able to significantly increase the speed of processing and transmitting information, as well as to potentially significantly reduce energy consumption. That is why studies of various kinds of tunable photonic architectures mimicking the properties of electronic analogs attract great interest," says Pavel Kokhanchik, MSc student at Skoltech and the paper's first author.

Kokhanchik, Skoltech Professor Pavlos Lagoudakis and their colleagues decided to see what happens if two such optical resonators filled with liquid crystals were placed very close to each other, at a distance of several micrometers. The researchers expected to reveal new properties not inherent in a single liquid crystal microcavity (resonator), which was investigated in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Warsaw recently.

The resonators, sharing the same "pool" of photons that entangles them, behave kind of like two pendulums, which, when put in close proximity, will sync to share the same frequency. The team found that in this case, light acquires new properties, studied in a field called topological physics. These properties can be fine-tuned, so the device increases the number of physical systems that can be imitated both for fundamental studies and for practical use.

"Our work is just one small step in the huge field of research of photonic analogs of electronic solid-state systems. Fundamental research will certainly be followed by the compaction of these devices, their production on a chip on an industrial scale, and their integration into everyday devices, but at the moment this is a rather distant prospect," Pavel Kokhanchik notes.

The scientists plan to implement a double liquid crystal cavity experimentally to demonstrate the rich physics postulated in the paper. They will also continue the research of similar double microcavity systems and study them in the light-matter strong coupling regime.

Explore further Optical frequency combs with a new dimension

More information: P. Kokhanchik et al. Photonic Berry curvature in double liquid crystal microcavities with broken inversion symmetry, Physical Review B (2021). Journal information: Physical Review B P. Kokhanchik et al. Photonic Berry curvature in double liquid crystal microcavities with broken inversion symmetry,(2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.103.L081406
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
ISTANBUL  Levent Gultekin, a columnist and host for Turkeys Halk TV channel, was assaulted outside his workplace in Istanbul Monday evening by about 25 assailants. Surveillance camera footage shared by Halk TV shows Gultekin approaching the channels office, where he is surrounded by a group of men who attack him and kick him repeatedly after he falls to the ground.

Gultekin shared news of the incident shortly afterward on Twitter, saying he was fine before disclosing he suffered several broken fingers while protecting his head and face with his hands. The journalist shared details of the assault Monday on his nightly program, in which he called the assailants a group of cowards.

These 25 people are probably proud of themselves, Gultekin said Monday. I would be ashamed if I were them. Attacking one person as a group of 25 people is thuggery.

He added, The difference between the mafia and the state is the law. Those who try to make it seem like they're the owners of the state try to implement the law of gangs. Journalists and politicians' lives are not safe.

The incident is the latest in a string of violent street attacks on journalists critical of Turkeys far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which together with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans Justice and Development Party forms the governments ruling coalition.

Last week, Gultekin criticized late MHP founder Alparslan Turkes in a television program, saying the politician had made the lives of millions of young people miserable in promoting nationalist ideologies he defined as an illness.

Amid the backlash, MHP deputy chair Semih Yalcin responded to the comments on Twitter Thursday, calling Gultekin a sick man who hates those the nation loves.

Earlier this year, two journalists and one politician were ambushed by assailants in the span of 24 hours in Ankara. Among them was Orhan Ugurluoglu, a television commentator and contributor to the Yenicag newspaper. He was assaulted by three attackers outside his home who he said warned him to stop criticizing the MHP.

Investigations were opened into the incidents and suspects were detained, but media rights advocates say the perpetrators of such crimes often go unpunished. Erol Onderoglu, the Turkey representative for Reporters Without Borders and Bianet media freedom rapporteur, said past failures to convict attackers of journalists have fueled a climate of impunity in Turkey.

Its disappointing that both the governing parties dont react in a serious manner against such acts, which gives us the impression that violence is sometimes desired by some political groups in the country, Ongeroglu told Al-Monitor.

During a speech Monday, Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul wished Gultekin a speedy recovery, saying such violent acts should not be tolerated. Following similar incidents in January, Gul said the perpetrators would be held accountable before justice.

Yet Onderoglu says government responses have been inadequate to address what he called systematic violence against critical voices that he says has increased since the 2019 municipal elections in Turkey. This week, Onderoglu met with journalist Yavuz Selim Demirag, who was assaulted May 10, 2019, and told him legal action has yet to be taken against his far-right attackers.

Unfortunately, impunity in many similar cases in the past remains a problem and this impunity also naturally paves the way for more similar attacks, Ozgur Ogret, Turkey representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Al-Monitor. Violence against journalists should not be an offense the perpetrators can easily walk away from.

Media rights advocates say the threat of street violence serves to silence dissenting opinions and leaves media professionals vulnerable to attacks. Reflecting on recent events, Cumhuriyet newspapers Baris Terkoglu said in a Halk TV interview Tuesday his state security detail was removed in October 2020 after he published an article critical of Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu. At the time, he faced a slew of threats over his reporting.

The threat of far-right violence has also reached top opposition politicians such as Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chair of the Republican Peoples Party. In November, Kilicdaroglu filed a criminal complaint against mafia boss Alaattin Cakici over insults and threats in a letter shared on social media.

Cakici, who has close ties with MHP chair Devlet Bahceli, was released in April 2020 via a prisoner amnesty law during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Argosy Property Limited has announced a third quarter (for the period to 31 December 2020) cash dividend for the 2021 financial year of 1.6125 cents per share.

As Argosy is a PIE the dividend can be treated as excluded income for New Zealand income tax purposes. Imputation credits of 0.140594 cents per share will be attached to the dividend representing income tax paid by the Company. Overseas investors will receive an additional supplementary dividend of 0.063799 cents per share to offset non-resident withholding tax.

The record date for the dividend is 17 March 2021 and the payment date is 30 March 2021.

Argosy's Dividend Reinvestment Plan ('DRP') remains open and will be available for shareholders to participate in for the third quarter dividend. There will be a 2% discount applied to the price at which shares will be issued under the DRP for this dividend.

Shareholders wishing to participate in the DRP for the dividend on 30 March 2021 - and who haven't notified the Company's Registrar, Computershare Investor Services Limited, of their intention, are required to do so by completing an Election Notice or Notice of Change or Withdrawal (as appropriate) in time to be received before 5.00pm, 18 March 2021. Election Notices and Notices of Change or Withdrawal received by the Registrar on or after 5.00pm, 18 March 2021 will not apply to the 30 March 2021 dividend but will take effect for future dividends.

Please see the links below for details:

Argosy announces third quarter dividend

Distribution Notice

Source: Argosy Property Limited

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Confirms $10m Placement to Wholesale Investors

2nd June 2021 Morning Report

New Zealand Rural Land Company Limited (NZX: NZL) Rights Issue Documents

Infratil Limited (NZX: IFT) Update on Infratil Infrastructure Bond Offer

1st June 2021 Morning Report

Synlait Milk Limited (NZX: SML) Update Following Canterbury Flooding

Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Full Year Results to 31 March 2021

31st May 2021 Morning Report

The a2 Milk Company Limited (NZX: ATM) Media Reporting Regarding Potential Class Action

Synlait Milk Limited (NZX: SML) Forecast Milk Price Update


Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
ADVERTISEMENT

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has rejected the proposed scrapping of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), asserting that it fosters national unity.

IPMANs president, Chinedu Okoronkwo, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos that PEF was very relevant as the country was progressing towards the full deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector.

PEF was set up by Decree 9 of 1975 (as amended by Decree Number 32 of 1989 now chapter 352 of the Laws of the Federation).

Its main function is to ensure price uniformity of petroleum products via the reimbursement of marketers for losses they incur in trucking products from depots to their filling stations anywhere in Nigeria.

Mr Okoronkwo faulted the recommendations from some Nigerians that the PEF should be scrapped in the draft of the Petroleum Industry Bill currently before the National Assembly.

He noted that this was uncalled for as the funds employed in making the PEF work effectively were sourced from the revenue pool, generated by the product marketing companies.

Mr Okoronkwo said: PEF are fund managers and they manage our money. Government is not giving them money in any way and what they are working with is marketers money.

In order to unite the country, there must be semblance of uniformity in prices of petroleum products all over.

For instance, the price you buy a particular soft drink is the same all over the country and that is internal equalisation by the companies.

So, we believe PEF is very relevant and they should continue to do this for us. We are not saying that there should not be a difference in prices but it should be minimal, he said.

He also urged the government to create a level playing field in the downstream sector by providing foreign exchange for marketers to import fuel at the same rate given to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

Mr Okoronkwo said: We are saying that marketers should be allowed to go out and bring in petrol instead of only NNPC importing the product.

This will encourage competition and drive the price down. There are many areas that cost can go down when we are allowed to import.

Some marketers already have their own vessels which may reduce the freight cost. What we want is for government to allow the full deregulation of the sector and allow market forces to determine the price.

(NAN)
A super-spreader strain of COVID-19 that has ravaged South Africa is now in Michigan.

A case of the variant known as B.1.351 was confirmed Monday, March 8, in a young Jackson resident, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

First Michigan case of South African COVID-19 variant identified in Jackson County boy

The variant doesnt make people more ill, but it does appear to be roughly 50% more transmissible than other variants.

Heres what Michiganders need to know.

Not the first worrisome variant in Michigan

In January, Michigan health officials first identified the B.1.1.7 variant in an Ann Arbor patient. That strain first emerged in the United Kingdom.

As of March 8, Michigan has identified 516 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant in 23 Michigan jurisdictions.

Originally detected in early October 2020 in South Africa, B.1.351 shares some mutations with B.1.1.7.

More than half the states have found the B.1.1.7 variant in their patients, and at least 20 states have cases with the South African variant.

It could significantly increase coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

B.1.351 is believed to be more contagious, but there has been no indication that it affects the clinical outcomes or disease severity compared to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has been circulating across the United States for months, a MDHHS press release noted.

However, a more transmissible variant can infect more people more quickly, leading to more cases overall. So even if individuals arent likely to get sicker, that likely would result in more hospitalizations and deaths.

The more transmissible variants also could make herd immunity hard to achieve. .

If a virus is more easily transmitted between humans, we have to have a higher percentage of humans vaccinated in the population to disrupt transmission, Dr. Sarah Lyon-Callo, director of the Bureau of Epidemiology and Population Health for MDHHS, has said.

Herd immunity is the point where enough people are vaccinated and/or have natural immunity that the virus fizzles out.

More likely to cause reinfection among those who already have had COVID-19

One of the most worrisome aspects of the South African strain is the number of reinfections reported by people who already have had COVID-19, which suggests the natural immunity from the original strain is not effective against B.1.351.

One of the things they found in South Africa and -- in Brazil, theyre seeing this as well -- is the variants are causing higher levels of reinfection among people whove been infected previously, said Dr. Liam Sullivan, infectious disease specialist for Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids. So thats another reason to get a vaccine even if youve already had COVID-19, because its going really significantly boost your antibody production.

Current vaccines seem to offer some protection against B.1.351

Scientists are still studying how the current vaccines work against the variants.

The new Johnson & Johnson vaccine appears to protect against several variants of the virus, including the South African variant as well as one that has emerged in Brazil.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines appear to produce neutralizing antibodies against B.1.351 when tested against blood samples with the variant. However, the antibody production was significantly less than the original strain of COVID-19.

Moderna is set to begin testing a new version of its COVID-19 vaccine that was specifically designed to target the South African variant. Pfizer is in discussion about developing an updated version of their mRNA vaccine or a booster shot, if needed.

Double down on mitigation strategies.

The same strategies that can prevent transmission of other strains of COVID-19 also work with the variants.

The strains are transmitted the same way, by droplets and aerosols, Sullivan says. Its just when people get exposed to it, it seems to latch on tighter and makes a bit easier to cause infection. I think that reinforces the need to keep wearing your mask, keep avoiding crowds, keep with social distancing. Thats actually more important now.

MDHHS offers these strategies to protect against the variants:

Get vaccinated for COVID-19.

Wear a mask around others.

Stay six feet apart from others.

Wash hands often.

Ventilate indoor spaces.

In particular, make sure to mask properly.

Mask are a critical measure in coronavirus prevention, but that means wearing a mask properly with nose and mouth covered.

Its also means using masks that are effective. Single-ply cloth masks are better than nothing, but individuals can get better protection by wearing disposable medical masks or double- or triple-ply cloth masks, Sullivan said.

He recommends KN95 medical masks, which are more comfortable and more easily available than N95 masks but almost as effective.

" I would definitely encourage people to try to get the highest-quality mask they can get, Sullivan said.

Read more on MLive:

COVID-19 is reshaping Michigan. Its not the first epidemic to do so.

To wed or not to wed?: How 6 brides are navigating weddings during a pandemic

7 things to know about Michigans expansion of vaccine eligible to ages 50 and older

This 105-year old Michigan woman whos survived 2 pandemics has wise words to share
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
A man who went missing over a month ago during a snowstorm at his parents Wyckoff home was found buried in snow Monday in a neighbors yard, police said.

Andrew Fraioli, 40, of Lindenwold, was reported missing by his parents on Feb. 1 after he walked out of their house on Sunset Boulevard during the mega storm which covered parts of North Jersey in over 30 inches of snow, according to a release the Wyckoff Police Department. He was last seen by them around 8 p.m. that night.

Investigators had been searching for Fraioli for weeks until a neighbor of his parents called the police at 12:40 p.m. Monday to report that she found a man dead on her lawn partially covered in snow, the release stated.

His death was under investigation by the department, the Bergen County Prosecutors Office, Bergen County Sheriffs Department, and the Bergen County Medical Examiners Office, but no foul play was suspected, police said.

The Wyckoff Police Department offers our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Fraioli and ask that you respect their privacy during this difficult time, the department said.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
(CBS Television Distribution)

A leading US lawyer has suggested Buckingham Palaces investigation into bullying claims against Meghan Markle is aimed at taking the focus off Prince Andrew and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The palace has launched a probe following claims published in The Times that the Duchess of Sussex had left staff members humiliated on several occasions before she and Prince Harry left for the US.

Gloria Allred, the attorney representing 20 women who say they were victims of convicted paedophile Epstein, said the royal familys inquiries into alleged bulling were a distraction from more important matters.

Why does Buckingham Palace not conduct an investigation and make a public statement condemning Prince Andrew for failing to provide what is requested to those who are seeking the whole truth and justice for the victims of crimes against children? Ms Allred said in a statement shared with The Guardian.

Follow Meghan and Harry Oprah interview live: Latest news

The lawyer added: The investigation into Meghan Markle is a distraction, and it appears hypocritical under the circumstances. I have to wonder if it reflects a calculated decision to take the focus off of Prince Andrew.

A spokesperson for the Duchess of Sussex has denied the bullying allegations, labelling them a smear campaign. Reports suggest that Meghan and Harry may not be offered a chance to contribute their side of the story during the palaces inquiries.

Prince Andrew is accused of much more than bullying or harassment in the workplace, said Ms Allred  who has been pushing for the prince to answer questions by US criminal prosecutors investigating Epsteins crimes.

Last year Ms Allred arranged for an American school bus to drive past Buckingham Palace with a message on its side urging the prince to speak with the FBI.

It is long overdue for the palace to change its priorities and announce that it is conducting its own investigation of Prince Andrew, said the attorney.

Story continues

In addition, it should immediately issue a statement condemning Prince Andrew for failing to provide full in-person cooperation in the ongoing criminal investigation by the United States justice department.

She added: Why has Prince Andrew not been stripped of the royal titles that he enjoys, as has been the case for Meghan and Harry? He has certainly not brought dignity and respect to his work as a royal.

Prince Andrew has denied any wrongdoingGetty Images

Virginia Roberts, now Guiffre, has alleged that Prince Andrew was one of the men she was pressured by Epstein into having sex with as a 17-year-old in 2001.

Prince Andrew categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre  and said he could not recall ever meeting her.

In November 2019, the prince said he continued to unequivocally regret my ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein. He also said he was willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required.

However, he has not spoken to any US authorities looking into Epsteins alleged crimes since issuing the statement.

Last December, Prince Andrews spokeswoman refused to comment on a report claiming a fax appeared to show that he stayed in the New York home of Epstein on 11 April 2001, despite denying doing so in his BBC Newsnight interview in November 2019.

Asked by Newsnight about staying at the sex offenders mansion, he replied: I may have visited but no, definitely didnt, definitely, definitely no, no, no activity.

Prince Andrew stepped back from public duties shortly after his Newsnight interview, but he has not had any of his titles removed. He remains the Duke of York.

Prince Harry has had royal patronages removed and been stripped of his military titles  including his role as captain general of the Royal Marines  but he remains the Duke of Sussex.

Read More

BLM founder calls for boycott of royal family after controversial Meghan and Harry interview
Panasonic AI-driven cameras empower an expanding vision of new uses

Imagine a world where video cameras are not just watching and reporting for security, but have an even wider positive impact on our lives. Imagine that cameras control street and building lights, as people come and go, that traffic jams are predicted and vehicles are automatically rerouted, and more tills are opened, just before a queue starts to form. Cameras with AI capabilities Cameras in stores can show us how we might look in the latest outfit as we browse. Thats the vision from Panasonic about current and future uses for their cameras that provide artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities at the edge. Panasonic feels that these types of intelligent camera applications are also the basis for automation and introduction of Industry 4.0, in which processes are automated, monitored and controlled by AI-driven systems. 4K network security cameras The companys i-PRO AI-capable camera line can install and run up to three AI-driven video analytic applications Panasonics 4K network security cameras have built-in AI capabilities suitable for this next generation of intelligent applications in business and society. The companys i-PRO AI-capable camera line can install and run up to three AI-driven video analytic applications. The AI engine is directly embedded into the camera, thus reducing costs and Panasonics image quality ensures the accuracy of the analytics outcome. FacePRO facial recognition technology Panasonic began advancing AI technology on the server side with FacePRO, the in-house facial recognition application, which uses AI deep learning capabilities. Moving ahead, they transitioned their knowledge of AI from the server side to the edge, introducing i-PRO security cameras with built-in AI capabilities last summer, alongside their own in-house analytics. Moreover, in line with the Panasonic approach to focus more on collaboration with specialist AI software developers, a partnership with Italian software company, A.I. Tech followed in September, with a range of intelligent applications, partially based on deep learning. Additional collaborations are already in place with more than 10 other developers, across the European Union, working on more future applications. i-PRO AI-capable security cameras Open systems are an important part of Panasonics current approach. The companys i-PRO AI-capable cameras are an open platform and designed for third-party application development, therefore, applications can be built or tailored to the needs of an individual customer. Panasonic use to be a company that developed everything in-house, including all the analytics and applications. However, now we have turned around our strategy by making our i-PRO security cameras open to integrate applications and analytics from third-party companies, says Gerard Figols, Head of Security Solutions at Panasonic Business Europe. Flexible and adapting to specific customer needs This new approach allows the company to be more flexible and adaptable to customers needs. At the same time, we can be quicker and much more tailored to the market trend, said Gerard Figols. He adds, For example, in the retail space, enabling retailers to enhance the customer experience, in smart cities for traffic monitoring and smart parking, and by event organisers and transport hubs to monitor and ensure safety. Edge-based analytics offer multiple benefits over server-based systems Edge-based analytics Edge-based analytics offer multiple benefits over server-based systems. On one hand, there are monetary benefits - a cost reduction results from the decreased amount of more powerful hardware required on the server side to process the data, on top of reduction in the infrastructure costs, as not all the full video stream needs to be sent for analysis, we can work solely with the metadata. On the other hand, there are also advantages of flexibility, as well as reliability. Each camera can have its own individual analytic setup and in case of any issue on the communication or server side, the camera can keep running the analysis at the edge, thereby making sure the CCTV system is still fully operational. Most importantly, systems can keep the same high level of accuracy. Explosion of AI camera applications We can compare the explosion of AI camera applications to the way we experienced it for smartphone applications" We can compare the explosion of AI camera applications to the way we experienced it for smartphone applications, said Gerard Figols, adding However, it doesnt mean the hardware is not important anymore, as I believe its more important than ever. Working with poor picture quality or if the hardware is not reliable, and works 24/7, software cannot run or deliver the outcome it has been designed for. As hardware specialists, Figols believes that Panasonic seeks to focus on what they do best - Building long-lasting, open network cameras, which are capable of capturing the highest quality images that are required for the latest AI applications, while software developers can concentrate on bringing specialist applications to the market. Same as for smartphones, AI applications will proliferate based on market demand and succeed or fail, based on the value that they deliver. Facial recognition, privacy protection and cross line technologies Panasonic has been in the forefront in developing essential AI applications for CCTV, such as facial recognition, privacy protection and cross line. However, with the market developing so rapidly and the potential applications of AI-driven camera systems being so varied and widespread, Panasonic quickly realised that the future of their network cameras was going to be in open systems, which allow specialist developers and their customers to use their sector expertise to develop their own applications for specific vertical market applications, while using i-PRO hardware. Metadata for detection and recognition Regarding privacy, consider that the use of AI in cameras is about generating metadata for the detection and recognition of patterns, rather than identifying individual identities. However, there are legitimate privacy concerns, but I firmly believe that attitudes will change quickly when people see the incredible benefits that this technology can deliver, said Gerard Figols, adding I hope that we will be able to redefine our view of cameras and AI, not just as insurance, but as life advancing and enhancing. i-PRO AI Privacy Guard One of the AI applications that Panasonic developed was i-PRO AI Privacy Guard Seeking to understand and appreciate privacy concerns, one of the AI applications that Panasonic developed was i-PRO AI Privacy Guard that generates data without capturing individual identities, following European privacy regulations that are among the strictest in the world. Gerard Fogils said, The combination of artificial intelligence and the latest generation open camera technology will change the worlds perceptions from Big Brother to Big Benefits. New applications will emerge as the existing generation of cameras is updated to the new open and intelligent next generation devices, and the existing role of the security camera will also continue. Future scope of AI and cameras He adds, Not just relying on the security cameras for evidence when things have gone wrong, end users will increasingly be able to use AI and the cameras with much higher accuracy to prevent false alarms and in a proactive way to prevent incidents." Gerard Figols concludes, That could be monitoring and alerting when health and safety guidelines are being breached or spotting and flagging patterns of suspicious behaviour before incidents occur.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
In an attempt to rid Americans of the tedious task of refreshing websites for hours on end, a team of 21 medical advisors, technology experts and business people are running a site that matches COVID-19 vaccine providers with leftover doses to people who want one.

The free service, coined Dr. B, was not only developed to bring nationwide organization to a cluttered vaccination system, but it was also designed to make access to COVID-19 vaccines more efficient and equitable, the groups website says.

The site is available in English and Spanish, and will expand into more languages in the future.

Leftovers happen. People miss their appointments. Vials come with extra doses. Any thawed vials must be used within 6 hours, or they get thrown out. Join the standby list to get connected with local providers with extra doses, the website says.

Its founder, tech entrepreneur Cyrus Massoumi, told several news outlets that he silently launched the site in January and dodged early interviews with mainstream media to ensure groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic, such as non-white communities, received word of the program first.

Instead, Massoumi went on Zoom calls with representatives from Black churches and Native American community groups, for example, The New York Times reported.

It was really important for him to let these communities have potentially a place at the front of the line, or to get the information early, Brooke Williams, a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus in New York who was a part of one of the Zoom calls with Massoumi, told the outlet. Hearing about shots that were getting thrown out was just heartbreaking and infuriating.

A work in progress

Only two vaccine providers, one in Little Rock, Arkansas, and another in Queens, New York, are currently working with Dr. B, according to Insider. But more than 200 additional sites are set to join the effort.

People who want to join the waiting list must provide their name, birthdate, ZIP code and email address, as well as any health conditions they have and what their living situation is like.

Story continues

They will receive a text message when a vaccine provider in their area reports it has extra COVID-19 vaccine doses, in which you will be given a certain amount of time to respond and claim the dose before you start traveling to the provider, according to the Dr. B website. If you decline or do not respond, we will reassign that dose to another person....[and] assume that you no longer wish to receive alerts and will remove you from the vaccine waitlist unless you respond to rejoin.

Once a confirmation is sent to Dr. B, the site may send your information to that provider who may verify your eligibility in person. We will not sell, share or transfer your data to any third-parties, other than as set forth in our privacy policy.

Hundreds of thousands sign up

More than 764,000 people have joined the waiting list as of Tuesday afternoon, with hundreds of people signing up within the minute.

Massoumi declined to tell Time how many people have been vaccinated through his site so far, but said the more than 200 other providers willing to join forces range everywhere from individual pharmacies in rural settings to homeless shelters, academic medical centers, you name it  its a pretty representative set of whos actually giving the vaccine.

Anyone who has not received the COVID-19 vaccine is encouraged to register. Those who are looking to get their second doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine must speak with the provider that administered their first shot.

Dr. B was named after Massoumis grandfather who became a doctor during the Spanish flu and dedicated his life to removing obstacles between patients and care.
The Congress MPs also raised the issue of the three farm laws and the farmers sitting in protest at Delhis borders against these laws

The Opposition parties claimed they will not back down and continue to keep raising the issue of rising prices in both Houses of Parliament. (ANI file photo)

New Delhi: The second part of the Budget Session of Parliament started on a stormy note on Monday with fiery scenes being seen in the Rajya Sabha. The Opposition parties, led by the Congress, demanded a discussion on the rising fuel prices. Addressing the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, said: Petrol and diesel prices are nearly Rs 100 per litre and Rs 80 per litre respectively. LPG prices have also gone up -- and Rs 21 lakh crores have been collected by putting excise duty/cess, and because of that the entire country, including the farmers, are suffering. The Upper House had to be adjourned twice before being adjourned for the day as the Opposition persisted with its demand for a discussion on the rising fuel prices.

Earlier on Monday, the Trinamul Congress sought the adjournment of the session in view of the Assembly elections in five states/UTs that are only a few weeks away, and the MPs may not be able to attend. Trinamul MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Derek OBrien have written to the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha authorities to adjourn the session due to the elections.

The Congress MPs also raised the issue of the three farm laws and the farmers sitting in protest at Delhis borders against these laws. They said it has been more than three months that the farmers have been sitting in protest at the borders of the national capital, braving extreme weather conditions. Both the farmers and the Congress Party are demanding that the three farm laws be withdrawn immediately. The government has told the Opposition that it is ready for a discussion on all issues, but in an organised fashion.

The Opposition parties claimed they will not back down and continue to keep raising the issue of rising prices in both Houses of Parliament. During the Budget Sessions recess, protests had been organised by most of the Opposition parties demanding an immediate rollback of the hike in fuel prices.
Ruben Gallego is a Marine Corps veteran and a rising progressive representing a deep-blue district in the Phoenix area. And he is quickly becoming one of the most high-profile lawmakers who works on military and veterans issues on Capitol Hill.

Part of what makes Gallego successful in the military policy arena is his unique background. He served as a grunt in the profane, coarse and often lewd culture of combat arms, which gives him street cred in D.C. military circles. He now serves in the clean-cut halls of Congress and leads a newly formed subpanel overseeing intel and special operations.

"I do have Marine Corps grunt life gallows humor," Gallego said. "During the Jan. 6 insurrection, I was talking to [Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.], and he asked how I was doing. I told him, 'Well, it isn't my first riot,' and this was after we were in a secure location and everyone probably thought I was a little crazy."

Read Next: Task Force Calls for Permanent National Guard Force to Protect DC

When the pro-Trump mob assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, Gallego went into noncommissioned officer mode, instructing lawmakers to the exits, helping calm his colleagues and assisting them to don their masks to protect against chemical attacks.

He's an enlisted man to his bones. While the small veteran population on Capitol Hill is monopolized by officers, he's an infantryman who served as a corporal in one of the most kinetic deployments for Marines in the Iraq War. He's also a Harvard alum and is now responsible for grilling generals in D.C. to hold the Pentagon accountable.

He says civilian oversight of the military is critical. One of his biggest irritations with other lawmakers is when they respect military courtesy, referring to generals in congressional hearings as "sir" instead of "general."

"Most of the guys died because we had really bad armor," Gallego said. "Our unit didn't even have armor; we had amphibious vehicles in the middle of the desert. I remember it was generals who made those calls; it was generals who made those bad decisions to send us in undermanned. The people who actually fixed it were politicians.

"Politicians get a bad rap," he added. "The reason we got [Mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles] and all these armored vehicles was because politicians mandated it. I remind myself I need to be that person, thinking about these young men and women. The generals have their jobs, and we in civilian oversight have our jobs. We need to be on the lookout for the little guy. I don't look at myself just as a congressman, but as a congressman that looks out for the enlisted because they're often overlooked."

There were some growing pains in politics. When Gallego was chief of staff for a Phoenix city councilmember, he yelled at a staffer and still regrets it. "The corporal did come out," he said regretfully.

"I've tried to bridge both worlds," Gallego added. "Sometimes I've failed, like when I yelled at the young staffer is a good example. And you learn what the appropriate things to say are and when to say it ... but you just learn to temper yourself."

Gallego is one of four kids. One of his sisters also attended Harvard and is a doctor. His father walked out of his life when he was 11. His mother, a Colombian immigrant, raised Gallego and his sisters mostly on her own in a small apartment while working full-time as a secretary and going to night school, where she earned her bachelor's degree.

"I was the odd man out, sleeping in the living room in a pullout [mat]," Gallego said. "Money wasn't always there, but we always had food in the fridge. She [his mother] was a very good role model ... loving but tough. I am the man I am because of all the work she did."

Right now, Gallego's mother works for an immigration nonprofit.

Gallego went to Harvard while serving in the Marine Corps Reserve. The two environments couldn't be more different, but he said he felt more at home in the grunt life.

"It was a crazier move going from high school to Harvard and Harvard to the Marines," he said. "The Marines was more akin to what I was used to. I didn't have a real bed until I got to college, when I got to my dorm room. It was a luxury compared to the austereness of when I grew up."

Gallego deployed to Iraq in 2005, serving with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, in an assistant machine gunner role. His company saw some of the worst fighting of the Iraq War, losing 22 Marines and a Navy corpsman over eight months.

"Unfortunately, I saw a lot of combat in what I think was the most KIAs of any unit in the war. I lost my best friend there, a lot of crazy s---," he said.

Yet the Marine Corps was home, as opposed to the Ivy League. Gallego is a part of a generation of post-9/11 reservists and National Guard troops who juggled war with their civilian life.

"I felt more at home in the Marines than I did at Harvard. Growing up, I could fit everything I owned into a bag," Gallego said. "Going to the Marine Corps, you get two seabags. It just seemed very natural to me. At Harvard, I had all these things I wasn't used to."

The intense fighting largely motivated Gallego's current role on Capitol Hill, where he serves on the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees.

"I think because I've lived in both worlds, they've merged and I can move in between the two," he said. "So I can talk to the people at the Council of Foreign Relations, while at the same time I can talk to a grunt about the world they live in."

It's that ability to talk two languages that some veteran advocates say has elevated Gallego beyond most other lawmakers in the military and veteran space. Wanting a better military and supporting veterans is an easy talking point for politicians, but living it from the enlisted point of view and using that experience as fuel is unique for him, compared to other lawmakers.

"He's an enlisted troop's congressman, and I mean that as the highest form of compliment," said Alexander McCoy, a Marine Corps veteran and political director for Common Defense, a progressive veteran advocacy group. "He fights for the little guy, standing up to the brass when they're throwing us under the bus. He is the kind of battle buddy who you go to when you need help, and who comes to you when he needs help. Out of all the elected officials I've met, he's one of the most down to earth."

Gallego, who's in his fourth term, has been a part of multiple major pieces of legislation, including a provision last year that would have limited former President Donald Trump's authority to withdraw U.S. troops from Germany.

He is also one of the newest members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, which oversees the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is second only to the Defense Department in size and budget. He joined the committee seeing a gap in the enlisted perspective.

"I had really bad experiences with VA when I got back. They wouldn't even let me in when I tried to get PTSD counseling because my paperwork didn't show I had a Combat Action Ribbon. That's how messed up things were back then."

But Gallego did indeed have the ribbon, which is awarded to Marines who participate in ground combat. He even showed VA providers video of him in firefights.

Gallego eventually got care for PTSD and a knee replacement for what he described as grunt "wear and tear."

He also now chairs the newly formed House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, where he said a big focus would be on trying to reorient special operations for a fight with China and not spending all their time training other militaries.

Gallego noted that training other nations in basic military tasks and marksmanship could be done by any unit. He said the time and money invested in special operations need to be reexamined for the long term, adding that the huge volume of deployments is an unfair burden on the special operations community.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to remove an incorrect description.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

Related: Stop Throwing Money Down F-35 'Rathole,' Top Lawmaker Says
For full access, please log in, register your subscription or subscribe.

Try for 99 a month for two months, cancel or pause anytime.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Hazleton, PA (18201)

Today

Overcast with showers at times. High 71F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early with showers later at night. Low around 55F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
SHANNON, Miss. (WTVA) - A grant will bring natural gas to more than 100 homes in areas of Lee County.

Shannon, county and state leaders made the announcement on Monday at Shannon Town Hall.

Local and state officials made the announcement on the steps of Shannon Town Hall on March 8, 2021. Local and state officials made the announcement on the steps of Shannon Town Hall on March 8, 2021.

The grant totals $429,000. The Mississippi Development Authority provided the funding.

Pine Grove resident Ida Seals said this is long overdue. Her community is one of the areas that'll receive natural gas from the project.

Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley explained this is the first phase of possibly a three-phase project.

He said phase one will benefit 141 homes in Lee County. The goal is to expand the service into Monroe and Chickasaw counties too.

Open this link to view a map. The green dots represent homes that will receive the service.

Presley said families will be able to save money by using natural gas.

Fellow Pine Grove resident Winette Young expressed her gratitude for everyone who took part in making the project a reality.

Presley said work on the project should start late this summer.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
A 38-YEAR-old man sat at a table in a fast-food restaurant that was only open for takeaway service as part of Covid-19 restrictions and gardai had to be called.

Sergeant Pat Lyons said the incident occurred at Supermacs in Tivoli, Cork, on February 13.

Gary OBrien was not wearing a mask and would not leave the premises when requested to do so by staff.

Sgt Lyons said the premises was open at the time, but was only providing a takeaway service in line with restrictions. The seating area had been sealed off from members of the public at the time. However, OBrien made his way to a table, sat down and refused to leave.

Sgt Lyons said staff explained to him that he was required to wear a mask and that patrons were only allowed on the premises wearing a facemask and for the purpose of collecting take-away food.

Gary OBrien refused to leave the premises.

He was intoxicated. He was arrested under the Public Order Act, Sgt Lyons said.

OBrien, with an address at Cork Simon Community, appeared at Cork District Court, where he pleaded guilty to the charge of being intoxicated to such an extent that he was a danger to himself or others.

OBrien has 64 previous convictions.

Solicitor Eddie Burke said that the defendant was upset on the night because a relative had been admitted to hospital and he was not allowed to visit because of present restrictions.

The solicitor said the accused did charitable work with the homeless.

Judge Olann Kelleher fined the accused 250 on the charge.

The judge told the accused he was fortunate that he was only prosecuted on the charge of being intoxicated and a danger, which only carries a monetary fine.

He said that if the defendant had been charged with engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour  based on the facts that were outlined in relation to the incident in Supermacs  he would not have been given a fine.

You would be in jail for that kind of behaviour, the judge said.
Cyber Security Alert: Significant Microsoft Exchange Vulnerabilities Identified

Cyber Security Alert: Significant Microsoft Exchange Vulnerabilities Identified

D/Sgt. Jeff Hoffman, Michigan Cyber Command Center (MC3), 877-642-9237

The Michigan State Police (MSP) Michigan Cyber Command Center (MC3) is warning entities who host on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers of a newly identified, significant and active threat to network security. Microsoft Exchange is a platform used to host email services for many businesses and enterprises.

Last week, security researchers uncovered multiple vulnerabilities with on-premises Exchange servers and Microsoft released patches to fix the vulnerabilities. Prior to patches being available, malicious actors had begun to exploit the vulnerabilities. Any organization hosting an on-premises Exchange server that has not been updated has a high likelihood of already being victimized.

Cloud-based Microsoft email is not affected by these vulnerabilities.

As recommended by Microsoft and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the MC3 strongly encourages any agency utilizing an on-premise Microsoft Exchange server to take immediate action to install the patches and then work with their information technology team to investigate any potential unauthorized access to their servers.

The vulnerabilities allow a remote attacker to access vulnerable email servers, the emails stored on them, allow for the installation of additional malware, harvest passwords and facilitate long-term access to victim environments. Additional information about this vulnerability can be found at https://www.cisa.gov/ed2102 and https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2021/03/02/hafnium-targeting-exchange-servers/.

Any entity in Michigan with evidence of a compromise related to this vulnerability or other malware activity, is requested to report it to the MC3 at 877-MI-CYBER or the FBIs Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
More than 4million of funds stolen by a corrupt Nigerian state governor will be returned to the country after it was found in the UK.

The money, stolen by former Nigerian state governor James Ibori and his associates, will be spent on infrastructure and building works for the Nigerian people, the Foreign Office said.

Ibori was given a 13-year prison sentence in April 2012 after he pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges over the appropriation of massive amounts of public funds during his two terms as governor of Delta State.

As he had spent time in custody in the United Arab Emirates prior to his extradition and conviction in the UK, he was released in 2016 and left the UK in 2017.

The money, stolen by former Nigerian state governor James Ibori and his associates, will be spent on infrastructure and building works for the Nigerian people, the Foreign Office said

Ibori was given a 13-year prison sentence in April 2012 after he pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges over the appropriation of massive amounts of public funds during his two terms as governor of Delta State. Pictured: A Bentley owned by Ibori

Ibori appeared at Southwark Crown Court via videolink from Nigeria last year to hear legal arguments as part of efforts to prevent criminals from financially gaining from their crimes.

British authorities have claimed he gained at least 117million from fraud and said he has identified assets of at least 46million.

Some 4.2million was retrieved through operations led by UK law enforcement agencies who identified assets bought in the UK with illicit funds and recovered them.

The Metropolitan Police Service, National Crime Agency, Crown Prosecution Service were involved in the operations.

As he had spent time in custody in the United Arab Emirates prior to his extradition and conviction in the UK, he was released in 2016 and left the UK in 2017. Pictured: One of Ibori's private properties in London

An agreement between the UK and Nigeria was reached in 2016 to return assets seized from criminals and this is the first time it has been used.

Africa Minister James Duddridge said: 'When money is stolen from public funds it hits the poorest communities the hardest and means money can't be spent where it's most needed.

'The UK's work on this case to recover millions of pounds will support vital infrastructure and building works.

'The UK and Nigeria will continue to work together to tackle crime and corruption across our nations.'

Home Office Minister Baroness Williams added: 'This is a significant moment in our fight against illicit finance wherever it is found.

An agreement between the UK and Nigeria was reached in 2016 to return assets seized from criminals and this is the first time it has been used. Pictured: Ibori's wife Theresa

'Recovering the proceeds of crime is a critical part of our fight against serious crime and this sends a clear message to criminals that we will relentlessly pursue them, their assets and their money.'

Chief crown prosecutor for CPS proceeds of crime Adrian Foster said: 'Corruption anywhere is corrosive and has a drastic impact on the lives of the people where money is embezzled from.

'Where there is international corruption carried out from England and Wales, we will robustly prosecute and deprive individuals of their ill-gotten gains.

'Thanks to diligent and complex work of our prosecutors, 4.2 million is being returned to the people of Nigeria and will go towards projects which will massively benefit the country.

'This forms part of the CPS's ongoing asset recovery work.'
Charleston, WV (25301)

Today

Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers later at night. Low 63F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
Charles biographer Jonathan Dimbleby told the BBC that he did not believe the heir to the throne would have ever said it. I know him. Ive known him for a long time. I have never seen a hint of that, Dimbleby said. He is someone whose professional [and] personal life has been dedicated to bringing people together, not pulling them apart. Buckingham Palace has made no comment about the interview. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked about the racism allegation at a press conference but declined to get involved.

Perhaps the best thing I can say is that Ive always had the highest admiration for the Queen and the unifying role she plays in our country and across the Commonwealth, he said. Loading In new developments, previously unaired footage from the interview shows Harry claiming the Queen gets really bad advice, and complaining that his family had sadly not contacted the couple to apologise for anything that may have contributed to their decision to split from the monarchy in January 2020. The feeling is that this was our decision, therefore the consequences are on us, he said. I am part of the system with them  I always have been. But Im very aware that my brother cant leave that system but I have.

Asked whether William wanted to leave too, Harry said: I dont know, I cant speak for him. Meghans surprise claim that she and Harry had been secretly married by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby three days prior to their May 2018 wedding extravaganza also prompted questions on Monday about the legality of the ceremony. We called the archbishop, and we just said, Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us, Meghan told Winfrey. She claimed the service took place with just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Meghan claimed the public extravaganza of May 2020 was not the couples real wedding. Credit:AP However a marriage must be solemnised by a member of the clergy in a church, or in a place specified in a special licence such as a cathedral, a chapel or hospital and in the presence of two witnesses. It is not known whether the small service was a legally binding marriage as Meghan suggested in the interview.

Welbys office was inundated with requests to provide an explanation but declined. Royal reporters also questioned Meghans claim that Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace did not defend her against negative press coverage, noting they had received many calls from media officers to correct the record or advocate for the royal couple. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video American network CBS released a cache of fresh clips on Monday that were not included in the final two-hour special. There are nearly two more hours of footage that did not make it to air. In one clip, the prince revealed the Queen had invited him and Meghan to see her at Sandringham Estate during negotiations in January 2020 about their intention to leave the royal family, but were later told they could not go.

The Queens private secretary told Harry the monarch was busy, shes busy all week. Harry said he phoned his grandmother but she said there was something in my diary that I didnt know I had. I said, What about the rest of the week? and she said, Oh thats busy now as well. I thought OK, I didnt want to push as I kind of knew what was going on. When a bemused Winfrey asked why the Queen couldnt do what she wanted, Harry replied: When youre head of The Firm there are people around you that give you advice. And what has also made me really sad is some of that advice has been really bad. The Firm is a term used to describe the administrative operation of the royal family, particularly the private secretaries, equerries and senior staff who control logistics and protocol.

Harry told Oprah in the new footage that racism contributed to his and Meghans decision to leave Britain. He recounted a conversation with an unnamed media identity who warned him about underlying racism in Britain. Loading He said, you need to understand that the UK is very bigoted. And I stopped and I said, the UKs not bigoted - the UK press is bigoted, specifically the tabloids. Is that what you mean? And he goes, no, the UKs bigoted. And I said, I completely disagree. But unfortunately if the source of information is inherently corrupt or racist or biased, then that filters out to the rest of society. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said allegations of racism had to be taken seriously.

It is really sad to see the family in turmoil like this. The issues that Meghan has raised of racism and mental health are really serious issues, he said. It is a reminder that too many people experience racism in 21st-century Britain. We have to take that very, very seriously. This is bigger than the royal family. For too many years we have been too dismissive and too willing to put these issues to one side. Zac Goldsmith, Johnsons minister for the Pacific and climate, said on Twitter that Harry was blowing up his family. If you or anyone you know needs support call Lifeline on 131 114, or Beyond Blues coronavirus mental wellbeing support service on 1800 512 348.
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP)  Ugandan opposition figure Bobi Wine is calling for peaceful protests in the aftermath of presidential elections, charging that electoral authorities are grappling with forged results that showed victory for President Yoweri Museveni.

Wine, a singer and lawmaker whose real name is Kyagulanyi Sentamu, spoke on Tuesday, the day after police warned in a statement that some opposition politicians were planning nationwide violent demonstrations and riots beginning with Kampala, the capital. That statement warned that police had deployed strategically to counter these illegal acts."

Wine on Tuesday asserted that the East African countrys constitution allows peaceful protests.

Ugandans must now rise to the occasion and resist Museveni and his regime of blood, he said. As we have been saying, we are nonviolent and lawful. Our philosophy stands firm. People power is stronger than the people in power.

Museveni was declared the winner of the Jan. 14 elections with 58% of the vote while Wine had 35%. Wine called those results fraudulent, citing cases of soldiers allegedly stuffing ballot boxes, casting ballots for people and chasing voters away from polling stations.

Uganda's top court last week permitted Wine to withdraw a petition his attorneys had filed seeking to invalidate Museveni's reelection. Wine said he no longer had confidence in the panel of nine justices, accusing the court of bias.

Museveni dismissed allegations of vote-rigging after electoral authorities announced his victory, calling the elections the most cheating-free since Ugandas independence from Britain in 1962.

Museveni, a former guerilla leader who took power by force in 1986 and has since been elected six times, is popular among many Ugandans for bringing relative stability and security. Museveni himself has castigated former leaders such as Idi Amin, whose regime was notorious for kidnappings and extrajudicial killings.

Story continues

But opposition figures such as Wine accuse Museveni of increasingly ruling like his predecessors. They say corruption and alleged abuses by the security forces have become more widespread as Museveni tries to extend his rule.

Many of our brothers and sisters disappeared and they've never been seen again, Wine said on Tuesday, speaking of alleged disappearances in the aftermath of the presidential vote. Those who have been lucky to return have spoken of being subjected to unspeakable torture and brutality.

Some of the victims had been castrated, he said.

Museveni recently dismissed allegations that his forces have illegally detained civilians, saying his army is a disciplined force and that his party does not kill its opponents. But he acknowledged that he had beefed up security ahead of the elections by deploying soldiers from a commando unit previously deployed in Somalia who killed a few people he described as terrorists.

Uganda has never seen a peaceful transfer of power, one reason why even some within Museveni's party openly say he must groom a successor.
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
TEL-AVIV, Israel, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ellomay Capital Ltd. (NYSE American; TASE: ELLO) ("Ellomay" or the "Company"), a renewable energy and power generator and developer of renewable energy and power projects in Europe and Israel, today announced that Ellomay Solar S.L.U. ("Ellomay Solar"), which the Company indirectly wholly owns and which is promoting the construction of a photovoltaic plant with an installed capacity of 28 MW DC in the municipality of Talavan, Caceres, Spain (the "Ellomay Solar Project"), entered into an engineering, procurement & construction agreement in connection with the Ellomay Solar Project (the "EPC Agreement") with METKA EGN Spain S.L.U., a 100% indirect subsidiary of MYTILINEOS S.A., under the Renewables & Storage Development Business Unit.

The EPC Agreement provides a fixed and lump-sum amount of 15.32 million for the complete execution and performance of the works defined in the EPC Agreement. The works include the engineering, procurement and construction of the Ellomay Solar Project and the ancillary facilities for injecting power into the grid and performance of two years of O&M services. The EPC Agreement includes additional standard provisions, including with respect to liquidated damages in connection with delays and performance, performance guarantees, suspension and termination.

METKA EGN Spain is expected to complete the works under the EPC Agreement within a period of 9 months from receipt of the Notice to Proceed. The early works commenced on March 1, 2021 and the Notice to Proceed is expected to be provided during May 2021.

MYTILINEOS' Renewables & Storage Development Business Unit is an EPC and O&M contractor for the full range of solar and battery storage applications, ranging from stand-alone solar parks and battery storage applications to complex hybrid projects. Its project references include more than 1.5GW of PV projects and 400MW of battery storage in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas in addition to the 300MW photovoltaic plant owned by Talasol Solar S.l. (51% owned by the Company), for which Metka EGN Spain was the EPC Contractor and which was connected to the Spanish national grid in December 2020. Metka EGN Spain now serves as the O&M contractor for such plant.

Ran Fridrich, CEO and a Board member of Ellomay commented: "The Ellomay Solar Project (28 MW photovoltaic plant in Spain) was initiated by the Company's business development team in a process that started with locating the land and obtaining all of the required permits in order to commence construction within two years from the beginning of the development process. The Company continues to develop a large number of additional photovoltaic projects in Spain, Italy, and Israel. All of these projects are developed by the Company's business development team, and are expected to reach "ready to build" status gradually, some in the near future and others in the more distant future."

About Ellomay Capital Ltd.

Ellomay is an Israeli based company whose shares are registered with the NYSE American and with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "ELLO". Since 2009, Ellomay Capital focuses its business in the renewable energy and power sectors in Europe and Israel.

To date, Ellomay has evaluated numerous opportunities and invested significant funds in the renewable, clean energy and natural resources industries in Israel, Italy and Spain, including:

Approximately 7.9MW of photovoltaic power plants in Spain and a photovoltaic power plant of approximately 9 MW in Israel ;

and a photovoltaic power plant of approximately 9 MW in ; 9.375% indirect interest in Dorad Energy Ltd., which owns and operates one of Israel's largest private power plants with production capacity of approximately 860MW, representing about 6%-8% of Israel's total current electricity consumption;

largest private power plants with production capacity of approximately 860MW, representing about 6%-8% of total current electricity consumption; 51% of Talasol, which owns a photovoltaic plant with a peak capacity of 300MW in the municipality of Talavan, Caceres, Spain ;

; Groen Gas Goor B.V., Groen Gas Oude-Tonge B.V. and Groen Gas Gelderland B.V., project companies operating anaerobic digestion plants in the Netherlands , with a green gas production capacity of approximately 3 million, 3.8 million and 9.5 million (with a license to produce 7.5 million) Nm3 per year, respectively;

, with a green gas production capacity of approximately 3 million, 3.8 million and 9.5 million (with a license to produce 7.5 million) Nm3 per year, respectively; 83.333% of Ellomay Pumped Storage (2014) Ltd., which is involved in a project to construct a 156 MW pumped storage hydro power plant in the Manara Cliff, Israel .

For more information about Ellomay, visit http://www.ellomay.com.

About METKA EGN Spain:

METKA EGN Spain S.L.U is a fully owned indirect subsidiary of MYTILINEOS S.A.. MYTILINEOS S.A. is a leading Greek industry active in Metallurgy, Power & Gas, Renewables & Storage and Sustainable Engineering Solutions. Established in Greece in 1990, the company is listed on the Athens Exchange, has a consolidated turnover of 1.9 billion and employs directly or indirectly more than 3,600 people in Greece and abroad.

For more information, please visit: www.mytilineos.gr | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn

Information Relating to Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties, including statements that are based on the current expectations and assumptions of the Company's management. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release regarding the Company's plans and objectives, expectations and assumptions of management are forward-looking statements. The use of certain words, including the words "estimate," "project," "intend," "expect," "believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. Various important factors could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied by the Company's forward-looking statements, including all of the risks relating to projects under development, including the inability to obtain project financing on terms acceptable to the Company, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Company's operations and projects, including in connection with steps taken by authorities in countries in which the Company operates, including Spain, changes in the market price of electricity and in demand, regulatory changes, changes in the supply and prices of resources required for the operation of the Company's facilities (such as waste and natural gas) and in the price of oil, and technical and other disruptions in the operations or construction of the power plants owned by the Company. These and other risks and uncertainties associated with the Company's business are described in greater detail in the filings the Company makes from time to time with Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 20-F. The forward-looking statements are made as of this date and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contact :

Kalia Weintraub

CFO

Tel: +972 (3) 797-1111

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Ellomay Capital Ltd

Related Links

http://www.ellomay.com


He predicts that March and April will be the most difficult periods.

Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov says Ukraine may re-impose a new, tough lockdown if 13 or more regions become part of the red quarantine zone.

"If we are talking about the whole country  if more than 13 regions become part of the red zone and all the criteria are on the rise throughout the country, we will have to introduce a new, tough lockdown," he told the strana.ua media outlet.

Read alsoCOVID-19: Ukraine reports 3,261 new cases March 9, marking two-week low

"We are recording an increase in hospitalizations and an incidence rate in certain regions we include in the red zone. Now we are doing everything to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system. We are looking at indicators: the hospitalization rate is above 60%, the number of oxygen-supported beds in use is above 65%, the dynamics of hospitalizations are above 50% in seven days  the criterion has been exceeded," the minister said.

According to him, if at least two criteria are exceeded for three days in a row, a region is automatically included in the red zone and remains there until the situation stabilizes.

The minister predicts that March and April will be the most difficult periods as new cases may surge.

"According to our forecasts, we will have a rather difficult period in terms of morbidity in March and April. But we still hope that if safeguard measures are taken across the country, this will not happen," he said.

Quarantine in Ukraine: What is known

Earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers announced the third wave of the coronavirus epidemic had begun in Ukraine.

Several regions of the western part of Ukraine now belong to the red zone.

The Lviv mayor's office did not rule out that a new lockdown could be introduced in the city.

Reporting by UNIAN
Pro-Trump protesters storm into the U.S. Capitol during clashes with police, during a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election (Photo : REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo)

The U.S. Justice Department has arrested another alleged associate of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia on charges he took part in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.



In charging documents made public on Monday, the FBI said Robert Minuta, 36, a recent resident of Hackettstown, New Jersey, who owns a tattoo shop in Newburgh, New York, "berated and taunted" U.S. Capitol Police while clad in military-style gear, then attacked the Capitol and disrupted Congress as it was certifying President Joe Biden's election victory.



Advertisement

The charging document alleges he later deleted a Facebook account he had maintained for 13 years to "conceal his involvement in these offenses."



An FBI spokeswoman said Minuta was taken into custody on Saturday.



Minuta is the latest alleged associate of the Oath Keepers to face charges for his role in the Capitol riots, in which more than 100 police officers were assaulted, one was killed, and the Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damages.



Last month, a grand jury indicted nine associates of the Oath Keepers on charges they conspired to prevent Congress from certifying Biden's election victory. Several of them have since pleaded not guilty.



"Minuta stormed the Capitol grounds and was photographed standing in a crowd of rioters near a Capitol entrance, filming U.S. Capitol police officers with a mobile cellular phone," the charging documents say.



"Eventually, Minuta unlawfully breached the Capitol building itself."



Later, as he exited, he was caught on video shouting to police: "All that's left is the Second Amendment!"



He faces charges of obstructing an official proceeding, unlawful entry and tampering with documents.



Information about who is representing him in the case was not immediately available.



The FBI's affidavit, which includes multiple photographs of a heavily bearded Minuta at the Capitol, includes a footnote containing a link to a story published on Feb. 14 by the New York Times about Oath Keepers associates who guarded veteran Republican operative and Trump supporter Roger Stone on Jan. 5 or 6 who later also entered the U.S. capitol during the riots.



The story features photographs of six Oath Keepers who allegedly both guarded Stone and participated in the Capitol riots, and one of those six appears to resemble Minuta.



In a statement, Stone said that while some Oath Keepers did provide him with security at several Jan. 5 rallies, he had no advanced knowledge about the Jan. 6 riots, and was not involved in them in any way.



"I do not know Mr. Minuta nor was I familiar with his name prior to his being identified in earlier media stories where it was alleged that he was involved in illegal events up at the Capitol," Stone said.



He added he has publicly denounced the attacks on the Capitol, and believes anyone who was involved should be prosecuted.


Real Housewives of Atlanta stars Cynthia Bailey and Kenya Moore are best friends both on and off camera. The former Miss U.S.A. was one of the models bridesmaids during her wedding to her husband, Mike Hill. Additionally, the friends often discuss Moores marriage to Marc Daly on the show. On RHOAs after-show, Bailey said her pals husband shares his true feelings about her when the cameras arent rolling.

RHOA stars Cynthia Bailey and Kenya Moore|Jesse Grant/Getty Images for 1OAK

RHOA star Kenya Moore compared Marc Daly to her estranged mother

On a Sunday, March 7, 2021, episode of RHOA, viewers watched as Moore, who has a reported net worth of $800,000, attended a therapy session. The Deliver Us From Eva actor opened up about her marital woes with Daly. Since they got married in 2017, the couple splits their time from Atlanta and New York because of Dalys Brooklyn-based restaurant, Soco. After spending nearly the entire year apart because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant owner filed for divorce from his wife in Jan. 2021. The separation is the second one for the couple, who share a daughter, Brooklyn Daly.

RHOA: Kenya Moore Questions Why She Ultimately Chose Ex Marc Daly After 'a Lot of Proposals' https://t.co/BUdcFkpp9c  People (@people) March 8, 2021

RELATED: RHOA Stars Kandi Burruss and Cynthia Bailey Claimed This Cast Member Is the Worst Dressed

Before their divorce proceedings became official, Moore explained to her therapist why she considered salvaging their marriage. She said she always believed that if she gave her husband time, he would come around. Moore also made herself available to him as much as possible. The mother of one revealed that Daly treated her exactly like her mother did when growing up. On RHOA, the pageant queen often shared her estranged relationship with her mother, Patricia, per People.

I was always trying to demand that she see me and that she acknowledge me, she said of her mom. And that never happened.

What Marc Daly says about Kenya, according to Cynthia Bailey

Throughout their marriage, Daly unabashedly shared his disdain for Moores day job on RHOA. Fans of the show will recall the businessman leaving the event he hosted after becoming frustrated with the shows cameras. Hes also noticeably absent from season 13 of the series.

RELATED: Is Kim Zolciak-Biermann Still in Contact With Any of Her Former The Real Housewives of Atlanta Cast Members?

Although viewers probably wont see Daly on RHOA this season, he remains a hot topic on the series and its after show. On Monday, March 8, 2021, Bravo posted the casts reactions to Sundays episode. While discussing Moores therapy session, Bailey admitted that Daly gives her friend mixed signals about where they stand. However, she said he speaks fondly of his wife and seemingly wants to repair their relationship.

Mark, even when Ive had conversations with him, all he does is tell me how great and amazing his wife is what a great mother [Moore] is, Bailey said of Daly.

He basically brags about her to me, she continued. And then when I see how he treats her, I dont get it. You know its confusing on the show.

Where Kenya Moore and Marc Daly stand after her therapy session on RHOA

For the record: Marc withdrew the divorce petition the next day and said that he was not asking for alimony in the filing and that we misinterpreted NY law. There has been no further divorce action to date. This scene was taped months ago. #RHOA #itscomplicated  KENYA MOORE (@KenyaMoore) March 1, 2021

RELATED: The Real Housewives of Atlanta Resumes Filming With New COVID-19 Precautions

Moore and Daly are still legally married. After viewers watched her lawyer hand the Waiting to Exhale actor divorce papers, she shared on Twitter that her husband changed his mind the next day. She also confirmed that theyre continuing to work on their relationship and do whats best for Brooklyn.

For the record: Marc withdrew the divorce petition the next day and said that he was not asking for alimony in the filing and that we misinterpreted NY law, Moore said. There has been no further divorce action to date. This scene was taped months ago. #RHOA #itscomplicated.



The Real Housewives of Atlanta airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
Ballance Agri-Nutrients say they fully support everyones right to protest after a recent demonstration by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union.

However, the company also made it clear that only the United Nations are capable of coming to a solution on the matter of phosphorous rock being mined in the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

The comments come after RMTU, representing port workers at the Port of Tauranga, delivered a letter of protest to the captain of a ship carrying so called blood phosphate.

The IVS Phoenix, chartered by Ballance Agri-Nutrients, arrived at the Port of Tauranga on February, 27.

The vessel was carrying 56,000 metric tonnes of phosphate rock mined in the disputed territory of Western Sahara in North Africa.

Western Sahara is a disputed territory in Northern Africa. Morocco governs the territory but the Polisario Front, representing the indigenous Saharawi people, seek independence and consider Moroccan rule an invasion of their territory.

A United Nations mission toward a referendum regarding independence was formed in 1991, but has yet to materialise. A ceasefire in the region collapsed in November.

The conflict and the disputed sovereignty of the area has led to the popularisation of the term blood phosphate, a phraseology Ballance strongly oppose.

Ballance were keen to stress they are still working within a UN framework for operating economic natural resources activities in a non-self-governing territory.

We fully respect free speech and the right of everyone to protest, we have, and will continue to engage in open and respectful dialogue, says Ballance head of communications Aimee Driscoll.

However, the right place to reach any kind of solution for such a complex geopolitical issue is through the UN. Given that the territory's political status is undecided, we follow the UN guidelines.

RMTU Organiser Dasha Von Silfhout says in late 2019, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions passed a resolution condemning Moroccos occupation of Western Sahara as illegal and calling upon the New Zealand government to halt importation of phosphates from the area.

She says the RMTU, a CTU affiliate, registered its protest by visiting the ship and passing on a letter that included the CTU resolution.

Because of Covid-19 protocols the letter was delivered on Monday, March 1, without direct contact between RMTU members and the crew.

The letter was placed into a bucket before being lifted on board for the attention of the captain.

Our fellow unionists in Australia, the Maritime Union of Australia, have used this method to register protests against Blood Phosphate imports, and it is a pragmatic way to exercise a fundamental democratic right without risking undue disruption.

The RMTU previously delivered a similar letter in protest at the arrival of the IVS Windsor, another Ballance chartered phosphate shipment, in November of last year.

Dasha did praise Ballance for engaging in constructive dialogue on the issue and for facilitating the peaceful protest.

Whilst we fundamentally disagree about the importation of blood phosphate, they have been reasonable in facilitating a lawful and safe protest, as have Port of Tauranga management and the shipping agent, she says.
An LNP frontbencher who claimed she had not declared she had shares in her husbands company to State Parliament because she was not aware of them had disclosed them years earlier as a deputy mayor.

Member for Whitsunday Amanda Camm apologised in Parliament on Tuesday for failing to declare she was a shareholder in her husbands consultancy company Strategic Direction Performance, after it was revealed in Brisbane Times.

LNP frontbencher Amanda Camm admitted she failed to declare financial interests to Parliament. Credit:Facebook

Ms Camm said she was unaware she was one of two shareholders in the company.

But her register of interests from 2016 to 2018, during her time as deputy mayor of Mackay Regional Council, disclose she was a shareholder.
COLUMBUS, OhioThe Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on Wednesday is set to consider expanding its audit of FirstEnergy Corp. to include reviewing questionable costs that include a $4 million payment to an entity state officials have said is tied to former Public Utilities of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo.

If approved by the commission, it could open the door to ratepayer refunds if state regulators find that money collected from customers to pay for infrastructure improvements was wrongfully used to pay the costs, which FirstEnergy officials say were improperly classified, misallocated to the companys local affiliates or lacked proper supporting documentation.

PUCO staff, in a written request to commission members , asked to expand the audit after they reviewed documents provided last month by FirstEnergy subsidiaries. The audit is being conducted by an outside firm, Blue Ridge Consulting, Inc.

Cleveland.com has filed a records request with the PUCO to obtain copies of the documents. FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young declined to provide the documents, stating in an email that they were part of a confidential response.

A legal filing from Attorney General Dave Yost says FirstEnergy in early 2019 paid $4 million to a company associated with Randazzo, shortly before Gov. Mike DeWine hired Randazzo to run the PUCO, which regulates FirstEnergy and other Ohio utilities. Randazzo resigned last November after the FBI raided his Columbus home and news of the $4 million payment became public.

Without explicitly identifying a Randazzo company as the recipient, FirstEnergy officials have said the payment led to conduct corresponding to such payment, and to the regulator acting at the request or for the benefit of FirstEnergy as a consequence of receiving such payment.

FirstEnergy executives said during a conference call with investors last month that the $4 million payment was among the improperly classified expenses. They declined to offer specific details but said most occurred in Ohio and that some dated back 10 years or more. They said the overall amount is relatively small and immaterial to the companys finances.

PUCO staff, in a state filing made Monday, said they requested records from FirstEnergy shortly after the company disclosed making the improperly classified transactions in a February filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Upon reviewing the records, staff said they want their independent auditor to review the transactions to determine whether funds collected from ratepayers were used to pay these vendors and if so, whether or not the funds associated with those payments should be returned to ratepayers.

The PUCO already has three other audits underway of FirstEnergy in the wake of the House Bill 6 scandal, in which ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four allies have been accused of using $60 million in FirstEnergy bribe money to secure the passage of legislation giving a then-FirstEnergy subsidiary a $1 billion-plus bailout, among other benefits .

The other audits are probing whether FirstEnergy violated corporate separation laws, misused money from its distribution modernization rider, or had customers wrongly fund -- directly or indirectly -- any political or charitable donations made by the company in support of HB6 or against a failed referendum attempt to overturn it.

Two of Householders allies -- former political aide Jeff Longstreth and ex-FirstEnergy lobbyist Juan Cespedes -- have pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme. Householder, as well as lobbyists Neil Clark and Matt Borges, have maintained their innocence.

Read more Ohio politics and government stories:

FirstEnergy cancels registrations for in-house lobbyists

FirstEnergy Corp. names new CEO

Ohio AG Dave Yost asks U.S. Supreme Court to defend ban on abortion providers receiving family-planning funds

Read Gov. Mike DeWines proclamation of a day of remembrance of those who died of the coronavirus

Ohios unemployment system hires outside firms to help reduce wait times, combat fraud
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Australian economist Sean Turnell has been accused by Myanmars military ruler of trying to flee the country with secret financial information.

The Australian government has been urging the new junta to release the Sydney academic and adviser to the nations elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi since he was detained on February 6, five days after General Min Aung Hlaings armed forces seized power in a coup.

Sean Turnell, left, has long provided advice to Myanmars elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right.

The prospect of that happening quickly appears to have diminished with a statement by the military leader on the state-run television network MRTV on Tuesday morning (AEDT).

An attempt to flee the country by the former governments foreign economic adviser, Sean Turnell, was stopped in time and secret state financial information was found through him. Union-level ministers are taking legal actions in relation to that issue, the general was quoted as saying.
Visakhapatnam, March 10 : Visakhapatnam saw renewed protests opposing the steel plant privatisation plan on Tuesday after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman categorically stated in the Parliament that the public sector company -- Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) -- will be 100 per cent privatised.

In addition to the steel plant employees, their families and the port city residents, the steel plant received support from some unexpected quarters as well.

"If a private organisation can bring a loss making steel plant into profits, why can't our government do the same? It is not just a factory, it is our pride," said Kona Venkat, a Telugu film industry personality.

Similarly, one Bojja Suman, a non-resident Indian living in the US, has also voiced his support from continents away, carrying placards opposing the privatisation.

Immediately after Sitharaman's remarks, people in the port city increased the intensity of their protests.

Meanwhile, Visakhapatnam North MLA and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader, Ganta Srinivasa Rao, who recently submitted his resignation protesting the steel plant sale plan, condemned the Finance Minister for declaring that VSP will be sold away.

"I condemn Sitharaman's statements which are humiliating to the sacrifices and movements of the Telugu people," Rao said.

He also criticised the Finance Minister for going ahead and declaring that the steel plant will be privatised, despite civil society groups carrying out a movement against it.

The TDP leader highlighted that the Central government is making this move even after showing alternate ways to salvage the steel plant.

"We are still requesting the Central government to rethink and take back the decision, otherwise we will intensify our protest in a democratic way to put pressure on the Centre," Rao added.
COLUMBIA  Prominent South Carolina business leaders and law enforcement officials testified before state lawmakers March 9 in support of a hate crimes bill, saying it will help prosecutors serve justice and send a powerful message that the state condemns prejudice and discrimination.

Their testimony kicked off the bill's first hearing in a House judiciary subcommittee for the 2021 session, when longtime advocates are hopeful the addition of influential supporters will help advance the measure further than it has in years past.

S.C. Chamber of Commerce chairman Tim Arnold, the president and CEO of Colonial Life, noted that South Carolina is one of only three states that has yet to pass a hate crimes bill, along with Arkansas and Wyoming.

"When we see that 47 other states are able to pass hate crimes law, it shines an unwanted light in our view on our state to prospective companies, tourists and workers," Arnold said. "It's important to us that South Carolina show the nation that crimes of hate will not be tolerated in our great state."

The legislation, H.3620, would enhance penalties for crimes committed against victims who were intentionally selected because of characteristics like race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or physical or mental disability.

Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds and Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said the measure would give victims more confidence that justice would be served.

As an example, Lott pointed to a series of robberies that were committed against more than two dozen Hispanic people in the Columbia area over just three weeks. While police ultimately caught the perpetrators, Lott said the Hispanic community "lived in absolute fear for those three weeks."

"This is the types of crimes that we need to have something where we can hold them accountable," Lott said. "Right now, we can't hold them accountable. We haven't charged them with armed robbery. But the fact that they went out and hunted our Hispanic community, we can hold them accountable for that."

A special House committee worked to craft this version of the bill in 2020 after protests erupted around the country in response to racial violence and allegations of police brutality. Much of the language in the bill was modeled after a similar measure that passed in Georgia last year, subcommittee chairman Weston Newton, R-Bluffton, said.

Introduced by state Rep. Wendell Gilliard, D-Charleston, co-sponsors of the bill include both House Majority Leader Gary Simrill, R-Rock Hill, and Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, giving it valuable support from some of the chamber's most influential members.

Representatives from Walmart, UPS, Duke Energy and AFLAC  major companies with a South Carolina presence  spoke in support of the measure, saying they felt it was important to lend their political muscle in a pro-business state to combat inequality.

"Standing up against hate crimes is a way of standing up for our diverse workforce, and it is an expression of solidarity with a diverse community of customers," said Brooke Mueller, Walmart's director of government relations.

Supporters noted the bill will not only protect minorities. Victims who were targeted for being White, male or Christian would also be covered under the law.

Sign up for updates! Get the latest political news from The Post and Courier in your inbox. Email

Sign Up!

After years of watching the bill struggle to gain momentum, Gilliard said he is hopeful that the boost of support from new groups will be enough to push it across the finish line.

"When you have a mixture of the speaker of the House, the business world, along with the churches, Mother Emanuel leading the way with its pastors and members, that's what we call working together," Gilliard said. "It's been a long time coming, and now we're finally getting down to the nuts and bolts of it."

Of the 26 speakers in the subcommittee hearing, only a few expressed opposition to the bill, and even those opponents said they only take issue with specific measures that were either included or excluded from the legislation.

South Carolina Baptist Convention public policy director Tony Beam and Palmetto Family Pastors Network director Mitch Prosser said they are worried that the provisions of the bill enhancing penalties for targeted harassment could be used by people to litigate against religious speech.

"We're not concerned about adding the statutes to the Criminal Code, adding anything to that to stop the hatred and bigotry, but we're just concerned about the religious liberty aspects that could be brought into play," Beam said.

Lawmakers questioned why those pastors were concerned about how the bill could be used against them when it only enhances penalties for already existing laws against violence and harassment that have not been used against them in the past.

"I think the concern would be that someone's definition (of harassment) in the future may in some way stretch that language a little bit," Prosser responded.

S.C. Citizens for Life executive director Holly Gatling added that she fears it could be used to file lawsuits against anti-abortion activists who protest outside clinics or encourage women to pursue other options, and she asked that language be added to make clear that it cannot be used for that purpose.

But Newton said he did not understand why those critics had not previously spoken out against the existing harassment laws on the books that could, in theory, be used for the same purpose. This bill, he noted, only enhances penalties for those laws.

A few other speakers took issue with the lack of "gender identity" as one of the protected categories listed in the bill, which the Alliance for Full Acceptance executive director Chase Glenn said could leave transgender and gender non-conforming South Carolinians at risk.

"Unfortunately, if we do not have a separate category for gender identity, data collection will be insufficient to properly identify and address the real impact of bias motivated crime on members of the LGBTQ community," Glenn said.

Gilliard said he would be open to amending his bill to address the concerns of both the pastors and transgender advocates.

The subcommittee is slated to hold another meeting later this week to debate the bill and consider whether to advance it.
TAMPA, Fla., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Syft, a leading national provider of healthcare inventory control and end-to-end supply chain cost management software and services, today announced that its innovative training program, Syft UniversitySM (Syft U), is fully operational. The program facilitates on-demand training for hospital staff using Syft Synergy, its Supply Chain Management platform. The launch of Syft U is timely as many hospitals continue to restrict vendors from visiting their campuses for COVID-19-related reasons.

Recently launched, Syft U has already been used by 587 supply chain and clinical personnel in 21 hospitals across the country. This virtual learning environment provides secure access to training resources at the customer's convenience, and allows individuals and teams to enroll and learn at their own pace with tailored learning experiences. It also streamlines the onboarding and training of new hospital staff and standardizes training for Syft Synergy users by role and/or department. The Syft U Sustainment Program also allows users to access relevant training materials beyond the initial Syft Synergy implementation to ensure their continued success as new versions of the software are released.

Michigan Medicine's Supply Chain Business Systems Analyst, Maurice Flowers, says "Having this new virtual learning center makes it incredibly efficient to train and credential our teams. Our staff can use Syft U to easily access training materials any time and any place, using the learning approaches that work best for them." Maurice adds, "It's also an excellent way for our administrators to track who has been trained and ensure proficiency. That's been especially valuable during the pandemic when staff are often working remotely."

"We developed Syft U based on one of the best, most popular, and easy to use LMS available," stated Dr. Michelle Frankich, Director of Training & Development-E-Learning at Syft. "During the pandemic, Syft U has provided a safe way to engage and train users, giving them a dedicated learning environment that includes video tutorials, user guides, proficiency checklists, quick reference guides, progress tracking, certifications, and assessment activities. It is also more efficient for Syft staff, centralizing all customer and internal training materials in a single location."

Syft U courses cover various topics including product training for point-of-use supply capture, perioperative analytics, warehouse cycle counts and analytics, distribution cart counting and receiving, and decedent management to name a few. Courses are designed to benefit both clinical team members and supply chain staff, and a variety of other users that have engaged with the program so far. Common participants include directors of supply chain operations, directors of supply chain strategy, supply chain business analysts, nursing staff, OR and nursing managers, and others who utilize Syft Synergy in their respective areas of the hospital or health system.

Learn more about Syft U here, and watch a video overview, here.

About Syft

Syft enables enterprise-wide inventory management and disaster recovery solutions through a powerful combination of services, automation tools, and real-time data analytics. The comprehensive Syft Synergy platform eliminates the need for multiple point solutions and facilitates immediate supply savings with a range of capabilities including master data management, inventory services, supply chain management software, analytics, and advanced reporting. Founded in 1999, Syft is used by more than 245 customers (970 U.S. hospitals) to control costs, processes, and productivity across the entire organization. For more information, visit Syft at www.syftco.com.

Media Contact

Boh Hatter

(410) 534.1161

[email protected]

SOURCE Syft
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Now that it is no longer useful to enhancing the power of Democrats, The Lincoln Project is utterly dispensable and is being exposed for grifting by the premier house organ of the Democrats, The New York Times. The three authors of today's article, "Inside the Lincoln Project's Secrets, Side Deals and Scandals," are free to allow inhabitants of the blue bubble to know that getting rich was the major motivation behind the project.

A few days before the presidential election, the leadership of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project gathered at the Utah home of Steve Schmidt, one of the group's co-founders, and listened as he plotted out the organization's future. (snip) "Five years from now, there will be a dozen billion-dollar media companies that don't exist today," he told the group, according to two people who attended. "I would like to build one, and would invite all of you to be part of that." In fact, Mr. Schmidt and the three other men who started the Lincoln Project  John Weaver, Reed Galen and Rick Wilson  had already quietly moved to set themselves up in the new enterprise, drafting and filing papers to create TLP Media in September and October, records show. Its aim was to transform the original project, a super PAC, into a far more lucrative venture under their control. This was not the only private financial arrangement among the four men. Shortly after they created the group in late 2019, they had agreed to pay themselves millions of dollars in management fees, three people with knowledge of the deal said. (snip) The behind-the-scenes moves by the four original founders showed that whatever their political goals, they were also privately taking steps to make money from the earliest stages, and wanted to limit the number of people who would share in the spoils. Over time, the Lincoln Project directed about $27 million  nearly a third of its total fund-raising  to Mr. Galen's consulting firm, from which the four men were paid, according to people familiar with the arrangement.

The Times even admits that The Lincoln Project knew about the stories of sexual predation by one of the founding four, John Weaver, well before the election.

Last June, an employee for a company hired by the Lincoln Project warned in an email that Mr. Weaver's conduct was "potentially fatal" to the organization's image. The email, sent to a board member and circulated to other leaders, described multiple instances of harassment. It said Mr. Weaver's behavior was already damaging relationships with vendors and offered to put leaders in contact with some of the men involved.

Actually, Weaver's behavior has been well known and warned of for years. But with Donald Trump to be defeated, the media had no interest in the story, and with the money rolling in, Weaver's partners had no interest in interrupting the cash flow.

That was then; this is now.

Democrats and their media handmaidens welcomed Republican traitors to the project of defeating Trump and didn't ask any awkward questions. But traitors are by their nature unreliable as partners and are best gotten rid of as soon as their contribution to the shared goal is over. I am watching other turncoats like Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin, who seem to be converting to actual Democrats, reversing years, even decades of political positions they formerly held. Maybe they think that if they visibly switch sides, they will be accepted.

But it is not only former Republicans who are jettisoned once their utility is at an end. Ask Andrew Cuomo, and watch what happens to Gavin Newsom. When your real goal is power, ideology, sex, and personal ties are subordinate issues.
For Trey Roberts, who grew up in a high-poverty, rural part of Halifax County, college was the way to a better life.

My only option out is to go to school, Roberts said. I didnt think about cost.

Roberts, who is Native American, attended community college for two years before attending William Peace University in Raleigh. Roberts graduated in 2018 with a degree in communications  and close to $40,000 in student loans.

Navigating the college aid process was novel for Roberts and members of his family. Tuition and fees at Peace, including room and board, cost more than $44,000 per year.

Ignorance surrounded me all over. There was nobody to tell you that this is what its going to be like when you graduate, said Roberts, 29, who works as a community engagement manager for Dix Parks Conservancy.

Before getting his current job, Roberts said he chose not to purchase health insurance, gambling that hed stay healthy, in order to pay for rent and his car and keep up with student loan payments. Roberts owes about $29,000 in federal loans and $10,000 in private loans, figures that he said have barely budged since hes been making payments.

Roberts, who pays about $333 a month combined on the loans, is not alone. North Carolinians held $44 billion in student loan debt in 2019, according to a report by the Center for Responsible Lending. More than half (57.5%) of those in the state who earned a bachelors degree at nonprofit public or private schools in 2017 graduated with federal student loan debt, averaging $26,526, according to the report.

All told, Americans face $1.7 trillion in student debt, according to the National Consumer Law Center.

But Roberts is hopeful that the Biden administration  pushed by progressive members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Alma Adams of Charlotte  will wipe out all or part of his federal debt.

Biden has signaled he would be willing to sign legislation canceling up to $10,000 in federal student debt for some borrowers. But Adams and others in Congress, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have called on Biden to use executive action to wipe out $50,000 per borrower.

Story continues

The administration has the opportunity now to make good on the guarantee that education is the passport to the middle class, said Adams, who taught at Bennett College for 40 years. I know how young people struggle to pay this debt. President Biden now has the opportunity to build a stronger foundation of social and economic mobility for all.

The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed by the Senate on Saturday could make it easier for Biden to act. The bill includes a provision that makes any college loan forgiveness through Jan. 1, 2026, tax-free. Typically, federal law would treat forgiven debt as taxable income, leaving borrowers with a hefty tax bill for loan forgiveness.

Whose debt to cancel, and how much?

The Center For Responsible Lending, based in Durham, backs $50,000 in student loan debt cancellation and called for a blanket reduction for all borrowers regardless of school choice or income, specifically as a way to reduce the racial wealth gap. Black borrowers tend to carry larger debt burdens than white borrowers in similar situations.

For us, the racial wealth gap is absolutely the most compelling piece about it, said Rochelle Sparko, the centers North Carolina policy director. It would go a great distance to opening up our economy to a portion of our population that has been systematically kept out of it or pushed to the edges.

Sparko said rural borrowers, regardless of race, struggle to pay off loans more than urban or suburban borrowers. Loan repayment, she said, is often a reason why students dont return to their hometowns, instead seeking higher-paying opportunities elsewhere.

The implications of canceling debt reach every corner of the state without question, she said.

The idea is not without its critics  and there are questions about eligibility for high-income earners or those who attended elite private schools. Warren said canceling $50,000 would carry a price tag of about $650 billion, though thats not new spending.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has introduced legislation on student loan debt repayment several times in the last decade. His bill  the Repay Act  would simplify repayment, cap repayment at 10% of discretionary income and forgive loans after 20 years, he said. He called on the administration to work with him on the legislation.

Im not eager to see the Biden Administration pursue a dangerous and foolhardy proposal to simply forgive student debt, Burr said earlier this year.

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican, said student debt cancellation is an attempt to make us dependent on the federal government.

In the end it is the next generation, my generation, that will have to foot the bill for this debt and pay these taxes because people wanted to give away free tuition, because people wanted to try and buy votes, the 25-year-old Cawthorn said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.

Cawthorn, who attended Patrick Henry College for one semester, said that people who didnt go to college or people who had already paid off their loans have to go and take care of the fiscal irresponsibility of another person.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Pandora, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Megaphone or wherever you get your podcasts.

Under the Dome

With the start of the new year and a new legislative session, The News & Observer has launched a new Under the Dome podcast. Were unpacking legislation and issues that matter to keep you updated on whats happening in North Carolina politics twice a week on Monday and Friday mornings. Check us out here and sign up for our weekly Under the Dome newsletter for more political news.
Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden say they feel used and betrayed' by president on abortion

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

CORRECTION APPENDED



Leaders affiliated with the Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden initiative have expressed disappointment with the Biden administrations support of a measure to remove a legal statute limiting taxpayer funding of abortion.

The Biden administration recently declared support for a COVID-19 relief bill that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortion in most instances.

In a statement posted on the Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden website, the evangelical leaders and scholars argued that they feel used and betrayed. But, they have no intention of simply watching these kinds of efforts happen from the sidelines.

Many evangelicals and Catholics took risks to support Biden publicly. President Biden and Democrats need to honor their courage, the statement reads.

We call on President Biden to honor his commitment to us and immediately demand that the House of Representatives apply the Hyde language to the American Relief Package.

Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden went on to declare that this is no time for radical change to longstanding abortion policy and called on certain Democrats in Congress by name to demand the Hyde Amendment be included. They warned that if this is not done, it will raise the question of whether or not we are still welcome in the Democratic Party.

As pro-life leaders in the evangelical community, we publicly supported President Biden's candidacy with the understanding that there would be engagement [with] us on the issue of abortion and particularly the Hyde Amendment, the statement explains. The Biden team wanted to talk to us during the campaign to gain our support, and we gave it on the condition there would be active dialogue and common ground solutions on the issue of abortion. There has been no dialogue since the campaign.

Signatories to the letter include Fuller Seminary President Emeritus Richard Mouw and Evangelicals for Social Action President Emeritus Ronald Sider.

In October of last year, the group released a statement urging pro-life evangelicals to vote for Biden despite the Democratic Partys views on abortion.

Sider, a longtime evangelical figure and an advocate for biblical solutions to social and economic injustices, also edited a book released last year called The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump in which 30 evangelical Christians talked about why they opposed the former president.

Tony Perkins, president of the Christian conservative advocacy organization Family Research Council and Trump supporter, responded to the Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden statement by contending that the group can't say they weren't warned.

Everyone in America knew where Joe Biden stood on abortion  because he told them. In 13 debates, multiple campaign ads, and a Planned Parenthood townhall, Perkins wrote in a statement on Monday.

If Evangelicals for Biden want to say they never saw this COVID bill and its abortion funding coming, then they were the only ones.

Perkins quoted Biden, who had said on the campaign trail that while he had supported the Hyde Amendment for years while in Congress, he could no longer do so.

Once they ate of the fruit the Biden campaign was offering the damage was done. The Biden team got what they wanted in 2020: cover for their unbiblical, anti-faith position on abortion, continued Perkins.

 the people who argued that evangelicals needed to either back away from Donald Trump, sit out the election, or vote for Joe Biden own this  and all of the other ungodly, evil policies flowing from Capitol Hill.

Weeks before the presidential election, Sider and Mouw wrote an opinion column published by The Christian Post touting the pro-life evangelical coalitions statement of support for Biden.

A key point of their argument was that while Biden was pro-choice, his positions on other issues such as racial reconciliation, healthcare reform and immigration made his platform more consistent with biblical values.

 we believe that on balance, Joe Bidens policies are more consistent with the biblically shaped ethic of life than those of Donald Trump, declared the statement in part.

Therefore, even as we continue to urge different policies on abortion, we urge evangelicals to elect Joe Biden as president.

Correction:Wednesday, March 10, 2021

A previous version of this article stated incorrectly that the Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden statement expressing disappointment in the Biden administration was backed by Pastor Joel C. Hunter. Although Hunter would like for the Hyde Amendment to be protected, he contacted CP to state that he did not sign the letter "since President Biden was clear about his intentions in his pre and post-election communications on the matter."
Another achievement for explorer Richard Garriott

British-born Richard Garriott W5KWQ has become the first explorer to have been to both poles, orbited the Earth and reached the bottom of the deepest ocean



On February 28, 2021, he traveled to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, at 11,034 metres (36,201 ft) the deepest oceanic trench on the planet.



He is not the first astronaut to make the descent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, former-NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan ex-N5YYV did that in 2020 but Richard is the first person to also have visited the North Pole (2018) and the South Pole (2000).

Richard's US amateur radio callsign W5KWQ recently expired but in a tweet sent March 7 he said he would be renewing his license as soon as possibleHe made many amateur radio contacts during his space mission in 2008 including one to pupils at Budbrooke Primary School in Warwick, UK. You can watch the video of that contact atRichard's father was astronautwho in 1983, during the STS-9 Columbia mission, made the first amateur radio contacts from space, see2008 Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, Gets Busy from SpaceRichard Garriott https://richardgarriott.com/
A man has admitted to killing a retired midwife who was found dead at her home last year before fleeing to Sweden.

Kenneth McDermid, 43, was tracked down by police to Stockholm and extradited to the UK after Wendy Ann Morse, 71, was found dead at her home in Knypersley, Staffordshire, on Mother's Day last March.

Now McDermid, from Sneyd Green, Stoke-on-Trent, has admitted a charge of manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

He will be sentenced at Stafford Crown Court in mid-April.

Kenneth McDermid (pictured), 43, has admitted a charge of manslaughter by diminished responsibility

Wendy Ann Morse, 71, was found dead at her home in Knypersley, Staffordshire, on Mother's Day last March

Staffordshire Police launched a major manhunt after discovering Mrs Morse's body at her home on March 22 last year - hours before the UK went into coronavirus lockdown.

There were signs of a disturbance and there was glass and a bottle smashed on the floor.

An inquest previously heard how police smashed their way into the grandmother's home to find her body covered in plastic sheeting on the conservatory floor after concerned relatives had reported her missing on Mothering Sunday.

She had suffered a 'severe blunt trauma head injury'.

Forensics officers spent a number of days combing the property for clues and appealed for sightings of a green Honda Civic which had been driven between Biddulph and Sneyd Green three days before Mrs Morse's body was found.

But the police investigation then took detectives 1,300 miles away to Sweden when their suspect appeared before Stockholm District Court.

A European Arrest Warrant was secured to bring the killer back to the UK.

Forensic teams at the scene of the murder in Knypersley, Staffordshire, last March

Following today's guilty plea, Detective Inspector Cheryl Hannan, from Staffordshire Police, said: 'We are happy that the defendant has taken responsibility for his actions and hope this goes some way to giving the family some closure after what has been a truly difficult year for them.

'I'd like to thank them for their support and courage during our investigation and would like to issue thanks to the Swedish authorities and the Crown Prosecution Service for their help in detaining McDermid in March last year.'

After Mrs Morse's body was discovered on March 22 her heartbroken family paid tribute her and appealed for help tracing the killer.

In a statement, they said: 'We are devastated at the loss of our mum, who was a very bubbly person and full of character, who will be sorely missed by her children and grandchildren.

'We would appeal to any member of the public with any information, however small, to contact Staffordshire Police in connection with the death of our mum.'
Despite the rise in COVID-19 cases, the situation in is under control and there is no immediate need to impose a lockdown in the city, senior civic officials said on Tuesday.

on Monday recorded 1,008 fresh infections that raised its tally to 3,34,572.

When asked about the possibility of imposing a lockdown, municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal said there was no immediate need to do so.

According to civic officials, the surge in cases is a result of an increase in daily testing.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has ramped up testing significantly from 11,000 to 15,000 tests conducted in January to over 20,000 at present.

As many as 23,000 COVID-19 tests were conducted by the civic body on Monday.

The city has recorded a positivity rate of six per cent, which is quite less compared to other cities in Maharashtra, a civic official said.

Considering this, there is no immediate need to impose a lockdown in the metropolis, the official said.

Officials have, however, warned that if citizens do not follow the COVID-19 protocol, the civic body may be forced to take stringent steps.

Speaking to media persons, a senior official said nearly 60 per cent beds are available for COVID-19 patients at city hospitals.

The civic body has undertaken the third sero survey in and 12,000 samples have been collected under this, the official said, adding that a report is expected in two weeks.

The COVID-19 immunisation drive is underway at 67 centres, including 24 civic hospitals, four state-run hospitals and 38 private hospitals, the official said.

The civic body is planning to increase the number of the vaccination centres to 85, he said.

Meanwhile, Mumbai Guardian Minister Aslam Shaikh on Tuesday said if COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the city, the possibility of a night curfew or partial lockdown cannot be ruled out.

Shaikh said local authorities have been empowered to take a decision on lockdown as and when necessary.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(Natural News) If you use Googles Chrome browser to surf the web and do so incognito, which is supposed to mean private browsing, you should know that the Silicon Valley giant is still secretly tracking your web activity.

The Alphabet Inc. company says activating stealth mode in Chrome simply means that the company will not remember your activity. It does not mean that Google is unable to see which websites you visit and how often you visit them, which may come as a surprise to some.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who is known for taking Big Tech to task for its crimes against humanity, responded to a class-action lawsuit against Google by saying she is disturbed about the multinational corporations data collection practices, which are deceptive at best.

The suit seeks $5,000 in damages for each of the millions of Chrome users whose privacy has been violated since June 2016. Koh says she finds it unusual that Google would make the extra effort to collect data like this if it supposedly does not use it to profile users and target them with advertising.

Google is and has been embroiled in multiple lawsuits involving its monopolistic practices, including its privacy abuses in digital advertising and online search. In one of them, Koh successfully forced Google to disclose its scanning of private emails to build profiles and target advertising.

In this case, Google is accused of embedding code within websites that use its analytics and advertising services to scrape data from users supposedly private browsing history and relay it to Google servers for processing.

Google makes it seem like private browsing mode gives users more control of their data, says lawyer Amanda Bonn, but in reality Google is saying theres basically very little you can do to prevent us from collecting your data, and thats what you should assume were doing.

Google is evil; stop using its products

Andrew Shapiro, a lawyer for Google, insists that his clients privacy policy expressly discloses the fact that almost nothing is private when you use a Google product.

The data collection at issue is disclosed, he says.

Stephen Broome, another Google lawyer, says websites that contract with Google to use its analytics or other services are well aware of his clients data collection practices and that they are not a secret.

Broome attempted to downplay the privacy concerns of the plaintiffs, as well as those of the court, by pointing out that the federal court systems own website uses Google services. This tactic backfired, however, when the judge demanded an explanation as to what exactly Google does while voicing concerns that visitors to the courts website are unwittingly disclosing private information to Google.

I want a declaration from Google on what information theyre collecting on users to the courts website, and what thats used for, Koh told Googles lawyers.

The takeaway from all this is that Google cannot, and should not, be trusted. Everything it does is for the purpose of making money, seizing power, eliminating peoples rights, and ultimately achieving world domination.

Plus, Google and Alphabet stole Oracles code, so their whole business is based on that theft, pointed out one of our own commenters about another Google rabbit hole.

The case is at the Supreme Court right now, to be heard soon. Open and shut really, Google is finished. Even the criminals on the Supreme Court cant let this one slide. Its too obvious.

Another commenter agreed, adding that Googles days are numbered because they never learn that the pendulum can only swing so far in one direction before it must return.

If you are interested in reading more news stories about the evils of Google and other tech giants, you can do so at Evil.news.

Sources for this article include:

BNNBloomberg.ca

NaturalNews.com
Agartala, March 9 : After months of political tussle, the ruling allies in Tripura -- the BJP and the IPTF -- on Tuesday night announced to jointly contest the April 4 elections to the politically significant Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC).

The 28-member TTAADC, which is considered a mini-state Assembly in terms of political significance, has a jurisdiction of over two-thirds of Tripura's 10,491 sq km area and is home to over 12,16,000 people, 90 per cent of which are tribals.

BJP state President Manik Saha, party leader and Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma, Indigenous People's Front of Tripura's (IPFT) President Narendra Chandra Debbarma and General Secretary Mevar Kumar Jamatiya said in a joint media briefing that both the parties would put up candidates in 14 seats each, but in three more seats, the tribal-based party would nominate candidates for a friendly contest with the saffron party.

IPFT leaders Debbarma and Jamatia, both ministers in the BJP-led Council of Ministers headed by Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, had on Sunday night unilaterally announced the names of candidates for 18 of the 28 elective seats of TTAADC, creating uncertainty over the future of the ruling alliance.

For the past few months, the leaders of the BJP and the IPFT have acused each other for violating the "Joot Dharma" (coalition principles).

The IPFT and the BJP had separately contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, with both parties putting up candidates in the state's two Lok Sabha constituencies, getting engaged in accusations and counter accusations.

In alliance with the IPFT, the BJP won the Assembly polls three years ago in 2018, ousting the 25-year uninterrupted rule of the CPM-led Left Front.

The BJP and the IPFT had secured 36 and 8 seats, respectively, in the 60-member Assembly while the remaining 16 seats were bagged by the CPM.

The TTAADC was constituted under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution in June 1985 to promote the socio-economic and traditional culture of the tribals, who constitute one-third of Tripura's four million population.
ALBANY  If Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were to resign or be impeached, the potential first woman governor of New York is waiting in the wings.

Kathleen C. Hochul, 62, has served as New Yorks lieutenant governor since 2015, the beginning of Cuomos second term in office.

Hochul's first big break in politics involved a politician whose career was enveloped by scandal.

In 2011, she staged a surprise win in a four-way special election for Congress in a Western New York district, becoming the first Democrat to hold the seat in four decades. She succeeded Republican Chris Lee, who resigned from Congress hours after the now-defunct gossip website Gawker reported that the married lawmaker had sent flirtatious emails and a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met online.

In 2012, Hochul lost her reelection bid after her district was substantially redrawn to favor Republicans during that years redistricting process.

Hochul was born in the city of Lackawanna in Erie County. Her father worked at a steel plant and went to college at night. He started married life in a trailer, and eventually rose up to lead a company. Hochul, who has credited her family with instilling a sense of public service, received her bachelors degree from Syracuse University and attended law school at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

After working at a Washington law firm, Hochul decided to enter public service and worked for Buffalo-area U.S. Rep. John LaFalce and U.S. Sen. Daniel Moynihan before taking a staff position with the state Assembly.

In 1994, Hochul was elected to the Hamburg Town Board, where she served until 2007, the year she was appointed to fill the vacant position of Erie County Clerk. She then ran for Congress.

In 2014, Robert Duffy, who served as Cuomos lieutenant governor during his first term, announced that he would not be part of that years re-election ticket. He was replaced by Hochul, despite grumbling from some on the left flank of the party who pointed to her earlier, more conservative stances on immigrant rights (as county clerk, she opposed driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants) and gun control.

As lieutenant governor  typically a low-profile job that often consists of attending ribbon-cuttings  Hochul has had several substantial roles.

She has led Cuomos 10 regional economic development councils, chaired a task force on heroin and opioid abuse and addiction, and led the governor's Enough is Enough campaign to combat sexual assault on college campuses. She is married to William Hochul, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, who is now in private practice. They are the parents of two children.

Jeremy Zellner, the chair of the Erie County Democratic Party, has known Hochul for two decades. He said she possessed a unique ability to connect with New Yorkers, whether in urban or rural settings  retail political skills she demonstrated during her long-shot 2011 congressional win. She's well known among Democratic Party officials, and has traveled the state building contacts as Cuomo's lieutenant governor.

"Is she ready for the job? She's worked on the local, state and federal levels and understands how to deliver for the community," Zellner said. "She's lived a life where she understands people's struggles and concerns, and can figure out solutions to them."

The advocate behind Bravehearts, the Australian organisation that battles child sexual assault and exploitation, is stepping down from her position.

Hetty Johnston AM founded the organisation in 1997 after her then seven-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by her paternal grandfather.

Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston hopes someone will pick up her fight for a royal commission into the family law system.

Years on, the foundation continues to provide child protection training and education programs, offering specialist counselling and support services, and lobbying.

Ms Johnston said stepping down from Bravehearts was a long time coming.
The former editor of The Guardian looks set to continue on Irelands Future of Media Commission after receiving unanimous backing from its members.

Alan Rusbridger had faced calls to be removed from the role after revelations that his newspapers former media editor, Roy Greenslade, was supportive of the IRA.

Mairia Cahill, who has alleged she was sexually abused by an IRA man at the age of 16, had called on the Taoiseach to consider Mr Rusbridgers position on the commission.

She said the work of the panel would be tainted after he received the backing of fellow members on Tuesday.

She wrote on Twitter: Shame on them. Unfortunately the work of the commission  and their reputation  will be tainted by an editor who knew his journalist wrote for An IRA paper, smearing a rape victim.

To be clear, the person who did the smearing was Roy Greenslade. The person who allowed him to write the piece  in full knowledge he had written for an IRA paper  was Alan Rusbridger.

Expand Close Mairia Cahill (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mairia Cahill (Liam McBurney/PA)

Ms Cahill said it was appalling that the decision had been made public through a press release before she heard from the Media Minister, Green Party TD Catherine Martin, on the subject.

Hours earlier, Ms Martin told RTE News at One she was consulting the Taoiseach on the issue.

She said Ms Cahill had endured horrendous pain and ongoing suffering amplified by the criticism and judgment in a Guardian column written by Mr Greenslade.

The 2014 column, which called into question Ms Cahills claims that she was raped by an IRA member, has prompted apologies from the newspaper.

Mr Greensdale claimed BBC reporters investigating the story were too willing to accept Cahills story and did not point to countervailing evidence.

Katherine Viner, who succeeded Mr Rusbridger as Guardian editor in 2015, has apologised to Ms Cahill.

A note has been added to the 2014 piece which reads: The lack of disclosure was especially unfair to a vulnerable individual, and The Guardian has now apologised to Ms Cahill.

Writing in The Guardian at the weekend, Mr Rusbridger also apologised to Ms Cahill.

I am sincerely sorry to Mairia Cahill, both for the article and for the upset it must have caused her. Both the Guardian and Greenslade have also apologised Alan Rusbridger

He wrote: Given what he has now shared, I believe he should have avoided those topics  or, at the very least, have been consistent in letting readers know more about where he was coming from  especially as The Guardians own guidelines have long been explicit about declaring interests.

In particular, Greenslade had criticised transparency in a 2014 piece about a BBC programme on Mairia Cahills claim of rape by an alleged IRA member. Given his own lack of transparency, that was, at best, hypocritical.

The piece spectacularly fails on transparency grounds. Had Greenslade been open with me back in 2014, I would have been able to come to a different judgment about it overall.

So I am sincerely sorry to Mairia Cahill, both for the article and for the upset it must have caused her. Both The Guardian and Greenslade have also apologised.

Fine Gaels leader in the Seanad, Regina Doherty, also called for Mr Rusbridger to go.

Agree with Anthony - Rusbridger will now be the story of everything the commission tries to do. He should consider his own position and the job of work of the commission and step aside.  Regina Doherty (@ReginaDo) March 9, 2021

She tweeted: Rusbridger will now be the story of everything the commission tries to do. He should consider his own position and the job of work of the commission and step aside.

Mr Greenslade recently revealed he had made contributions to the republican newspaper An Phoblacht during the Troubles under the pseudonym George King.

Writing in the British Journalism Review, he confessed to supporting the Republican movement, adding That is not to say, however, that I was not appalled by the carnage.

In a statement on Tuesday, the commission said: The members of the Future of the Media Commission unanimously support the continued membership of Alan Rusbridger on the commission.

We believe that it was important for Alan and The Guardian to apologise to Mairia Cahill, who has exposed important issues of media standards and transparency. These issues will continue to form part of the commissions ongoing work.

The commission was set up by the Government in September to examine the future of the media in Ireland.
Over the last three years, 38 private entities have invested Rs 301.19 crore in farm sector markets, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told the Lok Sabha Tuesday. He was responding to questions on the benefits of farm laws and scope of private investment in farm sector markets.

"As per information available from state governments, a total number of 38 private entities have developed farm sector markets during last three years including current year involving total investment of Rs.301.19 crore (Maharashtra- 18 markets with Rs 88.62 crore, Gujarat- 6 markets with Rs 151.6 crore, Rajasthan- 12 markets with Rs 49.75 crore, and Karnataka- 2 markets with Rs 11.22 crore)," Tomar stated in his reply.

Tomar also mentioned that as per National Commission on Farmers' Report (2006), there should be one market to serve 80 square kilometres whereas presently one regulated market serves 473 square kilometres. This gave rise to the need of attracting more investment in farm sector marketing.

ALSO READ: One-sided, false assertions: India slams UK lawmakers' debate on farmers' stir

"...in order to realise more number of markets in country and to induce competitiveness and efficiency in marketing ecosystem, there is felt need for investment in farm sector marketing. Farm laws aim at promoting agriculture marketing infrastructure and supply chain for efficiently connecting farm gate to markets for benefits of farmers' by encouraging investments," Tomar said.

The Agriculture Minister said that the new farm laws are meant to make agricultural markets more efficient and provide farmers better prices for their produce.

"The new farm laws... are intended to improve the efficiency of agricultural markets in the country by providing an ecosystem where the farmers can enjoy the freedom of choice relating to sale of farmers' produce which facilitates remunerative prices to farmers through competitive alternative channels for selling their produce. These farm Acts facilitate direct buying from farmers in trade area by traders, processors, exporters, farmer producer organisations (FPOs), agriculture co-operative societies, etc., so as to facilitate farmers with better price realisation to enhance their income," Tomar said.

ALSO READ: Govt ready to amend new agri laws, says Agriculture Minister

"Farm laws will accelerate more investment in marketing and value addition infrastructure including that in storage facilities near to farm gate creating more employment opportunities for rural youth. Farm laws provide additional marketing opportunities to farmers for selling their produce outside the APMC market yards such as at farm-gates, cold storages, warehouse, silos, etc. to help farmers get remunerative prices due to additional competition," he further added.

Thousands of farmers, primarily from Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting for almost four months at the borders of Delhi, demanding the repeal of the three farm laws. The government has not been able to resolve the situation even after several rounds of dialogue with the agitating farmer bodies.

ALSO READ: Indian missions have made available facts about farm laws for British govt, civil society, says MEA
Gov. Ron DeSantis says reopening Florida helped the state rebound from coronavirus, while accusing liberal governors and states run by Democrats of being 'invested in lockdowns' that are not supported by science.

DeSantis announced Monday that the state will lower the age for COVID-19 vaccine eligibility from 65 to 60 beginning next week.

Meanwhile, college students partied on the beaches largely without masks meant to prevent the spread of the virus during the annual spring break from classes, which normally runs from late February to mid-April.

The Florida Department of Health said the number of known COVID-19 cases in the state rose by 3,312 Monday, bringing the case count to more than 1.94 million.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says reopening the state has helped with a rebound from coronavirus, as college students from around the country descend on Florida for the annual spring break ritual with little social distancing or mask wearing in sight

People enter Shiloh Baptist Church to receive a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on March 7 in Orlando, Fla.

The event at Shiloh Baptist Church was a one-day outreach to the Black community in the Parramore neighborhood of Orlando, which organizers hoped would result in 600 vaccines for area residents

The age change for vaccine eligibility is expected to take effect March 15, WJXT in Jacksonville reported.

'That will apply across the board at all of the state pods, all of the pharmacies, all of the different drive-thru sites that are being operated,' DeSantis said. 'If you're 60 plus, you will be able to get sign up and be able to get the vaccine.

The age change came as demand for vaccinations from older residents has decreased and the federal sites to receive vaccine doses throughout Florida experience reduced turnout among eligible people.

'I do think that this is the right time to do it. We're starting to see the demand soften,' DeSantis said.

The Republican, who took office in January 2019, discussed his approach to the coronavirus pandemic and how well he believes vaccine distribution is working in the state during an interview with 'Fox & Friends' Monday, Fox News reported.

DeSantis said that if lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus were effective, the number of coronavirus cases in Florida would be significantly worse than in New York.

He added that New York has nearly double the per capita mortality of Florida among those stricken with COVID-19.

'I think that these guys are invested in lockdowns  I get that, the facts don't support it,' DeSantis said. 'Look, if the lockdowns worked then Florida would be way worse than New York and these other states.'

Kim Campbell, a student at the University of Louisville, left, joins friends at Clearwater Beach on March 2. Clearwater, Fla., near Tampa, is a popular spring break destination

The sidewalk and roads were crowded near the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on March 4. College students are in the South Florida area for the annual spring break ritual. City officials have advised people to wear masks if they cannot social distance.

Spring breakers flock to South Beach in Miami on Saturday

People gather on a beach in Miami on Friday. Even with some colleges canceling their mid-semester breaks, students from more than 200 schools are expected to visit Miami Beach during spring break

Large crowds were drawn to outdoor venues along Miami Beach on Saturday

Beachgoers in Miami on Saturday

Restaurants in Florida are 'thriving,' while other states are not allowing restaurants to operate at full capacity, DeSantis said.

People in the state 'really, really appreciate the way Florida's approached [the pandemic],' DeSantis said.

'Our kids are in school. Parents are happy with that. Our economy is growing. People are working. And they were predicting economic doom, particularly for Florida, because we're a tourism base and our tourism isn't bad by any stretch,' he said.

A graphic from the Florida Department of Health show the number of new cases by day, top, and deaths by day, bottom

Florida Department of Health data shows the numbers of people tested for the coronavirus in the last two weeks, as well as the percentage of Florida residents with positive test results

The number of Floridians hospitalized as of Monday for a primary diagnosis of COVID-19 was 3,332, with the state reporting that 81,015 people were hospitalized for treatment at some point, Fox 13 News in Tampa reported.

The number of Florida resident deaths reached 31,764 Monday, an increase of 81 since Sunday, while 585 non-Floridians have died in the state from the virus.

Meanwhile, Miami Beach mayor Dan Gelber has said he is 'very concerned' that the thousands of Spring Breakers who have descended on Florida will lead to COVID-19 outbreaks.

'You know, a lot of things are happening simultaneously. You have the variant down here, and we still are having sometimes dozens of deaths a day in our county.

'And at the same time, we've got incredibly cheap round-trip tickets for 40 bucks from anywhere in the Northeast down here, discounted rooms and people who have been really pent up and wanting to get out with no other place to go than here.

DeSantis said Florida plans to lower the eligibility age for a coronavirus vaccine from 65 to 60 next week

People sit in the observation area after receiving a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Shiloh Baptists Church in Orlando on March 7

'So we are very worried that there's going to be a convergence of people here and a real problem in the aftermath of that.'

On Sunday, a total of 40,340 new infections were reported nationally, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which is a 28 percent decline from the 56,044 cases recorded just two weeks ago.

This is the lowest figure seen since October 5.

What's more, the seven-day rolling average of new cases currently sits at 59,479, a 12 percent decline from the average 14 days earlier, a DailyMail.com analysis shows.

New coronavirus cases in the U.S. also rose at their slowest since the pandemic began nearly one year ago.

By averaging the percentage of daily new cases changes, DailyMail.com found cases rose at an average of 1.1 percent, the smallest percentage gain since January 2020.

In addition, just 669 fatalities were reported on Sunday, the second time since 2021 began that deaths have fallen under 1,000.

It's also the lowest number recorded since November 15.
The "The Cosmetics Industry in South Africa 2021" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report focuses on South Africa's cosmetics industry and includes information on the state of the sector, latest statistics, developments and investment. There are profiles of 90 companies including multinationals such as Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and Reckitt Benckiser, large retailers of cosmetics including Clicks, Dis-Chem Pick n Pay, Shoprite and Woolworths, and industry-focused companies such as Imbalie Beauty

The Cosmetics Industry in South Africa:

Consumer spending patterns are reflecting the economic downturn caused by the impact of the pandemic, with spending focused on essential items. The lockdown has had a significant effect on the industry as frequent handwashing and use of hand sanitisers has resulted in increased use of hand creams and lotions to moisturise the skin. Numerous cosmetics companies have started manufacturing hand sanitisers. Retailers reported increased sales of haircare products when salons were closed, while sales of nail polish and shaving products also grew.

Trends:

Consumer concerns about sustainability and the use of harmful ingredients has led to a growing market for cosmetics formulated with natural ingredients. The number of cosmetics startups has increased, often as a result of black consumer complaints about the lack of products for their skin and hair requirements, leading to the development of new brands. Men are becoming more fashion-conscious, and male-focused grooming products and beauty parlours are increasing. Online sales of products, including cosmetics, have grown significantly since the start of the lockdown.

Global Trends:

Digitalisation, wellness, personalisation and sustainability are some of the important beauty and grooming trends, largely popularised by independent beauty brands and followed by established companies.

These trends have also resulted in mergers and acquisitions as major companies wanted to benefit from the success of independent brands. Throughout the lockdowns people have generally stuck to their normal skin care routine, but sales of make-up have declined due to fewer trips outside the home, and the wearing of masks.

Story continues

Key Topics Covered:

1. INTRODUCTION

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE INDUSTRY

2.1. Industry Value Chain

2.2. Geographic Position

3. SIZE OF THE INDUSTRY

4. STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

4.1. Local

4.1.1. Trade

4.1.2. Corporate Actions

4.1.3. Regulations

4.1.4. Enterprise Development and Social Economic Development

4.2. Continental

4.3. International

5. INFLUENCING FACTORS

5.1. Coronavirus

5.2. Economic Environment

5.3. Health Concerns

5.4. Rising Input Costs

5.5. Social Media and Marketing

5.6. Technology, Research and Development (R&D) and Innovation

5.7. Government Incentives and Support

5.8. Environmental Concerns

5.9. Labour

6. COMPETITION

6.1. Barriers to Entry

7. SWOT ANALYSIS

8. OUTLOOK

9. INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS

10. REFERENCES

10.1. Publications

10.2. Websites

APPENDIX

Summary of Notable players

Company Profiles

Aerosol And Cosmetic Works Cc (The)

Africology (Pty) Ltd

Amka Products (Pty) Ltd

Ascendis Health Ltd

Avon Justine (Pty) Ltd

Avroy Shlain Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Azochem Laboratories (Pty) Ltd

Beiersdorf Consumer Products (Pty) Ltd

Beige Holdings Ltd

Benwood Manufacturing And Packaging Co (Pty) Ltd (The)

Bespoke Amenities Co (Pty) Ltd (The)

Boardman Brothers (Pty) Ltd

Brunational (Pty) Ltd

Cal-Mo (Pty) Ltd

Canway (Pty) Ltd

Cape Town Toiletry Company (Pty) Ltd (The)

Catwalk Cosmetic Laboratories (Pty) Ltd

Cavi Brands (Pty) Ltd

Celltone (Pty) Ltd

Charlotte Rhys Manufacturing (Pty) Ltd

Chick Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Clarins (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Colgate-Palmolive (Pty) Ltd

Corium Skincare (Pty) Ltd

Cosmetix (Pty) Ltd

Cosq Manufacturing Cc

Creighton Products (Pty) Ltd

D And A Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Dis-Chem Pharmacies Ltd

Elizabeth Arden (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Environ Skin Care (Pty) Ltd

Esse Trust (The)

Essel Products Cc

Estee Lauder Companies (Pty) Ltd

Foschini Group Ltd (The)

Galderma Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Givaudan South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Glaxosmithkline South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Godrej South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Henkel South Africa (Pty) Ltd

House Of Aloes (Pty) Ltd (The)

Hubers Cc

Imbalie Beauty Ltd

Indigo Brands (Pty) Ltd

Isabella Garcia International (Pty) Ltd

Islices Manufacturing (Pty) Ltd

Johnson And Johnson (Pty) Ltd

Kalahari Spa (Pty) Ltd

L'oreal Manufacturing Midrand (Pty) Ltd

L'oreal South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Lamelle Research Laboratories Cc

Lee Chem Laboratories (Pty) Ltd

Lisa Smit Enterprises Cc

Lulu And Marula (Pty) Ltd

M3 Cosmetic Labs South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Marico South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Massmart Holdings Ltd

Matsimela Home Spa Cc

Mother Nature Products Cc

Neolife International (Pty) Ltd

New Clicks South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Oh-Lief Natural Products (Pty) Ltd

P And G South African Trading (Pty) Ltd

Palmer's Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Pepkor Holdings Ltd

Pick N Pay Stores Ltd

Premier Fmcg (Pty) Ltd

Prime Product Manufacturing (Pty) Ltd

Pure Beginnings (Pty) Ltd

Rain Africa Innovations (Pty) Ltd

Reckitt Benckiser South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Regima Skin Treatments Cc

Retailability (Pty) Ltd

Revlon South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Rolfe Industrial Holdings (Pty) Ltd

Scent Pac (Pty) Ltd

Serendipity Toiletries (Pty) Ltd

Shoprite Holdings Ltd

Skin Rejuvenation Technologies (Pty) Ltd

Soap Factory Cc (The)

Spa And Salon Solutions Cc

Spar Group Ltd (The)

Sun Factor Laboratories Cc

Takealot Online (Rf) (Pty) Ltd

Tartan Timbers (Pty) Ltd

Tiger Consumer Brands Ltd

Truworths International Ltd

Unilever South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Union-Swiss (Pty) Ltd

Woolworths Holdings Ltd

Companies Mentioned

Aerosol and Cosmetic Works CC (The)

Africology (Pty) Ltd

Amka Products (Pty) Ltd

Ascendis Health Ltd

Avon Justine (Pty) Ltd

Avroy Shlain Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Azochem Laboratories (Pty) Ltd

Beiersdorf Consumer Products (Pty) Ltd

Beige Holdings Ltd

Benwood Manufacturing and Packaging Co (Pty) Ltd (The)

Bespoke Amenities Co (Pty) Ltd (The)

Boardman Brothers (Pty) Ltd

Brunational (Pty) Ltd

Cal-Mo (Pty) Ltd

Canway (Pty) Ltd

Cape Town Toiletry Company (Pty) Ltd (The)

Catwalk Cosmetic Laboratories (Pty) Ltd

CAVI Brands (Pty) Ltd

Celltone (Pty) Ltd

Charlotte Rhys Manufacturing (Pty) Ltd

Chick Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Clarins (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Colgate-Palmolive (Pty) Ltd

Corium Skincare (Pty) Ltd

Cosmetix (Pty) Ltd

CosQ Manufacturing CC

Creighton Products (Pty) Ltd

D and A Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Dis-Chem Pharmacies Ltd

Elizabeth Arden (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Environ Skin Care (Pty) Ltd

Esse Trust (The)

Essel Products CC

Estee Lauder Companies (Pty) Ltd

Foschini Group Ltd (The)

Galderma Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Givaudan South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Glaxosmithkline South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Godrej South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Henkel South Africa (Pty) Ltd

House of Aloes (Pty) Ltd (The)

Hubers CC

Imbalie Beauty Ltd

Indigo Brands (Pty) Ltd

Isabella Garcia International (Pty) Ltd

ISlices Manufacturing (Pty) Ltd

Johnson and Johnson (Pty) Ltd

Kalahari Spa (Pty) Ltd

L'Oreal Manufacturing Midrand (Pty) Ltd

L'Oreal South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Lamelle Research Laboratories CC

Lee Chem Laboratories (Pty) Ltd

Lisa Smit Enterprises CC

Lulu and Marula (Pty) Ltd

M3 Cosmetic Labs South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Marico South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Massmart Holdings Ltd

Matsimela Home Spa CC

Mother Nature Products CC

NeoLife International (Pty) Ltd

New Clicks South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Oh-Lief Natural Products (Pty) Ltd

P and G South African Trading (Pty) Ltd

Palmer's Cosmetics (Pty) Ltd

Pepkor Holdings Ltd

Pick n Pay Stores Ltd

Premier FMCG (Pty) Ltd

Prime Product Manufacturing (Pty) Ltd

Pure Beginnings (Pty) Ltd

Rain Africa Innovations (Pty) Ltd

Reckitt Benckiser South Africa (Pty) Ltd

RegimA Skin Treatments CC

Retailability (Pty) Ltd

Revlon South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Rolfe Industrial Holdings (Pty) Ltd

Scent Pac (Pty) Ltd

Serendipity Toiletries (Pty) Ltd

Shoprite Holdings Ltd

Skin Rejuvenation Technologies (Pty) Ltd

Soap Factory CC (The)

Spa and Salon Solutions CC

SPAR Group Ltd (The)

Sun Factor Laboratories CC

Takealot Online (RF) (Pty) Ltd

Tartan Timbers (Pty) Ltd

Tiger Consumer Brands Ltd

Truworths International Ltd

Unilever South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Union-Swiss (Pty) Ltd

Woolworths Holdings Ltd

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/5ey91r

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005583/en/

Contacts

ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900
The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV.
A judge in Kentucky has signed an order permanently closing a criminal case against Breonna Taylor's boyfriend, who shot a police officer during the deadly raid that killed Taylor.

Prosecutors dismissed an attempted murder of a police officer charge against Kenneth L. Walker in May, about two months after Taylor's death. But prosecutors left open the opportunity to revisit the charge against Walker if new evidence surfaced.

Taylor, 26, was fatally shot by police who burst through her door with a narcotics warrant on March 13, 2020. She and Walker had settled in for the night when police arrived and knocked down the door. Walker said he thought an intruder was breaking in and he fired a single shot that struck an officer in the leg.

Kenneth Walker is shown in an undated photo with Breonna Taylor

Walker and Taylor were at home when police busted through the door on a narcotics warrant

Attorney Benjamin Crump, left, holds up the hand of Walker during a rally on the steps of the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., June 25, 2020

A motion from Walker's attorney asking for the permanent dismissal said Walker 'acted in self-defense and that he did not know that police were on the other side of the door.'

Jefferson Circuit Judge Olu Stevens' order on Monday dismissed the 2020 indictment against Walker with prejudice, meaning it can't be reconsidered.

The officer who was shot, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, recovered from the leg wound and remains on the Louisville police department.

Taylor's killing sparked widespread protests and led to the firings of two Louisville police detectives: Myles Cosgrove, who shot Taylor, and Joshua Jaynes, who sought the warrant for the botched drug raid.

An investigation found Jaynes violated procedures for preparation of a search warrant and truthfulness.

Detectives Joshua Jaynes (left) and Myles Cosgrove (right) were fired in connection to Breonna Taylor's fatal shooting on March 13

Body camera footage from police shows Walker on the night of the shooting

Walker shot Lt. Jonathan Mattingly, who remains on the force

Cosgrove, who the FBI concluded had fired the bullet that claimed Taylor's life, was found to have violated the department's use of force policy and failing to use a body camera, according to the publication.

Jaynes was not present during the shooting at Taylor's apartment in Louisville, but was responsible for securing the 'no-knock' search warrant from a judge 12 hours before the raid.

The warrant had become the subject of controversy following the shooting, raising questions as to why officers had targeted Taylor's home despite her not being involved in their drug investigation.

Jaynes's termination letter stated: 'These are extreme violations of our policies, which endangered others.

'Your actions have brought discredit upon yourself and the department. Your conduct has severely damaged the image our department has established within our community.

The officers were serving a search warrant as part of a narcotics investigation on March 13 when they shot Taylor, but no drugs or cash were found in her home.

A person holds a sign calling for 'Justice for Breonna' at a rally on Sept. 23, 2020 in Chicago

People protest in response to Taylor's death in Louisville, Kentucky on Sept. 24, 2020

Louisville Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly in October of last year filed a lawsuit against Walker, accusing him of assault, battery and emotional distress.

Mattingly has blamed Walker for Taylor's death because the officers 'returned fire' after he was shot in the leg.

'Every piece of evidence from when they falsely arrested and indicted him a year ago up till today prove that Kenny acted in self defense and was immune from prosecution,' Walker's attorney, Steve Romines, said in a statement. 'Yet he was framed and charged to cover up Breonna's killing. This is but a first step.'
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 30 giorni fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Market Research Future Published a Half Cooked Research Report on Global Potash Ore Market.

Market Overview:

Potash ore is used in a wide range of applications that play an important role in developing fruits, plants, vegetables, and others. Owing to these factors, they are used in the heavy end industries such as agriculture, chemical, metallurgical, and others. The global potash ore market is spanned across five regions of the world namely Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Among these, North America holds the major share of the global market and is projected to continue leading, owing to the increasing consumption of the product in agriculture, chemical, metallurgical, and others. It is estimated that the agriculture segment is set to observe the highest CAGR in the market due to growing use of the product in the production of fertilizers, and others. The increasing demand for the product in chemical and metallurgical sectors have propelled the market to witness a rapid growth during the forecast period. These factors led the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to be the leading players in this region.

Get a Free Sample of This Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/821

The Asia Pacific market is expected to grow at a higher CAGR due to extensive consumption of the product in end-use industries such as agriculture, chemical, metallurgical, and others. The growing demand for hygienic food and changing lifestyles is projected to fuel the market in the coming years. China, Japan, and India have achieved a significant stage in the market due to rising per capita income and high disposable income in the end-use industries. Therefore, the growing demand for the product in end-use sectors is estimated to drive the market during the forecast period.

A notable development is achieved in Europe due to the growing demand for organic food, in hotels and restaurants. Potash ore is used for the production of fertilizers, and other chemical compounds. Moreover, the growing innovation and technological advancement have propelled the market to witness a higher growth. Owing to these factors, countries such as Germany, the U.K., and Italy are the major contributors to this market.

A considerable development is predicted in the Latin American region such as in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina due to growing production capacity and demand for potash ore in agriculture industries. Moreover, a rapid development is estimated in the Middle East & African region such as Qatar, the U.A.E, and others due to extensive use of the product in major industries.

Some Of The Well-Known Players Operating In The Global Potash Ore Market Are: EuroChem (Switzerland), Intrepid Potash, Inc. (U.S.), Uralkali (Russia), Mining Associates (India), Nutrien Ltd (Canada), JSC Belaruskali (Belarus), K+S KALI GmbH (Germany), ICL (Israel), Kore Potash Limited (Australia), and Encanto Potash Corp. (EPO) (Canada) among others.

Access Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/potash-ore-market-821

Segmentation:

The global potash ore market is segmented into the source and application. On the basis of the source, the market is segregated into potassium chloride, sodium chloride, and others. On the basis of application, the market is bifurcated into agriculture, chemical, metallurgical, and others.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton has torn into the Democrats Covid-19 relief plan for possibly providing stimulus payments to prisoners  even after voting for similar measures under Donald Trump.

Claiming on Fox & Friends that he and other Republicans were happy to work with Democrats to come up with a targeted relief bill, the Arkansas senator railed against the plan  which is now expected to pass the House of Representatives and then head to Joe Bidens desk  for sending payments of up to $1,400 to those people who have actually been hurt by the pandemic.

Look how crazy some of the Democratic ideas are. They had a chance on Saturday morning to stop checks from going to prisoners, from going to the Boston bomber for instance, and on that vote, they declined. Every single Democrat wanted to continue the practice of sending checks to prisoners.

They had a chance to turn down money for sanctuary cities and sanctuary states, that was my amendment. Again, they turned that down. They had a chance to stop money from going to schools that are closed  it just goes to show how radical their ideas are.

As was pointed out by a CNN fact check, incarcerated people were also given money under the two Covid relief bills passed during the Trump administration  both of which Mr Cotton voted for.

The senator, who has called the latest relief bill a partisan slush fund, is a harsh critic of many Democratic policies, particularly on immigration and criminal justice, as well as various plans designed to encourage racial and gender equity.

His views on immigration made him a key congressional ally in the early part of the Trump administration, in particular when he co-sponsored legislation that would have effectively halved the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country while capping the number of refugees accepted. Known as the RAISE bill, it was reintroduced in the last Congress, but to no avail.

With Mr Trumps plans for 2024 still unclear and his erratic behaviour scrambling the GOPs fundraising plans, Mr Cottons presidential ambitions are as yet unknown, but he is widely thought to be seriously considering a run for the White House next time around  and his cultivation of issues like immigration and criminal justice would clearly be a good fit with the pro-Trump base.

Co-sponsoring Mr Cotton on the reintroduced RAISE bill in 2019 was another Trumpist and potential 2024 candidate: Josh Hawley, the Missouri Senator who together with Ted Cruz opposed the certification of Joe Bidens election even after violent insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol while Congress was in session. The bill ultimately went nowhere, but both men can now say they had their names on it.

Mr Cotton was also behind an incendiary New York Times op-ed in which he called for the army to be sent in to quash anti-racism protests. The publication of the piece led to a reckoning at the paper, with many of the opinion sections staff saying that by running it, the paper was putting its own Black employees in danger  and the sections editor, James Bennet, ultimately resigned over the incident.
The author says that, in 2021, the smize is one of the only ways we can show warmth to the folks with whom we rub socially distant shoulders in our communities.
Sex education is more than a 10-minute conversation Spot on, Jenna Price (A way to improve sex ed for kids, March 9). Few of we parents feel pleased with the way we handled the conversation with our children of sex, respect and consent. The home, once considered the rightful place to instil moral values, has failed miserably. While we might feel reassured that our schools fill in the gaps of our failed communication skills, this is clearly not the case, as the media has shown in the past few weeks. Our society needs to up the message and keep reinforcing it. If ethics classes were compulsory in all our schools, every child would be subject to ongoing advice and discussion about moral values, such as respect for the opposite sex and sexual consent. A one-off 10-minute lecture on sex ed never was and never is good enough.

Christine Shale, Warrawee Prices call for more focus on the role of humour and pleasure in sex is one critical key to improving the education of our children and their sexual behaviour as adults. Equally vital will be transcending the current polarising ideology of our sexual conversations, where any expressed concerns at all about behavioural agency and consequence are screeched ferociously down as victim blaming.

If, as I wholeheartedly agree, we need to be allowed to talk plainly to our kids about the infinite pleasures of sex, then we need to be allowed to talk no less plainly about the risks of getting so drunk that you need the young man youve only just met to wash the vomit off you in his shower, or you wake up unable to remember if you even asked the young woman lying next to you if it was okay to have sex, let alone whether she ever said yes.

Jack Robertson, Birchgrove Price is on the money when she says parents and other adults need sex education to help them talk to children about it. I spent five years touring NSW training youth, health and education workers to engage with young people about their sexual health.

Recent conversations about consent have reminded me that the first hurdle for many of those well-meaning adults was to abandon shame and stop using the threat of sexual assault and sexually transmitted infection to control young peoples behaviour. The focus must be on the safety and wellbeing of young people, whether they choose to be sexually active or not. Colin Stokes, Camperdown Im staggered at Price reminding us that we were, in a way, at it before our marriages. Dont include me and many of my peers; myself now happily married for 51 years. In my school years in the 1950s and early 60s if all this was happening around me, then it must have totally passed me by. Am I the worse because of that? No, I dont think so. John Boutagy, Mosman

Its hard to pity the royal couple Can you believe those two (Tattle royale rocks the monarchy, March 9)? Young and beautiful, living a tragic life in the middle of royalty with so much money, luxury and adoration? Was Meghan under a rock before she married Harry? Did she know nothing about the media? While not trying to minimise the problems they had settling in, all they had to do was shut up, suck it up and do a few useful things and, eventually, the media would have got the message and given them a fair go. Sue Milliken, Queens Park At a time when mental health issues have gained prominence, and we are urged to ask, Are you OK?, your opinion piece was unnecessarily cruel (Markle debacle is a top-rating drama, March 9). Harry and Meghan may or may not have been wise to appear on Oprah, but Meghans life amid the royals deserves scrutiny and accountability. Australians need to know that someone among the royals is concerned about skin colour: its called racism. Christine McNeil, Ballina I am not a monarchist but I look forward to the Queen quietly and gracefully putting this whole money-making show into perspective. Gloria Healey, Neutral Bay So many similarities to the Diana saga; change and moving with the times are foreign in the royals thinking and behaviour. Christine Perrott, Armidale

Describing the results of their public venting as bombshells or a raging bonfire implies that their statements are true. I think a fair few pinches of salt should be taken by all. Judy Hungerford, North Curl Curl After watching some of the interview I feel I can never sit through another royal wedding again without wondering if it is genuine or not. I am left asking myself just what is it Meghan wants out of life. She has a loving and loyal husband as well as a beautiful son with a daughter on the way. In a short time, they have managed to rid themselves of annoying royal duties and supposedly difficult extended family members, to the point of living as far away as possible. Perhaps they could stay out of the limelight which feeds the media they both say they hate. Ruth McMahon, Wahroonga And there I was thinking that Id have to go to the hairdresser to read about that interview. Genevieve Milton Newtown Why, dear me, does this country tolerate the royal family? Grow up. Jim Martin, Narooma TAFE taught apprenticeships

It is welcome news the Morrison government is starting to tackle youth unemployment by increasing its wage subsidy scheme for employers to hire new apprentices (Business gets $1.2b in for youth job push, March 9). But while one hand gives, the other takes away. The Morrison government has significantly cut funding to TAFE NSW, a major source of vocational education, and in 2014-15 and 2018-19 failed to spend nearly $1 billion budgeted for a series of TAFE apprenticeships. Graeme Prince, Hurlstone Park Proof of priorities Surely we now have proof that the NSW Coalition has found the secret of growing money on trees (Treasurer to examine $235m icare products, March 9). Proof also that it tops the charts for demonstrating how well a very senior state government minister has sidestepped the essential business of ensuring public accountability for a key portfolio responsibility. Unfortunately, the long term costs of all this are far greater than the figures exposed in budget estimates. Not only is the mismanagement of icare directly affecting the livelihoods of thousands of NSW workers, it also impacts the mental wellbeing of the many thousands more who support family members caught up in icares failure to focus and deliver on client-centred priorities. Sue Dyer, Downer (ACT) Dominic Perrottet promises us a fulsome answer to the question of why icare paid a labour hire firm $235 million. Did he use the adjective fulsome deliberately, aware of the ambiguity in both its meanings: being excessively complimentary or flattering, or being large in size or quantity; generous or abundant? What we require is a full and clear answer. There has been too much excess and ambiguity already. Margaret Rose, Forestville

Goodbye Blinky Bill Up to 75 per cent of koalas are on private land, but Rob Stokes and John Barilaro have decided farmers and forestry will be exempt from the koala protection policy (Nats and Liberals agree on koala policy compromise March 9). This essentially guarantees the extinction of the koala species, while protecting a breed of politician that puts money, vested interests, and self-preservation ahead of the pubic good and ahead of the rights of a species to exist. Marie Healy, Hurlstone Park Gladys Berejiklian will be remembered as the Premier who oversaw the demise of the koala in NSW. Denise Woods, Orange Slow on the uptake How could it take five long weeks of deplorable violence for the Australian government to make the momentous decision to suspend foreign aid and military cooperation with the illegitimate regime of Myanmar (Hopes fall for swift release of economist, March 9)? Lorraine Hickey, Green Point

Quiet commitments The Abbott Governments legacy of slashing foreign aid and reversing many climate initiatives early in its term has had lasting impacts, including the label of a laggard on climate action and foreign aid increases (The rise in foreign aid largely secret to Australians, March 9). Thankfully, our aid generosity is making a comeback, albeit on the quiet, because apparently most people dont support an increase despite the need and sense it makes.

As for action on climate change, the difference is that the majority of the public and private sector are very vocal in their calls for greater action from the Morrison Government. Perhaps the Prime Minister is hoping the dissenters among his own Coalition colleagues wont notice when he quietly commits to a net zero emissions target by 2050 at the Glasgow climate conference later this year. We live in hope. Maree Nutt, Newport Schools of thought When I moved from Sydney to a position in Brisbane many years back I was constantly asked what school I had attended (Letters, March 9). Initially I would respond Punchbowl Boys High School, which was always greeted with a sniff and a change of subject. I eventually solved the upturned lip by saying I attended The Punchbowl School. Its all in the title and the delivery. Alan Egan, Paddington (QLD) Being interviewed for my first full time job in 1982, I wasnt asked which school I attended. Instead, the man in charge asked what my husband did for a living. Sharon McGuinness, Thirroul
UPDATE, 4:30 p.m. March 9, 2021: This story has been updated with a statement from the Fraternal Order of Police.

KENT COUNTY, MI  A police officer involved in a shooting incident last summer is facing three charges, two of them felonies, the Michigan attorney general announced Tuesday.

Police Officer Jason Diaz has been charged with one count of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, which is a 10-year felony, and one count of misconduct by a public official, a five-year felony, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced March 9.

He also faces a two-year misdemeanor charge of careless discharge of a weapon causing injury.

Diaz was employed by the Lowell Police Department at the time of the incident.

Diaz was involved in a high-speed vehicle chase on Aug. 29, 2020, in Kent and Ionia counties when he allegedly shot a passenger in the head, according to a press release from Nessels office.

His actions violated both the law and the Lowell Police Departments policy, according to the Attorney Generals office.

Diaz was arraigned Tuesday in Ionia County District Court, with bond set at 10 percent of $50,000.

Nessel noted that since she took office in 2018, she has been committed to investigating officer-involved shootings.

Following the shooting last year, the officer was placed on paid administrative leave while the Ionia County Sheriffs Office investigated, the Lowell city manager said in a press release issued after the shooting.

A statement provided by the City of Lowell indicated Diaz no longer works for the department. However, a press release from the Michigan Fraternal Order of Police states that Diaz was cleared of wrongdoing after an investigation and resumed patrol duties for the department several weeks ago.

Lowell Police Chief Chris Hurst could not be reached for comment.

In our judicial system, everyone enters with the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise in a court of law, said Mary Ann Sabo, a spokesperson for the city, in a prepared statement. Although this individual is not currently employed by the city, pending the outcome of the case, he could reapply for a position in the department or with the city.

RELATED: Officer fires shots at stolen vehicle after 100 mph chase through Lowell, police say

When MLive contacted Sabo to confirm the officers current status with the city, she said he had resigned after being on administrative leave.

The Fraternal Order of Police is providing a criminal defense attorney, in this case Marc Curtis of Muskegon, to vigorously defend Diaz, the union stated in its press release.

Officer Jason Diaz, like thousands of other officers go to work every day in Michigan to protect the public and stop crime, the press release states. The work they do is hard and requires them to make split second decisions, whereas others get the luxury to second guess them for months and even years.

A press release issued by the city of Lowell in the hours following the incident gave this accounting of what happened:

The police officer, who was on patrol in downtown Lowell, noticed a vehicle driving with high-beam headlights around 2 a.m. Aug. 29. The officer flashed his lights to alert the driver, who did not dim their lights in response.

After he noticed the vehicle did not have a license plate, the officer turned on his lights in an attempt to pull over the suspect vehicle. The vehicle did not stop, accelerating away at speeds topping 100 mph.

The suspect vehicle, later determined to be stolen, eventually pulled over on a dirt road in Ionia Countys Boston Township. After the officer got out of his vehicle to approach the suspects, the driver reversed their vehicle and drove directly at the officer.

The officer responded by firing shots at the vehicle and the suspects vehicle hit the patrol car before fleeing the scene. It eventually was found abandoned in a ditch.

Using a drone, law enforcement agencies located six suspects who were taken into custody, though one later was released, Lowell City Manager Michael Burns told MLive at the time.

One suspect was treated for a minor gunshot injury in the arm, and a second suspect was treated for an abrasion on their forehead, officials said at the time.

Also on MLive:

Additional explosive devices found at Michigan home after homemade bomb injures six at school

Grand Rapids zoo to kick off 2021 season in March

Black activists: Dont compare the Capitol attack to Black Lives Matters protests
Zelensky says people must learn to tell truth from fake.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said media literacy classes should appear in the Ukrainian school curriculum.

"Each of us must learn important skills in the modern world. We all wash our hands and throw away garbage, we don't eat spoiled food. Also, every time we pick up the phone, turn on the computer, tablet or TV set, we must turn on critical thinking. Tell the truth from fakes, truth from lies, evade information garbage. Read beyond headlines. Doubt is very important. Verify any information using several sources, look for the original source, and keep your head cool," he said at the all-Ukrainian forum "Ukraine 30. Culture, media, tourism" in Kyiv, an UNIAN correspondent reported.

Read alsoUkraine about to launch Center for Countering Disinformation  ZelenskyAccording to Zelensky, all citizens should be able to do this from childhood.

"Therefore, media literacy classes should appear in our school curriculum. And those who have long graduated from school, our parents, grandparents, we must teach them information hygiene, what 'fakes' mean and what's propaganda," the president added.

Reporting by UNIAN
Humans are endlessly fascinated by death. Everyone wants to know what, if anything, awaits on the Other Side.

The latest probing of this subject comes from psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, whose just-published book is called, simply, After.

The volumes arrival is as good a reason as any to look back at one of the more unusual experiments ever conducted in Oregon. Heres the studys abstract in its entirety:

Twelve animals (one ram, seven ewes, three lambs and one goat) were studied. At the moment of death an unexplained weight gain transient of 18 to 780 grams for 1 to 6 seconds was observed with seven adult sheep but not with the lambs or goat. The transients occurred in a quiet time at the moment of death when all breathing and movement had ceased. These transient gains are anomalous in that there is no compensating weight loss as required by Newtons Third Law. There was no permanent weight change at death. Dynamic weight measurements may present a fruitful area of investigation.

The 2001 study, by Lewis E. Hollander, Jr., is titled Unexplained Weight Gain Transients at the Moment of Death. It attempted to build upon the work of the late Massachusetts physician Duncan Macdougall.

The goal of Macdougalls original work 100 years earlier: to prove that the soul existed.

Macdougalls ambitious objective turned on the commonplace belief that there is a soul and that it leaves the body at the time of death. He figured that, while the soul surely is a will-o-the-wisp, in the modern age it must be detectable.

That is, he decided to weigh it.

The doctor, working at the beginning of the 20th century, put a dying tuberculosis patient on a commercial scale and closely monitored the mans last breaths, figuring a sudden loss of weight at the moment of death would be the result of the soul lifting into the ether.

On an old gravestone in a Michigan cemetery, a hand pointing towards heaven shows a common attitude about afterlife.

Macdougalls Patient 1, resting on an E. & T. Fairbanks scale, reached his end in April 1901. When the man died, sure enough, the scale reportedly quivered, dropping three-fourths of an ounce.

Which is, yes, twenty-one grams, wrote Mary Roach in her 2005 bestseller Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Hollywood metricized their reference to the event for the simple reason that 21 Grams sounds better. Whos going to go see a movie called Point Seven Five Ounces?

(21 Grams is a ruminative, stunned look at life after death -- that is, the existence of the living after they have been devastated by loss; its the aftermath, The New York Times wrote when the Sean Penn movie was released in 2003.)

Hollywoods decades-later reinterpretation notwithstanding, Macdougall deemed the experiment a success. Hed documented the soul leaving the body.

Not surprisingly, the physician received copious criticism of his experiment, but he held firm, beating back arguments that the 21 grams surely were the result of whats called insensible fluid loss. He went on to redo the experiment on a handful of other humans, and later on dogs.

Macdougalls dubious work captured the imagination of various scientists and wannabe scientists over the years. A few of them took up his soul-weighing experiment, using ever more sophisticated equipment. One of them, in 2000, was Lewis Hollander, a retired physicist living in southern Oregon.

Back to Roach:

[Hollander] rigged a seven-by-three-foot platform to a Toledo model 8132 electronic digital indicator, a quartet of load cells and a computer. His subjects were eight sheep, three lambs and a goat, all of which were sedated and then euthanized, and all of which, he assures us, were headed in that direction anyway. The animals were wrapped in plastic to, as he put it, contain any voiding. This was important because (a) voided material might drip off the weighing surface, creating a spurious weight loss, and (b) you try getting sheep urine out of your load cells.

But the result of this experiment proved truly unexpected.

The sheep -- though not the lambs or the goat -- gained weight at death for a few seconds. One gained as much as 780 grams. Hollander called this baffling gain an anomalous transient.

He published his results in 2001 in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a journal that focuses on work that is ignored or studied inadequately within mainstream science.

Hollanders experiment sounds about as fringe as fringe science gets, but Japanese engineering professor Masayoshi Ishida took the research seriously enough to test it via computer model and then produce his own study, A New Experimental Approach to Weight Change Experiments at the Moment of Death with a Review of Lewis E. Hollanders Experiments on Sheep. It was published, also in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, in 2009.

Ishida wrote that the transient gain of weight for one or more of the sheep was likely a glitch of some sort. It is doubtful whether the weighing system (primarily the four load cells) functioned normally, he wrote.

He added that the studys overall result, however, remains to be explained.

What did Hollander himself think of his experiment? When asked about the sheeps weight gain at death, he said:

I havent the faintest idea.

But he does believe it has something to do with the Great Beyond.

I think that at the moment of death that little window opens up, he said. I think that maybe were all connected to something bigger than we are.

-- Douglas Perry

dperry@oregonian.com

@douglasmperry
The Peace Education Program proved so beneficial at shelters that the Johannesburg Department of Social Development's report concluded that it should be expanded across all sections of society. Evaluations like this show how this powerful workshop series effectively sparks hope and inner strength even in difficult circumstances.

After designating the Peace Education Program as one of the essential services needed to help people cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Johannesburg Department of Social Development discovered glowing results. The departments independent evaluation found that the majority of participants experienced a paradigm shift in their value system from anger, self-pity and low self-esteem to enhanced self-awareness, tolerance, love, inner peace, contentment and self-reliance.

The study was conducted with participants living in emergency homeless shelters due to the COVID-19 crisis, but department officials concluded that the Peace Education Program would benefit diverse groups far beyond this population. Identifying the program as a valuable tool in advancing tolerance and peaceful co-existence throughout South Africa, the evaluation calls for making the program available throughout all sections of society, especially in the public school system.

The program has already been successfully offered at a range of schools, correctional facilities, and other settings, but the evaluation recommends budgetary allocations and increased partnerships for a major expansion throughout the country to build off the existing success.

The report includes several testimonials from participants to demonstrate the personal transformation that the course empowers. I have learned that I am the one who can change my life, and that I must not drag bad thoughts and emotions of the past to my life, and that I must not dwell on stuff I cannot control, says one of them. Another comments, You are a human being; I am a human being. You have every right to be alive. You respect my right; I respect your right. Who can make this a better world? We can.

Statistical Highlights of the Peace Education Program evaluation:



95% of participants reported benefits including enhanced self-awareness, tolerance, love, inner peace, contentment and self-reliance.

The understanding that peace was possible in participants lives increased from 30% to over 85%.

The understanding that participants have inner strengths that can help them in their lives rose from 40% to 80%.

The recognition of the importance of inner dignity increased from 50% to 90%.

The results mirror a growing body of evidence of the programs success around the world.

A comprehensive recent study found that 89 percent of 604 incarcerated participants in four continents benefited by helping them feel empowered to face past events, gain a willingness to change, better manage their anger and avoid fighting. Another analysis of 365 diverse participants in a variety of settings across the world found that the program grew the number of people who believed that feeling peace was possible in their lives from 42 percent to nearly 100 percent.

More studies will be released this year that evaluate success in additional settings, including schools.

Thank you to the Johannesburg Department of Social Development and all of our partners who are working with us at The Prem Rawat Foundation to make this wellbeing program available to more people, says Willow Baker, Peace Education Program Director. Evaluations like this show how this powerful workshop series effectively sparks hope and inner strength even in difficult circumstances.

The Peace Education Program workshops can be offered in person, virtually, or on inmate tablets by GTL and Edovo. The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) makes the workshop materials available free of charge.

The Peace Education Program is just one of the ways that TPRF advances dignity, peace and prosperity by addressing fundamental human needs.

TPRF has provided more than $300,000 in funds for COVID-19 relief projects throughout the world in the last year, including an initiative to feed parolees and other disadvantaged people in Johannesburg.

Read all of the Peace Education Program studies and learn more about The Prem Rawat Foundation.
The Duchess of Sussex has been accused of implying that there was a suggestion her son Archie could not be a prince because of the possible colour of his skin.

Royal biographer Hugo Vickers also said Meghan Markle had misleadingly claimed in her interview that there was a discussion about whether the boy could take the title.

The 69-year-old expert insisted that there 'can have been no such discussion' about the matter because the rules on who can become a prince are 'absolutely clear cut.'

Mr Vickers spoke out after Meghan described her concern for Archie during her interview with Oprah Winfrey, first shown on CBS in the US on Sunday evening.

She also accused an unnamed member of the Royal Family of racism, claiming Prince Harry was asked by a close relative 'how dark' their unborn baby would be.

Mr Vickers told BBC Two's Newsnight last night: 'I think one of the problems with Prince Harry is that when he was a very little boy, he saw his mother (Diana) - and I understand this - as a victim, and he was too small and too young to protect her.

Royal biographer Hugo Vickers spoke about the interview on BBC's Newsnight last night

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan hold Archie in Cape Town while visiting in September 2019

'So of course when Meghan Markle said that she was a victim, he immediately leapt to her defence. I'm not quite sure that she was a victim in the same sort of way.

'And can I just take this opportunity to clear up one really serious thing that she said which was actually very misleading.

Why Archie didn't have a birthright to be a prince but could become one in future Archie did not have a birthright to be a prince, but could potentially become one when Charles accedes to the throne. That William and Kate's children have the HRH title and are styled as prince and princesses - and Archie is not - stems from a ruling more than 100 years ago. In 1917, King George V issued a written order that only royal offspring who are in the direct line of succession could be made a prince and receive HRH titles. The Letters Patent read: '...the grandchildren of the sons of any such sovereign in the direct male line (save only the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) shall have and enjoy in all occasions the style and title enjoyed by the children of dukes of these our realms.' Under the rules, only Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge's eldest son Prince George - as a great-grandson of the monarch down the direct line of succession to the throne - was originally entitled to be a prince. The Queen stepped in ahead of George's birth in 2013 to issue a Letters Patent to ensure all George's siblings - as the children of future monarch William - would have fitting titles, meaning they were extended to Charles and Louis. Under the George V rules, Archie would be entitled to be an HRH or a prince when his grandfather Charles, the Prince of Wales, accedes to the throne. Advertisement

'She said there was a discussion about whether Archie would be a prince or not. There can have been no such discussion.

'I could bore you to death on exactly who is a prince and who isn't, but it's absolutely clear cut. And that is how she led into that whole issue (about racism).

'She was almost saying... slight implication that he couldn't be a prince because of the possible colour of his skin, which is a bit naughty I think.'

During the interview Meghan insisted she held no attachment to the 'grandeur' of official titles until she discovered it meant Archie would not get his own security detail unless he was a prince.

Meghan said: 'We knew I was pregnant. We now know it's Archie, and it was a boy. We didn't know any of that at the time. We can just talk about it as Archie now. And that was when they were saying they didn't want him to be a prince or a princess - not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol - and that he wasn't going to receive security.'

Asked by Oprah how this worked, Meghan added: 'It's like, 'No, no, no, look - because if he's not going to be a prince,' it's like, okay, well, he needs to be safe, so we're not saying 'Don't make him a prince or a princess'-- whatever it's going to be.

'But if you're saying the title is what's going to affect their protection, we haven't created this monster machine around us in terms of clickbait and tabloid fodder. You've allowed that to happen, which means our son needs to be safe.'

Oprah also asked her: 'Was him being called a prince, Archie, being called a prince, was that important to you?'

She replied: 'If it meant he was going to be safe, then, of course. All the grandeur surrounding this stuff is an attachment that I don't personally have, right?

'I've been a waitress, an actress, a princess, a duchess. I've always just still been Meghan, right? So, for me, I'm clear on who I am, independent of all that stuff.

'And the most important title I will ever have is 'Mom.' I know that. But the idea of our son not being safe, and also the idea of the first member of colour in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be.'

The Duchess also said: 'And so, I think even with that convention I'm talking about, while I was pregnant, they said they want to change the convention for Archie.'

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's interview with Oprah Winfrey was first shown on CBS

Oprah said she had heard that it was Meghan and Harry who did not want Archie to have a prince title, but the Duchess said this was not true and it's 'not our decision to make'.

Oprah also said: 'You certainly must have had some conversations with Harry about it and have your own suspicions as to why they didn't want to make Archie a prince.

'What are those thoughts? Why do you think that is? Do you think it's because of his race? And I know that's a loaded question, but..'

Meghan sighed and said: 'In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time.... so we have in tandem the conversation of 'He won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title,' and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born.'

The claims over the comment by the unnamed royal about skin colour were among the most astonishing allegations made during the interview.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex introduce their son Archie at Windsor Castle in May 2019

And royal author Penny Junor told the Sun: 'It is hugely damaging for the Royal Family, for Britain and for everybody, especially by not naming anyone.'

But the Duchess's claims that Archie wasn't going to receive security were met with bafflement by palace insiders yesterday.

One described the logic as 'ridiculous', saying it had always been made very clear that as long as Harry was a member of the royals, his wife and children would be covered by the royal protection squad.

It is understood a great effort was made to get Meghan a female personal protection officer after she noted both Camilla and Kate had one, although eventually the woman officer only remained in post for about six months.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle confirmed they are expecting a girl. Chris Jackson/Pool/Getty Images

Photographer Misan Harriman shared a new family photo of Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and Archie.

Harriman congratulated the couple after they shared the news that they're expecting a baby girl.

For the photo, Markle wore a $395 dress from the female-founded brand La Ligne.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry celebrated the news that they are expecting a baby girl by sharing a new family photo on International Women's Day.

On Monday, photographer Misan Harriman posted the black-and-white photo of Harry, Markle, and Archie on Instagram.

"What wonderful news to celebrate on International Women's Day! Congratulations my friends, and welcome to the #girldad club H," Harriman captioned the picture.

In the photo, Markle is seen holding Archie while Harry stands behind her with his arms around the two of them.

This is the second photo Markle and Harry have shared since announcing she's pregnant again. Misan Harriman

Markle and Harry revealed they're expecting a baby girl during their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired on CBS on Sunday. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have not announced an expected due date, although they said the baby girl is due in the "summertime."

"To have any child, any one or any two would've been amazing, but to have a boy and then a girl - what more could you ask for?" Harry told Oprah. "Now we've got our family. We've got the four of us, our two dogs."

When Winfrey asked, "Two is it?" Markle and Harry responded, "Two is it."

Markle wore a dress from a female-founded brand for the maternity shoot

Markle wore a $395 dress from La Ligne that was sold out at the time of writing. The patterned dress is designed with puff sleeves, though Markle wore them off her shoulders for a more relaxed feel.

La Ligne was founded by former Vogue editors Meredith Melling, Valerie Macaulay, as well as Rag & Bone's former head of business development, Molly Howard.

The dress retails for $395 and is available in two colors: sage and poppy. La Ligne

The maxi dress is not the first meaningful maternity outfit Markle has worn in recent weeks.

Story continues

To announce her second pregnancy, Markle wore a Carolina Herrera dress that was designed for her while she was pregnant with her son Archie.

The brand's creative director, Wes Gordon, told The Telegraph that Markle's look also sent an important message about sustainability.

"The number one thing someone can do for sustainability is hold on to those pieces you buy and use them for a longer amount of time," he told the publication. "That's why I think what Meghan did is such a powerful message. She wore a dress that's no less beautiful, because it's two years old ... it makes her feel no less special or no less happy."

Read the original article on Insider
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 04:41:38|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, March 8 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemns two reported attacks, the Saudi Arabia airstrikes in Yemen and the Houthi Yemeni rebels drone and missile hits in Saudi Arabia, a UN spokesman said on Monday.

"It is really quite simple," said Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for Guterres. "Such actions are detrimental to the mediation efforts being carried out by our special envoy, Martin Griffiths, who will continue to work with all parties to advance the political process to reach a negotiated settlement to end the conflict."

"We urge all parties to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law," he said during a regular press briefing.

The spokesman said the condemnation was for multiple drone and ballistic missile attacks reportedly carried out Sunday against various Saudi Arabia sites by the Houthis who claimed responsibility. They also call themselves Ansar Allah.

"We also are concerned about Saudi-led coalition airstrikes reportedly carried out yesterday (Sunday) on Sana'a and Hodeidah, apparently in response to the initial attacks," he said. Enditem
The Alabama Senate will discuss a bill to allow a lottery and five new casinos today but wont vote on the legislation today, Senate Rules Chairman Jabo Waggoner said this morning.

Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, said some lawmakers are not ready to vote on the bill by Sen. Del Marsh, R-Anniston. He said the Senate might vote on it Thursday.

Marsh had said last week he would present a revised bill after talks over the weekend with the governors office, House members, and others.

Gov. Kay Iveys press secretary, Gina Maiola, said Monday the governor believed the bill needed more work.

Today, the governor issued a statement again saying more work is needing but that she wants to see the bill advance.

Early this morning, I had a good meeting with Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed and House Speaker Mac McCutcheon regarding the gaming bill, and I am pleased with the progress that is being made, Ivey said. For weeks, I have worked closely with Senator Marsh and others on this legislation which could be transformative if done right. While I believe more work needs to be done, moving the bill through the legislative process is a vital next step. My commitment remains the same: to let the people of Alabama have the final say on a good bill that, once and for all, addresses a long-standing challenge that has faced our state.

Marshs bill is a proposed constitutional amendment. If senators and representatives approve the legislation, it would go to the voters for a final decision on whether to expand gambling in Alabama.

Constitutional amendments do not require the governors approval to go on the ballot, so Ivey does not have a direct role. But Marsh has said Iveys support is important.

This story will be updated.
The alleged plan was foiled by gardai in an operation in Cavan on Sunday following a long-running surveillance operation. (Niall Carson/PA)

Two men from Northern Ireland have been arrested by detectives investigating an armed crime gang suspected of planning to abduct a businessman.

The alleged plan was foiled by gardai in an operation in Cavan on Sunday following a long-running surveillance operation.

Seven suspects, including five foreign nationals, were arrested after detectives stopped four cars and seized three weapons as well as balaclavas and phones.

Two of the arrested men have addresses in Northern Ireland - one is a 27-year-old from Co Tyrone while the other is a 24-year-old from Belfast who has been investigated previously over threats to kill.

It has been learned the gang was targeting businessman and previous Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) target Roger O'Grady (36) as part of a suspected extortion plot. The Cavan-based car dealer previously handed over around 100,000 (85,715) worth of cash and vehicles after the Bureau took a proceeds of crime case against him.

In 2012 the High Court in Dublin ordered that the assets be disposed of. These included a red Ferrari F355 car, sold for 41,900 (35,900), and a Robinson R22 helicopter for 15,000 (12,900).

The court heard the businessman, with addresses in Roscommon and Cavan, was alleged to have submitted fraudulent claims to the Irish taxman.

Gardai are now probing if a gang planned to abduct Mr O'Grady in a blackmail plot before they were arrested. It is also being investigated if the money was being sought by the people arrested, or if they were hired by another organised crime gang to carry out the foiled abduction.

Detectives had the crime network under surveillance before they made the arrests in the Bawnboy area of Co Cavan.

Three semi-automatic weapons, ammunition, balaclavas and mobile phones were seized during the arrest operation.

The other five suspects are understood to be foreign nationals, including two brothers from Albania, as well as men from Romania and Poland aged between 31 and 41.

They have address in west Dublin and Drogheda, and one of the men was previously at the centre of an investigation into an alleged assault and false imprisonment at a business in the capital. All seven men were arrested on suspicion of extortion and blackmail offences.
People watch as a convoy of soldiers and policemen arrive with bulldozers to remove makeshift barricades made by anti-coup protesters in Mandalay, Myanmar, Tuesday, March 9, 2021. AP-Yonhap



Demonstrators in Myanmar's biggest city came out Monday night for their first mass protests in defiance of an 8 p.m. curfew, seeking to show support for an estimated 200 students trapped by security forces in a small area of one neighborhood.



The students and other civilians earlier took part in one of the many daily protests across the country against the military's seizure of power last month that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.



The military government also placed a major curb on media coverage of the crisis. It announced that the licenses of five local media outlets  Mizzima, DVB, Khit Thit Media, Myanmar Now and 7Day News  have been canceled.



''These media companies are no longer allowed to broadcast or write or give information by using any kind of media platform or using any media technology,'' it said on state broadcaster MRTV.



All five had been offering extensive coverage of the protests, often with livestreaming video online. The offices of Myanmar Now were raided by the authorities Monday before the measure was announced.



DVB said it was not surprised by the cancellation and would continue broadcasting on satellite TV and online.





Protesters stand behind a barricade at Sanchaung district in Yangon, Myanmar, March 8, 2021. REUTERS-Yonhap



''We worry for the safety of our reporters and our staff, but in the current uprising, the whole country has become the citizens' journalists and there is no way for military authorities to shut the information flow,'' Executive Director Aye Chan Naing told The Associated Press.



The government has detained dozens of journalists since the coup, including a Myanmar Now reporter and Thein Zaw of AP, both of whom have been charged under a public order law that carried a penalty of up to three years in prison.



The night's street protests began after police cordoned off part of Yangon's Sanchaung neighborhood and were believed to be conducting door-to-door searches for those who fled attacks by security forces to seek shelter in the homes of sympathetic strangers.



News of their plight spread quickly on social media, and people poured into the streets in neighborhoods all over the city to show solidarity and in hopes of drawing some of the pressure off the hunted protesters. On some streets, they constructed makeshift barricades with whatever was at hand.



In the Insein district, they spread across road junctions, singing songs, chanting pro-democracy slogans and banging objects together.



The diplomatic missions of the United States, Britain, Canada and the European Union all issued statements urging the security forces to allow the trapped people to return safely to their homes. Although all have been sharply critical of the Feb. 1 coup and police violence, it is unusual for such diplomatic statements to be issued in connection with a specific, ongoing incident.





Demonstrators flash the three-finger salute and hold placards during a protest against the military coup in Sittaung River, Leway Township in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 9, 2021. EPA-Yonhap



''There is heightened tension caused by security forces surrounding Kyun Taw Road in Sanchaung Township, Yangon. We call on those security forces to withdraw and allow people to go home safely,'' said the U.S. Embassy's statement.



Reports on social media citing witnesses said as many as 50 people were arrested overnight in Sanchaung and other parts of the city, but many of those who had been hiding were able to leave safely at dawn Tuesday, a few hours after police abandoned their search.



On Monday night, security forces chased crowds, harassed residents watching from windows, and fired stun grenades. They also were some reports of injuries from rubber bullets.



U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was following developments in the Sanchaung district where ''many of those trapped are women, who were peacefully marching in commemoration of International Women's Day,'' U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.



''He calls for maximum restraint and urges for the safe release of all without violence or arrests,'' Dujarric said, and for respect of the rights to freedom of assembly and expression for peaceful demonstrators voicing ''their hopes and desires for the future of their country.''



Guterres also called the occupation of a number of public hospitals in Myanmar by security forces ''completely unacceptable,'' the U.N. spokesman said.



The nighttime hours have become increasingly dangerous in Myanmar. Police and army units routinely range through neighborhoods, shooting randomly to intimidate residents and disrupt their sleep, and making targeted arrests.





Police stand after they seized Sanchaung district in search of anti-coup demonstrators in Yangon, Myanmar, March 8, 2021. REUTERS-Yonhap



Security forces shot and killed two people in northern Myanmar during the day, local media reported.



The Irrawaddy online newspaper said the victims were shot in the head during anti-coup protests in Myitkyina in Kachin State. Graphic video on social media showed protesters backing away from tear gas, responding with rocks and then fleeing after a fusillade of what seemed to be automatic gunfire.



Demonstrators hurriedly carried away the injured, including one apparent fatality, a person with a severe head wound. A second body was seen later on a stretcher, his head covered with a cloth.



Another shooting death took place in Pyapon, a city about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Yangon.



To date, the government's violent crackdown has left more than 50 protesters dead. At least 18 people were fatally shot Feb. 28 and 38 on Wednesday, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.



Security forces also clamped down on anti-coup protesters elsewhere Monday, firing tear gas to break up a crowd of about 1,000 people demonstrating in Pyinmana, a satellite town of the capital, Naypyitaw. The protesters deployed fire extinguishers to create a smokescreen as they fled from authorities.





A police vehicle drives past after they seized Sanchaung district in search of anti-coup demonstrators in Yangon, Myanmar, March 8, 2021. REUTERS-Yonhap

(Natural News) Johnson & Johnsons (J&J) rushed-to-market Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine was recently granted emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which means there is now a third Big Pharma contender vying for a piece of the Chinese virus fear pie. Not everyone is excited about the new jab, though, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Several higher-ups at the Roman Catholic religious organization issued a statement denouncing J&Js experimental injection because it contains ingredients derived from human babies that were murdered in their mothers wombs. Instead, the USCCB is urging congregants who want to get jabbed for Chinese germs to instead opt for either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, both of which supposedly do not contain ingredients made from aborted fetal remnants.

If one has the ability to choose a vaccine, Pfizer or Modernas vaccines should be chosen over Johnson & Johnsons, say Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., both of whom are chairs at the USCCB.

The two bishops stopped short of telling American Catholics to avoid the J&J jab altogether, though. They are simply urging congregants to take one of the messenger RNA shots, if possible, instead of the J&J shot. (Related: You can learn more about what mRNA vaccines do at this link.)

We should oppose authorizing or funding research rooted in the taking of innocent human life, added Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). That does not mean, though, that people must shun medical treatments that can save lives because they were discovered through means of which we would not necessarily approve.

Late last year, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary head Al Mohler urged Southern Baptists to take a Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine because doing so, he suggested, is a way for Christians to love thy neighbor.

Pressing against disease and viruses is part of our mandate, Mohler wrote in a lengthy piece that blatantly took the Bible out of context and misappropriated the words of Jesus to push the plandemic agenda. Medical treatment is an extension of Gods common grace and Christians have always understood this.

Pope Francis says coronavirus vaccines made from abortions are morally acceptable

The Vaticans official Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, meanwhile, has decided that when ethically irreproachable COVID-19 vaccines are not available, it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.

The aborted baby cell line used in J&Js Wuhan flu vaccine is known as PER.C6. It originated in an 18-week-old baby that was murdered back in 1985. These types of fetal cell lines can be used as miniature factories to generate vast quantities of adenoviruses  that are used as vehicles to ferry genes from the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19), according to a June 2020 article published in Science.

As it turns out, both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna China virus vaccines were made using human fetal cells. In their case, however, these fetal cells were only used during the testing phase of the jabs to determine their efficacy.

While neither vaccine is completely free from any connection to morally compromised cell lines, the bishops added, in this case the connection is very remote from the initial evil of the abortion.

An exception among other Catholic leaders, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Tex., says he opposes the use of any Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) that was made using aborted fetal tissue, which includes all of them.

The latest news about the Chinese virus can be found at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

WHYY.org

SCPR.org

Science.news

NaturalNews.com
National Vaccination Plan

Meanwhile, Phase II aims to reduce severe morbidity and mortality in the population at greatest risk, such as: people with comorbidity, members of native or indigenous communities, National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) personnel, and inmates.

Finally, Phase III is expected to reduce the transmission of the infection within the community and generate herd immunity. During this stage, people aged between 18 and 59 will be vaccinated.

Cientos de profesionales de la salud de hospitales de Lima Metropolitana empezaron a recibir hoy la segunda dosis de la vacuna contra la COVID-19. El Minsa desplego brigadas de vacunadores para aplicar el reforzamiento a la primera linea frente a la pandemia. #PongoElHombro ???? pic.twitter.com/t8dusThLIo
Womens History Month: 7 Christian denominations that voted to allow female ordination

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

The question of whether women should be ordained as clergy has been a subject of much theological debate in Christian circles for generations.

Many prominent churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and the Southern Baptist Convention do not permit the ordination of women.

However, many other churches have, over time, come to allow women to become pastors, priests, bishops and even the leaders of their respective denominations.

Here are seven notable United States-based Christian denominations that have voted to allow the ordination of women. They include mainline Protestant denominations and the largest Pentecostal church in the country.
Gas prices are displayed at a 7-11 gas station across from the Shell refinery in Martinez, Calif., on March 3, 2021. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Gas Price Surge Fueled by Supply Squeeze, But Biden Policies Could Drive Them Higher: Experts

While experts say the current gas price spike is mostly driven by demand recovering faster than the winter storm-squeezed supply, others warn hostile White House policies are likely to drive them even higher in the long term.

The average price per gallon in the United States as of Tuesday morning was $2.82, up 34 cents from a month ago, according to Gas Buddy, with experts widely believing consumers should brace for more pain at the pump.

The national gas price average will likely hit $3 by Memorial Day and stay around that price for the majority of the summer, Jay R. Young, Chief Executive Officer at King Operating Corporation, a Dallas-based oil and gas operator, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

Young explained the rising gas price story as resurgent demand combined with squeezed supply.

Gasoline demand rose to the highest level last week since the pandemic began as cases are dropping and more Americans are getting out more and filling up, Young said.

Federal data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show gas prices have mostly risen steadily since they bottomed out in early May 2020, around the peak of the lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The reopening that followed into the summer months roughly tracked with rising prices at the pump, which tapered off and even dropped slightly into the fall as a second wave drove case counts higher.

But with the vaccine rollout underway and continued reopening, demand continues to expand.

US gasoline demand rose 4.3 [percent] on Sunday vs the prior Sunday, or 18.4 [percent] above the rolling four week average for Sunday, wrote Patrick De Haan, a Gas Buddy analyst, in a tweet Monday.

At the same time, production cant keep up.

On the supply side, the number of active oil rigs in the U.S. is standing nearly 50 percent lower than this time one year ago, Young said, arguing that the most direct impact on the current price hike is coming from Februarys winter storm that took 26 refineries offline in the United States.

Further squeezing supply is the fact that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Thursday agreed not to increase the level of oil production through April, with the exception of Russia and Kazakhstan. Last April, OPEC agreed to cut 10 million barrels per day of oil production in a bid to stave off an oil price collapse in the face of the pandemic-driven demand drop-off.

Demand is recovering much faster than oil production level, which is why oil prices continue to increase rapidly, Young said.

Depending on which side of oil youre on, you either hate it or love it, Young added, commenting on the OPEC decision not to raise production. Investors are happy, but come summertime at the pump, consumers should be prepared to pay extra premiums.

Storage tanks at the Marathon Petroleum Corp. refinery in Detroit, on April 21, 2020. (Paul Sancya/AP Photo)

Oil prices hit above $65 per barrel intraday Tuesday, the highest in a year.

In the long term, we could see prices between $70-80 per barrel by 3Q this year, Young predicted.

But some, like former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, worry that President Joe Bidens policies may drive prices even higher.

Hofmeister confirmed in an interview on Fox Business on Thursday that the supply squeeze was having the most direct, short-term impact on gas prices.

But theres something else thats going on thats more subtle, he said, namely that the industry, the producers, are practicing serious capital discipline and theyre not roaring back to produce more oil. And also, theyre getting squeezed by the administration, he said.

So the ban on leasingthe prohibition on new leases from the Biden administrationthats going to create a psychology in the industry of, Theres going to be less available, and the psychology drives the pricing as well, he argued.

As long as we see this hostile administration, were going to have a problem with prices, Hofmeister added.

De Haan said in a tweet Thursday that Bidens policieswhich include canceling the Keystone XL pipeline project and imposing a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal land and waterswere not having an impact on prices in the near term, but posed an increased risk in the longer term.

Unlike state owned oil companies, Biden has no say to cut or raise production, its purely market based, he wrote. Also, pipelines dont produce oil, and there is plenty of capacity. And last, no oil company is looking for new leases, so thats not an impact either. Will be down road.

Crude oil futures, a predictor of future prices, show a slow but steady drop from the April 2021 price of $64.34 per barrel through $62.25 in September, down to $58.72 in April 2022, suggesting that after a gas price peak in spring, consumers will see gradual relief.
Twitter isn't happy that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the company after it banned former President Trump. CBS News reports Twitter has sued Paxton in federal court, alleging the AG is violating the First Amendment by trying to punish the social network for exercising free speech rights over the content it hosts. Paxton was using the "full weight" of his position as retaliation over editorial choices he didn't like, Twitter's attorneys said.

Paxton himself had claimed Twitter's ban "chills free speech" and accused multiple tech giants of a "seemingly coordinated deplatforming" of Trump following the Capitol riot. He echoed frequent conservative beliefs that Twitter, Facebook, Google and others are breaking the spirit of the First Amendment with an alleged bias against right-wing views. These sites should be treated as public spaces and forced to carry any otherwise legal content, according to these beliefs.

Twitter may have a solid case, however. As a private company, Twitter is within its rights to determine what it does and doesn't publish. It might also point to a long history of refusing to ban Trump despite repeated violations of its policies, instead relying on labels or limitations on specific tweets. This wasn't a company that rushed to ban a dissenting view, in other words.

Paxton's office hadn't formally commented as we wrote this, but it wouldn't be surprising if he fought hard to protect the investigation. It could rally political supporters at a time when Paxton himself is facing scandals, such as accusations of bribery and abuse of office. A successful probe could also lead to punitive actions against Twitter, such as fines or an order to reinstate Trump's account.
Kolkata/New Delhi, March 9 : A day after nine people, including three railway official, one RPF personnel died in a fire incident in Kolkata railway office, the Ministry on Tuesday said that it has ordered a high-level probe.

Railway Ministry spokesperson D.J. Narain said, "A four member probe team headed by Jaideep Gupta, Principal Chief Safety Officer with three other heads of Departments has been nominated for the inquiry into the fire incident." Narain said that the probe team have been asked to carry out and complete the probe as early as possible -- within three weeks. West Bengal goes to polls on March 27 in eight phases till April 29. Election results are expected by May 2.

He said, other members on the probe team are A.N. Mishra, Principal Chief Security Commissioner, V. B. Vishwakarma, Principal Chief Electrical Engineer and Ajay Kumar, Principal Chief Signals and Telecommunications Engineer.

At least nine people were killed in the major fire that broke out on the 13th floor of a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata's Strand Road area on Monday at 6 p.m.

Railway Protection Force (RPF) and other Railway staff immediately rushed to the spot and along with the fire brigade were able to bring the blaze under control by 11.00 p.m.

During the course of rescue operation, one Railway staff Utpal Acharya, working as SSE/Con/S&T/NKG suffered injuries and admitted to B R Singh Hospital in Sealdah.

"But, unfortunately the Railway lost one officer and one staff alongwith some fire brigade and police personnel. Paratha Sarathi Mandal, posted as Deputy Chief Commercial manager/Database and S. Sahani, Constable of RPF lost their lives," Eastern Railway spokesperson Kamal Deo Das said.

Eastern Railway condoled the death of Railway officials and other officers & staff of State Government who sacrificed their lives.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had also reached the spot late night.

Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal condoled the death of the railway personnel and in a series of tweets said, "I salute the bravery of three Railway personnel, including RPF Constable Sanjay Sahni, Dy Chief Commercial Manager Partha Sarathi Mondal and Senior Technician Sudip Das, along with five firefighters and a police ASI, who laid down their lives to stop fire at Eastern Railways Strand road office, Kolkata." "Their valour and selflessness has set a shining example for fellow citizens. Deepest condolences to the families of the courageous souls. My thoughts are with them in this hour of grief. Om Shanti." Railway officials including the General Manager were at the site, this information was shared by Goyal in a late night tweet.

He also said: "All possible assistance has been provided by the Railways to the State Govt during this unfortunate fire accident. A high level inquiry consisting of four Principal heads of Railway departments has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the fire." Earlier on Tuesday, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) condoled the death on Twitter and said: "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each from PMNRF for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the tragic fire in Kolkata. Rs 50,000 would be given to those seriously injured."
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Sanjay said that ruling party nominee Rajeswar Reddy was given a party ticket just because he carries files between the government and KCR.  DC file photo

KOTHAGUDEM: Bharatiya Janata Party state president Bandi Sanjay said that the people of Telangana have come to the conclusion that the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is working to increase his wealth but not for the welfare of the poor.

He was here on Monday for the election campaign of party candidate G Premender Reddy. He said that TRS ministers and MLAs, worried over the defeat in graduate constituency elections, are making false statements against BJP. The TRS government should come clear on the unemployment allowance that has been promised.

Our activists will not go back just because false cases were being filed against them. There is no place for TRS in Kothagudem, he said.

He said that ruling party nominee Rajeswar Reddy was given a party ticket just because he carries files between the government and KCR. He said that all voters are aware of Pallas pairavis.

TRS should be held responsible for the murder of the advocate-couple. He bemoaned that they were having photos of Rao even in central schemes. There is every chance that he will go to jail for his corruption, the BJP leader said.

There is no difference between the despotic administration of Nizam and KCR. Unemployed youth and government employees are all furious with the state government. BJP will defeat TRS in the elections'', he said.

Sanjay said that BJP is extending its support to Podu farmers and the government should solve their problems. None can stop Premender Reddys win, he said.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, say goodbye to law and order Joe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
RESTON, Va., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- ASRC Federal Field Services has been awarded the Vance Base Operating Support Services contract supporting the 71st Flying Training Wing located at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma. The contract is valued at approximately $457 million and has a base period of one year, followed by four one-year option periods, with a possibility of two additional one-year incentive option periods.

The ASRC Federal Field Services team will provide operations and maintenance services including communications, information technology, publishing management, installation management, inventory and supply management, as well as transportation, fire and emergency services.

"We are privileged to continue supporting base operations services at Vance Air Force Base - furthering our commitment to the U.S. Air Force and its critical missions," said Jennifer Felix, ASRC Federal president and CEO. "Every day, our skilled and dedicated team works to maintain vital base operations and create a safe training environment for the professional airmen. It is an honor to be trusted with this work."

The 71st Flying Training Wing, part of Air Education and Training Command (AETC), has a mission to develop professional airmen, deliver world class pilots and deploy combat ready warriors.

About ASRC Federal

ASRC Federal comprises a family of companies (including ASRC Federal Field Services) that deliver digital operations and IT modernization, software, applications and analytics, engineering solutions, professional services, and infrastructure operations to U.S. civil, defense and intelligence agencies. Our employees are committed to achieving successful mission outcomes and providing enduring value. ASRC Federal is a wholly owned subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. For more information, please visit: www.asrcfederal.com

Contact:

Aubrey Mellos

[email protected]

SOURCE ASRC Federal Holding Company

Related Links

http://www.asrcfederal.com


A manhunt has been launched after a firebug set a petrol bowser alight in the middle of the night before fleeing the scene.

Police said set fire to a pump after walking into a petrol station forecourt on the Maroondah Highway in the far north-eastern Melbourne suburb of Croydon North just after 4am on February 7.

Detectives were told he lifted the fuel pump from the bowser before igniting the residual fuel in the handle with a cigarette lighter.

He then dropped the pump and fled on foot heading east on Maroondah Highway.

Victoria Police on Wednesday released CCTV of a man who they believe may be able to assist them with their enquiries.

The footage showed the blonde-haired man crossing the empty forecourt at 4.05am that morning.

He is described as being about 183cm tall with blonde hair with a medium build and aged in his late 40s to early 50s.

He was also wearing a blue jacket, black pants and black shoes.

Maroondah CIU Detective Senior Constable Justin Hunter said it was lucky no-one suffered any serious injuries.

Police have released CCTV of a man they want to speak to after a petrol bowser was set alight in Melbourne on February 7

'This behaviour could have caused catastrophic injuries to not only to the male involved, but to property and people who were nearby at the time,' he said.

'We are keen to speak to anyone who may be able to assist with identifying this man as part of our ongoing investigation.'

Anyone who recognises the man is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Funeral Announcements A daily list of current funeral annoucements as heard on KXRA 1490 AM/100.3 FM

News Updates The daily news, sports, and events delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.



Sports Update This current sports headlines delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.

Upcoming Events This email is the events of the area delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.

Breaking News The big news. Sent only as it happens.
RESTON, Va. (AP)  Cyber sleuths have already blamed China for a hack that exposed tens of thousands of servers running Microsoft's Exchange email program to potential hacks. The CEO of a prominent cybersecurity firm says it now seems clear China also unleashed an indiscriminate, automated second wave of hacking that opened the way for ransomware and other cyberattacks.

The second wave, which began Feb. 26, is highly uncharacteristic of Beijing's elite cyber spies and far exceeds the norms of espionage, said Kevin Mandia of FireEye. In its massive scale it diverges radically from the highly targeted nature of the original hack, which was detected in January.

You never want to see a modern nation like China that has an offense capability  that they usually control with discipline  suddenly hit potentially a hundred thousand systems, Mandia said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Mandia said his company assesses based on the forensics that two groups of Chinese state-backed hackers  in an explosion of automated seeding  installed backdoors known as web shells on an as-yet undetermined number of systems. Experts fear a large number could easily be exploited for second-stage infections of ransomware by criminals, who also use automation to identify and infect targets.

Across the globe, cybersecurity teams are scrambling to identify and shore up hacked systems. The National Governors Association sent a rare alert to governors on Tuesday asking them amplify both the severity of the threat and the next steps local governments, businesses and operators of critical infrastructure should take.

David Kennedy, CEO of the cybersecurity firm TrustedSec, tweeted Tuesday that resource-demanding programs that mine cryptocurrencies were being installed on some compromised Exchange servers.

The White House has called the overall hack an active threat, but so far has not urged tough action against China or differentiated between the two waves  at least not publicly. Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security offered comment on whether they attribute the second wave to China.

Story continues

The assessment of Mandia, who has been dealing with Chinese state-backed hackers since 1995 and has long had the ear of presidents and prime ministers, squares with that of Dmitri Alperovitch, former chief technical officer of CrowdStrike, the other cybersecurity powerhouse in the Washington, D.C., area. Alperovitch says China needs to be immediately put on notice: Shut down those web shell implants and limit collateral.

The explosion of automated backdoor-creating hacks began five days before Microsoft issued a patch for the vulnerabilities first detected in late January by the cybersecurity firm Volexity. It had found evidence of the vulnerabilities being used as far back as Jan. 3 by Chinese state-backed hackers, who researchers say targeted think tanks, universities, defense contractors, law firms and infectious-disease research centers.

Suddenly, all manner of organizations that run email servers were infected with web shells associated with known Chinese groups, who  knowing the patch was imminent  rushed to hit everything they could, said Mandia.

They could sense it was going to end-of-life soon, so they just went wild. They machine gun-fired down the stretch, he said in an interview in FireEye's offices.

It's possible the second infection wave was not approved at the highest levels of China's government," Mandia said.

This doesnt feel consistent with what they normally do, he said. A lot of times theres a disconnect between senior leadership and front-line folks. All I can tell you is it was surprising to me to see four zero days wantonly exploited," adding, "If you could be exploited by this act, for the most part, you were.

Zero days are vulnerabilities that hackers discover and use to pry open secret doors in software. Their name derives from the countdown to patching that begins after they are deployed. In this case, it took Microsoft 28 days to produce a patch once it was notified.

Mandia cautioned that the mass hack is not apt to trigger any critical infrastructure failures or cost lives. "It's not going to draw blood. But it highlights how there are no rules of engagement in cyberspace, something governments urgently need to address before something catastrophic happens.

Asked for comment on Monday about allegations it was behind the hack, the Chinese Embassy in Washington pointed to remarks last week from Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin saying that China firmly opposes and combats cyber attacks and cyber theft in all forms. He said attribution of cyberattacks should be based on evidence and not groundless accusations.

Mandia compared the Exchange hack with the SolarWinds hacking campaign that Washington has blamed on elite Russian intelligence agents that his company discovered in December.

The SolarWinds attack was very surreptitious, very stealthy, very focused. The operator showed restraint and they went deep not wide, said Mandia, who appeared in multiple Capitol Hill hearings on SolarWinds. "This attack (Exchange) feels very wide, but what I dont have an answer to yet is just how deep it is.

U.S. officials say at least nine federal agencies and over 100 private sector targets were affected by the SolarWinds campaign, named after the Texas company whose network management software was used to seed malware to more than 18,000 customers. Only a small number were hacked during the campaign, which went eight months without being detected.

Mandia said Russian intelligence operatives had manually penetrated the networks of between 60 and 100 different victims. Security researchers say telecommunications and software companies and think tanks were especially hard hit.

___

Bajak reported from Boston. AP writer Alan Suderman contributed to this report from Richmond, Virginia.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
The terrifying moment three Melbourne 'bikies' dive for cover from a hail of bullets launched from a black SUV in a quiet street has been captured on dashcam footage.

A black Mitsubishi ASX SUV was seen accelerating up Washington Street, in the north Melbourne suburb of Dallas, at 7pm on October 27.

Three men are moments later seen running for their lives as they are captured on a nearby car's dashcam.

Somehow nobody was injured in the brazen shooting.

In this image released by Victoria Police from a dashcam, a man is seen leaning on a car while talking around 7pm on October 27, unaware of what is about to happen, as a black SUV is seen menacingly turning into Washington Street, Dallas

'An unknown male passenger in the Mitsubishi discharged a firearm at the group before the vehicle fled at a fast rate of speed,' Victoria Police said in a statement.

The stolen SUV was later recovered after being set alight at Thomastown East, about 10km east.

The men seen running from the shooting are understood to be potentially linked to bikie gangs, with anti-bikie detectives leading the investigation.

Police released the footage in a call for witnesses, especially a woman seen walking nearby.

Two seconds later three men had to run for their lives when a gunman began shooting from the same speeding Mitsubishi ASX

Police released stills of the front and back of the black Mitsubishi ASX captured as it sped past and fired at the three men

'Investigators are keen to identify a female witness who can be seen walking along Doy Street as the incident unfolded,' the police statement said.

'Anyone who was in the area and may have witnessed or have dashcam footage of a black Mitsubishi ASX driving erratically is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.'

Victoria Police also want to hear from anyone who may know about a another vehicle shown in a second set of footage released at the same time.

A second set of CCTV footage released by police shows a silver Mazda 3 at Thomastown East Reserve, Melbourne, just before and after the Mitsubishi SUV was set on fire on October 27

Police supplied images of the wanted car, seen at Thomastown East Reserve, Melbourne

'Detectives have also released CCTV of a vehicle of interest, believed to be a silver coloured Mazda 3, that was seen entering and leaving the Thomastown East Reserve shortly before and after the Mitsubishi was set on fire,' a police statement said.

'It is believed the Mazda may have sustained damage to its front and undercarriage when fleeing the scene.'

Police confirmed that as of Tuesday morning no arrests had yet been made.
It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
Cabinet Secretary for Interior Fred Matiangi has proposed that prisons in Nairobi be moved out of the city.

According to the CS, correctional facilities such as Kamiti Maximum Prison, Langata Womens Prison, and Industrial Area Prison should be moved to Kitale or Bomet.

He also suggested Nairobi West Prison and Shimo La Tewa be relocated from the city.

Why should we have prisons in the middle of the city when we could use that prime land to develop and increase amenities of the city? Matiangi posed.

The CS spoke during the launch of the National Land Commissions 2021/2026 strategic plan on Friday in Nairobi.

The land commission developed the plan to guide it on land disputes, conflict resolution, land use planning, registration of titles as well as sustainable management and use of natural resources, and institutional strengthening.

The commission seeks Sh20 billion to make the plan operational.

This is to ensure land use planning forms the basis of all decision making going forward, said Alex Mburi, the Lands and Physical Planning CAS.
The Deputy District Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) at Nabdam in the Upper East Region, Mr Dominic Kulkong, has been shot dead and his motorbike taken in a robbery incident at the Pelungu market.



The incident occurred on Saturday, February 27, when three armed men carried out a robbery operation at the market where the NADMO deputy director, had reportedly gone with another person on motorbike to transact business around a Mobile Money outlet.



The Public Affairs Officer at the Upper East Regional Police Command, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mr David Fianko-Okyere, who confirmed the incident to the Daily Graphic at Bolgatanga last Friday, said that the deceased, 31, together with another man were on a motorbike when one of the suspected robbers ordered them to turn off the motorbike engine and lie on the ground, but when the deceased attempted to flee the scene with the bike, the robbers shot him dead.



Incident



ASP Fianko-Okyere explained that at about 7 p.m. on that day, the police received a call that a robbery incident had taken place at the Pelungu market.



The robbers, who were using an unregistered motorbike for their operation, allegedly attacked a mobile money shop and a mobile phone dealership in the area both owned by a teacher.



A police patrol team proceeded to the Pelungu crime scene but the robbers had fled the scene. The robbers were said to have made away with 10 assorted mobile phones and a cash of GH750.



Operation



ASP Fianko-Okyere said the robbers had gone to the mobile money vending shop under the pretext of withdrawing an amount of GH3,000. However, sensing danger the vendor told the robbers he did not have the amount in his wallet for them and would contact another vendor to transfer the amount to him.



Pre Order Ghana Year Book 2021

The robbers agreed and waited for the money. Unknown to them the vendor used an exit door and escaped while leaving the robbers behind.



When the vendor got home, his neighbours informed him that some young men had come looking for him.



He knew they must be the robbers and so he asked his children to lock all the doors to the house and he left. On his way out he met the robbers heading to his house to look for him but they could not identify him.



Having failed to get the vendor at home, the robbers returned to the mobile money shop and a short while later the two unsuspecting customers, one of them who was the deceased, came to the shop to transact business.



Robbers shoot



Without provocation, the three robbers ordered Mr Kulkong and the man with him to turn off their engine and lie on the ground, but while the other man obeyed, the deceased refused and decided to move away.



Unfortunately, as he got on the bike one of the robbers pulled out a gun and shot him in the back killing him instantly.



The body of the deceased had since been released to the family for burial.





Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
" " In his short, 39-year lifetime, Frederic Chopin wrote two concertos, four ballades, 24 etudes, 57 mazurkas and many other pieces of music, including sonatas, waltzes, nocturnes, etudes and scherzos. Photos.com-Getty Images/ZU_09-Getty Images/Howstuffworks

Writer Ted Libby may have said it best in his 2010 NPR article celebrating 200 years of the musical genius Frederic Chopin. Libby argues that no one before or since Chopin has contributed as many significant piano works and writes that Chopin's impact on other musicians is "entirely out of proportion to the number of concerts he gave  only 30 public performances in 30 years of concertizing." In his surprisingly short career, Chopin managed to leave a lasting mark on the classical genre and the music world at large.

Born on March 1, 1810, in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen, who went on to be known as Frederic Chopin, developed an early ear for music. His parents, Justyna Krzyzanowska and Nicholas Szopen, moved to Warsaw soon after their son's birth when Nicholas found a job as a tutor for aristocratic families. By age 6, Chopin was already playing the piano and toying with composition, so his parents jumped at the opportunity to hone his early talent. They hired professional musician Wojciech Zywny to provide their young son piano lessons, but Chopin quickly outgrew the kid-level classes.

"The education Chopin received in Poland included composition lessons, literature, mathematics, science, instruction in six languages, logic, philosophy, geography and more," Roza Kostrzewska Yoder, artistic director of Los Angeles piano studio, Chopin Academy, writes via email. "It served as a basis for his entire life."

Advertisement

Chopin Debuts in Vienna at 19

By the time he was 8 years old, Chopin was fully writing his own compositions and performing for audiences in salons. By age 16, he had several original piano compositions of varying styles under belt, and his parents enrolled him in the Warsaw Conservatory of Music. After three years there, studying under Polish composer Josef Elsner, Chopin moved on again, thanks to his parents' recognition of his unique mastery and talent. In 1929, he made his debut in Vienna, and over the next few years, played for audiences throughout Poland, Austria and Germany. In 1832, he found a new home in Paris, France.

"The Chopin we know wouldn't have been if not for the superb upbringing of family, the high level of education he received from his insightful teachers, the influence of his friends and the general political and intellectual atmosphere in Poland before he left his home for Paris at the age of 19," Yoder says. "Franz Liszt said, 'the atmosphere in which Chopin saw the light of day and was brought up, like a secure and cozy nest, was filled with a sense of harmony, tranquility, and hard work; those examples of simplicity, piety and delicacy were always the most sweet and dear to him.'"

In addition to Liszt, Chopin became close with other young composers, including Vincenzo Bellini and Felix Mendelssohn, but he soon discovered Parisian audiences weren't always prepared for his more delicate piano stylings since artists like Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven had reigned supreme prior to his debut. But soon, Chopin crossed paths with a wealthy banking family known as the Rothschilds, and new opportunities emerged as they introduced him to Paris' high society as a well-mannered and sensitive recitalist and teacher. It was during this point in his career that Chopin penned some of his most famous piano works including the "Ballade in G Minor," the "Fantaisie-Impromptu," "Nocturne of Op. 9" and "Nocturne of Op. 15," the "Scherzo in B-flat Minor, Op. 31" and the "Sonata in B-flat Minor, Op. 35."

" " This imposing monument to Frederic Chopin, designed in 1918 by sculptor Waclaw Szymanowski (1859-1930), stands in the upper part of Warsaw's Royal Baths Park. Jacek Kadaj/Getty Images

"Chopin's music was based on a classical tradition of composition and he always pledged his allegiance to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and others," Yoder says. "Often (as with his scherzos and sonatas), he adopted classical forms and poured into them a new spirit. His understanding of the fluidity of tempo in rubato, his sensitivity to the beauty of the sound in cantabile, his revolutionary approach to a technique based on naturalness and flexibility, and his aesthetics based on the honesty of sharing deep feelings characterizes his unique style and makes him a pioneer of new pianistic idiom."

A quick and general breakdown of Chopin's varying genres: He composed ballades (single-movement piano pieces), sonatas (solo pieces usually written in three or four movements), mazurkas (Polish folk pieces), waltzes (dance music in triple meter, often written in 3/4 time), nocturnes (composition inspired by the night), etudes (short compositions to demonstrate the skill of a player), scherzos (light, playful compositions), and many, many more styles.

"My favorite pieces by Chopin (and most likely his as well) are the mazurkas," Yoder says. "He wrote two concertos, four ballades, twenty-four etudes, but fifty-seven mazurkas. They were written by him throughout his life as a sort of diary. The mazurkas composed in Poland show direct influence of Polish folk music while the latest ones are more a recollection of it, but all of them result from his intimate connection with his source of his emotions  his family and friends as well as the country of his origin."

Advertisement

Chopin's Romantic Life

As his musical career thrived, Chopin's romantic life had some twists and turns. He was involved with Constantia Gladkowska in Warsaw and later became engaged to Maria Wodzinska in Dresden, but broke off the relationship before they married. However, in 1836, he met novelist Aurore Dudevant, famously known by her pseudonym, George Sand. Two years later, Chopin accompanied Sand and her children to the island of Majorca, but the vacation took a turn when the musician became ill. The group moved to Marseille where doctors diagnosed Chopin with tuberculosis.

After three months, Chopin made a full recovery, and he and Sand planned their return to Paris. But first, they spent the summer of 1839 at Sand's country house. They returned to the home every summer over the next seven years, a period that many say was "the happiest and most productive of Chopin's life." During his time in the country, Chopin composed some of his greatest masterpieces.

" " The grave of Polish composer and pianist Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) (white statue, bottom right) in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France. Bruno De Hogues/Getty Images

However, by the mid-1940s, Chopin and Sand's relationship fell apart, and his health declined again. Following their breakup, he toured the British Isles, and the fast-paced schedule appeared to take a toll on him and his behavior became "erratic," possibly due to an undiagnosed form of epilepsy. He made his last public appearance on Nov. 16, 1848, and returned to Paris, where he died at age 39 on Oct. 17, 1849.

"Chopin did not live just for his own pleasure or fame, but to the end of his difficult and sickness-ridden life he strived to communicate the unique language of his romantic soul to others," Yoder says. "Chopin well understood his calling as a composer. He understood that even his sickness could help him better express the depth of emotion in his pieces."

Chopin's body was buried at Pere Lachaise cemetery, but his heart was interred at a Warsaw church, near his birthplace. There is still a fair amount of mystery surrounding the circumstances of his death, but in his short life, Chopin made a lasting mark on the world of arts and culture, and his legacy continues to be celebrated by musicians and audiences alike.

If you are unfamiliar with the music of Chopin and would like somewhere to start, this performance by Vadim Chaimovich of his Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1 is a good place to begin:

Now That's Interesting He may have been a renowned child prodigy-turned-adult superstar, but Chopin was apparently very shy and preferred to play piano in the dark throughout his entire career. Before beginning a performance, he blew out the candles in the room and often asked his hosts to extinguish any light.
Seven-gram panchayats surrounding Eluru town were merged with the municipal corporation on December 31, 2019 and petitions were filed on the irregularities in the delimitation of wards.

VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday issued a stay order on the conduct of elections to Eluru Municipal Corporation.

A single-judge bench, headed by Justice DVSS Somayajulu heard a batch of petitions seeking an interim order to stay the March 10 polls to the Eluru municipal corporation. They reasoned that the authorities failed to rectify the anomalies in the preparation of electoral rolls and provision of reservation.

Seven-gram panchayats surrounding Eluru town were merged with the municipal corporation on December 31, 2019 and petitions were filed on the irregularities in the delimitation of wards.

Based on petitions filed earlier stating that revision of electoral rolls were not done as per Electors Rules, 1960 and provisions of Representation of Peoples Act, 1950. The court in its earlier order issued on March 5, 2020, directed the district election and municipal corporation authorities to rectify the anomalies in the electoral rolls. When the State Election Commission asked the district and Eluru municipal authorities on the status, the officials are learnt to have informed the SEC that all anomalies were rectified and accordingly, the SEC notified the election to the municipal corporation on March 9, 2020 along with other civic bodies.

However, during the hearing on Monday, the court asked whether its earlier order to rectify anomalies in preparation of electoral rolls and other irregularities were addressed.

When the petitioners counsel Nimmagadda Venkateswarlu informed the court its earlier order was not complied with, the court issued an interim order to stay the Eluru municipal corporation elections.
The ED raided the premises of rebel AAP MLA from Sukhpal Singh Khaira, his family members in Delhi and some jailed convicts on Tuesday in a money-laundering case linked to the 2015 Fazilka trafficking case and a fake passport racket, officials said.

The MLA, president of the Ekta Party founded by him in 2019, denied any wrongdoing as he briefly spoke to reporters, who had gathered outside his bungalow number 6 in Chandigarh's sector 5.

The central agency searched a dozen locations -- Khaira's residence, nine places in and two in Delhi -- including the house of his son-in-law, Inderveer Singh Johal.

The agency alleged that Khaira (56), the MLA from Bholath in Kapurthala district, is an "associate" of the drugs racket convicts and fake passport racketeers.

Khaira was elected to the state Assembly in 2017 on an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket, but he later quit the party and launched his own political outfit.

Wearing a T-shirt and track pants, Khaira came out of his residence for a few seconds and told the reporters that he had "not done anything wrong", adding that the ED sleuths arrived at his house around 7:30 am.

Official sources in the (ED) said the action is being carried out against the Punjab lawmaker and others under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is aimed at gathering more evidence to take forward the probe.

The case pertains to the probe in the 2015 Fazilka (Punjab) drugs-smuggling case, in which1,800 grams of heroin, 24 gold biscuits, two weapons, 26 live cartridges and two Pakistani SIM cards were seized from a gang of international drug smugglers by security agencies.

The central agency recently filed a PMLA case in connection with the case, which was first lodged by the Punjab Police.

"The drugs were smuggled through the India-Pakistan border and one of the kingpins of the syndicate is in the UK.

"Sukhpal Singh Khaira was actively aiding and supporting the gang of international smugglers and enjoying the proceeds of crime," the ED has alleged.

Some of the convicts of the Fazilka drugs case, currently lodged in jail, were also searched and questioned, the agency said.

They were identified as Gurdev Singh, Manjit Singh, Harbans Singh and Subhash Chander, all residents of Fazilka district.

Three people allegedly involved in the fake passport racket -- Harminder Kaur (Jalandhar resident), Rajwinder Kaur (Kapurthala) and Bikker Singh (Kapurthala) -- were also searched.

"Incriminating documents and digital devices have been seized," an ED officer said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United Nations: Chief Economist of the International monetary fund (IMF), Gita Gopinath on Monday (March 8) hailed Indias COVID-19 vaccine policy.

India has been at the forefront in fighting the coronavirus pandemic and really stands out in terms of its vaccine policy, highlighted Gita Gopinath.

The country has been playing a very important role during the COVID-19 crisis by manufacturing and shipping vaccines to numerous nations.

In an interactive session on the occasion of International Women's Day, Ms Gopinath said, "I also want to mention that India really stands out in terms of its vaccine policy. If you look at where exactly there is one manufacturing hub for vaccines in the world - that will be India."

The IMFs chief economist also lauded the work of Serum Institute of India, saying it produces the most number of vaccines in the world in a regular year and has been manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine doses that are being distributed to countries around the globe.

"India has been at the forefront in fighting this deadly pandemic," she said, noting that India has been providing vaccines through grants not only to its neighbour countries but the middle-east as well.

The country has been playing a vital role in helping the world in the global health crisis through its vaccination policies, she said.

The economist also stated that India makes up about 7 percent of world GDP based on purchasing power parity terms and can contribute significantly to global economic recovery

"So when you're that large, what happens in India has implications for many other countries in the world, especially countries in the region. So it was very hard hit but you do see the recovery coming back as the country has reopened, activities returning," she said.

Additionally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected an impressive 11.5 percent growth rate for India in 2021, making the country the only major economy of the world to register a double-digit growth this year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Now because of its size, when you have India growing, it increases demand for goods from other parts of the world and that's a big positive," she said.
Joint Forces reported no casualties in the past day.

The Command of Ukraine's Armed Forces has reported nine violations of the latest ceasefire agreement committed by Russia-controlled armed groups in the Donbas warzone on Monday, March 8.

"In the past day, March 8, nine ceasefire violations were recorded in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) zone," the press center of the Ukrainian JFO Command said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on March 9, 2021.

In particular, the invaders remotely planted POM-2 anti-personnel mines near the village of Luhanske.

Read alsoRussian-led forces in Donbas preparing for escalation, rights activists warnAlso, the enemy used grenade launchers of various systems and automatic rifles near the villages of Vodiane and Pisky.

What is more, the Russian occupation troops fired hand-held anti-tank and automatic grenade launchers near the village of Opytne, rifles near the village of Zolote-4, as well as an anti-tank grenade launcher near the village of Lebedynske.

The Joint Forces had to fire back, the report said.

There were no casualties in the past day.

Since Tuesday midnight, March 9, three ceasefire violations were recorded in the JFO zone. In particular, the enemy fired an 82mm mortar near the town of Krasnohorivka, as well as rifles near Pisky.

The violations were reported to OSCE representatives through the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of the ceasefire in Donbas.

The situation is under the full control of the Ukrainian military.

Donbas ceasefire: Background

Participants in the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE) on the peace settlement in Donbas on July 22 agreed on a full and comprehensive ceasefire along the contact line from 00:01 on Monday, July 27, 2020.

On the very first day of the newly-agreed truce, Russia's hybrid military forces mounted three attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has reported more such violations over the latest period.

Donbas: Other reports

Reporting by UNIAN
Prince Harry has adopted elements of an American accent, with a rising inflection and 'blending of words', a behaviour expert said today.

Judi James said being in lockdown with Meghan Markle would have sped up his adoption of Californian English, as she also noted his 'overkill gesticulation' with his hands while speaking.

The change was also noted by social media users as they watched yesterday's bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview, with one writing, 'Harry's accent has gone to LA!'.

Judi James said being in lockdown with Meghan Markle would have sped up his adoption of Californian English, as she also noted his 'overkill gesticulation' with his hands while speaking

The change was also noted by social media users as they watched yesterday's bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview, with one writing, 'Harry's accent has gone to LA!'

James, a leading communication and body language expert, told MailOnline: 'Harry has been in lockdown with Meghan and he clearly adores her so it would be natural for him to pick up on some of her way of speaking, too.

'Once lockdown ends and he is socialising with other US people I'd expect it to be even more dramatic. 'You can see that through a couple of things, ''I'' comes out as ''Ay'' and when he says ''herself'' he stresses the ''self''.'

'He uses a scooping ritual with his vocal tone, scooping it into a rise at the end, turning statements into questions via vocal tone.

''Together' has a linger on the ''r'' as in ''Togetherr'' and he blends two words together sometimes to create that slight drawl.'

One Twitter user noticed how Harry pronounces security 'securidy'.

James said the changes were 'especially pronounced' during the Oprah interview, and that his 'overkill gesticulation' was particularly notable.

One Twitter user noticed how Harry pronounces security 'securidy', as others commented on his 'American twinge'

She said Prince Harry's accent is likely to change more in the future.

'I would have expected this accent change to have been more pronounced though, to be honest,' she said.

'Harry, like many of us, has a tendency to adapt to his surroundings by mirroring and it was a trait that his mother Diana was good at too.

'It can help create rapport as long as it's not too obvious [eg Tony Blair's mockney accent] and Harry was seen dressing like James Corden and rapping and jumping about in an echo of his behaviour during that interview.'

It appears some of Harry's ways of speaking are rubbing off on Meghan as well, with the Duchess reportedly picking up a number of British phrases during her two years in the UK.

James said the changes were 'especially pronounced' during the Oprah interview - as Twitter users also noticed

Sources working in the Duke and Duchess's 11million mansion in Santa Barbara, California, said Meghan regularly uses certain very British words.

One told The Sun last year: 'She has adopted certain phrases. She's often heard saying 'oh dahling'.'

The mansion's staff members mimic Meghan's new turns of phrase, but in a friendly way, it was claimed.

'They do have a giggle about it and sometimes they do impressions of her but only in a light-hearted way,' they added.
Crown Publishing Group has stopped promoting a book Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote about New York states response to the Covid-19 pandemic amid controversy.

The companys publisher Gillian Blake told The New York Times Monday it will not reprint or reissue Cuomos American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic, which was released in October. The book was on The New York Times Bestseller List in October, selling more than 45,000 copies, but sales reportedly plummeted to just 300 copies in February.

Cuomo is facing a wave of scandals, including sexual harassment accusations, but Blake said the book decision was specifically due to the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes.

The governor started writing the book in the summer, when he was praised nationally for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but he is now facing a federal investigation after it was revealed the state undercounted deaths in nursing homes. Cuomos top aide Melissa Derosa told Democratic leaders in a video conference call last month that we froze data out of fear that the true numbers would be used against us.

Why Cuomos death order didnt really cause NYs nursing home carnage. A reality check

The Times and the Wall Street Journal also reported last week that Cuomos team altered a state Health Department report in July to cover up the true number of people killed by COVID-19 in the states nursing homes. The number of nursing home residents who died in hospitals were revealed eight months later after a report from New York State Attorney General Letitia James and a court order.

AG James announced Monday that she has appointed a former federal prosecutor and an employment lawyer to investigate allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo.

We are committed to an independent and thorough investigation of the facts, James said. Joon H. Kim and Anne L. Clark are independent, legal experts who have decades of experience conducting investigations and fighting to uphold the rule of law. There is no question that they both have the knowledge and background necessary to lead this investigation and provide New Yorkers with the answers they deserve.
Women in Scottish agriculture will benefit from over 100,000 in extra funding for industry training courses such as tractor and trailer driving.

The six figure package has been earmarked to upskill women in farming and crofting businesses as part of the Women in Agriculture Practical Training Fund.

Training courses already identified include certification in tractor and trailer driving, sheepdog training and education in the use of antibiotics in livestock.

Applications have also come from women seeking to innovate and diversify their agricultural business into new areas, such as livestock photography.

The latest investment is in addition to an initial 100,000 funding package committed to the Women In Agriculture Practical Training Fund in December 2020.

Announced by Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing, it follows the recent announcement of a parallel fund for Women in the Rural Economy.

This fund offers training in other rural sectors such as aquaculture, forestry, horticulture and wildlife management.

Mr Ewing said: We seek to empower women living and working in Scottish agriculture with increased business skills, knowledge and confidence.

These training funds have already proved enormously popular and we look forward to investing still further in future female successes.

"In supporting women in this way, we are increasing equality of opportunity and gender balance in Scottish agriculture and creating a more resilient agricultural industry.

The benefits to the rural economy and way of life for women living and working in agriculture will be significant in terms of accessing increased training funding.

Both funds are administered by Lantra Scotland and are open for applications now.
Bengaluru, March 10 : Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri on Tuesday referred to the breach of privilege notice against suspended Congress MLA B.K. Sangamesh for his 'shirtless protest' in the Assembly, to the privileges committee, despite protest by the opposition Congress members.

On March 4, Sangamesh was suspended from the Assembly till March 12 for removing his shirt inside the Assembly, in protest against the "highhandedness" of ruling BJP leaders in Shivamogga district, which is the home district of Chief Minister, B. S. Yediyurappa and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj minister, K.S. Eshwarappa.

This incident took place on a day when the speaker had decided to hold a two-day special discussion on 'One Nation, One Election (ONOE)'.

The privilege motion was moved by senior BJP MLA Araga Jnanendra, who represents Teerthahalli constituency of Shivamogga district.

While allowing preliminary submission by Jnanendra for detailed discussion on the matter. Speaker Kageri then sought to know whether at least 10 members in the House were in support of Jnanendra's notice, following which all the BJP MLAs stood in support.

Taking strong objections, Siddaramaiah said Sangamesh has not disrespected the Speaker and if he has spoken anything outside there was no authentication for it.

The moment Jananedra moved his motion, Congress party members trooped into well in front of the Speaker in protest demanding that no person should be punished twice for the same offence.

During his preliminary submission regarding his notice on breach of privilege, Jnanendra said, the conduct of Sangamesh on March 4 during Congress protest, was disgraceful to the Chair, which has utmost sanctity, and amounts to breach of privilege of the House.

As he referred to the incident about Sangamesh removing his shirt in the assembly, Congress members objected to it and said he did that out of anger about false cases booked against him and his family members. To this some BJP members retorted by demanding that he should be suspended permanently.

Speaking at this juncture, Leader of the opposition, Siddaramaiah said that the Speaker has already punished him by ruling one-week suspension against the same member for the same act, thus, this will set wrong precedence.

"A same person cannot be punished twice. That is not justice. The Speaker should not get carried away with this motion and the speaker must act unbiased in this case," he argued.

Angry over this, Speaker Kageri came down heavily and asserted that there was no way one can justify Sangamesh's protest. "Even you (Siddaramaiah) should not support such acts. We have to uphold parliamentary values and fulfill the aspirations of people. keep your irresponsible politics outside the House," he retorted.

Law and parliamentary affairs minister Basavaraj Bommai argued that the entire Assembly's privilege has been breached as Sangamesh's conduct on that day was indecent, he has spoken against the Speaker and has caused disrespect to the Chair.

"The privilege notice and procedure being followed is completely in order. The leader of the opposition defending his MLAs conduct of removing shirts is really sad. If the case against him (Sangamesh) is wrong, let him go to court and fight his battle there," he argued.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
The Congress has appealed to the Delhi government for free Covid vaccination to all, unemployment allowance to the youth and reduction in the Value Added Tax (VAT) on fuel prices.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, former MLA and Delhi Congress leader Adarsh Shastri urged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Finance Minister Manish Sisodia, to keep the welfare of the people upper most in mind while presenting the Delhi Budget on Tuesday.

Shastri said that the people of Delhi have been dogged by myriad problems, and the primary objective of the Budget should be to shore up the disturbed economy, address issues such as price rise, unemployment, pollution, dirty drinking water, health, education, pension and cleaning up the polluted Yamuna river, among others.

The Congress leader said that the Budget should be aimed at serving the people, as mere lofty announcements will serve no purpose, as has been the case in the past six years.

"The Budget should make provision for free Covid vaccination to people of Delhi in all hospitals, including private hospitals, to honour Kejriwal's promise," he said, adding that due to the Covid-19 pandemic economic crisis, a majority of the people are not in a position to afford vaccination on payment.

Shastri said that the youth and young people in Delhi are struggling without jobs, and the government should provide "unemployment allowance to the youth", till enough job opportunities are created for them.

He demanded the Delhi government should also immediately reduce the 30 per cent VAT imposed on petrol and diesel, which is the highest-ever charged in Delhi, to give relief to people.

"Surge in oil prices has had a cascading effect on all the essential commodities, making the lives of the common people unbearable," he said, adding that Delhi Congress also wants ration cards for 11 lakh families, who have been waiting for ration cards for the past six years.

Shastri said: "The recent by-elections to the five municipal wards showed that Delhi want Congress back in power, as the party's vote share raced to over 22 per cent, to make it the main opposition party, and Delhi Congress' budget suggestions were aimed at people's welfare."

He also said that the AAP government in Delhi should shelve the move to boost excise revenue to Rs 7,651 crore, through a liberalized liquor policy, which will only ruin the youth of the Capital.

The former MLA added, "The pre-Budget Economic Survey paints a bleak picture, as the per capita income of the national capital has come down by 9 per cent, while the contraction in Delhi's Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) is expected at 5.68 per cent in 2020-21."

He said that the fiscal deficit increased from 0.20 per cent of GSDP in previous years to 0.39 per cent this year, which in monetary terms, means that the deficit was Rs 3,227.79 crore in 2019-20, and for 2020-21, it's estimated to be Rs 1.08 per cent.

He said that the reduction in the revenue surplus was a matter of great concern, as Delhi's revenue surplus has crashed in last few years, while the outstanding debt of the Delhi government rose to Rs 34,461.83 crore.
Investigations editor

Larry Parnass, investigations editor, joined The Eagle in 2016 from the Daily Hampshire Gazette, where he was editor in chief. His freelance work has appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant and CommonWealth Magazine.
Homeless socialite Mukoma Masimba, popularly known as Legend of Facebook, says he has been reportedly forced into commercial prostitution in Australia.

The man, who rose to top the limelight on social media, feels the Australian authorities have let him down after failing to offer him proper accommodation for a year.

He has since lodged a written complaint to the authorities. Masimba, who last year left his home and decided to stay on the streets of Melbourne, has since raised suspicion that he might be facing mental challenges.

He has since begun some lessons under a contract on how to satisfy clients. In some explicit videos he is being taught how to treat male and female clients. He lamented neglect by the authorities and called upon the intervention.

Some sections have described him as losing his sanity but he insists that he still has a sound mind.

In an interview, he discussed his status and dilemma. I have been staying in the streets for a year and the authorities here have not helped me to get a proper place to stay. And now I have resorted to commercial sex working to make ends meet.

I am on my way to satisfy a client, its not by choice or optional but circumstances beyond my control have forced me to do this. I have no other ways of making money since some drug addicts are stealing my medication.

The authorities here ill-treated me, and I have since made a complainant which I believe should be heard back home. Remember last year I went into the streets before the outbreak of Covid-19.

Many people believed that I was bewitched by Sekuru Banda which was not true and I was a called as someone with mental illness but I was tested all that, he said.

Added Masimba: I am okay but the authorities here exposed my HIV status and no one wants to be associated with me now. I was forced to reveal my status after some drug addicts here were stealing my pills and I had to confess so that they could not continue stealing but I put the blame on the authorities here.

And now I have shifted focus so that I can manage to survive from prostitution. I am angry with the Australian Government, they have violated my privacy and now most homeless people in Melbourne now knows l am HIV+ because l have been homeless for one year.

The same Australia Government imposed Sanctions on Zimbabwe. Remember l wrote BhukureBenzi when l was always showing the same Australia also abuses Australian. So I am appealing to the authorities back home to take note of my issue.

Australia imposed sanctions on my country and they should remove them, our President is a listening man. H Metro
NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Center for Active Design (CfAD) today announced the 2021 winners of the Fitwel Best in Building Health Awards, its flagship recognition program that identifies firms enhancing human health via Fitwel, the world's leading certification system committed to building health for all. This year's winners were identified based on Fitwel's 2020 project data, which captured a year marked by unprecedented challenges due to the global pandemic, met with impressive agility and responsiveness by leaders of the global real estate industry.

Fitwel is a rigorous, third-party healthy building certification system operated by CfAD that sets the industry standard for evidence-based strategies to promote positive health outcomes for occupants and communities.

"This year's awards reflect the significant growth of Fitwel as our new and existing global users make progress implementing health-promoting strategies to meet the unique challenges of the moment," said Joanna Frank, president and CEO of CfAD. "We are entering a new era, one where health is a defining factor in real estate investment decisions. The rising use of Fitwel is creating more detailed and sophisticated property-specific data sets that our users can leverage to respond to shifting demands and remain at the forefront of the healthy building movement."

Each year, up to two winners are selected by CfAD for special recognition given their exceptional leadership in the field. This year's special recognition awards feature leaders who have risen to meet the challenges of COVID-19 by advancing the development and implementation of the Fitwel Viral Response (VR) Module.

Industry Thought Leadership: Fitwel's Viral Response Academic Advisory Group, a team of 12 health experts from leading institutions such as Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai , Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Queensland University of Technology, for their collaborative efforts to rapidly analyze scientific research and advise on the creation of Fitwel's VR module.

Industry-Leading Company: BentallGreenOak, for its leadership in applying Fitwel at scale, including rapid rollout of the Viral Response module. Within three months of the VR module's release, BGO received Fitwel Viral Response Certification for its entity-level policies and obtained Viral Response Approval for 17 properties across nine cities. BGO is also being recognized for its support and collaboration in exploring industry-wide investor sentiment about health and wellness trends.

Bon Ku, MD, Director, Health Design Lab, Thomas Jefferson University and a member of the Center for Active Design's Board of Directors, said, "COVID-19 thrust public health into the limelight, and increased awareness of how the spaces where we live, work, study, and socialize can impact our health and well-being. In a moment of pandemic crisis, health research became paramountand the Fitwel Academic Advisory Groups rose to the challenge to craft a science-driven response using the best available data at hand. We are proud to have contributed to the pressing need to mitigate viral transmission in buildings, and we look forward to supporting the Center for Active Design's efforts to further evidence-based design now and into the future."

Best in Building Health winners are identified through rigorous analysis of every Fitwel project. The following awards recognize all-time achievements since Fitwel's public launch in 2017:

Fitwel Excellence Award: Kilroy Realty Corporation, for securing the most Fitwel certifications of all time, demonstrating how its real estate portfolio has been optimized for human health. This is the third year in a row that Kilroy has achieved this distinction by certifying its assets at scaleas well as proactively recertifying its projects.

Fitwel Promise Award: Wells Fargo , for the most Fitwel registrations of all time, reflecting its commitment to advancing health across its portfolio of assets. Wells Fargo is leading the financial industry in its efforts to quantify the impact of design and policy on the well-being of employees and customers.

Fitwel Impact Award: Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., for achieving the highest scoring project of all time with Alexandria LaunchLabs at the Alexandria Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts . This is the second year in a row that Alexandria has held this distinction, demonstrating their unrivaled commitment to optimizing projects to advance health.

Richard Henderson, Head of Corporate Properties, Wells Fargo said, "Wells Fargo is committed to reducing our carbon footprint while continuing to design, build and operate spaces that add to the well-being of our employees and customers. We envision leveraging Fitwel to engage stakeholders to help drive continuous improvement, as well as raise awareness of the benefits of people-centric design and operations. Fitwel is well suited for this purpose due to its accessible language and ease of applicability over a large and diverse portfolio."

This year's full list of winners reflects growing geographic diversityincluding projects from China, Australia and Brazilconfirming the rapid expansion of Fitwel's global reach. Fitwel data shows a global real estate sector increasingly eager to demonstrate its health and well-being credentials to build trust among building occupants and positively impact human health. Third-party studies are reinforcing the importance of these initiatives, with a recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology report finding that healthy buildings generate rental premiums of 4.4 to 7.7 percent, on average, as compared with their non-health-promoting peers.

The complete list of Fitwel Best in Building Health 2021 Winners is provided below. Best in Building Health winners will be honored at a virtual event on March 25 that will showcase data and trends in the healthy building movement and feature key speakers from winning companies focused on the increasing role of health and wellness in real estate investment, design, and operations.

Fitwel Best in Building Health 2021

Recognition Categories and Award Winners

Special Recognition for Leadership

Industry Leading Company: BentallGreenOak

Thought Leadership: Academic Advisory for the Fitwel Viral Response module

All-Time Achievements

Fitwel Excellence Award

Most Certifications of All-Time: Kilroy Realty Corporation

Fitwel Promise Award

Most Registrations of All-Time: Wells Fargo

Fitwel Impact Award

All-Time Highest Scoring Project: Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.

Alexandria LaunchLabs at the Alexandria Center at One Kendall Square; Cambridge, MA, United States

2020 Distinctions

Greatest Number of Certifications

Consultant: NORESCO

Building Owner: Beacon Capital Partners, Hudson Pacific Properties (tie)

Tenant: Anthem, Inc.

Greatest Number of Registrations

Consultant: JLL

Building Owner: QuadReal Property Group

Tenant: Wells Fargo

Greatest Impact on Building Health

Most People Impacted across Building Scorecards: Beacon Capital Partners

Most People Impacted across Site Scorecards: Lincoln Property Company / Ampajen Solutions, LLC

Highest Square Footage: RXR Realty / NORESCO

Highest Acreage: Lincoln Property Company / Ampajen Solutions, LLC

Lionstone Investments (tie)

Greatest Impact on Viral Response

Highest Scoring Module: The Meridian Group / Paladino & Company | The Meridian Group Portfolio

Most Approved Assets: BentallGreenOak

2020 Highest Scoring Projects

Commercial Interior Space v2.0

M Moser Associates | M Moser Hong Kong

Commercial Interior Space v2.1

Built: AMP | AMP 1MQ, Melbourne, Australia

Design: CBRE | CBRE Shanghai Office, Shanghai, China*

Single-Tenant v2.1

Built: Sansiri Public Company Limited / Atelier Ten | Siri Campus, Bangkok, Thailand

Design: iFood / CTE - Centro de Tecnologia de Edificacoes | iFood Care, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Multi-Tenant Base Building v2.0

STANTEC | Manulife Place, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Multi-Tenant Base Building v2.1

Built: PGIM Real Estate / Verdani Partners | Regions Plaza, Atlanta, GA

Design: American Physical Therapy Association | APTA Centennial Center, Alexandria, VA

Multi-Tenant Whole Building v2.0

BentallGreenOak | 150 King Street West, Toronto, Canada

Multi-Tenant Whole Building v2.1

Built: Beacon Capital Partners | AMA Plaza / 330 N. Wabash, Chicago, IL

Design: Brookfield Asset Management / CBRE | One East, Shanghai, China*

Multifamily Residential v2.0

Built: LaSalle Investment Management | The Penfield, St. Paul, MN

Design: The Green Cities Company | Fenway Center, Boston, MA

Multifamily Residential v2.1

Built: DLC Europe | Clifford House, Exeter, SW England

Design: Forte Desenvolvimento Sustentavel | AGE 360, Curitiba, Parana

Retail v2.1

Built: Touchwood / Workman LLP | Touchwood Shopping Centre, Solihull, England

Design: San Francisco International Airport / Gensler | San Francisco International Airport, Harvey Milk Terminal 1 Center, San Francisco, CA

Fitwel Community v2.1

Design: BentallGreenOak | Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA

Fitwel Commercial Site v2.1

Built: Hudson Pacific Properties | Bentall Centre, Vancouver, Canada

About Fitwel and the Center for Active Design

Fitwel is the world's leading certification system committed to building health for all. Generated by expert analysis of 5,600+ academic research studies, Fitwel is implementing a vision for a healthier future where all buildings and communities are enhanced to strengthen health and well-being. Fitwel was originally created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and U.S. General Services Administration. The CDC remains the research and evaluation partner for Fitwel. The Center for Active Design, a global not-for-profit organization, was selected as the licensed operator of Fitwel, charged with expanding Fitwel to the global market. To learn more about Fitwel, please visit: www.fitwel.org.

SOURCE Center for Active Design

Related Links

centerforactivedesign.org


Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Chandigarh, March 9 : Amid the ongoing farmers' stir against the three central agriculture laws, the BJP-JJP combine ruling in Haryana and the main opposition Congress have issued whip for the no-confidence motion of the latter in the state Legislative Assembly against an 'anti-farmer' government on Wednesday.

Even protesting farm union leaders have urged the people and legislators, especially the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), to lobby their representatives in the assembly to support the motion.

Leader of Opposition and two-time Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda said the no-confidence motion would help clearing the picture that "who are support the cause of farmers and who are not".

Hooda said the no-confidence motion was required as the government has lost public confidence and taking anti-people decisions.

The motion was moved by Hooda and signed by 23 Congress MLAs. It was approved by Speaker Gian Chand Gupta on March 5 for discussion.

Political observers told IANS that the no-trust motion is a calculated move to embarrass the JJP, the crucial post-electoral coalition partner with the BJP-led government, which is supporting the saffron party despite claiming to be an outfit of a rural Jat-centric party with the farmers as its core vote bank.

The JJP has also been facing criticism within the party too for not walking out of the alliance on the issue of farmers and 'clinging to power'.

In an alliance, the JJP had extended support to the BJP, which won 40 seats in the Assembly polls in 2019, six short of the majority mark.

Bharatiya Kisan Union chief Gurnam Singh Charuni said the no-confidence motion against the government was crucial.

In a video message, he said: "Residents of the state should protest in front of the residences of legislators, who have been supporting the state government. They should warn the leaders that they would face social and political boycott if they continued to support the laws." However, a confident Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar told the media that "it is for the Congress to keep its flock together as there is no threat to his government".

The current strength of the 90-member assembly is 88 members with the resignation of INLD's Abhay Chautala and disqualification of Congress' Pradeep Chaudhary after he was sentenced to three-year imprisonment.

The BJP-JJP alliance has a majority with 50 legislators.
PUYALLUP, Wash., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Woodcreek Provider Service is a medical practice management company in Washington that provides support to pediatric clinics and urgent care centers owned and operated by MultiCare Health System, including some that were previously owned and operated by Woodcreek Healthcare. Woodcreek Provider Services contracts with Netgain Technology LLC to host its information technology network and computer systems. In late 2020, Netgain Technology suffered a ransomware cyber-attack. The attackers may have had access to personal information and/or protected health information of Woodcreek Provider Services employees, healthcare providers, applicants, contractors, and individuals receiving services delivered by MultiCare Health Systems and/or Woodcreek Healthcare. The information included names and addresses, medical record numbers, dates of birth, social security numbers, health insurance policy and identification numbers, insurance claims, explanation of benefits, statements, clinical notes, referral requests, laboratory reports, decision not to vaccinate forms, authorization requests for services, treatment approvals, records requests, immunization information, vaccine records, prescription requests, release of information forms, subpoena records requests, medical record disclosure logs, incident reports, invoices, correspondence with patients, student identification numbers, bank account numbers, employment related documents, court documents, Drug Enforcement Agency certificates, payroll withholding and insurance deduction authorizations, benefit and tax forms, employee health information and some medical records. Woodcreek Provider Services has taken steps to improve the security of data under its control by taking steps to enhance cybersecurity protocols and practices. Woodcreek Provider Services has also received written assurances that Netgain Technology has added security enhancements within its network to proactively safeguard against future threats. Woodcreek received confirmation of the data involved in the incident on January 18, 2021 and is sending written notification to each affected individual offering identity theft protection services and/or complimentary credit monitoring services. If you have any questions about this incident, please call 1-833-726-0944 or visit https://response.idx.us/woodcreek

SOURCE Woodcreek Provider Services
More than 45,000 Texans have died from COVID-19. That is a staggering figure. Something else just as astonishing: According to a study by the Episcopal Health Foundation, racial and ethnic disparities were responsible for an additional 5,000 deaths from COVID-19 as of September, accounting for 30 percent of all deaths at that time.

It is obvious that our states ability to stay healthy is harmed by the inequitable distribution of lifesaving health care services among Texans.

This unnecessary loss of life costs us in all respects. The toll is not just emotional or psychological but also financial. This same study estimates that health disparities cost Texans $7.7 billion in excess medical spending and lost productivity.

Racial disparities in health outcomes are garnering new attention as the COVID-19 pandemic persists into another year. The White House COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, established through an executive order by President Joe Biden, is the latest high-profile commitment to achieving health equity by addressing racial disparities. Now, as Texas continues its 87th legislative session, policymakers should leverage this national momentum by prioritizing the establishment of an office focused on health equity within the Texas Health and Human Services system.

The importance of establishing such an office is not just a matter of principle  it is also a matter of practicality. We know that health equity is politically determined. Racial disparities present themselves not just in our health care systems but in all corners of life.

Achieving equity means ensuring access for all Texans to jobs, homeownership, higher education, retirement savings and other basic living necessities. When we coordinate our efforts to prioritize equity at a state level, all levels of Texas systems  mental health, education, juvenile justice, child welfare, disability services  will benefit. As will all Texans.

There are legislative proposals aimed at tackling the structural inequities within Texas systems. We contend that unless these efforts are coordinated by a single accountable state office, they will fail to achieve maximum impact. Equity is the responsibility of the state, and efforts to achieve it must therefore be at the state level, housed within the state government.

A state office means better access to data for agencies and programs, and it would provide a mechanism for holding agencies accountable for performance measures. It also means the ability to publish an annual report of cross-agency activities and expenditures dedicated to addressing disparities in Texas systems and services.

Establishing an Office of Health Equity would be a turning point for the state in its efforts to eliminate health disparities. Modeled after the current Office of Mental Health Coordination and the Statewide Behavioral Health Coordinating Council, a statewide equity coordinating council could develop and monitor a multiyear, statewide cross-agency plan to address racial inequities and disparities. This strategy would maximize resources to address disparities, creating opportunities for efficiencies and preventing duplicate expenditures.

It is already too late to prevent the disproportionate impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on vulnerable communities, especially Black and Latino communities in Texas. But it is not too late to learn from these disparities and build strategies for a more equitable future. The first step is collecting better data on how and why COVID-19 had the disproportionate impact that it has had.

We must coordinate the collection of this data and learn from it so we are better able to promote health equity into the future and through the next pandemic or public health crisis. The well-being of all Texans depends on it.

Octavio N. Martinez Jr. is the executive director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas at Austin. Rudolph K. Metayer is president and executive director of the Texas Black Caucus Foundation, a nonpartisan research institute.
ROME, MAR 9 - Giovanni Rezza, the health ministry's director of prevention, said Tuesday that Italy should be able to return to some semblance of normality within seven to 15 months if it manages to administer 240,000 COVID-19 vaccinations a day. "We recently developed a mathematical model with the Higher Health Institute (ISS) and the Fondazione Bruno Kessler to see when we will be able to return to pseudo normality," Rezza told the Senate's health and hygiene committee. "If we assume that the vaccine protects from infection and that the foundation protects for at least two years, by vaccinating 240,000 people a day we will manage to return to normality in seven to 15 months. "This can be obtained with a high number of vaccinations and keeping up containment (of the coronavirus)". (ANSA).
Former deputy prime minister John Anderson will be the only remaining member of John Howards ministry in Federal Parliament should he realise his ambition of returning to politics as a senator.

Mr Anderson, 64, announced on Monday he would seek The Nationals preselection for a NSW Senate spot at the next election, but said he had no ambition to return to the leadership or even the ministry.

Former deputy prime minister John Anderson has made clear for months he is worried Australias future is on the line. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Instead, he said, he wanted to offer from the backbench his accumulated life experiences, his long period in politics, and the knowledge gained from speaking to scores of what he calls worlds great thinkers  mostly conservatives  on his recent podcast and video series, Conversations with John Anderson.

He has made clear for months he is worried Australias future is on the line. He sees it as burdened with a mountain of debt  inter-generational theft, he has called it  and poisoned by identity politics.
Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk!

You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details.
The revenue shortfall for the Department of Atomic Energy in 2020-21 will affect the import of fuel for its power reactors and other important projects, its secretary has told a parliamentary panel.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change has recommended that the bare minimum funds as suggested by the DAE should be made available to the Department at revised stage so as to enable it to carry out its planned programmes/projects uninterrupted.

The DAE should also impress upon the Ministry of Finance and sensitise about its bare minimum requirement of additional funds in order to sustain its key programmes/projects, the panel said in its report tabled in Rajya Sabha on Monday.

The panel was informed that the DAE had made a projected demand of Rs 40,259.05 crore for 2020-21 against which an amount of Rs 26,691.70 crore has been allocated, registering an overall reduction of Rs 13,567.35 crore i.e. a drastic 33.70 per cent less than the projected demand of the department.

"The committee was informed that approximately 41 per cent of this shortfall amount of Rs 13,567.35 crore is the revenue expenditure and 59 per cent affects the projected capital expenditure," it said.

The secretary, who is also the chairman of Atomic Energy Commission, the top decision-making body on nuclear-related issues, said revenue expenditure shortfall of Rs 5,578.86 crore will fuel imports and arrears to DAE's public sector undertaking Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (Rs 2,928.90 crore), foreign fuel importers --- Kazakhstan's M/s Kazatomprom (Rs 1,200 crore) and Canada's M/s Cameco (Rs 399 crore) --- and UCIL arrears (Rs 1,330 crore).

India imports fuel from Kazakhstan and Canada.

It will also affect the contribution to the ITER project, an international fusion research and engineering megaproject, the panel was told.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), another PSU of the DAE, is presently operating 22 commercial nuclear power reactors with an installed capacity of 6780 MW.

The reactor fleet comprises two Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) and 18 Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) including one 100-MW PHWR at Rajasthan which is owned by the DAE and two 1000-MW VVER reactor KKNPS-1&2, both built with Russian technology. contribution



Currently, NPCIL has eight reactors under various stages of construction totalling 6200-MW capacity.

The panel was informed that the capital expenditure shortfall of Rs 7,988.49 crore will also affect Russian State credit (RSC) (Rs 2,379 crore), payments to the vendor of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant for units 5 and 6 (Rs 982 crore), the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor programme (Rs 1287 crore) which is being carried out on a fleet mode, BHAVINI, the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (Rs 306 crore), Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Kota (Rs 779 crore) and different R&D activities.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Homeland Salvation Movement already set up a tent camp on nearby Marshal Bagramian Avenue on February 25 after the Armenian militarys top brass also demanded that Pashinian and his cabinet step down.

Leaders of the alliance told supporters to also block adjacent Demirchian Street, from which most lawmakers enter the parliament building, after it became clear that President Armen Sarkissian will not challenge the legality of Pashinians decision to fire the countrys top army general.

Sarkissian appeared to have deliberately missed a legal deadline for asking the Constitutional Court to declare the decision null and void.

Vazgen Manukian, a leader of the Homeland Salvation Movement, condemned Sarkissians stance as he addressed supporters on Marshal Bagramian Avenue. We dont have a president, he said before telling them to march to Demirchian Street and blockade the parliament compound.

The protesters were confronted by hundreds of riot police guarding the main entrance to the compound. They pitched several tents at the blocked street section later in the evening.

Several opposition lawmakers stood in between the two sides to prevent violent clashes between them. The police clad in riot gear did not try to disperse the crowd.

Do not succumb to provocations, Ishkhan Saghatelian, another opposition leader, told the protesters. None of us is going to break through the National Assembly gate.

This is our civil disobedience action against this parliament, he said. We believe that this parliament has nothing to do.

The opposition alliance blames Pashinian for Armenias defeat in the war with Azerbaijan stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on November 10. It already staged a series of street protests later in November and in December in a bid to force him to resign. The alliance resumed the protests on February 20.

Pashinian has rejected the opposition demands. He offered to hold snap parliamentary elections after the chief of the Armenian armys General Staff and 40 other senior officers issued on February 25 a joint statement also demanding his resignation.

The Homeland Salvation Movement says that the elections must be held by an interim government.
After nearly collapsing last month, the previously unrevealed construction of a secret mega-battery connected to an ailing electric grid showed that Tesla founder, Elon Musk, is getting into the epicenter of the United States energy economy.

According to Bloomberg, Musk is silently getting into the Texas power market after the revelation of the gigantic battery, marking the move as Tesla Inc.'s first major foray into the energy market of the U.S. Based on the report, a subsidiary of Tesla registered as Gambit Energy Storage LLC is quietly building a more than 100-megawatt energy storage project in Angleton, Texas, which is a town, estimated 40 miles down south of the city of Houston.

Tesla's Secret Mega-Battery

Moreover, the secret mega-battery could power around 20,000 homes on a hot summer day. On-site workers are keeping the equipment undercover as they discouraged onlookers. However, the Tesla logo could be seen on the workers' hard hats and supported by the public documents that the company is behind the said project.

The property record currently filed with Brazoria County shows that Gambit shares the same address as a Tesla facility close to its auto plant in Fremont, California. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lists Gambit as a subsidiary of Tesla. But executives from Tesla did not respond to the numerous requests for comment when asked.

However, Tesla's shares gave up early gains on Monday, after falling 6 percent to $562.31 as of 3:17 p.m. in New York. The fall in the past four days totals to around 20 percent so far this year.

Read also: Facebook Investigated for Allegedly Practicing Racial Bias

On the other hand, as winter storms pummeled Texas last month, leaving millions of individuals without power for days, Musk tweeted and mocked the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also known as ERCOT, which is a nonprofit group that manages the flow of the electricity in more than 26 million customers in the area, posting 'Not earning that R.' The 49-year-old Tesla founder and CEO recently moved in the state as his various companies have expanded its operations in Texas, Independent reported.

The secret mega-battery is a battery-storage system built by Gambit, a subsidiary of Tesla, registered with ERCOT and sits adjacent to a Texas-New Mexico Power substation. Senior director of system planning at ERCOT, Warren Lasher, shared that the project has a proposed commercial operation date of June 1. But the duration of the battery remains unclear, while ERCOT could not comment on the project's capability.

While Musk's company is known for its sleek, battery-powered electric vehicles, it has always been more than just a car company. Its official mission is to accelerate the transition of the world into sustainable energy.

In storing the electricity produced by solar and wind, utility-scale batteries are needed. They can also become lucrative opportunities as battery owners can sell it back to the grid when the electricity prices are high, Interesting Engineering reported.

Related article: ERCOT Ercot Fires Texas Power Grid Manager in Aftermath of Deadly February Blackouts

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The experts at ISG have identified Creative Virtual as a Leader based on our comprehensive solution portfolio and industry experience, emphasizing our long history of developing and delivering Conversational AI solutions that deliver real results.

Creative Virtual, a world leader in customer and employee engagement solutions, has been named a Leader in Conversational AI in a new analyst study. Published by global technology research and advisory firm ISG (Information Services Group), this report evaluates Conversational AI vendors against a robust set of market-driven criteria.

The ISG Provider Lens Intelligent Automation  Solutions & Services Quadrant Study offers business leaders and decision makers an overview of the market and an analysis of vendors product capabilities, industry expertise, and strategic partnerships. Creative Virtual is compared with 18 other Conversational AI providers and is a clear Leader, surpassing all other vendors with the companys competitive strengths.

Creative Virtual is an established vendor with a focus on developing omnichannel virtual agent solutions and building and leveraging knowledgebases, says Mrinal Rai, Principal Analyst at ISG. It is a leader in this space.

Creative Virtuals Conversational AI technology is backed by the companys nearly two decades of experience in the industry. Today their expert team collaborates with enterprises and partners around the world to deliver customised and tightly integrated virtual agent, chatbot, and live chat implementations. These V-Person solutions are being successfully deployed to provide support for customers, employees, and contact centre agents, engaging in over 80 million conversations per year.

Implementing Conversational AI is an important piece of an organisations digital experience strategy, and partnering with the right vendor is key, says Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO of Creative Virtual. The experts at ISG have identified Creative Virtual as a Leader based on our comprehensive solution portfolio and industry experience, emphasizing our long history of developing and delivering Conversational AI solutions that deliver real results.

View the full Conversational AI Quadrant and analysis of Creative Virtuals competitive strengths by downloading the ISG Provider Lens Quadrant Report.

ABOUT CREATIVE VIRTUAL

Creative Virtual is a world leader in virtual agent, chatbot, live chat and conversational AI solutions that bring together humans and artificial intelligence to create conversations with customers and employees across touchpoints in a seamless, personalised way and at large scale. Leading global organisations, including HSBC, BT, Chase, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Lloyds Banking Group and American Family Insurance, rely on our award-winning V-Person technology to improve their support experience, reduce costs, increase sales and build brand loyalty.

Named the Product Leader in AI-Enhanced Customer Self-Service by Frost & Sullivan and awarded The Queens Awards for Enterprise: Innovation, Creative Virtual delivers an industry-leading combination of proven technology and expert guidance from a highly experienced team and extensive partner network. Our global team supports installs around the world in over 35 languages, providing both localised support and international insights to our customers and partners.

To learn more visit http://www.creativevirtual.com.


Finance Minister Conor Murphy has said the Executive wants to see all pupils back in school as quickly as possible.

Responding to a question from DUP MLA Paul Givan, Mr Murphy said any return would be guided by health advice.

All ministers want restrictions lifted as soon as they can, he told the Assembly.

Online learning is no substitute for face-to-face learning, as everybody recognises.

We want to do it as quickly as possible (in line with) whats safe at the time and the transmission rates associated with that.

Head teachers have urged the Executive to maintain continuity of education for primary one to primary three by reversing the decision to withdraw the youngest pupils from classrooms at the end of next week after just nine days back in class.

Read More

The NASUWT union said it backed a cautious approach.

It is entirely understandable that parents and many teachers would wish nursery and primary to primary children to remain in school after March 22, added spokesman Justin McCamphill,

But the plan adopted by the Executive was based on the advice of scientific advisers. Unless that advice has changed, there should not be a change to plans for primary and nursery schools.

While the Covid figures are moving in the right direction, it is important that a cautious approach is maintained.

Read More

When asked if the union would like to see a schedule of dates ahead of any return, Mr McCamphill replied: The union would prefer a data-driven approach.

Education Minister Peter Weir previously urged the Executive to speed up the return of all children to school. He will further press the case ahead of a meeting on Thursday.

He also proposed that the return to remote learning for primary one to primary three pupils be scrapped, allowing them to remain in school as years 12 to 14 return to classes.

Mr Weir argued said the original plan did not make enormous sense and added that those year groups should be allowed to continue with face-to-face learning.

It is not clear yet when all other year groups will go back to school after Easter.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
UPDATE: Additional explosive devices were found at a Newaygo home by police.

UPDATE: High school student accidentally ignited homemade bomb, injuring 6, police say

NEWAYGO COUNTY, MI  A student at Newaygo High School ignited an explosive compound in class, injuring himself and two other students, the superintendent said.

The other students suffered minor injuries, Superintendent Peggy Mathis told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press.

The incident happened Monday morning, March 8.

Mathis said that she was awaiting information on the extent of injuries suffered by the student who allegedly ignited the explosive compound.

Police are investigating the incident. The state police Bomb Squad responded to the high school.

The explosion damaged a desk in the classroom.

Students were evacuated then sent home because of the odor and smoke inside the school.

Our first priority is the safety of all of the kids, Mathis said.

She said that the explosion was not an attack or designed to be something malicious, but a serious lack of judgment.

The explosion was not somebody planting an explosive device in order to hurt our students. Those directly involved with the situation determined that was not the intent.

Read more:

High school student lights firework in class, students sent home

Slaying victims mother awaits justice as COVID-19 slows court case

Lawmakers face reckoning on expanding LGBT protections in civil rights act, supporters say
(Newser)  An online campaign targeting a French teacher who was beheaded days later started with a lie. That's according to Le Parisien, which reports a 13-year-old student has admitted to a judge that she lied when she claimed to be a witness to Samuel Paty's Oct. 6 lesson on Charlie Hebdo's caricatures, during which he showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The girl claimed Paty asked Muslim students to leave the room, and she was suspended for refusing, per the BBC and Guardian. The girl's father responded by identifying and attacking Paty, whom he accused of Islamophobia, in videos posted on social media. Police sources claimed the father then communicated with 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, who followed Paty from the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine and beheaded him on Oct. 16, before being shot dead by police. But it turns out the girl wasn't actually present for the lesson.

story continues below

She'd been suspended from school the day before for "bad behavior," Le Parisien reports, per the BBC, adding "she would not have dared to confess to her father." Paty, who'd conducted similar lessons on free speech in previous years, had only asked students to close their eyes or briefly leave the classroom if they thought they would be offended by the images, per the Guardian. The girl's lawyer said she lied "because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson" but "it was the father's excessive behavior ... that led to this spiral," per the BBC. The father, 48-year-old Brahim Chnina, told police he'd been "idiotic" but "I never thought my messages would be seen by terrorists," per the Guardian. Police have not elaborated on the alleged communications with Anzorov. Both father and daughter are charged, per AFP, as are other students who allegedly pointed out Paty to his killer. (Read more France stories.)
ROSEBURG, Ore.  Douglas County public health officials are reacting to the latest guidance for fully vaccinated people released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the CDC, fully vaccinated people can:

Visit other vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing

Visit indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without masks or physical distancing if the unvaccinated people are at low risk for severe disease

Skip quarantine and testing if exposed to someone who has COVID-19 -- but are asymptomatic -- but should monitor for symptoms for 14 days

However, the CDC also recommends that fully vaccinated people still wear a mask in public because not everyone is vaccinated yet.

RELATED: CDC RELEASES HIGHLY ANTICIPATED GUIDANCE FOR PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED AGAINST COVID-19

We really want to decrease the number of cases because by decreasing the number of cases, we can decrease the number of hospitalizations and deaths, said Douglas County public health officer Dr. Bob Dannenhoffer.

Dannenhoffer said these recommendations come at a great time as vaccine rollout continues throughout the county and the state. He said the science suggests that those who are fully vaccinated are less likely to catch or spread COVID-19.

The vaccine gives great protection, he said. So it really is an encouragement to get the vaccine.

He said his only concern is COVID-19 variants like the Brazilian variant they found in Douglas County las week. Even though there isnt enough data to prove this yet, Dannenhoffer said there is a chance the current variants will be resistant to the vaccine.

If the variant spreads, then we may need to reconsider, said Dannenhoffer. Thats why the variants are the big wild card right now.

However, he said this should not keep people from getting the vaccine.

Some Douglas County residents told KEZI 9 News that theyre glad the CDC is starting ease up on mask guidance. They said this may be the first step in getting back to normal.

If people are being vaccinated at the rate that they say they are and things are being lifted and they say things are going to be okay, I say go for it, said Josh McDonald.

Other residents said they will not be easing up on wearing masks, just to be safe.

We should wait I think myself, said Robert Hadwen. Were pushing it, were trying to get over it but I dont think were going to this easily.

KEZI 9 News reached out to the Oregon Health Authority about how theyll adapt to the new CDC recommendations.

They said theyre still reviewing it.

However, they want to stress the importance of continuing to wear a mask, social distance and staying away from large crowds.
TEL AVIV, Israel, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Netafim , the global leader of precision irrigation solutions and agricultural projects, announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Dutch turnkey greenhouse projects provider Gakon.

Netafim together with its local Company Vegtech-Netafim has been active for over two decades in the greenhouse market in southern Africa and are now expanding their offering in the production and supply of top-tier greenhouse projects to meet the increasing demand for the most advanced farming methods. Driven by growing populations, the call for sustainable agriculture and increasing concern over food security there has been a surge of interest in locally grown fresh produce. Netafim will provide growers with a comprehensive offering of the best greenhouse technologies, structures, irrigation, fertigation and crop growing expertise as well as other ag related services to enable farmers to maximise productivity and efficiency in all climate conditions.

The acquisition is synergetic, combining Netafim's global presence and expertise in precision agriculture and Gakon's advanced greenhouse technology.

With 56 years of agricultural project experience and array of advanced irrigation technologies utilized in 80% of the world's professional high-end greenhouses, Netafim is well-established as a leading player in global agriculture technology. Gakon brings unique expertise in all aspects of greenhouse project execution, glasshouse manufacturing capabilities and a proven track record in key markets. The expanded offering leverages Netafim's capacity as a holistic destination for the increasing numbers of growers of year-round crops and farm-to-table local produce.

"Greenhouse projects were already a strategic priority for Netafim, with Covid-19 further validating the importance of food security and a local fresh supply. We are delighted to join forces with Gakon to enhance our in-house greenhouse related capabilities, including production, and provide local farmers and growers across the world with greenhouse solutions and services that will support both farmers and local food security," said Gaby (Gabriel) Miodownik, Netafim CEO.

"Teaming up with Netafim unlocks a world of opportunities for us," said Pieter van Berchum, Director of Gakon. "We are excited to be able to apply our deep knowledge and skills of greenhouse horticulture to new markets and be part of a group that is set to drive forward sustainable and profitable crop production."

About Netafim

Netafim is the world's largest irrigation company and the global leader in precision irrigation solutions committed to fighting scarcity of food, water, and land, for a sustainable future. With 33 subsidiaries and 17 manufacturing plants worldwide, Netafim offers innovative, tailor-made irrigation and fertigation solutions to millions of farmers from smallholders to large-scale agricultural producers, in over 110 countries.

Founded in 1965, Netafim pioneered the drip revolution, creating a paradigm shift toward precision irrigation. Today, the company specializes in end-to-end solutions from the water source to the root zone, and offers a variety of irrigation, open field and greenhouse projects, as well as landscaping and mining solutions supported by engineering, project management and financing services. Netafim also leads the way in digital farming, having integrated real-time monitoring, analysis, and automated control into one state-of-the-art system.

In 2017, Orbia acquired 80% of Netafim, while Kibbutz Hatzerim holds the remaining 20%. Netafim is part of the Orbia community of companies, working together to tackle some of the world's most complex challenges.

About Gakon

Gakon Horticultural Projects is one of the leading companies in the world for producing, supplying, building, and servicing high quality turnkey horticultural projects. With 70 years of experience, Gakon has been managing projects from ideation to completion. In their headquarters with integrated production based in Westland, Netherlands, Gakon produces their own greenhouses.

About Vegtech-Netafim

Vegtech-Netafim, part of the Netafim Group of Companies, is a leading supplier of turn-key greenhouse projects.

The company, based in Capetown, operates throughout the African continent with projects in South Africa, SADC, Central, West and Northern Africa, and offers a wide range of cutting edge, high-tech solutions for all undercover growing requirements.

See how Netafim's solutions are changing the economics of agriculture and helping the world Grow More with Less at www.netafim.com .

Related Links

http://www.netafim.com



SOURCE Netafim
PORTLAND - Even as she moves about overseeing the day-to-day operations of town government, First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield is keeping one eye focused on Washington.

Hers is not idle curiosity, of course.

Specifically, she is tracking the fate of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package - the America Rescue Plan Act, H.R. 1319  approved Saturday by Democrats in a straight-line party vote.

The proposed legislation includes $350 billion in aid to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and another $130 billion in funding for schools, in addition to $1,400 stimulus checks for millions of Americans.

U. S. Rep. John B. Larson, D-1 has told Bransfield that Portland could receive as much $914,958 in funds for general government and another $989,000 for schools if and when the bill passes. The town also could receive more aid from the county and December school allotments.

It is, Bransfield said Monday, money the town - and more importantly its residents - needs after a year of pushing back against the coronavirus.

Were certainly looking at that money, but we cant have it until and unless everything has passed, Bransfield said.

Bransfield said the federal funds would help relieve some the tax burden.

As a town, we have to be responsible for the health and well-being of our residents, both physically and financially, she said.

The act has now been referred back to the House of Representatives, which will have to vote to approve the Senate version of the bill in order for the relief act to past.

Im very interested in the outcome of the vote, Bransfield said.

The Connecticut Council of Municipalities - is scheduled to hold a webinar Tuesday morning on the federal relief package, Bransfield said.

Its money that is very much needed, she said, both to help fund capital improvement projects but also to respond to needs that came about as a result of COVID-19.

Bransfield is scheduled to meet later this week with members of the towns Long-Range Planning Committee to discuss the towns need going forward.

In the meantime, she said she is thankful to Larson for keeping me in the loop.

Hes always there when I need him, she said, adding that Larson has said he wants to visit the cities and towns in his district to discuss with municipal leaders how they intend to use the stimulus relief funds.

She also intends to meet with the towns elected representatives in Hartford.
Posted Monday, March 8, 2021 9:40 pm

After eight-and-a-half years of raising money, Bethel Lutheran Church in Brush Prairie funded its Millionth Meal through its Million Meals donation program.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 7, the day the church holds its annual Souper Bowl of Caring, members raised over $1,200 for the program in just one hour, enough to send the amount needed for a Million Meals over the top.

I kind of thought we would be able to make the mark in February, but I didnt want to jinx it. So I quietly laid back and prayed a lot, Bethel Lutheran Church Million Meals Outreach Ministry Director Nanci Keenan said. When it finally came through that we had done it, I was like Hallelujah, we did it.

The church began raising money for the Million Meals program in the fall of 2012 after a presentation at the church. The program was started by Lew Lardie first at his local church, Family of Christ in Vancouver, after he moved to Washington state from California. After beginning the program at his home church, he spoke to Bethel Lutheran Church, which decided to accept the challenge of raising a million meals.

Once a month following the start of the program, the church would hold a special offering for the Million Meals program. To help raise money for the program, the church handed out plastic cups with holes in the top for people to collect spare change around their homes to be donated. On donation day, noisy cups of change would go into the collection jar and straight to the churchs Million Meals fund. Despite the stoppage of in-person worship in April 2020, the church continued to raise money for the program digitally and once a month with drive-through donations.

Every single penny we collected in that jar went into Million Meals, Keenan said, mentioning that all funds raised on the churchs yearly celebration of Souper Bowl Sunday also went toward the program.

All the funds raised through the program went to the North County Community Food Bank to purchase food for distribution through the local food bank. In total, the church raised enough money for around 1,013,060 meals in the community. At a church with around 200 active members, thats just over 5,000 meals per person.

It is unbelievable, but that is what we do. That is what Bethel is all about, Keenan said.

North County Community Food Bank volunteer John Idsinga said the church started the program first, then came to the food bank. While the local food bank doesnt track meals exactly, Idsinga said all money raised through the church program went into a fund specifically used to purchase food and nothing else.

Idsinga explained that the food bank feeds anywhere between 625 and 650 local families every month, totalling about 75,000 pounds of food a month or 900,000 pounds a year. Idsinga said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many grocery stores have less food to hand out and the food bank is relying more on local donations of money and food from programs like Million Meals.

Were accepting donations every single day for both dollars and food, he said. A lot of times we can buy food at a less expensive cost.

Those wanting to donate food or money to the bank can do so any time by stopping by and dropping off donations of food or donating online at nccfoodbank.org. All money and donations will go to creating boxes'' of food containing milk, meat, cheeses and everything else you could imagine, Idsinga said.

As for the Million Meals program at Bethel Lutheran Church, Keenan said she didnt know if the church was going to continue on to another million meals. However, she said the church plans to continue donating food in one way or another.

I feel good when I can do what I can for others, Keenan said. I think were better people when we can help our neighbors.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Disney+ Hotstar's upcoming series "Kamathipura" has been delayed as the streamer has decided to adhere to the new OTT guidelines, the show's star Meera Chopra has revealed.

The government on February 25 had notified new rules and guidelines for and digital news media, requiring them to make public their details and having a grievance redressal system in place.

The seven-episode series, directed by Shravankumar Tiwari, is set in and around Mumbai's red-light area. It chronicles a woman police officer's pursuit to unearth the mystery around a serial killer.

The show, which also features Tanuj Virwani as well as veteran actor Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Anang Desai, was earlier scheduled to hit the streaming platform on March 8.

Chopra posted a statement on Twitter on Monday, revealing that "Kamathipura" would now release after the makers make "necessary changes" to the series.

"l am sorry to say that the show has been pushed ahead for sometime. Disney being the responsible platform is adhering to the new I&B policies for OTT.

"As a team we don't want to hurt anybody's sentiments. After making those necessary changes we will come up with the new release date. Thanks," Chopra tweeted.

The move comes amid reports that several steaming platforms are being cautious with their slate of projects after Amazon Prime Video series "Tandav" caused a political storm.

The political thriller attracted huge controversy for a scene depicting a college theatrical programme, leading to allegations that the show hurt religious sentiments and multiple FIRs.

Last week, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar held a meeting with representatives from various OTT platforms, including Alt Balaji, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Jio, Zee5, Viacom18, Shemaroo and MxPlayer.

Javadekar said the ministry aims to partner with the industry to make the audience experience better and asserted that the guidelines focus on self-classification of content instead of any form of censorship.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As a way of protesting and fighting for women's rights, protesters turned the barricades erected around Mexico's National Palace into memorials. They did this to commemorate the victims of femicide and impunity in the country. The symbolic protest was done during Women's Day, as other parts of the world celebrate the day with joy.

BBC reported that women protesters painted the names of the women who have been killed or murdered in the country roughly because of their gender. To counter the violated rights of women, feminists held a protest addressed to their government, saying the authorities' efforts are not enough to protect them against the hostilities that surround them.

ALSO READ: Women of Mexico Are Protesting for Gender Equality on International Women's Day

Mexico Barricades as Memorials

Apart from the written names in the barricade, the protesters also placed flowers along the fences around the National Palace, where the Mexican President resides.

Protesters also chanted, "not one more woman shall be killed," Fonteras reported

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum directed to install barricades to historic buildings and monuments, calling them walls of peace. But the protesters disagree and called it walls of shame as they write the names of women on the barricades.

BBC mentioned that the three-meter high barricades were placed to protect the historic establishments from vandalism and preserve the historic architectures. The Mexican president cited a previous incident that led to the installation of the barricades aroun the National Palace. During a protest on the death of a seven-year-old girl, slogans were sprayed on the walls of the building, and petrol bombs were lobbed against a door.

Despite the barricades, the feminists had another way of voicing out the injustice against women. Fronteras Desk noted that feminists utilized social media where they played speeches and testimonies from the mothers of murdered women. They also posted chants from previous rallies to spark people's awareness regarding the alleged injustice happening to Mexican women.

Protest and Sympathies

There, thats better  Brandon Christopher (@Brandon72433129) March 8, 2021

On the end @lopezobrador_ built the wall only to divide more our country and ignore the cruel reality... please @m_ebrard translate to your president  Alejandra Ornelas (@AODADE) March 8, 2021

The protests done by the feminists caught the attention of the Internet, particularly Twitter.

Twitter user @Brandon72433129 commended the protest in the country. Twitter User @AODADE expresses the disappointment on President Lopez Obrador's order to build the walls, as it divides the country more and set aside the cruel reality. @CakePentagram replied with a photo of pink crosses, which is the symbol used by the protesters and the similar objects held by the relatives of missing women in Ciudad Juarez.

As Mexico protesters call for their government's support on femicides during Women's Day, Statista noted that about 375 Mexican women were murdered during the first five months of 2020, with 91 of them slain in February. However, Statista noted that the number of femicides appears to be decreasing.

RELATED ARTICLE: Missing for a Day: Mexican Women Protest by "Disappearing"

WATCH: Mexican women turn Nat'l Palace fence into memorial ahead of Women's Day - from INQUIRER.net
Like its Lehigh County counterparts, Northampton County is opening a new phone line to help senior residents schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments.

Northampton County residents age 65 or older can call 610-865-7092 on Fridays to schedule a vaccine appointment at the Bethlehem Health Bureau clinic at the Wind Creek Casino Event Center, 77 Wind Creek Blvd. in Bethlehem.

The phone line will open at 8 a.m. this Friday.

The phone service is intended for those who dont have access to a computer or to the internet, officials said.

We understand the frustration of some of our older folks who dont have the access or the computer skills to make appointments online, County Executive Lamont McClure said in a news release. The Area Agency on Aging is making this service available so every Northampton County senior who wants a vaccine is able to get an appointment.

Last month the city of Allentown announced a similar phone line to help Lehigh County seniors register for COVID-19 vaccinations. The Allentown line is open Monday through Friday.

The news comes after LANTA announced it is providing free door-to-door trips to vaccine appointments for seniors in Lehigh and Northampton counties.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
New Delhi, March 9 : The BJP on Tuesday lashed out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for blaming the Railways for a fire that broke out at one of its offices in Kolkata, which left nine persons dead late on Monday night.

The BJP said that every time there is a tragedy in the state, Chief Minister Banerjee shifts the blame on others.

BJP West Bengal co-incharge Amit Malviya tweeted, "Every time there is a tragedy in West Bengal, all that Mamata Banerjee does is shift blame. She blamed the Left for the bridge collapse in 2016 and fire in AMRI hospital. Social media was blamed for Dhulagarh riots and now Railways is being blamed for the fire in which they have lost their people." He pointed out that in March 2010, when she was in the opposition, Banerjee had questioned lack of disaster management protocols after the Park Street fire incident.

"But after 10 years in office, there has been no improvement in the track record of fire safety. Once again, negligence of the state has led to loss of lives," he said.

Malviya pointed out that West Bengal needs a proactive disaster management policy and equipping local bodies with fire fighting equipment.

"Appropriate protocols are required to be put in place. The state also needs a transparent and efficient fire fighting policy with mechanisms to certify buildings for fire preparedness. 'Pishi' has failed Bengal," he said.

Earlier, Banerjee had lashed out at the Indian railways, claiming that no one visited the spot where a fire killed nine people at the Eastern Railways office in Kolkata.
The BlueVoyant Modern SOC unites its Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution with Microsoft Azure Sentinel and Microsoft Defender XDR; expands user investment in Microsoft Security Tools to provide 24/7 Security Operations-as-a-Service

NEW YORK, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- BlueVoyant, a cybersecurity services company, today announced the launch of the BlueVoyant Modern Security Operations Center (BlueVoyant Modern SOC), an end-to-end portfolio of consulting, implementation and Managed Detection and Response Services (MDR), powered by Microsoft technology. The BlueVoyant Modern SOC unites its Managed Services with Microsoft's Azure Sentinel and XDR capabilities through 365 Defender and Azure Defender, providing Microsoft end-customers with a one-stop cybersecurity solution that maximizes and extends their investment in Microsoft tools and takes their security posture to the next level.

The exponential growth in remote networking and the acceleration of digital transformation initiatives expanding the attack surfacecombined with stretched-to-the-limit cybersecurity teams who lack critical visibility into their extended on-premises and cloud infrastructure ecosystemscreates the perfect storm, making vulnerable enterprises a target of new, broader and more aggressive cyber attacks.

Real-Time Threat Intelligence within Azure Sentinel Environment

Cybercriminals are targeting more than just traditional endpoints. Consequently, endpoint-centric detection and response solutions alone do not provide the visibility and response capabilities required to identify and neutralize these broader attacks. With the BlueVoyant Modern SOC, organizations can experience in real time our security experts leveraging its automation and integrated threat intelligence capabilities to identify threats and protect their enterprisedirectly within their Azure Sentinel environment.

24/7 Security Operations-as-a-Service

What's more, customers are looking to consolidate service providers and vendor solutions, as well as to reduce cloud consumption. The BlueVoyant Modern SOC provides the flexibility and scalability enterprises requireand does the heavy lifting for themoperationalizing and managing security tools, continuously monitoring, investigating and rapidly remediating threats on their behalfreducing costs and creating a security operations center of excellence.

Data Remains in Customer's Azure Sentinel Environments

Data privacy regulations and enforcement continue to grow globally. Unlike other MSSP solutions, which require customers to send their raw log data to other clouds or traditional datacenters, BlueVoyant gives organizations peace of mind knowing that with the BlueVoyant Modern SOC, customer data remains in their own Azure Sentinel environments; thereby securing mission critical data and assets, reducing costs and increasing compliance.

"Endpoint-centric detection and response solutions alone do not provide the visibility and response capabilities required to identify and neutralize increasingly broad and sophisticated attacks," comments Milan Patel, Global Head of Managed Security Services at BlueVoyant. "We've solved this challenge with the BlueVoyant Modern SOC. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, the BlueVoyant Modern SOC is unique in the market and gives Microsoft users an end-to-end portfolio of consulting, implementation and Managed Services that unites our MDR solution with Microsoft Azure Sentinel and extended detection and response, to deliver true security operations-as a-service," adds Patel.

Comprehensive Portfolio of Microsoft Security Focused Services for Enterprises and Integration Partners

As Microsoft Gold Partners and Members of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association, BlueVoyant's Modern SOC gives enterprises access to a comprehensive portfolio of Microsoft security focused services. In addition to working with customers directly, BlueVoyant also works with integration partners to assist with deployments. Customized deployment of Microsoft security tools, and ongoing platform care and maintenance includes:

Consulting and Implementation Services:

Azure Sentinel Accelerator



Microsoft 365 Defender Accelerator

Platform Management

Azure Sentinel

Managed Detection and Response

MDR for Azure Sentinel



MDR for Microsoft 365 Defender



MDR for Azure Defender

SOC Type II Certified

BlueVoyant's industry-leading SOC Type II-certified Security Operations Center adds 24x7 monitoring, detection, investigation, and response capabilities to its Platform Management and Consulting and Implementation services. It also boasts over 100 deployments of Azure Sentinel, and unrivalled Microsoft 365 and Azure Cloud Security expertise.

The BlueVoyant Modern SOC provides a wealth of benefits to existing Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5, or Business Premium License holders, including reduced risk, increased time-to-value, ongoing technical support, lowered total cost of ownership and optimized cloud spend.

"The development of the BlueVoyant Modern SOC is a natural extension of our strong and collaborative partnership with Microsoft," said Jim Rosenthal, co-founder and CEO at BlueVoyant. "We have made substantial investments in people, processes and technology to deliver the level of security and reassurance that our customers and prospects have come to expect from BlueVoyantwherever they are in their security journey. The introduction and deployment of the BlueVoyant Modern SOC, and our recent acquisition of Managed Sentinel, perfectly position BlueVoyant to empower enterprises to operate with confidence in today's highly interconnected world," adds Rosenthal.

About BlueVoyant

BlueVoyant is an expert-driven cybersecurity services company whose mission is to proactively defend organizations of all sizes against today's constant, sophisticated attackers, and advanced threats.

Led by CEO, Jim Rosenthal, BlueVoyant's highly skilled team includes former government cyber officials with extensive frontline experience in responding to advanced cyber threats on behalf of the National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Unit 8200 and GCHQ, together with private sector experts. BlueVoyant services utilize large real-time datasets with industry leading analytics and technologies.

Founded in 2017 by Fortune 500 executives, including Executive Chairman, Tom Glocer, and former Government cyber officials, BlueVoyant is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Maryland, Tel Aviv, San Francisco, Manila, Toronto, London, Budapest, and Latin America.

BlueVoyant Press Contacts:

Danielle Ostrovsky

C8 Consulting (Americas)

T: 001 410-302-9459

E: [email protected]

Jim Pople

C8 Consulting (EMEA)

T: +44 7955 030191

E: [email protected]

SOURCE BlueVoyant
Williamstown Board of Health: No Recommendation on Cannabis Bylaw

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Board of Health on Monday decided not to make any recommendations on a draft bylaw the Planning Board is developing to regulate cannabis production in town.

By a unanimous vote, the five-member board composed of active and retired medical professionals agreed that there is "no compelling evidence for or against" the regulations the Planning Board will send to June's annual town meeting.

"I've done a bit of a deep dive into the literature, and I was unable to find any good data looking at the environmental health consequences of these biogenic [volatile organic compounds] or terpinenes," Dr. Devan Bartels said. "Looking at the [draft bylaw critic's] email he sent out, one of the biggest concerns may have been the fact that there is not data does not make them an invalid argument.

"This is a data-free zone, unfortunately, because marijuana was only made legal in the last decade. So it hasn't been extensively studied, and the impacts aren't known."

Terpinenes, or terpenes, is a natural product in plants such as cardamom, marjoram and juniper and is found in tea tree oil.

Andrew Skinner, who is one of several residents pushing the Planning Board to more heavily restrict  or even ban  outdoor commercial cannabis cultivation, sent the Board of Health a letter asking it to weigh in on the question which has dominated the Planning Board for nearly two years.

The planners themselves reached out to the Board of Health with information on the proposed bylaw and a frequently-asked-questions document it has created to educate voters who will be asked to reconsider the issue at this year's town meeting.

"It's a difficult position for us as a board to advise when there isn't good research for us to hang our hat on," Bartels said. "We don't have a lot of data."

Dr. Erwin Steubner pointed to one of the concerns raised in Skinner's letter and said there is data indicating it may not be an argument against cultivation as it would be allowed in the Planning Board's draft bylaw.

"One of his concerns was about terpinenes and whether or not they could activate some form of relapse in kids who were trying to get off marijuana or induce the desire to smoke marijuana, and the research I've been able to find is that they do not," Steubner said. "The THC in cannabis is not part of the odor in the terpinenes. The terpinenes have been available in plants for  they're ubiquitous, but the odor itself should not be related to the smoking of marijuana."

The Planning Board is scheduled to take up the draft bylaw on cannabis production along with other zoning bylaw proposals at its meeting on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

The Board of Health also discussed the recent response by Williams College to a well-publicized breach of the school's COVID-19 protocols. Steubner, who has acted as a liaison between the board and the college's administration, said the topic was discussed at their regular meeting last week.

"Obviously, they're dealing with a lot of fallout from that party," Steubner said. "A lot of parents are probably upset. A lot of students are upset.

"I think the fact that President [Maud] Mandel made it very clear both at the beginning of fall semester when two students were asked to go remote and with this incident that she's not going to accept any deviation from the protocols.

"I'd hope that would be a great message for the spring semester."

Chair Ruth Harrison commended the college for being transparent about the Feb. 26 infraction and its consequences.

"I think there's been so much good communication that the community doesn't have a lot of questions about it at this point," she said.

The board on Monday scheduled its next meeting for Thursday, April 8, when it hopes to consider the COVID-19 protocols being developed by the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Steubner said the annual cultural event, which went entirely virtual in 2020, plans to announce its season at a gala in New York City on April 7.

"Ruth and I thought we'd have a meeting on the 8th to include [WTF Artistic Director Mandy Greenfield] and [Director of Audience Engagement Antonello Di Benedetto] to go over their full protocol, and we can give our blessing at that point."
Unknown gunmen on Tuesday morning reportedly invaded Tor-Donga, an area in Katsina-Ala Local Government of Benue State, killing scores while...

Unknown gunmen on Tuesday morning reportedly invaded Tor-Donga, an area in Katsina-Ala Local Government of Benue State, killing scores while many were left injured.

It was gathered that there was tension in the community as both farming and other economic activities in the area came to an abrupt halt.

When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Anene Sewuese Catherine told our correspondent that the command was yet to receive the report.

I have received several calls on that but the command cant confirm it now. We are yet to get the report, she said.

Recall that gunmen a few days ago shot and killed the older brother of former Governor Gabriel Suswam, Dr Terkura Suswam in the same Sankera axis of the state.

The state governor, Samuel Ortom had in reaction to the death of Terkura, declared total war on all criminal elements in the state.

Meanwhile, there have been speculations that the unrest in the area could be traced to the killing of a gang leader, Mr Terwase Akwaza known as Gana who was declared wanted by the state government but later killed by the military.
Australian organisations have been warned to protect their systems from being hacked. (Source: Getty)

Good morning.

Here's your Yahoo Finance Wednesday morning wrap:

ASX: The Australian share market is set to open in the green after Wall Street recorded positive  yet mixed  results as investors tilt away from tech stocks in favour of value and cyclical stocks tied to a strong economic recovery.

Wall Street: Overnight, the NASDAQ hit highs of more than 4 per cent before closing up 3.69 per cent, while the S&P 500 was up 1.42 per cent and Dow Jones up closed relatively flat at 0.096 per cent. More from Yahoo Finance US reporter Emily McCormick here.

AUD: The Aussie dollar is trading at around 77.1 US cents today.

Act now. That's the message of Australia's leading cyber security agency about the Chinese hacker attack on Microsoft servers (we reported on this on Saturday). Australian organisations have been impacted  and some are still vulnerable. Here's what you need to know and do.

The job of the Federal Attorney-General hangs in the balance. The PM has said multiple times he won't hold an independent inquiry into the rape allegations against Christian Porter, which he's categorically denied, but a leading legal academic has said there's ample scope for Morrison to hold the inquiry. Monash University's Associate Professor Luke Beck had some interesting things to say.

Qantas' CEO wants borders opened up. That's not surprising, but Alan Joyce said that long-term border closures would lead tourists and students to turn their backs on Australia, which would hamstring Australia's economy. Here's what he said.

GDP figures: The unexpectedly strong figures came out last week, and Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe is expected to address them at a summit today. Here's some background about Australia's economic recovery so far.

Remember Mathias Cormann? He was Australia's Federal Finance Minister until last year, when he resigned from the job. He's now vying to become the new chief of the OECD  but the heads of 30 Australian and global charities and research institutions have signed a letter saying Cormann's got a track record of "thwarting effective climate action". More on this here.

Have a great day.

Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, and subscribe to the free Fully Briefed daily newsletter.
Paddy McGuinness revealed Top Gear considered recording links for its studio elements from a barge on the Thames after leaving its previous home after almost 20 years (BBC/PA)

Paddy McGuinness revealed Top Gear considered recording links for its studio elements from a barge on the Thames after leaving its previous home after almost 20 years.

It was announced last month the long-running BBC motoring show had vacated Surreys Dunsfold race track.

Instead, the show recorded its links during a two-night shoot at the BBCs former home, the Television Centre in west London.

Expand Close Andrew Flintoff, Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris will return for the new series of Top Gear (BBC/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Andrew Flintoff, Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris will return for the new series of Top Gear (BBC/PA)

Top Gears 30th series was filmed without the usual studio audience due to coronavirus restrictions.

McGuinness, returning as Top Gear host alongside Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris, revealed producers explored several options before choosing Television Centre.

He said: There were all sorts of ideas including going down the Thames on a big barge, but Television Centre is right on our doorstep, its an iconic building and everyone knows it from the telly.

Well still film outdoors, and I think it will look great. Were going to really dress it up and have lights everywhere and lots of cars. Ive hosted lots of shows at Television Centre before but never outside, its all been in the studios.

The latest series of Top Gear will see the hosts heading north to Scotland for an off-road adventure, tackling the issue of mid-life crisis cars and taking a look at some of the best-known vehicles from the James Bond films.

Actor and comedian McGuinness said he hoped the show would bring happiness to viewers amid the pandemic.

He said: I do feel like the series is coming out at the right time though, because people just need a bit of a laugh. Its a miserable time at the moment, for some more than others, but its always a nice feeling when you see something new is coming on telly to look forward to.

Top Gear returns at 8pm on Sunday March 14 on BBC One.
Editor: Gov. Tom Wolfs proposed budget substantially would increase Pennsylvanias K-12 basic education funding.

It would distribute most of that increase to school districts using the fair funding formula adopted by the Legislature in 2016. Our organization, Pennsylvanians for Fair Funding, urges legislators to utilize the formula for all basic funding.

In the five years since the bill was passed, only new funding has been directed to schools through the fair funding formula, which is a small fraction of total school funding  just 11% in the 2020-2021 school year budget. Therefore, the vast majority of basic funding is not directed through the formula; instead it is based on historical allocations to districts. This fails to account for growing enrollments or rising needs in countless districts. As a result, many Pennsylvania public school students are shortchanged  including roughly 80% of Black and Hispanic students.

These disparities mean that Pennsylvania has the largest gap of per-student funding of any state between its wealthiest and poorest districts. They translate into fewer educational opportunities for students in underfunded districts, fewer Advanced Placement courses,outdated books and technology, smaller art and music programs; higher student-teacher ratios and fewer counselors, nurses and librarians. They also fall most heavily on students and taxpayers of color. Full utilization of the fair funding formula would go a long way toward giving schools the resources to finally close these gaps.

Equity is no longer an option; it is an imperative. Pennsylvanians cannot wait any longer for our government to provide fair funding to school districts and to our students. Sufficient and equitable education funding is essential as we transition our schools from remote learning back to in-person instruction, and to undo what has been years of blatantly inadequate support for the commonwealths underserved and underfunded students.

ALEX BATTAGLIA

PHILADELPHIA

KAREN POOLEY

BETHLEHEM

JOHN BARNETT

CHESTER SPRINGS, CHESTER COUNTY

LAURA JOHNSON

POTTSTOWN

PENNSYLVANIANS FOR FAIR FUNDING

Editor: Times-Tribune columnist Chris Kelly doesnt forget.

As a result, this community is blessed. I think he may realize that long after former President Trump is relegated to the ash heaps of history, Dunmore businessman Louis DeNaples will still be a factor in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Not that DeNaples doesnt have the right to deal. He has a greater obligation, however, that he doesnt honor: Prosperity will not occur for others as long as he has a negative effect on our ability to grow.

Let me explain: If he has many businesses, three that stand out are the auto parts business, a casino and landfills  especially Keystone Sanitary Landfill. That is the linchpin. It lies at the convergence of Interstates 81 and 380 and Route 6. At this fortunate juncture, the refuse of New Jersey and New York is received, more than twice as much as from NEPA. Those states are relieved of their responsibility when they should process and store their own garbage.

This is the gist of a trash bill authored largely by Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Matt Cartwright, both Lackawanna County Democrats. They are two of the finest members of Congress and we are fortunate to have them. But they are banging their heads against a wall, needing greater support from citizens on this issue.

If we can better support our other leadership, as well, elected and appointed, we are all encouraged to move ahead with hope in the future.

RICHARD J. YOST

SOUTH ABINGTON TWP.

Editor: Listening to the complete speech of former President Trump on Jan. 6 prior to the Capitol riot, there should be no doubt that he is unbalanced and has the mind of a dictator.

The graces of our democracy and the wisdom of our forefathers saved the United States. The people who marched that day on our Capitol had one thing in mind, to take down our democracy even if it cost some of them their lives.

Trump apparently so sickened their minds that they would die for him. Did he walk with them, as he pledged? No, of course not. He issued a video calling for the riots to end.

As a veteran, we were taught to uphold the Constitution. If members of the Army were guarding the Capitol, the rioters would have been shot dead once they touched the doors to the building.

RON GRABOWSKI

OLYPHANT

Editor: It is with amusement that President Joe Biden thought he could shame anyone who disagrees with him by condemning Neanderthal thinking regarding the importance of using face masks.

Obviously, he does not following the science. For a man that has been in Washington, D.C., for nearly 50 years he must not have seen or read a recent article in Smithsonian magazine about Neanderthals. A group of anthropologists who have done extensive research on the Neanderthal population concluded that they were highly intelligent.

ADELE FLETCHER

HAMLIN

Editor: Im an old man, so its only natural that Ive lost a few close friends and family members over the years.

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh died recently. I did not know him. I did not meet him. His passing brought tears.

JONATHAN MOE

SCRANTON
London, March 9 : As millions of children returned to classrooms across England, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the increased risk of coronavirus transmission is "inevitable".

"We do accept, of course, there will be increased risk of transmission, that's inevitable," Johnson said at a press briefing at Downing Street on Monday.

But he added that "the greater risk is keeping children out of school longer", reports Xinhua news agency.

As part of Johnson's long-anticipated "roadmap" to exit the lockdown, schools reopened on Monday morning The reopening of schools is the first part of the four-step plan, which Johnson said on February 22 was designed to be "cautious but irreversible".

Under the guidance, two people are allowed for recreation in an outdoor public space such as a park, which means they would be allowed to sit down for a coffee, drink or picnic.

England is expected to see all legal social restrictions being removed from June 21.

At Monday's briefing, Johnson said the government can take the first step of easing lockdown with "confidence" because a third of the entire British population has now been vaccinated.

"At all times, we will be driven by the data," he added.

Joining Johnson at the briefing, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Jenny Harries acknowledged the impact of opening schools on the virus transmission.

"We do expect there to be an impact on R, but education is of critical public health importance," she said, referring to the coronavirus reproduction number.

More than 22.3 million people in Britain have been given the first jab of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest official figures.

Still, Johnson urged continued vigilance with the public as infections remain high.

"With the number of patients being admitted to hospital with Covid still eight times higher than the lows of last summer, it's more vital than ever to follow the rules."
SHELBY TOWNSHIP, MI  The Michigan Attorney Generals Office today announced that a police officer who shot and killed a suspect in 2018 has been cleared of wrongdoing and will not be charged in the case.

The shooting occurred on Nov. 3, 2018, when a man driving a vehicle reported stolen did not comply with police commands, told officers he had a weapon when he did not, and then suddenly reached across the front of his body, according to the news release. At that point, Shelby Township Police Officer Jason Zuk shot Kanwarbir Malhi, 25, of Shelby Township, with a department-issued shotgun, striking him in the chest and neck area.

Following a review of the evidence and circumstances, the AGs office determined there was not enough evidence to charge Shelby Township Police Officer Jason Zuk with any crimes; he has been cleared of any wrongdoing, the release said.

On Nov. 3, 2018, Zuk responded to a call for back-up from an officer who had located a vehicle that was reported stolen the day before, according to the release. Malhi was the driver of the vehicle, which belonged to his mother. Following up on the stolen vehicle report, police saw Malhi driving the vehicle through the parking lot of the apartment complex where the family lived.

After Malhi parked, an officer approached the vehicle and gave Malhi multiple commands to show his hands, but he did not comply, the release states. After back-up arrived, officers repeatedly told Malhi to show his hands and to exit the vehicle. They asked Malhi if he had a weapon, and he told them he did.

After about 10 minutes, Malhi exited the vehicle and made a sudden movement toward the front of his body, according to the release. At that point, Zuk fired a single shot from his department-issued shotgun, striking Malhi in the chest and neck. Malhi fell to the ground and authorities immediately rendered medical aid. It was determined that he did not have a weapon. Malhi was transported to Troy Beaumont Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The AGs office reviewed video footage, testimony and other evidence, and determined that Zuk acted under an honest and reasonable belief that he and other officers were in danger, the release states. No criminal charges will be filed.

When I took office, I announced that this Department would focus special attention on officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths, AG Dana Nessel said. These are challenging cases that require a careful and thoughtful review to ensure the trust of the parties involved and the confidence of the larger public in the process that we use. To meet that challenge, we are committed to conducting each review without pre-conceived notions or pre-determined outcomes. Instead, we will reach our conclusions by following the evidence  wherever it takes us.

READ MORE:

Parolee allegedly connected to recent Flint-area murder leads police on chase

Woman killed in crash with parked vehicle

2 police officers hospitalized after on-duty crash

Additional explosive devices found at Michigan home after homemade bomb injures six at school

2 men shot in drive-by in Jackson

Hunters find skeletal remains less than five miles from Lake Michigan

Woman flees deputy during traffic stop, tops 100 MPH before crashing into stand of trees
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 9)  A 69-year-old woman was found dead hours after she was reported missing in a fire that gutted around 80 homes in Malate, Manila on early Tuesday, authorities said.

The early morning fire at P. Ocampo Street also left around 200 families homeless, the Bureau of Fire Protection said in a report.

The blaze reached the first alarm at 3:19 a.m., and the third alarm at 4:50 a.m., the BFP reported, adding the fire was declared out at 6:15 a.m. Fourteen fire trucks were needed to put out the blaze, authorities said.

No one was reported hurt, but the BFP said the incident caused damage worth around P500,000.
Hard choices

Any transactional system, no matter how sophisticated and modern, has its own limits. The trading system in use on HOSE currently is quite old, so it cannot meet the demand in the context of exponential increase in liquidity at present. In fact, this limit has also been seen before, so there is a new transaction system, KRX of South Korea, set for future operations. Had it not been for the sudden disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, and which is still relentlessly continuing, perhaps the new system would have been in place by now.

However, it is needless to blame the pandemic for inadequacies. While waiting for the new system to replace the old, the most important thing is to make sure the market continues to operate correctly and efficiently. Several options are on the table currently. For instance, by raising the minimum trading lot from 10 stocks to 100 stocks and then on to more than 1,000 stocks; increasing the price step from VND 10 to VND 100 or more; move listing of some existing shares on HOSE to HNX; deposit part of stock trading through the trading system of HNX.

The increase of the minimum trading lot from 10 stocks to 100 stocks is being done from 4 January 2021, and according to information from HOSE, it reduces the load by about 15% to 18% on the number of orders. However, transaction congestion still occurs, which shows that the efficiency is not enough. Therefore, raising the minimum trading lot to 1,000 stocks is expected to reduce the load by 40% or 50% of the order volume.

Suggestion to raise the minimum lot from 10 stocks to 100 stocks has drawn harsh criticism. Many people said this solution has deprived the opportunity of trading for small investors. Hence, when raising the minimum round to 1,000 stocks, the public opinion is likely to increase. There are quite a few high value stocks, from VND 50,000 or more, being traded, which means that the minimum amount of capital to buy will also increase and just like the original objection, raising the lot to 1,000 is being considered effective to decrease customers. On the other hand, when some section of investors cannot buy stocks of high market price, the demand will decrease in these codes and can affect price fluctuation.

In fact, raising a trading lot to 1,000 would be more acceptable if there were multiple market price options. For example, if a stock has a price of more than VND 100,000, a minimum lot of 1,000 can be applied, while a stock from VND 50,000 to less than VND 100,000 applies to a smaller lot. The problem arises when stocks fluctuate around the limit, and the rules change. This also increases the load of the trading system of securities companies, and the ability to edit system parameters of companies, which is also problematic, especially when this solution is only temporary.

A step pricing solution is also an option, because technically it does not reduce the total number of orders entered into the system. This option, if available, has another purpose to increase the transaction costs of robotic systems using the arbitrage strategy, and thereby reduce the order placement of this group. However, increasing the step gap also damages all other normal transactions. This is real, direct and immediate damage to all investors, like Forex exchanges do. This solution has long term side effects while also not restricting efficient robot trading by raising the minimum round lot.

Choosing to change stock exchanges is causing certain reactions to the downgrading of listed companies. However, that is only subjective judgment from a few opinions. In order to reverse listing from HOSE to HNX, it is necessary to have the voluntary approval of shareholders, not just through administrative orders. Management agencies are calling for volunteering from businesses, so this solution is not promising in efficiency because the quantity is unknown, not to mention the time will be extended in terms of procedures.

On the other hand, if it is only temporary, after having a new system, the business will move back to HOSE, creating a vicious circle. Actually, the congested trading system only affects the secondary investors who buy and sell every day, while the major shareholders, the business owners, mostly do not care, but they have a decisive voice in the shareholders meeting.

Short term solutions

The most interesting solution is to deposit a portion of the transaction into the HNX trading system. The idea is that some stocks will switch to trading on HNX instead of HOSE and reduce the load evenly by the daily trading size of these codes. The system of the HNX on a trial run could load up to the threshold of 12 million to about 15 million orders, so it is not difficult for the HNX to receive dozens of stocks or hundreds of stocks from HOSE.

However, this solution has some limitations that securities companies have to modify system parameters to send orders to the correct trading floor. The difficulty of placing the role of market member is due to the fact that it is related to margin management. Therefore, securities companies need time to modify system software, and increase costs. If this is just a short term solution, then after the new system is in place it will have to be adjusted again. Not all securities companies are willing to do this. If only a few companies are willing to do it, then it will create injustice in the transaction.

On the other hand, the data linkage between the HNX and HOSE is also a problem. The VN Index represents all stocks listed on HOSE, which includes the number of shares deposited for trading on the HNX. Updating the price data continuously during the session to calculate the VN Index is not possible but can happen only at the end of the day. In particular, stocks in the VN30 cannot be deposited, as it is also related to the underlying index for the derivative market. This will distort the technical analysis based on the VN Index because the opening, closing, highest, and lowest prices are not accurate.

Another very easy option that is being discussed by many is to embrace system bottlenecks at a given point in time, which means that nothing needs to be done at this time, as the new system is under urgent deployment. The reality is that the system has been congested since the end of 2020 and has been so for many months now. The market somewhat self-regulates liquidity and the frequency of congestion has also decreased. Investors can flex when transaction time is not congested, because tens of thousands of billion dong are matched every day.

Nguyen Ha
The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
NEW DELHI: BJP leader and Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Tuesday took a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his demand for a separate fisheries ministry and said that he was not sure if the latters memory failed when he claimed that there was no fisheries department in the NDA government.

"I am hurt. Rahul Gandhi had asked a question on February 2. But in Puducherry and Kochi, he said that there is no fisheries department, I don't know if his memory failed him. 'I will form a separate ministry when we come to power', Gandhi had said. Whose question was this?" Giriraj Singh, who is the Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying of India, said while speaking in the Lok Sabha.

I'm hurt. Rahul Gandhi had asked a question on 2nd Feb. But in Puducherry & Kochi, he said that there's no Fisheries Dept, I don't know if his memory failed him. I'll form a separate ministry when we come to power, he said. Whose question was this?: Minister for Fisheries in LS pic.twitter.com/IbXIhdFb5h  ANI (@ANI) March 9, 2021

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Singh said that the Congress leader should be sent to schools so that he can be taught what all departments and ministries are there in the government at the Centre.

        ,        

               pic.twitter.com/n8r9QUNj1H  Shandilya Giriraj Singh (@girirajsinghbjp) March 9, 2021

After Rahul Gandhi's gaffe in Puducherry on February 17 calling for the setting up of a separate ministry for fisheries, Giriraj had taken to Twitter to take a swipe at the Congress leader's "ignorance" and attempt to "spread misinformation".

"Caro Raul (@RahulGandhi), Non esiste un Ministero della pesca separato in Italia. Viene sotto Ministero delle Politiche Agricole e Forestali. politicheagricole.it" (There is no separate Ministry of Fisheries in Italy. It comes under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry)," Giriraj had tweeted.

The Gandhi scion, who was in Puducherry that day to kickstart the Congress' election campaign, had addressed the fishing community and spoke about the ongoing farmers' protest.

"The government passed three bills against farmers, the backbone of a nation. You must be wondering why am I talking about farmers at the meeting of fishermen. I consider you to be farmers of the sea. If farmers of the land can have a ministry in Delhi, then why not the fishermen?" Rahul Gandhi had asked.

"The current government is attacking small and medium businesses because they want all businesses to be controlled by big corporations. Our view is different. We want to strengthen small and medium businesses because we believe that's the strength of this country," the Congress leader had said.

After this remark from Rahul Gandhi, Giriraj Singh, in a tweet in Hindi, had also said, "Rahul ji! You should know that on May 31, 2019, Modi ji created a new ministry. And started the Rs 20050 cr Master Plan (PMMSY) which is several times more than the central government's expenditure from independence to 2014 (3682 cr)."

"Rahul Ji! I request you to come to the new fisheries ministry or call me where I come. Let me tell you about the schemes being run by the new Fisheries Ministry all over the country and Puducherry," he had said in another tweet.

Live TV
(TNS)  Newly discovered flaws in Microsoft Corp.s software for email has raised concerns at the highest levels of the U.S. government, which is urging users to immediately apply patches.At least 30,000 organizations across the U.S., including significant numbers of small businesses and local governments, have been hacked via holes in Microsofts email software in the last few days by suspected Chinese attackers who are focused on stealing email from victims, the blog KrebsonSecurity reported Friday.This is a significant vulnerability that could have far-reaching impacts, said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, speaking at a briefing. We are concerned there are a large number of victims. She characterized the incident as an active threat.Her remark comes after Microsoft disclosed on Tuesday that nation-state hackers based in China were exploiting previously unknown flaws in on-premise versions of the software and released patches for them. The following day, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is known as CISA and is part of the Department of Homeland Security, issued an emergency directive in response to observed active exploitation of these products. As a result, civilian agencies and departments were directed to apply the patches, or disconnect Microsoft Exchange from their networks, and to look for compromises.Government concern over the flaws continued to build over the course of the week. On Thursday, CISA released an alert stating that it was aware of hackers using tools to search for servers that hadnt yet been patched. That evening, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote on Twitter that the U.S. is closely tracking Microsofts emergency patch. He cited reports of potential compromises of U.S. think tanks and defense industrial base entities.The specific targets and timing of the hacking remains unknown. Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said the Pentagon is assessing its systems based on Microsofts advisory. The cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. found that victims included U.S.-based retailers, local governments, a university, and an engineering firm. The version of exchange targeted by hackers is typically run by small businesses, putting them at special risk, according to Allan Liska, an analyst at the firm Recorded Future Inc.A Microsoft representative said the vulnerabilities were disclosed to the company in early January. Microsoft isnt aware of attacks before then, the representative said. The cybersecurity firm Volexity reported finding attacks leveraging the flaws that date back to as early as Jan. 6. However, CISA urged operators to look for compromises dating back to September, out of an abundance of caution, according to a spokesperson.
Mumbai, March 9 : Directorate of Tourism (DoT), Maharashtra Tourism announced relocation to a new office on the 15th Floor at Nariman Bhavan.

Aditi Tatkare, Minister of State for Tourism and Valsa Nair Singh, Principal Secretary of Tourism, Excise & Civil Aviation, Govt. of Maharashtra graced the inaugural occasion of the Directorate of Tourism's headquarters office. DoT celebrates the grand opening of the office with ribbon cutting by Aditi Tatkare.

Directorate of Tourism is the flagship body of Maharashtra Tourism. Maharashtra government decided to form a separate body, DoT in 2016. DoT and MTDC were operating from one office until recently.

Aditi Tatkare, Minister of State for Tourism, said, "I heartily congratulate the DoT team. We have been thinking of setting up an independent office for DoT since a while and I am glad that we have a headquarters office now. This move will further help DoT to promote Maharashtra's tourism opportunities to our national and international stakeholders. The new office will ensure effective implementation of State's tourism programmes and policies. I wish huge success and luck to the entire DoT staff.

At the inauguration, Valsa Nair Singh, Principal Secretary of Tourism, Excise & Civil Aviation, Govt. of Maharashtra, said, "It is a great achievement to set up a new office during Covid times. We are hopeful that this independent office will continue to drive our tourism development opportunities and promote Maharashtra Tourism to greater heights of success. I congratulate the entire staff of DoT for the office".

Image Source: IANS News

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Dhananjay Sawalkar, Director of Directorate of Tourism, said, "We pride ourselves on providing a welcoming and energizing environment in our new office. It was decided to set up an independent office for DoT in 2019 and we started looking for the same as we have been steadily expanding our employee strength. This office will allow us to provide an even better work environment and experience for our employees."

-- Syndicated from IANS
A LIMERICK man who is wanted in Bulgaria to serve a sentence for drink driving, and who has a conviction for serious drugs offences from the early 2000s, is disputing a claim that Bulgarian prisons are not overcrowded.

Jonathan Collopy, 34, who has an address at St Mary's Park in the city is wanted in Bulgaria to serve an 18-month sentence having been convicted of drink driving in his absence.

At the High Court this Tuesday, Katherine McGillicuddy BL told Mr Justice Paul Burns that she wants two weeks to prepare submissions about prison conditions in Bulgaria.

She said the Bulgarian authorities had responded to a question from the High Court to say that their prisons are not overcrowded, that they have enough space for social distancing and have adequate health facilities.

"I have an expert who is disputing that," Ms McGillicuddy said.

Mr Justice Burns adjourned the matter until March 25.

The court has previously heard that Collopy was arrested on November 5 last year after a European Arrest Warrant was issued by Bulgarian authorities.

Sgt Jim Kirwan, who objected to bail at the initial hearing, said Collopy has 17 previous convictions, mostly for road traffic matters in recent years but, he added, in 2004 he was jailed for serious drugs offences
[March 09, 2021] Asana Named #15 on Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021

Asana, Inc. (NYSE: ASAN), a leading work management platform for teams, today announced it has been named #15 on Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021. Asana was also named #1 in the Workplace category, honoring organizations delivering groundbreaking initiatives and products that leading companies utilize to enhance their workplaces. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005745/en/ Asana was recognized by Fast Company for its industry-defining approach to company culture and pioneering product innovation in 2020, including the launch of Asana Goals. (Photo: Business Wire) Asana was recognized by Fast Company for its industry-defining approach to company culture and pioneering product innovation in 020, including the launch of Asana Goals. As the single source of truth for setting, tracking, and managing goals, Asana ensures teams are working on their company's most important work, no matter where they're located. With the ability to see how the business is progressing towards the achievement of its goals in real-time, Asana helps organizations of all sizes be better aligned, engaged and connected to their mission.



"It's an honor to be recognized by Fast Company as one of the top 15 World's Most Innovative Companies, including leading the Workplace category," said Alex Hood, Chief Product Officer, Asana. "Everything we do at Asana is in service of our customers and the 1.25 billion knowledge workers who are still relying on outdated tools like email and spreadsheets to work together. Empathy and experimentation are not only how we build, but who we are. While it's still early days for innovation in the work management category, we're proud to be pioneering the future of work that empowers teams to operate with clarity, accountability, and alignment like never before." The Fast Company World's Most Innovative Companies list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. Featuring 463 businesses from 29 countries, according to Fast Company the companies on this year's list did more than survive, they thrived-making an impact on their industries and culture as a whole.

The recognition is the latest industry accolade for Asana, which was named #1 on G2's (News - Alert) Enterprise Grid Report for Project Management and #14 on Glassdoor Employees' Choice Award list earlier this year. In 2020, Great Place to Work and Fortune recognized Asana as the #1 Workplace in Technology and #2 Best Small & Medium Workplace. About Asana Asana helps teams orchestrate their work, from small projects to strategic initiatives. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA (News - Alert) , Asana has more than 89,000 paying organizations and millions of free organizations across 190 countries. Global customers such as Accenture, Estee Lauder, Japan Airlines, Sky and Viessmann rely on Asana to manage everything from company objectives to digital transformation to product launches and marketing campaigns. For more information, visit www.asana.com. About Fast Company Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005745/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The pipeline of new overseas students plunged by more than 60 per cent in the second half of 2020, as the peak body for Australian universities defended its failed efforts to convince the Morrison government of the need for an urgent plan to bring back international students.

Universities Australia, which represents the countrys 39 universities, estimates at least 17,300 jobs were shed from Australian campuses in 2020, with the loss of international student fee revenue the major cause of budget pressures.

Universities Australia chair Deborah Terry has defended the organisations lobbying efforts on international students. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Border closures and travel restrictions saw the numbers of new overseas students commencing their studies at Australian universities plunge by 62 per cent to around 15,400 students in the second half of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019, according to the latest data from the Department of Education.

The effectiveness of Universities Australias advocacy is now under scrutiny, with findings of an external review of its role and functions expected to be handed to the lobbys board in coming weeks.
DUBLIN, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "E-Beam Wafer Inspection Systems - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global market for E-Beam Wafer Inspection System is projected to reach US$1.2 billion by 2025, driven by the growing demands placed on semiconductor companies to optimize yield management.

The focus on metrology and high performance quality control is therefore increasing. Rapid digitalization and evolution of Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and machine learning technologies are driving the need for faster, smaller, low power devices, bringing in new challenges for semiconductor manufacturers.

While wafer size is increasing from 200 mm to 300nm, critical dimensions of semiconductor circuits (patterns) is rapidly shrinking to 0.13 um and 0.10 um. As critical dimensions shrink, identifying defects becomes more difficult and time-consuming. However, in order to ensure profitability and production efficiency, yield limiting defects need to be identified early on in the manufacturing flow.

Wafer defect inspection is therefore emerging into an important step in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Intrinsic defects on bare wafers if left undetected can lead to killer defects on final processed wafer/chips. Early detection of physical defects and pattern defects on wafers can help save companies millions of dollars in production losses.

E-Beam Wafer Inspection System, in this regard, is witnessing strong growth and adoption supported by benefits such as minimized total time for detecting and fixing defects on processed wafers; higher return-on-investment for semiconductor fabricators; high resolution; effective for inspecting nodes at 10 nm and below; ability to identify defects residing deep within the wafer structures; and effectively identifies electrical defects that impact yield. Technology developments aimed at enhancing throughput speeds are of vital importance, given that slow throughput is the Achilles Heel of the technology.



Other major noteworthy trends in the market include innovations in multi-beam e-beam inspection brings the promise of reduced cost of inspection for each node; growing replacement of optical inspection with e-beam inspection as new architectures like finFETs & 3D NAND emerge. Asia-Pacific excluding China represents the largest market worldwide with a 30.3% share. U.S., Japan and China represent the other major markets with a combined share of 43.6%.

China ranks as the fastest growing market with a 22.3% CAGR over the analysis period supported by the Chinese governments efforts to build a self-sufficient, homegrown semiconductor industry against the backdrop of intensifying U.S.-China trade war. Funding support, favorable policies and R&D push have already resulted in the establishment of several start-ups focusing on AI and machine learning hardware.

As the country initiates its long-term plan of reducing dependence on US chip technology, semiconductor infrastructure in the country will receive a boost spurring opportunities for production technologies like e-beam inspection.

Asia-Pacific excluding China follows next with a 21.4% CAGR led by established semiconductor manufacturing giants such as Taiwan and South Korea.



Key Topics Covered:

I. INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY & REPORT SCOPE



II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



1. MARKET OVERVIEW



Semiconductor Industry: An Overview

Global Semiconductor Industry CAPEX (in US$ Billion) for Years 2016, 2018 & 2022F

Global Personal Electronics Market by Product Category in Million Units for the Years 2016, 2018 and 2020

Dynamics of E-Beam Wafer Inspection Systems Tied to Semiconductor Manufacturing

Growing Sophistication of Semiconductor Wafer Designs Stimulates Demand

Wafer Defect Inspection System: An Introduction

Types of Wafer Defect Inspection Systems

E-Beam Wafer Inspection System: A Prelude

Resolving Power Less Than 1 nm

Resolving Power 1 to 10 nm

Resolving Power More Than 10 nm

E-Beam Wafer Inspection System: Industry Overview

More Than 10 nm Inspection Resolution Dominates the Product Category

Defect Imaging: The Largest End-Use Application Market

Asia Maintains Large Lead in the E-Beam Wafer Inspection System Market

Global Competitor Analysis

Focus Shifts to R&D

Global Competitor Market Shares

E-Beam Wafer Inspection System Competitor Market Share Scenario Worldwide (in %): 2019

Global Semiconductor Metrology/Inspection Competitor Market Share (in %): 2019

Impact of Covid-19 and a Looming Global Recession

2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS



Applied Materials, Inc. ( USA )

) ASML Holding NV ( The Netherlands )

) Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation ( Japan )

) KLA Corporation ( USA )

) Lam Research Corporation ( USA )

) Photo electron Soul Inc. ( Japan )

3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS



Analysis of the E-Beam Wafer Inspection System Market

Key Growth Drivers in the E-beam Wafer Inspection System Market

Multi-Beam Technology Holds Immense Potential

Enhanced Defect Detection

E-Beam Inspection Systems Find Use for R&D Purposes

Robust Demand for Semiconductor Wafers Key to Growth of E-Beam Inspection System

Global Integrated Circuits Semiconductor Market in US$ Billion for the Years 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020

Global Semiconductor Integrated Circuit (IC) Wafer Capacity in Millions of 200mm-Equivalent Wafers for the Years 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020

R&D Spending in Semiconductor Industry Continues to Rise: An Opportunity for E-Beam Wafer Inspection Market

Global Semiconductor R&D Spending: Compounded Annual Growth Rate (%) of R&D Expenditure for the Periods 2003-2008, 2008-2013, 2013-2018 and 2018-2023F

US Semiconductor Industry: Capital and R&D Investment in US$ Billion for the Years 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018

Increasing Demand for Semiconductor Wafers and Growing Complexity of Wafer Design and Manufacturing Process Augurs Well for E-Beam Wafer Inspection Systems Market

Global Semiconductor Silicon Wafer Market: Revenues in US$ Billion for the Years 2019E, 2021F, 2023F and 2025F

Global New Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Sales in US$ Billion by Geographic Region for the Years 2016, 2018 and 2020F

Optical Vs E-Beam Wafer Inspection System

Select Innovative Technologies Impacting Growth and Future Prospects

Technical Perspective of Smart E-Beam for Defect Identification & Analysis in the Nanoscale Technology Nodes

SiC Wafer Defect Inspection: An Innovative Technology

E-beam Inspection Technology Identifies Hard-to Find Defects, but Speed Remains an Issue

Use of E-beam Inspection in Yield Learning Process and for Conventional Voltage Contrast Mode

Challenges Lead to Development of Multi-Beam Inspection Technology

High Implementation Cost and Slow Throughput: Major Restraints

4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

III. MARKET ANALYSIS

IV. COMPETITION



Total Companies Profiled: 9

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/hczceb

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Fire crews were 'starved of information' on the night of the Manchester Arena bombing attack leading to a 'chaotic' response, a public inquiry has heard.

There was also a two-hour delay before firefighters with the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) attended the aftermath of the terror attack which killed 22 and injured hundreds more.

Andy Dark, assistant general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), said his members were ready to 'muck in' but that GMFRS failed to respond properly to the terror attack due to a breakdown in communications.

He said the communications breakdown and fire crews inability to then respond appropriately had left firefighters feeling 'humiliated'.

'The key problem I think for the fire and rescue service on the night was being starved of information and, to an extent, not accessing information by other means,' Mr Dark told the public inquiry in Manchester.

Fire crews were 'starved of information' on the night of the Manchester Arena bombing attack leading to a 'chaotic' response, a public inquiry has heard. (Pictured: Emergency services at the scene of the boming in the aftermath of the attack)

Andy Dark, assistant general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), told the inquiry (pictured) that GMFRS failed to respond properly to the terror attack due to a breakdown in communications

Suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated his device in the City Room or foyer of the arena, killing 22 bystanders and injuring hundreds more at 10.31pm on May 22 2017.

Earlier, the inquiry was told GMFRS had firefighters and specialist teams ready to go in that were trained in operating in terror incidents and treating bomb blast and gunshot casualties which could have saved lives.

Hundreds of people were injured in the Manchester Arena bomb blast, which killed 22 people (pictured)

Despite some firefighters being close enough to hear the bomb go off, fire crews did not attend until their bosses eventually gave the green light to go in two hours later.

This meant some of the hundreds of injured victims had to be carried down stairs on makeshift stretchers made of advertising hoardings, despite firefighters ready with the required equipment being directed by police to wait three miles away from the arena.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) had declared Operation Plato, a pre-planned response to what they believed was a marauding terrorist firearms attack, as erroneous reports of gunfire had come in.

But they failed to inform the fire and ambulance services and communications between the 999 services broke down.

GMP's force duty officer in HQ was swamped with calls and the fire service were unable to contact him.

It meant fire crews were kept away from the scene amid fears an active shooter was on the loose, even though it soon became clear the bombing was not the prelude to further attacks and GMP, British Transport Police and the ambulance service were all at the scene.

Mr Dark said: 'Firefighters knew something serious was happening. They could not understand why they were not being deployed.'

Sir John Saunders, chairman of the inquiry, which began last September, asked if firefighters could have not waited for orders to go in but 'self-deploy'.

Suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated his device in the City Room or foyer of the arena, killing 22 bystanders and injuring hundreds more at 10.31pm on May 22 2017.

Mr Dark said while the fire service in the station is 'democratic, collegiate, consensual' while on an operation, 'it's a dictatorship' with staff having to follow orders.

He said if a firefighter had been in the City Room they would have reported back that there was no 'active shooter' and fire chiefs would then have told crews, 'Roll up your sleeves, get in there.'

But, he added, 'they didn't have that' and on the night what happened was 'chaotic' and left firefighters feeling 'humiliated'.

Mr Dark added: 'If they had had the information, their decision making, their actions, their deployment would have been far quicker, far better, and you would have firefighters' boots on the ground in that City Room far, far earlier.'

The inquiry is looking at events before, during and after the suicide bombing by 22-year-old Abedi at the end of an Ariana Grande concert.

The inquiry continues.
London's world-renowned Science Museum reopens as a Covid-19 vaccination centre on Thursday (March 11).

The museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, which was founded in 1857, will serve north-west London as part of the NHS's vaccination programme.

Vaccinations will take place in Special Exhibition Gallery 1, a vast temporary exhibition space where thousands of artefacts have been displayed.

These include a nuclear fusion reactor, historic robots and the spacecraft flown by the first woman in space, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.

Preparations are now also underway for a coronavirus-focused exhibit to go on display once the museum reopens. It will include empty vaccine vials donated by the NHS.

The Science Museum is opening as a vaccination centre from Thursday, serving north-west London as part of the coronavirus vaccine programme

Thousands of people are expected to be vaccinated in the museum each week by NHS medical professionals, supported by staff from the museum.

It's the first national museum in the UK to host a vaccination centre.

'It's wonderful to see part of the Science Museum repurposed for this country's most pressing task in a generation, vaccinating the adult population,' said Sir Ian Blatchford, the museum's director.

The museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington. Due to the latest coronavirus restrictions, the museum is temporarily closed

'Uniquely, our museum can both tell the story of how vaccination has saved millions of lives, and also play a part in ensuring vaccines protect the nation from Covid-19.

'It is an extraordinary sensation to be collecting and living history all at once.'

The Science Museum will open as a vaccination centre nearly a year after it first closed due to Covid-19, on March 17, 2020.

It was closed for five months between March and August, its longest period of closure since the Second World War.

The Museum also announced that the empty vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines used for the first mass vaccinations worldwide were donated by NHS England to the Science Museum Group Collection.

The first vial of Covid vaccine used in a mass immunisation programme joins the Science Museum Group Collection and will go on display in Medicine The Welcome Galleries

Preparations are now also underway for a new coronavirus-focused exhibit that will go on display once the museum reopens

The vials, Covid-19 testing kits and signage from the government's daily briefings will form part of a new Covid-19 display in Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries.

Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries is the Science Museum's home for what it calls 'the most significant medical collections in the world', including the world's first MRI scanner and Sir Alexander Fleming's penicillin mould.

The public will be able to view the new Covid display when the Science Museum reopens in May 2021, restrictions permitting.

Once the museum reopens, the public and those visiting for their vaccination can see the vials, alongside a timeline of key objects from the history of vaccination and displays about other infectious diseases like ebola, polio and the plague.

Vaccinations take place at Special Exhibition Gallery 1 - a large temporary exhibition space within the Science Museum which has previously hosted major exhibitions about the sun, robots and space exploration. Pictured, the Space Race section of the Cosmonauts exhibition

Dream section of the Robots exhibition at the museum, which features a unique collection of over 100 robots, from a 16th-century mechanical monk to robots from science fiction and modern-day research labs.

Prototype medical devices, coronavirus-themed greetings cards, homemade masks and many other items  including some from the vaccination centre itself  will also join the collection.

This will provide a permanent record for future generations of life, science and culture during the pandemic.

Tracing its origins from the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Science Museum has pioneered interactive science interpretation for more than eight decades and is one of London's biggest tourist attractions.

It's part of the Science Museum Group, along with the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, the National Railway Museum in York and Locomotion in Shildon, County Durham.
Paul and Becky Rogers converted 14 acres of land in Kent County, Mich. to habitat that supports pollinators, songbirds and wildlife. Credit: USDA/Flickr, CC BY

Growing food in a sustainable, environmentally friendly waywhile also producing enough of itis among the most important challenges facing the U.S. and the world today.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that food security can't be taken for granted. Putting affordable food on the table requires both innovative producers and well-functioning markets and global supply chains. With disruptions to the system, prices rise, food is scarceand people go hungry.

But feeding the world's 7.8 billion people sustainably  including 332 million Americans  presents significant environmental challenges. Farming uses 70% of the world's fresh water. Fertilizers pollute water with nitrates and phosphates, sparking algal blooms and creating dead zones like the one that forms every summer in the Gulf of Mexico.

Clear-cutting land for farms and ranches is the main driver of deforestation. Overall, the planet loses about 48,000 square miles (125,000 square kilometers) of forest each year. Without habitat, wildlife disappears. Farming also produces roughly one-quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.

All of these challenges make balancing food production with environmental security a crucial issue for the Biden administration, which is working to address both a hunger crisis and an environmental crisis in the U.S.

Climate change is wreaking havoc on weather patterns, making conditions more challenging for farmers. But scholars and the Biden administration believe agriculture can be part of the solution.

Two different pathways

As an economist studying food systems, I'm keenly aware that trying to provide affordable food and a thriving agricultural sector while also preserving the environment can result in many trade-offs. Consider the different strategies that the U.S. and Northern Europe have pursued: The U.S. prioritizes increased agricultural output, while the EU emphasizes environmental services from farming.

Over the past 70 years, the U.S. has increased crop production with ever more sophisticated seed technologies and highly mechanized farming methods that employ far fewer workers. These new technologies have contributed to farm productivity growth which has, in turn, allowed U.S. farm output to rise without significant growth in the aggregate economic index of agricultural input use.

This approach contrasts sharply with Northern Europe's strategy, which emphasizes using less land and other inputs in order to protect the environment. Nonetheless, by achieving a comparable rate of agricultural productivity growth (output growth minus the growth rate inputs), Northern Europe has been able to maintain its level of total farm output over the past three decades.

Figure shows an economic index of all agricultural inputs and outputs with 1961 as the base year. Credit: Chart: The Conversation, CC BY-ND Source: USDA ERS

Boosting prices versus benefiting nature

The U.S. also has a long history of setting aside agricultural land that dates back nearly a century. In response to low prices in the 1920s, farmers had flooded the market with grain, pork and other products, desperately seeking to boost revenues but only pushing prices down further.

Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the U.S. government paid farmers to reduce their output and limited the supply of land under cultivation to boost farm prices. This strategy is still in use today.

In 1985 the U.S. launched a new program that created real incentives to protect environmentally sensitive land. Farmers who enroll in the Conservation Reserve Program "rent" environmentally valuable tracts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 10-15 years. Withdrawing these acres from production provides food and shelter for pollinators and wildlife, reduces erosion and improves water quality.

But this is a voluntary program, so enrollment ebbs and flows in tandem with crop prices. For example, when corn, soy and wheat prices fell in the late 1980s and early 1990s, enrollment grew. Then with the commodity price boom of 2007, farmers could make more money from cultivating the land. Protected acreage dropped more than 40% through 2019, erasing many of the environmental benefits that had been achieved.

Figure shows an economic index of all agricultural inputs and outputs with 1961 as the base year. Credit: Chart: The Conversation, CC BY-ND

Rental rates for agricultural land in the U.S. vary widely, with the most productive lands bringing the highest rent. Current rental rates under the Conservation Reserve Program 2021 range from US$243 per acre in Cuming, Nebraska to just $6 in Sutton, Texas.

The EU also began setting aside farmland to curb overproduction in 1988. Now, however, their program focuses heavily on environmental quality. Policy reforms in 2013 required farmers to allocate 5% of their land to protected ecological focus areas. The goal is to generate long-term environmental benefits by prioritizing nature.

This program supports both production and conservation. Within this mix of natural and cultivated lands, wild pollinators benefit both native plants and crops. Birds, insects and small predators offer natural bio-control of pests. In this way, "rewilded" tracts foster biodiversity while also improving crop yields.

Who will feed the world?

What would happen if the U.S., a major exporter of agricultural products, followed the EU model and permanently withdrew land from production to improve environmental quality? Would such action make food unaffordable for the world's poorest consumers?

Enrollment in the USDA Conservation Reserve Program dropped by almost 13 million acres from 2007 to 2016. Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture

In a study that I conducted in 2020 with colleagues at Purdue and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we set up a computer model to find out. We wanted to chart what might happen to food prices across the globe through 2050 if the U.S. and other rich economies followed Northern European conservation strategies. Our analysis focused on the world's most food-insecure region, sub-Saharan Africa.

We discovered that altering food production in this way would raise food prices in that region by about 6%. However, this upward price trend could be reversed by investing in local agriculture and new technologies to increase productivity in Africa. In short, our research suggested that conserving the environment in the U.S. doesn't have to cause food insecurity in other countries.

Implications for US farm policy

Many experts on hunger and agriculture agree that to feed a growing global population, world food output must increase substantially in the next several decades. At the same time, it's clear that agriculture's environmental impacts need to shrink in order to protect the natural environment.

In my view, meeting these twin goals will require renewed government investments in research and dissemination of new technologies. Reversing a two-decade decline in science funding will be key. Agriculture is now a knowledge-driven industry, fueled by new technologies and improved management practices. Publicly funded research laid the foundations for these advances.

A rewilded area in Germany, near Dresden. Credit: Thomas Hertel, Author provided

To reap environmental gains, I believe the U.S. Department of Agriculture will need to revamp and stabilize the Conservation Reserve Program, so that it is economically viable and enrollment does not fluctuate with market conditions. The Trump administration reduced incentives and rental payment rates, which drove down enrollments. The Biden administration has already taken a modest step forward by extending the yearly sign-up for the program indefinitely.

As I see it, following Northern Europe's model by permanently protecting ecologically rich areas, while simultaneously investing in knowledge-driven agricultural productivity, will enable the U.S. to better preserve wildlife and its natural environment for future generations, while maintaining an affordable food supply.

Explore further How to set ambitious goals for sustainable agriculture

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Supreme Court head at congress of judges: there is 'fifth column' in judiciary, but we to get rid of it

Head of the Supreme Court Valentyna Danishevska calls on the delegates of the 18th regular Congress of Judges to elect worthy representatives of the judiciary to the bodies of judicial administration and local authorities.

Speaking on Tuesday at the opening of the Congress of Judges in Kyiv, Danishevska noted that confidence in judges in Ukraine is not being restored as quickly as one would like. "A certain number of such people [who do not trust judges] accompany, relatively speaking, our congress. What do these people want? So that there are people in the judiciary with perfect reputations, respectable, professional. And we also want this. The only difference is that that we are urged not to hold this congress," the head of the Supreme Court said.

Danishevska drew attention to the fact that the formation of judicial administration and self-government bodies is a constitutional obligation of judges. "We cannot listen to proposals to break the law," she said.

The head of the Supreme Court expressed the hope that the delegates to the Congress of Judges will elect worthy people to the judiciary.

"I hope that all of you today are determined to elect the most worthy people, and I urge you to this. We must show that although we are going our own way, we are holding this congress, but we will propose to these bodies people who have an impeccable reputation," Danishevska said.

She admitted that the judicial system still needs to work to gain real independence, "so that every judge feels free and independent from any pressure  from the authorities, and the public."

"We can say that we also have internal pressure. Our internal forces, which are trying to drive a wedge between judges of different regions, different instances, do not spare either time or money," the head of the Supreme Court said.

In this context, Danishevska added: "Of course, the judicial system also has its own 'fifth column', but I am sure that those people who have forgotten about the oath or those who consider our oath only a farce will sooner or later leave us  or will be made to do it by our bodies, or by the public, but the judiciary will eventually look decent among other government bodies and receive proper respect."

The 18th regular Congress of Judges of Ukraine takes place in Kyiv from March 9 to March 11, the agenda of the congress includes the appointments to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the High Council of Justice, and the Council of Judges of Ukraine.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Equity mutual funds see outflows for 8th straight month in Feb

Equity and equity-linked mutual fund schemes saw a net outflow of over Rs 10,000 crore in February. As per data furnished by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) on Tuesday, the net outflow stood at Rs 10,468.02 crore in February. In January, net outflow stood at Rs 9,253.22 crore from Rs 10,147.12 crore in December. Read more

recover on retreat in US yields

steadied on Tuesday, supported by stronger U.S. equity futures and a decline in U.S. and European bond yields. In Europe, the Euro STOXX 600 was up 0.1% after a gains on Monday that lifted Germany's index to a record high. In volatile trading in Asia, the Shanghai Composite index fell 1.8% and was close to a correction from a multi-year high on Feb. 18 amid fears of policy tightening. Read more

resigns as chief minister of Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand Chief Minister on Tuesday announced his resignation to governor Baby Rani Maurya. The move comes amid speculations in the state political circles about an imminent change of guard. "The party gave me a golden opportunity to serve this state for four years. I had never thought that I would get such an opportunity. The party has now decided that the opportunity to serve as CM should be given to someone else now," said Rawat in Dehradun after meeting governor. Read more

PV retail sales rise over 10% in Feb: FADA

Automobile dealers' body FADA on Tuesday said passenger vehicle (PV) retail sales in February witnessed an increase of 10.59 per cent to 2,54,058 units on account of low base of last year. According to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), which collected vehicle registration data from 1,274 out of the 1,481 regional transport offices (RTOs), PV sales stood at 2,29,734 units in February 2020. Two-wheeler sales however declined 16.08 per cent to 10,91,288 units last month, as compared to 13,00,364 units in February 2020. Read more

Delhi govt presents Rs 69,000-crore Budget

The presented a Rs 69,000-crore budget themed on "patriotism" for financial year 2021-22 on Tuesday, announcing free COVID-19 vaccination to all in its hospitals in the coming phases of the ongoing inoculation drive. Presenting the budget, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said it is based on "deshbhakti" (patriotism) as it pays tributes to freedom fighters and hopes to work towards building the capital and the country, as envisioned by them. Presenting the budget for the seventh consecutive time in the Assembly, Sisodia proposed to allocate Rs 16,377 crore, one-fourth of the total budget, for the education sector while the health sector got Rs 9,934 crore. Read more
The Central Bank of Nigeria has introduced a scheme that would offer a reward of five naira for every $1 sent by Nigerians living abroad through international money transfer operators in the country in what it calls "naira for dollar".



It is a step that shows Nigerias reliance on diaspora remittances, which has dipped over the last year, likely due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the earnings of Nigerian migrants.



Diaspora remittances to the country totalled $25bn (18bn) in 2019 but dipped to just over $5.3bn in 2020, according to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria.



Nigeria depends on diaspora input to such an extent that in 2018 when the country recorded $23.5bn in remittances, it was 83% of that years budget, 6.1% of the GDP and 11 times higher than the foreign investment flows in the same period, according to management consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.



The central bank is targeting at least $2bn monthly in diaspora remittances in 2021, but a report by the African Growth Initiatives suggests that sub-Saharan Africa could record a further reduction in remittances by up to $3bn this year.

Source: BBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
One of Russia's leading organizations addressing domestic violence and LGBT rights, Nasiliyu.Net, is facing eviction from its Moscow office three months after being placed on Moscow's controversial "foreign agent" list.

Anna Rivina, the head of the NGO, wrote on Facebook on March 8 that the landlord had requested the group to vacate the premises within a month.

Rivina said her team moved last summer into the premises, where they speak with domestic-violence victims and hold support sessions and educational events.

The landlord initially requested the group to vacate the office in 10 days in early February, she said, before then giving the NGO to the end of March to leave.

In late December 2020, Russia's Justice Ministry added the group to its controversial list of organizations fulfilling the functions of a "foreign agent," saying that the NGO had received foreign funding and was engaged in political activity.

Lawyer Pavel Chikov of the Agora legal defense organization said on March 2 that the government had filed a complaint against Nasilyu.net, saying the group's activity in "publicizing the problem of domestic violence," "creating conditions so that victims know where to turn for help," and "participating in promoting and conducting campaigns aimed at adopting a law against family and domestic violence" must be considered "political activity" under the "foreign agent" laws.

The government also deemed the NGO's public calls for government agencies "to take measures to protect victims of domestic violence" during the coronavirus pandemic to be "political activity."

"We were directly told [by the landlord] that our activities do not suit them and therefore we have a month to vacate the premises," Rivina said, adding the organization currently didn't have an alternate location.

Russia's so-called "foreign agent" legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as "foreign agents," and to submit to audits.

Human Rights Watch has described the "foreign agent" legislation as "restrictive" and intended "to demonize independent groups."

Chikov said the government also listed as "political activity" the NGO's participation in a 2019 sanctioned demonstration against gender discrimination and domestic violence held to mark International Women's Day on March 8, although the Justice Department's complaint notes the event "took place without any disturbance to public order."

Rivina wrote on Facebook that when Nasiliyu.net was included on the list, "95 percent" of the reason why the organization was targeted was "because of our draft law on domestic violence and 5 percent because of our support for LGBT rights."

The ministry has asked a court to fine Nasiliyu.net from 300,000 to 500,000 rubles ($4,000 to $6,800). In addition, it is seeking a fine of up to 300,000 rubles against Rivina.

Nasiliyu.net was founded in 2015 and was registered as an NGO in 2018.

Later modifications to the "foreign agent" law have targeted foreign-funded media, including RFE/RLs Russian Service, six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time.
DHS today announced the signing of a $450M agreement for the creation of a joint company called DHS-Berliner. The companys objective is to become the reference in providing Artificial Lift Progressing Cavity Pumps Systems (ALPCP) and associated services to the German O&G Market.

The Company, a 50/50 Joint Venture between DHS and Berliner, will have its headquarters located in Frankfurt. Through this partnership DHS and Berliner expect to deliver to the artificial lift market a global solution which exceeds both local operational and technological requirements. Under the agreement, DHS and Berliner will share financial and technological resources with the intent to leverage the best of both companies and provide best-in-class services to the German Upstream sector.

Berliner, a significant player in ALPCP Market in Germany for the past 7 years, has committed to provide its unique expertise and technologies as a contribution to the JVs activities, said Fernando Aguirre, Vice Chairman of DHS. DHS will contribute with its customer base and service experience using its broad infrastructure network and reputation within the industry. DHS, in line with its corporate strategy, will be able to broaden its offer of artificial lift solutions with the addition of the ALPCP Technology.

The complementary portfolio of technologies and service locations offered by DHS-Berliner provides the end users with a new and reliable global partner for the supply, installation and maintenance of their ALPCP Systems, backed up by years of expertise and recognized technologies throughout the country.

ABOUT DHS

DHS is a high-stakes advocacy, public strategy, and global public relations and communications firm. Our strategic insights and innovative programming build and sustain strong corporate and brand reputations. We provide our clients with counsel and program development across the spectrum of public relations, public affairs, reputation and crisis management, digital strategy, advertising and other communications services. Our clients are companies, industry associations, nonprofit organizations, professional services firms, and other large organizations. We began as a unique grassroots and lobbying firm with customized services for an elite group of clients. Our work applies equally to regulatory issues as well as legislative ones, and we manage issues for our clients at the local, state, federal, and international levels of government. We use our core competencies and reach to gain competitive advantage for clients. Our expertise comes from extensive must-win campaign experience and operating successfully at the highest rung of business, government, politics and media. Our reach is the ability to use strategic intelligence to mobilize the message and persuade the toughest audiences. We know what it takes to win in difficult situations. We have proven results for prominent figures, leading advocacy groups and the worlds most successful companies. We leverage what others cannot.

ABOUT DHS PRIVATE EQUITY TRUST

DHS Private Equity Trust is a perpetual-life, institutional quality real estate investment platform that brings private real estate to income focused investors. DHS invests in stabilized, income-generating U.S. commercial real estate across key property types and to a lesser extent in real estate debt investments. The Trust is externally managed by a subsidiary of DHS a global leader in real estate investing. DHS real estate business was founded in 1998 and has approximately $74 billion in investor capital under management.

ABOUT BERLINER-GEGENBAUER

Berliner-Gegenbauer is located in Frankfurt, Germany and is part of the management of companies & enterprises industry. Berliner-Gegenbauer has 18,174 total employees across all of its locations and generates $838.52 million in sales (USD). There are 117 companies in the Berliner-Gegenbauer corporate family.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT

Cautionary statement: These materials contain statements about future events and expectations that are forward-looking in nature. Any statement in these materials that is not a statement of historical fact is a forward-looking statement that involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements to differ. We assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions or changes in factors affecting these statements.
VFS Global, an outsourcing and technology services specialist , said its operations at the Al Hada Visa Application Centre in Riyadh was managed by all-female staff on the International Womens Day.



As part of the unique initiative, a women-only team handled visa applications for 28 countries including, Canada, the UK and countries falling under the Schengen zone. In addition, female team members took control of security, operated control rooms as well as transported passports to respective embassies/missions.



Sumanth Kapoor, Business Head  KSA & Bahrain, VFS Global said: VFS Global is proud to support International Women's Day. We are having an all-female work day at Al Hada centre to honour the social, economic and cultural achievements of women in Saudi Arabia and across the world. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality, so we are committing to empowering our teams with actionable steps for personal, professional and organizational success in the Kingdom and beyond."



In line with Saudi vision for women empowerment, VFS Global has enhanced its Inclusion and Diversity framework. Its efforts have culminated in 40% of its existing workforce in Saudi Arabia being female, 90% of which are Saudi nationals. Other female staff members belong to the Philippines, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Palestine and Yemen. Worldwide, VFS Global has a ratio of 58% women across all its operations in more than 140 countries.  TradeArabia News Service
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
OAKLAND, Calif., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest integrated, nonprofit health care organization, has launched a comprehensive COVID-19 education campaign to provide trusted information to increase confidence in vaccination within African American, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities, and to motivate people to keep wearing masks, physically distancing, and avoiding gatherings until the pandemic ends.

Kaiser Permanente's equity education campaign is comprised of:

Collaboration with social media influencers whose trusted voices deliver COVID-19 prevention messages to specific communities

Bilingual public service announcement advertisements targeted to Latino and African American audiences

Support for community-based organizations across the country

So far, Kaiser Permanente has made $5 million in grants to support 24 nonprofit and community-based organizations that are providing direct assistance in communities across the United States to people most affected by COVID-19.

"As crucial vaccine supplies begin to increase, it is vitally important that the public feel confident in the safety of the vaccines and are willing to be vaccinated, particularly in communities most affected by the pandemic," said Greg A. Adams, Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO. "We hope that with the information and support from this campaign, the most at-risk communities will be empowered to protect themselves and others by getting vaccinated when it is their turn."

A year into the pandemic, Hispanic and African Americans continue to die at 2.8 times the rate of white Americans. White and higher-income Americans are also more likely to have received a vaccine than African American, Hispanic, and lower-income groups. While there is less data available for Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander communities, nearly 25% of people in this group serve in essential roles, such as military, security, manufacturing, health, and service-related industries, which likely exacerbates the pandemic's impact.

Kaiser Permanente's $5 million in grants will fund programs and provide resources for communities facing an uphill recovery from the pandemic's devastating impacts. The recipients include faith-based organizations, community health centers and clinics, and advocacy groups that are creating and distributing culturally and linguistically appropriate information on COVID-19 prevention  including information about testing, vaccination, therapeutics, and healthy behaviors.

Kaiser Permanente selected the East Bay Community Foundation as its lead philanthropic partner to provide outreach in the African American community, based on its trusted reputation in the community. The foundation has coordinated 12 community-based organizations leading effective messaging to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and increase the efficiency of vaccination efforts. It also serves as a connector ensuring the experience of community members informs the design and implementation of equitable state and federal programs.

"This campaign is a strong reminder of how important community-based organizations are," said James Head, CEO of the East Bay Community Foundation. "Our community partners are trusted messengers who provide services and share essential information at a critical moment in the pandemic. We hope that this effort will provide important lessons on how to protect public health and improve national health policies to support communities of color during this crisis and beyond."

The community-based organizations doing outreach run the gamut from community health clinics to faith-based organizations. In Oakland, the Allen Temple Baptist Church is training a network of trusted messengers to encourage their neighbors and friends to wear masks, stay distanced, get tested, and get vaccinated.

"Although we know COVID-19 kills African Americans at a disproportionate rate, there are many in the community who remain distrustful of both testing and vaccination, particularly at nontraditional points of access," said Rev. Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson, senior pastor at Allen Temple Baptist Church. "We are a ministry with a 101-year legacy of serving, educating, empowering, and advocating for those who feel overlooked by larger systems in our community. They depend on us as a trusted source of support and information. We have a moral obligation to make sure our community has both accurate facts regarding the disease and access to life-saving measures. The community is responding in powerful ways  they're making decisions to test and be vaccinated and that's making a huge difference."

This support is part of Kaiser Permanente's established commitment to improving health equity in the communities it serves  a need that has been made tragically clear by the COVID-19 pandemic  and follows on the announcement in June of a $25 million investment to address systemic racism and its accompanying trauma among communities of color. Partnering with organizations that have a longstanding, trusted presence within communities is a priority for the organization.

"I'm pleased that Kaiser Permanente is helping to create better health outcomes for more people by going beyond the limits of traditional health care to support programs and practices that impact our broader community," said Representative Barbara Lee, D-CA.

Kaiser Permanente is supporting this targeted campaign through September 2021. To support an equitable response to COVID-19, the organization has also joined industry and public health partners , including the COVID Collaborative, the Ad Council, and as a member of America's Health Insurance Plans.

For additional resources, visit the COVID-19 Community Resource Download Center, Hazlo Por Amor, Love Protects Us, and The Public Good Projects.

About Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente has a mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 12.4 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal Permanente Medical Group physicians, specialists, and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery, and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education, and the support of community health.

For more information, contact:

Hilary Costa, [email protected]

(510) 406-6654

SOURCE Kaiser Permanente

Related Links

http://www.kaiserpermanente.org


Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, whose ward includes Water Tower Place, on Monday described Target as one of several companies in talks with Brookfield to potentially move into portions of the space that Macys plans to vacate. Macys in January said it would close the store, which occupies portions of all eight floors plus the mezzanine level, in the coming months.
Ecuadorean authorities discovered a shipment of cocaine worth $19 million inside a Mexican jet that had been apparently abandoned on a private airstrip.

The cocaine was in 400 packages - each labeled with a logo, though Ecuador's authorities didn't detail what the logos might mean or to whom they were connected.

Officials also didn't identify the Ecuadorean or Mexican drug trafficking organizations who were allegedly connected to the massive shipment.

National Anti-drug Investigation Agency agents and Air Force servicemen made the shocking finding as part of operation 'Grand Impact 10' on March 2 in the southern province of Santa Elena, according to a National Police of Ecuador statement.

The 400 kilos of cocaine were evenly split into 400 packages which were wrapped in plastic.

The National Police of Ecuador said that on March 2, security forces assigned to operation 'Grand Impact 10' found a Mexican jet with 400 kilos of cocaine worth $19 million on a private airstrip in the southern province of Santa Elena. No arrests were reported

The 400 kilos of cocaine were evenly split into 400 packages that were labeled with different logos,

Photos distributed by the authorities had the plane's tail number fuzzed out, so it couldn't be independently determined who its owner was, and the authorities haven't said.

The cocaine bust took place just days before the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] released a report that identified nine Mexican cartels as being responsible for flooding the United States with drugs.

The DEA's 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment highlighted how each of the key players exerted their influence over different parts of the United States by smuggling cocaine, marijuana, fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine.

Agents with Ecuador's National Anti-drug Investigation Agency guard a seized shipment of cocaine that was removed from a private jet on March 2

The National Police of Ecuador said the Mexican jet was loaded with 400 kilos of cocaine, but did not identity the Ecuadorean and Mexican drug trafficking organizations who were liable for the massive shipment

The annual study showed how Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel and their rivals, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel [CJNG], were the dominant forces in funneling drugs over the Mexico-United States border last year.

The Sinaloa cartel was found to control Arizona and California area smuggling routes into the US, while the CJNG exerts control over Mexico's port of Manzanillo.

Other key players are the Cartel del Noreste [Northeast Cartel] and Los Zetas, Guerreros Unidos [United Warriors], Juarez Cartel and La Linea, and La Familia Michoacana.
Photo taken on May 29, 2018 shows a highway outside Wangbao Village of Henandian Township in Shexian County, north China's Hebei Province. (Xinhua/Wang Xiao)

- China observers in the United States have highlighted the Asian country's determination to pursue high-quality growth and sustainable development in the coming years.

- China's goals for 2021 and the draft blueprint for economic and social development over the next five years "are impressive."

WASHINGTON, March 7 (Xinhua) -- China observers in the United States have highlighted the Asian country's determination to pursue high-quality growth and sustainable development in the coming years, as demonstrated in the government work report recently delivered by Premier Li Keqiang.

The goals for 2021 and the draft blueprint for economic and social development over the next five years "are impressive," Jeffrey Sachs, an economics professor at Columbia University and a senior United Nations advisor, told Xinhua, commenting on the report delivered at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress.

"They aim for sustainable development, based on reduced pollution, resource efficiency, scientific and technological advance, expanded education, and improved quality of life," said Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

A vehicle runs across a wind power plant in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 18, 2018. (Xinhua/Zhao Ge)

"I hope that other countries carefully study the government's program. It gives lots of good ideas about organizing a comprehensive sustainable development program," said the economist.

Calling it "a very impressive report" both in the accomplishments of 2020 and the aims of 2021, Sachs underscored China's success in containing the COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining economic growth, exploring space, ending poverty, fighting pollution and advancing technology last year.

Tianlei Huang, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the report shows that the leadership is "committed to pursuing high-quality development."

"The Chinese economy was the only major economy in the world that expanded in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. But the leadership has remained clearheaded about the uncertainty and risks out there both domestically and internationally," Huang told Xinhua.

Noting that the consensus projection for China's economic growth in 2021 is higher than its growth target, Huang said the annual growth goal of above 6 percent in the report shows that the government intends to lay emphasis on the quality of development.

Huang also noted that the report reiterated China's commitment to a higher level of economic opening up through further market access and more open investment policies.

Photo taken on Dec. 23, 2020 shows the packing line for inactivated COVID-19 vaccine of Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company, in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)

Sachs, meanwhile, suggested that China boost efforts on two international priorities in 2021: large-scale production of China's vaccines for worldwide use, and large-scale deployment of renewable energy in the Belt and Road Initiative projects.

Greg Cusack, a former member of the Iowa House of Representatives, told Xinhua that he read the premier's "excellent report" with considerable interest, calling it "coherent and substantive."

Chinese nationals "must be -- and, indeed, deserve to be" -- very proud of the substantial achievements of the government, Cusack said.

"So many good and decent things have been accomplished in such a short time, which is an occasion for pride by all of us, wherever we live, since it represents what we can do when we unite behind common purposes," he said.
ATLANTA, March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- American Insulated Glass, LLC (AIG), a leading glass fabricator and wholesale distributor for commercial and residential markets, has completed a number of improvements to the fabrication facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, designed to expand the facility's insulating glass fabrication capabilities and improve the level of service experienced by customers. The improvements to the Knoxville facility include a supplementary tempering furnace to increase capacity, the addition of a LiSEC bending machine, a LiSEC butyl extruder, and a new 96" automated cutting table.

AIG Knoxville expands delivery to Eastern Kentucky

"The additions and improvements made to the Knoxville facility reflect our ongoing commitment to elevate the value we bring to our customers," said Clint Blair, Vice President of AIG. "We are excited to continue growing and expanding into new markets, as well as enhancing our existing facilities as new technology allows to ensure our customers continue to receive the level of service they know to expect from us."

AIG's entrance to the Knoxville market was announced in 2019 and was one of several expansions seen in the last three years. The Knoxville facility is also a Tubelite distributor for storefront metal and entrances, and stocks CRL and Portals Hardware for custom shower enclosures. As AIG pursues its expansion into the Eastern Kentucky market, new team members will be added to support continued growth.

In addition to Knoxville, AIG opened a new location in Birmingham, Alabama and acquired businesses in Charlotte, North Carolina, Detroit, Michigan, and Baltimore, Maryland. Combined with the existing facilities in Georgia and Florida, AIG currently has seven regional fabrication facilities and looks forward to further opportunities to grow and better serve customers.

About American Insulated Glass

American Insulated Glass is a leading fabricator and wholesale distributor headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company specializes in providing quality insulating glass, laminated, tempered and fire-rated glass to glazing contractors and the millwork industry. Dedicated to serving both commercial and residential end markets with a broad range of high-performing low-e glass solutions, AIG also distributes a full line of mirror, decorative and other glass products. AIG is positioned to expand its geographical footprint and service capabilities, both organically and via acquisition. To learn more about AIG, visit www.aiglass.com.

Media Contact:

Clint Blair, VP Operations

American Insulated Glass, LLC

[email protected]

Related Images

aig-delivery.jpg

AIG Delivery

AIG Knoxville expands delivery to Eastern Kentucky

Related Links

www.aiglass.com

LinkedIn

SOURCE American Insulated Glass, LLC
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
(Newser)  More than four months after the election, former President Trump's legal challenges to President Biden's victory are finally over. On Monday, the Supreme Court, in a one-line order without comment, rejected the last outstanding lawsuit, a challenge to absentee ballots in Wisconsin, the Hill reports. No dissent was noted. The lawsuit argued that the expansion of mail-in voting in the state during the pandemic was unconstitutional. Lower courts had already ruled against Trump in the lawsuit, one of dozens of failed legal efforts to overturn Biden's victory. On Feb. 22, the court declined to hear a challenge to the Pennsylvania results and another Wisconsin election case. Trump didn't file the Wisconsin challenges until after the state certified its results, reports Reuters. (Read more Election 2020 stories.)
March 09, 2021





Exploring Cloud Security Best Practices for 2021

Industry insiders have been ringing the bell on cloud security for years, but 2021 might be the year that the masses finally wake up to whats happening. Thanks to a perfect storm of technology and circumstance, cybersecurity has become more important than ever. And its the organizations that embrace smart strategies rooted in sound principles that will succeed.







The Importance of Cloud Security in 2021 and Beyond

As remote working becomes more commonplace and organizations make bigger investments in cloud technology, the importance and significance of cloud security becomes more evident than ever. Its no longer a theoretical idea  its something that must be addressed right away.

As more and more people adhere to the work-from-home schedule imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, employees will take cybersecurity shortcuts for convenience, researchers at Bitdefender say. Insufficiently secured personal devices and home routers, transfer of sensitive information over unsecured or unsanctioned channels (such as instant messaging apps, personal e-mail addresses and cloud-based document processors) will play a key role in data breaches and leaks.

The good news is that cloud security has better native security than the alternative. (An estimated 52 percent of organizations say they get better security in the cloud than they do with traditional on-premise options.) However, its no longer practical to rely on native security alone  especially when you consider some of the up-and-coming attacks that industry insiders expect to see more of in 2021:

Preemptive defense. Public cloud spending will likely double by 2023 or 2024, which means more companies will be adding cloud applications and installations to their tech stacks. And though this is ultimately a good thing, it will inevitably leave unprepared organizations exposed due to improper misconfigurations and a lack of oversight. (All it takes is a single weak link or bad application and a hacker can seize on it.)

Persistency attacks. One of the benefits of cloud architecture is that it permits total flexibility with creating new instances and running virtual machines that are capable of matching any desired software or hardware environment. But this flexibility can quickly turn sour if not properly secured. This often fleshes itself with bad actors gaining control with an initial assault and having continual and persistent access to servers, which may be exploited over time.

Social engineering attacks. According to Microsoft, there are more than 30,000 social engineering attacks in the United States every day. These attacks, which require human interaction, are reliant on deceiving people through processes like phishing. And with these attacks becoming more clever than ever, were likely to see a dramatic rise this year. For businesses that are becoming increasingly reliant on BYOD and remote working, this trend is highly unsettling.

If youre going to protect your business in 2021 and beyond, its not enough to rely on the basics. You must optimize and supplement your approach.

4 Cloud Security Tips

To fully protect your business and stay on the cutting edge of technology, you must adopt an advanced cloud security strategy. Here are some good ways to get started:

1. Train Your Team

As The Wall Street Journal reports, as much as 95 percent of cloud breaches are due to human error  a trend that will inch up even more this year.

Complexity may not always be the root cause of incorrect server configurations. Errors can arise from subcontracting the work to third parties or just because of laziness on the part of those setting up a server, WSJ reports.

In other words, the best cloud security strategies start with education and training. If youre going to take security seriously, you must (a) make your team aware of the severity of cloud breaches, and (b) prepare them with the knowledge and tools to identify, thwart, and report threats as they emerge.

2. Understand Shared Responsibility

You must understand the shared responsibility model pertaining to your companys partnership with a cloud service provider. Generally speaking, this framework means that cloud providers secure their software against attack, but youre responsible for ensuring your compliance and security are up to par when running workloads on their infrastructure.

A failure to read your contract with your cloud service provider carefully could leave you with a false sense of security. Its time to get educated so that you can execute with purpose.

3. Prioritize Authentication

Were beating the proverbial dead horse at this point, but its worth stressing over and over again: Authentication must be a top priority for every organization  particularly in remote work setups.

More people have more access to more IT systems from more places than ever before. Thats good for productivity and employee satisfaction, but bad news for security. In order to keep risk minimal, you need to invest in robust authentication processes. This includes multi-factor authentication, foolproof VPN connections, and other advanced protocols.

4. Implement Encryption

Its impossible to create an airtight cloud security strategy thats incapable of being penetrated. Even if youre 99.9 percent secure, theres still a chance that a sophisticated attacker could find their way in. Thus, you need additional measures that prevent an attacker from gaining access to sensitive data once inside. Encryption is the answer.

Investing in encryption is a must at all levels. You obviously need high levels of encryption for data in transit, but you also need it for data at rest.

Your cloud provider may offer built-in encryption services as a base feature or add-on opinion, but this gives them access to your encryption keys. Its a good idea to have your own encryption solutions to retain control.

Dont Fall Further Behind

If youve failed to emphasize cloud security thus far, youre already behind on the adoption curve. Having said that, its not too late to get on board. If you dont act swiftly, youll risk falling even further behind. Eventually, this lack of emphasis on cloud security could render you obsolete in a world where customers focus on doing business with companies that safeguard and protect their data.
Meghan, the wife of Prince Harry, accused Britain's royal family of raising concerns about how dark their son's skin might be and pushing her to the brink of suicide, in a tell-all television interview that could send shockwaves through the monarchy.

The 39-year-old, whose mother is Black and father is white, said she had been naive before she married into royalty in 2018, but that she ended up having suicidal thoughts and considering self-harm after pleading for help but getting none.

Meghan said that her son, Archie, now 1, had been denied the title of prince because there were concerns within the royal family "about how dark his skin might be when he's born." "That was relayed to me from Harry, those were conversations that family had with him," Meghan recounted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey aired on CBS late Sunday.

Meghan declined to say who had aired such concerns, as did Harry, who said his family had cut them off financially and that his father, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, had let him down and refused to take his calls at one point.

Buckingham Palace had no immediate comment about the interview, which aired in the early hours of Monday morning in Britain. The sit-down conversation with Winfrey was the most anticipated royal interview since Harry's late mother, Princess Diana, shared intimate details of her failed marriage to Charles in 1995, denting the heir's reputation and the family's standing in the eyes of the British public.

Nearly three years since her star-studded wedding in Windsor Castle, Meghan described some unidentified members of the royal household as brutal, mendacious and guilty of racist remarks. She also accused Kate, the wife of her husband's elder brother, Prince William, of making her cry before her wedding. While the family came in for open criticism, neither Harry nor Meghan attacked Queen Elizabeth directly.

Still, Meghan said she had been silenced by "the Firm" -- which Elizabeth heads -- and that her pleas for help while in distress at racist reporting and her predicament had fallen on deaf ears. "I just didn't want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. And I remember how he (Harry) just cradled me," Meghan said, wiping away tears.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Mumbai/London, March 9 : Unilever on Tuesday announced it will eliminate the word "normal" from all of its beauty and personal care brands packaging and advertising.

In addition to removing the word "normal", Unilever will not digitally alter a person's body shape, size, proportion or skin colour in its brand advertising, and will increase the number of advertisements portraying people from diverse groups who are under-represented.

"The decision to remove 'normal' is one of many steps that we are taking to challenge narrow beauty ideals, as we work towards helping to end discrimination and advocating for a more inclusive vision of beauty. It comes as global research into people's experiences of the beauty industry reveals that using 'normal' to describe hair or skin makes most people feel excluded", Unilever said.

"Positive Beauty, which sets out several progressive commitments and actions for our beauty and personal care brands, including Dove, Lifebuoy, Axe and Sunsilk, will champion a new era of beauty which is equitable and inclusive, as well as sustainable for the planet," the company announced.

A Unilever survey showed that in India, making products that cater to all people is recognised as one of the most pressing challenges that the beauty and personal care industry should address; only behind making products affordable for all and being transparent on what ingredients are included.

Almost two in three people in India (64%) agree that the beauty and personal care industry makes certain people feel excluded. Six in ten people in India (59%) say the industry makes certain people feel bad about the way they look and makes certain people feel bad about themselves (59%).

The beauty industry is seen as contributing to the spread of narrow beauty ideals: over six in ten people in India (63%) agree that the BPC industry shares narrow beauty ideals, and two in three (66%) think that the industry pressurising people into thinking they need to look a certain way contributes to narrow beauty ideals.

The majority of people in India agree that the BPC industry still has some way to go in representing people of various body types (76%), people from different age groups (77%) people from different ethnicities (74%) and people from the LGBTQIA+ community (67%).

Over eight in ten people (83%) think that using the word "normal" on beauty product packaging and in advertising has a negative impact on people. This includes making people who don't feel as though they have "normal hair" or "normal skin" feel excluded or feel bad about themselves.

The majority of people in India, feel positively about Unilever's commitment: they agree that removing the word "normal" would inspire them to feel more positive about the way they look (70%), believe that it is the right thing to do (69%), and feel positively about the company behind it (67%).

The trend is clear: two in three people in India (65%) say they now pay more attention to a company's stance on societal issues before they buy products than they used to. Six in ten people there (63%) will not buy a product if they do not agree with the company's vision of D&I, even if the company offers the best price.

Sunny Jain, President Beauty & Personal Care, said: "With one billion people using our beauty and personal care products every day, and even more seeing our advertising, our brands have the power to make a real difference to people's lives. As part of this, we are committed to tackling harmful norms and stereotypes and shaping a broader, far more inclusive definition of beauty.

"We know that removing 'normal' from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone, but it is an important step forward. It's just one of a number of actions we are taking as part of our Positive Beauty vision, which aims not only to do less harm, but more good for both people and the planet".
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Maharashtra lockdown: Full list of what is permitted and what is not

Maharashtra Assembly: COVID-19 norms ignored as Opposition MLAs gather to protest

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Mumbai, Mar 09: Members of the opposition BJP who were given seats in the Maharashtra Assembly galleries as part of physical distancing came close to each other on the floor of the House, ignoring the COVID-19 norms, while protesting and shouting slogans against the state government.

Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal appealed to the members to go back to their seats and follow the COVID-19 prevention guidelines. The House witnessed heated arguments as the opposition and treasury benches traded charges against each other over the case of mysterious death of auto parts leader Mansukh Hiran, whose vehicle laden with explosives was found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's residence here last month.

Koilaghat building fire: Political storm over Kolkata fire incident ahead of West Bengal elections

The opposition members demanded suspension and arrest of assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze over his alleged role in the case. Deputy Speaker Zirwal said in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the duration of the Assembly's budget session has already been curtailed.

"It is not right to come so close to each other without wearing masks," he said. Nana Patole (of the Congress) demanded action against the members not following rules.

COVID-19 vaccine: Pilots, cabin crew unfit to fly for 48 hours after getting vaccination, says DGCA

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Shiv Sena MLA Sunil Prabhu asked the Chair to order the members to go back to their seats. When the Chair called for a discussion on the budget demands, Fadnavis asked, "Why do we discuss budgetary allocation for the police, so that they can kill people?"

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 16:55 [IST]
Timber is a valuable natural resource that serves directly as material for use in the construction, paper and furniture industries. Ghanas forest area is estimated to be 9.17 million hectares with 2.5 million hectares in reserve.



Though over the years Ghanas timber exports thrived to a great extent, in recent years the revenue earned from timber has shrunk.



In the first half of 2020, Ghanas timber trade generated Euro 44.79 million. Year-on-year there has been a 40% decline in volume and a 42% decline in exports. As a country where timber has been known to be the third most exported commodity in 2010, the following factors account for the downward trail.



*There is a curb in the export of raw logs and most of the countrys timber is used domestically. Otherwise, Ghanas timber has a big market in Africa, India and China



*There is a decrease in the volume of timber exports to the EU countries and the U.S. as those countries are environmentally sensitive



*Deforestation has been taken as a major concern and tight restrictions have been imposed in Ghana to save its forests



Taking the environmental aspect into consideration, there is an imperative need to control the illegal trade of timber in Ghana.

Source: Goldstreet Business









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Michigan High School Student Accidentally Detonates Explosive Device During Class

A high school student injured himself and other classmates after detonating a homemade explosive device inside a classroom at a school in west-central Michigan, according to authorities.

Michigan State Police wrote in a tweet that local police had responded to Newaygo High School at 8:52 a.m. on Monday after an incoming report about an explosion at the school.

All Newaygo County schools went into lockdown according to county emergency operations plan until information was obtained that there were no further threats to students, state police confirmed.

Authorities said a 16-year-old student, who also allegedly detonated the explosive device, was taken to the hospital for moderate to severe injuries.

went to the hospital by their parents for minor injuries.

The classroom teacher also sought treatment at the hospital. The investigation continues into what kind of material was involved in the explosion and the circumstances contributing.  @MSPWestMI (@mspwestmi) March 8, 2021

Besides the unidentified student, a teacher at the school also sought medical treatment as the explosion involved smoke and there was an inhalation concern, The Hill reported.

Four additional students were also taken to the hospital by their parents for minor injuries, according to state police.

The high schools administration dialed 911 after the explosion to urge emergency assistance at the school, and all students were immediately evacuated to a bus garage.

The map shows the location of the explosion at Newaygo High School in Michigan on March 8, 2021. (Google)

Police said a preliminary investigation determined that the 16-year-old student accidentally detonated the homemade explosive device he brought to the school and had no ill intentions.

The investigation continues into what kind of material was involved in the explosion and the circumstances contributing, state police said, adding that the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives were on scene to help identify the explosive materials involved.

Troopers also executed a search warrant on Monday at a Newaygo County residence as part of the investigation.

The Investigation continues into an explosive device brought into the Newaygo High School yesterday morning. Additional explosive devices were located last night at a residence and were safely detonated by the Michigan State Police Bomb Squad. Updates will be provided by Twitter  @MSPWestMI (@mspwestmi) March 9, 2021

According to the latest update on the investigation from police on Tuesday, detectives found more explosive devices at a residence and a bomb squad team has safely detonated them.

Additional details around the location of the residence or the connection to Monday mornings accidental explosion were not provided.

From NTD News
By Benjamin Jumbe



Members of parliament have expressed disappointment over Kenyas move to ban maize from Uganda.

The Kenyan authorities last week announced a ban on maize from Uganda and Tanzania arguing that it was contaminated with aflatoxins.

Raising a matter of national importance Busia Municipality MP Geoffrey Macho proposed that Uganda also bans imports of agricultural products from Kenya and that the government buys from the traders, all the maize which is stuck at the borders.

Several legislators including Abdul Katuntu, Elijah Okupa, Joseph Ssewungu said Uganda is not benefiting from the East African Community Integration calling on the governments urgent intervention.

The speaker of parliament in response directed the government to come with a statement on the matter without fail tomorrow warning that with or without any minister, parliament will make its resolution on the matter.
White evangelicals are the least likely faith group in US to get COVID vaccine: Pew

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

White evangelicals are the least likely faith group in the United States to get vaccinated for COVID-19, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

Additional data sent to The Christian Post from a Pew survey conducted in February of 10,121 U.S. adults found that 54% of white evangelicals definitely or probably plan on getting vaccinated or already have received at least one vaccination shot, the lowest of any religious demographic surveyed.

Overall, 64% of black Americans surveyed said they would definitely or probably get vaccinated or already have been, along with 77% of Catholics and 71% of the religiously unaffiliated.

Of all the religious groups, atheists are the most likely to say they will get vaccinated, with 90% saying they plan to or already have gotten vaccinated. Eighty percent of agnostics said the same. Among the religious nones, 64% said they would definitely or probably get a vaccine or already received at least one vaccine shot.

The survey, which has a sampling error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points, also found that white evangelicals are also the least likely faith demographic to consider their overall community's health effect when it comes to deciding whether to get vaccinated.

Just 48% of white evangelicals said they would consider community health effects a lot compared to 70% of black Protestants, 65% of Catholics and 68% of unaffiliated Americans.

According to the survey, 83% of Democrats either plan to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or already have been, compared to 56% of Republicans.

COVID vaccines have been a controversial subject among some Christian groups.

Some religious leaders and critics have warned that vaccines contain fetal tissue or microchips, while others have connected the vaccines with the mark of the beast.

But others, including Pope Francis and Southern Baptist Convention ethicist Russell Moore, have urged people to get the shots.

In a recent op-ed for The Washington Post, Moore and National Association of Evangelicals President Walter Kim argued that vaccines are a cause for Christians to rejoice and to give glory to God, identifying medicine as a common grace, discovered by human beings but given by God.

We have all lost much during this pandemic. For Christians, one of the most awful aspects, apart from the deaths of those we love, is the isolation we have had from one another, along with our feelings of powerlessness to change the situation," the two evangelical leaders wrote. "The vaccines change that equation. By getting vaccinated as soon as our time is called, we can actively work for what we have been praying for  churches filled with people, hugs in the church foyer, and singing loudly together the hymns we love.

Kim and Moore contend that the vaccines help express our love for neighbor  especially the sick and elderly  by reducing the chance that we might inadvertently pass along a virus that could kill them.

All we are asked to do is to get a shot, they contend. As evangelical Christians, we should all hear that challenge and say Amen.

Dr. Francis Collins, a Christian physician-geneticist and the director of the National Institutes of Health, has repeatedly discussed the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. He has encouraged Christians to seek out the truth about vaccines instead of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

I know people are tired of hearing these messages and having to be acting upon them, but the virus does not care that we are tired, he said during an online conversation about COVID-19 vaccines with Moore.

The virus is having a wonderful time right now spreading through this country, taking advantage of circumstances where people have let their guard go down. We need to be just absolutely rigorously adherent to things that we know work. But they dont work unless everybody actually sticks to them faithfully without exception.
Washington: The Republican Party intends to keep using former president Donald Trumps name in fundraising pitches and other materials, a lawyer for the party said on Monday, despite a cease-and-desist letter from Trump last week.

The letter sent by lawyers for Trump on Friday to the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Campaign and National Republican Senate Campaign had ramped up tension between the two camps as Trump seeks to preserve his political viability post-election.

Former president Donald Trump. Credit:AP

A Trump adviser said on Saturday that Trump was sensitive to the use of his name and likeness for branding purposes and was irked the three groups have supported Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats in voting to impeach him over the January 6 storming of the US Capitol by pro-Trump protesters.

In a response letter, the Republican National Committee said that Trump reaffirmed to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel over the weekend that he approves of the partys current use of his name, wrote Justin Riemer, the RNCs top lawyer.
Regulatory News:

Tikehau Capital (Paris:TKO), the global alternative asset management group, announces the opening of its new office in Frankfurt and appoints Dominik P. Felsmann as Head of Germany effective 15 March 2021.

The opening of an office in Frankfurt constitutes the firm's twelfth office globally and further expands Tikehau Capital's footprint in Western Europe, alongside its offices in Paris, London, Brussels, Milan, Madrid and, most recently, Luxembourg and Amsterdam.

Office opening in Frankfurt marks an important step in Tikehau Capital's commitment to the German market, emphasizing its strong presence in Germany in terms of investment and investors as well as in terms of strategic partnerships such as the one built with DWS since 2018.

With this high-profile appointment Tikehau Capital also strengthens its private debt platform leveraging Dominik P. Felsmann's 15 years of experience in the leveraged finance industry.

Dominik P. Felsmann will head-up the Group in Germany and will bring with him a deep knowledge of DACH region investors.

Thomas Friedberger, Co-CIO and CEO of Tikehau Investment Management, declared:

"We are thrilled to welcome Dominik to Tikehau Capital as we look to build an increasing presence in Germany and the DACH region. What sets Tikehau Capital apart is its global investment capabilities combined with a strong local expertise Dominik's deep experience in leveraged finance will be an immediate asset to Tikehau Capital's commitment to building our franchise in Germany and to our German-speaking clients. His international background along with his extensive network will help us to further strengthen the firm's footprint in the region."

Dominik will be joining Tikehau Capital in March 2021 as Head of Germany. In his role, he will be responsible for deepening local investment origination capabilities and growing the business of Tikehau Capital in Germany, as well as strengthening the firm's long-standing relationships with German investors. Dominik brings more than 15 years of experience in the financial industry. Before joining Tikehau Capital, he was Head of Leveraged Finance Germany for ABN AMRO, where he was responsible for building and leading the local Leveraged Finance team since 2017. He previously worked for IKB, HSBC and Commerzbank in their leveraged and acquisition finance teams in Frankfurt and London.

Tikehau Capital sees significant untapped potential in the German direct lending space, a business which the firm has pioneered across Europe. Its client offering in Germany will encompass all of its business segments: Private Debt, Real Assets, Private Equity and Capital Markets.

Having a local presence in Frankfurt further reinforces the firm's commitment to the DACH region. Tikehau Capital will also transfer staff from its Paris headquarters to support the Group's development plan in Germany and intends to grow its Frankfurt office by hiring experienced local talent over time.

Tikehau Capital has completed a series of significant investments in Germany, both on the Real Estate side, in offices, hotels, and retail premises in various cities, for a total amount of over 800m, in addition to 800m in total credit exposure which is invested in over 50 companies. Tikehau Capital has been partnering with DWS Group since 2018. Moreover, Tikehau Capital has a diversified German LP base across its asset classes.

ABOUT TIKEHAU CAPITAL

Tikehau Capital is a global alternative asset management group with 28.5 billion of assets under management (as of 31 December 2020). Tikehau Capital has developed a wide range of expertise across four asset classes (private debt, real assets, private equity and capital markets strategies) as well as multi-asset and special opportunities strategies.

Tikehau Capital is a founder led team with a differentiated business model, a strong balance sheet, proprietary global deal flow and a track record of backing high quality companies and executives.

Deeply rooted in the real economy, Tikehau Capital provides bespoke and innovative alternative financing solutions to companies it invests in and seeks to create long-term value for its investors, while generating positive impacts on society. Leveraging its strong equity base (2.8 billion of shareholders' equity as of 30 June 2020), the firm invests its own capital alongside its investor-clients within each of its strategies.

Controlled by its managers alongside leading institutional partners, Tikehau Capital is guided by a strong entrepreneurial spirit and DNA, shared by its 570 employees (as of 30 June 2020) across its 11 offices in Europe, Asia and North America. Tikehau Capital is listed in compartment A of the regulated Euronext Paris market (ISIN code: FR0013230612; Ticker: TKO.FP).

For more information, please visit: www.tikehaucapital.com

DISCLAIMER:

This document does not constitute an offer of securities for sale or investment advisory services. It contains general information only and is not intended to provide general or specific investment advice. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future earnings and profit, and targets are not guaranteed.

Certain statements and forecasted data are based on current forecasts, prevailing market and economic conditions, estimates, projections and opinions of Tikehau Capital and/or its affiliates. Due to various risks and uncertainties. actual results may differ materially from those reflected or expected in such forward-looking statements or in any of the case studies or forecasts. All references to Tikehau Capital's advisory activities in the US or with respect to US persons relate to Tikehau Capital North America.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005899/en/

Contacts:

PRESS:

Tikehau Capital: Valerie Sueur +33 1 40 06 39 30

UK Prosek Partners: Henrietta Dehn +44 7717 281 665

USA Prosek Partners: Trevor Gibbons +1 646 818 9238

press@tikehaucapital.com

SHAREHOLDERS AND INVESTORS:

Louis Igonet +33 1 40 06 11 11

shareholders@tikehaucapital.com
Actors Julia Roberts and George Clooney attend the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

George Clooney, Julia Roberts Reunite to Film in Australia

Oscar winners Julia Roberts and George Clooney will be filming in Queensland later this year thanks to a federal arts program.

The romantic comedy, Ticket to Paradise has attracted a $6.4 million grant under the Location Incentive Program and is expected to create more than 270 jobs for the local cast and crew.

Directed by Ol Parker (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again) and produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title, Ticket to Paradise revolves around a divorced couple who attend their daughters wedding in Bali.

Parker and the directors chose Queensland for its COVID-safe environment, diverse locations, and supply of skilled crew workers, according to Screen Queensland chief executive Kylie Munnich.

We are making a movie about paradise, and Queensland certainly offers up many stunning locations, Bevan said in a statement on March 2.

We are looking forward to working with fantastic Queensland crews and to enjoying some famous Queensland hospitality.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the production would bring around $33 million into the states economy while the Minister for the Arts Paul Fletcher said it will also inject $47 million in expenditure to the Australian economy.

Because of our strong health response and through the efforts of all Queenslanders in dealing with the global pandemic, weve emerged as one of the safest places in the world to film, Palaszczuk said.

The federal government has distributed more than $216 million under the Location Incentive Program to attract 22 productions to Australia so far. Fletcher added that these programs have provided more than 12,700 employment opportunities and have generated work for over 13,500 businesses.

Palaszczuk also said Queensland was attracting productions before the pandemic, but the states health management since then has made it an even stronger contender.

Munnich echoed the sentiment, saying the state had secured six out of ten international productions favouring Australia since July 2020.

Initially, it was about finding a COVID-safe place to film, but now the discussions with producers and directors are about the diversity of locations, first-rate sound stages, depth of crew, and just how fantastic it is to work here, Munnich said.

The Whitsundays will serve as the set for Bali and other filming locations include the Gold Coast and Brisbane.
A stabbing Tuesday outside of Asbury Park High School left two people injured, a spokesman for the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office said.

Few details were immediately released, including the conditions of the injured, after the stabbing in front of the school on Sunset Avenue. Two people were taken to a local hospital, according to county prosecutors office spokesman Chris Swendeman. Investigators with the prosecutors office responded to assist city police in the ongoing investigation, he said. A police officer was also treated at an area hospital and later released, the spokesman added.

Asbury Park Police responded to the scene swiftly and secured the scene. We believe this is an isolated incident and that there is no further threat to the public, Swendeman said.

The incident involved two or more Asbury Park students, who were involved in a disagreement during school hours, according to a statement from the school district issued Tuesday night.

It appears that the disagreement between the students continued after school was dismissed for the day and that an individual, who is not an Asbury Park student, may have provided a weapon to one of the students after dismissal, outside of the school building, the districts statement said. It appears that the weapon(s) was subsequently used to injure one or more individuals.

Based upon the information that is available at this time, it appears that what started as a conflict between students during the school day escalated into physical violence after school was dismissed, said Sancha Gray, Superintendent of Asbury Park Public Schools.

What is deeply troubling is a preliminary report that an individual, who is not affiliated with the school district, may have supplied a weapon to one or more of the students after the end of the school day, Gray added. While there is no indication that any weapons were brought into the school, we will nevertheless work with our law enforcement partners in an effort to ensure that this matter is fully investigated.

District security procedures likely prevent the stabbing from occurring inside the school, she said.

We utilize a multi-layered security approach, which not only focuses on the prevention of the introduction of weapons into the school environment, but also includes elements of social and emotional learning, mindfulness and peer mediation, the superintendent said. While this appears to be an isolated incident, it serves as a stark reminder of the very real challenges that school districts face today.

Asbury Park police referred questions to the county prosecutors office. More information was expected to be released later.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com.
Rates of mortality and good functional outcome (Glasgow Outcome Scale score of 4 or 5), segmented by Baylor score. From Yengo-Kahn et al. Credit: 2021 AANS.

In 2014, the Journal of Neurosurgery published a paper by a group of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who developed a prognostic scoring system for use in patients who present to the emergency department with a gunshot wound to the head (GSWH).

Today, we publish two papers by a group of researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that extend our understanding of the Baylor GSWH scoring system and its application, externally validating it in a different group of patients presenting during a more recent time period in which better acute management techniques are available.

Background

The Baylor prognostic scoring system is a tool used when a patient with a GSWH presents at the emergency department to predict in-hospital survival and outcomes six months after injury. Baylor scores are determined using the following variables: the patient's age, neurological status (based on both the patient's pupillary response and Glasgow Coma Scale score at the time of hospital admission), and the trajectory of the bullet within the brain.

Baylor scores range from 0 to 5. One point each is assigned to age greater than 35 years, a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 3 or 4, and bilateral nonreactive pupils. Two points are added if the bullet trajectory passed through the posterior fossa or involved both hemispheres of the brain. Patients determined at hospital admission to have a Baylor score of 0 are more likely to have a good functional outcome (determined as a Glasgow Outcome Scale score of 4 or 5) six months after injury; patients with a Baylor score of 5 are unlikely to survive their hospital stay.

The initial paper on the Baylor scoring system involved 199 patients in Houston who were treated for a GSWH with penetration of the dura mater between 1990 and 2008. Although the system was validated internally at the time, since then there has been no published external validation in a separate group of patients.

Current Studies

In the first of the new articles, "The value of simplicity: externally validating the Baylor cranial gunshot wound prognosis score", Aaron M. Yengo-Kahn, MD, and colleagues sought external validation of Baylor scores by reviewing the cases of all patients who had been admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for a GSWH with dural penetration between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2019. This group of 297 patients was "institutionally, geographically, and temporally distinct from the 1990-2008 cohort treated at Ben Taub General Hospital, which was used to develop the Baylor score."

The authors point out that many improvements in acute trauma management were made between the earlier Baylor group of patients and the current Vanderbilt group. Nevertheless, they hypothesized that the Baylor scoring system could still accurately predict in-hospital survival and functional outcome six months later.

Variables reviewed in the Vanderbilt cases included patients' vital signs, pupil responses, and Glasgow Coma Scale scores at the time of hospital admission; patients' demographics, medical histories, and laboratory and neuroimaging reports; as well as the intent of injury (accident, suicide, etc.).

Patients' Baylor scores were calculated using the method described above. The ability of the Baylor score to predict mortality and functional outcome was assessed by determining the receiver operating characteristic curve and the area under the curve (AUC).

Of the 297 patients in the Vanderbilt group, 205 patients (69%) died and 69 patients (23%) attained good functional outcome.

A: The Baylor score's prediction of mortality among acute-phase survivors, illustrated by an ROC curve with AUC and calibration curve with 95% CIs. B: The Baylor score's prediction of good functional outcome, defined as a Glasgow Outcome Scale score of 4 or 5 at the last follow-up visit, among acute-phase survivors, illustrated by an ROC curve with AUC and calibration curve with 95% CIs. Lowess = locally weighted scatterplot smoothing. From Kelly et al. Credit: 2021 AANS.

Among the Vanderbilt population, the authors state, "Overall, the Baylor score showed excellent discrimination of mortality (AUC = 0.88) and good functional outcome (AUC = 0.90)," despite the fact that Baylor scores 3-5 underestimated in-hospital mortality and scores 0, 1, and 2 underestimated good functional outcome at six months.

The authors discuss other GSWH prognostic tools, but they are more complex and may not cover both survival and long-term functional status. In a clinical setting, a simple tool such as the Baylor score, which relies on just four variables and is capable of predicting survival and functional outcome, is enormously useful.

Dr. Yengo-Kahn said, "The beauty of the Baylor score is the ease with which it can be applied. Frequently, trauma and neurologic surgeons face difficult decisions about how to convey the gravity of these patients' prognoses early in the hospital course. There is always the hope, especially, before the score was validated, that a patient will surprise us by "outperforming" their imaging- and exam-based prognosis, but this can be unproductive. This "false hope" may be at the cost of a substantial amount of resources and to the detriment of the patient (life prolonged in an undesirable state) and the family (standing witness to continued hospitalization, procedures, etc.), without a reasonable chance for survival. Now that the Baylor score has been validated, it may serve as a grounding force for family discussions and ensuring all treatment teams have a clear, objective, understanding of a patient's prognosis when considering additional treatments."

The second paper, "Incorporating conditional survival into prognostication for gunshot wounds to the head" , by Patrick D. Kelly, MD, MSCI, and colleagues, examines data from the same patient population, but instead of applying the Baylor score at the time of admission, the authors applied it 48 hours later, in patients who had survived "the acute phase" of treatment. At that time point, 129 of the 297 patients were alive.

The authors state, "conditional survival is defined as the probability of survival as a function of the amount of time a patient has already survived. This concept is often used to explain how prognostic factors evolve over time."

Forty-two (33%) of the 129 patients who survived the first 48 hours of hospitalization later died of their injuries; the mortality rate in this subgroup was less than half that in the entire patient population. Sixty-two patients (48%) in the subgroup attained good functional outcomes; this good outcome rate was more than twice that in the entire patient population.

The 48-hour time point marked a "significant change in conditional survival and functional outcome"; patients in the study who survived past that time had significantly less severity of injury and a higher rate of neurosurgical interventions. Unfortunately, 18 to 25 days of hospitalization marked another change in patients with GSWHstoward worse rates of good functional outcome.

According to the findings, "Among acute-phase survivors, the Baylor score accurately predicted mortality with an AUC of 0.7749 ... and good functional outcome with an AUC of 0.8146." Nevertheless, Baylor scores did overestimate the true mortality rates and underestimated the true rates of good functional outcome among acute-phase survivors in this study.

The authors believe that the Baylor scoring system can be a valuable tool at assessing GSWH patients at the 48-hour time point, bearing in mind the scores' proclivity to overestimate mortality and underestimate good functional outcome. The authors point out the importance of re-evaluating prognosis in patients still living at the 48-hour point, because prognostic scores based on arrival at the emergency department may no longer be as accurate in that group.

Mr. Pious D. Patel said, "Traditional prognostic scores are great at estimating outcome at a single point in time. The Baylor score, for example, does this at the point of arrival to the emergency department. This can be invaluable on the first day, when counseling family members on their loved one's chances for meaningful recovery. But what can we tell the family on day 2, day 3, or day 10 of the hospital stay? This study is a step forward to answering this question by showing that GSWH patients' expected outcomes change with continued survival in the hospital. It is therefore important to keep reassessing prognosis during the inpatient stay. After 48 hours in the hospital, we can say from this study that patients' odds of survival and of good long-term functional outcome are doubled when compared to the time point of arrival to the hospital. With more data and further study, we envision the creation of a prognostic score that can be adjusted with continued time in the hospital to help communicate this changing prognosis to the family."

Explore further Glasgow Coma Scale: A simple tool to use when verbal component scores are missing

More information: Yengo-Kahn AM, et al. The value of simplicity: externally validating the Baylor cranial gunshot wound prognosis score. Journal of Neurosurgery, March 9, 2021. Yengo-Kahn AM, et al. The value of simplicity: externally validating the Baylor cranial gunshot wound prognosis score., March 9, 2021. DOI: 10.3171/2020.9.JNS201891 Kelly PD, et al. Incorporating conditional survival into prognostication for gunshot wounds to the head. Journal of Neurosurgery, March 9, 2021. DOI: 10.3171/2020.9.JNS202723. Journal information: Journal of Neurosurgery

Provided by Journal of Neurosurgery
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Variants of the coronavirus are appearing in different parts of the world, many of them spreading with alarming speed. One contagious variant is the South African, or SA, variant, identified by an international team of researchers, including biomedical scientists from the University of California, Riverside.

"The new COVID-19 variants are the next new frontier," said Adam Godzik, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UC Riverside School of Medicine and a member of the research team that made the discovery. "Of these, the SA and Brazil strains are most worrying. They have mutations that make them resistant to antibodies we generate with existing vaccines. It is commonly believed we are in a tight race: Unless we vaccinate people quickly and squash the pandemic, new variants would dominate to the point that all our COVID-19 vaccines would be ineffective."

Godzik and Arghavan Alisoltani-Dehkordi, a postdoctoral researcher who joined his lab two years ago, helped characterize the new SA variant by providing its spike protein structure using computer simulations.

Study results appear today in Nature.

Alisoltani-Dehkordi, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cape Town in South Africa before she joined UCR, mentioned that research teams at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and the University of Cape Town discovered the new lineage -- or variant -- of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from samples collected between Oct. 15 and Nov. 25, 2020, in three South African provinces. By early November, this variant rapidly became the dominant variant in samples from two provinces.

"Each SARS-CoV-2 variant has specific mutations defining it," Alisoltani-Dehkordi said. "Professor Godzik and I used computer modeling to suggest possible structural and functional consequences of spike protein mutations in the SA lineage. Our analysis, confirmed also by several other research groups, shows that some of the mutations potentially result in a higher transmissibility of the virus and a weaker immune response."

The SA variant has been detected in at least 40 countries, including the United States.

"This variant is probably spreading in areas where it has not been sequenced and is, therefore, not identifiable," Godzik said. "In the U.S., sequencing is still a slow process. In many parts of the country, including Riverside, we have no information whatsoever about variants."

Initial research on the SA variant suggested it could be resistant to antibodies, which could reduce the efficacy of vaccines.

"That's when it received a high level of interest," Godzik said. "Subsequent research confirmed it is resistant to vaccines and is spreading. South Africa is doing a good job, however, at controlling the variant through quarantining and other measures."

All the newly emerged SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, and California show common mutational signatures. But each of these variants also has a unique set of mutations. For example, the SA and Brazil variants have two unique mutations on spike proteins K417N and E484K, respectively.

"Our preliminary findings indicate that some of the spike mutations may be associated with increased transmissibility of the SA variant," Alisoltani-Dehkordi said. "The full significance of spike and other genome mutations in this new lineage, however, is yet to be determined. It needs to be stressed that we do not have enough evidence confirming the higher disease progression, severity, or mortality rate associated with the SA lineage compared to other lineages. But the high transmissibility and unusual divergence of the SA lineage and other recently emerged lineages compared to the wild type creates a high demand for the systematic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 strains and early detection of variants before they turn into outbreaks."

Godzik explained there is no single COVID-19 virus. Instead, a population of viruses exists that constantly evolve. Variants, which also evolve, acquire mutations and could undergo viral escape at any time.

"It is hard to say there is only one SA variant," he said. "One way to understand this is to imagine that this variant is the major branch of a tree, which has many smaller branches. Some of these smaller ones may grow faster than others and assume more importance. This dynamic process is hard to predict."

Godzik predicts COVID-19 will be a constant presence in our lives, much like the flu.

"It takes six months to develop a flu vaccine," he said. "Models predict the evolution of the flu virus and vaccines are produced before the variants show up. If the predictions are good, the vaccines work. If they miss, a heavy flu season follows. This is how COVID-19 will likely behave. A lot of effort will be invested in predicting what will happen the following year, vaccines would then be updated, and people will need to get a booster shot."

###

The research paper is titled "Emergence of a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern with mutations in spike glycoprotein."
Gopal Mandal, the JDU legislator from Gopalpur in Banka district created a stir when he said he carries a revolver and will shoot somebody if required.

While interacting with reporters in Patna on Tuesday, Mandal said "Hamare pass hamesha revolver rehta hai, zarurat padega to thhok denge. (I always carry a revolver with me and will shoot anybody if required).

Mandal was speaking to mediapersons after his men and he were reportedly held hostage in Shyam Bazaar village in Banka district on Sunday.

Mandal, along with two dozen armed men went there to take possession of 20 acres land. The villagers assembled in large numbers and held them hostage for an hour. They also shouted slogans against Gopal.

The villagers released them after JDU Banka district president Umesh Yadav intervened in the matter.

"It wasn't a hostage situation for my supporters and me. They are not bigger fighters than me. I am a fighter. We had purchased 20 acres land in the Shyam Bazaar area nine months ago and have plans to construct a school on this land. I went there for inspection of my land but I saw some villagers illegally occupying," Mandal said.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
We're entering the second year of the coronavirus pandemic, and we've yet to fully reckon with the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. Research is still emerging about the devastating surge in mental illness for both the young and the old. It's undeniable we're facing a full-blown mental health crisis.But nowhere is this crisis more acute than in the homeless population. The homeless suffer from mental illness at a rate far higher than that of the general population. And to make matters worse, the homeless regularly lack access to care providers and facilities; instead, they too often wind up locked away in jail cells. Lifetime arrest rates for the homeless number between 62.9 percent and 90 percent The homeless need our help. While it will take time to change the way America handles mental illness, the best place we can start is with reform of the criminal justice system that disproportionately criminalizes and incarcerates the homeless.Researchers have long been aware of the intersections among mental illness, homelessness and criminal justice. There are more than 550,000 homeless people on the streets on any given night in the United States. Forty-five percent of them suffer from mental illness, and the homeless are 11 times likelier to be incarcerated than the rest of the population. One study by psychologists at the University of California, San Francisco, found that 16 percent of the incarcerated population is homeless and that 30 percent of homeless inmates had a diagnosis of mental illness.The reasons behind this conjuncture of mental illness, homelessness and criminal justice are complex. Some states, like Georgia , discharge sufferers from mental illness to homeless shelters or extended-stay motels, creating an influx of mental illness in the homeless population and destabilizing homeless communities. The homeless also suffer from substance abuse and addiction at a higher rate than other populations: One study found that nearly 35 percent of homeless adults had a substance abuse problem. And substance abuse disorders are bound to lead to confrontations with police.But perhaps the biggest factors are overcriminalization and a lack of adequate staff and resources to handle mental illness. Police officers simply aren't trained to deal with mental illness and addiction. What good are handcuffs and the threat of imprisonment to someone suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or crippling addiction? At the same time, state and local governments are all too eager to attach criminal penalties to minor infractions. How many of the homeless are thrown in jail for the "crime" of loitering, causing a public disturbance, sleeping outside, or violating mask mandates and social distancing protocols?What's more, regular confrontations with police and frequent incarceration can only worsen mental illness. The Treatment Advocacy Center reports that mentally ill inmates stay longer in prison than their counterparts and are at an elevated risk of suicide while in jail. And while imprisoned, the mentally ill receive zero mental health care. Is it at all likely that their lives will be better upon release?Our criminal justice system simply isn't designed to provide care for people experiencing homelessness and mental illness. And once the homeless and mentally ill start having encounters with the criminal justice system, it's very hard to turn things around. People who get involved with the justice system have their lives upended; they are cut off from support networks, deprived of most social contact, and branded with social stigma and legal restrictions. Upon release, it's nearly impossible for many of them to get back on their feet, and they end up stuck in the same behaviors that landed them in prison in the first place. For the homeless, it's easy to fall into a never-ending cycle of incarceration.Criminal justice reform can make a big difference, and state and local governments can lead. City and state officials can't do much about overcriminalization at the federal level, but they can address it at the local level. There's no good reason why a homeless person who falls asleep in a public park should end up in jail. Furthermore, most of the responsibility to build and fund care facilities for mental illness and substance abuse falls to state and local governments.Local officials also can do a lot to reduce their overreliance on the police force to handle the mentally ill and homeless. But they need to recognize the problem we're facing today and take action now. There may be more we can do down the line, but to start we should look at the way our criminal justice system feeds into homelessness and mental illness and start crafting local solutions.GoverningGoverning
Postal services provider TTPost yesterday shut its branches in Port of Spain and San Fernando after dozens of people rushed to collect senior citizen pension and public assistance grants and would not adhere to physical distancing rules.

Eventually, police were called to disperse the crowds.

Several elderly people at the St Vincent Street branch in Port of Spain complained about not being able to collect their pension cheques because other unruly ones refused to socially distance and abide by the law amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stella Griffith, 68, of Diego Martin, said she was adhering to rules of social distancing, but there were other people who came for their public assistance and disability grants and were refusing to listen.
All is not well in Arizona Republican politics.

After the state voted for President Joe Biden over Donald Trump and Senator Martha McSally surrendered her seat to Democrat Mark Kelly in the 2020 election, the infighting began. The Phoenix New Times described "dysfunction" and "bloodlust" within the fractured party last month.

One way to turn the state red again, by the look of a bizarre op-ed published by Gov. Doug Ducey in the Orange County Register on Tuesday, is to target fleeing Golden State Republicans and bring them to the desert. The decision to publish the opinion in a Republican stronghold in California does not seem coincidental.

To start, the governor's entire case is based on a falsehood  that there is an unprecedented exodus of people out of California right now.

"California ... lost nearly 70,000 people. Why are people choosing to pick up and leave one of Americas most beautiful states?" he asks.

Ducey's "nearly 70,000" claim is confusing: In fact, 653,551 residents left California in 2019 (a lower number than the previous three years). This figure, which is typical for the most populous state in the country, is tenfold higher than Ducey's and would have actually helped his argument.

He may have simply made a typo, or maybe he's referring to a report that 70,000 Californians moved to Arizona in 2019. This number though, showed Arizona had the biggest decline in arriving Californians compared to previous years. The Orange County Register should know: They wrote the story.

And while there has been an increase in people moving during the pandemic, and a record number of San Franciscans leaving the city, these people are largely not leaving the state; the majority are relocating to other parts of California.

Simply put, as a nonpartisan think tank found in a study last week, "a mass exodus from California clearly didnt happen in 2020."

Math aside, the carrot Ducey waves to draw those important Republican votes to Arizona is also rotten.

"Ive made it my mission to make and keep our state the best place in the nation to get an education," Ducey boasts.

This mission is seemingly a failure, as Arizona languishes in 46th place in state-by-state education rankings, as Twitter users were happy to remind the governor.

Ducey goes on to attack political correctness in California, and San Francisco in particular.

"Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the fact that instead of working to get kids back into the classroom, one of Californias largest school districts is focused on erasing historic figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln," he writes (skipping over the fact that Ducey himself was open to renaming the Jefferson Davis Highway in his state).

And while the San Francisco Unified School District's recent move to rename its schools was indeed a mess, Ducey himself knows a thing or two about expending misguided efforts on renaming things. The governor recently spent much time and money inexplicably changing the "Arizona Department of Corrections" to the "Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry," rather than addressing the real reason why Arizona has the fourth-highest incarceration rates in the country.

The move was described by Democratic state Sen. Tony Navarrete as putting lipstick on a pig.

Ducey's dismay for political correctness seems particularly jarring in a week when his Arizona Republican colleague Rep. Paul Gosar is tweeting vile misogynistic memes  on International Women's Day, no less.

Whether right-leaning Orange County residents take Ducey up on his offer to head away from the coast and help turn Arizona red again remains to be seen. But they may need a more convincing argument than whatever this incoherent op-ed is attempting.
General Onik Gasparian, the chief of the Armenian armys General Staff, and 40 other high-ranking officers demanded that Pashinian and his cabinet step down in a joint statement issued on February 25. They accused the government of putting Armenia on the brink of collapse after last years war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinian rejected the demand as a coup attempt and petitioned President Armen Sarkissian to sign a decree relieving Gasparian of his duties.

Sarkissian refused to sign such a decree on February 27, saying that it appears to be unconstitutional and would deepen the unprecedented political crisis in the country. Pashinian criticized the refusal as unfounded and resent his motion to Sarkissian in another attempt to get him to fire Gasparian.

Sarkissian again refused to sign the decree drafted by the prime ministers office. But he made it clear that he will not ask the Constitutional Court to invalidate it, effectively paving the way for Gasparians removal.

Under Armenian law, the president can keep blocking the prime ministers decisions only by appealing to the court.

A spokesperson for the Constitutional Court told RFE/RLs Armenian Service that it received no appeals from Sarkissian as of Tuesday afternoon.

Sarkissian made no public statements on the issue despite strong pressure from opposition leaders and other critics of Pashinians administration, who have backed the militarys demands. But he did sent a written answer to one of those critics, Ara Zohrabian, who heads the national bar association.

In his letter publicized by Zohrabian, the head of state indicated that it is now up to Pashinian to decide General Gasparians future and face legal and political consequences of that decision.

Zohrabian condemned Sarkissians inactivity when he and a group of his supporters gathered outside the presidential palace in Yerevan earlier in the day. He suggested that the president is facing strong pressure from Pashinian.

A close Pashinian associate, deputy parliament speaker Alen Simonian, stated, meanwhile, Sarkissian has missed a legal deadline for challenging the legality of Gasparians sacking. The general has therefore ceased to be the chief of the General Staff, Simonian told RFE/RLs Armenian Service.

Neither the prime minister nor the government made any statements to that effect, however.

Gasparian also remained silent about his current status and intentions. In another statement issued last week, the General Staff said that he can retain his post at least until March 9.
Josie Gibson has said that she feels 'privileged' to have grown up 'skint but free' as she discussed Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's bombshell Oprah interview.

Taking to Twitter on Monday night after ITV aired Meghan, 39, and Prince Harry's, 35, explosive tell-all chat, the Big Brother winner turned This Morning presenter, 36, admitted she was grateful to have been brought up on a council estate.

Josie, who hails from Bristol, where she still lives with son Reggie, two, tweeted: 'I think lots of us have looked at the royals and thought they have it all, the life, the wealth, the goods.

'Privileged': Josie Gibson has said that she feels 'privileged' to have grown up 'skint but free' as she discussed Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's bombshell Oprah interview (pictured in January)

'But I actually feel privileged to have been bought up on a council estate where we were free. Skint but free,' followed by a crying laughing emoji.

The couple's interview on CBS late on Sunday night, which was then aired in the UK on ITV on Monday, sent shock waves around the world as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Queen and other senior royals.

Josie was born in Bristol in 1985 and still resides there now with her two-year-old son Reggie, who she welcomed with on-off ex Terry.

The star soared to fame in 2010 after she won series 11 of the now-axed show Big Brother and a staggering 100,000. Josie is now a regular presenter on This Morning and has released two fitness DVDs after famously slimming from a size 20 to a size 8.

Reflective: Taking to Twitter on Monday night after ITV aired Meghan, 39, and Prince Harry's, 35, explosive tell-all chat, the Big Brother winner turned This Morning presenter, 36, admitted she was grateful to have been brought up on a council estate

Bombshell: The couple's interview on CBS late on Sunday night, which was then aired in the UK on ITV on Monday, sent shock waves around the world as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Queen and other senior royals

During Meghan and Prince Harry's, 35, explosive tell-all chat with Oprah, they accused an unnamed Royal Family member of racism, suggesting the relative had asked 'how dark' their baby would be.

They also said they had been driven out of Britain, in part, by racism and accused the Palace machinery of failing to support a 'suicidal' Meghan.

Harry also revealed an astonishing rift with his father, saying his family had cut him off financially while suggesting the Queen had been badly advised and had cancelled a meeting scheduled at Sandringham.

Meghan also accused her sister-in-law Kate of making her cry, suggested senior royals plotted to ensure Archie would never have a title or adequate security and said officials had failed to stand up for the couple against 'racist' commentary.

Her happy place: Josie was born in Bristol in 1985 and still resides there now with her two-year-old son Reggie, who she welcomed with on-off ex Terry

Fame: The star soared to fame in 2010 after she won series 11 of the now-axed show Big Brother and a staggering 100,000 (pictured in 2010)

Josie's This Morning co-star Holly Willoughby defended Meghan on Monday's This Morning when she hit back at broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer.

Julia had said: 'I do think multi-millionaires sitting with a billionaire in their multi-million pound mansion complaining about how terrible their life is is tone deaf. In this day and age when so many people are struggling!'

But Holly insisted that even the wealthy can struggle with their mental health.

Holly said: 'Mental health doesn't discriminate on how wealthy you are. Haven't we got past that thought process by now?'

Speaking out: During the bombshell interview, Meghan broke down in tears as she admitted to having suicidal feelings over her treatment in the UK

During the bombshell interview, Meghan broke down in tears as she admitted to having suicidal feelings over her treatment in the UK.

She revealed she told her husband she 'didn't want to be alive anymore' when feeling at an all-time low.

Meghan tearfully revealed that the stress of royal life made her suicidal when she was five months pregnant in her interview with Oprah.

She also told Oprah she 'couldn't be left alone' and told her husband she 'didn't want to be alive anymore' before claiming the Buckingham Palace HR department ignored her plea for help because she wasn't a 'paid employee'.

'Mental health doesn't discriminate on how wealthy you are': Josie's This Morning co-star Holly Willoughby defended Meghan on Monday's This Morning when she hit back at broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer

Describing how she considered ending her life believing it 'was better for everyone', Meghan said: 'I knew that if I didn't say it, that I would do it. I just didn't want to be alive anymore.

'And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. I remember how he just cradled me. I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help.

'I said that "I've never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere". And I was told that I couldn't, that it wouldn't be good for the institution'.

Elsewhere in the interview Prince Harry claimed that racism drove him and Meghan out of Britain and the Queen was too busy to meet him.

The Duke of Sussex accused the Queen of snubbing him after she was allegedly overruled by royal aides when she tried to invite him and Meghan on a trip to Sandringham after they announced they were stepping down.

Divisive: Julia had said: 'I do think multi-millionaires sitting with a billionaire in their multi-million pound mansion complaining about how terrible their life is is tone deaf'

Harry said he received a message from the Queen saying she wanted them to visit 'the moment you land', but he later got a message from his private secretary at the time saying the trip had been cancelled.

Harry said he then rang the Queen from Frogmore cottage and she said: 'Yes, there's something in my diary that I didn't know that I had.'

The prince claimed the exchange showed that even the Queen could be overruled.

He said: 'When you're head of the firm there is people around you that give you advice. And what has also made me really sad is some of that advice has been really bad.'

For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit www.samaritans.org for details; In the US call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
(Newser)  A federal judge in California has ruled that Kobe Bryant's widow, Vanessa Bryant, can obtain the names of four Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies who allegedly shared graphic photos from the site of the helicopter crash that killed her husband, their daughter Gianna, and seven others. An effort by Los Angeles County lawyers to keep the deputies' names under seal was rejected Monday by US District Judge John F. Walter, per the AP. The ruling means the names and details from an internal affairs investigation of the deputies could be added to Vanessa Bryant's lawsuit against the county and the sheriff's department. The county, however, can appeal the decision. Kobe Bryant and the others were killed Jan. 26, 2020, when the helicopter they were aboard crashed west of Los Angeles in the hills of Calabasas.

story continues below

The Los Angeles Times later reported that an investigation found deputies shared photos of victims' remains. Vanessa Bryant sued, seeking damages for negligence and invasion of privacy. County lawyers argued that the deputies' names should remain under seal because releasing them would make it easy for hackers to locate their personal information and addresses. The judge wrote that Sheriff Alex Villanueva's "promise to publicly release the (internal affairs bureau) report after the conclusion of the investigation undermines Defendants' purported concern in the disclosure of the limited excerpts at issue here." The judge also wrote that the public has a vested interest in assessing the truthfulness of allegations of police misconduct.

(Read more Kobe Bryant stories.)
The Prosecutor Generals Office of Ukraine has prepared a communication for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court over the facts of shelling of civilian facilities in Luhansk region by the Russian Federation.

"Deputy Prosecutor General Gunduz Mamedov signed another communication to be addressed to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court regarding serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by representatives of the occupation administrations of the Russian Federation in Luhansk region," the press service of the Prosecutor Generals Office informs.

The communication was prepared by the Luhansk Regional Prosecutor's Office together with the Luhansk Regional Human Rights Center "Alternative" and representatives of the Department for Crimes Committed amid Armed Conflict, the Prosecutor General's Office based on monitoring visits of human rights defenders to the zone of armed conflict, interviews with victims and files of criminal proceedings.

It contains information on the facts of the systematic use of the indiscriminate weapons by the Russian Federation and the illegal armed formations it backs, the consequences of which are unpredictable, and the shelling of civilian facilities.

In particular, there is information about artillery shelling of hospitals, residential buildings, gas, water and electricity supply facilities, i.e., the shelling of the infrastructure, which is not used for military purposes, that is prohibited by the 1949 Geneva Convention. "The communication contains information about 34 cases of indiscriminate shelling. The consequences of such occupiers actions were numerous damages to water mains, hydraulic structures, industrial buildings and equipment, interruptions in water supply and electricity supply in the villages of Novotoshkivske, Vovchoyarivka, Loskutivka, Pidlisne, Toshkivka, Svitlychne, the towns of Hirske, Zolote and Popasna with a total population of over 40,000, the statement reads.

According to the Prosecutor Generals Office data, more than 7,000 damaged and destroyed infrastructure facilities in Luhansk region have been documented since 2014. In the last year alone, 655 attacks from the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk region were recorded, as a result of which 22 civilian infrastructure facilities were damaged, 3 civilians were injured and one person was killed.

According to Mamedov, the prosecutor's offices together with human rights activists are doing large-scale work. The analysis conducted and the evidence gathered prove the consistent nature of criminal actions against civilians in Luhansk region and civilian facilities that ensure the vital activity of towns and provide medical care. The regional prosecutor's offices in Donbas opened a register of victims of the armed conflict, which allows to provide an appropriate legal assessment of actions of representatives of the occupation administrations, determine the amount of damage and restore the rights of victims, Mamedov informed.

According to him, more than 4,200 victims have been identified in criminal proceedings over crimes related to armed conflict, of which more than 90% are individuals. "328 civilians have been injured and 197 have been killed as a result of enemy shelling," the official said.

In total, 16 communications on violations of international humanitarian law in Crimea and Donbas have already been sent to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

Earlier, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova stated that 70 Russian citizens had been served with notices of charges over unleashing and waging an aggressive war against Ukraine.

ol
Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, the new national airline of the UAE, celebrated International Womens Day and the upcoming Women in Aviation Week with its pledge to employ ever more women pilots and women in top leadership roles.



Recent figures show that just 5.1% of pilots in the world are women, emphasising a need within the industry to boost diversity in roles which have been traditionally male dominated. Wizz Air, has reaffirmed its pledge to boost women pilot numbers through its Cabin Crew to Flight Deck programme, which supports aspiring cabin crew to overcome the barriers to becoming a pilot, through comprehensive financial, travel and accommodation support, as well as a tailored work and study schedule.



The 40-month long programme offers ambitious crew members the opportunity to build their career at Wizz Air, flying one of the youngest and most efficient fleets in the industry.



As Women in Aviation week takes place from 8 March 2021, Wizz Air promises to support womens career advancement in all areas of the aviation industry, including its pledge to creating balanced gender representation across the airlines boards and top leadership positions.



Marion Geoffroy, Chief Corporate Officer at Wizz Air, said: At WIZZ, we know that a diverse workforce makes us better which is why we celebrate the women of WIZZ not only today, but every day, as they play a vital role in our business. Our mission is to inspire the next generation of women in aviation, giving them the opportunity to start and grow their career at Wizz Air.



From cabin crew and pilots to flight engineers, ground mechanics and office employees, we continue to support womens empowerment and equality in this industry and today reaffirm our pledge to help make gender balance in the aviation industry a reality.  TradeArabia News Service


Image: Pranet Pahwa

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. And with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been facing innumerable situations that demand us to rethink the way we do everything! Speaking of the healthcare sector thats been in the limelight and at the forefront of tackling the global health crisis, several new healthcare applications, too, made it into the competitive market. One such noteworthy application is XDOC+, created by Pranet Pahwa, a Grade 5 student of Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad. The innovative versatile healthcare app developed by the nine-year-old offers a host of medical specialties such as cardiology and ENT, along with profiles and contact details of medical professionals all over India.





Pahwa has been recognised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, which selected his app as the winner of the MIT App of the month in December 2020. Over to this young innovator!

Tell us about XDOC+, the healthcare app youve created. What is it, and what makes it special?

The XDOC+ app is made on the MIT App inventor platform and it works on Android. This app is a non-profit making app which provides information about various healthcare related issues in detail. It gives information on diseases to help patients understand their health conditions better, enabling them to reach out to the right consultants for the treatment and overall health management. The app also helps in booking appointments with the medical specialists.

How did you go about developing this app? What were the main challenges you faced?

My father is associated with a healthcare organisation. So, I developed interest around issues of patient care, doctors and healthcare at an early age. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, I could relate with the worries around healthcare and poor accessibility to it, so I decided to do something about it. Besides academics, my school encourages learning about new technologies through innovative programs and nurtures creativity to solve real life problems. With encouragement from my teachers and parents, I identified the need for better information around health issues under one platform, and then worked on creating a solution to bridge the gap. My coding skills were helpful to get started, and I created a user-friendly healthcare app which provides easy access to healthcare experts for people in need. One of the main challenges was gathering the right information on diseases, their symptoms, and relevant specialists.





Image: Shutterstock

Youve been recognised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA and your app was the winner of the MIT App of the month in December 2020. How did that make you feel?

I feel motivated that such an honour has come to me at this age. I want to do more and provide better solutions through digital mediums to help our community at large.

Your app is beneficial to people in need during this pandemic. Who or what has helped you realise the many problems people have been facing in the times of COVID-19?

Through several discussions with my father, I realised that an easy to use platform/app that could help people with all the information they may need around a disease had the potential to ensure that people who need medical attention were first able to identify the severity of their problem and then access the right expert for treatment. Creating the app has been a process of applying all that I have been learning at my school  be it using different technologies to solve real-life problems, creative thinking, identifying and understanding complex problems, creating a structured approach to resolve it etc.

What inspired you to come up with a solution that could be beneficial to others?

My mom says, Sometimes, the solution lies in the problem; if we brainstorm and discuss the problems, the probable solutions will surely come. Guidance and learning from teachers and parents inspired me to build this app which will help the community fulfil their healthcare needs under one platform.





Image: Shutterstock





What has bothered you the most in 2020 and what do you hope for in the new year?

The pandemic has adversely affected the entire world. For some, it was a year filled with problems, some were fortunate to utilise this time indoors with their family and engage in building new skills and learning. Indeed, the lockdown also gave me enough time to think creatively about resolving issues related to the pandemic and be more innovative. I am hoping to use my skills in creating more innovative solutions to help solve peoples problems.

What are your other interests? Any new hobby youve picked up in the last year?

I have a strong interest in coding and learning new computer languages. Another hobby that I have explored during this time is cooking, I learned to make cakes, pasta and cookies.

Anju Wal, Principal, Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad

Please tell us about your role in guiding kids when it comes to developing apps, honing their skills, and motivating them?

Our school focuses on the holistic development of students. Our curriculum is progressive, which is specially designed to inculcate the skills of new technologies, creative thinking, and problem-solving in our students. Our pedagogical philosophy is to nurture creativity and harness innovation in our children from the foundational years. Therefore, our children exercise their flexibility of thought and freedom to explore, research and discover. We motivate students to seek the truth, nurture their scientific acumen and embrace technology to innovate and resolve problems for the common good of human kind. Pranet is the ambassador of Shiv Nadar Schools core values. We are indeed very proud of him.

Read more: Meet Mohana Singh Jitarwal, One Of Indias First Female Fighter Pilots
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[March 09, 2021] AM Best Upgrades Issuer Credit Rating of Greenville Casualty Insurance Company

AM Best has upgraded the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) to "bb+" from "bb" and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of B (Fair) of Greenville Casualty Insurance Company (Greenville Casualty) (Greer, SC). The outlook of the FSR has been revised to positive from stable while the outlook of the Long-Term ICR is positive. These Credit Ratings (ratings) reflect Greenville Casualty's balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as adequate, as well as its marginal operating performance, limited business profile and marginal enterprise risk management. The upgrade of the Long-Term ICR reflects Greenville Casualty's improved balance sheet strength, driven by increased risk-adjusted capitalization, reduced underwriting leverage and increased liquidity measures over the most recent five-year period, which were derived from solid growth in policyholders' surplus and reduced premium writings. The positive outlooks reflect Greenville Casualty's improved operating performance in recent years, driven by management's underwriting initiatives which have stabilized results. AM Best expects sustained improvement in operating performance metrics with moderate volatility over the near to medium term. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinen disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper media use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best press releases, please view Guide for Media - Proper Use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best Rating Action Press Releases.



AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright  2021 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005746/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Advertisement

Australian travellers yearning for adventure after almost one year of international border closures can visit an extraordinary cloud forest hovering over a tiny island, without leaving New South Wales.

The rare phenomenon on Lord Howe Island, a stunning volcanic isle which lies roughly 600km east of the NSW coast, is created by a balanced ecosystem that causes clouds to float directly over mountaintops, shrouding peaks in cotton-like wisps.

The cloud caps, which hang between the 875-metre summit of Mount Gower and lower Mount Lidgbird during summer months, form when air travelling across the ocean collects invisible water vapour, which collides with the mountains it rises before cooling and condensing into clouds.

Lord Howe is part of just one percent of global woodland where cloud forests grow, along with regions in Central America, southern Mexico, South America, Africa, Madagascar, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and the Caribbean.

Scroll down for video

A unique cloud forest floats over two mountain peaks on Lord Howe Island, 600km east of the NSW coast

The rare phenomenon (left) on Lord Howe Island (right) is created by a balanced ecosystem that causes clouds to float directly over mountaintops, shrouding peaks in cotton-like wisps

Lord Howe's forest has been flourishing since a large-scale pest extermination program in 2019 eradicated many of the 120,000 rats infesting and stripping the island of natural food sources, the ABC reported.

Sitting between Australia and New Zealand in the Tasman Sea, Lord Howe - just a two-hour flight from Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport - has been hailed as an 'unspoiled paradise' filled with white sand beaches, formidable forests and crystal clear waters bursting with coral reef.

Despite being just 11 kilometres long and 2 kilometres wide, the island is home to over 500 species of fish, 90 forms of coral and native wildlife including the woodhen - one of the world's rarest birds - and the Lord Howe Island Phasmid, a large stick insect believed to be extinct until it was rediscovered in recent years.

Ecologist Ian Hutton, who has lived on the World Heritage-listed island for the past 40 years, describes it as a 'thrilling life, surrounded by pristine waters and subtropical forests'.

The cloud caps shrouding the summits of Mount Gower and Mount Lidgbird (pictured) form when air travelling across the ocean collects invisible water vapour, which collides with the mountains it rises before cooling and condensing into clouds

The forest (left and right) is home to native wildlife including the woodhen - one of the world's rarest birds - and the Lord Howe Island Phasmid, a large stick insect believed to be extinct until it was rediscovered in recent years

Lord Howe Island (pictured) has been hailed as an 'unspoiled paradise' filled with white sand beaches, formidable forests and crystal clear waters bursting with coral reef

The island (pictured) supports multiple ecosystems which coexist in a delicate balance found in few other places on earth

'Running around outside the door is one of the world's rarest birds, the woodhen, seabirds are flying overhead, and after a five-minute walk from the house I can go down and have a swim in the world's most southerly coral reef in our lagoon,' Dr Hutton told the ABC.

He said the island presents a unique opportunity to witness dozens of tiny ecosystems existing in a small area, a veritable treasure trove for scientists, zoologists and environmentalists that he describes as 'living in a David Attenborough documentary'.

The third episode of Attenborough's 'Seven Worlds, One Planet', which aired in November 2019, gave viewers a glimpse inside a cloud forest in the Andes, the world's longest mountain range that runs along South America's western side.

Dr Hutton said the humidity from cloud forests create the perfect climate for the growth of rare mosses, ferns and flowering plants, many of which are found nowhere else on earth.

Lord Howe's cloud forest (pictured in the background) has been flourishing since a large-scale pest extermination program in 2019 eradicated many of the 120,000 rats infesting and stripping the island of natural food sources

Visitors to Lord Howe Island can hand-feed fish at Ned's Beach and take glass-bottom tours of the lagoon for unrivalled opportunities to spot turtles and native fish

Travel giant Lonely Planet lauds Lord Howe Island as a 'shining example of sustainably managed tourism', as it allows just 400 visitors at any one time.

Visitors are encouraged to take part in ecological initiatives and clean-up projects, and can even hand-feed fish on picturesque Ned's Beach for a close encounter with local wildlife.

Once an active volcano, the island boasts some of Australia's best hike and cycle trails as well as world-class snorkelling and scuba diving sites around the nearby Admiralty Islands.

Travel giant Lonely Planet lauds Lord Howe Island (pictured) as a 'shining example of sustainably managed tourism', as it allows just 400 visitors at any one time

Once an active volcano, the island also boasts some of Australia's best hike and cycle trails as well as world-class snorkelling and scuba diving sites around the nearby Admiralty Islands

After a long day of activities, guests can unwind at the Arajilla Day Spa, a luxurious holistic retreat offering Ayurvedic beauty treatments

Families can take tours of the lagoon on glass-bottom boats, which provide unrivalled opportunities for fish, turtle and coral reef viewing.

Couples can opt for romantic sunset tours or take picnics along one of the many clifftop walks.

After a long day of adventuring, guests can unwind at the Arajilla Day Spa, a luxurious holistic retreat which offers health and beauty treatments based on Ayurvedic science.

Flights to Lord Howe from Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport start from $1,340 per person return.
VanEck Vectors ETFs N.V., an investment company with variable capital, with registered office in Amsterdam

General Meeting of Shareholders

On 21 April 2021, the annual General Meeting of Shareholders of VanEck Vectors ETFs N.V. will be held at the office of the company at Amsterdam, Barbara Strozzilaan 310 at 10:00 am. In the light of the developments surrounding COVID-19, VanEck can decide to additionally hold the meeting electronically if required by the circumstances. This will be announced to the shareholders who have applied to the meeting.

The agenda can be downloaded via the website. The management report together with the annual financial statements for 2020 will be available for inspection at the office of the company and can be requested free of charge from the manager of the company.

Application for the meeting must be submitted in writing to VanEck Vectors ETFs N.V. no later than 14 April 2021 at 16:00, stating the number of shares to which one is entitled.

Email address: NLInfo@VanEck.com

Amsterdam, 9 March 2021

The board

VanEck Vectors ETFs N.V.


The doubts raised by some health officials prompted people to turn down the vaccine, resulting in doses going unused and slowing down the vaccination process throughout the continent.

Even though Europe's drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, fully approved the vaccine, the Italian government initially balked, as did Germany, at giving the vaccine to people older than 65 because of limited data on its efficacy within that age group. Germany has reversed course on its use, as well.

Earlier Monday, the Italian Health Ministry changed course and signed an order approving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people 65 and older.

Italy's Health Ministry recorded 318 deaths Monday in the past 24 hours, bringing the country's total of COVID-19 deaths to 100,103 and making it the seventh country in the world to surpass the marker, following the United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, Russia and Britain, according to a tally by Reuters. Italy has the second-highest death toll from the pandemic in Europe after Britain.

Italy's death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 100,000 on Monday, a year after it became the first country in Europe to go into lockdown to try to stop the spread of the virus.

 Around the Globe

Meanwhile, Britain reopened all its schools Monday for the first time since late 2020. The openings come as the country experiences some of its lowest coronavirus death tolls since October. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday called the reopening of schools in the nation "a crucial first step" in a "road map to freedom" from the coronavirus pandemic but added a warning against complacency.

In Israel, health officials celebrated the country's 5 millionth coronavirus vaccination and extended its vaccination campaign to Palestinians working in Israel or its West Bank settlements. The country has faced criticism for not providing more doses to Palestinians in occupied territory.

Greek authorities say they have registered the country's youngest COVID-19 victim so far -- a 37-day-old baby boy. The infant had been in the hospital with the virus for the past three weeks after being brought in with a nasal infection and fever.

 Vaccines

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new guidelines for those who have been fully vaccinated, advising that they can gather without masks in small groups with others who have been inoculated, but that they should still wear masks in public. U.S. students in Detroit, Michigan, returned to classrooms for in-person learning Monday for the first time in months, while officials in New York City announced that public high schools will reopen for in-person learning March 22.

The World Health Organization argued that so-called "vaccine passports" for COVID-19 should not be used for international travel because coronavirus vaccines are not easily available globally.

WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan told a press briefing on Monday there are "real practical and ethical considerations" for countries that are considering using vaccine passports and said the U.N. health agency advises against it for now. Also on Monday, Vietnam launched its COVID-19 vaccination program, with its front-line health care workers and first responders receiving the first shots.

In Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the country will speed up its vaccination program after a slow start thanks to vaccine and syringe shortages. Three weeks in, a little more than 46,500 front-line medical workers have received their shots. The elderly will be next in line.

The Reuters news agency reported that Suga promised to have enough of the shots to vaccinate the entire population by the start of the Summer Olympics in July.

The European Union has warned member states against buying Russia's COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, since the EU has not yet completed a review of it. Despite the warning, several nations have made moves to purchase the vaccine.

Early Monday, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported almost 117 million global coronavirus cases. The United States has more infections than any other country with 29 million, followed by India with 11.2 million and Brazil with 11 million.


NSU swim coach Monanian moving on after four seasons

Monanian moves on to Purdue after accepting an assistant position at their program.
Depending on who you ask, the SubStation No. 164 redevelopment on Sydneys Clarence Street floats like a thought bubble, a glass sculpture, a comma or a water cooler above two solid heritage buildings.

Adam Lindsay, the executive director of Sydney Living Museum and NSW State Archives, said the new seven storey curved glass building was beautiful after a hard hat tour on Sunday.

The project is expected to be finished next month. The office building is supported with a cantilever, and anchored in the old. But even if the old buildings below were demolished, the new building would stay aloft.

Is it a thought bubble, a comma or a water cooler? The SubStation No. 164 redesign at 183-185 Clarence Street.

The power station and old spirit warehouse will accommodate retailers, coffee shops and cultural events.
 Close Joe Biden says hell run for a second term in 2024

On the 65th day of his presidency, Joe Biden held his first formal press conference since entering the White House on 20 January.

In the hour-long Q&A, Biden courted controversy on migration at the Mexico border, the US relationship with China, and the potential to face off against Trump in 2024 in a rematch that see two oldest presidential candidates in US history (Biden 82 v Trump 78).

Of the 15 presidents of the past 100 years, all but for Biden have held a press conference within 33 days of being sworn into office. Donald Trump did it 27 days in, while Barack Obama outdid Trump by a week at 20 days.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the company's role in polarising the US, blaming the "political and media environment" for promoting extremism and misinformation. His opening statement in the Senate big tech hearing came after a cutout of the Facebook boss dressed as the QAnon Shaman Jacob Chansley appeared on Capitol Hill before Congress began grilling the social media platforms.

Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary to Mr Trump, has meanwhile appeared on Fox News to claim Joe Biden is in badly declining health and is concealing his condition behind a Covid face mask, a baseless smear intended to undermine his first press conference as president, where questions on immigration, the coronavirus vaccine rollout, infrastructure and gun control are likely to be forthcoming.

His vice president, Kamala Harris, is also already facing criticism from Republicans Ted Cruz and Doug Ducey, Arizonas governor, after being appointed to lead the countrys response to the latest surge in asylum seekers arriving at the US border with Mexico as the administration struggles to find temporary housing for hundreds of unaccompanied children.

Read more:
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/09/2021 -- The market is primarily driven due to its use in numerous applications including food & beverage, paper, pharmaceuticals, textiles and other applications such as coatings, adhesives and biodegradable polymers. Growing health and nutrition concerns along with changing preference for healthy appetite are also likely to be a major driving factor for the market. The global Modified Starch Market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 4.6% from USD 10.80 Billion in 2019 to USD 15.67 Billion in 2027.



Increasing demand for convenience food and rapidly developing pharmaceutical industries, especially in the Asia Pacific region, are expected to drive global market growth. With several companies concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, the market is highly competitive and fragmented in nature.



Maltodextrin's rising popularity also drives the modified starch market. On the other hand, the key factors hampering this market's growth are higher raw material costs and high R&D costs. This shows that there is an enormous scope for the global growth of the modified starch market.



Get a Sample of the Report @ https://www.reportsanddata.com/sample-enquiry-form/1307



The report focuses on the Modified Starch market volume at a global and regional level, along with a special focus on the company level. The report represents an overall Modified Starch market size through a thorough analysis of the historical data and future prospects.



Regional analysis provided in the report covers the key regions of North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Additionally, the report offers a country-wise analysis of the Modified Starch industry with respect to the import/export analysis, production and consumption pattern, supply and demand ratio, revenue share, market share and size, and other key aspects.



The competitive landscape of the Modified Starch market is explored with regards to the production capacity, revenue and market share, product portfolio, strategic business decisions such as M&A, joint ventures, collaborations, product launches, and brand promotion, among others, for each manufacturer operating in the Modified Starch market.



Major Manufacturers Profiled in the Report:



Cargill (US), Tate & Lyle (UK), Archer Daniels Midland (US), Ingredion Inc. (US), Grain Processing Corp. (US), Emsland-Starke GmbH (Germany), Global Bio-Chem Technology Group Co. Ltd. (Hong Kong), SPAC Starch Products (India), Qingdao CBH Co., Ltd. Company (China), Roquette Freres (France) and others.



Market Segmentation based on Key Geographical Regions:



North America (U.S.A., Canada)

Europe (U.K., Italy, Germany, France, Rest of EU)

Asia Pacific (India, Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, Rest of APAC)

Latin America (Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of Latin America)

Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., South Africa, Rest of MEA)



Get Discount on the Report @ https://www.reportsanddata.com/discount-enquiry-form/1307



Type (Kilo Tons) (Revenue, USD Million; 2016-2026)



Cationic Starch

Etherified Starch

Esterified Starch

Resistant Starch

Pre-gelatinized



Raw Materials (Kilo Tons) (Revenue, USD Million; 2016-2026)



Corn

Cassava

Wheat

Potato

Yam

Others



Function (Kilo Tons) (Revenue, USD Million; 2016-2026)



Thickeners

Stabilizers

Binders

Emulsifiers

Others



Application (Kilo Tons) (Revenue, USD Million; 2016-2026)



Food & beverages

Bakery & confectionery

Beverages

Processed-foods

Others

Industrial

Paper-making

Pharmaceuticals

Cosmetics

Textiles



Others (foundry, adhesives, detergents and cardboard manufacturing)

Animal feed

Swine feed

Ruminant feed

Poultry feed

Others



Summary of the report:



The report provides an extensive evaluation of the global Modified Starch market including recent and emerging trends of the industry.

A thorough qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market to offer an accurate insight into the industry to assist the readers and investor capitalize on the current and emerging opportunities of the market.

Extensive analysis of the product portfolio, application spectrum, and end-users to provide in-depth understanding to readers.

Thorough profiling of the leading players in the industry and their expansion strategies.



Browse Complete Report @ https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/modified-starch-market



Table of Content:



Chapter 1. Market Synopsis

1.1. Market Definition

1.2. Research Scope & Premise

1.3. Methodology

1.4. Market Estimation Technique

Chapter 2. Executive Summary

2.1. Summary Snapshot, 2018-2026

Chapter 3. Indicative Metrics

Chapter 4. Modified Starch Segmentation & Impact Analysis

4.1. Modified Starch Material Segmentation Analysis

4.2. Industrial Outlook

4.2.1. Market indicators analysis

4.2.2. Market drivers analysis

4.2.2.1. Increase in the consumption of processed and convenience food

4.2.2.2. Growing adhesive demand in a variety of industrial applications

4.2.3. Market restraints analysis

4.2.3.1. Limited sources and high natural additives costs

Continued



Thank you for reading our report. For further information, please connect with us to know more about the customization feature. Our team will work towards providing you a report well suited to your requirements.



Browse More Reports-



Property Management Software Market Size



Industrial Automation Motion Control Systems Market Share



Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market Growth



Polyester Resins Market Analysis



Forestry Equipment Market Trends



About Reports and Data

Reports and Data is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. Our solutions purely focus on your purpose to locate, target and analyze consumer behavior shifts across demographics, across industries and help client's make a smarter business decision. We offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a multiple industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Power and Energy. We consistently update our research offerings to ensure our clients are aware about the latest trends existent in the market.



Contact Us:

John W

Head of Business Development

40 Wall St. 28th floor New York City

NY 10005 United States

Direct Line: +1-212-710-1370
Washington  Central New Yorks cash-strapped cities, towns and counties will receive more than $400 million in direct aid payments from the federal government as part of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill.

The money is included in the sweeping package of initiatives aimed at helping families, small businesses, and local governments recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the legislation passed by the Senate includes $10.8 billion in aid that will be distributed nationwide to local governments that have seen a steep decline in tax revenue during the pandemic.

In Central New York, the biggest recipients will be Syracuse ($126 million) and Onondaga County ($89 million), which plan to use the money to ease a fiscal crisis that led to layoffs of government employees and cuts in services.

Schumer said every town and village in New York will receive a direct allocation of federal aid once the bill is signed into law.

The House of Representatives is due to vote on the bill by Wednesday. The Senate changed an earlier version of the bill that passed the House without support from any Republicans, including Reps. John Katko, R-Camillus, and Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford.

The revised bill removed a mandate that would have raised the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. It also cut back the amount of emergency federal unemployment compensation from $400 to $300 per week.

Once approved by the House, President Joe Biden is expected to sign the aid package into law by the end of the week.

The list below shows aid estimates for counties, cities and towns in Central New York provided by Schumers office.

The federal grants can be used to pay for expenses related to the public health emergency or the economic impact of the pandemic on households, small businesses, nonprofits, and hard-hit industries.

State and local governments can also use the money to cover revenue losses caused by the pandemic, or to make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.

Stimulus money for Onondaga County Town Amount Onondaga County $89,320,000 Syracuse $126,000,000 Camillus $2,640,000 Cicero $3,370,000 Clay $6,500,000 DeWitt $2,750,000 Elbridge $620,000 Fabius $210,000 Geddes $1,790,000 LaFayette $530,000 Lysander $2,510,000 Manlius $3,470,000 Marcellus $660,000 Onondaga $2,460,000 Otisco $280,000 Pompey $800,000 Salina $3,540,000 Skaneateles $790,000 Spafford $180,000 Tully $290,000 Van Buren $1,470,000

Stimulus money for Cayuga County Town Amount Cayuga County $14,850,000 Auburn $22,100,000 Aurelius $290,000 Brutus $460,000 Cato $270,000 Conquest $190,000 Fleming $280,000 Genoa $210,000 Ira $240,000 Ledyard $200,000 Locke $210,000 Mentz $250,000 Montezuma $130,000 Moravia $380,000 Niles $130,000 Owasco $400,000 Scipio $180,000 Sempronius $100,000 Sennett $370,000 Springport $250,000 Sterling $330,000 Summerhill $130,000 Throop $210,000 Venice $150,000 Victory $170,000

Stimulus money for Madison County Town Amount Madison County $13,760,000 Oneida (city) $1,100,000 Brookfield $260,000 Cazenovia $770,000 DeRuyter $170,000 Eaton $530,000 Fenner $180,000 Georgetown $90,000 Hamilton $710,000 Lebanon $140,000 Lenox $970,000 Lincoln $210,000 Madison $320,000 Nelson $210,000 Smithfield $140,000 Stockbridge $220,000 Sullivan $1,660,000

Stimulus money for Oswego County Town Amount Oswego County $22,720,000 Oswego (city) $1,890,000 Fulton (city) $1,200,000 Albion $250,000 Amboy $140,000 Boylston $60,000 Constantia $530,000 Granby $710,000 Hannibal $500,000 Hastings $1,010,000 Mexico $560,000 Minetto $170,000 New Haven $310,000 Orwell $130,000 Oswego (town) $830,000 Palermo $390,000 Parish $270,000 Redfield $60,000 Richland $610,000 Sandy Creek $410,000 Schroeppel $890,000 Scriba $710,000 Volney $620,000 West Monroe $450,000 Williamstown $140,000

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
It appears drug dogs aren't as needed as they used to be
PARADISE, Calif. - The Town of Paradise could soon be getting a new fire station.

On Tuesday, the Paradise town council will finalize the purchase of the Church of Christ Paradise property on 1181 Pearson road.

The property has been empty for months and town staff is interested in the nearly 5-acre property for a future fire station.

Council approved the purchase on Nov. 2, 2020, the Church of Christ property costs about $200,000.

Butte County Cal Fire Public Information Officer, John Gaddie, said Paradise has been needing a new station.

"Of course, we look at the property or in conjunction with the town of Paradise," Gaddie explained. "Cal Fire was asked 'what would provide a better location looking at to replace station 82?' so we provided that information to meet that four-minute response goal on the eastern side of Paradise."

Gaddie said he estimates Station 82, located on South Libby and Pearson roads is at least 50 years old.

At least three firefighters are staffed in that station, 24/7, according to Gaddie.

No details have been given out about construction. The town plans to use money from its general fund to purchase the plot of land.
Editors note: Having trouble seeing the year-by-year flu chart? Click here.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- In a typical season, about 180 flu patients end up in a hospital bed at Crouse Hospital. Another 700 will get positive tests for flu.

Not this year.

Crouse has not had a single flu case this season, said Dr. Seth Kronenberg, Crouses chief operating officer and chief medical officer. We have not had a patient hospitalized for the flu and we have not had a positive test for the flu.

The near-absence of a common scourge like the flu, which sickens thousands and hospitalizes hundreds in Onondaga County most years, is a welcome relief. Health officials had feared a twindemic of flu and Covid-19 cases crashing together this winter and overwhelming hospital beds. That didnt come to pass, and hospitals were able to better focus on the thousands hospitalized for Covid-19 without precious bed space being taken up by flu patients.

St. Josephs Health Hospital hasnt see a single case of flu either, said Dr. Helen Jacoby, medical director of infectious disease.

Every year, people get sick and die from the flu -- until this year, Jacoby said. We have taken such aggressive measures against the coronavirus, and they have worked enormously well against the flu.

A year ago, 3,291 cases of flu had been confirmed in Onondaga County for the 2019-2020 flu season. This season, there have been just 54 cases -- a drop of 98%. The plunge has been similar in New York and around the country.

Flu season runs from early October to late May. Cases typically peak in January.

The flu virus and the novel coronavirus spread in similar ways, largely through respiratory droplets that hover in the air or land on surfaces like tables and doorknobs. Thats why coronavirus measures has nearly eliminated flu this year, Kronenberg said.

All of the precautions being taken for Covid-19 apply to the flu, Kronenberg said. All of the mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-washing thats being done is significantly decreasing any spread of the flu. Children are typically a big source of the spread of flu, and schools being closed, and a decreased number of children in school, have contributed.

People are traveling less, he noted, and many are working from home instead of going into the office, another mixing bowl for germs.

The last flu season was particularly bad; the worst in Onondaga County since at least 2009-2010, according to available state Department of Health data. But it ended abruptly after coronavirus measures were imposed in mid-March, bolstering the theory that staying away from each other has knocked out the flu.

In the first two weeks of April 2020, Onondaga County saw 12 cases of flu, and none after that. The year before, there were 262 cases in April and May. The year before: 403.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 24,000 to 62,000 Americans died of the flu last season. More than 500,000 Americans have died of Covid-19, which became one of the leading causes of death in Onondaga County and the country.

Despite the measures, however, the coronavirus has continued to spread. Onondaga County has 32,000 confirmed cases since March 2020, and there are likely tens of thousands more that were never confirmed through testing.

The coronavirus is harder to control in part because a person with Covid-19 is contagious longer than someone with the flu. Those infected with the coronavirus might never even know it because they dont have symptoms, but they can transmit the virus.

In addition, the newly evolved coronavirus was a complete stranger to the human immune system, so we had no resistance to it, unlike the more familiar flu. Weve also had flu vaccines for years, which boost immunity and cut down on transmission. Until December, there was no vaccine for the coronavirus.

Covid-19 control measures might not entirely explain the drop in flu cases this season. The number of flu cases fluctuates wildly from season to season, and the 2011-2012 season actually saw fewer cases through the end of February than this season.

The severity of flu seasons can vary based on the strain of flu that becomes dominant, and how well researchers designed that years vaccine to combat that strain. Flu vaccines are generally about 50% effective.

Manufacturers also geared up to produce a record number of flu shots this season as public health experts urged people to get them.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

CNY hospitals feared chaos if flu and Covid-19 hit together. So far, thats not happening

Covid in NY: Hospitalizations rise, but stay below 5,000

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com
Bridgestone Americas has installed a new solar array at its passenger and light truck tire plant in Graniteville, South Carolina, which directly powers the manufacturing facility. The installation includes approximately eight acres of solar panels that generate 2MW of energy, netting a 1,400-metric ton reduction in annual CO2 emissions.

At Bridgestone, sustainability is core to our business and integrated into every level of our operation. Our global sustainability framework includes important goals in reducing CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030, as we strive toward our long-term environmental target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, said Paolo Ferrari, president and CEO, Bridgestone Americas, and executive vice president and executive officer, Bridgestone Corporation. This solar array is another positive step in Bridgestones journey to contribute to a more sustainable and equitable society for all.

') } // --> ') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write('') } // -->

') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write(' ') } // --> ') } else if (width >= 425) { console.log ('largescreen'); document.write('') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write('') } // -->

The company also notes that the plant sends no operations waste to landfill. Additionally, the plant has partnered with Clemson University, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and the US Department of Agriculture to utilize its solar array as a pilot for the development of a sustainable ground covering, utilizing native South Carolina plants to encourage native, low-maintenance biodiverse vegetation in and around solar arrays in the state.
(CNN)  The two German Shepherds belonging to US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were returned to the Biden family home in Delaware last week after aggressive behavior at the White House involving Major Biden, two sources with knowledge tell CNN.

Major, who was adopted by Biden in November 2018 from a Delaware animal shelter, had what one of the people described as a "biting incident" with a member of White House security. The exact condition of the victim is unknown, however, the episode was serious enough that the dogs were subsequently moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where they remain.

CNN reached out to the White House for comment and did not immediately receive a reply.

Major, who is 3 years old, is the younger of the two Biden dogs, and has been known to display agitated behavior on multiple occasions, including jumping, barking, and "charging" at staff and security, according to the people CNN spoke with about the dog's demeanor at the White House. The older of Biden's German Shepherds, Champ, is approximately 13 and has slowed down physically due to his advanced age.

Champ and Major moved into the White House in January, less than a week after Biden's inauguration.

"I've been getting obsessed with getting our dogs settled because we have an old dog and we have a very young dog," Jill Biden told Kelly Clarkson last month during an appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show." "They have to take the elevator, they're not used to that, and they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them. So that's what I've been obsessed with, getting everybody settled and calm."

Biden also said the only place the dogs are not allowed is on the furniture, though she admitted to catching Major on the couch. "They run all over," said Biden.

A person familiar with the dogs' schedule confirms to CNN they are in Delaware, but noted they have been known to stay there with minders when the first lady is out of town. Biden departed Monday afternoon for a two-day trip to Washington and California to visit military bases.
43 states don't prioritize clergy in vaccine distribution for 'essential' workers: report

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Forty-three states and Washington, D.C. failed to prioritize clergy in their COVID-19 vaccine distribution plans despite the federal guidance that distinguishes clergy as essential workers and the role many churches play in vaccine distribution, a legal nonprofit has warned.

Napa Legal Institute, an organization that provides legal and financial education to advance faith-based nonprofits, published a report highlighting the states negligence to follow federal guidance prioritizing religious leaders as essential workers in vaccine distribution.

Vice President and Executive Director of Napa Legal Institute Josh Holdenried told The Christian Post in a Friday interview that his organization launched the study after noticing a double standard churches experienced during the pandemic.

This study resulted from the fact that over course of the pandemic, there were a lot of double standards being applied against houses of worship, churches, Holdenried, who formerly served as director of coalition relations at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, said.

Liquor stores being opened up before churches were allowed [to open]. That eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court eventually said that our inalienable rights protected by the constitution arent suddenly null and void because of the pandemic.

Because of this observation, Napa Legal began to track how states treated faith leaders and clergy in the early vaccine distribution stages.

So, as the vaccine started to roll out and states started to put together their distribution plan,  we suddenly identified a serious problem, Holdenried shared.

Napa Legals report categorizes states into red, yellow and green categories. The 25 states in the red category have no prioritization or messaging in their distribution plans regarding clergy or faith leaders.

Meanwhile, 20 states are listed in the yellow category. The yellow states technically, but not explicitly include clergy in their plans "due to their eligibility for other categories (most commonly, unpaid healthcare workers and volunteers or school staff), rather than by virtue of their status as clergy."

Yellow states "do not include 'faith leaders' or 'clergy' when listing categories of eligible recipients in messaging related to the plan," the report details.

One example is New Jersey. While New Jerseys vaccine lists don't include clergy or faith leaders, Napa Legal points out that "[s]omeone experienced in this area might have the insight to click through the fine print to determine that technically clergy will be included. The average lay reader would probably be misled or confused by the messaging.

There are only seven states in the green category, which means they explicitly prioritize or mention clergy in vaccine distribution policies. These states are Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Were focusing on clergy because as far back as March 2020, clergy were immediately listed as critical infrastructure workers and essential workers by the federal government , Holdenried said.

Last March, the Department of Homeland Security published guidance that lists clergy as "essential critical infrastructure workers, which put them in the same categories as health care professionals and teachers. In a December report, DHS listed [c]lergy and other essential support for houses of worship as essential.

According to Holdenried, the Centers for Disease and Prevention also treats clergy as essential workers in a 75-page document that guides states in the vaccine rollout.

Even the federal government recognized the critical role that clergy, pastors, ministers, play as essential workers, and despite that federal guidance, he said. However, we started to find the majority of the states were not prioritizing clergy in the early phases of the vaccination distribution plan.

Holdenried said they are not saying clergy should cut in line to receive their vaccination.

All that were saying is that they should be recognized as essential workers in the same way that other people in other professions are being recognized as essential workers and being explicitly listed and told that the vaccination is available to them, Holdenried said.

The First Amendment, public policy, and current administrative guidance clearly require that clergy and faith leaders receive the same protections as other frontline essential workers, Napa Legal shared in the report.

Napa Legal gives states the benefit of the doubt and understands some plans overlooked clergy or were unclear in their language regarding faith leaders, Holdenried said.

Some states, however, gave vaccination priority to casino or retail cannabis workers and seemed to completely overlooked faith leaders.

Both the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Supreme Court have repeatedly affirmed that the free exercise of religion is an essential activity, the report states.

Some states rely on clergy to communicate with their congregations about the vaccine.

Theyre relying on clergy to help them spread the word about the vaccination and encourage their flocks to sign up for the vaccination, but then they turn around and overlook clergy in getting vaccinated , Holdenried stated.

This represents how clergy are front line workers because there are in their communities encouraging people to get vaccinated,  but then they forget or overlook, or even worse, discriminate against clergy in the vaccination distribution plans itself.

Holdenried said the report is a live document. Napa Legal will provide updates as the vaccine distribution continues. The organization will consider the report a success when all the states are in the green category.

Our role in this issue is to bring attention to it. We want to do the due diligence and research to show people this is a problem , Holdenried detailed. As the report continues to be circulated and shared, we want to encourage local leaders to press their state representatives, contact their governors offices and let them know.  Were going to continue tracking this. And as more attention comes to this issue, we will continue updating our report.
Lucknow: In the forest of Bharsoli Mustafabad, a village under Kasganj district of Uttar Pradesh, there was a stir on Tuesday morning when the bodies of a young man and a woman were found hanging on a tree. Police reached the spot and took the bodies of both of them down and sent them for postmortem. An initial police investigation has revealed a love affair. The young men and women were residents of the same village. The relatives of both have not yet filed a complaint.

Police station Mohanpura of police station Kasganj was informed that in the forest of village Bharsoli Mustafabad, the young man and the dead body of the girl are hanging on the tree. The police reached the spot on this. Police brought down the dead bodies. The deceased was identified as Bhura alias Nishant son Shailendra Singh (19 years) and the girl Ranjana daughter Nepal Singh (18). Both villages were residents of Bharsoli Mustafabad.

On getting the information, SP Manoj Sonkar and DM CP Singh reached the spot. Both officers inquired about the incident. The spot was scrutinized in the presence of senior officials. The SP said that during the interrogation of the families of the two, it has been found that the youth and the girl were missing since Monday evening. The young man is married. The woman's marriage was fixed a few days ago.

Also Read:

12 people gang-raped a girl in moving car, video surfaced on social media

Drunken railway worker shot dead his own wife

Mother-in-law used to force daughter-in-law to have a relationship with younger son
PerkinElmer, Inc., a global leader committed to innovating for a healthier world, today announced that it has added state-of-the-art columns and chemistries to its LC consumables portfolio by acquiring ES Industries, based in West Berlin, New Jersey in the U.S.

ES Industries is known for its innovative and highly efficient HPLC and supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) column chemistries. The team has over 40 years of experience delivering columns with superior reliability, scalability, and reproducibility that are used routinely for method development processes, LC/MS analysis, quality control and preparative purification.

Building on PerkinElmers recently announced LC 300TM HPLC/UHPLC and SimplicityChromTM CDS solution, along with its world class reagents and OneSource laboratory services, the addition of these column technologies brings customers, such as those in pharmaceuticals/biopharmaceuticals, chemicals, food safety and environmental industries, the convenience of a single buying channel for their full LC workflow needs, along with better and faster analyses.

Commenting on the new addition to the PerkinElmer LC line-up, Suneet Chadha, VP and GM of Applied Markets, PerkinElmer said, We know that labs are looking to streamline and simplify their LC analyses and maximize productivity while also meeting ever-increasing quality and regulatory demands. By augmenting our portfolio with HPLC columns technology, expertise and manufacturing capabilities, we can now innovate faster and provide complete end to end workflow solutions. We are excited that these offerings will shorten the time from sample to result for our customers and help deliver enhanced lab performance.

For more information please visit:

https://www.perkinelmer.com/category/liquid-chromatography-hplc-uhplc-instruments;

https://esind.com/

About PerkinElmer

PerkinElmer enables scientists, researchers, and clinicians to address their most critical challenges across science and healthcare. With a mission focused on innovating for a healthier world, we deliver unique solutions to serve the diagnostics, life sciences, food, and applied markets. We strategically partner with customers to enable earlier and more accurate insights supported by deep market knowledge and technical expertise. Our dedicated team of about 14,000 employees worldwide is passionate about helping customers work to create healthier families, improve the quality of life, and sustain the well-being and longevity of people globally. The Company reported revenue of approximately $3.8 billion in 2020, serves customers in 190 countries, and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Additional information is available through 1-877-PKI-NYSE, or at www.perkinelmer.com.

Factors Affecting Future Performance

This press release contains "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements relating to estimates and projections of future earnings per share, cash flow and revenue growth and other financial results, developments relating to our customers and end-markets, and plans concerning business development opportunities, acquisitions and divestitures. Words such as "believes," "intends," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "projects," "forecasts," "will" and similar expressions, and references to guidance, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management's current assumptions and expectations and no assurances can be given that our assumptions or expectations will prove to be correct. A number of important risk factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results described, implied or projected in any forward-looking statements. These factors include, without limitation: (1) markets into which we sell our products declining or not growing as anticipated; (2) the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on our sales and operations; (3) fluctuations in the global economic and political environments; (4) our failure to introduce new products in a timely manner; (5) our ability to execute acquisitions and license technologies, or to successfully integrate acquired businesses and licensed technologies into our existing business or to make them profitable, or successfully divest businesses; (6) our ability to compete effectively; (7) fluctuation in our quarterly operating results and our ability to adjust our operations to address unexpected changes; (8) significant disruption in third-party package delivery and import/export services or significant increases in prices for those services; (9) disruptions in the supply of raw materials and supplies; (10) our ability to retain key personnel; (11) significant disruption in our information technology systems, or cybercrime; (12) our ability to realize the full value of our intangible assets; (13) our failure to adequately protect our intellectual property; (14) the loss of any of our licenses or licensed rights; (15) the manufacture and sale of products exposing us to product liability claims; (16) our failure to maintain compliance with applicable government regulations; (17) regulatory changes; (18) our failure to comply with healthcare industry regulations; (19) economic, political and other risks associated with foreign operations; (20) the United Kingdoms withdrawal from the European Union; (21) our ability to obtain future financing; (22) restrictions in our credit agreements; (23) discontinuation or replacement of LIBOR; (24) significant fluctuations in our stock price; (25) reduction or elimination of dividends on our common stock; and (26) other factors which we describe under the caption "Risk Factors" in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005611/en/
Gov. Greg Abbott visited the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday and accused the Biden administration of inviting a wave of new migrant crossings and causing a health and security crisis in Texas.

It is clear they are completely unprepared for what is going on at the border now, Abbott said of the administration. And theyre going to be even more unprepared for what will be happening in the coming months.

The governors aerial tour and meetings with border patrol came as Republicans ramp up their efforts to pin the influx on President Joe Bidens shift away from Trump-era immigration restrictions. Even some Democrats along the border have warned of an emerging crisis.

BORDER DEMOCRATS SOUND ALARM: We are weeks, maybe even days from a crisis at the border

Experts say the big increase in apprehensions in recent weeks is the latest in a seven-year flow of people fleeing poverty, violence and political upheaval in their home countries, which started in 2014. At its peak in 2019, there were as many as 130,000 apprehensions in a single month along the Mexican border. There were 75,000 such apprehensions in January, the most recent federal data show.

Apprehensions were rising as Trump left office

The Obama and Trump administrations took varying approaches to stemming that flow, mostly sparking political battles without making headway on longer term solutions.

U.S. politics and politics around immigration are not built for the long term, said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Theyre built to respond to short term crises.

While Trump was successful in the short term at curbing the number of migrants entering the country, Bolter said any shift away from his restrictive policies  which essentially ground the asylum system at the border to a halt  was bound to create an influx. Among the policies Trump enacted was a requirement that asylum seekers wait in Mexico for their hearings in the U.S. Some 29,000 people were in that queue amid an asylum backlog that reached 500,000 cases.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Even before Biden took office, apprehensions at the border were on the rise.

The Biden administration has since ended the remain-in-Mexico policy and is preparing to convert its immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into rapid-processing hubs to screen migrant parents and children with the goal of releasing them into the United States within 72 hours.

But Biden has largely left in place a Trump-era public health order that allows authorities to turn away the migrants at the border  and officials have said theyre still denying entry to the vast majority of those arriving.

Unlike Trump, however, Biden is no longer using that order to expel children. And Mexico recently passed a law against detaining migrant children, so the flow of children and families to the U.S. has only increased.

These policies were effective in the short term for what the Trump administration wanted to do, which was not let in people who were migrating to the U.S. from Central America, Bolter said. These solutions the Trump administration had werent necessarily effective in the long term. These people are still wanting to come to the U.S.

Biden says he is set on longterm fixes including reforming the asylum system and offering more aid to the countries places migrants are fleeing. With crossings up, though, he has been forced to focus on the immediate problem.

Over the weekend, the administration sent a group of senior officials to Texas, where they toured a Carrizo Springs migrant children shelter and are expected to report back to the president this week. The Department of Homeland Security has also started flying hundreds of migrant families from South Texas to El Paso to ease overcrowding at facilities in the Rio Grande Valley.

Its unclear just how many migrants are crossing into Texas, but numbers have been rapidly increasing. The number of families detained jumped 62 percent from December to January, the most recent available data shows. Apprehensions of children rose 18 percent.

The bulk of the apprehensions in recent months have been single adults, though apprehensions of unaccompanied children are also on the rise and could be on the cusp of a surge, experts said.

Border Patrol apprehended 5,700 unaccompanied child migrants in January, the most recent data available, and anecdotal evidence suggests that number rose considerably in February, said Bolter of the Migration Policy Institute. The 2014 and 2019 surges saw between 7,000 and 9,000 apprehensions of unaccompanied children a month with peaks above 10,000, she said.

Wermund reported from Washington; Blackman reported from Austin.

jeremy.blackman@chron.com

ben.wermund@chron.com
Right up until its implosion, Greensill still counted former prime minister David Cameron (pictured) as an adviser

Greensill's collapse will come as an embarrassment to former leading officials who allowed its founder access to the heart of the establishment.

Right up until its implosion yesterday, Greensill still counted former prime minister David Cameron as an adviser, and former Government chief commercial officer Bill Crothers as its vice-chairman.

Cameron's fortunes following his premiership, which ended in 2016, are a stark contrast with those of George Osborne, his former chancellor, who now holds a lucrative role at London-based boutique investment bank Robey Warshaw.

Lex Greensill, who launched his business in 2011, found his key to the upper echelons of Government in Jeremy Heywood, who was head of the Civil Service from 2014 to 2018.

The two met at investment bank Morgan Stanley in the 2000s, where Greensill  then a young banker who had only recently emigrated from Australia in 2001  was taken under Heywood's wing.

When Greensill later founded his eponymous business, Heywood  who had by then returned to the Civil Service  helped his former protege to build an enviable list of contacts.

Greensill offered to advise the Cameron government on supply-chain finance, and in 2018 he handed the former prime minister a job.

For several years, Greensill's was a familiar face in the Cabinet Office where he regularly attended meetings with the likes of Heywood, senior civil servant John Manzoni  who was Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary from 2015 to 2020  and then-Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock.
Members of South Koreas K-pop band BTS say they feel honored to be competing for a Grammy at Sundays award ceremony. The group will also perform during the 2021 Grammy Awards show.

BTS is nominated for the best pop duo/group performance for the song Dynamite. Members of the band recently spoke to The Associated Press about their appearance at the Grammys and about how the nominated song came about.

Dynamite was created as people across the world were isolated because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The health crisis forced BTS to cancel live performances and the band members, too, were isolated at home. The song Dynamite was meant to be a gift to BTS fans all over the world.

A lot of people were sad and down and out because of the COVID situation and it was sort of our suggestion to pick (everyone) up, BTS member Jin said.

There was no plan to release a single like Dynamite," the groups RM explained. He added that the song gave the band huge success in Korea and led to the Grammy nomination and the chance to perform at the show. So  life is really interesting."

Dynamite became BTS first number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart when it was released last year.

BTS will be the first K-pop group to compete at the Grammys. Its really hard to express in words, band member Jimin said of the nomination. Even now we cant still believe that we were nominated, and well be able to perform at the Grammys. So, were thankful. Were honored.

Dynamite will be going up against some other big hits, including Lady Gaga and Ariana Grandes Rain on Me. Also in the running is the single Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, along with Justin Bieber and Quavos Intentions. The fifth nominee is UnDia (One Day), by J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Tainy and Dua Lipa.

I always listen to Rain on Me. Its so great to listen to that song on the treadmill. It was a hit. It was fire last year, said RM. And, of course, Intentions, Exile was crazy.

RM added: Were nervous and actually, frankly, were not expecting (to win) so much because we dont want to get disappointed because Lady Gaga, Taylor, Bieber, all the big names (are nominated).

Their Grammy performance on Sunday will mark BTS second on the music awards show. Last year, the band assisted Lil Nas X when he sang Old Town Road. The Grammy show performance follows the recent airing of MTV Unplugged Presents: BTS, which showed the group covering Coldplays popular rock song Fix You.

The organization IFPI, which represents the worldwide recording industry, said last week BTS was the best-selling act of 2020.

The band is currently working on new music, both as a group and individually. BTS members have said that while the Grammy nomination does create some pressure for the next group of songs, they are trying not to let the success go to their heads.

We try to stay down to earth and put our feet to the ground and do what we do, RM said.

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

isolate  v. to put or keep (someone or something) in a place or situation that is separate from others

down and out  adj. having no money, possessions or good opportunities

treadmill  n. a machine with a moving part that you can walk or run on for exercise

nervous  adj. worried and anxious

disappoint  v. make someone feel unhappy because someone or something was not as good as they had expected
TN elections 2021: DMK concludes seat-sharing with allies for upcoming Assembly polls

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Chennai, Mar 09: The DMK on Tuesday inked a pact with Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi, a western Tamil Nadu- based outfit which would contest in three Assembly segments on the Dravidian party's 'Rising Sun' symbol.

By finalising the electoral deal, DMK has concluded seat sharing with allies including the Congress, stealing a march on arch rival, the ruling AIADMK which is expected to announce a poll deal for smaller allies.

TN elections 2021: Will target anyone who is an 'enemy' to people, says Kamal Haasan

In total, 60 segments have been set apart for allies by the DMK. Of these 60 segments, Vaiko-led MDMK and four smaller parties would contest on the Rising Sun symbol which works out to a total of 12 segments and in effect these dozen seats would also be regarded officially as DMK's constituencies.

As a result, DMK would be in the fray in 186 out of the total 234 Assembly seats. The AIADMK's ally DMDK walked out of the alliance on Tuesday and the ruling party has given 23 and 20 seats respectively to allies, the PMK and BJP.

TN elections 2021: After DMK, AIADMK announces Rs 1,500 payout to women family heads

The Congress has been allotted 25 seats and six each for CPI, CPI (M) Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and MDMK. The Indian Union Muslim Leage and Manithaneya Makkal Katchi have been allotted three and two constituencies respectively.

The DMK has been out of power since 2011 and it is leaving no stone unturned to storm back to power. Tamil Nadu will have a single phase poll on April 6. In addition to KMDK, other smaller parties, the Aadhi Tamizhar Peravai, Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi and Makkal Viduthalai Katchi have got one seat each from DMK.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 23:15 [IST]
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (AP)  They spent their nights jumping in and out of strange cars, trolling otherwise empty streets lined with decaying storefronts and boarded-up homes. Many sold sex to support drug habits or children left in the care of worried, hardworking grandmothers.

Even when they were picked up for drugs or prostitution, nights in jail looming, they called home to let their families know they were O.K. Then, one by one, the calls stopped.

Since 2005, nine women who lived at the edges of the poor community in this small North Carolina city have disappeared. Six bodies were found along rural roads just a few miles outside town, most so decomposed that investigators could not tell how they died. At least one of the women was strangled, and all the deaths have been classified as homicides. Three women are still missing.

The police will not say whether they suspect a serial killer, but people in the community about 60 miles northeast of Raleigh do, and they are impatient with law enforcement efforts to investigate the killings.
FTSE 100 was moving higher early on as a good performance by s vaccine against the Brazil variant of Covid-19 lifted the mood. Londons blue-chip index rose 10 to 6,729.

UK retail sales improved almost 10% in February as Valentines Day and the return to school encouraged people to spend. School equipment and uniforms sold especially well, said the British Retail Consortium.

ITV said most programmes are now back in production while streaming service BritBox hit 500,000 UK subscriptions in January. The service now has 2.6mln subscribers globally with US growth especially strong.

Britain is set for a five-year house price boom according to . London is set for rises of up to 13% but the biggest hikes will be in the north-west and Yorkshire said the estate agent.

Among the small caps, diagnostics specialist genedrive PLC ( ) has inked a deal with a US military contracting specialist. The latter will distribute the BioPlex range, which provides rapid tests for threats from pathogens.

( ) has secured a financing agreement with US investment manager LDA Capital. The CBD group will be able to access up to 35mln over three years.

Westmount Energy Limited ( ) expects operations for the next well at the Canje block offshore Guyana to start tomorrow. The oiler holds a 7.7% shareholding in JHI Associates, which is a minority stakeholder in the project, operated by ExxonMobil.
The chronic congestion on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE) has caused losses for retail investors, making them insecure.

Two investors look at stock prices on a laptop in HCM City.  Photo courtesy of Vietnambiz.vn

Instead of congestion, and errors, only in the afternoon or near the close like previously, errors are now occurring even in the morning.

For example, on March 5, just after the market opened, the security live board froze and failed to show realtime prices.

Nguyen Kha, a veteran investor in HCM City, said he punched in an order to sell HBC shares on March 3 when it jumped to above VND18,500 (US$804 million), but only half his order was matched, and in the next few days had to sell at below VND18,000 since he needed money, losing VND1,000 per share.

Another investor on HoSE said he has been in a constant state of insecurity recently and cannot do any other work after placing orders since one needs to watch the screen to see if the order is matched.

This insecurity has caused many investors to switch to trading on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and UPCoM, causing shares there to skyrocket in terms of both price and trading.

On March 4 UPCoM saw trading worth VND1.7 trillion, twice the normal average.

Drastic solutions

To tackle the overload at HoSE, the State Securities Commission (SSC) said it is speeding up installation of a new trading system provided by the Korean Exchange (KRX).

Last week it instructed the temporary transfer of shares from HoSE to HNX to much acclaim from both investors and analysts, but a difficult task since listed companies need to get approval from their shareholders.

Besides, it could take securities companies one to two months to meet the technical changes involved in identifying the shares transferred to the HNX.

Some need even six to nine months.

Dr Nguyen Van Thuan of the University of Finance and Marketing told Thanh Nien (Youth) newspaper however that since this solution has the least impact on investors and companies, the SSC could make it not mandatory for companies to get approval.

The settlement between the two exchanges and securities companies is an internal issue, and so the switch could be accelerated, he pointed out.

If the problem lasts much longer, not only investors but also the stock market and the economy itself would suffer badly, he added.

VNS

New regulation on minimum trading lot at HOSE aims to keep small investors away Around $200 billion is now in tumult after a succession of days of network congestion and the news about the required increase in minimum trading lot from 100 to 1,000 shares on the HCM City stock market.
[March 09, 2021] Dutchie Named to Fast Company's Annual List of Most Innovative Companies for 2021

BEND, Ore., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dutchie  the cannabis technology platform powering dispensaries and providing safe and easy access to cannabis  announced today that it has been named to Fast Company's annual list of the Most Innovative Companies for 2021. Dutchie is ranked in the top ten of the Most Innovative Companies in North America category, reflecting its role in expanding safe and easy access to cannabis for consumers while providing dispensaries with the tools and innovations they need to keep growing their business. "Over three years ago, our team set out to transform the modern cannabis retail and consumer experience through creative problem-solving and innovative product development," said Zach Lipson, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder at dutchie. "I'm proud of the progress we have made and what we will keep building to help the cannabis industry realize its full potential and create outcomes that will benefit consumers, dispensaries, and communities alike." The cannabis industry is one of the fastest-growing in the world . Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry drove $18.3 billion in product sales and increased jobs by 32% in 2020. Now, during a critical period of economic recovery, the cannabis industry offers a record-high 321,000 full-time jobs in the United States. Dutchie's agile, user-centric platform supports this growth by giving dispensaries the tools and expertise needed to effectively navigate changes in the market, increase their bottom line, and retain more customers. "Day in and day out we're speaking with our customers and deeply empathizing with both their needs and the needs of their business," said Zach Lipson, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder at dutchie. "Innovation is really the filter with which you process that feedback, and it shows in the uniqueness of our product." In Novmber 2020, dutchie launched "Dutchie Plus," the market's first enterprise-level e-commerce solution that empowers dispensaries to create fully customized online shopping experiences. Dutchie Plus is a data-driven product that allows larger dispensaries and multi-state operators (MSOs) to build a fully unique, on-brand frontend experience using a set of advanced APIs powered by dutchie's backend e-commerce platform. With the solution, dispensaries are finally able to have full control over their user experience, from how their products are displayed and categorized to how customers navigate their menu, to create a more sophisticated experience beyond typical templatized models.



In December 2020, dutchie partnered with HIGHOPES , the industry's leading cannabis branding agency, to launch Flynt  an out-of-the-box SaaS solution to help dispensaries build modern, user-friendly websites and online shopping experiences. By leveraging the platform, dispensaries can easily build beautiful, custom websites capable of supporting the unique demands of the cannabis industry including keeping up with changing product inventory, evolving state-by-state regulations, and compliance requirements for digital payment solutions  without the need for web developers. Dutchie has also made additional investments to encourage and support innovation, including advanced analytics to give retailers deep and actionable insights about their data; seamless integrations with third-party payment, loyalty, and fleet management services; a terminal device with printing capabilities to add further efficiency and flexibility to different operations; and a powerful curbside pickup feature with built-in notifications for when customers arrive in response to the changing conditions around COVID-19.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. This year's list features 463 businesses from 29 countries. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy. The Most Innovative Companies issue is now available online at: https://www.fastcompany.com/90603436/the-worlds-most-innovative-companies-2021 . To learn more about dutchie, visit: https://dutchie.com . About dutchie: Based in Bend, Oregon, dutchie is the cannabis technology platform focused on providing consumers with safe and easy access to cannabis and supporting the positive wave of societal change cannabis is bringing to the world. Dutchie is a product- and design-focused company that has created a best-in-class experience for cannabis dispensaries and shoppers throughout the United States and Canada. To learn more, visit: www.dutchie.com . About Fast Company: Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dutchie-named-to-fast-companys-annual-list-of-most-innovative-companies-for-2021-301243772.html SOURCE Dutchie

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The Alabama Department of Public Health is warning spring breakers to take coronavirus precautions so their trips don't become super spreader events.

Universities across the state are cancelling spring breaks, including the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Jules Chesna is a student at UAH. She says she and a lot of her friends wouldn't have done a big spring break trip this year, but she could've used a mental break.

"It's been pretty hard with all online classes. My roommates have all online classes and they definitely have been struggling just like me," said Chesna.

Dr. Ali Hassoun, an infectious disease specialist at Huntsville Hospital, explained that there is a concern heading into spring break. If people gather again in large numbers, we could see another spike.

"The gathering needs to be controlled, yes, absolutely, until people get vaccinated," said Dr. Hassoun.

The Alabama Department of Public Health is asking everyone who is going on a trip this spring break season to make sure you're following precautions. Cases may be declining, but there is still a risk, especially with the coronavirus variants.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Whenever a scientific experiment is conducted, the results are turned into numbers, often producing huge datasets. In order to reduce the size of the data, computer programmers use algorithms that can find and extract the principal features that represent the most salient statistical properties. But many such algorithms cannot be applied directly to these large volumes of data.

Reza Oftadeh, doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, advised by Dr. Dylan Shell, faculty in the department, developed an algorithm applicable to large datasets. It is a useful machine-learning tool because it can extract and directly order features from most salient to least.

"There are many ad hoc ways to extract these features using machine-learning algorithms, but we now have a fully rigorous theoretical proof that our model can find and extract these prominent features from the data simultaneously, doing so in one pass of the algorithm," said Oftadeh.

Their paper describing the research was published in the proceedings from the 2020 International Conference on Machine Learning.

A subfield of machine learning deals with component analysis, the problem of identifying and extracting a raw dataset's features to help reduce its dimensionality. Once identified, the features are used to make annotated samples of the data for further analysis or other machine-learning tasks such as classification, clustering, visualization and modeling based on those features.

The work to find or develop these types of algorithms has been going on for the past century, but what sets this era apart from the others is the existence of big data, which can contain many millions of sample points with 10s of thousands of attributes. Analyzing these massive datasets is a very complicated, time-consuming process for human programmers, so artificial neural networks (ANNs) have come to the forefront in recent years.

As one of the main tools of machine learning, ANNs are computational models that are designed to simulate how the human brain analyzes and processes information. They are typically made of dozens to millions of artificial neurons, called units, arranged in a series of layers that it uses to make sense of the information it's given. ANNs can be used in various ways, but they are most commonly used to identify the unique features that best represent the data and classify them into different categories based on that information.

"There are many ANNs that work very well, and we use them every day on our phones and computers," said Oftadeh. "For example, applications like Alexa, Siri and Google Translate utilize ANNs that are trained to recognize what different speech patterns, accents and voices are saying."

But not all features are equally significant, and they can be placed in order from most to least important. Previous approaches use a specific type of ANN called an autoencoder to extract them, but they cannot tell exactly where the features are located or which are more important than the others.

"For example, if you have hundreds of thousands of dimensions and want to find only 1,000 of the most prominent and order those 1,000, it is theoretically possible to do but not feasible in practice because the model would have to be run repeatedly on the dataset 1,000 times," said Oftadeh.

To make a more intelligent algorithm, the researchers propose adding a new cost function to the network that provides the exact location of the features directly ordered by their relative importance. Once incorporated, their method results in a more efficient processing that can be fed bigger datasets to perform classic data analysis.

To verify the effectiveness of their method, they trained their model for an optical character recognition (OCR) experiment, which is the conversion of images of typed or handwritten text into machine-encoded text from inside digital physical documents, like a scanner produces. Once it's trained for OCR using the proposed method, the model can tell which features are most important.

Currently, the algorithm can only be applied to one-dimensional data samples, but the team is interested in extending their algorithm's abilities to handle even more complex structured data.

"Breaking down multidimensional data directly is a very active, challenging mathematical field of research with many challenges of its own, and we are interested in exploring it further," said Oftadeh.

The next step of their work is to generalize their method in a way that provides a unified framework to produce other machine-learning methods that can find the underlaying structure of a dataset and/or extract its features by setting a small number of specifications.

Other contributors to this research include Jiayi Shen, doctoral student in the computer science and engineering department, and Dr. Zhangyang "Atlas" Wang, assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at The University of Texas at Austin. Also instrumental in identifying the research problem, and guiding Oftadeh, was Dr. Boris Hanin, assistant professor in the department of mathematics at Princeton University.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Army Research Office Young Investigator Award.

Explore further Deep learning may help doctors choose better lung cancer treatments

More information: 2020 International Conference on Machine Learning Proceedings, 2020 International Conference on Machine Learning Proceedings, proceedings.mlr.press/v119/oft  eh20a/oftadeh20a.pdf
In his words, "I didn't have a lot growing up. My parents were war refugees; we lived on food stamps. Growing up in that type of environment, whenever you see another community in need, it makes you want to help out." The pair drove all night  from Southern California where he lives, to Las Vegas where his sister lives, and arriving at the remote Hopi Indian reservation in Arizona around lunchtime the next day.

After learning about his story, and meeting the empathetic, generous and adventurous Jack through Instagram, Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) spoke with him to learn more about his family and what it meant to give back to the Hopi community. You can also see Jack's story online here, in the latest installment of the Small Batch  Big Impact short-film series.

MMNA: When you're not commuting to work or giving back to the community, you're exploring the trails and terrain of Southern California in your Outlander. What appealed to you most about the vehicle?

JACK: In 2016, I was in the market for a new car and stumbled upon the Outlander Sport. I began reading about Mitsubishi's off-road performance and racing history, and it was inspiring. So inspiring, I got the car, and I began to venture out of my Southern California community a bit more. I took it on camping and hiking trips  to Pinnacles National Park and the Grand Canyon  and I put 70,000 miles on the car in two years. As I began going on more adventures, hauling more gear and more friends, I realized I needed a slightly bigger car. I loved the dependability and reliability of the brand; I loved the Super All-Wheel control; so, I stuck with Mitsubishi and bought a red 2018 Outlander (named Chili).

MMNA: Have you made any modifications to Chili to match this adventurous lifestyle?

Jack: I've added a set of 17-inch wheels with Toyo A/T III tires to help with traction on the trails. And I got a 1.5-inch lift kit, which was installed for me by a mom-and-pop shop here in town. I really believe in supporting small, local businesses, especially now.

MMNA: It sounds like this is a value, among many others, instilled in you by your parents. You mention in the film that they were war refugees. Tell us a little bit about their story.

JACK: My parents are from Laos. When the Vietnam War broke out, they fled to a refugee camp in Thailand, and my older sister was born in that camp. My uncle was the first one to come to America, to fight in the Army, and he was able to sponsor my family to come to America. My parents first came to San Diego, which is where I was born, and they still live in California. It is important to them that we honor the sacrifices they made, and we give back whenever we can to the country that gave so much to us.

MMNA: Your sister Kathryn has really taken this to heart and volunteers her time regularly. What stuck out to her about this opportunity  enough to get you involved?

JACK: I feel that the Hopi people and their story are not well known, similar to the Laotian people and their story. In this way, us helping them is like invisible people helping other invisible people. When I first decided to do this, I reached out to friends, family and coworkers to ask for donations  clean water, paper towels, tooth brushes and toothpaste  the very basics. No one hesitated. I learned that the Hopi story resonates with more than just my family. When I got off work that day, I drove straight to Vegas to pick up my sister and more supplies. We slept for just a few hours and then drove the rest of the way to the Hopi Cultural Center in the center of the Reservation. COVID-19 has made many people feel powerless, but this opportunity to give back, and the support of our community, made us feel empowered to do something good.

MMNA: This is not a one-time-thing for you. You have dedicated your career to giving back to your community. Tell us about that.

JACK: I have been a mail carrier for six or seven years. My favorite thing about the job is talking to people. I am the only person some people see, let along talk to, on a daily basis  especially now, with the virus. They rely on me for human interaction. It is important for me to get to know the people on my route, and to learn their stories, because I know how important it was for my family to be heard and seen when we first came to America.

MMNA: This is an exciting time for Mitsubishi, as we just unveiled the all-new 2022 Outlander. Did you watch the reveal?

JACK: I did watch the reveal and loved it. No disrespect to Chili, but the interior of the new Outlander is a huge upgrade, and I can't wait to test the updated version of the Super All-Wheel Control system, with all of the different off-road driving modes. I love being out on the trails with friends, and even more than that, I love it when their cars get stuck and mine doesn't. And the Outlander really stands out  I love that I don't see other Mitsubishis at a stoplight. That said, I've made a number of friends in the Mitsubishi enthusiast community too  some who I have been out with on the trails, some who I have never met in person, but interact with on social media. We share the same love for adventure. All of us watched the reveal and are excited for the future of Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi unveiled the all-new Outlander in February through a first-of-its kind collaboration with Amazon. The all-new flagship boasts a newly developed platform and powertrain, bold and distinctive exterior styling and a refined and serene interior with high-end finishes and thoughtful engineering touches throughout. The 2022 Outlander also features more standard driver connectivity and driver assistance features and a re-engineered, upgraded version of the brand's signature Super All-Wheel Control system. 1. Learn more about the Outlander online here.

To learn more about the Mitsubishi Motors Community, including other owners and dealer partners, visit the Community section of MMNA's media site.

Disclaimers

Available feature. Super All-Wheel Control (S-AWC) adds Active Yaw Control (AYC) to realize the AWC concept at a very high level. While this Integrated Vehicle Dynamics Control System manages the driving forces and braking forces of the four wheels to help realize vehicle behavior that is faithful to the operation by the driver under a variety of driving conditions, it is not a substitute for careful driving. S-AWC cannot prevent collisions or loss of traction in all conditions. Exercise caution so your full attention is given to vehicle operation in all road conditions.

About Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc.

Through a network of approximately 330 dealer partners across the United States, Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) is responsible for the sales, marketing, and customer service of Mitsubishi Motors vehicles in the U.S. MMNA was the top-ranked Japanese brand in the J.D. Power 2020 Initial Quality study, ranking sixth overall and experiencing the greatest year-over-year improvement of any brand.

With headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee, and corporate operations in California, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, Florida, and Virginia, MMNA, directly and indirectly, employs more than 8,000 people across the United States.

For more information on Mitsubishi vehicles, please contact the Mitsubishi Motors News Bureau at 615-257-2698 or visit media.mitsubishicars.com.

Contacts

Jeremy Barnes

Senior Director, Communications and Events

[email protected]

Mobile: 714-296-1402

Lauren Ryan

Manager, Communications and Events

[email protected]

Mobile: 404-862-8286

SOURCE Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc.

Related Links

www.mitsubishicars.com


SUV

There is, however, another big-ish" name Americans should know, and that is SsangYong . It is South Koreas fourth-largest carmaker (third-largest-maker), and Indian conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra currently owns it. Why is this relevant for the States? Because a few years back, SsangYong was planning on entering the U.S. market by the year 2020, a plan it eventually had to delay.In 2019, SsangYong senior executive director of export, Dan Rim, told MotorTrend that his company was still developing its U.S. entry strategy without a firm entry date. That means America could yet see an influx of new Korean crossovers, and it could likely happen sooner rather than later, depending on how fast Mahindra is able to find new investors. There's a "minor" setback, though, as SsangYong filed for bankruptcy on December 21, 2020.Now, one model you might find of interest is the refreshed 2021 Rexton, which SsangYong just unveiled for its buyers in the UK. Prices there start from 37,995 ($52,767) for the Ventura variant, while the Ultimate costs 40,665 ($56,475). Rest assured that prices wouldnt be quite as high in the United States.The 2021 Rexton features a restyled front fascia, updated rear, new interior features, and a new eight-speed automatic gearbox. The grille has grown in size considerably, while the LED headlights boast a more angular design. The rear end also gets new LED lights, while the interior now offers a fully digital gauge cluster to go with improved driver assistance technologies , safety features, and multimedia packages.Buyers can choose between an 8.0-inch screen or a wider 9.2-inch one with TomTom navigation. Both infotainment systems include DAB radio, a rear-view reversing camera, and Apple CarPlay as well as Android Auto.The entry-level Ventura model boasts 18-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, dual-zone climate control, 8.0-inch infotainment display, leather steering wheel, heated and ventilated front seats, front and rear parking sensor, and a rearview camera. It also pack safety assistance tech including Autonomous Emergency Braking, Safety Distance Warning, Lane Departure Warning, Front Vehicle Start Warning, Speed Limit Warning, Smart High Beam,and Trailer Sway Control.Meanwhile, the Rexton Ultimate features all that plus the larger 9.0-inch sat-nav, interior mood lighting, stainless steel door finishes, rearview camera with 3D 360 monitoring system, Lane Change Collision Warning, Blind Spot Detection Warning, Rear Cross Traffic Warning, premium leather upholstery, heated and ventilated power seats, and a smart electronic tailgate.Power comes from an uprated 2.2-liter turbodiesel unit, which now produces 199 hp (202 PS) and 325 lb-ft (441 Nm) of torque. It works alongside the previously mentioned all-new eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive.If it ever arrives in the U.S., the Rexton would be automatically matched up against the likes of the Hyundai Santa Fe but also the Palisade and the two-row Jeep Grand Cherokee , to an extent.

Islamabad, March 9 : The opposition alliance in Pakistan, comprising at least 11 different political parties, has lashed out at the military establishment of the country, telling it not to interfere in political matters, besides accusing it of supporting Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The 11-party opposition alliance -- Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) -- has named former PM and recent winner in the Senate seat polls, Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, as its candidate for the slot of Senate chairman, elections to which are scheduled to be held on March 12.

"There is evidence that intelligence agencies violated the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) code of conduct and tried to influence the March 3 Senate polls by threatening and luring the voters," said PDM chairman Maulana Fazlur Rehman during a press conference.

"The PDM condemns the move and warns that if the same tactics are repeated during the elections for Senate chairman and deputy chairman, the PDM would be compelled to present all the evidence before the public," he added.

PDM's anti-government campaign has been raising serious questions on the military establishment for supporting the ruling government of Prime Minister Imran Khan. This is the reason why the opposition parties call Imran Khan "selected" and the current government as "puppet" of its selectors.

The opposition benches have started to express serious concerns for the Imran Khan-led government after it pulled off an upset in the March 2 Senate polls, in which they retained their majority in the Upper House and managed to get its candidate, Yousaf Raza Gillani, elected against the government's candidate, Abdul Hafeez Sheikh.

The setback forced Imran Khan to seek a vote of confidence in the parliament on 6 March. However, the opposition parties, who boycotted the parliament's proceedings, declared the vote of confidence as illegal and unconstitutional.

"PDM demands that all the state institutions focus on their work and stay in their domain. It should be a permanent reality and not just an exception for a certain election," said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

"PDM condemns the establishment's interference in politics and appreciates when it doesn't do this," he added.

Mariyum Nawaz Sharif, the daughter of former premier Nawaz Sharif and leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said the government is focused to use the establishment's support in the upcoming elections of chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate, as it does not have a numerical majority.

"The government must be asked why it has nominated its candidate when it is in the minority. It only indicates that the government wants to use agencies or money to pressurise the voters," she said.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

A group of San Francisco Unified School District parents, frustrated that schools remain closed for in-person learning, proposed on Monday doing away with elections for Board of Education commissioners and instead moving to an appointment-based system.

The group Better San Francisco Public Schools is campaigning for a charter amendment for the June 2022 ballot to allow city leaders to choose school board commissioners instead of voters.

"We believe this will create better accountability so the Board of Education will be made up of the right people with the right priorities," said SFUSD parent and Better San Francisco Public Schools chair Patrick Wolff. "The city elected a majority of this board just a few months ago. Clearly something is wrong with how we're choosing the people who govern our public schools."

Although district leaders have stressed that reopening schools relies on several factors, including agreeing on health and safety standards with labor unions and making sure schools have proper ventilation systems, parents and city leaders continue to express frustration over the closures, which were implemented a year ago when the COVID-19 pandemic first began.

The board faced more criticism in January when it voted to rename 44 schools by April, with Mayor Breed calling for more urgency to reopen schools. To complicate matters, last month, the city filed a lawsuit to further compel the district and school board to prioritize the return of in-person learning.

"I'm seriously concerned about the Board of Education and its focus on the wrong priorities. The members' lack of prioritization on the issues that matter most is having a disastrous effect on public education for our students and families," said Better San Francisco Public Schools co-chair Jennifer Kuhr Butterfoss, an SFUSD parent and former SFUSD principal. "My kids' friends, neighbors and classmates are leaving in droves. The disastrous effect of this current board is going to be felt by generations to come."

The city first moved to an election-based system for the school board in 1971, spurred by opposition to school desegregation, after having used an appointment-based system for more than 70 years prior to that.

Citing other large U.S. cities that already have an appointment-based system like New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Wolff said it makes the most sense for large, diverse areas where it's more likely that voters just aren't informed enough to select the most qualified candidates.

"Major urban cities are often really the only ones that tend to gravitate towards this appointment-based system, and it tends to work well for them from what we have seen," he said.

In the coming months, Better San Francisco Public Schools plans to start meeting with more parents and residents to grow the campaign and launch a petition to place the initiative on the ballot in June 2022.

The group's announcement comes just days after school district leaders announced some elementary school students across 66 schools will be able to return for in-person learning on April 12, under the first phase of school reopening.

Under the plan, more school sites would then reopen in phases in the weeks thereafter, with a total of 91 school sites slated to reopen by the end of April.

Speaking during a briefing on Monday, SFUSD Superintendent Vincent Matthews said, "We know for families this has been a difficult time and we are enthusiastic about the ability to move forward and we continue to do everything as a district to get as many students back into in-person learning as we possibly can, but at the same time we want you understand the limitations that are there."

Copyright  2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Two women pause for a photograph during a demonstration as jury selection begins in Minneapolis for the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former policeman accused of killing George Floyd, a Black man, in Portland, Oregon, U.S. March 8, 2021. REUTERS/Maranie Staab

George Floyds death after his arrest by police officers in Minneapolis on May 25 2020 sparked widespread anger after millions of people saw video of the incident.

The four officers at the scene were quickly fired and soon charged over his death.

The agonising bystander video shows Mr Floyd repeatedly crying I cant breathe and eventually going still as officer Derek Chauvin presses his knee on Mr Floyds neck.

The videos release sparked immediate protests and sometimes violent riots nationwide and around the world.

Chauvin will go on trial on Monday in Minneapolis, facing charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Here is a timeline of key events that began with George Floyds arrest on May 25 2020 by four police officers in Minneapolis:

 May 25 2020: Minneapolis police officers respond to a call shortly after 8pm about a possible forgery at a corner shop and encounter a black man later identified as George Floyd, who struggles and ends up handcuffed and face-down in the street. Officer Derek Chauvin uses his knee to pin Mr Floyds neck for about nine minutes while bystanders shout at him to stop. Bystander video shows Mr Floyd crying I cant breathe multiple times before going limp. He is pronounced dead at hospital.

 May 26: Police issue a statement saying Mr Floyd died after a medical incident, and that he physically resisted and appeared to be in medical distress. Minutes later, bystander video is posted online. Police release another statement saying the FBI will help investigate. Chauvin and three other officers  Thomas Lane, J Kueng and Tou Thao  are fired. Protests begin.

 May 27: Mayor Jacob Frey calls for criminal charges against Chauvin. Protests lead to unrest in Minneapolis, with some people looting and starting fires. Protests spread to other cities.

 May 28: Governor Tim Walz activates the Minnesota National Guard. That night, police abandon the 3rd Precinct station as protesters overtake it and set it on fire.

 May 29: Chauvin is arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. President Donald Trump tweets about thugs at Minneapolis protests and warns: When the looting starts, the shooting starts. Protests turn violent again in Minneapolis and some other cities.

 May 30: Mr Trump tries to walk back his tweet. Protests continue around the country and sometimes turn violent.

 May 31: Mr Walz says attorney general Keith Ellison will lead prosecutions over Mr Floyds death and the nationwide protests continue.

 June 1: The county medical examiner finds that Mr Floyds heart stopped as police restrained him and compressed his neck, noting Mr Floyd had underlying health issues and listing fentanyl and methamphetamine use as other significant conditions.

 June 2: Minnesotas Department of Human Rights launches a civil rights investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department.

 June 3: Mr Ellison files a tougher second-degree murder charge against Chauvin and charges the other three officers who were involved in Mr Floyds arrest.

 June 4: The first of multiple funeral services for Mr Floyd is held in Minneapolis.

 June 5: Minneapolis bans chokeholds by police, the first of many changes to be announced in coming months, including an overhaul of the police departments use-of-force policy.

 June 6: Massive peaceful protests take place nationwide to demand police reform. Services are held for Mr Floyd in Raeford, North Carolina, near his birthplace.

 June 7: A majority of Minneapolis City Council members say they support dismantling the police department. The idea later stalls but sparks a national debate over police reform.

 June 8: Thousands pay their respects to Mr Floyd in Houston, where he grew up. He is buried the next day.

 June 10: Mr Floyds brother testifies before the House Judiciary Committee for changes in holding police officers accountable.

 June 16: Mr Trump signs an executive order to encourage better police practices and establish a database to track officers with a history of excessive use-of-force complaints.

 July 15: Mr Floyds family sues Minneapolis and the four former officers.

 July 21: The Minnesota Legislature passes a broad slate of police accountability measures that includes bans on neck restraints, chokeholds and so-called warrior-style training.

 October 7: Chauvin posts one million dollar (720,000) bail and is released from prison, sparking more protests.

 November 5: Judge Peter Cahill rejects defence requests to move the officers trials, and takes the rare step of allowing cameras in a Minnesota courtroom, citing the coronavirus pandemic.

 January 12 2021: Judge Cahill rules Chauvin will be tried alone due to courtroom capacity issues. The other officers will be tried in August.

 February 12: City leaders say George Floyd Square, the intersection blocked by barricades since Mr Floyds death, will reopen to traffic after Chauvins trial.

 March 8: Jury selection is scheduled to begin in Chauvins trial. Trial is delayed until at least Tuesday morning, March 9.




That pace has nearly eclipsed volumes for the entire month of February within seven days

Over the past year, NetCents said it has seen an unprecedented shift in consumer and business demand for cryptocurrency solutions

Technology Inc ( ) (FRA:26N) (OTCQB:NTTCF), the cryptocurrency payments company, announced Tuesday that it has processed more than C$5.5 million in transaction volume in the first week of March, a record pace within its ecosystem.

That pace has nearly eclipsed volumes for the entire month of February within seven days and is on track to have its most significant growth over any other period in company history, said. This growth builds on the announced 6.7 million transactions processed in February and 8.2 million processed in January.

"Our focus on merchant acquisition and embedding ourselves in the traditional payment space is paying off," CEO Clayton Moore said in a statement. "This breakout week is showing no signs of slowing down and we are firing on all cylinders. As we continue our sales and marketing efforts and introducing new products into the market, we anticipate that we will quickly eclipse these numbers."

NetCents has developed a focus on delivering strategic, value-driven products, in addition to expanding its footprint in key industry verticals, such as B2B, gaming and luxury retail, as well as new geographic areas like South America and Asia. Over the past year, NetCents said it has seen an unprecedented shift in consumer and business demand for cryptocurrency solutions as companies around the globe have adapted to new modes of payment and revenue sources.

"We've started 2021 with a bang and it promises to be an exciting year for both NetCents and cryptocurrency," Moore said. "It has been our laser focus on streamlining and enhancing the merchant experience to continue to drive mass adoption of cryptocurrency as a payment method that has really enabled NetCents to break through and establish record growth in merchant sign ups and processing volume."

Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Changing land use and the changing climate have both contributed towards supplementary feeding of reindeer becoming an established practice in the reindeer husbandry areas of Finland, Sweden and Norway. According to a recent Nordic research report, supplementary feeding seems to be changing reindeer behavior and the entire reindeer husbandry culture.

The multidisciplinary report 'Supplementary feeding in reindeer husbandry' is based on a joint workshop involving Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian reindeer herders and researchers from Finland, Sweden and Norway, which examined the herders' experiences of supplementary feeding of reindeer and its consequences. The aim of the workshop was to offer an arena to herders from three countries to share their experiences with the use of supplementary feeding and to increase public awareness that supplementary feeding can help in adapting to a changing society and natural environment.

The purpose of supplementary feeding has traditionally been to prevent the reindeer from going hungry and to protect them from predators. The need for supplementary feeding has been increased by interference caused by alternative land use and the loss of natural pasture areas to forestry, the mining industry, wind power stations and the tourist industry. Climate change is also causing increasingly difficult conditions in pasture areas; temperature fluctuations and winter rain will become more common and lead to freezing of pasture areas.

Reindeer are becoming tamer and traditional pasture use and reindeer husbandry is changing

According to the reindeer herders in Finland and Sweden, supplementary feeding is visibly changing reindeer behavior. For example, reindeer are unwilling to move from feeding areas to traditional spring or summer pastures. Feeding has also made reindeer tamer, which means they are easier to handle. The downside of this process, however, is that it can increase conflicts with the surrounding population.

Reindeer herders estimate that the increase in supplementary feeding is changing reindeer husbandry culture. Within the Finnish context, reindeer herders pointed out that supplementary feeding can lead to the individualisation of reindeer husbandry practices and the isolation of reindeer herders from one another. It can erode communality and social practices and alter the division of labor in reindeer husbandry communities. In areas where reindeer herding in corrals is the only sensible supplementary feeding solution in winter, reindeer husbandry has turned into work carried out alone on one's own place.

Reindeer herders also fear that the increase in supplementary feeding may change the image of reindeer meat as a pure and sustainably produced natural product, which may in turn affect the status of reindeer husbandry in society and the demand for reindeer meat. The herders pointed out that the majority of meat sold in the Nordic countries is from reindeer which are slaughtered in the autumn and do not receive supplementary feeding.

Reindeer herders believe that supplementary feeding should not be seen as a long-term solution to the crisis caused by the loss of grazing resources. In areas where supplementary feeding is necessary, however, there are many different ways of arranging it in a manner that is sensible both economically and for reindeer husbandry as a whole. Several such methods are listed in the research report.

Explore further Glowing antlers failed, so Finns try app to save reindeer

More information: Publication of Report: Supplementary feeding in reindeer husbandry: Publication of Report: Supplementary feeding in reindeer husbandry: www.oulu.fi/culturalanthropology/node/209206

Provided by University of Oulu
To the Editor:

One year ago, the coronavirus entered our lives and changed our Central New York community forever. Businesses were closed, schools transitioned to remote learning, and we all learned exactly how far six feet measured. Fear, anxiety and depression set in for many of us as we were forced into isolation, unable to see our family and friends.

While the recent announcement by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to increase capacity at restaurants to 75% is a positive sign for our community, it also highlights the inconsistent decision-making by the governor. If indeed we are relying on science and data to inform decisions, then why would the governor continue to restrict capacity at YMCAs when contact tracing has shown that zero cases of Covid-19 originated at the Y, and just 30 of our 298,193 visitors had been positive before coming to the Y.

After keeping our health and wellness activities closed for nearly six months, and enforcing onerous capacity restrictions, the governor must afford YMCAs with equal opportunities that other industries already have. YMCAs are fighting for their survival, seemingly on an uneven playing field. In 2020, YMCAs in New York State lost an estimated $275 million in revenue. These losses, coupled with a 68% decrease in usage of our facilities, have threatened our ability to provide programs and services to underserved and vulnerable residents.

Safety continues to be our foremost priority. Increasing capacity at YMCAs will allow more New Yorkers to have a safe place to improve their physical and mental wellbeing. Studies are already indicating that obesity is increasing in children and adults, and mental health may be the next pandemic that impacts generations.

At the Y, we are prepared to tackle these challenges and help our community with all our might. But until we are able to open our doors to more people, we will be left struggling to survive.

I sincerely hope that the governor and our legislators will begin rolling back our capacity restrictions before its too late.

Bertram L. Lawson II

President & CEO

YMCA of Central New York

Syracuse

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Most NY restaurants can go to 75% capacity in mid-March, Cuomo says

Covid-19 vaccine in drug stores: CVS joins growing list of sites for seniors in Syracuse area

NY lawmakers claw back Cuomos pandemic powers

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com
Free Speech Advocates Laud Supreme Court for Requiring Official Accountability for Violating Individual Rights

The Supreme Courts 81 decision on March 8 to require accountability for public officials violating individuals constitutional rights has huge significance beyond the college campus where the case originated, according to one of the plaintiffs attorneys.

With only Chief Justice John Roberts dissenting, the high court held in a case brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of former Georgia Gwinnett College student Chike Uzuegbunam that school officials violated his First Amendment rights by barring him from sharing about his Christian faith in a free speech zone on the campus.

Campus policy at that time prohibited using the free speech zone to say anything that disturbs the peace and/or comfort of person(s). Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority in describing the policy challenged in the case. The case is known as Uzuegbunam et. al. v. Precczewski et. al.

When officials at the school backed off the policy, they then argued in federal court that Uzuegbunam no longer had standing to claim damages because his rights were no longer being violated.

But the court disagreed, saying: Uzuegbunam experienced a completed violation of his constitutional rights when respondents enforced their speech policies against him. Nominal damages can redress Uzuegbunams injury even if he cannot or chooses not to quantify that harm in economic terms.

The court further noted that an award of nominal damages constitutes relief on the merits.

In other words, if a constitutional violation is documented, the offending official or institution must be held accountable, even if there is no demonstration of measurable injury deserving of more than nominal damages.

The accountability requirement also goes beyond colleges violating students free speech rights, according to ADF Vice President Kristen Waggoner.

So, this ensures that its not just discriminatory student speech policies, its discriminatory stop-and-frisk, denial of kosher meals in prison, you can easily think of a variety of constitutional violations that would benefit from this, Waggoner told reporters on March 8, in response to a question from The Epoch Times during a telephone news conference.

It sure ought to. Alliance Defending Freedom has had over 400 victories in this space, in terms of public universities. Nobody litigates more of these cases than we do, said Waggoner, who has argued multiple cases filed by ADF before the Supreme Court.

We believe this is a significant victory because we see time and time again where government officials will censor speech unconstitutionally, students will muster the courage to stand and say, This is a violation of my constitutional rights, and then college officials will quickly change the policy and walk away.

The irony in this case is that the Georgia officials received a letter years earlier from ADF warning them that their policy was unconstitutional, and they did nothing until Chike sued them, and that is consistent with what we see across the country.

Waggoners contention that the case has big implications for situations involving alleged violations of constitutional rights in other arenas drew agreement from multiple legal experts interviewed on March 9 by The Epoch Times.

Zack Smith, senior fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, said this case does have wide-ranging implications because it will severely limit a tactic that violators have long used to avoid facing a full court review of the merits or demerits of their actions.

Smith said the problem in these cases, where there is an alleged violation of a constitutional right, is exactly what happened in this case. A governmental entity will change their policy and try to boot out the case, get it dismissed.

You see this in the First Amendment context like here, you could see it in the stop-and-frisk context, or really any context where there is a policy that is alleged to violate someones constitutional rights, whether that violation is based on the Fourth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, the First Amendment or whatever.

Any time a policy is violating or alleged to violate someones constitutional rights, this decision would essentially allow the case to move forward even if the governmental entity changes their policy and tries to get it dismissed.

Similarly, Will Creeley, legal director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which filed an amicus curiae brief in the case, said Waggoner is 100 percent correct, that is a prediction I would confidently share as well.

The opinion deals with the nominal damages that are possible in cases involving violations of rights that arent easy to put a price tag on, and thats not just expressive rights, but it can also be civil rights, privacy rights, a wide variety of possible constitutional infringements that defy quantification, Creeley said.

Ilya Shapiro, director of the Cato Institutes Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, agreed, saying, Justice Thomas was right for the near-unanimous court to hold that government officials cant escape liability for violations of constitutional rights just by changing their policies, and that citizens can get their day in court even if they only ask for nominal damages.

Shapiro noted that the decision was the first-ever solo dissent by Roberts in his more than 15 years on the bench, which continues his crusade against an engaged judiciary that would make it easier for civil rights plaintiffs to hold state actors to account.

Cato also filed an amicus curiae brief in the case.

Contact Mark Tapscott at Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
A vital clue in the mystery disappearance of two Victorian campers has been confirmed as a dead end as a drone found in the area does not belong to the pair.

Carol Clay and Russell Hill vanished on March 20, 2020 while on a camping trip in Victoria's rugged high country - with their burnt, empty campsite found days later.

The drone, though to be a breakthrough in the year-old case, was handed in to Victoria Police at East Gippsland last weekend but officers confirmed on Tuesday it is not the DJI Mavic belonging to Mr Hill.

Russell Hill (pictured, left) had been friendly with Carol Clay (right) for decades before they had an affair

Mr Hill's $2,000 drone was missing the scorched scene, along with phones, car keys and bank cards. A drone was found in the area over the weekend, but has been confirmed as not Mr Hill's

Mr Hill's white Toyota Landcruiser was found with minor fire damage at their burnt campsite near Dry River Creek Track in the valley on March 21

Police say they will, however, keep trying to find out more about the device as part of the investigation.

They have also repeated their plea for information about a white dual cab ute seen in the area where Mr Hill and Ms Clay were camping before they disappeared.

The four-wheel-drive is the only car seen in the area on March 20 which has not been ruled out of the investigation.

The vehicle has remained a mystery despite almost 12 months of meticulous checks by the squad.

'It might seem like only a very small possibility that those in the white ute will have information about Russell and Carol's disappearance but we can't afford to leave any stone unturned,' Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said.

'We cannot leave any 'what ifs' when it comes to an investigation like this.'

It is almost a year since the pair went missing in the rugged bushland of the Wonnangatta Valley in Victoria's East Gippsland region.

Mr Hill, 74, left his Drouin home on March 19, 2020 and collected his friend Ms Clay, 73, from her home in Pakenham in his white Toyota LandCruiser.

Victorian detectives have released a new map of an area where a mystery white ute was spotted on the day the campers went missing

They travelled through Licola, spending one night at Howitt High Plains before heading into Wonnangatta Valley.

Mr Hill was last heard from on March 20 over HF radio, while Ms Clay had told friends she was heading away and was expecting to return by March 29.

Authorities found the couple's campsite burned to the ground near Mr Hill's car days later, before it was discovered their their sleeping bags, phones, and a $2,000 drone were also missing.

Almost a year on from their disappearance, the drone was handed to police over the weekend.

Theories about what happened to the pair include that the drone witnessed illegal activity, which led to them being murdered.

Pictured: The destroyed campsite where Mr Hill and Ms Clay were staying before they disappeared

Last Monday, the bushman's best friend Rob Ashlin claimed the pair could have been slain by illegal hunters after the drone - which Mr Hill was flying that day - captured footage it shouldn't have.

'The fact that it's been reported that those sleeping bags were missing, makes me feel that those sleeping bags were carted out of there and... used as body bags,' Mr Ashlin told Liz Hayes on Channel Nine's Under Investigation.

'There are a lot of places - the country is very rugged - where they can be got rid of, never to be found again.'

High country musterer Lachlan Culican, who helped police during the search, also believes the pair may have accidentally captured footage of illegal hunters in the area.

He was shocked by the the sheer quantity of dead deer in the area where their scorched campsite was found, explaining he saw a new carcass every '200m or 300m'.

Mr Hill's friend Rob Ashlin (pictured) believes the couple were murdered in their sleeping bags

The fact the expensive drone was missing along with the phones could indicate the couple may have stumbled across something they shouldn't have- such as armed hunters.

Mr Ashlin, who was friends with Mr Hill for 30 years, also suggested there might be someone sinister lurking in the mountains.

He had a friend who was hunting deer in the region and set up camp for the night with someone else.

Russell Hill and Carol Clay were last heard from on March 20, with Mr Hill's wife unaware he was travelling with another woman

The pair went missing in the Wonnangatta Valley, more than 200km north east of Melbourne

As they sat around the fire, they saw a person standing at the edge of the light, staring at them.

'One of them shot over to his vehicle and this person who was standing there just wandered behind the shadow of a tree and was gone,' he said.

'They were being stalked without knowing about it for some time.'

Mr Ashlin said the idea that there could be a suspect hiding in the mountains is 'what's driving me' to search for answers.

He also found the image of their burnt campsite, taken by two passers-by a week later, startling because the site was not set up the way Mr Hill arranged his campsites.

A new image of Mr Hill's white Toyota Landcruiser. It was found with minor fire damage at their burnt campsite near Dry River Creek Track in the valley on March 21

Mr Ashlin had been camping with Mr Hill (pictured) on a number of occasions, and described his friend as 'cautious'

He said the experienced camper would have known better than to make a campfire close to flammable material such as gas bottles or their tent.

Mr Ashlin went camping with Mr Hill on many occasions, and described his friend as 'cautious'.

When he saw the jumble of burnt equipment, he knew something was amiss.

'I knew straight away in my own mind that something really unforgiving had happened,' he said.

Fire forensics expert Greg Kelly experimented with tent fibers and ropes to see if an accidental fire could have started, but said the materials burned too slowly and extinguished themselves before a blaze could have started.

Carol Clay, 73, who was once the President of the Country Women's Association of Victoria, had been in a relationship with Russell Hill for many years in the lead up to their disappearance

The pair were in a secret relationship and didn't tell anyone where they were going. Ms Clay (pictured) just told friends she would be gone for a few days

There were also no burn marks across the car doors, which were nearby, the tyres weren't melted, and the esky - which was underneath the car - was intact.

Mr Kelly said the scene suggested the fire was short and hot, which was likely caused by an accelerant - such as the gas canisters inside the tent.

Detectives have believed since December that the potential attackers may have torched their campsite to destroy forensic evidence of a crime.

The pair were in a secret relationship and didn't tell anyone where they were going. Ms Clay just told friends she would be gone for a few days.

Police are confident the pair did not fake their own deaths and do not believe it is case of murder suicide.

That the car was locked likely indicated the pair left the campsite voluntarily, probably to go for a walk or fly the drone.

Mr Hill (pictured) had left his Drouin home on March 19 for a camping trip along the Dargo River in Victoria's northeast and planned to leave the region on March 26

Mr Hill had been a keen amateur radio enthusiast and made his last broadcast from the bush on March 20.

'This place is in the middle of nowhere,' the source said. 'It's just problematic in the extreme.'

Police are now certain the couple died within 18 hours after Mr Hill's last message, as a passing hiker saw the burned-out campsite about 2pm the next day.

Because the pair weren't due back until up to a week later, the alarm wasn't raised for days and precious time was lost.

The police source said despite the delay in the missing person squad being brought into investigate the case, the fire ravaged camp site was thoroughly investigated at the time.

In May, bizarre details emerged of an 'oddball loner' living in the Victorian Alps, who has been questioned over a number of mysterious disappearances.

Known as 'Buttons' or ominously, 'the Button Man', the expert bushman became a person of interest after concerns about his odd behaviour was raised by locals.

Personal belongings (circled) were left in Russell Hill's vehicle, which sustained fire damage when his tent went up in flames

He is understood to have earned his nickname due to his hobby of using deer antlers to make buttons - which he then uses as large ear piercings.

'Being creepy is not illegal,' a police source has told Daily Mail Australia.

A police source confirmed there was nothing to indicate the mysterious loner had killed the couple, but what happened to them remains unknown.

'We don't think they're in Queensland living (a secret) life. They're too old really to drop off the grid and why would they?' the source said.

Police believe it is more likely than not that the pair met with foul play while out in the remote wilderness.

The area itself is considered an ideal spot to commit murder.

Phone reception is practically nil and unlike some other areas popular with hikers, the remote Wonnangatta Valley does not see a lot of foot or road traffic.

While cold-blooded murder was an avenue of investigation, detectives remain open to all kinds of scenarios.

'There are a lot of people who go up there and do illegal stuff. Like people who go hunting in the national park and ride motorcycles. Has he had a dispute with one of them that turned bad?' the source said.

Months of searches have found no trace of the pair. Detective Stamper believes if the pair were still in the valley, searchers would have found some evidence

The pair had been carrying out a secret affair for years behind the back of Mr Hill's wife Robyn, who has described Ms Clay as a 'long time family friend'.

While the relationship was largely hidden from Mr Hill's devastated wife, it has been well known to police since the pair were reported missing by Mrs Hill days after her husband last made contact via radio.

When questioned about the couple's relationship in April, Victoria Police Missing Persons Squad Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper skirted around the question.

'It is delicate and we are being very respectful of both families wishes and concerns here,' he said at the time.

'Both of these people have large and loving families who are grieving at the moment, and they want answers about where their loved ones are.'

While detectives probed the couple's relationship, it was quickly ruled out as a likely reason for their mysterious disappearance.

Police are desperate for people who may have been in the area at the time to let them know so that they can be ruled out of the investigation.

Detectives are also keen to learn if anyone may be hanging onto dash cam footage that could help identify other leads.

It is understood the case remained 'very wide open'.

'It's a genuine mystery,' the source said.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Gayle King has claimed that her close friend Oprah Winfrey has not been paying attention to the public reaction to her interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in the days since the tell-all conversation first aired.

A day after Winfreys two-hour interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex aired in the UK for the first time, which has since prompted a response from Buckingham Palace, the host of CBSs This Morning said she had called her best friend to discuss the reactions only to find shes not paying attention to all of this.

King made the claim during Tuesdays episode of This Morning, where she said she called Winfrey on Monday to tell her You know, this thing is blowing up, according to the DailyMail.

However, rather than agree with the assessment, the 66-year-old host says Winfrey appeared to be unconcerned with the response to the interview.

Shes sitting on her back porch reading a book, not paying attention to all of this. I said: Im telling you, this is big. [She said]: Is it? Yeah, no its big! King said.

Read more: You can find all the details from Meghan and Harrys interview with Oprah here

In a statement shared by the Palace on Tuesday, the Queen addressed the interview, and said the whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.

The monarch also said that the issues raised in the interview, particularly that of race, are concerning, and that they will be addressed by the family privately.

Prince Harrys grandmother concluded the statement as she has done in the past, adding: Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved family members.

In addition to shocked and outraged reactions from viewers, the interview, which was watched by more than 11.1m viewers when it aired on ITV, also sparked responses from notable figures including Serena Williams to the White House and Hillary Clinton.

Additionally, Piers Morgan has departedITVs Good Morning Britain after he incited backlash with his comments about Meghan following the interview.

Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain, ITV said in a brief statement Tuesday. ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.

While Winfrey was reportedly unphased by the varied responses, she previously told King that the two-hour interview, which touched on everything from the couples decision to step back from their roles as senior members of the royal family to allegations of racism in the royal family, was thebest interview shes ever done.

Ive heard from reliable sources, this is Oprah talking, that its the best interview shes ever done, King revealed on This Morning ahead of the interview.
BAGHDAD, Iraq  After Pope Francis returned from his first international trip since the coronavirus pandemic began, where he visited different ethnicities and religious groups in Iraq, he tweeted, Iraq will always remain in my heart. He asked the Iraqi people to work together, united for a future of peace and prosperity that leaves no one behind and discriminates against no one.

US President Joe Biden issued a statement on the pope's visit, saying, I congratulate the government and people of Iraq for the care and planning that went into organizing this monumental visit, and continue to admire Pope Francis for his commitment to promoting religious tolerance.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi used this occasion to deliver a message to the nation. He asked all Iraqi parties and groups to use this opportunity for unity, peace and cooperation.

Iraq has a real opportunity to restore its historic role in the region and in the world, Kadhimi said March 9, calling the popes visit a historic milestone for Iraq.

The papal visit was very beneficial in terms of returning Iraq to the international spotlight and unveiling its rich culture and ancient history to the world.

Iraqis, regardless of their ethnicity and religion, responded well to the visit. Even the militias with anti-Western rhetoric and propaganda did not lose the opportunity to use the popes visit to their advantage by proclaiming themselves to be the defenders of Christians in the face of the Islamic State.

The pope's message has reached all over the world, while he is wandering with a heart full of hope in the beloved cities of Iraq. Our people's message reached all the peoples of the earth, Kadhimi said.

By visiting Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the pope not only connected and created a link between Shiites and Christians but also brought the Sunnis to the table. In an interview with iNews, prominent Sunni cleric Amer al-Bayati said on live television, Sistani is the pyramid (umbrella) of all Muslims in Iraq and our spiritual father figure; therefore, the pope visited Sistani as if he visited all Muslims.

In line with the popes visit, Kadhimi asked rival parties and groups to put their differences behind them and invest in the opportunity to work together toward a stable and prosperous Iraq.

We call  all the different political forces, popular and youth protesters, and opponents of the government to the table of responsible dialogue in front of our people and history, Kadhimi said. We call on our forces and political parties to give priority to the interests of the country.

Kadhimi had already opened a dialogue with the protestors, leading to emptying the streets peacefully and voluntarily.

He asked all parties to work for the success of the early elections and give people the opportunity for hope and confidence in the state and in the democratic system.

He addressed the government opposition, including the militias in particular, saying, My dear opponents, I invite you, in all sincerity, to an open and frank dialogue with the government on the basis of the country's interests, security and sovereignty, and on the basis of preserving the security of Iraq, supporting the state and the rule of law.

Also, in an attempt to raise attention for a permanent solution to the long-disputed Kurdistan issue, Kadhimi demanded a genuine, deep national dialogue at all official, party and popular levels, to reach the framework for a final agreement on the relationship between the central government and the Kurdistan Region.

Kadhimi has actively used diplomacy in the office to bring all disputed parties to the table and negotiate a deal that benefits everyone. Now on the international level, he asked Iraqs neighboring countries to do the same and play a positive role in the reconstruction and future of Iraq. He also initiated a strategic dialogue with the international coalition to create the environment and timeline for the removal of all combat troops from Iraq soil, within the framework of agreed-upon technical and timing mechanisms, while preserving the best relations with the coalition countries. He reaffirmed Iraqs sovereignty and refused to let it be a field for external conflicts.

Iraq has successfully worked with the United States to reduce the number of US troops present, while simultaneously expanding its relationship with the United States regarding the economy, education and other areas. It has also negotiated both with Iran and the United States to reduce their tensions and conflict inside the country.

Kadhimi also mentioned the importance of restoring Iraqs external relations and its regional and international role as a peacekeeper, and he encouraged the international community to invest in and support Iraqs economic reform project to turn it into the economic powerhouse it once was in the region.

At the end of his speech, Kadhimi  on behalf of Iraq  thanked Pope Francis for his prayers and for making the effort to visit Iraq during the pandemic and with all of Iraq's security risks posed by the militias. He also thanked the people and all who contributed to organizing the pontiffs Iraq visit.
THE College of Medicine and Health, UCC, has announced the launch of The iEd Hub, which represents a consortium featuring Corks leading universities University College Cork (UCC) and Munster Technological University (MTU), enterprise stakeholders, and leading industries in the Health & Life Sciences sector.

Funded by 8.7 million awarded under the Governments Human Capital Initiative Programme (HCI), the novel iEd partnership aims to deliver an innovative approach to education for enterprise. The curriculum content and mode of delivery will be designed and developed in conjunction with these industry partners, and will meet current and projected priority skills needs across Irelands economy.

The iEd Hub is ideally placed to contribute to this goal for the Health & Life Science industry sector in Ireland. Over the next four years, the Hub will design and develop a novel, agile educational platform to produce next generation graduates to boost this sector. The industry and academic partners will co-design and deliver a suite of new undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, and iEd students will spread their time between industry sites and academic campuses.

The needs of both young indigenous and mature multinational companies will be met, contributing to the creation and retention of thousands of Irish jobs, while ensuring that the skills provided are fit for purpose for future Irish industry.

Speaking ahead of the launch, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath TD said: "Cork is the ideal home for this ambitious initiative. Pharmaceutical and medical goods account for 31% of Irelands total exports and the Cork region is Irelands largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cluster in this sector. The iEd Hub will contribute significantly to the growth of the Cork region as an internationally renowned hub for health and life science enterprise, by providing uniquely skilled human capital to grow both the scale and scope of indigenous and multinational company activity."

The Interim president of UCC, Professor John OHalloran added; "The iEd Hub will result in the deepening of relationships with local enterprise partners in education, R&D, and new company formation, benefiting the local and national economy. The iEd consortium, featuring the Cork regions academic higher education institutions, enterprise stakeholders, and leading industries in the sector, will develop, over the next 4 years, a novel educational platform for enterprise. It demonstrates a deep collaboration and an agile and innovative response for current and future skills needs."

The iEd Hub is led by Professor Helen Whelton, Head of the UCC College of Medicine and Health, Dr Mark Tangney, Interim Head of the iEd Hub, Tim Horgan, MTU Head of Faculty of Engineering & Science, and Matt Cotterell, Head of MTU School of Mechanical, Electrical, and Process Engineering.

The Head of the UCC College of Medicine and Health, Professor Helen Whelton said: "The iEd Hub will produce a new generation of graduates, in line with the European Commissions Skills for Industry Strategy 2030, resulting in the deepening of relationships with local enterprise partners in education, R&D, and new company formation thus benefiting the local economy.

"It is our hope the that the iEd Hub will eventually be hosted in an Innovation Hub building in Curraheen alongside other innovation enterprises with much of the classroom teaching, including lab classes, delivered here as well as onsite at industry. This hub will connect all the iEd actors, as it will be home to existing drivers of enterprise in the Health & Life Sciences."

Dr Mark Tangney, Interim Head of the iEd Hub said: "Typically, people are thought of as being either within academia or within industry, thinking of them as mutually exclusive. We prefer to take the approach that industry and academia are one  together, we develop people and technology. We are now building platforms that remove the traditional time separation of academia and industry of 'first college, then industry'.

"We also aim to remove the geographical separation of academic and enterprise activity, through building of the Cork Innovation Corridor, where academia and industry can exist under one roof."

MTU President, Professor Maggie Cusack said: "MTU is focused on leading transformation through education and empowering people to succeed in a globalised world. In partnership with UCC and industry stakeholders, the iEd Hub provides a platform to deliver on these goals in a student-centric, industry-aligned, agile, and creative manner.

"It will introduce new learning models that meet the needs of the 21st century, while also providing opportunities for students in our universities and in the workplace. Lets succeed together."
US President Joe Biden is considering repealing War on Terror era authorizations on the use of military force amid pressure on Capitol Hill.

The White House is conducting a review of the governments authorizations for the use of military force, an administration official told Al-Monitor on Monday. The National Security Council is leading the review and considering past strategies in light of new terrorism threats. Biden established interim guidelines on the use of military force when he took office, the official said.

The official added that it is too soon to comment on what policy changes may come out of the presidents review, but they pledged to work with both parties in Congress on the issue.

The comments followed a US airstrike in Syria that received criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. On Feb. 25, Biden approved bombing the Iraqi militias Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada at a border facility in eastern Syria. The administration blamed the Iran-backed groups for recent attacks on US forces in neighboring Iraq.

Members of both parties in the House and Senate spoke out against Biden for this, saying he failed to consult with Congress before using military force. The US Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, but in recent years the executive branch has approved and taken military actions on its own. The US Department of Defense cited self-defense in the Syria strike.

Not everyone in Congress was against Bidens Syria strike, however. Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised the decision, saying it was an appropriate response to attacks on US forces by Irans allies.

After several unanswered attacks against US interests I welcome the administrations decision to authorize airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias operating in eastern Syria, he said in a statement.

Biden, as commander-in-chief, has the authority to conduct military operations in part based on an Authorization for Use of Military Force joint resolution from 2001 and another from 2002. The 2001 authorization provided a legal justification for using force against the groups responsible for the September 11 attacks. The authorization in 2002 enabled military action against Iraq, which was then led by former President Saddam Hussein. Biden voted for the Iraq War in 2002 while he was a senator.

The authorizations can be removed by Congress passing a law and the president signing it.

Some House Democrats think the Biden administration is now committed to repealing these authorizations. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released a statement on Friday alongside four other Democrats in the House. They praised Biden for his support for repealing old authorizations for the use of military force.

The 2001 and 2002 AUMFs were both passed nearly 20 years ago and bear little resemblance to the threats we face today, said the lawmakers in the statement, using an acronym to refer to the authorizations.

The congressmen said the 2001 authorization has become too expansive.

The 2001 AUMF has been used to justify military operations in at least seven different countries against a continuously expanding list of both old and new adversaries, they said, including in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

The members added that the Iraq authorization is no longer relevant since the United States defeated Saddam Husseins forces years ago.

The 2002 AUMF, intended for use against Iraq, is obsolete. Yet if this outdated and unnecessary authorization remains on the books, it can potentially be used for military action Congress never intended to authorize, they said.

Meeks and his colleagues are optimistic the Biden administration will work with them and the Senate to repeal the authorizations.

We welcome the presidents renewed commitment to ending endless wars and taking outdated authorizations off the books, they said.

Support for repealing the military force authorizations extends beyond Democrats in the House. Benjamin H. Friedman is policy director at Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates for a more prudent, restrained foreign policy. He said Congress ending the authorizations would actually help end US military involvement in the Middle East.

Ending the AUMFs would help end US wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan because doing so would show congressional desire to control wars and reflect a changed political consensus, Friedman told Al-Monitor. While wars, unfortunately, can continue without clear congressional authority, as we see today in Syria, it is rare that they continue in clear opposition to a congressional refusal to grant authority.

Friedman said the authorizations should be repealed and that Congress could pass another law based on a new security threat if necessary. "If there is a need for another one based on a new threat, Congress should grant new authority, he said.
Oil markets surged in the hours after Pfizer announced positive results from its coronavirus vaccine study. Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Russian intelligence is sowing disinformation about the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, the WSJ reported.

Four foreign-owned outlets are disseminating info that questions the Pfizer vaccine's efficacy and safety.

US intelligence believes this effort to undermine Pfizer is a way to bolster Russia's vaccine.

Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

Russian intelligence officials are attempting to cast doubt on the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

Four publications acting as fronts for Russian intelligence are disseminating information that questions the efficacy and safety of the Pfizer vaccine, State Department officials told the Journal.

Russia is peddling misleading information designed to make Americans question whether the US rushed the approval process for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

"We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services," an official at the State Department's Global Engagement Center told the newspaper. "They're all foreign-owned, based outside of the United States. They vary a lot in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they're all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem."

Back in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country is hoping to distribute its controversial Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to other countries.

Russia announced a successful coronavirus vaccine in August, but Sputnik V was approved under questionable circumstances. It was released before it went through phase 3 trials. In the United States, phase 3 is a requirement before a drug or vaccine can be vetted and approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The rushed timeline led health officials to speculate whether the Kremlin coerced vaccine makers into putting out Sputnik V quickly to gain a leg up in the global race for a cure to the novel coronavirus.

US intelligence officials now believe this effort to undermine the Pfizer vaccine coming out of the Kremlin is another way to bolster the status of Sputnik V, the Journal reported.

Story continues

Johnson & Johnson is the latest company to enter the vaccine game. The healthcare giant is offering a single-dose vaccine that the company expects to distribute to 4 million Americans shortly.

Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine gained FDA approval toward the end of February, said it expects to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of March and 100 million by the end of June.

Including Johnson & Johnson's vaccine, the United States is now distributing and touting three effective vaccines to Americans.

Pfizer and Moderna - the two companies whose coronavirus vaccines preceded Johnson & Johnson's - have efficacy rates of 94% and 95%, respectively.

Vaccines against the coronavirus have been rolling out in the United States since December 2020, after Pfizer became the first company to produce and receive FDA approval to distribute.

With this third vaccine on the market, the US is expected to have enough doses to immunize 300 million people.

More than 57 million people in the United States have already received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses, while Johnson & Johnson's requires one.

Last week, President Joe Biden said the US plans to have enough doses of coronavirus vaccines for "every adult in America" by the end of May. Biden's announcement sped up the timeline to reach this threshold by about a month, Insider's Eliza Relman and Sonam Sheth reported.

It's been almost a year since the WHO declared the coronavirus a pandemic. Since then, more than 28 million people in the United States have contracted the virus, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Of that, more than 500,000 Americans have died.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Jost Capito was well on his way to retirement. Williams, however, offered him to take over the team leadership at the last minute. The opportunity to work for a legendary F1 team like Williams was, according to Capito, a "great opportunity."

Shortly after Dorilton Capitol, Williams' new investors announced that Claire and Sir Frank Williams would be leaving the British team, Jost Capito was announced as the new CEO of Williams F1. Capito was well known in motorsport; he previously worked at McLaren and rally chief at Volkswagen.

A childhood dream

As mentioned, the 62-year-old German was already looking forward to his retirement, until the opportunity arose at Williams. To Formula1.com he says: "And when this [role] came up, I said to myself its more than a boys dream to run Williams. I am very competitive. Wherever I have been, I want to win," he said.

Future

However, the ambitions are almost impossible to express in words. After the last few years, it seems that it can only get better at Williams anyway. Capito: "We know the results from recent years, and we know why it has happened. Now with new owners, they are really backing it up. Thats why I joined. Its a huge opportunity working with new owners to get team back where it has been in the past and where I believe Williams belongs, and that is very close to my heart.

We will soon see whether Williams will be successful this year when the winter tests in Bahrain start.
PARADISE, Calif. - An ordinance that would require all future utility overhead power lines to be put underground could soon become a reality when the Paradise town council votes on Tuesday.

The ordinance would also ban all new utility poles beginning this July. This also applies to temporary infrastructure built after the Camp Fire.

It would also set a completion date for the removal of temporary overhead facilities as 180 days from completion of a joint trench effort led by an electric service provider or Nov. 8, 2025, whichever date is sooner.

Since 2019, PG&E has begun digging and drilling holes to put power lines underground. So far, the utility has installed 48 miles of underground work in the Town of Paradise.

Incidentally, In late 2019, Paradise Town Council adopted and enacted a Dig-Once policy, which states by ordinance that the Town of Paradise and servicing utility companies must continuously communicate and coordinate relating to underground joint-trench opportunities.

This policy, however, does not mandate any utility company to join underground trenches against their own will.
President Joe Biden has sent his two dogs back to his family home in Wilmington, Delaware, after the younger of the two German Shepherds was involved in a "biting incident" with a White House security agent, US media said Monday.

Three-year-old Major, whom Biden and his wife Jill adopted in November 2018 from an animal shelter, had been displaying aggressive behavior including jumping, barking and charging at White House staff and security, CNN reported, citing two anonymous sources.

The sources described a "biting incident" involving a member of the security services but did not specify if the person was injured. The episode was, however, seen as serious enough for both dogs, including 13-year-old Champ, to be returned to the Bidens' home in Wilmington last week.

Related: Biden names two women generals to lead military commands

Major is the first rescue dog to have lived in the White House, having moved in after Biden's inauguration in January.

Biden's predecessor Donald Trump did not have any pets at the White House.

It was not immediately clear when  or if  the dogs would be allowed to return.

First Lady Jill Biden said in an interview last month she had been focused on getting the dogs settled into their new home in Washington.

"They have to take the elevator, they're not used to that, and they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them. So that's what I've been obsessed with, getting everybody settled and calm," she said on "The Kelly Clarkson Show."

jh/to
I fully support the Republican Party and important GOP Committees, but I do not support RINOs and fools, and it is not their right to use my likeness or image to raise funds, he said. But even as he tried to clarify that he supported his party, he gave another plug for his own group. If you donate to our Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com, you are helping the America First movement and doing it right, he said.

For now, aides said, Mr. Trumps plan is to stockpile money so he can remain a force in politics and help candidates challenging dissident Republicans like Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who supported impeaching him this year.

Mr. Trump, along with the national party, raised roughly $250 million between Election Day and President Bidens inauguration. More than $60 million of that went to a new political action committee. That committee and the former presidents campaign committee were both converted to linked political action committees. Mr. Trumps aides said this week that they had not yet started to send fund-raising solicitations since he left office, but planned to do so in the coming days.

The Republican clash could resonate particularly in the House.

If Mr. Trump is successful in persuading donors to give money to him instead of supporting Republican House candidates directly, he could cause problems for Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, who is trying to take back the House in two years. He needs to flip five seats to do so.

If you control the money, you control the party, said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor.

Some Republican strategists noted that less than a decade ago, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the partys 2012 presidential nominee, was the biggest fund-raising name in G.O.P. politics. Now he barely recognizes his party.

The strategists played down the threat Mr. Trump poses to Republican fund-raising. The donors that are unique to him who would be affected by that message are people who wouldnt have donated in the first place, said Josh Holmes, a political adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader.

Mr. Holmes also said that as the Biden administration rolled out new policies like a nearly $2 trillion relief bill, Republicans would coalesce in opposition and develop new fund-raising constituencies.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 9, 2021) - PharmaDrug Inc. (CSE: BUZZ) (OTC Pink: LMLLF) ("PharmaDrug" or the "Company") wholly-owned subsidiary, Sairiyo Therapeutics Inc. ("Sairiyo"), a biotechnology company focused on the research and development of Cepharanthine, a repurposed and reformulated naturally-derived compound for the potential treatment of cancer, neurological, inflammatory and infectious diseases, is pleased to announce that world-renowned drug-repurposing expert, Moshe Rogosnitzky, has been appointed to Sairiyo's newly-formed scientific and clinical advisory board for Cepharanthine as a potential treatment for cancer, neurological, inflammatory and infectious diseases.

Moshe Rogosnitzky, heads Drug Rediscovery Group Ltd in Rehovot, Israel, focusing on the repurposing of generic drugs for diseases such as ophthalmic disorders, viral infections, insomnia, pain disorders, and opioid addiction. He also serves as executive director of the MedInsight Institute, a US/Israel non-profit organization that educates physicians and patients about treatment opportunities using generic drugs in an off-label fashion. A pioneer in the generic drug-repurposing field, and in personalized cancer therapy, Mr. Rogosnitzky has more than 15 years of experience in the use of Cepharanthine for treating advanced cancers, as well as androgenic alopecia, or male-pattern baldness. In 2011, he published a comprehensive review on the potential of Cepharanthine for a range of clinical conditions. Most recently he has published a review of Cepharanthine's potential in treating COVID-19.

"I am passionate about repurposing safe and well-established drugs for treating cancer, whether alone or as adjuvants to existing therapies. Cepharanthine presents a unique opportunity to repurpose an extremely safe drug that has been approved and used in Japan for other clinical indications for many years," said Mr. Rogosnitzky. "It is my hope that this plant-derived drug, possessing an enviable safety record, will provide fresh hope to patients suffering from incurable cancers and other serious and life-threatening diseases."

"We are grateful to have Moshe Rogosnitzky join us as an advisor to support our development plans with Cepharanthine which has tremendous potential in not only cancer but also in other serious and rare diseases," said Daniel Cohen, CEO of PharmaDrug. "Moshe Rogosnitzky has an in-depth knowledge and appreciation for Cepharanthine's potential and him joining our scientific and clinical advisory board dedicated to unlocking Cepharanthine's clinical utility for cancers and other indications brings value to our objective in developing a unique franchise with Cepharanthine."

Sairiyo received U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") orphan drug designation approval for Cepharanthine in the treatment of esophageal cancer.

Cepharanthine is a natural product and an approved drug used for more than 70 years in Japan to treat a variety of acute and chronic diseases. In clinical research, Cepharanthine exhibits multiple pharmacological properties including anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, immuno-regulatory, anti-cancer, anti-viral and anti-parasitic properties1. Sairiyo has an exclusive license from a research and development organization to develop and commercialize reformulated Cepharanthine for all diseases and exclusive rights to the patent, method of manufacturing, clinical supply, pre-clinical data and know-how to support FDA clinical trials.

The Company's pharmaceutical strategy with Cepharanthine will focus on expanding its potential in cancer through pre-clinical and clinical research, forming research collaborations with academic institutions and industry and adding medical and clinical experts to its scientific and clinical advisory board.

About PharmaDrug Inc.

PharmaDrug is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of controlled-substances and natural medicines such as psychedelics, cannabis and naturally-derived approved drugs. The Company owns 80% of Pharmadrug Production GmbH, a German medical cannabis distributor, with a Schedule I European Union narcotics license and German EuGMP certification allowing for the importation and distribution of medical cannabis to pharmacies in Germany and throughout the EU. The Company also owns 100% of Super Smart, a Dutch company building a modern adult use psychedelic retail business with an elevated and educational focus. PharmaDrug recently acquired Sairiyo Therapeutics, a biotech company that specializes in researching and reformulating established natural medicines with a goal of bringing them through regulatory and research driven clinical trials.

For further information, please contact:

Daniel Cohen, Chairman and CEO

dcohen@pharmadrug.co

(647) 202-1824

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information:

THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED NOR DOES IT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein is forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "proposed", "is expected", "budgets", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking information in relation to: advancing the clinical development of Cepharanthine; advancing into FDA clinical trials for esophageal cancer; finding other avenues for Catharanthine's diverse opportunities; developing a strategy to commence unique and value adding research in the psychedelic space. This forward-looking information reflects the Company's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to the Company and on assumptions the Company believes are reasonable. These assumptions include but are not limited to the ability of the Company to successfully execute on its plans for the Company and Sairiyo; and the Company's continued response and ability to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic being consistent with, or better than, its ability and response to date.

Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; general capital market conditions and market prices for securities; the actual results of the Company's future operations; competition; changes in legislation affecting the Company; the ability to obtain and maintain required permits and approvals, the timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; lack of qualified, skilled labour or loss of key individuals; risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic including various recommendations, orders and measures of governmental authorities to try to limit the pandemic, including travel restrictions, border closures, non-essential business closures, service disruptions, quarantines, self-isolations, shelters-in-place and social distancing, disruptions to markets, economic activity, financing, supply chains and sales channels, and a deterioration of general economic conditions including a possible national or global recession; and a deterioration of financial markets that could limit the Company's ability to obtain external financing.

The Company's securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulations under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

References:

Bailly, C., 2019. Cepharanthine: An update of its mode of action, pharmacological properties and medical applications. Phytomedicine 62, 152956. Rogosnitzky M, Danks R. Therapeutic potential of the biscoclaurine alkaloid, cepharanthine, for a range of clinical conditions. Pharmacol Rep. 2011;63(2):337-47. doi: 10.1016/s1734-1140(11)70500-x. PMID: 21602589. Rogosnitzky M, Okediji P, Koman I. Cepharanthine: a review of the antiviral potential of a Japanese-approved alopecia drug in COVID-19. Pharmacol Rep. 2020 Dec;72(6):1509-1516. doi: 10.1007/s43440-020-00132-z. Epub 2020 Jul 22. PMID: 32700247; PMCID: PMC7375448.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76508
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
HARTLAND, Wis., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Batteries Plus Bulbs, a national retailer of batteries, specialty light bulbs and phone repair services, has become the first retail partner in Samsung's Independent Service Provider program. The partnership will provide Samsung users access to more locations to receive best-in-class smartphone repair services.

Through the Independent Service Provider program, Batteries Plus Bulbs will provide access to Samsung genuine parts, proprietary repair tools and support materials. Batteries Plus Bulbs technicians will also have access to training specifically designed for repair of Samsung devices. In today's ever-evolving world of smartphones, the program ensures that customers always receive quick, high-quality repairs on their Samsung smartphones from the industry's most skilled and experienced technicians.

Batteries Plus Bulbs technicians are individually certified through the Wireless Industry Service Excellence (WISE) program from CTIA, the wireless industry trade association. The WISE program certifies technicians to comprehensive industry-wide standards that encompass the full range of processes and skills required to conduct repairs. Batteries Plus Bulbs' retail locations are also WISE-certified and audited at the store level. In addition, technicians receive ongoing proprietary training to ensure they're educated on the latest technological advances related to phone repair and can in turn offer their customers the best service in the business.

"We're honored that Samsung  a global leader in smartphone sales  is sharing its genuine parts and proprietary tools and training to arm us with everything we need to provide exceptional repairs in all the local communities each of our franchisees serves," said Scott Williams, CEO of Batteries Plus Bulbs. "To date, we've completed millions of phone repairs, and our stores have remained open throughout the year to help keep our customers connected to their family, friends, employers and schools. We're thrilled to be able to continue keeping Samsung users powered up and look forward to a rollout in over 650 Batteries Plus stores nationwide."

Batteries Plus Bulbs' proven commitment to delivering excellent smartphone repair services has been consistently lauded in positive customer reviews and is what prompted Samsung to name the retailer as its first program partner.

"We are excited to have partnered with Batteries Plus to offer customers additional options when it comes to seeking support for their Samsung devices," said Ramon Gregory, Senior Vice President Samsung Care.

Visit Batteries Plus Bulbs' website to learn more about its cell phone repair services.

About Batteries Plus Bulbs:

Batteries Plus Bulbs, founded in 1988 and headquartered in Hartland, WI, is a leading omni channel retailer of batteries, specialty light bulbs and phone repair services for the direct-to-consumer and commercial channels. The retailer also offers key programming, replacement and cutting services. Through a nationwide network of stores, the company offers a differentiated value proposition of unrivaled product selection, in-stock availability and customer service. Batteries Plus Bulbs is owned by Freeman Spogli, a private equity firm based in Los Angeles and New York City. For additional information, visit www.batteriesplus.com.

Media Contact: Julianne Stevenson, Fishman Public Relations, [email protected] or 224-558-2510

SOURCE Batteries Plus

Related Links

https://batteriesplusfranchise.com/


Delhi Deputy Chief Minister on Tuesday announced the government's plans to introduce a first-of-its-kind virtual model of

The initiative is an outcome of going online over the last year in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

Sisodia, who presented the budget for the year, said the unique experiment would make accessible to students in any part of the country, or even globe.

The has decided to introduce a new category of schools in Delhi, the Virtual Delhi Model School, that is, a school that will not have four walls or a building, but there would be children, teachers, learning, examinations and assessments, and studies shall be completed.

It will be a unique experiment in itself, and will probably be the first virtual school in the world. Work has already begun on the design of this school and it will be my endeavour to ensure that this school is ready and functional by the next session, he said.

Based on the principle of anywhere living, anytime learning, anytime testing, the minister said, the virtual schools will help benefit students residing in any part of the country to learn under Delhi's education model.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called it a dream project.

"We want to create the world's first virtual Delhi Model School. It is a dream project that has been presented in this budget, a classroom without walls, he said.

Talking further about the project, Sisodia said the pandemic has taught us to make the best use of right technology under distress, especially in the field of education.

The launch of the virtual model of education is an outcome of education going online over the last year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our teachers made online teaching-learning a reality, without any prior training. We have to carry forward the lessons we are a witness of the extent to which education is possible with the help of technology, he added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AUSTIN, Texas, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Benchmark Energy, LLC ("Benchmark" or the "Company") announced today that the Company has completed the acquisition of all the oil and gas assets, including approximately 77,000 net acres located in the STACK play within Grant, Garfield and Kingfisher counties of Oklahoma (the "Properties"), from SK Nemaha, LLC and SK Plymouth, LLC (collectively "SK").

The acquired SK assets produced approximately 3,600 net barrels of oil equivalent per day in January 2021, which consisted of approximately 60% oil and NGLs. The acreage is 98% held-by-production. Approximately 87% of the wells will be operated by Benchmark in mature fields with strong cash flow as well as significant development potential from PDNP and PUD opportunities. The Properties also include an integrated gathering and saltwater disposal system, which allows for efficient field management and reduced lease operating expenses.

The deal was funded through a combination of debt and equity. The Company entered into a Note Purchase Agreement with Cibolo Energy Partner, LLC, as Administrative Agent, pursuant to which the Company may borrow up to $45 million to partially fund the acquisition of the SK Properties as well as potential future transactions.

Benchmark's existing owner, McArron Partners, L.P., provided the equity to fund the balance of the SK Properties.

About Benchmark Energy

Benchmark Energy, LLC is an independent oil and natural gas company whose business is to engage in the acquisition and production of conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources focusing on selected plays within the Anadarko Basin of Western Oklahoma.

www.benchmark-energy.com

Craig Fleming, 512-920-0313

Chief Executive Officer

About McArron Partners

McArron Partners, L.P. is the investment arm of the Jones family office. McArron's CEO is Jonny Jones, founder of Jones Energy, who currently serves on the Board of Directors for ETX Energy and is past Chairman of the Texas Oil & Gas Association and U.S Oil & Gas Association. McArron deploys its capital in a mix of global public and private investments. The Jones family has supported energy entrepreneurs for more than five decades.

About Cibolo Energy Partners

Cibolo Energy Partners, LLC is a Houston-based firm focused on investment opportunities in "lower, middle-market" oil and gas companies in North America.

www.ciboloenergy.com

Related Images

image1.png

SOURCE Benchmark Energy, LLC
[March 09, 2021] Cardknox's Online Payment Processing Solutions Now Supports Split Capture Payments for E-Commerce

HOWELL, N.J., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cardknox, the leading developer-friendly payment solution provider, today announced its new Split Capture tool that's been designed to enhance business operations for e-commerce merchants who process payments through Cardknox. With the help of this valuable feature, online businesses that ship out orders in increments can capture the amount of each separate shipment as it goes out. As a standard practice, many e-commerce merchants process an authorization-only transaction at the time of sale in order to place a hold on the cardholder's funds. Then, once the order has shipped out, the merchant will capture the prior authorization-only transaction in order to transfer the funds out of the cardholder's account. While this payment processing method is ideal when the order consists of just one shipment, it is not as suitable for orders that are fulfilled in multiple increments. To address this common pain point for wholesalers and other online retailers, Cardknox has launched its new Split Capture tool. Cardknox clients who use the Cardknox Merchant Portal web application to process payments now have the option to enable Split Capture in order to run multiple captures for a single transaction. By doing so, merchants are able to place a hold on the total transaction amount at the time of sale and then initiate funding as each shipment goes out. As a result they'll enjoy more control over their payment processing flow, and they'll be able to maintain more organized records in which payments adequately reflect shipments.



In addition to rolling out Split Capture within the Cardknox Merchant Portal, Cardknox has added Split Capture to its API so that independent software vendors and developers can set up clients with Split Capture via a Cardknox gateway integration. "We're excited to add Split Capture to our extensive lineup of e-commerce features," says Mark Paley, VP of Sales at Cardknox. "Cardknox strives to develop payment solutions that cater to the unique needs of merchants, and for e-commerce businesses in particular, we know that having a streamlined order fulfillment and invoicing process is of tremendous value."

To learn more about Cardknox's e-commerce solutions preferred by merchants and ISVs alike, visit www.cardknox.com/ecommerce-payments . About Cardknox Cardknox is an omnichannel payment gateway that can be seamlessly integrated with POS systems, ERP software, e-commerce, and mobile platforms. Offering flexible payment solutions and innovative technology to qualify transactions for the lowest interchange rates, Cardknox serves thousands of partners and customers across every major industry throughout the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. For more information, visit www.cardknox.com . Media Contact:

Chaya Poltorak

Director of Marketing and Product

304694@email4pr.com

(844) 227-3566 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cardknoxs-online-payment-processing-solutions-now-supports-split-capture-payments-for-e-commerce-301243216.html SOURCE Cardknox

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The ambitious project proposed by a University of Arizona team aims to preserve humankind - and animal-kind, plant-kind and fungi-kind - in the event of a global crisis

University of Arizona researcher Jekan Thanga is taking scientific inspiration from an unlikely source: the biblical tale of Noah's Ark. Rather than two of every animal, however, his solar-powered ark on the moon would store cryogenically frozen seed, spore, sperm and egg samples from 6.7 million Earth species.

Thanga and a group of his undergraduate and graduate students outline the lunar ark concept, which they call a "modern global insurance policy," in a paper presented over the weekend during the IEEE Aerospace Conference.

"Earth is naturally a volatile environment," said Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the UArizona College of Engineering. "As humans, we had a close call about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, aligns with an estimated drop in human diversity. Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet."

Climate change, he added, is another concern: If sea levels continue to rise, many dry places will go underwater - including the Svalbard Seedbank, a structure in Norway that holds hundreds of thousands of seed samples to protect against accidental loss of biodiversity. Thanga's team believes storing samples on another celestial body reduces the risk of biodiversity being lost if one event were to cause total annihilation of Earth.

Totally Tubular

Scientists discovered a network of about 200 lava tubes just beneath the moon's surface in 2013. These structures formed billions of years ago, when streams of lava melted their way through soft rock underground, forming underground caverns. On Earth, lava tubes are often similar in size to subway tunnels, and can be eroded by earthquakes, plate tectonics and other natural processes. This network of lunar lava tubes are about 100 meters in diameter. Untouched for an estimated 3 billion to 4 billion years, they could provide shelter from solar radiation, micrometeorites and surface temperature changes.

The idea of developing a lunar base, or human settlement on the moon, has been around for hundreds of years, and the lava tube discovery renewed the space community's enthusiasm for the concept. But the moon isn't exactly a hospitable environment where humans can spend extended periods. There isn't water or breathable air, and it's about minus 25 degrees Celsius, or minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It's also not a very eventful place.

On the other hand, those same features make it a great place to store samples that need to stay very cold and undisturbed for hundreds of years at a time.

Building a lunar ark is no small undertaking, but, based on some "quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations," Thanga said it's not as overwhelming as it may sound. Transporting about 50 samples from each of 6.7 million species would require about 250 rocket launches. It took 40 rocket launches to build the International Space Station.

"It's not crazy big," Thanga said. "We were a little bit surprised about that."

Cryogenics and Quantum Levitation

The mission concept builds on another project Thanga and his group previously proposed, in which miniature flying and hopping robots called SphereX enter a lava tube in teams. There, they would collect samples of regolith, or dust and loose rock, and gather information about the layout, temperature and makeup of the lava tubes. This information could inform the construction of the lunar base.

The team's model for the underground ark includes a set of solar panels on the moon's surface that would provide electricity. Two or more elevator shafts would lead down into the facility, where petri dishes would be housed in a series of cryogenic preservation modules. An additional goods elevator shaft would be used to transport construction material so that the base can be expanded inside the lava-tubes.

To be cryopreserved, the seeds must be cooled to minus 180 C (minus 292 F) and the stem cells kept at minus 196 C (minus 320 F). As a reference for just how cold this is, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine must be stored at minus 70 C, or minus 94 F. The fact that the lava tubes are so cold, and the samples must be even colder, means there's a risk the metal parts of the base could freeze, jam or even cold-weld together. On Earth, commercial airlines stop working when ground temperatures reach minus 45 to minus 50 C (minus 49 to minus 58 F).

However, there's a way to take advantage of the extreme temperatures by using an otherworldly phenomenon called quantum levitation. In this process, a cryo-cooled superconductor material - or a material that transfers energy without losing any heat, like a traditional cable does - floats above a powerful magnet. The two pieces are locked together at a fixed distance, so wherever the magnet goes, the superconductor follows.

"It's like they're locked in place by strings, but invisible strings," Thanga said. "When you get to cryogenic temperatures, strange things happen. Some of it just looks like magic but is based on tried and laboratory-tested physics principles at the edge of our understanding."

The team's ark design uses this phenomenon to make the shelves of samples float above metal surfaces and have robots navigate through the facility above magnetic tracks.

There is much more research to be done on how to build and operate the ark, from investigating how the preserved seeds might be affected by a lack of gravity to fleshing out a plan for base communications with Earth.

"What amazes me about projects like this is that they make me feel like we are getting closer to becoming a space civilization, and to a not-very-distant future where humankind will have bases on the moon and Mars," said Alvaro Diaz-Flores Caminero, a UArizona doctoral student leading the thermal analysis for the project. "Multidisciplinary projects are hard due to their complexity, but I think the same complexity is what makes them beautiful."

###
Wyoming Republicans this week are considering a change to state election law that may make it harder for one of their own  Representative Liz Cheney  to win re-election next year.

The Wyoming Senate is set to hold a committee vote on Thursday on legislation that would require runoff contests after a primary election if no candidate wins a majority  a prospect that could doom Ms. Cheney by forcing her into a one-on-one contest with an opponent loyal to former President Donald J. Trump.

Ms. Cheney, who in January became the face of internal Republican opposition to Mr. Trump when she released a scathing statement announcing her vote to impeach him, has faced a significant backlash in her home state. Already, the Wyoming Republican Party has censured her, and there are multiple Republican candidates running against her, with Trump allies coming to the state to rally her opposition.

Donald Trump Jr., the former presidents eldest son, has since Monday posted two messages on Twitter in support of the legislation, saying lawmakers who oppose it are turning their back on my father and the entire America First movement. One of his tweets included contact information for state senators on the committee considering the proposal, which he claimed allies of Ms. Cheney were vying to thwart.
The company received significant support from the government during the year and as a result has decided not to pay a final dividend

LC ( ) posted weaker full-year results as the automotive retailer was hit by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Underlying pretax profitx fell 5.4% to 20.9mln. Revenue dipped 5.3% to 2.2bn, although like-for-like revenue dropped 13.5% to 1.9bn.

"The unprecedented political, economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 challenged governments, businesses and individuals across the world," said chief executive Daksh Gupta.

The company, which mainly sells and repairs new and used vehicles, was forced to close its physical retail business for prolonged periods of the year due to the pandemic.

"Whilst this clearly affected trading during those periods, we recognise and are grateful for, the fact that our sector was not as negatively impacted as others," said chairman Professor Richard Parry-Jones.

"The impact of COVID-19 continues to dominate the social and economic environment in 2021. Our experience of meeting these challenges during the year, coupled with the demonstrable resilience and flexibility of our business model, leads to our belief in being able to navigate through the headwinds that may arise in the short term," he added.

The company said it had received significant support from the UK government during the year and as a result has decided not to pay a final dividend for the year. It was forced to cancel a previously announced final dividend for 2019 and did not declare an interim dividend for 2020 as a result of COVID-19.

"The board continues to believe this was the right action to take to maximise the group's financial resilience in the face of an extremely unpredictable trading environment," said Parry-Jones.

The board and management have agreed to suspend executive management bonuses until dividend payments can be restored.
Time-Shifting Supply

Renewables Attractive

(TNS)  Sometime in May, two 53-foot-long storage containers, each fitted with roughly 950 lithium-ion batteries, are scheduled to be trucked to an industrial park in Rumford, Maine.The batteries for this $5 million project will be charged at night with cheaper electricity, when demand in New England is low. The next day, when homeowners turn on appliances and business ramps up, the region's grid operators in Massachusetts can remotely dispatch those batteries and send enough power flowing to run 4,000 or so homes for up to two hours.By calling on giant battery banks when needed, operators at ISO New England can reduce the use of more costly and pollution-emitting fossil fuel generators, soak up excess output from a fast-growing fleet of solar and wind projects, and help keep the region's electric system stable and reliable.At Rumford, and at a similar 4.99-megawatt project in Madison, the project's owner earns money by selling the stored energy when it's most advantageous. The company, New England Battery Storage of Boston, is planning a comparable project in Sanford and another one twice as large in South Portland.Maine policymakers want to encourage such projects as another tool to help meet the state's ambitious climate goals. On Tuesday, the legislative committee that handles energy and utility matters is scheduled to hear a bill meant to advance energy storage in the state. It would set a target of installing 100 megawatts by 2025.But based on recent developments, that goal may be overtaken by market forces.It was notable news in energy circles last month when Plus Power, a San Francisco-based battery plant builder, won two bids at ISO New England, which operates the region's electric grid, to build giant battery storage projects. One of them would be located in Gorham. Rated at 175 megawatts, it would become the largest storage project in the region if and when it comes online as scheduled in 2024.The Plus Power projects also are noteworthy because the grid operator selected them as part of an annual auction program meant to assure that the region has enough generating capacity three years from now at the lowest prices. Under new rules, ISO New England treats giant batteries as it would a power plant. In the most recent auction, nearly 600 megawatts of energy storage capacity was approved.All this activity is heartening to Maine Sen. Eloise Vitelli, D- Arrowsic.Vitelli headed up a legislative study group on energy storage in 2019. After hearing from developers and other stakeholders, the group recommended a modest, non-binding goal of 100 megawatts of new capacity by 2025.Then the pandemic hit, and the bill languished until this week. Now Vitelli said she's wondering if the state should aim higher."That was a year ago, and things are moving very fast in this industry," she said. "We were being modest. I'd be more than open to amending the legislation to try to take advantage of the current situation."The energy storage boom is set to accelerate nationwide, according to a new widely cited report by global energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. It noted that more battery storage facilities became operational in 2020 than in the previous six years combined. Most were large-scale installations by utility companies.Not included were thousands of hard-to-count home-sized systems being bought by people with rooftop solar systems. They use the batteries to take advantage of rate-reduction programs at some utilities and as a buffer against storm-related blackouts.Maine's energy storage landscape has changed drastically over the past few years.In 2016, NextEra Energy Resources installed a 16-megawatt battery at its Wyman Station oil-fired power plant in Yarmouth. It was the largest in New England at the time and helps the grid operator regulate the daily changes in supply and demand.Before that, a project roughly one-fifth the size of Wyman's was installed in Boothbay. It's part of a pilot program for storage to meet the need for power in the area without building a new transmission line.Most recently, Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners, a Canadian company that operates hydroelectric dams in Maine, said it's planning a 20-megawatt battery plant in the Millinocket area. Data from the recent ISO New England auction shows that a project located on the West Branch of the Penobscot River was approved for 20 megawatts of capacity. A Brookfield executive said the economics were favorable because the dams already had the needed power connections to get on the grid.In addition to Rumford, New England Battery Storage has a second project operating in Madison rated at 1.5 megawatts. That one helps lower the cost of peak-demand power for the local municipal electric company.One attribute driving the move to battery storage is that power can be dispatched within milliseconds, according to Jeff Perry, the company's president and chief executive. That creates more flexibility for grid operators."The value of batteries is getting the power at the right time," he said.Specifically, grid operators use scheduled pricing and dispatch algorithm tools that economically suggest which power resources should charge and/or discharge to meet the supply-and-demand balance at a given moment.Maine is a good place to site storage projects, Perry said. It has several locations where former makers of forest products have shut down, leaving behind strong electrical infrastructure. Perry said he has found it easy to permit battery projects, which have a relatively small footprint. And contrary to the experience of some large solar developers, he said he hasn't had trouble connecting to Central Maine Power's distribution system."It's a pretty friendly environment for business," Perry said about Maine.Maine also is attractive for battery storage because of its geographical position relative to a growing fleet of solar and wind projects. That's what attracted Plus Power, which is developing its Gorham project as Energy Storage Resources LLC.A company spokeswoman declined last week to discuss project details with the. She said the company had just received approval from ISO New England and was working on permitting and design.But Polly Shaw, Plus Power's communications head, did confirm reports in industry media that locating between large wind farms in northern and eastern Maine and the Boston area's electricity demand was key. The big battery plant will be able to relieve power constraints on the network better than gas-fired generation plants, which aren't as nimble as batteries, take longer to build and can face opposition.Plus Power's second big battery is slated for Carver, Massachusetts, near Cape Cod. That's not far from the landing point for cables from pending offshore wind projects in Massachusetts. The batteries could charge overnight on less-expensive wind power, then discharge during hours of peak demand and higher prices.Energy planners in Maine anticipate similar large batteries could someday be sited at Wyman Station and the former Maine Yankee nuclear plant property, to soak up power from floating offshore wind farms there.Pairing renewable power generation with storage increases the value of battery plants, according to a recent market assessment done for the Maine Governor's Energy Office. That combination will be especially important in the winter, as Maine shifts more home and business heating to heat pumps, part of the process to phase out oil and gas and electrify the state's economy."Pairing solar with storage improves the combined generation profile of these hybrid resources, enabling them to generate during evening peak demand, increasing their value to the system," the reported noted.Dan Burgess, who heads the governor's energy office, said the assessment also found that adding storage to solar projects greatly increased the overall capacity of solar energy. Burgess noted that several solar projects waiting for interconnection agreements with CMP and Versant Power also feature storage, adding up to 250 megawatts. Not all those projects will get built, and not all will keep batteries in the mix."But it is a sign of interest," Burgess said.Burgess said the administration of Gov. Janet Mills may offer its own take on the current storage bill, but no decision had been made public yet. He said he looked forward to the bill's hearing and fresh input from developers and stakeholders."The world is changing pretty quickly," he said, referring to the Plus Power proposal. "A few weeks ago, we didn't have a 175-megawatt project."
A man has been arrested in Cork in relation to fraudulent claiming of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

Gardai seconded to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) assisted by GNECB personnel have today arrested a man, aged 35 years, in the Midleton area of Cork.

The arrest was made in relation to an ongoing investigation into the fraudulent claiming of the PUP payment.

The man is currently detained at Cobh Garda Station under the provisions of Section 50 Criminal Justice Act 2007 and he can be detained for up to seven days.

This is the second arrest as part of this investigation.

To date, 73 people have been identified as having had their details fraudulently obtained in order to claim the payment.

All 73, received an email under the pretence that it was from the Courts Service Ireland looking for them to do jury duty.

This email sought personal information, which included their PPSN, name, address, date of birth and mothers maiden name.

These details were then used to apply online and claim the Covid payment of 350 per person, weekly. An estimated 187,000 was paid out in relation to the 73 people.

Investigations are ongoing.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
On his return flight from Iraq on 8 March, Pope Francis told reporters he has plans to visit Budapest in September to celebrate the closing Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress.

By Robin Gomes

We are pleased to learn that the Holy Father has announced his decision to come to Budapest for the closing Mass of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress, the Hungarian Catholic Bishops Conference (HCBC) said in a brief statement on Monday. We hope that his visit will be a great encouragement and spiritual reinforcement for all of us and for the future participants of the Eucharistic Congress, said the statement by the Primate of Hungary, Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, and Bishop Andras Veres of Gyor, HCBC president.

The International Eucharistic Congress is scheduled from 5 to 12 September, in Budapest.

Papal visit to Budapest, possibly Slovakia

The Hungarian bishops statement was in response to the announcement of the visit by Pope Francis himself, during a press conference to journalists on board the return flight from his apostolic journey to Iraq on Monday. The Pope was responding to a question about the possibility of returning to his native Argentina, now that he will soon complete 8 years of his pontificate without a trip to his homeland. I don't know if the trip will come true or not, he said, admitting that his Iraq trip was much more tiring than the others. Well see, the 84-year pontiff said, now I will have to go to Hungary for the final Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress. However, he clarified, it is not a visit to the country but only for the Mass.

Pope Francis further indicated the possibility of a visit to neighbouring Slovakia. Budapest is a two-hour drive from Bratislava, why not make a visit to Slovakia? the Pope said. The Slovak bishops have not commented on the possible papal visit as yet.

The Pope explained that he does not make decisions on his foreign visits suddenly. It a long process after the initial idea of a possible visit. The Pope discusses it with his advisors, listening to them attentively, reflects and prays a lot over it. Then the decision comes from inside, from the gut, almost spontaneously, but like a ripe fruit, the Pope said. It's a long journey. Some decisions are difficult, others are easier he said.

International Eucharistic Congress



The 52nd International Eucharistic Congress in Budapest was initially scheduled for September 2020. Due to the pandemic, the Vaticans Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses and the Hungarian bishops decided to postpone it to this year.

A Eucharistic Congress is a gathering of clergy, religious and lay faithful for the purpose of celebrating and glorifying the Holy Eucharist and of seeking the best means to spread its knowledge and love throughout the world. The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is one of the principal dogmas of the Catholic faith and is therefore of paramount importance as the most precious treasure that Christ has left to His Church. Hence, the Eucharist is the centre of Catholic worship and the source of Christian piety.

As such, Eucharistic Congresses are organized at the international, national, regional of diocesan levels. The International Eucharistic Congress is convoked by the Pope and decides on a venue proposed by a bishop or by or by a bishops conference.

International Eucharistic Congresses have been held around the world since the first one in Lille, France in 1881. This is the second time that it is being held in Hungary. Budapest hosted it last time in 1938.
Met Eireann has issued a weather warning as a deep low-pressure system tracks towards Ireland

A Status Yellow Wind Warning has been issued for Galway, Clare, Limerick, Kerry, Cork, Waterford and Wexford.

Met Eireann is warning that on Wednesday afternoon, through Wednesday night, southwest to west winds will reach mean wind speeds of 50 to 65 km/h, with gusts ranging 80 to 110km/h, higher in exposed locations.

Met Eireann meteorologist, Paul Downes, said: Conditions will turn widely unsettled from Tuesday with spells of wet and windy weather expected through the rest of the week.

Although Tuesday will start dry, rain and strong winds will push east across the country from tomorrow afternoon, becoming widespread by early evening. Further wet and very windy weather is expected on Wednesday as a deep low-pressure system tracks to the northwest of Ireland  bringing very strong south-westerly winds and spells of heavy rain through Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night.

Meteorologist Paul Downes continued, during the early hours of Thursday this low-pressure system will clear away from Ireland, introducing a colder and more unstable airmass. However, it will remain very windy into the weekend along with blustery showers, these possibly turning wintry over high ground.

The weather forecast for Ireland for Tuesday from Met Eireann is for a cloudy day with rain moving in from the Atlantic to affect west Munster, Connacht and west Ulster this morning. Rain will extend eastwards to remaining counties this afternoon. Southerly winds increasing strong during the afternoon, reaching near gale force along coasts. Highest temperatures of 8 to 11 degrees.

Continuing wet and windy for the early parts of tonight. Rain will clear eastwards overnight with a few showers following and limited clear spells. Strong southerly winds will ease light to moderate and veer westerly in the clearance of the rain. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 5 degrees, coldest in the north and northwest later in the night.

The weather will be wet and windy on Wednesday. Outbreaks of rain will quickly return to the west early in the morning, becoming widespread by midday with some heavy falls. Frequent heavy showers will follow later in the afternoon with occasional brighter breaks in the cloud. Strong and gusty southwest winds will develop during the afternoon, reaching near gale force in southern and western coastal counties. Highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees.

Very windy on Wednesday night, mainly across Munster and parts of Connacht and Leinster. Widespread showers and longer spells of rain with some heavy falls. Southwest winds will be strong to near gale force and gusty with some strong gusts in the southwest for a time. Lowest temperatures of 3 to 6 degrees. Winds will moderate overnight becoming fresh and gusty and westerly.

The weather forecast for Ireland for Thursday from Met Eireann is for the weather to remain quite windy with frequent blustery showers and sunny spells. Showers will be squally and heavy, some with hail and thunder. Wintry falls possible on hills. Highest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees with fresh and gusty westerly winds.

Heavy showers continuing overnight on Thursday affecting most areas with hail and thunder possible, mixed with clear spells. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 5 degrees with fresh and gusty southwest winds.

Turning unsettled this week with areas of low pressure in the Atlantic moving towards Ireland bringing spells of wet and windy weather.



Keep and eye on our forecast https://t.co/RxE2EXt5Fq pic.twitter.com/OK9ypl6RY6  Met Eireann (@MetEireann) March 9, 2021

Breezy with further showers on Friday, some showers will be heavy. Bright or sunny spells in the morning, becoming cloudier during the day. Highest temperatures of 6 to 9 degrees with moderate to fresh and gusty southwest breezes.

A spell of rain will move in from the west early on Friday night becoming windy again also. Rain will clear overnight followed by frequent showers. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 4 degrees with fresh to strong southwest winds, strongest in the southwest.

The current weather forecast for Ireland for Saturday from Met Eireann is for a day of showers with occasional bright spells in a fresh westerly breeze, risk of showers being heavy, possibly wintry. Highest temperatures of 5 to 7 degrees. Becoming drier overnight and cold, with lowest temperatures in the low single digits bringing a risk of frost to some parts.

According to Met Eireann, current indications suggest that it will remain breezy on Sunday with further rainfall, although it will be less cold with highest temperatures of 9 to 12 degrees during the day and no risk of frost at night.
A further 30 deaths and 311 new Covid-19 cases were announced today.

It brings the total number of deaths to 4,452 and the total number of confirmed cases to 223,957.

Validation of data at the Health Protection Surveillance Centre has resulted in the denotification of five confirmed cases, this adjustment is reflected in the total figure.

12 deaths occurred in March, 13 people died in February, four in January and the date of one death is under investigation.

Numbers in hospital with the illness now stand at 397, with 95 people in ICU. There were 24 people hospitalised in the past 24 hours.

Of the cases notified today:

159 are men / 149 are women

64% are under 45 years of age

The median age is 34 years old

135 are in Dublin, 29 in Kildare, 21 in Cork, 18 in Limerick, 14 in Louth and the remaining 94 cases are spread across 16 other counties

As of March 6, 523,069 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:

373,149 people have received their first dose

149,920 people have received their second dose

Expand Close Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus

Read More

Meanwhile, Taoiseach Micheal Martin has been told by Boris Johnson that the UK is not in a position to give surplus Covid-19 vaccines to Ireland.

Mr Martin said that the Prime Ministers first priority is to vaccinate people living in the UK.

Ireland is struggling to meet its vaccine targets following a number of delivery issues.

These are affecting the Governments vaccine programme, with question marks over its plan to roll out one million vaccines in April.
Conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk has attacked 'unbelievably ungrateful' Meghan Markle, accusing her of setting out to tarnish her in-laws and inventing the shocking story of how a senior member of the Royal family asked about the color of her son Archie's skin.

Kirk, 27, delivered his scathing verdict on Markle's remarks on his radio show on Monday.

He was unimpressed with Markle, who he described as a 'self-indulgent tradition-destroying leftist', and her husband Prince Harry, who was labeled 'a metrosexual beta male really lacking in almost all testosterone'.

And he saw her criticism of the Royal family as deeply ungrateful.

Conservative radio host Kirk, 27, used his show on Monday to attack the Duke and Duchess

Charlie Kirk says Meghan Markle is "making it up like Jussie Smollett" and calls Prince Harry a "metrosexual beta male" pic.twitter.com/0qyVetmwrs  Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 8, 2021

Oprah Winfrey's interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex aired on Sunday in the U.S.

'You are now allowing your feels to dictate an accusation towards a family that largely embraced you,' said Kirk.

'What an unbelievably ungrateful person you are.

'No gratitude. Perfect leftist. No gratitude.'

Kirk then showed a clip of Piers Morgan, speaking on Fox News on Monday morning and discussing the couple's bombshell claim that someone within the family asked about the color of baby Archie's skin.

Morgan said that the pair were wrong not to specify who in the family made the remark, arguing that it left the entire family open to accusations of racism.

He accused Markle of inventing the story, in the same way that actor Jussie Smollett staged a racial attack on himself in January 2019 in Chicago, because he was unhappy with his salary and wanted to promote his career.

Kirk was bruising in his criticism of the couple, accusing her of lying about conversations

Markle, 39, and her British husband spoke to Winfrey from their $14 million Californian mansion

Kirk said: 'I don't think anyone said it.

'I think she's making it up, like Jussie Smollett.

'I think somebody said something, completely different, in a different category, and she is using it now to go make people feel sorry for her.'

A hunt is now on to find who uttered the racist remark about the unborn child.

Prince Philip was cleared, with Oprah saying Harry had confirmed the comment was not made by the Duke of Edinburgh or the Queen.

Asked about the alleged comment at his COVID press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: 'The best thing I can say is that I've always had the highest admiration for the Queen and the unifying role she plays.

'And as for all other matters to do with the royal family I've spent a long time now not commenting on royal family matters and I don't intend to today.'

Amid the massive fallout, the couple's friend Misan Harriman - who took the photograph released to announce Meghan's second pregnancy - shared a previously unreleased image

Harry refused to reveal the person's identity on Sunday night as did Meghan and claimed they wanted to protect whoever it was - leaving the rest of the family open to suspicion.

Asked by Oprah if the couple left the UK because of racism, Harry replied: 'It was a large part of it.'

Speaking on CBS on Monday, Oprah said she was 'surprised' the Sussexes revealed details of an alleged conversation with a member of the royal family who expressed 'concern' before he was born about how dark their son Archie's skin tone might be.

The talk show host also said she was taken aback by Meghan's disclosures about her mental health, and about Harry's revelation at feeling 'trapped', during their explosive interview.

Asked if she was surprised that the conversation about skin tone happened or that they were revealing it, Oprah replied: 'I was surprised they were telling me about it.

'Even on the tape you can hear me go 'Whoa, I cannot believe you are saying this right now'.'

Asked how the couple is feeling after the interview, Winfrey said: 'I haven't really spoken to them since the interview because we are in different time zones.'
Visual sensation begins at the retina, which is the neural tissue located at the back of eyeballs. It has been known that the retina detects light using photoreceptors which are light-sensitive nerve cells.In case of retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, those light sensing neurons are gradually damaged, leading to a profound vision loss. At this moment, no cure is available for the abovementioned ailments. But, microelectronic retinal prostheses can create artificial vision by electrically stimulating remaining retinal neurons although the prosthetic vision is still far removed from normal vision.

To further improve the quality of prosthetic artificial vision, Dr. Maesoon Im's group of the Brain Science Institute at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) applied computational neuroscience and information theory to neural signals of the retina. The retina, which has remarkably complex neural circuits, is known to compress visual neural signals. For example, the retina converts light into neural signals using over 100 million photoreceptor cells. Then, the vision is formed at the brain using visual information that is conveyed from over 1 million retinal ganglion cells. The KIST research team revealed that high signal heterogeneity from different retinal ganglion cells is a key element for efficient transmission of visual information. However, random signal patterns that maximize the heterogeneity are not used; it is thought to be due to some level of redundancy for correcting any potential error during the information transmission from the retina to the brain. These findings have been recently published in the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. This study is expected to be of high practical value in the field of prosthetic vision.

The KIST research team applied computational neuroscience and information theory to neural signals recorded from rabbit retinal neurons in order to quantify the transmission of visual information. At the same time, they observed that heterogeneity is slightly reduced, and some redundancy is allowed in order to prevent errors in the process of information transmission.

The KIST team compared neural signals arising in retinal ganglion cells of the rabbit retinas in response to light and electric stimulations, each representing neural responses of the healthy retina and the diseased retina activated by reitnal prostheses, respectively. Among the properties of neural signals, the researchers focused specifically on their heterogeneity, and found that cell-to-cell neural signal heterogeneity is altered by electric stimulation in some type of retinal ganglion cells, which are output neurons of the retina. This suggest that neural information of artificial vision is different across retinal ganglion cell types which are channels of retinal broadcasting to the brain. Particularly, in some cell types, neural signals arising in diverse neurons were highly similar in response to electric stimulation, which were much different from their heterogeneous responses to normal visual stimulation. This reduction in neural signal diversity leads to a severe decrease in the amount of transmitted information for artificial vision which may cause difficulties interpreting the artificially-delivered visual information by the prosthetic users.

KIST's Dr. Joon Ho Kang explained, "This means that it is difficult to successfully replace highly complex visual information simply by stimulating neurons. Probably, microelectronic retinal implants need to produce unique neural signals in different retinal neurons for high heterogeneity of whole retinal neural signals." Last year, in experiments using mice that have progressive retinal degeneration, Dr. Im's group demonstrated that the consistency of the neural signals transmitted by individual retinal ganglion cells is gradually reduced as the disease advances. The neural signal consistency is belived to be important for stable visual percepts. Dr. Im stated, "Combined with our last year's findings regarding reduced consistency in the degenerate retinas, it seems that near-normal artificial vision may be achieved if different retinal ganglion cells consistently transmit diverse neural signals." Further clarifying the significance of the study, he continued, "This study demonstrates that, in order to control brain function in prosthetic vision and other various applications, it is insufficient to simply create any neural signals. Rather, given the remarkable complexity of neural networks, we need to develop more efficient stimulation strategies that would reproduce more sophisticated features of neural signals such as neuron-to-neuron signal heterogeneity."

###

This study was conducted as a part of KIST Institutional Research program and the Young Researcher Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT).
SHINee Onew, GOT7 Youngjae, DAY6 Wonpil, and Lovelyz Kei have been cast in an upcoming musical titled "The Sun's Song" or "Song of the Sun."

SHINee Onew, GOT7 Youngjae, DAY6 Wonpil, & Lovelyz Kei Will Be Starring in "The Sun's Song"

"The Sun's Song" (also known as "Midnight Sun") is a romance musical that tells the story of Hae Na and Ha Ram who meet each other and sing the brightest song of the sun together. This musical started as a film in Hong Kong that premiered in 1993. The movie was then remade into a Japanese film, drama, and novel.

The story continuously received support from all over the world, and so it was later produced into a Hollywood movie titled "Midnight Sun." Moreover, the musical was first performed in Korea back in 2010 at Sejong Center, and it will now be improved through a joined effort with excellent staff members.

On Tuesday, March 9, the first casting lineup for the romance musical "The Sun's Song" has been revealed via SHINSWAVE Twitter, and among the cast members are four K-pop idols, namely Lovelyz Kei, GOT7 Youngjae, DAY6 Wonpil, and SHINee Onew. These K-pop artists have been chosen to play the main roles in the musical.

ALSO READ: DAY6 is Getting Ready for their First Comeback as Full Group

What are the Roles of SHINee Onew, GOT7 Youngjae, DAY6 Wonpil, & Lovelyz Kei in the Musical?

In particular, Onew, Youngjae, and Wonpil, as well as the musical actor Jo Hoon, will be playing Ha Ram, a boy who is described to be as dazzling as the midday sun. Each of these actors will portray the refreshing energy of the happiest moment in youth with their individual charms.

Meanwhile, Lovelyz Kei, together with Lee Ah Jin and Kang Hye In, will be taking on the role of Hae Na, the girl who radiates like the starlight. These actresses will showcase their powerful voices as they represent the character's fresh personality. Kim Joo Ho and Jung Ui Wook will be playing Hae Na's father Seo Joon Woo.

SHINSWAVE Drops Teaser Poster and More Details for Musical "The Sun's Song"

Apart from the first casting lineup of the romance musical, SHINSWAVE, the global content production company, also revealed the teaser poster. The image presents a bright sky with the setting sun shining behind a surfing board and guitar that are placed on the beach. These objects are said to symbolize the main characters, Hae Na and Ha Ram.

Alongside the teaser poster is the date and time, as well as the venue, of the musical "The Sun's Song." It will be performed starting on May 1 until July 25 at the Kwanglim Arts Center. Tickets will be available for purchase starting March 12.

Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, SHINSWAVE, which develops and produces musicals in Korea and exports them overseas, will broadcast all original musical performances this year live online. They also plan to expand the platform so that viewers can watch the performances anytime and anywhere.

Are you excited to see SHINee Onew, DAY6 Wonpil, GOT7 Youngjae, and Lovelyz Kei in one stage?

For more news updates about other K-Pop news, always keep your tabs open here at Kpopstarz.

Owned by Kpopstarz

Written by Mhaliya Scott
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 12:51:23|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A little girl plays in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, the United States, March 8, 2021. As of March 2, San Francisco has met the criteria based on its COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and other health metrics, to advance from the purple tier to the less restrictive red tier on the State's Blueprint for a Safer Economy. This action allows San Francisco to reopen and expand some indoor activities such as dining, museums, movie theaters, and fitness on a limited basis. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
ADVERTISEMENT

The father of one of the abducted Jangebe schoolgirls, who himself had been in captivity, regained his freedom on Monday night, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

Iliya Gwaram, who was brought to Government House, Gusau around 9 p.m. on Monday, said he told his daughter not to show he knew him, while in the den of their abductors.

Mr Gwaram, rescued along with nine other victims, including nursing mothers and three toddlers, was driven in a heavily guarded motorcade.

He said: I have been in captivity with these other people for more than three months when on that Friday morning, l saw the schoolgirls being brought into where we were camped by our abductors.

At first, l didnt know who they were or where they were coming from, until l saw the face of my scared daughter looking at me.

I quickly told some of the girls who were brought along with her and sat near me to tell my child not to show any indication that she even knew me.

The girls were brave enough and they kept our little secret up to the last day of their four days stay with us.

l never cried in the whole of my life like l cried the day the girls were taken back because l felt it was the last time l would see my daughter.

Fortunately and unknown to me, my daughter informed Governor Matawalle of our whereabouts and the poor health conditions we were, which led to our freedom today as facilitated by the governor and his security people, he said.

On whether money was given to secure their freedom, Mr Gwaram said he did not know as all that mattered to them was to return to their homes.

Look at those two women that were rescued along with me, two million naira was said to have been raised by their relatives to give to the bandits more than two months ago.

But the money could not be traced as it was suspected that it was a different gang that intercepted the man bringing the money and took it from him, he said.

Mr Gwaram further told NAN that his daughter would continue with her education.

If she wasnt educated, she would have exposed me when she saw me and that would have put the two of us in danger.

I thank God for that and l will continue to pray that such a thing never happens to even my worst enemy, Mr Gwaram said.

NAN recalls that 279 of the Jangebe schoolgirls, abducted by gunmen from their school on March 2, were released four days later after reported negotiations between the bandits and state government agents, security men and some repentant bandits.

(NAN)
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 16 immigrants while conducting a train inspection near Hebbronville, authorities said.

Late Friday, agents conducting an inspection on an eastbound train near Hebbronville detained 16 individuals who were hiding inside a storage container. Agents said the seal from the storage containers door had been broken so the individuals could hide inside.

The individuals allegedly used a plastic strap to hold the door closed from the inside. All were determined to be immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico who had crossed the border illegally.

This dangerous method of illegal entry into the United States can result in serious injury or death. The Laredo Sector Border Patrol continues to warn against the dangers of people crossing illegally into the United States through dangerous and hazardous means, Border Patrol said in a statement.

To report suspicious activity such as human or drug smuggling, download the USBP Laredo Sector app or contact the Laredo Sector Border Patrol toll free at 1-800-343-1994.
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact the Parsons Sun office at (620) 421-2000 if you have any questions
With stalwarts like Kissin In The Sand, Shartin N, and Caviart Ally now retired, the open pacing mares division is search of new faces at the top, and a group of 18 will look to take a step forward in Friday's first leg of the Blue Chip Matchmaker Series at Yonkers Raceway.

The first Grand Circuit event of 2021, the Blue Chip Matchmaker will start with three $35,000 splits, slated as races two, three, and five on Friday's 10-race program in Westchester.

New Zealand import My Ruebe Star (Jordan Stratton/Shane Tritton) has won three editions of the local Fillies and Mares Open since coming to the United States, and she has the pole position in Friday's first flight. She will meet up with the likes of fellow Kiwi Bettors Heart (post five, Dexter Dunn/Nifty Norman), who was victorious in an the Open that took place at Yonkers on December 10 of last year, and Machnhope (post three, Andrew McCarthy/Noel Daley), a regular at the top level at tracks across the Northeast. Machnhope prepped for the Blue Chip Matchmaker with a 1:52 win at the Meadowlands last Friday.

Friday's opening group also includes Caviart Cherie (post two, Matt Kakaley/Nick Devita), who raced in the Blue Chip Matchmaker in 2019, Dbldelitebrigade N (post four, Jason Bartlett/Tom Fanning), who has picked up checks in her three starts in the Open over the last couple of months, and Alii Nui (post six, Stratton also listed for trainer Erv Miller).

Alexa Skye (post four, Todd McCarthy/Jeff Cullipher), who has a record of 3-2-0 from five starts this year, tops the second section. Alexa Skye scored in the Open at Yonkers on January 14 and has been second in two subsequent tries over the half-mile oval. Seaswift Joy N won three legs and was fifth from post eight in the final in the Blue Chip Matchmaker Series in 2019, and she will take another shot in the event this season, starting from post one for Andrew McCarthy and trainer Tony Alagna. The Stratton/Tritton combo have another entrant in this group with Maczaffair N (post six), and the connections behind Shartin N - owner Rich Poillucci, trainer Jim King Jr., and driver Tim Tetrick - have a new shooter in Keep Rockin A (post three). Keep Rockin A, who will be making her U.S. debut, was Group 1 and Group 2 placed in her native country.

Also competing will be Monica Gallagher (post two, Austin Siegelman/Chris Height), who scored in a non-winners $20,000 last five race on March 4 at Yonkers, and Parisian Blue Chip (post five, Daniel Dube), a newcomer from Canada for trainer Peter Tritton. Parisian Blue Chip raced several times in the Preferred at Woodbine Mohawk Park in 2020 and took a mark of 1:50.2.

A trio of mares with multiple wins in the Open level at Yonkers during their careers - Snobbytown (post two, George Brennan/Ron Burke), Siesta Beach (post three, Matt Kakaley/Nick Devita), and Lady Dela Renta A (post four, Jordan Stratton/Shane Tritton) - meet up with a couple of sharp invaders in Soho Burning Love A (post one, Tim Tetrick/Jim King, Jr.) and Blue Ivy (post five, Tyler Buter/Todd Buter) in the final Matchmaker ensemble. The other mare entered in that race, Kaitlyn N (post six, Kakaley also listed for trainer Paul Blumenfeld), has credentials of her own, having won a round of the Blue Chip Matchmaker Series in 2019 before coming in sixth from first-up in the final.

The Blue Chip Matchmaker Series has five preliminary rounds, occurring March 12th, 19th, and 26th, and April 2nd and 9th, and the final will take place on Monday, April 19.

First post for this Friday's program at Yonkers is 7:15 p.m.

(Yonkers)
(Natural News) For several decades, Republican and Democrat Presidents alike have subtly subverted the US Constitution and concentrated power into the hands of the few. US elected officials have left a long, bloody trail of executive orders that make a mockery of the Constitutions original intent. From the late John F. Kennedy to the most recent Biden regime, Presidents have been pressured and used to implement executive orders that expand the power of an authoritarian government, while providing pathways for globalists, big banks, foreign powers and multinational corporations to subvert the God-given rights of the people. These executive orders are not of, by, and for the people. These executive orders are above, against, and in spite of the people. Further examination of these executive orders reveals the extent to which elected officials are under pressure to turn America over to a shadow government  a government where globalists dictate American policy and reign supreme over American industry, economics and law.

In the past year alone, this shadow government has made it clear that they will quash any US President who dares to speak up about their crimes. This shadow government will go to great lengths, utilizing vast federal resources and intelligence operations to spy on their opposition, frame them for crimes they did not commit, defame their character, and censor them into oblivion. Gone are the days of straightforward assassination. Any President who speaks up about globalization, the new world order, election fraud, and the great reset will endure persistent, coordinated retaliation.

Americans are losing their rights because past Presidents have already installed the infrastructure to prop up a dictatorship

In compliance with this new world order and the great reset, the currently-installed Biden regime will continue to fulfill the long-term goal of destroying the American republic and its most virtuous principles. Here are some of the most seditious executive orders that have been signed by previous Presidents. These longstanding executive orders already provide a pathway for a total takeover of Americas original, Constitutional republic.

The federal government already has control over all fuel and transportation, which is why the Biden regime is so confident that provisions in the Green New Deal will go into effect automatically, with no rational forethought and with no public input or majority vote. Under Executive Order 10990, the government claimed ownership over all modes of transportation. Under Executive Order 10997, the government claimed ownership over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. The price of gasoline is currently skyrocketing because the fossil fuel industry must now prepare their reserves so they will have more leverage to face the federal governments inevitable, forced transition to alternative energy sources.

This is just the beginning. Under Executive Order 10998, the government claims authority over all farmland and food resources. This is how the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Land Management have gotten away with killing ranchers cattle, raiding raw milk farmers, and taking property from innocent Americans during the Obama/Biden Presidency.

The reason the Biden regime is so confident in their ability to subvert the rights of Americans at all seaports and airports is due to Executive Order 11003 and Executive Order 11005. These orders have already declared federal control over all transportation infrastructure  including airports, railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities. This is why Americans are treated like slaves at airports, forced to mask and unmask at the behest of the government while they are groped, scanned and detained at the will of a federal officer.

Decades of authoritarian executive orders can be put into action under a future national emergency

Why were lock downs so arrogantly executed in 2020? Under Executive Order 11001, the government can take over all health, education and welfare functions of the country. The Department of the Treasury has radically altered monetary policy during this time, implementing new systems of financial dependence to increase American compliance with insidious spending packages abroad. Moreover, the CDC now dictates all aspects of society, forcing behavioral controls and illegal quarantines on healthy people. Education systems are either shut down entirely or they are being designed to take away parental rights, forcing kids into intermittent quarantines, indefinite masking, and mental servitude.

Worse yet are Executive Orders 11051 and 11310, which give the President total dictatorial control over the country during a future national emergency. Lacking principles, mental acuity, fortitude and autonomy, the current commander in chief is the perfect pawn to put America in a desperate state, on its knees, giving up its republic.

If these emergency powers are invoked, the Office of Emergency Planning would ignite all past executive orders to life, and the Department of Justice would mobilize all their resources to enforce these orders. This can all be done during increased international tensions and economic crisis, issues that are accelerating like never before in American history. It wont be long before the government asserts absolute power in a future crisis, whether its insurrection, gun violence, a public health emergency, etc. In this crisis, every last American principle will be suspended. Dont believe this is coming? The lock downs of 2020 proved that government can suspend the rule of law and dictate the God-given rights of Americans. As long as the officials in charge can justify that there is an emergency, they will claim absolute dictatorial power.

Sources include:

TheCommonSenseShow.com

History.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 00:33:48|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

-- "One of the great misunderstandings is that China is not a democracy," said Mario Cavolo, an Italian-American writer and commentator.



-- "The whole-process democracy is a hallmark of socialist democracy that distinguishes it from various capitalist democratic systems," senior lawmaker Wang Chen said.

-- China aims to develop a system of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, and this system will take shape over the next five years.

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- China's "two sessions," the annual sessions of the top legislature and top political advisory body, are a key event on the country's political calendar.

As major issues are being discussed, the event offers outsiders a good chance to see democracy and rule of law at work in the country's political system.

"One of the great misunderstandings is that China is not a democracy," said Mario Cavolo, an Italian-American writer and commentator. But there are many democratic aspects and processes in the Constitution, the laws, and in the way the legislature operates, he added.





WHOLE-PROCESS DEMOCRACY

At this year's session, the National People's Congress (NPC), or the top legislature, is mulling amendments to two laws that concern its organization and working procedures: the Organic Law of the NPC and the Rules of Procedure for the NPC.

Explaining the draft amendments to fellow lawmakers, Wang Chen, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said amending the two laws is an institutional guarantee for upholding "whole-process democracy."

This means all major legislative decision-making is procedure-based and follows democratic deliberations. Democracy is not complete if people only have the right to vote but not the right to broad participation.

Socialist democracy runs through all processes including elections, decision-making, administration and supervision.

"The whole-process democracy is a hallmark of socialist democracy that distinguishes it from various capitalist democratic systems," Wang said.

Tong Weidong, a legislative official with the NPC Standing Committee, said a fine example of whole-process democracy is the establishment of local legislative outreach offices. Over 1,300 opinions were collected through these offices last year, contributing to 16 pieces of legislation, Tong added.

Cavolo said compared to the West, China is doing a much better job in taking care of the entire society and listening to the people, instead of serving the wealthy class.

Chinese lawmakers vote on the draft civil code at the third session of the 13th National People's Congress in Beijing, capital of China, May 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

PEOPLE'S WISDOM IN BLUEPRINT

Democracy is in full swing as China is formulating a blueprint for the country's social and economic development over the next five to 15 years.

The draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for national economic and social development and the long-range objectives through the year 2035, currently under review at the legislative session, is a good mix of top-level design and people's wisdom.

The National Development and Reform Commission, tasked with drafting the outline, received over 37,000 comments through online solicitation along with more than 4,000 physical questionnaires handed out to specific groups.

A number of symposiums with national lawmakers and political advisors have enabled the commission to collect more than 300 constructive suggestions.

Before the draft outline was put on the table of the legislators and political advisors, the document was also discussed at meetings of the central leadership of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, as well as symposiums and seminars with professionals across the board.

More discussions are ongoing at the "two sessions."

Laurence J. Brahm, a senior international fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, said Chinese democracy is different from that in the West.

"It is a system of consensus-building. It is quiet, and in many ways, like Tai Chi," said Brahm. However, in Western countries a lot of energy is spent on elections and the agendas are influenced by Wall Street and other business interests, he added.





SOCIALIST RULE OF LAW

On Monday, when delivering a work report of the NPC Standing Committee, top legislator Li Zhanshu said efforts must be sped up to improve the Chinese socialist system of laws.

According to the legislative plan unveiled in Li's report, legislative work in key and emerging areas will be strengthened in 2021.

The legislature will move promptly to conduct research on laws and regulations related to new technologies and applications such as those in the areas of the digital economy, internet finance, artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, the report said.

Last year, the NPC adopted the Civil Code, the first law code in the history of the People's Republic of China. This year's report indicates that work should be conducted to formulate codes for "sectors where conditions are ripe."

China aims to develop a system of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, and this system will take shape over the next five years, said Hu Jianmiao, a law professor at the National Academy of Governance.

Staff members of the People's Court of Yunyang County publicizes legal knowledge among villagers in Tuanpu Village in Yunyang County in southwest China's Chongqing, April 12, 2018. (Photo by Rao Guojun/Xinhua)

Such a system upholds fairness and justice.

In the work report of the Supreme People's Court, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang said the work of the top court has centered on the goal of "letting the people feel justice is served in every judicial case."

He also said China emphasizes the protection of human rights while the crimes are punished.

"We work to ensure the innocent are protected and the guilty are prevented from escaping punishment," Zhou said. 
Police in the Philippines executed nine unarmed activists, whom they accused of being Communist terrorists, in a series of pre-dawn raids conducted on Sunday morning. The police killings, which are now being referred to in the press as bloody Sunday, took place two days after President Rodrigo Duterte delivered a speech in which he instructed the military and police to kill all communists and dont mind human rights.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte (Presidential Communications Operations Office/Wikipedia)

The murdered activists were all members of legal organizations in the Southern Tagalog region of Luzon. They were community organizers, union leaders, and human rights activists. The majority were killed in their own homes.

The details of what happened are still emerging. The broad outline, however, is clear, and it is horrifying.

Manny Asuncion was an organizer for Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN, New Nationalist Alliance). A spokesperson for Anakbayan Southern Tagalog, a youth organization tied to BAYAN, recounted that about 30 police barged into his home at 5.30 in the morning. They ordered his wife and associate to leave.

Asuncions wife reported that she heard about 10 shots and then saw his body being dragged down the stairs. There was not even a stretcher. Photos of the bloody trail left by Asuncions corpse featured prominently in the press. Six bullets were recovered from his body, three entered from the front and three from the back.

A separate raid killed Anna Marie Evangelista and Ariel Evangelista, a couple who organized the fishing communities around Nasugbu, Batangas. Their ten-year-old son was later found by neighbors hiding under a bed in the house.

The police claim that they were operating on informant tips, that the accused were communist terrorists, and that the warrants with which they had been issued were to search for illegal firearms and grenades.

The raids killed nine and arrested only six. All of those killed were alleged by the police to have resisted arrest, nanlaban, a phrase used by the Philippine National Police to justify its campaign of mass murder against the poor over the past four years in the name of a war on drugs.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was compelled to admit that none of the activists killed were carrying guns. Under the rule of terror now exercised by Duterte, allegations of unarmed resistance are enough of a pretext to warrant summary execution by the police.

The Duterte administrations war on drugs has brought the murderous might of the state to bear on the poorest and most vulnerable layers of Philippine society. The death toll from this campaign waged by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations is now more than 30,000 people killed in just over four years. Duterte is attempting to implement an apparatus of authoritarian rule through a genocidal campaign against the poor.

Over the past year the crisis of world capitalism under conditions of global pandemic has sharpened the social crisis in the Philippines to the breaking point. Working Filipinos are suffering under the worst conditions of malnutrition and poverty since the brutal period of the Japanese occupation in 1945.

Looking to prevent organized unrest, Duterte has used anti-Communism to reorient the war on drugs to target political dissent. Activists and organizers have been killed by police in raids and arrested on trumped-up charges. The only thing that distinguishes Bloody Sunday from events of the past year is that the nine people were executed simultaneously. If the events had been spread out over a week and a half they likely would not have made the front page of the national news.

With the assistance of a super-majority in the Philippine legislature, Duterte secured the passage of the draconian Anti-Terror Law in July last year. The new law authorizes warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, and arrests for up to 24 days of anyone deemed by a presidential commission to be a terrorist. The law is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court.

The apparatus of repression is organized through the newly created National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). The NTF-ELCAC, funded with a staggering 20 billion Philippine pesos ($US415 million), brings together a panel of government, military and police forces for an organized violent campaign against political dissent, which it labels Communist.

The trigger for the simultaneous executions of Sunday morning was a speech delivered by Duterte on Friday in the city of Cagayan de Oro. Speaking to a meeting of the NTF-ELCAC, he told the military and police, If theres an encounter and you see them armed, kill! Kill them! Dont mind human rights! I will be the one to go to prison, I dont have any qualms. He continued, make sure you really kill them, and finish them off if they are alive.

Within less than 48 hours, the police had followed his instructions to the letter.

It is not an accident that the raids were conducted in the Southern Tagalog region, which is known as Calabarzon. Calabarzon is under the jurisdiction of Lt. Gen Antonio Parlade Jr. who heads the AFP Southern Luzon Command. Parlade speaks as a deranged anti-Communist, and is at the center of the NTF-ELCAC. He has denounced anyone with a dissenting political opinion, including journalists and beauty queens, as Communists.

In late January Parlade publicly threatened opponents of the Anti-Terror Law on Facebook, writing: The Day of Judgment is upon you Very soon, blood debts will be settled.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asian director at Human Rights Watch, issued a statement declaring, The fundamental problem is this campaign no longer makes any distinction between armed rebels and non-combatant activists, labor leaders and rights defenders.

Vice President Leni Robredo, head of the minority bourgeois opposition to Duterte, declared, There is no other way to describe this: It was a massacre. We strongly condemn the killings in Calabarzon, in the same way we condemn the killings of so many innocent people under this administration. She termed the Duterte administration a murderous regime.

The statement was a marked escalation in the rhetoric of the vice president, who has generally been fairly reserved in her criticisms, and indicates the advanced state of the crisis of elite rule in the country.

Political responsibility for the endangered lives of activists and grassroots organizers rests with the leadership of the Stalinist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Jose Maria Sison, founder and ideological leader of the party, led the CPP and the various organizations that follow its political line to support and enthusiastically endorse the rise of Duterte to the presidency in 2016.

Relations between Duterte and the CPP soured in 2017 as a result of the intervention of the Philippine military, which threatened to carry out a coup detat should the ties with the CPP persist. When it became apparent that it was no longer possible to cultivate profitable relations with Duterte, Sison and the CPP leadership began denouncing him as a fascist.

By early 2020 Sison was reaching out to what he termed pro-US and patriotic sections of the military leadership to carry out a coup, withdrawing support from Duterte and installing Robredo as president. The party is looking to ally with a rival faction of the elite.

There is no section of the ruling class that has any interest in defending democracy. Confronted with the crisis of capitalism and the growing threat of mass unrest, they are all turning to authoritarian forms of rule.

The faction around Robredo, which is organized in the Liberal Party and with whom the CPP is cultivating ties, are opposed to Duterte as a means of reorienting Philippine foreign policy away from China and back towards Washington. They are not a democratic force.

It was in fact the Liberal Party, which in the elections of 2010 and 2013 under then President Benigno Aquino III, transformed Duterte into a national political figure when he was a member of their party.

Far from defending democratic rights, the CPP welcomes the repression.

On February 28, the week before the events of Bloody Sunday, Sison delivered an online lecture to Anakbayan in which he told his audience of young activists, The best thing that can happen for the revolution is for Duterte to impose fascist dictatorship on the people. Hell be finished in one or two years.

The Stalinist Communist Party depicts state repression as the mechanism for the building of the armed struggle. The armed struggle in turn is the partys leverage in negotiating ties with the bourgeoisie.

In response to the Bloody Sunday massacre, CPP chief information officer, Marco Valbuena, published a statement that the targets of Dutertes state terrorism can be absorbed by NPA units or provided safe haven within the NPAs guerrilla base areas.

Rather than organizing the working class for the defense of democracy in the fight for socialism, the CPP is attempting to channel all political dissent into the countryside, while the leadership arranges new ties with a section of the ruling class.

The preparations for dictatorial rule in the Philippines are far advanced. The mass murder of the poor and suppression of political dissent are being codified into the laws of the country. None of this will stop simply by replacing Duterte with Robredo or another representative of the elite. It is driven not by the personal brutality of the president, but by the crisis of global capitalism.

The only way that workers, peasants and the poor can defend themselves against dictatorship and fascism is through their own independent fight for socialism. The critical first step to be made is a complete break with the Stalinist nationalism of Sison and the CPP which made possible the rise of Duterte and now welcomes the possibility of dictatorship.
The COVID-19 mask mandate may be ending, but "mask-off" parties are most certainly not the way to celebrate.

Governor Greg Abbott announced last Tuesday that he would be lifting the statewide mandate after March 10 and opening Texas at "100 percent capacity."

Shortly after the announcement, Washington Avenue bar Concrete Cowboy began advertising a "mask-off party" on social media, telling patrons to come to their bar at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for a mask-less night complete with hundred-dollar bottles of Veuve and Grey Goose, per David K. Li and Ali Gostanian for NBC News.

ANGER & CONFUSION: Houston bar workers fear for safety after lifted mask mandate

The event has since been canceled following complaints from local officials.

"This is a dangerous, irresponsible event that is literally a slap in the face of our health care workers that are risking their lives, those family members who have lost loved ones, and all Houstonians who honor the sanctity of life over getting an overpriced cocktail," said state representative Ann Johnson, as reported by NBC News.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner chimed in as well, according to the Houston Chronicle's Nicole Hensley, saying such a party could contribute to an increase in COVID-19 cases in Houston. The virus has already claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Texans to date, with Houston being the first city to record every major variant of the infectious disease.

On Monday evening, Turner announced on Twitter that the party was no longer happening.

"I appreciate the owners of @ConcreteCowboyH for putting the safety of their employees and guests as a top priority," Turner wrote.

This isn't the first time Concrete Cowboy has found itself in the hot seat.

According to Mike VanDusen, president of the Washington Avenue Coalition-Memorial Park, the venue has faced numerous complaints and was even closed twice by the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission for violations, as reported by Hensley.
DUBLIN, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Telehealth Market (2020-2025) by Component, Application, Mode of Delivery, End-User, Geography, Competitive Analysis and the Impact of Covid-19 with Ansoff Analysis" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Telehealth Market is estimated to be USD 63.4 Bn in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 167.2 Bn by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 21.4%.



Certain factors such as a rise in the prevalence of chronic diseases and scarcity of physicians have led to a growth in this market. Moreover, with additional growth of investments in medical sciences, rising collaborations, and the fast up-grading of telecommunication technologies are likely to further strengthen the telehealth market. The sudden outbreak of coronavirus pandemic is expected to boost telemedicine usage as these solutions help consultants communicate effectively with their patients remotely and provide better solutions regarding their health concerns.



However, concerns regarding data privacy, resistance in technology acceptance by practitioners and patients, high cost of implementation, and knowledge about telehealth hamper the growth of this market.



Market Dynamics



Drivers

Rising Population and Need to Expand Healthcare Access

Rising Prevalence of Chronic Conditions

Cost-Benefit Advantage of Tele-Health & Tele-Medicine

The dearth of Physicians amidst Increasing Demand

Growing Number of Smartphone Users

Restraints

Privacy and Security Concerns

Diverse Global Regulatory Environment

Fraud in Telemedicine and Telehealth

Lack of Knowledge and Trust in the Developing Nations

Opportunities

High Utility in Combating Infectious Diseases and Epidemics

Advancements in Telecommunications

Government Support and Rising Awareness

Trends

The emergence of Telehealth Robots and Robotic Platforms

The advent of Technological Developments

Segments Covered



By Component, the Software segment is estimated to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period. The growth is attributed to the increasing adoption of telehealth solutions worldwide. The real-time virtual health segment and the remote patient monitoring (RPM) segment are likely to grow at a faster pace. Such systems are gaining popularity due to the acceptance of personal emergency response systems (PERS). Alternatively, the increasing cases of COVID 19 additionally require the implementation of remote patient monitoring systems, which has further fuelled the growth in the software solution segment



By Application, the Teleradiology segment is estimated to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period due to the adoption of preventive healthcare practices like the high demand for early imaging practices, rise in the workflow, and streamlining of teleradiology regulatory practices.



By Mode of Delivery, the Web-Based mode of delivery is witnessed to see a faster growth rate during the forecast period. The demand for a web-based mode of delivery is majorly seen in the developing economies as they are now embracing telehealth technology in remote areas for providing access to healthcare services. As the infrastructure support required for web-based technology is minimum and can be operated by any age group, there is added growth potential. Besides, with the increasing use of smartphones and tablets across age groups, there has been additional growth in the market.



By End User, the Provider segment is estimated to grow at a faster rate during the forecasted period. Providers' i.e, the health care providers, are the end-users who operate various virtual health care platforms and offer a range of tele-specialty services to chronically ill patients and aged patients. Moreover, the hospitals are being well equipped in terms of infrastructure, providing the latest advancements in telehealth monitoring devices, which have further augmented the market growth of this segment.



By Geography, North America is anticipated to lead the market. The factors attributed to the growth of this market is the high prevalence of chronic conditions followed by the rising geriatric population. The US is known for its established healthcare infrastructure, regulatory policies like the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACT). With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic globally, especially its effects were seen in the US, the health agencies urged the hospitals to promote the use of telehealth services, which has attributed to the growth of the market.



The Global Telehealth Market is further segmented on the basis of Component, Application, Mode of Delivery, End-User, and Geography.



Company Profiles

Some of the companies covered in this report are Koninklijke Philips, Medtronic, Ge Healthcare, Cerner Corporation, Siemens Healthineers AG, Cisco Systems, Asahi Kasei Corporation, Iron Bow Technologies, American Well, and Teladoc Health.



Competitive Quadrant

The report includes Competitive Quadrant, a proprietary tool to analyze and evaluate the position of companies based on their Industry Position score and Market Performance score. The tool uses various factors for categorizing the players into four categories. Some of these factors considered for analysis are financial performance over the last 3 years, growth strategies, innovation score, new product launches, investments, growth in market share etc.



Lions: Represents companies with a strong foothold in the market, with the highest market share, large investments in technologies, new products.

Bulls: Companies that are medium in size competing with their USPs, growing companies with proven market share.

Rabbits: Small companies but growing rapidly, constantly improving their offerings in the market.

Tortoise: Companies which are slow in growth, having a long legacy and stable or negative in performance.



Why buy this report?

The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the Global Telehealth Market.

The report includes in-depth qualitative analysis, verifiable data from authentic sources and projections about market size. The projections are calculated using proven research methodologies.

The report has been compiled through extensive primary and secondary research. The primary research is done through interviews, surveys and observation of renowned personnel in the industry.

The report includes in-depth market analysis using Porter's 5 force model and the Ansoff Matrix. The impact of Covid-19 on the market is also featured in the report.

The report also contains a competitive analysis using Positioning Quadrants, a Proprietary competitive positioning tool.

Report Highlights:

A complete analysis of the market including parent industry

Important market dynamics and trends

Market segmentation

Historical, current, and projected size of the market based on value and volume

Market shares and strategies of key players

Recommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the market

Key Topics Covered:



1 Report Description

1.1 Study Objectives

1.2 Market Definition

1.3 Currency

1.4 Years Considered

1.5 Language

1.6 Key Shareholders

2 Research Methodology

2.1 Research Process

2.2 Data Collection and Validation

2.2.1 Secondary Research

2.2.2 Primary Research

2.3 Market Size Estimation

2.4 Assumptions of the Study

2.5 Limitations of the Study



3 Executive Summary



4 Market Overview

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Market Dynamics

4.2.1 Drivers

4.2.2 Restraints

4.2.3 Opportunities

4.3 Trends



5 Market Analysis

5.1 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5.2 Impact of COVID-19

5.3 Ansoff Matrix Analysis



6 Global Telehealth Market, By Component

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Software Services

6.2.1 Remote Patient Monitoring Software & Services

6.2.2 Real-Time Interaction Software & Services

6.2.3 Store-And-Forward Software & Services

6.3 Hardware

6.3.1 Medical Peripheral Devices

6.3.1.1 Blood pressure monitors

6.3.1.2 Blood glucose meters

6.3.1.3 Weight scales

6.3.1.4 Pulse oximeters

6.3.1.5 Peak flow meters

6.3.1.6 ECG monitors

6.3.1.7 Other Devices

6.3.2 Monitors



7 Global Telehealth Market, By Application

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Teleradiology

7.3 Telepsychiatry

7.4 Telestroke

7.5 Teleicu

7.6 Teledermatology

7.7 Teleconsultation

7.8 Other Applications



8 Global Telehealth Market, By Mode of Delivery

8.1 Introduction

8.2 On-Cloud Mode of Delivery

8.3 Web based

8.4 On-Premise Mode of Delivery



9 Global Telehealth Market, By End User

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Providers

9.3 Payers

9.4 Patients



10 Global Telehealth Market, By Geography

10.1 Introduction

10.2 North America

10.2.1 US

10.2.2 Canada

10.2.3 Mexico

10.3 South America

10.3.1 Brazil

10.3.2 Argentina

10.4 Europe

10.4.1 UK

10.4.2 France

10.4.3 Germany

10.4.4 Italy

10.4.5 Spain

10.4.6 Rest of Europe

10.5 Asia-Pacific

10.5.1 China

10.5.2 Japan

10.5.3 India

10.5.4 Indonesia

10.5.5 Malaysia

10.5.6 South Korea

10.5.7 Australia

10.5.8 Russia

10.5.9 Rest of APAC

10.6 Rest of the World

10.6.1 Qatar

10.6.2 Saudi Arabia

10.6.3 South Africa

10.6.4 United Arab Emirates

10.6.5 Latin America



11 Competitive Landscape

11.1 IGR Competitive Quadrant

11.2 Market Share Analysis

11.3 Competitive Scenario

11.3.1 Mergers & Acquisitions

11.3.2 Agreements, Collaborations, & Partnerships

11.3.3 New Product Launches & Enhancements

11.3.4 Investments & Fundings



12 Company Profiles

12.1 Koninklijke Philips

12.2 Medtronic

12.3 GE Healthcare

12.4 Cerner Corporation

12.5 Siemens Healthineers Ag

12.6 Cisco Systems

12.7 Asahi Kasei Corporation

12.8 Iron Bow Technologies

12.9 American Well

12.10 Teladoc Health

12.11 Medvivo Group

12.12 AMC Health

12.13 Telespecialists

12.14 Doctor on Demand

12.15 Mdlive

12.16 Globalmed

12.17 Medweb

12.18 Vsee

12.19 Imediplus

12.20 Chiron Health

12.21 Zipnosis

12.22 Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc.

12.23 AMD Global Telemedicine

12.24 American Well

12.25 BioTelemetry

12.26 Honeywell International Inc.



13 Appendix

13.1 Questionnaire



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/eqgzwe

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Advertisement

What appears to be a stereotypical suburban home from its simple front on a street in Melbourne hides a 'haunting' secret.

Behind the front door of 'Hiawatha' in Strathmore, 10 kilometres north-west of the CBD, is an imposing Gothic mansion filled with hand-painted murals, ornate four-poster beds, elegant archways and enchanting chandeliers.

The striking Victorian-era property, which has been home to Australian property stylist Graham George, his interior designer wife Tania and their three daughters for the past 30 years, was built in 1891 by auctioneer and stock agent Harry Huntington Peck, whose father John co-founded historic transportation business Cobb & Co.

What appears to be a stereotypical suburban home from its simple front on a street in Melbourne hides a 'haunting' secret

Behind the front door of 'Hiawatha' in Strathmore, 10 kilometres north-west of the CBD, is an imposing Gothic mansion

Standout features of the unique 1,500 square metre house include enormous marble bathtubs with gold tapware, soaring corniced ceilings, a glass-roofed conservatory, built-in window seats the six bedrooms and a courtyard with a resort-style swimming pool that wouldn't look out of place in the Versace mansion.

But the owner's favourite part of the extraordinary property is the elaborate mural on the wall of one of his daughters' bedrooms.

Mr George told realestate.com.au he was out for dinner many years ago when he was approached by a young boy who was trying to sell a sketch he had drawn of a young Aboriginal girl.

Standout features of the unique 1,500 square metre house include enormous marble bathtubs with gold tapware

Hand-painted murals, ornate four-poster beds, elegant archways and enchanting chandeliers are scattered throughout

A glass-roofed conservatory adjoins the kitchen

Bay windows flood the rooms with natural light, while the dining table (left) can be turned into a pool table (right)

The house has been described as a 'historically significant residence'

The stylist was so taken with the picture that he asked the aspiring artist to paint a mural of an angel for his daughter's room.

That boy was Vincent Fantauzzo, the now world-famous artist renowned for his paintings of director Baz Luhrmann, the late actor Heath Ledger and his own wife, actress Asher Keddie.

Listing agent John Matthews, who is overseeing the sale of the property for real estate agency Nelson Alexander, has slapped it with a guide price of $2.95million to $3.2million (AUD).

This mural in one of the children's bedrooms was painted by world-famous Australian artist, Vincent Fantauzzo

Listing agent John Matthews has slapped it with a guide price of $2.95million to $3.2million (AUD)

An auction is slated for Saturday, March 20, as the current owners move on to their 'next chapter' in a home on the Gold Coast

That's at least $1.5million higher than the suburb's average house price of $1.365million, and a whopping $2.3million more expensive than Victoria's state average which was just $640,000 in 2020, according to figures from realestate.com.au.

The house is described as a 'historically significant residence' that 'retains the elegance and allure of its distinguished past, while delivering an aspirational family lifestyle of unrivalled quality'.

An auction is slated for Saturday, March 20, as the current owners move on to their 'next chapter' in a home on the Gold Coast after three decades in the one-off 'haunted' house.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout, Emory has had multiple teams working hard to prepare and support a comprehensive distribution model  including a university vaccine planning group. Since our plan is dependent on the states directive and new changes were recently announced in Georgia, I wanted to update the community on how this impacts Emorys planning.

On Feb. 25, Gov. Brian Kemp made an announcement that included two primary changes to the states distribution model with regard to the COVID-19 vaccine. On Monday, March 8, the state expanded eligibility beyond individuals 65+ and their caregivers, health care workers, residents of long-term-care facilities, first responders, fire personnel and law enforcement.

As listed on the Georgia Department of Health website, those now qualifying for vaccination include Pre-K12 educators and staff, adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caregivers, and parents of children with complex medical conditions. If you meet any of these new criteria, you are now eligible and should consult the Emory Forward websites vaccine page for additional information on these eligibility groups, vaccination locations in Georgia and how to register through Emory.

In addition, the state will no longer use tiers such as 1A and 1B to identify current and future groups eligible for vaccination. Instead, Georgia will list only those groups currently eligible to receive the vaccine.

What does this mean for Emory?

Emory rolled out a new process to help facilitate vaccine distribution for those who became eligible on March 8. Eligible faculty, staff and students can now complete a self-attestation form on the Emory Forward vaccine page verifying your eligibility. Once you have self-attested, you will move through the process and receive further notification from the HOME system to complete your consent and schedule your vaccination.

Be aware, though, that demand continues to outstrip supply. Even for those eligible, receiving the vaccine is dependent on supply.

Dr. Nicole Franks, chief quality officer and attending physician at Emory University Hospital Midtown, reminded us  in the March 4 vaccine town hall  of why we have eligibility criteria, saying, Honor those most vulnerable. Those qualifying now are at higher risk, so we want to ensure that we dont overload our systems and our ability to take care of everyone.

We naturally are all looking to the future and the moment it will be our turn. As you wait, thank you for your continued patience and understanding. Continue to wear a face covering, wash your hands and physically distance. For those who have received the vaccine, thank you for doing your part to protect yourself and the community.

Franks also reviewed the existing vaccines and shared an important conclusion: although there are differences in the platforms used and the dosing required, the most important outcome is that all of them are highly efficacious in preventing severe illness, hospitalization and death.

What should be our takeaway? When you have an opportunity to receive a vaccine, take the first one offered to you!

Will Emory mandate the COVID-19 vaccine?

Given that the vaccines currently are under an emergency-use authorization, they will not be mandated with this status, even though there is every indication they are safe. Additionally, since vaccine availability is still limited both in Georgia and across the country, we would not mandate something still inaccessible to many in our community. Once the vaccines receive full FDA approval and are widely available, that could change. We will explore this matter further going forward.

Finally, Emory is working toward vaccinating all essential workers, which includes maintenance and facility workers, those supporting critical functions, our frontline staff and all other members of our vulnerable populations. For those who dont yet qualify under the states guidelines, we are continuing to advocate for them. That is who Emory is and what we stand for.
SignatureCare Emergency Center We are happy to offer this to our patients throughout Texas. Bamlanivimab (LY-CoV555) has proven through studies to be effective in reducing the severity of COVID-19 symptoms and we believe it will be very helpful to our patients who receive the treatment

SignatureCare Emergency Center is pleased to announce that it has been approved to administer Eli Lillys Bamlanivimab (LY-CoV555) COVID-19 treatment to patients through its network of 24-hour emergency centers located in Texas.

The company said this week that it is now offering the treatment to Texans through all 21 ER locations in their network, including the newest emergency rooms in Spring and Plano, TX.

Eli Lilly recently announced that Bamlanivimab (LY-CoV555) was able to substantially reduce symptomatic disease among residents and staff of long-term facilities during its recently completed study.

The company said it was pleased with the positive results, which showed Bamlanivimab was able to help prevent COVID-19, substantially reducing symptomatic disease among nursing home residents.

Dr. Hashibul Hannan, a board-certified emergency medicine physician and managing partner at SignatureCare Emergency Center, said SignatureCare ER is glad to receive the approval and has already begun administering the life-saving treatment.

We are happy to offer this to our patients throughout Texas. Bamlanivimab (LY-CoV555) has proven through studies to be effective in reducing the severity of COVID-19 symptoms and we believe it will be very helpful to our patients who receive the treatment, he said.

Dr. Hannan said that although no preregistration is required before receiving the treatment, all patients will be evaluated by the attending ER physician prior to receiving the treatment.

This treatment is available now and no preregistration is required to receive the treatment through our emergency centers. Simply walk into the ER and our board-certified physicians will evaluate you to ensure you can receive the treatment. It will then be administered if you are eligible, Dr. Hannan said.

To find the SignatureCare Emergency Center in your area, please go to https://ercare24.com.

About SignatureCare Emergency Center

Houston, TX based SignatureCare Emergency Center owns 24-hour emergency centers throughout Texas including nine locations in the Houston area (Montrose, Houston Heights, Cypress/FM 1960, Copperfield, Memorial City, Westchase, Bellaire, Mission Bend/Sugar Land and Stafford), Atascocita/Humble, Killeen, Austin, College Station/Bryan, Paris, Midland, Odessa, Texarkana, Spring, Plano, and Lewisville, TX.
LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2021 / DLT Resolution, Inc. (OTC PINK:DLTI), an information technology, cyber security, telecommunications and Union Services company, is pleased to announce its wholly owned subsidiary, Union Strategies ("USI") launched You Unified Application.

YOUnified combines the many required services to run the business of a union into one unified platform. YOUnified's goal is to assist in increasing member engagement, decrease the local's expenses, and save everyone time. With this app, Unions will have everything they require to connect with your members, as well as maintain the local's needs.

YOUnified allows the union to push notify members of any, and every, important update with just a simple click of a button. You can notify members of an important meeting, election, or reminders of significant dates. In short, this app is truly made for everyone - from the Executive to the members. Some of the basic features include the following:

Call Drops

Email Blast

Text Blasts

Mailing Labels

Voting

Conference Center

Accounting

Virtual Meetings

Cloud Networking

Push notifications

IT Support

Social media

Graphics / media flyers

YOUnified holds different features for different viewers. An example being, an Executive member will have access to perform call drops, text blasts, email blasts, and everything in between, where as a member will be able to receive these important updates, connect with their Executive Board, purchase "swag" and much more!

Commenting on the release, Fred Vecchio, President of Union Strategies stated "Our design team and application developers made every effort to make this app as adaptable and simple as possible for every age demographic. Members will be blown away on how easy and effective this platform will be for them."

John S. Wilkes, President & CEO of DLT Resolution, commented "Our team has worked tirelessly on this exciting offering. We are extremely bullish on its ability to penetrate a much wider spectrum of Unions and members both in Canada and the United States. We look forward to updating our stakeholders on its roll out."

About Union Strategies Inc. (USI)

USI has been providing a suite of products and services to Unions for over 10 years. The company designs, builds, and executes programs resulting in greater success for unions. Programs are designed to engage the membership, decrease expenses, and save time for a more productive business. The Company's suite includes Telecommunications, Event Management, Professional Writing, Social Media Management, Web Design, Graphic Services, and Promotional Offerings. The company is a one-stop-shop for all things union. The company has more than 130 clients that are considered "mid-market" in terms of overall size of the particular local with 550,000 members. USI operates nationally in Canada and looks to expand into the USA in 2021. Learn more at: UnionStrategiesinc.com

Learn more at: https://unionstrategiesinc.com

About DLT Resolution Inc.

DLT Resolution Inc. currently operates in three high-tech industry segments: Blockchain Applications & Cyber Security; Telecommunications; and Data Services which includes Image Capture, Data Collection, Data Phone Center Services, and Payment Processing. Its clients represent some of the top businesses from a variety of sectors. DLT Resolution helps organizations that have invoices, ledgers, statements, applications, surveys, employee and customer rewards programs and a wide range of other non-core functions benefit from data management. DLT Resolution also operates a Health Information Exchange providing the ability to request and retrieve medical information & records while meeting all of today's Security & Compliance demands for HIPAA, PIPEDA and PHIPA. Through RecordsBank, the Company offers an easy to use online gateway to its centralized system for patients, lawyers and insurers to retrieve and access medical records. Learn more at: DLTResolution.com.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

The use of the word "company" or "Company" refers to DLT Resolution Incorporated and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In accordance with the safe harbor provisions of this Act, statements contained herein that look forward in time that include everything other than historical information, involve risks and uncertainties that may affect the company's actual results. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. DLT Resolution may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, in its annual report to stockholders, in press releases and other written materials, and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and there are a number of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by the company, including, but not limited to, plans and objectives of management for future operations or products, the market acceptance or future success of our products, and our future financial performance. The company cautions that these forward-looking statements are further qualified by other factors including, but not limited to, those set forth in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019 (available at http://www.sec.gov). DLT Resolution undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Nothing within this communication is meant to be a solicitation to buy or sell our securities. Investing in over the counter (OTC) securities often carries a high degree of risk. Please contact your financial advisor before investing in our securities.

CONTACT:

Website: www.dltresolution.com

SOURCE: DLT Resolution Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/634226/DLT-Resolutions-Union-Strategies-Launches-YOUnifiedTM-Application
A further round of consultations between the farm organisations and the Department of Agriculture regarding the Nitrates Derogation will take place in May.

Reducing the impact of nitrate usage on tillage farms, particularly those growing spring grain crops, will be on the agenda, as well as proposals to tackle difficulties on intensive dairy farms and other livestock units.

However, derogation farmers will not be restricted to using only protected urea under the proposals being considered by the Department, the Farming Independent understands.

Confirmation of the May consultations come as pressure mounts on the agriculture industry to devise an agreed plan of action to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming and halt a decline in water quality.

This pressure cranked up a gear last week when the 32-member Environmental Pillar withdrew from the 2030 Agri-Food Strategy committee.

Retaining the Nitrates Derogation is considered an essential pillar of the Irish farm sector, with 7,000 of the countrys most intensive farmers benefitting from the measure.

More than 5,000 more intensive farmers are allowed export slurry to remain under the 170kg/ha limit for organic nitrogen set by the Nitrates Directive.

It is anticipated that the broad thrust of Irelands nitrates policy for the next three years will be outlined to the farm organisations and other stakeholders during the May consultation process.

However, the Departments will also have to secure the backing of the EPA, which has been very critical of the impact of farming on water quality, and the European Commission.

Among the measures being proposed by the Department are a fertiliser register, a compulsory liming plan for intensive farms and the adoption of LESS technology for slurry spreading.

But the Farming Independent understands that the Department will shy away from restricting intensive livestock units to using only protected urea  or setting a definite date for introducing such a measure  despite such action having the potential to deliver significant environmental benefits.

A source said the fertiliser industry would not be capable of supplying sufficient quantities of protected urea to make such a restriction viable.

Another source said the new measures will be heavily influenced by soon-to-be-published EPA maps identifying catchment areas where there are increasing nitrogen losses.

There has been a lot of talk around dairy expansion, but there are also tillage catchments. In tillage areas  such as the Slaney Valley and along rivers the Barrow, Nore and Suir  when you dont have catch crops, there are nitrogen losses as well, its not just all dairy.

Tillage has a role to play because if you have spring crops and land is idle from the middle of August until March or April the following year, thats a problem too.

Cover crops can take up about 40kg/ha of nitrogen, so that is something that will have to be looked at.

If a cereal catch crop went in, oats for example, they will grow and soak up nitrogen, the source said.

While such an action already exits under GLAS, the source indicated that a catch crop measure could be introduced under the Departments new pilot agri-environment scheme.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Kraniums Gal Policy is enjoying renewed buzz on its one-year anniversary thanks to the Jamaican Health Ministers viral response to the alarming surge in COVID-19 cases.

723 Positive COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hourslet that sink in, Dr. Christopher Tufton tweeted, prompting the comparison by keen Dancehall fans to Kraniums cold one-liner on the 2020 track.

The hashtag has been at the top of trending as Jamaicans weigh in on the Ministers snide sentiment and the lax, lightweight measures that led to this point. Call it luck or divine timing, but Kraniums casanova cut on the Soul Survivor Riddim dropped a year to the day before the Ministers comments.

Gal policy one year anniversary. If you loved it or still love it I wanna see you hit that repost button, the Melody Gad tweeted, but it seems the Universe had bigger plans to put the song back in the spotlight.

Everytime I see #LetThatSinkIn I remember Kranium song Gal Policy, one amused Twitter user said while another hilariously chimed in, Christopher Kranium Tufton #LetThatSinkIn .

Before long, the Nobody Has To Know crooner caught on and entered the chat with a remixed follow-up line, And try know Covid a the real kingpin.

And try know Covid a the real kingpin pic.twitter.com/p98dEKujGH  Kranium (@therealkranium) March 7, 2021

Gal Policy is a cocky gyallis tale told through Kraniums sharp lyrical prowess and signature melodic tone. Treat yuh gyal bad she ah go cheat as you blink/ Now yuh mek a prick get di link/ F yuh gyal inna di kitchen, wash me d inna di sink/ Let dat sink in, and you cyaan violate/ Man ah born kingpin. the New York-based deejay spits on the vivid second verse. He admitted that the eye-brow raising bars were formulated intentionally for shock value.

The track appears on the piano-tinged Tru Ambassador riddim, also featuring Alkalines Ocean Wave, and was wildly successful despite limited promotion due to its lockdown release. It racked up over 1.5 million Spotify streams and Kranium told the media last year, its humbling during tough times worldwide that people are finding peace and solace in streaming a song of mine.

Producer Jahvel Jahvy Ambassador Morrison told DancehallMag in October, that inspiration for the beat came after a serious car accident. I had a conversation with Alkaline after the incident and he suggested that I make a beat that would express the ordeal, Morrison said.

Meanwhile, the Dancehall flavored comments on the COVID crisis kept pouring out as cases soared to a new record of 878 the very next day. Wicked man Chris said yall won #letthatsinkin, read one tweet, while another user wrote, Brogad said its my turn to wash my hands #LetThatSinkIn.

The hashtag has been populated with many condemning the nationwide indiscipline that seems to be driving the numbers: Even if the infection rate is 10,000 cases a day as long as it doesnt affect you or someone close to you nothing will change. Indiscipline is at the heart of all of this. #letthatsinkin.

Others also noted the plethora of problems compounding the issue: In Western Ja only, 8 killed in one day. This cannot be true. A crime problem completely out of control and a world-leading COVID-19 crisis, and to date no vaccines. #LetThatSinkIn

The opposition PNP wasted no time coining a hashtag of their own to capitalize on the viral effect of the Ministers remarks: We need vaccine against rising #CrimeCOVIDCurrency #LetThatSinkIn, read the tweet on their official account.
Chinese buyers of shares in Motor Sich (Zaporizhia) violated their obligation to invest $250 million in 2018 and obtain permission from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU), but it is impractical to completely nationalize the enterprise and it is worth leaving 35% to the Chinese and the controlling stake to the state, President of Motor Sich Viacheslav Bohuslayev has said.

"They deceived us... There are no Chinese investors and there is no investment program. There are promises: in the agreement for the acquisition of shares in 2018, they [should have paid] $250 million - not a kopiika [was seen]," journalist Igor Solovey posted a video on his Facebook with a speech of Bohuslayev at a meeting of the national security, defense and intelligence parliamentary committee on March 4.

Bohuslayev said that in such a situation he and the trade union support the decision of the country's president to impose sanctions against the Chinese shareholders of Motor Sich.

"I hold daily teleconferences with Chinese customers. I explain to them: if I, Bohuslayev, violate Chinese laws on the territory of China, what would you do to me? So your dear Wang Jing [was sanctioned by Ukraine] should not violate Ukrainian laws on the territory of Ukraine," the president of the company said.

He confirmed that in 2016, Chinese partners provided a $100 million loan at a critical juncture, which must be repaid in 2026, and the company is preparing to do so.

At the same time, Bohuslayev, who before the deal with the Chinese was one of the largest shareholders of Motor Sich, after the committee meeting spoke out against the proposal to completely nationalize the enterprise, as this would entail significant budgetary expenditures.

"We need to negotiate with the Chinese: allow them to have 35%, the rest needs to be sold to the state, in a civilized manner. The ambassador must be explained (that) our state does not allow a foreign citizen to manage our enterprise," he said, while insisting that a controlling stake belonged to the government.

"You can't just break off relations with Chinese friends... For no reason in particular, (so that) we don't give a damn about China, it is better not to behave like that," Bohuslayev said.
The so-called 'QAnon Shaman' who became infamous as one of the faces of the US Capitol riots two months ago while sporting face paint, no shirt and a furry hat with horns, will remain jailed until his trial, a federal judge ruled Monday.

The judge said the man's willingness to resort to violence and refusal to follow police orders during the siege signal that he wouldn't follow court-ordered conditions of release.

Jake Angeli, also known as Jacob Chansley, was one of the most recognizable members of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 that left five dead.

Jacob Chansley, the QAnon Shaman, has had his latest bid for release denied

Chansley had been arguing for his release on medical and religious grounds

Chansley has requested to be released from custody while he waits for trial on his charges which include interfering with police during a civil disorder and obstruction of Congress.

But Judge Royce Lamberth said Chansley doesn't fully appreciate the severity of the charges against him and found none of Chansleys 'many attempts to manipulate the evidence and minimize the seriousness of his actions' to be persuasive.

The judge also scolded Chansley and his lawyer Al Watkins, questioning whether the attorney was deceitful in arranging an interview with CBS 60 Minutes without proper authorization.

The lawyer told the jail was told it was an 'attorney-client interview video,' but did not tell them it was actually for a 60 Minutes interview.

'The issue is that when the defense counsel is able to speak with his client, he squanders the opportunity for private conversations, preferring instead to conduct a public interview,' the judge wrote.

A judge said Chansley's willingness to resort to violence & refusal to follow orders during the siege signaled he wouldn't follow court-ordered conditions of release

Chansley is currently in a Virginia prison, awaiting next steps in his legal case

'Such media appearances are undoubtedly conducive to defense counsels fame, but they are not at all conducive to an argument that the only way defense counsel could privately communicate with his client is if defendant were temporarily released.

'Given defense counsels decision to use what could have been a confidential videoconference on a media publicity stunt, that argument is so frivolous as to insult the courts intelligence,' Judge Lamberth continued.

'For these reasons, the court finds the defendant has not met his burden of establishing a compelling reason necessitating his temporary release.'

Chansley's lawyer contested the judges findings.

'There's no subterfuge here, at all. ... I did not under any circumstances try to conduct subterfuge to this court, certainly, and not to the facility where my client is currently housed,' Watkins said. 'It's just not my style.'

Jake Chansley is pictured alongside fellow demonstrators who breached security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification

The judge also made clear that he was not impressed Chansley took part in a CBS 60 Minutes interview without 'proper authorization', pictured above

The judge also wrote that Chansley carried a spear into the siege, used a bullhorn to encourage other rioters, profanely referred to then-Vice President Mike Pence as a traitor while in the Senate and wrote a note to Pence saying, 'Its only a matter of time, justice is coming.'

Chansley, who disputed the note was intended to be threatening, also made a social media posting in November in which he promoted hangings for traitors.

'Reading that note in the context of defendants earlier promotion of the execution of `traitors invalidates the notion that defendant breached the Capitol merely to leave peaceful, political commentary on the Senate dais,' Lamberth wrote.

The judge sided with prosecutors who argued that the 6-inch spear mounted atop the flagpole carried by Chansley into the Capitol was a dangerous weapon. His attorney had characterized the spear as an ornament.

Chansley - who was pictured in the Capitol on January 6 sporting a horned headdress, face-paint and a Star-Spangled spear - argued that he actually helped curb the chaos, not exacerbate it

Chansleys attorney also said his client was in the third wave of rioters who went into the Capitol. But the judge said video shows Chansley, who entered through Capitol through a doorway as rioters smashed nearby windows, 'quite literally spearheaded' the rush into the building.

He has been jailed since his arrest in the days after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Bidens victory over then-President Donald Trump.

Chansley, who calls himself the QAnon Shaman, unsuccessfully sought a pardon from Trump. He has since expressed disappointment in Trump, though he also said he doesnt regret being loyal to the former president.

A prosecutor said Chansley claims to be sorry for his actions during the riot, yet he still believes the election wasnt legitimate.

Chansleys attorney said his client didnt act violently inside the Capitol and disputed that Chansley was any sort of leader in the riot.

In the motion, Watkins points blame at Trump for the conspiratorial fever that has swept the United States.

'For years during the Trump administration, the President honed and routinely utilized his mass communication means to effectively groom millions of Americans with respect to his policies, protocols, beliefs and overwhelming fixation on all matters conspiratorial,' the motion states, according to Newsweek.

'Months before the 2020 Presidential election, former President Trump heightened his public propaganda such as to alarm, alert, and amass his supporters and cause them to be concerned about an inevitable voter fraud being perpetrated upon the United States of America and, in turn, theft of our nation, loss of our democracy, and the seating of a falsely/fraudulently elected individual other than former President Trump.'

Video in Chansley's indictment showed him standing at Vice President Mike Pence's chair in the Senate and pumping his fists in the air

On February 8, Chansley issued an apology and said he was 'deeply disappointed in former President Trump,' despite seeking a pardon from the outgoing president just weeks earlier.

A previous court filing obtained by Law & Crime suggest the lack of a pardon is when Chansley turned on Trump.

'After the defendant noted former president Trump's pardoning of his friends and colleagues and Lil Wayne, the defendant was compelled to reconcile his prior faith in Trump,' the filing reads.

'Well, I sang a song. That's a part of shamanism. It's about creating positive vibrations in a sacred chamber,' Chansley said in the 60 Minutes interview

The filing was part of a bail motion, which outlined Chansley's lack of criminal history and revealed he tried to testify at Trump's impeachment trial twice.

Ultimately, no witnesses were called in Trump's trial, where he was acquitted largely along party lines.

Chansley has been in jail for nearly two months and has expressed regret for entering the Capitol.

Chansley has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of civil disorder and obstructing an official proceeding, plus four other misdemeanor charges.

He has feuded with the jail system about serving him organic food as part of his belief in Shamanism.

The jail was eventually forced to meet his organic food needs, but he was moved to another prison in Virginia after they were unable to continue doing so.

The latest filing said Chansley was 'grateful' for the organic food, but 'the Defendant has experienced significant digestive tract issues for which medical consultation has been sought,' an argument for his release.

Another argument that made for Chansley's release is that 'faith precludes him' from receiving the coronavirus vaccine, giving him both a medical and religious reason to be freed, despite not having an underlying condition that could make COVID-19 more dangerous.

Chansley (in a courtroom sketch) had been arguing for his release on religious and medical grounds

Chansley's developing legal case comes as Acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin announced Friday that over 300 people have been charged in the riot at the Capitol.

More than 280 people have been arrested in connection with the insurrection, which Carlin said was the brunt of his first briefing as Acting Deputy Attorney.

'We must return to an America where no one fears violence for who they are or what they believe,' Carlin said on Friday, according to ABC7Chicago.

Defendants Le Dinh Chuc and Le Dinh Cong were sentenced to death in September 2020 at a court in Hanoi, Vietnam, for their role in the January 2020 Dong Tam incident..

An appellate court in Vietnam Tuesday upheld the sentences of six land-rights activists involved in a deadly clash with police last year at the Dong Tam commune outside the capital Hanoi, local media reported.

In the Jan. 9, 2020 early-morning raid on the village by 3,000 security officers intervening in a long-running dispute over a military construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, Hanoi, village elder Le Dinh Kinh, 84, and three officers were killed.

During the appellate trial the procuracy recommended that sentences conferred by the lower court in September be upheld, including two death sentences for Le Dinh Cong and Le Dinh Chuc, sons of Le Dinh Kinh.

The procuracy explained that the six had committed extremely dangerous acts that endangered other peoples lives.

RFA reported Monday, the first day of the appellate trial, that lawyers for the six defendants were repeatedly obstructed during the trial.

Violations of due process by the three-judge panel hearing the case included barring one lawyer from conferring with his client and stopping lines of questioning into sensitive aspects of the case, lawyers told RFAs Vietnamese Service.

Le Dinh Cong, one of the two defendants sentenced to death at trial last year, during Mondays session, changed his appeal from asking for a reduction in his sentence to asserting his complete innocence in the case, saying he had thrown petrol bombs only to frighten police and not to kill them, state media said.

He said there were no meetings aimed at opposing the police between Jan. 6 to Jan. 8, 2020. He also denied any involvement in the deaths of the three officers who are said to have died after being burnt during the attack.

During the trial, lawyer Le Hoa also confirmed that Cong was originally planning to plead innocent but due to his confinement at a detention center, he was unable to file his innocent plea and had no choice but to write a petition to ask for penalty mitigation.

Another defendant, Bui Thi Noi, the adopted daughter of Le Dinh Kinh, asked five times during Mondays session if the Vietnamese Communist Party kills itself when it kills Vietnamese people. She received no response.

In the lower court, Noi was sentenced 6 years in prison on charges of resisting an officer on duty, one year higher than the verdict proposed by the procuracy. The stiffer sentence is believed to have been due to her demeanor during that trial.

Why didnt you enforce the existing laws? Why didnt you arrest my father in a decent and transparent way instead of luring him to the paddy rice field and breaking his leg? she said in the lower court.

Her lawyer Dang Dinh Manh told RFA Monday that Noi seems to have had a hard life.

Although her schooling was not sufficient to help her write an appeal petition and she had to ask her prison inmate to help out, shes always been an unpredictable factor in her trial, said Manh.

Referring to her outbursts, Manh said that it could be easy to mistake Noi for the presiding judge due to her tone and demeanor.

Among the six defendants, the escorts were most tired of her. But perhaps, she also made them laugh the most, he said.

The six defendants were among a group of 29 villagers tried for their roles in the Dong Tam incident. Other punishments handed out by the court included a life sentence and other sentences ranging from six years to 15 months of probation.

In a statement Monday, Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson voiced serious concerns over the prospects of a fair trial for the six Dong Tam villagers appealing their sentences.

Vietnams courts are far from independent, and predetermined outcomes dictated by the ruling communist party are still trademarks of the countrys so-called justice system, Robertson said.

There are still many unanswered questions about what happened during the Dong Tam raid that authorities have never been willing to clarify.

We are also deeply troubled by the information brought out in the defense lawyers report, stating that police used torture on some defendants to force them to confess, raising fundamental concerns about the fairness of the entire trial, Robertson said.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Agartala, March 9 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that BJP-led government in Tripura replaced corruption, commission and 'Hartal' (shut down) culture of 30 years of governance.

Addressing a gathering virtually from Delhi, Modi without naming the previous Left Front government said that the 'double engine' government (centre and state) during the last three years with new investments has been changing the earlier scenario of the closure of industry.

He claimed that the state government employees who were earlier hassled over the salary on time are now getting higher scale of salary as per 7th pay commission recommendations.

"For the first time, MSP (Minimum Support Price) has been decided in Tripura where farmers used to face many problems for selling their produce. With the environment of ease of doing business, exports from Tripura in terms of volume have increased by five times." The Prime Minister informed that in the past six years, the Centre has taken care of every requirement for the development of Tripura.

Citing the significant hike in the central allocation for the state, Modi said that Tripura had received Rs 3,500 crore for central development schemes in between 2009-2014 whereas, between 2014-2019 more than Rs 12,000 crore has been provided.

Modi said that the 'double engine' government has transformed Tripura from a power deficit state to a power surplus one.

He listed other transformation brought in by the 'double engine' government to the state like connecting two lakh rural households with piped drinking water, providing 2.5 lakh free gas connection, making every village in Tripura open defecation free, 50,000 pregnant women receiving the benefit of 'Matru Vandana Yojana', 40,000 poor families getting their new homes.

The Prime Minister said that connectivity related infrastructure has seen tremendous improvement in the last three years.

Referring to the HIRA (Highways, I-ways, Railways and Airways) development for Tripura, he cited the rapid work for the airport, sea-link for internet in Tripura, rail link and waterways in this regard.

Modi said the inauguration and laying of foundation stones of nine projects on Tuesday are efforts to make Agartala a better city and Tripura a better state in the country.

He said that decades old 35,000 Reang refugee (who fled to Tripura from Mizoram following ethnic strife) problem found a solution due to the efforts of the government.

The PM also expressed hope that the Rs 600 crore package will bring positive change in the lives of Bru people.

He touched upon the rich heritage of the state and said that renaming of the Agartala airport after Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya is a mark of respect for his vision for the development of Tripura.

Modi expressed happiness at the opportunity for honouring the people who have served the rich culture and literature of Tripura like Thanga Darlong, Satyaram Reang and Benichandra Jamatia, who during the past three yearsgot the Padma Shri awards for the outstanding works in the field of art and culture.

The Prime Minister said that the bamboo based local art is being promoted under Pradhanmantri Van Dhan Yojna, giving new opportunities to local tribes.

He inaugurated and laid foundation stones of nine mega projects worth Rs 3,518 crore including the 1.9-km-long "Maitre Setu" (friendship bridge), built at a cost of Rs 133 crore over river Feni connecting southern Tripura with Bangladesh's Ramgarh.

Besides the Feni bridge, Modi inaugurated the Integrated Command and Control Centre in Agartala (Rs 135 crore), 48 km portions of National Highway-08 in between Agartala and Udaipur (Rs 765 crore), 4,000 urban houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Urban) (Rs 813 crore) and PWD Roads (Rs 63 crore).

The PM also laid the foundation stone for four projects -- Integrated Check Posts in southern Tripura's border town Sanroom (worth Rs 232 crore), Kailashahar--Khowai National Highway-208 (worth Rs 1,078 crore), Multilevel car parking-cum-commercial complex (worth Rs 200 crore) and upgradation and widening of existing airport road from two lanes to four lanes (worth Rs 96 crore).

Tripura Governor Ramesh Bais and Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb among others also spoke in the gatherings.

Tuesday's rally and the functions were organised to mark the completion of three years of Bharatiya Janata Party-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura government in the state.
CNN host Don Lemon says he wasn't surprised about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's claims of racism in the Royal family because the monarchy was 'built on a racist structure'.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a bombshell interview on Sunday night, in which they described how their decision to step down as Royals was fueled in part by racism within Harry's family.

In one of the most remarkable segments, Meghan claimed that an unnamed relative had asked 'how dark' their unborn baby Archie would be.

Reacting to the interview on Monday, Lemon told CNN Newsroom anchor Brianna Keilar: 'I don't think Oprah or anyone that watched it, any person of color, is surprised that the British family, that there was racism there.

'That is what the monarchy is based on: heredity, hierarchy, a caste system, bloodlines. And so the whole institution is built on a racist structure.

'There should not be a "Oh my God, the British family is racist." Of course they're racist. That's what the entire monarchy is built on. The racism, the family that is supposed to be in it only by birth. And so far by birth it has only been white royals on the British throne.'

Scroll down for video

CNN host Don Lemon on Monday said he wasn't surprised about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's claims of racism in the Royal family because it was 'built on a racist structure'

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a bombshell interview on Sunday night, in which they described how their decision to step down as Royals was fueled in part by racism within Harry's family

When Keilar mentioned how Harry talked about not noticing the racism until he saw it through his wife's eyes, Lemon said: 'That is what privilege is all about. If you don't have to deal with it, then it didn't exist for you.'

Lemon then launched into a rant against 'privileged people' who have blasted Meghan and Harry for sharing their stories.

'Before the interview aired there were people on social media saying: "I can't believe, why are they doing this, woe is me, they are rich, wealthy, royal," what have you, not even knowing what the interview was going to be about. Not even knowing someone else's existence,' he said.

'I wonder why these people always try to explain what someone else's experiences are. And why all of these privileged people, most of them on social media, white women, who are criticizing Meghan and Harry and Oprah for what they were about to do and then the interview as well.

'Why is that? Why do you have to get on social media and weigh in on everything that has to do with black people and racism? Especially if you are a white person in this country. Unless you are going to be helpful and open about it, instead of saying it doesn't exist, "Oh, my gosh, how dare you."

Lemon pointed the finger at 'people who have built their reputations on criticizing people' - without naming any names.

'Why don't you try to look at it with some understanding, with an open mind instead of always criticizing,' he said. 'You know who you are. Because you do it every time.

'Every time there is a story about criminal justice or something black or Colin Kaepernick or Meghan Markle - they always have to rush to Twitter and criticize someone or get in on it because they want relevance.

'You are not relevant anymore. Stop trying to be relevant on the backs of black people.'

When CNN Newsroom Host Brianna Keilar (left) mentioned how Harry talked about not noticing the racism until he saw it through his wife's eyes, Lemon said: 'That is what privilege is all about. If you don't have to deal with it, then it didn't exist for you'

Lemon went on to say that he wasn't surprised that Harry didn't notice racism in his family until he got involved with Meghan, and said that he's had a similar experience with his own fiance, Tim Malone.

'Of course I am not surprised that Harry was introduced to racism through his wife and he felt it in a personal way. That's how it happens,' Lemon said.

'I am a black man from the south who is engaged to a white man from east end of Long Island. There were revelations for him and still are in our relationship because it wasn't something that he had to confront on a daily basis. Now he does. Now Harry does.

'Harry has a black child. And a black wife now. So it is personal. I imagine that was quite an awakening for him thinking about how [Archie] might be treated differently than other children in the Royal family.'

Lemon said he understands why relatives may have been curious what Archie would look like given that his mother is half black and father is white.

But he said it was inexcusable that someone expressed concerns that Archie would be 'too dark'.

Lemon acknowledged that the public has only heard Meghan and Harry's side of the story, but said: 'What's the other side going to say? "Of course, we're not racist." But what did they do? Think about their actions.

'They did not stand up for their own because their own was married to a black woman, had a black child. They didn't listen to him inside the Royal family. They let him go, let him leave the country, wouldn't come to terms with what they wanted to do.

'Listen, we only heard from one side, but one side at this point rings very true.'

During the interview Meghan refused to name the family member who made the 'too dark' comment, because she said: 'That would be really damaging to them.'

Oprah sought to clarify speculation about the relative on CBS This Morning, saying that Harry had made it clear to her off-camera that it was not Queen Elizabeth or Prince Phillip.

'He did not share the identity with me but he wanted to make sure that I knew and if I had an opportunity to share it, that it was not his grandmother nor his grandfather that were a part of those conversations,' Oprah said Monday.

'Neither his grandmother nor grandfather were a part of those conversations.

'He did not tell me who were a part of those conversations, as you can see I tried to get that answer. On camera and off.'
The on Tuesday inked a pact



with Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi, a western Tamil Nadu- based outfit which would contest in three Assembly segments on the Dravidian party's 'Rising Sun' symbol.

By finalising the electoral deal, has concluded seat sharing with allies including the Congress, stealing a march on arch rival, the ruling AIADMK which is expected to announce a poll deal for smaller allies. In total, 60 segments have been set apart for allies by the

Of these 60 segments, Vaiko-led MDMK and four smaller parties would contest on the Rising Sun symbol which works out to a total of 12 segments and in effect these dozen seats would also be regarded officially as DMK's constituencies.

As a result, DMK would be in the fray in 186 out of the total 234 Assembly seats.

The AIADMK's ally DMDK walked out of the alliance on Tuesday and the ruling party has given 23 and 20 seats respectively to allies, the PMK and BJP.

The Congress has been allotted 25 seats and six each for CPI, CPI (M) Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and MDMK.

The Indian Union Muslim Leage and Manithaneya Makkal Katchi have been allotted three and two constituencies respectively.

The DMK has been out of power since 2011 and it is leaving no stone unturned to storm back to power. will have a single phase poll on April 6.

In addition to KMDK, other smaller parties, the Aadhi Tamizhar Peravai, Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi and Makkal Viduthalai Katchi have got one seat each from DMK.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
JERUSALEM, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pepticom, a leader in artificial intelligence peptide drug design and discovery, announced today that it has raised $2.6 million to establish a company to focus on treatments for the SARS-Cov-2 virus, responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak. The company, PeptiCov, will implement Pepticom's AI technology to design, discover and develop novel peptide molecules for effective treatment of the SARS-Cov-2 virus. The funding round was led by the Chartered Group.

"Unfortunately, COVID-19 and the various viral mutations will likely be with us for a long time and thus effective treatment is key," said Immanuel Lerner, Founder and CEO of Pepticom. "PeptiCov is focused on discovering and developing an effective treatment for SARS-Cov-2, which would allow the world to live alongside the virus rather than remain in lockdowns and other drastic measures."

Pepticom's unique artificial intelligence (AI) technology streamlines and significantly accelerates the ability to discover advanced peptide-based drug candidates. Pepticom's AI technology enables the discovery of the most advanced peptide-based drug candidates by searching an enormous set of possible solutions, vastly reducing the risk of failure during development. It covers a chemical-space of 1030 possible molecular options - which is much larger than current screening techniques - while simultaneously filtering out the most suitable candidates with properties such as solubility and permeability amongst others. This software analyzed several protein targets related to the SARS-Cov-2 virus and designed a number of potential peptide drug candidates that were lab validated. PeptiCov will be responsible for further development of these peptides. PeptiCov will also actively be seeking partnerships with pharma companies.

The Chartered Group has previously invested in Pepticom and other Israeli deep tech companies and has broad networks in Europe, East Asia and Japan. "We made this investment out of our belief in Pepticom's application of AI via PeptiCov for SARS-Cov-2 drug discovery and early development," said Eyal Agmoni, Chairman of Chartered Group and Technology division. "Pepticom's unique AI platform allows for various drug discovery efforts, and we are excited to join this spinoff company."

About Pepticom

Pepticom is a privately held AI company with headquarters in Israel committed to offering AI peptide drug discovery solutions for a better and healthier world. It is the leader in the emerging peptide drugs software solutions, AI and prediction tools that allow research centers, pharma and agriculture companies to accelerate innovative molecules discovery while reducing time, costs and risks. Pepticom operates in various markets; past successful discoveries include peptide molecules related to metabolic diseases and Immuno-modulators. Pepticom was founded in 2011 by a select team of multidisciplinary PhD graduates from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

http://www.pepticom.com

For logos and images click here.

Pepticom recently hosted a webinar with researchers, doctors and policy makers from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Shaarei Zedek Medical Center on "Beyond Vaccines - Harnessing AI to Accelerate Undiscovered Treatment for COVID-19." To view the webinar, click here.

About Chartered Group

The Chartered Group's investments consist of five major business interests: Investment Banking, Private Credit, Real Estate, Hospitality and Technology. The Chartered Group's Technology division invests in companies that develop disruptive technologies in wide areas including biomedical, artificial intelligence and IoT, to mention a few. Chartered Group also focuses on investments in Israeli early-stage start-ups as the anchor investor in TAU Ventures, the venture capital fund of Tel Aviv University. For more information, visit http://www.charteredgroup.com.

Company Contact:

Dr. Maayan Elias, Ph.D., MBA, BSc. Pharm

SVP BD and Marketing

maayan.elias@pepticom.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451795/Pepticom.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451793/PeptiCov.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1451794/Chartered_Group.jpg


With community leads Radio 4 Sunday Worship With community leads Radio 4 Sunday Worship

On Sunday youth worker Jamie Cutteridge and Canon Jutta Brueck from the With Community in Ditchingham led morning worship on Radio 4.

With is a name which reminds us that we live this life with God, with one another, with ourselves, and with the planet, said Jamie, one of the leaders of the With community.



He explained that With had been handed the lease to a large convent in Norfolk called All Hallows, which for 150 years has been a house of prayer, community and service owned by the Sisters of All Hallows.



Over Lent the first few members have moved onto the site, said Jamie, and work is underway for youth groups to come away for rest, fun, and a chance to explore and grow in the Christian faith as well as build resilience.



The community living on site all year round will be committed in prayer and mission to supporting and serving the UKs young people.



Hamish MacQueen, Director of Youth Services from the Catholic Diocese of East Anglia, read the Gospel from St Luke, which described the finding of the boy Jesus in the Temple by his parents.



Canon Jutta Brueck, Dean for With, commented on the passage on her sermon. In this time of pandemic and lockdown, she said, there are sadly not many opportunities for young people to sit among their teachers, listening to them, and asking questions.



She observed that there was a great deal of debate about how to bridge the gap in their learning, how to support young people whose mental health has suffered in this last year, and how to move forward, addressing the huge inequalities in opportunity, access to resources and wealth that have been uncovered.



Could this be a time when. Gods Spirit is speaking through the voices of young people? she asked.



You can listen to the Radio 4 programme here.



Jamie commented: Im delighted that Radio 4 asked With Community to lead Sunday Worship; but whats more exciting is that the service elevates the voices of young people as part of the programme. Throughout Lent we have been asking young people from Norfolk and beyond, from a variety of Christian traditions, what being with means to them, and these quotes and ideas that were central in the service."



With has recently opened up applications for community members at Ditchingham and are looking to create a diverse community of Christians passionate about praying for and with young people.



More information about joining the With community is available on this link.



Pictured above is Jamie Cutteridge





Eldred Willey, 08/03/2021
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
The relevance of university education was the focus of the latest episode of Funmi Iyandas Public Eye. The first episode in March...

The relevance of university education was the focus of the latest episode of Funmi Iyandas Public Eye.

The first episode in March was dedicated to discussing the merits and demerits of university education in Nigeria.

Ishaq Oloyede, Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) registrar; Jerry Mallo, CEO of Bennie Technologies; and Tayo Osunkoya, a professional diver, aired their views on the subject.

When asked if he believes university education is compulsory, Oloyede said: Should all of us go to the university? The answer to me is no. These children will go to the university and end up not benefiting from university education but they could do some other things, they could be better not going to the university.

The system itself needs to be addressed. In UK today, if one is a plumber, he could earn as much as somebody who is a professor if not more. He is fulfilled, he doesnt need to be what hes not because the system allows him to grow within his own path.

On his part, Mallo told the story of how he became an inventor without a university degree.

He explained how he went from not writing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to dropping out of university in the UK after being sponsored by a Nigerian professor and then going on to become a successful inventor.





When my mates were writing post-UTME, I went to learn roadside mechanic work. I wanted to learn how the machines work, he said.

I endured to finish my first year in the university with a very poor grade. It was very bad for me, I spent the night time crying. After a year, I just felt the classroom was not for me.

I thought to myself, if youre looking to start a company, no one asks you for a certificate. Its only when you want a job that they ask for a certificate. I never wanted a job. I wanted to create jobs.

I asked myself, I spent a lot of hours trying to learn the theoretical aspect and still failed. What would happen if I spent those hours on the things Im good at? So I picked that as a challenge.





Osunkoya, who abandoned stockbroking to become a diver, explained that he was not deriving fulfillment from his job in the corporate world.

I was not gaining any satisfaction from what I was doing. So, in 1999, I decided to do something special. I didnt know any divers and there was no diving school in Nigeria. But I knew this was something I wanted to do, he said
Damascus, March 9 : Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and First Lady Asma al-Assad have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a state media report.

After experiencing some symptoms, the President and his wife took the PCR test and the result came positive even though they are in good and stable health, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying on Monday.

The couple will be quarantining between two to three weeks while continuing to carry out their work.

The President urged the people to observe safety measures to protect against the pandemic.

Th development comes at a time when Syria is under a stronger wave of the pandemic, with increasing coronavirus cases.

According to the Health Ministry, the country has so far reported 15,981 coronavirus cases, with 10,374 recoveries and 1,063 deaths.

However, medical staff say the number is much higher as many infected people do not undergo tests.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Seoul, March 9 : Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said it will expand its lineup of customisable home appliances that allow consumers to better reflect their lifestyles as the South Korean tech giant aims to boost sales amid the pandemic-driven stay-at-home trend.

Samsung said its concept of BESPOKE will be applied to all of its home appliance products as it introduced BESPOKE HOME solutions designed to help consumers decorate their entire home space with various customisable products.

BESPOKE is a concept promoted by Samsung that allows consumers to tailor their own configurations by material, color and modules to meet user preference in home appliance selections.

Samsung said 17 BESPOKE HOME products, which include refrigerators, air conditioners and vacuum cleaners, will be available in the first half of the year, reports Yonhap news agency.

Its new BESPOKE refrigerator comes with 22 types of door panels and offers consumers a selection of 360 colours. The four-door fridge, which comes with a price tag between 2.89 million won ($2,500) and 4.69 million won, will also have an embedded water dispenser inside the door.

Samsung said its BESPOKE water purifier, which was first introduced at the all-digital Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2021 in January, will go on sale later this month, while its Jet stick vacuum cleaner also will be launched this month.

Samsung added its shoe care appliance, the BESPOKE Shoe Dresser, will be launched in May.

Samsung already launched its BESPOKE products in countries such as Russia, Sweden and China last year. For this year, it plans to sell the products in the United States, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
DUBLIN, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Environmental Consulting Services Global Market Report 2021: COVID-19 Impact and Recovery to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global environmental consulting services market is expected to grow from $29.08 billion in 2020 to $31.12 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7%.

Environmental Consulting Services Global Market Report 2021: COVID-19 Impact and Recovery to 2030 provides the strategists, marketers and senior management with the critical information they need to assess the global environmental consulting services market as it emerges from the COVID-19 shut down.



Major companies in the environmental consulting services market include AECOM; Amec Foster Wheeler; Tetra Tech; Arcadis and Environmental Resource Management.



The growth is mainly due to the companies rearranging their operations and recovering from the COVID-19 impact, which had earlier led to restrictive containment measures involving social distancing, remote working, and the closure of commercial activities that resulted in operational challenges. The market is expected to reach $36.93 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 4%.



The environmental consulting services (ECS) market consists of the sales of environmental consulting services and related goods by entities (organizations, sole traders and partnerships) that provide advice, assistance, and action plans to organizations and governments to manage their environment. It includes the prevention of environmental contamination, toxic substances, security consulting, waste management, and pollution control.

Environmental consulting services undertake processes where human capital is the major input. They make available the knowledge and skills of their employees, often on an assignment basis, where an individual or team is responsible for the delivery of services to the client. The environmental consulting services market is segmented into site remediation consulting services; water and waste management consulting services; environment management, compliance and due diligence and other environmental consulting services.



North America was the largest region in the global environmental consulting services market, accounting for 50% of the market in 2020. Western Europe was the second largest region accounting for 19% of the global environmental consulting services market. Africa was the smallest region in the global environmental consulting services market.



Environmental consulting companies are increasingly promoting the utilization and installation of IoT technologies that can help enterprises and governments monitor and conserve the environment. For instance, environmental sensors measure pollution causing particles in air and water, thereby monitoring air or water quality. They also detect radiations and hazardous chemicals in the environment. IoT technologies can also offer efficient solutions for waste collection and disposal. Smart waste collection systems could help track waste levels in garbage bins, provide transport optimization and operational analytics, thereby saving on government assets and minimum fuel consumption.



Sustainable development refers to the economic growth of a country or region, without or with minimum depletion of natural resources. The United Nations Organization established Sustainable Development Goals for all its members with an agenda to ensure responsible growth to 2030.

These goals include ensuring availability and equitable access to drinking water, improving water quality by reducing pollution and preventing dumping of hazardous waste, building safe and resilient infrastructure, integrating measures to tackle climate change in national policies, and the promotion of sustainable use of marine and terrestrial resources. Investments in meeting these targets is expected to drive demand for the services of environmental services companies.



Key Topics Covered:



1. Executive Summary



2. Report Structure



3. Environmental Consulting Services Market Characteristics

3.1. Market Definition

3.2. Key Segmentations



4. Environmental Consulting Services Market Product Analysis

4.1. Leading Products/ Services

4.2. Key Features and Differentiators

4.3. Development Products



5. Environmental Consulting Services Market Supply Chain

5.1. Supply Chain

5.2. Distribution

5.3. End Customers



6. Environmental Consulting Services Market Customer Information

6.1. Customer Preferences

6.2. End Use Market Size and Growth



7. Environmental Consulting Services Market Trends and Strategies



8. Impact of COVID-19 on Environmental Consulting Services



9. Environmental Consulting Services Market Size and Growth

9.1. Market Size

9.2. Historic Market Growth, Value ($ Billion)

9.2.1. Drivers of the Market

9.2.2. Restraints on the Market

9.3. Forecast Market Growth, Value ($ Billion)

9.3.1. Drivers of the Market

9.3.2. Restraints on the Market



10. Environmental Consulting Services Market Regional Analysis

10.1. Global Environmental Consulting Services Market, 2020, by Region, Value ($ Billion)

10.2. Global Environmental Consulting Services Market, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F, Historic and Forecast, by Region

10.3. Global Environmental Consulting Services Market, Growth and Market Share Comparison, by Region



11. Environmental Consulting Services Market Segmentation

11.1. Global Environmental Consulting Services Market, Segmentation by Type, Historic and Forecast, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F, $ Billion

Site Remediation Consulting Services

Other Environmental Consulting Services

Water and Waste Management Consulting Services

Environment Management, Compliance and Due Diligence

11.2. Global Environmental Consulting Services Market, Segmentation by End-Users, Historic and Forecast, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F, $ Billion

Mining, Manufacturing & Process Industries

Energy & Utilities

Government & Regulators

Infrastructure & Development

Others

12. Environmental Consulting Services Market Metrics

12.1. Environmental Consulting Services Market Size, Percentage of GDP, 2015-2025, Global

12.2. Per Capita Average Environmental Consulting Services Market Expenditure, 2015-2025, Global

Companies Mentioned

AECOM

Amec Foster Wheeler

Tetra Tech

Arcadis

Environmental Resource Management

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/7pq51x

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Opinion Article

9 March 2021

Since COVID-19 became a global pandemic, our industry research shows Hoteliers have been consistently concerned with the impact of flight restrictions on travel and, subsequently, hotel bookings. The big questions on everyone's mind are: Will there be enough aircraft supply to support the pent-up demand? And what will be the impact on Hotels worldwide?

To answer these questions, we catch up with Aviation expert, Gavin Eccles - Managing Consultant & Professor of Aviation and Tourism, to get his take on the status of commercial airlines today, and what we can expect when travel restrictions are lifted.

How soon can Hoteliers expect air travel to return to pre-COVID levels?

Following the UK government's roadmap to reopen the economy, there is talk that by the end of 2021, we could achieve around 50% of 2019 market levels. However, we could also just have 13% by the end of the year simply because we don't know what will happen next in terms of borders reopening and how the vaccine rollouts will continue. Most importantly, we need to put confidence back into the consumer to travel again.

It's important to note that we don't have a problem with the supply. Airlines are ready to go. Where we have a problem at the moment is with the demand, and in this respect, this is where we are on the same boat with Hotels. No consumers are taking a leap of faith to book at the moment because they don't know what might be available.

What are your expectations for air travel when government restrictions are lifted?

The Industry Air Travel Association (IATA) has proposed the IATA passport that allows passengers to share data inside an app. But although numerous airlines and governments have signed up for this project, everyone needs to be aligned for it to work on a global scale.

With the IATA passport, all your information is stored in an app, including paperwork. This is similar to what we have now with pre-clearance to make sure passengers are not on a 'No-Fly' list. If this information sharing can be done quickly and easily, then it allows airlines to more easily return to transfer hubs. The last thing airlines want is 2 to 3-hour queues in airports because that means airplanes won't be connecting with each other.

The 'Block Hour' of an aircraft means you can only fly for so many hours. If you start delaying flights and procedures, the model of aviation will be challenged. So there needs to be integration between different stakeholders, associations, and institutions to align this procedure and make it work.

How will airlines respond to the spike in demand when restrictions are lifted?

Most airlines have restructured, planning which aircraft to remove long-term. So theoretically, even though airlines may not be flying, they know that they have X numbers of widebodies and Y numbers of narrowbodies. So the network planning is done, they just don't know where they can send the aircraft until borders reopen. When that happens, it will probably take 2 to 3 weeks to get the airplanes moved from deserts to airports and resume normal operations.

If the demand is there, then the aircraft will be ready. What will be interesting is that airlines have now had to implement a short-term planning model. If we were living in normal times, airlines should really be planning for summer 2022 right now. However, the industry is planning for summer 2021, which is just 3 months away. Goes without saying that the pandemic has driven airlines and airports to ramp up their flexibility to respond to rapid market changes.

What can the aviation industry (and Hotels for that matter) learn from the events of the pandemic and bailout programs?

For airlines that grew heavily over the last five years leading up to 2020, aviation leasing had become very trendy. Dublin and Singapore had become global aviation hubs and most of the major banks were involved in aviation leasing. In fact, the Bank of China is one of the biggest owners of aviation.

What this says is that maybe airlines were growing so quickly, because there had been a new market. In the old days, airlines would buy aircraft directly from the manufacturer. But what the industry has now created is a middleman, where you've got the manufacturer selling to the lessor which then negotiates with the airline.

That has given airlines the ability to just keep growing. Whilst this was working, everyone was happy. But when disaster struck, airlines appealed to governments for help to just stay alive. It just goes to show that when an airline doesn't fly, the models were not right. We have too much of our costs associated with assets. So, I guess the learning here is that maybe we grew too quickly.

The expectation for 'Business Travel' continues to decline, while expectations for 'Leisure Travel' steadily increase. In your view, why is this the case?

In the third week of February 2021, following the UK's announcement that international travel can restart again in mid-May, Easyjet announced that their flight bookings were 300% up compared to the second week of February. And, even more, outstanding is that Easyjet Holidays have said they are up 600% compared to the week previously.

Now, you can imagine, the previous week's bookings were very low, relative to where we would expect. But all of a sudden, with a little bit of positivity and a little bit of confidence, the market is booming. The level of pent-up demand for leisure is huge.

With travel anticipated to return in the summer months of June, July, and August, consumers across the Northern Hemisphere will most likely invest in holidays. So it's obvious that leisure will bounce back during this period. Whether September, October, and November will reactivate the demand for business travel in 2021, remains to be seen.

Read Full Interview
Less than three lakh active COVID-19 cases in Karnataka

Govt explains why COVID impact may increase in children if virus changes behaviour

CISCE cancels ISC class 12th board exams due to Covid-19; Assessment criteria to be out soon

Now, you can update vaccination status on Aarogya Setu app

Only 1 sub-lineage of COVID Delta strain found in India is variant of concern: WHO

With 15,388 new cases, India sees slight dip in daily Covid-19 infections

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Mar 09: With 15,388 fresh cases, India''s COVID-19 tally has climbed to 1,12,44,786, while the number of recoveries has surged to 1,08,99,394, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday.

The death toll due to the viral disease has gone up to 1,57,930 in the country with 77 more fatalities, the ministry''s data updated at 8 am showed.

After registering an increase for six consecutive days, the number of active COVID-19 cases has gone down to 1,87,462, accounting for only 1.67 per cent of the country''s total caseload, while the case fatality rate has dropped to 1.40 per cent.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has gone up to 1,08,99,394, which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of 96.93 per cent.

Coronavirus cases: India airlifts COVID-19 vaccines to Somalia

India''s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 last year, the 30-lakh mark on August 23, the 40-lakh mark on September 5 and the 50-lakh mark on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and the one-crore mark on December 19.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 22,27,16,796 samples have so far been tested in the country for the viral disease, including 7,48,525 on Monday.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 10:15 [IST]
Smugglers use a raft to transport immigrant families and children across the Rio Grande River into the United States from Mexico in Penitas, Texas, on March 5, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

More Capacity Needed for Child Immigrants Amid Surge: White House

The White House is working on adding more room to house young immigrants who cross the southern border, after a group of senior officials traveled to the border to speak to staffers and children and see the worsening situation firsthand.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a slew of other Biden administration officials, such as domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, went to southern Texas and toured a Customs and Border Protection facility, along with the newly reopened Carrizo Springs holding facility. No reporters were allowed to accompany the group.

Following the visit, the group plans on briefing President Joe Biden about what they learned, though they hadnt done so as of Monday. That briefing will include advice on how to increase capacity for the rapidly increasing number of child immigrants arriving at the border.

We know just purely by the number, that there is going to be a need. Right? Because we have a large number of kids, unaccompanied children, who are coming across the border, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at the White House on Monday.

Weve made a policy decision, as an administration, that the humane and moral approach is to keep these kids safe and get them into facilities that are safe, she added. And our objective remains moving them as quickly as possible out of the Border Patrol facilities. In order to do that, we need to have shelter facilities that are safe; that have access to educational resources, legal resources, health and medical resources; and we need to ensure we have capacity to do that.

Biden directed the group to evaluate and understand the situation on the ground, Julissa Reynoso, chief of staff to First Lady Jill Biden and part of the group, told reporters.

As you all know, we inherited a broken system, and we havethere are many challenges involved currently. We did speak to many of the folks involved, including children. So it iswere trying to manage this in an orderly fashion, but obviously being very mindful of the human costs here, in light of the fact that we are talking about kids, she said, adding that the group plans to brief Biden soon.

Julissa Reynosa, co-chair of the Gender Policy Council and chief of staff to First Lady Jill Biden, speaks during a briefing at the White House in Washington on March 8, 2021. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

There are no plans for Biden to himself visit the border at this time, according to the White House. Biden received a briefing last week, telling reporters he learned a lot. Asked if there was a crisis, he added, No, well be able to handle it, God willing.

The number of licensed beds provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in charge of caring for the minor immigrants, reached more than 13,600 earlier this monththe highest in the programs history. But officials say not all the beds can be used because of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting social distancing requirements for the difficulty in housing immigrants, leading to the activation of the Trump-era facility in Carrizo Springs.

As of Feb. 28, approximately 7,700 unaccompanied immigrants, or minors who arrive at the border without parents or guardians, were being cared for across the facilities.

State officials and members of Congress representing portions of states along the borders have raised the alarm about the numbers of illegal immigrants seen recently, with more than 10,000 apprehended in a single Border Patrol District in Texas.

Mayorkas recently asked for volunteers within the department to go to the border as officials deal with the surge in migration.

The security official announced March 1 that the Biden administration views reuniting the minors with family members as a moral imperative and would take dramatic steps to do so, including potentially flying parents from their home countries and allowing them and the child to remain in the United States.

While Biden administration officials have urged immigrants not to come to the United States for now, some immigrants see the administrations shift of immigration policies as welcoming, such as allowing asylum seekers to wait in America instead of being forced to hold outside the country.

Now theres hope, a former police officer from Honduras who was planning to file for asylum told The Associated Press.
What just happened? Nothingthe company created by OnePlus co-founder Carl Peirecently announced that it would be releasing its first product this summer: true wireless earbuds. Now, the firm has released images of the Concept 1, a product that shows off its design philosophy and could resemble the upcoming buds.

Theres a lot of buzz around Nothing. The London-based tech company has already raised more than $22 million in funding from big tech names, including Reddit CEO Steve Huffman and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin.

Pei was typically vague in the Concept 1 reveal postit doesnt even specify what the device isbut the design certainly brings to mind true wireless earbuds.

The Concept 1 features a semi-transparent outer case that shows off the inner workings, a look that Pei says embodies our commitment to bringing technology closer to people. It's pretty slick, with a metallic top and red highlight.

The Concept 1s design is inspired by grandmothers tobacco pipe. Nothing says its products draw inspiration from familiar objects as a way of making them feel fresh for years. The company in February announced it is working with Stockholm-based designers Teenage Engineering on its product roadmap.

We distill technology to the essentials, embracing raw tech, where every gram and every byte live with purpose. We peel off everything superficial, like unnecessary branding on the surface, to focus solely on what adds true value to the user experience, writes Pei. We spend as much time thinking about what we can remove from a product, as what we can add to it.

Despite Nothing acquiring the Essential IP, it doesnt sound as if new smartphones are part of the plan. Pei envisions technology with no screens, no dedicated devices, just barely noticeable technology that empowers us to be more human.

The wireless earbud market is a crowded and highly competitive one, though Nothings first product could stand out from the crowd with its unique design. Let's hope it sounds as good as it looks.
15:32 | Lima, Mar. 9.

"Investments are normally activated following the rainy season. Thus, exploration and exploitation activities usually begin in April and remain active practically thru the end of the year. I believe that these will advance 45% until next July," he commented.





The high-ranking official argued that Peru remains an attractive country for mining exploration . However, he said that the excessive paperwork for its development slows the whole process down.





"We have problems in achieving a slightly more agile implementation of the prior consultation, and one of the recommendations of the Commission for Sustainable Development was to adapt the consultation in the exploration part to prevent it from taking a year as it currently happens," he indicated.





To do this, Galvez said his sector is working on a proposal that will be shared with the Ministry of Culture and the institutions which defend indigenous peoples.





"This initiative will be ready next April and, after including the respective comments, we will leave it to the consideration of the next government for its implementation," he said.





Social Advancement Fund





The Minister also lamented the fact that the Social Advancement Fund (FAS) could not be implemented until now.





As is known, the FAS seeks to finance prioritized programs and projects that make it possible to close gaps in basic services and infrastructure in zones of influence of mining-energy activities and other sectors.





"We are managing the transfer of around S/10 million (about US$2.699 billion) to the FAS, so that some technical files can be crafted in some mining areas," he remarked.




There has been inordinate delay in issuing of H-4 work authorisation permits to certain categories of spouses of those possessing H-1B foreign work visas , the most sought after among Indian IT professionals, a group of highly talented Indian women in the US has said.

An H-4 visa is issued by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to immediate family members (spouse and children under 21 years of age) of the H-1B visa holders, most of whom are Indian IT professionals.

Also Read | Australias prime time battle against big tech

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

The H-4 visa is normally issued to those who have already started the process of seeking employment-based lawful permanent resident status in the US.

A group of such Indian women over the weekend organised a protest march in San Jose, California on the occasion of International Womens Day to highlight the suffering of tens of thousands of immigrant women being forced out of their livelihoods, organisers of the event SaveH4EAD said.

Spouses of Indian professionals on H-1B visas, mostly women, are the biggest beneficiary of the Obama-era rule that gave employment authorisation cards.

We are here to reiterate that this is our home, this is where we have spent the last many years of our lives, raised families and contributed positively to the society and economy as skilled legal immigrants," said Pratima Joglekar, California chapter lead volunteer and organiser of the event.

The group has sought the Biden administrations attention to end these arbitrary policies that are disproportionately oppressing women of colour and robbing them of their livelihood.

A week after his inauguration on January 20, US President Joe Biden withdrew a Trump-era rule rescinding work authorisation for H-4 visa holders, who are spouses of those possessing H-1B work visas, with majority being highly-skilled Indian women.

My wifes H-4 renewal is pending for 5 months. Were going through a very difficult time in paying her residency tuition as shes not being allowed to work as a Teaching Assistant. Im the only earning member and it has been extremely stressful for our family," said Sreenidhi Krishnamoorthy, whose wife is currently a student at San Jose State University.

Participants of the march alleged that USCIS has delayed the processing of H-4 and H4EAD ((Employment Authorisation Document) applications excessively, to the point that it is effectively killing the programme.

These delays have led to a serious humanitarian crisis causing havoc in the lives of thousands of skilled legal immigrant women across the US. Theyre losing their jobs and health insurances during this pandemic, are unable to renew drivers license and state ID, unable to travel to their home country or elsewhere, facing grave financial distress, going through severe mental health issues, deep impact on family and kids, among other issues," a media release said.

Many of these are essential workers, healthcare workers, small business owners, researchers, engineers, and more, they said.

The Obama era rule to provide work permits to certain categories of spouses of H-1B visas has benefited approximately 100,000 H-4 spouses their basic right to work, be financially independent and contribute positively to the American economy. Over 95 per cent of the H4EAD recipients are highly-skilled women from diverse fields of work, it said.

In a statement, SaveH4EAD group attributes the current astronomical processing delays by the USCIS to two main factors: the additional biometric requirements implemented by the previous administration through Executive Order 13780, and the delays due to COVID-related restrictions.

The group hoped that the Biden administration will provide immediate relief by removing the additional biometrics requirements since the guiding Executive Order 13780 has already been revoked by President Biden on Day 1, and allowing anyone who has filed for H-4 and H-4 EAD application to use their receipt notice as proof of employment authorisation until USCIS is able to adjudicate the application.

The group urged the administration to make it a policy to allow for concurrent processing of H-1B/H-4 applications when filed together, implement premium processing for H-4 and H-4 EAD applications as soon as possible through H.R.8337 - Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act.

They are also seeking auto-extension of H-4 EAD for 180-240 days while the renewal application is pending and codifying H-4 EAD into law as either a stand-alone immigration bill or as part of United States Citizenship Act 2021, or any other smaller immigration bill.

As of December 2017, USCIS had approved 1,26,853 applications for employment authorisation for H-4 visa holders. According to a 2018 report by Congressional Research Service (CRS) 93 per cent of approved applications for H-4 employment authorisation were issued to individuals born in India, and 5 were issued to individuals born in China.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
RESTON, Va., March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Final U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations to lower the initial age and smoking history requirements for lung cancer screening (LCS) reconfirm the lifesaving ability of these tests and present an opportunity for providers to re-engage screening age patients to save more lives.

The American College of Radiology (ACR) urges the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to quickly update its LCS National Coverage Decision to reflect the USPSTF changes. This combined USPSTF and CMS action would enable the medical community to strike a blow against the nation's leading cancer killer by using LCS screening to its full advantage.

Screening eligibility expansion should spur more providers to start conversations with eligible patients that can ease lung cancer outcomes disparities  particularly among women, Black men and those in rural areas.

Annual lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) in high-risk patients significantly reduces lung cancer deaths.1,2 Sadly, less than 15% of Americans who met previous USPSTF lung cancer screening criteria are tested each year.3,4 Given that the American Cancer Society predicts 131,880 lung cancer deaths in 2021, more-widespread screening could save 30,00060,000 lives in the United States each year.

"Lung cancer kills more people each year than breast, colon and prostate cancers combined. Particularly with the expanded screening thresholds implemented nationwide, this cost-effective test can save more lives than any cancer-screening test in history. I urge primary care providers and pulmonologists to use this new information to start screening conversations with their recommended patients today," said Debra Dyer, MD, FACR, Chair of the ACR Lung Cancer Screening Steering Committee.

The underuse of LCS may, in part, be due to a large overestimation of LCS false-positive rates, which inflates assumptions of potential harms. The false-positive rate in clinical LCS practices using Lung-RADS structured reporting is 78%  similar to screening mammography. It is critical that physicians are up-to-date on current information so they can engage with their patients to make informed screening decisions.



"The Affordable Care Act mandates that private insurers incorporate updated USPSTF guidelines into coverage within one year. The healthcare community and advocates must contact insurers to get these changes implemented as soon as possible so that primary care providers and thoracic specialists can act on the lower starting age and more-inclusive pack-year threshold to order these scans for their high-risk patients," said Ella Kazerooni MD, MS, FACR, Chair of the ACR Lung-RADS committee and Lung Cancer Screening Registry.

For more CT lung cancer screening information, visit RadiologyInfo.org, NLCRT.org and ACR Lung Cancer Screening Resources.

SOURCE American College of Radiology

Related Links

http://www.acr.org


Burma Myanmar Media Groups Vow to Defy Juntas Publishing Bans

A journalist covers a crackdown against an anti-regime demonstration in Mandalay. / The Irrawaddy

Myanmars military regime banned five media groups for their supposed anti-regime coverage but most have announced that they would continue to cover the news in the fight for democracy and human rights.

On Monday, the Ministry of Information said it had revoked the publishing licenses of 7Day News, Myanmar Now, Mizzima, DVB and Khit Thit Media without giving a reason.

Since Feb. 22, coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has repeatedly said that referring to the militarys State Administration Council as the military regime or junta will result in publication licenses being revoked. The military claims it seized power constitutionally.

Only 7Day News did not announce that it would keep publishing independently, defying the regimes orders.

On Tuesday, DVB condemned the ban as prohibiting the rights to information and freedom of expression. Two of its reporters covering crackdowns on anti-regime protests have been detained.

DVB said it would fight for democracy and human rights alongside Myanmars people. It said its broadcasts will still be available on PSI bands, the DVB website, Facebook and YouTube.

Following the order is fulfilling the regimes strategy. So we will keep reporting as we have been doing, U Sein Win, acting editor-in-chief of Mizzima News, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday. The Mizzima said it will keep publishing news and broadcasting via its website, Facebook, PSI band, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram.

After the announcement, the security forces reportedly raided Mizzimas Yangon office and confiscated equipment on Tuesday.

Before the ban was announced Myanmar Nows Yangon office was raided. Computers, printers and data servers were seized but no one was detained, Myanmar Now reported online.

However, 7Day News stopped publishing on Tuesday after the announcement.

Other outlets, including the BBCs Burmese service, Radio Free Asias Burmese service and The Irrawaddy have been covering anti-regime movement and the militarys violent crackdowns against protesters, including killing and arbitrary detentions since the Feb. 1 coup. They have been using terms like coup, military regime and military council despite the juntas repeated warnings.

Raids continue. On Tuesday afternoon, the security forces raided the Kamayut Media office in Yangon and detained its editor and co-founder, although the firm does not face a ban.

Numerous journalists have been seized while reporting on anti-regime protests. Though some were released, 14 have been detained and most of them are reportedly charged with sedition under Article 505(a) of the Penal Code. Another two journalists have been released on bail after being sued under the same charges.

Civic organizations also raided

To battle the civil disobedience movement (CDM), the security forces raided the office of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society in Yangon on Monday for supporting the CDM and anti-regime demonstrations. A safe box, computers, office equipment and paintings were taken.

The organization is led by veteran activist U Min Ko Naing, who was a leader of the 1988 uprising and is now on the run from the authorities. He has been urging civil servants and the public to protest and defy the regime.

In Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, the security forces raided the vocational training school of the National League for Democracy, detaining six people, including three trainees.

Cash, a truck, five motorbikes, more than 20 computers, 18 mobile phones, clocks and other office equipment were confiscated.

State-run television announced on Monday that the regime has charged U Kyaw Thu and his wife, Daw Myint Myint Khin Pe, of the Free Funeral Service Society for allegedly supporting the CDM.

The couple have been in hiding and they were sued for incitement under Article 505(a), carrying up to three years imprisonment, after the regimes amended the legislation last month.

On March 3, the societys office was raided and its belongings destroyed and 10 staff members brutally tortured by the security forces.

You may also like these stories:

Italian Ammunition Used in Myanmar Police Assault on Ambulance Raises Questions

Japan urges Myanmar Regime to Stop Violence and Free Detained Leaders

Thailand Ready to Accommodate Refugees From Myanmar Fleeing the Violent Unrest
For full access, please log in, register your subscription or subscribe.

Try for 99 a month for two months, cancel or pause anytime.
A U.S. agency investigating Facebook Inc. for racial bias in hiring and promotions has designated the probe as systemic, attorneys for three job applicants and a manager who claim the company discriminated against them told Reuters on Friday.

A systemic probe means the agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, suspects company policies may be contributing to widespread discrimination.

The EEOC typically resolves disputes through mediation or allowing complainants to sue employers. But agency officials designate a few cases systemic, enabling investigators to rope in specialists to analyze company data and potentially bring a broader lawsuit representing entire classes of workers.

Facebook operations program manager Oscar Veneszee Jr. and two applicants denied jobs brought a charge last July to the EEOC, and a third rejected applicant joined the case in December. They have alleged Facebook discriminates against Black candidates and employees by relying on subjective evaluations and promoting problematic racial stereotypes.

The designation of the EEOCs probe has not been previously reported.

No Allegations

The EEOC has not brought allegations against Facebook. Its investigation, which may last months more, may not result in findings of wrongdoing. The agency declined to comment.

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone declined to comment on the status of the probe or specific allegations but said that it is essential to provide all employees with a respectful and safe working environment.

We take any allegations of discrimination seriously and investigate every case, he said.

The EEOC brought in systemic investigators by last August and received detailed briefing papers from both sides over the last four months, said Peter Romer-Friedman, an attorney at Gupta Wessler representing Veneszee and the job candidates.

Employment law firms Mehri & Skalet and Katz Marshall & Banks also are helping the workers.

The EEOCs Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Washington offices are involved, attorneys from the firms said.

Facebooks counsel, Covington & Burling, did not respond to a request for comment.

Increasing racial and gender diversity has been a persistent challenge for the nations largest tech companies, which at times have blamed a shortage of qualified candidates from underrepresented groups. But tech workers have grown emboldened to publicly challenge that notion and allege in formal complaints that biased employment practices cause disparities.

Romer-Friedman said he and his colleagues told the EEOC in a submission last month that one such Facebook policy is awarding employees bonuses of up to $5,000 when a candidate they refer is hired. Referred candidates tend to reflect the makeup of existing employees, disadvantaging Black professionals, he said.

Facebook said about 3.9% of its U.S. employees as of last June were Black.

David Lopez, a former EEOC general counsel now teaching at Rutgers University, said that systemic investigations are significant because of the additional resources involved. When they result in allegations of wrongdoing, multimillion-dollar settlements sometimes follow, he said, citing recent cases against Dollar General Corp and Walmart Inc.

In the year ended last Sept. 30, 13 of the 93 EEOC merit lawsuits were systemic, according to agency data.

Last December, the Justice Department accused Facebook of discriminating against U.S. workers broadly, saying it gave hiring preference to temporary workers such as H-1B visa holders.

Alphabet Incs Google last month agreed to spend $3.8 million to settle U.S. government allegations that it underpaid women and unfairly passed over women and Asians for job openings.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif. Editing by Kenneth Li, Jonathan Weber and Matthew Lewis)

Top Photo: Menlo Park, California: main campus of Facebook headquarters, building 16, Silicon Valley, San Francisco bay area.
The San Antonio Express-News is inviting high schoolers from across San Antonio and surrounding areas to apply for our newly launched Teen Team: a group of students who will get a close-up view of what its like to work as a journalist.

The newspaper offered a similar program in the early 2000s. Our 2021 program will run from April to September and will meet from 6 to 8 p.m. as a group every third Thursday of the month. To be eligible, applicants must be current sophomores or juniors (incoming juniors and seniors in the next school year).

Students will have the opportunity to shadow reporters, photographers and other staffers and will be paired up with an Express-News journalist for one-on-one guidance on reporting skills, writing and career planning. During monthly group meetings, Express-News journalists will host workshops on topics including news writing, journalism ethics, reporting techniques and engagement on social media.

Former Teen Team members who have gone on to careers in journalism and communications include Madalyn Mendoza, journalist at MySA; Francisco Vara-Orta, training director at Investigative Reporters & Editors; and Bonnie Kavoussi, former Huffington Post journalist and fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Luz Moreno-Lozano, a journalist at the Austin American-Statesman, was part of the 2008 Teen Team and said the program was her first foot in the door in launching my career as a journalist.

Today, the skills I have learned have carried through to my daily reporting  from a community news reporter in Atascosa and Medina counties to covering the social injustices of Austin and its surrounding communities, said Moreno-Lozano. And it all started with the Teen Team.

Past members have worked on high school papers and yearbook staffs, but students interested in areas ranging from writing to photography to social media to graphic design are encouraged to apply.

To apply, complete the Google Questionnaire and email us a letter of reference from a non-family member such as a teacher or employer, and up to three samples of your work. The letter of recommendation should describe your ability to participate in a group that requires ongoing discussion of current events at monthly meetings, daily reading of the Express-News online or in print and potential reporting assignments. The letter also should describe your academic performance, extracurricular activities and community service.

Samples may include published or unpublished stories, essays, photos, cartoons, videos, podcasts, blogs, social media posts or other creative work.

Do you have questions about the program? Email marina.riker@express-news.net. Apply online by filling out the form below or by visiting ExpressNews.com/TeenTeam.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-03-09 17:35:12|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ULAN BATOR, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's State Emergency Commission on Tuesday said 30,243 nationals stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been repatriated.

Following its suspension of international commercial flights, Mongolia has brought back 23,533 nationals on 131 chartered flights from different parts of the world so far, the commission said in a statement.

In addition, 6,710 nationals have returned home on buses or trains from virus-hit countries so far, the commission said.

The Asian country suspended international passenger flights in February 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It is planning to reopen its air border from May 1 for international passenger flights, according to the government.

Mongolia so far has registered 3,372 COVID-19 cases and seven deaths. More than 80 percent of the patients nationwide have recovered from the disease. Enditem
A fresh proposal to update a council bilingual signage policy has been defeated.

Causeway Coast and Glens Environmental Services Committee voted against a proposal brought by Sinn Fein councillor Kathleen McGurk to reduce the threshold of positive responses required to erect bilingual signage to 15%.

The current policy requires two thirds of responses to be positive, and treats non-respondents as negative responses.

Speaking at the Committee, Cllr McGurk said the current policy was 'discriminatory' and not in keeping with the UN Charter for Regional and Minority Languages.

"Causeway Coast and Glens is home to one of only two Irish language secondary schools in the North," she said.

"Despite this, the council has a restrictive and regressive bilingual street signage policy, that places bureaucratic barriers and unreasonable demands on those who wish to access the service.

In response, Bann UUP councillor Richard Holmes said he hoped, in the future, the language could be seen as a 'language for all', but that it would take time.

"The problem the language faces is that it has been inextricably linked to an IRA terrorist campaign for the last half century," he said.

"The proposal means one councillor could put in a request for every single street in the Borough and the bar is so low that there could be bilingual signs across the whole area.

"Rubbing people's noses in it doesn't do any good for either side, whether it's language, flags or anything else. It will take time to detoxify the Irish language."

Summing up, Cllr McGurk said it was 'disappointing' that the language was still being politicised.

"It does not take away from anybody else's identity," she said.

"To refuse to acknowledge the principle of the motion, or the failings in our current policy, is a failure on everybody sitting around the chamber."

Councillors then voted on the proposal, which was defeated by nine votes to seven.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  Dozens of protesters took to the Grand Rapids streets Monday night in a march of solidarity for George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who was killed last spring by a police officer.

Eight protesters were arrested, all for misdemeanor offenses, Grand Rapids Police Sgt. Dan Adams told members of the local media. Those charges ranged from creating a public disturbance to obstructing traffic to refusing to obey a command by an officer, Fox 17 reported.

Protesters organized Monday in Grand Rapids in a planned protest on the same day jury selection was set to begin in the trial of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis.

Related: The fight isnt over. Black activists ready for another year of advocating for justice.

The former officer knelt on Floyds neck for the final 8 minutes, 46 seconds of Floyds life on May 25, sparking a summer of unrest and protests across the nation.

The protest, organized by nonprofit organization Justice for Black Lives, began at 6 p.m. at Rosa Parks Circle.

A Facebook event page stated that Chauvins trial was not only important for Minnesota, which has never seen a white police officer prosecuted for murdering a Black person. It is important for the entire country, which rose up in rebellion after Floyds murder.

We will not rest until we see all four of George Floyds killers taken off the streets. We demand community control of the police, the post reads.

A representative from Justice for Black Lives declined comment Monday night, stating that they were focused on getting our people out of jail right now.

Police said Monday night that all those arrested are being lodged at the Kent County Jail and expected to be released sometime Monday night, Fox 17 reported.

Also on MLive:

Michigan police officer resigns amid investigation into racist social media post

Hunters find skeletal remains less than five miles from Lake Michigan

High school student accidentally ignited homemade bomb, injuring 6, police say
Athens, March 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Greece on Monday mourned a 37-day-old baby, the youngest among the country's nearly 6,800 Covid-19 victims.

"Sadly today we had the pandemic's youngest victim in our country, an infant that spent 17 of its 37 days fighting the coronavirus," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted.

"Today, grief is unbearable," he said.

The health ministry said the baby boy was brought to an Athens children's hospital in mid-February with a nasal inflammation and fever, and placed in intensive care a day later. He died on Sunday.

Nearly 6,800 people have died of the virus in Greece, while nearly 480 people are in intensive care.

The health ministry last week said it was calling for additional private hospital resources as it admitted that the public health system in Athens was under "unbearable pressure".

Mitsotakis' government has been accused by the opposition of failing to halt the spread of the pandemic despite a lockdown imposed in November.

Officials have blamed the high rate of infection on the more contagious British virus variant.

The government also came under fire this week after police were filmed beating a young man during a lockdown patrol on Sunday.
Its been more than a month since Rio Tintos freshly minted chief executive Jakob Stausholm hit the road to lead the Australian leg of the companys reputational revival tour.

It was a gruelling schedule spanning the east and west coasts and quite a departure from the kind of roadshow typically undertaken by a new chief executive whose focus would normally be on meeting with large investors in Melbourne and Sydney skyscrapers.

Jakob Stausholm toured the country - listening to Rio detractors.

Rather than pushing the companys financial prospects, it was Stausholms credentials as a chief executive with the character and the emotional intelligence to spearhead a cultural revolution that were being marketed.

And for the most part Rios stakeholders were buying.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
[March 09, 2021] Symphony RetailAI Announces 2020 Growth and Momentum, With SaaS Revenue Up 65% YOY

Company adds two veteran sales leaders to continue its growth trajectory

DALLAS, March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Symphony RetailAI, a leading global provider of integrated AI-powered marketing, merchandising and supply chain solutions for FMCG retailers and manufacturers, today announced significant SaaS revenue momentum in 2020 and that it is laying the groundwork for continued growth into 2021. Following considerable uplifts in both SaaS and perpetual license revenue from the prior year, Symphony RetailAI is focusing on acceleration of its go-to-market capabilities with the appointment of two new executive team members who will report into its newly named Chief Revenue Officer. Company Revenue and EBITDA Point to Record Growth

Symphony RetailAI realized total revenue growth of 19% in Q4 2020 compared to Q4 2019. The companys growth for 2020 yielded a SaaS revenue increase of 65% and perpetual license revenue growth of 76% when compared to 2019. Further, the company expanded transformation initiatives with existing and new industry leaders including Intermarche, Smart & Final, Dagrofa, Buy-Low, Rossman, Magnum Cash & Carry, Globus and SPAR Saudi Arabia, as well as CPG manufacturers like Mars, PepsiCo and ABInBev in 2020. Increases in license revenue rounded out a year of profitable growth for the company during a challenging year for many software vendors. Retailers and CPGs were faced with significant and never-before-seen challenges in 2020. COVID-19 exposed troubling gaps and major weaknesses in the retail supply chain, said Chris Koziol, CEO, Symphony RetailAI. As we look closer at these issues, its becoming very clear that the traditional technologies and processes held by the FMCG community are incapable of keeping up with todays challenges. By turning to providers with proven AI-powered solutions, retailers empower themselves with advanced tools to respond to customer behavior shifts with greater speed and agility. We are honored so many retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers selected Symphony RetailAI as their strategic partner last year. We are more committed than ever to delivering on our customer promise: To be the easiest to do business with, delivering the best-quality software and customer service, and using breakthrough AI-powered solutions to deliver significant valuein the first year.



Two Retail Supply Chain Experts Named to the Leadership Team

To support Symphony RetailAIs growing customer base, Bob Kyle has been named Senior Vice President of Sales, North America, and Ryan Chan has been named as Senior Vice President, Global Solutions & Value Consulting. Kyle and Chan both join Symphony RetailAI at an exciting time of investment, under the leadership of the companys new Chief Revenue Officer, Dale Grant, who joined in November 2020. Kyle most recently served as Vice President, North America Sales at Llamasoft (now part of Coupa Software), where he spent 11 years of his career. He brings with him extensive supply chain expertise, as well as a deep understanding of how solutions drive value for clients in the retail and grocery industry. Kyle will be responsible for developing long-term relationships with North American retailers for all of Symphony RetailAIs software solutions, identifying new opportunities while increasing business within the existing customer base.

Similarly, Chan spent more than 11 years with Llamasoft, where he held the role of Vice President, Value Solutions Consulting. With his expertise in leading global solutions consulting organizations, Chan will support all sales efforts, leading Symphony RetailAIs world-class team of consultants and championing the companys value-based propositions for prospects and established customers. We are incredibly excited to welcome Bob and Ryan to the Symphony RetailAI family, said Dale Grant, Chief Revenue Officer, Symphony RetailAI. They are both exceptional leaders, and with their proven experience in the grocery and CPG sectors, we are confident they will have a meaningful impact on our continued growth and success in the market. Visit SymphonyRetailAI.com to learn more about how the companys enterprise-wide AI platform is driving revenue and margin growth for todays retailers and CPG manufacturers. About Symphony RetailAI

Symphony RetailAI is a leading global provider of role-specific, AI-powered revenue growth management solutions and customer-centric insights for retailers and CPG manufacturers across the entire value chain. Our proven, industry-leading, AI-enabled software, coupled with the industrys only conversational natural-language AI interface, CINDE, provides key users with proven prescriptive and preemptive recommendations that make it easy to identify end-to-end growth opportunities, activate plans and realize measurable profit and revenue growth. Our solutions are specific to key decision-maker roles focused on profitable growth across the retail value chain from source to consumer. With our strong global partner ecosystem, we serve more than 1,200 organizations worldwide  including 15 of the top 25 global grocery retailers, 25 of the top 25 global CPG manufacturers, thousands of retail brands, and hundreds of national and regional chains  all through the Microsoft Azure Cloud. Symphony RetailAI is a SymphonyAI company. More at Symphony RetailAI. About SymphonyAI

SymphonyAI is building the leading Enterprise AI company for the digital transformation of the business enterprise, across the most important and resilient growth verticals, including life sciences, healthcare, retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services, manufacturing and media. In each of these verticals SAI businesses have many of the leading enterprises as clients. SAI is backed by a $1 billion commitment from Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. Since its founding in 2017, SymphonyAI has grown rapidly to a combined revenue run rate of more than $300 million and over 2,200 talented leaders, data scientists, and other professionals. More at SymphonyAI. Media Contact

Adrienne Newcomb

Ketner Group Communications (for Symphony RetailAI)

adrienne@ketnergroup.com



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]

A Waverly doctor admitted in federal court he received bribes and kickbacks in exchange for ordering medical tests, federal prosecutors said.

Dr. Lee Besen, 65, pleaded guilty Friday by video to two counts of conspiring to violate the anti-kickback statute. Besen, who authorities said practiced in Blakely, was one of six people, including another Scranton-area doctor, charged in July by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of New Jersey as players in a scheme they said bilked Medicare out of more than $2 million. He is the fourth charged in that scheme to plead guilty.

Federal authorities alleged that Besen and Dr. Yitzchok Barry Kurtzer, who practiced medicine in Scranton, Lake Ariel and Greentown, Pike County, were paid kickbacks by a person only identified as Individual-1 to collect DNA samples from Medicare patients for tests that determine a patients genetic predisposition to cancer and how they would respond to medications.

Besen and Individual-1, who worked as a sales representative for two laboratories in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, made a deal in October 2018, where Besen would direct genetic tests to a lab in return for $1,000 to $1,500 a month, authorities said. They later split $2,500 commissions on cancer tests the doctor ordered.

Individual-1 was cooperating with the FBI, authorities said.

Yitzchok Kurtzer, of Monsey, New York, introduced to Individual-1 by Besen, struck a similar deal, federal prosecutors said.

The scheme continued through 2020.

In filing charges last summer, then-U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said in a statement, they turned patients into human ATMs, generating cash payments for medical testing and other procedures.

Prosecutors said the volume of genetic tests Besen ordered dipped if he did not receive his kickbacks. Besen was recorded by federal authorities discussing the payments as vigs, which they said is a slang term for the fees collected by bookies.

Also charged in the scheme were Kimberly Schmidt of Moscow, an employee at Besens Peckville practice; Yitzchok Kurtzers wife, Robin Kurtzer, and two of Kurtzers assistants  Amber Harris and Shanelyn Kennedy, both of Scranton.

Schmidt, Harris and Kennedy each pleaded guilty to similar charges and are awaiting sentencing.

A separate scheme Besen admitted he participated in saw him receive kickbacks for allowing Terri Haines of Kennett Square, who is not a health care provider, to use his name and credentials to order tests for Medicare patients he never met with at health fairs he never attended. A charge of conspiracy to violate the anti-kickback statute filed against Haines is pending.

Besen is scheduled for sentencing July 6. He faces a potential maximum of 10 years in prison.
There were growing fears last night for the fate of anti-coup protesters caught up in a crackdown in Myanmars commercial capital Yangon.

Western governments called on the military to refrain from violence against protesters amid concern about the fate of hundreds of activists surrounded by police in Yangon yesterday while protesting the February 1 military coup.

Over 200 people including women were trapped in the citys Sanchaung Township after authorities locked the area down last night, triggering calls from the UN for their release.

Western embassies and the UN rights office said they were deeply concerned about the fate of the protesters and called on police to release them without reprisals.

The stand-off came after a day of protests in which at least three people were killed and soldiers started to occupy hospitals in a bid to suppress ongoing mass protests against the coup last month.

Witnesses reported sounds of gunfire or stun grenades in many districts of the commercial capital after nightfall on Sunday night, as soldiers set up camp in hospitals and university compounds, according to local media.

In one video uploaded to social media, repeated gun shots could be heard outside West Yangons General Hospital.

In separate footage, residents in other parts of the city responded defiantly to the armys night operations by setting off fireworks and sarcastically shouting Happy New Year.

The International Physicians for Human Rights Group condemned the occupation of hospitals, saying that it was appalled by the latest wave of violence by the Myanmar military, including the invasion and occupation of public hospitals and wanton excessive force against civilians.

It said the militarys actions served to further undermine a healthcare system already embattled by the pandemic and the coup.

Police and military have killed more than 50 people to quell daily rallies, according to the UN last week, although the number is believed to be much higher.

Read More

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Minister Peter Burke has said he is delighted that the Government have backed the midlands and Longford with an investment of over 10m "and recognised our potential and our strategic importance".

"I am delighted to announce a 10.4 million investment in Longford Town, in conjunction with my colleague in the Department of Housing, Minister Darragh OBrien," he said.

"The Camlin Quarter Regeneration project will be a key Government development and will see millions spent which will benefit generations to come.

"This project will see significant regeneration of our older buildings within the town, something that has been flagged by the community for years. We all are familiar with the Providers Building in the middle of town, which in particular has the potential to enhance Longford towns economic offering.

"The 10.4 million today is in addition to 2,990,355 already approved under Call 1 in 2018, bringing total URDF support for projects in Longford to 13,431,296 over both URDF calls and this is just one funding stream from one Department. In the last Government, Longford received unprecedented levels of investment from both government and businesses setting up. I am glad to serve as Minister of State in this constituency and see this investment continue and indeed increase. We have seen how government investment is closely followed by industry, and I know that more jobs will be created as a result of this large-scale regeneration project.

"This investment will finally tackle longstanding legacy issues of old derelict buildings in the town in order to improve the appearance of our streets and create an attractive and appealing environment for residents, businesses and future investment in the town, instilling a confidence in the potential of Longford.

"This funding will be a catalyst for regeneration in Longford, bringing locals back into the town to live and work and provide much-needed economic stimulus and job creation here and across Longford.

"I commend the Council for their work on this proposal, which was considered by my Department and was deemed successful based on the value it will provide for the town of Longford and its future development.

"Further investment will be made by the Council for regeneration and re-use of potential derelict buildings and sites within town boundaries, so that these key sites within the town will be brough back into use, instead of targeting investment in out-of-town areas while existing buildings are left lie idle in various states of disrepair.

"I believe this funding will be transformative for the town of Longford and will work towards attracting more investment, more top-quality job and increase the quality of life for our residents. This funding signals a further commitment by this Government in our regions and as a TD representing this town, I commit to maintain this government support. There can be no comparison in the quality of life offered to families in the midlands and now we are seeing levels of investment previously only recorded in Dublin, made by the government into our regions."


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Hong Kong-based Wai Hung has announced that one of its key subsidiaries, Wai Hung Hong Construction Engineering, has signed a co-operation agreement with Kuwait-based Investment Projects General Trading Company (IPGT) for the construction of nearly 1 million smart parking spaces in nine countries across the Middle East.

A leading contractor, Wai Hung Group provides fitting-out services and repair and maintenance services in Macau. It primarily covers refitting works for existing buildings and extend to casinos, retail areas, hotels, restaurants, commercial properties and residential properties.

Last September, the Hong Kong group developed the smart garage concept and is now diversifying its businesses globally.

A major regional player, IPGT is principally engaged in the business of infrastructure and high-tech products and systems in the Middle East.

Its shareholders and members of the executive management include personalities like Sheikh Ali Khalifa Al Sabah, a member of Kuwait's royal family who served as the country's finance minister and oil minister.

Sheikh Ali, who had also held the position of the chairman of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) earlier, has substantial business resources in the Middle East.

As per the deal, the group will provide relevant construction services for the proposed urban property project in the MiddleEast Countries to be developed with IPGT in addition to the smart parking spaces, said the statement from Wai Hung.

The total contract for the big Middle East project, if materialised fully, could be worth over HK$100 billion ($12.8 billion), it added.

Wai Hung Group Holdings Chairman Li Kam Hung said: "The cooperation deal between our group and IPGT is aimed at fulfilling a long-term objective in building facilities for 1 million smart parking spaces in the Middle East region."

The projects will cover all the Gulf countries besides Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, he noted.

Under this co-operation agreement, the duo will not entertain requests from any third party for provision of Artificial Intelligence (AI) garage system in the Middle East region for a five-year period, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Benedictine Shamrock Sammies

Benedictine Shamrock Sammies

Yield: 1 1/2 cups

1 medium cucumber, peeled (English or seedless)

2 tablespoons yellow onion (about 1/4 of a small onion)

8 ounces cream cheese

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Sandwich bread cut into shape of hearts

Procedure:

Cut cucumber in half and remove the seeds with a spoon. Place the cucumber and onion in a food processor and puree. Place the puree in a strainer to drain off excess liquid.

Place the cucumber mixture back in the food processor with the cream cheese and salt and puree until combined.

Spread onto bread to make sandwiches.

Source: weelicious.com
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
Massachusetts education officials are requiring both elementary school and middle school students to return to classrooms full-time next month, taking hybrid and remote learning options off the table for districts.

While districts will need to support five days of in-person learning for students, parents can choose to keep children remote for the rest of the school year.

On Friday, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley was given the authority to force districts back into traditional schooling. He announced during a board meeting that elementary schoolers in grades K-5 were expected to be back in classrooms five days a week come April 5.

According to new guidance released Tuesday, the commissioner is requiring students in grades 6-8 to be back in buildings full-time effective April 28.

A return date for high schoolers has not yet been determined. Rileys guidance indicates that information will be released in April and that districts will receive at least two weeks notice.

The guidance notes that Riley can delay or accelerate that timeline based on consultation with medical experts and state health officials.

Come the fall, students of all grade levels are expected to be learning in school, per the guidance. The department said districts should work individually with parents and guardians of students who will not be able to return to in-person learning in the fall because of a medical condition.

The department said that its regulations are legally binding. Districts that do not comply or receive a waiver by April 5 will be required to make up missed structured learning time, which could including the summer months, or go into the next school year if necessary, according to the guidance.

There are waivers for districts in certain circumstances. For example, districts that have been primarily remote through the pandemic can seek a waiver to switch to a hybrid model first. Waivers must include a timeline and date for when students would have access to fully in-person learning this school year, the guidance indicates.

Waivers are also available for schools that have a K-4 configuration for elementary school, per the guidance, and in limited cases for operational constraints and feasibility issues, on a temporary basis.

Waivers will not be granted for districts that indicate they cannot return to in-person learning due to space constraints or feasibility issues but are maintaining a physical distancing standard in classrooms of greater than three feet, the guidance reads. Districts must also have completed an updated survey of families with the information about those students have elected to return to in-person instruction and those who have elected to learn remotely.

DESE noted that waivers will be time limited and that all districts should expect to change their models to full-time in-person learning. Elementary school waiver requests must be submitted to DESE by March 22 at 5 p.m. and middle school waiver requests must be submitted by April 12 at 5 p.m. Responses are expected within five business days.

Earlier Tuesday, Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Maureen Binienda told MassLive she plans to seek a waiver for the district. Worcester students are just starting a hybrid learning model this month.

In addition to updating a timeline for full-time, in-person learning, Tuesdays guidance indicated that DESE is now requiring face masks at all levels unless students receive a medical or behavioral exemption. Previously, masks were encouraged, but not required, for first grade and below.

Riley and Gov. Charlie Baker have pushed for in-person schooling throughout the academic year, saying that mitigation efforts like mask-wearing and hand-washing have proven effective. And in recent weeks, coronavirus-related health metrics have greatly improved in Massachusetts.

DESE requires a minimum of 3 feet distance between students in classrooms, slightly less than the commonly-used CDC recommendation of 6 feet where possible.

While districts should space students further than three feet when feasible, evidence demonstrates that the additional risk reduction associated with six feet as opposed to three feet is low  when masks are worn and other mitigation strategies are in place, guidance reads.

A number of Massachusetts physicians have supported the 3-foot guidance.

However, during meals, districts should stick to 6 feet of distancing, according to the guidance.

Schools should utilize outdoor space, the guidance suggests, including putting up tents so outdoor space can be used in rainy weather.

DESE this year has added an additional mitigation effort through pooled COVID-19 testing. The department is covering the costs of the program through April 18 and as of last week, 171 schools and districts statewide have signed up for the program, allowing them to test students and staff weekly and quickly identify any asymptomatic cases of the virus.

Additionally, all K-12 employees will be able to sign up for a coronavirus vaccine appointment in Massachusetts starting Thursday. There will be competition for appointments, however, as senior residents and people with at least two co-morbidities are also still trying to get immunized.

As of mid-February, about 80% of districts had some form of in-person learning.

As we have stated repeatedly throughout this pandemic, there is no substitute for in-person learning, especially for younger students, students with disabilities, English learners, and other high needs populations, the guidance reads. In addition to academic instruction and support, when students are in school, they have the opportunity to learn important social and emotional skills, and they have access to mental health and other support services, as well as healthy meals and opportunities for exercise.

DESE is now calling on districts to conduct family surveys as soon as possible to determine if students will go back full-time or learn remotely. The department is encouraging districts to have a livestream teaching model so that remote students can learn at the same time as in-person classmates.

Education and health officials have said that spread of the virus in schools has been low.

In the K-12 setting, five new virus clusters have been identified from Jan. 31 to Feb. 27, according to Massachusetts Department of Public Health data. Those clusters included 20 confirmed cases and two contacts. There are 45 clusters identified before Jan. 31 that have not yet met the criteria for closing. Those clusters included 42 confirmed cases and 83 contacts.

School clusters include cases associated with a school where in-school transmission cannot be completely ruled out, officials have said, though other transmission settings are considered more likely. A cluster is considered closed after 28 days have passed since the last confirmed case.

Evidence of possible in-school transmission includes two or more cases that share a classroom or other school setting; timing between cases, as the average time between exposure and development of disease for COVID-19 is 5 days; and ruling out of other exposure settings, officials said.

Related Content:
A number of top brand sunscreen products risk causing cancer if they're left on a shelf for too long, a new study finds, revealing they release toxic chemicals over time.

Scientists from France and the US studied a number of randomly selected brand name sunscreen products containing the organic 'sun filter' chemical 'octocrylene'.

Products from Garnier, Bioderma, LaRoche-Posay, L'Oreal, Coppertone, Banana Leaf and Neutrogena were purchased from shops in the US and France - including some aimed at babies and children.

Octocrylene is a common ingredient of sunscreens as it absorbs UVB radiation, which is responsible for sunburn and skin cancer, but is controversial as it is a potential allergen and isn't biodegradable. It is already banned in a number of places.

The team from Sorbonne University found that octocrylene degrades into the carcinogenic chemical benzophenone when left on the shelf for more than a year.

Study authors say the manufacture of products containing the chemical octocrylene should be banned until the industry can prove 'beyond doubt' that it is safe.

Dr Emma Meredith, Director General of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association (CTPA) said: 'Octocrylene has been used in sunscreens for many years and no health risk from tiny quantities of benzophenone impurities has been shown.'

A number of top brand sunscreen products risk causing cancer if they're left on a shelf for too long, study finds, revealing they release toxic chemicals over time

PRODUCTS TESTED FOR THE STUDY Garnier Ambre Solaire FPS 50

Bioderma Photoderm AR SPF 50+

Uriage Age Protect SPF 30

LaRoche-Posay SPF 50

LaRoche-Posay SPF 50 Spray

Cosmia Sun BB Creme SPF 50

Cosmia Sun SPF 50

L'Oreal Age Perfect FPS 20

Coppertone Kids Sport SPF 50 Spray

Coppertone Defend & Care Face SPF 50 Lotion

Coppertone Water Babies SPF 50 Spray

Coppertone Sport Clear SPF 30 (#1 and #3)

Banana Boat Clear UltraMist SPF 30 Spray

Banana Boat SPF 50 Lotion

Neutrogena Beach Defense SPF 100 Spray

Neutrogena Beach Defense SPF 70 Lotion Advertisement

The CTPA says the report may appear alarming but doesn't need to cause concern as the results and health concerns are not directly transferable to humans.

Dr Meredith said: 'This study does not change the fact that sunscreens and their ingredients are safe, effective and an essential part of a sunsafe regime for protecting our health, as advised by dermatologists globally.'

'We can be reassured that the safety of every single sunscreen must be approved by a highly qualified specialist before it can be sold in the UK.'

The issue isn't so much in the product itself, rather how long it is being used, or left unused between summer holidays.

Families will purchase a sunscreen, use it for two weeks over the summer and then put it in a cupboard to use again the following year - but, study authors say this could be very dangerous.

Researchers, including a team from the Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in the US, didn't claim octocrylene in itself was cancer causing, rather the chemicals produced when it breaks down over time.

Among them is benzophenone, which is a 'mutagen, carcinogen and endocrine disruptor' which can lead to cancer.

An endocrine disruptor is a chemical that can interfere with the messengers in the body that regulate the circulatory system and can result in cancerous tumours.

The one product the team tested which did not contain octocrylene was Nivea Sun SPF 50+, which they used as a control subject.

They found that after ageing all of the products this is the only one that didn't contain any benzophenone, allowing them to confirm it was octocrylene causing the build up of the carcinogen.

Dermatologist, Dr Sharyn Laughlin, involved in this study, said she was gravely concerned regarding the far-reaching consequences of this new research.

'Benzophenone is still the worst offender in causing contact dermatitis, and may induce uticaria and anaphylaxis. Absorption of both chemicals through the skin poses a potential threat to toxicities and diseases of other organs.'

Benzophenone is already banned in food products and food packaging in the US and from personal care products including sunscreens and moisturisers.

Scientists from France and the US studied a number of randomly selected brand new sunscreen products containing the organic 'sun filter' chemical 'octocrylene'

OCTOCRYLENE: AN ORGANIC 'SUN FILTER' The chemical octocrylene is commonly used in sunscreen as it acts as an 'organic sun filter', protecting the skin from UVB radiation. However, it is a controversial product that has already been banned in the US Virgin Islands and Marshall Islands. This is in part due to its impact on the marine environment and that it is non-biodegradable. In coral it accumulates and can result in bleaching and death. This is what led to it being banned by a number of islands, and Hawaii is currently considering a ban. L'Oreal, which uses it in products, disputes any issues with coral, saying concentrations are too low. Advertisement

Finding out that concentrations of the harmful chemical increase in sunscreen containing octocrylene the older it gets is 'very worrying,' the team said.

To test their theory that benzophenone is produced over time from octocrylene, the team selected a random number of creams directly from stores after looking for the best sellers.

They then artificially aged them over a six-week period to replicate conditions found in a normal family home over the course of an entire year.

Benzophenone developed in increasingly high concentrations the older the product got - so buying sunscreen to use on holiday and then leaving it for a year before using it again could be harmful.

Both octocrylene and benzophenone are readily absorbed into the skin.

Dermal absorption of benzophenone into the body may exceed 70%, based on topical studies conducted by Howard Maibach and colleagues in the 1990s.

The French team say this is a strong argument for regulatory prohibition of this chemical in perfumes and other topical products.

The CTPA says manufacturers carry out their own studies to show that sunscreens change over time to ensure they are safe and effective during their projected lifetime.

Sunscreens don't have expiry dates in the UK but does have a limited shelf life of less than 30 months and is labelled with a best before date, the CTPA explained in a statement on the study.

'The vast majority of sunscreens safely last longer than 30 months, and these may be labelled with a period after opening (PAO) open jar symbol,' a spokesperson said.

'The PAO is not an expiry date, but shows that once opened the product will not deteriorate to cause harm to the user.'

In 2019, almost 3,000 commercial products sold in the United States contained octocrylene, including shampoos, hair conditioners, and hair sprays.

The latest research revealed that L'Oreal Age Perfect FPS 20 had the highest concentration of benzophenone after ageing - up 200 per cent on the rate found before the ageing process began - or 214mg per kg.

Products from Garnier, Bioderma, LaRoche-Posay, L'Oreal, Coppertone, Banana Leaf and Neutrogena were purchased from shops in the US and France - including some products aimed at babies and children

In the US the highest increase was found in Coppertone Sport Clear SPF 30 which went up 134 per cent to 408mg per kg - the highest of all products tested.

In mammalian-model studies, benzophenone exposure quickly gave rise to liver cancers and lymphomas, the team behind the new research explained.

Benzophenone can act as a photo-mutagen; in the presence of light, it increases the rate of DNA lesions, thus increasing the risk of skin cancers.

Benzophenone is also an endocrine disruptor, affecting thyroid function as well as inducing anti-androgenic activity, delaying testicular development and causing anatomic difficulties with female reproductive organs.

BENZOPHENONE: A BUILDING BLOCK OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY The chemical benzophenone is a common building block in organic chemistry - a white solid that is soluble in organic solvents. It can prevent ultraviolet light from damaging scents and odours in perfumes and soaps. This is because it is a photo initiator that works to block UV rays. However, while it is 'essentially nontoxic', it is banned a food additive and in cosmetics in the US. In mammalian-model studies, benzophenone exposure quickly gave rise to liver cancers and lymphomas. Benzophenone can act as a photo-mutagen; in the presence of light, it increases the rate of DNA lesions, thus increasing the risk of skin cancers. Benzophenone is also an endocrine disruptor, affecting thyroid function as well as inducing anti-androgenic activity, delaying testicular development and causing anatomic difficulties with female reproductive organs. Advertisement

Octocrylene can be removed from personal care product formulations, the US team said in a statement about the new study.

'It is a challenge to formulate aesthetically pleasing and effective sunscreens without using endocrine disrupting chemicals, but it can be done,' said Autumn Blum, CEO of Stream2Sea, a biodegradable sunscreen manufacturer not involved in the study.

'It is possible major manufacturers and ingredient suppliers can pay attention to the science that clearly shows the danger, and industry needs to invest in the innovation necessary to develop products that are safe for consumers and ecosystems.'

Dr Craig Downs, sunscreen expert not involved in the study told The Telegraph that previous research into the chemical was from industry insider papers.

The team from Sorbonne University found that octocrylene degrades into the carcinogenic chemical benzophenone when left on the shelf for more than a year

'This paper blows all of that up and calls into question all of the industry narratives that octocrylene is safe to be used,' he said.

Adding that he now hopes the industry will invest in hunting for a safer and more environmentally friendly alternative to octocrylene.

The researchers say that responsible regulation to prohibit the development and sale of the chemicals should be considered until industry can prove they are safe.

The findings of this study provide new scientific evidence to argue that octocrylene-based products - and therefore contaminated with benzophenone - can pose a threat to individual and public health, as well as the environment, the team warned.

'Our results plead in favour of the implementation of regulations dictated by the precautionary principle, the objective of which would be the protection of public health and the environment.'

Study authors say the manufacture of products containing the chemical octocrylene should be banned until the industry can prove 'beyond doubt' that it is safe

All the firms named in the study have been approached for a comment.

Industry body CTPA said the new study doesn't show that sunscreens containing octocrylene pose any health risk to humans, just that benzophenone impurities can exist after manufacture in sunscreen products.

'The strict UK and EU cosmetics laws acknowledge that traces of impurities may be present or develop in products over time, but the rules are very clear that any presence must not cause harm to human health,' a spokesperson said.

Octocrylene is approved for use as a sun protector in the US, EU and the UK but can pose a risk to marine life and lead to bleaching of coral reefs.

It is also not biodegradable, leading it to be banned in a number of places including the Marshall and US Virgin Islands.

L'Oreal, which produces a number of products tested by the team, said: 'The use and concentration of octocrylene in our sunscreen products is carefully controlled to avoid any potential impact on the aquatic environment.'

Uriage, which had a single product tested by the researchers, said the benzophenone phenomenon has been known about for many years.

Despite this 'octocrylene is still authorized in cosmetics as a sunscreen in limited concentrations, by International Regulations, Uriage fully complies to these regulations,' the firm said in a statement.

'Uriage toxicological expertise was validated by an independent toxicologist and demonstrated the perfect safety of the product URIAGE AGE PROTECT SPF30 for its use in cosmetics under normal conditions of use.

'Finally, the product URIAGE AGE PROTECT SPF30 is the product with the lowest traces of benzophenone among all the competing products tested.'

The findings have been published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
Mary McAleese revealed she was unimpressed by a joke made by Pope John Paul II when they first met.

The 69-year-old who served as President from 1997 until 2011, reflected on her upbringing and career in a discussion with Miriam O'Callaghan at Focus Ireland's International Women's Day event.

According to Evoke, she cited her first meeting with Pope John Paul II as one of the many encounters with sexism that she experienced during her time as leader.

Mary said that the head of the Catholic church joked about her husband Martin McAleese, being married to the President instead of taking charge with the role himself.

Former president of Ireland Mary McAleese, 69, revealed she experienced sexism when she first met Pope John Paul II (pictured)

She explained that it wasn't unusual for people to make sexist comments but she demanded an apology, which the Pope was willing to give, while blaming a language barrier for the joke causing offence.

Mary said her husband knew better than to be amused by Pope John Paul's comments, saying: 'He kind of looked past me and put out his hand to Martin and I suppose this was the joke he had prepared, it turns out.

'He said to Martin, "Would you not prefer to be President of Ireland rather than married to the president of Ireland?". Martin nearly collapsed on the spot. He knew better than to take the hand because he wouldn't be at the house now if he did.'

She then gave her hand to introduce herself to the Pope, while offering an explanation that the people of Ireland elected her.

Mary explained the Pope joked about her husband preferring to be President instead of married to the leader. Pictured: Mary and her husband Martin

Moving into the study, she told Pope John Paul II that the joke was 'unacceptable' and argued he wouldn't have said anything similar to a woman if the President was a man.

Mary said the Pope was apologetic but she didn't think the joke was funny and claimed she had similar experiences 'a lot with senior church men'.

The former President revealed she had a difficult upbringing and faced challenges before achieving the highly respected role.

She told how her family had to sofa surf with relatives after losing their home due to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Mary (pictured) said her first experience of sexism came when she told a Parish Priest about her desire to become a lawyer

And said the reaction from a Parish Priest when she announced wanting to become a lawyer, was her first memory of sexism.

She added that the first book she read while studying law titled 'Learning The Law', was also sexist and said the attitudes are internalised at many levels, holding not only women back from progressing.

In 2018, Mary was reported in Mail Online speaking out about the lack of 'strong role models' in the church who women can look up to.

She said the Church's ban on a female priesthood had 'locked women out of any significant role in the Church's leadership, doctrinal development and authority structure'.

The Church teaches that women cannot be ordained priests because Jesus chose only men as his apostles.

'How long can the hierarchy sustain the credibility of a God who wants things this way, who wants a Church where women are invisible and voiceless in Church leadership?' Mary said.
The SBU has interrogated MP Viktor Medvedchuk as part of an investigation into the high treason case, a law enforcement source told Interfax-Ukraine.

"Medvedchuk was interrogated on Tuesday by SBU investigators in criminal proceedings," the agency's interlocutor said.

The source did not specify what kind of criminal proceedings were in question, noting only that, most likely, the interrogation was carried out as part of investigation of the high treason case, which investigates the facts of recently published conversations between Medvedchuk and former assistant to the President of Russia Vladyslav Surkov.

"At the same time on Tuesday, the fifth president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was summoned to the SBU investigators, but he did not arrive," the agency's interlocutor said.

As reported, on February 2, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky put into effect the NSDC decision, which effectively blocked the activities of three TV channels - 112.Ukraine, Newsone and ZIK, which are associated with one of the leaders of the Opposition Platform party Viktor Medvedchuk.

Later, in one of the online publications, a recording was made public of the alleged conversation between the former assistant to the President of Russia Vladyslav Surkov and Viktor Medvedchuk, who in 2014 discussed the supply of electricity to the occupied Crimea and the exchange of prisoners in Donbas.

Then the SBU press center reported: "These records are carefully studied by the investigative and operational units of the SBU regarding the presence of signs of a criminal offense in the actions of the interlocutors."
Mendel also has told when the head of state could convene his next big presser.

President Volodymyr Zelensky may hold the next big press conference ahead of the second anniversary of his inauguration, says his press secretary Yulia Mendel.

That's before until May 20, she has told the Gordon outlet.

At the same time, no exact date has been set for the next big presser, Mendel said, adding it is not she who appoints press events, noting it is "teamwork."

Read alsoPoll: Zelensky tops public trust ratingDuring the same interview, Mendel argued Zelensky was not obliged to regularly hold press conferences.

"This is generally a wrong vision. The president is not supposed to hold press conferences at a regular basis," Zelensky's press secretary claimed.

The president, she went on, "cannot satisfy the entire demand, it is impossible on principle."

Also, Mendel recalled that the Ukrainian president speaks with journalists during his trips across the country's regions, as well as attends talk shows and gives interviews to foreign media.

Zelensky's latest big press conference was held on May 20, 2020.

Reporting by UNIAN
How to smile, where to place a hand, which direction to face: young Vietnamese social media users are snapping up a popular influencer's course on posing for the perfect photo.

In Vietnam, where 70 percent of the population is under 35, the classes are particularly popular with young women.

Instructor Pham Kieu Ly -- who has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok -- set up the $130 course in Hanoi after women began asking her how to look their best in photos, largely for social media.

The lessons also teach aspiring amateur photographers how to take snaps themselves.

Instructor Pham Kieu Ly (C) demonstrates a pose to participants during a course teaching them how to pose for photographs on their mobile phones at a studio in Hanoi. Photo by AFP.

Ly told AFP she saw women in the class who wanted "to learn how to pose and take photos to help their work, while others wanted to build confidence."

Since the first class in September 2020, Lys day-and-a-half-long tutorial has amassed a substantial following, attracting around 500 people from a range of professions, including online merchants and estate agents.

"The image I am aiming to create is one of a successful businesswoman," said 29-year-old Nguyen Thi Thanh Loan, who works at an insurance company, and also wants to boost her photography skills during the course.

Other participants said they were convinced beautiful photos would help them sell products on Facebook, which has more than 53 million users in Vietnam - over half the population. The platform has become a crucial marketing tool for local business.

Nguyen Huong Tra, 29, who runs a homewear shop and sells candles and scented oils online, said: "In the past I didn't pay much attention to my images or number of followers on social media, but then I realized they are important to my business."
This year's festival is a hybrid of more than 80 events, including virtual activities and those held in the outdoors.

The Atlanta Science Festival returns March 13-27 stronger than ever. This years hybrid of more than 80 events includes virtual activities and those held in safe, socially-distanced environments, aimed to educate, engage and entertain all ages.

The 2021 festival theme  Science Always Prevails!  celebrates the metro area as a powerhouse of scientific research, scholarship, service and innovation, from battling the COVID-19 pandemic to protecting the unique natural resources of Georgia.

The pandemic has heightened public awareness of the value of science, says Meisa Salaita, executive co-director of Science ATL, the non-profit organization that produces the Atlanta Science Festival. All of our partners, including Emory, have come together to keep the festival going strong, despite the challenges. Everyone is inspired by the knowledge that our mission of service to the community is more important than ever.

The Atlanta Science Festival, now in its eighth year, was co-founded by Emory, Georgia Tech and the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

Well not only continue our celebration of science, says executive co-director Jordan Rose, but use it as an opportunity to share knowledge that inspires and empowers others to make the world a better place.

Bringing more science to more people

On Friday, March 12, one day before the festival launch, an event called Imagining the Future will help set the tone. Local STEM professionals, including many Emory faculty and students, will participate in virtual visits to 100 metro Atlanta K-12 classrooms to give students a sense of how science is done, talk about some major questions that remain unanswered in science, and inspire students to imagine themselves shaping the future as STEM-literate professionals of tomorrow.

One of the benefits of having virtual events is that we are able to bring more science, and more science-learning opportunities, to more people, Salaita says.

Some of this years festival highlights include:

Atlanta 40, a celebration of 40 notable organisms of the region explained by videos created by experts and luminaries and mini conservation challenges that the public can complete.

a celebration of 40 notable organisms of the region explained by videos created by experts and luminaries and mini conservation challenges that the public can complete. Discovery Walks, four family-friendly, self-guided walks through neighborhoods and parks in Atlanta, featuring free maps with cool science facts about each location.

four family-friendly, self-guided walks through neighborhoods and parks in Atlanta, featuring free maps with cool science facts about each location. City Science Quest, an app-based game that allows participants to use a mobile device to uncover Atlantas science contributions and STEM careers by earning prizes through completing interactive missions, including many that involve exciting scientific research ongoing at Emory.

Emory event highlights

While not ignoring the current reality, the tone of this years festival is hopeful and encouraging, Salaita says. Emory experts will headline events that showcase how scientists at Emory and around the world came together to produce effective, safe vaccines for the novel coronavirus in record time, and to address concerns of communities that have been especially hard hit by COVID-19.

Another Emory highlight will be a hands-on, outdoor event to learn how to collect data on Georgias air quality. And, not to be missed, Emory chemistry students will engage families in a Drive-In Demo Show of dramatic displays of chemistry in action.

Following is a roundup of some of the festival highlights featuring the Emory community.

Community scientists and amateur sleuths are invited to a family friendly Air Quality Scavenger Hunt, on Saturday, March 13, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Atlantas Historic Fourth Ward Park. Participants will be provided hand-held air sensors and learn to measure the amount of particulate matter, or pollutants, in the air. Their mission will be to use clues to locate different areas around the park to collect air quality data for Eri Saikawa, associate professor of Emorys Department of Environmental Sciences, and students in her lab. The COVID-19 safety measures for the outdoor event require participants to wear masks and to sign up in advance for half-hour time slots to pick up and return the air sensors. This event is for anyone who enjoys solving puzzles and wants to be part of the solution when it comes to pollution, Saikawa says.

A related at-home or in-class competition led by Saikawa and her students is the Georgia Air Quality Challenge for grades 6 to 12. Grade school students will partner with Air Emory, an Emory student-led initiative that began to monitor air quality on campus and is now expanding statewide through a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and the support of Science ATL and Education Enhanced. Registered grade school students will receive access to lessons and videos to learn about sources of pollution, current data for Georgia, and how air sensors can measure air quality. They will then be challenged to submit a proposal for where air sensors should be placed in local communities in order to fill the gap in air quality data for Georgia. The winners will be invited to present their proposals to an upcoming Georgia STEM day.

We want young people to understand the importance of monitoring air quality, Saikawa says. We also hope they learn more about sources of air pollution, who may be more vulnerable, and think about ways we might mitigate pollution.

Emory physician Zanthia Wiley, assistant professor in the School of Medicines Division of Infectious Diseases, will give a virtual talk on Saturday, March 13, at 10 a.m., entitled COVID-19 Vaccines and Disparities in Black Communities: What You Need to Know. Dr. Wiley, who is also the director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at Emory University Hospital Midtown, will discuss the importance of COVID-19 vaccination and the disproportionate effect that COVID-19 is having in minority communities. She will also take questions submitted directly by those attending the virtual talk. Wiley is a member of the Emory Department of Medicines Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council and the Emory Collaborative Community Outreach and Health Disparities Research Initiative.

A virtual talk on Tuesday, March 16, at 6 p.m., COVID-19 Vaccines and Disparities in Latinx Communities: What You Need to Know, features Emory physician Valeria Cantos, assistant professor in the School of Medicines Division of Infectious Diseases and an attending physician at Grady Memorial Hospital and the Grady Infectious Disease Clinic. She will give a bi-lingual talk, in Spanish and English, on vaccine truths, myths and the importance of vaccination. She will also take questions submitted by the audience. Dr. Santos is a lead co-investigator in a study looking at the efficacy of remdesivir in the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. She is also a co-investigator for the Moderna and Noravax vaccine clinical trials.

Vaccine Real Talk, a virtual discussion featuring experts is set for Thursday, March 18, at 7 p.m. The panel will be moderated by Maryn McKenna, a leading infectious disease journalist and a senior fellow in Emorys Center for the Study of Human Health. The event will take on the topic of how COVID-19 vaccines work and how to best combat misinformation around them. Panelists will include Colleen Kraft, associate professor in Emory School of Medicines Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of Emorys Clinical Virology Research Laboratory.

At noon on March 18, Deboleena Roy, Emory senior sssociate dean of faculty, will lead a virtual panel discussion about scientists and their social responsibility titled Citizen Nobel: The Pressure and Power of Winning the Ultimate Scientific Prize. Roy is professor of neuroscience and behavioral biology with a joint appointment in womens, gender and sexuality studies. The discussion will be based on the film Citoyen Nobel, which will be available free for registrants during the week of March 13 to 20.

Book your free spot in advance and load your pod into the family vehicle for the Drive-In Demo Show on Saturday, March 20, at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m., in the parking lot of the First Christian Church in Decatur. Instead of a movie, this drive-in will feature live performances by Emory chemistry students, led by Doug Mulford, senior lecturer of chemistry, whose motto is teaching with a pyrotechnic flair. Viewers will remain safe in their cars as the masked, socially distanced Emory chemists make sparks fly. They will wrestle with polymers that grow as large as eels, turn gummy bears into flaming dragons, and make a liquid nitrogen cloud. The finale, of course, will feature a safe, but fiery, explosion!

The Atlanta Science Festival is produced by more than 50 community partners, with major support from founders Emory, Georgia Tech and the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and sponsors UPS, International Paper, Georgia Power, Cox Enterprises, Mercer University and others.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  Tesla Motors is opening its second Michigan service center in the Grand Rapids area.

The electric vehicle company is moving into 2919 29th St. SE  the former site of Prestige Imports West Michigan. The property was sold in November to Sean Properties Michigan LLC, according to the Kent County Register of Deeds.

A spokesperson for Sean Properties confirmed Tesla will be opening in late March or early April.

Tesla did not return a request for comment.

The Kentwood service center and store will occupy a 20,000-square-foot space on 29th Street near Breton Road  a few doors down from where Whole Foods plans to open its first Western Michigan location.

The Tesla logo has replaced the old Prestige Imports sign, and renovations on the former used car dealership have been underway for about four months.

Tesla opened its first Michigan service center last year in Clarkston, about 40 miles north Detroit, following a yearslong legal battle over direct sales of Tesla vehicles to customers.

A 2014 state law previously banned Teslas direct to consumer sales model. The company filed a lawsuit against Michigan in 2016 seeking to overturn the ban.

A settlement reached in January 2020 with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel allowed Tesla to service, sell and deliver vehicles in Michigan using a subsidiary. However, the vehicles have to be titled in another state and then transferred to Michigan.

Related: Tesla settles with Michigan AG, will be able to sell cars in the state

More on MLive:

Expanded outdoor dining likely to continue through summer, fall in Grand Rapids

Extended-stay, dog-friendly hotel to open in Grand Rapids

Everybodys stepped up, says rep at Grand Rapids company making Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine
The architect of Australias student loan system strongly supports its extension to the vocational education sector, saying it will improve access for poorer students who cant afford to pay up-front fees.

Australian National University economics professor Bruce Chapman, who helped designed the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) in 1989, said it should be extended to vocational training certificate three and four courses, as recommended by the Australian Productivity Commission this year. Certificate three and four qualifications include hairdressing, massage therapy, aged care and hospitality.

Australian National University economics professor Bruce Chapman wants a HECS scheme for vocational training.

I think that case is very strong, he said. To me, the Productivity Commissions report rightly stressed how important it is not to confine HECS just to higher education, but to cover the entire tertiary sector.

Emeritus Professor Peter Noonan from Victoria Universitys Mitchell Institute has also strongly supported the extension of income-contingent loans to the vocational education and training sector (VET) to help poorer students avoid paying up-front fees.
British banks face potential conflicts of interest over climate change because almost 80 percent of board members have links with high-polluting sectors, a study showed on Tuesday.

DeSmog, an investigative climate campaign group, revealed the main finding of its research into UK banks' management.

A majority of 50 out of the top 64 directors at the five biggest UK banks -- Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest and Standard Chartered -- have past or present links to major polluters, DeSmog said in a statement.

And one quarter of directors have, or have had, direct links with the carbon-intensive fossil fuel sector, it added.

"The analysis ... shows many of the banks' directors have close ties to polluting industries and their financial backers, either as current directors, advisors or previous employees," DeSmog concluded.

"This could affect their ability to be impartial judges of shareholder resolutions trying to push the banks to actually end financing of fossil fuels."

Standard Chartered declined to comment. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A NatWest spokesperson stressed it had made operations net carbon zero by the end of 2020 -- and planned to make them climate positive by 2025.

HSBC has previously stated that it aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its investments by 2050.

Both Barclays and HSBC meanwhile face shareholder motions to curb or phase out exposure to fossil fuels.

"Banks have a significant role to play in addressing the climate crisis by cleaning up their portfolios, and removing support for environmentally damaging industries," said Rachel Sherrington, DeSmog's lead researcher for the study.

"Public support for scientifically-led action on the climate crisis is high, and the directors of the UK's banks have the chance to put themselves on the right side of history."

The corporate world faces mounting demands to respond to climate change.

Story continues

Oil giants BP and Royal Dutch Shell have both vowed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 -- but both faced criticism from green campaigners over a lack of detail.

The British government, which has committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, will host the UN climate gathering COP26 in Glasgow in November.

jbo-rfj/rl
[March 09, 2021] Mednow Virtually Opens The Market

VANCOUVER, BC, March 9, 2021 /CNW/ - Karim Nassar, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Mednow Inc. and Ali Reyhany, Co-Founder, Director and President, Mednow Inc. ("Mednow" or the "Company") (TSXV: MNOW), and their team joined Dani Lipkin, Director, Global Business Development, TMX Group, to celebrate the Company's new listing on TSX Venture Exchange and open the market. Mednow is a healthcare technology company offering virtual pharmacy and telemedicine services through Mednow.ca. Mednow's vision is to b a household name in the provision of convenient healthcare services to all Canadians. Designed with quality care in mind, Mednow uses an interdisciplinary approach which is focused on the patient experience to provide exceptional care. Pharmacy services are offered through a user-friendly interface for easy prescription upload, transfer of medication profiles and free delivery. Mednow also offers PillSmart, a specialized medication adherence system, to support better health outcomes. For more information visit https://mednow.ca/



For Market Openings: Media may pick up a feed from the TOC (television operations centre) for all market open ceremonies. The feed is named TSX Transmit 1 (SD-SDI) and is produced at the TMX Broadcast Centre and sent live to the TOC. To pick up the feed via the Dejero network, please contact avservices@tmx.com . The client feature video will begin playing on the TMX media wall at approximately 9:27 a.m. ET and the markets will open with the sound of a siren at 9:30 a.m. ET

SOURCE TSX Venture Exchange

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Rahul Gandhi Says Jyotiraditya Scindia Would've Been CM In Congress; 'won't Ever With BJP'

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday targeted his former party mate Jyotiraditya Scindia, stating that he could have become Chief Minister with the Congress but was reduced to a 'backbencher' in the BJP. Speaking to the Youth Wing of the party about the importance of Congress organisation, Rahul Gandhi said, Scindia would have become the CM had he stayed with Congress but he has become a backbencher in the BJP."

"Scindia had the option to strengthen the organisation by working with Congress workers. I told him  One day you will become the Chief Minister. But he chose another route. Write it down, he will never become Chief Minister there. He will have to come back here for that, he added.

Read full story here

Kamal Haasan's MNM To Contest Only 154 Tamil Nadu Seats; Allies AISMK & IJK Get 40 Each

In the latest development in poll-bound Tamil Nadu, Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) finalized its seat-sharing pact with allies All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi (AISMK) and Indhiya Janayaga Katchi (IJK) on Monday. Touted as the third front against the Dravidian parties in the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, MNM allotted 40 seats each to Sarath Kumar's AISMK and Paarivendhar's IJK while allotting itself 154 seats. Elections are scheduled to be held in a single-phase in Tamil Nadu, with polling of votes on April 6 followed by the counting of votes on May 2. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Kamal Haasan's MNM received only around 4% of the overall votes, but it managed to capture 10% of all urban pockets, thereby explaining the party's city-town focus in the second leg of campaigning for Assembly elections.

Read full story here

Kane Williamson Ruled Out Of New Zealand's ODI Series Vs Bangladesh Due To Elbow Injury

New Zealand suffered a blow on Tuesday as skipper Kane Williamson was ruled out of the upcoming ODI series against Bangladesh owing to an elbow injury. The Kiwi skipper was ruled out of the limited-overs series at home against Bangladesh after injuring his left elbow. New Zealand are scheduled to play five ODIs against Bangladesh starting from March 20 at University Oval, Dunedin.

Read full story here

Suvendu Offers Late Congress MLA Somen Mitra's Wife BJP Ticket; Sikha Seeks Sonia Meeting

INC leader Sikha Mitra, wife of late West Bengal Congress party president Somen Mitra, on Monday accused the state leadership of sidelining her and threatened to leave the party. Mitra, a former TMC MLA, accused the incumbent Bengal Congress president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, of sidelining her and her son Rohan Mitra. She claimed that state leadership was compromising with the core ideology of the Congress. Mitra also did not rule out joining the BJP in near future.

Read full story here

India-Bangladesh Meet In Dhaka Over Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

India and Bangladesh on Monday held a Commerce Secretary-level meeting where both the countries decided to expeditiously move forward on the feasibility study on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). The Ministry of Commerce and Industry informed in an official statement that the Bangladesh delegation was led by Md. Jafar Uddin and the Indian delegation was led by Anup Wadhawan.

Read full story here
The Porsche driver accused of filming a dying policewoman after a horrific crash killed four officers has been told to behave for his wife despite being behind bars.

Richard Pusey, 42, has been charged with assault and unlawful imprisonment after he allegedly put a noose around his wife's neck days after Christmas last year.

He faces eight charges over the shocking incident when he allegedly unlawfully imprisoned and threatened to kill her at their Fitzroy home, just outside of Melbourne's CBD.

Richard Pusey stands atop of a roof in December last year amid allegations he put a rope around the neck of his wife

Pusey is expected to plead guilty to some charges on Wednesday over his role in a tragic crash that claimed the lives of four police officers

Richard Pusey's lawyer Vincent Peters told a Melbourne court on Tuesday his client would likely plead up tomorrow

He is further accused of sending and making abusive and derogatory texts and calls and contravening bail conditions over unrelated charges stemming from an earlier fatal crash involving police officers.

Senior Constable Kevin King, Constable Glen Humphris, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor and and Constable Josh Prestney all died in that crash last April.

Lawyer Vincent Peters and prosecutor Meagan McDonnell told Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday they were in discussions to resolve the assault-related charges and needed more time.

The court further heard Pusey is expected to plead guilty to charges over his role in the tragic April crash, in which he is alleged to have taunted a dying police officer.

'Amazing. Absolutely amazing. All I wanted to do was go home and eat my sushi and now you have f**ked my f**king car,' Pusey was allegedly heard to say as Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor lay dying.

Richard Pusey remains behind bars after an ugly incident just after Christmas last year

Pusey has been represented by top Melbourne barrister Dermot Dann, QC at the County Court of Victoria

Pusey is expected to plead up to those charges on Wednesday before the County Court of Victoria.

Officers had pulled Pusey over for alleged speeding when a truck ploughed into the emergency lane.

Pusey was not injured, but accused of telling Senior Constable Taylor: 'All I wanted was to go home and have my sushi and now you've f***ed my f***ing car.'

On Tuesday, Pusey agreed not to harm his wife or wreck her property on the slim chance he is released from jail over the next 12 months.

Senior Constable Kevin King (pictured, far left), Constable Glen Humphris (second from left), Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor (second from right) and and Constable Josh Prestney (far right) all died in the crash

The truck that ploughed into the officers in April

Pusey has been behind bars since April when a truck crashed into four officers after they pulled him over for allegedly driving at 149km/h in his Porsche 911 with cannabis and ice in his system.

The three male officers were already dead when Pusey allegedly began filming.

The driver of the truck, Mohinder Singh, has already pleaded guilty to four counts of culpable driving and also remains behind bars.

Public funerals were held for all four officers after the tragedy, which marked the single greatest loss of police life in Victoria's history.

At a previous hearing, Magistrate Jo Metcalf labelled Pusey's alleged filming of the graphic crash scene as 'highly intrusive and morally repugnant' but noted it was not illegal.

He will return to court tomorrow.
Hyderabad, March 9 : Union Minister of State for Home, G. Kishan Reddy, on Tuesday demanded a high-level probe into the communal violence in Bhainsa town of Telangana.

Condemning the violence that took place on Sunday night, he said since law and order is a state subject, the state government should order a high-level probe and punish the guilty.

Alleging that the town had been witnessing a series of incidents, Reddy said, "For the last 30-40 years, one community is attacking another. This is not good." The BJP leader said the series of incidents appear to be part of a conspiracy, adding that some anti-social elements are working to harm the communal harmony.

Reddy said he spoke to the Director General of Police, M. Mahender Reddy, twice and also briefed Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the situation in Bhainsa.

The Central minister said that there is a need to strengthen the police set-up and take measures on a permanent basis to prevent recurrence of violence and to provide security to the people.

Meanwhile, BJP's state unit chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar condemned the attacks on mediapersons in Bhainsa. He also questioned the silence of the journalists' unions over the incident.

He alleged that in the past, the 'goondas' of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) had attacked houses and set them afire but none of the media houses had exposed them.

Bhainsa town in Nirmal district on Sunday witnessed communal violence following a road accident involving two motor cycles. Six civilians and three police officers were injured in stone pelting. The miscreants also set afire two houses and nine vehicles.

The police have beefed up security in the area besides imposing prohibitory orders banning assembly of five or more persons as a precautionary measure.

The police said the situation in the town is peaceful as no further violence has been reported.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Masakazu Daibo returned to his hometown in Fukushima just last year to reopen a restaurant established by his grandfather

Masakazu Daibo has reopened his family's eel restaurant in part of Japan declared a no-go zone after the 2011 nuclear disaster, but so far he has barely a single neighbour.

A decade after radiation forced tens of thousands to flee their homes in Fukushima, some towns in the region are still wrestling with the difficult question of how to rebuild a community from scratch.

After the disaster, 12 percent of Fukushima prefecture was off-limits and around 165,000 people fled their homes either under evacuation orders or voluntarily.

Numerous areas have since been declared safe after extensive decontamination, and incentives are being offered to lure people back. But many are reluctant.

Daibo returned just last year, reopening a restaurant established by his grandfather in the town of Namie, around nine kilometres (5.6 miles) from the nuclear plant.

Namie and 11 neighbouring communities were part of an exclusion zone around the plant, and for years Daibo could enter only on brief visits.

"There were no people but the town remained. It was really like a movie set," the 65-year-old told AFP.

"I heard no human voices, and saw only wild dogs, cows, pigs."

The radiation that blanketed the region forced him to discard everything in the restaurant.

Some towns in Fukushima are still wrestling with the difficult question of how to rebuild a community from scratch

Contaminated parts of the walls were removed and he lost everything inside, down to the sauce that had been kept cooking since his grandfather opened the business.

Daibo and his wife hesitated about moving back, but after restrictions were lifted in 2017, they decided they would try to revive the past.

"I want everyone to say 'Oh, this is a long-forgotten flavour,'" when they taste his food, Daibo said.

"I hope that my presence will shine a light on this town."

'Survival is our big issue'

But few others have followed suit.

The restaurant is surrounded by empty lots overgrown with weeds. Wooden signboards are piled up next to a toppled bin in the porch of one abandoned building, in what was once downtown.

Restrictions have been lifted on just 20 percent of Namie, and the town's population is seven percent its former size of 21,000, despite incentives including reduced rents and money for moving and renovation.

Daibo and his wife hesitated about moving back, but after restrictions were lifted in 2017, they decided they would try to revive the past

Around 36 percent of residents are aged 65 or above, higher than the 29 percent national average, and just 30 students attend local elementary and junior-high schools, compared with nearly 1,800 before.

Japan as a whole is battling low birthrates and an ageing population, but the issue is in stark relief in Namie.

"We feel like the future of 20 years from now has arrived suddenly," said town official Takanori Matsumoto.

Namie hopes to raise its population to 8,000 by 2035, helped by national subsidies of up to two million yen ($18,500) per new family moving to disaster-hit areas.

"Survival as a community is our big issue," Matsumoto said.

Just over two percent of Fukushima remains under evacuation orders, with the figure for evacuees officially at around 35,700, though some experts believe there could be nearly twice as many.

But there is no deadline for lifting all the evacuation orders, and doubts persist that Fukushima Daichii can be decommissioned on schedule by 2041 at the earliest.

Namie and 11 neighbouring communities were part of an exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant

'I can't go back'

For many, fears over lingering radiation and mistrust of the government's decontamination process are major obstacles to returning.

"It's not like I won't go back. It's more like I can't go back," said Megumi Okada, who was pregnant with her third child at the time of the disaster and left despite being outside the official evacuation zone.

"If I were alone, I would go home," added the 38-year-old, now a mother of four living in Tokyo.

"But as a mother, I strongly feel that I want to avoid risks for my children."

Around two-thirds of Fukushima evacuees don't plan to return, according to a 2020 survey by researchers at Kwansei Gakuin University.

"Many people say they can't trust the decommissioning target, and their distrust of government measures runs deep," said Yoko Saito, an associate professor on disaster reduction who jointly conducted the survey.

For Megumi Okada and many others, fears over lingering radiation is a major obstacle to returning

The rate of return to reopened areas varies considerably.

In Kawauchi, which lifted its last evacuation order in 2016, the population is now 68 percent of its pre-2011 figure.

It's a different story in Futaba, which jointly hosts the crippled plant.

A tiny portion of the town was declared open last yearbut not a single person has returned.

All roads into the restricted zone are blocked by barricades, and those entering must wear plastic suits and cover their hair and shoes. Radiation levels on their bodies are measured when they leave.

Crumbling buildings, untended because of radiation, dot the region.

At a ruined inn, an antique clock sits stopped, and fallen teacups litter shelves in a nearby giftshop.

'A little sad and lonely'

For many in reopened areas, returning has brought conflicting feelings.

Around two-thirds of Fukushima evacuees don't plan to return, according to researchers

Takao Kohata went back to Minamisoma after authorities lifted restrictions but is still haunted by radiation fears.

Government officials tout strict screening of food in the region, but "many people are still nervous," the 83-year-old said.

The parents of his four grandchildren won't let them visit, because they worry about radiation.

"I fully understand their concerns, but I feel a little sad and lonely," he said.

Some evacuees say they feel forced to return as the government winds up support for the displaced.

"In the end, those who have no place to go and have low incomes are the ones left behind," said Shohei Yamane, a psychiatric social worker supporting evacuees.

"This disaster will never end as long as there are needy evacuees seeking help," he added.

Some who have returned have found it takes more than reconstruction to rebuild a community.

Just over two percent of Fukushima remains under evacuation orders

Masaru Kumakawa returned to Namie three years ago, despite losing his wife there in the tsunami

Takao Kohata (R) went back to Minamisoma after authorities lifted restrictions but is still haunted by radiation fears

Yuko Hikichi helps organise gatherings and group exercise sessions to strengthen community ties in Namie.

"We are just at the starting line... Community-building is not an easy job. It is endless," she said.

It's a struggle Masaru Kumakawa knows all too well.

He returned to Namie three years ago, despite losing his wife there in the tsunami, and now lives alone in a new housing district.

The 83-year-old heads a community association, but has struggled to make contact with his neighbours.

"They lived in evacuation for too long," he said at a newly built community centre.

"We ring doorbells but no one comes out."

Explore further Japan lifts evacuation order for town near doomed nuke plant

 2021 AFP
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
In hermetic protective clothing, Tran Anh Tu, a physician from Hanoi, spent memorable days at pandemic-hit areas with fast meals and late meals at night.

Tran Anh Tu

On quarantine after returning from the working trip to Hai Duong province, the pandemic hotspot, Tu, born in 1989, a physician of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, is still busy working online.

We work online to assist Hai Duong province. If they have problems, we will give technical support, he explained.

2020 was a memorable year for Tu, who joined the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the first days of the pandemic, he and his colleagues had to attend many meetings and working sessions from early in the morning to late at night. During the daytime, they worked. In the evening, they sat together to review the work and discussed what they would need to do in the following days.

When Tu was a member of the special taskforce on Covid-19 in Son Loi commune in Vinh Phuc. The task for him and his colleagues was zoning off and isolating 10,000 people for 21 days.

This was not simple work, because this had not happened before in Vietnam, he said.

Since the information about the pandemic was limited, they had to be very cautious in the first Covid-19 hotbed.

We had to update the information regularly and we would change strategies if figures fluctuated just a little, he said.

As the doctor at the forefront, he faced a risk of getting Covid-19.

However, Tu thinks that risks exist in all careers. However, doctors are equipped with protective clothing and take necessary preventive measures, while field hospitals are built quickly and meet standards.

The doctor said that if one man has passion for something and loves his career, risks will not be a big matter. If he unluckily catches the disease, he wont be too worried, because Vietnam has a very good treatment system.

Gifts from people

Tu stayed in Son Loi hotspot for 21 days, Me Linh 22 days, Da Nang 25 days and Hai Duong 31 days. He remembers the trip to Da Nang the most.

On one day on July 2020, at noon, I received a request for booking an air ticket for departure at 5 pm so as to be present in Da Nang by 7 pm. It was difficult to book tickets at that moment because there was a high number of travelers to the city, he recalled.

But as he fortunately knew someone at a booking agent, he managed to book a ticket for the flight.

Meanwhile, other trips were quite usual for him. He just needed to pack several sets of clothes, a toothbrush and towel to get ready for departure.

Asked about his impressions about the trips, he said it was the sympathy and support from local people.

We need peoples support to fight the pandemic. When I came to pandemic-hit areas to ask about peoples difficulties during social distancing, people all said they supported the states policy, he said.

They always encouraged us to fulfill the work of fighting the pandemic so that we can leave for home soon, he said. We also received gifts from people. Doctors were given a lot of flowers when we were in Ha Loi flower growing area.

During the 2021 Tet holiday, he was away from his family. The first thing he plans to do after leaving the quarantine area is to meet family members and friends

Tu has a wife and 4-year old son. I missed my son and I usually called to talk to him via Facetime. I told him I was on business and I would buy presents for him, Tu said.

During the 2021 Tet holiday, he was away from his family. The first thing he plans to do after leaving the quarantine area is to meet family members and friends.

In January 2020, Tu participated in the compilation of the Ministry of Healths documents guiding the supervision, isolation and tracing of Covid-19 infection cases and close contacts. In February 2020, Tu participated in the investigation for fighting against Covid-19 in Son Loi, Vinh Phuc. He was a member of the special working group belonging to the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control. In March 2020, he took part in the campaign of tracing passengers with close contact with Covid-19 patients on international flights to Vietnam. In April 2020, he participated in the investigation to support the fight against Covid-19 in Ha Loi hamlet of Me Linh commune in Hanoi. In July 2020, he took part in the fight against Covid-19 in Da Nang City. Tu received a certificate of merit from Minister of Science and Technology for excellent achievements in processing epidemiological information to help control Covid-19. He also has received a certificate of merit for outstanding young doctors. He is one of 20 nominated faces for the 2020 Vietnam Outstanding Young Faces Award.

Ngoc Trang

Sci-tech strengthens Vietnams shield against pandemic Vietnam got through 2020 as one of only a few to fulfil the dual goals of containing the COVID-19 pandemic and developing its economy.
By Ayman al-Warfali

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Libya's designated interim prime minister, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, on Tuesday urged the long-divided parliament to back his proposed unity government as it prepared for a confidence vote.

The vote could take place on Tuesday, the deputy parliament speaker said, though an official speaking anonymously said intense talks continued and it may be delayed.

The parliament, which split between western and eastern factions along with most state institutions as the country fractured soon after the 2014 election, is meeting for the first time in years for the session in the frontline city of Sirte.

Though the U.N.-backed process appears to offer the clearest path in years to end Libya's decade of chaos and violence, it has also been dogged by allegations of corruption, influence peddling and the presence of foreign mercenaries.

Meanwhile, Dbeibeh's 35-member cabinet list, distributed over the weekend after weeks of intense negotiating to keep all Libya's varied factions on board, was still being amended on Tuesday, he said.

The session is taking place in Sirte's Ouagadougou Conference Centre, built by Muammar Gaddafi as a glossy gift to his hometown but damaged in fighting after his downfall and used by Islamic State when it ruled the city in 2015.

This year it has functioned as headquarters of a military formed by Libya's two main warring sides and the rival administrations they back to oversee their ceasefire.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognised by the United Nations, last year repulsed a 14-month assault on the capital by Khalifa Haftar's eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), leading to the truce.

Addressing parliament, Dbeibeh decried the continued presence of mercenaries and other foreign forces in Libya and said his government's goals of unifying state institutions and holding an election planned for Dec. 24, if realised, would be big achievements.

Story continues

Both those ends were written into the mandate for his interim unity government by 75 delegates convened by the U.N. in meetings in Tunis and Geneva to plot a path to elections.

However, the process, in which delegates voted on rival leadership candidates, led to allegations of vote buying. The issue was not raised in Tuesday's parliament session.

(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfali in Sirte and Reuters Tripoli newsroom, writing by Angus McDowall, editing by Nick Macfie)
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
SARATOGA SPRINGS  A Skidmore College student who wanted to bring a Libertarian-leaning group to campus said she was a victim of a threatening smear campaign that resulted in her Young Americans for Liberty chapter being blocked from forming.

Hannah Davis, and two other students, spearheaded the effort to establish a chapter affiliated with the national political group, of which the board is made up of two people who once worked on the presidential campaign of Congressman Ron Paul. Paul believed in strict adherence to the Constitution and that there should be little government other than national defense and the criminal justice system.

But after more than a 100 negative comments on their Instagram account, YALSkidmore, and a Change.org petition with more than 1,700 signatures, which accused YAL of being racist and homophobic, the Student Government Association told Davis that the chapter cannot establish there over concerns of hate speech and making students on campus feel unsafe. Davis said she was also told that YAL would not have a healthy and sustainable future at Skidmore, and it was beyond a reasonable doubt that it would be unsuccessful.

Davis said the determination was biased.

A cancel culture campaign was organized against us which they coined as holding students accountable for their actions, Davis said. YAL at Skidmore has not participated in any of the hateful behavior that they want us to take accountability for. This idea of collectivized guilt resulted in members of our chapter being forced to leave due to harassment. I have been subjected to endless harassment, false accusations and threats of violence in which Skidmore has been slow in addressing properly.

Davis said that every chapter has its own goals, with hers being reducing polarization, promoting free speech and dissembling group think.

However, the YALs website says the group is fighting back against progressive politicians like U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom it says want to bring back days of despots and dictators with a powerful central government. YAL says it recruits students to campaign for candidates who promote capitalism, the Constitution and individual liberties illustrated by an image of a man holding up a rifle.

Previously:

Churchill: Skidmore professor won't be punished for curiosity

Skidmore president seeks to protect students during 7-hour BLM protest

The anti-YAL petition, whose author is only identified as AC, argued that YAL is a springboard for hate speech and bigotry disguised as political discourse. It went onto say that Skidmore has become increasingly hostile to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) and marginalized students. It is no coincidence that this club is being proposed following months of bold activism by students of color.

The Instagram posts, of which there were only three, generated comments such as you suck, you all should be barred from colleges and universities, absolute trash and this organization is dangerous, this organization is threatening, and this organization has no place on our campus.

Davis said that is not fair. She said that YAL promotes mainstream policies" like free speech and criminal justice reform.

The claim that YAL would be using its right to free speech in a hateful manner is nothing but an attempt to prevent students with a different point of view from speaking, Davis said. Unfortunately, cancel culture is alive and well on the Skidmore campus. It appears that the school is going to surrender to left leaning extremists, (which Davis described as 'self-identified communists'), rather than stand for the freedom of speech which this country was founded upon.

The Times Union reached out to the Student Government Association about its decision, but no one in the group has responded.

In the fall, Skidmore students demanded that art professor David Peterson be dismissed after he was seen at a "Back the Blue" rally in Congress Park. Peterson said he went to watch the July rally out of curiosity and he was not a participant. Ultimately, the administration decided that Peterson should not be fired.

The YAL decision, however, rests entirely with student government, not administration, said college President Marc C. Conner.

"The student leaders whom our students have elected as their representatives have the right to vote to decide the outcome of this process," Conner said in a statement. "This is an important part of the educative experience for our students as they freely conduct their affairs and think about public discourse, civic engagement and campus culture."

He also said that Davis can appeal. Meanwhile, he wanted to emphasize everyone's right to free speech, association and assembly.

"These fundamental rights apply to all, regardless of political persuasion or other differences, including views and beliefs," Conner said. "The rare exception would be hate speech, in which violence is clearly the goal, which would not be tolerated in our community. As always, I encourage all members of our community to exercise their freedom of speech and freedom of association and to engage with each other with patience, courtesy and respect for one another."
* Username

This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Some people's willingness to reduce the spread of COVID-19 seems to be connected to their feelings about scientists rather than their political partisanship, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the University of Michigan and University of Illinois found that people who expressed warmth toward scientists were more concerned about the impact of the virus and reported engaging in more preventative behaviors, relative to those who felt colder toward the profession.

This relationship emerged even after controlling for their political views, said study co-author David Dunning, U-M professor of psychology.

Using three separate studies, the researchers investigated who expressed concern for the coronavirus and engaged in behaviorssuch as social distancing and wearing face masksthat are consistent with slowing the spread of COVID19.

They noted that people feeling a certain way does not mean they will behave in a manner consistent with their feelings. For instance, people may state they are very concerned about COVID19's impact on the economy, but also indicate they do not plan on engaging in social distancing behaviors.

Nearly 900 study participants disclosed their political partisanship and emotional views (warm vs. cold) about scientists. Researchers tested interventions that might increase compliance with COVID19 behaviors and referenced leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci talking about mitigation efforts. One intervention involved Fauci talking about hydroxychloroquine, an unproven drug that former President Trump once touted on Fox News.

In Studies 1 and 2, which involved 614 participants, those with warmer feelings toward scientists were more concerned and engaged in greater COVIDpreventative behaviors, regardless of partisanship. Also, those who were the most optimistic about hydroxychloroquine were less likely to engage in behaviors designed to decrease the spread of COVID19.

In Study 3, 259 respondents who watched a scientist discuss hydroxychloroquine on Fox News led people to greater endorsement of COVID behaviors. This did not change attitudes about the drug, with conservatives expressing far more optimism about the drug compared to liberals. It could be that conservatives express less concern about scientific risks, researchers suggested.

Overall, when drugs become politicized, people in a political party may be more inclined to believe they are effective.

"When people believe there are treatments, this may undermine behaviors that are consistent with behaviors and attitudes," said Carmen Sanchez, the study's lead author and assistant professor of business administration at the U of I. "That is, if people believe there is a cure, they may be more lax in their behaviors and attitudes."

The research, which had been conducted when no vaccines for the disease had been developed, appears in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Carmen Sanchez et al. The antiscientists bias: The role of feelings about scientists in COVID19 attitudes and behaviors, Journal of Applied Social Psychology (2021). Journal information: Journal of Applied Social Psychology Carmen Sanchez et al. The antiscientists bias: The role of feelings about scientists in COVID19 attitudes and behaviors,(2021). DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12748
Some are coping, others struggling, but Syrian refugees in Turkey say they dare not follow their dreams and return home while President Bashar al-Assad remains in power.

Of the 5.6 million people who have fled Syria's conflict, more than 3.6 million have settled in neighbouring Turkey.

Their arrival since Syria's descent into bloody war that began a decade ago has profoundly changed the makeup of southern Turkish border provinces such as Gaziantep and Hatay.

According to official figures, Gaziantep is now home to 450,000 Syrians, making up a fifth of its population.

Most have come from Aleppo, the obliterated Syrian city just an hour's drive south.

Restaurant owner Ismail Abtini has settled in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep and says he won't return home while Assad is in power /  AFP

"I want to return to Syria and am trying to get Turkish citizenship at the same time, because as long as Assad is in power, our return is out of the question," Ismail Abtini, 42, says.

He runs a grill restaurant with his family on one of the main thoroughfares in the city of Gaziantep, after fleeing Aleppo in 2013 with his parents, siblings, wife and children to "avoid the barrel bombs dropping on our neighbourhood".

One of his brothers was killed in the government assault.

- Lives left behind -

Abtini acknowledges that his business is booming, as two roasters rotate whole chickens and a spit is laden with meat for takeaway shawarma.

But, he adds, back home, "we left behind businesses, houses and large farms" -- something to return to should Assad ever be ousted.

Dried fruit vendor Zakaria al-Sabbagh, 23, is among more than 3.6 million Syrians who fled the conflict and settled in Turkey /  AFP

On this stretch of Gaziantep's Inonu Avenue, better known as the Iranian Bazaar, most of the shops are run by Syrians -- although storefront signs are spelled out in Turkish, as required by law.

"We fled the Assad regime, and if someone suddenly told us that Assad has fallen, you wouldn't find a single Syrian in Turkey," says Zakaria al-Sabbagh, a 23-year-old dried fruit vendor.

"But if the regime stays put, there is no hope" of going back, adds fellow trader Khader al-Houssein, 41.

"I love my children too much to put them through what I went through."

In his barbershop, Mohammad Abu Al-Nar, 28, and his customers discuss their native Syria's fate /  AFP

In a small barbershop, Mohammad Abu Al-Nar, 28, and his customers debate Syria's fate and their possible futures.

"If I return now, I will be jailed and no one will hear from me again," the barber says, as he takes his scissors to a Syrian customer's mop of hair.

"Especially since I am an army deserter. And there are many others like me in Turkey."

- 'A beautiful country' -

While the traders on Inonu Avenue are cobbling together new lives, others are only just hanging on.

Zeina Alawi, who lost her husband in a bombing in 2014, lives with her four daughters and two sons in a squalid flat not far from the city centre.

Zeina Alawi lost her husband in a bombing in 2014 and now lives in Turkey with her six children /  AFP

Deprived of odd jobs by the pandemic, she depends on good Samaritans to help feed her family and pay the equivalent of 50 euros (about $60) a month for an apartment furnished with two mattresses, a striped sofa and a charcoal furnace.

With no prospects of return in sight, she remembers Syria with fondness.

"I tell the children that Syria is a beautiful country where we lived in a house and were happy, where we didn't have to suffer the kind of work that we have to do here," Alawi says.

"But God has decided otherwise."

- 'Maybe one day' -

"How could I go back there?" asks Syrian grocer Ahd Al-Wali, 39, who fled Aleppo with her son /  AFP

Ahd Al-Wali, a grocer and confidante of many of the neighbourhood's Syrian families, grabbed her son and fled Aleppo in 2014, a year after her husband, an opposition fighter, was killed by regime forces.

"How could I go back there?" the 39-year-old asks in her small storefront, where she runs a tab for most of her poor Syrian customers.

War in Syria: refugees /  AFP

"Can you imagine walking down the street, seeing his (Assad's) portrait hanging amid all the destruction that he himself caused, not to mention the women and children he has killed?" she says.

"Of course not."

Some graffiti written on a wall near the grocery shop echoes the thoughts of many Syrians in this Gaziantep neighbourhood about a possible return home.

"Maybe one day," it reads.
SPRINGFIELD - Local leaders in the Black community will host a virtual forum on Wednesday in an effort to ensure that residents are informed about the COVID-19 vaccine before they make the choice about whether to get vaccinated.

This is not about forcing people to do anything. Its about providing them with the proper information so that they can make the decision with their families, said state Rep. Bud L. Williams, D-Springfield, who will be hosting the event, which is organized by the Black Springfield COVID-19 Coalition.

The coalition has teamed up with Springfields Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris, Dr. Christopher Lathan, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Wilmore Webly, an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, to reach people in the Black community who are apprehensive about getting vaccinated.

The virtual event will be held on March 10 at 6 p.m. The Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87196834950; Meeting ID: 871 9683 4950 or phone in by calling 1-301-715-8592.

A lot of Black and brown people are very suspect. Its not that they dont want the vaccine, its that we dont trust the system, and thats real, Williams said. This event will provide information and background research. We will let people hear from the doctors who will give them information so they can make a sound and intelligent decision.

For many in the Black community systemic racism extends to medical treatment going back as far as 1932, when the Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, left syphilis untreated in Black men without their consent in order to research its effects on the body. Although originally projected to last 6 months, the study actually went on for 40 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A study by the National Research Council found that Black, Hispanic and Asian populations face greater challenges than the white population when it comes to accessing health insurance, receiving adequate medical care,

Its a factor that our community does not trust hospitals, Wiliams said. You can have the perfect roll out of the vaccine and the perfect system, but because society for black and brown is so full of cracks we just dont get the services we need. Our communities are historically marginalized and this is an opportunity for doctors to answer any questions and concerns they have about the vaccine and testing.

Williams said he has worked with fellow state Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, D-Springfield, to inform the Black and Latino community about every step of the process since the pandemic started last year. Both have also been working to get testing sites in the citys most underserved neighborhoods including Mason Square and the citys North and South End.

The truth is no matter what information we provide we know some people in our communities are not going to get vaccinated, so we really have to push for testing sites as well so that people can get tested and we can keep our communities healthy and safe, he said.

Related content:
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 9 (ANI/BusinessWire India): In celebration of International Women's Day, De Beers Group is pleased to announce it has extended its global partnership with UN Women for a further five years.

Joining the newly-formed HeForShe Alliance, De Beers Group commits to increasing the representation of women in technical and leadership roles within its business, as it works towards achieving gender parity across its workforce by 2030 as part of its Building Forever sustainability goals.

The five-year commitment is focused on overcoming some of the historic barriers to women's advancement in science and technology. De Beers Group will work to enhance talent development and succession programmes, extending training and awareness activities to encourage dialogue and challenge stereotypes, conducting regular reviews based on metrics and ongoing feedback, and enabling access to STEM careers and education.

De Beers Group has been a UN Women partner since 2017. Since then, it has accelerated the advancement of women across its organisation by increasing the appointment rate into senior leadership from 22 per cent to 40 per cent and the representation of women in senior leadership from 17 per cent to 30 per cent.

"We are thrilled to be extending our partnership with UN Women for another five years and to be joining the newly-formed HeForShe Alliance. Achieving gender parity across our workforce is a business-critical priority for De Beers Group - not only is it the right thing to do, it's the only way we will access a comprehensive range of talent and achieve our full potential. Now more than ever we have a societal imperative to keep working toward gender equality, as the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in new challenges to address," said Bruce Cleaver, CEO, De Beers Group and UN Women HeForShe Champion.

"We've made meaningful progress on increasing the representation of women in leadership roles in our business during the past three years, but now we want to accelerate this momentum with particular focus on technical roles, where women remain underrepresented globally," said Katie Fergusson, Senior Vice President, Sustainable Impact, De Beers Group.

As part of the deepened partnership, De Beers Group will invest an additional USD 3 million to extend the AWOME (Accelerating Women-Owned Micro-Enterprises) programme in southern Africa, building on the USD 3 million funding the Group had already committed to support women and girls in its producer partner countries.

The AWOME programme, launched in 2017 in partnership with UN Women, has provided tailored business training and mentorship to more than 1,000 women entrepreneurs in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa to date, as well as qualifying over 50 local trainers to ensure the programme's sustainable future.

"Our commitments announced today to continue our journey towards gender parity in our workforce and to invest an additional USD 3 million to continue supporting women entrepreneurs in our host countries in southern Africa are further demonstration of our resolve to be a positive force for progress. We look forward to continuing to work with UN Women and our fellow HeForShe Alliance peers to share learnings, scale impact and accelerate progress over the next five years." Mr Cleaver said.

In addition, more than 50 scholarships have been granted to young women in Canada to pursue STEM opportunities and more than 900 girls and young women in southern Africa have taken part in STEM workshops, ideations' and mentorship programmes run in partnership with WomEng.

Through its Building Forever goals, De Beers Group has committed to supporting 10,000 women micro-entrepreneurs by 2030, as well as engaging a further 10,000 girls in STEM.

Bruce Cleaver has been a UN Women HeForShe Champion since 2017 and will continue to be a champion over the coming five years, spearheading and advocating transformative change across De Beers Group, as well as the wider diamond value chain and beyond.

"We are excited to continue and deepen our partnership with De Beers Group, and we are grateful for Bruce Cleaver's ongoing commitment to address some of today's most pressing gender issues, not only internally but also in the communities that De Beers Group operates in. We are positive that his leadership on this topic will inspire others to also take action," said Edward Wageni, Global Head of HeForShe.

De Beers Group is committed to ensuring all diamonds are sourced in a manner that honours the social, ethical and environmental expectations shared with its customers. The UN Women partnership is one initiative that ensures diamonds have a positive impact along their incredible journey and the brand's long-term commitment to Building Forever.

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
But there are more pernicious reasons: they drive up the cost of running clinical trials, as their children need to be followed up, and they might push up the cost of insurance. Pharma companies worry about facing litigation. But there is no evidence pregnant women face higher risks from therapeutic trials, says Professor Norman Saunders, who heads a lab devoted to the study of inflammation during pregnancy at the University of Melbourne. Its entirely ethical, he said. Big pharma wont fund anything they cannot make money from. And they are concerned that if they turned up problems, what about legal risks? Meanwhile, the position of experts is approaching unanimity. The Australian and American colleges of obstetricians and gynaecologists, the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases Vaccination Special Interest Group, the US National Institutes of Health and Medicine, and the overarching Council for International Organisations of Medical Sciences are all on board with including pregnant women in vaccine trials, and often have been for years. Dr Claudia Richartz inoculates a healthcare worker against COVID-19 in Brandenburg, Germany. Credit:Getty

Pregnant women already live in a grey area, unsure if they can drink coffee or even sleep on their back. So giving them that ability to choose to do a clinical trial, or even just relevant data about the vaccine, would give them something to work with. Another friend who has just had a baby points out that pregnant women are already taught to be scared about even minuscule risks. With this in mind, it is difficult to see how any woman would opt in to a clinical trial, she says. Saying that, if I knew the risks and was pregnant, I would at least consider taking part. I think its important for global health and broader society.

In an article for the New York Times, Yales Alice Lu-Culligan sets out a range of reasons why not getting vaccinated when pregnant poses a higher risk than the vaccine itself. But that relies on basic science and animal data, not human data. The ethics of this blanket exclusion are bad, she tells me. The barriers against the inclusion of pregnant women need to be reduced  they should have been given the option to provide their informed consent to participate in the vaccine trials, as many doctors and patients were advocating very early on. To make matters worse, many pregnant women are going to be vaccinated anyway  probably those with other risk factors such as diabetes  despite there being no safety data.

This leaves us in the ridiculous position of giving a drug to pregnant women that we refused to test on pregnant women. It passes the risk from scientists to individual women. Non-research research, Dr Nisha Khot, a Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists council member and Western Health obstetrician, terms it. Meanwhile, government surveys indicate it is women aged 30 to 39 who are most likely to hold concerns about vaccine safety. Loading Is there a relationship? Its complex  pregnancy has long been known to make women more vaccine-hesitant  and we dont have any firm evidence to prove it, but leading vaccine hesitancy researcher Professor Julie Leask certainly thinks so. I dont know if the exclusion from clinical trials encourages vaccine hesitancy. But I would much rather be in a position where I have complete safety and efficacy data to inform pregnant women, says Monashs Professor Giles.
A woman with alopecia who underwent a preventative double mastectomy is proudly sharing images of her bald head and surgery scars to remind people that there is 'no right way to look' and that all 'bodies are beautiful and unique'.

Photographer and content creator Marisa Kimmel, 27, from Bay City, Michigan, was diagnosed with alopecia at nine years old when she noticed small bald patches on her head that would come and go.

Almost two decades later, the mother-of-one discovered that she had the BRCA1 gene mutation, which increased her risk of breast cancer by 80 per cent - and she decided to undergo a double mastectomy, a decision that she is now sharing with the world in order to raise awareness, and redefine society's standards of beauty.

History: Mother-of-one Marisa Kimmel was diagnosed with alopecia at age nine, and recently underwent a preventative double mastectomy after learning she had the BRCA1 mutation

Proud: The 27-year-old is now showing off her scars and her bald head online to try and remind others that there is 'no right way to look' and that all 'bodies are beautiful and unique'

Moving forward: Marisa says she spent much of her childhood trying to hide the symptoms of her alopecia, because she was worried about what people might think of her

'I really just want to remind people that our bodies are beautiful and unique and different, there is no right way for us to look,' she explained.

'I lived so many years of my life to make sure that the world was comfortable with who I was presenting myself as.

'I tried to hide, change, and fix who I was so that others thought I was beautiful.

Flashback: The photographer, pictured as a child before her alopecia diagnosis, learned that she had the condition after discovering bald spots on her head

'I changed my entire life the day I decided that who I was, was absolutely enough.'

Throughout much of her childhood, Marisa tried a whole host of treatments which included special shampoos, creams, and steroid injections to try and relieve her alopecia symptoms with limited success.

Marisa would spend hours before school covering her bald spots with bobby pins, hair extensions, and headbands as she wanted to look like everyone else and believed she would never find love or get a job because of her baldness.

By the age of 19, Marisa had lost half of her hair and was incredibly self-conscious but at the same time, she started dating her now husband, Drew, 27, and fed up with hiding her alopecia, told him that she wanted to cut all her remaining hair off, which she did.

After a year of wearing wigs and hats, Marisa decided to embrace her alopecia once and for all and started to embrace her natural beauty and who she truly was. Marisa's experience with alopecia helped prepare her for her latest journey.

On May 3, 2019, Marisa tested positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation after her doctor suggested she be tested due to her family history of breast cancer - and just six months after she had given birth to her son, Abraham.

A positive result meant that Marisa's chances of developing breast cancer in her lifetime were increased by 80 per cent and for ovarian cancer, by 40 to 60 per cent.

Heartache: In May 2019, Marisa learned that she had the BRCA1 gene mutation, which increases risk of breast cancer by 80 per cent, and she chose to get a double mastectomy

Family: Marisa learned of her gene mutation just six months after she and her husband Drew welcomed their son, Abraham

Healing: The mom-of-one, pictured with her son, underwent a double mastectomy on February 4, and says she felt as though a huge weight had been lifted after the procedure

Marisa's paternal grandma and aunts developed breast cancer at young ages so a positive result was devastating for her  but she was thankful for the options available to her.

On February 4, Marisa underwent a bi-lateral mastectomy without reconstruction in a decision that she says was right for her. Immediately after surgery, Marisa felt as though a huge weight of stress and anxiety surrounding cancer had been lifted from her.

Message: Having spent years trying to conform to society's standards of beauty, Marisa (seen as a teenager when she would comb over her hair to hide her alopecia) chose to share her story to try and help others who worry about their appearance

Marisa has been sharing incredibly raw and beautiful pictures of herself on Instagram that document her incredible mastectomy journey and she hopes to show others that there is nothing shameful about being different and not conforming to social media's airbrushed view of life.

She hopes that through sharing her story, that others who are going through similar situations can find hope in her journey and she also hopes to raise awareness of genetic testing for cancer  something Marisa didn't realize existed herself prior to her doctor's suggestion.

Marisa believes that this decision could have saved her life.

'I started losing my hair when I was nine years old,' she said.

'I tried shampoos, creams, and steroid shots for years just trying to keep my hair from falling out. Nothing was working.

'It wasn't until I was 14 to 15 years old that I decided to stop treatments and learn to just hide it. I bought hair extensions, used bobby pins and hair clips to cover my bald spots and wore giant headbands.

'I was spending hours before school trying to feel beautiful so the world would accept me. Some days I wouldn't even go to school because I couldn't get my hair to cover my bald spots.

Warning: Marisa, pictured with drains in after her procedure, hopes to try and raise awareness about genetic testing in the hopes of helping others

Devastated: When Marisa was told about her BRCA1 gene mutation, she says she broke down and 'cried in her doctor's arms'

New perspective: However she soon realized that the positive result actually gave her back some control - which she seized by choosing to undergo her double mastectomy

'It got so bad that I would get out of the shower and turn my back to the mirror while I blow dried my hair because I couldn't even look at myself. I was beyond exhausted.

'The hardest part for me was being able to look at myself in the mirror and remind myself that who I was, was beautiful. That no matter what was on my head, how many bald spots I had, that I was still beautiful. I was never bullied for my alopecia growing up. It was always me against myself and that was really hard to face.

'I started dating my now husband when we were 19 years old. One day, I brought up to him wanting to cut all my hair off because I was so sick of it controlling every aspect of my life.

'It wasn't long after that conversation that I went into the bathroom by myself, looked in the mirror and cut off my ponytail and my husband shaved my head.'

Marisa went on to discuss her BRCA test results.

'My heart sunk and I cried in my doctors arms,' she said. 'I knew taking the genetic test for the BRCA mutation would hit me hard if it was positive but I also knew that I would have options and that allowed me to breathe.

'I knew that having the preventative mastectomy was the right decision for me. I have watched many women in my family fight breast cancer and if I have the opportunity sitting right in front of me to prevent myself from getting breast cancer, I'm going to take it.

'There was also the option of getting six month check-ups but for me, that would only bring stress and anxiety into my life.

'I decided that I would have my mastectomy as soon as my son was done breastfeeding or in the beginning of 2021, whichever came first. January 2021 rolled around and my son was breastfeeding about once a day or less. I could feel that it was the right time.

Support: Marisa says her husband Drew has been incredibly supportive throughout her health journey, encouraging her to shave her head, and supporting her mastectomy decision

Inspiration: 'Going into surgery, I thought about my son, reminding myself that my decision to have a preventative mastectomy was so that I was able to watch him grow up,' she said

'From the day I first met my surgeon to my surgery date, it was less than two weeks. On February 4, I breastfed my son for the last time. We went two years and three months on our breastfeeding journey.

'Going into surgery, I thought about my son, reminding myself that my decision to have a preventative mastectomy was so that I was able to watch him grow up and to make sure that breast cancer wouldn't take me from him.

'After my surgery, it felt like I dropped 500 pounds of stress and anxiety. The day I received my BRCA1+ diagnosis and knowing that my percentage for breast cancer was eighty per cent and my percentage for ovarian cancer was sixty per cent, I carried that heavy weight of knowledge with me every single day, just hoping that I would never have to know what it felt like to have cancer.

'I have shared my entire alopecia journey on social media. I have made the most beautiful friendships on Instagram. I am so, so grateful that I have a community on social media that gives me the space to just be myself. I hope that when people come across my page, they feel like they aren't alone in life.

'I know that by me sharing my life on the internet, I have never gone a day feeling like I'm alone in this.

'I hope that when someone comes across my story or my posts, that they feel a sense of hope. Hard parts of life happen but that doesn't mean you have to life a hard life.

'My doctor suggested the BRCA genetic testing because my father's mother and his three sisters all have had breast cancer at early ages. My grandma and my two aunts had breast cancer before the age of forty.

'I didn't know that genetic testing for cancer was even a thing I'd be able to have done. My doctor may have very well saved my life.

'I 100 per cent have my hard days where I cry and feel sorry for myself and I never want people to think I am always positive. We are all human and to put that sort of pressure on ourselves will drive us crazy.

'I can say that after losing my hair and having nothing but miserable days and convincing myself when my hair fell out that I would never get married or have a baby or be hired that I would live a lonely life. I knew that the life that I was planning for, was a hard one and that I was setting myself up for it.

'I have the most supportive family and friends surrounding me and I know that not everyone has that, so if you are out there and you don't, I am right here for you.'

Marisa always knew that she would share photographs of her mastectomy journey online ever since she received her positive diagnosis  and she hopes to empower people and show them there is no shame in being different.

'The idea for sharing photos of my scars has been a thing since the day I got my diagnosis and knew I was going to have a preventative mastectomy without reconstruction,' she said.

'Social media can be filled with so many filtered photos of what life is. I wanted to share my healing because there is nothing shameful about what makes us different.'
Allegion to Attend Bank of America's 2021 Global Industrials Conference

Allegion plc (NYSE: ALLE) Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Patrick Shannon will discuss the company's long-term strategy at Bank of America's 2021 Global Industrials Conference on Tuesday, March 16.

A live listen-only webcast will be accessible via Allegion's investor website at investor.allegion.com or directly by clicking here.







About Allegion

Allegion (NYSE: ALLE) is a global pioneer in seamless access, with leading brands like CISA, Interflex, LCN, Schlage, SimonsVoss and Von Duprin. Focusing on security around the door and adjacent areas, Allegion secures people and assets with a range of solutions for homes, businesses, schools and institutions. Allegion had $2.7 billion in revenue in 2020, and its security products are sold around the world.

For more, visit www.allegion.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210309005879/en/
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission General Counsel who ardently fought for religious freedom for American employees got fired on Friday by President Joe Biden after refusing his invitation to resign.

According to Christian Headlines, Biden fired Sharon Fast Gustafson on Friday after she refused to resign from her post that former President Donald Trump appointed her to three years ago, stating that she "wanted to honor that commitment."

Gustafson pointed out in a letter she sent on the same day to Biden that her appointment, which was confirmed on August 2019 by the Senate, is valid until August 2023. She was then told by Biden that she will be fired come 5 p.m. that day and it did happen.

"Your request that I resign provided no reason for the request, and I do not know which of your advisors recommended that you make the request. But please be aware that there are those who oppose my advocacy on behalf of employees who experience religious discrimination and on behalf of constitutional and statutory protections for religious entities. I would like to continue my work on the EEOC'S mission to prevent and remedy illegal employment discrimination," Gustafson told Biden in the letter.

In the letter, Gustafson also raised the importance of civil rights as a "bipartisan issue" and how she "diligently enforce the anti-discrimination statutes" as General Counsel for the benefit of all American employees but with due fairness to American employers.

She gave a rundown of her accomplishments that included 93 merits lawsuits at the district court level, 165 resolved merits lawsuits in the federal district courts, 96% favorable results for all district court resolutions, and 33 systemic cases resolved including 8 cases of over 100 discrimination victims translating to $69.9 million relief given to said victims.

These do not include the accomplishments in the federal circuit court of appeals, lawsuits challenging workplace harassment, and the establishment of the Religious Discrimination Work Group her office established based on the 2016 Obama-Biden Administration initiative.

"I would like to continue my work on the EEOC's mission to prevent and remedy illegal employment discrimination," she pointed out. "When my term ends and the time comes for my eventual successor to assume the position of General Counsel of the EEOC, it would be my great pleasure to then cooperate and facilitate in an orderly transition."

Gustafson, known for being a staunch defender of religious freedom during her stint, got fired after another Trump appointee, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Peter Robb, was fired for refusing to resign last January 20, The Detroit News said. A co-EEOC lawyer previously spoke against Gustafson's stance for religious liberty, especially after her office filed a lawsuit against Kroger Co, since it may conflict with the rights of LGBT workers, The Detroit News added.

Christian Headlines previously explained that the EEOC under the leadership of Gustafson filed a lawsuit against Arkansas-based Kroger store last September 14, 2020 for violating federal anti-discrimination law when it fired two employees who declined to wear aprons bearing the LGBT colors due to their religious beliefs.

The American Conservative raised the "chilling" implications Biden's firing of Gustafson has on religious liberty, stating that it shows the administration gives no importance to it in the workplace due to its "clash" against LGBT priorities.

"If the White House fired General Counsel Gustafson because it wanted its own person in there, that would be contestable, but not alarming. The fact that the White House has done this shortly after spiking the religious liberty work Gustafson helped lead within the EEOC is a chilling reminder of what a Democratic administration now means for vulnerable religious believers," The American Conservative said.
New Delhi, March 9 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought reply from the Centre in connection with the appointment of an environmental regulator for green clearances, despite the directions issued by it in 2011.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan submitted that all environmental clearances have become farce in the absence of an independent oversight. Bhushan pointed out that in 2011, (in the Lafarge mining case), the top court had directed the setting up of a national environment regulator, which could ensure an independent oversight on green clearances given for various projects.

After hearing these submissions, a bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian asked the Centre to file its reply in the matter.

The top court also a issued notice to the Centre on a plea by Bhushan, seeking quashing of a notification, which said there would be no need for the environmental clearance for road projects of up to 100 km length.

As Bhushan insisted that environmental clearances are farce, the Chief Justice replied that on Monday there was a matter in which the court learnt that the Wildlife Board of India has not met for six years. Bhushan said that even he had heard about this.

Concluding the hearing, the bench said that Bhushan's petition will be listed with the matter challenging the non-functioning of the Wildlife Board. The bench has posted that matter for further hearing after two weeks, besides seeking the Centre's reply on the appointment of an environmental regulator.

The observation from the top court came during the hearing of a petition by the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), challenging the felling of hundreds of trees for the construction of a railway overbridge project in West Bengal.

During the course of hearing, the top court also directed the Centre, the West Bengal government and the petitioner to deliberate on the names of the experts, who could be appointed on the expert panel for fixing the criteria on felling of trees for projects, which includes assessing the overall value of the trees.

The top court had suggested including environmentalist Ranjeet Singh, who had drafted the Wildlife Protection Act, in a committee.

On February 18, the Supreme Court had said that it is essential to develop a policy focusing on gradation of trees: A category of trees which can be cut down and the other category of trees which requires protection throughout its lifespan.

The top court had said, "We want to lay some guidelines, a kind of cognitive pathway so that thinking takes place along those line. The cost of the project to include the value of the trees, or their contribution to the environment. Trees of a certain type and certain age shall never be cut down."
New Alpine boss Davide Brivio has admitted his transition to Formula 1 is a "difficult" one.

The 56-year-old Italian comes to F1 from the world of MotoGP, where he is one of the most successful team managers in the history of premier motorcycle racing.

"It was not easy to leave my previous team, in an environment that I know very well," Brivio, who last year guided Suzuki's Joan Mir to the MotoGP title, is quoted by AS newspaper.

"But F1 has been a dream of mine for a long time and it's exciting to start something new. I have a lot to learn and understand, but that is adrenaline and oxygen to me. I would have regretted it otherwise.

"I will need time, but I am fully committed," said Brivio, who along with Marcin Budkowski will lead Renault's newly-rebranded Alpine team following the departure of Cyril Abiteboul.

Brivio freely admits that moving to Formula 1 from its two-wheel equivalent is not straightforward.

"Right now, I think it's more difficult to go from MotoGP to F1 than the other way around," he said.

"The organisation here is bigger and more complex, with a lot more people. That's not good for me, but we'll see. I also notice a lot of the similarities."

(GMM)
All of which raises a crucial question: Does the movement among investors toward companies that rank highly for environmental, social and governance issues pose an existential threat to bitcoins success? After all, Laurence Fink, chief executive of BlackRock  the largest money manager in the world, with $US9 trillion under management  has said that all investments the company makes in the future will be evaluated, in part, on how they plan to meet the climate challenge. Perhaps more important, investors are clamouring for companies to disclose their carbon footprint, and a group called the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures is working on creating a global standard. If thats the case, how will investors view the likes of PayPal, which has been a vocal proponent of climate initiatives  but last fall announced plans to allow customers to conduct transactions in bitcoin? Or what about Square, the payments company founded by Jack Dorsey? It has become one of the most public proponents of bitcoin, both dealing with transactions and also keeping the cryptocurrency on its own balance sheet. It holds about 5 per cent of its cash reserves in bitcoin, whose price has historically been deeply volatile.

Then there is Tesla  a company whose entire premise is to help reduce climate change through lower carbon emissions  which has invested more than $US1.5 billion of its balance sheet in bitcoin. How would its bitcoin holdings affect its sustainability score? Other companies are also considering whether to add bitcoin to their balance sheets. And financial firms like Guggenheim Partners have already invested in bitcoin while Bank of New York Mellon says it will start financing bitcoin transactions. As bitcoin becomes more mainstream, its environmental impact could pose a problem for investors. Credit:Louie Douvis Even Finks BlackRock has started to, in the words of a senior executive, dabble in the cryptocurrency by potentially allowing two of its funds to invest in bitcoin futures. Rick Rieder, the firms chief investment officer of fixed income, cited investors interest in the asset and its increasing adoption by younger, tech-savvy customers. So far, bitcoins carbon problem hasnt slowed down its price, which is hovering around $US50,000 for a token, up from about $US8,000 a year ago.

Several companies are working on some counter-intuitive ideas to turn bitcoin green. On Monday, Seetee, an investment company involved in cryptocurrency, said it planned to invest in bitcoin mining operations that transfer stranded or intermittent electricity without stable demand locally  wind, solar, hydro power  to economic assets that can be used anywhere. In other words, the company plans to build wind and solar in places that might not be perfectly situated for the technology and will use the extra power to mine bitcoin, making money in the process. bitcoin is, in our eyes, a load-balancing economic battery, and batteries are essential to the energy transition required to reach the targets of the Paris agreement, the company said in its announcement. Loading There are also new ways to conduct greener bitcoin transactions. For example, users could batch transactions on something called a Lightning Network, essentially a payment channel between two users that would use less power to process transactions. PayPal, too, argues that those new protocols may change bitcoins carbon footprint: Not only are we assessing the climate impact of cryptocurrency, which is concentrated on bitcoin, but also the entire industry is evolving in the assessment and measurement standards of the potential environmental impacts and more energy-efficient protocols are emerging.
EV

Passenger cars are no longer deemed viable transport solutions. Mass transit is a mess in most cities, with very few exceptions. Biking needs better infrastructure and cyclists better manners. Scooters, mopeds, and ride-sharing services do more damage than good.Depending on who you believe, all of these are true, individually or at once. Put on a pair of pink-lens glasses, and you still see the reality that city life is more challenging because getting from point A to point B is stressful, time-consuming, occasionally expensive, and polluting. Change is needed One company from The Netherlands is looking to the past for inspiration for the future. Here is a quirky (or maybe just a silly-looking) electric vehicle that aims to bridge the gap between car and bicycle by offering a halfway solution with the benefits of both. This is LEF.LEF is the product of local company EV Mobility and is the brainchild of Erik Vegt and Dave Goudeket. For the time being, LEF is road-legal only in The Netherlands, where its legally classified as a moped. It looks like a velomobile or an enclosed recumbent bicycle , but its actually fully electric, and you dont have to pedal for propulsion.LEF is a three-wheeler with an enclosed cabin made of recycled polyethylene, which boasts a bicycle's agility and the comfort of a car. That last part is, of course, relative. The idea is that it offers some protection from the elements, so you dont get to work drenched or with dust in your eyes and mouth, and even some storage space in the back for personal belongings or groceries.You can see the LEF in motion in the videos below.Mobility offers it with three battery packs, depending on the users needs: theres a 10Ah battery for a 30 km range (18.6 miles), a 20Ah for double that, and a 30Ah battery for a maximum of 90 km (56 miles). If youve been keeping up with the latest in e-bikes, youre probably amused to notice that the smallest pack is a good distance from what a medium-range bike offers.LEF goes heavy on safety, with integrated LED lights at the front and rear and turn signals. If you want side mirrors, which you will definitely need if youre going to take this thing on the street, you have to pay extra. Ditto for a windshield wiper, another necessity if its going to protect you from the elements and, you know,get you killed in traffic.Inside the cabin, you get a display with the stats and USB connection to charge your phone and retractable handlebars that offer easy access, as well as the possibility to find the driving position that best suits you. Power comes from a 1,000-watt motor in the rear wheels, which will take you to the maximum speed allowed here: 25 kph (15.5 mph). So much for getting to work on time in traffic: at least with a pedal-assist bike, you have the option to pedal faster after the motor cuts off.Obvious advantages include the ability to charge from a home socket, a maximum payload of 200 kg (441 pounds), the aforementioned protection from the elements, and the fact that it can be operated without a drivers license by anyone older than 16. EV Mobility offers this e-vehicle in a variety of colors, which probably counts for something for someone.On the downside, LEF has three wheels, and, like other three-wheelers in history, stability is probably not its strongest suit. The limited speed means youre best off in the bike lane than on the street, but then again, youd be taking up too much space there. Traveling in a closed plastic bubble also means youre going to stew in your own juices on hot summer days. Its either that or travel with the canopy open.Perhaps the biggest drawback to the LEF, after the fact that its available only locally, for the time being, is pricing. LEF starts at 4,380 ($5,210 at todays exchange rate). For this kind of money, you get also get yourself a fancy e-bike or a decent second-hand car . It wont be electric, but at least it will have AC.
CHICAGO, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Numerator, a data and tech company serving the market research space, has released a new reference report, The Path to Understanding , detailing consumer dynamics by race / ethnicity, including consumer share of spend, psychographics, media consumption and sentiment.

The Path to Understanding reference report provides omnichannel share data -- by race / ethnicity -- for 10 categories including beer, soda, candy, energy bars, laundry, oral hygiene, body skin care, face care, baking and butter/margarine. Data also shows share for each category by generation for each race, and by income level for each race. The large size of the Numerator superpanel enables more detailed views tied to demographics than previously available.

"Market share has been trapped in a product-lens on a subset of the market because that has been the only data available for years. It has left brands blind to the areas of the market driving growth. Numerator is now enabling brands to understand omnichannel market share by brand for specific consumer groups -- which enables brands to find and target new growth opportunities," said Eric Belcher, CEO, Numerator.

Key findings include:

Share of spend by Asian, Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino consumers increases with each generation, with Gen Z the first majority-minority generation.

Essential goods like laundry and personal care categories (face care, oral hygiene, body skin care) are at the forefront of shifting demographic consumption -- with Gen Z share of spend by Asian, Black or African American and Hispanic/Latino totaling 58% for laundry and at 62%, 55% and 60% for Body Skin Care, Face Care and Oral Hygiene, respectively.

Diverse consumers* have lower share of spend in discretionary categories like candy, soda and energy drinks.

Companies like Coca-Cola are well-poised to manage demographic shifts with brands like Sprite and Fanta that over perform with rising diverse demographics*, while Keurig Dr Pepper has opportunity with 7UP, Sunkist and Canada Dry that also outperform with these rising demographics*.

Soft Drinks Category: Top 10 Brands (by US $ Sales)

Consumer Spend by Ethnicity



Asian Black or

African

American Hispanic /

Latino White /

Caucasian Other Coca-Cola 3.8% 5.6% 10.9% 78.5% 1.2% Pepsi 3.6% 7.5% 7.6% 80.1% 1.3% Mountain Dew 1.6% 5.7% 3.2% 88.5% 1.0% Dr Pepper 1.8% 5.2% 7.2% 84.2% 1.6% Sprite 3.9% 13.0% 12.3% 69.2% 1.6% Canada Dry 4.3% 19.0% 10.4% 64.6% 1.7% A&W 2.6% 6.7% 6.1% 83.2% 1.4% 7UP 4.6% 7.8% 11.6% 74.6% 1.4% Sunkist 3.8% 13.5% 9.4% 72.1% 1.2% Fanta 5.0% 29.1% 17.6% 46.7% 1.6%

*Diverse consumers and rising demographics include Asian, Black or African American and Hispanic/Latino which are all increasing as a percentage of the US population.

About Numerator

Numerator is a data and tech company bringing speed and scale to the market research space. Headquartered in Chicago, IL, Numerator has more than 2,000 employees worldwide. The company blends proprietary data with advanced technology to create unique insights for the market research industry that has been slow to change. The majority of Fortune 100 companies are Numerator clients.

SOURCE Numerator

Related Links

numerator.com


Justin Theroux is preparing to start production on his latest role in Upstate New York.

And the two-time Emmy winner is currently enjoying his downtime in the city with his favorite girl.

He bundled up in a black bomber jacket Monday, as he stepped out to take his adorable pup Kuma for a chilly walk through the West Village neighborhood of New York City.

Walking buddies: Justin Theroux bundled up in a black bomber jacket Monday, as he stepped out to take his adorable pup Kuma for a chilly walk through the West Village neighborhood of New York City

The 49-year-old layered the jacket over a matching black hoodie, with slim faded grey joggers and a pair of black leather Louis Vuitton kicks.

He finished the ensemble with a black New York Nico beanie, a pair of gold Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, black North Face gloves.

Theroux took precautions against COVID-19 in a black face mask, while listening to music on his Apple AirPods.

He walked Kuma through his neighborhood on a braided black leash, which he wore around his waist like a belt.

Cool kicks: The 49-year-old layered the jacket over a matching black hoodie, with slim faded grey joggers and a pair of black leather Louis Vuitton kicks

Accessorizing: He finished the ensemble with a black New York Nico beanie, a pair of gold Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, black North Face gloves. Theroux took precautions against COVID-19 in a black face mask, while listening to music on his Apple AirPods

Tight leash: He walked Kuma through his neighborhood on a braided black leash, which he wore around his waist like a belt

Man's best friend: The Leftovers star has been inseparable from his pit bull since adopting her back in 2018, after she was rescued from Hurricane Harvey

Checkmate: He recently posted a cute photo to Instagram of Kuma on the other side of a chess board, writing: 'watches queens gambit once. #alsoanorphan #adoptdontshop'

The Leftovers star has been inseparable from his pit bull since adopting her back in 2018, after she was rescued from Hurricane Harvey.

He recently posted a cute photo to Instagram of Kuma on the other side of a chess board, writing: 'watches queens gambit once. #alsoanorphan #adoptdontshop'

Theroux is preparing to shoot the HBO miniseries The White House Plumbers, based on the 2007 book Integrity by Egil 'Bud' Krogh and Matthew Krogh.

He stars as lawyer and Nixon co-conspirator G Gordon Liddy, alongside Woody Harrelson in the limited series, which focuses on the Watergate scandal.

Back to work: Theroux is preparing to shoot the HBO miniseries The White House Plumbers, based on the 2007 book Integrity by Egil 'Bud' Krogh and Matthew Krogh (pictured in February, 2021)

Political drama: He stars as lawyer and Nixon co-conspirator G Gordon Liddy, alongside Woody Harrelson in the limited series, which focuses on the Watergate scandal (pictured in October, 2019)

The DC native can next be seen in the Apple TV+ series The Mosquito Coast, based on his uncle Paul Theroux's 1981 novel of the same name.

He plays patriarch Allie Fox, an idealist and inventor who flees to Mexico with his family, as they find themselves on the run from the US government.

The book was last adapted into the 1986 movie starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, River Phoenix and Martha Plimpton.

Theroux stars alongside Melissa George in the seven-episode first season, which premieres April 30.
Meghan Markle has said she and Harry are trying to share 'parts of our lives' they feel 'comfortable' with and said everyone should have a 'basic right to privacy' in the latest Oprah interview clip.

The couple have faced criticism for complaining about their own privacy being violated at the same time as sharing damaging details about private conversations they have had with senior royals in front of a global TV audience numbering in the tens of millions.

They have also been accused of 'hypocrisy' for releasing photos of private family moments on Instagram - prompting press stories of their private lives - while complaining about media intrusion after coverage that paints them in a bad light.

The couple have faced criticism for complaining about their own privacy being violated at the same time as sharing damaging details about private conversations with senior royals

Asked by Oprah if she should accept that losing some privacy was 'part of the deal' of being a royal, Meghan argued that 'everyone has a basic right to privacy' and 'I think life is about being able to share stories you're comfortable with'.

In the previously unseen clip published by OprahMag.com, Meghan said: 'Two things here. I think everyone has a basic right to privacy, basic. We're not talking about anything that anybody else wouldn't expect.

'So if you're at work and you have a photograph of your child on your desk and your co-worker says ''oh my gosh, your kids so cute, that's fantastic... can I see your phone so I can see all your pictures of your child?''. You go, ''no, this is the picture I'm comfortable sharing with you''.

'And then if they double down and say, ''no but you already showed me that one so you've got to show me everything, so I'm going to hire someone to sit in front of your house or hide in the bushes and take pictures into your back yard because you've lost your right to privacy because you shared one image with me''.

'That's sort of the flawed argument and operating mechanism that they're confusing people to think.'

Meghan claimed she and Harry were not asking for complete privacy, but 'boundaries and respect'.

She added: 'I think life is about being able to share our stories and share parts of our lives that we are comfortable with.

'There's no one on Instagram and social media who would say that because they shared one picture you are entitled to my whole camera roll.

'No one would want that, so it's about boundaries and respect - they've created a false narrative, I've never talked about privacy, I think that's just a basic understanding.'

A new picture of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle cradling baby Archie appeared on social media yesterday hours after the interview.

Amid the huge fallout from last night's explosive claims, the couple's friend Misan Harriman - who took the photograph used to announce Meghan's most recent pregnancy - shared a previously unreleased image of the couple.

A new picture of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle cradling baby Archie appeared on social media yesterday hours after the interview

Among the personal details shared in the Oprah interview were conversations with the Queen about a trip to Sandringham that Harry claims was later called off by a royal aide, and Meghan's claim that Kate Middleton made her 'cry'.

Harry also revealed that Charles has stopped speaking to him and said he felt 'let down' by his father.

It came as Meghan's estranged father Thomas today denied his daughter's claims he had 'betrayed' her through collaborating with photographers.

He branded his son-in-law 'snotty' and declared: 'We all make mistakes - but I've never played naked pool or dressed like Hitler like Harry did'.

Mr Markle says that he's apologised '100 times' for doing a deal with a paparazzi photographer before the Royal Wedding in 2018 and urged the couple to see him now they only live '70 miles away' from his Mexico home in Los Angeles.

He also denied the Royal Family - or Britain - is racist, calling Meghan and Harry's claims 'bulls**t' and saying if it is true a royal asked about how 'dark' Archie's skin would be, it was probably just a 'dumb question'.

Mr Markle spoke to Good Morning Britain in the UK after watching the Oprah interview with his daughter and her husband, which was watched by 11.4million in Britain last night and tens of millions more when it was shown by CBS in the US on Sunday.

In it, Meghan said she cannot fathom hurting her son Archie in the way her own father 'betrayed' her, admitting she 'found it hard to reconcile' with Thomas after he insisted that he had not been speaking to the media. She said: 'I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can't imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child'.

Mr Markle said that while he did let her down, she had 'let me down too' by cutting him off after heart surgery almost three years ago.

He said: 'The bottom line is she didn't lose me, she made a statement saying she lost me, she didn't lose me, I would've always been there for her, I'm there for her now if she wants me'.

He added: 'We all make mistakes - but I've never played naked pool or dressed like Hitler like Harry did'.

Mr Markle was referencing Harry's trip to Las Vegas where he stripped off in a hotel to play pool and once wearing a Nazi uniform to a party when he was 20.

Describing his last phone call with Harry he said: 'Harry had said to me if you had listened to me, this wouldn't have happened to you. Me, laying in a hospital bed after a having procedure, I had a stent put here and put here [points at his heart] and that was kind of snotty so I hung up on him.'

The GMB show had already made headlines before Mr Markle spoke when like host Piers Morgan walked off set after being criticised by weatherman Alex Beresford who accused Mr Morgan of unfairly 'trashing' Meghan Markle.
Joe Biden will allow 320,000 Venezuelan refugees to live and work in the US for at least 18 months after they fled Nicolas Maduro's regime.

The Biden administration announced on Monday that it would also review sanctions intended to isolate the socialist state which is facing economic crisis amid the pandemic.

It's a dramatic shift away from Donald Trump's policy which resisted bipartisan appeals to grant protection to Venezuelans as he brought down swingeing penalties on the country's oil sector.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House on March 2

Security forces take part in a military drill to mark the eighth death anniversary of President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela, late Friday

Trump rejected calls from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, primarily from South Florida, to grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans though he issued an order deferring deportation for a smaller number on his final day in office.

The Trump administration also significantly tightened U.S. economic sanctions on Venezuela, most notably on its crucial oil sector, to try and force Maduro to give up power after an election in 2018 that the United States and more than 50 other countries consider fraudulent.

A senior Biden administration official portrayed that as a failed strategy.

'The United States is in no rush to lift sanctions,' the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the policy. 'But we need to recognize here that unilateral sanctions over the last four years have not succeeded in achieving an electoral outcome in the country.'

U.S. sanctions, which began under President Barack Obama, have increased economic pressure on the once prosperous country. Its economy was already suffering from mismanagement and the deterioration of its all-important oil industry.

In the last few years, the Venezuelan economy has been in free fall, with widespread shortages of food and medicine and frequent power outages. An estimated 5 million people have fled, mostly to neighboring countries such as Colombia, but many have settled in South Florida.

The Biden official said the Maduro government has 'adapted' to the most punishing of the sanctions, against transactions with Venezuelas state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, and the U.S. needs to work with its allies on new strategies.

'Oil markets long ago have adapted to oil sanctions and that they are able to sustain themselves through illicit flows,' the official said. 'So, really we could keep on with unilateral sanctions and stay in this situation for who knows how long or we actually could start sitting down with the international community to see how we can actually exert coordinated pressure and set clear expectations for the way forward.'

The Biden administration, like its predecessor, views Maduro as a 'dictator' and wants him out of power. 'Our overriding goal is to support a peaceful democratic transition in Venezuela through free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections,' State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

Any easing of sanctions would likely face opposition in Congress, but the granting of temporary protected status for Venezuelans has bipartisan support.

Republicans in recent days had urged the Biden administration to formalize Trump's last-minute executive order that deferred deportation for 18 months for more than 145,000 Venezuelans who were at risk of being sent back to their homeland. Temporary protected status is a more formal status that cannot be as easily reversed.

'By using the law to lift the threat of deportation and grant employment authorization, the Biden administration helps hundreds of thousands of families stay safe and earn a living without fear of being returned to Maduros dangerous and cruel regime,' said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat whose South Florida district is home to one of the largest Venezuelan communities in the U.S. 'Donald Trump had four years to do this, but the Republican Partys xenophobia got in the way of doing what is right.'

Women from the feminist group 'Tinta Violeta' march during a protest marking International Women's Day and demanding justice for women who have been victims of violence in Caracas

Citizens of 10 countries, totaling about 400,000 people, are in the United States now with temporary protected status. The largest number come from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti, many with U.S. citizen children and spouses. The Trump administration had sought to phase out the program, arguing that it had effectively become permanent residency after repeated extensions.

People must show continued residency and pass a criminal background check to qualify for the status. Venezuelans must have arrived by Monday to be eligible.

Temporary protected status, which was created in 1990, grants citizens of eligible nations the ability to stay if they cant safely return to their home country because of natural disasters, armed conflicts or other factors. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Venezuela meets the criteria because the country is 'in turmoil and unable to protect its own citizens.

'It is in times of extraordinary and temporary circumstances like these that the United States steps forward to support eligible Venezuelan nationals already present here, while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises,' Mayorkas said in announcing the measure.
"In the spirit of celebrating International Women's Day and all the strong and resilient women in our Motherhood community, we are proud to make a donation to Maternity Care Coalition to support local moms in Philadelphia," said Marla Ryan, Brand Executive Vice President, Motherhood Maternity. "We know motherhood is always a juggle, but the past year has been incredibly challenging for moms as they balance their family's needs and job responsibilities, while keeping everyone safe and healthy. We have always been impressed with Maternity Care Coalition and are proud to contribute to their continuous efforts of helping families."

Ongoing Efforts to Support Maternity Care Coalition

In addition, Motherhood Maternity is highlighting local Philadelphia content creator, influencer and expecting mom, Coral Rosado, @curlswithcoral, who is passionate about the organization as well. "Motherhood is kind of tough in itself, and those first few years after you have a kid, it's important to have a support system," said Rosado. During the month of March, Motherhood Maternity will donate $2 for every Mama Charity T-shirt sold to Maternity Care Coalition to further fund their efforts to help pregnant women, parents and their children. View her video here.

"Since 1980, Maternity Care Coalition has assisted more than 140,000 families throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania," said Katherine Mitchell, spokesperson, Maternity Care Coalition. "We know a family's needs change as they go through the pregnancy and their child's first years and we offer a range of services and programs for every step along the way. During the past twelve months, our team has been incredibly devoted to helping our families find the resources they needed through virtual support and care. With the support of partners, like Motherhood Maternity, we can continue to support the health and well-being of pregnant women." Learn more about Maternity Care Coalition and how to donate.

About Motherhood Maternity

Motherhood Maternity is a dedicated resource for supporting women as they go through their pregnancy journey to motherhood by building a strong sense of community. Since 1982, Motherhood Maternity and its sister brand, A Pea in the Pod, has specialized in being the world's largest designer and retailer of maternity and nursing apparel and accessories. Motherhood Maternity honors our heroes and offers a 10% merchandise discount to teachers and active duty military personnel, veterans and family members. To learn more, visit motherhood.com or follow Motherhood Maternity on Facebook and Instagram.

ABOUT MATERNITY CARE COALITION

Since 1980, Maternity Care Coalition (MCC) has assisted more than 140,000 families throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania, focusing particularly on neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, infant mortality, health disparities, and changing immigration patterns. MCC knows a family's needs change as they go through the pregnancy and their child's first years and they offer a range of services and programs for every step along the way. The mission of Maternity Care Coalition is to improve the health and well-being of pregnant women and parenting families, and enhance school readiness for children 0-3. https://maternitycarecoalition.org/

SOURCE Motherhood Maternity

Related Links

https://youtu.be/biG_KVjpw9A


Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court by a majority verdict has set aside the practice of divorce through instant triple talaq among Muslims, saying that it was void, illegal and unconstitutional.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that judgment of the Supreme Court on Triple Talaq is historic. It grants equality to Muslim women and is a powerful measure for women empowerment.

This historic decision of the court was welcomed by politicians of different spectrum. Let's see reactions of some of the politicos.

This verdict is historic, it's not about anyone's win or loss. I welcome this on behalf of the party, said Amit Shah

The Uttar Pradesh government welcomed the Supreme Court's judgment on triple talaq, saying it will strengthen the secular foundation of the country.

"The Supreme Court's decision is historic. India is a secular country, but its definition was distorted on religious grounds. Now, the SC has termed triple talaq as unconstitutional," state health minister and government spokesman Sidharth Nath Singh said.

"The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were of the view that discrimination should not be on the basis of gender and have advocated for gender equality," the minister said.

"The decision will strengthen the secular foundation of our country," he said.

Uttar Pradesh minister Anupama Jaiswal thanked the prime minister for "standing in support of our Muslim sisters in their fight for their rights".

It's a good judgement and its another step towards gender justice and gender equality, said Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister.

Welcome SC 's judgement, request Central Govt to bring in a legislation soon, said MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Asaduddin Owaisi, President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) said "We have to respect the judgement. It is going to be a great herculean task to implement this on ground"

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Achieving air-tight cybersecurity with KVM

Cyberattacks and data breaches are a daily occurrence -- and the stakes have never been higher for government agencies and private-sector organizations. Data breaches skyrocketed in 2020, increasing 273% in just the first quarter of the year.

There are countless available technologies aimed at combating cyber threats, yet hackers are innovating faster. Once attackers are in the network, they focus on finding more valuable assets while trying to hide their presence. This east/west attack vector is especially vexing as its very difficult to determine where attackers have been and what they have touched.

According to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, the government sector suffered from 6,843 security incidents from 2019 to 2020, 346 with confirmed breaches. While threat origins are numerous, miscellaneous human-based errors lead the pack in terms of cause, according to the report.

As part of a broader cybersecurity defense strategy, agencies labor to isolate their networks and network assets to ensure that the most mission-critical data is never exposed to the public internet and only accessible to those with tightly controlled permission. The air-gap network ensures that advanced signaling attacks that may compromise a desktop have no way of propagating to more sensitive systems as there simply is no route from one network to the other. However, air-gaps can be breached when a peripheral is shared between isolated systems. Operators that need to access multiple systems to effectively carry out their duties must deal with multiple sets of redundant peripherals on their desk or run the risk of introducing a path for attack from a compromised system to a secure system.

The KVM: Powerful but underestimated

A proven and effective way to share peripherals while safeguarding the air-gap isolation is through the use of secure keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) switching devices that allow government employees to switch between networks with various security levels from one desktop. These devices have been around for years, but new standards released last year by the National Information Assurance Partnership are bringing new attention to secure peripheral switching devices and are allowing government agencies to rethink how these tools can benefit their users. The new Protection Profile format in NIAP PP PSD 4.0, allows each of its modules to be independently updated or revised as needed and should make the standard more agile in addressing the rapid pace of new vulnerability discovery and mitigation strategy development.

Governments are looking for solutions that meet the new standards and do not comprise user experience. Secure KVMs safeguard critical network assets by maintaining isolation between channels while improving an operators efficiency and effectiveness in working across secure and non-secure systems at the desktop. Agencies deploy secure KVM switches to allow one set of peripherals to be used across different networks with differing levels of security to reduce desktop clutter, boost efficiency and help save budget by consolidating desktop peripherals.

Most secure KVMs are built to support a particular video standard, while a large agency may have three or more different computing platforms with various video interfaces. This makes it extremely hard to properly manage secure KVM devices throughout their lifecycle, creating unnecessary burdens on IT departments and ultimately wasting time and money. A secure KVM that seamlessly accommodates disparate video input/output formats makes it possible to deploy the same KVM across multiple users and deployment scenarios.

Government agencies implement secure KVM solutions to protect against vulnerabilities at the desktop and maintain air-gap isolation between secure and non-secure networks but also to enable a productive, flexible workspace. With solutions that emphasize user experience and prioritize future-ready technology, agencies can deliver critical security with limited compromises for stakeholders.

Threats are on the rise, with government data and computer systems as prime targets for hostile foreign governments, terrorists and cybercriminals. Agencies purchasing KVM equipment must carefully weigh all the security and functionality features of these devices to make certain the units provide the safest, most secure and user-friendly functionality to prevent the compromise of government assets.
By Jack Perry, Providence Journal (TNS)

Twitter is atwitter this morning over major political news out of Washington: President Bidens dogs have been banished from the White House for their aggressive behavior.

CNN reports that the two German Shepherds belonging to the president and first lady Jill Biden have been returned to the family home in Delaware after Major had a biting incident with a member of White House security.

In January, news that dogs were again moving into the White House was welcomed with fawning approval by some in the press, but now, word that the dogs have been sent to the doghouse has them trending on Twitter.

Still, not everyone is buying the official, if anonymous, version of events. One Twitter user wants to hear Major Bidens side of the story and suggests an interview with Oprah.

I want to hear Major Biden's side of the story, please @Oprah pic.twitter.com/iGa27StpgI  Gracie St. Ives (@roguecats7) March 9, 2021

I will tolerate no slander against Major Biden on my timeline. Hes a very good boy and this is a political hit job. https://t.co/Ogdd4LoXgU  Carol Roth (@caroljsroth) March 9, 2021

CNN reports that Major, at 3, is the younger of the two dogs, and has been known to display agitated behavior on multiple occasions, including jumping, barking, and charging at staff and security, CNN reported.

The other dog is named Champ. At about 13, Champ is apparently too old to bother jumping and charging at staff, but he too was banished, apparently because of his association with the White House bad boy.

First dogs Champ and Major on the South Lawn of the White House. Jim Watson | AFP via Getty Images, fileJim Watson | AFP via Getty Images

The stories relied on anonymous sources, and at least one Twitter user suggests Major has been the victim of typical Washington hardball, a political hit job.

I want to hear Major Biden's side of the story. Dogs are formidable judges of character. pic.twitter.com/f4JwP1dstO  Eric Turner Sr. (@redbeardzombie) March 9, 2021

Finally, a Twitter user published what appears to be exclusive video of the talented Major driving back to Delaware.

Major Biden seen heading back to Delaware after getting tossed from the White House. pic.twitter.com/ia8FlfzfkT  Bonner (@SudsGlenside) March 9, 2021

More:

Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah shines spotlight on royal rift

Video shows N.C. officer tossing police dog while someone comments, Were good, no witnesses
She said once her case received publicity much greater attention was paid to my health and my condition. I certainly saw benefits from that [publicity] and Im not convinced that the quiet diplomacy argument stacks up in such a case, although each case is different, she said in the interview, which aired on Tuesday night. Dr Moore-Gilbert said her situation was made public only after two Australian video bloggers, Mark Firkin and Jolie King, were detained nearly a year after her arrest. The line being run by the government was that trying to find a solution diplomatically behind the scenes with Iran was the best approach for getting me out and that the media would complicate things and could make Iran angry and piss them off and make things worse for me, she said. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video

I took a very different view of the situation based on my own experience being inside there. Loading But that was the view of the government and the media played ball for months, at least at the beginning, until I think these two backpackers got arrested and the media already knew my name and knew I was there too. Asked to respond to Dr Moore-Gilberts comments, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was very pleased that Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert returned to Australia in November last year following more than two years of detention in Iran. Every consular case is by its nature complex and is considered individually, with a strategy developed on a case-by-case basis. We will not comment on the circumstances of her release.

Dr Moore-Gilbert also opened up about her treatment inside Evin Prison, where she was forced to endure four weeks of solitary confinement in a small room without a window. I would say I felt physical pain from the psychological trauma I had in that room. It is a two-by-two metre box  there is no toilet, there is no television, she said. I felt if I have to endure another day of this  you know if I could I would just kill myself. But of course I never tried and I never took that step. Its psychological torture. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. Dr Moore-Gilbert said she was interrogated by Irans Revolutionary Guards, but towards the end they wouldnt come every day, meaning she didnt see anyone and had nothing to do.

Id lost it, Id lost the plot. I was completely crazy. Just entertaining your brain for such a long period of time, she said. Loading She was then moved to larger room and spent seven months in solitary confinement in total. Dr Moore-Gilbert revealed the person who flagged her to authorities was a man she had interviewed for her research days prior. She said she would never know why the man referred her to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Its either because he was working for the Revolutionary Guards from the beginning and flagged me as suspicious, or he was arrested by them after I had interviewed him, she said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she had been nervous the previous two days before she arrived at Tehran Airport to fly back to Australia because of something a receptionist at the hotel had told her. The receptionist in my hotel had pulled me aside and said Kylie some men have [been] here asking about you, she said. And I said What do you mean, what type of men, who are these people? He said They are very bad men. Iranian authorities detained Dr Moore-Gilbert after discovering she was married to an Israeli citizen, sparking baseless claims she was a spy for Israel. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age was asked numerous times by the Australian government not to report details about the citizenship of Dr Moore-Gilberts husband while she was detained, believing it would jeopardise the chances of freeing her.

Dr Moore-Gilbert said she was also accused of being a spy for Australia, Britain and Bahrain. She confirmed she was asked by Iranian authorities to become a spy for Iran. Dr Moore-Gilbert came home to discover her husband Ruslan Hodorov had been having an affair with her colleague and PhD supervisor. She said she hadnt spoken to her husband or the colleague, who was acting as a liaison between the University of Melbourne and her family while she was detained. She revealed she found out about the affair while she was in hotel quarantine in Canberra, saying her husband confirmed it to her family a day prior.
A group of bipartisan US overseeing congressional policy have lambasted Beijing's recently announced plans to overhaul Hong Kong's election system and urged President to help the city defend its "autonomy and basic freedoms".

The comments, which come as Beijing prepares to implement new rules in that critics warn will block opposition politicians from holding elected office, were the latest sign of the bipartisan condemnation in Congress over the Chinese government's crackdown on dissent in the city.

A group of eight senators and representatives including a mix of Democrats and Republicans -- Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, and Senator Ed Markey and Representative James McGovern, both of Massachusetts -- said in a joint statement that Beijing's latest move under the draconian National Security Law would tighten basic freedoms.

"We are deeply concerned by the changes Beijing announced to Hong Kong's electoral system. These revisions will only continue to advance Beijing's ever tightening grip on Hong Kongers' autonomy, basic freedoms, and fundamental human rights," they said.

"With these planned actions, the Chinese Communist Party is doubling down on its attempts to impose an authoritarian system on Beijing is once again violating its binding commitments under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and its obligations under Hong Kong's Basic Law," the added.

According to South Morning Post, the changes to the region's election system were formally proposed last week during the annual meeting of China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress. They are expected to be formally voted on during a session on March 11.

The proposed changes would grant additional power to Beijing and its loyalists in when choosing the city's leader and members of the Legislative Council, the city's assembly. Only those deemed to be "patriots" will be allowed to govern the city. The changes also come amid widening enforcement of the draconian national security law that Beijing imposed on the city last summer.

The said that the efforts by the CCP to stamp out democratic opposition in Hong Kong only "underscores its own insecurities" adding that the lawmakers said that the US Congress will continue to speak with one voice in support of freedom, democracy, and justice for the people of Hong Kong.

"In the past two years, we passed legislation giving the executive branch significant new tools to support the people of Hong Kong as they defend their autonomy and basic freedoms. We urge the Biden Administration to use those tools, and to work with allies and partners to develop other mechanisms to support the people of Hong Kong," the lawmakers said.

Earlier, the European Union warned Beijing to "carefully consider the political and economic implications" of any decision to reform the electoral system of Hong Kong saying that the bloc is "ready to take additional steps" in response to any further serious deterioration of political freedoms and human rights in the city.

Less than a year after imposing the National Security Law, on Thursday launched a legislative process for drastic electoral system reform in Hong Kong, which could benefit the pro-establishment camp and further smother the political opposition in the city.

China has planned a fundamental overhaul of the city's normally contentious politics, the New York Times reported.

Lau Siu-kai, a senior adviser to the Chinese leadership on Hong Kong policy, has said the new approach is likely to call for the creation of a government agency to vet every candidate running not only for chief executive but for the legislature and other levels of office, including neighbourhood representatives.

NYT also reported that the strategy will further concentrate power in the hands of the Communist Party in Hong Kong and decimate the political hopes of the territory's already beleaguered opposition for years to come.

The new reforms come months after China passed the nationals security law to quash the resistance to its rule in Hong Kong.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Yes, no matter what

Yes, but it depends on variety

No, for medical reasons, uncertainty

No, principle

Vote

View Results
Even these more modest proposals to the legal shield, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, could ripple across the internet. The adjustments could give companies like Facebook and YouTube an incentive to take down certain types of content while leaving up others. Critics of the ideas also say there is a huge potential for unintended consequences, citing a 2018 law that stripped the immunity from platforms that knowingly facilitated sex trafficking, making some sex work more unsafe.

I think we are trying to say, How can you narrowly draw some exceptions to 230 in a way that doesnt interfere with your free speech rights? said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who has introduced legislation to trim the law with a fellow Democrat, Senator Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii.

The calls for change gained momentum after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which was carried out in part by people linked to QAnon and other conspiracy theories that thrive on social media. Critics say the shield has let the tech giants ignore criminal activity, hate speech and extremist content posted on their services.

The law protects websites from many lawsuits over content posted by their users or the way sites choose to moderate that content. Passed in 1996, it enabled the rise of large online services because they didnt need to assume new legal liability each time they added another one of their billions of users.

Major tech companies have said they are open to trimming the law, an effort to shape changes they see as increasingly likely to happen. Facebook and Google, the owner of YouTube, have signaled that they are willing to work with lawmakers changing the law, and some smaller companies recently formed a lobbying group to shape any changes.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
From Peru's Ucayali region, where she supervised the vaccination of medical personnel , the Cabinet chief indicated that she expresses this opinion in her capacity as a lawyer and human rights defender, since this issue has not been evaluated by the Executive Branch.





"I consider that it is a historic ruling , because it is talking not only about the right to life but to a dignified life; all people have the fundamental right to live and but to live with dignity," she pointed out.





The Prime Minister said the case of Ana Estrada has shown in recent years her suffering and the deterioration of her health, a condition that at this time is unfortunately more dramatic and irreversible.





"In the case of Ana Estrada, I, as a human being, respect her will; hopefully, science and medicine can offer other alternatives in the future so that there are no more cases like that of Ana Estrada, who has no alternative to continue living with dignity," she concluded.
H2 back to growth with better underlying momentum

Press release

Amsterdam, 9 March 2021

Key items1

Pure-play focus and powerful portfolio drove record In-Home organic sales growth of 9.1% in FY 20

Total organic sales growth accelerated from -1.1% in H1 to 0.7% in H2, with In-Home at 9.8% and Away-from-Home at -29.8% due to new lockdowns in Q4

Progress across all sustainability commitments, with notable increase in share of third-party certified/verified coffee; 87% of packaging designed to be reusable, recyclable or compostable

Organic adjusted EBIT growth of 6.2% to EUR 1,278 million in FY 20

Free cash flow of EUR 877 million, after one-off tax and IPO payments of EUR 277 million

Leverage improved to 3.2x, from 4.2x at the end of FY 19

Proposal to pay a total cash dividend of EUR 0.70 per share in two equal instalments

FY 21 outlook: organic sales growth of 3 to 5%, with a catch-up on the marketing investment level, will result in a low single-digit organic increase in adjusted EBIT

A message from Fabien Simon, CEO of JDE Peets

In an unprecedented year, JDE Peets employees and partners worked tirelessly to serve our loved coffee and tea brands to consumers across the six continents. I would like to thank the teams who rallied together, supported communities with initiatives across 30 countries, while ensuring the health and safety of our employees.

JDE Peet's delivered a strong performance in 2020, demonstrating once again the resilience of the category we participate in, as well as the strengths and agility of our capabilities built over the last 268 years. As the world's largest coffee and tea pure player, we have become more relevant than ever before. We are evolving our portfolio and channel capabilities towards the fastest growing and more premium In-Home propositions through our unique set of global and local brands. Our strategic choices and investments supported a record In-Home organic growth of 9.1% in 2020, with increasing momentum in the second part of the year on sales growth, pricing and in-market performance.

We improved our leverage, and reduced net debt by another EUR 462 million in the second half of 2020. Our confidence in sustained strong free cash flow generation enables us to propose a cash dividend of EUR 0.70 per share.

2021 is expected to be another uncertain year and the long-lasting impacts of the pandemic are unclear and will need to be assessed, in particular the implications for the Away-from-Home channel. We therefore consider it appropriate to adjust our medium- to long-term targets. We are very confident of our growth opportunities to support 3 to 5% organic sales growth and mid-single-digit organic adjusted EBIT growth with quality margins, further deleveraging, and funding inorganic growth from our strong cash flow generation. These medium- to long-term targets point to the 2021 outlook of organic sales growth of 3 to 5%, combined with a low single-digit organic increase in adjusted EBIT, delivered in a quality way, with A&P trending back towards the FY 19 level."





Corporate Responsibility

JDE Peet's' Corporate Responsibility strategy is built on three pillars: Common Grounds, addressing the priority issues in our supply chain; Minimised Footprint, aimed at reducing our environmental impact; and Connected People, engaging our employees and our communities.

In 2020, we made good progress on our Corporate Responsibility Programme. Under our Common Grounds programme, we increased the share of responsibly sourced coffee, and significantly increased the number of smallholders we reach through our collaborative programmes, despite the pandemic. In 2020, 87% of our primary and secondary packaging was either reusable, recyclable or compostable, while 33% of our packaging came from recycled materials, which is restricted by current regulations limiting the use of recycled content within packaging which is in direct food contact. We successfully relaunched our leading Senseo brand, with an industry-first compostable coffee pad containing 100% certified coffee and low-environmental impact appliances to create a truly sustainable offering for our consumers. Most recently, we partnered with Nestle in the UK to launch Podback, enabling consumers to return our Tassimo T-discs and LOR coffee capsules more easily through a variety of methods.

Outlook 2021

While uncertainty remains regarding the future implications COVID-19 may have on global markets, we believe that vaccination programmes around the world will lead to a gradual lifting of lockdown measures in the course of 2021.

Within this context, we expect organic sales growth of 3 to 5% in FY 21, assuming a moderate recovery in Away-from-Home. To fully capture the growth opportunities we see in the coming years, we will step up our investments for growth in 2021, notably in marketing and innovation support. With these investments in growth, we expect organic adjusted EBIT growth to be in the low single-digit range in FY 21.

We remain committed to reducing our leverage to below 3x net debt to adjusted EBITDA.

Medium- to Long-Term Targets

Following the unprecedented developments related to the COVID pandemic and the long-lasting changes the company expects they will have on consumer behaviour, the company has reviewed its strategy in recent months.

While management has concluded that the company's strategy will not be subject to any material changes, we are further encouraged by the future growth opportunities the team has identified. Consistent with JDE Peet's commitment to focus on the quality and sustainability of its organic sales growth and profitability, the company has decided to link its profitability target more closely to its organic sales growth target.

As a result, the company targets for the medium- to long-term to deliver organic sales growth of 3 to 5% and mid-single-digit organic adjusted EBIT growth with quality margins. In addition, the company continues to target a Free Cash Flow conversion of approximately 70%.

More information about the company's strategy and future growth opportunities will be shared with institutional investors and equity research analysts during a virtual Strategic Update meeting on Thursday 31 March 2021.

Dividend

JDE Peet's' Board proposes to pay a dividend of EUR 0.70 per share in cash related to FY 20. The dividend will be paid in two instalments of EUR 0.35 each. The first payment date will be on Friday 16 July 2021, with the ex-dividend date on Monday 12 July 2021 and the record date on Tuesday 13 July 2021. The second payment date will be on Friday 28 January 2022, with the ex-dividend date on Monday 24 January 2022 and the record date on Tuesday 25 January 2022. The dividend proposal is subject to approval by the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on Thursday 17 June 2021.

Financial Review Full-Year 2020

in EUR m FY 20 FY 19 Organic Reported (unless otherwise stated) change change Sales 6,651 6,945 -0.2 % -4.2 % Adjusted EBIT 1,278 1,255 6.2 % 1.9 % Underlying profit for the period 787 801 - - Underlying EPS1,2 (EUR) 1.57 - - - Reported EPS (EUR) 0.80 - - - 1 Underlying earnings (per share) excludes all adjusting items (net of tax) 2 Based on a pro-forma average number of shares of 499,709,030

In FY 20, total sales decreased by 0.2% on an organic basis. Our In-Home businesses delivered record-high organic sales growth of 9.1% as lockdown measures shifted a significant part of Away-from-Home consumption to In-Home. The Away-from-Home activities showed a relatively stable organic sales performance in H2 versus H1, despite a wave of new lockdown measures in Q4, resulting in a full-year organic sales decline of -30.0%.

Total organic sales growth reflects a volume/mix effect of -1.0% and 0.8% in price. Changes in scope and other changes decreased sales by 0.4% while foreign exchange had a negative impact of 3.6%. Total reported sales decreased by 4.2% to EUR 6,651 million.

Adjusted EBIT increased organically by 6.2% to EUR 1,278 million driven by strong double-digit growth in all three CPG segments and Peet's, partially offset by a decline in the Away-from-Home businesses. Including the effects of foreign exchange and scope changes, adjusted EBIT increased by 1.9%.

Underlying profit - excluding non-recurring items - decreased by 1.7% to EUR 787 million as a higher operating profit was offset by greater adjusted net financial expenses.

Free cash flow of EUR 877 million included EUR 84 million of payments related to the IPO and EUR 193 million of future tax payments brought forward.

Net leverage improved to 3.2x net debt to adjusted EBITDA from 4.2x at the end of FY 19. We continue to make significant progress on our deleveraging priority and we are well positioned to reduce our leverage to below 3x. On 11 November 2020, Fitch assigned an investment grade rating to JDE Peet's underscoring our operating strength, strong financial discipline, and continued progress on deleveraging.

Our liquidity position remains strong, with total liquidity of EUR 1,064 million consisting of a cash position of EUR 389 million and available committed RCF facilities of EUR 675 million.





1This press release contains certain non-IFRS financial measures and ratios, which are not recognised measures of financial performance or liquidity under IFRS. For a reconciliation of these non-IFRS financial measures to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures, see page 7 of this press release.

For the full and original version of the press release click here

For the presentation click here

Conference call & audio webcast

Fabien Simon (CEO) and Scott Gray (CFO) will host a conference call for analysts and institutional investors at 10:00 AM CET today to discuss the full-year 2020 results. A live and on-demand audio webcast of the conference call will be available via JDE Peets Investor Relations website .

Enquiries

Media

Michael Orr

Media@JDEPeets.com

+31 20 558 1600

Investors & Analysts

Robin Jansen

IR@JDEPeets.com

+31 6 159 44 569

About JDE Peets

JDE Peets is the world's largest pure-play coffee and tea company by revenue and served approximately 4,500 cups of coffee or tea every second in 2020. JDE Peet's unleashes the possibilities of coffee and tea in more than 100 developed and emerging markets through a portfolio of over 50 brands that collectively cover the entire category landscape led by household names such as LOR, Peets, Jacobs, Senseo, Tassimo, Douwe Egberts, OldTown, Super, Pickwick and Moccona. In 2020, JDE Peets generated total sales of EUR 6.7 billion and employed a global workforce of more than 19,000 employees. Read more about our journey towards a coffee and tea for every cup at www.JDEPeets.com .



Important Information

Market Abuse Regulation

This press release contains information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation.

Presentation

The condensed consolidated unaudited financial statements of JDE Peets N.V. (the Company) and its consolidated subsidiaries (the Group) are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union (IFRS). In preparing the financial information in these materials, except as otherwise described, the same accounting principles are applied as in the consolidated special purpose financial statements of the Group as of, and for, the year ended 31 December 2019 and the related notes thereto. All figures in these materials are unaudited. In preparing the financial information included in these materials, most numerical figures are presented in millions of euro. Certain figures in these materials, including financial data, have been rounded. In tables, negative amounts are shown in parentheses. Otherwise, negative amounts are shown by "-" or "negative" before the amount.

Forward-looking Statements

These materials contain forward-looking statements as defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 concerning the financial condition, results of operations and businesses of the Group. These forward-looking statements and other statements contained in these materials regarding matters that are not historical facts involve predictions. No assurance can be given that such future results will be achieved. Actual events or results may differ materially as a result of risks and uncertainties facing the Group. Such risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to vary materially from the future results indicated, expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. There are a number of factors that could affect the Groups future operations and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements including (without limitation): (a) competitive pressures and changes in consumer trends and preferences as well as consumer perceptions of its brands; (b) fluctuations in the cost of green coffee, including premium Arabica coffee beans, tea or other commodities, and its ability to secure an adequate supply of quality or sustainable coffee and tea; (c) global and regional economic and financial conditions, as well as political and business conditions or other developments; (d) interruption in the Group's manufacturing and distribution facilities; (e) its ability to successfully innovate, develop and launch new products and product extensions and on effectively marketing its existing products; (f) actual or alleged non-compliance with applicable laws or regulations and any legal claims or government investigations in respect of the Group's businesses; (g) difficulties associated with successfully completing acquisitions and integrating acquired businesses; (h) the loss of senior management and other key personnel; and (i) changes in applicable environmental laws or regulations. The forward-looking statements contained in these materials speak only as of the date of these materials. The Group is not under any obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of these materials or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. The Group cannot give any assurance that forward-looking statements will prove correct and investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Further details of potential risks and uncertainties affecting the Group are described in the Companys filings with the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Stichting Autoriteit Financiele Markten).

Market and Industry Data

All references to industry forecasts, industry statistics, market data and market share in these materials comprise estimates compiled by analysts, competitors, industry professionals and organisations, of publicly available information or of the Group's own assessment of its markets and sales. Rankings are based on revenue, unless otherwise stated.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Digital COVID-19 'symptom checkers' may stop some patients from getting prompt treatment for serious illness, suggests an international case simulation study, published in the online journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics.

Both the US and UK symptom checkers consistently failed to identify the symptoms of severe COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia, and sepsis, frequently advising these cases to stay home, the findings indicate.

The availability and use of symptom checkers is on the rise, and they are currently being used at a national level to pick up COVID-19 infection.

Identifying which patients with COVID-19 require treatment is difficult, because the infection can mimic common conditions that rarely require medical attention and because there are no clinical signs or symptoms that reliably predict who will progress to severe disease, note the researchers.

Digital symptom checkers combine a series of set questions and pre-determined responses to advise a person on the most appropriate course of action.

But as yet, there is hardly any evidence for the effectiveness or safety of symptom checkers for prioritising treatment (triaging) during a pandemic, say the researchers.

They therefore looked at the ability of national government-sponsored digital symptom checkers in use in Singapore, Japan, the US and the UK, to correctly triage people in need of a medical assessment and/or treatment.

The symptom trackers included: the Singapore COVID-19 Symptom Checker; Stop COVID-19 Symptom Checker (Japan); CDC Coronavirus Symptom Checker (US); and 111 COVID-19 Symptom Checker (UK).

COVID-19 death rates in Singapore and Japan are comparatively low; in the US and the UK they are comparatively high.

The researchers wanted to see if the symptom checkers were able to differentiate mild from severe COVID-19, and how well they picked up COVID-19 'mimickers' such as bacterial pneumonia and sepsis in 52 standardised case scenarios.

The cases simulated common COVID-19 related signs/symptoms of varying severity and risk factors. These included: cough and fever; a co-existing condition (high blood pressure) plus cough and fever; suppressed immunity as a result of drug treatment plus cough and fever; and shortness of breath and fever.

These four distinct presentations were then varied in relation to one or more of the following: how long since symptoms had started; the patient's age; and symptom severity.

The symptom checkers in Singapore and Japan triaged twice as many cases for direct clinical assessment as the symptom checkers in the US and UK.

Singapore had the highest overall referral rate at 88%; the US had the lowest at 38%. Among the simulated cases not referred, the U.S. and UK triaged a significant number that would typically have required early clinical assessment to 'stay home'.

The US symptom checker frequently triaged simulated cases with possible severe COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia, and sepsis to stay home and possible neutropenic (low white cell count after chemotherapy) sepsis to seek medical attention within 24 hours.

The UK's symptom checker frequently triaged possible severe COVID-19 and bacterial pneumonia to stay home with no follow-up and is likely to have delayed treatment for sepsis, severe COVID-19, and severe sepsis, point out the researchers.

While Japan's symptom checker generally performed well, the simulation revealed a potential delay to treatment for very severe sepsis. And none of the symptom checkers triaged simulated neutropenic sepsis to emergency care.

The researchers single out the UK's symptom checker for its complex algorithm, and for attempting to quantify symptoms such as shortness of breath and the overall severity of illness by asking subjective, qualitative questions with multiple choice answers.

The questions used to discriminate between degrees of severity aren't up to the task, they suggest.

Both the US and UK symptom checkers "are likely to delay presentations of serious medical conditions to appropriate care, and as such, are likely to confer an increased risk of morbidity and mortality," they warn.

"Both symptom checkers maintain a high threshold for referring onward to clinical contact, triaging the majority of patients to stay home with no clinical contact."

The researchers acknowledge that by reducing physical contacts, symptom checkers can potentially save valuable resources and reduce viral spread, and they require fewer resources than phone and telemedicine triaging services.

But their findings suggest that "whilst 'symptom checkers' may be of use to the healthcare COVID-19 response, there is the potential for such patient-led assessment tools to worsen outcomes by delaying appropriate clinical assessment," particularly if they are used as the only source of medical advice, they conclude.

"Our results support the recommendation that symptom checkers should be subjected to the same level of evidenced based quality assurance as other diagnostic tests prior to implementation," they add.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Performance of national COVID-19 'symptom checkers': a comparative case simulation study, BMJ Health & Care Informatics, DOI: 10.1136/bmjhci-2020-100187 Performance of national COVID-19 'symptom checkers': a comparative case simulation study,
Mumbai, March 9 : Maharashtra will form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of Mohan Delkar, a seven-time MLA from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh announced in the Assembly here on Tuesday.

The Mumbai Police have registered an accidental death report after Delkar was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a private hotel at Marine Drive on February 22, sparking off a major controversy in the political circles.

Deshmukh's significant announcement came a day after the Centre abruptly handed over the probe into the abandoned SUV Scorpio with 20 gelatin sticks found near the home of industrialist Mukesh Ambani to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Soon after that, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had termed the Centre's move as "something fishy" and simultaneously announced that the state government would get to the bottom of Delkar's suicide.

Deshmukh further informed that Delkar's widow, Kalaben Delkar, and son Abhinav had requested him and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to conduct a thorough investigation, even as BJP Leader of Opposition Devndra Fadnavis slammed the government for "gloating" over the MP coming to Mumbai to end his life.

Earlier, the Congress and Shiv Sena had demanded a full-fledged investigation into Delkar's suicide and claimed that he took the extreme step in Mumbai as he had faith that he could get justice from the MVA government.

In a suicide note left behind by Delkar, he had named Praful K. Patel, the Administrator of the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, and others for allegedly harassing him and trying to finish off his political career and other issues.

"He was a seven-time MP, who was being constantly harassed," Deshmukh added, saying the government will go deeply into the matter to reveal the culprits.

It maybe recalled that at the start of the ongoing Budget session, CM Thackeray had solicited help from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah if the Mumbai Police needed to go and probe the Independent MP's case in Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Northern Ireland's chief scientific adviser Professor Ian Young has lost a High Court bid to block a General Medical Council investigation into allegations he gave "misleading" evidence to an inquest more than a decade ago.

Claire Roberts died from hyponatraemia, which is linked to a shortage of sodium in the blood, at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast on October 21 1996, shortly after she was admitted to hospital following several episodes of vomiting.

Professor Ian Young was asked to review the case in 2004 and provide an assessment on whether hyponatraemia contributed to Claire's death.

A public inquiry investigating the deaths of Claire and four other children from the condition found Prof Young did not inform Claire's parents - Alan and Jennifer Roberts - about failings in her care and gave "misleading" evidence to the original inquest into her death.

In a January 2018 report, inquiry chairman Mr Justice O'Hara also said Prof Young had "shifted from his initial independent role ... to one of protecting the hospital and its doctors".

A new inquest, which was ordered following the inquiry, concluded in June 2019 that Claire's death "was caused by the treatment that she received in hospital".

Prof Young referred himself to the General Medical Council (GMC) shortly after the inquiry's report was published and the regulator initially decided not to waive its usual five-year time limit for fitness to practise proceedings.

But the GMC reversed its decision in January 2020, finding it was "in the public interest" for the allegations against Prof Young to proceed to an investigation.

At a High Court hearing in January, Prof Young's barrister Robert Kellar QC said the original decision that it was not in the public interest to waive the statutory time limit on investigations was "lawful and rational" and the reversal of that decision was "inconsistent and unreasonable".

Mr Kellar also argued the second decision by the GMC "took into account irrelevant considerations and unfairly mischaracterised Prof Young's conduct".

But, in a ruling on Tuesday, Mr Justice Holgate dismissed Prof Young's challenge.

The judge said that the GMC's original decision was "wholly unsustainable" and had failed "to appreciate key elements of the inquiry's findings going both to the seriousness of the allegations and the public interest issues involved".

Mr Justice Holgate added that the GMC was right to conclude that there were "material flaws" in the original decision.
Mantas Adomenas, Lithuania's deputy minister of foreign affairs, spoke to Axios about the country's decision last week to withdraw from a China-led regional summit and to open a trade office in Taiwan.

The big picture: Lithuania joins a growing number of smaller European countries that are starting to hold China at arm's length amid concerns of political influence and a conflict of values.

What's happening: Last month, Lithuania and several other countries downgraded their attendance at the 17+1 summit, an annual meeting for central and eastern European countries led by China, by sending lower-ranking government officials to meet with Xi.

Then last week, Lithuania announced it would withdraw entirely from the summit.

Adomenas told Axios that after reviewing the country's relationship with China, "we realized that 17+1 does not deliver. It was a format that does not provide any economic benefits that it had promised."

In addition, the meetings were "always on the initiative and terms and agenda proposed by China. There was a distinct lack of mutuality in this format."

Between the lines: Lithuania's decision doesn't simply stem from a purely economic calculation. It's become increasingly apparent to officials there that China uses economic leverage to weaken other countries' commitments to liberal values and human rights, thus eroding global support for democracy.

"Democratic countries are considering a more realistic approach to China," Adomenas said. "Human rights and values were definitely not a part of the discussion [in 17+1] and earlier attempts to steer discussion into this area were met with lack of response."

More from the interview: On growing concerns that China is trying to weaken EU cohesion, Adomenas said:

"Certain formats weaken a unified response. And we should react to that by searching for formats where the ability of the union to speak with one voice could be protected. If the EU wants to recover its role as a world power, which it is, it must do that by not succumbing to economic interests and devolving into subregional formats."

"We feel that if we want to maintain the character and initial values of the EU that we joined almost 17 years ago, we need to find a way of reminding ourselves as well as our partners and competitors that this union is not just about economic interest and protecting investments rights, but its also about a certain vision of freedom, human rights and rule of law."

The bottom line:

" As Lithuanians, we see our survival as conditional on the international order based on the rule of law and seeking for the increase of democracy," Adomenas said.

As Lithuanians, we see our survival as conditional on the international order based on the rule of law and seeking for the increase of democracy," Adomenas said. "We wouldnt have been able to emerge from the rule of Soviet Union if the West was not seeking to increase the area of democracy. So we have to get back to this game."

Go deeper: Estonia warns of "silenced world dominated by Beijing"
BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese official on Hong Kong affairs on Monday said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) must be governed by "staunch patriots."

Addressing a high-level symposium on Hong Kong affairs, Xia Baolong, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said patriots must meet three main sets of criteria.

The first criterion, Xia said, is that patriots must sincerely uphold the nation's sovereignty, security and development interests. They must not conduct activities endangering national sovereignty and security, which is the bottom-line criterion, he added.

Xia said those who hysterically attack the central government, openly advocate "Hong Kong independence," bad-mouth or spread pessimism about China and Hong Kong in the international community or beg for foreign sanctions against China and Hong Kong are undoubtedly not patriots.

Patriots must respect and uphold the fundamental system of the country and the constitutional order of the HKSAR, Xia said, adding that patriotism means loving the People's Republic of China.

In China, where socialist democracy is practiced, different political views are allowed, Xia said. But things that endanger the country's fundamental system -- the socialist system led by the Communist Party of China -- are absolutely not allowed, he added.

To respect and uphold the constitutional order of the HKSAR, one must resolutely uphold national unity, sovereignty and security, accurately understand and grasp the superior-subordinate relationship between the central authorities and the HKSAR, and properly exercise the SAR's high degree of autonomy, Xia said.

Patriots must do their best to safeguard Hong Kong's prosperity and stability, Xia said, adding that those who apply the "burn with us" tactic are destroyers of Hong Kong's prosperity and stability and are absolutely not patriots.

Loving the country and loving Hong Kong cannot be separated, or even be taken as contradictory to each other, Xia said, adding that the vast majority of Chinese citizens in Hong Kong are patriotic, and those who stand opposed to patriots are a small number of anti-China disruptors.

As destroyers of "one country, two systems," these people shall never be allowed to get their hands on power in the HKSAR, Xia said. "Not now, and not in the future."

He said the emphasis on "patriots governing Hong Kong" is not meant to erase all differences.

The majority of Hong Kong residents have long had the tradition of loving the motherland and Hong Kong. Some people, having lived in a capitalist society for a long time, lack adequate knowledge of the motherland and the mainland, and thus may hold prejudice against the motherland and the mainland, Xia said.

The central authorities adopt an understanding and inclusive attitude toward them and believe that they will continue to resolutely love the country and Hong Kong, draw a clear line between themselves and the anti-China disruptors in Hong Kong and actively participate in the governance of Hong Kong, he added.

Xia stressed that those who hold important positions, wield vital power and shoulder major governance responsibilities in the power structure of the HKSAR must be staunch patriots who meet higher patriotic requirements.

They should fully and faithfully implement the "one country, two systems" principle, have a high sense of responsibility and resolutely fight any forces challenging the principle and undermining its practice, Xia said.

They should also plan Hong Kong's future from the strategic height of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and overall national development and stay united to form a powerful force of patriots who govern Hong Kong, he added. Enditem
Meghan on the secret wedding

Meghan: 'Even at our wedding, you know, three days before our wedding, we got married. No one knows that.

'But we called the archbishop, and we just said, "Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us."

Prince Harry: 'Just the three of us.'

Meghan and Kate argument

Meghan: 'The narrative with Kate which didn't happen was really, really difficult and something that I think that's when everything changed, really.

'The reverse happened. And I don't say that to be disparaging to anyone, because it was a really hard week of the wedding.

'And she was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. And she brought me flowers and a note, apologising.'

On press narrative:

Oprah: So, do you think there was a standard for Kate in general and a separate one for you? And if so, why?'

Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are interviewed by Oprah Winfrey

Meghan: I don't know why. I can see now what layers were at play there. And, again, they really seemed to want a narrative of a hero and a villain.'

On being silent or being silenced

Meghan: The latter. Everyone in my world was given very clear directive from the moment the world knew Harry and I were dating to always say "No comment."

'That's my friends, my mum and dad. I did anything they told me to do. Of course I did, because it was also through the lens of "And we'll protect you."

'So, even as things started to roll out in the media that I didn't see but my friends would call me and say, "Meg, this is really bad," because I didn't see it, I'd go, "Don't worry. I'm being protected."

On 'not being protected'

Meghan: 'I think that was really hard to reconcile because it was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected but that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family, but they weren't willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.

On meeting the Queen

Meghan: We had breakfast together that morning, and she'd given me a beautiful gift, and I just really loved being in her company. And I remember we were in the car.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II pose for a picture during the Queen's Young Leaders Awards Ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London in 2018

'She gave me some beautiful pearl earrings and a matching necklace. And we were in the car going between engagements, and she has a blanket that sits across her knees for warmth.

And it was chilly, and she was like, "Meghan, come on," and put it over my knees, as well. I think everyone welcomed me.

On 'character assassination'

Meghan: I'm talking about things that are super artificial and inconsequential. But the narrative about, you know, making Kate cry I think was the beginning of a real character assassination.

And they knew it wasn't true. And I thought, well, if they're not going to kill things like that, then what are we going to do?

On claims Archie was to be denied security

Meghan: And that was when they were saying they didn't want him to be a prince or a princess not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol and that he wasn't going to receive security.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex with their baby Archie

But if you're saying the title is what's going to affect their protection, we haven't created this monster machine around us in terms of clickbait and tabloid fodder.

'You've allowed that to happen, which means our son needs to be safe.'

On if the titles are important to her?

Meghan: 'All the grandeur surrounding this stuff is an attachment that I don't personally have, right?

I've been a waitress, an actress, a princess, a duchess. I've always just still been Meghan, right?

So, for me, I'm clear on who I am, independent of all that stuff. And the most important title I will ever have is "Mum." I know that.'

Meghan on race and the royal family

Meghan: 'I can give you an honest answer. In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time so we have in tandem the conversation of "He won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title," and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born.'

Oprah: 'Who is having that conversation with you? What?'

Meghan: There were several conversations about it.'

Oprah: 'About how dark your baby is going to be?'

Meghan: 'Potentially, and what that would mean or look like.'

Oprah: 'And you're not going to tell me who had the conversation?'

Meghan: 'I think that would be very damaging to them.'

On UK Press and mental health

Meghan: I just didn't see a solution. I just didn't see a solution. I would sit up at night, and I was just, like, I don't understand how all of this is being churned out.

And, look, I was really ashamed to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry, especially, because I know how much loss he's suffered.

But I knew that if I didn't say it, that I would do it. And I just didn't I just didn't want to be alive anymore.

'And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. And I remember I remember how he just cradled me.

Meghan Markle discussed mental health during her conversation with Oprah Winfrey on CBS

And I was I went to the institution, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that "I've never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere."

And I was told that I couldn't, that it wouldn't be good for the institution.

Oprah: 'So, were you thinking of harming yourself? Were you having suicidal thoughts? Meghan: Yes. This was very, very clear.

On telling her truth

Meghan: 'I think I'm not going to live my life in fear. You know, I think so much of it is said with an understanding of just truth.

But I think, to answer your question, I don't know how they could expect that after all of this time, we would still just be silent if there is an active role that the firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us.

That at a certain point, you're going to go, "But, you guys, someone just tell the truth." And if that comes with risk of losing things, I mean, I've lost there's a lot that's been lost already.'

On the latest royal baby

Oprah: 'For the new addition to your family.

'Meghan said she wanted to wait until you were here to tell us, is it a boy or is it a girl?

Harry: 'It's a girl.'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced they were having a girl for their second child - which is due in the summer

Meghan: 'It's a girl.'

Harry: 'Yes! I'm just grateful, like any to have any child, any one or any two would have been amazing. But to have a boy and then a girl, you know, what more can you ask for?'

'But now, you know, now we've got our family. We've got, you know, the four of us and our two dogs, and it's great.'

Oprah: 'Done? Two is it?'

Harry: 'Done.'

On leaving the UK

Meghan: 'We didn't have a plan. We needed a house, and he (Tyler Perry) offered security, as well, so it gave us breathing room to try to figure out what we are going to do.

'It's been so spun in the wrong direction, as though we quit, we walked away, all the conversations of the two years before we finally announced it.'

On Megxit

Harry: Yeah, it was desperate. I went to all the places which I thought I should go to, to ask for help. We both did... Separately and together.'

Oprah: 'So, you left because you were asking for help and couldn't get it?'

Harry: 'Yeah, basically. But we never left.'

Meghan: We never left the family, and we only wanted to have the same type of role that exists, right?'

So, we weren't reinventing the wheel here. We were saying, "Okay, if this isn't working for everyone, we're in a lot of pain, you can't provide us with the help that we need, we can just take a step back. We can do it in a commonwealth country." We suggested New Zealand, South Africa.'

On history repeating itself

Harry: (We wanted to) Take a breath. From this constant barrage. My biggest concern was history repeating itself, and I've said that before on numerous occasions, very publicly.

And what I was seeing was history repeating itself, but more, perhaps or definitely far more dangerous, because then you add race in and you add social media in.

And when I'm talking about history repeating itself, I'm talking about my my mother.'

Harry on the press

Harry: 'You know, as sad as it is to say, it takes living in her shoes in this instance, for a day or those first eight days to see where it was going to go and how far they were going to take it.

And get away with it and be so blatant about it. That's the bit that shocked me.

'This - the UK is my home. That is where I was brought up. So, yes, I've got my own relationship that goes back a long way with the media.

'I asked for calm from the British tabloids once as a boyfriend, once as a husband, and once as a father.'

Why did Harry and Meghan leave?

Harry: Lack of support and lack of understanding.'

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in a conversation with US television host Oprah Winfrey

Oprah: 'So, I want clarity. Was the move about getting away from the UK press? Or was the move because you weren't getting enough support from the firm?

Prince Harry: It was both.

Harry and blindsiding the Queen

Oprah: 'Did you blindside the queen?'

Harry: 'No. I've never blindsided my grandmother. I have too much respect for her.'

My grandmother has been amazing throughout. You know, my father, my brother, Kate and all the rest of the family, they were.

'They were really welcoming. But it really changed after the Australia tour, after our south pacific tour.

Harry on his relationship with Prince Charles

Harry: When we were in Canada, I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father and before he stopped taking my calls and then said, "Can you put this all in writing what your plan is?"

'I put all the specifics in there, even the fact that we were planning on putting the announcement out on the 7th of January.

Oprah: 'So, you just said that your dad stopped taking your calls. Why did he stop taking your calls?'

Harry: 'Because... I took matters into my own hands. It was like I need to do this for my family. This is not a surprise to anybody.

'It's really sad that it's gotten to this point, but I've got to do something for my own mental health, my wife's, and for Archie's, as well, because I could see where this was headed.'

Harrys claim that his family is scared of the press

Harry: No from my family ever said anything over those three years. And that hurts. But I also am acutely aware of where my family stand and how scared they are of the tabloids turning on them.

Prince Harry claimed members of the royal family were 'scared' of the press

'Yes, but it's there is this invisible what's termed or referred to as the "Invisible contract" behind closed doors between the institution and the tabloids, the UK. Tabloids.

On being trapped in royal life

Oprah: 'How were you trapped?

Harry: Trapped within the system, like the rest of my family are. My father and my brother, they are trapped.

'They don't get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that.'

On Netflix and Spotify

Harry: 'Yeah, it exists. But, also, the Netflix and the Spotify, they're all that was never part of the plan.'

Meghan: 'We didn't have a plan.'

Harry: 'We didn't have a plan. That was suggested by somebody else by the point of where my family literally cut me off financially, and I had to afford security for us.'

Oprah: 'Wait. 'Hold up. Wait a minute. Your family cut you off?'

Harry: 'Yeah, in the first half, the first quarter of 2020. But I've got what my mum left me, and, without that, we would not have been able to do this.'

Harrys relationship with his family

Harry: 'I've spoken more to my grandmother in the last year than I have done for many, many years. We did a couple of zoom calls with Archie.

'My grandmother and I have a really good relationship...'

Oprah: 'Your relationship with your father? Is he taking your calls now?'

Harry: 'Yeah. Yeah, he is. There's a lot to work through there, you know? I feel really let down, because he's been through something similar.

He knows what pain feels like, and this is and Archie's his grandson. But, at the same time, you know, I of course I will always love him, but there's a lot of hurt that's happened.

And I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.

Oprah: 'Yeah. And your brother? Relationship? Much has been said about that?'

Harry: 'Yeah, and much will continue to be said about that. You know, as I've said before, I love William to bits. He's my brother.

'We've been through hell together. I mean, we have a shared experience. But you know, we're on we're on different paths.

On the future

Harry: I'm sad that what's happened has happened, but I know, and I'm comfortable in knowing that we did everything that we could to make it work.

'And we did everything on the exit process the way that-- the way that it should have been done.'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle said they were 'thriving' in their new life in the United States

On taking away his patronages

Harry: I am hurt. But at the same time, I completely respect my grandmother's decision.

'I would still love for us to be able to continue to support those associations, albeit without the title or the role.'

Meghans one regret

Meghan: I have one. My regret is believing them when they said I would be protected. I believed that.

'And I regret believing that because I think, had I really seen that that wasn't happening, I would have been able to do more.

But I think I wasn't supposed to see it. I wasn't supposed to know.

And now, because we're actually on the other side, we've actually not just survived but are thriving.
Chandigarh, March 9 : Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij on Tuesday said that to overcome the shortage of specialist doctors, a separate cadre for them would be created and soon recruit 400 to 500 doctors would be recruited.

Replying to a question during the Budget session of the Assembly here, he said, "There are about 4,800 sanctioned posts of doctor in the state, out of which 1,141 posts are vacant. Of them, around 200 doctors are working in Chandigarh." The Minister said since 2014 there has been an extensive improvement in the healthcare system. The maternal mortality rate has declined to 91 from 127, neonatal mortality rate to 22 from 26 and infant mortality rate to 30 from 41.

Also, the sex ratio in the state has also improved and has increased from 868 to 918.

Vij said 55 posts of medical officers have been approved in the District Civil Hospital of Ambala City, out of which doctors have been appointed on 46 posts.

In addition, seven medical officers have been working on deputation outside the District Civil Hospital of Ambala City.
SALEM, Ore.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has awarded Oregon $110 million in federal funding to boost vaccination efforts.

The money will support the state, covering costs of emergency activities including labor, contract services, security, refrigeration, supplies, equipment and facility rentals.

Gov. Kate Brown thanked FEMA for streamlining the public assistance grant process.

I am extremely pleased that Oregon will receive these critical funds from FEMA as we continue our efforts to ramp up vaccinations across the state. These emergency funds bring some welcome financial relief and will help ensure the cost of vaccinating Oregonians will not be a barrier to our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.

The FEMA-supported vaccination centers will reportedly allow more than two million doses to be given out over three months.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
Businesswoman Kathleen McGovern doesn't have her sorrows to seek.

Hers was one of the small local businesses devastated by the Primark fire of 2018.

After a forced relocation of Abacus Beads to another Belfast premises, she eventually returned to her original location in Castle Street - and then Covid-19 struck.

Despite the enormous challenges of the last three years, however, the hardy entrepreneur is determined to celebrate 30 years in business this week.

"On a personal level, the Primark fire nearly destroyed me," she told the Belfast Telegraph.

"The business I'd built up over 27 years was whipped out from under my feet and it almost ruined me mentally at the time.

"I considered throwing the towel in. It was only after my customers rallied round that I vowed it wasn't going to break me."

She continued: "So many people, including those in the small business community, reached out. When you don't have strength of your own, you borrow other people's to keep you going."

Initially based at In Shops in High Street, Abacus Beads moved to Castle Street in 2004.

After the inferno destroyed the iconic Bank Buildings premises, Kathleen temporarily relocated to Queen's Arcade for five months before returning to Castle Street in March 2019.

Then came the pandemic, but Kathleen (53) - who's originally from Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, but now lives in Belfast - opted to meet that challenge head on as well.

"When I was forced to shut up shop, I just thought, 'After everything I went through for the Primark fire, I'll get through this'," she said.

"Mind you, I didn't think it was going to last this long."

Her boutique was closed in March 2020 until retail was allowed to reopen in June.

It closed again at the end of November, reopened on December 11 - and the shutters came down again on Christmas Eve.

But rather than sit around moping, Kathleen used the spare time to fine-tune her online presence and bring it up-to-date.

"I've had that website for 10 years but it was very dated. People were using it for reference rather than buying," she said.

"So I worked over the initial lockdown and summer on a new online shop and that was launched, with over 3,000 products, in October.

"Now, I go to the actual shop once a week to send out the orders I've received."

The Co Fermanagh businesswoman, who admits Abacus' survival has been down to government financial aid via small business and self-employed grants, doesn't want the shops to reopen until after Easter.

"It would encourage too many people in over a holiday weekend," she said.

"We've come so far now, it's better to wait a few days for safety reasons. When the retail sector reopened for that one week in the run up to Christmas it was crazy, and I hope the Executive doesn't repeat that mistake."

In order to celebrate her 30 years in business, Kathleen is running a competition with two prizes of 50 and 25 to spend in her online shop. She has also launched a limited edition freshwater pearl pendant set, with 25% of sales going to local charity, Kid Together Belfast, supporting children with a disability.
Firefighters Put Out Electrical Fire at DOE Plant

By West Kentucky Star Staff





WEST PADUCAH - Multiple fire departments responded to the Paducah Department of Energy plant in western McCracken County on Tuesday afternoon.A person at McCracken County Emergency Management told West Kentucky Star that the plant's fire department responded, with Concord Fire and West McCracken Fire Departments responding and staging nearby if needed.A public affairs person for the DOE's Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office released a statement Tuesday evening. At about 2:15 pm, workers saw smoke at the C-532 switch house, which is affiliated with the C-531 switchyard deactivation. Workers evacuated the area and plant firefighters responded to the scene.The fire was contained to the switch house, and West McCracken Fire personnel stayed to help put out the electrical fire and check for hot spots. Concord Fire Chief Bob McGowan said they were staged out and left the scene without entering plant property.There were no reported injuries and no impact to site operations. The DOE will investigate the incident.
Posted Monday, March 8, 2021 8:50 pm

Online enrollment is now open for kindergarteners who will attend Battle Ground Public Schools next year and continue on to be the class of 2034. Any child who will be five years old by Aug. 31 is eligible to enter kindergarten this falls. Students who enroll in Battle Grounds full-day kindergarten will benefit from the advantages of a developmentally appropriate program, according to a news release.

To enroll, parents will need proof of their childs birth date (such as a birth certificate) and a signed and completed Washington State Certification of Immunization Status form. According to the news release, the State of Washington requires immunization records to be medically verified. Families can find out which school their child will attend by using the Clark County Property Information Center (gis.clark.wa.gov/gishome/property/index.cfm) or by calling the district boundaries office at (360) 885-6577.

Kindergarten enrollment can be done online at battlegroundps.org/enroll/

School will begin next year on Wednesday, Sept. 1; however, kindergartners have a staggered start. Enrolled kindergartners will be invited to participate in an introductory program that allows small groups of students to get acclimated to the school environment, routines, their teacher and classroom and other students on the first days of school. Parents will receive a letter before the start of school about their child's start date.
Nigerians and other nationals who were denied United States visas because of former President Donald Trumps travel ban on 13 mostly Musli...

Nigerians and other nationals who were denied United States visas because of former President Donald Trumps travel ban on 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African countries can seek new decisions or submit new applications, the State Department has said.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said applicants who were refused visas prior to January 20, 2020, must submit new applications and pay a new application fee.

Price stated that those who were denied on or after Jan. 20, 2020, may seek reconsideration without re-submitting their applications and do not have to pay additional fees.

Since his swearing-in, United States President Joe Biden has reversed a number of policies by his predecessor Donald Trump, including an immigration ban against Nigeria, Yemen, Venezuela and other countries in January.





With the travel restriction, Nigerians were denied the opportunity of applying for US green cards which gives them an official immigration status in the United States.

Biden overturned Trumps so-called Muslim ban on January 20, his first day in office, calling it a stain on our national conscience in his proclamation.

The reversal of the immigration policies is part of Bidens campaign promises to chart a new course for the nation.

Former President Trumps administration in February 2020 placed Nigeria and seven mostly Muslim nations- Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan on a travel restriction it said was aimed at cracking down on illegal migration.

Biden, however, has signed an executive action ending restrictions on travel and immigration from some predominantly Muslim countries.

But Price disclosed that applicants selected in the diversity visa lottery prior to the current fiscal year are barred by U.S. law from being issued visas if they have not gotten them already.





The diversity lottery aims to accept immigrants from countries that are not normally awarded many visas.

Bidens executive order in January ordered the State Department to resume visa processing for those countries and develop a plan to address people affected, such as those who were denied entry to the US.

Theres no time to wasteThese are just all starting points, Biden said before signing the 17 executive orders in the White House.
BOSTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Two major agricultural giants, representing 12 billion USD in annual revenue, announced new commitments to improve water stewardship as part of the Ceres and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) AgWater Challenge. They include Danone North America, owner of iconic dairy and plant-based brands and leading sweetener and starch producer Ingredion.

Launched in 2016 by Ceres and WWF, the AgWater Challenge encourages better water stewardship among the world's most influential food and beverage companies. These two commitments set a high water mark for businesses to protect freshwater resources in their agricultural supply chains. With the global food sector using 70% of the world's freshwater supply, food and beverage companies play an important role in protecting water quality and supply.

In August, the AgWater Challenge released a new area of focus, calling on companies to go a step deeper by committing to sustainable agriculture principles that create a positive effect on water resources via soil health and nutrient management practices. These practices have been shown to support crop productivity, reduce erosion, increase water holding capacity, promote biodiversity, improve water quality and, in many cases, increase soil carbon levels. Furthermore, the commitments also detail how companies will support farmers and advocate for collective actions that are key components to improving local water outcomes.

With these two commitments, the AgWater Challenge facilitated the addition of 1.1 million acres over the next ten years to the land farmed with both water stewardship and sustainable agriculture in mind.

The new commitments from Danone North America and Ingredion build on previously made commitments from other AgWater Challenge participants including Target, Driscoll's, Diageo, General Mills, Hormel Foods, Kellogg Company, and PepsiCo. This is the second AgWater Challenge Commitment for Danone North America. Since committing to advance their sustainable water sourcing strategies, the original AgWater Challenge companies have made significant strides in engaging with farmers and suppliers across their value chain, sourcing responsibly, and reducing their overall exposure to water risks.

Read the full press release at https://www.ceres.org/news-center/press-releases/two-major-companies-announce-new-agwater-challenge-commitments-improve

Media contact:

Miranda Cawley

[email protected]

SOURCE Ceres

Related Links

http://www.ceres.org


The following statement was unanimously adopted at a meeting Sunday of the recently organized Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee.

We have formed the Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee to fight for the immediate closure of all schools across the country. Such action is urgently required to protect the lives of school staff, students and their families from the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Even the federal governments own chief medical officer acknowledges that a third wave of the pandemic is rapidly developing, fuelled by new, more contagious variants of the virus, and that it threatens to be even more deadly than the two previous waves.

Scientific studies from around the worldincluding one that showed school infections played a major role in incubating and spreading Montreals second wavehave demonstrated that in-person instruction is an important vector in the spread of COVID-19.

Yet provincial governments of every political stripe, from Fords right-wing Tories in Ontario and Quebecs CAQ regime to BCs New Democrats, are adamant that schools remain open, and have continuously sought to downplay the threat to educators, students and their families. In this they have had, and continue to enjoy, the unstinting support of Justin Trudeaus federal Liberal government.

Teachers at Montreal's Westmount High School staged a protest Jan. 18 against the Quebec' government's reckless school reopening policy. (Photo Credit: Robert Green)

The politicians are hostile to a science-based approach to containing and halting the spread of COVID-19, because they represent a corporate elite for whom profits, not working peoples safety and lives, are the priority. Keeping schools open for in-person instruction is viewed by them as vital, because then parents can be compelled to return to work, churning out profits for big business.

This has to stop! The ruling elites ruinous mishandling of the pandemica health crisis that was both foreseeable and foreseenhas already resulted in 885,000 Canadians being sickened with COVID-19 and more than 22,000 deaths.

Far from opposing the ruling elites homicidal back-to-work/back-to-school policy, the trade unions have aided and abetted it. Behind educators backs, they have negotiated and helped implement totally inadequate safety measures, while appealing to provincial governments to reopen schools safely, an impossible feat during a raging pandemic.

The teachers unions in Ontario, Quebecs CSQ, the BC Teachers Federation, the Alberta Teachers Association and their counterparts across the country have systematically suppressed opposition to in-class schooling from teachers and parents. In the half-dozen instances where rank-and-file workers responded to COVID-19 outbreaks at their schools by walking off the job, the unions isolated their struggles and quickly shut them down.

The union bureaucracys attitude was epitomized up by Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) President Harvey Bischof. When asked last September what steps the OSSTF would take to prevent the Ford government from implementing a school reopening plan that the union itself charged placed teachers lives in jeopardy, Bischof exclaimed, If the question is whether were planning some illegal job action, the answer is a flat out no.

When a rank-and-file educator presented a motion in late January demanding an emergency meeting of his 10,000-member CSQ local to discuss what needed to be done about the unsafe conditions in South Shore Montreal schools, the union leadership ruled it out of order. The earliest a discussion about workers response to the pandemic could be held, insisted the Syndicat de Champlain executive, was two months hence.

Schools are not safe!

Studies from Canada and around the world have shown that schools are important vectors for the transmission of COVID-19. A study conducted by Dr. Simona Bignami of the Universite de Montreal and Dr. John F. Sandberg of George Washington University found that it was Montreal children who infected their parents last fall, not the other way around, transforming Canadas second largest city once again into a COVID-19 epicentre.

All workers know that the concept of class bubbles is smoke and mirrors. Despite our best efforts, essential measures such as wearing a mask and physical distancing are impossible to systematically apply and enforce. They are all the more ineffective in schools that due to decades of capitalist austerity are generally crowded, dilapidated and poorly ventilated.

According to government datadata which undoubtedly underestimates the gravity of the situation due to inadequate testing and contact tracingmore than 30,000 students and school staff have been infected with COVID-19, and at least one Ontario educator has lost her life. More than 7,500 Canadian schools have recorded at least one case of the disease and there are currently more than 2,000 active outbreaks. In many regions, the total number of school and daycare outbreaks exceeds those in workplaces.

The claim, promoted by the political establishment and corporate media, that COVID-19 doesnt represent a serious health risk for children and young people is a lie. As the second wave crested in late December and early January, there was a spike in cases of the COVID-19-linked and potentially fatal Multisystem Respiratory Syndrome. Weve seen more cases in the past weeks and the children are more sick, explained Dr. Marie-Paule Morin, a pediatric rheumatologist at Montreals Sainte Justine Hospital. Weve had more cases that have gone to the ICU, who had cardiac involvement, who needed treatment.

Moreover, the long-term consequences of COVID-19 for both children and adults are unknown.

If a Third Wave is to be averted the working class must intervene as an independent force

At every point in the pandemic, Canadas governments have prioritized the selfish class interests of the capitalist elite over saving working peoples lives. While well in excess of $650 billion has been funneled into the financial markets, banks and big business to guarantee the wealth and profits of the super-rich, working people have been provided totally inadequate makeshift assistance and forced back into unsafe jobs. Ignoring World Health Organization recommendations, workplaces and schools were reopened without massive investments in the chronically under-resourced health care system, including in developing systematic mass testing, contact tracing and surge capacity. Similarly, the countrys governments have refused to fund the most basic public health measures, such as the provision of air filtration devices and air conditioning systems, to make schools and other buildings safer.

The explosion of COVID-19 cases and deaths produced by their reckless drive to reopen the economy ultimately forced governments to re-impose some lockdown measures at the end of 2020, including a return to online instruction in some provinces. But no sooner did COVID-19 cases begin to fall back from a level triple last springs peak, than they rushed to scrap all restrictions, with reopening schools once again the first order of business so that parents could be pushed back to work.

All this underscores that the fight against the pandemic is not primarily a health issue. It is first and foremost a political struggle. If a deadly third wave is to be averted, educators and the working class as a whole must take matters into their own hands and intervene as an independent force.

To do so, they must build new organizations of struggle: rank-and-file committees, independent of and in political opposition to the pro-capitalist trade unions. The Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee has been formed to spearhead and coordinate the fight for the building of such committees in every school and educational institution. The principal task of these committees will be to mobilize educators and their supporters to take all measures needed to protect school staff and students health and lives.

The resources to establish high-quality online learning and provide everyone with adequate health care and workplace protection exist in abundance. However, they are monopolized by a fabulously wealthy elite that has profited off the mass infections and death and considers spending on pandemic prevention a drain on its wealth. During the first year of the pandemic, Canadas 40 billionaires saw their combined wealth rise by over $50 billion.

As always, the ruling class seeks to frustrate working class opposition by trying to pit workers against each other. Thus, the politicians and media try to paint educators as selfish for wanting to shut down unsafe schools, cynically invoking the hardships that working parents must bear. This only serves to underline that the struggle of educators and school support staff is inseparable from, and must be consciously tied to, the struggle to mobilize all working people to fight for the measures needed to halt the spread of COVID-19.

In fighting to ensure that schools do not serve as vectors for the deadly pandemic, education workers are fighting on behalf of the entire working class.

The struggle for an end to in-person learning must be linked to the call for a halt to all nonessential production with full wages guaranteed for all workers, and the provision of free and safe childcare for health care and all other essential workers. In taking up this critical demand, rank-and-file educators committees will provide a lead to the growing opposition among health care, industrial, construction, and logistics workers and other sections of the working class over the ruling class ruinous response to the pandemic.

We are founding our committee on a cross-Canada basis because it is critical for workersEnglish- and French-speaking, immigrant and indigenousto be united in political struggle. A key element in the trade unions sabotage of working class opposition to austerity over the past four decades has been their systematic efforts to quarantine these struggles on provincial lines and subordinate them to the pro-employer, provincially-regulated labour relations and collective bargaining systems.

In Ontario, the unions, bowing to an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision, are telling teachers to file grievances over unsafe COVID-19 working conditions on an individual school or even class-by-class basis. This when teachers everywhere face essentially the same conditions in confronting a virus that can only be properly contained on a global basis.

The full social power of the working class can be mobilized only to the extent that the artificial barriers promoted by the political establishment are swept aside, and workers are unified behind common demands and a political program. We direct a special appeal to students at all levels of education, and to teachers, administrative, janitorial and food-service workers at colleges and universities. These education workers, many of whom labour on precarious contracts with virtually no job protections, share the same fundamental interests with teachers in the context of the reckless reopening of college and university campuses alongside schools.

The Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee proposes the following demands to teachers throughout the country as a basis for current and future struggles:

End all in-person learning, from elementary school through to universities, until the pandemic is brought under control!

Shut down all nonessential production!

Provide full wages for all affected workers so they can shelter at home until the pandemic is over! Comprehensive financial support to families so they can provide for the well-being of their children!

Invest billions of dollars in the education system to strengthen online learning, protect public education from privatization, and provide students, families and educators with the necessary social and psychological support!

All decisions regarding school openings and closures must be overseen by rank-and-file committees formed by workers and parents, in consultation with scientists of their choosing and without the involvement of school boards or unions!

These demands are based not on what the ruling class and its media mouthpieces claim they can afford, but on what is truly necessary and scientifically possible to protect lives and meet human needs. In the final analysis, securing these demands will require the mobilization of the full social power of the working class through a cross-Canada general strike, which must be fought for and organized by an interconnected network of rank-and-file safety committees in every workplace.

To realize this program, the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee will wage an aggressive campaign over the coming weeks and months. This will include:

Sharing information about the struggles of educators in schools and other educational institutions with a Canada-wide and global audience, including news about infections, protests, and other initiatives.

Exposing the complicity of the trade unions in facilitating the return to school and their opposition to any and all independent action by educators.

Fighting to link the struggles of teachers with other sections of workers, like meatpackers, service employees, health care workers, and autoworkers, who all confront similar life and death threats from the virus.

The situation faced by education workers in Canada is similar to what workers around the world are experiencing. Whether it is in Brazil, Germany, France or the United States, teachers are being sent to the front lines of the pandemic under dangerous conditions. Because the pandemic is global, the working class must provide an international solution.

The Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety committee will work in solidarity with existing rank-and-file committees in the United States, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Australia and elsewhere, sharing our experiences and with a view to mounting a common struggle. All teachers, workers, parents and students interested in joining our struggle to mobilize education workers to halt the spread of the pandemic and save lives should contact us at: cersc.csppb@gmail.com
Oleksii Liskonih/iStockBy CONOR FINNEGAN, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) -- One hundred-forty U.S. lawmakers from both parties urged the Biden administration on Tuesday to aim for bipartisan consensus and seek a "comprehensive" deal with Iran that addresses not just its nuclear program, but a range of other national security issues, according to a letter shared first with ABC News.



In a divisive political moment, on among the most sensitive and fraught foreign policy challenges, it's a rare example of bipartisanship -- but it may be short-lived as the administration pushes for negotiations with Iran and other world powers that could involve more controversial tactics.



"Despite everything you see, there is bipartisanship going on in DC, even over something as contentious as the Iran deal," said Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., who helped spearhead the letter. "We're thrilled to have been able to come together on a number of these points... encouraging the administration to encompass all of Iran's malign behavior."



Under the Obama-era nuclear deal, Iran agreed to constraints on its nuclear program and international inspections and, in exchange, received economic sanctions relief from the U.S. and other signatories -- France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia.



Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the accord and reimposed U.S. sanctions under a "maximum pressure" campaign, with Iran following suit one year later and defying the nuclear constraints -- enriching more uranium, at higher levels, using more centrifuges and more advanced ones.



President Joe Biden has said the U.S. will reenter the deal and remove those sanctions only once Iran returns to compliance and then seek a "longer and stronger" agreement that addresses Iran's nuclear program, as well as its ballistic missiles and support for proxy forces throughout the Middle East -- a proposal that Iran has rejected. While his administration has offered to hold talks with Iran and the other parties, Tehran has said it will only meet once the U.S. abides by its commitments again.



The letter, sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken Tuesday, was signed by 70 Republican and 70 Democratic House members. It shares some common ground with Biden's proposal -- calling for an agreement or set of agreements that reinstate limits on Iran's nuclear program, curtail its ballistic missile program, and address its "malign behavior throughout the Middle East." That regional activity includes the American hostages it continues to detain, its support for militants in Lebanon and Yemen, and its arms for militias in Iraq, including those that have attacked U.S. forces in recent weeks.



"We're encouraging the administration to look at how do you bring Democrats and Republicans together around an issue that should unify us, and that is addressing the risk presented by Iran," said Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Md., who helped organize Democratic signatures.



The letter's signatories cross the ideological spectrum and include some top lawmakers on both sides, like Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J., a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chair, and House Democratic caucus chair Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as well as Rep. Mike Rogers, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, and Republican whip Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La.



It's the latest dispatch from Capitol Hill to Blinken on how to address Iran's growing stockpile of fissile material, now enriched at higher levels that put it closer within reach of a nuclear weapon. The Iranian government has said it does not seek a nuclear weapon, although it has long operated elements of its program in secret and maintained plans on how to secretly produce the bomb.



In December, 150 House Democrats urged Biden to swiftly return to the nuclear deal in order to bring Iran back into compliance as well, saying that should serve as "a starting point for further negotiations." Some of those Democrats, including Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., signed Tuesday's letter as well.



That December effort was met with a Republican effort last month. One-hundred-and-twenty House Republicans wrote to the administration to say do not rejoin the nuclear deal, arguing that Trump built leverage with his maximum pressure campaign that Biden shouldn't release until Iran agrees to address all the issues.



Waltz signed that letter, but told ABC News in an interview Monday there needed to be greater bipartisan consensus on how to approach Iran -- something Brown echoed as well.



"It's not a numbers game, but what this letter represents is a bipartisan approach," Brown told ABC News Monday. "This letter provides a real opportunity for the administration to see that there's a significant number of members that would support a balanced approach -- a bipartisan, balanced approach."



Still, the full scope of what would be a "balanced approach" isn't clear, including whether the limited enrichment allowed under the original nuclear deal would be palatable to lawmakers.



What is clear is there is also little consensus on how to achieve that shared end goal -- especially on whether any U.S. sanctions can be lifted as part of an effort to reinstate constraints on Iran's program.



Biden has said no sanctions relief until Iran returns to compliance, but without sanctions relief, the U.S. would not be returning to compliance -- making it difficult to see how the deal can survive.



"I don't know that there's going to be agreement on the tactics there. I hope there is. But what I'm pleased about is that we have bipartisan agreement that it does need to be a broader, more comprehensive deal," Waltz said, adding, "How do we get there? We're trying to allow some flexibility, but at the end of the day, it needs to be a much more comprehensive deal."



Still, it could signal that at least some lawmakers are willing to give the Biden administration room to negotiate -- provided they keep Congress briefed on developments.



"If there is a demonstrable effort on the part of the administration to do that -- to seek our input, our ideas, our thoughts -- I think it's more likely that they'll get the space that they need on this," Brown added.



Copyright  2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 15212/ bioi-2021-0002

Announcing a new article publication for BIO Integration journal. In this article the authors Jingdun Xie, Zhenhua Qi, Xiaolin Luo, Fang Yan, Wei Xing, Weian Zeng, Dongtai Chen and Qiang Li; from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China discuss integration analysis of m6A regulators and m6A-related genes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

N6-Methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation of eukaryotic mRNA is involved in the progression of various tumors. This study comprehensively analyzed m6A regulators and m6A-related genes through an integrated bioinformatic analysis, including expression, clustering, protein-protein interaction, and prognosis, thus providing novel insights into the roles of m6A regulators and m6A-related genes in HCC.

192 candidate m6A-related genes and 3 m6A regulators, including YTHDF1, YTHDF2, and YTHDC1 were obtained. The expression of these genes and regulators differed significantly in different stages of HCC. Based on Cox regression analysis, 19 of 98 m6A-related prognostic genes were obtained to construct a risk score model. The 1- and 3-year area under the curves (AUCs) among HCC patients were greater than 0.7. Based on analysis of mutation differences between high- and low-risk score groups, the authors determined that TP53 had the highest mutation frequency in the high-risk HCC patient group, whereas titin (TTN) had the highest mutation frequency in the low-risk HCC patient group.

###

Article reference: Jingdun Xie, Zhenhua Qi, Xiaolin Luo, Fang Yan, Wei Xing, Weian Zeng, Dongtai Chen and Qiang Li, Integration Analysis of m6A Regulators and m6A-Related Genes in Hepatocellular Carcinoma. BIO Integration, 2021, https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 15212/ bioi-2021-0002

BIO Integration is fully open access journal which will allow for the rapid dissemination of multidisciplinary views driving the progress of modern medicine.

As part of its mandate to help bring interesting work and knowledge from around the world to a wider audience, BIOI will actively support authors through open access publishing and through waiving author fees in its first years. Also, publication support for authors whose first language is not English will be offered in areas such as manuscript development, English language editing and artwork assistance.

BIOI is now open for submissions; articles can be submitted online at:

https:/ / mc04. manuscriptcentral. com/ bioi

Please visit http://www. bio-integration. org to learn more about the journal.

Editorial Board: https:/ / bio-integration. org/ editorial-board/

Please visit http://www. bio-integration. org to learn more about the journal.

Editorial Board: https:/ / bio-integration. org/ editorial-board/

BIOI is available on the IngentaConnect platform and at the BIO Integration website.

Submissions may be made using ScholarOne.

There are no author submission or article processing fees.

Follow BIOI on Twitter @JournalBio; Facebook and LinkedIn.

ISSN 2712-0074

eISSN 2712-0082

Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma, m6A-related genes, m6A regulators, prognosis
Washington:

Pakistan is using a perceived threat of encirclement by India as an excuse to continue its support to terrorists, a Trump administration official has said, dismissing concerns over Indian development activities in the war-torn country.

What India is doing in Afghanistan is not a threat to Pakistan. Theyre not building military bases. Theyre not deploying troops, National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Michael Anton said yesterday.

This is an excuse on the part of Pakistan, Politico quoted Anton as saying.

In the worst case, the Trump administration official said, the Pakistani government has been guilty of active direct support for terrorist groups.

(Indians) are not doing the things that would constitute encirclement, for lack of a better term, which is one of the things that the Pakistanis complain about, he said.

His comments came after US President Donald Trump laid out his policy for Afghanistan and the larger South Asian region. Trump sought a greater involvement from India while criticising Pakistan for tolerating terrorist safe havens and for its support to terrorists.

The US president has preferred a regional approach for peace in Afghanistan and said the US can no longer be silent about Pakistans safe havens for terrorist organisations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond.

Pakistans foreign office reacted to Trumps announcement of the new strategy, saying the threat to peace and security cannot be isolated from the complex interplay of geopolitics, continued existence of festering disputes and pursuit of hegemonic policies.

Non-resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute remains the primary obstacle to peace and stability in the region.

The foreign office asked the US to work with Pakistan to eradicate terrorism, instead of relying on the false narrative of safe havens.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Rep. Lee Nak-yon of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea holds a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul, Tuesday, as he steps down from the party's chairman post in a move to prepare for the next presidential election set for March 9, 2022. Yonhap



By Jung Da-min



With just a year left before the next presidential election set for March 9, 2022, Rep. Lee Nak-yon, a potential candidate from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), stepped down from his post as party chairman, Tuesday.



Lee resigned as the DPK's internal regulations stipulate that a party member who plans to run in the presidential race must quit major leadership posts within the party, such as chairperson or Supreme Council member, at least a year before the election.



Political analysts said more time is needed to judge whether Lee's presidential bid will be a success as many variables and events could emerge to affect the political dynamics and public opinion with a year left before the election.



Recent polls have not been favorable for Lee, who had topped approval ratings for presidential hopefuls for months until the general election last April. He is now far behind other presidential contenders such as Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung and former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl. A poll released on Monday showed Lee Nak-yon with a 14.9 percent support rating, compared to Lee Jae-myung's 24.1 percent and Yoon's 32.4 percent.



But analysts said the results of the April 7 mayoral by-elections in Seoul and Busan will serve as a barometer of Lee's future success as a presidential hopeful, as he is the head of the party's election committee  which does not violate the internal regulations  and people would assess his leadership based on the election results. Also, it was under Lee's chairmanship that the party revised its own regulations in early November to field candidates for the Seoul and Busan by-elections.



Under the previous regulation, the DPK had been unable to field candidates for the mayoral posts, which have remained vacant following the suicide of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon in July and resignation of Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don in April last year. Both Park and Oh were DPK members and both faced sexual harassment allegations, while a regulation stipulated that the party will not field a candidate for a by-election that was triggered by one of its members resigning to take responsibility for a wrongdoing.



"The possibility of Lee Nak-yon as a presidential hopeful will be revived if the DPK wins the Seoul mayoral by-election," said Cha Jae-won, a professor at the Catholic University of Pusan. He said the result of the Seoul mayoral election will be a barometer of whether Lee could successfully gain a ticket to enter the presidential race.



"If he leads the party to victory in this difficult election, Lee's approval rating as a presidential hopeful will rebound, backed by many supporters of President Moon Jae-in. But if the DPK loses the election, Lee stands to face criticism for causing the party to lose the public's trust by pushing ahead with the revision of party regulations."



Political commentator Park Sang-byoung also said the Seoul mayoral by-election will mark the first political challenge for Lee as a potential presidential hopeful. Park said even if the DPK wins in the Seoul by-election, Lee will still face further political tasks.



"He will need to extend the range of his supporters to include centrists (in addition to strong DPK supporters)," Park said. "He will also have to display a more active and determined leadership which he was unable to do before as the ruling party chairman, as the post required a prudent approach to various issues. But as a presidential hopeful, he will need to present his own unique ideas on various issues."


Russia and China are joining forces to establish a research base on the moon that will rival NASA's Lunar Gateway, Russia's Roscosmos space agency has announced.

Authorities from Moscow and Beijing have today signed a memorandum of understanding to launch the project, which will be open to other countries to join.

In the meantime, Russia and China will be drawing up a roadmap and timeline for the project before moving to design and ultimately realise the station.

Russia and China are joining forces to establish a research base on the moon that will rival NASA's Lunar Gateway, Russia's Roscosmos space agency has announced

'An international lunar science station is a complex of experimental and research facilities created on the surface and/or in orbit of the moon,' the memorandum read.

The base, it continued, would be 'designed to conduct multidisciplinary and multipurpose research work.'

The memorandum was signed during a meeting held over video conference by Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin and Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration.

Russia and China have announced their intention to promote international cooperation on the project  offering equal access to any other country that wishes to take part.

Both nations have sought to deepen their relations in recent years  especially following Moscow's annexation of Crimea from the Ukraine in 2014, which strained the Russian Federation's diplomatic ties with the West.

The news of the plan for the lunar research station comes on the same day that China has reaffirmed its mutual commitment to working with France in the field of space exploration.

The memorandum was signed during a meeting held over video conference by Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin (left) and China National Space Administration head Zhang Kejian (right)

Russia previously expressed interest in collaborating on NASA's Lunar Gateway program to build a space station in the moon's orbit as a communications hub, laboratory and stepping stone to the lunar surface and deep space.

To that end, an informal joint statement was signed by both Roscosmos and NASA on September 27, 2017. However, Roscosmos formally announced this January that it would ultimately not be participating in the program.

Late last year, Mr Rogozin had teased this outcome  calling the program too 'US-centric' for Roscosmos to participate in.
A study conducted by a team of researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found that Singaporeans, who scored high levels of empathy, would choose to prioritize the environment over the convenience and comfort of both themselves and their families or co-workers.

Nearly eight out of ten (79%) respondents to a series of surveys said they would prefer to buy an energy-efficient air-conditioner over a conventional one, even though the latter was cheaper.

To cut down on carbon emissions, more than eight out of ten (82%) would keep room temperatures at an optimal 23C to 25C, despite knowing their children or co-workers would be more comfortable with a cooler setting.

The researchers acknowledge that saving on utility bills is the main reason behind why people make energy saving choices.

However, the findings presented a counterpoint to that notion. Their statistical analysis showed that respondents' preferences were associated with their level of empathy and that they would choose to spend more money to minimize their carbon footprint.

The findings are important in understanding Singaporeans' attitudes in relation to the country's efforts to reduce energy consumption in households, say the authors. Due to resource scarcity, the city-state has embarked on national initiatives such as the Singapore Green Plan 2030, which also focuses on energy sustainability for a more liveable and sustainable future.

The results of the joint study were published in Energy Research & Social Science, an academic publication by Elsevier.

NTU Associate Professor Georgios Christopoulos from the Nanyang Business School, who led the study, said: "As an illustration, imagine being a parent who is deciding between turning up the air conditioning to ensure that your child sleeps well, or choosing to keep at a 'recommended' setting to save electricity.

It seemed obvious that a parent would prioritize his or her child's needs. However, we found the opposite - at least for Singaporeans. The more empathy a Singaporean has, the more likely he or she would consider the overall or long-term environmental or societal impact, ultimately choosing to forgo the child's comfort."

The main driving force for this eco-friendly behavior is empathy, which we define as "a basic human disposition to experience warmth and concern for others". The more empathy a Singaporean feels about others, the more likely he or she is to adopt behaviors that support 'the greater good' and contribute to making Singapore a resilient and sustainable society." Swati Sharma, Study Co-Lead Author and PhD Student, Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The research team obtained the results after doing an experimental survey involving 520 resident Singaporeans. The sample included a large majority of homeowners (87%), close to Singapore's national figure (91%).

Other actions that constituted energy-saving behaviors included turning off electrical devices when not in use (89%) and opting for locally grown vegetables (62%) over those from Europe or the US to cut down on their carbon footprint.

The team also noted that age, education, and being a homeowner affected preferences for energy-saving options. Singaporeans who were older, had higher education qualifications and owned public housing tended to prefer energy-saving options.

To further validate their research, the NTU team will conduct additional studies into a wider spectrum of behaviors, including those in response to environmental, organizational, urban, financial, and societal threats.

The team is also exploring the possibility of validating their findings in different geographical areas and cultural contexts, including people's attitudes towards measures to curb Covid-19.
A former soldier whose rogue call centre 'scared' elderly people into buying new windows and doors has been jailed for nearly three years.

Ex-Royal Welsh soldier Richard Evans, 29, led the team telling elderly customers their current homes were putting insurance policies in danger.

His firm Crystal Style Home Improvements would 'pressurise' customers into agreeing deals by using 'scare tactics' - and buy new windows they did not need, Swansea Crown Court heard.

Father-of-two Evans, who served tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, would write scripts for salespeople to use on the phone which promised government grants for work that did not exist.

Ex-Royal Welsh soldier Richard Evans, 29, led the team telling elderly customers their current homes were putting insurance policies in danger

Prosecutor Lee Reynolds said many of the staff quit just days into the job after getting fed up of reading from 'misleading' scripts. He said the business would mostly target customers in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and workers were 'extremely persistent'.

Evans ditched the business after Trading Standards launched an investigation - but continued his fraud at another company, the court was told.

He began a role at SDG Carpets where he would offer building work for cash deposits and then provide unskilled or bogus tradesmen to carry out the jobs.

Mr Reynolds said the company would hike up prices halfway through the work and threaten to walk away if customers failed to pay, and customers who complained were 'met with aggression' by Evans and fellow SDG boss Steve Garvey, 65.

He said former Royal Welsh corporal Evans once offered a customer on crutches to 'step outside' after he complained.

In a victim impact statement, the customer said: 'These people took my money and destroyed my home, they damaged what was beautiful and original to the property and they threatened me and my son with more delays, and even violence.

'They would lie, mock me and get abusive and threatening.

'They have ruined my house for me and I don't know if I can ever feel about the house the way I used to.'

Evans, of Port Talbot, admitted two counts of fraud and was jailed for two years and 10 months.

Father-of-two Evans, who served tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, would write scripts for salespeople to use on the phone which promised government grants for work that did not exist. David Gater, right, who was described as Evans' 'lieutenant' at Crystal Style Homes also admitted two counts of fraud

Garvey of Cwmavon, near Port Talbot, also admitted fraud.

David Gater, 35, who was described as Evans' 'lieutenant' at Crystal Style Homes also admitted two counts of fraud.

Ian Wright, defending Evans, said he had left the army in 2015 after suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and had initially wanted to start a legitimate business.

Recorder Malcolm Gibney said Evans' set up the business in a way that 'from the very outset was designed to defraud.'

He said said he gave 'completely bogus' scripts to staff and behaved in 'quite disgraceful conduct'.

Evans was jailed for two years and 10 months. Garvey and Gater were handed suspended sentences.
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951

/var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbfee5e7948)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbfeec325a0)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbfee5e7948)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbfeec325a0)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbfee5f0898)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbfeec325a0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbfeec325a0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbfee111268)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbfeea91260)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbfeea91260)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
This Kansas City mainstream media navel-gazing report reminds us that most "journalists" are just failed lit majors who never learned the meaning of irony thanks to that confusing old school song by Alanis Morissette which also thwarts the author of this garbage blog.



And so, here's today's hope for equity and inclusion from people with generic good looks along with impeccable hair, makeup and orthodontia . . .



41 Action News sets formal guidelines for the use of suspect descriptions

Mission statement . . .



In an effort to avoid unconscious bias in our storytelling, 41 Action News is formally announcing guidelines surrounding the use of suspect descriptions in our reporting.

As stated in our guidance, we are committed to eliminating the opportunity for unconscious bias by only using descriptions when there is something that can be specifically identifiable.



This means we will avoid announcing suspect descriptions if they are so generic that they describe a vast number of people and therefore, do not assist viewers in identifying potential suspects and could potentially put innocent people at risk.



In the event that law enforcement agencies provide us with vague descriptions, we believe it is our responsibility to ask for additional details. If law enforcement officials cannot provide additional details, we will not report the description.



This does not mean we will eliminate all suspect descriptions in our reporting. In fact, we have decided to include suspect descriptions when police are searching for someone wanted for a serious or violent crime.

Translation . . .

ONLY KANSAS CITY POOR WHITE TRASH WILL HAVE THEIR MUGSHOTS & DESCRIPTIONS PUT ON BLAST AFTER HORRIFIC CRIME!!!

Given that we're talking about newsies and people suspected doing some pretty nasty stuff . . . We don't expect much sympathy from any side on this one.

Meanwhile . . .

Most of the benefit of TKC has emerged as our blog community serves as a resource for translating increasingly common American newspeak into information that doesn't require a doctorate in racial and ethnic studies to understand.



Developing . . .


Haas F1 Team are now on their way to Bahrain, where they will complete the test days with the recently presented VF-21. It will be an exciting year for the American F1 team, which will take the stage with two new drivers behind the wheel. Mick Schumacher does not need an introduction and there was a lot of noise around Nikita Mazepin. Enough work, it seems, for team principal Guenther Steiner.

Coronavirus

Due to all the coronavirus problems, there was anything but a flawless run-up to the winter tests for the Haas team. Also, according to Steiner, anything but ideal. On the Haas F1 Team website, he says: "For the first time we did the car build in the U.K. and not in Italy. This was only possible as we had a lot of carry-over parts from last year - the car at its base level was the same as last years. Otherwise, things would have been more difficult. For example, we couldnt fire the engine up before going to Bahrain."

Due to the travel restrictions, the mechanics in England and Italy could not work well together this time. "All the systems have been checked but we can only fire up in Bahrain as the Italian engineers and mechanics, if theyd travelled to the U.K., theyd have had to quarantine there. And then when they would have gone back to Italy, theyd have gone into quarantine there too. There just wasnt enough time. It was quite disruptive, but as always, we find ways around it.

New drivers

The aim during the test days in Bahrain is therefore clear, according to Steiner. Both drivers are not very familiar with the car yet. Mick did drive for us in Abu Dhabi last year, but Nikita hasn't driven our car for a second. We must therefore try to drive as many laps as possible and collect as much data as possible. We don't have much time, so we have to make the best of it. 

Still, the flamboyant team boss expects a lot from his two rookies. Up to now everything has been positive, which is nice to hear, but theres still work to be done. The team likes the two young guys, they have adapted quickly, and they have so much enthusiasm for this. The drivers obviously like the team too," he added.

Haas, which recently waved goodbye to Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, is starting a new future with two new drivers. What does Steiner expect from this? "Theres a lot of excitement but obviously, we know it will not be our strongest year. Well build up strong for the future though with what we take from this year."
A Michigan assault case descended into chaos last week after an eagle-eyed prosecutor realized that the alleged abuser had joined the virtual court hearing from inside his victim's home.

Coby Harris, 21, was charged with beating his girlfriend Mary Lindsey during an argument inside her home in Sturgis last month.

Harris and Lindsey had both individually dialed into the virtual St Joseph County Court hearing held via Zoom a week ago.

The hearing, which was to determine if Harris should stand trial, took a dramatic turn soon after it started when state attorney assistant Deborah Davis was questioning Lindsey about the alleged assault.

The prosecutor suddenly informed the judge that she had reason to believe Harris and Lindsey were both inside the victim's home but in different rooms.

Coby Harris, 21, was charged with beating his girlfriend Mary Lindsey during an argument inside her home in Sturgis last month. Harris (bottom right) and Lindsey (bottom left) both individually dialed into the virtual St Joseph County Court hearing held via Zoom a week ago

Davis, who said she feared for her client's safety, told the judge that police were on their way to Lindsey's home.

She said she had noticed strange behavior from Lindsey during the hearing, including how she kept looking off camera when answering questions about the alleged assault.

'Your honor, I have reason to believe that the defendant is in the same apartment as the complaining witness right now, and I am extremely scared for her safety,' Davis said.

'The fact that she's looking off to the side and he's moving around, I want some confirmation that she is safe before we continue.'

Harris could be seen shaking his head to say no.

Judge Jeffrey Middleton immediately asked the alleged victim where she was currently located.

'Um, I'm at a house,' Lindsey said. When pressed for the exact address, she responded: 'It's my house.'

The judge then asked Harris where he was located and he immediately gave a different address.

Lindsey was asked by the judge to answer her front door (above) after state attorney assistant Deborah Davis said she had sent police around because she feared for her client's safety

When questioned by the judge, Harris lied and said he was at a different location. Soon after, Harris could be seen moving around (above) before his camera also switched off

After about two minutes, Harris suddenly appeared in the virtual courtroom again using the alleged victim's phone as he was being handcuffed by police

Harris was asked by the judge to go outside the home to prove he was at the location he said he was.

'I want you to walk out to the front of the house, show me the house number on the house,' the judge said.

Harris responded: 'Um, why? I don't even think this phone has the charge for that, sir. I'm at like two percent right now. I'm hooked up to this wall charger right here.'

The prosecutor then informed the judge that police had arrived outside the alleged victim's home and were knocking on the door.

Lindsey was instructed by the judge to go and speak to police. Her camera switched off soon after she answered the door.

Soon after, Harris could be seen moving around before his camera also switched off.

After about two minutes, Harris suddenly appeared in the virtual courtroom again using the alleged victim's phone as he was being handcuffed by police.

State attorney assistant Deborah Davis could be seen putting her head in her hands in shock as the alleged abuser reappeared on screen as he was being arrested

The prosecutor could be seen putting her head in her hands in shock.

'Your Honor, me and Mary both don't want the no-contact,' Harris told the judge.

'I ask that that be dropped. I'm sorry I lied to you. I knew the cops were outside. I don't know why...'

The judge interrupted and told Harris not to say anything further.

'The hearing is adjourned. Your bond is canceled. If you have $10 million, you can't bond out. In addition, the prosecutor's probably also going to charge you with obstruction of justice,' the judge told Harris.

He noted it was 'the first time I ever had anybody sitting in the next room potentially intimidating a witness to assault with great bodily harm'.

Harris was arrested and now faces additional charged.

His initial hearing was rescheduled for March 16.

Harris had initially been charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
LAist only exists with reader support. If you're in a position to give, your donation powers our reporters and keeps us independent.

Our reporting is free for everyone, but its not free to make.

Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe

Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily newsletter. To support our non-profit public service journalism: Donate Now.

The long wait for schools to reopen is near its end for many families in L.A. County.

The COVID-19 case rate has dipped low enough for elementary schools to reopen, and many already have. Educators are getting vaccines. Governor Gavin Newsom recently struck a deal with the state legislature to provide incentive funds for districts offering in-person classes.

Until recently it's been mostly smaller, wealthier districts with lower COVID-19 case rates, including several districts in the South Bay, that have been able to reopen. Now, that's changing, too.

This week, the Compton Unified School District is bringing elementary students back to school for hybrid learning. By the end of March, the school districts of Pasadena, Glendale, Downey and Long Beach all plan to do the same.

Even the second-biggest school district in the nation, L.A. Unified, is targeting April for a hybrid reopening and is inching closer to a deal with its teachers' union.

For this semester at least, parents will be able to stay online only if they wish, based on guidance from the L.A. County Office of Education and Department of Public Health.

So after a year of restrictions and limitations, many families will soon have a big choice to make: Do they keep students online at home, or send them back to school in person?

Here's how some families in L.A. are tackling this question.

COMPTON: 'WE KNOW HOW BAD IT CAN GET'

On Monday, Compton Unified is reopening elementary schools for hybrid learning. So far, parents are divided -- around half are ready to bring their children back on campus and the other half are more comfortable staying with distanced learning only.

The split is different at each school, but overall, it leans slightly towards online learning.

Joseph Porras is a father of a seventh grader in the district, Damani. Middle schoolers won't be allowed to go back on campus until L.A. County reaches the red-tier, but Porras is already considering his son's options.

"Everyday (Damani's) like 'I wanna go back to school. I wanna go back to school. When are we going to go back?'" Porras said.

Joseph Porras and his son, Damani. (Courtesy of Joseph Porras)

Porras said his family gathered around the dinner table and weighed the pros and cons.

The biggest pro? Damani's grades would probably get better in-person. The con? Coronavirus.

"I could probably say about 30 to 40 family members have already been sick. Just in my own family," Porras said. "I've caught it before, and I was one of the safest people."

In Compton, the total community case rate of the coronavirus is 16,499 cases per 100,000 people. That's nearly four times higher than the total case rates in Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and El Segundo, which all reopened schools in February.

Porras and his father had the virus in January, during the surge. They've recovered, except for some lingering headaches. But having already gone through it, Porras feels more comfortable now sending his son back to school.

"It's no disrespect to anybody else who's out there struggling with (coronavirus)... we know how bad it can get," Porras said. "So maybe there's some type of immunity that we do have if we do get sick again."

When the time comes for middle schoolers to go back in the classroom, Porras is ready for Damani to join his friends in person again.

REDONDO BEACH: 'ARE WE DEPRIVING THEM?'

Further south in Redondo Beach, the total coronavirus case rate is at one of the lowest levels in L.A. County. The school district there already opened elementary schools over a month ago.

Even so, Valerie Castro is keeping her twin daughters, second graders, at home.

"We have been fairly conservative with our COVID precautions. We rarely go out," Castro said. "Like, I remember at one point I went to Barnes and Noble and walked around for half an hour....and my husband was like, 'Oh my god that was so risky."

Castro worried about spreading the virus to her in-laws, who they see fairly regularly, with social distancing and mask protocols in place. Plus, she said, her daughters have already done pretty well in distance learning and have each other for company.

Most elementary students at Redondo Beach Unified are back on campus for hybrid learning. (Redondo Beach Unified School District)

"Now that cases seem to be going down and things seem to be getting better...there's no reason to change anything," Castro said. "There's no reason to take that additional risk because we're lucky enough to work from home."

In Redondo Beach Unified, most parents are sending their children back -- nearly 80% of elementary school students are back in the classroom for hybrid learning. The older students are coming back at an even higher rate.

Castro feels like she's in the minority and at times, she questions her decision to keep her daughters home.

"Seeing other kids go to school, like I see other kids in the neighborhood being dropped off," Castro said, "I'm like, are we depriving them of that social interaction? But the risk seems greater than the reward, honestly."

As more parents begin calculating the risks and benefits for their own kids, Castro encourages them to do what feels right for their own families without worrying about other people's decisions.

Lilly Rauzon, an eigth grader in Torrance Unified, says it's been hard to balance distance learning with her home life. (Courtesy of Ryan Rauzon)

TORRANCE: 'WE (KIDS) ARE THE MAIN PRIORITY'

Aside from parents, superintendents and teachers' unions, there is another group of stakeholders who want their thoughts noted: students.

Reese Lieser, an eigth grader in Torrance Unified, said there's a lot that parents don't understand about distance learning.

"I always tell my parents, like, 'Have you ever been in online school during a global pandemic?' They don't understand how hard it is,'" Lieser said.

Balancing several class assignments with the expectations and distractions of working at home is challenging, she said, and makes her worry about not being prepared for high school next year.

Caleb Rauzon, Lilly's borther, is a sixth grader in Torrance Unified. (Courtesy of Ryan Rauzon)

Since L.A. County is still in the most restrictive "purple" tier, Torrance Unified has only reopened its elementary schools.

But as early as this week, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer has predicted the county will start meeting the conditions to enter the less restrictive red tier, which would allow higher grades to resume on-campus learning.

It's looking likely that Lieser will finish at least part of eighth grade in person.

"I'm excited but also a little nervous. I was kinda thinking, oh yeah we're not going to go back, but it's starting to become closer and closer," Lieser said.

Generally though, she does want to go back to school. Her classmate, Lilly Rauzon, agrees.

I asked the two girls, how much say should students have in deciding when schools open? Lilly answered:

"100% of it. Since we're the kids that actually have to go back to school. I guess the teachers should have some of it, because they also have to go back, but, I don't want to say that we're the main priority... but we are the main priority."

At a minimum, Reese and Lilly just want parents, teachers and school districts to check in, and ask students what they want.

WE LOVE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS
Associated Press

President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasnt enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights. Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasnt been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed. Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate  with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends, he lamented.
CALGARY, AB, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Canada's two leading energy information companies are joining forces.

geoLOGIC systems ltd. (geoLOGIC) today announced the acquisition of JWN Energy (JWN), an energy insights and intelligence provider best known for leading industry brands such as the Daily Oil Bulletin, Evaluate Energy and CanOils. Headquartered in Calgary, JWN delivers valuable and timely data and intelligence to a broad spectrum of operators, analysts, service providers, governments and regulators in the oil & gas and broader energy sectors.

"Bringing our companies together is transformational. This merger creates a critical source of curated, trusted data, information and insights that spans the technical and financial needs of our clients," noted geoLOGIC CEO David Hood. "In addition to the complementary offerings the combination of the two businesses and product lines immediately brings to our clients, JWN's expertise and thought leadership in specific areas such as ESG and energy transition will fuel our expansion into sectors that are at the forefront of our clients' future needs."

The merger gives the combined company a commanding presence in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. which, together with satellite operational offices located in other regions, assures currency and relevance of the information and intelligence delivered, and maintains closeness to our clients and the basins and plays in which they operate.

"We're very proud of our Canadian roots, but recognize that the industry is increasingly global," added Hood. "The two companies together will continue to focus on driving success within the Canadian market, and we will also leverage our combined research, marketing and advisory services to the benefit of our clients in other geographies."

The acquisition brings together exceptional analytical and technical competencies to support the energy industry. Enabled by geoLOGIC's advanced platforms, the combined group will deliver enhanced scalability in data management and analysis and integrated products to better inform operating and investment decisions.

"JWN and geoLOGIC are without doubt well-established and recognized sector leaders. We both have solid track records of supporting our industry and community on critical issues. We know that the ongoing support of both groups combined will provide the sector with even more value as it continues to evolve," said JWN Energy CEO Bill Whitelaw. "The combined company also offers a deeply experienced subject matter bench across engineering, geosciences, financial and analytical disciplines  which collectively speak to how customer solutions can be offered through innovative applications of software and data."

About geoLOGIC systems ltd.

geoLOGIC systems ltd. is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and has been providing high-quality, integrated data and analytics to the upstream oil and gas industry in Western Canada and elsewhere for almost 40 years. geoLOGIC's relentless focus on innovation, quality, and service has made it the trusted standard in the upstream Canadian industry. Customers include exploration and production companies in oil & gas and related products; pipeline and midstream companies; service companies; the financial sector government and regulatory organizations, and educational institutions. Key products include geoSCOUT, a decision-support tool providing high quality data and analytics for all disciplines within the oil and gas industry, and gDC, geoLOGIC's comprehensive upstream oil and gas database.

For more information, please visit www.geologic.com or email [email protected].

About JWN Energy

JWN Energy is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with its Evaluate Energy division based in London, UK. Through its various products and services, JWN offers a broad range of news, analysis, data, research and marketing services. Its primary data focus is on financial and operating insights, as well as document search. Key brands include the Daily Oil Bulletin  which has served the Canadian sector since 1937  as well as Evaluate Energy, CanOils and Rig Locator. JWN's customer base includes exploration and production companies, oilfield service companies, professional services and financial sector organizations as well as governments and regulatory agencies.

For more information, please visit www.jwnenergy.com or contact [email protected].

Media Contact: Chris Tofalli

Chris Tofalli Public Relations, LLC

914-834-4334

[email protected]

SOURCE geoLOGIC systems
One of the last election issues that pricked Biden was if he would target the oil industry. The Democrat said no, but the first thing he did was shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline.

This came as no surprise after former President Trump read through his opponent's intention, despite the denial. After the executive orders on energy policies were signed on the first day without state consultation, Democrats intentionally hampered domestic oil production by killing the Keystone XL Pipeline to further the far-left pushed Green New Deal, as reported by The Blaze.

The Green New Deal furthers the agenda of the left's emphasis on renewables that are nowhere near acceptable to some states, most especially Republican states.

Governor Kristi Noem criticized the White House for not advising its decision to stop the pipeline's construction. She added that it took away potential earnings from her state.

OPEC has increased oil production that would have lessened the cost of fuel. The administration's policies are not working well, and many want to counteract any other energy policy without consultation. Oil production, when needed most, has been placed on the wayside by Democrat leaders.

On Fox Business, the ex-Shell CEO Hofmeister told Maria Bartiromo that many of Biden's proposed energy policies are ill-advised and that it seems as though these decisions were made in a huff without considering the impact on the US.

Democrats apparently have an allergy to the oil industry that Donald Trump improved, and now they are going after it. The Democrat-led administration is all about America last when it comes to energy policies.

Also read: South Dakota Republicans Sponsor Bill to Null the Executive Orders of Biden

Hofmeister said that increased prices for gas are happening with the shutdown of numerous refineries. He explained during the past U.S. administration, the energy policy was well managed, but unrealistic Democrats would do otherwise. More refineries open will have more petrol than what is available now.

He added something more ominous and anti-American going on that will be denied and explained that the oil industry is at work but not to produce more oil with good reason. The Biden administration is allegedly furthering their energy agenda that Trump and the GOP stalled. Now in power, the Democrats have a chokehold on the oil industry.

One observation is that Biden's policies have the effect of creating fear, not confidence. This causes an increase in petrol prices overnight, and all because of the Left-Green New Deal. To many, this Democrat agenda throws away the independence and resilience espoused by the past administration.

There is an ongoing ban on leasing federal land from oil exploration and production by the new administration. It causes fear of fewer sources of crude oil that follows spectacular fuel prices after. It shows the White House's hostile attitude to America's energy resilience and independence, definitely not America first but last.

In less than three months, the White House has made bad decisions that added almost 40 cents per gallon to fuel prices. But, Energy analyst Patricia Schouker attributed the uptick to the coronavirus pandemic. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's reaction to Biden's flawed energy policies is to combat it independently.

Related article: South Dakota Governor Scours Biden's Termination of Keystone Pipeline; Dangerous to US Energy Policy

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
After release of 279 schoolgirls, Leah Sharibus parents renew pressure on Nigerian Pres. Buhari

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

On International Womens Day, Leah Sharibus parents are renewing pressure on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to secure their daughters release from Islamic extremists after nearly 300 recently kidnapped schoolgirls were released last week.

Rebecca and Nathan Sharibu released an open letter to Buhari published by Nigerian media Monday morning. Their daughter has been held captive for three years after being abducted by Boko Haram terrorists from her school in northeast Nigeria in 2018.

Mr. President, you have promised me on the phone that my daughter will soon be [released] because negotiations are going on and not long Leah will be returned home but it has been over two years since you made that promise and Leah is now three years in captivity, the Sharibus wrote.

The Christian Post obtained a copy of the open letter from Dede Laugesen of Save the Persecuted Christians. The letter was released by Gloria Puldu, executive director of the Leah Foundation.

The letter commended the president for the prompt rescue of the 344 Katsina state schoolboys abducted in December 2020 and the release of 279 kidnapped schoolgirls in Zamfara state last week.

A Nigerian pastor kidnapped by Boko Haram in December 2020 was also released last Wednesday after negotiations, just hours before he was to be executed.

The letter questioned why other captives were rescued in less than a week, while Leah has remained in captivity for over three years.

Sir we plead with you to put yourself in our position and assume that Leah is your daughter how would you [feel] knowing that she is in captivity just because she was courageous to refuse to renounce her faith? the letter asks. Leah is denied her freedom for three years just for that reason. Now that you are able to find [solutions] to rescue those in captivity, we believe that you should be able to bring Leah and others in captivity home if you choose to do so.

Feb. 19 marked three years since insurgents affiliated with Boko Haram splinter group Islamic State West Africa Province abducted Leah Sharibu and over 100 other classmates from a government boarding school in Dapchi. While five of the girls were killed, the rest of Sharibus classmates were released to their families after negotiations with the government.

Because the then-14-year-old Sharibu refused to renounce her faith in Jesus Christ and convert to Islam, insurgents pledged to enslave her for life.

Leahs parents, Christians in Nigeria and rights advocates worldwide have not stopped advocating for her release. Her mother came to Washington, D.C. in June 2019 to call on President Donald Trump to assist in the release of her daughter in captivity.

The Sharibus argued the whole world is waiting on Buhari to fulfill his promise to rescue Leah.

In a translated voice recording of Rebecca Sharibu obtained by CP, Sharibu said she is still appealing to the government on my daughter's plight now that [279] Zamfara girls that were abducted have been released.

Negotiations were made, and all of [them] were released, my daughter is only one person, and now it is three years that she is still in captivity, the mother said.

Why won't the government use the same means they used to secure the release of [the other captives] to secure the release of my daughter and the others like the remaining Chibok girls, she continued, referencing schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram in 2014 from a school in Chibok.

Please help us the same way you helped to secure the release of these girls so that our girls who are in captivity will regain their freedom.

On the second anniversary of Sharibus abduction in Feb. 2020, the Muslim Nigerian president said in a statement that the government is going to redouble our efforts for Leahs return but stressed, we can never allow the terrorists to divide us  Christian against Muslim, Muslim against Christian.

We are all sons of Abraham, Buhari said. And all Nigerians have the same worth and rights before the law, and before God.

Despite this claim, many international human rights advocates criticize the Nigerian government for neglecting to thwart violence against civilian communities committed by Islamic extremists in the northeast and radical herdsmen in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.

Extremists reportedly demanded $275 million for Sharibus release in October 2018. Reports in January 2020 claimed Sharibu had given birth to the son of a Boko Haram commander.

Nigeria has experienced a wave of mass kidnappings for ransom in the past months, which has become a lucrative industry for militants.

Open Doors World Watch List ranks Nigeria as the ninth-worst country for Christian persecution, stating that Islamic oppression toward believers is rampant and often runs unchecked.

Despite the overwhelming threat to Nigerian Christians, just under half of the country is Christian. According to Open Doors, over 95 million believers are in Nigeria, Africas most populous nation.

Nigeria was the first democratic nation to be added to the U.S. State Departments list of "countries of particular concern" for engaging in or tolerating systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.

The Global Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria as the country third most affected by terrorism in the world. More Christians were killed for their faith in Nigeria than any other country in 2020, Open Doors reports.

The Leah Foundation continues to advocate for Leah's freedom, as well as empower Nigerian women.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
vandana Gupta A0309.jpg: Vanita Gupta, the nominee for associate attorney-general, testifies on Tuesday, March 9, 2021, before the Senate Judiciary Committee that is holding hearings for her confirmation to the post on. (Photo: Senate TV) Image Source: IANS News

vandana Gupta 0309.jpg: Vanita Gupta, the nominee for associate attorney-general, is sworn in for her testimony on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 before the Senate Judiciary Committee that is holding hearings for her confirmation to the post. (Photo: Senate Image Source: IANS News

New York, March 9 : Tweets by Vanita Gupta, the nominee for Associate Attorney-General, came up on Tuesday when she appeared before Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing, where she also received praise for her civil rights advocacy.

Gupta expressed regret for the tweets and said that she had "fallen prey" to "the rhetoric has gotten quite harsh over the last several years".

"I wish I could take it back, I can't," she added.

The nomination of an Indian American, Neera Tanden, to be a member of President Joe Biden's Cabinet was torpedoed by her vitriolic tweets and statements.

Gupta, who unlike Tanden has broader support in both parties, faced similar questions about her past social media presence and statements in her quest for the third-highest position in the Justice Department where she will be in charge of civil and human rights issues.

She asked the senators to instead "look at my lifelong record" as a believer "in the importance of building consensus" and as "a deeply pragmatic person and relationship builder".

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, while praising some of her civil rights work, brought up her tweets, one of which called the Republican Party National Convention in which some senators on the Judiciary Committee participated as "three nights of racism".

He said that she would have to be involved in cases before several judges who she had attacked online.

Committee Chair Dick Durbin, a Democrat, recalled her work in Texas as a young lawyer and praised her record as a civil rights lawyer.

Introducing her, he said that she had successfully worked to overturn the wrongful conviction of 38 people, most of them African Americans, in Tulia and it had been endorsed by Rick Perry, the Republican Governor of Texas at that time, and the victims received $6 million in settlement.

He compared her work to that of Thurdgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Judge, who had also worked like her with the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) Legal Defence Fund.

Her achievement in the Tulia case just after graduation from law school brought her to national attention.

Dismissing the criticism of her as soft of crime and anti-police, Durbin pointed to the support she has received from several organisations of law enforcement officials. These include the Fraternal Order of Police, the Major County Sheriffs of America and the Federal Law Enforcement Officials Association.

In her opening statement to the committee, Gupta spoke of her immigrant background and the opportunities her family received in the US.

She said, "My parents (Rajiv and Kamla Gupta) are proud immigrants from India, and they believe more than anything in the promise of America. Growing up, they taught me that loving this country brings with it the obligation to do the necessary work to perfect our union." She added, "That belief is shared by my husband (Chinh Q. Le), whose family fled violence and war in Vietnam and sought refuge on these great shores".

During questions about her commitment to religious freedom, she said that she was from a family of faith and that her husband's family had fled Vietnam to be able to practice their religion.

So far, the indications are that she will be able to get the votes required to be confirmed as no Democrat has come out against her as it happened with Tanden.

She is also likely to pick up support of some Republican Senators.

The conservatives are split on her nomination, with two groups running massive advertising campaigns for and against her.

Defending Democracy Together (DDT), an organisation of prominent Republicans, countered the campaign against declaring, "Don't let Washington play politics with the nomination of Anita Gupta." DDT includes former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and Linda Chavez, the highest-ranking woman among former President Ronald Reagan's White House staff.

Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal, speaking at the hearing, denounced senators repeating what he said was an unfair and inaccurate smear campaign against her that was "despicable rancid".

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
[March 08, 2021] LG Innotek Joins Hands with Microsoft to Proliferate Cloud-Connected 3D Sensing Camera

LG Innotek develops 3D sensing modules based on Microsoft ToF technology

LG Innotek and Microsoft collaborate to commercialize cloud connected 3D camera.

The collaboration will provide easy access to create 3D vision applications for multiple industries. SEOUL, South Korea, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LG Innotek (CEO Cheoldong Jeong) announced on 4th that it collaborates with Microsoft to unblock access to 3D vision technology and unleash innovation across multiple industry verticals such as: fitness, healthcare, logistics and retail with LG Innotek's ToF (Time of Flight) technology-based 3D camera modules and Microsoft's Azure Depth Platform. Locating the position of objects is an important aspect of scene analysis. Obtaining this information directly from a 3D ToF camera rather than inferring it from one or more 2D cameras simplifies the analysis and enhances robustness. 3D cameras are suitable for robust computer vision analysis with less computation for many commercial use cases. Yet, 3D camera design and manufacturing require special technology in illumination, strong sensor level understanding and optical design capability which is currently limited to very few camera module makers. LG Innotek has combined its superfine drive techniques and optical technologies to create high performance and ultra-slim multi-camera modules. The company has done so by its renowned product design, production capacity, state of the art quality control and technologies for core components such as light source and lens. With such capabilities, LG Innotek has secured a leadership position in the camera module and 3D sensing module markets for smartphones. Microsoft has over 20 years of experience in the 3D sensing field, spanning from ixel to chip, from modules to cameras, from algorithms to software, from characterization to calibration and manufacturing process tunning. This Microsoft 3D sensing knowhow was used to build Microsoft Hololens and Azure Kinect Devkit. The Azure Depth Platform program was created to proliferate Microsoft 3D sensing technology and drive large scale innovation via an ecosystem of Semiconductor, IHVs (Independent Hardware Vendors), ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and SIs (System Integrators) building cameras, 3D vision software & cloud services and business customers. Combining Microsoft ToF depth sensing technology with the Azure Intelligent Edge and Intelligent cloud platforms is disrupting computer vision applications.



With this collaboration, the two companies will drive customer value to the Azure ecosystem across multiple industries. For example, LG Innotek's 3D ToF cameras can be used with Azure in fitness to more precisely measure motions. In healthcare, they can be used to measure patients' posture and body shape and conduct robot-assisted surgery. Partners in the retail or logistics industries can use the technology to manage inventory and analyze customer traffic. In factories, these cloud-connected cameras can monitor and analyze production lines to prevent accidents. Daniel Bar, head of business incubation for the Silicon & Sensor's group at Microsoft, said, "LG Innotek brings world class manufacturing expertise in complex optoelectronic systems. We are excited to welcome LG Innotek to our ecosystem and accelerate time to market for 3D cameras. This is a key step towards providing easy access for computer vision developers to create 3D vision applications."

Jongyun Eun, Head of the Optics Solution Product Planning Division at LG Innotek, said, "Microsoft's Azure Depth Platform program has selected LG Innotek as a scaling partner due to its leading-edge technologies and production capability. Our collaboration with Microsoft will enable LG Innotek to help ecosystem partners on new designs and expand the application areas of 3D sensing modules beyond smartphones." About LG Innotek Co.,Ltd. LG Innotek is a cutting-edge materials and components manufacturer and an affiliate of the LG group. The company's business units include core components for mobiles, automotive, display, semiconductors, and IoT. Furthermore, the company has cooperated closely with the mobile devices, home appliances, and automotive companies, producing camera modules, automotive electronic components, wireless communication modules, and substrate materials. LG Innotek is headquartered in Seoul, Korea and its sales subsidiaries are located in Germany, USA, mainland China, Japan, and Taiwan with production subsidiaries in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, and Poland. For more information, please refer to the website: www.lginnotek.com SOURCE LG Innotek

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[March 09, 2021] CentriLogic Selected by Wilton Re to Capitalize on the Power of the Cloud to Drive Business Agility and Velocity

TORONTO and ROCHESTER, N.Y., March 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CentriLogic, a global IT transformation solutions provider, today announced that Wilton Re, a leading provider of in force and reinsurance solutions in the North American life insurance industry, has selected CentriLogic as its managed cloud services and technology services provider. CentriLogic will transform and modernize Wilton Res IT stack in Microsoft Azure to capitalize on the clouds power to drive greater resiliency and empower Wilton Re to quickly leverage data and analytics to meet evolving business demands.

Wilton Re recognized the opportunity to take a strategic approach to the cloud by leveraging infrastructure as a service and re-platforming and re-architecting applications to support todays work-from-anywhere workplace, all underpinned by a modern zero trust security model. CentriLogics digital transformation engagement will leverage the clouds capabilities, speed, and scale to empower Wilton Re to quickly deliver key business information. Wilton Re wasnt just looking for a vendor, they were looking for a true digital transformation partner that would provide an end-to-end cloud advantage and help them deliver with excellence across the company, said Robert Offley, president & CEO of CentriLogic. By embedding ourselves in our clients businesses, CentriLogic understands their unique culture, goals, and digital environments to help us bring to life possibilities that elevate their businesses and give them a lasting edge. Were excited to work with Wilton Re on this important technology initiative.



Following a rigorous RFP process, Wilton Re selected CentriLogic as its cloud and digital transformation partner. In addition to CentriLogics deep expertise across the cloud continuum, Wilton Re recognized CentriLogics ability to serve as an extension of Wilton Res internal IT team and drive ongoing innovation. As Wilton Re has grown with multiple offices and locations, we found ourselves at an inflection point, says Andy Wood, CIO of Wilton Re. We had to decide between approaching the cloud on a tactical basis or implementing it with a clear architecture strategy. CentriLogic brings a combination of capability and capacity to our IT transformation initiative. We know CentriLogic won't just help us get to the cloud, they'll help us scale, lower costs, and modernize on a continuous basis.

The Wilton Re engagement will span multiple phases; Phase One included a cloud readiness assessment and associated workshops led by CentriLogic, followed by workload migration and an Azure Cloud Well Architected Framework approach to help Wilton Re be ready to quickly take advantage of cloud capabilities. Future phases will include enhancing and augmenting DevOps practices to enhance Wilton Res ability to roll out new features and apps. About CentriLogic

CentriLogic is a global provider of IT transformation solutions that help organizations meet their digital potential. With a comprehensive portfolio of advisory, cloud, application management, Agile & DevOps, security & compliance, and infrastructure services, CentriLogic supports the complete end-to-end cloud and digital transformation journey and helps clients simplify complex IT challenges to achieve business success. CentriLogics client-first philosophy has earned it the trust of some of the worlds most innovative companies. With regional headquarters in Canada, USA, and the United Kingdom, CentriLogic delivers solutions to clients worldwide. Media Contact:

Jessica Mularczyk

jmularczyk@tieronepr.com

508-498-9300



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
NEW YORK  Juan Escobar was 12 and skinny when he first went to a YMCA summer camp. He weighed only 65 pounds, often did not get enough to eat and had chronic asthma.

For much of his childhood, he lived with his mother and grandmother in a public-housing complex in the South Bronx, where, he said, he was in constant fear of robbers and bullies.

But at the camp, in upstate New York, I didnt have to worry about dodging bullets, Escobar, 29, said. Instead, he was surrounded by trees.

Wholesome food and fresh air improved his health, he said, and the welcoming environment helped him gain confidence and relate to people from different backgrounds. The YMCA gave him financial aid so he could afford to attend the camp, which he did throughout his teenage years before becoming a counselor. He is now a police officer in the Bronx.

Since 1918, the three summer camps run by the YMCA of Greater New York have offered a change of scenery for generations of children, many of them Black and Latino and from families that could not otherwise afford to provide them a summer in the country.

That was before the pandemic, which forced the camps to shut down last year and decimated the YMCAs finances. Now, the organization is closing the camps for good and has put the grounds up for sale.

Not consulted

The move came as a surprise to members of the camps Board of Managers, an advisory group that works with the YMCA Board members. They said they had not been consulted about the planned sale.

Our hope and expectation was that as an active and dedicated group of volunteers that we would have garnered some respect, said Emily Van Ingen, 51, deputy director of a nonprofit group in the East New York section of Brooklyn, and a member of the board.

YMCA officials declined to comment on board members complaints about not being notified of the decision to sell the camps.

A sale would allow the YMCA to cut costs while bringing in money that is desperately needed after a dismal year that left many of its most lucrative services, including gyms, either closed or severely limited because of the virus, said Ronnie Tucker, a YMCA spokeswoman.

The organization has laid off nearly 2,000 employees, or more than half its workforce, and faced a $100 million budget shortfall last year, Tucker said.

Closing the camps, Tucker said, had been a very painful and very, very difficult decision for our organization.

Escobar said he had hoped to send his son, who is 6 months old, to a YMCA camp one day.

Im so sad and angry that this is happening, he said This is my home.

The three camps, Talcott, McAlister and Greenkill, cover more than 1,000 wooded acres in Huguenot, New York, about 60 miles northwest of New York City. In 2019, the last summer they were open, 60% of the campers were from the city and over 70% were children of color.

In a typical summer, about 1,200 children from 7 to 16 have attended the camps, with roughly a third receiving some financial assistance, YMCA officials said.

I view this as a civil rights issue, John Block, 69, a documentary filmmaker who was a counselor and a former member of the Board of Managers, said in an email. The camp closing is yet another example of the poor minority community taking an especially hard hit.

Financially fragile

Sleepaway camps across the United States experienced financial losses last year after government regulations prompted by the pandemic mostly kept them closed. Rules vary by state this year, but many camps will be allowed to reopen with social distancing guidelines in place. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York has indicated that camps in the state will be able to open this year, but he has not provided clear guidelines for how they will do so yet.

Its a fragile situation, said Tom Rosenberg, president and CEO of the American Camp Association, an industry group. Camps are doing everything they can.

The YMCA of Greater New York said it hoped to sell the upstate camps for around $5 million. It declined to disclose other details about a potential sale or to comment on whether it would sell only to a buyer who pledged to keep the properties as summer camps.

Beyond words

To campers, their families and a vast network of alumni, the camps looming shutdown came as an unexpected blow.

The idea of selling this camp thats been with us for 102 years, at a time when New York City children absolutely need it the most, is disappointing beyond words, said Monica Bermiss, 48, an assistant middle school principal, former camper and a Board of Managers member.

After learning that the camps were for sale, some former campers and counselors have been trying to raise enough money to buy the properties, while acknowledging that it was unlikely they would succeed.

The news hit those who are still of camp age especially hard.

Mark Garel, 16, who lives on Staten Island in a crowded apartment a half-hour bus ride from the nearest park, attended the YMCA camps for years with the help of financial aid. He described them as a welcome respite from a city that could feel claustrophobic.

When I heard it was closing, I was devastated, he said.

Jamya Montrevil, 13, who lives in lower Manhattan with her mother and brother, said camp had been a place where she could stretch her boundaries beyond those she sticks to in the city, where we just stay to ourselves and dont really get to explore much.

She had hoped to be at camp this summer.

Its really disappointing, she said.

Camps offer opportunities that are important to a childs development, like trying new experiences, interacting with children from different backgrounds and learning new skills, said Fatima Shama, executive director of the Fresh Air Fund, a nonprofit group that provides free summer programs, including camp, to children from poor New York City families.

That experience is transformative, and a young person carries that with them forever, Shama said.

(The New York Times Co. has long supported and partnered with the Fresh Air Fund, and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, The Times publisher for decades, served as the funds chairman.)

The need for summertime diversions may be particularly acute now for children who have spent much of the past year stuck at home.

Tucker, the YMCA spokeswoman, said it had become too costly to maintain the camps and their grounds, which include three lakes, horse stables, ropes courses, a wood shop and an inflatable floating obstacle course.

As for the organizations 22 branches in the city, member services, like pools, had only reopened in the 10 that serve the largest number of members, Tucker said. Membership at those 10 branches has plunged about 40% since the pandemic started.

YMCAs across the country are facing similar hardship, said Paul McEntire, YMCA of the USAs chief operations officer.

Last spring, all Ys had to close down for some period of time, which meant billions of dollars of lost membership and programmatic revenue, he said in an email, adding, Some have had to make the very difficult decision to close or sell branches or camps.

The YMCA of Greater New York expects to still have a robust day camp operation, including this summer, Tucker said. It served up to 13,000 children in 2019.

Recently, more than 150 former campers met by video to discuss what they could do to keep the camps open. One suggestion involved enlisting prominent alumni like sportscaster Bob Costas to help with raising money.

My overwhelming sense was that it was beneficial to these kids, Costas said. He worked as a counselor at one of the camps in 1969 and the early 1970s but has not been involved with it since then. They all seemed appreciative, like they were having the time of their lives.

For Escobar, the police officer, closing the camps means children growing up in circumstances like his are definitely losing a sense of finding themselves, knowing that they can push themselves to be someone different.

You really didnt know who came from a rich background, who came from a poor background, he added. It was just kids having fun.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Sen. Edward Markey, shown during a rally in Pittsfield in October, said the federal COVID-19 relief bill includes $7 billion for a program he created to help equip students with the technology they need to connect to the internet and learn from home. We dont know how long its going to take for every child to be back in class every day, so thats why this is critical funding, he said.
NSU swim coach Monanian moving on after four seasons

Monanian moves on to Purdue after accepting an assistant position at their program.
Back in January, a new Sony Xperia Compact smartphone leaked, suggesting a revival of the lineup. Steve Hemmerstoffer aka @OnLeaks released some renders of the device, surprising everyone. Well, those of you who are looking forward to the device wont like a new report. It claims that the upcoming Sony Xperia Compact will be exclusive to one market.

Leaked Sony Xperia Compact smartphone may be exclusive to one market, unfortunately

According to a report from AndroidNext, the leaked phone wont have the Compact branding in its name. The report claims this is the Sony Xperia Ace 2 that is aimed for the Japanese market.

It will allegedly come as a successor to the Sony Xperia Ace, and will be released in Japan under the nations Docomo carrier. If true, these are really not good news for those of you who prefer smaller phones.

Advertisement

Sonys Xperia Compact lineup had a following back in the day, until Sony decided to stop releasing such phones. News of a new Xperia Compact phone surely managed to get people riled up, but unfortunately, the device may not launch globally.

Do note that nothing has been confirmed just yet. Steve Hemmerstoffer seemed to be sure that the device he leaked belongs in the Compact lineup, so, its still possible well see it get released outside of Japan.

The device will allegedly ship with the Snapdragon 690 SoC & a 5.5-inch display

Now, AndroidNext did share some specifications of this device. The source claims the phone will be fueled by the Snapdragon 690 SoC with 5G support. A 5.5-inch display has been mentioned, as did a 21:9 aspect ratio.

Advertisement

The phone will include a dedicated camera button on the inside. A fingerprint scanner will be included in the power / lock button, while a headphone jack is also mentioned. The phone features two cameras on the back.

Now, Sonys previous Compact smartphones were always a part of the companys flagship lineup. They shipped with immensely powerful processors, and this device will seemingly include the Snapdragon 690.

That does not have to mean the device will not launch as a Compact smartphone, but it could. Well just have to wait and see what happens.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
This article first appeared on the Boston Business Journals website.

A federal judge in Boston on Monday threw out Legal Sea Foods lawsuit demanding insurance coverage for financial losses stemming from coronavirus-related government restrictions, dealing a blow to similar efforts by Massachusetts businesses hurt by the pandemic.

The ruling is one of the first in Massachusetts courts related to business interruption coverage for COVID-19 restrictions. Businesses began bringing suit against their insurance providers last spring after the insurers refused to cover losses caused by state and local operating limits. The insurance industry has maintained that most business interruption policies do not apply to something like the pandemic.

Business owners and attorneys have closely watched Legals lawsuit, one of the first to be filed locally last year. Nationwide, insurance companies have largely succeeded in winning dismissal of the claims so far, though a few businesses have beat back dismissal attempts.

In court filings, Legal had argued that it deserved coverage from Strathmore Insurance Co. in part because the virus caused direct physical loss of or damage to its restaurants, according to language in its insurance policy. The seafood chain pointed to people known or suspected to have had the virus who had been at its restaurants.

But U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton wrote in a 16-page ruling that the virus does not affect the structural integrity of a property and thus cannot constitute direct physical loss of or damage to property. COVID harms people, not property, he added.

Just because Legals policy does not feature an explicit virus exclusion does not mean insurance coverage is warranted, the judge said.

Throughout the ruling, Judge Gorton cited recent decisions in favor of insurers in similar COVID-19 coverage disputes, including another Boston federal judges dismissal last month of a lawsuit brought by SAS International Ltd., which owns and leases commercial property in Fall River.

The Legal case also centered on whether Strathmore should pay for the chains business interruption losses because a civil authority had prohibited access to its properties. The judge found that Legal was not denied access to its restaurants because the company was allowed to perform takeout and delivery services.

It does not matter if Legal would suffer greater financial losses by doing takeout and delivery than it would by simply closing its restaurants, according to Judge Gorton.

It is immaterial whether it is economically feasible for Legal to continue restaurant operations solely for carry-out and delivery sales, he said.

Representatives for Legal and for its insurer could not be immediately reached for comment on the ruling. Legal owner Roger Berkowitz sold his restaurant business late last year to Medford-based PPX Hospitality Brands, the company behind the Smith & Wollensky and Strega brands.
Jill Biden appeared to be showing support for Meghan Markle with her choice of dress worn on Monday.

The First Lady, 69, donned a $2,890 Lemon Print Belted Midi Dress by luxury fashion design Oscar de la Renta as she honoured 21 women from 15 countries at the International Women of Courage award ceremony.

Her decision to wear the same print and designer that the Duchess of Sussex, 39, wore for her first public appearance after quitting the royal family has become a topic of discussion across social media.

Last month, Meghan joined Harry to plug their Archewell Audio podcast at a Spotify event filmed at their $14 million Santa Barbara home, while wearing a $3,490 Oscar de la Renta gown with the same lemon print.

Jill Biden (pictured) appeared to be showing subtle support for Meghan Markle with her choice of dress worn on International Women's Day

Meghan wore the same print and designer for her first appearance after quitting the royal family. Pictured: Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry at Spotify event

As Meghan's friends continue to show support for her amid the backlash she's received for giving an interview with Oprah, some believe Jill could have chosen a similar dress to subtly stand by her.

Speaking to the American TV icon, Meghan revealed that she experienced suicidal thoughts while pregnant with Archie, alleged that a member of the royal family had concerns about his skin colour, and said that Kate made her cry.

Opinions about the highly anticipated interview have been divided, with some arguing about the timing as Prince Philip is recovering from an operation.

The First Lady gave an impassioned speech about the United States standing with the women honoured in the awards ceremony, as well as tweeted a quote by Maya Angelou about women standing up for themselves.

She wrote: 'On this #InternationalWomensDay, we celebrate the resilience and courage of women everywhere. Each time a woman stands up for herself...she stands up for all women.' - Maya Angelou'

Commenting on the similarities, fashion stylist Rochelle White told Femail: 'I love that Jill Biden showed support in the same dress that Megan Markle worn a few weeks back. I think with the design and pattern it could be a sign of solidarity, friendship and fresh new beginnings.

Jill (pictured) honoured 21 women during the International Women of Courage award ceremony and delivered a speech about fighting for their cause

'It was great for IWD 2021 with the celebration of women and also with the airing of the Megan and Harry interview. I think that was a way for Jill to show her support in a subtle way.'

Fashion stylist to the stars, Karen Williams added: 'Optics are everything in politics, and Jill Biden has smartly realised the power of her voice as FLOTUS without needing to say a word. We've seen how the First Lady can get it wrong  remember Melania and her 'I really don't care' Zara shacket? But so far, Jill hasn't put a well-heeled foot wrong with her sartorial statements.

'She set out her stall early with her pro-Suffrage choice of purple at her husband's inauguration and her decision to go 'matchy matchy' on International Women's Day with that beautiful Oscar de la Renta citrus print gown from the same collection Meghan Markle is a pretty interesting coincidence.

'Meghan and Harry's interview with Oprah has absolutely divided public opinion, but with that dress, especially on a day that celebrates women, I would love to think Jill is quietly sending a positive message of support from one strong woman, wife and mother to another. And she is looking absolutely fabulous with it.'

According to UK-based marketplace Love The Sales, searches for 'lemon printed dresses' increased in popularity since March, compared with the same time last year.

Jill (pictured right) hasn't confirmed that her decision to wear Oscar de la Renta is linked to showing support for the Duchess of Sussex (pictured left)

Co-founder Stuart McClure said: 'The new First Lady's choice of dress was certainly a statement and not just for the eye-catching lemon-printed pattern from Oscar de la Renta's pre-spring collection.

'It was the same, exact style as Meghan wore last month at a virtual Spotify event - since Meghan's appearance we've seen an 81 per cent increase in demand for 'lemon print' dresses with many less expensive styles from Missguided and Asos close to selling out! Meghan really still has the ability to inspire the fashion appetite of the public'

Among the women Jill honoured earlier this week is Iranian chess arbitrator Shohreh Bayat, an imprisoned women's right leader in Belarus and Sister Alicia Vacas Moro, a registered nurse who established clinics to help impoverished women and children.

She said: 'Some of these women have spent their lives fighting for their cause. Others are just starting out on a journey they didn't ask for.

'Some were called to service, and some couldn't escape it. They are fighting for their own lives and for their children. They want to right the wrongs of our past, to build a brighter future for everyone. They aren't immune to fear. No one is.'

Although Jill Biden hasn't confirmed if her dress choice was deliberately aimed at showing support for Meghan, people have taken to Twitter praising her.

One person wrote: 'And @FLOTUS was wearing today dress with same fabric which Meghan wore during Netflix interview, with lemons. Seems to be message of support, Queen and other also have given messages with clothes and ornaments'

People have taken to Twitter gushing about Jill Biden's choice of dress, arguing it isn't a coincidence that she wore Oscar de la Renta

First meeting: Harry, 36, and Jill, 69, met in May 2013 at a reception for US and British wounded soldiers in D.C., where they're said to have bonded over their shared dedication to the military

Support: In September 2014, Jill flew to London to attend the inaugural Invictus Games, and her clear bond with Harry prompted Joe to joke that he was 'a little worried'

Best buds? Prince Harry and Jill Biden have enjoyed a close friendship for several years, with the wife of President-elect Joe regularly showing her support for the Duke's Invictus Games

Another said: 'Jill Biden giving a shout out to Meghan Markle through her dress choice is so fantastic. We see you Jill. Thanks for the subtle nod to our girl in show of support.'

A third added: 'Nice to see our @FLOTUS give a nod to Meghan Markle by wearing a dress like what she wore in the Spotify trailer'

Prince Harry has had a firm friendship with Dr Jill Biden since they met when he was touring the US in 2013, still as a prominent Royal.

The pair who have a 33-year age gap, are said to have bonded over their shared military links with the Duke having spent 10 years serving in the British Army and Jill's late stepson Beau having been a major in the US Military.

Shared values: The duo both have strong ties to the armed forces; Harry spent 10 years serving in the British Army (left), while Jill's late stepson Beau was a major in the US Military (right)

Guests of honor: Joe and Jill were also present at the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto - however they have not been seen publicly with Prince Harry since then

A year after Jill and Harry first met, the US First Lady travelled solo to London for Harry's inaugural Invictus Games.

Joe joked he was 'a little worried' about how much time Harry and Jill were spending together, as the pair were photographed beaming.

The Bidens also attended the Games in Toronto in 2017 - the same year that Harry stepped out in public with Meghan, 39, for the first time.

Ahead of the recent US elections, their friendship sparked concerns about Prince Harry 'poking his woke nose' into politics as traditionally, members of the Royal Family are expected to remain politically neutral at all times.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Tom Hallberg covers a little bit of everything, from skiing to long-form feature stories. A Teton Valley, Idaho, transplant by way of Portland and Bend, Oregon, he spends his time outside work writing fiction, splitboarding and climbing.
JACKSON, MI - A Jackson County boy has been identified as the first Michigan case of the South African COVID-19 has been identified in Jackson County, state officials said.

The B.1.351 variant was identified by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Laboratories on Monday, March 8.

Case investigation is currently underway to determine close contacts of this boy, and if there are additional cases associated with this case, MDHHS officials said. State health officials did not release the age of the boy.

Originally detected in early October 2020 in South Africa, this variant shares some mutations with the UK B.1.1.7 variant. As of March 8, Michigan has identified 516 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant in 23 Michigan jurisdictions.

Cases of the South African variant were first reported in the United States at the end of January.

B.1.351 is believed to be more contagious, but there has been no indication it affects the clinical outcomes or disease severity compared to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has been circulating across the United States for months, MDHHS officials said.

Based on available evidence, current tests can identify COVID-19 in these cases, MDHHS officials said. The available COVID-19 vaccines also work against the new variant, although scientists are still evaluating how effective they are against this new variant.

Based on available evidence, current tests can identify COVID-19 in these cases, MDHHS officials said. The available COVID-19 vaccines also work against the new variant, they said.

A higher rate of transmission could increase the number of people who need to be hospitalized or who lose their lives to COVID-19 should the new variant begin circulating widely in Michigan, MDHHS officials said.

The virus has been identified in at least 20 other states. This is the only known case in Michigan at this time, but it is possible there are more that have not been identified, MDHHS officials said.

We are concerned about the discovery of another variant in Michigan, although it was not unexpected, said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, MDHHS chief medical executive and chief deputy for health, said in a news release.

We continue to urge Michiganders to follow a research-based approach by wearing their masks properly, socially distancing, avoiding crowds, washing their hands often, and making a plan to get the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine once it is their turn. We all have a personal responsibility to slow the spread of COVID-19 and end this pandemic as quickly as possible.

For the most current information, visit the Jackson County Health Department webpage located at Jackson County Health Department COVID vaccine webpage or its Facebook page.

READ MORE:

226 infected in new coronavirus outbreaks at 48 schools, says Michigans March 8 school outbreak report

United Kingdom variant of COVID-19 found in Tuscola County

West Michigan wedding, banquet centers call on state to ease COVID-19 restrictions
A successful British Blue genes sale took place at Shrewsbury Auction Centre over the weekend, resulting in a 100% clearance for all on offer.

On Saturday 6 March, the 2nd annual Blue Genes sale commenced in conjunction with the British Blue Cattle Society.

A quality entry of Pedigree British Blue were sold to a socially distanced ringside.

Prices peaked at 6,400gns for Graymar Navigator, a December 2018 bull sired by Astrics JJ out of a Homebred Dam Graymar Immaculate.

Graymar Navigator won his pre-sale class and following spirited bidding, was sold to Messrs W Henry Dixon & Sons of Pembrokeshire.

The hammer fell at 4,700gns for an easy fleshed Black and White bull from Mr J & Mrs Y Hopkins who had travelled from Somerset.

Two local purchasers battled it out to secure this lad, eventually selling to OM & JR Whittingham of Adderley.

The hammer fell at 4,600 for Ty Isaf Octavio

Next seller at 4,600gns was the upstanding preshow champion Ty Isaf Octavio from DW & LE Morgan of Newtown, selling to M Jenkins of St Clears.

Next in the prices were a pair at 4,000gns from RE Wigley & Old Stackyard Blues, with all sale proceeds from his Blue going to RABI and Ovarian Cancer Action.

Old Stackyard Blue Otto sold to C & FM Percival, Derbyshire and Old Stackyard Blue Otts Lee was purchased by Probert & Probert, Powys.

Females were topped by the reserve female champion on the day for the Blue Roan May 2019 Heifer Trencrom Oprah, who sold for 3,400gns to J C Crust of Betterbread Blues.

At 2500gns was Barleyclose Oasis, a Black April 19 Heifer selling from MJ Wells & Son to BA & SW Mills of Sheffield.

Yearling Heifers from AJ & LM Geary sold to 2250gns for Littlewood Pandora again selling to J C Crust of Betterbread Blues.
DALLAS, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Get Shift Done has been named to Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021. The Shiftsmart initiative is ranked No. 1 under the Not-for-Profit category and No. 28 in the 2021 World's Top 50 Most Innovative Companies list.

The list honors the businesses that have not only found a way to be resilient in the past year, but also turned those challenges into impact-making processes. These companies did more than survive; they thrivedmaking an impact on their industries and culture as a whole. This year's MIC list features 463 businesses from 29 countries.

"It has been an honor to help serve American communities through the Get Shift Done initiative," said Anurag Jain, Co-Founder of Get Shift Done and Chairman of AccessHealthcare. "Get Shift Done was created to combat hunger relief and help stabilize incomes of those affected by COVID-19. 'How will I feed people?' was my immediate concern when the government mandated stay-at-home requirements and I was serving as Board Chairman of the North Texas Food Bank. We never dreamed the initiative would grow and reach so many people across America."

Get Shift Done is a non-profit initiative that was launched in response to COVID-19 to pay a living wage to newly unemployed hospitality workers to fill the gap of volunteer shifts in hunger relief organizations, such as food banks, food pantries, and school systems. Created and in action in four days by serial entrepreneurs Patrick Brandt and Anurag Jain, the program rapidly expanded across the country with over 28,000 workers, 12 regions and 110 hunger relief organizations. In just one year workers have completed almost one million shifts, served 60 million meals and have been paid nearly $15 million wages for their work.

"We are honored to be recognized as Fast Company's Most Innovative Not-for-Profit in the world," said Patrick Brandt, Co-Founder of Get Shift Done and President of Shiftsmart. "It is humbling to be part of such a powerful collaboration of community organizations, philanthropists, businesses, and hunger relief providers to impact so many negatively affected by the pandemic. Shiftsmart's ability and willingness to organize a program that served thousands of Americans in need has truly been heartwarming and inspiring."

Shiftsmart, a labor management platform serving the modern workforce, saw first-hand the impact COVID-19 began to have on hospitality workers. With a mission to provide workers more choice, more pay and greater opportunity, Shiftsmart quickly leveraged its technology and operations to launch Get Shift Done and connect today's dynamic workforce with non-profit organizations. Without the Get Shift Done initiative, food access providers would not have been able to meet the jolt to the labor market caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and serve their local communities to prevent millions of people being left hungry.

Get Shift Done has been able to help bring stabilization to economies by putting skilled workers back to work in their communities. Matching the workers with the non-profit organizations was accomplished using the Shiftsmart platform, which was provided at no cost to the non-profits. Shiftsmart, leveraging its technology platform, managed the entire program end-to-end including onboarding, matching, scheduling, dispatching, routing and paying workers to perform shifts with the non-profits. The initiative has surpassed its mission by not only providing income for adversely affected hourly workers in the hospitality industry but also a sense of purpose and community for those displaced from their jobs.

Get Shift Done was launched with the help of founding supporters that include AccessHealthcare, Capital One, Communities Foundation of Texas, Mark Cuban, Craig and Kathryn Hall, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, Margot Perot and Family, Sarah and Ross Perot Jr. Foundation, Katherine Perot Reeves and Eric Reeves, Shiftsmart, and United Way of Metropolitan Dallas.

Fast Company's editors and writers sought out the most groundbreaking businesses across the globe and industries. They also judged nominations received through their application process.

The World's Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.

"In a year of unprecedented challenges, the companies on this list exhibit fearlessness, ingenuity, and creativity in the face of crisis," said Fast Company Deputy Editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with Senior Editor Amy Farley.

To coincide with the issue launch, Fast Company will host its first-ever Most Innovative Companies Summit on March 9 and 10. This virtual, multi day summit will celebrate the Most Innovative Companies in business, provide an early look at major business trends, and offer the inspiration and practical insights on what it takes to innovate in 2021.

Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March/April 2021) is now available online here , as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning March 16, 2021. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.

ABOUT GET SHIFT DONE

The Get Shift Done model, a Shiftsmart initiative, provides direct income to unemployed food and service industry workers while providing skilled shift work to food banks and other nonprofits providing critical resources for hunger relief. Get Shift Done workers are people who know food helping people who need food. For more information, visit www.getshiftdone.org.

ABOUT SHIFTSMART

Shiftsmart is an online marketplace built on pioneering technology that connects today's dynamic workforce with companies facing increasingly complex staffing requirements. By empowering workers with more hours, better pay, and greater opportunity, Shiftsmart creates a mutually beneficial labor ecosystem for individuals and organizations alike. Visit www.shiftsmart.com for more information.

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com .

Jeanne Culver

[email protected]

214-352-5980

SOURCE Shiftsmart

Related Links

http://www.shiftsmart.com


Families of 9 missing Indonesian fishermen to get insurance payout

March 09,2021 | Source: CNA

The Fisheries Agency of Taiwan said Tuesday that it has asked the owner of a Taiwanese fishing boat to file an insurance claim for the families of nine Indonesian crew members who went missing along with their Taiwanese captain on the Pacific at the end of 2020.



The agency said each of the missing fishermen should receive a payout of NT$1 million (US$35,000) on the life insurance policy their employer took out on their behalf, the agency said.



In Taiwan, fishing boat owners are required to insure their crews before they begin work on a boat.



The Fisheries Agency has already offered the missing captain's family a sum of NT$50,000 as consolation money and a payment of NT$1.5 million in relief assistance.



The Su'ao-registered Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (18) was reported missing on Jan. 1 after its owner, the wife of the vessel's Taiwanese captain, informed Taiwan's National Rescue Command Center that she lost contact with the captain on Dec. 30.



With assistance from United States authorities, an American fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft found the missing boat about 606 nautical miles east of Midway Atoll on Jan. 2.



The boat appeared to be drifting, suggesting it had lost power, and there were no signs of the Taiwanese captain or Indonesian crew, according to the Su'ao Fishermen's Association.



On Monday, the Yong Yu Sing No. 18 was towed back to Su'ao, a township in Yilan County. The whereabouts of the 10 crew members have not yet been accounted for.



The Fisheries Agency said the case is now being investigated to determine if there was any criminal activity involved and what caused the 10 people to disappear.

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
She was recently announced as an ambassador for Sydney's Autumn Racing Carnival.

And Sonia Kruger showed just why on Tuesday, as she flaunted her age-defying physique in a figure-hugging dress at the launch of the carnival at The Mint.

The blonde bombshell slipped on a $2,290 dress by Fendi that showcased her trim and toned figure.

Go figure! Sonia Kruger flaunted her sensational physique in a form-fitting designer dress at the launch of Sydney's Autumn Racing Carnival at The Mint on Tuesday

She also wore a trendy black fascinator that contrasted with her sandy locks, which were styled in a soft waves around her shoulders.

The TV presenter teamed her look with a Bottega Veneta clutch and $1,130 leather mules from the same brand.

For makeup, the stunner's youthful visage was radiant and glowy, along with fluttery and flirty lashes, a smokey eye and a glossy pink pout.

At the venue, Sonia beamed as she flaunted the designer frock by twirling for the camera.

Chic: The blonde bombshell slipped on a $2,290 dress by Fendi that showcased her trim and toned figure

Expensive taste! The TV presenter teamed her look with a Bottega Veneta clutch and $1,130 leather mules from the same brand

Sonia was announced as an ambassador for Sydney's Autumn Racing Carnival on Sunday.

She told The Sunday Telegraph that she was thrilled to be able to participate and enjoy the event days without 'working' as part of a coverage team.

'I worked at many big race days, and to be asked to be an ambassador is fantastic because, you know, you get to go and enjoy the whole experience,' she said.

Glamorous! She also wore a trendy black fascinator that contrasted with her sandy locks, which were styled in a soft waves around her shoulders

'Because when you're actually working in your team, you're sort of part of the coverage, you feel a little bit like an outsider looking in.'

Sonia, who is known for her incredible personal style, went on to say she is expecting more demure and vintage styles for fashions on the field this year.

'In the fabrics you'll see a lot of velvet, see a lot of felt and leather, and even those earthy autumn tones which I'm really sort of drawn to,' she said.
New Delhi, March 9 : CDC Group, the UK government's development finance institution and impact investor in South Asia and Africa, on Tuesday said that it has closed a $20 million (about Rs 146 crore) investment round in Ecom Express, a leading tech-enabled end-to-end logistics solutions provider to the Indian e-commerce industry.

This will be CDC's second round of investment in Ecom Express after its initial investment in December 2019.

Ecom Express said that this investment will enable it to create 8,000 new jobs in addition to an initial target of 15,000 roles -- prioritising employing women for jobs at delivery centres, fulfilment centres and warehouses across the nation.

"We are extremely pleased to have a continued partnership with CDC," T. A. Krishnan, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ecom Express, said in a statement.

"This fresh infusion of capital will enable us to further strengthen our network, infrastructure, operations, and technological prowess while assuring support to our next levels of growth." Ecom Express will be utilising the equity infusion by CDC Group investments for strategic initiatives such as growth driven capital expenditure, working capital requirements, new business initiatives, expansions, and potential strategic acquisitions/partnerships.

"Ecom Express is playing a vital role in enabling e-commerce growth and expanding product reach across India. CDC's additional investment in the company reflects our support for the company's pan-India expansion," said Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of Asia at CDC.

"Moreover, we are delighted that this investment will further enhance efforts India is making to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals of achieving gender equality and empowerment, and promoting sustainable growth and decent work for all." Ecom Express recently invested $11 million (about Rs 80.6 crore) in Bangladesh's largest third-party e-commerce logistics (3PL) firm, Paperfly.

Through this investment, Ecom Express entered Bangladesh marking its maiden venture outside India, after having covered the length and breadth of the country.
The Chinese government has officially ratified the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao said Monday.

Some member countries are also accelerating their procedures, and it is hoped that relevant countries can speed up their progress and finally reach the threshold of entry into force, Wang told reporters on the sidelines of the annual national legislative session.

Ratifications of six ASEAN member countries and three non-ASEAN member countries are needed for reaching the threshold, and the sooner the agreement enters into force, the sooner the people of the member countries will be benefited, he said.

The RCEP, the world's largest free trade agreement, was signed in mid-November 2020 by 10 ASEAN member countries and China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Spruce Forest opens for season through a new door

With the crashing of the trees, three of the cabins were destroyed, along with damaging the village church and other buildings as well.
New Delhi:

Supreme Court on Tuesday has directed all the medical colleges in Tamil Nadu to use National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) as the only basis for admission across the state. It has also asked the state government to start counselling immediately and finish the same by September 4, 2017.

"SC says medical colleges in Tamil Nadu will have to use National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) as the only basis for admissions," news agency ANI twweted a couple of minutes back.

"Supreme Court asks the Tamil Nadu government to start counselling immediately & finish by 4th September," ANI tweeted further.

Earlier, the Supreme Court on Thursday put the counselling process on hold till August 22 and asked MCI and the state government to find a "balanced" solution to deal with the interests of state board students and those who cleared NEET.

Also Read| NEET illegalities: HC seeks Centre and police response on probe plea

Tamil Nadu, which had initially sought permanent exemption from NEET by passing two Bills in the Assembly, later made efforts to be out of its ambit for at least a year or two.

SC says medical colleges in Tamil Nadu will have to use National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) as the only basis for admissions. pic.twitter.com/lE7wBxYjjI  ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2017
Jo Martin has revealed she is eager to reprise her role as the Fugitive Doctor on Doctor Who, whether it be on the main series or her own spin-off.

The actress surprised viewers last year when her character was revealed to be a secret incarnation of the doctor, making her the first black person to play the role.

It is currently unknown where the Fugitive Doctor falls in the show's chronology and Jo told Radio Times she would love to explore the character more in the future.

Future: Jo Martin has revealed she is eager to reprise her role as the Fugitive Doctor on Doctor Who, whether it be on the main series or her own spin-off

She said: 'Of course, of course. What's not to like about that? I would absolutely love it. And they've got John Bishop there now, haven't they? I'm a big fan of his. I want a scene with him.

'I think there's so much more story. What they set up opens up a world that we've not fully explored with Doctor Who yet.

'And you don't want to waste that costume. You know what I mean? That costume  it's a real waste of a costume because it's so swaggy, as they say. So I think that costume needs to get worn again by me.'

If she can't return to the main series, Jo jokingly told showrunner Chris Chibnall she is 'ready' for her own spin-off.

Show: The actress surprised viewers last year when her character was revealed to be a secret incarnation of the doctor, making her the first black person to play the role

The actress added that she is quite busy at the moment but if Doctor Who was to call again she would be 'there in a jiffy'.

It comes after reports that current Doctor Jodie Whittaker was said to have handed in her notice to show bosses after three years of playing the Time Lord.

Following reports by The Mirror about Jodie's departure, a BBC spokesman said: 'We won't be commenting on any speculation around Jodie's future on the show.'

Jodie reportedly told BBC bosses that she won't be returning to the popular series following the conclusion of series 13.

Jo said: 'I think there's so much more story. What they set up opens up a world that we've not fully explored with Doctor Who yet' (pictured with Jodie Whittaker)

That will mark a three-year run for the actress, which is about average for recent actors playing the time-traveling alien.

Matt Smith, David Tennant and Peter Capaldi also appeared on Doctor Who for three series each, while Christopher Eccleston only appeared on one series after the show was revived in 2005.

According to a source for The Mirror, the show is already at work on figuring out how Jodie will be replaced by the Fourteenth Doctor.

End of an era? It comes after reports that current Doctor Jodie Whittaker was said to have handed in her notice to show bosses after three years of playing the Time Lord

'Its all very hush-hush but it is known on set that Jodie is leaving and they are gearing up for a regeneration,' a source said.

'Her departure is top secret but at some point over the coming months the arrival of the 14th Doctor will need to be filmed. Its very exciting.'

As with previous Doctors, at the end of Jodie's tenure her character will 'regenerate' into a new form, at which point the next actor will take over the role.

Doctor Who fans have since called for Jo's iteration of the character to become the 14th Time Lord.

Michaela Coel and Richard Ayoade have also emerged as the bookies' favourites to replace the thespian, while Sister Act's Whoopi Goldberg recently admitted she's set her sights on stepping into the TARDIS as the next Doctor.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
In William Shakespeares turn-of-the-17th century play, "The Merchant of Venice," a key character, Antonio, reminds us, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

This may be the case in the reaction to a recent School Library Journal report that discussed teachers considerations of the relevancy of Shakespeare for todays classrooms.

The report interviewed numerous teachers who are questioning the central focus on Shakespeare in the English curriculum, noting that with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir, his work is problematic and outdated. Teachers new approaches include studying Shakespeare alongside contemporary literature, using Shakespeare as an opportunity to analyze global perspectives, adding authors to enrich study of Shakespeare, and some are replacing Shakespeare entirely.

Spins in follow-up pieces claimed teachers were refusing to teach Shakespeare, and using charged language such as "woke teachers want Shakespeare cut from curriculum."

Diversity within Shakespeare

I thought back to my own love of Shakespeare sparked at age 15 in my mostly-white evangelical Christian high school. I learned about anti-Semitism through studying The Merchant of Venice. I learned about racial identity and difference through Othello.

I became an English major in college, and lived in the United Kingdom to pursue a PhD in literature. In my work as an educator for over 26 years, Ive taught Shakespeare to high school students and as a university professor, I designed and co-led a study abroad course to London twice, focused on performance and representation.

The politicization of everything: Your barista, beauty blogger and fantasy author don't vote the same way you do. So what?

The London course draws students from a diverse, urban university population, and includes a tour of Shakespeares Globe Theatre. Students learn how his productions entertained, educated, and widened the world views of 16th and 17th-century audience-goers, many of whom were poor and illiterate.

Story continues

Did William Shakespeare look like this?

As a high school English teacher in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, I polled the mostly Latinx and African American students on which stories they were interested in studying: forbidden teenage lovers whose families hate each other, a young prince plots to kill his uncle, who murdered his father, four lovers bewitched by fairies and love potions fall for the wrong people.

In these classes, students also studied the works of Richard Wright, Sandra Cisneros, and Luis Rodriguez.

Class, race, culture, discrimination, jealousy, power, death, money, gender, love, and betrayal are among the themes explored in Shakespeares 37 plays, which are set in countries across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Culturally responsive teaching

My love for Shakespeare was sparked by an exceptional English teacher, one who brought literature to life. This love did not keep my world small, rather it opened up a love for history, culture, storytelling, and an understanding of humanity.

He is a friend and colleague now, and was equally outraged by the idea of Shakespeare being canceled. He told me that it is essential to teach and learn from literature across time, to learn how past societies lived and expressed themselves, and to foster discussions about how the world has learned and evolved.

Its not texts, but educators who must connect with students.

Through methods like culturally responsive teaching, educators have an opportunity to contribute to repairing historic inequities, trauma and harm. It is essential for educators to acknowledge their own identities and those of students, and be willing to learn from each other. It is important to include Shakespeare's views and identity in the learning.

Bring us Biden: Biden hasn't held a news conference or been imitated on 'SNL' in his presidency. Why not?

The movement #DisruptTexts supports teachers in creating inclusive curriculum that offers students access the diversity of human experience, and critical thinking approaches to literature. Describing itself as a movement to rebuild the literary canon using an antibias, antiracist critical literacy lens, they have almost 10,000 Twitter followers. After push back from critics, #DisruptTexts issued a statement in January asserting they do not advocate banning any books, nor are they calling for censorship.

Diverse students, white teachers

To be sure, some critics argue there is a widespread movement afoot for the Great Books and the classics of literature (including Dr. Seuss) to be removed from our schools, and by extension, traditional values. But rather than seeing expansion of literary voices as a threat, this can be an opportunity.

Caroline M. Kisiel at the Globe Theatre in London, in March 2017.

In the United States, students in K-12 schools are touted as more diverse than ever, as are colleges and universities. Yet the most commonly taught books in high school, according to a 2010 survey, included primarily white male authors.

As one Duke University English major put it in 2020, Being an English major shouldnt just mean we know how to read Shakespeare.

Culture has to protect free speech laws: My family fled Fidel Castro's Cuba, where 'cancel culture' was deadly serious.

Part of the problem is that while classrooms are more diverse, faculty are not. According to a Department of Education survey from 2018, 79.3% of public school teachers are white, 9.3% are Hispanic, 6.7% are Black or African American, and 2.1% Asian.

In higher education, a 2017 Brookings Institution study found that 80% of English faculty at selective public universities were white, 9% Black, 6% Asian, and 4% Hispanic. Out of the 378 doctorates awarded in English literature in 2019, 7 went to African Americans, 19 to Hispanic or Latino, 15 to Asian, and 286 went to white candidates.

This suggests that literature classes at the secondary and post-secondary level invite or create access for primarily white students to pursue the study and teaching of literature.

Courses from grade school through graduate school need to have more diverse and inclusive voices, without eliminating the giants of literature, so that all students feel invited into the world of books.

Shakespeare isn't going anywhere

Regardless, Shakespeare is likely not in any danger of being canceled.

Shakespeares complete works have been translated into more than 100 languages. When London hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics, The World Shakespeare Festival held a Globe to Globe series across the U.K. His 37 plays were performed in 37 languages, including Swahili, Belarusian, sign language and a hip-hop production of Othello.

A total of 140 countries held celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeares death in 2016. Shakespeare invented more than 1700 of our commonly used English words. Shakespeares Globe Theatre has also developed antiracist approaches to teaching Shakespeare.

Students need teachers who resemble them: I'm a white teacher with a classroom of minority students. Here's how I teach across race.

Ideally, there are more teachers intent on inspiring young minds and widening access to literature. Hopefully the worlds of more students enrolled in courses now are being expanded to think not only about history, but about difference. The study of literature can support this learning.

This does not have to mean canceling established voices. But canceling our students lived experiences would be far worse.

It is ill-advised to misinterpret the Bards work for an agenda of fear mongering and divisiveness. Rather, it is important to use literature to help students think. As Hamlet advises, There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Caroline M. Kisiel is an associate professor in DePaul Universitys School of Continuing and Professional Studies, a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project, and an Illinois Humanities Road Scholar. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolineKisiel

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Diversifying literature isn't a 'cancel culture' attack on Shakespeare
Commodities trader Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. struck a deal last summer to buy $36 million of copper from a Turkish supplier. But when the cargoes started arriving in China, all it found were containers full of painted rocks.

The saga unfolds like a gangland thriller, with the Swiss trading house saying its been the victim of cargo fraud. Before its journey from a port near Istanbul to China even began, about 6,000 tons of blister copper in more than 300 containers were switched with jagged paving stones, spray-painted to resemble the semi-refined metal.

The bizarre case highlights commodity traders vulnerability to fraud, even when security and inspection controls are in place. In 2014 and 2015, Mercuria took provisions to cover potential losses after metal contained in a warehouse in the Chinese port of Qingdao was seized by authorities as part of fraud investigation.

Turkish police took 13 people into custody in relation to the faux-copper scheme. Mercuria, one of the five-biggest independent oil traders in the world, is seeking redress in both Turkish courts and a U.K. arbitration case against the copper supplier, Bietsan. Its also filed a formal criminal complaint with Turkish police and prosecutors alleging cargo substitution and insurance fraud, leaving the authorities to determine whos responsible.

Several calls to Bietsans offices in Tekirdag went unanswered.

Suspects have been taken under custody who are thought to be involved in the various parts of this organized crime against Mercuria, the Geneva-based Mercuria said in a written statement in which it thanked the Istanbul Financial Crimes Department.

The story was pieced together from legal documents, interviews and local media reports.

Copper Switched

Last June, Mercuria agreed to buy copper from Bietsan, a Turkish supplier it had done business with before, according to Sinan Borovali, the trading houses lawyer in Turkey. It appears that copper was initially loaded into the first shipment of containers, before being surveyed by an inspection company. Seals used to prevent fraud were then affixed to the containers.

But under the cover of darkness, it is alleged the containers were opened and the copper replaced with paving stones, Borovali of Istanbul law firm KYB said in an interview. The fraudsters switched between fake and real container seals in an effort to avoid detection.

As ships left Marport terminal in the port of Ambarli every few days, the same thing happened: the copper was secretly unloaded at night and replaced with painted rocks. This was how they did it, Borovali said.

With the vessels at sea, Mercuria paid $36 million in five installments with the last payment made on Aug. 20, 2020, according to documents provided by the commodity trader to Turkish investigators. The fraud wasnt discovered until the ships began arriving in the Chinese port of Lianyungang later that month. By then, all eight vessels were en route to China.

Organized Crime

There has been a criminal investigation petition by the buyer against the seller and two intermediaries, Turkish police said in a statement. Its been determined that the incident is the outcome of fraud perpetrated in an organized manner.

Normally, in such cases of non-delivery a trading house could make a claim against a cargos insurance policy. But Mercuria found that just one out of seven contracts used by the Turkish company to insure the cargo was real. The rest had been forged.

The 13 suspected fraudsters were taken into custody this month in a series of police raids. Some have since been allowed to leave custody and placed under house arrest, according to local newswire reports. More hearings on the case are expected from this week.
Vietnam Womens Union last week marked 35 years since establishment of the Kovalevskaia Award, Photo: Phuong Hoa

Lead by Associate Prof. Le Thi Quynh Mai, the successful team includes Dr. Hoang Vu Mai Phuong, Associate Prof. Nguyen Le Khanh Hang, MSc. Le Thi Thanh, MSc. Ung Thi Hong Trang, MSc. Nguyen Phuong Anh, MSc. Tran Thi Thu Huong, BSc. Pham Thi Hien, and BSc. Hoang Thu Huong.

According to Mai, the team isolated the virus to gain full information about it, then compare it with the virus strains detected in China and Vietnam to identify variations.

Their success facilitated the production of rapid test kits while improving the ability to test thousands of specimens every day if needed. At the same time, it is a key foundation for researching therapies, developing specific diagnostic products, and producing vaccines.

Previously, the laboratory was the first unit to collect, isolate, and identify the causes of SARS and avian influenza A/H5N1 virus in Vietnam in 2003.

The laboratory under the NIHE is a member of the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System, regularly updating monthly influenza virological data to the World Health Organizations FluNet network, as well as sharing representative strains of seasonal flu from Vietnam annually (50 strains a year) with standard research centres to select components for making influenza vaccines.

With these great contributions, the members of the laboratory were honoured with the Kovalevskaia Award, which was also bestowed upon the laboratory back in 1998. It was the first national award for female scientists and is a prestigious annual award highlighting the achievements of female scientists.

Mai said that up to 70 per cent of the staff at the NIHE are female, who make up nine of the 12 employees at the InfluenzaLaboratory.

I hope that the next generation of scientists will maintain the institutes traditions in scientific research and that more research projects will be recognised by the scientific community and society in general, Mai said.

The latest event surrounding the Kovalevskaia Award took place in Hanoi just last Friday, as the Vietnam Womens Union marked 35 years of the awards existence.

This years awardees include a group of female scientists from the Institute of Natural Products, the Institute of Chemistry, and the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

Upon collecting her award, Professor. Dr. Truong Thanh Huong of Hanoi Medical University said, This award has encouraged young doctors, especially clinical doctors, to apply academic knowledge in practice. Not only in treatment, but also in seeking better preventive measures. The award has helped increase peoples trust in doctors during the process of diagnosis and treatment.

Chairwoman of the Kovalevskaia Award Committee Nguyen Thi Doan and Chairwoman of the Vietnam Womens Union Ha Thi Nga took part in the event with this years awardees.

The prestigious annual prize, named after the great Russian female mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaia, is awarded to female academics with excellent achievements in the sciences or arts and humanities.

The Vietnamese version of the Kovalevskaia awards were first established in 1985.
Who will be the next CM of Assam? Sarbananda Sonowal or Himanta Biswa Sarma?

Assam breaks all records in poll seizures, Rs 18cr worth items caught so far

India

pti-Deepika S

Guwahati, Mar 09: Assam broke all previous records in seizures of cash, liquor, drugs and other goods in the run-up to the Assembly polls with various agencies already confiscating over Rs 18 crore worth of items and arresting around 110 people in the last 11 days, officials said on Tuesday.

The highest amount of seizures worth over Rs 5.72 crore took place during the 24 hours, starting 9 am on Sunday, an official told PTI.

After the polls were notified on February 26, all election districts in Assam formed a minimum of three Static Surveillance Teams (SST) and Flying Squads (FS) each, with some even having six such teams each, he added.

"We have 50 election districts and each has at least six teams of SST and FS. So, we have a minimum of 756 teams working across the state. The seizures by all state and central agencies along with SST and FS have crossed all figures of last elections," the official said.

Since the Model Code of Conduct came into force, the agencies have seized an overall Rs 18.31 crore worth of items till Monday, according to the daily seizure report of the Election Department, Assam.

It includes Rs 4.27 crore in cash, liquor (3.58 lakh litres) worth Rs 5.52 crore, Rs 4 crore worth drugs and other narcotics substances, Rs 1 crore worth precious metals such as gold and silver, and Rs 3.52 crore of other items like different freebies.

The various teams and agencies have arrested 100 persons for involvement in illegal liquor and eight persons for narcotics-related crimes since the Model Code of Conduct came into force.

The highest 26 persons were arrested from the Cachar district, followed by 16 in Goalpara and 13 in Sivasagar during the last 11 days, another report by the Election Department said.

On Monday night, Rs 19.55 lakh cash was recovered from three persons in the Barpeta constituency by an SST. As they failed to produce any valid document for the cash, the currencies were seized and deposited at the Treasury Office.

Following such huge seizures across the state, a review meeting was held on Monday in presence of Special Central Observers of the Election Commission with various regulatory agencies.

The meeting was attended by the Special General Observer Sudarsanam Srinivasan, Special Police Observer Ashok Kumar and Special Expenditure Observer Neena Nigam along with Additional Chief Electoral Officer Vinod Seshan, EC Director General Dharmendra Sharma and EC Expenditure Director Pankaj Srivastava.

"A detailed discussion over functioning of various regulatory agencies regarding search, seizure and maintenance of Law and Order and expenditure monitoring was done," an official statement said.

Various regulatory agencies such as Excise, Police, DRI, NCB, SLBC (SBI), Income Tax, RPF, CISF, CGST, SSB and BSF presented their performance report with regards to search and seizure.

Batla House encounter case | BJP slams Congress | Oneindia News

Of the total 126 seats in Assam Assembly, elections to 47 will be held on March 27, while 39 will go to polls on April 1 and voting in the remaining 40 seats will be held on April 6.

The counting of votes in Assam will take place on May 2 along with those in four more states.
Pork on pork with cheese, pickles and mustard stacked between slabs of squishy pressed bread  there are few sandwiches out there more perfect than a good Cubano. And one new operation has taken that Caribbean classic and turned it into the most puro San Antonio version youll find.

Swing by the new Southtown cocktail lounge Amor Eterno, belly up to the bar and order the Tejano Cubano ($18). Its easily the best version of this sandwich Ive had in years. This stellar sammie comes from the team behind contract kitchen operators Bucho Tejano Street Fare, a separate business cooking modernized bar bites in the kitchen of Amor Eterno and the neighboring Bar America.
Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
(Corrects number of AstraZeneca vaccines that arrived on Sunday from 525,600 to 38,400 and total received so far from 1 million to 525,600, both in 7th graf)

March 6 (Reuters) - Moderna Inc said on Saturday it has agreed to supply the Philippines government with 13 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, with deliveries set to begin in mid-2021.

The company will work with regulators to pursue necessary approvals before distribution, it said in a press release.

Moderna said it expected to reach a separate deal with the Philippines government and private sector to supply an additional 7 million doses.

The deal will boost the supply of COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippines, which on March 1 began its campaign to inoculate 70 million of its 108 million people to achieve herd immunity and reopen an economy that in 2020 saw its worst contraction on record.

The Philippines, which is battling one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia, reported 3,276 confirmed cases on Sunday, the third straight day that the daily figure has remained above 3,000 or levels last seen in October.

Its food and drug regulator has so far approved for emergency use COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, AstraZeneca PLC and Sinovac Biotech.

Officials on Sunday also took delivery of 38,400 more doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, bringing to 525,600 the total number of AstraZeneca vaccines the Philippines has so far received via the COVAX facility.

"These vaccines are essential in maintaining the momentum of our vaccine roll out," Carlito Galvez, the former general who heads the government's vaccine strategy, said in a statement.

Galvez is leading government negotiations with seven global vaccine makers to secure 161 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. (Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Richard Chang and Louise Heavens)
"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, when we could have said  no. But somehow we missed it." Tom Stoppard

The millions of Americans who were paying attention throughout the 2020 election campaign all became painfully aware of the fact that Joe Biden's cognitive abilities were slipping and slipping fast. His wife, as the person closest to him, should have been the one to call the campaign quits in order to reduce stress on the man.

Instead, apparently so anxious to become the first lady by any means necessary, Mrs. Biden continued to push her failing husband's campaign forward as if he were mentally qualified. All those around him knew as well he was in the throes of dementia; it was impossible to miss the signs.



Via Twitter.



Twitter video screen grab (cropped).

They too ignored the obvious, and because they always believe that the American people are, as a collective, an order of fries short of a Happy Meal, they thought we wouldn't notice. Not only was his progressive neurological dimming clear, but so was the fact that at no time throughout the campaign could he draw a crowd. We all saw that he could not give even a short talk without a giant teleprompter. The man was toast then. Now he is burnt toast. He no longer credibly reads even that jumbo teleprompter.

Each attempt to speak since Inauguration Day has been an embarrassing disaster. And there is the not-Dr. Jill to step in to complete his sentences when she should be making the announcement that we all know is coming. She must be waiting for the Democrats to implement that 25th Amendment they had hoped to use to get rid of President Trump. She should be very, very ashamed of herself for allowing poor Joe to suffer the indignities of encroaching dementia in public.

Given the tragic crisis on the border once again, it's a safe bet that many Democrats are secretly missing the best president since Reagan. Trump had the border under control. That was one reason the unemployment for all minorities got to its lowest levels ever! But Joe stopped the border wall construction on day two, after ending tens of thousands of great jobs on the Keystone Pipeline on day one.

After just eight weeks in office, Biden has been a one-man wrecking ball to American jobs, energy independence, and border security. Under Trump, the Border Patrol and ICE were allowed to do their job, which, like all law enforcement, was and is to protect this nation and its legal citizens. And we are to believe that Americans chose Biden to undo the tremendous successes of the Trump administration? No chance. Every poll, even those rigged by leftists, shows that Americans do not support the violence perpetrated by Antifa and BLM. They do not support defunding the police in any state or city. Sure, those anti-White racists do support those groups and policies, but they are a minority. Ask any Black mother trying to keep her sons alive beyond the age of fifteen in Chicago or Baltimore.

As for the we-love-COVID crowd, those who have embraced the absurd fear of a bio-weaponized flu that 98% of those who get it recover from, those self-appointed mask police who keep moving the goal lines since the "curve" was flattened a year ago, they too deserve contempt. Once the flu is gone, they are bound to try to re-impose all the restrictions on our essential freedoms they so loved and for the equally absurd and phony issue of climate change. Ask the Texans how all that global warming is working out for them.

And then there is the border. Whoever is calling the shots for all the Biden executive orders is having a grand old time at our expense. These people are destroying the America we once knew faster than anyone could have thought possible. Obama gave them a good start, but they are surely capitalizing on their joy of uninhibited freedom with the White House, and their bare majorities in the House and Senate, in order to lurch these United States into Venezuela-style totalitarianism. Like the ruling elites of that South American nation, they are certain that all their destructive mandates inflicted on "the people" will never alter their or their children's lives. And they probably won't.

Almost all of those among the Democrat elites with power are multi-millionaires if not billionaires already. They have no fear of their lives being impacted by their oligarchical rule over the rest of us. They do not even fear the COVID that is streaming over the border into the U.S. by the thousands, too many to be tested. Californians Pelosi, Newsom, and Feinstein have all been photographed indoors in public without masks.

And what of the ridiculous transformation of our Capitol? DC now resembles the Green Zone the Americans built in Iraq to keep out terrorists. Nancy Pelosi feels no qualms about abusing all those patriotic National Guard troops who are being fed virtually inedible food and are being asked to stand around and freeze as props for her farcical fear of "right-wing extremists" like QAnon, a shadowy online "group" of two or three people that no conservative ever took seriously. So invested in that inane conspiracy theory, she and her fellow fearmongers have made even bigger fools of themselves. They are, as some clever person coined them, members of the "Blue-anon" conspiracy, a term already banned from Google. Ha! It's everywhere else.

But in the end, no person is more reprehensible than Jill Biden. From the moment Joe decided to throw his hat in the ring, she should have put a stop to it. She of all people knows that the bulk of her family's wealth is ill gotten, via massive corruption and selling out to China, Ukraine, and MNBA. She knows exactly how depraved Hunter Biden is; she knows all about his many perversions, how many girls and women he has used and abused, some of them within her family. While much of it has come to light, soon it will all become common knowledge. Still, she thought Joe should be pushed into the campaign, certain that our wholly corrupt media would cover for both Joe and Hunter  and indeed, they did and continue to. But that won't last.

At this moment in time, Jill should be a bit nervous at how quickly so many Democrats are turning against the execrable Andrew Cuomo, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for good reasons. All those who spent a year singing his praises were utter fools because who and what Cuomo is has been obvious for simply ages, just as who and what Joe Biden is has been evident for over forty years. He was never an honest, intelligent nor a good man, never. And now, thanks to Jill's Meghan Marklelike wannabe-ism, America is being ruined, executive order by executive order, and a horde of Democrats in Congress who have no spine or a shred of real love of the country that gave them the privileges they now enjoy are too scared of Pelosi and Schumer to object.

If there are traits that characterize powerful Democrats, it is gross ingratitude coupled with arrogance. There is no more serious character flaw than ingratitude. Coupled with a lust for power over others, it is ruinous. Those who are responsible for making Biden the 2020 candidate and for rigging the election in the numerous ways they did should have stopped and thought a bit about the consequences of their plans. They should have said no.
An Air France flight was forced to make an emergency landing after a rowdy passenger yelled comments about Jesus and appeared to attack a flight attendant.

Footage has been released of the irate Indian passenger on the journey from Ghana to New Delhi via Paris on Friday evening.

The video was recorded by a fellow passenger and shows a maskless man - who has not been identified - dressed in a white shirt in a confrontation with another passenger.

An Air France flight was to make emergency landing after a rowdy passenger yelled comments about Jesus and appeared to attack a flight attendant

The man can be heard shouting 'the Hindu has awakened' and raising his hand in the air repeatedly while a male flight attendant tries to calm him down.

'Modi is calling them,' he shouts, adding, 'don't dare to touch, Modi,' before making lewd comments about Jesus, including, 'Jesus ko jana hoga' which roughly translates to 'Jesus has to go.'

Ivailo Angelov, an official at the National Investigation Agency said the passenger began to act up soon after take-off, arguing with other passengers, assaulting a flight attendant and hitting the cockpit's door.

Other passengers can be seen wearing face masks while the man does not.

Some passengers can be heard shouting at the man and questioning his behaviour, with one woman asking him: 'What the f*** is wrong with you?'

Other passengers can be seen wearing face masks while the man causing the disruption does not

Footage has been released of the journey from Ghana to New Delhi via Paris on Friday evening

The rowdy passenger is then ushered away from his seat by the male flight attendant towards an exit door

The rowdy passenger is then ushered away from his seat by the male flight attendant towards an exit door, where another male passenger can be seen grabbing hold of him and trying to calm him down.

However, the man appears to be unfazed and even tries to hit the flight attendant while continuing to shout at his fellow passenger - and then begins banging on the cockpit door.

He tells the flight attendant that he will 'kick his a**' while charging at him.

As shocked passengers watch on, a flight attendant can be heard over the PA system asking everyone to remain seated

The incident unfolded soon after the flight took off from Paris and the plane was subsequently forced to make an emergency landing in Bulgaria

As shocked passengers watch on, a flight attendant can be heard over the PA system asking everyone to remain seated.

The incident unfolded soon after the flight took off from Paris and the plane was subsequently forced to make an emergency landing in Bulgaria.

The passenger, who is reportedly a staunch follower of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was later detained for 72 hours at Bulgaria's Sofia Airport after being removed from the aircraft.

He has been charged with endangering flight safety and if convicted faces up to 10 years in prison.

Angelov told reporters: 'We are investigating both his actions and his motives.

'There is no reasonable explanation for his behaviour.'
Peru began its second stage of immunizations on Monday with the vaccination of 3,000 home-bound senior citizens over the age of 80, as well armed forces personnel.

Dozens of health worker teams visited homes to inoculate seniors with doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The vaccinators also began immunizing members of the national police and the military in various barracks around the country.

An estimated 500 police officers have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began a year ago in this Andean nation.

Authorities say that another additional group of 8,700 older adults who can still get around by their own means will be vaccinated in the next few days in six points of the capital.

Peru currently has more than 1.3 million infected and more than 47,800 deaths from the new coronavirus. In addition to Pfizer, Peru has purchased 1 million Sinopharm vaccines.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Workers with Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs teams assist as the right-hand forward segment for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS).

The segment is lowered onto the center forward segment on the mobile launcher in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 23, 2021. Stacking of the twin five-segment boosters on the mobile launcher is nearing completion. When the core stage arrives, it will join the boosters on the mobile launcher, followed by the interim cryogenic propulsion stage and Orion spacecraft.

Manufactured by Northrop Grumman in Utah, the twin boosters provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust at launch. The SLS is managed by Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Under the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will test the Orion spacecraft and SLS as an integrated system ahead of crewed flights to the Moon.

Photo credit: NASA/Glenn Benson KSC-20210223-PH-GEB01_0036 Larger image



Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
Emmanuel Macron: The Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenias sovereign territory

Armenia 3rd President on authorities and the upcoming elections

Armenia 3rd President reacts to photos of bodies of soldiers in freezer: It felt like the blood froze in my veins

Armenia Ombudsman addresses OSCE officials in regard to Ilham Aliyev's Armenophobic statements

Turkey's Erdogan expresses willingness to support Georgia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral cooperation

Armenia acting MOD visits Border Guards Department of Russia Federal Security Service

French-Armenians hold protest against Armenia acting PM's visit to France

Karabakh ex-Ombudsman appointed State Minister

Rapid reaction service set up ahead of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia

Armenia has new ambassador to Ukraine

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are ready to visit the Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia President appoints judges

Wargonzo: Russian MOD is dealing with settlement of conflict in Armenia's Syunik Province on a daily basis

Armenia police encircle stage placed at Republic Square (PHOTO)

Yerkir.am: ARF-D Bureau member: Armenia acting PM ignored Macron's phone calls on November 9, 2020

7 EU countries start issuing vaccination certificates

Latest on scandal over improper storage of Armenian soldiers bodies, more on COVID-19, Jun. 1

Armenia Constitutional Court launches case proceedings based on President's application

Armenia acting emergency situations minister says he's concerned about situation in army

Armenia acting education, science, culture and sport minister receives ICRC Delegation

Armenia ex-President Sargsyan nephew acquitted

Armenia deputy police chief: No real cases of vote-buying reported to date

Armenia human rights activists: Nearly 10 protesters detained during protest in front of government building

Audit Chamber director: About half of Armenia state agencies, institutions were not audited in 2020

Robert Kocharyan: Acting PM is an unsuccessful, political Lilliput

Armenia 2nd President: Authorities shamelessly deceived people throughout the 44-day war

Acting emergency situations minister: Armenia's Seismic Protection Service is the best in the region

Dollar gains value in Armenia

Macron: France will work towards restoration of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Richard Ferrand: France stands with Armenia

Armenia 2nd President: Incumbent authorities failed to fulfill their promises

Armenia Diaspora Youth Ambassador Program is launched

Yerevan court rules to conditionally release man who attempted to assassinate ex-presidential candidate

People came to power in Armenia who consistently destroyed army combat-readiness, says ex-President Kocharyan

Armenia 2nd President rules out collaboration with Nikol Pashinyan

Central Bank chief: Armenia national debt exceeded 63% of GDP

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Turkey persistently crosses boundaries of permissibility

Finance ministry: Armenia 2020 economic growth forecasts are revised downwards

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is disgrace when law enforcement agencies are subject to PM himself

US sells oil seized from Iran

Robert Kocharyan: Government does not pay enough attention to security issues

Armenia 1st President spokesperson: Ter-Petrosyan has nothing to speak with the nation-destroying plague

Armenia acting PM orders internal investigation into case of storage conditions of fallen soldiers bodies, remains

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan gives interview to Russia newspaper

Armenia acting deputy PM on unblocking of roads with Azerbaijan: There will be no troops standing there

Nikkei: Toyota and Honda stop car production in Malaysia

Armenia official on deploying international observers at Azerbaijan border: You will hear reaction on this matter soon

USAID helps UN World Food Programme support displaced people in Armenia

Armenia official: Work of trilateral working group on roads unblocking has stopped after recent incidents

Russias Putin to Armenias Pashinyan: Relations between our countries are developing very successfully

Armenia health minister: Improper storage of fallen soldiers bodies, remains was my omission

108 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia President to children: I believe that you will make our country much better

Armenia CEC publicizes complete lists of political forces registered to run in snap parliamentary elections

World oil prices going up

Queen Elizabeth turns down PM's offer to name new royal yacht after Prince Philip

Armenia parliament discusses 2020 state budget report

Newspaper: Armenia acting FM resigns after 3rd attempt

Newspaper: Yerevan mayor to leave office

Israel, UAE sign tax treaty

Newspaper: Even vagrants are persuaded, taken to Armenia acting PM Pashinyans rally in Vanadzor

Swedish defense minister demands explanation from Denmark over spy scandal

Acting Deputy PM: Armenia has not discussed and will not discuss issues within logic of "corridor"

Armenia Central Electoral Commission determines numbers of political parties for elections

Armenia 2nd President visits Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gyumri (PHOTOS)

Opposition Armenia bloc representative: We're running in elections to win

Azerbaijan MFA comments on calls for release of Armenian POWs with infinite hypocrisy

EC: Vaccinated citizens should be exempted from tests, quarantine when traveling within EU

Armenia Ombudsman discusses rights of 6 captured Armenian servicemen with ICRC Delegation head

EU ready to use all the tools at its disposal to change Turkey's behavior

Yerevan court obliges to abolish violation of rights of Armenia Supreme Judicial Council ex-chairman

Greek and Turkish leaders to meet in June on sidelines of NATO summit

Armenia Central Electoral Commission to set up 2,008 polling stations for snap parliamentary elections

Iranian companies to participate in reconstructing territories under Azerbaijan's control

Opposition Armenia bloc's representative on acting PM's invitation to debate with 1st and 2nd Presidents

Armenia acting FM dismissed upon presidential decree

Body of brother of Armenian criminal authority "Don Pipo" found under bridge

Armenia Prosecutor General holds consultation

Digest on Armenian local news, EU is ready to help Armenia, Azerbaijan with border issues, 31.05.21

Relatives of missing Armenian servicemen open Heratsi Street in Yerevan

Armenia acting PM to pay working visits to Paris and Brussels

Armenia bloc representative on FM's resignation and National Security Service

Armenia Investigative Committee: Fatal road accident, criminal case opened

Armenia deputy FM submits resignation

Chinese authorities allow families to have 3 children

Dollar devalues in Armenia

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan creates bridgeheads for pressure on Karabakh, expansion towards Armenia

Sergey Lavrov says Russia is ready to disconnect SWIFT

Armenia MFA spokesperson resigns

Republican Party of Armenia Vice-President: Our ratings are growing, but we have greater pretensions

Armenia acting PM's spokesperson responds to ex-FM

Armenia parliament majority leader: Refusing to debate with acting PM is manifestation of low self-confidence

Armenia State Revenue Committee, US Department of Justice sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Vardevanyan: Attempts made to create false grounds for obstructing Armenia bloc election offices legal activities

Lavrov says Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO

Armenia opposition MP on FM's resignation

India records lowest increase in COVID-19 cases in 50 days

Bright Armenia faction in parliament: No response to acting PM's proposal to deploy observers along Azerbaijan border

Ruling bloc MP: Acting premiers proposal does not limit Armenia in terms of cooperation with CSTO

Acting PM is proud of Armenian servicemens heroism, says parliament majority leader
English Danish

COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENT

Odense, March 9th, 2021

Company Announcement no. 23 - 09.03.2021

Danish Aerospace Company A/S issues Annual report for 2020

The Board of Directors of Danish Aerospace Company A/S (DAC) have today approved the audited annual report for 2020.

Key points from the 2020 Annual Report

Revenue grew to DKK 22.1M.

EBITDA amounts to DKK 3.0M.

DACs equity amounts to DKK 19.9M as of December 31 st, 2020.

2020. DACs work with the multi-functional exercise machine E4D for ESA and the FERGO-ergometer for NASA, is progressing as planned.

DACs contract on health-monitoring support of astronauts on ISS has been extended till the end of 2021.

DAC has become part of the NORDIN 2020 Cohort project, to further explore the potential for wearables and space technology in India.

The revenue and profit have to some extent been affected negatively by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused delays in some projects with a subsequent shifting of revenue and profit from 2020 to 2021. No projects nor contracts have been lost during the pandemic.

Despite the pandemic and its challenges, the DAC employees have kept a great working attitude and cadence in their work, so the projects have continued to move forward.

DAC realized earnings from operations before depreciations and amortization (EBITDA), of DDK 3.0M. Earnings before tax were DKK 0.5M. The Companys equity amounts to DKK 19.9M as of December 31st, 2020.

The companys revenue continued to grow and again in 2020 reached a new record level with DKK 22.1M in 2020. Both revenue and earnings have, to some extent, been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as previously reported in the 2019 Annual Report and the 2020 Interim Report. However, in the light of the COVID-19 impact, the Management finds it very satisfactory, that the company has not lost a single order during this period. The annual results, however, have been affected by delays due to the pandemic, which specifically have caused part of the revenue, approx. DKK 2.0M including earnings of DKK 1.0M to be pushed into 2021.

DAC has reached the profit level despite substantial investments in development of future products for space operations and other extreme environments in addition to staff increase in accordance with the business plan to be able to comply with the strategy.

In 2020, the European Space Agency (ESA) extended the companys MOSES-contract (Medical Operation Support & Engineering Services) through 2021, meanwhile adding several additional orders. The contract includes support for the regular health monitoring- and physiological tests, which are conducted on The International Space Station (ISS). The physical tests are completed on the companys CEVIS (Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization System) and PPFS (Portable Pulmonary Function System) health monitoring equipment.

Development of FERGO space ergometers for Jacobs/NASA and of E4D for ESA, as well as other contract activities continued overall as planned, though with minor impacts due to delays at subcontractors related to COVID-19.

Sales promotion initiatives and business development activities have been affected significantly by COVID-19 throughout the year. All planned meetings and conferences post February 2020, both within the space industry and in commercial areas, have been either cancelled or postponed. This caused a decline in the companys business development activities. Despite this, DAC has still seen a solid increase of new contracts, contract extensions and additions to existing development- and service contracts.

DAC continues to see a growing interest for its new E4D multipurpose exercise equipment, which combines four types of exercise in one equipment, and have in this regard applied for and obtained four patents. This growing interest can potentially, over time, result in new contracts, with both private commercial space companies and/or national space agencies.

In the late spring, DAC became part of the NODIN 2020 Cohort project to further explore the opportunities for future collaborations within wearables- and space technology in India. This work is still ongoing and has paved the way for new opportunities, which DAC is exploring further.

Again, this year, the company passed the regular audit of the companys AS/EN9100 standard, rev. D quality control system by Bureau Veritas and are thus still one of the very few space companies in Denmark with this certification.

Despite the pandemic and its challenges, the DAC employees have kept a great working attitude and cadence in their work, so the projects have continued to move forward.

Expectations for the 2021 fiscal year.

DAC expects higher revenue and operating profit in 2021. The company is working determinedly with new internal development projects for promising areas within private space travel and the commercial market for extreme environments. The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to continue to affect the progress in 2021, primarily due to delays within certain activities.

DACs expectations for 2021 are:

Revenue of DKK 22-25M; and

positive EBITDA of DKK 3-5M.

DACs annual General Assembly will take place on April 12th, 2021. DAC expect to publish its interim report for 2021 on August 24th, 2021.

Attached file: DAC Annual Report 2020. (Colour version)

The final annual report for 2020 will be available on the companys website by April 12th, 2021 via the link below:

Announcements - Danish Aerospace Company





For further information, please contact:

Danish Aerospace Company A/S:

Chairman of the Board of Directors Niels Heering

Mobil: +45 40 17 75 31

CEO Thomas A.E. Andersen

Mobil: +45 40 29 41 62

Certified Adviser:

Gert Mortensen, Partner

Baker Tilly Corporate Finance P/S

Poul Bundgaards Vej 1

DK-2500 Valby

Tlf.: +45 33 45 10 00

www.bakertilly.dk

About Danish Aerospace Company A/S:

Danish Aerospace Company is a high-tech company operating in the area of advanced medical instrumentation and other engineering fields primarily within space applications. Our products are based on many years of specialized research and development. These consist of developing, integrating, and applying new as well as established medical technologies to the challenges of functioning and remaining reliable in space. These products and services bring the potential of space research and experience from space operations down to Earth for the benefit of all Mankind.

Danish Aerospace Company employs engineers and technicians who deliver full engineering, production and technical services for our customers. We have specialized in customer specific design, development, manufacturing, certification, maintenance, testing, and operations.

The company has developed five generations respiratory equipment for spaceflight, bicycle ergometers for astronauts, countermeasures, adapted several commercial medical equipment for spaceflight and has participated in the development of the minus eighty degree celsius freezers.

The Companys quality system is certified in obligation to BS EN ISO 9001:2015, BS EN 9100:2018 technical equivalent to AS9100D that is the acknowledged standard in the area.

Note: This is a translation of the corresponding Company Announcement in Danish. In case of discrepancies between the Danish wording and the English translation, the Danish wording prevails.

Attachment
Hanh Le - Country representative, Global Green Growth Institute in Vietnam In April 2020, I took on the role of country representative for the Global Green Growth Institute in Vietnam. It was a time of fear for our health, of uncertainty for the economy, of loss in our normal way of life, of separation from our loved ones. I took on the role with the extra weight on my shoulders to ensure safety for our staff and ensure business goes on uninterrupted. Strategic considerations have to be balanced with practical reality. In the midst of the crisis, the three golden principles that I adopted as my guiding posts have really helped me get through these challenging times. First, staff safety and wellbeing is always the number one criteria in my decision-making. Second, being open to accept help from others is a sign of strength, not weakness. Third, making it count is at the core of everything I do. In a time of crisis, we no longer have the luxury to be complacent. I want my actions to be as impactful as possible. And as a result, our team and business have grown over the pandemic crisis, and is expected to even triple in size this year. I strongly believe that Vietnamese women can be successful in any situation we are put in. For the post-pandemic era, the key messages I would like to send to young girls and women in our country are to be yourself: be authentic. Keep your hopes alive and never give up your dreams. Support other women, especially in a difficult time like this, and above all, be grateful. As author Amy Collette said, Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness And remember, you cannot and should not try to please everyone  keep in mind my first advice and find a way to be true to yourself. Thai Van Linh - Shark Tank Vietnam One of the biggest lessons that I have learned over the years is that it is very important to surround yourself with people who are supportive and who are very talented. Once you have built a support network, it is even more important to practice how to ask for help. I think many of us think that we have to do everything on our own. If we work hard enough, we can do everything. We think that we have to be the perfect colleague, the perfect mum, and the perfect friend  but the reality is that nobody is perfect. Especially in difficult times like the past year, it is especially important to know when to help others and when to ask for help. I always think of one of my favorite quotes, If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. COVID-19 has created a lot of changes in the business environment. Some of these changes are particularly advantageous for women. The first is the acceptance of work from home by many companies. So for women who chose to opt out of an office job because of children, now is the time to consider joining the workforce again. The new normal has created an environment that makes it easier to work from home and therefore, easier for women to balance taking care of children, taking care of the home, as well as having a thriving career. The changes in the workforce have also forced many people to learn new skills. So if you find that your skills are outdated, or that you do not have the right skills to pursue a job in the new economy, then now is the perfect time to start learning because everybody else is also learning something new. So when you apply for a job, the people you are competing against could likely be people who are new to the field or do not have as many years of experience. So it is a great time for anybody who wants to upskill or get back into the workforce.
New Delhi: Yesterday, the entire country was celebrating International Women's Day and saluting Nari Shakti. On the occasion of Women's Day, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wished all the women of the country.

Meanwhile, a special program for women was also organized by the Delhi Commission for Women. The brave women of the country were honoured in this program. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also honoured Farmer 'Dadi' Mohinder Kaur for her courage in supporting the Kisan Andolan.

Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi Women's Commission President Swati Maliwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia were also present on the occasion. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also honoured the scientists of the Chandrayaan Mission on the occasion of Women's Day for shining India's name in the space sector.

In his address during the program, the Delhi Chief Minister said, "I would like to congratulate the Delhi Commission for Women for taking the initiative to bring the special work of the common man to the notice of the people." They select and bring diamonds from all over the country which have worked for the betterment of the society."
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, shocked the world in their sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey. The married couple, who now reside in California, discussed issues theyve dealt with for years with the royal family. Their revelations included racist allegations, stories of isolation, and difficulties with securing mental health help.

In the interview, Meghan also expressed that she experienced suicidal ideation while pregnant with their son, Archie. Both Harry and Meghan said that Meghan was welcomed into the family at first. But there was a turning point. The moment that changed it all was a direct parallel to an episode of The Crown.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Chris Jackson  Pool/Getty Images

Is The Crown historically accurate?

Netflixs hit drama The Crown is historical fiction in that many storylines are based on real-life events. But the show, through its characters and dialogue, are fictional.

Seasons 1 and 2 focused on Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) and Prince Philip (Matt Smith) early on in their marriage. The following season introduced Prince Charles (Josh OConnor) and the rigid hold that the crown has over him. He pursued Camilla Parker Bowles (Emerald Fennell) but in season 4, was encouraged to court Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) instead.

The Crown showed Prince Charles and Princess Diana in Australia

RELATED: Prince Harry Just Said The Crown Is More Truthful Than the Media

Charles and Diana got married in The Crown Season 4. The episode Terra Nullius showcased their first tour to Australia after getting married. While there, the public got acquainted with Dianas charisma and beauty, up-close and personal. On the show, the couple mimicked an intimate dancing scene between the real-life Charles and Diana.

One of the factors that was different about Diana was how she interacted with people. Unlike Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, who created distance between themselves and the public, Diana touched and hugged people.

Charles vocalized his jealousy to Diana on the show. He expressed that she was taking attention away from him on his tour.

OConnor spoke about the episodes importance and what it meant for the couple in a Netflix clip, Beneath The Crown: The True Story of Charles & Dianas Australia Tour.

It tells almost their happiest moment and then, a kind of resurgence, a kind of toxic spell that happens with Diana, he said. Where she becomes the love of the nation. Shes the spotlight, and Charles kind of realizing that he lost his way. She is now the leading role in this marriage.

On The Crown, the tour in Australia was a breaking point between Charles and Diana. And in real life, Harry and Meghan attributed their own 2018 Australian tour as a turning point for them as a married couple and the royal family.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle went on a similar tour to Australia

Harry and Meghan did a similar tour when they were newlyweds. The duo went to Australia, Tonga, New Zealand, and Fiji in 2018.

It really changed after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour, Harry told Oprah in their interview on CBS. It was the first time that the family got to see how incredible [Meghan] is at the job.

Oprah mentioned the similarity to Charles and Dianas trip. She asked whether the royal family felt jealous toward Meghan.

I just wish that we would all learn from the past, Harry replied. He added how effortless Meghan transitioned into royal public life on the tour. He also claimed that she was one of the greatest assets to the Commonwealth that the family could have ever wished for.

You can stream The Crown on Netflix.

How to get help: In the U.S., call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Or text HOME to 741-741 to speak with a trained crisis counselor at the free Crisis Text Line.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
If Dolly Parton hadnt already qualified for American sainthood, she stands an even better shot now that shes made vaccination against COVID-19 fashionable, fun and even poetic.

Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, the 75-year-old country singer and song-writing genius sang last week to the tune of her classic song Jolene as she waited, perfectly attired in a blouse cutaway at the shoulders, to receive the Moderna vaccine she helped fund. Im begging of you, please dont hesitate.

The closing lyrics: because once youre dead, then thats a bit too late.

Despite her disarming humor and irrepressible giggle, she said she was dead serious that people holding off on vaccines should take the plunge: I just want to say to all of you cowards out there: Dont be such a chicken squat, she said. Get out there and get your shot.

We couldnt have said it better.

But if Partons message isnt enough to motivate you, heres some cold, hard, unpoetic truth: Its never been more important to get vaccinated in Texas, a state where only around 15 percent of the population has received at least one dose, lagging behind the national average, but where pandemic protections such as the statewide mask mandate and social distancing rules are being tossed out on Wednesday.

As weve said, Gov. Greg Abbotts decision is premature and was based on nothing more than politics. It ignores medical consensus on the vital role masks play in slowing the spread of coronavirus. He has ignored the pleas of Texas medical community and didnt even bother to consult three of his four medical advisers before announcing the move.

Its up to each of us to do everything we can to protect ourselves, our communities and our family members, including those stubborn loved ones who are eligible for the vaccine but have thus far demurred.

The reasons for resistance are mercifully falling away.

The fact that 90 million doses of vaccine have been distributed in the United States since mid-December, with only rare and mostly minor side effects reported, should reassure holdouts that the shots are safe.

ROBYN BECK, Contributor / AFP via Getty Images

Those whose opposition was borne of politics can take heart as well: We learned from news reports last week that former President Trump slinked off and got vaccinated before leaving office. Unfortunately, he chose not share that decision with the many Americans who may have been encouraged to follow his lead, but the revelation may provide delayed motivation.

More encouragement came Monday when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines for vaccinated Americans, giving them the long-awaited go-ahead to gather indoors, with or without masks or social distancing, with other healthy people who have been vaccinated. The OK even extends to visits with unvaccinated people from a single household as long as all members are at low risk for severe disease if they contract the coronavirus.

Thats cause for celebration for many Americans, but especially grandparents who havent been able to squeeze their grandkids, or their grown kids, in the past year. One caveat is that the visits should be local and not require travel, which the CDC still does not recommend for any American.

Hope, and normalcy, are the on the horizon, Texans. Thats why vigilance through this last stretch is so important. No more Americans should die needlessly of this horrible disease when its so close to being defeated.

Of course, defeat also carries a caveat. This virus is a wily one and has found ways to ensure its survival through mutation. Houston currently has all five major variations, including the rapidly accelerating United Kingdom variant, which studies have suggested is more transmissible and more deadly. Fortunately, vaccines being administered in the U.S. have proven effective against it.

But the South African variant is another story. The most widely used vaccines in the United States appear to be less effective against it and the AstraZeneca vaccine does not appear effective at all, Dr. Peter Hotez told the editorial board last week.

In response, vaccine producers are working hard to develop boosters that can be distributed later this year, said Hotez, a renowned vaccine researcher.

What that means, Hotez said, is that all Americans should get vaccinated as soon as possible and brace for another round of shots: the two-dose Moderna and Pfizer vaccines will become three-dose vaccines, and the one-dose Johnson & Johnson will become a two-dose.

No matter how many doses youre getting of a particular vaccine, add one because theres going to be a booster to follow for that South African variant, Hotez said.

This virus isnt sitting idle and neither should any Texan who remains unprotected in this deadly worldwide pandemic. If youre eligible, sign up for an appointment to get vaccinated. If youre not yet eligible, get your name on a waiting list. Your turn is fast approaching.

And if cold feet start to set in, remember Dollys refrain, to which we add our own reworking of Jolenes last verse:

We had to have this talk with you. Our many lives depend on you. And remember, just what you must do: vaccine.
Pope Francis concludes his Apostolic Journey to Iraq that took him to 6 cities and sites in the north and south of the country. He comforted the people, especially Catholics and Christians, harshly tried by sectarian violence and terrorism, and appealed for tolerance, fraternity, hope and peace.

By Robin Gomes

Pope Francis on Monday left Iraq, bringing the curtain down on the 33rd apostolic journey of his pontificate, and the first visit of a pontiff to the Middle Eastern country. After celebrating Mass in private at the Apostolic Nunciature, he left for Baghdads international airport after bidding farewell to the staff and friends at the nunciature.

Awaiting him at the airport were President Barham Salih and his wife. After a brief private meeting with Salih at the VIP lounge, the Holy Father was accompanied by him over the red carpet to the steps of the aircraft where he greeted Iraqi and Vatican delegations before boarding the plane. An Alitalia aircraft carrying him, his entourage and reporters flew out of the Iraqi capital at 9:54 am local time. He is expected to land in Rome at 12:45 pm, after a flight of a little over 5 hours.

The 4-day foreign visit, which began on Friday, came after a gap of a little over 15 months, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. His last international trip was to Thailand and Japan in November 2019. During the 4 days in Iraq, Pope Francis made Baghdad his base from where he flew to Najaf, Ur, Erbil, Mosul and Qaraqosh in the south and north of the country.

In the spirit of the motto of the apostolic journey - You are all brothers  from Matthews Gospel, the 84-year-old Pope encouraged Iraqis on this path, saying that only when they learn to look beyond their differences and see each other as members of the same human family will they be able to begin an effective process of rebuilding the country. Thus, they will leave future generations a better, more just and more humane world.

The Popes visit has a great significance not only for Iraq but also for the entire Middle East region, especially for Syria. In the footsteps of Christ, the Good Shepherd, the heart of the pastor of the Universal Church went out to seek his sheep, bruised and battered by sectarian strife and terrorism. Caressing them, he assured them they are not forgotten.

Iraqi President Barham Salih and his wife seeing off Pope Francis at Baghdad airport.

Iraq's martyred heartland

Sunday, the third day, was the most touching of the 4 days, flying north to visit Erbil, Mosul and Qaraqosh. There too he reiterated his appeal for fraternity, hope and peace.

Listening to the Muslims and Christians of the ruined city of Mosul, about the brutality they faced under the terror of Islamic State (IS), the Pope Francis blessed their resolve to rise from the ashes, joining hands together. Fraternity is more durable than fratricide, hope is more powerful than hatred, peace more powerful than war, the Pope assured them during prayers for the dead.

Iraq's Christian community, one of the oldest in the world, has been particularly devastated by the years of conflict, falling to about 300,000 from about 1.5 million before the U.S. invasion of 2003. Taking advantage of the chaos that followed, the IS militants overran northern Iraq in 2014 in a bid to establish a caliphate in the region. It carried out its brutal onslaught against Christians, minorities and even Muslims who opposed them. Much of the old city of Mosul was destroyed in 2017 during the bloody battle by Iraqi forces and an international military coalition to drive out the terrorists.



In Mosul, the Holy Father was visibly moved to see the extensive destruction all around him with the wrecked shells of churches, homes and buildings amid the debris.

In Qaraqosh, a Christian stronghold that was overrun by IS fighters, the Pope visited the Church of the Immaculate Conception, whose courtyard was used by the militants as a firing range for practice. He urged the local Christian community to rebuild their communities based on forgiveness and fraternity.

Before returning to Baghdad on Sunday, the Holy Father celebrated an evening Mass for some 10,000 people in the stadium of Erbil. At the end of the Eucharistic celebration, which the last public event of his Iraqi trip, Pope Francis bade farewell to the nation. "Iraq will always remain with me, in my heart, he said. During his time among them, he said, he heard voices of sorrow and loss, but also voices of hope and consolation. He encouraged them to work together in unity for a future of peace and prosperity that leaves no one behind and discriminates against no one. I pray that the members of the various religious communities, together with all men and women of goodwill, may work together to forge bonds of fraternity and solidarity in the service of the good and of peace. He concluded by exclaiming, salam, salam, salam, meaning "peace, peace, peace" in Arabic!

Pope Francis meeting Iraqi and Vatican officials before boarding the plane.

The cause of migrants

A significant event took place after Mass when the Pope met the father of the three-year-old toddler, Alan Kurdi, who became a symbol of the tragic crossings of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. His dead body along with that of his mother and brother washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015 in their bid to enter Europe.

Inter-religious dialogue and amity

The previous day, Saturday, the Pope flew to Najaf in central Iraq, where he privately met the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the worlds leading figures among Shiite Muslims, who form some 60 percent of Iraqs population. During the highly significant encounter, the Holy Sees Press Office said, the Holy Father stressed the importance of cooperation and friendship between religious communities for contributing  through the cultivation of mutual respect and dialogue  to the good of Iraq, the region and the entire human family. The meeting was an occasion for the Pope to thank Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani for speaking up  together with the Shiite community  in defence of those most vulnerable and persecuted amid the violence and great hardships of recent years, and for affirming the sacredness of human life and the importance of the unity of the Iraqi people.

From Najaf, the Holy Father proceeded to Ur of the Chaldeans, which tradition says is the site of Abrahams home, the Biblical figure who is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims. After a prayer meeting with representatives of the three religions he flew back to Baghdad, where, in the evening, he celebrated his first Mass, called the Divine liturgy, in Iraq in the Chaldean Cathedral of St. Joseph. In a homily, he reflected on how Christians can help God fulfil His promises for the world by living and witnessing to love in the Beatitudes.

To commemorate the meetings in Najaf and UR, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has declared 6 March as the annual National Day for Tolerance and Coexistence.

Pope Francis boarding an Alitalia aircraft before flying out of Baghdad.

Call to tolerance and fraternal solidarity



The Pope began his Iraqi visit landing in Baghdad Friday afternoon. In the first important meeting of the day, he pointed to the countrys authorities, civil society groups and diplomats the path toward a genuine recovery of the nation following years of conflict and terrorism. The problems facing the nation can be overcome by building a society based on fraternity, solidarity, tolerance and coexistence, through concrete acts of care and service, especially for the vulnerable and those most in need. The Holy Father said he was among them as a pilgrim of peace in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace. May the clash of arms be silenced in Iraq and everywhere, he urged, before making a series of appeals. May no one be considered a second-class citizen, he urged.

Later that day, he met bishops, clergy and religious in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad, underscoring the importance of sowing seeds of reconciliation and fraternal coexistence that can lead to a rebirth of hope for everyone.
Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.
ADVERTISEMENT

The Court of Appeal in Benin has set aside the judgement of the lower court that nullified the candidacy of Ganiyu Audu, the running mate to the All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, in the 2020 governorship election in Edo State.

Oshoakpemhe Kadiri, a chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had filed a suit in the state High court against Mr Audu, whom he said was not qualified to be Mr Ize-Iyamus running mate.

The High Court judge, Helen Courage-Ogbebor, in her judgement, held that Mr Audu presented false information to INEC in his Form EC9 and, therefore, was not eligible to contest the election.

But Mr Audu approached the Court of Appeal to set aside the lower courts ruling.

Following the trial courts decision, the APC governorship candidate, Mr Ize-iyamu, also filed an application to set aside the judgement of the lower court and dismiss the suit filed by Mr Oshoakhemhe.

The three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, while delivering judgement on Monday, unanimously said the appeal was meritorious.

Reading the judgement, Justice Biobele Georgewill said the judgement of the trial court delivered on January 6 which disqualified the appellant and Audu Ganiyu from contesting respectively as governor and deputy governor is set aside.

In setting aside the judgement of the High Court, the Appeal Court considered some salient issues in arriving at its decision.

First, the Appeal Court held that failure to add INEC as a party in the suit was fatal and that the Appeal Court has the right to assume jurisdiction and resolve the issue against the appellant.

Secondly, the court held that the matter was statute barred as the electoral act stipulated seven days in Section 31 (3) and 289 of the Constitution. Therefore, the matter was filed two days out of time, the court said.

The court also held that it did not find any proof of forgery or false statements and, therefore, cleared Mr Audu of any wrongdoing.

The Chairman of the three Appeal Court justices was Justice Folayemi Omoleye, assisted by Justices Biobele Georgewill and Fred Oho.

(NAN)
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Ed-tech platform Vedantu on Tuesday said it aims to hire 2,500 employees in the next three months across the board, like product, technology, academics and business, to make deeper inroads into smaller towns and cities.

Currently, the company employs 6,000 people and the strength will grow to 8,500 after the expansion.

According to the company, the new hires will be at entry and mid-level from India's premium B-schools and engineering institutes.

"With the boom in online learning adoption, we aim to hire highly driven and inspired individuals who can become a part of the Vedantu mission. We are further expanding our presence in tier 2 and 3 markets," said Vamsi Krishna, CEO, and Co-Founder, Vedantu.

The e-learning platform last month acquired Instasolv, a doubt-solving app for students from Class 6 to 12 for science, mathematics, IITJEE and NEET, for an undisclosed sum.

According to the company, the acquisition will enhance its doubt-solving and reinforce presence in tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.

This was Vedantu's first acquisition in an company to strengthen its focus in the instant doubt-solving space.

Last year, Vedantu invested $2 million as part of a pre-series A funding in Instasolv.

Vedantu has witnessed six to seven times growth with 75 million hours of classes delivered across its platform last year as millions stayed home.

The number of students attending Live classes on the platform grew to 6.3 million across the K-12 category and competitive exams such as JEE and NEET, the company informed.

--IANS

na/
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP)  A court on Tuesday cleared a retired priest of sexual abuse charges on grounds the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes had expired.

Former priest Carlos Eduardo Jose, 62, had spent more than a year in custody during the legal process and the ruling by a three-judge panel in the city of San Martin means he can go free.

Attorneys for his accuser, Mailin Gobbo, said they would appeal.

Gobbo, now 33, accused Jose of grave sexual abuse from 1999 to 2008 when she was a student at a parochial school he oversaw in the town of Caseros, outside of Buenos Aires, and even later at a different school.

She said she complained to local archbishopric in 2009 and said authorities apparently took no strong action against him. Pope Francis accepted Jose's resignation from the priesthood in 2019.

Three other complaints against the former priest by other former students were earlier dismissed by other courts, also on statute of limitations grounds.

Gobbo confronted one of the defense attorneys after the session, saying, You are all accomplices. You don't think of the people. Several supporters placed posters denouncing the former priest around the courthouse.

Neither church authorities nor Jose's attorneys commented on the verdict, though the local bishopric issued a statement in February praying for a just final ruling that can bring peace to the people involved and offer light to the shadows cast on all the victims of this aberrant crime.

Local prosecutors and Gobbo's attorney had sought a 20 year prison sentence, saying the priest never denied the crime, but merely argued Gobbo had waited too long to file a complaint.

Her attorney, Hector Silveira, indicated an appeal would be based partly on the argument that Argentina's constitution accepts the International Convention on the Rights of Children, which he said maintains that sexual abuse of minors should have no statute of limitations.
A decision will be made soon on whether a proposed new bridge and link road in Newbridge will be given funding by the Government.

A proposed scheme involves the construction of a one-kilometre road, including a new bridge crossing the River Liffey which will link Great Connell Road and the Athgarvan Road in the town.

The planned route is designed to ease traffic congestion in the area.

Last year the Council submitted an application under the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF) seeking support for the project.

There were a large number of proposals received with every local authority submitting at least one application.

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O'Brien told the Dail that because of the nature of the URDF programme the proposals are very complex, and each requires detailed assessment.

He added: "The assessment process for proposals received is nearing completion."

He continued: "I intend to soon announce a new tranche of URDF supported proposals ... and contribute to the achievement of Programme for Government commitments and the objectives of the National Planning Framework and Project Ireland 2040."

The minister was replying to a Dail question by Kildare North TD Catherine Murphy queried the amount that will be granted in respect of a second bridge in Newbridge, the status of the application made by the local authority for funding and the amount requested by the local authority.

Kildare South TD Patricia Ryan also asked the Minister for the position regarding the southern relief route for Newbridge and Mr O'Brien gave a similar reply.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has proposed the Ministry of Transport allow the Boeing B737 Max aircraft to transit in Vietnam, following Boeings efforts in handling safety problems.

A Boeing 737 Max aircraft gains altitude. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has proposed the Ministry of Transport allow the Boeing B737Max aircraft to transit in Vietnam.  Photo: VNA

The proposal was also based on the assessment of some international aviation agencies such as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Transport Canada Civil Aviation and the National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil (ANAC) and the operating index of its aircraft.

The authority also said that it would continue to keep a close watch on and update information from other international aviation agencies from China, Australia and Russia, Thanh Nien Online reported.

After three international aviation agencies permit the operation of the aircraft, CAAV will propose the ministry allow the aircraft to travel to/from Vietnam and grant certificates so that this type of aircraft can be imported into Vietnam. The work is set to be completed within six to 12 months.

After the incidents involving the Boeing 737 Max aircraft of the Indonesian airline Lion Air in October 2018 and of Ethiopias Ethiopian Airlines in March last year, international investigative agencies found that the reason for the deadly crashes was related to technical flaws of the Boeing 737 Max plane model. Boeing has done away with the flaws.

The B737 Max aircraft have resumed commercial flights in the U.S. airspace since December 28, 2020, while ANAC allowed the aircraft to fly again from December last year.

Following suit, EASA lifted its flight ban on the Boeing 737 Max in January this year, along with other countries in the world.

Meanwhile, some countries such as China, Russia, Australia and Southeast Asia are still banning the operation of the aircraft in their airspace. SGT

Vietnam needs to build hub airports Vietnams is considered as one of the fastest growing aviation markets in Asia.
The Indian Space Research Organsiation (ISRO) S-Band SAR Payload of NASA- Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission was flagged off on March 4.

The NASA- SAR (NISAR) Mission scheduled to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organsisation (Isro) in 2022 will measure the Earths changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses providing information about biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater, and will support a host of other applications. NISAR is planned to be launched in 2022 from Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in India, into a near-polar orbit. requires a minimum of three years of global science operations with the L-band radar, and requires five years of operations with the S-band radar over specified target areas in India and the Southern Ocean.

ISROs S-Band NISAR mission was flagged off by ISRO chairman and secretary, Department of Space on March 4, 2021 through virtual mode. The S-Band SAR payload has been shipped from Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad (SAC/ISRO) to Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena for integration with L-Band SAR Payload of JPL,

NISAR is a joint project between and ISRO to measure Earths changing ecosystem. It is expected to be the worlds most expensive Earth-imaging satellite.



The total cost of the project includes Isro's work share cost of about Rs 788 crore and the cost of JPL's work share of about $808 million

NISAR would provide a means of disentangling highly spatial and temporally complex processes ranging from ecosystem disturbances to ice sheet collapses and natural hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.

On September 30, 2014, NASA and ISRO signed a partnership to collaborate on and launch NISAR. The mission is expected to be launched in early 2022. NASA is providing the missions L-band SAR, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder and payload data subsystem. ISRO is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band radar, the launch vehicle and associated launch services.

NISAR is a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and ISRO aimed at making global measurements of the causes and consequences of land surface changes using advanced radar imaging. This mission concept and the resulting partnership are in response to the National Academy of Sciences 2007 survey of Earth observational priorities for the next decade, known as the decadal survey. One of the top priorities identified in this survey was to gain data and insight in three Earth science domains: ecosystems, deformation of Earth's crust and cryospheric sciences.

NISAR is the first satellite mission that will collect radar data in two microwave bandwidth regions, called the L-band and the S-band, to measure changes of less than a centimeter across in our planet's surface. This allows the mission to observe a wide range of Earth processes, from the flow rates of glaciers and ice sheets to the dynamics of earthquakes and volcanoes.

NISAR uses a sophisticated information-processing technique known as SAR to produce extremely high-resolution images. Radar penetrates clouds and darkness, enabling NISAR to collect data day and night in any weather. The instrument's imaging swath  the width of the strip of data collected along the length of the orbit track  is greater than 150 miles (240 kilometers), which allows it to image the entire Earth in 12 days.

Over the course of multiple orbits, the radar images will allow users to track changes in croplands and hazard sites, as well as monitor ongoing crises such as volcanic eruptions. The images will be detailed enough to show local changes and broad enough to measure regional trends. As the mission continues for years, the data will allow for better understanding of the causes and consequences of land surface changes, increasing our ability to manage resources and prepare for and cope with global change.

The NISAR spacecraft will accommodate two fully capable SAR instruments (24 cm wavelength L-SAR and 10 cm wavelength S-SAR), each designed as array-fed reflectors to work as SweepSAR scan-on-receive wide swath mapping systems. The spacecraft will be launched on an ISRO GSLV-II launch vehicle into a polar sun-synchronous dawn dusk orbit.

NASA's contributions include the L-band SAR instrument, including the 12-m diameter deployable mesh reflector and 9-m deployable boom and the entire octagonal instrument structure. In addition, NASA is providing a high capacity solid-state recorder (approximately 9 Tbits at end of life), GPS, 3.5 Gbps Ka-band telecom system, and an engineering payload to coordinate command and data handling with the ISRO spacecraft control systems. ISRO is providing the spacecraft and launch vehicle, as well as the S-band SAR electronics to be mounted on the instrument structure.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has revealed he has personally spoken to Linda Reynolds' doctor about the defence minister's extended medical leave.

Scott Morrison has personally spoken to Defence Minister Linda Reynolds' doctor about her extended medical leave.

Senator Reynolds has taken leave until at least April 2 as she faces intense scrutiny over her handling of rape allegations raised by former staffer Brittany Higgins.

Senator Reynolds (right) has taken leave until at least April 2 as she faces intense scrutiny over her handling of rape allegations raised by former staffer Brittany Higgins (left)

The prime minister described her condition as 'quite serious'.

'I have, at the minister's permission, spoken to her doctor about this issue and it is a serious issue,' Mr Morrison told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.

'And so we are supporting her in getting the physical health treatment that she needs over this period, that doctors have advised that she needs to take.'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has revealed he has personally spoken to Linda Reynolds' doctor about the defence minister's extended medical leave

Attorney-General Christian Porter has also taken indefinite leave after being accused of an historical rape allegation, meaning two of the eight national security committee members are absent.

Mr Morrison said both ministers were being temporarily replaced by highly competent cabinet colleagues, and he was also maintaining 'a very close watch' over their portfolios.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Members of Libya's House of Representatives (Parliament) on Tuesday resumed the plenary session in Sirte (center) to examine provisions of the vote of confidence in the Government of National Accord with regard to managing the transition and the organization of general elections on December 24
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

TUCSON, Ariz.  A suspect in the stabbing death of a woman at a Tucson motel has been arrested in Globe, according to authorities.

Tucson police said 34-year-old Bruce Fairbanks Spring was taken into custody Monday afternoon and will be extradited to Pima County.

They said Spring was wanted in connection with the death of 21-year-old Nicole Collins.

The woman was found last Sunday morning with multiple lacerations and stab wounds.

Collins was rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

ADVERTISEMENTSkip



................................................................

Police began investigating the stabbing and say they later determined Spring had committed a carjacking in an area south of the motel.

The Gila County Sheriffs Department, Globe police and Arizona Department of Public Safety took Spring into custody following a pursuit.

Spring was booked into the Gila County Jail on a felony warrant.

It was unclear Monday if Spring has a lawyer yet for his case.
ABC KIDS will screen a Bluey Easter Special in early April, which is bound to send ratings through the roof.

Bluey is the #1 series ever on ABC Kids, ABC iview and across all BVODs in Australia, and the most timeshifted program ever on Australian Television.

ABC Childrens congratulates the Ludo team on the brilliant creativity and heart they bring to Australias most beloved program. Bluey continues to smash ratings records with each new episode as the team works on Series 3 for release later this year. We wish all Australians an enjoyable Easter with this gorgeous Easter treat, said Libbie Doherty, Head of ABC Childrens Production.

Its the night before Easter in this special episode and Bluey and Bingo are worried the Easter bunny is going to forget about them like last year. Mum and Dad reassure the girls but when they wake up to no chocolate eggs, Bingo fears the worst. Luckily Bluey finds a series of clues and a treasure hunt throughout the house begins.

This true-blue Australian series is created by creator/showrunner Joe Brumm, Emmy awarding-winning executive producers Charlie Aspinwall and Daley Pearson, producer Sam Moor and supervising director Richard Jeffery. The series is executive produced by Libbie Doherty, ABC Head of Childrens Production, and Henrietta Hurford-Jones, Director of Childrens Content for BBC Studios.

Bluey is still the #1 childrens program in Australia and has been the highest rated program in the history of ABC Kids, with the latest series achieving a complete audience of 7.2 million, across all broadcasts and on ABC iview (comprising 506k metro + regional AVE AUD first-run premieres, 3.9m metro + regional AVE AUD all encore & repeat broadcasts, 2.8m VPM).

Bluey is the most timeshifted program ever on Australian Television, with the latest series recording close to 60% of its total (first-run and encores) broadcast audience as timeshifted viewing.

Blueys Christmas Swim is the highest rated ABC television episode across all broadcast content, since 2007! The evening same-day encore of Bluey S2 episode Christmas Swim, broadcast on 1st Dec 2020 and with a combined metro & regional audience of 2.566 million, has been the highest rated single episode, across all ABC television since the infamous The Chasers War on Everything APEC prank episode in 2007! Blueys Christmas Swim episode sits in 11th place overall as the ABCs most watched episode of television.

Share of broadcast viewing among preschoolers was over 90% for some Bluey episodes. On a total of 28 occasions in 2020, Bluey episodes achieved a broadcast share of viewing above 90% for the target 0-4 audience.

Source: OzTAM & Regional TAM 2020 full-year data, OzTAM VPM data. Bluey Series 2 complete audience includes first-run episodes, repeats/encore broadcasts + ABC iview.

Production credit: Bluey series 2 is a Ludo Studio production for ABC KIDS. Principal production investment from BBC Studios, in association with the ABC and Screen Australia. Post Production, Digital and Visual Effects work undertaken in Queensland, Australia with funding from The Queensland Government through Screen Queensland and the Australian Government.

8am Sunday 4 April on ABC Kids.

Related
Dennis W. Rice Named Special Agent in Charge of the Salt Lake City Field Office

Director Christopher Wray has named Dennis W. Rice as the special agent in charge of the Salt Lake City Field Office. Most recently, Mr. Rice served as deputy assistant director for the Enterprise Cybersecurity Office at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Rice joined the FBI as a special agent in 1997 and was assigned to the St. Louis Field Office. He worked violent crime, organized crime, and counterintelligence and cyber cases and served on the SWAT team. In 2005, Mr. Rice was promoted to chief security officer and was the information systems security officer.

In 2012, Mr. Rice was promoted to supervisory special agent of the counterintelligence and technical programs in St. Louis. He also served as the crisis management coordinator and was responsible for a year-long active shooter training initiative.

Mr. Rice was promoted to assistant section chief in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters in 2015. During his time there, he created the first joint operational section between the Cyber and Counterintelligence Divisions.

In 2016, Mr. Rice was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence and Cyber Division in the Los Angeles Field Office and was in charge of the West Covina Resident Agency.

Mr. Rice was promoted in 2018 to section chief in the Counterintelligence Division at Headquarters and led several successful joint operations with USIC partners, including a historic arrest and extradition of an intelligence officer. In 2019, he was promoted to deputy assistant director of the Enterprise Cybersecurity Office in the Information Technology Branch at Headquarters.

Mr. Rice earned a Bachelor of Science in police administration from Eastern Kentucky University. He has also earned graduate degrees in computer resources and information technology and in security management from Webster University in Missouri. Prior to his FBI career, Mr. Rice served with the Somerset Police Department in Kentucky.

This story has been published on: 2021-03-08. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
To the Editor:

Re In Britain, Meghan and Harry Talk Stirs Debate on Entrenched Racism (news article, March 9):

May I remind your readers that the vast majority of Brits welcomed Meghan to our island with heartfelt warmth? We found it genuinely exciting that she was an American of color and not from a superprivileged white background. We were overwhelmed by the unstuffy address by an American bishop, Michael Curry, at the wedding.

Gradually, our love was eroded by her public actions, such as her inappropriate dress and behavior at Wimbledon, and, during a recession, spending millions of taxpayers money on refurbishing a perfectly acceptable home (we all remember that 5,000 copper bathtub).

We watched the Oprah interview with cynicism. One small example: Meghan didnt know she had to curtsy to Her Majesty. Really?

Andy Palmer

Mappowder, England

To the Editor:

The royal familys alleged behavior toward what they deemed as a foreign intrusion into their homogeneous family is once again a wake-up call for the entire world, including my country, Canada, to re-evaluate its connection with such an entity. Should we Canadians keep bowing to them in humility as we do when we take the oath of citizenship, or should we turn the page instead? We need to have a healthy discussion about the royal familys relevance in todays world.
Railway Minister has set up a high-level committee to ascertain the cause of the fire at an Eastern Railway office building in in which nine people were killed on Monday.

The fire, which broke out on the 13th floor of the sprawling New Koilaghat building on Strand Road at around 6.10 pm on Monday, is now under control and the cooling process is on, officials said.

"Sincere condolences to the families of the nine brave deceased including the four firefighters, two Railways personnel and a police ASI who have been fighting the fire at the Eastern Railways Strand road office in

"Railway officials including the GM are at the site and are working in coordination with the state govt for rescue and relief efforts.

We are committed to doing everything possible to ensure the safety of all concerned," Goyal said in a tweet late last night.

He said all possible assistance has been provided by the Railways to the state government during this unfortunate fire accident.

"A high-level inquiry consisting of four principal heads of Railway departments has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the fire," he said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who rushed to the spot in the city's central business district, announced that the state government will pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each and a government job to the kin of each victim.
Experimental COVID Shots Cannot be Mandated

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Liberty Counsel

March 9, 2021



ORLANDO, Fla., March 9, 2021 /Christian Newswire/ -- Federal law provides that at least until a vaccine is fully approved by the FDA, individuals must have the option to accept or decline the experimental drug.



On March 27, 2020, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary declared that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use (EUA) of drugs and biological products for COVID-19. That means people must be told the risks and benefits, and they have the right to decline a medication that is not fully licensed. The same section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that authorizes the FDA to grant EUA also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to "ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed ... of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product."



All of the COVID-19 mRNA injections (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) or vaccines (Johnson & Johnson and Astra Zeneca) have received only EAU authorization and not full FDA approval.



When the FDA grants EUA for a vaccine, many questions about the product cannot be answered because the testing data is unavailable. Therefore, when Congress granted the authority to issue EUAs, it mandated that individuals must be allowed to decide for themselves whether to receive an EUA product. The FDA and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considered this fundamental requirement of choice important enough that even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, they reinforced that policy decision when issuing their guidance related to the experimental "vaccines."

Dr. Amanda Cohn, executive secretary of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, was asked if COVID-19 vaccination can be required. Dr. Cohn responded that under an EUA, "vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory. So, early in this vaccination phase, individuals will have to be consented [sic] and they won't be able to be mandatory."

The EUAs for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA experimental injections and any other EUA vaccine require fact sheets to be given to vaccination providers and recipients. These fact sheets make clear that getting the vaccine is optional. For example, the one for recipients states, "It is your choice to receive or not receive the COVID-19 vaccine," and if "you decide to not receive it, it will not change your standard of medical care."

The so-called "vaccines" against COVID-19 have only been approved for experimental use. Much remains unknown about their safety and efficacy. It not only typically takes years to create a new vaccine, but most often, despite the best efforts of scientists, a successful vaccine proves impossible.

For example, scientists (including Dr. Anthony Fauci) tried to create an HIV vaccine for more than 40 years.

Even though the FDA granted EUA for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA injections in December 2020, and most recently Johnson & Johnson, the clinical trials the FDA will rely on to ultimately decide whether to license these vaccines are still underway and are designed to last for approximately two years to collect adequate data to establish if these mRNA injections and vaccines are safe and effective enough for the FDA to license.

Given the uncertainty, the EUAs are explicit that each is "an investigational vaccine not licensed for any indication" and that all "promotional material relating to the COVID-19 Vaccine clearly and conspicuously ... state that this product has not been approved or licensed by the FDA, but has been authorized for emergency use by FDA" (emphasis added).

Last week, a coalition of four U.S.-based medical organizations, including the American College of Pediatricians, Catholic Medical Association, Christian Medical and Dental Association, and the National Association of Catholic NursesUSA, representing approximately 20,000 healthcare professionals, emphasized that free citizens should never be mandated to receive the Coronavirus "vaccine."

In their statement they said, "Governing authorities must respect an individual's right to accept or decline a vaccine," adding that there is "no justifiable moral obligation to accept vaccination. While the pandemic remains a significant public health crisis, the individual rights of American citizens also remains of paramount importance," the statement reads. "The guarantee of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' includes the right to make individual health care decisions while taking into account our responsibility for the common good."

"If a vaccine has been developed, tested, or produced with technology that an individual deems morally unacceptable, such as the use of abortion-derived fetal cell lines, vaccine refusal is morally acceptable," the statement reads. "An individual's decision to be vaccinated will also depend upon their personal assessment of the medical risks, a choice that should be respected," their joint statement read.

In addition to this federal law, the FDA includes the Nuremberg Code and the Helsinki Declaration on its website, emphasizing the fact that people cannot be forced to take experimental drugs without their full consent. Learn more at LC.org/Vaccine.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, "Forcing any person to receive one of these COVID injections is a violation of federal law. The COVID injections are not licensed by the FDA and are still in the investigation and experimental phase. No employer or government may force or coerce anyone to take these injections. Federal law requires full informed consent."

Liberty Counsel provides broadcast quality TV interviews via Hi-Def Skype and LTN at no cost.



SOURCE Liberty Counsel



CONTACT: Mat Staver, 407-875-1776, Liberty@LC.org



Related Links



lc.org/


In the past two months, 34 theme events were held at 20 different sites in five districts of Shenzhen to display 179 works of light art and new media art from various countries. The festival not only brought citizens a world-class light art carnival, but also diversified civil culture and boosted the night economy of the city. Statistics showed that there were up to 10.23 million visits to the event sites during the festival, mostly attracted by the light artworks.

The festival was an outcome of government-enterprise cooperation: it was hosted by the Urban Administration and Law Enforcement Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality together with the people's governments of Futian, Luohu, Nanshan, Yantian and Bao'an, and mainly organized by IDG World Expo China Co.,Ltd. with strategic support provided by Shenzhen International Investment & Promotion Association (SZIIPA).



Art meets technology in the city

According to the Urban Administration and Law Enforcement Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, the festival is a successful one. The international and diversified artworks integrated technology into art, representing the enthusiasm and value of the city and giving full play to its advantages in design, technology and innovation.

Radugadesign, an artist team from Russia, pointed out that allowing more works of light art to decorate a city's public space is a way to show respect to art and care for its citizens. "Hopefully the light art pieces are not for just a temporary exhibition or festival, but will be installed in Shenzhen's public areas for a longer period or even permanently", they said.

ENESS, a team from Australia, said combining art and technology can change people's life and unleash the potential of urban public space. Tech-based art can not only provide inspiration for landmarks in public areas, but also encourage people to understand urban life from a new perspective.

UFO Media Lab was one of the Chinese teams that participated in the festival. They appreciated Shenzhen's open, inclusive attitude towards new forms of art. Besides, Shenzhen's fast-growing technology can help flourish the creative potential of artists.

IDG ASIA Accelerator, which was responsible for the overall planning and operation of this festival, utilized IDG Group's advantages in capital, exhibition and the press to make the festival not only possible but successful. During the festival, it fostered nearly 1000 enterprises in various fields including new media, technology, the cultural and creative industry, and art. Zhu Dongfang, President of IDG ASIA, expressed his hope that GLOW SHENZHEN 2020 can play an exemplary role in the integration of "technology + art" and bring citizens unprecedented interactive experience of technology and art.

Innovation of art promotes night economy

GLOW SHENZHEN 2020 was not only a light festival carried by "tech-based art" but also an important platform to promote the development and integration of culture, art and night economy. The event sites dotted the major public space and business areas in five districts of the city. According to statistics, during the festival related business circles saw a remarkable increase in the number of customers at night as well as the sales volume. Some business areas even achieved a year-on-year increase of 166% in the number of visits.

High-quality public art events have gradually become a must in urban residents' life and will substantially drive the development of business circles, said a business circle manager. Such events requires both creativity and support from the art industry.

According to the Commerce Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, at present there are more than 17000 state-level high-tech enterprises in Shenzhen. "We hope that these enterprises can take full advantage of technology innovation and industrial chain and enter the international arena via the channel of light art."

Qiu Zhijie, Dean of School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts, believed that the biggest benefit of this festival to Shenzhen, besides promoting people's leisure life and the city's night economy, lies in the reshaping of people's mind. An open and innovative mind is an inherent part of Shenzhen and a gift to China and the world.

Looking into the future, Qiu hoped that the next GLOW SHENZHEN can present not only works that are able to be appreciated and spread by the public but also works of high artistic valuethe echoes of which can be heard. In addition, there should be explorable practice of art with sufficient elements of technology. "Only this kind of art festival will bear the contemporary value and historical significance."

The Urban Administration and Law Enforcement Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality expected that Shenzhen can continue to host innovative light art events in the new wave of technological revolution to build a tech-based art IP with Chinese characteristics. It is hoped that the IP will blossom in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and enjoy prestige in the world.

SOURCE Shenzhen International Investment & Promotion Association (SZIIPA)
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a student in Georgia could pursue a lawsuit challenging speech restrictions at his college even though he sought only nominal damages.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in the 8-to-1 decision, said a request for even a token sum, typically a dollar, satisfied the Constitutions requirement that federal courts decide only actual cases or controversies in cases. The fact that the college had withdrawn the speech code challenged in the suit, he wrote, did not make the case moot.

Despite being small, Justice Thomas wrote, nominal damages are certainly concrete.

In a spirited dissent, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the majoritys approach will have the effect of turning judges into advice columnists.

If nominal damages can preserve a live controversy, he wrote, then federal courts will be required to give advisory opinions whenever a plaintiff tacks on a request for a dollar.
Its hard to believe its been nearly a year since the coronavirus invaded our lives. The pandemic changed the way we work, interact, teach, study, etc. The way we live.

It all happened so fast.

March 12, 2020. Here in Ohio, Dayton mayor Nan Whaley '98, declared a state of emergency.

March 20, 2020. The state confirms 247 cases of coronavirus.

March 20, 2020. UD president Eric Spina sends out a video message saying, at the urging of state and local health authorities, it has become painfully clear that we must extend remote learning through the remainder of the spring semester and postpone May commencement activities.

Spina added, this is a painful moment in the history of our beloved university.

Nearly one year later, students in Sister Angela Ann Zukowski's class titled, Faith, Vocation, and the Arts, via zoom, reflect back on the pandemic year and what lies ahead.

Elena Niese, 22

Major: adolescent to young adult English education, minor in theology

Hometown: Miller City, OH

I think one positive aspect that has come out of this coronavirus pandemic is a new understanding of gratitude. With the ability to connect with others being rather limited, I have learned to appreciate each individual interaction with a classmate. Just eating lunch with someone is such a gift. I think the pandemic situation really helped me lean into intentional relationships and to be grateful for every daily interaction.

Bridget Graham, 22

Major: political science and human rights studies

Hometown: Kansas City

For me, the pandemic made me lose confidence in a personal sense because I dont have the reassurance from friends. When you have to be isolated, sometimes its easier to convince yourself that you dont have those relationships. I feel like this time last year I was pretty sure what path I wanted to take for my future. Now because I havent really had opportunities for other experiences, I really dont know my plan for the future. I'm trying to find comfort in the idea of not knowing and the idea that this might lead me on a more interesting and better path but its still hard to grapple with that loss of confidence and the uncertainty of whats going to happen.

Mary Connor, 22

Major: visual arts and French

Hometown: Wadsworth, OH

I have found that my biggest fear of COVID-19 has been the fog of uncertainty. I have adjusted to the limitations of COVID-19 and have found the restrictions are just another part of my daily routine. Putting on a mask on my way out the door and practicing social distancing at events is the norm for me. I have not been isolated or lonely despite the quarantine since I am living with a wonderful community- Faith, Vocation and Leadership house. We are an intentional community who host events to encourage faith on campus and have community and prayer time weekly. I am very blessed, though I am wondering what I can do to help those who are not in the same situation.

Anna Biesecker-Mast, 22

Major: English and history double major with religious studies and women's and gender studies minor

Hometown: Dayton

I would say, as college students, the pandemic has severely restricted our capacity to experience things like were supposed to. Were supposed to be traveling and participating in internships, gaining real life experience, and using it to narrow down what we want to do with our lives after UD. It just seems like two summers in a row and really this whole year, we have not been able to take part in any of those experiences. The pandemic has caused unpredictability of the future. As a result, I feel like I have little to no control over my life.

Kayla Lenahan, 22

Major: accounting major, religious studies minor

Hometown: Cleveland

I feel like so many of those things that are supposed to help ground us and make everything worth it in college have been taken away from us. Being able to see different faces on campus and forge relationships really embody the UD community. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, this has changed. The UD community is still strong but it's very difficult to be fully present amidst zoom fatigue, especially with the insane amount of studies and work. Learning online with zoom is just so different, and it's so easy to lose focus with weary eyes and mental exhaustion, so trying to navigate living through a pandemic, on top of all the other stressors college adds, has been difficult.

As of this writing, the Ohio Department of Health reports 972,605 COVID-19 cases with 16,750 deaths.

Sister Angela Ann Zukowski, MHSH, D.Min, is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the Director of the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives (1978-present) including the online faith formation program, VLCFF.UDayton.edu. Grow in Faith with online classes held year-round. Only $10 a week for UD alumni, and free for UD faculty/staff through the HR employee program.
The Nagol is Back! VTOs guide to this years Nagol, plus where to stay and play in south, central and north Pentecost.
The UN chief has urged the release of trapped protesters in Myanmar. As hundreds of peaceful anti-coup protesters have been cornered by the security forces of Myanmar in apartment buildings in Yangon, the United Nations secretary-general urged the release of trapped protesters without any additional arrests and violence.

UN Chief Urged Release of Trapper Protesters

The UN chief emphasized the release of the trapped protesters because of the turmoil that started in the February 1 coup that ousted the democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, of the southeast Asian country and triggered protests across the country against the junta.

Based on the latest reports, the police and the military have responded more brutally in their encounters with the demonstrators. Not less than 50 individuals have already been killed, and 1,800 people have been arrested.

According to The Guardian, the UN rights office stated that late Monday night, an estimated 200 protesters were blocked by security forces from leaving a four-street area in Sanchaung township in the largest city of Myanmar, Yangon. The reports also stated that security forces were executing door-to-door searches for those who had sought shelter in the homes of sympathetic strangers.

The news quickly spread on different platforms on social media, prompting other individuals in other neighboring streets to show solidarity and hope as the pressure on the trapped protesters continues. Other people in numerous streets also constructed makeshift barricades to avoid the mobility of the military vehicles.

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, was following the developments very closely, specifically in the township wherein hundreds of trapped protesters have been blocked inside residential apartment complexes for hours based on the spokesperson of the secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric.

Sharp, loud bangs could be heard coming from the area, but it is unclear whether the sounds were caused by stun grenades or gunfire. In a Facebook Live stream, repeated screaming can also be heard in the background.

Read also: Myanmar's Deadliest Day since Military Coup Leaves 18 Protesters dead, UN says

One of the activists, Maung Saungkha, tweeted after escaping from Sanchaung that the police and soldiers still blocked around 200 young protesters. The local and international community need to help the trapped protesters, according to Saungkha, Rappler reported.

Another UN rights office spokesperson, Liz Throssell, stated that around 10 p.m., the police started shooting and making arrests. But it is still not clear whether they were arresting the trapped protesters or the newly-arrived demonstrators.

The embassies in Yangon and the UN, including those of the United States and Britain, urged security forces to free the trapped protesters. The U.S. embassy also released a statement calling the security forces to withdraw and allow people to go home safely. There is heightened tension caused by forces surrounding Kyun Taw Road in Sanchaung Township in Yangon.

There had been no reports of clashes between the police and the protesters during the night. Still, the security forces chased crowds, harassing residents who watched from windows and firing stun grenades. Reports of injuries from rubber bullets were also present, Inquirer.net reported.

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, called for maximum restraint and everyone's safe release without any violence or arrests. Many of those trapped are women who were just peacefully marching as they commemorate International Women's Day, Dujarric told reporters on behalf of the UN chief.

Related article: Philippine Forces Face Backlash for 'Activist Killings'

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 8, 2021) - NEO Battery Materials Ltd. (TSXV: NBM) ("NEO" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has entered into a licensing agreement (the "Agreement") with the University-Industry Foundation of Yonsei University ( "Yonsei University").

Under the terms of the Agreement, the Company will be granted an exclusive world-wide license for three patents owned by Yonsei University related to silicon nano coating technology for battery anode materials.

The three patents to be licensed include:

1 Negative electrode active material for lithium secondary battery, method of preparing the same, and lithium secondary battery comprising the same 2 Three-phase Titanium dioxide nanoparticles and method of manufacturing the same 3 Silicon/polymer composite nanoparticles, anode for lithium secondary battery comprising the same, and method for manufacturing the silicon/polymer composite nanoparticles

"We are extremely pleased to announce that NEO Battery Materials has secured the key intellectual properties related to advanced silicon enhanced technology to meet the increasing demands for the next generational battery anode materials. We strongly believe that our technology has the potential to achieve and realize the improved energy density and superior performance of silicon-based hybrid anodes in lithium-ion batteries. Added with a lean and efficient manufacturing process, NEO will be capable of producing anode materials at a low cost, and the abundance of silicon will allow NEO to be a vertically integrated mining company, establishing a robust value chain that further pushes costs down," said Spencer Huh, CEO of the Company.

Spencer Huh also added, "Silicon has been considered as one of the most attractive anode materials in decades because of its exceptionally high energy density, having more than 9.6 times the gravimetric capacity compared to conventional graphite. However, the volume expansion issue of silicon during lithiation has been the main obstacle for the industry to adopt the technology. The Company believes that the secured technology could manage and resolve this specific issue related to silicon. Further to that, Dr. Park, Director and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, will provide more detailed and technical information regarding this Agreement."

About University-Industry Foundation of Yonsei University

The University-Industry Foundation (UIF) of Yonsei University was founded in 1991 as the Yonsei University Office of Research Affairs to accelerate the initiative to become the leading global research-focused university. Since then, the UIF has achieved noticeable synergies and accomplishments with domestic and international companies through licensing their diverse portfolio of patents and intellectual properties.

About NEO Battery Minerals Ltd.

NEO Battery Minerals Ltd. is Vancouver-based junior resource company focused on battery metals exploration in North America. The Company has staked new mining claims in Golden, BC, along a strike with a quartzite bed, targeting silica in the quartzites for a total of 467 hectares. The Company focuses on exploring and producing silicon, which, when added to anode materials in the production of lithium-ion batteries, provides improvements in capacity and efficiency over lithium-ion batteries using graphite in their anode materials. The Company intends to become an integrated silicon producer and anode materials supplier to the electric vehicle industry. For more information, please visit the Company's website at: https://www.neobatterymaterials.com/.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Spencer Huh

President and CEO

604-697-2408

sbhuh1450@gmail.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/76491
At the women's march in Mexico City, a number of women were carrying their children, others blowtorches, hammers, and bats ready for a confrontation they anticipated that would force the nation to deal with rampant brutality to antagonize women. The International Women's Day protest was fueled by hatred at President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He has backed a politician accused by several women of rape in Mexico, which suffers among the world's worst rates of gender violence.

International Women's Day in Mexico City

Fencing erected to shield Mexico's National Palace prior to a planned march to mark International Women's Day has been turned into a memorial. The names of hundreds of victims of femicides, or murders of women due to their gender, have been drawn on the metal fencing.

Despite a dispute within the governing party over the issue, Obrador has supported the politician prior to the June elections. The demonstrators gathered around the national palace -- Obrador's residence and the government seat, reported Irish Times.

According to Irma Quesada, "I'm here so my voice is heard, so justice is done. Yesterday it was my daughter. Tomorrow it could be another girl," reported Reuters.

Obrador tried to focus his attention on Monday on a large number of women in his cabinet instead of a day of demonstrations over the fact he has declined to break with a governorship candidate accused of rape. A progressive who cites his large record of social struggle and preaches that "the poor come first," he is also a social conservative who leaves abortion largely to state legislation and states the family is the center of society.

Also Read: New York Gov. Cuomo Receives Third Allegation of Sexual Advances



Quesada remarked her 12-year-old daughter remains to be recovering in hospital after being raped and stabbed in the face the previous week by a 45-year-old man. He was arrested, but authorities have warned he may not stay in prison due to a lack of evidence, reported US News.

Police officials and activists have clashed in Mexico City at the protest. Officers forced back demonstrators with riot shields and tear gas in the Zocalo, the capital's main square.

Police clashed with thousands of feminist activists protesting for an end to what they indicate is a crisis of violence against women. Protesters defaced city office buildings and used hammers and crowbars to tear down parts of a 12-foot-tall steel barrier erected surrounding the National Palace. Their ire was targeted on a steel fence that had towered to shield the construction from being overrun. Women who donned black balaclavas pulled down elements of the barricade because police officials fired volleys of flash-bang grenades into the cluster, provoking a number of small stampedes.

According to Mexico City's security branch, at least 62 police and 19 civilians were injured by Monday. While Obrador has portrayed his presidency as part of a populist movement to promote the marginalized in Mexico, women activists stated he has, in fact, been ignoring the needs of half the population.

Related Article: Third Woman, Inspired by Brittany Higgins, Alleges Sexual Assault by Former Australian Parliament Staffer

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A ten-year-old boy has died from horrific injuries including a lacerated spleen, a lacerated liver, a lacerated kidney, rib fractures on both sides of his body and bruising between his toes that prosecutors say were inflicted by his stepfather.

Young Ayden Wolfe was just 10-years old when he died on Saturday afternoon, and his stepfather, Ryan Cato, 34, has been arrested in his death.

Police responded to a call to the boy's home in central Harlem where they found Ayden barely breathing, having fallen unconscious at the family's fourth-floor apartment in the Saint Nicholas Houses.

Ayden Wolfe, 10, was killed in his apartment in Harlem over the weekend

An attempt to revive him with water failed to rouse the youngster.

He was taken to Harlem Hospital where he died shortly afterwards.

On Monday, Cato, the boy's stepfather, was awaiting arraignment on murder charges in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Cato was dating Ayden's mother, according to the New York Daily News.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Ayden's death was a 'horrific case.'

The boy's stepfather, Ryan Cato, was arrested on Monday, and arraigned on murder charges

Cato has a history of domestic violence arrests, including charges he choked the mother of his own children and assaulted a school bus driver in February

The boy's injuries saw 'extensive bruising to his face, the extremities and all over the body,' Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said.

'Some injuries were old, but others were recent,' Harrison explained.

Although police had not been to the apartment where the youngster died, a complaint was filed against the boy's mother in 2010 soon after he was born.

The complaint involved the city's child welfare agency and concerned alleged child neglect.

The News found that Cato has a history of domestic violence arrests, including charges he choked the mother of his own children.

Ayden Wolfe was found unconscious in his living room and was said to be 'covered in bruises old and new'

Many who live in the Saint Nicholas houses said they had heard about domestic problems involving the family.

'From the information I have, people knew the family had been through trauma and in a bad situation,' Sheba Simpson, a neighbor and a candidate for the NYC Council, told News10.

'Where are the services and resources that would have mitigated this murder?'

In December, Cato was arrested after allegedly choking the mother of his own kids in front of their two children inside their apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

On that occasion, Cato was charged with assault, menacing and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

A small tribute has been set up for the slain 10-year-old at the Saint Nicholas Houses

Cato is alleged to have hit the children's mother in the face several times before putting his hands around her neck and applying pressure.

Cato was also charged in February with assaulting the driver of a yellow school bus in Brooklyn.

A woman who claimed to be a cousin of Ayden said the little boy was 'super smart, super intelligent,' and wanted to become a professional YouTube gamer.

'He was very technologically savvy, well-mannered,' said the woman who identified herself only as Jennifer A to the New York Times.

A woman who claimed to be a cousin of Ayden said the little boy was 'super smart, super intelligent,' and wanted to become a professional YouTube gamer

Jennifer said Ayden was his mother's only child and that she doted on him. 'They were always together,' she said.

She said Ayden's mother had survived brain cancer as a teenager and that it had left her disabled. 'She's very protective over him  she was a good mom,' Jennifer said. 'I don't understand what went wrong.'

'I've never seen a bruise, fracture, anything on him,' she added saying that she had never noticed any signs of abuse.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Lawton, OK (73501)

Today

A few passing clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 57F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 57F. Winds light and variable.
Panaji, March 9 : Three labourers from Bihar and Jharkhand, were apprehended in a joint operation by Goa and Mumbai police on Tuesday, in connection with the murder of two senior citizens in South Goa's Fatorda area.

A Goa police spokesperson said that the trio were arrested from Mumbai's Dadar area. There they were planning to board a train back to their respective home states.

The accused identified as Ravinkumar Sada and Adityakumar Kharwal, both from Bihar and Akash Ghosh from Jharkhand, were arrested.

The trio are accused of allegedly murdering Minguel Miranda (65) and his mother in-law Caterina Pinto (85), whose bodies were found in a storeroom of their house in Fatorda area.

Police claimed that the three accused persons were working for Minguel Miranda, who is a contractor by profession.

"We are still interrogating them to learn about the exact motive for the crime," the spokesperson said.

The police also learnt that the trio had left Goa, after they found a scooter owned by Miranda parked at a nearby railway station.
Drug shortages have plagued the health care system for decades. Even prior to COVID-19, hospitals incurred more than $400 million in labor costs and alternative treatment options due to national generic drug shortages, especially for those administered via injection.

More important, research shows shortages lead to adverse patient outcomes - things like delaying critical procedures, rationing doses based on supply levels and prescribing suboptimal treatment plans with substitute drugs.

Manufacturing tops the list as the most common cause of shortages, pushing those in the pharmaceutical supply chain to look for new ways to increase productivity - and thanks to a partnership between Clemson University and Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a solution may be on the horizon.

Led by Dr. Yue "Sophie" Wang, the ambitious project combines robotics and medicine to ensure sterility, quality, safety and efficiency in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The team worked in partnership with South Carolina-based Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation to develop a flexible, easy-to-use, open-source benchtop robot that can fill, cap and seal sterile syringes.

"Pharmaceutical collaborative robots is a new and quickly growing research area," said Wang, who serves as the Warren H. Owen Duke Energy Associate Professor of Engineering at Clemson University. "By combining our expertise with unique applications in pharmaceutical manufacturing, we hope to benefit both patients and the industry through increased efficiency in syringe manufacturing."

The project supports the Nephron 503B Outsourcing Facility, a cGMP manufacturer providing sterile, pre-filled medications to address persistent drug shortages in hospitals and medical facilities across America. Pre-filled syringes help control costs by minimizing drug overfill and minimizing microbial contamination. Without robotics, filling these syringes is a delicate, highly regulated process completed by specialized technicians under laminar airflow hoods in ISO classified clean rooms to keep their work environments sterile.

It can take up to five employees a day per hood to meet the incredible demand for pre-filled syringes at Nephron. Unlike humans, robots don't get tired, offering advantages in quality control, production planning and compliance.

Technicians can then be re-deployed for higher value functions that let them improve their skills, experience and pay, said Nephron CEO Lou Kennedy.

"Anything we can do to improve drug shortages, that's just good for patients," she added. "It's a very big crisis, not just in the U.S. but globally as well."

The next phase of the project is further development, starting with the completion of a purpose-built clean room on Clemson's campus. Kennedy hopes to commercialize the benchtop system for use inside healthcare facilities across the country.

"Hospitals often have two or three pharmacists working the phones every day searching for the drugs they need," said Kennedy. "You don't go to school for eight years to spend your day on the phone looking for product."

Partnering for change

Clemson and Nephron are at the forefront of a larger trend shaping pharmaceutical manufacturing today. The integration of automation, AI and robotics are catalyzing the industry, and rising demand paired with major market disruptions such as COVID-19 are only accelerating change. The pharmaceutical robotic systems market is expected to nearly double to $119.46 million from just five years ago, driven by innovations in packaging, inspection and lab work, according to one report.

Part of what has made the project successful is the complementary strengths Nephron and Clemson brought to the table. Wang needed an insider's perspective on pharmaceutical manufacturing to understand the exact requirements and processes involved in sterile syringe production.

Based in West Columbia, Nephron is a certified woman-owned business and one of the fastest-growing companies in South Carolina. The partnership was developed through External Affairs' Office of Corporate Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at Clemson University.

"As a leading pharmaceutical manufacturer, Nephron is the perfect partner for specialized, high-impact research to improve health outcomes for patients," said Angie Leidinger, Clemson's vice president for External Affairs. "Thanks to our partners, our breakthrough research continues to build Clemson's and South Carolina's reputation for leadership in both advanced manufacturing and life sciences."

In addition to Clemson's world-class research talent, Nephron was also drawn to the University's steady stream of talented graduates that could hit the ground running at their facilities.

"We're a young company and want to play a role in developing all of this great talent we have around us," said Kennedy. "I decided it was time to put game day feelings aside and look at where our talent was really coming from."

Women taking the lead

Like most STEM industries, women continue to be a minority in the pharmaceutical manufacturing workforce, at 42.3 percent of total employment. If the partnership between Clemson and Nephron is any indication, that gap could be shrinking fast.

With Kennedy at the helm, Nephron is a certified woman-owned business and boasts a 53 percent female workforce. Ratios like that are unheard of in our industry, she says. It's only fitting that project leadership from the Clemson side is female.

Clemson is home to many groundbreaking women in the industry, including Martine LaBerge as chair of the Department of Bioengineering, Saara DeWalt as chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, and Delphine Dean as the Ron and Jane Lindsay Family Innovation Professor, among many others. Dean is also a key researcher and first line of defense in the University's response to the global pandemic.

"It's so pleasant to see women thriving in STEM careers," said Kennedy.

###
2021-03-08

Maeci

On 8 March, at the Foreign Ministry, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Luigi Di Maio, met his counterpart of the Republic of North Macedonia, Bujar Osmani, to discuss bilateral relations between Italy and North Macedonia, the strengthening of economic cooperation in the fields of energy, infrastructure and transport, the process of European integration of the Western Balkans and the fight against Covid-19.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  The NYPD is investigating after a 72-year-old woman reported a frightening incident where a person allegedly tried to break into her home while she was inside early on Tuesday morning.

The woman, who lives in the vicinity of Richmond Terrace and Post Lane in Mariners Harbor, told police that her alarm sounded at about 1:05 a.m. She checked the device and turned it off, but the alarm rang for a second time about 15 minutes later, according to a spokeswoman for the NYPD.

The victim heard a suspicious noise, walked downstairs and saw an air conditioning unit pushed onto the floor, the police spokeswoman said.

The woman told police she spotted a shadow of an unknown person outside one of her windows.

The person then fled in an unknown direction, the police spokeswoman said.

The victim also told police that she found the back screen door to the porch open.

No property was reported stolen from the residence and the incident is under investigation, the police spokeswoman said.

A description for a suspect is not yet available from police.
State Duma passes bill on prompt blocking of extremist content in first reading

 RAPSI, Eugeny Varlamov

15:11 09/03/2021

MOSCOW, March 9 (RAPSI)  The State Duma passed a bill envisaging prompt blocking of information containing justification of extremist and terrorist activities in the first reading on Tuesday.

Under the bill, access to such information may be restricted upon an order of Russias Prosecutor General or his deputies.

Amendments have been proposed to the Federal Law on Information, Information Technology and Information Protection.

According to one of the authors of the initiative Vasily Piskarev, publications justifying and supporting terrorist and extremist activities especially threaten childrens life and health. The document is aimed to impove safety of the information space and to prevent radicalization of minors, Piskarev states.




Covid: 30,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccine arriving in Tunisia Another 500,000 doses already purchased

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, 09 MAR - A total of 30,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 are scheduled to arrive on Tuesday in Tunisia, the country's president announced in a statement.



He said 15,000 people will be vaccinated with the first lot, while in the coming weeks another 500,000 doses will be purchased to vaccinate 250,000 people.



The first lot of vaccines will be distributed according to the priorities defined by the National Committee for the Fight Against the Coronavirus, with the collaboration of the civil and military authorities.



Tunisia, which already has a national vaccination plan, is also awaiting the arrival of the first lot of the Chinese vaccine Sinovac as well as the Pfizer and Astrozeneca vaccines, and it is a part of the Covax plan coordinated by the World Health Organization.



Since the start of the pandemic, the North African country has recorded 238,017 confirmed cases and 8,225 deaths, with a decreasing trend in the past week. (ANSAmed).




The working of State Bank of India (SBI) is likely to be affected on March 15 and 16 as bank employees' unions have called for a nationwide strike on these days.

"...we have been advised by Indian Banks Association (IBA) that United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU)... has given a call for all India strike by bank employees on 15th & 16th March, 2021," SBI said in an exchange filing.

While the country's largest lender has made all the arrangements to ensure normal functioning in its branches and offices, it is likely that the work in the bank may be impacted by the strike, it said, adding that the expected loss because of the strike cannot be quantified now.

Also read: Bank strike, holidays in March 2021: Banks to remain closed for 12 days; check dates

UFBU comprises of nine major unions -- All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), All India Bank Officers' Association (AIBOA), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), Indian National Bank Employees Federation (INBEF), Indian National Bank Officers' Congress (INBOC), National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO).

The strike has been called to protest against the proposed privatisation of two state-owned banks by the Centre.

In this year's Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that two public sector banks (PSBs) will be privatised along with one general insurance company.

"Other than IDBI Bank, we propose to take up privatisation of two public sector banks and one general insurance company in the year 2021-22. This would require legislative amendments and I propose to introduce the amendments in this session itself," she had said in her Budget speech.

The government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore for financial year 2021-22.

Also read: SBI Mega E-auction of properties starts today; all you need to know

Also read: HDFC joins SBI, Kotak; slashes home loan rates by 5 bps
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
First Minister Arlene Foster said she feels "sad" that the Queen has had to listen to the revelations contained in the bombshell Harry and Meghan Oprah interview.

Mrs Foster confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that she did not watch the TV interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and said she had "no intention" of doing so.

"I think its incredibly sad for Her Majesty the Queen to have had to listen to all of that," she said.

Mrs Foster also signaled her support for the Queen and royal family in a social media post.

The DUP leader posted a montage of pictures of her with Prince Charles, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and another image showing just the Queen. Absent in the images however was the Sussexes.

Expand Close Facebook post from First Minister Arlene Foster / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Facebook post from First Minister Arlene Foster

She captioned the post with the hashtags "Duty", "Service", "Integrity", "Monarchy" and "UK".

Read More

Meanwhile Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said she fell asleep watching the TV interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

"I watched a part of it before I fell asleep," the Sinn Fein vice president said.

"Look, it's not for me to comment. I think that some of the commentary around racism, racism should be called out in any form wherever it is seen, so that's the only thing I would say on it."

The Royal Family has found itself at the centre of a media storm after Harry and Meghan's explosive US television interview with Oprah Winfrey.

More than 11 million viewers watched the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's interview on ITV when it was broadcast on Monday evening.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson did watch the programme, it was revealed, however, his spokesman refused to be drawn on how he felt, instead referring to the comments Mr Johnson made on Monday.

"Perhaps the best thing I can say is that I've always had the highest admiration for the Queen and the unifying role that she plays in our country and across the Commonwealth," said Boris Johnson.

"As for all the other matters to do with the royal family, I've spent a long time now not commenting on royal family matters and I don't intend to depart from that today."

Elsewhere, the Labour leader Keir Starmer said the allegations made by the duchess had to be taken seriously.

He said: "Nobody, but nobody, should be prejudiced (against) because of the colour of their skin or because of their mental health issues."

Joe Bidens White House has praised the courage displayed by the couple in airing their struggles with mental health.
Lawyers for a politician who could face extradition to Spain have vowed to fight on after the European Parliament voted to remove her immunity.

Clara Ponsati faces a charge of sedition over her role in Catalonias unsanctioned independence referendum in 2017.

MEPs voted on Monday to lift the immunity of the St Andrews academic as well as the former president of Spains Catalonia region, Carles Puigdemont, and former Catalan health minister, Toni Comin, in a move that could pave the way for their extradition.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Aamer Anwar, lawyer for Ms Ponsati, tweeted: Shameful vote by @Europarl_EN giving into Spain to lift immunity of MEPs @ClaraPonsati @toni_comin @KRLS Who face extradition & political persecution for exercising the democratic will of the Catalan people-The legal battle goes on

The Spanish government immediately welcomed the decision by the European Unions legislature as a victory for the rule of law and against those who sought to break the north-eastern region away from the rest of Spain.

The decision is likely to extend the three-and-a-half year legal saga on the fate of the three separatists by months, if not years, since many avenues for appeal remain open before any possible extraditions.

Ms Ponsati, a University of St Andrews academic, became an MEP after five seats in the European Parliament were given to Spain when the UK left the EU in January 2019.

This afforded her and the other two  who also became MEPs  protection as members of the EU assembly.

She could be sentenced to 15 years behind bars if convicted, with nine other Catalan officials given jail sentences of between nine and 13 years for the same offence in autumn 2019.

An extradition case hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in Edinburgh last year heard there would be no point discussing the matter until the immunity issue was resolved.

The court had been expected to centre on the competency of the extradition warrant and issues surrounding dual criminality, which relate to whether the law is an offence in both countries.

Story continues

A number of subsequent hearings have since been delayed.

This latest development could clear the way for that argument to be played out in court.

Meanwhile, Mr Puigdemonts legal team is planning to appeal against losing his immunity to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

The parliaments Legal Affairs Committee had already voted 15-8 with two abstentions last month to recommend waiving their immunity.
The rules were clear for years: Those under 21 caught with alcohol could face arrests and fines.

But the law shifted nearly overnight last month. Legislators seeking a racially just response to underage marijuana use downgraded a criminal offense to warnings and roped alcohol in, too.

There will be no more searches of young people for concealed beer cans, and police officers cannot stop them if they smell marijuana, either. Instead, officers can issue written warnings if they catch someone under 21 with weed or booze. But those must come under restrictions that have concerned both parents and police.

Gov. Phil Murphy and state lawmakers spent two months debating penalties for underage marijuana use. Many wanted to remove criminal penalties for those under 21 caught with marijuana, citing disproportionate arrests of Black and brown teenagers throughout the drug war. They passed a decriminalization bill to do so.

However, Murphy wanted some penalties for those under 21. He took issue with a piece of another bill to launch a legal marijuana industry that would make underage cannabis use a disorderly persons offense.

Fines were debated and deemed unfair for poor families. Two separate efforts fell apart until lawmakers settled on the warning system, added an amendment to include alcohol on a Friday afternoon and passed the bill on a Monday morning. The maneuvering gave Murphy less than 20 minutes to take action on that and the bills to legalize and decriminalize marijuana.

The whirlwind stunned some lawmakers, who viewed the change as a policy overhaul made without outside testimony. And some, including Murphy, want to see it changed already.

But the debate isnt about whether youths caught with marijuana or alcohol should face arrests or fines. In fact, statistics provided to NJ Advance Media show that very few young people are actually arrested for drinking violations, and that number is dwarfed by marijuana arrests made even after New Jerseyans voted to legalize weed in November.

Opponents of the law say they understand the need to spare youth, particularly minorities, from the clutch of criminal justice system. But they say the law goes too far by removing parents from the first round of warnings, essentially giving kids license to drink alcohol or smoke marijuana if someone will give it to them.

Under the law, parents receive a warning issued to a juvenile for a second offense. A third could result in referral to drug treatment or education.

When I read this bill, it literally made it de facto legalization of marijuana for kids of any age. As a parent, I became irate, said Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, R-Bergen.

It came as a total surprise, she said. I dont believe that there should be criminal penalty, per se. I do think there needs to be consequences.

New bills proposed by both Democrats and Republicans would alert parents at the first warning. Murphy on Monday said he had discussed such a change with Senate President Stephen Sweeney and called it a step a step in the right direction. As a conceptual matter, I support that direction.

Sen. Nellie Pou, D-Passaic, who helped craft the changes in the law Murphy signed last week, said the larger issue has always been moving away from criminal penalties for underage use.

She stressed that the new law does still provides for parental notification on a second offense that would allow them to intervene with their child. Under the old law, parents would have found out their child used alcohol or marijuana after they were already charged and put into the court system.

Its the idea of treating it as a public health issue, providing some kind of prevention and treatment as opposed to having that young person go spiraling down through the criminal justice system, Pou said.

Making underage drinking a criminal offense isnt deterring them, Pou said. The same goes for marijuana use.

From D.C. to Trenton to your town, the N.J. Politics newsletter brings the news right to your inbox. Sign up with your email here:





Including these reforms is in keeping with our goal of reducing interaction with law enforcement and having effective penalties that are fair and responsible, Kevin McArdle, a spokesman for the Assembly Democrats, said in a statement. As is the case with marijuana, the graduated penalties include parental notification for second and third offenses for alcohol.

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued a directive in December on dealing with juvenile offenses. It allows for cops to use curbside warnings, or informal, in-person warnings, to intercept some juvenile delinquencies. Parents are not notified when these occur.

Experts agree that harsh penalties werent working.

What we know is that punishment or negative reinforcers do not change behavior so much. Its more positive reinforcers, said Kristine DeJesus, coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Program, Counseling and Psychological Services and a staff psychologist at Montclair State University.

Students who dont see alcohol use or drug use in their home are less likely to engage in high risk behavior, she said.

Marijuana arrests disproportionately affected Black and brown teens, and research shows Black people are more likely to be arrested for alcohol-related offenses than white people  although white adolescents binge drink at higher rates.

The new system makes New Jersey one of the most lenient on underage drinking and marijuana use in the nation. But taking away arrests and fines likely wont fuel more underage drinking and drug use.

Data hints that police may have already been letting many caught with alcohol off without warnings rather than arresting them. Underage drinking cases rarely end up in the court despite a wide use of alcohol among high school and college students.

In 2019, police issued 1,322 charges for underage drinking across the state to those 18 to 20 years old, according to the state judiciary. Courts dismissed 533 of those.

Thats fewer charges than police issued for marijuana possession each month prior to the law change.

These underage drinking cases were far more common at the Shore. Cape May County and Monmouth County combined saw 700 of the charges, while Middlesex County, home to Rutgers University, only had 38. Bergen and Essex counties, among the most populous in the state, saw only 55 and 39 arrests, respectively.

Only 183 charges were issued to juveniles  those under 18  for drinking underage throughout the state that year.

Those account for only a small fraction of those who drink underage. In 2019, 7 million people between the ages of 12 and 20 said they had tried alcohol, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Police say the new warning system, which took effect immediately in February, creates challenges for them, too. They cannot search young people for alcohol or marijuana or detain them. If officers knowingly violate the new law, they could face a criminal charge of deprivation of civil rights. That carries fines and prison time of three to five years.

I think our overall concern is theres really no deterrent to a vulnerable population, said John Zebrowski, vice president of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police.

What would have been helpful would have been for us to be part of this discussion early on, so that we were able to provide the right discussion points to help lead our legislators in crafting it, he said.

Zebrowski said police chiefs in Shore towns have additional concerns about enforcing underage drinking laws. They worry teenagers will come from Pennsylvania and New York and drink excessively at the Jersey Shore, receive warnings, and then return back to their home states without parents ever knowing.

It can also prove difficult to determine if a person seen with alcohol or marijuana is actually under 21. With the threat of a criminal charge in place, Zebrowski said police might be less likely to approach someone at all.

While less common than marijuana arrests, interactions with underage drinking can still escalate.

In 2018, police officers tackled and punched a 20-year-old woman on a Wildwood beach after they found her with an open container of alcohol. She sued, and the city settled the claim for $325,000.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Amanda Hoover may be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj
Police in have summoned Aparna Purohit, content head at Amazon Prime, on March 18 for questioning the third time as they probe complaints against the streaming service for the way Hindu deities were portrayed in its Tandav.

The Uttar Pradesh Police has filed cases against Amazon Prime and producers and actors of the starring actors Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub and others.

The nine-episode had premiered on Amazon Prime on January 15. Purohit has been questioned twice before on February 23 and March 8 by the Police. According to sources, she was questioned for close to two hours on Monday pertaining to the visual content and dialogues of the web series.

Since, the cops are still to ascertain material facts to the case, she has been asked to record her statement once again on March 18. She has been also asked to produce documents related to the web series.

Last week, the had granted anticipatory bail to Purohit, who had challenged the denial of a similar relief by the Allahabad High Court in connection with the FIRs lodged against Tandav.

Her counsel had contended that Purohit was merely an employee of Amazon and was neither a producer nor actor. However, the apex court asked her to cooperate with the police in the case.

On January 27, the refused to grant interim protection from arrest to actors and makers of Tandav and asked them to approach the High Court for any relief.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
MBABANE  History maker.

In making strides and paving his own path in a journey to realise his childhood dream, Thami Magongo has become the first liSwati to win in the first of its kind Mulher Forte African Literature awards. The awards were held virtually due to the COVID-19 restrictions in Botswana where literature enthusiasts and poets alike were nominated for the awards.

The awards are wholly owned by Paula Otukile from Botswana. In an interview with this publication she said the awards were all about dealing with translating literary consulting and publishing as well as hosting workshops and literature awards.

history

Our main aim is to archive and write our own history and stories and preserve our African culture, she asserted. The young Motswana woman said it was pivotal to recognize authors from all over Africa and give them support for the work they do. Only two emaSwati entered the competition and this included Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Magazine Editor Mcolisi Motsa and the eventual winner under the category of Best Poetry Performance, Thami Magongo. Magongo faced competition against finalists from Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Botswana where his poem titled lockdown won him the award. The final list of winners was announced yesterday through the organisations social media pages.

Worth noting is that the charismatic and down to earth Magongo is a graduate from the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) where he completed a Degree in Humanities in 2019. When contacted, he expressed his excitement at being the first liSwati to win in one of the highly coveted awards which were a first of its kind.

achievement

I am lost for words. This is definitely a huge achievement for me as I did not think I would go this far in the competition since I was up against participants from all over Africa. I thank God for answering my prayers throughout the whole journey, he said. Magongo further advised aspiring literature fanatics to enter the competition next year as it would be a huge learning curve for them. He also advised them to have a unique style of writing which will then be easy for them to flow with the pen. He highlighted that he normally wrote about human rights in his literature including mental health matters and addressing gender minorities.

I have recently published my book called A War Against Hate which addresses all the human rights shortcomings in society and I would love for emaSwati to get a copy, he said. He further stated that his artwork for the cover on his book was designed by renowned artist Honest Lihle Mhlanga. The founder of the awards stated that the winners would only get certificates for their awards as an incentive for their efforts. She mentioned that a lot of sponsors had pulled out from sponsoring the awards this year but hoped that next years awards would be bigger and better.

She further asserted that a certificate would forever be there for the eventual winners unlike money which was temporary. I would love to network and grow in my journey to live my dream of helping other storytellers be recognized like in Nollywood (Nigeria), Bollywood (India) and Hollywood (U.S.A). Africa has got talent; if we support each other, this can turn the perception and the value of Arts and culture and literature, she disclosed. The Chief Executive Officer of Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture Stanley Dlamini, congratulated Magongo and shared that his achievement placed the country on the map. We are so proud of him he has hoisted the countrys flag. Eswatini is a home of true talent; we have so many talented young people that need the right channel. The arts can also contribute in the economic scale of the country, he said.
[March 09, 2021] RevoltTOKEN Updates Website With Video On ALYI EV Ecosystem Transformation Plans

DALLAS, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Alternet Systems, Inc. (USOTC: ALYI) today announced its finance partner, RevoltTOKEN, has updated its website with a new video detailing plans to transform ALYI's Electric Vehicle Ecosystem Platform. www.RevoltTOKEN.com Last week, ALYI's finance partner RevoltTOKEN initiated the sale of Revolt Tokens (RVLT) through the Revolt Token web site (www.revolttoken.com) The funds raised through the sale of Revolt Tokens will be dedicated to the funding of the overall Alternet Systems Electric Vehicle ecosystem. The purchase price is U.S. $1.00 per RVLT, which will be delivered to an ERC20 Compatible Wallet of your choice (e.g. Trust Wallet) Currently Revolt Tokens (RVLT) can be purchased in exchange for other tokens or cryptocurrency, or in exchange for funds delivered into an escrow account via wire transfer. The purchase process requires 3 simple steps. The first one is to create a User ID and password  follow the link below to get started: http://www.revolttoken.com/RVLTICO Next, a link to register and collect Know-Your-Customer will be sent. Once verified, an email confirmation will be sent, and you can then proceed to complete your purchase of the Revolt Token. You can buy multiple times with the same ID. Registrtion and purchase requests will be processed on a first come, first serve basis.



Any questions or issues during any step of the process can be addressed by emailing customer support at support@revolttoken.com. Soon, Revolt Token will also be available to trade via a cryptocurrency exchange listing.

Anyone interested in Revolt Token (RVLT) should review the information available on the Revolt Token (RVLT) website and continue to monitor the Revolt Token (RVLT) website for updates regarding the availability of new Revolt Token (RVLT) purchasing functionality, and the listing of Revolt Token (RVLT) on the cryptocurrency exchanges. The Revolt Token (www.revolttoken.com) website will also include the evolving information regarding the exchangeability of Revolt Token (RVLT) for other Alternet System Electric Vehicle Ecosystem components intended to include Alternet's Revolt Electric Motorcycles, and/or entry into participation in Alternet's annual Electric Vehicle Race (EV Grand Prix) and Electric Vehicle Technology Symposium. Visit Revolt Token (RVLT)'s website at www.RevoltToken.com. Please do not hesitate to email any questions to ir@revolttoken.com. For more information and to stay up to date on ALYI's overall latest developments, please visit www.alternetsystemsinc.com. Disclaimer/Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies' contracts, the companies' liquidity position, the companies' ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur. Alternet Systems, Inc. Contact:

Randell Torno

info@lithiumip.com

+1-800-713-0297 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/revolttoken-updates-website-with-video-on-alyi-ev-ecosystem-transformation-plans-301243880.html SOURCE Alternet Systems, Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Vietnam aviation authorities have proposed that the Boeing 737 Max aircraft be allowed to pass through the countrys airspace after two years of grounding.

The proposal was made after the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) reviewed Boeings efforts to improve the aircraft and the evaluation of major aviation authorities such as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.

The U.S. allowed the resumption of Boeing 737 Max operations in December and Europe did so in January.

China and Russia have not opened up their airspace, and when restrictions are lifted in these countries the CAAV will propose that this aircraft is allowed to operate in and imported into Vietnam.

The Boeing 737 Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019 after 346 people were killed in two crashes in the space of a few months in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Roughly 2,000 COVID-19 samples collected over the past five weeks will be scrutinized by scientists at Cadham Provincial Laboratory to tease out an unknown number of the more contagious B.1.351 variant.

Roughly 2,000 COVID-19 samples collected over the past five weeks will be scrutinized by scientists at Cadham Provincial Laboratory to tease out an unknown number of the more contagious B.1.351 variant.

Manitobas top doctor ordered the additional review of all viable samples collected since Feb. 1, now that the province has established a protocol to identify possible cases of the novel coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa.

"To ensure we have a better understanding of the impact of that variant in Manitoba, we are screening samples from all tests to the beginning of February right now," chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Monday.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dr. Brent Roussin, chief provincial public health officer: We dont anticipate that there are significant, immediate risks right now."

"This retrospective work is not a typical approach, but we wanted to ensure we had a good understanding of our variant situation here in Manitoba."

Previously, the provincial laboratory was only on the lookout for B.1.1.7  a more transmissible type of the virus first found in the United Kingdom  by searching for its genetic markers.

It wasnt until the last week of February the province also began screening for B.1.351 and the P.1 variant of concern (first detected in Brazil). Roussin said screening for B.1.351 was not introduced at the same time as B.1.1.7, as it takes time to develop and validate tests.

"... we wanted to ensure we had a good understanding of our variant situation here in Manitoba."  Dr. Brent Roussin

About five per cent of all positive samples, and samples flagged by provincial laboratories, are then sent to the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg for complete genetic sequencing to confirm variants of concern.

So far in Manitoba, nine cases of COVID-19 have been linked to a variant of concern: six B.1.1.7 and three B.1.351, which was first found in the province March 2.

Manitoba public health officials have not reported any public risks associated with the variant cases and most are said to be travel-related, though some case investigations continue.

"We dont anticipate that there are significant, immediate risks right now," Roussin said.

So far in Manitoba, nine cases of COVID-19 have been linked to a variant of concern: six B.1.1.7 and three B.1.351. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Dr. Philippe Lagace-Wiens, a medical microbiologist at St. Boniface Hospital, said the process to validate a laboratory screening test can take up to four weeks and requires hundreds of trial runs. It is also dependent on the availability of confirmed positive and negative B.1.351 samples.

"That process needs to happen before you can start utilizing a test in a widespread fashion," Lagace-Wiens said. "This is all good laboratory practise; you cant just open up a cookbook and say this recipe will work."

Screening can also generate unexpected results, Lagace-Wiens said, pointing to the disclosure of probable B.1.1.7 cases in the North last month that were ultimately determined to be variants previously found in Manitoba. Those samples were flagged because they passed the screening test, which at the time looked for a deletion in the genetic code of the B.1.1.7 variant, Roussin told reporters on Feb. 16.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dr. Philippe Lagace-Wiens: This is all good laboratory practise."

"Its events like that trigger review of the whole validation process," Lagace-Wiens said. "Its really quite critical to get it right. You dont want false negatives, you dont want false positives, and theres that very significant demand from the public to get tests right."

Meanwhile, the province reported 63 new infections Monday and one more death due to COVID-19: a woman in her 80s from the Northern Health region.

A death previously announced Dec. 29, 2020  a woman in her 90s from Winnipeg  was removed from the pandemic death toll after further investigation determined it was not related to COVID-19, Roussin said.

Its really quite critical to get it right. You dont want false negatives, you dont want false positives, and theres that very significant demand from the public to get tests right.  Dr. Philippe Lagace-Wiens

Since the pandemic began, 907 Manitobans have died from COVID-19.

New cases were reported in Winnipeg (25), Northern Health (36) and Southern Health (two).

The provincial five-day test-positivity rate was 3.5 per cent.

Roussin said Manitobans need to remain vigilant to keep the spread of COVID-19 at a minimum, particularly as pandemic restrictions continue to be relaxed, to allow the vaccination rollout to continue.

"Its very challenging to do that if we had our 10 or 14 per cent (test) positivity that we were seeing earlier on (in late 2020)," Roussin said. "Theres absolutely reason to be optimistic right now, but that doesnt mean we can let our guard down."

On Monday, the top doctor said, since public health began loosening code red orders Jan. 23, there have been no notable transmission trends in the southern half of the province.

In northern Manitoba, where daily case counts remain high, a number of First Nations communities are still finding cases related to outbreaks, and cases continue to be detected in Thompson, Roussin said.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca
Ferne McCann confessed she previously 'struggled to come to terms' with being a single parent as she reflected on the challenges she has faced raising a child on her own.

The reality star, 30, who is the mother to three-year-old Sunday, was forced to embark on the journey to parenthood alone after her father's child, Arthur Collins, was jailed for a brutal acid attack.

And reflecting on life with her daughter, she addressed the misconceptions of being a single parent to The Independent on Tuesday.

Candid: Ferne McCann confessed she previously 'struggled to come to terms' with being a single parent as she reflected on the challenges she has faced raising a child on her own

Ferne said: 'I guess I was one of those people that might have had a misconception about single parenting, because I didnt want to be called a single parent when I was pregnant.

'I didnt want to be labelled with it, because I hadnt come to terms with the fact I was going to be a single parent yet. Until I started living and being it, that was when I felt really proud.

Ferne recalled doing a '360 overnight' as she elaborated: 'Now I feel totally fine being called a single parent because the fact is, I am. The misconception is not that youve failed, but obviously you dont plan to be a single parent  although I know some people do.'

When asked what the toughest part of being a single mother is, the former TOWIE star said managing the responsibility of raising a child on your own, without having the option to share the load with a partner.

Strong: The reality star, 30, who is the mother to three-year-old Sunday, was forced to embark on her journey to parenthood alone after her father's child Arthur Collins was jailed for an acid attack

While admitting it can be 'difficult,' she said it is 'incredibly rewarding,' because in return, she receives the complete love of her child.

The star, who documents her life as a parent on the show Ferne McCann: First Time Mum, said the biggest thing she has learned from parenting is the art of patience, but she admitted that sometimes she is too laid back with Sunday.

However, her number one priority as a mother is to be 'understanding,' as she said she hopes to always be there for her daughter.

Ferne's dynamic at home with Sunday has recently changed after she moved in her boyfriend, Jack Padgett, to their Essex home.

Honest: She said to The Independent on Tuesday: 'I didnt want to be labelled with it, because I hadnt come to terms with the fact I was going to be a single parent yet'

The reality star went public with the model in late December after first meeting five years ago, and she admitted living together 'fast-forwarded' her romance with her 'calm and kind' beau.

The mother-of-one explained while she initially found the prospect of letting a new man into her life 'daunting', she is confident she has found the 'right person' in longtime friend Jack.

Discussing her new Get Your Groove Back plan on her fitness app, Embodyment With Ferne, she told MailOnline: 'You have to want to work at it. You can't just be with someone and that's it, you have to want to be with each other and co-exist.

'It's about learning to want to be together and I'm loving it, he's so calm and kind and measured, but also fun.

New relationship: Ferne's dynamic at home with her daughter Sunday has recently changed after she moved in her boyfriend Jack Padgett to their Essex home

'I feel very happy and lucky really. It's a new experience being with someone in a relationship which I actually want to work on.'

Ferne added: 'Dating right now is completely different and has changed so much for everyone so you've got to be creative.

'I think it's all fast-forwarded, that's why we decided to quarantine together and do this lockdown together, and it's going well so far.'

The couple first met five years ago while partying in the Spanish holiday hotspot of Marbella and stayed friends, before reuniting on a romantic basis in late 2020.

Ferne told MailOnline: 'It makes me laugh when people ask, "Where did you meet?" and I say "Marbella". It sounds like such a typical Essex thing, even though he's not from Essex.

'With social media, we've always kept in touch and followed each other on Instagram.

'He does events, so we went to a brunch during the time when restaurants were allowed to be open in the UK last year.

'I was telling my friends I really wanted to go out for food and then Jack was doing an event, and the rest is history.

'I feel like it was timing, I've known him ages but I feel like it was just our time.'
Rogosnitzky leads Drug Rediscovery Group Ltd in Rehovot, Israel, which focuses on the repurposing of generic drugs

Rogosnitzky has more than 15 years of experience in the use of Cepharanthine for treating advanced cancers, as well as androgenic alopecia

PharmaDrug Inc ( ) (OTCPINK:LMLLF) subsidiary Sairiyo Therapeutics Inc, a biotechnology company developing Cepharanthine, a repurposed naturally-derived compound for the potential treatment of cancer and other diseases, announced Tuesday that drug-repurposing expert Moshe Rogosnitzky has joined its newly-formed scientific and clinical advisory board.

Rogosnitzky leads Drug Rediscovery Group Ltd in Rehovot, Israel, which focuses on the repurposing of generic drugs for diseases, including ophthalmic disorders, viral infections, insomnia, pain disorders and opioid addiction. He also serves as executive director of the MedInsight Institute, a US/Israel non-profit organization that educates physicians and patients about treatment opportunities using generic drugs in an off-label fashion.

Rogosnitzky has more than 15 years of experience in the use of Cepharanthine for treating advanced cancers, as well as androgenic alopecia, or male-pattern baldness. In 2011, he published a comprehensive review on the potential of Cepharanthine for a range of clinical conditions, including as a treatment for COVID-19.

"I am passionate about repurposing safe and well-established drugs for treating cancer, whether alone or as adjuvants to existing therapies, Rogosnitzky said in a statement. Cepharanthine presents a unique opportunity to repurpose an extremely safe drug that has been approved and used in Japan for other clinical indications for many years. It is my hope that this plant-derived drug, possessing an enviable safety record, will provide fresh hope to patients suffering from incurable cancers and other serious and life-threatening diseases."

Cepharanthine is a natural product and an approved drug used for more than 70 years in Japan to treat a variety of acute and chronic diseases. In clinical research, Cepharanthine exhibits multiple pharmacological properties including anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, immuno-regulatory, anti-cancer, antiviral and antiparasitic properties.

"We are grateful to have Moshe Rogosnitzky join us as an advisor to support our development plans with Cepharanthine, which has tremendous potential in not only cancer but also in other serious and rare diseases," PharmaDrug CEO Daniel Cohen said. "Moshe Rogosnitzky has an in-depth knowledge and appreciation for Cepharanthine's potential and him joining our scientific and clinical advisory board dedicated to unlocking Cepharanthine's clinical utility for cancers and other indications brings value to our objective in developing a unique franchise with Cepharanthine."

Sairiyo has an exclusive license from a research and development organization to develop and commercialize reformulated Cepharanthine for all diseases and exclusive rights to the patent, method of manufacturing, clinical supply, pre-clinical data and know-how to support FDA clinical trials. The company recently received FDA orphan drug designation for Cepharanthine in the treatment of esophageal cancer.

Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel
The President of the Greater Accra Market Women Association, Madam Mercy Naa Afrowa Needham, has appealed to the public to desist from the practice of physically touching foodstuffs in the markets to weigh them before buying.



According to her, the practice of physically turning foodstuffs in-and-out in the market is unhygienic and could help spread COVID-19, particularly if the person touching the foodstuff has the disease.



She said many people who go to the markets to buy foodstuffs such as cassava continually keep picking food items to weigh and examine them in their hands before settling on which one to buy.



Madam Mercy Needham was speaking at an event organised by the Alliance of Feminists CSOs in collaboration with Plan International Ghana to mark this years International Womens Day on Monday.



The event, which was on the theme: Women in Leadership- Achieving Equal Future in a COVID-19 World," brought together leaders and members of civil society organisations, international organisations, feminists, politicians and leaders of state owned institutions and politically inclined young females, journalists and students.



The programme was also used to deliberate and propose strategies to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on women and children especially on girls in Ghana.



COVID-19 measures



Madam Naa Afrowa Needham said since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, market women all over the country have suffered unduly.



She explained that the leadership of the various market centres across the country in their attempts to help contain the disease, have ensured that COVID-19 safety protocols are strictly adhered to in the markets.



That, she added, aside from ensuring compliance with the wearing of nose masks and social distancing, market leaders have also introduced shift systems to help decongest the markets.



Madam Naa Afrowa Needham said that COVID-19 could be defeated in the country only if all individuals play their roles well, by adhering to the safety protocols.



Education



She also urged parents to prioritise the education of their children, particularly the girl child, suggesting that the market centres will no more accept uneducated people.



She also explained that many formal workers after retirement join the markets and so the various markets are becoming a place for the literate and therefore girls who do not go to school with the mindset of joining the market will be disappointed.



Extolling the essence of education, Madam Naa Afrowa Needham said she personally joined the market as a professional teacher and her education has helped a lot in her business, saying that education in every work is very important.









Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and the first woman to be a major party's nominee for president, spent part of International Women's Day with her friend Chrissy Teigen.

Teigen introduced Clinton and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during a virtual conversation moderated by poet Amanda Gorman. The event was organized by Clinton's nonprofit organization Onward Together, which she launched in 2017, to advance progressive values and encourage people to organize and run for office.

friends, and one of the very last events that I got to go to before everything shut down, was a dinner with her and [Teigen's husband] John [Legend], and it was so much fun."

Clinton called Teigen "kind of a renaissance woman. "

"She's a champion for social justice and women's rights. She's a cookbook author. She's a great mom, and she's a national treasure on social media for anybody who hasn't had that experience," Clinton said.

Clinton continued, "And I also want to thank her for her generosity, really, of heart and sharing her experience with loss and grief. It really meant so much to so many who have reached out on social media and other places to say that she made them feel like they weren't alone, and that's one of the great gifts that we can give to one another so thank you my friend. "

Teigen has been open about the fact that, in September, she miscarried a baby boy she and Legend had planned to name Jack.

She and Clinton have shared their mutual admiration many times in the past.

Clinton also applauded Gorman and Pelosi, as she and Pelosi fielded questions from an estimated 6,000 people calling into the Monday afternoon Zoom event.

She shared a tip, too, for avoiding a situation that she and the speaker encountered, in which the woman says something and is ignored only for a male colleague to be praised for saying the same thing later.

"I really encourage other women to repeat what one woman said," Clinton advised. "So, for example, if I'm at a table with Nancy  it doesn't happen to her anymore, because she is the speaker with the gavel  but in the old days if she were to say, 'What about?,' I think you jump in and you say, 'I think that's a really good point that Nancy's making. What do you all think?'"

Story continues

She explained it forces the attention onto the woman who had the idea in the first place.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Moscow, March 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Mar, 2021 ) :Moscow and Washington have resumed climate talks focusing on forests, nuclear energy and the Arctic, Russian media reported on Tuesday, even as bilateral ties plummeted over Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Russia's presidential climate envoy held talks with US counterpart John Kerry last week after the United States rejoined the Paris climate accords and President Joe Biden vowed to prioritise the environment.

"The conversation with John Kerry was an important step in getting acquainted with the new US administration's position on climate," Kremlin envoy Ruslan Edelgeriev told Kommersant broadsheet.

"Climate change is a significant modern challenge and should be solved collectively by the biggest greenhouse gas emitters." Edelgeriev said Russia and the United States would focus on the preservation of the Arctic, particularly limiting soot emissions, as well as projects in the forest sector and cooperation on nuclear energy.

He said that the two countries could achieve "positive results" if they cooperate within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris climate accord.

The talks came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed climate change with Kerry last month and the two agreed to cooperate further within the Arctic Council, a group of eight countries in the region.

Biden's predecessor Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 accord last year, criticising its impact on the American economy.

Tensions between the former Cold War foes were recently exacerbated by the jailing of Russian opposition politician Navalny and Moscow's crackdown on protesters demanding his release.

The United States and the EU last week sanctioned senior Russian officials over the jailing and poisoning of the prominent opposition figure.
San Francisco, March 9 : Chip-maker Intel has collaborated with Microsoft on Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programme in the US, to tackle the final frontier in data privacy which is computing on fully encrypted data without access to decryption keys.

The aim is to develop an accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), Intel said in a statement late on Monday.

"Fully homomorphic encryption remains the holy grail in the quest to keep data secure while in use. Despite strong advances in trusted execution environments and other confidential computing technologies to protect data while at rest and in transit, data is unencrypted during computation, opening the possibility of potential attacks at this stage," explained Rosario Cammarota, principal engineer, Intel Labs, and principal investigator, DARPA DPRIVE programme.

Microsoft is the key cloud ecosystem and homomorphic encryption partner leading the commercial adoption of the technology once developed by testing it in its cloud offerings, including Microsoft Azure and the Microsoft JEDI cloud, with the US government.

Fully homomorphic encryption enables users to compute on always-encrypted data, or cryptograms. The data never needs to be decrypted, reducing the potential for cyberthreats.

"We are pleased to bring our expertise in cloud computing and homomorphic encryption to the DARPA DPRIVE programme, collaborating with Intel to advance this transformative technology when ready into commercial usages that will help our customers," said Dr William Chappell, CTO, Azure Global, and vice president, Mission Systems, Microsoft.

The multi-year DARPA DPRIVE programme will span several phases starting with the design, development and verification of foundational IP blocks that will be integrated into a system-on-chip and a full software stack.

Intel said it will also continue to invest in ongoing academic research in the field.